The Stein & Candle Detective Agency, Vol. 1: American Nightmares (The Stein & Candle Detective Agency #1) (14 page)

“Yeah,” I said. “I want you to take him to Hell.”

The devil paused. We looked at his mask. It kept on grinning. “I really got hand it to you, Mr. Candle,” Satan said, stepping back towards his car. “You’re something special.” He opened the door and slid inside. All the damage my Packard had made, all the bent metal and busted engine, was gone. “Let’s go get them,” he said. “Can I offer you a ride?”

“Hell yeah,” I agreed. I opened the back door and slid inside, and Weatherby followed. The inside of the devil’s hot rod was nice and cool. The leather upholstery felt good on my aching body. Satan pressed down on the gas pedal and slid out slowly. His ride smoothly rolled forward, heading towards the finish line.

I looked out of the window at Leon Strank. I saw his smile slowly vanish and then his mouth fell open. “Oh god!” he cried. “Oh no! Not me!” He turned to run, and the audience scattered as well.

“Little late for that, Leon!” Satan laughed as he revved up the motor and sped forward. He was trying to run Leon down, but the occultist runt was already running to the parking lot. He got into his Ford and started the engine. Jimmy held Selena in the back seat, and Weatherby leaned forward to get a closer look. The Ford peeled out of the parking lot and the devil followed.

I put my hand on Weatherby’s shoulder as the devil drove after the Ford, going at a blinding speed down the rocky cliff. Leon was driving with the insanity of the damned, his car weaving back and forth down the narrowing road. There was sheer rock on one side of the road, a sharp drop and the ocean on the other. Satan didn’t seem to care.

Before I could stop him, his Cadillac shot forward and crashed into the back of Leon’s vehicle. The Ford pitched over the side of the cliff and hung there. I heard Selena scream. I opened the car door and ran outside, Weatherby close behind. Selena was trying to crawl through the open window as the car slowly tilted backwards over the edge. Weatherby ran to her and took her hand.

“Selena!” he cried. “Hold on! I’ll get you out!”

He started to pull her out, when Jimmy’s fat hand clamped on her arm. Selena screamed again, and the Ford started to fall away. But before it could drag Selena with it, her sleeve tore. She tumbled forward, one hand clutching the edge of the cliff, the other holding her brother. Behind her, the Ford fell backwards – into the sharp rocks at the bottom of the cliff.

It went up in a fearsome explosion as I helped Weatherby help Selena up to the top of the cliff. “Oh, Weatherby,” she said, wrapping him in a fierce hug. “My little brother. My brave baby brother.” He returned the embrace.

I looked back at the remains of the Ford, already being covered by the roaring waves. The devil joined me. “Looks like I got two more souls to welcome,” he said, nodding to the wreck. “I better get going so I can be there to say hello.” He turned to go.

“Wait,” I said. “One question – is it true you got a place down there, waiting for me?”

The devil laughed. It was a pure evil sound, like the fluttering of leathery bat wings, the howling of wolves, and the screams of the dying. “Oh, Mr. Candle,” he said. “You’ll find out soon enough.” He walked back to his Cadillac and got into the driver’s seat, then started speeding away down the open road, until he vanished from view.

After the end of the Morningstar Car Club race, I took the Packard back to Dutch’s shop for a tune-up, as well as to return St. Eustace’s leg bone. Dutch was a little surprised that I had made it, but only a little. After giving the relic back to the priests, I joined Selena and Weatherby in the little restaurant across the street from Dutch’s garage. Both of them had coffee and cakes, but the food was untouched. They were too busy talking.

“Mr. Candle!” Selena called, as soon as I came in. “Please, come and join us! I must thank you, with all of my heart, for saving my life, of course, but also for taking care of Weatherby.” She looked back at him and ruffled his hair. “He stayed with me a little bit, after he left the custody of the CIA, but then he departed. I do wish he stayed.”

“You’re still in school, Selena,” Weatherby explained. “And I don’t want to be a burden. That’s not my place. Circumstances have made me the man of the house, and I have to do my best to take care of you.”

“Oh, Weatherby.” Selena shook her head. “You could never be a burden.”

I smiled at her. “He isn’t,” I said. “He’s a good kid, Miss Stein. Your parents raised him right.”

“Thank you,” Selena said. Her manners were impeccable. “Well, Weatherby, if you won’t move in to my dorm room, then perhaps you can still stay with Mr. Candle. He is a hero, and a man of the highest caliber.”

I considered her words. I had just cheated in half a dozen ways to win a race, and damned two men to the pits of Hell. Was that something a hero would do? Or was the devil’s laughter spot on, and he’d be seeing me shortly?

I didn’t know. I still don’t. But I sat there in that diner, and watched Weatherby happy to be talking over old memories with his sister, and Selena just glad to be re-united with her baby brother, and I realized that I didn’t care.

I stood in a foggy field in England, watching a movie being made. I could tell that this one wouldn’t be winning any Academy Awards. It was a lurid horror film, a b-movie in every sense of the word, where the neon glare of fake blood, the cleavage of the distressed damsel and the snarls of the monster would draw in the teenage, drive-in audience more than anything else. It was like a million other such pictures produced by Mallet Films, a burgeoning outfit that pissed off English censors and made the lion’s share of their dough in America.

This one was called
Curse of the Witch Queen
. It seemed a nice enough picture, with all the sound and fury of a usual Mallet production. Like their others, it was filmed on location in Bly Studios, an old Victorian Manor that had been Dracula’s castle, Frankenstein’s lab, the mummy’s tomb, and a dozen other haunts of horror as well.

But I wasn’t there to tour the set. As a private detective, that just ain’t my role to play
. Curse of the Witch Queen
had been running into a great deal of problems. Expensive camera equipment had been found smashed. Carefully constructed cardboard sets had been ripped to shreds. Lighting had been spoiled. The director, a high-strung fellow named Clarence Teller, was convinced someone was trying to sabotage his picture. So he called up the Stein and Candle Detective Agency and hired me and my partner to figure out who was behind the sabotage and put a stop to it.

We flew to London, took a private car into the countryside and landed right in Mallet-Land, where everyone was working feverishly to finish the movie. Already over-budget and off-schedule, it was clear that Teller needed to wrap things up and send the film on its way. He was adamant that my partner and I, Weatherby Stein, should be on the set to look out for any signs of wrong-doing.

We had been there for most of the day, and the only crime we discovered was one against cinema. Weatherby sat in a cloth-backed chair, watching the camera crew set up for the day’s shoot. The set had turned the patio behind Bly studios in an old fashioned graveyard, complete with crumbling graves around a vine-encrusted mausoleum. It was a foggy day, but they had a few machines rigged up to bathe the set in even more white smoke.

“Wretched business,” Weatherby muttered, turning to me as the camera crew wheeled in their equipment. “I detest vulgar entertainment, and none more than this gothic malarkey. It’s disgusting, it’s despicable, and it’s slanderous.”

I pointed to the graveyard. “It’s just entertainment, kiddo. People pop down a buck or two, they want to be entertained. Mallet Films sees to that.”

“But it’s all wrong!” Weatherby whined. “I know graveyards, Mort. I spent my childhood in graveyards, and they have a solemn majesty that is completely destroyed by copious fog, poor lighting, and of course, the wretched gallivanting of Mallet’s actors.”

Just as he said that, the actors themselves arrived on set, followed by the director. A tall, square-jawed kid in a crimson Victorian costume suit headed over to us. “Um, pardon me, chaps,” he said, with the usual briskness of the English upper class. “But you’re in my seat.”

I looked at the yellow letters embroidered on the back of the folding chair. It was apparently reserved for Patrick Darling, the male lead of
Curse of the Witch Queen
. “Sorry, sir,” Weatherby said, slipping off of the chair and stepping back. “You have my apologies.”

“No trouble, my boy, none at all.” Darling hopped into his chair and folded his legs. He examined Weatherby’s own Victorian suit, one infinitely more intricate than his costume. “Say, that’s a brilliant costume. Very dark and I love the pinstripes. You get some tailor to make it up for you special? Ought to put him touch with the props and costumes department. I could use some threads like that for this role.”

Weatherby glowered at Darling. “It is my father’s suit, sir,” he said. “And your simpering hands shall never touch it!” He turned on his heel and stalked off.

Darling grinned at me. “Strange little fellow, isn’t he?” he asked.

“He is that,” I agreed. I leaned forward. “But at least he doesn’t wear a playsuit and go tramping around cardboard graveyards.” I touched the brim of my fedora. “See you around, Darling.” I walked away from him, out through the thick green grass and over to Weatherby. The kid was staring into the distance, looking at the broad band of dark road than ran through the countryside, and the abandoned military base that bordered Bly Studios.

He turned around and looked at me. “We shouldn’t have taken this job, Morton,” he said. “There is no saboteur. The director must possess a vivid imagination. We are wasting our time.”

“Long as we get cash in our pockets, we ain’t wasting time,” I corrected. I patted his thin shoulder. “Come on, Weatherby,” I said. “I know this reminds you of home in all the wrong ways, but it’s just a job. Let’s go on back and play good little watchdogs for the director, then get our payment and skedaddle. What do you say?”

He looked at his shoes and finally nodded. “Okay,” Weatherby muttered.

We walked back to the set, just as the lead actress was arriving, a dozen make-up beauticians clustered around her. The babe headlining this movie was Angelica Witt, and with her flowing brown hair, diaphanous turquoise nightgown and wide smile, she could play her role just fine. She looked up at me and Weatherby and grinned.