Necroscope IV Deadspeak - By Brian Lumley Page 0,190

and was coming back. The throb of her engines was louder, faster as she bore down on the smaller vessel, and her intention was obvious. Manolis, working furiously to get the motor restarted, glanced at the waterproof watch on his wrist. 'She should have gone up by now!' he yelled. 'The limpets, they should have -'

And when the Lazarus was something less than fifty yards away, then the mines did go off. Not in one unified explosion, but in four.

The first two exploded near the stern of the white ship, with only a second or so between them, which had the effect of first throwing the stern one way and then the other, and also of lifting it up out of the water. Slewing and wallowing as the engines seized up, the Lazarus was still advancing under something of her former impetus; but then the third and fourth limpets went off where they'd been placed towards the stem, and that changed the whole picture. With the stern already low in the water from massive flooding, now the prow was pushed up on the crest of white-foaming waters, and as her nose slapped back to the tossing ocean so the engines exploded. The back of the boat was at once split open in gouting fire and ruin, and hot, buckled metal was hurled aloft in a fireball of igniting fuel.

As the glare of the fireball diminished and a huge smoke ring climbed skyward on the last hot gasp of the ship, so she gave up the ghost, settled down in the water and sank. Scraps of burning awning fluttered back to the tossing ocean and the drifting smoke cleared; the sea belched hugely and offered up clouds of steam; the gurgling and boiling of the waters continued for a few seconds longer, before falling silent...

'Gone!' said Darcy, when he could draw breath.

'Right,' Jazz Simmons nodded. 'But let's make sure she's all gone. And her crew with her.'

Manolis got the motor going and they chugged over to where the Lazarus had gone down. An oil slick lay on the water, where bubbles surfaced and made spreading rainbow colours. Then, even as they watched, a head and shoulders came bobbing up, lolled over backwards, and the lower part of the blackened body slowly rotated into view. He lay there in the water as if crucified, with his arms spreadeagled and great yellow blisters bursting on his neck, shoulders and thighs. But as they continued to stare aghast, so his eyes opened and glared at them, and he coughed up phlegm, blood and salt water.

Manolis didn't think twice but shut off the motor, picked up a speargun and put a harpoon straight into the gagging vampire's chest. The creature jerked once or twice, then lay still in the water. But still they couldn't be sure. Zek looked away as they reeled him in to the side of the boat, tied lead weights to his ankles and let him sink slowly out of sight.

'Deep water,' Manolis commented, without emotion.

'Even a vampire is only flesh and blood. If he can't breathe he can't live. Anyway, the floor of the sea is rocky here: there will be many big groupers down there. Even if life were possible, he can't heal himself faster than they can eat him!'

Ben Trask was white and shaky but well in control of himself. His shoulder was all strapped up now. 'What about the one I knocked overboard?' he said.

Manolis took the boat to the middle of the bay where the Lazarus had been moored, and Darcy gave a shout and pointed at something that splashed feebly in the water. Even shot, the vampire had made it half-way to land. They closed with him, speared him and dragged him back out to sea, where they dealt with him as with the first one.

'And that's the end of them,' Ben Trask grunted.

'Not quite,' Zek reminded him, pointing at the looming stack of white and yellow stone inland. There are two more of them up there.' She put her hand to her brow and closed her eyes, and frowned. 'Also... there may be something else. But I'm not sure what.'

Manolis beached the boat and took up his speargun. He was happy with that and with his Beretta. Darcy had his SMG, which he considered enough to handle, and Zek took a second speargun. Jazz was satisfied with Harry Keogh's crossbow, with which he'd familiarized himself during the voyage. They might have taken the other SMG,