Kenneth Robeson - The Avenger 22 by The Black Death

Author:The Black Death
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2012-02-21T10:37:23+00:00

Chapter X

Priestess of Doom

Josh had some reporting to do when Benson got back to Bleek Street. At the urgency in the colored man’s face, The Avenger took that report before he did anything else.

“We got another of those television broadcasts,” Josh said tensely. “It was about three hours ago, several hours after you left here for Hannon’s home.”

“Like the first?” said Benson evenly.

“Just like it, except for one thing. The shadow of the wings deepened as it did before. The shadow left and showed a figure, like before. The figure put out a lot of high-sounding stuff about the members of the Black Wings being safe as long as they followed the instructions of the Voice, and being in terrible danger if they disobeyed. And?just as the first time?a man’s death was predicted. Or else it was accomplished right then and there; I don’t know.”

The Avenger’s pale eyes were like polar ice in moonlight. They seemed to burn and freeze like pale, liquid oxygen.

“The victim this time was a man named Edwin Mailer. The same ritual was gone through. A figure stood in the underground stone crypt and was supposed to represent Mailer. It was of wax, I think, not a living person. This figure was given a black orchid. Shortly afterward it shriveled and fell. And it had turned black.”

The Avenger remembered the swiftness with which the black death had struck Gailord after that first accidentally witnessed Black Wings scene.

“And this man, Edwin Mailer?” he asked.

“In half an hour the police teletype carried the news about him,” Josh said. “He had. just fallen over dead, in his home. The corpse seemed a little shriveled. and it was black! Just as Gailord’s corpse was. Mailer,” Josh Newton added, “was a foreman in the Bidloe Locomotive Works.”

“Gailord?owner of a factory turning out bomber stabilizers,” murmured The Avenger, pale eyes lambent. Mailer?foreman in another factory. There is a parallel. But you said there was one thing different about the television scene.”

“One thing very different,” Josh nodded. “In the first, the figure talking was a hooded man. His was this Voice they babble about. In this second broadcast, the talking figure?the central figure?was a girl! And she was not hooded as the man had been. You could see her face very plainly. She was the girl we saw take the black orchid from Mae’s store.”

The Avenger turned to Smitty. Dick had come up by himself, fast, from the basement of the building where the Justice, Inc., cars were garaged.

“We have two guests,” he said to the giant. “They are in the rear of Hannon’s car I came here in. Better bring them up.”

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