Wells wanted to leap to his feet, level his rifle on that arrogant figure in black — pump lead into it as fast as his hand could lever the shells. He might have done so had he not looked into those pupilless eyes. Instead he remained in his chair, sweat twitching on his straining muscles.
Dread set a black boot on the porchstep, then drew it back. “Forgive my bad manners — I haven’t been invited in. And how quaint! Someone’s drawn a Solomon’s Seal on your threshold. The Grafin von Brocken has learned much from John Chance. A pity she didn’t think more closely on her ancestress’ fate when she became Chance’s protegée.”
Far away in the silence of the night they could hear the throbbing drone of an aircraft engine.
“John Chance is punctual,” Dread exulted. “Very thoughtful for the condemned not to keep his executioner waiting. This time I think there will be no problem over mistaken identities — assuming my pet leaves enough when he’s through to tell one pile of ashes from another.”
The sinister intruder withdrew something from his trousers pocket. “Come here,” he commanded.
Wells came to his feet, walked woodenly across the porch. The Winchester clattered to the planks beside the motionless hound.
Dread extended a black-gloved fist. “Take this,” he ordered.
Though he fought to hold his arm at his side, Wells could only obey. He held out his open palm. Dread opened his fist. A bright flicker of red — like a drop of blood — fell from the black-gloved fingers and into Wells’s calloused palm.
“Give that to the Grafin von Brocken with my compliments,” Dread sneered.
The roar of the plane’s engine pierced the star-flecked darkness directly overhead now. The sound passed over, circled and returned. A sudden burst of white exploded against the stars, throwing stark shadows on the open ground as it drifted down over the hollow.
The harsh brilliance of the parachute flare momentarily blinded Wells’s eyes. When his dazzled vision cleared, he saw that he stood alone on the porch steps.
Whining dismally, Ben slunk over to his feet. The Plott hound was shaking like a dog bad scared in a thunderstorm — though Wells had never seen him spooked before in his life. The mountain man knew how the bearhound felt. He was shaking too.
A stirring from behind, and Kirsten emerged from the cabin door. Her face was pale, and she looked like someone who has just started up from a deep sleep.
“John! John Chance is here!” she exclaimed, joining Wells at the porch step. “Where…?”
A second parachute flare burst overhead. By its glare they could see the monoplane low over the treetops in a flat circle as it glided down for the short stretch of open pasture.
Kirsten threw her fist to her mouth. “Herr Gott! He’ll crash!”
Sideslipping to lose speed, the Reliant cleared the treetops close enough for the highest branches to slap at the landing gear. Then the plane straightened out and floated down onto the pasture, its tail well down as it pancaked onto the grassy field. The landing was jolting, but the grass was cropped close and the thin soil hard beneath. The landing gear took the shock and kept rolling. Tall weeds and bushes smacked at the undercarriage, but the high wings cleared potential snags. Bouncing and shaking, the Stinson somehow dodged the limestone boulders that poked like dragons’ teeth through the rocky soil. The plane rolled to a halt with ten yards to spare of the rail fence at the head of the pasture, then taxied to face about in the direction it had landed. The radial engine throttled down and idled.
The door on the left of the fuselage opened. Twisting his big frame past the door and ducking the wing strut, John Chance dropped to the ground. Warily he crossed the split-rail fence and came toward the cabin. The porch lay in shadow, but he could see the two figures who stood there. Chance wondered at their silence.
“John!” he heard Kirsten’s choked cry.
Chance sprinted to the porch. “Come on!” he called. “Compton’s holding her revved up. Let’s get out of here before Dread comes calling!” Kirsten’s voice was frightened. She held out her hand to him. “Dread has already been here.” In the moonlight there seemed to be a droplet of bright blood on her white palm. It was a dime-sized seal of carved red stone, probably carnelian. Its device was an equilateral triangle from which spread a nimbus of flame. Within the triangle curled a salamander, its tiny jaws wrath-fully agape with a breath of flame.
“He was here just a minute before you landed,” Wells explained, still shaken. “Just all of a sudden there Dread was, standing right where you are like he’d dropped down out of a tree. I sat here like a bird that’s been hypnotized by a snake, and I guess if Dread had told me to crawl down his throat, I’d’ve had to try, because I was like a stranger in my own body. He handed me that little chip of stone and directed me to give it to Miss von Brocken with his respects, and I couldn’t do otherwise even though when I looked again Dread had fair disappeared.”
“I’m sure you couldn’t,” Chance nodded grimly. “Not if Dread caught you staring out here into moonlight and shadow. His hypnotic powers are enormous.”
“I was inside,” Kirsten added. “Using a mirror to call you here. I’d drawn a Solomon’s Seal across the doorway.”
“Protection against some of Dread’s creatures, though not against Dread himself,” Chance told her.
“This is Hampton Wells,” Kirsten remembered to introduce them. “And John Chance. Mr. Wells killed two of Dread’s hirelings when they were hunting me this evening.”
Chance offered his hand. “Mr. Wells, I’m in your debt. But I’m afraid you’ve cut yourself in on a deadly piece of business.”
The mountaineer’s handshake was firm. “Guess I thought it was a fight worth winning, Mr. Chance. Been trouble in these parts since this spring when this devil Dread sent his people prying about for information on the lost mines of the Ancients.”
Chance gauged the man. “I found out some little about that just lately. I’d guess I’d have found out a good bit more if Cullin Shelton had lived to tell what he knew.”
The circle of red stone glinted evilly in the moonlight. In the pasture the Stinson’s engine throbbed impatiently.
“We’ll have to hurry,” Chance warned. “Dread must only have held his hand until he had us all together.”
“What is it?” Kirsten asked, staring fixedly at the stone sigil.
“The sign of the salamander,” Chance said tensely. “Dread has marked you for its victim.” Wells moved faster than thought. His big hand lashed out and slapped the deadly sigil from the girl’s grasp — like brushing off a crawling spider. The carnelian seal fell to the puncheon floor, and Wells’s heavy boot stamped hard — as a man stamps his heel at the striking head of a venomous snake.
“Don’t!” Chance shouted in horror. He lunged for Wells, knocking him off-balance. The boot heel smashed inches away from the skittering bit of red stone.
Wells staggered for balance, goggled at the other man.
“Why did you do that?” Chance demanded, swiftly retrieving the salamander carving.
Wells shook his head. “Why, I don’t know. The thought just came to me…”
“Dread’s thought came to you is more likely,” Chance supplied. “This talisman explains Dread’s control over the salamander. He marks his intended victim with the sign of the salamander, then sends his elemental seeking the person who bears the sigil.”
“Then destroy the thing!” Wells argued.
“A spell doesn’t work that way!” Chance insisted. “The only release will be to give the sigil back to Dread. If it’s destroyed, that’s impossible — and the salamander will still seek its prey!”