Tales of the Shadowmen 3: Danse Macabre

by Jean-Marc Lofficier

  “Jane should return shortly with her litter carrying her treasure,” he laughed. “She loves to hunt in the shops of the Left Bank as I in the jungle. But she left Jack here, with his nanny.”

  “What a quiet child,” said the French Lieutenant. “I did not even know he was here.”

  “From what I understand, it is common trait among men of my bloodline. My mother told me I never cried as a baby.”

  “Your mother?” exclaimed d’Arnot. “But I thought she...”

  “Kala,” said Greystoke gently. “The mother who raised me.”

  Suddenly, the Jungle Lord turned his head. His eyes narrowed as he tried to identify the source of a sound he had just heard.

  “John...” started d’Arnot before a quick hand signal from Tarzan silenced him. Without a word, the civilized man the world knew as Lord Greystoke vanished as the creature called Tarzan of the Apes hurtled off the balcony skyward, scampering towards the rooftops.

  He jumped across the span of the boulevard to the roof across the way where a man in black stood tall. He was an imposing figure, as tall as the jungle lord, dressed all in black, with a matching hat covering his face.

  “I mean you no harm, Lord Greystoke,” said the man in black.

  “Who are you?”

  “My name is Judex. I’m here to help you. A man whom you believe to be dead is alive, and at this moment, he has taken your wife as his prisoner.”

  “Rokoff!”

  “Yes. Unfortunately, I arrived too late to stop him...” Judex watched Greystoke sizing him up, deciding if he was telling him the truth or not.

  “They could be holding her anywhere,” muttered Tarzan to himself.

  “True,” said Judex. “But in this case, they’re not. They’ve taken her to a building near the Moulin Rouge. We must hurry. My car is down there.”

  The two men swiftly made their way to the street and entered Judex’s large, black sedan. The crime-fighter wove his way through the bustling streets of Paris just as Tarzan wove his way across the branches high above the ground of Africa.

  “I should have made sure Rokoff was dead,” said the Jungle Lord. “Until one of us is dead, he will always threaten my family.”

  “His goal is two-fold,” said Judex. “Your death, but only after you show him the location of the lost city of Opar.”

  “How do you know this? No one knows of Opar.”

  “Rokoff does. A man as evil as he named Favraux now does too. But don’t worry, your treasure is your own. I only serve Justice.”

  “I care nothing for gold and jewels, only my wife.”

  “Then, let us make haste,” said Judex as he drove even faster.

  In silence, the two avengers rode, as if on the wings of a chariot to the field of battle. The stars came out as the car slowed behind a warehouse. Judex pointed to a building with a windmill on it. “She is in there. It’s a club with song and dance, which is good for us, as it will cover the noise. Once, it was the center of all society in Paris; now only those chasing a dream go there, and become lost in absinthe. We must go quickly.”

  Inside the building, Jane Porter sat in a large room, her arms bound behind her, a blindfold over her eyes. “Where am I?” she had pleaded for the length of time she had been held captive. But no one ever answered. No one, until now.

  “You are my guest Lady Greystoke,” said a booming voice which she thought she recognized.

  “You!” she gasped. “But you’re...”

  “Dead? Hardly. It takes more than an ape man to kill Nikolas Rokoff.”

  “Why? We meant you no harm. Will this nightmare never end?”

  “When the treasures of Opar fill my coffers, and the head of your husband hangs over my fireplace, like a wild beast, then it will be over.”

  Rokoff walked over to the bound woman and pulled off her blindfold. They glared at each other, eyes locked in hatred. “When John finds me...”

  “Finds you!” shouted Rokoff. “He will find you only when I choose to let him find you, and that will only be so you can watch as I take his life before your eyes. But only after he has shown me the secrets of Opar!” Rokoff ran his hands through Jane’s golden hair. “And then, I will decide if you will become my mistress.” Jane spat at him as he laughed and walked to the door. He called one of the five men who were waiting in the other room. “Go to the hotel where Greystoke is staying. Give him this note,” he instructed, handing the man a slip of paper.

  Walking away from the building, the apache whistled a popular tune, unaware of the two men coming towards him. As he walked past them, Tarzan stopped and sniffed the air. In a single lunge, he turned around and grabbed Rokoff’s henchman, his hands squeezing the apache’s throat.

  “My wife! Where is she?”

  The man could barely speak, his eyes bulging in horror. His shaking hand pointed to the building. Judex knocked the apache unconscious as Tarzan growled at him. “If she is harmed, you will be the first to die.”

  They entered through the back way. Judex smiled as he pointed out a high window to Tarzan. The jungle man took a prodigious leap and vanished. Then a strange sound was heard through the building. A roar in the night. The war cry of the Great Apes.

  Inside, Rokoff stopped in his tracks, sweat breaking out on his brow. “Impossible. He can’t be here.” He took a look at the outer room. The men had pulled their pistols as a bronze blur entered. Before they could react, Tarzan was on them. Shots rang out, blasting holes where the ape man was.

  Rokoff retreated from the carnage and looked for Jane, but she was no longer there. He looked in absolute fear at the empty chair that had once held his prisoner–but no more. He had to escape before Tarzan could find him. Running into the hallway, he made his way outside but stopped as a dark-clad figure sprang before him.

  “You have sinned against this man and his family, Rokoff,” said Judex. “It is time to face Justice.”

  Rokoff’s answer was an explosion of gunshots as the villain fired madly at the spot where his enemy stood. But before he realized, the figure in black had vanished in the night, his laughter left behind. The alley was empty, filled only with the empty clicks from his gun and, from inside, the sound of Tarzan finishing off his men.

  Suddenly, a body crashed through the wall, followed by the Ape Man, his shirt shredded, his steel body glistening in the dim light.

  “Rokoff!” challenged the Jungle Lord. Rokoff snapped a switch blade open and charged. His knife slashed frenetically but kept missing Tarzan, who eventually caught him with a massive fist across the jaw, breaking it in two. Roaring in pain, mad with blood lust, Rokoff came on harder, trying to plunge his blade into his foe’s body, but it was not to be. In one, swift movement, Tarzan lifted the villain’s huge frame and brought him crashing down on his knee, breaking the back of his mortal enemy, killing him.

  Judex stepped out of the shadows. “He is dead. Justice is served.”

  “My wife...”

  “I have her. While you attacked Rokoff’s men, I went to get her. Desperate men do desperate things and I did not want any harm to come to her.”

  Judex led Lord Greystoke around the corner where Jane rushed into his arms. Neither could speak as they held each other. “We must hurry,” said Judex. “The gunshots will have alerted the police and while they move slowly, they move surely.”

  The black car raced off into the night, returning Tarzan and Jane to their hotel where d’Arnot waited with young Jack and his nanny. As they left the sedan, Tarzan turned to Judex. “You have my thanks, Judex.”

  “And you have my friendship, Lord Greystoke. If we can’t protect our loved ones, justice will be replaced with revenge. Farewell.”

  The black car sped off into the Paris streets.

  The next morning, at the Banque Favraux, the banker was having his morning coffee. Vallières sat before him, going over the reports from the financial markets in America when he stopped short. A tall stranger had just appeared in the halls of the top floor and wa
lked into the office unannounced.

  “Who the hell are you and how did you get in here?” demanded Favraux.

  “The window was open. I am Lord Greystoke.”

  “Greystoke...” stammered the banker. “What do you want?”

  “You allied yourself with my enemy in his quest for Opar. He is dead. If my family is ever threatened again, you will become my enemy and incur the same wrath. Do you understand?”

  “I do,” said Favraux.

  “Never forget that. There is no place on Earth I wouldn’t hunt you down.”

  Vallières rose from the chair, his old bones making it a slow task for him. “Please, Lord Greystoke,” he said, “allow me to show you to the elevator... It is easier than the window, I assure you.”

  Greystoke followed the old man out.

  “Again, my thanks,” he said, before taking the elevator.

  “You know it is me?”

  “Despite your disguise, your scent is known to me. Why you serve that man, I don’t know, but you must have your reasons.”

  “I do. But the time for my justice is coming. So, I wait and learn.”

  “Then may your hunt go well, my friend,” said Tarzan extending his hand.

  “And may peace find you and your family,” said Judex, taking his hand in friendship.

  Both men smiled at each other as Greystoke entered the elevator, to ride the cage down to the street. Vallières returned to a shaken Favraux. “He has left.”

  “Thank God,” said the banker. “A crazed madman like that, I don’t need. Not when there is other, easier money to be made.”

  Judex looked at Favraux and smiled faintly.

  We began this third collection of Tales of the Shadowmen with Matthew Baugh’s homage to Paul Féval, and, appropriately, we close it with Brian Stableford’s mammoth and expanding contribution to the Féval “universe,” the second installment of his very own roman feuilleton: The Empire of the Necromancers...

  Brian Stableford: The Child-Stealers

  (Being the second part of

  The Empire of the Necromancers)

  The Story So Far

  In Paul Féval’s classic roman feuilleton John Devil–whose principal action is set in the year 1817–the eponymous legendary pseudonym is adopted by the ambitious Comte Henri de Belcamp, along with many other names, in the course of pursuing his various projects. These include the rescue of his mother, Helen Brown–a notorious English thief–from an Australian prison camp and the construction of an unprecedentedly powerful steamship with which he intends to rescue Napoleon from St. Helena and conquer India.

  In order to pursue the latter plan, Henri makes use of the secret organization: the Knights of the Deliverance. To protect the secrecy of this alliance he–or his evil half-brother Tom Brown, who is almost certainly another of his alter egos rather than a separate individual–murders a potential traitor within the London branch of the organization, Constance Bartolozzi. This brings him into direct conflict with Gregory Temple, the senior detective at Scotland Yard, whose pioneering methods he has been studying at close range in the guise of junior detective James Davy.

  Henri’s role as James Davy allows him to frame Temple’s former assistant, Richard Thompson–who is secretly married to Temple’s daughter, Suzanne–for the murder and to persuade Thompson to flee to France, where Suzanne is a guest at his estranged father’s château near the village of Miremont. Henri is assisted in London by his long-term companion Sarah O’Brien, the daughter of another of his (or Tom Brown’s) victims, who was killed in Germany while John Devil was studying there under the name George Palmer. Sarah rents the so-called “new château” on the Marquis de Belcamp’s former estate as Lady Frances Elphinstone when Henri finds it politic to reconcile with his father, partly in order to set up an alibi for the commissioned murders of his mother’s wealthy brothers. There is, however, an obstacle to the fortune Henri intends to collect by this means: Constance Bertolozzi’s daughter, Jeanne Herbet, who is the designated heir of both brothers (neither of whom knows which of them is her father), and also happens to be a resident of Miremont.

  Henri’s first act on arriving in Miremont is one of spontaneous heroism, which saves Jeanne’s life–after which he falls in love with her and decides to marry her fortune rather than murdering her. He eventually does marry her, although he has to do so in the guise of English entrepreneur Percy Balcomb because he is supposedly in jail. He is there because the obsessive Gregory Temple, having failed to prove that Henri murdered Maurice O’Brien and Constance Bartolozzi and commissioned the murderers of Helen Brown’s brothers, has found out where the actual murderers of the brothers have been buried, on Henri’s orders. Temple achieves this by tricking the mistress of the vertically-challenged Ned Knob, who was a witness and accessory to their disposal.

  After a tense climax in Newgate Prison–where Henri beats Temple to the punch in rescuing Richard Thompson from the hangman, and is thus able to confront his nemesis in the condemned cell, attempting to drive him mad by telling him that Tom Brown is actually his son–Henri learns that the Brotherhood of the Deliverance has been betrayed, and that his new steamship has been destroyed on the slipway by rebels in the African country where it was being secretly built. He then finds it politic to shoot himself in the head in front of his father, supposedly bringing down the curtain on the entire affair.

  The Empire of the Necromancers is based on the premise that Henri faked his death–a deception well within his capability and entirely in character–and that his epic struggle with Gregory Temple was always bound to be renewed.

  In Part One, “The Grey Men,” published in Tales of the Shadowmen 2–which is set in November 1821–Ned Knob is unexpectedly confronted with one of his former associates, “Sawney” Ross, who has been hanged but now appears to be alive again, though somewhat slow-witted. The reanimated man is collected by a physician named Germain Patou (a character who previously appeared in Féval’s The Vampire Countess), and Ned follows them to the bank of the Thames, where they board a boat and are met by a man in a Quaker hat–the symbol of identity Henri always wore in his guise as John Devil.

  He is hit over the head and wakes up in Newgate, where he is interrogated by Gregory Temple, now working for the secret police. Although Temple is investigating a series of body-snatching incidents, his attention has inevitably been caught by the Quaker hat. Once released, the ingenious Ned tracks Patou to a house in Purfleet, where he renews his acquaintance with Henri and witnesses the resurrection of a man from the dead using an elaborate electrical technique recently discovered by an as-yet- unnamed Swiss scientist.

  The inhabitants of the Purfleet house have to race to the docks when their ship, the Prometheus, is attacked by a rival group commanded by the only one of the reanimated grey men to have recovered all his faculties–a person who now styles himself General Mortdieu. The Prometheus is destroyed and Mortdieu’s hirelings seize the electrical apparatus from the house, taking it to their own ship, the Outremort. Ned is arrested again, but makes a deal with Temple and they go together to Greenhithe, where the Outremort is about to depart for an unknown destination. Henri and his supporters arrive too, and a three-cornered battle develops, which eventually arrives at an impasse. Mortdieu sails away, taking Patou with him, while Henri and Temple are left to lick their wounds–and, of course, to pick up their old rivalry where they left off in 1817... Now read on...

  London, Miremont, 1821

  Chapter One

  Gregory Temple’s Sleeplessness

  Gregory Temple had never been a sound sleeper, and his restlessness had not decreased with the years. There had been many a night when he had tossed and turned for hours on end without ever seeming to sleep at all, even without the excuse that he presently had for the return of his most disturbing obsession.

  It seemed to him now that he had not slept for a single minute in the previous 72 hours, since he had first renewed his acquaintance with that ridiculous little man, Ned Knob
. Master Knob had brought his obsession back to life, by leading him to his nemesis, John Devil–who had come back from the dead without the seemingly-dire inconvenience of becoming a grey man.

  Master Knob had added vile insult to cruel injury by claiming that he was intimately acquainted with Suzanne and her new family, but that should have been a minor irritant by comparison with the news that Comte Henri de Belcamp had not, after all, splattered his brains all over the gloomy walls of the Château de Belcamp. Alas, once lack of sleep began to bring delirium into Temple’s waking life, even minor irritants could be temporarily blown up out of all proportion, augmenting his fundamental distress.

  It should have been the monstrous thought of John Devil’s continued freedom that was keeping Temple awake now, as it had for two nights before, but it was not. He should have been cudgelling his brain in the attempt to figure out a way of finding the bandit again, or at least berating himself for not having succeeded in capturing the bandit at Greenhithe when they had been forced to quit the Outremort. Instead, he was berating himself for something else entirely, and calling himself a monster worse than any mindless grey giant or any phantom in a Quaker hat. He was drowning in regret for his own foolishness in somehow having contrived to put it completely out of is mind that he had a daughter, and that his daughter had a husband and a son.

  He had been ill, of course, and mad too–but what kind of excuse was that, for a man like him? He was no more than slightly ill now, nor was he much more than slightly mad. He was a trusted agent in the King’s secret police, charged with maintaining the peace and security of the realm–but how could he trust himself to do that, when he had not even been able to maintain the peace and security of his own family?