Necessary Evil (Milkweed Triptych) (39 page)

Hargreaves tackled the negotiation. Will followed the Enochian call-and-response. Once a price was reached, he would have to join in, to supply the blood that sealed their pact, and to later mark their payment of the blood price.

Salt stung Will’s eyes. He wiped a hand across his forehead. It came away damp with sweat. But the effort to speak Enochian provided a natural cover for his anxiety.

Hargreaves donned a pair of leather gloves and snapped the thermometer. Quicksilver skittered across the floor.

Another update bubbled from the Teletype. The Luftwaffe was drawing closer. Hargreaves didn’t have time to stand his ground against the Eidolons’ demands, didn’t have the luxury of carefully worded counteroffers.

The Eidolons demanded the blood of six new people. Six dead souls. In return, they would create a bank of clouds that just happened to contain trace amounts of mercury. Together, the commingled liquids would dust the enemy airplanes with moisture and metal. At which point the mercury would wreak destructive alchemy upon the aluminum airframes in the Junkers and Messerschmitts approaching Britain.

Or so the boffins said. Will didn’t understand the details, even after he’d asked Lorimer to explain it. Something about “oxide layers” and “amalgams.” But he gathered that mercury could do terrible things to aluminum. The end result being a rain of German aero-scrap over southern England. Not enough to completely wipe out the bomber groups, but enough to give the RAF an edge.

A bit baroque, perhaps, but the important thing was the Eidolons merely provided the mercury. They didn’t kill the attackers. Gravity would do that. The mercury would eventually fall as rain, and woe to the farmlands and streams below. But that wasn’t the most harrowing sacrifice demanded by this plan.

Six souls. Hargreaves accepted.

Webber lifted the telephone alongside the Teletype machine. It had a direct line to Stephenson, who would have a Milkweed escort waiting for the warlocks when they emerged from the citadel to pay the Eidolons’ price.

All that remained was to seal the pact. In the altered reality of the citadel subbasement, the glow of the incandescent bulbs had become a celestial corpse light, the fading embers of dead stars. It glinted from Hargreaves’s blade. The elder warlock flicked his hand to dust the concrete floor with his own blood.

Will produced his grandfather’s knife, the one with the handle fashioned from a piece of deer antler, and followed suit with a similar gesture. He added a modest flourish that just happened to swipe the knife handle across his wrist, and thus opened the stopcock. By bending his elbow, he squeezed a good cut’s worth of pig blood into the palm of his hand. The folding pocketknife closed the stopcock again when he snapped it closed.

Will flicked the contents of his palm onto the floor. And diluted Hargreaves’s offering with useless dross.

The Eidolon sensed the substitution. Its irritation sent ripples through the reinforced concrete walls. It growled something too quick and harsh for Will to discern. Hargreaves glanced at Grafton and Webber, who returned equally blank looks. Nobody understood it. Everybody looked at Will. He made a mental note to ensure he didn’t go last the next time around. Will shrugged, then made a show of flicking more blood from his fake wound.

The Eidolon withdrew in a deafening burst of silent malice that knocked the humans to the floor. The concrete walls became fractured glass. The room stank of fossilized bone and newborn starlight.

The deal, it seemed, had been canceled.

*

Will emerged from the citadel around sunrise. He suppressed the urge to sigh with relief as he passed the sentries and stepped onto the frost-slick cobbles of Horse Guards Parade. The failed negotiation had led to hours of postmortem analysis, including several futile attempts to translate the Eidolon’s final declaration. However, by the end of the night, nobody had accused Will of subterfuge.

Stephenson would hit the roof, but Will had become accustomed to that. Better to endure a bit of the old man’s temper than to be caught. They executed traitors. Will remembered poor Lieutenant Cattermole.

Will cut through the park on his walk home. St. James’ at dawn. The rising sun hung below a layer of ashen clouds that looked destined to hide the sun for most of the day. The first rays of sunrise glinted on the lake and from the thin layer of ice along the shore that had coalesced during a recent cold snap. A raven watched Will from the bare boughs of a scarlet oak.

Will paused on the footbridge that straddled the lake. His breath formed a fog in the still morning air. The pelicans, he noted, were nowhere in sight. Smart beasts. It was chillier by the water. Numbness claimed his cheeks and nose. The sting of pins and needles enveloped his finger stump, as it often did in cold weather.

But the gentle rise in the center of the bridge afforded him a decent view of the surrounding city. Plumes of smoke rose from the northeast, southeast, and west. They reached all the way to the sky, and brushed the clouds with soot. The smoke cast long shadows over London. Somewhere, a lone siren bemoaned the night’s horrors.

He wondered how many people had died in the bombing raid. More than six, certainly. He had replaced one atrocity with a greater one. It was a perverse way to go about saving the world. For how long would the war rage, and how many people would it consume in the course of averting Marsh’s ghostly future? His certainty could be unnerving when he spoke so matter-of-factly about a future that was barely hypothetical to Will. The man had seen things no human should see.

Will opted to walk home rather than try to hail a taxi so early in the morning. He’d played a part in London’s suffering. To follow it up by isolating himself from the city’s woes felt immoral. Evil.

Soon the sun disappeared behind the sky’s winter gray shroud. Few people were about. Will tipped his bowler to an ARP warden on his way home from his nightly rounds. A newspaperman heaved stacks of fresh papers from the back of a cart to the pavement alongside his stand. Will chose to avoid the morning headlines.

By the time he reached the door of his flat in Kensington, the winter chill had seeped through his clothing into the blood sloshing against his elbow. His arm felt as though he’d dunked it in the North Atlantic. It hurt. Numb fingertips fumbled the key, but he managed to get it into the lock after a few attempts.

He emptied the bladder into the jar of pig’s blood in the refrigerator. Weskit and shirt hit the floor on the way to the bedroom. The leather straps left perfect impressions in his forearm when he undid the buckles. The empty bladder went into the chest at the foot of his bed, beneath several layers of books and papers.

Will had just washed up, and was pulling back the sheets in preparation to slide into bed, when somebody knocked at the door. Somebody insistent.

He knew that knock. Only one person was sufficiently brazen to call at such an indecent hour and be demanding while he did it. The “commander” wanted a report.

Can’t you give me a few hours’ rest?

Will pulled on his dressing gown, and tied the sash around his waist as he returned to the front door. The knocking grew more insistent.

“Yes, yes,” Will called. “Not one for social niceties, are you? Can’t you let me—”

He opened the door. His caller was indeed Marsh. But not the Elder.

Long thin scabs crisscrossed his gaunt face. He’d been in a fight and taken a few slashes. His hair, poorly trimmed and lank, stuck out in uneven tufts. What on earth had happened to this man?

“Hi, Will, long time no see. I need a favor,” said Marsh. He bulled his way inside with somebody in tow.

Will stood in the doorway, incapable of anything but gaping. His mind had seized up.

“You’re alive,” he managed.

“Yes. Now please shut the damn door,” said Marsh.

Will managed this, too, but only just. He embraced Marsh. Marsh winced. “Welcome home, Pip! Welcome home.”

Marsh’s companion tossed back the hood of her overcoat. Gretel said, “Hello, William. How is your hand?”

*

Marsh’s adventures during the long months of his disappearance had done nothing to lessen his intensity and focus. The man actually had the gall to believe he would visit just long enough to suborn Will into minding Gretel for a few days. The impudence, expecting he could swan right back out again without a word of explanation or even a cursory catching up. But Will was having none of that. He refused to cooperate unless Marsh filled him in.

It seemed he was making a habit of sitting stupefied in his own parlor while listening to a long, improbable tale from Raybould Marsh. If a
third
Marsh appeared on his doorstep, brimming with news of the distant past, Will decided he’d have to turn the fellow away. Two were more than enough, thank you.

Gretel sat in a satin striped armchair that matched the chaise longue. It was almost too big for her; her toes barely reached the floor. She listened impassively to the exchange. The expression on her face lay somewhere between boredom and tolerant amusement. It never changed. Not even when Will feigned ignorance regarding one Commander Liddell-Stewart, though of course she knew the truth.

Marsh had flitted off to Germany before Will undertook his warlock recruitment drive. He knew nothing of the current status of Milkweed, or its efforts during the past half year. Will summarized the situation. But he omitted the part where the commander turned him into a double agent, and how together they were working to undermine and destroy the warlocks.

Will told his visitors about the increased radio traffic. “It’s truly done? Von Westarp’s farm is no more?”

Gretel yawned. She hopped to her feet and shuffled into the kitchen. Marsh followed her with his eyes.

“Yes,” he said. He nodded toward the kitchen. “She’s among the last. There are two others. A pair of twins.”

His movements were stiff and awkward. Will could see the bulges of bandages under Marsh’s shirt.

Marsh said, “I assume it was you who sent the Eidolon to find me.”

“Yes.” Will hoped Marsh wouldn’t dig deeper. This was another topic skirting the thorny issue of the commander.

“Thank you, Will. I’d still be rotting in a Schutzstaffel dungeon if you hadn’t done that.”

Will grinned. “I’m delighted to know it worked.”

China rattled in the kitchen while Gretel rummaged through Will’s cabinets. Will lowered his voice to a whisper. “Why did you bring her back with you?”

“It wasn’t easy getting here, you know. There are flights from Berlin to London these days, but they don’t take passengers.” Marsh shook his head. “Even with her help, it still took a fair bit of doing.”

“Ah.” Another series of clinks and rattles came from the kitchen. Will raised his voice. “Do be careful, won’t you? Those dishes are expensive, and difficult to replace.”

“I’m hungry,” Gretel said in her throaty German accent. Will flinched, imagining the uproar if his neighbors heard her. She held the teakettle under the faucet.

Over the
click-click-whoosh
of the gas fob, Will asked, “How will you explain this to Stephenson?”

A terrible weariness settled over Marsh. He sat, silent, unmoving, deep in thought. When he cracked his knuckles against his jaw, his sleeve slid down to reveal terrible gashes on his arm. At last, he admitted, “I don’t know. The old man’s going to lose his nut when I turn up. I need to confer with the commander before I do that. But until I see Liv, they can both hang.”

He slapped his knees, then stood. He slung his haversack over his shoulder. “I can’t stay any longer. I need to go home.”

Oh dear. This was going to become very complicated and rather quickly.

Gretel found Will’s toaster and set it on the counter. Marsh said, “Keep an eye on her for a few days, won’t you?”

“I don’t like this. What happens when they call me for another negotiation? I can’t bring her along.”

“A few days. That’s all I’m asking.”

Will sighed. “Very well.”

“Cheers, Will.” Marsh turned for the door. Gretel rattled the kitchen drawers in search of a spoon. The teakettle whistled.

Without thinking, Will blurted, “There’s something you need to know about Liv.”

Oh, sodding. What am I to say? She’s being seduced by your older self? She has developed an emotional connection with another man? Another version of you?

“The thing of it is,” said Will, “she’s, that is…”

You nearly broke her when you disappeared, and then she had a terribly close call. You weren’t there when her life needed saving. I don’t know how she’ll receive you.

I don’t know which of you deserves her more.

“Well, she went to Coventry, you see.…”

In the kitchen, Gretel fell silent.

Marsh’s gaunt face turned ashen. He took Will’s arm in a grip of banded iron. His fingers dug painfully at the strap imprints. “What are you saying? What happened?”

This had been a mistake. Now the poor fellow was terrified. “Never mind,” said Will. “I’ve kept you long enough. Go home to your wife and daughter. They’ve missed you terribly.”

In the kitchen, a teacup shattered. Then came the
bong
and
splash
of a teakettle crashing to the floor, and the gurgle of boiling water.

Gretel screamed.

2 December 1940

Walworth, London, England

Despair worse than anything he’d ever felt in the SS prison turned Marsh’s blood to ice water as his taxi approached Walworth. From Will’s flat in Kensington, the route took him east, across the Thames. Bomb damage became increasingly prevalent the farther toward the East End they went. The Luftwaffe had been busy.

I’ve finally solved a long-standing problem.

She went to Coventry, you see.…

Coventry was already on their list.…

Was Liv your long-standing problem, Gretel?

Just three streets from his home, Marsh watched a milkman climb over a pile of rubble, the bottles clanking in his wire basket. Bloody close, that one. Liv and little Agnes must have felt it, all alone in their shelter.