The trail led to the curb in front of the museum. There, it disappeared.
The Wizard uttered a low exclamation. He had located the spoor of his prey, only to lose it almost at once at the point where they entered a waiting vehicle and drove away. The Wizard had suffered a setback, but he was not one to accept defeat. He manipulated the controls of the miniature Zeppelin and its compressed air engines whispered back to life. Kpalimé moved silently through the air above Seacoast City, describing an outward spiral with its center directly above the Municipal Museum of Art and History.
The miniature airship whispered its way over Seacoast City’s theater district, over the avenues of expensive shops and great department stores, over the luxurious apartment buildings that housed the city’s wealthy and powerful and over the noisome tenements where the poverty-stricken and their outcast brethren huddled in misery. Full dark had long since fallen and from the vantage point of the airship the million lights of the city gleamed like as many luminous gems, but the Crimson Wizard had no time to enjoy the sight that unraveled to his view.
A quarter mile away and a thousand feet above Kpalimé, the transoceanic night-flier, a Langley-Hawker trimotored biplane, carried its capacity load of sixteen passengers toward their destination, the Seacoast City Municipal Aerodrome.
Soon Kpalimé whispered through a bank of mist that had risen from the Saturn River on whose banks Seacoast City had been built. The rays of the emitter penetrated the mist effortlessly. The Wizard uttered an exclamation of pleasure. The trail that had disappeared in front of the museum had reappeared in this district of warehouses and piers.
Guided by the skilled hands of the Wizard, the airship slipped lower and lower. At last it came to hover above a darkened warehouse that clearly had seen better days. The luminous trail led from a dark Packard sedan and into a passageway that led to the rear of the building. From this noisome alley the trail led up a short flight of wooden stair and onto a rickety-looking loading dock. There, at the rolling door, the path disappeared.
No one thought to watch the sky here at the riverside, but had an observer been present he would have been astonished at what he beheld. A hatch opened in the seeming nothingness above. A figure whose shimmering scarlet garments were barely visible in the Seacoast City night appeared in the opening. The figure—a man—stepped from nowhere into nothingness. As he fell he arched forward, spreading his arms and legs. The thin but incredibly strong cloth of his costume stretched to form a kind of parachute or glider like that of a flying squirrel.
A moment later the Wizard landed with a muffled thump on the loading dock. He looked up at his airship and touched a control on the belt of his costume. The door in the side of the airship slid closed. Kpalimé remained on station, utterly silent, virtually invisible.
The Wizard studied the lock on the rolling door. He smiled contemptuously and extended his hand. Were those tools that flashed almost invisibly at the Wizard’s fingertips, or were his fingers themselves the only tools he needed?
No matter. In seconds the tumblers of the lock snicked into place. The Crimson Wizard flattened himself on the loading platform. He slid the door upward quietly. He slipped beneath the bottom roller, then lowered the door silently behind himself.
Rising to his feet, the Wizard strained to take in his surroundings. His eyes adjusted, gradually, to the miniscule level of illumination that crept through tiny openings in the structure. Clearly, it had been designed to keep prying eyes out, but by like means it was almost impossible for anyone in the building to see without the aid of artificial illumination.
Almost, but not impossible.
The Wizard found himself standing in a gloom-shrouded chamber. So huge was the structure that its farther wall disappeared into the shadows. The Wizard reached into his belt and removed a pellet hardly larger than a common BB. For so tiny an object, the pellet was strangely heavy. The Wizard drew back his scarlet-covered arm and hurled the pellet into the air. When it reached the apex of its path it burst into brilliant illumination, its color the Wizard’s trademark shimmering red.
There was no sign of the thieves who had made off with the Crown Jewels of Lemuria. But there was something else. The Wizard dropped to the concrete floor, sniffing for spoor as would a lion in the African veldt. The thieves had been here, and not long before. But the Wizard had learned more than that from the thin traces of their presence they had left behind. There was something about these thieves, something abnormal. They were human, after a fashion, but they were not entirely human. There was something wrong here, something inhuman.
And there was something else. More precisely, there was someone else. There was someone with the thieves but not one of them. And that someone was a woman.
The Wizard rose to his feet.
She was lovely. Her features were regular, her skin a rich olive color, her hair a gleaming jet black. Her costume was minimal, a single white garment that did little to conceal her magnificent figure. A broad belt of gold encrusted with gems glittered in the ruddy illumination of the Wizard’s arcing flare.
She sat upon a throne, a magnificent tiara of precious stones resting upon her brow.
And surrounding the goddess-like figure, a retinue of half-human servitors. The leader of these beings held before the woman a weirdly carven bowl from which rose thick fumes.
All of this the Wizard observed in the few seconds that his flare illuminated the great room. The flare dimmed as it arced downward, leaving a trail of swiftly dissipating fumes behind it.
In that same moment, the creatures surrounding the throne whirled toward the source of the rosy illumination. In a deep recess of his lightning-fast brain, the Wizard concluded that these creatures had the ability to see in near-total darkness. Their huge, bulging eyes, visible in the seconds before the flare faded to extinction, bespoke as much. In the darkness that followed, the Wizard could hear their slithering progress as they advanced toward him.
He withdrew several more of the miniature flares from their hiding place and hurled them toward the creatures, but this time instead of sending the flares in an arc that approached the dark ceiling overhead, the Wizard pitched them onto the concrete floor between himself and the semi-human creatures. Again rose-colored light flared, but this time it was many times as brilliant as it had been the first time.
The creatures halted in their advance toward the Wizard. He saw them throw their arms before their eyes, blocking the bright illumination from their abnormally sensitive corneas. With a shock, the Wizard realized that the creatures had no hands in the human sense. Each of their limbs, instead, terminated in a writhing cluster of pallid tentacles. Their faces were a mockery of human features. The eyes were huge and bulging, the noses flattened and almost nonexistent, the mouths broad and lipless.
When one of the creatures, clearly the leader, opened its broad mouth to issue commands to its followers, rows of razor-sharp triangular teeth glinted red. Unlike the other creatures in the band, this one appeared to be older and stronger. Where the heads of the others were smooth and rounded, the crown of the leader’s head was surrounded by a hideous ring of writhing tentacles the color of freshly-spilled blood.
The sound that emerged from the creature’s mouth was a terrible batrachian hiss.
In response to their leader’s command the creatures swarmed toward the Wizard. But the Wizard was ready for them. Already the flares were fading and he replenished the vital illumination by hurling a handful of the BB-sized pellets against the concrete. In a maneuver that no eye, human or batrachian, could have followed, the Wizard whirled, his shimmering cape spreading around him in a brilliant, blinding, sparkling disk.
The monsters halted, confused, until their leader urged them onward with another of its hideous hissing commands. But before the monsters, where the Crimson Wizard had stood mere moments before, there now appeared a pair, then a quartet, of scarlet-clad, shimmering figures. Then these divided again, and there were eight, sixteen, then thirty-two m
uscular, defiant Crimson Wizards.
Had the marvel-man truly summoned multiple duplicates of himself? Had he a method of dividing his physical substance to create a brigade of sleek warriors?
Or had he merely cast a glamour over his attackers, seizing control of their amphibious brains, creating the illusion that a single man had become an imposing throng of fierce opponents?
At their leader’s hissing command, a contingent of the pallid monsters leaped forward, each of them engaging one of the multiple Crimson Wizards in mortal combat. Battles ensued in parallel, monster against hero, tentacle against fist, blow exchanged for blow and grasp for grasp. In each case it was the Wizard who triumphed. One by one the white creatures backed away, yielding to the combative superiority of their scarlet-clad foes.
Next the monsters formed a phalanx, rhythmically pounding slimy tentacles against their own bare, pallid bodies. A booming cadence like that of a hundred drummers filled the warehouse. At a signal the monsters began a steady, disciplined advance against the ranks of crimson-clad heroes.
One of the Crimson Wizards moved his hands in a baffling gesture. There was a flash of lurid energy in the cavernous room and the ranks of red-costumed men doubled still again.
Was this a real phenomenon or a mere illusion?
The batrachians did not wait to learn the truth. They halted in their tracks. Even their leader, for all the bravado he had shown a moment earlier, drew back. Before the multiple ranks of Crimson Wizards they scattered to the walls of the room. They seemed to lose definition, to melt like gelatinous sculptures left to stand in a withering sun, then to slither snakelike along the base of the walls. An opening existed between the wooden walls and the concrete floor of the old building. Before the Crimson Wizard’s eyes the creatures disappeared into the blackness of the opening.
They left behind the noxious stench of their kind.
In the last fading illumination of dying flares the Wizard made a lightning-fast examination of the room. Grotesque candelabra rose to either side of the throne where the goddess-like figure still remained in majestic silence. The Wizard reached into his waistband and drew out a small metallic device that had been created for him by his assistant, Nzambi. He held it to each candle, and the wick of each taper in turn burst into flame.
He stood before the throne where the lovely woman awaited. The throne stood upon a dais approachable by a series of low steps. The Wizard advanced toward the woman, climbing step by step. As he did so she kept her eyes fixed on him. Her beauty was marvelous to behold, but it was her eyes that most arrested the observer. They were filled both with an intelligence seldom encountered and with the lingering terror of one who has recently undergone an experience that would reduce a lesser person to gibbering madness.
Two steps from the top of the staircase the Wizard halted. Here he stood eye-to-eye with the woman.
“They’re gone,” he intoned. “You are safe now. Come with me.”
The woman shook her head, a forbidding expression on her face.
“What’s wrong?” the Wizard asked. “Don’t you see—those creatures are gone. There is nothing further to fear.”
Still the woman neither spoke nor moved. Was she in the grasp of a hypnotic spell? Or was she, perhaps, still paralyzed with fear?
“Can you speak?” the Wizard demanded.
The woman nodded. With one graceful, jewel-encrusted hand she grasped the weirdly formed scepter. Her other hand, each finger decorated with a magnificent ring, rested upon one of the ornate arms of the throne.
“Come closer.” She did not quite whisper, but rather spoke in a voice so low that it barely carried to the Crimson Wizard’s ears, yet was so clear and well controlled that every syllable rang with crystal clarity.
“I dare not move,” the woman said. “This throne is connected to an explosive device planted beneath the floor. They used that means to keep me from struggling during their horrid ceremonies. They intended to take me with them when they were finished. I’m sure they would have set the device to explode once they were gone. They don’t care about this building, they don’t care about the world of humankind at all. The only reason they didn’t set it off is that you surprised them and frightened them away. But if I try to leave the building will be destroyed and you and I will both be killed.”
The Wizard nodded his understanding. “Very well,” he instructed the woman. “Don’t move.”
She breathed a single syllable of assent.
The Wizard climbed the remaining steps to the dais, circling the throne in search of a tell-tale connection that ran to the explosives beneath the aged structure. With an exclamation he dropped to his knees, tracing with sensitive fingertips a slim, sinuous wire that ran from the base of the throne to a tiny opening in the floor behind the dais.
A new tool appeared in his hand and he worked carefully over the wire until the connection was safely removed. He rose to his feet and returned to his position confronting the woman. “I’ve taken care of that as best I could, but those creatures are devilishly clever. By disconnecting the primary fuse I was forced to set a secondary timer in motion. I have no way of telling how long it is set to run. My guess would be five minutes at most. We had best get out of here and put as much distance as possible between ourselves and this place, as quickly as we can.”
With his enemies at least temporarily vanquished and the immediate danger of explosion removed, the Wizard’s manner changed dramatically. The taciturn, commanding man of action was replaced by a gentler presence, one nonetheless commanding, but kindly and sympathetic.
“Will you tell me your name?” he asked.
The woman said, “I am Isabella Alejandra Orquidia Paloma del Sueño y Montalvo, Señor. I thank you for rescuing me from those—” she hesitated, then concluded, “—from those creatures.”
“Isabella del Sueño, the star of Ride Vaquero,” the Wizard responded.
“That is I, yes.”
“You were reported missing from your Hollywood home and from the studio, Señorita.”
She smiled at the courtesy. “I was lured to a supposed charitable event for the relief of suffering in my homeland. I felt it my duty to attend and offer my support. When I arrived I was seized and drugged. I awakened here. I do not even know where I am, Señor. I am indebted to you for driving those monsters away and freeing me from them, but I need to learn more of what happened. And then, of course, to return to the studio. They will have halted production of my new film, The Caballero from Monterrey.”
The Wizard nodded. “Of course. But first we must make sure your needs are met. I’ll bring you to my headquarters. My assistant Nzambi will care for you. Do you require medical attention?”
“No.” Isabella del Sueño pressed her hands to her temples. “My mind is clear now. For a while it was terrible, while I was drugged I seemed trapped in a nightmare from which there was no escape. But I feel now that I am myself once again.”
The Wizard led her to the doorway of the aged building, onto the loading dock. He bent to his waist to tap a series of commands into a tiny panel concealed there. In the sky above the building a door opened on nothingness. An automatic reel began to revolve above them, and a ladder of metallic links gradually unwound and descended.
It halted not far above the wooden dock.
The Wizard helped Isabella del Sueño to place her foot on the bottom rung. She was wearing golden sandals. Her toenails were painted a smooth, shining shade of scarlet. Soon the glamorous olive-skinned actress was aboard Kpalimé. The Wizard followed her, then drew up the ladder and shut the miniature airship’s door behind them.
Kpalimé rose silently into the chilly air of the Seacoast City night. The airship’s gas-bag was compact. The amazing lifting power of its content, an element drawn from secret mines in an African valley unknown to the outer world, was the key to its remarkable performance. The gondola slung beneath the gas-bag was similarly compact, its efficient design such as to pack a wealth of controls an
d comfortable quarters into a small space.
The Wizard engaged the compressed-air engines of the Zeppelin and guided it away from the riverfront, toward the tallest building in Seacoast City, the Central Railroad Tower. The airship had covered perhaps half the distance from the river to its hangar when the sky behind it was brightened by a single monumental flash. “Hang on!” After an interval that could not have been as long as it seemed the little airship was rocked by a violent shock-wave. The Wizard nodded. He had expected as much.
Minutes later the door atop the Central Railroad Tower slid back to admit Kpalimé. The Wizard guided the airship to her cradle. A crewman locked the ship down. Crewmen swarmed to service the little Zeppelin.
Inside the Wizard’s headquarters Nzambi awaited. When the Wizard and Isabella del Sueño entered the room, Nzambi took the other woman’s hands in hers. The actress introduced herself. Nzambi nodded, unsurprised, and gave her own name. The two women shook hands. “You need clothing,” Nzambi said. “I’ll lend you some things.”
Isabella del Sueño thanked the other woman. “I want to get rid of everything they gave me. This garment. It stinks of those creatures. And these jewels.” She ripped a bracelet from her arm. It appeared to be purest gold, studded with emeralds and diamonds. She laid it on a tabletop.
Soon the three of them sat at a low table sharing hot cocoa and sandwiches. Isabella del Sueño had told her story again, this time going into greater detail than before. The Crimson Wizard had examined the jewelry that the beautiful actress removed. He placed a coded call to a certain telephone number and described the gems and ornaments with which Isabella del Sueño had been bedecked. He listened in silence, then said, “They shall be returned in the morning.”
Terrors Page 4
