Dark Kingdoms

by Richard Lee Byers

  "Right," Bellamy said. "When you think about it, it's even worse than that. We don't even know who owns this place. I mean, we got a name and a post-office box address out of the city records, but I've got a hunch they're just a blind. I'm sure you want to get out of here. So do I. But to get to the bottom of this craziness, I need to look around some more."

  Her face pale, Astarte gave him a jerky nod. "It's okay. I can handle it. Hell, here's where they kill and eat, right? The other rooms can't be as bad as this one."

  "I hope not." He listened once again. Except for the thrum of the flies, the house remained silent. "Let's go this way. Keep an eye out for any kind of papers. File folders. An address book. A wallet with ID in it. Whatever."

  They crept on through the twisting passages of the house. As they got farther away from the room containing the corpses, the stink of decay gave way to another unpleasant smell, like that of rats, though he didn't see any droppings or any holes gnawed in the baseboards. He wondered if it could be the body odor of the men from Lafayette themselves.

  Occasionally he and Astarte came upon a shredded, severed human limb, or the black spiral or some other cryptic symbol daubed on a door or wall. Once he somehow missed seeing one of the grisly mobiles, and walked right into the dangling lattice of cold, clinking bones. Squawking, he recoiled, and lifted his gun to shoot. But Astarte clutched his arm and said, "It's okay, it's okay!" Her intervention brought him back to his senses.

  But despite a sprinkling of such artifacts, most of the ground floor was sparsely furnished and seemed little-used. When they'd searched it all, the two intruders climbed a broad, curving staircase. A soft hum whispered down to meet them.

  Astarte gave Bellamy an interrogatory look. Now it was his turn to shrug. His mouth dry, he crept on up until, suddenly, he glimpsed a point of green light. Startled, he almost fired at it before he realized it was electric illumination, not the chatoyant eye of some lurking monster.

  To be precise, it was an indicator light on the base of a computer monitor, shining through a doorway. And the faint whine was the sound of the PC's cooling fan. His shoulders slumping with relief, he motioned for Astarte to join him.

  Compared to the filth, carnage, desolation, and bizarre decorations elsewhere in the house, the computer room, with its desk, file cabinet, and bookshelves, seemed relatively normal, like an office that any ordinary person might set up in his home. Only a handful of clay and carved stone statues—a naked woman with two faces, a squat, warlike figure in a feather headdress—suggested a connection with the occult.

  "This stuff is different than what we saw downstairs," Bellamy whispered. "The jewelry looked like something the Vikings might have made, but these—"

  "Look Aztec or Mayan or Incan," Astarte said. "Do you think it means something?"

  "I have no idea. I was hoping you would."

  "All I know is that it makes me nervous that that"—she nodded at the computer— "is turned on."

  "Some people leave their PCs on all the time. But even so, I'm not too thrilled about it either. We need to search this place, but keep listening for voices and footsteps. If somebody is around, it would be better to know about it before he steps into the room."

  Something popped. Startled, Bellamy whirled, to see that the blank monitor had lit up. The PC's hard drive clattered softly.

  A little hesitantly, he and Astarte edged closer, to see what the screen would display. Arcs of red and purple swirled inward like water vanishing down a drain, reminding him unpleasantly of the black spirals downstairs. Then the vortex gave way to a step pyramid.

  "That looks Aztec, too," Astarte said, her pale face shining in the monitor's sickly glow.

  "Yeah," Bellamy said, "except that the ones in Mexico aren't jet black."

  A shadowy figure atop the pyramid made an exaggerated, unmistakable hacking motion, and then held up a bulb of crimson flesh. Unseen multitudes cheered. Cascades of blood poured down the sides of the edifice.

  The monitor zoomed in on the top of the monument for a close-up view. The priest conducting the sacrifice wasn't human. He was a creature with two scaly ophidian faces mounted on a single head.

  "What does this mean?" Astarte asked. "Why is it showing this now? Does somebody know we're here?"

  "I don't know," Bellamy replied.

  The picture on the screen changed. Astarte gasped and the FBI agent stiffened, because they were now looking at the island city from their shared vision. The water around it began to revolve, accelerating rapidly. With a grinding, crashing sound, the dark towers and even the bedrock beneath them began to break apart, until the whirlpool devoured it all.

  After which, the swirling red and violet pattern reappeared.

  Surmising that the entire animated sequence was about to repeat itself, Bellamy sat down at the computer. "You start checking the books and papers," he told Astarte. "Fast. I'll see what I can pull off the hard disk."

  Typing rapidly, the keyboard clicking, he tried to enter commands. But no matter what he did, the PC wouldn't respond. It just kept showing the same scenes of bloodshed and annihilation. Finally he gave up and checked the desk drawers. He didn't find anything interesting. To his surprise, there weren't even any floppy disks.

  With a growing sense of desperation, he stood up and began to help Astarte ransack the bookshelves. A small spiral notebook, almost invisible between a massive dictionary and a textbook on the principles of accounting, caught his eye. He pulled it out and flipped it open. The pages were full of row after row of tiny symbols, neatly inscribed in ink.

  He showed it to Astarte. "More Witches' Alphabet?" he asked.

  She shook her head. "I don't recognize it."

  "Well, it looks promising," Bellamy said. He stuffed it in his jacket pocket, and then a long howl reverberated through the house.

  Astarte yelped. Bellamy involuntarily backpedaled across the: office until his shoulders were pressed against the wall. Flis heart pounded, and his bowels felt as if they'd turned to water.

  Beside him, someone laughed. He lurched around, and saw that the face of a thin, intelligent-looking black man had appeared on the computer screen. Its eyes bright with malice, it was doing the laughing. The image dissolved into the close-up view of the apex of the pyramid. Now Bellamy was the naked corpse on the altar, his gory chest hacked open, a raw cavity gaping where his heart should have been.

  Bellamy felt his mind breaking up, his consciousness turning inside out. He put his knuckle between his teeth and bit down hard. The pain cleared his head to a degree.

  Astarte stood wide-eyed and trembling in the center of the room. When Bellamy touched her, she jumped. "It's just a yell," he said, "just noise. It's creepy, maybe there's even something magic about it, but we can't let it get to us."

  She swallowed. "All right."

  "I'd just as soon not meet what's doing the yelling," he said, "so we're leaving. Get out the gun Marilyn gave you." She fumbled the little automatic out of her jacket. "Do you remember what I taught you about how to use it?" She nodded. "Good. We'll move fast, but quietly, and we'll go down those back stairs we saw. I think it's less likely that anything will be waiting at the bottom. Got it?"

  "Yes," she said, grimacing, a flicker of the old Astarte breaking through her dread. "I'm not stupid."

  "Says who?" he said, forcing a smile. "You're here, aren't you? Come on, let's move."

  Bellamy switched off his flashlight. The monitor went black at the same instant, plunging the room into almost total darkness. Astarte gasped, and his heart jolted in his chest. Peering warily this way and that, the intruders slipped into the hall.

  They turned left, away from the main staircase, and a second howl split the silence. Astarte whimpered. Shuddering violently, Bellamy struggled to keep panic from overwhelming him. The unearthly wailing was invested with some supernatural power, without a doubt. What sort of creature possessed such a cry? He had a ghastly feeling that a part of him already knew. That he'd encountered s
uch a beast on the night Waxman died.

  Though the unseen creature howled again and again, it was impossible to tell from which direction the sound was coming. Each shriek slammed into Bellamy's mind like a hammer. He peered desperately into the shadows ahead, searching for the narrow flight of stairs he'd noticed before. He didn't see them. He wondered if, addled with terror, he'd led Astarte in the wrong direction.

  His companion gasped and spun around, nearly clubbing him with her gun. He pivoted. But whatever she'd thought she'd heard, there was nothing behind them.

  They crept on around another corner, and finally spied the steps. Bellamy paused, listening, and heard nothing. He started down, placing his feet near the wall, wincing when, despite his care, one of the risers creaked.

  He and Astarte reached the ground floor unmolested. Just a few more steps, he told himself, just a few more steps and we'll be out of this place.

  Their path led them back into the room with the corpses. Bellamy hesitated for a heartbeat, deciding between the front and rear doors, then turned toward the foyer.

  "Bad choice," said a pleasant bass voice behind him.

  Bellamy spun around. A shadow stood in the darkness a few feet away. It struck a match with its thumbnail, and when it lifted the flame to light its hand-rolled cigarette, he saw that it was Bill Dunn.

  "This is a rough neighborhood," the SAD agent continued. "You go out on the street, you might get mugged. Whereas the cemetery is usually peaceful this time of night."

  Settling into a marksman's stance, Bellamy aimed his Browning at Dunn's face. The other man didn't look as if he was wearing a Kevlar vest, but in the gloom, it was impossible to be sure. "You're in on it, aren't you? Part of the Atheist conspiracy."

  Dunn grinned. "Well, duh, Sherlock. Of course I am. I pressured Nolliver to discredit you. I whacked him when he got squeamish. I even took time off from the Bureau to hunt you down. So much for that Windjammer cruise vacation I was planning."

  "You're under arrest," Bellamy said.

  "How did I know you were going to say that?" Dunn replied, exhaling a plume of smoke. Bellamy caught a whiff of the acrid vapor even through the stench of the rotting bodies. "The sad thing is that catching you was so easy that, so far, it hasn't been any fun. I'm impressed that you found our little home away from home here. I'd be interested to know how you did it. But when Chester phoned me to say you'd broken in, there went my chance to shine as a detective. By the way, did you meet Chester? Black guy, dead, runs around inside computers, thinks he's Steven Spielberg?"

  "Put your hands up," Bellamy said.

  Dunn ignored the command. "And then when I was following you around the house, I could have killed you any time. Even with fear sharpening your senses, you didn't see me. So I decided to reveal myself in this guise to give you a sporting chance. To make our final meeting, at least a little bit interesting. Don't disappoint me."

  "Is he crazy?" Astarte whispered. "Or on drugs?"'

  "I hope so," Bellamy murmured. Better that than the alternative, which was that Dunn was like Daimler, possessed of powers so formidable that he had no reason to be afraid of a gun. He raised his voice, "Listen to me, Bill. You can't hurt us. It's the other way around. We're leaving, and we're taking you with us. If anyone or anything tries to stop us, I'll shoot you. Do you understand?"

  "Sure," said Dunn, staring at them. Even in the darkness, his eyes Sfeemed to glow. Bellamy felt the beginnings of a tremor in his arms, and struggled to hold the: Browning steady. "Fact of the matter is, you shot me before, though I know you don't remember it. Am amazingly lucky shot, too, right in the eye and round and round my brain until it just about cut my spinal cord in two. Anything less Wouldn't have bothered me much, and I would have left your body beside Waxman's."

  "What are you?" Astarte breathed.

  "Something pretty cool," said Dunn, his gaze still boring into Bellamy's skull, Bellamy felt frightened and lightheaded at the same time, as if he were about to faint. A part of him was screaming.forhim to shoOt, shoot now, but some force kept him from translating the impulse into action. "Something you monkeys are afraid of all the way down into your DNA. I gather you're a big fan of the occult, sweetheart, so why don't I give you a demonstration."

  Dunn's body swelled , his shoulders broadening, limbs lengthening, the front of his face extending into a foaming muzzle, stretching his smile into a fanged grin like the leer of the Big Bad Wolf. He lifted his enlarging hands, now .gloved in black fur and sporting long, curved claws, and ripped his clothing apart £0 accommodate his growth.

  Bellamy recoiled and fired at the same time. As near as he could tell, the shots flew wild. He felt his awareness contracting, caving in on itself, and for a second he was grateful. Then he glimpsed Astarte from the; corner of his eye.

  Tears streaming down her face, her pistol hanging forgotten at her side, she stood paralyzed, like a rabbit hypnotized by the stare, of a snake, Bellamy wasn't the only one whose mind was shutting down.

  Except that he mustn't let it happen, not if it meant abandoning her to die. He bellowed wordlessly, a primal roar that expelled the panic from his mind. He was still terribly-afraid, but the dread had lost inability to cripple him. In fact, he sensed that no matter what terrible thing happened, he'd never freeze or lose himself again; and for one instant, in the reeking darkness, surrounded by the dead with a demon looming over him, he experienced a crazy flash of joy.

  He grabbed Astarte and screamed in her ear. "Run!" He shoved her toward the front door and she began to stumble along under her own power, gaining speed with every step. He pivoted and, his hands now steady, resumed firing, emptying the clip.

  By now Dunn was so tall that his head nearly brushed the ceiling, a stooped, gaunt, but horribly powerful-looking apparition with pointed, bat-like ears and lambent eyes, his flesh exuding the bestial fetor that Bellamy had smelled elsewhere in the house. The hail of bullets slammed into his face and the cigarette fell from his jaws, showering orange sparks on its long descent to the floor. Clutching at his wounds, Dunn staggered and dropped to one knee. And then laboriously started to get up again.

  Bellamy suspected that, gun or no, it would be tantamount to suicide to keep fighting Dunn at close range. Whereas outside, sniping from a distance, he might conceivably have a chance, might at least prolong the encounter long enough for Astarte to get away. As he wheeled to run, he caught a glimpse of the dagger.

  If Dunn was the werewolf he more or less appeared to be, a silver blade might hurt him in a way lead bullets couldn't. Unfortunately, Bellamy figured that the odds of him getting past the monster's talons and inhumanly long reach to deliver a mortal blow were pretty close to zero. Still, he detoured and grabbed the knife on his way out, then sprinted on through the dining room and kitchen. Behind him, Dunn roared.

  When Bellamy opened the door, his eyes widened in surprise. The world was veiled in sheets and tatters of white. He could barely see the trunk of the cypress just a few feet away. While he and Astarte had been inside, the fog had risen and thickened.

  So much for shooting Dunn at long range. On the other hand, maybe the mist would allow him to evade the creature altogether. He ran on across the overgrown yard. As he reached the wall, he heard the monster chasing him, the claws on Dunn's feet clicking on the kitchen floor.

  Bellamy scrambled over the wall, dashed a few feet to the left, and then hunkered down behind a tomb to reload the Browning. An instant later, he heard a soft thud. It sounded as if Dunn hadn't had to climb over the barrier. He'd simply hurdled it.

  Bellamy listened intently, but except for the muted nimble and clatter of a freight train rolling down the rails a block away, he didn't hear another sound. Finally he peeked around the side of the mausoleum. All he saw was the vague forms of the other vaults and coils of gray-white mist.

  Apparently Dunn had moved off in another direction. Bellamy wished he could be certain it was because he'd shaken the monster off his trail, but he couldn't shake the nasty
suspicion that the creature was merely toying with him.

  Still, Bellamy was alone for the moment, and he meant to make good use of the time. The dilapidated tomb in front of him had a long crack running down the front. On impulse, he removed the notebook from his pocket and stuffed it into the fissure. If he survived, he could retrieve it later. If not, there might be one chance in a million—well, maybe a billion—that someone would find and decipher it, and, in any case, its disappearance might cause the Atheists some worry. Then he reloaded the Browning, wincing at the small clicks and snapping sounds the operation entailed.

  He wondered if he should double back. Clamber back over the wall, go around the house, and into the shabby, nearly deserted streets beyond. Dunn might not be expecting that. But after a moment's consideration, he decided against the idea. Chester the unfriendly ghost was probably still keeping watch in the house as he had before. It would be better to exit the cemetery in another direction.

  Bellamy thought that the east wall was a little closer than the west. Crouching, gun in one hand and dagger in the other, he headed for it. Tendrils of cool, wet mist caressed his face. Broken statues—a headless Madonna, her hands folded in prayer, an angel with chipped wings and a crumbling, leprous face—loomed out of the murk.

  Then he heard a sniffing sound, and intuited instantly what it was, Dunn was near, and searching for his scent like a bloodhound.

  Bellamy threw himself down behind the cover of another tomb, then looked frantically about. He didn't see Dunn.

  The snuffling grew louder. Bellamy still didn't see the werewolf. His heart pounded, and his mouth was dry as sand. Damn it! he thought. Dunn's ten feet tall. Even in the fog and the dark, I should be able to see him when he's obviously right on top of me.

  A vague shadow, almost invisible in the murk, fell on the ground before him. He smelled a faint, foul odor, monster mingled with tobacco smoke. He reflexively hurled himself forward, not consciously comprehending until a split second later what had spurred him into motion. Dunn had silently climbed up on the tomb Bellamy had counted on to protect his back and was reaching down to maul him.