by Barry Reese
The Warlike Manchu was perhaps the deadliest foe ever faced by the original Peregrine. A near immortal who had mastered every known fighting style as well as virtually every science and mystic art known to man, the Warlike Manchu had actually served as one of the original Peregrine’s trainers during Max’s early days. When the Manchu had tried to force Max to turn to crime and serve as his heir, Max had refused, inciting a feud that had spanned the late twenties all the way into the mid-1950s. Several times the Peregrine thought the Manchu dead and buried, but the villain always rose from the ashes like a phoenix.
“I thought I had made myself clear,” the Warlike Manchu said with a diabolical grin. “I have been debasing myself in this squalid location because I wanted to draw the Peregrine out of his hiding place.”
“And why would you want to do that?”
“Because,” the Manchu said with forceful conviction, “I want him to help me recreate the world.”
CHAPTER VII
An Alliance with the Devil
Two women lay naked on a bed nearby, their minds drifting on an ever-rising cloud of opium. William watched them move about languidly, their long legs and firm bodies calling to him.
“They are lovely. Would you like to own one of them?”
The Peregrine remembered where he was and looked away. He was in the Warlike Manchu’s Chinatown lair, a plush Oriental-style apartment that was home to the crime lord, his closest agents in the Ten Fingers gang, and a slew of prostitutes. “I don’t believe in owning human beings.”
“A pity,” the Manchu replied, settling down on a throne-like chair. He gestured for the Peregrine to take a seat near him and the vigilante reluctantly did so. “I am pleased that you chose to listen to my offer. I am not certain that your father would have done so.”
William placed his hands deep in the pockets of his coat, clutching the Knife of Elohim in his right glove. If it looked like the Manchu was about to strike, he wanted to be ready. “I’m not sure why I’m here, to be honest,” he admitted.
“I think it’s because my vision of recreating the world appeals to you. That’s why you live here in San Francisco, isn’t it? Because the revolutionary spirit that has so captivated the youth of America appeals to you. I have lived through revolutions and I can see that one is coming… but unless something changes very soon, the legacy of this Peace Movement will be one of lost opportunity.”
“I could see that, unfortunately.” William crossed his legs and relaxed a bit. The Warlike Manchu was studying him closely but William didn’t sense any immediate threat. From what his father had told him about the master criminal, the Manchu was a deadly and calculating enemy, and his boasts of having the means to recreate the world chilled the Peregrine to his core. If he was speaking the truth, then William needed to find out how the Manchu planned to do this, hence his playing along with the villain’s scheme to this point. “I think the kids have the best interests of the world at heart but the people with the real power just want to shut them up, and their guns give them an awful lot of power.”
“Weapons do make the man,” the Warlike Manchu said with a cold smile. “I suppose you would like to see the tablet that I mentioned to you on the way over?”
“I do. And I have to ask you again: why you’d think that my dad—or I—would trust you to use it?”
“I have always been about evolution, about improving the lot of this world. I believe that it suffers in chaos and that a strong hand—my hand or one that I have selected—can bring peace to it by instilling a harsh sense of order.” The Warlike Manchu snapped his fingers and a member of the Ten Fingers approached with a circular piece of stone engraved with Mayan writing. “This stone dates back to the end of the Mayan Empire. On December 21, 2012, the Mayan Calendar ends… and when it does, the world begins anew. We are in a loop, you see—how many times this has already happened, I do not know—but it is possible to break the loop, I believe, if the user of this tablet wishes it to be so. The tablet allows the wielder to dictate the terms of the next cycle. You are God.”
William felt intrigued but sickened by the notion at the same time. “What makes you think the cycle could be broken? Maybe all you’d be doing is kicking off another repeat go-round.”
“That is possible, but I believe my will is strong enough to remake the world in such a way that it would not occur. Even if it did, I would still have millions of years in which I had shaped things to my liking.” The Warlike Manchu leaned forward, his eyes glittering. William could feel the power of the criminal’s intelligence, for it seemed to stretch across the gulf between them. “But I do not want you to stand idly by and watch as I use this tablet when the time comes. I have always wanted to unite our families. First, I offered your father the chance to become my heir, and then I tried to steal you as an infant to do the same. When I look into the eyes of the Davies men, I see my own soul reflected back at me: We are men of vision and determination, willing to sacrifice so much for the greater good.”
The Peregrine hesitated before responding. The Warlike Manchu’s words actually appealed to him. He liked to picture himself as a man who was fighting for a greater good, even if others didn’t see it, but he tried to temper his growing enthusiasm with the stories he’d been told by his father. “Let’s say,” he finally said, “that I’m willing to consider helping you. That’s still over forty years away. I’ll be an old man by then.”
“Not necessarily,” the Warlike Manchu answered. “I have prolonged my life considerably through the use of a special elixir that I discovered. It has helped me survive many things—murder, being turned to stone, being burned alive. All of those things failed to stop me. And I am willing to share this elixir with you, if you swear to join me.”
“And if I refuse?”
The Warlike Manchu laughed softly. “Then I allow you to leave. And you have forty years to plot some way of stopping me from becoming a god. I am immortal… forty years of patience is not difficult for me.”
The Peregrine stared at the Mayan tablet, thinking about the possibilities. Not only to become immortal for himself, but to use the tablet for all the right reasons… Couldn’t he just agree to the bargain, take the elixir, and then betray the Manchu? Surely his father would agree that he’d done the right thing if he did that. He could be the Peregrine forever, making sure that the world was safe until 2012, when he could make sure on a whole new level.
But that wouldn’t be right. He’d be making a deal with the devil, he realized, an alliance with pure evil. And if he then stabbed that devil in the back, how could he ever consider himself better than the villain he’d betrayed?
The Peregrine rose suddenly, startling the Manchu. William grabbed the tablet and drove it straight into the demon’s face, splintering one of the Manchu’s front teeth. The Peregrine then tossed the tablet aside and drew his Knife. He grabbed hold of the still-reeling Manchu and yanked him from his chair, throwing him against the wall. The edge of the Peregrine’s blade came to rest at the Manchu’s throat.
“Do you think you can come back from a decapitation?” William hissed.
The Warlike Manchu laughed heartily. “Bravo, little Peregrine. Your father would be so proud. Like him, you value your outdated notions of honor over common sense. And I do find it so interesting that a man who professes to be part of a peace movement is so readily willing to resort to violence.”
“Violence in and of itself isn’t wrong,” the Peregrine answered. “Sometimes you have no choice but to fight… but it’s wrong for your government to ignore the will of those who are giving their lives. And sometimes… you have to just simply take out the trash. My father taught me that.”
The Peregrine slashed deep with the Knife of Elohim and the Warlike Manchu’s head flew upwards, a torrent of red following in its wake. The head landed on the floor, a strange look frozen on its owner’s face. William wasn’t sure if it was horror… or amusement.
The Peregrine turned to claim the tablet and leave
this vile place, but to his surprise the Mayan object was gone… and so were the Ten Fingers members who had lurked nearby.
The Peregrine cleaned the blade of his knife and shook his head. How the Ten Fingers had slipped away so quickly and quietly was unknown to him—he’d anticipated them fighting to the death to avenge their fallen master, in fact.
William idly wondered what the men would do with the tablet… but in the end, it didn’t really matter. Not today, at least. The Peregrine had over forty years to find it again.
In the meantime, William would work on changing the world without the use of mystical tablets…
CHAPTER VIII
Interlude
2012
Ian Morris watched the images of William Davies and the Warlike Manchu fade away, like dust in the wind. “I get it. You’re telling me to find this tablet and use it, right? But what’s the point? William was probably right: even if things are restarted, the next world will just end at the same point, won’t it? That’s the definition of a causal loop.”
Catalyst stood up and moved away, holding his hands out in front of him. Two cups of steaming coffee materialized in his grasp and he set one of them down in front of Ian, slowly sipping from the other. “I’m not trying to sway you one way or another, Ian. I’m just showing you things that the Weirding thinks you should know.”
“The Weirding?”
“I’m a servant to magic, just as you’re a servant to justice. All of us have roles we play. There are guiding forces in this universe: some are born under the sign of evil, others—like you and I—are destined to walk a different path.”
The Peregrine reached up and removed his mask, shaking out his hair and revealing a handsome, if somewhat morose-looking, face. “You honestly expect me to believe that you don’t know what this entire thing means? That you’re just as confused as I am?”
Catalyst continued to sip from his coffee, but the faintest hint of a smile touched his lips. “I would never say that.”
The Peregrine stared at him for a moment and then burst out laughing. “You’re making jokes? We’re talking about the end of the world here.”
“True. But if one can’t laugh at the horrors of the world, then you go insane. I’ve seen it happen.”
“Is that what happened to William?” Ian wondered aloud, staring into his own coffee. “After this, from what I know, he slowly started a downward spiral. Defeating the Warlike Manchu should have spurred him on to greater things, but I know he started hitting the drugs more and more, until by 1970 he was barely himself anymore. When he died, the obituaries just said he’d passed unexpectedly, but back when I was working on my pulp-era heroes documentary I found persistent rumors that he killed himself.”
“That’s true. He took a bad hit and he thought he could fly. Jumped right off a New York City rooftop in February 1970. Emma donned the mask the very next week.”
“I never understand that,” Ian admitted. “William had been groomed for the role from a young age. He wanted it, and I think Max liked the idea of him carrying on for him… but Emma was a whiz at school. She was an archaeologist when she became the Peregrine, at age twenty-seven. She was engaged to be married, but she broke that off and abandoned her career, all to follow in the footsteps of her brother.”
“She loved him and she loved her father,” Catalyst answered with a shrug. “Makes perfect sense to me.”
“I just mean… by that point she’d seen her father’s heartache and she’d seen what being the Peregrine had done to her brother…”
“You’ve seen all that and you still chose to become the Peregrine,” Catalyst pointed out. “Just because you know the risks doesn’t mean you don’t want to serve when called upon. In many ways, it just makes you more resolute. You want to honor their sacrifice.”
Ian nodded, understanding perfectly. Despite knowing intimately the fates of those who had come before him, he’d readily agreed to take up the mantle. Being the Peregrine was a curse in some respects, but at the same time it was the greatest thing he’d ever done. “How well did you know Emma?”
“Very. In many ways, she restored a lot of luster to the Peregrine legacy. William kept the Peregrine inside the United States, but Emma restored the globe-trotting nature of the identity, harkening back to her father’s tenure.”
Ian considered that. Since becoming the Peregrine himself, he’d been based almost entirely out of the British Isles. It wasn’t that he’d avoid traveling to other parts of the world; it was just that there had been more than enough to keep him busy at home.
“There’s more for me to see, isn’t there?” Ian asked. “I still have to see what I can learn from Emma’s story.”
Catalyst sat back down and set his coffee to the side. Images again began to coalesce before them, the image of a shapely young woman beginning to appear. She appeared to be hanging from a rope, descending down into a long rock-lined pit. She was beautiful, with auburn-colored hair that was tied back into a ponytail. Her attire was a modified version of her father’s: a waist-length coat, gloves and mask, with a pleated skirt and dark boots that reached to her calves.
“This is 1973,” Catalyst whispered. “Three years after Emma became the Peregrine. She is thirty years old.”
Ian leaned in, his curiosity driving him forward.
Tick, tock, the Armageddon clock kept ticking, every second bringing the world closer to its end. Ian fervently prayed that he wasn’t wasting time here, that somewhere in this misty recreation of the past lay the key to the future.
CHAPTER IX
Down Among the Dead
September 12, 1973—Brazil
Emma hung in the darkness, suspended by a rope that burned into her chest and arms. She could hear Kayla Kaslov, her best friend and adventuring partner, walking about up above, but she couldn’t make out any words, if there were any. Emma tilted her head back, squinting at the aperture above, but the entryway into the abyss was so small that only a small ray of light could be seen.
“Kayla! I need another torch!”
Emma’s voice echoed off the stone walls of the crevice and for a moment she wasn’t sure if Kayla had heard her or not. The Peregrine’s surroundings were so dark that it almost made Emma dizzy, and a vague sense of nausea washed over her. She was used to being tight enclosures but there was the smell of rotting meat and death here, as if this entire place was a charnel house. She’d come here in pursuit of a Mayan tablet that had crossed the paths of both Peregrines before her; after its last appearance in 1967, the relic had passed from hand to hand in the criminal network until one man finally disposed of it by tossing it into one of the so-called Devil’s Pits that lined the highest mountains of Brazil. The origins of the Pits were unknown, but they went deep into the Earth and had walls lined with small shelves. These shelves housed any number of relics dating back to the earliest known human settlements, and they were also rumored to be cursed. Many an explorer had lost his life here, plunging into the darkness below, never to return.
Somewhere down below lay Emma’s first torch, which had slipped from her grasp. She hadn’t been able to tell how far it had fallen because she had never heard it hit bottom and the flame itself had faded out long before it had landed.
“Peregrine!” Kayla shouted.
Emma looked up and saw a torch being lowered down to her by a rope. The rope twisted and turned, sending the flaming head of the torch dancing wildly. When it came close enough for Emma to reach, she snagged it with one gloved hand and brought it close.
Her estimates earlier had been right on target. The Mayan tablet rested on one of the shelves, directly in front of her. She could even make out the carvings on its surface, though they were worn with age. Emma had been forced to beat the exact location of the tablet out of the man who’d hidden it here, and his words had proven true. She’d felt somewhat bad for him—he had genuinely wanted to hide it from those who would misuse it—but in the end, Emma felt it would be better to have it protected by
either herself or Kayla.
Like the Peregrine herself, Kayla was a legacy hero. The daughter of Leonid Kazlov, who had been dubbed “the Russian Superman” in World War II and had won the coveted “Man of the Year” award multiple times, Kayla was a beautiful young woman with a genius level intellect. Her snow-white blonde hair and perfect features sometimes made Emma jealous, but she loved her friend too much to be put off by the attentions she received from men.
Leonid and the Peregrine had made a potent team on occasion in the past, and the Emma/Kayla team was proving to be a suitable replacement.
Emma took out a small clamp from her coat and hammered it into the rock wall with a hammer. It was difficult work, as she had to both hold the rope and her torch with one hand while handling the tools with the other. In the end, she was able to place the torch in the clamp. The Mayan tablet had been attached to the shelf with several ropes that were embedded in the rock itself.
The Peregrine drew the Knife of Elohim, which glowed softly. With this, she was able to free the tablet and lift it up into her hands. The second the tablet left the shelf, however, a rumbling sound filled the crevice and a strong wind began to blow upwards, lifting up the folds of Emma’s skirt. The smell of death grew much stronger and Emma found the winds were strong enough to begin buffeting her about. She slammed hard into the wall and dropped the tablet as a result. A curse escaped her lips as she watched the relic disappear into the darkness below.
The winds continued to wreak havoc on the Peregrine’s lifeline and she raised her voice, hoping that Kayla could hear her. “Pull me up! We’re going to have to change our plans!”
