Doc Savage: Death's Dark Domain (23 page)

NIGHT was falling over the bleak, broken barrenness that was Ultra-Stygia. Long evening
shadows were crawling along the wasteland, like advancing monsters.

Ham addressed Long Tom. He used Mayan, for privacy.

“Earlier, you mentioned that your Egallan captors desired that you work on a defense
against the inexplicable darknesses that have been plaguing this region.”

“Yeah. But they didn’t exactly come out and say that. They were cagey about the whole
thing. ”

“The reasons for that are obvious,” inserted Doc Savage. “Operation of the darkness
device has no doubt incited terror within Ultra-Stygia. And the Egallans would not
wish to admit that it failed to fall into their hands after Baron Karl acquired it.”

“I could tell that they were confused on that score,” said Long Tom, still speaking
in Mayan. “I got the idea they weren’t quite sure who had it. But they called him—or
it—the Dark Devil.”

Doc nodded. “Someone appears to have been tinkering with the device,” he said. “When
it was turned on us during our entry into the region, its range appeared to be several
miles. It had not that capacity when it was first stolen.”

“Well, whoever has it sure knows how to use it,” said Monk. “My peepers are still
achin’ from that last dose of blindness.”

Ham added, “I wonder how the darkness ties in with the devilish music we heard over
Ultra-Stygia? They seemed to go together.”

“What language is this?” Fiana suddenly demanded. “Why are you speaking this way?”

“We are wondering about that infernal music we keep encountering,” Ham mused, switching
back to English.

Fiana fell silent. It was clear that her firmly sealed lips meant that she knew more
than she was willing to say.

“What can you offer to shed light on that mystery?” Doc asked steadily.

“I have nothing to say.”

“You have no loyalty to give any longer,” Doc Savage pointed out.

She shook her dark-haired head firmly. “That is for me to decide.”

Turning her face to the window, Fiana Drost stared out at the rising moon, ebony orbs
bleak, and fell to studying the cloud scud.

THEY flew along for a time, no one speaking, when Doc Savage noticed something in
the sky to the west.

A shadowy shape was gliding along, an indistinct black harpy of a thing silhouetted
against the moon rising up between two sharp mountain peaks.

Doc Savage spoke up. “Monk.”

“What is it?”

“Train your binoculars on that object yonder. Ham, get on the radio and listen.”

Ham replied, “Sure. For what?”

“Anything.”

Monk grabbed field glasses and trained them on the spot where Doc Savage indicated.
His low brow beetled in perplexity.

“Where is it?” he grunted.

“Look for two glowing red spots,” apprised Doc.

“Red—?”  Then Monk saw it. “Blazes! It looks like a bat fresh out of Hades!”

“Describe it,” Doc requested.

“Big as a barn, maybe bigger. I see black wings, a head. It’s got fox ears and a ratty
snout. The eyes look like coals burnin’ to beat the band.”

From the radio cubicle, Ham Brooks called, “Listen to this.”

He yanked out the jack that connected his headset to the receiver. Over the cabin
loudspeaker came the undisciplined music they had come to know—eerie, wild in its
cadences, uncanny in its effect upon the nerves.

Doc said, “Ham, see if you can locate the spot from which this transmission is coming.”

“Righto,” said Ham, engaging a loop antenna, which connected to the ship’s direction
finder.

“Let me do that!” snapped Long Tom, rushing up to the radio cubby. “This is my specialty.”

The dapper lawyer surrendered this seat. Long Tom began spinning knobs with practiced
fingers. Changing wave coils, he began tuning his way through the spitting carrier
waves he encountered on the band.

In the cockpit, Monk was describing what he saw.

“It’s a bat. A big leather-winged bat,” he decided.

“Take the controls,” instructed Doc.

Monk did, handing over the binoculars to the bronze man.

Doc Savage trained them on the darksome apparition.

“What do you see?” asked Ham, leaning his head into the control cabin.

“It appears to be a monster bat as large as a small aircraft.”

“Bats never grow that big!” snapped Ham tartly.

“I don’t think that this is an ordinary bat,” offered Monk. “It’s got eyes just like
the portholes of Hades.”

Ham Brooks turned to accost Fiana Drost, sitting in back.

“What do you now about this?” he demanded.

“It has begun,” said Fiana dully.

“What has?”

“The opening of the doors of Hell. The Dark Devil is loose upon the world.”

“You might explain what you mean,” suggested Doc Savage.

“I refuse to do so!”

Ham Brooks interjected, “You probably know Doc Savage has means of making you talk.
Truth serum is only one of them.”

Fiana Drost sneered, “Precious good his truth serum will do the bronze one.”

“It’s potent stuff,” warned Monk.

Fiana cast a cold eye upon the hairy chemist. “It works through the bloodstream, does
it not?”

Monk met her unfathomable regard. “Yeah. So what?”

“So it cannot have any effect upon me.” Fiana drew in a great shaky breath. “I no
longer have any blood running in my veins.”

“Anyone can see that,” said Long Tom flatly.

GRIPPING THE CONTROL yoke, Doc Savage sent the mighty amphibian into a sharp, stomach-wrenching
turn. The shadowy harpy of a thing became framed in the windscreen.

Monk asked, “Gonna chase it, Doc?”

The bronze man nodded. His flake-gold eyes were very active now.

From the radio cubicle, Long Tom reported, “I think I have a fix on the location where
the mad melody originates. Due north of here.”

“From Egallah?”

“Egallah—or the part of Ultra-Sygia that borders Egallah.”

“Same difference,” suggested Monk, training his binoculars on the bat-winged thing
skimming silently along over the bare, broken treetops.

Doc Savage set the nose of his bronze bird on a point just in front of the bat’s flight
path and gave the twin radials all the power he could. The amphibian lunged ahead,
propellers screaming. The cabin shook under the strain.

It became obvious that Doc Savage was attempting to intercept the ebony-winged bat
with the burning orbs.

“You will never catch it,” said Fiana coldly.

“You ain’t seen Doc jockey a bus like this around,” Monk retorted confidently.

But Fiana Drost proved to be prescient.

Doc’s plane continued to gain speed and looked to slam down just ahead of the gliding
thing.

Abruptly, the bat executed a maneuver that smacked of a living creature, and nothing
else. It suddenly began rising in a way that was supernatural. Straight up.

“Lookit!” exploded Monk.

“I have never seen a hawk do that, much less a bat!” Ham exclaimed.

When Doc’s plane shot into the spot where it would have intercepted the mammoth bat,
the apparition was no longer there. Instead, the thing was winging high above them.

Booting rudder, Doc hauled back on the control yoke. He side-slipped, then stood the
laboring amphibian on one wing briefly. Everyone grabbed for their seats—or anything
solid and handy.

The commotion continued until Doc Savage had once more righted the aircraft, and went
climbing for a look at the evasive winged thing.

As it happened, the bronze man fell in behind it. Doc began gaining on the bat. The
gap closed steadily.

Settling on an altitude and heading which matched their weird quarry, Doc advanced
the throttles again. The engines responded, props clawing air faster.

Ham was training his binoculars on the monster’s tail.

“What does it look like from this vantage?” Doc asked him.

“A bat. Posterior view.”

“Too bad we ain’t got wing-mounted machine guns on this bus,” said Monk grimly. “We
could shoot it down and see what it’s made of.”

In the next instant, they received an inkling of the substance comprising their quarry.

A sudden spatter of jet began coating the windshield. It issued from the bat’s tail.

Doc Savage engaged the wipers. They began rocking back and forth lazily.

But the blades only made the stuff worse. It smeared and ran thickly.

Monk grunted, “What is that goop—India ink?”

Doc Savage increased speed, hoping that air friction would help dispel the sepia stuff.
While it helped somewhat, visibility was becoming a concern.

“We will have to land,” he announced firmly.

“Drat it!” said Ham angrily. “We are almost upon the bally thing.”

Doc glanced out the side windows, saw a patch of scorched and blackened earth that
looked promising and overflew it twice. Handling of the craft was becoming unnerving,
due to the sticky coating on the windshield.

Landing a flying boat on unpaved ground is not an advisable course of action, but
as a defense against infiltrators, the Tazans had leveled this segment of Ultra-Stygia
of standing trees and burnt all other dead growth, grooming the charred remains until
the flat ground resembled a shallow charcoal pit. There were absolutely no rocks or
other obstructions, Doc saw.

Finally, the bronze man decided to attempt a landing.

It went well enough. The amphibian jounced only twice as it bumped along. Long Tom
and Ham were certain that a crackup was inevitable, and braced themselves for a disaster.

But the miraculous skill of Doc Savage brought them to a safe stop. Doc cut the engines
and leaped for the cabin door.

OUTSIDE, the bronze man first inspected the boat-like hull and landing struts. All
looked fine. Had the hull been breached, any future water landing would be out of
the question.

Monk, Ham and Long Tom clambered out next.

Staring upward, they began searching the night sky. Eagle-eyed Ham spotted it first.
He pointed.

“There!”

The great winged monstrosity was sweeping along to the west, a macabre master of the
night sky.

They took turns watching it with the binoculars.

“It’s just scudding along at treetop height,” said Long Tom.

“Look at them eyes!” exploded Monk.

They could see the skeletal crowns of the trees swaying as the black-winged thing
swept by.

“It’s big, all right,” decided Long Tom, getting his first real look at the ebony
apparition.

Suddenly, the thing gave a weird twist and cartwheeled above. Abruptly, fiery red
eyes were glaring at them, coming closer by the minute.

“Quick. Inside!” rapped Doc.

No one questioned the order. The urgency in the bronze man’s voice seized them all,
fixing their attention.

Doc Savage pulled the cabin door shut, locked it.

Everyone rushed to the windows, began craning their heads, trying to get a good look
at the approaching creature.

Great wings passed over them like the shadow of death itself. Their beating made a
great commotion, stirring dead grass and equally dead tree branches farther away.

Only seconds did it linger, then continued on, where they could not follow it because
there were no ports in the rear of the plane permitting viewing.

After a few seconds, Ham Brooks noticed a rank odor.

“What is that stench?”

Monk sniffed, made a face that would have done a bulldog proud. “Blazes! It smells
like brimstone!”

“I detect sulphur, too,” insisted Long Tom.

Everyone grabbed for handkerchiefs to place over noses and mouths to keep out the
horrible stink. Habeas the pig began squealing in fright.

But Doc Savage was already handing out gas masks, for he had scented it first.

They donned these. They were compact devices of the bronze man’s own invention. Consisting
of a nose clip and chemical filter which fitted into the mouth, they were good for
over an hour. There was also a canister-style custom job designed for Habeas Corpus.
Monk fitted the elongated contraption over the shoat’s inquisitive snout.

They got them on, including Fiana Drost, who had become terror stricken.

Long Tom suddenly asked, “What about Page!”

Only then did they remember their largely-invisible passenger. It was not a surprising
thing. For except for his green eyes, Simon Page was hardly noticeable—the hairy man
having divested himself of his borrowed clothing after complaining about the cabin’s
sultry warmth.

Doc Savage felt around the cabin.

“Gone!” he concluded.

Monk squeaked, “Blazes! He musta slipped out when we did, and we forgot to check for
him.”

Doc Savage opened the cabin door and began a reconnaissance of the immediate vicinity,
Monk and Ham following close behind.

The metallic giant immediately spotted fur-fringed footprints, followed them a ways.
There they collapsed into a disturbed blur in the cold dry soil of Ultra-Stygia. The
trail petered out. Careful searching failed to pick up any spoor.

As luck would have it, Ham Brooks was shifting his cane before him, like a blind man.
He encountered something obstructing his path, prodded it and called excitedly.

“Located the beggar!”

The others rushed over. Kneeling, Doc used his hands to feel for a body, encountered
a man-sized bristled form and got his great cabled arms around it. The bronze man
then gave the impression of a man lifting something imaginary.

Bearing the unseen form back to the aircraft cabin, Doc set it in a chair.

“Is he—dead?” asked Fiana quietly.

Doc felt around, encountered what he determined to be the chest, but the thick, coarse
hair defeated his every attempt to detect a beating heart. He transferred his attention
to the limbs and encountered hairy wrists. A thready pulse was detectable.

“Alive,” he pronounced.

“Musta wandered off and gotten knocked out by the fumes,” Monk hazarded.