They Thirst Part 37

FOURTEEN.

Prince Vulkan's eyes opened. At once he was fully alert, like any wild animal eager to hunt. Tonight, he'd decided, he would go down into Los Angeles and join his troops rather than wait for food to be brought up to the castle. He would hunt with his soldiers and race with the wind, seeking out the scent of warm blood, the noises of humans whimpering in their attics and bas.e.m.e.nts. He was chilled with the need for food, though the cold wasn't yet painful. Uneasiness ached within him, a strange kind of confusion and uncertainty that he hadn't known in a very long time. In his dreams he'd stood at the center of a huge stadium, even larger than the Colisseum in Rome, with high banks of bright lights s.h.i.+ning down. He was on a platform, the green field marked off in columns on each side, and the waves of frantic adulation had swept down, cras.h.i.+ng on him, hot and sweet, from the thousands who filled the stadium around him. They were lall calling him Master, and when they started leaping onto the field and running toward him to kiss his hands, his lieutenants and their attack dogs had formed a ring around him for protection. It was at that moment that he knew the city had fallen. Los Angeles was theirs, the first conquest of the invincible vampiric army. The first of many. The shouting swelled. His name cracked through the sky like thunder, rolling ominously in all directions. His hour was at hand; next would be the fall of San Francisco and San Diego, securing a hold on the West. Then the army would begin crawling eastward, advance parties moving into the major cities, one wing swinging north into Canada and one south into Mexico. It was the beginning of a new age, and he would be its rising star.

But amid the joyful celebration, he felt a gnarled hand fall upon his shoulder, and he turned to face the Headmaster.

But a different Headmaster. Its eyes had dimmed somewhat, the black lips were tightly drawn. "Beware, Conrad," the Headmaster had said. "Be careful, and guard yourself."

"My hour has come!" Vulkan said. "Beware of what? Listen to them scream my name! My name!"

"You stand in a dream," the Headmaster whispered, the hand gripping the prince's shoulder. "You lie at sleep, and these things have not yet come to pa.s.s. .."

"They mil! I know they will! Listen to them shouting!"

"I hear the wind." The Headmaster blinked, and when its eyes opened again, Vulkan sensed a weariness about his old teacher, a ... weakness. "My opponent moves His pieces, Conrad. We've not yet won the game."

"Game?" Vulkan asked. The shouting died to a whisper and was swept away. Now he stood alone in the center of the stadium with the Headmaster, and the glaring lights were beginning to hurt his eyes. "What pieces do you mean?"

"They're strong, Conrad, don't you understand that? They refuse to accept defeat! They refuse to be broken! You've barely scratched the surface of humanity in this city, and you think the whole world is already yours. It is not!" The Headmaster's voice came out as a growl, rumbling down the length of the field. "They're escaping by the thousands, Conrad . . ."

"NO! The storm won't let them!"

The Headmaster's eyes flared. "There are limits to all things, Conrad, even to the powers I possess. And the power you have as well. But it is endurance that will win the game. And if nothing else, they know how to endure."

"I've crushed them!" Vulkan shouted. "The city is mine!" The Headmaster shook its dark head and stared at him sadly. "You've learned all the lessons but one, and that is the most important. Never consider your position safe. Never! You may destroy a knight or a bishop, and be struck down by a p.a.w.n."

"Nothing can touch me!" Vulkan cried out defiantly. "I'm not . . . weak!"

"There are four who would destroy you," the Headmaster said. "They approach even now, as you lie dreaming of glory. Four pieces-one is a knight, another is a bishop, a third is a rook, and the fourth is a p.a.w.n. Without fully realizing it they have come together in a deadly combination, Conrad. I've done all I can to stop them, but they endure. And they advance. We can still destroy them. We can still win the game, but you must know them and beware . .

"We?" Vulkan shook free of the Headmaster's grip. "We? Didn't you hear them shouting? Whose name did they call? Mine! Prince Conrad Vulkan, King of the Vampires! They call me Master. They recognize me as the highest power!"

"I have given you and your kind life. I have taught you the secrets of power, the sorcery of Aba-aner, Nectanebus, and Solomon. I have taught you what it means to be a king. But you're not invincible, Conrad . . ." Vulkan stared at him for a long time, then said coldly, "Who would dare to test me?"

"Four humans," the Headmaster replied.

"Four humans!" Vulkan said disdainfuly, and when he grinned he showed his fangs.

"Don't you understand the size of my army now? Before the sun rises again, they'll number twice a million! And tomorrow night..." He lifted a hand and curled it into a fist, his eyes wild and bright green. And then his grin suddenly contorted with the realization. "You're . . . afraid, aren't you?

You're scared! Of what? Those four? Why don't you find them? Why don't you tear them to pieces for me?"

"Because," the Headmaster said softly, "our enemy is using them, working through theni just as we work through all the others. I can't . . . touch them . . .".

"You're afraid!" the prince shouted. "Well, I'm not! I've learned all the lessons now, my troops call out for me, and we still advance! Nothing can stop us now. Are you afraid because ..." He stopped, thinking the unutterable, but now he knew the truth, and the words burst from his throat. "That's it, isn't it? You're afraid of me. You don't want me to get too strong, do you? You're afraid of what I've learned!"

The Headmaster watched him silently. Its eyes began to burn like pools of slag flowing out of a volcanic furnace.

"I'm going to live forever," Vulkan said, "and I'll always be young, always!

So you've seen what I can do, and you've come to make me doubt myself, haven't you?

You've come to make me afraid of four humans, just like you are!"

"Forever is too long," the Headmaster said, "and never long enough. I came to warn you, Conrad. I've done all I can for you, the rest will have to be-"

"I don't need you anymore!" the prince said. "School's out!" The Headmaster seemed to tremble with rage. Its body began to gather into a hulking ma.s.s, like a thick blight of shadow. It neared Vulkan, covering him over with the force of a freezing wind. "Fool," it whispered. "Little boy. Little fool . . ."

"I'm not a little boy, I'm not, I'm not, I'm NOT!" Vulkan shouted, but when he tried to step away from the Headmaster, he felt locked into its shadow.

"Did you think you were my only pupil, Conrad? You're not. I have other ones with the potential to be even stronger than you. It's not your strength I fear, Conrad, but your weakness. I see this city falling before your kind, but not by their power. You've done what we wanted to do; now time has come to retreat . . ."

"Retreat?" Vulkan repeated incredulously. "No! This is my city now, my Babylon!

I won't run from four humans . . ."

"Taking ground is one thing," the Headmaster said, "keeping it is another. Take your lieutenants and as many others as you can, and leave this place right now.

Cross the mountains to the west. Start again. I can help you just as I did before . . ."

"WHY?" Vulkan shouted. "WHY ARE YOU AFRAID?"

"Because of what our enemy will use against us. This city-" Vulkan clapped his hands to his ears. "GET OUT!" he shouted. "You won't make me afraid! You won't make me lose! Nothing can hurt me!" The Headmaster stared at him for a long moment, and when it spoke again, there was an edge of sadness and anger in its rasping voice. "I treated you as a ... a special son, Conrad. My hope for a new beginning." The thick shadow hovered, dark folds enclosing the prince. "So you would deny me, wouldn't you? After all these hundreds of years, you would deny me in a moment!" The eyes began to burn with savage ferocity.

"I have taught you well, perhaps too well, but now I see what was beyond my power to give you. I could never make you grow up. You will be seventeen years old forever, filled with the childish needs and fantasies of youth. You haven't taken a kingdom, Conrad, I've given it to you. So be it. What is forever to you is to me . . . an episode. Now you have your kingdom. Protect it as you will.

But you're correct in one thing, my pupil. School is out." The shadow began to turn like a whirlwind, while above it the two blazing yellow lamps of its eyes continued to burn into Vulkan's skull. Vulkan shuddered, the cold rippling through his veins. The shadow twisted itself into a frenzy, then began to roll up upon itself like a black scroll of ancient parchment; in another moment it had begun to fade. The merciless eyes were the last to disappear, darkening like unplugged lamps. When the Headmaster was gone, the stadium around Prince Vulkan swirled away, s.h.i.+mmering like a mirage, the bright banks of lights going out one by one.

And then Prince Vulkan's eyes opened in darkness.

He lay still for a few moments, wondering about the implications of his dream. He felt uneasy, chilled, unprotected. They were old feelings, and they stirred up memories of his human existence like dark debris from the bottom of a pond. Four humans? Coming to challenge the King of the Vampires? It was absurd. After a while he raised his arms, threw the coffin lid back, and stepped out of his bed of warm, protective dirt. He stood in the first-level bas.e.m.e.nt, a large network of corridors and rooms that had been filled with old, broken furniture, cardboard boxes, crates, and stacks of ancient newspapers and magazines bound together with rotting twine. In one of those boxes Prince Vulkan had found yellowing glossies and old placards advertising the films of Orion Kronsteen.

There had been a picture of the man in vampire makeup, hovering over a young blond girl who slept unaware. It had greatly amused Prince Vulkan to see the Hollywood impressions of his kind. The face in that photograph looked stupid and lethargic, not nearly hungry enough. Once while walking the streets of Chicago's Southside near Cornell Square after nightfall, Prince Vulkan had stopped with Falco-dear, departed, traitorous Falco-before a blinking marquee that said DAMEN SOUTH THEATER and beneath that, DOUBLE CHILLS! CURSE OF THE VA PIRE -Chr stopher Lee & COU TESS DRAG LA-Ingrid Pitt. Of course, he'd had to see them, two old vampire movies scratched to shreds, really quite humorous. He'd seen silent movies before in London, but now not only did they talk, they were in color too!

Some of the people in the spa.r.s.e theater audience laughed at the vampires on the screen. Prince Vulkan, acting more out of impulse than hunger, had moved across the balcony and sat behind a man who was snoring. Vulkan could peer through the balding skull at the inner workings of the brain and see that man's entire life-wife named Cecilia, two children named Mike and Lisa, images of a small apartment with a Swiss-style cuckoo clock on the wall, piles of papers and bills on a desk beneath a small yellow-shaded lamp, buddies crowded around in a dark tavern with swords crossed above the bar, a gla.s.s of beer on a napkin that said McDougall's. That man wanted very much to be young again, carefree, hot-rodding along a street called Brezina in a red car with a foxtail on the antenna. In less than twenty minutes, from the bite to the ingestion of the blood, Prince Vulkan had altered that man's destiny. And now that man, Corcoran by name, was one of the several hundred vampires in Chicago who awaited the Master's triumphant return.

It was time to call the dogs in for the night. Prince Vulkan concentrated on finding the largest of them, the gray-blue wolf that had taken control of the pack. His eyes rolled back in his head as he searched, but he couldn't find the dog. Like a wisp of cold wind or an errant shadow, he went beyond his body, casting his mental eye like a fiery globe out into the storm. He couldn't feel that dog anymore; the link between them had been inexplicably severed. Now he could feel some of them out there, but it was a confusion of pain and dumb rage.

He searched among them, touching their minds. They were out of control and afraid. Vulkan picked up mental impressions of thunder and lightning, dreaded fire, a pain that crushed and scorched. Quickly he allowed himself to come back.

His eyes rolled back in their sockets, their pupils narrowed into tight slits. Something had happened to the pack's leader. The dog must be dead. But what-and who-had killed it?

He hurried along the corridor, past the rooms where Kobra and his other lieutenants would just be drifting up out of sleep. He climbed a long, curving, stone stairway that led to a three-inch-thick oak door and, beyond that, to the castle's main floor. He unbolted the door and stepped out into a wide central corridor that ran the width of the castle. Beside the door, at the foot of another curving, stone stairway, stood Kobra's motorcycle, most of the black paint now scoured away by the force of the storm.

"Roach!" Vulkan shouted, his voice roaring through the castle's hallways, alcoves, and chambers. "ROACH!"

He hurried upstairs, shoes clattering on the rough stones. The second-floor corridors whispered with turbulent winds that had found their way in through c.h.i.n.ks and cracks. There were many windowless rooms here that also held coffins, and already many of the vampires were drifting from chamber to chamber like specters. They moved quickly out of his path as he approached. One of them, a beautiful blond woman wearing a blood-splattered black dress, fell to her knees and tried to kiss his hand, but he hissed at her and wrenched away. His mind was on more urgent matters.

"Roach!" he screamed again, and in another moment he saw a bright spot of light ahead of him, getting nearer. Roach had a flashlight in his hand. "I called for you!" Vulkan said, his eyes blazing. "Where were you?"

"I heard, Master, but I .was . . . starting the fire in the council chamber. It's ready for you, Master . . ."

Vulkan looked beyond the man's eyes; it was simple because Roach's mentality was so childlike, so pliable. He saw what Roach had seen just a moment earlier: That corkscrew of sand in the golden urn, twisting around and around with its hypnotic rhythm. Roach had prepared the fire and the maps, but he'd been entranced by the urn. He was oblivious to anything else, like a child with a strange toy. He got out of Roach's mind quickly because it teemed with dark shapes and shadows, the memory of hands around the throat of a woman whose facial features kept s.h.i.+fting, a body rolling down a dimly lit staircase and coming to rest at the bottom like a broken-necked doll, swarms of rats and roaches kicking in their death agonies. "Something's happened to the dogs!" Vulkan said, then recalled the Headmaster's voice: "There are four who would come to destroy you." "Someone may have gotten past them!" Roach looked startled. "Who? Someone . . . past the dogs . . .?"

"Come with me." He moved past Roach along the corridor to yet another narrow stairway that curved up to a double-bolted oak door. He unlocked and opened it, stepping out on a wide balcony that stood perhaps fifty feet above the ground.

He strode across to the stone parapet and looked out into the night; he heard quite clearly the distant, confused howling of the pack. Yes. He was certain now. His first line of defense had been broken. But what of the second? He leaned over and looked down.

At first he saw nothing out of the ordinary; the main gate was still closed, the courtyard fortified. But then he caught a glimpse of movement just on the other side of the gate, and he saw two men-two humans wearing some kind of masks and breathing apparatus-down where the iron traps had been laid. One of them was injured-he could see the trap clamped around the figure's left ankle-and the other one was trying to pull him away from the gate toward the line of dead trees a few yards away, where darkness and the terrain might give them concealment.

Vulkan grinned. When he'd realized that his initial defense had been broken, that someone had actually managed to come both through the storm and past the dogs to reach him, he'd been filled with uneasy concern and a sort of dreadful wonder. "Four are coming," the Headmaster had said. "They endure." But the Headmaster had been wrong. There were only two, both of them already weak. One lay p.r.o.ne, and the other looked as if he might fall at any moment. There were only two, and they had come up this mountain to their deaths. The Headmaster had been wrong.

"Wrong!" the prince shouted. "Beward of what? Of you?" He began to laugh, his mouth opening and the long fangs sliding out of their sockets in his jaws. The laughter-a cold, harsh chuckling-went on for another moment, then stopped abruptly. Vulkan's eyes narrowed. He watched the man struggling with his wounded-or dead-companion. "Go down and find Kobra," he said to Roach. "You and he bring those two-what's left of them-to the council chamber. And understand-I don't want them touched. Not yet."

Roach nodded eagerly and scurried across the balcony through the door. Prince Vulkan leaned over the parapet, watching the two men with great interest.

How did these two manage to find him? he wondered. What had brought them up the mountain? Did other humans know where he was hidden? If so, his refuge was not quite as safe as he had thought. The Headmaster's warning echoed in his head, but he brushed it aside. Some sport was what he needed to take his mind off the Headmaster. Yes! Sport! Fun and games, like the rapier contests, the bear versus boar fights, the battles between dogs and rats that his father the Hawk had enjoyed so. If these two humans could endure the journey up the mountain in this storm, if indeed they were so good at enduring hards.h.i.+ps, then surely they could endure a little more for the pleasure of the vampire king and his court. Surely.

FIFTEEN.

Ratty probed ahead with the lantern. Its weakening yellow glow st.i.tched patches of shadow together like a golden needle through dense cloth. The tunnel still climbed, as it had for the last two miles, its floor slick with seepage.

Palatazin's legs and back were weary, and several times he'd had to lean against a wall to rest, so their progress had been drastically slowed. Droplets of sweat gleamed on his face, and now he was fighting claustrophobia and the continual feeling that something was stalking them from behind, perhaps allowing them to continue as a cat might allow a mouse to exhaust itself in a futile effort. He could feel something cold back there, and several times-when he sensed the chill closing in at the back of his neck-he'd taken a box of matches and a spray can from the pack, lit it, and turned to protect the rear. He'd never seen them back there, but he could hear scuttlings and angered hisses just beyond the light.

The flame was keeping them away. For now.

They'd pa.s.sed beneath more manhole covers, and Palatazin had climbed up to look out, to see if he recognized anything from his earlier drive to Kronsteen's castle. Sand and wind slapped his face, but the storm didn't seem quite as fierce up here as it had below. Visibility was a little better, and he could make out the dark shapes of white stucco and redwood-frame houses perched on the hillside. They a kept climbing. Palatazin was fearful of missing the turnoff altogether. Perhaps they'd already missed it. He couldn't be certain.

His spine started crawling again. He was aware of the noises behind him; he lit a match. In its reddish flare, he could see several pairs of dead, bullet-hole eyes I jperhaps ten feet away. The vampires-there were at least three-scattered into the I jdarkness, antic.i.p.ating the lick of flame from the spray-can torch. He took the spray can out of the pack, popped its cap off, and pressed the b.u.t.ton down, spraying it Htoward the match. The flame erupted in a dart of red and blue. The vampires hastily retreated into the shadows, and Palatazin could hear their angered hissing and curses. They continued climbing, Palatazin guarding the rear. When the flame began to sputter, he could see the vampires creeping toward them, faces vulpine and hideous, just beyond the limit of the fire. There were three, two young men and a girl, anger exploding in their eyes with swirls of silver and red.

"Put it down, old man," one of them whispered. Palatazin heard the voice quite clearly, echoing through his head, but it didn't seem as if the boy had moved his lips.

"Go on," the female vampire whispered, a cold grin across her face. "Put down the fire like a nice boy-"

"NO!" Palatazin shouted. His vision seemed to be fogging over, the darkness creeping up on all sides to consume him.

"They're in your mind!" Tommy said sharply. "Don't listen to them!"

"Please," the female said, and licked her lips with a black tongue. "Pretty please." One of the others feinted for Palatazin's arm, and Palatazin almost released the b.u.t.ton. The can was getting hot in his hand, and he knew the propellant would last only a minute or so longer.

Suddenly Ratty stopped. "Hey? You hear that?" he demanded, his voice cracking with tension.

Palatazin tried to listen over the voices whispering in his head. The three vampires were getting bolder now, darting in toward the flame, and trying to knock it from his hand. "I hear it!" Tommy answered. "Dogs howling up there!" Palatazin tried to concentrate over the tauntings of the vampires, and immediately he could hear it, too-a ghostly chorus of wails floating somewhere above them.

"We've got to find a way up!" he shouted, and then he heard the female whisper, "No you don't. You want to put that down and stay with us, don't you?" The flame sputtered once, twice. Now the tunnel seemed filled with the reek of burning aerosol and oily smoke. One of the other vampires lunged for Palatazin, but he thrust the weakening flame in an arc across the boy's face; the thing screamed shrilly and staggered back.

Ratty found a ladder and pulled himself up. When he pushed the cover aside, the merest hint of muddy brown light filtered down into the tunnel, but it seemed enough to keep the vampires away. They stood cl.u.s.tered together hissing like rattlers in the shadows, and Palatazin heard a silvery, sweet voice in his mind say, "We need you here with us. Please stay . . . please stay . . ." And for an instant he wanted to.

"We've got to go up here!" he shouted as the wind churned around him and off down the tunnel with a faint whistling. The flame went out. Behind him, Tommy was just on his way up the ladder to Ratty waiting at the top. The vampires stood beyond the limits of the light, but when Palatazin started up the ladder, one of them darted in and grabbed his ankle, trying to pull him back down. He kicked free and saw a pair of hideous fangs exposed in the thing's mouth as it tried to bite his ankle, then it screamed from exposure to the fractional light and scurried away. As Palatazin reached the top and squeezed through, he heard a distant, weakening whisper, "Don't go ... don't go ... don't . . ."

The storm thrashed around him, and now he heard the howling somewhere off to his left, terrible and shrill. The three of them moved forward, the wind about to throw them off balance from all directions. In another moment Palatazin saw a couple of houses that he thought he recognized, though he couldn't be sure. Then out of the gloom rose the familiar dead trees and the narrow road snaking up Outpost Drive.

"We're close enough!" he shouted to Ratty, s.h.i.+elding his face with his arm.

"The castle's at the top of this road!"

"I'm scared s.h.i.+tless of the bloodsuckers, man," Ratty shouted back, "but I'm sure as h.e.l.l not going back into that tunnel! You dig?" Palatazin nodded. "You okay?" he asked Tommy.

"Okay!" the boy answered, keeping his hands cupped in front of his mouth and nose. He staggered, nearly knocked over by the wind's force.

"Then we go up!" Palatazin took the lead, with Ratty bringing up the rear. They linked hands, fighting upward. The wind was fierce, and Tommy fell a couple of times, almost being swept away before either Palatazin or Ratty could help him.

They pa.s.sed a low-slung vehicle that looked like a jeep but a little larger crashed against a tree on the left-hand side of the road. A little farther ahead they came to the partly obscured carca.s.ses of several dogs. There was howling all around them now, and Palatazin could feel eyes watching them from the overhang of rocks above the road. When he peered up through slitted eyes, he could just barely make out the shapes of dogs crouched there, crying into the storm. Several times a dog would leap out of the darkness to snap at their heels, then it would vanish just as quickly. One of them, a collie, bounded up behind Ratty and yanked at his leg, throwing him to the ground, then skittered away.

Palatazin knew they'd be within sight of the castle in a few minutes. He was certain some of the vampires-if not all-were already awake. Soon the castle would be crawling with them, as would the city below. The backpack full of stakes weighed heavily on him, and ants of fear scurried in his stomach. He hoped he could catch some of the vampires still in their caskets, particularly the king, although logically he might be among the first to awaken. Theirs was still the element of surprise, though, and that was vitally important. This was what the army would call a suicide mission, Palatazin told himself. Getting there is not the difficult part of it; coming back safely is. But he'd known that all along and accepted it just as he was certain his father had accepted the fact before him. It was the boy he was sorry for. When the castle loomed up before them, Palatazin stopped in his tracks and whispered, "My G.o.d, help us!" He looked from towers to parapets to battlements, and he could see the tangled barbed wire at the top of the protective walls.

"How do we get inside that?" Panic boiled in his stomach. Had they come all this way to be stopped at the walls of this monument to an eccentric horror film star? No! Palatazin told himself. We can't go back now! They neared it, the force of wind and sand abating somewhat. Palatazin looked to the huge front gate and could see a few iron-jawed traps clamped together on the sand-heaped drive. Another driveway split off from the main one and circled around the right side of the castle.

Suddenly Tommy jerked his arm. He looked over his shoulder and saw Ratty running for the safety of the line of dead, shriveled trees several yards away. Tommy pulled at him and motioned upward, his face a pale, fearful mask. Palatazin turned and looked up. A man stood on a high balcony, staring off into the night; his face was turned toward L.A., which the vampire army was not devastating. Palatazin ran for the trees and crouched down between Tommy and Ratty. The man on the parapet swept his gaze across the horizon, then seemed to stare right at their hiding place. It was hard to tell because of the distance, but Palatazin thought that it might be Walter Benefield up there. The man looked away and lifted his hand to his mouth once, then again. The howling faded and stopped.

Then the man disappeared, and Palatazin grasped a breath.

"Almost cooked our a.s.ses," Ratty said, his voice shaking. "Truth in a teacup!" In another few minutes a couple of dogs came running past their hiding place, following the cobblestoned drive around the other side of the castle. They were followed by others, some of them snarling and fighting. The pack seemed scattered and confused, but within it Palatazin saw several dogs who looked as large as panthers. A couple of the mammoth ones stopped and turned toward the trees, showing their teeth in low, menacing growls, but then they ran on, vanis.h.i.+ng around the curve of the rough-stoned wall. Ratty cringed, but Palatazin thought the dogs had ceased to care about them. He thought they were hurrying to be fed. And that meant there was another way through that wall to the castle. A service entrance, perhaps? He tried to remember back to his brief a.s.sociation with the Kronsteen murder case. He recalled reading Lieutenant Summerford's outline on how the killers had gotten in. There was something about a service entrance, yes. A service entrance, a gate, and ... a wine cellar.

"Let's find out where those dogs are going," Palatazin said to Tommy when most of them had pa.s.sed. When Ratty scowled, Palatazin said, "You can stay here if you like."

"Yeah, man. I can dig that. Old Ratty'll just burrow himself in right here and lay low like he did in Nam." He started scooping out great handfuls of dirt and sand at the trunk of a gnarled tree. When Palatazin and Tommy left the tree line, Ratty looked up. "Git some!" he said, and returned to his work. They hurried up the drive, moving close along to the ma.s.sive wall. Palatazin heard the dogs up ahead, a melee of whining and barking. Then there was another noise-machinery, clattering gears and chains. The barking started to die down.

Tommy ran on ahead and saw the dogs scurrying in where the driveway turned under a stone arch and into the castle's rear courtyard. The gate, an iron-barred, medieval contraption that was opened and lowered by a chain and pulley, had been hoisted open just enough for the dogs to get through.

"Hurry, you b.a.s.t.a.r.ds!" he heard a man shout. "Come on! Inside!" Tommy squeezed himself against the wall, his heart pounding. When the dogs were all inside, the chain clicked through gears, and the iron gate was slowly lowered to the ground. Tommy waited another moment before sliding over to the gate. He peered in; there were a few U-Haul vans parked in the courtyard along with a bright yellow John Deere bulldozer and a black Lincoln Continental. The castle rose up as abruptly as a black-walled mesa. At its base Tommy saw that the man-short and squat with cropped dark hair-had thrown back a thick-looking wooden door recessed into the stone; the dogs were scrambling over each other in their haste to get through. A couple of them snarled and snapped at the man, who lifted a wicked-looking wooden staff and whacked it into their midst.

"Get down there!" he shouted. "b.a.s.t.a.r.ds!" When the dogs were gone, he stepped down into the opening and the door closed behind him.

"Benefield," Palatazin whispered, peering over Tommy's head. "My G.o.d!" He stepped forward and curled his hands around the bars, trying to shake the gate; it wouldn't budge. "This is where the killers got inside years ago," he murmured. "But how?" He seemed to recall something in Summerford's report about Kronsteen's murderers being small men, possibly teenagers thin enough to-He bent down, scooping away double handfuls of sand from the bottom of the gate.