Brian Lumley - Necroscope - Invaders

Cursing vividly, in the tongue of Starside, Malinari swiftly withdrew his probes. And as the pain receded, so he relaxed a little and gave vent once more to strained, broken laughter.

But strained? And broken?

He had thought often enough about that before — even Malinari — finding cause to wonder: The laughter of a madman? Well, perhaps it was at that, though he preferred to think of himself as merely… eccentric? And anyway, what of it? When a man is unique, surely he has a right to such small idiosyncrasies…

Drawing him back from his musing, the fading pounding in Malinari's temples was suddenly matched by a stuttering in the sky: the mechanical throbbing of jets, as their power diverted to whirling, fanlike vanes. And though momentarily startled — sufficiently so that he lifted his crimson gaze to the dragonfly shape that blurred the stars — still he felt no real concern or threat. His plans were laid, and every eventuality had been anticipated. Even this one.

Down in the gardens, in front of the casino, that was the most obvious of the few places where the jetcopter could land. But it was also one of the many places that Malinari had mined. And:

Hah! So be it! he thought. Now let this game commence.

The car at the gate issued a single man; equipped with a heavy, deadly automatic weapon, he crouched low and ran to the small, open-fronted chalet that housed reception. A rearguard, of course; also a guard against anyone trying to escape. These guileless fools! No one would be trying to 'escape' from Xanadu — well, except for these ridiculous invaders themselves! As for Malinari quitting the place… but that was the plan! And in any case, what would it serve to stay? When this was all over, there would be nothing left to stay for.

And now the flying machine was settling towards the garden, its searchlight beams flickering over the dark casino, the chalets, the pools. And suddenly the car's lights were blazing bright, lighting the way as it sped to its rendezvous.

Its rendezvous with certain death… but not just yet.

First let Trask and these E-Branch people taste something of what they had brought down on themselves when, of their own free will, they had chosen to pursue Nephran Malinari.

Lord Malinari, aye, of the Wamphyyrrriiii!

The coastguard vessel made smoke where she lolled port-side on to the narrow strip of sandy beach that fronted Jethro Manchester's island. Apparently crippled, she rocked this way and that in the gentle wavelets of the night surf. On her starboard side, hidden by the cabin, an SAS man aimed his flamethrower at the sky and fired short-lived bursts of flame above the cabin's roof. As viewed from the island, it would seem for certain that the ruddily lit boat was on fire; even as her keel bit into the sand, so a signal flare made a starburst high in the sky.

Also in the sky, but not so very high now — indeed, wheeling in low over the ocean's horizon — Chopper Two's pilot saw the starburst and told his crew:

'We're over the island. I can see the boat "burning" down there, and the lights of the villa in the trees. So this is it. Jump to it as soon as we touch down. I'll be airborne and waiting for you when you get done. You can whistle me down. I mean, you know how to whistle, don't you? Good luck, guys!'

Dark figures were running up the beach as the chopper came down, and a faint waft of garlic tainted the night air…

Situated one hundred and sixty yards from where the coastguard vessel had beached, and set well back from the high-water mark behind massively thick, fortress-like rock walls in four acres of landscaped rockeries and gardens watered from a small desalination unit, Jethro Manchester's two-storey villa was a luxurious, custom-built dwelling.

Standing central on a jutting promontory, the house was of timber and natural stone, mainly fossilized coral. It had been built from imported teak and dynamited rubble from a channel blasted through to a rocky inlet on the other side of the promontory. In style it was part sprawling Roman villa, part Austrian chalet. Manchester's yacht — by his standards a 'modest' thirty-five footer — was moored in a roofed-over lock in the artificial channel, midway between the villa and the sea.

These features were visible from the air, where at five hundred feet Chopper Two's pilot stood his machine off like a hawk and viewed them through its eyes, sensitive night-vision scanners. Every few seconds he would flip a switch to convert his screen to infrared and thermal imaging. All of the men on the ground were wearing headsets; the pilot was able to talk to them individually or as a group.

All subterfuge had been thrown to the wind now; the airborne party was safely down, and the boat had landed its

crew without hindrance. Now the task force would deploy into a semicircle to isolate the promontory, and move in on the house. If the target group had seen the boat's 'fire' or emergency flare — or if they had heard the chopper's low, prowler-mode throb and came out of the house to see what was happening or perhaps to take defensive action — then the men on the ground would be able to answer the threat without fear of firing on each other.

With his machine on autopilot, the pilot's attention was rapt on his viewers. For now, in addition to the central, gently fluctuating orange glow of the house, the dark-green terrain of his screen was lit by smaller blobs of human heat.

He saw two figures, fast-moving and crouching low, about to leave the narrow strip of beach and enter an area of landscaped rocks and foliage east of the villa. They were heading for one of the regular breaks in the wall. And the pilot knew that the four-man boat party had split into two two-man teams. This was one of them; they would be equipped with their usual weapons, and one of them would be carrying a flamethrower.

But as the pilot scanned ahead of them, suddenly, as if from nowhere, he picked up two more figures. They were in the shrubbery or under cover of the trees, but they were making a lot of heat! The writhing, blob-like shapes on the screen merged, drew apart, melted together again… a repetitious, oddly sexual-looking activity. The men from the boat were heading directly towards it and at some speed, and the pilot was almost too late to advise them:

'Boat party east of the house. There's some fucking thing directly ahead of you!' He couldn't know it but he was absolutely right.

On the ground, the NCOs spied sudden, apparently startled movement. It was dark, but not that dark, and the almost luminous tangle of flesh on a blanket under the bower-like branches of a tall, flowering shrub was unmistakable: the naked figures of a couple making love. Or they had been but now sprang apart.

'What the… P'The man sat upright, and the girl tried to cover herself and gave a small, warbling cry. The scene was so authentic and natural, and the couple seemed so vulnerable, it was the SAS men who were taken by surprise.

'Bloody hell… I' said one of them, his jaw falling open. And his companion actually turned aside the barrel of his weapon a little, deflecting it from the pair and easing his finger off the trigger. Surprise, yes — momentary disorientation and confusion — the only advantage a vampire could ever ask for or require. And:

'Oh, thank God!' cried the girl, as she threw herself forward and sprawled at the feet of one of the soldiers. 'Help me! Please help me! He was raping me!' A lie, which of course fell naturally from her lips.

But at the same time the naked man's arm swept up, to aim and fire a short-barrelled, compressed-air speargun. The spearhead was a trident with four-inch tines; all three of them took the off-guard soldier in his throat. And gurgling, clawing one-handed at the short spear in his crimson-spurting neck, he fell over backward and let loose a burst of automatic fire uselessly into the sky.