by Pete Kahle
I looked across to where the big cat was cleaning itself, pretending to be oblivious to its surroundings, as though his mistress and I were unimportant.
“So – when shall we three meet again?” I grunted, unable to resist the quip.
Scathach smiled patiently, like she was indulging a kid. “Well, Mr Nightmare, it won’t be after the hurly-burly, I can assure you of that.”
It was not far off dawn when I rang Rizzie Carter. I knew from his irritable tone – more so than usual – that he’d been on the case of the body in my alley. No sleep for the wicked, I told him. Never mind what he said back.
“Whatever did that to the deceased,” I said, “moved on. I caught up with it and there was a shoot-out. I’d like to have brought the killer in alive, Chief, but you know how these things go.”
“With you, yeah,” he said. “So you blew the jerk apart? Ya been reading too many Ned Killigan yarns. He’s a bad influence.”
“So who was the stiff?” I grinned at my inadvertent choice of words. The corpse left outside my office had been anything but stiff. “My guess is, it was a nobody. A street bum, right?”
“You got it in one. No details. We’ll never know. At least I don’t have to go find his family and give them the bad news. I don’t like it, though, Nick. It’s no way to die, even for a nobody.”
“Well, the killer’s paid for it. I took care of it and had a little improvised cremation. Ashes to ashes and all that stuff. You don’t want to know.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Listen, you have to burn your corpse, too. You hear me?”
The Chief swore and for a couple of minutes he was grumbling like a bear with a whole lot more than a sore head. He knew me and my methods and he also knew the kind of nightmares I invariably got mixed up in. He’d experienced a few of them first hand.
“Do it, Chief. I’ll explain when I see you.”
“What the hell is it, a freakin’ vampire?”
“You don’t believe in vampires.”
“No, we’ve enough monsters in New York without that. Okay, okay, I’ll have the thing burned. I just hope the Mayor don’t get to hear about this.”
I was able to get an audience with Ariadne Carnadine that afternoon. It seemed to me she ran a business empire the size of China, and liked to keep ahead of all the moves, but it was rare that she couldn’t squeeze me in whenever I rang her. As always, she chewed me out for not keeping more regular contact and demanded to know what I’d been doing and why hadn’t I involved her, if it had been dangerous, and if I kept this up she’d have me horse-whipped, and romantic stuff like that.
She was slightly mollified when I gave her a brief résumé of some of the stuff I’d recently been mixed up in. She poured tea – a special ritual we had, and it was getting addictive. I like a slug or three of whisky, but that tea of Ariadne’s was something else.
“So what’s the problem?” she said.
I told her about the Boneless Man and about my trip to see the Lady of the Stones, and that potent magic wand of hers. “It kind of ties a lot of things together,” I told her. “Something’s abroad, something big and very nasty and it’s not going away. It’s hotting up.” She and I had not long messed up the satanic plans of a smooth operator called Lucien de Sangreville, and as a result of that and certain other skirmishes with the powers of darkness, Ariadne and I were for sure down in some little black book, or more likely, a Big Black Book, right at the top of its hit list.
Reluctantly I also told her about the likelihood that the Boneless Men would be looking her up. “Scathach reckons we’ve become too much of a threat.”
“Divide and conquer. I think you’ll find that’ll be their method.” She set her cup down and regarded me with those cool eyes. Mentally, I could imagine her already kitted up in the black Ninja gear she favoured when we went into action, twin swords flashing. Just a little fantasy I liked to indulge in, like every five minutes.
“I know you have a bunch of bodyguards dogging your heels night and day,” I said, and it was a fact, she did employ some tough characters. “But while these punks are creeping around, I’d like to keep close.”
“You need an excuse to keep close?” She got up and came to sit beside me on the sofa, putting a hand on my shoulder and idly twirling my hair. “You don’t think I’m capable of looking after myself?”
“Hell, I know you are, Ariadne. It’s just – this whole thing bothers me.”
She gave me a peck on the cheek and laughed softly. “I know it does. Listen, I need a break from work. My people can survive without me for a few days. What do you say I take you away from all this? You know I have a lodge up in the mountains. The Adirondacks are a bit cold this time of year, but in the lodge we’d be as snug as two bugs in a rug. We can decide on a plan of action.”
“My mother warned me about girls like you.”
“Is that a no?” she said in mock outrage.
I grinned my best idiot’s grin. “Where do I sign up?”
I managed to gulp down the last of the cool mineral water and flopped back into the lush seating. I knew my face would be more than a whiter shade of pale, the sweat still beading on my brow. I do not like flying. I can barely manage to force myself into one of those aerial leviathans they call jet planes, even if my life depends on it. I have been flown by that demonic air ace, Damien Paladin, in the metal bucket he calls a De Havilland-something-or-other, with the world spinning and churning about me like the whole shebang was caught up in a cosmic whirlpool. But zooming up and down like a bumble bee on LSD in a helicopter from New York City to the mountains was about as bad as it got for me.
Ariadne, still mildly amused by my transformation from hard-boiled granite man to pasty-faced, near-puking human wreck, came over and dabbed at my face with a cold flannel. If she told me to relax one more time, I would throw up over her expensive carpet. I didn’t, of course. Mercifully I was starting to ease back on the shivers.
We’d come out here to her mountain lodge without wasting any more time. One of her bodyguards flew the helicopter, and two others sat stoically with us. My guess is if we’d hit a hurricane and turned upside down, they’d have remained stoic. They had Olympic medals in stoic, those guys. Ariadne told me there would be four more who’d gone on ahead to the lodge. Once we got there, they’d all blend into the scenery like Navy SEALS, in spite of their suits. We wouldn’t be disturbed.
Once I was more myself, with a couple of cups of coffee inside me, I started to feel hungry, so I knew I was okay. The lodge was cut into a sloping hillside, surrounded by forest, high up, with a view to die for, not that I had any intention of kicking any buckets. The place had every mod con, with superb furniture, carpets, objects d’art, as well as facilities that would have graced any of the city’s top hotels. After all, the Carnadine dynasty was very, very rich.
Ariadne had spent some time in the kitchen, hell bent on cooking us a meal herself. From the smells emerging from in there, I guessed Craggy MacFury was going to have another rival.
“Seems to me, dear heart, that if we really are going to be under attack from the satanic forces that seem to be amassing, there’s strength in numbers. Even for lone wolves like you. There are a few amazing people we can call on, but we can’t rely on the old brigade. This situation calls for new blood. We need to put together a new fighting unit. A new Vengeance Unlimited.”
She was referring to a bunch of guys who’d operated against evil since way back, but who were now getting pretty long in the tooth. She was right, of course, and I nodded. “So we need five, for the core. You and me makes two. I have an idea who we might enlist. There’s one possible member –”
Ariadne gave me that look that said, I can see right down into your tiny little mind, Stone. You’re not bamboozling me for one minute. “Oh, so the witch lady did make an impression on you, didn’t she?”
“That spear of mortal pain – we could do with that when we have to face off with these Boneless critter
s.”
Her teasing grin changed to something more serious. “I agree. I’ve heard of the Gae Bolg, in legends. I have a feeling it’s no coincidence that you met Scathach. Craggy MacFury engineered that meeting for a reason. Would she join us?”
“I guess. The way she set about that crazy vegetable, I’d say she was more than up for a second helping. She sure turned on the venom. Maybe I missed something about her. It’s a start.”
Ariadne was pacing the carpet now, padding back and forth like a lioness. I watched her, me probably not like a lion, my concentration on recent events in danger of being sidetracked.
“Perhaps,” she said abruptly, “we’ll find out through the actions of our shady opponents. They’ll be trying to destroy anyone they think could band with us. They may be one jump ahead of us. You look uncomfortable. Something you haven’t told me?”
She had a way of reaching deep inside me, to places I’d kept shut away for a long time. Since Martha had died. Died in a cruel car crash, with me driving the machine. Me surviving, Martha dying. For years I’d believed it was my fault, my reckless driving that had killed the one woman I’d ever loved. Then I’d learned the truth – I’d been drugged. My nemesis, a sharp operator called Erik van Brazen, had set me up, letting me think I was rescuing Martha from his grip and making a mad dash for freedom with her. Like a mug, I bought the whole packet and drove Martha to her death, just like the bastard planned it. I was supposed to have snuffed it too. It was the one thing van Brazen got wrong.
I’d told Ariadne some of it, reluctantly. Now, the last thing I wanted was to risk her safety on my account. It was a constant fear of mine. She knew it, of course, and harangued me for it.
“There’s something about Vengeance Unlimited,” I said. “The original team operated under their own rules. One of which was, no romantic involvements. It would compromise the team. Make them emotionally vulnerable, that kind of thing. You know what happened.” Two of the members of the team had been secret lovers and it had led to near-disastrous complications.
Ariadne sat with me and leaned very close. “Listen, tough guy, I know you’re thinking about my skin and I like that. I’d be hurt if you didn’t. But I’m not a china doll, Nick. I can handle myself.”
I kissed her gently. “I know.” I also knew that the things we were taking on would use us against each other and against any allies we had. It was an old, old story. One other thing I knew: it was too late to go back. I was in deep and Ariadne hadn’t brought me out here to play cards all night.
She got up and went to the kitchen. She knew when to push me for information and when to ease back. “Anyway, you go and have a shower and I’ll get the food ready. We’ve got all day tomorrow to work something out.”
I took a shower, luxuriating in the jets of hot water and the steam womb that was the bathroom, driving out the last unnerving residue of the helicopter flight. I changed into lighter gear and as I emerged from the sumptuous bedroom and went downstairs, my nose went into overdrive - I could smell an amazing aroma of cooking. Ariadne was right – we could worry about Vengeance Unlimited and all the connotations tomorrow.
Except that she was wrong.
She wasn’t in the lounge, or the kitchen. I called her name, instinctively lowering my voice. Beads of dread already sprang out on my forehead. I’d left my coat draped over one of the sofas, with the two Berettas, so I slipped one from its holster and began searching the lodge. It was larger than I’d realised and it took me some time, padding about softly, to understand that Ariadne was not in here. If she’d gone outside for some reason, she wasn’t dressed for it – her own coat was hanging up, along with her scarf, and the bag with her own special kit, the Ninja gear as well as her swords, was below it.
I checked in the bag. One of the swords was missing, but the Ninja clothing was there. I decided against slipping out of the front door – I’d be an easy target if someone was out there. There was a side door from the kitchen. I went in there and switched off the electrics before the food started to spoil. I put my coat on and ducking low, went outside into the late afternoon, where the sun was just starting to drop into the distant forest horizon.
It was cold out here, high up in the forest. I listened, but couldn’t hear much other than what I took to be forest sounds. I’m a city boy and I was conscious this was not my natural environment. Moving around the edge of the lodge, past the shrubs and lawns, all of which had been kept in immaculate condition by invisible staff, I saw the first evidence of trouble. Across one lawn, a corpse, one of the bodyguards, was kind of strewn, its
head missing. I eased over to the mess. The head had been sliced off and there it was, further away, a smashed pumpkin, dripping orange gunk. Beside it lay Ariadne’s missing sword, which had obviously been responsible for the ghoulish decapitation.
What bothered me most was that the bodyguard must have been absorbed by another of the Boneless Men. We’d come all this way, yet they’d followed us. My reluctant guess was, there must be others. So where was Ariadne?
I picked up the sword and started back across the lawn. Something shifted in the nearby forest edge and I dived for the ground, rolled over and loosed off a couple of rounds. I’d fired deliberately high, in case it was Ariadne in there, but I saw I’d flushed out another of the bodyguards. With his own gun in hand, he came for me, his first shot zinging over my head as I did another roll and this time I let him have a head shot. When people shoot at me, I shoot back and I don’t aim to wing them.
I hadn’t lost my touch, and the guy’s head exploded like a melon being thumped with a baseball bat – well, make that a pumpkin. He’d also been infested. I had to assume that the others had suffered the same indignity. There’d been seven of them. My basic maths told me that left another five. I didn’t have long to wait to find out where the next one was. He wasn’t stopping for a polite conversation either. He just came out from around the side of the house, gun blazing and this time I hit him in the gut. Not a nice way to kill a guy, it’s slow and very painful, as I knew well enough from past fire fights, but I needed information about Ariadne and I was in no mood to be merciful.
The guy crashed to the ground, his gun flying across the grass. On my way over to him, I picked it up – it was a Magnum, a heavy little number – and stuffed it into my belt. I reached the bodyguard and put the tip of Ariadne’s sword under his chin, lifting his head up. Jeeze, but these Boneless Men were freaks. That head was not exactly a pumpkin, but it was more like one than a human head, the man’s original face, which I’d last seen when he’d been piloting the helicopter, almost unrecognisable, pulled out of shape, its features engorged by the bulging head.
“Where’s Miss Carnadine? We’re a long way from medical help and my guess is it’ll take you a day to cross the line to the last sleep, buddy. Tell me where she is and I’ll make it easy for you.” My Beretta was aimed at his shining forehead. I may as well have been talking to a tree. I wasn’t going to get an answer. Exasperated, I swung Ariadne’s sword in a short, effective arc, and sliced off the head. It jumped into the air and landed on the paved path beside a thick tangle of ferns, where it burst like a bladder full of blackcurrant cordial.
I studied my surroundings, wondering where the next attack would come from. Everything had gone very still and silent. Even the birds had stopped their din, maybe thinking they were next on the list. I was getting very anxious about Ariadne, but there was one ray of hope in this dark affair – the helicopter we’d arrived in was over on its grass pad, untouched since we’d landed. And its companion was likewise parked nearby.
Movement up on the roof had me diving for cover among the lush ferns. For once I was glad of them, even though they were starting to die off for the winter.
“Nice shooting, Roy Rogers,” came a surly growl from above me. I couldn’t see anyone, just a chimney stack. It took me a moment to recognise the voice. Not another bodyguard. What the hell, it was Scathach’s familiar.
“Caliban!
That you, you ugly little runt?” I called.
Sure enough, the gargoyle-like features popped out from around the stack and he glared at me. “Who you calling ugly, Mr Razorface?”
“Razorface?”
“You didn’t even make the back of the queue when they were handing out the good looks,” he snorted, dropping from the eaves on to the grass. He was a weird looking caricature of a man, but I can tell you, I was pleased to see the little hobgoblin.
I laughed softly. “Hey, this look is cool. The ladies like this look. Tall, dark and handsome is out this year. The Razorface look is in.”
“If you say so. Now stop preening yourself and listen to me. We got big problems.”
My amusement melted. “You know what’s going on here?”
“I do. Your girlfriend’s been abducted. Three of the Boneless Men grabbed her and dragged her off into the forest. They won’t do her any harm. Maybe she’ll have a few bruises, that’s all. She didn’t want to go quietly.”
“She’s okay?”
“Yeah, relax. For now, anyhow. They’re takin’ her to the court of the Pumpkin King. He knows you’ll follow. He wants both of you, but let’s not dwell on that. You need help.”
I was like a coiled spring, eager to get on with this. He could see that.
“We can’t stop them takin’ her to him. We need to follow on very carefully. First, you got work to do.” He pointed to one of the bodyguard corpses. “Burn these three and every last trace of them, seeds and all. That or the woods’ll be full of ’em by morning. They breed like maggots.”
Despite his telling me that there was no immediate rush to set off in pursuit of Ariadne, I was impatient as all hell.
“Listen, wise guy,” he said, “the gateway to the Pumpkin King’s realm opens at sunset and dawn. The three bozos you killed have done enough to hold us up so’s we’ll miss the twilight run. Our immediate priority is to clean up here before we leave.”
