The transport screeched to a halt. Its heavy iron walls were hot, and they groaned against the speed of the rapid deceleration. The impetus forced me hard into one of the uprights. Luckily, it was my right shoulder. My left, and the arm attached to it, was still numb-throbbing intermittently. They seemed to be coming around a little, but behaved like broken radio-controlled toys. Willieboy growled at me. "Come on."
He walked half-crouched to the rear of the transport, and then twisted a handle set in the steel. A light flashed, a horn droned quietly. The door levered open forming a ramp. Outside, night was falling fast. A heavy fog hugged the walled-in courtyard. A wave of exhaust hit me, made me nauseous. Suddenly a pair of Enforcers appeared outside the door. They carried auto-shotguns. Both were strangely at home in the darkness that enveloped the world. Their facemasks glinted demonically. Willieboy stepped out of the transport to relay some orders. "Take the hamburger to the lab." He gestured to Adrian's remains. "Then fortify the gate. Trouble's coming." They disappeared with Adrian into the gloom. Willieboy turned to me.
"Come on. Let's get this over with." He reached in and grabbed my left arm. It almost came off. He should have just shot me. I winced and let out an angry hiss of air. "God damn it. Last time I take a drive with you…" I mumbled against the pain.
The King of the Dead lived in a castle-it was a three-storied mansion about two hundred feet wide built of large brown stones. Copper-roofed towers rose into darkness on the north and south ends of the structure. I spotted movement in the shadow of their open windows. We had come to a stop well inside the tall stone wall that circled the perimeter of the castle courtyard and grounds. I could remember rumors of a huge wooded acreage that enclosed the manse supposedly containing a herd of man-eating boar. I looked around and saw silhouettes along the battlements on the outer wall. There was an open lawn before the castle that contained a crushed gravel drive one hundred feet long flanked by topiary knights on leafy steeds. I cast a glance back down the drive toward the stark iron gates. Guards moved back and forth in a glaring spotlight against the black bars of a portcullis. Smaller stone towers stood on either side of the gate. Authority Transports with cannon mounted on them patrolled the grounds.
"Get going!" Willieboy shoved me. I stumbled. My clothes were in shreds and let the cooling air in. It was refreshing, but irritated my scorched skin. We approached a pair of heavy iron and oak doors set deep in the face of the mansion. I saw that a little bridge ran over to them, crossing a moat about fifteen feet wide. I looked down; the dark water dimly mirrored my face.
"A moat?" I asked Willieboy. "You've got to be kidding." He shrugged and pushed me on. We entered a high vaulted hallway. A huge stag's head with an eight-foot rack of antlers hung on a heavy shield on the wall opposite the entrance. Below that a pair of battle-axes were crossed. An intricate suit of armor sagged under these, looking tired. A stone hallway ran to my left and right. The manor had been designed in gothic fashion, punctuated with many high-pointed arches. The buttresses disappeared in shadow over my head. Willieboy pushed me painfully down the hall to the right. We passed works of art sporadically placed along its length. On one stand was the noble brow of Caesar Augustus, on another Hannibal. Farther down the hall was a portrait of Napoleon, farther still King Henry VIII. I turned to Willieboy, raised an eyebrow. He kept his eyes straight ahead. The muscles at his jaws bunched. This place was not to be mocked.
Willieboy pushed me up a broad flight of stairs, ending at yet another tall set of doors. A life-size human skeleton in armor was carved on each mahogany door, wooden broad swords in bony hands. Willieboy knocked on a shield carried by one of the skeletal guardians. Seconds later, the doors swung inward.
My nose hairs tried to crawl up into my brain the moment the doors opened. Formaldehyde. Sour, sickening formaldehyde. A mist of it hung in the air-or its scent had been added to the clammy fog that swirled in the motion of the doors. Willieboy gestured with his head. I entered. The fog settled on my skin like airborne excrement, and soaked into my clothes. I resisted the urge to retch on a point of etiquette. It just wouldn't do to vomit at that time. I was a guest.
The doors thudded shut behind us like dirt dropped from a gravedigger's shovel. I shook with a chill-blood loss, and the fact that the place was easily a balmy 55 degrees. Ahead of me were broad circles of light running the length of a long damp Indian carpet. Through the stinking fog, I could just make out a raised dais. I detected movement from within its faint illumination.
"Do come in, Mr. Wildclown." A voice as cool as the room spoke from the mist-shrouded dais. "You may approach."
We approached. Willieboy showing some hesitation. The cold voice spoke again. "Excellent work, Mr. Willieboy. Excellent. I would prefer to have Mr. Adrian in speaking condition, but accidents happen. Wildclown will do if what you reported is true. Most unfortunate Mr. Adrian's demise. Most unfortunate. I am certain Mr. Wildclown will be only too pleased to help us locate our property. If, as you say, he knows."
"I saw them talking," Willieboy said. "During the gun battle. I saw them talking." Sweat gleamed on his brow. "He sure acts like he knows."
I approached a great foggy tub about ten feet in diameter. In front of it were three wide steps. They were carved from a dark, polished marble. I hesitated, trying to pierce the masking mists. I could see movement within. A round pale head, skeletal arms moved wraith-like. I walked up the steps. I saw now that the King lay in a gigantic tub. Powerful whirlpool jets churned the surface of its contents: formaldehyde, and something else that reeked of sulfur.
When I looked into the tub I almost went back on my decision not to vomit.
Chapter 61
The King was deathly pale where he floated in his bath. Despite the preserving fluid, his corpse had a desiccated, rotten look to it. His features were sharp and gray-veined; his body wasted by age. Stitches of dark green cord held him together. The King had been a rich man at the time of the Change, but he had met with a violent death. It was obvious from looking at the corpse that he had been reassembled. As his limbs moved in and out of the fog, I noticed that his skin hung on him in patches that were slightly different shades, and that on one hand, he had two mismatched fingers. He only wore two things: a ridiculous brown wig that clung to his head like a drowning cat and a golden crown over that.
He was so contemptible I wanted to laugh. Was existence so precious that he would cling to such a battered and run-down excuse of a body? I caught myself, remembering the body I had borrowed. The King paddled around his shallow pool, alligator-style. My guts jumped when he unconsciously drank a long draught of the liquid. Little puffs of vapor blew from his withered nostrils. He looked like something that had crawled out of a rusty can.
"Mr. Wildclown. I would like it very much if you tell me the whereabouts of my property. After that, you may go." He leaned against the rim of the tub. I noticed that a console of buttons, dials and video monitors was built above the rim.
"If you don't mind taking a walk down a two-way street. I'd like to know what happened to Owen Grey." I tried to search my battered pockets for cigarettes. My left hand moved out of sync. Willieboy produced a pack and handed me one.
The King squinted at Willieboy.
He paused while lighting my damp cigarette. "He was the private dick hired by the Hawksbridges to find the girl."
"Oh, yes." The King's dead face registered real delight. "I remember him now. A dinosaur. They are rare, you know, so it troubled me to have him killed." His features froze. "Now, where is my property?"