And the one in the shadows, who was now stepping out of the shadows and heading Harry’s way: Dangerous, they said . . . Well, let him try it on. If I’m obliged to protect myself . . . blow his fucking head off! (And Harry could actually feel the man’s hand tightening nervously about the rubber grips on the butt of a pistol in his pocket.)
As the one with the gun came almost jauntily on, so the other straightened up and took his hands out of his pockets, then headed across the road towards Harry. And quite casually, patiently (but with their hearts pounding in their chests and their eyes sharp as daggers), so they converged on him.
Harry glared at them and was surprised to hear himself snarl. A river of fire raced in his veins, setting light to something inside which blazed up and sang to him of slaughter and spurting, crimson blood; of life, and of death! Wamphyri!
But the human side said: ‘No! These are not your enemies! Upon a time, before you were a law unto yourself, they might even have been your friends. Why hurt them when you can evade them so easily?’
Because it isn’t my nature to flee but stand and fight!
‘Fight? Not much of a fight! They’re like children . . .’
Oh? Well, at least one of these children has a gun!
The man crossing the road waited for a stream of cars to go by in the nearside lane; he was ten to fifteen paces away, no more. The other one was maybe twenty paces away. But both of them were definitely homing in on Harry. His vampire knew the danger no less than he did, and worked to protect him. The Necroscope sweated a strange, cold sweat and breathed a weird mist, which clung to him like an ever-thickening cloak. And as the two policemen came on, so Harry’s mist spilled out of the shadows where he waited and poured itself into view like the exhalations of a basement boiler room.
Their guns are useless now. They can’t see me in this. But I can see, smell, sense, even reach out and touch them, if I wish it. Reach out and snuff them!
‘Damn you!’ Harry cursed himself- or the thing inside him – out loud. ‘Damn you – you slimy black bastard thing!’
‘Yeah, well never mind all that, pal,’ one of the policemen answered him, crouching down and aiming his gun two-handed into the fog. ‘We’ve been damned and cursed before, right? So just come on out of there, OK? I mean, all of that steam has to be bad for you. Do you want to ruin your lungs? Or do you want me to do it for you, eh? Now, I said come on out of there!’
There was no answer, only a sudden swirling as the fog seemed to fold inwards upon itself, as if someone had shaken a blanket or slammed a door right in its heart. And in a few seconds more the mist thinned out, fell to earth, turned to a film of liquid which made the cobbles damp and shiny. And the wall was high, black and blank, with no alley and no basement boiler room.
And there was no one there at all …
Back in Bonnyrig, Trevor Jordan was awake; some immediately forgotten night terror had drenched him in his own sweat and snatched him panting out of his bed in the attic room; now he prowled the rooms and corridors of the old house where it stood by the river, putting on all the lights, his every nerve jumping as he looked out from curtained windows into the night. Just what his apprehensions were he couldn’t say, but he felt something looming, hovering, waiting. Some terrible Thing for the moment conserving its energy, but full of monstrous intent.
Was it Harry, Jordan wondered? The thing that Harry was far too rapidly becoming? Possibly. Could it be concern over Harry’s fate if – when – E-Branch finally moved on him? Well, yes, that too. Or was he worried about his own fate, if he was still with the Necroscope at that time? Was this how Yulian Bodescu had felt at Harkley House in Devon, that evening when the Branch had closed in on him to destroy him? Something like this, Jordan was sure.