He twisted one of the dials.
A screen in the upper row crackled to life and showed one of the gloomy underground passageways.
“See what I mean,” Blade said.
“But how could this gear work after so many years?” Geronimo wondered. “Electricity is a thing of the past.”
“Not if the Morlocks have a stockpile of rechargeable batteries,” Blade said. At least he understood how Morlock had known he entered the castle from the mausoleum.
“Keep turnin’ those dials,” Hickok advised.
Blade did so, going from monitor to monitor, and one by one corridors and rooms were dimly depicted, all empty. When there were only three screens left, the weapons room materialized with its grisly carpet of pale, grinning corpses.
“Morlock must have seen the whole thing,” Geronimo said.
Blade twisted the second to last dial, revealing yet another corridor, and was disappointed at not finding Morlock. Where was the madman?
From the number of monitors, he concluded only the main corridors and some of the rooms were part of the surveillance network. There weren’t enough to cover the entire castle. “If the runt saw the whole thing, why didn’t he try to help the serfs or sic his walkin’ fur rug on us?” Hickok brought up.
“He probably believed we’d be no match for the serfs,” Blade guessed.
“And I doubt he expected us to kill Endora and Elphinstone. Like Endora said, he’s been taking us too lightly all along.”
“His mistake,” Hickok said.
Blade twirled the last dial and stiffened.
The last scene depicted was the roof. And there, standing on a rampart and staring grimly directly into the camera, stood Angus Morlock with a shotgun cradled in the crook of his left arm. Somehow, he knew he was being observed because he nodded and made a beckoning motion with his right hand.
“He wants us to go up there,” Geronimo said.
“Let’s not disappoint the crumb,” the gunfighter stated.
Blade didn’t like the setup one bit. Why would Morlock blatantly challenge them to go onto the roof unless it was a trap?
“Are you comin?” Hickok asked, moving to the door.
“Yeah,” Blade said. He stared at the monitor for a few seconds, then went into the passageway with his friends.
“The stairs stop on this floor,” Geronimo noted. “There must be another way up.”
“Each of us will take a door,” Blade directed.
The youths separated. There were seven doors all tolled and it wasn’t until Geronimo opened the fifth one and called out, “Here it is!” that they found a spiral metal staircase to the top.
“Well, this is it,” Hickok said, inspecting the chambers in his revolvers to be sure the guns were fully loaded.
“I’ll go first,” Blade volunteered.
“Be my guest,” Geronimo said.
Blade went up a step at a time, tilting his neck so he could cover a wide door above. Once there, he tested the knob, found it rotated easily, and looked over his right shoulder. “Are you ready?”
“I was born ready,” Hickok said.
“No, but go ahead anyway,” Geronimo said.
Tensing, Blade flung the door open and threw himself outside to roll on his shoulder and rise to his knee with the Marlin sweeping the flat area before him.
Morlock had vanished.
The central section of the roof was level except for the doorway leading to the spiral staircase, which had been constructed as an isolated, elevated island in the very middle and fronted the northern battlements.
Blade glanced at the top of the door and saw the camera mounted on a sturdy bracket, so he knew Morlock had been within ten feet of the door a minute or two ago.
There were four ramparts connected to four turrets, one at each corner, and those turrets were the only hiding places on the roof.
“He must be in one of those beehive kind of things,” Hickok whispered.
“Spread out,” Blade said. “We’ll check the turret at the northwest corner first.” He rose to a crouching posture and advanced warily. A cool breeze caressed his face and brought to his nostrils a peculiar, pungent animal scent unlike any other he knew. He surmised the wind had carried the scent from an animal in the woods below but immediately realized such couldn’t be the case. And if the smell didn’t come from below or above, then there was only one explanation. The thought made him slow up, and his friends passed on by.
It couldn’t be! Blade told himself, staring at the turret in mounting apprehension. He would have smelled it before now, wouldn’t he?
Hickok was the closest to the three steps leading from the rampart into the shadowed turret. Both Colts were out and ready.
Blade moved forward, chiding himself for letting his imagination get the better of him. The thing was in the forest. Had to be.
The gunfighter had two yards to cover when a bloodcurdling roar rent the night and the monster squeezed through the turret entrance, all ten feet of hair and muscle and unbridled ferocity.
“Grell!” Geronimo yelled.
Hickok squeezed off four shots so fast they sounded like one. But none stopped the gargantuan mutation. He was lifting his arms to fire at the beast’s eyes when a swipe of a brawny arm sent him flying over five yards to crash onto his back, dazed.
“Try me,” Geronimo bellowed, lifting the Winchester. Quick as he was, Grell was quicker, and a second swipe tumbled the Blackfoot head over heels to lie in a stunned heap.
Blade felt his blood turn to ice. He gazed into those hellish red orbs and felt as if his life force was being sucked from his body. Fear—total, dominating, terrifying—rooted him in place. He wanted to shoot, but couldn’t make his hands move.
Grell snarled and lumbered toward the youth.
A tidal wave of panic engulfed the youth. Never had he been so outright scared. His dearest friends were down, perhaps severely injured and needing his help, and yet he couldn’t get his limbs to cooperate with his mind. He saw Grell’s long white fangs exposed and Grell’s right claw sweeping at his head, and he reacted automatically, spinning and running toward the safety of the doorway and the stairwell, his heart pounding, thinking only of escaping with his life. His spine tingled, and he shivered as he ran.
Somewhere, Morlock laughed.
The sound brought Blade up short in midstride, shocked at what he was about to do. He was fleeing, running away, being a coward. Worse, he was deserting his two best friends, leaving them to suffer a horrible fate at the hands of the madman or the mutation. Tremendous revulsion welled up within him, revulsion at his own behavior. He spun.
Grell had halted and coldly regarded the youth.
How could he be so base, so spineless? Blade asked himself. He’d let instinctive fear get the better of him, but fear could only maintain its grip if the person afraid allowed it to dominate their being. And he wasn’t about to have fear override his personality, have it supplant his will. He was a man, damn it, a man endowed with the power of choice. He could choose to let instinct win, or he would exercise his free will to do what had to be done.
At that moment, as he stood there confronting the monstrous, growling beast looming above him, he came to grips with his innermost being. His spiritual inheritance triumphed over his animal heritage and in the process forged a soul tempered in the adversity of supreme danger.
Blade smiled.
“Kill him, Grell!” came a shout from the darkness, and the creature stalked forward.
Whipping the Martin up, Blade went to fire, then paused. No. He wouldn’t take the easy way out. If he wanted to truly conquer fear, he must face it fully. The triumph must be total—spirit, mind and body. He threw the rifle to the roof and drew his Bowies.