The Avenger 29 - The Nightwitch Devil Read Online Free

“I’ve been down here several days.”
    He wasn’t certain why he thought his prison was down. A feel, chiefly, that this small stone cell was underground.
    He believed also he was near the water. Sometimes he could hear the sea, the tide.
    “Should be able to keep track of time by the tides,” he told himself.
    The trouble was, he slept sometimes. And he never knew for how long.
    “And you don’t know,” he reminded himself, “how long you were unconscious after they dumped you down here.”
    He’d been writing at his desk, starting to put down what he’d learned so far about the witch cult. He was aware, for seconds only, of a strange, sweet smell. He went to sleep, head falling toward the desk top.
    When he awakened, he was here.
    “Wherever here is.”
    The room was roughly square, judging from the measurements he’d been able to pace off in the dark. Ten feet across, with the ceiling about ten feet above.
    Ruyle had been able to locate a few cracks in the walls, long, thin cracks which might indicate concealed doors. He’d been unable to force anything open. And there was no trace of a real, full-fledged door or window.
    Once a day, or possibly more often, a tiny grating near the floor opened. A cup of water and two dry biscuits were shoved in to him.
    No light came in with the food. In fact, the first time the meal had been pushed into the stone room, Ruyle had no idea what it was. He felt around in the dark, after hearing the grating open and shut, and found the earthenware mug of water and the hard biscuits.
    “They apparently want me to stay alive,” Ruyle concluded now as he roamed the blackness. “But for how long?”
    He had suspected the existence of the witch cult for several months. He’d begun, very cautiously he thought, to gather facts about the group. He was fairly certain he knew the identities of four and possibly five of the thirteen members of the coven. He even had a suspicion as to the identity of the man who called himself the Devil.
    Somehow, though, they’d found out, they’d learned he was suspicious and was stalking them. It was too soon, because Dr. Ruyle had intended to tell MacMurdie all he’d learned.
    “Mac!” said Ruyle suddenly. “He must be here by now. Surely that much time has gone by.”
    He felt more hopeful. Mac would do something, would find him down here.
    “Won’t he?” Ruyle asked the darkness.

    There was no rain that night, only a fine mist.
    MacMurdie eased open his bedroom window, stepped out on the ledge, and dropped to the grassy lane ten feet below.
    Most of the town seemed to be asleep.
    The bells in the old church steeple sounded, indicating it was eleven-thirty.
    Mac made his way down the lane, away from the inn and out to the street. Anne Barley had drawn him a map to show him how to get to Deacon’s Meadow, how to get there the least traveled way. The girl thought the coven would be meeting again tonight, and Mac didn’t want to run into any of them while they were en route.
    The mist swirled around him, dampening his face, chilling him. The scent of the sea was strong all around. Mac stopped all at once and pressed into a dark doorway.
    A thickset fisherman went stumbling by, singing to himself. Not a sea chantey, something from the “Hit Parade.” He didn’t notice MacMurdie.
    A moment later the Scot resumed his journey. He encountered no one else in the silent town. Soon he was away from the streets and the low buildings, out in the countryside.
    The thickening mist rubbed at every thing, blurring the fields and the twisted trees, muffling the cries of night birds.
    Mac felt as though he had the whole of the twisting hillside road to himself; indeed, it was as though he had the whole world to himself. There was nothing but misty silence.
    Then he heard something. Very faint, off to his right.
    At first he thought it might be an animal, whimpering.
    “Nae, ’tis a woman,” he decided, listening more carefully. “Aye, a woman in