The Peregrine Omnibus, Volume Two (73 page)

Hitler narrowed his eyes as Dracula grasped hold of the wooden stake and began to slowly pull it free. Blood and gore poured freely from the hole that was left behind, but aside from a grimace on his face, Dracula seemed none the worse for wear.

“It doesn’t matter,” Hitler said. He held out a hand towards his niece. “I control the Spear of Destiny. I can kill you in an instant.”

“Can you?” Dracula asked, sounding as if he didn’t believe that to be true. “I think you’re being overconfident with regards to your control of the Spear.”

Hitler realized that Geli had not handed him the lance, and he glanced at her quickly, taking a step away from Dracula. “Geli! Hand it to me!”

Geli was shaking all over by now, and she was obviously yearning to follow her uncle’s request… but something was holding her back, and Hitler grew angrier with the delay.

“Now, you stupid girl! Quickly!” he bellowed.

Geli fell to her knees, sobbing. “I can’t, Uncle Alf! I can’t! I’m so sorry!”

Hitler stared at her in shock, realizing how stupid he had been. He straightened up and turned to solemnly face Dracula, who was now within a few feet of him. “You control her still,” he mused. “I was foolish to believe that your hold over her would end when you didn’t hold the Spear any longer.”

“Yes,” Dracula agreed. “You were.” The lord of the vampires reached out and gripped the Fuehrer by the throat, lifting him off the ground. The undead soldiers watched avidly, many of them licking their cracked lips in anticipation of a kill.

Geli reached out beseechingly, the Spear now lying on the ground between her knees. “Please don’t hurt him,” she whispered. “He won’t do it again… Uncle Alf will learn. He’s very smart.”

Dracula ignored her, his eyes boring into Hitler’s. “I made you a vampire… I gave you eternal life… and I only asked for two things: the Spear and your loyalty. You gave me one, but not the other. So tell me why I should spare you now?”

“Because the forces of hell wanted us to unite!” Hitler gasped, squeezing out his words around the pressure on his throat. “Scratch asked you to meet with me, because together we can conquer this world in the names of our patrons!”

Dracula sneered slightly and brought his face so close that Hitler shrank back from his fetid breath. “I have no patrons. I serve only myself. That is the difference between you and me. You are willing to submit to others in the hopes that you will eventually gain power for yourself—I refuse to do that. I might work with entities like Scratch, but I will never cow down before him. I would never beg for my life against a greater foe. I would simply resign myself to the fact that I was not the man I thought I was. Are you brave enough to do that now, Adolf? Can you admit that you were a flawed little man with delusions of grandeur?”

Hitler’s features twisted into an awful expression, one that made him look as weak-willed as a child. “Please do not end my life. Geli is right. I can learn my place…”

“And so you have answered my question.”

Dracula lifted Hitler higher, using his free hand to grab the German by the crotch. Holding him over his head, Dracula shook Hitler like a rag doll before hurling him towards the wrought-iron fence that surrounded the capitol building. The Fuehrer landed atop a metal spike, his weight carrying him down until he hung there, suspended.

“Please don’t let him suffer,” Geli whined, grabbing hold of Dracula’s sleeve as he hefted the Spear once more.

Dracula nodded at the girl. “I am not an unnecessarily cruel man,” he assured her. “In the past I have let my enemies suffer so that it might be lesson to others. But in this case… it is not necessary.” Dracula strode quickly towards Hitler, his eyes noting that the guards were scrambling back towards the building, taking up positions in case the horde pushed through the gates. “Farewell, Adolf,” he said, slashing out with the point of the Spear. Hitler’s head was lopped off, spinning twice through the air before landing with a thud on the ground. His eyes were locked forever in a wide-eyed expression of disbelief.

Dracula offered a terse smile at Geli. “And now your beloved uncle is at peace. Do you wish to join him?”

Geli looked frightened, but as she lowered her head, she nodded softly. “The only reason I exist is for him.”

For the briefest of moments, Dracula almost felt compassion for this girl, who in life had been bound by blood and fate to Adolf Hitler. Even in death she could not escape him, having been summoned back to serve as his sexual slave… and now, freed from tethers of his hold on her, she could think of nothing more than being at his side once more.

“So be it,” the vampire said and he nodded to several of the undead soldiers. They fell upon her, ignoring her screams of pain. Within seconds she was a bloody mess, her clothing ripped from her body and her tender young flesh dropping into the hungry mouths of the undead.

Dracula watched for a moment, a spot of blood spurting up from the gory scene and landing on his chin. He scooped it up with a finger and inserted it in his mouth. Humming with pleasure, he turned back towards the capital building and promptly received a punch to his face. Dracula blinked in surprise as Catalyst wrapped his arms around the vampire’s shoulders.

“That was for my wife, you undead bastard.”

A second later, Dracula was gone, having been teleported away by the world’s most powerful mage.

CHAPTER XX

To Hold the Spear

The Lord of Vampires found himself beneath the Eiffel Tower, surrounded by the angry faces of his enemies. In addition to Catalyst, who quickly released Dracula and stepped away, there was the Peregrine, Jenny Everywhere, and the Russian superman, Leonid Kaslov. The Peregrine was holding the Knife of Elohim in his right hand and he’d loaned Jenny one of his pistols. The girl looked uncomfortable with a gun in her hand, but that didn’t stop her from keeping it trained on the vampire. Kaslov was unarmed, though Dracula knew enough about the Russian to know that this certainly didn’t mean that Kaslov didn’t pose a great threat.

Dracula turned the focus of his gaze upon the Peregrine. Dracula didn’t bother trying to hypnotize the man—when someone felt the intense hatred that the Peregrine obviously did, it was pointless. “I see that Trench did not live up to his end of the bargain.”

“He failed to kill me a decade ago—why did you think he’d succeed now?”

Dracula shrugged. “One never knows unless one tries.” Dracula launched himself into action, not wanting to give his enemies the chance to strike first. The Spear of Destiny whipped through the air, narrowly missing its intended target, Leonid Kaslov. The Russian’s keen instincts had caused him to jump backwards at the first sign of attack, and the point of the lance left a harmless tear in the front of Kaslov’s white shirt.

Dracula was a blur of motion, his enhanced speed far greater than that of a normal human’s. As soon as he realized his attack on Kaslov had failed, he had grabbed hold of Jenny’s arm, eliciting a scream of surprise from the girl. He threw her with all the force he could muster into Catalyst, sending both of them flying backwards. The mage struck the metal base of the tower, the back of his head slamming against the dense structure. Blood flowed freely from the injured area, and his vision immediately began to swim. Jenny was mostly unharmed, but still somewhat dazed.

The Peregrine ran forward and threw himself onto Dracula’s back, holding on with one hand while raising the Knife of Elohim with the other. He didn’t get to bring the blade down, however, as Dracula drove the blunt end of the Spear back into the vigilante’s side, breaking the skin with the force of the blow. Max slid off, gasping in pain, and then felt his head snap back as Dracula backhanded him so hard that one of the Peregrine’s teeth was chipped.

Dracula would have finished the hero off if Kaslov hadn’t slammed into him from the side. The Russian’s massively muscled body was strong enough to stagger the vampire, who nearly dropped his grip on the Spear of Destiny.

The vampire jerked out with a hand, ripping a small hunk of flesh off Kaslov’s exposed chest. He then followed with a headbutt that shattered the hero’s nose. Kaslov refused to bow down before the undead creature, however, raising a booted foot and driving it hard into Dracula’s knee. The attack would have shattered the kneecap of a normal man, but Dracula merely staggered back and then resumed his attack.

From off to the side the Knife of Elohim came hurtling towards Dracula, catching him in the shoulder. The mystic weapon hissed and burned as it touched the vampire’s evil skin, and Dracula cried out in shocked pain.

Dracula recovered quickly, pulling hold of Kaslov and bending close enough to take a bite of the man’s neck. Kaslov grunted in shock and began delivering one powerful punch to the vampire’s midsection after another. Dracula continued to draw out the man’s blood and probably would have killed the Russian had not Jenny returned to the fray just then. She had moved close enough to place the barrel of her gun against the side of the vampire’s head. She pulled the trigger, and much of Dracula’s skull was blown away as he toppled away, a gaping hole in the side of his head.

Dracula lay on the ground, still and cold, as the heroes gathered above him.

“Is that it?” Jenny asked.

“The only sure way to kill him is to stake him, cut off his head, and burn the ashes,” the Peregrine said. “But before we do that, we need to get the Spear of Destiny away from him.”

Max knelt at the vampire’s side and reached for the Spear, but Dracula surprised everyone by raising the spear and jabbing it forward. The blade passed through the Peregrine’s stomach and protruded out the other side.

Kaslov roared like a bull elephant and slammed his foot into the vampire’s head. His boot sank into the softened tissue and shattered the remaining bones. Dracula hissed like a cat but grew still once more, his hands losing their grip on the Spear.

The Peregrine staggered back, impaled on the holy lance, and he fell to his knees. He heard the voices of his friends as if from far away, and he knew that they were trying to rouse Catalyst so that he might heal Max’s wounds—but the Peregrine could sense that he was closer to death than ever before. He wondered if he’d jump into the light if he saw it, or if he’d choose to remain in the Void so that he might interact with the living on occasion, as his father had. Would he haunt his own children?
No,
he quickly decided.
I won’t do that.

“You certainly won’t,” a strangely familiar voice said from beside him. Max looked around and realized that he was in the Void, the same misty field of the dead where he usually saw his father.

Only this time it was not his father who was standing there, but rather a black-skinned man wearing a somewhat flamboyant suit. The man held a walking stick in one hand and was regarding Max with an expression of pure hatred.

“Who are you?” Max asked, rising to his feet. He was in his astral body now, which meant that the Spear of Destiny was not protruding through him any longer. This was his idealized self, which meant that his flesh-and-blood form was still dying back in the real world.

“I’m hurt, Mr. Davies, that you don’t remember me.” The man reached up and removed his hat, tossing it into the mists, where it was promptly enveloped. “I’m known by many names: Scratch, Old Hob, Azazel. Take your pick.”

“You’re saying you’re the devil?”

“No, not at all. I’m saying I’m a servant, an aspect, a pale reflection. The devil is far more than the human mind can comprehend—even ones as unique as yours. The devil wears more guises than you could name, and I am but one of them. In another existence, I was known as Nyarlathotep, and in that form you and I had several dealings.” Scratch gestured towards the Peregrine’s right hand, upon which a glowing red signet ring lay, hidden beneath his glove. “That stone you wear—the one you use to brand your symbol into the foreheads of the guilty—it was forged of Nyarlathotep’s heart.
My
heart.”

The Peregrine looked down and realized that on the astral plane he had no weapons—none save the natural abilities he’d cultivated over the years. He could only hope that they would be enough if Nyarlathotep attacked.

“You’re quite a bit of work, Mr. Davies. You’re near death, only a relatively few moments after destroying your dead father’s spirit, and still you stand ready to fight.” Scratch tossed aside his hat and his cane, clapping his hands together in appreciation. “Bravo.”

The Peregrine chose not to stand back and allow the conversation to go any further. Nothing positive could come out of a conversation with the devil, and he wanted to go down fighting if he was indeed about to die. With thoughts of Evelyn and his children fresh in his mind, he threw himself against Scratch, slamming the demon’s physical avatar with a backhanded punch that sent the man reeling. Max remembered all the training he’d gained over the years, at the hands of the Warlike Manchu and many others, and he used every bit of that now, kicking and punching with all his skill. Scratch tried to fight back but couldn’t, eventually falling to his knees in the mist, his face a bloodied mess.

The Peregrine stood over him, pulling off the glove that covered his signet ring. He held it aloft, reciting the phrase that had become infamous among criminals everywhere: “When the good is swallowed by the dark, there the Peregrine will leave his mark.” He bent low and pressed the signet ring against Scratch’s forehead, the stench of burning flesh filling his nostrils. The ring’s cursed nature meant that it burned when pressed the skin of those whom it considered evil, leaving behind an imprint of a black bird in flight.

The Peregrine stepped back, panting. He was feeling lightheaded now, and he wondered what was happening back in the real world. Was he dying? Were his injuries so severe that Catalyst couldn’t heal him?

Scratch looked up at him, blood dripping from numerous wounds, his forehead scarred and smoking. “We can make a deal,” he hissed through clenched teeth.

“I don’t make deals with the devil.”

Scratch laughed, wincing as the action caused him pain. Since these forms were psychic manifestations, their wounds were reflections of the damage being done to their spirits. It was very possible to be killed in the Void, as both men knew. “If you die here, you won’t ever see your son or daughter grow up. You’ll never hold your wife’s hand in your old age. But take my hand…” Scratch held out a shaking, blood-soaked arm. “And I’ll swear to you that your family will live to ripe old ages, free from any and all harm. You’ll be kept out of all our plans and schemes, and if any of my people dare betray this edict, I will personally rip them apart!”