Chessmen of Doom by John Bellairs

"Get a load of this! This joint must belong to that strange character we bumped into on the street the other day! Come on up and look!"
    There was room on the crate for two people, and after hesitating a bit Johnny climbed up and peered in. He saw a room with knotty-pine paneling, a fieldstone fireplace, and an old ratty sofa with the stuffing coming out of the arms. In the middle of the bare floor stood a well-scrubbed wooden table with a cane-bottomed chair facing it. On the table stood a kerosene lamp and a collection of ivory chessmen. They looked just like the ones that had spilled from the leather case after the professor bumped into the strange man in the British overcoat.
    "My gosh!" Johnny whispered in an awestruck voice. "What do you think that guy is doin' out here?"
    "Playin' chess without a chessboard," Fergie muttered with a laugh. "An' there's somethin' that looks like a chart on the table. I wonder if I can see what it is."
    Putting his hands on the grimy windowsill and rising up on tiptoe, Fergie craned his neck and looked. With a little puzzled snort he lowered himself back down. "Huh! That's funny!"
    "What's funny?" asked Johnny nervously.
    "Well, it's a chart of the heavens. You know, with stars and planets and constellations—that's what it looks like, anyway. I said that guy was a fruitcake, didn't I? Well, this sort of proves it!"
    Johnny said nothing. He found that he was getting more and more jumpy by the minute. Suppose that the man came back and found them here? Grabbing Fergie by the arm, he began to plead. "Come on! Let's get away from this place before something awful happens! I can't tell you why, but I feel like there's somebody here watching us!"
    Fergie was about to exclaim that that was the dumbest piece of nervous nonsense he had ever heard of, when a harsh, grating voice behind them said, "Good evening, boys! And what do you think you're doing?"
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    CHAPTER SEVEN
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    Johnny's blood froze, and Fergie stiffened. Slowly the two boys turned around, and they found that they were staring at the nasty ruddy-faced man with the pointed mustache and the British accent. A halo of greenish light hovered about the man, and when he raised his hand, Johnny and Fergie found that they could not speak or move.
    "What charming visitors you are!" sneered the man, as he stepped closer. "Of course, you did drop in uninvited, so you'll have to take the consequences. Down on your knees, both of you! At once!"
    Awkwardly Johnny and Fergie stumbled down off the box and knelt before the evilly grinning man. After a brief pause the man stooped and put his hand under Johnny's chin. He jerked the boy's head upward.
    "Now, then, you little wretch, listen to me and listen carefully!" snarled the man. "I could kill you both so easily, but I'd rather not do that—not just yet. You two will die along with the rest. The earth will be a smoldering ball of rubble then, but I will survive as a spirit with heightened consciousness and great power. But why should I spend my time explaining things to morons? You'll see the face of doom in a very short while, and I want you to know that there's nothing—absolutely nothing—that you can do to stop me. As for that doddering old fool, that professor friend of yours . . . well, he isn't as smart as he thinks he is. No one can keep me from my destiny! No one!" He raised his hand in the air imperiously. "And now I am finished with you," he intoned, in a haughty voice. "When you go back you will not remember that we've met. You will not remember anything that I have said. In nomine Tetragrammaton, depart! Go back with fear in your hearts and blankness in your minds! Vade inperditionem! Begone, I charge ye, by the names of the twelve living spirits that stand by the throne of the Prince of the Air! Go!"
    The man clapped his hands twice, and his body seemed to melt into the shadows under the trees that grew close to the cottage. A full minute passed,