Necroscope: The Mobius Murders (22 page)

But as Hemmings’ huge hands reached to clasp his shoulders, Harry shook his head. “It’s not so much what I
think
, you great leech, but what I know. I know you’ve discovered how to conjure portals into parallel places which so far—thank God!—have been beyond your understanding. I know you tested these portals with Very lights, to discover their exit, and how you have used them ever since to dispose of your victims. And I know—”

“Stop!”
Hemmings gasped. “My…my
victims
? But what could you possibly know of my victims?”

“I know you drained them of their souls…or at least you tried to. But in every case they resisted you, and a tiny spark remained. Those sparks cry out for vengeance, Mr. Hemmings, from the bottom of the grey North Sea!”

“Ah!”
the great leech stepped closer still, his aura billowing out before him, enveloping Harry in its freezing coils. “So then, you’re a psychic! You’ve been appointed by the police, or perhaps the families and friends of my—my
victims
—to contact their dearly beloveds in the so-called afterlife. And moreover it seems you’ve succeeded! Well, who would have thought it, and what can I say? I wish we had more time in which to discuss your talents, some of which even I do not possess; alas that we haven’t. But as for
my
special talents: I think it’s about time I put them to the test once again; and where you are concerned, my psychically gifted friend, for the first and very last time. So then, Mr. Harry Keogh, let’s see what you make of this!”

Trapped against a stout fence, and surprised by Hemmings’ speed and agility despite the man’s more than borderline obesity, Harry tried to defend himself; to no avail. Caught in the monster’s aura, he felt the bitter chill where rubbery fingers gripped firm flesh through the material of his jacket directly above his collar bones. Simultaneous with the Necroscope’s immediate resistance to that chill—even as the fat man’s loathsome aura, at full strength in his coldly magnetic hands, began to suck on Harry’s soul—he sensed something else happening: a strange yet paradoxically familiar something which surprised him not at all.

Indeed, little more than a minute ago he had been thinking about and even anticipating this very moment; had known it must come, and soon. It was what he had been waiting and hoping for; and now it was here, conjured by this murderer’s formula out of alien regions, from spaces between the spaces we know…

Harry could feel the stout, inch-thick boards of the fence losing their integrity, becoming immaterial, and giving way to the pressure from his back; a very strange feeling which could mean only one thing: that the monster’s door was warping into existence directly behind him!

Worse, he was weakening; his life-force was being drawn out of him,
sucked
out by Hemmings’ vampiric aura! And even now the darkness in the allotment labyrinth—especially the area framing the pale bulk of the fat man’s face—was beginning to glow with a faint pink blush, a hellish precursor of the fiery reddening which would suffuse Hemmings’s features as the last dregs of Harry’s essence left him—

—Not that he would let it go anywhere near that far!

“Well Harry, and how is this for metempsychosis?” the great leech asked him with a greedy, belching chuckle.

“Transmigration?” said Harry, pitting his will against the other’s, fighting to hold himself together. “Not how it’s supposed to be, that’s for sure. Souls aren’t meant to be stolen.”

“You…you
resist
me?” Hemmings grunted. “Unusual, but not entirely unexpected. No, for there’s more to you than meets the eye, Harry Keogh, which I have known from the moment I first became aware of you in a prelusive glimpse out of time—a precognitive von Stradonitz moment—when I saw an image of your face framed in a portal that was the duplicate of the one I’ve just this minute called into being behind you.”

“Ah!” said the Necroscope then, summoning all the strength of his unique mind to resist the magnetic attraction of the fat man’s mutant aura. “So
that’s
what you think you were seeing: a scene out of the future—out of
my
future!” And he immediately felt the freezing pain in his shoulders easing off as Hemmings’ grip partially, if only momentarily, relaxed. Then:

“What I
think
it was?” the monster repeated him. “But what else could it have been? Now don’t try to confuse me, my young friend, for I cannot be mistaken. It was
definitely
your image that I saw in the portal that I conjured in the alley off Princes Street; your face, Mr. Keogh, as I shall see it again in a little while on the far side of the new interface which I have created especially for you!”

“But as I’m now trying to tell you,” Harry insisted, “that wasn’t a mere image. It wasn’t some kind of precognitive scene from the future, Hemmings; it was me—the real me—looking back at you! Maybe you should ask yourself something: how else could I know about such things without having experienced them for myself? Without having seen them with my own eyes?
Without having been there?
”

How else indeed? And the monster’s grip relaxed more yet as Harry continued:

“No, Hemmings, it was no image but me that you saw.
Me
, you great fat leech! I was right there, watching you as you drained Wee Angus of his essence—then consigned him to a half-mile of thin air and an unknown depth of salt water!”

At which Hemmings snatched a breath of air as he sensed his much vaunted superiority, his alleged authority suddenly slipping away, to be replaced by uncertainty, alarm and fear. He had said there was more to this Harry Keogh than first met the eye, but could never have guessed how much more.

Well, he had seen and heard enough, and he would put an end to this now—at once!

Oh, a pity to go hungry and let this sneeringly enigmatic necromancer keep his life-force for even a little while longer—at least until he took his terminal plunge,—but if an acceptable measure of hunger and temporary weakening of Hemmings’ own essence was the small price he must pay to rid himself forever of the threat that this Harry Keogh posed, then so be it.

As for Keogh’s mind—the vessel of all his dangerous knowledge, however obtained and from whatever source—his mind and very life: as of this moment both lore and life were as good as lost! So thought Hemmings.

With which and inevitably:

“Now you die!” the fat man grunted—and pushed.

But the Necroscope only thought:
What, me die? No, I don’t think so, Mr. Hemmings. Been there, done that, didn’t much like it! So now it’s your turn.

Harry had felt Hemmings’ freezing fingers releasing him and had known what it meant. But unlike the monster’s previous victims he had certain advantages. For one: having witnessed all of this or something very similar before, he’d been
ready
for what came next; and as the other heaved his gross body forward—in effect forcing the Necroscope into the void of the interface behind him—so he had acted. His right knee had slammed into the great leech’s pulpy groin with a piston’s force, causing him to squeal and double forward. Or rather he
would
have doubled forward, if his huge surplus of flesh had allowed it.

At the same time as Harry’s knee had connected with the fat man’s crotch, so his hands had shot forward to grasp the flabby jowls under his chin at both sides of his neck. His fingers had sunk in deep, finding and gripping cords of flesh that Hemmings had lost contact with a long time ago; and hauling on the creature’s wattles, Harry dragged the huge head down until he could look directly into its no longer florid face, its wet and bulging eyes.

Another advantage: the monster’s portal was just as tangible to the Necroscope as it was to its maker; Harry sensed it in his mind with senses other than the regular five, and was aware that in its current form and size it could only accommodate the great leech’s fleshy bulk if Hemmings himself were to perform a headlong dive into it…which wasn’t at all likely!

But as recently as yesterday Harry had called up exact duplicates of this mutant’s variant door into his own study, where he had practiced changing their structure. And this door was no different.

Now he tweaked it, at once doubling its size and simultaneously altering its terminal space-time coordinates, and without pause toppled himself backwards into it—
dragging the suddenly shrieking fat man in with him!

Beyond the interface the Möbius Continuum wasn’t quite as Harry had always known it, but close enough. And Hemmings’ shrieks of terror were adequate proof that for all the bluster of his lectures he knew nothing whatever of the interior of the Continuum. And his cries were deafening, an absolute cacophony of sound in what were otherwise an eternal and infinite void.

Ever available to Harry, the alien or metaphysical mathematics that governed this seminal place were at his command as he slowed the speed of his and Hemmings’ passage to something less than instantaneous. And then, unable to stand the great leech’s tortured screaming any longer:

For pity’s sake, shut up!
the Necroscope told him.
This is one of your alien regions, Hemmings; even a “classical” region, which was here before God ordered light out of universal chaos. But I’ll grant you this: you and Pythagoras were mainly correct about the power of numbers and pure thought. For speech is redundant here, where even the most fleeting thoughts have weight. But it isn’t so much telepathy as the “natural” order of things in an unspoiled continuum.

The other was quick to catch on, and eager to catch hold of Harry, too. He did so now, regaining his two-fisted grip on the Necroscope’s jacket close to his neck, steadying himself a very little in the faint glow of their rushing bodies as they orbited around a common gravitational center. “BUT…YOU
KNOW
THIS PLACE?” he began, until Harry cautioned him again:

Just
think
it, Hemmings! Trust your own doctrine! Let pure thought prevail! And yes, I know this place, or something much like it. But
this
place is of your doing—you brought it into being, and it has a certain feel to it—while the one I know is far more to my liking.

Now Hemmings, a quick study despite that he was terrified, knew how to proceed.
But you…you
understand
the secrets of such parallels? You can control the interfaces, explore all of the myriad possibilities of alien space and time?

No, not all the possibilities.
Harry shook his head.
I mean, they are infinite—or at least “myriadfold”—after all.

But you can get us out of here?
(The creature drew himself closer.)

Harry shrugged.
Well perhaps. It remains to be seen. But I haven’t tried yet, and why should I when
you
got us in here?

Now Harry felt the bitter chill of Hemmings’ fat worm fingers on his shoulders, and saw that burning flush slowly returning to the other’s cheeks.

If you can get us out of here
, said the great leech,
and do it soon—before our ride is ended—I may let you live.

Until when you’ll continue to suck on me
, Harry replied,
so that when we leave the Continuum I’ll be weak, unable to defend myself. No, I think not. Maybe we should wait and see what will happen at the end of our ride.

“YOU BLOODY FOOL!”
…oh, you fool! Surely you know how this will end? And how soon?

How it’s probably going to end for me, yes
, Harry answered.
At least I think so. But not for you. How it’s going to end for you…well, that’s not up to me.

What?
Hemmings burst out, his hands even colder and his face flushing redder yet.
What? Are you deliberately trying to drive me mad?

No
, said Harry.
For I believe you’re that already.

But no, no!
the fat man snapped.
This isn’t about me, it’s about you! I want to know about
you,
Harry Keogh! For one thing seems certain: you can’t be of this world! So tell me now—who or what are you
really,—
and what are trying to do to me?