Operation Arcana - eARC

by John Joseph Adams

  “Why do they do it?” said Chalkie. “Agreeing to become a Spitfire is like signing your own death sentence.”

  “They do their job, so we can do ours,” said Rob. “They’re all volunteers.”

  “Aren’t we all?” said James, running one hand lovingly over his gun. Everyone managed some kind of smile.

  Rob prayed quietly, under his breath, as the last few planes slotted into position. They all did, all the crews. They’d been told it wasn’t necessary, that the angel would protect the plane and its crew from Hell’s power . . . but they all prayed anyway, quietly, on every mission. Every man felt the need to make his own peace with God, in the face of death.

  The possessed planes moved forward, out across England and then over the Channel. Heading for Germany—and Dresden.

  “Why Dresden?” Father John said suddenly. “Sorry . . . I only skimmed through the briefing on the way here. What’s so special about one German city, to justify so many bombers?”

  “Intelligence says something really big and really nasty is going on in Dresden tonight,” said Rob. “Most of the head Nazis will be there, the real top ranks; everyone from Goebbels to Himmler. Not the Fuehrer, of course. He never leaves his bunker in Berlin anymore. But the word is, these particular higher-ups will be holding a summoning in Dresden, to call up more—and more powerful—demons. The highest ranks in the Pit. The Nazis are going to sacrifice every man, woman and child in the city, to power that summoning—and pay for the help they’re expecting. We can’t allow that to happen.”

  “So we kill them all first!” James said cheerfully. “Bomb the city back and forth and up and down, until there isn’t a single living thing left in it. Stop the summoning, and maybe wipe out the top Nazi bastards too, if they haven’t protected themselves properly.”

  “It’s hard to remember, back when the war was just a war,” said Chalkie. He didn’t look up from his maps or his calculations. The angel knew where to take them, but it was up to the navigator to select the best route. “When it all started, when it was just armies fighting armies . . .”

  Till Adolf Hitler realized he was losing, said Uriel. Realized there was no way he could win. And so he made a pact with Hell: human sacrifices in return for power, after he called on Heaven for help and was refused. Rather a shock for the Fuehrer, I understand. To finally know, beyond any doubt, that he was not on the side of the angels and never had been. That God was not with him. Some say that was what drove him insane, made him crazy enough to sell his soul—and his country—to the Devil. In return for the demonic forces he needed to win the war.

  Of course, once Hell entered the war directly, so did Heaven. As demons rose up, angels came down. There are limits to our intervention, on either side. Or the world—and all its peoples—would be destroyed. Men can be helped—even empowered—on both sides, but you must still make your own decisions, do the fighting yourselves. Or victory . . . would be meaningless.

  Rob thought of a great many things he would have liked to say in response to that, but he kept quiet. Uriel was quite a chatty sort, for an angel, but it still didn’t pay to press him. Angels did God’s work, and followed His wishes; there was never any point in arguing with them. They would do what they would do—no more, and no less.

  “I prefer riding in this kind of crate,” said Chalkie. “So quiet without the engines. Remember the old days, Rob? The terrible deafening roar of the engines, the vibrations that shook you from head to toe . . . the awful cold, and the need for oxygen? With Uriel providing all the speed and power we need, it’s like the dreams of flying I had when I was just a kid. Gliding carelessly and effortlessly, on the roof of the world . . .”

  Rob just nodded. He found the silence eerie, if anything. Still, the angel could move a plane far more quickly than even the most advanced engines. They’d be across the Channel and into Germany in under an hour. Which reminded him . . .

  “Check your positions, everyone. Sound off.”

  “Navigator, aye,” said Chalkie. “Course plotted. Just follow the directions I give you, and try not to get lost.”

  “Main gun, locked and loaded,” said James. “Firing fifty-fifty: tracers and blessed bullets. Lovely lovely.”

  “I’m sorry?” said Father John. “What are . . . blessed bullets?”

  “A cross carved into the nose,” said James with open relish.

  Father John pulled a face. “Ah. Dumdums. Nasty things. Some might even say dishonorable.”

  “The purpose of a bullet is to kill the enemy, Father,” said James. “The more efficient a job it can do, the better. A wounded man can always recover and come after you again. The only good Nazi is one with his head blown right off.”

  “Keep the chatter to a minimum,” Rob said mildly. “David?”

  “Rear gunner, aye. Cannon ready to go, water tank full to bursting. Holy water is as good as flame-thrower, when you’re going up against demonic forces, Father.”

  “Thank you, David,” said Rob. “What about our payload, James?”

  “All bombs primed, and ready to drop,” said James. “And I’ll say it again: if I have to pull double duty as main gunner and bombardier, I should be pulling double wages. For double responsibility.”

  “Take it up with the CO when we get back,” Chalkie said cheerfully. “Go on—see how far it gets you.”

  “Are the bombs blessed, too?” said Father John. “Have you worked some blasphemy on them, as well?”

  James winked at the priest. “Bombs are just bombs, Father. They blow up and kill people who need killing. Who could ask for anything more?”

  The priest shook his head slowly. “This is my first mission. First actual combat mission. I have been briefed, prepared, trained. I have read the official proclamation from the Holy Father in the Vatican. But there’s still so much to get used to. I still have . . . doubts. Problems, with this whole idea of a Holy War. I find it hard to accept that my loving God wants one group of his children to murder another.”

  “We won’t be killing the people of Dresden, Father,” said Rob, as kindly as he could. “We’ll be setting them free. Saving their bodies from suffering—and their souls from Hell. Better a clean death at our hands . . . than the horror of human sacrifice to the powers of the Pit.”

  “You believe that?” said Father John.

  I have to believe it, Rob thought but didn’t say.

  “Pay attention, Rob,” said Chalkie, his voice sharp. They were a friendly crew, but the closer to a target they got, the more professional they became. “We just crossed the border into Germany; we are now heading into hostile territory.” He looked over at the priest. “We have to fly around demonically possessed areas and cities that have been given over to Hell. Where Satan’s influence has become so strong, so ingrained, it could rise up and override Uriel’s protections. By avoiding these infernal territories, we avoid malign influences. Move on up into the cockpit, Father, beside the pilot. Take a look out the window. Look down and see what kind of hell the Nazis have made out of their own country.”

  Father John squeezed up into the cockpit, beside Rob, and peered out the side window. Rob didn’t need to look around; he could see the awful countryside spread out before him. Huge areas of dead land, the earth soaked with blood and sowed with churned-up bodies. Great swathes of land so blighted, so damned, that nothing natural would ever grow in them again. It was said terrible beasts roamed through the dark forests now—things the Nazis only thought they controlled—searching for what innocents remained, that they might consume them.

  Whole towns on fire, burning with blood-red flames, their populations slaughtered on the Fuehrer’s orders. Because some Germans mattered more than others. The Nazis had been sacrificing their own people for almost a year now, ever since they ran out of prisoners and victims and subjugated peoples.

  “Some of those towns will burn forever,” David said quietly, from the rear of the plane. He had an unblocked view of the land behind them. “Even if we win,
there will be a limit to what we can do to restore this land and its people. Hitler has poisoned the wells of Germany—forever.”

  “Does bring a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘scorched-earth policy,’” said James.

  The Nazi hierarchy know they’re losing, said Uriel. It has made them desperate. They believe they can do anything, anything at all, because they have nothing left to lose.

  “I still don’t get it,” said James, leaning on his gun as though it were an old friend. “Why can’t you and all the other angels just go storming into Germany, with great flaming swords, and put an end to all this? Or send down the old Biblical plagues? Strike down the Nazis and their demons and bring any survivors to justice!”

  It’s not that simple, said Uriel.

  “It is from where I’m standing,” James said stubbornly. “How many more good men have to die—”

  He broke off as the Hampden bomber and everything in it disappeared—the angel Uriel was showing them a vision: of giant winged creatures, angels and demons, huge and potent beyond bearing. Big enough to fill the sky, clashing together. Powers and presences so vast they broke the world, just by manifesting in it. Stamping through cities, treading great buildings underfoot as they went head to head, the human inhabitants less than ants at their feet. The vision only lasted a moment, but when it was gone and the familiar details of the Hampden returned, every man on board was chilled to the bone—and the soul.

  Is that what you want? said the angel Uriel. His voice was calm, almost kind. The more Heaven does, the more Hell is permitted to do. We must maintain the balance.

  “Why?” Father John said fiercely. “What is the point of these rules? Why does our good and just Lord allow Satan to make deals with the Nazis? Why doesn’t he just strike the Devil down, as he did in the beginning?”

  Because this is not the beginning, said Uriel. There was no world then, no natural order of things. There are rules, for your protection.

  The priest put his hands together, bent his head over them, and prayed silently.

  “I never feel more alive than right now,” James said happily. “Flying off to death or glory, risking my life to do something that matters.”

  “Really?” said David. “You never feel scared?”

  “Not any more,” said James. “I was part of the original D-Day landings last year. I was scared then. But after that . . .”

  “Was it bad?” said David. “In France?”

  “It was bad, young Davie,” James said quietly. “Fighting the Nazi armies for every mile of land, head to head and sometimes hand to hand. Forcing them back foot by foot, and paying for even those small victories with the blood and bodies of good friends. In that awfully cold winter.

  “I ended up with frostbite in both feet. Lucky not to have them amputated. Sent home and invalided out, of course. But I still wanted to fight, so I volunteered for this. Always a need for fresh volunteers on bomber duties. And it’s not like you need whole feet to fire a gun or drop a bomb.”

  “But . . . why?” said Father John, his head coming up to stare uncomprehendingly at James. “You were out of the war! You did your duty, you’d done your bit . . . Why would you go back to killing again when you didn’t have to?”

  “Because I did have to, Father,” James said steadily. “Because of the things I saw in France. Long lines of crucified Resistance fighters. Whole towns reduced to rubble and ashes, their populations burned alive in giant Wicker Men, down to the last man, woman, and child. Rivers thick with blood, and bodies, and bits of bodies. I’m not done with killing Nazis yet, Father. Not just yet.”

  The priest looked down the length of the plane, to David. “And you’re no more than a boy. Why did you volunteer?”

  David turned right round, so he could smile at the priest. “I wanted to fly, Father. And they were never going to let me be a pilot with eyes as bad as mine.”

  “Now he tells us!” said Chalkie. “Just remember to point your cannon away from us, Davie boy, when the fighting starts.”

  There was quiet laughter in the plane—from everyone except Father John.

  The Hampden lurched suddenly to one side, and everyone grabbed on to something to steady themselves.

  “Sorry about that, chaps,” said Rob. “We seem to have drifted into a bad area . . . Powerful winds are hitting us from one direction after another. Compass is spinning round like a mad thing . . . Chalkie: do us all a favor and check your maps, please. We do seem to have drifted away from the other planes . . .”

  Chalkie quickly checked his maps and his calculations, and then got up to squeeze into the cockpit next to Rob. He peered quickly out of the side window, and winced at the blood-red clouds surrounding them, full of flaring hell lights.

  “The maps say we’re on course, Rob, but I don’t think I trust them. We’ve been this way before and it never looked like this. We’re way off course.”

  “Can you see the ground anywhere?” said Rob. “Anything you recognise?”

  “I can see a river,” Chalkie said steadily. “It appears to be on fire. Get us out of here. We shouldn’t be here.”

  “Give me a direction,” said Rob.

  “Give me a minute.” Chalkie thought hard, doing rapid mathematics in his head, and then gave Rob a new heading. Rob swung the Hampden around, and after a few moments the rest of the squadron appeared again, in an open night sky full of stars, under the gleaming full moon. The land below was devastated, but still recognisable. Rob allowed himself a quiet sigh of relief.

  “We’re back on course, everyone,” he said mildly. “Back in the pack, back in position.”

  “How the hell did that happen?” said James. “How can the maps be wrong?”

  “They were supposed to be the most up-to-date maps,” said Chalkie. He climbed back down out of the cockpit and looked at the priest.

  “Those are the maps I was given by the CO,” said Father John. “I’m afraid one map looks much like another to me.”

  “Military intelligence,” snarled James. “A contradiction in terms.”

  “Stick with the other planes, Rob,” said Chalkie. “They’ll get us there. Hopefully by then I’ll have worked out a safe route home for us.”

  “That would be nice,” said Rob.

  Soon enough, the Hampden reached the outer edges of Dresden air space. Flak came flying up almost immediately, vivid explosions bursting in and around the planes, from hundreds of heavy guns set out in defensive positions all around the city. The night came alive, lit with fire and rocked with detonations. Shells burst and planes blew up, falling back to earth like burning birds. The rest of the squadron pressed on, moving to their designated positions over the city. There were hardly any lights, below. Dresden was dark. The guns blazed away, firing blindly into the night skies, hitting targets more through luck than accuracy. Because with so many planes they were bound to hit something. Angels could protect the craft they possessed from supernatural threats, but not from German guns.

  “Heads up!” Rob said sharply. “We have visitors! Ubershreck!”

  Just the name was enough to put a chill into all of them. The RAF had Spitfires, men possessed by angels; the Nazis had their Ubershreck: stormtroopers possessed by demons. They came howling up into the night sky like shooting stars, burning fiercely with crackling demonic energies. The Spitfires went swooping down to meet them. They fought hand to hand in midair, striking terrible blows and tearing at each other like animals. Punches ripped heads off bodies, and unnatural strength tore arms and legs out of sockets. Blood and bodies fell out of the air, tumbling toward the city below. Both sides fought with unflinching ferocity, driven on by the forces within them.

  There were far more Ubershreck than Spitfires, and many of the howling shapes got past the defenders to attack the planes. They couldn’t touch the Bible-page fuselages, so they concentrated on tearing off wings and punching through cockpit windows to get at the pilots.

  James manned his gun, sweeping the long barrel ba
ck and forth. It took a lot of bullets to take out an Ubershreck, but hit them hard enough and often enough and they would go down. Plummeting back to earth, leaving long bloody trails in the air behind them. All the guns on all the planes were firing now, but the Ubershreck shot back and forth so rapidly it was hard to target them. James fired and fired, until the mechanisms heated up and the barrel glowed red hot. The grips burned his hands, even through thick leather gloves. Smoke curled up, from burning leather and burning flesh, but he wouldn’t stop. His teeth were clenched in a ghastly smile and his eyes were feverishly bright.

  David kept up a steady stream of fire from the rear gun, a water cannon, firing blessed holy water. Where it touched the Ubershreck it threw the possessing demons right out of them and sent shocked stormtroopers screaming back to the earth. But the cannon’s water tank had only a limited capacity. David had to save his shots for where they would do the most good. Knowing it would only take one Ubershreck, speeding in from a direction he didn’t see, to smash through his cockpit and put an end to him.

  The skies over Dresden were full of burning planes and accelerating supernatural figures, death and horror everywhere. And still the squadron pressed on, spreading out over the city, to do the maximum possible damage. Possessed men and women flew between and around the planes like angry bees, while glowing tracers chattered across the night skies.

  “How much further to the target, Chalkie?” said Rob, raising his voice to be heard over the din. “Some of these demon chappies are getting awfully close, you know.”

  “Almost there! Almost there!” Chalkie crouched over the open bomb-bay doors, looking down through his aiming mechanism. “James! Leave that bloody gun alone and get over here! Bombardier! Get here now! That’s an order!”