Rotterdam, Michael thought. Not France after all, but German-occupied Holland. Almost a thousand miles south of Skarpa Island. He felt a little sick, knowing that what he"d suspected was true.
"That said, I"ll add this," Blok continued. "You and your friends-and that bearded gentleman down there I haven"t been introduced to and neither do I wish to be-will remain here on Skarpa until the project is concluded. I think you"ll find Skarpa a more difficult nut to crack than Falkenhausen. Oh, by the way, Chesna: turnabout is fair play, don"t you agree? Your friends got to Bauman, my friends got to one of the gentlemen who met your plane near Uskedahl." He gave her a brief, bone-chilling smile. "As a matter of fact, I"ve been on Skarpa for a week, tidying up affairs and waiting for you. Baron, I knew where you would go when you got out of Falkenhausen. It was just a question of how long it would take you to get here." He winced at a collision between two prisoners, and the basketball bounced away down the court. "Our radar watched you weave through the mine field. That was nice work."
Kitty! Michael thought. What had happened to her?
"I think you"ll find the stockade more roomy than your quarters at Falkenhausen, though," the colonel said. "You"ll get a nice fresh sea breeze, too."
"And where will you be? Getting a suntan up on the roof?"
"Not quite." A flicker of silver. "Baron, I"ll be getting prepared to destroy the Allied invasion of Europe."
It was said so offhandedly that Michael, though his throat felt constricted, had to answer in kind. "Really? Is that your weekend job?"
"It will take much less than a weekend, I think. The invasion will be destroyed approximately six hours after it begins. The British and American troops will be drowning each other trying to swim back to their ships, and the commanders will go mad with panic. It will be the greatest disaster in history-for the Reich"s enemies, of course-and a triumph for Germany. And all that, Baron, will happen without our soldiers having to fire a shot of our precious ammunition."
Michael grunted. "All because of Iron Fist? And Hildebrand"s corrosive gas? Twenty-four one-hundred-pound bombs won"t stop thousands of soldiers. As a matter of fact, your troops are more likely to get gas blown back in their faces. So tell me: what asylum were you recently released from?"
Blok stared at him. A muscle twitched in the side of his face. "Oh, no!" He giggled, a terrible sound. "Oh, my dear Baron! Chesna! Neither of you know, do you? You think bombs are going to be dropped on this side of the Channel?" His laughter spiraled upward.
Michael and Chesna looked at each other. A horror, like a knot of snakes, began to writhe in Michael"s stomach.
"You see, we don"t know where the invasion is going to be. There are a dozen possibilities." He laughed again, and dabbed his eyes with the handkerchief. "Oh, my! What a surprise! But you see, it doesn"t matter where the invasion is. If it happens this year, it"s going to happen within the next two to four weeks. When it begins," Blok said, "we"re going to drop those twenty-four bombs on London."
"My G.o.d," Michael whispered, and he saw clearly.
No German bomber could pierce England"s aerial defenses. The Royal Air Force was too strong, too experienced since the Battle of Britain. No German bomber could get anywhere even remotely close to London.
But an American B-17 Flying Fortress could. Especially one that appeared to be a cripple, shot full of holes and returning from a bombing mission over Germany. In fact, the Royal Air Force might even give the struggling craft an escort. How would the British fighter pilots know that the bullet holes and battle damage had been painted on by a Berlin street artist?
"Those twenty-four bombs," Blok said, "have a center of liquid carnagene within a sh.e.l.l of high explosives. Carnagene is the name of the gas Gustav"s created, and it"s quite an accomplishment. He"d have to show you the equations and the chemical notations; I don"t understand them. All I know is that when the gas is inhaled, it triggers the body"s own bacteria: the microbes that cause the decay of dead tissue. The microbes, in a sense, become carnivorous. Within seven to twelve minutes the flesh begins to be... shall we say... eaten from the inside out. Stomach, heart, lungs, arteries... everything."
Michael didn"t speak. He had seen the photographs, and he believed it.
One of the prisoners had collapsed, and did not move. "Get up." Hildebrand prodded at the man"s ribs with his sneaker. "Come on! Get up, I said!" The prisoner remained motionless. Hildebrand looked up at Blok. "He"s broken! Bring me a new one!"
"Do it," Blok told the nearest guard, and the soldier hurried out of the gymnasium.
"The red team will have to go on with four players!" Hildebrand blew his whistle. "Keep playing!"
"That"s a fine example of the master race," Michael said, still stunned. "He"s too dumb to know he"s an idiot."
"In some ways he is an idiot, I"m afraid," the colonel agreed. "But in the field of chemical warfare, Gustav Hildebrand is a genius, surpa.s.sing his father. Take carnagene, for instance; it"s fantastically concentrated. What"s contained in those twenty-four bombs is enough to kill, at a rough estimate, thirty thousand people, depending on the prevailing winds and rainfall."
Chesna had roused herself, fighting off the same shock that had hit Michael. "Why London?" she asked. "Why don"t you just drop your bombs on the invasion fleet?"
"Because, dear Chesna, bombing ships is an unprofitable undertaking. The targets are small, the Channel winds unpredictable, and carnagene doesn"t get along well with sodium. As in salt water." He patted her hand before she could jerk it away. "Don"t you be concerned. We know what we"re doing."
Michael knew, as well. "You want to hit London so word can be communicated to the invasion troops. When the soldiers hear about what that gas does, they"ll be paralyzed with terror."
"Exactly. They"ll all swim home like good little fishies, and leave us alone."
A panic amid the landing troops would end all chances for success. There was no way the soldiers wouldn"t hear about the attack on London, if not over the BBC then over the scuttleb.u.t.t network. Michael said, "Why only twenty-four bombs? Why not fifty?"
"The B-seventeen we have can only hold that many. It"s enough for the purpose. Anyway"-he shrugged-"the next batch of carnagene isn"t refined yet. It"s a long, expensive process, and one mistake can destroy many months of labor. We"ll have some ready, though, in time to perfume your comrades from the East."
The twenty-four bombs contained all the carnagene that was ready for use, Michael realized. But it was more than enough to destroy D-Day and strengthen Hitler"s grip on the throat of Europe.
"By the way, we do have a target in London," Blok said. "The bombs will fall along Parliament Street to Trafalgar Square. Perhaps we can even get Churchill, as he smokes one of those disgusting cigars."
Another prisoner fell to his knees. Hildebrand grasped the man"s white hair. "I told you to pa.s.s the ball to Matthias, didn"t I? I didn"t say for you to shoot!"
"We won"t see each other again," Blok told his unwilling guests. "I will have other projects, after this one. You see, this is a feather in my cap." He gave a silver smile. "Chesna, you have broken my heart." His smile faded as he placed a long thin finger beneath her chin. She twisted away from him. "But you"re a wonderful actress," he said, "and I"ll always love the woman in your films. Guards, will you take them back to their cell now?"
The two soldiers came forward. Lazaris stood up, dazed. Michael helped Chesna to her feet, and she gasped with pain as some weight settled on her injured ankle. "Goodbye, Baron," Blok said as Boots stared impa.s.sively. "I trust you have a good relationship with the commandant of the next prison camp you"re in."
As they walked along the edge of the court, Dr. Hildebrand blew his whistle to stop the game. He grinned at Chesna and followed her a few steps. "Chemistry is the future, you know," he said. "It"s power, and essences, and the heart of creation. You"re full of it."
"You"re full of it, too," she told him, and with Michael"s help she limped away. She had seen the future, and it was demented.
Once that cell door shut on them, they were finished. So, too, were thirty thousand or more of London"s citizens, and possibly the prime minister himself. Finished also was the invasion of Europe. It would all be ended when the cell door shut.
This was in Michael"s mind as he supported Chesna. Lazaris walked a few paces ahead, the soldiers a few paces behind. They were going through the alley, toward the stockade. Michael could not let that door shut on him again. No matter what. He said, in English, "Stumble and fall."
Chesna obeyed at once, moaning and grasping her ankle. Michael bent to help her as the two soldiers yammered for him to get her up. "Can you take one?" he asked, again in English. She nodded. It would be a desperation move, but they were d.a.m.ned desperate. He pulled Chesna up-then suddenly twisted his body and flung her at the nearest guard. Her fingernails went for his eyes.
Michael grabbed the other soldier"s rifle and uptilted it. Pain shot through his wounded hand, but he grappled for the gun. The soldier almost got it away from him, until Michael drove his knee into the man"s groin. As the soldier gasped and doubled over, Michael wrenched the rifle away and clubbed him across the back of the neck with it.
Lazaris blinked, his mind still sluggish from the gas grenades. He saw Chesna clawing at the soldier"s eyes, and the man trying to hold her off. He took an uncertain step forward. A rifle fired, and a bullet cracked off the pavement between him and Chesna. He stopped, looked up, and saw another soldier on a catwalk above.
Michael shot at the soldier, but it was a wild shot and his hand had gone dead again. The other guard bellowed and thrust Chesna aside. She cried out and fell, catching her bad ankle beneath her. "Run!" she shouted to Michael. "Go!" The half-blinded guard, his eyes bloodshot and watering, swung his rifle in Michael"s direction. A bullet whined past Michael"s head, fired from the catwalk. A Gallatinov ran.
Behind him the guard wiped his eyes and saw the fleeing man through a haze. He lifted his weapon and took aim. He squeezed the trigger.
Before the bullet could leave the barrel, a body slammed into his back. The guard staggered and went down, the rifle firing into the air. Lazaris landed on top of him and fought to get the gun away.
The soldier on the catwalk tracked his prey with his own rifle. He shot.
Something smashed against the side of Michael"s head. A fist, he thought. An iron fist. No, something hot. Something on fire. He took three more strides and fell, his momentum skidding him across the pavement on his belly and crashing him into an area of trash cans and broken crates. His head was aflame, he thought. Where was the rifle? Gone, spun out of his grasp. He pressed his hand against his right temple, feeling warm wetness. His brain felt soggy, as if the shock had liquefied it. Got to get up, he urged himself. Got to run. Got to...
As he pulled himself to his knees, a second bullet clanged against a can only a few feet away. He got up, his head pounding with fiery agony, and he staggered through the alley toward where he thought the fence must be. The fence. Got to crawl under it. He rounded a corner, and almost directly into the path of an oncoming truck. It shrieked to a halt, but Michael hugged the wall and started running again, the smell of burned rubber in his nostrils. He turned another corner, lost his balance, and slammed into the wall. He fell, darkness beginning to call him, and he crawled into a narrow doorway and lay there shivering with pain.
He had been shot. He knew that much. The bullet had grazed his head, and taken flesh and hair with it. Where was Chesna? Where was Alekza, and Renati? No, no; that was another, better world. Where was Lazaris? Was the Russian safe, with Wiktor? He shook his head; his mind was clouding, keeping secrets from him. The train was late! I"ll make it, Nikita! Watch me!
His skin stung and itched. The air smelled bad. What was that bitter stench? His skin... what was happening to his skin? He looked at his hands. They were changing, the fingers becoming claws. The bandage slipped off and fell. The bones of his spine creaked and shifted. New pain shot through his joints, but compared to the agony of his head that pain was almost pleasure.
Chesna! He almost shouted it. Where was she? He couldn"t leave her. No, no! Wiktor! Wiktor would take care of Chesna. Wouldn"t he?
His body thrashed against the confinement of strange things that bound his legs. Something split along his black-haired back, and he flung that off, too. The things that fell aside had a terrible smell to them. A man-smell.
His muscles clicked and popped. He had to get out of this awful place, before the monsters found him. He was in an alien world, and nothing made sense. The fence. Beyond it was freedom, and that was what he craved.
But he was leaving someone behind. No, not only one. Two. A name came to him, and he opened his mouth to shout, but the song was harsh and ragged and made no sense. He shook away heavy objects that hung by strings to his hind paws, and he ran to find the way out.
He picked up his own scent trail. Three monsters with pale, hideous faces saw him, and one of them shrieked with terror; even a wolf could understand that emotion. Another of the figures lifted a stick, and flame shot out of it. Michael spun away from them, a hot breeze ruffling the hair at the back of his neck, and he ran on.
His scent led him to the hole beneath the fence. Why was the man-smell here, too? he wondered. They were familiar aromas; whose were they? But the forest beckoned him, and promised safety. He was hurting badly. He needed rest. A place to curl up, and lick his wounds.
He crawled under the fence, and without looking back at the world he was departing, he leaped into the arms of the forest.
8.
The yellow she-wolf came to sniff his scent while he was curled up in a nest of rocks. He had been licking at his wounded paw. His skull was filled with a terrible pain that waxed and waned, and his vision misted around the edges. But he could see her, even in the blue twilight. She stood on a rock about seventy feet above him and watched him as he suffered. A dark brown wolf joined her after a while, then a gray one with a single eye. The other two wolves came and went, but the yellow female remained vigilant.
Sometime later-and when this was he didn"t know, because time had become dreamlike-he smelled the human reek. Four of them, he thought. Maybe more. Pa.s.sing by his hiding place. In another moment he heard the sc.r.a.pe of their boots on the stones. They went on, searching for...
Searching for what? he asked himself. Food? Shelter? He didn"t know, but the men-the white-fleshed monsters-frightened him, and he determined to stay away from them.
An explosion roused him from a feverish sleep. He stared, his green eyes dull, at flames rising into the darkness. The boat, he thought. They"d found it, down in the harbor. The thought doubled back on itself, and puzzled him. How had he known that? he wondered. Whose boat was it, and what use did a wolf have for a boat?
His curiosity made him get up and slowly, painfully, descend over the rocks to the harbor. The yellow wolf followed on one side, and on the other a small pale brown wolf that yipped nervously all the way down to the village. Wolftown, he thought as he looked at the houses. That was a good name for it, because he could smell his own kind here. Fire crackled beyond the seawall, and the figures of men walked through the smoke. He stood near the corner of a stone house, watching monsters roam the earth. One of them called to another: "Any sign of him, Thyssen?"
"No, Sergeant!" another one shouted back. "Not a trace! We found the commando team and the woman, though. Over that way." He pointed.
"Well, if he tries to hide here, the d.a.m.ned wolves will finish him off!" The sergeant strode in one direction with a group of men, and Thyssen went in another.
Who were they talking about? he wondered as the flames reflected in his green eyes. And... why did he understand their language? This was a puzzle, to be thought out when the throbbing in his skull had ceased. Right now he needed water and a place to sleep. He lapped from a muddy pool of snowmelt, then he chose a house and entered it through the open front door. He lay down in a corner, curling his body up for warmth, placed his muzzle on his paws, and closed his eyes.
Later, a floorboard"s creak awakened him. He looked up into the glare of a flashlight, and he heard a voice say, "Jesus, that one"s been in a fight!" He stood up, his tail to the wall, and bared his fangs at the intruders, his heart pounding with fear. "Easy, easy," one of the monsters whispered. "Put a bullet in it, Langner!"
"Not me! I don"t want a wounded wolf jumping at my throat!" Langner backed out, and in another few seconds so did the man with the light. "He"s not here!" Langner called to someone else outside. "Too many wolves around for my taste. I"m getting out."
The black wolf with a blood-crusted skull settled back into his corner again, and slept.
He had a strange dream. His body was changing, becoming white and monstrous. His claws, his fangs, and his coat of sleek black hair all went away. Naked, he crawled into a world of terrors. And he was just about to rise up on his fleshy legs-an unthinkable act-when the nightmare jarred him to his senses.
Gray dawn and hunger. They linked together. He got up and went in search of food. His head was still hurting, but not so much now. His muscles felt deeply bruised, and his steps were uncertain. But he would live, if he could find meat. He sniffed a death scent; the kill was nearby, somewhere in Wolftown.
The scent drew him into another house, and there he found them.
The corpses of four humans. One was a ma.s.sive, orange-haired female. The other three were males, dressed in black with black-smeared faces. He sat on his haunches, and studied their positions. The female, her body punctured by at least a half-dozen holes, had her hands clenched around the throat of one of the males. Another male lay in a corner like a broken doll, his mouth open in a final gasp. The third man lay on his back near an overturned table, the carved-horn handle of a knife protruding from his heart.
The black wolf stared at that knife. He had seen it before. Somewhere. He saw, as if from a vision, a human hand on a table, and the blade of that knife slamming down between the fingers. It was a mystery, too deep for him, and he let it go.
He began with the male crumpled in the corner. The facial flesh was soft, and so was the tongue. He was feasting when he smelled the musk of another wolf, and then came the low, warning growl. He whirled around, his muzzle red, but the dark brown wolf was already bounding forward to attack, claws flailing at the air.
The black wolf spun to one side, but his legs were still unsure and he lost his balance, crashing over the upturned table. The brown animal snapped at a foreleg and barely missed catching it between powerful jaws. Another wolf, this one a ruddy amber hue, came through a window into the room and lunged at the black with fangs bared.
He knew death was imminent. Once they caught him between them, they would tear him to pieces. They were strangers to him, just as he was to them, and he knew this was a struggle for territory. He snapped at the amber wolf-a young female-with such ferocity that she scrambled backward. But the brown one, a husky male, was not so easily intimidated; a claw flashed out, and red streaks appeared across a black-haired rib cage. Fangs snapped, lunging and parrying like the weapons of swordsmen. The two wolves collided, chest to chest, trying to overwhelm the other with brute strength.
He saw his chance, and shredded the brown wolf"s left ear. The animal yelped and backed off, feinted to one side, and then moved in again, eyes murderous with rage. Their bodies collided once more, with a force that knocked the breath out of both of them. They grappled wildly, each trying to grip the other"s throat as they battled back and forth across the room, a deadly ballet of teeth and claws.
A brown-haired, muscular shoulder whammed into the right side of his skull, blinding him with fresh agony. He cried out in pain-a high quavering yelp-and fell back into the corner. The breath rumbled in his lungs, and he snorted blood. The brown wolf, almost grinning with the excitement of combat, started to jump at him to finish the job.
A rough series of quick, throaty barks froze the brown wolf on the edge of attack.
The yellow female had entered the house through the door. Right behind her was the one-eyed gray, an old male. The female darted forward, nudging the brown one in the side. She licked his b.l.o.o.d.y ear, and then shoved him aside with her shoulder.
The black wolf waited, his muscles trembling. Again, the pain in his skull was savage. He wanted to let them know he wasn"t about to give up his life without further struggle; he shouted-the equivalent of "Come on!"-and his guttural bark made the yellow female"s ears twitch. She sat on her haunches and watched him, perhaps a spark of respect in her eyes as the black wolf announced his intention to survive.
She stared at him for a long time. The old gray and the brown male licked her coat. The small, pale brown male entered and yipped nervously until she silenced him with a cuff to the muzzle. Then she turned, a regal motion, and with a flip of her tail she went to the knife-stuck corpse and began to tear at it.
Five wolves, he thought. Five. That number bothered him. It was a dark number, and it smelled of fire. Five. In his mind he saw a beach, and soldiers struggling to sh.o.r.e through the waves. Over them loomed the shadow of a huge crow, flying inexorably toward the west. The crow had gla.s.s eyes, and on its beak were arcane scratchings. No, no, he realized. Letters. Something painted there. Iron- The heady aromas of blood and fresh meat distracted him. The others were feeding. The yellow female lifted her head and grunted at him. The message said there was enough for all.
He ate, and let the mysteries drift away. But when the brown male and the amber female began to rip at the huge orange-haired corpse on the floor, he shuddered and went outside, where he was violently ill.
That night the stars came out. The others began to sing, their bellies swollen. He joined them-tentatively at first, because he didn"t know their rhythms, then full-voiced as they accepted his song and swirled his into their own. He was one of them now, though the brown wolf still growled and sniffed disdainfully at him.
Another day dawned, and pa.s.sed. Time was a trick of the mind. It had no meaning, here in the womb of Wolftown. He gave the others names: Golda, the yellow leader, older than she appeared; Ratkiller, the dark brown male whose princ.i.p.al pleasure was chasing rodents through the houses; One-eye, a beautiful singer; Yipper, the whelp of the litter and not quite right in the mind; and Amber, a dreamer who sat for hours gazing from the rocks. And, as he soon learned, Amber"s four pups, sired by Ratkiller.
A quick shower of snowflakes fell one night. Amber danced in their midst, and snapped at them as Ratkiller and Yipper ran circles around her. The snowflakes melted as soon as they touched the warm ground. It was a sign of summer on the way.
The following morning he sat up on the rocks while Golda honored him by licking the crusted blood away from his skull wound. It was a language of the tongue, and it said he was welcome to mount her. Desire stirred in him; she had a lovely tail. And as he roused himself to please her, he heard the drone of engines.
He looked up. A huge crow was rising into the air. No, not a crow, he realized. Crows didn"t have engines. An aircraft, with an immense wing span. The rising of the plane in the silver morning air made his flesh crawl. It was a horrible thing, and as it turned southward he made a soft groaning noise deep in his throat. It had to be stopped. In its belly was a cargo of death. It had to be stopped! He looked at Golda and saw she didn"t understand. Why didn"t she? Why was it only he who understood? He propelled himself off the rocks and raced down to the harbor as the transport aircraft began to grow distant. He clambered up onto the seawall, where he stood moaning until the plane was lost to sight.
I"ve failed, he thought. But exactly what it was that he had failed at made his head hurt, and he had to let it go.
But his nightmares seized him, and those he could not escape.
He was human, in the nightmares. A young human, with no sense of the world. He was running across a field where yellow flowers budded, and in his hand was a taut string. At the end of that string, floating up into the blue, was a white kite that danced and spun in the high currents. A human female called him, a name he couldn"t exactly understand. And as he was watching the kite sail higher and higher the shadow of the gla.s.s-eyed crow fell over him, and one of its whirling propellers chewed the kite into a thousand fragments that blew away like dust. The airplane was olive green, and riddled with bullet holes. As the severed string fell to earth, so did a mist. It swirled around him, and he breathed it. His flesh began to melt, to fall in b.l.o.o.d.y tatters, and he pitched to his knees as holes opened in his hands and arms. The woman, once beautiful, staggered across the field toward him, and as she reached him, her arms outstretched, he saw a bleeding cavity where her face had been.
In the stark daylight of reality he sat on the dock and stared at the burned hulk of a boat. Five, he thought. What was it about the number that terrified him so?
The days pa.s.sed, a ritual of eating, sleeping, and basking in the waning sun. The corpses, hollowed-out and bony, gave up their last meal. He reclined on his haunches and regarded the knife, stuck there in a cage of bones. It had a hooked blade. He had seen that knife, in another place. Being driven down between a pair of human fingers. Kitty"s game, he thought. Yes. But who was Kitty?
An airplane, its green metal pocked with painted holes. The face of a man with silver teeth: a devil"s face. A city with a huge clock tower, and a wide river meandering to the sea. A beautiful woman, with blond hair and tawny eyes. Five of six. Five of six. All shadows. His head hurt. He was a wolf; what did he know, or care, of such things?
The knife beckoned him. He reached for it as Golda watched with lazy interest. His paw touched the handle. Of course he couldn"t pull the knife out. What had made him believe he could?
He began to pay attention to the rising and falling of the sun and the pa.s.sage of days. He noted the days were lengthening. The five of six. Whatever that was, it was fast approaching, and that thought made him shiver and moan. He ceased singing with the others, because there was no song in him. The five of six dominated his mind and would not let him rest. Hollow-eyed, he faced another dawn, and he went to stare at the knife in the stripped skeleton as if it were a relic from a lost world.
The five of six was almost upon him. He could sense it, ticking nearer. There was no way to stop its approach, and that realization chewed his insides. But why did it not bother any of the others? Why was he the only one who suffered?