Free Necroscope 9: The Lost Years by Brian Lumley Page B

And so back to that again: a complete fuck-up of a situation! And Clarke thinking: But if it can fuck me up like this, what must it be doing to him and his family?
     
    Clarke continued to look at Harry where he’d scraped the first tentative swath through the foam - and where he’d immediately stopped shaving, and was now staring at his reflection in the mirror over the bowl. Clarke couldn’t possibly know what the Necroscope was thinking (telepathy wasn’t Darcy’s talent), but he could take a stab at it: Looking at himself and wondering who he was … and where he was! Knowing that in fact the Russians would have cut the real him up long ago, to study his guts and brains.
    And that they’d have done a far more thorough job of it - and certainly a more clinical one - than the necromancer Boris Dragosani had ever done on one of his victims.
    Trying to concentrate on what he was doing, Harry crooked his mouth and said, ‘You know, sometimes when I cut myself I’m surprised it hurts? It’s true: I’m having to learn to be a lot more careful with myself. It’s like when you borrow a book out of a library: you don’t much care how you handle it because it isn’t yours. Except this time it isn’t like that, because now it is mine and I have to look after it. And I’m not just talking about a book but a body: my body, now! And not even a snowball in hell’s chance that I’ll ever get another. So I have to take care of it - despite that I don’t much care for the damn thing!’
    He finished shaving: a patchy job, but he hadn’t actually cut himself. Tossing the shaver into the basin, he splashed his face, patted it dry, and stepped into the bedroom. And letting the towel fall paradoxically wwselfconsciously from around his waist, as he started to dress he asked: ‘So what do you think? How do we look, Darcy?’ Darcy knew it wasn’t a so-called royal we. The Necroscope was asking about the two of him.
    Well, of course, the recently elected Head of Branch could lie, but he chose not to. ‘How do you look?’ He shook his head in unfeigned concern. ‘Not too good, Harry. In fact, you look like shit!’
    And finally Harry had to grin. He looked like shit. This from Darcy
    Necroscope: The Lost Years - Vol. I
    Brian Lumley
    45
    44
     
    Clarke! Not that Darcy looked like shit, no - but then again he didn’t look like much of anything! For Darcy was possibly the world’s most nondescript man. Nature had made up for this physical anonymity, however, by equipping him with an almost unique talent. He was a deflector: the opposite of accident-prone. Only let him stray too close to danger, and something, some parapsychological guardian angel, would intervene on his behalf. He had no control over the thing; indeed he was only ever aware of it if he stared deliberately in the face of danger. Or occasionally when danger came creeping up on him.
    The talents of the others - telepathy, scrying, precognition, oneiromancy, lie-detecting - were more pliable, applicable, obedient; but not Darcy’s. It just did its own thing, which was to look after him. It had no other use. But because it ensured Darcy’s longevity, it made him the perfect man for the job. Continuity was important in E-Branch. The anomaly was this: that he himself didn’t quite believe in it until he felt it working. He still switched off the current before he would even change a light bulb! But maybe that was just another example of the thing at work.
    To look at Darcy Clarke, then, no one would ever suspect he could be the boss of anything - let alone head of the most secret branch of the British Secret Services! A job that Darcy hoped against hope he’d soon be able to hand over to Harry. Of middle-height, mousy-haired, showing early signs of a slight stoop and a small paunch, he was middling in just about every way.
    He had sort of neutral-hazel eyes in a face not much given to laughter, and an intense mouth which you just might remember if you