Keeping his head just out of the range of the villain’s flickering flames, Gray lowered his voice and whispered, "You don’t strike me as an occultist, Mr. Montreux. If I had the time, I’d love to know how you managed to turn yourself into this monstrosity… but in the end, it doesn’t matter. You’re a threat to everyone you come into contact with."
"I’m going to pour the Bone Dust right down your throat!" Mr. Skull bellowed.
"No. You’re not. Enigha m’luktu omnarium. Varily’u fedda b’eginas!"
The strange words that Lazarus Gray said were delivered almost under his breath and yet all of his aides, even battle wounded Eun, reacted to them. They saw their employer’s emerald colored eye glow brightly as he said those awful phrases. These were words that were part of a lost tongue, ancient even when Atlantis sank beneath the waves. They were a litany of power, spoken by men who had bartered their souls for the dark gifts. It terrified them to know that Lazarus Gray knew them.
The flames around Garrison’s head began to die out and the light in his empty sockets dimmed. He began to cry out in alarm and pain but his words were gibberish, bundled up in shock and horror. When the final flame died out, he slumped in Gray’s grasp, his soul having been driven from its mortal shell. To the nether realms the demon had been banished once more and to the dark, stygian depths of Hell went the soul of Garrison Montreux.
It was Morgan who found the courage to ask what they were all thinking. "Chief… What the heck were those things you were saying?"
Gray set down Mr. Skull’s body with far more dignity than Eun thought it deserved. "It was a spell from a book entitled Chaldean Magic. There are only a handful of copies in existence so I’m not quite sure where he would have found one. When I saw his physical appearance, I recognized what spell had been used." Gray noticed that his friends were watching him with shocked expressions and his normally emotionless face relaxed a bit, soothing their concerns. "I used to be a specialist in spells relating to the binding and summoning of demons. I’d forgotten that until earlier this evening. That phone call I received back at HQ sparked something in me."
Samantha, leaning against Morgan for support, asked, "So do you remember anything else?"
"Several things."
"Do you know your real name?"
Gray paused, his gaze shifting away from Samantha’s. He appeared to be considering something quite important and when he spoke, his words carried great conviction. "Yes. I do. It’s Lazarus Gray."
Epilogue
Miya was furious as she hurried down the stairs to the waiting taxi. The driver had been given instructions to take her directly to the airport, where she had plans to fly back to Europe. She was going to inform the rest of The Cabal that Walther had ruined her plans and betrayed valuable information to the man once known as Richard Winthrop.
She carried her heavy bags out to the car and set them down, expecting the driver to get out and help her. When he didn’t, she moved around to look at him. He was lying unconscious behind the wheel, a nasty looking bruise on his left temple.
"Miya. Don’t move."
The cool barrel of a gun pressed against the back of her head and Miya’s shoulders slumped. "Lazarus. Or do you prefer Richard now?"
"Lazarus will do. Where’s Walther?"
"Gone. Now that you know who you are, he believes we won’t be able to recruit you. He’s going to kill you. That’s what he wanted to do all along."
"And you?"
Miya did turn now, staring past the gun into the eyes of the man she used to regard as a lover. "I’m loyal to The Illuminati but I do care for you. I want you to be with me. I know that you’ve always been uncomfortable with some of their methods but I think we can change them from within. This organization has been around for centuries. It can’t be destroyed — the best we can do is try to mold it."
Gray’s face betrayed no emotion whatsoever. "I don’t remember everything, Miya, but I remember enough. That group is evil. They want to control the minds of men and women throughout the world. I can’t let that happen."
"Are you willing to kill me?"
"I’d like to see you brought to justice."
"But there’s no crime you can pin on me. If you turn me over to the authorities, I’ll be free by the end of the night."
"I know that. And that’s why I’m going to let you go."
Miya couldn’t hide her surprise but she recovered quickly. "You do love me, don’t you?"
Gray gave a curt shake of his head. "That’s not why I’m allowing you to walk free. Like you said, there’s only so much I can do to hold you legally. So this is what I want to do: I know you’ve bought tickets on a plane headed to London. I want you to go there and I want you to tell The Illuminati that I’m watching them. I plan to destroy their organization piece-by-piece and brick-by-brick. If they stay out of Sovereign, they might last a bit longer… but if they force my hand, I won’t rest until every last one of you is dead. Do you understand?"
Miya saw nothing in his eyes to suggest that he didn’t mean every word that he said. She shivered and wasn’t sure if it was because a soft drizzle had begun to fall or if it was because she was staring at a man who had just sworn her eventual destruction. "I don’t want us to be enemies, Lazarus."
"Then you need to turn against the people you work with."
"I can’t do that. It’s madness to fight them."
Lazarus took a step back, lowering his weapon. "Then get out of my sight. And never come back."
Miya looked like she wanted to say more but in the end, she merely returned to loading her bags into the car. When she was done, she turned to look at Lazarus one last time…
But he had vanished, as quietly and as quickly as a fading memory.
THE AXEMAN OF SOVEREIGN CITY
Chapter I
Terror in the City
It was nine o’clock in the evening and a man sat in his office, reading a newspaper.
There were several factors that made this simple-sounding scene remarkable: the location of his office, the headline on the newspaper’s front page, and the man himself.
The man in question was tall and well sculpted. His hair was mostly gray though there were patches of brown interspersed. Despite the salt-and-pepper hair, he was in his late twenties and obviously quite vital and strong. His face was set in grim determination and his eyes were startling. One of his eyes was a dusky, dull brown in color while the other was emerald green.
He was Lazarus Gray, known and far wide as the founder of Assistance Unlimited. A mysterious stranger who had literally washed up on the shores of Sovereign City, Gray’s memory was a series of patchwork images, providing him with only the barest knowledge of who he had once been. Having awakened with a bronze medallion in his possession, depicting the image of a nude man with the head of a lion and the words "Lazarus Gray" imprinted beneath it, he had chosen the name as his own.
The place in which Gray sat was a former hotel located on Robeson Avenue. Three stories tall, the building contained numerous offices, labs and meeting rooms, as well as living quarters for the four members of the squad.
Two of those members were in the room with Gray now: Eun Jiwon, a Korean youth with dark hair and angry eyes, stood with arms folded while Samantha Grace, a stunning blonde with peaches-and-cream skin, sat perched on the side of Gray’s desk, long legs crossed in front of her.