“But last night…?” Kirsten began.
“Dread must have somehow found a way to pass the salamander sign to Shelton — and to Wingfield — and to any other victims of his sorcery.”
“But John never received any such talisman.”
“Yes, he did.” Chance dug out the rolled envelope from his inside pocket, tore it open. A mate to the first sinister stone carving slid onto his palm.
“I found this near where your Packard smashed to a stop,” he explained. “I wasn’t certain what it meant until Dread took such pains to present you with this one here tonight.
My guess is Dread had one of them placed in your car at some point.”
“I was thrown clear just as we went over,” Kirsten filled in. “Knocked unconscious.”
“Doubtless saved your life. Presumably Dread’s salamander would have attacked any living presence in the immediate circle of the sign’s influence.”
“Then why are you carrying that thing, John? It’s deadly!”
“Because I’d hoped to find Dread here and return the sigil to him. Then his spell would have backfired on him. It seemed worth the gamble.”
“Suppose we just leave these devil’s signs setting here on the stoop and make a run for it,” Wells suggested in a practical tone.
“It won’t help Kirsten. Dread personally presented her with the sigil. Unless she finds a way to give it back to Dread, the salamander will come for her regardless — according to the laws of magic, she and the sign of the salamander are bound together because she accepted it. Our best chance is to get back to Knoxville with this sigil and use the facilities I have at my disposal there in an effort to break the spell and exorcise Dread’s sending before the salamander seeks us out even there.”
“You’re forgetting,” Wells stated. “Dread didn’t give Kirsten that salamander sign-thing. I did. And now, ma’am, I’ll be obliged if you’ll return that devil sign to me.”
“Brave of you, Wells,” Chance clapped his shoulder. “But no use. You were acting under Dread’s influence at the time — so in a sense you were only an extension of Dread himself.”
Wells set his jaw. “All the same, give it back to me. Then you two make a dash for it in your plane. That’ll split the trail, and besides which I’m not going to be run off from my own house and land by any kind of low witchery.”
Chance started to protest further. A sudden roar of the aircraft engine spun him around. “Moore!” he yelled. “You fool!”
Silver in the moonlight, the monoplane jerked into forward motion. Engine building power, it jolted across the rocky pasture — gathering speed. The high wings barely cleared sudden outcrops of limestone as it lurched toward the mouth of the cove.
“The madman! He’ll never reach flying speed in time to clear the trees!” Kirsten moaned.
A silver-winged juggernaut, the Stinson raced suicidally toward the tree line. With a quick rush the plane was airborne. The Lycoming radial poured on power. It headed straight for the waiting trees.
Then with inches to spare the plane staggered for altitude — clearing the treetops at the last instant. For a moment they saw it hover ghostlike over the ridges — then the monoplane disappeared into the night — taking with it Chance’s equipment and their only means to escape.
“Forget that one,” Chance growled. “We’re stuck here on our own!”
“I don’t understand..Kirsten stammered. “Compton deserted us!”
“I don’t get it either. I can’t believe Moore’s nerve broke. Either I misjudged the man and the depth of his jealousy — or Dread has shown his hand again.”
The night about them flickered, as if from distant lightning. The skies were cloudless.
Kirsten’s face twisted in fear. “John! That’s the way it came upon us last night!”
“Will walls hold the thing out?” Wells broke in. “These logs are a foot thick or better, and seasoned hardwood.”
“No protection from a fire-elemental!” Chance advised bleakly. “But Kirsten’s Solomon’s Seal may slow it for the moment.”
“Against a salamander!” Kirsten scoffed. “We’ve no choice! We haven’t a chance if we try to run! Inside, quick!”
Silent lightning flashed again. Closer.
Together they retreated into Wells’s cabin, dragging the snarling Plott hound with them. At the threshold, Chance paused to study Kirsten’s Solomon’s Seal. He nodded approval. The girl had constructed it carefully despite her haste — using some old paint Wells had saved to draw the erect triangle in red and the inverse triangle in blue. In the center she had drawn a crux ansata. Chance pulled an artist’s pencil from his shirt pocket and hurriedly added certain Names of Power in a circle about the ankh. Stepping around the figure, he joined the others and helped bolt the heavy door.
“Got a rifle or a shotgun, whichever you like,” Wells told him. “Maybe honest lead won’t do nothing against this salamander-thing — but I’m sure for giving it a hard try.”
Chance thanked him, not bothering to explain that shooting at the salamander would be about as effective as tossing mudballs at a tank. But at least having a gun in your hands made things appear less hopeless.
“Kirsten, we might try forming a large pentacle on the floor here,” he suggested. “One we could stand in as a sort of redoubt.”
The girl stooped to lay out the angles with practiced skill. It would keep her occupied, Chance figured. With his entire library at his disposal — along with access to all manner of esoteric paraphernalia, and the entire night to work in — they might contrive a protective pentacle of the necessary potency to withstand a salamander.
But they weren’t going to have all night. A sudden electric glare shone eerily across the clearing about the cabin. The salamander was getting nearer, writhing up from the nether abysses whence Dread’s sorcery had compelled it.
Chance groaned inwardly, cursing his own unpreparedness. He should have taken precautions the very instant he first had suspected Dread’s involvement in the wave of inexplicable events that had recently centered on this mountain region. Bitterly he considered the deadly salamander sigils he still clenched in his fist. Little chance of returning these messengers of death to Dread now — although he was certainly out there in the dark, exulting over his trapped enemies as they helplessly awaited death. Chance only wished Dread would show himself to them now — no feat of mesmerism would hold Chance’s finger from the trigger.
Chance looked again at the shotgun Wells had offered him.
“That’s a ten-gauge, right?”
Wells nodded from where he peered through the window. “Had her a long time, and I wouldn’t trade her for any two of your twelve-gauge pumps. She’ll just about tear your shoulder off, but both barrels together will sure clear off the front porch.”
“You got rifled slugs for it?”
“Box in the drawer bottom of the gun cabinet there,” Wells indicated. “Nothing like them big slugs of lead to cut through brush for a sure knockdown on a deer.”
Chance dove for the cabinet drawer, dug out the box of shells. There were half a dozen left. More than enough either way — whether this mad scheme worked or not. He broke open the shotgun, extracted the buckshot shells — then pulled open his pocket knife and sat down on the floor with the box of rifled slugs.
Another blast of lightning. Chance tensed, expecting thunder that never boomed.
“Oh, Lord!” Wells gasped. “It’s here!”
Kirsten leapt to her feet, too terrified to continue her efforts on the pentacle. The threat of fire would make a mad thing of her, Chance knew from experience.
“Kirsten! Keep working on the pentacle! Don’t look outside!” he shouted, snapping her back from panic. Her face a marble mask, the girl bent back to her hopeless task — fear making her usually nimble movements clumsy.