Will said, “That’s troubling.”
Pethick sighed. He dug out a key and handed it to Will.
Will imagined how he and Marsh might have reacted, had Stephenson suddenly vanished while Milkweed was on the verge of a major operation. It was rather suspicious, and compounded Will’s sense of dread. This was not right. But he knew better than to think it might scuttle the day’s plans, so he left the worrying to Pethick and resigned himself to spending the rest of the day in the cellar.
The pall of unease hanging over Will thickened into coal black thunderheads of despair when he checked on the children.
Finger paint had been splashed across the observation window. Picture books had spilled from an overturned bookcase. Torn pages littered the floor. They’d shredded their cushions; goose down swirled around their feet, piled up in the corners like snowdrifts. The maps hung in tatters. And in the midst of the destruction, the children virtually bounced off the walls while screaming themselves hoarse in a hodgepodge of English and Enochian.
The children, Will knew, took their emotional cues from the Eidolons. Insofar as cosmic entities had emotions; Will had always been unclear on that point. He doubted any of the other warlocks could have given a definitive answer.
Something was very, very wrong. Pembroke just happened to go missing while the Eidolons decided to throw a tantrum? No mere coincidence, this. The Eidolons saw everything at once, everywhere. Not as a chain of discrete events through time and space. A stone, a pond, and the ripples were all the same to them.
But which parts are the ripples, and which parts the stone? Will wondered.
When they weren’t communing with demons, the children were subject to the limitations of their human bodies. The youngest succumbed to weariness first. Pandemonium descended into bedlam, and then into mere chaos. It was as though a cyclone had passed through the classroom, whipping the children into a frenzy, but now it had passed, taking their appetite for mischief along with it. Several children were snoring, sprawled on torn cushions or huddled together on the floor, when Marsh brought the Twin downstairs.
Like Klaus, Gretel, and the other men and women whom Will had glimpsed in the Tarragona filmstrip, the poor woman had a bundle of wires trailing from her skull. But the first thing Will noticed was her eyes. They didn’t match. He wondered if her sister shared that unusual trait.
“Well, hello there,” he said. “My name is William.”
Behind the Twin, Marsh slashed one hand through the air in a frantic “cut it out” motion. Ah. Yes. Just do my job, shall I? Pretend she’s a useful tool and nothing more?
Will ignored him. “I understand you’ve had a rather trying morning.”
Marsh said something in German, ostensibly translating for the Twin. She spared a moment from surveying the surroundings, the expression on her face growing more puzzled by the moment, to nod at Will. He recognized the slate she carried; Marsh had used it sporadically during the first few days after he returned from the hospital. A single word had been printed on the slate in block letters, and underlined: BITTE?
Will had only a smattering of German, but the meaning came across just the same. She begged Marsh to deliver on his promise. Will suspected she might change her mind after the Eidolons gave her a once-over.
Marsh frowned at the observation window, where streaks of green, purple, and red trickled down the pane to mix into a dull brown along the sash. “What the hell is this? What did you tell them?”
Will pulled him aside. He whispered, “I told you they were agitated, didn’t I? Well, here’s your proof. They had already torn the place to shreds when I arrived.”
“They look exhausted. Can they still do what we need?”
Will made an effort to keep his voice level. “Perhaps we ought to rethink this. First Pembroke goes missing, and then the Eidolons whip the children into a frenzy. Don’t you think this is a bit troubling?”
Marsh shook his head. “The Eidolons had nothing to do with Pembroke. It’s Gretel. I’d swear my life on it.”
Damn the stubborn fool. “You may very well be, if this isn’t a coincidence.”
“We’ll worry about it later.” Marsh pointed at the Twin. “You need to get her sister here, now. We can’t risk having them tell Ivan about you and this place.”
“You don’t trust them.”
“Of course not.”
Will asked, “Pethick’s done his part?”
The words tasted like ash. He leaned against the wall, took steadying breaths, trying not to sick up.
The Eidolons had demanded eight new blood maps for today’s work. Eight innocent civilians killed or maimed by their own government. Will hated himself for knowing this and not shouting it from the rooftops. One can either condemn atrocities, or be an accessory to them. Will had done both in his life.
The last time Milkweed had attempted a teleportation, Will and the other warlocks had been forced to derail entire trains in order to meet the Eidolons’ price.
Marsh nodded. He still favored the wounded side of his neck when he moved. “The prices have been paid. For this, and for what comes later.”
Will couldn’t think of any further way to stall. And the poor woman looked desperately sad. So he said, “Let’s get this behind us then.”
He ushered Marsh and the Twin through the door to the classroom. The few children who weren’t dead asleep ignored the newcomer, much as they’d ignored Will the first time he’d come here. But Marsh’s arrival brought their stupor to an end. The older children nudged the younger ones.
“The man Marsh is here.”
A few blinks, a few rubbed eyes, and soon the entire class was on its feet. As one, they crowded around Marsh and the Twin, who looked deeply uncertain about this.
“The man Marsh is here,” repeated the oldest. The others repeated Marsh’s human name. It became a chant.
“Children.” Will clapped. The chanting continued, faster. Will clapped again. “Children!”
They stopped. They looked at Will. “Hello, William,” said the boy who’d recognized Marsh. Will-ee-am.
“Hello, children.” He cast a glance at the Twin. She looked shaken. He tried to give her a reassuring smile. Marsh spoke to her in what was probably the most soothing tone his ruined voice could manage. Will returned his attention to the children.
“Do you remember when I told you about my friend, whose twin sister is lost and alone?”
A handful of children nodded. The rest watched him with dull eyes.
Will held a hand out to the Twin. She came forward.
“Here she is. Isn’t she nice?” From the corner of his mouth, Will added, “Wave to the children, please.” Marsh translated; she managed a trembling, halfhearted wave.
“But our friend here,” said Will, “is quite sad. She misses her sister very much.” He looked around at the assortment of cherubic faces. “I think we should bring her sister here. Don’t you?”
Will had tied himself in knots over the wording of the negotiation. He’d opted for the clearest, most specific statement possible. It was crucial the children understood exactly what he wanted, lest he wind up with a two-headed grotesquery screaming itself to death on the classroom floor. They sought to reunite the Twins, but not unify them. Such was the danger. Without sufficiently considered phrasing, the Eidolons might very well try to stuff both women into the same body. It was all the same to the demons. Will hoped he’d circumvented that, but still felt queasy. She seemed decent.
“Bring her here,” said one of the oldest boys.
“Bring her here,” said the girl in the pink frock.
More children picked up this new chant. New voices joined in each iteration.
Will fished inside a pocket of his waistcoat for a safety pin. Raising his voice to speak over the chanting, he said, “I have to prick her finger. Her sister must draw her own blood as well. The tiniest drop will suffice.”
She looked even more confused and doubtful when Marsh relayed the instr
uctions. But she let Will stab the pad of her index finger. He squeezed, gently, until a scarlet bead welled from the puncture. Meanwhile, her expression went a bit slack. The children picked up the tempo.
The Twin winced. Marsh asked her something in German. She nodded. “It’s done,” he said.
The last children joined the chorus. As before, they switched seamlessly from English to Enochian: inhuman syllables built from the howls of dying galaxies, the sizzle of starlight, the thunder of creation, the silence of an empty universe. Terror replaced apprehension on the Twin’s face.
Something entered the room. It oozed in through the fissures between one instant and the next. That dreadfully familiar pressure, that suffocating sense of a vast intelligence suffused their surroundings. Even the air felt thicker, heavier. More real. The floor rippled underfoot, as the geometry of the world flowed like soft candle wax around the searing reality of the Eidolon.
The children burbled in Enochian. They spoke in unison, their precision inhuman. Will still hadn’t cracked the deep structure of their creole, but the surface meaning cascaded through the chthonic rumbles. They called up a prior negotiation, put it to the Eidolon’s attention.
It responded in kind. As the surface of the sun to a smoldering campfire, so, too, was the pure Enochian of an Eidolon to that filtered through human flesh. There was a deep structure here as well—undercurrents of impatience and agitation churning a malevolent sea.
The Twin clamped her hands over her ears. The slate fell from her trembling fingers. It bounced: once, twice, then made an impossibly slow pirouette before coming to rest suspended on a single corner.
Will shifted his weight again, buffeted by the howl of Enochian. He listened.
Commingled blood. A price paid. Somewhere in London, a pair of window-washers had tumbled to their deaths when their scaffolding failed. Scaffolding sabotaged by Pethick’s men and marked with specks of the warlock children’s blood. Elsewhere, a chain had snapped at a shipyard, crushing two men. And an accident on the Tube had killed five and wounded eleven.
Commingled blood maps. Another sliver of the world handed to the Eidolons. Milkweed had overpaid, but the Eidolons never made change.
The negotiation and blood price were complete. Now it was the Eidolon’s turn. It agreed to this task in the language of creation, using grammar like a chisel that sculpted reality.
Will nodded at Marsh. Marsh took the Twin’s wrist and pulled her hand toward the children. A red streak marred her ear where she’d pressed her fingers. Blood dripped to the floor, loud as a scream.
The Eidolon found her blood. It read the map, traced the boundaries of her existence, and saw her.
Terror distorted her features, revealed rings of eggshell white around her mismatched eyes. Her knees gave out. Marsh caught her.
Almost done. Now for the trick that made this entire venture possible. A loophole that would enable the warlock children to retrieve a person they’d never met.
Identical twins. Identical blood.
All that remained was to make the connection and bring it to the Eidolon’s attention.
See this, said the children. Two bodies, one blood.
“Quickly now,” Will managed. “She has to connect with her sister. While it’s watching her.”
Marsh whispered in the Twin’s bloodied ear. Will couldn’t imagine how she could concentrate under that cosmic scrutiny. But she was stronger, far stronger, than she looked. Her fear-wide eyes glazed over as she once again called up that thing Klaus called Willenskräfte to build a bridge of willpower to her sister.
And that’s when everything went to hell.
The undercurrent of agitation from the Eidolon erupted into a tsunami of rage. Will dropped to his knees, his concentration shattered by the onslaught. Even the children staggered beneath the tidal wave of celestial indignation. They screamed, curling into fetal balls as they hit the floor.
The Twin lay unconscious, dragged to the center of the maelstrom. Marsh crawled forward. He tried to grab her, but the Eidolonic fury had shredded the space and time around her to confetti.
A silent explosion. The Eidolon withdrew, and the world reverted to its shadow-puppet reality. Two women lay on the floor, where eons earlier there had been only one.
Marsh scrambled to their sides. He checked their pulses, their shallow breathing. The new arrival sat up, unsteadily, with Marsh’s help. Her sister’s eyelids fluttered.
A stillness had descended upon the classroom, broken only by scattered sniffling and crying. Will crouched beside the nearest children. Roused them, reassured them.
The Twins huddled in the corner. They held each other. Will wanted to believe their tears came from the joy of being reunited. But he knew better.
11 June 1963
Milkweed Headquarters, London, England
The Twins were disoriented, and unsteady on their feet. As was Marsh after the ordeal in the classroom. He worried the Eidolons might have left the Twins permanently addled. Several men who had participated in the raid on von Westarp’s farm had gone mad during the transit to Germany. It was difficult to diagnose the mutes; their silence made them seem perpetually withdrawn. How did trauma manifest?
In one morning, Milkweed had stolen two of Ivan’s most precious toys. Marsh hoped they hadn’t lobotomized two innocents in the process. Knowing this was all for the greater good did nothing to assuage the pangs of guilt. The women were victims of von Westarp, the Schuztstaffel, Arzamas-16. But no longer. Perhaps some tiny measure of good could come of this. But the thought didn’t relieve the pounding pressure behind Marsh’s eyes.
Almost done, he told himself. Just a little more.
Gently, he took one Twin’s arm across his shoulders to help her to her feet. Will did likewise. They escorted the women upstairs, where Roger waited for them. Marsh collected both batteries; like Klaus, the Twins relinquished them without any hint of regret. Their equipment differed from what Klaus and Gretel wore.
Marsh introduced the Twins to Roger. “He’ll take you someplace safe,” he said. They nodded. Their faces, Marsh realized, were mirror images of each other. Both had mismatched eyes, but one pair was blue/brown and the other brown/blue.
Roger asked, “Croydon?”
“Yes,” Marsh said.
Roger sighed, rubbed the nape of his neck. “Getting a bit crowded out there.”
“Madeleine will just have to make do.”
The Twins showed no interest in this exchange. They held hands, resolutely determined to stay together, when they followed Roger to his car.
Will waited until the trio disappeared around a corner before saying, “I warned you something wasn’t right with the Eidolons. Don’t pretend you didn’t notice.”
Marsh fished another painkiller tablet out of his pocket. It crackled between his molars. The astringent taste made the muscles in his jaw clench up, like biting into a lemon. It always hurt to swallow, but the tablet dulled the worst of the pain in his throat. He tried to savor the minor relief; he’d be out of tablets soon enough. The morning’s adventures had spawned a blistering headache.
“The Eidolon didn’t like it when they contacted each other,” he said.
“Obviously.”
“Why not?”
“I can’t begin to guess. But let’s be glad we needn’t do that again. And I think we should call upon the children as sparingly as possible.”
Maybe, just maybe, Will had a point for once. Marsh had experienced the Eidolons before, felt their contempt for the stain of humanity. But this … He shook off the unease. Events were too far along; they were committed. Indecision was deadly. “We’re almost done. Rest up. And make certain the children are ready.”
Will frowned. He raised his hands as if to argue. But he studied Marsh’s face for a few seconds; then his shoulders slumped. “Captain Ahab had nothing on you,” he muttered. Will handed over the cellar key, trudged downstairs, and locked the sally port behind him.
Marsh knocked
on Pethick’s door, but didn’t wait before entering. The urbane Cornishman was slumped over his desk, cradling his forehead with one hand and holding the telephone to his ear with the other. His face was flushed, and he’d loosened his tie.
Marsh knew what this meant. He took a seat as weariness seeped into his bones.
“Keep me posted,” said Pethick. He tossed the handset back on its cradle. His chair creaked in protest when he stretched his arms and legs.
“Pembroke’s dead.” Marsh didn’t ask.
Pethick nodded. “I sent a lamplighter team into his house. The place had been turned over. It appears Leslie and his wife surprised a burglar several nights ago.”
“We both know this wasn’t a random accident,” said Marsh. “This reeks of Gretel. I’d wager anything Reinhardt had been waiting for them.”
“Most likely.”
He’d warned Pembroke. She will dance on your grave, he’d said. Pembroke hadn’t listened and now he was dead. But would it have made a difference if he had listened?
The pain and weariness sank deeper, past Marsh’s bones and into the marrow. Fighting Gretel made as much sense as fighting the wind. Resisting her was like trying to push back the tide. And yet that was his job.
“I suppose,” said Pethick, “this means you’re in charge now.” He slid a key across the desk. It differed from the cellar key. Marsh turned the cold metal in his hand. Pethick said, “Leslie’s office. Yours, now. I’ll arrange to have your effects moved.”
To Marsh’s mind, it wasn’t Leslie Pembroke’s office he stood to inherit. It was John Stephenson’s office.
I miss you, old man. He set the key on the desk. A flick of the finger sent it spinning back to Pethick. But Lord knows I never wanted your job.
“You’ve been here the longest,” he said.
Pethick replied, “Longest, perhaps, but not earliest. Like it or not, you have the seniority.” He pushed the key back across the desk.
Seniority. That’s just another way of saying I’m Milkweed’s old man now. A tired old man.
Marsh said, “This is what she wants, you know.”
The Coldest War Page 28
