Layard chuckled, albeit drily. You’ve played this game before, Harry.
Harry nodded. Yes, I have, occasionally with disastrous consequences.
Layard was serious at once. Harry, there’s none of that shit in me. I was still myself when I went out. I don’t have anything up my sleeve.
The Necroscope considered it. But what did he have to lose? Very well, he finally said, except . . . I’ve already warned you that my mind’s a weird place. Don’t try to mess with me, Ken. You don’t have much, I know, but I swear if you fool around in there I won’t leave you with anything.
Hey, you don’t have to convince me!
OK, Harry said. And, after a moment: One last thing. You said you came to thank me, for what I did for Jordan? I take it you mean his resurrection? So how did you know I’d brought him back?
Layard shrugged. Just because the Great Majority don’t speak to me doesn’t me I can’t eavesdrop now and then. Also, the dead don’t move around too much, you know? But Trevor does. So I knew that what I’d heard was true. You have a heap of rare talents there, Harry. A pity you didn’t get Darcy’s too, before they got him!
That focused the Necroscope’s attention to a pin-point.
He fastened on it in a moment. Darcy’s dead? I thought that was just a nightmare. I hoped it was, anyway. Which means I have to hope this is, too.
You have my sympathy, Harry, Layard told him. But it’s all real.
No one brings me any good news any more . . . Lost for words, Harry shook his head, then deliberately returned to the former subject. All right, Ken, my mind’s all yours.
The locator went in – and was out again almost as quickly. And: You’re right and that’s a strange place, Harry, he said. It’s as if it was radioactive in there: hot and cold at the same time! But I found what I wanted; or rather, I didn’t find it. You don’t have the equipment. There’s nothing there for me to switch on.
Harry shrugged. You tried, anyway.
But you do have David Chung’s kind of mind.
Chung? The sympathetic locator?
That’s right. So I tripped that switch instead. Now all you need is something belonging to the one you need to locate. You focus on it, and bingo! Except being what you are – everything you are – you’ll probably be better at it than Chung is.
Harry nodded, said: Well, I suppose it’s my turn to owe you again. Thanks, Ken.
Oh, I’ll be back later to collect, Layard told him. I mean, Trevor was like my kid brother, you know? And now I’ll go and let you get some sleeping done. You’re tired, Harry, in mind and body both.
As Layard backed off and faded into nothing, the Necroscope’s mind cleared itself for whatever else, whoever else, was waiting. And she didn’t take long in coming.
He dreamed of Penny. But was she a dream … or just a fancy? Even dreaming, he wondered about it: was she an adjustment of psyche – part of the pigeon-holing of mundane occurrences into all the subconscious slots between forget it, through trivial, to highly important – or just a remnant left over from a moment or two of waking lust?
He’d known of course that the dead girl had a crush on him. It had been obvious even from their first meeting. For after all, how many men get to see their ladies naked on a first date? In Harry’s day, damn few! Maybe this was simply the extrapolation of something his subconscious mind had been working on, and should have been titled: ‘How Things Might Have Been if Harry Keogh Could Spare the Time and if He Wasn’t a Bloody Vampire’.
Whichever, it was a soothing and blessed relief to his tormented mind after the nightmare of association with Johnny Found, the delirium of Darcy Clarke’s accusations, and the revelations of Ken Layard; and it brought physical relief, too, as he answered Penny’s caresses and loved her with his body as any ordinary man loves a girl. The initiative, however, was all hers – had to be – else his exhaustion must drag him down even deeper into dreamless sleep.