The Peregrine Omnibus, Volume Two (36 page)

Sally sensed that fatigue and emotion were about to overwhelm the girl and she pulled her into an embrace, holding her tightly. “It’s okay. The Daniel you’re talking about… he’s Daniel Cummings?”

Makeeda nodded. “Yes… Daniel brought me here to America with him and left a box with Mr. Nova. Then we moved to Louisiana.”

The Peregrine waited until Makeeda had pulled away, wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand. “We’ve opened the box, Makeeda. We found a broken dagger and a map of the Louisiana swamps, but we don’t know why those things would be so important that someone would kill for them.”

Makeeda stared at Max fixedly. “Then I must make you understand. Because not only is Daniel’s life at stake, but so is the world’s very existence.”

* * *

“I first met Daniel when he came to my homeland in search of Tegdaghost, a lost city in the depths of the jungle.” Makeeda sat on one of Nova’s plush couches, the others sitting around her on the floor and in chairs. They had retired to another of Nova’s sitting rooms, preferring not to linger in the room where he had died. Makeeda looked lovely but fragile as she recounted her tale, a cup of warm tea held firmly in her hands. “He was nothing like the men I had known, not even like the missionaries who had taught me some English. Daniel was brilliant, with a love for nature that inspired me. But he was with a man named Theodor Frisch, and Frisch was his opposite in all ways. Where Daniel looked at me with love, Theodor only held lust in his eyes. Daniel was looking for a means to help save the world, while Theodor wanted only two things: money and power. Unfortunately, he found both in Tegdaghost.”

“Our people believed that the city had been founded by ancient ones from another place and time. They were wise but cruel, finally slaying one another in a civil war of some kind. The city was soon overgrown by the jungle and none dared venture into it, for it was said to be haunted by evil. But Daniel had heard the stories that the city held the key to immortality and he wished to find it, to rid the world of suffering. I tried to convince him that it was too dangerous but I failed to do so. We finally found the abandoned city and made our way into one of the ancients’ tombs. It was filled with the bodies of the dead, many of which looked like they could still rise up and greet us. Daniel was seeking some of the ancient scrolls that were supposedly buried with the dead and he finally found some of them, along with a mystic blade that could slice through almost anything, be it steel or stone.”

Makeeda took a long sip of her tea, not aware that Rachel was peering into her mind during the entire spiel. She was doing it at the behest of Sally, who wanted to make sure that not only was the girl being honest with them, but that she wasn’t missing any of the key details. Rachel found the request to be a perfectly acceptable one and she was actually pleased to have been asked. She usually had to rein in her natural impulse to “peek” into the minds of others and she liked that she had been given the approval to go ahead and indulge.

As Makeeda talked, Rachel “saw” it all, and it was enough to give her shivers down her spine. The dead bodies, garbed in strange clothing… the residents of the city hadn’t been quite human, she suspected. Their heads were slightly elongated with prominent foreheads and extended canines.

Makeeda continued, having recovered enough to do so. “We finally found a piece of parchment that claimed that a small group of the ancients had left via a sky-chariot, headed across the ocean to a new home. They had drawn a small map of it and Daniel said it was a place in America, called Louisiana. The parchment’s words also said that the ancients had successfully completed their experiments into immortality, finding a way to alter the physical body into a merging of earth and water, making those who had been transformed into nearly unstoppable entities. Daniel and I were talking about this when Theodor decided to strike. He shot Daniel in the back and then tried to rape me. As my lover lay bleeding, Theodor pushed himself on top of me and… he wanted to… violate me. But before he could finish, something came lumbering out of the darkness, a monster shaped of mud, flesh, and grass. It was a muck creature of some kind, its feet making little wet sounds on the ground as he came towards us. Theodor tried to shoot it, but the bullets sank into the wet body of the creature and did it no harm. The creature finally fell upon him and… it
ate
him… just absorbed him into its awful, bloated body!”

“Despite everything, my Daniel couldn’t stand aside and do nothing, not even when a beast like Theodor was being harmed. He rose up, bleeding profusely, and tried to use the strange dagger on the beast. The weapon’s blade became stuck in the creature’s body and the blade shattered. It was then that Daniel and I fled, barely making it back to civilization with just the shattered weapon and the map of Louisiana.”

Vincent studied the girl before speaking. He saw her flinch as he caught her attention. She found him terrifying, that much was obvious. “Why did he give the box to Nova? Why not keep it for himself?”

“As soon as we arrived back in America, Daniel became convinced that he was being followed. He told me that he had been competing with a rival named Dee to find the lost city first… this Dee was a Nazi, part of an occult program sponsored by Adolf Hitler. Daniel told me that Dee had a perverse view of himself as the perfect man, sent to Earth by God himself to weed out the wicked.”

“But he works for Hitler? That
is
perverse,” Rachel muttered. She was hugging herself, still chilled by the images of the monster she had seen.

Makeeda nodded, looking sad. “We went to Louisiana after Daniel gave the box to Nova for safekeeping. We hoped to find some trace of the ancients, and Daniel told me that he had found them, but he would say no more than that. Daniel then tried to recreate the immortality process, based off what he remembered seeing in the lost city. He came up with a formula… he was going to test it on an animal when a group of Nazis working for Dee burst in, and my Daniel… my Daniel drank it and fled into the swamps, lest it be discovered by the enemy. I made it here because Daniel had said Nova was a man who could help us… but now he is dead. And I have no one…”

“That’s not true,” the Peregrine said with cool assurance. “You’re going to get all the help you need.”

“That’s right,” Revenant said. “The Peregrine’s Claws are ready to strike in your name.”

CHAPTER VII

Defending the Aerie

Nathaniel Caine sat in the living room, listening to the radio. “Amos ‘n’ Andy” was playing, with one of the main characters—Freeman Gosden—taking part in some wacky get-rich scheme. Nathaniel wasn’t a huge fan of the series, as his British sense of humor didn’t always grasp the nuances of what Americans deemed funny. Still, it was something to occupy his mind as he waited for his spell to take hold.

On the table before him lay the shattered dagger and the map. Catalyst had performed a ritual that would allow him to see into the pasts of the objects and he could tell that the magical energies were slowly coalescing, which would allow him to learn all that he could about these strange artifacts.

Catalyst saw tiny wisps of smoke rising up from the objects, taking the shapes of odd distorted-looking humans and shambling monsters of mud and earth. He saw everything that his teammates had heard, though from a slightly different perspective: he was seeing this through the eyes of the men and women who created the dagger and who fled to Louisiana to seek a new home.

Nathaniel was so intent on his task that he did not hear the noise from the first floor. He didn’t realize that someone had broken open the front door until there were footsteps in the hall. Catalyst jerked his head towards the door and caught a brief glimpse of four men slowly moving towards the room, guns in hand. He grabbed the map and the dagger, slipping them into a hidden pocket on his cloak. He then crouched down on the floor, keeping his body hidden by the couch.

“What is this place?” one of the men asked, looking at the strange furnishings. Max had made sure that some of the chairs and tables were modified to fit Vincent’s girth and the paintings on the wall tended to veer into the direction of “light in the darkness” symbolism.

“How should I know?” Trevor responded with a sneer. “I don’t really care, either. As soon as we find that box, we’re going to leave. The last thing we need to do is bring more attention to ourselves.”

Catalyst listened to this exchange and it confirmed his guess about what the men wanted. He wasn’t sure what had led them to the Aerie but in the end, it didn’t matter. They would be stopped and then he’d question them.

Nathaniel stood up as the men entered, already prepared with an attack spell. He let loose a powerful burst of energy that struck two of the closest men, knocking them back against the wall and pinning them there with shimmering bonds.

Trevor let loose a string of expletives and pointed his automatic pistol at Catalyst. He fired without bothering to warn Nathaniel, correctly guessing from Catalyst’s attire that he was far too dangerous to toy with. The other man with Trevor followed suit and Nathaniel found himself in mortal danger. Thankfully, he automatically tossed up a small shield around himself, letting the bullets bounce harmlessly away.

Nathaniel then unleashed a beam of force from his eyes, slamming into Trevor’s companion and knocking him straight into unconsciousness.

Trevor, meanwhile, rushed forward after realizing that his gun was now jammed. He was not a particularly brave man but he quickly saw that his dreams of Nazi glory were going by the wayside. Refusing to give up, he charged into Catalyst, the force of the impact knocking Nathaniel off-balance. The mystic shield that Nathaniel had erected faded as his concentration broke and the shattered dagger fell to the floor.

Trevor spied it, not realizing what it was but desperate for a weapon of some kind. He ducked and grabbed for it, bringing the remnants of the blade upwards. It sliced into Catalyst’s leg, opening a horrid gash that bled profusely.

Nathaniel cried out and fell to one knee, trying to see through the pain so that he could heal himself. The move caused the other prize—the map—to also come free and Trevor snatched it up in a hurry. He whirled about and ran for freedom, the dagger still held in one hand. His enthusiasm for battle was ebbing now and he had to hope that the map was something important… important enough for Dee not to hold another failure against him.

Catalyst found the pain in his leg increasing. Something in the quality of the blade was unnatural and was causing a burning sensation to spread throughout his body. Nathaniel looked down to see necrosis setting in already and he knew he only had seconds to act before his leg was lost forever. He looked up at Trevor and whispered a brief spell that “marked” the man, making it easy for Catalyst to track him later. Then he pushed all thoughts of Trevor away from his mind as he tried to calm himself and find a spell that could stem the damage to his system.

Muttering under his breath, Nathaniel worked his magic and his leg began to glow as a healing spell took root. It warred with the evil that was now inside him, but he could feel an improvement almost immediately.

Catalyst stood up slowly, testing the strength in his leg. He was still shaking all over but he was sure that the worst had been averted. Now that he no longer feared for his life, he felt a dull sense of anger beginning to well up within him. He’d lost both of the artifacts and he’d have to explain how that had happened to the rest of the team.

A moan from one of the men he’d captured jolted him back to reality. There was still one thug on the floor who was unconscious but the two men he’d bound to the wall were now on their knees, holding their heads. Like his shield, their bonds had evaporated when Nathaniel’s concentration had been broken.

Catalyst raised one gloved hand and reasserted the bondage spell, tying them up even tighter than before. “You blokes are going to keep me from looking like a total idiot. I want to know everything about what you’re up to. And if I think you’re holding out on me…” Catalyst increased the tightness of their bonds, eliciting squeaks of pain from each.

One of the men was squat with a thick moustache, and it was this one who eventually spoke up. “My name is Thomas… we all work with Trevor. He’s the man who got away. We’re Fifth Columnists. Trevor was supposed to be getting us in tight with a Nazi named Mr. Dee. He wanted us to steal a box for him but it wasn’t where it was supposed to be, so Trevor traced it here.”

Catalyst listened intently, using his powers to tell if the man was lying. He wasn’t. “Can you tell me anything else about this Dee fellow?”

Thomas hesitated and then nodded. “Yes. I can tell you that he’s not human. There’s something really weird about him… sometimes his face bursts into flame and becomes a skull. And he’s inhumanly fast and strong.”

Catalyst blinked in surprise. He hadn’t realized they were dealing with a superhuman, but given all that he’d encountered since becoming a mage he should have learned to never make assumptions about what he was facing.

“Thanks for the information, Thomas. Now sleep.” Catalyst quickly put all three of his prisoners into a very deep slumber. He imagined that once the police ran background checks on them, they would find lengthy rap sheets.

“Nathaniel?”

Catalyst jumped as Rachel’s “voice” resounded in his head. He caught a glimpse of fear from her as the Claws team moved through the broken front door. “I’m fine,” he shouted. “But I’ve got some bad news.” Moving to join the others in the foyer, he related what had happened, showing them his wound. It was still discolored and bleeding but his leg no longer looked like it was going to fall off.

“What you learned dovetailed with our own results,” the Peregrine said. “We were going to have you come with us to Dee’s residence, but I’d bet my last dollar we won’t get there in time to stop them. As soon as this Trevor shows him the map, they’re headed to Louisiana.”

Revenant nodded in agreement. “That’s why we’re headed out of state. Makeeda is willing to come with us and she can lead us back to where Cummings was last. Dee’s possession of the map only tells him that that’s where the ancients went to after they fled Africa. But Cummings is the only one who knows the formula for immortality and he’s the only one who might know where the ancients really are, if they’re still around.” Sally put a hand on Max’s arm. “Why don’t you go to the Trinity address just in case? We’ll go on ahead and then report back to you.”