Though he did not recognize her face, the colonel knew who she was at once. She was clearly not one of the unfortunates stuck inside Auttenberg when the world had sealed it away, nor did she have the look of a refugee who had wandered into the district when the Wall began to fall. No, she had the imperious bearing of an American and the coiled energy of a magician; there could be no doubt who this was.
“Your friend over there might be good,” she said at him in English, nodding at the defeated Kirill, “but his magic is slow and predictable. Are you any better?”
“Much, Miss O’Neil,” he said softly. Her struggling stopped immediately. No reply was forthcoming. The colonel took no little pleasure in the unchecked shock on her face at being so easily identified. At last, something good from this accursed place.
But her silence did not linger. “You,” she said. “It was you.” She no longer looked shocked; she was angry. “The Nightingale, right? That’s what they call you. What did you do to him? What twisted magic did you work in Jim’s head?”
“Jim? Ah, yes. The boy caught wandering where he did not belong,” he said. “I must admit, I am surprised he did not kill you.”
“He tried.” Her anger was sharpening into something more dangerous: defiance. “That magic you used against him is a war crime, you know.”
“A war crime,” he said, listening to the sound of this curious English phrase as he repeated it. “Are we at war?”
“If we aren’t, then let me go.”
The colonel frowned despite himself. This woman would be a problem, if he allowed it. He could not. “Leonid,” he said in Russian, “disarm her.” She barely had time to react before Leonid’s thick hands pulled the small leather pouch from around her neck and handed it to him. There was the shock again. Good.
He opened the contents of the pouch into his palm. A children’s toy. “You think you are safe here,” he said, shaking his head. “You Americans think you own the world. You think you can stick your finger into the fire and not be burned.” He upended his hand. The silver stars scattered on the ground. He brought his boot down on them.
She flinched as if struck, sudden pain written across her defiant face. A magician’s locus was a sacred thing. If she had been polite, he might have merely taken it away from her.
“Your foolish CIA friend learned he does not own the world. I taught this to him.” The colonel scraped what was left of the girl’s locus into a gutter drain and tossed the pouch in after. “I see I must teach you the same.”
She was staring down after her ruined locus, saying nothing. No more anger, no more strength. Emotions always betray, in the end. He had broken many men in his lifetime, more than he bothered to count, and the key to breaking each of them was through their emotions. Make them fear, or make them weep, or make them angry; it did not matter. Once they began to feel, they would break. Every time.
And women were nothing but emotions. No control, no will. This was why they made terrible magicians, why they made terrible soldiers. They were simply too easy to break.
“You came here with Erwin Ehle, did you not?” he asked. She said nothing. There was no time for this. He slapped her. “Ehle? He helped you take down the Wall and enter Auttenberg. Where is he? What is his plan?”
Her eyes slid up and met his. He could not read the thoughts behind them. He considered using his magic to pry into her mind. He even put his hand to his pocket watch, but then remembered the watch had stopped. Something about Auttenberg. Could he still work his magic without the tick of his watch? Certainly the power was in him, not in this brass bauble. But he knew he did not believe that.
He wanted to be free of this place.
The girl would wait. She was of no consequence. Ehle was of no consequence. Only the book mattered.
“Ehle isn’t the one you should be worried about.” Her voice surprised him as he was turning away. There was a smile on her face now, and a coldness.
When he hit her this time, it was no slap. Yet still she smiled. Very well, he thought. You leave me no choice. When he struck her for the third time, bone cracking on bone, she crumpled to the street and did not stir.
“What do you want to do with her, sir?” Leonid asked.
He massaged his hand. He had not meant to get so upset, or to hit her so hard; he was no brute. Yet she had left him little choice. They were too close now to have everything undone by a woman who did not know her place.
“Bind her,” he said, shaking out his hand. “We will take her back to East Berlin when we leave.”
As Leonid did as he was ordered, he saw scouts returning from their reconnaissance to the north.
“Sir,” one of the men said as he saluted. “We found people, sir.”
“More soldiers?”
“No,” the scout said, “civilians. German.”
“And?”
“They are all on the move, sir,” the scout said. “They have been ordered to gather at a church about a mile from here. We reached the site. It is heavily guarded.”
The Reich Office of Magic. More ghosts of the past. The Reich, like any infection, was proving harder to eradicate than first believed. Whatever hell they had wandered into, old enemies were waiting for them. The colonel did not want them to have to wait long.
“Leonid, assemble the men,” he ordered. “The church is our objective. Kirill, take four soldiers in reserve and wait for us here.”
The young magician scowled. “Sir, will you not need my help?”
Kirill was angry. Expected in a young man who had suffered a defeat, however minor, at the hands of a woman. But unacceptable in a magician. Anger caused mistakes, and they had made enough of those already.
“What I need is to keep our path of retreat clear,” the colonel replied. His eyes fell on the American. It was a risk, keeping her alive. Much easier to put a bullet in the back of her head. But he understood the power of appropriate leverage, even on a country as confident as the United States. He had been forced to return his last prisoner, but he felt that this might have proven an opportune trade. “And I need someone to watch over our guest. I would not want her to come to harm, and more importantly, I would not want her to affect our plans.”
Kirill was not pleased. For a moment, the colonel recalled the fury he had seen in Kirill’s eyes when he had recruited him from that labor camp. The boy’s talent had been evident from the start, but so also was his rage. Even then he had wondered if the boy could be tamed, or if he would one day turn his teeth on his master. But no, once again, Kirill bowed and went about his duty. Good.
“Come,” he said to his remaining men, “I know where we will find our prize.”
FIFTY-SIX
It loomed up out of the never-ending dark like a phantom, like a regret. From the outside, it looked as it had for hundreds of years. The Nazis had done little to the facade when they appropriated the building, its terrified priests all too willing to offer it as a gift to their Aryan overlords. After all this time, it still looked like a place of worship. And it still was, Ehle knew, though one that offered a vastly altered liturgy.
All of Auttenberg was being herded into the building by the black-clad soldiers under Voelker’s command. The people looked tired and afraid and hungry; they looked like the forgotten casualties of war. Thankfully so far none had sprouted fangs or taunted him in the Reichsleiter’s voice.
It had been many years since Ehle had last visited a church. The idea of God had fascinated him as a boy, bored him as a young man, and terrified him now. He was not afraid of being judged for his sins, but of an all-powerful being who would allow him to commit them. A God who would create a world that could give rise to Nazi Germany was a terrible creature indeed.
“Hey, you.” A German soldier with a gaunt face and a leveled rifle was approaching. “Inside with everybody else. Move.”
Ehle had heard stories from men
returning from the doomed eastern front. They spoke of utter cold, bone-snapping cold. Even when the sun was high overhead, your body never warmed, they said. You slowly became increasingly numb until you closed your eyes and drifted into the fog. Your comrades would find you, dead fingers still clutching your icy gun, head bowed as if in prayer. The only peaceful death for a soldier, they said.
He felt that numbness now. Eternity seeping into his veins.
You came here for this. You pursued it. Like a fool, you even prayed for it. Now go. See that it is done.
“You hear me?” the soldier said, jabbing Ehle in the chest with the barrel of his rifle. “Get inside.”
“No,” Ehle replied.
The soldier blinked. Then narrowed his killer’s eyes. “What did you say?”
“I do not take orders, Sergeant,” Ehle said. “I give them. Consider yourself blessed we are in a time of war, or I would have you whipped for insubordination.”
The gun lowered an inch. The soldier looked him over. “Who are you?”
“My name, Sergeant,” he said, brushing dust from his lapel, “is SS-Standartenführer Erwin Ehle. You may address me as ‘sir’ or not at all. Is that understood?”
“Sir, of course, sir,” the soldier said. “I did not recognize you out of uniform, sir.”
“Understood, Sergeant,” Ehle said. The church waited for him up ahead, but still he hesitated. “What is the situation inside?”
“Reichsleiter Voelker has ordered the remaining populace into the main hall, sir,” the soldier said. “We have been sent to round them up.”
“Why?” Ehle asked. “What does he need them for?”
“I do not know, sir.”
Blood. Life. Death. Powerful magical catalysts, Ehle knew. Too well. “Escort me inside, Sergeant. Your master is expecting me.”
* * *
• • •
The church was dimly lit, except for the raised pulpit, which was bathed in golden light. Even as the Reich Office of Magic took over the building, Voelker had demanded the sanctuary remain untouched. He often liked to address his subordinates like a priest, sharing the word of God from on high. Now the pews were mostly full, but Ehle knew the huddled congregants were no more real than the spotless church or the soldiers standing guard or the monsters who had attacked him and Karen.
“You came.” The voice echoed in the murmuring room, but sounded only in Ehle’s mind. “I so hoped that you would. I have been waiting a long, long time.”
“What is this, Martin?” Ehle asked. The soldier had led him to the front of the church, but there was no sign of Voelker. “Why are these people gathered here?”
“Power like this . . .” the voice said, “. . . demands a sacrifice.”
“What have you done here?”
“It is not what we thought,” the voice said again. “We were fools. Not in my most fevered dreams did I guess at its true nature.”
“I saw its true nature,” Ehle said. He felt exposed, naked. “That is why I am here.”
Suddenly the Reichsleiter stood before him, glorious in his officer’s regalia, not a thread out of place: medals gleaming in red and gold, creased pants tucked into spotless boots, pistol strapped to his hip. He had not aged a day since the war: still young, vital, full of pride. Ehle had admired this man once, idolized him even. But now the sight of him as he had been, the great German magician, dressed in Nazi black and silver, made him ill.
“This is the only way it could have ended,” Voelker said. “Do you not see?” There was something odd about his voice now, as though two men were speaking; not two, but the same man, speaking across a decade, across a lifetime. “Magic was never the salvation of mankind. It was always our undoing.”
“Martin,” Ehle said, “it is not too late to stop this. Where is the book?”
“The book,” Voelker said. “The book is nothing. It is a symptom.”
“It is corrupt magic,” Ehle said. The room was filling with the last of Auttenberg. Outside, through the smear of stained glass, he could see the first light of dawn. “We can destroy it. You and I.”
Voelker shook his head. “You do not understand. This book is not corrupted. It is purified. This is the essence, do you not see? Magic is not the gift of fire stolen from Olympus. Magic is a loaded pistol placed in a playground. We are schoolboys toying with danger we cannot understand.”
“I came here,” Ehle said, “to help you. You asked me, do you not remember? You asked me to help you stop all this. Martin, please, I know there is a part of you that wants to put an end to this. Let me help.”
Voelker blinked, looked away. In profile, he seemed older. There were deep lines fanning out from tired eyes, a sunken quality to his sharp cheeks, a thinning grayness in his blond hair.
“I wanted to stop them,” he said after a pause. His voice wavered. “They were closing in on Berlin. The army was in shambles, the Reich in ruins. The Führer, that coward . . . I had to do something, Erwin.” He turned back quickly and locked his gaze on Ehle. “But this magic cannot be bound,” he said. “It has its own will, its own purpose.”
“What did you do, Martin?”
“I . . .” Suddenly he could not speak. His eyes were fixed behind Ehle, on the congregation. Ehle turned to where he was looking. The ghostly soldiers suddenly raised their rifles. The machine guns flickered in the church like candlelight. The people of Auttenberg, betrayed in their final hour by the man they hoped would save them, cried out as if in prayer as the bullets cut them down, and then the room fell silent. Voelker’s magic moved among the dead like a scavenger, drawing unspeakable power from the offering of blood.
Hovering above them all was a breach in the world.
“I thought I had pieced together some great spell,” Voelker was saying. “I thought I had mastered the secrets of the book. But they had mastered me.”
The breach twisted and thrashed like a living thing. Beyond it lay a darkness so complete that Ehle felt ill after just a glance.
“Do you feel it?” Voelker said. “Magic . . . not as we know it, but as it truly is. It comes from there,” he said, pointing into the void. “The source of all magic.”
Man had always wondered from where magic’s power came. Theories and speculation abounded, but no one had guessed at something as terrifying as this.
“It is a trap, Erwin,” Voelker said. “Set by God, or something worse. Life is an aberration. Creation is a flaw. Magic is the corrective. Magic is supposed to wipe the slate. That is why the book always comes back, even when destroyed. Because its work is not done. Because we are still here.”
Ehle could not look at the breach any longer. He focused instead on the wan face of the Reichsleiter. “That was ten years ago, Martin,” he said.
Voelker nodded, though he seemed to barely be listening. Instead he was staring into the face of it, the dead unlight reflecting on his creased skin. “When I saw what I had done, I knew I had to stop it. The power coming through it is unfiltered magic. I have never felt anything like it. With that power I have been holding the breach in place, all this time. The world has been bending under the strain, repeating itself, an endless cycle of my gravest error.”
“Where is the book, Martin?” Ehle tried to keep the urgency from his voice, but knew he was failing. Now that the breach was visible he felt its insidious touch, heard its dark whisper. This was what was poisoning Auttenberg.
“I . . .” Voelker said, confused. “Yes, yes. If we can destroy the book, perhaps that can buy us some time.”
Voelker was growing weaker, but also stronger; the young, damned part of him reasserting control. They had to act, before it was too late.
“Where is it? Tell me, Martin.”
“It . . . the pulpit,” he said, eyes brightening. “Hurry, take it and—”
As Ehle took a step toward the pulpit, his body
convulsed in sudden, familiar pain. He tried to fight against it, to somehow ignore the feeling of dull blades tearing into every muscle. But it was too much. He fell to his knees, hooked fingers reaching in vain toward the book.
Dr. Haupt walked up the center aisle, his hands wrapped tight around his cane as he channeled the agonizing magic. Ehle stared at him through bloodshot eyes. A fool to the last. Max could not see: the breach seethed as his magic ripped through Ehle. And grew.
“George,” Haupt said to his assistant. “Recover the book, please.”
FIFTY-SEVEN
She hadn’t been knocked out, but she had enough sense to stay down. So that’s what getting punched feels like. Her skull rang like a cheap brass bell. Not so bad, really. Her eyes were cloudy with tears and her mouth tasted like blood, but otherwise she didn’t see what all the fuss was about.
What hurt far worse had been watching her locus disappear under the Nightingale’s boot.
She and Helen had exhausted many summer sidewalk hours with those jacks. Bounce, grab. Bounce, grab. It had never really mattered much who won or lost; most of the fun had been in making up new rules on the spot. Once they had left them out on the floor in the living room and their father had stepped on one in stocking feet. Karen had never heard him swear like that before or since. She thought of him, a world away. Would he come to her rescue, if he knew? Would he fight for her?
Even if he would, it wouldn’t matter. This was a mess beyond Roger O’Neil.
A tremor ran over her skin. Panic threatened to crawl up her throat and scream. She was alone and in serious danger. She might not make it home.
No. She set her teeth and forced the fear down. We didn’t come this far to lose it now.
Most of the Soviets were leaving, heading off to the north. Only a few remained. Her bodyguards. They were young men, younger than her maybe, and they looked afraid. She wondered if Auttenberg had shown its true face to them as well. No, she thought not. They would not be so calm.
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