Read Online Doc Savage: The Secret of Satan's Spine (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage Book 15) by Kenneth Robeson, Lester Dent, Will Murray - Free Book Online

blocked his view.
    From somewhere above came excited shouts, and other men suddenly put in an appearance, charging down the stairs from above.
    This reserve crew brandished revolvers and automatics, and started looking for people to perforate.
    One shot Doc Savage in the back, but his weapon was of insufficient caliber and velocity to do much more than arrest the bronze man’s active progress.
    Seeing this, Monk opened up with his supermachine pistol, and aligned the stitching tracers to cross the man’s chest on a diagonal, causing the fellow’s loud tie to flip up. The man fell backward, stumbled, and then began rolling down the stairs, completely helpless.
    The amazing weapon was charged with “mercy” bullets, which were hollow shells of soft lead filled with a chemical anesthetic which acted instantly, once the mushrooming rounds broke skin.
    After shrugging off a small-caliber bullet in the back, Doc Savage was suddenly moving on the gunmen again, and these two worthies fired anew.
    Doc’s bulletproof chainmesh undervest absorbed the dual impact. The bronze giant was staggered slightly, and threw himself off to one side, lest one of the gunmen strike his unprotected head or hands.
    The smoky-haired individual who had called himself Raymond Lee and was now going by the name of Diamond took immediate charge.
    First, he drew a blackjack, a nasty-looking leathery pouch of a thing, and bopped Monk Mayfair across the top of his bristle-furred skull.
    Then, turning to the men charging down the steps, he roared, “Finish them off! Then let’s clear out of here!”
    Guns commenced barking like angry dogs, and Doc Savage ducked around the corner into a side room, simultaneously fishing into his pockets and extracting a number of objects that resembled glass marbles.
    The bronze man had every intention of hurling these into the hallway, where they would shatter and release a volatile chemical mixture that would produce virtually instantaneous unconsciousness.
    Before he could do so, there was a new arrival.
    The front door flew open, and there stood Ham Brooks, supermachine pistol in one hand, a fresh sword cane in the other, looking ready for battle.
    “What’s going on here?” he demanded.
    The dapper attorney was promptly shot, one bullet striking him in the belly, the other knocking his cane out of his hand, with the result that both man and cane went flying backward, tumbling down the short flight of porch steps.
    “Scuttle him, too!” roared Diamond.
    Doc pegged his tiny grenades at that point, and they landed out in the hallway, coming to rest on the thick carpet.
    Unfortunately, the deep nap prevented them from breaking, and nothing useful happened whatsoever.
    Doc Savage plunged out of the side room at that point, but was driven backward by a hail of punishing lead that chewed and chipped at the framing of the door.
    More bullets punched through the plaster walls, one shattering a light fixture, the other breaking a window, causing glass to crash and jangle.
    Someone brought up a shotgun, set the muzzle against the hallway wall, and blew a large hole in the plaster.
    This was done at about shoulder height, which gave the determined gunmen a fresh loophole through which to insert their gun muzzles and take turns blasting away half blindly.
    Exhibiting an understandable concern, Doc Savage managed to evade the first burst of bullets, and threw himself out one intact window, taking the glass and the window sash with him. He had first doffed his coat, clutching it before him to protect against glass shards so sharp they could sever an artery.
    Reaching grassy ground, the bronze man rolled in tight against the granite foundation of the old dwelling for protection.
    Considerable yelling came from within the house, and orders were chopped out, “Fan out! Hunt him down! Shoot him into splinters.”
    The desperate voice belonged to the man who went by the names of Diamond and Raymond Lee, true name unknown.
    Hearing