The Adventures of Lazarus Gray (25 page)

Morgan narrowed his eyes.
"I’m not following you. She attacked you when she stole this
item?"

"It was a necessary part of
the theft," Dinkins answered. He tore away the bandage and revealed
a gaping hole in his chest. The sight was enough to cause Molly to
scream out loud. She stood up so quickly that she knocked her chair
to the floor and Morgan was upright just as fast, catching her and
turning her face so that the girl could bury it in his neck.
Dinkins’ smile never wavered during all of this. "Look closely, mon
ami. That clever girl cut my heart out and took it with
her!"

Chapter II

The Heartless
Man

Samantha gently opened the
hospital room door and peered inside. A young woman named Tracy
Gethers lay in the bed, swathed in bandages. Her mother sat in a
chair nearby, her eyes shining wetly with tears and a crumpled
tissue in one hand. The mother looked up when Samantha stepped
inside.

"Are you a friend of
Tracy’s?" the woman asked. Her voice sounded hoarse with emotion
and Samantha felt out of place. She’d known why Lazarus had tasked
her with this job, though: Eun was a foreigner and Morgan, if he
had been available, was a bit too gruff for this kind of
work.

"No, ma’am. My name is
Samantha Grace and I work for Assistance Unlimited. Have you heard
of us?"

"Of course I have. I’ve
seen Mr. Gray in the papers. But we’ve already given a statement to
the police and Tracy needs her rest. Besides, I don’t have any
money to pay you."

Samantha smoothed out her
skirt and shook her head. "We don’t want any money. Sometimes we
take cases just because it’s the right thing to do."

"Well," the mother said
uncertainly, "I don’t think Tracy could tell you anything she
didn’t already tell the police so I’m going to have to ask you to
leave."

"Momma, let her stay.
Please. I don’t mind talking some more."

Samantha turned to look at
Tracy, who was staring out her from beneath the bandages on her
face. The girl was slight of build and, from what Samantha had been
told, had possessed a fragile beauty. Unfortunately, the wounds to
her face were going to rob her of that. "Thank you," Samantha said
gratefully, coming to sit on the edge of Tracy’s bed.

"Well… don’t tucker
yourself out." Tracy’s mom stood up and moved toward the door. "I’m
going to grab some fresh air but I’ll be right back. Is that
okay?"

"Sure, momma." When her
mother was gone, Tracy lowered her voice conspiratorially. "She
doesn’t want to hear it all again. I think it’s harder on her than
it is on me."

Samantha smiled, realizing
that she liked Tracy already. "Well, we can stop whenever you need
to. I really don’t want to interfere with your rest."

"You’re sweet but don’t
worry about me. I may look a fright in this mummy makeup but I’m
okay. I was pretty scared at the time but I’m bouncing back quick.
I just feel terrible about Janice. She was a nice girl and her
daddy sure did love her. I bet he’s a wreck right now."

Samantha couldn’t help but
be impressed. Less than 24 hours after being brutally attacked,
Tracy was more focused on the suffering of others than what she was
going through herself. "The newspaper said the Axeman didn’t try to
steal anything from you. Is that true?"

"It is. He just came at us
screaming those nonsense words and then started swinging that
axe."

Samantha blinked in
surprise. "He talked to you? The paper said he didn’t say
anything."

Tracy snorted in an
unladylike way but it drew a laugh from Samantha. "They also said
we were ‘nubile beauties.’ No, he did say some things to us but it
didn’t make any sense."

"Can you remember what it
was?"

"Let me think… I believe it
was something like ‘Où est son coeur? Dites-moi donc je ne peux
cesser de tuer!’"

"That’s a lot better than I
was expecting," Samantha admitted.

"I’ve always had a good
memory for things like that. I suppose it might have been French
but it was spoken with such a thick accent that I’m not sure. He
sounded like one of those French people from the Bayou."

"A Cajun?"

"Yes! That’s it!" Tracy sat
up in bed, visibly excited. "Do you know what it means?"

Samantha nodded. She was
fluent in five different languages and French was one of her
strongest. "Roughly translated, it means ‘Where is his heart? Tell
me so I can stop killing.’ Doesn’t make any more sense now that you
know what he was saying, does it?"

"No, it doesn’t. I guess
he’s just a lunatic."

"Maybe so." Samantha patted
Tracy’s leg and stood up. "I think you helped me. Thanks for your
time."

Tracy shook her head. "I
don’t know how. But I hope all of you catch him. He’s too dangerous
to stay on the loose."

Samantha paused at the
door. "If there’s anybody alive who can capture him, it’s Lazarus
Gray. When you’re out of the hospital, give me a call at the
office. If you’re interested, we might find some work for you. You
seem like you have the right kind of spirit for what we
do."

Tracy nodded. "I just might
do that. Thank you."

Samantha exited the room,
running the Axeman’s words through her head. What did it mean? She
couldn’t wait to get back to the office and compare notes with the
others.

***

Monique DuChamp was a
beautiful young woman. She had long curly black hair that fell
around her shoulders and her skin was a rich caramel color that
evoked both sides of her ancestry. Her father had been a black
farmer in New Orleans while her mother had been a white woman who
had fled an abusive husband up north. They’d raised Monique in a
house filled with laughter and love but none of that had stopped
their little girl from falling in with the wrong crowd. She’d
always been sensual, even as a young child, and when she began
turning into a woman, she attracted the attentions of many men,
including Mr. Dinkins. He’d introduced her to drugs and sexual
magic, using both to achieve their separate aims: Dinkins had
gotten the chance to indulge his lusts with a ripe young girl and
Monique had gotten a taste of true power.

It was a heady time for
both, with each striving for more and more. Monique played with her
sexuality, using it to lull Dinkins into a false sense of security.
Then one night while he’d slept, she’d bound his hands to the bed
and carved his heart right out from his chest. It had been bloody,
disgusting work but Monique hoped it would propel her into a new
level of existence.

Unfortunately, it hadn’t
been quite so simple. Monique had read in one of the old man’s
books that the heart of a sorcerer could be a potent thing: if
ground into a powder, it could impart knowledge upon anyone who
ingested it; if carried on your person, it could keep you young and
vital; and if set aflame during a full moon, it could summon an
ancient entity who would answer any three questions for you.
Monique had decided to take the young and vital option for now –
she could always ground it up or burn it later on.

But Dinkins was too
powerful to be so easily killed. He still lived through magical
means and he’d set Muggsy on her trail. They’d pursued her all the
way to Sovereign and Monique was fearful that it was only a matter
of time before they caught up to her.

Monique lay atop a soft bed
now, her nude young body barely visible in the dim lighting that
drifted in from the window. The man she’d picked up in the hotel
bar was undressed in front of her, his eyes glued to her curves. He
was a big man with a barrel chest and massive biceps. He had a
vaguely Cro-Magnon look to him but Monique didn’t mind that:
intelligence wasn’t high on the list of attributes she was seeking
at the moment.

The man kicked off his
pants and moved to the bed, crawling over her on all fours. "I’ve
never been with a Negro before," he whispered and Monique felt her
skin crawl. She accepted his passionate kiss, trying to pretend
that the way his tongue plunged into her mouth excited her. She
reached one hand under her pillow and slowly pulled out a large
knife. She waited until her would-be lover was kissing her neck to
raise the blade and plunge it into the side of his neck. He
screamed and jerked away but Monique worked fast, slicing through
his neck. Blood spurted over her breasts and his hands flew up to
try and cover his wound. He thrashed a bit as she pushed him onto
his back.

Monique slid off the bed
and pulled on her underwear, letting him bleed out. Her purse was
stuffed full of the things she would need but she felt a rush of
nervousness, having never performed this ritual before. It was
going to be necessary, though, she knew that.

If Dinkins had Muggsy, then
Monique would need a champion of her own. She smiled at the dying
man, her fear beginning to slowly turn into excitement.

"Time to get to work," she
said aloud.

***

"What is this place?" Eun
asked, standing uncomfortably in the front room of the privately
owned building. There were chicken bones hanging from the ceiling,
along with living birds stuffed into cages. The room was lit by
candlelight and there was a peculiar odor in the air that reminded
him of the one time he’d visited a Korean holy man before his
family had moved to the United States. There were piles of trash in
every corner of the room and Eun was positive that he saw rat
droppings on the floor. "I’m surprised it hasn’t been
condemned."

"It is my home. Do not be
rude." An old man entered the room and Eun noticed that he was
blind, with a long beard that nearly reached the floor. He walked
with a cane held in front of him, moving gently to and fro. His
clothes were all black, save for a white button up shirt and white
socks. If he’d held a tin cup in his free hand, Eun wouldn’t have
been surprised. He looked like the stereotypical blind peddler.
"What do you want, Gray? I thought our business was
finished."

"I’m afraid not," Gray
replied, watching as the old man shoved a pile of garbage out of a
chair and sat down heavily. "The young man with me is--"

"Eun Jiwon. I know." The
old man smiled, revealing crooked teeth. "All your associates are
known to me. Once I enter into business with someone, I take it
upon myself to learn all that I can about them." He turned blind
eyes toward Eun. "My name is Ebenezer Smith. I’m also known as The
Information Broker."

Eun blinked in surprise.
He’d heard of The Information Broker – a shadowy figure who knew
everything, for a price. It was said that finding out how to
contact him was only half the battle: the other was in convincing
him that your money or your case was interesting enough to warrant
his attention.

"Surprised that I’m a blind
man, living in a hovel?"

"Yes, actually."

Ebenezer sniffed
disdainfully. "Only one of us is truly blind. I am rich beyond your
imaginings."

Eun looked around
doubtfully but said nothing.

"So. The last time you were
here you wanted me to verify certain things about your past."
Ebenezer cleared his throat. "So what is it this time?"

Lazarus glanced at Eun.
"The Broker was quite useful. He found quite a bit about Richard
Winthrop’s life, before and after he fell in with The
Illuminati."

Eun once again bit his
tongue. All of the aides had noticed Gray’s new habit of referring
to his old life in the third person. It was like he was regarding
Richard Winthrop as a separate entity from himself.

Gray removed a small vial
of what appeared to be blood, stepping forward to push it into
Ebenezer’s hand. The old man removed the stopper from the vial and
raised it to his nostrils, sniffing it and nodding.

"This is more than enough
for almost anything, I’d wager," Ebenezer said, replacing the
stopper and setting it on a crowded table at his side. "What do you
need to know?"

"There were a series of
murders in New Orleans almost twenty years ago and now a similar
set are occurring here in Sovereign City. I was wondering if you
knew anything about them."

"Ah," Ebenezer said, his
lips stretching wide. "You want to know about the
Slashers."

"The Axeman," Eun
corrected.

Ebenezer shrugged his bony
shoulders. "Same thing."

Gray crouched in front of
him, studying the blind man’s features. "Tell me
everything."

"For as long as there have
been men who sought power through sorcery, there have been
Slashers. They’ve been known by different names in different times
but they’re always men or women who have been transformed into
killing machines, subject to the whims of their masters. They kill
for two reasons: because someone tells them to and because they
must. They no longer eat or drink as we do, they feed off the life
essence of those they kill. Using them as foot soldiers is good
because they won’t stop moving after their target but it’s also
dangerous: they have to kill again and again, which can lead to
unwanted attention. Jack the Ripper was a Slasher in service to a
man named William Gull. And the Axeman of New Orleans was a
Slasher, too."