The Midnight Front--A Dark Arts Novel

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The Midnight Front--A Dark Arts Novel Page 31

by David Mack


  Need to buy time. Cade turned himself invisible and tried to flank left around Siegmar, only to have the Finn block his manuever with a singsong taunt: “I can see you!”

  He was getting closer, and Cade was running out of options. He still had VAELBOR’s broadsword, but it was growing heavy in his hand, which meant he had used up his quotient of strength from MEUS CALMIRON.

  CASMIEL, you prick, you’d better still be with me.

  Shedding his invisibility, he circled Siegmar, who charged, striking with a berserker’s rage, his flamberge wreathed in green fire.

  Each hit Cade blocked felt like a redwood falling on his blade. A crazy windmill-swing by Siegmar sent Cade sprawling backward, ass over elbows, out of control.

  Siegmar leaped through the air and descended on Cade like a raptor on a field mouse, the tip of his flamberge plunging toward Cade’s heart.

  The demonic blade went through Cade’s chest and sank three feet into the floor. Siegmar froze as he realized Cade had shifted into ghost form.

  Intangible, Cade rolled clear of Siegmar’s blade, drew his obsidian dagger as he solidified, and thrust the glass stiletto into Siegmar’s chest.

  A shudder racked Siegmar—Cade felt it through the dagger’s grip.

  The Finn coughed, spattering Cade’s face with blood. Wet gagging sounds lodged in Siegmar’s throat as he struggled to lift one hand toward Cade’s face.

  Cade twisted the glass dagger, then pushed and broke it at the grip, abandoning the splintered blade inside Siegmar’s chest.

  As the Finn collapsed, Cade scrambled out from under him. Siegmar slumped to the floor, expelled a gasp of bloody sputum, then went still. Cade stared at him, expecting to find satisfaction, but he felt gutted. Instead of exorcising his rage and sorrow, killing Siegmar had fed it, only to make it hungrier than ever before.

  The vengeance Cade had sought for two years had left him empty.

  Around him, the hall was an inferno littered with corpses to feed the blaze. The outer walls of the building toppled, revealing the city beyond, from which a chorus of sirens wailed. The fire would attract spectators—attention Cade couldn’t afford.

  He picked himself up and stumbled away, eyes burning, and choking on smoke. His every step summoned jolts of pain from deep inside his torso, harbingers of wounds unseen. On the far side of the hall from the entrance he shouldered through a pair of doors that led to a hallway. He sprinted to its end, then out of the building’s rear exit.

  The storm embraced him as he fled into the night. Each cool breath was a blessing, every drop of rain on his face a baptism—but he was wounded, alone in the heart of Germany, and, if his strength continued to ebb, soon to be without magick. Victory and vengeance had come at a cost, and his road home to Spain would be long and full of danger.

  Yet even as he ran, hollow and hunted, he regretted nothing.

  The Thule Society was gone.

  33

  DECEMBER

  The louder Hitler yelled, the less attention Kein paid. Summoned by the Führer with a stream of invective delivered over the telephone, Kein had simmered with resentment for the duration of his train ride to Wolfsschanze. Now that he had arrived and been brought into the leader’s presence, he wished he were still on the train.

  Vulgarities mixed with insults and recriminations spewed from Hitler’s mouth, and he pounded the top of his desk with his fist for emphasis. Or perhaps out of frustration. It was unclear, but Kein didn’t care enough to inquire. He wasn’t listening, anyway.

  Outside the frost-covered windows of the Führer Bunker, all of which faced north into the Masurian woods, downy flakes took drunken paths to the snow-covered ground. Through the trees Kein noted several pyramidal bunkers topped with antiaircraft guns. Beyond those, the perimeter of the compound was ringed with land mines. Inside the camp, hundreds of soldiers stood guard day and night.

  It would be a winter paradise if not for the Nazis.

  After months of feeding on the stolen vigor of the Nazis’ victims in the concentration camps, Kein had only recently begun to feel like himself again. Most of his chronic pain had abated, and now that his strength had returned, he had resumed yoking demons. He had harnessed twelve before Hitler’s call dragged him from the Kehlsteinhaus.

  If my recovery continues apace, I should be able to expand my repertoire to fifteen spirits by the New Year, and eighteen by Easter.

  Eighteen would be a greater feat than he had ever achieved before, and it promised an array of new troubles—but as the slaying of Siegmar had so cruelly reminded him, this was war. Extreme measures were in order.

  A scrape of boots on concrete, a huff of halitosis on the side of Kein’s face. He turned to see Hitler at his side, intruding into his personal space, his visage manic. “God damn you, Kein! Have you not been listening?”

  “I gather it had something to do with Russia?”

  “Stalingrad, you moron! We’ve lost over eight hundred thousand men! Now it’s winter and our Sixth Army is trapped inside the city.”

  “I fail to see how this is my concern.” Kein stepped away from Hitler and busied himself with a review of the record albums next to the phonograph.

  “You what?” The Führer followed him like his shadow. “It’s your concern, Herr Engel, because you were the one who advised me to launch Operation Barbarossa.”

  “Perhaps you misunderstood me. I advised you to take control of the Caucasus and its oil reserves. I never told you to waste blood or treasure on a street fight in Stalingrad.” In truth, he had all but drawn the Führer a map leading him to Stalingrad. Bogging down the Nazis in a battle of attrition had prolonged the war and pushed Germany one step closer to its breaking point—which was precisely where Kein wanted them and every other player in this global mess.

  Kein picked up a record. “Is this the only Wagner in your collection?”

  “I’m trying to win a war, and you’re asking about music?”

  “Without music, life would be a mistake.”

  He expected Hitler’s temper to snap at the invocation of Nietzsche. For once the Führer surprised him. The volcanic little man set aside his rage and restored his composure before he spoke again. “How we arrived at this juncture no longer matters. How we escape it does. My soldiers in Stalingrad are in need of your aid. What can you do for them?”

  “Nothing.” Kein returned the record to its place on the shelf. “I am not here to fight your war for you.” He faced the dictator. “Do not mistake my aid for servitude. I answer to one patron only, and his dominion is much older and far greater than yours will ever be.” He looked at the framed map mounted on the wall and noted the profusion of red pins in the southwest of the Soviet Union. “Stalingrad is lost. Order your men there to do whatever damage they can. In time they will disobey and surrender, but perhaps they can reduce the Red Army’s numbers a bit before they fall. In the meantime, pull back your supply lines to fortify Kursk and Kharkov.” Weary of the conversation, Kein headed for the door.

  Looking at the map, Hitler fumed, “Then what?”

  Kein answered on his way out, “Pray for an early spring, my Führer.”

  1943

  34

  FEBRUARY

  Winter had left Normandy’s coast not white but gray, and uniform in its gloom. There was no horizon Niko could see, just a slate-colored sea and a marble sky. Braving the wind at the cliff’s edge, he squinted into the gale blowing landward from the English Channel. His hands he buried deep in his coat’s pockets, and he tucked his scarred chin under his scarf.

  Shivering at his side was Xavier Le Blanc, a short and wiry Maquis spy who had been Niko’s main link to the Resistance during his seven-month convalescence in Burgundy. Niko turned a glum eye at his pencil-mustached ally. “What am I meant to see here?”

  Xavier furrowed his brow in surprise. “The Atlantic Wall.”

  All Niko saw were empty beaches, breaking surf, and snow-streaked bluffs and cliffs. Baffled, he looked over his sh
oulder to see if he’d missed something. “What wall?”

  “Not a literal wall.” Xavier pointed at lumps dotting the cliffs. “Entrenched fortifications. Machine-gun nests.” Shifting his gaze inland, he added, “Land mines. Antiaircraft guns. Heavy artillery.” Once he saw that Niko recognized the camouflaged pillboxes dotting the coastline north and south of Caen, he continued. “It’s been going on since last spring. Mostly near the ports—Cherbourg, Calais, Le Havre, Brest, Saint-Malo. But they’ve been digging in these guns anywhere the Allies might try to grab a foot of beach.”

  “Nazi radio has been boasting of this for months. If there’s no good reason my toes need to be freezing right now, I’m cutting yours off.” It was an obviously idle threat. Niko’s injuries from the attack on the train had left one of his arms permanently crooked, his left eye half blind, and his stride hobbled with an exaggerated limp. He posed no threat to anyone in a fistfight.

  Xavier motioned for Niko to follow him. “This way.”

  He led Niko away from the cliffs and two kilometers south along the coast, to an unfinished excavation. Surrounding it were snow-shrouded tools, buckets, and supply pallets. Xavier presented the scene as if he had just solved a capital crime.

  An icepick wind stabbed at Niko’s ears, prompting him to hunch his shoulders. After reviewing the scene, he turned in confusion to Xavier. “So?”

  “This is the part that makes no sense.”

  “You showing me an empty hole in the ground? I agree.”

  Exasperated, Xavier pulled an oiled canvas tarpaulin off the pallet. Underneath were piles of cement predicate in sacks. “This is the point, Niko.”

  “What does any of this have to do with Briet?”

  “She was here.” Xavier pulled a folded, grainy photograph from his coat pocket. Despite the rough texture of the enlarged image, Briet’s face was clearly recognizable. Behind her were a farmhouse and a silo that Niko recognized over Xavier’s shoulder.

  He pocketed the photo. “All right, she was here. So what?”

  “She’s responsible for this mess.”

  “What mess?”

  Xavier kneeled beside the pallet, opened a folding knife, and stabbed a bag of concrete mixture. He showed the grayish white powder to Niko. “Quality cement from Germany. Came in by truck and train all last year, along with premium mix. But last fall the mix stopped coming, and work halted. Then Briet showed up.” He kicked over a bucket and spilled wet sand across the snow. “Ordered the crews to keep working. Made them use beach sand to mix the concrete.”

  “Is this the part of the story where I slap you? Or the part where you get to the point?”

  “Beach sand makes shitty concrete. Weak, prone to cracks. Salt rusts the rebars.”

  “Maybe she is not a construction genius.”

  “But the Germans are, Niko. And they told her, over and over. But she did something, scared them into doing what she said. Now they’re using beach sand all up and down the coast, from Calais to Brest.” He lowered his voice, as if afraid someone could eavesdrop on them out there, in the middle of nowhere, on a cliff overlooking the Channel. “If she works for the Nazis, why is she sabotaging their defenses? If this is what the Nazis want, why do they want it?”

  Now he understood Xavier’s dilemma. But he had no idea what to tell him. “When was her last visit?”

  “About a month ago. She comes every few months.”

  “I need a place to hole up. A house. Something remote.”

  Xavier nodded and pointed west. “There’s one in Meuvaines. Used to belong to a Jewish family before the Nazis ran them out. Been empty since.”

  “Isolated?”

  “Very.” The skinny Maquis kicked the pallet of cement. “What about this?”

  “Keep an eye on it, but don’t interfere. Whatever she’s doing, I don’t want her to know we’ve been here. Tell everyone: Hands off the Atlantic Wall until we know more. Understood?”

  A reverent nod. “I’ll pass the word.”

  “Thank you. Now take me to the house.”

  Months had bled away since Niko last wrangled demons. Months in which he had been afflicted with a surfeit of time to stew in grief and regret.

  Tonight, in spite of his infirmity, he would summon his patron, rejoin the war effort, and take his first steps toward atonement … and revenge.

  * * *

  Few beasts of fact or legend were ever so ponderous as the Red Army on the move in winter. Thousands of troops trudged through knee-deep snow. Most of them toted overfilled backpacks and Mosin-Nagant rifles whose lubricating oil had been cut with gasoline to keep their bolts from freezing shut on the long march from Stalingrad to Kursk. Underfed and overtired, the comrades of the newly constituted Central Front plodded northwest, out of the shambles of Stalingrad, en route to a new battleground.

  The monotony of the march and the desolation of the ruined urban landscape lulled Anja into a state of lightness. Freed from memories of what had been or expectations of what might come, she was content just to be. To breathe subarctic air; to hear the crunching of boots on snow ahead of and behind her; to taste the lingering bite of vodka on her own breath, and feel the ache of hunger in her belly. All of it simply was; it meant nothing, signified nothing, asked nothing. As one among thousands, anonymous in the ranks, she felt free for the first time in her life.

  Still, a bowl of lamb stew would be nice. She pushed back against her selfishness. Stop that. You think you are the only one who is hungry?

  She scooped a palmful of snow from the side of the path and stuffed it into her mouth. It was a temporary remedy, but what wasn’t these days? The best she could hope for was a few minutes of relief from the emptiness in her gut. After that, she would eat more snow, or chew on some bark, or—if she was lucky—find more vodka.

  Ahead of her, the formation snaked across the winterscape, a dark line of ragged bodies cutting a path toward the gray horizon. Behind her, what remained of Stalingrad was roofless husks and mountains of broken concrete. Only a handful of the city’s residents had persevered through the months of brutal urban combat.

  Soviet political officers had called the Battle of Stalingrad a triumph—rightly so, now that the German Sixth Army had surrendered and been taken prisoner—but none of the propagandists had spoken of the cost the Red Army had paid for that victory. Anja had seen the streets littered with Russia’s dead, its sons and daughters cut down, dismembered, paralyzed, blinded, reduced to horrors of scar tissue their own mothers would never recognize. She had watched the Germans execute Russian civilians while the Red Army did nothing, choosing instead to bide its time until it could act with the advantage.

  A few were sacrificed for the many. There was no better way.

  Anja repeated that to herself as she marched. She wondered if she might believe it by the time the Central Front reached Kursk.

  Running steps, quick but still light, crunched in the snow behind her, drawing closer. Her mood brightened as she recognized their weight and cadence. Nadezhda caught up to her, rosy-cheeked and half winded. She served now as a spotter for Anja, who in the months since expending the last of her magick had earned her rations as a sniper-scout.

  “Anja! Look what I found!” From inside her coat, Nady pulled a pair of golden-brown bread rolls. She handed one to Anja and grinned. “Only three days old.”

  The bread was tough. It was half stale now and likely had been as dry as a handful of dust when it first came from the oven. But it was food, and that was more valuable on the front line than anything except vodka or morphine. And maybe dry socks. Or a warm coat.

  She hid the roll inside her coat and offered her friend a grateful smile. “Thank you. I’ll soften mine in tonight’s cup of broth.”

  Nadezhda ceased nibbling at the impenetrable edge of her own roll. “Good plan.” She followed Anja’s example and hid the roll under her winter coat.

  Anja liked having Nady at her side. The young woman had shown her a sister’s devotion after
Anja saved her from death’s domain in the infirmary. Saving Nady’s life had left Anja spent of magick, but the bond that had formed between them after Nadezhda’s recovery had grown so powerful that it had taken Anja by surprise. Theirs was a friendship of unconditional loyalty, and it now was clear to Anja that Nady looked up to her. When she saw the innocent faith Nady placed in her, Anja remembered what it once had felt like to see her younger brother Piotr look at her that way: to be loved, respected, admired, and trusted.

  I never knew how much I had missed that feeling.

  From behind them came wolf whistles and catcalls. Three scruffy, filthy infantrymen—a description that Anja realized could apply to tens of thousands of her comrades in the formation departing Stalingrad—made rude noises at her and Nady.

  A barefaced farmboy boasted, “Gonna be cold tonight! I can keep you warm!”

  His bucktoothed buddy added, “Skinny little things like you need protection. I’ve got room in my bedroll for both of you!”

  Their slope-browed friend chimed in, “I’ve got what you girls need.”

  Nadezhda linked her arm around Anja’s. “Fuck off! She’s mine, and I’m hers!”

  Bareface leered harder. “Can I watch?” He and Bucktooth laughed.

  Slope-brow refused to take the hint. “Do what you want to each other, as long as I get what’s mine.”

  Petulance turned to anger as Nady glared at Slope-brow. “Fuck off or I’ll cut what’s yours into sausage and leave it for the dogs.”

  Jeers from Bucktooth and Bareface left Slope-brow flushed with embarrassment. “Tough talk, blondie. We’ll see how tough you are when—”

  He shut up the second he realized Anja had put the cutting edge of her bayonet to his crotch. She bared her teeth. “One more word and you’re half the man you used to be.”

  During her months without magick, Anja had learned how to kill with a knife, up close and personal. Seven throats she had cut in the rubble of Stalingrad; she recalled each one in gruesome detail as she maintained eye contact with Slope-brow.

 

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