own brand of obeah bouncing right back at you. I'm a silver bullet heading for your heart. I'm the justice of all the lives you've taken held back way too long, pent up, and now about to burst out and enact itself on you!' But in Harry's metaphysical mind, irrepressible if not deliberately expressed, there was one other thought: And I'm the one they call the Necroscope.
A.C. got all of it, but especially the last bit. And even though he didn't know what a Necroscope was, it sounded threatening and he didn't like it. Huh? Necroscope? (The 'scope' ending had stuck in his mind; finally made sense to him, albeit mistakenly). 'Scope': a spy! A police spy? A raid? Oh, really? A.C. was trying to sneer but in fact he was panicking now, and far more dangerous for it! Finally he broke and snarled: Well, fuck your ass, bro! His presence vanished abruptly from Harry's mind.
The seconds ticked by. Then:
Down the street at the other end of the garage, the overhead door began clattering up on itself, its long metal leaves concertinaing into the housing. It was easily sixty yards away, but in the quiet of the midnight street, even at that distance Harry and Trevor Jordan could hear hoarse, angry shouting. And as the darkness was suddenly slashed by headlight beams, a veritable convoy of vehicles came roaring down the exit ramp, one after the other onto the road.
White and blue sparks lit the night where wings hit the walls of the ramp and chassis jarred down onto the shining tarmac as the cars and vans turned viciously, squeal-ingly into the road, some heading in the one direction and others coming Harry's way.
He and Jordan ducked down, shrank against the wall of the alley, watched two cars and a van howl by, their drivers pale-faced where they crouched over their steering wheels. 'Like a pack of rats deserting a sinking shit!' Jordan said in Harry's ear. Glancing at him, Harry saw that his eyes were narrowed to slits and his face creased in concentration. 'But the shit who ordered them out of there is still inside!'
'What?' Harry frowned. 'You're in contact with him? But I asked you to stay out of it! We're not sure what we're dealing with here.'
'We're dealing with one powerful telepath, that much I'll grant you,' Jordan answered. 'Also a frightened one.
Something is interfering with his talent. He's trying to locate you again but something is getting in his way. Not me or you but - oh, I don't know - something else. And anyway, I didn't deliberately ignore your warning, Harry. But with a talent as strong as this one ... he's hard to avoid.'
'R.L. Stevenson,' Harry offered a grim nod. That's what's bothering him most: his brother's obeah. I can almost feel it flowing through me!' Which made little or no sense to Jordan; he couldn't get the meaning of it because he was busy not reading the Necroscope's mind.
But at that precise moment the intruder had chosen to return, and he was reading it. And: What...'.? (He issued a disbelieving croak). R.L.? But. . . he's dead! Listen, you white fuck, whatever you are: my brother is dead! Did you get that? He's dead! / know 'cos I killed him! For that matter, so are you dead, or good as ... and the two you got out there with you!
Two? And Harry wondered: What? Can he feel R.L. too? Not just his obeah but... R.L. himself?
Who you trying to shit, Fuckscope? There ain't no 'feeling' R.L. 'cos R.L. 's dead! I mean your two friends out there! Enemies, all three of you - but only three of you. So come and get it, if you got the guts. I mean, three against one ... what are you waiting for? But remember this: I got the moon on my side! His fading mental laughter was like the barking of a wild dog.
'He's not scared any more,' Jordan hissed. 'He's just mad-angry - and mad as a hatter, too, of course!'
'He's picked up three enemies, but there are only the two of us,' Harry was puzzled. 'If he's also reading R.L.'s talent, that makes him something of a Necroscope in his own right!'
'Whatever he is, he craves blood ... namely, yours!' Jordan answered. 'But also mine, if I've read him right! We should stop this right here and now and call in the law.'
Cowardly bastards! the thing in Harry's head roared. Fuck you, then.