Necroscope: Invaders

Trapped!Chopper one's pilot had heard the Major's call for action, seen the explosions, heard something of the messages passing between the men on the ground. The assault on the Pleasure Dome was proceeding just a few minutes behind schedule; it was time to give the ground forces a little aerial support. Bright searchlight beams  -  aimed inwards on the casino, to blind anyone trying to escape from that place  -  swept down from above.Like all the rest of the attacking force, Liz wore phosphorescent patches front and rear of her combat suit. It wouldn't do for anyone to be shot dead by 'friendly' fire. Lit up like a human neon, gun in hand, she ran towards the doors at the top of the steps. Hanging askew, the doors were still giving off smoke from the grenades. Of soldiers there was no sign, but she could hear the occasional burst of gunfire from within ...

A few minutes earlier, not far inside the same shattered doorway, Trask, Goodly, and the Major had found a wounded NCO sitting on the floor with his back to a slot machine. He had taken a bullet in the leg but had seen to the wound himself. 'This'11 keep,' he told them through gritted teeth. 'I'm okay here  -  but you should take this with you.' Trask accepted the man's flamethrower and pack, and the precog helped him into the gear. The wounded man retained his machine-pistol; when they left he was slapping a fresh clip into the magazine housing.Then, moving deeper into the smoky gloom of the place, the Major spoke into his headset: 'This is Zero. My group is inside the main doors and advancing. Sitreps, over?'And the answers came back:'Zero, this is Alpha Group. We're on the stairs on the far side, going up one level. No opposition.''Zero, this is Bravo Group. Stairs your side, going up one level. No opposition.''Zero, this is Charlie. We're ahead of you toward the central spindle. We have a man down inside the doors  -  and we just found something nasty.''Zero for Charlie, how nasty?''Charlie for Zero, not life-threatening  -  but nasty.''Zero for Charlie, we saw your man,' said the Major. 'He's okay ... but you should have taken his flamer.''Charlie for Zero, we couldn't stop. We're in hot pursuit. Our target is still in here somewhere. Towards the elevators, we think.''Zero for Charlie, wait there/ said the Major, and moved on with Trask and Goodly close behind.Throughout the casino's ground floor, mainly on the perimeter, several hissing phosphor flares had been lit; they gave light but also made smoke, which in turn made for a very eerie, shadow-etched atmosphere. Charlie group (which was now made up of just two men, WO II Red Bygraves and an NCO) was waiting midway between the doors and the central column of elevators. And indeed they had found something nasty. Zeroing in on their reflective patches, the Major's group of three found the soldiers keeping well back from their gruesome discovery.

Hanging by its ankles, upside-down from a chandelier, the corpse of a thin, spidery male figure turned slowly on a triple loop of electrical cable. The man's throat had been cut ear to ear, and his flesh was like snow, drained of blood.

But on the floor, only a very few scarlet droplets had been spilled ...Despite that the body was inverted, Trask recognized him at once. 'Liz Merrick's watcher,' he said grimly. 'So much for working for a vampire! This will have to be burned. On our way out we'll burn this whole fucking place!' And the Major turned to him and said:'Trask, steady up now, okay? Now listen, all of you. This group is now five strong. We're all armed and we have a flamer. We have men climbing the perimeter stairs, closing them off. We know our main target's trapped in the bubble on top of the casino, and that he has at least one soldier, guardian, or - ' He looked to Trask for help.'Thrall/ Trask told him hoarsely. 'Call him a thrall/'One thrall/ the Major went on, ' - the one you men were pursuing  -  watching his back down here; which might mean that he was guarding the elevators to keep his boss safe. So that's where we're heading, the elevators. But remember: this guy has the advantage of being able to see in the dark, and your flak jackets only give you so much protection. So spread yourselves out, but stay well within sight and sound of each other .. / As he finished, the Major turned and headed deeper into the casino. And the others spread out on his flanks ...Shortly, the central hexagonal column of elevators became visible, and at the same time the stutter of automatic gunfire sounded from ahead. Ripping into a row of silent slot machines, the stream of bullets was like an invisible buzz-saw that gutted them and spilled their coins on the floor. Then the raking fire found Bygraves and lifted him clean off his feet. Shot in the right shoulder, injured, but by no means fatally, the W.O. went down in a stream of bright silver, a splash of blood red, and his own cries of disgust and frustration.

And in the central area, close to an elevator door marked PRIVATE, there stood a flame-eyed Thing in human form, cradling a gun that spat fire one more time, before the Major sent a single bullet in through his left eye. Swatted, the vampire thrall thudded backwards against the elevator doors; his feet slid out from under him, and he sank down onto the floor in a seated position.While Bygraves's subordinate went to his aid, Trask and the others approached the vampire thrall. One of Malinari's pair of minders, he must obviously be dead ... but wasn't. As his right eye opened, burning yellow in the gloom, so he toppled onto his side, turned himself face-down, and began to claw his way erratically away from the elevators. In another moment, however, the effort became too much for him. He came to a halt, coughed once or twice, and slurred out the words, 'Oh, fuck it!'He had dropped his gun and no longer posed any real threat. He looked up at Trask and his colleagues, and his clenched left hand jerked and twitched where he reached out towards them. His left eye was a gaping black hole oozing blood and pulped brains, and the rest of his face was a red- and grey-smeared mess.But as the Major stood back a little and took careful aim, so the thrall's hand opened and he dropped a metal key onto the floor. Then he gurgled, 'This is wh-what you want, right? So go on, f-finish it. Then find that fucker and f-finish h-h-him.'The Major didn't have to finish it. For as the man's head slumped to the floor, so a gush of blood and morbid fluid erupted from his ruined eye, and he jerked once more and was done.Trask had called the elevator; as the doors opened, Goodly picked up the key, and the Major called out to Bygraves's subordinate: 'Try to get the Warrant Officer out of here. And see if your number three is okay. We're going upstairs.' He got in the elevator with Trask and Goodly.

The push-button control panel in the rear wall of the elevator had buttons for two basement levels, the ground floor, and floors one and two; plus two keyholes, one of which was marked, PRIVATE  -  UP. The other keyhole was unmarked. The precog looked at the key in his hand and said, 'Couldn't be simpler ... could it?'

'Too simple by far,' Trask growled. 'And we've been losing men left right and centre.'

'Your talent?' said the Major. 'You're still uneasy?' 'Worried sick!' Trask answered. 'The whole thing is wrong.But we're committed now.' He gave Goodly a nod, and the precog put the key in the UP hole and turned it...

Liz had found the wounded NCO inside the Pleasure Dome's main doors and helped him out of the casino into the fresh air. She had thought he might be able to call down Chopper One, but his radio had been damaged when he was hit. When she'd left him to go back inside, he had told her that when he'd last seen Trask and his party they'd been heading towards the central elevators. Then he had warned her that for all he knew the vampire sniper who had shot him was still on the loose in there.Going back into the casino, and knowing what might be waiting for her, Liz hadn't dared to call out after Trask. By that time some of the flares had burned out, leaving it much smokier and a lot darker in there. So that when she'd heard noises from deep inside  -  shouting, shots, and crashing sounds  -  then she'd taken a circuitous route in the hope of avoiding trouble. In so doing, she had somehow managed to bypass 'Red' Bygraves and his man on their way out.But intent as Liz was on what she was doing  -  finding Ben Trask, and relaying Chung's message  -  her telepathic guard was down. Which was precisely the opening that Nephran Malinari had been waiting for.Ben, where are you? she anxiously wondered, as she saw the hexagonal spindle of the elevator column looming ahead. But of course Trask wasn't a telepath, and Liz's probe (if she'd actually sent one, if she had even tried to, for in fact she'd simply been talking to herself, a natural response to her circumstances, like whistling in the dark) would go unanswered.Or it should have gone unanswered. But:Liz? (it was Ben Trask's voice - his telepathic voice? - in her head!) Is that you, Liz? But... can you hear me? If so, please listen. You've got to kip us. We've got ourselves trapped down here, behind a bulkhead that only opens from the other side. Your side, that is. But there's been shooting and now the place is burning. We'll burn, too, Liz, if you can't reach us!She could actually feel the heat behind his mental SOS, could almost see the flames, it was so brilliantly clear. Clear like never before. So perhaps Jake was right: her talent really was growing stronger minute by minute! Yes, it must be so. And:Ben, she sent. But how can I reach you? Where are you?Down here, he answered. Down in the guts of the place. You can reach us via the elevators. It's the only way.In the guts of the place? Underground in that maze of tunnels and pipes? At which she instinctively glanced at the floor ... and at the ghastly figure of a dead man, who lay there with his brains trickling out through his eye.'Liz jumped a foot, but Ben had obviously seen through her eyes and quickly said: We got that one, and followed the others down here. But you'll he safe because they're on the other side of the fire. Use the elevator, Liz, the one marked PRIVATE. But please hurry!She had already called the elevator, and anxiously watched the tiny indicator lights bringing it down to the ground floor. But bringing it down? Well, the military must have used it. For of course, the whole place would have to be checked out.The doors opened and she got in, and the voice  -  Trask's voice, in Liz's mind  -  said: Is there a key in one of the key-holes? He sounded even more anxious, urgent now, and his voice was tinged with something else ... anticipation, maybe? But of course it was! She had given him hope, and he was looking forward to being rescued.A key, yes, she told him. In the UP slot.Take it out, he said. Use the other keyhole. Turn the key ninety degrees clockwise. But quickly, Liz, quickly!

She did as instructed. And the cage descended, taking her down, down, down ...

On Jethro Manchester's island, Jake Cutter, Lardis Lidesci, and Joe Davis arrived at the open-ended, roofed-over section of the man-made channel that housed the millionaire's yacht  -  in effect a boathouse  -  midway between the villa and the sea. Hearing voices in heated argument, they split up and Davis took the far side of the structure, while Jake and the Old Lidesci crept up on that end of the boathouse closest to the burning villa.

The lock gates were open, but the yacht was still tied up. Both the boat and the ceiling of the flat-roofed structure were illuminated by their own lights. On the canopied deck, just aft of the cabin, two men faced each other down. The one was older, taller, white-haired and -bearded. Dressed in a khaki shirt and shorts, he looked almost military in his proud, upright stance. This was Jethro Manchester himself, Jake knew. The younger man, who was holding a shotgun on the first, was shorter, stockier; but his hard, leathery, sun-beaten features were very much similar to Bruce Trennier's, his older brother's, which Jake would never be able to forget.'Martin,' Manchester's voice rang out in the night, 'can't you see it's all over and you can't run from these people? Man, you're like a walking plague, a pestilence  -  you and me both  -  but a far worse pestilence than any in the Bible! And would you take that among the people? I see that you would. Well, and why not, for you brought it down on me and mine! That was sheer treachery, Martin! So say and do what you like, you won't be taking my boat. She's mine and she goes with me ... wherever.'Manchester held a jerrycan with both hands; as he had spoken, so he had been splashing its contents on the deck. The smell of diesel was unmistakable.'Jethro, I'm not forgetting that I owe you,' Martin Trennier spoke up. It's the only reason you're still alive while we stand here and argue like this. But you're wrong to think this is the end of everything. It's only the beginning! You were the last to be taken  -  after he'd used your family to get his way  -  after he'd promised that he would give it all back, and cure us of this thing.

Well, he's a liar, as we've seen, and he made me take you, too. But you were the last and it's still taking hold of you. When it does, and when it has fully taken hold  -  which it will! -  then you'll know I was right. So stand aside and let me get on. Or better still, come with me and let's see what we can make of things together.'As he had spoken, Trennier had stepped to the port side of the boat to cast off a rope. But Manchester had taken the opportunity to pick up a second jerrycan. This time, before he could begin spilling its contents, Trennier stepped close and knocked it out of his hands. And now he trained his weapon dead centre on Manchester's body.'I've no time for this, Jethro/ he growled. 'You can come with me now, or stay here. You can live or you can die. One way or the other, it's your choice. So what's it to be?'Manchester took out a cigarette lighter from the pocket of his shorts. He flicked it once  -  and it failed to spark! Trennier cursed, but he wasn't about to give the older man a second chance. Sending the butt of his weapon crashing to Manchester's face, jostling him to the side of the boat, finally he succeeded in knocking him overboard. And as Manchester swam towards the side of the channel, so Trennier clung to the deck rail, leaned out over the water, and fired his weapon at almost point-blank range.Which was as far as Jake was willing to let it go. He and Joe Davis acted together. Davis ran in under the far end of the boathouse, firing on the yacht as he came, and Jake ran to meet him, skidding to a halt on his knees to play the roaring, searing lance of his flame-thrower on both the vessel and the man on her deck.

Trennier fired another shot, and another  -  fired blindly, through the shimmering fire that enveloped and ate into him  -  while the boat literally erupted in flames and he turned into a jet-black, shrieking silhouette, dancing in agony until finally he crumpled down into himself and lay still.

As Jake shut off his lance, there came the sound of feeble splashing from the channel. It was Manchester. The flesh at the back of his head, his neck and across his shoulders was a livid, liquid red. 'Let me out!' he cried, climbing sunken steps. 'Let me out and finish it then, but not in the water. I lived in the water  -  lived for the water  -  so I don't want to die in it.'

And when he was out, and staggering on dry land, Jake told him, 'Mr Manchester, we heard everything. And we're sorry.''I know you are,' Manchester nodded his bloody head. 'Yes, and I'm glad you came. My family ... is no more, and I... have no reason or right to be here.' With which he held out his arms in the shape of a cross, stood there and closed his feral eyes.Then Joe Davis gritted his teeth, and cut the old man down with accurate, merciful shooting; the Old Lidesci went in close and used his machete; and finally, making absolutely sure, Jake finished it with roaring fire. By which time both the yacht and the structure that housed it were a mass of leaping flames, and the three backed away, leaning on each other while they watched it all burn ...In a little while Davis's radio crackled, and call-signs began asking him was it all over? He told them yes, called down Chopper Two, told everyone they could start mopping up. But as he and his party began to make their way back towards the villa:'What?3 said Jake, whirling on the balls of his feet. His eyes were wide and darting, searching here and there across the sculpted landscape of the gardens, and his ruddily-lit face was shocked and puzzled. 'Liz?' But then his eyes went wider still, in sudden understanding.It was Liz he'd heard calling for him, yes, but she wasn't here ... she was in Xanadu!Jake! Jake, if you can hear me (her telepathic voice was a tiny, terrified whisper huddling in a corner of his mind), then please, please come and get me out of here!And behind her sweet voice another  -  but a loathsome, gurgling thing  -  like hot tar bubbling in some medieval torturer s cauldron: Ah, no, my little thought-thief. No one can help you now. You though to use your mentalism against me, but Malinari has used it against you! I have lied to Ben Trask  -  impossible, but I have done it  -  and I've located and lost your locator. As for your marvellous precog: le senses nothing but confusion, for the death and destruction that he foresaw was his own and yours and Xanadu's, but never mine! And now there's this Jake  - your lover, perhaps? But where is he? Oh, ha ha haaaaaa!'Jesus!' Jake moaned. But he knew what he must do. Korath! he called out into the deadspeak aether. And:About time, said that one. Butjirst tell me, do we have a deal, you and I, as prescribed? Do you wittingly give me access to your mind?There was no way around it, and no time to argue. And so: Yes! said Jake. Anything! Only show me those numbers.So be it, said Korath. And Jake's inner being lit up like a lamp, as those impossible numbers scrolled in not-quite-endless progression down the computer screen of his mind. But not quite endlessly, because he instantly recognized a pattern and suddenly, 'instinctively' knew where to freeze it. Then:A door! And:Go! said Korath. And I go with you ...Jake went  -  stepped in through the door  -  vanished from the view of Lardis Lidesci and Joe Davis, and was gone.'What?' Davis stood stock still, frozen in his amazement. And for a moment even Lardis was lost for words, astonished as ever by this thing. But then he recovered and said:'Pay no attention. It's a trick he does. Just an optic  -  er, an optical  -  er ...''An optical illusion?' Davis's jaw hung slack.'Aye, something like that,' Lardis said, gratefully. 'Er, but we needn't expect him back. He has his own ways of getting about, that one.' And once again, with a knowing, emphatic nod of his grizzled head, 'Aye!' he said ...In the ultimate, primal darkness of the Mobius Continuum, Jake whirled like a leaf in a gale. 'BUT WHERE TO?' he said, and was nearly deafened as his words gonged like the clappers of a mad, gigantic bell!

The thought itself would appear to be sufficient, Korath told him, awed in his own right. For I sense this place is the very essence of nothingness, wherefore physical speech  -  which is something  -  is forbidden here. But deadspeak, being as nothing, is permissible.Jake steadied himself -  discovered that he could actually steady himself  -  and repeated, Where to? He could feel the Continuum tugging on him, and believed he knew where it would take him if he gave it the chance: Harry's Room, at E-Branch HQ. But that wasn't where he wanted to go.Who is it you are concerned for? Korath remained logical.Liz, of course! She had called out to Jake  -  asked for his help  -  and her telepathic voice had been a beacon. Now he remembered it, remembered its coordinates, and went to her. It was as simple as that. At least the going there was simple, but the rest of it wasn't.When the door formed, Jake didn't know how to make an exit and so simply crashed through it. Into a living nightmare!It was a room, shaft or cavern, but its lighting after the Stygian darkness of the Mobius Continuum was glaring, brilliant, blinding. Overbalanced as gravity returned (by the sudden, unaccustomed weight of the flame-thrower), tripping and flying headlong into a wall, and rebounding, Jake landed on something soft and squirmy ...... Something that cried its terror, and two seconds later wrapped its arms around him.'Jake, oh Jake!' Liz gasped, holding tightly to him on the one hand, but wriggling and kicking desperately away from something on the other. Her Baby Browning was clenched in her fist, and she kept aiming it and pulling the trigger  -  click! click! click! - as the firing pin fell on blank space. A pair of empty clips lay on the sandy floor where she'd discharged and discarded them.It was the strip lighting that had blinded Jake, that and his dizzying, head-over-heels emergence from the Mobius Continuum. Now, as his head stopped spinning, he saw what had turned this determined, self-possessed, assertive woman into a frightened little girl again: weird, morbid motion.The floor of the place was alive ... or undead!Jake could scarcely take it in  -  scarcely believe what he was seeing  -  but he had to, and quickly.The cavern was the size of a large room. A planked walkway crossed the centre of the floor and disappeared into tunnels at both ends. On the other side of the walkway, maybe fifteen feet away, the floor was ... different. It was humped, veined, corrugated ... and mobile. And it wasn't the floor!Something tossed and turned  -  or churned  -  there. Something throbbed and gulped and gasped. It was a fleshy, flopping octopus of a thing; an immense doughy pancake of metamorphic flesh, throwing up purple-veined extrusions that groped blindly in the air before collapsing back down into the bulk of... of It! The colour of dead flesh in its main mass, it squelched, fumed, and stank like gas bubbles bursting in a swamp. And mindlessly, aimlessly, it worked at fashioning its ropy extensions.Or perhaps not mindlessly. For as Jake sat there cradling Liz, so the thing extruded a tentacle that came whipping across the walkway to rear before them in a questioning, semi-sentient fashion. It pulsed, vibrated, and an eye formed in its tip! The eye was a uniform red, lidless, apparently vacant  -  yet it must be seeing or sensing something. For as Liz shrilled and started pulling the trigger again  -  click! click! click!  -  so a second tentacle emerged and lengthened in their direction.As it came, a row of greedy, suctorial mouths rippled into metamorphic being along its length. They slobbered and grimaced, those mouths  -  and they had human teeth! But far worse, some of them were reforming, shaping themselves into tumescent, purple-veined penises!

Jake felt rooted to the spot, for the moment paralysed. It seemed to him that the whole mass of the thing beyond the walkway was now on the move, edging towards him  -  and certainly towards Liz! And that was enough.He unfroze, fought Liz off, brought up the flame-thrower's nozzle and squeezed the trigger to get its pilot light going  -  then cursed vividly as nothing happened, and squeezed it again, and again, and yet again, before it lit - then gripped the firing lever and applied a steady, deadly pressure.First Jake aimed down between his spread legs, aimed at the rearing pseudopods, to drive them back, and his relief was immense as he watched them burst into flames and shrivel in the incandescent, pressured heat of his lance. Then he scrambled to his feet, and with Liz dancing close behind, clutching his combat jacket and urging him on, so he advanced towards the walkway and the bulk of the thing that hissed and steamed and shuddered its agony there.And as the tentacles writhed, dripped their fluids, blackened and shrank  -  and as the main body withdrew into itself -  there, sprouting in the floor where its bulk had protected them, clusters of small black mushrooms, dozens of them, were melting in the chemical fire. Their smell was nauseating, but Jake kept on firing; kept cursing, too, as Malinari's 'garden' burned.But this was vampire stuff, tenacious and defiant.The shrinking body of the mass burst open, and a steaming head  -  a human, or almost-human head, and shoulders  -  grew out of it. Again Jake felt himself gripped by a paralysis of disbelief. Yet the nightmare was here and undeniably real.But so was Korath here, and so was he real. And in Jake's mind as the livid vampire head took shape: It is him! Korath's deadspeak voice hissed. Demetrakis Mindsthrall, who was Malinari's lieutenant, second only to myself! Because he had been a vampire for long and long, Malinari used him to make this garden. It must be so, for only the most contaminated flesh could ever have produced a crop such as this! Ah, but just think. If there had been no Demetrakis, then this would be me! And so it seems I got the better of the bargain after all...'Whoever it was, it's time he died,' said Jake. And:

Aye, Korath agreed. The true death. I know he would thank you for it. And Jake hosed fire on the terrible thing where it mewled and melted, until his torch began to sputter.Then he eased back on the flamer's lever, to see what damage he'd done, and if he had done enough. The cave steamed and smoked but was mainly still  -  except in one badly-lit corner. There was some slight movement there, and Jake advanced across the smoking floor, making sure as he went that he stepped only where there was no sign of contamination.But as he approached the corner: 'H-help me!' the faintest of whispers reached out to him. 'H-h-help me, pleeeease!'A single short burst of fire from the flamethrower chased back the shadows, then a longer burst, to allow for confirmation of what Jake had seen. And, indeed, he needed such confirmation.From the heck up the thing in the corner was a man ... and from there on down it had been a man. But now the eyes in that purple, once-arrogant, once-querulous face were bulging, staring, terrified  -  and they were filled with such agony as Jake could only imagine.As for the 'body' of this thing: that was a slumped, naked heap of limbless, alien flesh similar to the composition of the monstrous guardian of Malinari's garden. And Jake couldn't stop his gorge rising  -  felt sick to his stomach  -  as it dawned on him in a sudden burst of loathing that this mutated abnormality had once been a man, and that it or he had been converted into live nourishment for the garden and its guardian!

Finger-thick, pulsing, translucent arteries  -  like fleshy worms  -  even now connected the two forms, and towards the centre of the cave where Jake's fire had seared and split the guardian open, spurts of yellow and crimson plasma went to waste, fountaining uselessly in the smoky air.

All of which was bad enough, but worse by far was the fact that Jake knew who this travesty of a human being had been.

That Peter Miller 'lived' in his condition  -  if this could be called life  -  and that he was capable of realizing his fate and asking for help, was a miracle in itself. But it was also a curse that Jake would wish on no man, not even on his worst enemy.

For this was worse than any death, compared to which death would be a blessing. And when Miller found strength to ask once more, 'Please ... please help me!' then Jake was happy to grant his request. It didn't take long, but it used up the last dregs of the flamer's fuel.

When it was over, Jake steadied himself and turned to Liz. But still his face was ashen as he asked, 'Where now?''You can actually do it?' Almost back in possession of herself, still Liz clutched his jacket. 'The Mobius Continuum?''Yes,' he told her. 'We ... I mean I, can do it.''The bubble dome,' she told him. 'Ben is up there. There's something I have to tell him. We walked right into a trap, Jake, all of us, and I think that we're still in danger. Malinari was in my mind, imitating Ben! But at the end  -  just before he left me in this place  -  then for a moment I was in his mind! Telepathy is a two-way thing, but my forte is as a receiver. And Malinari... he was oh-so-sure of himself! I think that maybe he's sabotaged this place! I sensed it there, in his mind.''When you called out to me,' Jake answered, 'I heard something of what he said to you. You're right: he seemed very sure of himself. Perhaps too sure.'And Liz nodded and repeated, 'The dome, on top of the casino. Take us there.''Hold on to me,' Jake told her, for he had flown over Xanadu and knew the coordinates. And Korath knew the numbers ...In his vantage point in the cliff, Malinari allowed his fingers to drift over the array of switches and pondered his choice. By now the girl was being absorbed into his garden, and that was a shame ... that he hadn't been able to stay with her, within her mind, to explain what was happening to her and feel her terror; but no, for he had other things to do.His mist was up; it lay knee deep, swirling through Xanadu from one end of the resort to the other. It was like a spider's web, that mist, carrying every faintest tremor back to its master and maker. A medium for his probes, it allowed him to touch the human flies who were 'trapped' within it; he knew the location of every man in Xanadu. But there were those for whom no mist was needed.The locator for one: injured, holding his head, he sat inside that car down there ... such a pity the area wasn't mined. Then there was the so-called precog, and Ben Trask, together in the bubble. At this close range their talents were like magnets drawing Malinari's attention to the topmost dome; he could feel them there! But the bubble was mined; all it wanted was a touch on a certain switch in his array.And again his hand hovered tantalizingly over that central switch ... But no, he must stick to the original plan, let them know the error of their ways before they died. First the perimeter, to let them see how truly he had trapped them, and then he would work inwards, leaving the bubble itself until the last.And now his fingers were sure and fast, as one by one they tripped the outer ring of switches ...Through the wound-down window of the car, the locator was suddenly aware of a strange figure approaching out of the mist. The mist was very bad here, drifting over the car and obscuring his vision. But Chung had been in far worse places, and he was equipped with a machine-pistol.

The strangely lumbering, mist-wreathed figure came closer, and the sights of Chung's weapon were centred upon it. Then he saw the blaze of a reflective patch, sighed and allowed himself to slump a little. It was a soldier  -  an NCO, carrying another soldier in the fireman's-lift position, which accounted for the many-armed, monstrous silhouette. As that fact dawned, so Chung was out of the vehicle, calling out:

'Over here! Bring him to the car.' Then, behind the two, a third figure came weaving, on his feet but barely so. Recognizing the staggering loner as Warrant Officer 'Red' Bygraves, the locator went to meet him. 'Are you okay?' He got under the other's left arm, took his weight. 'Can I help you?'

'I'll live,' Bygraves growled. And then, seeing the eagerness, the urgency in the locator's eyes: 'What is it?''Your radio,' Chung said. 'Is it working, and can you call the chopper down? I know where the bastard is! I know where Malinari's hiding!'Bygraves's eyes lit up with a fierce, fighting light. Gritting his teeth, and flicking his face mike with a fingernail to get Chopper One's attention, he told the locator, 'Oh, I'll get him down okay. Just tell me where you want him to lay down his fire, that's all...'From what little Trask, Goodly, and the SAS Major could see of the interior of the bubble dome, it was a sumptuously-appointed split-level affair of marble, chrome, and tan-coloured leather. Five marble-clad stanchions surrounded the single elevator tube and supported the high ceiling. The elevator opened into a central well, with concentric steps climbing to the living or work area. The place was lit, however dimly, by a sprinkling of tiny blue lights which formed, against the ceiling's jet-black back-drop, miniature constellations in a fair imitation of the night sky. Blue-tinged, the dusky velvet atmosphere reminded Trask of nothing so much as a Starside night, which made the bubble seem even more an aerie.That, however, was the extent of Trask's and his colleagues' knowledge of the place; for from the moment of their arrival when the elevator doors had hissed open, they had been under fire and pinned down. In fact their exit from the elevator cage -  which in any event had been planned as a rapid deployment- had been hastened by a volley of shots that had sounded as soon as the doors were fully open, and a spray of bullets that chipped splinters from the marble columns where the three had taken shelter. All of which had felt very wrong to Trask.

He and the others had made such ideal targets in the elevator's confined space, he just couldn't imagine anyone missing his aim ... especially someone who had been waiting for them to emerge from that precise spot! Yet no one had been hit, though for several nerve-racking minutes now they had been obliged to keep their heads down to avoid sporadic single shots.Thus, deep down inside Trask sensed (or his talent advised him) that he and his colleagues were being played with; or that they were simply being played, reeled in, like so many sardines on a single line. And he knew they daren't allow this stalemate to continue to the enemy's prearranged conclusion.Now, as he glanced across the well of curving steps at the dark figures of the precog and the Major crouching behind their individual columns, he wondered what to do next.As for the sniper (if anyone so inept was worthy of such a title), it seemed that he must be a man or a vampire alone. All of his weapon's muzzle-flashes had been sighted in just the one location on the higher level, and there had been no other sound or movement from anywhere else. And Trask sensed, he just knew, that whoever this was it wasn't Malinari.But then it came to him that indeed there had been another sound: muted, repetitious music that came from one glowing spot, an antique jukebox, in the velvet darkness of the higher level. And the music  -  a plaintive song  -  was only repetitious in that it had been playing when first they'd arrived, had played again while they were pinned down, and was now into its second encore, curtain call, or whatever.But curtain call? A farewell? Some kind of message, maybe? And for the first time Trask listened to the song. A moderately fast-paced and yet bluesy ballad, it was sung by Ray Charles, a favourite from Trask's youth:'Sunshine, you may find my window but you won't find me ...'

And now it seemed to Trask that the coffee, sex, and cigarettes voice mocked not only the sun but also Ben Trask himself. For indeed sunshine might find the high blind windows of Malinari's aerie, but it certainly wouldn't find Malinari! Nor would Trask. The song was a message; but more yet, it was the mocking laughter of a monster! It mocked Trask, E-Branch, the military, and all their combined efforts.So that now, in the heightened anxiety of this sudden knowledge, he used the temporary lull between shots to shout across to the Major: 'We have to get done here. So what's next?'The Major had not been idle; he'd been working out the sniper's position for himself, and now believed he'd got it right. Lighting a flare, and a moment later pulling the pin on a grenade, he called out, 'This is what's next. Hit the deck  -  now!'The warning was timely. Even with his eyes tightly closed, and sheltered by the column, still Trask saw the blinding white light blossoming through the membrane of his eyelids ... and at the same time he heard and indeed felt the terrific report that shook the floor and shattered glass fixtures into flying shards. Then there was a stunned silence and cordite stench, and at the last a mewling whimper rising to a scream.A tattered male figure came staggering, wreathed in smoke, himself smoking. His eyes were feral in the gloom. And the Major, Trask, and Goodly didn't wait to see what he would do or if he was capable of doing anything, but cut him down in a withering crossfire.'We got him! We got Malinari!' The Major stood up, started forward up the marble steps. But as the precog and Trask joined him, the latter was already shaking his head.'That isn't Malinari,' Trask coughed a denial into the now smoky atmosphere. 'And this isn't over yet. The elevator's gone and we're trapped. Trapped by the very creature we're trying to destroy...'

His words were portentous of the sudden thunder, the gouting fire and blazing light that at once rocked the night beyond the shattered windows. The three men looked at each other, then hurriedly crossed the floor to look out and down on a scene out of Dante's Inferno. On the far perimeter of Xanadu, disintegrating chalets erupted in red and yellow ruin, and fireballs lifted dieir mushroom heads to the night sky. But Trask was right: it wasn't over yet.For as the three stood there watching, impotent to act, so midway between the burning perimeter and the casino a second series of terrific explosions, then a third, ripped through the shattered resort. Concentric rings of destruction were closing in on the Pleasure Dome, hurling flaming debris aloft and turning night to day.'Now he springs the trap,' Trask husked. 'Xanadu is no use to him now and he'll destroy it, and us with it. So this is it. We're next!''The place is wired, mined!' The Major's face was ashen. 'I should have know it from the very first explosion, the one that took one of my men.''Don't blame yourself/ said Trask. 'We've all been equally stupid. And that bastard is sitting somewhere watching us, knowing that by now \ve know. I don't suppose there's any point asking you to call the chopper down?''Wouldn't if I could,' the other shook his head. 'No way  -  not into this lot. But in any case my radio's been out since we got into the lift. Some kind of electrical interference.'As he finished speaking, so lan Goodly reeled and caught at the Major's arm to steady himself. And, Jake!' the precog gasped. 'My God, Ben - it's Jake!''Jake?' Trask repeated him. 'What about him?''He ... he's on his way here,' Goodly answered. 'But so is the elevator!''Jake's in the elevator?' Trask failed to understand. But:

'No,' Goodly shook his head. 'Jake is in the Mobius Continuum. The bomb is in the elevator! When I staggered just now, it was because I'd seen it going off -  but seen it at close range, even this close  -  and it's due to happen any time now!'

The Major might have asked what they were raving about but didn't have time. In a sudden stirring of smoky air, Jake stepped out of the Mobius Continuum with Liz clinging to him like a leech  -  and at the same time the elevator pinged and its doors hissed open.Jake and Liz were staggering, disoriented; the Major didn't know what was going on; and the precog, knowing he was about to die, couldn't take his eyes off the elevator. Ben Trask was the only one who saw the 'truth' of it and knew what to do.'To me!' he shouted. 'To me!' And without waiting he swept them into his arms, bundled all four of them close to himself.'What?' Jake said, completely out of the picture.'Make a door!' Trask shouted at him. 'For God's sake, make a goddamned door! Make a big one, and I mean right now!'And Jake, and Korath, they made a door.The blast took them right through it, all five of them (or six, with Korath), through the door into the Mobius Continuum. And in the hot blast and the fire that followed them, Jake knew only one safe place to take them. He remembered those suntanned, near-naked bodies sprawling indolently, and the shadow of the helicopter dark on the sparkling water. And he knew the coordinates.Down they went in one of Xanadu's pools, and coughing and spluttering they surfaced ...

... In time to see Chopper One at an altitude of one hundred and fifty feet, wheeling to face the backdrop of cliffs, steadying up and sitting like a hawk on the air, and opening up with its nose cannons on no clearly discernible target.

In his once-secret hiding place, Malinari saw it, too, and didn't believe it. But as cannon-fire ripped the chimney's facade to shreds he had to believe it. And while he still had time he tripped the rest of his switches. Then, with his thin clothing tearing under the pressure of madly metamorphosing flesh  -  and his bolthole hideaway collapsing around him  -  Malinari made a headlong dive through his window of observation, out into the night.

For a moment the pilot of Chopper One saw him: the jet-copter's thermal-imaging highlighted a shifting, flattening, morphing blob of a figure that at first plummeted, quickly adopted a manta-like shape, and finally glided from view. The pilot might even have taken a shot at the thing, but powerful updraughts from the blazing hell that was Xanadu were rocking his machine, forcing him to take action and climb out of danger.And as Jake and the others left the pool, so Nephran Malinari shot like an arrow overhead. He might easily have been some primal pterodactyl out of Earth's prehistory, but was in fact a predatory creature from an alien, parallel world. Trask saw him  -  his crimson eyes, the dark blur of his passing  -  and a moment later heard his taunting laughter echoing from on high.Hearing that laughter, and remembering Zek  -  unable to forget her, ever  -  all Trask wanted was to stand there and let his hate out, and will this monster to a terrible death. He knew he couldn't, but he had never wanted anything so much in his life.In close proximity like this  -  so intent upon each other  -  Malinari had 'heard' Trask and sent back:Hatred such as that is catching, Mr Trask. It breeds hatred! As for willing me to death: we must see whose will is the strongest, ehP Not here and now, no, but in another place, another time. This was nothing hut a skirmish, to get your measure. But if you would live tojight another day, first you must survive the night. Alas, I don't think so. If you survive, however, do not despair. For I shall he waiting, Mr Trask, I shall he waiting ...All of them with Trask heard it  -  that dark voice in their heads and its taunting message  -  but especially Liz. She heard it, and saw beyond it. Malinari's plan: flight, to a safe haven in another place, another country.

She might even have discovered which one, but Nephran Malinari recognized her presence and withdrew snarling into mental obscurity. Where his evil telepathic voice had been, only mindsmog remained, spiralling after him into a mental void.

And Malinari was gone ...

But to Trask and the others it seemed the danger was still present. Xanadu was burning end to end; a series of devastating explosions continued to rock the place; Malinari's bubble aerie on top of the Pleasure Dome was no more, and showers of plastic and glass were still raining to earth. Scraps of blazing debris drifted across the night sky, and clods of earth and grass were fountaining in the garden where Chopper One had made its initial landing. A lucky mistake on Malinari's part, that last. One of his few errors.But the Pleasure Dome itself, the casino, was still standing, and now the precog lan Goodly cried, 'The big one is still to come. It's the casino. A set piece of delayed action  -  like the pause before the last big firework at the end of the show!'Fortunately WO 2 Bygraves had taken the initiative. Thinking he'd lost his commanding officer when the Major's radio had gone down, he had called the rest of the platoon out of the casino. Now they came running, gathering at the pool. But from the pool on outwards to the perimeter of the resort, it seemed that the whole of Xanadu was an inferno. Even if there were no more explosions, the sheer heat would certainly kill everyone before they made half the distance. And meanwhile the precog, in a fit of delirious anxiety, was turning this way and that, repeating, 'It's going to blow! It's going to blow!'Then a piece of burning debris from the bubble came drifting like a kite, weighed down by and trailing a length of electrical cable. No one noticed it until it struck the monorail's overhead power grid. There was a flash that sent blobs of molten copper skittering, and the kite and cable fell to earth.Trask and the Major glanced at each other, headed for the boarding platform no more than fifty feet away. The rest followed them, and Jake quickly caught up. 'What are we doing?' he asked Trask breathlessly.

'The elevated monorail,' Trask gasped. 'It has power. Maybe we can drive out of this, or over the worst of it, at least as far as the main parking lot and the big ops truck.'

His idea was as good as any other; in fact it was the only idea, for the armoured car had been blown over onto its side by the blast from the garden. Fortunately the locator David Chung, along with Bygraves and his men, had already vacated that area; like Jake they had seen the pool as the only sanctuary from the bomb blasts and the fires that licked closer with every passing moment. And by now the heat and smoke were suffocating.Dragging Liz behind him, Jake was the first into the leading carriage of two articulated, open-sided cars. Climbing into the driver's seat, he hit the red power button and, as the motor throbbed into life, grabbed the drive lever.The system could scarcely be simpler: push forward to go, pull backward to stop. And ahead the single overhead rail climbed and curved outwards towards the perimeter parking lot, the reception area, Xanadu's gates and safety. But while the motor warmed up, still the precog was shouting. 'It's going any minute now."Men ran, limped, or were carried; they bundled each other into the cars. Until finally Trask yelled, 'That's it. Now get us the hell out of here!' And Jake pushed the lever forward.Slowly  -  agonizingly slowly, or so it seemed  -  the cars climbed to their elevated height and started along the spiralling, pylon-supported rail. Fifty feet, a hundred, and gathering speed. And then the Pleasure Dome went.The blast was awesome as the casino literally lifted into the air, sank down into itself, split asunder under the irresistible pressure of expanding gasses, and blew apart in red and yellow streamers of flame. The whole thing disappeared in dust, rubble, and gouting fire, and in the next moment the hot blast of its passing reached out and rocked the monorail's carriages, causing its passengers to grit their teeth and hang on for dear life. But then the cars steadied up and the danger was past.So everyone thought -

- Except lan Goodly. 'There's one bomb left!' He suddenly cried. 'It's in the reception area, the gatehouse!' He was right and just like the bomb in the Pleasure Dome, this too was a delayed action device. When it went it took a good man, their rear-guard, with it  -  but it also took out the last elevated section of the monorail!Liz was behind Jake, shouting, 'Look! Look!' and pointing ahead. But he was already looking. All he could see through the smoke and the fire was a mass of slumping, buckled metal  -  the wreckage of the tower that had borne the weight of the monorail  -  beyond which there was empty space and a drop of some thirty odd feet into a red, roaring death!Jake slammed the drive lever into reverse ... and nothing happened. The power had gone along with the overhead gantry and power line, and the cars were free-wheeling down a gentle gradient at some thirty miles an hour.But lan Goodly's talent was back in force. Suddenly he was there, leaning over Jake and shouting, 'Jake, listen! There's a way out. I can see it. We're going to make it!'And he told Jake what he had seen, shouted it into his ear as the articulated cars went lurching into empty space, heading for the inferno that waited below.Korath knew what was required and set those fantastic formulae rolling yet again down the screen of Jake's mind  -  until Jake froze them and conjured a door that even Harry Keogh would be proud of. Then:Darkness surrounded the cars  -  the Ultimate Darkness of a time before time  -  and in a single moment which might yet be as long as forever, light, gentle moon and starlight, blinked into being as Jake made his first perfect three-point exit from the Mobius Continuum at well-known coordinates.The cars were boat-bottomed. They didn't dig in but rode across the dry grass and sandy soil of the safe house's garden, quickly slowing until, with scarcely a jolt, they were brought up short by the stout wall. Then the rear car slewed a little  -  but not enough to spill anyone  -  and both cars rolled sideways through forty-five degrees and came to a rocking standstill...

For a long time there was silence. Until Jake and the E-Branch