The Avenger 36 - Demon Island (12 page)

Cole opened his mouth but no words came out immediately. After a moment he said, “As long as you brought this up, Heather . . . I have to admit that while Richard and I were en route here I wasn’t thinking of anything else but . . . well, you. In fact, I really think I decided on another vacation in Hollywood chiefly because it would give me a chance to see you again.”

“Oh? I didn’t get that impression,” said the girl. “You only wrote me once since you were here last year . . . and that was a whimsical message scribbled on an old picture postcard left over from the New York World’s Fair of 1939.”

“I suppose I was afraid to commit myself in print,” he said. He placed his hands on her shoulders and took a step back from her. “I have the definite impression, Heather, that we’re both trying to get at the same thing.”

“Yes,” she said. “I love you, Cole.”

“Same here,” he said.

The rain fell heavier, but neither of them noticed it.

The Avenger listened.

Through the sound of the heavy rain he could hear the footfalls of the retreating Stark.

Silently he moved ahead. There was a forest looming up in this direction. Stark was heading for there.

Swiftly the Avenger shortened the distance between them.

Some instinct must have warned the fleeing man. He stopped still, spun, and fired his .45 automatic into the rain.

By that time the Avenger was not where he had been.

I see you there,” bluffed Stark. “Leave me alone or I’ll burn you!”

He shot at the night again, the slug ripping a red trail through the rain.

Then he screamed. A .22 slug had sliced across the back of his gun hand. Howling in pain, Stark dropped the automatic onto the mushy, mossy ground. “Where the . . . ?”

Up above. The Avenger had climbed up into a tree directly above him. From there, using the unique blue-steel pistol he called Mike, he’d shot the heavier gun from Stark’s grasp.

Now, before Stark even realized where he was, the Avenger jumped.

His feet slammed into the man’s shoulders. Stark toppled over backward, splashing into the wet ground.

The Avenger leaped clear, then faced him.

From a pocket Stark tugged a hunting knife. “I’ll slice you up, buddy!”

“I’m afraid not.” Somehow—and it was too fast for Stark to catch or defend himself against—the Avenger’s knife appeared in his hand. It was there for only a second.

Then it was hissing through the dark to sink into the flesh of Stark’s palm. He dropped the knife. Two wounds in the hand were enough to convince him that this was not his lucky day.

“Okay, okay, you got me,” he muttered. “But, listen, buddy. Maybe you and me can work out a deal. There’s still a million bucks on that island some place. You let me go and I’ll—”

“No deals.”

Stark knew that the Avenger meant it. He made no more offers, said nothing else. He marched back toward the burning ranch house, the unique .22 pointed at his back.

Cole and Heather were still standing in the rain in front of the house. “Ah, you’ve caught him, Richard,” he grinned. “I was intending to give you a hand, but . . . circumstances prevented.” He had one arm around the girl’s waist.

“So I see,” said the Avenger.

“Can’t we get in out of this downpour?” asked Stark.

The two men were in the castle library.

“Aw,” said Smitty, “are you sure?”

O’Malley nodded his head vigorously. “Yeah, I’m absolutely convinced.”

The giant scratched his head. “Okay, let’s say this Fiddler dame is really walking around with the ghost of this other dame controlling her. What do we do about it?”

“Beats me.”

“She’s out there in the forest some place. We got to do something.”

The director said, “I don’t know exactly what to do. But, Smitty, I’m convinced I talked to the spirit of Nita DelMar. That’s certain.”

Smitty paced a circle in front of the shelves of books. “How do you fix up somebody who’s been taken over by a spook?”

“Exorcism,” said Nellie. She stepped into the room from the hallway.

“Huh?”

“That call we just got was from Richard,” the little blonde explained.

“Is . . . how’s Heather?” asked the anxious O’Malley.

“She’s fine, and . . .” Nellie’s face clouded. “She’s fine, let’s leave it at that. Dick and Cole found Stark at that old orange grove Morrison told us about. Stark is now snug and dry in one of Lieutenant Bonner’s cells. They’re bringing Heather back here.”

O’Malley said, “That’s great. Maybe we can actually start shooting this movie again.”

“What’s this about exorcism?” Smitty asked.

“I told Dick what Terry’d told us,” said Nellie. “He suggests that some kind of rite of exorcism has to be performed.”

“Okay,” said the giant. “He’s going to be back in a couple of hours. I bet Dick knows how to—”

“We can’t wait that long,” cut in the girl. “We have to find Fanny Fidler and do something right away. The longer that dead girl is in control the worse it gets.”

“Yeah, but we don’t know nothing about—”

“I know something,” said Nellie. “And these books will fill us in on the rest. Richard told me which one to consult.” Standing on tiptoe, the little blonde scanned a shelf high above her. “It’s that one in the brown leather binding, Smitty. Get it, will you?”

“Sure.” He grabbed the thick, ancient book. “Hey, this is funny-feeling leather.”

“Legend has it that several covers for this particular book were made of human skin.”

“Yeah?” He handed the fat book gingerly over to the girl.

Nellie plumped down on a chair, opened the book, and began to rapidly leaf through it. “Let’s see . . . Egypt . . . Ethlinn . . . Evocations . . . Here we go. Exorcism. Now, we don’t want to command the devil or get a demon to work for us. Ho, this is our section. ‘How to cast out an evil spirit.’ ” She read on for a few minutes, nodding to herself. “Okay, I’ve got what we have to do all memorized. We’re going to need a few props.” She told the two men what they had to gather together for her.

“Let’s hope the guy who wrote that thing knew his apples,” said Smitty. “This better work!”

“It’ll work.” As the men scattered she went to another shelf and drew out the scrapbook she’d been looking at earlier.

“This little gizmo is getting a real workout,” remarked Smitty. He was holding his tracking device in his palm. It was sniffing, humming.

They’d picked up Fanny Fiddler’s trail beneath the window of the wardrobe room. The sniffer was leading them into the rainswept night forest.

O’Malley was lugging a black satchel and carrying a folded black umbrella under his arm. “You know what I keep thinking,” he told the other two. “This would make terrific publicity. ‘Pix director scares off real spooks,’ and all sorts of stuff like that. It’d make
Demon Island,
a surefire box-office hit. And I’m not going to be able to say a word about it.”

“Geeze,” said the giant. “Here’s this poor Fanny dame running around with a murdering ghost inside her and you’re thinking about—”

“You don’t understand show business,” said Nellie.

O’Malley said, “I didn’t say I was going to try to get any publicity from this business. I said it was too bad I was too nice a guy to take advantage of Fanny’s troubles. Look, Hollywood makes a lot of pictures every year. And if you don’t have Van Johnson or Lana Turner in your film . . . well, then you need something else. And a sensational publicity gimmick is the best something else you can have. ‘Real ghost haunts horror flicker.’ Boy . . .”

“I thought crime fighting was about as strange a profession as a guy could have,” said Smitty. “Now I’m starting—”

“Pay attention to your gadget,” urged Nellie. “It’s making a new noise.”

“Hey! Yeah, we’re getting close to her.”

“We’re also,” observed O’Malley, “getting near the cliffs. So let’s go easy. I don’t want anybody to fall down onto the rocks.”

In a whisper Nellie said, “There she is!”

The dark-haired girl was visible now among the trees. Rain was beating down on her, wind tossing her hair. She did not heed it. She was facing away from them, watching the dark, foaming sea below. The trio edged nearer.

She sensed their approach and turned toward them. “Do not come any closer,” she warned. The voice was not Fanny Fiddler’s.

“Geeze,” muttered Smitty, “it is a spook talking!”

Nellie nudged O’Malley. “Get the candle going.”

“Oh, yeah.” The director set down the satchel and opened it. He remembered the umbrella, and unfurled it before taking a fruit jar with a fat candle in it from within. “Smitty, can you put a hand between this and the wind?”

“Sure thing.” He obliged and O’Malley, using a pack of souvenir matches from the Trocadero, got the candle lit. The glass sheltered the flame from the wind once the match had taken hold.

“I will throw this girl over the cliff,” cried the voice of Nita DelMar, “if you do not let me have her!”

From under her coat Nellie took the picture she’d torn from the scrapbook. “This is your picture, Nita,” she called out. “We’re going to burn it.”

“The girl will not live!” Fanny was made to walk nearer to the edge of the cliff. The wind and rain tore at her.

Nellie rolled the ancient newspaper clipping into a cylinder and thrust it into the flame. “Come on, burn.” In a second the candle flame licked at the paper, began to take hold.
“Conjurationum terribilium . . .”
recited Nellie.
“Potentissimorum efficacissimorumque . . . malecifiaque omnia de corporibus humanis tanquam Flagellis Fustiguesque fugantur . . . Doctrinis refertissimus atque uberirimus . . . Maximum Exorcistarum commodi-Tatem in lucem . . .”

The dark-haired girl was at the very edge. She swayed.

The last of the image of the dead Nita burned to black ashes.

The girl screamed once. Then she began to fall.

Smitty sprinted across the rocky ground and dived. He made a scoop of one big arm and caught Fanny Fiddler before she tumbled over the cliffside and fell to the black rocks below. “A point for our side,” he said.

The actress moaned, eyes closed.

Smitty carried her back toward the others. “I think she’s okay now,” he said.

With a sigh, Nellie stood up straight. “First time I ever tried anything like that,” she said.

In his excitement O’Malley put his arm around her. “You were terrific, Nellie!”

“Well, thanks,” she said.

Smitty was up before the fog lifted. He went breezing through the temporary commissary the movie people had set up, grabbed a pair of donuts and a cup of coffee. Downing that, he scooted out of the castle.

Waiting for him on the front steps of the place were the shovel and cardboard carton he’d deposited there earlier. He gathered them up and headed into the forest.

He was whistling, nodding to himself with satisfaction.

“You look disgustingly cheerful.”

“Huh?”

Nellie was coming toward him along a misty forest path. “Nothing, skip it.”

“Thought you’d still be pounding the pillow after all the stuff that happened last night.”

“Felt like taking a walk.”

“You look sort of glum.”

“It’s nothing.”

Smitty said, “I guess you were maybe a little stunned by Cole’s announcing he was going to take a short leave of absence from Justice, Incorporated.”

“I suppose stunned is the word for it,” replied the little blonde. “Where you going?”

“Oh, I got me an idea. Want to tag along?”

“Sure, might as well.”

“Don’t get the idea I got the brains of an elephant just cause I’m built like one,” the giant said as she fell in at his side. “I mean, I know you’re pretty fond of Cole.”

Nellie said nothing.

“Sure,” continued Smitty, “and when he up and announced he’s going to take some time off to get married to this Heather Brail dame . . . well, sure it’s going to knock your props out from under you some. I tell you, though . . . I think I know Cole pretty darn well. We been through a lot together since he joined the gang. He ain’t the kind of guy to settle down.”

“Meaning?”

“I don’t think he’s ever going to marry the dame,” said Smitty. “Sure, he says he is now. But that’s because he’s all excited about saving her from a fire and all. Plus which, Cole’s still sort of a boy at heart. All this Holllywood stuff kind of impresses him. Making movies, glamour. But he couldn’t live here all the time and just be the husband of an actress. Not him.”