“I need to see to read. If they notice us, there’s no helping it,” Ziegler said. “We’re almost out of time.” He looked up at the three of us. “Cover me. I’ll do my best to bind the creatures. No guarantee.”
Not what I wanted to hear.
West, Sarah, and I drew our guns. I worried that if we had reason to shoot, we might get more than we bargained for. Gasses built up even in active mines, pockets of bad air that could suffocate a man or, in the case of firedamp, explode.
If Ernst and his buddies noticed us—and I felt certain they had to have known we were there—it didn’t slow them down. The speaker kept on chanting, and I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature of the air around me.
I glanced back the way we came. Now that I knew what to look for, I could make out a faint light where the entrance to the fountain’s mechanical room offered us our way to escape.
Whether or not it would be too far depended on what might be chasing us.
Skittering noises, claws on rock, sounded in the darkness. We glanced at each other in horror. Either the creatures were close enough for us to hear them or had massed in the depths so that the noise was amplified by a horde. Neither option was good.
“Hurry up!” Sarah urged. Ziegler kept on reading, as I saw the shadows of the pit begin to move.
A dark gray wave of movement swelled from the deep mine shaft and spilled over onto the opposite side, where Hans, Ernst, and their friends called forth the Vril-ya. I stared, horrified and entranced at the pulsating movement as the creatures moved in silent coordination, flowing up over the lip of the shaft and then rising before the dark witch who summoned them.
It all went wrong when the gray horde set on the witch and his followers, and the screaming began. Ernst cried out to Veles to save them, his voice filled with terror. As I had suspected, no salvation came. Veles had left them on their own, and when Ernst realized the betrayal, he cursed the god of the underworld with his dying screams. His friends shrieked in pain, as the gray monsters from the deep swept over them like a riptide and pulled them under, silencing them forever.
“Sarah—keep your gun trained on the pit and shoot anything that comes out of it,” West snapped. “Joe—I need help with the dynamite.”
The bark of Sarah’s gun, firing shot after shot at creatures scrabbling over the edge, told me we were nearly too late.
Ziegler kept on reading the binding spell as more and more of the creatures spilled over the edge of the pit, a rising, writhing mass that made it impossible to tell where one began and another ended until they stood on elongated legs and stretched out long, slender claw-tipped arms to snatch their prey.
Sarah never stopped firing, switching guns rather than pausing to reload. I ran to help West, who had bundle after bundle of dynamite tied on a long rope, each with long fuses. With shaking hands, I passed him one after another to be lit, sure that I would either feel claws rip into my back any second or that the explosives would misfire and send us all to perdition.
I wasn’t entirely sure either would kill me, but it would be the end of Sarah, West, and Ziegler without a doubt, and our failure would set the scourge loose on the world.
“Come on!” West urged, taking one end of the rope. “We’ve got to get to the edge.”
“I’ll make it happen.” Krukis’s magic filled me, and while I was no match by myself for the hordes of Vril-ya scrabbling up from the shaft, I could clear a path through the ones in front of us.
I swung my metal-skinned fists like sledgehammers, knocking the slender creatures out of our way, sending their thin bodies flying. Claws tore at my clothing and screeched against steel, able to do no worse than scratch me when they would have flayed a mortal. West stayed right behind me, carrying the lit-fuse dynamite bundle that threatened an entirely different death if we weren’t fast enough.
Gunfire punctuated every breath, and the smell of gunpowder hung in the air. Ziegler kept reading, although I had no idea what the German words meant. West and I made progress toward the lip of the chasm, but moving just those few feet took longer than it should—longer than we had—every inch hard-won as I kicked and punched and hurled bodies out of my way.
Some of the creatures nearly got past me. I brought my boot down hard, squashing an elongated head with a crack of bone. Ahead, the gray wave surged, and I felt despair swell up inside me.
Too many. Too far. Too late.
We were nearly at the edge—and nearly out of time. The slow-burn fuses glowed, growing relentlessly shorter, never meant for this kind of delay. It was likely to go off in West’s hands, killing him and the creatures near the blast, leaving me damaged and overwhelmed and insufficient to the task of saving the world.
I stumbled as a creature pulled hard on my leg, then realized that the onslaught of scrabbling monsters had turned like the tide. Some power sucked it back into the darkness, relentlessly dragging the horrors over the lip and down into the mine shaft, back into the abyss.
“Throw it!” I yelled to West as Sarah kept on firing at the stragglers, and Ziegler’s voice, harsh and raspy, never faltered.
West hurled the explosives over the edge, after the creatures still retreating down the sides of the pit. I felt a surge of triumph at the unexpected win.
Then West lurched, falling as one of the Vril-ya wrapped its claws around his ankle and pulled him with the tide toward the depths.
I lunged forward, grabbing West’s wrist and wrapping my hand around it in an unbreakable grip. Bone would shatter before my steel fingers would loosen their hold. I saw the terror in his eyes as the wave bore him over the edge—and me with it.
Krukis gave me inhuman strength, for one man. But the weight of the massed creatures that pulled West toward the bottom of the shaft was far more than even I could counterbalance. I dug in my toes and my free hand, plowing grooves into the rock as I tried to free West without pulling him into pieces.
He cried out in pain and terror. I could see him kicking at the claws that held his ankle, trying to free himself. I’d probably dislocated his shoulder, but I refused to let go. West slipped over the edge, fingers scrabbling for a grip as stone crumbled beneath the weight of the receding horde.
I started to tip over, head-first, into the darkness. I might survive the fall, maybe even the explosion. Perhaps I could even crawl back out if Krukis didn’t abandon me. But West couldn’t.
I’d almost forgotten about the dynamite.
The rope-chained bundles of TNT had fallen deep into the shaft, sucked down among the retreating Vril-ya. A loud blast reverberated in the mine, shaking the ground. The explosion sent a force upward, and I used it to haul West over the lip of the pit, then protected him with my steel body as chunks of rock and pieces of creature rained down on us.
The whole cavern trembled, and it sounded like the dynamite set off other explosions farther down. Pockets of explosive gases, maybe even old stashes of dynamite, reacted to the sudden, consuming fire.
More rock pelted us from above, as I climbed to my feet and yanked West to stand. He looked surprised to still be alive but recovered from his shock quickly. Since the Vril-ya hadn’t grabbed bare skin, I hoped he hadn’t been weakened from their touch.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” he said, as Ziegler grabbed his pack. Sarah stood amid a pile of spent casings, with two guns shoved into the waistband of her pants and two more in hand.
“Go!” I ordered. “I’ll bring up the rear.” That way, if the roof fell in on us, I was the most likely to survive the cave-in.
We ran back the way we came, glancing only to make sure we followed Sarah’s careful markings, aware of the black pit in the center. Booms and crashes echoed from far down the shaft, telling me that we had set off more than we’d bargained for.
As we neared the door to the mechanical room, I heard a crack like thunder, and the roof of the mine split in two, collapsing under its own weight. I swept Sarah and West up in my metal arms, hunching over them as I used my immortal spe
ed to keep us ahead of the destruction, pushing Ziegler along in front.
So close, yet I feared we wouldn’t make it as the stones that pelted us grew larger, big enough to do real damage. The temperature plummeted, and a faint glow flared all around us. For the few seconds it took to reach the safety of the steel-reinforced mechanical room, I saw the spirits of the dead gather around us, shielding us with their presence, protecting us as the rock skittered harmless down their backs.
I pushed the others inside and stayed in the doorway, unable to tear myself away from the sight.
Part of Penn’s Commons fell through a gaping hole in the mine roof, bringing down chunks of turf, splintered wooden caskets, old bones, and the screaming members of the Free Society who had accompanied Jakob to work his part of the ritual by the potter’s field.
Our ghostly protectors had vanished once we reached shelter. West and Sarah pulled at me to come inside. I could not take my eyes off the scene in front of me. The Eckert mine crumbled in on itself, a sinkhole that peeled off level after level until the doorway where I stood opened onto empty space, and the old tunnels collapsed into the abyss. Maybe to Hell itself, if such a thing existed.
I finally yielded to West and Sarah and felt Krukis’s power leave me. No longer steel, I felt bruised and spent as we hurried up the metal steps, not slowing until we slammed the upper door behind us and locked it tight.
“Holy shit,” West muttered.
“Hot damn,” Sarah echoed.
“Gott In Himmel,” Ziegler breathed.
“Fuck,” I said.
One end of Penn’s Commons had vanished into the yawning darkness, with a fringe of grass and a few sheared-off bushes to show where the lawn had been. Sirens wailed, and the first police on the scene were trying to keep back onlookers since the margins of the hole could easily crumble. Off to one side, a group of rough-looking young men lounged, out of reach of the cops. Their cigarettes glowed in the darkness, and I figured that was the Eighth Street Gang, hanging around to watch the excitement. Of Jakob and his followers, I saw no trace.
“I think it’s time to leave town,” West said as the four of us ambled away from the park as if we were just out for a stroll. “Get your things and meet us at the train station. You can ride back with us in Sarah’s private car.”
West favored his arm, the one I had grabbed, and I wondered how badly he’d been hurt. As we fled, I hoped the darkness kept anyone from noticing the coal dust that smudged our skin and clothing.
“I’ll be there as fast as I can grab my bag at the rooming house,” I replied.
“Joe…thank you. I thought I’d run out of luck, there for a few seconds,” West said, and for once, his face was open and candid, without the usual bravado.
“I thought we had, too, for a few seconds,” I replied with a lopsided smile. “Thank Krukis. He hauled both our asses out of the fire.”
Sarah and West headed back to the Hotel Berkshire, while Ziegler and I walked back to Ninth Street.
“You really did it,” I said, still barely able to believe we were alive. “Whatever spell books you used did the trick.”
Ziegler gave a self-conscious smile. “The magic flowed through me. I was just a conduit. I am grateful I could be of help.”
I walked him to his door since it was on the way. “Thank you for everything. I hope you don’t mind—I gave my copy of the book to my friend. I have my own deal.”
“The book and the letter were yours to keep and do with as you will,” Ziegler assured me. “You do good work, Joe Mack, whatever god you serve.”
He waved goodbye, and I hurried to the rooming house. Mrs. Kemmner waited at the window and rushed over when I came in the door.
“I heard what happened. Are you okay?”
I might be immortal, and the champion of a god, but I wasn’t immune to being mothered now and again. It felt good. I took both of her hands in my big paws. “I’m fine. Dr. Ziegler is fine—and he’s the real hero of the night. My friends are fine. And you won’t have to worry about Hans and Jakob anymore.”
From the look she gave me, I wondered if her nephew had already given her the scoop about what happened in the park. She gave my hands a squeeze and stretched up to land a peck on my cheek.
“You’re a good man, Joe. I don’t know what you did—and I don’t want to know. But…thank you.”
I couldn’t remember the last time I blushed. “Couldn’t have done it without all your good cooking,” I joked to lighten the mood.
She sighed and looked up at me. “So you’ll be leaving.”
I nodded, honestly a little sad about it. “Tonight. My friends are waiting. I just wanted to say goodbye and grab my things.”
Mrs. Kemmner waited by the door until I came down again with my suitcase. She handed me a package tied up in a piece of cloth and bound with string. “For the trip. There are ham sandwiches and homemade pickles, and some of my cookies. So you don’t go hungry.” She patted me on the arm, and I figured maybe she needed a chance to mother someone since her own boy was gone. I thanked her and gave her a hug as I went out the door.
Private Pullman car or not—I had no intention of sharing my homemade goodies with Sarah and West.
7
I thought you said that Hanussen was working with Veles,” Sarah said as we reclined on the sofas of her private railcar. A butler served drinks from the stash of high-class hooch. West and I enjoyed a fine stogie, while a cigarette burned at the end of Sarah’s long ebony and silver holder.
“He was,” I replied, savoring good scotch and the Cuban cigar while I could. Both were perks of working with Sarah. “I definitely sensed his presence at the Pagoda, and he recognized me.”
“I’m not looking a gift-horse in the mouth,” West said, “but why didn’t he do something to help at the mine?”
“For the same reason Hanussen bolted out of town like his tail was on fire,” I replied and took a sip of my drink. Sarah’s liquors had names and were old enough to have their own driver’s licenses. My liquor at home had been brewed in a bathtub and aged for a whole week.
“Veles is an instigator. He doesn’t stick around to face the consequences. After all, he can always find another chump to do his bidding,” I added.
“I’ve alerted authorities that Hanussen will be trying to get back to Europe, but I suspect he’ll slip over into Canada and probably has the help of one of his admirers to return to Germany,” West said. I could tell from his tone that it galled him not to be able to wrap up the case with a bow.
“What about The Order and the Free Society?” I asked.
West cleared his throat. “Thanks to an anonymous tip, the police raided the Free Society’s base in that abandoned old hotel on the mountain. They are officially disbanded, so that should drive them underground for a while.”
“As for The Order and the Thule,” Sarah continued, “they’re going to be lying low too, I suspect. Especially if Hanussen’s European contacts prove unseemly. The railroad executive who hosted the reception at the Pagoda was taken by a sudden fit and had to be hospitalized. So I doubt he’ll be dabbling in the occult until he’s on the mend.”
West raised his crystal tumbler in a toast. “Here’s to living to fight another day.” We murmured our agreement and knocked back the scotch faster than such a fine whiskey deserved.
The butler poured another round of drinks. Sarah and West chatted about the case, then moved on to other news. I looked out the window as the scenery flashed by, pensive despite our win. I identified with the ghosts of the railroad massacre, and the dead miners. I belonged among them, not here in a millionaire’s private compartment. Sometimes, it seemed harder and harder to remember the Joe Magarac I’d been before Homestead, before Krukis.
“Did you catch that, Joe?” West asked. “I got a lead on a problem in Chicago that I’m going to need your help on.”
I turned from the window and raised an eyebrow. “Mob?”
He shrugged. “Werewolves and vam
pires are muscling in on Capone’s territory. We need to stop them before it gets bloodier than usual.”
Sarah smiled. “I do love Chicago. The Berghoff. Marshal Field. And a clever little gin joint down in Greektown. Did I mention that Edna, a dear friend of mine, is marrying a Federal agent there, Elliott Ness? I dare say, I can be of assistance.”
Here we go again.
The Joe Mack Files will Continue
Afterword
Gail’s family on her dad’s side has been in the Reading area since the late 1700s. Her grandparents and later her aunt and uncle lived at 949 North Ninth Street, the row house we used for Dr. Ziegler. Since her dad was born in the early 1920s, it was an odd feeling setting the story at a time when he might have wandered by the action.
All of the landmarks and locations mentioned are real, with the exception of the rooming house (although there was a motel in that block at the time). Abe Minker is a historical figure known for bootlegging, a practice toward which Reading turned a blind eye during Prohibition. The Free Society of Teutonia, The Order of the Golden Dawn, and the Thule were all real, and sources link them to both the rise of Nazism and the Nazi fascination with the occult. Erik Jan Hanussen was also a historical figure who made quite an impression on several men who later became leaders of the Nazi movement. Likewise, the Völkisch groups were also real, and some evolved into the secret bunds that supported Nazism in America.
The references to German folk magic are historically-based. The Long Lost Friend is a real book, published near Reading back in the 1700s, as are the Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses. You can find them for sale online. All are reputedly powerful spell books. Brauchers, hexerei, hexes, and himmelsbriefs are all part of a serious tradition of German magic, sometimes called “pow-wow.”
The Reading Pagoda remains a favorite tourist spot. If you’re ever in the area, make sure to visit!
About the Authors
Black Sun Page 11