Dark Tales From the Secret War

by John Houlihan

  Elwood glanced at the hand, so thickly scarred the sergeant might as well have been wearing gloves. “Tell him I’m less worried about the corpses we’ve left behind and more about the ones we may still have to make. You sure your girl’s got word we’re coming? Otherwise we’re heading in for a whole different welcoming party.”

  “She’ll be there,” Perkins murmured. “Molly’s never let me down before.”

  “Hell, that’s no comfort. Not even the Mother Mary stayed a virgin forever.”

  A raspy chuckle. “Rather odd thing for a preacher to say.”

  “Chaplain.” Elwood gritted his teeth. “Ex-chaplain. Not that it matters anymore. Now, keep down and out of sight. My ability works better when there’s less looking out of the ordinary.”

  The sergeant withdrew. Heavy thumps vibrated the truck as the two men adjusted the cargo, securing their hiding spots. Elwood slowed the truck to match the rest of the caravan as it lurched to a stop before the massive steel gates. The truck in front of him was twice as large as the one he drove, and through the gaps of its barred and slatted sides, fingers poked out, wrapped in rags or nothing at all, flesh gone white and blue and black.

  Elwood ground his molars until they squeaked. Had to be at least thirty prisoners packed into the load in front of him, and there were two other such trucks in the caravan. Mostly Jews, he knew, culled from Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Greece… though American and British POWs were possibly in the mix as well, according to his intelligence reports.

  If he’d still been a praying man, he might’ve sent one up for their poor, damned souls. Pointless, now. However many souls languished behind the walls of the base, the team had only come to liberate one.

  He craned his neck to look past the idling truck to the base. Teufelsstein, they called it. Barely a blip in their records among the other countless imprisonment facilities the Germans had established. Nothing worthy of attention or action… until a couple months ago.

  He refocused as the line shifted forward, bringing him within sight of the soldiers guarding the checkpoint. Steel helmets cast hard faces in shadows. Grey-green wool overcoats contrasted with the matte black assault rifles they carried. So many things could go wrong right there and then. The guards might already be touchy about the convoy’s delay — a manufactured avalanche that blocked the road, stalling the convoy long enough for the team to eliminate and replace the truck’s original driver and occupants under cover of darkness.

  The line rumbled forward and a guard appeared at his door, leaning in and glancing over the cab. Elwood met the man’s eyes and braced himself. He opened up the dark channel in his mind and let a trickle of foul power seep out from him and into the soldier’s mind.

  The Nazi’s eyes glazed over as his free will was temporarily subdued. As the spell set in place, Elwood winced against —

  An overcast night at the Army camp in Italy, down near Cassino. Barely dug in and already freezing their asses off. Nothing gave them a moment’s warning before the first electric-blue explosions tore through the trees. The first screams tore the air wide and the first bodies dropped, engulfed in flames as the Nazis charged from the darkness.

  — the jarring visions always accompanying the spellcasting. Visions of the night when he’d first acquired his horrid ability. It left brief spasms cracking against his temples and a sickening roil in his gut that would’ve had him spewing if he’d eaten anything all day.

  The soldier remained staring at him, face slack. “Ja?”

  Elwood cleared his throat. “Lassen Sie mich ohne Frage eingeben und merken nichts von Misstrauen.” His rough German never would’ve passed muster for a native, but with the Nazi’s mind now under his sway, the man only had to understand him to obey.

  He passed the appropriate orders over, indicating the truck held a wide array of mechanical supplies. Fortunately, Danston’s sharp eyes and sharper shooting had kept the previous owner’s blood from marring the documents.

  Elwood kept his gaze front as a pair of guards took a dog snuffling around to the back of the truck. As the back tarp flapped open, he tensed, waiting for gunfire to erupt. For their mission to end violently before it truly began. But a boot kicked the back bumper and the first guard returned the orders and waved them on.

  With a curt nod, Elwood drove through the gates and into a bleak hell.

  Teufelsstein. It was one of the more recent facilities the Nazis had built, yet it looked like it had been standing for decades, entrenched in a winter wilderness. Chewed-up roads split off from the gate, and he took the one the guards directed him down. The truck rattled and bumped its way past endless rows of red brick buildings, grey barracks, and concrete yards. Blanketed by snow, the place seemed colourless except for brief snatches of black and crimson and shit-brown. All metal and stone and ice, with wisps of smoke rising above it all from a trio of smokestack chimneys on the far side of the base.

  Harsh voices cracked through the bitter air, and German soldiers marched by in their clockwork formation, every face as hard and cold as the land they guarded. Half a dozen SS officers, their strict black uniforms making them look like midnight shadows come to life as they strode between buildings, their clipped pace and squared shoulders showing their dedication to one important task or another.

  Elwood kept an eye out for anything looking like prisoner bunking or pen areas. That’d be the likeliest place to start searching for their target — and they had a single night in which to act. The supply caravan was scheduled to offload, refuel, and head out the next day; if the driver and guards of a particular truck failed to show, such a discrepancy would no doubt put the base on alert. If they weren’t gone by then…

  A turn brought them in sight of two warehouses, corrugated walls smothered by rows of icicles as thick as his thighs. Past the storage units stood the largest building he’d seen yet, a four-storey affair with dozens of windows, lit from within. Officer quarters? A hospital? Labs?

  They shuttled into the cavernous warehouses, shifting from the growing evening gloom to a false sunrise of fluorescent spotlights. Elwood parked in the proper loading bay and cut the engine. His huff of resignation feathered white. They sat in the belly of the beast. Nothing for it but to move forward.

  He hopped out of the cab — and found himself face-to-face with a woman whose face could’ve doubled as a butcher’s block. With slabs for cheeks and chin and a mashed nose, she would never be anyone’s pin-up. Light blonde hair had been tucked up tight under her brimmed, flat-topped hat with an eagle crest, and her black jacket collar displayed a silver skull pin. Her pale lips almost disappeared as she glared at him with blatant disapproval.

  Sweat beading his back, Elwood stiffened and saluted. The woman just kept staring, her scrunched, hard eyes making him think of buckshot pellets. He knew the SS had women within its ranks, but he had no idea if he’d already violated any protocol.

  He cringed inwardly at the thought of repeating the spell so soon, but that was why he’d been picked for this mission, wasn’t it? To clear their path in and out. She remained unwavering. His fingers itched to go for his Luger, but any shot fired in here would send the whole camp running.

  Then Sergeant Perkins and Danston rounded the truck corner. Each man wore a steel helmet and thick, knee-length jacket to blend in with the German troops. The sergeant’s face — as heavily scarred as his hand — peered out under the brim of his helmet while Danston halted, uncertain. The woman turned to them with the same dispassionate gaze. After a moment, the sergeant chucked his chin at her and whispered.

  “Where to, Mol?”

  The women spun and marched off toward a dark corner of the warehouse. Exchanging silent looks, the three men followed, Elwood and Danston trailing.

  “That’s Molly?” Elwood whispered.

  “Guessing so,” the sharpshooter replied. “Way the Sarge talked ‘bout her, I figured a Valkyrie was comin’ to our rescue.”

  They stopped talking as they came within earshot of
warehouse workers. Engineers and soldiers rushed around the warehouse, hauling crates and sleds piled high with newly arrived goods. Where the prisoner carts had trundled off to, Elwood hadn’t seen.

  With Molly in the lead, the band looked like just another cluster of soldiers striding in their superior’s wake, off to do the devil’s own business. Molly took them back out into the bone-cutting wind for a short march across a vehicle yard and to a squat, bland building. When the door clapped shut behind them, the sudden silence made Elwood think he’d gone deaf for a moment.

  Blocky electronics panels crammed with knobs and dials lined one wall, a low desk and several chairs set up in front of the array. Taller machines stood in the far corners, silent and still guardians. A radio room, Elwood guessed, though one not currently in use.

  Perkins grunted as he surveyed the place. “Backup communications in case their main rig malfunctions. We should have a few minutes to get oriented in here.”

  Molly drew out a sheaf of papers covered in scrawling handwriting and sketches. She handed this to Sergeant Perkins. As he studied the notes, the sergeant and Molly proceeded to have the oddest conversation Elwood had ever seen. Perkins muttered questions which Molly answered but without words. Instead she rolled her eyes, gesticulated wildly, and tilted her head back and forth. Her eyelids fluttered and her face twitched in ways Elwood found vaguely disturbing — as if the muscles under the skin didn’t quite match the expression she made.

  Once they had finished and she returned to her former glower, Elwood tilted his head her way. “What’s with the pantomime?”

  “Mol doesn’t speak much these days,” Perkins said, not taking his eyes off the map. “She was just filling me in on what she’s learned since she slipped over the walls.”

  “How long has she been here?” Elwood asked.

  Molly gestured again.

  “A week.”

  Danston spluttered. “A week? And the Jerries ain’t shined to her shuckin’ one of their suits yet?”

  The white scars around Perkins’ lips twisted into a grimace. “When Mol doesn’t wish to be noticed, she’s isn’t noticed. Now then, gentlemen, can we see to the matter at hand or must we continue to pester the lady in our midst?”

  He laid out the notes and Elwood leaned in to get a look. Molly’s sketches detailed the base layout well enough. She’d marked the bigger building as a hospital, the barracks, mess halls, kennels…

  “What’re these spots?” Elwood pointed to a couple of long rows over on the north side.

  “Weapons testing yards, apparently.”

  “Weapons testin’?” Danston echoed. “Thought this here’s a prison camp?”

  Perkins eyed him sidelong. “Who do you think they’re testing the weapons on?”

  Danston scowled and drew his gun. He began checking it over, slim fingers working smoothly. “I’d like to return the favour soon enough.”

  “Any sign of our target?” Elwood asked.

  The sergeant frowned. “Not since he was spotted on the transport bound for here. Mol says Dr. Wesselton isn’t being held or employed at the hospital complex or the administrative buildings. She’s at least confirmed his presence on base by eavesdropping on command conversations and radio chatter, but his precise whereabouts are unknown, neither is what the Nazis are doing with him.”

  Elwood glanced at Molly, who remained impassive. “You got all that from a few shrugs and waves?”

  “Know someone long enough and after a while, the words don’t manner. The issue, unfortunately, is already becoming more complicated as we speak.”

  Perkins slid the top sheet aside, revealing the one he’d laid below it. It too had a rough outline of the base. Unlike the first sheet, though, the rest was blank but for a single X to the east noting: Access Ramp.

  “There’s a whole complex that’s been built below ground,” he said. “That’s where all the prisoners are being taken. Apart from those brought out to the weapon yards, the rest never resurface.”

  Danston leaned in. Molly had sketched the rough image of a wolf’s head. Below it was the word Nachtwölfe.

  “Thought this placed was called Teufelsstein.”

  “It is.” Bumps rose across Elwood’s skin that had nothing to do with the freezing temperatures. “You’ve been with Majestic for several years now and you haven’t heard the name?”

  “I ain’t an intel boy like you. I just go where the brass point and shoot who they put in my sights.”

  “They —” Elwood groaned as another vision burst into his mind.

  Madness ruled the night and the camp seemed to dissolve under the Nachtwölfe attack. Nazis in heavy armour tramped about, spewing blue-green flames from strange packs with sparking metal rods sticking out all over. They lifted gloved hands and wherever they pointed tents blew apart, wood turned to ash, and flesh and bones sizzled and melted.

  Elwood blinked the images away and he steadied himself on the table. Perkins tilted his helmet back to get a closer look at him, but Elwood waved him off.

  “They’re a nasty bunch,” he said, still hearing screams and seeing flashes of blue-green light in the darkest slices of his memory. “My former platoon had a run-in with a lone Nachtwölfe squad out in Italy. I was the only survivor, and that by luck. Majestic recruited me soon after. Once I manifested my particular talent.”

  Danston squinted one eye. “They why you gave up bein’ a preacher man?”

  Elwood scowled. “That and I had trouble believing in a God who’d create a world where men were so monstrous and free will could be destroyed.” He refocused on the map. “What’re they doing down there?”

  “We have no idea.” Perkins tapped the blank space thoughtfully. “If we discover that along the way and can report back to HQ, excellent. Otherwise we stay focused on our target. Is that clear? Nothing is to distract from getting Dr. Wesselton out of their hands.”

  Elwood nodded. Both the sergeant and Molly were with Section M, Majestic’s British counterpart. While this was technically a joint venture between the agencies, Perkins had made it clear he headed up the operation from the start. Elwood didn’t doubt he had his own set of orders to be enacted if they couldn’t physically liberate Dr. Wesselton. No one wanted to leave such a genius working for the Axis war machine — even if it meant destroying that genius mind with a well-placed bullet.

  “One way in, one way out,” Elwood said. “What’s the plan?”

  Danston winked. “It’s called a diversion, preacher man. Make a mess they’ve got to go clean up.”

  “No,” said Perkins. “The instant we cause any disruption, this place will become busier than a stirred-up hornets’ nest.”

  “And I can’t handle more than one person at once. It’ll be obvious if I do it in public.”

  The sergeant clapped Elwood on the shoulder. “We’ll stick to the original strategy. Walk up and let you convince them to let us in nicely. We just keep quiet along the way and none will be the wiser before we’re gone.”

  The four of them stilled as footsteps thumped by outside. Elwood put a hand to his forehead, feeling the large vein there throbbing. Any second now and they could all go up in sprays of bullets and blood. They’d been fortunate so far, but a single slip could send them all headfirst into the shit. Every mission went there, eventually.

  When the silence resumed, a thought crept into it. Elwood turned to Molly. “You said all prisoners are taken down below, yeah?”

  She nodded.

  “But you’ve also seen them trotted out to be used as living targets?”

  Another nod, confusion glinting in her slate-coloured eyes.

  He circled a fingertip around the X-marked ramp. “Are they brought back out through the same entrance?”

  She started to shake her head and then froze, still as a rabbit spotting a snake. Her eyes widened ever so slightly.

  Sergeant Perkins clapped again. “Good girl. Now all we’ve got to do is find this second entrance and hope it’s tucked awa
y somewhere quiet where you can get to work.”

  It took them an hour to make their way across the grounds. Whatever odd behaviour Molly exhibited, Elwood had to admit she sure knew how to skulk. She knew where shadows gathered deep and dark among the spotlights and flashlights spearing throughout the base. She knew the patrol routes and timings, leading their team through brief gaps between soldiers, dogs, cars, and the sweeping gaze of the sentries in their towers.

  They reached the weapon testing fields, and despite the darkness hiding large swathes of it, Elwood still froze at seeing the area. He’d seen ground like this before. The aftermath of his regiment’s encounter with Nachtwölfe had left the earth equally charred, bubbled, shattered and churned up. Portions were bullet-riddled or cratered, but other places looked slagged to a glassy sheen, torched by dragon’s breath, or withered to patches of ash. Not even the lightly falling snow clung to those spots. Several pillboxes, raised platforms, and trenches dotted the area.

  Elwood scrambled for cover, praying to God above to keep him safe and end this nightmare. A energy blast scorched the earth just to his right, and the explosion sent him tumbling. An armoured Nazi thumped into view, aiming to fire again. Then an Allied grunt popped up behind the German and fired a shotgun into the man’s back — and the pack the soldier wore. The Nazi spun. Staggered. The sparks and arcs along the pack’s metal framework erupted in a rapidly growing lightning storm.

  Elwood swayed, clutching his stomach and groaning until the nausea passed. What had caused this vision? Up until then, they’d only occurred directly after he took another person’s mind. Something about the weapons field? Breathing hard, he joined the others, ignoring their worried looks.

  Five minutes of scouting let them spot the second access point — an unassuming shack next to an observation post on the northwest corner of the fields. Elwood caught the first glint of moonlight on metal, and the four of them clustered by a concrete embankment five hundred feet across the way.

  Two guards stood at ease before the shack’s metal door. By the dim outlines he could make out, Elwood didn’t doubt these men wore silver wolf’s head pins on their collars. He also noted the blocky goggles both men wore, which caught the starlight with a dark blue glint.