The Adventures of Lazarus Gray (4 page)

"I’m going to let you go,"
Gray said. "And you’re going to open the gate so my friend can
come. And then," he added, looking up at the doctor, who was
watching him with mouth agape, "We’re all going to
talk."

The doctor nodded. "Louie,
do as he says. We don’t have time for this nonsense."

Louie glared at Grey as he
got back to his feet, muttering under his breath as he went to open
the gate for Eun.

The doctor stepped forward
and offered a hand. "Doc Barrington. I recognize you from the
papers, Mr. Gray."

"Is something wrong with
Mr. Nero?"

Barrington looked over at
Louie and obviously made a decision to share information with Gray.
"He’s sick, deathly so. There’s nothing I can do for him here. He
has to be taken to a hospital or he won’t last through the
day."

"May I see him?"

Barrington consented,
knowing the many stories that swirled around Lazarus Gray. It was
said the man had once performed delicate heart surgery in the
middle of a filthy alleyway, using only a pocketknife. Louie
followed right on their heels, glaring at Eun the whole
way.

"What’s the problem, big
fella?" Eun chided. "Jealous that I’m better dressed than
you?"

"Shaddup," Louie muttered.
"None of you guys are supposed to be in here. Mr. Nero’s gonna get
my goat for this."

"I’m afraid your employer
isn’t in the position to terrorize anyone right now," Barrington
said. The doctor led them through an impressive home, furnished so
expensively that it crossed the line from opulence to garishness.
As they neared the room where Nero was resting, an unpleasant odor
filled the air. It was reminiscent of spoiled meat and Eun had to
raise a hand over his face to keep from gagging. He noticed that
Louie came to a halt, well away from the door. If the smell
bothered Barrington or Gray, neither man gave any sign of
it.

Nero was sitting up in a
chair, a blanket covering his legs. A window near him was opened,
letting in what passed for fresh air in Sovereign. Gray had seen
numerous pictures of Nero and the man before him only bore a
passing resemblance to him. Nero looked thin and emaciated, the
skin drawn taut against his skeleton. He wore a robe that hung
loosely from him, evidence of how much weight he had
lost.

"How long has he been like
this?" Gray asked.

"He came in for an
appointment two weeks ago and was perfectly fine. But yesterday I
got the call that he was sick. I found him like this. Both he and
Louie assure me that he’s been eating and drinking but he continues
to waste away. He’s lost seven pounds since last night. It’s like
he’s just drying up before my eyes."

Lazarus noticed that Eun
straightened at the doctor’s words. Scanlon had reported similar
symptoms after his encounter with the phantom-eyed girl. Given the
fact that a car registered to Nero had been seen with the girl in
tow, this seemed confirmation that Nero had come into contact with
her.

Gray approached Nero and
pulled up a chair so that he could examine him. Nero’s eyes were
sunken orbs and there was a general air of malaise about him. Gray
suspected that not even a state-of-the-art hospital would be able
to save the man at this point. Soon, organ failure would be setting
in. "Mr. Nero. I need to ask you about a girl."

Barrington looked confused
but Eun placed a hand on his arm and gestured for silence. Louie
was still outside the room, as if being near his employer in this
state was too much for him.

"A week ago," Gray
continued, "a young woman was kidnapped outside a tavern here. The
man who had been with her says that she was quite beautiful but
that her eyes possessed unusual properties: he described them as
phantom eyes. The car she was bundled into belongs to you. Do you
know her?"

Nero took a deep, rattling
breath and slowly nodded his head. "They took her. I was trying to
help her but they won’t let her go. Not after all the money they
spent on her eyes."

"Who are they?"

Nero licked his lips and
his eyes fixed on something past Gray’s shoulder. His voice sounded
paper-thin. "She was such a lovely thing growing up. I loved her
with all my heart but I put such pressure on her. I’d wanted a son,
you see. And nothing she did was ever quite going to make up for
the lack of a son."

Gray turned his head, his
eyes finding the object that was holding Nero’s attention. There
was a photograph on the wall of a gorgeous young woman, wearing a
white skirt and a violet blouse. She was hanging on the arm of
Jonathan Nero, a bright smile on her face. "She’s your
daughter?"

"Yes. Her name is
Wilma."

Gray reached out and
squeezed Nero’s hand, feeling the bones under the shifting flesh.
"Tell me who has your daughter."

"She’s with Doc Pemberley
and his gang."

Eun gasped. Pemberley was a
discredited scientist who had been busted for conducting
experiments on vagrants and runaways. The man sometimes sold his
services to various mob bosses as well, creating gases and weapons
that aided them in their nefarious exploits. Gray had finally
brought the man to justice about six months ago but Pemberley had
gotten off on a technicality. He’d fled the city in the aftermath
and, until now, Eun hadn’t known he’d returned. The young Korean
looked over at his employer but, as usual, Gray had his poker face
on and was revealing nothing of his own thoughts.

"Please tell me more," Gray
pressed.

Nero groaned, prompting
Barrington to say, "I don’t think this is wise. He’s far too weak.
He needs to be in a hospital."

He’s going to die," Gray
said firmly. He saw no surprise in Nero’s eyes at that
proclamation. The poor man knew this to be fact. He could feel it,
after all. "Before he passes, let him help me save his
daughter."

"She fell in love with
Pemberley’s son," Nero whispered, losing strength. "I forbade her
to see him but you know how young people are. All of that only made
her want to be with him more. Eventually, the boy died after
volunteering to help his father with his experiments. Then the
bastard turned his attentions to my daughter. He did something to
her eyes, turned her into a host for something awful. And when she
escaped, she was too afraid to come home to me. People who are
around her… they suffer. The thing inside her needs to
feed
." Nero coughed and tiny flecks of red and white dotted
his lips. "Somebody at that bar recognized her, though, and gave me
a call. I sent my boys to bring her home."

"How did she end up with
Pemberley again?"

"It made her go back to
him."

"What did? This thing you
said is inside her? What is it?"

Nero’s body began to
shudder and a rattling sound emanated from his throat. Barrington
rushed forward and tried his best but there was nothing to be done.
Jonathon Nero, as powerful a figure as any in Sovereign, was
dead.

Lazarus stood, leaving the
room while Barrington was checking for any last signs of life. He
and Eun hurried past Louie in the hallway, exiting the house before
the big man could ask what was wrong.

"What now, Chief?" Eun
asked. "We gonna stop in and see Doc Pemberley?"

"We need to check in on
Morgan and Samantha immediately."

Eun slid into the passenger
seat of the car, suddenly realizing that he wasn’t sure what the
duo had been assigned to do. "Where are they?"

The strong line of Gray’s
jaw tightened. "They’re supposed to be visiting Doc Pemberley right
now."

"What in the world are you
talking about, Chief?"

Gray kept his eyes on the
road but he was able to recount for Eun the reasons behind their
associates’ current mission. As usual, it involved the fact that
Lazarus kept his cards close to the vest and rarely shared all the
facts with anyone, including his employees.

"After speaking to Mr.
Scanlon, I was struck by what he said about the young woman’s eyes.
He called them Phantom Eyes."

"So?"

"When I helped bring Doc
Pemberley to justice, I took it upon myself to go through his
files. I found several references to some kind of surgery that he
had dubbed The Phantom Eyes Project. It involved grafting some sort
of parasite behind the eyes. It would derive its nutrition from the
moisture found in living beings. If a victim could be found, the
creature was able to absorb moisture through physical contact, a
process that would lead to the host’s eyes glowing. In the absence
of a victim, the parasite would begin feasting upon the moisture
found in its host body until they were drained dry. Sometime last
month, I heard unconfirmed rumors that Pemberley had returned to
this city. I managed to trace him to a brownstone on Maxwell
Street."

Eun tapped his chin
thoughtfully. "But what kind of creature could do that, though?
I’ve never heard of anything that could do those
things."

Gray glanced at him and the
look on his face chilled Eun to the very core of his being. "That’s
because it’s not a creature of this world."

Chapter IV

The Eyes of Doom

Melvin Pemberley was fifty
years old, though he could pass for a man in his mid-thirties. He
was handsome in an Aryan sort of way, with short-cut blond hair,
blue eyes that resembled chipped polar ice and a coolly efficient
manner of conducting himself. He tended to wear the type of white
lab coats so often associated with scientists and was rarely found
without a pair of surgical gloves on his hands.

Doc Pemberley’s appearance
generally caused people to believe he was a hard-working man
dedicated to science. The truth was a good bit more sinister.
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.

And then there was the
peculiar interest in the macabre.

Doc Pemberley was not only
a world-class authority on scientific matters, he was also an
amateur occultist, with a collection of books that would be the
envy of almost any parapsychologist in the world. Even the good men
and women at Miskatonic University would have been impressed by his
holdings. He had one of several books that had been personally
bound by the infamous Felix Cole, whose skills in handling the
works of the damned were impeccable.

The combination of good
looks, remarkable intelligence and a total lack of morals made Doc
Pemberley a very, very dangerous man.

He was presently living in
a rented brownstone located not more than three blocks from the
harbor. He had a gang who worked for him, dangerous enforcers who
didn’t mind breaking the necks of those who bothered their boss.
His activities were funded through a wide variety of jobs he took
for the various crime lords in the city. He worked for them all,
creating weapons of hideous damage for each. The fact that he sold
to their enemies as well didn’t deter any underworld boss from
doing business with him. He was simply that good at killing
people.

Doc Pemberley walked up the
stairs to the second story of his home, moving so quietly that the
two men assigned to guard a certain door didn’t hear him. Their
names were Vince and Coley and they were little more than vicious
dogs on two legs. They would have worked for Pemberley for free as
long as he kept providing violent entertainment.

Vince’s voice carried a bit
more and his words were what had led to Pemberley’s decision to use
stealth. "That girl needs to be put down. Did you see what she did
to Jake? The guy looked like a prune when he died. It was like
every bit of water in the guy had been drained out!"

Coley shifted his weight
from foot to foot. He was a good bit shorter than Vince and a lot
stockier. "The Doc says she can’t really control it so it ain’t her
fault."

"A rabid animal attacks and
attacks ‘cause it’s sick in the brain," Vince retorted. "It ain’t
really its fault, right? But you still gotta kill it or it’s just
gonna hurt more people. Same with this dame."

"The Doc says--"

"I know what Pemberley
says! But the man’s got a screw loose and everybody knows it! I
like the guy ‘cause he keeps us busy, you know? But maybe this is
one time he ain’t thinking straight."

"Gentlemen."

Vince and Coley both froze
in place, their heads turning in unison toward Pemberley. He stood
very close to Vince, his hands pushed deep into the pockets of his
lab coat.

"Boss," Vince said,
sounding a bit shaky. Though he was far larger than Pemberley,
there was no denying the fear that shone in his eyes. "I want to
explain."

"There’s no need,"
Pemberley replied. "I understand completely."

Vince sighed, looking
relieved. "You do? That’s great. I was just saying that I thought
maybe you were wrong on this one. Nobody’s perfect,
right?"

"Certainly. I obviously
made a mistake when I hired you." Pemberley’s right hand slid from
his pocket, a scalpel held in his palm. The hallway light flashed
off its polished surface. Doc Pemberley swung the weapon with
practiced ease, expertly slicing through Vince’s throat in such a
way that there would be no hope of saving him. He was going to
bleed out right there in the hallway.