The Midnight Front--A Dark Arts Novel

by David Mack

  As he stepped closer, a bloodcurdling fear shot through him, in spite of the magick-suppressing countermeasures with which the enemy had blanketed the coastline.

  I don’t know what this is, but I know Adair must see it.

  Mounted on the walls were four kerosene lamps. Niko closed the door to the observation room, then used his lighter to kindle the lamps. They filled the room with honeyed light.

  He took out a miniaturized camera he had acquired from a British SOE agent. Niko photographed each wedge, pivoting atop the center of the seal and checking his focus before each shot. The lines cut into the rock were so minuscule that he knew every detail in his photos would matter. After he documented all eight wedges, he realized that alone would not be enough.

  A search in some adjoining rooms yielded simple tools left behind by the work crews. He found a meter stick. Yes, this will do.

  Back in the sigil room, he took a small compass from his pocket. He opened it and set it on the floor in the center of the eldritch seal. He rotated it toward magnetic north and was not surprised to find it aligned perfectly with one of the seams between wedges. Next he laid the meter stick beside the compass, for scale. Then he stood, held his camera over his head, and pointed it at the floor as he snapped multiple reference shots. After he put away the camera, he used the meter stick to measure the room’s dimensions and jotted them in his annotated notes about the bunker complex, with a second note indicating that the center of the sigil and the center of the room were one and the same.

  Niko snuffed the kerosene lamps, then returned to the bunker’s main entrance. It was still unguarded, so he slipped outside into the trenches. Three limping steps away from a clean escape, he halted. A dark impulse took shape in his heart—a will to revenge, an urge to deliver justice on Kein and his apprentice. Niko’s hand seized the grip of his pistol.

  Here in the magickal dead zone Kein and Briet had created, they were just as vulnerable as he was. Without yoked demons, they were nothing but flesh and bone, blood and breath.

  I could take them out, here and now. I could end this.

  Driven by a dream of violence, Niko sneaked through the trenches and behind the chief architect’s tent, where Kein and Briet sat and conversed with the project leader over glasses of wine. Most of the SS men lingered in pairs or small groups, chatting or smoking cigarettes.

  If I can find one of the guards alone …

  Cut his throat, take his submachine gun …

  And strafe this tent …

  Through the canvas wall, he overheard the magicians and the architect talking. Without a demon to translate for him, Niko’s understanding of German was halting at best. He concentrated on their voices, and on making sense of what he heard.

  “So, naturally, we’ve been pressing for more resources,” the architect said. “Of course, Berlin is loath to spend the money we need, as usual. But if you could talk with—”

  “Forgive me, Herr Bader,” Kein interrupted. “But the hour grows late, and my associate and I have other business to attend.”

  The project leader struck an apologetic note. “Of course, Herr Engel.”

  Briet asked, “How soon can you finish hiding the floor in the map room?”

  “First thing in the morning,” Bader said. “We’ll melt down the beeswax you brought us, and pour that over the stone to protect it. Once it hardens, we’ll lay wood and then cement on top of it. Thirty-six hours from now, your marble masterpiece will be safe from everything except a bomb or a naval artillery round. Of course, I’m curious: Why cover something so beautiful?”

  Kein’s tone conveyed both courtesy and menace. “Remember my advice, Herr Bader: Tend to your own affairs, and leave me to mine.”

  “Of course, Herr Engel. I did not mean to pry. My apologies.”

  Niko felt his own confusion deepen. Why were they planning to hide the floor? And why under beeswax and then cement? Something strange was afoot, and Adair had to be apprised of it—which meant Niko couldn’t afford to risk being captured or killed before delivering this information, no matter how desperately he wanted to gun down Kein and Briet.

  For once, be ruled by your head and not your heart.

  Resolved to seek his vengeance some other day, he skulked away from the architect’s tent—only to meet with a young SS man walking alone. The German fumbled to lift his rifle as he hollered, “Alarm! A—” Niko slashed the young Nazi’s throat with his athamé before he could repeat his warning, but the damage was done.

  Sirens wailed from loudspeakers mounted on bare poles. Around the work site, the SS platoon snapped into action. German troops raced to defensive positions around the architect’s tent. Niko knew he would have only seconds before he was surrounded.

  He grabbed the dead man’s submachine gun. Doddering toward the vehicles, he peppered the converging German troops with burps of gunfire. Ricochets pinged off the trucks, and wild shots kicked up dirt around the Germans’ feet as they scrambled for cover.

  Niko fired his last few rounds at the tent, on the off chance that he might kill Kein or Briet by sheer luck. The weapon clacked empty; he threw it aside, climbed inside the black Mercedes-Benz convertible, and started its engine, which roared to life. With effort his left foot pushed in the clutch; he shifted the car into gear and stepped on the gas pedal.

  The car leaped forward, a powerhouse unlike any he’d ever driven before. Before he had time to admire its acceleration and handling, bullets shattered its windows and cobwebbed its windshield, stinging his face with glass shards. White heat—a bullet tore through his right shoulder and spattered the car’s dash with his blood. Another hit sent a jolt of agony through his left rib cage and left him gasping for air.

  Need to get out of the dead zone—just a quarter of a mile …

  The car barreled toward the checkpoint. Barely able to see or breathe, Niko stomped on the gas and gripped the steering wheel with his one good hand. The sentries leaped clear as the car broke through the gate, scattering wooden pickets and metal wires.

  Niko swerved onto the main road, only to lose control of the car. It fishtailed and hurtled over the shoulder into the woods. Branches lashed at the windshield—then a bone-shaking jolt of impact pinned him to the steering wheel, and everything went dark—

  Niko jerked awake from a momentary blackout. Steam rose from the car’s crumpled front end, which was wrapped around a thick tree. Blood seeped from Niko’s side and pulsed from his mangled shoulder. Fighting for clarity, he pushed open his door and fell out of the car. Crawling over frozen ground, he heard German voices in pursuit.

  No time left. I pray I’m far enough from the beach …

  Drenched in his own blood, Niko propped himself against a tree and pulled his enchanted mirror from a coat pocket with a quaking hand. “Fenestra, Adair.” He was shaken by a hacking cough full of blood while he awaited the master’s reply. Searchlights slashed through the trees as the Germans followed his swath of destruction through the woods.

  Adair’s face replaced Niko’s reflection. “Christ, lad, what—”

  “No time, Master.” He propped the mirror on his leg, then used his good hand to pull the map and camera from inside his coat. He pushed them one at a time through the mirror to Adair. “Kein … built a trap.… In a bunker. At Pointe du Hoc.”

  “Niko, I—”

  “They will cover it with wax and cement. It will be hidden. But destroy it you must.” Tears fell from his eyes. He croaked out his last words. “Bonne chance, Père.”

  Shadows converged upon Niko. Kein shouted, “Take him alive!”

  Niko put the barrel of his pistol into his mouth.

  I will not be used against my friends, as Stefan was.

  SS troops surrounded him, submachine guns at the ready.

  In the name of love, Niko pulled his trigger.

  * * *

  Briet followed Kein through the cluster of German troops gathered in the woods. When they reached the front, she frowned at the spectac
le of blood and brains scattered in the dirt.

  From the steel mirror in Niko’s lap she heard the voice of Adair bellow, “Confringes longius speculo!” The mirror exploded into dust.

  A pall settled over the woods. Kein told the soldiers, “Go away.” No one questioned him. Seconds later, he and Briet were alone with Niko’s body.

  “We have to assume Adair knows,” she said.

  “Unlikely.” Kein appeared unconcerned. “How much could Niko have told him in the seconds he had? We don’t even know what Niko saw or didn’t see.”

  Was he willfully obtuse? His nonchalance infuriated her. “This is no time for overconfidence. Niko was no amateur. We should assume he knew about the seal.”

  “And if he did? What of it?”

  “Then Adair and the Allies know, as well.”

  A shake of his head. “It no longer matters.”

  “I disagree. Our chief advantage was the element of surprise. If we’ve lost that—”

  “They will still have no defense against this.”

  Her temper boiled over. “You weren’t the one tasked with overseeing its construction. You didn’t spend months out here, attending every detail—”

  “No, I was the one who spent half a year conjuring and imprisoning a thousand and one demons in slabs of marble I had to carve by hand. I was the one who had to craft the containment glyphs to negate the magickal suppression field at the moment of its breaking. And I was the one who had to placate an increasingly neurotic Führer. But please, tell me again how difficult your role in all of this has been.”

  Kein had been an excellent teacher in the Art, but he was also the most vexing soul Briet had ever met. She reined in her dudgeon, but refused to relent on matters of fact. “If the Allies have been warned, we need a response.”

  “There is no response. The seal is whole and in place. It cannot be moved without being broken, and we cannot break it without becoming its victims. Just as important, we must not do anything that might warn the Nazis how dangerous the seal is to them.”

  “So we do nothing?”

  “The seal is secure.” A sigh. “For the sake of argument, let us presume you are correct, and Adair knows everything. So what? He is hobbled, and the Atlantic coast is a death trap for karcists and rabble alike. Even if Adair has a plan to contain the seal, the only agents he can send are his last two adepts—the Russian girl and the American. Neither of whom can bring their magick to bear—they would stand alone against an army.” He cocked an eyebrow. “Let the whelps try their luck. If they do, it will be the last that we—or Adair—ever sees of them.”

  His point made, Kein strode away from the smoking wreck and the dead magician. Briet watched him leave, at a loss for a retort—and wondered, for the first time without hyperbole or jest, whether her master had, in fact, gone mad.

  * * *

  Grief crushed the air from Adair’s chest. He had watched as Niko turned his pistol on himself, thrust its barrel inside his mouth, and fired. Now Adair wanted to cry out in fury and pain, to howl until he shook dust from the rafters, to fill the world with curses that could never express the true depths of his rage. Strangled by sorrow, he dropped to his knees. Then he saw Kein and Briet through the mirror, and he knew what he had to do.

  “Confringes longius speculo!” On the other side of the magickal link, Niko’s seeing glass shattered. As the remote image vanished from Adair’s mirror, the master expected to confront his reflection—but like the Fool gazing upon Lear, he saw only his shadow.

  He pounded the floor with the sides of his fists. How could I have doubted that lad? Loyal to the end. Braver than I knew.

  Tears streamed from Adair’s shut-tight eyes. Niko’s last words haunted him.

  Bonne chance, Père.

  Adair’s chest heaved with painful sobs for which he had no breath, so his body shook in near silence as he surrendered to his heartbreak. He called me Father.

  Minutes melted into hours as Adair sat alone in the dark, enveloped in mourning. When at last he arrived on the far shore of his despair, he was left with a great emptiness, a hunger for meaning. He picked up the blood-spattered camera and the map Niko had rolled into a skinny tube. The camera’s film he would have developed at Gibraltar. The map he unfurled.

  It was a detailed study, complete with latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates down to the arc second, of a fortification atop the oceanfront cliffs at Pointe du Hoc, in Normandy. Niko had drawn corrections to its chart of the trenches that surrounded the observation bunker, and he’d made special notes concerning its interior, including a glyph that in the Art was a warning:

  Demons here.

  Intuition struck Adair: This was what PAIMON had warned him about. Whatever diabolical scheme Kein had set in motion, this was its trigger.

  No time to waste, Adair told himself. He stood. Dried his eyes. Downed a shot of whisky. Lit a cigarette. Walked downstairs and radioed a coded message to his contacts in Gibraltar, to ask them to send a car for him at once. Then he sat down to wait.

  Niko, lad … you honored me today. I swear to fucking God, I will honor you. He closed his hand around the camera. And I vow: Kein will pay for this in blood.

  42

  NOVEMBER

  A simple but unexplained message from Adair—Bid your spirits depart—had been Cade’s first warning their plans had changed. Weeks had passed since Niko’s death in France. The master had spent more than half of each week since then at Gibraltar, while admonishing Cade to stay inside the villa and abstain from magick. Even the use of a Lull Engine—a divination tool that could be called upon without invoking any Presences—had been forbidden.

  Divested of demonic riders, Cade had grown edgy. He was accustomed to a steady regimen of cigarettes and alcohol—balms for his nerves when he was contending with the mental and emotional toll of holding malevolent spirits in bondage. But just as Adair and the other adepts had warned him years earlier, even after the demons were gone, their appetites remained. His mind craved the solace to be found at the end of every bottle, the soothing rush of a chest filled with tobacco smoke, the bliss of veins coursing with opiates.

  Worse, satisfying his desires did nothing to save him from the obsessions with which the demons had trained his hands. When his thoughts wandered, or his mind fell idle, his fingers plucked out beard whiskers, eyebrow hairs, even eyelashes if that was all they could find. Denied easy targets, his hands resorted to scratching at phantom tingling; he often failed to notice until long after he had broken skin and drawn blood. His wrists and ankles bore the scars of those mishaps. At other times, despite thinking himself at peace, he became fixated on trimming his fingernails and toenails, only to wind up ripping them down to the quick.

  He lifted his cigarette in trembling, scarred fingers. Took a drag. Half the Lucky had burned down while his imagination had run wild. An inch-long column of ash fell away and smeared as it struck the floor between his feet. He almost laughed at himself.

  The glamorous life of a karcist.

  He sat alone at the kitchen table, nursing a glass of neat whisky and watching late-afternoon shadows creep across the Sierra Nevada range. The master had sequestered himself since the previous night in the villa’s conjuring room, hidden behind closed doors and drawn curtains. He had refused to tell Cade what he was working on, but Cade had a feeling it was connected to whatever Niko had found in France before he died.

  Just as Cade started to wonder if he should scrounge up something to eat, the door to the conjuring room was pulled open from inside by Adair. “Join me.” The master retreated with hobbled steps into the shadows.

  Anxious but curious, Cade followed Adair inside the conjuring room. A ring of kerosene lamps hung from ceiling hooks above the middle of the room. On the parquet floor, Adair had inscribed in fine white lines of chalk the most Byzantine conglomeration of glyphs Cade had ever seen. Nothing in his studies of ancient grimoires had been as intricate as this.

  He was mystified. “I�
�m guessing this isn’t a new needlepoint pattern.”

  “This … is what Niko died to show us.” Though Adair wore a brave mask, Cade saw through it, to the still-raw grief the master concealed. As angry as Adair had been at Niko after the fiasco with the train, it was clear to Cade the master had forgiven his rash adept. Now he would need to make peace with the young man’s grisly self-sacrifice.

  Adair beckoned Cade with a tilt of his head. As Cade sidled over, Adair unrolled a map atop a worktable at the side of the room. “The pattern on the floor is a copy of the one Niko found in the map room of a German bunker on the Normandy coast.” His finger stabbed a red dot. “Here. On top of Pointe du Hoc.” He handed Cade an unsealed envelope.

  From it, Cade took a slew of black-and-white photographs—detail shots of the complex magickal seal, one wedge at a time, plus a few including a compass and a meter stick for scale and directional orientation. “What is this thing?”

  “The biggest devil’s trap ever made.” The master pointed out details as he continued. “There’s a thousand of these scribbles—each one a seal representing a demon trapped inside these blocks of stone. This is what that git Kein was up to. Chaining up a legion of spirits so that the first fool who breaks the stone sets them all loose.”

  To Cade it looked to be both a masterpiece and the work of a madman. “All right, it’s a trap. But why put it there? What if the Allies enter Europe through Italy? Or land at Calais?”

  The master frowned. “Because Kein knows where the Allies will strike.” His anger turned to dismay. “What I’m about to tell you is top-secret. The Allies are planning an attack.” He tapped the map of the French coastline. “Here. In Normandy. Next summer.”

  “When?”

  “I don’t know. But Kein does. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t dare unleash a disaster of this magnitude. A thousand and one demons running amok? He’ll be sure to put himself and his ginger witch inside a circle of protection to ride out that storm. Because anyone outside a circle is as good as dead. And that means Kein knows the place, the day, and the hour of the attack.”