[Wizard of 4th Street 04] - The Wizard of Rue Morgue

by Simon Hawke - (ebook by Undead)

  "Suzanne?" he said.

  Caught in the beam of the flashlight, she cowered before him, trembling, staring at him with wide, frightened eyes. Her hands were held up to her mouth. Her clothes were torn and dirty and her hair was wet and limp. Her bare legs were streaked with filth. Rats scurried around her on the pile of rubble.

  "Is your name Suzanne?" Piccard said, moving toward her and holding out his hand. "It's all right, don't be afraid. It's all right. I've come to help you."

  She scuttled back, away from him, farther back into the darkness of opening in the collapsed wall. He splashed through the water, coming closer, shining the beam ahead of him.

  "Don't run away!" he said. "No one's going to hurt you. You're safe now. It's all right. Come, let me take you out of here."

  He started to climb up after her, shining his flashlight beam into the opening in the wall. He couldn't see her anymore, but he could still hear her quiet, frightened sobbing.

  "Come out, mademoiselle," he said. "Come, it's all right. I only want to help you. I—"

  He froze as his flashlight beam caught a pair of lambent, yellow eyes. He heard a deep, animal growl and suddenly something came hurtling out of the opening, straight at him. He cried out as the beast struck him in the chest, bearing him back down into the water, and he felt its teeth tearing at his throat. The flashlight spun away into the darkness.

  They were somewhere beneath the Rue de Rivoli when their runestones started glowing dimly. The tunnels here were in a greater state of disrepair than in the other sections they had passed through and often they had to make their way around the debris of partially collapsed walls and ceilings.

  "This whole thing looks like it could come down at any moment," Wyrdrune said nervously. "If we have to start firing shots down here, we're liable to start a cave-in."

  "Have they had any contact from Piccard?" Modred asked Billy.

  "No," said Billy. "It's over 'alf an 'our since 'e went down an' they 'aven't 'eard a thing. Renaud wants to know if 'e should send some men down after 'im."

  "Tell him no," said Modred. "If something's happened to Piccard, the police won't be able to help him." He stopped, trying to read the faded signs marking the streets above the tunnels. "The Rue St. Roch," he said, barely making out the lettering. "You realize where we're heading, don't you? We're within blocks of where the first murders occurred, in the Rue Morgue."

  Kira glanced at the runestone in her palm. It was glowing brighter. "We're getting close," she said. "Piccard must have gone down somewhere not far from here."

  "The fool should have stayed out of it," said Modred, as they moved forward cautiously. "The entrance to the Catacombs has to be somewhere beneath the Rue Morgue."

  "I trust it's drier in there," Makepeace said.

  "You think they know we're coming?" Kira asked.

  "I'm almost sure of it," said Modred. "But they haven't done anything yet. Why?"

  "I'm not complaining," Wyrdrune replied uneasily.

  "They must be planning something," Modred said. He glanced at Billy. "Renaud's had no word of Siegal and the others?"

  "No sign of 'em," said Billy after a moment in which Merlin silently relayed the message. "They've got units cruisin' the entire area. It's as if they've simply disappeared."

  "Great," said Wyrdrune. "I've got a real bad feeling about this." The runestone in his forehead was glowing brightly. "Something's going to happen any time now. I just know it."

  Modred stopped. "Through here," he said, pointing at a branch tunnel. "Can you feel it?"

  Kira nodded. "It's getting very strong," she said.

  They looked at the branch pipe. There was only room for them to go through one at a time.

  "They could get us in there and bring the whole thing down over our heads," said Wyrdrune. He gazed down the length of the branch pipe. "How do you feel about just teleporting through to die other side?" he asked.

  "We could," said Modred, "but I'm not sure we ought to waste our energy when we're this close. That may be exactly what they want us to do."

  "They're just waiting for us, aren't they?" Kira said. "They're not even going to try to run."

  "They're going to make a fight of it," said Modred. "They want the life force of the runestones. They know that if they can destroy us, nothing on earth can stop them."

  "Cheerful thought," said Makepeace, eyeing the branch pipe nervously. He swallowed hard. "Well, who goes first?"

  "1 will," said Modred. He unholstered his pistol and racked the slide, chambering a round. He thumbed off the safety. "Watch yourselves," he said.

  "We still don't know how many of them there are," said Kira.

  "Well, there's only one way we're going to find out," said Modred. He bent down and entered the pipe.

  Chapter

  ELEVEN

  The two young prostitutes they had encountered on the comer of the Rue St. Roch and the Avenue de L'Opera said they had seen a man dressed in a dark cloak with a woman answering Suzanne's description. The woman seemed to be drunk, they'd said. The man was half walking, half carrying her, supporting her with her arm around his shoulders. They'd passed by, heading down the Rue Gaillon, and gone into a brownstone near the plaza.

  Rienzi had grabbed one of them by the arm, insisting that they point the building out to them. Alarmed, the girl had tried to jerk away, but Rienzi would not let go.

  "Show us!" he demanded. "Show us which building!"

  "Please," Max said to them. "The girl's been kidnapped. Won't you please show us where they went?"

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. He took out some bills and handed them over.

  "Just point out which building they went into, that's all we ask," he said.

  "Perhaps we ought to summon the police," Francois said.

  "But who knows what will happen to her by the time they arrive?" Colette said in an anguished voice. "Oh, I never should have let her stay there! I should have made her move in with me after what happened to her sister and poor Gabrielle."

  Rienzi and the others believed that she had worked with Suzanne at the club. When they arrived back at the apartment, they had found Colette waiting for them, in a state of high anxiety. Suzanne had called her earlier, she said, sounding very frightened. She had stepped out for a few moments, to pick up some cigarettes, and she was certain that someone had followed her back home. After all that happened, with Stefan gone, she was afraid to be alone. Colette told them that she had said she would come over right away, only when she had arrived, there was no answer at the apartment. She had tried the door and found it open. She had seen the inside of the apartment, the lamp knocked over, things lying broken on the floor, the rug bunched up as if there had been a struggle. She had just been about to go call the police when the others had arrived.

  They had questioned the neighbors, but no one had seen or heard anything. They had then gone out to search the streets, but they had no luck with anyone they met until they encountered the two young prostitutes. Their description of Suzanne and what she had been wearing left no doubt in Rienzi's mind. He insisted that it had to be her. After Max had paid them, they went down the block with them and pointed out the building they had seen the dark-cloaked man go into with Suzanne. "Perhaps Francois is right," said one of the others. "Maybe one of us should go call the police. The man who took her may be armed."

  "We are armed, as well," Rienzi said, brandishing the gun that Max had given back to him. "We cannot take the chance of waiting. He may kill Suzanne."

  And, as if on cue, they heard a frenzied scream come from an open window up above them.

  "Up there, on the fourth floor!" Francois shouted, pointing at the window.

  "You stay behind us," Max said to Colette, as they ran inside the building. With Rienzi in the lead, they took the stairs two and three at a time until they got to the fourth floor.

  They heard the scream again.

  "Down here!" Rienzi said, running down the corridor to his
left. Colette stayed behind the rest of them. She knew exactly where they were going. They were heading toward her own apartment.

  Several of the neighbors poked their heads out of their doors, but when they saw Rienzi rushing past with a gun held in his hand, they quickly shut their doors again and bolted them. Rienzi reached the door of Colette's apartment and kicked it in. They rushed inside.

  It was dark.

  "I can't see!"

  "Someone get the lights!"

  The door slammed shut behind them.

  "Who closed the door?"

  "Turn on the lights!"

  Suddenly, torches blazed up on the walls around them.

  Max and the others found themselves standing in the center of a large chamber with walls of solid rock. At regular intervals throughout the chamber, there were niches carved into the walls, stacked high with human bones. Rats scurried across the floor. Burning braziers placed around the edges of the chamber gave off a pungent, strong aroma of sickly sweet incense.

  "What the hell. . . ?" said Max, looking all around him.

  The others stood stunned, glancing around at their surroundings with incomprehension.

  "What happened?" said one of the reporters. "Where the devil are we?"

  "In the Catacombs, gentlemen," said Colette from behind them. They turned to see her standing with the two young prostitutes, smiling at them.

  "What is this?" said Rienzi, pointing his pistol at Colette. "How did we get here? What have you done with Suzanne?"

  "She's right here," said a woman's voice from the other side of the chamber. They turned and saw the Dark Ones standing behind them, dressed in long, black, hooded robes. Suzanne stood between Azreal and Balen, a vacant expression on her face. Her eyes looked glazed.

  Rienzi started forward. "Suzanne!"

  She did not respond.

  He aimed his pistol at the three. "What have you done to her? Let her go!"

  Leila swept her arm out and Rienzi cried out as the gun went flying from his grasp. They all found themselves suddenly rooted to the spot, unable to move a muscle.

  "I thought you would be bringing the police," Leila said to Colette.

  "These men came first," Colette replied. "They found me waiting there. I had no choice. I had to bring them."

  "No matter," Leila said. "They should do just as well." She frowned and shut her eyes briefly. "We shall soon be having company," she said after a moment. She glanced at Colette. "You and the others know what to do," she said. "Go now."

  "They're getting closer, Leila," Azreal said nervously. "I can feel their presence."

  "Calm yourself, Azreal," she said. "Things are still proceeding according to plan. This is only a minor inconvenience, one that is easily remedied."

  She made a pass with her hand and Max and the others were suddenly attired in police uniforms. "You see?" she said.

  "We're wasting time," said Balen.

  "Patience," she said. "First we must bait our trap."

  She stared hard at Max and the others and they felt an icy coldness seeping through them as she imposed her will on theirs. Max felt himself receding, falling away. He fought the sensation, but there was nothing he could do. Her will became his own as she possessed him. And, like the others, he knew what he had to do.

  Officers Moreau and Bernajoux were slowly cruising down the street in their patrol car. Bernajoux, a lower-grade adept who studied thaumaturgy nights at the Sorbonne, was handling the driving chores, keeping the cruiser moving with his levitation and impulsion spell while Moreau flashed the searchlight into each dark alley that they passed.

  "I still say there's more to this than we've been told," said Bernajoux as he guided the vehicle along. "There's been no word in the streets of any Satan cult."

  "That doesn't mean there isn't one," Moreau said, peering into the alleys that they passed, shining the searchlight to illuminate the shadows.

  "I'm telling you, Renaud's keeping something back from us," said Bernajoux. "The murder victims all had thaumaturgic runes carved into their bodies and now there are two agents of the I.T.C. working with the task force in a so-called advisory capacity. Doesn't that tell you anything?"

  "It tells me that they think an adept might be involved, but there is as yet no proof," Moreau said. "What are you doing, searching for conspiracies?"

  "I just don't like not knowing what we may be getting into," Bernajoux replied. The vehicle lurched slightly.

  "Stop worrying so much and concentrate on your driving," Moreau said irritably.

  "It just makes me nervous, thinking that we might be going up against a criminal adept," said Bernajoux. "We're simply not trained to handle that sort of thing."

  "What's to handle?" said Moreau. "Our instructions were clear. If we see anything suspicious, we call in. And if we spot anyone trying to murder someone oh the street, we stop them, pure and simple. If they resist, then bullets will stop an adept as well as any other man. But I don't think we're looking for an adept at all. If people like that turn to crime, they don't turn to murder. Corporate crime is more their style. If you ask me, we're looking for some psychopath who's trying to make it look as if an adept or a Satan cult is responsible. It's probably someone who has it in for adepts for some strange reason. A serial killer who likes reading about himself in the newspapers and—wait. Stop the car!"

  "You see something?"

  "Back up, quickly! In that alley there. . . ."

  Bernajoux reversed the vehicle. Moreau beamed the searchlight down into the alleyway. There were several figures back in the alley. They seemed to be bending over something.

  "Hold it right there!" Moreau said over the loudspeaker.

  "Should I call in?" asked Bernajoux, but Moreau was already getting out of the car. "Moreau! Wait!"

  Moreau had his weapon out in one hand, his flashlight in the other. He was entering the alleyway.

  "God damn it," said Bernajoux. He quickly reached for the handset. "Unit thirty-one, calling HQ, Unit thirty-one, calling HQ, come in!"

  As Moreau approached the figures, he saw that there were two of them. Young prostitutes, no more than teenagers. They were bending over a body. In the beam of his flashlight, he could see that it was the body of a man. His shirt had been torn open and one of the girls was holding a knife. He aimed his gun at them.

  "Drop the knife! Don't move!"

  "Come in, Unit thirty-one."

  "Unit thirty-one here. We have an assault in progress at—"

  Suddenly, Bernajoux heard Moreau fire two shots, and then he heard his partner scream.

  "Merde!" Bernajoux was out of the car in a flash, drawing his weapon as he ran down the alley.

  "Unit thirty-one, come in! Unit thirty-one, what is your location?"

  Moreau was down. He was still screaming. In the darkness, Bernajoux could barely make out a figure crouching over him. Bernajoux grabbed the flashlight off his belt and snapped it on. A young girl looked up at him, illuminated in the flashlight's beam. The expression on her face was bestial. There was blood dripping from her snarling mouth. And she had fangs.

  Bernajoux fired, but she threw herself to one side and he missed. He fired again, and then he saw the second one launching herself at him, screaming as she leaped through the air, higher than it seemed any human could possibly jump. He caught a glimpse of dripping fangs and clawed fingers and he fired again as she came down on him. He was borne to the ground. He felt sharp claws sinking into his shoulders and he pressed the gun against her chest and fired three more times. She jerked against him and lay still. He rolled her off him, but then the second one was on him. He caught a brief glimpse of a gleaming knife blade and then he felt the heat of it sinking to the hilt into his chest. It rose again and fell, and rose again and fell, and the gun fell from Bernajoux's limp hand as the knife kept plunging down, again and again and again. . . .

  The reports started coming in from all over the city. They were coming up out of the sewers in groups of two and three and fou
r, bedraggled, filthy street urchins, falling on anyone who happened by. The dispatchers at the task force headquarters were jammed with incoming calls. Three people slain in the Boulevard St. Martin. Two more citizens murdered in the Rue Jacob. It was as if, suddenly, some inexplicable madness had struck the homeless runaways of Paris, all at the same time, turning them into rabid, homicidal beasts. The officers of Unit 23 shot down two of them near the Quai D'Orsay. Their report seemed unbelievable. What they had described encountering weren't children, but feral creatures that seemed only half human. Like werewolves, the stunned officers had said. And they were coming up out of the sewers and killing anyone who happened to get in their way. Two men killed in the Rue de Madrid. A woman slain in the Rue St. Antoine, three of the killers shot down by police in the Champs Elysees. And still the calls kept coming in.

  "My God, how many of them are there?" said Renaud, unable to handle all the calls that were coming in. He got on the radio and issued orders to all units to shoot on sight and not to attempt arrest. "Tell them what's happening!" he shouted to Raven. "Tell them they're coming out all over the city! Get them back! We've got to do something!"

  Raven sat with her eyes shut, her body rigid, her fingers clamped on the edge of the desk.

  "Raven!" Renaud shouted. He took her by the shoulders and shook her. "Raven, for God's sake!"

  She opened her eyes. "There's nothing to be done, Renaud," she said calmly. "It's all up to your men. It's a diversion."

  "A diversion! People are dying out there!"

  "The only chance we have now is for them to stop the Dark Ones," Raven said. "This is it. Brace yourself. Whatever happens, we'll know in the next few moments."

  They stepped out of the branch pipe into the next tunnel. It was a junction point, where several other tunnels met in a large, circular area. In the beams of their flashlights, they could see that portions of the ceiling had collapsed and the walls were veined with fissures. Rubble lay piled up in the sewer channels and across from them, an entire section of the wall had fallen in, revealing a darkness beyond.