Necroscope 9: The Lost Years (61 page)

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Brian Lumley

It would be a long time, if ever, before the Necroscope could think of it as ‘home’ in the truest sense of the word.

Which was why he’d hired a so-called ‘house’-boat down on the waterfront in Seattle, paying a month’s rent in advance for far less comfort and only half the space he’d been used to even in his and Brenda’s tiny garret flat in Hartlepool, in the … in the old days. But the flat had worse memories than the house in Bonnyrig, which was one of the reasons he had got rid of it. He’d thought about taking a hotel room, or a suite. Why not? He could easily stay at the city’s finest, if he fancied; and just as easily skip out without paying the bill when it was time to Mobius on. Except hotels weren’t him.

But, ‘the old days?’ Funny, that it seemed so long ago! Funny, yes … for a man whose incorporeal, metaphysical mind had once had access to all of the past, and all of the future, and as much of space as he or any man could live in or explore even in an eternity of lifetimes!

And the funniest thing of all - or the most ironic - was that he still had it but couldn’t use it. Not to its, or his, best advantage. Not until he’d found Brenda and the baby.

The past? That was over and done. There was nothing there to help him now, even if he had access to it. Which he didn’t; and that, too, was funny. Incorporeal, he’d been able to ‘immaterialize’ in the past. But now if he went there, he’d be like a toy man on a toy train that went in a circle - or figure-of-eight loop? - and never stopped; with all the stations passing him by, but never able to get off.

And as for space - which in this case meant the total of all the places, the geographic locations, in the world - well, he had access to those, certainly. But there were millions of them, and Brenda and the baby were only in one of them.

Which one was anybody’s guess. The Great Majority couldn’t help him, because they had no contact with the living except Harry himself. And the living … ?

Of all living people, the E-Branch specialists - Darcy Clarke’s espers - should have been able to tell him something.

Yet they’d told him nothing. And he believed them; they simply didn’t know. So where did that leave Harry? What chance did he stand? A very slim one, at best.

Yet there he’d been in Seattle, Washington, USA (why, he couldn’t say), allegedly ‘searching’ for two people who were, or should be, very dear to him. And he wasn’t even sure about that last part, either! Love Brenda? But she didn’t love him, didn’t even
know
the him he was now! And love the baby? What, little Harry, who knew more than he did about everything that made him what he was?

And yet Harry must search, if only to find out
why
they’d left him. No, not even that, for he knew why: because he wasn’t him, and because the things he’d done - and others he might yet do - were dangerous. The baby loved his Ma, that was all, just as Harry loved
his
Ma. Except
this
baby wasn’t about to let anything happen to Brenda.

And so back to that word: ‘search.’ Big joke! In England it had seemed to make sense. Close to Brenda’s source, she had felt more real, she’d seemed feasible. Here she seemed impossible. So what it boiled down to was Harry wandering about in a strange body in a strange city in a strange land, praying he’d somehow collide with someone who was trying her best to avoid him! And she had a million other places in which to do it. And things were mainly a blur anyway, because he felt like hell…

Maybe if he hadn’t run out of B.J. ‘s wine he would have stayed on even longer, doing nothing much. But it was starting to look like the wine wasn’t the only thing that had him under its spell. B. J. herself kept coming back to mind: some beguiling thing about her, some promise he’d made, or she’d made. Or maybe some unspoken promise that he wished they’d made.

Harry wasn’t too pleased with himself that he had stolen B.J. ‘s wine, but whatever else he did he knew (or hoped) that he wouldn’t have to steal any more. With any luck it was out of his system now. And truth to tell his ‘problem’ - his, or Alec Kyle’s alcoholism - had narrowed itself down, become specific. For it was now an established fact that the Necroscope couldn’t or didn’t want to drink any other kind of liquor. What was the point when it had little or no effect on him, except in massive doses? So maybe that was why he’d come home at this time: to be closer to B.J., and to her wine.

HeU of a note!

And what the hel kind of alcoholism was this anyway? Was it possible for a smoker to be addicted to just one brand? What if they stopped making it? After he’d finished his last pack of Brand X, what then? He’d never smoke again? The Necroscope had never heard of anything like it. And neither had his Ma.

Have it analysed,
she told him.
See what’s in it. Maybe it has an antidote.

Harry was sitting on the river bank where he had materialized, his first port of call upon his return. It had been just after six a. m. in Seattle when he’d woken up, lifted his head, and looked at an empty bottle sitting there on a shelf at the side of his bookcase headboard. An empty bottle and an empty glass. And his first thought had been that he had used up the wine and there’d be none for tonight. That had been some twenty minutes, a wash, shave and a good stiff toothbrushing while he was still brave enough to put something in his mouth, ago - plus a minute or two to get dressed. While here in Scotland it was mid-afternoon. A decently warm spring day; the sun shining, birds singing and all … and Harry feeling rotten.

‘Mobius-lagged!’ he grumbled, and at once bit his tongue. He shouldn’t be talking about that stuff to anyone - or even thinking about it where the dead were concerned. Even his Ma. He’d have to learn to guard his thoughts about. .

. about that sort of thing.

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Nonsense!
his Ma answered. But she was talking about his comment, not about his regretting it.
You’re not any kind of lagged! You’re hung
over, that’s all.

He was glad to change the subject. ‘Yes, probably. Except it doesn’t go away.’

So do as I tell you! And anyway, if that’s the end of it, it’s the end of it. Thank goodness for that.

‘But I know where there’s more.’ And again he could have bitten his tongue, for she was on him like a ton of bricks:
Leave it alone, Harry! That’s all I can do, advise you. You have a mind, and therefore you have a choke: be an alcoholic or
don’t be. It’s one or the other. To be or not to be. It’s up to you. No one can order you not to drink, but by the same token no one can
make
you
drink!

But in the back of the Necroscope’s head, a voice seemed to say, ‘Oh, really?’ Harry didn’t know what it meant, and so ignored it. ‘Anyway,’ he said out loud, ‘credit where credit’s due: I’m fighting it. It’s just this last wrinkle in my - or Alec Kyle’s

- grey mater. It needs ironing out, that’s all. It’s something that’s residual of him, like his precognition. But I can feel it adjusting to fit me, I think. And if I don’t use it, don’t pander to it, it will… I don’t know, atrophy? It’s just a mater of time, I’m sure.’

His precognition?
She repeated him, as glad as he was to change the subject.
Have you been having more visions, then?

‘No,’ Harry shook his head—

—And at once reeled, and grabbed at the root of a tree to keep from toppling from the bank! For his Ma’s question had seemed to bring something on, a scene obscured by what appeared to be mental static -until the Necroscope realized that he was seeing it through a blizzard!

A frozen monochrome landscape, like the roof of the world, and a gaunt range of mountains marching against grey skies that went on
forever. It was cold - a biting cold - that was so real Harry could even feel it gnawing at him; and the snow slanting down like a million white
spears, piercing his warmth as they landed and formed an ever-thickening layer on his being, his mind, his psyche …

… It was gone, leaving him shivering and reeling, while his Ma’s dead voice cried in his mind:
Harry! What on earth—?
But what she should have been asking was where. Where on earth? For Harry had seen nothing like it; he’d never been in or imagined being in such a place. He gasped for air, could scarcely believe that he was warm and the sun still shining down on him. It had been so very real. And damn it, he could feel it coming back again!

He had let go of the root but now clutched at it again, as the thing invaded his senses and tore him from his reality into its own:
The iron-grey mountains, snow-capped, ridged with carved, drifted snow; and the valleys and passes between the spurs and
peaks full of it,

like white dunes rolling to rearing horizons of stone. But to Harry’s right… what, a city? A walled city, yes,
protected in the lee of the mountains and by a long, snaking wall — like a miniature version of the Great Wall of China - with gaunt
square towers, battlements, mighty gates. But the old, cold city was dead and empty; it huddled down into itself behind the wall, and kept its
secrets …

It was much like a scene from some old geography book in Harry’s secondary modern school at Harden. And once again the thought
struck him: the Roof of the World, yes! But… Tibet? Why was he seeing a scene out of Tibet?

The blizzard had fallen of a little.
(Harry felt the familiar river bank under his thighs) -
but he also felt the cold of the snows gnawing in his
bones, and saw a scene from incredible distances of space, or even out of future time, enacted on the screen of his mind. But Harry
was the Necroscope and could handle it, perhaps even better than Alec Kyle himself. And finally accepting it, no longer
fighting it, he shielded his eyes against the falling snow and stared harder.

Out there on the white waste … movement? Single file, a line of seven people - antlike figures, at this range - were making their way across
the snow. They were robotic in their movements, like a military drill routine -left, right, left, right, left-but rapid and shuffling. The three in front
were dressed in red, also the three bringing up the rear. But the one in the middle was all in white. And as if from a million miles
away, the Necroscope could hear the chiming of tiny golden bells …

…
The cold receded, was gone from mind and body in a moment; the river swirled below; Harry swayed like a drunkard, and his Ma had time for a single word -
Son! -
before Alec Kyle’s talent struck again.

It was no longer snowing. Harry saw the six - what, monks? And one initiate? - out on the snows, tramping single-file as before. But the
walled city was no longer in sight; the location was different. This time, in front of the six, the base of a sheer clif reared like a titan face. It
was
a face: carved out of the rock! But if the location was cold, that great grim visage in the rock was colder still.

It could only be a temple, (a monastery?) with huge steps carved from the bedrock leading up to the entrance: the yawning mouth of the
great face. And up the steps the seven went, to where a portcullis was lifted and the throat became a passageway into the monastery. Then:
Sheer fantasy!

For as the seven disappeared inside
… so
the face became flesh! The great jaws snapped shut, and the eyes opened wide to burn crimson
as hell! And suddenly the no-longer-stone face was smiling the devil’s own smile!

Harry couldn’t believe his eyes. He blinked—

—And stared up at a blue sky, where wisps of cloud drifted across a blinding sun. He’d toppled over onto his back, and was lying there on
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the river bank with his mouth wide open. Dazzled, Harry blinked again -and at once gritted his teeth, cringing down into himself in anticipation of another shift. But no, it was over now, and it gradually dawned on the Necroscope that he
knew
it was over.

Then, struggling to sit up, and gasping the words out, he began to ask his mother, ‘Ma, did you—?’

Of course I saw it!
She cut him short.
We’re in contact; I saw what you saw. But Harry, what does it mean? What was it?

Harry stood up and shakily, absentmindedly brushed himself down. Finally he shook his head. ‘Whatever it was, it certainly wasn’t delirium tremens!’

But it’s all tied up, isn’t it? It’s all one and the same! Harry, are you into another of these … these
things
of yours?
Her dead

‘voice’ overflowed with concern.

Things?’ Harry’s mouth was dry; he hadn’t quite given up expecting something else to happen.

You know what I mean,
his Ma insisted.
Are you in trouble again, son?

And for the first time the Necroscope wondered,
Am I?

But out loud, without really considering what he said, he answered, ‘Ma, to the best of my knowledge, I’m not in any real

“trouble” trouble. I don’t think so, anyway. And that’s fine by me, because I’ve got enough problems as it is. So don’t you go wishing any more on me, okay?’

And yet again he could have bitten his tongue, because what he’d said wasn’t nearly what he’d meant. But too late now.

Well!
his Ma said, in a certain way she had, making that one small word an entire statement on its own. Following which she wasn’t much inclined to talk to him any more …

Harry walked the river path to the arched-over gate in the garden wall, and letting himself into the garden became aware of a car’s engine fading to silence at the front of the house. Since the rest of the houses in this once select, now neglected location were derelict, this could only be someone visiting or delivering to him.