‘But not to these three,’ she answered, ‘for you know them not.’
‘Very well, let me speak to them.’
‘Harry Keogh,’ a new voice now whispered in his head, a soft voice that belied the once-cruelty of its master. ‘I saw you one time and you saw me. My name is Max Batu.’
Harry gasped, spat his disgust on to the sand. ‘Max Batu? You’re no friend of mine,’ he scowled. ‘You killed Keenan Gormley!’ Then he thought about who he was speaking to. ‘But you? Dead? I don’t understand.’
‘Dragosani killed me,’ the other told him. ‘He did it to steal my talent with his necromancy. He slit my throat and gutted me, and left my body to rot. Now he has the evil eye. I make no pretence of being your friend, Harry Keogh, but I’m much less a friend of his. I tell you this because it might help you to kill him – before he kills you. It is my revenge!’
And as Max Batu’s voice faded, another took its place:
‘I was Thibor Ferenczy,’ it said, its timbre sad and soulful. ‘I could have lived for ever. I was a vampire, Harry Keogh, but Dragosani destroyed me. I was undead; now I am merely dead.’
A vampire! Just such a creature had cropped up in Gormley’s and Kyle’s word-association game. Kyle had seen a vampire in Harry’s future. But: ‘I can hardly condemn Dragosani for killing a vampire!’ he said.
‘I don’t want you to condemn him,’ the voice grew harsh in a moment, shedding its sorrow like a worn-out
snakeskin. ‘I want you to kill him! I want the lying, cheating, illegitimate necromantic dog dead, dead, dead! – like me! And I know he will be dead -1 know you will kill him – but only with my help. Only if you’ll . . . bargain with me?’
‘Do not, Harry!’ the Witch of Endor warned him. ‘Satan himself is no match for a vampire where lies and deceit are concerned.’
‘No bargains,’ Harry took her point.
‘But it is such a small thing I want!’ Thibor protested, his mental voice growing into a whine.
‘How small?’
‘Only promise me that now and then – once in a while, be it ever so long – when you have the time, then that you’ll speak to me. For there are none so lonely as I am now, Harry Keogh.’
‘Very well. I promise.’
The ex-vampire sighed his relief. ‘Good! And now I know why the dead love you. Now know this, Harry: Dragosani has a vampire in him! The creature is still immature, but it grows fast and learns even faster. And do you know how to kill a vampire?’
‘A wooden stake?’
‘That is only to pin him down. But then you must behead him!’
‘I’ll remember that,’ Harry nodded, nervously licking dry lips.
‘And remember too your promise,’ said Thibor, his voice fading into nothing. For a moment then it was silent and Harry was left to think about the awesome nature of this composite creature he’d pitted himself against; but then, out of the silence, he heard the voice of the third and last informer:
‘Harry Keogh,’ growled this final visitation, ‘you don’t know me, but Sir Keenan Gormley may have told you something of me. I was Gregor Borowitz. Now I am no
more. Dragosani killed me with Max Batu’s evil eye. I am dead in my prime, by treachery!’
‘So you too seek revenge,’ said Harry. ‘Had he no friends, this Dragosani? Not even one?’
‘Yes, he had me. I had plans for Dragosani, great plans. Ah, but the bastard had plans of his own! And I wasn’t part of them. He killed me for my knowledge of E-Branch, so that he can control what I created. But it goes farther than that. I think he wants – everything! I mean literally everything under the sun. And if he lives he might very well get everything, eventually.’
‘”Eventually?”‘
There came a great mental shudder from Borowitz. ‘You see, he’s not finished with me yet. My body lies in my dacha where he left it, but sooner or later it will be delivered into his hands, and then he’ll deal with me as he dealt with Max Batu. I don’t want that, Harry. I don’t want that scum wading through my guts in search of my secrets!’