It was then that Gray noticed a murmuring amongst the other restaurant guests and even a few stifled cries. Normally, he was so sensitive to his environment that he would never have missed something amiss but Miya’s recounting of his past had obviously obscured his awareness.
Gray stood up and spotted the source of the disturbance. A man had entered the restaurant and then collapsed, landing facedown in front of the maitre d’ station. "Have you contacted the authorities?" Gray asked, hurrying toward the fallen man, the maitre d’ in tow. Miya remained at the table, momentarily forgotten.
"Not yet. Should we?"
Lazarus understood the hesitance. The police force in Sovereign was little more than an extension of various criminal enterprises. There were good men who wore the badge but not enough of them to instill confidence in the city’s populace.
"Go ahead and place the call," Gray ordered. The maitre d’ nodded at another employee, who bolted toward the phone.
Kneeling at the man’s side, Gray quickly rolled the fellow onto his back. Just by touch, Gray had surmised that it was too late to save the man’s life. He was quite dead already. Several people who were standing about gasped at the sight that was presented to them and one of the waitresses let out a bloodcurdling scream. She fainted into the arms of a busboy.
The skin on the dead man’s face had been burned away, as if by acid. As a result, all that was left was red muscle and white bone. The corpse now bore the horrific visage of a bloodied skull. Gray refrained from touching the ruined mess, for fear that some danger lingered on the raw flesh. There was a peculiar odor emanating from the dead man — something that smelled a bit like almonds. Gray checked to make sure his gloves were securely in place and began rifling through the man’s pockets. He found his wallet easy enough, along with a small card identifying him as Wallace J. Newton, Private Eye.
A uniformed police officer burst in at that moment and Gray recognized the type immediately: a burly, blustery fellow who enjoyed showing off his power. It only took the briefest examination to spot the signs.
"Get away from him, fella," the police officer barked, directing his comments to Lazarus, who slowly complied. To the rest of the people standing around, the officer said, "Everybody take your seats or get out! We gotta leave room for the medics when they get here!"
Gray took note of the man’s badge number. He had committed to memory every officer in the city, matching them up with their badge number. "Officer Mulvaney, there’s precious little that a medic could do here. This man is dead. His demise is peculiar enough that I would like to take his body back to Assistance Unlimited for further analysis."
Mulvaney glowered at Gray and it was immediately apparent that he didn’t think much of Assistance Unlimited and its mysterious founder. "How about you stay out of police business? You may have some special privileges but that doesn’t mean you can tell me what to do."
Gray reached out and placed a hand on Mulvaney’s shoulder. He gave it just a slight squeeze, though with the incredible strength he possessed, it was enough to bring a grimace to the officer’s face. "I appreciate the difficulty you must face in doing your job, Officer Mulvaney. People don’t show adequate respect for your uniform and badge. But in this case, I need you to be sensible. If you take this body to the morgue, they’ll call me in eventually and we’ll have wasted valuable time that could have been used to find Mr. Newton’s killer. So let’s work together on this."
Mulvaney withered under the intense gaze he received from Gray. With a shrug and a small shred of remaining defiance, he said, "Fine. Take it away. But you better share all your findings with the department. You’re not a law unto yourself, you know."
Gray turned away, hoping to catch Miya’s eye and offer an apology. When he looked back at their table, he saw that she had taken the opportunity to slip away. Gray frowned slightly, knowing that she hadn’t left through the front door or else he would have seen her. That meant she’d vanished through the kitchen and out the back.
Forcing his thoughts away from the darkness that was his past, Gray bent down and gently lifted the corpse of Wallace J. Newton.
Miya hurried down the alleyway, ignoring the rain that pelted her hair and soaked through her dress. Walther Lunt waited for her at the end of the street and he opened the car door so she could slip inside.
"You’re alone," the German noted. "I suppose that means you failed to bring him over to our side. What a surprise." One side of his face had been disfigured years before and now it was nothing more than a twisted mass of scar tissue. It ruined what otherwise would have been a cruel but handsome face.
Miya resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "He was distracted by a dead man."
"Again, nothing we shouldn’t have accounted for. Men and women are always dying in Sovereign and Lazarus Gray is always involved somehow."
"Are you just going to complain or are you going to drive?" Miya opened her purse and took out a handkerchief. She began to dab at her forehead and face, ensuring that her makeup didn’t run.
"What did you tell him?" Lunt asked, starting the car. He slowly pulled out onto the rain-slicked streets.
"About how we met. And he was concerned about that group of vampires he killed in Mexico. I assured him that he wasn’t a murderer."
"Not in that case, at least. Did you tell him about The Illuminati?"
"Some."
"Does he know that he turned against us?"
"I didn’t mention that part." Miya looked out the window, staring at the grimy city that she’d called home these past few weeks. "I don’t want to play into his notions of being a hero. He has just as much blood on his hands as any of us."
"This is too dangerous. I’ve asked the rest of our members to give us the option to simply kill him. The last thing we need is for him to become a thorn in our side again."
"We should wait. He’s like clay right now… all it takes it is the right manipulations and I can sculpt him into whatever we want."
Lunt glared at her. "Don’t let your lingering feelings for him get in the way of your common sense."
Miya laughed softly. "There’s no chance of that happening, Walther. And I do agree with you, somewhat. If it becomes clear that he won’t come back into the fold, then we’ll have to take measures to prevent him from interfering."
"Even if that means killing him?" Lunt prodded.
"Yes," Miya sighed. "Even if that means killing him."
Chapter II
The Diabolical Mr. Skull
Garrison Montreux was French-Canadian by birth, though from his accent, people assumed he was from the American Midwest. This was because he had long ago divested himself of any native inflection his words might carry. He had grown up hating his home province, always yearning for the American dream. Originally a slight child, Garrison had begun lifting weights in his teens and he was now a barrel-chested brute with massive biceps and a mean streak. Preferring to dress in dark suits and ties, Garrison’s body somehow suggested that he was a massive gorilla forced to wear a man’s clothes.
But the most chilling aspect of his appearance was his head. Garrison no longer bore the visage of a normal man. There was no flesh on his skull, leaving it terrifyingly bare. Tiny flickers of yellow-orange flame danced around the exposed bone when he was angry and a pair of glowing orbs shone out of his eye sockets. As a result, he no longer answered to his birth name. He was Mr. Skull, a silly name that no one laughed at.
Mr. Skull sat behind a large desk, staring at the men who were his chief lieutenants. Since arriving in Sovereign, he’d made quite a few inroads in the underworld, building a small name for himself very quickly. It was rough going, however, and he’d already made an enemy of The Monster, who was Sovereign’s current criminal kingpin. What no one knew was that Mr. Skull wasn’t your standard gangster. He loved money and power as much as anyone but that wasn’t his ultimate aim. He had darker desires than anyone realized.