by Ken Asamatsu
“Indeed, three of Hess’s men did just that. Not fatally, though. And I, generous as I am, repaid them for removing my gag by not killing them.”
“Where did you hide the mask?” Clara asked, and fired her Mauser into the darkness above. The muzzle flash illuminated the room for just an instant, but did not reveal the magus.
“Oho. . . . That is what you wanted, isn’t it? I’d forgotten,” the old wizard said, his voice a mask of false innocence.
“Well, I suppose with it being Walpurgisnacht and all, I could reward you with the secret I kept for these three years and two months.” When the magician said this, the world around Clara and Goto began to spin wildly.
“How very sad. Humans are so fettered by their preconceptions. Even when they see the very ground they stand on shattered, they don’t stop to rethink the path they walk.”
“What does that mean?!” Clara cried out.
“Go and look in a certain deserted house at No. 6 Friedrichstrasse. It is in a building that housed the offices of a moneylender named Frank Antelman.”
“Friedrichstrasse. . . . That was a hive of Jews!”
“Just so. The office was destroyed by the Sturmabteilung on Kristallnacht. When I received word of this ‘occult purge’ the Nazis planned, I hid the Mask of Yoth Tlaggon in the ruins of Antelman’s office. It is in a scorched safe.”
Clara felt the old man’s breath on her hear. She leaped aside and fired her Mauser toward the voice.
“I believe I told you to give up. As long as you are in this darkness, you are my playthings.” The old wizard chuckled, and said, “If I were you, I would hurry along to Friedrichstrasse. The Deputy Führer and his men could already be turning those ruins upside down.”
“You talk too much.” Clara’s voice was choked with anger as she said this, and she emptied her Mauser’s magazine into the darkness, firing for a full ten seconds.
“Clara, that’s enough. He’s right, if we waste any more time here Hess will beat us. If we lose the mask and Himmler finds out, we’re good as dead,” Goto said into the darkness, toward where he thought Clara was. Then he heard a heavy click. The sound of a hammer cocked.
“We can’t leave with Mergelsheim still alive. If we let him go free. . . .”
The Magus heard Clara.
“There’s no telling what disaster could befall Berlin. . . . Is that what you mean to say, Fräulein? No, no, have no worry. I am as harmless as a lamb. Here, I will prove it. . . .”
A scarlet light bloomed in the darkness and formed a pentangle hanging in the air. When the symbol was complete, the light vanished but Goto’s eyes still held the after-image of the five-pointed star.
“I shall hurry your way to Friedrichstrasse myself.” As his voice trailed away, Goto and Clara were overcome by an incredible sensation. Speed. Acceleration. A sensation of airless headwind. And movement. . . .
The two stood motionless in the basement room, but still felt that they moved at a mind-numbing speed. They burst out of the basement room, left the stairs behind, and then the lobby. . . the door. . . the stone stairs, and. . . .
Before they realized it, they were racing out of Wedding.
It’s like watching a film playing in reverse. . . . The dizzying sight made Goto feel nauseous.
The neon lights of Berlin, the streets and buildings, the Spree—all went flowing past. The two stood still yet flew ever eastward.
All the while, the city was silent. They heard none of the sounds of Berlin, only Mergelsheim’s incessant laughter ringing in their ears.
Soon, the mystical five-pointed star in their vision was replaced with one scrawled on broken walls in a desolated city street. Then, as they drew closer, they realized the star had six points. It was the Star of David, left by the Nazis to identify the homes of Jewish Berliners.
They had come to Friedrichstrasse.
“Almost there!” The cackling old magician said to them. “I believe I shall enjoy watching from the darkness as the SS and servants of the Deputy Führer tear at each other’s throats here, where once so many Jewish people lived.”
IV Rudolf Hess and the Holy Lance
Three black Volkswagens were stopped at the street corner. All were empty of passengers.
There were human figures visible in the freshly bombed-out ruins of a nearby building: six men, all dressed in civilian clothes with black trench coats and caps, but clearly military men from their bearing.
“What is the problem? Why have you still not found the safe?!” A man, the only one dressed in Nazi uniform, stood on the corner yelling in irritation at the men inside the ruin.
His face was dominated by thick, heavy eyebrows and deep-set eyes. In his left hand he carried a long, thin pole, like a spear.
“We have found no trace of it, Stellvertreter Hess,” a voice answered from the ruins.
“This is the only office under the name of Antelman on Friedrichstrasse. Keep looking!” the man shouted angrily, then suddenly looked to the west.
“That aura,” he muttered, then raised the spear in his left hand. He pointed it to the west. “The magus!” he said, and focusing his attention along the spear spoke a bizarre incantation.
“Iä! Iä! Hastuuurrr!” The spear incandesced into an unbearably bright shaft of light, which burned into Goto’s and Clara’s eyes.
As they appeared at No. 6 Friedrichstrasse, the man on the corner spun his body toward them and thrust his spear their way.
The head flashed brilliant pink and an instant later fired a blinding spear of light at them.
The two were struck, and it was as if they had been hit by lightning.
Mergelsheim shrieked in the distance.
A second later, Goto and Clara were thrown to the cold cobblestone street. Black-clad figures gathered around the two fallen interlopers. The men all gripped Bergmann-Bayard semi-automatic pistols, pointing them at Goto and Clara, of course.
A muscled arm reached out, and Goto felt himself being stood up by sheer strength.
Clara, however, slapped the reaching hands away and stood up under her own power, though her Mauser HSS was quickly jerked away, and she was held tight, her leopard-like motion fettered.
“I don’t know this man, but I have seen the woman before. . . .” The spear-bearer came over, waggling his heavy brows.
“Clara Hafner, isn’t it? The runic magus, and Himmler’s little vixen.” The man then turned to Goto.
“Chinese?”
“Japanese. I am Tatewaki Goto, the current second secretary at the Japanese embassy in Berlin—” When Goto gave his name, the man made a mocking bow, and as he straightened, spoke.
“What an incredible coincidence, running into a diplomat from a friendly nation in this. . . nest of Jews. Do allow me to introduce myself.” The man’s voice took on a passionate tone. “I am Rudolf Hess, Deputy Führer of the Third German Reich. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
He turned to Clara and went on. “Of course, I cannot say how much longer this acquaintance will go on.”
The black-clad men chuckled.
A murder of crows. . . . The Walther PPK was taken from Goto’s chewed hand, as well.
“Since you’re with Clara, I assume you’re also one of Himmler’s dogs, then?” Hess said.
“Would you believe it was a coincidence, that we just ran into each other? I didn’t think so,” Goto answered, grinning humorlessly.
“Ah ha. . . Ha. What a fine sense of humor you have for a Japanese, Herr Goto.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment, I suppose.”
Hess reacted to Goto’s joking by smashing the butt of the spear into his solar plexus. Goto doubled over in agony, but the men pulled him upright again.
“We were sent here by Mergelsheim! He used some kind of spell. We aren’t trying to get in the way of your p
lans, Deputy Führer! There’s no need for—” Hess interrupted Clara’s pleading.
“I know why you are here. You are after the Mask of Yoth Tlaggon, aren’t you?”
Clara fell silent, and her face went pale. Yet this was not due to the eerie aura Hess gave off, with his rumored powers of second sight. No, it was because she had seen the black shape of the magus moving in the shadows behind him.
Hess noticed the movement out of the corner of his eye, and gripped his spear more tightly.
“Are. . . Are you truly not afraid of him? Of Mergelsheim?” Goto managed to ask through his agonized gasping.
“His gag is off and it was your own men who removed it. He can speak the Words of Power. No one can stop him now,” Clara joined in, her face gray.
“You think that a man such as I should fear a worm like Klingen Mergelsheim?” Hess snorted, and brandished his spear before Clara’s face. “With this lance, there is no one who can stop me.”
“What lance?” Goto said, his breath finally recovered.
“This sacred lance once belonged to Longinus,19 a centurion of the Roman legions. Longinus used it to pierce the side of Christ on the cross, and for 2,000 years since, it has been a divine relic granting power to the greatest rulers of Europe. They call it the Holy Lance of Longinus.”
Is every one of these Nazis completely insane?! Goto felt his heart quail within him. This is an empire of madmen.
Clara, however, seemed to doubt the spear more than Hess’s sanity. “A well-made forgery, I suppose.”
“Forgery? Why do you think so?” replied Hess.
“The real lance of Longinus is held in Vienna. It sleeps on red velvet in a glass case in the Imperial Treasury of the Habsburgs.”
“And you are certain that is not the forgery, are you?” Hess stood proudly with his lance, laughing now.
“You can’t be serious. . . .”
“Why do you think the Reich broke the Treaty of Versailles in March the year before last? Simply to finish the Anschluss? Fool. We had to convince the Austrians to hand over the holy lance. What use could it be to the Austrian government when Austria as a nation ceased to exist, and became yet another part of the glorious Third Reich, just like the Saar or Rhineland?”
Clara fell silent and in that instant her face filled with fear. She seemed to find Hess’s explanation convincing.
Goto, however, was well protected by his common sense and could think of no connection between German rearmament and the spear that had pierced the side of Jesus Christ.
Is the occult truly so deeply rooted here? Does it truly consume the hearts of Europeans so completely?
“Enough. As the Führer says, debate for debate’s sake is fruitless. I think the time for talk has passed,” Hess said, and spun the lance as his smile faded.
“You two, go into the ruins there. You shall find the mask for me.”
“Why us?” Goto said, puzzled, but his only answer was another blow from the butt of the spear, this time to the face.
His mouth filled with blood from a cut inside his cheek.
“Mergelsheim is a tricky man. The safe almost certainly has some magical traps on it. I certainly don’t want to put any of my valuable men in harm’s way now that we have someone to take their place.”
Goto and Clara were then pushed into the burnt-out ruins of the moneylender’s office.
V Yoth Tlaggon Sneers
A shovel and a flashlight. Those were the tools handed to Goto and Clara in exchange for their weapons.
The concrete walls of the building were still more or less standing, but the interior was filled with wreckage.
“Did the Sturmabteilung use hand grenades? How will we ever find it in all this?” Goto said, holding his shovel.
“The SA was a pack of wild animals. They’d never use anything so small. I’d say this was dynamite.” Clara ran her flashlight over the surroundings while she spoke, her voice unhappy. The narrow beam of light picked out shattered desks and chairs, and walls scorched black.
“They sound more like gangsters.” Goto said. He seemed unimpressed.
“There’s no like about it: they truly were. That’s why the Führer ordered them purged,” Hess answered from beyond the broken window, where he stood observing them.
Behind him, the six other men stood with their guns trained on Goto and Clara. They all wore the same expression: one of mixed unease and hope. The unease likely came from the traps the magus had laid. The hope, however, was that whatever gruesome death those traps brought would be for Goto and Clara alone now.
For Goto and Clara, of course, there was only the search.
“OK, let’s get started,” Goto said, sighing, and dug his shovel into the ground. There was no floor to speak of anymore, only chunks of scorched concrete, burnt wood, and soil. Nothing else remained.
“Wait, I’ll find it.” Clara stopped Goto, and put a hand to her neck. She pulled the necklace there to reveal the ankh pendant she had used at the twisted building to break the SS wards.
“No funny business, Fräulein. If I see you trying to use your rune magic here, I’ll have you shot on the spot,” Hess warned from his place outside.
“I’m only going to try dowsing,” Clara answered, and removed her necklace. She let it dangle from her right hand.
“Which is?” Goto asked.
“It’s a very old European way of divination. The swinging of a pendulum like this helps search for water or pieces of metal underground.”
Goto frowned at Clara’s explanation.
“Why not just use a crystal ball or tarot cards? At least I’ve heard of those. . . .”
“Quiet. I must focus,” Clara scolded him, and he closed his mouth.
“Ah, that is a good idea,” Hess said, sounding impressed.
Goto turned to him. “And why not use that spear of yours to find it?”
Hess’s eyes widened at this, seeming to take up fully half his face. They were filled with shocked incomprehension. “Use the holy lance of Longinus to look for a safe? Surely you’re joking! What kind of madman are you?!”
“Isn’t it some kind of all-powerful magic spear or something?”
“The holy lance gives its bearer understanding and command of immense spiritual power. It is no toy for finding lost trinkets!”
“Right, right. Don’t use a hammer to drive a screw. Got it.” Goto shrugged in exasperation and turned back to Clara.
She stood about thirty paces away and began walking slowly forward. The pendant hanging from her right hand was drawing slow circles in the air. Then the movement suddenly changed and it began swinging violently back and forth. It was if Clara had started swinging it herself—but her hand was stock still.
Why is it doing that? It’s like the thing is alive, writhing like a snake. . . . Goto stared in disbelief.
“It’s near. Very near. The safe is in this area. It’s been hidden from prying eyes by magic—” Clara stopped speaking, for the ankh suddenly pulled its chain and started flying upward, inscribing a u-shape in the air.
Then, with great force it leapt forward, snapping the chain and flying at Goto’s face.
My eyes! Goto flung his left arm up to protect his face.
The ankh hit him, the metal tearing through his suit and burying itself in the muscles of his forearm.
“Agh!” Goto gritted his teeth and pulled the ankh from his flesh. Blood welled from the wound and he grimaced at the pain as he bound it with his handkerchief.
“How did that happen?”
The fact that he was more interested in the technique behind what had happened than angry about his injury spoke to his nature as an intelligence officer.
“It came into contact with a mass of energy generated by the magic on the safe. My hand is still numb from it.” Clara dropped the now useless chain and
tried to shake life back into her hand. She turned to Hess, as if she’d suddenly recalled his presence.
“The safe is here. If you want it out quickly, we’ll need help from those six big strong men behind you.”
Hess sneered at this.
“It’s not as if you’re digging a well. You two will be sufficient to uncover it. I believe a strong German woman such as yourself is capable of that much, yes?”
One of Hess’s underlings threw Clara a shovel.
It fell at her feet. Clara looked down at it, then raised her eyes to Hess.
“Well, I suppose you’re still better than Goebbels. He seems to think women are only good for having babies.” She spat this, her voice thick with contempt, and picked up the shovel.
“Come on then, Goto.”
“Right.” Goto nodded at Clara and went to where she pointed. The two began to dig. They thrust aside the lumps of concrete and turned over the half-burnt wood to get at the gunpowder-reeking earth beneath.
They worked in silence for about five minutes.
Then Goto’s shovel hit something with a metallic clang.
“Shine the flashlight on this,” Goto told Clara.
The light played over the earth. It showed a black-painted corner thrusting out of the soil.
“That has to be the safe.” Goto dug faster.
“Be careful. We have no idea what kind of spells he’s put on it,” Clara said, her voice full of genuine worry for Goto. She used her index finger to draw a five-pointed star in the air and began muttering runic incantations.
“Just a little more.”
Beneath Goto’s shovel, the safe soon revealed its full shape.
It was much smaller than they’d imagined.
It was about 50 cm deep, 30 cm across and 60 cm tall. It was small enough that Goto thought he could lift it out on his own.
Goto leaned over the rubble and slipped his hands down the sides of the safe. He got a grip on the bottom, braced himself, and lifted it.
He got it about 40 cm above the ground, when suddenly—
The safe moved.
It began jerking like a hooked fish.
“Whoa!” Goto was so shocked by this unexpected vigor that he let go of the safe.