Waging War

by April White

  Diekmann was already likely insane, but with his friend Kämpfe dead, and the tortured men in the ambulance, I didn’t think he’d be anything less than savage.

  A scream came from somewhere up the hill behind me, and I turned to find Oskar, the weasely sniper, pushing a young Frenchwoman toward the church. Two others walked in front of her, and one of them was holding a baby. I sprinted up the hill behind him, my pistol already out in my hand.

  “Oskar! What the hell are you doing?” I shouted at him in German. Karl came charging up behind me, carrying his rifle with both hands. If he tripped, he’d probably shoot someone.

  “Major Braun believes Sturmbahnführer Kämpfe was brought here by the kidnappers, and we volunteered to come with them.” Oskar’s sneer diminished very slightly as he spoke to me. Despite the rest of my unit’s hatred of me, they’d heard what I was capable of doing to armed men.

  “Where are you taking the women?”

  “Braun said the women and children would be safe in the church.” The sneer was back, and it didn’t bode well for the women in his care.

  “Karl, go with him. Shoot him if he tries to harm the women,” I said, glaring at Oskar.

  “What if he shoots me first?” Karl whispered. I ground my teeth against the thought of being anyone’s protector, but I smiled at Oskar anyway. “If anything happens to any man, woman, or child in that church, I will tear out your tongue and feed it to you. Are we clear?”

  Oskar swallowed visibly and the sneer disappeared. “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. Now, where’s Johann? We have a mission, and this isn’t it.”

  Another visible swallow. “The partisans got him, sir. We heard about their plan to blow up the bridge, and set up to take them out. I got most of them, but then the bridge exploded and they got Johann before I could kill the rest.”

  Everything about his body language said he was lying, but on the other hand, Johann was the worst bully in the Werwolf pack, and I wasn’t sorry he was dead. “Did you strip the body of identification?”

  He shook his head. “No sir. There was no time.”

  I shot him a hard you-screwed-up look, then gestured to Karl. “See the women safely to the church, and then both of you meet me back at the truck. If they found Johann’s body, our presence here is compromised and my mission is done. I’ll leave that to you to explain to Diekmann and to Paris.” Despite my harsh tone, I didn’t care that our cover was blown. I was only there to get transportation to England, and if my unit had to leave France right now, so much the better.

  Oskar looked at me through narrowed eyes, and I could see the calculations going on in his head. He knew I was right and it galled him, so he turned and shoved the girl ahead of him again with a growl. “Move!”

  My finger twitched on the trigger of my pistol, but I closed my eyes and took a breath. He wasn’t worth losing the English job over, and Diekmann would use any excuse he could to take me off of it.

  I strode back down to the village square. The crowd of French villagers had gotten bigger as more and more groups of SS brought them stumbling in. An older man wearing a luxurious mustache was irate at having been dragged from his bed and demanded to speak to the commander. I shook my head sadly. The man wasn’t likely long for this world with that attitude.

  Just then, Diekmann arrived, looking grim-faced and narrow-eyed. He knew I didn’t like him, and he didn’t like an English traitor in their midst. It was the type of mutual admiration society that usually ends in bloodshed, so I stayed out of his sight whenever possible. The man with the mustache must have recognized power when he saw it, because he marched right over to Diekmann and began a tirade that would have made Hitler himself wince.

  I turned away from Diekmann, which was much like turning away from a rattlesnake, and saw two SS guards come into the square shoving a mother and her young son in front of them, while a third held his rifle pointed at a young man who was with them. The young man seemed to be walking along peacefully, but his eyes were locked on the little boy’s, and I could see he was trying to keep the boy calm. I might have been that little boy once, but the soldiers had been my father, and the young man had been my cousin, Adam. I was just turning away from the scene when the little boy stumbled. The young man darted out to steady him, which earned him a shove from the rifle butt for his kindness. He brushed the hair back from his face and smiled at the boy to show him he wasn’t hurt, and suddenly my blood turned to ice water.

  Ringo.

  Nightmare

  My heart was pounding so hard it could probably have been heard across the church. Loogie had just entered the nave, pushing three women and a baby ahead of him. A wary young soldier trailed after them and didn’t take his eyes off Loogie when the sniper joined the six other soldiers arrayed in a loose formation around the edges of the nave.

  My reaction was kind of ridiculous given that Loogie had never seen me, but having a sniper in a room full of women, children, and my husband was not comforting.

  My husband. It was almost too weird to even think, and it sounded far older and more respectable than I felt. I’d been married all of about half an hour, and the peace I’d had in the garden already seemed like a lifetime ago.

  The soldiers had begun bringing women and children to the church just after Ringo had slipped out to check on Marianne and Marcel. Bas had loaned Archer one of his priest’s robes, and it had helped to calm the women down who came in terrified and frantic about husbands, brothers, and sons. It also meant he could stay in the church, unlike a teenaged boy who came in with his mother and was immediately escorted back out with directions to take him to the village square with the rest of the men.

  When the first SS soldiers came in brandishing rifles and yelling at the women to move their prams to the sides of the nave, I had to push the panic down to somewhere around my knees. It rose when they barred the doors, and rose again with every new Frenchwoman who was shoved inside the stone walls “for their protection,” the soldiers had told Bas. And now, watching the men arrayed around the perimeter of the nave holding their rifles at the ready, all I could see in my mind was Archer’s vision of this exact scene.

  I had to get Archer out of there.

  Bas had shown me the hidden entrance to the crypt, accessible from behind the altar in the south transept, and with his help, I’d been very slowly leading a couple of women with nursing babies to the doorway and hiding them from view as they slipped into the darkness that Bas had lit with a shielded lantern. I’d gone down once, with a woman whose two-year-old was too scared to walk down the stairs. I carried her down in my arms and set her next to her mother on the cold stone floor. About ten women were huddled against the walls holding sleeping or nursing babies or quietly whimpering toddlers in their laps. The terror in their eyes was excruciating, and I was ashamed to admit I was afraid to stay down there with them. Because I was afraid their fear was infectious.

  I had taken a moment to find a piece of chalky stone that I now carried in my pocket. There was a wall in the south transept that was somewhat protected from casual view, and I knew it was our escape hatch if things played out like they had in Archer’s vision. I didn’t like the idea of leaving the church full of women and children to their fates, but I had a way out, and I’d take it if I had to so I could save Archer.

  Archer slipped up behind me, and I felt him the way I’d always felt Mongers – except not. Instead of the stomach-squeezing nausea, a feeling of warm tingles spread through my chest. Maybe it had always been there, or maybe I was imagining it, but somehow I thought that with the marriage bond had come the ability to sense his presence nearby.

  I know my mate, my Cat rumbled from deep inside my head. She’d startled me, and I immediately sent apologies to her. Of course she knew her mate. I just hadn’t realized mating could be affected by something like marriage.

  Archer leaned in to whisper, “How are you holding up?”

  “Mostly fine,” I murmured, “except Loogie just came in wit
h the ginger kid who looks like he wants to throw up.”

  Archer’s eyes narrowed. “I saw him. I can take him out of the equation if I need to.”

  I slipped behind a column so we were hidden from casual view. “See that wall over there?” I nodded toward the back corner of the transept.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “I’ll spiral us out there. Just tell me when.”

  “We’ll need Ringo.”

  “We’ll get him from the farm.”

  Archer nodded thoughtfully. “I’ll talk to Bas, then we’ll go.”

  A wave of relief washed through me. He didn’t need to be a hero here. He was willing to go before the events of the vision came to pass. Archer’s touch left an imprint of warmth on my back as he slipped past me to return to the nave. I took my first deep breath since the nightmare of armed men had invaded the church.

  And then I stopped breathing when Marianne and Marcel were shoved through the door.

  I almost darted out into the growing crowd to go to them, but Archer saved me from a stupid move by calmly changing trajectory and gliding to them himself. My presence hadn’t yet been really registered by any of the soldiers. They might have seen me, but since none of them brought me in, I was still wearing a scrap of a cloak of invisibility. It’s what allowed me to stay in the transept and lead the few people who stumbled close enough to me down to the crypt.

  Marianne looked equal parts stoic, poised, and terrified, and Marcel did too. Bas must have seen Archer change direction because his eyes followed his friend, and he saw what I saw – Loogie had noticed Marianne too. There was more than casual interest in those laser-focused eyes, and they frowned at the relief on Marianne’s face when she saw Archer.

  The ginger kid seemed to notice Loogie’s interest too, and I wondered if he was part of the same Werwolf pack. He wore an armband of some kind, but it wasn’t identifiable from where I stood. Then Loogie changed his hold on the rifle and he suddenly had all of my attention.

  I was dimly aware of motion in the north transept because my eyes were locked on Loogie as he moved his finger to the trigger of his gun. He took a step forward just as Archer turned to lead Marianne and Marcel toward me. Ginger Boy readied his own rifle, and suddenly there were two too many fingers on triggers in the enclosed church for my taste. Something needed to happen. Something needed to distract the sniper and his watchdog so they would stand down from their ready position.

  I stepped out from the protection of the south transept, and I saw Archer’s eyes widen. I didn’t look at him, but kept my gaze locked on Loogie. He hadn’t seen me yet, but I needed his gaze to shift away from Archer, so I took another step forward.

  That was when I saw Tom enter the church.

  Loogie saw him too, and swung his rifle along with his gaze.

  “Tom!”

  I yelled his name without thinking of the consequences. Loogie fired, and people screamed. Tom’s eyes caught mine, and he reached a hand out to me just as the bullet hit him squarely in the chest. I lurched forward instinctively.

  That’s when Gaspard, the Maquis leader, materialized from his hiding spot in the north transept. That’s when he threw something into the nave. That’s when the world exploded.

  The floor seemed to burst open, and the blast of fire sent chips of glass and stone into the air like shrapnel.

  Archer shoved Marianne and Marcel away from the blast toward Bas and tried to use his own body to shield them from it. Tom staggered and fell near the entrance to the church.

  And then the shooting began in earnest.

  Loogie’s rifle swept the room before he even brought it up to aim, and Ginger Boy’s finger clenched on the trigger, sending a volley of bullets into the ground. Archer had turned toward me and taken a step forward when Loogie’s shot found its home in his back.

  The screams of women and children were deafening, and the roar of another blast literally shook the stones of the church. Gunfire erupted from all sides, and I saw one of Ginger Boy’s bullets tear the arm off a doll that had been dropped in the panic. I knew it would have done worse to the child the doll belonged to, and I wrenched my eyes back to Archer.

  Blood gushed from the gunshot wound, and he stumbled forward right into the path of the flames that began licking their way along the wooden pews. Loogie’s second shot hit Archer in the shoulder and spun him away from a lectern that had just exploded with fire. There wasn’t a third shot. My heart had stopped, and all I could see in front of me was Archer’s blood.

  There was a hail of bullets that seemed to ping around the nave like a scene from The Matrix, and one of Ginger Boy’s shots found its home in Loogie’s throat. I saw the explosion of blood over Archer’s shoulder as I reached him and grabbed his robes with both fists. I felt fire graze my thigh, but I ignored the burn and focused all my strength into hurling Archer toward the transept. He stumbled and went down, but was back up a moment later with enough forward momentum to make it out of the hailstorm of bullets.

  As I turned, the world around me slowed to bullet time, and I really was in a Matrix movie. Women were climbing the altar to reach the window ledge. An older woman was shot as she jumped out, and a younger one threw her baby out before she dove after it. Loogie’s body was still upright, but had filled with holes as Ginger Boy’s rifle discharged everything it had into the sniper. Ginger Boy seemed barely conscious of pressing the trigger until one of his bullets hit a little boy, and then he finally stopped. He threw himself toward Tom, who struggled to get to his feet. Bas had covered Marianne and Marcel with his body and was pushing them toward the south transept. His walk was jerky and unsteady, and I realized he was being hit by gunfire with every step.

  The sound of my name finally pulled me out of my bullet-time trance, and I spun to find Archer reaching for me from the shelter of the transept. I reached back, and a bullet grazed my wrist as it embedded into the pillar near Archer’s head. He grabbed me and pulled me to his body.

  “Ringo—” he gasped. I Saw what he Saw through the touch of his skin. Archer’s vision of Ringo was as clear as if we were standing next to him in the town square among the village men surrounded by soldiers with guns.

  I didn’t go back for Tom; I didn’t even look back. I didn’t want to see the faces of anyone I left behind as we stumbled to the tucked-away wall and I began to draw. The chalk rock slipped twice, and Archer finally held my hand closed around it as the spiral hummed and pulled us in. The one conscious thought I formed was of a barn. Not Marianne’s farm, because she was in this church filled with death and pain, but a barn that housed a mechanic’s garage at the edge of the village square – the square where they had Ringo.

  A moment later we were in Rachel’s barn, where the hulk of a half-repaired car stood in the darkness. Sounds here were muffled and vastly different than the mayhem in the church. Outside in the village square there was anger and outrage, and soldiers shouting in German demanding to know where the weapons were and who had set the fire. The dark and quiet of the barn had dampened the noise but not the fear, and it leaked in through every crack and crevice in the walls.

  Archer’s gasps filled the silence with something tangible, and I found him by the dim light of the moon through a rear window. He had let go of my hand and was on the floor struggling for breath.

  “Archer!” I whispered, dropping to my knees beside him.

  The barn door slammed open and someone – no, two people – hurtled inside. I threw myself over Archer’s body to shield him, but a sob escaped my throat.

  The people stilled. One closed the door carefully and silently, while the other moved closer, but stayed out of range. I didn’t sense a Monger, but I was frozen in place.

  And then Archer moaned, and I stopped caring who else was in the barn. “Shh, Archer.”

  “Saira?” A voice whispered from the dark in surprise.

  I sobbed with relief. “Ringo – help me. Archer’s been shot.”

  Ringo raced forward and knelt bes
ide me. A candle sputtered to life and came forward too, but not in his hand. I looked up to find Rachel, the mechanic’s daughter, holding the light as close to us as she dared. I darted a glance at Ringo.

  “She ‘elped me escape the square.” His breath caught. “They took Marianne and Marcel.”

  “I know.” I didn’t say more. Archer was the only one I could hope to save at that moment. Ringo reached for Archer, and I suddenly realized how horrible Archer looked. He was pale and sweating, and his skin was freezing cold. Blood continued to seep out around his shoulder. I moved to touch it, but Ringo stopped me.

  “Not you.”

  I stared at him, stunned. “Why not me? It’s safer for me than you. At least his infection won’t kill me.”

  “You can’t touch him with that hand.” He nodded his head at my right hand. It was bleeding, and I remembered the flying bits of rock from the bullet storm. I wiped the blood away, but a rock or a bullet had torn off a chunk of skin and it was an open wound. He was right.

  Ringo looked up at Rachel and spoke quietly to her. “Are ye cut anywhere on yer ‘ands?”

  She stared at him as if he was talking nonsense, so Archer translated into gasping French. She turned her stare to him, then held up her hands and answered in English.

  “I have no injuries.”

  “Can you help me with him?” Ringo asked her as he lifted Archer into a sitting position. Rachel handed me the candle without hesitation and helped pull Archer’s coat off him. I moved the light around to his back and then nearly dropped the candle. Two bullet holes had shredded the fabric of Archer’s blood-soaked shirt.

  “Why is he still bleeding?” I tried to keep the frantic edge in my voice under control. “It should have stopped by now.”