Page:Weird Tales Volume 36 Number 06 (1942-07).djvu/21

isn’t Splain any more,” he stated, with a show of defiance. "Now I’m called—”

“Spare us what foolish name your devil master gave you,” interrupted Jaeger sharply. “I know most of that stupid ritual, that you think so frightening—another baptism, another book of prayer, another submission to mastery. I will call you Splain, and to that name you will answer, if you hope for mercy. Take off that coat, and put it on properly.”

“You can’t make me,” flared Splain.

Jaeger pocketed the revolver, caught Splain by a shoulder, and shook him like a rug in a high wind. Splain squealed, cursed, and fumbled inside his coat. But Jaeger pinned his wrists, gave it a wrench, and a knife fell to the floor.

“I’ve seen this kind of knife before,” I said, picking it up.

“Yes, several like it,” agreed Jaeger. He had shaken the resistance out of Splain, had roughly dragged the reversed coat from him, and was now turning it back as it should go. “Get into this, Splain.... Yes, so. Clothing turned inside out was an invulnerability charm as long ago as the Egyptian Pharoahs, but it did not protect you. Wickett, I judge that it is a magic dagger, so-called, that you hold. Potent against all enemies that are not prepared.”

“It looks home-made,” I ventured, examining the weapon.

“Of course. Each wizard must make his own knife, hand-forging it of metal never before used. The blade is inscribed? In strange characters? I thought so.”

WE PICKED up four other knives, including the one I had broken, from the floor. Jaeger gathered them on a table, also the plate with the extinguished five-fingered taper.

“A poor imitation,” he said of this last object. “The hand of glory, cut from a hanged murderer’s arm, is supposed to shed light and strike victims numb. Having no hanged murderer convenient, these made a dummy of wax. It failed against us as other charms have failed.”

He smiled grimly at Splain. “Had the blades been simple and honest, your friends might have killed us. But they were enchanted—and useless. Get out, Splain.”

“Out?” repeated the other stupidly.

“Yes. Seek that monster you call your lord, who thought a poor minister of God could not plan and fight a battle. Tell him that I prophesy his defeat. Six of the eleven he sent against us have died. The souls and bodies of the remainder are his responsibility. I shall require them at his hands. You obey?”

“Yes, Parson,” grumbled Splain. He shambled toward the door.

Green fire suddenly played about him, like many little lightnings, or some display of fireworks. Splain shuddered, sagged, crumpled. He, too, was dead, the seventh to perish on the floor of Jaeger’s front room.

Jaeger looked at him, at me. Then he whistled in his beard.

“So much for a defeated wizard,” he commented pithily. “In some way the Flying Horned One knew of Splain’s failure, and he has no use for failures.”

He had produced his revolver once more. Flipping the cylinder clear, he drew the two charges remaining. Then he carefully loaded the gun afresh. From a box in the table drawer he took the bullets, pale and gleaming.

“Those look like silver,” I said.

“They are silver. The sovereign weapon against wicked creatures which are more and less than human.”

“You are going to shoot at the Flying Horned One?”

“No, Wickett,” said the Reverend Mr. Jaeger, and put the weapon into my hand. “You are.”