“Indeed? How odd.” Himmler quickly lost interest in the subject. “Continue.”
“We know that the first part of the experiment was an unqualified success. Schweitzer was actually able to summon a demon from Hell. I observed the procedure, and the result, myself.”
“That must have been an interesting experience for you.” Himmler had been far away from the site of the conjuration, pleading urgent SS business. Whatever else he was, Krause thought, the Reichsfuehrer-SS was no fool.
“Interesting, yes, but also rather alarming. Even though Schweitzer had described in detail what would transpire….” Krause stopped himself just in time. He’d been about to say, “I didn’t believe it would really happen.” Mjolnir had been Himmler’s baby from the beginning, and those with doubts about any of the Reichsfuehrer’s little projects had learned early on to keep their reservations to themselves.
“…I was unprepared for the sheer emotional impact of what I was witnessing,” Krause continued smoothly. “Especially when the demon finally appeared within the pentagram that Schweitzer had constructed.”
“And then he sent it off to perform its task,” Himmler said.
“There was a rather complicated procedure involved, first, Reichsfuehrer. Schweitzer called it a ‘charging ritual.’ But, yes, finally the thing was off on its way.”
“To America, and the Jew Roosevelt.”
Krause nodded. He was fairly certain that the American president did not have a drop of Jewish blood in his body. But the Fuehrer had decided that anyone with such a name must be a Jew, and that had been that.
“The creature disappeared from the center of the pentagram, but we did not have to wait long for its return,” Krause said. “I gather that demons travel at speeds incomprehensible to mere humans. I had not checked my watch, but I doubt that five minutes had elapsed before there was a disturbance in the air within the pentagram, and suddenly the thing was back among us. It was in a rage, screaming that Schweitzer had sent it into some sort of trap laid by agents of the Nazarene, as the demon put it. Schweitzer became quite agitated, and I assume that is what made him careless.”
“What form did this carelessness take?”
“Each of the observers, including myself, was instructed to stand within a circle that Schweitzer had drawn on the floor with a special kind of chalk. He performed a brief ritual over each one, claiming that the circles would protect us from the demon when it had been summoned. But we were to remain within the circle — Schweitzer was insistent about that. Needless to say, he had prepared a similar circle for himself to stand in.”
“I assume that this protection proved… insufficient.”
“No, it worked properly,” Krause said. “Otherwise I doubt I would be here before you now. But, as I said, Schweitzer was very disturbed by this sudden turn of events. He tried to reassure the demon that he had no knowledge of what the creature was talking about, and had certainly played no part in it. Perhaps he was concerned that this mishap would mean that the demon would refuse to appear when Schweitzer conjured it in the future.”
“Surely Schweitzer had — what do they call them? — ‘pacts’ with more than one of these things?”
“I don’t know, Reichsfuehrer. But I do know what happened next. Its rage made the demon even uglier and more terrifying than before, which I would not have thought possible. So I was looking away to spare myself the sight of the creature. My eyes happened to be on Schweitzer when he unknowingly, I’m sure, allowed the tip of his right shoe to extend beyond the protective circle.”
“With what result?” Himmler asked, although anyone of reasonable intelligence would have figured out the answer to that question already.
“That was when the demon seized him,” Krause said. “It happened so fast that I had no time to cry a warning. Before I could draw breath to shout, the creature had grasped Schweitzer by the hair and pulled him into the pentagram. The man immediately began screaming.”
“For help, you mean?”
“No, not exactly. He was yelling to us, ‘Shoot me! Shoot me! For the love of God, kill me now!’”
“But you failed to accommodate him.”
“None of us was armed, Reichsfuehrer. Schweitzer had forbidden us to bring weapons into the chamber, saying that the demon might bespell us into using them on each other.”
“Disciplined men of the SS? Ridiculous.” Himmler seemed offended by the very idea.
“That may well be true, Reichsfuehrer. But as you will recall, we were given orders to follow Schweitzer’s instructions implicitly. And that is what we did — there were no guns in the room.”
“So what happened to the fool?”
“The demon held him by the throat with one hand— or claw, I suppose. It looked at the rest of us and asked, in perfect German and with utmost politeness, ‘Would anyone else care to accompany me back whence I came?’ Needless to say, none of us so much as twitched. Then, an instant later, they were both just— gone.”
Krause did not add that Schweitzer’s screams seemed to echo in the great stone chamber long after the wizard had disappeared from view.
“So, the demon returned to Hell, dragging Schweitzer along with him.” Himmler spoke with as much emotion as he might use to describe what he had eaten for breakfast.
Krause nodded glumly. “Schweitzer once explained to me that being transported to Hell ‘in the body,’ as it’s called, is perhaps the worst fate that can befall a human being.”
“Why is that?” Himmler asked.
“Because it affords the demons who reside there much greater opportunity for torment and torture than would be the case if one arrived as just another damned soul.”
They each sat silently for a moment, as if contemplating the fate of Hans Schweitzer, the Reich’s best — and last — sorcerer.
Himmler’s lips compressed into a thin line. “Project Mjolnir must continue. Its success is of utmost importance to the Reich.”
“Because a Jew, our racial enemy, is the American President?” Krause assumed that a German victory would lead in time to the establishment in America of camps similar to Auschwitz. And Roosevelt, should he survive the war, would almost certainly be the first prisoner consigned to the gas chamber.
“That is one source of concern, yes. But there are others.” Himmler took off his glasses, blew nonexistent dust off the lenses, and replaced them. “The war is not going quite as well as some us had expected.”
Krause contented himself with raising his eyebrows in acknowledgment. The less he said aloud about this particular subject, the better off he was likely to be.
“In the East,” Himmler continued, “the subjugation of the Bolshevik scum is proving far more difficult than certain inept Generals had led the Fuehrer to believe.”
Krause nodded. There had been rumors of immense German losses in the Russian snows, Goebbels’ upbeat propaganda broadcasts notwithstanding.
“And in the West, we had been told that the surrender of the British was only a matter of time. But Goering’s ill-conceived bombing campaign failed to achieve its objective, as I knew it would. And now the Americans have been brought into the war, thanks to our little yellow brothers in Tokyo.”
“They have yet to put a single soldier in the field,” Krause said. “Besides, America is a mongrel nation, racially inferior. The Fuehrer has said so.”
“Even a mongrel can have sharp teeth,” Himmler replied glumly. “And their industrial capacity— staggering, simply staggering. And far beyond the range of the Luftwaffe, of course. No, things are not going quite as we had anticipated.”
Himmler flipped the file closed with an abrupt movement. “So, you see, the stakes are high. Project Mjolnir must succeed. Roosevelt is the heart and soul of the American war effort. His death, particularly by means that cannot be easily explained, should cause widespread panic, along with reassess
ment of their stupid decision to make war against the Axis. Afterward, perhaps we can send one of the hellspawn to pay a call on that bastard Churchill.”
“Yes, undoubtedly,” Krause said, with certainty he did not feel. The American system of government provided for a smooth succession in the event of the president’s death. And their current Vice President, Truman, had a reputation for being tough and determined. But Krause knew better than to bring these inconvenient facts to the Reichfuehrer’s attention.
There was one salient fact, however, that Krause thought did need mentioning. “Schweitzer was the last of the Reich’s sorcerers,” he said. “The others, as the Reichfuehrer knows, all perished over the last three years, in a series of what were called ‘laboratory accidents.’” After witnessing the fate of Hans Schweitzer, Krause now had an all too vivid idea of what those “accidents” must have involved.
“I know, Himmler said. “A great pity.” Then he produced his first smile of the meeting. “However, it seems that we have a substitute available. With a little preparation, I am confident he will be up to the task.”
“That’s excellent news, Reichsfuehrer! Truly excellent!” Why hadn’t Krause heard anything about this before? More of Himmler’s notorious secretiveness, probably— but worrisome, nonetheless.
“I’m glad you agree.” The smile had broadened now into something quite terrible. “Since the individual in question is yourself.”
For the first time since grammar school, Krause was struck speechless.
The predatory smile left Himmler’s face, to be replaced by his pinched business-as-usual expression. “You have the background, and the languages,” he said. “You have worked with the other sorcerers, including Schweitzer himself. And you have actually observed one of these ‘summonings’ and lived to tell about it. In short, you are the ideal candidate to come to the aid of the Reich in its hour of need.”
Krause forced himself to push the aside the shock that had seized his mind. He had to think clearly and speak coherently. His life, and perhaps more, depended on it.
“With respect, Reichsfuehrer, having observed the procedure once does not qualify me to carry it out. A doctor would hardly attempt brain surgery, for example, after viewing a single operation. The result could be— disastrous.”
Himmler’s eyes narrowed behind the thick spectacles. He was not used to having his decisions questioned. “It is up to you to see that disaster does not occur this time,” he snapped. “If it does, and you should happen to survive, you will have ample time to contemplate your failure— from behind the barbed wire at Dachau.”
“But Reichsfuehrer—”
“In any event, I have already informed the Fuehrer that you are taking over Mjolnir, and that he may expect a successful resolution to the ‘Roosevelt problem’ within 90 days.”
“Ninety—”
“That is all, Obersturmbannfuehrer. You will make regular reports— sent to me personally, not through the usual channels. Dismissed.”
Krause drew breath to speak again, but Himmler’s basilisk gaze stopped him cold. Krause blinked once, twice, thinking furiously. Then he did the only thing he could do.
He stood, came to attention and extended his right arm, palm down, in the Nazi salute. “Heil Hitler!”
“Heil Hitler!”
Krause did a smart about-face, marched out of the room, through the anteroom, and into the brightly lit hallway of SS Headquarters.
This wing of the building was nearly deserted at the moment, with only two or three uniformed minions scurrying about on their errands. Krause kept his back straight, his eyes forward. His jackboots rang hollowly on the highly polished linoleum, marking his progress toward an end that Krause could envision with a terrible clarity.
He could, of course, return to his office, remove the Luger from his desk drawer, and stick the barrel in his mouth. That, at least, would spare him Dachau.
But as to the final disposition of his soul, Krause had no illusions. No matter which path he chose, each thump of his boots was taking him one inevitable step closer to Hell.
* * * * *
Deal Breaker
“You’re not an easy man to find, Mister Morris,” Trevor Stone said. “I’ve been looking for you for some time.”
“It’s true that I don’t advertise, in the usual sense,” Quincey Morris told him. “But people who want my services usually manage to get in touch, sooner or later— as you have, your own self.” Although there was a Southwestern twang to Morris’s speech, it was muted— the inflection of a native Texan who has spent much of his time outside the Lone Star State.
“I would have preferred sooner,” Stone said tightly. “As it is, I’m almost… almost out of time.”
Morris looked at his visitor more closely. Trevor Stone appeared to be in his mid-thirties. He was blond, clean-shaven, and wearing a suit that looked custom made. There was a sheen of perspiration on the man’s thin face, although the air conditioning in Morris’s living room kept the place comfortably cool — anyone spending a summer in Austin, Texas without air conditioning is either desperately poor or incurably insane.
Morris thought the man’s sweat might be due to either illness or fear. “Are you unwell?” he asked.
Stone gave a bark of unpleasant laughter. “Oh, no, I’m fine. The picture of health, and likely to remain so for another” — he glanced at the gold Patek Philippe on his wrist — “two hours and twenty-eight minutes.”
Fear, definitely.
Morris kept his face expressionless as he said, “That would bring us to midnight. What happens then?”
Stone was silent for a few seconds. “You ever play Monopoly, Mister Morris?”
“When I was a kid, sure.”
“So, imagine landing on Community Chest and drawing the worst Monopoly card of all time— one that reads Go to Hell. Go directly to Hell. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.”
It was Morris’s turn for silence. He finally broke it by saying, “Tell me. All of it.”
The first part of Trevor Stone’s story was unexceptional. A software engineer by training, he had gone to work in Silicon Valley after graduation from Cal Tech. Soon, he had made enough money out of the Internet boom to start up his own dot.com company with a couple of college buddies. They all made out like bandits — until the bottom fell out in the Nineties, taking most of the dot-commers with it.
That was how, Trevor Stone said, he had found himself sitting alone in his company’s deserted office one afternoon — bankrupt and broke, under threat of lawsuits from his former partners and of divorce from his wife. He was just wondering if his life insurance had a suicide clause when a strange man appeared, and changed everything.
“I never heard him come in,” Stone said to Morris. “Which was kind of weird, because the place was so quiet you could have heard a mouse fart. But suddenly, there he was, standing in my office door.
“I looked at him and said, ‘Buddy, if you’re selling something, have you ever come to the wrong place.’ And he gave me this funny little smile and says “I suppose you might consider me a salesman of a sort, Mister Stone. As to whether I am in the wrong place, why don’t we determine that later?’”
“What did he look like?” Morris asked.
“Little guy, couldn’t have been more than five foot five. Had a goatee on him, jet black. Can’t vouch for the rest of his hair, because he kept his hat on the whole time, one of those Homburg things, which I didn’t think anybody wore anymore. Nice suit, three-piece, with a bow tie— not a clip on, but one of those that you tie yourself.”
“Did he give you a name?”
“He said it was Dunjee. What’s that— Scottish?”
“Maybe.” Morris’s voice held no inflection at all. “Could me any number of things.” After a moment he continued, “So, what did he want with you?”
�
�Well, he was one of those guys who take forever to get to the point, but what it finally came down to was that he wanted me to play ‘Let’s Make a Deal.’”
Morris nodded. “And what was he offering?”
“A way out. A change in my luck. An end to my problems, and a return to the kind of life I’d had before.”
“I see. And your part of the bargain involved…?”
“Nothing much.” Another bitter laugh. “Just my soul.”
“Doesn’t sound like a very good deal to me,” Morris said gently.
“I thought it was just a joke, man!” Stone stood up and started pacing the room nervously. “I only listened to the guy because I had nothing else to do, and it gave me something to think about besides slitting my wrists.”
Morris nodded again. “I assume there were… terms.”
“Yeah, sure. Ten years of success. Ten years, back on top of the world, right where I liked it. Then, at the end of that time, Dunjee said, he’d be back. To collect.”
“And your ten years is up tonight, I gather.”
“At midnight, right. That’s actually a few hours over ten years, since it was the middle of the afternoon when I talked to him, that day. But he said he wanted to ‘preserve the traditions.’ So midnight it is.”
“Did he have you sign a contract?”
“Yeah.”
“Something on old parchment, maybe, smelling of brimstone?”
“No, nothing like that. He had the template on a flash drive in his pocket. He asked if he could use my PC to fill in the specifics, so I let him. Then he printed out a copy, and I signed it.
“In blood?”
“No, he said I could use my pen. But then he pulled out one of those little syrettes they use in labs, still in the sterile wrapper, and everything. Dunjee said he would need three drops of blood from one of my fingers. I said okay, so he stuck me, and let the three drops fall onto the contract, just below my signature.”
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