Part 2

"Come, come, Doc. You're allowing this too much importance. I will admit the acceptance of the religion is bad enough; but after all, I know of at least fifty prominent women, in good society, who believe in Moonerism. They are not faring so badly."

* * * * *

The telephone on Inspector Chadwick's desk began ringing impatiently. He picked up the phone.

"This is Inspector Chadwick." He smiled at Carl. "You say you want to speak to Doctor Fielding? Why, of course. He's right here in my office."

"No one knew I was here. Who----" Carl took the phone with an expression of puzzled fear. "Ruth! Yes, dearest. At once. Of course. Please try to control yourself. I'll be there as quickly as I can."

He banged the receiver down, and turned to Chadwick. "Ruth calling me. She's talking strangely. Said someone put your phone number in her mind. She wants me at once. Come with me, Chadwick. Something's wrong."

"I'm on my way now!" Chadwick followed Carl out of the office.

Reaching Ruth's apartment in record time, Carl was startled by the look of fear in her eyes. She looked as if she had just been awakened from a horrible nightmare, as she stood before him in her negligee; her light brown hair, usually so well-brushed and sleek, was now a wild mass of disorder.

"Oh, Carl! Carl! What has happened to me? Where have I been?" She ran to his arms.

"Why, Ruth, don't you remember? I left you last night at the Countess Moonard's. You insisted upon staying."

"Yes, yes, I remember that. Then I went to sleep. The Countess said----"

Her eyes closed. She seemed about to faint.

"She said what?" Carl took her shoulders between his hands and shook her anxiously. "Ruth, what did she say?"

Ruth's eyes opened. The fear came into them again, and she began crying hysterically. "Oh, it can't be! Carl, I'm lost! Lost!" she sobbed.

"Ruth, you must get a grip on yourself and tell us what happened."

Carl led her to a chair, into which she dropped, limp and helpless. Suddenly she started talking again, her eyes staring widely.

"I don't know. I don't remember what happened after I fell asleep at the Countess'. I should remember. I want to remember what she said to me, and I'm afraid now. I awoke here in my room. I heard a voice calling to me. There was no one here, no one with a voice like the one that was calling me. It's calling now! It's warning me, Carl, warning me not to go on. Listen! I can hear it so plainly. It's a voice--a voice like that old man's. The old man with the horrible face, and eyes, and--oh, Carl, Carl, what did I do? Now there are two voices. The Countess is telling me to come back--to sleep, to sleep. And that old man is saying: 'Don't listen to her; listen to me. I am your master. Moonere will take your soul to a hell beyond hell!'"

Her voice broke with uncontrollable sobbing. She began babbling insanely.

"There's nothing I can do for her now, except to quiet her," Carl said finally. "She needs sleep. A sedative, and perhaps we can get her mind back to normal."

Under Carl's care, Ruth was soon asleep; although her body convulsed with sudden spasms of fear that came even through her slumber, as if she were defending herself from unseen demons who were dragging her away. Gently closing the door of her bedroom, he returned to talk with Chadwick.

While Carl had been inducing her to sleep, Chadwick had discovered a small necklace upon the carpet. It looked as if it had been torn from someone's throat with great violence.

"Ever see this before?" Chadwick held the glittering pendant out to Carl.

"Why, yes. Ruth was wearing it last night. It is something new she picked up."

"No, nothing new about this." Chadwick shook his head. "This is the symbol of Moonerism. I've seen them before. Never this close, however. Notice the pendant?"

For the first time, Carl observed the pendant closely. It was oval, about two inches and a half long, about an inch and a half wide, and apparently of some onyx-like substance. It glowed with an unearthly, blue-black light, faint but perceptible. At the upper side, and a little to the right, a small glittering stone was set; a stone that glowed as if it were imbued with some cruel, radiant life. From this stone, a thin line of light traced downward to the lower center of the oval, where another and larger stone was set. When the thin line of light reached this second sphere, it grew brighter and engulfed it in a consuming glow.

"Feel this thing," Chadwick said, handing it to Carl.

"Why, it's cold as ice!" Carl gasped.

"Wonder what that design means?" Chadwick took the necklace back again. "You know, Doc, it looks to me as if the Countess Moonard is going to be thoroughly investigated this time. As soon as Ruth awakens, we must try to get more information from her. No doubt she was hypnotized. But this old man she speaks of----"

"I know who she means. I'll tell you about him; but first, I want to take another look at her. I think I had better get a nurse, and----"

Carl was moving to the bedroom as he spoke. When he opened the door, he let out a cry: "She's gone!"

"What!" Inspector Chadwick made his way to the door in two leaps.

A hasty search of the room and the adjoining bath revealed nothing. The open window with the curtains blowing lazily was their only clue.

"Kidnapped!" whistled Chadwick. "Now this _is_ a case for Scotland Yard. Come on; we're going to pay a visit to the Countess."

They were hurrying for the door when the telephone in the hallway began ringing.

"Answer it." Chadwick turned upon his heels. "May be important."

The voice Carl heard over the telephone made his face suddenly pale. It was the voice of Pierre Soret, saying: "Doctor Fielding, you must trust the fate of your fiancée to me. She is being taken back to the Temple of Moonere, but do not permit any rash blunders by the police to interfere. Her life will pay the penalty. I am your friend. Wait until tonight, and I will come to your office, if the stars permit."

_3. The Cult of Moonere_

Doctor Fielding looked from his watch to the window of his office, opening upon a black velvet night. He had encountered considerable difficulty in restraining Inspector Chadwick from going at once to the Countess Moonard's home in search of Ruth. Now he was further annoyed by the torture of doubt. Had he been foolish in obeying the voice--the voice of an old man he had seen only once before? Perhaps the telephone call had only been a trick to delay the rescue of Ruth. That could be, for it was very late, and there was no sign of the old man, although the sky was without a twinkle of starlight.

The telephone on his desk disturbed his thoughts with its jangling ring. He answered impatiently; it would be Inspector Chadwick calling again to find out if the mysterious old man had made his appearance.

"I think I should take a look around the Countess' home," Chadwick was insisting.

"No! We've gone this far; we must hold out. There's someone at the door now. It's surely he. I'll call you when he's gone," Carl shouted into the telephone, crashed the receiver on the hook, and ran to the door.

It was only the charwoman, armed with buckets and mops for her nightly duties.

"Sorry, doctor," she said, pushing a stray wisp of grimy hair from her eyes, "but I thought if ye didn't mind, I would be cleanin' yer office. But then if I'll bother ye----"

"Yes, you will," Carl answered hastily. "Forget about my office for this one night. I am expecting a caller." He took some loose coins from his pocket and gave them to her. "Here, take these and buy yourself a midnight snack."

"Ah, thank ye, sir, and God bless ye, sir, and----"

Carl had to push her gently but firmly out of the door to shut off the flood of almost tearful gratitude the old woman was heaping upon him.

He closed the door, and turned again to search the sky for any trace of unwelcome stars when a scream echoed down the corridor of the offices. Throwing open the door, he saw the old man standing in the corridor, his black cape covering his face. The charwoman was hastening down the stairs, gesticulating and screaming with fright.

"She saw my face," the man in black said simply.

Carl ushered him into his office, and quickly locked the door. Pierre now kept his cape wrapped about his face as he looked suspiciously about the office.

"Are we alone?" he asked.

"Yes. I've been waiting all evening for you. Now please tell me about Ruth. Is she all right? Oh, what does it all mean anyway?"

Carl hurried him to a chair in front of his desk, and then seated himself. Pierre sat down, but still remained covered.

"Doctor Fielding, I am glad that you trusted my telephone call this afternoon," Pierre began to speak. "When I told you last night that I would come to see you, it was because I wanted to help you. Your fiancée was in danger. I saw the sign of Moonere upon her throat."

"You mean this?" Carl displayed the necklace Chadwick had found that afternoon.

"Yes, that is the mark of the Countess Moonard--the beginning of what will eventually become this!" Pierre stood up, throwing the cape from his face.

For a moment Carl's senses reeled. He gripped the edge of his desk, and leaned unsteadily against the back of his chair. He felt the blood drain from his head; he had not felt this way since his first days in the dissecting-room at the medical school. His horror shamed him. After all, he was a doctor who was supposed to be able to stand the ghastly sight of blood and injury. But this was different! What he saw in Pierre's face was beyond ordinary gore!

The face seemed to be afire. It looked like flesh that was slowly being cooked. The eyes bulged and smoke seemed to swirl from them. And above it all there was the horrible stench of charred human skin.

For a long moment Pierre said nothing. Carl could not speak, although he fought bravely to gain control of his feelings.

"Not a very encouraging sight, is it, doctor?" Pierre broke the awful silence.

"I--I can't believe it. It's not possible--it--in God's name, man, what caused this?" Carl finally gasped.

"Moonere!" Pierre's pained eyes looked into Carl's.

"Moonere?"

"Perhaps you know her better by the name of the Countess Donella Moonard. The beautiful Countess Moonard and Moonere, the sorceress, daughter of the God of Sudre, are one. Your fiancée is marked for the sacrifice that for the last ten thousand years has offered up its beautiful captives to the greedy God of Sudre!"

"Sudre? Where is Sudre?" Carl stared at him incredulously.

"Sudre is another world, another planet, with another scheme of life--a scheme of life more complex than any dream of our existence, more terrible than all the horrors of history, beyond comprehension by any of our sciences or philosophies. It is all we are, refined and horribly exaggerated in some phases, until our most potent symbols of evil are only weak caricatures beside it. It is evil transcendent and all-powerful. It is the natural, purged of any goodness, and become supernatural and transcendent. A few men of ancient Egypt knew of its existence, knew of the All-Powerful One of Sudre, who has been playing his evil jest upon the helpless people of this earth for countless centuries."

* * * * *

Carl could only stare at Pierre, trying to realize meaning from the strange sounds he made. It was as if he listened to a man from another world.

"You do not understand, I know." Pierre sat down again, wearily. "But I will make you understand, if you will only hear me out. You must try to grasp what I tell you."

Pleadingly Pierre's scarred hand reached across the desk and touched Carl's fingers. Hastily Pierre withdrew his hand as he saw the look of revulsion upon Carl's face. Carl felt himself sicken at the feeling of unearthly coldness of the man's skin. The feeling of coldness was not in keeping with the appearance. To look at him was to think of fire, all-consuming fire!

"The way my hand felt to you just then is the way my skin is all over my body," Pierre said. "Touch it, if you dare. You are a doctor. Examine me. These sores that look like boils and fire--feel them, and you will know the cold sensation of a billion miles of space."

Carl's hand moved slowly to Pierre's face. With dread reluctance, his fingertips traced over the pitted, irregular features. It was like feeling an iced corpse, only worse, for this flesh was alive. When he withdrew his hand, he beheld a trace of damp, bluish substance upon his fingers.

Pierre spoke again: "Last night when I told you of the stars, you wondered what they had to do with my going out. Now you see my hopeless state; you see the unspeakable ugliness of my face. You must believe that all of this is a part of the curse the stars have in store for those who defy Moonere. When the moon and the stars loom so brightly in the evening sky, my flesh boils; my blood steams and courses through my veins, sending poison, poison from Sudre--moon-poisoning throughout my body. It is not the heated fire of the sun or of a furnace, but a cold, blue fire that chills as it burns, yet burns more intensely than a thousand blasts from hell.

"I am slowly being destroyed, because I have defied Moonere and sought to drive her from the earth. Do you know what it is to be destroyed, to be conscious every minute of your slow journey to death? Look! I'll show you a picture." Pierre took from his pocket a small photograph.

Carl looked from the photo to the man who stood before him. There was no resemblance. The picture was of an intelligent man in his late thirties. He was tall and straight, with a splendid, manly physique, and handsome face that was crowned with heavy black hair, graying at the temples.

"That is a picture of Professor Pierre Soret." Pierre stood up, pointing to the picture in Carl's hand. "You see the man was tall, a large man, an athlete in his college days. Now look at him!" He made a disdainful gesture to his present slight figure that was scarcely five feet in height. "I am the same man of that photograph taken over ten years ago. But there is no way I could prove it, because I am slowly being burned to a stony cinder."

"I can't believe it," Carl cried out against the madness of his thoughts. "How can you expect me to believe that this woman has been able to destroy you like this? What fiendish power, even of the supernatural, could do this to a man?"

"The crystal of Sudre in Moonere's temple. Like the light-collecting principle of our modern telescopes and reflectors, it draws together the beams of Sudre into one hellish and destructive fire.

"Sudre is a world, a satellite of the outermost planet of our solar system. Astronomers have not discovered this moon, Sudre, for it is not of sufficient size or density to enter into their calculations; and its discovery would disclose none of its power of evil, even if it were charted. Nor do they realize that upon it burns a fire that is controlled by the evil magic of the God of Sudre. Upon certain nights of the month, when it is on the side of that outer planet which is facing earth, the power of that fiery creation is directed upon me. Even when it is on the other side of that planet--and it revolves about it once every twenty-seven of our days--those rays come down to earth with sufficient power to keep me living in the painful realization of my certain death.

"And there is life there; a life of eternal evil, like nothing science has ever yet discovered or ever will discover--life that would strike horror in the strongest hearts of the most coldly impersonal scientific explorer. The life of the undead, of which you have heard in your tales of earth horror, is nothing compared with its evilness."

* * * * *

The old man's voice droned on. "I will not dwell upon a description of them, for it is this threat to your own fiancée's life that prompts me to even mention this to you. This evil beyond hell, which is the Countess Moonard's power--the crystal of Sudre----"

He broke off a short moment, then resumed: "You have seen the sun's powerful rays burning paper under a magnifying lens? Upon almost the same principle, yet using the crystal of Sudre instead of glass, Moonere burns her lovely offerings upon the altar of the God of Sudre. Few men are ever sacrificed to Sudre; it is almost always women, for the God of Sudre is a carnal fiend, delighting in despoiling chastity and ravishing virginity.

"Each convert to Moonerism is given a super-thrill in the discovery of how beautiful she can become. Ah, that is the way Moonere first enslaves her victims. They come to her seeking beauty. She promises them eternal loveliness, beyond even their dreams; and when they do as she decrees, they always receive this precious desire of every woman. That is why no one ever reveals the secret of Moonere. They do not dare, for she not only holds their lives in her hands, once they come to her, but she also holds woman's most priceless treasure--beauty. Every year, lovely women sink into the depths of despair and torture because they seek the unnatural grant of beauty from the God of Sudre."

Carl cried out, suddenly remembering: "You're right! That was the way Ruth was trapped, I'm sure. I have seen the change in her."

"True, young man, although your fiancée is not yet fully enslaved. Tomorrow night, the full force of the rays of destruction from Sudre will fall upon earth. Moonere will hold her rites to the God of Sudre. Once the girl has danced within the temple of the maidens of Moonere, there will be no salvation for her. To leave Moonere, or to defy her, would mean the doom you now see in my face."

"But how were you trapped?" Carl asked.

"I will tell you of that. You see the secret of Moonere has never been new to me. From my earliest youth I knew that my life was to be dedicated to the destruction of Moonere and the evil reign of the God of Sudre; just as my ancestors have fought and died in silence for this curse. In my family, throughout the centuries, the knowledge of Sudre and Moonere has existed. We dared not reveal it; and even if we had done so, none would have believed us. Yet all of it is true.

"From ancient cities, long since buried beneath the sands of the deserts, to modern London, Moonere has slipped inconspicuously through life, carrying the curse of the God of Sudre, while my family has silently borne the banner of humanity. Although I am only a few years past forty, my knowledge of science and the ancient arts is far advanced. Were it not for the fact that I have the jealously guarded secrets of all these generations behind me, I could never have attained the ability I now have.

"That ability will explain your fiancée's strange actions in the earlier part of the day. I have taken over her mind. Telepathy is one power that Moonere and I both have in common. She thinks that is the only weapon I have, but she is wrong. At last I have discovered a more powerful ray than the one that burns in the glass of Sudre. With it, I hope to destroy Moonere and free the world of the constant threat of her accursed power."

"But what will become of Ruth?" Carl asked anxiously.

"I may be able to save her, if you help me. Today Moonere knew that I had taken Ruth's mind from her powerful grasp. It was I who awakened her from the sleep Moonere sent her to last night. It was I who kept warning her to beware."

"Yes, I know. That was what frightened her--the sound of your voice."

"Of course, and she called for you. I gave her the telephone number of your friend. But when you arrived, you gave her a sedative, thus undoing much of my good work."

"But how did you know what I gave her? You were not there."

"I saw everything nevertheless. I will tell you how later. I saw the Countess' servants kidnap your fiancée while she slept. I saw them take her to the temple where she will be forcibly detained until the night of the sacrifice."

"And that will be----"

"Tomorrow night. The rays will be at their maximum intensity. If everything goes right, and it is the will of God that I defeat this devil-daughter from another world, your fiancée will be returned to you, unharmed; the many tortured souls who now follow Moonere will be freed; and the world will be rid of at least one black scourge of unholiness. The work of my family will be finished."

"But you still haven't told me why you were burned by the crystal," Carl interrupted.

"So I haven't. And you need that to convince you further that I am not a madman spinning lies to lure you into lunacy, eh? Well, it was through my desire to test my ray with which I hope to destroy Moonere. That was ten years ago, shortly after the death of my father. I was so sure that with this ray nothing could prevent my success in exterminating Moonere that I went to her home. I knew just where to find the secret entrance that leads to the temple of the maidens. No one else could have found it. The home of the Countess Moonard was built sixty years ago; and in all of London, neither you nor Scotland Yard combined could find a trace of the architects who constructed it. It is so ingeniously arranged to mislead a curious snooper that one could spend the rest of his life wandering from one false corridor into another, never getting anywhere. No, only I could find the secret entrance that leads to the temple with its star-glass in the roof. The plan of the house is the same as was her first temple many centuries ago."

* * * * *

"You mean the Countess is immortal?"