The jeep trundled along the road towards the Sinkett Inn motel. It had been built a few years previously, after Americans had begun to see the vast possibilities of Tripsun Falls as a honeymoon resort. The motel may have been huge, vulgar and tasteless, but it did great business, situated on a cliff opposite the famous and spectacular falls.
“So why does Davidson want that beautiful girl dead?” Lawrence asked Dodge as they drove along the winding road towards the hotel. Dodge glanced up at the sky, now imbued by pinks and oranges as the sun started rising.
“I don’t know, Lawrence. I hardly know anything about the man, save that he is supposed to be as powerful in magic as you, but favours the dark art of necromancy.”
“He is a coward!” Lawrence sneered. “He would do anything to save his neck.”
Dodge glanced at Lawrence, who continued glaring darkly ahead.
“A few years ago he was in Minnesota hunting for a stone slab supposedly covered in runic writings,” the Rune Weaver began. “He had a crazy idea that some Scandinavians had travelled there hundreds of years ago and were struck down by some awful tragedy. He wouldn’t say where he got the idea from, but he was convinced that some demon had stolen their souls and consumed their bodies. He was after more magical power.”
“Demon?” Dodge exclaimed.
Lawrence gave a grim smile. “It didn’t matter what the fool believed in, but he got two teenage boys killed while blowing up rocks. Then he raised the young idiots from the dead to plant more sticks of explosives with short fuses. The local law didn’t step in because the boys were Indians. But Davidson isn’t racist. It doesn’t matter to him who is killed, so long as he gets his power and glory!”
Davidson snuffled pathetically and drained his glass. The booze didn’t ease the pain, nothing ever would. Why is life so unfair to me? he mused as he gazed down at the photographs.
He had made a remarkable find - proof that Erik the Red’s son, Leif Errikson, had visited the North American continent. The Vinland Map had traced a line of discovery that when compared to modern maps, showed the progress these ancient explorers had made, starting from Helluland (modern day Baffin Island), travelled down through Markland, the land of forests (probably Labrador), and all the way down to Vinland, the north east coat of America.
Unfortunately, this was not viewed as a great discovery. These days historians were surmising a great deal about America’s early colonization, by everyone from Ancient Ethiopians and Egyptians to Irish and Scottish fishermen. Any seafaring nation could have stumbled across the enormous land.
The major discovery wasn’t that Leif Eriksson had landed there around 1,000 AD, but that he had found the remains of a Norse settlement already two hundred years old!
The Vinland Map had been accompanied by an old leather parchment that had told of a mission undertaken by a band of Vikings to remove a blight from their village. They had set sail carrying an evil cargo, contents known only to a few village elders.
Their voyage had taken them to New England where they had buried the cargo in a small cave and built a barrier to contain the evil.
The evil of Fenris!
It had taken Davidson years, but he had eventually learned that the warriors had burned their great longship and moved inland, relentlessly pursued by echoes of the evil force they had buried in that cave.
Eventually, when they felt they had travelled far enough from the dark site, they inscribed its location on a great stone slab so that no-one would forget them or the sacrifice that they had made. However, not wanting to ever release the force, they hid the slab.
Only one who was destined by the gods would ever find the location of the evil.
Then, one night not long after, their encampment was attacked by a force of chaos that killed all bar one. The survivor wrote an account of these terrible events on a roll of ox leather and wrapped it around the handle of his axe.
The fate of this lone warrior would never be known, but Davidson had discovered the axe and stone slab. He kept these finds quiet, knowing that somewhere along the line he would find something that would change his life ... forever! He would become like a god on the earth!
The jeep drew ever closer to the motel and Davidson. Dodge and Lawrence continued their conversation, so engrossed that Dodge didn’t notice movement within his knapsack.
Somehow the Runes knew they were coming home.
Clouds scudded across the sky with unnatural speed. A sudden gust of wind yanked Dodge from the conversation.
“Dodge, it feels like a twister brewing!” Lawrence warned, a worried edge in his voice.
“Are you crazy ... you don’t get twisters this far up!” Dodge looked at him questioningly. “Do you?”
In answer, Lawrence pointed to the sky.
The clouds seemed to be spinning in a hypnotic motion directly above the motel. The sky grew darker and the wind began to howl.
Davidson stared gloomily into the fire. He remembered with vivid clarity how he had assembled a team of young archaeologists and set forth to find the shrine.
The concept of evil sat happily in his dark heart!
He leaned forward as his stomach started grumbling.
A sharp pain shot through his side.
Christ, what had been in this drink?
Davidson grasped at his stomach, doubling over in agony. It had finally arrived – the end game for him. He had hoped he could escape it, but alas no. If he didn’t accept this punishment then he and the world around him would cease to be. No matter how evil he was, he couldn’t wipe out the entire planet for no reason. His face twisted into a concrete sculpture of pain, his teeth biting through his lower lip.
He had never felt a pain like this!
His chest was writhing and knotting like a sack full of snakes.
He managed to gurgle a scream before his world exploded!
The windows smashed in unison with his scream!
Far away, on the Dark Lotus, Yue Tiansiang snapped awake, his eyes wide with fear.
By all the gods, what had he done to himself?
Davidson heard a wet rip echo through his skull. Looking down in disbelief, he saw that half a dozen snakes had eaten their way out of his chest! They squirmed about in the air, each one opening a bizarre, four-pointed jaw.
He felt the vile unearthly creatures try to devour his soul.
There didn’t appear to be any blood, but the pain was indescribable. He felt as though his blood had turned to white-hot lava.
Inside Dodge’s knapsack the runes were rattling furiously against each other, as though puppets of that bizarre tornado. It appeared to be ripping into one of the upper storey motel rooms.
“What the Hell’s going on, Dodge!?” Lawrence shouted.
“You tell me, Rune Weaver!” he shouted back.
Suddenly the jeep lurched off the road and all Lawrence’s magic couldn’t stop it from plunging into the river.
Davidson staggered forward. The snakes seemed to be everywhere; biting his body, wrapping around his neck, trying to eat his soul and poison his blood. But he wasn’t going without a fight! Finally he managed to take control of his mind and body, and initiated a spell that could stop the evil from engulfing the rest of world.
Somewhere deep in Lawrence’s mind, he became aware of this, and realised what he had to do to help.
Davidson’s chant rose to a blood-curdling scream as he unleashed the final verse of his spell. Holding the demonic serpents in place, he fell headfirst into the open fire.
The ferocious gale ripped into motel room, tearing the walls apart like tissue paper. But then, as suddenly as it had begun, it stopped.
Later the police would find Davidson’s body, or what remained of it, sprawled in the fireplace. They would determine that he had gotten so drunk that he had lost his balance and fallen into the flames.
They couldn’t find any wounds on his body, nor venom in his rapidly congealing blood. The motel explosion must have been caused by a faulty g
as pipe. Unfortunately, this revelation put the Sinkett Inn motel out of business.
The results of Lawrence’s efforts helped this area to create an entirely new ley-line of magic across the earth’s surface. This flowed through the pregnant body of a Mrs. Diamond, who happened to be on honeymoon in the Sinkett Inn with her husband. The magic inhabited the foetus and imbued it with ancient powers. Later she gave birth to the werewolf mage Jack Diamond, who would eventually met up with the vampire hit man Marc Jaeger.
But that is a story for another time.
Chapter Eight
The Return of Reptilia
“Dodge, I’ve never seen anything like that!” Lawrence gasped in awe.
“Lawrence, we’re in the water!”
The jeep was floating languidly down the Tripsun River, calm now after the storm’s sudden disappearance.
“It’s okay Dodge, this jeep can float as well as fly.” Lawrence chuckled, patting the battered vehicle’s dashboard.
“Yeah? At the moment I’d rather we were flying!” Dodge exclaimed.
Lawrence looked at him in puzzlement. Dodge pointed ahead.
The jeep and its two occupants were sailing gently but inexorably to the vast and majestic splendour of the Tripsun Falls. And the vehicle was beginning to pick up speed!
“Aw Hell,” Lawrence muttered into the increasing roar of the approaching falls. “Dodge, we have to get the hell out of here!”
“What about your jeep?” Dodge gasped.
“Screw the jeep! I’m sentimental not suicidal!” Lawrence grabbed Dodge’s arm in a vice-like grip and began to draw him from the vehicle. Dodge gritted his teeth, trying not to cry out at the sight of the water dropping away from beneath his feet.
The Rune Weaver could only take them as far as a shallow inlet off the one side before his concentration deserted him. They splashed down just as the old jeep went over the edge and disappeared.
Determinedly Lawrence and Dodge started slogging through the ice-cold river. They could feel the water pushing at them, trying to sweep them after the old car.
Gradually, however, the water level dropped, and within a few minutes had fallen to their waists. Dodge glanced over at Lawrence, who was labouring slightly behind him, his face a pale shade of ashen grey. But the stalwart mage shook his head at Dodge’s offer of help and continued forward on his own.
The jeep tumbled gracefully into the plunge pool at the base of the falls and disappeared into the foam and spray from the cascading water. It smashed into the rocks below, the bonnet crumpling like cardboard. The front axle shattered like a candy cane. The rear end collapsed into the ruined front and was swamped beneath tons of swirling water, crushing the chassis more effectively than any mechanical car-crusher.
Lawrence’s pride and joy was no more, and despite his words to Dodge before, the Rune Weaver experienced a pang of sorrow.
But at least the end was in sight now.
As Dodge and Lawrence clambered onto the ground, Dodge caught his breath and took in their surroundings. The wet mage dropped his hands onto his knees, panting heavily from the exhaustion of his traumatic experience.
“I must leave you now Dodge. That magical storm back there is not finished yet. I must end it once and for all … I fear that it will be the end of me! Farewell my friend!” The two friends embraced, then Lawrence glowed with a magical energy and flew away … more than likely to his doom.
“Well, I’d better find Twice and Susan!” Dodge declared to no-one in particular, and started walking away from the river towards the road.
Dodge found Twice Weekly lay sprawled on his stomach on the ground, a huge welt on the back of his head. The bound thug was dead, his body riddled with bullet holes.
Of Susan there was no sign.
Dodge knelt by his old friend and turned him gently onto his back. Twice was still alive, but appeared to have received a terrible beating. “Twice ?” Dodge whispered. “Twice, what happened?” The man stirred but was no closer to consciousness. “Damn!” Dodge hissed. Where was Susan?
As Susan had been waiting with Twice for the police to arrive, a truck had pulled up and a number of Chinese thugs had leapt out, brandishing rifles.
Twice had ordered Susan to run and immediately put up a fight. The skirmish resulted in the gangster who had tried to run them the off the road dying in the crossfire.
The thugs then knocked Twice out and grabbed her. Reptilia climbed out of the cabin and to Susan’s surprise stopped her men from finishing Twice off.
Then they dragged Susan into the truck and drove her to the railway line, where they forced her out at gunpoint. Within a few seconds they had lashed her to the tracks.
But instead of quaking in fear, Susan was really starting to tire of the comic-book antics of these hooligans.
Reptilia sneered down at her as she lay bound to the railway tracks.
“You are a very disturbed woman, Reptilia,” Susan sighed wearily. “And you have no imagination whatsoever! I mean tying my to a railway line? This is so corny!”
“It may well be corny, but in about ten minutes it will be very effective,” Reptilia hissed.
“You’re putting an awful lot of faith in the Canadian train timetables,” Susan retorted. However, her bravado hid one awful fact. As she lay on the metal tracks she could feel the far off vibrations of an approaching train. There was every possibility that in eleven minutes Susan Kirkmuir would be crushed to death beneath the wheels of an Alaska to Canada express.
A painful and deeply embarrassing death...
As she heard the eerie sound of the oncoming train, she peered anxiously down the track…
Suddenly Twice snapped his eyes open and looked at the sky. He stared blindly ahead for a few seconds and then groaned in pain and disappointment. Supporting himself on his elbow, he pinched the bridge of his nose tightly between two fingers.
Dodge took him gently by the shoulders. “Take it easy Twice,” he soothed.
However the little man attempted to clamber to his feet. “They got her Dodge. I tried to stop them but they took Susan,” Twice slurred.
“Who took her? More cheap hoods?” Dodge demanded, but Twice raised his hand and shook his head.
“No, these fellows were Chinese. I think our friend Yue Tiansiang has finally managed to track us down!”
“Twice, you stay here wait for the police. I’ll look for Susan,” Dodge assured his long time pal.
“Dodge -” he began.
“Dodge nothing!” he countered. “You’re in no fit state to help. I want you to look after these.” Putting his hand into his knapsack he pulled out the Runes. “Whatever happens, Tiansiang’s goons must not get hold of them!”
He handed the artefacts to Twice, who met his gaze and nodded solemnly. Dodge smiled, trusting this man. Then he checked his gun and looked around. Where the hell had they taken Susan?
The great sleek train hurtled down the tracks towards the Alaskan/Canadian border.
Fifteen or so miles in front of it, bound tightly to the railway line, Susan Kirkmuir struggled against her bonds. She had no wish to be crushed beneath a train in a style more suited to an old silent movie than to real life!
She was also becoming seriously annoyed at always needing to be rescued by Dodge Danger! It was embarrassing and just so ... stereotypical.
The tracks beneath her began to vibrate with a greater urgency.
She looked down the track again, but still no sign of the train.
Reptilia and her thugs watched the bound girl awaiting her doom.
Under her back Susan could feel the vibrations growing stronger. She knew that the train could still be a good distance away, but it was drawing closer with each passing second.
She tried wriggling her wrists, bound above her head, free from the ropes, but only succeeded in chafing the skin beneath the hemp.
Susan was stuck fast!
Dodge found his first clue to Susan’s whereabouts almost immediately, when he stumbl
ed across a scrap from her torn shorts. The he discovered some threads from her shirt, and part of the heel of one boot, where she must have kicked out at an attacker.
He soon realized her kidnappers weren’t trying to hide her from him. In fact, he began to feel like he was being lured into a trap.
The trail led him inexorably him towards the railway line. By now the morning sun had risen fully, and was beginning to dry off his sodden clothes.
A grim line was set across his mouth. He checked his waterproof watch. It read 7:37 am.
Dodge came to a gentle grassy rise. He climbed it and looked down onto the railway line.
Susan lay bound hand and foot to the tracks below. Behind her stood a number of Chinese thugs pointing a rifle directly at him. Reptilia stood in between them, a triumphant smile on her icily beautiful face.
“Mr Danger, in five minutes a large train will pass here, turning Miss Kirkmuir into Chop Suey!” Reptilia declared.
Dodge took a step forward. The row of rifles was levelled at his chest.
“Another step and you will be dead before her, Mr Danger!” Reptilia planted her hands on her hips and stood in a challenging manner. Dodge looked at the rifles and then at Susan. In the distance he could hear the sound of the train rumbling through the morning.
One of the Chinese thugs seemed like he was struggling with the tension created by the stand off. The rifle in his grip began to tremble and a bead of sweat trickled down the side of his face.
Dodge felt his mouth go dry. That idiot could fire at any second!
“Let her go, Reptilia!” Dodge shouted with as much authority as he could muster.
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