Brian Lumley - The Source

The thing was melting, mewling and melting. Steam poured off it as its liquids boiled. Its corrugated skin blistered, cracked open, blackened. Gusts of vile vapour escaped in jets from its rupturing pores. It screamed and screamed with old Kazimir's face, through his mouth, but its voice wasn't human. Then the glass shattered and its great black steaming fist came through — at which the thing curled up on itself and gave up the ghost.

It collapsed, half-in, half-out of the shattered tank, became still. Then -

The blackened, smoking flesh of its head split open like an overripe pomegranate. A cobra's head writhed in the mush of boiling, steaming brains.'The vampire! And it too died even as Harry watched.

Free! said Kazimir. Free!!!

Behind Harry the room's great door sighed open. He conjured a door of his own and stepped through it…

Khuv, Agursky and the others reeled as they entered the room of the thing. In the swirl and reek of the dead, frying creature in the tank, they failed to see that man-shaped space where the smoke rushed in to fill a sudden gap. Harry had made his exit just in time.

Agursky recovered first, leaped across the room and switched off the power. 'Who has done this?' he demanded of no one in particular. 'Who is responsible?' He clapped a hand to his brow, staggered toward the sputtering, smoking tank, where even now shards of glass were beginning to melt in the intense heat. Then, as the smoke began to clear, he saw the creature's blackened remains hanging out through the shattered glass wall; saw, too, something else — something which he didn't want anyone else to see. He ripped off his smock, quickly threw it over the monstrous remains.

Khuv had meanwhile turned to Leo Grenzel, the locator. 'You said he was here, an intruder. Well, someone has certainly been here — though I'm damned if I can see how! The door was locked, and there's a guard outside. Oh, a half-asleep, stupid guard, that's true, but he's not a complete idiot! So…just getting in here would be hard enough if not impossible — but as for getting out…?' Then Khuv grasped Grenzel by the shoulders, stared hard at him. 'Leo? Is there something else?'

Grenzel's face was pale again; his grey eyes were deep as deep space; he swayed where Khuv held him upright. 'Still here,' he finally said. 'He's still here!'

Khuv stared all about the room, as did the others.

Black smoke boiling from the mess under Agursky's smock, and the crackle of cooked, alien flesh starting to cool; but no sign of any intruder. 'Here? Where, here?'

The girl,' Grenzel swayed. The prisoner…'

Taschenka Kirescu?'

'Yes,' Grenzel's nod.

Khuv whirled on Savinkov and Slepak. 'How can this be?' he asked. But already his mind was working; memories of reports he'd read flashed before his mind's eye; it was something from before his time, but weren't the British supposed to have a man who could do this sort of thing? Harry Keogh was said to have been one such, and after him Alec Kyle. Keogh was dead but… but they never had found Kyle's body after the mess at the Chateau Bronnitsy.

'How can it be?' Savinkov repeated his KGB master. 'It can't be!' He was definite. But:

'Oh, it can,' Grenzel's far-away voice contradicted him. 'It is/'

'Quickly!' Khuv rasped. The cells. I want to know what the hell is happening here!'

They ran out of the room, left Grenzel swaying there, his face slack and vacant, but his eyes seeing, seeing. And Agursky, bundling up the dead creature and its dead parasite in his smock, trembling in his eagerness to get it back to his private quarters and away from any threat of inspection by others. For he now knew what had controlled this nameless thing, and he wanted to examine that controller most minutely.

Indeed, to Vasily Agursky there was nothing more important in the entire world but that he examine the thing's parasite — whose egg had been deposited and was even now maturing inside Agursky himself!

Tassi's nightmare — of the key grating in the lock on her cell door, and of Khuv entering, dark-eyed and evil — had kept her awake. It was that sort of nightmare, the sort you suffer when you're awake. It was doubtful if she would have slept anyway; she hadn't since… since the horror Khuv had shown her in the room of the thing. She couldn't sleep, for the face of her father kept smiling at her from the darkness behind her eyelids whenever she closed her eyes; her father's face — on the body of a beast.

She kept her cell light on, and lay warm on her cot but shivering, drained of energy, waiting for Khuv. For her time was up, and she knew he would soon be coming for her. That had been his threat, and Major Chingiz Khuv didn't make idle threats. If only there was something she could tell him, but she didn't know anything. Only that she was the most wretched, unhappiest girl in the world.

When Harry stepped out of the Mobius Continuum, Tassi had just turned on her side, turned her face away from his re-entry point into this universe. A quick glance about the cell told Harry they were alone; he took a single pace to the metal bed, put a hand round Tassi's face and over her mouth, cautioned her in Russian: 'Shhh/ Be quiet. Don't shout or do anything stupid. I'm going to get you out of here.'

He kept his hand clamped to her face but let her turn her head to look at him. And with his hand still in place, he helped her to sit up. Then: 'OK?' he asked.

Tassi nodded, but she was trembling in every limb. Her eyes looked like saucers above her nose and the bands of Harry's fingers. He slowly took his hand away, gently urged her to her feet. She looked at the door, then at Harry, said: 'Who? — How? — I don't…'

'It's OK,' Harry put a finger to his lips.

'But how did you get in here? I didn't hear you come. Was I asleep?' Then her hand flew to her mouth. 'Did the Major send you? But I've told him: I don't know anything! Oh, please don't hurt me!'

'No one's going to hurt you, Tassi,' Harry told her. And then he made his mistake: 'Your father sent me.' Seeing her expression, he could have bitten his tongue through.

She shook her head and backed away from him. There were tears in her eyes now. 'My father's dead,' she wept. 'He's dead! He couldn't have sent you…' And accusingly: 'What are you going to do to me?'

'I've told you,' Harry answered, an edge of desperation in his tone, 'I'm going to take you out of this place. Do you hear those alarms?'

She listened, and indeed she could hear the klaxons, sounding from deep down in the heart of the place. 'Well,' Harry continued, 'I'm what those alarms are all about. They're looking for me, and pretty soon they'll be looking in here. So now I'm asking you to trust me.'

What he was saying was impossible. It was either a trick of Khuv's or else this man was insane. No one could get out of this place, Tassi was sure. But on the other hand, how had he got in? 'Do you have keys?' she asked.

Harry could see he was making an impression. 'Keys?' he grinned, however tightly. 'I have an entire door! Lots of doors!'

He was mad, surely. But he was different from the others here, totally different. 'I don't understand,' she said, still backing away. Her legs struck the edge of her bed and she flopped down on it again.

Running footsteps sounded, and the tight grin slipped from Harry's face. 'They're coming,' he said. 'Get up.' The sudden authority in his voice had her on her feet again in a moment.

There was shouting outside, the jangle of keys, Khuv's voice hoarsely commanding: 'Open it! Open it!'

Harry grabbed Tassi by the waist. 'Put your arms round my neck,' he said. 'Quickly, girl. No arguments, now!' She did it. She had no reason to trust him, but she had no reason not to. 'Close your eyes,' he said. 'And keep them closed.' Tightening one arm around her narrow waist, he grunted as he lifted her feet from the floor.