She sat absolutely still, eyes closed. It was a long time since she had done this. A long time since she had given in to the images that danced in her mind, the words and symbols that her imagination plucked out of the air. At first she had been excited by the gift, the power. When she first met Crowley and joined him, she had been entranced by the possibilities.
But gradually she had come to realise what a curse it was. A curse that still blighted Jane Roylston. Poor Jane – Miss Manners had not seen her for weeks. No, she thought – focus. She pushed all concern for Jane to the edge of her mind. She needed to concentrate, to be sure she could still do this.
In her mind’s eye she pictured Guy Pentecross and Sarah Diamond, making the image as clear and as detailed as she could.
When she was sure she had them, she opened her eyes. She reached out and spread the Tarot cards in a fan across the polished surface of the table. Picked a card at random from somewhere near the middle, and turned it over.
It was a card from the Major Arcana – The Lovers.
She replaced it, and shuffled the deck before spreading it out again. Now when she closed her eyes she thought of Leo Davenport.
It was another major card this time. But not the one she expected. She had thought it would be The Fool, but in fact it was The Magician. Perhaps she had underestimated him.
Time to move on, she decided. ‘What are they doing now?’ she said out loud. ‘Colonel Brinkman – Oliver. And Leo, Guy and Sarah. Show me.’
She turned a card. Stared at it for several moments, her fingers still gripping the edge. A skeleton, sickle in hand.
Death.
She sighed, closed her eyes, leaned back. Then immediately she jolted upright again, eyes wide open in fear of the image that had appeared in her mind. A savage bull charging towards her, flame curling from its nostrils.
* * *
The creature caught in the torch beams was a horrifying mixture of man and bull. It charged along the tunnel towards Nachten, Grebben and the others.
‘Is it possible?’ Nachten murmured.
‘Sir – do we fire, sir?’ Grebben asked. The creature was almost on them.
In answer, Nachten raised his own pistol and loosed off three shots in rapid succession. The beast was knocked back by the impact, roaring in pain and anger. But it didn’t stop. Head down, it charged back at them.
The whole tunnel echoed with the hammering of machine gun fire from the SS men. The creature was lost in smoke and dust, its snarls drowned out by the noise. Stone chips flew up from stray bullets as they hit the tunnel walls and floor. The noise cut out abruptly as Nachten raised his hand.
‘Enough. We must retrieve the body.’
‘If it’s truly dead, sir,’ one of the men said nervously. He was as battle-hardened as Grebben himself, but Grebben knew how the man felt. For a moment, as the creature charged at them, he had been as scared as he had ever been.
‘Of course it’s dead,’ Nachten snapped.
But even as he said it, a dark shape coalesced out of the dusty air in front of them. Its chest was ripped apart. The face was pock-marked with bullet holes. Hair was scorched away from the ragged remains of flesh and skin. But the creature was alive, lurching forwards. A massive fist lashed out, at the nearest man.
It caught Nachten surprised and off balance as he backed away, hammering him sideways into the wall. Before Grebben could react, the creature had dragged the standartenfuhrer to his feet, lifting him off the ground. Then it hurled him back at the other men. There was a crack of breaking bone as Nachten hit the wall, then slid down to the ground. Unconscious, or dead.
‘Back!’ Grebben shouted. ‘Everyone back! You.’ He pointed at the nearest two men. ‘Bring the standartenfuhrer. The rest of you – covering fire.’
The two men pulled Nachten down the tunnel, his feet dragging on the ground as they ran. Nachten’s head moved slightly – he was alive then. But obviously badly injured. The other two SS men fired their machine pistols again, raking them back and forth as they fired into darkness and smoke. A discarded torch rolled along the tunnel floor. Its light gleamed for an instant, then went out as a foot stamped down on it.
One of the guns emptied. The soldier ripped out the magazine and slotted in another.
Grebben fired his Luger, knowing it would have no effect. But what would? What could possibly stop the brute beast?
‘Keep going – back to the way out,’ he yelled, hoping they remembered the way. God knew what had happened to Nachten’s map – even if he could understand it.
He grabbed the nearer of the two soldiers still firing. ‘Grenade,’ he demanded. He took the stick-grenade the man pulled from his belt and gestured for him to follow the others. ‘Now – run.’
Grebben turned and peered into the darkness. The only light was from the torch he had somehow managed to keep hold of. It danced across the walls and floor as he used the same hand to grab the pin and pull it awkwardly from the grenade. Then he hurled the explosive at the creature that burst out of the smoke and dust and charged towards him, turned and ran.
He was counting, out of habit and under his breath. So he knew exactly when to throw himself to the floor and cover the back of his head and his ears with his hands. He was so close that the blast wave lifted him off the floor. He could feel it reverberating inside his chest. A rush of hot air. The roar of the explosion like a savage beast rolling down the tunnel. The crash of falling stone.
When he dared to stagger to his feet and shine his torch back down the tunnel, it illuminated a ragged wall of fallen stone. The roof above was a gaping maw. There was no sign of the creature that had been chasing them. Grebben watched for a full minute, hardly daring to breathe, expecting at any moment that the creature would burst through the rubble and debris and charge towards him.
Finally, Hauptsturmfuhrer Grebben turned and walked slowly back down the tunnel.
CHAPTER 28
He kept her chained in the cellar for a week. By then it seemed clear that Jane Roylston was not a threat. Crowley spoke the words of power, binding her to his will, every morning and evening. The holy man in Nepal who taught him the words, the incantations, had been vague about how – or even if – they worked. It was over thirty years since Crowley had learned them, and he couldn’t even be sure he had them exactly right. It was hard to tell if the words had any effect, but it made him feel more confident. Less afraid.
After a while, he allowed her back to her room. She ate and drank little. She saw no one except Crowley. She rarely left the room – either sitting staring at the wall or lying on the bed, eyes closed. Perhaps she was asleep. He asked her questions, but the answers were now either noncommittal or non-existent.
Eventually, Crowley was sure the woman was no threat to anyone except Ralph, who was already dead. And probably he deserved it. Even by Crowley’s standards the man had been a sadistic brute, though he had his uses. He considered admitting to Brinkman that Jane had returned. At least it would stop the man delving into her past.
One of the newer girls, Mary, took Jane’s place at the ceremonies and séances. She had some innate ability, but nothing like Jane’s talents. It wasn’t long before Crowley realised that he needed Jane back. If nothing else, Mary might benefit from watching her, from seeing how the more experienced medium channelled the voices and messages from Beyond.
Crowley’s Library doubled as a séance room. More than half of the bookshelves round the walls were empty. Candles and symbols of power replaced the books – animal skulls, phials of coloured liquid, statuettes and ancient sacrificial bowls. A curved dagger from Mesopotamia. The centre of the room was dominated by a large, round table. There was nothing so crude as an upturned glass or lettered cards. Whatever message came through would be delivered by the medium.
For the moment, Mary sat in the prime position, Crowley on one side of her. Jane sat opposite, eyes half closed, unspeaking. Where Jane was slight, Mary had a fuller figure. In contrast to Jane’s short, dar
k hair Mary had blonde hair that reached almost to her waist.
Once the candles were lit, Crowley signalled for the lights to be extinguished. He allowed Mary to run the session, calling for Enlightenment, the fingers of her hand warm against his. The heavy bracelet scraped against the table top as she moved her hand slightly. It hung loosely on the woman’s wrist.
After almost half an hour of going through the motions, it was obvious that Mary was making no connection today.
‘Would you like to try?’ Crowley asked Jane.
She was staring down at the table, but lifted her head at his words.
‘Mary won’t mind, will you, Mary?’ he went on.
‘No, of course not,’ Mary said. From her tone, she minded a lot.
‘You see.’
‘I do not see,’ Jane replied. ‘Not clearly. Not now.’
‘Then change places with Mary. Do you want to see?’
Jane frowned. ‘I … I don’t know.’
Mary stood up. The bracelet slid down her wrist. Jane’s eyes followed it. ‘Bracelet,’ she murmured.
‘It’s mine now,’ Mary told her.
‘Bracelet,’ Jane said again, louder, firmer. ‘Bracelet.’
‘Give it to her,’ Crowley said quietly.
Mary hesitated for a moment, then pressed her thumb into the palm of her hand so that she could slide the bracelet off. ‘I want it back.’ She dropped it on the table in front of her, then stood up and walked round to where Jane was sitting.
Jane too stood up. ‘No,’ she said. ‘You really don’t.’
She took Mary’s place in the chair next to Crowley. Hesitantly, she reached out for the bracelet. As her fingers touched it, the silver tracery round the outside flared a brilliant white. Crowley reached out to stop her – perhaps this was not a good idea.
But he was too late. Jane had already picked up the bracelet. The bright light from it faded to a glow as she opened it, and closed it round her thin upper arm, above the elbow. Her expression did not change. But the bracelet seemed to tighten in place. Blood oozed out from beneath it, dripping to the table. Mary gasped. The others at the table were pale as they watched.
Jane’s eyes opened wide. They seemed to darken as she stared unfocused into the distance.
‘Now I can see!’
‘What do you see?’ Crowley asked. ‘Tell me. I must know.’
‘I see who I am,’ Jane said. ‘What I must do. What will happen. And how it will all end when the Vril awaken and come among us.’
* * *
He gave up counting the bodies. German and Russian soldiers, peasants and civilians, horses … The road through the desolate, blighted landscape was like a pathway through hell.
The driver was a veteran. Hoffman had joined the detachment commanded by the officer he had met in Dresden to travel to the Eastern Front. But they had been diverted to the Caucasus, so he had been forced to find another unit moving up to join the troops advancing towards Moscow.
‘It’s nothing like what they tell you,’ the driver said. He was too weary and battle-scarred to worry about speaking his mind to an SS officer. Or perhaps he simply hadn’t noticed the dark uniform beneath Hoffman’s greatcoat. ‘The plan is that the land we capture will supply the food we need. But it doesn’t work like that.’
‘Not when the retreating Russians burn the crops,’ Hoffman agreed. ‘Not when we kill the peasants who should be farming it.’
‘That makes little difference,’ the driver said, bumping the truck over another dead body. ‘To farm land like this you need tractors. The Reds drove them all away. They evacuated the tractors, not the people. What’s that tell you about them, eh?’
Hoffman didn’t answer. It told him that someone realised that resupply was going to be a problem for both sides. It told him that his fellow Russians were prepared to sacrifice anything to protect their homeland. It told him that at some point – probably with the onset of another winter – the German advance would grind to a halt and might never get started again.
His hand strayed to his chest, resting over where the photograph of Alina nestled safely inside his jacket pocket. Was she still in Stalingrad? Was she waiting for him as she’d promised? Would he ever see her again?
The driver was still talking, but Hoffman wasn’t listening. It didn’t matter what he said. Nothing mattered. Alina first. Then he would think about getting to Moscow, and finding out what they already knew about the Vril.
* * *
Guy envied Leo his place in the repaired Lysander. Not just because he was sharing the small plane with Sarah, but also because the plane was a hell of a lot quicker than waiting for their rendezvous with the submarine and the subsequent journey.
They had managed to escape from the Labyrinth while the SS soldiers were confronting the Minotaur. Quite what had happened down in the tunnels, Guy didn’t know. But from a safe distance outside the fence line, they had watched through the thinning smoke as the soldiers brought out their wounded officer who was quickly stretchered away.
Brinkman kept the stone axe-head with him. There was some value in getting it back to London as quickly as possible, but that had to be weighed against other considerations.
‘I don’t doubt Miss Diamond’s abilities,’ Brinkman confided in Guy as they waited on the shore for a signal from the submarine. ‘But we can’t count on anything. If the plane gets shot down, then the axe-head could fall into enemy hands. If our submarine gets hit, then we’re all going to the bottom of the sea and the axe with us.’
‘That’s a sobering thought,’ Guy told him.
Mihali rowed them out into the secluded bay where the submarine was due to meet them. It was a clear, summer’s sky and the moon was bright despite being a mere sliver of a crescent, a contrast with the crashing, stormy sea and thunderous sky when they had arrived. The submarine was due to surface at 1am local time.
‘It’s hard to know exactly where it will appear,’ Mihali told them.
‘Hopefully, not right underneath us,’ Guy said.
‘I imagine they’ll check their periscope first to make sure everything’s safe,’ Brinkman said.
‘Well,’ Guy said to Mihali, ‘thanks for looking after us. But I can’t pretend it’s been fun.’
‘The fun may not be over yet,’ Mihali told them.
He was the one facing the shore, Guy and Brinkman sitting opposite him in the little boat as he worked the oars. They twisted round to see what Mihali was looking at.
Lights. A cluster of small lights, torches perhaps, on the shoreline.
‘Not your people come to see us off?’ Brinkman asked.
‘Sadly not.’
As if to prove the point, there was a flash followed by a crack of sound. At the same moment as the noise reached them, something splashed into the water close to the boat.
‘I think they’ve seen us,’ Guy said.
Memories of Dunkirk rose unbidden in his mind as there was more gunfire. Bullets splashed into the water all around them like a sudden rain shower.
‘Keep rowing,’ Brinkman ordered Mihali. ‘See if you can get us out of range.’
As he spoke, several shots hammered into the wooden side of the boat. A splinter whipped past Guy’s face. He swore and ducked down low.
The sound of gunfire was drowned out as the sea around them began to boil. Caught in the wash, the boat dipped and rolled alarmingly. Water sloshed in over the side. More gunshots cracked past. A huge, dark shape reared up out of the bay, water gushing white and foaming off the sides of the submarine’s conning tower as it thrust up into the clear night sky. A bullet pinged off the metal.
‘Go!’ Mihali shouted. ‘Get yourselves on the deck.’
A hatch swung open at the top of the tower. A moment later, gunfire rang out from the submarine. The lights on the shore went out as the German soldiers turned off their torches.
‘What about you?’ Guy yelled at Mihali.
‘Don’t worry about me. I’ll swim round to
the next bay. Let them shoot up the boat, and assume we’ve all escaped on the sub.’
Mihali dropped the oars, and pulled Guy into a quick embrace as he pushed past towards the front of the boat. Brinkman got the same treatment. A bullet grazed past Guy’s arm, ripping his sleeve close to the shoulder. Then he was leaping for the deck of the submarine, just clear of the surface of the bay. Water washed across it, making it slippery.
Brinkman grabbed Guy’s arm – though whether to support Guy or for his own benefit it wasn’t clear. The steel hull rang with a scatter of impacts. Guy looked back in time to see Mihali diving out of the small rowing boat and striking out strongly through the water, away from the submarine. He’d have to put some distance between them, to avoid being dragged down in the submarine’s wake when it dived.
The ladder up the conning tower was on the far side, shielded from the gunfire. Even so, it was a difficult climb up the slippery, wet rungs. At the top, sailors in lifejackets caught hold of Guy and Brinkman and bundled them quickly through the hatch.
Guy all but fell to the deck inside, half climbing half sliding down the ladder. He collapsed to his knees as he landed, before hauling himself upright in time to help Brinkman down. They turned to find a uniformed submariner watching them with amusement.
‘I’m hoping you’re the two chaps I’m expecting and not some unfortunate Greek fishermen who just happened to be passing.’
‘I think we’re your passengers,’ Brinkman assured him.
‘Then welcome aboard, gentlemen. I’m Captain Whitaker, and I expect you’re about ready for a mug of tea.’
Above them, the hatch clanged shut as the last of the sailors descended to join them.
* * *
Mercifully, the rest of the trip back passed without incident. Brinkman and Guy delivered the precious axe-head to Elizabeth Archer at the British Museum as soon as they could, even before calling in at the Station Z offices.
‘It’s nothing much to look at,’ she told them, as if they were somehow to blame for this. ‘But I shall make a full analysis. It is remarkably well preserved.’
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