Necroscope: The Mobius Murders Read Online Free PDF Page B

inevitable questions: on Pythagorian doctrines regarding mysticism and mathematics—particularly Pythagoras’ interpretation of the physical world through numbers, and his belief in transmigration— and the ex-Professor’s own thoughts on the connection between math, extrasensory perception, and PSI abilities in general.
    Of the latter: his answers had never once served to explain in any detail his knowledge and use of such subjects; which was mainly, obviously, because he was not about to chance revealing to anyone—not even “cretins” who couldn’t possibly understand him—a single iota of everything he knew or had learned or was monstrously capable, but also because he could not have done so even if he’d wanted to. For despite an interminably frustrating series of mental trial-and-error mathematical experiments, Hemmings knew that he had not discovered and so was not capable of explaining everything , not even to himself. Not yet…
    Now, a little over an hour since his lecture in the drafty Kirkaldy bingo hall, as he walked the promenade between the sea and the coastal road, Hemmings reflected on one of those questions concerning transmigration: the passing of the life-force—the immaterial so-called “soul”—from a person at the point of death to the physical form of some living other, possibly a newborn or even foetal child.
    That the life-force (which was how Hemmings preferred to think of it) was no mere theory but a reality was hardly in any doubt; his own existence was proof positive of that. But he did wonder about its alleged continuation beyond the grave. Yes, it continued in him for a while, when extracted as provender from his prey; but as for those many millions of others who expired each year far beyond his reach: did they all find refuge, however unconscious and unenlightened, in the corporeal shapes of others? And were they then immortal?
    But if so, without self-awareness, sentience, of what possible use were they? And in the case of the unfortunate few, the question of their continuation: immortal? Well not in Gordon J. Hemmings they weren’t! For just like their shrivelled cadavers, they too expired—and all too quickly!
    That was disconcerting, worrying: the gradually increasing rapidity with which they melted away, leaving him hungry again—which in turn resulted in ever diminishing intervals between his need to once again partake of such psychic sustenance. For on the one hand, while he enjoyed to gorge himself in this way as and when it suited him , on the other—as a necessity over which he had no control but must avail himself—he sometimes found it irksome.
    It all depended, he had discovered, upon the strength, the vitality of the individuals in question. For example, that most recent one in Edinburgh; there hadn’t been much to him! A crippled derelict, it was highly unlikely that he would be missed—which was one of the main reasons he’d been chosen—but at the same time, by reason of those same ailments and destitute circumstances, the life-force had been weak in him.
    The ex-Professor knew that was so for a certainty; on exiting the old seafront hall on completion of his lecture and its subsequent question-and-answer session, he had paused to check out his appearance in a full-length mirror in the foyer. There in the glass had lain the proof of it: a face no longer ruddy, already turning pale and even somewhat jaundiced, despite that little more than twenty-four hours had passed since last he indulged himself; and in addition his “ample figure”—as he was inclined to consider his corpulence—which however improbably appeared less than “fully rounded,” so that his clothes seemed to hang on him far too loosely…though it was possible that he had imagined that last.
    But in any case, and however that may be, best not to take chances…
    Which was why he had chosen to walk the deserted promenade on a day when the sky was overcast and a damp, unseasonal wind