by David Mack
A confused look around, coupled with a shrug. “Where’s your gear?”
“I have a demon tote that shite.” A wink and a crooked half smile: “Pays to keep your hands free.” His brow creased as he studied Cade. “Growing a bit o’ scruff, eh?”
“Yeah.” The mention of his new facial hair reminded Cade of the itching that had come with it. He scratched at either side of his chin. “Figured I might as well. They weren’t banned at Oxford, but they weren’t in fashion, either. Besides, I kind of like it.”
“Hrmph.” The master didn’t seem to approve. Before Cade could ask why, Adair turned to face the wall. “I guess we should get started.”
“Shouldn’t we wait for Anja?”
“I am here,” she said, from behind his shoulder.
Cade jolted at the nearness of her voice. “Where the hell did you come from?”
“Shadow is my friend. So is silence.” She moved to stand with Adair. “I am prepared.”
“Right, then. Close behind me, both of you.” A wave of his arm cast off a shroud that had hidden a huge mirror on the room’s western wall. Adair drew his wand and pointed it at the mirror. “Haec reflexio fit per fenestram, hoc autem speculo fit porta.”
The trio’s reflections vanished, supplanted by clouds of smoke that churned from black to imperial violet. Adair closed his eyes and concentrated while keeping his wand aimed at the mirror. A scene took shape from the mists. It was like spying on a house whose interior was steeped in fog. Adair frowned, shook his head, and dispelled the image with a wave of his wand.
Cade asked, “What was that place?”
“A house outside Brisbane, Australia,” Adair said. “Not a useful portal.”
“Portal?” The mirror filled once again with turbulent vapors. Cade wondered what would be revealed next. “We travel by stepping through mirrors?”
“Aye, if I can find a portal glass Kein hasn’t smashed.”
“So you need to have a special mirror on both sides?”
Adair’s brow creased. “If you want to use it as a portal, yes.” He paused to catch his breath, and the mirror reverted to normal when he opened his eyes. “I can also use it to scry people and places that aren’t warded, but that doesn’t do us much good right now.” He steeled himself for another go. “I need to find a working portal glass somewhere in northern Europe, one big enough for us to walk through.”
Cade wondered if he was missing something obvious. “Why not just make a new one and have a demon take it to wherever you want to go?”
The master turned a stink-eye stare at Cade. “Because I don’t make the bloody things. Hell does, by request. A mirror big enough for a man to walk through takes seven years to make, and costs a fortune. The handheld buggers I gave to Niko and Stefan only take a year, but they’re not cheap, either.” The master’s grouchiness worsened. “I spent the better part of two centuries putting mirrors like this all over the world. Kein broke nearly every last one in just under a year.”
It was a dismaying state of affairs, but Cade clung to hope. “Isn’t there any other way of making a portal big enough for us to use?”
“A permanent one? Not that I know of. In a pinch we could try a saint’s portal—” The master shifted gears at the first sign that Cade didn’t know what he was talking about. “It’s a one-time portal made with dust from consecrated stained-glass windows and a lot of holy oil.”
“Okay,” Cade said. “Why not use that all the time?”
“Because,” Anja said, “stealing a blessed window is harder than you think. And most churches refuse to share holy oil with karcists.”
“Not to mention,” Adair added, “it depends on having a major demon yoked, and the few that can work that charm are a fright to have kicking around inside your head.” He raised his wand, closed his eyes, and concentrated on the mirror. “Let’s have another go, shall we?” The clouds reappeared, erasing the trio’s reflections. The image rippled, only to settle upon more fog. “Fuck! Kein’s been a busy bastard.”
Cade had an idea. “What about southern Europe? Do you have mirrors there?”
“One, in Tuscany—but it won’t help us.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s Axis territory, and there aren’t any Thule covens in Italy. Part of a deal Kein made with the Vatican, to make sure the Synod’s white mages stayed out of the fight.” He added under his breath, “Bloody wankers.”
Another wave of Adair’s wand, and the mirror’s liquefied surface trembled. When it calmed, it revealed what looked to Cade like a warehouse strewn with cobwebs. “There we go,” the master said. “Bruges. An old dress shop.” He frowned at the scene visible through the mirror. “Looks like they went under. No matter. That’s our way into Europe. We go on three. Set?” Nods from Anja and Cade. “Right. One. Two. Three!”
The trio moved single-file through the mirror and emerged inside the shop.
It felt to Cade like stepping through a gap in a wall. Then he noticed a shift in the quality of the light, and in his bones he felt the weight of having traversed a hole in reality. He looked back, expecting to see the laboratory in the mirror behind him. All he saw were reflections of his own surprise, Adair’s amusement, and Anja’s boredom. He swallowed and pretended not to notice he was the butt of the joke. “All right. We’re here. Now what?”
Adair swatted through cobwebs and navigated a maze of dusty sewing machines to an exit. “First, we find a way out. Then we nick a ride and head north, to Amsterdam.”
“What’s in Amsterdam?”
“The nearest Thule coven.” The master paused at the door, pressed his ear to it, then tapped its knob before turning it. He peeked through the crack between the door and jamb, then opened it and led Cade and Anja down a staircase to another door. “They’ve about thirty major covens in western Europe. Maybe ten in Germany, the rest in occupied territories.”
He pushed open the door at the bottom of the stairs. It let out onto a cobblestone street flanked by buildings that looked to Cade as if they’d been lifted from fairy tales. Adair paused on the sidewalk to savor the night air; then he smiled. “Good to be back on the Continent.” He fished a pack of cigarettes from his coat, lit one with a snap of his fingers, and offered the pack to Anja, who plucked a smoke from the box and lit it off the end of Adair’s.
The master thrust the pack at Cade, who waved it off. “No, thanks.”
“As you like.” He put away the cigarettes and crossed the street. “This way.”
It took Adair less than a minute to find a car he deemed suitable. The vehicle was locked, but the same charm Adair had used on the door in the dress shop opened the car’s doors and turned over its ignition. Anja climbed in the front to drive. Cade moved to get in the rear, only to be shooed to the front seat by the master. “I like room to stretch out.”
Cade got in the car and did his best to avoid eye contact with Anja. She seemed to have no trouble ignoring him as she put the car into gear and sped down the forgotten roads of Bruges. Rather than stare ahead, half paralyzed with fear of a collision, Cade looked at Adair, who had settled in for a nap across the backseat. “What do we do after we get to Amsterdam?”
“Find the dabblers’ lair, wait for them to meet, then kill them.”
“Sounds easy.” Cade scratched an itch under his beard. “What’s the catch?”
Anja said, “We will be outnumbered.”
“By how many?”
Adair said, “Don’t know. Some covens are small, maybe half a dozen strong. Others might be as big as twenty, or bigger.” He opened one eye. “But there’s more to battle than numbers. Most of the enemy’s ranks are amateurs.”
“Then why does it take three of us to attack one coven?”
Anja replied, “Even amateurs get lucky.”
The car rattled as Anja steered it down another narrow street. Outside the windows, quaint buildings and arched bridges blurred past.
Questions continued to nag at Cade, who was to
o keyed up to keep his worries to himself. “If the Thule covens are amateurs, why waste time fighting them?”
“What they lack in skill they make up for in numbers. They constitute an invisible line of defense the Allies can’t break, though they won’t know why. We need to get the dabblers out of the way before the Allies come to free Europe.” He sat up, apparently abandoning his hopes for a nap. “We can’t wage the Allies’ war for them, but we can give them a shot at a fair fight.”
“But why not just go after Kein now? Why waste time on small fry?”
Adair shook his head. “Kein’s too strong for us to attack right now. Part of his power comes from having an army of followers who feed his strength. It’s like chess: One thins the board before attacking the king. Trust me, lad, this is the way.” He leaned forward against the front seat. “Lass, turn left up here.”
“I know the way.”
“Aye, but I know the shortcuts. Make the next left. We’ll drive through the night, then find some petrol before we bed down for the day.” He pressed his hand onto Cade’s shoulder. “And if I were you, I’d think about shaving off those whiskers.”
“You don’t like my beard?”
“I like it fine. But I don’t think you realize what you’re doing to it.”
Confused, Cade pressed his palm to his face and felt strange gaps in his facial hair. Adair passed him a hand mirror. Facing his reflection up close, Cade saw that irregular bald patches marred his beard on either side of his chin, and extended to the corners of his mouth and below the curve of his jawbone. “What the—”
Then, as he watched himself in the mirror, he saw his hand stroke at a damaged area of his beard, catch a hair under the thumbnail, and pluck it out with a sharp jerk. He was aware of what he was doing as it happened; he didn’t want to do it, but his hand did it anyway.
And he understood: “Demons.”
“Can’t say I didn’t warn you.” Adair pointed at the ragged tufts of his own eyebrows. “There’s no stopping them. Yoke the buggers long enough and the bad habits become part of you. Then you end up doing it even when there’s no one in your head but you.”
“So what do I do?”
“Lose the beard. Trim your brows. And if you can bear it, shave your head.”
It might have been a trick of the moonlight, but Cade thought he saw Anja smirk.
He passed the mirror to Adair. “I’ll take that smoke now.”
* * *
Eight days and counting. It wasn’t the waiting that bothered Cade; it was the lack of momentum right after having been in such a goddamned hurry to get there.
The drive from Bruges to Amsterdam had taken just over eight hours, thanks to Adair’s insistence that Anja use only secondary roads, to avoid Nazi patrols. Even so, they had found a route into the city in the wee hours and taken shelter while the sky was still dark, in an abandoned dye works not far from the Jewish quarter, near the Nieuwmarkt.
And there they had stayed for the past week. Waiting.
Most days, Cade and Anja had occupied themselves with clearing the central part of the factory floor so it could be used for magickal rituals. It was menial labor, but Cade was thankful for it. When there was nothing else to do, his thoughts turned to dark memories. That was when his yoked demons did their worst, spurring his hands into acts of self-destruction. A few times he had snapped out of a sulk to find he’d chewed his fingernails to the quick.
Tonight, rain pounded the factory’s roof, and thunder shook its foundation. Cade had no experience with hideouts, but he was sure this one left much to be desired. Its walls were patched with mold, and dank odors infused its every square inch. Broken machines cluttered the space and collected dust. Most of the windows were thick with grime that Adair had insisted not be disturbed, since it protected their privacy. Never one to do as he was told, Cade had cleared the corner of one window with his thumb, just to enjoy a view of the outside world.
From what little Cade had seen of Amsterdam during the midnight drive into the Dutch capital, the Nazis had spared it the wanton destruction they had inflicted on Rotterdam. Even so, the Germans had wasted no time making their mark on Amsterdam. Swastika banners hung on every prominent structure from Haarlem to Amstelveen. And there had been no ignoring the barbed wire with which the Germans had demarcated the city’s Jewish neighborhoods.
Cade paced beside the front door, wondering when Adair would return. The master made nightly forays into the city. Often he returned with sacks of pilfered canned goods, hunks of cheese, stale bread, or wine. A few times he had scavenged—or stolen—wrinkled cigarette packs with two or three smokes left in them. For all of Cade’s initial resistance to smoking, he had come to appreciate nicotine’s ability to clear his mind of demonic whispers.
Anja lay on her cot, staring at the leaking roof. Noting Cade’s back-and-forth, she eyed him with disdain. “Sit. I am tired of your footsteps.”
In no mood to argue, he sat on his cot and pushed his hand over his scalp—a habit he had developed since trimming his hair to a crew cut. He liked the texture of shorn hair under his palm and the scratch of his stubbled chin, but he resented the compulsions that had necessitated them.
The deadbolt on the warehouse’s rear door slid free of its whistle, guided by an unseen hand. Anja and Cade sprang to their feet and drew their wands, ready to attack if their visitor was anyone other than Adair.
Rain gusted in as the door swung open. The master hurried inside and shut the door, but didn’t lock it. “Suit up.”
Cade and Anja pulled on their coats. For the first time he could remember, she looked excited. She asked Adair, “You found the coven?”
“I’ll explain on the way.” He opened the door and conducted them into the storm.
The master led Cade and Anja in silence, guiding them past German patrols into a residential quarter of the city. “I was misled,” he said at last. “Thule has no coven here. Not yet.” They turned onto a side street. “It’s being created tonight at midnight.”
Adair darted down a narrow alley between two old brick buildings. “Kein sent one of his better pupils to be its leader. If we’re quick, we can kill him before he swears in a new band of dabblers.” He stopped and faced Anja and Cade. “Hans Boerman is a coven master, a karcist of some ability. He won’t be a soft target, so you’d best take him by surprise and finish him fast.” He handed black-bladed knives to Cade and Anja. “You get close enough, use these.”
Cade studied the play of light across the blades. “What’re they made of?”
“Onyx. Just in case Hans warded himself against metal.” Adair dug into his coat’s other pocket, pulled out a compact semiautomatic pistol, and handed it to Anja. “In case he hasn’t.” At the end of the alley, he pointed them toward the rear of a town house. “Go in through the back. I’ll take the front.” Then Adair melted into the shadows, leaving Cade and Anja to forge ahead with only each other for company.
A wave of fear hit Cade. The reality of his training came into focus: He had spent the past three months training to kill. Now it was time to put his skills to the test. The prospect of facing a real person in a fight to the death stirred up sickness in his gut and rooted his feet to the ground.
Anja shoved him. “Go.”
“I can’t.” The knife almost fell from his shaking hand.
She pushed him harder, with enough force to propel him into the open. Once he was moving, his feet took over. He felt as if he were floating toward the rear door of the town house, a spectator in a nightmare. Rain pelted his face. A low thudding inside his head left him dizzy and gasping for breath as he reached the back door.
Anja grabbed his collar and leaned in so close that all he saw of her were her gray eyes. “Calm down. Look at me. Breathe in. Hold it.” She twisted his collar to drive her point home. “Now let it go.” He exhaled while she maintained eye contact. “Again.”
His pulse abated; his breathing slowed. His stomach was still a pit of bile, and he had to
piss, but when Anja asked “Good?” he nodded. She pointed at the door. “Spring the lock.”
He stared at the knob. Time for all the pain to be worth it.
Calling forth the talents of ARIOSTO, Cade dispelled the charms of protection on the lock, then worked its tumblers and retracted its deadbolt, which he sensed had been thrown. Success felt like scratching an itch inside his mind. He turned the doorknob, then eased the door open. He looked at Anja. She signaled him to lead the way.
They entered a dark hallway thick with the scents of snuffed candles and lavender incense. Dim glows emanated from rooms on either side of its far end. To Cade’s right were stairs to the upper floor.
Footsteps clomped above them, accompanied by creaking floorboards. Cade looked at Anja and glanced upward. She pressed her index finger to her lips, then pointed him to the stairs. He shifted his dagger to his left hand so that its pommel was toward his chest and its blade pointed outward—a grip he had learned from his fencing instructor at Oxford. Then he led Anja up the stairs while trying to remember to breathe.
At the top of the stairs, Anja stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. She motioned for him to fall in behind her and watch their backs; then she skulked down the long hallway toward the room from which they had heard the footsteps.
All of Cade’s focus was on the space in front of him and Anja. The town house’s décor went by in a blur: old furniture, framed photos on the walls, bric-a-brac on the shelves, dim electric light in the wall sconces. The one detail Cade noted with clarity was the carpeted floor, which muffled his and Anja’s steps as they neared the end of the hall.
When they reached the last door, it was ajar. From the other side came a tinny voice from a wireless spitting out a news report in Dutch.
Anja steadied the pistol in her right hand, then arched her left above her head, a prelude to unleashing demonic violence. She glanced at Cade to make sure he was ready.
He steadied his knife and conjured a fistful of fire in his right hand. With a nod, he signaled her to attack.
She kicked open the door. It rebounded off the wall while she searched the room. He charged in behind her, then flinched at a spark from his right—