The Stein & Candle Detective Agency, Vol. 2: Cold Wars (The Stein & Candle Detective Agency #2) (28 page)

Boris led us on foot to the place of the tomb. It was nestled in a clearing in a forest between two rocky crags of the gray mountains. The earth seemed blackened around the tomb, like everything had been burned to ash and scattered at our feet. The trees were dead and none of them stood near the tomb itself. I could see the terror in Boris’s eyes as we got nearer. He turned away from the stone tomb, and I gave him a quick nod.

“It’s okay, buddy,” I said. “We’ll take it from here.”

“T-thank you!” Boris bowed, nearly touching our feet with his lips. “I thank you with all of my heart, Mr. Candle, and Mr. Stein!”

“Sure,” I said. “Go home now. We’ll come back when we’re finished here.”

He hurried off, and Weatherby and I walked into the clearing. Wagner Stein’s tomb had a palatial entrance, looking like some crumbling Greek temple made of obsidian and wrapped round in dead gray creeping vines. Statues of leering demons and hooded grim reapers stood between the pillars, holding scythes and swords and shaking their horned heads at the silent mountains. The entrance lay between two statues of gargoyles, and it looked like they’d spring up and devour anyone who tried to get in. The place looked like Liberace had designed it – with help from the devil.

Weatherby and I exchanged a glance. I reached into the pocket of my trench coat, my fingers closing around the cold steel of a pineapple grenade. “Think we could toss a bunch of explosives through the door, collapse the whole thing and that’ll be the end of it?” I asked.

“There is little hope that would achieve the desired effect.” Weatherby took a flashlight from his pocket and switched it out. The beam of light shone into the darkness of the vault, casting dancing shadows over the crouching gargoyles. “No. We must go in ourselves.”

“All right,” I said. “That suits me fine.” I shouldered the Thompson and followed him down the crumbling steps. We walked between the gargoyles and headed into the crypt. The stairs took us down, leading us through a narrow passage that went deeper and deeper under the ground. I could feel the walls pressing in around me, and I cleared my head and kept walking.

Weatherby’s flashlight lit the way ahead of us. The stairwell leveled out, leading to a long vaulted hallway. More statues squatted or were frozen in profane dances next to the walls. Rotting tapestries and dusty pictures joined them, giving us a good idea of what Viscount Stein’s reign had been like. It involved lots of blood, screaming women and children, and death. Weatherby looked at them in disgust, shaking his head as we continued along.

“So, kiddo, how many of your relatives were completely nuts?” I asked the kid, as we moved down the long passage. “And were any as bad as this?”

“I don’t believe so. Johan Stein allegedly created artificial life, building a monster out of pieces of corpses, which rampaged through the Swiss countryside. Legend has it that Barnabas Stein set the blaze which started the great London fire of sixteen sixty-six. But no — I don’t think any of them were as monstrous as Viscount Wagner Stein.”

We reached a tall archway, leading to the next chamber. Two suits of polished black armor, both armed with long halberds, stood as silent guardians on both sides of the arch. Their visors were lowered, but I could feel their gaze on me as we approached. I tightened my grip on the gun. Weatherby kept walking, and too late I noticed the fingers of the metal gauntlet fastening on the wooden handle of the halberd. The ancient steel was moving on its own accord.

“Weatherby!” I cried, as the knights sprang to life. One swung his halberd towards Weatherby. The boy ducked, but caught the wooden handle – instead of the blade – against his chest. He went down without a sound, and I raised the gun to face the two knights. They charged. I gave them half of the clip.

The tomb rang with gunshots. My ears ached, and light blazed sudden and full in my face, but I didn’t stop. The tommy gun blared in my hand, pumping round after round through the knights. The first suit of armor stopped its charge, sinking down with a dozen fat holes in the breastplate and helmet. It hit the ground, its halberd clanging to the flagstone after it. But the fallen knight’s buddy was right behind it, and I didn’t have time to fire on him.

The suit of armor stabbed at me, nearly driving that big chunk of sharpened metal between my nose and my mouth. I stepped out of the way, and the jagged blade touched my cheek and drew blood. I winced, then shouldered my gun and slugged the knight right in his metal face. It hurt my hand more than it hurt him. He cracked the handle of his spear against my chest and I went down, feeling like my ribs had been set on fire and my lungs would follow.

My ears wouldn’t stop ringing. I saw the knight above me, raising his halberd. He was going to cut my head in half. I told my body to roll out of the way, but it wasn’t happening. My finger felt useless as it struggled to close around the trigger of my tommy gun. The knight started swinging. The halberd neared my forehead. That’s where it stopped.

The suit of armor was frozen, as immobile as it had been a minute ago. Weatherby’s dark-haired head poked out from behind the knight’s shoulder. He gave me a grin and offered me his hand. I took it and he helped me up. I saw a long bladed golden dagger, sticking up from the knight’s back. Weatherby grabbed it with both hands and pulled it out, and the knight collapsed in a boneless rattle to the ground.

“Enchanted?” I asked, as Weatherby carefully slid the blade into a leather sheath inside his coat.

“Solid gold, etched with runes. Enchanted by Merlin himself, I believe,” Weatherby said. He touched his chest. “I suppose I’ll be quite bruised tomorrow.”

“If we live that long,” I muttered. “Come on.” I reloaded the Thompson and we walked deeper into the tomb. I wondered what other guardians Viscount Stein had around, to ensure that he rested in peace. I wondered if the next batch we encountered would cause us to join him.

The long hallway opened up into a wide chamber of dark marble. It was a like ballroom, taken out of some baroque castle and slammed underground in Wagner Stein’s tomb. The floor was checkered, and a set of dancers stood there, frozen in mid-waltz. I thought they were statues at first, but as we got a little closer, I saw that the truth was much worse. They were corpses, skeletal figures draped in the fine gowns and capes of a bygone age.

The baubles and jewels on their clothes still shone, but the corpses were nothing but fleshless bones. I had the feeling that Stein had arranged for his noble pals to be skinned – before he had them posed. At the rear of the ballroom, past the crowd of frozen dancers, was a set of double-doors. We had to go through the dancers to reach it.

I looked to Weatherby and he nodded. His father’s revolver was in his hands. I raised the tommy gun and started walking. Weatherby followed. Our footfalls sounded on the marble floor, ringing through the empty chamber louder than thunder. We walked to the center of the crowd of dancers. I saw the thin rapiers and daggers on the belts of the gentlemen. Weatherby’s flashlight made the jewels on their feathered cavalier caps glow.

We stayed quiet the whole time, and I listened to the silence of the room. I knew exactly when a noise came that didn’t belong. It was creaking whine, a high-pitched groan that made a shudder run through me. I turned around. The skeleton behind me had changed his position. His sword was in the air, the blade held high and shining. It was as sharp as the day it was forged.

“Weatherby?” I said. He hadn’t noticed it, and was still walking forward carefully.

“Yes, Mort?”

“Run.” That was all I could say before the skeleton lunged for me. I raised the tommy gun and opened fire, the fat slugs punching through bone and sending fragments of the skeleton tumbling through the air.

The other skeletons came to life and moved against us. Weatherby and I started running to the door. I swung the tommy gun around, my finger never leaving the trigger. I rattled away at the bones, blasting them back as they drew closer. The skeletal hands of some noblewoman in a fat round dress neared my throat. I blasted her skull to pieces, but she still grabbed the barrel of the tommy gun and pulled. I let it go. I’d rather lose that than be dragged down and torn to pieces by her pals.

Weatherby reached the door, and I heard all six of his revolver shots blasting off. His bullets did as much good out of his gun as they would have if he hadn’t fired. I kept on going running, reaching into my pocket for a weapon to give those skeletons a brand new dance partner, even as they tried to claw my eyes out. Thin claws of bone wrapped around my wrists and legs, but I kept pulling away, trying to get to the door. I felt Weatherby’s hand on my shoulder, pulling me back. I got my hand out of my pocket – and I had the grenade with it.

“Get behind those doors and close them, as quick as you can!”

“What?” Weatherby asked. “Why?”

I popped the pin on the grenade. I let it fall from my hand, rolling under the feet of the skeletal courtiers. “That’s why.” I turned around. Weatherby got the doors open and we ran inside. I slammed the door shut, pulled the crossbar down and held it. I braced my body against the doors. The explosion rocked the whole tomb. I felt sudden heat behind the door, and dust fell from the ceiling.

When my ears stopped ringing, I opened my eyes and looked around. Weatherby had recovered a little quicker than I had. He was already eyeballing our surroundings. We were in a small room, with stacks of treasure and jewels lying carelessly scattered next to the walls. The whole reason we had gone into this godforsaken hole in the ground was lying right in front of us, between the crimson silk sheets of a king-sized bed.

The Viscount Wagner Stein’s body was impossibly well-persevered. It looked like he was taking a catnap, and could wake up without a moment’s warning. I walked to the foot of the bed and looked him over. He had a thin nose and a wide forehead, sharing Weatherby’s pale skin and dark hair. He had a neat moustache, swooping down to twin points that came just to the end of his lips. He wore a dark purple suit, with a cavalier’s hat adorned with peacock feathers, and held a jewel-hilted long sword between his hands. A fat medallion bearing a pentagram gleamed on his chest, and he had more rings than I could count on his fingers.

Weatherby and I exchanged a glance. “Do you…” Weatherby coughed. “Do you think he looks like me?”

“Not a bit, kiddo,” I said. “Not a bit.” I pulled the automatics from my twin shoulder-holsters, and motioned for the boy to stand back. I cocked them and prepared to fire.

Soon as I had both heaters pointed in Viscount Stein’s direction, those damned eyes of his flashed open. I wasn’t even surprised. He looked at the pistols and then up at me. He smiled, slowly and calmly. “Yes,” he said. “Finally, I breathe the air of the living once more! Tell me, boy, what year is it?” He had a thin voice, with a hint of nasal severity.

I looked down and figured it couldn’t hurt, so I told him.

His smile widened and he sat up. Weatherby stumbled back, sticking to the shadows and watching the whole thing. “Yes…” Wagner said. “This shall be the first year of my eternal reign.”

“Afraid not, pal.” I pushed the pistol into Viscount Stein’s chest.

“You are right to be afraid, sir,” Viscount Stein said, his hands fastening around the grip of his sword. “For I will soon teach you the meaning of terror!” When he moved, he moved liked liquid. He seemed to pour out of the bed, swinging his long sword around in a shimmering silver arc. I started firing, and my bullets blasted through the air where he had just been.

He slammed a foot into my chest, and knocked me back, then cracked the pommel of his sword against my forehead. I felt a bomb going off between my eyes, and hit the ground. I tried to raise the pistols, but he kicked them away. Wagner Stein laughed as he held the point of his blade at my throat. I looked up at him. He smiled down at me.

“What strange weapons of the future!” Stein laughed. “Miniature cannons! I have much to learn about this new world of mine, and I shall begin my education soon. But first – your demise.” Viscount Wagner pulled back his sword. He was going to take my head off.

I looked over his shoulder. Weatherby was creeping towards us, the pistol in one hand, and the golden dagger in the other. “You will do no such thing!” he cried, and stabbed forward with all of his might. Wagner Stein seemed like he had expected it. He swung his sword around, crashing its heavy blade against the dagger. Weatherby’s dagger cracked. Sparks flew. Wagner Stein’s sword had hacked Weatherby’s knife into pieces.

“Fool!” Wagner grabbed Weatherby’s throat and slammed him against the wall. He held his sword back. “I have dueled with angels and sung songs that blackened cities!” He paused, his lips curling back. “Your face…” he said. “It is familiar.”

“I am Weatherby Stein. We are distantly related,” Weatherby replied bitterly. “The last male descendant of the Stein line, from the German branch of the family.” He glared at Wagner Stein. If looks could kill, he would have ended the battle right there. “And I am much ashamed to know that I share a name with someone of such low character.”

Wagner Stein just smiled. “And I am surprised to know that the last heir of our line is little more than a sniveling runt.” He grabbed Weatherby’s arm and twisted. I lay there on the ground, my skull aching and my limbs feeling like useless pieces of meat. Weatherby’s scream grew and grew, and then there was a terrible clear crack. Weatherby sank to the ground, his arm neatly broken.

Viscount Stein stepped back. He gave me a kick to the chest that flipped me onto my back. “I’ll leave you here, my friends,” Wagner said. “I am impatient and you will soon be dead. But for me, the world is waiting.” A sudden pounding knock came at the double doors. The wood bulged. It wouldn’t hold long. “And so are my friends.” Stein ran his fingers over the pentagram on his chest.

“Enjoy every breath…” I hissed. “Cause I’m gonna put you down for good.”

He didn’t even look at me. “Goodbye. There is much for me to do.”

Viscount Stein’s features blurred and twisted. He seemed to seep away, stretching out and becoming thinner and translucent. He left as a cloud of smoke, and floated away through the cracks in the ceiling of his tomb. He was gone in seconds. The pounding on the doors was getting louder and I turned around, trying to suck back as much strength as I could.