by David Mack
He raised his hands, backed off, and retreated with his pals into the ranks.
Anja sheathed her blade. She and Nady resumed their march.
Nady elbowed Anja and cracked a conspiratorial smirk. “Fuck them. We don’t need men. We don’t need anybody. Not as long as we stay together.”
“I know we don’t.”
It was the right thing to say. But it was a lie.
Though she was full of sisterly love for Nadezhda, Anja harbored regrets for the way she had abandoned Adair. She still resented him for insisting she sacrifice Stefan’s life to save Cade’s. No matter how powerful the American was, he couldn’t really be that important, could he? It was clear the master thought so, but what if he was wrong?
All Anja had wanted was to put some distance between herself and Adair, to have room to breathe, to think, to make sense of … well, everything.
But she’d found no sense to it, or to anything else. Nearly the entire world was at war, drowning in chaos. Everything was a mess; nothing was right. How could she sort out matters as irrational as love and grief when she had no idea if she’d live to see the next dawn?
The sun dipped low in the west. Soon night would bring her murky dreams of the man who’d been like a father to her. Or were they visions? Anja didn’t know anymore. All she knew for certain was that she hoped Adair was all right, wherever he was—and that someday he might forgive her.
If only I deserved to be forgiven.
* * *
Dusk painted the Sierra Nevada range a vivid fuchsia and outlined every rock and ridge with indigo shadows. In the west, the sky burned ruby about the sunset.
Cade climbed the winding road to Adair’s villa. He had been walking for over twelve weeks, ten hours each night, through the harshest winter he had ever felt. He looked forward to sleeping indoors without needing to coerce, cajole, or bribe his way into a stranger’s home or barn, even though quite a few lonely women in France had been happy to take him into their beds. Likewise, the promise of hot food he didn’t have to steal called him onward.
He shifted the strap of his leather roll-up to a fresh part of his shoulder. The weight of swords, knives, and other metal tools of the Art was quick to cause him discomfort, despite the padding of his fleece-lined bomber jacket. If exorcising and fumigating his blades weren’t so tedious, he would have let his demon porter haul them across Europe.
Drawing close to the top of the hill, he noted a jeep parked outside the front door. Its driver’s-side door bore a simple emblem—the white five-pointed star of the United States Army.
Looks like we have visitors. There was no reason for Cade to think Allied military personnel would be hostile to him or to Adair, but he had been on the run for months, and he was loath to relax his guard around strangers, no matter who they were. Better safe than dead.
He slowed his pace. Voices carried from inside the villa, but there was no sign of anyone outside, on the grounds beside or behind the house. No one had been left behind in the jeep. He rested his hand on its hood. It was cool. Whoever was inside, they had been there awhile.
He climbed the steps, expecting to eavesdrop before he entered. Then the front door opened, and he froze on the top step as a pair of Allied military officers—one British, one American, both with their braided hats tucked under their arms—were escorted out by Adair. The master was his usual disheveled self.
“Thank you for making the drive out. Let me—” He beamed at the sight of Cade. “Speak of the devil! Gents, this is him! The man of the hour—Cade Martin.”
There was admiration in the American’s manner as he shook Cade’s hand. “Captain Abraham Corey. It’s an honor, son.”
As soon as Cade’s hand was free, the Brit seized it. “Major Bingham Wallis.” He let go of Cade’s hand. “Master Macrae tells us you’ve done a yeoman’s job cleaning up this Thule mess for us, and in record time. Well done, young man.”
“Yeah, well—beats working.”
The officers donned their covers and faced Adair. The major did the talking. “We’ll keep you apprised of any changes.”
A nod from Adair. “Right, then. Cheery-bye.” He and Cade watched the officers get in the jeep. The captain drove the vehicle, which rumbled down the dirt road.
Once the jeep had passed from sight, Adair took Cade by the shoulders. “Welcome home, lad!” The master’s elation turned to alarm. “Christ, you look like shite. Smell like it, too.”
“Maybe ’cause I just walked thirteen hundred miles, most of it with the Nazis on my ass.”
Adair wrinkled his nose. “That’s no excuse for stinking like low tide.”
Pride demanded Cade change the subject. “Please tell me there’s scotch.”
“Aye.” Adair led him inside. “But not ’til after you’ve washed up.”
There was no need to convince Cade. He plodded to the second floor, dropped his gear in the room he had claimed months earlier, and retired to the bathroom to scrub the road off his skin. Submerged in the tub, he dismissed his yoked spirits, then exhaled a column of bubbles. When he surfaced, he felt lighter than he had in months. He could almost draw a deep breath without feeling his heart race or his head spin.
Naked in front of the washroom mirror, Cade stood dismayed by his own reflection. Demonic compulsions had driven him to rip out odd-shaped patches of his beard and whittle away the tips of his eyebrows. It’s like my face got attacked by hair-chewing moths.
He took scissors from the cabinet by the sink, trimmed his beard down to whiskers, and sheared his ragged mop of hair to an uneven crew cut. Then he retrieved his shaving kit from his bedroom and slowly rediscovered the face he hadn’t seen since the previous summer. There was nothing to be done about his eyebrows except hope that he could leave them alone long enough to grow back now that he was free of yoked demons.
Half an hour later, dry and dressed in clean clothes, he returned to the first floor. Adair sat awaiting him in the library. He smiled at Cade’s entrance. “As promised.” On an end table beside an empty armchair stood a tumbler two-thirds full of golden liquor.
Cade sank into the chair, picked up the scotch, savored its perfume for a few seconds, then downed half the glass in one swallow. “Damn. That’s really good.”
“Broke out the good stuff. You’ve earned it.”
“Thank you. Got any cigarettes?”
Adair picked up a carton of Lucky Strikes from the floor beside his chair and lobbed it into Cade’s lap. “A gift from our guests.”
The cardboard box nearly fell apart in Cade’s eager hands. He ripped off its end flaps, dug out a pack, tore it open, and tucked a smoke between his lips. By force of habit, he snapped his fingers, expecting to light his Lucky with a lick of XAPHAN’s flame. Staring at his hand, he wondered what had gone wrong, then remembered he had just released all of his yoked spirits.
Pointing at the end of the cigarette, Cade shot an expectant look at Adair, who arched his brow and dipped his chin. A spark manifested inside the Lucky, which flared to life as Cade took a drag. The rush of nicotine was a balm for his nerves. “Thanks.” He exhaled through his nose. “So is that why they came here? To bring you scotch and Luckies?”
“Hardly. Now that we’ve done our part, the Allies are gearing up. North Africa’s theirs, and it sounds like Italy’s next.”
“Then France?”
The master looked uncertain. “Soon. But there’s more to be done first.”
“Like what?”
“Niko’s hunting Briet. She’s up to something in Normandy, but we don’t know what.” He fished a pack of cigarettes from a pocket inside his coat. “But the bigger issue is time. The Allies need to get their ducks in a row.”
Smoke spilled from Cade’s mouth as he spoke. “So what do we do until then?”
“Gird ourselves for a different battle.”
“You mean Kein.”
“Aye. He’s gone to ground.” Adair opened his pack of cigarettes.
Cade sipped hi
s scotch and let the sweet burn linger on his palate. “You think he’s training more dabblers?”
“I doubt he can find enough for a new coven.”
“You sure? Germany’s a big place.”
“He can’t teach magick to just anyone. Sure, any fool can learn the basics, but few have the nerves to put them into practice. It’ll be years before he can build another army.” The master put on a look of mischief. “It’s our job to make sure he doesn’t get the chance.”
Another sip and a pull on the Lucky gave Cade time to think. “If he’s in hiding, why don’t we focus on bigger targets?”
His suggestion soured Adair. “Such as?”
“Hitler and his generals. Or even his armies. Give me half a chance, I bet I could lay waste to a panzer division without breaking a sweat.”
Adair shook his head. “Absolutely not. I told you when we started: We aren’t here to wage the Allies’ war for them.”
“It’s a bit late for that. I mean, we’re in this now. Why not go all in?”
The master sighed. “For one thing, Hitler and the other boss Nazis are guarded by demons Kein put in place years ago. Plus most of the field marshals, to boot. But even if they weren’t, going after Hitler would be out of our league.”
That made no sense to Cade. “Why? He’s just a man.”
Adair swept tangles of gray hair from his face. “This is what I get for glossing over the basics.” He set his cigarettes aside and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “The problem with what you suggest goes to the heart of what magick is, and how it works. At its root, magick is about exerting one’s will over the forces and elements of the universe. Magicians use spirits as instruments to focus primordial energies and use them to shape this world to their desires.”
The master levitated his pack of Luckies from the table by his chair and made it hover between himself and Cade. “Inanimate objects have no will of their own, and animals have only very little, so it’s not that hard to turn lead into gold, or use a wolf like a puppet.
“But using magick against people … that’s a different challenge.” He guided the pack back to the end table, then continued. “Overcoming the will of one ordinary soul, a person not guarded by charms or spirits—that’s easy for a trained karcist. But overcoming the collective will of thousands or millions of people at once—for instance, by trying to send a demon to kill a national leader, one invested with power, authority, symbolic importance—is difficult, costly, and bloody fucking dangerous. Heaven almost never meddles in human affairs, and Hell hates it nearly as much. So to go after a führer, or a president, or a premier, you’d need the power to overcome not just the will of the patient himself, but also that of his followers. The more powerful the figure, the harder they are to attack with demons.”
Cade held up his hands to stop the lecture. “Hang on. I’ve used magick against dozens of people—no, hundreds. You’re saying I couldn’t do the same to Hitler? Or Mussolini?”
“You’ve wielded the powers of yoked spirits. That’s different from sending a demon to do your bidding. If you could get close enough to Hitler without being gunned down by their armies and secret police, you might live long enough to take one shot at overcoming Kein’s wards of protection to strike at Hitler from point-blank range. But if you miss, or even if you don’t, his demonic guardians would tear off your limbs like wings from a fly.” He lifted one brow into an inquisitive arch. “You sure you want to take that chance?”
Cade suspected there likely was no answer to Adair’s question that wouldn’t make him look like an idiot. He left it unanswered while he downed another swig of scotch. After a slow drag on the Lucky, he shifted the topic.
“If we can’t go after the top dogs head-on, why not use magick against their troops? Nobody voted for them. Why not send a dozen demons to turn the Nazis’ tanks to scrap?”
“Because you’ll run out of magick long before an army runs out of fodder.” Adair rubbed his eyes and groaned. “You’re itchin’ for a fight. I know the feeling, trust me. But I need you to heed me now. A battlefield is no place for a karcist. Used to be, our kind took no part in war. It’s not what the Art was made for. And if Kein had respected that, we wouldn’t be here now.” He pulled a Lucky from his pack and stuck it in his mouth. “The only reason you and I are in this world of shite is because Kein threw in with the Nazis, for reasons I can’t begin to grasp.
“Stopping Kein is something only we can do. So we can’t waste our efforts on battles not our own.” His cigarette lit as if of its own volition. “You and I need to track down Kein and Briet, and put an end to them, once and for all.” Adair filled his chest with smoke, then vented it like a gray dragon. “The Allies have to fight their own war, lad. And we have to fight ours.”
35
MARCH
It would come down to timing, just like everything else in life. Niko had insinuated himself into the ranks of civilians conscripted by the Germans as slave labor for the Atlantic Wall project. No one had asked him for papers or even his name. He had just showed up three weeks earlier—rumpled and unwashed—and queued up with the other workers near the cliffs north of Caen. A Nazi enlisted man had pointed him toward the work zone. The other workers covered for Niko’s limp and bent arm by having him mix concrete. They also serve who stand and stir.
Most of the real work was going on inland, near bridges and crossroads, the choke points for an invading army. In spite of all the boasting the Organisation Todt had done about the Nazis’ coastline defenses, the so-called Atlantic Wall was a relaxed front. Its beaches were empty, its cliffsides populated just enough to present the appearance of battle-readiness from the vantage of ships at a distance in the English Channel.
If only the Allies knew how vulnerable Normandy really is, Niko mused, they might do more than sit in England with their thumbs up their asses.
He had said as much to his superiors. First through the Resistance to the British SOE, and then to Adair, who insisted he had shared the information with top Allied commanders. Still the northwestern coast of France stood quiet, surrendered to German control.
It made Niko’s blood boil. He had seen films of the Nazis marching under the Arc de Triomphe, parading up the Champs-Élysées. How could anyone see such an affront and not take up arms? How could the British and their allies not strike back?
I was born in Algeria, but my heart belongs to France. I will set her free or die trying.
He lingered on the periphery of the work site and pretended to tap a cigarette against the side of his hand. Out of the corner of his eye he tracked the progress of the foreman and the project leader from Organisation Todt. They had emerged from the command tent and were on their way to a chauffeured car that would take them to a bistro in Saint-Malo for lunch. The two Germans were escorted by an armed Wehrmacht soldier who had become so blasé with regard to his duties that his rifle was slung diagonally across his back rather than held at the ready. The boy-soldier didn’t even tense as Niko pivoted into the path of the foreman and the project leader, held up a Gauloises, and asked with a disarming smile, “Can I get a light?”
Both bosses looked offended to be addressed with such familiarity by a mere worker, but the foreman, who still had the hand calluses of a man who had earned his place in the world, masked his disdain as he handed Niko his lighter.
Niko lit his cigarette with it, then returned it. “Thanks.” He enjoyed a drag from the pungent cigarette, then continued as he exhaled. “Looks like rain.”
“The forecast calls for snow,” the foreman said.
“If it hits before sundown, do we quit early?”
The project leader shrugged. “Might as well.”
Niko nodded. “Hope for the best, then.” To the foreman he added, “Thanks again.”
The Germans turned away and kept walking. Niko limped in the opposite direction, to the command tent. Two Waffen-SS soldiers standing outside intercepted him. The SS-Schütze raised his submachine gun while his su
perior, an SS-Sturmmann, set his hand on his Luger and called out in halting French, “Halt! This area is restricted!”
“Foreman von Gunsberg sent me.” Niko invoked the suggestive force of DANTALION. “He wants me to get his new work orders for the teams on the north side.”
He had made sure the SS guards had seen him talking with the foreman and the project leader. As powerful a force as demonic persuasion could be, it was doubly effective when there was other evidence that its targets could misinterpret in support of it—and seeing Niko talking with the bosses, and then nodding in response to whatever they said, fit that bill. It also helped that most soldiers were young, uneducated, and trained to defer to authority.
The Sturmmann waved Niko past. “Go ahead. Make it quick.”
“I will, sir, thank you.”
It was incorrect to call enlisted men “sir,” but when it came from civilian workers the German troops seemed to thrive on the implicit flattery.
Niko shuffled inside the command tent. It was empty, as it often was at this hour of the day. Loose papers, maps, and schematics cluttered the worktables on either side of the tent’s central support pole. Ancillary worktables stood to the sides. Kerosene lamps dangled from ropes strung between the center pole and the corner supports, filling the space with diffuse light. Niko moved to the center tables; that’s where the valuable intelligence would be.
It took him less than half a minute to find plans and drawings that stopped him cold. He took his enchanted mirror from inside his coat and said in a low voice, “Fenestra, Adair.”
Seconds later he heard the rough baritone of his master. “What’ve you got?”
He turned the mirror so Adair could see the drawings. “Plans for solid pyramids of concrete to be sunk into the paths connecting the beaches to the roads above.”
“Tank barriers.”
“Oui, but there are charms inside them. Magickal glyphs.” He adjusted the mirror’s aspect. “This sigil lies inside tetrahedrons buried from Cherbourg to Calais.”