He shook his head. ‘People will come and go, Penny, through all your life. It’s the way it is.’
‘And through death?’
‘You’ve promised me you’ll forget that. It isn’t part of our story, right?’
And then the rest of the jump, to a street corner she’d known all her life. ‘Goodbye, Penny.’
And when she looked around . . .
As a small child she’d followed the rerun adventures of the Lone Ranger. Who was that invisible man . . .?
Back at the house near Bonnyrig, Jordan was waiting. He was calmer now but still radiated awe and wonder, which made him look beautiful, fresh-scrubbed, newly returned from a holiday in the sun or a swim in a mountain stream. All of these things. ‘Harry, I’m ready any time you are. Just tell me what I must do.’
‘You, nothing. Just don’t shut me out, that’s all. I want to get into your mind, and learn from it.’
‘Like Janos did?’
Harry shook his head. ‘Unlike Janos. I didn’t bring you back to hurt you. I didn’t even bring you back for me. It’s still up to you. If you don’t like the idea of me going in there just say so. This has to be of your own free will.’ Very significant words.
Jordan looked at him. ‘You didn’t just save my life,’ he said, ‘but returned it to me! Anything you want, Harry.’
The Necroscope sent his developing Wamphyri thoughts directly into Jordan’s head, and the other cleared the way for him, drew him in. Harry found what he wanted: it was so like deadspeak that he knew it at once. The mechanism was easy, a part of the human psyche. Mental in action, it was purely physical in operation, a part of the mind people – most people – haven’t learned how to use. Identical twins sometimes have it, because they come from the same egg. But discovering it wasn’t the same as making it work.
Harry withdrew, said: ‘Your turn.’
For Jordan it was easy. He already was a telepath. He looked inside Harry’s mind and found the trigger which the Necroscope had pictured for him. It only required releasing. After that, like a switch, Harry could throw it any time it was required.
And: Try it,’ Jordan said, when he’d withdrawn.
Harry pictured Zek Föener, a powerful telepath in her own right, and reached out with his new talent.
He (no, she) was swimming in the blue warm waters of the Mediterranean, spear-fishing off Zakinthos where she lived with her husband Jazz Simmons. She was twenty feet down and had lined up a fish in her sights, a fine red mullet where it finned on the sandy bottom and ogled her.
Testing . . . testing . . . testing,’ said Harry, with more than a hint of dry humour.
She sucked in salt water down the tube of her snorkel, triggered off her spear and missed, dropped her gun and kicked frantically for the surface. And she trod water there, coughing and spluttering, staring wildly all about. Until suddenly it came to her that the words could only have been in her head. But the mental voice had been unmistakable.
Finally she had her breath back, and got her thoughts together. Ha – Ha – Harry?
And from his house in Bonnyrig, fifteen hundred miles away: The one and only,’ he answered.
Harry, you . . . you . . . a telepath? Her confusion was total.
‘I didn’t mean to startle you, Zek. Just wanted to find out how good I am.’
Well, you’re good! I might have . . . I might have drowned! A swimmer like Zek? There was no way she might have drowned. But suddenly she backed off, and the Necroscope knew that she’d sensed the other thing that was Harry Keogh. She tried to shut it out of her thoughts but he cut right through her confusion with:
‘It’s OK, Zek. I know that you know about me. I just think you should also know that it won’t be like that with me. I’m not staying here. Not for long, anyway. I have a job to do, and then I’ll be on my way.’