Spellbinders Collection

by Molly Cochran

  But that was something, at least. Something he would do for Brian Candy. And for Arthur.

  He knocked on Mrs. Sloan's door, awakening her.

  "Lord, son, what's wrong now?"

  "I'm sorry to disturb you, but I've got another favor to ask of you. The last one, I promise."

  She ran her fingers through her hair. "Well, out with it, unless you plan to keep me up all night talking."

  He gave her three hundred in pound notes. It was all the money he had. "I'd like you to take half of this, and give the rest to Emily in three hours. She's asleep, but I want you wake her up. Give her plenty of coffee, and then drive her to the nearest train station and get her aboard a train for London. There's a note in an envelope addressed to her on the bureau. Please put it in her pocketbook. She'll be groggy, so she may not remember to take it."

  "Good heavens, lad—"

  "I can't explain any more. But if anyone comes looking for her, just tell them that she disappeared one night. That's for your own safety, Mrs. Sloan."

  The woman looked flustered, then nodded. "All right. I know you wouldn't be running out unless it was a weighty thing."

  "Thank you." He turned to leave.

  "I'm sorry for all you're going through, both of you."

  "Yeah," Hal said.

  Back in his own room, he picked up the measuring cup wrapped in newspapers, then walked downstairs. He took a long knife from one of the drawers in the kitchen and slipped it in the back of his belt.

  The time had come to do battle once more with the Saracen Knight, though he knew the outcome would be the same as it had been a hundred lifetimes ago.

  The way to Pembroke Lane passed by the ruins of the castle. Arthur's castle, Hal thought. Camelot, where the Knights of the Round Table had gathered to serve the greatest king in history.

  He walked off the road and climbed the silent, dark hills for the last time. The rocks remained, moss-covered and immovable, in the places where they had fallen centuries ago. In his mind, he could see it all as it had been in the first glorious years: The grand sweep of the outer bailey, with its turrets and high walls; the courtyard where the servants tended the animals and the gardens and the knights practiced at war; the inner fortifications beyond the moat, now no more than a shallow ditch; and the magnificent keep, so tall that it seemed to touch the very stars, so strong that no enemy force would ever penetrate it. So they had thought back then, when they were the new order of the world.

  It was all gone now. All but Arthur himself, come back to rule a kingdom that no longer existed, with a protector whose shortcomings had doomed them both to death.

  "God, why did you choose me?" he whispered.

  "Beg pardon, sir?" chirped a young voice.

  Hal whirled around. Perched on the low wall behind him was the same young boy who had come to the meadow on the morning that Arthur had been taken.

  "I . . . I didn't see you," Hal said.

  "I come to hear the horses," the boy said.

  Hal looked at him uncomprehendingly.

  "It's St. John's Eve, sir. The knights ride tonight. If you listen, you'll hear them coming from this very place, looking for their king till light of day."

  Slowly, Hal looked around him at the ruin. "The ghost riders," he said quietly. "I've heard of them."

  "Oh, they're real, all right. I come here every year. The hooves pound like thunder, they do." The boy looked up at the starry sky. "Only they don't ever find the king. I 'spect Arthur must be dead by now."

  Hal swallowed. "Look, kid, you'd better get home," he said gruffly. "The cops are looking for some armed criminals around here. This is no place for you."

  "But the Knights of the Round Table . . ."

  "Go on, get out of here." He pushed the boy toward the road, then followed him out of the castle ruins. The boy ran a short distance to keep from falling, then turned back to look at Hal.

  "Go home, I said!" Hal called. The boy moved into the darkness, and Hal walked on toward Pembroke Lane.

  He arrived at the mill by 11:20. Not much was left of the operation except for the skeletal remains of a waterwheel and some fallen boards. There was no place to hide here, but that didn't matter: Hal was through hiding.

  Before long, he heard the sound of hoofbeats. A horse was coming near. No, more than one horse. In the moonlight he could see their shining flanks. Mounted on one was a rider dressed in black robes, holding the reins of the other animal. He stopped some distance away and gestured for Hal to approach him.

  "I can't ride," Hal said as the man in black tossed down the reins.

  The man did not answer. The riderless horse moved toward Hal, nickering.

  Awkwardly clutching the wrapped cup from Mrs. Sloan's cupboard, Hal clambered up onto the saddle and picked up the reins. "All right," he said resignedly. "Where to?"

  The horseman turned and rode away at a slow trot. Hal's horse followed him. They turned off the roadway and into the woods for a short time, then burst through into a large open field, where the mounts picked up speed.

  Hal hung on desperately until they crested a rise in the field. Below, bathed in moonlight, was the old stone mansion he had seen earlier. One upstairs room was lit. The rest of the house was dark.

  I knew it was the place, Hal thought with disgust. Everything about its location had been right. Yet no one had believed him enough to send out even a small contingent of men to rescue Arthur.

  Now it was too late for that. Too late.

  Arthur saw him coming.

  He had heard a sound in the meadow and had run to the window, as he had run a hundred times since nightfall.

  The window itself had been sealed shut. He had tried more than once to break the glass, but it was of the double-thick, insulated variety and besides, the only thing between the window and the ground thirty feet below was a narrow slate gable.

  Except for the man who had come to seal the window, he'd had no visitors since Saladin's tour of the basement room with him that morning. No visits, no meals, not even the dreaded injections. It was as if Arthur had suddenly ceased to exist for the men in the old stone house.

  He was relieved. Without the drugs, he could at least stay awake. That was something he knew he had to do.

  Saladin had given him the option to live, and he had refused it. Whatever was planned would happen tonight, and Arthur knew he had to be alert. His life depended on that.

  As he reached the window the hoofbeats became clear. When he saw the two riders, his heart quickened. One of them was Hal. He knew it even before the moon illuminated Hal's sandy hair and light skin.

  He had known it all along, he supposed. Hal would come. When he needed a champion, Hal would come.

  Quickly he dashed from the window to check the wires on the lamp. A short circuit wasn't much, but it might buy Hal a minute or two.

  Then he went back to the window to watch the men dismount. There was no one else around. No police. From his vantage point, he would have spotted any activity in the woods during the day. There had been nothing. Hal was alone, and probably a captive, at that.

  But he had come.

  "Hal! I'm here, Hal!" he shouted, pounding on the heavy glass.

  Hal looked up for a moment before the other man shoved him roughly through the open door.

  A few moments later, the big man who had stood outside his door since he was first brought to the house came into his room carrying a coil of rope. Arthur tried to duck him, but the man caught him easily and stuck a wad of cotton cloth into his mouth. At almost the same time, he shoved Arthur into a straight-backed wooden chair, then tied him securely around the chest and ankles.

  After an inspection of his work, the man left.

  Arthur looked at the frayed cord of the lamp. Without his help, Hal would not even have a minute.

  Hal almost wept with relief when he saw Arthur's face. If the kid wasn't dead, there was a chance. Never mind that he was outnumbered and had no weapons. Never mind that he had no cup to
trade with Saladin or that the police had no interest in helping him. Arthur was alive, and Hal would fight with every ounce of strength in his body to keep him alive.

  When his silent companion pushed him to the floor of the darkened room, Hal rolled and pulled the knife out of his belt. Then, springing to his feet, he lunged at the man.

  The knife struck flesh, then bone, then an inner softness. He heard a gasp as the man struggled. Then the lights came on, and in that single, blinding instant, a swarm of bodies seemed to cover him.

  When he could see once again, the bloodied knife was on the floor next to the dead man. The newspaper-wrapped cup had slid under the table. And he was lying face down, pinned to a carpet by three men in black.

  He could hardly breathe. One of the assailants had his knee on Hal's neck. With the right move—and Hal was certain the man knew how to execute it—the small bones would crack like peanut shells.

  "Let him go," a deep voice boomed.

  At once the three obeyed.

  The man who had spoken stood in the center of the room, his arms folded in front of him. He, too, was dressed in black. His tremendous height gave him the appearance of some gigantic bird of prey at rest, its wings folded, its talons sheathed. He had only to glance sideways at the cup for one of the men to scurry over to pick it up.

  But Saladin was in no hurry to see it. He looked instead at Hal, his eyes bright with amusement.

  "You kill well," he said, the admiration in his voice genuine. "Most men would have thought twice about killing the messenger in a trade."

  "This is no trade, and you know it," Hal said. "Now there's one less of you."

  Saladin shrugged slightly in acquiescence, then held his hand out for the cup. The other man placed it, still wrapped, in his hand.

  The tall man's face clouded. "What is this lie?" he growled. He threw it to the ground.

  "You didn't think I'd bring the real cup with me, did you?" Hal laughed. "With all these goons hanging around waiting to slice me into bacon?" He tried desperately to sound convincing. "Look, the kid doesn't mean anything to me. I never met him until the day before yesterday. But there's no reason to kill him. Let him go back to his aunt, and I'll take you to the cup. You and me alone. Gentlemen's agreement. Okay?"

  Saladin stared at him for a moment. Then his eyes softened. He smiled. "You do not have the cup," he said softly.

  "Sure I do. Why would I offer—"

  "Because you know I will kill you. And you would be willing to give your life for the boy." He shook his head. "You have not changed."

  "Hey, I don't know what you're talking about. I'm giving you a chance to get back the thing you want most."

  Saladin strode across the room. "Kill him," he said as he walked out the door.

  There had to be something he could do. The lamp was not far away, and though his hands were tied, his fingers were free. Without a tool, short-circuiting the wires would mean a bad shock, maybe a fatal one. But there was no time to find a tool.

  Hesitantly Arthur began to rock on the wooden chair until he wobbled precariously. At the last second, he tried to catch himself on the tips of his toes, but he knew as soon as he began the attempt that it wasn't going to work. He fell forward, managing to turn enough before he hit so that his shoulder, and not his face, struck the floor.

  For a moment he lay there, perspiring with effort and pain. Then, slowly, he began to inch his way toward the lamp cord. Faster, he thought, grunting as he wormed his way across the room on his side, dragging the heavy weight of the chair. If Hal was trying to fight his way out, there was no time to lose. He pushed himself harder, ignoring the throbbing pain in his shoulder.

  Finally he reached the lamp. It took another few minutes to maneuver himself into a position where he could manipulate wires with his hands behind his back.

  This is crazy, he told himself. You're going to get yourself killed.

  Carefully, because he knew the plug end was live, he picked up the other end of the wire and reached backward toward the socket.

  But what if it didn't help? What if the sudden darkness were to hurt Hal rather than help him? After all, he wasn't expecting it. What if Hal had already found his way to the stairs and was on his way to this room? He would never find it in the dark. Arthur would never get out.

  Then I might as well get electrocuted now, he thought.

  He steeled himself and jammed the plug into the socket.

  A flash of blue flame spat from the metal plug. The force of the electrical jolt knocked Arthur forward like an invisible fist, flinging him across the room, the chair on his back like a turtle's shell. The chair twirled on one leg for an instant before coming to rest crookedly against the arm of the sofa.

  Oh, God, I'm still alive, he thought, watching the muscles in his knee twitch. He didn't have enough strength left to wiggle the chair completely upright, so it stayed as it was, balanced on one leg.

  He could hear shouting from the room three floors below.

  "Score," Arthur said weakly. He bent his head and smiled.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  If Hal had believed in miracles, he surely would have attributed the sudden darkness in the room to an act of God. All three of Saladin's men had been coming toward him when the lights inexplicably went out.

  Hal reacted instantly by dropping to the floor and moving quietly in a low crouch toward the door. In the darkness, he could make out dim shapes searching the place where he had been, while the men cursed in a language he did not understand.

  He put his hand around the doorknob and swung it open hard, so that it crashed against the backstop. Immediately, with an accompaniment of guttural shouts, they spilled out into the night. One, two, three black shapes.

  But there had been six of them in the meadow, he thought briefly. He was sure of that. Saladin and five others. He had just killed one. That left four.

  Yet he had seen only three men in the house besides Saladin. Where was the fourth?

  He dismissed the thought. The man might be dead, for all he knew. Candy might have killed him in the fight that had cost the inspector his life. Or he may not have remembered correctly. It was not something to worry about.

  Satisfied, he closed the door behind them and locked it, then turned toward what he remembered as being a stairway.

  He had gone up a half-dozen of the steps when a hand clamped around his ankle. The fourth man.

  Hal hit the steps hard, cracking his head on the stone. By instinct he rolled over onto his back as the man dived onto him.

  In the dark, Hal could make out only the faintest outline of a figure, but the outline was large and thick. The man raised an arm above his head and slammed it down against Hal's face. Hal felt a shuddering shock run through him from the impact. And then it struck again.

  The cup. His face was being smashed by the steel cup that Saladin had discarded. Waves of red light washed across Hal's vision. He reached behind him for the knife, then realized that it was somewhere on the floor beneath the stairs. He had no weapon at all now.

  The cup crashed down onto Hal's forehead again. Struggling to keep from passing out, Hal jerked his own arms upward and slammed both fists beneath the man's jaw.

  The blow landed hard. With a sharp cry the shadowy figure above him reeled backward. Hal jabbed an elbow into his throat. The burly man fell back down the steps.

  Hal did not have to follow him. He knew from the sound the man's head made as it hit the landing that he was dead. Hal leaned against the wall for a moment, wiping the blood out of his eyes with his sleeve. Then he turned to crawl up the stairs.

  He collapsed before he made it to the landing.

  "The door has been bolted from inside," one of the men said. "He did not leave."

  Saladin studied the house. "No, he wouldn't, I suppose."

  After a long silence, the man asked, "Shall we go in after him?"

  Saladin shook his head. "No, I believe there is a better way to stop him." He pointed to the barn
. "Bring the kerosene."

  The man looked at him in disbelief, but Saladin did not see the expression on his face. He was thinking of the treasure room in the basement, with its five thousand years of memories carefully preserved. What good were they to him now, without the cup? In the end, a life that spanned millennia was just as useless as anyone else's.

  He spat, but the bitterness in his mouth remained. "Burn it down," he said.

  Hal was awakened by his own coughing. The awful remembered taste of smoke was in his throat and hanging thick in the air. Through the landing window, he saw the flames licking up the side of the house.

  He bolted down the stairs, tripping over the body of the fourth man, scrambling over the first he had killed, running toward the door, running . . . running to safety.

  Wait a second, Jeff, just hold on now, I'm coming . . .

  He slammed into the door, sobbing.

  No, it's not happening, not again, please God no

  The draperies were on fire. The edges of the wool carpet were smoldering, sending off plumes of black smoke.

  Hal closed his eyes. Arthur was dead. He had to be. It was the way it was, the way of his nightmare, the way it had to be. He would be tied to the chair, his blue eyes glazed over, his little life gone. Oh, yes. It had come to this. And Saladin had known it all along. He had told him as much in the painting he had left for Hal in the funhouse. A special death, for a special fool.

  Hal closed his eyes. "You stinking bastard," he said.

  Then, his eyes washed fresh from his own tears of fear, he turned back and hurled himself up the stairway.

  Arthur's panic hit him in waves. All of his senses seemed to be going haywire at once. His eyes stung from the smoke that poured in from the ventilating duct in black billows. The heat in the closed room caused him to break out in a drenching sweat. He could feel his own heart beating harder and louder. His ears rang with an eerie, high whine.