The Horror Megapack_ 25 Classic and Modern Horror Stories ( PDFDrive )

himself aside as bullets spattered the masonry. The acolytes closed in. The
brazen crucifix crunched home. But the survivors overwhelmed him, hammering
and kicking and grinding him into the flagstones.
The Master joined them. Crane, battered and stunned, heaved up out of the
gory tangle, clawed the mask aside. He slashed at that swarthy, aquiline face. He
missed, ducked a knife thrust, and closed in. This was the émir, the Asiatic
enemy whose grip on the drugged dignitaries would buy state and army secrets,
upset an African colonial empire.
Crane bored in, but the enemy was fresh and he was dizzy and battered. They
crashed to the floor, Crane underneath, vainly trying to drive home one good
blow. He jerked clear of a second knife thrust; but the next raked his ribs. The
vault became a roaring redness until he perceived nothing but those implacable
eyes and that savage, brazen leer.
But that last stroke did not fall. The surging tangle of madmen, sated of all but
blood lust, swept Crane and his enemies against the wall. As the acolytes strove
to club them into reason, Crane made the most of his respite.
He snatched an abandoned thurible by the chains, swung it like a flail, flattening
the Master’s skull. He swung again, but the chains whipped athwart a
devotee who intervened, and the weapon was jerked from Crane’s grasp. He
turned toward the altar, ploughing through the writhing tangle. He tripped and
was dragged back into the whirlpool of madness, a yard short of his goal.
A pistol roared as he struggled to his feet.
Madeline had followed him.
Crane jerked the weapon from her fingers and blasted the acolytes back as she
struggled with her sister’s bonds.
Another shot. The cameraman toppled from his perch behind the altar. The
pistol was empty. Crane seized the machine and smashed it across the head of a
surviving enemy. The film reservoir spewed out its reel of yellow celluloid,
fogged beyond redemption in an instant.
The knots yielded. Crane seized the half conscious girl and with Madeline at
his heels, skirted the groveling tangle of drugged devil-worshipers. There were
no acolytes left to pursue. And presently they reached the mist and moonlight…
“As you learned,” explained Diane, hours later, in Crane’s rooms, “I was just
frightened helpless by your dashing down to meet me. The émir didn’t intend for
me to be clawed to ribbons. But Monsieur le Général Mar—”
“Forget his name!” interrupted Crane, “Later, I’ll tell you why.”
“Eh bien,” resumed Diane, “through error he prematurely took some of those