Deal with the Devil

by J. Gunnar Grey

  The first blow slammed, by chance or design, into the exposed back of his right arm. Agony exploded like a mortar round, as if shrapnel sprayed through his body. A red flare erupted among the remnants of the white one behind his closed eyes. His elbow convulsed against his side. A voice that sounded like his own cried out.

  “You’re not so tough.” Norris’ voice sounded right overhead. “I could have taken you any time. So much for the invincible German Army.”

  Faust couldn’t see, could barely move. Pain pulsed across half his body, even through the lingering effects of the painkiller. He reached out blindly, grabbed rough woolen cloth, tried to yank the tall body off balance. But another mortar round exploded inside his head and blew his thoughts away.

  Chapter Eighty-Three

  late evening

  outside Woodrow

  Get help, the man said. Jennifer’s feet skidded down the stairs without any conscious intervention from her. Another thud, a loud one. Run, he said.

  And leave him defenseless behind.

  She could run back upstairs with the shotgun and blow the murderer full of pellets. But they’d spray throughout the room and half of them would hit John-Jacob. She could swing it, slam Norris from behind, give him a taste of his own blood-soaked medicine. And if he saw her first, he could take it away from her and use it on them both.

  She wanted to scream, sob, rant. She wanted to run back upstairs and help him. But her feet knew better. They kept moving. They flew past Stoner’s dust-covered study, rounded into the sitting room, crossed the kitchen. Her hand reached out, snagged her keyring in passing. Her other hand twisted the knob, threw open the back door, and her feet leaped out into the night.

  She raced around the corner of the farmhouse. Overhead, the blackout curtains had been ripped from the smashed window and lamplight spilled over the gnarled apple tree like a flickering flame, tendrils seeping across the ground before her heedless feet and lapping at the looming tree trunks. She ran past them. At the base of the hill, where the macadam lane emptied through the military wing’s gate, a wash of moonlight showed the blacktop empty. Bruckmann and Tanyon still arranged the nonsuspects about Margeaux Hall; the lorry, carrying them, hadn’t arrived.

  She and John-Jacob were on their own.

  “Jack!” She doubled about and ran for the postern gate. Norris didn’t carry keys; if she could get through, she could find help, find someone to save him the way he’d saved her grandfather. “Sergeant Tanyon! Jack!”

  Footsteps pounded behind her. She didn’t slow, didn’t glance. It could only be Norris; John-Jacob would be stumbling, after those blows. She swerved between the trunks, screaming as she ran. He already knew where she was and she refused to hide.

  She slammed into the postern, inserted the key, fumbled. It jammed. The footsteps pounded closer, heavy breathing like a hateful steam engine approaching. The key wouldn’t turn. Forget help. She’d kill him with her bare hands.

  She let go the key, whirled, screaming wordless anger. He was right there, right behind her. His hands were almost to her throat. She ignored them, reached past them, fastened her own upon his face and ground her thumbnails into his eyes.

  He recoiled, shouting something foul. She held on. His grasping hands missed her throat, wrapped about her wrists, yanked. She dug deeper, still screaming her rage, threw her weight against his body and forced him back beneath the trees. Down the hill an engine growled, rumbled, died, then someone else shouted. Sergeant Tanyon’s baritone, aroused and closing.

  Norris gasped. He pulled back. She screamed one final challenge, let go his bleeding slippery face, and wrapped her fists in his uniform collar. Bruckmann and Tanyon would be here soon. If she just held on—

  Norris threw a panicked glance down the hill, turned back to her. He drew back his fist.

  Something big and dark and magnificent dropped from the branch overhead. John-Jacob landed behind Norris, whipped a grey-clad arm about his loathsome neck, and yanked. For a moment they wobbled, all three teetering on the sloping ground in a frenetic dance. Suddenly she understood John-Jacob’s intention. But it was too late to let go. They fell into a sprawling heap, John-Jacob on the bottom.

  Chapter Eighty-Four

  late evening

  outside Woodrow

  Bruckmann scrambled from the lorry and chased after Tanyon, sliding in the muck beneath the apple trees at the base of the hill. She sounded as if someone was skinning her alive. Entwined forms clustered outside the postern gate, lurching back toward the orchard, stumbling in a writhing dance. Then they all crumpled, falling as if mowed down by a machine gun. The smallest figure, the one on top, screamed again, drew back a fist, and pounded the next one down.

  Bruckmann dug into the slope and galloped past Tanyon. The wash of moonlight darkened. Surely after a blistering hot day, they wouldn’t be cursed with clouds at night? But the last of the dimming glow faded and vanished.

  One of the faceless figures whipped aside, throwing Jennifer into a crumpling heap and racing away. It could only be the killer. The running man cut across the farmyard, ran blindly through the kitchen garden, swarmed up the Roman rampart, and vanished into the Dark.

  Jennifer rolled over and rose to a crouch beside the still-motionless third. Bruckmann slowed. That third form huddled as if it would never move again. His blood chilled. If Faust died before he told what he knew of the invasion — green intelligence lieutenants had been broken for less. Much less.

  “Jennifer?”

  She turned. Her pale face blurred in the darkness. “It’s Norris! Get him!”

  Tanyon thundered past, ripped through the garden, took the rampart in one leap, and vanished.

  Faust stirred. He grabbed the hand Jennifer offered him and pulled himself to a sitting position, even if he did wobble once there. Satisfied, Bruckmann ran on, following Tanyon’s path. If it truly was Norris, with his long legs and wiry build, they’d have the devil’s own time catching him, and no deal to be had.

  Chapter Eighty-Five

  late evening

  Woodrow

  The pounding footsteps diminished in the night. The moon reappeared and brilliant moonlight again bathed the hillside. For a breathless moment silver silence descended. Then a cricket sang, another answered, and some semblance of reality returned to the glistening night. Jennifer gasped, her breath rasping in a throat dry and sore. Had Norris choked her, after all? She couldn’t remember. Her throat ached, her head, face, legs, breast. She felt ravaged, and the thought of that murderer getting away boiled her blood. But the chase had passed beyond her reach and she could do no more, no matter how much she wished otherwise.

  She turned. John-Jacob dragged his feet beneath him and rocked, as if about to fall over from the weight of those broad shoulders. His head would fit perfectly in the crook of her neck and they could give each other aid and comfort beneath the apple trees, breaking the law together all night. But he grabbed her hand and tugged, his feet shuffling and his hot gaze trailing after the chase. What in the world was he thinking? She scrambled to her feet, fought his bulk, and heaved him upright. He leaned, staggered, and his entire weight descended on her shoulder. Her knees buckled. It was heavenly, inexplicably exciting — but then he staggered off in pursuit, across the path tracked through her poor little garden. John-Jacob scrambled up the rampart and vanished in the Dark.

  Proving even magnificent men could be utter fools upon occasion. Just like Stoner.

  She ran back into the farmhouse. Her shotgun still lay in a pool of moonlight on the dining table, cold and deadly. It was loaded but boasted neither magazine nor cylinder, and Norris might double back, seeking the lorry for a quicker escape. One shot wouldn’t nearly satisfy her.

  The shells were in the sideboard, and she propped the shotgun beneath her arm as she scrabbled in the drawer. Napkins, napkin rings, tablecloth, doilies, odd trinkets, all spilled onto the floor as she dug into the back. The tips of her fingers closed on a stiffened cardboard box tha
t rattled as she tugged it closer. It slid, balked, turned aside. She exclaimed wordlessly and adjusted her grip. Suddenly it slithered to the front. One-handed, she gathered it up and straightened. The box collapsed, and tumbling, rolling shells cascaded across the farmhouse floor.

  Blast. Jennifer fell to her knees, scrabbling for the little cylinders. In the dim moonlight, they flashed and vanished in all directions. She gathered one, two, several, but her nerveless fingers dropped those she held as fast as she grabbed new ones. It was maddening and not to be borne, and she screamed her frustration to the night.

  This was getting her nowhere. She forced herself calm, set the shotgun beside her, and slid her forearms across the floor, rolling the shells toward her spread knees and skirt. They bumped her skin, aligned with her bones, and without effort she scooped a double handful into her pocket. Leaving the rest, she ran back outside, jumping off the front porch into the rutted rows of her garden.

  Silver moonlight spilled across the wavering greenery and the dark line of crushed, trampled plants looked like a stark wound. The crickets had fallen silent but in the apple boughs behind her, a nightjar sang its alien trilling churr. In the Dark ahead, something rustled through the discarded trash of autumns past, approaching fast. She raised the shotgun to her shoulder and peered along the sights.

  Let him come.

  Chapter Eighty-Six

  late evening

  in the Dark, outside Woodrow, and at the Alcock chicken farm

  He had to be crazy.

  No other reason for this. He’d gone crazy, Stoner had applied too much pressure and shoved him right over the brink, and here he was, staggering through a forest alone, not even trying to escape but trailing after a chase that had left him so far behind, he couldn’t even hear their footsteps. Faust staggered to a stop, leaned his back against the nearest tree, and let it support him while he gasped for breath. He glanced back; he hadn’t traveled far enough to lose sight of the forest’s edge.

  The chase was in Bruckmann’s and Tanyon’s hands now and he couldn’t help further, no matter how much he wanted to be in on the capture. Besides, some small and evil man had climbed into his skull and whaled away at his brain with a miniature sledgehammer. His knees stung, his arm raged, and when the last of the painkiller wore off, the rest of his aches and pains would pipe in. It was somebody else’s turn. He pushed off the tree and stumbled back along his zigzag path, scuffing through leafy debris and stumbling over roots and fallen branches. No matter how he tried to reason with himself, his sullenness refused to lessen, as if he’d quit something important. Hopefully one of those impervious Englishmen would be hurt as badly before the night ended.

  In the distance, Jennifer’s voice shouted, wordless and enraged.

  A cold knot of fear tangled his throat. He stumbled faster. Frag it, they’d left her alone — no, to be truthful, he had. If Norris beat Bruckmann and Tanyon off, gave them the slip, doubled back, she was vulnerable. If anything happened to her, it was his fault. His chest tightened. He forced his feet faster through the debris, gasping for breath like a drowning man.

  Without warning he left the cover of the trees, found himself bathed in gentle fluid moonlight, took the next step before he remembered, and fell over the blasted rampart. Again the forest fooled him, just as it had Sunday morning at his initial capture. It seemed as if the ground opened before him but this time, he managed to throw his weight back and slide down the slope on his caboose.

  A rifleman stood in the kitchen garden, awash in moonlight. The barrel aligned on him so steadily, its black center was round, neither foreshortened nor wavering. Faust rolled. The plants provided the only cover; if he tried to scramble back into the forest—

  —but it wasn’t a rifleman. It was a shotgun-toting, ferocious, aggravating woman in a tweed skirt, and after scaring ten years off his life, she lowered the barrel and ran toward him. Faust collapsed back against the rampart, swearing. In German; even crazy he hadn’t lost all his manners.

  Jennifer fell to her knees beside him. “You silly fool, I nearly shot you.”

  She would not blame him for this. On second thought, she still held the shotgun; she could blame him for anything she wanted. “You screamed.”

  “Of course I screamed. He’s getting away and I’m furious.”

  He peered at her sideways. Mistake. The glistening moonlight spilled across her stunningly beautiful face, gentler than lamplight, cool rather than warm, inviting and intoxicating. He fell headfirst into it.

  Without thinking he lifted his hand toward her. Cripes, he truly had lost his mind; she might not hate him, but for him to imagine any sort of bond growing between them could only be moonlit lunacy. At least in the dark she couldn’t see the flush that warmed his face. He pulled his hand back.

  But she gripped it in both of hers and held on. Her palms were soft and her fingers entwined about his. Surprised, he heaved himself upright, curled his legs, and suddenly his face leaned toward hers, barely a kiss away.

  He was seconds from losing control. And it was wrong. Even if by some miracle she did reciprocate his desire, with a killer on the loose and more than half of Stoner’s squad out searching for Faust, now was not an appropriate time and the rampart was nowhere near an appropriate place. He jerked his gaze aside, panting. Somewhere nearby, a nightjar chirred and a cricket answered. The moon escaped the clouds. Its cool light flooded over him, spilling down the farmyard to the apple orchard, the mortared-stone wall, the macadam lane joining the backwater country road—

  —and the parked lorry.

  His pulse picked up speed.

  “He’s going to get away, isn’t he?” she said, her voice anguished.

  Faust hauled in a deep breath flooded with the heady aroma of crushed herbs, basil and thyme and parsley. Her gentle floral scent rushed beneath like a counterpoint. “Give me a hand.”

  She rose beside him, fluid as the moonlight. Her grip on his hand changed and she tugged him to his feet. For a moment he thought she’d tuck herself beneath his left shoulder and support his weight; the thought shivered up his spine; but then she released him and drew back, clasping the shotgun to her torso. “You’ve got a plan.”

  He forced his feet to move, bumping past staked squash and over rows of lettuce. “Can you drive?”

  She waded through the sea of plants as if through a river. “The lorry? Heavens, no.”

  Figured. “Can you follow directions?”

  “Well.” She paused, negotiating the last row of plants and erupting into the full moonlight. “Of course I can. Why? Can’t you drive?”

  “Not with one arm.” The way his right arm screamed at him, if he tried to turn a steering wheel, he’d pass out. He stumbled faster.

  “Oh.” She trotted beside him. His footsteps crunched over gravel, whispered through grass, but hers remained soundless. The downslope ended and the rise began, the lorry ahead beneath the last apple tree. “Yes. Of course I can.”

  That was reassuring.

  He hauled open the passenger door. But this was England, not Germany, and of course the cab was reversed. He’d opened the driver’s side. Great, this would make things interesting. “What I’ll ask you to do isn’t more complicated than a typewriter. Go on, get in.”

  Jennifer swarmed inside and scooted to the center without ever losing her grip on the shotgun. Her stupendous grace made it look easy. But he had to grab the big horizontal steering wheel and drag himself up, gritting his teeth at the onrushing pain and twisting to close the door with his left hand.

  He tested the stick and pedals, accelerator, brake, and clutch. Backwards, but otherwise the same, and comforting in a solid, mechanical way. It even smelled right, oil, petrol, lubricated warm metal, and the polished windshield glistened in the night’s silver flood. The radio, a modern and recent add-on, hung beneath the dash, handy for both driver and passenger. He’d given his parole and couldn’t even consider calling Germany, although it would solve his long-term problem with a
few choice words. The possibility caught his breath. But Norris had swung a fist and smashed Jennifer to the bed. He breathed faster. Forget the radio. He’d find another way, without violating his parole.

  He stepped on the brake. “Reach down and grab that lever — yeah, the one in the middle — and pull it as hard as you can.”

  She glanced at him, her glorious eyes glinting liquid fire in the moonlight. He shivered. But she grabbed the brake lever with both hands and heaved. It gave with a jerk, tumbling her back in the seat. The lorry rocked on the slope and the pressure against the brake pedal intensified.

  “Great.” He eased off the brake. The lorry rolled down the hill, gathering speed. If it refused to start, they’d never get it turned onto the road and it would make a spectacular mess of the dairy’s dry stone wall. He held his breath, pumped the accelerator, and gave the starter a solid push. The engine revved, pulsed, started with a heartening roar. He turned the headlights on; the shuttered beams slid across the macadam before them.

  “When I tell you to, push the stick toward me, then force it up toward the dashboard. Okay?”

  “Toward you, then up.” She didn’t sound all that certain. “Got it.”

  “There are grooves within the gearbox that guide the stick into position. It’s no harder than setting a tab stop on a typewriter.” They were nearing the end of the macadam. “Ready?”