He turned to the Justice beside him. "Have this cart dragged in to the compound, Renus. Burn it. Burn it all!"

Renus Molladin gave his commanding officer a strange look. "Should we not take it back to The Hall? The Chief Justice could parade this haul as a major victory in his war against the Lotus Barons."

"The Lotus Barons have no part in this," Kendrick told him. "In truth they will be pleased that we have stemmed the flow of Black Lightning. They require breathing addicts, not corpses, to ensure their livelihood.”

"Sir, I..." Renus was about to continue.

"I’ll allow no chance of this vile poison ever reaching the streets," Kendrick told him flatly. "Burn it!"

"Aye, sir." Renus saluted and walked away. He returned with half-a-dozen other men and they began pushing the cart towards the door.
Kendrick scanned the room again. There were more than a thousand crates stacked in piles and mounds around the walls. A veritable fleet of carts sat idle at the far end of the warehouse. He wondered with burgeoning horror if all the crates held the deadly poison. If so, it was enough to wipe out every last man, woman and child of this vast metropolis. A horrifying thought; but he trusted the information brought him by his wife. Inter-departmental operations between the Justices and the Black Panthers weren't so common, but since the marriage of two of their top operatives, such a thing was becoming accepted. Old hatreds and suspicions were rapidly being replaced by mutual respect in both clandestine establishments.

A sudden movement caught his eye, someone scurrying along the wall behind a pile of crates. Momentarily he wondered if it was Katrine returned from her scouting foray, but one glimpse of the gnarly face peering at him in abject terror told him otherwise.
He lunged forward and caught the man by the scruff of his neck and dragged him over the crates. It was the man who'd first set up a racket on seeing Kendrick, he was no less vocal now.

"Shut up!" Kendrick shouted as he slapped the man across the face.

"Please!" the man wailed. "Don't kill me. I didn't lift arms against you. I did as I was told. Please, don't kill me!"

"I won't kill you," Kendrick told him. "Not if you shut up."

The man was silenced as if Kendrick had struck him unconscious. His eyes continued to roll in his head as though he expected Kendrick to change his mind any second. "I am a man of my word," Kendrick assured him - or was it a threat? "You will be taken to The Hall. You will be allowed to stand and be judged by your peers. You may yet die for your crimes. However...if you tell me where I can find Garius Bronwathin, I shall see to it that you receive only a whipping."

"A whipping?" the man gasped.

"That…or your right hand if you’re not quick about it!"

"He's in his secret chambers," the man rushed to say. "At the back of the warehouse there are some steps. He's down there..."

"Show me." Kendrick thrust the man before him.

"I cannot take you there," the man wailed again. "Garius will surely kill me."

"I’ll kill you quicker than any damned hedge-wizard if you don't," Kendrick snarled. "Now, lead me!"

The man scuttled along in front of the striding Justice, glancing over his shoulder, more afraid of the steel-eyed lawman than the promise of death at the hands of a sorcerer. Kendrick didn't need to remind the man about the sword hovering at his spine, he was fully aware.

Other lawmen were following Kendrick too. No doubt they were thinking of his promised bonus to the man who brought Garius down.
The man led Kendrick to a seemingly blank wall, but then he tugged on a protruding lever that was disguised as a bracket beneath a dusty shelf. A door sprang open with a puff of wind, disclosing an ancient staircase that wound down into blackness. There were no torches or lamps in the stairwell, and Kendrick turned and ordered some brought forward.

Within seconds tinder had been struck and yellow flames were guiding them down into the bowels of the earth. The man set up a whimper but Kendrick's sword point urged him down.

Even though the steps were ancient, Kendrick's keen eyes saw that they held little trace of dust, and much wear. Obviously these stairs had been recently graced by the men they'd killed, as well as many times in the past. Kendrick thought again of Katrine as he made his way down the stairs, wondering what had become of his wife. He wasn't long in finding out. >

They came to an open door, an archway that lead in to an underground chamber. Momentarily, even Kendrick, whose eyes had witnessed many a horrific scene, stood dumb with shock at the tableau laid out before him.

Go to next page(page 5)Go to previous page (Page 3)