Staring out at the ravaged city from her window perch, Veronica knew there was no rescue coming, however.
They were on their own.
“Look out the window, Sam,” she said softly, using his first name for emphasis. “Where do you think this hypothetical rescue is coming from?”
Sam refused to do as she asked, however. He kept his eyes on the floor and waved his hand in the general direction of the rest of the European continent.
“I don’t know,” he said sharply. “Out there somewhere.”
Veronica stared at him, until, feeling the weight of her gaze, he looked up to meet it.
“We both know that’s not going to happen,” she said. “Have you seen even one emergency response crew in the last few days? A fire brigade? An ambulance team? Hell, even a bloody bobby would do! Anybody?”
Morrison shook his head.
“Nor have I. I’m starting to suspect that there won’t be any, either. They would have been here by now if any were still in operation. This is a hospital, for heaven’s sake!”
Veronica shook her head. “No, we’re on our own. And that means we need to stop sitting around on our asses and see about rescuing ourselves instead.”
Morrison sighed, though whether that was the belief behind her statement or the words she’d used to express herself, Veronica didn’t know. Given he was twenty years her senior, and full of what she considered some rather antiquated beliefs as to how a lady, never mind a princess, should behave, she suspected the latter.
“What would you suggest?” he asked.
“We need to get to a wireless set, let someone know where we are and that we’re all right. They couldn’t have bombed the entire country! Someone must be out there, someone who can help us.”
The guard captain looked at her like she’d lost her mind. “Where did you expect to find a wireless set, Your Highness?”
“The British Museum.”
Morrison shook his head. “The museum doesn’t have a wireless.”
“Yes, it does. Trust me when I tell you that there is more to the museum than you know, and a wireless is definitely on the premises. Get me there and I’ll handle the rest.”
“I don’t know . . .”
The museum was north of Charing Cross Station, close to Covent Garden. If those flesh-eating fiends had spread through the city as easily as they’d spread through the hospital, it was going to be quite the trip. But there were things she needed to get at the museum, things that couldn’t be left behind for the enemy to find, if they were audacious enough to invade.
Veronica didn’t know what had happened to her parents, and she prayed that they were all right. But she had specific orders she was required to carry out in the event of an emergency and recovering certain items from the British Museum was one of them. Now that she decided they shouldn’t wait to be rescued, those orders took priority. If her parents lived, a big “if” in her view, given how extensively the Germans had bombed the city, then she could always turn her charge over to them when they were all reunited. For now, though, she had a job to do; and the longer she waited, the more she worried that someone would beat her to it.
The wrong someone.
“I’m not asking, Captain.”
Morrison had been in the service of the Crown long enough to know an order when he heard one.
“Yes, Your Highness. The British Museum it is.”
HALF AN HOUR later they made their move.
The ward they were in looked down upon a large, outdoor garden. An iron fence ran completely around the entire property, including that garden, but one thing made the garden section of that fence different from most of the other sections of the fence.
The garden had a gate.
It was currently chained and locked; they could see that from the room they were in. But Veronica didn’t know a lock yet that could stand up to a couple shots from a .455-caliber Webley revolver and she fully intended to blow that particular lock right to hell.
Once outside the gate, they would do their best to hook up with another group of survivors or locate a vehicle they could use to take them most of the way to the museum.
After that . . . well, after that they’d figure something out.
“Ready?” Morrison asked.
Veronica nodded.
Two of the soldiers—Veronica was embarrassed that she couldn’t remember their names—stood guard on either side of the window while Morrison carefully opened it and then tied one end of their makeshift rope around his waist.
Directly below them was the roof to the first-floor extension that jutted out from the side of the building. The plan was for Veronica and the other soldier, Stevens, to lower Morrison down to that roof. He would hold up there and stand guard while the rest of them came down one at a time. From there they would take out the ghouls in the garden, three of them, sprint for the fence, and be gone before any of the creatures inside knew what had happened.
They hoped.
Along with her partner, Private Stevens, Veronica braced herself to bear the captain’s weight and then said, “Go!”
Out the window Morrison went. It took only a few minutes to lower him to the rooftop below and then it was Veronica’s turn.
One of the guards took her place and then helped Stevens lower her down the side of the building. She watched the undead creatures stumble around in the ankle-high grass of the garden as she slowly descended. They were not yet aware that fresh prey was only a dozen yards away, but she knew that it wouldn’t take them long to head in their direction as soon as they noticed.
Drawing close to where Morrison was waiting for her below, she was suddenly glad that she’d taken up wearing men’s-style trousers and button-down shirts several months ago. As with her language, it was another thing that some of those of the older generation, like her mother and father, frowned upon, but she had to admit that it was going to make running for the gate much easier than if she’d been wearing a corset and skirts.
Never mind avoiding the whole embarrassing situation of having Captain Morrison looking up at her as she came down the rope.
Morrison reached up and grabbed her around the waist with both hands and helped her the last few feet to the rooftop. Untying the rope from around her waist, he left it to hang there in case they needed to go back up in a hurry.
“Okay?” Morrison asked.
Veronica nodded.
Out in the garden, roughly thirty feet from their position, one of the monsters cocked its head to the side as if it had heard them.
No, that can’t be, she thought. Morrison had barely raised his voice.
But as the next soldier began making his way down the rope, the ghoul turned its head in their direction and looked right at them.
For a moment Veronica’s gaze met that of the creature and she saw that there was nothing human left in those eyes, just a bottomless sense of hunger . . .
It lurched into motion, headed in their direction.
“Company, Captain,” she said.
Morrison turned, saw the oncoming ghoul, and raised his right arm.
The creature’s head snapped back a split second before the sound of the shot reached her ears. Veronica watched as the thing toppled over backward to lie still in the grass.
As if they shared one mind, the two remaining ghouls turned in their direction at the exact same time.
“I think we should be quieter . . .” she began to say and then two more shots rang out and both those creatures dropped dead as well.
By then events were too out of control for her to do anything about and all she could do was get carried along in their wake or get left behind.
The last two soldiers slid down the ropes, their boots thunking onto the steel roof. From somewhere below them Veronica thought she heard several of the creatures snarl
in reply.
“Run!” Morrison yelled and that’s exactly what they did.
The three soldiers with them grabbed hold of the edge of the rooftop, swung their legs over the side, and hung there for a second before dropping down the last few remaining feet into the grass below. Instantly two of them turned and raised their arms, ready to help Veronica do the same, but she’d been a tomboy all her life and certainly didn’t need any help swinging down from so low a height. Ignoring their hands, she dropped down right next to them.
Captain Morrison quickly followed suit and no sooner was he on the ground than the group headed out, running hell-bent for the gate on the far side of the garden, with Veronica in the center surrounded by the four soldiers, all that remained of her guard detail.
She could hear her heart pounding in her chest, her breath hissing in her ears, and over both of those the howl of those things as they caught sight of their little party.
Faster! she thought and flung herself headlong toward the fence.
Before she knew it they were skidding to a stop in front of the wrought-iron structure and Veronica was pushing Private what’s-his-name out of the way as she wrenched her Webley out of the leather belts she had crisscrossed over her chest. She pointed it at the padlock holding the gates shut.
Boom!
Clack.
The lock fell to the ground.
“Move! Move! Move!” Morrison yelled as he hauled open the gate. The little group poured through it and turned to the left . . .
Veronica could see that for ten, maybe twenty yards ahead of them the space was clear, but just beyond that a literal wall of ghouls was moving in their direction, arms outstretched, with fingers grasping, and a horrible grunting-snarling sound of need, of hunger, coming from their mouths.
Veronica glanced the other way, only to find more of them coming from that direction.
It’s the noise, she thought dazedly. The noise attracts them!
“Get back! Back to the room!”
Veronica didn’t need to be told twice.
She turned and ran for the gate, Captain Morrison at her side. Behind her she could hear the others firing their guns, doing what they could to give them time to make it to the ropes.
My fault. This is my fault.
It didn’t matter whose fault it was if they didn’t live through it.
A blackened, hideous form lurched toward her and Veronica turned, Webley in hand, and fired off a shot before she’d even consciously thought about it.
The ghoul’s head exploded in a colorful explosion of blood, flesh, and bone.
Don’t you dare be sick, she told herself sternly and thankfully she was not.
Morrison was firing beside her now and she realized, albeit belatedly, that more of the monsters were swarming out of the ground floor wards on either side of the garden. It was going to be a race to see who was going to get to them first.
Behind her, Veronica heard one of the other soldiers scream in pain but she didn’t dare turn to look. She kept her eye on the ground-floor extension in front of her and the ropes dangling from the window high above. She drove her boots into the grass beneath her feet as she charged forward, willing herself to go faster, faster . . .
Two of the creatures outdistanced the others and closed in. As she raised her pistol two shots rang out from beside her and both of the horrible things were tossed to the side by the impact of Morrison’s bullets.
Then she had no more time to look, no more time to think, as the wall from which they’d descended loomed before her.
“Here,” Morrison gasped, “let me help you!” He laced the fingers of both hands together to form a stirrup and extended it toward her.
Veronica barely had her boot in it before Morrison was heaving her upward.
She grabbed the edge of the roof and pulled herself up with strength born of pure terror. Without even bothering to stand up she spun around, her body stretched out on the rooftop for balance and her feet wedged into the crack between two tin sheets for support as she dropped her arm over the side, reaching for Morrison.
Behind him, she could see several of the ghouls closing in, but no sign of the three men who had remained to guard the gate.
Morrison jumped, caught her wrist in his, and nearly pulled her from her perch as he swung his legs upward . . .
Veronica pulled with all her might, and the captain slipped up and over the edge of the roof just as the ghouls reached for him with empty hands.
Morrison sent her up the makeshift rope first and then followed close behind. Once back in their room, they pulled the sheets back up behind them, and slumped in exhaustion to the floor, their backs to the wall beneath the window.
Their escape attempt had failed and they’d lost three men in the process!
Veronica put her face in her hands and wept.
Outside in the garden, dozens of the creatures stared up at them, milling about while groaning and gnashing their teeth.
Chapter Sixteen
Imperial Palace
Berlin, Germany
NO LONGER ENCUMBERED by the need to sleep in any real sense of the word, His Imperial and Royal Majesty, German emperor and king of Prussia Manfred von Richthofen stared at the battle plans laid out on the table in the Throne Room, despite the fact that it was still an hour before dawn and the sun had yet to even peek its head above the horizon, and considered how he was going to break the back of the combined Allied armies where they were dug in along the Western Front.
Even the sun trembles at my power, Richthofen thought and then laughed at his own hubris. He might rule the mightiest nation in the history of the world at this point, but the stars, oh, the stars were still their own masters.
For now.
He was paging through reports of unit strengths along the Belgian border when there was a knock at the door and a second later Leutnant Adler’s voice reached him from across the room.
“Dr. Eisenberg to see you, Your Majesty.”
Richthofen didn’t bother to look up from his work, just waved for Adler to send him in.
“Busy day, Doktor,” Richthofen said without looking up from his work. “What do you have for me?”
“Your predecessor’s dear cousin, George the Fifth, lives.”
Richthofen froze, then slowly looked up at his chief scientist, the man who was also the inventor of the gas that Richthofen had used to turn England into a nation of flesh-hungry ghouls.
“How . . . interesting. Do tell, Doktor.”
“My man inside the American’s Military Intelligence Division smuggled a message out to me this morning, reporting that General Calhoun had not been trying to retake London, as we had assumed, but rather rescue the King and Queen from where they were hiding inside the remains of Buckingham Palace.”
Richthofen frowned. “Calhoun’s command was wiped out, was it not?”
“Indeed, Your Majesty. They had barely reached the city limits when they were torn apart by a seething mob of their own countrymen who had been infected by the gas.”
“So what’s the problem? The heir apparent, Prince Andrew, died on the battlefield at Amiens. He has no other brothers, only a younger sister, leaving the succession unresolved. King George and his annoying little wife will eventually fall victim to the same fate as their subjects.” Richthofen glanced at the pile of maps and battle reports on his desk, impatient to return to them. Breaking through the Allied line at Nogent might be the easiest way to go . . .
“My man reports that a second force has been dispatched in an attempt to rescue King George—Major Burke and his so-called Marauders.”
Richthofen’s hand involuntarily clenched around the report he was holding, crumpling it up into a ball as anger surged. His body went stiff as he fought back against the red tide that threatened to overwhelm him, succeeding on
ly after several long moments of effort.
When he was at last back in control, he turned his now murderous gaze on Eisenberg.
“Burke, you say?”
Captain—no, Major—Michael Burke. The man who had invaded his secret installation in the Verdun forests, destroyed his gas production facilities, and burned the Alecto at her mooring post, thereby ruining Richthofen’s attack on Paris. The man who had stubbornly refused to die no matter how many times Richthofen had tried to kill him and who had ultimately helped Richthofen’s greatest prize, the Allied ace Julius “Jack” Freeman, escape his control. The man Richthofen wanted to get his hands on more than any other in the entire war effort was in charge of the rescue operation?
Eisenberg nodded. “Yes, Burke.”
Richthofen’s eyes narrowed at Eisenberg’s tone. “If I didn’t know better, I would think you were almost happy about this development.”
“Your perception is as strong as ever, Your Majesty. I want to get my hands on Burke as much as you do, and his reappearance now gives us an opportunity I have been waiting for.”
“Go on.”
“With your permission, I would like to send a team of our own to London, for a variety of reasons. As you know, the Geheimnisvollen Bruderschaft have been making great strides in increasing their power and effectiveness over the last several years.”
Richthofen nodded. It was true; the Arcane Brotherhood had increased their numbers and had managed to bring several operations to fruition that had led to serious breakthroughs on the empire’s behalf, including the final formulation of the gas that had been used on London and New York.
“For some time now, the Brotherhood’s leader, Heinrich Himmler, has been pushing for permission to send a group of agents into London in an attempt to recover the philosopher’s stone, an arcane artifact of some antiquity, which some say has been the cornerstone of British success for hundreds of years.
“I have denied Himmler’s request in the past for obvious reasons, but with the city now in ruins thanks to your brilliant attack, now might be the time to make the attempt.”
On Her Majesty's Behalf Page 12
