Hideous face working yet more hideously, features literally writhing in a torment of passion, the Ferenczy was so close as to be the merest breath away. His long jaws opened and a scarlet snake flickered in the darkness behind teeth which had turned to daggers in his mouth. ‘You dare show me your blood? The hot blood of youth, the blood which is the life?’ His throat convulsed in a sudden spasm and Thibor thought he was going to be ill, but he was not. Instead he clutched at his throat, gurgled chokingly, staggered a little. When he had regained control, he said: ‘Ah, Thibor! But now, ready or not, you have brought on that which cannot be reversed. It is my time, and yours. The time of the egg, the seed. See! See!’
He opened his great jaws until his mouth was a cavern, and his forked, flickering tongue bent backwards like a hook into his throat. And like a hook it caught something and dragged it into view.
Gasping, again Thibor drew down into himself. He saw the vampire seed there in the fork of Faethor’s tongue: a translucent, silver-grey droplet shining like a pearl, trembling in the final seconds before . . . before its seeding?
‘No!’ Thibor hoarsely denied the horror. But it would not be denied. He looked in Faethor’s eyes for some hint of what was coming, but that was a terrible mistake. Beguilement and hypnotism were the Ferenczy’s greatest accomplishment. The vampire’s eyes were yellow as gold, huge and growing bigger moment by moment.
Ah, my son, those eyes seemed to say, come, a kiss for your father.
Then —The pearly droplet turned scarlet, and Faethor’s mouth
fastened on Thibor’s own, which stood open in a scream that might last forever .
Harry Keogh’s pause had lasted for several seconds, but still Kyle and Quint sat there, wrapped in their blankets and the horror of his story.
‘That is the most —, Kyle started.
Almost simultaneously, Quint said, ‘I’ve never in my life heard —,
We have to stop there, Keogh broke in on both of them, something of urgency in his telepathic voice. My son is about to be difficult; he’s going to wake up for his feed.
‘Two minds in one body,’ Quint mused, still awed by what he’d heard. ‘I mean, I’m talking about you, Harry. In a way you’re not unlike —,
Don’t say it. Keogh cut him off a second time. There’s no way I’m like that! Not even remotely. But listen, I have to hurry. Do you have anything to tell me?
Kyle got a grip of his rioting thoughts, forced himself back to earth, to the present. ‘We’re meeting Krakovitch tomorrow,’ he said. ‘But I’m annoyed. This was supposed to be exclusive, entirely an inter-branch exchange — a bit of ESP détente, as it were — but there’s at least one KGB goon in on it too.’
How do you know?
‘We’ve a minder on the job — but he’s strictly in the background. Their man comes close up.’
The Keogh apparition seemed puzzled. That wouldn’t have happened in Borowitz’s time. He hated them! And frankly, I can’t see it happening now. There’s no meeting ground between Andropov’s sort of mind-control and ours. And when I say ‘ours’ I include the Russian outfit. Don’t let it develop into a shouting match, Alec. You have to work with Krakovitch. Offer your assistance.
Kyle frowned. ‘To do what?’
He has ground to clear. You know at least one of the sites. You can help him to do it.
‘Ground to clear?’ Kyle got up off his bed. Hugging his blanket to him, he stepped towards the manifestation. ‘Harry, we still have our own ground to clear in England! While I’m out here in Italy, Yulian Bodescu is still freewheeling over there! I’m anxious about it. I keep getting this urge to turn my lot loose on him and —‘
NO! Keogh was alarmed. Not until we know everything there is to know. You daren’t risk it. Right now he’s at the centre of a very small nest, but if he wanted to he could spread this thing like a plague!