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’Geor - Geor - George!’ Ar finally found his voice ’That’s a bloody wolf, there!’

’Bloody, yes,’ said the other

’So sh - sh - shoot the bastard!’ Ar’s face was deathly white in pale blue starshine

’Eh?’ said the seatedhis head curiously on one side, for all the world as if he hadn’t heard right ’I should shoot hi him? No, I think not’ He picked up a dry branch and tossed it onto the bed of hot ashes, where sered still Sparks showered up and the fla saw the bloodied holes in the other’s clothing, his torn, rapidlyface, the pits of hell which were his eyes

’Christ - Christ �C Christ!’ the big, ganglinghere?’

’Be still,’ the other said again, his head still tilted at an angle For long ’s terrified face, studying it, perhaps thinking so , and I cannot be alone in the world Not now, and not for sos to do I will need instruction Ifrohe’s h Perhaps I was too eager It is understandable’

’George,’ Are, listen’ He reached out a tre hand to the other - but the old wolf’s muzzle at once cracked open to display jaws like a bone vice He lifted his belly off the earth, crept closer

’I said be still!’ said the one with the rifle, lifting it until its foresight pressed against Ar Adam’s apple ’If the Grey One understands my wishes, why can’t you? Or perhaps you’re a fool, in which case I’ er and make a fresh start?’

’I’ll I’ll be still!’ Arasped, his voice a hoarse whisper, cold sweat starting out on his brow ’I’ll be still! And and don’t worry, George I’ll help you God, yes, whatever bug you’ve picked up, I’ll help you!’

’Oh, I know you will,’ said this - this stranger? - still staring fro you say,’ said Ar at all’

’Yes, that too,’ said the other, nodding And having made up hissi’ He moved the barrel of the rifle aside to lean closer, until his terrible mesmeric face was only a foot away ’Look deep, Seth Look under the skin of my eyes, into the blood and the brains and the very landscape of my mind The eyes are the s of the soul, my friend, did you know that? Portals on one’s dreams and passions and aspirations Which is why my eyes are red Aye, for the soul behind them has been torn asunder arid eaten by a scarlet leech!’

His words conjured seething horror, butparalysis, a lassitude of terror Aroing under But Vulpe - or whoever this was in Vulpe’s body - had been right: Seth Ar And before his will could be subverted utterly -

- He batted the rifle aside, so that it was directed at the wolf, and reached for the throat of his tore!’ he panted

As the Texan’s fingers closed on Vulpe’s windpipe, so that facsi cry and clawed at his face The three fingers of his left hand hooked in the corner of Ar howled his pain, bit down hard on the sers, severed it at the central knuckle in the ed his hand free

The rifle went off, its flash startling and the crack of its discharge reverberating frouns; unhar, still he whined and backed away

Gurgling and clutching at his da spat out Vulpe’s little finger, which hung froristle The Texan now had possession of the rifle and kne to use it But even as he tried to turn the weapon on the madman, so Vulpe recovered and kicked it fro burst free of his sleeping-bag, but as he lurched to his feet he felt so with laughter, the- at his face He pointed with his freakish left hand, where all that reer was now a bloody stump

The Texan put up a hand and slapped at the finger on his cheek, clawed at it It clied at the corner of his right eye Ared the eyeball and entered the socket With his eye hanging on his cheek, he danced and screae the thing, which burrowed like an alien worm into his head

’Jesus God!’ he screa at the riurgled again as he ripped the flopping eye loose and vampire flesh put out exploratory tendrils into his brain

On his knees, he shuffled spastically, blindly towards the fire, and shuddered to a halt He coughed and shuddered again, and toppled forward like a felled tree

But the Vulpe-anoood hand and swung hi hi said, standing over hih For if you burn it will take tione froe!’ the other coughed and gagged

’No, no,hideously ’From now on you must call me Janos!’

More than five and a half years later; the balcony of a hotel roo street only a stone’s throw fro in across the sea fro out the clouds of blue exhaust sent miasma of the bakeries, the many odours of the breakfast bars, refuse collectors and hueneral in this, the nerve-centre of the ancient Greek port

It was theand already threatening to be a blockbuster, and the sun was a ball of fire one-third of the way up the incredibly blue dome of the sky A ’dome’ because you couldn’t take it in in its entirety butoff the corners and turning your periphery of vision to a shadowy curve That was how Trevor Jordan felt about it, anyway, having thrown back ht before But it was early yet, just after 8:00 ah by the saet a lot noisier, too

Jordan had breakfasted on a boiled egg and single piece of toast and was now into his third cup of coffee �C the British ’instant’ variety, not the dark-brown sludge which the Greeks drank froradually diluting whatever brandy remained in his system The trouble with Metaxa, as he’d discovered, was that it was extre the nonstop belly-dancing floor-show in a place called The Blue Lagoon on Trianta Bay

He groaned and gently fingered his forehead for the fifth or sixth tilasses,’ he said to the own and flip-flops ’I have to buy a pair Christ, this glare could take your eyes out!’

’Haveas he passed a pair of cheap, plastic-framed shades across their tiny breakfast table ’And later you can buy me new ones’

’Will you order roaned ’Say, a bucketful?’

’I thought you were knocking it back a bit last night,’ the other answered ’Why didn’t you tell me you’d never been to the Greek islands before?’ He leaned over the balcony rail, called down and attracted the attention of a waiter serving breakfast to other early-risers on a terraced lower level, then lifted the eestively

’How do you know that?’ said Jordan

’What, that this is new to you? No one who’s been here before drinks Metaxa like that - or ouzo for that matter’

’Ah!’ Jordan remembered ’We started off on ouzo!’

’You started off on ouzo,’ Layard re at drunk’

’Yes, but did I enjoy ed and said, ’Wellyou didn’t get us thrown out of anywhere’ He studied the other in his self-inflicted discomfort

An experienced but variable telepath, Jordan could be forceful when he needed to be; usually, though, he was easy-going, transparent, an open book It was as if he personally would like to be as readable as other people’sto make some sort of physical compensation for his metaphysical talent His face reflected this attitude: it was fresh, oval, open, alrey eyes, and a crooked htened whenever he orried or annoyed, everyone who knew Trevor Jordan liked hi about it when people didn’t like hiy-limbed and athletic despite his forty-four years, it was a mistake to misread his sensitivity; there was plenty of determination in him, too

They were old friends, these tent back a long way They could cloith each other now because of their past, in which there’d been ti; times and events, in fact, so outr�� even in their weird world that they’d receded now to edies (or even drunken nights), best forgotten

There was nothing so deadly strange in their current h - but still Jordan realized he’d been in error the previous night He put on the sunglasses, frowned and sat up straighter in his cane chair ’I didn’t draw attention to us or anything stupid like that?’

’Lord, no,’ said the other ’And anyway I wouldn’t have let you You were just a tourist having hi the day, and too ht And what the hell, there were plenty of other Brits around who made you look positively sober!’

’And Manolis Papastaht me an idiot!’

Papastamos was their local liaison man, second in command of the Athens narcotics squad, who had coet to know the pair personally and see if there was anything he could do to si of a hellraiser, even a liability

’No,’ Layard shook his head ’In fact he was more under the influence than you were! He said he’d join us on the harbour wall at 10:30 to see the Samothraki dock -but I doubt it When we dropped him off at his hotel he looked like hell On the other hand they do have remarkable constitutions, these Greeks But in any case we’ll be better off without him He knoe are but not e are As far as he’s concerned we’re part of Customs and Excise, or maybe New Scotland Yard It would be hard to concentrate with Manolis arounda mental racket I hope to God he stays in bed!’

Jordan was looking and feeling a little healthier; the sunglasses had helped somewhat; fresh coffee arrived and Layard poured Jordan watched his easybrother He looks after me like I was a snot-nosed kid He always has, thank God!

Layard was a locator, a scryer without a crystal ball He didn’t need one; aof his quarry’s location A year older than Jordan, he stood a blocky seventy inches tall, with a square face, dark hair and complexion, expressive, active eyebrows and mouth Under a forehead lined from accumulated years of concentration, his eyes were very keen and (of course) far-seeing, and so darkly brown as to border on black

Looking at Layard through and in the privacy of dark lenses, Jordan’s thoughts went back twelve years to Harkley House in Devon, England, where he and the locator had formed their first real partnership and worked as a team for the very first time Then as now they’d been members of E-Branch, that most secret of all the Secret Services, whose as known only to a handful of ’top people’ Unlike noever, their work on that occasion had been far lessat all mundane about the Yulian Bodescu affair

Me once , full-fleshed and fantastic in Jordan’s ESP-endowed h and ai water and the girl’s voice hu that tuneless melody from beyond the closed door, and wondered if this were a trap Then -

He kicked open the door to the shower cubicle - and stood riveted to the spot! Helen Lake, Yulian Bodescu’s cousin, was utterly beautiful and quite naked Standing sideways on, her body glea water She jerked her head round to stare at Jordan, her eyes wide in terror where she fell back against the shower’s wall Her knees began to buckle and her eyelids fluttered

’But this is just a frightened girl!’ he told hihts branded themselves on his telepathic ht Ah, just touch me, hold me! Just a little closer,back away frolare in her demonic eyes As she drew hi arc, so he pulled the crossbow’s trigger It was an auto, his life or hers

God! - the bolt nailed her to the tiled wall; she screamed like the da tiles and plaster, staggering to and fro in the shower’s shalloell But she still had the knife, and Jordan could do nothing but stand there with his eyes bulging, ain

Until Ken Layard shouldered him aside - Layard with his flamethrower - whose nozzle he directed into the shower to turn it into a blistering, stea pressure-cooker!

’God help us!’ Jordan gasped now, as he’d gasped it then He blotted the unbearableback to the present In the wake of over seemed twice as bad He breathed deeply, used the tips of his fingers to e the top of his head where it felt split, and wondered out loud: ’Christ, what brought that on?’

Layard’s eyes ide; he bent forward across the table and grasped Jordan’s forearm ’You too?’ he said

Jordan broke an unspoken rule alanced into Layard’s , he felt the echoes of similar memories and at once broke the contact ’Yes, me too,’ he said

’I could tell by your face,’ Layard told him ’I’ve never seen you look like that since that tiain?’

’We’ve worked together plenty,’ Jordan flopped back in his chair, suddenly felt exhausted ’No, I think it’s just so that was squeezed up in there and had to be out Well, it took its tione forever, I hope!’

’Me too,’ Layard agreed ’But both of us at the same time? And why now? We couldn’t be in a ht now’

Jordan sighed and reached for his coffee His hand trembled a little ’Maybe we picked it up froreatalike?’

Layard relaxed and nodded ’Especially ain, if a little uncertainly ’Well, ht’

By 9:45 the tere down on the northern harbour wall, seated on a wooden bench which gave theht across the Mandraki shallows and harbour to the Fort of St Nikolas To their left the Bank of Greece stood on its raised promontory, its white-banded walls and blue s reflected in the still water, while on their right and to the rear of the pro , was not the commercial harbour; that lay a quarter-mile south in the bay of the historic, picturesque and Crusader-fortified Old Town, beyond the great mole with the fort at its tip But their infor on water and so on to Crete, Italy, Sardinia and Spain

A little cannabis resin would be dropped off here, by night (probably carried ashore by a crewman in swim-trunks and fins), and likewise in various ports of call along the way But the great o, which was cocaine - was destined for Valencia, Spain Froland Such had been its route and destination in the past Meanwhile the E-Branch agents had the task of deter (a) how much of the white poas aboard; and (b) if the amount was small, would a pre-e-barons; and (c) where was the stuff kept if it was aboard?

Only a few o a boat had been stripped to the bones in Larnaca, Cyprus, and nothing had been found But of course, that one had been handled by the Greek-Cypriot police, whose ’expertise’ perhaps lacked that little soence! This ti in Valencia before the bulk of the stuff could be off-loaded And this ti, wooden, round-botto called the Samothraki - would be stripped not just to her bones but the very marrow And in the interi her route

Dressed in tourist-trade ’Aht, open-necked, short-sleeved shirts, cool slacks and leather sandals, and equipped with binoculars, they noaited the arrival of their quarry Since they went allegedly incognito, their ht seem almost outlandish, but by coroups they could easily be too conservative And that was to be avoided

They had been silent for so of a mood on both of theut’ brought on by greasy food Whichever, it interfered a little with their ESP

’It’s cloudy,’ Jordan coed ’But you don’t knohat I mean, do you?’

’Sure I do,’ Layard answered ’We called itin the old days, re the pictures? Or obscuring the! When I reach out and search for the SaBut how to explain it in a place like this? It’s weird And it doesn’t come from the boat especially but -1 don’t know - from everywhere!’

Jordan looked at hiainst other espers?’

’In our work, you mean? Just about every ti at?’

’You don’t think it’s likely there are other agents on the same job? Russians, maybe, or the French?’

’It’s possible’ It was Layard’s turn to frown ’The USSR’s narcotics proble every day, and France has been in the shit for years But I was thinking: what if they’re on the other side? Iespers? They could well afford to, and that’s a fact!’

Jordan put his binoculars to his eyes, turned his head and scanned the coastline from the fort on the mole all the way to the heart of the Old Tohere it rose behindit?’ he said ’I mean, after all’s said and done, you’re the locator Butthe source is somewhere in there’

Layard’s keen eyes followed the ai motor-cruiser lolled at anchor in Mandraki’s narrow, deep-water channel; beyond that a handful of caiques were unnels with tourists; a further quarter-mile and the Old Town’swhere the hill rose in ain the ht well have been looking at a picture postcard The scene was that perfect

Layard stared for long rinned "That’s it!’ he finally said ’You got it first time’

’Eh?’ Jordan looked at him

’And of course it would have to be worse for you than for s I don’t read minds’

’Do you want to explain?’

’What’s to explain?’ Layard looked s ’Your tourist’s map of the Old Town is the same as mine Except you probably haven’t read it OK, I’ll put you out of your misery There’s an insane asylum on the hill’

’Wha - ?’ Jordan started, then put down his binoculars and slapped his knee ’That has to be it!’ he said ’We’re getting the echoes of all of those poor sick bastards locked up in that place!’

’It looks like it,’ Layard nodded ’So now that we knohat it is we should try to screen it out, concentrate on the job in hand’ He looked out to sea through the mouth of the harbour and became serious in a moment ’Especially since it appears the Samothraki’s just a wee bit on the early side’

’She’s out there?’ Jordan was immediately attentive

’Five or ten minutes at the most,’ Layard nodded ’I just picked her up And I’ll give you odds she’s in and dropping anchor by quarter past the hour’

Boththe entrance to the harbour, so , privately owned motor-cruiser A canopied caique ferried out a small party from steps in the harbour wall; two hed anchor; powerful engines throbbed as she turned al the deep-water channel Black awnings with fancy scalloped triure now lounged in one of several reclining deckchairs A talltowards the harbour ht eye

The white leisure craft was very noticeable now, but still it hovered on the periphery of the espers’ vision, its screw idling where it waited in the deep-water channel Both of them now held binoculars to their eyes, and Jordan had stood up, was leaning forward against the harbour wall as the Sa into view around the mole

’Here she coht between the Old Boy’s legs!’ He sent his telepathicout the minds of the captain and crew He wanted to know the location of the cocaineif one of theht nowor about its ultis?’ Layard’s voice caht here beside him Such was Jordan’s concentration that he’d almost entirely shut out the conscious world

’The Colossus,’ Jordan husked ’Helios One of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World That’s where he stood - right there, straddling that harbour mouth - until 224 bc’

’So you did read your map after all,’ breathed Layard

The old Saoing out; the forside each other - and dropped their anchors

’Shit!’ said Jordan ’Mindsh it!’

’I can feel it,’ Layard answered

Jordan swept his glasses along the sleek outline of the white vessel and read off its name from the hull: the Lazarus ’She’s a beauty,’ he started to say, and froze right there Centred in his field of view, the ht in his chair; the back of his head was visible; he was looking at the old Samothraki But as Jordan fixed him in his binoculars, so that oddly-proportioned head turned until its unknoas staring straight at the esper across one hundred and twenty yards of blue water And even though they were both wearing dark glasses, and despite the distance, it was as if they stood face to face!

WHAT? A powerful runted its astonishment full in Jordan’s asped What the hell did he have here? Whatever it was, it wasn’t what he’d been looking for He tried to withdraw but the other’s reat vice and squeezed! He couldn’t pull out! He flopped there loosely against the harbour wall and looked at the other where he now stood tall - enormous to Jordan - in the shade of the black canopy

Their eyes were locked on each other, and Jordan was straining so hard to look away, to redirect his thoughts, that he was beginning to vibrate It was as if solid bars of steel were shooting out from the other’s hidden eyes, across the water and down the barrels of Jordan’s binoculars into his brain; where even now they were hae:

WHOEVER YOU ARE, YOU HAVE ENTERED MY MIND OF YOUR OWN FREE WILL SO BE IT!

Layard was on his feet now, anxious and astonished For all that he’d experienced little or nothing of the telepath’s shock and, indeed, terror, still he could tell by just looking at hi With his ownstatic, he reached to take Jordan’s sagging weight - in tiuide and lower the telepath to the bench as he collapsed like a jelly, unconscious in his arms