Necroscope: The Mobius Murders (9 page)

“Don’t come to the bar tonight, Harry. Not even if you manage to get done with your business. I could use a little sleep, especially if I’m to be up in the middle of the night.”

“Oh really!” said the Necroscope, in a mock suspicious tone of voice. “So now maybe
I
should be concerned about who’s going to be sleeping in
my
bed, should I? Who’s huffing, puffing, and threatening to blow
me
out of your…?” At which, no sooner were the words out, or almost—words that were so evocative of the tale of the three little piggies,—than he was biting down on his tongue! For even imagining the worst of his enigmatic moonchild lover, and especially when under her thrall actually
knowing
almost everything about B.J., it would never be a good idea to let any kind of wolf creep into their conversations! No, because this was by no means a fairy tale!

And quickly changing the subject, he went on: “So then, why will you be up in the middle of the night?” Another ill-advised question, possibly; and, in light of what she was, something he might not want to know and which B.J. probably wouldn’t want to tell him. But she at once replied:

“Because I want to get underway while the roads are all but empty. One of the girls will be driving me up to Inverdruie, to see Auld John, an old friend of mine for so many years now that…well, that would be much like telling you how old I am, and I’m fussy about my years. But I fancy there may be some sort of problem—nothing you need be concerned about—just something that I might have to sort out for John, that’s all.”

“Oh,” said Harry, attempting to sound mildly disappointed; which in a way, and however paradoxical it might seem, he actually was! But then, shrugging it off, he said: “Well, okay. You know where I’ll be when you get back, and even if it’s only for a day or two you know I’ll be missing you.”

And now the accent was back again as she answered, “Me too, Harry. But mind ye now, do stay away frae the bar, mah wee man. Because they girls o’ mine…well let’s put it this way: when the cat’s away the mice can play. Aye, and sometimes they get a wee bit frisky, they lassies.” And yet again she chuckled, however darkly.

“B.J.,” he told her, “You know I’ve no use for the wine bar if you’re not there, so get back soon. And whatever Auld John’s problem is in Inverdruie, take care of yourself—promise?”

“Oh, Ah’ll take care, ye may be sure o’ that, Harry. And Ah expect the same o’ ye.”

“It’s a deal,” said the Necroscope…

Wide awake now, and while outside the light was still good despite the unseasonable drizzle and blustery wind, Harry donned a raincoat, put up the hood and went out into his rank garden. He must see to that one day, he thought, treading the bramble- and weed-strewn path to the gate and out onto the equally overgrown riverside track, and down it to the bight where his Ma’s sunken remains lay still on their deep bed of mud and rotting vegetation.

It hardly seemed right, Harry thought, keeping the thought to himself where he stood on the bank above her swirling grave, that his mother should be here when there were other places she could be; not merely better or more suitable burial-places, but a promised nirvana or Elysium. But no, his Ma had held back for him and he knew she would have it no other way. And so for now:

“Hi, Ma,” he said. “How’s it going?”

Frustratingly!
she immediately replied.
Harry, you told me that this poor man tumbled from a secret door high over the sea and disappeared in the water before you could follow him. Assuming the fall didn’t kill him, which it surely must have, still it would have stunned him and he would have drowned. Now I know all too well what that last must have been like, and
…(As she paused, the Necroscope sensed a gentle shudder, an almost tangible trembling in his unique mind, before she was able to continue:)
…and so I fully understand why he wasn’t able to speak to you following so closely on his death.

But that was then and this is now—by which time he should surely be in contact with at least a handful of the Great Majority, others who died like him at sea. Well, he
should
be—

“But he isn’t?” Harry finished it for her, then said:

“Ma, perhaps I wasn’t clear enough in what I told you. You see, I believe this man was dead
before
he was ejected from the killer’s door. And yes, I know he would have been in shock from the transition, and that I couldn’t expect any sort of coherent deadspeak from him, but I didn’t hear
anything
…well, except maybe the farthest, faintest of whispers; more a silence than a sound really, like an echo through an otherwise empty hole in my mind. It’s—I don’t know—very difficult to explain.”

Ahhh!
she said.
But that’s exactly what we’ve been getting! Of course, there could be several good reasons for such difficulties; the deep sea has a tendency to…well, to wash things away. Also, there are mercifully few drownings, while the death you described is probably of a kind—

“But not necessarily so,” said Harry, frowning. “And that’s what I’m trying to find out: whether or not there were more.”

—And the few who do meet their ends in the water, however it occurs, usually move on quite quickly. It’s almost as if the aching loneliness of their estate is acknowledged and answered; well, perhaps depending upon how they’ve lived their lives. For it’s an accepted fact among the teeming dead that the vile ones seem to be kept waiting for a long, long time. And they usually suffer their term in silence, for we are reluctant to have anything to do with them. It isn’t cruelty, Harry; we simply avoid their contamination.

The Necroscope was disappointed. “So you’ve got nothing for me?”

Oh, we do have something, but as you said it’s very difficult to explain—like echoes in a mental void, you said. But I think we can do better than that, if not very much better.

“Then by all means let’s hear it,” said Harry. “Whatever it is, it has to be better than nothing.”

Well
, she responded,
as you yourself have said, there seem to be deadspeak whispers—but the very faintest, most distant and undecipherable whispers. Just exactly what one might expect of long-drowned persons whose remains have been dispersed, cast abroad—which, as I pointed out, is in itself a curious thing; for usually the souls of the drowned move on quite quickly to a better place or places. Or so the teeming dead are given to believe. My own case to the contrary, naturally, but only because I chose to stay behind…for now at least.

Harry frowned as his frustration mounted to match his Ma’s, then said: “But apart from the fact that you seem to be suggesting more than one whisperer, how does that help me? Especially if they’ve become so dispersed—so scattered—as to make them unintelligible? I mean, if that’s the case then even if I could go to them, which I can’t, still I couldn’t, er, ‘fathom’ them; no pun intended. But if you and the Great Majority can’t find a way to read them, what point is there in my trying?”

But that’s just it!
his Ma answered.
They don’t seem to be at all widely scattered. Faint and plaintive as they are, still all of these ethereal whispers appear to have just one point of origin—one and the same location—or very nearly so!

Hearing that the Necroscope’s attention, which had begun to wander as he considered other avenues of investigation, was immediately reanimated. Several deadspeak whispers or echoes,
but only one point of origin, one location
! And without as yet fully understanding why, Harry was at once reminded of that anomalous formula with which the unknown Möbius murderer had conjured and abused the Continuum. Not only reminded of it, he believed that with his intuitive grasp of exotic and extramundane mathematics he could recall it more fully to mind and perhaps even recreate it. But for the moment, where he stood on the rim of the river, Harry wasn’t at all best situated to concentrate upon the formula’s alien elements and study them more closely.

The Necroscope’s unshielded thoughts were, of course, deadspeak and entirely “audible” to his Ma, who told him:
I have no knowledge of numbers, Harry—especially not your numbers—but I know how important they are you. We’ll have plenty of time for talking later, so now you should go and do what you do best. And meanwhile I shall urge the teeming dead to work harder. You know that if it’s for you they’ll do all they possibly can, but…before you go, let me for a change ask
you
a question.

“Go right ahead,” said Harry.

Son, didn’t we not so long ago have dealings with something very similar to this?

Harry knew exactly what she meant. “That thing in the woods that had been eating people, imprisoning their souls for untold ages? Yes, it was similar in its way, but that was an alien being, and probably the last of its kind. This time we’re talking about a man, a human being—however
in
human—who I think feeds on his victims’ life-forces like a loathsome leech; not so much incarcerating their souls as, far worse, reconstituting them as sustenance until deadspeak whispers are all that remain of them: their dregs, if you’ll forgive me for putting it that way. And that’s the kind of creature I think I’m up against.”

A very terrible man!
she said then.
A monster! Some kind of hideous mutation!

“That’s right,” the Necroscope agreed. “Even as the Mongolian Max Batu was a mutation, with his evil eye; and as I myself am a mutation…well, of a sort. It’s a matter of genetics, I suppose.”

You have my genes, Harry
, she answered at once,
but you are
not
a monster! You must never think that way!

“Oh, I don’t!” he replied. “Not for a moment…but it’s a safe bet there are plenty of people who
would
think that way if ever I was found out! I mean, I talk to dead people, Ma!”

Yes, and as I’ve said, we would do almost anything for you. You’re the one light in our darkness, Harry! But now you should go and do whatever you can to put this thing right.

Knowing she would sense it, he nodded and said: “Thanks for all your help, Ma. Just talking to you helps sort things out—and we’ll definitely talk later.”

With which he stepped back into the cover of the tall hedge bordering the river path and conjured a door, and just a moment later was gone from that place…

…Back into his living room, which doubled as his study despite the lack of clutter and disorder such offices all too frequently display. There was a desk and chair, plus Harry’s easy chair; a shelf with a handful of books: an illustrated
Atlas of The World
too tall for the shelf and therefore laid flat; a fat
Webster’s Dictionary
and updated
Thesaurus
; three leather-bound mathematical treatises, which the Necroscope had discovered and bought cheaply in an Edinburgh used bookshop just off the Royal Mile, and various bits and pieces of bric-a-brac: a large conch here, an hourglass whose sands had long since solidified there, but that was all. Simply a drab and rather dusty room, (for the Necroscope wasn’t much good at housekeeping) but still a
familiar
room, containing nothing much to distract or preoccupy him, where he could relax and think things through, work things out.