The Demi-Monde: Winter

by Rod Rees

  ‘But I’ve got to get to NoirVille,’ persisted Norma.

  ‘You should listen to Vanka, Norma,’ the Shade said. ‘As of now we haven’t a prayer of getting to NoirVille on our own. I reckon our only hope of surviving will be to haul ass to the Warsaw Ghetto and then make a move to NoirVille when the heat has died down.’

  Norma appeared less than happy with what her fellow Daemon was saying, but any further protests were silenced when Wysochi turned around and addressed Dabrowski. ‘Looks like the Checkya have barricaded the road ‘bout a half-mile ahead, Sir. It might be a good time to start walking.’

  The journey to the Warsaw Ghetto was one that Ella would rather forget. It was snowing heavily and without Vanka’s coat she would have frozen to death long before they got to the Rhine. As it was, the series of heart-stopping dodges and scuttles out of London and through the backstreets of Berlin that Vanka deemed necessary to throw off the Checkya was enough to leave her tired, cold and very, very frightened.

  All the euphoria of actually pulling off the rescue had long since dissipated, now all she wanted was to get somewhere warm and preferably away from the ungrateful bitch limping and whining along behind her. Norma Williams had turned out to be a world-class complainer.

  As Dabrowski had suspected, semaphore messages had already alerted the Checkya to be on the lookout for the escapees so when they finally got to the Oberbaum Bridge – the bridge that spanned the Rhine and linked Warsaw and Berlin – they found that it had been sealed off by the SS. No one was leaving the Berlin Sector for Warsaw without their papers being very carefully scrutinised. And Vanka pronounced the SS-Ordo Templi Aryanis to be ‘unbribable’.

  They made it across the river in a boat rowed by a man who valued money more than his life. It was a scary, nerve-racking twenty minutes spent edging across the Rhine shrouded in the shadows cast by the bridge, sneaking in and out of the lumps of ice drifting along the near-frozen river and thanking the Spirits that the snowstorm that was blanketing the Demi-Monde had become even heavier. It was an unpleasant boat ride but, thankfully, they made it.

  Once on the Warsaw side of the river, Dabrowski led his small band through the narrow, crowded streets to an inn standing close to the docks. Dabrowski seemed to be well known there and his appearance, with his bedraggled companions in tow, warranted not even a raised eyebrow from the landlord. Without a word of enquiry he led the six of them to a table by the fire, then bustled around organising the serving of a very palatable soup whilst simultaneously sending his maids scurrying off to make rooms ready.

  Supper over, Ella sat warming herself by the fire and trying to make sense of what was happening. Considering that only a few days before all she had had to worry about had been paying the rent and scratching up enough money to put herself through college, the change was startling. Startling … but surprisingly stimulating.

  Oh, it might be uncomfortable and dangerous in the DemiMonde but for the first time her life could be described as exciting. Loath as Ella was to admit it, she was actually enjoying the adventure of it all. Okay, so Norma Williams was a pain in the ass, but other than that …

  She caught sight of Vanka as he strode across the bar, three large tankards of Solution in his hands. Yes, there were things that more than compensated for Norma Williams’s incessant moaning, Vanka Maykov being the best of them. The odd thing about Vanka was that though she knew he was a rogue and a rascal, she liked him. He made her laugh and there hadn’t been many men in Ella’s drab little life who had done that.

  But he was just a Dupe. And a Dupe who since he had found out that she was a Daemon had become just a little distant, though he had at least muttered to her that Daemon or no, she was still the best-looking girl in all of the ForthRight.

  She gave a rueful smile. Wasn’t life a bitch: Vanka wasn’t nervous about her because of her colour but because she was real. She laughed to herself: maybe that made him not so much a racist as a realist.

  Her ruminations on Vanka were interrupted by Norma. The girl slid herself down into the empty chair next to Ella and began trying to massage some of the fire’s warmth into her right knee. To judge by the amount of moaning the girl had done en route to Warsaw, the knee was giving her a great deal of trouble, but if she had come looking for sympathy she would be disappointed. Norma Williams was, in Ella’s opinion, a spoilt, arrogant snob.

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘Look … Ella,’ Norma began. ‘Truth is we got off to a bad start. Maybe I was a little hyper, a bit uptight after the session with Heydrich. Maybe this whole escape thing freaked me out. Anyway, I was hoping that we might start over.’ The girl thrust out her hand. ‘I’m Norma Williams, but you can call me Norma.’

  Ella took the hand. ‘Okay. Forget it, Norma.’

  ‘So you’re the rescue party, right?’ she asked in a low conspiratorial voice. ‘You’re the cavalry sent by my father to get me out of this hellhole?’

  Ella shook her head. ‘I wasn’t sent by your father. I’m here at the request of the US Military.’

  This evoked a frown. ‘I thought they’d have sent an army unit to pull me out.’ Norma laughed wryly. ‘Don’t think I’m not appreciative of your efforts but …’

  ‘They couldn’t: they only managed to infiltrate me into the Demi-Monde by using a dormant Dupe jig. All but one of the Portals have been closed and even the last functioning Portal – the one in NoirVille – only works going from the Demi-Monde and not vice versa. I’m to get you to NoirVille and to escape using that.’

  Norma gave a nod of understanding. ‘Then we’d better get moving as soon as we can. If I don’t get out pronto that bastard Heydrich is going to steal my body in the Real World and I’ll be stuck here.’

  ‘Steal?’

  ‘Aleister Crowley has perfected some piece of black magic called the Rite of Transference. Using that he’ll have Aaliz Heydrich take over my body and then … well, it’s curtains for yours truly.’

  ‘Jesus.’ All Ella could do was shake her head. ‘That’s terrible. You know, this place gets freakier with every passing minute.’ She took another comforting sip of coffee.

  Norma Williams glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one was listening. ‘Yeah, the quicker we’re out of the DemiMonde and this place is shut down the better. When my father gets to hear just what a fucked-up hellhole the US military has been spending tax dollars constructing, he’s gonna go ape.’

  The words ‘shut down’ gave Ella pause. She looked around the room at Captain Dabrowski and that dangerous sergeant of his sitting in a corner chatting over their flagons of Solution; at the rather subdued girl, Lady Trixie Dashwood, who was slumped in a fitful slumber against the chimney breast; and at Vanka as he paced impatiently up and down the floor of the inn; and she thought it would be a shame if these wonderfully real personalities were to be destroyed. Especially Vanka …

  Norma seemed to read her mind. ‘Don’t worry about them, Ella. They’re just Dupes. They’re not real. It doesn’t matter what happens to them, all that’s important is what happens to us. We’re the only real people in this screwed-up shit-heap of a world. We’ve got to keep our eye on the ball. The only thing we should be worrying about is getting to NoirVille and clearing out of Dodge.’

  Ella nodded. The girl might be a little cold-blooded but there was no denying her logic. The Demi-Monde was, after all said and done, just a computer game and the characters in it just figments of ABBA’s overfertile cyber-imagination. And there was five million dollars waiting for her at home.

  Norma edged closer. ‘Somehow we’ve got to persuade one of these Dupes to help us. Maybe that Vanka person: he seems to be keen on you, Ella.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous, he’s just a Dupe.’

  ‘Well, Dupe or not, he’s got the hots for you. I’ve seen the way he looks at you and the way he tries to look after you. You’ve gotten yourself a cyber-beau, Ella.’

  Ella chuckled derisively to mask her disquiet
. She gave Vanka a quick glance: he really was a good-looking man … Dupe. That was the problem: Vanka wasn’t real flesh and blood. If he had been …

  Trixie was brought out of her sleep by a loud knocking on the inn’s door followed by a draught of cold wind whipping around her legs. She batted open her eyes in time to witness the arrival of six large and formidably well-dressed men surrounded by a company of green-jacketed soldiers. From the expression on their faces the new arrivals weren’t happy to be out so late on such a dismal night.

  Unhappy or not, Trixie judged them to be important, that is if the way Captain Dabrowski leapt to his feet and went across to greet them was any indication.

  ‘Why have you called us here, Dabrowski?’ demanded a large, rotund man of about fifty wearing a huge, all-enveloping fur coat and an aura of pompous authority. ‘Who are these people?’

  As the man drew nearer to the fire Trixie recognised him. She had seen his picture in The Stormer: he was Chief Delegate Olbracht, the man the newspaper called ‘Warsaw’s Saviour’ but whom everybody else called ‘Heydrich’s Puppet Polak’. He was the man who, as head of the Warsaw Administration, was charged by the Party with ensuring that law and order prevailed in the Ghetto and that any dissidents or protesters were summarily dealt with. Trixie shivered: he was revolting and looked just as slimy and duplicitous as she had always imagined one of the GoldenFolk – one of the ersatz Aryans – would look.

  Dabrowski crossed the floor to shake Olbracht’s hand. His usual poise and confidence seemed to have deserted him. As he stood nervously shifting his weight from one foot to the other, his cheeks red and his voice high and uncertain, he gave the impression of an overexcited schoolboy. His demeanour did not inspire confidence and neither, it seemed, did his reply to the plump man’s question.

  ‘We have just escaped from the Rookeries, Chief Delegate, and I bring urgent and shocking intelligence. I have heard from Heydrich’s own lips that the elimination of all those living in the Ghetto – what Heydrich calls his “Final Solution” – is to begin within the next three days. The SS-Ordo Templi Aryanis under the command of Archie Clement have been given the task of razing Warsaw – and everyone in it – to the ground.’

  ‘Twaddle,’ sneered the Chief Delegate as he levered himself down into a chair by the fire and took a long gulp from the glass of Solution the landlord handed him. He gave an appreciative smack of his lips and raised the glass vaguely in Dabrowski’s direction in an ironic toast. ‘To Warsaw’s foremost Cassandra,’ he said, and drained his glass. ‘So tell me, Dabrowski, is this the poppycock I’ve been dragged out of my bed to listen to?’

  ‘I’m telling the truth.’

  The Chief Delegate waved Dabrowski’s objections away and signalled the landlord to serve drinks to the other delegates. ‘You and the other hotheads in your so-called Warsaw Free Army have cried wolf before and yet here we are, still safe, sound and unmolested by Archie Clement’s thugs. It is the considered opinion of the Administration Committee’ – here he nodded to the men who had accompanied him to the inn – ‘that it would be ridiculous for the Anglos to attack the Ghetto. Why would they squander men and matériel on destroying Warsaw and the Poles when we pose no threat to the ForthRight?’ He shook his head. ‘It won’t do, Dabrowski: Heydrich might not like us Poles much, but he isn’t stupid.’

  ‘But I have heard …’

  ‘What have you heard? Admit it, Dabrowski, Heydrich might rant and rave, he might bluster and threaten but he knows as well as we do that to launch an attack on Warsaw would be a waste of time and energy. No, the ForthRight’s real enemy are those damned HerEtical witches. That’s where the next war will be fought: in the Coven.’

  There were mutterings of agreement from the other members of the Administration Committee.

  The Chief Delegate waved Dabrowski into a chair. ‘You look ill, Dabrowski, worn out. Maybe you’ve started to hear things. I’m told that soldiers who spend too long in the field start to ill-ucinate, start to become a little crazed. Maybe you should take a holiday?’

  Dabrowski reacted badly. Perhaps if he had remained calm he might have had a chance of convincing the delegates, but instead he became angry. ‘Damn it all, Chief Delegate, I have a witness.’ He pointed to Trixie. ‘Lady Dashwood was with me, she heard Heydrich …’

  ‘Dashwood? The daughter of Comrade Commissar Algernon Dashwood?’ The Chief Delegate began to laugh. ‘You really wish us to take the word of the daughter of the man who’s working thousands of our young men to death building his railway? Are you seriously suggesting that this Committee should accept the corroborating statement of a Dashwood?’

  Trixie bridled. ‘I will have you know, Sir …’ she began, but Olbracht shouted her down.

  ‘You will have me know nothing, young lady,’ he snapped. ‘You will remain silent as all women should when men are talking. I have not come here to be harangued by a hysterical child.’

  For a moment Trixie’s temper flared but she knew it would be a waste of energy when faced by such idiocy. She kept quiet, sitting cross-armed in her chair, shuddering with suppressed fury. Her time would come.

  Dabrowski took a long, calming breath. ‘What I am telling you is the truth, Chief Delegate. In three days the SS will seal the Ghetto and then begin a systematic annihilation of all the Poles and nuJus in Warsaw. It is time to begin our battle for survival. It is time to mount our uprising. It is time for Operation Storm.’

  The Chief Delegate gave a scoffing laugh. ‘How melodramatic you young people are! Operation Storm indeed. And what will this “storm” of yours entail?’

  ‘You must issue the order for the mobilisation of the Warsaw Free Army. We must evacuate the civilian population to the centre of the city. We must barricade the streets around the entrances to the Ghetto and move to defend the Blood Bank. We must send out emissaries to the Coven and to the Quartier Chaud asking for support. We must prepare to fight for our freedom.’

  ‘Fight?’ said the Chief Delegate as he jumped to his feet and wagged a finger at Dabrowski. ‘What are we to fight with? Sticks and stones? According to you, we will be facing the SS, the most ferocious and battle-hardened troops in the whole of the DemiMonde. What you are suggesting is suicide.’

  ‘I have information that there are two barges packed with rifles and ammunition moored on the Berlin bank of the Rhine. Give me a hundred good men and I will lead a raiding party to seize these weapons and use them to arm our soldiers.’

  ‘Absolutely not!’ shouted the Chief Delegate. ‘Such an act of piracy will provoke just the sort of attack you are predicting. Stealing weapons from the Anglos would bring the most severe reprisals down on our heads. Is it your intention to goad them to attack us?’ Dramatically, he raised a hand and pointed a finger at Dabrowski. ‘Is that what you are, Dabrowski, an agent provocateur? Maybe you are a crypto in the pay of the Coven, sent to stir up trouble within the ForthRight? Is this a piece of malicious agitprop sponsored by that witch Jeanne Dark?’

  Now it was Dabrowski’s turn to leap to his feet. ‘I am a loyal and patriotic Pole!’ he shouted angrily. ‘I beg you to listen to me. The SS will attack us in days.’

  ‘They will not!’

  For several long seconds the two men stood, scarlet with rage, glowering at each other in the middle of the sawdust-strewn floor of the inn. It was then a man moved out from the group of delegates to stand beside Dabrowski. Unlike his colleagues, this man wore a beard, a broad-brimmed black hat and a long black coat on whose sleeve was a white armband decorated with a five-pointed star, the sign of the nuJus.

  For Trixie this was truly a night when she met all of the ForthRight’s bogeymen: first a Shade and now a nuJu. The peculiar thing was that this nuJu wasn’t the beak-nosed, crook-backed creature nuJus were characterised as in The Stormer. He looked like a diffident and dusty academic, but though he was a little old and careworn there was a distinct sparkle of intelligence twinkling in his eyes.

  ‘Perhaps I might be allo
wed to make an observation, Chief Delegate, on behalf of the nuJu citizens of Warsaw. My people do, after all, make up almost half of the population.’ Olbracht gave a nod of consent but Trixie could see that he wasn’t happy about the old nuJu’s interference. ‘Reluctant as I am,’ the nuJu began, ‘ever to demur when one as erudite as yourself has pronounced judgement, Chief Delegate Olbracht, I would counsel against dismissing Captain Dabrowski’s warnings out of hand. After all, our Cichociemni cryptos have been sending us warning messages of unusual activity in the Anglo Sectors for several weeks now. We know, for example, that all SS leave has been cancelled. This would support the Captain’s contention that they are mobilising for an attack.’

  ‘Irrelevant,’ Olbracht scoffed. ‘Tell me, Delegate Trotsky, has your spying told you anything that isn’t just gossip and innuendo?’

  Trotsky gave a half-smile and delved into a pocket of his battered coat to retrieve a folded piece of paper. ‘We intercepted and deciphered the following semaphore message not more than an hour ago. It reads: “To Major T. Hartley, Officer Commanding Death’s Head Detachment of SS-Ordo Templi Aryanis: Warsaw District. Implement Case White with immediate effect. Demand to be made of Warsaw Administration for surrender of Daemon known as Norma Williams thought to be in the company of the renegade Captain Jan Dabrowski. Dawn-to-dusk curfew to be imposed. Civilians violating curfew to be shot. By Order Clement.”‘

  Trotsky carefully refolded the piece of paper and returned it to his pocket. ‘I think, Chief Delegate, your optimism regarding the safety of Warsaw and the rationality of Reinhard Heydrich is somewhat misplaced.’