The Adventures of Lazarus Gray

by Barry Reese

  It was only after he’d summoned Sazar that he’d realized why Pemberley hadn’t used the spells for himself. There was a price to pay for magic like this: Sazar could kill him easily and would have no qualms about doing so. The only thing holding her in check was the words that bound her to his will.

  Goodwill realized that he was in a very bad situation. If Gray or his aides caught him now, all his plans would fall apart. He’d planned to use Sazar to extort money from many of the most powerful men in the city. It had seemed like a good plan but all it had taken was one two-bit hood growing a conscience to upset everything.

  "I’m hurting, Malcolm."

  Goodwill spun about, eyes wide. It was Sazar. Her gorgeous body looked almost as bad as her face: she had bullet wounds all over her flesh and she was leaking buckets of blood. "What the hell happened to you? Gray did this?"

  "Yes. I’m so weak." Sazar reached out for him, using his shoulders to steady herself. "I could barely find you, I’m so dizzy."

  "Can you get us out of here? Take us back to my home?"

  Sazar looked at him with blood-rimmed eyes. "I’m not sure. Traveling is hard for me. With you along, too…."

  "Take me there and I’ll get you as many people to feed upon as you desire."

  "I might need to feed before then."

  Goodwill caught her meaning, noting the way her eyes lingered over the pulsing vein in his neck. He raised his voice commandingly, hoping she wouldn’t push the issue. If she did, he was done for. He didn’t remember the proper words to control her. "Sazar! I am ordering you to do this. Take us both home. Now."

  Sazar mumbled ancient words under her breath. He didn’t understand them but their meaning was clear enough. She was growing tired of following his orders. She gripped him tightly against her naked bloody flesh. "I will do what I can," she hissed. "But in return, I want six strong men and three healthy women. Do you understand?"

  Goodwill blinked. She’d always been sated after only one or two kills. Either she was as weak as she claimed or she was simply trying to see what she could get away with. "I’ll do it," he promised. "Just get me out of here."

  Sazar closed her eyes and Goodwill immediately wished he had as well. They vanished from the Assistance Unlimited headquarters and momentarily entered Sazar’s home realm. Everything was made of dripping, shifting blood. There were mountains of the stuff, fountains of red running down rocky passages until they mingled in a flowing river of gore. There were things swimming in that stream, horrible things that made Sazar’s terrifying visage look beautiful in comparison. Goodwill tried to look away but found that he couldn’t. He could only stare and hope that his sanity wouldn’t give way.

  As suddenly as it had begun, it was over. Sazar loosed her grip on him and fell to the carpeted floor of Goodwill’s study. Malcolm leaned heavily against the edge of his desk, trying to keep from vomiting. He kept attempting to banish the things he’d seen from his mind.

  "I need to feed," Sazar whispered.

  Goodwill thought about letting her starve but he quickly realized how foolish a thought that was. She’d rip him to shreds before that happened. "Martin! I need you!"

  Goodwill’s butler rushed into the room, shock on his portly features. "Sir? How did you get inside?"

  "No time for that now. She needs to feed. Six men and three women. Round them up, however you have to."

  "So many?"

  "Yes, damn it!"

  Martin nodded and backed away from Sazar, who was looking at him with altogether too much interest. "Sir, a man came by, seeking the papers. He offered to pay for them but said he’d kill you if you refused. And one of our guards was attacked by an Oriental man and a blonde woman."

  Goodwill guessed those two were agents of Gray. But the other… "Who was the man who wanted to buy the papers?"

  "He said his name was Walther Lunt."

  Goodwill shrugged, not recognizing the name. "If he comes back, we’ll let Sazar deal with him. Now go and get her something to eat."

  Martin hurried from the room, leaving Goodwill to sit down heavily in his desk chair. He had no idea who this Lunt was – did he work with Gray? Or was he someone new? If it was the latter, how did he know about the papers?

  "Pemberley," he hissed. The doctor must have told this Lunt about the papers. Probably they didn’t even belong to Pemberley in the first place. He might have stolen them from this German. "If I see you again, Pemberley, I’m going to cut your heart out."

  Chapter IV

  A Ticket to Hell!

  Lazarus and Morgan were the first to return to their headquarters and it only took a cursory look at the front entrance to know that something was very wrong. The building was in full lockdown mode and could only be opened by a series of verbal commands known only to Gray and his aides.

  The two men entered cautiously, expecting to find someone in near hysterics. That was the typical way they found people who used the life-or-death request to open the doors. When they found no one at all, Morgan stood in the middle of the foyer and scratched his head.

  "What the heck? Where could they be?"

  Gray knelt down and picked up a small bullet from the floor. From the way the tip was mangled, it was obvious that it had bounced off the semi-invisible walls several times. "Remember that we are dealing with the supernatural."

  "You think they just walked through the walls?"

  "The blood demon vanished right in front of our eyes, remember? It’s conceivable our guest may have done the same. We should check the camera footage."

  Morgan followed his employer behind the old clerk’s desk. The room behind had a large television screen mounted on a table with several cables and tubes projecting out from the device. Gray had modified this particular television technology so that it could record the features of anyone who came to the front door. This footage was then archived, allowing Assistance Unlimited to build a detailed record of all their cases.

  Gray was looking through the recorded data when Samantha and Eun burst into the room, both looking slightly out of breath. Morgan, who had been nursing a small glass of bourbon, stood up quickly.

  "You two okay?"

  Samantha looked at Gray, who remained intent on the screen. "Chief, we saw Walther Lunt. He’s alive. He was at Goodwill’s place and he said he was going to kill Goodwill unless he sold him those papers."

  Gray nodded but said nothing.

  "Didn’t you hear me?" Samantha asked, her voice raising an octave. "He’s supposed to be dead!"

  Gray turned his mismatched eyes on her and sighed. "His body vanished from the morgue less than 48 hours after we left it there. I had assumed that members of his cult had taken it for their own purposes. They may have revived him."

  "You’re talking about resurrecting the dead," Eun whispered.

  Samantha crossed her arms over her chest, anger flashing in her eyes. "I’ve had enough of this."

  Morgan raised his eyebrows, amazed that Samantha would speak to the Chief like that. Nobody was brave enough to use that tone with him. Nobody aside from a pretty young blonde who couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred pounds, it seemed.

  Gray’s entire body was oriented toward her now. "Please explain."

  "That German tried to kill me. He threw a lion at me!" She emphasized those words to such an extent that they seemed like a verbal slap in the small room. "You’re telling me that you knew he might still be alive, or resurrected, or whatever. And you never mentioned it to us? Did I ever tell you how much it hurt to find out that you’d been keeping it from us that you were an amnesiac? I thought we were more than just your employees – I thought we were friends and maybe even some kind of family. But that’s obviously not the case if you’re going to continue keeping secrets from us. Well, I’m not putting up with it anymore. You either start treating us with some actual respect or I’m leaving."

  The silence that descended upon the room after that pronouncement was shocking in its totality. No one was even breat
hing, it seemed.

  Gray’s face remained impassive but there was a flicker of emotion in his eyes that weakened Samantha’s anger somewhat. Though he often came across as a stoic and somewhat robotic individual, Samantha had always sensed a well of sadness within her employer. Now she felt regret for her harsh tone. "You’re right, Samantha. I apologize."

  Morgan blinked in surprise. "You do?"

  "Of course. She’s absolutely correct. I trust all of you with my life; I should trust you with all my information as well. I don’t keep secrets from you out of maliciousness. It’s second nature to me, I’m afraid. Whatever life I led before arriving here in Sovereign, it was one in which duplicity was quite common. I find myself lying all too easily and keeping information close to the vest is a part of that."

  Samantha relaxed her body. "I’m sorry, Chief. I didn’t mean to--"

  "No, you don’t have to apologize. Like I said, I’m the one at fault. I’ll try to do better in the future but I ask that all of you be understanding that being open and sharing doesn’t come naturally to me."

  "We’ve all got trust issues," Morgan said. "Heck, for most of my life, I could have been killed for spilling the beans when I wasn’t supposed to so I understand where you’re coming from. It’s hard to get away from that."

  Gray nodded, considering Morgan’s words. To Samantha, he asked, "So you’re going to stay?"

  "Of course. I wouldn’t really have left."

  "Good." Gray turned and pointed at the screen. A crisp black-and-white image showed the man who had entered the building. He was well dressed and very tall. "That, my friends, is Mr. Malcolm Goodwill."

  Eun grunted in annoyance. "There goes any lingering doubt about his involvement in all this."

  "I guess you were right, Chief," Morgan muttered. "He must have had that demon come and rescue him."

  Gray nodded, staring at the image on the screen. "He came here to get those papers back, which meant he was taking an incredible risk. I think it’s safe to say that a man so desperate to have something wouldn’t be able to turn down an invitation to get them back."

  "What are you thinking?" Eun asked.

  Gray said nothing, instead choosing to walk over to a nearby phone. He picked it up and quickly dialed Goodwill’s number. Behind his back, his three aides exchanged smirks. Despite his best intentions, Gray simply couldn’t keep from milking the dramatics from any moment.

  "Mr. Goodwill, please. Tell him it’s Lazarus Gray holding for him." Gray faced his aides and placed a hand over the mouthpiece of the phone. "If he wants the papers so badly, we’ll simply give them to him." Samantha let out a little gasp but all three of his aides fell silent as Gray resumed speaking into the phone. "I’m impressed that you were able to escape the Assistance Unlimited Headquarters. It definitely shows that you’re a man of great power. So great that we would like to bring about a truce of sorts. We have the papers that once belonged to your man but we have no interest in retaining them. We’re willing to pass them on to you in return for a small fee reimbursing us for our trouble. Whatever you think they’re worth. We can meet at the old Trembley Coal Plant on Skiver Way. Within the hour, yes." Gray hung up the phone and nodded smartly to his aides. "Everyone get ready. I’d anticipate Mr. Goodwill being quite treacherous so we should respond in kind."

  ***

  Walther Lunt sat in front of the fireplace, stirring the embers with a poker. The ruined side of his face ached today, as it always did when rain was on the way. It was an odd affliction. He’d heard of men and women whose arthritis worsened when storms were looming but ravaged acid burns? It had to be a first. "We should leave soon. We’re supposed to be on the other side of town in half an hour."

  The woman seated near him crossed her stocking-encased legs, knowing that the movement would catch his interest. Lunt was a lecherous sort and Miya Shimada was attractive enough to keep him in perpetual arousal. A Japanese-American, Miya had shoulder-length black hair that shimmered in the sunlight. Her body was the perfect mixture of the two races that made up her ethnic background: the slim features of the Japanese melded with the hips and breasts of a Western woman. "We can leave when you’ve finished your drink. I have to say, you’re looking much better than you did when I first saw you," Miya said teasingly.

  Walther grunted in acceptance of that. "I owe you my life. Or, rather, my second life."

  "Our masters aren’t done with you," Miya pointed out. "That’s why they dispatched me to resurrect you. In the end, all of us are but pieces on their grand chess board."

  Walther picked up a glass of cognac from the table in front of him and he sipped it in silence. When he finally spoke again, his words were so low that Miya had to strain to hear them. "Have you found out anything useful?"

  Miya looked around their shared hotel room and pursed her ruby red lips. Walther had been hopeful that they’d become lovers but Miya hadn’t allowed that to happen. They were living here under the pretext of being husband and wife to throw off any who might be looking for them but she harbored no romantic feelings toward him. It wasn’t just because of his face, either. There was only one man who had ever tasted the pleasures of her flesh. He had been the first in her entire life that had seemed to be her intellectual and sexual equal. "Nothing that you didn’t already know. He arrived out of the blue in 1933 and immediately made a name for himself. He first came to the attention of the press when he involved himself in the kidnapping of Arthur Lingold’s baby. The entire country was riveted by the case since Lingold’s exploits as a pilot had won him so much acclaim. And now his infant son was missing, with only a bizarre ransom note left at the scene. Lazarus Gray managed to find the child and bring those responsible to justice. From there, it’s been one success after another. His agency, Assistance Unlimited, is considered the last hope for those who have nowhere else to turn. He’s considered quite the hero."

  Miya realized that Lunt was staring at her over the rim of his glass. "The way you speak of him," the German said. "It’s clear you still harbor feelings for the man."

  "He’s hard to forget," Miya admitted.

  "Sad that he can’t say the same for you. Apparently, he remembers virtually nothing."

  "That can be a blessing in some ways," Miya countered. "How is he to know the difference between the true past and a fiction?"

  "What are you planning?"

  Miya stood up, her body moving enticingly beneath her dress. "I seduced him once before. Why shouldn’t I be able to do it again?"

  "What if seeing you again sparks his memory? The last thing we need is for him to remember who he really is. Or who we really are, for that matter."

  Something dark and malevolent flashed in Miya’s eyes. "If he doesn’t accept the way things have to be, then I’ll just have to kill him. Again."

  ***

  "It’s suicide."

  Goodwill looked over at the Black Heart ninja who had spoken. The man was one of the group’s leaders but it was still rare for him to openly challenge Goodwill’s decisions. After looking around at the other ninja who stood watching, Goodwill asked, "Would you care to explain that?"

  "You want us to lie in wait while you approach Assistance Unlimited with only that… thing… at your side? You could be cut down long before we could respond. Take us with you."

  "I’m not looking for a fight. Not right now. I need those papers." Goodwill glanced over at Sazar, who was watching them with all the disinterest of a bored cat. She was toying with her nakedness, raking her fingernails over her flat belly and across her nipples, making them stand up in sharp little points. She was successfully distracting many of the ninja, but not their leader, nor Goodwill.

  "But surely you don’t expect them to hand them over. That is not the way of Lazarus Gray or his men."

  "Yes. That’s why I’ll have Sazar with me. She’ll be invisible and ready to strike at a moment’s notice. Assistance Unlimited may be capable of handling normal men like yours but they won’t be able to handle her."r />
  The ninja’s eyes were the only part of his face left visible but they flashed with anger. "They nearly killed her the last time, didn’t they?"

  Sazar hissed and moved forward but Goodwill held up a hand and she stepped back, though she looked like she might ignore him at a moment’s notice. "I appreciate the fact that you believe in your men so much," Goodwill said. "That confidence makes you one of my best assets. But the discussion is over. Do you understand?"

  The man nodded and bowed. "As you say."

  Goodwill waited until all the ninja had left the room, heading toward the vehicles that would transport them to the old coal factory. There they’d take up positions all around the property, hidden out of sight.

  "Why didn’t you tell them about Walther Lunt?" Sazar asked.

  Goodwill turned toward her, keeping his eyes on her breasts. They were so much nicer to look at than her face. He had called Walther Lunt and asked him to meet him at the coal factory immediately after getting off the phone with Gray. Sazar had been with him when he’d made the call but he’d deliberately made sure that none of the Black Heart knew about it. "Because I think the time’s come for me to abandon Sovereign City and I’m going to need a lot of cover to make that happen. When Lunt arrives, I’m expecting all hell to break loose. That’s when you and I take off. We’ll leave my ninja to fight both Assistance Unlimited and Lunt’s men."

  "After you’ve gotten the papers back," she whispered.

  "Yes."

  Sazar slid around in front of him, undulating her hips like a serpent. "You don’t remember the spells, do you? That’s why you’re so desperate to get the papers."

  Goodwill tried to retain his bravado but some of his willpower began to wilt. She knew he was helpless now. "I remember enough to bind you," he bluffed.