by Harold Ward
Ricks nodded agreement.
“And Doctor Death?” he snapped. “Would not this be the time to get him?”
Nina Fererra smiled.
“It is evident that you do not know Doctor Death in spite of your recent encounter with him,” she said. “Neither you nor your entire command could reach him tonight. A thousand unseen forces will be surrounding him, guarding him at every hand. As well try to capture the devil himself as this sinister being. Later, perhaps, when he is resting and sleeping—for he does rest and sleep like all ordinary men—you may be able to catch him off his guard. But tonight it would be useless.”
“The preachers?” Ricks growled. “What’s the big idea of them? I’d rather trust myself with a single squad of my flatfeet than a regiment of sky pilots.”
Nina Fererra smiled in spite of her anxiety.
“It is apparent that you are not psychic, Inspector Ricks,” she answered. “Perhaps I can illustrate: Giving forth a current of evil and sinking from that current of evil into a state of bestial ignorance, man has enveloped himself in clouds of darkness which provide a dwelling place for these elementals. To disperse these, his own spiritual mind must send forth the light reflected from sources of light—omniscience.
“The average man, intent only upon the pursuit of the almighty dollar, has given little or no attention to this source of light. But the man of God walking with his head in the clouds thinks not of this life, but of the one beyond. Therefore, he is safe from the attacks of the powers of the darkness. And by his holiness he can protect others. Have I made myself clear?”
Ricks shook his head sadly.
“No,” he said bluntly.
“Every evil thought of man passes into another world the instant that it is evolved,” she went on hurriedly. “It becomes an active entity by associating itself with an elemental. Thus Doctor Death, or Rance Mandarin, if you will, has by his power of thought conjured these foul things out of the darkness. It will take the united thoughts of spiritual men—many of them—to ward off the evil which this one man has done. Now do you understand?”
Ricks’ face was a study.
“I—I guess so,” he said finally. “In any event,” he added hastily, looking at his watch, “it’s time to go. You will kindly come along.”
IT was an order rather than a request. The girl nodded. The blank look on Jimmy’s face indicated that he had not yet succeeded in orienting himself to what was transpiring. He was the center of a gigantic plot, one of its working parts, yet so dulled was his intellect for the time being that he failed to recognize it. But Nina Fererra! It was she who ordered, and he knew that he loved her. Therefore, he would obey her commands.
“We must hurry,” she said to Ricks.
He nodded.
Outside the air was split with the shriek of sirens and the howls of horns as the police reserves rushed to the post of action. Ricks’ car was waiting at the door, its motor softly purring. They stepped inside and he gave the order. It glided out onto the smooth pavement and down the street in the wake of the others.
The sky was filled with peculiar clouds—dark, ominous looking, tinged with a greenish-yellow. A feeling of hushed expectancy was in the air.
“The forces of evil are gathering for the battle,” Nina Fererra said with a shudder, glancing up toward the heavens.
“Yeah,” the matter-of-fact Ricks responded. “Looks like a thunderstorm to me.”
Chapter XIII
The Elementals Attack
THE crowd around St. John’s Cathedral was vast—almost terrifying in its size. Thousands of people were packed in the streets surrounding the big church. Curiosity seekers largely, brought to the spot by the police cars, they blocked traffic in every direction. Cars were tied up; after-the-theater crowds poured by the hundreds into the already jammed thoroughfares.
Around the subway kiosks the jam was so great that the people could get neither in nor out. Street cars stood in a solid line for blocks, their clanging bells adding to the noise and confusion. Taxi drivers, stalled, cursed and swore. Police clubbed and fought in an effort to get humanity to moving again.
A spirit of panic hovered over everything—a nervous tension, unexplainable, tense, strained. It was like a great army waiting for the zero hour. The crowd knew not what was coming, but there was a fear—a fear of the unknown.
“What if a fire were to break out now!” whispered one man to another, gazing down from an elevated platform over the heads of the gigantic throng.
“Couldn’t get the apparatus through,” the other answered. “What’s it all about, anyway?”
The other shook his head.
“I wonder, too,” he said.
Inside the great cathedral was all light and color and activity. A midnight mass had just been celebrated. Now, grouped about the altar were half a dozen men—the world’s leaders in science and invention. Churchmen of every denomination stood about them, crucifixes—the badges of their office—held aloft. For the moment theological differences had been forgotten; Protestant, Catholic and Jew had joined hands in an effort to thwart this evil that menaced the nation.
Ricks was the guiding spirit of it all.
He stood in the center of the little group giving his orders like a general on the field of battle. Beside him stood Nina Fererra and Holm. The former made her suggestions in a low voice to the big Inspector. Around them stood a picked squad of men, tall, broad-shouldered—giants all of them. Nina Fererra gazed at them admiringly.
“Husky brutes, eh?” Ricks said with a note of pride. “They would go to hell and back for me.”
“If you filled the church with them they could not prevail against a single one of Doctor Death’s weird monsters,” she answered.
He shrugged his broad shoulders.
“I found that out when they tackled Munson,” he said shortly.
The organ was softly pealing. Upon the altar lay the Missal. Acolytes sprinkled holy water upon the heads of the throng. The air was redolent with the pungent odor of incense. In a niche in which candles burned was a great glass case beneath which was a golden box in which lay a tiny piece of wood—a splinter from the true cross on which the Savior had died.
Bong! Bong! Bong! Bong! Bong! Bong! Bong! Bong! Bong! Bong! Bong! Bong!...
Twelve o’clock! Midnight!
The organ burst into a great swell of music—triumphal music. It ended with a crash as the organist, shrieking, ran out of the loft.
“Something touched me! Something cold! Clammy! It was like the finger of death!” she cried, throwing herself into the midst of the throng of clergy.
There was a shrieking, howling noise. The interior of the church was filled with a great wind. The candles blinked and fluttered. The temperature suddenly changed. Where it had been warm and comfortable, now the place was cold and chill.
An odor of death and decay assailed the nostrils. It was as if a tomb, long closed, had been suddenly opened.
Then the lights went out!
Even the candles were extinguished as a great puff of wind swept through the building. The great cathedral was as dark as a tomb.
“The crosses! Elevate the crosses!” Nina Fererra shrieked.
“The crosses! Elevate the crosses!” Ricks echoed in his booming bass.
The darkness was filled with eyes. They were on all sides. Great glaring eyes—gleaming eyes. They danced and gyrated, burning, it seemed, into the very souls of the brave men who stood protectingly about the little group at the altar.
Came another surge of hate. It was heavy, overpowering. It settled over them, almost stifling them.
Strange wild noises assailed the ears. They came from above, below, from all sides—squeaky, snarling noises. The sound of devils unleashed from the confines of hell.
Then, out of the darkness, came shapes. Sinister shapes, exaggerated, deformed, menacing. Things like shadowy men, faceless, grotesque, bloated, filled with evil. Formless faces out of which gleamed those horrible, m
alignant, glaring eyes filled with unbelievable fury.
From all sides they charged, these sinister things—charged and retreated, charged and retreated, spurred on by the tremendous will of the creature who called himself Doctor Death. With inhuman speed they darted in, snarling, twisting back as they met the great ring of crosses, charging again. Each time they touched a crucifix it flashed forth sparks like two electric wires suddenly meeting.
Time after time they were hurled back—these sinister shapes—only to reform and charge again, squeaking, shrieking—filling the air with their malignancy, ever seeking for a tiny break in the ranks of the men who opposed them.
Then it came!
What happened? Who knows? Someone, weaker than the others, gave way. The ranks of the men of God broke. They fell back toward the altar.
THE sinister things closed in. A fresh surge of malignancy and hate enveloped the defenders. The air was filled with the raucous, triumphal squeaks of the elementals.
“Pray!” Nina Fererra shrieked. “Pray!”
Above the pandemonium her voice rang clear and true:
“Our Father which art in heaven...””
A man’s voice took it up. Then another and another:
“Hallowed be Thy name. Thy Kingdom come. Thy Will be done. On Earth as it is in Heaven.”
The great building rang with the thunder of the voices:
“Gives us each day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses.”
The gleaming eyes were losing their power. The hideous, shapeless bodies were falling back...
“...as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation...”
It was the Lord’s prayer intoned by half a thousand throats now. It roared through the cathedral like a paean of victory.
“...but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.”
Then they were gone. Gone in a rush of malignancy and hate.
The lights came on.
From outside came shrieks! Curses! Groans! Men fought and battled with fist and fang—anything they could lay their hands on—in an effort to escape the surge of hate and malignancy that swept through the doors of the church like the backdraught of a fire. The sky was filled with black, sinister shapes—twisting, whirling, gyrating, malformed things in hideous caricature of human semblance. Their horrible mouthings rang out above the noise and tumult of the crowd. Mob spirit held full sway. The weak went down, crushed beneath the feet of the strong. The groans and shrieks of the wounded filled the air.
Over the wires came the story of another tragedy. The newspapers told it in their stories next day:
HAMILTON AND MUNZ VICTIMS OF SHAPES
Automobile Magnate and Electrical Wizard Caught While Fleeing City.
Onlookers See Black, Formless Thing Settle Over Doomed Men—Bodies Not Yet Recovered.
Ricks, the work of reforming his stalwart battalions ended, returned to his post of duty.
“I imagine, now that the first attack was a failure, that there will be no second one,” he said, puffing heavily from his efforts. “It was a close squeak, though. And you, young lady, saved us. If it hadn’t been for your quickwittedness in starting that prayer, we’d all been goners by this time. Meantime—”
He stopped, his keen eyes gazing from side to side.
“Where did she go?” he demanded of Holm.
The young man looked at him dazedly.
“Go? Nina?” he said.
Ricks bellowed an order and a hasty search was made. But it was of no avail.
Nina Fererra had disappeared.
Where had she gone? Someone remembered seeing her flitting through the crowd packed around the sacristy.
There was every indication that she had left voluntarily. But why?
Chapter XIV
Inside the Wizard’s Lair
THEN hell broke loose. The clouds opened and the floods descended. Forked streaks of lightning split the sombre sky in every quarter; the rumble of thunder was incessant. Throughout the land elementals danced, cavorted and held ghoulish revelry, sweeping down over the nation in the form of hurricanes, cyclones and tornadoes—black, funnel-shaped devils, darker by far than the bleak skies—things with the vague, indistinct forms of men—men with widespread, flopping arms. They screeched and howled, uprooting trees, demolishing buildings, twisting, gyrating, leaving death and destruction in their wake.
And, inside the church, a madman raged. For Jimmy Holm was little better than insane when he found that Nina Fererra was gone.
“We’ve got to find her!” he cried. “We’ve got to find her! Don’t you understand what will happen when that fiend discovers that he was thwarted through her efforts? She did it for me, Ricks—for me. And it’s up to me to save her!”
He had thrown off the lethargy that had marked his demeanor during the earlier part of the battle. Seemingly the hold that Death held over him had passed away and he was his old, normal self again—a fighting male battling for his mate. It came to him now that he loved this woman more than he had even imagined. To visualize her in the power of the aged scientist caused every nerve within him to tingle and come to the surface.
She was calling to him. Through the air came her voice. It beat upon his eardrums as plainly as if she stood by his side.
“Save me, Jimmy! Save me! Save me, Jimmy! Doctor Death is trying to recapture my mind! Help me, Jimmy!”
And Jimmy Holm, hearing that voice, went berserk. It took a dozen men to hold him as he charged at the lines of police and clergy. Ricks, busy handling the tumult within and without the church, yet found time to argue with him.
“There is nothing that you can do now,” he counseled. “With all this confusion—”
“She is with him!” Holm raged. “And I am the only man equipped mentally to cope with him. Give me a squad—even a single man—and I will beard him in his den.”
Ricks pressed him into a chair.
“Sit there!” he roared. “I’ll not be a party to you or any other man committing suicide. When this riot subsides, well go after him—you and I. Not until then.”
Dawn was just breaking in the east when a dozen cars, filled with detectives armed to the teeth, closed in on the deserted house where Professor Rance Mandarin had made his home.
“He told me several times that the cave where he has his den is located beneath this house,” Holm asserted. “I’m certain that I’m right, for I have a vague recollection of this place when Nina and I made our escape last night, although my memory of that mad flight is still somewhat confused. It is only since she disappeared that I have become my normal self again.”
He stopped, his eyes lighting up.
“Her influence against his!” he exclaimed. “She is willing with all the power at her command that I should recover my memory. I sense it—feel it! God bless her; even in trouble, she is with me.”
The great house was in darkness as the officers gathered in, covering every door.
“There is but one exit from the cave, he told me,” Holm assured Ricks.
The plans were already made. The men rushed to their places. Then they charged. Ricks led the assault; it was his big shoulder that smashed in the door. It was he who led the dash through the empty rooms, Holm by his side. They were empty. So far as they could ascertain, things were just as they were on the day the officers had made their last search. Even the wastebasket in which the vagrant scrap of paper had been found, still lay overturned on the floor beside the paper-littered desk.
They spent but little time on the main floor, however. After a perfunctory search, Ricks led the way to the cellar. Revolvers drawn, he and Holm stood in the center of the room while two skilled men, experts on hidden passages and locks, sounded the walls on every side. And, after half an hour’s work, they were compelled to admit themselves baffled.
“We have been foiled again,” Ricks growled.
HE was about to lead the way back upstairs when
Holm suddenly laid a restraining hand on his arm.
“She has been here—lately,” he said tensely. “I—I feel it. Wait.”
For an instant they stood there while the young detective’s keen eyes darted from place to place. Suddenly, with an excited cry, he darted forward.
On the floor, partly hidden behind a pile of boxes and firewood, was a woman’s handkerchief. He held it up to the Inspector’s gaze.
“Look!” he exclaimed.
In the corner was the letter “N.”
“Nina’s!” he said.
“But,” Ricks argued, “that may have been dropped weeks—even months—ago. Living here with him as she did, she had the run of the house naturally.”
Holm’s face was drawn with excitement.
“The place is covered with dust,” he said excitedly. “There is dust everywhere except on the floor. Isn’t it probable that if it gathered elsewhere some of it would settle on the floor—the most logical place of all? And, too, there is no dust or dirt of any kind, on this handkerchief. If it had been here any length of time, it, too, would have gathered an accumulation of dirt. Note the top of these boxes, a thin coating everywhere.”
Ricks let the beam of his flashlight play over the empty cartons.
“By George! You’re right!” be exclaimed.
“And, too,” Holm continued, “the odor of the strange, exotic perfume she uses still lingers on this bit of lace. Would such be the case had it been laying here all these weeks?”
FOR a moment no one spoke. Then Holm’s quick eye discerned what appeared to be a narrow crack in the floor, just at the edge of one of the boxes. Seizing the carton, he shoved it to one side.
“Look!” he exclaimed.
In plain sight now was revealed the corner of a door in the floor.
A dozen husky policemen made short work of the pile of debris. Within a moment it had been moved. Where it had been were the outlines of a door of considerable proportions. To one side a ring was set in the stone. Holm seized it, but Ricks stopped him.