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and Fancies
And then the Necroscope had dreahtmare, for in it Darcy was dead and his voice came to Harry as deadspeak
Even so it didn’t co a thousand echoes co to for
I couldn’t believe you would have done that to me, Harry, said Darcy when he’d established his identity I mean, I knew the moment they killed uardian angel - that you were responsible It could only have been so you did insidethat watched out for me, and so left me vulnerable But I still can’t believe you would, and I still don’t knohy I thought I knew you, but I didn’t know you a damn!
This is just a dream, Harry answered hiiving me trouble because I protected htmare, Darcy, and you’re not really dead It’s justmyself that I had to interfere inside your head As for why I did it: to be sure that if you caainst me before I was out of here, then that you would be vulnerable Because of all the talents in E-Branch, yours is the one that scares e, ain, and fail, but you would only have to pull the trigger once and I’d be a goner And it wouldn’t be new to you - you could do it-for you’ve done it before
Darcy’s deadspeak presence was gathering itself now, coh and took on authority as he said: It’s no dreah I’ve come to you while you’re asleep, still you should be able to see that But if you doubt me, why not ask your thousands of friends, the Great Majority? The tee dead will tell you I don’t lie I’ and shaking his head I can’t ask the dead anything, because they don’t want to know me any more Hey, I’uys, and I’m not one of those dead ones I’m somewhere in the middle, Darcy Undead Wamphyri!
Harry, said Darcy, bitterly, there’s no need for all this subterfuge You don’t have to try out your Wa it: you won I don’t knohy you wished ot your wish I am dead! I really aan to sweat Sometimes, like any other ht be erotic or esoteric fancies and fantasies; or they could be, well, just dreams But at other ti to feel like one of those ti desperately to stay that way, so you’re dead So who killed you? And why?
The Branch, Darcy answered, with a typical deadspeak shrug Who else? Whatever you did to aveYou interfered insideaway froot your taint No, I’ you vampirized me, just that you spoiled- and they daren’t take any chances with ht about it a moment, then said: Darcy, if you really are dead, if this isn’t just ht and I did interfere with your- then I’ll be able to find you when I’ain, through deadspeak Right?
He sensed the other’s nod I’ll be waiting for you, Harry Except it isn’t easy I’ether
Eh? Will you explain?
They burned me and scattered my ashes, Darcy told him I’m sure I don’t have to tell you why? But itin any special place I’ on the tides, flushed away down the city’s sewers
And suddenly the Necroscope suspected it was true, and he began to toss and churn in his bed that much more violently It seeain his words were less harsh, even conciliatory If I wrong you with accusations, Harry, it’s only because you’ve wronged asped Darcy it has to be! I didn’t mean to harm you Of all the men I’ve known, you are the one I couldn’t harm! Not under any circumstances Not because of your talent but because because you’re you And so you see, this has to be a bloody awful nightmare
And now Darcy knew that indeed Harry was just as innocent as ever, and that if anyone - anything - were to blame, then it was the creature inside hi one with him He would have comforted hiain, coth or the kno to keep it together He was only recently dead, after all
I’ll be around when you’re awake, Harry Try contactingfor ain For a while, at least Gratefully, he relaxed and sank down deep in his bed, and even deeper into sleep As is the way of dreaot the last one and prepared to move on to the next �C
- Which hen the Necroscope dreamed of someone else Except that this time he knew for sure it was more than just a dream and that his visitor was or had been more than merely human For his parasite responded to this visitor - this other va Harry to inquire: Who are you, that you dare cohts? Answer quickly there are doors in my mind which would s you whole!
Ahhh! caht with Janos, but you also lost I’m so sorry, Harry So sorry
And now Harry knew him Ken Layard! he said We took your head and burned your body in the ly to your death
Layard answered with a deadspeak nod Death was nothing co undead, in thrall to Janos Ferenczy He would have put me down into ashes, too but only to have ain whenever he had need of ly For I kneould be harder for k and his Thracians were quick about it I didn’t feel a thing
Harry’s deadspeak thoughts turned sour But you owe ive me? Because whichever way you look at it, I was the one who tracked you down And now they’re about to track loat
Layard was taken aback Horong can you be, Harry? he said Listen, I know you’ve been getting a hard ti dead, but you still have a few friends left!
You came in friendship?
I came to say thanks! For Trevor Jordan
Harry shook his head I don’t follow you
To thank you for what you did for hi I can do for you
The Necroscope began to ht? You and he were one of the best teams - one of the best partnerships - E-Branch ever had
The best! said Layard So when I died it was only natural I’d want to keep tabs on him, see how he made out What I did best in life came even easier in death, and in life I’d been one hell of a locator Which was pretty fortunate for me, else I’d have had a really dreary time of it What, me? A vampire? The dead didn’t want to knowpeople you’d known in life occupied a little of your tiet over your fear of death - of being dead - it can pretty soon get boring! So I traced Trevor, and discovered that he was dead, too, and I would have spoken to him except the Great Majority did a job onthe dead, Harry, and not a lot they can’t do if they’ve a mind So they’d throw up a lot of deadspeak flak every time I tried to talk to anyone Anyone, that is, except
Me?
Exactly! They’ll do their damnedest to mess us around, but they don’t mess with us! We want to talk to each other, that’s fine - just as long as we’re not trying to pervert one of theet to speak to Trevor was through ht
Except you’re too late and your deadspeak won’t work anyway - because Trevor is alive again Which means you still can’t coo-between
Complicated but, in a nutshell, correct
Well, you picked the wrong tietic Try me when I’m awake
I’ll do that But in the meantime - maybe I can do you a favour, too
Oh?
Harry, Layard said, I was one of the good guys a long time before I copped it And even at the end I was still pretty , ’in thrall’ to hiiven even the smallest chance I’d have taken him out if that were at all possible It wasn’t possible - not for lad I aot his, too So as you said, I owe you one Not one of the worst but a good one Like the talent of locating? Hoould you like to be a locator, Harry?
It would come in handy, certainly, the Necroscope answered I already have deadspeak, telepathy, one or two other things Being able to find so bonus
That’s what I thought So et to talk to you now and then, plus a reintroduction to Trevor Jordan I o-between Trevor would like that, I’m sure
What will it entail? Harry beca, I’m already in your mind - in contact, anyway - so I suppose you’ll just have to open up and let me look deeper inside I mean, I know my own trick, the mechanis in you
And activate it?
So like that
And you want ht?
Layard chuckled, albeit drily You’ve played this game before, Harry
Harry nodded Yes, I have, occasionally with disastrous consequences
Layard was serious at once Harry, there’s none of that shit in me I was stillup my sleeve
The Necroscope considered it But what did he have to lose? Very well, he finally said, except I’ve already warned you that my mind’s a weird place Don’t try to mess with me, Ken You don’t have much, I know, but I swear if you fool around in there I won’t leave you with anything
Hey, you don’t have to convinceYou said you came to thank me, for what I did for Jordan? I take it you ht hied Just because the Great Majority don’t speak to me doesn’t me I can’t eavesdrop now and then Also, the dead don’t move around too much, you know? But Trevor does So I knew that what I’d heard was true You have a heap of rare talents there, Harry A pity you didn’t get Darcy’s too, before they got him!
That focused the Necroscope’s attention to a pin-point
He fastened on it in a htmare I hoped it was, anyway Which means I have to hope this is, too
You have my sympathy, Harry, Layard told hiood news any more Lost for words, Harry shook his head, then deliberately returned to the forht, Ken, my ain ale place, Harry, he said It’s as if it was radioactive in there: hot and cold at the same time! But I found what I wanted; or rather, I didn’t find it You don’t have the equip there for ed You tried, anyway
But you do have David Chung’s kind of ht So I tripped that switch instead Now all you need is so to the one you need to locate You focus on it, and bingo! Except being what you are - everything you are - you’ll probably be better at it than Chung is
Harry nodded, said: Well, I suppose it’s ain Thanks, Ken
Oh, I’ll be back later to collect, Layard told him I mean, Trevor was like et so done You’re tired, Harry, in mind and body both
As Layard backed off and faded into nothing, the Necroscope’s mind cleared itself for whatever else, whoever else, aiting And she didn’t take long in co
He dreamed of Penny But was she a drea, he wondered about it: was she an adjust of mundane occurrences into all the subconscious slots between forget it, through trivial, to highly important - or just a re lust?
He’d known of course that the dead girl had a crush on hi For after all, how et to see their ladies naked on a first date? In Harry’s day, da his subconsciouson, and should have been titled: ’How Things Might Have Been if Harry Keogh Could Spare the Time and if He Wasn’t a Bloody Va and blessed relief to his torhtmare of association with Johnny Found, the delirium of Darcy Clarke’s accusations, and the revelations of Ken Layard; and it brought physical relief, too, as he answered Penny’s caresses and loved her with his body as any ordinary irl The initiative, however, was all hers - had to be - else his exhaustionhim down even deeper into dreamless sleep
And Harry wondered about that, too: how come she kne to do it all? For after all, he knew she was an innocenthis little innocent, whose death he would soon avenge
’Isn’t bringing ers to her stiffening nipples ’Do you have to go after hi since all of this happened And, I lad for I was dead, and now I’e, too Oh, I wanted it at first, I know, but now I’m not so sure But I’d settle for you, certainly’
He lay back and listened to her, and felt her sht on his flesh where it throbbed, but lazily as yet like afor the throttle And in the darkness she sat up beside him, crouched over him, and patted hi and snatching at the darkness
Are the sexual arts instinctive in some people? Harry couldn’t remember who had shown him Or had he just known? Maybe he would remember when he woke up But for the moment he didn’t want to wake up Here, now, asleep, he was just a man Noloved andwhich was the heart of Penny’s wo flesh And hoping against hope that the dreaet to coo, but already it felt like forever He felt full to bursting Maybe it was just being with this girl, Penny, just being hunancy of that was so great that when at last, gasping, she actually slid her sweet young body down onto hi his first love’s breasts And feeling hi within her - the hot spurt of his juices - she clenched hi of his flesh had spent hience of his need was slow but sure, and her guidance unwavering, until he was in her again
This time they lay on their sides, and while his left hand stroked, squeezed and coht tube of her vagina sucked on hiht: If this were real I wouldn’t dare, for fear of nant with my damned ’milk of life’! Or in my case, hed at hi spume of lust, more like For as everyone knows, only the blood is the true life
’Harry!’ she clawed at his shoulders, rubbed his chest furiously with her flattened, generous breasts And, ’Harry!’ she panted again ’I’ht hias treht him to his senses Suddenly he ake Wide awake in their sweat and their fluids and the pungent s back into the depths of his subconscious mind! Which wasn’t the ephemeral stuff of dreams! Which was in fact totally, terribly, real! Because Penny was there in his bed with hiht in the tuht, it’s OK!’ Penny said, grasping his wrists in the moment before she saw his eyes Then: ’Oh!’ she said, as her hand flew to herhere? How had Penny got into the house? Where was Jordan? ’Oh?’ he finally repeated her ’Bloody oh!? Penny, you don’t realize what you’ve done!’
He tossed back the covers and pulled on his clothes; naked, she caly to touch his redly illumined face in the darkness of the room
’When I was dead,’ she said in a whisper, ’they tried to tell me you were a monster I wouldn’t listen to them, because I didn’t want to talk to dead people But I remember they said there was life, and death, and a place between the two People have existence in the first two places but not in the third, which is reserved for’
’ For vampires,’ Harry cut in, harshly ’Yes, and for their victiirls who through their thoughtless actions change themselves into vampires!’
She shook her head ’But you didn’t take my blood, Harry You didn’t even make me bleed!’ She was defiant ’I’in II knew a man for a whole year, once’
’Knew a man!’ he snorted ’You’re a child!’
’And you’re out of touch!’ she hit back ’It’s 1989! Plenty of girls - British girls - get married at sixteen and seventeen these days Yes, and plenty et married but si my body felt like a child’s?’
’Yes!’ he snapped, then gritted his teeth, folded her in his arroaned, ’No You felt - you feel - like a woman But still a foolish one Penny, you don’t understand I didn’t need toof me in you now It’s not h to change you’
’Then let it, as long as I’ht ave me my life For what it’s worth, I owe it to you All of it And I want you to have it’
’You’ve run away froth
’I’ve left hohty-nine, reht: Dear God, she’s in thrall to ht, But she was even before this Except we’d call it a ’crush’ Please don’t let anything of me - of that - be in her!
His head cleared; sleep and all that had accompanied it receded; the implications calanced at his watch Only 10:30 pet in?’
She sensed his urgency and reacted to it ’What’s wrong, Harry?’ And now her eyes were frightened
As he put on the lights and his face took on a more normal aspect, she said, ’When I was here before, I saw the address on so about you In fact you haven’t been out of my mind for a minute And I kneould have to come to you No matter what’
’And Trevor Jordan let you in? Without waking me?’ Harry hurled open his bedroom door ’Trevor!’ he shouted ’Will you come - the - hell - up here?!’