The three of them entered the medical lab and were immediately hit by the antiseptic smells that they associated with the room. Lazarus stood next to a body covered by a thin white sheet, wearing a medical smock and gloves. Without any preamble, Gray said, "This man was killed by a toxic formula that ate the skin off his face. It’s a unique compound and I’ve already been in touch with the various chemists in the area. The ingredients that would be needed to make this were bought in bulk less than two weeks ago, with instructions to deliver them to an address on Ferguson Street."
Samantha looked down at the covered corpse and felt a sense of relief that Gray had not left it exposed. "Do you think Doc Pemberley might be involved?"
Gray nodded. "I believe he might be. We know he’s been on the run for the past month or so[1] and this seems like the sort of thing we’d associate with his work. Eun, if you don’t mind, please call the authorities and ask them to pick up this body. Samantha, I’d like you to visit the victim’s office. He was a private investigator and I’d like to know what cases he was working on before he met his demise."
Gray began stripping off his medical gear, tossing the gloves into a trashcan located nearby. "Morgan, you’re with me. We’re going to drop in and pay a visit to our old friend, Doctor Pemberley."
Morgan grinned broadly. "With pleasure, Chief. I owe that kooky old bird a good thrashing."
Chapter III
Deadly Clues
Melvin Pemberley was fifty years old, though he could pass for a man in his mid-thirties. He was handsome, with shortcut blond hair, blue eyes that resembled chipped polar ice and a coolly efficient manner of conducting himself. He tended to wear white lab coats and was rarely found without a pair of surgical gloves. It was a bit of irony that a man who so often dabbled in blood and guts was uncomfortable getting his hands dirty.
Doc Pemberley was completely amoral. Where the average person would cringe, Pemberley stared unabashed. When a normal man would rush in to save those in need, Pemberley was more apt to pick up a sheet of paper and begin recording the events occurring before him. He had run afoul of the law on numerous occasions since losing his license to practice medicine. Selling his services to anyone who could meet his fee meant that Pemberley not only stitched up gangsters, he also worked on creating chemical weapons. He had fled Sovereign more than once but always ended up returning home. Mr. Skull had come along at the perfect time for Pemberley, giving him steady employment after Assistance Unlimited had smashed his latest scheme.
Ferguson Street was far from being the sort of area where Pemberley preferred to reside. Violence was so routine in this part of the city that no one even looked out the window when screaming or shooting began. Before being discredited, Pemberley had lived in relative luxury but those days were long gone. Now his lab consisted of a converted kitchen and the experimental surgeries he carried out on neighborhood stray animals were far from hygienic in nature.
Pemberley was wiping bloody hands on a filthy smock when a pounding came at his front door. He froze in place, a frown settling on his handsome features. Mr. Skull’s men were the only ones who knew about this hideout and all of them knocked with a special code: two hard and fast beats, followed by three shorter ones. The vile doctor threw a sheet over the suffering creature stretched across the dining room table. He was continuing his experiments related to the grafting of one dog’s head onto a second one’s body and had experienced limited success, with the grafted head living for up to three hours.
After grabbing a small pistol from under a counter, Pemberley cautiously approached the front door. He stepped over to a nearby window and pulled the shade slightly aside, peering outside. To his surprise, he didn’t see anyone there. He was just about to turn back to the kitchen when he felt the cold barrel of a gun press against the back of his head.
"Put the gun down now," Morgan hissed. "Or I’m going to put a new hole in your head."
"Morgan Watts," Pemberley said. "I wish I could say it was a pleasure." The doctor held the gun out from his body and let it dangle from one finger before it fell to the floor. "How did you get inside? I paid for some very expensive locks."
"There’s not a lock in the world that I can’t break," Lazarus Gray said, entering the room. Morgan glanced at him and saw that his employer looked even more grave than usual. "I put down that poor animal in your kitchen, Pemberley. If there’s such a thing as Hell, you’ve confirmed your place in it."
Pemberley quickly spun around, knocking Morgan’s arm aside. He tried to follow it up with a quick punch to the man’s stomach but Pemberley found his arm in Gray’s iron grip. Lazarus applied enough pressure that Pemberley cried out like a child, falling to his knees. Gray maintained his hold on him.
"A man died tonight, the victim of an acid attack. The skin on his face was burned off. Do you know anything about that?"
Gritting his teeth, Pemberley nodded. He was enough of a realist to know when he was licked and in the face of more abuse, he was quite willing to betray anyone and everyone if it might help his own cause. "Mr. Skull paid me to make it for him. He calls it Bone Dust."
Morgan whistled. "I’ve heard of this Mr. Skull guy, Chief, but I figured he was just a story, a kind of urban bogeyman. They say he doesn’t have any face at all — from the neck up, he’s just bones."
"Is that true?" Gray asked, directing the question to Pemberley.
"Yes. Don’t ask me how but it’s the truth. He’s a sadist. He didn’t just want something that would kill, he wanted something horrible."
Most people who met Lazarus Gray thought that he was relatively emotionless but his closest friends knew the truth: Gray felt disgust and remorse just as strongly as they did, perhaps more so. At the moment, Morgan could see in his employer’s eyes that he hated Pemberley with every fiber of his being. Gray raised his free hand and brought it crashing down on the doctor’s head. The blow was enough to knock him out and Gray dropped his hold on him, allowing the villain to fall onto the floor.
"I’ll truss him up," Morgan offered, taking out some extra-strength cord from his pocket. "Should we call Samantha and Eun — tell them to be on the lookout for this Mr. Skull character?"
"Yes. You take of that, if you don’t mind. I’d like to look around this house and make sure that there aren’t any more monstrosities lurking about."
"Did Miya tell you about your past?"
Gray paused, somewhat surprised by the question. But then he knew that his aides were also more than that — they were friends and they were concerned for his wellbeing. "She told me some things but not enough. I know that I was a part of an occult organization with Walther Lunt and that they did some terrible things. I also know that some memories I’d had about an event in Mexico were slightly misleading — which was a good thing. But I still don’t know my name or how much blood might be on my hands. I’d like to think that my participation in the group might have been attributed to some naïveté on my part and that I left their number when I realized what they were up to… but that might not be the case."
"Well, whatever you did in the past, Chief, it doesn’t define you now. You’ve been given a whole new life and you’ve done so much good since coming to Sovereign that I bet it balances the scales against anything you might have done before."
Lazarus smiled and the sight was so rare that it froze Morgan in the act of tying up Pemberley. "Thank you for that, Morgan. We might have some things in common. Both of us have turned over a new leaf."