The Peregrine Omnibus, Volume Two (109 page)

“Her name was Käthe. She was a good woman. The Aryan ideal.”

“That didn’t save her life,” The Peregrine pointed out. “She was the vision of your Fuehrer’s perfect race, wasn’t she? Blonde, blue-eyed, physically fit but in the end, she died just like any other woman would: with the memory of her lover foremost in her mind.”

“What are you getting at? Are you simply stalling for time?”

“Just thought it was interesting.” The Peregrine stretched out his hand while he was talking, his fingers moving through the grass. “Did you love her, too?”

Sun hesitated, seemingly unable to resist answering. He seemed strangely troubled by the discussion of Käthe’s death. Max assumed it was because he’d cared for the girl… but the truth was that Sun was simply tired of death. He had seen too many good men and women die in his name and it was beginning to create chinks in the armor of his self-assurance. “There was only one woman I ever loved… and she is gone.”

The Peregrine’s fingers curled around the hilt of The Knife of Elohim and he suddenly brought the blade up high, jamming it into Sun Koh’s neck. Blood spurted in a thick gush and the Atlantean fell off his enemy, his face twisted in agony. The blade burned those of evil intent and right now it was causing the flesh around the wound to sizzle and turn black. As Max scrambled to his feet, gasping in pain, Sun Koh reached up and yanked the blade free, hurling it away.

“You cheated,” Sun muttered, holding one hand against his neck. The blood was flowing copiously and Max knew he’d hit something vital. “No weapons,” Sun reminded him. With each word, more blood was pumped out from his throat and specks of the crimson fluid appeared on his lips.

“I prefer to think of it as good old-fashioned ingenuity.” The Peregrine reached out and caught Sun Koh by the collar of his shirt. He dragged the Aryan towards the bank of the river, forcing the man to his knees. Each step was agony for Max but he knew how close he was to ending it and this drove him forward with renewed energy. “It’s still not too late, Sun. I really did mean what I said earlier. We could help each other. Will you consider it?”

The Heir to Atlantis looked at him and gave a curt shake of his head. He said something but his words were lost in the garble of blood that came pouring forth with the effort to speak. Max thought he was saying something about finding his friends again but he wasn’t sure… and in the end, it didn’t matter.

The Peregrine shoved Sun Koh’s head into the water. He held him down firmly, holding on despite the thrashing that ensued. The struggle was very brief, however, as Sun had lost too much blood to maintain his strength.

After about five minutes, The Peregrine pulled Sun free of the water. The man’s eyes were wide open but glassy and there were no signs of life about him. The Peregrine hobbled over to pick up his weapons and then returned to the corpse. In his line of work, he’d seen people revived from worse than this… and so he took the further precaution of putting a bullet into Sun’s head.

When that deed was done, The Peregrine closed his eyes, intending to take a moment to catch his strength. Before he knew it, he had slipped into unconsciousness, his body tumbling over onto Sun’s. They lay like that, one atop the other, until Evelyn finally came looking for them.

CHAPTER XIV

All Hail the King

“I’m comin’! No need to get your horses all slathered up!” The housekeeper at the Davies Plantation was an old woman named Nettie, whose skin was so leathery that it looked like parchment stretched taut over her bones. Despite her age, her eyes burned with a keen intelligence—had she been born in another place and time, this Negro woman could have achieved wonderful things. As it was, she was a beloved member of the household and as dear to both Max and Evelyn as their own mothers.

Another knock came from the front door and Nettie uttered an oath that would have shocked her preacher. As it was, she opened the door with a lovely smile on her face, giving no clue as to the annoyance she was feeling. “What can I do for you today?” she asked sweetly.

The grim expression on the face that awaited her momentarily caused her to gasp aloud. She’d met Benson before but every time she looked into the fiery depths of his eyes, she was reminded of her own mortality. “I’m here to see your employer.”

“Mr. Davies, he’s not feeling very well.”

“He’s well enough to see me. Please tell him that I’m here.”

Nettie stepped back and allowed Benson in, showing him to the study. Normally, she would have offered a guest some iced tea but in this case, she just wanted to be away from the man as quickly as possible.

Benson sat ramrod straight in his chair, his eyes never moving from the fixed spot he stared at: he was looking at a painting on the wall, showing Max, his wife and their son, only months after little William’s birth. If the image sparked any memory of Benson’s own lost family, his eyes betrayed nothing.

When Max entered the room alone, he was alone and dressed in a button-down white shirt and slacks. He moved as though his entire body ached but what caught Benson’s attention the most was the weariness he saw in the other man’s eyes. “Your housekeeper said you were unwell. I apologize for disturbing you.”

“I’m sure you wouldn’t be here if it weren’t important.”

“That’s true. Your heroism has been noted at the highest levels. If not for you, the death toll could have been much greater and the entire affair could have derailed the Allied war effort. The President wishes me to personally extend his thanks.”

Max sat down and smiled. “And what else?”

Benson’s eyes flashed. “Where is the Solar Cannon?”

“Oh, that.”

“Yes. That.”

“I don’t think anyone should have something like that. It’s too dangerous.”

“That’s not really for you to decide.”

“Actually, it is. I was the one there with it and I knew your men were coming. I had to decide if I was okay with that… and I wasn’t.”

“We’re at war, Max. A weapon like the Solar Cannon could help us win it sooner.”

Max leaned forward, lowering his voice. He was one of the few on the planet who was not intimidated by Benson’s gaze. “A lot of people would die, horribly. I know about the bombs that we’re developing and I’m not sure how I feel about those either… but I do know that I saw this thing at work and it was awful. I trust you, Benson… I really do. But I don’t trust everyone you work for. The Axis powers have to be defeated but it doesn’t mean we have to use the tools of the devil to do it.”

“You could lose a lot of that goodwill on Capital Hill saying things like that, Max.”

“I’ll take that chance.”

Benson nodded, looking away. “Might I ask what you did with the body?”

Max smiled a little. When the authorities had arrived, he’d shown them where The Furies had fallen but he’d hidden Sun Koh’s body before they’d arrived. “I didn’t want to see it stuffed and mounted in the Smithsonian.”

“He was a murderer. That fate would be exactly what he’d deserve.”

“I don’t deny it. But there was something noble about him… even at the end, I kept wishing things had been different. That he’d have been willing to listen to me. Outside of Leonid Kaslov, I’ve never met someone as brave and intelligent as this Sun Koh was.”

“You sound quite taken with him.”

Max shifted his body and Benson recognized indecision in the other man. “I just think he had a destiny and there wasn’t anything that would let him change course from that. It makes me wonder if we’ll all just pawns in someone else’s story. I wish he’d had the chance to be the hero he could have been, rather than the villain that his hatred made him become.”

“We aren’t characters in Sun Koh’s heldromans, Max. We’re all free people, with the ability to decide our own fates.”

“I burned his body, along with the Solar Cannon, here on this property.” Max spread his hands wide. “So you can arrest me if you want. But I did what I felt was right. For the record, though, I think you’re right.”

“What do you mean?”

“Real life doesn’t have tidy endings, not the way those magazine tales do. Sun Koh’s final story would have had a very different climax if this had been a work of fiction. Not all of us get the ending we deserve, I suppose.”

Benson, who knew something about unfinished business, could only silently agree. He rose from his chair and offered a hand to Max. “You did a good job. Congratulations and thank you.”

Max accepted the handshake. “Are you going to get into any hot water over what I’ve done?”

“No. The army brass will move on to some other concern soon enough. As I said, there’s a war going on. No one has the time to dwell on recent events.”

Max stopped Benson from leaving, placing a hand on the man’s arm. “Thanks for the help. And for trusting me in the first place.”

* * *

Käthe stepped into Sun Koh’s private chamber, finding her lord and master seated at his desk, signing another of his many proclamations. The war had long since ended, beginning the rather tedious process of building an enduring empire amongst all the conquered lands. It was an ardurous task but if anyone could pull it off, it was going to be King Sun Koh.

“Are you going to keep them waiting all day?” Käthe teased, standing at attention near his desk. “Your Queen wishes me to inform you that soon she will lose patience.”

Sun looked up and smiled. Käthe was pregnant with their second child and she was proving to be one of his best consorts, capable of aiding him in day-to-day running of the empire and also strong enough to provide him with many good, strong heirs. “I’m surprised she didn’t come to get me herself.”

“She wanted me to remind you that the last time she did that, the two of you ended up making love on your desktop and you were even more late than you are now.”

Sun Koh laughed and stood up. He wore a dark suit, the sleeve of which was adorned by a Swastika. All over Europe, various symbols of his power were being erected—the Swastika was only one of those. He had also brought back a number of Atlantean designs and motifs, reminding the Aryan people of their heritage.

Together, they strode down the corridors of power. Once, Adolf Hitler had ruled from here, but his corpse was now piled in a mass grave, along with those who had remained loyal to him. Most people had recognized the power of Sun Koh, especially after he had destroyed Washington, D.C. and personally slain The Peregrine. But there had a few holdouts, particularly those who knew their own power base was going to be weakened under the new regime.

Käthe led her Fuehrer to a balcony from which he would be addressing the people of Berlin. Thousands were crammed into the area beneath, chanting his name. His cabinet of advisors greeted him with smiles and nods. They were all here, the men and women he loved, and they in turn adored him: The Furies, Ashanti Garuda, Alaska-Jim, Sturmvögel, Jan Mayen and his daughter Elsa, Rolf Karsten and Ludwig Minx. Only Arthur Grin was absent, having been dispatched to quell an uprising in Greece.

Sun Koh stopped long enough to kiss Ashanti on the lips and then he moved to the edge of the balcony, leaning out over the railing. The sea of Aryan faces below went wild, chanting even louder and pumping their fists into the air.

They loved him, their Prince of Atlantis, their Aryan King. In the tongue of the ancient Aryan peoples from whom he’d sprung, Sun Koh addressed the crowd. “Sons and daughters of the master race, I salute you! Our victories have been won on the field of battle, with honor and blood. And now an era of Aryan peace is upon us!”

The cheers were so loud that they drowned out what Sun Koh was about to say, but the King of the Aryans did not mind. This was heaven and he was glad to be here.

Sun Koh had won and his heart was filled to with happiness.

THE END

THE SINS OF THE PAST

An Adventure Starring the Peregrine

by Barry Reese

CHAPTER I

A Stranger in Town

He rode up from the desert, a weather-beaten sheepskin lined coat wrapped over his powerful frame. His clothing was covered with dirt and he smelled of sweat and horse, the result of a long, hard ride up the Southwestern corner of the state. His dark hair had a slight wave to it and his olive complexion hinted at Mediterranean ancestry. But it was his face—strong and well-defined—that caught the attention of the men and women he passed as he entered town. There was a dangerous cast to his eyes, as if this was a man who had seen his fair share of death… up close and personal.

His chestnut colored horse ambled through town, making a beeline for Mabel’s Bed and Breakfast, the only decent place to stay in the town of Eagle Eye. There were a few rooms for rent above the bar but most of those were snatched up by the drunks who couldn’t find their way home in the evening.

The stranger dismounted in front of the Bed and Breakfast, tying his horse to the hitching post. A stiff wind was creating little dust devils about his boots, further obscuring their black surface. They were the kind of boots worn by the military but there was something in the man’s manner that suggested he wasn’t cavalry. He was something else entirely.

Once inside, the stranger removed his hat and pulled open his coat, revealing a pair of odd-looking pistols. The desk clerk who leaned across the counter, watching the new arrival with undisguised interest, thought to himself that he’d never seen the likes of them before. The gun chambers seemed fatter than usual and the clerk wondered at what sort of bullets could be stored in such things. From where he was standing it looked like each gun held several hundred miniature rounds.