Ron Goulart - The Curse of the Obelisk

THE CURSE OF THE OBELISK 53
Harry carefully sat on the bench beside his friend. He put his good arm around his shoulders.
"Easy now."
The Great Lorenzo began to breathe regularly again. "Some of them get rough, like climbing an
alp or two." His plump face was blurred with perspiration. He concentrated on breathing in and out
for a while.
"So Jennie is okay?"
"Appeared a bit peckish. Also pale and weary. Otherwise alive and not seriously injured."
"And Zaytoon's the one who's got her."
"He is the master of the picturesque castle I saw, yes. Along with this Pennoyer fellow you
mentioned."
"Pennoyer is the amiable gent who conked me and treated me like a sack of mail," said Harry.
"But you saw someone else at the castle."
The magician took up a fragment of his ruined cruller between thumb and forefinger and
contemplated it. "Only a fleeting glimpse I had of the lady," he said. "I am certain, however, she is
the one we met before and quite recently."
"Not Naida Strand?"
" 'Tis she and none other."
"Damn, we left her at Blackwood Castle in Orlandia, sleeping in her coffin."
"Same as any other true vampire." The Great Lorenzo shrugged. "We both had the opportunity
to drive a stake through her black heart. Too sentimental by far we were."
"I don't think I can kill anyone that way. Certainly not a woman."
"Nor I. Whenever I see a sleeping lady, be she vampire and sorceress most foul or sweet-souled
maiden, slaying her is the furthest thought from my mind." He spread his hands wide. "Which is
why, dear lad, we now have her to contend with as well as the rest of this nest of blackguards."
"Worse, Jennie has to contend with her." Harry tapped the nearest map. "What about the
location of Zaytoon's castle?"
"These visions vary." He coughed into his hand. "Sometimes I get the exact location, down to
the street address. Other times I don't. This time I didn't. Zaytoon's castle is somewhere in Urbania
and that's the closest I can come."
From the misty courtyard came the harsh chatter of machine-gun fire.
Jennie Barr was sitting on the cot, her notebook open on her lap.
Zaytoon testing weapons again today, she wrote. Demonstrating to potential customers?
In order to see out the only window in the small grey stone room, Jennie had to stand atop the
rickety cot. The view afforded by the effort was not especially inspiring. All she was able to see
was another turret of the bleak castle she was imprisoned in and a thin slice of sky. The activities
down in the courtyard she had to guess at, assisted by the sounds the various weapons— machine
guns, rifles, grenades— made and occasional puffs of smoke that drifted across her portion of sky.