“Come vit me,” said a voice behind him.

  “Damn,” was all O’Neil could say in response. Guess he hadn’t knocked the last thug as cold as he thought.

  Chapter Sixteen

  It didn’t make him feel any better to see that Mara had also been captured. She also didn’t appear to have the mask, which was even more worrisome.

  As the soldier marched O’Neil back into the settlement and up the steps of the small church, he could see Mara already inside, next to the crumbling altar. Faceless Fritz was in front of her, his gun trained on her head. His face was twisted into that mocking excuse for a smile.

  “Where is it?” He growled. “If you don’t tell me, I shall kill you anyway and I shall tear this place apart until I find it.” He nodded in O’Neil’s direction. “And I shall kill him too, while I am at it. Slowly. I wonder how many body parts I can take off of him before he begins to cry? Before he passes out from the pain. Before he loses enough blood to perish slowly and painfully.”

  The Nazi turned and fired, the bullet blasting into O’Neil’s right shoulder. The Irishman felt the burning pain as the hot lead passed through his body. It was not the first time he’d been shot, but it still hurt like the dickens.

  He didn’t give Fleischer the satisfaction of yelling, though. He merely grunted.

  “O’Neil!”

  Mara cried out and stepped forward. Fritz turned around and pointed the gun at her.

  “Do not move. Tell me where the mask is and I shall stop.”

  “Mara,” O’Neil started, but the remaining Nazi thug smacked him on the back of the head with his gun.

  “Silence!” the Nazi cried.

  Fritz turned and pointed his gun at O’Neil once more. “I can do this all day,” he said.

  “Fine!” cried Mara. “You win. ‘It resides in the house within the house’,” she said cryptically.

  “No riddles. Tell me.”

  “The tabernacle,” she whispered, gesturing with her head toward the golden box sitting dusty and cobwebbed underneath one of the pews.

  “Get it for me. Now.”

  She glared at O’Neil, who, though hobbled by the pain in his shoulder, was getting ready to make his move. With her eyes she told him to wait.

  She knelt down, opened the box, and there it was.

  The Kuba Mask of Woot.

  It was much simpler than O’Neil would have suspected, with subdued tones of black and brown and the exaggerated features common to the art form. But the Irishman had little chance to look at it before Fritz snatched it away from Mara’s grasp.

  “At last. It is mine. Now, our armies will be invincible. Unstoppable. Unkillable. The Third Reich will be eternal and I, Fritz Fleischer, shall be the most powerful man in the world.”

  “After your Fuhrer, of course,” O’Neil spat. In retaliation, the soldier raised his gun to strike once more, but the Irishman was fed up with this arrangement. He ducked, slicing his hook backward into the gut of the soldier, who cried out in agony. O’Neil spun and socked him in the jaw. The Nazi dropped to the floor, unconscious after one blow. Really this time.

  O’Neil turned to the Faceless one, but the Nazi was laughing.

  “Don’t you wish you had this, O’Neil? Wouldn’t it be nice to have your arm back?”

  And, with a flourish, Fritz donned the mask.

  Mara winced, bringing her hand to her mouth in dread anticipation. O’Neil, for his part, merely gave a steely stare.

  Fritz, however, was screaming.

  The mask dropped from his grasp and clattered to the ground. He fell to his knees, and O’Neil saw the reason for his agony.

  An unseen force was cutting him to ribbons.

  His body convulsed, and slashes appeared on his arms and torso, then his face and his neck. Blood poured from his wounds.

  The Nazi tried to scream, but he was already dead.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Stunned by what he had just witnessed, O’Neil slowly walked to Fritz’s body. Mara had already retrieved the mask.

  “He didn’t read the journal carefully. Only the parts he wanted to believe,” she said.

  “I thought the mask would heal him,” said O’Neil. “Woot is the god of regeneration, after all.” He could hardly believe what he was saying, what he had seen with his own eyes.

  “I thought it might, too. I couldn’t be sure. The stories, the oral histories, they were contradictory. The tales told of healing, but also of great destruction. Woot is the god of healing, yes, but Woot is also the god of the Thorn and the god of the Sharp Blades. There are many Woots in the pantheon of the Kuba gods. I didn’t know what the mask would do to him until I saw it for myself.”

  O’Neil nodded. It was all he could do.

  She stared at the mask for a moment, hesitating, as if considering whether to speak what was on her mind. “But it’s possible, I believe, that the mask can be used for healing, O’Neil. It didn’t work for him, but it might work for me. The Kuba culture is matrilineal. I believe that, in the hands of a woman, its power can be used for regeneration.”

  “If that’s true, it could help a lot of soldiers in the war.”

  “Not to mention heal your gunshot wound. And any other injury.” She let the statement hang in silence, as its full meaning sank in. She brought the mask up toward her face, but O’Neil stepped forward, grabbing her by the wrist, wincing as the bullet scraped his bone.

  “But you don’t know for sure what the mask will do to you. It could destroy you like it did Fritz.” She nodded. “Then it’s not worth it. There’s a veterinarian back in Brazzaville who’s pulled bullets out of me before.” She glared at his hook, and he shook his head. “No.”

  “So what now?” she asked.

  O’Neil shrugged. “There is a lot of power there. Maybe too much.”

  “This mask,” she said, “belongs in a museum.”

  O’Neil nodded. “But a museum is not a vault. If it falls into the wrong hands it could be dangerous.”

  “I said it belonged in a museum. But I never said that’s where it would end up.” And with that, she took the mask and snapped it over her knee. O’Neil flinched, half expecting it to explode or something. “I’m a scientist. Not an idiot. My father always intended to destroy it. There are some scientists out there who want to split atoms and play god. But there are certain powers that man is not meant to have.” She cast the remnants of the mask on the floor. “Now, can you get me back to some semblance of civilization? A girl could go for a drink.”

  And this time, O’Neil let himself smile. Fritz was dead and the mask was destroyed.

  They had won.

  And he could go for a drink himself.

  THE END

  BLOOD-PRICE OF THE MISSIONARY’S GOLD

  by I.A. Watson

  Listen to the yell of Leopold's ghost, / Burning in Hell for his hand-maimed host.

  Hear how the demons chuckle and yell / Cutting his hands off, down in Hell.

  The Congo, Vachel Lindsay, 1910

  MISSIONARY’S GOLD!

  A fortune in missing ore, enough to make a man rich for life if he was willing to kill for it – a beautiful missionary’s daughter a man might die to possess – and a ruthless mercenary soldier who stops at nothing to achieve his desires! Armless O’Neil must find them all before the Congo drowns in a tide of blood!

  The fire caught the warehouse. The thatch burned. Blazing straw floated up to the neighboring buildings. Smoke rolled across the jetty, swathing the over-laden barge in choking fumes.

  “Push off!” shouted the foreman. He hefted a double-barreled rifle to ward off any of the locals that might seek refuge in the overfilled boat.

  The gunfire was near now. It was a confused four-way firefight between the remaining guards at the imperial compound, workers who’d seized up firearms, brutal Zappo Zap tribesmen that the government had licensed as enforcers and taxmen, and highland rebels come to raid the mining camp of its new-dug gold ore.

  An explosion lit the African night. The armory dump by the main gate had gone up. Nearby houses tumbled like playing cards.

  The foreman blasphemed and turned his rifle on the oarsmen. “Push us off, you heathens! Row, or I’ll feed your shot-riddled corpses to the fish!”

  The boat swayed unsteadily as men scrambled to obey.

  A lone figure objected. “Wait!” the young man in the stained white jacket and clerical collar called out. “We can’t just leave! There are people trapped in their houses! The Zappo Zaps are coming to cut their hands off!”

  “Which is why we’re going,” the foreman sneered. “You think we can hold off that horde, or whatever rebels have come down from the mountains to pick at King Leopold’s carcass?”

  “We just need a little time, to gather the helpless and get them aboard.”

  “Time’s up. We’re too low in the water as it is. We go now. Heave, you bastards!”

  The whole frontage of the warehouse caught with flame, a bright hot sheet that warmed the faces of the men struggling to row the barge away from the pier. A blazing figure raced from the fiery interior, a dead man running, and plunged into the dark Congo backwater.

  “We can’t just abandon everyone, pa!” the foreman’s daughter cried from her place in the crowded gunwale.

  “Shut up, girl. And keep your fool head down!”

  “We could leave the gold and make more room for people,” the padre argued.

  The foreman snorted. “I’ve got my orders, Reverend, and they’re to see this last consignment of the King’s gold safe to Boma.”

  The preacher tried to argue but it was no use. The man with the shotgun was determined. The little boat rocked away from the jetty, leaving behind fire and horror.

  It was the dying days of November 1908, when international condemnation at the treatment of the natives of the Congo Free State had forced Belgium to annex the country from its own King Leopold. The transition was not going smoothly.

  On the shore the first Zappo Zap men reached the banks. The Songye mercenaries were angry at losing out on the last cases of gold from the Koloneke mine. They fired shots across the water at the escaping boat. One of the rowers twitched and fell dead.

  The foreman fired back at the black men silhouetted by the blazing village until his shotgun was empty. “Keep rowing!” he roared at the men who kept poor time at the barge’s oars. This was neither the usual transport boat nor the usual crew.

  The settlement burned. The miners died. The Imperial Mining Company’s Koloneke enclosure was their pyre. The last survivors drifted away down the twisting river towards Lake Leopold and the great waters of the Congo basin beyond. They carried 170,000 Belgian francs-worth of gold ore with them.1

  The boat was never seen again.

  ***

  Armless O’Neil had never heard any of that. King Leopold’s Congo Free State was only a grisly memory of decades past, its legacy some fine French-style colonial buildings and a generation of aged black people whose limbs had been hacked off for not meeting brutal imperial work quotas. If the one-handed Irish American had any thoughts for the natives who shared his disability they were not at the forefront of his mind as he faced off against Bull Günter in one of Léopoldville’s seediest waterfront saloons.

  The huge German has stripped off his sweat-stained khaki shirt, revealing a tattooed upper body that was beginning to run to fat. He flexed his fingers then sat on the stool opposite O’Neil and placed his elbow on the table.

  O’Neil laid a ten franc note on the table beside Günter’s. More money changed hands amongst the spectators. The burly Kraut was a local favorite but O’Neil was tall and strong too, an unknown.

  The combatants locked their hands together. Someone counted down from three in French and the arm wrestle began.

  O’Neil’s muscles flexed under his short-sleeved shirt. Bull Günter was powerful, pressing like an engine, veins standing out on his shaved head. O’Neil matched him, holding on until the German exhausted his first adrenaline rush of strength.

  The wave of shouting was like a solid thing, pounding across the wrestlers. The whole bar watched and waited for this outcome.

  Günter bared his teeth in a half-snarl. His beetle brow furrowed. O’Neil scowled back and redoubled his efforts. Now it was the German who strained to keep his arm vertical.

  Bull Günter wasn’t used to losing. Perspiration beaded his forehead. He grunted, then swore, and forced his arm forward like an unstoppable piston. O’Neil knew he had to match the German now or forfeit the match. He summoned his own reserves, cajoled his screaming muscles to oppose the impossible force.

  The howling of the crowd was only a distant throbbing in O’Neil’s ears now. His world was confined to one tabletop, to the giant who sat across from him, and to the conflict of sinew in which they were locked. O’Neil accepted the pain and kept up the pressure.

  Günter was strong but he wasn’t used to a long conflict. His arm trembled. Slowly and surely he was pushed back, his elbow pivoting unwillingly, his arm twisting down towards the beer-ringed surface of the bar table. He swore again, this time in disbelief.

  O’Neil chose his moment and slammed the German’s hand down. The room exploded with cheers and shouts.

  O’Neil flexed his good hand and closed it around the money. That way he’d already made a fist when Bull Günter came at him.

  The Kraut came in with a bestial roar. Armless O’Neil was ready for him. He caught Bull on that bulbous kinked nose, breaking it again, sending the big man sprawling backwards into his supporters.

  And just like that, the barfight began.

  ***

  Ten minutes later O’Neil walked from the establishment into the Congo night. In the bar behind him nobody stirred. The conflict had been fast and furious. Only one man was left standing.

  O’Neil wasn’t happy, though. His shirt was torn at the shoulder and he was bleeding at his left bicep where a broken bottle had traced him. He was ten francs richer, but he’d know about his adventure in the morning.

  When the man in the shadows moved, O’Neil almost decked him by instinct. Only the stranger’s terrified cower stayed the Irish American fighter’s attack.

  “What?” O’Neil demanded belligerently. “What do you want?”

  The newcomer’s eyes shifted from the adventurer’s ready clenched fist to the hardened stump at his other wrist and the steel hook that protruded from it. “You’re Mister O’Neil,” he concluded, trying to keep his voice from squeaking. He was a very young man, dressed in clerk’s linens.

  “So?”

  “D-Daniel Fletcher. I have been instructed to find you. Somehow. It was quite difficult, navigating these wharfside establishments.”

  That was one description of the ramshackle collection of bars, gambling huts, whorehouses, and opium dens that ringed the teeming waterfront. O’Neil wondered how the neat young man had survived with his purse intact and his throat uncut.

  “You found me. Now tell me why.”

  Fletcher nodded, trying not to wince as a trio of drunken teamsters reeled past singing. The youngster’s hand went to his jacket pocket. “I have a message. A job. My employer, Monsieur Carriere of Degarde and Carriere’s, the attorneys, he was told that you could deliver a letter. Upcountry.”

  O’Neil’s head was aching now. He needed another drink or a lie down. Maybe both. “There’s post boats go all the way to Lake Leopold, kid.”

  “Yes. But no further. This is further. Somewhere in the… the Ubangi highlands.” The clerk’s tongue stumbled on the unfamiliar name, but O’Neil knew the place. Beyond the northern reach of the great Congo River delta the land rose through tangled rain forests to steep grassy plains. Tiny settlements nestled in ridged canyons rich with apes and giraffe and all kinds of wildlife. Some of the tribes had never seen a white man except for the occasional missionary.

  “That’s a long way for a letter.”

  “Yes. But it must be delivered.” M. Carriere’s clerk drew the sealed envelope from his jacket. It was addressed to Reverend Foster, Kutshu Mission, Ubangi, Congo. “We, um, believe that the Reverend is no longer at Kutshu.”

  “Great. So you want me to trek all over the highlands to play postman?”

  Young Fletcher mentioned a sum that was sufficient to cover the trouble such a delivery would require. “Half now and half when you return with a receipt from Reverend Foster for the letter.”

  O’Neil looked at the envelope. It was parchment-quality, deckle-edged and mildly scented, addressed in a lady’s hand. “What is it?” he wondered.

  “It is a final communication from the late Mrs. Dexter of Connecticut, America, to an old friend,” the clerk said somewhat stiffly. “It was her will that the missive be delivered to the gentleman. Mrs. Dexter’s executors engaged Degarde and Carriere to act on their behalf in this matter, and I am sent to engage you. You don’t need to know any more. Will you undertake the commission?”

  O’Neil glanced back at the wrecked bar strewn with unconscious men. It might be a good idea to be somewhere else for a few weeks. “Yeah, sure,” he agreed. “I’ll go get a clean shirt and take a boat out in the morning.”

  ***

  The Keyes Hotel was little more than a flophouse, but O’Neil liked it because there was no room service to disturb him and the owner was smart enough not to enforce check-out times on a hungover gutter fighter. The downside was that nobody cared enough to stop a rough-looking stranger who walked right past the desk and took the stairs up to O’Neil’s room.

  The man was lean and swarthy, some mongrel mix of African, European, possibly Asian. He didn’t care and neither did the men who hired him. All they wanted was his skill with a knife. Sometimes people called him Cutter.