‘No, I had seen . . . something.’
At this point the Necroscope directed Penny’s fascinated gaze to a shelf of books on the wall by the fireplace. There were a dozen of them, all with the same subject: fungi. She stared hard at the books, then at Harry. ‘Mushrooms?’
He shrugged. ‘Mushrooms, toadstools, fungi – as you can see, I’ve made something of a study of them. In fact they’ve occupied quite a bit of my time in the last few weeks.’ He got her one of the books, titled The Handbook Guide to Mushrooms and Other Fungi, and turned to a well-thumbed page near the back. ‘That’s not the one.’ He tapped a fingernail on the illustrated page. ‘But it’s the closest I’ve found. My fungus was more nearly black -and rightly so.’
She looked at the page. ‘The common earthball?’
Harry gave a grunt. ‘Not so common!’ he answered. ‘Not the variety I saw, anyway. They weren’t there when I settled down to sleep, but they were there when I woke up: a ring of morbid fruiting bodies – small black mushrooms or puffballs – already rotting and bursting open at the slightest movement, releasing their scarlet spores. I remember I sneezed when their dust got up my nose.
‘Later, when they’d rotted right down, their stench was . . . well, it was like death. No, it was death. I remember how the sun seemed to steam them away. Shortly after that, Faéthor wished me well – which should have been a warning in itself – and advised me not to waste any time but complete the task I’d set myself with despatch. I thought it a queer thing to say, that the way he’d said it had been queer, but he didn’t elaborate.’
She shook her head. ‘You breathed the spores of a toadstool and became . . .?’
‘A vampire, yes.’ Harry finished it for her. ‘But they weren’t the spores of just any toadstool. These things were spawned of Faéthor’s slime, of his rottenness. They were his deadspawn. But . . . well, that wasn’t all there was to it. For I’d had a lot of truck with vampires, too, over the years, and I’d learned their ways – perhaps learned too much. Maybe that’s also part of it, I’m not sure. But at least you can see now why you shouldn’t have gone to bed with me. A few spores was enough for me. So … what about you?’
‘But as long as I’m with you . . .’she began.
‘Penny – ‘ he cut in, ‘ – I’m not staying here. I’m not even staying in this world.’
She flew into his arms. ‘I don’t care which world! Take me wherever you go, whenever you go, and I’ll always be there to care for you.’
Well, he thought, and I will need someone. And you are a lovely creature. And out loud: ‘But I can’t go anywhere until Found is finished. It’s not just for you but all the others he murdered, too. And one in particular. I made her a promise.’
‘Found?’
‘Johnny Found, that’s his name. And I have to get after him. He has to die because he’s . . . he’s like me and all the others I’ve had to deal with: not meant to be. Not in any clean world. I mean, Found hurts the very dead! Isn’t dying enough without him, too? And what if he ever fathers children? What will they be, eh? And will their mother leave them on a doorstep like Johnny was left? No, he has to be stopped here, now.’
Just thinking about the necromancer had worked Harry into a fury, or if not Harry, his vampire certainly. He wondered what Found was doing right now, this very moment.
He more than wondered – he had to know.
Harry freed himself from Penny’s arms, put out the light, stood dark in the darkened room and reached out with his metaphysical mind. He knew Pound’s address, knew the way there. He sent a probe there, to Darlington, the street, the house, into the ground-floor flat . . . and found it empty.