Bitter Seeds

two

22 February 1939

Westminster, London, England

Brittle scraps of acetate fluttered across Stephenson's desk as he paged through Marsh's report. The charred edges of the document fragments littered the wide expanse of cherrywood with black flakes and smears of carbon. Ashes skittered along the desk and drifted to the carpet at Marsh's feet every time Stephenson exhaled. They smelled of woodsmoke and scorched leather.

Marsh rocked on the balls of his feet. Stephenson had been at it for a good half hour.

Somewhere down on the street the rat-a-tat syncopation of a two-stroke engine drifted out of the white noise of a London morning. A motorbike, probably a Villiers, zipping along Victoria Street, Marsh gauged. Stephenson's window didn't afford a grand view, mostly just the buildings across Broadway, but from here on the fifth floor of SIS headquarters, it was possible to glimpse the late-winter sun on the trees of St. James' Park several streets over.

“Hmmm.”

Marsh looked back to his mentor. Stephenson opened a side drawer and produced a jeweler's loupe, a holdover from his days as a photo recon analyst during the Great War. He examined a random sampling of film scraps with quiet concentration. One by one he held them up toward the window in his single hand, squinting through the magnifying lens. Marsh scooted aside so as not to block what little natural light the window provided.

Marsh sighed. He pressed the backs of his fingers to his neck and cracked his knuckles against his jaw. Stephenson cleared his throat; Marsh dropped his hands.

Years of polishing had imbued the wood-paneled walls with a satiny finish that reflected the soft glow of lamplight. The walls matched the bookcases, and Stephenson's desk. Above the wainscoting hung maps; photographs of a young, two-armed Stephenson in flying leathers; and a few of his wife, Corrie's, watercolors.

Stephenson had married a Yank from Tennessee. She tended to paint landscapes and nature studies from memory, evoking the rolling hills of her home. Marsh's mentor derived a strange amusement from decorating his office with images of plants foreign to a country of gardeners.

“Well,” said Stephenson at last, still squinting at the film scraps, “I'm quite impressed. When you cock something up, you do it good and proper.”

“Sir?”

“I sent you to Spain to run a simple errand.”

“Sir—”

“Somebody just swans in and torches your contact and where are you, hmmm? Off getting pissed in the pub.”

“Sir, it's not as if some pikey came traipsing along with a bucket of kerosene—”

“Hmm. This is interesting.” Stephenson held up one of the scraps. “What do you make of this one?”

Marsh took the film in one hand and the loupe in the other. The fragment contained less than a dozen frames, several of which had been darkened by heat damage. A sequence of eight or nine frames—a fraction of a second—showed a woman standing in front of a brick wall, and then just the brick wall, with no transition from one frame to the next. She was nude except for the belt at her waist connected to her head by what appeared to be wires.

“Looks like they stopped the camera.” He handed the items back to Stephenson. “Or perhaps this was spliced together from various sources.” He pointed at the film scrap. “Those things in her head. That's what I saw in Barcelona. Different woman, though.” He shrugged. “It's not the only oddity in the film, sir.”

Stephenson waved him toward a chair upholstered in button-tufted chintz. As Marsh took the load off his feet, the old man opened another desk drawer and pulled out a bottle and two glasses.

“Brandy?”

“Please.” Marsh sank farther into the chair.

“I imagine you could use it.”

A knock sounded at the door while Stephenson poured. He called, “Yes, Marjorie.”

His secretary peeked inside. “Sir, Commander Pryce from the Admiralty wants—Oh! You're back.”

Marsh nodded at her. “Hi, Margie.” She seemed pleased to see him. But she was a married woman, and that caused a pang of loneliness.

“What ever it is, he'll have to wait,” said Stephenson.

“Sir, he said—”

“Not now. I'll call him back.”

She nodded and withdrew.

As the head of circulating section T (short for “technological surprise”), Stephenson was responsible for gathering intelligence pertaining to military technologies under development within Nazi Germany. Although the section itself was only a few years old, it descended from the historical roots of the organization prior to the Great War, when foreign espionage was the purview of the Admiralty, focused primarily on gauging the strength of the Imperial German Navy. Politically savvy Stephenson therefore maintained close ties with the Admiralty, not least because C, the head of SIS, was a career naval officer.

Marsh accepted one of the glasses. Stephenson held his up: “To safe travels, and safe returns.” Clink. This ritual had become their custom. Insofar as Stephenson had been a father to Marsh, tradecraft was the family business.

“This one turned out to be more complicated than we realized,” said Stephenson, settling back into his own chair. Marsh grimaced. It was the nearest thing to an apology he'd ever heard out of the old man. And that made him uneasy.

Stephenson gestured at the desk with his glass. “So. What should we do with this mess?”

“It might be possible to copy the remaining frames and to splice together a rough approximation of the original film. That's what I'd do.”

Stephenson nodded. “I'll put out a few feelers. We'll need somebody good, somebody who can keep his mouth shut. It may take a while. And the photograph?”

“Could be anywhere. Probably useless, at least until we know more.”

Stephenson nodded. “And what of the documents?”

Marsh shrugged. “Difficult to say. One gets the impression that they're excerpts from medical reports.”

“Your man did mention a doctor, I note,” said Stephenson, sifting through Marsh's report again. “Von Westarp? Medical doctor, presumably.” He put the loupe back in his desk and produced a packet of cigarettes. An American brand, Lucky Strike.

Over the skritch of Stephenson's match, Marsh added, “He also said something about children. Got rather worked up about it. Peculiar.”

Around the cigarette dangling from his lips, Stephenson asked, “And what, I wonder, does one thing have to do with the other?”

“My thoughts exactly, sir.”

The two men watched in quiet contemplation as shadows slowly inched along the street. The tip of Stephenson's cigarette flared marigold orange in the growing darkness.

He stamped it out in a marble ashtray and turned on another lamp. “Right, then. First things first. I'm opening a new file. Until we resolve this issue, or it resolves itself, refer to this matter under the rubric 'Milkweed.'” At this last he nodded at the wall over Marsh's head.

Marsh craned his neck. Another of Corrie's watercolors hung over the chair. “Understood.”

“And as for Milkweed, there are a few people who ought to be apprised of this. If I can call them together on short notice, are you free this evening, Marsh?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Excellent. I'll ring you.”

Stephenson's car, a gleaming cream-colored Rolls Royce Mulliner, rolled up at half seven. A gray cloud roiled out when Marsh entered. The interior smelled of leather and Lucky Strikes. Stephenson rapped the roof once Marsh was settled, signaling his driver to proceed.

From Marsh's home in Walworth they drove west. The Rolls thumped as they crossed onto the steel spans of Lambeth Bridge. Stephenson's driver swung the car north on Millbank when they passed beneath a granite obelisk and its pineapple finial at the far side of the Thames.

Soon Victoria Tower loomed out of the night, a square stone giant wrapped in fog and lamplight. They passed the Perpendicular Gothic filigrees of Westminster Palace: Tudor details on a classic body, as somebody once said. Marsh noted the gradations where the crumbling Yorkshire limestone was being replaced with honey-colored clipsham.

They skirted Parliament Square, passed the Cenotaph, and continued north onto Whitehall.

“Sir, where are we going?”

Stephenson turned. “Do you know what I miss the most about the old days?”

“Your arm?”

“Ha. Cheeky lad,” said the older man. “No. Back then, we didn't have so many damnable meetings. Now it's all we ever do.” His eyes twinkled. “This one's a bit above your regular pay grade, I'm afraid. I trust you won't mind, just this once.”

Oh, hell. That meant sitting in a room full of tossers who would discount Marsh the moment he opened his mouth. He'd had quite enough of that at university.

The car passed through the narrow arch of a long, low screen into the courtyard of a pseudo-Palladian three-story brick building. The Admiralty.

Marsh followed Stephenson through a side door into a neoclassical rabbit warren. Their footsteps echoed through marble colonnades, twisting stairwells, and narrow corridors. At length the older man stopped before a single door of simple walnut. He knocked.

A pale man—any one of countless bureaucrats in this lightless den, Marsh thought—ushered them into a dark room. Marsh smelled brandy and the mustiness of old paper when he stepped inside. A pair of brass lamps with jade-green lampshades stood on twin davenports flanking the room. The lamps cast their illumination in tight circles near the center of the room, leaving the periphery in deep shadows.

Fabric rustled in one corner of the room, as of somebody shifting in a chair. Elsewhere somebody suffered a coughing fit. Deep shadows, but not empty.

“About time, Stephenson.” A man with a great aquiline nose glanced at his pocket watch. Marsh recognized the Earl Stanhope, First Lord of the Admiralty.

Marsh leaned toward Stephenson. “Sir,” he whispered, “may I ask what I'm doing here?”

“I'd like you to tell these gentlemen”—his gesture encompassed the room, shadows and all—”about your experience in Spain.”

“It's all in my report, sir.”

“Yes ... but I believe they should hear it straight from you. Indulge me.”

Marsh did. He took care to emphasize the peculiar nature of the fire, its rapidity as well as the conspicuous absence of petrol, oil, and other smells. For their part, his audience appeared to take the story in stride. But Marsh felt a subtle disdain in the silence, a tacit acknowledgment among these men that he was not one of them. Still, they listened without interruption until:

“What do you mean this fellow was on fire?”

“Blazing like the Crystal Palace. Spouting flames which quickly spread from his body to the furniture to the walls, and in moments the entire hotel was ablaze. In other words, he was on fire.”

Stephenson touched Marsh's arm as if to say, Easy, lad. Don't get your dander up. Marsh wrapped up with his arrival in Barcelona, describing the film fragments and the Frankensteined gypsy girl.

The flare of a match briefly silhouetted the profile of a rotund man in the corner as he lit a cigar. Before the light faded, Marsh also glimpsed Commander Pryce, and Admiral Sir Hugh Sinclair, who was Stephenson's superior and the head of SIS.

Sinclair spoke up next. “Leaving aside the more improbable portions of this tale ...” He trailed off into another coughing fit before continuing. “What do you make of this, Stephenson?”

Stephenson's shrug was a peculiar lopsided gesture on the one-armed man. “I don't know what to make of it, sir. But I'd say we have a bloody great problem on our hands.” He enumerated the points of his argument on his fingers. “First, we know Krasnopolsky witnessed things that frightened him half-dead. Second, he died in a fire that arose quite spontaneously. If Commander Marsh says there was no external fuel, I assure you gentlemen there was none. And third, the circumstantial evidence on the film suggests the Jerries have tapped into something rather unnatural.”

Unnatural. The old man's comment jarred something loose at the back of Marsh's mind. The half-forgotten memory of a drunken misad-venture back at university. He'd long since attributed the hazy recollections of that night to drink—he had been rather pissed. But now recent events conspired to resurrect the memory, casting it in a new light.

It took Marsh back to Oxford, and a long night spent searching the Bodleian for anthropodermic volumes with an irrepressible friend. A grisly night, but harmless ... until Will found the object of his quest and read aloud from it. Marsh crossed his arms, warding off a frisson of disquiet. He'd never returned to the Bodleian after that night. Nor had they ever spoken about it. One sensed that Will had committed a whopping great indiscretion, even by his standards.

Unnatural. Marsh had comforted himself with hopeful self-delusion, disregarding the whole affair as a faulty memory and perhaps a lesson on the perils of drinking to excess. Except, of course, Will had been sober as a deacon. And now as he listened to Stephenson and reflected upon the events in Spain, Marsh confronted the possibility that his memory was unscathed.

Marsh returned his attention to the conversation at hand. Somebody had turned on another lamp. The room had split in two factions: those who believed Stephenson and Marsh were crazy, and those who believed they were merely mistaken. Arguments flew back and forth until Admiral Sinclair clapped his hands for silence.

“Gentlemen! This is leading nowhere. I'll issue an all-section directive to flag and compile any information regarding this von Westarp character. Until we know more, there is nothing we can do. I suggest we table the issue.”

Marsh's thoughts were still in Oxford. “That's a mistake,” he blurted.

Stephenson coughed, the corners of his mouth turned up behind his hand. He loves it when I make an ass of myself.

Somebody muttered something about “Stephenson's pet gorilla,” Marsh's nickname back at SIS. They saw him as a rough fellow, brutish, and—because of his class—no doubt endowed with disgraceful manners. A gorilla.

The Admiral leaned forward, fixing Marsh with a cold stare. He coughed again into his handkerchief before responding. “I beg your pardon, Commander?”

“Forgive me, sir, but I was there. And I'm telling you, the Jerries are on to something here. If we wait on this, it'll be too late to do anything.”

“Well, then,” chimed the First Lord. “Thank you so very much for sharing your vast wisdom and expertise.” He shifted in his chair, turning his attention fully on his peers. A none-too-subtle indication that Marsh was dismissed and disregarded.

Thinking of Will, Marsh murmured to Stephenson, “We need to recruit specialists.”

“Specialists?”

Well, hell. In for a penny, in for a pound, thought Marsh. He nodded at Stephenson. The old man regarded his protege through narrowed eyes.

“Yes,” said Marsh. “Experts in the unnatural.”

There was no point in Marsh announcing the idea. But Stephenson had the respect of these men, and so he voiced Marsh's suggestion as though it were his own.

The room erupted in pandemonium.

“Right, then. We'll just open our doors to every crank we can muster, shall we? Press them into service?”

“—may as well issue faerie wands to the troops while we're at it—”

“—off his rocker—”

“—wasting our time—”

The rotund man in the shadows cleared his throat. “Hmm. Let the man have his say.”

Marsh recognized the voice. And what the hell is he doing here? He holds no office ... although if war breaks out on the continent, Stanhope may be ousted.

Stephenson looked at Marsh. “What do you have in mind?”

Marsh shook his head. “First let me talk to somebody. Discreetly. Then I'll get back to you.”

7 March 1939

Reichsbehorde fur die Erweiterung germanischen Potenzials

Klaus abandoned his plan to actively humiliate Reinhardt at the award ceremony after learning none other than Reichsfuhrer-SS Heinrich Himmler would pin the Spanish Cross on Doctor von Westarp's chest. Had it been a lower-level functionary presiding over the ceremony, Klaus would have gone ahead and knocked Reinhardt down a few rungs. But embarrassing Reinhardt on today of all days would also mean disgracing the doctor in front of his patron. Contemplating the inevitable retribution was enough to make Klaus tremble. Instead, he resolved to outperform Reinhardt during the day's demonstrations.

All of which he kept to himself while marching behind Reinhardt, alongside Heike and Hauptsturmfuhrer Buhler. The imbecile Kammler shambled along at the end of his leash. Theirs were the visually spectacular abilities, and thus they led the procession. Reinhardt in front, of course, because in the doctor's eyes, he was complete: the pinnacle of his achievement.

We'll see about that, thought Klaus.

Behind them, his sister marched alongside the Twins. Her power, like that of the identical psionicists, had a quiet potency that didn't lend itself to pomp and flash. Although Gretel had survived the errant shell in Spain without a scratch: she had known exactly where to huddle, and when. But like the Twins', her demonstration was scheduled later in the day.

Klaus sneaked a glance at her. Like the rest of them, she wore a crisp, perfect new uniform. But in one hand she also carried a bent, ragged, black-and-white umbrella. The old thing jarred with her uniform. It seemed so out of place that for a moment he couldn't help but check the sky. But the day had dawned clear and blue and bright. So bright, in fact, that sunlight glinted on the newly created insignia pinned to their collars: SS siegrunen cleaving a skull, like lightning bolts energizing the Willenskrafte.

The munitions range where the most rigorous skill testing took place had been transformed into a makeshift parade ground. White-coated technicians had taken up shovels and filled the craters. Everything received a new coat of paint. Bunting hung from every sill, swastika flags from every eave.

The doctor had started the program that eventually became the Reichs behorde on his family farm. It was fitting, then, that the dozen buildings now comprised by the complex huddled around the original house. The wood-and-brick farmhouse with blue trim was the nexus of the Reichsbehorde. The doctor lived on the third floor, where he enjoyed an unobstructed view of the surrounding training grounds. Klaus and the doctor's other children lived in his shadow, on the second floor. And the original laboratory still occupied the first floor, although it had fallen into disuse as the complex had expanded. The other buildings—the laboratories, barracks for the mundane troops, machine shops, chemical huts, toolsheds, the ice house and pump house—flanked the farmhouse, forming the arms of a U.

The farm's greatest virtue was its isolation. It was surrounded on all sides by oak and ash trees.

Klaus and his companions marched to the center of the training grounds, turned in formation, and came to a halt in front of the riser where the doctor sat with his two distinguished visitors. For all the pomp, it was a small ceremony. Only Himmler, the doctor's patron of many years, and one of his subordinates, SS-Obergruppenfuhrer Greifelt, had arrived from Berlin. The nascent Gotterelektrongruppe was the Reich's greatest weapon. As such, its true nature was, for the time being, a closely guarded secret. The mundane troops attached to the REGP knew a single untoward comment could land them in contempt of the Gestapo.

Klaus had never seen Himmler in person. He was surprised to find the Reichsfuhrer was a chinless baby-faced man.

Klaus and the others stood at attention while Himmler heaped glowing praise upon the doctor's lifelong dedication to the pursuit of knowledge. It had begun with the doctor's brief flirtation with the Thule Society twenty years earlier. But while the theosophical underpinnings of the Society's belief in the vanished “Aryan supermen of lost Atlantis” had resonated with many, the doctor had quickly rejected the society's meaningless preoccupation with mysticism and struck out on his own. His guiding stars were science and rationality, and between them he charted a course not for pointlessly lamenting lost greatness, but actively re-creating it. And so he built his orphanage, reasoning that children were closest to the wellspring of greatness, the least corrupted by everyday existence.

He believed in human potential, thought Klaus, and so he created us.

Back then, Klaus and the others had been little more than striplings. Formless bricks of clay waiting to be molded by the potter and tempered by the kiln. Klaus occasionally wondered, with idle curiosity, if he and Gretel once had other siblings.

The orphanage had been in place for years when Himmler and von Westarp were introduced by a former colleague in the Thule Society. Doctor von Westarp's eminently practical approach earned an enthusiastic supporter in Himmler. Thus, when Himmler became the leader of the SS, one of his first actions was to create the Institut Menschlichen Vorsprung, the Institute of Human Advancement, to house the doctor's research. He also made the doctor an SS-Oberfuhrer, senior colonel, enabling him to work without interference.

A few years later, the IMV became the Reichsbehorde fur die Erweiterung germanischen Potenzials, the Reich's Authority for the Advancement of Germanic Potential. For administrative purposes, Himmler shoehorned this into the RKF Hauptamt because on paper, von Westarp's research fell under Greifelt's purview: the “strengthening of Germanism.” But this was an administrative formality, and in reality, the doctor continued to report directly to the Reichsfuhrer.

And today the doctor's many years of work had come to fruition. He had transformed a handful of mewling babes into the vanguard of a new SS, men and women so great that a new unit of the Verfugungstruppe had been created for them, complete with their own insigne. Today von Westarp's children became officers of the new Gotterelektrongruppe. And so, Himmler concluded, the spiritual and intellectual father of the REGP deserved the Reich's gratitude and its highest honor.

Hollow-cheeked Greifelt listened to these remarks with alternating looks of boredom and puzzlement. He had never been to the REGP, had never seen the doctor's work. Klaus suspected that Himmler had discouraged any such visits. Greifelt was a technocrat, an accountant in soldier's garb.

Herr Doktor von Westarp became the first recipient of the Spanish Cross, First Class, for superior contributions to the struggle against communism in Spain: sword-bearing eagles surrounding a golden Iron Cross, at the center of which diamonds ringed an opal swastika. It sent splinters of sunlight across the grounds every time the doctor's chest swelled with pride.

His children received the much smaller bronze Victory in Spain medals intended for members of the Condor Legion.

Then it came time for the demonstrations. Today the doctor could revel in the glory of his achievements, as his children personally showcased their abilities to the doctor's patron and putative superior officer for the first time. The show would also serve as a rehearsal for the private demonstration planned for the Fuhrer's fiftieth birthday next month.

Reinhardt strode across the munitions range while two technicians readied the bipod of an MG 34 machine rifle. He cloaked himself in flames and motioned for them to begin.

Reinhardt stood at attention, head high and chin thrust out, unfazed by the ammunition vaporizing against his chest. The bullets disappeared as violet coruscations within a man-shaped corona of blue fire. Himmler's expression went blank. He adjusted his round wire-rimmed glasses and leaned over to say something to the doctor. The doctor nodded. Greifelt's mouth and eyes went wide. He gaped at Reinhardt, unblinking, even after Doctor von Westarp helped him to his seat.

In true combat, the barrage would have knocked Reinhardt on his ass. Klaus had seen it—and laughed—many times. Although the salamander's willpower could subvert lead, strip it of its strength and render it harmless to flesh, it could not subvert momentum. The stream of superheated vapor would have sent him sprawling across the parade ground, mussing his hair and new uniform.

But that would have been undignified. Reinhardt had demanded a concrete slug be buried in the ground, with tungsten-alloy stirrups for his toes. And lately what ever Reinhardt demanded, he received.

A shame. Sabotaging the stirrups would have been simplicity itself. On a different day, a less auspicious day, Klaus would have done it without reservation.

The doctor gave the order to cease fire. The machine gunner stopped. The last echoes of gunfire died away, and then quiet befell the parade ground but for the ticking of the rifle barrel and the whoosh of superheated air in Reinhardt's updraft.

The flames disappeared. Reinhardt looked as though he hadn't moved a hair, although now the chest of his uniform exhibited the metallic sheen of vapor-deposited lead. Perhaps as much as a kilogram. His dignity might have been preserved, but the uniform was ruined anyway.

Greifelt marveled at the sight of the bullet slag. He cocked his head toward the doctor, though he continued to stare at Reinhardt. His voice small and uncertain, he murmured, “But why wasn't his uniform scorched away?”

Reinhardt presumed to answer for the doctor. “Because I willed it not to be so, Herr Obergruppenfuhrer.”

It was the same reason Klaus didn't fall through the earth when he became insubstantial: because doing so would contradict his Willenskrafte. Some things were trickier than others in this matter of the mind. Klaus's lungs did not absorb oxygen in their ghost state. Heike had yet to fully master her own Willenskrafte, to make her ability encompass her clothing as well as her body.

Unlike Reinhardt, Klaus required no tricks to preserve his dignity. The bullets winged through his wraith-body and shredded the wall behind him. Their momentum presented no problems. And when the barrage ended, his uniform was pristine.

Yet Himmler seemed less pleased than he had been with Reinhardt's presentation. He did not return Klaus's sharp salute when the demonstration ended. Instead he leaned over to whisper to the doctor again. The doctor shook his head.

He's concerned because my skin is too dark for an Aryan, thought Klaus. A mongrel shouldn't be able to do what I can. It was maddening, and disappointing, but he knew his chance to prove himself would come soon enough.

Buhler cringed behind Kammler during their turn in front of the gun. Kammler's face turned red and his eyes bulged slightly as Buhler savaged his leash. “Wall. Wall!” Lead splattered against an invisible barrier and tinkled to the fire-glazed earth at Kammler's feet.

Rudolf's ability had never lent itself directly to dodging bullets—at least, he hadn't yet mastered it before the accident—but the sight of him swooping over the range would have gone over extremely well.

Stupefied, Greifelt broke out of his trance. His lips moved, but he made no sound. Formality failed him. “My God,” he said. “I can't believe what I'm seeing.”

Himmler slapped von Westarp on the back. “You've done it, my friend. You've created a new breed of man.”

The doctor's chest swelled. He smiled. Smiled. “Watch it all. Watch my children at work.” He pointed to the truck rumbling onto the field.

It puttered to a stop. A layer of cotton duck, mottled green and brown like a forest canopy, hung over the ribs of the cargo bed. A pair of mundane troops from the LSSAH hopped out of the cab. They threw the tailgate open with a clang. A half dozen men climbed out of the truck, shivering in the breeze, blinking at the sun. Unkempt, threadbare, emaciated. Jews, Communists, Roma, and other enemies of the state from one of the labor camps. The truck pulled away.

Klaus, Reinhardt, and Heike joined Kammler and his handler on the field. Heike unsheathed her knife. Reinhardt blew her a kiss. She vanished, leaving her uniform suspended in midair.

The prisoners scattered.

Buhler pointed to the fastest one. “Hurl!” An invisible hand slapped the fugitive across the field. He landed atop another of the condemned men. They crumpled to the ground in a tangle of broken bones.

Flames engulfed another man before he'd run ten yards.

Heike disrobed amidst the chaos. The last of her clothing hit the ground as Reinhardt torched another fugitive.

Over the years, they'd killed many in training. But in all that time, Klaus mused, Reinhardt had never once looked a victim in the eye. Klaus knew how to make a much better show for the doctor and his guests. Normally he crept up to his targets like a wraith, then finished them quietly. Knives were easier, but they weren't impressive. And today was Doctor von Westarp's day.

He sought out one of the Roma prisoners, a particularly filthy wretch with olive-colored flesh like Klaus and Gretel. He tackled the man and kneeled on his chest. The bastard kept squirming, so Klaus grabbed his throat and put his weight on it.

“Close your eyes,” he whispered. “I'll make it quick.”

In the end, the man still resisted. After glancing to ensure he had the dignitaries' attention, Klaus reached into the man's chest. He hooked the aorta with two fingers, feeling life pulsing from a fluttering heart. His victim flailed again when Klaus severed the artery.

The final kill fell to Heike.

Her breaths gave her away, diaphanous vapor clouds that materialized as they left her body. But her training took hold, and the traitorous exhalations came less and less frequently. Klaus's own demonstration still had his chest heaving; it took no great leap of imagination to feel the fire in Heike's lungs as she stalked the prisoner.

The last puffs of her breath drifted away. His eyes darted back and forth as he turned, half-crouched and panting, in slow circles. A feral intensity limned his eyes with white. Clever beast: he watched the ground, trying to track her, but Reinhardt's demonstration had annealed the earth, scorched it into a crude ceramic.

His back arched, and his head tipped back. Slender Heike exhaled as she grappled with him. He wrestled with a hole in the mist, a ghost wreathed in her own breath. The outline of the knife moved toward his throat, but in his flailing, he caught her wrist. She struggled; he was stronger. He thrust out her arm and bent double, flipping her over his back.

“Hoompf ...” The impact knocked the wind from her lungs and jostled the plug from her battery harness. Heike reappeared, sprawled on her back at the prisoner's feet. A hint of blue tinged her lips and cheeks, and the chill had stippled her naked body with gooseflesh.

Reinhardt tensed, singeing the fine hairs on the back of Klaus's neck and hands. Years of witnessing such unplanned reappearances during her training sessions had fueled his all-consuming obsession with Heike.

The prisoner dashed for the forest on the far side of the complex.

“Stop him!” von Westarp shrieked.

There was little chance of the prisoner escaping; far less chance that he'd get word of what he'd seen to somebody who mattered. But that was beside the point.

“Kill him now! He embarrasses me!”

A furrow of flames rent the earth in pursuit of the fleeing prisoner, but then he turned the corner and disappeared out of sight behind the barracks.

Ha! Klaus could cut straight through one of the laboratories to catch the prisoner, and then he would be von Westarp's favorite.

Obergruppenfuhrer Greifelt cowered behind crossed forearms and screamed as Klaus charged through him. Klaus headed along a diagonal for the far end of the laboratory, to intercept the prisoner as he passed through the gap between the buildings on the long sprint across the clearing. He'd ghosted through the soundproofed walls and the polished steel surgical table in the operating theater before it occurred to him to check the gauge on his harness.

The needle rested in the red.

“Scheisse!” He skidded to a halt against the far wall of the theater. The bricks gouged his palms.

By the time Klaus emerged outside, the prisoner had nearly entered the trees near the pump house. His path put him back in view of those assembled on the firing range. Apparently Reinhardt had depleted his battery, too, because the running man didn't burst into flames. Not so the telekinetic imbecile. Buhler gesticulated at the escaping prisoner with one hand as he yanked on Kammler's leash with the other. “Crush! Crush!”

The prisoner slammed to a halt as though he'd hit a glass wall. His body folded up, bones crackling like china.

But Kammler, in his simpleminded zeal, also crushed the pump house. The building disappeared in an implosion of splintered timbers and powdered brick. A plume of spring water erupted through the debris. Gretel unfurled her umbrella, looking amused. It rained on the Reichsbehorde.

Himmler and Greifelt left soon after that, soggy and shaken. And though Doctor von Westarp kept his medal, he punished them all.

Heike received the worst of his rage. Her screams emanated from the laboratory. They trailed off after a while, either because he'd made his point or because her vocal cords had given out.

The doctor locked Reinhardt in the ice house.

Klaus's part in the debacle won him a day in the crate. Mewling apologies did no good. Von Westarp stripped him of his harness before kicking him inside the coffin-sized box. Steel bolts clanged into place. Klaus pounded on the lid. Claustrophobia turned the trickle of breathable air rank. He grappled with the urge to hyperventilate, meting out his breaths against the rhythm of his heart. The knowledge that he'd disappointed the doctor created a nausea that threatened to overwhelm him.

Later that night, Pabst gave Gretel new bruises. “It is your duty!”—thud—”to warn us!”—slap—”of such problems!”

Her laughter echoed through darkness and coffins.

8 March 1939

Soho, London, England

Winter had receded in recent days, as though resting up for a big finale. But as a rule, the Hart and Hearth kept its fireplace stoked from October to April. Which was one reason Lord William Beauclerk found it a fine place for a proper tete-a-tete with old friends.

Firelight shimmered on the polished oak beams and cast fluid shadows across the ridges and swirls of horse hair plaster in the ceiling. With an occasional pop that launched a whiff of pine into the room, the sound and smell of the fire melded with the fog of conversation and tobacco.

Six o'clock, so the place was filling quickly with a solid cross section of the working class, just off work and stopping for a pint on the way home. Loudmouthed tradesmen, lorry drivers, a newspaper vendor with ink-stained fingers. Also a few artists and playwrights. And a lovely pair of shopgirls at the next table. The frumpier one had her back to Will; her companion wore an embroidered cloche over a bob of auburn hair and a dusting of freckles on milk-pale skin.

The Hart had a cozy little snug. He made a mental note to invite the bird for a private drink later. Working-class women, he'd found, could be less reserved with their affections than those from other stations in life. Another factor in Will's fondness for the Hart. Although his brother had become a bit of a prig lately, prone to worrying about bastards turning up on the doorstep.

Aubrey could go on at length about what was proper and improper and the responsibilities that came with Will's station in life. To hear him tell it, Will would destroy the country by having it off with a shopgirl. Will had little patience for Aubrey's obsession with noblesse oblige.

He preferred the company in places like this, though he sometimes felt conspicuous. Somewhere along the line he'd taken to wearing a bowler, almost as a form of camouflage. But his shirt cost more than some of these people earned in a week. Thus he'd learned over the years to twist his vowels, leaving behind burrs and clipped syllables in order to emulate the regional accent of the Midlands. Will had grown up listening to how the staff at Bestwood spoke.

The door opened. A cold draft followed Marsh into the pub, tousling close-cropped hair the color of wet sand. A forest-green cable-knit turtleneck and gray corduroys covered his solid build. Marsh wasn't exactly short, or blocky, either, though he sometimes came across as such. It was an illusion created by the way he carried himself, and a face more suited to a boxer than a scholar. But he reminded Will of nothing so much as a coiled spring. Not in the sense of being high-strung or nervous: quite the opposite. But Will had always sensed something inside the man, tightly controlled but powerful.

Marsh ordered at the bar, then leaned against the brass rail while waiting for his pint. When Marsh entered a room, he studied it as though it were a puzzle to be solved. He'd had that mannerism forever—the peculiar way his eyes moved, absorbing every detail. He did it now, examining the pub and the lounge with caramel-colored eyes.

But Will had taken a table in the corner of a dark, smoky pub. He lifted his head. “Pip.” Will had christened Marsh with that nickname during their first year at university together.

Marsh didn't hear him. Will stood, repeating, “Pip! Over here.” He lifted his hand to wave, but rapped his knuckles on a stag head in the process. “Oh, sodding.” Tea slopped out of its cup when he bumped the table. “Hell.”

Will sucked on his knuckles. The shopgirls tittered.

The commotion drew Marsh's attention. The corners of his eyes crinkled in a smile. He approached Will's table.

“Good to see you, Will.” They clasped hands. Marsh had a brawler's hands: thick fingers with round puckered knuckles and a solid grip. Will's hands were more slender. Their handshake creased the thin white scars that spiderwebbed Will's palm. Not painful, but unpleasant.

“And you'n all, mate.”

The other man cocked an eyebrow. Marsh rankled when people adopted a more common mode around him. At university, he'd worked to achieve a more refined diction of his own.

“Apologies,” said Will, slipping back into his normal enunciations. He had, perhaps, laid it on a bit. “I'd forgotten. Force of habit, you know.”

Marsh grinned. He nodded at the teapot and empty cup. “Buy you something stronger?”

Will shook his head. “I'd settle for just a slice of lemon, honestly. You'd think there's a war.” Will sighed theatrically. “Alas. I'll soldier on.”

“Still not drinking, eh? It's comforting to know you still cling to your affectations.”

“Your billfold can thank old granddad for my peculiarities.”

“Every one? The mind reels.”

Will laughed. “It does indeed.”

“And how's your brother?” asked Marsh, taking a seat.

“His Grace has made something of a holy terror of himself in the House of Lords. Fancies himself a crusader these days.”

“Socialist?” Marsh looked at him in mild alarm. “Hasn't gone pink, has he?”

“Oh, no. He's not a Bolshie.” Will dismissed the concern, waving his long fingers in a languid circle. “Merely decided he's the champion of the common man. Taken the plight of the Spaniards to heart, or some such.”

At the mention of Spain, Marsh looked rather serious for a moment. “Good for him. Someone ought.”

“A bit late, I fear. I'll relay your greetings, yes?” A formality, of course.

“Please do,” said Marsh. He sipped at his pint, eyes scanning the room behind Will.

“Well then,” said Will, “to the matter at hand.”

Marsh continued to stare past Will's shoulder.

“I said,” Will repeated, “to the matter at hand.”

“What?” Marsh looked like he'd just been poleaxed.

Will dangled one long arm over the back of his chair and chanced a look. Marsh's attention had landed on the freckled coquette. Aha. “Delightful girl.”

“Hmm?” Marsh tried to hide the flush in his cheeks by taking a long draw on his pint. “I suppose she is.”

With casual disinterest, Will asked, “Shall I wave her over?”

“No, no,” said Marsh, shaking his head. But then he fixed Will with a sly look. “You don't fool me. I'll wager you were planning to invite her to the snug for a private drink, weren't you?”

“I don't know what you mean, sir,” said Will in mock indignation. “Aubrey would have a proper fit.”

“Oh?”

“She's a charming little turtledove, make no mistake. But Aubrey has developed an alarming tendency to frown upon—ahem—dalliances.”

Marsh opened his mouth slightly and tipped his head back. “Ah ...”

“He believes in the dignity of the working classes—plight of the working man and all that. But not in their breeding. Can't wait for me to settle down with somebody perfectly dreadful as fits my station.”

“Oh dear.”

“Yes.”

“Next you'll tell me he's pushing you to join some perfectly respectable profession and give up the gadabout's life. As also fits your station.”

“I'd be a perfectly respectable captain right now if not for these flat feet. Centuries of inbreeding, you know.”

“What will you do?”

“Aubrey has made noise of endowing a charity. Perhaps I'll join his crusade.”

“Doesn't sound like your line of work, Will.”

“No. Still, what can we do? Now, you said you wanted to pick my brain about something. My brain, addled and inbred as 'tis, is at your disposal.”

“Ah. Well, then, speaking of your grandfather—” Marsh lowered his voice. “—I have some questions about his hobby.”

Will scooted his chair closer to the fire to ward off a sudden chill. He had unwillingly shared his grandfather's “hobby” for over a decade before the wretched old warlock finally drank himself to death.

“I ... I don't follow you, Pip.” An unconvincing deflection, and Will knew it.

“Back at university, you read from a book ...”

“Ah.” Will sighed, knowing he couldn't dodge the issue. “The Bodleian. I'd rather hoped you were too pissed to remember that night.”

“I nearly was. I'd discounted it as a drunken memory.”

“Better to leave it that way. It was years ago. Ancient history. Why bring it up now?”

Marsh fell quiet for a moment. A distant look danced across his eyes as he watched some private memory unfold. “Recently I saw something ... strange.”

Will shook his head. “The world is a strange place, Pip. I'm sorry, but I truly can't help you. It's better for everybody if you forget anything I might have said or done in my careless youth.”

Marsh sipped at his pint. When Marsh spoke again, Will could feel that coiled spring pushing a new intensity into his voice. “I wouldn't have brought this up if it wasn't important.”

Will knew he'd never get Marsh to drop the subject. He pinched the bridge of his nose, fighting off a sudden weariness. When he opened his eyes, Marsh was studying the scars on his hand. Will poured himself another cup of tea as a distraction. “Very well. What do you want to know?”

“That thing you can do. Is it dangerous?”

The question was so absurd, so unexpected, that it caught Will by surprise. The dread and tension he'd felt came out in one loud, barking laugh. The shopgirls turned to stare at him before resuming their quiet conversation.

“Dangerous? That's your question? If you're seeking a new hobby, Pip, you're better off juggling rabid badgers on a street corner. You might even make a few quid.”

But the jovial tone didn't lighten Marsh's countenance. He spoke again, more quietly. “That hobby ... could it kill somebody? Hypothetically.”

“Kill somebody?” Will thought back to his grandfather and his dimly remembered father. “Yes, hypothetically.”

“Could that be done deliberately?”

“I dislike the direction this conversation has taken.”

“I'm not asking how. Just if.”

“In the strictest sense? Yes, it's possible. But nobody would ever do it. Regardless of the circumstances.” In response to Marsh's quizzical expression, Will elaborated. “There are rules about this sort of thing. It's rather complicated. Suffice it to say that invoking the Eidolons to kill a human being would be unwise to a degree I cannot express. Taboo does not begin to cover it.”

Marsh's fingertip spiraled through the beads of condensation on his glass, pulling them together into a single droplet that slithered down to the coaster. He pressed one hand to his jaw, cracked his knuckles, then did the same with the other hand. It meant he was thinking.

“You must forgive my directness, Pip, but just what are you dancing around?”

Marsh nursed his beer. He set it down, centering it on a little cork circle with great attention. Will concentrated to pull Marsh's voice from the pub din.

“You understand this can't go beyond the two of us.”

In spite of his better judgment, Will was intrigued. He agreed with a solemn dip of the head.

“What would you say if you heard tell of a man bursting into flames? Spontaneously. No warning.”

Will stared at him for a long moment. He refilled his cup. He took a long sip, thinking. The tea had gone tepid.

“Fire, you say?”

“Like a Roman candle.”

Now this was fascinating. Macabre, but fascinating. Will felt like a character in a penny dreadful. “How extraordinary. This is the strange thing you witnessed?”

Marsh said nothing, his face blank.

“I know what you're thinking,” said Will, “but it's rather baroque, don't you think? If I wanted someone dead, there are many easier ways to go about it.” He took a sip of cold tea before continuing. “Besides which, it's irrelevant. The fact that we're still here tells me it wasn't done by a, ah, hobbyist.” Will disliked using the proper term, warlock, in casual conversation.

Marsh looked intrigued by this, but Will didn't elaborate. “That's a no, then.”

“If you're asking whether I could be wrong, then yes. But that's my opinion.” Will shrugged. “Such as it is.”

A melancholy half smile creased Marsh's face. “It's top-drawer, Will. Cheers, mate.”

“Very good, then.” Will tapped his teacup to Marsh's pint. They drank in companionable silence.

Marsh's eyes fixed on the amber depths of his half-empty pint as though scrying. He doodled on the table in streaks of condensation and spilled tea. Will recognized the posture of a man grappling with an unsolved riddle.

He'd had a bad tooth once. The ache swelled until it followed him everywhere, intruded on every facet of his waking life, ceaselessly demanded his attention until he solved the problem and had the accursed thing removed. Unanswered questions rankled Marsh in the same way.

“Mmm.” Marsh set his glass down quickly, foam trickling down his chin. “One last thing, before I forget.”

“Another mystery? Aren't you quite the sphinx to night. I may come to regret it later, but I confess I can hardly (no worries, love)—” The frumpier shopgirl knocked Will's chair when she stood to make her way to the ladies' convenience. “—contain my curiosity. Do tell.”

“It may be a while, but I might have something in a few months. Would you be willing to take a look at something, provide your expert opinion on it?”

“That depends, Pip. Look at what, exactly?”

“Better if I don't say right now.” Marsh shrugged. “It may turn out to be nothing. Are you interested?”

Part of Will wanted to recoil from the offer. The old training, the indoctrination, rose to the fore. Discussing these matters with outsiders was never done, under any circumstances. But he was torn. It would be a welcome respite from working for Aubrey. And he'd already broken ranks, back at Oxford; the damage was long done. A little consultation. What harm could it do?

Will made his decision. “I am, as ever, your most humble and obedient servant.”

In a far lighter tone, Marsh said, “Excuse me a moment?”

Will nodded. His friend went off to use the loo, sidling through the crowd that had swelled over the past half hour. Will cocked his arm over the back of his chair. The coquette's friend hadn't yet returned.

“We've been abandoned,” he said.

The woman in the cloche frowned. “Hmm?”

“I said,” he repeated over the din, “that our friends have abandoned us.”

“Oh.” The barest of smiles flitted across her face. Her eyes went back to watching the room.

Will sighed. He tried again. “May I join you?”

She didn't say anything. He joined her. She frowned.

Marsh returned, looking puzzled and then startled when he saw Will sitting with her.

“It's just that my dashing companion and I—” He indicated Marsh with a little flourish of the wrist. “—have been discussing the most peculiar matters. Cosmic matters, no less. But now that's finished and a little light conversation would be the perfect aperitif before supper.”

She cocked an eyebrow at them both, sizing them up.

“Oh, I know, he isn't much to look at.” Marsh glared at him. The woman had a musical laugh, like a carillonneur practicing the scales.

Will continued, “But that's his modus operandi, you see. Lulling people into a false security. He's quite the devil, I assure you.” He tapped the side of his nose. “The PM's right-hand man.”

“Does every champion of the Crown blush so freely?”

“Au contraire. That's how a discerning eye knows he's the true item.” Will winked. “Strength through humility, you know. What you're seeing is a rare grace.”

“I see.” She nodded slowly, lips pursed in exaggerated reverence. “How impressive.”

“William Beauclerk.” He offered his hand to her across the table.

“Olivia Turnbull.” She brushed his fingers with a perfunctory tug. Will slumped in his chair. It took a blunt rejection to sting so sharply. Typically he was more successful with the fairer sex. Typically he usually didn't sound like such a toff when he tried. Blast.

The brunt of her gaze fell on Marsh, eyebrows arched in amusement. “Does your crimson companion have a name?”

“Raybould Marsh. Um.” Marsh held out his hand. She took it. “Just Marsh, if you prefer.”

“Liv. Delighted.”

“Likewise,” said Marsh, looking poleaxed again.