The Nemesis of Evil Page 2

  The Master raised his hand from Brother Ahriman and turned his piercing gaze upon the others. Those eyes were strange, almost frightening in their intensity. In color, they were virtually unique, for they were as pale as ice, and all but colorless. In the face of another, lesser man, they might have seemed vague, watery, ineffectual. But not in the face of the Master: that visage was a grim, frowning mask that radiated power, strength, and authority. Indomitable will could be read in that iron jaw, and superhuman intelligence in the bald brow of that bullet head. It was, quite literally, the face of a man born with the intellectual genius of a Newton and with the iron will and leadership of a Napoleon.

  But there were other qualities that Brother Ahriman could read in those cold, commanding eyes, those thin, hard lips, that brutal and muscular face.

  And they were the cunning of the Devil, the cruelty of a fiend, the ruthlessness of another Hitler.

  The last report delivered, the Master now gave his instructions to each disciple. The lodges, or local branches of the Brotherhood, were to strive to increase their total membership through intensive advertising and recruitment measures. The beguilement of the wealthy and the superstitious was to continue with redoubled vigor. A close watch was to be maintained upon the activities of the Los Angeles editor to ascertain whether or not his yielding to their persuasion had been sincere or feigned. If he attempted to contact members of the district attorney’s office, the police force, or the federal authorities, it was to be reported instantly in the usual manner — a coded advertisement in the personal columns of the Los Angeles Illustrated Press. Ironically, this was the very newspaper of which he was the editor!

  There were other instructions. Forthcoming issues of the two occult publications were to be closely monitored; The Rowan Tree would probably cause no difficulty from now on, but if Elvira Higgins proved recalcitrant, the same “warning” that had seemingly converted the managing editor of the Illustrated Press was to be given her.

  The reports made, the new instructions given, it was time to go. Yet the disciples lingered, awaiting their dismissal. The Master stood, towering above them, aloof and impassive and immobile as a statue, with a curious hint of expression in his eyes of icy flame. Was it sorrow, regret — suffering? It was hard to tell.

  Then he began to speak, and now the deep organ-like tones of his voice were muted and somber as if laden with melancholy.

  “It has been given unto me by Those we serve to know that one amongst you has betrayed my trust,” he said. As if thunderstruck, the disciples froze, then burst into a clamor of protestation and inquiry, which the Master stilled with a lifted palm.

  “Silence! The Children of the Fire-Mist, who, in the Beginning, molded life upon this Earth and taught Their secret wisdom to the ancient sages of Lemuria, speak to me in the stilly watches of the night when I am at my prayers, in vigil before the altar of the Ancient Flame. The secrets of men’s hearts and minds are open to Their scrutiny, nor can any hide from Their vengeance. If there truly be a Judas among us, They shall strike him down in Their own time. The invisible flames of the Fire-Mist shall enfold him and he shall die the miserable death of a traitor, accursed alike in this life and in the Second World! Now begone, all of you, that I may return to my sorrowful meditations.”

  They turned and went down the twisting path, leaving him in solitary thought above.

  When next they turned to look, he was gone. It was as if the Master had dissolved back into the thin air from which he had materialized, for they knew, all of them, that there was no way down from that rocky ledge other than by the path on which they stood.

  Chapter 2 — Invisible Flames

  The telephone in the glass-enclosed cubicle rang deafeningly. The tall, skinny man with the nervous eyebrows, who had been stretched out in the swivel chair rapidly scanning column after column of newsprint still fresh from the composing room, jumped three inches in the air. He came down simultaneously cursing a blue streak and hunting frantically for the phone, which was buried beneath the clutter atop his desk.

  Finding the instrument and fitting it to his ear, he bellowed “Halleck!” into the mouthpiece. In the next moment he relaxed, for the voice at the other end of the line was that of his boss, Robert Russell Ryan, millionaire owner and publisher of the Illustrated Press.

  “That you, chief? I thought it was MacAndrews, reporting back from ... no, nothing yet on that. Sure, I gave him the minicamera and showed him how to use it. With any luck, we should have a decent picture of the devil-in-chief by this afternoon, at the latest. That’s right, they’re waiting right now; the darkroom’s all set up, and I got Hennessey standing by the teleprinter to shoot it off to Washington for identification the minute the print’s dry.... Dang right I’ll let you know! ... Okay, okay. Yeah; I’m a little jumpy too ... this thing’s got me on edge, my nerves are crawlin’ like ninety-nine cockroaches closin’ in on a chocolate cream pie.... Right; will do.”

  Hanging the receiver back on the hook, Halleck sat back and mopped his brow with a huge red bandanna handkerchief. His eyebrows, thick and furry as two fat caterpillars, crawled and wriggled up and down his brow. He went back to reading newsprint.

  It did not even begin to happen until they reached the rocky foot of Mount Shasta. And, once begun, it was all over within seconds.

  This was desolate country, here at the northern extremity of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Dirt roads cut through scrub pine forest to join the main highway. But here, at the base of the mysterious mountain, there was nothing to be seen but mounds of broken rock, tumbled slabs, and heaps of rubble, partly overgrown by wiry bushes.

  They came down in single file, with Brother Ahriman the last to descend. Since he had been walking behind the others and was thus unseen by them, he had rolled back the sleeve of his red robes, unstrapped the tiny camera from beneath his right forearm, and held it hidden in his palm. In a few moments they would remove their robes and bundle them away, each disciple seeking his car where it was hidden among the trees. Ahriman did not want the camera to be seen when he unrobed in the full view of the others.

  But he never unrobed.

  Suddenly, he voiced an ear-splitting scream of pain. It was the sort of throat-ripping cry that might be wrenched from a man if his entire body were suddenly plunged into a bath of hissing acid. None of the other men had ever heard so hideous a shriek in all their lives. They gasped, paled, and whipped around to see what had wrung such a cry from their comrade.

  Ahriman, his face white as salt, his eyes virtually bulging from their sockets, stood on his tiptoes, his body bent backward in a rigid arc eloquent of unbelievable agony.

  His mouth was open, the lips drawn back in a ghastly skull-like grin that bared his teeth to the gums.

  For a moment only he stood thus; then he threw himself to the ground and rolled over and over in the gritty sand, rubbing his body against the earth desperately. A cold chill went through the other men as they stood there stiffly, staring at his weird contortions with wide, frightened .eyes.

  He acted like a man whose body was enveloped in flames and who is trying to crush the flames out against the earth. But they could see no flames, nor did his scarlet robes blacken, nor his flesh crisp. It was as if their brother was bathed in invisible flames....

  The same thought struck home to each man in the same instant. But it was he whom the Master had called Brother Nergal who was the one to give it voice.

  “The Fire-Mist!” he croaked through dry lips. The others stared at him in speechless horror, then back at the writhing, mindless thing that had, only a moment before, been a man. Then, in a single concerted rush, they broke and ran for the trees where their cars were waiting. No one wanted to be left alone with the hapless traitor who had incurred the wrath of the Master and of Those whom he served.

  In moments they were gone. And there was nothing there at the bleak foot of Shasta except the gasping, struggling thing that sobbed out the last instants of its life in frightful agony.
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  But just before he died, a semblance of sanity returned to Ahriman’s pain-wracked mind. A brief moment of lucidity between twin eternities of torment. And in that moment he staggered somehow to his feet and shoved into a crevice in the rocky wall the tiny instrument he still held clenched in his left fist — the camera containing the film whereon was recorded the features of the Master.

  With shaking hands he shoved it deep into the crack and plugged it with bits of broken rock.

  Then he died.

  The publisher of the Los Angeles Illustrated Press, Mr. Robert Russell Ryan, was cooling off with a brisk rubdown and a cold martini after an hour on the tennis court when the telephone rang.

  The voice at the other end was so distorted with fear and a peculiar quality that Ryan knew was anger that it was a moment or two before he could recognize it as that of Gordon Halleck, the managing editor of his Los Angeles paper.

  The message Halleck imparted in a voice shaking with rage and fright was enough to make Ryan drop his martini glass from suddenly nerveless fingers. His strong, intelligent face went pale to the lips. He sat hunched over the telephone intently, drinking in every word. The expression that his features bore was curious, almost indescribable. Anger was written there, and an odd sort of belligerence, and legible in his lean, aristocratic features as well was an emotion that could almost be labeled grim vindication — the expression a man might wear whose direct prediction has proven accurate.

  “I knew something like this might happen, Halleck,” he almost snarled into the receiver. “Blast it all, man, you should never have gone ahead with this crazy scheme of letting one of our ace reporters infiltrate so dangerous a cult! If you had only consulted me, before sending MacAndrews in...”

  Then, regaining control, he began to think calmly and lucidly what should next be done, ignoring the voice at the other end that attempted to justify itself. Cutting the editor’s words off with a peremptory bark, Robert Russell Ryan issued three commands in a tense, hard-bitten tone of voice, and hung up on a flow of further protestations.

  But he did not go back to the massage table. He was too jumpy, too nerved up, to be able to relax and enjoy the pummeling of those strong, knowing hands. Thoughts and plans, schemes and counter- schemes went boiling through his brain. He muttered and grumbled under his breath, clenching and unclenching his fists. Then he poured himself another martini, an even stiffer one than before, and drank it down as if it had been orange juice.

  The color had come back into his face by this time, but he was still shaken by a trembling and devouring anger similar to that which had quivered in the voice of his managing editor.

  A county sheriff, acting upon an anonymous phone call, had found the corpse of a dead man, wearing curious scarlet robes, among the rocks at the base of one of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. A wallet, found in the pocket of the trousers he had been wearing under the robes at the time of his death, identified him as Horton Anderson of Los Angeles. The same identification cards also gave his street address. A routine search of his apartment disclosed a sealed envelope marked To be opened in the event of my death.

  Therein the sheriff found a press card identifying Horton Anderson as none other than the famous crime-busting investigative reporter, Norwell MacAndrews of the Illustrated Press. A note attached thereto instructed the finder to call Gordon Halleck at once.

  The county sheriff, a man named Biggs, was a beefy, truculent, surly individual with no particular love for newspaper reporters. But he was smart enough to recognize MacAndrews’ name instantly. At the youthful age of twenty-seven, this particular reporter had three times earned the Pulitzer Prize for journalism, and was one of the most respected names in his profession. And, as it happened, one of those three prize-winning cases had involved police corruption. A crooked police commissioner had narrowly escaped punishment, placing the blame, as well as some cleverly contrived circumstantial evidence, on a certain county sheriff named Biggs. Had it not been for the bold and daring undercover investigations of MacAndrews, Biggs would even now be spending the better part of twenty years in the state penitentiary.

  Biggs swore feelingly and with surprising eloquence for five minutes straight. Then, although it ran counter to the discipline of his service, he sat down at the telephone and placed a call to Gordon Halleck, he of the nervous eyebrows.

  It was the least thing Sheriff Biggs could do, to obey without question the last, wishes of the daring and courageous young reporter who had saved him from disgrace and imprisonment. He did it gladly.

  Almost as gladly as he would have put the cuffs on the man who had murdered Norwell Mac-Andrews.

  About halfway through his second martini, Robert Russell Ryan succeeded in getting his breath back and regaining his usual clarity of mind. He thought back over the three instructions he had given Gordon Halleck.

  The first of these was to search the apartment MacAndrews had taken under an assumed name, in order to secure any notes the reporter had made on the case he had been investigating at the time of his murder, before these same documents were stolen or destroyed by his murderers. This Halleck swore to do; he was, in fact, already on his way to MacAndrews’ apartment at that very moment.

  The second thing was to see that his body was given the most thorough autopsy money could buy, even if it meant flying in a plane full of specialists from the state medical school, placing these distinguished doctors temporarily on the payroll of the Ryan Newspaper Corporation as medical consultants.

  That would cost him a bundle, he knew. But the price tag was unimportant, he had said sternly to Halleck.

  And the third of his instructions had concerned the manner in which his Los Angeles newspaper was to treat the murder of one of its own star reporters. He had commanded Gordon Halleck to work a cover-up at his end — to report that an un-identified man’s body had been found, death seemingly from natural causes, to print no picture of the corpse, and to bury this particular news item on the interior pages. On no account was MacAndrews’ true identity to be disclosed. Later on it would be done, and with a full obituary. But for now, let it suffice that an unidentified man had died, and leave it at that. It was still possible that the powers who controlled the Lemurian cult MacAndrews had been trying to uncover did not know either his real identity or his affiliations with the newspaper.

  Ryan, of course, knew of the “warning” Gordon Halleck had received after announcing his anti-occult crusade. It had been the uncanny nature of that warning that had alerted Halleck to the depth of iniquity that the cult would stoop. Ostensibly knuckling under to thinly veiled threats upon instructions from his boss, Halleck had pretended to have been successfully intimidated by the red-robed devils. Actually, of course, he had assigned his ace investigative reporter the job of digging into the cult.

  A job that had resulted in the young man’s death....

  Robert Russell Ryan- growled a sulfurous oath, his blue eyes blazing. It was sickening enough to know that because of him a fine young man with a brilliant career had gone down to a miserable death. But if the secret cultists who had contrived his murder had any inkling of the fact that Halleck had not been intimidated, and that Halleck stood behind MacAndrews, there would be hell to pay.

  Ryan gnawed his underlip, miserably.

  He didn’t want another man’s death on his conscience. Specifically, the death of his editor and lifelong friend, Gordon Halleck!

  But what more could he do, that he had not already done?

  Chewing on his lip, he stared unseeingly across the room. There, covering the farther wall, a photomural of a great eastern metropolis flung its world-famous skyscrapers against the sky. There, on that narrow island between the Hudson River and the East River, lived the one man alive on earth today who just might be able to help Ryan protect the life of his managing editor and avenge the cruel murder of his star reporter.

  He picked up the phone and dialed long distance. With the speed of light itself, his call went flashing across th
e country, into the central switchboards of the greatest and wealthiest metropolis of the many that adorned the Eastern Seaboard, Knickerbocker City itself.

  At the other end, a telephone rang. A moment later the receiver was picked up and a deep, quiet voice answered.

  “This is Robert Russell Ryan, calling from California,” said the wealthy publisher. “If it is humanly possible, I should like to speak to Prince Zarkon.”

  “Is it very important?” inquired the voice at the other end.

  Robert Russell Ryan drew in a long breath and released it slowly, fighting to control his nerves.

  “It is a matter of life and death,” he said unsteadily.

  “Then I am Prince Zarkon,” replied the voice at the other end.

  Chapter 3 — The Omega Men

  On the Upper West Side of Knickerbocker City, facing the river, there stands a certain block of ordinary-looking brownstone residence buildings. There is nothing about them in particular to attract the eye of the casual passerby. Battered ash cans are piled beside the front steps; lace-curtained windows with discreetly drawn shades stare blankly out on the street; the rooftops are crowded with television antennae and chimneys.

  Along the housefronts, geraniums bloom in window boxes. The paint is peeling from the front doors, which march in a row the length of the block. Children have scrawled the sidewalks with graffiti, and the black asphalt of the street is marked out in numbered squares for games of hopscotch. In every detail but one the block is virtually identical with hundreds of other residential neighborhoods in the giant metropolis.

  And that single note of difference is small, unobtrusive, easily overlooked. It is nothing more than a small, polished brass plate set into the wall beside one of the doors midway down the block — a plate bearing only the Greek letter omega (Ù), which signifies The End, and also The Ultimate.