Shifting the weapon to his left hand, the SA officer saluted, “Sir, he’s wounded but alive. The rest, I’m afraid—”
“Stand him up,” Haushofer ordered, cutting the man off.
It wasn’t until Hanussen was on his feet that he recognized who stood before him. “Karl, for God’s sake. What have you done?”
“I’ve come for the rest of the manuscript,” Haushofer said with a smile. “I trust you’ve kept the pages safe.”
“Adolf will hear of this!” the man who had Hitler’s ear screamed.
“I’m sure he will. Only I suspect it will be more about how you just up and left without a word.”
“You can’t—”
“It would seem I can,” Haushofer smugly interrupted. “Erik, you should have left when you could. But no, you had to flaunt your power. I told you, you would make them jealous.”
“But you … we …” Hanussen looked bewildered.
“Family, my friend; its’s all about family,” Haushofer said smoothly before snapping, “And we both know that if we tried to share the power, the Führer would see only you. I would be an afterthought if that. And, I’m afraid, that does not work with my plans.”
Hanussen, grimacing with pain, tried to strike a bargain, “I will let the Führer know what you did. I give you my word.”
Haushofer snorted derisively. “You shine so brightly in the Führer’s eyes. Do you really think he would see me if you are around? Now enough! I have pages to retrieve, and you have your appointment with destiny.”
Haushofer turned to the lieutenant. “Don’t bother with his wound. They’ll deal with that at headquarters. But before you leave this place, make sure he is wearing the vest I gave you.”
“Yes, sir. It’s just outside.”
“Then go get it! I want it on him before he leaves this room.”
“You can’t bind me forever,” Hanussen growled.
“I thought my spell worked quite well,” Haushofer smiled. “I just wish I could have seen your face when you discovered its presence.”
“Your betrayal wasn’t anticipated,” Hanussen admitted, contempt for his captor tainting every word.
The general stepped forward to whisper in Hanussen’s ear, “Events could have gone differently, but, my friend, it is what it is. The best I can give you is a swift death and my assurance that I will not let our Ecuador adventure go to waste.”
“You’ll get yours!” the man screamed, his spittle spewing toward his betrayer.
“Oh Erik, it would appear that that is an experience you will be first to taste. If you can, be sure to let me know how it goes. Now, Lieutenant, your bosses await.”
The Jew, Hitler’s closest confidant and far more powerful than anyone would have guessed, was dragged from his private apartment struggling in vain against the vest’s binding magic.
***
Once the mystic was removed, his fellow magician walked back to the street and obliterated the lines he had previously chalked. The cloaking and damping spells had done their job. Not only had they caught Hanussen unaware, but his power had been rendered useless long enough for him to be subdued. With the spell canceled, Haushofer went back into the house dowsing for Erik’s half of the ancient Lantian manuscript.
His pendulum led him to Hanussen’s massive safe. He smiled with anticipation as he sent out a spell that manipulated the combination lock; aligning the numbers until he heard the loud click that told him the spell was successful. Haushofer wrenched the door open. As he looked at the contents of the safe, he knew that the betrayal of his old partner had rewarded him with millions in currency and even more in diamonds and gold. But the prize that he reached for with shaking hands was the other half of the manuscript.
The Valley of the Ancients had been but a rumor; not concrete enough for Haushofer to risk using government funds for the expedition. The trip had to be privately backed. Hanussen fit the bill. He had the cash and the desire to learn real magic. Haushofer took a chance on the man. All the while, he knew that he would have to share whatever was found with an individual who wouldn’t be satisfied with keeping his newfound power unobtrusive.
Hanussen was not a disappointment, and the trip to Ecuador was beyond Haushofer’s highest expectations. It was after the bounty was divvied up that his frustration set in. The general turned spiritualist soon discovered that his half didn’t translate into the degree of magic he had been hoping for. Oh, it was a lot; powerful beyond the minds of most men. But it could have been so much more if that flamboyant showman hadn’t squirreled away his half of the treasure.
Hanussen’s unwillingness to share, coupled with Haushofer’s realization that the man couldn’t possibly handle the kind of power they were dealing with, set up an impossible situation. Thankfully, the makeup of those of the upper echelon of the Third Reich was such that all were tormented by the thought of someone else taking their place. Taking down anyone that was a threat occurred often and swiftly. All it took was planting a few worrisome comments in the right places.
Hanussen was the propaganda minister’s biggest concern. Goebbels was a fanatic, a hater of Jews, and a worshiper of the Führer. No wonder the little man wanted Hanussen gone. But then the party’s chairman, Göring, also knew having a Jew as Hitler’s most trusted adviser was a problem.
When Hess came to see him, Haushofer recognized that fate had dealt him exactly what he had been searching for—an excuse to do away with Hanussen and obtain the other half of the manuscript. Simple logic also dictated that Hanussen could not be left alive. If Hitler found out that Göring and Goebbels were behind the raid on the Palace of the Occult, they would have been the ones to fall the farthest. Hanussen’s fate was sealed. By the time the general returned to his home, he was certain the only person who knew of the power he now had access to, had not reached SA’s headquarters but was now lying in a shallow, country grave.
“The best of both worlds,” Haushofer smiled as he carried his money bag in one hand and the ancient magic manuscript in the other.
“Now, maybe I can find a dragon or two for Rudolf.”
CHAPTER 4
Year: 1640
“Come on, Powahti. You can do this.”
It wasn’t that the teenage girl, who would one day call herself Elizabeth, thought she couldn’t. She knew the terrain—both now and in that other time. As for the math, she was confident her calculations covered all the vectors. It was just that, what he wanted was unprecedented. No one but the gods moved through time!
Never had the Lantians with their magic nor the Piretians with their unparalleled science attempted such a feat. Likely they dreamed about it, even the humans fantasize about time travel, but as far as she knew no one but the gods had the run of time.
Maybe back before the war, the magicians could alter their relationship with time. But that was a million years ago, and less than a handful had survived that particular moment of madness.
‘My father’s war. Well, his and all the other gods that were hanging around the planet at the time.’
All this was going through her mind as Powahti looked over at Michael who was now urging her on. ‘He won’t be put off,’ she fumed, looking about for a possible escape.
The pasture was green and flat. There were no trees or fence posts, giving her plenty of leeway in case of a miscalculation. She chewed vigorously on her thumbnail. There was nowhere to run.
Still, she didn’t commit. She hopped up and down on one foot. Looking for something to divert her father’s attention, her thoughts went to the great Lantian magicians who numbered among the survivors of the Lantian-Piretian war.
“Hey, Dad,” she stalled, “Were any of the Lantians like Urik able to move through time? And what about the Lantian considered to be the second greatest wizard to ever reside on this planet? Wasn’t his name Raul? And what about the world’s greatest magician?” she blathered on. “The one that was rumored to have disappeared days before the Great Lantian/Piretian War began. What
was his name?”
“Powahti!” Michael yelled, demanding that she get on with the transition.
“Okay, okay!” she snapped. “You’ll be sorry if I die,” she mumbled. Shooting a ferocious scowl at her father, she focused her mind on the job at hand.
She knew the trick to succeeding was going to depend on her ability to be very specific about her point of focus. It had to be four-dimensional: time of destination, place of destination, full awareness of the now (including location and present time), and the path between the two. Line up all four, add in the willingness to believe that one’s body could follow one’s thoughts, and then let consciousness expand and execute.
‘Breathe,’ she told herself, filling her lungs with air. Then, as the expansion reached its limit, she exhaled her mind and body into the currents of time.
The landscape began to shimmer, then tremble, and with a poof, the instant was gone, and so too was the old present.
Powahti’s first leap through time should have placed her a week ahead of where she had been. But without a dramatic change in her surroundings to give her the positive feedback she was looking for, doubt quickly stomped on any thoughts of success. Her panic started before she remembered ... “The flag!” she yelled. “He planted a red flag to mark my destination.”
The recollection turned to action as the girl spun about. She stopped abruptly when she spotted the flag poking out of the soil not more than three inches from her left foot. Her orientation had been precise.
‘Reorient!’ the projected voice blasted at her from the past.
Knowing that she should, didn’t mean she would. After all, this was quite an achievement—one demanding a little savoring.
“A quick look around couldn’t hurt,” the girl told herself, speaking aloud to dissuade any apprehension she might have over disobeying her father’s command.
Her inspection lasted mere seconds before disappointment settled in. The place was the same, except … her eyes widened in alarm … except for the two men at the far end of the field. And her father wasn’t where she had last seen him. Well, actually he was. She was the one who was now in a different place.
Briefly, the thought thrilled her. Then it vanished. The sixteen years her life currently covered was enough to tell her that the two men coming toward her were a threat.
The year was 1640. This morning, she had held onto her father’s hand, as she had done so many times before, while he transported them back almost two hundred years in time. Now she was in a large, flat field in the middle of nowhere; her father’s choice for Powahti’s first solo. Her move from point A to point B in time had covered a mere seven days. But logistically, the week had placed a wall between her and her father. Now standing alone in a field of clover, she watched as the two men, no more than a hundred yards off, drew their weapons and headed her way.
“Oh my God!” She shivered. “They must have seen me pop in.”
The field had been selected for its privacy; the location wasn’t farmed nor was it near any known path. It was also perfect because of its flat surface of low growing clover. The odds of a mistake were minimal, and there was even less of a chance for discovery.
“Well, Dad, so much for not being seen. I’d say we messed up on that one.”
The thought was spoken but not dwelled on. Already, the girl was preparing her mind. Recalibrating, as her father had demanded, was little more than reversing her point of focus. For a god, merely an instant of thought. But Powahti’s mother was Native American, and for a half-breed, it was a task that, up until now, she had considered impossible.
“Come on, you can do this,” she encouraged herself as she again gave in to the impulse to look across the field.
The men were large, armored with what looked to be thick leather vests, and likely, she sniffed, hadn’t bathed for quite some time. The breeze was carrying a nasty odor she attributed to the two.
‘Concentrate!’
The internal bellow reverberated throughout her body, but the situation had already stolen her attention. Somehow the vectors she needed to concentrate on had morphed into God-fearing vagabonds hell-bent on ridding the planet of the girl who just popped up out of nowhere. Near panic, the witch-in-training thought to run.
Remembering that displacement could prove fatal if she executed the transition from a different spot, she held her ground. She committed to making another attempt and projected. Another poof.
“Oh no!” she cried.
Her time displacement encompassed less than a minute. This she knew because the men were just now, once again, pulling out their weapons. The fact that she had more time to get it right was lost, obliterated by fright.
‘Dad, I can’t do this,’ she said, as mind-numbing panic took over.
“Find your center!”
The words roared across the field. Meant to motivate his daughter, Michael’s voice did little more than send a wave of caution through her attackers. The sound initially sent them to their hands and knees, but when nothing else came at them, they stood and resumed their march toward her. Only now they had lost the look of cautious curiosity. They were still cautious but in a more determined way. Their gait had slowed, and their swords were no longer being carried as a warning. They were ready for action.
‘It’s like they’ve been charged by God to eradicate this evil the devil has placed before them,’ Powahti thought, her focus refusing to stay on track. “Only I’m the evil,” the girl lamented as the men, gaining courage from each other, advanced moving faster with each step.
Elizabeth’s panic was now fully in charge. She took a step back, relinquishing her position and removing her only reason for not running. Her feet shuffled, and she started to turn when a voice tore her fear from its mooring.
“The lass belongs to the Lord!”
Startled, she looked back. Between her and the men stood a ten-foot angel with a wing span of a good twenty feet. Beyond the celestial being, the ashen-faced men stood trembling.
“Leave us now!” the thunderous voice commanded.
The men, frozen in fear, looked as if they were trying to move. Neither succeeded.
“Now!”
Their weapons dropped, and the men ran. Both were at the tree line before the angel turned toward the girl.
“Dad, I … I couldn’t concentrate,” she stammered as the vision before her shrank into the familiar form of her father.
“Let this be a lesson, my dear. If you let it, your human half will betray you.”
“It wasn’t that. It was just that I couldn’t get those men out of my mind so that I could focus on what I needed to.”
“Precisely! When you saw those men, you sensed their intent. Your human half then reacted, locking you into that frequency pattern vacillating between fear and excitement. You could have chosen to be excited, but instead, you chose fear.” Then he finished gently, “A choice easily justified by what you experienced.”
Cringing, Powahti recognized the signs that her father was gearing up for another lecture. The witchling gave a little nod hoping her tone would be harder to determine than if she spoke.
“Girl,” her father laughed, “I promise this will be a very short lecture.”
“How did you know what I was thinking?” she pouted.
“I can tell you’ve learned from the training you’ve received that your mind can be sealed from another’s. But if you can’t hear what somebody is thinking, then listening to their body works really well. From posture to physiology, there is always a way of knowing a person’s intent.”
“Okay, okay, so I gave myself away.”
“Correct, and you also got in your own way. That transition is easily within your ability.”
“Yes, I know it is. Now can we go?”
“Patience, little one. You don’t expect me to pass on this opportunity, do you?”
“Father,” Powahti whined.
“I’ll make you a deal. You listen, and I’ll be quick.”
&nb
sp; To communicate her displeasure, Powahti nodded as rigidly as she could, her lips pressed tightly together. The god she knew as her father laughingly jumped into his lecture.
True to his word, he quickly covered the energetic similarities between humanity and the planet of their origin. It was one she had already heard which concerned vibrational patterns that, at one end attract with excitement and, at the other end, repel with what most sentient beings refer to as fear.
“It is for this reason that humans naturally come by their fear. You might say it’s in their makeup.”
“But then so is excitement,” Powahti argued.
“Indeed,” her father smiled. “What’s more, the choice is always yours.”
“Whaa…” she protested. “Those men meant business.”
“And you should have too.”
“I tried, but …”
“Powahti, when you chose fear, your brain snapped shut disrupting the mind-body connection. Your leap was mentally perfect. It was just that your body couldn’t follow … well, at least, not all the way.”
“So you’re saying I should have found something about that threat that was exciting?” She glared at him, hands on her hips.
“Life is like a coin. It always has two sides.”
The tone of her father’s response told her arguing for her fear was useless. Still, she couldn’t resist getting in the last word.
“Right, I’ll remember that,” she said, keeping her sarcasm low-keyed. Getting herself to believe she could do what she thought was impossible was not something she readily did.
CHAPTER 5
Year: 2012
“You did what?!”
“Come on, Elizabeth. It isn’t that big a deal. Sometimes a person just has to take a stand. Shoot, even Julia and Frank got involved.”
“That’s not a very good defense. Frank’s human. I’d expect him to take sides. And naturally, Julia would support her husband. But you … Willow, we don’t have the right to intervene with humanity unless they make us their issue.”
Spirit of the Dragon: A Story of Magic, a Witch, and the Third Reich Page 3