The Suicide Exhibition

by Justin Richards

  “Offer it a cup of tea,” Davenport suggested.

  Guy stumbled slightly as he trod on a billy can. He was standing right where the soldiers had been brewing up on the primus stove. “Actually…”

  “What is it, sir?” Green asked.

  “We need him in a confined space. Back into the chamber.”

  Green grabbed the nearby spade. “Right you are.”

  “You got a plan?” Sarah said.

  “Of sorts,” Guy admitted. He had an idea—or rather, half an idea … “Just keep him back, buy me a little time.”

  Davenport grabbed another shovel. He and Green both charged at the Ubermensch. They crashed into it—knocking the creature backward. It staggered away.

  “Again!” Green ordered.

  They caught the Ubermensch still off balance, and knocked it back farther. It stumbled onto the edge of the fallen roof. The creature’s shriveled lips parted and it let out an unearthly cry of rage. Green jabbed with his shovel and the Ubermensch took another step back—up the slope, toward the half-blocked entrance to the burial chamber. It bent forward, arms stretched out toward its attackers, and roared again.

  “Doesn’t look like he wants to go back home,” Davenport said, breathless.

  “Good enough,” Guy said. “So long as he’s well clear of us. When I say, you two get back over here pronto.”

  “What are you going to do?” Sarah said. Her face was deathly pale in the unforgiving light from above.

  Guy held the small primus stove. As Davenport and Green drove back the Ubermensch, he had been pumping up the pressure inside. He hoped there was enough paraffin. He hefted the weight of the brass in his left hand. It was about seven inches in diameter, and could probably hold about two pints of fuel. With his other hand he drew his revolver.

  “Right—now!” he yelled.

  Davenport and Green ran back.

  Guy stepped forward. Just one shot … He lobbed the primus stove toward the figure standing halfway up the pile of rubble, and took aim.

  The sound of the shot echoed off the walls. A split second later, the bullet tore into the primus just as it hit the Ubermensch in the chest. The pressurized metal container exploded, spraying paraffin across the monstrous creature. It ignited in an instant, transforming the figure into a mass of flame as dry robes and brittle flesh caught fire.

  The Ubermensch was hurled backward by the blast, falling down the pile of rubble into the burial chamber. Guy ran forward, gun raised even though it was now useless. He was in time to see the Ubermensch stagger back to its feet. Its eyes were dark pits amidst the flames, staring malevolently. Fire dripped from its body and choking black smoke filled the air.

  Guy thought the creature was about to come back at him. But the nearest of the material draped round the walls caught a spark and exploded into flame. Guy felt the heat on his face as the fire leaped from one wall hanging to the next. In seconds, the whole chamber was a mass of flame. Somewhere in the midst of it a figure of fire, engulfed in smoke and heat, toppled forward and crashed burning to the ground.

  * * *

  The picture of four indistinct figures was pushed aside. The next image was very different. Number Seventeen was scribbling in circles, a mass of dark pencil like thick black clouds. A faint reddening discolored her cheek, like she’d been slapped.

  Himmler examined the previous sheet, peering at it curiously through the small round lenses of his spectacles.

  “Do we know who these people are?”

  “No, Reichsfuhrer,” Kruger admitted.

  “Or where the Ubermensch is located?”

  “Possibly underground,” Hoffman said. “Perhaps another tomb.”

  Number Seventeen dropped the pencil. It clattered to the desk top, then rolled on to the floor. Her mouth opened in a silent scream. Her eyes widened and she fell backward, across the bed. She had flinched before, cried out soundlessly when she drew the men with shovels and pickaxe, just before her cheek went red. But this was more extreme.

  “She has lost the connection,” Kruger said. He felt for her pulse.

  “Then she is no longer of any use,” Himmler said. “Get rid of her.”

  Hoffman glanced at the girl. She was staring up at the ceiling, calm now. She might be asleep—so young, so peaceful. He cleared his throat.

  Himmler glanced at him. “Yes, Sturmbannfuhrer?”

  “The … subject connected without a bracelet. She may have lost this connection, but we don’t know what has happened to the Ubermensch.”

  “With a full connection, the physical experiences of the Ubermensch are also relayed,” Kruger said. “If they are damaged, so is the watcher.”

  “But that might not happen with a weaker connection like this,” Hoffman pointed out. “And she might connect again, either to this Ubermensch or to another.”

  Himmler stared back at Hoffman unblinking, devoid of expression. Eventually, he gave a curt nod. “Very well. You will keep me informed.”

  “Of course.”

  Himmler turned and walked briskly from the room. Hoffman helped Kruger turn the girl so she was lying lengthways along the bed. As Kruger turned away, Hoffman placed his hand gently against the girl’s cheek. It was smooth and warm, damp with sweat. But there was something else too … He looked up as Kruger turned back.

  “Her hair smells of smoke,” Hoffman said.

  * * *

  They waited another twenty-four hours after the smoke stopped billowing out of the tunnel entrance to be sure the fire had burned itself out. Elizabeth Archer came down from London to supervise the removal of any artifacts that had survived the blaze.

  “I should have been here in the first place,” she complained.

  “And faced the walking corpse?” Sarah asked.

  She sniffed. “I’ve seen enough of those in my time.” She didn’t sound like she was joking.

  Lady Grenchard was certainly not joking. She was appalled when she came to investigate the smoke, and spent the best part of twenty minutes railing at Davenport without pause for breath. Elizabeth, however, seemed to be able to charm her into submission. Perhaps the fact they were more similar ages helped, Sarah thought. Or maybe she’d claimed to be Howard Carter’s mother.

  The tomb was almost entirely burned out. The air was heavy with the residue of smoke. The floor of the burial chamber was littered with the charred remains of wall hangings, pottery, and other detritus. Close to the stone casket, there was a blackened shape, the silhouette of a man burned into the stone floor. All that remained of the Ubermensch.

  “Like he was trying to get back inside,” Davenport said.

  The stone lid of the casket lay in shattered pieces where it had fallen nearby.

  Sarah showed them the second chamber. But the glass jars were twisted and broken. The remaining fluid had escaped or evaporated in the heat, and whatever had been inside was charred beyond recognition. She reached out a tentative finger to prod at what looked like the last remnants of a gnarled tentacle sticking out of one jar, the surface like the burned bark of an ancient tree. It crumbled to black dust when she touched it.

  “There were bracelets, or something,” she told Elizabeth.

  “Not any more.”

  Where bracelets had been, there were now fused lumps of carbonized metal. Shapeless and welded to the stone shelf.

  Elizabeth sighed. “I’m afraid we’ve learned nothing. Well,” she conceded, “almost nothing. You and the others need to describe exactly what you saw, everything you can remember. We’ll get one of the Museum’s draftsmen to draw it up as best he can. And I’ll ask Penelope to arrange to photograph everything that’s left before it’s moved.” She meant Miss Manners, Sarah realized.

  They were halfway back to the promise of daylight and fresh air when Sarah remembered. She shrugged off the satchel that held her gas mask. Holding her breath, hoping she was right, she opened it and felt inside.

  “We do have something,” she said, taking out the bracelet she
had stuffed in the bag earlier, before the Ubermensch had woken.

  Carefully, Elizabeth lifted the bracelet from Sarah’s hand.

  “It’s heavy.” She weighed it in her palm.

  “Is it important?”

  “I have no idea. But it’s better than nothing. It might take a while, but I’m sure this will tell us something.” She smiled and nodded. “Well done. At least someone kept their wits about them.”

  CHAPTER 30

  It was several weeks before the bracelet revealed any of its secrets. While Elizabeth Archer painstakingly catalogued what had been salvaged from the burial mound, the rest of Station Z continued as usual. For Guy Pentecross and Sarah Diamond that meant going through more reports and accounts.

  “It would help if we knew what we were looking for,” Guy said as they started another day of searching through files.

  Sarah leaned over his shoulder to see the cover page of the file he had just opened. “That could be worth looking at.”

  Guy was aware how close they were, her head almost touching his own as Sarah pointed to a line in the contents listing.

  “You’re not even interested,” she said when he didn’t answer.

  “Oh, I’m interested,” he said quickly.

  Sarah straightened up, glancing at him before going back to her own pile of papers and reports. “Really?”

  He was tempted to tell her just how interested he was. But she was already at work, going through the file in front of her with what he knew would be meticulous care.

  He felt he ought to say something, though. “It’s just that everything seems to be moving away from us, does that make sense? Not just us, but the whole country.”

  Sarah looked up. “Yes, I know what you mean. The focus of the war has shifted. I guess we shouldn’t complain there are fewer air raids. The Germans are concentrating on Russia.”

  “And the convoys. They’re taking a pounding. But we’ll make it.”

  “What about Russia?” Sarah asked. “You think the Nazis will defeat Stalin as quickly as they did Poland and France?”

  “I don’t know,” Guy confessed. “They’ve laid siege to Leningrad and they’re getting closer to Moscow. But Russia is a huge country, and the winter will be cruel when it arrives. As Napoleon found out to his cost.”

  Davenport entered in time to hear this last remark. “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it,” he said. “Let’s hope Herr Hitler is not an historian.”

  Davenport had taken it upon himself to indulge his interest in archaeology and look further back in history—not just British and European history but the myths and legends and stories of other lands and cultures too. He came up with some fascinating tales of gods from the heavens, or who lived in fiery chariots in the sky. But all of them, he was forced to admit, were at best tenuously linked to UDTs and the Ubermensch, and probably simply fictitious.

  There were bursts of activity and excitement whenever a report of a UDT came in. Sarah found herself hoping it would be from somewhere distant enough to mean they had to fly to interview any witnesses. Brinkman had commandeered a rather rackety Avro Anson and, while Sarah objected loudly and frequently at having to drive her colleagues round the Home Counties, she never complained about acting as their pilot.

  In the air, Sarah felt at ease and relaxed. She was in her element, in control. Even when she once found herself flying toward an incoming German bombing raid, she didn’t panic or feel real fear. But at night, alone at her flat, she was very afraid. Every light outside during the blackout was a UDT singling out her street in Hammersmith. Every shadow in the flat hid a walking corpse ready to lurch toward her, sunken eyes seeking her out—watching her as she slept, as she read or wrote to her father, as she ate. As she undressed …

  For weeks after her experiences in the burial mound, whenever she closed her eyes she saw the Ubermensch reaching out for her—hands burning. She’d wake suddenly, convinced she could smell the dry, brittle, dusty stench of ancient death and feel its hand on her throat. Desperate for Guy’s comforting arm round her shoulder, pulling her close to him—so close she could feel the warmth of his body tight against her own.

  * * *

  If he kept busy then Guy didn’t have time to think about how long it seemed to take to achieve anything. He didn’t have time to think about whether he would be making more of a difference to the war effort if he’d stayed in the Foreign Office. He didn’t have time to think about the fact there was still an Ubermensch somewhere in London, despite the efforts of the police. There were occasional reports of sightings, occasional deaths that could perhaps be attributed to the creature.

  And he didn’t have time to think about the way Sarah Diamond looked away when he glanced at her, or lapsed into moments of awkward silence when they were together in a car or the plane.

  An unexpected benefit of the desire to keep busy manifested itself at the British Museum. Elizabeth Archer had mentioned her frustration at not being able to keep up with the news while she was working in the vault beneath the museum’s Great Court. Davenport had got her a wireless set, but so far below ground it couldn’t receive a signal. Having spoken to an expert at one of the Y Stations that had detected a UDT transmission, Pentecross determined to make the wireless work.

  He spent the best part of a day running a cable from a radio aerial above ground to the vault below. Elizabeth watched with a mixture of anticipation and amusement as he finally made the connection and turned on the wireless.

  They waited for the valves to warm up, Guy ready to play with the tuning and hoping his efforts had not been in vain.

  Elizabeth had been working on the bracelet Sarah had found. It lay on her desk close to the wireless. Now cleaned of dust and cobwebs, it looked as good as new, the tracery of silver catching the light.

  A burst of static crackled from the speaker, and Guy twisted the dial. The static faded, then came back—was that a good sign? Finally, a voice, faint but decipherable, emerged from behind the crackling.

  “Could be Alvar Lidell,” Guy said. “I’ll see if I can get it clearer.”

  “No, go back. Turn the dial the other way, back to where it was.”

  Guy did as she said. “But, why? I almost had the BBC then, I’m sure.”

  “Stop!” Elizabeth’s tone was urgent. “Other way, just a touch.”

  “You want to listen to this?” The wireless was popping and crackling incomprehensibly.

  Elizabeth pointed to the desk. “Look.”

  The bracelet was glowing. The silver was brilliant white, pulsing in time to the rise and fall of the static from the radio. As Guy watched, thin red tendrils edged out from inside the ring of metal—exploring the air around.

  Elizabeth picked up a fountain pen and gently prodded the blunt end into the middle of the bracelet. She moved it to one side, into the mass of tendrils. At once, they wrapped themselves round the pen, gripping it tightly.

  “What’s it doing?” Guy said, watching with anxious fascination as the filaments continued to curl round the pen.

  “Something to do with the radio waves,” Elizabeth said. “We know the UDTs emit radio transmissions. This is the first confirmation that there is a direct link between the UDTs and the burial sites, the Ubermensch.”

  She let go of the pen, and it stayed in position, held upright by the thin fingers of red. Then suddenly ink spattered across the desk, running along the thin tentacles, staining them blue.

  “They’ve burrowed through the barrel of the pen,” she said. “Interesting.”

  As she spoke, the tendrils withdrew. Ink dripped out on to the desk as the filaments disappeared back into the bracelet.

  “Seems they have no appetite for ink,” Elizabeth observed.

  “What were they after?” Guy wondered.

  “Oh I think we can guess. Just imagine if one of us had been wearing that.”

  Guy looked down at the bracelet. The glow had faded and it lay still and inert in a spatter
ed mess of ink.

  * * *

  In a vaulted chamber in Wewelsburg, one of the sleepers cried out. He sat up suddenly, eyes snapping open. An old man, face the texture of worn leather, stared straight across the room.

  By the time the nurse reached him, he had slumped back on the bed, eyes closed, asleep once more.

  * * *

  In a large house in Jermyn Street, the man the press had once called “the wickedest man in the world” was holding a séance. Four people sat at a round table. A ring of lighter wood inside the rim of the table was inlaid with the letters of the alphabet and the numbers 0 to 9. In the center of the polished wooden surface stood an upturned glass. For the moment, no one was touching it.

  The two men and two women sat with their hands on the edge of the table, outside the letters and numbers. Heads down, eyes closed, quietly murmuring the incantations necessary before they took hold of the glass. The sound grew slowly from a murmur to a whisper, then from a whisper to a chant.

  Another sound was added as the glass rattled against the wood. Gently at first, then more violently as if some unseen figure was shaking it roughly.

  The four people looked up, exchanged puzzled looks. Their leader rose slowly to his feet.

  Then the glass exploded, scattering fragments and splinters across the table.

  * * *

  Elizabeth was absorbed in the bracelet, re-examining it in every detail. Guy had turned off the wireless, not wanting to provoke another reaction.

  “I’ll put it inside an observation tank and try the radio again later,” Elizabeth decided.

  She didn’t look up, and after several minutes, Guy decided she had forgotten he was there. When he excused himself, she nodded without comment.

  On the way out, he met Miss Manners coming in. “You’ll be lucky to get much response,” he warned her. “The old lady’s rather preoccupied.”

  “I was looking for you, actually, Major Pentecross. Colonel Brinkman asked me to catch you. He wasn’t sure if you were coming back to the office this evening, and there’s a meeting tomorrow he’d like you to sit in on.”