Necessary Evil (Milkweed Triptych) (26 page)

Stephenson had put two SIS minders on every warlock. Just like last time.

Every warlock except Will, that was. He had refused. Said it wouldn’t do for the Duke’s brother to be seen about town with two bodyguards everywhere he went. That would raise eyebrows and invite questions. He was right.

I tried not to think about Will. What would you do if you knew, beyond any possibility of doubt, that your best friend carried knowledge that would one day destroy the world? And what if you knew that determined persons could rip it from him? Because if it wanted to, Whitehall could force Will to reveal the process for creating more warlocks.

Destroying their credibility was essential, if I didn’t want to murder my friend.

22 July 1940

Kensington, London, England

Took me over a month to learn all I could about the warlocks from the outside. During that time, the Luftwaffe started regular attacks on shipping. By the time I neared the end of my surveillance campaign, the Jerries had begun air operations against ports along the Channel, too. But their strategy was haphazard, almost spasmodic. It lacked the cold precision with which they’d dismantled our air defenses the last time around. I wondered how Gretel was framing her advice. Somehow, she had the OKW believing this was the best possible scenario. Then again, she and I were the only people on earth who knew firsthand of scenarios that played out much better for the Luftwaffe.

Though things were better than they’d been the first time around, they weren’t good. France had folded in late June, and now the beleaguered Royal Navy was tasked with blockading the Continent. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Aircraft Production took up a collection. “Saucepans into Spitfires,” they called it. We were weak. Weak enough that the British Empire could offer no resistance when Japan demanded closure of the Burma Road. Hitler made a final “peace offering” to Britain a few days ago, with predictable results. Even America rebuffed the overture: Roosevelt signed an act that would greatly expand the Americans’ naval presence in both the Atlantic and Pacific. (I didn’t remember that from the first time around, but it was becoming difficult to remember such details. It was a challenge to keep straight both versions of this accursed war.) The most chilling reminder of the original history came when the Soviet Union annexed Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. I watched, and wondered if Stalin would take the rest of Europe as he’d done last time.

Will and his colleagues had also been quite busy during those same weeks, as he reluctantly explained to me when I returned to his Kensington flat.

“We’ve done nothing that would be of interest to you,” he said. “Merely paperwork.”

He didn’t want to tell me anything. Couldn’t help but respect him for that. But I had to know what was happening inside Milkweed. I said, “Tell me.”

Will sighed, running a hand over his face. “Before we can collaborate on negotiations, we have to ensure that we share a common frame of reference. A canonical text, if you will.” He delivered this explanation in a bored monotone, as if by rote. I reckoned he’d gone over this more than once. I saw shades of my mentor’s impatience in that. “Every warlock has his own journal. And his own lexicon. A personal, idiosyncratic record of Enochian. These documents are old and, sometimes, unreliable. They’ve been passed down for generations. Centuries in many cases.”

“You’re combining them. Writing a master lexicon.”

“Master lexicon.” Will scratched his chin. “Yes. I suppose you could call it that.”

“Quill pens and parchments. I take it Milkweed hasn’t found a use for you.”

I tried not to let my eagerness show. But with the war evolving so differently this time, the circumstances that had forced us to rely upon the warlocks to blockade the Channel hadn’t crystallized. With France under heel, the Jerries had of course looked across at Britain and begun to salivate. But this time we had an army with which to repel the invasion force. And, so far at least, we still had the RAF.

Invasion was still a threat. But if the world was lucky, we’d find a way to counter it without magic.
Perhaps,
I thought, allowing myself a glimmer of optimism,
we’ll manage to fight this entire war without magic.

But it’s never that easy.

“I’m happy to say,” Will said, “that we’re poised to do something rather valuable.”

I concentrated on a neutral tone: “Oh?”

“A Milkweed agent went missing two months ago. I mentioned him to you. Marsh. Quite a good friend of mine, in fact. We’re going to have the Eidolons locate him.”

Shit.
This was a disaster. The problem immediately sprang to mind: If the warlocks delivered on this promise and managed to discern that my doppelgänger was in Germany, Stephenson would have to draw one of two conclusions—either Raybould Marsh had defected, or he had been trussed up and shipped to the Continent against his will. But both paths of reasoning led to the same place. Whether willingly or under torture, it ended with Raybould Marsh giving up everything he knew about Milkweed.

Stephenson would have no choice but to order the warlocks to find a way to silence my younger self. They wouldn’t kill him outright. That was their one ironbound rule, and God knows I’d learned to respect it. But there were other ways. Subtle ways.

I asked, “Can you do that?”

“It’s complicated, but yes. The key is that they’ve already seen his blood. The Eidolons, I mean. They know him,” said Will. “In fact, they seem to be rather fascinated by him.”

Will was still trying to decipher the name the Eidolons had given me. Poor sod. It took us twenty years to get the answer to that particular riddle.

Your map is a circle. A broken spiral.
That’s what the Eidolons had told me through the empty husk of my son.

“Whose idea was this?”

Will said, “Mine.”

Damn it, Will. Why do you have to be so fucking helpful at the worst possible time?

So I aimed for his weak spot. “And the blood prices? How will those be paid?”

“It’s just information we seek.” He flexed his hand, glanced down at his wound. “The price should be minor.”

He didn’t add, “This time.” But I could see from the look on his face that it was on his mind and on his tongue. So I gave the hook a little twist.

“Are you certain?”

His only answer was to go a little pale. I didn’t enjoy it, but I had to undermine his faith in Milkweed. Meanwhile, if the warlocks located Raybould Marsh, it would ruin everything. I had to stop them.

26 July 1940

Berlin, Germany

Nobody knows I’m here.

It was a deadly, dangerous thought. A loose pebble, bouncing down the towering scree of piled-up fears. The first rumble of an avalanche that would bury hope.

Marsh had fended off despair as long as he could manage. Kept his body active with stretches and exercises. Kept his mind occupied with plans, strategies, tactics. He’d even devised a plan for destroying the Reichsbehörde, if he ever returned there. But after nearly seven weeks in a lightless prison, sleeping on a cold hard floor, steeped in the smell of his own bodily functions, unable to block out the screams of prisoners in adjoining cells, his resolve had weakened.

He spat out another torn piece of fingernail. Reviewed what he knew.

They’d kept the bag over his head for the entire journey from the farm. But Gretel had sent him here for a reason. That implied he was deep underneath SS Haus, the Schutzstaffel headquarters that Himmler had placed inside the former Prince Albert luxury hotel.

There couldn’t be many cells down here. They would be reserved for the prisoners of highest interest to the SS.

He’d inferred that based on the screams.

He’d spent every day waiting for his own turn with the interrogators. But they hadn’t come. Not yet. They were patient. Wearing down his resolve before they laid a single finger upon him. They let the cold and wet and hunger soften him. He knew that, in the part of his mind still capable of evaluating the situation objectively. But that part of him had atrophied while the rest of him rotted away.

Nobody knows I’m here.

But if she had sent him here for the Reichsbehörde files, how long did she expect him to wait for his opportunity? Nothing short of a miracle would enable him to deal with the files and get out of Berlin.

Nobody in Britain knows I’m here.

Yes. That was true. Manifestly true. Commander Liddell-Stewart didn’t know. John Stephenson didn’t know. Will didn’t know; Lorimer didn’t know.

Liv didn’t know.

An icy fist gripped his heart. He couldn’t breathe. Panic heavier than a mountain settled over him, forced the air from his lungs. Guilt seared like acid in his veins. Liv would spend the rest of her days wondering what had happened to her lost husband. Agnes would grow up without ever knowing her father.

Iron bands of despair constricted around his chest like straps of wet canvas drying and shrinking in the sun. He cast about for something strong, something bright.

He remembered the last morning he’d had with his wife and daughter. Liv and he had made breakfast together: a recipe with dried egg powder. They’d had no toast. But they’d laughed at the absurdity of the wretched austerity food, fed each other, reveled in togetherness. A single shining memory, etched in diamond and set in gold.

Tears burned trails down his face. He resolved to keep that breakfast firmly in mind when they finally came for him. He’d make it his dying thought.

26 July 1940

Milkweed Headquarters, London, England

“Our task,” said Will, “is to find Raybould Marsh.”

The warlocks sat with the world spread at their feet. Will’s blood had stained the floorboards here, though now the rusty blotch lay hidden beneath a sprawl of overlapping maps. Several depicted the Continent in great detail; Ireland and the UK had similar coverage. Slightly less detailed were the maps of Mediterranean Africa and the western Soviet Union. Lorimer had brought a map of North America, which had been added to the mix on the off chance that Marsh had been telling the truth when he told Liv he was off to America. They’d also taken the Mercator world map from the wall in Stephenson’s office.

Each warlock held a copy of the master lexicon. Stephenson had insisted on attending. He leaned against the closed door, looking grim. Lorimer was busy in his workshop.

Will stood beside a low table, upon which rested a maritime binnacle compass. The gimbaled compass was well over a century old and, back in the days of Nelson, had adorned the deck of a 104-gun ship of the line. In more recent decades, it had adorned a pedestal outside the office of the First Lord of the Admiralty. Until Stephenson liberated it for, as he’d said, “Purposes related to security of the Crown.” The binnacle itself was a tall dome of polished brass, smooth and round except where a slanted pane of glass provided a view of the compass rose.

Another table, across the room, held a miscellaneous assortment of objects: a doorknob, a frying pan from Lorimer’s kitchen, a box of tenpenny nails. It was the best they could do on short notice; pure iron had become hard to find these days, as more and more of it went into foundries to make weapons and equipment for the war effort. Even the ornamental railings in city parks had disappeared.

In Nelson’s day, the compass would have been flanked by a pair of iron correcting spheres. The spheres compensated for compass deflections caused by the iron in the nails used to build the ship. Today, the odds and ends would be used to realign the compass after the Eidolon arrived.

The warlocks had been over the essentials and had come to an agreement on how they’d phrase their request. Will briefly reviewed the situation regarding Marsh. Then he rubbed his hands together. “Shall we begin?”

*

I returned to the Admiralty in civilian clothes. One side benefit of the weeks I’d spent shadowing the warlocks was that I easily knew enough to pass as one of them. I already looked and sounded like the old bastards. Today I carried a carpetbag.

Easy enough, as long as Will didn’t see me. Stephenson and Lorimer, too, for that matter, since they’d have recognized me based on Will’s description from our encounter in the park.

But, if I knew John Stephenson, he’d be with Will and the others. He’d want to be there when the Eidolons located my doppelgänger. Lorimer, on the other hand, wouldn’t come within a quarter mile of the negotiations if he could help it. Lucky bloke.

I went to the room where I’d landed during my arrival. The warlocks were next door. I closed the door and set the carpetbag on a filing cabinet. I pulled a drinking glass from the bag, held it to the wall, and listened.

*

The inhuman syllables of Enochian pierced Will’s throat like caltrops. The shriek of dying stars. The hiss and crackle of a cooling planet. The thunder of creation. The perfect silence of a lightless, lifeless universe. Ur-language ricocheted through the room, a chanting interplay of seven distinct voices.

Will chanced a quick look at Stephenson. He’d gone rigid, eyes and fists clenched as he withstood the assault.

The warlocks converged on a single line, a single rhythm. The maelstrom of language scraped reality down to an onionskin veneer.

“Now,” said Pendennis.

As one, the warlocks unfolded their pocket knives and slashed their palms. Blood flowed freely.

*

The wall flexed, the floor canted. I stumbled. The glass shattered at my feet. And reassembled itself.

Their Eidolon had arrived.

*

An awareness seeped into the room, flowed through cracks in time and space like a vast ocean forcing itself through hairline fractures in a dike. It filled the world with the crushing pressure of an ageless, boundless intellect. The heartbeat of the universe pulsed with malignance.

The clock stopped. Ticked forward, back, sideways. Tocked in directions unknowable to human minds. The compass slewed, the floor shifted underfoot. The air tasted of diamonds and daffodils, gangrene and starlight. Somewhere, a thousand eons ago, a glass shattered.