The Adventures of Lazarus Gray (15 page)

Samantha pressed on,
sensing that Garmont was near his breaking point. "All we have to
do is find the necklace and bring it close to her? Then she goes
back to sleep?"

"Yes…." Samantha thanked
him and hung hurriedly. If she’d waited just a second longer, she
might have heard something of vital importance. Garmont continued
speaking, not having heard her goodbye. "But you have to watch out
for Them. They’ll be drawn to her and they’ll do whatever they can
to make sure you don’t interfere with her resurrection. Miss
Grace?"

Garmont stared at the phone
in horror. He’d been so caught up in recounting his sins that he
hadn’t told her about Them. How could he have been so
stupid?

***

For a dead woman, she
looked pretty good. Morgan stood in front of Princess Femi, his
eyes traveling the lines of her body for the umpteenth time. The
linen hid her face and there was ripeness to her scent but even in
her dried out state, there were hints that in life she had
possessed the kind of figure that would have set the hearts and
minds of men aflame.

"You look like my husband,
the way you stare at her." Lorraine stood behind him in the doorway
to the cluttered study. She had two glasses of wine in her hands
and she slowly stepped forward to offer one to Morgan. He accepted
it with a rakish smile. "What is it about her that holds men in
thrall?"

"Can’t put my finger on
it," Morgan answered. He sipped the wine and his grin widened. This
was good stuff, much better than anything he could usually afford.
"Thanks for this," he said, holding up the glass.

"You’re welcome, Mr.
Watts."

"Call me
Morgan."

"Only if you call me
Lorraine."

Morgan noticed the look in
her eyes and he recognized what might be happening here. She’d been
trapped in a marriage of convenience and now that she was free, all
those pent-up desires were being amped up by the danger she’d found
herself in. It was a dangerous cocktail, especially where Morgan
was concerned.

Clearing his throat, Morgan
took a large gulp of the wine and set the glass aside. "I better
start examining her."

Lorraine looked slightly
perturbed but said nothing. She sat down on a small couch nearby
and watched him approach Femi. She leaned back and her breasts
strained against the fabric of her white dress. Morgan tried to
ignore her. Not that long ago, he would have gladly accepted her
unspoken invitation. But these days, he was a valued member of
Assistance Unlimited and he had a job to do.

And there was also the
matter of Samantha. Sure, she’d made it clear she wasn’t interested
in romance but it still felt like cheating to consider going to
Lorraine Mitchell’s bed.

Morgan ran his hands down
the mummy’s slim hips and patted her down like he was a cop
checking for weapons. He moved the body and examined the wall
behind her as well. There was absolutely nothing unusual about
her.

"I don’t see any signs that
anyone’s playing any kind of joke on you, Mrs. Mitchell. This here
is your ordinary kind of mummy."

"You have a good sense of
humor. I like that in a man."

Morgan cleared his throat
again, wondering when the others would be arriving. He was about to
suggest that they step out into the garden and finish their wine in
the sunlight when a prick on the back of his neck caught his
attention. His hand flew up and slapped against the skin. He’d
thought it was an insect biting him but his palm came against
something small and sharp. He yanked it out and stared at in
growing horror. It was a tiny blow dart with some kind of
amber-colored fluid dripping from the tip.

He whirled about to look at
the window, which was open slightly to let in a breeze. A swarthy
man’s face was there, the blowgun raised to his lips for another
attack. Around the man’s eyes was thick mascara, making his eyes
seem like white orbs in a field of black. "Lorraine!" he hissed but
it was too late. His head was swimming so much that he toppled over
to the floor, even as the man shot a second dart at Lorraine. She
gasped in alarm, the wine glass falling from slack fingers to stain
the carpet.

***

Lazarus Gray stared at the
corpse of David Mitchell. He wore a small gauze mask over his mouth
and nose but it did virtually nothing to help with the smell.
Decomposition was a natural thing but its effects on the human body
were not pretty.

Hovering nearby was the
city’s coroner, a grossly fat man named Sheedy. Sheedy was munching
on a cruller doughnut, not disturbed in the least by the grisly
scene before him. Death was part of his every day existence and in
the crime-riddled streets of Sovereign, he frequently saw things
that would churn the stomach of lesser men. "So what are you
looking for?" he asked, bits of cake falling down onto the front of
his bloodstained shirt. He looked more like a butcher than a man of
medicine and law.

"Mr. Mitchell’s death is
under my personal investigation. I merely wish to verify your
earlier diagnosis as to the cause of death."

"Heart attack." Sheedy
shoved the rest of the cruller into his mouth and proceeded to lick
his fingers clean. "No signs of foul play. Tested him for poison in
case that wife of his wanted to do him in. Nothing showed
up."

Gray said nothing. He would
have preferred to study the body alone but that would have required
paying off Sheedy. Gray had plenty of money but he had no desire to
line the man’s pockets any further.

Mitchell had been, to the
naked eye, in fine health. Tests showed that he was in the early
stages of at least two different sexually transmitted diseases,
however, and Gray was fairly confident that he had not acquired
them during relations with his wife. He tilted the head to the side
and noticed something on the dead man’s neck. It looked like a
hematoma of some kind, circular in shape with a number of red spots
in the center. It had faded some as the blood had settled but the
remnants were still there, indicating that it had been fresh at the
time of death.

Sheedy leaned over the
body, dropping crumbs onto the dead man’s suit. "Yeah, I saw that,
too. Looks like he and the wife had gotten frisky a little bit.
It’s a love bite."

Gray stared at it. The mark
had other names, as well. In America, it was often referred to as a
hickey. In India, it was dubbed a Kamasutra bite. Gray was certain
that Lorraine would deny that she had left this mark on her
husband. Despite what she’d said about trying for children, it was
apparent to Gray that she and her husband were estranged. She had
the air about her of a long-suffering woman who was far more upset
about the mummy’s actions than she was over the recent death of her
lover. So who had done this to him? Surely he hadn’t found the time
to meet with a mistress right before his heart attack… but the only
other woman in the house besides Lorraine was Femi.

Gray suddenly had a clear
image of Mitchell unwrapping the lower portion of Femi’s face and
running his hand over her dried skin. He’d leaned in, possibly even
kissed her, and then placed his cheek against hers in a morbid
parody of a lover’s embrace. Imagine his horror when the mummy
screamed and then closed her lips around his throat, sucking so
hard that she ruptured the cells beneath the skin. He’d panicked
and died, falling to the floor where Lorraine would later find
him.

It was all conjecture, of
course, but Gray felt certain now that Lorraine was telling the
truth. Femi was alive, in some blasphemous manner. He stepped back,
whipped off his mask and gloves, tossing both to Sheedy. "Thank
you, Doctor. This has been most enlightening."

He stepped outside and
found Samantha waiting for him. She looked so worried that he
immediately sensed something was wrong. "What is it?" he
asked.

"I made the call and got a
lot more information. I went straight to the Mitchell place to warn
Morgan and I found that they were gone: all three of them. And I
don’t think they left on their own."

Gray’s mismatched eyes
sparked with anger. He knew who the ‘three’ were: Morgan, Lorraine
Mitchell, and Princess Femi. "We’ll rendezvous with Eun at
headquarters," he said.

"And then what are we going
to do?"

Lazarus thought there was a
surprising amount of concern in Samantha’s voice, more than usual
in these kinds of situations. Was it because Morgan was among the
missing? "Then we will rescue our friend and client… and destroy
the abomination that is Femi!"

Chapter III

The Undying

Morgan woke up with one of
the worst headaches of his life. He blinked through blurry vision,
trying to figure out where he was and as things slowly came into
view, he realized that he was in a lot of trouble.

He was in a poorly lit room
whose walls were composed of gray brick. Torches were mounted on
brackets here and there, casting the room in flickering light. In
the center of the room lay twin altars. Upon the first lay the
cloth-wrapped body of Princess Femi. On the second lay the nude
form of Lorraine Mitchell. She was bound hand and foot, stretched
out as far as her body could stand. Morgan could see blood welling
up around her bonds, which were cruelly tight. She writhed as much
as she could, tears streaming down her face and terror mounting in
her eyes.

Morgan himself was standing
up against the wall, his arms raised over his head. His wrists were
shackled together just below the ceiling and as he tested the
strength of his bonds, he realized that he would never break
through.

In the room with him and
Lorraine were five men, all dressed in black robes with hoods.
Around each of their necks was a large golden ankh necklace. Two of
the men were laying out a set of ceremonial knives, placing them
beside Femi on the altar. Two more stood guard at the single door
that led into the room, keeping close eyes on the activities in
front of them. The fifth man approached Morgan when it became clear
that he was awake. The man reached up and drew back his hood,
revealing a thin face and a hooked, hawkish nose. The man was
obviously Egyptian from the coloring of his skin and the accented
English he spoke.

"You’ve decided to join us
at last, have you? Good. I am Achmed. And you are?"

"Going to knock your teeth
out if you don’t let me go."

Achmed laughed, displaying
a set of yellowed teeth. "American bravado. It’s always
entertaining." The man’s smile vanished quickly and he drove a
painful punch into Morgan’s midsection, making him cry out. "Now I
will ask you again: what is your name?"

"Morgan Watts. I’m a member
of Assistance Unlimited and if you know anything about this town,
you’ll realize what a terrible mistake you’ve made."

Achmed’s expression did
change a bit at the name of Morgan’s employers. He covered it up
quickly, however, turning back toward the struggling form of
Lorraine Mitchell. "By the time Lazarus Gray could find this place,
we will be long gone. And our Princess shall live
again."

"You’re madmen! All of
you!" Lorraine spat out. "Let me go and I can pay you! I have
enough money to make you all rich men!"

"We don’t care for money."
Achmed picked up a slender blade that gleamed in the firelight. "We
care only for our sacred mission."

"And what’s that?" Morgan
asked. He had an awful feeling that nothing good was going to come
of that knife and Lorraine’s current position so if he could keep
the man talking, that meant more time for Lazarus and the others to
save the day.

"We are known as The
Undying," Achmed answered, slowly running the point of the blade
between Lorraine’s breasts. The dagger’s point was so sharp that
its progress left a thin red line in its wake. "For centuries, we
have pursued our beautiful Femi, always waiting for the proper
time. She fell in with our cult during the final days of her life,
renouncing the old gods. For her sins, she was put to death and
strange spells put upon her. Some say the gods did these but we
know better – it was the priesthood who put her into these undying
slumbers, so that they could make an example of her. They feared
that if the common man lost their faith, they would lose their
power. And they were right. For her sacrifice, The Undying swore to
do whatever it could to revive her. We have tracked her from owner
to owner, always hoping to steal her away so that she could be
revived. After all the failures of my predecessors, I shall at
least succeed. Tonight, she awakens!"

Achmed turned to the men at
the door, gesturing for them to open the aperture. They pushed the
heavy doors until they slid noisily across the floor, scraping the
stone. A chill wind blew in, carrying with it the salty stench of
the harbor. Morgan knew where they were, now: they were in one of
the storage bays located near the pier. There were dozens of them,
each rented out to one or more of the ships that made stops in the
harbor.

The Egyptians all gathered
around the bodies of the two women, one living and the other
trapped in an awful state of un-life. They began to chant and
Achmed looked over with shining eyes at Morgan. For some reason,
they wanted Morgan alive, so he could watch, but as to why that
was, Morgan didn’t have a clue.