Fitz helped the man out of the tent. The noise of battle was getting closer, and men were running around with weapons, trying to find a target. Hopefully, wearing the same uniform as them should disqualify him from being it, Fitz thought.
He really needed to find a vehicle of some sort, but there didn"t seem to be any handy. Even the armoured cars had rumbled off somewhere. Luckily none of the men milling around seemed interested in bothering Fitz or his new charge. He couldn"t blame them he"d be a bit single minded if someone was shooting at him too.
There were a couple of motorcycles leaning against the side of a house further down, but those were no good. His new friend was hardly in a state to ride pillion.
Several men grouped together and ran off to the east of town, armed and ready. That was enough reason for Fitz to head west. Walking as fast as possible, they dodged running men, and occasional Kubelwagens, but Fitz knew that sooner or later someone would stop and ask why they were going the wrong way.
That guard would probably wake up soon, too. Or not at all; Fitz was no expert at judging how to precisely render people unconscious for limited times.
Ahead a motorcycle and sidecar was b.u.mping towards them. Fitz saw that his luck must be on the up; the bike had a rider, but no one in the sidecar. Fitz thought about waving the rider to halt, but that would mean awkward questions, and in any case the guy didn"t look like he was in the mood to stop. So, instead, Fitz stepped up to the side of the road, removed his helmet, and hit the rider in the face with it as he went past.
The rider was catapulted back out of the saddle, and the bike spun off to the side, grinding to a halt. Fitz considered himself b.l.o.o.d.y lucky that it hadn"t just swung around and run into him. Fitz neither knew nor cared whether there was any ammunition for the machine gun that was mounted on the sidecar. So long as the engine worked, he"d be happy.
The red-haired man groaned loudly as Fitz helped him into the sidecar. Fitz winced, expecting an immediate reply by way of klaxons and gunfire. He wasn"t disappointed.
As if a spell had been broken, the other troops nearby noticed what he was up to, and seemed to think it wasn"t the right behaviour. That was the impression Fitz got from their shouts, and the shots that escorted him and his newfound friend out of town.
Leitz had found the source of the noise, and immediately wished he hadn"t. Men were shooting at shadows all right, but these shadows turned out to be alive. They were indistinct, and every one seemed to have different limbs or different claws and fangs, but they were all hostile, as well as being apparently indestructible.
It was as if the bullets went harmlessly through without damaging their flesh. If they had any flesh.
Even face-on, a whole magazine from Leitz"s Schmeisser didn"t stop the quadrupedal nightmare that had loomed out of the fog at him. He couldn"t describe it all, as his brain seemed to refuse to accept parts of it, but it was fast, chitinous and razor-sharp. It was a combination of every phobia rolled into one furious beast.
Leitz screamed, a noise that split the mist, before he suddenly realised that he was alone again. The creature was gone.
He wished it was so easy to make its breath vanish from his nostrils, or to drive it from his vision when he closed his eyes. But outside of his head, in the real world, it had gone.
Leitz fell painfully into a sitting position, his legs just too shaky to support him any more. He still wanted to scream. He wanted to scream until he pa.s.sed out, then wake up safe in the knowledge that it had all been a terrible nightmare.
Instead, he drew his knees up to his chest and hugged them, hyperventilating. After this, he thought, nothing the Circle at Wewelsburg said or threatened would ever frighten him again. He laughed, nervously, and the sound seemed ludicrously out of place.
Leitz wondered for a moment if he"d gone mad. The creatures had been awful, terrible... He wished he could could have dismissed them as fancy, but, no, the deaths of his men were real enough. So why hadn"t they finished the job? Of course a stickler for efficiency himself, he should"ve realised that depended on what their job was. have dismissed them as fancy, but, no, the deaths of his men were real enough. So why hadn"t they finished the job? Of course a stickler for efficiency himself, he should"ve realised that depended on what their job was.
They weren"t there to kill him, or even to slaughter randomly. They had been moving in a distinct pattern, and killing only those who got in their way. A search pattern? Yes, of course, that was it. They were searching for something or someone as alien and unnatural as themselves. He stood, unsteadily. His prisoner. They must be a related species.
That still begged the question of why they had stopped, instead of going straight through him as they had gone through the other men. Logically, the circ.u.mstances must have changed. The prisoner had been set free.
Again he laughed. The creature may as well have killed him, after all.
Farber found him a moment later. "Are you all right, sir?"
"Yes," replied Leitz, flatly.
"There"s been some trouble at the camp "
"Don"t bother," Leitz snapped. "The prisoner has gone?"
Farber nodded, surprised. "A few minutes ago. How did "
"A logical conclusion. What happened?"
"It was that corporal, Kreiner. He knocked out the guard and stole a motorcycle and sidecar. They could be halfway to Brussels by now."
Leitz rose stiffly to his feet and nodded, grimly. "Of course. Kreiner."
Sam let the being walk her around the edge of the lake. She was both surprised and relieved to see that they were not alone.
From all around, men were appearing. Not alien and uncomfortable like the being who accompanied her, but as human as she was. They were in different uniforms, both German and American, and maybe others, too, by the look of them. A couple of faces she recognised from the ma.s.sacre that had done for her. They had been shot too.
An army of the dead, she thought with a shiver. "So this is Mictlan, is it?"
"Mictlan?"
"You can"t fool me. The Doctor warned me about how the Celestis take those on the brink of death to Mictlan to persuade them to enter their service. Well, forget it. No way."
The being tinkled with laughter. "This is not Mictlan. Mictlan is but a shadow of this realm. Oh, it"s true that there are celestial beings who act as you describe. It"s also true that, given your relationship with the Evergreen Man, they were probably looking for you. But we found you first, and saved you."
"Found me?"
"You were on the path," the being told her. "What humans call dead, yes."
Sam felt herself shiver at its words. "My heart had stopped?"
"Your heart was destroyed. Reduced to cold meat. But not irreparable, Samanthajones."
"You seem to have the advantage of me. Who are you, anyway?"
"I am " it sang, not in discernible words, but a clear and brief harmony, even though it was from the throat of a single being. At the same time, there was a strange ripple, as if Sam"s eyes were momentarily blurred, and she felt a hint of an emotion she couldn"t recognise. She realised that all those things were part of its his name. They must have pretty impressive-looking birth certificates round here.
"I don"t think I can quite manage that," Sam admitted. "Though a bit of it sounded like..." She paused, feeling a little ridiculous. "Galastel?"
The being blinked, one ear twitching slightly. "It does not matter. I have had many names. You may call me that if it makes you feel more comfortable."
Fitz kept looking over his shoulder as he drove along, desperate to put as much distance as possible between himself and Leitz, preferably in a vaguely western direction.
"Stop, please," the man he had rescued begged. He sounded hurt, and Fitz wondered what he was supposed to do about it. He could talk like Dr Kildare to please the ladies, but he certainly couldn"t treat an injury.
"If you"re hurt, we have to get you medical help."
"No. It burns."
"What does?"
"This carriage."
Fitz pulled the bike into the side of the snowy road. Perhaps some part of the bike was overheating. Or perhaps it was the metal itself. It was a metal cage that kept him in pain, after all...
The red-haired man stumbled out of the sidecar. "Thank you. I will be fine soon. You should go now."
Fitz shook his head, enjoying the chance to be a hero now that they were somewhat safer. "Saving the world"s my business, even if it"s only one person at a time. Besides, there"s not just the Jerries to worry about there are weird creatures out there, slaughtering people."
"No longer," the man said, shaking his head in a funny kind of manner, Fitz noted. "The Black Dogs will have been recalled now that I am free."
"Recalled? By who?"
"By the rest of my clan. They will be concerned for me. I command a whole regiment."
Fitz wondered what he meant by that, but didn"t have time to speculate further, as a Kubelwagen suddenly came into sight further up the road, the noise of gunfire carrying with the growl of its engine. Bullets started spanging off the bike.
"We"d better go into the woods," Fitz said. "The car can"t follow us there."
He helped the man up, still amazed at his lightness. There was something odd about his ears too: they weren"t small and round, like human ears, but carved into flowing points. A bit like Tom"s in the Tom and Jerry Tom and Jerry cartoons. cartoons.
Galastel had led Sam to a large boat, or perhaps a small ship, further round the lake sh.o.r.e. It had a single triangular sail, like an Arab dhow dhow. "We should board. It will be quicker to cross the lake to reach our destination than to go around."
"Across the Styx?" Sam presumed. She still couldn"t believe she wasn"t really dead. If she was, then it wasn"t b.l.o.o.d.y fair. And it wasn"t fair that she couldn"t say goodbye to all the people who mattered. All the people who deserved a goodbye from her: the Doctor, Fitz, her parents, her old friends from home.
She sighed and walked to the edge of the deck, Galastel by her side, as the vessel cast off. She looked down into the waters through which the ship was pa.s.sing. They were crystal clear, and looked very inviting. It would be so relaxing to go for a swim in there... But where were the fish? Such clear waters surely ought to be full of them.
Something was moving around there, though. It was hard to tell how deep the water was; perhaps it was just something very small moving through the vegetation that grew on the bottom. Even the silt down there was pure white. Sam frowned. The silt was as white as snow. And the vegetation looked a little like...
A feeling of unreality washed over her and she swayed, kept upright only by her grip on the wooden rail. The movement down there was... men. Tiny men and tiny tanks, moving through tiny s...o...b..und trees at the bottom of a lake.
Fitz and his newfound friend ran through the woods as quietly as they could. Fitz felt a bit cheesed off that he seemed to be feeling the strain a lot more than the other guy. He could have sworn that the man"s feet weren"t touching the ground most of the time.
The Germans pursuing them were not being so careful, and so a lot more direct. Fitz wished that he had hung on to the gun he"d been issued.
By now, they had reached a small clearing, with a natural rocky mound at its centre. Fitz saw that a startling change had occurred: the red-haired man now seemed more like a golden figure, almost flying around the tree trunks, his eyes blazing. He was shrinking too. "What the h.e.l.l?"
"Nothing to do with h.e.l.l," the man said, grinning. "We can make the big small, and the small big, as you see. Now come quickly. I can take you to a safer place than this.
Fitz stared at him, feeling sick. "What are you saying?"
The figure seemed mildly irritated. "That my world can harbour you, human."
"Your world?" Fitz stumbled backward, a dozen folk tales and Tolkienesque visions rushing irrationally through his head. "Forget it. You"re not... I mean, you must be..."
Even as Fitz continued to withdraw, the man dissolved into a vague cl.u.s.ter of lights, then flickered out of existence.
Forgetting caution, his strength renewed by fear, Fitz ran on twice as fast as before.
Chapter Six.
Commonwealth Games Wiesniewski had come to find the Doctor after his shift at Lewis"s HQ had finished, and was surprised to discover him now walking through the streets in the direction of the former police station with a baffled Garcia and Bearclaw exchanging glances as they followed in his wake. "Leshy and Kachinas, Leshy and Kachinas, Leshy and Kachinas..." he was muttering over and over again.
"Leshy", he thought. There was a word he hadn"t heard since he was a child, when his grandmother would tell him stories before bedtime. It was a little unnerving to hear it chanted like a mantra by someone like the Doctor. He had no idea what Kachinas were; perhaps the Doctor was confused. "Are you feeling OK?" Wiesniewski asked.
"I am, yes, but I"m not so sure if the world is." Before Garcia could translate his own baffled look into a question, the Doctor continued. "You heard what he said. What both of them said. Leshy and Kachinas."
"Well, yeah, but what does that have to "
"The Leshy are a feature of Polish folklore." Wiesniewski nodded confirmation as the Doctor continued. "Woodland elementals. Kachinas belong to Hopi myth. It"s an awful coincidence, isn"t it, that two people from such different cultural backgrounds would have folklore-related experiences in the same area at similar times?"
"Not really," countered Garcia. "They were both under severe stress, acting on instinct. Their upbringing is bound to get involved in colouring their perceptions under those circ.u.mstances."
"Yes!" the Doctor exclaimed. "That"s it exactly." He was beaming. Garcia didn"t follow at all. The Doctor sighed. "Both these men saw something that they could relate to only by their folk history And I"d bet you my shirt that the Germans are having similar experiences."
"I think so, too," Wiesniewski agreed. The others looked at him. "I had a very interesting conversation with Colonel Lewis. He wants to clamp down on people talking about the sort of experiences we"re discussing here. He says that, if anyone is really keen to say something, they should make out an official report to him."
"He wants people to talk nonsense to him, but not to each other?" Bearclaw echoed.
"Very interesting," the Doctor murmured. "We were just on our way to see him. I"ll give him nonsense..."
"I"d be careful if I was you, Doctor," Wiesniewski warned. "This is going to sound crazy... Oh, what the h.e.l.l! Lewis was talking to someone this morning. Someone who wasn"t there."
"What?" said Garcia.
"You mean he"s going nuts?" Bearclaw suggested.
"I dunno... Maybe I I am. I didn"t see or hear anyone else there, but... I could feel something. Like there was someone or something really there." He shook his head, knowing how unbelievable it sounded, but relieved to have said it out loud. Let other people decide if he was crazy or not, he was sick of worrying about it. am. I didn"t see or hear anyone else there, but... I could feel something. Like there was someone or something really there." He shook his head, knowing how unbelievable it sounded, but relieved to have said it out loud. Let other people decide if he was crazy or not, he was sick of worrying about it.
"Did he call his visitor by any name?" the Doctor asked.
Wiesniewski couldn"t believe he was being taken seriously. "Not that I heard."
"What were they discussing?"
"I don"t know. I only heard one side of part of a conversation. He said something about learning something last year in Philly. And something about lights being behind."
"There was some light left behind when those fake nurses disappeared," Garcia pointed out. And Bearclaw saw lights at the "
"Yes," said the Doctor, cutting him off. "Filly? A horse?"