Necroscope IV Deadspeak - By Brian Lumley Page 0,161

he'll come looking for you where you can meet him on your terms. He'll have to, if he ever again wants to feel safe in the world.'

'Harry,' said Manolis, 'I think maybe Darcy is right. I still don't know why that maniac killed himself and not you, but what you're planning now... it's like putting your head right back in the noose!'

'Darcy probably is right,' Harry agreed, 'but I have to play it how I see it. As for Jordan killing himself: that was Janos, showing me how "powerful" he is! Yes, and hurting me at the same time. But kill me? No, for it's like he said: he wants me alive. I'm the Necroscope; I have strange talents; there are secrets locked up in my head that Janos wants to get at. Oh, he can talk to some of the dead - poor bastards - in that monstrous, necromantic way of his, but he can't command their respect as I do. He'd like to, though, for he's as vain as the rest of them, but he still doesn't feel that he's true Wamphyri. So ... he probably won't be satisfied until he's made himself the most powerful vampire the world's ever seen. And to that end, if he can find some way to steal my skills from me -' He let it tail off ...

And immediately, in a lighter tone, continued:

' - Anyway, you two are going to have plenty on your own plates. So stop worrying about me and start worrying about yourselves. Manolis, how about those spearguns? And I'd also like you to book me a seat on the next plane for Athens - say sometime tomorrow morning? - with a Budapest connection. And Darcy - '

' - Whoa!' said Darcy. 'You changed the subject a bit fast there, Harry. And let's face it, there's really no comparison between what we'll be doing here in the islands and what you'll be going up against in the Carpathians. Also, Manolis and I, we have each other, and by tomorrow night there'll be a gang of us. But you'll be on your own all the way down the line.'

Harry looked at him with those totally honest, incredibly innocent eyes of his and said, 'On my own? Not really, Darcy. I have a great many friends in a great many places, and they've never once let me down.'

Darcy looked at him and thought: God, yes! It's just that I keep forgetting who - what - you are.

Manolis didn't know Harry so well, however. 'Friends?' the Greek said, having missed the point of the exchange. 'In Hungary, Romania?'

Harry looked at him. 'There, too,' he said, and shrugged. 'Wherever.' He stood up. 'I'm going to my room now. I have to try and contact some people...'

'Wherever?' Manolis repeated him, after he had gone.

Darcy nodded, and for all the drowsy Mediterranean heat he shivered. 'Harry's friends are legion,' he explained. 'Right across the world, the graveyards are full of them.'

Harry tried again to contact Möbius, with as little success as the teeming dead allies whom his Ma had recruited to that same task. He tried to speak with Faethor, too - to check on a certain piece of advice that the extinct vampire had given him, which now seemed highly suspect - and was likewise frustrated; it must be the scorching heat of the midday sun, shimmering in Romania just as it shimmered here, which deterred Faethor's Wamphyri spirit. Disappointed, finally Harry reached out with his thoughts to touch the Rhodes asylum, where Trevor Jordan now lay in the morgue, peaceful in the wake of his travails and well beyond the torments of the merely physical world. There, at last, he was successful.

Is that you, Harry? Jordan's dead voice was at first tinged with anxiety, then relief as he saw that he was correct. But of course it is, for who else could it be? And eagerly: Harry, I'm glad you've come. I want you to know that it wasn't me. I mean, that I could never have -

' - Of course you couldn't!' Harry cut him off, speaking out loud, as he was wont to do when time, circumstance and location permitted. 'I know that, Trevor. It's one of the reasons I wanted to speak to you: to put your mind at rest and let you know that we understand. It was Janos, using you to relay his thoughts - and that one godawful action - through to us. But,' (he was