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Charnel Knowledge

’Harry’ Darcy Clarke’s voice itchy on the ’phone, but he was trying hard to control it ’There’s a problem we could use soh, Necroscope,the head of British E-Branch, and it ht not have to do with hi softly

’It’s murder,’ the other answered, and now his twitchi-ness ca his voice ’It’s bloody awfullike it!’

Darcy Clarke had seen a lot in his tih knew it, so that this was a statement he found hard to believe Unless of course Clarke was talking about ’My kind of help, you said?’ Harry’s attention was suddenly riveted to the ’phone ’Darcy, are you trying to tell me - that - ?’

’What?’ The other didn’t understand him at first, but then he did ’No, no - Christ, no - it’s not the work of a vampire, Harry! But soh - but a monster, too’

Harry relaxed a little, but a very little

He’d been expecting a call from E-Branch sooner or later This could be it: some sort of clever trap Except Darcy had always been his friend; Harry didn’t think he would act on so it out every which way first And even then Harry couldn’t see Darcy co after him with a crossbow and hardwood bolt, a machete, a can of petrol No, he’d have to talk to hiet Harry’s side of it But in the end

The head of the Branch knew almost as much about vampires as Harry did, now And he’d know, too, that there was no hope They’d been friends, fighting on the saer on the trigger But someone’s, certainly

’Harry?’ Clarke was anxious ’Are you still there?’

’Where are you, Darcy?’ Harry inquired

The Military Police duties room, in the Castle,’ the other answered at once They found her body under the walls Just a kid, Harry Eighteen or nineteen They don’t even knoho she is yet That alone would be a big help But to knoho did it would be the biggest bonus of all’

If there was one h could trust, it had to be Darcy Clarke ’Give me fifteen minutes,’ he said, ’and I’ll be there’

Clarke sighed Thanks, Harry We’d appreciate it’

’We?’ Harry snapped He couldn’t keep the suspicion out of his voice

’Eh?’ Clarke sounded startled, taken aback ’Why, the police And me’

Murder The police Not a Branch job at all So as Clarke doing on it - If it was real? ’How did you get roped in?’

And suddenly the other was caught on the hop? Cagey, anyway ’II was up here on a "duty run", visiting an old Scottish auntie So I do once in a blue s for ten years now but won’t lie down, keeps on tottering around! I was scheduled to go back down to HQ today, but then this ca to help the police with, a set of - God! - gruesome serial murders, Harry’

An old Scottish auntie? It was the first time Harry had heard of Darcy’s old auntie On the other hand, this had to be a good opportunity to find out if they knew anything about about his problem Harry kneould have to be careful: he knew tooYes, and they knew tooNot yet, anyway

’Harry?’ Clarke’s voice caain, tinny and a little distorted; probably the wires swaying in the winds that invariably blew around the Castle’s high walls ’Where will I see you?’

’On the esplanade, at the top of the Royal Mile,’ the Necroscope growled ’And Darcy’

’Yes?’

’ Nothing We’ll talk later’ He replaced the telephone in its cradle and went back to his breakfast in the kitchen: an inch-thick steak, raw and bloody!

To look at, Darcy Clarke was possibly the world’s most nondescript man Nature hadhim an almost unique talent Clarke was a deflector: he was the opposite of accident-prone Only let hiuardian angel, would intervene on his behalf Which meant that if all of Clarke’s siraphs, he’d be the only negative He had no control over the thing; he are of it only on those occasions when he stared deliberately in the face of danger

The talents of the others - telepathy, scrying, foretelling, oneiro - were more pliable, obedient, applicable: but not Clarke’s It just did its own thing, which was to look after hievity, it ht man for the job The anomaly was this: that he hi He still switched off the current before he’d even change a light-bulb! Butat work

To look at him then, no one would suppose that Clarke could ever be the boss of anything, let alone head of the ht, ht stoop and a s in just about every way He had sort of neutral-hazel eyes in a face not ht re else, but other than that there was a general facelessness about hiettable The rest of hi the way he dressed, was hts in the few seconds which ticked by after he stepped out of the metaphysical M&ouh Castle, and saw Darcy Clarke standing there with his back to hi the legend on a brass plaque above a seventeenth-century drinking trough

The iron fountain, depicting two heads, one ugly and the other beatific, stood:

Near the site on which

many witches were burned at the

stake The wicked head and serene

head signify that soe for evil purposes, while others

were ood

The bright May day would be war wind; the esplanade was alroups at the higher end of the broad, walled, tar down across the walls at the city, or taking photographs of the great grey fortress - the Castle on the Rock - behind its facade of battlements and courtyards Harry had arrived in thethe esplanade for soo Clarke had been alone with his thoughts and no living person within fifty feet of him But now a soft voice behind him said: ’Fire is an indiscri burns when it’s hot enough’

Clarke’s heart juave afro hiasped ’God, I didn’t see you! Where did you spring - ?’ But here he paused, for of course he knehere Harry had sprung from because the Necroscope had taken him there once, into that every-where and -when place, that within and without, which was the M&ou, Clarke clutched at the wall for support But it wasn’t terror, just shock; his talent read no sinister purpose into Keogh’s presence

Harry smiled at him and nodded, touched his arain And his s their own fears,’ he said ’For of course most if not all of these women were innocent Indeed, we should all be so innocent’

’Eh?’ Clarke hadn’t quite recovered his balance yet, wasn’t focusing on Keogh’s’Innocent?’ He too looked at the plaque

’Coain ’Oh, they may have been talented in their way, but they were hardly evil

Witchcraft? Why, today you’d probably try to recruit them into E-Branch!’

Suddenly, truth flooded in on Clarke and he kneasn’t drea; no need to pinch himself and start awake; it was just this effect which Harry always had on hio in the Greek islands (was that all it had been, three weeks?) it had been the same Except at that time Harry had been near-iot it back, and set out on his double ain his ot it back!’ He grabbed Harry’s aret in touch with me,’ Harry accused, albeit quietly, ’or you’d have known’

’I got your letter,’ Clarke quickly defended hiet you on the ’phone But if you were ho Our locators couldn’t find you’ He threw up his hands ’Give me a chance, Harry! I’ve only been back from the Med a few days, and a pile of stuff to catch up with back here, too! But we’d finished the job in the islands, and we supposed you’d done the same at your end Our espers were on it, of course; reports were coiu, blown off the mountain like that It could only be you We knew you’d somehoon But the Möbius Continuuhted for you!’

Harry wondered: Oh, really? But out loud he only said: ’Thanks’

’How in hell did you do that?’ Clarke was still excited If it was all a shaood at it ’I ht it was devastating! Is that how Janos died, in the explosion?’

’Slon,’ Harry told hi his arirl’

The other’s excitement quickly ebbed ’Yes,’ he nodded, his tone subdued now, ’and that’s so else, too You won’t like it, Harry’

’So what’s new?’ The Necroscope seeh he tried not to show it, Clarke suspected he ary, too ’Did you ever showI did like?’

But Clarke had an answer to that one ’If everything was the e’d like it, Harry,’ he said, ’then we’d all be out of work Me, I’d gladly retire to like like I’ to show you, then I know that someone has to do it’

As they started up the esplanade, Harry said: ’Now this is a castle!’ His voice was more animated now ’But as for the Castle Ferenczy: that was a heap long before I got started on it You asked how I did it?’

He sighed, then continued: ’A long tio, toward the end of the Bodescu affair, I learned about an ammo and explosives dump in Kolomyya and used stuff from there to blow up the Chateau Bronnitsy Well, since the easy way is often the best way, I did it again I h plastic explosive into the foundations of Janos’s place to blow it to hell! I’uts of that place, but I’m sure there was - stuff- there which even I didn’t see and still don’t want to You know, Darcy, even a finger-end of Seine what a couple of hundredweight will do If there was anything there that we ed and shook his head, ’it wasn’t when I’d finished’

While Harry talked, the head of E-Branch studied him But not so intently that he would notice He seeh to see just a o, a visit which had ended for Clarke in Rhodes and the islands of the Dodecanese, and for Harry in the mountains of Transylvania He seemed the same, but was he? For the fact was, Darcy Clarke knew soh was a composite He o men: the h and the body wasit had once been Alec Kyle And Clarke had known Kyle, too, in his tiressed, so the Kyle face and forot to look more like the old Harry, whose body was dead But that was so which always made Clarke’s brain spin He skipped it, put the ht out of his mind and studied the purely physical

The Necroscope was perhaps forty-three or forty-four but looked five years younger But of course that was only the body; theabout soain Clarke forced himself to concentrate on the physical

Harry’s eyes were honey-brown, occasionally defensive and frequently puppy-soulful - or would be if one could see under those wedge-sided sunglasses he earing in the shade of his broad-bri in all the world Clarke hated to see, it had to be Harry wearing those dark-lensed glasses and that hat Anyone else, no problelasses They were so Clarke had told hi to wear such in the Greek islands in late April or early May, it was quite another to see theh at that time of year Unless someone had weak eyes Or different eyes

Grey streaks, so evenly spaced as to seened or affected, were plentiful in Harry’s russet-brown, naturally wavy hair In a few years the grey could easily take over; even now it lent hiave him the look of a scholar A scholar, yes, but in what fabulous subjects? But in fact Keogh hadn’t been like that at all Hadn’t used to be What, Harry, a black ician? A warlock? Lord, no!

Just a Necroscope: a h’s body had been well-fleshed, ht, however, that ought not to have reat deal But it had mattered to Harry After that business at the Chateau Bronnitsy - his ht it to a peak of perfection Or at least done what he could with it, considering its age That’s why it looked only thirty-seven or thirty-eight years old

And inside Harry’s body and behind his face, an innocent Or someone who had used to be innocent He hadn’t asked to be the way he was, hadn’t wanted to becos he’d done But he’d been what he was and the rest had come as a matter of course And now? Was he still an innocent? Did he still have the soul of a child? Did he have any soul at all? Or did so else have him?

Now the pair had passed under the archway of the uardrooroup of uniforantlet which was the approach alley to the Castle proper All of the officers in the guardroo’; Harry and he weren’t challenged; suddenly the bulk of the Castle loomed before them

And now Darcy said: ’So I don’t need to do any tidying up? You left nothing undone, right?’

’Nothing,’ Harry told him ’What about Janos’s set-up in the islands?’

’Gone!’ said the other with finality ’All of it All of the -just to be on the safe side’

Harry’s face was pale and griht, Darcy,’ he said ’Always be on the safe side Never take chances Not with things like that’

There was so in his voice; Clarke looked at the Necroscope out of the corner of his eye, carefully, unobtrusively exaain as they entered the shade of a broad courtyard, with gaunt buildings rising on three sides ’Are you going to tell me hoas?’

’No’ Harry shook his head ’Later, ht in the eye ’One vampire’s pretty much like another Hell, what can I tell you about them that you don’t already know? You kno to kill them, that’s a fact’

Clarke stared directly into the black, eniglasses ’You’re the one who showed us how, Harry,’ he said