The Midnight Front--A Dark Arts Novel

by David Mack

  The answer was obvious, of course: Adair had used magick to compel some demon to shift their personal effects and the library from Eilean Donan to this remote Andalusian hideout.

  Desperate for open air, Cade wandered outside and found a patch of grass on which to stretch out, then lost himself in the sunset, which had turned the western sky a deep burgundy streaked with clouds of tangerine. Soon night would fall and salt the sky with starlight. Then the air would turn crisp, and it would be time to kindle a fire in the great room’s hearth. Grateful for the solitude, he closed his eyes for a time and let his thoughts wander.

  Night ascended and the heavens revealed themselves. Cade admired the stars until he tired of confronting his insignificance in the scope of creation; then he allowed his growing appetite to draw him inside the villa.

  The house was preternaturally quiet. Night breezes moved through it, cool and silent.

  At the risk of waking Adair, who had been sleeping almost around the clock during his convalescence, Cade called out, “Anja? You here?” No one answered.

  She wasn’t in the kitchen, or in any of the rooms upstairs. Cade ventured outside and circled the villa. There wasn’t another soul for miles in any direction.

  Dread led him to the library. Anja’s grimoire was absent from the long table. He opened the wardrobe. Her robes and tools of the Art weren’t there.

  Without an explanation or a farewell, Anja had gone.

  28

  JULY

  Fear and confusion, exhilaration and regret—was this stew of emotions what it meant to be free? All her life, Anja had been in the care of others. First her mother, then, since the age of thirteen, Adair. Now she soared alone, thousands of feet above the Mediterranean Sea, transformed by the charms of ANDREALPHUS into a peregrine falcon, while the duty of transporting her tools and other possessions had been delegated to DANOCHAR.

  Beyond her left wing stretched the eastern coast of Spain; on the horizon to her right, the island of Palma. Her plan was to follow the coastline past France to Italy, then overland until she reached the Adriatic Sea, at which she would shift her course due east. Once she had the Black Sea in her sights, she could haunt its northern coastline until she found the mouth of the Peka Don. Tracing its winding path through the countryside would lead her to her destination: Stalingrad. There she would join the Red Army and honor her duty to defend Mother Russia, by standing with her comrade soldiers against Hitler’s legions.

  Yet as the world stretched out ahead of her, she felt her guilt pull her thoughts backward, to what she had left behind. To Adair. She tried to push him from her mind, along with the anger her memories evoked.

  What made Cade’s life more precious than Stefan’s? That question tormented her. She had resented Cade for being Adair’s new favorite, the one for whom the master was ready to sacrifice all his other adepts. How long before he would have asked me to lay down my life for his American pet?

  As much as she wanted to hate Cade, she couldn’t. He hadn’t asked for the life Adair had thrust upon him. Even so, in battle he had been brave, and it had frightened Anja to see how swiftly he had mastered tasks and techniques that had taken her years to learn.

  Despite her denials, she knew she would miss Adair. It filled her with remorse to abandon him while he was maimed and bedridden, but she had done all she could for him. The worst of his wounds she had tended; the rest could be healed only by time.

  There was still the danger posed by the Thule Society’s remaining covens, and by Kein and his apprentices. No doubt Adair and Cade had been counting on having Anja’s help in those battles, but the time had come for her to answer a higher calling.

  By her estimates, she would reach Stalingrad in another six days. Then she would embark upon the campaign for which, she now realized, she had spent the past seven years preparing herself in body and spirit: She would reclaim her honor as a Russian—and teach the Nazis new reasons to fear the heroes of the Soviet.

  * * *

  It had been days since Anja left the villa, but Cade remained unable to fathom her motives. He leaned against the bathroom’s open doorway while Adair submerged himself in the claw-foot tub. When the master surfaced, Cade asked, “You don’t think she went after Kein by herself?”

  Adair swept his mop of wet gray hair backward. “I doubt it.” He squeezed bathwater from his scraggle of beard and rubbed his eyes.

  “But now that she’s had a taste of angel magick—”

  “It’d take more than a taste to beat Kein. Not that she’d be able to tap into it.”

  “But you used it at Wewelsburg—”

  “Aye.” Adair massaged his leg stump. “And nearly died for it.”

  “But why weren’t we using angel magick from the start?”

  Adair skewered Cade with a look. “Because I needed the Iron Codex even to attempt it.”

  “And now that you have it…?”

  The master pointed out the scabbed fissures that traced an atlas of pain from his head to his one remaining set of toes. “First, you might’ve noticed yoking angels takes a greater toll on the flesh than yoking demons. But the main reason is that angels can’t be forced into service the way demons can. You can ask angels for help, but they’re under no obligation to give it.”

  Cade filed that knowledge away, then turned his thoughts to more immediate concerns. “Any chance Kein and his adepts are still at Wewelsburg?”

  “They’re long gone by now. Could be anywhere.” He extended a hand toward Cade. “Help me up.”

  Before Wewelsburg, Adair had seemed so imposing that Cade had thought him invincible. Now naked, wet, and teetering on one foot as he struggled to exit a tub without falling on his ass, Adair looked frail. Cade steadied the old karcist as he stood.

  Despite having lost the lower part of one leg, Adair was still heavy as Cade lifted him out of the tub and set him on the throw rug. Before the master had to ask, Cade handed him his towel. Adair dried his chest, then draped the linen over his head like a hood. Cade held him steady as the master put on his robe, then sat on a stool next to the tub. “Thank you, lad.”

  The stump of bright-pink scar tissue below Adair’s knee captivated Cade even as it repulsed him. “Does it still hurt?”

  “Less than you might think.” Adair examined the wound with cool detachment. “After Anja scorched it to stop the bleeding, I didn’t feel anything. The pain came back after she fixed the burn.” A deep frown. “Three hundred fifty-eight years and nary a scratch. Now this.” His mood lightened. “Serves me right for charging in like a great pillock, all sound and fury.”

  Adair toweled his hair dry while Cade fetched his crutch. The master stood and tucked the padded support under his armpit, then hobbled from the bathroom to his bedroom. Cade followed him. “How long before you can work new magick?”

  “Weeks. Maybe longer.” He appraised Cade. “You?”

  “I’m ready.” It was a lie. Cade’s insides felt as if they’d been boiled with acid and scraped raw by thorns, but he wore a stoic face for his mentor.

  “If you say so.” The master unfolded some underwear and a pair of pants. “Don’t push yourself on my account. Whenever you go back in the circle, you’ll be going alone.” He seemed to sense the alarm Cade was trying to conceal. “Remember what I taught you: the circle’s drawn for five, three, or one. Doesn’t work with two. Now that Anja’s gone, you’re on your own.”

  “Not a problem.” Another lie. The prospect of standing solo against a parade of demons chilled Cade to his core. He decided to shift the subject to one that had been bothering him for over a week, since his abduction. “I have questions.”

  “I’d be cross if you didn’t.”

  He waited until Adair had pulled on his trousers before he asked, “What’s a nikraim?”

  The master sighed. “Told you, did he?” He frowned. “It’s an old Hebrew word, one long gone from the common vernacular. It describes a person who’s been spiritually bonded with an angel—and n
ot the fallen variety, one of the true host of Heaven.”

  “I thought that was called a nephilim.”

  The master shook his head. “No, a nephilim is the hybrid offspring of a human and an angel made flesh, just like a cambion is the offpsring of a human and a demon incarnate. A nikraim is not a hybrid. It’s two beings living as one, spirit fused to soul.”

  Cade was stunned by the implications. “How does that happen?”

  “No one knows how or why Heaven chooses the souls it does, or why it sends spirits to meddle in human affairs. But nikraim wield great powers when they reach adulthood.”

  “And I’m one of them?”

  A pained look passed over Adair, who gestured toward the dresser. “Be a lad—fetch my flask.” Cade retrieved the master’s tarnished steel hip flask, which sloshed half full in his hand. Adair unscrewed the cap and downed a swig. “Technically, yes, you’re a nikraim.” Another pull from the flask. “But you’re not exactly one of God’s chosen.”

  The more Adair told him, the less he understood. “Meaning?”

  Adair hobbled on his crutch to a wardrobe, from which he plucked a wrinkled shirt. He put it on as he explained, “Your bonding was made by magick. Your father worked a grand experiment while you were still in your mother’s womb. He made a pact with Heaven, called down one of the Celestial host, and offered to let you be its vessel.”

  “What’re you saying? I’m some kind of puppet?”

  The master paused buttoning his shirt. “No! You’ve got free will, always have. The angel’s more of a passenger. You draw on its strength and talents, but you’re the one in charge.”

  “But what talents do I—” Self-awareness came like a slap in the face. “Magick. Whatever my father did to me, it gave me a knack for magick.”

  A somber nod. “Aye.”

  “If I’m bonded to an angel, does that mean I can yoke angels?”

  “As I said, true angels aren’t like the Fallen. You can ask for their help, but they give it only at the whim of the Divine—it can’t be compelled. Not even by you. And believe me, if you think yoking a demon’s hard work, holding an angel in harness is ten times worse.”

  “But you’re telling me I’m carting around an angel all the time, have been since before I was born. Why isn’t that messing with my head?”

  “Bonding and yoking aren’t the same thing. Yoking a spirit ties its powers to your flesh. When your body weakens, you lose control of the spirit. But bonding—that’s a fusion of a spirit’s immortal essence with a human’s mortal soul, and it lasts for life.”

  “But what’s the point? Why did my father do this to me?”

  Adair fastened his shirt’s last button, then pivoted to face Cade. “Because Kein is one of the nadach—a man soul-bonded to a demon. It makes him a stronger karcist than I can ever be. It also means the only way to beat him is to find a magician who can be his equal. A nikraim.”

  “You mean me.”

  “Aye.” Adair stared at the floor. “It’s why I told Anja to let Stefan die—so she’d have the strength to save you. I loved Stefan like a son, but … he could never beat Kein.” He looked up, his dark eyes brimming with tears, his voice breaking with grief. “So I had to let him go.” With the back of his hand he erased the tears that fell from his eyes.

  A wave of guilt flooded through Cade. “So many people have died for me. My parents; the passengers on Athenia; now Stefan.… How can I possibly repay all those lives?”

  “By living one worthy of their sacrifice.”

  It was the simplest advice the master had ever given him—and also the truest, and the hardest. Cade tried to pretend he wasn’t shaken. “Think you’ll be all right getting downstairs?” The master nodded, so Cade slipped away from him. “Take your time. I’ll make breakfast.”

  A day of mundane chores awaited Cade, tasks that had to be dealt with to make the villa not just livable but defensible against magickal assaults such as the one that had compromised Eilean Donan. Adair would be able to offer advice, but it was up to Cade to provide the elbow grease. It was going to be a very long day—but not nearly as long as the night that would follow it. Because once the sun was down and the hands of the clock turned toward the witching hours, Cade was determined to initiate preparations for his next experiment.

  The time had come for Hell to bend to his demands.

  * * *

  New magick remained beyond Adair’s reach, but he still had a few tricks at his command. In his study stood a large oval mirror mounted vertically by a central hinge on a heavy wooden stand, the last of his portal glasses in continental Europe. Without another enchanted mirror on the other side, it couldn’t be used as a portal—but it could still serve as a scrying window.

  Adair had seated himself in front of the mirror for days on end, reaching out through its watery, shimmering surface to find Niko, from whom nothing had been heard since before Stefan’s capture. Guiding Adair were the clairvoyant talents of DEMOGORGON, with whose help Adair had narrowed his search to France, then Burgundy, and now the commune of Vitteaux.

  At last he had found Niko, who regarded Adair from behind a swollen face that had been savagely bruised and lacerated. Adair summoned Cade from the next room: “Lad, it’s him! I found him!”

  Cade hurried in and joined Adair in front of the mirror, then winced at the sight of Niko. “Holy shit. Are you okay?”

  “I have looked better, n’est-ce pas?”

  Adair was agape. “Christ! How are you alive?”

  “I probably should not be. But this town’s doctor is a stubborn man.”

  If not for the sarcasm in Niko’s voice, Adair would not have recognized his once impetuous young adept. “Speaking of stubborn—you tried to save her. After I told you not to.”

  The mask of violence obscuring Niko’s once handsome features failed to conceal his anger. “Oui. She was my sister. I refused to let them take her without a fight.”

  “But at what price? God damn you, Niko! Bad enough you risked yourself, but you took Stefan with you. Thanks to you, Kein breached Eilean Donan. He killed Stefan, and he damned near took Cade and the rest of us down, too. All because you couldn’t obey orders.”

  “Maybe if you’d helped me save her instead of—”

  “Shut your bonebox! I told you one woman’s life wasn’t worth risking the war, but that’s just what you fucking did! If we’d lost Cade, we’d all be as good as dead. You, me, the Resistance, the Allies, billions of fucking lives—all thrown away in the name of one.”

  Niko’s fury turned to sorrow. “She was my only family. I will not apologize for trying to save her.” His grief became pleading. “I had to try, Master. Please say you understand.”

  It was hard for Adair to bear witness to Niko’s pain and not let himself empathize with it. “Just because I understand, it doesn’t mean I approve—or that I forgive.”

  “I asked for neither.”

  “What I need you to understand is how much damage you did. One selfish moment, and you nearly wiped us off the map. I need you back in the fight, lad. Back in Paris, hunting down that Thule coven before it gets any stronger.”

  “The village doctor says it will be months before I can walk.” A gleam in Niko’s eye presaged the ghost of a smile beneath his blue-black wounds. “But the Maquis still bring me news from Paris—news you need to hear.”

  “I’m listening.”

  A cough freckled Niko’s fist with blood, which he wiped across the front of his shirt. “The Resistance is using the old Catacombs to move men and supplies around Paris. They have detailed maps of all the tunnels, and where they reach the surface.”

  “Go on.”

  “Last week, a team of Maquis gunrunners spotted strangers in the Catacombs. Not German soldiers. Civilians in robes. Including a red-haired woman. They followed them—and found a tunnel not on any of the maps. A path blocked by an iron grate with no door, and no other exit. But the intruders? Nowhere to be found. They had vanished…”
/>
  “… as if by magick,” Adair said, finishing Niko’s thought. “Did your Maquis have the presence of mind to note this mystery path on one of their maps?”

  “Oui.” He held up a folded document for Adair to see.

  The master turned to Cade, pointed at the dresser. “Grab the camera.”

  Cade retrieved the camera and snapped pictures of several pages of maps. “I’ll take the film into town. Get some blowups made.” He headed for the door.

  “Good work.” In light of Niko’s discovery, Adair felt embarrassed for having lambasted him so cruelly. He found it hard to face him. “Sorry I can’t bring you through. I’ve got new portal glasses coming soon, but … they’ve been spoken for, I’m afraid.”

  Niko shook his head. “It is just as well. It would raise too many questions among the Maquis, more than I can answer.”

  “True.” From the shelf by the mirror, he picked up the enchanted mirror he had recovered at Wewelsburg. The steel-and-glass rectangle was shrouded in white silk. “This was Stefan’s. I’ll have a spirit bring it to you tomorrow at dawn, to replace the one you lost. In case you learn anything new. Or in case you need us.”

  The beat-up young man accepted the offer with a grateful nod. “Merci.”

  “Heal up, lad. We’ll let you know what we find.” He and Niko nodded in valediction; then Adair closed the scrying window with a wave of his hand.

  He stood and pulled his crutch to his side, under his arm. Then he looked out the window and watched Cade bicycle down the twisting hillside road, on his way to town with the camera.

  If the Catacombs were where Briet and her Paris coven had made their lair, it was going to be up to Cade alone to breach it, meet them in battle, and destroy them all.