She had always been proud of the fact that while the rest of her colleagues were off battling rogue magicians or discovering new ways to wage magical war, she’d dedicated herself to something noble.
And now here she was, dead men in her wake and another in agony before her.
She pulled back her magic. George gasped in relief.
No, she thought. I’m not like them. They can’t make me be like them.
She could be something else.
Karen knelt beside Jim, touched his hair. He still wasn’t moving.
Her research had found nothing, not a single spell in all of magical history that could heal even a paper cut. Ehle had failed in his own search, and his methods hadn’t been bound by any morality or ethics. But they had both been searching while blindfolded. Magic, after all, wasn’t what they believed it to be.
With a sigh that became a cold shudder, she gathered up her strength like a final breath. All that rage, all that fire: she brought everything to bear. She mustered every ounce of arcane vitality she drew from this strange place.
And channeled it all into Jim.
* * *
• • •
Arthur didn’t like to admit it, but he didn’t have a clue what the hell was going on. Ghostly Germans, very real Soviets, and too much damned magic all over the place. Not to mention a giant black hole floating over their heads. It was enough to make a man wish he were drunk.
He’d frozen when they first entered the church. The sight of Karen all lit up with fire and light had quickly made it clear to him that he was out of his element, like a deer hunter who stumbled into the path of an angry bear. These were some of his people, but this wasn’t his fight.
And then Jim had to go and get shot.
“Damn it,” Arthur said. That boy had been through enough; he wasn’t going to leave him to die like this. Not in this hellhole. He was halfway down the center aisle when he saw Karen kneeling by Jim’s body. She was still burning like a pagan goddess. Then she did something, something he couldn’t see. And whatever it was made that breach overhead roar to life. As he got closer, his skin felt like it was broiling. His clothes steamed and smoked. But he could see Jim and Karen amid the shimmer of magic; indistinct forms in the haze, like overdeveloped photographs. He called out to them, but his voice vanished into the storm.
Hands grabbed him. Pulled him back. He swatted at them, but then more wrapped tight. “Let me go!” he heard himself say.
“Come on, Arthur,” Alec’s rough voice shouted in his ear. “We’ve got to go.”
“Not without Jim. He’s been through enough.”
“Arthur,” Emile said, a hand on his biceps. “Look.” He pointed up.
The breach blotted out the sky. There was barely anything left of the church; there was barely anything left of the stars. And still it grew.
“We have to go,” Emile said.
Arthur looked from the breach back to Karen. He couldn’t see her or Jim anymore. Just the void and the void beyond.
* * *
• • •
It felt different. She knew what using her magic felt like, even before it had burst out of her like water from a busted dam. Her magic was familiar to her by now, a timeworn reflex. But this was something else, like the difference between a shout and a breath. No, that wasn’t right; it was like she was speaking a new language, one that somehow made more sense than her mother tongue.
Jim opened his eyes.
His shirt was more red now than white, and his blood was still arrayed around him on the wood floor like a corona, but the wound—
The bullet wound was gone, as if it had never been.
“What—what did you do?” Jim’s voice trembled.
“Jim . . .” Karen said, furiously blinking away tears. There didn’t seem to be anything else to say.
“Karen,” Jim said again. “What—?”
“Don’t speak,” she said. “Save your strength.”
He lifted a finger and pointed up. “What is that?”
Her eyes lifted. The breach surrounded them now. The magic that had saved Jim’s life had ripped the breach wide; it was now an ocean, an endless sea of oblivion. Even healing magic, it seemed, fed the breach’s unyielding need.
Karen thought quickly. There must be a way to stop it. If she could use the power to seal flesh and bone, she could close this terrible rift. But that was just it: she hadn’t saved Jim. The breach had. Raw magic. Absolute power like that only ever did one thing. She helped Jim to his feet. He could barely stand, but then Arthur was there. “If you don’t mind me asking,” he shouted, “what in the blue hell is going on, Miss O’Neil?”
“Arthur, take Jim. Get him out of here,” she said. Her voice sounded distant in her ears.
“Karen . . .” Jim started to say.
“Go!”
The CIA chief nodded. He threw an arm around Jim and pulled him away, against his own weak objections.
She spun back to face the emptiness. It took her breath away. Suddenly terrified and small, she stumbled back a step and her foot kicked something on the dusty floor.
The ledger.
Voelker was gone, but still the breach remained. There was power coming through it, but what power kept it open without the caster? Something else was at work here; a single magician would not have had enough energy for magic like this. That energy had to come from somewhere else.
She heard Professor Goldberg’s squeaky words ringing from another life: Now, class, what is the best way to upset an existing magical spell?
Exhaust the spell’s source.
She gripped the book. Jim’s blood from her hands marked the cover in wet brown lines. It was such a little thing.
“You aren’t supposed to be here,” she said. And threw it into the breach.
But nothing happened.
Distantly she was aware that the others were running. Of course they were; it was the sensible thing to do, when the world was ending. She’d be doing the same, if she believed it would make a difference. Karen stood tall. She would face it, whatever it was, on her feet.
Then the breach exhaled. And began to collapse.
But before she could let out a long-held breath, Karen felt the breach reach for her. It thrashed about wildly, like a dying animal. Broken church pews vanished. Boards from the floor were torn up and consumed. A Soviet soldier, too slow in fleeing, was lifted off the ground and then was just gone. The breach’s expanse was shrinking, but its fury was at its peak.
Karen was about to run when she saw Ehle. He wasn’t far from her, standing still and facing the fading breach. She called out to him, but he didn’t seem to hear her. The breach’s foul magic tugged at his clothes, his thinning hair. She yelled for him again. Again, he just stared.
With one eye fixed on the breach, she ran for him. It was only a matter of feet, but felt like crossing a great expanse on legs too tired to move. When she grabbed his arm, at last he turned.
“We have to go!” she said, pulling him away. “It isn’t safe here.”
He smiled at her; he looked like a different man. “Thank you,” he said.
“Thank me later,” she said. The breach gaped in front of them. “We have to go.”
“I never thought,” Ehle said, his voice barely audible over the noise of the disintegrating church, “that after all this time, after all I have done . . .”
“Mr. Ehle, we—”
“. . . someone like you would help me.” He put a hand over hers. “Thank you, Karen. It is better this way.” Before she realized what was happening, he pried her fingers away and turned. Karen opened her mouth to scream, but by then he was through the breach.
And gone.
A moment later, she closed her mouth. She couldn’t remember his name. Erwin . . . something?
Then she forgot th
e shape of his face, the color of his eyes.
And then . . .
Why was she still standing here? What was she waiting for? The whole place was falling down. Time to go, Karen.
Time to go.
SIXTY-FOUR
The colonel watched the breach until it was no more. He had watched the strange scene unfold, oddly powerless before forces that were clearly beyond him. After what he had seen in the war, he had thought this world could hold no more horrors for him. He had been wrong.
His mind was muddled, his memories untrustworthy. And yet he knew his mission was a failure. He had come here for something, something important, but he could no longer remember what it was. He doubted the gray-haired man would be so forgetful. There would be a reckoning waiting for him; in Moscow, there was always a reckoning.
Only a few who had entered the church remained. Most of his men had been killed by the magic-mad American or consumed by the hungry breach. There was no sign of Leonid; with the arrival of the girl, he doubted he needed to bother to look for Kirill.
No matter.
The colonel looked at his pocket watch. The hands had started moving again.
He skirted the edge of the ruined building, eyeing the other survivors as they huddled together. They had seen his face, which was unfortunate, but it could be overcome. He still had his pistol, but this was not the time for violence. He just needed to stay low and hidden. East Berlin was not far and he doubted there would be much left of the Wall to stop him.
A smile tugged at his mouth. Perhaps he still might return in time for his daughter’s performance.
He heard the click and froze. It was an unmistakable sound: a hammer pulled back.
“What a night,” said a voice, speaking English with that absurd American accent. “Didn’t exactly go the way I hoped either, if that’s any consolation.”
The colonel turned slowly. The man facing him was older, a bit too thick in the stomach and jowls for his suit, and looked like he had not slept well in a long time. He might have been handsome once, or at least vital. Now he was on the edge of exhaustion, with sunken eyes and a sweaty brow. And yet he also had a black pistol aimed steadily at the colonel’s chest and looked like the sort of man who would not miss.
“I am an officer in the—” he began.
The man with the gun stopped him. “Trust me, I know who you are. It’s my job. Can’t say I’ve had a great track record with that job these last few weeks,” he said with a shrug, “but you do what you can.” He glanced over at the empty church. “And maybe tonight doesn’t need to be a complete waste. Let’s take a walk, Comrade Colonel. And have a little chat.”
* * *
• • •
The little girl waited for Jim, right where he’d left her. As the sun began to brighten Auttenberg’s streets with a (very late) dawn, she was already starting to fade. Jim could see the outlines of the buildings beyond her, through her. Whatever magic had held Auttenberg in place for ten years was going fast.
She smiled when he neared, but then her eyes grew. “Are you hurt?”
He looked down at his shirt, at the hole, at the blood. “Not anymore,” he said, without really understanding, without really believing.
“I do not hear the shelling,” she said. “Have we won?”
He knelt down. What really happened to her, that dark night when Auttenberg became stuck in history? Had she been in that church with the others? Or had she escaped, maybe making it to the western side of the city to greet the Allies when their tanks arrived and halted the Soviet advance? Maybe she was out there now, a free, happy woman enjoying a world without war.
“It is over,” he said softly, grateful he knew the words. “You can go home now.”
She clapped her hands and laughed, but when she ran to embrace him, all he felt was a brief breeze and the sun on his face.
Her laughter held in the air a moment longer, and then it too was gone.
* * *
• • •
Karen stood near the church, or what remained of it, for a long time. Whatever their purpose had been was accomplished: Auttenberg was free from its endless night. Now it would wake to see the world that had left it behind.
Arthur was there, rounding up those who were left. Alec helped Dr. Haupt, whose cane had been lost in the church. Emile hovered at the perimeter, watching eastward. Jim was closer, but did not approach. He looked dazed, as one might expect from someone who had been brainwashed by illegal magic, and then healed by impossible magic. Two bullets in the same night, Karen thought, both denied their killing purpose.
She closed her eyes and breathed in the chill morning air. She’d done it. After years of wasted research on pointless spells, she’d found the magic she had always believed in and had saved Jim’s life. Nearby, she saw a fallen Soviet rifle lying in the street. What had happened to the soldier carrying it? Had she killed him? How were her scales balanced now?
How was she supposed to feel? Because she felt cold.
Some of the tombstones of the church’s cemetery remained. The names were faded by time, some almost unreadable. Empty markers of forgotten lives. The thought made her sad. She felt as though she should be in mourning herself, but could not remember why.
* * *
• • •
They reached the park at the western edge of the district just as the sun reached over the buildings. Another glorious day in Germany.
Arthur needed a drink. Badly.
But his work wasn’t quite done; it never was, in fact. What a terrible job he had, a thankless, low-paying millstone around his aching neck, one he’d be much better off without. And one he planned on doing till the day he finally croaked. Or they fired him.
Though he wouldn’t mind fewer days like this one.
He’d had a good chin-wag with their Russian guest on the walk from the gutted church and he was pretty sure they’d reached an understanding. His English was pretty good for a Russki. Arthur still couldn’t help but wonder if the right course of action was to put a bullet in the guy’s skull and leave him for the crows, but he was supposed to be one of the good guys, after all.
At the park’s border, Arthur held back and addressed the man known as the Nightingale.
“You think you can convince them to back down?” he asked.
The Nightingale nodded. “We are all reasonable men.”
“You sure about that?”
“No,” the Russian said. “But we like to think of ourselves as reasonable men. That is enough. There was something we wanted here, but it was not war.”
Arthur patted the gun in its holster. “I need to tell you what I’m liable to do if you ever grab one of my boys again?”
“After today, I do not expect I will be in a position to hinder your work.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Arthur said, eyeing the man who made all of Western intelligence shiver. “You look like a survivor to me.”
The Nightingale nodded, and then turned to the east.
One down, one to go. Arthur waved Alec over. The Scot approached, shaking his head. “You’re letting him go? That’s a high-value target walking away from us right now. Not sure how the President or the Prime Minister will feel about that.”
Arthur shrugged. “I’m in a generous mood.”
“Better you than me,” Alec said.
Arthur’s stomach was turning sour. Mistake or no, he’d made his decision. Time to follow through. “You’d better hurry,” Arthur said, “if you want to catch up.”
Alec stared at him. “What?”
Arthur jerked his head back behind them, toward West Berlin. “That shop where we tracked Jim earlier tonight,” he said, “you ever see that place before?”
“No.” Alec was scowling.
“Me neither,” Arthur said. “So it took me a minute to place it.”
“Arthur, what is this—”
“After Jim and Dennis’s little trip to East Berlin went south, I had some weight on my mind. How did the Soviets know we were coming? How did they know when and where?” Arthur rubbed his cheek, listened to the rasp of a day’s stubble against callused palms. “Keeps a man up at night.”
Alec shifted his weight back. “I don’t—”
Arthur held up a hand. The others were waiting for him, too far to listen in. “Let me finish,” he said. “I knew we had sprung a leak, just had to know where. See, very few knew about that operation. Not something I was looking to advertise so I kept a tight guest list. You, me, the Frenchies, Garriety. And one had gone bad.”
Alec said nothing.
“So I went to our old friend Dieter,” Arthur went on. “An industrious man, our Dieter. Turns out the tunnel we collapsed wasn’t his only one, not by a long shot. Being a persuasive sort of fellow, I convinced him to give me the locations of a few more. Then I offered that intel up, one location to each of you. And then lo and behold, the Soviets try to sneak our boy Jim back east using one of those very tunnels.”
The Scot looked away. “Damn,” he said. His voice was quiet, quieter than Arthur had ever heard it. Alec sighed. “You were there in ’43,” he said, looking anywhere but Arthur’s face. “You saw what those Nazi bastards did. Everyone talks about how they sacked London, but I stood on Calton Hill and watched Edinburgh burn. There was nothing left when we finally threw them out. They salted the earth and killed a lot of good people, very few of whom were soldiers.”
“And we paid them back,” Arthur said.
“Not by half,” Alec said, his voice strengthening. “Not by half, Arthur. Now everyone in the West talks about peace and harmony with the Germans in Bonn, like any of them are worth trusting. They’re going to rearm them. We’re still finding bodies in the rubble in Scotland and they’re going to give the Germans an army, to ‘protect against the Communist tide.’” His laugh at this wasn’t a pleasant one. “The Soviets might be cruel SOBs, but at least they know that the only good German is a dead one.”
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