Necroscope 9: The Lost Years (23 page)

Harry staggered back against the wall in the entrance to the” garage, flopped there with his jaw hanging slack, looking at A.C. looking at George Jakes. At the mad, black, screaming face; the claw-hand held up to ward off the very
sight
of the dead man; dreadlocks flying in the midnight wind as the van’s door was shorn from its hinges. The mad eyes almost bursting from their sockets; the thick, foaming lips; the

torso beginning to float in free-fall, but pinned to the backrest by the crossbow bolt whose flight stuck out from A.C.’s shoulder.

Let’s talk again some time, Necroscope,
said Jakes.
But right now I just want to savour the warmth …

Harry shook himself, had time to straighten up and look out into the street… where even now something was crashing down in the centre of the road. And Jakes was right: the van’s tank must have been full to brimming.

Under a sky clearing of clouds, in which a bloated moon lit the wet-shining streets of London, A.C.’s van hit like a bomb, nose first, went off like a clap of thunder and blotted out the night with the abrupt brilliance of his funeral pyre. And of George Jakes’s.

Which was the way one of them had wanted it, at least …

Harry shook himself again. His numb mind cleared, and he heard … police sirens? Of course, and they’d be here in just a few minutes.

Harry, are you okay?
(It was Trevor Jordan, but faint now that the pressure was off).

Yes,
Harry answered.
Are you out of it?

Well out of it,
Jordan answered, with a mental sigh.

See you later,
Harry told him, nodding.

But right now … there was something he had to do, had to know.

He had seen the girl outside the garage. Then he’d seen her inside (but couldn’t be sure), when she’d saved his life.

And he’d seen her a third time, in Jakes’s dead mind, so that finally he
was
sure! Now he wanted to see her again, find out who she was, why she was here. Jakes had pictured her at the far end of the basement. To the Necroscope’s knowledge there was no exit down there, and he knew that the maintenance yard doors on this level were locked. She had got in through those doors but couldn’t get out that way. Which left only one escape route. She had to come this way. And she did.

She came panting, alert, aware of the growing clamour of the sirens. But Harry was waiting for her well inside the garage, at the landing where the down-ramp met the ground floor. She came up the ramp at the run, still carrying her

‘shopping bag.’ The Necroscope knew what was in it: her crossbow. She’d shot two bolts to deadly effect and was probably out of ammunition, else she’d be holding the weapon. But he stil had the Browning. And he’d found the main switch for the lights, set back in a recess in the wall at the top of the ramp.

As the girl drew level he threw the switch, stepped into view. She gave a small cry of surprise, skidded to a halt and blinked in the suddenly bright light. ‘Who …? What…?’

‘Don’t be scared,’ Harry told her. ‘It’s all over. I just wanted to thank you - for my life.’

‘Oh, it’s you,’ she said, and breathed her relief. ‘I… didn’t know

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which one of you to shoot! I was … just lucky, I suppose.’ her dialect was a distinctive, husky, even sexy Edinburghian brogue that Harry vaguely recalled and recognized from early childhood days in Scotland, and from later visits.

‘Me too,’ he grinned, however wryly. ‘Very lucky!’ And for the first time he felt the stiffness of his drying blood sticking his torn trousers to his legs.

‘But the one in the stocking-mask,’ she continued, ‘well, he looked the most likely target.’ She licked her lips nervously and glanced this way and that, obviously seeking a way out. She had seen the gun in his hand.

‘And the man in the van?’ Harry was intent now, staring at her. ‘The passenger? I mean, why didn’t you shoot the driver?’ It would have made no difference but he wanted to know anyway.

Her eyes went this way and that. ‘I … I saw what looked like a big dog or wolf, sitting in the van, but it was a man in a mask.

He attacked the driver, tore at him. And I… I—’

‘—you fired at the one who looked the most dangerous,’ Harry nodded. ‘So … were you hunting them, or what?’ He stepped closer to her but she didn’t shrink away. Out in the night the sound of the sirens had grown very loud, and he could feel the girl’s urgency radiating from her.

‘Just one o’ them,’ she replied, her brogue thickening as her anxiety increased. And now she moved closer to Harry. ‘Are ye the police?’ The way she said police it sounded like ‘polis.’

‘No,’ the Necroscope shook his head, and at the same time made up his mind about something. This girl should answer questions - to the law if not to him - but she had saved his life after all. ‘I was hunting them, too.’

‘Well, and we got them, did we no? But now, I’ve to go …’ She made to brush by him, and cars skidded to a screeching halt immediately outside the garage, where orange flames lit up the night and black smoke roiled for the moon.

Tell me one thing and I’ll help you,’ he gripped her arm, and she looked at his hand where he held her. ‘I promise, I’ll get you out of this.’

‘Better make it fast, then,’ she gasped, as running footsteps clattered on the entrance ramp.

‘Why were you hunting him?’

‘Why were you?’ She was drawing back from him, and she was surprisingly strong.

They murdered friends of mine.’

‘And they placed good friends o’ mine in … in jeopardy. But I’m afraid ye’re too late to get us out o’ here!’

Harry reached back, threw the master switch, and the entire garage was black as night. Then he conjured a Mobius door, and swept the girl through it. And:
Where to?
he asked.

Her thoughts were like a vastly gonging, cracked and echoing bel:
WHAT? … WHAT? … WHAT?

Shhh!
Harry told her.
Just cling to me, and tell me where home is. Where do you want to go?

She clung to him, just as tightly as she could! And: ‘Anywhere out o’
here!’
she whispered hoarsely, a whisper that rang like a shout in the primal emptiness of the Mobius Continuum.

He went to a place he knew, exited from the Continuum, and held her upright until she felt the solid ground under her feet and stopped trembling. Then, gradually opening her eyes … she reeled for a moment, and abruptly sat down—

—On the rain-slick cobbles of the aley just across the road from the garage. But the rain was finished now, and a mist swirled ankle-deep like a river of white-glowing milk al along the aley, lapping into recessed doorways and swirling from the Necroscope’s sudden resurgence.

Harry didn’t want to answer any more questions right now, but later he might have some for her. ‘Now
I’ve
to go,’ he told her in her own brogue. ‘How can I find you again? I mean, if I wanted to. Or if you … wanted me to?’

He held out a hand, helped her to her feet. ‘I… I just dinna
believe
what happened then!’ she gasped. ‘I realy dinna believe it!’

Her hands fluttered up and down the length of her thighs, brushed water from the wet seat of her trousers.

‘I’ve realy got to go,’ Harry told her, moving off along the aley away from a street that flared red and orange in the roaring firelight.

‘B.J.’s,’ she breathed. ‘Find me at B.J.’s.’

‘Oh?’ He looked back from the dark threshold of a recessed warehouse back entrance and cocked his head questioningly.

‘A wine bar - I mean,
mah
wine bar - in Edinburgh.’ Her mouth was hanging open, and her words came out soft as breath.

But Harry had had enough of initials, A.C.s and R.L.s, and B.J.s included. ‘So what does it stand for? B.J., I mean?’

‘Eh?’ Her mouth was still open, and looked delicious. ‘Oh, mah initials? Bonnie Jean,’ she said.

The name rang a bel. Harry remembered an old musical he’d seen on the TV in his flat at Hartlepool - how long ago? Now he recaled the title, and the words of a certain song:

Go home, go home,

go home with Bonnie Jean.

Go home, go home—

—
IIIII’l
… go home with Bonnie Jean.

Well, maybe … but not tonight, Bonnie Jean. ‘Just like in Brigadoon!’ he said.

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She obviously understood his meaning. For now, accepting the weirdness of things, she closed her mouth, smiled however wonderingly, and said, ‘Aye, mah brave laddie,
exactly
like in Brigadoon. And your name …?’ But then, momentarily distracted when a police vehicle with blaring sirens went screeching past the mouth of the alley, she looked back over her shoulder.

And B.J. ‘s question hung unanswered on the damp night air, for when next she turned to Harry … all that remained of him was a swirl of mist, collapsing like an exorcised ghost on the spot where he’d been standing …

Harry made brief stops in several locations - graveyards, all of them -to report the results of the night’s adventure. The principal details were already known, however, mainly through the efforts of one R.L. Stevenson Jamieson. Before returning to E-Branch H. Q., Harry spoke to R.L. himself, and said:

‘Well, a proven principle is shown to be working still. I mean, what you did in life you’l continue to do in death. And in so doing, you’ll earn the gratitude of all the teeming dead. No need to worry about your name being cursed now, R. L.’

You talking ‘bout my obi, Necroscope?

Harry nodded. ‘You know I am. For in life, you took care of your brother as best you could - you kept the balance. Now in death you’ll go right on doing it.’

It don’t take no effort, Harry,
R.L. told him.
Its a natural thing. ‘Specially now that I’m in touch with Poppy again!

See, I didn’t like to bother him with all this before. But now we is all together, so to speak—

Again Harry’s nod. ‘No shame attaches to you or your Poppy, R.L. And like I said, the dead will always be grateful to you for keeping A.C. in his place. What I mean is, when the teeming dead talk to each other it’s voluntary; they don’t need to feel anything like A.C. creeping in their minds!’

Oh, A.C. be no trouble now, Harry. The werewolf s gone for good. No more howling, just the whimper of a cold, lost little
puppy. But he’ll be okay, once he learns he’s safe in the dark and the quiet.

And: ‘Fair enough,’ the Necroscope answered. ‘Let’s leave it at that, then …’

FOR BRENDA, AND FOR HIMSELF

Despite his several duty stops, still Harry beat Trevor Jordan back to E-Branch H. Q. He found the place just as the telepath had advised: My activated under Darcy Clarke and ready at a moment’s notice to back him to the hilt … psychically if not physically. In the event, and with the assistance of new-found friends, he hadn’t needed extra help; also, and right from the beginning, he had asked Darcy to keep out of it. Be that as it may, the Head of Branch had been ready, wiling and able, and it said a lot for the value the espers placed on Harry.

Eventually the Necroscope was able to complete his report, and in the wee smal hours he sat alone with Darcy in the latter’s office. With his duties behind him, Harry at last found time to inquire after Brenda and his infant son. Not that his concern was any less than it should be, or his attitude in any way casual, but he knew that wherever his wife and child were, it was unlikely that they would come to any harm. For al that Harry Jr was a babe in arms, he’d already displayed his ability to protect his mother from even the most dire threat, and Harry Sr knew that whatever mundane things the infant wasn’t capable of doing for himself, Brenda - or the Great Majority - would do for him.

And in answer to his, ‘Anything …?’

‘Nothing,’ Darcy shook his head worriedly. ‘Not a thing. Every man who wasn’t on your case has been on the lookout for Brenda and the baby. They’ve al drawn blanks. Precogs, telepaths, hunchmen, locators: a dead end - if you’ll forgive that expression.

When Brenda first came here, it was Harry Jr who brought her; we have to assume he’s taken her away again. Why, and where to … is anybody’s guess. Of course we shall go on searching for them, but right now … ” His shoulders slumped a little. ‘I’m sorry, Harry. You’ve done so much, given so much of your time and energy for us, and we don’t seem able to do a thing for you.’

‘Which means I’ll have to do it for myself,’ Harry answered, but

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without bitterness. ‘Darcy, you must have known from square one that the main reason I let you talk me into staying here was for Brenda? You had al the contacts, and I hoped the people you brought in would be able to do something for her. I knew she’d be safe here if there were any aftershocks from the work I’d been doing. But that’s all over now.’

Darcy saw what was coming. ‘You’re moving out?’

‘Lock, stock and barrel. E-Branch isn’t for me, Darcy. I was always a loner, and that’s the way I have to be. And after all - and as you’ve often enough said yourself - do I really want to spend my life slopping out mental sewers? I just can’t see myself at the beck and call of the police, their “pet psychic” who they can call on to solve every grubby little murder in the book! Oh, I know it wouldn’t be like that, but it would be
something
like that, and it isn’t what I’m cut out for. So, it looks like it’s come sooner than either one of us expected. I’m moving out, yes.’

‘When?’

‘I don’t have any ties here. I mean, I’m not bosom buddies with any of the people here, or anything like that. I have friends here, yes … I hope you’re
all
my friends. But no one I have to say goodbye to. Except maybe you. So, goodbye.’