Mr. Death turned away and tossed his hands in the air. “That’s disappointing, Dimrod. Really disappointing. I was hoping you and I could become pals. I wanted to sit on the front porch after a hard day’s work and share a couple of beers. Maybe talk about how Myrtle and Daisy are just driving us nuts but what can you do? Can’t live with them and can’t live without them! Am I right or am I right?”
“You’re insane.”
Mr. Death cackled and burst into action. He moved so fast that even Nimrod was frozen in place. The Nazi whirled and dove at the closest of the goons, raining a series of blows down upon the man’s face that sent droplets of blood flying into the air. He had launched himself at the other fellow within seconds, knocking the brute’s back against the wall. Grabbing the man by the ears, Mr. Death repeatedly slammed his skull against the wall, shattering the back of his head.
Nimrod remained where he was, watching with narrowed eyes. Mr. Death turned to face him and shrugged. “You figured it out, didn’t you?”
“What do you mean?”
Mr. Death tapped the side of his head. “I’m ker-azy.” He stepped over the corpses and moved back into the shadows. “Call Fritz. Ask him if you have to do what I say. Then you sit your ass down and prepare to listen to my plan. I’ll be right over here, washing this scum off my boots and gloves.”
Nimrod stared after him before walking out of the warehouse. He planned to call Fritz all right and he’d give him a piece of his mind. Not only did he not work with others, he certainly didn’t work with psychopaths.
That was a rule that he didn’t plan to violate any time soon.
Sighing, he realized that he really didn’t have any choice in the matter. Not yet, anyway. He was being held by the short hairs and if he wanted to get out with his skin intact, he might be forced to play along for a little while longer, even if it meant more contact with the bizarre Mr. Death.
Gravedigger approached the closed door and seized hold of the knob. It was locked, as nearly every other door at 6196 Robeson Avenue had turned out to be. “They really don’t trust me.”
“Well, you are going around trying to break into their rooms.”
“I am not. I’m just proving a point. They’re using us but they don’t accept us.” She gave a resigned shrug. “I did find a couple of places they didn’t lock up; the kitchen, the monitoring room, a few offices, and a trophy room.”
Cedric chuckled but he grew quickly serious when his employer sent a chilling glare in his direction. “I don’t understand why we’re here in the first place. The Peregrine had a vision showing a bad guy seizing The Unnervum. So we bring the thing back here where it can be stolen by the man with a skull face?”
“That’s what I wanted to know at first, too. But I think we have an advantage here. We know that someone is coming for it. And the defenses here are superior to what we have at Hendry Hall. So it makes sense to lure out skull face and see if we can take him down. I’m sure he’d be able to give us some information, too.”
“Before you kill him?”
“Yes.”
Cedric nodded. He didn’t have a big problem with the murderous nature of their shared mission. Given the turnstile approach to justice used by the local authorities, it sometimes seemed like the only way to truly remove criminals from the streets.
The Dark Gentleman’s voice came through the building PA system. “You two might want to come down to the viewing room. There’s something going on with The Unnervum.”
“We’re on our way,” Gravedigger replied. She sprinted towards the stairs, taking them two at a time. When she reached the first floor, Cedric was barely halfway down. He was in good physical shape but none of Gravedigger’s crew could keep up with Charity when she put the pedal to the floor.
“What’s going on?” she asked, stepping into what The Dark Gentleman had dubbed “the viewing room.” It wasn’t a poor description. There was a series of television monitors that showed every square inch of the city block surrounding the building. While it wasn’t foolproof, it certainly aided in making sure that no one snuck up on them without fair warning.
The Dark Gentleman gestured with a gloved hand to the crystal ball, which was glowing so brightly that Charity had to resist the urge to shield her eyes. “It started doing this about three minutes ago.”
“Why did you wait to call me?”
“I had to figure out how to access the speaker system. The tutorial I received covered the monitors but I don’t think they assumed you were going to be wandering around the building without me.”
The chastisement was so mild that Charity ignored it. She moved towards the occult relic with caution and with every step, she felt negative emotions begin to bubble up to the fore. Anger over The Dark Gentleman’s demeanor, his self-righteous crusade and even his garb all threatened to spill out of her but she managed to push them back down, knowing that it was merely the effects of The Unnervum at work. “It’s drawing power from something. It’s charging up.”
“I haven’t seen anything on the cameras, but you’re right. I can feel it, too. The Unnervum makes me antsy.”
“Same here.” Charity looked over her shoulder as Cedric entered the room. The expression on his face quickly became one of annoyance.
“What the hell are you two doing?”
“Calm down,” Charity said. “The crystal ball’s spewing its hate energy.”
Cedric frowned but kept quiet. When the phone began ringing, he gestured that he would get it and left the room, muttering under his breath. “I’m probably not qualified to help with that thing anyway.”
The Dark Gentleman bit his tongue before he fired off an angry retort. Taking a deep breath to control his emotions, he asked, “Should we move it down to the basement level?”
“The way it’s glowing, I’m not sure that would help. It’s growing stronger by the second.” Her eyes flicked over the various monitors, looking for any sign of what could be setting it off. She finally spotted something at the very edge of the block, near one of the alleyways. She tapped it and asked, “Can you zoom in on that?”
The Dark Gentleman did so and gradually the image sharpened, finally revealing the outline of a man. He was dressed almost like an old west gunfighter. “I don’t recognize him.”
“Neither do I but that doesn’t mean much. I suppose one of us could go out and talk to him.”
“I better do it. We don’t know if he deserves beheading yet.”
Gravedigger growled as The Dark Gentleman exited the viewing room. If he kept up this attitude of his, she’d show him just how deadly she could be. The thought made her smile beneath her mask and she was just beginning to become aware of how troubling that was when Cedric returned.
“Charity, you better come and take this call.”
“Who is it?” she demanded, a bit more harshly than she would have otherwise.
“He says his name is Mr. Death and he claims that he’s here to dance on our graves.”
Nimrod spat a wad of phlegm at the ground and kept his eyes on the large building that housed Assistance Unlimited. His conversation with Fritz had gone exactly as he’d suspected it would. He’d been given his marching orders, with no room for deviation. He was to work with Mr. Death and help the crazy man with his current mission, which was supposedly important to the future of the Reich.
Somehow, he had a hard time believing that. Hitler’s rise to power had been so dramatic and his speeches so impassioned that Nimrod could scarcely fathom that the Füehrer would put stock into someone like Mr. Death.