by Barry Reese
“They’re loyal.”
“I’m sure they are.” Lindsley held out a hand. “It’s been a profitable partnership between our organization and yours. As per our agreement, it’s now time to turn over the Mayan tablet. In exchange, we’ll see to it that you’ll receive enough money to fund all your future exploits.”
Satan made no move to turn over the tablet. From beneath his hood, his eyes flashed angrily. “I wasn’t told the full story about this tablet when I helped you and Flynn locate it. That money you’re offering me does no good if you plan to destroy the world and remake it in your own image.”
Lindsley laughed then and his voice echoed in the empty bank. “Your problem is you’re too impatient, Doctor. I suspect that’s why Keane and the Peregrine are always able to stop you: because unlike the families who make up the Illuminati, you don’t understand the virtue of allowing time to pass before jumping in with both feet.”
“Explain,” Satan demanded, feeling slightly off-kilter. Had he missed something, after all? Or was Lindsley simply tweaking him in anticipation of another betrayal?
“If you’d bothered reading up on the tablet fully, you’d realize that the words cannot be spoken before a specific date. December 21, 2012. That’s the end of the world. The words on the tablet don’t cause the end of the world… they just allow you to be the one to determine what shape it takes next.”
“You’re just holding on to it, then, for the next seventy years or so? Satan asked in disbelief.
“Yes. And when the time is right, perhaps my children or their children will get to profit from it.” Lindsley glanced down at his empty hand. “Now hand it over.”
Satan nodded, seeming to realize that he was, to some degree, beaten. Holding on to a rock for six or seven decades didn’t seem to fit with his plan to take over the world in his own lifetime. Lindsley smirked as Satan reached into his cloak and began to remove something.
But it wasn’t the tablet that emerged. Satan drew a knife which he drove into Lindsley’s hand. The man started to scream but the villain moved quickly, moving the blade to the fellow’s throat and slicing it from ear to ear. To make sure that Lindsley didn’t live long enough to tell anyone what had happened, Satan finished him off with several more thrusts of the knife.
Doctor Satan took a moment to collect the drops of blood that dotted the blade’s surface. The blood of the violently murdered had great mystical power and Satan was always on the lookout for new weapons to add to his arsenal.
The villain then moved to the door and listened intently. He could hear the other Illuminati who had accompanied Lindsley moving about and he thought about simply killing them, but decided in the end to escape and leave them alive. Let them go back to their other masters and tell them how easily Lindsley was murdered… it might convince the organization to avoid Satan in the future.
CHAPTER IV
Old Foes, Reunited
Doctor Satan crept out of the bank and moved towards a darkened alleyway nearby. He was already preparing a spell that would take him from this city and deposit back in Louisiana, where his most recent lair was located. He wasn’t at all concerned with the henchmen he was leaving behind—they’d either find a way back to him or they would be replaced. It was really that simple.
The villain retrieved the tablet from his cloak and stared at it for a moment. Had Lindsley been telling him the truth? Was it useless until 2012? Or was he simply trying to persuade Satan into giving up the artifact?
“Doesn’t look like it’s worth killing a man over,” a familiar voice said from above.
Satan frowned in annoyance. He’d been snuck up on… again. That sort of sloppiness would get him killed eventually.
The villain looked up to see the Peregrine crouching on the rooftop’s edge. He held a glowing yellow dagger in one hand, part of a set that Satan knew well: the Knives of Elohim. Satan himself possessed one of the blades, which had all been dipped in the blood of Christ, making them powerful mystic weapons. “How did you find me?” Satan inquired, curious despite himself.
“I put in a call to Ascott Keane. He was able to track you down using a spell of his own.” The Peregrine pointed the Knife of Elohim at Satan. “So what does that rock of yours do?”
“It’s the key to controlling the next world,” Satan answered honestly, a sneer forming on his lips. “This one’s days are numbered, you see.” The villain chuckled. “It must be galling to you, having to turn to Keane for help when you could have once found me yourself.”
Max didn’t take that particular bait. He knew that Satan was trying to needle him, reminding him that it was the villain who had once stolen Max’s mental powers from him. In truth, Max didn’t miss his old precognitive and telekinetic abilities in the least. But there was no need for him to thank Satan for the “favor,” Max decided.
The Peregrine jumped from his perch and landed nimbly near Doctor Satan. “I’m taking you in,” he said simply.
“I don’t think so. Better men than you have tried, after all.”
The Peregrine moved forward, the knife sweeping towards Satan in a blur. The blade slashed through the crimson cloak that Satan wore but missed his flesh.
The criminal mastermind responded in kind, kicking out with a boot. He caught the Peregrine in the knee and drove the hero back. Satan then reached into his cloak and grabbed a small red-tinged leather bag. He threw its contents at the Peregrine, a fine powder catching Peregrine in the eyes. The burning sensation was intense and nearly made him cry out in pain.
Doctor Satan slammed a fist into Max’s head, knocking the Peregrine against a wall. “It’s time to end our little feud,” the villain declared, the tablet still clutched in one hand.
The Peregrine used Satan’s voice to place him and he struck out with the knife. The blade passed deeply into the killer’s midsection, drawing blood and causing Doctor Satan to roar in agony. Dipped as it was in the blood of Christ, the Knife now had the ability to inflict tremendous harm to supernaturally powered entities, a classification that included Doctor Satan.
Satan jerked away, pulling free of the blade. He placed both hands over the wound, losing his grip on the tablet. It landed hard on the ground and was then kicked out into the street by the blind Peregrine. Satan cursed under his breath as he watched the tablet slip down a storm drain.
“You idiot!” he bellowed. He drew his own knife but found himself forced into a defensive stance by the wildly slashing Peregrine.
“I must have done better than I thought to tick you off so badly,” Max grinned. The pain in his eyes was still intense, but he was fighting through it and was beginning to get his eyesight back again.
Doctor Satan turned and made to flee, but he skidded to a stop when he saw a well-dressed man with thin features and intelligent eyes. “My night just keeps getting worse,” Satan declared.
Ascott Keane smiled wanly as the Peregrine grabbed Satan from behind. He uttered a quick spell that muted Satan’s words, both to make the next few hours more pleasant and to keep the villain from casting any verbal spells of his own.
“You’re going to prison,” the Peregrine promised, whispering in Satan’s ear. “And you’d better stay there, or the next time we meet I’m going to kill you.”
Satan grinned at that, but because of Keane’s spell he was unable to respond with words.
Down in the sewers of Miami, meanwhile, the Mayan tablet slowly floated away, in the murky darkness.
CHAPTER V
Interlude
2012
The images faded, leaving Ian Morris with a look of consternation. “That didn’t help me at all,” he lamented, examining Catalyst’s stoic reaction. “So there’s a tablet out there that could help remake the world, but it does nothing to stop the end from coming. It just reshapes what happens next.”
Catalyst nodded sagely. “Things are not always clear at first glance,” he said, which only prompted the Peregrine to grunt in annoyance.
“That v
ision not only didn’t answer my questions about the end of the world, it didn’t even teach me any valuable lessons. That wasn’t the end of Doctor Satan—he wasn’t dealt with for the final time until the early 1960s!”
Catalyst heard the heat in the Peregrine’s voice but didn’t respond in kind. He kept his own words level and controlled. “There are two more visions you must see; the next is in 1967, during the time when William Davies was operating as the Peregrine.”
Despite himself, Ian found himself being drawn back into the storyline that Catalyst was weaving. Ian was a student of the Peregrine legacy and he mentally put down markers so he could guess what was going on at this time. “He’d been the Peregrine for about six years by then, but he was starting to go off the rails. He moved to Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco and fell into a psychedelic funk. He burned his draft card and went deep underground, not even answering to his birth name for a few years. He was simply the Peregrine. Let his hair grow out but still wore the standard get-up that his father had made famous, though he added a peace symbol button to the lapel.”
Catalyst stared off into space as images began to swirl again on the tabletop. “He was a good man, William… In the end, he became too disillusioned with both himself and the world around him. He began to wonder if he was an agent of change or just another fascist with a gun.”
Ian looked at the images taking shape and leaned in closer. He’d read everything there was about the Peregrine of the sixties but to actually see him… despite his annoyance at how things were proceeding, he couldn’t turn down this opportunity.
Catalyst spoke as the images took solid form. “All of you have had differing strengths and weaknesses.”
“You’ve known all the Peregrines?”
“Oh, yes. In my line of work, it’s hard to avoid them.” Catalyst closed his eyes for a moment. “After Rachel—my wife—died, Max became a very close friend of mine. And I knew William very well… Emma and I never bonded, but we were professional with each other.”
“How do you think I compare to them?” Ian asked, unable to resist.
Catalyst looked at him archly. “Oh… well, you… you’ll be the greatest of them.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“None of them will make the sacrifices you will.” Catalyst turned back to the images and Ian did the same, though a cold chill now ran down his spine.
CHAPTER VI
Summer of Love
August, 1967—San Francisco
William Davies twirled his mask on one finger as he sat on the floor, knees drawn up. He was surrounded by a half dozen of his closest friends, who lived in the same house as him. Two of them were girls and both were giggling madly as they passed a joint back and forth between them. The sounds of the Beatles’ new album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, drifted through the room and William felt himself soaring to new heights, his mind seeming to expand and contract with every beat of Ringo’s drums.
William wore a suit and tie, but somehow it didn’t look square on him. His peace sign button on the lapel of his coat and his shaggy hair made it clear that he was with the people.
“Peregrine,” a female voice whispered in his ear. William turned to look at her, a smile on his face. None of his friends called him by his “real” name, which was just how he liked it. William Davies was a draft dodger, but the Peregrine was an American hero.
William stared into Blossom’s green eyes and full lips, leaning in to kiss her hungrily. She smelled of jasmine and marijuana, all mixed up in a sexy hedonistic fragrance. “You want to go find a room?” he asked her, hoping she’d say yes. Technically, she was dating Cougar, another housemate, but she spent as much time in the Peregrine’s bed as in Cougar’s.
“Maybe later,” Blossom answered, pulling free of his embrace. “Your dad is here to see you.”
Those words were like a bucket of cold water to William’s libido. He stood up quickly, coming down from his drug-induced high. “He’s in the living room?”
“Yeah. He looks younger than I expected.”
“He aged well.” The Peregrine stepped over some of his friends’ prone bodies and walked down the hall. His father was standing with his back to him, looking at a collection of poems some of the gang had scribbled on the wall. Most of them didn’t make much sense, but they were brilliant in a way, William thought. Acid made almost anything seem brilliant.
“Dad?”
Max Davies turned to face his son. Despite the fact that Max was sixty-seven years old, he could easily pass for a man in his early forties. There had reached a point around 1944 or so when Max’s appearance seemed to fix itself and he hadn’t changed much since, other than a few sprinkles of gray amidst his wavy hair. “You need a haircut,” Max muttered. He moved towards his son, shaking his head. “They didn’t even know who William Davies was when I asked for you. They only know you by your secret identity, though I guess you’ve dispensed with the secret part.”
“It’s just reversed now, that’s all,” William replied. “You used to keep the Peregrine a secret because it would have hurt you as Max Davies. But I keep William Davies a secret because it would hurt the Peregrine.”
“You smell like dope.” Max ran a hand through his hair, trying to keep from losing his temper. “I wish you wouldn’t do drugs, son. And I wish you wouldn’t drag the Peregrine legacy through the mud.”
William looked as if he’d just been slapped. Despite his rebellion against the current actions of the world’s leaders, he did take being the Peregrine very seriously. “What do you mean by that?”
“Last week you shot three cops at that rally downtown.”
“They were beating up defenseless kids! They’re just a bunch of goons who think that because they wear a badge they have some sort of power! Well, we’re gonna change the world… make it a better place!”
“How? By smoking grass and screwing around?”
William stared at his father, seething with anger. “Did you come out here just to yell at me? Because you could have done that on the phone.” The Peregrine jabbed a finger into his father’s chest. “And don’t even think about trying to take back the Peregrine identity from me. It’s mine. I’ve been doing this for years and doing a damned fine job of it!”
“That’s mostly true,” Max agreed. He shoved his hands in his pockets and sighed, looking suddenly much older. “Your mom’s dead, William. She passed away two days ago. I wanted to tell you in person.”
William blinked in surprise. “What happened…?”
“She went to sleep and she didn’t wake up. The doctors say she had a congenital heart defect and nobody ever knew it. Not until it was too late.” Max put his arms around his son and pulled him close. “I’m sorry.”
“Me too,” William whispered, hugging back with all his might.
* * *
William crept through the streets of the city, his heart heavy with sorrow. His dad had stayed around for a few hours before finally returning to his hotel. Things had seemed a little less awkward between them towards the end, though the Peregrine knew how much he was disappointing his father with his lifestyle. If only his dad could understand that they weren’t just wasting their lives… they were trying to stand up for something bigger than themselves: they were trying to literally change the world.
William climbed a fire escape until he stood on top of a grocery store’s roof. Across the street, standing in the illumination of a streetlight, were three men. Two of them were of Oriental descent with short black hair and thin bodies. They wore buttoned shirts and tight slacks. But it was the third man who held William’s interest: he was tall and slender, dressed in an Oriental-style robe. He leaned on a walking stick topped by a large diamond and his face was the epitome of evil: feline features and a long Fu Manchu moustache. If the rumors were true, this man was the mastermind behind the recent growth of the Chinatown gangs.
William had been looking into the gangs’ activities for a few months now but i
t had been on the backburner until recently. Some of William’s friends had nearly died from tainted acid that they’d bought from this man, and that had infuriated the Peregrine. Now with his own mother’s passing, he was anxious to hit something.
For a moment, he wondered how Emma would take the news. Probably better than I did. She’s always been stronger than me, he mused.
The Peregrine drew his pistols and jumped from the rooftop. The fall was a significant one but he’d learned gymnastics at an early age. He landed in a rolling crouch to cushion the impact and came up firing. The bullets ripped through the shoulders of the two smaller men. They went down, whimpering in pain. A powerful narcotic drug had been smeared on the bullets and the men quickly fell into a deep slumber.
The remaining figure watched the Peregrine with dark amusement in his eyes. He reached up with one hand and lovingly stroked the Fu Manchu moustache he possessed. “What a surprise. All these months of waiting to draw you out, and now you finally appear.”
The Peregrine moved towards the man, guns pointed directly at him. “I’m taking you to the police.”
“Really? I’m surprised, given how little you seem to respect them. How do you reconcile your obvious hatred of your government with your unceasing desire to enforce their laws?”
William frowned. “Put your hands up. Now.”
“You’re not him, are you? I suspected you weren’t… not from the descriptions I’d heard of you and the way you were acting these days. So, you must be the boy. William.” The man gracefully took a bow. William was able to study him at length now and he found that his age was difficult to determine. “I tried to raise you as my own, you know. I kidnapped you from your mother and father, but they stole you back.”
William blinked in surprise, suddenly recognizing the figure before him. He’d heard the stories so many times but he—along with everyone else—had assumed that the infamous Warlike Manchu had finally succumbed to time and age. “I can’t believe you’ve been reduced to running drugs in Chinatown,” the Peregrine stated. He kept his voice and hands from shaking, but only just barely.