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Brian Lumley - Necroscope 5 - Deadspeak
The Minister said to Paxton, 'Get a doctor . . . and an ambulance.' Then he
saw the look on
Paxton's face.
The telepath had recovered both his wits and his nerve; he was cleaning his
face with a large pocket handkerchief and shaking his head. His look said,
think what you're saying, what you're doing.
And out loud he said, 'We don't need a doctor or an ambulance, just an
incinerator. Clarke's for burning, by us, right now. Right or wrong, we can't
take any chances with him. He's for the fire just as soon as possible. And me,
I'm for bathing. Trask, Cleary, I know how you must feel, but if I were you -
'
'No, you don't know how we feel.' Ben Trask looked up at him, all emotion gone
now from his face.
'Anyway,' Paxton continued, 'I'd bathe if I were you. And right now.'
The Minister indicated the door. 'Go on, then,' he told Paxton. 'Go and
arrange . . .
disposal. Do it now - and take a shower, too, if you feel it's necessary -
then report back to me.'
And after the telepath had left the room, past the gaping espers where they
crowded the corridor: 'Ben,' said the Minister, 'the killing has started.
Right or wrong, like Paxton said, it's started. And we both know it has to go
on. So from now on I want you in charge of this thing. I want you to run the
entire show, until it's sorted out one way or the other.'
Trask stood up, leaned against the wall, looked at the Minister and thought:
One way or the other? No, it can only be one way, for the other is
unthinkable. Well, someone has to do it, and I'm as experienced as any of
them. More than most. And at least if I'm running it I'll know that that idiot
Paxton won't be doing any more damage.
In the old days it would have been Darcy, Ken Layard, Trevor Jordan and a
handful of others. And Harry, of course. But this time they'd be hunting Harry
himself, and that was different. And despite what Clarke had said, it looked
as if they'd be hunting Jordan, too.
And the girl, Penny Sanderson? Jesus, according to the file she was just a
kid! But an undead kid.
'All right?' said the Minister.
And Trask sighed and answered with an almost imperceptible nod. Yes, it was
all right.
And Paxton could well have been right, too. If there had been something
-anything at all -
wrong with Darcy . . .
Trask looked at the girl, her bloodied hands and blouse. 'Shower,' he said,
simply. 'And make a good job of it.' Then, when he and the Minister were
alone, he said, 'When Darcy's been . . . burned, we have to scatter the ashes.
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Scatter them far and wide.' He gave a small shudder. 'For the fact is, Harry
Keogh does things with ashes. And I really don't think I
ever want to see Darcy again. Not on his feet, anyway.'
9:40 a.m.
Harry Keogh had just finished examining the personnel files at Frigis
Express's Darlington depot when three things happened simultaneously. One: the
depot clerk, whom Harry had lured from his tiny box of an office with a bogus
telephone call, returned unexpectedly.
Two: Harry felt a pang - almost a pain - of a sort he'd never experienced
before, within his chest, as if someone had doused his heart with ice water.
And three: the fading echo of an unrecognized cry bounced off his mind to
ricochet into an unreachable metaphysical limbo
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Brian Lumley - Necroscope 5 - Deadspeak of its own. And it seemed to the
Necroscope that whatever its source, it was intended specifically for him: as
if his name had been called from the gulf between life and death.
Deadspeak? But this had been different. Telepathy? Well, maybe. Or a cross
between the two? That seemed more likely, and Harry remembered how his mother
had described the feelings in her incorporeal heart when a pup called Paddy
had been killed by a car on a
Bonnyrig road.
So ... had someone died? But who? And why had he cried out to Harry?
'Who the fuck are you?' demanded the burly, short-sleeved, red-headed clerk,
as he herded
Harry into the shadows of a dusty corner where the metal filing cabinet met
the wall. He gaped at the former contents of the cabinet, now spilling across
the floor.
Harry barely glanced at the man's suspicious, mottled face and said, 'Shh!'
'Shh!?' the other repeated him, disbelievingly. 'You'll get shh!, breaking in
here! Now what's the score?'
Harry was trying desperately to hang on to the diminishing ethereal echo of
... a cry for help? Was that what it had been? 'Look,' he told the very
untypical clerk, 'be quiet a minute, will you?' He tried to push by him.
'Why you - !' Blotches of angry red appeared on the man's jowly cheeks. 'A
conman and thief, right? I recognize your voice. It was you on the 'phone -
right.
Well, you picked the wrong man this time, thief!' He grabbed Harry by the
lapels and looked as if he was going to butt him in the face.
The Necroscope continued to concentrate on the cry, and at the same time
reached out and caught his assailant by the throat. With one huge hand he held
him at bay, choking, and with the other he reached up and took off his dark
spectacles. The clerk saw his eyes and choked all the more, and commenced
windmilling his arms as Harry shoved him effortlessly backwards, driving him
across the floor. Finally the clerk's legs hit the edge of his desk and he sat
down in a plastic paper tray, shattering it with his fat backside.
Still Harry held him, and still he listened for a repeat performance of the
cry. But it was gone now, probably disappeared for ever.
Harry felt anger expanding inside him - felt frustrated, cheated - and his
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