He reached out desperately with his mind, contacted a confidence trickster he knew in the cemetery in Easington.
Gormley felt the power that washed out from Harry at that moment, a raw alien energy like nothing he’d felt before, which set his scalp tingling and quickened his heart alarmingly. This was it! This was the necroscope’s talent in action. Gormley knew it as surely as he was born.
In his chair Harry had gradually squeezed himself into a more compact mass, hunching down. He had been the colour of drifted snow, dripping sweat like a faulty tap. But now –
He sat up, bared his teeth and grinned a wild grin, tossed back his head and sent beads of sweat flying. He uncoiled like a spring, all of the panic going out of him in a moment. His hand hardly trembled at all as he brushed damp hair back from his forehead. Colour rapidly returned to his face. ‘That’s it,’ he said, still grinning. ‘Interview’s over.’
‘What?’ Gormley was amazed at the transformation.
‘Certainly. That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? You came here to find out about Harry Keogh the author. Someone mentioned to you the theme of a new story I’m writing – which no one’s supposed to know about, incidentally – and you just hit me with it to get my reaction. It’s a horror story, and you’ve heard I always act out what I write. So when I act out the part of the necroscope – which is a word of my own coining, by the way – naturally I do it with authority. I’m a good actor, see? Well, you’ve had your free show and I’ve had my fun, and now the interview’s over.’ The grin fell abruptly from his face and left it sour, sneering. ‘You know where the door is, Keenan . . .’
Gormley slowly shook his head. At first he’d been stunned, but now his instinct took over. And it was his instinct that told him what was happening here. ‘That’s clever,’ he said, ‘but nowhere close to clever enough, Who are you talking to now, Harry? Or rather, who is it talking through you?’
For a moment defiance continued to shine in Harry Keogh’s eyes, but then Gormley once more felt the flow of weird energies as the youth broke the link with his clever, dead, unknown friend. His face visibly changed; sarcasm drained away and Harry was himself again; but at least he retained something of composure. His panic had passed.
‘What do you want to know?’ he said, his voice flat and emotionless.
‘Everything,’ Gormley answered at once. ‘I thought you already knew everything? You said you did.’
‘But I want to hear it from you. I know you can’t explain how you do it, and I certainly don’t want to know why; it’s enough to say that you found yourself with a talent you could use to improve your own life. That’s understandable. No, it’s the facts I want. The extent of your talent, for instance, and its limitations. Until a moment ago I didn’t know you could use it at a distance – that sort of thing. I want to know what you talk about, what interests them. Do they see you as an intruder, or do they welcome you? Like I said: I want to know everything.’
‘Or else?’
Gormley shook his head. ‘That doesn’t even come into it-not yet.’
Harry gave a sour smile. ‘So we’re to be “friends”, are we?’
Gormley drew up a chair and sat down facing him. ‘Harry, no one else is going to know about you. That’s a promise. And yes, we are going to be friends. That’s because we need each other, and because we in turn are needed. Okay, you probably think you don’t need me, that I’m the last thing you need! But that’s only for now. You will need me, I assure you.’
Harry looked at him through narrowed eyes. ‘And just why do you need me? I think, before I tell you anything – before I even admit anything – that there are one or two things you’d better tell me.’
Gormley had expected nothing less. He nodded, stared straight into the other’s wary, questioning eyes, drew a deep breath. ‘Fair enough, I will. You know who I am, so now I’ll tell you what I am and what I do for a living. More importantly, I’ll tell you about the people I work with.’