Tales of the Shadowmen 3: Danse Macabre

by Jean-Marc Lofficier

  “Thank you, Professor,” she said. “You are most solicitous.”

  Here, Lidenbrock’s face burned, and he was glad to be turned away. “Alas, Miss Sharp, to my shame, I must admit Mr. Beesley had to persuade me to pursue you and not follow Fatima–Miss Talisa–into the pit.”

  “I do not think poorly of you, Professor,” Becky said. “I’m certain you were not completely yourself.” Becky now emerged wearing the shirt, which reached only as far as her knees. Still, she could hardly begrudge her gallants a display of leg after their efforts on her behalf–especially if it added to her powers of persuasion.

  Marsh and Beesley looked on appreciatively while Lidenbrock blushed, and said, “Once you are safe, I intend to descend after her.”

  “Listen to me, Professor,” Becky said, placing her hand on his arm. “You must not! We must reseal that opening in the Earth, else that pit shall be the threshold of doom for many.”

  “And desert my Fatima? Miss Sharp, how can you suggest such a thing?”

  Here Beesley drew her aside. “Are you forgetting your mission in all this?” he asked, voice low. “You have certain obligations it is my duty to see you fulfill –”

  “Disraeli sensed there was something insidious about this expedition,” she whispered. “I have confirmed that.”

  “And what proofs do you have to offer? Because he will require them, as do I.”

  Becky started to speak, but caught her tongue. She dare not bring more insubstantial, fantastical railings against Talisa, lest she be bound and gagged again.

  “If you do not seal the pit upon our return,” she said instead, “I promise you, you will soon have all the proof you need. But it will come too late.”

  “Then, Cassandra, I will acknowledge you a prophetess. But now let us get moving.”

  The group began its march through the heated stillness and into the lengthening jungle shadows.

  They walked through the night non-stop, arriving back at the ruined amphitheater with the dawn. There, they paused for food and rest, though it wasn’t long before Lidenbrock was urging them to begin their descent. Beesley, however, argued they return to the ship first and see that Miss Sharp be outfitted properly for the journey below.

  “Surely Miss Sharp, after her recent ordeal, has no desire to risk more peril,” Lidenbrock snapped. “Now, I have seen to her safe return, Beesley! Just as you required. But I will put off seeking Fatima no longer, even if I must do it alone!”

  Beesley started to retort, but the angry twist of his mouth froze on his face. His eyes widened at something happening behind Lidenbrock. Marsh and his men immediately began cocking their long guns, and Lidenbrock turned to see what was the source of their agitation.

  Slipping through the pit’s opening, like a grub from under a moved stone, came a winged, human-sized reptile, one of the Mahars, Talisa’s true people. The narrow egress slowed its progress, and before it could clear itself, it was so shot through that instead of taking flight, it fell dead to the ground.

  “Miss Sharp was right,” Beesley announced. “Fetch powder–we’ll seal this hell-hole immediately!”

  Lidenbrock opened his mouth to protest when Casptain Marsh pointed at the hole and shouted: “Look!”

  Guns were immediately trained upon the pit.

  “No!” Beesley shouted. “That’s a woman’s hand!”

  Lidenbrock sprinted for the pit. “Do not shoot, you fools!” he cried. Reaching the hand, he took it, pulling its owner up and free of the crevice.

  “You are not my Fatima,” Lidenbrock began, his tone one of surprise, but not complete disappointment.

  For the possessor of this hand was a beautiful, winsome blonde, completely nude, the abundance of her peach-flushed flesh the effulgence of the morning Sun.

  Smitten, the men lowered their guns and stared instead in a stupor of delight. Even Lidenbrock did not shift his gaze but willingly drank in the feminine radiance.

  “Bloody hell!” Becky swore. “Another one!”

  A second naked beauty, whose hanging reddish locks barely concealed her voluptuousness, rose from the hole.

  “And another!” Becky remarked. “And another...”

  Soon, a display that would rival the crème of the finest seraglios now lolled and beckoned about the pit’s opening. Beesley and the others dropped their long guns to the ground and moved to join Lidenbrock, who remained planted to the spot.

  Becky snatched up a rifle and fired a musket ball in the direction of the “women,” furrowing instead the pate of one of the sailors.

  “Damnation! I missed!” Becky exclaimed as the man fell. She didn’t know how to reload, but several pairs of long guns were at her feet. All of the men–including Lidenbrock–were already running back for her, and before she could fire again, they had tackled her, then pulled her roughly to her feet. Becky looked back at the women. To her horror, she saw Talisa–the only one who appeared clothed–had come up from the pit to join them. Lidenbrock, his expression bliss, took a step toward her, but she nodded him back. All the women nodded, a silent communication to the men...

  One sailor drew Becky taut. Beesley brought his open palm hard against her face, then the back of his hand across her mouth. She saw with satisfaction that the skin of his knuckles was blood-scraped from her teeth.

  He looked back, as did all the men, at Talisa and her sister-things, who tittered and nodded again.

  Now Becky was pummeled by all: to her stomach, to her ribs, blows placed to her kidneys. Sagging ground-ward, she was hefted up for more punishment, the unnatural tittering urging it on–

  –With a roar, a rapacious storm of black fur, claws and fang descended upon Becky’s molesters, tossing them carelessly. Kong plucked up Lidenbrock and flung him far afield. He careened over the flagstones on his stomach, his head striking the sacrificial pillar so that he blacked out. The man holding Becky to be beaten dropped her to the ground to flee, but was halted when the titan’s paw snatched him up by the neck and quickly wrung it so that the body tore free of the head. Becky saw Beesley sliding down the amphitheater’s wall, his skull opened, his exposed brain leaving a trail like a giant slug.

  The mangled corpses of the sailors who had not successfully fled now littered the amphitheater floor. The same deadly paws that had put them there gently picked Becky from the ground and brought her close to Kong’s burning, amber eyes. On her back in his palm, Becky weakly turned her head and nodded toward the women. Then she wondered–would he be susceptible to their charms as well?

  Kong’s upper lip curled, exposing fangs, his eyes narrowing. Gently, he placed Becky down and then, with another roar, he propelled himself on his knuckles and hind paws upon the harpies.

  It seemed Kong was vulnerable only to true beauty.

  In panic, the Mahars dropped their useless guises, launching themselves to meet the charging ape. They dropped on him from above, from behind, and head on, flailing at his eyes. They hooked him with their beaks and talons, biting deep into the flesh of his head and body. The Ape peeled them from himself, tossing them as he had the men. But those whose necks he had not rung, or whose vitals he had not torn free with his fangs, returned to bite and snatch and tear again.

  Only Talisa had not joined in the attack–or changed her appearance. Skirting the edge of the battle, she was able to get behind Kong and at what he guarded so valiantly: Becky Sharp.

  Bruised and sore as she was, Becky managed to rise to her knees at the approach of her enemy and raised her fist to strike her. Talisa rushed forward, grabbing the wrist, and, putting her other hand over Becky’s mouth, pushed her back to the ground, pinning her there.

  “These ape creatures long plagued my kind–” Becky again heard the words in her head “–we had thought them long eliminated. Their resistance was always robust. My sisters will require more than this dead human carrion the ape has let fall. You will provide fresh flesh and blood when they are done.”

  Kong suddenly dropped flat on his back t
o the ground, flattening the three winged reptilian creatures who had returned to attach themselves there. But there seemed no end of assailants left to bite and rake him

  Now he eyed the partially opened pit which he had sealed long ago. He regarded the temple wall rising behind it, just as his adversaries hooked fast into his neck, into his abdomen, into the flesh above his right kidney. Roaring in anguish, he ran for the wall, springing upward, grabbing the top and propelling himself and the Mahars which clung to him over the side.

  Talisa smiled. “The brute in his torment has forgotten you, Miss Sharp, and seeks to escape his adversaries. t’would seem you drew the weak-minded of his lot.”

  Then the section of the wall behind the pit buckled, dust of ages first unsettling, stirring in clouds; then cracks shown in the masonry, and the first stones began to topple over into the pit...

  From over the wall flew the screeching Mahars who, unable to thwart the ape’s purpose, quickly descended into the pit as the wall continued to crumble and spill into it behind them.

  Talisa’s eyes widened with realization. Releasing Becky, she scampered for the pit as fast as she could–

  Too late! The section of the wall completely tumbled over the opening, leaving Talisa to throw her arms over her face against the rising plumes of dust–

  –and then find herself suddenly before the great ape who stood hunched, bleeding and torn, swaying on his great knees. His amber eyes lit with anger at the last of his enemies, ready to deliver upon her full recompense for the grievances he had suffered lately from her kind.

  Talisa shrieked the sound of nails scraping slate. Kong lunged for her–

  –and a long gun fired!

  By chance, the ball grazed his great head at the proper spot with only the necessary impact to steal his consciousness. His great form fell forward on top of the screaming Talisa.

  Becky looked back to see an aghast Lidenbrock lowering his long gun. “No!” he screamed. Then he was running with the long gun to the prostrate behemoth.

  “Lidenbrock!” she cried out, trying to gain her feet against the pain. “She’s dead! Crushed! It’s too late!”

  “Not to avenge her!” he shouted back. He aimed for Kong’s temple–only to have the hammer click with no sequel. “No powder!” he shouted in rage, then raised the gun’s butt, ready to beat it to splinters against the colossal head before him.

  “Stop, Professor!” Becky shouted, now to her knees. “You’ll only rouse him! We dare not tarry–we must flee to the ship! I am weakened by the beating you participated in! I need your help! Now!”

  The gun’s butt hovered for long seconds, ready still to strike, then Lidenbrock lowered the musket, teeth pinching blood from his lower lip, eyelids beating back tears...

  Groaning, he turned and sprinted for Becky, gathered her up and began carrying her back to the ship, leaving behind the strewn corpses of fallen comrade and foe alike.

  From over his shoulder, Becky watched Kong, still except for the rise and fall of his great breast. Amidst her fear that he might yet rise and carry her away, never to escape again, she found herself strangely touched and wondering:

  Why had he sealed the pit–two times now–and denied himself return to the world from which he came? Did he realize, as Talisa said, that the rest of his kind were long dead? That in this world or the one beneath, he was still ultimately alone?

  Safely aboard Captain Marsh’s ship now, her bruises bandaged, Becky rested against the railing and regarded the island’s skull-like topography that she had lately inhabited. There had been no sign of Kong during their flight, though once out to sea, she had heard an inhuman yet despairing wail from the now distant isle.

  Professor Lidenbrock joined her. He, too, stared silently toward the island they left behind. Becky was surprised to discover that he, like she, had left it forever, abandoning that ingress to the Inner Earth.

  “That way holds too much grief for me,” he said. “Part of me died back there with her.”

  “Yes,” Becky thought, “that part of you which she held captive.”

  “So let us not speak her name ever again,” he said. “I never shall. But that does not mean I will forget her, nor ever cease looking for another opening into the Earth’s center. Though it become the work of my life, I am comforted that she, after a fashion, will carry on with me.”

  Becky looked again toward the island’s colossal skull formation, particularly the great stone dome that made the cranium. Did Kong wander about the cavern inside, an atavism beyond recall, a hermit memory taken residence in a long dead giant’s discarded skull?

  She wondered, did she in turn still stir inside the head of the Ape Gigans? It was unlikely he would ever see white skin again or other hair as radiant as her own. Perhaps, over time, she would seem to him some phantasm, something from a half-remembered dream. If such as he could dream...

  Travis Hiltz is also a newcomer to Tales of the Shadowmen. For his first story, he has chosen to pay homage to the visually striking imagery of the Louis Feuillade serials which are the very essence of French popular fiction: Fantômas, Les Vampires, Judex, etc., with their wonderful procession of black-clad assassins crawling through the sewers of Paris or dancing on its rooftops .In this tale, as befits a collection subtitled Danse Macabre, it is no ordinary adventure…

  Travis Hiltz: A Dance of Night and Death

  Paris, 1909

  Night fell over the city. The sounds of Paris drifted away from the boulevards and the streets and into the homes, the theaters and the cafés. During the day, it was a city of strollers, automobiles and tree-lined avenues, but when night fell, one sought out the public places, crowded, well-lit–and safe. For the monsters came out at night. Thieves, scoundrels, killers and phantoms.

  In one particular neighborhood, the houses huddled close together. They were not houses lived in by the rich, but rather the moderately well-off. At a modest two-story dwelling, the lights on the second floor went out. A window opened. A woman stepped out and slid gracefully onto the slate shingled roof. Lithe and shapely, she moved with a dancer’s grace. She wore a black, skin-tight body suit. The hood fit tight around her head, with a round opening for her face. Her features were well-formed, the kind of full lips, pale skin and deep, sensuous eyes that, at a party, would have drawn numerous suitors to her side, asking for a dance or the permission to fetch her a cocktail.

  Now, on the rooftop, in the moonlight, her eyes were alert and searching; her face had the grim look of a predator on the hunt. This black clad huntress was Irma Vep and she was the newest member of a feared gang of thieves known as the Vampires.

  Her steps were light and sure as she made her way across the rooftops. She leapt nimbly across the narrow gap between the houses, making her way down the boulevard. She had a destination in mind, a house at the end of the street. The Belthams owned the house. The current Lady Beltham had become a bit of a recluse after the murder of her husband. The house had been ripe for the picking for many months. It was a perfect opportunity to fill the coffers of the Vampires. A worthy test of their newest recruit.

  Irma Vep reached the end of the street and estimated the distance between her current perch and the roof of Beltham House. She held out her arms, took a few steps backwards, and launched herself into the air with a grace and power that many a ballerina would have envied. With nothing stronger than a mild breeze blowing, the jump was no challenge to her. Her only worries were if she had misjudged the distance, or the fear that the neighborhood might contain an amateur astronomer or a late night stroller.

  Irma Vep landed, catlike, on the roof of Beltham House, digging her heels in between the slate shingles to steady herself. She stood up, took a breath and nodded, please with herself.

  Suddenly, a quiet sound drifted on the night air and caught her attention. The sound of light applause. Irma Vep peered about, anxiously. Someone had spotted her!

  “Very good, little Vampire,” a voice said, from higher up. “Most impressiv
e.”

  Beltham House was a three-story manor house, each story featuring an ornate bit of baroque overhang. Irma had landed on the second peak. Her taunter stood upon the third. She caught sight of the glowing tip of a cigarette, as he stepped out of the shadows. He was a tall man, dressed in elegant black evening wear, including an opera cloak, white gloves, top hat and a slender black cane tucked under one arm. He also wore a distinctive black domino mask.

  Irma Vep took a step back, despite the distance between herself and the new arrival. His clothes, and especially the mask, told her who he was.

  “Fantômas!” she breathed, feeling a chill creep along her spine. He merely tipped his hat in acknowledgment. The Vampires were feared and hunted across Paris. They were considered the most devious thieves this side of Arsène Lupin. Wealthy men felt for their wallets and double-checked their safes at mere mention of their name. But, Fantômas–his very name struck terror all across Europe! He had been known to kill in the most horrific manner, merely to distract the police from discovering a minor scheme. Fantômas would burn a hospital to the ground, just to eliminate a single man that had earned his wrath. Even hardened criminals would weep in terror if they thought Fantômas has reason to be displeased with them. The Vampires worked hard to not attract the police’s attention–and even harder to not attract Fantômas’.

  Fantômas stubbed out his cigarette against the balcony and strolled casually towards Irma Vep, a slight smile at the corner of his mouth.

  “I have read of your exploits and found them mildly entertaining,” he said, in that same low, emotionless tone. “You and your playmates are quite clever. Which is why I have allowed you to operate unhindered in my city, thus far...”

  “Your city?” Irma snapped. Despite her fear, her pride could not stand his patronizing tone.

  “My city,” Fantômas repeated. “Paris and all who dwell in it, or merely pass through it, are mine. If there is thievery to done, murder to be committed, or terror to be spread, it shall be done either by my hand. or with my approval.” He tapped his cane against the roof. “This house and all its contents are not for you to plunder, my little Vampire. Go home. Find another target.”