Necessary Evil (Milkweed Triptych) (52 page)

I scoured the ravine for signs of Klaus. A rock bounced down from one of the high tables. I spun. But I was alone. Had Klaus moved elsewhere? Had he ghosted into another ravine, to cut down more of our men?

But then I found him. Well, part of him.

Flames licked at a hand protruding from the stone cliff. Klaus’s olive skin turned a shriveled black. As I neared the stone, I could see part of his face: the curve of a cheekbone, an eyebrow ridge and part of his forehead, the tip of his nose. The smooth fabric of a trouser leg, from waist to knee, broke the gnarled surface of the escarpment. The rest of his body was permanently embedded into the rock. I wrestled the battery from the remains of his harness. I checked the gauge. It was dead.

The pixie had gone off just as he emerged. He was frozen in the act, like a diver perpetually gasping for air.

An autopsy would be impossible. Even if the Jerries found him and decided to chisel him free, his brain was fused with sandstone. Klaus’s corpse would be useless to anybody seeking to reverse-engineer von Westarp’s work. Before long, scavengers would clean away any flesh the fire didn’t consume. In time there would be nothing but a scattering of finger bones among the talus, and a few smooth protuberances that happened to look, just a bit, like bone. And the dusty desert wind would take care of those.

A pang of emotion caught me off guard. It wasn’t regret—this man was an enemy of my country, and his destruction had been necessary for the greater good. Instead, I felt pity. This Klaus would never learn to paint. He’d never learn what sort of person he could be when not yoked to the ideologies of twisted madmen. When he wasn’t a test subject. When free of his sister.

I’d known that version of Klaus briefly, and even worked alongside him. Through Gretel, our lives had been tied together. Our fates spun in related orbits. He could have been a good man, if life had let him.

The pop of gunfire broke my reverie. Reinhardt was still out there. I raised one hand in respectful farewell to Klaus, and broke into a tired run.

*

The pixie’s electric-blue flash swept over the camp. It snuffed Reinhardt’s Willenskräfte like a candle. His corona blinked out.

“Scheisse!”

He fumbled at his waist. The inrushing superheated air ignited his uniform. Without the protection of the Götterelektron, his human body couldn’t withstand the heat he’d willed into his surroundings. Reinhardt burned like a Hindu widow.

Marsh fired. The shot clipped Reinhardt’s shoulder and spun him around. He dropped to the ground, blazing, writhing, and grasping for his battery.

Marsh leapt to his feet and charged across the smoldering sand. It was like running across a sticky frying pan. He had to reach Reinhardt before the bastard switched batteries. Sand jammed the bolt of his rifle. He flipped it around and gripped the barrel like a club.

Reinhardt’s right arm hung uselessly at his side. His flesh sizzled against the bubbling sand. He tried to scream in agony, but it came out as a desiccated gurgle. The furnace heat had scorched his throat and lungs.

Yet still his left hand clawed at the battery latch. Indomitable willpower, to the very end.

Marsh rammed the butt of his rifle into Reinhardt’s temple. “Just!”
Slam.
“Bloody!”
Slam.
“Die!”
Slam.
The salamander’s head yielded with a mushy crunch.

It hurt to breathe. The air scalded Marsh’s nose and mouth. He retreated from the slag. He staggered to where a dead Afrika Corpsman clutched an MP 38. Wrestling the machine pistol from the dead solder, he realized he recognized the man’s face. He’d been one of the LSSAH troops assigned to the farm.

The magazine was almost empty. But not quite. Though he’d already pulped Reinhardt’s skull with the Enfield, Marsh finished the job by unloading a half-dozen rounds into the Overman’s brain.

Around him, the sounds of combat had dwindled to a few desultory pops scattered through the remains of the camp. The commander trotted from the ravine. In the firelight, he looked even worse than normal. He looked like Marsh felt. Marsh beckoned to him.

The older man pointed back toward the ravine with his thumb. Marsh pointed at Reinhardt’s body.

“Klaus is dead,” said the commander, at the same moment Marsh said, “Reinhardt is dead.”

They fell into an awkward silence.

*

“I feel a bit silly,” said Will, “barging in as I did.”

Liv touched his hand. She said, “Nonsense. You were brilliant, Will.”

She looked so lovely, with her freckles and her disheveled auburn hair. Will forced himself to look away. He drained the last of his tea.

“Forgive me for saying so, but the beard doesn’t suit you.”

“Agreed. I had little choice in the matter, I’m afraid.”

They were seated at the kitchen table. Gretel hadn’t moved. Will kept an eye on her, just in case. Long snarls of raven-black hair hid her eyes, but that was probably for the better. She rocked back and forth, murmuring to herself and fingering the copper connecter at the end of her wires.

He hadn’t yet decided what to tell Liv. Marsh hadn’t left instructions for this scenario. Will didn’t know how to approach the subject. Liv was running out of patience with his evasions.

“Let’s start at the beginning,” said Liv. “Who is this Jerry bint, and how does she know my husband?”

“Ah. Well. That’s a bit of a story, you see. Perhaps it would be best to let him explain.”

“Raybould isn’t here at the moment. So I’ll have to make do with your explanation.”

“Right. Of course. Well…”

Outside, on the street, a car screeched to a halt. It was followed by heavy footsteps and a persistent knocking on the front door.

“Mrs. Marsh?” said a muffled voice.

Liv glanced at the clock over the stove. “Who would call at this hour?”

“Ah,” said Will. “I suspect that’s the police. I took a detour to warn them of your plight.”

Liv smiled. “You really are a champion.” She kissed him on the cheek, soft as a feather. He blushed.

The door rattled again. “Mrs. Marsh, are you home?”

“Well,” said Liv, “I’d better let them in before they break down the door.” She stood, turned, and walked into the den.

Gretel leapt to her feet. She held her cranial wires taut between her fists.

“Olivia!”

Will lunged from his seat. His hands caught Liv in the small of the back and pushed her out of Gretel’s reach. Liv stumbled over Agnes’s bassinet. She turned, scowling.

Will wanted to apologize, to warn her, to ask if she were hurt, but the wires snapped tight around his throat. His fingers fumbled at the wire, but it dug so deeply he could find no purchase.

The scowl on Liv’s face became pale wide-eyed alarm. “Will!”

Will fell on Gretel but it didn’t loosen her grip. Liv stood over them, yanking on Gretel’s fists, but the wire only cut deeper. A dark tunnel contracted around Will’s vision, framing Liv’s face and tears and disheveled auburn hair. Distantly, he remembered a freckled coquette he’d once met in a pub. Somewhere very far away, somebody pounded on a door.

Liv ran for help as the world faded to black.

*

Lorimer gathered the other Milkweed survivors. They swept through the encampment, flushing out the last of the Jerries and finishing off the battery tent. They had it under control. My counterpart and I watched.

He said, “Rommel will reoccupy this camp within a day or two. Not much of a victory.”

“Perhaps,” I said. “But he no longer has Klaus and Reinhardt. We’ve destroyed the last of von Westarp’s technology.
That
was our war. And it’s over now.”

The eastern sky, far across the Egyptian coastal plain, blushed at the approach of sunrise. Desert heat would follow the rising sun. It was a long way to Sidi Barrâni.

I was glad to see that the battle had spared the tall mast of an antenna. The camp had a radio, of course. We’d use it to contact the Western Desert Force. England was still many days away, though my thoughts were firmly in Walworth with Liv and Will and Gretel.

I said, “The warlocks are dead. We’ll have to take the long way home.”

“I suppose so,” said my counterpart. “But perhaps it’s for the best. I imagine you have a long story to tell.”

We sat in silence for a while. Flames crackled in the canyon. Lorimer barked orders to his men. The sun rose. We retreated to the cooler shadows of Halfaya. My counterpart took a long draw from his canteen. He handed it to me. I washed from my throat the taste of smoke and grit, of battles lost and won.

“It started in Spain,” I said.

seventeen

1 September 1941

Shetland Islands, Scotland

The fisherman kept his distance from the strange trio who had hired his services just after sunrise. That suited the government men perfectly well. They kept to themselves. But quiet errands like this weren’t unusual in the Shetlands. If the fisherman had bothered to ask, the men would have carefully given him the impression they were connected to the group of Norwegians hiding out at Lunna and Scalloway.

The third member of their party, the small one wrapped in the long cloak, never made a sound.

The fisherman cut the engine. His boat glided through the last few yards of foamy gray sea. The prow crunched gently over the shingle.

The older one, the one who looked and sounded like he’d lost a tussle with Old Scratch, flipped a coin to the fisherman. “Sit tight,” he rasped. Then he tossed his carpetbag to the shingle beach, lifted the person in the cloak, and handed him over the gunwale to the one named Marsh. If he had watched the handoff carefully, the fisherman might have glimpsed a flash of bony ankle under scarred olive skin.

This particular island didn’t have a name. Many maps ignored it entirely. One needed local knowledge to find it. Windswept, low to the sea, measuring less than twenty yards at its widest point, it offered nothing to reward anybody who did make the trek. Even lichenologists gave it a pass.

The island was a rocky shelf, kept barren by sea winds constantly scrabbling across the thin soil. (Far too thin for a flower garden.) Tufts of grass here and there provided bits of green to relieve the monotonous zigzag cross-bedding of the Old Red Sandstone, but the sheep kept the grass trimmed short. Blotches of moss and lichen ranged in color from ash white to bruise purple.

Until today its only occupants were the occasional passing seabirds, such as puffins and petrels, and a few sheep. The hut was a recent addition.

The men tromped across the beach with the prisoner held between them. The smooth round stones tinkled like glass beads beneath their boots. The tintinnabulation stood out amongst the constant
thrum
and
whoosh
of ocean waves, the hiss of wind, the screech of seabirds.

Once inside the hut, Marsh checked the cabinets. The supplies had arrived. Sacks of flour and rice. Several dozen packages of dehydrated egg. Potatoes, onions, root vegetables that would keep. Somebody had thoughtfully provided a fishing rod. Several cords of firewood for the stove had been stacked outside. Installing the rain catchers and water cisterns had been the most difficult job. There was one cot, one chair, and a table. The wind made an eerie keening sound in the stovepipe.

Used judiciously, the supplies would last one person six months. Until the next delivery.

Gretel whimpered when Marsh removed her cloak. She took one look at her surroundings, and started to cry again. “Please, Raybould. Please don’t do this.”

The commander sighed.

Commander.
They’d made a tacit agreement to adhere to this fiction. It kept things simple.

“Why are you so cruel? After all we’ve endured together. You still don’t understand what I did for you. For us! We’re connected, you and I.”

He set his carpetbag on the table. Then he jerked a thumb in the general direction of the boat, their only means off the island. “She’s likely to scream. Think he’ll hear us?”

Marsh glanced out the window. It was hard to hear anything over the cacophonous static of wind and sea. But the island was damn small. “Better not risk it.”

Gretel didn’t struggle when they gagged her. She did try to squirm free of Marsh’s arms when the commander approached with the razor. Long black tresses fluttered to the floor like raven feathers as he shaved her scalp. Marsh released her. She fell to her knees, gathered handfuls of her hair, and pressed them to her tears.

“You should keep those,” said the commander. “Maybe you can learn to weave. Winters here are long, cold, dark, and damp.”

Her façade of docility disappeared when the commander produced the garden shears. Marsh had to pin her to the floor. He straddled her waist, facing her feet, and clamped his hands around her ankles. Her skin was cold to the touch. The commander knelt on her wrists.

He was right. She screamed bloody murder.

Seizures racked her body when the blades bit into her wires. They resulted from stray electrical currents induced by the contact between dissimilar metals; Lorimer had warned Marsh to expect this. Behind him, the shears clicked together. Gretel’s body went limp.

Marsh continued to hold her down while the commander dealt with the rivets in her skull. Removing them would require a surgeon’s skill, but mangling the stubs beyond usefulness required only strong hands and good pliers.

They removed the gag and prepared to leave.

She lurched to her feet when the commander opened the door. She addressed them both, but focused on the commander. Marsh supposed that made sense. He didn’t feel particularly jealous.

“Raybould! Please! Don’t leave me here.”

“It’s better than you deserve,” said Marsh.

“You killed my daughter,” said the commander. “You killed—” But a sob bubbled up through the ruin of his voice, choking off his words. His head hung low.

“If you endure a thousand years on this godforsaken rock,” Marsh finished for him, “it will still be too good after what you did.”

She said, “We have a connection, you and I. Don’t you remember? I found you before we ever met; you were there in so many time lines, again and again, and sometimes we’re lovers and sometimes enemies, but I knew you were special, so special they named you, because you were meant to come to me, and you did, you came back and you saved me and together we fixed the world and, and, and I remember things, I still remember things, things about the future, things I’ll share with you, dreadful wonderful ugly beautiful things, things I’ll share if you take me with you.” They stared at her. She moaned, fingers scrabbling across the stubble of her scalp. Her next words alternated with chest-heaving sobs: “Please … don’t … leave … me … Raybould. Please.”