Kyle stared at her. ‘That’s a good idea, Irma — but what about you? Won’t you be setting yourself up? Won’t they give you a hard time?’
‘What?’ She looked surprised at the suggestion. ‘Is it my fault I was alone here when I took that telephone call?
Is it me for blaming that my taxi took a wrong turning and I couldn’t find you to stop you from burning the hills? All these country tracks looking the same to me!’
Krakovitch, Kyle and Quint, all three grinned at each other. Sergei Gulharov was mainly out of it, but he sensed the excitement of the others and stood up, nodding his head as if in agreement. ‘Da, da!’
‘Right,’ said Kyle, ‘let’s do it!’ And on impulse, he grabbed Irma Dobresti, pulled her close and kissed her soundly.
Monday night.
9.30 middle-European time, and in England 7.30 P.M.
There was fire and nightmare on the cruciform hills under the moon and stars and the looming Carpatii Meridionali, and the nightmare transferred itself westward across mountains and rivers and oceans to Yulian Bodescu where he tossed on his bed and sweated-the chill, rank sweat of fear in his garret room at Harkley House.
Exhausted by the unspecified fears of the day, he now suffered the telepathic torments of Thibor the Wallach, the vampire whose last physical vestiges were finally being consumed. There was no way back for the vampire now; but unlike Faethor, Thibor’s spirit was unquiet, restless, malignant. And it ached for revenge!
Yuliaannn! Ah, my son, my one true son! See what is become of your father now.
‘What?’ Yulian talked in his sleep, imagined a blistering heat, flames that crept ever closer. And in the heart of the fire, a figure beckoning. ‘Who. . . who are you?’
Ah, you know me, my son. We met but briefly, and you were still unborn at that meeting, but you can remember if you try.
‘Where am I?’
For the moment, with me. Ask not where you are, but where I am. These are the cruciform hills — where it started for you, and where it now ends for me. For you this is merely a dream, while for me it is reality.
‘You!’ Now Yulian knew him. The voice that called in the night, unremembered until now. The Thing in the ground. The source. ‘You? My. . . father?’
Indeed! Oh, not through any lover’s tryst with your mother. Not through the lust or love of a man for a woman. No, but your father nevertheless. Through blood, Yulian, through blood!
Yulian fought down his fear of the flames. He sensed that he only dreamed — however real and immediate the dream — and knew he would not be hurt. He advanced into the inferno of fire and drew close to the figure there. Black billowing smoke and crimson flames obscured his view and the heat was a furnace all around, but there were questions Yulian must ask, and the burning Thing was the only one who could answer them.
‘You have asked me to come and seek you out, and I will come. But why? What is it you want of me?’
Too late! Too late! the flame-wreathed apparition cried out in anguish. And Yulian knew that his pain was not horn of the consuming fire but bitter frustration. I would have been your teacher, my son. Yes, and you would have learned all the many secrets of the Wamphyri. In return
– . . I can’t deny that there would have been a reward in it for me. I would have walked again in the world of men, known again the unbearable pleasures of my youth! But too late. All dreams and schemes to no avail. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. .
The figure was slowly melting, its outline gradually changing, rendering down into itself.
Yulian must know more, must see more clearly. He penetrated the very heart of the inferno, came close up to the burning Thing. ‘I already know the secrets of the Wamphyri!’ he cried above the roar and crackle of blazing trees and the hiss of molten earth. ‘I learned them for myself!’ –