A Thing Alone - Starside - The Dweller

The Necroscope knew that there was very little time left and certainly none to waste. The Soviets had worked out some 'final solution' to the Perchorsk problem, which meant that he had to be through the Gate before they could put it into effect.

He went to Detroit and just after 6:20 p.m. found a bike garage and showroom on the point of closing. The last, tired employee was locking up; the next-to-last, a black forecourt attendant, had just this minute put away his broom, washed his hands, and was sauntering away from the garage down the evening street. Marvellous chrome-plated machines stood in a glittering chorus line behind the semi-reflective plate glass.

The Necroscope, right? said a deadspeak voice in Harry's mind, after he'd used a Möbius door to get into the showroom. It surprised him, for the dead weren't much for talking to him these days. I mean, you'd have to be the boogyman (whoever it was continued), 'cos I kin hear you thinkin'!

'You have me at a disadvantage,' Harry answered, polite as ever, at the same time examining the chain which passed through the spoked front wheels of the parade of gleaming motorcycles, securing them.

I have your what? Oh, yeah! You don't know me, right? Well, I was an Angel.

Deadspeak occasionally conveys more than is said. With regard to Angels: Harry would no longer be surprised to learn that there really were such creatures, and especially in the Möbius Continuum. But on this occasion he saw that the Angel in question wore no such halo. 'A Hell's Angel?' Harry stood on the chain and hauled with both arms, exerting furious Wamphyri strength until a link came apart with a sound like a pistol shot. 'But didn't you have a name?'

Hey! Whoooah, man! And the Angel whistled appreciatively. Like, I bet you leap tall buildings, too, right? Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Shit, no - it's the ever-lovin', chain-breakin', dead-wakin' Necroscope! He grew quieter. My name? It was Pete. Pretty shitty handle, right? Here, Petey, Petey, Petey! Sounds like a fuckin' budgie! So I used my Chapter name: The Vampire! Er, but I see you have your own problems.

Harry took a Harley-Davidson off its stand and backed it out of the line of bikes, towards the rear of the showroom. But the last employee had heard the 'gunshot' of the snapped chain and was working his way back through a series of locked doors.

'Pete seems a good enough name to me,' said Harry. 'So what are you doing here?'

It's where I hung out, the Angel told him. I never could afford one of these really big babies. But I'd come down and look 'em over all the time. This place was a shrine, a church, and these Harleys were its High-powered Priests.

'How did you die?' Harry turned the key in the ignition and the big bike thundered into life, each pulse of each fat piston almost individually audible.

One night, me and my Pillion Pussy had a fight, the Angel answered. Randy Mandy split. So later, me and the Machine... we were both full of high octane! The booze caught up with us about the same time as we clocked the big One, Zero, Zero. Ran out of road on a bend, piled into a filling station, crunched a pump. We burned, me and the bike both, in a white-hot geyser! What was left of my body blew away on the wind. But me, I gravitated here.

'Pete,' said Harry, 'I always wanted to ride one of these things but never seemed to find the time.'

You don't know how?

'In one.' Harry nodded. 'I mean, I can learn the hard way, or take a little expert advice, right? So ... fancy a ride?'

Me?

'Who else?'

Hooo-haaa! And Harry could almost feel him right there in the saddle where it ass-hooked at the back; indeed, their minds were one as Harry revved her up and up and up, then let her rip in smoking tyres and shrieking gears straight at the wall of glass!

Meanwhile the duty lock-up, a clerk, had reopened the last door and entered the showroom, and was now backed up against the giant display windows right in Harry's way. Spreadeagled, the man mouthed a silent gaping scream as the big bike snaked towards him. He knew he'd be cut to ribbons, him and this maniac rider both, and didn't know which way to jump. Closing his eyes and saying his prayers, he slid down the glass even as the bellowing monster bore down on him...

... And passed through him, and was gone!

As the noise subsided he opened his eyes first a crack, then all the way. The Harley-Davidson and rider were no longer there. There were skidmarks, blue exhaust smoke, even the roar of the engine, slowly echoing into silence. But no bike and no rider. And the plate glass was still in one piece.

Haunted! The man thought, before he passed out. Christ, I've always known it! This place is haunted to hell!

He was right and he was wrong. The place had been haunted, but no longer. For Pete the Vampire Biker was now with Harry Keogh, and like Harry he wouldn't be back...

Harry coasted through the Möbius Continuum to Zakinthos, conjured a door and blazed out through it at forty onto the uneven surface of a starlit Greek island 'road'. An inexperienced rider, he might have come to grief right there and then, but Pete the biker was in his mind and his hands, and the huge machine stayed upright and steady on the potholed tarmac.

Zek met the Necroscope on the white steps which wound to her door, but she had spoken to him moments earlier: Penny's awake. She's been drinking coffee - a lot!

My fault, Harry had answered. We did a little celebrating. A moving-outparty. And he thought of his place near Bonnyrig, Edinburgh. House-warming with a difference, yes.

Wow! said the Vampire, seeing Zek mirrored in Harry's mind. Is this your Pillion Pussy? But of course his exclamation and question were deadspeak and Zek couldn't hear them or even know he was here at all.

No, it isn't. Harry spoke only to Pete. She's just a good friend. Anyway, mind your business - and your mouth!

Penny joined Zek and Harry even as they touched hands. She came ghosting to the door and smiled (however tiredly, however... eerily?) when she saw the Necroscope had returned. And there in the Greek night Zek saw the cores of Penny's eyes glowing red as a moth's where they reflected the light of the lamp over the door. As for Harry's eyes: Zek avoided looking at them. In any case there was no need, and no need to say anything out loud, not when their minds were touching.

Zek, he said, I owe you.

We all owe you, she answered. Every one of us.

Not any more. You've squared it for the rest.

'Goodbye, Harry.' She leaned forward and kissed his lips; just a man's lips for the moment, but cold.

He led Penny through the trees to the big bike, and mounting up looked back. Zek stood in lamplight and starlight and waved. The Harley-Davidson's lights cut a swath under the trees, picking out the track back to the road.

Zek heard the roar of the engine pick up to a howl, saw the headlights cutting the night, held her breath. Then -

- The engine noise was only a receding echo doing a drum roll along the hills, and the headlight beam was gone as if it had never existed ...

Are your eyes closed? Harry asked over his shoulder.

Yes. Her answering thought was a whisper.

Then keep them that way - tight-closed - until I tell you to open them.

Hurling the big bike through the Möbius Continuum, with Penny and Pete the Vampire riding pillion, Harry headed for the Perchorsk Gate. He knew exactly - indeed precisely — where the Gate was. Möbius equations flickered across the screens of his metaphysical mind, opening and closing an endless curve of doors as he went. But when the doors began to warp and waver he knew he was almost there. It was an effect of the Gate: to bend the Möbius Continuum as a black hole bends light. A moment later, Harry guided the bike through the last fluxing, disintegrating door, and hurtled out of the Möbius Continuum on to the perimeter of the steel disc surrounding the Gate.