Brian Lumley - Necroscope - Invaders

She sighed, then smiled again, but a real smile now. And a dribble of blood spilled from the corner of her mouth. Her hand straightened out — reached out to touch his face — but just a touch, almost a caress. Then her grip relaxed, her eyes rolled up, and she toppled away from him.

Lardis Lidesci stood ten feet away, but his machete stood much closer than that; it stood up from the girl's back, where it had split her spinal column.

'Get your gun,' Lardis growled, and Jake began to breathe again after what had seemed like an hour of holding his breath. 'Get your gun and put it in her mouth… and finish it.'

Jake was numb; his hands were numb as he took up his machine-pistol. 'But…' he started to say.

'But nothing!' Lardis snarled. 'Do it, and be sure to turn your face away.'

Just before Jake did it, Julie stopped her fitful, agonized writhing, saw the weapon's muzzle approaching her face, said something that Jake couldn't hear, just a breath of air. But he was sure that her lips formed the words, 'Thank you…'

By then there was plenty of shouting and shooting, the hissing of flamethrowers, great gouts of fire and columns of smoke, all of it towards the centre of the promontory, at the villa itself. And full moon or none, it would have made no difference; bright orange and yellow flames were leaping, and all the shadows cast back in Jethro Manchester's gardens and rockeries.

Lardis and Jake were the last to get there, but two of the SAS men would never get there. Close to the house, itself burning, they came across W.O. II Joe Davis and one of his men. The NCO had a flamethrower and was watching the house. Davis was on one knee, looking at a pair of crumpled figures. His hands kept reaching, and drawing back without touching. And his hands were trembling.

'Get up from there,' said Lardis. 'Back away. Let me see.'

Davis looked up at Lardis through moist eyes; he was holding on, but only just, to would-be runaway emotions. His Adam's apple rose and fell, rose and fell, as he fought not to betray himself. 'Old man,' he said, his voice on the point of breaking. 'I trained this man, this boy. He was one of mine. But I didn't train him for this.'

Lardis pulled him away, muttering, 'What could anyone have taught him? There is no training for this kind of thing, except on the field of battle. The trouble with that is we only learn when we lose.'

He looked at the mess on the ground. Part of it, the body of a mature woman in a once-white dress, was a mound of raw red flesh. Riddled with bullets — some of which had exploded — she had been torn apart from within. Her face wasn't there, and her lower body seemed to have burst outwards. Lying under her where she'd fallen, a young soldier in combat clothing stared blindly up into the sky. His brains had been split by a bright shining cleaver that was still buried in his skull.

But even as Lardis looked, the woman's arms twitched where they clasped her victim, and one foot shuddered and vibrated in a shoe with a broken heel. Jerkily, spastically, her chest rose and fell, as bubbles formed in the liquid red mask of her face.

'Did you touch… any of this?' Lardis looked up at Davis. The other shook his head. Then Lardis stood up, stood back, and turned to the man with the flamethrower. 'Burn it,' he said.

The man looked at his leader, who in turn looked at Lardis almost pleadingly. And Lardis said, 'Their blood is mixed. Your man's corpse is contaminated. Take no chances. Burn it all…'

As they moved away from the heat and the stench, Davis got hold of his emotions and said, Tve got men on both sides, in front and at the back of the house. No one's getting out of there. As far as I know that woman was only our second kill. My kill. God help me, I did that to her!'

'No/ Lardis shook his grisly head. 'Don't ask your god for help. She needed help, and you gave it to her. Also, it was the third kill. We've done one, too. A girl, back there in the garden. So you're not the only one who's feeling sick.'

And Jake said, 'Who was the other?'

'When I killed… that one,' Davis answered, with a glance over his shoulder, 'there was a scream from the house. A man in a gable window; he ranted and raved at us, tore his hair like a madman. Can't say I blame him. I think the woman must have been his wife. One of my lads fired a grenade in there with him, and it blew the gable to hell. Whoever he was, I'm guessing he went with it. But if he didn't he'll burn anyway. Look.'

They looked back, and by then the front of the villa was an inferno. 'It'll be the same at the back,' said the Warrant Officer. 'They have orders to raze it.'

'But that still leaves three to go,' said Jake.

'Two/ a voice called out, as a man came stumbling from the shadows. He was very pale, and he was carrying his own weapons, someone else's, and a flamethrower. 'I got a young guy — I blew the fucker's head off! — but not before he got Bill Powers. My old mate's dead!… But there was a girl, too. She got away.' 'No/ Jake shook his head. 'She didn't.' And: 'Two to go/ said Lardis. 'But where are they?' Right on cue, their radio headsets came alive in a crackle of static like frying bacon. And: 'Shit, shit, shit!' a frantic voice called. 'Can't anyone fucking hear me?'

And Davis said, 'Hawkeye, this is Road Runner. Where've you been?'

'Where've been?' the pilot at once came back, his relief plainly audible, despite that his voice kept fading in and out. 'I've been sitting up here listening to you! The radio's on the blink. I'm receiving but having difficulty sending. Now listen, I've also had problems with the thermal imaging… the heat from that bonfire down there. I sorted that, but now there are life-signs at the boat, two of them. If they're not your people, they have to be the ones you're looking for

'Show us the way to the yacht/ Davis snapped, now fully in command again. 'But if it gets away from us and makes a run for the sea, take it out. Bomb the bastard right out of the water!' 'Roger that/ and the signal faded to nothing — But in another moment searchlight beams lanced down from on high, pierced the night and converged, swung west and traced a path along the channel to the sea…

In Xanadu, fifteen minutes earlier:

Malinari had been tempted from the moment Chopper One descended into the garden. The way it hovered, mere feet above the ground, with its pontoons occasionally touching down, while its task-force contingent rapidly disembarked, regrouped into pairs and fanned out toward the casino: all it would have taken was a little pressure — literally the flip of a switch — and Malinari's worst enemies in this world would have been gone forever. Or most of them. Only the group from the vehicle would be left alive, to be dealt with at his convenience.

The way his fingers had caressed the array of switches — almost lovingly, certainly lustfully — it had been a moment of great temptation, yes. But no, it would have been too easy, and this Trask and his men would have learned nothing of terror, or the merest moment of terror, perhaps, before oblivion. And that just wasn't good enough.

Malinari wanted them to understand something of his superiority, wanted them to know they were trapped, even as they had thought to trap him. Then, if there were survivors of his holocaust, and when the flying machine returned to pick them up… time enough then for the grand coup de grace, the final stroke of genius.

And meanwhile, things had progressed more or less as planned, and Malinari employed his mentalism (but as little as possible) to stay in touch with events as they unfurled.

For his telepathy wasn't without its own problems. Indeed, it was a two-edged sword. For one thing, it brought pain: listening to the thoughts of others was painful. And for another — and most importantly — Lord Malinari himself, his location in the face of the mountain, might be detected and jeopardized if he were to give full rein to his mentalism. For he had learned something (not enough by any means, but something) of the esoteric talents of Trask and this E-Branch from the Foener woman before he'd killed her in the sump of that watercourse. And he had found out a lot more since then, mainly by trial and error.