Necroscope V Deadspawn - By Brian Lumley Page 0,49

And still scowling, she tossed her head to give the final word extra emphasis. She was pointing at Paxton.

'Miss, er - ?' In his confusion the Minister had forgotten her name. He prided himself on not forgetting names. He looked at her, looked at Paxton.

'Cleary,' she said. 'Millicent...' And she breathlessly continued: 'Paxton didn't follow your instructions. He simply ignored your orders. Branch security? Branch business? Oh, that was the handy excuse you gave him - which he scarcely needed - but other people's business, more like! And his nose right in it!'

The Minister was frowning. He looked harder at Paxton. 'Can you be more specific, Miss Cleary?'

But she wouldn't. She could but wouldn't. What, and tell everyone here that during Paxton's first month with the Branch she'd caught the shrivelled little scumbag in her mind one night, playing with himself to the purr of her vibrator and the tingling of her senses?

'He looked at all of us.' Someone else saved her, his voice strong and gravelly. 'He looked at the juicy bits, which like it or not we each and every one of us have, and he was doing it before you gave him his brief! Since when, why ... by now he's probably looked at your juicy bits, too!'

And back to the gangling Goodly again: 'Minister, if you hadn't taken Paxton out of the organization, we would have. He's about as trustworthy as a defective contraceptive. If AIDS was a psychic disease, all our brains would be shrivelling to shit right now! All of them!'

He paused to let that sink in, and after a moment: 'So it seems to us that what you've done is to take away the one man we all trust, while at the same time giving us a watchdog who snaps at his keepers. Yes, and you've chosen one hell of a time to do it.' That was twice he'd cursed, and it wasn't Goodly's style to swear at all, not even mildly.

Paxton had been cleaning his fingernails, apparently unconcerned, but now his ears reddened up a little. He stood up and turned round, glared at the others where they all stared at him in silent accusation. 'My talent is... unruly!' he snapped. 'Also it's eager, full of all the enthusiasm which you jealous bastards have lost! I'm still finding out about it, still experimenting. It isn't some bloody bonsai tree you can just force into any old shape!'

Almost as one person they shook their heads; they were the last people he should ever try to convince; his pallid, lame excuses wouldn't work on them. Each and every one of them, they had it in for Paxton. Finally Ben Trask spoke up, giving their single unified thought shape and substance. 'You're a liar, Paxton,' he said, quite simply. And because Trask was what he was, he didn't have to enlarge upon his accusation.

The Minister felt as if he'd bumped into a hornets' nest and for his pains (or by them) was being driven off course, which he really couldn't afford to let happen. He held up his hands, took on a harder, more authoritative tone of voice. 'For God's sake, put your feuding and personal feelings aside!' he cried. 'At least for the moment, or for as long as it takes. Whatever else any one of you is or isn't, there's one thing we can at least be sure of: you're all human!'

Which hit them like a truck.

Seeing that he now had their attention, and while he retained the upper hand, the Minister turned pleadingly to Ben Trask. 'Mr Trask - but level-headed, if you please - will you repeat what you told me downstairs?'

Trask looked at him grudgingly but nodded. 'Only first let me finish telling them what you started. They already know most of it and have probably guessed the rest, so I'll get straight to it. And it just might come easier if they hear it from me.'

'Very well,' the Minister replied, sighing his relief.

And Trask began:

'Zek Föener gave us a helping hand in the Greek islands,' he said. 'You'll know who she is from the Keogh files, what happened at Perchorsk and on Starside, etc. She's a powerful telepath, one of the world's best. But like the Necroscope himself she's opted out of cloak and daggery.

'Anyway, it was dodgy out there in the Med. We were killing vampires, and there were plenty of times when they nearly killed us. But Harry took the brunt of it and went up against