‘Moscow?’ Pallid now and shrinking a little, Kolchov backed out of the small room.
‘Gorbachev,’ Luchov rasped. ‘Gorbachev and none other. For there’s no one else who can order what comes next!’
2
A Thing Alone – Starside – The Dweller
The Necroscope knew that there was very little time left and certainly none to waste. The Soviets had worked out some ‘final solution’ to the Perchorsk problem, which meant that he had to be through the Gate before they could put it into effect.
He went to Detroit and just after 6:20 p.m. found a bike garage and showroom on the point of closing. The last, tired employee was locking up; the next-to-last, a black forecourt attendant, had just this minute put away his broom, washed his hands, and was sauntering away from the garage down the evening street. Marvellous chrome-plated machines stood in a glittering chorus line behind the semi-reflective plate glass.
The Necroscope, right? said a deadspeak voice in Harry’s mind, after he’d used a Möbius door to get into the showroom. It surprised him, for the dead weren’t much for talking to him these days. I mean, you’d have to be the boogyman (whoever it was continued), ‘cos I kin hear you thinkin’!
‘You have me at a disadvantage,’ Harry answered, polite as ever, at the same time examining the chain which passed through the spoked front wheels of the parade of gleaming motorcycles, securing them.
I have your what? Oh, yeah! You don’t know me, right? Well, I was an Angel.
Deadspeak occasionally conveys more than is said. With regard to Angels: Harry would no longer be surprised to learn that there really were such creatures, and especially in the Möbius Continuum. But on this occasion he saw that the Angel in question wore no such halo. ‘A Hell’s Angel?’ Harry stood on the chain and hauled with both arms, exerting furious Wamphyri strength until a link came apart with a sound like a pistol shot. ‘But didn’t you have a name?’
Hey! Whoooah, man! And the Angel whistled appreciatively. Like, I bet you leap tall buildings, too, right? Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Shit, no – it’s the ever-lovin’, chain-breakin’, dead-wakin’ Necroscope! He grew quieter. My name? It was Pete. Pretty shitty handle, right? Here, Petey, Petey, Petey! Sounds like a fuckin’ budgie! So I used my Chapter name: The Vampire! Er, but I see you have your own problems.
Harry took a Harley-Davidson off its stand and backed it out of the line of bikes, towards the rear of the showroom. But the last employee had heard the ‘gunshot’ of the snapped chain and was working his way back through a series of locked doors.
‘Pete seems a good enough name to me,’ said Harry. ‘So what are you doing here?’
It’s where I hung out, the Angel told him. I never could afford one of these really big babies. But I’d come down and look ’em over all the time. This place was a shrine, a church, and these Harleys were its High-powered Priests.
‘How did you die?’ Harry turned the key in the ignition and the big bike thundered into life, each pulse of each fat piston almost individually audible.
One night, me and my Pillion Pussy had a fight, the Angel answered. Randy Mandy split. So later, me and the Machine . . . we were both full of high octane! The booze caught up with us about the same time as we clocked the big One, Zero, Zero. Ran out of road on a bend, piled into a filling station, crunched a pump. We burned, me and the bike both, in a white-hot geyser! What was left of my body blew away on the wind. But me, I gravitated here.
‘Pete,’ said Harry, ‘I always wanted to ride one of these things but never seemed to find the time.’
You don’t know how?
‘In one.’ Harry nodded. ‘I mean, I can learn the hard way, or take a little expert advice, right? So … fancy a ride?’
Me?
‘Who else?’
Hooo-haaa! And Harry could almost feel him right there in the saddle where it ass-hooked at the back; indeed, their minds were one as Harry revved her up and up and up, then let her rip in smoking tyres and shrieking gears straight at the wall of glass!