The Chicago Tribune and its formidable proprietor Colonel McCormack were a constant problem for Big Bill Thompson. However many inspirational speeches Thompson made, Tribune editorials continued to harp on the uncomfortable and unacceptable facts. Over five hundred gangland murders in the past ten years - without one conviction. Hundreds of speakeasies, liquor joints, bars and brothels flourishing all over Chicago and its suburbs. Above all, the constant stream of bootleg money, corrupting the police, the legal system and the politicians alike.
"I don't know," said McSwiggin at last. "Al hates all this gun stuff, says it's bad for business. But he's no push-over and he's got a temper, even if he keeps it in check. They give him too much grief, there'll be blood running in the gutters."
Big Bill Thompson shuddered.
"What about this fella Doc?" asked Reilly.
Thompson shrugged. "What about him?"
"I hear he was having lunch with Capone when the Hawthorne got shot up. Where does he stand in all this?"
"How the hell should I know?"
"I thought he was a friend of your honour's?"
Thompson shook his head.. "Don't know a thing about him. I got an anonymous campaign contribution. The note with it said it came from a friend of Doc's. Said there'd be more where that came from if Doc was allowed to open up his place and operate in peace."
"Would you mind if I was after closing him down, and maybe hauling him in for a little chat?"
Thompson thought for a moment, and then shook his head.
"Let's not do anything rash, Dennis. If this Doc's got connections, I don't want them mad at me - I've got enough enemies as it is. Besides, it was a pretty big contribution."
"Something about that wee feller makes me uncomfortable," said Reilly. "He's too damn sure of himself. And he's got this girl Ace that can shoot the eyes out of a fly, so they tell me. And Dekker's tied in with them as well'"
"Forget about Doc," said Thompson impatiently. "What's another speakeasy more or less? It's this feud between Capone and Moran's boys that worries me."
He put his big hands on the desk and leaned forward.
"Talk to these guys, both of you. Tell them to keep things peaceful. If they don't I'll launch a police crackdown that'll put them all out of business. Remember, I've got the Tribune looking over my shoulder. And if it's me or them, it's gonna be them."
Thompson stood up. The meeting was at an end. Hurriedly draining their glasses, Reilly and McSwiggin got up and said their goodbyes.
"I'm relying on you, boys," called Thompson as they went out. He slumped wearily behind his desk, thinking about the coming Presidential elections. If the gangster situation in Chicago erupted into a major scandal he wouldn't even win the nomination, let alone the presidency. Capone himself would stand a better chance.
One of his political aides entered, a tall, thin, elegant looking man. He was carrying a newspaper.
"Yeah, what is it?" growled Thompson.
"The Tribune's bringing out a special edition, sir. I managed to get an advance copy, I thought you ought to see it." He spread a sheet of newspaper on Thompson's desk. The thick black ink of the lettering on the giant headline was still wet. The front page of the paper was filled with a big picture of the bullet-shattered facade of the Hawthorne Restaurant. The headline above the picture said: THIS IS WAR.
Thompson glanced at the article below the headline. It began: Gang war rages unchecked in Chicago, while a corrupt and inefficient civic administration stands helplessly by. When will Mayor Thompson act?
Thompson winced and averted his eyes.
"You had the right idea earlier," murmured the aide.
"I did? And what idea was that."
"Mobilize the police and crack down on these gangster scum."
"What's the use of that? They own the judges in this town, they bribe or terrify the juries. We can never convict anyone."
"Then kill them all," whispered the compelling voice. "Shoot them down like dogs."
"Are you crazy? Do you know how many killers the mobs can call on? Capone alone must have a thousand hoods on the payroll. All of them armed to the teeth. They've got Thompsons, carbines, shotguns, revolvers ... It'd be a blood-bath!"
"The police have guns as well. When it's all over, you'll be a hero. The man who cleaned up Chicago."
As the shadows began to gather in his office Mayor Thompson's ears were filled with the harsh staccato chatter of tommy-guns. He saw the bodies of his enemies, twisting and falling in a hail of bullets.
The sound faded and he saw himself taking the Oath of Office on the White House lawn.
The tall thin aide stood over him in the gloom. Just for a second, the eyes of the aide showed a glint of red.
9 THE MEETING
Ivo looked round the crowded inn. All the men of the village were there, and as many of those from the outlying farms as they'd been able to reach. Everyone, from grandfathers stooped from a life of toil to boys just big enough to carry a hoe. They stood around the hall in little groups, talking quietly.
Lady Bernice, the stranger, sat beside him at the head of the table. She'd been badly shaken when he'd found her in the forest, but she'd recovered quickly. Now, after food, drink and rest she was herself again.
Ivo found himself thinking of two other strangers, the tall curly-haired man and the small slim woman. Their coming had meant the end of the Old Times. The end of fear. Ivo clenched his great fists on the wooden table, remembering. They had lived with fear in those days, from the time they rose at dawn to toil in the fields till the moment they closed their eyes in exhausted sleep. Fear that their children would be taken at the Time of Selection. Fear of the undying Lords who ruled in the Tower. Now the fear was back.
"But not for long," vowed Ivo to himself. He had lost his son long ago at the Time of Selection. His wife Marta had died soon after, worn out by grief and a lifetime of toil. He wasn't going to let her suffering go for nothing. This time they would act, before the evil grew too strong.
Ivo raised his voice in a deep-chested bellow that bludgeoned through all the chatter. "Friends! Your attention, please! If you will gather round..."
Slowly the crowd gathered round Ivo's table, some sitting, some perched on tables nearby.
Ivo spoke again. "This morning my serving-maid Gerda didn't come to work. I thought little of it, it's happened before. She has a lover on one of the farms."
"Gerda's got a lover on all the farms!" shouted a fat farmer.
"I thought Gerda would turn up during the morning," Ivo went on. "But she didn't. I waited till near evening and went to her mother's cottage. Her mother said she'd gone out to gather berries in the woods the evening before and hadn't come back. Like me, she thought Gerda had found company for the night and gone straight to the inn next morning. So I went to the woods to look for her, and instead found the Lady Bernice, a guest at my inn." He turned to Bernice. "My Lady?"
Bernice looked round the group of villagers. They all looked puzzled and some looked distinctly hostile.
"You don't know me, and I don't know you," she began. "I came here from - from far away, to study your history. Tonight I paid a visit to the Tower..."
Briefly she told them what had happened after that. When she finished her account there was a stunned and horrified silence. "The one who attacked you," said the fat farmer hoarsely. "You're sure it was Zargo?"
"All I can say is that he looked like the picture in the Tower."
"And the woman, the one who warned you to go away. Was that Camilla?"
"I can't be sure, but I don't think so. She was dressed differently, she didn't look anything like the portrait and she seemed - well, human."
A babble of voices filled the hall. The voiices were excited and fearful. Some of them were angry.
The fat farmer, who seemed to be some kind of ringleader, shouted, "Why should we believe all this?"
"Why should I lie to you?"
"We don't even know for sure that Gerda's dead.
And if she is, maybe it was you who killed her! There was no trouble here till you arrived!"
The crowd pressed menacingly closer.
They're frightened, thought Ivo. And they're getting out of hand. Standing up, he raised his voice in a commanding bellow: "Quiet, all of you!" He glared down at the fat farmer. "And you, Tubar, that's enough. The Lady Bernice is our friend, and I vouch for her. She's brought us a warning at the risk of her life. Now it's up to us to act on it."
"Act how?" asked a young farmer called Lothar.
"By going to the Tower and rooting out this evil. If the Old Lords have returned, we shall destroy them once again!"
It took quite a while before everything was decided. Still, that's democracy for you, thought Bernice, sitting silent amidst the chattering crowd. She remembered the Doctor quoting some old mate of his called Winnie - whoever she was. What was it? "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."
Meanwhile the debate raged on. There was a strong party, led by the ever-talkative Tubar, in favour of waiting till morning, but Ivo would have none of it.
"We cannot afford a moment's delay," he boomed. "Who knows how long this evil has been growing in secret? We must crush it now, before it grows even stronger."
In the end Ivo had his way. It was agreed that a group of the youngest and strongest men should go at once to the Tower. The very young and the very old would either stay in the village or return to their farms.
"I knew they'd come round," said Ivo aside to Bernice. "They're good men, but they're frightened."
"That Tubar wasn't much help."
"He's jealous. Wants to replace me as headman one day."
"And will he?"
"Not if I know anything about it. I've already picked the one to take over, young Lothar. Cautious but steady, he is."
"What about weapons?" asked Bernice. "I've got a blaster I can bring along."
Ivo looked surprised. "You surely don't mean to come with us, my Lady? The danger -"
"I surely do," said Bernice firmly. "And I don't want any of your medieval male chauvinism either. Now, what about these weapons?"
"We've got a few old swords and spears, stuff we took from the Guards in the old days. A couple of crossbows. They're kept in my store-room."
"Better get them handed out," said Bernice. "We'll need torches too, the more light the better. And a sharpened stake."
"A stake, my Lady?"
"To hammer through the thing's heart, if we catch it. Come to that, there may be more than one of them. Better bring lots of stakes and sledgehammers as well."
Ivo nodded. "Anything more, my Lady?"
Bernice struggled to remember the vampire lore she'd gathered from old horror holovids. "Bring some axes so we can cut off its head. We'd better expose the body to direct sunlight ... And if all that doesn't work we'll just have to put salt on its tail."
Finally the little expedition set off. Its members were loaded down with axes, swords, spears, sharpened stakes and sledgehammers. In addition, each man carried a blazing torch. The torches were made from bundles of rags tied to the top of wooden poles and dipped in a mixture of oil and tar. They blazed merrily as the line of men, Bernice and Ivo at the head, marched down the village street. The fiery light of the torches flickered on the little huts where frightened women and children and old folk huddled, waiting for the dawn.
It was even darker in the woods, and they were glad of the torchlight. Disturbed by the noise and the light, bats rose in chittering clouds and swirled about their heads. Men lashed out at them with the blazing torches, driving them away.
Soon, all too soon for Bernice despite her brave words, they had crossed the stretch of open wasteland and arrived at the Tower. Its door stood open.
Bernice turned to Ivo. "That door closed behind me when I went in. Someone's come out, or gone in, since then."
Ivo raised his torch. "Follow me - and stay close. If we are attacked, try to behead the creature or drive a stake through its heart."
"Or both!" said Bernice.
"Come!" said Ivo. He strode through the open doors and the rest of them followed. By the light of the blazing torches they retraced Bernice's journey. They climbed the staircase to the throne room and saw the rotting tapestries and the decaying, empty thrones. Behind the thrones the wall was bare. "The portrait," whispered Bernice. "It's gone!"
At Ivo's direction they searched the other rooms, the ones Bernice hadn't entered. More state rooms, living quarters, kitchens, store-rooms: all reeked of decay and all were empty and silent, though occasionally small rat-like creatures scurried away at their approach. They searched the upper levels of the Tower and even the scout ship turrets, but there was nothing to be found.
Finally they descended the ladder to the stripped engine room with its metal racks. Bernice was following No and she had to force herself to look as his torch lit up the chamber. But there was nothing there. The girl's body had gone.
Everyone looked at Bernice. Taking a torch from the nearest man, she went over to the place where the body had been hanging.
"Look! There are a few spots of blood, here and here! And there are traces of dried blood in the gutter. Someone tried to clean up, but they were in too much of a hurry to do a good job."
Ivo, Tubar, Lothar and the others came to join her.
"The blood is old," said Tubar sceptically.
Bernice wet her finger, rubbed one of the blood spots and held the finger up to the torchlight. The tip was red with blood.
"Yes, hours old," she said. "Not years and years."
"Why would anyone move the girl's body?"
"So you'd all do exactly what you are doing," said Bernice. "Think I'd made the whole thing up and there wasn't any danger."
"Gerda is missing," said Lothar slowly.
"That's right. And I can promise you she isn't going to turn up in any farm-boy's bed either."
"We have found nothing," said Tubar angrily.
"The Tower is large," said Ivo. "Can we be sure to have searched every hidden cranny? The creature that attacked Lady Bernice might still lie concealed. We should go now and return to search by daylight."
"We should certainly go," grumbled Tubar. "And I won't be coming back. I've a day's work to do tomorrow, and small time left for sleep."
They filed back up the ladder, went through the throne room, down the staircase and out of the Tower. As they trudged back to the village Bernice was thinking furiously. Why had the body been taken - and the portraits as well? She'd stumbled on something that wasn't meant to be seen, not yet. Now someone, or something, was covering its tracks.
They were out of the woods by now - the bats had been strangely silent - and on the outskirts of the village. They'd reached the point where the main street of the village and the road that bordered the fields met at a crossroads.
In the centre of that crossroads lay a huddled body.
Bernice's first thought was that they'd found the missing girl, but as she ran towards it she saw that the shape was black, not white. It was one of the Black Guards, lying face down in the dust of the crossroads.
Ivo came up beside her and helped her to turn the body over. The face of the young soldier stared blindly up at them. His throat had been slit open, almost severing the head, and the skin of the face was a deathly white.
Bernice pushed back the sleeve of the man's tunic. The skin of the arm had the same dead whiteness. The body had been completely drained of blood.
Suddenly they heard the sound of pounding hooves. A patrol of the Black Guard was galloping down the road towards them. As it drew nearer, Bernice saw it was the same patrol that had visited the inn earlier. At least, it had the same Captain, the arrogant young man called Varis.
He reined his horse to a halt a few feet away from them and leaped to the ground shouting, "Surround them!" The rest of the horsemen formed themselves into a ring, imprisoning the men on the ground.
Varis knelt beside the body, peering into the white face. "Tolar!" He straightened up, his hand going to his sword. "You murdering scum!" There was an angry growl from the ring of mounted men.
"This is none of our work," said Ivo grimly.
With a harsh whispering of steel the sword was in Varis's hand, its point at Ivo's throat. "No? One of my men goes missing on patrol, and I find him with his throat slit, surrounded by a rabble of armed peasants who've been wandering the woods at night. It seems to me there might just possibly be a connection."
Ivo didn't budge. "We found him here moments before you arrived."
"Look at the body," said Bernice. "It's been drained of blood."
"So?"
"Use your eyes, Captain. There's no blood on the ground around him. It ought to be soaked. He was killed somewhere else and dumped here to make trouble for the village."
Varis ignored her, pressing the sword into Ivo's throat until a drop of blood welled at its point. "I'll show more mercy than you deserve. Give me the men who did the actual killing. I'll hang them here and now and let the rest of you live."
Ivo didn't move or speak.
"Give me the killers," shrieked Varis. "Or I swear I'll let my men slaughter the lot of you like the pigs you are."
Eagerly the mounted men pressed forwards. Suddenly Ivo's right arm swept upwards. His staff struck Varis's sword with terrific force, sending it flying through the air.
"Form square!" bellowed Ivo.
The villagers moved back-to-back to form a rough square: a square which bristled with pikes, axes and swords.
Trapped at the centre of the hollow square, Varis grabbed for the dagger in his belt - and froze when the cold metal of Bernice's blaster touched his ear.
Ivo raised his voice. "You're dealing with free men here, Captain, not a rabble of frightened farmers. We've beaten the Black Guard before, and we outnumber you. We won't be the ones who get slaughtered."
Doctor Who - [New Adventure 29] - [Vampire Trilogy 2] - Blood Harvest Page 7
