Doc Savage: Death's Dark Domain (16 page)

“And who is that?” asked Ham.

The captain smiled under his brush mustache.

“I do not wish to spoil the surprise,” he said smoothly.

THE surprise—and it was a very big one—was that once they were thrown into a cell,
they heard a familiar voice call out to them. It came from a cell farther along.

“Monk—Ham, is that you?”

“Long Tom!” hissed Ham.

“You skinny runt! What are you doin’ here?” demanded Monk.

“Search me. I was following a bird named Emile Zirn.”

“We know the guy,” offered Monk. “He tried to contaminate our gas supply in Ireland.
But we got him.”

Ham added, “We brought him as far as Ultra-Stygia, then he bailed out.”

“Got away, huh?”

“Not quite,” said Ham thinly. “Something attacked him in the woods.”

“Wolf or beast?”

“I wish it was either—or both,” said Ham fervently.

Monk growled, “Let’s skip that part, Long Tom. How’d you wind up here?”

“As I was saying, I followed Emile Zirn—”

“Must be a different Emile Zirn,” murmured Ham.

“Will you let me tell it!” snapped Long Tom.

The others fell quiet.

“I followed Emile Zirn to a hotel,” continued Long Tom. “The clerk gave me the runaround,
but I got the better of him. Found the room where Zirn was supposed to be. At the
door, I heard strange music coming from inside.”

“Strange?” said Ham.

“Like the organ music of Hades.”

“We heard some of it, too,” said Monk. “Over our plane radio. It’s spooky-soundin’.”
Pursing his lips, the gorilla-like chemist assayed a few bars of the composition.
“Like that.”

Long Tom nodded. “I heard a similar tune on the liner, as well. Anyway, I was eavesdropping
at the hotel room door and someone slipped up behind me and pushed me into another
room. After that, I found myself in darkness fighting… things.”

“What kind of things?” asked Monk.

“Dark leathery things. They seemed to have wings. They outnumbered me. I couldn’t
fight them all. Before I knew it, I was out cold. When I woke up, I was here. Jugged.”

“Wait a minute! You were knocked out in Pristav, but you woke up here in Egallah?”

“Is that where I am?” Long Tom sounded dazed.

“You must have stumbled upon a nest of Egallan spies operating in Pristav to wind
up here,” suggested Ham.

“Nest is right,” murmured Long Tom. “I don’t think those devils were human.”

“Hmm,” mused Ham. “I imagine you were spirited here.”

“How would I know?” said Long Tom peevishly. “I was dead to the world.”

Monk interjected. “We happened on a woman named Fiana Drost. Name ring a bell?”

“Never heard of her,” admitted Long Tom.

“She stuck Doc with a sedative, then jumped out of our plane. Only she never cracked
her chute.”

“Dead?”

“Last we saw of her,” said the hairy chemist, “she was flappin’ away like a harpy
out of the hot place. Had big bat wings, and all the trimmin’s.”

“I saw the same apparition,” Ham Brooks admitted.

Long Tom made a sound of disgust. “You are describing the leathery things that waylaid
me. It was dark so I could not see them clearly. But when they moved, their arms rustled
like wings.”

“I was afraid you’d say that,” Ham rejoined. “By reputation, this region is the birthplace
of the vampire legends.”

“Feelin’ anemic, Long Tom?” Monk asked carefully.

“Bunk!”

Having ridded himself of that vehement expostulation, the pale electrical wizard was
silent a very long time. They took a few moments to absorb everything they had heard.

After a while, Long Tom thought of something to contribute to the general gloom.

“That is not the worst of it,” he intoned. “I am to be shot at midnight as a spy.”

That statement took only a half second to sink in.

“Midnight?” exploded Monk dubiously.

“Not sunrise?” asked Ham, looking at his wrist watch.

“They do things differently in Egallah,” Long Tom said dryly. “Anyway, I was wearing
a disguise, so they decided I must be a spy.”

“If they plan to shoot you,” Ham said slowly, “it stands to reason that we are slated
for the same fate.”

“There’s nothing reasonable about being stood up against a stone wall and perforated!”
Monk objected.

“I will not argue that point—for once,” returned Ham. “But if they are going to shoot
us without due provocation, or legal justification, what are they going to do with
Doc Savage?”

“Probably put him to work,” said Long Tom.

“Say again?”

“That’s what they tried to get me to do. I wouldn’t play ball, so it’s a blindfold
and a last cigarette for mine.”

“What kind of work?” asked Ham.

“I suspect that it had to do with the darkness-making machine Baron Karl got away
with,” Long Tom said slowly.

Monk grunted, “We know. They turned it on us the minute we flew within range.”

“That’s the funny part of it,” Long Tom said. “I got the idea that these people have
been experiencing unexplained blackouts. So they know something strange is going on,
but they don’t know what’s causing it. They wanted me to devise a protection.”

“That don’t make sense,” Monk muttered.

Ham Brooks broke in. “Sounds as if that Baron Karl has not yet surrendered the device
to his regime.”

“Can you blame him?” Long Tom retorted. “Egallah has experienced a grisly wave of
political killings these last few years. He may need to control it to stay alive.”

“As long as it ain’t the work of that danged John Sunlight,” Monk offered.

Another prolonged silence followed. Mention of the dreaded name of their nemesis,
the arch-devil who had caused all their recent troubles, further suppressed their
spirits.

Monk broke the gloom. “I just noticed something.”

“What is it?” asked Ham.

“That shadow on the wall over there. It looks exactly like a gallows.”

Ham made a gesture as if to whack the simian chemist with his cane, but realized that
he had prudently left his stick back in the plane.

“You would think of something cheerful like that!” he complained.

DOC SAVAGE CAME to returning consciousness, not in the promised hospital ward, but
in an infirmary room of another type of building entirely.

He saw the iron bars. They were very thick. The window was constructed out of blocks
of stone and looked very old, if not ancient.

Doc arose, took stock of his surroundings. The chamber had the appearance of a very
modern hospital room. His head felt all right. He examined his person for damage,
found only some bruising here and there. A bandage had been applied to the puncture
mark on his arm.

Getting out of bed, Doc went to the window and scrutinized his surroundings.

To all appearances, he was in a high room in a stone castle that might have been built
around the time the Huns were sacking Pristav.

A rattle of a doorknob indicated someone about to enter.

Doc moved to the door, set himself at one side.

A doctor entered. His eyes fell on the empty bed. Then he felt great metallic hands
clamp around his throat, stifling any outcry he might vent.

Retaining his chokehold, Doc lowered the man to the stone floor while closing the
door with his foot. His amazing vitality had returned. There was none of the giddiness
of the effects of prolonged sedation.

“Who are you?” asked Doc, in the man’s own language.

“Dr. Bronislaw. At your service.”

“Where is this place?”

“Castle Groava.”

“In Egallah?”

“The very same,” the doctor allowed.

“Where are my men?” asked Doc.

“Under guard. Elsewhere. It is not my station to know.”

Doc Savage placed a reassuring bronze hand on the physician’s shoulder, and performed
a chiropractic maneuver on a nerve center. The man promptly lost consciousness.

Doc caught him and laid the man out on a couch. Harvesting and donning the other’s
white doctor’s smock, Doc cracked open the door and set one golden eye on the corridor
without. He saw military guards. They were armed. They failed to notice him. One yawned
widely; the other followed suit.

The metallic giant went next to the window and tested the bars. They were strong.
But the mortar holding them fast was aged. It crumbled here and there.

Using nothing more than his muscular strength, Doc Savage began twisting the bar that
appeared sunk in the loose mortar. Soon, it began grinding and complaining as he rotated
it in place. With a firm yank, Doc broke it free, tossing it onto the bed where it
made no noise landing.

The second bar proved more stubborn.

Doc felt about his person. He had not been wearing his vest of gadgets, nor his alloy-mesh
union suit undergarment that would normally have protected him from the syringe attack.
Both were too cumbersome to wear during a transatlantic hop, and further represented
significant risks should he have to ditch over open ocean. So Doc lacked many of his
gadgets. But his shoes were beside the bed. He went to them, picked up both. Removing
the heels, he extracted two vials. Uncorking them, he poured their contents on the
second bar. Then the third.

A bubbling hissing commenced. Doc withdrew and covered his mouth and nose with a pillowcase
to protect his lungs from the violent fumes.

He used a pillow—which he vised in one hand—to wrest loose the acid-burned bars and
deposited them on the bed, where they continued smoking malodorously.

Levering himself out, Doc used his finger strength to find purchase. He peered up
and then down. Up looked more promising.

Fingertips digging into cracked and broken mortar, the mighty bronze man ascended
the thick stone wall until he reached the crenellated roof combing. Going over this
was a simple matter.

From this vantage point, Doc could see the air drome some miles distant. An Egallan
flag chattered in the cold wind. There was little other activity visible.

Doc reconnoitered the roof, keeping low, and peered from between the merlons. He quickly
learned that the castle stood on a prominence and that there were any number of ways
down to the ground, provided he was not spotted.

Doc chose the wall that overlooked a number of parked vehicles sitting in a cinder-strewn
patch of ground.

Dropping one leg over the notch between two merlons, Doc began his descent. It was
smooth going. He could climb many New York skyscrapers in just this fashion, and their
surfaces were much smoother, being composed of polished granite with very narrow edges
and inset mortar lines.

These rough stone blocks were like steps. Doc reached the ground without incident.
He eased to the line of motorcars, his feet making almost no noise traversing the
cinders, selected one and tried the door. It opened to his touch.

Slipping behind the wheel, Doc placed a finger on the starter. He hesitated.

Years of training had taught him that escaping tight spots is rarely as easy as it
seemed. This smacked of being too convenient.

Doc hesitated. He ducked behind the wheel lest his giant form be seen.

The parking area stood at the top of an inclined road. That gave Doc an idea. Releasing
the clutch, he exited and gave the machine a flowing shove.

The car began backing out of the space.

Rushing back behind the wheel, he took control, and began steering.

Soon, gravity and momentum were carrying the freewheeling sedan backwards down the
winding road. Doc steered with the help of the rear-vision mirror.

The road wound in such as way it was impossible to know what lay around the next corner.
An oncoming car would prove inconvenient, if not dangerous.

As he maneuvered, his flake-gold eyes ever alert to his surroundings, Doc Savage spotted
activity in one corner of the castle.

A line of soldiers were exiting a side door with what appeared to be a prisoner. They
were led by an officer. Rifles were carried military-style, resting against their
shoulders. The soldiers wore brown uniforms the hue of Missouri mud.

Doc braked, bringing the car to a smooth, noiseless halt.

Something about the prisoner evoked a memory of familiarity.

Doc Savage’s eyesight was unusually acute. It took only a moment for him to ascertain
the identity of the prisoner.

It was Fiana Drost!

ENGAGING the hand brake, Doc left the vehicle at once. Despite what had come before,
he was not about to leave the cold-blooded woman to an unknown fate. Furthermore,
she could be the key to some of the strange things that were happening in this complicated
corner of the Balkans.

Moving low, Doc reached a decorative hedgerow and hunkered down, listening.

It soon became clear that this was a firing squad.

Under command of the officer, Fiana Drost was placed before one of the castle’s outer
walls in the customary manner. She looked resolute, but resigned. Her composed expression
might have been that of one preparing to face eternity.

The officer spoke up.

“You, Drost, have been found guilty of plotting against Egallah!”

The dark-haired woman winced. Her chin lifted in defiance, however.

“And for this you have been sentenced to death. Have you any last words?”

Fiana shook her head. She swallowed hard. Her eyes were hot with pent tears.

A cigarette was offered from a silver case. Fiana refused it without a word.

The obligatory blindfold was tied over her doe-dark eyes. Her hands were already bound
behind her back. Her entire body stiffened.

The order to present arms came. Rifles snapped to brown shoulders.

Doc Savage picked up a rock, hefted it and let fly.

It sailed gracefully over the intervening space and knocked the commanding officer
off his shiny boots. His nose broke when it struck the flagstone courtyard.

Consternation seized the firing squad. A man blew a whistle.

Doc Savage popped up from concealment, letting them have a good look at him. They
obligingly charged in pursuit, cursing fervently in the language of Egallah.