“Men call me The Darkling and I don’t work for anyone. In fact, a great many more people work for me than even they realize.”

  “Touchy, aren’t you?” Lazarus paused, shaking his head to clear it. Straining his senses to their limit, he caught the faint whiff of smoke from just to his right—probably a tendril wafting into the air after the mysterious figure had fired his gun a moment before.

  Lazarus threw himself in that direction, slamming hard into the shadowy figure. The man’s exclamation seemed equal parts surprise and pain.

  Now that he had his measure of the man’s presence, Lazarus followed up with a punch that knocked the other man against the coffee table in the center of the room. Books and memorabilia belonging to Lunt spilled all over the floor.

  As Lazarus sought to press his sudden advantage, he reached to where the man should have been but once more his fingers closed on nothing more than air.

  From across the room—much farther away than the man should have been—the laughter came once more, followed by a slow clapping of hands. “Very impressive. Few men have ever laid hands upon me. I tip my hat to you.”

  At that moment, the door to the apartment broke apart, pieces of wood flying. Abby stood there, her dark hair streaming behind her and her eyes glowing with mystic power. Morgan was at her side, gun in hand, and he immediately looked around the room, making sure that Lazarus was unharmed.

  The light that streamed in from the hallway exposed the mysterious Darkling. He was tall and thin, his body cloaked in an ankle-length coat. A low-brimmed hat hid the upper part of his face, while the top of his coat was pulled up high enough to obscure his mouth and chin. What could be seen of his face showed that he wore a black and white mask, giving his features the look of a skull. He held an automatic in each hand and as Morgan burst into the room, he turned both of them upon the former confidence man.

  Morgan reacted with the instincts of a man who had spent the better part of his life dealing with life and death. He hit the ground in a rolling crouch, even as bullets ripped through the wall above him.

  The Darkling spun and sprinted towards the third-floor apartment window. He lowered his shoulder and threw himself against it, shattering the glass and tumbling out into the night air. The mocking laughter that followed his descent was full of madness.

  Lazarus ran to the window, looking at the street below. There was no sign of The Darkling, though his laughter continued on for several more seconds before vanishing.

  “Who the hell was that?” Morgan asked, dusting himself off. He rose a little unsteadily, shaking his head to indicate that he didn’t need any assistance from Abby.

  Lazarus glanced around the room, his eyes narrowing. He knelt on the floor in front of the shattered window, picking up a torn matchbook cover. It bore an image of a Grecian urn surrounded by the words THE ODDYSSEY CLUB. “That,” Lazarus said with a grim expression, “Was our first lead.”

  ***

  Sporrenberg crept along the side of the villa, pausing long enough to peek through one of the windows. There were four men inside, three of whom were agents of the S.S.. Jakob felt a pang of regret upon seeing their uniforms—not long ago, he’d been a member of their order. Despite the fact that he had not subscribed to all of the Führer’s beliefs about racial matters, he had believed in his leader because Hitler had revived German nationalism. He had made young men proud to be Aryan—and that was no small feat, considering the devastation left behind by the Great War.

  The fourth man was older than the S.S. officers. He wore the rank of General but he was unfamiliar to Sporrenberg. This fellow had pockmarked cheeks, dark-ringed eyes and a slender body. He held a riding crop in his right hand and it slapped rhythmically against his leg as he watched his men search the house.

  “If you want, you can stay outside and tiptoe through your memories.”

  Sporrenberg frowned, turning to see Eun’s grinning face. He and the young Korean had verbally sparred during their first few weeks of knowing one another but they had finally buried the hatchet—though it had a tendency to occasionally reappear in one or the other’s back from time to time.

  “Stop sparring, you two,” Samantha said, rolling her eyes. Like the men, she was armed with a rifle. Though she was a crack shot, she was no lover of guns. Given her druthers, she’d prefer to use her judo training against an enemy—something that she shared in common with Eun. “How are we going to play this? Bust in and start shooting? Or are we hoping to take one alive so we can question him?”

  Sporrenberg looked back into the window, his expression suddenly shifting. The room was now empty.

  “Get back!” he hissed. “They know we’re here!”

  His warning came just in time. Even as Samantha and Eun began throwing themselves off the porch, landing in the snow, the Nazis were springing from the sides of the building. Two of them sported rifles and they trained these on those on the ground, the bullets causing the snow to explode in plumes of white. The third man wielded a handgun and he sprang up the steps onto the porch, eager to face Sporrenberg. Of their commander, there was no sign.

  Jakob raised his rifle and slammed the butt of it into his enemy’s shoulder. The Nazi’s gun discharged, shockingly loud at such close range, but the bullet missed Sporrenberg and embedded itself in the side of the villa.

  Sporrenberg slammed his forehead into the man’s face, cracking his nose. As blood streamed down over his mouth, the Nazi uttered a long stream of obscenities in German. Sporrenberg silenced him by firing two shots, both of which found a home in his enemy’s throat.

  Down below, Eun and Samantha had taken temporary shelter beneath the porch, though they could hear the men outside coordinating their next move. A moment later, a grenade came rolling into the dark gloom and Eun sprang upon it without hesitation, snatching it up and hurling it back out onto the snow with all his might. It exploded just out from under the porch and the German who had initially tossed it cried out in pain. He fell forward into the snow, his smoking corpse visible to the members of Assistance Unlimited.

  Eun ran out onto the snow, gun blazing. None of his bullets found a home in the remaining Nazi but they were enough to send his target scrambling for safety. Eun tried to drive the man to the right side of the house, hoping that Samantha was following along his same line of thinking.

  Luckily, she was.

  Just as the Nazi tried to jump behind a snowbank, he found himself face-to-face with the petite member of Assistance Unlimited. She had snuck out from the porch when Eun had sprinted out and taken up a spot where she guessed the Nazi would eventually end up.

  The German hesitated for a moment and that gave Samantha the opening she needed. She performed a beautiful spinning leg kick that cracked the man’s jaw and sent two teeth flying. Before the Nazi could even think about retaliating, she’d thrust the bottom of her right palm against his jaw. Once more quick blow—this time, an elbow to his temple—and the man was out cold.

  “Jakob! Are you okay?” Samantha asked, nudging the man at her feet.

  Sporrenberg leaned over the edge of the porch. “I’m fine but we’re missing one of them—their leader. We should go inside.”

  Samantha and Eun rejoined him and collectively they entered the villa. To their surprise, they found the German officer seated in a chair, nonchalantly lighting a pipe. The acrid aroma of the tobacco leaves flooded the air.

  “Jakob Sporrenberg, ja?” the officer asked. “I recognize you from the many pictures I have seen. You were quite the disappointment. You not only turned your back on the sacred brotherhood but upon the entire nation. And now you travel with women and mongrels.”

  Sporrenberg pointed his weapon at the man, who took a long puff on his pipe before exhaling. “I can’t say that I know who you are,” he said, trying to keep his voice calm. Truth be told, his heart was hammering in his chest. It was one thing to turn his back on his pledges of loyalty… to be confronted with it was another.

  “I am General Luther Strauss.” Sporrenberg paused, his eyes widening. Strauss laughed softly. “Ah, you know the name. I am known to some as Geist.”

  Sporrenberg sensed that his friends were looking to him for guidance. Never taking his eyes off of Geist, he said, “Hitler’s obsession with the occult has led to the formation of something known as the Occult Forces Project. Herr Strauss was one of the early successes of the OFP. But an experiment involving a Tibetan artifact left him as something less than human.”

  Geist shook his head. “Ah, you are wrong, my friend. I am more than human. Much more.”

  “And now you’re working as an errand boy? Digging through a dead man’s house looking for papers?”

  Geist stood up quickly, making Eun and Samantha tense. He regarded them with amusement before turning back to Sporrenberg. “We learned about the communiqué being intercepted very quickly—but I never expected to see agents of the famous Lazarus Gray here.” He lowered his voice. “We can help each other, you know.”

  “Unless you’re talking about keeping the body out of Hitler’s hands, I don’t see how.”

  “Because there’s a race afoot. Yes, The Führer wants those bones… but there is a man known as The Darkling who does, as well. It is in everyone’s best interest to make sure he doesn’t get them first. We work together to do that, then we can sort out which of us gets them afterward.”

  “So you haven’t found any clues?” Sporrenberg prodded.

  Geist reached into his jacket and pulled out an envelope. He removed a dog-eared letter from within. “This is a letter from a man named Felix Moore in Montreal, Canada. It’s dated April 1932. According to this, he says that he received the boxes that Lunt sent him and that they’re being stored in a safe location. I don’t know if there’s any chance of the bones or of a map being in those boxes… but there’s nothing here, so it’s worth a look.”

  “What’s to stop us from taking that letter from you and going after those boxes ourselves?” Eun challenged, taking a few steps closer.

  Geist smiled broadly. “Try it, mongrel.”

  Sporrenberg shook his head to indicate that Eun shouldn’t accept the challenge but it was too late—the fiery Korean was already on the move.

  Eun struck Geist on the side of the head but in the microsecond before his hand made contact, Eun saw something startling take place: the skin on Geist’s face shimmered and faded, leaving behind only the glowing outline where it had been. His skeletal structure was revealed but it was immaterial, allowing Eun’s blow to pass right through it.

  Geist then retaliated, balling his left hand into a fist and shoving it through Eun’s chest. He then partially solidified himself, causing the young hero to scream in agony. Geist stepped back, removing his hand from the man’s body, and allowed his body to shift back into its normal state. “You see?” the German said with obvious pride. “I am far beyond anything you can comprehend. My soul was transported to Hell and back in a blink of an eye. The men and women who witnessed it saw nothing, heard nothing. But I was there… for what felt like months, if not years. I experienced pain and pleasure in equal amounts. And I was transformed.”

  Eun allowed himself to be drawn away by Samantha, who slipped her arms around his shoulders and began speaking to him in soothing tones.

  Sporrenberg sighed and scratched at his head. “We’ll work with you for now, Strauss. But only because you have information that we need—and I don’t want you reporting back to your bosses while you’re with us. Do you understand?”

  Geist gave a stately bow, ignoring the looks of hate that he was receiving from both Eun and Samantha. “As you wish, Herr Sporrenberg. As you wish.”

  Chapter IV

  The Darkling

  It was just past nine p.m. in Manhattan, less than twenty hours since Lazarus Gray had first crossed the paths of the mysterious man that called himself The Darkling.

  For one young crook, meeting that creature of the night was now proving to be a nearly fatal mistake.

  ***

  Johnny Williams felt like his heart was about to explode. It hammered painfully hard in his chest as he rounded the corner and found himself facing the dead end of an alleyway. He unleashed a string of curses that would have made a sailor wince in surprise. He leaned against the wall and steadied himself, reaching into the pockets of his coat so he could reassure himself that his treasures were still there. One of them, his pistol, he pulled out into the open. There was still one bullet in the chamber and he’d have to make it count—or else he’d end up just like Lester and Bobby. They were lying in pools of their own blood a few blocks back.

  The other prize that he carried was left in its pocket, the weight of it causing his coat to lean heavily to the left. Johnny knew how valuable it was but he refused to think about it too much—it unnerved him. He heard footsteps coming towards the alleyway and he raised his gun, prepared to fire the moment he came into view. He’d heard stories that bullets didn’t faze the masked man but he refused to believe that. The Darkling was a human being and that meant he could be killed.

  The footsteps came to a halt and the seconds began to stretch into minutes. Johnny swallowed hard, wondering what the hell The Darkling was up to. His hand was beginning to shake under the strain and he began looking around quickly. There was a small grating nearby and he could hear the rush of water from below. It was a storm sewer and Johnny suddenly gleaned the beginnings of a plan.

  After checking once more to make sure that his pursuer hadn’t entered the alleyway, he hurried over to the grate. He knelt and peered inside. It was too dark to make out much but he thought he saw a small ledge overlooking the rushing water. The rain that had fallen the day before had evidently been heavier than he’d realized.

  Johnny set his gun down on the ground and pulled out the object that was resting so heavily in his pocket. He looked at it for a few brief seconds and that was enough to give him the shivers. It was a skeletal hand, the fingers long and thin, ending in sharp points. The odor of death clung to it, filling his nostrils, and Johnny felt an almost overpowering urge to touch the hand, to fondle it and kiss it. It was an absurd thought, of course, and Johnny thought it was probably one that showed just how close to losing it he really was. His life was on the line and here he was, filled with lust for a dead man’s body part.

  Johnny pried the grating away from the hole and set it aside. He then leaned over and tried to calculate the trajectory he’d need to ensure that the hand landed on the ledge and didn’t fall into the rushing water. He was about to drop the hand when he heard a strange, mocking sort of laugh fill the alleyway.

  “I hope you’re smarter than your friends were, Johnny.”

  The husky voice sounded like it had come from beyond the grave. The words were spoken with no trace of empathy at all. Johnny might as well have been a rock, for all that The Darkling cared. Even though he’d said nothing threatening, Johnny could tell that he placed absolutely no value on his life. The young thug was so scared out of his wits that he didn’t even wonder at how the vigilante had known his name.

  Johnny stood up, letting the hand drop from his grasp. It clattered to the ground, lying beside the open grate. Turning, he came face-to-face with a sight that was usually the final one for all who saw it. It was The Darkling, the underworld’s one-man judge, jury and executioner.

  He stood six feet tall, with a long overcoat that was buttoned down the front. His shoulders were slightly stooped, making Johnny think of his own grandfather, bent with age. A fedora hat was perched low on the Darkling’s head and his face was hidden beneath a white cloth mask that was painted to resemble a skull.

  Johnny had always laughed at the stories that described the man—how could anybody be scared of a dude in a Halloween costume? But now that he was faced with the real thing, Johnny was worried that he was about to piss his pants.

  The Darkling held a pistol in each hand and Johnny, something of a gun nut, recognized the make of them: Smith & Wesson Hand Ejector IIs. The revolver had been introduced a few years before The Great War. Chambered for .45 caliber rounds, the Hand Ejector II normally had a five or six inch barrel but Darkling’s guns had modified barrels that had been cut down to four inches in length.

  Johnny held up both hands, trying to sound braver than he felt. “We were just doin’ a job, man. We were paid for a grab and go… and then we was gonna take the loot to the guy who hired us. Nobody was gonna get hurt.”

  “Tell that to Lamont Jackson. You boys left him with four bullets in his belly while you made off with that hand.”

  Johnny instinctively reached for his gun but his hand froze in midair. He glanced down and saw that he’d forgotten to pick it up off the ground. His eye flicked back to The Darkling, who was now advancing towards him.

  “Last chance, Johnny,” he said. “Kick the hand towards me and then tell me the name of the person who hired you. Or I can just kill you where you stand and find out on my own. Your choice.”

  Johnny didn’t take long to make his decision. He charged The Darkling, lowering his shoulder in hopes that his surprise move would allow him to knock the dark garbed killer aside and gain his freedom. Unfortunately for him, The Darkling spun out of the way, extending one of his legs to trip him up. Johnny hit the ground hard, the impact causing him to bite the tip of his tongue. He struggled to rise, realizing how close he was to death, but The Darkling’s booted foot came down on the center of his back. The Darkling was remarkably strong and Johnny writhed like a bug that had been pinned to a board.

  “You’re dumber than I thought you were,” The Darkling whispered. Johnny whined, especially when he heard the rustle of cloth behind him. He didn’t crane his head to see what the other man was doing. He had a good idea and he didn’t want to have his suspicions confirmed.

  Johnny’s friends had gotten off easy. Their lives had been ended by shots from Darkling’s pistols, their brains reduced to mush when bullets had ripped through their skulls. But Johnny knew the vigilante had picked him for a far worse fate.

 

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