the haunted kingdom by Charles E.J. Moulton (best detective novels of all time .TXT) 📖

her brother, whom she hadn’t met in 11 years.
“Hello Alexander,” she cooed consumedly. “I’ve missed you.”
Alexander said nothing. He simply looked at his sister, awesomely stunned and almost relieved in his terror that the moment he had been waiting for thirty years finally had arrived.
“For thirty years now I’ve waited to see you here.” Alexander whispered. “I never wanted you to stay in my mind, but like a festering wound or an aching knee, you never seemed to disappear. Your memory faded away, but the pain you caused stayed within me. You turned into a throbbing wound.”
“Alexander,” Lucinda said softly. “You did nothing to integrate me into your life. You kept me away from all decisions and all-important affairs. I, too, was hurt by the way you behaved toward me.”
“You were a child.” Alexander said. “I had no confidence in your regal abilities.”
“Well” Lucinda sang. “You seemed to have enough confidence in Belinda when she was a child to hand her the future crown. That much to your lack of confidence in children.”
“She didn’t burn my house down.” Alexander spat. “She didn’t practice black magic and invite one hundred and twenty lovers into her room down the hall.”
“I was your sister, God damn you.” Lucinda shouted even louder. “You totally ignored me.”
“I threw you out for a reason, Lucinda.” her brother said softly, leaning across the table over toward her. The conversation had not yet turned loud until just now. It had stayed soft. Everyone invited, including Belinda who before everyone had talked to her murderous aunt, looked at the siblings talking and tried to follow what they said. No one dared to move. It was like witnessing very old enemies talk for the first time and not wanting to disturb them for fear that one might rattle a knife or turn a page and set off an earthquake. “I threw you out of my home, because you had ruined it. You killed my sisters and brother. You left our parents devastated. That was no easy thing to handle all by myself. I had only been king for a short while and your act made me run into the arms in lies.”
There was a long pause. They both knew that what had happened was in the past and nothing could mend this past. There had been a time when the two had been something close to friends. That time was long gone. Finally, knowing that nothing could be said that hadn’t been said before, the king said, “So, what have you come to tell me? Have you come for a reason?”
“I have come to keep my promise.” she said. “I always keep my promises. You know me.”
“Then get it over with.” Alexander said, waving his hand at her. “Then get out.”
“I am the surprise guest, brother heart,” she responded calmly. “As such, I will socialize a bit, reminiscing about the old times.”
“What do want to talk about then? Your black sorcery or the weather?” Alexander screamed at the top of his lungs. “For the love of God, Lucinda. Do you really believe I want to socialize with you?”
“I will not talk about me, brother dearie.” she vowed. “I am here to congratulate the newlyweds in their paradise of nuptial bliss.” Lucinda simpered. “I came all the way here with my dog. You are a dog lover, Alex. Let us talk canine breeding. What do you feed your oldest daughter’s dog?”
“Nocturanian hearts,” Alexander said softly, slowly giving up that she would leave. “Boiled in vinegar and cream.”
“That is an unusual choice.” Lucinda said, smacking her red lips. “Vinegar and cream. I shall have to ask my Rumzils how that goes together with Nocturanian hearts.”
“I think I shall switch to bad blood after this” Alexander added.
Lucinda leaned over to breathe a bit of bad breath at her brother.
“Start with your own.” she croaked.
The king spat in her face, knowing that his sister was just killing time. It was a game that she had played countless times. It was her personal provocation: promising someone a horrible attack, arriving and then performing social blabber while everyone waited. The ace card up her sleeve was that they all knew that if they disobeyed her or wanted to get her horrid promise over with, she would turn against them and use her evil to combat them. The result was that she got them pleading for her to curse them, they waited for her to do it and she got them wanting it so very badly.
Without even looking away from Alex, resolute to stay in touch with his heart she asked, "Is your woman not feeling well?” She leaned back and paced the room. “She is pale.”
The clicking of the heels on the floor was the only thing one heard.
Her bear like dog scratched its body, then peed on the left table corner closing his twenty eyes.
"Why did you not invite me, dear?" Lucinda said, her voice a throaty mezzo, rich and dark.
“This lovely young girl and I spent such wonderful months together back at the royal palace in the other country. Did you hear of that? Oh, yes… uhhh… you were there, weren’t you?" Lucinda murmured. “Huh… I forgot that.” she whined coyly.
The chain of the leash clinking in Lucinda's hands was the only other sound heard accompanying the crackling of fresh wood from the fireplace.
"Now she is a voluptuous woman with a ravishing and sensual cleavage, married to a dashing prince." She shook her head and cackled. “She is an alluring little gem, isn’t she? You should see her in the privacy of her bedroom. She is hot as Pompeii. Mount Etna is Lapland in comparison. Up and down and round and round, pounded fiercely by a stunning steed.”
“How do you know about what I do in my bedroom?”
”Well, sometimes you do it on the balcony, dear! Rattling the tables and looking up at the moon pretending to be a Cleopatra of the western Roman heirs. His manhood’s so prominent.”
Steven stood up. “It is time you leave.” Steven looked down and laughed ironically. “You are a witch. You certainly give your reputation credit. I never thought that my wife was right…”
“Oh.” Lucinda laughed. “That seemed to hit the spot. Good, I know where I can hurt you now.”
Belinda stood up as well. “You have no right to spy on us, read our … thoughts or whatever it is you do.” Belinda spat, sobbing. She started to cry. “I want you out of here. Get out, get out, get out.”
”I just came…” she said, genuinely hurt this time. She turned away. “Moody, aren’t you?”
Belinda screamed. “My private intimacy with my husband is none of your business.”
“If you have been spying on her, we can have it arranged for you to be drawn before court.” Alexander said. “Get out of my palace right now.”
”Before court?” Lucinda started sneered, almost drooling spit in the process. “What would you have the old farts in the Senate do? Catch me?” Alexander had no answer. He was fighting to say something, anything, to protect his daughter. When it became clear that he could not say anything, Zedrick, who sat three chairs away, spoke.
“What makes you so keen on always returning home to Iuventus, Lucinda? Do you never get enough of this palace? We all hate you. After all, you were excommunicated with the most…”
“Zedrick!” Lucinda sang. “How lovely to see you again. How have you been? Tell me!” She paused and leaned over the table toward him. “You were saying that I was excommunicated with the most… what? Vigour? Well, that would be true, but wasn’t it you who gave Alexander the idea to throw me out of the kingdom if I ever went too far?”
“Stop it right there, Lucinda.” Alexander shouted. “Zedrick did give me the first push, but I would’ve done it anyway. I had thought of it way before he said it.”
“Well, that is a relief isn’t it, brother heart.” Lucinda mocked. “Though Zeddy and I never had any differences, did we? He came up to my room often to visit me. Didn’t you, dear?”
”I am not going to respond to the times the noises were too loud in the castle to bear. I was just on errands.” Zedrick stated calmly. He smiled. “I think I speak for all of us when I say that you are unwelcome after all that you have done to us. You need to leave. I think we are all being very diplomatic, but if you do not leave serious consequences shall have to be taken.”
“Serious consequence?.” Lucinda started laughing very low. “Oooh, I am so scared of you. Do you have a set of measurements ready to be used in your closet, General?” She cackled. “If I didn’t have me connections to pop your weasel I might run away and shout.” she cackled in almost not hearable high voice screeching. “‘Help, run, the general is after me, he will eat me.’” She walked a few steps up to him. “I come back because this place has memories. Many are good.”
A few of the skulls on the ten-headed hound sniggered behind her. Two or three of the faces spat and another three were grinning and drooling simultaneously.
There was a truth in her stare. She shrugged. “Besides,” she said, that old vengeful lie back in her face, “I have always enjoyed a good fight. Isn’t that right, Belinda Apple-Cheeks? What is it Steven calls you? Reindeer-eyes?” She cackled. “Now that is an erotic promise. As I was saying to your brother, he never included me in any of his games. I then have to see to that I include myself, cupcakes.” She giggled provocatively. “I wish someone would call you that.”
“You jest very well,” Morgana spat. “But no man would touch you, let alone become a lover.”
Lucinda smiled and walked a few steps over to her. “Sex starved angel. How sad that you can only go half way to glory and stop at just devouring men.”
Alexander started bellowing with laughter and then turned against her.
“Your methods are extreme, sister.” he cackled. “Without mercy.”
She looked at him with daggers of ice shooting out from her stare.
“My daggers create havoc, so beware.” she said. “Leaving is not my plan.”
“I know you won’t.” he responded. “I just wish you would not put off getting to the point.”
“Ooh, but my method is good.” Lucinda mused. “Very good. It fizzles, it sizzles and it pops. Look at how I’ve wrapped you around my little fingers in just the few minutes I’ve been here:”
She took a green vase from the table and threw it in the fireplace. It hit the fire inside and the flames grew at least ten feet high. She patted one of Reficule’s heads and said something in Nocturanian. “Siruluparidia Grui!”
Reficule lifted his hind legs and stood on his front paws. He parted his hind legs and out of his behind came three flames that took off in all directions. These three flames parted into groups of three that finally formed nine something’s that spent a moment or two screaming the hell out of the entire group in every part of the Grand Hall. All the while, Reficule remained erect on his front paws. The nine spirits entered his behind again and disappeared.
Lucinda made a fist and rubbed it against her mouth. When she opened it, three worms came out. She fed them to Reficule and he gobbled them down.
“Good boy.” she spat and turned to Alex.
Alex sighed and shook his head.
“What?”
“I’m sick of your behavior.” Alexander whispered. “I never thought I’d