by David Mack
Nothing he saw happening made sense to him. Why bring the prisoners here? There was no work for them in Chełmno nad Nerem, no place to house them. He looked toward the nearby River Ner, to see if there might be boats waiting, or perhaps an extension of the camp, but all he found was winter countryside. Then he let himself float on a breeze, which carried him behind the manor. There he saw three large trucks, each much larger than the transports that had delivered the detainees. These were a different kind of vehicle, with fully enclosed, hard-shelled rear passenger areas. Instead of canvas flaps in the back, they had heavy, windowless doors. Stefan had never seen anything like them.
He tried to descend for a closer look, but when he was still more than thirty meters above the ground, ASARADEL resisted his commands to descend—or so he thought at first. Opening his mind to the yoked spirit’s protests, he understood at once: An invisible magickal barrier prevented the demon from moving closer to the manor or its grounds.
A powerful glyph or ward it must be to hold ASARADEL at bay.
No dabbler could have set such a defense, he realized. It had to be the work of Kein or one of his chief adepts—perhaps the one who had almost killed him at Babi Yar. Whatever was happening here, the enemy’s karcists had ensured no one would interfere with it.
Most of an hour passed before Stefan again saw movement on the ground. A rear door of the manor opened, and the prisoners were marched outside—only now the men and children were naked, the women clothed in only their slips or underwear. None of them had the bags they had taken inside. Nazi soldiers shouted them up ramps into the hard-backed trucks—almost seventy people in the smaller ones, twice as many in the largest—then locked the doors. The Germans fired up the engines, idled a few minutes, then drove off the grounds.
Stefan followed them northwest, up the road to Koło. Two lanes wide, it cut through a dense forest that partly canopied the road with its boughs. Roughly four kilometers from the manor, the vehicles turned off the paved road onto one of packed dirt.
Looking up to track where the path led, Stefan saw another fenced compound inside a large forest clearing. Moving closer, he searched for barracks but found only a ramshackle shelter ringed with barbed wire. A platoon of Nazi troops guarded a group of thirty-odd emaciated prisoners, none of whom had adequate winter clothing.
The convoy halted at the gates. German soldiers standing guard opened the gates, waved the trucks inside the compound, then secured the entrance behind them.
Once more Stefan tried to float downward to investigate and perhaps intervene, and again he found himself obstructed by an unseen glyph of warding. He had no idea what form it took—a buried charm, an invisible sigil, a demon tasked to defend the area until Judgment Day—only that he lacked the skill and power to overcome it.
Two dozen meters beneath his feet, the trucks turned, stopped, then reversed toward a vast, recently excavated pit. After the trucks halted, the men in their cabs climbed out, and Stefan saw for the first time that they all were wearing gas masks.
The masked Nazis opened the rear doors of the vehicles.
Shifting his vantage point, Stefan saw his worst fears made manifest. All the passengers in the backs of the trucks were dead, piled in heaps, their lifeless eyes wide with horror and agony. He didn’t know how the Germans had done it in transit, but they had.
After a few minutes, the half-starved prisoner-laborers were forced to drag the corpses out of the trucks and heave them into the mass grave. Once all the bodies were in the pit, most of the laborers were tasked with shoveling dirt over the them, while a few others were made to wash the urine and feces out of the interiors of the trucks, then wipe them dry before they returned to the manor to pick up the next group of the condemned.
Stefan watched the trucks roll away, heading south on the road to the manor. Even as he soared above the Polish countryside, his soul sank in despair.
All those lives in Kiev I could not save; all these souls here I have failed. I will remember them all—and I will avenge them.
* * *
Every step down the spiral stairs shot pain up Cade’s spine and left leg. Despite all that Anja and Adair had done for him, his body remained wounded, and he knew it likely would remain so. He was learning to live with the ache inside his skull, the needles of heat that stabbed his heart when he drew deep breaths, and the twitches that haunted his muscles like a traveling freak show. It was time for him to accept his new status quo and get to work.
The problem was that Adair didn’t agree. He’s worried I don’t have the strength or the focus to control demons. He thinks if I go back in the circle, I might get us all killed.
They were rational fears. But Cade was done being afraid.
He limped off the stairs and paused before entering the banquet room. It was quiet and dim, lit by a single lamp at the far end of the room. Cade closed his eyes and drank in the sounds reverberating inside the castle. He latched on to Adair and Anja’s voices. They were muted, but if he could hear them they had to be somewhere in the keep. Then he noted the bite of woodsmoke in the air and deduced they were in the billeting room, directly beneath him.
Another awkward limping step, another shooting pain in his leg. He grimaced and pushed ahead to the next sets of stairs.
Have to control the pain. Can’t let them see me like this.
If he could just get back in the circle and yoke another team of demons, Adair would let him resume his diet of whisky and opiates. Then he could suppress his pain for real.
He knew what they would say if they saw him struggling. They’d accuse him of being too proud for his own good, of having more courage than common sense. And maybe they’d be right. But he knew what compelled him to defy his body’s complaints.
Guilt.
No matter how many times he asked them to carry on the fight without him, they refused. They wouldn’t leave him behind, though it was obvious—to Cade, at least—that they were losing precious time. Every day they wait for me is one the enemy has to roll back all our victories. Every day that I linger, Kein gets stronger. I’m done giving up ground.
A deep breath, then he started up the stairs. This part of the keep felt like a Zen koan: one had to go up in order to go down. To get from the banquet room on the first floor to the billeting room below, one had to climb to a landing, from which one could reverse direction to descend a parallel flight of steps to the ground level.
It’s fine, he assured himself. I need the practice.
His first challenge was to overcome his limp. He forced himself to walk at a normal pace, favoring neither leg, with his back straight and his head up. Then he concentrated to erase the pain from his face. Anja was perceptive when it came to discomfort, and the master had a keen eye for deceptions. Fooling them would be difficult but necessary.
By the time he reached the ground level, his charade was complete. Wearing a mask of joviality, he strode into the billeting room.
Anja and Adair sat across from each other at the gaming table in the center of the room, speaking in low voices while they pored over maps. A fire in the hearth threw warm light on the low curved ceiling. Cade cleared his throat. “Hope I’m not interrupting.”
Adair smiled and stood. “Look who’s up!” He met Cade a few steps inside the room and slapped his shoulders. “How do you feel, lad?”
Cade smiled when all he wanted to do was groan. “Ready to get back in the fight.”
The master’s elation turned to concern. “Let’s not be hasty.”
“Relax.” He approached the table. “What’re we looking at?”
Anja rotated a map of Germany toward him. “Targets.”
“Outstanding.” He eyed the map.
The master sidled over. “You sure you feel up to this? Yesterday you couldn’t walk three feet without—”
“That was yesterday,” Cade snapped. “I’m fine. Let’s focus.”
Perhaps sensing the futility of argument, Adair let it go. “We’re not wanting for c
hoices. The strongest Thule covens are in the border cities.” He tapped at places on the map as he named them. “Bremen, Hamburg, Münster, Berlin, Dusseldorf, Köln, Stuttgart, Munich. Moving inland, we find smaller covens in Hanover, Frankfurt, and Leipzig. It might seem daft, but starting in the middle might be our best shot at getting a foothold in Germany.”
“The question,” Anja said, “is where to strike. Leipzig is the most remote of the inland targets, which we could use to—”
“Stuttgart,” Cade cut in.
Alarmed looks passed between Anja and Adair. He said to Cade, “Lad, did you hear a word we said? Stuttgart coven’s huge, and its leader is Johann Merganthaler.”
“Just a dabbler,” Cade said.
“Aye, but a gifted one.” He collected himself. “Putting that aside—the fact that we ran into Kein outside that coven suggests he had a hand in raising its defenses. Even if he’s not there now, that’s got to be the hardest target in Germany outside of Berlin itself.”
Cade nodded. “I know. That’s why we need to burn it down.” He looked up from the map to meet Adair’s troubled gaze. “You want to knock Kein off balance? Don’t go for his weak spots. He expects that. Hit him where he thinks he’s strongest. Break his coven in Stuttgart. That’ll put the fear of God into the others—and into him.”
Anja looked pleased by that answer. “This is bold. I like it.”
“Lots to do, little time.” Adair cracked his knuckles and grabbed a pen. “Let’s get to it.”
20
FEBRUARY
The demon manifested inside a swirl of smoke that did nothing to hide its cloven hooves, three-horned bald head, or its radiant yellow eyes. Its voice emanated from all directions and shook the floor under Kein’s feet: WHY HAST THOU DISTURBED MY REPOSE?
Nothing was ever gained by losing one’s temper while speaking to the Prime Minister of Hell, but Kein Engel was tempted. “I think you know why.”
His accusation resounded inside the Chamber of the Eternal Flame—the most important room in Wewelsburg Castle. Situated in the basement of the north tower, it was a masterpiece of sandstone and blond marble, and as round as human hands could make it. In its center was a shallow pit from which rose a gas-fed pillar of fire surrounded by glyphs ancient and arcane, all bounded by a circle inscribed with the names of EL written in Enochian script.
Standing inside that flame was LUCIFUGE ROFOCALE.
The object of Kein’s wrath was unimpressed.
I WOULD READ THY MIND, BUT YOU DENY ME THAT PRIVILEGE. SO SPEAK.
“The Scottish dog and his pups vex me.”
THIS OLD COMPLAINT. The demon shrank from its imposing height to that of a man, and its voice took on a human dimension. “What have they done now?”
“Laid waste my coven in Stuttgart.”
“Tsk. What a shame.” The demon made no secret of its mockery. “I know you can’t have called me from the Abyss to commiserate.”
Kein resisted the urge to rebuke the demon. “Of course not, mighty prince. I seek Hell’s counsel on matters of strategy.”
The beast laughed. “A pity, then, you didn’t call for me sooner. All I can do now is tell you that you brought this upon yourself.”
“Meaning what? Speak plainly! Or else thou shalt—”
“—feel thy rod and its torments. Yes, yes. You had the chance to win this war in Stuttgart, and you failed. You let yourself be distracted.”
Its accusation baffled Kein. “Distracted? By what?”
A grin of fangs. “The grudge with your old rival. You let your hatred of him stop you from finishing off your real enemy.”
Kein recalled the fight in the alley, yet he failed to grasp the demon’s point. “The girl? She’s no threat to my—”
NOT HER! The walls shook from the beast’s roar. It swelled to its former height. DID YOU NOT RECOGNIZE THE ADEPT WHOSE SPARK YOU FAILED TO SNUFF?
The news left Kein’s jaw agape. “He’s alive? How? No one could survive what I—” His disbelief surrendered to a chilling revelation. “He’s not just another karcist, is he?”
HE IS ONE OF THE NIKRAIM.
“Impossible. I killed them all. The last one died at sea just days after the war began.”
DID HE? ARE YOU SO CERTAIN?
Hearing the question made Kein realize he was no longer certain of anything. “If the adept I met in Stuttgart was the one called Cade Martin, he must be eliminated.”
IF THAT IS YOUR WILL.
“Where is he? Tell me, and I’ll send MAMMON to reap his soul.”
A growl of displeasure from the demon. HE IS PROTECTED BY GREAT WARDS AND PACTS. IF YOU WANT HIM DEAD NOW, IT MUST HAPPEN BY YOUR HAND ALONE.
Kein knew not to take a fallen angel at its word. “Hell has no wards you cannot break.”
UNTRUE. I CANNOT BREAK MY OWN SEALS OF PROTECTION—OR PERHAPS I CHOOSE NOT TO. EITHER WAY, THE OUTCOME IS THE SAME.
It took Kein a second to parse the demon’s revelation. When he understood, he was seized with rage. “You’re his patron?”
HE PERFORMED THE RITUAL AND ABIDED BY THE COVENANT. The beast shrugged its arms and rolled its head into a mockery of Christ on the cross. I WILL NOT AID ONE SON AGAINST ANOTHER.
“Damn you! I banish and discharge thee, and command that thou return without delay or detour to the Flame Everlasting! Begone, I abjure thee! By the names ADONAI, ARIEL, ELOHIM, JEHOVAM, and TETRAGRAMMATON!” Fire consumed the demon from its hooves upward, until its twisted horns vanished in puffs of cobalt smoke.
Kein tossed a handful of camphor into the brazier and let its perfume cleanse the chamber of the demon’s lingering stink before he muttered a valedictory “Amen.”
He remained inside the operator’s circle, consumed by his own brooding. Why did I not realize the nikraim was still alive? How could I not have recognized him when he stood in front of me? Having to ask such questions galled him. They made him doubt himself, an affliction he’d thought was centuries behind him, a relic of his past long forgotten.
He reined in his resurgent insecurity. Recriminations accomplish nothing. I have no time to waste on blame or regret. All that matters now is action.
He extended his hands into the pillar of fire at the center of the pit and pulled out two handfuls of flame. Licks of golden fire swirled in his hands, then soured to a sickly green as he invoked the power of PARAGO: “Exaudi. Exaudi. Exaudi.”
Reflecting upon his adepts’ names made their faces appear above his blazing hands. “Siegmar. Briet. Ave, my friends.”
They bowed their heads; then Briet cut to business, as usual. “What news, Master?”
“None I have not already shared. I hail you this evening to give you both an order, one that supersedes all of my previous commands. Do you both understand?”
Behind the veils of fire, nods of acknowledgment.
“Good. As of now, turn your every thought, word, and action to this goal: Find and kill Adair Macrae, and bring me his youngest male apprentice—the one named Cade Martin.”
21
MARCH
Like their late peers in Stuttgart, the dabblers of Dusseldorf knew how to put up a fight. Not one of them asked for mercy.
That was just as well; Anja was in no mood to grant any.
A pair of Germans leaped through a doorway, only to be cut down by Anja’s barrage of poisonous needles. At the end of the corridor, another one hidden by a weak invisibility charm shimmered into view for half a second as he spit fire at her. She drank his attack with her shield, then sent it back to him on a flight of ghostly arrows.
As he fell dead, she faced her next wave of attackers.
It felt good to release the power she carried pent up inside her. It was her just reward for dragging ten yoked demons all over Europe, week in and week out.
The upper floors of the nineteenth-century manor shook from a deafening crack of the whip, with which Anja tore off one dabbler’s arm and another’s leg in a single strike. As she coiled the whip behind
her for another blow, she heard it rip chairs and tables into kindling.
One of the dabblers’ Nazi guards stormed into the corridor ahead of her and swung his submachine gun in her direction. She ignited her whip with flames as it snapped forward. Before the soldier could pull the trigger, his weapon turned to half-molten scrap. He dropped it and went for his sidearm. Anja crushed his chest with one punch of a demon’s fist.
As he collapsed, Anja found herself alone. From the floors above came the cracks of lightning striking magickal defenses, followed by the rumbles of explosions. Thuds of collision carried through the walls. Smoke choked the stairway; a dead dabbler fell out of it and struck the ground floor as a heap of bloody flesh and broken bones.
Then … silence.
No more sounds of battle from above, none from the cellar below.
Is it over? She felt a pang of disappointment. At most she had killed nine or ten dabblers. After all her preparations, she had hoped to slay twice that number.
Anja knew if she voiced such a complaint to Adair, he’d say that was the demons talking. But she knew better. She had lived so long with demons that the black fires of their nature had tempered hers; killing was no longer something she viewed with regret. It was a grim necessity.
Motion caught her eye—but it was only Cade. He returned from the dabblers’ conjuring room in the basement with his clothes torn and singed. A wound on the left side of his head had left a smoldering slice through his crew cut. Anja watched him step over a dead dabbler.
He froze as he looked her way.
His hand shot up, palm out, ringed with electricity.
What the hell is he doing?
Lightning streaked from Cade’s hand, straight at her. She conjured a shield and braced herself to reflect the attack back at him—then watched the stroke split in two. Each half of it arced around her. In the fraction of a second it took her to turn, the arcs converged and skewered a Thule dabbler holding a pair of spectral scimitars.