Necroscope: Invaders

EPILOGUE

people climbed out of the lead car and, as a man, collapsed or plumped down on the withered grass and began to breathe again. Then someone (it sounded to Liz like 'Red' Bygraves) said, 'Holyfuck!' And everyone started talking at once.

In Xanadu, Jethro Manchester had built a Pleasure Dome. Now it was gone, and Manchester with it, to an end as undeserved as it was brutal and horrific. Likewise the alien author of Xanadu's and Manchester's ruin; he, too, was gone. But Lord Nephran Malinari was fled, not dead. And it grieved Ben Trask's heart that he must admit it: that the chase wasn't nearly over yet, but if anything was now more needful and deadly than ever.

For if the others, if Vavara and Szwart, were trying to do what Malinari had begun to do in subterranean Xanadu — if they, too, were nurturing 'gardens' of loathsome plague-bearing death-spawn — and if a single red spore, all unnoticed, inhaled like a speck of dust, could write finis on a human life and replace it with undeath, how then millions or billions of spores — and what then for the world…?

On the second morning after the Australians cremated their four dead comrades in a quiet ceremony with full military honours — a ceremony which Trask and his E-Branch people felt privileged to attend, where in fact there were only three bodies in their coffins, for the fourth had burned on Manchester's island, and was represented by a photograph, a scroll of honour, and messages of farewell from his closest colleagues only — the second morning after that, the Major and his two stalwart Warrant Officers were at the airport in Brisbane to see Trask and his people off.

After the British team had received their regulation new bubonic shots — for the Australian authorities were insistent that no one be allowed to enter or leave the continent without first being inoculated — then, over drinks in the departure lounge, Trask and the Major had a quiet word in private. Jake, Liz, and the rest of the team sat at a table with Bygraves and Davis, where for the better part they commiserated in silence. Something of an aftermath, it seemed there wasn't a lot to be said. But Trask and the SAS Major weren't willing to leave it at that.

'And so it goes on/ said the Major, Tor you at least.'

'For us it never seems to end,' Trask answered. 'Just when we think it might, there's always something new. Not always as bad as what we've just been through, but always bad.'

'And you can't give up on it,' said the Major; not a question but a statement of fact.

'Never!' Trask growled. 'This time, for me it's personal. But personal or not, it's always the same. We've seen all this before, and we'll see it again. Yes, and we'll see it through, all the way to the end. But myself… I for one will never be able to rest until this one is dead. Or until I'm dead. One or the other.'

'Malinari?'

'The same,' Trask nodded. 'I want that bastard dead, dead, dead! And I intend to get him, no matter what it takes. As Lardis Lideci might say, that's my vow. Hub! My Szgany vow, aye.'

'Well, you have a good team to help you,' the Major glanced across the room at the people sitting with his men. 'Weird as hell, but good. That David Chung, for instance. Such a quiet little man — with his built-in radar dish. And the tall fellow, lan Goodly, who I'd hate to play cards with. And Liz, who hears people thinking? I definitely wouldn't play cards with her! And as for Jake… I just can't believe what he does! It may have saved my life, but I still don't believe it.'

'I know,' Trask answered. 'And it doesn't help that it's something I can't talk about. Or something we can't talk about. But being what you are, SAS, I'm sure you understand that. Anyway — and if it makes it any easier — there are times when I don't believe this stuff myself. Times when I wake up and think I've been nightmaring. And the hell of it is, I'm the only one who really knows that it's true!'

The Major shook his head and said, 'Weird, weird people — but I'm glad to have known you.'

'Same here,' said Trask. 'I'm only sorry that—'

'I know.' The other cut him short. 'The only consolation lies in what we've achieved. For let's face it, no sane people could ever suffer such as that to live. Those four lives might have saved thousands.'

But Trask shook his head. "Think again,' he said. 'Thousands? There are over six billion people on this small planet. And that's how many we might have saved. Or that we've started to save.'

And after a while the Major said, 'Hearing you put it like that, I know it was worth it.'

At which Liz called across and said, 'They're boarding.'

'It's time we weren't here,' said Trask, standing up. And as the Major reached out his hand Trask looked at it, took it, and said, 'I don't even know your name!'

'It's Tom,' said the other.

'Just Tom? Major Tom?'

'That'll suffice,' said the Major, grinning.

Trask smiled, too, and said, 'Well, Major Tom, ground control is calling for us.'

The Major had been carrying a fat, eighteen-inch-long parcel. Now he gave it to Trask. 'This is for you,' he said. 'The men found it when they went down and burned out the underground rooms, tunnels and conduits in Xanadu. It got burned, too, so I can guarantee it's clean. I don't believe in trophy-taking, not after a job like that one. Maybe you'll find a use for it.'

After that there was no time for anything other than handshakes all round. Then Trask and his people went to board their Qantas VTOL Skyskip…

But as they queued at the boarding gate, Jake sensed someone's gaze upon him and glanced toward the reinforced flexiglass wall that secured the boarding area from the viewing promenade. From the far side of the wall, distorted by the images of other passengers that moved across its reflective surface, a thin, pockmarked face looked back at him. And for a moment their eyes met before Jake looked away.

He looked away, but only for a moment…

… Until something went click in his memory and he gave a start and looked again. But the face was gone.

Standing just behind him, Ben Trask had noticed his reaction and said, 'Is there something?'

Jake frowned, then shook his head. 'No/ he said. 'I don't think so. But just for a moment then I thought I might have… recognized someone?'

Trask looked at him in a certain way, with his head cocked a little on one side, and said, 'Or you're concerned that maybe someone recognized you?'

Jake shrugged uncomfortably, said, 'That, too. But here in Australia? Unlikely.'

Very unlikely, yes. For as Jake had said, what would that lousy, murdering, bastard thug — what would the face of a man who had featured in his worst nightmares for far too long now, one of Luigi Castellano's soldiers, unforgotten from a certain monstrous night in Marseille — what would he be doing here?

Then he shrugged again and put it out of his mind. It was part of his growing obsession, that was all, when from time to time he would see those faces wherever he looked; this despite that several of them were no more, dead by his hand. But still Jake looked again at the flexiglass partition before moving on into the boarding tunnel.

And of course there was no one there…

As the VTOL Skyskip was rising vertically into the air, lifting its nose, and accelerating into the sky, the man with the pockmarked face was in a telephone kiosk, speaking long-distance to Palermo. 'No doubt about it/ he said in Italian. 'I'd know the guy

anywhere. He's alive and kicking, and there's been all kinds of shit going down around here, yeah! That Xanadu thing: they said it was a plague-spot, and an accidental fire burned it out down to the foundations. But I can tell you, Luigi, some of the crew who were up there clearing up afterwards — like, you know, military types? — they were here at the airport to see Cutter and these British people onto their plane. Like pals all round, you know? Me, I'd like to know how you knew this Jake Cutter would be out here in the first place…

'You didn't know? You were only interested in Xanadu…?

'And I… I ask too many questions. Yeah, I know. You're right, sorry. So what now?

'I should find out who the Brits were? Get after them, on the next plane? Sure, I can handle that. And I can use the account in England, have myself some fun? Hey, I like it!

'Er, yeah…?

'But if I don't find out who they are, I needn't bother to go back to Marseille… or anywhere. Right, Luigi, I got that. But say.. And there he stopped short, scowling at the phone. For it was purring away vacantly to itself in his hand, and the oh-so-dark voice on the other end was gone…p>

On board the Skyskip, when they were indeed skipping across the outer atmosphere, Ben Trask started to open the parcel given to him by the Major. But as gleaming metal hooks appeared, flexible fish-scale plates and sharp-pointed gouges, he stopped, went pale, and wrapped the thing up again.

Having seen its like before, on Starside in an alien world of vampires, he knew exactly what it was: a battle gauntlet, as used by the Wamphyri!

But then, looking up and across the central aisle at David Chung, Trask's colour returned and he smiled a mirthless, vengeful smile. And: 'Lord Nephran Malinari/ he murmured to himself, under the subdued rumble of the Skyskip's engines, 'you can run but you can't hide.'

And again, nodding to himself, 'You can't ever hide, Malinari — not for long, not from me — and definitely not from E-Branch…'