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crossbows of theirs would be deadly accurate. The day wore on through midday
and into the afternoon, and
Yulian began to sweat. At 3.00 P.M. a sixth man came on the scene - driving a
truck. Yulian watched carefully from behind the curtains at his garret window.
The driver of the truck must be the leader of these damned psychic spies. The
leader of this group, anyway. He was fat, but in no way clumsy; his mind would
be hard and clear, except he guarded his thoughts like gold. He began to
distribute indeterminate items of heavy equipment in canvas containers, also
jerrycans, food and drink, to the other men. He spent a little time with each
of them, talking to them, demonstrated with certain pieces of equipment, gave
instructions. Yulian sweated more yet. He knew now that it would be this
evening. Traffic rolled as usual on the autumn road; couples walked together
in the sunshine hand in hand; birds sang in the woods. The world looked the
same as it always looked - but those men out there had determined that this
would be
Yulian Bodescu's last day.
Using what cover he could find, the vampire risked his neck making excursions
outside the house. He used a rear ground floor window where it was shrouded by
shrubbery, also the cellar exit through the out-building. Twice, if he'd been
fully prepared, he might have made a break for it, when the watchers to the
rear and at one side of the house went down to the road for their supplies;
on both occasions they returned while he was still calculating the odds.
Yulian grew still more nervous, his thinking becoming very erratic.
Back in the house, whenever he crossed tracks with one of the women, he would
lash out, shout, curse. His nervousness transferred itself to Vlad and the
great dog prowled the empty cellars to and fro, to and fro.
Then, about 4.00 P.M., suddenly Yulian was aware of a weird psychic stillness,
the mental lull before the storm. He strained his vampire senses to their
fullest extent and could detect... nothing!
The watchers had screened their minds, so that not even a trace of their
thoughts, their intentions, could escape. In so doing they gave away their
final secret, they told Yulian the time they had planned for his death.
It was to be now, within the hour, and the light only just beginning to fade
as the sun lowered itself towards the horizon.
Yulian put fear aside. He was Wamphyri! These men had powers, yes, and they
were strong.
But he had powers too. And he might yet prove to be stronger.
He went down into the cellars and spoke to Vlad:
'You've been faithful to me as only a dog can be, he said, facing the great
beast, their yellow eyes locked, but you are more than a dog. Those men out
there might suspect that, and they might not. Whichever, when they come, you
go out first to meet them. Give no quarter. if you survive, seek me out.'
And then he 'spoke' to the Other, that loathsome extrusion of himself. It was
the implanting of suggestions in a blank space, the imprinting of an idea upon
a void, the burning of a brand into a beast's hide. Floor flags buckled in one
dark corner, the ground underfoot shifted and dust fell in rills from the low
vaulting. That was all. Perhaps it had understood, and perhaps not.
Finally Yulian returned to his room. He changed his clothes, put on a neutral
grey track-suit and shoved his wide-brimmed hat into the waistband. He neatly
folded a suit of clothes into a small travelling case, along with a wallet
containing a good deal of money in large notes. That was that; he needed
nothing more.
Then, as the minutes ticked by, he sat down, closed his eyes and pitted his
own dark nature against the great Mother Nature herself in one final test of
his now mature vampire powers. He willed a mist, called up a wreathing white
screen from the earth and the streams and the woods, a clinging fog down from
the hillsides.
The watchers, tense now and taut as the strings of their crossbows, scarcely
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noticed the sun slipping behind the clouds and the ground mist creeping at
their ankles; as a man, their attention was riveted on the house.
And time moved inexorably towards the appointed hour.
Darcy Clarke drove furiously north. He had cursed aloud until his throat was
raw, and then silently until his cursing had come down to one four-letter word
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