Blood Red City

by Justin Richards

  The sleepers all had numbers. The nurse doing her rounds spared each of them little more than a glance. Her heels echoed on the stone floor of Wewelsburg Castle, headquarters of the Nazi SS, as she walked between the rows of beds. She stopped at one to adjust the drip feeding into the old man’s wrist.

  In the next bed was a young woman, perhaps 20 years old. A single sheet draped over her body, her blonde hair splayed over the pillow. Number Seventeen. The nurse glanced, moved on. Unless they were reacting, unless a sleeper was somehow connected to an Ubermensch and could see what the creature saw, the nurse wasn’t interested. She let them sleep on, oblivious.

  If she had passed on the other side of the bed, the nurse might have seen Number Seventeen’s hand moving. Lying on top of the sheet, the woman’s hand was curled into a fist, shaking. As the nurse moved on, the woman’s breathing became ragged, sweat breaking out on her forehead.

  Slowly she uncurled her fist, the fingers stretching out and scraping at the cotton. Clawing urgently at the sheet beneath the high vaulted ceiling of the castle room.

  CHAPTER 3

  It was unusual for all of Station Z’s main staff to be able to get to a meeting at the same time. But Brinkman was pleased to see that he and Miss Manners were joined not just by Major Guy Pentecross and Sarah Diamond but also by Sergeant Green, recently returned from interviewing a pilot about an Unknown Detected Trace. UDT was the designation given to any aircraft sighted or detected but unidentified.

  Many were misreportings or Allied aircraft that were later identified. But some were undoubtedly Vril craft. Sarah Diamond had seen one in her previous job in the ATA ferrying aircraft to where they were needed – that was how she came to the attention of Station Z in the first place. While many UDTs turned out to be conventional planes, barrage balloons, or other easily explained phenomena, some pilots had described similar strange, wingless aircraft. Guy Pentecross and Leo Davenport had seen one hidden in a Vril base beneath the desert of North Africa.

  Davenport, a well-known stage and screen actor, had been recruited from the Special Operations Executive – the organisation set up by Winston Churchill to ‘set Europe ablaze’ with acts of sabotage and espionage against the Nazi occupying forces.

  Given Davenport’s continuing acting commitments, always in service of the Allied war effort, he was keen to point out, it was surprising he could spare the time. Brinkman thought that Davenport’s frequent absences from briefings were as much down to his low boredom threshold as to his civilian schedule.

  ‘Just popping in, if that’s all right,’ Davenport announced as he took his place at the table in the main meeting room. He made a point of checking his watch. ‘I’m on the radio at eight-thirty.’ He looked round at everyone, his expression decidedly smug, even for him.

  ‘It’s Thursday today, isn’t it?’ Green said.

  ‘Absolutely it is,’ Davenport agreed.

  Miss Manners peered over her glasses, unimpressed. ‘Would you like to make a start, sir?’ she said to Brinkman.

  He suppressed a smile. Trust her to keep them focused. ‘Don’t mind if I do,’ he said in his most officious tone.

  There was a moment’s pause, then Davenport guffawed, pointing at Brinkman. ‘Didn’t have you down as an ITMA listener.’

  ‘Everyone listens to ITMA,’ Brinkman told him. ‘Even Miss Manners, I suspect.’

  ‘Occasionally,’ she admitted.

  ‘Since you are clearly going to be insufferable until we hear all about it, Leo, tell me,’ Brinkman went on, ‘are you by any chance appearing in It’s That Man Again on the wireless this evening?’

  ‘Oh, I’ve been on it before,’ Davenport said, doing his best to sound offhand.

  ‘I think you may have mentioned that,’ Guy said. ‘Several times.’

  ‘I have appeared on it several times. In fact, they’re talking about giving me my own catchphrase.’ He smiled at Brinkman, ‘So in future you can quote me rather than Colonel Chinstrap’s “Don’t mind if I do”.’

  Brinkman allowed Davenport a few moments of showing off before he brought them back on track. ‘Since you have to shoot off, Leo, we’d better get started.’

  ‘Mrs Archer sends her apologies,’ Miss Manners said. ‘She’s busy with something down in her cavern under the British Museum. I didn’t really understand what.’

  Brinkman nodded. ‘And I assume Dr Wiles won’t be joining us.’

  ‘I doubt he even remembers we’re having a meeting,’ Sarah said.

  She was right. Henry Wiles was a brilliant cryptographer who headed up a small team at Station X – Britain’s secret code-breaking centre at Bletchley Park. His job was to try to make sense of emissions intercepted from the UDT craft and other Vril sources. The same emissions that Crowley’s séances seemed to pick up.

  The main topic of discussion was Crowley’s information from their meeting a couple of days previously. Brinkman summarised the little he and Guy had learned. Then Miss Manners gave a brief account of her subsequent meeting with Jane Roylston.

  ‘This arrived in this morning’s post,’ she said, unfolding a foolscap sheet of drawing paper and pushing it into the middle of the table.

  Everyone leaned forward to see. On the paper was a pencil drawing, just as Jane had described to Miss Manners. But now the shape was shaded, symbols drawn across it as if engraved in whatever material it was fashioned from.

  ‘What is it?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘That’s the question,’ Miss Manners replied.

  ‘Could be Sumerian,’ Davenport mused, rubbing his chin. Of all of them, he was the most versed in history and archaeology. ‘Have you shown Elizabeth?’ he asked. They all knew that his knowledge was minuscule compared with Elizabeth Archer’s expertise.

  ‘Not yet,’ Miss Manners said. ‘But I shall.’

  Curator of the British Museum’s Department of Unclassified Artefacts, Elizabeth Archer was knowledgeable in areas that very few people knew existed. She was also responsible for a collection of artefacts that even fewer people knew existed – a secret archive of whatever could not be explained, or ought not to exist according to conventional science and theory. Her experience, advice and insight were invaluable to Station Z.

  ‘Wiles may have some idea about these symbols, whatever they are,’ Brinkman said.

  ‘Runes?’ Green suggested. ‘They remind me of some of the stuff in that burial site in Suffolk.’

  ‘If it’s something related to the Vril, then that would make sense,’ Guy agreed. ‘We saw some very similar symbols in their base in North Africa.’

  Davenport nodded. ‘Several of them were the same, I’m sure.’

  Brinkman sat back in his chair. ‘It seems to me that before Leo heads off to entertain the nation, we have a few things to follow up on. We need to know what this drawing represents. So wrack your brains, check any sources you can. Miss Manners will show it to Mrs Archer, and a copy to Dr Wiles too please.’

  ‘There’s the cat as well,’ Miss Manners said.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ Sarah said.

  ‘Jane – she said she was somehow connected to a cat. She saw through its eyes.’

  ‘So if we knew where this cat is, it might give us a clue as to what it’s doing,’ Guy said.

  ‘And why it’s important,’ Sergeant Green added. ‘There’s a reason the Vril want this thing, whatever it is. If we knew that, we’d know if we want it, or want to stop them getting it, or really don’t care either way.’

  ‘Oh, that reminds me,’ Miss Manners said as she retrieved the drawing, ‘I shall need your pencil sharpeners.’

  ‘May I ask why?’ Leo Davenport enquired.

  ‘There’s a memo going round. Pencil sharpeners are now banned within the civil service, to conserve pencils. There’s a shortage.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous,’ Guy said.

  ‘I don’t make the rules,’ Miss Manners told him. ‘But don’t let me catch you sharpening anything you shouldn’t.’

  �
�You’re not getting mine,’ Davenport said. ‘For three very good reasons.’ He counted them off on his fingers. ‘First, I’m not a civil servant. Second I don’t have one, though I do possess a pocket knife. And third, I prefer a fountain pen anyway.’

  ‘Leaving our pencils to one side for a moment,’ Brinkman said, ‘as usual we have more questions than answers. So let’s see if we can’t find those answers.’

  ‘Assuming the Germans don’t arrive this evening,’ Sarah said. ‘I’ll blame you, Leo, if they do.’

  There was a smattering of laughter. It was a national joke that if Britain was invaded on a Thursday evening at 8.30pm, the landings would be unopposed as the whole of Britain – including its armed forces – would be listening to It’s That Man Again on the wireless.

  * * *

  ‘A cat?’

  It was one of the rare occasions when Sarah had seen Dr Wiles show surprise.

  ‘You want me to find a cat?’ he repeated. He buttoned his threadbare tweed jacket, then changed his mind and unbuttoned it again before peering at Sarah and Guy over his wire-rimmed spectacles. Then he sniffed, all trace of surprise abruptly gone. ‘Well, I suppose anything’s possible in this game. You’d better tell me all about it. Find yourselves somewhere to sit.’

  It wasn’t as easy as he made it sound. Sarah and Guy finally managed to unearth two chairs from beneath piles of papers and message transcripts. Wiles fussed round, making sure the papers were properly transferred to the floor, which was the only other available surface.

  ‘Debbie,’ he called across to a young woman in army uniform.

  ‘It’s Eleanor,’ Sarah corrected him, but the woman didn’t seem to mind.

  Wiles ignored the comment in any case. ‘I think we’re going to need tea. Lots of tea.’ He frowned as she turned to go, and pointed to the far wall. ‘And whose bicycle is that?’

  Eleanor glanced at it. ‘Yours,’ she said.

  ‘Ah. Good. Well, just leave it there, then, will you, in case I need it? Thank you.’ Wiles slumped down behind his desk. He was almost invisible behind the piles of documents. ‘Now then. Tell me about this cat.’

  ‘It’s transmitting,’ Guy said.

  ‘Is it indeed?’ Wiles raised an interested eyebrow. ‘Like a UDT, you mean? We monitor transmissions from them all the time, though we still don’t really understand what their purpose might be.’

  ‘More like an Ubermensch,’ Sarah said.

  ‘The men somehow controlled by the mysterious Vril.’ Wiles nodded. ‘Then it’s likely to be a two-way communication. Instructions coming in, and experiential data going out. What the cat sees, hears, smells … How do you know about it?’

  ‘From some sort of occult ceremony,’ Sarah admitted.

  Wiles’s eyebrow rose higher. ‘Glad I asked.’

  ‘It seems significant,’ Guy explained. ‘The Vril are looking for something, so far as we can tell. Using the cat.’

  ‘Ah! So that’s why you want to know where this cat is, so you can find out where they are looking.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Wiles leaned back, staring up at the wooden ceiling of the hut. ‘We haven’t picked anything up. But we can double-check what the Y Stations have been sending in. Can’t we, Eleanor?’ he added as she handed him a mug of tea.

  ‘He knows who I am really,’ she murmured to Sarah as she passed across another mug. ‘I’d offer you sugar, but even if we had any, I wouldn’t know where to find it.’

  ‘If the Y Stations didn’t pick it up, but Crowley’s ceremony did, what might that mean?’ Guy asked, accepting his own tea.

  ‘Could just be bad luck. The coverage is pretty comprehensive, there are Y Stations listening and intercepting enemy traffic all over the Empire. But there are some places we don’t cover very well. Maybe the source – the cat – is in one of those areas.’

  ‘And where are they?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘Mostly uninhabited and in the middle of nowhere.’

  ‘We know the cat was with people.’

  ‘South America, then. Or North America, come to that. The US have their own stations and we share data now that we’re all friends together.’

  ‘They know about this place and what happens here?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘I believe the number of Americans who know about us can be counted on the fingers of very few hands,’ Wiles told her.

  ‘Are you counting me in that?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘I’ll use my little finger to count you,’ Wiles said. ‘But the point is, your half-countrymen probably share as much and as willingly with us as we do with them.’

  ‘So they might pick up signals from this cat, this Uber-whatever the German for cat is, and not tell us,’ Sarah said.

  ‘Uber-Katz,’ Guy told her. He was fluent in German as well as many other languages. That was one of the main reasons he had been at the Foreign Office both before and after his time in the army, though he was glad to be back in his major’s uniform now.

  Wiles drained his tea and looked for somewhere to set down the empty mug. He finally perched it precariously on a pile of papers. ‘I’ll look for your cat. If it’s in the data we have, we’ll find it. I’ll get Douglas to go through the transmissions intercepted from the UDTs again. And any other transmissions that we’ve intercepted and which can’t be identified. If you can give me a timescale to narrow the search, that would be helpful.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Sarah said.

  ‘And we’ll pass on anything else that we find out that could help,’ Guy promised.

  * * *

  They chatted on the way back to London, easy in each other’s company. Guy watched Sarah as she drove the staff car, her eye occasionally leaving the road to look back at him. They talked about how the war was going – the fall of Singapore a few weeks previously, and how long it would be before America was fully committed to the conflict in Europe. They discussed Wiles and agreed that if anyone could find a single cat that could be almost anywhere in the world, it was him.

  Back at the Station Z office just off St James’s Square, they found the place apparently deserted and stole a quick embrace. They leaped apart as Miss Manners appeared from Colonel Brinkman’s office at the end of the main room. She returned to her desk, glancing at the two of them over her severe spectacles.

  ‘Afternoon,’ Guy ventured.

  ‘You know,’ Miss Manners told them, settling herself in front of her typewriter, ‘there are many secrets in these offices. But how you two feel about each other is not one of them.’

  Sarah suppressed a smile. She was amused to see that Guy – the hardened soldier – had gone rather pink.

  * * *

  There was an image in SS Sturmbannfuhrer Hoffman’s head, and he couldn’t get it out. Since the Vril creature had scratched him in the secret Vault below Wewelsburg Castle, all manner of strange images had been appearing in his thoughts, vying for attention. He hadn’t realised at first that he was infected by the creature. Hadn’t told anyone – who could he tell? Perversely, the only people he trusted were the British agents Pentecross and Davenport who had been with him in the Vault. Even his own people seemed to have abandoned him. His increasingly infrequent reports disappeared into the ether, unacknowledged and perhaps unheard.

  But this latest image was more ‘insistent’ than the previous shapes and thoughts that had insinuated themselves into his mind. A shape, little more than a shadow unless he concentrated on it. Then details became apparent. But he didn’t want that. He wanted it out of his head.

  He did his best to ignore it, concentrating instead on his memories of Alina, the girl he had left behind in Russia when he ‘became’ a German. When he took the identity of Hoffman, and embarked on the life he now lived. With every day, the memories seemed to fade, and all that was really left was the cracked, brittle photograph he kept hidden in his room. It showed her sitting on the step outside her house.

  But the image displaced the Vril in his mind. For years now, Hoffman had
held two people inside his mind and learned to switch between them. The Russian soldier he used to be was kept in check, hidden so deep even he barely remembered who he had been. Mikhael had died the moment Stalin sent him to infiltrate the SS.

  Now he struggled to suppress another part of his mind in the same way. Just as he was both German and Russian, so he was now human and Ubermensch. It had been hard at first – almost impossible to resist the urge to put on one of the bracelets in the Vault. But he knew that if he did he would be entirely suborned to the Vril cause, their thoughts and instructions amplified by the bracelet. Every day, every hour that he resisted it got a little easier.

  But still the images rose unbidden in his mind. A Vril bracelet allowed one of the Watchers to see through the eyes of an Ubermensch, forming a connection between the two. Similarly, the bracelet allowed the Vril to control the Ubermensch. But even without a bracelet Hoffman saw what they wanted him to do, just as some of the Watchers could see through the eyes of an Ubermensch without the need for a bracelet. How long before he was fully Ubermensch himself, he wondered? How long before one of the sleepers awoke and saw through his eyes?

  There were advantages, if you could call them that. Hoffman knew from his own experiences that an Ubermensch could survive all but the most destructive of wounds. If he cut himself, he did not bleed, but the thin orange filaments that now grew inside him curled out and repaired the damage. At first, the sight of them had made him feel sick. But he had managed to come to terms with the fact that they were a part of what he had become.

  Another change was that he barely needed to sleep. But even so, he was tired. He was tired of the deception, tired of the unforgiving stone walls of Wewelsburg Castle. Tired of not knowing whether his reports made a difference, or were even received. Of not knowing how Alina was – even if she was still alive. Tired of everything.

  He wanted to go home.

  * * *

  If Jed had sent the film to be developed at the paper he would have had prints back the next day. But he didn’t want Felix to know he had another set of photos. Not until Jed himself had seen them. Not after the way Felix had practically confiscated the camera from him and dismissed the whole ‘battle’.