The Peregrine Omnibus, Volume Two (7 page)

“Tell me again,” the Revenant asked, kneeling beside the man who was like a father to him. The Revenant knew the prophecies as well as anyone, but still he wanted to hear the words.

“The end of days shall be marked by the arrival of evil men. They shall awaken the sleeping beast and the world will soon die by fire.”

“There must be some way to stop this. I can find them, find the beast and slay it.”

“No,” the shaman said with a shake of the head. “You must not!”

“I can’t stand idly by while this thing is allowed to mature!” The Revenant started to stand, baffled that his mentor would want him to do anything less than stop this travesty.

The shaman rose to his feet, moving close to the Revenant. His hand dropped to the knife belted at his waist and he drew it in a rapid motion that belied his advanced age. The Revenant was too shocked by the betrayal to properly defend himself, and the blade was driven straight through his stomach, protruding out his back. Blood dripped to the jungle floor.

“I am sorry, Spectre Who Breathes,” the shaman whispered, using one of the many local names for the Revenant. “But there is a cycle to all things. A time for beginnings and a time for endings. And this is that time.”

The Revenant fell onto his back, the world growing black before his eyes. His last thoughts were of his wife and daughters, and of the heroic legacy that was about to die with him.

CHAPTER II

The Golden Goblin

Atlanta, Georgia—August 1943. 2:35 A.M.

Sally Pence hurried down the darkened, rain-slicked streets of Atlanta, her heart hammering in her chest. The only sounds to be heard was the steady click-clack of her heels on the pavement, as there seemed to be no one else out at this hour. It was after two in the morning, and Sally felt very alone in this crowded city.

She was a beautiful young woman, twenty-five years old, with strawberry blonde hair and a trim figure. In college, she’d been captain of the pep squad, and in the years after school, she’d continued to maintain an athletic tone to her body. She wore a knee-length skirt and work-casual blouse, a string of pearls hanging around her neck. In her right hand was clutched a folder containing a dozen or more clippings from major newspapers and magazines from around the world. Taken separately, none of them would be worth killing over, but together they painted a chilling picture.

It was that folder and its information that had led her out at this hour, for there were evil men who wanted that information, and she had sworn to keep it from them. Just before midnight, she’d noticed a car parked outside her home, two men seated within. They were watching her, waiting for her lights to go out. That she was under surveillance was not particularly surprising to her, for the man for whom she sometimes worked was often the target of criminal enterprises, and this led to Sally’s own endangerment from time to time. Sally didn’t mind this, as her own father had taught her that the needs of the many always outweighed the needs of the few. If she could help people, it was worth the risks to herself.

With steely resolve, she’d dressed and snuck out through the back door, intending to make it across town on foot. Twice she thought she’d detected the sounds of pursuit but as reached the heart of the city, she finally began to relax: it seemed that she had, indeed, escaped the men who were chasing her.

A sudden burst of shrill laughter echoed throughout the darkened street, making Sally jump. It sounded high-pitched and slightly mad, as if the laughter came from someone both deranged and dangerous.

Sally looked about in a panic but could see nothing. As she was looking over her right shoulder, still plunging headlong down the street, a massive figure jumped from a nearby rooftop and landed directly in front of her. She ran into him, grunting from the impact, and fell onto her rump. The file she’d been carrying fell to the ground, its contents scattering.

Sally’s eyes slowly rose, taking in the horror that now stood over her. The male figure was well over six feet in height and heavily muscled. He wore strapped sandals on his legs and feet, a purple loincloth with yellow trim, and heavy gold wristbands. His skin was a golden color and his face was misshapen, with razor sharp teeth and a flat, pug-like nose. He smelled like brimstone and sweat, making Sally gag in revulsion.

The Golden Goblin bent low and snatched up several of the scattered pages, crumpling them in his oversized hands. “Are these all of them?” he asked in a rumbling voice. When he saw that terror had momentarily sapped Sally of her ability to speak, he laughed again, that same eerie high-pitched sound that chilled the blood of anyone unlucky enough to have overheard it.

Sally found herself staring into the creature’s malevolent eyes, but instead of continued fear, she began to feel a surge of adrenaline. Her life hung in the balance, she was sure of it… and she hoped that she could somehow make her father proud. He had taught her how to handle herself in a tight spot, and they didn’t come any tighter than this, she reasoned.

Without bothering to answer the brute’s question, Sally kicked out with a high heel and caught the Golden Goblin in the knee. The blow would have crippled a normal man, but the Goblin didn’t even blink an eye.

The monster grabbed hold of her ankle and gave a powerful squeeze. Sally screamed as the bones rubbed together within her foot. “I’m only going to ask you this one last time, little girl. Is this everything?”

“Yes!” Sally managed to squeak, her vision nearly blinded by pain.

The Golden Goblin dropped her foot and Sally rolled over onto her side, fighting the urge to vomit. The Goblin bent to retrieve the rest of the papers, but a bright light suddenly shone upon him, and the villain found himself staring up into the headlights of an Atlanta police cruiser, which had pulled to a stop nearby.

“Hey!” an officer was shouting, stepping from the vehicle. His partner was doing the same, and this second man already had his gun out and in his hand. “What’s going on here? Are you bothering this woman?”

The two officers came to a sudden stop when they got a good look at the figure in front of them. The Goblin was shielding his eyes from the bright glare but was still clearly visible.

“What the hell is
that
?” one of the officers whispered. “Jake, get back in the car and call Chief McKenzie…”

As his partner followed orders, the cop took a few steps towards the Goblin, who was watching him with teeth bared. “Back away from the girl,” the officer warned, pointing his gun at the monster. “Or I swear to God I’ll blow your head off.”

The Golden Goblin lowered his arm, panting. He smiled cruelly and leaned his neck forward, opening his mouth wide. A plume of yellow-black flame jetted forth, enveloping the brave officer. The man began howling in agony, staggering back and waving his arms wildly. His gun discharged, firing straight up.

The Goblin turned and ran, throwing himself up the side of a building in a jump that no human could have made. He slammed his fingertips into the brick, creating handholds for himself, and ascended until he was out of view.

Sally scrambled to her knees, pulling together the rest of her papers. It looked like the Goblin might have gotten away with perhaps two-thirds of her accumulated information, but that still left enough evidence for her to convince her employer of the danger they all faced.

She looked over at the police officer, who was being patted down with a heavy blanket by his partner. It looked like the poor man was dead… and Sally knew that, unfortunately, this was only the beginning.

She slipped away, not waiting to share her knowledge with the police. She had to find Max Davies before it was too late…

CHAPTER III

Prophecies Revealed

The Next Morning. 7:35 A.M.

William Davies was four years old and looked like the perfect combination of his parents. From his father he’d inherited the slightly olive complexion that marked their Mediterranean heritage, but his mother gave him auburn curls and sparkling green eyes. He was a handsome child with an easy smile and large amounts of energy. He stared down at his baby sister’s face with an awestruck expression on his face, his intelligent eyes gleaming. “She’s so little,” he whispered, afraid that he’d wake her from her nap.

Max stood beside his son, one hand resting on the boy’s shoulder. “You were that little once, too.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I remember it like it was yesterday.” Max heard movement behind them and he glanced over his shoulder to see Evelyn standing in the doorway to the nursery. She looked beautiful but tired. Her robe was tied loosely in the front and she had a wistful expression on her face. Max had turned forty-three earlier this year, and Evelyn was now almost thirty-six, but when he looked at her, he felt like a high school boy gawking at the prettiest girl in school. “Hi, honey,” he said, keeping his voice low.

“What are you two doing?” Evelyn asked, moving up close to Max.

“We’re watching Emma sleep,” William replied. He looked up at his mother. “When she wakes up, can I hold her?”

“Maybe if your daddy helps you.” Evelyn kissed Max on the cheek. She’d had a rough time with Emma’s birth, much harder than with William. In the week since their family had grown by one, she’d been informed by the doctors that it would be in her best interests to avoid pregnancy in the future.

“How are you feeling?” Max wanted to know.

“Better. Still a little tired.”

“Nettie says you didn’t eat much at breakfast.”

Evelyn rolled her eyes. “Nettie gossips way too much for a maid. I wasn’t very hungry. That’s all.”

William laughed as Emma turned in her sleep. The noise made the baby’s eyelids flutter but she didn’t wake up.

“C’mon,” Max said, tugging at his little boy’s arm. “We don’t want to wake her.”

The three of them had just stepped out and closed the door when Nettie appeared at the stairwell, having come up from downstairs. Nettie was an old, old woman who refused to divulge her true age, but her wrinkled skin clung to the bones of her body, outlining each and every one of them. Despite the fragility of her appearance, she had a core of steel that allowed her to survive in the often volatile Davies household. “Mr. Davies, there’s a woman here to see you. I ain’t never seen her before but she says she works for you.”

“Did she give a name?”

“Yessir. She says her name is Miss Pence.”

“Do you know her?” Evelyn asked, eyebrows raised. She knew that from time to time Max dealt with some stunning young woman, but most of them were in his nocturnal exploits as the Peregrine. Women like Whisper and the Domino Lady knew better than to call upon her husband when she was around.

“She’s the exchange student who started working for me back in ’41. The girl from Africa, remember?”

Awareness suddenly dawned on Evelyn and she felt guilty for her momentary jealousy. Sally was lovely, but she was also a vulnerable young woman. Her father had been much like Max, a man so driven by his desire to see justice done that he’d fought crime behind a mask. They were alike in other ways, too: both had been sculpted into who they were by fathers who had desired to see their sons become warriors.

Sally had surprised Max by arriving on his doorstep shortly after the Peregrine’s first encounter with Dr. Satan. She’d gotten his address from Leonid Kaslov, the Russian superman who had aided Max on numerous occasions. Kaslov and her father had worked together from time to time, and the Russian encouraged Sally to seek out Max. The girl’s father had been brutally murdered several years before and she’d moved to America to attend college almost immediately after. Upon graduation, she’d wanted to find work for herself doing something that would help people, following in her father’s footsteps in some fashion. Max had hired her as an investigator, someone who scoured the papers for him and alerted him to odd news that might be of importance. She’d also become his gofer of sorts, traveling across the country to acquire objects for him.

Max hurried downstairs with Nettie while Evelyn took William to his room to change him out of his pajamas and into his daywear.

Sally was waiting for him in the study. She was clutching a folder against her chest and Max immediately noticed that she looked exhausted. Her skirt was sullied with mud and her blouse was torn in several places. Despite this, there was a fresh beauty to her that took his breath away.

“Sally? What’s wrong?”

The young girl fairly ran into his arms and Max awkwardly patted her back. They had never had any physical contact before and Max had always been impressed with how Sally carried herself in a professional manner.

As if sensing his unease, she pulled away and handed him the folder. “I was going to bring this to you last night, but I was followed and then attacked by a monster… I barely got away and I ended up sleeping in the woods. You have to see the papers. I saved some of them—enough, I think, and—”

“Sally. Calm down.” Max steered the girl to a chair and helped her into it. He took a seat near her and opened the folder. There were clippings within, with headlines talking about bizarre sightings of a humanoid creature, a series of murders where the victims were burned to death, and a photo of a German officer identified as Hermann Krupp. “Start from the beginning, please.”