by David Mack
Niko retreated from the roof’s edge, then ran to the access door.
His steps thundered in the stairwell as he charged downstairs.
He reached street level two minutes later and nudged open the stairwell door. There was no sign of Briet. She wasn’t on the platforms or on the tracks; she was nowhere on the main concourse. She wasn’t on the plaza outside the main entrance.
Niko cursed himself for having let his yoke on ARUSPEX lapse. Without the spirit, Niko had no access to the Sight. If Briet was nearby but invisible, he would have no way of knowing. And with Michel dead he had no more leads to follow.
The master will have my head for this.
He prepared himself for a harsh reprimand as he darted into the shadows, his arms tucked close at his sides for the long trudge home to Montmartre.
* * *
The brown-skinned man passed so close to Briet that she caught the musk of his cologne. He moved in a hurry. His every step and glance spoke of desperation. He stared right at her—and then she saw him strain to peer into the distance. He looked through her, thanks to the invisibility bestowed on her by SITHIROS. He must not have a spirit yoked to grant him the Sight.
Michel’s news had seemed too convenient to be trusted. Briet had expected retribution ever since the misfire of her trap in Toulouse. As a precaution, when she’d arrived at the Gare de Lyon, she had reached out with the senses of PHENEGREX. In seconds she had known there was another karcist nearby, one with several yoked spirits in thrall, so not a dabbler.
She wondered if her secret admirer had felt cheated of his vengeance by her murder of Michel. Once the crates were exposed as decoys, she’d known the young spy was burned. She’d had nothing to gain and much to lose by letting him return to the Resistance. He’d had to die.
Her observer fascinated her. She watched him search in vain for her. Where is he from, I wonder? Morocco? Algeria? The latter seemed more likely to her.
After a few minutes, he gave up his search. Briet didn’t blame him. It was cold and late. Hunched against an icy scalpel of wind, he plodded off. If he was lucky, he might have a beautiful young woman waiting to keep him warm that night, as Briet did.
You’re not getting away from me that easily.
She reached inside her trench coat, to a fur-lined pocket in which she toted her familiar. A palm-sized black rat with bloodred eyes, Trixim seemed impervious to heat or cold, and he was always ready to obey her commands. She pointed at the brown-skinned man.
“Follow him. Don’t be seen. Don’t get caught. Go.”
The rat leaped from her hand and skittered across the pavement, then vanished over the curb into the gutter, all in swift pursuit of the departing enemy karcist.
She knew who the man must serve; it was the only reason she hadn’t killed him. Kein wanted the location of the enemy’s stronghold and leads to its future targets. Keeping watch on this man might provide both in short order. So for the time being, he would live. When he ceased to be useful or amusing, Kein would decide his fate.
Until then, Briet wanted to see how many of the brown-skinned man’s friends and loved ones she could trick him into handing over to the Nazis.
17
NOVEMBER
Most of the Thule covens Cade had helped destroy in France had been hidden in plain sight. The one he was surveilling in Stuttgart was no different. In fact, this chapter of dabblers was downright brazen; they had ensconced themselves in a building near the Rathaus, or city hall. Their lair’s peaked roof and ornate half-timbered fachwerk reminded Cade of the gingerbread houses he had seen in upscale London bakeries as a teenager.
He lurked on the far side of the plaza, watching from the shadows between two freestanding houses. His task was to watch the coven’s front entrance and plaza-facing windows, note all persons who arrived or departed, and track which rooms had activity at which hours.
It was tedious work, but after the ambush in Strasbourg Adair had insisted on better precautions and more diligent preparations for future encounters. Now it could take weeks to reconnoiter a target to the master’s satisfaction. So far, it had paid off. Armed with floor plans and timetables of its members’ schedules, they had laid waste to four groups of dabblers in two months. Now they were in Germany, bringing the fight to the enemy’s doorstep.
Across the street, two men approached the coven’s entrance. At the door, one of them knocked thrice, paused, knocked once, paused again, then knocked a final time. It was always the same sequence. A keyhole panel was opened from the other side; then the door was opened to admit the men. As the door closed, Cade checked his watch. It was just after 1:30 A.M. He opened his journal and jotted down the event.
Another tiny step toward victory. He put away the pencil and pulled out a pack of Lucky Strikes. One shake of his wrist coaxed a cigarette’s end from the soft package. He lifted the pack to his mouth, plucked out the loose smoke with his lips, and put the rest away.
A snap of his fingers, and a tongue of XAPHAN’s fire lit the Lucky.
If the coven’s members remained true to form, Cade didn’t expect to see anyone else come or go for at least another three hours. He wondered if the rear entrances were any livelier at this time of night. For Adair’s and Anja’s sakes, he hoped so.
Behind a curtained window on the building’s upper floor, a light switched on. Cade reached for his journal to record which window and the time. As he touched pencil to paper, a voice from the alleyway behind him turned his head: “Guten abend.”
A tall and dapper man strolled toward him. The gentleman was lean of build, and as he passed through a spill of light, Cade noted his chiseled features and slicked hair. His suit looked as if it had been tailored just for him, and his shoes snapped on the pavement. He smiled at Cade, but there was no light in his eyes, just a gleam off of his perfect incisors. “What are you doing out on such a brisk evening?”
Cade hoped hostility would abbreviate the encounter.
“Minding my own business,” he said in German.
The stranger held a lit cigarette between his thumb and forefinger, an effete posture Cade found peculiar. At a slow pace the man drew nearer. “And what are you scribbling? Poems, perchance?” The blond German made no effort to conceal his mockery. “Might I suggest a verse? ‘So on this windy sea of land, the Fiend walked up and down alone bent on his prey.’”
Tucking his journal into his pocket, Cade decided he’d suffered enough abuse from the Kraut. “If you’re looking for a bit of buggery, you’re in the wrong place.” He added the suggestive power of ESIAS to his valediction: “Now fuck off.”
The stranger paused. Then he breathed in. “Ah. The sweet smell of demonic suggestion.” He sounded nostalgic. “I haven’t succumbed to that perfume in ages.”
Cade realized the stranger must be Kein. I’m not prepared to fight dabblers, never mind a master karcist. It felt as if the ground had dropped away beneath his feet, and he was trapped in the moment before free fall. He raised his shield—but not soon enough.
Icy jolts ripped through his gut, and a demonic force threw him against the alley wall hard enough to crack his lower ribs.
His mind rebelled against surrender. He lashed out with a surge of fire, only to see it fizzle against Kein’s shield. The Nazi karcist stretched open his jaw like a serpent preparing to swallow fat-bodied prey. A jet of cold spewed forth, stinging Cade’s extremities and caking his face with hoarfrost. Another blow and Cade was airborne, tumbling out of control. He struck the ground headfirst and felt pain slice across his scalp.
Disoriented, Cade forced himself onto one knee, determined to retaliate—
He barely raised his shield in time to block a stroke of violet lightning surging from Kein’s outstretched hand. The attack pushed Cade backward several feet before knocking him over. He rolled through it, then hurled VAELBOR’s spear.
Kein swatted the spectral weapon into mist. “You’re the marauder who laid waste my French covens?” A flick of the Nazi mag
ician’s hand snapped Cade’s right femur as if it were dry kindling. “I suppose, to amateurs, you might seem like a real karcist. But if you think I’m going to let you just waltz into the Fatherland … you are gravely mistaken.”
Agony and exhaustion left Cade frozen on the ground, trembling, waiting for the killing blow to fall as Kein’s open hand filled with fire.
Then the Nazi spun about to block a barrage of lightning and ghostly arrows.
Adair and Anja strode into the alley, both with hands full of deadly magick awaiting release. The master’s voice was as dark as Cade had ever heard:
“Leave him be, Kein.”
“My old friend. It’s been too long.” Kein glanced at Anja. “Your pet—how she’s grown. Can’t say the same for her brother, though, can we?”
There was no misinterpreting Anja’s stare: she wanted blood.
“Leave my adepts out of this,” Adair said.
Kein seemed almost remorseful. “You brought them into it, Adair. That makes them fair game. Not that war respects the laws of magick—or anything else, for that matter.” To Anja he added, “Need I remind you which of us drew first blood?”
She started forward, but Adair restrained her with one hand; then he hurled more magick at Kein than Cade had thought possible. Infernal energies raged in both directions—fire and lightning, snaking clouds of blinding light and chilling shadow, whirlwinds of glass and sand. The longer they traded and repelled attacks, the larger the maelstrom grew, until Cade had to cover his face and flatten himself to the ground to avoid its scouring touch.
A thunderclap shattered every window in the alley and brought the tempest to a halt.
Cade looked up to see Adair and Kein on their backs, both scorched and bloody. Of the two, Kein was the worse for wear.
Adair sat up, pointed his smoking right hand at Cade, and told Anja, “Help him.”
She ran to Cade. “Can you walk?”
“No.”
“Then this will hurt.”
She grabbed him under his shoulders and dragged him. And she was right—every inch of his body flared with agony. As she neared Adair, the master produced a leather pouch and a crystal flask as if from thin air. He emptied the pouch onto the pavement, creating a perfectly round patch of multicolored dust. Then he broke the flask in the center of the circle, and a puddle of oil spread to its edge and shimmered. Before Cade could ask what Adair was doing, the master intoned, “Pulverem et oleum fenestram.” Their reflections rippled in the oily puddle and then were replaced by a smoky curtain, roiling and churning.
In the alley, Kein shook off his torpor.
Anja grabbed Cade, then let herself plunge through the impromptu portal with him in tow. They seemed to float, weightless—
Then they fell out of the large mirror in the conjuring room at Eilean Donan Castle and slammed onto the stone floor, redoubling all of Cade’s pain.
Adair tumbled out of the mirror behind them. He rolled across the floor, then pointed at the mirror and commanded in a hoarse voice, “Absconde ostium!”
The churning vapors in the mirror rippled, then vanished to leave only the trio’s haggard reflections. “Home sweet home,” Adair muttered—just before he fell unconscious to the floor.
18
DECEMBER
Two weeks Cade had been lying in bed. Every part of his body still hurt. He wanted to enjoy being in Eilean Donan—a thought that struck him as ironic when he considered how much he had resented awakening here nearly a year earlier—but the aches and stabbing pains that permeated his limbs, torso, and head made it difficult.
Outside his windows, the highlands of Skye were dusted with snow. The sky was perpetually overcast. Even at dawn the sun barely made a cameo appearance before it went into hiding above Scotland’s omnipresent ceiling of clouds.
Two knocks on his door—Adair’s trademark. Cade put down the ancient leather-bound book he’d been studying. “Come in.”
The master pushed the door open with his foot and walked in carrying a tray. Kutcha was perched on his shoulder. “I brought breakfast,” Adair said. A newspaper was tucked under his arm. To speed their recoveries, they all had shed their yoked spirits after returning to the castle, and Adair had banished its lamiae domestic staff rather than spend time or effort keeping them bound. Only Kutcha had been suffered to remain.
Adair set the tray on the table by Cade’s bed. Breakfast that day was soupy porridge, burned toast, a boiled egg, and what looked to Cade like the weakest cup of Earl Grey ever brewed. He noted the meal with a polite smile. “Gee, Master. You shouldn’t have.”
“Not quite a feast, is it? Pantry’s been a bit neglected in our absence.”
Cade picked up a blackened slice of bread and bit off a corner. It tasted like charcoal. He put down the toast. “Well, at least you didn’t make me limp downstairs to get it.”
Adair laughed and slapped Cade’s leg. “Truer words, lad!” He recoiled, embarrassed, when he saw Cade’s wince of pain. “Sorry. Still hurt?”
“Only when I’m conscious.” A pained groan. “I wish Anja could fix it.”
The master shook his head. “Only so much she can do when the wounds come from magick. Some demons do harm that never heals.” He held up the newspaper. “Ready for some good news?” He unfolded a copy of The New York Times to reveal its front-page headline:
JAPAN WARS ON U.S. AND BRITAIN; MAKES SUDDEN ATTACK ON HAWAII; HEAVY FIGHTING AT SEA REPORTED
Cade met Adair’s expectant gaze. “This is good news?”
“Having your countrymen off the sidelines and into the scrum? I’d fucking well think so. ’Bout time the Yanks got down in the muck with the rest of us.” With less of an edge he added, “Present company excluded, naturally.”
“Naturally.” He leaned closer to the newspaper. “When did it happen?”
“A few days ago. Your congress declared war on Japan yesterday, and the Nazis returned the favor today. So no more malingering for us. How long before you can go another round?”
“Another round of what? Getting my ass kicked in?”
Adair’s hopeful cast became a mask of regret. “That was partly my fault. I knew you’d have to face Kein eventually. I just didn’t think it would be so soon.”
“What do you mean I’ll have to ‘face him eventually’?”
The master sat on the far corner of Cade’s bed. “There’s a reason Kein went after you. A reason he had the Nazis sink the Athenia, and why he sent demons for you and your kin.” He wore a guilty look. “The same reason your father died to save you—and why I fought to bring you back.” A deep breath, and a sigh of regret. “It’s not just that you’re bound to face Kein—it’s that you might be the only soul on earth who can do it and hope to win.”
“Why? What’s so special about me?”
“Topic for another time.” Adair got up. “You need to get right, then get to working magick like your life depends on it—because it bloody well does.” He gestured at the book in Cade’s lap. “Speaking of which—what’ve you got there?”
“The Sworn Book of Honorius.”
“A touch of light reading?”
“You could say that.” He fixed the master with a sly look. “Does this work as well as the Grimorium Verum? Or the Lesser Key?”
Adair walked to the door and paused. “Drag your ass out of that bed one of these days, and maybe we’ll find out.”
“Challenge accepted.”
The master took his leave, and Cade was alone once more with one of the most complex tomes he had ever opened, one of the worst breakfasts he had ever tasted, and the longest-lived headache he had ever endured. Yet all he could think about was what Adair had avoided telling him about Kein, and why Cade was the only one who could hope to stop him.
One thing’s for sure: I won’t find any answers lounging up here. He devoured his meager repast, gulped his tepid Earl Grey, and set the book aside.
He sat up. Shifted his legs over the bed’s edge. Eased his feet o
nto the floor. Enough moping. I’m getting out of this goddamned bed.
The moment he put the least amount of weight on his legs, the spot where his femur had snapped blazed with white agony. He fell backward into his pillows.
Tomorrow. I’m getting out of this bed tomorrow.… I hope.
1942
19
JANUARY
Flying by magick was a dangerous proposition under the best of circumstances. Hovering above Chełmno nad Nerem, held aloft by the power of ASARADEL, Stefan felt vulnerable despite being invisible thanks to FORAS. Months in hiding had left him fearful of open spaces. After escaping the horrors of Babi Yar, all he wanted now was to stay out of sight.
At first he had told himself he was being pragmatic. He had needed time to rest; then it was weeks before he found a secluded space suitable for magickal experiments—one where the din and reek of demons would draw no attention. But even after he had fortified himself with all the yoked spirits he could bear, all he wanted was to retreat into the shadows. Now he knew the truth: He was terrified. The evils of men had put those of demons to shame.
Below, a convoy of trucks rolled toward the gate of an estate ringed by a wooden fence. Most of the property was flat and clear; it was dominated by a large manor. The trucks—which Stefan had followed the night before from the Łodz ghetto to an abandoned mill, where their hundreds of prisoners had been held until that morning—were waved through the gates by German troops.
One by one, the vehicles disgorged their passengers, whom the Germans herded single-file inside the manor. Most looked to be Jews deported from the ghetto, but among them were a few men in Russian army uniforms—prisoners of war from the Eastern Front. Everyone carried a ruck or a duffel packed with whatever possessions they had left in this world.
While the line shuffled indoors, Stefan surveyed the manor’s grounds. There were no barracks, nothing that resembled temporary housing. Snow blanketed the ground and frosted the trees of the forest to the north, on either side of the road to Koło. Turning east, Stefan shielded his eyes against shafts of morning light breaking through the clouds.