The Milkweed Triptych 01 - Bitter Seeds (8 page)

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 Obergruppenführer.”

It was the same reason Klaus didn’t fall through the earth when he became insubstantial: because doing so would contradict his Willenskräfte. 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 Willenskräfte, 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.

Obergruppenführer 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 Reichsbehörde.

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

W
inter 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 tête-à-tête 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.