‘You know you are,’ said Harry. ‘For all I know it’s a precaution all the Wamphyri take — against the chance that death will find them out.’
Harry, you have been straightforward with me, and I like you for it. Now I too shall be forthright. No, this thing is of Thibor’s invention. However, I would add that I wish I had thought of it first! As for my ‘vampire remains’: yes, I believe there is such a revenant. if not several. Except ‘revenant’ is perhaps the wrong word, for we both know there will be no return.
‘And it — they, whatever — is in your castle in the Khorvaty, which Thibor razed?’
A simple enough deduction.
‘But have you no desire to use such remains, like Thibor, to raise yourself up again?’
You are naïve, Harry. If! could, I probably would. But how? I died here and may not depart this spot. And anyway. I know that you will destroy whatever Thibor left buried in that castle a thousand years ago — if it has survived. But a thousand years, Harry — think of it! Even I do not know if vampire protoplasm can live that long, in those circumstances.
‘But it might have survived. Doesn’t that . . . interest you?’
Harry detected something like a sigh. Harry, I will tell you something. Believe me if you like, or disbelieve, but I am at peace. With myself, anyway. I have had my day and I am satisfied. If you had lived for thirteen hundred years then you might understand. Perhaps you will believe me if I say that even you have been a disturbance. But you must disturb me no longer. My debt to Ladislau Giresci is paid in full. Farewell.
Harry waited a moment, then said, ‘Goodbye, Faethor.’
And tired now, strangely weary, he found a space-time door and returned to the Möbius continuum.
Harry Keogh’s conversation with Faethor Ferenczy had ended none too soon; Harry Jnr was awake and calling his father’s mind home. Snatched from the Möbius continuum into the infant’s increasingly powerful id, Harry was obliged to wait out his son’s period of wakefulness, which continued into Sunday evening. It was 7.30 P.M. In England when finally Harry Jnr went back to sleep, but in Romania it was two hours later and darkness had already fallen.
The vampire-hunters had a suite of rooms in an old world inn on the outskirts of lonesti. There in a comfortable pine-panelled lounge they finalised their plans for Monday and enjoyed drinks before making an early night of it. That at least was their intention. Only Irma Dobresti was absent, having gone into Pitesti to make final arrangements for certain ordnance supplies. She had wanted to be sure the requisition was ready. All of the men were agreed that whatever she lacked in looks and personal charm, Irma certainly made up for in efficiency.
Harry Keogh, when he materialised, found them with drinks in their hands around a log fire. The only warning of his coming was when Carl Quint suddenly sat bolt upright in his easy chair, spilling his slivovitz into his lap.
Visibly paling, staring all about the room with eyes round as saucers, Quint stood up; but even standing it was as if he had shrunk down into himself. ‘Oh-oh!’ he managed to gasp.
Gulharov was plainly puzzled but Krakovitch, too, felt something. He shivered and said, ‘What? What? I think there is some —,
‘You’re right,’ Alec Kyle cut him off, hurrying to the main door of the suite and locking it, then turning off all the lights except one. ‘There is something. Take it easy, all of you. He’s coming.’
‘What?’ Krakovitch said again, his breath pluming as the temperature plummeted. ‘Who is. . . coming?’
Quint took a deep breath. ‘Felix,’ he said, his voice shivery, ‘you’d better tell Sergei not to panic. This is a friend of ours — but at first meeting he may come as a bit of a shock!’
Krakovitch spoke to Gulharov in Russian, and the young soldier put down his glass and slowly got to his feet. And right then, at that very moment, suddenly Harry was there.