"Everything I Touch Turns To Graveyards"
"Everything I Touch Turns To Graveyards"
8/17/1934
I.
Somewhere out there, an unkillable killer prowled the dark streets of the city. The police did not even believe in his existence. No one's life could be counted as secure as long as that fiend was at large.
On the third floor of his building on East 38th Street, Dr Mercado Vitarius had changed into the work outfit he kept in a chest at the foot of his bed. Brown riding boots and tough corduroy breeches, with a long-sleeved shirt of tough denim. He held up a sleeveless black leather vest that closed with a flap across the front, and he regarded it somberly before draping it over one massive shoulder.
One more item came from the trunk, a wide leather belt that supported a sheathed commando knife on the left hip and a holstered Colt .45 revolver on the right. Across the back of the belt, loops held twelve additional cartridges. To Vitarius, buckling this belt was crossing a line he never took lightly.
The ancient Alchemist strode from his chambers to the stairs in the hall beyond and ascended to the first of his workshops. Eight inches over six feet in height, built with the long sleek muscles developed by action rather than training, Vitarius was an imposing sight. More than a century earlier, the young Vitarius had stood barely five feet ten and had weighed not even one hundred and eighty pounds but continued use of his longevity serum kept him growing.
Sometimes he wondered if he would meet some natural limit to his size or if he would end up a circus exhibit too huge for his muscles to support his own weight. He was deeply tanned to the extent that it seemed his natural hue would never return. This made his light brown eyes stand out vividly in a strange lambent way.
In his workshop, Vitarius laid the vest down and began carefully placing various glass vials and paper wraps of powders into the twenty pockets sewn on the inside. Defensive potions on the left, offensive on the right. He choose each with deliberation from the hundreds of Alchemical elixirs he had invented or refined over the many decades of his life.
Finally feeling ready, Vitarius headed down the stairs again. The excitement he had once relished from adventure had long ago faded away. He acted from a sense of duty because he accepted that the Midnight war offered threats only he might resolve. Knowing that Samhain was in the same city as himself was immensely unsettling. The Alchemist went through a panel in the rear of a walk-in closet by the front door, then down steep concrete steps and along a walkway that ended in his personal garage.
Vitarius flicked on the lights. Here he stored his taxi and his roadster. The Yellow Cab was useful for moving about the city undetected. Everyone was used to seeing taxis around at all hours. The shiny new Ford Cabriolet offered speed and maneuverability. The body panels of both vehicles had been soaked in Alchemical serums, as had the glass of the windows, to make them resistant against even high-powered rifle bullets.
Choosing the roadster, Vitarius let the engine warm before driving up the concrete ramp in the far corner. A steel barrier rose as he approached, activated by an electric eye. Then he eased out of a dead-end alley and into the sparse traffic on Lexington Avenue. The streets were nearly empty this time of night, since times were hard and fewer people owned cars than just a few years earlier. This was an era of unemployed men waiting in lines for bread or ragged children trying to sell newspapers and shoelaces on corners.
Finding a parking spot on 96th Street and Park Avenue, the Alchemist got out and regarded the new Squire Arms. The hotel was an Art Deco spike of chrome and geometric shapes pointing upward, and he did not care for the cold style. Vitarius strode past the canopied entrance with its doorman who wore a resplendent crimson uniform like that of a Balkan general. The towering dark form of the Alchemist drew the doorman's uneasy eye.
In the gleaming spacious lobby, the clerk behind the desk reacted as if a grizzly had entered. He ducked back and inspected the wall of cubbyholes which held keys as if he had suddenly remembered it was urgent he find one. Vitarius ignored the man. He reached the bank of three elevators and told the operator to go to the seventh floor.
Leaving a deeply intimidated elevator operator behind, the towering Alchemist stepped out into a wide hallway decorated with chrome sunbursts and decorative geometric patterns. All part of the Machine Age, he thought sourly. Finding the door knocked 321, he rapped sharply with his knuckles and then swung around to stand beside the door so that any bullets answering his knock would miss. His life had given him many strange habits.
At once the door swung open and a slight figure spare greeted him. Kenneth Dred was only about five feet nine but wiry and hardened by years of travel in the dangerous places of this world and the realms beyond. That fact that he lived in this plush hotel, as well as the quality of his well-tailored dark brown suit with its shirt and knitted silk tie, showed he had a comfortable income.
The gnomish face with its pointed nose and deepset dark eyes lit for a second, but immediately sobered again. "Good of you to come at such short notice, Mercado," Dred said. He reached behind himself to flick off the lights in his suite and closed the door. In one gloved hand, he held a soft fedora.
"This is an urgent matter," replied Vitarius in his usual thunderous voice. "You have the address?"
"I do," said the famous explorer and occultist. "Tonight we must confront Samhain."
II.
Kenneth Dred headed for the elevators with the Alchemist following. They were a bizarrely mismatched pair with Dred barely reaching Vitarius' shoulder. As they descended to the street, the same elevator operator stared openly at the imposing Alchemist. Vitarius was used to this and gave it no mind.
In another minute, they were seated in the roadster and easing out into traffic. Dred exhaled with relief. "With you beside me, I feel more sanguine about confronting this monster. There have been only two killings so far, and the police do not feel there is necessarily a connection. But I see it. A man named Brown and a man named Green. Samhain always follows a pattern."
Behind the wheel, in a seat that had been lowered to afford him some needed headroom, Dr Vitarius grumbled in agreement. "In only a few years, he has embarked on five killing sprees that we know of. The first, out in the Southwestern states involved men killed named Zebediah, Eli, Gideon and Samson..."
"All from the Book of Judges," agreed Dred. "He seems to have a particularly skewed sense of humor. The rampage that caught my attention a year ago was the murders of women who each worked in a field governed by the Nine Muses."
"He's educated, if nothing else," said Vitarius. "I had not held much hope of tracking him down. How did you spot his trail?"
Kenneth Dred frowned and hesitated. "I have a policy of collecting favors from people I've helped. Instead of accepting awards or being gracious and dismissing their gratitude, I ask that they call me if they notice anything bizarre or outre."
"Heh. You are shrewd for one so young, Kenneth," said Vitarius as he reluctantly stopped for a traffic light.
"I'm thirty-four. I was a Century Baby, born January 1st, 1900," Dred replied.
"To one such as myself, you are barely starting out in life." The Alchemist swung north up Fifth Avenue. "But I suppose I must keep a sense of perspective."
Staring out the opened passenger window, enjoying the rush of wind on this muggy night, Dred asked, "Have you heard anything from the Monk? This seems to be exactly the sort of threat he would leap to challenge."
"No luck there," replied Vitarius. "The Monk's passion for secrecy and misdirection is often a confounded nuisance. That man would wear a mask in a darkened room even if he was alone."
Dred laughed at that image. "Who knows? We may find he is hiding in the trunk of your car right now. Anyway, I called a few of the people who are in my debt and they provided me with a few clues. We have an address to start with, if nothing else."
Crossing the Hudson into West Nyak, the two adventurers talked. Dr Vitarius had in fact known Kenneth Dred's parents back in the closing days of the Nineteenth Century. He knew how hard they had struggled to amass a fortune and to invest it wisely for their only son. And, although he never mentioned it to Kenneth, he had a dark suspicion about the way the parents had died only a few years earlier.
"I wanted to ask you about how those daggers are working out?" the Alchemist said as they rolled through the darkness.
"Very well," Dred replied. "The edges remain sharper than a scalpel. One might expect silver blades to be softer than steel, yet these are not. And I have found them a potent defense against the creatures of the
night."
"As well they might be. The hilts are recent. I ordered them made by the German craftsman Wolfersteig to replace the worn-out old ones. But those blades are 'ensalir'... pure silver blessed by the immortal Eldarin themselves. No one knows how old they are. In their time, they have slain everything from warlocks to Skinwalkers to Kulan from Fanedral. The blades disrupt spells and protect against gralic bolts. You are the one mortal Man I thought I could trust to use them wisely."
Kenneth Dred made a scoffing noise. "Throwing them is not as easy as the moving pictures makes it look. I have hired an expert to give me lessons and I intend to practice with dedication. But so far, when I throw one of the daggers, all I can manage is make people in the area nervous."
They had been driving through a seedy area on the outskirts of town, arriving at an almost abandoned honkytonk by the side of the road. Only one sedan and a battered pick-up truck sat in the parking lot, with mournful hillbilly music streaming out. The building itself was ramshakle, with a tar paper roof and one window boarded over. A handpainted sign read HAPPY TRAILS, OPEN 4PM to 3AM and LIVE MUSIC WEEKENDS."
Surveying the scene with deep suspicion, Vitarius turned off the motor of his roadster. "What more do you know, Ken?"
Peering over through the windshield, Dred replied, "My source has seen a man answering Samhain's description here the past week. He seems to be renting a room or two on the top floor, and was spotting parking a black Duesenberg around the back.
"I see," said the giant Alchemist. He reached into a pocket in the driver side door and brought up a glass cylinder five inches long. As he attached a nozzle and rubber tube with a squeeze bulb to the device, he explained, "This contains the same anesthetic I lease to the Sting for his own crusade. He uses it in darts but I find the gaseous form more versatile."
"You intend to drug everyone in there unconscious...?"
"No. Not a room that size, with this concentration." Vitarius examined the apparatus again before opening his door. "This will merely make everyone in there extremely groggy and sluggish. As if ready for a nap. I think they will stay out of the way when we confront their tenant." He led Dred across the frosty gravel of the parking lot, speaking over one shoulder. "With luck, they'll stir themselves in a half hour or so and figure it must be time to go home."
Watching the ancient Alchemist kneel by the front door, out of sight from inside, Kenneth Dred said, "I believe I will watch the back door, Mercado. If our target becomes suspicious, I'll be there to intercept him."
"Good idea." Vitarius turned his strange gold-brown eyes up toward his friend. "I don't need to warn you to be extremely careful."
"Thanks anyway." Dred started toward the far end of the honkytonk with a quick springy stride. "But I'm no reckless daredevil."
This was true enough, he reflected as he went around to the back of building. As a young man barely out of school, Dred had wondered from the Gobi to the Upper Amazon to the depths of the Congo, always searching for the secrets of the Midnight War. He had begun compiling his discoveries into a personal log, FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE.
Along the way, he had added his own wealth to the fortune which his parents had left by gathering mystic talismans worth millions to collectors, as well as more prosaic bundles of emeralds, opals and diamonds. Several museums had gone almost broke buying some of the Inca or Danarak relics he had auctioned off. Always he used some of the proceeds to head out in the wild corners of the world again.
But he did not enjoy danger as so many wanderers did. Fighting held no appeal for him. If that unkillable maniac was indeed here, Dred thought he would be content to allow the hulking Vitarious handle any rough stuff. Yet, he also felt vaguely like doing something dramatic. Vitarius was so overwhelming, with his great size and knowledge and accomplishments. Dred felt overshadowed and he resented it.
As that thought crossed his mind, Dred saw the Alchemist stride up to join him. The rear of the honkytonk had two doors, one next to a small window which showed the interior of a kitchen. The other was unmarked and off to one side; above it were a pair of darkened windows. Directly below the windows was a decrepit couch that had been dragged out here once its presentable days were past.
Parked within reach was the extensive length of a Duesenberg. Detracting from the auto's impressiveness was the presence of two galvanized garbage cans filled past the brim and a few pieces of broken furniture and unidentifiable debris. A bedraggled black cat stirred and scuttled away at their approach. Dr Vitarius tried the knob on the unmarked door and found it unlocked. He had started to turn it when Dred acted unexpectedly.
Hopping onto the back of the couch against the outer wall, the occultist leaped up to seize the sill of the nearer window. He had noticed both windows were raised a few inches on this sultry summer night. Dred pulled himself up to rest his weight on one elbow while he pushed the window further open. Then, using both hands, he pulled himself through the dark space into the room beyond, nimble as an acrobat. Even when not exploring distant realms, Dred stayed active and flexible.
He found himself in a darkened bedroom that smelled faintly musty. The door was ajar and the faint sound of cloth rustling revealed the occupant of this apartment was in the next room. Kenneth Dred got to his feet and gingerly made his way toward that barely visible door. Against his forearms, inside their leather sheaths, he felt the silver daggers growing warm. They were warning him.
The lights clicked on in the next room. Standing there with a mocking grin on an improbably handsome face was a dapper young man still in his early twenties. Samhain.
III.
"Good evening," the killer purred. "Are you perhaps looking for the men's room?" Slightly over six feet tall, the man who called himself Samhain had a full head of thick black hair and clean-cut features that would not be out of place on a matinee idol. He was fully dressed in a powder blue suit, even to the tightly knotted tie and matching vest. He was not holding any weapon.
Despite the lack of visible weapons on his enemy, Dred felt as threatened as a cobra had abruptly reared up and flared its hood at him.
"I have come to make a deal," Dred replied. Feeling his pulse race, he moved forward into the living room. Samhain backed up to let him pass, and this positioned the monster closer to the door which opened on the stairs.
"Really? How intriguing." In Samhain's bright blue eyes, the sardonic gleam sharpened. "I say, I believe I know you. You're the son of Henry and Rachel Dred, aren't you...?"
Without the slightest warning, a huge pair of dark hands seized that handsome head from behind and twisted it completely around with a sharp cracking noise of bone breaking. Samhain's eyes rolled up to show only the whites and he slumped to the floor.
"My God, you move quietly for someone your size," said Dred.
"Your distracting him was a great help," answered Dr Vitarius. The giant Alchemist seemed to fill the room. His close-cropped hair scraped the ceiling as he moved. "We must hurry. We don't have much time until he recovers."
"Are you joking? Recovers?! You snapped his neck like a pretzel stick!"
"It's no joking matter." Vitarius growled. "Samhain is as immortal as flesh and blood can be. He has been reported killed a dozen times in the past few years and yet here he is!" He removed his belt. Coiled inside was a length of thin silk cord. With the buckle shaped like a hook, that cord had served as a grapple many times.
Rolling the limp form over, Vitarius cut the silk cord with his combat knife and bound him securely. Taking his time, making the knots excessively tight, the Alchemist said, "This man escaped police custody once by breaking both of his own thumbs and slipping out of handcuffs and then strangling the officer. I think we should take no chances with him."
Dred stared at the procedure, shaking his head. "Where did he get such a healing ability? What's his secret?
"No one knows," Vitarius said. "It can't come from any Alchemical elixir I've ever heard of. Maybe he made a pact with Draldros or Red Sect." He patted Samhain for weapons but found no guns or knives.
In a few seconds, the bound man twitched and his head raised. The blue eyes blinked a few times. "Oh, THAT was rude!" Samhain said.
Standing with arms folded, the giant Alchemist regarded their prisoner with a deadpan expression. "I doubt if anything is to be gained by trying to interrogate you."
"Don't be so hasty," Samhain replied as he tested his bonds. The silk line was too tough to snap but he tried wriggling free. "I have been quite active these past few years. Unlike fabled Midas, my gift is more macabre. Everything I touch turns to graveyards. Perhaps you would like to know where a few unrecovered bodies are buried? We could make a deal."
"No."
"Really?" asked Samhain. "You could close a few open files. You could offer some closure to the bereaved who fret they will never know for certain what happened to little Jimmy or Aunt Lou."
"We are not the police," Dred said quietly. Beneath his sleeves, the silver daggers burned hot enough to be painful. "He has some gralic ability. The ensalir detects it."
"I see," replied Vitarius. "The authorities could not hold you, Samhain, but they were limited in their methods. I suspect that if we seal you within a cement block in my basement, you will be helpless. Even if you don't die, at least you won't be getting free."
For the first time, some of the self-assured mockery left that face. "Or... I do have wealth. My victims had no use for money after our relationships ended. Perhaps a suitcase absolutely crammed with hundred dollar bills might appeal to you? Fifty thousand dollars these days will make for a comfortable life."
"Fool. I am a master Alchemist. I turn lead into gold, tin into platinum. The treasures of kings are as nothing to me." Vitarius glanced over at Dred. "Are you tempted by his offers?"
"Not at all," the occultist replied. "I wouldn't be able to sleep knowing this creature was at large. Let's get this over with."
"Ah, but I still have more to offer." Samhain smiled but only with his lips; his eyes remained cold and vicious. "You're Kenneth Dred, right? You know your parents died while on a small private yacht in the Caribbean but you were informed they apparently fell overboard during a storm. Would you like to learn the truth? Did you know your mother plotted with a paramour against your father and was desperate for freedom---?"
His next words were lost as Dred lunged forward and threw a surprisingly brutal kick that slewed the killer's jaw out of hinge. "Be quiet!" yelled Dred as he regained his footing. "Not another word."
Blinking, Dr Vitarius said, "I did not expect that from you, Kenneth."
"Oh, I've done research on this monster. Samhain is known to use psychological attacks when captured. All lies, but vicious lies that sound convincing." Dred was trembling with rage. "He was going to start poisoning my mind against my parents."
"I knew them for years, Kenneth," said the Alchemist. "They did not hate each other. Their yacht nearly sank in that storm and the pilot alone survived."
"Better we don't let his jaw heal back into place," Dred muttered. "He'll start talking again."
Dr Vitarius nodded in agreement. He looked around the rented room, found a dress shirt hanging in the closet and cut the sleeves off. With great care, he forced Samhain's jaws open and gagged the man. "It makes this easier that I do not have to worry about you choking," he observed.
Meanwhile, Kenneth Dred had moved about the room and then the bedroom, searching quickly. He finally went through the tiny bathroom and emerged shaking his head. "Nothing incriminating. He does not seem to keep souvenirs of his crimes as many maniacs do. Only some cash, a few keys which we will take, and a few local newspapers. Not more than some socks and underwear in the dresser."
"He lives on the run," Vitarius said. "Or, better to say, he did." Lifting the tightly bound form with one hand as easily as if carrying a bag of groceries, the Alchemist headed for the stairs. Dred followed. They made sure that Samhain could not kick against a wall to alert anyone. The muffled cries through the gag could not be heard from more than a few inches away.
IV.
On the way back to Manhattan, Dred was still fuming. "I can see how Samhain ruined so many police who were questioning him. I have always thought there was something suspicious about my folks being caught in a storm off Cuba. My father was an experienced sailor..."
"Don't give that maniac's lies another thought," Dr Vitarius said. "I'm sure he would have started trying to undermine me next." Behind the wheel, the giant seemed weary all of a sudden. "I have been thinking how to rid the Human race of him for once and for all."
Dred swung around give the rear of the Cabriolet a glance. "We'll be at your building shortly. I agree we should simply entomb him and get it over with."
"There is nothing to be gained by questioning him. He is too sly, too poison-tongued to converse with. The world will be a better place with Samhain gone from it."
"Yes. Mercado, I keep thinking about what he said. About my parents. Their trip to Cuba and to Haiti was done without much planning as I recall. They WERE acting strange. If I was not in California at the time, I would have gone with them..."
Vitarius snorted angrily. "Bah! If you had a child, Kenneth, Samhain would have told you that your son was a drug user in secret. If you were a scientist, he would have revealed that you were widely thought of as a fraud. Whatever would trouble you, he would try to sell. He uses words as just another weapon."
""Everything I touch turns to graveyards,'" Dred repeated. "Mercado, I have to wonder what made him this way? Was he traumatized as a child? Did he make some forbidden pact to have that healing ability? How long has he been doing this? Who IS Samhain?"
"None of that matters," the Alchemist grumbled. "Soon he will be merely another unsolved mystery in the folklore of crime."
They had entered the upper reaches of Manhattan. At a red light with no traffic in sight, Kenneth Dred unexpectedly made a squawking noise and leaped out of the car, leaving his door open. An instant later, Vitarius had thrown the roadster into park and plunged out after him.
The trunk was open and its compartment yawned empty except for a few scraps of the silk line and a small packet of papers held by a rubber band. There wasn't even any blood.
Dred clenched his fists until they ached, then dug around inside the trunk as if desperately hoping that somehow the killer was still in there somehow. "How? How did he escape?"
"The ends of these cords have been cleanly cut," Vitarius observed. "He must have had a tiny knife concealed on him, perhaps only a razor blade in his shoe. It was enough." The Alchemist flung himself behind the wheel again and Dred barely had enough time to jump back into the passenger seat before the roadster had a completely illegal U-turn on Tenth Avenue and sped back the way they had come.
For more than an hour, they retraced their route and drove along side streets in the search. Hardly anyone was in sight in the middle of the night, with so many bars and night clubs put out of business by the Depression. None of the few stragglers on sidewalks had seen anything of a man matching Samhain's description. One pedestrian yelped and ran in panic at the sudden gruff questioning from a dark man nearly seven feet tall.
Finally, discouraged and sick at heart, Dr Vitarius turned toward downtown and headed home. "At best, this will count as a draw, I must admit."
Dred had been studying the bundle of papers which Samhain had left behind. It seemed to consist of a dozen clippings from newspapers of the New York and New Jersey area. "Oh. My. God," he said at last. "Mercado, these are all birth announcements."
"Really? There must be more to the matter than that."
"Oh, there is." Dred's voice sounded unsteady. "All were clipped from newspapers of New Year's Day, 1900. The Century Babies, as they were called. That was Samhain's theme for his spree. And, yes, here is mine." He held up a yellow square of pulp paper. "I was on his demented list to be sent to the graveyard!"
4/7/2018
8/17/1934
I.
Somewhere out there, an unkillable killer prowled the dark streets of the city. The police did not even believe in his existence. No one's life could be counted as secure as long as that fiend was at large.
On the third floor of his building on East 38th Street, Dr Mercado Vitarius had changed into the work outfit he kept in a chest at the foot of his bed. Brown riding boots and tough corduroy breeches, with a long-sleeved shirt of tough denim. He held up a sleeveless black leather vest that closed with a flap across the front, and he regarded it somberly before draping it over one massive shoulder.
One more item came from the trunk, a wide leather belt that supported a sheathed commando knife on the left hip and a holstered Colt .45 revolver on the right. Across the back of the belt, loops held twelve additional cartridges. To Vitarius, buckling this belt was crossing a line he never took lightly.
The ancient Alchemist strode from his chambers to the stairs in the hall beyond and ascended to the first of his workshops. Eight inches over six feet in height, built with the long sleek muscles developed by action rather than training, Vitarius was an imposing sight. More than a century earlier, the young Vitarius had stood barely five feet ten and had weighed not even one hundred and eighty pounds but continued use of his longevity serum kept him growing.
Sometimes he wondered if he would meet some natural limit to his size or if he would end up a circus exhibit too huge for his muscles to support his own weight. He was deeply tanned to the extent that it seemed his natural hue would never return. This made his light brown eyes stand out vividly in a strange lambent way.
In his workshop, Vitarius laid the vest down and began carefully placing various glass vials and paper wraps of powders into the twenty pockets sewn on the inside. Defensive potions on the left, offensive on the right. He choose each with deliberation from the hundreds of Alchemical elixirs he had invented or refined over the many decades of his life.
Finally feeling ready, Vitarius headed down the stairs again. The excitement he had once relished from adventure had long ago faded away. He acted from a sense of duty because he accepted that the Midnight war offered threats only he might resolve. Knowing that Samhain was in the same city as himself was immensely unsettling. The Alchemist went through a panel in the rear of a walk-in closet by the front door, then down steep concrete steps and along a walkway that ended in his personal garage.
Vitarius flicked on the lights. Here he stored his taxi and his roadster. The Yellow Cab was useful for moving about the city undetected. Everyone was used to seeing taxis around at all hours. The shiny new Ford Cabriolet offered speed and maneuverability. The body panels of both vehicles had been soaked in Alchemical serums, as had the glass of the windows, to make them resistant against even high-powered rifle bullets.
Choosing the roadster, Vitarius let the engine warm before driving up the concrete ramp in the far corner. A steel barrier rose as he approached, activated by an electric eye. Then he eased out of a dead-end alley and into the sparse traffic on Lexington Avenue. The streets were nearly empty this time of night, since times were hard and fewer people owned cars than just a few years earlier. This was an era of unemployed men waiting in lines for bread or ragged children trying to sell newspapers and shoelaces on corners.
Finding a parking spot on 96th Street and Park Avenue, the Alchemist got out and regarded the new Squire Arms. The hotel was an Art Deco spike of chrome and geometric shapes pointing upward, and he did not care for the cold style. Vitarius strode past the canopied entrance with its doorman who wore a resplendent crimson uniform like that of a Balkan general. The towering dark form of the Alchemist drew the doorman's uneasy eye.
In the gleaming spacious lobby, the clerk behind the desk reacted as if a grizzly had entered. He ducked back and inspected the wall of cubbyholes which held keys as if he had suddenly remembered it was urgent he find one. Vitarius ignored the man. He reached the bank of three elevators and told the operator to go to the seventh floor.
Leaving a deeply intimidated elevator operator behind, the towering Alchemist stepped out into a wide hallway decorated with chrome sunbursts and decorative geometric patterns. All part of the Machine Age, he thought sourly. Finding the door knocked 321, he rapped sharply with his knuckles and then swung around to stand beside the door so that any bullets answering his knock would miss. His life had given him many strange habits.
At once the door swung open and a slight figure spare greeted him. Kenneth Dred was only about five feet nine but wiry and hardened by years of travel in the dangerous places of this world and the realms beyond. That fact that he lived in this plush hotel, as well as the quality of his well-tailored dark brown suit with its shirt and knitted silk tie, showed he had a comfortable income.
The gnomish face with its pointed nose and deepset dark eyes lit for a second, but immediately sobered again. "Good of you to come at such short notice, Mercado," Dred said. He reached behind himself to flick off the lights in his suite and closed the door. In one gloved hand, he held a soft fedora.
"This is an urgent matter," replied Vitarius in his usual thunderous voice. "You have the address?"
"I do," said the famous explorer and occultist. "Tonight we must confront Samhain."
II.
Kenneth Dred headed for the elevators with the Alchemist following. They were a bizarrely mismatched pair with Dred barely reaching Vitarius' shoulder. As they descended to the street, the same elevator operator stared openly at the imposing Alchemist. Vitarius was used to this and gave it no mind.
In another minute, they were seated in the roadster and easing out into traffic. Dred exhaled with relief. "With you beside me, I feel more sanguine about confronting this monster. There have been only two killings so far, and the police do not feel there is necessarily a connection. But I see it. A man named Brown and a man named Green. Samhain always follows a pattern."
Behind the wheel, in a seat that had been lowered to afford him some needed headroom, Dr Vitarius grumbled in agreement. "In only a few years, he has embarked on five killing sprees that we know of. The first, out in the Southwestern states involved men killed named Zebediah, Eli, Gideon and Samson..."
"All from the Book of Judges," agreed Dred. "He seems to have a particularly skewed sense of humor. The rampage that caught my attention a year ago was the murders of women who each worked in a field governed by the Nine Muses."
"He's educated, if nothing else," said Vitarius. "I had not held much hope of tracking him down. How did you spot his trail?"
Kenneth Dred frowned and hesitated. "I have a policy of collecting favors from people I've helped. Instead of accepting awards or being gracious and dismissing their gratitude, I ask that they call me if they notice anything bizarre or outre."
"Heh. You are shrewd for one so young, Kenneth," said Vitarius as he reluctantly stopped for a traffic light.
"I'm thirty-four. I was a Century Baby, born January 1st, 1900," Dred replied.
"To one such as myself, you are barely starting out in life." The Alchemist swung north up Fifth Avenue. "But I suppose I must keep a sense of perspective."
Staring out the opened passenger window, enjoying the rush of wind on this muggy night, Dred asked, "Have you heard anything from the Monk? This seems to be exactly the sort of threat he would leap to challenge."
"No luck there," replied Vitarius. "The Monk's passion for secrecy and misdirection is often a confounded nuisance. That man would wear a mask in a darkened room even if he was alone."
Dred laughed at that image. "Who knows? We may find he is hiding in the trunk of your car right now. Anyway, I called a few of the people who are in my debt and they provided me with a few clues. We have an address to start with, if nothing else."
Crossing the Hudson into West Nyak, the two adventurers talked. Dr Vitarius had in fact known Kenneth Dred's parents back in the closing days of the Nineteenth Century. He knew how hard they had struggled to amass a fortune and to invest it wisely for their only son. And, although he never mentioned it to Kenneth, he had a dark suspicion about the way the parents had died only a few years earlier.
"I wanted to ask you about how those daggers are working out?" the Alchemist said as they rolled through the darkness.
"Very well," Dred replied. "The edges remain sharper than a scalpel. One might expect silver blades to be softer than steel, yet these are not. And I have found them a potent defense against the creatures of the
night."
"As well they might be. The hilts are recent. I ordered them made by the German craftsman Wolfersteig to replace the worn-out old ones. But those blades are 'ensalir'... pure silver blessed by the immortal Eldarin themselves. No one knows how old they are. In their time, they have slain everything from warlocks to Skinwalkers to Kulan from Fanedral. The blades disrupt spells and protect against gralic bolts. You are the one mortal Man I thought I could trust to use them wisely."
Kenneth Dred made a scoffing noise. "Throwing them is not as easy as the moving pictures makes it look. I have hired an expert to give me lessons and I intend to practice with dedication. But so far, when I throw one of the daggers, all I can manage is make people in the area nervous."
They had been driving through a seedy area on the outskirts of town, arriving at an almost abandoned honkytonk by the side of the road. Only one sedan and a battered pick-up truck sat in the parking lot, with mournful hillbilly music streaming out. The building itself was ramshakle, with a tar paper roof and one window boarded over. A handpainted sign read HAPPY TRAILS, OPEN 4PM to 3AM and LIVE MUSIC WEEKENDS."
Surveying the scene with deep suspicion, Vitarius turned off the motor of his roadster. "What more do you know, Ken?"
Peering over through the windshield, Dred replied, "My source has seen a man answering Samhain's description here the past week. He seems to be renting a room or two on the top floor, and was spotting parking a black Duesenberg around the back.
"I see," said the giant Alchemist. He reached into a pocket in the driver side door and brought up a glass cylinder five inches long. As he attached a nozzle and rubber tube with a squeeze bulb to the device, he explained, "This contains the same anesthetic I lease to the Sting for his own crusade. He uses it in darts but I find the gaseous form more versatile."
"You intend to drug everyone in there unconscious...?"
"No. Not a room that size, with this concentration." Vitarius examined the apparatus again before opening his door. "This will merely make everyone in there extremely groggy and sluggish. As if ready for a nap. I think they will stay out of the way when we confront their tenant." He led Dred across the frosty gravel of the parking lot, speaking over one shoulder. "With luck, they'll stir themselves in a half hour or so and figure it must be time to go home."
Watching the ancient Alchemist kneel by the front door, out of sight from inside, Kenneth Dred said, "I believe I will watch the back door, Mercado. If our target becomes suspicious, I'll be there to intercept him."
"Good idea." Vitarius turned his strange gold-brown eyes up toward his friend. "I don't need to warn you to be extremely careful."
"Thanks anyway." Dred started toward the far end of the honkytonk with a quick springy stride. "But I'm no reckless daredevil."
This was true enough, he reflected as he went around to the back of building. As a young man barely out of school, Dred had wondered from the Gobi to the Upper Amazon to the depths of the Congo, always searching for the secrets of the Midnight War. He had begun compiling his discoveries into a personal log, FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE.
Along the way, he had added his own wealth to the fortune which his parents had left by gathering mystic talismans worth millions to collectors, as well as more prosaic bundles of emeralds, opals and diamonds. Several museums had gone almost broke buying some of the Inca or Danarak relics he had auctioned off. Always he used some of the proceeds to head out in the wild corners of the world again.
But he did not enjoy danger as so many wanderers did. Fighting held no appeal for him. If that unkillable maniac was indeed here, Dred thought he would be content to allow the hulking Vitarious handle any rough stuff. Yet, he also felt vaguely like doing something dramatic. Vitarius was so overwhelming, with his great size and knowledge and accomplishments. Dred felt overshadowed and he resented it.
As that thought crossed his mind, Dred saw the Alchemist stride up to join him. The rear of the honkytonk had two doors, one next to a small window which showed the interior of a kitchen. The other was unmarked and off to one side; above it were a pair of darkened windows. Directly below the windows was a decrepit couch that had been dragged out here once its presentable days were past.
Parked within reach was the extensive length of a Duesenberg. Detracting from the auto's impressiveness was the presence of two galvanized garbage cans filled past the brim and a few pieces of broken furniture and unidentifiable debris. A bedraggled black cat stirred and scuttled away at their approach. Dr Vitarius tried the knob on the unmarked door and found it unlocked. He had started to turn it when Dred acted unexpectedly.
Hopping onto the back of the couch against the outer wall, the occultist leaped up to seize the sill of the nearer window. He had noticed both windows were raised a few inches on this sultry summer night. Dred pulled himself up to rest his weight on one elbow while he pushed the window further open. Then, using both hands, he pulled himself through the dark space into the room beyond, nimble as an acrobat. Even when not exploring distant realms, Dred stayed active and flexible.
He found himself in a darkened bedroom that smelled faintly musty. The door was ajar and the faint sound of cloth rustling revealed the occupant of this apartment was in the next room. Kenneth Dred got to his feet and gingerly made his way toward that barely visible door. Against his forearms, inside their leather sheaths, he felt the silver daggers growing warm. They were warning him.
The lights clicked on in the next room. Standing there with a mocking grin on an improbably handsome face was a dapper young man still in his early twenties. Samhain.
III.
"Good evening," the killer purred. "Are you perhaps looking for the men's room?" Slightly over six feet tall, the man who called himself Samhain had a full head of thick black hair and clean-cut features that would not be out of place on a matinee idol. He was fully dressed in a powder blue suit, even to the tightly knotted tie and matching vest. He was not holding any weapon.
Despite the lack of visible weapons on his enemy, Dred felt as threatened as a cobra had abruptly reared up and flared its hood at him.
"I have come to make a deal," Dred replied. Feeling his pulse race, he moved forward into the living room. Samhain backed up to let him pass, and this positioned the monster closer to the door which opened on the stairs.
"Really? How intriguing." In Samhain's bright blue eyes, the sardonic gleam sharpened. "I say, I believe I know you. You're the son of Henry and Rachel Dred, aren't you...?"
Without the slightest warning, a huge pair of dark hands seized that handsome head from behind and twisted it completely around with a sharp cracking noise of bone breaking. Samhain's eyes rolled up to show only the whites and he slumped to the floor.
"My God, you move quietly for someone your size," said Dred.
"Your distracting him was a great help," answered Dr Vitarius. The giant Alchemist seemed to fill the room. His close-cropped hair scraped the ceiling as he moved. "We must hurry. We don't have much time until he recovers."
"Are you joking? Recovers?! You snapped his neck like a pretzel stick!"
"It's no joking matter." Vitarius growled. "Samhain is as immortal as flesh and blood can be. He has been reported killed a dozen times in the past few years and yet here he is!" He removed his belt. Coiled inside was a length of thin silk cord. With the buckle shaped like a hook, that cord had served as a grapple many times.
Rolling the limp form over, Vitarius cut the silk cord with his combat knife and bound him securely. Taking his time, making the knots excessively tight, the Alchemist said, "This man escaped police custody once by breaking both of his own thumbs and slipping out of handcuffs and then strangling the officer. I think we should take no chances with him."
Dred stared at the procedure, shaking his head. "Where did he get such a healing ability? What's his secret?
"No one knows," Vitarius said. "It can't come from any Alchemical elixir I've ever heard of. Maybe he made a pact with Draldros or Red Sect." He patted Samhain for weapons but found no guns or knives.
In a few seconds, the bound man twitched and his head raised. The blue eyes blinked a few times. "Oh, THAT was rude!" Samhain said.
Standing with arms folded, the giant Alchemist regarded their prisoner with a deadpan expression. "I doubt if anything is to be gained by trying to interrogate you."
"Don't be so hasty," Samhain replied as he tested his bonds. The silk line was too tough to snap but he tried wriggling free. "I have been quite active these past few years. Unlike fabled Midas, my gift is more macabre. Everything I touch turns to graveyards. Perhaps you would like to know where a few unrecovered bodies are buried? We could make a deal."
"No."
"Really?" asked Samhain. "You could close a few open files. You could offer some closure to the bereaved who fret they will never know for certain what happened to little Jimmy or Aunt Lou."
"We are not the police," Dred said quietly. Beneath his sleeves, the silver daggers burned hot enough to be painful. "He has some gralic ability. The ensalir detects it."
"I see," replied Vitarius. "The authorities could not hold you, Samhain, but they were limited in their methods. I suspect that if we seal you within a cement block in my basement, you will be helpless. Even if you don't die, at least you won't be getting free."
For the first time, some of the self-assured mockery left that face. "Or... I do have wealth. My victims had no use for money after our relationships ended. Perhaps a suitcase absolutely crammed with hundred dollar bills might appeal to you? Fifty thousand dollars these days will make for a comfortable life."
"Fool. I am a master Alchemist. I turn lead into gold, tin into platinum. The treasures of kings are as nothing to me." Vitarius glanced over at Dred. "Are you tempted by his offers?"
"Not at all," the occultist replied. "I wouldn't be able to sleep knowing this creature was at large. Let's get this over with."
"Ah, but I still have more to offer." Samhain smiled but only with his lips; his eyes remained cold and vicious. "You're Kenneth Dred, right? You know your parents died while on a small private yacht in the Caribbean but you were informed they apparently fell overboard during a storm. Would you like to learn the truth? Did you know your mother plotted with a paramour against your father and was desperate for freedom---?"
His next words were lost as Dred lunged forward and threw a surprisingly brutal kick that slewed the killer's jaw out of hinge. "Be quiet!" yelled Dred as he regained his footing. "Not another word."
Blinking, Dr Vitarius said, "I did not expect that from you, Kenneth."
"Oh, I've done research on this monster. Samhain is known to use psychological attacks when captured. All lies, but vicious lies that sound convincing." Dred was trembling with rage. "He was going to start poisoning my mind against my parents."
"I knew them for years, Kenneth," said the Alchemist. "They did not hate each other. Their yacht nearly sank in that storm and the pilot alone survived."
"Better we don't let his jaw heal back into place," Dred muttered. "He'll start talking again."
Dr Vitarius nodded in agreement. He looked around the rented room, found a dress shirt hanging in the closet and cut the sleeves off. With great care, he forced Samhain's jaws open and gagged the man. "It makes this easier that I do not have to worry about you choking," he observed.
Meanwhile, Kenneth Dred had moved about the room and then the bedroom, searching quickly. He finally went through the tiny bathroom and emerged shaking his head. "Nothing incriminating. He does not seem to keep souvenirs of his crimes as many maniacs do. Only some cash, a few keys which we will take, and a few local newspapers. Not more than some socks and underwear in the dresser."
"He lives on the run," Vitarius said. "Or, better to say, he did." Lifting the tightly bound form with one hand as easily as if carrying a bag of groceries, the Alchemist headed for the stairs. Dred followed. They made sure that Samhain could not kick against a wall to alert anyone. The muffled cries through the gag could not be heard from more than a few inches away.
IV.
On the way back to Manhattan, Dred was still fuming. "I can see how Samhain ruined so many police who were questioning him. I have always thought there was something suspicious about my folks being caught in a storm off Cuba. My father was an experienced sailor..."
"Don't give that maniac's lies another thought," Dr Vitarius said. "I'm sure he would have started trying to undermine me next." Behind the wheel, the giant seemed weary all of a sudden. "I have been thinking how to rid the Human race of him for once and for all."
Dred swung around give the rear of the Cabriolet a glance. "We'll be at your building shortly. I agree we should simply entomb him and get it over with."
"There is nothing to be gained by questioning him. He is too sly, too poison-tongued to converse with. The world will be a better place with Samhain gone from it."
"Yes. Mercado, I keep thinking about what he said. About my parents. Their trip to Cuba and to Haiti was done without much planning as I recall. They WERE acting strange. If I was not in California at the time, I would have gone with them..."
Vitarius snorted angrily. "Bah! If you had a child, Kenneth, Samhain would have told you that your son was a drug user in secret. If you were a scientist, he would have revealed that you were widely thought of as a fraud. Whatever would trouble you, he would try to sell. He uses words as just another weapon."
""Everything I touch turns to graveyards,'" Dred repeated. "Mercado, I have to wonder what made him this way? Was he traumatized as a child? Did he make some forbidden pact to have that healing ability? How long has he been doing this? Who IS Samhain?"
"None of that matters," the Alchemist grumbled. "Soon he will be merely another unsolved mystery in the folklore of crime."
They had entered the upper reaches of Manhattan. At a red light with no traffic in sight, Kenneth Dred unexpectedly made a squawking noise and leaped out of the car, leaving his door open. An instant later, Vitarius had thrown the roadster into park and plunged out after him.
The trunk was open and its compartment yawned empty except for a few scraps of the silk line and a small packet of papers held by a rubber band. There wasn't even any blood.
Dred clenched his fists until they ached, then dug around inside the trunk as if desperately hoping that somehow the killer was still in there somehow. "How? How did he escape?"
"The ends of these cords have been cleanly cut," Vitarius observed. "He must have had a tiny knife concealed on him, perhaps only a razor blade in his shoe. It was enough." The Alchemist flung himself behind the wheel again and Dred barely had enough time to jump back into the passenger seat before the roadster had a completely illegal U-turn on Tenth Avenue and sped back the way they had come.
For more than an hour, they retraced their route and drove along side streets in the search. Hardly anyone was in sight in the middle of the night, with so many bars and night clubs put out of business by the Depression. None of the few stragglers on sidewalks had seen anything of a man matching Samhain's description. One pedestrian yelped and ran in panic at the sudden gruff questioning from a dark man nearly seven feet tall.
Finally, discouraged and sick at heart, Dr Vitarius turned toward downtown and headed home. "At best, this will count as a draw, I must admit."
Dred had been studying the bundle of papers which Samhain had left behind. It seemed to consist of a dozen clippings from newspapers of the New York and New Jersey area. "Oh. My. God," he said at last. "Mercado, these are all birth announcements."
"Really? There must be more to the matter than that."
"Oh, there is." Dred's voice sounded unsteady. "All were clipped from newspapers of New Year's Day, 1900. The Century Babies, as they were called. That was Samhain's theme for his spree. And, yes, here is mine." He held up a yellow square of pulp paper. "I was on his demented list to be sent to the graveyard!"
4/7/2018