Necroscope: The Mobius Murders

Necroscope
^®
: The Möbius Murders
Copyright © 2013 

by Brian Lumley. All rights reserved.

Dust jacket and interior illustrations Copyright © 2013 

by Bob Eggleton. All rights reserved.

Print version interior design Copyright © 2013 by Desert Isle Design, LLC.

All rights reserved.

Electronic Edition

ISBN 

978-1-59606-657-1

Subterranean Press

PO Box 190106

Burton, MI 48519

www.subterraneanpress.com

Returning from Las Vegas and his adventure with Dead Eddy, the Necroscope Harry Keogh experienced a disturbing, extraordinary thing. Most extraordinary, even for the likes of Harry Keogh.

The metaphysical Möbius Continuum was Harry’s, or so he had always thought; the fact of its existence and the means of calling it into being, into use, belonged to him exclusively…at least among living men. For to be more precise it also belonged to the man who had first discovered and used it—
after
he had died: the brilliant German mathematician and astronomer, August Ferdinand Möbius, whose name Harry had seen fit to bestow upon it and who, for several years now, had used it to go…elsewhere, probably exploring alien galaxies! And in addition there had been a brief period when the Continuum belonged to at least one other, a mere child…but that is a tale already told.

Yet now—in the space of a few “moments” that only seemed to pass in the otherwise timeless Continuum—as the Necroscope sped between Vegas and Edinburgh in silence, impenetrable darkness, and utter weightlessness—now it appeared that someone else had discovered a means of invading Harry’s domain.

The vague figure that went hurtling momentarily across his path emitted a blue glow, the pure blue of a human being; which in itself wasn’t bad, despite that Harry’s being able to see it was a strange new experience. Had it been red, that would have been
very
bad! It would have indicated the presence of a dreadful creature in the Möbius Continuum: a vampire, and as such a deadly foe!

Previously, Harry had not been aware of this ability: to be able to discern another’s passage through the Continuum. He had known that
he
gave off a faint blue radiance in what to him was the more familiar region of this mathematical dimension, but except for his irregular visits to parallel but entirely separate Möbius time-streams he had
not
realized he would be able to observe the presence of anyone else; at least, not at a distance. And the reason for this was simply because the opportunity, or contingency, had never before arisen.

But that aside, this interloper had been in a hurry. His or her headlong rush had managed to convey not only the impression of great haste but also a pin-wheeling and impotent flailing of spastic limbs; so that his panic-flight had seemed entirely uncontrolled. And such was Harry’s astonishment, the abrupt shock of this unheard-of invasion of his territory, that for a moment (where there were no moments except in his own mind,) thrown into confusion by what he had seen, he simply continued along his way. And by the time, the merest blink of an eye, it had taken him to appreciate the fact of this unique occurrence, the anomaly had passed beyond his visual range and disappeared: a blue meteorite across the ultimate, infinite void of the Continuum.

Also and stranger still, there
had
been sound: a snuffling, a whimpering, a soft sobbing. As if the interloper had not been aware that in the Continuum the softest whisper has volume, and even thoughts have weight that makes them “audible.” As for the latter, however: the Necroscope had “heard” nothing—though it now dawned on him that he had sensed, however briefly, a nerve-tingling rush of terror! For this strange traveller in what was an even stranger metaphysical medium, he or she had been totally terrified!

Harry willed a change in direction, tried to match the path of the unknown other, went plunging after him or her, whomever. But no use; the unhappy, possibly helpless interloper had gone. And on the furthest rim of the Necroscope’s awareness he sensed the blue glow extinguished, a human life appearing to blink out as its owner departed from the Continuum and returned to normal space-time.

Then, on the off-chance that he might be able to follow it to an earthly destination, the Necroscope brought himself to an abrupt halt at coordinates calculated as being as close as possible to the location of the disappearance, where he also exited from the Continuum—

—To emerge into grey daylight and bitter winds that whipped at his clothing somewhere over the drab North Sea, where in the near-distance but far below the mist- and rain-blurred outlines of an oil rig’s legs reared their platform from a choppy ocean!

Obviously Harry had miscalculated; he was either completely mistaken or the unknown other had been bent on self-destruction, suicide! Half a mile high but instantly falling, spinning face-down in classical sky-diver mode, the Necroscope half-shuttered his eyes against the sting of damp rushing air and scanned what lay below him: nothing but low scudding clouds and a thin mist on the turbulent sea.

The Necroscope let himself fall—through clouds and mist both—until the waves were clearly visible and their jostling audible. A wasted effort; all he saw was the vast sprawl of the bitter ocean with neither living being nor floating corpse anywhere in sight, though it was barely possible that in his singular mind he sensed the chill silence of a watery grave…

That last however was unlikely. For normally there would be at least an echo of bewilderment and even disbelief, until finally the reality of a
continuation
of sorts—even after death—formed in the incorporeal mind of someone suddenly no longer alive.

Harry might have tried to make contact—to see if in fact there was someone there, sinking in the depths of the sea—but with mere seconds to spare he was obliged instead to conjure a Möbius door directly beneath his hurtling body. Darkness formed and he fell into it, through it, and back into the Continuum.

And then, perplexed and disturbed as rarely before, he took the shortest route back to his lonely house west of the City of Edinburgh…

Several years ago, at a time when Harry had been a mere novice in Möbius matters, when defending himself against the agents of a foreign power who had intended to capture or kill him, he had consigned an evil man to an eternity of hell in the Möbius Continuum. Well perhaps not to eternity, which is a very long time as men understand it; but in the Möbius Continuum time—if it exists at all—is of an entirely different order. And if that unfortunate Counter Espionage Agent of the East German
Grenzpolizei
, if he yet remained in the Möbius Continuum—if it hadn’t rejected and ejected him, like an especially injurious irritant from the mind of a god—then by now he must surely be a raving madman in his impossibly vast, dark and empty and utterly incomprehensible cell.

But…the Mind of God? Since that time Harry had frequently pondered that question. Was the Möbius Continuum the region in which God had ordained light—the Big Bang, perhaps?—at the beginning of space, time and an ever expanding universe? If so, then in the Continuum itself time had remained conjectural. Perhaps the genius Albert Einstein had sensed something akin to this when he remarked that “The distinction between past, present, and future is an illusion, although a persistent one.”

The Mind of God.… And now Harry pondered it again.

Was the very subject blasphemous, he wondered? Surely not, for if it was then why was he allowed entry, with his esoteric, open sesame mathematics? Still, and remaining on the safe side, while he often
thought
about it he had always left the thought unspoken. And anyway, who can control his thoughts?

But all of that was when the Necroscope was unique, before his infant son had inherited the Continuum, finally using it to steal away with Harry’s lost love, Brenda, the wife who couldn’t abide the transition that Harry had suffered; also before this latest occurrence: the coming—and going—of some possibly suicidal or misadventuring interloper.

And now Harry’s mind was back on track.

But this was how it was with him: always, in confrontations with the weird and mysterious, the Necroscope’s mind would spin off in every direction in search of hidden answers. And he knew that this time it would be the same, that this was important, a mystery he must either solve or suffer for long and long—and not being much for suffering, already he was impatient…

Harry called Bonnie Jean Mirlu, his love of loves—a beautiful moon-child or werewolf—at her wine bar in Edinburgh. For she would probably be expecting to see him tonight and he might not be available.

“Bonnie Jean,” he said, when finally she answered the telephone. “It’s Harry, and I’m sorry to disturb your beauty sleep. Not that you need it.”

“Flatterer!” she at once replied. “And anyway, I’m just up. We’ve a party tonight in B.J.’s. A private party—after hours, ye ken—and there’s stuff I should be attendin’ tae.”

A private party? Harry breathed a quiet sigh of relief. She didn’t like him around when they had a party going. He believed he knew why…but that was a line of thought he couldn’t continue—could never investigate—because a deep-rooted post-hypnotic command, implanted by the she-wolf herself, always got in the way. And anyway there were things he really did
not
want to know; or so he told himself, blind to the fact that his easy acceptance was also a part of what she’d put in his head.

“Well then,” he replied, “that works for me because there’s business I must attend to also.”

“Oh aye? And what sort o’ business would that be, Harry?”

“Just business.” He shrugged and knew she would sense it.

“Wi’ they special friends o’ yours in London, perhaps?”

“Possibly. I’m looking for the answers to something—but nothing you need worry about.”

“A clue tae the whereabouts o’ yere wife and child, maybe?”