Suddenly, a revolver appeared in Bardot’s left hand. Begg had anticipated this and deliberately and distracted their enemies, giving Bardot time to act. The Frenchman’s eyes were a mixture of contempt and pain. ‘You poor, unimaginative brutes could not imagine one of us owning a second weapon. Throw up your hands and drop your guns, gentlemen.’
The startled Germans swung round, staring into the barrel of Bardot’s serviceable Hachette .38. They looked from him to Klosterheim to Mrs Persson. Only the woman found some amusement in this reversal. Yet she did not move, either to comply or to resist.
At Bardot’s demand, Captain Hess drew his elaborate, ornamental dagger from the scabbard at his belt and cut the ropes binding the metatemporal detectives. His deep-set eyes were dreamy, as if he believed himself the victim of an hallucination. Constantly his gaze returned to the great scintillating scales moving gently in constant balance, their movement continuing to create the deep booming, like the heartbeat of the multiverse.
Klosterheim snarled. ‘How do you think you can defeat my plans now, merely by turning the tables on my servants?’ And then, without warning, he rushed at Hess, pushing the startled Nazi to the edge of the moonbeam road. Before the detectives could reach him, he shoved again and this time Hess’s arms flailed as he fought to keep his balance. He reached towards Klosterheim, yelling something unintelligible, and then he fell backwards.
They watched him drop, spinning and waving his awkward arms, like a scarecrow, falling, falling down towards the Balance, passing the swaying beam until he disappeared in the pulsing light coming up from one of the cups. They heard him scream, a high-pitched and terrible noise, and then he had been swallowed into the light which flared suddenly scarlet.
Klosterheim stepped to the edge and watched with an air of satisfaction. ‘A sign of my good faith, I hope.’
Colonel Hitler swore in German. ‘You killed him. You killed my closest friend!’
Klosterheim shrugged. ‘It’s disputable that he’s actually dead, but my master needs blood and souls.’ He shrugged then. ‘The Grail—’
‘That thing is not the Grail!’ growled Röhm. ‘There cannot be two grails!’
Now Klosterheim smiled. ‘Not in your mythology, perhaps. But one cup holds the stuff of Chaos, the other holds the stuff of Law. That is what regulates the multiverse. That is why they are in constant conflict.’
Still cursing, the Nazi colonel reached down and picked up his fallen Luger. In one movement he pointed and pulled the trigger, firing shot after shot into the mocking figure. Again came that cold, humourless chuckle. Klosterheim spread his arms and looked down at his unwounded body. ’I am not so easily killed, Colonel Hitler. How can you take away the soul of a man who has no soul?’
Still Una Persson did not move. It was as if she were waiting, perhaps to watch the opposed groups destroy one another. Still that enigmatic amusement filled her indigo eyes.
Only when Röhm retrieved his own automatic pistol and pointed it at her did she frown. Begg was sure, eternal though she might be, that she was not invulnerable.
’Arioch! Arioch! Aid me now!’ called Klosterheim in that strange voice which seemed to deaden the air it filled.
* * * *
THE SEVENTH CHAPTER:
OLD SOULS
Begg acted. He knew he could not kill Klosterheim easily, but the Nazis would soon return their attention to the detectives. He raised his Webley and, taking careful aim, shot Röhm between the eyes. The captain’s expression changed from anger to surprise. And then he, too, lost his balance and fell, his body spinning downwards to stop suddenly, as if in the grip of some powerful magnetic force which held him spreadeagled and screaming silently in space above the Balance.
Another shot. And this time it was Lapointe who sent Captain Goering into the void, to hang in the air immediately above the cup which held the weight of Chaos.
‘No!’ cried Una Persson suddenly. ‘No! Don’t kill them! Not yet! You don’t know what you’re doing. There’s a plan—’
But Begg had no choice, for the malevolent club-footed Goebbels screamed something about betrayal and turned his gun on her. The Webley’s bullet found its target in Goebbels’ heart and another Nazi went down, whirling and shrieking, to come to a sudden halt just before he was swallowed by the cup which now boiled with smoky scarlet and black.
‘You fool, Sir Seaton!’ cried Mrs Persson. ‘No more shooting, I beg you. Don’t you realise you’re aiding Klosterheim? Their souls are already pledged to Chaos. They are the blood sacrifice they intended to make of you. One last action and he can use them to destroy everything. Everything!’
Begg was confused. He kept his Webley levelled at the remaining Nazi, the slavering, terrified Hitler, who whispered in his lisping Austrian: ‘She’s right. Nothing but harm will come from killing me.’
‘Then get on your knees and keep your hands above your head,’ snapped Begg. Slowly, every part of his body trembling, Hitler obeyed. Taffy Sinclair knew his old friend well enough to understand that Begg accepted that he had, inadvertently, done Klosterheim’s work. The beat of the balance changed subtly. Now it was as if they heard distant wildfire, like the crackling and snapping of burning timber.
Una Persson came to stand beside Begg. He stepped backward as if she threatened him, but instead her expression was one of mixed anger and fear. ‘I did not believe you could follow me,’ she said. ‘Oh, Seaton, your courage is now likely to lose us the fight - even perhaps destroy the multiverse! Do you understand what this means?’
And still the massive, sword-like balance, its cups swaying and groaning, continued to beat and pulse and the light around its hilt was like a golden halo surrounding metal of a blackness greater than the void. From somewhere below, Begg thought he heard the murmur of distant laughter.
Klosterheim’s voice joined in that laughter. It was the bleakest, most desolate sound Sir Seaton Begg had ever heard. He lowered his gun, looking helplessly from Mrs Persson, to Klosterheim, to the kneeling, gibbering Hitler and to his friends.
‘Oh, by Jupiter!’ he whispered as realisation dawned. ‘Oh, my good Lord! What have I done?’
The booming of the great balance had now taken on a different, arrhythmic note. Under its deep, masculine voice, Begg thought he could hear the thin screams of the Nazis. The gulf surrounding the not-dead men apparently boiled with blood and black smoke.
‘We would have mastered creation and moulded it in our desired image until the end of time,’ wept Hitler. Begg did not care that he now lowered his hands and buried his face in them. ‘Klosterheim! That was what you promised me!’
‘Like you, my friend, I have made many promises in my long career.’ Klosterheim’s toneless voice betrayed no emotion. ‘And like you, Colonel Hitler, I have broken many promises. I helped you and your followers because it suited me. Now you have failed me. It no longer suits me. Your actions brought my enemies to me and we have reached this pass. Only the blood and souls of your colleagues will compensate for your clumsiness.’ He turned to the metatemporal detective. ‘My master has his initial sacrifices, thanks to you, Sir Seaton. Now he will come to my aid, as he said he would . . .’
Begg could not disguise his own self-disgust. He was about to speak when a new voice, light and mocking, sounded from out of the scarlet mist behind them. He recognised the voice at once.
‘Oh, do not count on Lord Arioch turning up just yet, Herr Klosterheim.’ The newcomer’s tone held mockery, amusement, a kind of courage which could belong, Begg knew, only to one man. He looked in surprise back down the road which had brought them here. Strolling towards them, swinging his cane, for all the world as if he were still the insouciant flâneur of the Arcades de l’Opéra, wearing full evening dress, including a silk-lined cape and a silk hat, which emphasised the bone whiteness of his skin, the glittering crimson of his eyes, was Monsieur Zenith. ‘Good evening, gentlemen.’ He lifted his top hat. ‘Mrs Persson. This is not quite the scene I imagined I would find
. Where, for instance, are Herr Hitler’s friends?’
’I fear they have become at least a potential blood-offering to whatever demon of Chaos Johannes Klosterheim obeys,’ replied Begg in chastened tones. ‘I believe I have made the greatest mistake of my life. Can it possibly be reversed, cousin?’
Still the elegant boulevardier, Zenith paused and selected one of his opium cigarettes from his slender, silver case. He lit it with an equally elegant silver Dunhill. ‘I must be truthful with you. Sir Seaton. I am not sure. Theoretically, if Chaos or Law achieves total ascendancy, then Time stops. Like those fellows down there, we shall be frozen forever at the moment before our deaths. Scarcely a palatable fate.’
’Indeed.’ Begg looked about him and then down again at the great balance below. ‘What is this gem they said you’d steal?’
’It is already stolen.’ Zenith smiled almost to himself ‘That is what brought me here. I possessed it before the ship ever left Jerusalem. Their perception of time remains, as ever, very crude. The gem emits both light and vibrations and acts as a kind of compass. Madame Persson understood this. It was what we discussed before the situation grew less controllable. My object remains the Da Vinci in the Louvre, which I expected to possess by now. They have absolutely no right to it, you know. I had not reckoned, however, on Herr Klosterheim’s involvement. The rules of this game seem significantly changed. I had underestimated its nature. Madame Persson suggested . .
‘I regret that I misled you a little, old friend.’ Mrs Persson still stood close to the expressionless Klosterheim. ‘Self-interest demands a fresh strategy. A new reality.’
‘The Nazis continue to be useful,’ said Klosterheim. ‘Whether their souls go to Chaos or their bodies serve my cause, it matters not. Like all women, Mrs Persson understands where her loyalties are best placed.’
‘Great heavens, man! Does life have no value to you?’ Taffy Sinclair broke away from his fellow investigators and strode towards the cadaverous creature. ‘How on earth can you allow such infamy?’
Klosterheim’s dreadful laughter whispered into the void. ‘You speak to one who has defied both God and Lucifer and now stands ready to control the nature of reality itself. I am not the first to try. But I shall be the first to succeed.’
‘Such confidence is reassuring in these uncertain times.’ Zenith seemed almost amused. ‘I envy you, Herr Klosterheim. When do you expect my lord Arioch?’
’He will come imminently. He promised.’ Klosterheim turned those hollow eyes on the albino. ’He shares my impatience and my ambition.’
’Some would say he is already with us.’ Monsieur Zenith motioned with his sword stick. Klosterheim’s eyes followed it, as if he thought Zenith pointed out the powerful Chaos Lord. He saw nothing but the Balance below and four bodies suspended above one of the cups, an instant from being absorbed into the cause of Entropy.
Behind Begg. Commissaire Lapointe was forcing Hitler to his feet and handcuffing him. ‘It is my duty, gentlemen, to get this fellow back to the authorities in Berlin. As to the rest of the matter, I fear it is far beyond my competence. So if you will permit me . . .’ He began to push the whimpering insurgent colonel ahead of him, followed by his wounded assistant, whose expression was one of regret and embarrassment. ‘Duty demands,’ murmured Bardot.
‘Of course,’ agreed Begg. ‘I have no objection. Were the situation a little less complicated, I would be with you. Can you find your own way back?’
‘I hope so. With good fortune, we will meet again to in Paris very shortly.’
‘You may count on it, Commissaire.’ Monsieur Zenith bowed and again raised his hat. ‘I will take the most conscientious care of your colleague.’
Herr Klosterheim however would have none of this. ‘I cannot permit any of you to leave. Not now. Your souls are the price of my success.’ When Bardot’s pistol was again turned to aim at his chest he let out a laugh that was almost humorous. ‘Oh, fire away, my dear policeman. Have you any idea how many times I have been killed by the likes of you? Your lives are mine, just as those others belong to me. They are already promised to my patron . . .’
‘My dear Klosterheim,’ drawled Zenith, ‘are you truly so ignorant of the change in your situation that you believe you can threaten these good officers and stop them performing their duty? I believe the clinical term for your condition is ‘denial’. You no longer possess any power to speak of.’ And, smiling, he pressed a silver stud in his ebony cane and swiftly withdrew the slender blade.
Sinclair had expected to see polished silver steel. He gasped as instead he saw that the sword in Zenith’s hand was actually darker than the ebony which had contained it and along its slim, vibrating length writhed bloody scarlet characters, the runes of some long-forgotten lexicon. He turned, questioning Begg, and to his astonishment he saw his colleague laughing, the Webley held so loosely in his hand it threatened to fall into the void.
‘Aha!’ exclaimed Begg, almost in delight. ‘Here is your sought-for demonic aid, my dear Klosterheim! What a jest! What a jest!’ And he stepped back as his cousin advanced, the thrumming blade, which seemed to cry with its own voice, held before him, advancing on Klosterheim who looked from Mrs Persson to Zenith, to the sword, and was bewildered at last.
’Mrs Persson, you assured me . . .’
’I told you that the black broadsword you call Stormbringer was no longer in Monsieur Zenith’s possession. I said nothing of any other blade, bearing similar characteristics, which he finds convenient to carry in a more modern form under a different name.’ The English adventuress was grinning like a lioness who had just made a kill. ’You must know, Herr Klosterheim, that just as the wielder of the sword takes many guises, so does the sword itself. And even that creature which inhabits the sword has more than one identity!’
Now she stepped aside as Klosterheim began to back away from the advancing albino. ‘I shall not be threatened, Monsieur! Arioch! Lord Arioch of the Seven Darks! Aid me, I beg thee. Arioch, thou promised me . . .’
’Lord Arioch’s promises are of a practical and volatile nature, also,’ declared Zenith, the slender sword still pointed at Klosterheim’s throat. ‘It surprises me that you did not consider this when laying out your equation for this particular adventure. There are only a few for whose blood and souls he has no appetite at all.’
’But you forget, monsieur. That blade and your master feed on souls as well as blood.’ Klosterheim’s smile was bitterly sardonic. ‘Nein?’ With a quavering laugh, somehow even more disgusting than any previous expression he had given, he folded his arms and challenged Zenith to stab him.
If anything, the albino’s smile chilled the onlookers’ blood more than the other eternal’s laughter. Without hesitation, Monsieur Zenith stepped forward in an elegant fencer’s movement and his delicate black blade took Klosterheim in the throat.
For a second the ex-priest continued to laugh and then his eyes widened. He clutched at himself, at the shivering blade. He gasped. He groaned. He staggered backwards towards the very edge of the moonbeam road and hung there, swaying, as blood bubbled from the wound Zenith had made. ’Nein!’ he said again, this time without any form of irony, only with the most appalling fear. ‘Nein!’
He realised suddenly where he stood and made an attempt to regain his balance, but it was too late. His deep-set eyes burned with terror, lighting that cadaverous head with an unholy fire. Begg and the others could not tell what emotion they witnessed, but they would agree that it was emotion.
‘How can this be?’ Klosterheim spoke in the old High German of his youth. ‘How—?’
‘You forgot, Herr Klosterheim.’ With a lithe, sudden movement Zenith resheathed the black blade. ‘My sword is capable of conferring souls as well as stealing them.’ He stepped forward again and his hand was light on Klosterheim’s chest as he tipped him, gently, off into the void above the pulsing Balance. ‘And only a creature with a human soul, no matter how corrupt, can enjoy that moment of forever, poised b
etween eternity and oblivion, which comes with the end of everything. Meanwhile, I send you to consider that thought for as long as you shall last. Which, of course, shall be until the end of Time.’
And then Klosterheim was falling backwards screaming, to join those others who hung in the void, like flies in a web, conscious and frozen in the instant before their deaths.
Monsieur Zenith turned with a bow. Reaching out, he kissed Mrs Persson’s hand. ‘Well played, madam. Our plan was almost foiled by these good-hearted fellows.’ He inclined his head towards Begg and Sinclair.
‘You two had planned all this?’ Sinclair found himself torn between rage and relief. ‘All of it?’
‘Most of it,’ declared Mrs Persson, advancing towards the famous pathologist. ‘Really, Doctor Sinclair, we had no intention of deceiving you or your colleagues. Neither did I expect to be detained by them, so very likely you saved my life by arriving when you did. From then on I thought it the best strategy to pretend to ally myself with Klosterheim, at least until Monsieur Zenith made his somewhat belated appearance. We really did not know you would have either the powers of deduction or the sheer courage to reach this place. Then, when you did turn up, I for one was rather baffled. It seemed that everything Monsieur Zenith and myself had worked out was threatened.’ She drew a deep breath. ‘Happily, as you see—’
Paris Noir [Anthology] Page 13