Return of the Demi-Gods

by Rex Baron

  Carefully, she gauged the force of the hammer and struck the next blow. The sound of the impact scarcely covered a loud rapping at the studio door.

  “Come in, the door's open,” she shouted.

  The door swung open and Michael cautiously entered, slowly surveying the layout before even engaging her.

  “Michael, what are you doing here?” she asked anxiously.

  “Don't worry,” he said calmly, “I made sure nobody saw me come into the building.”

  He approached the scaffolding upon which she stood and stared up at the rough surface of the naked man taking shape under her metal tool.

  “I guess you know more about men than I gave you credit for,” he said, a faint flush of color rising to his cheeks.

  Lexi laughed.

  Michael ambled about the studio space, absent-mindedly fingering the random tools and running his hands against the polished surfaces of the more finished pieces. He had the distracted air of a small child, trying to find the words to confess some seemingly dire indiscretion. Lexi intervened.

  “I suppose you think you're being convincing in attempting to appear that you're here on a simple social call,” she said flatly. “But you're forgetting that I've known you since you were born and you're not fooling me one bit. What is it?”

  Michael let a clay-knife drop from his fingers into a block of soft green clay. “I didn't make the exam for university,” he said with the softness of shame.

  Lexi put down her chisel and climbed down the ladder to the floor. She took him by the shoulders and turned him to face her.

  “I'm sorry,” she said, “but I'm sure you'll make it the next time.”

  Tears welled up in his eyes. “You don't understand,” he said, hanging his head. “There won't be a next time. I'm not allowed to take the entrance exam at all.”

  Lexi covered her mouth with her hand, blurring the words.

  “My god, they found out...”

  “No,” Michael interrupted. “They didn't find out, but it doesn't matter. The joke is on me. My friend, whose papers I was going to use to get into the university was a catholic. His father had written a book that has been put on the list as subversive. They removed all the copies from the library and burned them. He's considered a decadent and an intellectual. He might just as well be a Jew. They'll never let me in.”

  “Perhaps if I spoke to someone,” Lexi said, stroking his face. “This position… being the aide to Helen Claxton and Ziegler might be of some use.”

  “No,” Michael answered flatly. “Officially you're not my sister. Besides, there are too many lies as it is. I think Uncle Jacob is right after all. All these lies lead to nothing.”

  “This whole country is a lie... but then, as Assistant Secretary of Propaganda, I suppose that's my job isn't it?” Claxton's voice intruded on Michael's observation.

  “Although don't try quoting me on that,” he added with a wry little smile.

  Lexi and Michael stood silent.

  “Sorry to disturb your little confession of sorts, dear boy, but then not being a relative in either reality or deception, perhaps I might be of some assistance.”

  “Maybe you ought to go,” Lexi said, patting Michael's cheek. “I'll come by the shop and see you later.”

  Michael made for the door, but Claxton's silver headed walking stick barred his exit.

  “Seems silly to exclude the intellectuals from the universities, doesn't it... especially when you would think they were the ones most suited to be there in the first place.” He locked the boy in his gaze and held him there, like a sideshow hypnotist, luring him into a powerless sleep.

  “Well there is nothing that can be done about it now,” Lexi said with anger in her voice.

  “Oh but there is,” Claxton insisted, as he slowly rotated the cane in its pivot against the wall. “Of course, I'm not able to get the boy into the university, but I could be helpful in finding him a job at the Ministry. In these times, I'd say that was an education in itself.”

  Michael turned eagerly toward his sister, anxious for her approval. She gave no sign of giving it.

  “And why would you want to do that?” she asked coldly.

  “Let's just say that I want you to think I'm not as bad as you imagine I am.”

  “My brother is going to the University, if not this one, some other. He will be just fine without your help.”

  “Please Lexi,” Michael interrupted. “I'm going to accept, even if you refuse.” The boy's face shone with the fierceness of his desire. “I'll need a job if I can't go to school, and there is no reason I should have to work for Uncle Jacob or wait on tables if someone offers me something better.”

  Claxton smiled, knowing that he had already won.

  “I like this fellow,” he said, removing the cane from obstructing the exit. “There is a certain fiery family resemblance. I will be careful, however, never to put a sculpting hammer in his hands.”

  Lexi let her head roll back on her shoulders and exhale a sigh of frustration. “All right,” she said. “It is obvious there is no point in trying to stop you. But I warn you,” she spit the words at Claxton, “if anything happens to him...”

  “What could happen?” Claxton interrupted her anger. “It's no crime to want to get ahead in this world or any other. I'd say Michael here was simply taking a page from his sister's book and aspiring to the highest position possible.”

  He placed his hand on the boy's shoulder in what he imagined was a fatherly gesture.

  “What will my position be?” Michael asked eagerly.

  Claxton patted the boy's cheek.

  “You will begin by being my aide de camp, a glorified office boy, but then, in the great hierarchy of things, I am little more than that to Heinzy and he in turn to Goebbels. You will at least get into the game to play, and these days, that is what counts.”

  Michael took the hand that Claxton offered and shook it briskly, and for too long, sealing the bargain.

  “Don't be concerned,” Claxton said to Lexi. “I will take care of him, and maybe even prove to you in the process that I might be a friend after all.”

  “How beneficent of you.” Helen's voice shattered the solemnity of the moment. Michael withdrew his hand as if to hide some secret from public view.

  “Well, if it isn't the little wife,” Claxton said with a supercilious air. “Herr Ziegler is keeping you far busier than I ever anticipated. We have days of catching up to do. You must tell me all about your meeting with the Fuhrer.”

  Helen ignored his sarcasm.

  “Your brother, I expect?” She asked, indicating Michael for Lexi's identification. The artist nodded. “I'm sure it's very amusing to have all the relations here...” She shot a glance of ironic annoyance at Claxton, “but we really have a lot of work to do. The sketches for the statues of labor and industry must be delivered before Arno Breker gets a chance to get his in. You know the Fuhrer always does what Albert Speer wants him to, and we can't take any chances on coming in second.”

  “How lovely to be able to command someone else's talents as your own, my dear,” Claxton said, waving his cane in a graceful departure. “Pity you were never able to truly be number one as a singer, but then, you were never quite able to strike the right bargain with our dear Lucy, were you?”

  The dapper man flipped his hat onto his head and departed with a crisp little nod.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Kurt’s country estate, Bavaria

  The engine of the roadster roared with the strain, as Kurt pushed the gearshift into high. Helen held the roll of sculpted hair at the base of her neck, feeling the heavily lacquered coiffure give way under the force of the wind and the weight of her hand.

  “Why are we in such a hurry?” she shouted above the deafening noise.

  Kurt laughed at the image of her next to him, her eyes narrowed against the strength of the wind and her hands clutching at a scarf she wore over her hat to keep it from flying into the countryside. He slowe
d the car and downshifted into a more comfortable gear.

  “We're not,” he said with an uncharacteristically jovial smile.

  It was not the smile of twisted metal, or the one that had reminded her of ominous cracks in the earth, but the boyish smile of a man experiencing a moment of contentment.

  “I just wanted to feel the exhilaration of being alone and free from the usual military escort.”

  “I should think someone in your position could do exactly what he likes, whenever he likes,” Helen said with a mild reproach in her tone.

  “Oh but you're wrong. The closer one is to the Fuhrer, and thereby more important than most, the fewer personal privacies he possesses... the price of power I'm told.” He smiled again, as if he were philosophically discussing some life other than his own.

  Helen watched his smiling face, seemingly younger now, as if a great burden had been removed for a single blessed day.

  “So, are you going to tell me how this thing with you and Hitler works? You're more than his back up man. I was at the rally the other night and saw him up close.”

  “I prompted his words. He got a little confused, that's all,” Kurt hastened to explain.

  “I'll accept that for now, if you want me to,” Helen said coolly, “but the man I saw was totally incapacitated, vacant. I've seen trance Mediums before and I know one when I see one. From where I sat, I'd say our darling little Fuhrer was in a trance and you were directing what he was saying.”

  Kurt drove in silence for a long moment. His face clouded over with concern as if he were listening, consulting some distant voice to tell him if he should divulge the secret of the Fuhrer.

  At last he spoke, clearly and cautiously, taking great care so that he might be certain not to be misunderstood. The words were his words, but the message seemed to come to him from some other dimension.

  “You are right,” he said, “the Fuhrer is a trance Medium, but I do not tell him what to say. The message is clearly his own, but it comes through as his interpretation of what the Thule intend for him to project to the people. I have nothing to do with that. My role is that of the Magician.”

  “Wait a minute,” Helen laughed, “now you're teasing me.”

  The dark expression on his face told her that he was not in a joking mood. Once again, he labored to explain. “The manifestation of true magic requires a partnership of sorts. It requires someone clairvoyant to bring in information, and a Magician, or alchemist really, who takes the energy created and directs it into whatever he desires.”

  “But I saw you telling him what to say.”

  “No, I was only reading his mind. It had temporarily overloaded with the wattage of the information coming in, like an electrical circuit... and I was siphoning off the message and repeating it back to him.”

  “It would appear that our Fuhrer blew a fuse,” Helen laughed. “You say you direct the energy, but where does it come from?”

  “The crowd,” Kurt answered succinctly. “He churns up their emotions, their sense of national pride and hatred for all that is not German, creating an immense warp of emotional energy, not unlike the aspiration of the devoted in a great cathedral. I direct this energy through myself into power for the Reich. It's rather like a generator or dynamo in a way, I suppose.”

  Helen let out a sigh of bewilderment and tried to shake off the intensity of his explanation. “So, I can assume then, that this is the equivalent of your day off,” she said, hoping to adopt a more casual air.

  “I'm afraid we're not out here in the country for a picnic, if that's what you're asking,” he replied mysteriously.

  “That's a relief,” Helen laughed. “I'm afraid I'm not the type for lemonade and finger sandwiches out somewhere in the weeds. So tell me, why have you brought me here?”

  Kurt diverted his eyes from the road for a dangerously long moment, studying her face, as if searching for signs of weakness or deceit that had formerly gone unnoticed.

  “I needed to get away from the Schutzstaffael, out someplace where I would be able to talk to you without risk of being overheard.”

  “Where are we going?” Helen asked.

  “It's my little hideaway… you'll see,” he answered.

  They rode in silence for a quarter of an hour, as Helen studied his inscrutable face. Finally, Kurt pulled the car off the road and cut the engine, barely within sight of a country estate, hidden by orderly ranks of manicured linden trees.

  “Yours?” Helen asked, raising an eyebrow.

  Kurt's face brightened. “As the saying goes… to the victor the spoils.”

  It had been the country home of a merchant family, imitating the refinements of the larger estates. Stables and a brook surrounded the property… a feeble protection, the modern descendant of the medieval moat. The house was built of stone, quarried from a nearby pit and erected in a style that was neither Palladian nor Gothic, but an unsettling mixture of the two, as if rivaling generations had inflicted their preferences upon the architecture in spite of the steadfast certainty of the predecessor's tastes.

  Kurt led the way through a high stone archway, and surprised Helen by leading her, not into the house, but through a side garden to an animal park several hundred yards away.

  He motioned for her to wait, then disappeared inside what appeared to have once been an old potting shed.

  After a moment, he stepped into the bright daylight with a large falcon perched on a heavy leather glove, a hood over its head to cover its eyes.

  Helen shuddered at the fierceness of the thing. Its sinewy legs gripped the leather glove, digging its razor-like claws into the gauntlet.

  “Here is one of my beauties,” Kurt said with pride. “I don't breed them, of course, but I do train them and they are capable of responding to voice command if I desire it.”

  He searched the landscape for a suitable target of demonstration, spotting a blue bird within fifty yards of where they stood.

  “There,” he said pointing into the tree that obscured the lively creature.

  Carefully, he removed the hood from the face of the nervous predator and slowly withdrew his hand, mindful not to move too quickly and cause an unwarranted attack. The large head of the bird rotated on a set axis, scanning its periphery for an enemy.

  Helen held her breath as the cold eye passed her by and continued stalking. She was aware of a heightening of her own senses, as if she shared the same perceptions as the falcon. The simple song of the blue bird, issuing from its inadequate hiding place, heightened to a shrill screaming, as if in some way it sensed what would occur in the next moment.

  Kurt raised his arm above his head, the falcon still anchored in place. It flapped its wings in readiness and craned its neck forward like a pistol cocked and ready to fire. Kurt's command was more a sound than a word, a musical chord, a Gregorian chant, more than the utterances of human language. It was strong and penetrating, the scream of a fallen angel, conveying a message of destruction that the falcon, as kindred winged servant and messenger, was obliged to carry out.

  The feathered beast leapt from its leather perch, stirring the air around them with the power of its wingspan. Helen cowered and instinctively covered her hair with her hands. She was not certain that the scream she heard was that of the blue bird, as its neck was snapped, or her own cry responding to a primordial fear of things that swoop down shrieking, intent to kill.

  Dutifully, the predator returned with its lifeless prize, and complacently nestled once again on the expectant leather glove. Kurt stroked the side of its head with an exposed finger, and the bird responded by gently shifting its weight from talon to talon in a dance of contentment.

  “He's really quite gentle,” Kurt said, whispering a low clucking sound toward the cocked head of the obedient bird.

  “Like a coiled cobra,” Helen said from a substantial distance. “Please spare me the ritual of trying to force me to pet it. I'm not a child and have no intention of cozying up to that vicious thing.”

&nbs
p; Kurt laughed.

  “I'd wager you have cozied up to far more dangerous things than this poor creature.”

  At last Helen saw the insinuating metallic smile return to his lips, removing all trace of the youthful man of contentment he had masqueraded as for the last hour. He reached up to take the blue bird from the beak of the falcon, but his hand moved too quickly, startling the predator with the speed of its attack. The falcon dropped the broken body of the bird from its vice-like grip and snapped at the intruding fingers, while simultaneously letting out its warrior cry. Kurt pulled his hand clear as the angry jaws swooped in for the kill.

  “It's your turn to laugh,” Kurt said to Helen.

  But she did not. Courageously she approached, in spite of the nervous flapping of the agitated falcon, and taking Kurt's hand that had narrowly escaped mutilation, drew it to her lips and kissed it.

  “I could never laugh if anything happened to you,” she said, holding his eyes in her mesmerizing gaze.

  He drew her near to him, careful to keep the jealous falcon at an outstretched arm's distance.

  Gently, he pulled her into the potting shed and replaced the falcon in its cage. Then, without allowing her to retreat from his embrace, he slowly moved his hands down the outside flanks of her buttocks and up into the privacy of her skirt.

  She let the breath escape from her body, like a soul being given up to its maker. His mouth moved down the soft passage of her throat to the hollow of her bosom and nestled there for long exquisite moments.

  Her fingers moved down the front of his uniform and felt the firmness of his body. The powerful effect she was able to draw forth from his flesh was evident within her hand. Once again, she had come to surrender to him, but it was different now. He too had no purpose but to succumb. There would be no vanquished and no victor. They were suddenly united, surrendering together as one.