Brian Lumley - Necroscope

'What the hell's that?' Harry was nonplussed.

'It's a Mobius strip,' said Gormley. 'Named after its inventor, August Ferdinand Mobius, a German mathematician. Just take a thin strip of paper, give it a half-twist and join up the ends. It reduces a two-dimensional surface to only one. It has many implications, I'm told, but I wouldn't know for I'm not a mathematician.'

Harry was still baffled, not by the principle but by its application. 'And this is supposed to have something to do with me?'

'With your future — your immediate future — possibly,' Gormley was deliberately vague. 'I told you there mightn't be anything in it. Anyway, let me tell you what happened.' He told Harry about his and Kyle's word-association game. 'So I started off with your name, Harry Keogh, and Kyle came back with "Mobius". I said, "Maths?" — and he answered, "Space-time"!'

'Space-time?' Harry was at once interested. 'Now that might well fit in with this Mobius strip thing. It seems to me that the strip is only a diagram of warped space, and space and time are inextricably linked.'

'Oh?' said Gormley, and Harry pictured his surprised expression. 'And is that an original thought, Harry, or do you have… outside help?'

This gave Harry an idea. 'Wait,' he said. 'I don't know your Mobius, but I do know someone else.' He got in touch with James Gordon Hannant in the cemetery in Harden, showed him the strip.

'Sorry, can't help you, Harry,' said Hannant, his thoughts clipped and precise as ever. 'I've gone in an entirely different direction. I was never into curves anyway. By that I mean that my maths was — is — all very practical. Different but practical. But of course you know that. If it can be done on paper, I can probably do it; I'm more visual, if you like, than Mobius. A lot of his stuff was in the mind, abstract, theoretical. Now if only he and Einstein could have got together, then we really might have seen something!'

'But I have to know about this!' Harry was desperate. 'Can't you suggest anything?'

Hannant sensed Harry's urgency, raised a mental eyebrow. In that emotionless, calculating fashion of his, he said: 'But isn't the answer obvious, Harry? Why don't you ask him, Mobius himself? After all, you're the only one who can…'

Suddenly excited, Harry crossed back to Gormley. 'Well,' he told him, 'at least I have a place to start now. What else came out of this game of yours with Alec Kyle?'

'After he came up with "Space-time" I tried him with "necroscope",' said Gormley. 'He immediately came back with "necromancer".'

Harry was silent for a moment, then said: 'So it

looks like he was reading your future as well as mine….'

'I suppose so,' Gormley answered. 'But then he said something that's got me stumped even now. I mean — even assuming that all we've just mentioned is somehow connected — what on earth am I supposed to make of "vampire", eh?'

Cold fingers crept up Harry's spine. What indeed? Finally he said:

'Keenan, can we stop there? I'll get back to you as soon as possible, but right now there are one or two things I have to do. I want to give my wife a call, find a reference library, check some things out. And I want to go and see Mobius, so I'll probably be booking a flight to Germany. Also, I'm hungry! And… I want to think about things. Alone, I mean.'

'I understand, Harry, and I'll be ready when you want to start again. But by all means see to your own needs first. Let's face it, they have to be greater than mine. So go ahead, son. You see to the living. The dead have plenty of time.'

'Also,' Harry told him, 'there's someone else I want to speak to — but that's my secret for now.'

Gormley was suddenly worried for him. 'Don't do anything rash, Harry. I mean — '

'You said I should go it alone, do it my way,' Harry reminded him.

He sensed Gormley's nod of acquiescence. That's right, son. Let's just hope you do it right, that's all.'

Which was one sentiment Harry could only agree with.

Late that same evening, at the Russian Embassy Dragosani and Batu had finished their packing and were looking forward to their morning flight out. Dragosani had not yet started to commit his knowledge to paper; this was the last place for that sort of undertaking. One might as well write a letter direct to Yuri Andropov himself!

The two Russian agents had rooms with a linking door and only one telephone, which was situated in Batu's apartment. The necromancer had just stretched himself out on his bed, lost in his own strange, dark

thoughts, when he heard the phone ring in Batu's room. A moment later and the squat little Mongol knocked on the joining door. 'It's for you,' his muffled voice came through the stained, dingy oak panels. The switchboard. Something about a call from outside.'

Dragosani got up, went through into Batu's room. Sitting on the bed, Batu grinned at him. 'Ho, Comrade! And do you have friends here in London? Someone seems to know you.'

Dragosani scowled at him, snatched up the telephone. 'Switchboard? This is Dragosani. What's all this about?'

'A call for you from outside, Comrade,' came the answer in a cold, nasal, female voice.

'I doubt it. You've made a mistake. I'm not known here.'

'He says you'll want to speak to him,' said the operator. 'His name is Harry Keogh.'

'Keogh?' Dragosani looked at Batu, raised an eyebrow. 'Ah, yes! Yes, I do know of him. Put him through.'

'Very well. Remember, Comrade: speech is insecure.' There came a click and a buzzing, then:

'Dragosani, is that you?' The voice was young but strangely hard. It didn't quite fit the gaunt, almost vacant face that Dragosani had seen staring at him from the frozen river bank in Scotland.

'This is Dragosani, yes. What do you want, Harry Keogh?'

'I want you, necromancer,' said the cold, hard voice. 'I want you, and I'm going to get you.'

Dragosani's lips drew back from his needle teeth in a silent snarl. This one was clever, daring, brash — dangerous! 'I don't know who you are,' he hissed, 'but you're obviously a madman! Explain yourself or get off the phone.'

'The explanation's simple, "Comrade",' the voice had

grown harder still. 'I know what you did to Sir Keenan Gormley. He was my friend. An eye for an eye, Dragosani, and a tooth for a tooth. That's my way, as you've already seen. You're a dead man.'

'Oh?' Dragosani laughed sardonically. 'I'm a dead man, am I? And you, too, have ways with the dead, don't you, Harry?'

'What you saw at Shukshin's was nothing, "Comrade",' said the icy voice. 'You don't know all of it. Not even Gormley knew all of it.'

'Bluff, Harry!' said Dragosani. 'I've seen what you can do and it doesn't frighten me. Death is my friend. He tells me everything.'

'That's good,' said the voice, 'for you'll be speaking to him again soon — but face to face. So you know what I can do, do you? Well think about this: next time I'll be doing it to you!'

'A challenge, Harry?' Dragosani's voice was dangerously low, full of menace.

'A challenge,' the other agreed, 'and the winner takes all.'

Dragosani's Wallach blood was up; he was eager now: 'But where? I'm already beyond your reach. And tomorrow there'll be half a world between.'

'Oh, I know you're running now,' said the other contemptuously. 'But I'll find you, and soon. You, and Batu, and Borowitz…'

Again Dragosani's lips drew back in a hiss. 'Perhaps we should meet, Harry — but where, how?'

'You'll know when it's time,' said the voice. 'And know this, too: it will be worse for you than it was for Gormley.'

Suddenly the ice in Keogh's voice seemed to fill Dragosani's veins. He shook himself, pulled himself together, said: 'Very well, Harry Keogh. Whenever and wherever, I'll be waiting for you.'

'And the winner takes all,' said the voice a second time. There came a faint click and the dead line began its intermittent, staccato purring.