by Barry Reese
“Ascott,” Quinn said with a smile. “Max didn’t tell me you were here.”
“I just arrived.” Keane entered the room and tossed his walking stick onto a nearby chair. He loosened his tie and let out a weary sigh. “I’ve spent the past seventy-two hours traversing the outer planes of hell, searching for a kidnapped little girl.”
“Did you find her?” Max wanted to know.
“Yes,” Keane said, looking distracted. “Unfortunately, she wasn’t completely intact.” The detective shook himself, visibly trying to move past such dark thoughts. “Max told me that the two of you have come across a man known as the Spook. Certain things that he has seen in his visions have led him to believe that perhaps this Spook isn’t a normal man, at all. Hence, I have come to consult.”
The Black Bat turned towards Max. “You’re having visions again?”
“No. Not like before.” Max filled them both in on the full details of his father’s visitation, though he didn’t mention the emotional turmoil his father’s appearance had caused for him. “The Spook attacked Kirsten McKenzie in Atlanta, getting the address for Mr. Allen from her, and now they’ve gotten whatever information they needed from him. I’ve got to stop playing catch-up before I fall too far behind to stop them.”
“So you’ll be heading straight to Kuelap?” Quinn asked, knowing that he’d be doing the same thing as Max. In fact, he was considering offering to go with him—getting his head handed to him by the Spook had left him angry and spoiling for a rematch.
Keane held up a hand, stopping the Peregrine from answering. “If I may… I have information that may prove useful to you in determining your next course of action.”
The three men sat in the study, Max barely able to contain his nervous energy. Whatever weapon lay in Peru, it was obvious that a man like the Spook couldn’t be allowed to possess it.
“I know who the Spook truly is,” Keane began, adopting the professorial tone that both Quinn and Max had come to know very well. “His real name is Derek Taylor, and he is the son of actor Brock Taylor.”
Max felt a surge of recognition pass through him. He’d met Brock at one of Evelyn’s parties. They’d been costars in a few films before Max and she had become an item. He’d seemed handsome and funny, but his son—who had accompanied him to the party—had been sickly, with a dour air about him.
“The younger Taylor had suffered from many minor maladies since his childhood and this had led him to seek out alternative methods for improving his well-being.” Keane crossed his legs, visibly warming to the subject. Max couldn’t help but think that Ascott liked the sound of his own voice just a tad too much, but he couldn’t deny that the mystic detective was always a needed source of information. “Derek flitted through a variety of drug addictions before stumbling quite innocently into the world of occultism. He became a protégé of a man who hungered for Taylor’s wealth just as much as the young man hungered for magical cleansing. The man who became his tutor was Doctor Satan.”
Max let out a small curse and shook his head. Satan’s true identity was unknown, but he’d been a thorn in the heroes’ collective sides for far too long. His list of crimes was so lengthy that no one would ever fully know the horrors he had perpetrated. Not long ago Max had managed to defeat Satan, stopping the villain from gaining access to a Mayan artifact that foretold the end of the world. The criminal now lay in a jail cell, awaiting trial.
“As with all things where Satan is involved,” Keane continued, “there was quite a bit of deception. After taking Taylor for every cent he could, Doctor Satan offered the young man up as a sacrifice to a demon. The creature crawled up from the abyss and dragged Derek Taylor down into hell. That was sixteen months ago. Approximately two months ago, the Spook appeared for the first time. He slew several people who were former associates of his in his former life. He was accompanied by the two women you described earlier. I believe that Taylor escaped from hell, empowered by eldritch energies, and brought Mercy and Grace with him. What sins led to their imprisonment in the abyss I can’t fathom, nor do I want to. But the three of them are no longer human, as you’ve both attested to.”
The Peregrine digested this and then asked the question that had gnawed at him all along. “Do you know what the weapon in the Mummies’ Lagoon is? Kirsten had no idea, but supposedly it was so awful that Allen didn’t believe anyone should have it.”
Keane hesitated before answering. “I’m not certain. I do agree with Allen that the few clues I have found, both in his own writing and elsewhere, suggest that no good will come from that weapon being used. The best guess I can find is that it’s some sort of microwave weapon.”
The Black Bat leaned forward. “Microwave?”
Max answered the question, having become familiar with the ideas through his own research over the years. “Microwaves are electromagnetic waves with wavelength frequencies between 0.3 GHz and 300 GHz. They were first proposed by James Clerk Maxwell in 1864, but it was a few years later—1888—that someone successfully demonstrated their existence. Heinrich Hertz was the man responsible for that. The possibilities for weaponry are frightening—I’ve heard that a short burst of microwaves against a person could quickly cook someone from the inside out.” Max glanced back at Keane, his face drawn tight with worry. “I’m not sure I understand where this weapon could have come from, though: If Kuelap was abandoned sometime in the 1500s, who in world could have devised this kind of weapon?”
“I believe it might be extraterrestrial in nature,” Keane answered, drawing shocked states from both the Peregrine and the Black Bat. “We know that some of the elder gods who have tried to destroy our world have come from the stars… and I think this weapon did, as well.”
The Peregrine stood. “Then I need to warm up my private plane. I thought about just going straight there after what happened with Kirsten, but I still thought I might be able to stop them before they left the country.”
“I’d like to come along, if you don’t mind,” Quinn said. He rose but swayed unsteadily on his feet.
“Thanks for the offer,” Max replied. “But you need to rest.”
“And I, unfortunately, have other matters to attend to.” Keane plucked up his walking stick and joined his colleagues in standing. “Doctor Satan is scheduled for a hearing in a few days, and my testimony will be crucial if we hope to gain a conviction.”
The Peregrine shook hands with his friends, thanking them for all their help. Then he was on his way, hurrying out of Tony Quinn’s home and down to the streets below. If Keane was right about the alien weapon lying in Peru, then there was no time to waste.
CHAPTER VI
Laguna de las Momias
“My neck hurts,” Mercy whined, scratching at one of the spots where she’d been shot the day before. There was little sign remaining of her wounds, other than barely-seen white circles where the bullets had emerged from her flesh.
The grasses that the three of them trudged through were knee-high and wet with morning dew, making progress all the more difficult. Had they still been human, they would have been drenched with sweat, but Mercy and Grace both wondered why the Spook didn’t call upon his hell-born powers and transport them directly to their goal. It was almost like he relished the exertions he was putting them through—inhuman or not, they still got weary after a long day of working. Grace suspected this was a mental holdover from their human days, but Mercy thought they simply had limits to their powers.
“Stop complaining,” Grace warned, casting a wary glance over at the Spook. “You know he doesn’t like it when you second-guess him.”
“I’m not second-guessing him. I’m just saying my neck hurts.”
“Just like you said twenty minutes ago that the grasses were too wet. You’re only doing this because he’s making us walk down to the lagoon.”
Mercy smiled, knowing that her friend was right. She couldn’t help it, though. It was in her nature to whine when things weren’t going her way. She and Grace h
ad grown up together, slaves in service to a criminal warlord named the Warlike Manchu. His normal disdain for women had been tempered by reports of female soldiers who fought with ferocity unmatched by most men. And so both had been trained to be killers, taught all the killing arts beginning at the age of seven. They had become friends and soulmates, though their training had mattered little when they’d faced some enemies of their lord, each of them armed with guns. The girls had fought well, killing many of them, but in the end the bullets had ripped their beautiful flesh to tatters and their souls had ended up in hell.
Hell was where they had met Derek Taylor, who was in the process of his own private torment. He was the plaything of a powerful demon, being ritually tortured on a regular basis. But Taylor was smart, and for all the physical weaknesses he had possessed in life, he had a soul filled with an iron-strong belief in his own eventual reward. After befriending Grace and Mercy, Taylor had staged an escape, piercing the barriers between hell and the mortal world thanks to the bizarre powers he’d acquired during his stay in hell. All through his torture, he’d studied his captors, mastering their powers for his own use.
Mercy couldn’t fathom why he’d chosen to garb himself in a mock Day of the Dead costume and call himself the Spook, but who was she to judge? Besides, he’d taken on the role of their master, replacing the Warlike Manchu, and he was much kinder to them than the Manchu had ever been.
The air around them began to acquire a foul stench, and Mercy felt her feet beginning to sink into the increasingly wet soil. The Spook paused at the edge of a small cliff, one that rose approximately twelve feet over the brackish waters of the lagoon. Along the banks of the swampy water was a series of poorly-marked graves, each adorned with a small stick around which a hoop had been fastened. These hoops contained different objects, no two graves bearing the same. The objects ranged from feathers to marbles to small rocks.
“There they are,” the Spook whispered. His voice sounded so soft that the girls weren’t sure that he had spoken at all. The Spook threw himself over the cliff, his cloak billowing out behind him. He landed in a crouch, barely disturbing the grasses below.
While Mercy and Grace followed suit—landing much harder and in such a way that it would have broken bones if they had still been normal humans—the Spook began to inspect the graves. He was looking for one in particular, and when he spotted it, adorned with a series of flower petals, he could scarcely hide his pleasure. He allowed his gaze to wander from there, until he spotted the tomb up against the side of a small moss-covered hill. A stone wall had been erected, with a variety of warnings carved into its surface. A small section of the wall had obviously been separated from the rest and then put back into place, exactly as Allen’s story had claimed.
The Spook approached the wall with reverence, knowing that beyond it lay the key to all his plans. Despite his supernatural powers, he was not capable of achieving all that he desired without something more, something that would make the men and women of the world truly tremble before him. Derek Taylor had seen his father conquer the world of Hollywood, gaining all the women and money any man could want. But Derek desired to exceed his father in all ways: he would conquer the entire planet.
The Spook relaxed his mind, slowly allowing his physical form to melt away into near-nothingness. He passed through the barrier protecting the tomb, stepping into a room that smelled of earth and death. Set against one of the walls was the body of a man, his skin drawn tight against the bones of his body. He wore a loose-fitting cloth garment and an elaborate headdress. The corpse’s hands were drawn together over his chest, the fingers holding a strange object in their grip.
The Spook walked forward quickly, returning to solid form. His cloak rippled behind him and hellish light flared in his eyes. The object was square-shaped with a raised center. A series of concentric circles were etched on the raised area, with a dull blue-colored button in the middle. Along one of the edges was a small pointer, shaped like the head of an arrow.
The Spook could almost picture Allen carefully removing the weapon from the mummy’s hands, trying to avoid damaging the dead body. Derek, however, had no such compunctions. He ripped the microwave device from the mummy, the action causing the brittle bones to splinter. Several fingers flew to the dirt floor and the Spook crunched one of them beneath his boot.
Holding the weapon in front of him, the Spook pointed the small arrow-like portion of the device towards the wall. He depressed the blue button in the center and watched as invisible waves of energy snaked out from the machine, slowly beginning to warm the stone wall from within. He found that he could twist the button, causing a hum to emerge from the weapon as it grew in intensity. The wall began to literally melt before his eyes, drawing a pleased murmur from the villain.
As Mercy and Grace came into view, the Spook strode towards them, stepping over the smoking remains of the wall. “I think we’re all set now, ladies. The world had better hope they do as I say, or—”
The sound of a plane soaring overhead made all three pause and look up. An unmarked black aircraft streaked past, angling lower in obvious preparation for a landing somewhere just outside the fortress.
“Who could that be?” Grace wondered aloud.
The Spook laughed in response. “The Peregrine, I’m sure. And it’s about time. I deliberately left the Iron Maiden and the Black Bat alive, so he’d know for certain where we were headed.”
Mercy stared at her master in shock. “You wanted him to follow us?”
“Of course. Think of it. Both Doctor Satan and the Warlike Manchu had one thing in common: they both failed repeatedly to destroy the Peregrine. It’s the perfect way to show that we’re about to surpass them. We’ll commit the one crime neither of them could commit: we’re going to kill the Peregrine!”
CHAPTER VII
Death in the Fortress
The Peregrine stepped out of his private aircraft, making sure it was locked up tight. His specially-modified plane was one of the fastest in the world, and he’d flown it to the limits in order to get here as quickly as he had.
Max thought about discarding his heavy coat, thinking it might be too warm in the humid air surrounding him. But he elected to keep it in place, knowing that he had a plethora of gadgets in its pockets that might come in useful. Though his usual arsenal of guns and knife were typically all that the Peregrine needed, he also had with him a variety of explosives, communications devices, and first aid equipment.
Max looked around, taking a brief moment to soak in his surroundings. The fortress was a remarkable sight, and even with the current crisis, the Peregrine was moved by the powerful sense of history that clung to the place.
The Peregrine began to move away from the plane, but as he did so, a familiar pounding began in his head, building from behind his eyes. He staggered forward, catching himself in the tall grasses before he landed face-first.
The sound of his father’s voice filled his ears. “Max… You need to be careful. There are things going on here that even I can’t see… dangerous and dark things. I may have misled you about what the threat truly is…”
The Peregrine spoke through gritted teeth, attempting to blot out the pain. “Then tell me what it is, damn you!”
Warren’s black shoes appeared before Max’s eyes and the Peregrine looked up to see his father standing before him, surrounded by mist. “The danger is here, son… but I’m not sure it has anything to do with the Spook! He’s the catalyst for all this, but he’s not the one to really be fearful of…”
The Peregrine struggled to his feet as the cloud of pain began to lift. His father faded away even as Max cursed under his breath. Once again, his father’s ghost had shown up and tantalized him with clues but refused to tell him anything truly useful.
Max was still pondering this when the sound of movement behind him spurred him to action. He whipped around just in time to block a blow from Mercy, who had moved up on him during his trance.
The Peregr
ine quickly shifted into battle mode, knocking aside Mercy’s every attack. She was a blur in motion, but Max had trained under the greatest fighters in the world and was capable of matching her, though not without effort.
It was when Grace jumped into view that Max began to wonder if he was going to be up to the task of winning the day—after all, somewhere out there, the Spook lay in waiting.
Grace sprang towards him, thrusting a fist against the side of the Peregrine’s skull. She caught him a glancing blow, but it was enough to send him reeling into a follow-up punch from Mercy. The twin attacks momentarily left Max’s vision blurred and the girls pressed their advantage, peppering his body with kicks and punches.
Luckily for him, the Peregrine was trained in how to take punches and recover quickly. He allowed his attackers to believe him increasingly weakened and then he responded with renewed vigor. The Peregrine managed to put some space between himself and his enemies, allowing him to reach into his jacket and retrieve one of his weapons. He chose the mystical Knife of Elohim without thinking about it, wanting to have the close-quarters weapon against these inhuman foes. Having been dipped in the blood of Christ long ago, the weapon glowed with a yellow light in the presence of evil and dealt severe damage to the undead.
The Peregrine struck first at Mercy, who tried to dodge the sweep of his blade. She slipped in the wet grass, however, and was unable to avoid the weapon’s edge. It drove through her left side, ripping through the skin like a hot knife through butter. Max watched in shock and a bit of horror as Mercy began screaming in a way that didn’t seem to match the severity of her wound. She howled like a woman on the edge of death, and Max saw that her wound was beginning to spread, burning at the edges like kindling. She looked at Grace, screaming her name as her entire body suddenly burst into flames. Her cursed soul was returned to hell as her body crumbled to dust, falling to the dew-soaked grasses.
