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

the monster had been chewing on bones up until now and suddenly discovered the man. Three heads growled at him and made him loose balance. Alexander fell down and hurt his knee.
Reficule lifted its’ tail and bashed it down upon the floor with a loud bang.
Meanwhile, Lucinda went up to a wine bottle and emptied its contents into her mouth, throwing the bottle into fire which sent flames gushing into the room and a burning piece of wood rolling out. "I have business to attend to as well, you see, and my business is revenge. You will be dancing on hot coal before you know it."
Alexander screamed, standing up and crashing his fist down on the edge of the table where Morgana was seated. “You have no right to return to my home and ruin my daughter’s celebration.”
“Why don’t you just kick me out, so I can keep my promise? I want some head.” she laughed, almost childlike, gasping, perverse in its own way. Alex stopped. “Oh, Alex, if you could only see yourself. If you only could see how ridiculous you have become.”
Alex spat through gritted teeth as he walked closer to his sister, following her through the room. He took another wine bottle and crashed against a table where no one was seated and threatened Lucinda with it. “Let’s go out and duel in the courtyard. I can kill you or be killed and we can finish this off with a bang. Don’t drag poor innocent people into this. This is just about us, not about them.”
“So brave and yet so cowardly. You know that if you do anything to me, you will all be dead in a blink. You don’t have the guts to go all the way.”
Alex began to run toward her. She took a bottle from nowhere, no one knew where, and threw it on the ground. Three demons began to circle her and then flew around the room. People screamed as they did. Some off them lifted the women’s clothes and looked down their undergarments. Then they flew into the night and disappeared.
“Alex. I have friends in low places.” She thought for a moment. “Maybe the phrasing needs a little work, but the fact remains that you are powerless and that makes my revenge just that more tasty. My powers are greater than you can possibly comprehend, so why don’t you just keep your bearded little hole shut and listen to me, hoping that the curse that ejects from my eloquent face is kind enough to keep at least you alive for a while.”
Alex jumped upon Lucinda and hit her to the ground, beating her face.
Bantrard and Steven and Zedrick rushed to him and pulled him away, just as Reficule was nibbling at his throat. Hair hanging in his eyes, Alex was taken back to his place. The men went to it except for Steven who stayed with Alex, his hand on his king’s right shoulder.
Lucinda felt the edge of her mouth and saw how blood was oozing down her chin.
“Charming.” She stood up. “You are lucky I want you to die slowly. Otherwise, you would be dead by now.” Lucinda looked at the solemn trio. “I always get my way. One way or another." She went to the window looked out of it at the moon. "I have a previous engagement." She looked at Reficule and smiled. "And I do have to walk the dog. I do have to change his diet. What ever does he eat to drool like that?" She snapped her fingers. “Sit, boy. You stink.”
One of the chandeliers dropped on the floor and crashed. Several people shouted and a tiara fell off the head into the soup of Queen Escamilla of Neapolonia who had eaten every kind of food there was and was the only one not sober now. She screamed and realized where she was, saw the woman, stood up and ran out, forgetting her tiara. Lucinda looked at her with still surprise. She looked at Alex again, impressed. "Not bad for an old lady. Does she trick ride?"
She saw how angry her brother was and she liked it. She had missed fighting with him.
“Tell us how you are about to destroy our country.” Alexander stood up again, grabbing a hold of the chair, knocking it over and then walked toward her once more in the middle of the room. “Tell us all about avenging yourself for something I did a long time ago and is not worth the effort and then kindly disappear.” Steven and Belinda tried to stop him, but he pushed them gently aside and patted them on their shoulders. “Tell us about your bad childhood, tell us about your damn potential friends in high places. Tell us about your fear and the bells ringing in our heads. Tell us about demons chasing us into the night.” He walked around the table and up toward the middle of the room. “Tell us about curses, about werewolves in hell, but hot damn leave us some dignity. Tell us all you like, but if you want us to fight, then let’s get it over with now. None of us except me has the bravery to step forward because they have all heard from me what you are capable of.” Alexander pointed the ceiling. “Fix the hole after you’ve left. I don’t care. Get your deed done and then sod off.”
The siblings stopped dead, literally standing smack middle of the Grand Hall, the eyes of everyone upon them. There was an interested silence in the room.
Everyone was waiting to see what was going to happen next.
Would Alexander hit her? Would Reficule attack him instead?
Would they wrestle each other to the ground?
Suddenly one of the empty tables came sliding from the edge of the room and into the middle. Alexander rushed back a step or two and tried to attack her again, ten people aided him circling their tables and running out. She made a sweeping gesture and pushed them all back, Reficule spitting at everyone except the king.
“You don’t give up, do you?”
While she spoke, the ten people dried off Reficule’s drool.
She leaned forward, her right leg stretched out and her left bent over, her eyes open. She opened up her arms wide and looked at Belinda. “You are the lucky winner of the Nocturanian Prize Lottery." Belinda gazed at her and whilst crying realized the voice she had heard in the church.
It had been Lucinda.
Alexander rushed toward his sister and grabbed her by the arms.
“Get away from my daughter.” he screamed.
Lucinda held up a hand and at once Alex let go, upheld by a strange power that seemed to control him. Invisible demons dragged him back toward the wall where he stood still not being able to move. The entire crowd stood numb not looking anywhere, just simply looking into thin air, hearing everything she said, but not being able to take a step either forward or backward.
"We are happy to inform you, dear frigid virgin and imbecile faggots that Belinda, Alexander and the Prosperanian effeminate compound has won." She put her arms to the side and winked with her eyebrows. "Do you want to hear? Huh?" She giggled. All of Reficule’s ten heads cackled the same word, but deeper, cackling and drooling. "Huh? Huh?" She kicked him in the side and Reficule stopped, starting to scratch his fleas. Lucinda licked her mouth. "You... have won…" She made a pause. "... a CURSE!"
Strange music, fidiculas and lutes, began to play and demons were popping out of Reficule's mouths. The table began to spin and Lucinda danced around in the air, spitting the words in elegant, richly throaty fashion. She gestured with her long red fingernails and Reficule bobbed his head back and forth as she spoke, dancing weirdly to the invisible music.
Now everyone stiff with terror, cries being heard beyond all the sound, saw that the macabre tune was coming from the instruments being played by themselves.
Then the music suddenly ceased.
The music stopped and the instruments fell to the floor.
The tables were out back into position and the witch and her strange dog landed on the floor again. She took out a bottle full of green, foggy liquid that seemed to entail some dancing spirits.
She opened up the cork and set them free, all the time she was smiling. The spirits oozed out of the bottle and were white.
There was a green fog in the room.
The fog spread slowly and surely from the bottle onto the floor and into the floorboards and up the legs of the tables and into the open mouths of the surprised spectators. The entire hall was soon full of the green fog. All that anyone could see was Lucinda’s glowing eyes and the green smoke.
As the hall turned all green and foggy, dancing, dreamy ghouls circling the gilded mahogany hall, the royally unwanted bitch recited a poem that obviously had been self created:

"THREE PLAGUES SHALL STRIKE YOUR LAND:
ONE FOR THE ARMIES THAT WILL MAKE IMMORALITY GRAND,
THE SECOND FOR THE DECIET OF YOUR NEAREST FRIENDS,
THE THIRD IS A TALE THAT NEVER ENDS.
WHEN THINGS IN YOUR KINGDOM GET OUT OF HAND,
YOU SHALL WISH THAT YOU WERE KING OF ANOTHER LAND.

ONE IS FOR THE WEAPON THAT LIES IN YOUR SOUL,
ONE FOR THE HEALTH THAT IS CHARON'S GOAL,
THE THIRD FOR YOUR DAUGHTER AND HER BELOVED STEVE ,
ONE FOR THE ROAD THAT WILL MAKE ONE OF US LEAVE.
BELINDA WILL DIE AND THE WOUND WILL FESTER,
THIS IS THE GIFT OF LUCINDA YOUR SISTER."

The crowd dared not say a thing, least of all Alex.
"Remember: one for the weapon, one for the health and one for the road."
She looked at Belinda and pursed her lips, half-closing her eyes.

“True to my fashion I come uninvited.
I spit on your face and keep you excited.
You stop for my lecture and next it comes.
I state it, I leave it where it festers on plums.
If I bored you, my lovelies, then I hope you nap well.
If I tickled your fancy then I’ll see you in hell!”

She turned around and bowed, walked to the middle of room and stopped under the hole she had made. She watched Alex and smiled. The woman crashed through the roof again creating her own thermal centrifuge, repairing every single damage, taking with her the green ghosts and even clearing the fat drummer's wounds. There was a big flash and she was gone, every trace of her presence eradicated. There was not a word spoken and no trace that Lucinda had ever been there.

Tuesday, October 13th, 1422, a while later

Alexander Roderick Winsletenna was absentminded. He would forget where he put an important document. He would forget to tell the coachman where to take him on an important errand. This day everything that had ever occurred in his life was completely clear to his inner vision. It was as if he had missed an opportunity to have a talk with his inner self. It was as if his innermost and most tender core had always had this one little secret hidden away in a very well covered well. Today that deep well of treasures had been opened to Alexander.
In the middle of the gold treasure that he had kept without knowing in the bowels of his soul the painting of a skull had been hidden. A skull with wide-open eyes and a screaming face. It wore an eye patch