Necroscope 9: The Lost Years (14 page)

Fuck it! Why can’t I
ever
remember to take the garage key off the fucking keyring?
Now (as usual) he’d have to start up the car again to drive inside! Standing under the leaky garage guttering, he finally fumbled the correct key into the release handle and turned it - only to discover when he yanked on the handle that he’d
locked
the damned thing!

But even as warning bells commenced their mental clamour, as suddenly and as sinisterly as that,
he
was there again! That ominous presence watching and waiting, his silent snigger grown to a snarl now in the back of Banks’s mind!

God!
Banks thought in a moment of panic. /
must really be losing it!
And:
Bastard, bastard, bastard!
as he concentrated on what he was doing, turned the key the other way, and hauled on the handle to swing the door into its up-and-over position. Inside the garage it was night-dark, cluttered with household junk at the back. And the light switch … wasn’t working!

Shit and damnation!
But it was okay; the car’s headlights would give him all the light he needed to park up. But…

was that movement back there?

A pair of dark figures moving forward, silhouetted against the greater darkness behind them; and Banks frozen to
the spot, transfixed by the utterly unexpected!
But in that single moment he put the whole thing together, and the warning clamour in his mind - and the sniggering -went up several decibels.

The garage door: he
always
checked twice that he’d locked it. But you could buy these fucking cheap keys in any hardware store. And the light: he’d replaced that bulb just a week ago! And that sniggering in his mind: it wasn’t
in
his mind anymore but … but right here in front of him! First the sniggering, and then a low warning growl!

Banks unfroze … but too late. The figures coming toward him out of the darkness of the garage converged with him, fastened on him! One of them, briefly illumined in the rain-lashed glint of a street lamp, was

Skippy, Banks would swear. But in the next moment an arm went round his throat, and the scorpion-tattooed hand swept a glittering knife on high! Then—

‘No!’ said the second figure. ‘He’s mine. This piece of…
filth
is mine!’ But the voice itself was filth - full of bile and phlegm and hatred -and Banks knew that this was the nameless mental intruder. No longer a bodiless, spying, sniggering spectre but a living, breathing reality. And to corroborate it, coming to him in his mind again, but audibly now:
Your balls are mine, you stinking cop scumbag!

Then Skippy’s knee in Banks’s back, thrusting him forward onto something that ripped him open like a paper bag. Pain!

Unbelievable pain! And the slash, slash, slash of silver-flashing steel as sharp as razors … the hot surging wetness of Banks’s blood from his face, chest, belly and genitals as he went down. In just a couple of seconds he lost pints of blood. That alone would suffice to stop him, the shock alone: of feeling his face torn open to the bone, his belly in ribbons, his manhood shorn from him in a tearing of upward-swinging scythes!

And the slashes not stopping but continuing to rain down on him where he slumped, then crawled, then collapsed.

But the pain … miraculously the pain was going away, like a dull ache receding; so that only the tearing of shuddering but no longer protesting flesh remained to remind him of his murder. Because Banks knew that that was what it was: The End of him, with al his blood leaking out onto the floor, to mix with the rain and the oil-clogged dirt …

He lay just inside the garage, looking out. After a while (it might have been hours but could only have been seconds), his eyes focused one last time on the rain-blurred street lamp. It was either that, a focusing, or the mucus of his eyes drying on the nerveless eyeballs to sharpen his dying vision. But as his brain prepared to switch off, someone or thing -a face, anyway - leaned down and looked him in his own torn and bloodied face.

But god, that the last thing he would ever see should be
that
face! It wasn’t Skippy; it wasn’t human; it wasn’t
anything
Banks might ever have believed in. But it
was
as monstrous as the death it had delivered. So that he didn’t just die but went out screaming, however silently.

And as if in mocking answer, the last thing he ever
heard
seemed to be a distant howling …

… Banks was still doing it, silently screaming - but in the eye of memory now, a scream of rage and frustration as well as horror - as that rabid wolf visage gradually faded from his mind, and the drizzle worked its way inside Harry’s colar, and Bank’s sobbing from beyond lit a fire in the Necroscope’s guts that he knew couldn’t be extinguished as long as this went unresolved, unpunished. Until he’d ‘seen’ the face of the wolf for himself, Harry had almost

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forgotten what Darcy Clarke had told him: the werewolf theory.
Having
seen it, his senses were as shocked as the dead mind’s that transmitted the pictures, as stunned as Banks had been on the night of his murder. He couldn’t help but wonder if he would have fared any better. Probably not, not then, but he would now. It was al a mater of knowing what you were up against.

Gathering his composure and his thoughts, he finally said: ‘Two of them, then. Skippy and …
that,
whatever it was.’

His voice was colder than the grave itself, so that Jim Banks knew Harry wouldn’t let him down even if his own life were forfeit.

And:
Wel, what do you think?
The dead man was able to ask him at last. /
mean, was I crazy, Harry? Or what?

‘You’re as sane as I am,’ Harry told him. And to himself:
Which right now isn’t saying much!
‘But what do you reckon?’

Banks shook off the last remnants of his own horror, and answered,
What do I reckon? Dead reckoning, eh, Harry?
But his words contained litle or no humour.
All right: I think it was a bloke dressed up as a wolf. See, a wolf or big dog goes on all fours, but this bloke was
leaning over me! So …
why the disguise? I mean, if I’d survived they were goners anyway. I had already identified Skippy. So why that crazy horror
mask?

‘Work on “crazy,” ‘ Harry told him. ‘A lunatic, Jim. Someone influenced by the full moon, who
thinks
he’s a werewolf.’

Really?
The single word sounded like a sigh of relief to the Necroscope. Even dead, Banks was pleased to know that his mind hadn’t been cracking up.

Harry squared his shoulders, tucked his collar in more yet and prepared to leave. ‘I have some people waiting for me,’ he was apologetic. ‘But before I go I want to thank you, Jim, for what you’ve told me. It wasn’t easy for you, I know. I mean,
I
really do know.’

Its okay,
the other told him.
Just don’t forget to let me know how it turns out, right? It might make all of…
this,
a little easier
to get used to.

‘Be sure I’ll let you know,’ Harry told him. ‘One way or the other, I’ll let you know … ”

Beyond the gates of the cemetery, Darcy Clarke and the locator Ken Layard were waiting in a Branch car. Darcy was at the wheel and Layard sat slumped in the back seat, half asleep, his mouth lolling open. As the figure of the Necroscope loomed out of the wreathing mist, Darcy opened the front passenger door for him.

He got in, looked at Darcy, said: ‘You know, there’s really no need. Transport is the last thing I require. You could find a lot better things to do with your time.’

Darcy gave a shrug and started up the motor. ‘Harry, the way we see it you’re our most valuable asset. We can’t be sure how or even if it will

work out, but eventually, if it’s feasible, we’d like you to take over as Head of Branch. Except, as you know, we’ve already lost two heads in the last two years! So—’

‘—So you intend to keep your beady eyes on me … yes, I know.’

As they puled away from the curb, Layard jerked awake in the back, said:
‘Huh—?’
And, ‘Oh, Alec!’

Harry felt Darcy cringe down in his seat beside him, and turned his pale face to glower at Layard where the locator was already biting his lip. But whatever the Necroscope might have said, Darcy beat him to it. ‘Ken, were you just born stupid or does it take a lot of practice?’

‘I…’ Layard said, glancing at Darcy, then looking into Harry’s face. Finaly he shrugged and sighed, ‘I guess I was asleep. What can I say? I’m sorry … Harry.’

Folowing which he tried to change the subject. ‘Anyway, how did things go? I mean, did you get to … weU, speak to him?’

The Necroscope hadn’t been in a good mood to start with; now he wasn’t in any sort of mood at al. ‘Yes, I … “wel, got to speak to him,” ‘ he mimicked the other’s hesitancy. ‘I’d never met Jim Banks in life, but we got on prety wel. Funny thing, but for a total stranger
he
knew my name right from the word go! And he’d only had a few minutes - which is a lot less than eighteen fucking months!’ It was perhaps unfair of him, but that was the way he felt.

In any case, nothing more was said until they reached their second destination. Nothing that Darcy or Layard were privy to anyway …

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IV

KEENAN GORMLEY, AND OTHER VICTIMS.

Banks had been the first man to die; or rather, he’d been the first
policeman
to die. But on the way to the second graveyard, this time in the Muswell Hil district, as the Necroscope tried to relax in the front passenger seat, closed his tired eyes and settled down into the worn leather upholstery:

Harry?
The dead voice was one he would know anywhere, any time: it was that of Sir Keenan Gormley, first Head of E-Branch.
Harry? Harry, my boy! I can’t tell you how good it is to know you’re alive and well… again. Word has
reached me about what you’re working on. You’re the Necroscope and your thoughts are very strong; sometimes we can’t help
but overhear them. And of course we’ve been, you know, ‘holding our breath,’ as it were, since discovering that you were back in
the land of the living. In fact I’ve held back - oh, for a
long
time
-
from contacting you, for I knew you’d be busy. But
as of now I want you to know that if there’s anything we can do …?

‘Sir Keenan?’ The Necroscope spoke under his breath, the merest whisper of sound, drowned out by the car’s motor. ‘It’s good to know you’re still around, too.’ (What does one say to someone who was cremated more than two years ago?) ‘I suppose you know that I’m … what? Not the man I used to be?’ Conversing with the dead could be complicated.

We know about it, yes,
Sir Keenan’s incorporeal voice was sorrowful, for Alec Kyle.
And also something of your
problems, Harry. Your discomfort? But you know, Alec’s case was one in a million.. He was
totally
lost, to the living
and the dead alike. But without him we wouldn’t have you. So you see, your problem is our blessing. Where would we ever have
been, what could we ever have done, without the Necroscope?

‘And for that mater, what can you do now?’ The way Harry said it, it wasn’t a thoughtless question. The Great Majority were his friends and very important to him; he simply referred to their incorporeal condition.

Or rather, their usual condition, without that they were engaged in any …
activity
on his behalf. But as wel as having certain conversational difficulties, communication with the teeming dead (much like telepathy) frequently conveys more than is actually said, and Sir Keenan understood that the Necroscope was only showing his customary concern and humility.

Well, for one thing, we can tell you that the deaths you’re currently investigating weren’t the first of this maniac’s murders!

There have been a dozen here in London, all occurring near the time of the full moon; maybe a day or so before, during, or after. But
it must be said that the victims were no great loss to humanity … nor of any special benefit to us! In fact, and to be frank
about it, they are mainly of the criminal element.

‘Ganglanders?’ Harry wasn’t surprised. There had always been gang wars in London and there always would be, mainly for territory. ‘From the East End?’

In almost every instance, yes. But what a close-mouthed bunch, Harry! Honour among thieves and all that rubbish! And of
course there was nothing they could do about their lot anyway. Ah, but that’s all changed now that you are on the case!

You’re the Necroscope; which is to say you’re not ‘Filth,’ not the law! With you, they don’t consider themselves informants; it’s
not like ‘grassing” in the normal sense of the word.

‘How good is their information?’ Harry was eager now. For the fact was that he didn’t have a lot to go on.

I’m afraid there’s not
that
much I can tell you,
the dead man answered.
And most of it is conjectural anyway. But
surely anything is better than nothing?

Harry gave a mental nod. Tel me, then,’ he said, ‘and let me be the judge of it.’

The murders had al happened during the last three years, al of them around the time of the ful moon, but not so many that the police would necessarily make the connection; there’d been a good many killings in that time-frame. Indeed the only thing that
might
have connected them lay in their uniformly unsolved status …