‘Harry, I … I didn’t stay in the diner,’ she whispered.
‘I know,’ he growled. ‘Did he hurt you?’
‘No.’ She shook her head, but weakly, ‘I … I think I just fainted.’
Harry had no time to waste. Not now, for his blood was up. Literally! ‘Cling to me,’ he said.
She did as she was told and Harry let the Möbius equations roll across the computer screen of his mind. One moment later and Penny felt the awesome immensity of the Möbius Continuum, and in the next gravity returned where they fell prone on to Harry’s bed in the house outside Bonnyrig. ‘This time stay here!’ he told her. And before she could even sit up he was gone again . . .
In the operations room at E-Branch HQ, Millicent Cleary and the Minister Responsible sat with David Chung, who was also the Duty Officer, at one end of a large desk. The desk was equipped with a radio receiver, a radio telephone, standard telephones, blown-up Ordnance Survey maps of England under illuminated plastic, and a tray containing various small items of property belonging to Branch agents in the field. Spotlights in the ceiling were concentrated on the desk, turning it and its immediate surroundings into an island of light in the large room’s comparative darkness.
Millicent Cleary had just a moment ago received a brief telepathic message from Paxton at the house near Bonny-rig, stating that the assault team was in position. Keogh and the girl had been back, briefly, but Paxton was sure that the Necroscope was no longer in the house. Similarly Frank Robinson, the spotter who was Paxton’s partner on the job, believed one of the two was still there; since there was no noticeable disturbance of the psychic ‘ether’, he would guess it was the girl. Keogh must have used the Möbius Continuum to drop her off at the house before moving on. If there’d been any indication that the Necroscope himself was still in there, then the team would have maintained ESP silence. But since he wasn’t . . . Paxton was eager to learn what was happening.
Cleary passed the mind-message on and the Minister Responsible gave a snort. ‘I’ve come to the conclusion that you’re right about Paxton,’ he said. ‘All of you. I get the feeling he won’t be satisfied until he’s running the world!’
Cleary frowned and nodded. ‘Ruining it, you mean!’ she said, sourly; then quickly added, ‘Er . . . sir! But we are right, and you don’t have to be psychic to know it. He’s a menace. We’re lucky Ben Trask is up there keeping an eye on him. Do you want me to tell him anything?’
The Minister looked at her – also at Chung where he busied himself touching and concentrating on his many contact sigils in their tray, fathoming the whereabouts, mood and feelings of the agents in the field – and mentally reviewed the situation:
The telepath Trevor Jordan (who by all rights and natural laws should be a small heap of ashes in a vase), was on a night train heading for London via Darlington. Two E-Branch agents were on the same train and didn’t anticipate too much trouble, even though it was a pretty safe bet that Jordan was a vampire. They were equipped with powerful automatic weapons, and one of them had a small but deadly crossbow. Another man was on his way to the mainline station in Darlington to give them a hand. He had a car, and in its boot a flamethrower.
Penny Sanderson, also a resurrected vampire, was probably in Keogh’s house outside Bonnyrig. The agents up there were (again probably) as strong a team of espers as E-Branch could throw together, which they would need to be if or when Keogh rejoined the party. For the odds were that sooner or later he’d go back there for the girl.
As for the Necroscope himself: he could be quite literally anywhere, but he was probably tracking Johnny Found. His reasons for doing so were all his own, but the Sanderson girl had been one of Pound’s victims. Vengeance? Why not? It seemed the Wamphyri had always been big on revenge.