by Harold Ward
“You mean,” Jimmy Holm said excitedly, “that I can be made to occupy the body of someone else—that they can occupy my shell at your command?”
Death nodded.
“Not alone that,” he answered. “So strong is my power of concentration that I can remove my own soul, entity—call it what you will—and float through space. When I so desire, I can return and reoccupy my framework. That is why, sooner or later, I believe that I can stave off death. How? Merely by transferring my soul on and on and on. How would you like to live forever, Jimmy—forever with Nina by your side?”
Holm’s jaw dropped.
“I—I do not understand,” he said.
“Look at me!” Doctor Death commanded.
Holm looked up at him. The instant their eyes met, a peculiar feeling came over him. His head swam. He felt himself being drawn apart. He was sinking... sinking... sinking... Down through an endless void he seemed to drop...
He saw himself as in a mirror. He was sitting in a chair. Doctor Death was standing before him...
Something seemed to snap inside his head. For an instant everything was blank. Then he found himself gazing into deep-set orbs of Doctor Death again.
“You see what I can do?” the old man said, chuckling.
“Sometime,” he said, changing the subject abruptly, “I will be hailed as the savior of the world. And you and Nina will go down in history with me.
“But,” he added as an afterthought, “this man, Ricks, is showing a brilliancy beyond my calculations. It will be necessary, I fear, to remove him from my path.”
Jimmy Holm nodded assent.
“Ricks must go,” he echoed.
Chapter XI
The Woman of It
THAT Nina Fererra and Jimmy Holm would fall in love was inevitable, as certain as fate itself. Both were young, susceptible and, thrown together as they were, nothing else could be expected. Wise though he was, skilled in the sciences and the higher arts, the machinations of the chubby little god, like the episode of the scrap of paper left in the wastebasket, was a contingency that Doctor Death had overlooked.
Following the assassination of Professor Munson came a long period of inactivity on the part of Death. For days at a time he locked himself in his room, holding converse with nobody, brooding in moody silence. He had expected this Munson coup to be the final one, believing that it would bring the world groveling at his feet. Instead, came the renewed activity of the police, then Inspector Ricks’ broadcast that he, Doctor Rance Mandarin, was the sinister Doctor Death.
Insane though he undoubtedly was, his mind disordered from too much reasoning, the man was sincere—a fanatic. Like John Brown, he believed that he had a mission—that an All-seeing Creator had sent him to this earth to do certain things and that the mantle of sanctification made it impossible for him to commit a wrong.
And so, brooding, thinking, his mind seemingly in another world, he wandered about by himself, seldom eating, saying little, his eyes wearing a strange, far-away look.
During these periods of inactivity he would spend days and even nights in his gloomy caves, caring for his fungi or, in all probability, communing with the spirits of his strange, weird gods. Jimmy Holm and Nina Fererra were thrown constantly into the company of each other. Occasionally the old man would lay out work for them to do—experiments in the laboratory, the bringing up to date of his notes. But for the most part, he left them to their own devices.
Yet not a word of love was spoken by either of them.
It was one evening when, wearied by a hard day in the laboratory that Nina Fererra, half asleep on the couch, with Holm seated close beside her reading, suddenly sat up with a startled gasp, her lithe body twitching nervously, a strange fear clouding the loveliness of her amber-colored eyes.
“Oh!” she said in a suppressed scream.
“Dreaming?” Holm asked, looking up from his book.
Another shudder rocked her slim figure and, for an instant, she shook as from a chill.
Rising, she seated herself on a stool at the feet of the man she loved.
“Jimmy,” she said shudderingly, “it was a warning. You’ve got to cut it out—leave before it is too late.”
Holm gazed at her wonderingly.
“Leave?” he said quizzically. “I—I don’t understand. What do you mean, Nina?”
For an instant she made no reply, her liquid eyes wearing a strange, far-away look.
“Ricks,” she said in a hushed, awed whisper. “It was of him that I dreamed. He was pursuing you. He caught you. I saw them leading you to the electric chair. I—it was then that I woke up. It was a warning, I tell you.”
“Ricks?” he said questioningly. “The detective? What have I to do with him? The name is strangely familiar, as I told Doctor Death. He said that I once worked for him.”
“You mean then that—that you cannot remember?” she interrupted.
“Nothing. My past is a complete blank. You know that.”
She nodded. Then she leaned forward, her slim, white hands clasping his knee, her face upturned to his.
“You were his assistant—once,” she said. “Death captured you, caused you to forget—made you a traitor to those who fought by your side. Your hands are clean—now. Tomorrow they may not be. Think—think hard. Try to remember.”
HOLM’S face twisted into a troubled frown.
“I seem to have some recollection of a past life,” he said. “Whenever the name of Ricks is mentioned it strikes a responsive chord in my subconscious mind. I have noticed the same strange stirring within me when I read certain things in the papers. Yet, try as I will, I cannot remember.
“From the day, a few weeks ago, that I found myself here, my mind is a blank. He—Death—mentions things to me—things that he says happened in the past—probably to test me. It is as if I were hearing of someone else—some stranger. Even things that happen here—now—I forget them, it seems. I seem to live only a day at a time, knowing nothing of the past and caring naught for the morrow. Really it is a happy condition.”
Her eyes clouded.
“You remember what he wants you to remember and forget that which he wants you to forget,” she said sadly.
Rising, she stepped across to the table and, picking up a cigarette, lighted it with fingers that trembled slightly. Then she pulled up a chair and seated herself again.
“You’ve got to go,” she said with finality. “Death is planning another coup—a coup so monstrous, so gigantic that the whole world will tremble at his name—a thousand times more than they do now. You will be forced to assist him.”
“Doctor Death is a great man,” Holm answered parrot-like. “He is the world’s greatest scientist, the—”
“Bosh!” she snapped. “He is a half-crazed old dotard with the ability to do things that the average man cannot do. I frankly admit his ability as an occultist. But his learning has driven him insane. Can’t you see that? Don’t you understand it?”
He looked at her strangely.
“I—I do not understand,” she said.
“You were a leader in the movement to stop him,” she went on inexorably. “Instead of baiting his career of crime, you fell a victim to his wiles—thanks to me,” she ended bitterly.
Jimmy Holm leaned forward excitedly, his face twitching with emotion.
“You?” he gasped. “Thanks to you! What do you mean?”
“I mean,” she said, speaking distinctly, making every word count, “that I, the tool of Doctor Death, lured you here so that he might use you. I did not know you—then—Jimmy. And, too, my hands are tied as your hands are tied. I could not help myself. Will you forgive me?”
“I have nothing to forgive,” he responded. “I am happy here, Nina, with you and him.”
SHE doubled her little fists in her excitement.
“But you must go! Must, I say. You must tell Ricks everything—everything that you can remember. This thing—this monstrous, awful crime against civilization mu
st be stopped.”
She stopped suddenly and held up her finger for silence.
“He is outside,” she said. “I feel his presence. I am as psychic as he. My power in some ways is greater than his and yet I am his slave.”
Her eyes glistened with tears. She dried them hastily and lighted another cigarette.
The door opened and Doctor Death entered. There was a strange, insane glitter in his eyes and his body trembled feverishly as he faced them.
“My mind is made up,” he exclaimed harshly. “I strike tonight, at midnight, when graveyards yawn and tombs give up their dead. I have given the world fair warning. There are ten more left. They die in a body—die, I tell you, every one of them. The world shall learn that Doctor Death must be obeyed. It will be the final warning. If it has no effect, then I will turn loose every devil at my command. The entire world of science will be wiped out at a single stroke.”
He paced the floor excitedly, his pipe glowing, his whole body tense with suppressed activity.
“I shall have need of both of you!” he snapped. “Hold yourselves in readiness—at the stroke of twelve. Meanwhile, you must rest. As for myself, I have much work yet to do—many preparations to make.”
Whirling on his heel, he strode from the room.
For a moment neither of them spoke. Then Nina leaned forward.
“It must be tonight—of all nights,” she said excitedly. “You must go, Jimmy. Go back and take the leadership again. Fight to throw off this horrible thing that he has placed upon you and resume your place in the world. It is up to you to save the nation—the world.”
Jimmy Holm seized her white fingers in his own big hand.
“And you will go with me,” he said.
She shook her head sadly.
“You—do not understand,” she said in a whisper. “My place is with him. I am tied to him by bonds that death alone can sever. But you—can’t you understand, Jimmy? It’s because I love you that—that I’m asking you to do this—to save yourself?”
Jimmy Holm shook his head. Placing his arm around her slim shoulders he drew her to him. And she did not resist.
“If you stay, I stay,” he said stubbornly.
He pressed his lips to hers.
For a moment she yielded, returning kiss for kiss, embrace for embrace.
“You love me so much?” she said brokenly.
He nodded. Then he kissed her again.
“I love you,” he said hoarsely. “Love you, Nina, as a man has never loved a woman before. I won’t leave you.”
For a moment she nestled to him. Then the same enigmatical smile hovered over her face. She drew away from him.
“We have no time to lose,” she whispered, glancing down at her wrist watch. “It is already past ten. And he will strike, he said, at midnight. My thoughts will be your thoughts for the nonce. My mind will fight against his mind. To a certain extent I can restore this stolen memory of yours—help you to find yourself. But only to a certain point can I go. The rest you must do for yourself. Come!”
Hand in hand, they stole like shadows from the room.
In the white enameled laboratory which Mandarin called his study, he was bending over a test tube, his brow furrowed in thought. Close beside him stood one of the strange, weird living dead men whose master he was.
He did not look up as they passed the door.
Chapter XII
Vassals of Death
INSPECTOR RICKS sitting alone in his office, a half-smoked cigar between his teeth, his eyes closed in meditation, looked up as the door of the outer office crashed open and a man and woman rushed in. He leaped to his feet, his eyes bulging, his huge jaw dropping.
“Jimmy Holm!” he gasped. “Am I seeing a ghost? Where have you been? We imagined that you were dead—wiped out like the rest of them. We—”
“I’ve no time for explanations!” Holm snapped. “He—Death—strikes tonight—at midnight. It will be wholesale slaughter—a massacre!”
“God! We must stop him!”
Ricks’ fingers leaped to the row of buttons on his desk—the buttons that would summon a small army to his aid. A small hand was laid on his arm, restraining him.
“Wait!” she snapped. “What is your plan?”
“Call out the reserves,” he snapped. “I’ll put all of these men under guard—”
“As you guarded Munson.”
“Humph!” Ricks growled. “Why rub it in?”
“To call your men would be useless,” she went on. “Ordinary methods will not do in fighting this man. There are other things. You have a list of those he has sent threatening letters to. Put your men to calling them. Center upon a church and have them come to it. Have it open so that they can get as close to the altar as possible—”
“Who are you?” Ricks questioned, half angrily. “You appear to give orders rather freely.”
“I am Nina Fererra,” she answered.
“Nina Fererra!”
He took a step forward. “Then I arrest you—”
“Cut out the foolishness, Inspector,” Holm snarled. “Miss Fererra is here to help us.”
“But she is wanted. There is a warrant for her arrest—”
“All right,” the girl said wearily. “That can come in good time. Our task now is to save these men.” She glanced down at her wrist watch. “We have less than half an hour left. Some of them are probably a long distance away from any sacred place. Don’t you—won’t you understand that you are dealing with a power greater than that of any human?”
For an instant Ricks was nonplussed. He dropped into a chair, motioning the others to do likewise.
“I—I have had enough experience with this devil who calls himself Death to realize the truth of your remarks,” he said slowly. “Yet, at the same time—”
He stopped and gazed at Holm quizzically.
“Explain yourself!” he commanded.
“You are Inspector Ricks, are you not?” Holm asked.
The Inspector looked at him savagely.
“You know damned well that I am,” he snarled. “Why ask such a question?”
“Because,” Holm answered, “I am not sure whether I am Jimmy Holm or someone else. I have no recollection of you, although there is a vague, familiar look about you. Your name is on the door. They say I worked for you. If so, from the moment I left this office a few weeks ago, my memory ceased—thanks to the machinations of this man who calls himself Death—”
“Doctor Rance Mandarin,” Ricks interrupted.
“Doctor Rance Mandarin,” Jimmy acquiesced. “He threw me into a condition of amnesia—dulling my brain so that I knew nothing and know nothing now save what he has allowed me to know. This girl, his assistant once—but no more, thank God!—came to my rescue. To a certain extent her thoughts are my thoughts. She has never seen you, so she cannot be certain that you are Inspector Ricks.”
“Well, I’m damned!” Ricks ejaculated.
“It was she who pleaded with me, asking me to come to you, not only to save myself from becoming more deeply involved, but to prevent the wholesale slaughter of the nation’s brainiest men—”
RICKS gazed at Nina Fererra quizzically.
“Thanks, young lady,” he said briefly. “Perhaps I was a bit abrupt. But I’m a common, everyday policeman. This occult stuff has got me beat. I’m much obliged to you for bringing Jimmy back—although the story would have sounded like hooey to me a few months before—until I ran afoul of this rascal who calls himself Doctor Death.”
“For God’s sake, listen to me!” Nina Fererra interrupted.
Ricks nodded.
“You can’t hurry a policeman,” he said.
“Now what’s this about churches and the like?”
“You must get them into some sacred place—immediately,” Nina Fererra said breathlessly, driving home her words with her slim forefinger. “Remember, here is no ordinary mortal, but a devil incarnate—a man who believes that he has a mission and who will leav
e no stone unturned to carry it out. Tonight—at midnight—all the forces at his command will be turned loose. The fiends of hell will be unleashed. Get them—these condemned men—get them, I say, into churches, as close to the altar as possible.
“Summon every churchman—every preacher, every priest, every rabbi—that you can find on this short notice. Put a dozen—a hundred men—to telephoning if possible. Have these holy men surround the condemned, crucifixes in hand, throwing the protection of God’s mantle over them. Let them pray in unison. They will be surrounded by evil on all sides. Warn them that, whatever they see, they—these men of God—need have no fear. Death’s fiends will not touch them. But you must move fast.”
Ricks jerked the telephone receiver from the hook and roared his commands into the mouthpiece.
“St. John’s church!” the girl said, a sudden thought coming to her. “I remember that there is a splinter from the true cross there. Have them gather there. That holy relic will help and every bit of assistance that can be secured will be needed.”
Ricks nodded and continued issuing his commands. The task completed, he turned to the girl again.
“Hamilton and Munz?” he said. “Both of them live too far away to get here in time.”
For a second she thought deeply, her shapely white teeth biting into her lower lip.
“There is only one thing for them to do,” she said, her face paling. “Let them get to sanctified ground and stay there until daylight comes. I doubt if even that will save them, but it may help to a certain extent.”
His work completed, Ricks dropped back into his chair again and mopped the perspiration from his steaming face.
“You? You will go with us?”
Jimmy Holm looked at Nina Fererra.
“If you so desire,” she said in answer, to his unspoken question. “In fact, it would be my wish. I have no fear for myself. But Jimmy—Doctor Death is liable to wreak his vengeance on him. He, too, must be given a place in safety. He means more to me than all the others combined. Remember, Inspector, that Jimmy is still under the sinister influence of this weird man. He must be restrained—kept in a place of security at any cost until the storm has passed. Let that be a part of my bargain with you.”