“You’re looking even more pensive than normal this morning,” Evelyn said, sipping a small cup of coffee in the passenger seat. She wore a pair of black slacks and a matching button-up shirt, with a small jacket worn over both. It was what she had taken to calling her ‘action attire’ when accompanying her husband on his nocturnal adventures. A domino-style mask that was similar to the Peregrine’s own lay on her lap.
“Just thinking about the troubles with Hitler and his cronies,” Max admitted.
“You still think there’s no way we can stay out of it all?”
“None whatsoever,” he answered. “If we don’t choose to enter the war, something will force our hand. I just hope we’re ready when the day comes.”
Evelyn took another sip, trying to push thoughts of war from her mind. She hated to think about her son William growing up in a world decimated by the kinds of horrors she’d heard the Japanese were committing. And Max, who had visited Germany just last year, said things weren’t much better there.
Changing the subject, Evelyn asked “So did you get in contact with that fellow who’s always chasing after Doctor Satan?”
“Ascott Keane. Yes, I called his office but he was out. A man named Shakir answered but he refused to tell me where Keane was or when he would return.”
“Did you tell him you were the Peregrine?”
Max laughed. “No, I didn’t go into that.”
Evelyn shrugged, not seeing the humor in her question. If this Shakir hung about with Keane, he was probably used to much stranger things than phone calls from vigilantes.
* * *
Less than an hour later, the Peregrine’s plane had touched down at a private airfield and the husband and wife duo had rented a car. Ordinarily, Max would have preferred to somehow have his own modified roadster with him but there was no way to fit the car within the narrow hold of the plane.
Evelyn cast admiring glances out the window, recognizing landmarks here and there. Her career as an actress had been entirely off-Broadway (way, way off, she sometimes thought to herself), with stints on the Atlanta stage and in a string of B-movies. Most recently, in fact, she’d been starring as Tess Pureblood, the alleged girlfriend of the Peregrine in a series of god-awful movie serials based on the vigilante’s exploits. The stories were nowhere near the truth but they were popular enough and kept Evelyn from going stir-crazy at their plantation home.
Even with the relative success she’d had as an actress, Evelyn had always dreamed of Broadway. As they passed down the fabled streets, she could easily picture herself up on the stage as applause rained down upon her.
I’m not too old yet,
she told herself, though she knew that women in their thirties didn’t usually vault to the top of the showbiz ladders very often.
“Now it’s your turn to be contemplative,” Max whispered with an amused tone to his voice.
Evelyn smiled wanly, putting aside her foolish thoughts. She was a wife and mother, both decisions that had cost her some things in life… but which had proven to be far more rewarding than she had ever imagined. “Just thinking how lucky I am to be Mrs. Davies.”
Max took a hand away from the steering wheel to squeeze his wife’s arm. Then he turned his car into the driveway of the hotel at which Leopold Grace was staying. Before he went after Doctor Satan, Max wanted as much information as possible. If he couldn’t reach Ascott Keane, then Max was willing to bet that Leopold would know something of the shadowy villain.
Together, the husband and wife sleuths made their way to the third floor. Evelyn hid her “action attire” under a long trench coat that matched her husband’s. As they stood outside Leopold’s room, Max raised a fist to lightly rap at the door. His knuckles had barely brushed the wooden surface when the sound of something heavy hitting the floor within made him pause. The noise was quickly followed by an exclamation of pain.
“Leopold!” Max shouted. The noise within silenced immediately, falling so quiet that the hairs on the back of Max’s neck stood up. He took a step back and raised his foot, driving it hard against the door. It was necessary to repeat the action twice more before the door cracked and allowed him to push his way inside.
What he saw within froze the blood in his veins. A legless giant was lumbering about, using his arms, punctuated by two strong calloused hands, as a mean to move, while another fellow—this one with a rather Simian appearance, was lifting an unconscious Leopold off the floor, flinging him over his shoulder with ease.
Leopold was a thin man, a decade or so older than Max, but in fit condition. His hair had gone white over the years but was still full and somewhat curly. A cane lay on the floor near an overturned table and Max recognized it as his friend’s specially modified weapon. Within its hollow casing was a razor-sharp sword.
Max spared a quick glance over his shoulder. “Go and fetch the police!” he shouted to his wife, who responded with a quick nod of her head. Then she was gone, leaving her husband to deal with the two brutes before him.
Max was well aware that he was not wearing his mask but he hoped that his sudden movements might prevent them from getting a good look at him. He threw himself to the floor, rolling along the back of a small couch and freeing one of his pistols. He stood up and took fire quickly, aiming his shots at the legless man. Despite the fellow’s disability, he was astonishingly fast and only one of Max’s bullets found a home—landing squarely in the thug’s right shoulder.
Max then whirled on the ape-like figure, certain details starting to click in his head. The basic research he’d done on Doctor Satan had revealed that the villain frequently made use of two servants, both men of unusual appearance. “Girse?” Max asked. Seeing the shocked expression on the big man’s face, he continued on. “Your friend Bostiff is hurt but it’s not fatal… not yet. I’ll kill both of you if force me to do so.”
“Nothing you could do would be as bad as what Satan would do to us,” Girse muttered. He eyed the open window and Max wondered how he and Bostiff had entered the building. It was on the third floor and Max was certain that the fire escape was on the other side of the building.
“Set Leopold down,” Max continued, stepping around the couch so that he was slowly closing the distance between himself and Girse. Bostiff was on the ground, moaning and holding his injured limb. “I swear to you that I’ll push for leniency with your cases. And if there’s some hold that Satan has over you, I’ll work to free you from it!”
That brought a harsh laugh from Bostiff. When Max looked at him, Girse hurled the limp form of Leopold Grace straight at the hero. Max tried to dodge but it was too late. The impact knocked him to the floor and in that moment the ape-like brute was upon him, flinging fists the size of hams against Max’s head.
Any normal man would have broken under the powerful assault but the Peregrine had studied with the great martial arts masters of the world. He was able to compartmentalize his pain, separating it from his line of thinking. In that clarity, he focused on a plan: Max shot up a hand, extending his fingers out into hard points. These he drove into a set of nerves located on the side of Girse’s neck. The blunt trauma sent the henchman into a shock, as his body began flopping about in a seizure.
Max rose to his feet again, his face covered in bruises and a swollen lip. Both Leopold and Bostiff were gone, sending Max running to the window. Peering out, Max saw a horned figure dressed in red standing atop what appeared to be a moving cloud. With him were the legless henchmen and the still unconscious form of Leopold Grace.
Satan’s taunting voice came to him from afar, growing fainter as the mobile cloud suddenly picked up speed, carrying him farther and farther away from the Peregrine. “I’ll have back what you’ve taken from me,” the villain bellowed. “Doctor Satan shall have vengeance!”
Max turned away from the window, growing thoughtful. He trussed up Girse as the man began to calm again, using a special high-tensile cord from the various pockets of his jacket.
When Evelyn burst into the room with a police officer in tow, Max had come to an inescapable conclusion: Doctor Satan had accused him of being a thief, which was patently untrue.
Someone was attempting to play the Peregrine against Doctor Satan… but who? And for what purpose?
“One way or the other, I’m going to find out,” he whispered to himself. “And I’m betting that Doctor Satan would be interested in finding out the truth as well…”
CHAPTER V
The Black Bat’s Cave
Ascott Keane had to admit that he was impressed. The Black Bat’s private laboratory would have been the envy of virtually any scientist in the world. Beakers of brightly colored liquids were intermingled amongst spectroscopes, x-ray machines and several devices that Keane could not positively identify.
The Black Bat had remained in full costume after bringing the criminologist to his lair, taking care to arrive via the secret tunnel that led beneath his stately home. There should be no way that Keane could link the lair to the house above, though something in the detective’s manner suggested to Quinn that Keane probably knew more about the Black Bat than Tony would have wanted.
“You know this Arias person?” the Bat inquired, sitting down near a table where he’d earlier been practicing with various types of smoke canisters.
“I am familiar with him,” Keane admitted. “Several years ago, I consulted with several officers in a Texas town just north of the border. They were having trouble with a number of cattle mutilations and some people were beginning to suspect the occult. I was able to confirm this and track down the culprit: a red-haired gentleman named Arias.”
“Why was he doing those things? Mutilating cows?”
“It was part of a complex ritual involving the reanimation of an ancient entity that was built from the remains of animals.”
“And did he succeed?” Tony asked, shifting a bit. He preferred his villains to be packing lead not magical spells.
“In summoning his demon? Yes. But I was able to destroy it before it fully came into its power.” Keane tapped his chin thoughtfully. “As for why he might want the weapon you have currently, I suspect they wish to open the gates to The Bleeding Hells.”
The Black Bat resisted the urge to sigh. Was Keane a madman or did he really believe in these things? “I suppose you’ll share with me exactly what a ‘Bleeding Hell’ is?”
“The knives were soaked in the blood of Christ and became powerful weapons against evil. The Knights Templar used them during the Crusades, entrusting each to one of their most powerful warriors. But there was a dark side to them.” Keane clasped his hands behind his back and began pacing as he spoke, making Quinn think of a college professor at work. “The knives were bathed in the blood of Christ during a terrible moment, when doubt plagued the mortal form of God. When the pain and sorrow of that moment is brought together in the form of all four blades, it’s powerful enough to open a doorway to a realm of pure pain. Of entities for whom torture and despair is a great Art.”
“Sounds like the biblical Hell.”
“In a way it is. But Hell is just a name given by mortals to any realm that revels in sin and agony. And the Bleeding Hells are certainly that.”
The Black Bat rose and crossed the laboratory, passing by a number of items that he had collected over the years, each mounted on the walls: a blood-stained playing card, an oversized penny with a jagged scar across its surface and a golden face mask were ones that caught Ascott’s attention in particular.
“I don’t think the thug I got the knife from knew any of its history,” Quinn said, unlocking a small cabinet in which he kept some of the more dangerous souvenirs in his collection.
“I’m not surprised. The Elohim blades have been handed down from one person to the next since the Middle Ages and very few of them knew exactly what they were holding.”
The Black Bat held aloft the dagger, which glowed with a brilliant yellow light. “So why do think Arias and Marlon Woodson want to open the Bleeding Hells? It sounds like it would be just as awful for them as for anyone else.”
“I’ve thought about that,” Ascott said, taking the weapon in hand. He found it was wonderfully light, as if it were made for combat. “In the case of Mr. Woodson, it could be as simple as human idiocy: many men who have experienced the gamut of pleasures and pain that his world has to offer begin to lust after something new. They become jaded by drugs, alcohol and sex… they want the next hit, the next big buzz. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Mr. Woodson wasn’t one of those men.”
“As for Arias, he desires power. Open the gateway and the denizens of the Bleeding Hells will, he believes, offer him great rewards for his service.”
The Black Bat looked up as the sound of a phone ringing filled the air. He quickly answered a small black handset located near the spectroscope. “Yes?”
The smooth tones of Carol Baldwin, Quinn’s lover and confidante, came through the line. “Tony, I hate to bother you, but there’s something strange going on up here.”
“You’re in the house?” Quinn asked.
“Yes… and… well, there are two men outside. And one of them—you’re going to think I’ve been drinking and I haven’t—but one of them appears to be
glowing
.”
The Black Bat slammed the receiver down into its cradle and bolted for the elevator shaft that led into the house above. He no longer cared if Keane realized the truth about who he was any longer; Carol was in danger.
The criminologist placed the Knife of Elohim into the inner pocket of his coat and followed the costumed vigilante. “What’s wrong?”
“They’re here,” was all the Black Bat said before he drew one of his .45 automatics.
* * *
Marlon let out a whistle as he stared at Carol Baldwin through one of the windows of the house. “Gotta hand it to Quinn. For a blind guy, he sure knows how to pick out some great looking furniture.”
Arias laughed, pointing his hands at the front door. The only obstruction to their entering the house dissolved away in a wisp of smoke, allowing the two men to enter at will. “Just remember why we’re here, Marlon. The girl isn’t part of the plan.”