The Last Aerie (86 page)

“Did we interrupt something important?” Zek took Nathan’s arm as he stood up.

“Truthfully?” he glanced at Trask. “Yes. But it’s OK. I can get back to him.”

“Him?” This from Trask.

Nathan indicated the headstone. “A one-time teacher at the school across the road. In life he must have been a very fine man. Later, he was a friend of my father’s. My friend, now.”

“Should we go off again?” Trask wanted to put things right. “Is there something you need to finish?”

Nathan shook his head. “Later.”

They let it go at that, walked to the car and drove back to their hotel in Hartlepool…

“When we drove back through the town,” Nathan said over their evening meal, “I noticed that my father had chosen to live in a house directly opposite a large graveyard, a very old place.”

Trask nodded and said, “Very appropriate, don’t you think?” And before Nathan could answer, I’ll tell you something about that garret flatlet of Harry’s: it was where Harry Junior—your brother—first used the Mobius Continuum. And he was no more than an infant at the time. So there’s hope for you yet.”

Nathan thought to himself:
An infant. The Dweller. My brother by a woman not my mother was a mere infant, yet even as a helpless, defenceless bairn, he knew more than I’ve learned in a lifetime! But if it was instinct in him, then why not in me? What’s missing in me? And where is it? I feel incomplete. Did Nestor get something intended for me? And if so, why hasn’t it developed in him?
And a moment later:
But I thank Trask’s and Hannant’s “God” that it hasn’t!

And out loud, if abstractedly: “How was it that time?” he asked Trask.

“I wasn’t there,” the other shrugged, perhaps regretfully. “I was out of it, injured, hospitalized. The Branch was tracking down a monster, Yulian Bodescu, who was Wamphyri, and I’d been hurt at the creature’s house down in Devon. Since then, I’ve often wished I had been there, but on the other hand … maybe I was lucky. A very good friend of mine was there, however—an extraordinary man, an esper called Darcy Clarke—and he told me about it. Also, I’ve read the reports …” He paused for a moment, then continued:

“It was night. Harry’s wife and infant son were in the flat. Bodescu forced his way in and killed a policeman and two Special Branch men who got in his way. But the baby was a Necroscope. Harry Keogh’s child, the teeming dead loved him. And he called them up, to defend himself and his mother.

“The dead of night, no one saw them leave their tombs and come out of the graveyard but Darcy. He was in a locked, barred room on the second floor, and had just seen Bodescu kill a colleague. Then, while Darcy was trying to make his escape through a window, he looked down on the graveyard. And I’ll always remember how he described what he saw:

“At first he couldn’t believe it: the road outside the house was filling with people, but in no way ordinary people. Silent streams of them were converging, massing together. They were coming out of the cemetery gates, over its front wall—men, women and children—and crossing the road to gather in front of the house. And they were quiet as the graves they’d so recently vacated!

“Their stench drifted up to Darcy on the damp night air, the overpowering reek of advanced decay and rotting flesh. Some of them, recently dead, were in their graveclothes, but others … had been dead for a long time. They flopped over the cemetery wall, squelched out of its gate, shuffled or crawled across the road. And then they were knocking at the door of the house, seeking entry.

“Darcy thought he was going mad. But knowing Harry’s talent—and knowing now that his child was also a Necroscope—he had to accept the truth of it. At which he made to go downstairs and let them in. Can you imagine it? Darcy was going to let a horde of walking corpses into this house of horror! But in the end it didn’t come to that. Something happened that he just couldn’t take and he passed out. And we learned the rest of it later, from Harry himself.

“Harry Junior had already taken his mother to E-Branch HQ via the Mobius Continuum. The dead people attacked Bodescu in the garret flat, and despite that he was Wamphyri, he didn’t stand a chance against them. For after all, they had nothing to lose. Changing his body-shape to an airfoil, he crashed through the window. But one of the dead was a marksman and put a crossbow bolt in his spine. Crippled, he fell to earth. They found him in the cemetery, staked him down, cut off his head and burned him. That’s the story …”

Nathan looked at him and nodded. “And well told,” he said. “But maybe the dead in that graveyard could have told it even better. I think I should speak to them. There’s a lot to learn about my father, and they’re the only ones who know. The only ones who
really
know.”

“Do you want us to go with you?” Zek knew he didn’t.

“I think I might prefer to be alone,” Nathan answered. “I can concentrate better. Also, I get the feeling that the dead don’t like it … when other people are “listening in”, so to speak.”

“Your minders will be there,” Trask reminded him.

“As long as they keep well back,” Nathan answered. “But you know, the night time is their time.”

“The dead?”

“Yes. When the world is quiet, that’s when they come into their own. What’s left of it.” Then, feeling Zek’s eyes on him, her telepathic probe, he looked at her.

The night time was Harry’s time, too
, she told him.
And in profile, when you smile in that oh-so-sad way of yours, you look just like him. Except … at the end, his eyes glowed red in the dark. And in a little while:
1 know how dangerous your world is, Nathan, for I’ve been there. But you know, this one can be dangerous, too, in so many ways. So when you’re on your own, promise me you’ll be careful.

That was twice someone had asked him to be careful in as many hours. It made him feel wanted, made him feel good.
It’s a promise
, he answered.
As long as you’ll promise to take me to see Pythagoras.

In the Greek islands?
Her eyes opened wider.
And Jazz?

Oh, yes.
Jazz too.

Deal!
she said.

Trask had been watching them, the way their eyes locked. Now he grinned, if a little uncertainly, and told Zek, “He’s way too young for you.”

Zek patted his hand across the table. “And he’s married,” she reminded him. “What’s more, he’s a telepath, and we generally don’t get on too well together. So consider yourself lucky, Ben Trask. Consider yourself lucky.”

“Can I?” Suddenly he was more than half-serious.

Zek’s smile was warm on him. “Can we talk about it later?” she said. But the look in her eyes was different from when she was looking at Nathan.

And suddenly Trask’s heart felt light as a youth’s in the arms of his first love. Of all men, he knew the truth when he saw it…

That night, Nathan talked to the dead in the Hartlepool cemetery on the Blackball Road. And of course they remembered Harry Keogh, his father. But there was no reticence in them now; the Great Majority wanted to make up for lost time; they felt Nathan’s natural warmth, took him to their hearts and poured their loneliness on him until he felt weighed under by it. Until he felt, indeed, very much as Harry had used to feel before him.

For if being a Necroscope had a drawback, this was it: the fact that friends are not just for helping, but also for
being
helped. And while there were millions of them, there was only one Nathan.

In the ancient Hartlepool graveyard, however, with all of its leaning, moss-grown slabs, their numbers were not so great that he couldn’t cope. For a little while, at least. And while he didn’t learn a lot about Harry Keogh (for after all, what was there now to be known, beyond the fact that the dead had loved him?) Nathan’s honesty and humility did cement a friendship which would last as long as memory. And the memories of the teeming dead are long indeed.

Towards the end, when the cold and a swirling ground mist had seeped so deep into his bones that he began to feel a part of the inscribed marble slab where he sat, a small, shy, deadspeak voice said to him:
Nathan, do you think you could help me, please?

It was a girl-child’s voice, but a voice filled with such sadness, Nathan’s heart ached for her. “If I can,” he told her. “But… who are you?”

My name is Cynthia
, she told him
. I am—I was—seven. That wasn’t very
long ago. But my bones were sick and wouldn’t make blood for me, and so I died. But even before that, my Mummy and Daddy were so worried about me! At school, I didn’t make friends very we/1, and they couldn’t bear that 1 was lonely. So I know they’ll be worried even more now, because they’ll think I have no friends at all. But you can tell them that I do. You can tell them I have lots of friends!

Nathan thought about it and was stalled for ideas. His new friends saw his indecision—his helplessness—and tried to help him out:

Cynthia
, he heard them saying to her.
The Necroscope is a busy man. He just can’t be at everyone’s beck and call. He has his duties in the living world, too, you know? And anyway, how can he possibly tell your Mummy and Daddy that you’ve spoken to him? They don’t know that we’re down here in the ground, still thinking our thoughts …
Their argument made sense, but still it seemed a cold one to Nathan.

“Let it be,” he told them. And to Cynthia herself: “Little darling, if there’s some way I can tell them, I will. And I’ll be sure to let you
know
that I’ve told them. Except you’ll have to tell me where they live, and their second name. And then … well, then there’s something I’ll want from you, in payment.”

Payment?

“A small favour, that’s all.”

Just ask it!
(He could see her shining eyes, could almost hear her small hands clapping her excitement).

“A kiss,” he said. “Just one, right here.”

And a moment later—

It was as if an angel had touched Nathan’s cheek. And in the air, he seemed to smell the soft sad scent of soap and tears and innocence …

When Nathan left the graveyard he was a man with a new mission; just one more task among all the others he’d set himself, which to most men might seem very insignificant in the greater scheme of things. To him, however, it seemed the most important thing in the world, so that by the time he reached the hotel he knew what he must do about it.

He found Trask and Zek in the bar enjoying late-night cocktails, and told them what he wanted to do.

“Now? Tonight?” Trask checked his watch. It was just after eleven.

“Right now,” Nathan nodded. “Why should they hurt any more than they have to?”

“But … do you think they’ll be up and about? I mean, will they still be awake, at this hour?” Trask didn’t know what else to say. His mind had been elsewhere.

Nathan knew it and forgave him. “Oh, yes. They’ll be awake. They’ll be sitting there in their lonely home, thinking, remembering, grieving. For you see, they haven’t been getting a lot of sleep; nor are they likely to, unless we help them.”

Zek said, “Let me get my coat.” And Trask and Nathan sat in silence waiting for her …

They drove through light, late-night traffic to an address on the outskirts of town: a fine-looking house with a gravel drive, well-stocked gardens, and a play corner with swings, a slide and a tree house. The place seemed in good order, yet had a hard-to-define air of desolation … or perhaps not so hard to define. Downstairs, the lights were on in the living room, whose glass patio doors looked out on the road. And in that room, a man and woman sat facing each other, apparently in silence, across a table. Their shoulders were hunched and they rested their heads in their hands.

Parking a little way down the road and turning off his lights, Trask asked: “Should I come with you?” But Zek shook her head.

“Thanks, Ben,” she said, softly. “But you might distract us.”

Nathan indicated a second car which passed them and came to a halt some fifty yards farther down the road. “Perhaps you could speak to those two instead?”

“Sure,” Trask nodded, as the two telepaths headed quietly back towards the house.

And when they got there:

“Will they see us?” Zek whispered.

“No.” Nathan shook his head. “We see them because of the light in there. But out here it’s dark. And anyway, they don’t see much of anything anymore. And they don’t
think
very much of anything, either, except Cynthia. Which should make it that much easier.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Just give me your strength, boost my telepathy, help me get through to them.”

“I’m ready when you are.”

Nathan had given it a lot of thought. He knew what to do, what to say. “Now,” he said, and reached out with his mind to the couple inside the house …

Their grief was enormous. And Nathan knew it for what it was. When he had thought that his mother, brother, and especially Misha were dead, he had felt the same grief—almost. But with him there had always been a hope, however slim, that somehow they had lived through that terrible time. And indeed they had. But Cynthia was undeniably dead, and her parents knew it. They had seen her through her illness, fighting it all the way; they’d stood beside her bed, to be with her when she drew her last breath.

And it was just as Nathan had explained it to Trask: all of the remembering, the grieving and thinking of sad thoughts was still in them, and all of the wondering about Cynthia
now
, where and how she was now. It was, in fact, the way it is for everyone who grieves. To see someone in the street who looks like the one who has gone, and to wonder why this one is here and the other … missing. For despite that Cynthia was dead, it was too recent; she just
couldn’t
be dead! Missing, yes, but not dead. Not possibly. Not while other kids, while everyone else, lived.

Nathan listened a while, until he couldn’t take any more of it. And then:

Only to this world
, he told them, in both of their minds at one time.
She’s only dead to this world.