dochermes

"The White Savages of Bad Medicine Mountain"

9/13/1878

I.

"Johnny Packard, just where do you think you are going?" demanded the white-haired scarecrow of a woman.

Reining in his black horse Terror on the muddy main street of Just-Plain-Awful, the Brimstone Kid felt his heart sink. He feared neither man nor beast nor act of nature. Old women, though, were a problem since he had been brought up to respect and defer to them. He saw Bedelia Thorpe standing on the porch of the town's general store, bony hands clutching her broom as if wanting to strangle it, and something truculent in her pose alarmed him.

"I'm takin' Terror out to stretch his legs," the young cowboy replied. Even outside, he lifted his black Stetson to the lady when first addressing her. "Him and me been cooped up two days on account of the rain."

Her basilisk stare finally wore him down and he reined up alongside the porch and asked, "What is it you want, Miz Bedelia?"

The old woman give him a scornful snort, and put her hands onto her bony hips and sniffed at him as if he had stepped in one of the numerous horse piles left in the street.

"I want you should go git my brother Reuben and bring him home," she said at last. "He's off on one of his idiotic prospectin' sprees again. He snuck out before daylight with the mare and a pack mule. You bring him back if you have to lasso him and tie him to his saddle. Old fool! Off huntin' treasure when they's work to be done stocking shelves and fixing the back door hinges. You git goin'."

"Ain't my place to go chasin' him all over Bad Medicine Mountain," Johnny Packard protested. "Gramps is no kin of mine. Get together a posse."

But Bedelia would have nothing of that. As she explained her grievances, her voice getting louder and shriller all the time until dogs started howling in pain. She was still ranting as Johnny rode up the trail toward Bad Medicine Mountain Gap, and he seemed to hear echoes long after he couldn't see her any more. She had quite a shrillness. Birds flew off in fear when she raised her voice.

Once they were out of town, the stallion Terror obviously wanted to gallop so badly that Johnny let him. They had been too long in one spot, the Kid reflected. Townsfolk of Just-Plain-Awful had become used to him and treated him like any other cowboy. Even those who had witnessed the horrifying transformation into the true Brimstone Kid somehow had come to accept it. Johnny was making decent money working at the Schoeber ranch but he definitely knew it was time to move on.

Long hours later, Johnny was riding up the long rise that led up to the Gap, looking and listening. A sharp crack sounded up ahead and his hat flew off his head. The Kid reacted with an alacrity born of too many shootouts. He quickly reined Terror behind a chest-high clump of brush, and leaped down to lie flat in the dirt with one of his Peacemakers in his right hand. He glared up toward the Gap, and spotted the unlovely rear of a mule sticking from behind a cluster of boulders.

"You quit that shootin' at me, Gramps!" Johnny yelled at the top of his lungs. Inwardly, he was relieved that it was not a serious ambush. There were far too many men riding the West with deadly grudges against him.

"Stay right whar you be," an older voice called back. "I figger Bedelia sent you after me, but I ain't goin' home. I'm onto somethin' big at last!"

"What could you mean?" the Kid demanded.

"Keep back or I'll ventilate you," he promised. "I'm goin' for the Dago Silver Mine."

"Aw, you been huntin' that thing for thirty years," Johnny scoffed. "You might as well run toward a rainbow fer the pot of gold."

"This time it's a sure bet," Gramps said. "I bought a map off'n a drunk Mexican over in Three Corners. One of his ancestors was a Injun which helped pile up the rocks to hide the mouth of the cave where it is."

"Why didn't he go find it his own self and git the gold?" Johnny asked.

"He said he's skeered of ghosts," said Gramps. "I personally think it's just too much work to suit him. They's a fortune in the Dago Silver Mine. Now will you go on back peaceable like, or will you throw in with me? I might need you, in case of bandits or renegade Comanche."

"I'll come with you," Johnny said, not at all eager to return to town and face Miz Bedelia. "Maybe you have got somethin', at that. Put up yore Winchester. I'm coming soon as I fetch my hat." The Kid scowled at the ragged hole in the crown of his black Stetson but he reassured himself that the cursed Gremthom coin in the band had not been damaged.

Gramps emerged from his rocks, a skinny leathery old cuss, and he said: "What about Bedelia? If you don't come back with me, she'll foller us out here herself. She's that strong-minded. And this is rough territory for a lady to traverse."

"I'll leave a note for her," the Kid said. "Joe Blodgett always comes down through the Gap once a week on his way to town. He's due through here today. I'll stick the note on a tree, where he'll see it and take it to her."

Johnny had a pencil-stub in his saddle-bag, so he tore a piece of wrapping paper from a can of tomatoes Gramps had in his pack, and carefully wrote:

'Dear Miz Bedelia
'I am takin Gramps way up in the mountains. Don't send anyone to follow us, it wouldn't be healthy. You'll hear from us. Respectfully, Johnny.'
He folded the scrap and wrote on the outside:

'Dear Joe: please take this here note to Miz Bedelia Thorpe back in town.'

Johnny Packard was as proud of knowing his letters and how to do arithmetic as he was of any other skill. In every town he passed through, he made a point to read the local newspaper and he often picked up a dime novel when he could.

Then Johnny and Gramps set out for the higher ranges, and he started reciting all about the Dago Mine again, like he'd already done many times before. The tale told of an Italian prospector named Vito Spinelli who had stumbled onto a cave almost thirty years earlier. The walls had veins of gleaming silver thick as ropes. But the Indians jumped him and run him out and he got lost and nearly starved in the desert, and went crazy. When he come to a settlement and finally regained his mind, he tried to lead a party back to it, but never could find it. Gramps said the Indians had used rocks and brush to conceal the mouth of the cave so nobody could tell it was there.

Johnny reasonably asked how he knew the Indians had done that, and Gramps said it was common knowledge. Any fool oughta know that's just what they done.

"This-here mine," says Doc Valentine, "is located in a hidden valley which lies away up amongst the high ranges. I ain't never seen it, and I thought I'd explored these mountains plenty. Ain't nobody more familiar with 'em than me except Noah Chadwick. But it stands to reason that the cave is awful hard to find, or somebody'd already found it. Accordin' to this here map, that lost valley must lie just beyond Dead-End Canyon. Ain't many white men knows whar that even is. We're headin' there."

We had left the Gap far behind us, and was moving along the slanting side of a sharp-angled crag whilst he was talking. As we passed it, we seen two shadowy figures with horses emerge from the other side, heading in the same direction we was, so our trails converged. Gramps glared and reached for his Winchester.

"Who's that?" he snarled.

"The big un's Sheb Hartline," Johnny said. "I never seen the other one."

"And nobody else has, outside of a traveling sideshow, " growled Gramps.

( the rest of the story )

"Signpost For a Lost Traveler"

4/3/1989

I.

Fuming, Chen Wong-Lai slammed the door to his quarters with unnecessary emphasis.
He seldom stayed in these rooms at the KDF headquarters, keeping little more than a couple changes of clothes and a few books he caught up on when manning night monitor duty. Keeping his own tiny apartment on Ventnor Street had been important to his independence.

Still under thirty, Chen was as fit as any Olympic athlete. Not only he had studied his father's secret Fang Lung style, he had been taught Kumundu by Teacher Chael at Tel Shai for the past two years. A few inches under six feet tall and lean as a runner, Chen was more than a match for opponents much larger thaan himself. At the moment, with anger making him tense up, the new Dragon of Midnight moved more stiffly than his normal smooth catlike motions.

He caught himself breathing quickly. Chen stepped to the center of his room and stood with feet together and fists at his side. He bowed to Teacher Chael, farther away than miles could measure, then began his DohRa form. This started with poses that became more difficult to hold, then shifted into slow motions which became kicks and blocks and punches. As he warmed up, his strikes blurred out quicker and quicker as he seemed to be fighting multiple imaginary enemies. Twenty minutes passed. Chen's movements slowed again, became stances which gradually cooled down in the same salute that had begun the form.

The DohRa forms were individually developed for each student by Chael and modified constantly as they improved. Chen was breathing deeply and evenly. His temper had been reined in by the concentration. He went into his bathroom, stripping down and tossing his clothing in a hamper in one corner. After a steaming hot shower, the Dragon of Midnight emerged and examined his reflection in the mirror over the sink. Shaving was hardly necessary. Chen had tried to grow a beard once without noticeable success. He had been letting his coarse black hair grow recently at its covered the tops of his ears and reached the base of his neck.

Even in the shower, he kept the flat Dragon Pendant on its fine-linked chain around his neck. Two inches high, it represented a stylized Imperial wingless dragon rearing on its hind legs with its muzzle gaping. As he toweled off, he carefully dried the ancient talisman as well.

It was a warm April afternoon. Chen tugged on snug black jeans, a white T-shirt and a blue Chambray shirt he left unbuttoned and with the sleeves rolled back. Thick cotton socks and white sneakers completed the outfit. He frowned at the closet door where what looked like a leotard of wet silk with a glossy sheen was hanging. He was sick of wearing that flexible armor under his clothes every day all day. He was sick of carrying the anesthetic dart gun holstered under a jacket. Chen felt so annoyed by the world he almost left the Link on his dresser but realized that would be going too far. The team might depend on him being available. He grudgingly clipped it to his belt. Wallet, keys, some cash went into his pockets but none of the miniature gadgets KDF members invariably carried. One day without carrying an arsenal was not too much to ask.

Chen hurried down the stairs from the second hall to the front hall of headquarters. To his right, the office door was open. As he reached the bottom step, he saw Jeremy Bane glance up from the big oak desk beneath the hand-painted map of the world. "Hey, Chen,"said the Dire Wolf from behind a shambles of loose pieces of paper.

"Think I'll go for a little run."

"It's a great day for it," Bane agreed. "I only wish the paperwork would do itself."

"You can reach me if anything comes up," said the Dragon of Midnight, already heading for the door.

"Enjoy. We're having roast turkey catered at six, remember."

Chen left the building, stepping down to East 38th Street. He did feel like running. Swinging right, he took off at an easy lope he could keep up for hours. Being out in the open air helped his mood. Sometimes he realized how patient his teammates were with him. Chen was not the easiest person to get along with, but at least his moods blew over quickly.

At 42nd Street, he turned left and had to wait for the lights to cross Fifth Avenue. He slowed to a walk and paused at the front steps of the Public Library. Little kids were having their pictures taken by the stone lions. Their giggling and posing made him wistful. Sitting on the steps, a blonde college age girl was sketching with charcoal on an oversized pad. A fat middle-aged man was lost in a newspaper. Chen sighed audibly. None of them knew about the brutal Midnight War that raged unseen around them. They lived in a protected bubble of blissful ignorance.

Then he noticed the white-bearded Asian man staring at him from twenty feet away. He was tall and thin, wearing an old-fashioned business suit with his hands deep in the trouser pockets, the shirt top button undone with no necktie. At least seventy, he had longish hair and a neat beard that were both pure white. Most striking were the spiky eyebrows over deep-sunken eyes with a single inner fold.

Chen could not help being annoyed at that steady stare. "What are you looking at?"

"A lost traveler looking for a signpost," came the reply.

( the rest of the story )

"Fangs of the Hyena God"

3/19/1983

I.

Somber thoughts weighed heavily on Kwali's mind that night as he raced along the narrow trail that wound through the Deep Woods. Such thoughts were likely to trouble any man who dared invade by night that lonely stretch of densely timbered country which the Danarakans call Forgotten. He was a big man, five inches over six feet tall and powerfully built but he ran with a steady, effortless pace he could maintain for hours without tiring.

His skintight stalking suit was of black cotton. Combined with his dark skin and close-cropped hair, that suit made him almost invisible in the gloom. Yet, when the full moon caught him just right, his eyes glinted with a lambent green gleam like a cat's. The ancient talisman he wore on a chain around his neck had quickly made him Cat's-Claw in truth as well as title. It had been less than a year since he had earned the right to wear the Claw of Wakimbe and its responsibility weighed heavily on his shoulders.

All around him, the thick trunks of the Knob Thorn trees crowded each other, rising up fifteen feet to tangle their tops and form a canopy. Brushing against those needle-sharp knobs could shred the toughest leather jacket and Kwali had long since learned to avoid them.

Danarak's modern, thriving cities such as Honjabi were clustered along the coast. Once one got more than a hundred miles inland, the paved roads and railways were left behind. A few outposts had electricity and telephones, but most villages were content to live simply as they had for ages. Deeper into the interior was the passage to Inner Danarak, the adjacent realm kept secret from outsiders.

Ghosts might roam the Deep Woods with insatiable hunger as the locals maintained, but it was no ghost he feared. Kwali listened for the snap of a twig under a great bare foot, for any sound that would presage murder striking from the shadows. The being which he knew stalked Forgotten that night was more to be dreaded than any folklore phantom. Early that morning, the worst desperado in of that region of Danarak had broken free from custody, leaving a ghastly toll of dead behind him. Down along the river, bloodhounds were baying through the brush and hard-face men with rifles were beating up the thickets.

They were seeking Jengo Nyoto in the fastnesses near the scattered settlements, knowing that a fugitive seeks his own tribe in his extremity. But Kwali knew Jengo better than they did. He knew the killer deviated from the general type of his race. Jengo was unbelievably primitive, atavistic enough that he would plunge into uninhabited wilderness and live like a wild beast in solitude that would have daunted normal people. The man had never belonged in society.

So while the hunt moved away in another direction, Kwali abandoned his Jeep at the end of the passable trail and ran toward Fogotten alone. But it was not altogether to look for Jengo that he plunged into that isolated fastness. His mission was also one of warning, rather than search. Deep in the labyrinth of closely crowded trees, a white European and his servant lived in isolation, and it was Cat's-Claw's duty to warn them that a brutal killer might be skulking about their cabin.

Night overtook him on the path, and he had no intention of remaining until morning with the man he was going to warn, Etienne Guillot. He was a taciturn recluse. Guillot had been living in an old rebuilt cabin in the heart of Fogotten for about eight months.

Suddenly, as Kwali sprinted through the darkness, his speculations regarding the mysterious recluse were cut short and he stopped dead in his tracks. A sudden shriek had cut through the night, telling of agony and terror. It came from somewhere ahead of him. Again the scream was repeated, this time closer. Then he heard the pound of bare feet along the trail, and a form hurled itself at me out of the darkness. Kwali instinctively thrust his hands out to fend the creature off but he knew he was in no danger. Gasping, sobbing, the man fell limply into Kwali's arms.

"Help me, help me, oh Mercy of Wakimbe..!"

"Who are you?" Kwali demanded, "How are you hurt?"

"Oh, Kwali! Our champion, don't let him kill me! He's ripped me apart."

Kwali struck a match, and stood staring in amazement, while the match burned down to his fingers. A Danarakan groveled in the dust before him, his maulted face upturned. . He knew him well, one of the local farmers who lived in their tiny log huts along the fringe of Fogotten. He was splashed with blood, mortally wounded. Only abnormal energy rising from frenzied panic could have enabled him to run as far as he had. Blood jetted from torn veins and arteries in shoulder and neck, and the wounds were ghastly to see, great ragged tears that were never made by bullet or knife. One ear had been torn from his head, and hung loose, with a great piece of flesh from the angle of his jaw and neck, as if some gigantic beast had ripped it out with his fangs.

"What did this to you?" Kwali gasped as the match went out, and the wounded mam became merely an indistinct blob in the darkness. "A lion?" Even as I spoke I knew that no lion had been seen in Fogotten for thirty years.

"A stranger did it!" The thick, sobbing mumble welled up through the dark. "American or European. A white man that came by my cabin and ask me to guide him to Guillot's house. He wore a hat and scarf but they slipped and I saw his face... he killed me for seeing it."

"You mean he set dogs on you?" I demanded, for his wounds were such as I have seen on animals worried by vicious hounds.

"No, Kwali," whimpered the ebbing voice. "He did it himself...ahhh!"

The mumble faded as his head drooped and life left him. Kwali sensed something moving nearby. The enhanced night vision had barely begun to manifest yet. He strained his eyes into the darkness, and made out a vague shape a few yards away in the trail.

It was erect and tall as a man; it made no sound. I opened his mouth to challenge the unknown visitant, but no sound came. An indescribable chill flowed over me, freezing his tongue to his palate. It was fear, primitive and unreasoning, and even while I stood paralyzed I could not understand it, could not guess why that silent, motionless figure, sinister as it was, should rouse such instinctive dread.

Then suddenly the figure moved quickly toward me, and he found his voice. "Who goes there, friend or foe?"

No answer came but the dark form stalking in closer. As Kwali groped for a match, it was almost within reach. He struck the match with a thumbnail. With a ferocious snarl the figure hurled itself against him, the match was struck from his hand and extinguished, and Kwali felt a sharp pain dig into the side of his neck. The Cat's-Claw knotted his huge fists and swung blindly left and right. Even a glancing blow from him would have stunned a normal man and he felt sharp impact run up his arm.

Then with a crashing rush through the trees his assailant was gone, and he stood alone on the forest trail. Chest heaving in anger, Kwali dug in his pouch for another match. Blood was trickling down his shoulder, soaking through his cotton shirt. When he struck the match and investigated, another chill swept down his spine. The thin cotton shirt was torn and the flesh beneath slightly cut. The wound was little more than a scratch, but the thing that roused uneasiness in his mind was the fact that the wound was similar to those on poor old Yasid.


( the rest of the story )

"The Iron Crown of Gamulkor"

12/2-12/4/1219 DR

I.

Trudging through a grey cheerless dawn that was stealing over the rocky coast came a middle-aged fisherman. His feet were wrapped in rough cured leather and a single garment of deerskin scantily outlined his body. Over this he had wrapped a coarse wool cloak that was heavy with the damp. The wind swirled snow crystals restlessly, obscuring his view but he spotted another man looming up out into the gloom.

This stranger was nearly a head taller than the stocky fisherman, and he had the bearing of a fighting man. Two inches over six feet and he stood, built as powerfully as any blacksmith. Shaggy black hair was roughly trimmed. From under heavy black brows gleamed eyes of a dark blue shot with strange amber flecks.

Even on this bitter winter night, the man had his travel cloak thrown back instead of wrapping himself in it. He wore no armor, not mail nor the chestplate common to the Skandorans, but simple black breeches and a long-sleeved shirt of heavy cotton. The high boots were well-worn from travel. Sheathed at his left hip, supported by a baldric running down from his opposite shoulder, was a three-foot-long straight sword of recognizable Signarm crafting.

"Who are you?" asked the fisherman, with the bluntness of the west.

"Do you not know the answer even as you ask?" answered the other.

"In truth, yes. You are no Dartha nor an Eldanar. Yet no other Race shows ears such as you bear."

Indeed, exposed by the hair swept back, the stranger's ears rose to distinct points. And it was true, that only one Manlike being other than the Darthim or the Eldanarin had such ears.

"It seems legends walk in the flesh tonight," said the fisherman. "Are you not Romal?"

"I am! It is Romal the Mongrel who greets you tonight. Born of no woman, bearing traits of all Seven Races yet belonging among them. I am indeed Romal."

The fisherman did not immediately reply. He had heard many tales of Romal... a strange, bitter man who wandered from nation to nation, ever alone as no normal Human could be. "It's a hard world for a lone wolf," said the fisherman at last.

"True words indeed," Romal answered. "I see you have a boat."

The other nodded toward a small sheltered cove where lay snugly anchored a trim craft built with the skill of a hundred generations of men who had torn their livelihood from the stubborn sea.

"It's small and not meant for war," said Romal. "Yet need presses me. I'll buy it this moment."

"You'll do not such thing. What kind of talk is this? Skandor is less than thirty miles from this coast. Are you not pals with the Skandorim?"

Menace growled in the Mongrel's deep voice. "Have a care, fisherman. It is well known I quarreled with the Skandorim and they now count me as their bitter enemy.
Have you seen a longboat beating up from the south in the last few days?"

"Two days ago! The hated longship with shields lining its hull went sailing by ahead of a storm. They did not stop. Little enough have we here to entice them."

"That would be Bagrok the Fair," muttered Romal, gripping his sword-hilt. "I knew it."

"Ah, you have news of a raid?"

"A band of reavers fell by night on the castle on the promontory at Wyakit. The slaughter was brutal. The Skandoran pirates took Evalyn, daughter of Thul, King of Green Skandor."

"I've heard of her," muttered the fisherman. "Before I was born and before my father was born, the kingdoms of Red Skandor and Green Skandor have been at each others' throats. Do you owe allegiance to either, son?"

"Barely a thread holds me to any Human," said Romal. "I am like no other, alone in this world with all hands against me. Yet, it was King Thul who gave me lodging and paid me to fight with his swordsmen. For nearly a full year, he treated me fairly and the princess spoke to me with kindness. I have sworn no oath to go to her rescue, I do so freely."

"King Thul gathers his forces to asault the stronghold of the Red Skandorim, yet I think he wastes their lives in doing so. There are hundreds of uncharted isldes in this Cold Sea, many no more than rocks sticking up out of the water. I have explored them. Bagrok the Fair had built a hall on the Isle of Slyn in the freezing waters. There he has taken her and there I follow him. Lend me your boat."

"You are mad!" cried the fisherman sharply. "What are you saying. From Connacht to the Hebrides in an open boat? In this weather? I say you are mad."

"It's been said before," answered Romal absently. "Will you lend me your boat?"

"No."

"I might take it by force," waerned Romal.

"You might," returned the fisherman stolidly.

"Don't you understand, it is not for my sake?" snarled the Mongrel in sudden rage, "A princess of Green Skandor is prisoner of a bloody-handed Reaver of the Red and you will not help?"

"Should my own family starve?" retorted the fisherman just as passionately. "Without my boat, how can I feed my wife and child? Where can I get another boat that is not in use?"

The huge Mongrel loomed up menacingly over the short, sturdy fisherman. He dug inside his belt and came up with a single gold coin tied by a string. Snapping it loose, he said, "Here! An Eagle Coin of Signarm, good anywhere in the known world. All I am left in the world is what I wear now. Will you take it?"

The fisherman hesitated, then held out his open hand. "So be it. But I will hold the coin as long as I can. If you return the boat before my family goes hungry, then I will hand this back to you."

"I will return with Evalyn or not at all," promised Romal. "And, if I have my way, I will gift you with a gold trinket or two from a Reaver who needs it no longer."

( Read more... )

"The Chimera Is Back!"

6/19/-6/22/2012

I.

Haley's landings needed so much work. Summoning tornado winds to lift her into the sky and even to travel at a hundred feet up was relatively easy with the Air Gem. But lessening those winds gradually and coming down to the ground safely was much more difficult. The concentration needed was so demanding that she couldn't get it right.

So the Windcatcher was practicing over Lake Schoonmaker, eight miles from her home in Glenville, Long Island. Sitting on the white sand shore were her two best friends and romantic couple for more than a year, Gina and Bentley.

Descending to twenty feet, Haley swept back the heavy blue cloak over her shoulders. It was a big help in guiding her flight while in the air, but a real nuisance at the moment. She dropped her legs down, spread her arms out wide and her thoughts wandered for an instant as a fish broke the surface nearby. That was all it took. She plummeted straight down with a mighty splash.

"Drat this anyway!" she spluttered and began stroking toward shore. Tall at seventeen with long legs, she was a strong swimmer who loved the water but at the moment she was vexed beyond endurance. The wet heavy cloak weighed her down like a blanket. Her chestnut hair was tied back in a ponytail but her bangs were too long and hanging in her eyes, dripping heavily.

Standing with his feet in the water, Bentley held a cork lifesaver ring he had taken from his uncle's pool. This had been his idea. He watched Haley drawing nearer without being able to hide his concern. If she seemed to be struggling, he was going in to help her whether she wanted it or not.

Gina Giacomo had come over to stand beside him. Italian on both sides, she was widely considered by the boys to be the sexiest junior at their high school. That day, she was wearing the bottom half of a blue bikini with a fuzzy white long-sleeved shirt. She had no intention of getting in the water after all the time she had spent preparing her long mane of curly black hair.

"It was that fish, Hales!" she sang out. "I saw it. He deliberately screwed up your landing."

Plopping down on the sand, panting after the exertion, Haley unsnapped the cloak and let it fall to one side. "I'm exhausted. My head is killing me. This flying is like doing trig in your head while riding a bicycle uphill. Movies and comics make it look so easy!"

A few feet away were two white beach towels covered with bottles of sunblock, a bag full of empty soda cans and crumpled up potato chip bags, three cell phones and an oversized pair of aviator sunglasses. Getting up on her feet, Haley lurched over there and dropped to her knees to claim the last can of Mountain Dew. "Whew. Thanks for being ready with the lifesaver, Bentley. You're the best."

"He IS. I landed a great boyfriend," Gina added. "Listen, Haley, while you were up there swooping and soaring and whatnot, I saw something on the news that might interest you."

Winging out the soaking wet cloak to let dry in the warm June sunlight, Windcatcher asked, "Like what?"

"Here, I saved it." Shading her phone's screen with one hand, said, "Let's see. Umm, there have been sightings in Danverton of a mysterious man in a purple costume. He beat up three men who were trying to rob an elderly gentlemen on North Wall Street Saturday night. Wednesday at two AM, he chased away a creep who was following a woman walking home from Rustler's Dance Club and made sure she made it to her apartment."

"That's what I should be doing!" yelped Haley. "As soon as I get a little better control, I will patrolling high crime areas late at night. Well, at least until school starts up."

"Sounds like Long Island has another super-hero," Gina said. "Listen to his description. A tall athletic man wearing a purple jumpsuit with black riding boots and a hooded mask which covered his face except around his nose and mouth. On the front of his shirt was a white silhouette of some strange animal neither witness recognized."

"Oh my God, the Chimera!" blurted Haley. "I read all about him when I was little. That was ages ago. He disappeared around the time I was born, late 1995. I couldn't get enough about him. Officially, the police made statements calling upon him to stop his unlawful vigilante crusade but, you know, somehow they never showed up until he was gone. I figured they watched from a distance and only moved in to clear up after Chimera was off the scene."

"There's more," Gina said. "Known from notes he left naming himself as the Chimera, the masked man subdued a gunman who had robbed a liquor store and left the perp tied up with his own belt and shoelaces. In the summer of 1994, he smashed up two Asian massge parlors staffed by underage Korean girls brought into the country illegally. He left the girls at the local FBI office in Manhattan and their testimony led to the arrest and conviction of the owner on human trafficking charges."

"You see why he was my hero?! I still have a scrapbook of newspaper clippings about him somewhere," Haley laughed.

"How come he never got shot?" asked Bentley.

"What?"

"Haley, I know you're nuts about super-hero comics but they've given you seriously unrealistic ideas. I don't care if you're the world's greatest master of kung fu and karate, you can't charge at armed men without getting shot. And it says he did this not once but at least five reported times." Bentley shook his head. "It smells fishy."

"Aw, your feet smell fishy," Haley scoffed. "Maybe he was very very lucky or maybe he's a former Navy SEAL or something. What I want to know is how he can still be active. That was a long time ago."

Gina said, "Hey, suppose he was in his mid-twenties back then. He'd be forty-five today. That's not ANCIENT! My dad is forty-six and he runs three miles a day in all weather. I bet my dad is stronger than any of the wrestlers at our school."

"Maybe your dad is the Chimera," offered Haley in her sweetest, most innocent voice.

"No such luck. Mom watches him like a hawk. If he tried sneaking out at night, she'd bust his eardrums with her yelling."

Haley had that familiar far-away look that warned of trouble brewing in her lime-green eyes. "So where has the Chimera been all these years? Why has he gone back into action now? What's his deal anyway?"

( the rest of the story )

"Ho-Li Fook On Goombah Island"


9/20/2011

I.

Sheng Mo-Yuan paused on the corner of Baxter Street in lower Manhattan as he tried to follow what two women were arguing about. His Cantonese was getting better. Sheng was hardly fluent and Uncle Pao said his accent sounded like a dog choking on a chicken bone, but at least he could carry on a conversation with only a few questionable moments.

On that dry and comfortable Autumn afternoon, Sheng stood a few feet away, trying not to be obviously watching the debate. At thirty, standing five feet five and weighing one hundred and fifty, he was obviously in great athletic trim. The tailored brown busines suit with its tan dress shirt and narrow black tie fit perfectly. He took pains with grooming and enjoyed looking his best. To most Americans, Sheng did look Asian but his high cheekbones and eagle-beaked nose hinted at his true origin in the realm of Chujir.

Standing on the stoop of an ancient brick building which had a cardboard sign FURNISHED ROOMS TO RENT tacked on its front door was a stout middle-aged Chinese woman who had an unlit cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth. >"You have had five 'second chances,'"< she scolded. >"Out you go!"<

Pleading with her was an unreasonably pretty young woman also of Southern Chinese ancestry, no more than twenty, with long glossy black hair, untidy bangs and a face which needed no make-up to break hearts. Her charms seemed to be of no use at the moment, though. >"Please, pleassse, Mrs Zhang, my mother will be sending me money when she gets off work..."<

>"That song does not sound sweeter because you have sung it before. Begone, Miss Fook. Show me how you look walking away."<

The girl had a sob in her voice that would make a statue sympathize. >"At least let me get my things. All I have is what I'm wearing"<

>"You agreed your belongings were your security deposit. I'm going in."<

>"No, no, I promise my mother will go to Western Union at five..."<

The landlady held out her hand, palm up. >"Put two hundred dollars here right now."<

Sheng suprised himself. As a KDF member, he had an expense account and a platinum Visa card for business related matters but he usually carried a good amount of cash for bribing stoolies, bartenders and security guards. Reaching into the pocket sewn in his waistband on the right, he covertly pulled out a thick packet of bills and counted off two hundred, in two fifties and five twenties. Then he stepped forward and waved the money so the landlady could see it.

>"Sorry I'm late,"< he announced, >"But I hope this clears everything up."<

The young woman twisted her head around and managed a confused smile. But the landlady was less impressed. >"Who are you? Why is this your business?"<

>"Our families know each other,"< Sheng lied. His detective agency, CHUAN LO-TSING ("Hard-Working Fist") had polished his skill at making up impromptu lies. >"Are you going to turn down good hard cash?"<

Far from hesitating, the woman snatched the money quick as a mousetrap snapping shut. >"Well, it seems you are spared another week, Miss Fook. Very well."< She gave Sheng a scornful appraisal and went inside, ripping down the piece of cardboard that advertised rooms.

Seen at close range, Miss Fook was flawless. Her smile revealed perfect shining-white teeth, her peach-toned skin was smooth and soft, and her eyes had the brightness and clarity of youth. The inner eyelid fold was not very marked. >"Thank you so much, but I am sure we don't know each other?"<

"I hope you speak English," Sheng ventured.

"Oh, of course, I'm in my first year at NYU. So, you're not from the old country?"

"No. And I wasn't brought up speaking Mandarin OR Cantonese. Hello. I'm Sheng Mo-Yuan."

She held out a tiny hand, which Sheng shook and felt as if he had touched a live wire. "My name is Fook Ho-Li. I know, I know, my parents had no idea how it would sound to Americans. Ho-Li Fook, honestly. I use the first name 'Sue' most of the time with white people but you can call me Holy."

Realizing he was still holding her hand, Sheng released it and cleared his throat. "Nice to meet you, Holy. Maybe we can get coffee or something to eat nearby."

"I'd like that." She gave him a brain-stunning smile as if gifting it, then glanced down at her baggy sweatshirt and jeans with one knee out. "Just let me run upstairs and change. You're dressed so nice, I want to be appropriate and I have a little black dress I never get to put on. Be right back."

The girl went inside and Sheng put one foot on the lowest step of the stoop. He glanced at his Rolex Perpetual and saw it was two-thirty. He couldn't believe the timing. Not only did he have no KDF duties but since his Fist For Hire office didn't open until midnight, his schedule was open for a change. Where should he take this girl Holy? He hoped she liked Italian food, there was a little bistrol on Canal Street that served shells stuffed with fresh mushrooms....

Twenty minutes later, he finally gave in and rang the round white doorbell. A minute later, the door creaked open an inch to reveal rheumy blue eyes behind thick glasses. "Yeah?"

"Um, excuse me, I was waiting for Miss Fook?"

"WHO?"

"Miss Fook. Maybe you know her as Sue, she's a cute little Chinese girl. I expected her to be ready by now."

"Nah. You got your signals crossed, son. Ain't no Chinese gals here, cute or homely. This place caters to retired folks like me, mostly Jews to be honest. Maybe you got the address wrong."

Sheng's chest felt cold and heavy. "Oh. Could I speak to the landlady?"

The old man sounded unbelievably exasperated. "Landlady? Landlady? Norman Filmont owns this building." With that he slammed the door and the sound of a lock clicked.

Sheng turned and started walking north. All the color had gone out of the day. Everything looked grimy and worthless. Detectives were supposed to be shrewd and cynical and not trust anyone, some detective he was.

( the rest of the story )

V.

After Bane left Rook's house, he drove straight to Big Stanislaus's dive down on the waterfront. It posed as a low-grade drinking joint but it was a hub for shady deals and negotiations. Only a few derelicts huddled about the bar that near to closing time, and he noticed that the bartender was a man that he had never seen before. He stared apprehensively at the infamous Jeremy Bane, but jerked a thumb toward the back door, masked by dingy curtains, when the Dire Wolf asked abruptly, "Tommy here?"

Bane passed through the door, traversed a short dimly-lighted hallway and rapped authoritatively on the door at the other end. In the silence he heard rats scampering. A steel disk in the center of the door shifted and a suspicious blue eye glittered in the opening.

"Open the door, Big Stanislaus," ordered Bane impatiently, and the eye was withdrawn, accompanied by the rattling of bolts and chains.

He pushed open the door and entered the room whose illumination was scarcely better than that of the corridor. It was a large, dingy, drab affair, lined with bunks. Fires sputtered in braziers, and Big Stanislaus was making his way to his accustomed seat behind a low counter near the wall. Bane spent but a single casual glance on the familiar figure, the well-known dingy tuxedo jacket from better days. Then he strode across the room to a door in the wall opposite the counter to which Big Stanislaus was making his way.

This was a "Stupor" joint and Bane knew those figures in the bunks were addicts lost in the near-coma of Stupor. Why the police had not raided it, as they had raided and destroyed other drug dens, he didn't know. Heavy-duty bribes, most likely.

A characteristic smell pervaded the dense atmosphere, in spite of the reek of the drug itself and unwashed bodies, the dank odor of the river, which hung over the waterfront dives or which welled up from their floors. Big Stanislaus's dive, like many others, was built on the very bank of the river. The back room projected out over the water on rotting piles, at which the polluted river lapped sluggishly.

Bane stepped through the door and pushed it closed behind him, ready to react to an attack from any direction.

He was in a small dingy room, bare except for a crude table and some chairs. An oil lamp on the table cast a smoky light. And in that light he saw Tommy Ciro. The man stood bolt upright against the far wall, his arms spread like a crucifix, rigid, his eyes glassy and staring, his mean, ratty features twisted in a frozen grin. What was going on? He did not speak, and Bane's gaze, traveling down him, halted with a shock. Johnny's feet did not touch the floor by several inches.

Bane's long-barreled 38 Smith & Wesson jumped into his hand like a conjuring trick. Tommy Ciro was dead and that grin was only a facial contortion of horror and agony. He was pinned to the wall by skewer-like iron spikes through his wrists and ankles, his ears nailed to the wall to keep his head upright. But that was not what had killed him. The front of Johnny's shirt was charred by a round, blackened hole.

All of this, Bane took in within a split-second.

The Dire Wolf wheeled, opened the door behind him and stepped back into the larger room. The light seemed dimmer, the smoke thicker than ever. No mumblings came from the bunks. The fires in the braziers burned dimly with blue smoke spirals. Big Stanislaus crouched behind the counter. His shoulders moved as if he were tallying beads on an abacus.

"Big Stanislaus!" Bane's voice grated harshly in the murky silence. "Who's been in that room tonight besides Tommy Ciro?"

The man behind the counter straightened and looked full at him, and Bane felt his skin crawl. Above the worn out jacket an unfamiliar face returned his gaze. That was not Big Stanislaus; it was a Gelengi. Bane glared about him as the men in the bunks rose with supple ease. They were not the usual assorted riff-raff of a Stupor parlor. They were all Gelengi, and those hooded black eyes were not clouded by drugs. This was the trap he had been expecting.

With a bound, the Dire Wolf sprang toward the outer door but they were already on him. His gun crashed deafeningly in the enclosed space and a man staggered in mid-stride. Then the lights went out, the braziers were overturned, and in the stygian blackness hard bodies caromed against him. Long-nailed fingers clawed at his throat, thick arms locked about his waist and legs.

Alternating hands, Bane's left whipped out in short jabs and backhands, crushing flesh and bone under each blow. With his right, he wielded the gun barrel like a blackjack. After a minute, the sheer number of the Gelengi overcame the advantage his enhanced speed gave him. He forged toward the unseen door stubbornly, dragging his assailants by sheer strength. It was like wading through quicksand.

Knives could not penetrate the flexible Trom armor under his clothing but his exposed face and hands were getting sliced up. A silk cord looped about his neck, shutting off his wind, sinking deeper and deeper into his flesh. Blindly, he jammed the muzzle against the nearest body and pulled the trigger. At the muffled concussion something fell away from him and the strangling agony lessened. Gasping for breath, he groped and tore the cord away. But that left him exposed and he was borne down under a rush of heavy bodies. Something smashed savagely against his head. Lights flashed before total darkness took him.


( the rest of the story )

"Stalked By the Golden Jaguar"


10/19-10/20/1943

I.

Kelly O'Connor slammed shut the dilapadated old book she had been studying, and muttered a single word more appropriate for a hardened sailor in a storm than for a pretty young reporter in the day room of the NEW YORK MESSENGER. Middle-aged Will Townsend, seated at his own desk nearby, grinned affectionately. He had been putting on weight the past year and had stealthily punched a new hole into his belt to accomodate the more substantial girth.

Watching Kelly was no hardship. She was tall and slender, with long dark red hair and bright green eyes, as well as an upturned nose and full lips. In her light yellow dress, belted around the waist, she was more appealing a sight than all the dumpy middle-aged reporters he had to face every day.

"It must be something unusual for you to stick around the office after the whistle blows, O'Connor," he remarked. "This is the first time I ever saw you here after dark. I thought you had a frantic social life, always out dancing and going to Broadway shows."

"I wish." Kelly said. "Twenty-three and already an old maid married to the newspaper business."

"You've been shoving your nose into a hundred different books here since five o'clock," asserted Townsend.

"I've been trying to get some information for a story I'm working on," answered Kelly. She gestured at the rows of wildly random volumes in the shelves that encircled the walls. "Look at all these books you guys have been bringing in for a generation. All sorts of strange and unsavory topics are covered but not one can tell me the truth about the Golden Jaguar cult practiced by a certain tribe from the jungles of Ecuador."

"A good reporter has sources," suggested Townsend. "Why not ask them?"

"I'm going to." Kelly took down a phone from its hook where it sat on the desk she shared with senior reporter Skip Leinster.

"What about Carla Colan?" suggested Townsend. "She's been to Rio. She's quite a traveler and she writes some stories for our paper."

"I don't get along with Carla. Her articles seem pretty flimsy to me. But I know a real expert! I'll try Big Jim Newton." She twirled the dial with an impeccably manicured finger. "Ring, ring, ring, pick up already. Oh. Hello!"

A slick voice with an unfamiliar accent came along the wire.

"Oh, is that you, Tomas?" asked Kelly. "I want to speak to Mr. Newton."

Polite surprise tinged the meticulous tones. "Why, Mr. Newton went out in response to your call an hour ago, Miss Kelly."

"What's that?" demanded Kelly. "Went where?"

"Why, surely you remember, Miss Kelly." A faint uneasiness seemed to edge the Ewa's voice. "At about nine o'clock you called, and I answered the phone. You said you wished to speak to Mr. Newton. After my master talked to you, he then told me to have his car brought around to the side entrance. He said that you had requested him to meet you at the cottage on Duck Lake shore."

"Stuff and nonsense!" exclaimed Kelly. "This is the first time I've phoned Big Jim Newton for weeks! You've mistaken somebody else for me."

The servant did not argue but simply replied, "As you say, miss."
Kelly replaced the phone and turned to Townsend, who was leaning forward with aroused interest.

"Something fishy here," scowled Kelly. "Tomas, Jim's Ewa servant, said I called an hour ago, and Jim went out to meet me. Townsend, you've been here all evening. Did I call up anybody? That retired headhunter has me doubting myself."

"No, you didn't," emphatically answered older reporter. "I've been sitting right here close to the phone ever since six o'clock. Nobody's used it. And you haven't left the day room during that time. I would have noticed."

"Well, say," said Kelly, uneasily, "This sounds like monkey business. I think I better drive up to Duck Lake. If this is a joke, Newton may be over there waiting for me to show up and I don't want him mad at him over a misunderstanding."

Townsend pulled his jacket on and reached for a fedora which had seen better days. "Count me in."

"Why? I'm just going to ask Big Jim a few questions. I don't need a chaperone, will."

"It's not that, O'Connor. But that fake phone call worries me. Someone's pulling shenanigans. Newton might've got mixed up with some gangland types. I still carry my old Army automatic when I go to bad parts of town."

With a sinking feeling, Kelly O'Connor realized it would be too suspicious for her to argue further. She wanted to go by herself because her instincts told her the Green Devil might be needed. In the lining of her spacious brown leather handbag was concealed a green silk bandana mask, thin gloves and a sash with some miniature tools in tiny pouches. With Townsend along, she couldn't get into her Green Devil guise if there was trouble.

"We'll use my car, the DeSoto," offered Townsend. "I'm allowed extra gas rations because I do some weekend work for the city."

"Sounds good to me," she agreed. "The tires on my roadster are getting smooth as a baby's bottom."

As the city lights fell behind them, and houses gave way to clumps of trees and bushes, velvet black in the star-light, Townsend said: "Do you think Tomas made a mistake?"

"What else could it be?" answered Kelly without seeming to give it much thought.

"Somebody might have been playing a joke, as you suggested. Why should anybody impersonate you to Newton?"

"How should I know? But I'm about the only acquaintance he'd bestir himself for, at this time of night. He's reserved, suspicious of people. I don't think he has a lot of friends but he took a liking t me."

"Something of an explorer, wasn't he?"

"You bet. He spent over a year in the worst part of Ecuador where there really are headhunters and cannibals. Came back with three servants from the Ewa tribe. His story was that they saved his life and he swore to take to care of them."

"How'd he make his money?" Townsend asked, abruptly.

"I've never asked him. But he has plenty of it."

As they headed north, patches of trees on each side of the road grew denser, and residential houses became more gradual. After an hour's drive from the city, they found the broad silver mirror called Duck Lake. The twisting road meandered along the curving shore.

"Where's Newton's lodge?" inquired Townsend.

Kelly pointed. "See that thick clump of shadows, within a few yards of the water's edge? It's the only cottage on this side of the lake. The others are three or four miles away. None of them occupied, this time of the year. There's a car drawn up in front of the cottage."

"No light in the shack," grunted Townsend, pulling up beside the long low roadster that stood before the narrow stoop. The building reared dark and silent before them, blocked against the rippling white sheen behind it.

"Hey, Jim!" called Kelly. "Big Jim Newton!"

No answer came, only a vague echo rolling down from the wooded hills.

"Devil of a place at night," muttered Townsend, peering at the dense shadows that bordered the lake. "I'm used to street lamps."

Kelly slid out of her side of the car. "Newton must be here, unless he's gone for a midnight stroll along the lake."

Their steps echoed loudly and emptily on the tiny stoop. Kelly banged on the door and shouted. Somewhere back in the woods a night bird lifted a drowsy note. There was no other answer. She grabbed the doorknob shook the door. It was locked from the inside.

"I don't like this," Townsend growled. "Car in front of the cottage, door locked on the inside but nobody answering us. Something's wrong. I'll kick the door in..."

"No need." Kelly fumbled in his pocket. "I know where he hides a key." She walked over to a nearby tree and groped around its roots until she came up with something wrapped in a piece of soft leather.

"How comes it you know where Newton keeps a key to his shack?" demanded Townsend.

"What's with that critical tone in your voice? I AM a reporter. I interviewed him a few times and once he had lost his key when we got here. Turn on your flash, will you? I can't find the lock. All right, I've got it. Hey, Jim! Are you here?"

Townsend's flash played over chairs and card tables, coming to rest on a closed door in the opposite wall. They entered and Townsend heard Kelly fumbling about with an arm elevated. A faint click followed and Kelly sighed in disappointment.

"The juice is off. There's a line running out from town to supply the cottage owners with electricity, but it must be dead. As long as we're in here, let's go through the house. Big Jim may be sleeping soundly after some brandy hit him..."

She broke off with a sharp intake of breath after opening the door that led to the bedroom. Her colleague's flashlight played on the interior, showing an overturned chair, a smashed table and a crumpled shape that lay in the midst of a dark widening pool.

"Good God, it's Newton!" Townsend's gun glinted in his hand as he played the flash around the room, sifting the shadows for any lurking shapes. The light rested on a bolted rear door and then on on an open window, the screen of which hung in tatters.

"We've got to have more light," he grunted. "Where's the switch? Maybe a fuse has blown."

"Outside, I think near that window." Stumbling, Kelly led the way out of the house and around to the window. Townsend flashed his light, grunted.

"The switch has been pulled!" He pushed it back in place, and light flooded the cottage. The light streaming through the windows seemed to emphasize the blackness of the whispering woods around them. Townsend glared into the shadows, tense and unhappy. Kelly had not spoken for what to her was a considerable time.

Back in the house they bent over the body which lay in the middle of the blood-splattered hardwood floor. Big Jim Newton had been a stocky, strongly built man of early middle age. His skin was tanned and weather-beaten, hinting of tropic suns. His features were covered with a layer of dried blood. His head lolled back, disclosing a raw gaping wound beneath his chin.

"His throat's been cut!" stammered Kelly. "Someone murdered Jim."

Townsend shook his head. "Not cut but torn right out. Good God, it looks like a big cat had ripped him."

( the rest of the story )

RETURN TO BRIMSTONE II -The Crawling Dead

IV.

Johnny Packard backed away, cold sweat beading his taut face. Not for a prospector's bag of gold dust would he have peered into the shuttered windows or touched that unbolted door. The Peacemaker hung heavy in his hand, usually a comfort but useless now. His legs felt unsteady as he walked over to untie Terror.

The black stallion was uncharacteristically subdued. Normally the great steed was unafraid of any man or beast or force of nature. Even wildfire didn't alarm him. Now he seemed eager to get far away. Johnny mounted and headed back toward the road, fighting a panicky urge to strike in the spurs and bolt madly down the trail.

It sank in to Johnny that he had not been taking this menace seriously enough. He had thought Santero to be another cheap trickster or maybe a minor witchman with a few lukewarm spells. He knew differently now.

The black horse snorted and shied violently to a halt. The gun was back in Johnny's hand before he knew why. Leyla was leaning against a bent tree-trunk, her hands clasped behind her sleek head, insolently posing her supple figure. As alien and nearly inhuman as she looked, she still wielded potent appeal.

"Why did you not go into the cabin, Johnny Packard?" she mocked, lowering her arms and sauntering away from the tree.

High-strapped sandals were on her feet. A short silken skirt of bright crimson molded her full hips, and was upheld by a broad beaded girdle. A loose sleeveless white blouse was open to her navel. Barbaric anklets and armlets clashed as she moved, thin ornaments of crudely hammered gold.

"Johnny Packard!" She seemed to caress the syllables with her red tongue, yet the very intonation was an obscene insult. "Why did you not enter Santero's cabin? It was not locked! Did you fear what you might see there? Did you fear you might come out with your hair white like an old man's, and the drooling lips of an imbecile?"

"What's in that hut anyway?" he demanded.

She laughed in his face, and snapped her fingers with a mocking gesture. "You have no words for it. There are spirits all around us who thirst to dwell in flesh and blood. Hungry eyes watched and hoped you would cross that threshold."

"So you say! What does Santero want anyway? There was a kind of truce between regular folk and your kind."

"Humans? Ha! they are his meant to be his slaves. If they disobey he kills them, or puts them in the ground. We have come from a realm farther away than miles can measure, seeking suitable land to expand our numbers. Since we know that you people can never be driven away from land you have claimed, we must kill you all."

It was Johnny's turn to snort disdainfully. "Good luck. Others have tried."

"They did not have Santero to lead them, then," she answered calmly.

"Well, suppose you do win? You don't think that would be the end of it? This is Texas! Soldiers would charge into Brimstone and take bloody revenge."

"By then, the spell of Deep Fear will have hardened," she answered. "Men and horses will panic and refuse to cross that dark river. If forced, they will sicken and die. Santero will rule this region, as his fathers ruled their tribes in Zheka."

Johnny felt some of his usual nerve coming back to him. The more she talked, the more he learned. Maybe, just maybe, there would be a clue he could use against the threat. "Who is this devil? What are you to him?"

"He is the heir to Forbidden Knowledge from the Fall of Ulgor, knowledge that makes minds snap and rave. Santero is the greatest living master of that terrible wisdom from the Sulla Chun," she answered, laughing again. "As for me? You shall learn who I am, tonight in the forest, in the House of Draldros."

"Yes?" the Kid grunted. "What's to prevent me from hauling you into town with me? You know answers to questions everybody'd like to ask."

"You think you can drag me to the village of the Humans? Nothing in this world could keep me from the Dance of the Crawlers, tonight in the House of Draldros. You are my captive, already. Oh, Brimstone Kid, your curse is well known to us. Even Santero is cautious aboyt you, for he sent me with three men to kill you before you could reach the village. Yet you are my captive. I have but to beckon, so" andshe crooked an index finger, "and you will follow me to the fires of Draldros and the knives of the torturers."

"You haven't met the real Brimstone Kid yet," Johnny growled.

"Men are fools, all but Santero," Leyla laughed. "By the blood in your veins I have snared you. The knife of the man you killed scratched your hand...seven drops of blood on that blade have given me your soul! Oh, you are strong-willed! But you cannot fight me. Your blood makes you my slave. I have made you Spellbound."

Those were not empty words. Hypnotism, magic, call it what you will, he felt its onslaught on his brain and will.

"I have made a charm you cannot resist!" she cried. "When I call you, you will come! Into the deep swamps you will follow me. You will see the Dance of the Crawlers and you will see the doom of a poor fool who sought to betray Santero—who dreamed he could resist the Call of Draldros when it came. Into the ground he goes tonight, and he will not be the same when he emerges. You shall see before you become one of the Crawlers."

"Lady, you talk too much!" Johnny whipped out his Colt and leveled it full at her pale face. The hammer was cocked and his finger was on the trigger. At that range he could not miss. But she looked full into the black muzzle and smirked serenely.

And he sat there like an image pointing a pistol he could not fire! A frightful paralysis gripped him. He knew, with numbing certainty, that his life depended on the pull of that trigger, but he could not crook his finger no matter how he willed it.


"You cannot shoot me, Johnny Packard," Leyla said quietly. "I have enslaved your soul. It is the Bride of Draldros you kneel before. Tonight you will come to me, in the House of the Dread One."

"You're lying!" His voice was an unnatural croak bursting from dry lips. "Damnation, maybe you've hypnotized me so I can't pull this trigger. But you sure can't drag me across the swamps to you."

"It is you who lie," Leyla returned calmly. "Ride back toward the frontier or wherever you choose, Johnny Packard. But when the sun sets, you will see me beckoning you, and you will follow me. Long I have planned your doom, Johnny Packard. At midnight, the town shall go up in flames, and the heads of the townspeople will be tossed in the streets. And now, go fool! Run as far and as fast as you will. At sunset, wherever you are, you will turn your footsteps toward the House of Draldros!"

With the sudden spring of a great cat, she was gone into the thick brush, and as she vanished the strange paralysis dropped from the Kid. With a gasp, he fired blindly after her, but only a silence answered.

Then in near panic he wrenched his horse about and spurred him down the trail. It was the first time the Brimstone Kid suffered blind primitive fear. He had confronted sorcery beyond his power to resist. All he could think of at the moment was putting distance between himself and that witch.

He had not quite reached the Richardson cabin when above the drumming of his flight he heard the clop of hoofs approaching from ahead. An instant later, sweeping around a kink in the trail, he almost rode down a tall, lanky man on a chestnut horse. The stranger yelped and swerved aside as Terror sat back to its haunches. The Peacemaker whipped up quick as a rattler.

"Look out, Johnny! It's me... Tom Pinto! My God, you look like you'd seen a ghost! What's chasin' you?" The notorious outlaw was wearing the black and white vest made from the hide of a pinto pony that had belonged to an Indian wise man. In his late forties, a hard life had left him looking older. Under a thatch of greying yellow hair was a face deeply furrowed by exposure and hardship.

"You got my telegram? Thank God. I'm purely glad to see you, Tom" Johnny said, lowering his gun.

"I been lookin' for you. Folks got worried as the hour got late and you didn't come in with the refugees. I allowed I'd light out and track you down. Miz Richardson said you rode away sudden like. Where in tarnation you been?"

"To Santero's cabin."

"That's takin' a man-sized bite. What'd you find there?"

The sight of Tom Pinto was reassuring. The veteran outlaw was the fastest and most accurate shot Johnny had ever seen, even edging out Little Clay Hawk. With Pinto on hand, odds of getting through this crisis improved greatly. The Kid started to explain what had happened at the cabin, but thought better of "I din't find nothing. He wasn't there."

"Thought I heard a gun crack, a while ago," he remarked, glancing sharply at Johnny sidewise.

"I shot at a copperhead," the Kid answered, and shuddered. This reticence regarding Leyla was compulsory. He was Spellbound and could no more speak of her than he could have pulled the trigger of the pistol aimed at her. Johnny was deeply shaken at the realization he had lost his freedom. There were devils in human form who were able to enslave men's will and thoughts.

Pinto was eyeing his old comrade strangely. "We're lucky the woods ain't full of two-legged copperheads," he said. "Felix's pulled out."

"What do you mean?" By an effort the Kid pulled himself together.

"Just that. Breck was in the cabin with him. Felix hadn't said a word since you talked to him. Just laid on that bunk and shivered. Then a kind of holler begun way out in the woods, and Tom went to the door with his rifle-gun, but couldn't see nothin'. Well, while he was standin' there he got a lick on the head from behind, and as he fell he seen that crazy Felix jump over him and light out for the woods. Breck said he'd taken a shot at him, but missed. Now what do you make of that?"

"The Call of Draldros! That poor devil!"

"Huh? What's are you going on about?" demanded Pinto.

"For God's sake let's not stand here mouthing! The sun will soon be down!" In a frenzy of impatience Johnny urged his mount down the trail. Tom Pinto followed, obviously puzzled. With a terrific effort, Johnny got a grip on himself. How unexpected it was that the Brimstone Kid should be shaking in the grip of unreasoning terror! It was so foreign to his whole nature that it was no wonder Tom Pinto was unable to comprehend what ailed him.

"Felix didn't go of his own free will," the Kid blurted. "That call was a summons he couldn't resist. Hypnotism, voodoo, whatever you want to call it, Santero has some damnable power that enslaves men's willpower. All them Llanghoir varmints are gathered somewhere in the deep woods for some kind of a devilish voodoo ceremony."

Pinto was pale in the dimming light. "You and me, we've seen some things that'd make a man doubt his sanity, Johnny. But I reckon this is the worst."

"If'n it were a straight up fight with bullets and fists, why, I'm sure the people of Brimstone could slaughter them weird Llanghoir. We're Texans after all! But all this black magic makes me unsure."

The Brimstone Kid's green eyes were fixed on the sinking sun. Any other time, he would be counting on transforming into his demonic self at nightfall. Then these white-haired monsters would get a surprise they wouldn't like. But he could not place his hat on his head, no matter how often he tried. His agitation increased. He was Spellbound.

"Johnny, what the hayll ails you?" came Pinto's anxious voice. "You're sweatin' and shakin' like you had the fever. Hey, what you stoppin' for?"

He had not consciously pulled on the rein, but Terror halted, and stood stomping and snorting, before the mouth of a narrow trail which meandered away at right angles from the road they were following, a trail that led north.

"Listen!" the Kid hissed tensely.

"What is it?" Pinto drew his big iron. He toted a Colt Single Action Army revolver with a barrel that reached seven and a half inches. The brief twilight of the forest was deepening into dusk.

"Don't you hear it?" the Kid muttered. "Drums! Drums beating from the direction of Jubal!"

"I don't hear nothin'," the outlaw mumbled uneasily. "If they was beatin' drums in Jubal you couldn't hear 'em this far away."

"Look there!" Johnny's sharp sudden cry made Pinto start. The Kid was pointing down the dim trail, at the figure which stood there in the dusk less than a hundred yards away. There in the dusk he saw her clearly. "Santero's woman Leyla. Man, are you blind? Don't you see her?"

"I don't see nobody!" he whispered. "Are you feeling awright? What are you talkin' about, Johnny?"

With eyes glaring the Kid fired his Colt down the trail, and fired again This time no paralysis held him back. But the smiling face still mocked him from the shadows. Then she was gone and Johnny was spurring his horse down the narrow trail with terrible urgency.

Dimly he heard Pinto's urgent yells, as the outlaw drew up beside him with a clatter of hoofs, and grabbed Terror's reins, setting the black horse back on its haunches.

"Johnny, are you crazy? This trail leads to Jubal!"

The Kid shook his head dazedly. A roar as of rushing waters swept through his mind. "Go back! Ride for Brimstone! I'm going to Jubal."

"Johnny, you're loco! You've plain lost yer senses."

"Mad or sane, I'm going to Jubal this night," the Kid answered dully. He knew what he was saying, and what he was doing. Some shred of sanity impelled him to try to conceal the grisly truth from his companion, to offer a rational reason for thus madness. "Santero is in Jubal. He's the one who's responsible for all this trouble. I'm going to kill him. That will stop the uprising before it starts."

"Then I'm goin' with you. No one had ever said Tom Pinto was a coward."

"You must go on to Brimstone and help protect the people," the Kid insisted, holding to sanity, but feeling a strong urge begin to seize him to be riding in the direction toward which he was so horribly drawn.

"They won't need one more gun but you sure do. I'm goin' with you. I don't know what's got in you, but I ain't goin' to let you die alone among these black woods."

Johnny couldn't resist the summons any longer. He took off, galloping down the trail, with the drum of Tom Pinto's horse's hoofs behind him.

Night fell and the moon shone through the trees, blood-red behind the black branches. The horses were growing hard to manage.

"They got more sense'n us, Johnny," muttered Pinto.

"It's not like Terror. He usually heads right for anything dangerous."

"He's still a hoss. Closer we get to Jubal, the worse they git. And every time we swing nigh to a creek they shy and snort."


But Johnny hardly noticed, wrestling with his anguish. He realized that he was riding to torture and death, and leading a faithful friend to the same end. But on he went. His strongest efforts to break the spell almost unseated his reason, but on he went.

They were not far from Jubal when Pinto's horse nearly unseated its rider, and even Terror began snorting and plunging.

"They won't go no closer!" gasped Pinto, fighting at the reins.

The Brimstone Kid swung off to the ground, throwing the reins over the saddle-horn.
"Go back, for God's sake, Tom! I'm going on afoot."

the Kid heard Pinto mutter an oath, then his horse was backing away after Terror, and the two men continued on foot.

Johnny wasted no more bullets on that mocking shape he frequently glimpsed ahead. Pinto could not see it, and Johnny knew it was part of the Spellbinding, no real woman of flesh and blood, but a hell-born will-o'-the-wisp, mocking him and leading him through the night to a hideous death.

Pinto peered nervously at the black forest walls about us, his flesh crawling with the mundane fear of sawed-off shotguns blasting them suddenly from the shadows. But it was no ambush of lead or steel the Kid feared as they emerged into the moonlit clearing that housed the settlement of the Llanghoir. It was not a true village, only a dozen cabins and the pale folk had not given it a name. The townspeople called it Jubal.

The double line of log cabins faced each other across the dusty street. One line backed against the bank of Deadman's River. The black stoops almost overhung the turgid waters. Nothing moved in the moonlight. No lights showed, no smoke oozed up from the stick-and-mud chimneys. It might have been a dead town, deserted and forgotten.

"It's a trap!" hissed Pinto, his eyes blazing slits. He bent forward, big iron in his hand. "They're layin' for us in them huts!" He cursed, but followed as the Brimstone Kid strode down the dirt street. Jubal was deserted.

"They're gone," muttered Pinto, nervously. "You reckon they've gone to raid Perdition itself?"

"No," Johnny muttered. "They're in the House of Draldros, whatever that might be."

Tom Pinto shot a quick glance at the Kid. "That's a neck of land along the river about three miles west of here. I've heard campfire tales. The LLanghoir held their secret palavers there back in older times. Johnny, what do you know?"

"Listen!"

Through the dense woodlands the faint throb of a drum whispered on the wind that glided up the shadowy reaches of the Tularoosa.

Pinto shivered. "It's them, all right. But for, God's sake, Johnny, look out!"

He ran toward the houses on the bank of the creek. The Kid was after him just in time to glimpse a low dark object scrambling into the undergrowth. Pinto threw up his long pistol, then lowered it, with a baffled curse.

"What was it?" the Kid demanded.

"A man on his all-fours!" swore Pinto. His face was deathly pallid in the moonlight. "He was crouched between them cabins there, watchin' us!"

"It must have been an animal of some kind."

"Naw, I got a look at him," maintained Pinto. "Some kind of deformed freak, I believe. Now he'll go warn Santero."

"Never mind! For the last time, go back!"

"No! It's for my own self-respect, I'm goin' with you!"

The pulse of the drum was fitful, growing more distinct as we advanced. We struggled through jungle-thick growth; tangled vines tripped us; our boots sank in scummy mire. We were entering the fringe of the wetlands which grew deeper and denser until it culminated in the uninhabitable morass where the Deepman's River flowed, miles farther to the west.

The moon had not yet set, but the shadows were black under the interlacing branches of the thickly set trees. They plunged into the first creek to cross, one of the many muddy streams flowing into the Tularoosa. The water was only thigh-deep, the moss-clogged bottom fairly firm. Johnny's foot felt the edge of a sheer drop, and he warned Pinto: "Look out for a deep hole; keep right behind me."

His answer was unintelligible. Pinto was breathing rapidly, crowding close behind the Kid. Just as they reached the end cabin, Pinto cried out incoherently, and hurled himself to one side. Johnny Packard whirled, gun in hand, but saw only the silent row of cabins and the seemingly undisturbed forest.

"What the devil, Tom?"

"Somethin' grabbed me!" he panted. "Somethin' seized my ankle. I tore loose but it was like gettin' outta a bear trap. Busted up the bank. I tell you, Johnny, something's follerin' us!"

"I strongly suggest we both keep our irons in our hands and don't take nothing for granted. This is a night where Hell can break through up from the ground at any minute."

Pinto followed without comment. Scummy puddles rose about their ankles, and they stumbled over moss-grown cypress knees. Ahead there loomed another, wider creek, and Pinto caught his arm. "Johnny, let's go back."

"Go back?" the Brimstone Kid muttered in bitter agony. "I wish to God I could! There ain't no choice for me, Tom. Either Santero dies before dawn or I do."

The outlaw licked dry lips and whispered. "Go on, then. I'm with you, come heaven or hell." With his free hand, he drew a long keen knife from his boot. "Go ahead!"

Everything happened at once, then. Johnny saw Pinto halt short, staring at something between the cabins behind them. He cried out and snapped off a shot, just as the Kid spun around. In the flash of the gun he glimpsed a supple form reeling backward, a milk-white face fiendishly contorted. Then in the momentary blindness that followed the flash, he heard Tom Pinto scream.

VI.

What most resembled a tall skinny man had seized the outlaw from behind and pulled him down. Horribly, the creature had clamped his jaws around Pinto's neck as if trying to bite his throat open. They were too close together to risk a shot. Johnny Packard smashed his gun barrel down on the monster's head as if trying to crack it apart and the thing howled in pain. With a bound, it was gone between the cabins again.

Glaring about wildly, his second revolver in his left hand in case, Johnny Packard could hardly catch his breath. Still keeping a lookout, he found that Pinto was sorely wounded but not dead. Blood covered the man's neck and chest, but there were no high spurts so no artery had been severed. Pinto was still conscious, still clutching both the big iron and the knife tightly.

Neither man said anything. Johnny pressed a clean bandana over the wound and pressed down hard. "You're gonna be all right, I'll get you to a doctor back in town. If we see a hoss anywhere, I'll steal it even if it means getting hanged..."

"No, no, you got to end this business tonight," Pinto said. "I'll hide myself in this doorway till the bleedin' stops. With my back covered, I'll drill holes in anything that gets near."

"I cain't leave you, Tom..."

"You got to. These filthy monsters crawling around biting people, them Llanghoirs up to deviltry, Sanrero ready to start a massacre. Johnny, this is what you was meant to fight."

The drums were louder than ever. It must be getting close to midnight by then. "It's a hard choice and no mistake. I'm coming back for you as soon as I can." He helped Tom get hidden in the shadows of an open door and saw that the blood was indeed slowing to a trickle.

Back where the attack had taken place, Johnny found blood on the bushes. The implication was clear. He remembered the figure he had seen staggering in the flash of Pinto's gun. Leyla had been there, waiting for me on the bank, then—not a spectral illusion, but the woman herself, in flesh and blood! Pinto seldom missed and certainly not at close range. But the wound could not have been mortal, for no corpse lay among the bushes, and the grim hypnosis that dragged him onward was unweakened. Uneasily he wondered if a witch could be killed by mortal weapons.

The moon rode high. Crisp starlight penetrated down the interwoven branches. No more creeks barred my way, only shallow streams, through which he splashed with sweating haste. Yet he did not expect to be attacked. Twice the dweller in the depths had passed him by to attack his companion. In cold despair, Johnny knew he was being saved for a grimmer fate. He was to be sacrificed to the demonic Draldros.

And as the Kid strode down the row of cabins, he heard the drum rumbling ahead, louder and louder, a demoniacal mockery. Then a human voice mingled with its mutter, in a long-drawn cry of horror and agony that set every fiber quivering with sympathy. Sweat coursed down his clammy flesh; soon his own voice might be lifted like that, under unnamable torture. But on he went, feet moving like automatons, apart from his body, motivated by a will not his own.

The drum grew loud, and a fire glowed among the black trees. Presently, crouching among the bushes, he stared across the stretch of black water that separated him from a nightmare scene. Halting there was as compulsory as the rest of my actions had been. Vaguely he knew the stage for horror had been set, but the time for entry upon it was not yet. When the time had come, he would receive the summons.

A low, wooded island split the swollen creek, connected with the shore opposite by a narrow neck of land. At its lower end the creek split into a network of channels threading their way among hummocks and rotting logs and moss-grown, vine-tangled clumps of trees. Directly across from the refuge the shore of the island was deeply indented by an arm of deep water. Twisted oak trees walled a small clearing and partly hid a hut. Between the hut and the shore burned a fire that sent up twisting tongues of flames. Scores of the pale Llanghoir squatted under the shadows of the overhanging branches. When the fire lit their faces it lent them the appearance of drowned corpses.

In the midst of the glade stood a giant who stood a head taller than a tall man. The cult leader was built like a blacksmith, with a broad chest and mighty arms. He was clad in a long white robe that reached the ground, but on his head was a band of beaten gold set with a huge red jewel, and on his feet were barbaric sandals. His features reflected titanic vitality no less than his huge body. But he was one of the Llandhoir with their pale slick skin, white hair and colorless eyes. Johnny knew he finally looked upon Santero, the Spellbinder.

The sorcerer was regarding something that lay in the sand before him, something dark and bulky that moaned feebly. Presently, lifting his head, he rolled out a sonorous invocation in a language thirty thousand years old. From the pale Llanghoir huddled under the trees there came a shuddering response.

Again he called out, this time his voice rising to a high-pitched wail. A shuddering sigh swept the Llanghoir. All eyes were fixed on the edge of the woods. From between the trees, four long dark shapes scuttled into the light, misshapen forms that not long earlier had been human.

Then Santero lifted his hands, and the five heads silently sank out of sight. Like a ghostly whisper I seemed to hear the voice of the witch, "He puts them in the ground to rise again!"

Santero's deep voice rolled out across the narrow water: "And now the Dance of the Crawlers, to make the Spellbinding sure!"

What had the witch said? "Hidden among the trees, you shall watch the dance of the Crawlers!"

The drum struck up again, growling and rumbling. The Llanghoir swayed on their haunches, lifting a wordless chant. Santero paced measuredly about the figure on the sand, his arms weaving cryptic patterns. Then he wheeled and faced toward the other end of the glade. By some sleight of hand he now grasped a grinning human skull, and this he cast upon the wet sand beyond the body. "Bride of Draldros!" he thundered. "The sacrifice awaits!"

There was an expectant pause; the chanting sank. All eyes were glued on the farther end of the glade. Santero stood waiting, and the Kid saw him scowl as if puzzled. Then as he opened his mouth to repeat the call, a shimmering figure moved out of the shadows.

At the sight of her a chill shook him. For a moment she stood motionless, the firelight glinting on her gold ornaments, her head hanging on her breast. A tense silence reigned and he saw Santero staring at her sharply. She seemed to be detached, somehow, standing aloof and withdrawn, head bent strangely.

Then, as if rousing herself, she began to sway with a jerky rhythm, and presently whirled into the mazes of a dance that was ancient when the ocean drowned the doomed isle of Ulgor. It was bestial and ethereal at the same time set to motion. But there was something amiss with her. Her arms hung limp, her drooping head swayed. Her legs bent and faltered, making her lurch drunkenly and out of time. A murmur rose from the pallid people, and bewilderment etched Santero's frowning countenance. For the domination of a Spellbinder is a thing hinged on a hair-trigger. Any minor faltering of formula or ritual may disrupt the whole web of his enchantment.

As for Johnny Packard, he watched the grisly dance breathlessly. The unseen shackles that bound him to that gyrating she-dvil were strangling him. He knew she was approaching a climax when she would summon him from that hiding-place to buried alive in the cold cold ground which she called the House of Draldros.

Now she whirled to a halt, poised on her toes. She faced the spot where Johnny lay hidden, and he knew that she could see me as plainly as if he stood in the open; She raised her head and I saw the triumph in that colorless face. She opened her mouth...

But from that open mouth sounded only a choking gurgle, and suddenly her lips were wet with her own blood, her knees gave way and she pitched headlong to the ground.

Unseen by anyone else, where he was crouching among the trees, the Brimstone Kid felt the great oppressive weight lift. The black spell that gripped him was broken. He felt as if he could breathe freely after being suffocated.

At the fall of the girl a wild cry rose from the Llanghoir, and they sprang up, trembling on the verge of panic. The albinos were breathing heavily, clawing at the air with bony fingers. Santero had worked their nonhuman natures up to a pitch of madness, meaning to turn this frenzy, at the proper time, into a fury of battle. It could as easily turn into an hysteria of terror. Santero shouted sharply at them.

But just then the girl in a last convulsion, rolled over on the wet sand, and the firelight shone on a round hole between her breasts, which still oozed crimson. Tom Pinto's bullet had found its mark.

From the first Johnny had known that Leyla was not wholly human, no more than her fellow Llanghoir were. She had sworn that death itself could not keep her from the Dance of the Crawlers. Shot through the heart, she had still trudged through the woods to the House of Draldros.

Dazed with unexpected hope like a condemned man granted a reprieve, at first he hardly grasped the meaning of the scene that now unfolded.

The Llanghoir broke into a frenzy. In the sudden inexplicable death of the sorceress they saw a fearsome portent. They had no way of knowing that she was already dying when she entered the glade. To them, their prophetess and priestess had been struck down under their very eyes, by an invisible death. This was magic blacker than Santero's wizardry and obviously hostile to them.

Like fear-maddened cattle they stampeded. Screaming, trampling one another they blundered through the trees, heading for the neck of land and the shore beyond. Santero stood transfixed, heedless of them as he stared down at Leyla, unexpectedly dead.

Suddenly free to act, Johnny drew up the black Stetson which had hung down his back and fixed it firmly on his head. Within the beaded band, the unspeakably ancient Darthan token blazed up with blistering heat. In a rush, demonic vitality energized his body and filled Johnny with the killing fury he had expected. He had become the Brimstone Kid in reality as well as name. At last.

He drew both Peacemakers, their barrels shimmering red as if they had been lying in a fire. The hammers clicked back.

Hearing that noise, Santero lifted his head and froze where he stood. The sounds of flight faded in the distance, and he stood alone in the glade. His eyes swept over the black woods around him. He bent, grasped the man-like object that lay on the sand, and dragged it into the hut. The instant he vanished, the Kid ran after him. Filled with ferocious vitality, Johnny had almost reached the Spellbinder when he was tackled from the side and brought down.


Cold, lifeless fingers gripped Johnny's throat, but the Kid was beyond all fear now. He raised the Crawling Dead off the ground and broke the zombie's back over one knee, tossing it aside. Deep hollow laughter boomed out from the Brimstone Kid, laughter that echoed as if rising from a pit.

Santero had emerged from his hut, an Army calvary saber in his hand. He was staring wildly about, alarmed by the infernal laughter he had heard, but Johnny could not be seen from that angle. Santero's clammy skin glistened with cold perspiration. He who had ruled by fear was now ruled by fear. He feared the unknown hand that had slain his mistress; feared the Spellbound slaves who had fled him. Santero sensed that a power even darker and more merciless than his own had broken free.

Four hideous forms crept rapidly along the ground toward the man in black who stood there. He cut then down one after another, his shining Colts booming loud as thunder and they made no effort to avoid the bullets. He had fired six shots before the last of the Crawling Dead sagged to the ground. The shots drowned the sounds of Santero's approach, so the Spellbinder was close behind him when he turned at last.

Recognition flooded Santero's colorless face with the knowledge that he faced a being beyond his power to control. "You! The Darthan demon!", he shouted as he lashed the saber in a horizontal arc meant to disembowel his enemy.

The Brimstone Kid dropped his pistols and lunged in close, catching Santero's wrists with a grip that snapped bones beneath its pressure. The Llanghoir could not keep hold of his weapon. Johnny wrested the saber free, vaulted back a step and lopped the Spellbinder's head cleanly over his shoulders. Head and body fell in different directions. Throwing back his head, the Kid roared deep as any lion in triumph and flung the reddened sword down to the ground.

There was a pouch of dry powder in Santero's belt. Before anything else, the Kid retrieved his pistols and holstered them. Taking a fallen torch, he strode into the hut for the final horror. Old Felix lay moaning on a bunk. The transmutation that was to make him a mindless enslaved zombie was not complete, but his mind was gone. His body was elongated, his legs dwarfed so they were no longer than his arms. His neck was inches longer than it should be. His features had not been altered beyond recognition but their expression held no awareness. And there, but for the loyalty and courage of Tom Pinto, would Johnny Packard have lain in the same dismal state. The Kid placed his pistol muzzle against Felix's head in grim mercy and pulled the trigger.

Moving about with the torch, he lit the cabin. As it went up in red flames against the darkness, the Brimstone Kid ran from the ceremonial site to find Tim Pinto had maintained consciousness but was weak and dazed. Skeletal and frightful to see in his own transformation, Terror galloped out of the shadows. Once the power of the Darthan token had manifested, it had reached the black horse even miles away. Johnny positioned his only friend as gently as he could over the great horse's shoulders and turned toward Brimstone to see if the doctor could be found.

And so the half-century of terror ended at last. Johnny would never speak of it again. The people of Brimstone never admitted finding anything on the island except the bodies of Santero and Leyla. They concluded or said they concluded that Tom Pinto had killed Leyla in self-defense, and that Johnny broke up the threatened uprising by killing Santero. Everyone let it go at that. The horrors of the Crawling Dead were eventually forgotten. Only a few days after that night, Johnny Packard made his farewells and rode away from his hometown again, heading West. His story was far from over.

3/8/223

"Ignore Your Chains"

7/17-7/21/2022

I.

The long dark night came to Josef Jubilec without warning. He sat up gasping, trembling, in the center of his hand-carved canopy bed. The fine linen sheets were soggy with his cold sweat. What was wrong? Automatically, he swung his head aound to see that the small green and blue lights were blinking steadily on the headboard panel. No intruders. No one had set foot on his island off the Georgia coast.

Nor were there any servants in the building. After Lucy and Sunny Jim had left his employ to get married and start over on the West Coast, he had gradually let his staff go. The chef, the groundskeeper, the two maids had all been discharged with a generous bonus and references to another good job. He had been left alone in the eight million dollar house. That was what he had thought he had wanted.

Josef took his pulse, finding it was rapid but coming down to normal. He could not remember any nightmares that might have alarmed him into waking, nor any dreams at all. He didn't feel sick. In the darkness, he fumbled over to his nightstand and picked up the advanced Trom device his team called a Link. He took his vitals. Temperature was 97.1, so he had no fever. Blood pressure 110 over 70, blood oxygen level 99 per cent on room air, EKG showed a heartbeat so regular and strong that no variations could be seen.

Then what was wrong? Why had he been jolted awake so dramatically?

Still not turning on a light, the Blind Archer reached over to the wall at his right side. Propped up there was the yew longbow he had fashioned himself and a V-shaped leather quiver holding twenty arrows. These were seldom out of reach if he could help it. As soon as he had been big enough to walk, the instructors of his sect had placed a bow and an arrow in his hands. Yet now, with a deeply troubling uncertainty, the bow felt foreign to him... as if he had never touched one before.

Wearing only the plain cotton pajama pants, Josef stood up in the gloom. Nearly fifty, he had the sharp definition and sleek musculature of an Olympic athlete barely twenty. His survival had hung on being fit. By then, he had caught his breath and was steady on his feet but something was still terribly wrong.

For the first time, he wished he had retained at least a valet. It was rare that he felt the need to talk to someone but this was no ordinary night. In the darkness, he left his bedroom and went out into the hall where a tiny blue nightlight shone in a corner down by the floor. Two original oils by Rouchard hung where he could see them each morning, one showing a sailing ship in a storm and another a rearing white horse against a starry sky. He did not even notice them now. Josef padded on silent bare feet down the stairs and reached the front hall. Without knowing why, he urgently needed to be outside.

It was a clear, chilly night in late October. As soon as he stepped onto the porch which ran the width of the house, Josef felt some relief but he was still uncomfortable. He lowered himself to the top of the five steps leading down to the paved courtyard and buried his face in his hands. What strange pain was this? Not the usual broken bones or pulled muscles, not another stab wound or the battered bruising he was used to, but a deep heavy aching inside his entire body.

Miserable as a mute beast suffering in silence, Josef Jubilec sat motionless for what seemed like hours. He wasn't consciously thinking but something was stirring in his mind he had long forgotten. Eventually, inevitably, faint rose-colored streaks began to show to the East. At the first hint of dawn, relief eased his pain. The Blind Archer rose slowly, stretched and swung around to head back inside with the eagerness of sudden understanding.

( the rest of the story )