Eun tossed aside the harpoon gun — it was a powerful weapon but the weight of it and the ammunition made it impractical to use for very long. As the young Korean dropped into a fighting stance, The Claw hissed at him in fury.
Kelly, meanwhile, was using every ounce of strength to yank the shrapnel out of Gray’s belly. The normally placid features of her former lover were now twisted into a mask of pain but he stood up despite the fact he was losing blood at a prodigious rate. "Thank you, Kelly. Now please — get to safety."
"You’re in no shape for fighting," she began but Gray was already on the move.
The Claw was struggling to move — the harpoon was now much larger in relation to his shrunken body and it was almost impossible for him to remain upright.
Lazarus grabbed hold of the point of the harpoon and used it drive The Claw to his knees. "Surrender," he hissed between clenched teeth.
The Claw turned baleful yellow eyes upon him. "Never."
Lazarus stared at the God of Hate and felt bile rise up in his throat. He suddenly knew why the monster was here and why innocents had died along the way. "They sent you here, didn’t they? They wanted you to kill me."
"You frighten them," The Claw whispered. "They hate you with every fiber of their being."
"Then let’s give them reason to do so." Gray motioned for Eun to come over and take over for him. The young man grabbed hold of the harpoon, twisting it painfully every time The Claw looked like he was starting to resist.
Gray removed his second handgun and swapped out the clip that it held. Part of his arsenal consisted of explosive shells that looked like ordinary bullets. But they carried enormous power that could blow a hole in an elephant. He held the barrel against The Claw’s head now and his mismatched eyes — one emerald green, the other a dull brown — seemed to shine with an inner fire. "Go back to Hell."
"This will not be the end of me," The Claw gasped, each word punctuated by a flow of blood from his neck.
"Let’s test that, shall we?"
Several days later, the entire Assistance Unlimited group sat together in one of the expansive meeting rooms of their headquarters. Morgan and Samantha had returned from Paris the night before and the story that Morgan had revealed had left the entire room feeling somewhat despairing.
"So we’re not just dealing with a worldwide conspiracy… we’re trying to prevent the return of The Old Ones?" Samantha looked pretty in a peach-colored dress but the look on her face was so grave that not even Morgan felt like flirting with her.
"We already knew it was going to be tough," Eun countered. "This doesn’t change anything."
"That thing I saw," Morgan whispered, "It was… wrong. I don’t know how else to describe it. I can still see it when I close my eyes, can still hear the noises it made. We have to not just stop them… we have to destroy them."
"That’s not going to be easy," Eun said. "I was there when Lazarus blew the head off The Claw. And do you know what happened? The thing’s body turned to smoke. He’s not dead. He’s still out there."
Morgan nodded. "Maybe so. But I killed that little bastard that was in the box. They can die. Maybe we’ve just got to get them so weak first that they can’t perform their magic…."
Gray cleared his throat and all eyes turned to him. He was dressed in a somber black suit and tie, his handsome face looking as still as the grave. "Morgan got us some useful information while in Paris and our defeat of The Claw will let The Illuminati know that we’re not to be trifled with. We have to consider this a victory."
"Won’t they just send The Claw back after you? Or somebody even worse?" Samantha asked.
"In time, yes. But for now I think we’ve given them enough to think about that Sovereign should be free of their influence for the time being." Gray stood up, smoothing down his suit. "And now I’d like to take all of you out to dinner."
Morgan blinked in surprise. The group often ate together in the dining room but they’d never gone out en masse before. "What’s the occasion, Chief?"
"As I said, we’ve won some hard-earned victories lately. And I want to show my appreciation to all of you. Though it’s not always easy for me to admit it, we’re more than coworkers. We’re friends."
Eun cleared his throat, exchanging a glance with Samantha. "Mind if I invite somebody along?"
"Not at all. I think we’d all like to meet this mystery person you’ve been dating. I imagine he’ll fit right in."
Eun smiled, relaxing a bit. He instinctively knew that Samantha hadn’t told his secrets: Lazarus simply saw the truth, as he always did. "Thank you."
Lazarus nodded. "So. Where shall we go?"
"Italian."
"A steak house."
"That deli on 8th Street."
The group looked around at each other and everyone abruptly began to laugh. It was a good sound, Lazarus decided. He hoped to hear more of it as the days went by.
DARKNESS, SPREADING ITS WINGS OF BLACK
Chapter I
Birds of a Feather
Maurice Chapman opened a small white container and pushed a rubber-gloved finger into the white material it contained. He then smeared the grease under his nose, wincing slightly. He offered the container to the two people who were in the autopsy room with him: the dainty, beautiful Samantha Grace and her employer, the tall and thin Lazarus Gray. "You’ll want some of this," Maurice said when neither of his guests took the container.
"We’ll be fine," Gray answered, his mismatched eyes focused on the body that was hidden beneath a white sheet. The corpse’s feet extended past the sheet and he could see that her toes had been painted red, probably a week or so before the murder. The paint was chipped in places and in need of a touch-up. The scent of medicinal products and cleansers was almost overwhelming, but it didn’t come close to matching the odor of putrification that arose from the dead body.
Chapman resisted the urge to press the matter. He was sixty-two years old, born and raised in the cesspool that was Sovereign City. He’d seen burly cops enter his lab and turn away vomiting at the things he showed them. He knew false bravado when he saw it — and neither of these two were displaying it. Lazarus Gray looked like a man who had seen enough death to no longer be disturbed by it. Chapman studied him for a moment, having read about the man in the newspapers but never having met him before. The head of Assistance Unlimited’s hair was more gray than brown, making him look older than he was, though a close examination of his features revealed that he was in his late twenties. He was tall and slender, though with a rangy musculature that indicated he could more than hold himself in a fight.
The girl was another matter entirely and it was only because Chapman had known the girl during her youth that he knew she was more than she appeared. A stunning blonde whose parents were wealthy philanthropists, Samantha had grown up with every opportunity possible. She could speak five languages fluently, was a champion swimmer, and was a veritable encyclopedia on topics as varied as fashion, European history, and the socio-political climate of the Orient. Chapman would normally have balked at having a female in his lab, especially when he was about to show off a corpse in this state — but Samantha Grace was no mere slip of a girl, despite how she might look at first glance.