“Gremlins,” Galahad said. “Ms. von Hassen here is the mother of the gremlin race.” I gawked at him. Galahad smiled at me. “Oh yes, if you listen to fairy tales today, there have been gremlins right alongside goblins and pixies all along. The truth of the matter is they’ve only been here since the 1940s.”
“Von Hassen worked closely with this man, Gottfried Herrscher,” Galahad clicked again and showed a man with a short haircut and a square jaw. He was muscular and looked like he was in his early twenties. His expression suggested he, too, was used to always getting what he wanted. “Herrscher had an innate ability to control supernatural beings, including Millie’s golems and gremlins. They called him the Dominator. Their combined efforts cost the allies hundreds of lives and destroyed a substantial amount of equipment.”
Galahad folded his hands in front of him. “After the war, German Caulborn agents set about splitting up as many of Hitler’s occultists as they could. Herrscher was sent to Russia and died in 1973 of a rare blood disorder. Millie was sent to America and she’s been living in Sudbury ever since.”
“Where’s that?” Megan asked.
“It’s not too far from here,” I said. “I thought Hitler’s cronies were all tried and executed, Galahad. Why was she allowed to live?”
“Because of the gremlins, Vincent. The Caulborn wanted to make sure that we knew everything possible about the creatures. So in exchange for that knowledge, we gave her a fresh start. Vincent, Megan, I want you to go speak with Millie today. Part of our agreement was that she would not create anything again.”
Megan told Galahad about her surveillance photos on Nathan Singravel. Galahad nodded. “I will arrange for a constant watch on Nathan. Good work, Megan.” He pointed at me and then Megan. “You two should head over to Millie’s house immediately. Doctor Ryan, Mrs. Rita, I would like to speak with you further.”
Megan and I left the room and headed to our offices. I printed out directions to Millie’s house and we drove to Sudbury. Megan chattered as we rode. “Wow, an entire race, synthetically created. Do you really think she’s making new gremlins? Why now, after all this time? She must be really old by now, too, so she’d probably have to have help; I can’t imagine an eighty-some-odd-year-old woman bustling about a laboratory.”
“Hard to say. She might have mystically enhanced herself to slow her aging, or she might’ve been creating new gremlins all along and kept it hidden from us.”
Megan tapped her fingers on the steering wheel. “Doesn’t add up,” she said after a moment.
“That’s why we’re going to talk to her,” I replied. All this talk about gremlins made me think about Gears and the encounter we’d had at Axlesnapper’s garage. “Gears seemed kinda down after we got back from Axlesnapper’s. I didn’t get a chance to check in on him. I hope he’s okay.”
Megan pursed her lips. “Maybe he was worried about these new gremlins. Maybe he felt, I don’t know, like he’d been replaced or something.”
I considered this. “You speak German, right?” I asked.
“Ja,” she responded promptly.
I Glimpsed backward and recalled a word the neo-gremlin had used. “What does ‘ünterlegen’ mean?”
“Inferior,” Megan said. “Why do you ask?”
“That’s what the neo-gremlin called Gearstripper.”
Megan frowned. “No wonder the little guy was sad. If Millie has created a new breed of gremlin, and has improved upon them, then the old breed would be inferior.”
I whistled. “It’s scary to think about someone ‘improving’ on gremlins. Gears is a technological genius, he can build just about anything.”
“But Vincent,” Megan said. “This new batch isn’t as smart as the original generation. You heard Doc Ryan, their brains are a lot smaller. So why would Millie downgrade their intelligence?” We turned onto Millie von Hassen’s street.
“Not sure, but let’s see if we can find out.” Millie’s house was a little white cape, complete with picket fence. An old Plymouth was parked in the driveway, which was lined with solar powered lamps. The name on the mailbox was L. Smith. We got out, walked up to the front door and knocked. A few moments later, an elderly woman answered the door.
She couldn’t have been any taller than Megan, and with her slouched posture, she was actually shorter. Her wispy white hair was pulled into a short ponytail and her skin was splattered with liver spots. “Yes?” she asked. There was no trace of an accent in her voice.
“Ms. Smith?” Megan asked. The older woman regarded Megan from behind coke bottle thick glasses before nodding. “I’m Megan Hayes, this is my associate, Vincent Corinthos. We work for the agency who helped relocate you.”
Millie’s face paled slightly, but she swung the door wide open.
“Do come in,” she said. “I was just making some tea. Would you like some?” We both politely refused and followed her to the kitchen. The place was the typical old lady house. There were tons of knickknacks lying around, little statues, cross-stitchings of inspirational quotes and black and white photos of what I assumed were Millie’s family. The only thing missing was a family of cats.
I’m not sure what I expected. Maybe I thought I’d see something like Gearstripper’s chaotic workshop, or Axlesnapper’s meticulous garage. Instead, this looked like a completely normal house. And that made me all the more suspicious. Millie removed a teapot from the stove and carefully poured water into her cup. She tossed in a teabag as she sat down at the table and looked at us.
“Let us drop the pretenses. I am old and I do not have time for them. I have not had visitors from the Caulborn in twenty years,” Millie said. Her eyes held the same hard edge that I’d seen in the photos Galahad had shown us. “I have told you everything about my children, and I have done nothing wrong. What do you want from me?” Her bluntness reminded me of Doc Ryan.
“Ms. von Hassen,” Megan said smoothly. “I assure you, we are not here because you have done anything wrong. We believe that someone has created a new breed of gremlin. While we know you are retired from your former life, we have concerns that someone, perhaps one of your former assistants, may be involved. Who else was involved with the gremlins’ creation?”
Millie’s eyes had gone wide behind her glasses. “New breed?” she breathed. “I have not created a single gremlin since 1945.” She placed a shaking hand to her forehead. “New breed...” She trailed off, looking into space.
“Did you share how to create gremlins with anyone? Perhaps someone got a copy of your notes?” Megan’s questions were delicate, there was no implication in her tone at all. She was good.
“No,” Millie replied. “There were no notes, no assistants. I kept everything here.” She tapped her head. “The only time I wrote the formulae down was to give them to the Caulborn. My father taught me not to write secrets down because they wouldn’t be secret anymore.” Her eyes misted, and took on a far off look. “Thirty years ago,” Millie said. “My father was dying. I wanted to go back to Germany to see him. The Caulborn in Boston said no.” She began mumbling something to herself in German.
“The Caulborn in Europe at the time were afraid of several threats you may not have been aware of,” Megan said. “I have read through the information and you were not denied because of your actions, or your father’s. There were people and creatures operating in Eastern Germany in the 1980s that would have loved to have gotten their claws into you.” She pursed her lips thoughtfully. “I understand you don’t have any notes. What about research assistants, or people who helped you make the first generation of gremlins? Do any of them live in this area?”
Millie snorted. “Those fools in the Reich are all dead,” she spat. “They thought they were so smart. I alone knew the secrets of gremlincraft. I built them to be the ultimate saboteurs. And unlike those other fools’ so-called inventions and mysticisms, mine worked.” There was a fierce pride in her voice, and for a moment, I heard her as she must’ve sounded when she was younger. And that’s w
hen my Glimpse kicked on.
The Millie I was looking at must’ve been about twenty-three or twenty-four years old. Her chestnut hair was pulled back in a braid and her posture was ramrod straight. She was standing in front of a blackboard with a diagram of an engine drawn on it. She was speaking in German, so I couldn’t follow exactly what she was saying. She wiped her hands on her black jumpsuit, leaving faint white handprints. She turned to the blackboard and tapped on it a few times. My Glimpse extended its view, stretching out so I could clearly see who Millie was speaking to.
It was a room filled with gremlins. There must’ve been sixty or seventy of them. One of them, in the very front row, looked exactly like Gearstripper. His grandfather, maybe? Young Millie said something, and the gremlins took it up as a chant. “Schneiden Sie die Drähte, lassen Sie das Flugzeug abstürzen!” They cried it over and over again.
My Glimpse shut off. Megan was finishing her line of questioning. “We appreciate your time today, Ms. von Hassen. If we need anything else, we’ll let you know.”
Millie snorted. “I do hope you understand, Agents, that I never want to see you again.”
Neither one of us had anything to say to that, so we stood and Millie showed us out. We got into Megan’s car. “I don’t think she was lying,” Megan said. “She seemed genuinely surprised that someone was creating new gremlins.” She started the car and backed out of the driveway.
“Yeah, I think you’re right,” I said. I was frustrated. We were hitting too many dead ends here. People were being kidnapped and we were no closer to finding out why. I ground my teeth as Megan drove to the end of Millie’s street. An ambulance tore past us, turning down Millie’s street, narrowly missing Megan’s car.
“Holy cow,” Megan said. “Someone’s in a hurry. I hope everyone’s okay.”
I watched the ambulance come to a screeching halt. “Meg, turn the car around.”
“What’s wrong?”
“The ambulance just stopped at Millie’s.” Megan banged a U-turn and took us back to Millie’s house. She parked alongside the ambulance and we hurried inside. We saw three EMTs kneeling around Millie. They looked up at us and I recognized the one on the left from my Glimpse at the Delion’s cottage.
Any excitement I felt at finally getting a break in this case evaporated as Megan cried out and fell down. At first, I couldn’t see what was wrong, but then I noticed the vague shimmerings perched atop Megan’s body. I lashed out telekinetically and threw two neo-gremlins against the far wall. A cross-stitching of an angel fell down atop their bodies as they became visible.
One of the EMTs was in front of me then, and backhanded me across the jaw. It was like being hit by a sledgehammer. I fell to the ground and his foot slammed down on my stomach. It felt like he weighed about four hundred pounds, even though he wasn’t much bigger than me. The wind surged out of me and stars bloomed in my vision. I tapped the Urisks’ faith and telekinetically launched the man across the room. I rolled onto my stomach, fought up to my knees and looked around. There other two EMTs in the room were still kneeling over Millie.
Megan was sprawled face-down on the floor, two more of the neo-gremlins on her back. One of them had blood on its teeth. I snarled and blasted both of them. They slammed into a china cabinet across the room and went limp. I turned to the EMTs and froze. Millie was on her back, one of the EMTs kneeling on top of her. There was a bag of power tools open next to the other one, and he’d used a small power saw to cut the top of her skull off. He was easing her brain directly from her head.
I threw up, which, unfortunately gave the other EMT a chance to jump off of Millie and kick me in the ribs. Something snapped in my side. I cried out, and threw everything I had into a telekinetic bubble that I wrapped around Megan and myself. The EMT struck again, surprised as his foot rebounded against something solid a foot from me.
He glared at me and I got a good look at his features. He looked human, but something about his eyes disturbed me; they were too glassy to be normal. His companion barked something I couldn’t understand and then they were joined by the EMT I’d flung across the room. He didn’t seem injured at all, despite the fact that I’d hit him with enough force to shatter every bone in a human’s body.
I hastily looked around for weapons as they struck at my shield. Megan’s 9mm was on the other side of the shield. I considered pyrokinesis, but I really hated slinging fire inside. Once I started a fire, controlling it consumed a lot of my faith reserves, and I had a feeling I was going to need all the power I could muster.
So instead, I stuck with telekinesis. I pulled my switchblade and took a page from Seamus McElery’s book, sending the weapon out after my assailants. The blade danced, seemingly of its own accord, and sliced at the creatures. I managed a few quick slashes before one of them caught the blade with his bare hand and held it in place. I pulled as hard as I could, but he held on. As I strained, I lost the hold on my shield and it fell away. I was about to pull it back up when they snapped their hands out at me.
Vines burst from their fingers, strangling me. Thorns cut into my skin and my vision went hazy. The whole world was spinning, fading, drifting away.
Then it went black.
Chapter 12
To: Robert Maxwell
Progress on Project Imperium has moved at an astounding rate these last few weeks. The Caulborn agent you supplied has been most useful as a test subject. Based on my experiments, I now understand how a caul can prevent mental domination. As of this writing we have been unsuccessful in overcoming the defenses a caul provides, but given time, I am certain we will succeed.
However, we may need additional test subjects, as our current “volunteer” is beginning to show signs of extreme mental strain. I am uncertain on how much longer he will survive.
-Email message recovered from Kira Leevan’s computer
“Vincent, can you hear me?”
Megan’s voice. I tore through the cobwebs in my mind and forced my eyes open. I was still lying on Millie von Hassen’s floor. Megan knelt over me, wisps of her hair straying out of her ponytail. She looked haggard. “How do you feel?” she asked. “Is anything broken?” She pressed her hand to my head. “Cripes, you’re burning up. One of those things must’ve infected you with something. Stay still, I’ve already called Uncle Dave. Jake and Doc Ryan are on the way.”
“I’m fine,” I said, pulling myself up to a sitting position. I saw Millie’s mutilated corpse and quickly turned my head. I made an effort not to look in the body’s direction. My ribs were sore, but they’d already knit. My throat ached and my voice was raspy from when I’d been choked. On the plus side, the cuts and tears the thorns had given me had already scabbed over, but they itched. “What happened?” I asked.
“Not sure,” Megan said. “The last thing I remember is stabbing pains in my legs and arms and then falling to the ground. Given what’s been happening, I thought it might be neo-gremlin bites, so I swallowed an antitoxin. Then I blacked out.” She looked a little ashamed of herself, like she thought she should’ve been able to do more.
“Antitoxin?” I asked, testing my ribs by breathing a little deeper. “How’d you manage to do that without being seen?”
She smiled and opened her mouth. One of her teeth, the one next to her top left incisor, was missing. “I lost that tooth playing field hockey in high school. When I joined the Caulborn, I had them issue me a fake tooth filled with antitoxins. When you’re a diplomat, you don’t always deal with straight up firefights. Most of the time, your enemies are trying to kill you with poisons.”
This girl was full of surprises. I really needed to read more of her file. At that moment, Jake and the Doc rushed into the house. “Mother of God,” Doc said as he saw the gruesome scene. He looked at me. “Status,” he commanded.
“One dead, two wounded,” I responded. My voice had already returned to normal and my throat didn’t hurt anymore. “Megan’s been poisoned but she’s taken an antitoxin. I’ve got a few fractured ribs
, but they’re mostly knitted.” The Doc nodded, then knelt down and did a quick examination of my wounds.
“I’m going to take you out of here on a stretcher just to be safe, Vincent.” He gave Megan a similar once over. “Can you walk?” he asked her. She nodded. “Good. Go get in the ambulance. Jake, help me get Vincent into the ambulance, and then collect the corpse. I’ll want to keep both of you for observation for a few hours.”
Megan and I spent the next three hours getting poked and prodded. The Doc found that the quantities of toxin Megan had received would’ve been fatal if not for her false tooth. My fever spiked to 107, but the Doc gave me some aspirin and a glass of juice, and forty-five minutes later I was completely healed. I still felt like I’d been hit by a truck, though.
Galahad came down at one point and checked in on Megan and me. From what we could piece together, the golems must’ve carried off the neo-gremlin corpses before Jake and the Doc showed up.
It was well past six when the Doc came over and handed me a slim leatherette case. “There are two syringes of antitoxin in there for you, Vincent. Just in case you get bitten again and don’t have time to wait things out.” I thanked him and he clapped me on the shoulder. “Go home, Corinthos.” He smiled. “You heal almost as fast as a gremlin, you know.”
I said my goodbyes and caught a cab home.
As I entered my apartment, I could hear voices coming from the living room. One of them was Gearstripper’s. The other was Petra. I smiled, walked into the living room and got my first look at her in two weeks. Her dark brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail and her skin was so perfect it gleamed in the light. She was wearing an old pair of sweats and a Patriots jersey. She saw me and her face lit up with a smile brighter than you can imagine. She was across the kitchen in a flash and lifted me into an embrace.
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