knew it wasn't like that; he knew that whatever a man is or does in life, he'll usually continue to be and do afterwards. Why, it could well be that R.L.'s obeah had helped keep his brother's identity secret even among the Great Majority!
You think so? R.L. obviously hadn't given it any thought. Oh, my! You means, I was still looking out for A.C. even after he killed me?
'It could very well be,' Harry told him. 'In a way you've kept right on protecting him - or his good name, at least.'
Huh! said R. L. His good name, indeed!
'Yours, then,' Harry answered. 'And now, well, maybe you can protect me, too.'
Eh? How's that? (Astonishment, this time!)
Harry explained, and R.L. quickly got the picture. He was dead and his obi with him ...• or maybe not. Through the Necroscope he could use it again, for the Necroscope! And in doing so deny its use to his brother. 'But only if it comes down to it,' Harry told him -
- And in the next moment gave a massive start! There in the deep black shadows of the alley, he had been so caught up in his conversation with the dead man that he'd failed to hear the pad of soft, furtive footfalls as they approached him. Too late he had heard them - at the same time as a hand came down on his shoulder!
'Harry?' Trevor Jordan said, as the Necroscope gasped and lurched away from him. 'Did I startle you?'
'Jesus Christ!' Harry whispered, falling back against the wall. Trevor ... Trevor, what do you think you're doing!?'
'What I was told to do,' the other answered with a shrug and looked perplexed. 'I'm keeping a low profile, what else?'
AND ONE OTHER
VI
AND ONE OTHER
Freed of his conversation with R.L., Harry's mind became a possible target again, as did the telepath Trevor Jordan's. For of course he, too, was an enemy of A.C. Doyle Jamieson. The extra-sensory presence of both of them was too much; their combined esp-auras - undetectable to the great mass of mundane mankind - radiated out from them into the rainy night in every direction.
One direction would have been more than sufficient: that of the garage across the road.
There came ... an intrusion! Which the Necroscope felt at once. But instead of avoiding it or flinching from it, he answered back and tried to get into the mind that was getting into his. Trevor Jordan felt it, too, the blunt groping of a strange and strangely gifted mind, and said: 'Wha - ?'
But Harry held up a hand to still Jordan's inquiry, husking, 'Listen in if you want, but be sure not to open your mind to it for now. I'll let you know when.' And:
Huh? The intruder grunted like a pig in Harry's mind, no longer a mere whisperer but a sentience surprised that the Necroscope had recognized his presence and was reacting to it, but not in the way that the intruder had anticipated. Then, because he knew he'd been discovered:
You ... again! There could be no mistaking the phlegmy, threatening quality of that voice, or the megalomaniac 'superiority' of its owner. Any other man but a telepath born - and a practised one, who had come into contact with deranged minds such as this before - must surely recoil from the stench, the mental slime of it, like a poison seeping in his mind. A telepath, yes ... or the Necroscope Harry Keogh. For he had spoken with vampires, and not all of them dead ones. By comparison -and strictly by comparison - this mind was almost sweet. But as for the rest of it, the actual contact:
In fact, this mind-to-mind contact with a living person wasn't unlike speaking to the dead. Except Harry wasn't a true telepath; he couldn't 'send', but only receive incoming information; any answers he might originate would only be 'heard' by virtue of the other's telepathy - which in this case amounted to the same thing.
And this time the other - none other but A.C. Doyle Jamieson - had indeed heard the Necroscope's thoughts. But they were scarcely the thoughts of a frightened man, and definitely not those of one who doubted his own sanity! And: Who are you? (There was anger in that voice now, and perhaps something of uncertainty if not downright fear.) What are you?
What the fuck ... are ... you!?
'I'm the end of the road, Arthur,' Harry told him. 'I'm a big dose of your