'A call for you from outside, Comrade,' came the answer in a cold, nasal, female voice.
'I doubt it. You've made a mistake. I'm not known here.'
'He says you'll want to speak to him,' said the operator. 'His name is Harry Keogh.'
'Keogh?' Dragosani looked at Batu, raised an eyebrow. 'Ah, yes! Yes, I do know of him. Put him through.'
'Very well. Remember, Comrade: speech is insecure.' There came a click and a buzzing, then:
'Dragosani, is that you?' The voice was young but strangely hard. It didn't quite fit the gaunt, almost vacant face that Dragosani had seen staring at him from the frozen river bank in Scotland.
'This is Dragosani, yes. What do you want, Harry Keogh?'
'I want you, necromancer,' said the cold, hard voice. 'I want you, and I'm going to get you.'
Dragosani's lips drew back from his needle teeth in a silent snarl. This one was clever, daring, brash — dangerous! 'I don't know who you are,' he hissed, 'but you're obviously a madman! Explain yourself or get off the phone.'
'The explanation's simple, "Comrade",' the voice had
grown harder still. 'I know what you did to Sir Keenan Gormley. He was my friend. An eye for an eye, Dragosani, and a tooth for a tooth. That's my way, as you've already seen. You're a dead man.'
'Oh?' Dragosani laughed sardonically. 'I'm a dead man, am I? And you, too, have ways with the dead, don't you, Harry?'
'What you saw at Shukshin's was nothing, "Comrade",' said the icy voice. 'You don't know all of it. Not even Gormley knew all of it.'
'Bluff, Harry!' said Dragosani. 'I've seen what you can do and it doesn't frighten me. Death is my friend. He tells me everything.'
'That's good,' said the voice, 'for you'll be speaking to him again soon — but face to face. So you know what I can do, do you? Well think about this: next time I'll be doing it to you!'
'A challenge, Harry?' Dragosani's voice was dangerously low, full of menace.
'A challenge,' the other agreed, 'and the winner takes all.'
Dragosani's Wallach blood was up; he was eager now: 'But where? I'm already beyond your reach. And tomorrow there'll be half a world between.'
'Oh, I know you're running now,' said the other contemptuously. 'But I'll find you, and soon. You, and Batu, and Borowitz…'
Again Dragosani's lips drew back in a hiss. 'Perhaps we should meet, Harry — but where, how?'
'You'll know when it's time,' said the voice. 'And know this, too: it will be worse for you than it was for Gormley.'
Suddenly the ice in Keogh's voice seemed to fill Dragosani's veins. He shook himself, pulled himself together, said: 'Very well, Harry Keogh. Whenever and wherever, I'll be waiting for you.'
'And the winner takes all,' said the voice a second time. There came a faint click and the dead line began its intermittent, staccato purring.
For long moments Dragosani stared at the receiver in his hand, then hurled it down into its cradle. 'Oh, I surely will!' he rasped then. 'Be sure I'll take everything, Harry Keogh!'
Back at the Chateau Bronnitsy in the middle of the following afternoon, Dragosani found Borowitz absent. His secretary told him that Natasha Borowitz had died just two days ago; Gregor Borowitz was in mourning at their dacha, keeping her company for a day or two; he did not wish to be disturbed. Dragosani phoned him anyway.
'Ah, Boris,' the old man's voice was soft for once, empty. 'So you're back.'
'Gregor, I'm sorry,' said Dragosani, observing a ritual he didn't really understand. 'But I thought you'd like to know I got what you wanted. More than you wanted. Shukshin is dead. Gormley too. And I know everything.'
'Good,' said the other without emotion. 'But don't talk to me now of death, Boris. Not now. I shall be here for another week. After that… it will be a while before I'm up to much. I loved this argumentative, tough old bitch. She had a tumour, they say, in her head. Suddenly it grew too big. Very peaceful at the end. I miss her a lot. She never knew what a secret was! That was nice.'
'I'm sorry,' Dragosani said again.
At that Borowitz seemed to snap out of it. 'So take a break,' he said. 'Get it all down on paper. Report to me in a week, ten days. And well done!'
Dragosani's hand tightened on the telephone. 'A break would be very welcome,' he said. 'I may use it to look up an old friend of mine. Gregor, can I take Max Batu with me? He, too, has done his work well.'
'Yes, yes — only don't bother me any more now. Goodbye, Dragosani.'
And that was that.
Dragosani didn't like Batu, but he did have plans for him. Anyway, the man made a decent travelling companion: he said very little, kept himself more or less to himself, and his needs were few. He did have a passion for slivovitz, but that didn't present a problem. The little Mongol could drink the stuff until it came out of his ears, and still he would appear sober. Appearance was all that mattered.
It was the middle of the Russian winter and so they went by train, a much interrupted journey which didn't see them into Galatz until a day and a half later. There Dragosani hired a car with snow chains, which gave him back something of the independence he so relished. Eventually, on the evening of that second day, in the rooms which Dragosani found for them in a tiny village near Valeni, finally the necromancer grew bored with Batu's silence and asked him: 'Max, don't you wonder what we're doing here? Aren't you interested to find out why I brought you along?'
'No, not really,' answered the moon-faced Mongol. 'I'll find out when you're ready, I suppose. Actually, it makes no difference. I think I quite like travelling. Perhaps the Comrade General will find more work for me in strange parts.'
Dragosani thought: No, Max, there'll be no more work for you — except through me. But out loud he said only, 'Perhaps.'
Night had fallen by the time they had eaten, and that was when Dragosani gave Batu the first hint of what was to come. 'It's a fine night tonight, Max,' he said. 'Bright starlight and not a cloud in sight. That's good, for we're going for a drive. There's someone I want to talk to.' On their way to the cruciform hills they passed a field
where sheep huddled together in a corner where straw had been put out for them. There was a thin layer of snow but the temperature was at a reasonable level. Dragosani stopped the car. 'My friend will be thirsty,' he explained, 'but he's not much on slivovitz. Still, I think it's only fair we should take him something to drink.'
They got out of the car and Dragosani went into the field, scattering the sheep. 'That one, Max,' he said, as one of the animals strayed close to the Mongol where he leaned on the fence. 'Don't kill it. Merely stun it, if you can.'
Max could. He crouched, his face contorting where he directed his gaze through the bars of the fence. Dragosani averted his face as the sheep, a fine ewe, gave a shrill cry of terror. He looked back in time to see the animal bound as if shot, and collapse in a shuddering heap of dense wool.
Together they bundled the animal into the boot and went on their way. After a little while Batu said: 'Your friend must have the strangest appetite, Comrade.'
'He does, Max, he does.' And then Dragosani told the other something of what he could expect.
Batu thought about it for some minutes before he spoke again. 'Comrade Dragosani, I know you are a strange man — indeed we are both strange men — but now I am tempted to believe you must be mad!'
Dragosani bayed like a hound, finally brought his booming laughter under control. 'You mean you don't believe in vampires, Max?'
'Oh, indeed I do!' said the other. 'If you say so. I don't mean that you're mad to believe — but you are certainly mad to want to dig the thing up!'
'We shall see what we shall see,' Dragosani growled, more soberly now. 'There's just one thing, Max. What ever you hear or see — no matter what may happen — you are not to interfere. I don't want him to know you're even here. Not yet, anyway. Do you understand what I'm saying? You're to stay out of it. You're to be so still and quiet that even I forget you're there!'
'As you will,' the other shrugged. 'But you say he reads your mind. Perhaps he already knows I'm with you.'
'No,' said Dragosani, 'for I can sense when he's trying to get at me and I know how to shut him out. Anyway, he'll be very weak by now and not up to fighting with me, not even mentally. No, Thibor Ferenczy has no idea that I'm here, Max, and he'll be so delighted when I speak to him that he won't think to look for treachery.'