The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Heads of Apex, by Francis Flagg

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Title: The Heads of Apex

Author: Francis Flagg

Release Date: June 5, 2009 [EBook #29046]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Transcriber's Note:

This etext was produced from Astounding Stories October 1931.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the
U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

[Illustration: I looked into the face of a girl about to be bled.]

The Heads of Apex

By Francis Flagg

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Far under the sea-floor Solino's submarine carries two American
soldiers of fortune to startling adventure among the Vampire Heads of
Apex.]

Justus Miles was sitting on a bench in the park, down at the heels,
hungry, desperate, when a gust of wind whirled a paper to his feet. It
was the advertising section of the _New York Times_. Apathetically, he
picked it up, knowing from the past weeks' experience that few or no
jobs were being advertised. Then with a start he sat up, for in the
center of the page, encased in a small box and printed in slightly
larger type than the ordinary advertisement, he read the following
words: "Wanted: Soldier of Fortune, young, healthy; must have good
credentials. Apply 222 Reuter Place, between two and four." It was
to-day's advertising section he was scanning, and the hour not yet
one.

Reuter Place was some distance away, he knew, a good hour's walk on
hard pavement and through considerable heat. But he had made forced
marches in Sonora as badly shod and on even an emptier stomach. For
Justus Miles, though he might not have looked it, was a bona fide
soldier of fortune, stranded in New York. Five feet eight in height,
he was, loose and rangy in build, and with deceptively mild blue eyes.
He had fought through the World War, served under Kemal Pasha in
Turkey, helped the Riff