by Mat Nastos
Either way, the Scotsman was ready for it all to be over. He was tired and in need of a good bit of tobacco in his lungs. “By the looks of things, construction is complete, or almost so. They must have worked through the night to finish. I thought you’d said your devices were a failure? It looks like the blasted thing is operating perfectly.”
The weight of his crimes – those against humanity and Grimm both – pressed down visibly on the unnaturally-aged man. Regret, long repressed or ignored in his pursuit of knowledge and understanding, rushed out, free and unrestrained. With his lover and best friend dead, the quest for confirmation of his own genius seemed as small and as petty as Ludwig Wittgenstein looked. None of it mattered any more.
“While the cold iron machines had been unable to fully breach the infinite gulf between worlds, they were successful in connecting our world and the realm of the Great Old Ones with a strand of energy. Not enough for a being to cross over, but it allowed Philipp and I to bond the essences of the nine remaining Jotnar to the physical forms of the high council of the Edda Society… and to allow the creation of creatures like the Schwarzbär.”
Wittgenstein limped forward to just within the protective outcropping of the Czech wilds, as far as the shadows would allow without him being seen by the Nazi soldiers beyond. His eyes watered over in the glare of the sickly-green wisp-lights playing up and down the height of his wicked creation. “With this partnered to the engine in Heydrich’s – in Garm’s – chest-plate, that strand will be sufficient for the great wolf aspect to enter our world fully.”
“You Huns never learned to leave well enough alone, eh, mate?”
* * *
Back facing the forest, the once-Heydrich stood with his hands crossed behind him, legs spread wide in triumphant relaxation. Soon, the Jotnar’s epochs-old quest to free themselves from their otherworldly prison would be at an end. As it had been written, Garm would be the first of the giants to waken and blow the Gjallarhorn announcing the coming of the Twilight. With only the decrepit All-Father, the last of the Aesir, standing against the coming of night, their ascendancy was assured.
A tickle beneath Heydrich’s flesh, a pricking in the nape of his neck and traversing the length of his spine, announced a familiar presence. Somewhere nearby, a child of Odin approached. Looking around, Garm sniffed deeply through Heydrich’s senses, reaching out with sight, smell, and more. Very near indeed.
It was time.
“Bring me one of the Romani. A female,” called Garm to one of the fleshbags who served the human he now possessed. “Make it a young one, full of life. And make her pretty… so very pretty.”
“Heil, Herr Reichsprotektor!”
CHAPTER 19
THE FINAL BATTLE
Bathed in the sickly-green flow of the machines, Heydrich stood ready for battle. The air crackled with anticipation, devouring the fear washing off the sacrificial peasants gathered nearby. It was the coming of Ragnarok. Gods would die. The Great Old Ones would once again rule the worlds.
Only one stood in their way.
At the top of his lungs, backed by the unholy echo of Garm within him, Heydrich called out to the hidden men, “Come out, Herr Grimm. I know you are there. Can feel you hiding in the trees, cowering amongst the shadows. Come and face me like a true warrior, not one of the cowards of the Gray-Beard.”
MacAndrw motioned for Grimm to remain in his place, camouflaged from Nazi sight by the dense underbrush of the forest. Each man knew the time for confrontation was approaching, but it had to be in a manner of their choosing and not drawn out to slaughter by the contemptuous words of the enemy.
“You best wait, boyo,” suggested MacAndrew, worried. “Last time we tussled with Heydrich, he handed us our arses. The power Garm gives him is too great. You barely survived.”
Shaking his head, Grimm tried to reassure his friend with a smile that was far too tense to be comforting. “Things will be different this time, little Celt. Garm’s essence is still only attached to Midgard by the thinnest of threads. It is a thread that can be cut with the death of Heydrich’s body.”
Although not completely convinced, a nod from the Scotsman told Grimm the old soldier would have his back no matter what. “Right, now all we have to do is convince Heydrich to die for us.”
Wittgenstein broke his silence. “Do you have a plan beyond charging in and being slaughtered?”
An angry retort began to steam up from down deep in Grimm’s gullet, plodded on by his still festering rage at the Austrian. The verbal riposte was cut off by the scream of pure terror, set loose by a young woman in the clearing before them.
Movement at the edge of the hamlet’s limits pulled the trio’s attention to her with the fluttering of a faded cotton dress and the flash of nubile flesh. It also granted Wittgenstein a reprieve from the German’s wrath.
“I see. You need more incentive to join me, eh? More than just a polite invitation?” Heydrich yanked a black-haired peasant girl cruelly to his side, twisting her right arm up into the small of her back. The girl, a child of less than a score of years, writhed in his grip, trying to escape but only succeeding in increasing the pain he caused her as she did. “This whore, she is a bit older than your own daughter was when we took her, yes? Perhaps you would like to save her from the fate of your own little bitch, Herr Grimm? To save this one where you failed your own?”
Another scream pierced the air between Heydrich and the men concealed in the thick Czech foliage.
Every muscle in Grimm’s body tensed, striating and rippling under his flesh like steel coils ready to spring. The suffused blue glow of the runes sheathing his arm flashed white in response.
“No, lad, it’s a trap.”
With a jerk and a sickening snap, Heydrich lifted the girl up, breaking her arm as he did. A hand, clawed by its exposure to the power of the Great Old Ones, reached up and caressed the weeping child’s face before pulling it into the demon’s for a vulgar kiss.
“Shame. She had such dreams, this one.”
A flick of Heydrich’s hand effortlessly tossed the woman into the front of the great iron machine. Her body slapped harshly into a wide, circular receptacle that oozed the green light of Jotunheim. Every muscle in the girl’s tiny body locked tight in a spastic dance. Every nerve shrieked with tortured pain. A pulse of light revealed a blackened skeleton hidden beneath her smooth skin, and another flash vaporized it all.
Only a translucent mist remained.
“Tut-tut. Another child failed by the Odin-pawn.” As Heydrich’s gaze roamed across the line of trees, the transformed Nazi bellowed out, “Bring me another girl!”
In one instant, Grimm was standing next to the Scottish soldier, and in the next he was gone, leaving behind a gust of gale-force wind and a shower of wooden splinters from the shattered trees.
Thunder boomed as Grimm landed less than five meters from Heydrich’s own position. The impact of his arrival cracked the cobblestone road beneath his feet and sent the tightly-packed group of Waffen-SS troops sprawling, bloody and broken. Lightning trailed along the ground, radiating from where Grimm stood.
He unsheathed Balmung. “I’ll kill you!”
Grimm charged the laughing Heydrich mindlessly.
“Shite,” said MacAndrew and he gripped his stolen German machine gun close and rushed out, trying to cover the forty-plus meters of Grimm’s leap as quickly as possible. Holding company with a veritable demi-god like Grimm was beginning to put a damper on the Scotsman’s confidence. MacAndrew decided to leave the fighting of ancient demons to his new ally. The most useful thing for him to do would be to keep the squad of Nazi soldiers off the man’s back while he battled for the lives of humanity itself. “Keep your head down, Wittgenstein! Don’t get yourself killed!”
MacAndrew was both pleased and annoyed at the Nazi’s reaction to his appearance, racing headlong at them with his gun blazin
g. On one side, it allowed Grimm to close in to hand-to-hand combat range with Heydrich, which was ideal for the man to do what it was that he did best – hit things repeatedly and very hard. MacAndrew also assumed the enemy soldiers would be more hesitant to take pot-shots at Grimm if his proximity to the Jotnar-possessed man was close enough.
On the opposite side of the coin, it meant the Scotsman would have to deal with a platoon of well-armed and very hostile members of the SS. Luckily, the Scottish had been outnumbered and outgunned since time immemorial and had never backed down from a fight, no matter how lopsided or insane it seemed.
And in spite of all of his other shortcomings, Ian MacAndrew was a Scotsman through and through.
With one eye watching the slugfest raging between Grimm and Heydrich, the veteran kept the other trained on the tiny iron sight of his German-made assault rifle. Firing until the barrel burned white-hot, he made his way across the killing field the outskirts of Lezaky had become. His mission: to rescue the men and women of the small town, and to take out as many Nazi bastards as he could along the way.
* * *
Unseen by those on either side of the riot spilling over the streets of Lezaky, the rail-thin form of Ludwig Wittgenstein eased its way out of the undergrowth. Drawn by the vibrating beacon of the reality-bending machine he’d been the architect of, the scientist hobbled arrow-straight ahead. Bullets flying overhead and bodies being tossed about did little to deter the tunnel-vision the Austrian had become enthralled by.
He knew, with the sacrifice of even one soul to the infernal device, the pathways to Jotunheim had been opened and with it a line of power for Garm. The longer the portal was open, the stronger he would grow. Before long, his might would be too much even for Grimm’s Aesir-spawned strength to overcome. Someone needed to stop it.
Wittgenstein needed to stop it. He had created the machine; it had been born in his dreams and his hands had crafted its design. It was his child. His fault. His responsibility.
Standing in the cool shade of the clockwork monstrosity, the scientist marveled at its size. It was twice as tall as the apparatus he and poor Philipp had devised in Kelheim, but not nearly as wide. After all, it had been constructed from the same components. With the eyes of a disapproving parent judging a misbehaving child, Wittgenstein searched across the mechanism’s framework. It was there, the answer to his needs, somewhere. If only his age-addled brain could remember.
There!
On the northern face, just below the evocation turbine. The focusing crystal: without it, the machine would become an unstable dynamo. It would sever the razor-edged tendril intertwining Garm with the Great Old Ones, leaving him trapped, imprisoned in the empty shell of Reinhard Heydrich.
Mortal and killable.
Crack!
Dirt splattered the side of the scientist’s face, thrown up by a small-caliber bullet’s ricochet less than a centimeter from where his hands worked inside the machine’s belly.
“You there, boy-lover!” Wittgenstein’s face fell at the rough sound of Hans Hagan’s bass voice. The Schwarzbär soldier, haggard and unsure on his feet, held a Luger shakily in his only remaining hand, its barrel unable to stay steady. Unlike MacAndrew and Grimm, Wittgenstein knew the healing powers of the Schwarzbär defied that of mortal men. Time was not on the scientists side. “Halt!”
“I must complete my work!” screamed the Austrian, plunging himself back into the sabotage in defiance of the pistol being brandished at him.
Three more slugs pounded into Wittgenstein’s unprotected back, punching through his lung, kidney, and liver. Dropping to his knees, mortally wounded, Wittgenstein stared down at the wet, glistening crystalline orb clutched fiercely into the cupped palms of his blood-coated hands. He had done it. Without the focusing gem, the machine’s internal energies would go haywire, uncontrolled and unmanageable. In a few seconds it would all be over. The device would be destroyed by its own power and with it, Ludwig Wittgenstein and his sins.
He would be with his beloved Philipp again.
“You are too late, dirty cub,” wheezed Wittgenstein through blood-caked lips. “I have beaten your masters and fear you no longer.”
“No!” Hagan’s eyes rolled back into his head, the whites discoloring to yellow as the Change took him once more. Hair sprouted from every pore and his bones cracked and popped as his body began to convulse and grow. A cruel snout, filled to capacity with dagger-teeth snapped open and shut, dripping foam as it did. Incapable of human speech, a transmuted Hans Hagan lunged forward to feast on his prey.
“Philipp, you’ve come for me.” Wittgenstein’s arms opened wide, welcoming the monster.
Fangs six inches in length plunged into Wittgenstein’s exposed throat as the Austrian’s malevolent device erupted. The resulting fireball’s light could be seen ninety kilometers away in Prague, and the shockwave felt as far away as Berlin. The trees in a hundred meter radius were flattened, knocked to the ground, as were the bodies of every human caught within it.
The only two beings who remained upright and conscious were the embattled Grimm and his foe, Heydrich.
No physical trace remained of either Hans Hagan or of Ludwig Wittgenstein.
* * *
Blood sprayed from Grimm’s mouth as a straight-fisted punch pummeled into his stomach. He was losing ground with each flurry of hits Heydrich battered his body with. As it was, the once-mighty German could barely lift Balmung in defense or do more than block every third blow pistoned into him.
Failure loomed about Grimm’s head, clouding his mind with darkness. The Jotnar was too much for him and his pleas to the All-Father for help went unheard and unanswered.
“Your god has forsaken you, mortal!” taunted Heydrich, rocking Grimm with a fierce elbow-strike to his temple that sent black dots cascading through his vision. “Your soul will be the pathway for my brethren to tread once more upon the shores of Midgard!”
Grimm landed a blow to Garm’s side, but it appeared feather-light against the creature’s strength. He blocked one punch, but was almost felled by an uppercut that would have killed a normal man. Jaw throbbing, Grimm launched a series of blows that Heydrich swatted away like one does flies.
With a lunge, Grimm grabbed Heydrich’s arms, and roared. Beneath the feet of the two warriors locked in mortal combat, the ground rumbled and danced, nearly upending both. For a split second, Grimm assumed it was some new attack by his foe, but seeing an equal amount of surprise on Heydrich’s face told him otherwise. Then he saw it. Over the Nazi’s shoulder, the great machine collapsed in upon itself, imploding in a baritone hum that seemed to devour all light and sound around it. The world went white as the chaos energy fed into the machine surged out in a rolling stream of heat and light that charred every exposed inch of Grimm’s flesh and incinerated the cloth from his body.
A scream shattered the day.
Grimm was unsure if the unadulterated shriek of agony belonged to him or to Heydrich, for the air seared his lungs and throat, evaporating the moisture from his mouth.
The effect of the explosion blindsided Heydrich completely. Cut off from the dynamism energizing his form, Heydrich’s attack faltered. With the machine destroyed, his power faded rapidly, leaving the monster wide-open to counterattack.
Donner Grimm sensed the growing weakness in his opponent and roared. He batted aside an impotent overhead blow from Heydrich, and launched blow after devastating blow on the monster before him. Fueled by vengeance and victory, bones and flesh fell beneath harrowing hits.
He flipped Balmung into a two-handed grip, and plunged it through the center of the fiend faster than a stroke of Thor’s lightning.
“So falls the Wolf of Helheim, weak and on his knees before the All-Father’s fury!”
The assault took Heydrich to his back, a flaccid insect pinned to the ground, squirming in its last seconds of life.
“You may kill this form, thrall of the Aesir, but hope is lost for you.” Heydrich’s mouth filled with blood from Grimm’s sword twisting harshly, tearing vital organs and severing arteries as it did. “The gods are dead. The One-Eye remains alone to face the coming of the storm… to face the Twilight. Even the oracles have fallen to the Jotnar. Loki will soon be freed and the Nine Worlds will burn before the sons of Muspelheim!”
The enchanted, ever-sharp blade of Balmung tore itself from the Nazi’s gut with a sickening suction. Its light flashed over Grimm’s head, brought high in position for a final, fatal strike.
“That may be so, but you won’t be alive to witness it, dog!”
With one hand on the hilt and the other adding its strength to the back of the weapon, Grimm punctured the heart of Wittgenstein’s cold iron machine, ripping its arcane engine asunder. Liquid green light, burning from within the ruined device, boiled flesh, blackened bones and, before its heat had subsided, disintegrated the mortal remains of Garm in a fine gray ash as it faded in the wind of morning.
In that instant, Reinhard Heydrich, the Butcher of Prague and Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia, was dead, accepted at last into the cold bosom of Hel herself.
* * *
MacAndrew threw himself to the ground, letting loose a spray of bullets at the last of the charging Nazis that had been guarding the Lezaky peasants. Leaping to his feet, “Run,” he yelled at the cowering people. They didn’t need to be told twice.