Breach

by W. L. Goodwater

  “Did you speak to your friend Dr. Haupt before he came to see me?” Ehle asked. “How honest do you think he was with you? They are all lying, Karen: to you, to each other, to themselves. I lied to you in order to destroy something evil. They lied so they could obtain it.”

  Karen’s face flushed. “I know what you did in those camps, Mr. Ehle.”

  “You know nothing of it,” he said, too loudly. “You cannot even guess at the horrors we committed. Do not try. We did the worst things with the greatest of intentions. Like you, much of our work was dedicated to finding true healing magic. But in order to heal, we had to harm. In that, at least, we were successful beyond imagining. I shattered people, Karen. Broke them with magic just to see how they bled. Do not ask me how many died while I watched, because I simply cannot recall.” He turned away, sick with fetid memories. “You know nothing. Do not pretend otherwise.”

  “How?” Karen asked with a dry throat. “How could you?”

  Ehle sighed. “We were at war. If that does not explain it, nothing can.”

  “You were at war with women and children?” There were tears in Karen’s eyes, tears and fire. “How many casualties did you suffer in that conflict, Mr. Ehle? Or did they deserve it, because they weren’t German enough? I’m young and naïve, so help me understand, because from here it looks like you’re a monster.”

  “Of course I am,” Ehle said. She wanted him to help her understand, but that was impossible. “But what we did at Ravensbrück was nothing compared to what that book’s magic could do.” He approached the bars; Karen moved away an equal distance. “You called me a liar, and you were right. But here is the truth: Haupt, your mentor, retrieved the book from the fires of London, after killing so many he earned himself the nickname Butcher. In time, Voelker mastered enough of its mysteries to summon its foul power, but he needed to test his new spells. So he came to me. We thought it might salvage the war effort. We thought we could save Germany. But instead, we damned ourselves.”

  He wrapped his trembling fingers around the cold steel bars, holding himself steady, holding himself in the present. “I would say I remember the first person we used it on, but ‘remember’ is the wrong word. It was a woman. I think she was in her forties, maybe younger. I picture her now with auburn hair, but I know that is another lie. That I remember her at all is only because the spell was imperfectly cast. When the magic did its work, I watched the life ebb from her. Then she coughed out her soul like blood.”

  Karen turned away. Her skin had gone pale. “That’s enough,” she said.

  “I thought you wanted to understand,” he said, a little angry. She had demanded he draw up these old infections, but now she lacked the stomach for it. “In my time in the camps, I had seen pain. Unimaginable pain. But I had never seen agony like this, nothing like it. When it was over, she . . . what is the word . . . she crumbled, into dust. Into nothing.”

  There were tears on his cheeks now, but he paid them no mind. Perhaps now she would see. “In that moment, I realized I had already forgotten her face. Not like when a stranger passes you by, no, I had studied this face as it died. It should have stayed with me forever. But it was simply gone, like it had never been. Like she had never been.”

  He hated this, but the pain was purifying, a penance. No, nothing could make him clean again. “But it was too late in the war to bring the magic to bear in combat. Not long after we made our first breakthroughs, Ravensbrück was overrun by the Soviets. Voelker still had the book, and so he made his last stand. I do not know what that magic did in Auttenberg,” he said eventually. “All I know is that I would do anything to see it purged from this world. Anything.”

  Karen was far away now, pressed against the wall.

  “I am a monster,” he said one last time. “What I have done can never be forgiven. But I am not asking for forgiveness. I am asking for your help. Auttenberg has been sealed for these long years, but no longer. If not the Soviets, then the Americans, or the French, or the British—someone seeking power, or safety, or knowledge will take that book and try to use it, and the world will suffer for it. Unless we act. Now.”

  She approached the cell then, her hands contracted into fists. “We should have left you on the other side of the Wall. I’m just glad Dennis didn’t know who he died to save,” she said, her voice soft but shaking with rage.

  When she was gone, Ehle stared after her. He thought of his wife, his daughter. He thought of the women of Ravensbrück, those he did not remember and those he could not. And he thought of Auttenberg, waiting in darkness like an unconfessed sin. And he wept.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Old men have a curious response to waiting. To some, even the slightest delay is intolerable, whereas others can sit and watch the hours creep by undisturbed. Long life either makes a man covetous of the time left him or gives him perspective on the relative worth of a moment. The colonel had believed himself among the latter. He liked to think of himself as a patient man. He enjoyed the notion that he was the careful hunter watching the game trail, not moving a muscle, content for his prey to reveal itself when it is ready.

  But Berlin was unmaking him. Too many pieces on the board, too many wheels turning, too many voices from Moscow in his ear. He just wanted this business done so he could return home. He wanted to watch his daughter dance. He wanted to smell his wife’s hair. He wanted to be free of Germany.

  He checked his pocket watch. Only a few minutes had passed. Patience. Let your plan work itself out. Let your quarry come. It will come. He will come.

  “Sir?” It was Leonid.

  “What is it?”

  “The magician is here.”

  The bulbous German magician with the tiny teeth and ambitious eyes entered. Like all of his countrymen, he could not help but show fear when ushered into Karlshorst. The colonel did not blame them for their trepidation. The compound here was, after all, the clearest reminder that despite the trappings of a government and the never-ending masquerade that was international diplomacy, Germany was still an occupied nation. And yet this one seemed also somehow pleased with himself for braving these walls.

  “Unless you have come to give me profound news,” he said before the man could even take a seat, “your time would be better spent at the Wall.”

  The magician beamed a toothy smile. “I have come to report on our progress, Comrade Colonel.”

  “Progress?”

  “Exciting progress,” the magician said.

  The colonel offered him a chair. “Tell me your name.”

  “Krauss, Comrade Colonel.”

  “Impress me with your progress, Herr Krauss.”

  The magician folded his blunt hands over his chest. With his fingers interlaced, they looked like pale pink sausages. “Sir, we have done more in the last week than we have been able to in the last year,” Krauss said. “It is of course advantageous that the Wall magic is deteriorating—”

  “I am not certain either of our governments would agree.”

  Krauss scoffed at this. “I am sure it introduces some political difficulties,” Krauss replied, “but it makes the excavation of Auttenberg infinitely simpler.”

  People were dying in the streets of Berlin. Fools convinced of a better life in the West were facing down tanks and machine guns to break through the failing Wall under the watchful eye of American, British, and French soldiers. Political difficulties indeed.

  “You see, sir,” Krauss continued, “with the Wall diminishing we can focus on the other magical interference keeping us out of the district. There is a great deal there, more than we anticipated, but we have already begun to break down the outer layers.”

  “If it was so simple, why have we been waiting so long for any success?”

  “Well, sir, I do not wish to speak out of turn,” Krauss said, flexing those sausages until they shone white, “but I had offered a number of suggestions t
o Herr Ehle that he did not consider worth pursuing. With his absence, I have already put some of them to good use.”

  “And why did he reject them?”

  “I suspect he was secretly attempting to keep us from meeting our objective, Comrade Colonel, undoubtedly at the behest of his handlers in the West.”

  “No other reason?”

  “Well, sir,” Krauss said, “nothing great is ever achieved without risk.”

  “What sort of risk?”

  “We are dealing with dangerous magic, sir. The only magic we could possibly use to any effect must be equally so.”

  The colonel fixed his eyes on the round magician and said nothing. Sweat was breaking out on his pasty brow. Good.

  “Well, sir, what I mean to say is . . .” Krauss sighed. “We have lost two magicians in the last three days, sir.”

  “Lost?”

  “Dead, sir. Unfortunate accidents.”

  More casualties in their undeclared war. “These deaths,” he said, “they were productive?”

  Krauss grinned again. It was an unpleasant sight. “Yes, sir. Very productive. I believe we will have access to Auttenberg very soon. Very soon.” The magician leaned forward and the chair groaned under his weight. “If I may, sir, what is the plan once we are successful?”

  Now we have come to it. The cost of enlisting ambitious men. “I will lead a team into Auttenberg,” the colonel said, “to recover the lost book, to be used for the good of Germany and the Soviet Union.”

  “Well, sir,” Krauss began. Hunger was naked on his piggish face. “Again I do not mean to speak out of turn, but if it is possible, I would very much like to accompany this team and provide whatever assistance I may.”

  The colonel stood and Krauss scrambled to do likewise. “Get us inside that district, Herr Krauss, and I will find a place to use you in the excavation.” He placed a hand on the man’s thick shoulder as he led him to the door. He pressed his fingers deep into the soft flesh, and then deeper still. “But understand me when I tell you that if you fail to deliver on these lofty promises,” he said, pushing in harder, “the terrors of Auttenberg will be the least of your concerns.”

  “Yes,” said the sweating magician as he tried to hide a wince. “Yes, sir. Understood, sir. I will deliver Auttenberg. I swear it.”

  “More promises,” he said. “Be careful what promises you give me, for I will hold you to them.” The colonel watched the man go, and then felt an uncontrollable need to wash his hands.

  THIRTY-NINE

  There’d be no sleeping tonight, Karen knew, not with these jagged thoughts clamoring angrily in her head. She sat up, massaged her aching eyes, and sighed into the dark. Life had been so simple before, when her only job was to try to discover miraculous magic and heal some lab rats. That had been a manageable kind of impossible. Not like this.

  She dressed and grabbed Ehle’s bag, which had come to replace the one she lost in the tunnel. Maybe some night air would provide some clarity, if she could convince the men on guard to let her out. Probably a long shot, but just stretching her legs sounded like a good idea even if she was stuck wandering BOB’s endless corridors. Anything but spending another hour staring at shadows, looking foolishly for answers that refused to come.

  There could no longer be any doubt that Auttenberg was real and that Ehle had told her the truth; the conversation between Ehle and Dr. Haupt had proven it. The only question now was what she was going to do about it. Dr. Haupt and George had come to Berlin to get the book before the Soviets could, that much seemed clear. That was the best possible outcome, right? Certainly the world would be safer if the US controlled the book’s magic.

  Right?

  She thought about George Cabott and the other men she knew at the OMRD: arrogant, careless men who would relish the thought of experimenting with previously unknown magic. All for the sake of world peace, of course. They wouldn’t start out with the same vile ambitions as the Nazis, but would good intentions be enough? What were Dr. Haupt’s intentions when he used illegal magic to subdue Ehle? The power was there, so he used it. Because he could.

  Karen’s shoulders slumped as she started up the stairs. This was not the sort of magic she had become a magician for. This was not the sort of problem she had been inspired to solve. And yet, here she was. The decision wasn’t going away. Either she acted, or she did not. Either she helped Ehle enter Auttenberg and destroy the book, or she waited to see what fate had in store. Either she saved the world, or she hoped it saved itself.

  She heard a door open a level below. Who else was wandering BOB’s stairwells at this hour? Karen glanced down. Whoever it was, they were moving fast toward the basement. Had something happened? She leaned over the railing to get a better look and saw a figure disappear into the lower corridor.

  It was Jim.

  Karen’s skin prickled. Why would Jim be awake in the middle of the night? He was supposed to be recovering from his ordeal. She hadn’t been able to shake the strange feeling she had when he had looked at her. She couldn’t know what he had been through, what that would do to someone, but in that moment he had looked like another person.

  And now he was hurrying through BOB, at night, alone. Toward Ehle’s cell.

  She descended the stairs as quickly and quietly as she could, her locus pressing hard into her palm. It was probably nothing. Jim probably couldn’t sleep. Just wanted to stretch his legs, like she did. This was Jim, after all. There had to be an innocuous explanation.

  It was quiet as she neared the door to the detainment cell. Painfully quiet. There was supposed to be an agent on guard at all times, but the hallway was empty. She crept forward on silent feet.

  The door was open.

  The first thing she saw was the soles of the agent’s shoes. He was on his side, his legs tangled up, just inside the door. When she moved closer, she saw the dark pool around the man’s head. By then she could see into the room beyond. And there was Jim, kneeling over the fallen agent, two fingers pressed against his neck.

  “Jim?” Karen said. “What happened?”

  He looked at her as though she were a stranger.

  “Where’s Ehle?” she asked. She saw him now, down on his back on the floor of his open cell. Without thinking, she pushed past Jim and hurried to Ehle’s side. He was still breathing, but had been dealt a hard blow to his temple. The skin was already swelling up in an angry wound, and blood matted his gray hair.

  She reached into her satchel to grab a handkerchief to clean the wound. “Call for help,” she said. “Hurry, I think he’s hurt.”

  There was no reply.

  She looked up. He was staring at her, only a few feet away, blocking the entrance to the cell. No, she thought. Oh, no. “Jim,” she said carefully. “What did you do?”

  “I have to take him,” Jim said. His voice sounded flat. “They sent me here for him.”

  Karen’s hand was still in her bag. It settled around something small and hard: the carved animal statue Ehle had used to lead her to his apartment.

  “What are you doing, Jim?” she said. Ehle had shown her how the old magic of the carving worked; she hoped she remembered. “Where are you taking him?”

  “I . . . I can’t . . .” Jim squeezed his eyes shut. In that moment, Karen slipped the carving into the pocket of Ehle’s coat.

  The next instant came as a blur of noise and pain. She saw Jim move; he came down on her too fast, swinging something black in his fist. Then an explosion behind her eyes, her skull cracking. And she tasted metal.

  When her vision cleared, she was on her back on the icy concrete floor. She saw the bare bulb of the jail room above her. And then Jim’s face. Or a man who looked like Jim, but with someone else’s eyes. He was speaking.

  “. . . stupid whore,” someone with his voice was saying. “What were you trying to do, huh? You going to break him out? Take hi
m back to your masters?”

  “What . . .” she said with a thick tongue, “. . . are you doing?”

  “Shut up,” he demanded. “I won’t listen to you. Not anymore. I know what you have been doing to me. I know about the magic. You can’t fool me again.”

  She swallowed and tried to ignore the pain that muffled her ears and her head. That look she had seen for an instant in the bullpen, that mask of hatred that had appeared and vanished in a blink, it was now all she could see.

  “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

  “Enough,” he said. “I don’t have time for this.”

  She realized it then: what was wrong with his eyes. She’d seen it before, when Bill returned from his mysterious absence: magic, snaking through his irises where it didn’t belong. Of course. What a fool. What a stupid, naïve fool. She had been too distracted by the celebration of Jim’s return, then Allison’s message, and Dr. Haupt’s arrival. The Soviets had a magician who could distort and manipulate human thoughts. Bill had been gone a few hours and had lost his memories; Jim had been gone a few days and had lost his mind.

  Karen pushed herself up to a seated position. “Jim, you have to fight it,” she said. “The Soviets, they are manipulating you.”

  He swung on her and raised a pistol. “Shut up,” he said again.

  “Jim, think,” she said, her eyes frozen on the gun’s barrel. “What are you doing with him? They want you to take him back to East Berlin, don’t they? You have to fight it.”

  She should have known better. There was no reason left in Jim’s eyes. Not after what they’d done to him. He came over to her, the gun stopping inches from her forehead.

  “How could you? How could you do that to me?”

  Focus, Karen. There’s only one way this ends, only one way to survive it. But no words came to her. A lifetime of training crumbled in her head.

  “How could you make me love you?”

  Even if she could remember a spell now, she knew it was too late. She knew some she could recite in a rush, but as soon as she started to speak, Jim’s finger would move. But that only mattered if she needed the words. She remembered the car ride from the Tempelhof airport with two young agents eager to impress the girl magician. She’d wanted to impress them as well, and had told them about the theory of Universal Expression, the idea that magic didn’t need words or runes or hand waving; it just needed the will of the caster. Spells were artificial limits on magic’s true potential. She knew it was true, had even experimented on it at the OMRD, even at Martha’s birthday party. She saw those lights shining back at her in her niece’s wide eyes.