The Peregrine Omnibus, Volume Two (100 page)

Immediately, he felt a strange energy flow through him. He felt like his minor injuries were fading away like a memory and, even more importantly, that his spirit was being lightened. Little things that he felt guilty over suddenly seemed forgotten and all the petty sins he’d committed over his lifetime didn’t seem quite so important any longer.

The Peregrine was still basking in this peaceful feeling when the lights in the office unexpectedly came on. He stood up quickly, coming face to face with Rush Randall. The blond man stood well over six feet, wearing a light brown shirt with pockets over each side of his chest and dark slacks. Black leather boots completed his attire. The Peregrine uttered a curse under his breath. He must have been holding The Fourth Nail for several minutes, not hearing Randall’s entrance at all.

“Mind telling me what you’re doing?” Randall asked.

The Peregrine slipped the nail into a pocket. “You and I aren’t enemies,” he began but Randall cut him off.

“We are if you’re stealing from me.”

“My name is The Peregrine and…”

“I know who you are. I’ve seen the pictures. Now set that nail down on the desk and get the hell out of my office.”

The Peregrine frowned, bristling a bit at the man’s tone. “No.”

“Then I’m going to take it,” Randall said, his muscled body launching towards The Peregrine. He collided with the hero, slamming him against the wall but The Peregrine recovered quickly, jamming the palm of his right hand up under Randall’s chin. The blow snapped Randall’s head back and The Peregrine followed with a quick punch to the man’s rock hard midsection. Before Randall could respond, The Peregrine shoved him away, giving the vigilante a bit more room. He drew one of his pistols and pointed it at Randall, who paused in surprise.

“You’re going to shoot me?” the big man asked. “It’s bad enough you turn out to be a thief, now you’re going to become a murderer, too?”

“All I want is the nail. When all this is over, I’ll be more than glad to explain why I’m doing this… but I don’t have the time right now.”

Rush Randall stared at him, slumping his shoulders in defeat. “Okay. Take it if you need to.” The Peregrine started to lower his weapon when Randall sprang forward with incredible speed. He backhanded The Peregrine’s arm, knocking the gun from his grip. He then wrapped his fingers around The Peregrine’s throat, applying incredible pressure. He lifted The Peregrine off the ground and continued squeezing, hoping to knock his opponent out.

The Peregrine gasped, stars beginning to appear on the edges of his vision. He thrust out one hand, pressing against Randall’s face. He managed to dig his thumb into Randall’s eye and the pain caused the big man to drop Max to the floor.

The Peregrine knew he had one chance and one chance only: he unsheathed the Knife of Elohim and stabbed Randall in the upper thigh. It was a painful attack and one that would slow even an athlete like Randall… but hardly a fatal one. While Randall cried out in pain, gripping his injured leg, The Peregrine sprinted past him. He didn’t slow down until he was in the elevator cage, hurriedly pressing the button that would send the motorized carriage downstairs.

The Peregrine leaned against the back wall of the elevator and panted. He had the nail and that was the most important thing… but tonight’s events were just one more thing that Mueller and The Furies would have to pay for.

CHAPTER VIII

Fallen Valkyrie

Käthe fought to keep her face neutral but it was difficult. Two days had been wasted on Mueller’s pursuit of The Fourth Nail and the leader of The Furies was growing increasingly concerned. The Peregrine was being led back onto the zeppelin now, the Christian relic in his grasp, and Mueller was beside himself with pleasure.

Käthe was on the zeppelin’s bridge, Akemi and Imelda standing just behind. She was facing Mueller, who seemed to have either not heard or chosen to ignore what she had just said. “Captain?” she repeated. “I’d like to know what your plans are once you have The Fourth Nail.”

Mueller sighed, his expression changing to one of tired acceptance. “The Fourth Nail will cleanse me of all my sins. It will give me a clean slate. Would you have me immediately ruin that by going back on my word as a gentleman? I told him I would let him go free and I shall.”

“I’m afraid we can’t let you do that,” Akemi said. Her hand drifted dangerously close to the katana she wore slung over her back. “We’ve talked it over and The Peregrine’s going to die.”

“I assumed you three would want him taken back to Berlin,” Mueller said. “After all, you did send back a message telling command that he was here, didn’t you?”

Käthe shrugged, not caring that he’d known about the message. It had gotten through and that had been the important thing. “All we said was that he was in our custody. Accidents happen.”

“Did you happen to mention that I was bargaining with him for possession of a sacred relic?”

“Of course we did,” Imelda answered. “They need to know that you’re a traitorous bastard.”

Mueller tightened his jaw. “I have betrayed no one.”

Before any of The Furies could answer, Horst entered the bridge, with The Peregrine close at his heels. The Peregrine was holding something in his left hand, wrapped tightly in a gray-colored cloth.

Horst and Mueller exchanged Hitler salutes and then Horst stepped back, clicking his heels together.

Mueller licked his lips in anticipation. “You have it?” he asked, his eyes flicking back and forth from the bundle to The Peregrine’s face.

“Yes. Where’s Fritz?”

Mueller nodded at Horst, who stepped out and returned with the youth. Fritz had a parachute strapped to him and he still looked frightened, but also hopeful. “There. You see? He has been well tended to since you left. Once you’ve given me the nail, you’ll be provided with your own parachute and then we’ll let you both jump. The wind should carry you to dry land.”

“I want the parachute now.”

Mueller took a deep breath but forced a smile. “You begin to insult me. I have given you my word.”

The Peregrine’s eyes flicked over to The Furies, all of whom looked like they were seconds away from giving in to their desire to attack him. “I trust you, Captain,” he lied. “It’s the women who make me a bit nervous.”

Horst appeared again, holding a parachute out to The Peregrine. The vigilante took the chute and examined it, making sure that it was in good working order. He put it on expertly and then tossed the cloth-wrapped nail to Mueller.

The Nazi gasped and squeezed the nail eagerly. He unwrapped it, his eyes feasting on the rusty object. His fingers caressed it and, slowly, his expression of pleasure began to wane. “I don’t understand,” he whispered. “Nothing’s happening.”

“It was a lie,” The Peregrine said. “Nothing more, nothing less. The nail’s just a nail.”

“But… Randall had it in his safe…”

“He knew it was valuable… maybe he even believed in its powers. But I held it and nothing happened.” The Peregrine motioned for Fritz to head towards the door. “You got what you wanted, Mueller. Time for us to go.”

“No,” Mueller said, shaking his head. “This is a lie. A fake!” He pointed an accusing finger at The Peregrine. “You switched it somehow! Give me the real Nail!”

The Peregrine noticed that the guards in the room were drawing their guns and The Furies had their weapons in hand, too. He bolted, shoving Fritz out the door, even as bullets began to slam into the wall just over his shoulder. He reached into one of his pockets and pulled out something that he’d picked up in Randall’s office: a hand grenade that had been amongst the adventurer’s collection of weapons. He yanked the pin and tossed it into the center of the bridge. Several shouts let him know that the weapon had been recognized for what it was.

“C’mon, Fritz,” The Peregrine yelled, pulling the frightened boy roughly along behind him. He was sprinting towards the airlock, hoping they could make it before the grenade went off. They almost made it, The Peregrine’s fingers on the door handle when the floor rattled beneath their feet and several men began to scream. In a vessel like this, fire was an incredible danger and The Peregrine knew there was a real chance that the entire ship could go down in flames. Yanking open the door, The Peregrine looked down to see ocean below. Mueller had been lying about the wind carrying them to land—there was no land anywhere in sight.

“We’re trapped!” Fritz screamed, beginning to panic.

“The hell we are!” The Peregrine grabbed Fritz and shoved him out into open space. The boy screamed, hurtling towards the ocean below. The Peregrine counted to three and then leaped after him, the wind whipping through his hair. “Fritz! Open your chute!” he yelled, his voice nearly lost in the cacophony of noise as another explosion ripped through the zeppelin above them. The Peregrine twisted his head to see flames running along the cloth exterior of the ship, the entire body of the great vessel looking like it was about to bend in half.

Fritz suddenly shot past him, carried upwards as the wind got under his parachute. The Peregrine pulled his own ripcord and soon the two of them were slowly floating down to the sea. Burning bits of wreckage, along with screaming bodies of crewmen who hadn’t been able to grab parachutes of their own, hurtled past them.

When they struck the water, The Peregrine quickly yanked out his dagger and cut both himself and Fritz free of the chutes. “Swim with me!” he shouted. “I want to get as far away from this mess as possible!”

Fritz nodded, sputtering in the water. The boy followed his rescuer, sparing only a single glance at the mighty Valkyrie, which was falling to its watery grave.

* * *

A split second before the grenade blew, Käthe turned to face her friends. “We’re going down,” she said in crisp German.

Akemi stared daggers at Mueller, looking like she was considering killing the man for his stupidity. If he hadn’t insisted on this absurd business with The Fourth Nail, none of this would be happening. She shoved away her anger, however, knowing that the most important thing at present was survival.

All three women sprinted from the bridge, ignoring Mueller’s shouts for them to stop. They were far enough away from the blast to avoid its immediate effects, though the deck rattled beneath their feet. They saw the open escape hatch and Käthe correctly assumed that The Peregrine and his ‘damsel in distress’ had jumped from there. Without bothering to tell the others what she had planned, she hurled herself out the hatch, not caring that she had no parachute. To their eternal credit, Imelda and Akemi followed suit, trusting that their leader wouldn’t have led them to do this unless she thought they could survive.

The Valkyrie falls

They hurtled through the air, smashing into it with enough force to rattle their bones. Imelda came up for air first, gasping and sputtering. She saw Käthe emerge from the choppy seas a few seconds later and together they waited for Akemi to do the same. When her head didn’t appear within a reasonable amount of time, Imelda told Käthe to wait for her and she dove down.

While Imelda was gone, Käthe scanned the horizon. She spotted The Peregrine and Fritz not too far away but just then the zeppelin overhead split in two, fire racing along the exterior of the hull. Käthe saw bodies begin to fall from the wreckage and she muttered a curse that would have brought a blush to a sailor’s face.

Imelda returned, her arms wrapped tightly around Akemi’s waist. The beautiful Asian girl was unconscious, blood streaming from her right nostril.

“She swallowed a lot of water,” Imelda said. “And I think something may have broken when she hit the surface.”

Käthe pulled open Akemi’s eyes. She saw only the whites as they were rolled up into her skull. “Sling her my shoulder and maybe we can push the water from her lungs. Keep her head elevated, though.”

Imelda pushed the smaller girl over the German’s shoulder and began applying rhythmic pressure to Akemi’s back. After a moment, Akemi’s mouth opened and a spray of seawater emerged, erupting from her nostrils at the same time. She moaned and Käthe lowered her, keeping an arm around her waist to help her stay afloat.

Akemi looked up at the sky, where the zeppelin was beginning to fall to pieces. A man’s body—Horst it looked like—landed hard in the water nearby, his scalp ablaze. “I feel like closing my eyes and dying,” she muttered in Japanese.

“I wouldn’t do that,” Käthe said, a strange smile appearing on her lips. She was looking past Imelda, at something off in the distance.

Imelda turned her head and gasped. The most unusual plane she’d ever seen was streaking through the sky, moving almost soundlessly. The ship appeared to slow as it neared them, unbelievably coming to a steady hover less than fifty feet above them. Air was being shot from beneath the ship, stirring up the water so much that the girls were squinting as sprays of seawater shot into their faces.

A rope ladder was dropped in their midst and Käthe managed to shield her face enough to see the figure who was dangling out from the airplane, gesturing for them to climb aboard. She’d seen photographs of similar planes and her heart had swelled at the sight of this one. It was Sun Koh, come to rescue her like a knight on a white steed. The idea that she was relishing being rescued embarrassed her as all The Furies prided themselves on being the equal of any man… but this was Sun Koh, the embodiment of the Aryan hero! Surely it was okay to feel the slightest bit… well,
girlish
… around such a man.