The Adventures of Lazarus Gray by Barry Reese Page A

man
with a lot of anger in his heart. As such, he actually found it
easier to work along Lazarus, who rarely pushed or prodded him on
an emotional level. But that didn’t mean that he didn’t love
Samantha and Morgan. They were all part of the Assistance Unlimited
family, despite their differences in methods. "Last one over is a
rotten egg."
    Samantha arched an eyebrow.
"Are you challenging me?"
    "Are you afraid of
losing?"
    "Oh!" Samantha stifled a
laugh. "You’re on." The slender girl kicked off her high heels and
stuffed them into the small handbag she was carrying. She slipped
the leather bag straps over her left arm and threw herself against
the fence. She scrambled up like a monkey and threw herself over
with abandon. She landed in a crouch, her skirt billowing about.
She looked up triumphantly to see that Eun was already there,
leaning against the fence.
    "Sorry," he said with a
shrug and a cocky grin. "I do believe you’re the rotten
egg."
    Samantha stood up and
quickly put her shoes back on. "Scoundrel," she said
teasingly.
    The two of them grew quiet
as one of the ninja rounded the corner. The black-garbed man didn’t
see them and he stopped so that he was standing with his back to
the house. He pulled away the cloth covering his face and Eun saw
clearly that he was Japanese. As they watched in silence, they saw
him take out a cigarette and light it. He had just begun to smoke
it in earnest when Eun crept up next to him and put the barrel of
his gun against the ninja’s head.
    "Make a sound and I’ll kill
you," Eun promised. It was something of a hollow threat since none
of Assistance Unlimited killed unless it was absolutely necessary
to save either his or her own life or someone else’s.
    The ninja’s eyes widened as
Samantha came into view. "The two of you are making a mistake," the
ninja said with only the faintest hint of an accent. "Turn and
leave now and you might get out of here alive."
    Eun tapped a symbol on the
black cloth. There was a circle surrounding a heart, with blood
dripping below. "What does this mean?"
    "We are Black Heart," the
ninja said, obviously thinking that would be explanation
enough.
    "I’ve heard of them,"
Samantha said. "I didn’t know they were… ninjas or whatever you
called them. They’re killers for the mob."
    "We perform a needed
function," the ninja retorted. He flicked his cigarette to the
ground. "We do jobs for the mob but that doesn’t mean we work for
them."
    "Then whom do you work
for?" Eun asked, pressing the gun harder against the man’s head.
"Mr. Goodwill?"
    The ninja struck quickly,
driving an elbow up against Eun’s arm, knocking his gun hand toward
the sky. The ninja kicked Eun in the stomach before turning on
Samantha. From the look in his eyes, he obviously expected to make
quick work of the girl.
    Unfortunately for him,
Samantha Grace was far more than she appeared. Raised by
philanthropic parents who were willing to pay for any tutelage she
desired, Samantha was a mistress of several forms of martial arts.
She nimbly stepped aside when the ninja lunged for her, delivering
a powerful chop to the back of his neck as he passed. She then
finished him off, kicking him hard in the rump, knocking him
headfirst into the tree where Eun had been perched only moments
before.
    Samantha held out a hand
and helped Eun get back to his feet. "Hope you don’t mind that you
were saved by a rotten egg."
    Eun brushed himself off.
"Not at all. Thank you."
    The two of them peered
around the corner and saw that they were momentarily in the clear.
They sprinted across the yard and ducked inside a side door on the
house. Once inside, they paused in a hallway, keeping their voices
barely above a whisper.
    "Now what?" Eun
asked.
    Samantha shrugged.
Originally, they were supposed to nose around and look for clues
about how Goodwill tied in to those papers. But given the number of
Black Heart ninjas running around, it seemed that the man was
involved in something dirty no