Back | Next
Contents

DEATH REIGN
OF THE
VAMPIRE KING

Chapter One
The Bat Man

TWENTY MEN WITH SHOTGUNS patrolled the wide lawns of Robert Latham's mansion, crouching in the black shadows of night. Their hands were tightly clamped on their weapons and they cringed close against the walls of the house. They watched the moon-drenched sky fearfully.

From the dense shadow of a shrub a score of yards away, another man spied upon them. He was a hunched, grotesque figure and his long black cape made his body blend with the darkness. He held no weapon, but beside him was a large bird cage. On his lips was a thin, tight smile. . . .

Those guards feared different terror, but if they could have seen this lurking man, they would have fled screaming in panic behind the protecting walls of the house. Not even their ready shotguns would have reassured them. For they were men of the Underworld and he who watched preyed upon their kind. He slew and left a mocking vermilion seal upon their foreheads to show that full vengeance had been exacted by the champion of oppressed humanity—nemesis of all criminals—the Spider!

The smile lingered on the Spider's lips as he surveyed the mansion, blazing with a hundred lights, and watched the men move about furtively with their deadly guns. He was determined to enter that house, though he knew that discovery within those walls would mean certain death at the hands of these men whose fear of him was matched only by their hatred and their desire to kill him. Yes, his entrance must be secret . . . for a while.

The Spider rose slowly to his full, bowed height, lifted the cage at arm's length and removed its bottom. For perhaps thirty seconds, nothing happened at all; then a black form dropped from the cage, spread leathery wings and flitted off erratically into the night. Then another and another, until six bats had taken wing. The Spider laid the cage gently on the earth, crouched again into the shadows to wait. The lights of the mansion would attract insects and those bats fed on small, flying vermin of the night. When the bats flitted between those men and the sky, the panic of terror would reign. . . .

The Spider nodded. They had reason for fright, these men. Within two weeks, a dozen race-horses and four men who frequented the tracks had been killed by the bite of vampire bats!

Useless to say that vampire bats never had been known outside of the tropics; useless to state that they never killed. There could be no mistaking the type of wound, the tiny area of skin peeled away by the keen, painless teeth of the bat. But the bodies of the victims had not been drained of blood. They died instead . . . of poison!

The Spider smiled coldly in the darkness. His bats were not poisonous—not even vampires—but the men who watched the home of Robert Latham would not know that. . . .

Abruptly, one of the armed guards cried out shrilly. There was more than warning in the shout. There was panic, fear and dread. His shotgun belched flame and lead upward into the darkness; then another man also screamed and fired. A ground-floor door flung open in the mansion and the men streaked toward it, shotguns bellowing.

 

This was the moment for which the Spider had played. He wrapped his cape tightly about his body lest its flapping betray him and ran fleetly forward. When he burst into the moonlit ring about the house, he was shouting more loudly than any of the other panic-stricken men. He went in through the door with the rest, mistaken momentarily for one of their number.

Swiftly, he backed across the room in which the terrified guards were huddling. A man turned toward him:

"Geez!" he gulped, "the boss was right. Them bats—"

So much he said before he realized that this sinister, capped man with the hunched shoulders—with cold eyes gleaming beneath the wide brim of a black slouch hat—was no comrade of his. His mouth opened to cry out. His eyes stretched and terror glanced across his countenance. The Spider was recognized!

If this man shouted aloud the Spider's name, a dozen shotguns would blaze at once. These men feared him, but like cornered rats, they would shoot him down. . . .

The Spider's action was as swift as his thought. His left hand shot forward, the first two fingers rigidly pointed. They struck basic nerve centers in the throat. With the cry unuttered on his lips, the man collapsed. In two leaping strides, the Spider crossed the room, plunged through a door. The other men, staring fearfully out into the darkness, while the last of the guards still raced for cover from the threat of those harmless bats the Spider had loosed, saw nothing, knew nothing of the more frightful menace among them—until they turned and saw their companion on the floor. Even then they did not understand, but cried that bats—the vampire bats—had slain again!

Within the house, crouching now in the shadow of a stairway, the Spider heard that cry with tightened lips that knew no mirth. If the gods were good, he would find here tonight an answer to this mystery of vampire bats whose bite was fatal. Newspapers, even reputable scientists, talked of a new species of bat carrying the poisoned fangs of snakes. . . .

The Spider, waiting there in the darkness for the excitement to die, shook his head slowly. There had been other such foolish theories as this whenever the criminal great turned their hands to slaughter. In his many battles to protect mankind against them, the Spider had unearthed drugs that drove men mad, and others that made them docile as dogs; explosives which performed the impossible by absolutely disintegrating whatever they blasted; there had been a gas that destroyed steel as termites do wooden beams. . . . And now there were vampire bats which killed like snakes! No, he did not believe in such vermin. There was something far more menacing behind this nascent terror than a new species of bat.

The Spider was ever alert for new outbreaks of crime. It was only by constant vigilance that he had averted, a dozen times over, the desire of the Underworld to rule over the nation; the slaughter of untold thousands. . . . It had seemed to him now that perhaps some ring of race-track gamblers had conceived a new, horrible weapon and was using it, at present, to destroy personal enemies and to frame races. If that were true, it was no more than a routine job for the police; but suppose . . . suppose the criminals behind this strange new terror turned their thoughts to nation-wide conquest!

The Spider had seen many overwhelming reigns of terror begin thus trivially. He had learned the wisdom of striking quickly and terribly. So he had come tonight to determine what Latham knew of this strange, new, killing instrument.

The turmoil below was quieting. Soon the patrol of the grounds would begin again. The Spider had no fear that the man he had struck would regain consciousness and betray him. The jiu-jitsu blow would be effective for at least an hour and by that time, the Spider's presence would be known to them all!

 

A slow smile crossed the Spider's straight lips as he crept stealthily up the service stairway of the mansion toward the second floor sitting room, where, he knew, Latham kept his watch. There was a shotgun guard in the wide, upper hall. The Spider drew a length of silken line from a pocket of his cape, rope less than the diameter of a pencil which yet had a tensile strength of seven hundred pounds! The Spider's web, police had dubbed it. Well, he would use it now to catch a fly!

Carefully, he looped the cord, carefully tossed it. The unwary guard felt gossamer brush his throat; then he was yanked off his feet, his shotgun clattering to the floor. The Spider was beside him in an instant and once more he struck swiftly to render the man unconscious. He freed his line and, in two long bounds, was at the door behind which Latham lurked with his bodyguard.

That noise of clattering gun had been intentional. After its sound, all was utter, waiting silence. Then, abruptly, the door the Spider watched snapped open. A man with a gun held rigidly ready sprang out into the hall. He grated a curse as he saw the prostrate guard, moved toward him cautiously. The Spider's fist lashed out, caught him hard on the jaw. While the man still wavered on his feet, the Spider had yanked away his gun, was through the open door, had closed it, and the automatic was covering the room.

"Ah, Latham," said the Spider, his voice flat, mocking. "Let me compliment you on the efficacy of your guard!" He laughed softly, and that sound, too, was taunting, blood-chilling.

There were three men in the room and they sat—one of them half-stood—in attitudes of frozen fright. Only Latham's gun was in sight, upon a small, nearby taboret which also held whiskey and a soda siphon. He held a glass in his right hand and, the first to recover, he began presently to slosh the liquid about in it slowly. He was spare, but full-faced and distinguished with his smooth, brown hair which had whitened upon the temples.

"Damn glad you've come, Spider," Latham said calmly. "Perhaps you know some way of stopping these damned bats."

"Just keep on drinking, Latham," the Spider said. "I wouldn't think of interrupting your pleasure."

The Spider's voice was gentle, but the grim, gaunt face with its lipless mouth and harsh beak of a nose was threat enough. Latham gazed at the sallow face, the hunch-backed figure in black cape that crouched behind the ready gun and his pale face became grayish. His glass moved jerkily away from the taboret and he touched tongue to his dry lips.

"Good God, Spider," he said hoarsely, "I . . . I was just going to set my glass down."

"Certainly, Latham," the Spider agreed. "Tonight, Latham, you have no reason to fear me. I simply want to ask you some questions. . . . Whose stable shelters the vampire bats?"

Latham contrived a smile. "The guard I've got here tonight should prove to you that mine doesn't, Spider," he said anxiously. "Hell, my men just drove away one attack . . . !"

The Spider's lipless mouth parted a little, but he did not explain the bats. Abruptly, tension whipped his body. He half-crouched and his gun jutted toward Latham's chest. Pounding footsteps were racing down the hall. In the darkness outside, a man screamed—a cry that choked off in mid-shout. With the suddenness of lightning, the lights clicked out and somewhere, wailing, quavering through the night, came a mourning note that was like the moan of a tortured soul in hell.

"Oh God!" screamed Latham. "It's the Bat Man!"

* * *

For fifteen seconds after the first beat of footsteps, the Spider had suspected a trick. Perhaps someone knew the method of quickly reviving the man he had knocked out. There was a way. . . . But the sound of Latham's voice, the inarticulate fright in the cries of the others, convinced him that their terror was genuine.

The Bat Man . . . no need to inquire what they meant. He had suspected human agency behind the attacks of the vampire bats. These men knew and they called the master of the winged killers . . . the Bat Man!

The Spider waited tensely for this oddly-named man to show himself. His guns were ready. . . . Instantly, instinctively, the Spider had sprung from the spot he stood when the lights went out, but no one moved to attack him. There was a wild stampede of feet toward the door. Latham cried out.

"Keep that door shut, damn you!" His gun streaked flame out of the darkness. Near the door, a man groaned and thumped to the floor.

"Keep away from that door!" Latham shouted again, his panic barely under control. "I'll shoot the first man who touches it."

The Spider realized abruptly that the running in the hall had ceased. Either the man had seen the bodies there and fled in terror, or . . . or the bats already had struck! The Spider crouched to the floor, so that he caught the gray light of the window across the room—so that he could watch movement about him. No one budged. A man whimpered off to his right near the door and the one who had fallen at Latham's shot breathed with rattling breath. Latham had aimed well. He was cursing monotonously.

"You see, Spider," he whispered. "You see, he's after me. The Bat Man . . . !"

His voice was drowned in the bellowing blasts of shotguns just outside the window. There was a tearing, ripping sound of wire screen and the Spider saw against the gray square of the window the fluttering form of a bat!

"Cover your throat, Latham!" he shouted. "A bat just came in the window."

Even as he cried the warning, a half-dozen more of the black, loathsome things dodged in through the torn screening. A shuddering moan came from Latham.

"You can't tell when they bite," he whimpered. "You can't tell. Oh, God . . . !"

With his teeth set, the Spider whipped out his fountain pen flashlight, squeezed out its widely diffused ray. He saw a dodging, leathery-winged beast within inches of his face. The bat flicked away, but the Spider's bullet was swifter than its flight. The creature was torn to bits by forty-five caliber lead and the Spider pressed back against the wall, watching, watching. . . .

Abruptly, he became aware of two things. Within the house, all was silence. And there, but dimly heard, came a shrill, monstrous squeaking, as if a giant bat called to its kind!

It sounded again and black bat forms fluttered through the beam of the Spider's light, whirled toward the window and were gone.

One more of the creatures the Spider smashed with lead; then he was alone with the thumping of his heart, the reverberations of his shot. He lifted his gloved left hand and touched away the moisture that had oozed out through his facial make-up. He acknowledged to himself that in those few seconds, crouched against the wall, he had known the cold touch of fear. Bats with poisoned teeth . . . ! He fought down a shudder.

On swift, silent feet, the Spider crossed the room and peered out of the window. The entire mansion was dark and on the grounds nothing visible moved. The squeaking which clearly had recalled the bats had now ceased and far off, toward where the moon sank, a dog howled. Upward, there was nothing except the blackness of the sky. . . . Suddenly, the Spider's teeth shut upon a curse, his guns swirled upward. But he knew that shooting would be vain. His eyes were narrow as he stared. . . .

 

No bat ever had that wing spread, nor flew with that gliding, motionless ease. And yet, sliding effortlessly across the starry sky, the Spider beheld a creature with bat wings fully ten feet across!

Even as he watched, the thing steeped its angle of dive and sped out of sight over the close, clustering trees that reached upward toward the sky. For long moments after it was gone, the Spider crouched there at the window. He was aware of his quickened breath, of the aching in the forearm of the hand that held his gun.

"It was out of range," he whispered to himself. "Out of range!"

He jerked his head angrily, reached up a gloved hand to shut the window, then turned back to the room. Almost the Spider doubted his eyesight. No, no, he had seen the thing. His eyes had been too well trained in a thousand situations where life and liberty, a thousand lives, hinged on the accuracy of his vision. Breath hissed noisily out between his teeth. Latham had cried, "The Bat Man!" Was it possible that what he had seen was a . . . a man with wings!

The Spider spread the light of his torch over the floor. There was no doubt in his own mind of what he would find, but the horror written largely on Latham's twisted features tightened his own grim mouth. Latham had covered his throat, so the bat had fastened to his hand. He was dead.

Slowly, the Spider turned the beam upon the other two in the room. They were dead, too. He found the instrument which had smashed out the screening of the window—a spear with a special collar of light, steel blades which extended fully nine inches all around the haft. It must have been hurled with terrific force, for the screening was double, a heavier screen mesh outside the usual lighter wire.

The Spider made his way swiftly through the darkened house, avoiding the bodies of men that were everywhere scattered in distorted, tortured attitudes of death. There was no use in carrying the bats he had killed with him. He had recognized them as vampires of an ordinary variety, Desmodus rufus, a tiny creature whose body was no more than three inches long, with a wing spread of only seven inches. He could recognize it by its reddish-brown body and the black wings with edging of white. The heavy bullet had smashed the animal too badly for him to examine its teeth. However, that was scarcely necessary. The Spider was terribly sure now that human agency was behind the murders.

At the outer door, the Spider paused for a moment, his eyes dark and narrow. Twenty-seven men had died here tonight by the bite of non-poisonous vampire bats. He himself had seen the attack. A cold fury swept him as he realized what havoc these same tactics would wreak if they were used against the populace at large. So far, the Bat Man had confined his attacks to a few gamblers, also creatures of the half-world like the bats. The Spider could not mourn their loss to humanity—but suppose the man went power-mad? Suppose the agency behind these attacks turned loose his murderous creatures upon cities, upon entire countrysides . . . ?

The Spider's lean, taut-skinned face set in determined lines. It was his job to keep such things from coming to pass!

His gun was in his hand as he stepped outside the door. A blazing light slapped the Spider in the face. From the close-pressing shrubbery, a man called hoarsely:

"Hands up, it's the law!" The voice broke off in a gasp. "Good God, it's—the Spider! The Spider sent them bats!"

"That's the man," broke in a girl's voice, a deep, emotional voice.

Then another man, shrill, almost hysterical with his discovery. "It's the Spider! The Spider!"

Back | Next
Framed