“Charity! Cut her head off!” he yelled, while simultaneously throwing himself forward. His strong arms wrapped around Darhoth’s midsection, pinning her limbs against her sides. The smell of her was intense and reminded him of rotting meat, while her strength was so great that it felt like he was wrestling with a bear.
Gravedigger didn’t need to be told twice. Beheading was something of her signature move and while she wondered what Lazarus was up to, she did as he directed. Like Lazarus, she had doubts that this would do anything more than annoy Darhoth but perhaps there was something more to this than she knew.
“You pitiful fools! The plan is already in place! This world is doomed!”
The Peregrine, head still ringing, staggered towards the violent scene. He held The Knife of Elohim in his hand and the blade, which had once been dipped in the blood of Christ, was glowing so brightly that it was almost painful to behold. “I think you’re not paying enough attention to the bigger picture, Mother of Pus. You can expand your consciousness, right? Then do it. Look at your plan.”
Darhoth’s mind expanded outward and she realized what The Peregrine meant. In her confusion, she’d failed to put the finishing touches on her spell, leaving the reawakened monsters around the globe to fight against heroes who had risen up to face them. She saw Thunder Jim Wade and his crew; The Black Terror; The Darkling; a bizarre Heap; The Black Bat; Leonid Kaslov; Doc Daye; Fortune McCall; The Dark Gentleman… on and on the list could have gone. The bravery and perseverance of humanity was embodied in those men and women who refused to back down before the face of evil.
Darhoth screamed as she fought like a wild woman, eager to be freed. Her eyes opened wide as Gravedigger’s sword swept through the air, separating neck from shoulders. Blood sprayed over Lazarus but he held on tight. His lips began moving, forming arcane words from long dead languages. The spell he was recounting was similar to the one that Catalyst had used to bind The Three Sisters[7] but Lazarus had come across others in his adventuring career.
As the Mother of Pus began to exit her physical form, the black mist that comprised her soul was suddenly drawn towards Lazarus. The gaseous form was sucked into the hero through his nostrils and open mouth as the human shell that had once housed the spirit dissolved into dust.
Gravedigger took a step back in shock, suddenly realizing what he was doing. “Lazarus! You can’t hold her!”
When he spoke, his voice was an odd mix of male and female, a merging of his and The Mother of Pus. “I won’t have to for very long.” His mismatched eyes — one a dull brown, the other a glittering emerald — turned towards The Peregrine. “Use The Knife of Elohim.”
“All that will do is kill you and free her,” Gravedigger protested. In this moment, it seemed like the rest of the world had paused, leaving only these three — along with the spirit of Darhoth — to decide the fate of the future. Charity reached up and pulled back her mask, revealing her lovely face, darkened by far too much loss and pain that she had accumulated over the past few months. “Don’t do this.”
“I can hold her,” Lazarus replied through gritted teeth. “I can hold her all the way down to hell. I won’t let her escape.” He shuddered from the strain of controlling the demon within. “We don’t have time to wait.”
Gravedigger glanced at Peregrine. “We need another plan.”
Max Davies looked surprisingly calm as he said, “I figured someone would have to die. I’d just planned on it being me.”
He raised his weapon and drove it with all his might into the heart of Lazarus Gray. The enchanted weapon normally did extra damage against those of evil origin and in this case it sizzled so hotly that Max almost lost his grip on the hilt. He held on, even as his palm burned, and gave it a final twist.
Lazarus staggered back, his eyes looking skyward. He uttered one word, the name of his wife, and then he fell to the ground like a marionette whose strings had been cut.
Though neither of them could see it, Peregrine and Gravedigger knew that one final battle was still being waged. On the ethereal plane, Darhoth was roaring with anger and despair, her soul being yanked away to some dark nether realm where she would suffer eternal punishment for her failure. No matter how hard she tried to resist that pull, that tugging on her invisible leash, she could not, for the soul of Lazarus Gray was right there with her, holding her tight… all the way down into the fiery pits.
All around the globe, the harbingers of evil fell. Suddenly bereft of hope that their ultimate victory was at hand, many of them dissipated, while others were quickly slain by those champions who fought against them.
The dark veil that had recently clung to the world, draping it in increasing amounts of sorrow and evil… had just been lifted away.
CHAPTER XVII
Endings and Beginnings
Two weeks had gone by since the death of Lazarus Gray and the pain seemed only to grow with each passing day. Kelly had hoped it would be the opposite but her father had told her that after the death of her mom, it had taken him years to feel like a whole human being again. She wasn’t sure she could handle that.
The funeral had been a small affair and since then Kelly had locked herself in her room at 6196 Robeson Avenue, taking her meals in private and only speaking to her father and Samantha. Both had tried to take her mind off the fact that she’d become a widow so soon after marriage, but they’d failed, of course.
She sat in bed, hair a mess and without makeup, flipping through the journals that Lazarus had kept. Most of them were written in some sort of pseudo code that meant little to her but she liked seeing the flowing script of his handwriting and knowing that these had meant so much to him.
She’d been engrossed in one of the books that purported to deal with certain voodoo rituals of Haiti when she recognized Samantha’s familiar knock at her door. Trying to project a bit of lightness into her voice, she yelled for Samantha to come in.
The pretty blonde was dressed in slacks and a buttoned shirt. Kelly thought that Samantha always managed to look glamorous, no matter what the situation.
“How are you feeling?”
Kelly gave a half smile. “Not much better, to be honest.”
“I want you to come downstairs with me.”
Kelly hesitated. She didn’t want to be seen like this and she wasn’t ready to venture out into the real world just yet. She was about to say so when Samantha pressed on.
“Lazarus is dead, Kelly. He wouldn’t want you to waste away in here. That’s not who you are. You’re an explorer, a scientist, and the heir to all this.”
“I don’t care about his money,” Kelly whispered. She had inherited the vast majority of what Lazarus had left behind, though his aides had received ample amounts of cash and gifts, as well.
“I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about Assistance Unlimited. We’ve kept things together to this point but we need to decide where we go from here. Do we throw in the towel and say we did a good job for a few years? Is that what he would want? Is that want you want?”
“Of course not.”
“Then make yourself presentable and meet me downstairs. If you won’t do it for you… do it for him.”
They were all there, the people that Lazarus had considered as close as family. Samantha sat behind her former mentor’s desk, red nails clicking on the top of the writing area. Morgan looked dapper but serious as he set aside a copy of The Sovereign Gazette. Kelly thought it sweet that concern was so obvious in his features as he saw her. Eun, the outspoken young firebrand of the group, stood near the window, ever vigilant.