“Do ve really have time to be vandering around the palace grounds?” Varnish asked with a glare.
Geist waved away the comment. “First we’ll deal with the transportation. If we have time, Heinrich can relay his messages. Come on, then.”
Before they exited, Varnish snapped his fingers and said a few things in Russian. The soldiers in the dining hall managed to put together a set of three extra coats and hats. They handed them over but also got a chuckle when the bottom of the coat hit the ground for both Battery and Geist. Her shortness didn’t typically bother her, but it felt as though the Russians were taunting her about it.
“Come,” Varnish said. He opened the door and marched out into the snow.
Geist and Battery walked side by side while Heinrich trailed behind. The streetlights lit them a path, but the flurry of snow kept everything shrouded in a thin veil of white. Fortunately, the many people earlier had packed down the sidewalks. A few times Battery slipped around like he was in the middle of slapstick routine, yet he always managed to keep his footing.
They rounded a corner, past a cobbler and a shirt factory. Most of the boarded-up windows had red words painted on signs outside.
But when they neared the warehouses for the train depot, Geist glanced around. She jogged to Varnish’s side as he knocked on a warehouse door.
“Th-this isn’t the t-ticket booth,” she said, her voice quavering.
“There is someone who specializes in moving things,” Varnish said. “He moves them fast and vithout notice. That’s what you vant, right?”
“Y-yes.”
Varnish motioned with a jerk of his head. “Follow me. He’s in here.”
He opened the door, and Geist stepped out of the cold.
The dark room had a single lantern set on top of a box in the corner. Two purple eyes stared through the darkness, their color and glint immediately noticeable—and the first thing she looked at.
“Don’t move.”
It all happened in an instant. She knew the danger, her body even tensed long before her mind registered the threat, but it was already over.
Geist couldn’t move.
Twelve
Dominated
Varnish struck an unsuspecting Battery across the face with his pistol. Blood wept from Battery’s busted eyebrow as he pulled his out sidearm, but he wasn’t fast enough. Varnish slammed him head-first into the doorframe. When Heinrich went to back away, Varnish pointed his firearm straight at his head.
“Get inside,” he growled.
Heinrich swallowed hard and walked into the warehouse. Varnish kicked Battery’s Lancaster to the side and then dragged him to his feet.
The moment Battery got into the warehouse, he turned his half-lidded attention to the bright purple eyes in the corner.
No!
“You will cooperate with us,” the man said in English.
Battery’s gaze went vacant, and he nodded along with the words.
“Pick up your weapon and stand guard at the door.”
And without any protest, Battery did as he was told. With his Lancaster back in hand, he closed the warehouse door, a pained expression on his face, but otherwise no indication he would leave his post without instructions.
Varnish stumbled over to a stack of cargo boxes. He grabbed at his gut as he ran into a crate, his eyes scrunched shut. He groaned and rubbed at his face.
“Otto,” Varnish said through clenched teeth. “Hurry and kill them. My head… it hurts too much to maintain this disguise. It’ll start slipping soon…”
Otto—one of the Eyes of the Kaiser—stepped out of the shadows. He wore a typical Russian outfit, complete with a long coat and newsy hat. But his eyes… Geist saw them imposed over her own vision, like an afterimage of glancing at the sun.
Don’t move.
It was only then that she realized she wasn’t breathing. She couldn’t bring herself to inhale. She just stood still, staring at the one spot in the warehouse room with an unblinking intensity. How long could she maintain her stillness? Would she pass out from lack of oxygen? What would happen then?
Otto walked over to Heinrich and gave him the once over. “I almost can’t believe it. Another traitor traveling through Russia? And here I was hoping for Wilhelm.”
He reached into Heinrich’s jacket and withdrew his sidearm. Heinrich flinched back, his hands trembling.
“Worried?” Otto asked in German. He slowly took Heinrich’s glasses off and tucked them into his coat pocket. “As long as you cooperate, you’ll live long enough to see your uncle. He’s here in the Russian Empire as well.”
“That’s… impossible,” Heinrich said. “My uncle, he’s sick and—”
“Like Amalgam? No. We fixed that. Both Amalgam and your uncle are doing fine. I’m sure he’ll be happy to see you.”
Heinrich didn’t respond. He took a step back and hit the wall, his jaw clenched hard.
Geist’s chest burned, lungs filled with trapped air.
Don’t move.
“Otto,” Varnish hissed. “Why’re you waiting? I told you I don’t have time!”
“If you can’t maintain your form, drop it,” Otto said.
With a long groan, Varnish clawed at his face. Although Geist couldn’t see the full extent of his actions—she couldn’t move her head to see or avoid the situation—she could make out the sick rip of skin. Varnish tore enough to throw bits to the floor. He took in gasps as though surfacing from water.
Geist’s vision darkened at the edges.
“Fleshcraft sorcery?” Heinrich muttered. “Disgusting.”
Otto smiled. “Pavel does good work. And no one ever finds the bodies. It’s the mark of a good spy.”
Although her thoughts faded with each slam of her panicked heart, Geist tried to think of how someone masquerading as a Russian ally could deceive them. Had he been with them since the beginning? No, she thought, every second a painful torture. It must have been the train. And the fog. This spy was the one waiting for us. The one Victory saw.
The Russian traitor agent, Pavel, ripped another layer of stolen flesh from his neck, revealing his true skin underneath. Otto glanced over, an eyebrow raised as his ally took in sharp breaths, but that was all Heinrich needed.
With one touch to Otto’s face, Heinrich nullified the magic of Otto’s eyes. The shine of purple ended, and Geist gasped.
In the next second, everyone leapt into frantic action.
Geist whipped around and held out her hand. She didn’t have the breath needed to shout instructions, but Battery didn’t need them. He grabbed her hand, his empowerment near instantaneous. Otto aimed his weapon and fired. His bullet went straight through Battery’s chest, but it didn’t touch flesh.
When empowered, Geist’s sorcery effected more than herself. It extended outward, and in the past, it had made other objects incorporeal. Could she use it on other people?
She rushed to Battery, and the two of them stumbled through the warehouse door, ghosting to the outside and tumbling through the snow. In the next instant, Geist was on her feet, dragging Battery up to his, thankful her sorcery had worked as she had hoped.
In the next moment, she made them both invisible, fearing Otto and Pavel would be in hot pursuit at any second.
“Run,” Geist said, breathless. “Get the others!”
Although she couldn’t see him, she heard Battery take in a nervous breath. “R-right. But what about you?”
“I’ll get Heinrich.”
“Keep my empowerment.”
“Go, dammit!”
The moment he ran off, her sorcery left him. He reappeared as he ran toward the main road and took a hard corner. Ice and snow made it difficult for him to gain traction, but he pushed forward as fast as he could regardless.
No one exited the warehouse door. Geist pulled out her handgun and waited a second. Nothing. Then she realized—they would likely exit out another door of the warehouse and perhaps even flee with their one kidnap victim.
Fuck.
Geist ghosted through the door and entered a pitch-black warehouse. Otto and Pavel had doused the lantern, but the echo of their boots rang between crates. They were heading to the opposite side of the warehouse.
After a moment of focus, Geist could see through the darkness. She hesitated, though, unwilling to go running through the warehouse toward her targets. Vergess said they would use the shadows to their advantage. She closed her eyes and took a few steps forward. With her specter sorcery, she could move through the crates, but how could she fight two enemy sorcerers while blind? And how could she hope to defeat them while rescuing Heinrich?
I can’t leave him, she reasoned. I have to go.
Keeping her eyes shut tight, Geist ran forward. She felt every object as it passed through her body, though she couldn’t determine exactly what they were. Crates? Barrels? The physical sensation left her shivering.
The sounds of strikes and kicks, and the splatter of wet blood slowed her run.
“Do it again,” Otto growled in German. “And I’ll happily explain to our new magi-tech general why I had to end your life.”
Geist heard someone spit—no doubt in her mind it was Heinrich. He’s too damn defiant for his own good! She stopped once she could hear them breathe. Invisible and undetected, she inched a bit closer, still trying to think up a plan of attack.
Another punch, this one followed by a short grunt of pain.
Outside the warehouse, the hiss and whistles of trains rang out into the night.
“We can’t stay here long,” Pavel said, his voice much different than when he imitated Varnish. He no longer had an accent, and he spoke as though he had smoked since birth. “I didn’t leave the Ethereal Squadron far behind.”
Another punch and someone hit the floor.
“Carry him,” Otto said in English. “We’ll leave via the train. It should be here by now.”
Geist opened a single eye, squinting long enough to get her bearings. She spotted Otto opening the back door while Pavel scooped up Heinrich’s limp body from the concrete floor. Satisfied she had enough visual information, she rushed forward, her heavy footfalls echoing.
“Look out!” Pavel barked.
“Surrender,” Otto commanded.
But Geist kept her eyes shut. She ran straight for Otto’s voice and swiped wide. She heard him stumble back, and although she hadn’t connected, she knew she was close. Geist swung again, hoping to clip his chest and drag flesh straight out of his lungs.
“Get away from me,” Otto hissed.
His commands did nothing.
He fired his Luger, and Geist jumped back—not because the bullet struck her, but because the bang shattered her eardrums. For a long moment, all she heard was the dull ringing of a gunshot.
Geist held up her weapon and fired it in Otto’s direction. Someone yelled, but right as she was about to lunge, a gauntleted first struck her in the back of the neck. For a brief second, Geist’s vision went black. When she opened her eyes, she was on the floor of the warehouse, the whole world spinning.
Someone grabbed her by the shoulder. Geist jerked free and rolled to the side. When she jumped to her feet, she almost gasped. Amalgam—dressed in his full magi-tech armor—reached for her. She stumbled backward, taken aback by his presence. Her back collided with the boxes, having failed to ghost through them in her panic.
“Stop running,” he said through his sinister gas mask. “It’ll be easier if you surrender now.”
During the commotion, Pavel exited the warehouse with Heinrich over his shoulder.
Otto searched the area, his purple eyes glowing bright in the darkness. Geist immediately closed hers.
“Give yourself up!” he commanded.
Regaining her focus, Geist went incorporeal, ran through the warehouse wall, and came to a halt outside. She didn’t need to kill Otto or Amalgam or Pavel—all she needed to do was retrieve Heinrich and make it back to her team. Once she had them at her side, she knew she could handle the threat, but until then, she was at a disadvantage … and blind.
She chanced opening her eyes.
The snowy evening greeted with a blast of frigid wind. Geist didn’t care. She could barely feel her own breathing. Adrenaline iced her veins, dulling her to all sensations. Her gaze fell to Pavel, who pushed himself through a small group of Russian train workers. He said some things in Russian and then waved them away. The workers took off in different directions, panic written on their faces.
Geist ran after him. Seconds later, Otto and Amalgam burst out of the warehouse.
I’ll never be able to hide with Amalgam here.
She turned her attention to the trains in the area. None of them were passenger cars. Most didn’t even have boxcars. They were flat beds piled high with crates, no doubt carrying munitions.
Russian soldiers on the opposite loading platform caught sight of Pavel and shouted something. They ran to get around, but Geist knew it would take them a few minutes at the very least.
She picked up her pace. It wasn’t hard to catch to a man carrying a full-grown adult.
The second she neared Pavel, Geist grabbed at his side and plunged her hand deep. When it became solid, her fingernails raked fleshy organs. Pavel screamed and hit the platform on both knees. Geist ripped out her hand, now soaked in blood, and shook away the bits of flesh she tore from his body.
Pavel released Heinrich and cradled his injury. Heinrich rolled to his side and held a hand over his gut. Bruises and cuts covered his face. Red marks dotted his arms. He shivered as Geist grabbed his shoulder and attempted to pull him up.
“Stand!” she barked in German. “Goddammit, stand!”
Heinrich struggled to get to his feet.
Gunshots rang out in the train station—the crack of the pistol mixing with the screech of the trains on turntables. A bullet clipped the side of Heinrich’s knee, and he half fell on Geist. She held him, but she knew it couldn’t last.
Otto stopped and pointed his Lugar. Geist avoided looking him in the eye. Her heart beat hard against her ribs when she heard Amalgam stomping up to her. If it were just Otto, she could’ve stayed incorporeal the whole time, but Amalgam would break through her sorcery.
She lifted her pistol and fired. Amalgam took the shot, ripped the weapon from her grasp, and then backhanded her with it.
Again, Geist hit the ground. She gritted her teeth, hating how her head felt as though it would burst in half, torn apart by pain from outside and within. Her sorcery failed, and each breath stung her throat.
When she briefly opened her eyes—just to piece together a plan—she caught Otto aiming for her chest. Right as he was about to pull the trigger, Amalgam moved in the way.
“What is your problem?” Otto asked through clenched teeth. “Move.”
Otto stepped forward and attempted to move Amalgam aside, but he wasn’t nearly as large, and his dominating eyes had no effect on a man without them. Amalgam reacted by grabbing Otto’s arm.
“Lieutenant Cavell said he wanted to handle his daughter,” Amalgam stated.
“This isn’t the time for vendettas! This is for survival. We kill her now, before this gets out of hand.”
Geist got to her feet.
Otto shoved Amalgam and lifted his firearm. It wasn’t enough. Amalgam kept his grip on the man’s arm and unleashed a burst of sickly green flames from his palm. It burned the sleeve of Otto’s jacket and singed the skin beneath.
“Cretin,” Otto hissed as he attempted to jerk free. “What kind of traitor are you?”
Focusing as much as she could, Geist lifted Heinrich up. Although she hadn’t mastered apex sorcery—not by a long shot—what little she had gained helped her drag the researcher to the side of the platform. She leapt down while Otto and Amalgam fought each other and then headed for a train leaving the station. Without glancing back, she hopped onto another platform and then half threw Heinrich onto the last flatbed.
“Release me!” Otto shoute
d.
A small piece of Geist almost wanted to laugh. Otto probably wasn’t accustomed to people disobeying him.
To her surprise, Amalgam did. He let go of Otto and turned to face her, his mirror-like gas mask goggles reflecting the station as Geist jogged alongside the moving train. She leapt onto the flatbed as it left the last portion of the platform. To her horror, Amalgam reached into a pouch and threw a handful of buttons.
Geist knocked them away, frantic to keep any from landing on the flatbed.
Then her legs gave out and she fell forward onto her knees. A small stack of ammunition broke her fall, but the corners of the boxes dug into her skin. Breathing deep, she kept her gaze on Amalgam as the train picked up speed, taking her farther and farther away.
Thirteen
Traitor
Amalgam “watched” the train pick up speed. The faint sparkle of Geist’s aura created a beacon he could sense long after the vehicle had pulled out of the station. It drifted from his detection, but he knew where she was headed.
Again, Geist had been so close. Then Otto had almost killed her. Geist—the one person in the world that still made Amalgam feel alive—and Otto had come within seconds of erasing her existence.
Russian soldiers ran onto the platform with their rifles ready. They yelled orders, pointed their weapons, and motioned with their bayonets. Amalgam ignored them as he climbed back onto the platform. Animalistic rage clawed at his thoughts, preventing him from even considering the soldiers as threats. It took all his willpower not to rend Otto’s throat and toss his body onto the tracks.
Otto turned his sorcerer eyes on the soldiers.
He said something in stilted Russian. The soldiers, their auras dimming, turned and marched off. Knowing Otto, they would throw themselves in front of a moving train. An effective way to deal with a problem.
Otto turned to face Amalgam. “And you,” he said through clenched teeth. “Dogs will be made to heel, understand? Germany has fixed you and created a god of war. You owe the Kaiser everything.” He rubbed at his arm—where Amalgam had held him—his skin still intact, though red.
A Company of Monsters (The Sorcerers of Verdun Book 2) Page 11