November 11, 1942—Atlanta, Georgia
She moved with an animal grace, her movements feline and seductive. She wore Western style clothes, though her long dark hair and the slant of her eyes revealed her as someone of Oriental origins. Slacks and a form-fitting blouse accentuated her trim physique, but it was her smooth porcelain-like skin that most enhanced her beauty. Her skin appeared flawless, without the slightest blemish.
Lei looked up into the nighttime sky, shivering a bit in the wintry air. It was nearly midnight and most of Atlanta was sleeping, though her master’s enemy favored the dark as his element. She looked about herself fearfully, hoping that he had not sensed her actions this evening… there seemed to be no way that he could have done so, but her master had made it clear that their enemy had powers that seemed superhuman.
Confident that no one was watching, Lei reached into one of the pockets of her slacks and retrieved a small flat box. She was in a grassy field some miles from downtown, a desolate little spot that had served as her master’s final resting place for far too long. His remains had been gathered up and dumped here, with only a small marker to let anyone know that a great man lay in the dirt. The marker, erected by their great enemy, was blunt and to the point:
Here lies a man who could have saved the world… but his greed and lust nearly destroyed it.
Lei wrinkled her nose at the words, so full of mockery that her heart nearly broke. Who could so brazenly cast judgment on someone as ancient and as powerful as her master? He had lived for centuries, kept alive by powerful elixirs that retarded his aging. During that time, he had mastered nearly every scientific, physical and alchemical art know to man. He had created an empire that spanned continents… but he had made many enemies and knew that even his long lifespan would not protect him forever. He had sought out an heir but, through no fault of his own, had been able only to sire a worthless daughter.
And then had come the great enemy. The master had welcomed the American into his home and trained him in the ways of death. But when the time had come for the young man to accept his mantle and become the master’s one true heir, he had refused, turning his back on the master and returning to America. That man had become the Peregrine, a nocturnal scourge against the evils of both the physical world and the supernatural.
The master had tried to coax his protégé back on to the true path on two separate occasions but in the end, the Peregrine had united with the master’s bitch daughter and they had slain the greatest man who had lived.
But Lei refused to let him go. When news of her lord’s death had reached her, she had cried out in anger and shock… but she had eventually recovered and begun a systematic search through his papers to find anything that could undo this awful turn of events. If her master had outsmarted death for so long, surely he had uncovered something that could return his spirit from beyond the void if necessary…
And she had been right. It had been hidden amongst a set of withering papers supposedly dating back to before the sinking of fabled Atlantis. Truthfully, Lei had not fully understood the entire document but she recognized enough of it to think she could revive her beloved.
Kneeling in the dirt and grass, Lei began pushing aside the soil, finally stopping after several minutes when her fingertips brushed the satin bag in which her master’s dusty remains had been piled. She pulled it free, ignoring the blood that caked her fingers.
Dumping the ashen remains on the ground, Lei then opened the small box and dumped its contents on top. A fine red and white powder fell from the box, mixing with the ashes. Lei stirred them all with her finger, letting her blood mingle with the powders.
Thunder rolled across the sky and a cold wind began to blow, making Lei shiver all the harder. A jagged bolt of lightning struck a nearby tree, no more than a hundred yards from Lei, and she cried out in alarm, standing up quickly. The tree was burning now, flaming wildly, and Lei blinked as the fire seemed to grow abnormally bright.
Lei let out a cry of alarm and backed away, her vision lost in a haze. When her eyesight began to return, she found herself staring at the desiccated corpse of her master, whom the world had come to fear under his honorific name, the Warlike Manchu.
He stood upright, though his eyes were hollow sockets and his skin clung tightly to the bones. He looked like a mummy come to sudden life and he clawed at the air in hungry anticipation.
Lei stood still as he lumbered towards her, his mouth working soundlessly. The smell of death was heavy about him and Lei found herself in a fierce battle to maintain her composure. She had known this moment would come and was willing to make the sacrifice but it was still against human nature to not run in the face of such horror.
The Warlike Manchu found her shoulder and pulled her close, wrapping his skinless lips around her throat and sucking hard. Lei moaned in fear and ecstasy, her body beginning to shrivel as the Manchu’s took on new vitality. In seconds, she was literally crumbling to dust even as her master was gasping with newly reborn lungs. He tossed her corpse aside, not taking notice as it fell to fragments and began to blow about in the wind.
The Warlike Manchu took several deep breaths and then relaxed. He was wearing a long flowing robe with a yellow dragon imprinted upon a green background, his feline face looking like the very epitome of evil. His eyebrows were arched, his eyes were a yellow green and his lips were curled in a perpetual sneer. He folded his hands into the oversized sleeves and began to move forward, his mind replaying the final events of his previous life:
He’d come into final conflict with the Peregrine, who had stabbed him with a serum that counteracted the elixirs which had kept the Manchu young for so long… he’d aged quickly, crumbling to dust as his enemies cheered.
But now he was back… and the Manchu could feel an unfamiliar hunger gnawing away inside him. It could mean only one thing: someone had used the Dunsany Method to restore him. On the one hand, this was a good thing: for it meant that the Warlike Manchu was alive once more and was blessed with slightly greater physical strength than before. But there were definitely drawbacks to this sort of resurrection…
The sound of twigs cracking made the Warlike Manchu pause. He stepped back into the shadows as rain began to fall even harder, soaking the ground and transforming dirt into mud. A figure came into view, holding a lantern in front of him. He was an older man, wearing overalls and a cap. He squinted into the clearing, his vision obscured somewhat by the rain. “Is somebody up here? You better not be messin’ around on my property, you hear?”
The man’s name was Steve Pearson and he had owned this land for all his life, having inherited it from his father. It was nice and quiet, most of the time, but several months ago, he’d thought he’d caught somebody sneaking around in the hills. Steve had given chase but lost sight of the man in the gloom of the trees… but he’d found the odd grave that had been left behind, with its absurd little sign. Something had caused him to leave the grave as it was… some sense that there was something awful now lurking beneath the dirt on his property. He felt it best to just leave the thing be.
But tonight he’d spotted movement up in the hills while staring out his kitchen window. As he’d approached, the hair on the back of his neck had begun to stand on end and he’d wished that he’d brought his old hunting rifle with him.
Calm down, you old fool,
he told himself.
It’s probably just your imagination running wild with you.
It was at that exact moment that lightning flashed, illuminating the entire area. Steve Pearson saw an Oriental man standing near the trees, watching him with narrowed eyes. He was about to shout out a warning when the man charged him, mouth falling open to reveal sharp white teeth.
The Warlike Manchu fell upon him, tearing out his throat with a series of powerful bites. As blood and flesh ran down his throat, the awful hunger that filled every fiber of the Manchu’s being began to ebb. He stood up when the deed was done and his stomach was full, wiping at his mouth with the back of a hand.
“Like an animal,” he hissed through bloody lips. “But if this is the price I must pay for living again, then so be it.”
The Warlike Manchu, criminal mastermind, began to descend from the hills, the rain soaking through his bloody clothing.
CHAPTER II
The Ten Fingers
December 17, 1942—Atlanta, Georgia
The Peregrine threw himself to his knees, sliding across the slick floors of the ballroom, his coat billowing out behind him. His torso remained upright, allowing him to fire both pistols with unerring accuracy. The members of the Ten Fingers gang went down like ducks in a shooting gallery, leaving only a half dozen of their number to fend off simultaneous attacks from the Peregrine’s two allies: Atlanta police chief William McKenzie and his bride, the armored Iron Maiden.
McKenzie, with his athletic physique and dark hair, was firing his rifle at two members of the Ten Fingers, who were fleeing towards the exit. His shots hit home, dispatching both of them.
Kirsten Bauer McKenzie, the Iron Maiden, was more direct in her assaults. She was battling the remaining four Ten Fingers men, who peppered her with a series of karate attacks. Their fists and feet clanged harmlessly off the figure-hugging battle suit she wore, which hid most of her body behind an experimental lightweight shell. The lower half of her face, her eyes and strawberry blonde hair were all still on display and the way the armor hugged her body made it clear that she was a flawless physical specimen. She drew back a fist and shattered the nose of the man closest to her, splattering his clothing with blood and bone. All members of the Ten Fingers were Asian, working for a group that formerly had ties to the enigmatic Warlike Manchu. Since his death, the American branches of the group had fallen into a sort of civil war, with various leaders trying to unite them under their leadership… but recently, the groups had begun acting in concert once more, making the Peregrine believe that they had a new leader.
His researches had led him here, to the Robert E. Lee Symphonic Center, where a charity ball was to be held the following night. The Ten Fingers had slipped inside through a broken window, intending to hide themselves until the event was in full swing… at that point, they would reveal themselves and rob Atlanta’s richest citizens blind. Thankfully for the charitable citizens, the Peregrine and his friends had uncovered the truth in time to stop them.
The Peregrine rushed to aid the Iron Maiden, even as she kicked out with a steel-toed boot and destroyed another man’s knee. Max caught the last of the Ten Fingers by the neck and drove him to the floor, gun pressed against his temple.
In flawless Cantonese, the Peregrine hissed “Who’s leading you now? Tell me!”
The man grunted in reply, struggling to free himself but unable to do so. He tossed his head, knocking several strands of black hair from his eyes. “He knows you and is saving a special death for you and your friends!”
The Peregrine paused for a moment, recognizing the fervor in the man’s eyes. It was the same sort of overzealous worship that the Warlike Manchu’s servants had once held for him. But he was dead, killed by the Peregrine’s own hands… “Who? Who knows me?” he asked, a sense of unreality taking hold over him. Surely there was no way the Manchu could have cheated death…
“I serve the immortal one,” the man answered in English, laughing as he spoke. “He who has seen the other side and returned, wiser and more powerful than ever before!”
McKenzie stepped up beside his friend, having overheard their conversation. “Is he saying what I think he’s saying?”
The man behind the Peregrine mask said nothing for a moment. Max Davies had trained his entire life for his role as a vigilante, hunting down the sort of criminals who had murdered his own father. Part of that training had taken him on a tour of the world, where he met with experts in a variety of fields. One of those experts had been the Warlike Manchu, a criminal mastermind who—according to those with whom Max had spoken—had retired to a life of meditation. The Manchu had trained Max in every fighting style known to man, teaching him how to utilize nearly every part of his body as a weapon. In the end, the Warlike Manchu had revealed himself to be the leader of a worldwide network of crime, asking Max to become his heir. The refusal that had followed had led to a lifetime of enmity between the two.
The Peregrine pulled harder on the man’s head, causing the fellow to stop laughing and cry out in pain. “Last chance… tell me exactly who your boss is or I’m going to splatter your brains all over the floor.”
The man stared straight into Max’s eyes. “The Warlike Manchu is alive, Peregrine. And he’s going to destroy you if you dare stand in his way.”
Max raised the gun high and smashed it down on top of the man’s skull. He then tossed the unconscious fellow to the ground and began removing his glove, revealing the crimson signet ring with which he branded the foreheads of the guilty.
“Hey,” McKenzie whispered, “How can that be? He was turned to dust, wasn’t he?”
The Peregrine said nothing at first, not speaking until he had branded the foreheads of every member of the Ten Fingers. At that point, he turned to face his dearest friend, who stood holding hands with his armored wife. “If it was anyone else, I might not believe it. But the Manchu isn’t just some crime lord. The man is an expert in every discipline you can name. If there was anyone out there who might have found a way to return from the dead, it’s him.”
The Iron Maiden stepped away from her husband and began to unsnap her helmet. When she pulled it away, she gave her hair a good shake and wiped at some sweat on her forehead. “What is his real name, this Manchu?”
“No one knows,” Max answered. “I’ve heard rumors that he was a member of the Imperial family but that he backed the wrong side during the Boxer Rebellion. I do know that he served as a thief and an assassin during his younger days but he never revealed anything close to a real identity to me.”