The Plague-Bearer - 17 by Brian Lumley

Author:Brian Lumley [Lumley, Brian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Brian Lumley, Horror, Necroscope, Lovecraft, dark fantasy, dark fiction
Publisher: Subterranean Press
Published: 2013-12-18T16:00:00+00:00

VIII

That same night, before leaving the wine bar and while talking to young Kate, Harry had glanced through the recently delivered evening paper and had come across an item buried in a back-page column which he’d found both interesting and troubling; either way it was something he would have to look into, and soon.

As for Harry’s conversation with Kate: He had enquired not only about the routes the girls took when going to and on leaving the bar, but also their shifts or work rosters. For depending on the number of thirsty customers, B.J.’s with its private members’ licence frequently stayed open until the small hours. And the Necroscope’s interest had picked up, albeit guardedly, on noting that she, young Kate herself, would be finishing in just an hour’s time when Zahanine took over for the late shift.

Harry knew the bar and its precise location well enough; he had long since acquainted himself with many “safe” Möbius coordinates: secure places which he could use covertly to enter into or exit from the general area. But while the bar itself was in a well-frequented road and locale, the districts bordering upon it included several veritable warrens of steep, narrow, cobbled streets and alleyways. Depending on the locations of their various lodgings, most of B.J.’s girls weren’t required to navigate the lonelier alleys and would normally keep well away, but for two of them the danger was more or less unavoidable.

In the past, and considering the nature of B.J.’s girls—that they were a new generation of moon-children, lycanthropes descended from the thralls of Radu Lykan, whose werewolf blood had bred true—any risk had seemed minimal and acceptable, but no longer. And now, as a result of B.J.’s concerns, the Necroscope had determined that who or whatever was threatening Bonnie Jean and the pack it was time someone put a stop to it.

For the fact that the unknown assailant had already failed twice in whatever he was trying to do was no guarantee that he would not try again. And as for the identities of his two most likely targets: These were already apparent.

The black girl, Zahanine, was one such, and young Kate herself another. As such, Kate scarcely realized how lucky she had been three nights ago when she’d escaped Mike Milazzo’s poisonous bite by the skin of her—or of his?—teeth!

With these things in mind, Harry had distanced himself from the wine bar by a quarter mile and crossed the road into one of his coordinates, the entrance to a narrow alley: as good a spot as any to commence reconnoitring Zahanine’s and Kate’s routes, searching for the one or two locations on each route which the unknown attacker might find best suited to an ambush.

Then he would have to decide—or perhaps try to discover—which of these locations it would most likely be, and more importantly when. And he must work quickly, for Kate would be leaving the bar in barely an hour’s time. She had said she’d take a taxi; but

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