Los Angeles, California – 1954

It had been months since Dutch Van Zandt had a woman. And now that he did he had her every way he could. And what a woman.

Lucille Somerset. Tall for a dame. Five feet, eight inches and big where you wanted it. But at six-foot-six and two-forty Dutch Van Zandt made her look small.

A rare Los Angeles thunderstorm raged outside and the lightning flashes danced off of Lucille’s curves, and the jewelry she wore even in bed. Between the din of the rain and thunder, the creaking joints of the bed frame, and Lucille’s wails, moans, and growls Dutch never would have heard the killer.

It was the lightning that saved him.

Taking a breather with Lucille doing all the work on top, he saw the killer in a flash of blue light. Saw the long knife in his hand.

And in that lightning flash Dutch acted.

He grabbed the lamp on his bedside table and hurled it at the assassin. He threw Lucille off of him and leaped from the bed. The killer had barely recovered before Dutch was on him. Dutch grabbed the arm that held the knife with his big hands.

The knifeman was strong but he wasn’t used to being attacked, and especially not by the likes of Dutch Van Zandt. Dutch pinned the knife-arm to the man’s chest and headbutted him, smashing the killer’s nose.

With most men that would have been a deciding blow, but the killer just grinned. Blood from his nose oozed down over his wormy lips and spread across his oddly perfect teeth. He headbutted Dutch back.

Dutch turned just in time to take the brunt of the blow to his cheek. Still, it was so powerful that it knocked him back, breaking his grip on the knife arm.

He backed up, making some distance. His gaze fell on that large knife. He looked around for something to even the odds. His .38 was in its holster on the other side of the room. He would never make it. As the killer licked his bloody lips and stalked forward Dutch reached down and snatched up the small rug from the floor. He whipped it at the other man’s knife hand and caught the blade with it. It sliced up through the fabric to the hilt. Dutch jerked the rug back and yanked the knife from the killer’s grip and threw it to the floor.

Dutch charged forward with powerful blows to the killer’s face and body. The assassin was tough and he was fast, but Dutch had the home field advantage. He knew the layout of the room even in the darkness between lightning strikes. He backed the other man into a desk chair and sent him toppling over.

It was then that the black-clad cutthroat made a fatal mistake. He turned his back on Dutch, rolling over to get back to his feet. And as he pulled himself up with help from the windowsill Dutch stomped on the middle of his back, driving his chin down onto the sill and cracking his head back like a PEZ dispenser. The killer dropped in a heap on the floor.

Dutch reached down and grabbed the man by the back of his black collar and hefted him up.  He held his big, limp body up by the kind of black cloak that Jack the Ripper would have worn. It had flaps and everything.

He wanted to get a look at the man’s face but got distracted by the tattoo on the back of his neck. It was a strange, black design. Dutch was thinking how it almost looked like an old-fashioned keyhole when the dead man lifted his head.

The killer’s head turned almost all the way around on his broken neck and laughed. It was a cold, dry sound like dead leaves make when you step on them.

In the face of something so impossible, Dutch’s instincts took over. Without a thought, he hurled the killer with all his might through the window. Even from five stories up Dutch heard him hit the pavement below.

He turned to check on Lucille but she was gone. He looked out at his living room and saw she’d left the front door flung open.

Damn, he thought. He never wanted a woman more than he did after a killing. He went to the shattered window to look for her down on the street but she wasn’t there.

And neither was the killer.

 

For a man in Dutch Van Zandt’s line of work it paid to have friends on the force. Officially, that line of work was Security Consultant for the motion picture business. Unofficially, he was a fixer and a hatchet man for Hollywood higher-ups.

He got dressed and called Dave Hapgood with Hollywood Vice. Ordinarily he would have swept this sort of thing under the rug but when you throw a man through a fifth floor apartment window you’re bound to have witnesses. Besides, he couldn’t be sure that Lucille hadn’t run straight to the nearest flatfoot and spilled her guts about the whole thing.

“What do you mean he’s gone?” Dave asked while his unis sniffed around the place. He was a good looking son of a bitch. An ex boxer who had managed to keep his face and had no shortage of inborn charm. A hellhound for the Hollywood Vice Squad.

“I mean he got up and walked away,” Dutch said.

“You saw him get up?” Dave asked.

“I threw the bastard out the window,” Dutch said. “I turned around to check on my date and when I looked back he was gone.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Dave put his hands up. “Date?”

“What am I, a monk?” Dutch said.

“Easy, big fella,” Dave said. “If you had company during the attack I’m gonna need her statement.”

Dutch didn’t like it but he knew Dave was right.

“Her name’s Lucille Somerset,” he said. “She lives in Hancock Park.” Dutch coughed up her address and phone number.

“Hancock Park?” Dave said. “Sounds classy. I should get a classy lady.”

“Why don’t you?” Dutch asked.

“I’ve only got the one cheap suit.”

Dutch described the attacker as best he could. He didn’t tell Dave about the man not dying from a broken neck. But he did grab a pen and a notepad and draw the strange tattoo.

“You ever seen that before?” he asked.

“Nah,” Dave said. “I don’t get modern art.”

The unis bagged the knife and dusted for prints. The report would probably go to Robbery-Homicide but since Dave was the responding officer he could keep an eye on it. When it was all over Dutch swept up the glass shards but left the broken window uncovered. He laid awake in bed all night listening the rain. He thought of the thrill of Lucille’s body and the white-hot charge of the evening’s violence. He hoped for more of both.

 

Lucille called the next morning with a tide of apologies.

“I’m absolutely mortified,” she said. “I can’t believe I just ran out on you like that.”

“Don’t beat yourself up about it,” Dutch tried to put her at ease. “What else could you have done?”

“I don’t know,” she said, exasperated. “Called for help. Hit him with something!”

Dutch laughed.

“Leave that sort of thing to me,” he said.

“You must think I’m some kind of frail.”

“Not you,” he said. “You’re all broad.”

“Oh stop it,” she laughed. It wasn’t deep, but it had depth. It was that laugh that had first gotten his attention. He heard it across the ballroom one night at Ciro’s. One of Jack Whalen’s big bashes. Dark hair, green eyes, red dress. What chance did he have?

She lived alone. Had family money. She said she was an artist. Sculptures. She never let Dutch see them. Kept them locked up in her garage. But he didn’t mind. He didn’t know from art anyway.

“I want to see you tonight,” he said.

“You can’t be serious.”

“I’m as serious as a knife in the dark.”

“All right,” she agreed.

They skipped dinner and jumped straight into the sack, picking up where they left off. Only this time Dutch was rougher with her. And that’s just how she wanted it. Making her pay for running out on him.

Afterward they laid in bed, Lucille running her sculptor’s hands all over his body. She stroked his broad chest. She squeezed his big arms. She draped herself on top of him and kissed his face a hundred times. They were like that every night for a week. And each night was better than the one before.

A few days later he got a call from Dave Hapgood. The killer had left no prints in Dutch’s apartment or on the knife. But Dutch was certain he’d worn no gloves. The knife itself was some foreign job with a blade of solid silver.

He didn’t know how, but he was certain the killer was out there somewhere. And a man like that could not allow Dutch to live.

 

Dutch kept an office on the Warner Brothers lot. They were expanding the property and adding more buildings. The place was a mess of construction crews, trucks, and heavy machinery. There had been complaints about some pervert sniffing around the ladies dressing room. The whole thing was a big fucking headache.

When Dutch walked into his office there were three men waiting for him. He made two of them for feds right off the bat. The matching black suits and hats were a dead giveaway.

The third man was something else entirely. He was lounging on the leather couch by the door. He wore a cream colored three-piece suit and a white hat with a black band.

The two feds looked at Dutch filling the doorway and straightened up.

“You must be Van Zandt,” said the tall one.

“That’s what it says on the door,” Dutch said. He came inside, crowding the already cramped office with his massive frame and making no effort to make room.

“I’m Special Agent Hanson,” the tall fed said. “This is Special Agent Lundy,” he gestured to the stout one. Dutch wondered why feds always seemed to be paired up like that.

“We’re with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

Dutch caught them glance at the man in the white hat. No one introduced him and Dutch could tell that his presence made the two agents uncomfortable.

“What can I do for you fellas?” Dutch asked as he walked to the far side of his desk, putting it between him and the three other men.

“Well first of all, we wanted to offer our thanks and congratulations on that bit of business down in Mexico last year.”

That “bit of business” was the Soviet hit squad that took a run at John Wayne while he was filming a picture down in Chihuahua. Apparently, Crazy Joe Stalin hated the Duke so bad that he ordered to have him whacked just before he died. Too bad for him Dutch was keeping an eye on Wayne at the time.

Dutch killed four men down there in the desert.

He was still getting tight off the case of bourbon that Wayne had given him in thanks.

“Well you boys didn’t have to come all the way down here for that,” he said. “I got a letter from J. Edgar around here somewhere.”

The feds stiffened. The man in the white hat grinned.

Lundy pulled a piece of paper from inside his coat pocket and placed it on the desk.

“What can you tell us about this?”

It was the drawing of the killer’s tattoo. The one Dutch had given to Dave Hapgood.

“It was tattooed on a man who tried to kill me the other night.” Dutch took off his gray blazer, revealing his .38 in its shoulder holster. “But you already knew that.”

“We’re working with the Los Angeles Police Department on another matter,” Hanson said. “But this came across our attention.”

“Your friend Hapgood’s quite a guy,” Lundy said, sitting on the edge of Dutch’s desk. “He’s got quite a tidy side business skimming scratch off of pushers and whores.”

Dutch leaned forward with his hands on his desk. His arms bulged in his short sleeves.

“Which makes him no worse than any other vice dick in fiftystates,” Dutch said. “Now get your fat ass off my desk before I make your faggot boss buy me a new one.”

“You wise-ass-” Lundy stood up, all indignant heft, but the man in the white hat cut him off at the knees.

“I wouldn’t, Lundy.” He said it the way you would tell a slow kid not to touch a dog that bites. “I really wouldn’t.”

That was more than enough to cool the stout fed. Hanson stepped in.

“We read the report,” he said, moving quickly to salvage things. “We believe that marking is linked to a group of assassins out of Stalingrad. Handpicked by the KGB, expertly trained, cold-blooded killers.”

“I know they’ve got a hell of a circus over there,” Dutch said. “But I never heard of anybody who could plummet five stories and skip off into the night like some pratfall gag.”

An uneasy look passed between the two feds.

“There have been reports of…experiments,” Hanson said. “Cutting edge, but ruthless, scientific testing to make a more perfect soldier.”

“If that’s the case then they better get back to the lab because I’m still here,” Dutch said. “Besides, what the hell would heavies like that want with me?”

“Revenge for the Wayne business,” Lundy chimed in, ready to play nice again.

“Give me a break,” Dutch said. “Only a handful of people even know about that. Not exactly an international incident. Anyway, I’m just a well-fed leg-breaker. That’s an awful lot of trouble for a guy like me.”

“Don’t be modest, Dutch,” the man in the white hat spoke up. “It would be a prized notch in anyone’s belt to say they killed one of the last of the Gravediggers.”

Dutch went cold.

The Gravediggers. That was the name of Dutch’s unit back in the War. It was a specialized outfit, in conjunction with the OSS. Top Secret. How the hell did this man know about the Gravediggers? Who was he?

Dutch looked at the three men.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“We want you to help us catch him,” Hanson said.

“No dice,” Dutch countered. “If he comes after me again I’ll kill him for good.”

“The Bureau is willing to compensate you.”

“He doesn’t care about the money,” the man in the white hat said.

He was right again. Dutch didn’t give a damn if the killer was a commie or a mutant or any other damn thing. He came into Dutch’s home. Into Dutch’s life. He belonged to Dutch now. And no pair of feds or their per diem peanuts was going to change that.

“If you can catch him before I do, you can have him,” Dutch told them. “Now get the hell out of here.”

Hanson looked frustrated. Lundy looked pissed. But they left all the same. The man in the white hat didn’t moved. He just sat there looking at Dutch. Sizing him up.

“You got something to say?” Dutch asked.

“Me?” the man said. “No.” He stood up, in no hurry at all. “I’m like you, Dutch. I’m more of a doer.”

He sauntered over to Dutch’s desk. He was American but there was something European about him. Something timeless. He stood across from Dutch, pulled a small leather-bound book from his suit jacket, and set it on the desk.

“Let’s see what you can do,” he said.

Most men were afraid of Dutch Van Zandt. Even the tough ones. It wasn’t just his size that rattled them. There were plenty of big men who were soft in the middle. It was that unspeakable charge that he carried. A great and terrible capacity for violence that radiated off of him like the heat on a desert highway.

Some men tried to hide their fear with tact, like Hanson. Others by acting tough, like Lundy. Even Dave Hapgood, who was as game as any man, dialed up the nonchalance.

But the man in the white hat had none of it. Dutch had no idea who he was or what he wanted but he knew one thing for certain – this man was not afraid of him at all.

The man in the white hat left Dutch alone in his office with an urge to kill. Dutch looked down at the little book. Inscribed on its leather cover was one word – Homunculus.

 

Dutch headed south in his Roadmaster. He was driving maybe ten minutes before he caught Hanson and Lundy tailing him in a shit-brown Packard. As dull as it gets.

It was almost dark by the time he got to Joe’s Diner. He ordered a cheeseburger, a slice of pie, and a cup of coffee, and opened the little book.

Dutch wasn’t much of a reader on his best day, and most of this damn thing wasn’t even written in English. And the little that was was handwritten notes, probably by the man in the white hat. But he didn’t have to flip through the little book for very long before he saw a familiar sight.

The tattoo. Or rather, the symbol it was based on. The black shape that reminded him of an old keyhole. There was one word underneath it.

Words like homunculus, alchimi, and gehenna didn’t mean anything to Dutch, but even he had a pretty good idea of what the word mortis meant. And that was the word assigned to the symbol.

He drank coffee, chain-smoked, and followed his mind wherever it raced. He knew the Soviet super assassin angle was bullshit. The killer had been strong but Dutch had outclassed him. And even if that sort of science was possible he figured Uncle Sam’s eggheads would pull it off long before Ivan’s.

The grisly nature of this stunk of something else altogether. Dutch had brushed up against it more than once now. At Bran Castle back in the War. He and the rest of the Gravediggers found something there.

Last year in the big house on Kings Way. A cult of killers lead by a man called the Magus.

Something from the old world. Something unnameable. Call it evil. It sounded silly but Dutch didn’t have a better word for it. Whatever it was he had brushed up against it, and now it seemed to be drawn to him. And after years of banal brutality as a glorified gopher and goon for the rich and famous, Dutch welcomed the thought. He could almost taste the ozone that fills the air just before lightning strikes, or a bomb goes off, or some wild-eyed maniac swings an axe at your face.

And it was sweeter than the pie at Joe’s Diner.

Dutch wanted a drink but he needed to keep a clear head so he hopped back in the Roadmaster and drove with the top down. The killer would come for him again. All he had to do was wait. He hoped the killer wouldn’t keep him waiting long.

 

The next night he was driving to Lucille’s when two bright headlights filled his rearview mirror and something big and fast hit the back of his Buick. The big car swayed but Dutch kept it in control. He maneuvered over and an old Dodge pickup pulled up beside him.

Grinning in the driver’s seat was the pasty face of the tattooed assassin.

Dutch grinned back.

The killer tried to run Dutch off the road but he slammed on his brakes and moved around behind the Dodge, cars just behind him skidding and honking. Too many people on the road for this kind of action. Dutch needed to get the killer somewhere out of the way. He gunned the Roadmaster back around the Dodge and overtook it. He led the other man, fast enough to avoid another collision but slow enough to keep him on the hook.

“That’s it, you son of a bitch,” Dutch said. “Come and get it.”

He drove North and East, Los Feliz Boulevard to Fern Dell Drive toward Griffith Park. The traffic thinned and the lights of Hollywood disappeared. And only when his Roadmaster and the Dodge were the sole vehicles on the forest road did Dutch slow down enough to let the Dodge gain.

He knew the park entrance was coming up so he let the Dodge get almost close enough to touch. He could hear its engine growling like a bear. And with only a few moments before the turn he floored the Roadmaster, speeding forward and making a sharp left up onto the park road at the last second. The old Dodge did exactly what he expected. It handled poorly. It jumped the curb into the grass and smashed headlong into a walnut tree.

Dutch skidded to a stop and turned his car around, shining his lights on the scene. The killer stumbled out of the demolished pickup, a little bloody but unphased. He was wearing that same damn cloak and holding another big knife. He looked taller than before somehow. He stalked from the wreckage towards Dutch, who calmly went to the trunk of the Roadmaster and got out his 12-gauge. He was racking in shells when he saw headlights sever the darkness behind the cloaked man.

The killer turned at the sound of the car’s approach. He licked his perfect teeth and made a sound that unnerved Dutch. It was a kind of gurgling exclamation, like a toddler makes when it sees something it wants.

The car turned and skidded to a stop. Hanson and Lundy got out.

“Hold it right there!” Lundy shouted, aiming a .38 Police Special at the killer. Hanson aimed over the hood of the Packard. They had put the killer square between themselves and Dutch, blowing his shot.

“Lundy, get out of the way,” Dutch called out, moving to the side with his shotgun for a better angle.

“We’ll take it from here, Van Zandt,” he said. “Thanks for nothing.”

The killer stalked toward Lundy, walking with his arms out low and wide.

“I said hold it, asshole!” Lundy ordered, but the killer kept walking. The big man and his big knife were getting closer.

“Take him,” Hanson said. They opened fire, aiming low to take him alive. Dutch had to switch directions so as not to catch any strays.

Before he could get a clean shot there was a flash of the killer’s blade and he saw that Lundy wasn’t holding his gun anymore.

His hands were gone.

The poor bastard looked at the spurting red stumps at the end of his arms. He tried to scream but couldn’t find his voice. He just stood there with his arms shaking and a stupefied look on his face until the killer took his head clean off with another swipe.

Dutch watched the head clatter across the pavement and roll into the grass. Now he had a clear shot. He fired but the killer grabbed Lundy’s body and used it like a shield.

In that moment Dutch could tell that he hadn’t imagined it – the killer was taller than before. And bigger. Bigger than even he was now.

Dutch charged forward. The killer lifted Lundy’s handless, headless corpse and hurled it like a bale of hay at him. The dead man crashed into him and drove him into the hard ground.

He lay in his back, stunned. He could hear Hanson screaming and firing his .38. He sat up, shoving Lundy’s dead weight off of him. He heard Hanson’s scream become a screech over some God awful twisting, tearing sound on the other side of the Packard.

Dutch stumbled around the Packard and almost tripped on Hanson’s arm. It had not been cut with the knife, but ripped off at the shoulder joint and discarded like a chicken bone.

The cloaked killer was crouched over the agent. Hanson’s screech became a gurgling, choking howl of pain and fear like Dutch had never heard. He racked the shotgun and the killer turned. His mouth was covered with blood and bits of meat and gore. Dutch saw what was left of Hanson. His jaw had been damn near ripped off. His tongue and half of his face had been eaten.

The killer stood. Dutch fired. The blast took him in the guts. He hunched over, but Dutch knew it wouldn’t be enough. He stepped up real close. Closer than he wanted to be. And fired point blank into the killer’s kneecap. He racked, and did it again, blowing the bottom half of his leg off.

The killer toppled. Dutch put his last round in the killer’s other knee. The lower leg held on by a couple threads but he wouldn’t be walking on it any time soon.

Dutch walked back to his trunk and took out the gas can. Staying away from the brute’s reaching hands, he doused him, struck a match, and lit him up.

The killer never screamed. Maybe he couldn’t feel pain. Or maybe he liked it. Dutch would never know.

He let the fire burn itself out. The blackened thing did not move but Dutch was taking no chances. He checked the wrecked pickup for a saw or an axe but came up with nothing. He loaded a few more rounds into the shotgun and blew off the body’s burned arms. He shot it in what was left of its face and blew out its perfect teeth. Then he loaded it into the trunk of the Packard.

He pulled is Roadmaster off into the brush and drove the Packard all the way back to the Warner Brother’s lot. After hours the place felt like an abandoned amusement park. They had cordoned off some deep shafts where a new building was going. The rebar was set. They were pouring the concrete tomorrow. Dutch dumped the charred, dismembered remains of the thing down one of the shafts, backed a cement truck up to the shaft, and filled it in.

 

He was nursing his second double bourbon at Tom Bergin’s bar when the man in the white hat sat down next to him and ordered a brown derby.

“You’re looking healthy,” he said.

“Fit enough,” Dutch said. “Too bad I can’t say the same for your men.”

“They weren’t my men,” the man in the white hat said. “But it is too bad.” He took a sip of his drink.

Dutch pulled the little leather book from the pocket of his blazer and slid it over on the bar.

“Was it any help?” the man asked.

“Not really,” Dutch said. “What the hell was that thing?”

“Call it a construct,” the man said. “A being fashioned by someone else. Made, not born.”

“That’s crazy,” Dutch said.

“No, Dutch. It’s just something that people have known all along but want to forget.”

“How’s that?”

“That there are things out there in dark,” the man said. “And there are people moving in the shadows, in thrall to something very old and very wrong.”

Dutch thought of mansion on Kings Way. Of the Magus and his acolytes.

“But my people are out there too, Dutch. Moving in the dark. And we serve a very different master.”

“Who the hell are you?” Dutch asked.

“My name’s Arthur Drake.”

“Are you with the OSS?”

“No,” Arthur Drake shook his head. “I’m not with any agency. I’m with an order.”

“You trying to convert me?”

“To recruit you. This city’s become a real lightning rod for those old, wrong things. I need a good man I can trust with the post.”

It was a hell of an offer. Grisly and horrifying as the last two weeks had been, Dutch hadn’t felt so alive since the last time he’d glimpsed the other side of the shadow. But then he noticed the ring on Arthur Drake’s left hand. Saw the strange cross engraved on it. And a rare moment of doubt settled on him like a weight.

“I’m not a good man,” Dutch said. “I’m a killer.”

Arthur Drake practically marveled at the big man. “Yes you are. One of the best I’ve ever seen.”

He got up and put enough cash on the bar to pay for both their drinks.

“Think about it, Dutch,” Arthur Drake said. “God needs killers too.”

 

Those words came back to Dutch a few nights later. They gave him some much needed resolve when he saw the assassin’s keyhole symbol dangling between Lucille’s perfect breasts at the end of a little gold chain. He was on top of her, being uncharacteristically gentle when it caught his eye.

It had been under his nose all along.

She gasped his name and ran those sculptor’s hands over the muscles of his back. She’d put them to use, sizing him up. Getting his measurements to make a more perfect killer.

He stared into her green eyes, doing away with all that gentleness and letting her feel him how he really was. She wrapped her legs around his waste and cried out with each rock of his hips.

He saw her see him. He felt the exact, boiling moment when she knew that he knew. She reached under the pillow but he caught her by the wrist and slowly brought out the silver knife she held in her hand.

He returned her hateful sneer with his own killer’s grin. She’d feel what he was really made of, all right.

When he was done he found her studio in the garage. Saw the bloody, borrowed parts of people she had used for her art.

He burned the place down, along with all of his doubts.