‘The remains we saw in the Vault at Wewelsburg. And the creature,’ Guy said.
‘The creature is dead, but he has others hidden away in another Vault. I didn’t know that then. How much more he has…’ Hoffman shrugged.
‘And the first Ubermensch came from Tibet, I believe,’ Leo said.
Hoffman was surprised. ‘How do you know that?’
‘Standartenfuhrer Streicher mentioned it. He was rather drunk at the time. And to be fair, he wasn’t very specific but it was enough for me to draw my own conclusions.’
‘I never thought I’d say this,’ Guy told them, ‘but whatever the Nazis are up to and whatever threat it poses, it will have to wait for the moment.’
Several hours later, as their plane took off, Guy looked down through a side window. The city below was a wasteland, smoke from the fires and explosions drifting across the rubble. It was hard to believe that he had actually been down there in that hellish place. But if Hoffman was right, unless their plan succeeded the whole world would soon be reduced to the same state.
* * *
The Séance Room was the obvious place to hold an exorcism. Jane was docile and compliant, but she seemed more aware of what was going on now, more herself than she had been a few days ago. Miss Manners spent several minutes explaining to her quietly and carefully what they were planning.
‘And then you should be free of the Vril presence in your mind. You do want to be free of it?’ she asked.
‘I … I don’t know.’ Jane considered. Then: ‘Yes,’ she decided abruptly. ‘I want to be free of it. I want to be able to think again. My mind is just so numb.’
Whatever Sarah had thought she might find when she returned to the Station Z offices, this wasn’t it. Brinkman welcomed her back, listening to her brief account of her time in Moscow, before leading the way through to the Séance Room.
Jane was lying on her back on the circular table. Her bare legs emerged from the loose dress she wore. Her arms were outstretched on either side, the bracelet still clamped tightly in place above her elbow.
‘Don’t you need to be a priest to do this?’ Sarah said as she helped light the candles.
‘Only for a Christian exorcism,’ Miss Manners replied. ‘And there’s nothing very Christian about this. In fact, the words I shall use are taken from one of the texts in Crowley’s library. It’s been handed down since time immemorial.’
‘Will it work?’ Brinkman asked. ‘Do the Vril respond to, what would you call this, magic?’
With the candles lit, Miss Manners ushered Sarah, Brinkman and Green to the side of the room. ‘They do seem to have some affinity with the occult,’ she said. She lowered her voice. ‘And Jane will understand what’s happening. This is as much for her benefit as it is for theirs.’
‘How do you mean?’ Green asked.
‘She’s sharing her mind with them at the moment. I’m hoping that the text is derived from actual rituals and ceremonies established either by the Vril, or by their enemies in ancient times. But whatever the origin, if Jane believes that this process has weakened or expelled their influence, then perhaps her own mind will be better able to reassert itself.’
Sarah nodded. ‘Restoring her self-confidence, I see. And removing the bracelet will also weaken their control, I guess.’
‘If we can remove it,’ Brinkman said. ‘I assume she wore it above the elbow so no one would see it. But the thing’s pretty much welded into her skin. There’s sure to be some … damage.’
‘Can’t be helped,’ Miss Manners said. ‘But you know, I’m not sure she’ll care – or even notice.’
With the lights turned out, the room was lit only by the candles. Sarah and the others were too far away to hear clearly what Miss Manners murmured as she moved round the table. There was a bowl of water on a side table. She dipped her fingers in it, then shook the water over Jane’s supine body, sprinkled it on her face, traced it down the palms of her hands.
Jane’s body tensed, her back arching up off the table and her face contorted in apparent pain, eyes wide open. Her breath came in sharp gasps as Miss Manners continued with the words, standing at her head and staring down into her friend’s eyes.
Finally, Jane gave a cry – a sound that combined pain and sadness and loss. Her teeth clenched together and she began to writhe uncontrollably on the table.
‘Hold her!’ Miss Manners ordered. ‘Hold her arms down.’
The woman’s legs were kicking and thrashing. Brinkman and Green hurried across, each grabbing one of Jane’s arms. Green leaned his weight down on her shoulder, holding her forearm with both hands.
Miss Manners grabbed Jane’s hand, which was clenching and unclenching. She worked at the bracelet on the upper arm, unclasping it and folding it open. As it moved, the orange tendrils connecting the inside of the bracelet to the flesh rippled and pulled, desperately dragging the bracelet shut again.
‘Sarah – help me with this.’
Sarah grabbed one half of the bracelet, working her fingers beneath it. She could feel the thin tentacles squirming round them, imagined them burrowing under her own skin, and felt sick. She swallowed, concentrating on the task of tearing open the bracelet.
Miss Manners had hold of the bracelet on the other side of the central hinge. Like Sarah, she was working it back, prising it slowly open. One of the tendrils snapped. Then another. They curled back in on themselves, retreating into the bracelet at one end, the flesh of the arm at the other.
With all her strength, Sarah ripped the bracelet open. Jane gave an almighty scream, her whole body rising up from the table before sinking back down again as her cry faded away. Skin tore from Jane’s arm where the tendrils struggled to keep hold. An orange wound opened up, like a second visceral bracelet. But already the skin was beginning to reform as the tendrils closed it up again.
Jane’s gasping breaths slowly subsided. Her eyes were closed now, her head lolled to one side. A thin strand of saliva hung from the side of her mouth like a spider’s thread. Slowly, warily, Green and Brinkman let go of her shoulders and arms and stepped back.
‘Is that it?’ Green asked, his voice tight with nervous energy.
‘I don’t know,’ Miss Manners admitted.
‘She seems to be asleep,’ Sarah said.
‘I’ll stay with her,’ Miss Manners told them. ‘We’ll see how she is when she wakes.’
* * *
The dreams were vivid and terrible. A confused jumble of nightmare images, part memory, part vision. It was like when she saw through the eyes of the cat – gazing out through eyes that were not her own. Some of the things she saw had already happened; some were visions of things that were yet to come. Plans and aspirations, intentions and strategy.
She had only the vaguest memory of how she had become like this. Her skin crawled and tightened as she recalled something moving up her naked body. A stab of pain. The bracelet heavy on her arm. But the details were an unfocused blur.
More clearly, she could see a field of rough grass sloping down towards the sea. Rocky outcrops piercing the vegetation, the grass becoming thinner and disappearing as an area of stone thrust up through it. A shelf of rock scattered with patches of shadow. Beyond and to the side of this there were buildings, a utilitarian industrial landscape juxtaposed with the natural one. Huge storage tanks dwarfed wooden huts, metal pipes snaking away out of sight.
Then the rock seemed to come to life. The dark shadows were moving. Creatures hauled themselves up out of the holes in the rock. Long gnarled limbs reached up, searching for purchase before levering bulbous dark bodies out of the blackness. The huge bloated creatures scuttled across the rock, into the field, more and more of them – almost liquid in their density, a viscous wave of grotesque spiders spilling out of the ground and staining the fields black.
* * *
‘I dreamed terrible things,’ she asked weakly. ‘What do they mean?’
‘I don’t know,’ Miss Manners sighed. ‘Some of it is prob
ably your memory of what Crowley did to you. The rest…’ She handed Jane a glass of water. ‘How do you feel? Are you … yourself?’
‘My head is clearer. But there’s still something, at the back of my mind. Like when you can’t quite remember something that you ought to know well. A shadow across my memories and thoughts.’
‘Hopefully it will clear.’
‘Am I free of them?’
‘Perhaps. But your body has obviously undergone quite a change. Mrs Archer might have some ideas, but I can’t tell you anything much you don’t know yourself. Your dreams suggest you’re still linked to the Vril. If you can resist their influence, that might help us.’
‘You think I can see what they are doing, or intending?’
‘You have a gift,’ Miss Manners said. ‘If we can focus that, see what the Vril are doing just as you saw what the cat saw in Los Angeles, then perhaps.’
‘It may be too late,’ Jane said. ‘I can’t explain exactly what I saw. But I do know it was the end of the world.’
Miss Manner sat down beside her. ‘Then you’d better tell me what you saw. Every detail.’
* * *
‘It does sound like the place we found in Crete,’ Brinkman agreed.
‘And either the hatchway you saw has been opened, or the Vril intend to open it.’
‘Releasing thousands of the buggers,’ Green added. ‘Millions.’
‘That would tie in with the stories about opening the gates of hell and awakening vengeful gods, or whatever it was,’ Sarah said. ‘But how do we stop it – assuming this is a prophecy and it hasn’t happened already?’
Brinkman’s phone rang, and he gestured for Miss Manners to answer it. ‘Unless it’s urgent, I’m not here.’
She lifted the receiver. ‘Colonel Brinkman’s phone, Miss Manners speaking.’ She listened for a moment, then covered the receiver his her hand. ‘Wiles,’ she said quietly. ‘I think you’d better speak to him.’
‘So I’m a message service now am I?’ Wiles said as soon as Brinkman took the phone. ‘Not like I’ve anything else to do, now, is it?’
‘I’m sorry,’ Brinkman told him, ‘but I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘I’m talking about a message picked up by several of the Y Stations, that’s what.’
‘What of it?’ Brinkman asked, nonplussed.
‘Well, I can’t think why it was passed straight to me, but let me read it to you. This was received at nine-seventeen GMT today. And it reads: “FAO”, that means “For Attention Of”, by the way.’
‘Yes, thank you, I did know that.’
‘Well, that’s a start. Anyway, it says: “FAO Dr Wiles.” That’s me, by the way. “Tell Ollie”, and I assume that is you, “Tell Ollie we are off to meet his shepherd friend most urgently. All help appreciated. Guy and Leo.” And for the record I have no idea who this shepherd is.’
‘It’s all right,’ Brinkman told him. ‘I know who he is.’
‘Oh? A codename is it?’
‘No, he’s a shepherd.’
‘Well that’s clear as mud then,’ Wiles said. ‘I’ve sent a copy down to you by motorcycle, as Eleanor assures me that’s the quickest way. There’s a bit more, but it’s just dates and times which may make more sense to you than to me. But the whole thing is so cryptic I assumed it must be urgent.’
‘It is,’ Brinkman agreed. ‘Thank you. You may not appreciate it, but if you get any more messages like this, please do pass them on as soon as you can.’
‘Oh, it’s all right,’ Wiles said. ‘I’m just a bit miffed that it sounds like some people are having more fun than I am.’
‘So what was that about, sir?’ Green asked as Brinkman hung up.
‘I think we were right: what Jane saw is related to our excursion to Crete. That, by a rather roundabout route, was a message from Mr Davenport and Major Pentecross.’
‘Really?’ Sarah’s excitement was obvious. ‘Did they get to Stalingrad? Where are they now?’
‘I’m afraid I have no idea,’ Brinkman told her. ‘But I know where they’re going.’
CHAPTER 42
Hoffman had returned to Wewelsburg from Russia, Guy and Leo Davenport travelling with him. Rather than risk getting into the castle again, they waited in the shed where Hoffman had a radio set hidden – and from there sent a cryptic signal they hoped would get to Brinkman without making much sense to anyone else who intercepted it. Now in SS uniforms, they had travelled with Hoffman back to Crete.
‘The whole area is off limits now,’ Hoffman told them. ‘Nachten was flown back to Berlin for treatment. He broke some ribs and an arm, nothing too major. But he’s still at Wewelsburg, recovering. I persuaded him I should come back to Crete to check on how his man Grebben is doing. Lucky for us, Nachten left instructions that no one is to go back down into the Labyrinth until his return.’
They spent as much time as they could going over the plan time and time again. It wasn’t perfect – no plan could be. But there didn’t seem to be any realistic alternative.
‘Will you have time to get away?’ Davenport asked Hoffman.
‘Does it matter if I live or die?’ he asked. ‘It doesn’t to me.’
‘We’d hate to lose you,’ Guy told him.
Hoffman did not reply.
So far as Mihali was aware, it was the fuel depot they were interested in. Hoffman insisted on a full inspection of the facility as soon as they arrived in Crete, taking Guy and Leo with him. Having seen everything they needed to, Guy and Leo slipped away from the quarters they had been given on the edge of the fuel depot, and headed for where they hoped to contact Mihali.
The dates and times they had put in the message to Brinkman had been of necessity vague, and they had no way of knowing if the message had even got through. But Mihali was waiting for them at the edge of the wooded area where he and Guy had hidden to observe the depot almost three months earlier. He raised his eyebrows as he saw the uniforms they were wearing.
‘I suggest you delay your plan for twenty-four hours,’ Mihali said when Guy and Leo gave him an edited version of what they intended.
‘Why’s that?’ Guy asked.
‘Our mutual friend Ollie Brinkman is due to arrive tomorrow evening. Organising my people at short notice won’t be easy, and what you’re asking requires some skill. My chaps are better at blowing things up, and to be honest I’m not sure why you’re not just setting explosives.’
‘There’s something under that area of rock that we need to make sure is destroyed,’ Leo told him. ‘Just blowing up the fuel depot won’t do it.’
Mihali nodded. ‘I see. We haven’t noticed any construction in that area, but maybe they tunnelled through from the fuel depot or under the cliffs.’
‘Maybe,’ Guy said. Neither he nor Leo were ready to tell Mihali that it wasn’t a German installation they were targeting.
Explaining why they were staying on for another day at the facility was a potential problem. But Hoffman simply asked to see the paperwork relating to fuel transfers for the past six months. It didn’t take him long to come up with a list of difficult questions and demands for further information. The depot supervisor was relieved when Hoffman offered to stay an extra day while the administrative staff sorted out what he wanted.
‘The last thing either of us want is for me to report back, and to be told I missed something and have to return,’ Hoffman said. ‘Better to be thorough now, and then we can leave you in peace.’
‘And some time in the next twenty-four hours,’ Guy added, ‘we shall want to test your emergency evacuation procedures. There will be no prior warning, except that I shall require you to sound the alarm at a time I specify, of course.’
‘Will the evacuation include Hauptsturmfuhrer Grebben’s men?’ the supervisor asked nervously.
‘It will,’ Hoffman told him. ‘But if you prefer, I shall inform the Hauptsturmfuhrer myself of the exercise.’
It was clear the supervisor certainly would
prefer this.
* * *
Guy was not surprised at the reaction when they met Grebben. The Hauptsturmfuhrer had requisitioned a hut on the edge of the facility, close to the shelf of rock where the entrance to the Labyrinth was hidden.
‘My orders from Standartenfuhrer Nachten are to stay here, sir,’ he told Hoffman.
Guy and Leo kept to the background and made no comment. Leo, of course had little idea what was being said, though Guy followed the discussion easily.
‘Well, now I am giving you fresh orders,’ Hoffman replied.
Grebben shifted uncomfortably, aware that his own men were watching too. ‘Can I ask the purpose of this evacuation exercise?’
‘It is to make certain that this facility can be evacuated effectively in a timely manner, that is all.’
‘And why is an assistant to the Reichsfuhrer-SS so interested?’
Hoffman waited a few moments before he answered, allowing Grebben to wonder if he had perhaps gone too far.
‘You have been down into the Labyrinth,’ Hoffman said at last. ‘You have seen what is down there. Do you really need to ask why we might have to clear this entire area as rapidly as possible?’
Grebben did not reply. A nerve ticked rapidly at the corner of his left eye.
‘When the alarm sounds,’ Hoffman went on, ‘you and your men will take part in the drill, and evacuate this area along with the other personnel. Is that clear, Hauptsturmfuhrer?’
* * *
They waited in the middle of nowhere. The fields were bordered by woods on one side, the ground rising to rocky mountains on the other. It was the perfect landing zone, well away from any habitation. The plane was flying high, so as not to be heard, and with a light wind there was a danger of drifting. But right on schedule, Guy spotted the three pale parachutes floating down towards them.
‘Has Brinkman done this before?’ Guy wondered.
‘Who knows,’ Davenport told him. ‘The colonel keeps himself to himself rather. I think Green’s seen a lot of service though. Wouldn’t surprise me if he hasn’t made a few drops in his time.’
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