The Adventures of Lazarus Gray (39 page)

"Mr. Melvin… You were about
to tell me that you might know something about these
murders?"

Melvin didn’t bother
looking at Morgan. He simply shook his head and whispered,
"Nothing. I have nothing to say."

Chapter IV

Angels &
Demons

"So that’s how he did it!"
Samantha sat back with a satisfied grin on her face. Ever since The
Rook had interrupted their meeting, she’d wondered how he’d managed
to bypass the security at Assistance Unlimited headquarters. It had
taken a bit of digging through the archival footage to figure out
what security flaw the masked man had uncovered but now she had it:
he’d broken into one of the abandoned storefronts facing the old
hotel that Assistance Unlimited used as their base. From there,
he’d managed to travel through one of the underground tunnels that
linked every building on the street. Everyone knew that Lazarus
Gray had bought the entire block for purposes of secrecy but very
few knew that they were all linked together, essentially
transforming it into one giant headquarters.

Samantha still wasn’t sure
how The Rook had known about the underground tunnels, but at least
she knew how he’d accessed the main building: he’d come in through
the basement.

She was still marveling
over the panache needed to break into their headquarters when
Morgan and Eun entered the room. Eun looked pale, his shirtless
body covered by bandages.

Samantha moved to fuss over
his wounds but Eun waved her away and sat down heavily in a chair.
"There’s another masked man in town," he said. "Calls himself The
Dark Gentleman."

Samantha straightened up.
"That’s odd. Sovereign’s had its share of vigilantes in recent
years, but most of them don’t bother hiding their
identities."

"Now we have two," Eun
muttered, obviously still smarting from his wounded
pride.

Morgan allowed the two
younger members of the team to continue the discussion while he
stepped into an adjacent room. He picked through some of the papers
they’d accumulated on the various suspects. Something was bothering
him, but he wasn’t sure what… Obviously Melvin had thought about
sharing something with them and then changed his mind. Was there
some connection between Smithson and Hansome that they hadn’t
picked up on? And if so, how did it all play into the horrific
murders of those girls?

He tapped a photo of
Hansome and whispered, "I hope Lazarus can find you, shyster. I’m
betting you have the answers we need."

***

The duo of Lazarus Gray and
The Rook had traced the radioactive isotopes in Hansome’s
bloodstream, following the trail to a small rental property on the
outskirts of town. A sign in the front yard indicated that the
A-frame house was for rent by the owner and Lazarus noted that the
painted phone number on the sign had peeled away, leaving only the
first couple of digits.

"This is a front," The Rook
said, standing outside the front door. There were no streetlights
around and the interior of the house was dark, so both men held
sterling silver penlights.

"What do you
mean?"

"Nobody’s really trying to
rent this property. If they were, they would have repaired that
sign. And the house itself is filthy… smells like something’s died
here. Recently."

Lazarus knew what his
friend was implying and he moved forward, taking up position to the
right of the door. The Rook took the left and they nodded at each
other before Lazarus took a few steps back and lowered his
shoulder. He crashed against the door, using all his impressive
strength to shatter the barrier.

The interior was cloaked in
an almost stygian darkness and the odor of death was far thicker
than before. The Rook followed Lazarus into the house, using his
penlight to locate a small lamp. He turned it on, bathing the
living room in a dull yellow glow. What they saw was stomach
churning and, even for men as used to the unusual as these two
were, shocking.

There were human, dog, and
cat skeletons nailed to the blood-red wallpaper, many of them
arranged in obscene positions. In between the bones, the wallpaper
had been covered with odd drawings of horned demons, acts of
bestiality, and crying faces.

The skeleton of a human
male, its bones held together by twine, dangled from the center of
the ceiling. Large wings forged of leather and wood had been
attached to the skeleton’s back and goat horns had been glued to
the top of the skull.

A long table was set
against the back wall. It was waist-high and carved from some form
of shiny blood-colored wood. Its bowed legs were carved to resemble
great serpents, their fanged mouths reached upward. At each of the
four corners was a black candle resting in bronze holder. The
holders were shaped like skulls, the lower the jaw of each
protruding out to hold the candle in place. A stone basin lay in
the center of the table and as Lazarus approached it, he recognized
the presence of human bones and dried blood.

The scene was disturbingly
familiar to Lazarus. In his old life, he’d witnessed things like
this as a member of The Illuminati. It had been horrors like this
that had led him to turn against his friends, eventually bringing
about his death and resurrection in Sovereign City.

The Rook allowed Lazarus to
investigate the strange table and its horrible contents. He opened
the other doors, finding a bedroom that looked like it had never
been touched; a kitchen that was so filthy that it nearly caused
him to retch; and a bathroom that contained a very nasty
surprise.

"Lazarus," The Rook said,
placing the back of a gloved hand over his nose and mouth. "I found
Hansome."

Lazarus appeared almost
instantly, looking past the masked man at the lumps of flesh that
lay in the tub. The soapy water was filled with bleach, cleaning
away much-needed evidence. Hansome’s body had been neatly cut up
into six pieces: his head, his torso, his arms, and his legs.
Several large buckets filled with the man’s blood lay outside the
tub and plastic tubing rested on the counter top next to the
sink.

"There goes any doubts
about Hansome’s kidnapper being related to the girls’ killer," The
Rook murmured. "Guess he’s branching out to the other
gender."

Lazarus knelt beside the
tub, holding a handkerchief over his nose. His eyes watered from
the strong bleach fumes that hung in the air, but he wanted to
check on a suspicion he had. He grabbed hold of Hansome’s head and
lifted it from the bath, carrying it out of the room and setting it
gently atop the bloodstained table in the living room. While The
Rook watched in mounting curiosity, Lazarus pulled up a chair and
sat facing the dead man’s terror-stricken face. After pulling out a
magnifying glass, he leaned so close to the decapitated head that
their noses were almost touching.

"What are you doing?" The
Rook asked, no longer able to contain himself.

"Are you familiar with the
work of Willy Kühne, professor of physiology at
Heidelberg?"

The Rook searched his
memory and slowly nodded, beginning to see where his companion was
going with this. "He studied retinal chemistry, didn’t
he?"

"Yes. He theorized that the
retina behaves not only like a photographic plate but like an
entire photographic workshop, in which the artist continually
renews the plate by laying on new light-sensitive material, while
simultaneously erasing the old image. By using the pigment
epithelium, which bleaches in the light, he set out to prove that
it might be possible to take a picture with the living eye. He
called the process optography and its resulting products
optograms."

The Rook found himself
getting wrapped up in the science behind the matter. "And the
rabbit’s eyes held an image of the bars," he whispered to
himself.

Kühne had created a famous
optogram by using an albino rabbit, whose head had been fastened so
that it faced a barred window. From this position the rabbit could
only see out onto a cloudy sky. The rabbit’s head had been
alternately covered with a cloth, to allow its eyes to acclimate to
the dark, and then exposed to bright light. After this, the rabbit
was decapitated, with its eye removed and cut open along the
equator. The rear half of the eyeball, containing the retina, was
laid in a solution of alum to set. The next day, Kühne had seen
printed upon the retina a picture of the window with the clear
pattern of its bars. This had been repeated in other experiments,
leading Kühne to state that the final image viewed before death
would be fixed forever, like a photo. If death were to occur at a
moment when the pupils of the eyes were hugely dilated – because of
fear, anger, surprise, or some other strong emotion – the retinal
optograms of the deceased would be even more detailed.

"Do you see anything," The
Rook asked.

Lazarus nodded, his eyes
staring into those of the dead man. Reflected there, as clear as
day, was the face of the devil.

***

Theodore Groseclose
couldn’t sleep. He was sitting in his study, a glass of warm milk
in his hand, unable to stop thinking about the events of the past
few days. He’d liked Claudia. She was smart and pretty, the sort of
combination he always enjoyed having around the office. It was hard
for him to visualize her body having been violated in the ways he’d
heard. What sort of monster could do that? Who could snuff out a
beautiful girl’s light like that?

Groseclose looked up as he
heard the unmistakable sound of the front door being unlocked. He
set down his milk and moved to the foyer, his eyes widening as his
24-year old son Michael entered the house, looking disheveled.
Michael was blessed with his mother’s good looks and his father’s
intellect… but there were whispers that he was squandering both
since dropping out of college two years before. Since then, he’d
lurked in the shadows, vanishing for days on end with no
explanation.

"What the hell are you
doing?" his father demanded, all the frustrations of the past few
days finding a new target. "I swear to heaven, I don’t think you
care what the community thinks, do you?"

Michael’s jaw clenched, as
if he were barely able to hold back his own anger. "I was out on
business."

"At this hour of the night?
I don’t believe you. I believe you were out drinking and whoring,
that’s what I think!"

Michael shook his head and
stepped around his father. "I’m going to bed."

"The hell you are!"
Theodore bellowed, grabbing hold of his son’s arm and clenching it
tight. "I’ve had enough of you. You’re my son! And that means
people are going to look at you differently than if you were some
ragamuffin off the street!"

Michael whirled around,
bringing his face close to his father’s. Had Theodore not been so
wrapped up in his anger, he would have realized that there was not
a trace of alcohol on his son’s breath. "You know what, Dad? I’ve
had enough of you, too. You sit in your office and you print your
stories but what do you really know about life in this city? Have
you walked its streets? Have you seen all the joy and happiness
sucked out of its people because they can’t believe in the system
anymore? Do you know that there are dozens of mobs out there, all
vying for power? And that the men in charge turn a blind eye to it
because they’re too scared or to crooked to do what’s right?"
Michael yanked his arm free. "Oh, but you would know about that
last part, wouldn’t you? You’re the one helping make sure good
people are being put out on the street so your buddies can build
their high-rises."

Theodore’s mouth moved
silently for a moment before his anger gave him new voice. "How
dare you?"

"I know a lot more about
this town than you give me credit for. And I’m actually doing
something about it." Michael spun on his heels and jogged upstairs,
regretting the anger he’d shown his father, but refusing to back
down. He slammed the door to his room shut and then sagged down
onto his bed. He needed to get his own place if he wanted to really
make a difference. Sneaking in and out of his own house was just
one more headache that he didn’t need.

Michael had trained for
months, preparing to take to the streets as The Dark Gentleman… but
what had happened on his first night out? He’d run into not one,
but two members of Assistance Unlimited, both of whom now thought
he was a murderer. He’d meant to question Smithson about the men
whose names were linked to Claudia’s death… but whoever had killed
him had come and gone before Michael had arrived.

Claudia had been a lovely
girl and one that would have normally attracted Michael’s intense
interest. But he’d been so single-minded as of late that he’d never
bothered approaching her.

Michael stood up quickly
and began pacing. He wanted to do something, wanted to prove that
the past few weeks hadn’t been some pointless lark. He could help
Sovereign City, he was sure of it.

He suddenly realized that
he needed to clear the air with Assistance Unlimited. Right now,
they were probably wasting valuable time hunting him down when they
could be going after the real killer.