The Midnight Front--A Dark Arts Novel

by David Mack

  What the hell. I bought the ticket—time to see the show.

  He advanced to the third floor and conjured a shield.

  The hellhound turned, growled at Cade, then charged, barking all the way. It snorted green flames as it ran. Just yards from Cade it sprang toward him, its fanged maw gaping wide—

  Cade pushed his shield forward, knocking the beast on its ass. As it scrambled to get up, he struck it with weapons from the arsenal of VAELBOR—a glaive, a spear, and a morning star—and savored the creature’s howls and whimpers. Wounded and cowering, it retreated. He finished it with a thrust of the spear. It dissolved into green mist, banished to the Pit, where it belonged.

  Down the length of the third-floor hallway, doors opened. Three men hurried out to investigate the ruckus. First they traded confused looks, then they trained their stares on Cade. The oldest of them, a fortyish-looking man with prematurely white hair, reached under his smoking jacket for a wand. The others drew pistols.

  The Nazis had their weapons only half raised when they staggered in the grip of ORNIAS. Cade knew not to fight fair when outnumbered. He let the demon crush the dabblers’ windpipes and snap their necks like cheap pencils. As they collapsed to the floor, he stepped over and around them while he peered through closed doors in search of his objective.

  When he found it, the door to that room was locked, as he had expected. Imbuing his hand with the gift of ARIOSTO, he turned the knob and felt the lock surrender to his will.

  The glyph of binding filled the room’s floor. An equilateral triangle formed its outer boundary. Within it was a double circle; its outer border was twelve feet in diameter, the inner circle ten. Between them were names from many languages and a variety of arcane Enochian symbols. In its center there dwelled only one sigil: the seal of ASMODEUS, one of the six ministers of the Descending Hierarchy, and this coven’s patron:

  Cade used his jacket’s sleeve to erase the chalk sigil. Through the floor he heard plangent wailing from the floor below, as the succubi—no longer under direct control—howled in protest.

  He took a piece of consecrated hematite from inside his jacket, and from memory drew upon the floor the Infernal seal of his patron, the Prime Minister of Hell, LUCIFUGE ROFOCALE:

  It took nearly two minutes for him to scribe the seal, but when it was done he felt the power of the grand circle course through him. All the spirits bound to this den of iniquity were now under his control, and awaiting his command.

  “Hear me, unclean spirits. I charge thee with two tasks: First, kill those with whom you now lie. Second, when all those are slain, kill those who before me called this lair their own. When those two directives are fulfilled, I shall discharge and dismiss thee without further requirement. Audite vocem meam, et dolore esse parcendum.”

  He employed ARIOSTO to secure the room’s door against intrusions, then folded his arms and bowed his head to listen. Beneath and around him, the coven’s song of cruel desires became a nightmarish chorale of well-earned retribution.

  A fading ember of his youthful naïveté almost made him pity the men being savaged by demons … until he thought of that night at sea, when he’d watched the Athenia sink, and saw his parents murdered by a monster raised from Hell. Men such as these gave the order to torpedo an unarmed ship, fired the shot, and summoned the terrors of the abyss to kill him and his family.

  Cade refused to take pleasure from the Nazis’ screams of pain and terror … but he refused to feel guilty for serving as the instrument of their deaths.

  They brought their war to me. I’m just returning the favor.

  * * *

  Walking in a world without color was peculiar, but Stefan had grown accustomed to it during his months of sneaking from town to town under the cover of night. Monochromatic vision was the consequence of invoking invisibility through FORAS. When he considered the advantages of being unseen in enemy territory, perceiving the world in shades of gray was a minor sacrifice.

  Tonight he had taken the extra precaution of silencing his movements with the power of ANDROMALIUS. Concealed from the Nazis’ eyes and ears, he had strolled unnoticed inside their Kraków headquarters. He was relieved to find no glyphs or wards on the exterior of the building, nor any warning signs of demonic presence within its walls.

  This place must not be important to Kein and his adepts.

  The Wehrmacht’s command administration building had been commandeered from the city’s government. What once had been busy municipal offices now were storage rooms packed with boxes piled atop filing cabinets that occupied every inch of floor space.

  Only a small number of larger offices on the uppermost floors were being used by the Nazis, but they had done their best to spread out and take up as much room as they possibly could, whether they needed to or not. One large and windowless storage room on the top floor had been set aside for the Nazis’ records, which were kept locked away.

  A futile effort, Stefan thought. Extending TERAGOR’s knack for locks through his own hands, he pulled off the padlock that secured the door’s latch, opened the door, then shut it behind himself. He illuminated the room with a cone of BERAGOR’s light projected from his palm, even as he hid it from passersby with a pool of the same demon’s shadow over the door.

  Now to find what I came for.

  The Nazi army was as meticulous as ever in its record keeping. Deployment orders, supply requisitions, personnel transfers, duty logs—all had been filed with regularity. Stefan searched one batch of files after another, skipping those that didn’t answer his only question:

  Where were the Kabbalists and Adair’s missing grimoire?

  Police activity logs, arrest records—then he found it: lists of Jews. He was getting closer. There was a separate collection of records for arrests made in the Jewish ghetto. He narrowed his search to documents filed during the month when witnesses told him they had seen the Kabbalists hauled away by the Nazis. Most of the files divided the people of the ghetto into two categories: those fit for manual labor, and those not. Those who were, the Nazis attempted to match with work assignments. Those who were not were transferred to sites whose names Stefan didn’t recognize: Sachsenhausen, Płaszów, Dachau, Auschwitz.

  He pulled another page of transfer orders from the box, and his eyes landed on a cluster of names in the center column: those of the Kabbalah masters and their students. Among them, near the end of the list, was his beloved’s name, Evert Siever. They all were marked as having been transferred to the ghetto in Kiev.

  Stefan puzzled over the detail. No other Jews in Kraków had been transferred to Kiev, nearly nine hundred kilometers away. Why would the Nazis move so small a group of prisoners so far? Had they discovered the Iron Codex? And if so, why send the rabbis to Kiev?

  He put the files back as he had found them; then, as he turned to leave, he pondered all the evils the Nazis would wreak with those lists of names and addresses.

  Stefan lobbed an orb of flame over his shoulder on his way out of the filing room. As the room and the rest of the floor around it was swept up in an unstoppable blaze, he retraced his steps out of the headquarters. Only after he was many blocks away did he shed his gifts of silence and invisibility and turn to watch the building burn in vivid hues of crimson.

  It soon would be dawn. He had to be indoors, hidden once more, before then.

  During the morning, Stefan would sleep. Come afternoon, he would impose upon a few trusted friends in the ghetto to procure for him some items he needed to summon ASARADEL, a spirit that could grant him the gift of flight, and GAIDAROS, his preferred hellbeast of burden.

  Flying would be a perilous gamble: passing over a ringing church bell would banish ASARADEL and leave Stefan in free fall, so he needed to plan his route to Kiev with precision.

  More dangerous, he had to decide which two of his presently yoked spirits he would release to accommodate GAIDAROS and ASARADEL. Giving up one exotic power for flight was a fair trade; it vexed him to sacrifice one of his gifts
for something as mundane as a demonic butler, but it was necessary. Eleven spirits was the most Stefan had ever held at once, and after months, the strain of traveling with fallen angels bound to his soul was breaking him. His days had become running battles against nosebleeds, night terrors, headaches, chewed fingernails, and his soured stomach. Riven by war and picked clean by the Nazis, Poland didn’t have enough vodka or opiates to quell Stefan’s pains. The idea of adding to his demons’ legion of torment was too daunting for him to consider. No, he would have to let two go.

  It will be worth it, he promised himself. Once I find Evert.

  * * *

  Ferreting out a spy from the ranks of the Resistance was proving to be messier work than Niko had anticipated. Forced to conduct his investigation from a borrowed bedroom in Camille and Ferrand’s apartment, Niko stared at a mess of notes, photos, and timetables, all of which he had stuck to the wall with wads of gum and glue.

  Linked by lengths of yarn in a rainbow of colors, Niko’s evidence had evolved from a collage into a web. At its center was a grainy picture of an unknown red-haired woman. A Maquis informer had seen her scribe symbols on walls inside a Nazi officer’s temporary dwellings—symbols that were later hidden with wallpaper. As if that had not been enough to draw Niko’s interest, in the photo he had chosen for his web’s centerpiece, a wand was barely visible tucked under the woman’s belt in the shadow of her trench coat. She was a karcist.

  But is she Kein’s adept Briet? That is the question.

  Radiating from her photo were chains of acquaintance that connected her by degrees to Nazi officers, Vichy-loyal officials, and members of the Resistance supposedly embedded within its ranks. Whoever she was, she wielded significant influence with the Nazis.

  None of the usual divinations had enabled Niko to discern her whereabouts—not scrying, Tarot, or runestones. Not even a Lull Engine had granted any insight. Magick will not find her, he concluded, so I must rely upon more prosaic methods. He sighed. Her ability to hide herself suggests she is Kein’s disciple. If only I had—

  Frantic knocks on the bedroom door startled him. His heart slammed inside his chest as he pulled it open and snapped at Camille, “What?”

  She grabbed his nightshirt. “We have to go! Now!”

  “What?” He pried her hand free. “Why?”

  A fearful whisper. “They’re here! The Nazis! They have lists. They’re dragging people from their homes!” She grabbed his sleeve. “We need to go!”

  He eluded her grasp. “Go where, Cami?”

  “I don’t know! The roof? We can reach the next building, get to the street—”

  “They’ll be in the alleys, looking for anybody who runs.”

  Down the hall, Ferrand emerged from the master bedroom with a suitcase in each hand. He looked even more frightened than Camille. “Is he ready? We have to go!”

  “Not yet.” Camille turned toward Niko and pleaded with her eyes. She stepped out of the way as he left his room and hurried to the front door.

  Niko put his ear to the door and pretended to listen for clues from the hallway, when in fact he was deploying ALAKATH’s ability to hear distant conversations and events. From the street below, he heard two men speak in German:

  “Is this the place?”

  A ruffling of papers. “Yes. Ferrand Clipet. And a wife, Camille.”

  “Ready the dogs in case they go out the back.” Cold clacks of magazines being slapped into pistols and rounds being chambered. “Let’s go.”

  Convinced he had heard enough, Niko stepped away from the door to face Camille and Ferrand. “It’s too late, they’re coming up the stairs. Hide in the bedroom. I’ll handle this.”

  Ferrand’s face wrinkled in disbelief. “How?”

  “I can be very persuasive. Now go!”

  Camille and her husband hesitated until they heard the clomps of booted feet outside their door. Panicked, they retreated into the bedroom and shut the door as softly as they could.

  Niko had only moments to prepare. From the kitchen he took a bottle of bathtub gin Ferrand kept under the sink. He swished a mouthful, spit it into his cupped hands, let some dribble down his shirt, then massaged the rest into his greasy, uncombed hair and unshaven face.

  Three knocks at the door. One of the men he’d heard from downstairs demanded in German-accented French, “Ferrand Clipet! Open the door!”

  With a bit of effort, Niko summoned a belch from his diaphragm as he plodded to the door. He pretended to fumble with the latches and locks before pulling it open to confront the two armed SS noncommissioned officers outside. “What do you want?”

  “Ferrand Clipet, you are—”

  “Who?”

  The German stiffened at the interruption. “Monsieur Clipet, you are—”

  “Never heard of him.” Niko feigned a hiccup and sleeved gin-scented spittle from the corner of his mouth.

  “This is his address.” The Scharführer pushed a warrant toward Niko’s face.

  Niko squinted at the warrant, then made a show of leaning closer to read it. “Must be a mistake. No one by that name here. Only me.”

  The almost boyish Unterscharführer studied Niko, as if looking for a sign of deception. “And who are you, monsieur?”

  “Jacques Boulanger,” Niko said, resorting to his nom de voyage.

  The Scharführer held out one hand. “Papers, please.”

  “Of course.” He shambled away from the door and scratched his balls on the way to his bedroom. He dug up the false traveling papers he had brought with him from Scotland months earlier and returned to the main room.

  The two Nazis were inside the apartment. The Scharführer poked through the kitchen and looked inside the cabinets. The Unterscharführer perused the contents of the bookshelves in the main room. He was closer to Niko, so he took the papers for inspection.

  After a look at the forged identity documents, the Unterscharführer handed them to his superior, whose brow creased deeper the longer he looked at them. “Where are you from?”

  “Marseille.”

  Cryptic looks passed between the Germans; then the Scharführer nodded. “There are many … immigrants … in that part of the country, are there not?”

  “No more than usual, I think.”

  The boss Nazi’s eyes seemed to drill through Niko’s pretenses. He eyed a glass that had Camille’s lipstick stain on its rim, then rested his hand on the grip of his holstered Luger. “Are you alone in this apartment?”

  “I live alone, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  Also gripping his semiautomatic pistol, the Unterscharführer moved toward the hallway. “You won’t mind if we check the bedrooms. Will you, monsieur?”

  Niko had tried being polite; he had tried simple diversions. Now it was clear the Nazis were about to turn this situation bloody. He couldn’t permit them to find his wall full of evidence, or Ferrand and Camille cowering under a bed.

  Channeling the mind-bending power of DANTALION, he said in a steady voice, “Why would you? You’ve already searched them. They’re empty.”

  The Unterscharführer halted in midstep. His body and mind seemed locked in a struggle, with one half of his will urging him forward, the other resisting. On the far side of the apartment, his superior snapped, “Mueller? What’s—”

  “He is obeying your orders.” Niko met the Scharführer’s eyes and captivated him with his now hypnotic stare. “You confirmed those rooms were empty with your own eyes. You are wasting your time here. The man you seek is long gone. You and Mueller need to go.”

  Both the Germans stood frozen for a few seconds. Then the Scharführer blinked, and he spoke as if he had just been roused from a long sleep. “Mueller, we checked those rooms. They’re empty.” His subordinate blinked then faced him, and he continued. “We’re wasting time here. Clipet’s long gone. Let’s get back to command and file the report.”

  “Jawohl,” said the second German.

  They left without apology or valedictio
n. Niko locked the door behind them, then audited their departure with ALAKATH’s far-reaching ears. When he was confident they weren’t coming back, he knocked on the door of the master bedroom. “Cami? Ferrand? They’re gone.”

  Behind the door he heard scuffling. Then it opened, and Camille emerged, her eyes red, her face streaked with tears. Ferrand was behind her, looking pale and shaken. He said nothing as Camille wrapped her arms around Niko and sobbed into his shoulder. “My God, Niko! I thought they had us!”

  “It’s all right.” He held her close and stroked her hair. “I got rid of them. They won’t come back.” He glanced at his brother-in-law, who looked undone. “And you, Ferrand? Are you all right?” All the man could do was nod. Despite his size and brawn, he looked powerless and terrified. “What would they have done had they found you?”

  “Killed me for certain.” His eyes were wet with tears. “Camille, too.”

  As Ferrand spoke, Niko listened with the discerning ear of CALIEL, which could detect lies with even greater ease than it compelled truth. There was no falsity in Ferrand’s voice, no echo of lie by omission, no vibrato of exaggeration. He spoke the truth: He was deathly afraid of being captured by the Nazis. There was no way this man was in league with the Germans or with Kein. Whoever was to blame for the Maquis’s misfortunes, it was not Ferrand.

  Camille broke from Niko’s embrace. “What do we do now?”

  “Learn which of our friends were not as lucky as we were,” Niko said. “Then see where the Nazis have taken them—and find a way to set them free.”

  15

  SEPTEMBER

  Sirens keened in the dark and misty streets of Strasbourg.