OUT OF HERE? Angelo Ferenczy was quieter now, his 'voice' dripping sarcasm. OUT OF LE MANSE MADONIE? BUT CAN'T YOU SEE? HE CAME OF
HIS OWN FREE WILL - AND UNINVITED. THERE'S BUT ONE WAY OUT, WHICH HE WILL FIND BARRED, I AM SURE! AND EVENTUALLY ...
AH, IT WILL BE A PLEASURE SPEAKING TO HIM AGAIN, BUT MORE INTIMATELY NEXT TIME! OH, HA HA HAAAA!
Dizziness, nausea, that same mental confusion which had left Harry so helpless on the road below Le Manse Madonie the previous afternoon, struck again! But this time he knew what it was. The mental power of the thing in the reeking pit - of Angelo Ferenczy, or what was become of him - was awesome. The Necroscope could only think of his own safety now. And he knew that the multi-minds of those that the thing had devoured were quite right: he should run, get out of here with al speed.
Harry staggered back from the pit amidst thickening clouds of yelow and conjured a Mobius door. It took unaccustomed effort... the gas was in his eyes and lungs; the multi-minds were shouting at him, telling him to run, run; and the ancient, hideously mutated Ferenczy was tearing aside the Necroscope's mental barriers like so much tissue paper.
Panic set in. Confused, Harry saw half-a-dozen co-ordinates displayed on the screen of his mind, places he could escape to. Such as his old flat in Hartlepool; or beter still the Hartlepool cemetery, for the flat was probably occupied by now ... or (most obvious) his hotel room in Paterno ... or his study, garden, or bedroom at the house in Bonnyrig ... Except he could no longer think of that last without B.J. Mirlu also crossing his mind. Everything was so confused and confusing!
The pictures in the Necroscope's mind were automatic, instinctive; lacking an explanatory 'narrative,' they gave little or nothing away. But the girl - the mind of the dead girl who had not yet forgoten the agonies of her dying - seized upon one of them and clung to it.
And: Bonniejean! she cried. B.J. Mirlu sent you!
And because she was part of Angelo Ferenczy, he heard her, too. MIRLU? RADU LYKAN'S THRALL? THIS ONE IS ... ONE OF RADU'S? Then, his awful mind registered uter terror! His mental probes were immediately withdrawn; they released their grip on Harry's mentality, writhing back from him as if he were suddenly white hot. And in a way Angelo was right: Harry was one of Radu's.
Go! The girl cried. Hurry! You can't help me. No one can. So go now, if you still can. And tell B.J. - tell her ...
But Harry never found out what he should tel Bonnie Jean, for at that moment Angelo exerted his telepathic power over all the shrieking multi-minds and closed them down, and the psychic aether was empty as deep space. By which time -
The Necroscope was in even deeper space: that of the Mobius Continuum, where he twirled aimlessly for what seemed a long time, before a co-ordinate surfaced from the whirlpool deeps of his metaphysical mind and he fled to its source: His room at the hotel in Paterno ...
Harry woke up from an instantly forgotten nightmare, woke with a splitting headache, sweating and shivering and nauseous. But he fought it down and lay still, and in the light of a bedside lamp took in his surroundings. The hotel, yes. His room at the Hotel Adrano. In Paterno. Sicily.
It al came flooding back - or it didn't, not al of it:
Le Manse Madonie, the treasure vault, the tear-gas - and the money!
At that he came off the bed so fast it set his mind, and his body, reeling again. And his clothing stank of gas. God - no wonder he felt nauseous! He'd been hit by his own tear-gas! But the money ... was it real? Nothing/eft real. It al felt like some badly fragmented dream, as if something was missing. So what else was new?
He hadn't felt right from the first moment he got to this fucking place!
But after he'd opened the windows to his balcony, and then opened the wardrobe ...
It was no dream, and nothing was missing. Not of his loot, at least. A burlap bag slumped over on its side, and a handful of gold coins slipped from the rim and set off on their diverse courses, wobbling across the polished boards. Their miled rims purred on varnished pine; they thumped heavily where they colided with the carpet