Slowly rising back to his feet, Goodwill forced himself to take several deep breaths. He strode toward the front doors and pushed on them, only to find that his worst fears were confirmed: the doors were locked and no matter how hard he pushed, they refused to budge. The building was in sort of lockdown mode, triggered by his foolhardy decision to claim he was in the middle of an emergency.
For a moment, Goodwill gave over to his rising anger. He kicked and screamed like a petulant child, so caught up in the moment that he dropped the false British accent he usually used. In those moments, he spoke once again like the Pennsylvania boy that he truly was.
When he was done venting, Goodwill found himself thinking back to how this affair got started. The infamous Doc Pemberley had fearfully come calling at Goodwill’s front door a few weeks back, claiming that he’d narrowly escaped capture. He needed quick money, he’d said, and had offered Goodwill a number of interesting items in exchange for enough cash to get him into a new safe house. Goodwill had grown bored with the entire affair until Pemberley had brought out several ancient pieces of paper, claiming that they had been written by the devil himself. How Pemberley had acquired them had never been explained but Goodwill had felt something rush through him when he’d held those papers. He only had the barest familiarity with Latin but he could understand enough to know that these pages were priceless. Even if he wasn’t able to make them do the things that Pemberley claimed, he could sell them to collectors and make a fortune.
It was only after he’d summoned Sazar that he’d realized why Pemberley hadn’t used the spells for himself. There was a price to pay for magic like this: Sazar could kill him easily and would have no qualms about doing so. The only thing holding her in check was the words that bound her to his will.
Goodwill realized that he was in a very bad situation. If Gray or his aides caught him now, all his plans would fall apart. He’d planned to use Sazar to extort money from many of the most powerful men in the city. It had seemed like a good plan but all it had taken was one two-bit hood growing a conscience to upset everything.
"I’m hurting, Malcolm."
Goodwill spun about, eyes wide. It was Sazar. Her gorgeous body looked almost as bad as her face: she had bullet wounds all over her flesh and she was leaking buckets of blood. "What the hell happened to you? Gray did this?"
"Yes. I’m so weak." Sazar reached out for him, using his shoulders to steady herself. "I could barely find you, I’m so dizzy."
"Can you get us out of here? Take us back to my home?"
Sazar looked at him with blood-rimmed eyes. "I’m not sure. Traveling is hard for me. With you along, too…."
"Take me there and I’ll get you as many people to feed upon as you desire."
"I might need to feed before then."
Goodwill caught her meaning, noting the way her eyes lingered over the pulsing vein in his neck. He raised his voice commandingly, hoping she wouldn’t push the issue. If she did, he was done for. He didn’t remember the proper words to control her. "Sazar! I am ordering you to do this. Take us both home. Now."
Sazar mumbled ancient words under her breath. He didn’t understand them but their meaning was clear enough. She was growing tired of following his orders. She gripped him tightly against her naked bloody flesh. "I will do what I can," she hissed. "But in return, I want six strong men and three healthy women. Do you understand?"
Goodwill blinked. She’d always been sated after only one or two kills. Either she was as weak as she claimed or she was simply trying to see what she could get away with. "I’ll do it," he promised. "Just get me out of here."
Sazar closed her eyes and Goodwill immediately wished he had as well. They vanished from the Assistance Unlimited headquarters and momentarily entered Sazar’s home realm. Everything was made of dripping, shifting blood. There were mountains of the stuff, fountains of red running down rocky passages until they mingled in a flowing river of gore. There were things swimming in that stream, horrible things that made Sazar’s terrifying visage look beautiful in comparison. Goodwill tried to look away but found that he couldn’t. He could only stare and hope that his sanity wouldn’t give way.
As suddenly as it had begun, it was over. Sazar loosed her grip on him and fell to the carpeted floor of Goodwill’s study. Malcolm leaned heavily against the edge of his desk, trying to keep from vomiting. He kept attempting to banish the things he’d seen from his mind.
"I need to feed," Sazar whispered.
Goodwill thought about letting her starve but he quickly realized how foolish a thought that was. She’d rip him to shreds before that happened. "Martin! I need you!"
Goodwill’s butler rushed into the room, shock on his portly features. "Sir? How did you get inside?"
"No time for that now. She needs to feed. Six men and three women. Round them up, however you have to."
"So many?"
"Yes, damn it!"
Martin nodded and backed away from Sazar, who was looking at him with altogether too much interest. "Sir, a man came by, seeking the papers. He offered to pay for them but said he’d kill you if you refused. And one of our guards was attacked by an Oriental man and a blonde woman."
Goodwill guessed those two were agents of Gray. But the other… "Who was the man who wanted to buy the papers?"
"He said his name was Walther Lunt."
Goodwill shrugged, not recognizing the name. "If he comes back, we’ll let Sazar deal with him. Now go and get her something to eat."
Martin hurried from the room, leaving Goodwill to sit down heavily in his desk chair. He had no idea who this Lunt was — did he work with Gray? Or was he someone new? If it was the latter, how did he know about the papers?
"Pemberley," he hissed. The doctor must have told this Lunt about the papers. Probably they didn’t even belong to Pemberley in the first place. He might have stolen them from this German. "If I see you again, Pemberley, I’m going to cut your heart out."
Chapter IV
A Ticket to Hell!
Lazarus and Morgan were the first to return to their headquarters and it only took a cursory look at the front entrance to know that something was very wrong. The building was in full lockdown mode and could only be opened by a series of verbal commands known only to Gray and his aides.
The two men entered cautiously, expecting to find someone in near hysterics. That was the typical way they found people who used the life-or-death request to open the doors. When they found no one at all, Morgan stood in the middle of the foyer and scratched his head.
"What the heck? Where could they be?"
Gray knelt down and picked up a small bullet from the floor. From the way the tip was mangled, it was obvious that it had bounced off the semi-invisible walls several times. "Remember that we are dealing with the supernatural."
"You think they just walked through the walls?"
"The blood demon vanished right in front of our eyes, remember? It’s conceivable our guest may have done the same. We should check the camera footage."
Morgan followed his employer behind the old clerk’s desk. The room behind had a large television screen mounted on a table with several cables and tubes projecting out from the device. Gray had modified this particular television technology so that it could record the features of anyone who came to the front door. This footage was then archived, allowing Assistance Unlimited to build a detailed record of all their cases.
Gray was looking through the recorded data when Samantha and Eun burst into the room, both looking slightly out of breath. Morgan, who had been nursing a small glass of bourbon, stood up quickly.