The Peregrine Omnibus, Volume Two (98 page)

“He’s lying,” Imelda said but Käthe knew better. His words had the ring of truth to them. She wondered at his statement about Sun Koh using some sort of super weapon against the United States… she’d hoped he would do something of the sort, some incredible victory that would rally the Aryan world…

“So are you going to leave me alone, then?” The Peregrine eyed Imelda with distaste. If he were free, he’d teach her a lesson or two on manners.

Käthe straightened up and smiled sympathetically. “I’m sorry but that’s not possible. If we were to leave you alone for even a few minutes, you’d probably find your way to freedom. You’re too dangerous.”

Imelda grinned like a predator. She was hoping that Käthe would keep her word and let them kill The Peregrine now that he’d answered her questions about Sun Koh. Her face fell in disappointment when Käthe gave her orders.

“Akemi, Imelda… work him over. But stop before you do any permanent damage. I want to talk to Captain Mueller before we kill him.” The German woman reached out and stroked The Peregrine’s chin. His face still hurt so much that he winced at the contact. “Such a shame,” she mused aloud. “If you weren’t so deadly, I’d consider keeping you as a pet.” She slapped him hard, leaving a blood-red hand imprint on his cheek.

The Peregrine glared at her back as she turned and left the room. “I feel sorry for your kitty back home, lady,” he murmured. He looked at Akemi and Imelda, who were now so close to him that their legs brushed his knees.

Akemi straddled his left leg, her pink tongue darting out to moisten her lips. “I’m sorry I hurt you,” she said with a pout. “I was just angry.” Her hand slipped between his thighs, cupping his genitals. “Should I kiss it to make it better?”

The Peregrine knew she was teasing him, hoping to weaken him somehow. Instead of replying, he jerked his head back and then forward. His forehead caught Akemi on her right temple, knocking her off his knee. She landed on her rump, reddening as Imelda began laughing.

Akemi stood up, drawing a long, slender knife from the interior of her uniform. The blade gleamed in the light and The Peregrine could easily imagine how sharp it was. “You will regret that, American. I’m going to make you scream.”

Despite his steely nerve, The Peregrine found himself doing just that within moments. His shouts of agony carried all through the zeppelin.

* * *

Arthur Grin worked in almost complete silence. He had listened intently to Sun Koh’s directions and then had simply gone about his assigned tasks, without any further need for instruction.

Sun Koh watched the man carefully, looking for any signs that Grin was not as loyal as he first appeared. But Grin was a conscientious worker. The Heir of Atlantis went over his Solar Cannon piece-by-piece, ensuring that it the original design had been perfect. After verifying this, he took the Cannon out to the highest peak he could find and left it there, allowing the crystal to absorb the needed solar radiation.

Grin, meanwhile, was working on the long-range amplification device. It was a complicated piece of machinery, using technology that the lost civilization of Atlantis had possessed but which the modern world had long since forgotten. So much of Sun Koh’s genius was wasted in this time, because of the technological limitations that surrounded him. But the Solar Cannon was an exception to that rule: it would function nearly as well now as it would have in his time, the only difference being that in Sun Koh’s native years, there would have been adequate defenses against such a thing.

Sun Koh checked his watch and realized it was time to retrieve the Solar Cannon from its spot on the peak. He left the sanctum and marched across the ice, ignoring the Inuit tribesman watching him from a short distance away. They had begun arriving last night, setting up camp close enough to observe Sun Koh’s comings and goings. They were obviously curious but still too fearful to actually approach him.

Sun Koh found the Solar Cannon exactly as he’d left it, though the crystal’s gauge now read that it was full. Because of the ingenious power system, the Cannon could run for months off one complete charge. He was about to return to the sanctum when he heard a peculiar whining sound. It was much like the trilling of a bird though there were none in the world that sounded exactly like this. Sun Koh paused, recognizing the sound instantly but almost refusing to believe it. He reached into the pocket of his jodhpurs and pulled out a small rectangular-shaped object. It was a radio communication device that he’d created during his first stint in the 20th century. It was far from perfect, shorting out so often that Sun Koh had abandoned it for all intents and purposes. But he’d given the small devices to a few of his closest companions, each of them receiving a specific code to identify them.

Sun Koh stared at the small analog screen. It showed a three-digit number that identified the message as coming from Jan Mayen. Activating the device, Sun Koh held it up to his ear. “Who is this? How did you get this device?”

The sounds that greeted him were enough to chill the blood in his veins. They were inhuman, guttural noises that were all-too familiar. An Atlantean cult had once worshipped the fearsome forms of Father Dagon and Mother Hydra, the dark lords of the sea. It was said that some of them even went so far as to mate with the loathsome creatures, producing hybrid monstrosities. Sun Koh had accompanied his father on one hunting mission, raining death upon the beasts from their ships. Though he had not gotten too close to the beasts, he still remembered the sounds that they made and the odor of their salt-encrusted flesh. They had been dubbed Deep Ones by Sun Koh’s people and were regarded as harbingers of doom.

A young girl’s voice suddenly emerged from the device. She sounded out of breath and scared but reasonably calm. The noises from The Deep Ones grew quieter and Sun Koh assumed that the girl was moving further away from them. “Is this really Sun Koh?” she whispered.

“Yes.”

“My name is Elsa Mayen. You knew my father.”

Sun Koh paused. He knew that name though he’d only seen the girl in photographs. Jan had told him of a fling he’d had with a Jewish prostitute and how the woman had later confronted him, claiming that he was the father of the little girl she’d borne. Jan had made it clear that he had no desire to be a father to a half-blood mongrel but he’d still sent money to take care of the girl’s most basic needs. “Where are you?” Sun Koh demanded.

“I’m on Atlantis, looking for you. All I’ve found so far are a bunch of monsters, though.”

“How did you get there?”

“In one of my father’s planes.” Sun Koh heard the sound of a door being slammed shut, followed quickly by the pre-flight routine that he remembered so well. The atomic plane hummed loudly, nearly drowning out Elsa Mayen’s voice. “I’ve been tapping into Axis radio signals for the past year, doing all I can to help the cause… and when I heard reports that you’d returned, I tracked this place down. It wasn’t easy.”

“You need to get away from there.”

“That’s what I’m doing. Where are you?”

“Give me a reason to trust you, Elsa. As far as I knew, your father never taught you how to fly his planes.”

“My father was ashamed of me and afraid of how you’d react to knowing that he seeing me. He taught me how to fly and he taught me to love the Aryan part of me—and to despise the weakness that’s in my blood from my mother’s side. I’m a true German, my Prince! And I’ve waited for you and my father to return ever since you vanished!”

“Your father is dead,” Sun Koh sadly replied. “He was as good a man as any I’ve ever known.”

The girl was silent for a moment but when she spoke again, Sun Koh was impressed by her tone. “I suspected as much. I will miss him. Can I please serve you? I’ve offered my talents to the Fatherland but all they want is my plane, not me.”

Sun Koh smiled. Given her youth—she could be no more than 16 by his counting—and the Reich’s overall view of women, he could easily believe that. Though Germany used female agents such as The Furies, they were treated as lesser than their male counterparts and often ignored entirely. “I will give you coordinates where you can meet me. Can you fly to the Arctic?”

“Of course. This plane can cover many thousands of miles without refueling. It’s the culmination of my father’s genius—he was working on this design when he disappeared. Even you will be my impressed, my prince.”

“I’m sure I will be.” Sun Koh gave her precise coordinates and then signed off, a new lightness of spirit gives him hope that his mission would be successful. He had lost his old allies but gained new ones in the form of Grin and Elsa Mayen. He wondered if The Furies could be brought to his side, as well. They were smart and very capable—and the one named Käthe seemed particularly devoted to his cause.

He was still thinking these thoughts when he returned to the sanctum, where he found Arthur Grin standing beside the completed amplification device.

“You worked very quickly,” Sun Koh observed.

“The design is ingenious but once I understood the process, it was relatively simple.”

Sun Koh nodded, examining the device. “It looks fine. Now we have only to test it.”

“Might I suggest we use the natives as target practice?”

The Heir to Atlantis paused, looking at Grin for a moment before speaking. “You wish to kill the people who took care of you all this time?”

“Yes. I do.” Grin seemed to come alive with some awful inner light. “I see a day when all civilized men will come together in knowledge and peace… but there have to be examples made. There has to be a time of fire and death before the world can be remade. Let these men who worship us as gods sacrifice themselves for the greater good.”

Sun Koh wondered just how mad Grin might be. Still, the device needed testing and the Inuit peoples were a degenerate species, one of the many servant races who would serve the Aryans in the coming days. Without a word, he began attaching the Solar Cannon to the amplification device. With Grin at his side, he exited the Sanctum and pointed the barrel of the weapon towards the growing crowd of natives. Several of them took notice of the strange device that rested on Sun Koh’s shoulder, looking much like a missile launcher. A loud murmuring arose from the Inuit group but Sun Koh ignored it, slowly raising the barrel until it was pointed at the skies above their heads. He activated the device, which began humming like an oncoming freight train. A beam of purple light shot from the device, vanishing into the clouds. Sun Koh continued discharging the device for nearly a full minute before he flipped a switch and lowered the weapon.

Grin alternated between watching the sky and the frightened faces of the local people. They, too, were looking upwards. Some of the more fearful members of their group had already begun moving away but most of the men stood with mouths agape, wondering what the white god named Sun Koh was doing.

A moment later they received their answer. Ionized energy was coalescing in the skies above and with sudden force it came together in a blinding wall of white. The beam struck the crowd of onlookers, obliterating them in one fell swoop. There were no screams for the attack came too suddenly and their deaths were too quick.

The wall of white continued, tearing a hole deep into the frozen earth. It advanced towards the sanctum like death itself, slowly moving to eradicate everything in its path. Grin glanced at Sun Koh, who showed no fear of the oncoming wave.

The destructive beam faded as quickly as it had emerged, leaving the scent of ozone in the air. The ground where the beam had touched was a smoking ruin and the bones of the dead could be seen here and there, rising above the ash.

“I’d say that was a successful test,” Grin muttered with satisfaction.

CHAPTER VII

The Nail

Consciousness returned slowly to Max Davies and with it came the knowledge that he was not in a good way. He hurt from head to toe and from the labored way he was breathing, he was pretty sure he had at least two, if not three, cracked ribs. He tried to look around and take in his surroundings but one of his eyes was swollen shut and the other seemed strangely unfocused. How long had it been since he’d passed out? It felt like days.

With a start he realized that his hands and feet were free. It felt like he was lying on a cot of some kind, one with a thin sheet covering a wire frame. A rustle of fabric to his right indicated that someone was in the room with him but he still found it difficult to lock in on them.

“I am sorry, Herr Peregrine,” Captain Mueller said, reaching out to grasp Max’s arm. He helped him up into a sitting position and then pushed a tin cup of coffee into his hands. “I knew that the women would abuse you but I had no idea the depths to which they would go. Women are ever the crueler of the sexes, are they not?”

The Peregrine coughed and the resulting pain nearly caused him to black out again. When he’d recovered, he clenched his teeth and said, “Still want me to go collect that nail for you?”

“I do, yes.”

The Peregrine sipped the coffee and allowed it to warm his bones. He managed to lock his gaze on Mueller, though there seemed to be two of the man. “And you give me your word of honor that you’ll destroy any copies of those photographs you might have?”

“I will.”

“Then I’ll do it. Just set me down where you want me to be and give me any details you have. I’ll find it for you.”

Mueller smiled. “You have no idea how happy that makes me. Religion is often revered by the Reich for its mystical powers but the leadership in my country still have disdain for practical, day-to-day belief. But I have done so many awful things in the name of duty… if that nail can cleanse my spirit, then I want it.” Mueller’s features became grave. “I am dying, Herr Peregrine. The doctors say I have another six months before I will be too weak to continue my duties. And after that… I will slowly rot. What becomes of my immortal soul is now of paramount importance to me.”

“My heart breaks for you,” The Peregrine said bitterly.

“I don’t ask for your compassion, only your understanding.” Mueller moved to the door to the small room and knocked. When it opened, a young man was pushed inside. He was thin and delicate-featured, with the kind of emaciated look that one associated with prisoners of war. His hair was shorn close to his skull and his eyes were sunken orbs. He was barefoot and dressed in tattered gray pants and shirt. A pink triangle was sewn onto his shirt. Mueller gestured to the man. “This is Fritz. He is a homosexual. You know what that is?”