Brian Lumley - Necroscope II - Wamphyri!

From real to unreal, from a flesh and blood being to an immaterial awareness, from a living person to — a ghost? Harry had always refused to accept that premise, that he was in fact dead, but now he began to fear that it might indeed be so. And mightn't that explain why the dead loved him so? The fact that he was one of theirs?

He rejected the idea angrily. Angry with himself. No, for the dead had loved him before this, when he was still a man full-fleshed. And that was a thought which also angered him. I still am a man! he told himself, but with far less authority. For now that he'd conjured it, the idea of a subtle metamorphosis was growing in him.

Something less than a year ago he had argued with August Ferdinand Möbius about a possible relationship between the physical and metaphysical universes. Möbius, in his grave in a Leipzig cemetery, had insisted that the two were entirely separate, unable to impose themselves in any way one upon the other. They might occasionally rub up against each other, the action producing reaction on both sides — such as ‘ghosts' or ‘psychic experiences' on the physical plane — but they could never overlap and never run concurrent.

And as for jumping from one to the other and back again.

But Harry had been the anomaly, the fly in Möbius's ointment, the spanner in the works. Or perhaps the exception that proves the rule?

All of that, however, had been when he had form, when he was corporeal. And now? Perhaps now the rule was at last asserting itself, ironing out the discrepancy. Harry belonged here; he was no longer physical but metaphysical, and so should remain here. Here forever, riding the unimaginable and scientifically impossible flux of forces in the abstract Möbius continuum. Perhaps he was becoming one with the place.

Word association: force-flux — force fields — lines of force — lines of life. The bright blue lines of life extending forward beyond the doors to future time! And suddenly Harry remembered something and wondered how it could possibly have slipped so far to the back of his mind. The Möbius strip couldn't claim him, not yet, anyway, because ‘he had a future. Hadn't he seen it for himself?

He could even witness it again if he wished, by simply finding a future-time door. Or perhaps this time it wouldn't be so simple. What if the Möbius continuum should claim him while he traversed time? That was an unbearable thought: to hurtle into the future forever! But no need to take the risk, for Harry could remember it well enough:

The scarlet life-line drifting closer, angling in towards his own and Harry junior's blue threads. Yulian Bodescu, surely?

And then the infant's life-thread abruptly veering away from his father's, racing off at a tangent. That must have been his escape from the vampire, the moment when he'd first used the Möbius continuum in his own right. After that — then there'd been that impossible collision:

That strange blue life-thread, dimming, crumbling, disintegrating, converging with Harry's own thread out of nowhere. The two had seemed to bend towards each other as by some mutual attraction, before slamming together in a neon blaze and speeding on as one thread. Briefly Harry had felt the presence — or the faint, fading echo — of another mind: but then it was gone, extinct, and his thread rushing on alone.

Yes, and he had recognised that dying echo of a mind! Now he knew for sure where he must go, who he must

seek out. And with something less than his usual dexterity, he found his way to INTESP HO in London.

The top floor — self-contained suites of offices, labs, private quarters and a communal recreation room — which comprised INTESP HO were in turmoil. Fifteen minutes ago something had occurred which, despite the nature of the HO and the various talents of its personnel, was completely beyond all previous experience. There had been no warning; the thing had not telegraphed itself to INTESP's telepaths, precogs or other psychic sensitives; it had simply ‘happened', and left the espers running round in circles like ants in a disturbed nest.

‘It' had been the arrival of Harry Keogh Jnr and his mother.

The first INTESP had known of it was when all the security alarms went off simultaneously. Indicators had shown that the intruder was in the top office, Alec Kyle's control room. No one but John Grieve had been in that room since Kyle flew to Italy, and the place was now secured. There couldn't possibly be anybody in there.

It could be a fault in the alarm system, of course, but and then had come the first real intimations of what was happening. All of INTESP's espers had felt it at the same time: a powerful presence, a mental giant in their midst, here at HO. Harry Keogh?

Finally they'd got the door to Kyle's office open — and found mother and child curled up together in the middle of the office carpet. Nothing physical had ever manifested itself in this way before; not here at INTESP, anyway. When Keogh himself had visited Kyle here, he had been incorporeal, without substance, a mere impression of the man Keogh had been. But these people were real, solid, alive and breathing. They had been teleported here.

The ‘why' of it was obvious: to escape Bodescu. As for the ‘how', that would have to wait. Mother and child — and therefore INTESP itself — were safe, and that was the main thing.

At first it had been thought that Brenda Keogh was simply asleep; but when Grieve carefully examined her he found the large soft lump at the back of her head and guessed she was concussed. As for the baby: he had looked around, alert and wide-eyed, appeared a little startled but not unduly afraid, lying in his mother's relaxed arms sucking his thumb! Not much wrong with him.

With the greatest care and attention to their task, the espers had then carried the pair to staff accommodation and put them to bed, and a doctor had been summoned. Then INTESP's buzzing members had concentrated themselves in the ops room to talk it over. Which was when Harry came on the scene.

While his coming was startling, if anything it was less of a shock and more of an anticlimax; the previous materialisation had prepared them for it. It might even be said that he was expected. John Grieve had just taken the ops room podium and turned the lights down a little when Harry appeared. He came in the form all of the espers had heard about but which few of them, and none present, had ever seen: a faint mesh of luminous blue filaments — almost a hologram — in the image of a man. And again that psychic shock-wave went out, telling them all that they were in the presence of a metaphysical Power.

John Grieve felt it, too, but he was the last of them to actually see Harry, for he'd appeared on the podium's platform slightly to Grieve's rear. Then the permanent Duty Officer heard the concerted gasp that went up from his small audience where they'd taken their seats, and he turned his head.

‘My God!' he said, staggering a little.

No, said Harry, just Harry Keogh. Are you all right?'

Grieve had almost fallen from the podium, only finding his balance at the last moment. He steadied himself, said, ‘Yes, I think so,' then he held up his hand to quiet the buzz of excited, expectant conversation. ‘What's happening, Harry?' He got down off the podium and backed away.

Try not to be frightened, Harry told them all. This was a ritual he was getting used to. I'm one of you, remember?

‘We're not frightened, Harry,' Ken Layard found his voice. ‘Just… cautious.'

I'm looking for Alec Kyle, said Harry. Is he back yet?

‘No,' Grieve shook his head, turned his face away a little. ‘And he probably won't be. But your wife and son got here OK.'

The Keogh manifestation sighed, visibly relaxed. This told him the extent of the baby's delving into his mind. Good! he said, — about Brenda and the baby, I mean. I knew they'd be somewhere safe, but this place has to be the safest.