Brian Lumley - Necroscope

'It's Harry here. I'm in Edinburgh staying with friends. How've you been keeping?'

Shukshin choked back the anger which came on the instant, boiling to the surface. So that was it: this damned spawn of an ESPer was here, close at hand, sending out his psychic aura to crush Shukshin's sensitive spirits! He bared his teeth, glared at the telephone in his hand, fought down the urge to curse and rage. 'Harry? Is that you? In Edinburgh, you say? How thoughtful of you to call me.' You bastard! Your mutant aura is hurting me!

'But you sound so well!' the other sounded surprised. 'When I saw you last you seemed so — '

'Yes, I know.' Shukshin tried not to snarl. 'I hadn't been too well, Harry, but I'm fine now. Was there something you wanted?' / could eat your heart, you unnatural little swine!

'Why, yes. I wondered if perhaps I might come to see you. Maybe we could talk a little about my mother. Also, I've got my skates with me. If the river's frozen I could do some skating. I'm only up here for a few days more, you see, and I — '

'No!' Shukshin snapped, and at once checked himself. Why not get it over with? Why not get this shadow from the past out of the way once and for always? Whatever it was that Keogh knew or suspected — however he had come by Shukshin's ring, which the Russian had believed lost in the river, and whatever the psychic link between this youth and his mother, which apparently bound them still — why not bring it to an end right here and now? Common-sense stood no chance against the bloodlust which surged in Shukshin now.

'Stepfather?'

'I meant only — Harry, my nerves still aren't up to much, I'm afraid. Living here all alone — you know, I'm not used to company. Of course I'd like to see you, and

the river is perfect just now for skating, but I really couldn't do with a houseful of young people, Harry.'

'Oh, no, Stepfather, I didn't intend bringing anyone with me. I wouldn't think of imposing on you to that extent. Why, my friends don't even know I have a relative up here! No, chiefly I'd just like to visit the house again and go on the river. I'd like to skate where my mother used to skate, that's all.'

That again! The bastard did know something — or at least suspected something — definitely! So he wanted to skate, did he? On the river, where his mother skated. Shukshin's face twisted into a leer. 'Well in that case… when can I expect you?'

'In about, oh, two hours?' came Harry's answer.

'Very well,' said Shukshin. 'About 4:30 to 5:00 p.m., then. I shall look forward to it, Harry.'

And he put the phone down before an utterly animal growl of hatred could burst from his writhing mouth and betray his true feelings: Oh, how I shall look-forward — to — it!

Harry Keogh wasn't nearly so far away as Edinburgh. In fact he was in the foyer of the hotel where he'd been staying the past few nights in Bonnyrigg itself. After speaking to Shukshin on the phone he shrugged into his overcoat and went out to his car, a battered old Morris he'd bought on the cheap especially for this trip. He had passed his driving test the first time around — or at least an ex-driving instructor in the cemetery in Seaton Carew had passed it for him.

Now he drove on icy roads to the top of a hill some quarter of a mile from the old house and overlooking it, where he parked and got out of the car. There was no one about; the scene was bleak and bitter; shivering, Harry carried binoculars to a stand of trees rising starkly naked against the sky. From behind the bole of one of them, he trained the glasses on the house and waited — for no more than a minute or two.

Shukshin came out through the study's patio doors and hurried through his courtyard garden, finally emerging from a door in the wall facing the river. In his hand he carried a pickaxe…

Harry drew breath sharply, let it out slowly to plume in the frosty air. Shukshin scrambled through brittle shrubbery and brambles down to the river's rim. He let himself down carefully on to the ice, tested it, sprang up and down at its very edge. Then he turned and looked all about. The place was quite deserted.

He walked to the centre of the grey-shining expanse of ice and bounded again, and once more seemed satisfied. And now Harry's eyes were riveted to the scene, that monochrome tableau which he almost felt he'd watched before, and the act which he was absolutely certain Shukshin had performed before.

For the figure trapped and enlarged in the lenses of his binoculars now crouched down, took his pickaxe and swung it in a wide circle, scoring a boundary, a demarcation, in the crusty surface of the ice. And all around that etched circle he strode, hacking periodically with all the strength and passion of a madman, until spouts of water jetted up each time the point of the pick struck home; so that in a matter of minutes a great disc of ice nine or ten feet across floated free in a pool of its own. Then the final touch:

Once more pausing to peer all about, finally Shukshin walked the perimeter of the circle, using his feet to brush icy debris from his assault back into the gap. The water would freeze over again, of course, but it would not be safe for hours yet, certainly not before tomorrow morning. Shukshin had set his trap — but he didn't know that the intended victim had watched him do it!

Harry could scarce control his shivering now, the trembling in all his limbs which had little or nothing to do with the actual temperature. No, it had more to do with the mental condition of that hunched figure down there on the ice. The binoculars were not powerful enough to bring the figure really close, but still Harry was sure that he'd seen its face working hideously through all the hacking. The face of a lunatic, who for some reason lusted after Harry's life as once he had lusted after — and taken — his mother's.

Harry wanted to know why, would not rest until he had the answer. And there was only one way to get it.

Feeling physically and mentally weary, and yet knowing that his work wasn't over yet, Viktor Shukshin returned to the house. Inside the walled courtyard, he dragged his pickaxe behind him across frosted flags, letting its haft fall clattering from his fingers before he stepped through the open patio doors and into his study. Head down and arms dangling at his sides, he took two more paces into the room — and froze!

What? Was Keogh here already? The entire house felt filled with strange forces. It reeked of ESP-aura, its very atmosphere seeming to vibrate with alien energies.

Instantly inflamed, now Shukshin sensed movement: the patio doors clicking shut behind him! He whirled, saw, and his jaw fell open. 'Who…? What…' he choked.

Two men faced him, stood there in his own study where they had waited for him, and one of them held a gun pointed straight at Shukshin's heart. He recognised the weapon as Russian service issue, recognised the coldly emotionless looks of the two men, and felt Doom closing its fist on him. But in a way it was not entirely unexpected.

He had thought there might be some sort of visit one day. But that it should be now, of all ill-omened moments.

'Sit down — Comrade,' said the tall one, his voice harsh as a file on Shukshin's ragged nerves.

Max Batu pushed a chair forward and Shukshin very nearly collapsed into it. Batu moved to stand behind him where he sat facing Dragosani. The ESP-aura washed all about Shukshin now, as if his mind swam in bile. Oh, yes, they were from the Chateau Bronnitsy, these two!

The blackmailer's face was ravaged, eyes sunken deep in black sockets. Looking over his head at Dragosani, finally Batu's round face cracked into a grin. 'Comrade Dragosani,' he said, 'I had always thought you looked ill — until now!'