Free The Avenger 33 - The Blood Countess by Kenneth Robeson

around.”
    “Hout, ye’ve the soul of a poet, Smitty,” said the Scot. “ ‘They say the lion and the lizard keep the courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep: And Bahram, that great hunter—the wild ass stamps o’er his head, but cannot break his sleep.’ ”
    “Huh? What the heck is that?”
    “ ’Tis poetry,” replied MacMurdie. “Penned by an English lad who was no a bad poet, though nae as good as Bobby Burns.”
    Shaking his head, Smitty said, “This place is spookier than I figured, if it’s got you spouting poetry.”
    After a further consultation of the black box, Mac said, “ ’Twould seem certain he’s in the temple, though I’ve a feeling he didn’t go in by them steps we saw out front.”
    The giant bent to squint at the box’s dials. “Naw, he used an entrance on the south side of the joint.”
    They altered their course so they would approach the ruined temple from the south.
    Lightning came sizzling down through the sky. The stones of the temple were lit up once more. The rain fell more heavily, smashing at the crumbled walls.
    Smitty mopped his neck with a paw. “I bet Cole’s sitting around in front of a fireplace drinking highballs with some terrific-looking dame right this minute. That guy’s got luck like—”
    “Quiet a moment,” warned Mac, stopping beside a tree.
    “What is it?” whispered Smitty.
    More lightning flashed.
    “Aye, I thought so. There’s a narrow doorway in the side of the wall we’re approaching. I thought I saw some kind of movement there when the lightning struck before.”
    “I saw the door, but nobody moving around.”
    “Nay, I dinna see anything myself this time,” said Mac in a low voice. “Which mot mean Bulcão just went in by way of that door.”
    “Shall we follow suit?”
    “Best to wait a bit.”
    Smitty stood silent for a moment, pelted by the rain. Finally he asked, “Where’d you learn all that poetry stuff, Mac?”
    “Mon, I went to a university, did I not? And in those days a liberal education was just that.”
    “I always figured poems was more in Cole’s line.”
    “Whoosh.”
    Smitty shifted from foot to foot. “Wonder if Nellie goes for that stuff. I guess dames kind of like hearts and flowers and—”
    “ ’Tis safe to go a mite closer.”
    They moved through the rainswept jungle to its very edge, which put them about a hundred feet from the doorway that Bulcão might have used.
    An obliging flash of lightning lit up the doorway and part of the stone corridor within. There was no sign of anyone standing there.
    MacMurdie tapped Smitty’s arm and nodded at the temple. He went jogging across the brush-covered ground toward it.
    Smitty went trotting after.
    MacMurdie, alert, was crouched on the threshold. He took one step inside, listening. Then he beckoned Smitty to follow.
    The two men started down the stone corridor.
    After a dozen steps, Smitty said, “Think we can risk a light?”
    “Not yet,” said Mac. “We’ll feel our way along a bit further.”
    Another dozen steps, and the floor suddenly opened beneath them. They both went plummeting down into deeper darkness.

CHAPTER XIX

Awakening
    He was awake.
    That was something he had not been for a long time. He had no idea how long he’d slept.
    Moving his right hand, an initially painful thing to do, he touched his face. The beginnings of a beard.
    That meant several days. Several days he’d been here. Wherever here was.
    “Not as bad as Rip Van Winkle’s nap, anyway,” the Avenger said to himself.
    He was lying on his back on the floor, a scattering of straw under him, in a completely dark room.
    “Let’s see if we can sit up.”
    Pushing hard off the floor with both hands, he managed to get up into a sitting position.
    “Oh, boy,” he said. His head was spinning; flecks of light seemed to dot the blackness that surrounded him.
    His arms, now that he was more aware of himself, ached. Needles had been used on him; he’d been given a good many