How come? said Harry. I mean, why do you insult me?

What? (astonishment, disbelief). Surely you mean why do I sorrow! But you could have been - could still be - the most powerful creature of all time: The Master Vampire! The Great Plague Bearer! Because I, Faéthor Ferenczy, willed it, you are Wamphyri! You have admitted as much yourself. And yet now you would throw it all away. Does it mean nothing to you, to be Wamphyri? What of the passion, the power, the glory?

What of me? Harry answered. The real me, before my adulteration?

The new you is greater!

I don't resent the greatness. Harry shook his head. Only that it was not on my terms. But now I'm offering you terms, and no more time to waste. Can you help me ... or can't you?

Cards on the table, then, said Faéthor. You will take me into your mind, transfer or transport me to Starside - which after all is or should have been my natural place - and there pass me on to some other to guide him as I would have guided you. In return for which, you desire to know if there's a way you may rid yourself of the thing growing within you. Now, do I have it right?

And if there is a way - Harry qualified the deal - you'll describe it in detail, a fool's guide, so that I may be my own man again.

Following which, you'll return to your own world, leaving me, embodied once more, in Starside?

That's the plan.

And if there is no way to free you?

Harry shrugged. A deal is a deal. You'll be a power on Starside anyway, as stated.

Eventually to become your rival? And your son's rival?

Yet again the Necroscope's shrug. Like I said, with the old Wamphyri dead or fled, Starside is a big place.

Faéthor was cautious. It seems to me that whichever way it goes, still I get the best of this bargain. Now why should you be so good to me?

Maybe it's like you said, Harry told him, a meeting of two old friends.

Fiends, Faéthor corrected him.

As you will, except I'm an unwilling fiend. And despite the fact that you're the engineer of my current fix, still I can't forget that in the past you've put yourself out to do me one or two favours; even though all of them (a little sourly), as I've since come to realize, were to your ultimate benefit. Still, it seems I've grown accustomed to you; I understand you now; you played the game according to your own rules, that's all. Wamphyri rules. Also, I'm full of human compassion - I can't help it - and I have to admit my conscience has been bothering me. About you, stuck here in Möbius time. About my leaving you here. And finally... well, you said it yourself: if there is a cure for my complaint, who'd know it better than you? Which is the Number One reason I'm here and doesn't leave me with much choice. He was very convincing.

Very well, said Faéthor (as Harry had supposed he would), you have a deal. Now take me into your mind.

When you have told me what I want to know.

Whether or not you may rid yourself of your vampire?

A little more than that.

Oh?

Where it came from. How it got into me in the first place.

You haven't thought it out for yourself?

It was the toadstools, right?

Faéthor's deadspeak nod. Yes.

And the toadstools were you?

Yes. They were spawned of my fats festering in the earth where I'd burned and melted down. An ichor, an essence, simmering there, waiting. Then, when the brew was ripe, I willed the fungi up into the light - but not until I knew you'd be there to receive them.

And you were in them?

As you well know, for through them I came to you. But you cast me out.

And these fungi: are they a natural part of the Wamphyri chain? Part of the overall life cycle?

I don't know. Faéthor seemed at a genuine loss. There was no one to instruct me in such mysteries. Old Belos Pheropzis might have known - might even have passed such knowledge down to my father - but if so, then Waldemar Ferrenzig never told me. I only knew that the spores were in me, in the fats of my body, and that I could will them into growth; but don't ask me how I knew. How does a dog know how to bark?

And the spores were your very last vestiges?

Yes.

Could it be that such toadstools grow in the vampire swamps on Starside? It seems logical to me, since those swamps are the source of Wamphyri infestation.

Faéthor sighed his impatience. But I've never even seen the vampire swamps on Starside, though I hope to - and soon! Now then, let me into your mind.

Can I be rid of my vampire?

Do we still have a deal, however I may answer?

So long as you answer true.

No, you are stuck with your vampire for ever!

Harry wasn't hard hit; he had supposed it would be so. Even concerning the very question or idea or thought of 'curing' himself, his will was already weakening, probably had been for some time. For he was learning what it was to be Wamphyri. And if his right hand didn't like it, then his left hand did. The dark side of men has always been their stronger side. And what of women? The Lady Karen's cure had been her destruction.

In his mind, like an echo, the Necroscope heard once more Faéthor's answer: You are stuck with your vampire for ever! And he thought: So be it! And to Faéthor he said: Then farewell.

He began to decelerate, leaving the astonished vampire to speed on ahead as before. As the gap rapidly widened, Faéthor despairingly called back, What? But you said-

I lied, Harry cut him off.

What you, a liar? Faéthor couldn't accept it. But... but that's not like you at all!

No, Harry answered, grimly, but it is like the thing inside me. It is like my vampire. For it's part of you, Faéthor, it's part of you.

Wait! Faéthor cried out in his extremity. You can be rid of it... It's true... You really can!

And THAT is the part! said Harry, transferring out of time and back into the Möbius Continuum. 'The lying part.'

And in Möbius time Faéthor was left to shriek and gibber, but faintly now and fading, like the slithering whispers of winter's crumbling leaves, whirled for ever on the winds of eternity...

Harry went to see Jazz and Zek Simmons on the island of Zakynthos in the Ionian. They had a villa in the trees, overlooking the sea and hidden well away from the holidaymakers, in Porto Zoro on the north-east coast.

It was eight in the evening when he materialized close to the house; he put out a probe and saw that Zek was on her own, but guessed that Jazz wouldn't mind his wife speaking for both of them. First he reached out to her telepathically; and the way she answered him, unafraid, it was as if she'd expected him.

'For a day or two?' she said, after inviting him in, when he'd explained what he was doing. 'But of course she'll be OK here, the poor girl!'

'Not so poor,' he was prompted to answer, almost defensively. 'Because she doesn't really understand it, she won't fight it as hard as I have. And before she knows it, she'll be Wamphyri.'

'But Starside? How will you live there? I mean, do you intend... intend to...?' Zek gave up. She was after all talking to a vampire. She knew that behind those dark lenses his eyes were fire; knew, too, how easily she could be burned by them. But if she feared him it didn't show, and Harry liked her for that. He always had liked her.

'We'll do what we have to do,' he answered. 'My son found ways to survive.'