Gulharov got down off the desk. He still had the stake, was hanging on to it like grim death. Prodding the flopping head, and cursing all the time under his breath, finally he juggled the thing into Krakovitch’s drawer. Krakovitch slammed a section of shelving down on top of it, and Gulharov brought a pair of heavy ledgers to put on top of that. Both cabinet and drawer shuddered and shook for a few seconds more, then were still.
Like a pair of ghosts Krakovitch and Gulharov faced each other, both of them panting, white as sheets and round-eyed. Then Krakovitch snarled, reached out and slapped the other’s face. ‘Bodyguard?’ he shouted. ‘Bloody bodyguard?’ He slapped him again, hard. ‘Bloody hell!
‘I … I’m sorry. I didn’t know what to . . .’ Gulharov was trembling like a leaf, looked like he was going to faint.
Krakovitch calmed down. He could hardly blame him. ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘It’s all right. Now listen: we’ll burn the head up here. We’ll do that first, right now. Go quickly, fetch Avgas.’
Staggering a little, Gulharov went.
He was back in record time, carrying a jerrycan. They slid the shelving over the drawer open a crack, poured Avgas. There was no movement from inside the drawer. ‘Enough!’ said Krakovitch. ‘Any more and there’ll be one hell of an explosion. Now then, help me drag the cabinet through into the other room.’ In a moment they were back, and Krakovitch tipped out the drawers of Borowitz’s desk. He found what he was looking for: a small ball of string. He snapped off a ten foot length, soaked it in Avgas, carefully dangled one end through the crack into the drawer. Then he laid the string out on the floor in a straight line towards the door and took out Gulharov’s matches. They shielded their eyes as he lit the fuse.
Blue fire raced across the floor, leaped into the drawer. There was a dull thump and shelving, ledgers and all hit the ceiling, then fell back to the floor. The metal drawer was an inferno, in which the flat snake-head danced and skittered – but not for long. As the drawer began to buckle under the heat and the carpet about it blackened and burst into flames, so the thing in the drawer puffed up, and split open and quickly became liquescent. And then it, too, burned. But Krakovitch and Gulharov waited a full minute more before they put out the fire.
Krakovitch gave a curt nod. ‘Well, at least we know the thing burns!’ he said. ‘It was probably dead anyway, but by my books when a thing’s dead it lies still!’
They bumped the cabinet downstairs, two flights to the ground floor, then out through the battle-torn building into the grounds. Krakovitch stood guard on it while Gulharov went back for the Avgas. When he returned, Krakovitch said, This will be the tricky bit. First we pour some of this stuff around the cabinet. That way, when we open it, if what’s inside is – active – we just jump back out of range and toss a match. Until it’s quiet. And so on….
Gulharov seemed uncertain, but he was far more alert now.
They poured Avgas on to and around the cabinet, and then Gulharov got well back out of it. Krakovitch slid back the bolt, threw the door clangingly open. Inside, Dragosani stared into the sky. His chest stirred a little, but that was all. As Krakovitch began to pour Avgas carefully into the cabinet near Dragosani’s feet, Gulharov came forward. ‘Don’t use too much,’ it was the Sergeant’s turn to caution. ‘Or it will go off like a bomb!’ When the fuel swirled almost an inch deep around Dragosani’s prone form, evaporating furiously, the dead man’s chest gave another sudden lurch. Krakovitch stopped pouring, stared, backed off a little. Outside the circle of danger, Gulharov stood with a match ready to strike. A slickly shining, grey-green tendril sprouted upwards from Dragosani’s chest. Its tip formed a knob as big as a fist, which in turn formed an eye. Just seeing that orb, Krakovitch knew there was no thought behind it, no sentience. It was vacant, staring, made no connections and carried no emotions. Krakovitch doubted if it even saw. Certainly there was no longer any brain for it to relay its message to. The eye melted back into protoflesh, was replaced by small jaws which clashed mindlessly. Then it sank down again out of sight.