The Nyctalope Steps In

by Jean de La Hire

  The storm had laid while they came ashore—a good omen—but now the wind was freshening and the cold rain was beginning to whip up. A few minutes earlier, they could see the ruins of the old lighthouse on the point above the Kencraf inlet, but now it was growing darker. Dr. No, who despised the cold, regretted being here. Still, if Ming were right...

  Largo was busy getting their gear ashore. He might be a greedy and dangerous ruffian, but he was a useful one. A tool, but a clever and useful one. When Blofeld had suggested him for the mission, the initial reaction had been doubt, but it was clear now he had been the best man for the job.

  “We must move quickly,” Dr. No said to the Yellow Shadow.

  “But with care. I have no illusion that we are alone on the island. We cannot afford to imagine ourselves as ahead in this race. I will post men well ahead as scouts. They will gladly sacrifice themselves to any surprises the island has for us.”

  Dr. No nodded. It was a wise policy. Such men were only good for the fodder of these dangerous operations. In ordinary circumstances, neither he nor Ming would even be here—but this was no ordinary circumstance.

  Largo was coming toward them. “We’re ready.” He carried a German Mauser on his hip in its wooden holster-stock, and, slung across his shoulder, an American Thompson machine gun with a drum, like the gangster he was. Ming carried a Walther P-38 in a holster under his coat, and Dr. No was unarmed. He considered his hands delicate tools and had no intention of harming them by carrying anything so crude as a gun.

  The Yellow Shadow lifted his hand and waved three fingers. Three of his men split off from the others and moved ahead. The rain was now falling steadily and beginning to slant, as it had earlier. The wind off the sea was stiffer, picking up. Already, it was impossible to see their ship anchored in the inlet.

  Largo took up a position behind the Yellow Shadow’s three men. Another man, similarly armed, filed behind him, then Ming and then Dr. No and the rest of the men. There was a sort of overgrown trail leading up off the beach, and they took to that, rather than the rough country on either side. Even this was overgrown and rough going.

  But, Dr. No could not help wondering, were they really...

  “...alone?” Bob Morane was saying. “I don’t think so.”

  The Boy had asked when they had stopped to rest. The white dog was in his lap, getting his ears scratched; Prince was squatting on a rock, checking the BAR. The rain was worse, but they had found an overhang of rock to the lea of the wind and were relatively sheltered. Morane reached out and tousled the Dog’s wet head, and the grateful animal shivered playfully. “In any case, Saint-Clair is right. We must proceed as if Ming and the others are already on the island.”

  As if on cue, the Nyctalope appeared to the accompaniment of a flash of lightning and a clap of thunder. His hair was wild and wind-blown, and his features leaner and more drawn than on the photos and illustrations the Boy had seen from the hero’s heyday. He was such a strange figure. According to rumors, he was virtually immortal, possessing an artificial heart, and had traveled to the four corners of the world—and beyond. If only half the stories than the man La Hire had written in the newspaper had some basis in reality, Leo Saint-Clair was nothing less than a Nietzschean ubermensch, a super-man, as much of the American comic-book variety as the intellectual one.

  As he ducked to enter the shelter, he tossed something at their feet. Prince lay aside his rifle and picked the object up. It was an insignia, one with the distinctive lightning markings of the SS.

  “We’re on the right trail, at least,” Saint-Clair said. “I found that about 20 yards ahead. There was more, but no sense disturbing the dead.”

  The Boy’s head jerked up. The little white dog softly yelped as if he understood.

  “A trap?” Morane asked, as Prince handed him the grim souvenir.

  Saint-Clair nodded. “An old hunter’s trick. Nothing extraordinary, save from what I can tell, it was activated by a crude electronic eye. Just a heavy log suspended from rope and the electronic tripwire. Spikes had been driven into the log and sharpened—perhaps even poisoned. This fellow...” he nodded to the insignia the Boy now held, “...was still hanging there after all this time—at least what was left of him. I saw signs that another man may have been injured. I can’t imagine a man like Drax wasting much time on the wounded, so the body is likely close.”

  The Boy Reporter offered the insignia back to Saint-Clai, who shook his head. “Keep it. I’ve seen enough of them to last me a lifetime. From here on, we’ll have to be doubly careful.”

  Prince nodded, again picking up the BAR. “Hadn’t we better...?”

  Morane nodded. “No sign it’s letting up. I don’t suppose Ming and his group are letting up either though. Once more into the breach, mes amis.”

  The Boy and Prince both laughed. To them, it was an adventure. A grand adventure. Saint-Clair shrugged. He had spent a lifetime in search of, and living adventure—more than one lifetime. It was never like the books. It was always earnest, and always good, and bad men and women died. The Boy’s youth, Morane’s courage, Prince’s toughness, none of them were armor against the cold finger of death that waited for them at every turn on this island. He had killed, and he had survived. He had watched friends die, and he had taken vengeance. He knew the true face of adventure. A skull. A grinning, leering, humorless skull. He would be much happier if he knew where the Yellow Shadow and his party were. It was always safer to have the enemy in...

  “...view,” Emilio Largo was saying. “In my view, we’re moving far too slowly. Perhaps you and the Doctor should stay back while I go ahead with a few of your men?”

  The Yellow Shadow was not used to having his orders questioned. He didn’t care for this Largo. He was a bully and a sadist, and there was more than a touch of cheap melodrama about him. Not that Dr. No was any better, but he, at least, had the restraint of his Asian blood. Largo was a vulgarian, a self-made man of the worst sort. Even if one admired his ruthlessness, there was a twisted quality about him, a perversion. Only Monsieur Ming’s sternest command had kept the fool from bringing a woman along with them. Really, a woman on an expedition like this!

  “We’ll stay together,” the Yellow Shadow said sharply. “Morane and Saint-Clair are both capable of lying in ambush for us, and picking us off silently. Morane may be a boy scout, but he’s an efficient one, and the Nyctalope...”

  “The Nyctalope,” Largo virtually spat the word out. “A man who some say has an artificial heart and can see in the dark. What nonsense! Perhaps he was good—once. But he hasn’t done anything since the war, that I know of. He’s a has-been. And, anyway, if anyone believe those absurd stories, they would have to believe that the man is close to 80...”

  Ming ignored the rant. He knew secrets that would leave the boastful Largo shivering in a corner, sucking his thumb like a cowering child. How could a man like Largo even imagine a man like the Nyctalope?

  Though his mind was distracted, the Yellow Shadow was always aware of his surroundings. They had made their way about half a mile inland along the overgrown trails, and as yet encountered nothing that slowed them more than debris that had to be climbed over or gone around. There were few animals about, but the storm would have seen to that. Such creatures would take shelter and ride out the wild night. They had more sense than men.

  There had once been a thriving village on the island, home to scientists and artists, but it had largely died out by the time of the Great War, and been largely destroyed by German bombers during the WWII, when they had carpet-bombed the island before the Drax expedition. No one seemed to know what had brought about the end of Dr. Antekirtt’s little Eden, but Ming suspected that it was as simple as human nature. The good Doctor might have been a beneficent despot, but he was still a despot, and whatever pretense to democracy he had set up on the island, it was first and foremost his experiment, his dream. And when the dreamer dies—what becomes of the dream?

  They had come to a fork i
n the trail. Seeking respite under an overhang of foliage, they studied the divergent paths.

  “The question is,” Dr. No said softly, “which is the road less taken?”

  Largo snorted. “One way to find out.” He signaled one of Ming’s men toward the path on the left, and he took up his machine gun and boldly stepped toward the path on the right.

  Ming started to stop him, then stopped. Let the reckless fool find out for himself. With a nod, the Mongol sent his own man to follow Largo’s order. Largo was already halfway up the right path, sweeping the barrel of the Thompson ahead of him like a soldier on point.

  “A brave man, our Signore Largo,” Dr. No said with quiet sarcasm.

  Largo disappeared first. It seemed quite a long time that he was gone. After a moment, they saw his figure reemerging, still swaggering, a nasty smile on his lips, a cigar clamped between his thick lips.

  He stopped.

  The Yellow Shadow tensed. Dr. No rested his delicate hands on the Mongol’s arm.

  Largo turned his head. He cocked it to one side, like a dog at an unexpected sound. In this storm, it was hard to hear anything. He turned back toward the main party. He took a step.

  Paused.

  Turned again...

  “No!” It was Ming’s sharp voice.

  There was a flash of light. It was too weak for lightning.

  Largo had half-turned as Ming had shouted at him. That saved his life. Almost.

  He fell to the ground, screaming.

  “Now we know the road forward,” Dr. No said.

  Largo was writhing on the ground, his hands to his face, still...

  “…Screaming. I heard a human scream.”

  Saint-Clair froze, and behind him so did Morane, Prince, the Boy, and even the Dog.

  Prince unslung his rifle and worked the action, Morane, like Saint-Clair, had recognized that the scream came from a distance. “Another of Antekirtta’s traps,” said the airforce hero as he relaxed.

  “At least, we know we’re not alone,” Prince said, relaxing, a little teased by his reaction.

  The little dog began a howl, but the Boy hushed him. “I’m sorry,” the Boy began to say...”

  “Don’t be,” Saint-Clair said. “I doubt they heard it, and even if they did, they already suspect we’re here. And you can hardly blame the animal. That scream was almost inhuman. Either way, the pup is an advantage for us. His hearing and sense of smell are keener than my eyesight. He sensed something a few seconds before we actually heard the scream. I saw his hair bristle.” It was the most human moment the Nyctalope had shown. Morane half expected to see him tousle the Dog’s ears.

  “Well,” Prince said, “At least they’re down a man. One more to our side.”

  The Boy was unexpectedly smiling. “I hope the Captain didn’t hear that. He’ll think he’s having the terrors.”

  Even Saint-Clair chuckled. Then he turned serious. “I make them closer to shore than I would have thought,” he said. “If the charts we have are accurate, we should be a few klicks from the villa and fortifications. I suspect we’ll find more of Drax’s party as we get closer, but we’re ahead, and a wounded man will slow our adversaries a little more.”

  “Not for long. Ming is far from sentimental,” Morane said, “but I agree, I think that scream will slow their pace if nothing else. God knows what the poor devil ran into.”

  Saint-Clair nodded. Ever since they had landed, he had felt a presence, as if they were being watched, and he was not given to hysterics or unease. This island had an uncanny effect on him, and he didn’t like it. He didn’t believe in demons, ghosts, or the whole pantheon of the supernatural, but he had seen more than his fair share of the odd and the unnatural, and this whole place stank of it. No wonder sailors avoided it. For the first time, he began to wonder if there might be something worthwhile to salvage from Antekirtta after all. Something still powered the electric eye that had killed Drax’s man, at least as far back as the war, and, though he hadn’t said anything to the others, the trap hadn’t looked as if it dated from the last century when he had examined it. Antekirtta had supported some population longer than history suggested.

  The storm had let up a little again, but if he was any judge, it was only another respite. Storms in this part of the world were notoriously fickle and likely to swirl around in complex currents, striking again and again until they blew themselves out. And this place was odd to begin with. Strange currents in the sea, and stranger ones in the sky. That was why they had abandoned Morane’s original idea to use a helicopter, seeing as he was an ex-fighter pilot—why Ming and the others had come by sea too. Even a sea plane would have never navigated a landing in these waters, at the best of times. It was as if Antekirtta had been chosen to be as uninviting as possible to any intruder.

  Taking the point, he swept the darkness, checking the little dog as they moved ahead. The animal’s nerves were good. Fear kept you alive. For too many years, Saint-Clair hadn’t known that feeling. It made him dangerous to himself and others. Since the war... Well, even an immortal had to grow up sometime…

  They had been moving vaguely uphill for a while when, suddenly, he stopped. He raised a hand, but the others had already halted. They had seen the dead SS he had found and passed his remains quietly, keeping their thoughts to themselves, but since then, they had been a more sober crew.

  The Nyctalope signaled the others to wait, and went forward. He slung the Sten gun under his arm and drew his Browning with the specially designed suppressor. He thumbed the safety off and went ahead on cat feet.

  Then, he froze.

  Slowly, he knelt down. He carefully moved some brush aside with his free hand.

  There, in the brush, carefully hidden, was another electronic eye. He had come within a centimeter of tripping it. Noting its position, he stepped back several feet, then searched for a stone. Picking a good size one, he hefted it, waited a beat, then tossed it. It broke the beam from the electronic eye.

  There was a flash of light.

  The object up in the tree looked like a dragon’s head in the darkness, even to his eyes. A beam of light like a flame leaped from it, and, directly across from its path, cut a swath though the side of a large tree. Smoke rose from the green trunk where the beam had struck. Had Saint-Clair broken that electronic eye beam, the “dragon’s eye” would have cut him in two.

  And it would have, if he hadn’t noticed a bit of yellowed white in the dirt where the electronic eye had been.

  It was another of Drax’s unlucky crew—his half-buried skull to be exact.

  The beam of light had decapitated the SS. Probably even cauterized the wound with its heat. Nasty.

  Morane had come up quickly when he had heard the sizzling noise of the tree burning. “My God,” he whispered.

  “Yes,” the Nyctalope said. “My sentiments exactly. Perhaps we should post a sign.”

  Morane whistled. “What in God’s name?...”

  The Nyctalope smiled. “Here be...”

  “...dragons,” Dr. No said. “As I warned Signore Largo, dragons.” He was examining the device that had fired the beam of light and wounded Largo. It resembled nothing so much as a dragon’s head until it was uncovered.

  The Yellow Shadow had just sent Largo back on a stretcher made from some branches and his men’s jackets. They were losing time, and Largo’s scream had surely alerted the others. Normally, he would have killed the fool if for no other reason than his arrogance, and raising an alarm, but he wasn’t sure if they could trust Largo’s crew if word got back to them that he had murdered their leader. “He’ll live, but he might lose that eye. Not so terrible a fate for a pirate I suppose.”

  Dr. No nodded. “This weapon is quite remarkable,” he said, as if discussing a new specimen. “An electronic eye set it off. Largo must have tripped it. When you called out, he turned, and only caught a glancing blow along the edge of the optical nerve. If not, he might well have been decapitated. I’ve read of certain experiments
, but nothing this advanced. The amplification of light through a jewel, usually a ruby I believe, to create such an intense beam that it can cut through the strongest metal—or flesh. You noticed the wound was cauterized...”

  Ming was after bigger fish than weapons of light, but he made a note to have one of his men take the “dragon” back to the ship. Dr. No was still studying the weapon. The half-German-Chinese had recently run afoul of several tongs and only Ming’s own Shin Tan had protected him from the vengeance of the Si Fan and others. With the money he had embezzled from the tongs, and what Ming was paying him, Dr. No had claimed to have purchased an island, a small key near Jamaica, where he planned to mine bat guano while indulging in his scientific curiosity—a brutal but clinical curiosity. Frankly the cold-blooded devil gave even the Yellow Shadow a chill. Still, the irony of Dr. No’s planned self-imposed exile and this island fortress did not escape him.

  “You think our competition is ahead of us?” Dr. No asked, as he reluctantly turned from the dragon weapon.

  “Yes,” replied Ming. “But I doubt they know what they are looking for. They have some vague idea I imagine... The man Saint-Clair is no fool, but since Tadeus knew little, he could give little away, and I doubt the eccentric Professor could tell them much, even if he wanted to. The man can’t remember to match his stockings.”

  Dr. No shrugged. He, too, had been a victim of society’s disdain for the pure intellect. One would think a man such as Ming, a scientist himself, would have more tolerance, but—Well, it hardly mattered. Soon enough, he would have his own little island fortress on Crab Key, well guarded by the mixed blood Chinese, crudely called ‘chigroes,’ whom he had carefully groomed as his servants with rewards weighed against harsh punishment. Once there, he was assured of his privacy. He couldn’t imagine the British would be a problem—they seldom were in Hong Kong. So far, the only drawback involved birds. Birds! The Audubon society thought of Crab Key as some sort of private sanctuary. What nonsense, birds. In any case, he was confident that he could handle any British policeman they might persuade to look into his business. Perhaps, he would build his own “dragon” to keep the bird watchers and nosy policemen at bay. One more mobile and less clinical than this one. He was a traditionalist in many ways. Dragons should breathe fire, not beams of light, however deadly.