Necroscope 9: The Lost Years (15 page)

In that, and in the fact that the last three murders (prior to those of the police officers) had been commited by a thing half-man, half-wolf, or by someone in the guise of such a creature. Which would seem to indicate that the maniac had only recently adopted his werewolf role. This last, however, the use of the wolf mask, was something that other
living
investigators couldn’t possibly know; only the victims had seen their atacker’s face. The victims, and now Harry Keogh, Necroscope …

It was the horrific
nature
of these last three murders - their
modus operandi -
along with those of Jim Banks, Stevens and Jakes, of course, that had finaly alerted the authorities to what they now erroneously categorized as a series of serial killings. That these atrocities were the
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work of a lunatic was hardly in question, but ‘serial’ killings? Sir Keenan Gormley and the Great Majority doubted it.

Harry had been right: the initial series of seemingly unconnected murders had been territorial. A homicidal member of a gang of car-thieves had begun taking out members of encroaching gangs one by one, almost systematically. But after a while, following his first half-dozen killings, maybe he’d started to enjoy it! Maybe he’d sensed his power, the advantage that his weird talent gave him, his ability to get into an enemy’s mind and pre-empt his every move. A grudge against the police? Well, maybe. The urge to permanently remove any persistent adversary - very definitely!

An esoteric talent plus a diseased and generally criminal mind, equals gruesome murder. Lycanthropy: not merely a concept of fantastic fiction but a mania, a recognized and accepted psychiatric phenomenon. The madman’s need to tear his victims to pieces like a wild animal, and his bloodlust at the full of the moon, when the lunar orb tugs at the fluid of his brain no less insistently than it lures the great oceans. His anguished howling when innermost passions are finaly vented in acts of furious mayhem!

The madness of a rabid animal, then, in combination with the warped cunning of an habitual criminal. That was what the Necroscope was up against. And as yet he was still no closer to learning the murderer’s identity …

‘So what do you suggest?’ he asked Sir Keenan Gormley, as the car sped him ever closer to the Muswell Hill cemetery and his second liaison.

‘Eh?’ Darcy Clarke glanced at Harry out of the corner of his eye. ‘Did you say something?’

Harry gave a slight start, and muttered. ‘Er, just talking … to myself.’ He knew how the espers of E-Branch looked upon his talent, that even with their knowledge of parapsychology, still they found it disquieting. Settling deeper into his seat and switching to a mental mode, he said:

Sir?

And Keenan Gormley chuckling in his mind:
What do I suggest? Wel, for one thing, if I were you I wouldn’t let myself stray too far from
that
one! Darcy Clarke has to be just about the safest man I know - or knew. But quite apart from Darcy’s talent, he was
also a good friend. And better to have him as a friend than a foe, Harry, what with that guardian angel of his and
all! You certainly wouldn’t want to go up against
him
in a duel, now would you? So if Darcy wants to keep his eye on you,
don’t complain about it.

I’ll try to remember that,
Harry told him.
But that’s not what I meant. I wasn’t talking about Darcy.

No, of course you weren’t. But I thought it worth mentioning, thafsall. I’m just so glad to see that you’re still with E-Branch.
He fel silent for a moment, muling the real question over in his incorporeal mind. Then:

/
think …
(Sir Keenan’s disembodied voice was much more sober, thoughtful now),
that I would probably try to fight fire with
fire. For talking to you about Darcy and the Branch brings back to mind some of the amazing talents you have at your command. Quite
literally, yours to command. If you so desire them.

Oh?
Harry waited. And shortly:

Your quarry appears to be some kind oftelepath, which so far has given him an advantage. But you ham al the fuly developed talents of E-Branch. So why
not give him a taste of his own medicine, Harry? From what I know of you, thafs your way, isn’t it? An eye for an eye, and al that?

Harry was interested. /
should use an E-Branch telepath?

Now that you know what you’re up against? You’d be a fool not to!
And Sir Keenan explained what he meant.

Harry thought about it a while and said,
Maybe, if that’s what it comes down to. But right now I have to be saying goodbye. For shortly I’ll
be speaking to Derek Stevens, the second of this lunatic’s three policemen victims.

But Keenan Gormley had already drawn back; Harry felt him shrinking away, as from a scowl or a slap. And he felt obliged to ask:
Is there something I should know?

He sensed the other’s nod and eventually, hesitantly, his answer:
Sometimes … some people … just aren’t ready
for it, Harry. Some people don’t get used to death so readily. And some … well, they don’t get used to it at all, ever. When I found
out you’d be handling this, I tried speaking to Stevens myself, just as I’ve spoken to others of the victims: in order to
save a little time, you know?
(Harry sensed his sigh).
I’m sorry, my boy, but… Derek Stevens hasn’t got used to it
yet.

Harry felt Darcy Clarke’s elbow giving him a gentle nudge. Looking up, he saw that the car was at a standstill outside the Muswell Hill cemetery. And since they were here, it seemed only right that he should give it a try.

Well, if you must, I suppose you must,
Sir Keenan Gormley told him, his ghostly echo of a voice fading to a distant whisper in the Necroscope’s metaphysical mind.
But better you than me, Harry. Far better you than me …

From this side of Muswell Hill, the fact that the district was elevated was obvious. Southwards, the nighted streets of London sprawled like some giant, shimmering cobweb woven on the curve of the world. It had done raining for now, but in Harry Keogh’s fertile imagination the cold glitter of distant street lamps in the moisture-laden air was the Brian Lumley

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reflection of a myriad jewels of dew on the blacktop strands of the great web. And the vehicles crawling on the roads were Mama Spider’s children, learning the skills of the silken tightrope.

But evocative though the vista was, it wasn’t the Necroscope’s reason for being here. As he penetrated the graveyard, the concerned, concerted, ever-burgeoning clamour of incorporeal voices sounding in his metaphysical mind brought him back down to earth - and below it -in a moment. Their
concerned
clamour, yes.

Ful of concern, for Stevens. They weren’t talking to Harry (not yet, for they didn’t know he was here), but to each other, and to Stevens. Trying to talk to him, anyway.

Discovering the dead man’s plot wasn’t difficult: it lay dead centre of the physicaly silent but psychicaly noisy babble which, as Harry approached, grew louder by the moment. The brand-new marker, clean gravel chips and fresh flowers provided al the corroboration he needed. These things and Stevens’s name, his dates, and his epitaph, of course:

A Man of Law & Order,

—a Fighter to the Last—

Struck Down by the Lawless,

in the Pursuit of His Duty.

Sorely Missed, but Alive

in Our Memories,

Always.

A very sad thing. But the babbling creature in its grave was sadder by far …

It was just as simple as Sir Keenan Gormley had tried to forewarn: the dead couldn’t console him. Derek Stevens couldn’t come to terms with his demise, wouldn’t accept it, wasn’t going to lie still for it. And despite that he
knew
in his innermost being (or unbeing) that he was dead, still he fought against it and cried his horror of it, until his plot and the entire graveyard reverberated with his silent shrieking and his coffin wasn’t merely a box but a cel in a subterranean asylum.

An asylum in the worst possible sense of the word, that of the madhouse.

A madman?
Harry asked of the dead moaning in their graves.

Driven mad by grief, frustration and horror, Necroscope!
a shuddering voice answered.
For the living aren’t alone in their capacity for
grief. We also mourn -for the absence of all the loved ones we left behind,, who don’t know that we’re still down here … and must
never
know! Else they’d sit by our graves all day, and their brief sojourn in the land of the living would be wasted
no less than ours in the darkness of death …

So taken aback by the sheer soulfullness of it, the doom-fraught
feeling
in the voice, for a little while the Necroscope said nothing. But then:

Excuse me, Sir, for I don’t know you,
(Harry respectfully shielded his thoughts from the rest of the cemetery’s dwellers in order to speak to this one alone).
But I do know that while you are
in
the majority, still you are
of
a minority: a defeatist
among optimists. For while I’ve spoken to a great many dead men, I honestly can’t say I ever before heard the …
condition
or the
lot
of the teeming dead expressed so mournfully, so hopelessly as you express it. Even vampires, who have lost not only life
but undeath and immortality, too, seem a deal more accepting of their station than you are of yours! Which isn’t so much to put
you down as to inquire … well, what is it that’s made you this way?

For a moment the other was silent, perhaps shocked. Could this really be the Necroscope, whose compassion was universally acclaimed? Harry sensed the stiffness in the unquiet night, and to his relief felt its gradual easing. Until eventually:
You’re right, of course,
said the unknown voice, but without its hopeless tremor now, stoic in the modern sense, yet submissive when faced with the truth.
You must forgive me my doubts and my regrets, Harry, my lack of
conviction. Ah, but it comes hard for a preacher to be preached to, for a man of the Faith to discover himself faithless!
Made to
discover it,
and by one so young at that! And yet you’re so -
persuasive!
You put it so very well! Perhaps
you
should have taken the cloth
and been a preacher? Or maybe you’d make a better philosopher. Have you studied philosophy, Harry?

Some,
the Necroscope answered, which was at least in part the truth.
Or rather, I’ve played a few word-games in my time. And
with experts, too. I know how to argue, if that’s what you mean.
He explained no further than that. But on the other hand, what the dead man had said to him explained a great deal.

Al of his life this man had preached of a God and a life after death. But now,
in
death … where was He? Why had He not taken these souls to His bosom? Neither Necroscope nor preacher could answer
that
question; but in fact He had claimed them, or would eventually. Except Harry had always had his doubts, which this apparent delay in the promised deliverance only served to exacerbate. The whole truth of the matter was something he was yet to discover, albeit in another world, another time.

Harry’s thoughts on the preacher’s predicament were like spoken words, which the dead man answered.
Again you
are right. For if I thought it hard to convince my flock in life, how much harder in death, when the anticipated
resurrection is not?

Harry nodded.
It must be difficult, yes. But you do still
talk
like a priest.

I still
think
like one, deep down inside! It’s just that now, well, my words seem so futile, so empty. Even to me,
sometimes! And the worst thing is, I can’t put a time on it, can’t advise them of the hour of their salvation. But
talking to such as you, and feeling your living warmth, I

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do
believe, of course I do! For if there is nothing left but this darkness, this purgatory of sorts, then why have you come to remind us of the past - if not to provide
evidence of a glorious future? For He was, He is, and He shal always be …

God’s messenger? Harry didn’t feel like one.

But you are!
the preacher was insistent.
You bring light in the eternal darkness, Harry, and hope where no hope existed. You … rekindle the
flame! Yes, and I think I know what brings you here: the soul-destroying cries of this demented one, taken before his time. You are here to
comfort him. Tell me that I’m right?

Not quite,
Harry shook his head, and knew the other would sense it. ///
can comfort him, well and good. But in fact I’m here to question him. I
want to know who killed him, so that I can right the wrong.

Revenge?
The voice of the preacher was far quieter now.

An eye for an eye,
Harry growled.

You can’t find it in you to turn the other cheek?

So that the murderer goes free to kill again?

It’s not my way, Harry.