Trembling violently, running with sweat, Yulian came awake, sat bolt upright in his bed. And as from a million miles away he heard again, one last time, Thibor’s far, faint voice: Avenge me, Yuliaannn.
He stood up in the dark room, went shakily to the window, looked out on the night. Out there, a mind. A man. Watching. Waiting.
Sweat quickly dried on Yulian and his flesh turned cold, but still he stood there. Panic receded, was replaced by rage, hatred. ‘Avenge you, father?’ he finally breathed. ‘Oh, I will. I will!’
In the window’s luminous, night-dark pane his reflection was an echo from the dream. But Yulian was neither shocked nor surprised. It simply meant that his metamorphosis was now complete. He looked through the reflection at’ the dark, furtive shadow there in the hedgerow
and grinned.
And his grin was like an invitation to step in through the gates of hell .
At the foot of the cruciform hills, Kyle and Quint, Krakovitch and Gulharov waited close together in a small group. It wasn’t cold but they stood together, as if for warmth.
The fire was dying down now; the wind which had earlier sprung up out of nowhere had quickly blown itself out, like the dying breath of some unseen Gargantuan. Human figures, half hidden in the trees and the billowing black smoke, toiled above and to the east of the devastated area, containing the fire and beating it down. A grimy, coveralled hulk Of a man came stumbling from the trees at the foot of the slope towards the vampire hunters where they huddled. It was the Romanian ganger, Janni Chevenu.
‘You!’ He grabbed Krakovitch’s arm. ‘Plague, you said! But did you see it? Did you see that . . . that thing before it burned? It had eyes, mouths! It lashed, writhed .
it. . . it. . . my God! My God!’
Under the soot and sweat, Chevenu’s face was chalk. Slowly his glazed eyes cleared. He looked from Krakovitch to the others. The gaunt faces that looked back seemed carved of the same raw emotion: a horror, no less than Chevenu’s own. ‘Plague, you said,’ he dazedly repeated. ‘But that wasn’t any kind of plague I ever heard of.’
Krakovitch shook himself loose. ‘Oh yes it was, Janni,’ he finally answered. ‘It was the very worst kind. Just consider yourself lucky you were able to destroy it. We’re in your debt. All of us. Everywhere. . .‘
* * *
Darcy Clarke should have had the 8.00 P.M.—2.00 A.M. shift; instead he was bedded down at the hotel in Paignton something he’d eaten, apparently. Stomach cramps and violent diarrhoea.
Peter Keen had taken the shift in Clarke’s place, driving out to Harkley House and relieving Trevor Jordan of the job of keeping Bodescu under observation.
‘Nothing’s happening up there,’ Jordan had whispered, leaning in through the open window of his car, handing Keen a powerful crossbow with a hardwood bolt. ‘There’s a light on downstairs, but that’s all. They’re all in there, or if not then they didn’t come out through the gate! The light did come on in Bodescu’s attic room for a few minutes, then went out again. That was probably him getting his head down. Also, I felt that there just might be someone probing for my thoughts but that lasted for only a moment. Since when it’s been quiet as the proverbial tomb.’
Keen had grinned, however nervously. ‘Except we know that not every tomb is quiet, eh?’
Jordan hadn’t found it funny. ‘Peter, that’s a really weird sense of humour you’ve got there.’ He nodded at the crossbow in Keen’s hand. ‘Do you know how to use that? Here, I’ll load it for you.’
‘That’s OK,’ Keen nodded affably. ‘I’ll manage it all right. But if you want to do me a real favour, just make sure my relief’s on time at two in the morning!’
Jordan got into his car and started it, trying not to rev the engine. ‘This makes twelve hours out of twenty-four for you, doesn’t it? Son, you’re a glutton for punishment. Keen by name, and all that. You should go far if you don’t kill yourself first. Have a nice night!’ And he’d pulled carefully away in his car, only turning on the lights when he was a hundred yards down the road.