Wamphyri! Brian Lumley

‘So,’ she said, after they’d had a drink, ‘the job is done here. We are not needing to stay any longer in lonesti. It is ten-thirty — late, I know, but I am suggesting we go now. These red tape dolts will arrive soon. Is better if we are not here.’

‘Red tape?’ Quint looked surprised. ‘I didn’t know you used that term, er, over here!’

‘Oh, yes,’ she answered, unsmiling. ‘Also “Commie”, and “Zurich Gnome”, and “Capitalist dog”!’

‘I agree with Irma,’ said Kyle. ‘If we wait we’ll only be obliged to brazen it out — or tell the truth. And the truth, while it is verifiable in the long term, isn’t immediately believable. No, I can see all kinds of problems coming up if we stay here.’

‘All true.’ She nodded, sighing her relief that the Englishman was of a like mind. ‘Later, if they are determined to talk about this, they can contact me in Bucharest. There I am on my own ground, with the backing of my superiors. I am not for blaming. This was a matter of national security, a liaison of a scientific, preventative nature between three great countries, Romania, Russia, and Great Britain. I am secure. But right now, here in lonesti, I do not feel secure.’

‘So let’s get to it,’ said Quint, with his usual efficiency.

Irma showed her yellow teeth in one of her infrequent smiles. ‘No need for getting to it,’ she informed. ‘Nothing to get to. I took the liberty of packing your bags! Can we go now, please?’

Without more ado, they paid the bill and left.

Krakovitch opted to drive, giving Sergei Gulharov a break. As they sped back towards Bucharest on the night roads, Gulharov sat beside Irma in the back of the car and quietly filled her in as best he could on the story of what had happened in the hills, the monstrous thing they had burned there.

When he was finished she said simply, ‘Your faces told me it must have been like that. I am glad I not seeing it . .

After his last painful visit, at about 10.00 P.M., Darcy Clarke had slept like a log in his hotel bedroom for nearly three hours solid. When he woke up he felt fighting fit. All very mysterious; he’d never known an attack of gastro-enteritis to come and go so quickly (not that he was sorry it had gone) and he had no idea what he could have eaten to cause it. Whatever it had been, the rest of the team had felt no ill effects. It was because he didn’t want to let that team down that Clarke dressed quickly and went to report himself fit for duty.

In the control room (the living area of their main suite of rooms), he found Guy Roberts slumped in his swivel chair, head on his folded arms where he sprawled across his ‘desk’: a dining table, cluttered with notes, a log book and a telephone. He was fast asleep with an ashtray piled full of dog-ends right under his nose. A tobacco addict, he probably wouldn’t be able to sleep comfortably without it!

Trevor Jordan snoozed in a deep armchair while Ken Layard and Simon Gower quietly played their own version of Chinese Patience at a small green-baize card table. Gower, a prognosticator or augur of some talent, played badly, making too many mistakes. ‘Can’t concentrate!’ he growlingly complained. ‘I have this feeling of bad stuff coming lots of it!’

‘Stop making excuses!’ said Layard. ‘Hell, we know bad stuff is coming! And we know where from. We don’t know when, that’s all.’

‘No,’ Gower frowned, tossed in his hand, ‘I mean not of our making. When we go against Harkley and Bodescu, that will be different. This thing I’m feeling is — ‘ he shrugged uneasily, ‘something else.’

‘So maybe we should wake up the Fat Man there and tell him?’ Layard suggested.

Gower shook his head. ‘I’ve been telling him for the last three days. It isn’t specific it never is — but it’s there. You could be right: I’m probably feeling the ding-dong coming up at Harkley House. If so, then believe me it’s going to be a good one! Anyway, let old Roberts kip. He’s tired and when he’s awake the place stinks of bloody weed! I’ve seen him with three going at once! God, you need a respirator!’

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