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the glass shattered. Wine and fragments of glass, and a little blood, too,
were squeezed out from between his tightly clenched fingers. If he felt any
pain it didn't show in his gaunt-grey face, except perhaps in the tic jerking
the flesh at one corner of his mouth.
'Janos . . . master!' Armstrong spoke to him from a little over three hundred
yards away. 'I'm shot!'
How badly?
'In the shoulder. I'll be useless to you until I heal. A day or two.'
Sometimes I think you have always been useless to me. Go back to the boat. Try
not to be seen.
'I... I haven't got the telepath.'
/
know, fool! I shall see to it myself.
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Gasping his shock
'Then be careful. The man who shot me was a policeman!'
Oh? And how do you know that?
'Because he shot me. His gun. Ordinary people don't carry them. But even
without it, I guessed what he was as soon as I saw him. He was expecting
trouble. Policemen look the same in whatever country.'
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You are a veritable mine of information, Seth!
the vampire's thoughts were scathingly sarcastic.
But I take your point. And since it now seems I may not take this
thought-thief for my own, I shall find some other way to . . . examine him.
His own telepathy shall be his undoing. His mind is receptive to the thoughts
of others, which until now has made him a big fish in a little pond. Ah, but
now he has a shark to contend with! For I was a mindspy five centuries before
he was born!
'I'm going back to the boat,' Armstrong confirmed.
Good! And if any of my crew are ashore, be sure to call them back.
And Janos thrust the other out of his mind.
He returned to Jordan where he had staggered to a seat underneath one of the
antique windmills and sat there in moon- and starlight. Jordan was exhausted,
totally drained by the mental battle he'd fought with his unknown adversary,
but not so far gone that he couldn't appreciate what he'd come up against.
The last time Jordan had experienced anything like this had been the autumn of
1977, at Harkley House in Devon. Yulian Bodescu. And it had taken Harry Keogh
to clear up that mess!
And was this like that? he wondered. Had he and Ken Layard sensed the presence
of ... of this Thing, even before it had become entirely apparent to them? Or
apparent to him, anyway?
All the pieces were starting to fit together now, and the picture they were
forming was - terrible! Cannabis resin, cocaine? They were commonplace, even
harmless, compared to this.
E-Branch must be put in the picture at once. The thought was like an
invocation:
E-BRANCH?
That deep, seething voice was there inside Jordan's head again, and mental
jaws were tightening on his mind.
WHAT IS THIS E-BRANCH?
And pinned there by the sheer weight of the vampire's telepathic power, Jordan
could only squirm as the monster commenced a minute, painful examination of
all his most private thoughts . . .
Janos might have examined Jordan all night, except he was interrupted. Looking
down out of his window, he saw the bearded, big-bellied Pavlos Themelis,
master of the
Samothraki, making his way across the street towards the Taverna Dakaris. He
was a little late, coming to meet with the man he called Jianni Lazarides; but
coming anyway, and Janos couldn't continue to dig away at Jordan's mind and
hold a conversation with Themelis at the same time.
This morning he had found himself under the scrutiny of a thought-thief,
reached out and delivered a blow to the other's mind. It had been an
instinctive reaction which nevertheless served to give the vampire time to
think. Jordan was strong, however, and had recovered. Well, and now Janos must
strike again at that mind - a different sort of blow - and one from which the
English mindspy would not recover. Not without a deal of help, anyway.
Driving his vampire senses deep into Jordan's psyche, Janos found the Door of
Sanity locked, bolted and barred against all Mankind's worst fears. And
chuckling he turned the key, took down the bars, threw back the bolts - and
opened the door!
That was enough, and now he would know just exactly where to find Jordan
whenever he desired to continue his examination. It was done with only moments
to spare, for already the
Samothraki's master was coming up the stairs.
As Pavlos Themelis and his First Mate entered the room, they saw the Greek
prostitute cleaning away Janos's broken glass and offering him her own.
Unmoved, he accepted it, said: 'Go now.' As she made to get by the huge
drug-runner, Themelis grabbed her arm in a fist like a ham, caught her round
the waist and swung her off her feet. He turned her over and her skirts fell
down over her furious face. Themelis sniffed between her legs and roared,
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'Clean drawers! Open-crotch, too! Good! I may see you later, Ellie!'
'Not if I see you first!' she spat at him as he set her on her feet. Then she
was down the stairs, through the taverna and out onto the street. From down
below Nichos Dakaris's hoarse voice bellowed after her as she went into the
night:
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Gasping his shock
'Bring 'em back alive, my girl! Bring 'em right back here where I can see the
colour of their money!' This was followed by gales of coarse laughter, then
more bouzouki music as before.
Pavlos Themelis took a seat across the table from the man he knew as Jianni
Lazarides. The chair groaned as he sat down on it and parked his elbows on the
table. He wore his peaked captain's hat tilted on one side, which he imagined
gave him an irresistible piratical look. It wasn't a bad ploy: no one would
normally suspect anyone who looked so roguish of being a rogue! 'Only one
glass, Jianni?' he growled. 'Prefer to drink alone, do you?'
'You are late!' Janos had no time for banter.
Themelis's First Mate, a short, squat, torpedo of a man, had remained at the
head of the stairs, from where he carefully scanned the room. Now he called
down to Dakaris: 'Glasses, Nichos, and a bottle of brandy. Good stuff, too,
parakalo!'
And finally he picked up a chair and carried it to the table by the
window-seat. Seating himself, he asked Themelis, 'Well, and has he explained
himself?'
Behind his dark glasses, Janos narrowed his eyes. 'Oh? And is there something
I should explain?'
'Come, come, Jianni!' Themelis chided. 'You were supposed to come aboard us
this morning in the harbour, not go sliding off in your pretty white ship as
if you'd been stung in the arse or something! We'd pull alongside, you'd come
over and see the stuff - of which there's a kilo for you, if you've the use
for it - and then we'd collect your valuable contribution on behalf of our
mutual sponsor. A show of good faith on both sides, as it were. That was the
plan, to which you were party. Except ... it didn't happen!' His easy-going
look suddenly turned sour and his tone hardened. 'And later, when I've parked
up the old
Samothraki and I'm wondering what the bloody fuck, I get this message saying
we'll meet here instead, tonight! So now tell me, are you sure there's nothing
you'd like to explain?'
'The explanation is simple,' Janos barked. 'It could not happen the way it was
planned because we were being watched. By men on the harbour wall, with
binoculars. By policemen!'
Themelis and his second in command glanced at each other a moment, then turned
again to Janos. 'Policemen, Jianni?' Themelis raised a bushy eyebrow. 'You
know this for a fact?'
'Yes,' said Janos, for in truth he did now know it for a fact; he'd had it
direct from the English thought-thief. 'Yes, I am certain. I cannot be
mistaken. And I would remind you that right from the start of this venture I
have insisted upon complete anonymity and total isolation from its mechanics.
I must not be left vulnerable to any sort of investigation or prosecution! I [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]