Blood of the Reich

54

Large Hadron Collider, Geneva, Switzerland

October 4, Present Day

You’re too young to fully understand the intellectual marathon I required to get to this point,” Raeder said to Rominy. He regarded her with disappointment. “You’re shaking.”

“Please don’t hurt me.”

“I’m going to pleasure you. You’ll see. Pain is exquisite.”

What could she use as a weapon? Everything was bolted, wired, fused. There were danger signs and voltage warnings.

“When we found Shambhala,” Raeder went on, “it had a machine much like this one, but we were like cavemen contemplating a computer. We had no idea, really, what it was for, except that it seemed capable of energizing quite marvelous staffs. Then a blizzard of inventions. Radar. Television. Atomic bombs. Microwave ovens. Laser disks. And more than these toys, this incredible creation story being spun out by physicists. A big bang. A divorce between energy and matter. Thirteen billion years of galactic evolution. And even a microscopic wonderland of particles too tiny to ever see, which didn’t even seem to follow the laws of nature. Or rather, we had the laws all wrong at the most fundamental level. Moreover, new kinds of energy and matter we can’t even detect that nonetheless dominate the universe. I began to understand what had infused and powered me, and had infused and powered Shambhala. The legends of the Vril Society were based on truth! So I began to seek out key young physicists who wanted to do more than just watch protons collide. Men and women with ambition. Vision. A sense of history.”

“German scientists.”

“Some, but not all.”

“People of ruthless greed.”

“The ideals of National Socialism have universal appeal.”

“Nobody told you that you look embalmed?”

Some color actually came into his cheeks. “Invigorated, given my age. Potent, as you’ll see.”

She closed her eyes. “That’s the last thing I want to see.”

“Eventually I realized that Shambhala had been a supercollider. We began to theorize the staff’s properties. We didn’t have one to study, and no technology to make it, but bright young men could calculate a molecular structure that might carry messages from the string realm and its curled dimensions to our own. Eventually we realized that the energy levels achieved by the Large Hadron Collider at CERN might be enough, if properly diverted, to activate a dark energy flow, if it ran at full power. What we needed was an actual staff, and to get that we needed an actual heir. And if you helped us, how to reward you? By making you mother of the new master race.”

“I don’t want to be the mother of your damn race! Your stupid lectures are not seductive!”

The whine was growing louder. “It’s destiny, Rominy. Accept your fate. We’re locked together by blood.” He raised his pistol to aim at her face, his arm rock steady. “There will be a flash of illuminating light such as you’ve never felt before, and it will irradiate every cell in your body. Do not fear. It will only purify, not kill.”

“Will it hurt?” Her voice broke, and she was struggling not to cry.

“Yes.”

Lights flickered. The sound of the machines kept rising, like a building hurricane. Inside its fascist cage, the staff of Shambhala began to glow.

“I fell unconscious when it happened to me,” he added.

She glanced wildly about for some way to fight back. All she saw was a web of pipes and power cables, a hive of bus bars, and warning signs in English, French, and German. If she grabbed the wrong thing she would die.

But was that so bad, given the alternative?

Then, over the shrill sound of the accelerator, there was a more guttural rattling.

She looked up. The crane had moved to a point directly above them. And now, from the shadows, a great black chain that had been suspended like the cord of a swag lamp swung down with its heavy yellow hook. It was arcing toward them, a thousand pounds in weight, as powerful as a scythe.

Riding it was a wild-eyed tour guide. “Rominy, get out of the way!”

Sam! He was aiming a pistol.

Raeder shouted in rage and aimed his own gun.

Rominy leaped and bit his hand.

He howled, both men shooting as Sam swept down like some demented Tarzan, bullets ricocheting like popcorn.

Rominy bit harder. Raeder, snarling, hurled her aside, his strength immense, inhuman. She skidded on the slick floor.

But the chain, which had been suspended above, cut down through the tunnel air with the power of a wrecking ball, clearing the cement floor by inches. With a tremendous clang it smashed into the side of the metal cage where the Shambhala staff glowed and knocked the whole apparatus askew. Sam went flying toward the piping on the far wall and hit the cables. There was a crack like thunder and a flash as blinding as the sun. Then all light winked out.

With a groan, the whine of the accelerator began to drop, its power short-circuited. They’d blown the mother of all fuses, apparently.

And, much to her amazement, Rominy was still alive.

Red emergency lighting came on. Sam lay like a dead man, clothes smoking, obviously electrocuted. The great chain and hook had come to rest against the pipe it had ruptured. The break sizzled, and a fog was filling the room. The Klaxons of alarms were going off, and she thought she could hear distant shooting.

Where was Raeder?

She got to her hands and knees. She was shaking, whether from fear or adrenaline she wasn’t sure. Probably both. She crawled to Sam and bent to his lips.

The wispiest of breaths. Barely, he was alive.

Rominy looked around. Two pistols lay on the floor. And half falling out of its bent cradle and still glowing faintly was the crystalline staff.

She could smell burning rubber and plastic.

Then a figure staggered out of the smoke and mist. It was Kurt.

Now he looked every bit his hundred and ten years, gaunt, lined, exhausted, furious. He lurched toward her like a broken monster, eyes filled with disbelief.

“He displaced the magnets,” the German croaked. “Proton beam. It went out of alignment. Seven trillion volts.”

She didn’t understand what he meant. But then she saw his head droop toward his torso. His shirt had been sliced open and there was a thin black line etched halfway across his chest. Even as he stared, it began to bleed the thinnest of sheets.

“The idiot cut me in two.” Then Raeder collapsed.

Now Rominy could hear explosions in the rooms above, shouts, doors slamming. It sounded like a battle. She had to hide! She no longer knew whom to trust, except Sam, who had somehow miraculously escaped Wewelsburg only to fry here! Should she stay with him? Take a gun?

Then she saw motion at the far end of the balcony they’d used to get to this chamber. She recognized the silhouette with sick dread. It was Jake.

A voice came into her head, a presence she’d never felt before. Take the staff. She flushed and felt renewed from a burst of energy. And knew, instantly, that she’d heard the voice of Benjamin Hood.

She looked around. Was he here?

Nothing. But his spirit? That was present. Take the staff.

She hesitated only a moment. Then she seized the crystalline rod, stood, and began a stumbling run into the tunnel where the big blue pipe ran. The rod vibrated slightly, making her palm tingle. Jake must not get his hands on the staff, not when it might have absorbed the necessary energy. So she fled in the only direction she could, straight down an apparently endless tunnel. She didn’t know where else to go. She began running faster as the shock wore off, carrying the ancient artifact. The tunnel gently curved, she realized, just as Jake had said it would. How long had he said the tube was? Seventeen miles?

She had to be marathon girl.

But there was no end, really. She could run and run, and just get back to where she started, again and again.

With Nazis after her. Now she did begin to sob.

“Rominy!” It was Jake’s shout, far behind.

And then she saw a bicycle.