The Demi-Monde: Winter (54 page)

‘Is there a focus of this protest?’ Trixie said quietly.

‘A man named Wozniak. He was a colonel before he was purged.’

‘Have former Colonel Wozniak join me.’

The man who was ushered into Trixie’s presence was tall and dirty and the labour camp had left him with a twitch in his left eye and a heavy limp. But although he had been physically bashed about by his time doing hard labour on behalf of the ForthRight, his arrogance remained undiminished.

‘Where is this Colonel Dashwood I have been brought to see?’ he demanded.

‘I am Colonel Dashwood,’ said Trixie quietly, ‘and I generally expect my soldiers to salute me when they are brought into my presence.’

Wozniak gawped at Trixie. ‘You’re the Commander of the WFA? No … this must be a joke. You’re just a girl. This is ridiculous. I’m not taking orders from a girl.’

If Trixie was disturbed by Wozniak’s disdain she didn’t show it. ‘I have four thousand men under my command, Wozniak, and I think you will find that they all accept my orders because they have confidence in my abilities as a military leader. The thing that matters isn’t my gender but my ability to lead and to kill SS.’

The grim implacability of what Trixie said gave even the bumptious Wozniak pause. He looked at her a little more carefully. ‘I am sorry, young lady, but war is a field of endeavour only trained men have any business being involved in. Girls like you should confine themselves to nursing the wounded and cleaning.’

‘I presume from this that you will be disinclined to obey my orders?’

‘Correct, and I will instruct my men to do likewise.’ He shook his head. ‘No, to have a woman leading an army is quite unacceptable.’

Trixie was quiet for a moment. And though Wozniak took this as a sign of the girl’s indecision, the Baron knew otherwise: Trixie was always quiet when she was struggling to control her temper.

No one said a word: a deathly silence fell on the room. Then slowly and deliberately Trixie took her pistol from its holster and placed it on the table in front of her. This done, she began speaking again as though Wozniak hadn’t said a word.

‘The one thing I have learnt during my time fighting the SS is that there is no place for ambiguity or debate in an army. So, I ask you just one more time, Wozniak: for the sake of the Polish people, will you take my orders?’

Wozniak looked about, trying to gauge the mood of the other men gathered there. Then his eyes settled on the pistol resting in front of Trixie. He obviously came to the conclusion that this was just a show of bravado on her part. She was, after all, just a girl.

‘No,’ he said finally.

Trixie raised her pistol and shot him through the forehead.

The Baron was rendered speechless by the implacability of his daughter. He had never believed Trixie – or any woman for that matter – would be capable of such a barbarous act. It was unthinkable … unbelievable …

Trixie continued giving orders as though nothing untoward had happened, as though she routinely shot her officers. A chilling thought occurred to the Baron: maybe she did.

MAP OF THE QUARTIER CHAUD.
PLATE 4

Operation Hoodwink: The ultimate success of Operation Barbarossa and of the Final Solution turns on the usurping of the nuJu-controlled financial power of the Rialto Bourse. Item One: Vice-Leader Comrade Beria is to undertake a black propaganda programme designed to deceive Doge Catherine-Sophia into believing that the objective of Operation Barbarossa is the invasion and subjugation of the Coven rather than the Quartier Chaud. Item Two: Efforts will be made to sponsor and promote the work of Robespierre and others in the Quartier Chaud sympathetic to the ForthRight to sever ties with Venice and to make political and religious alignment with the ForthRight. Item Three: Royalist cryptos within the ForthRight will be fed disinformation to be communicated to Venice. Item Four: Efforts will be made to ensure only weak/incompetent leaders take control of Rebel forces within the Warsaw Ghetto, this to minimise potential obstacles to the successful execution of Case White. Item Five: An Export Licence for the delivery of M4s to the Coven to be issued, the weapons to recompense for services rendered to the ForthRight by Empress Wu.

– minutes of the ExtraOrdinary PolitBuro meeting held under the guidance of the Great Leader on the 39th day of Winter, 1004 (copy to be withheld from Comrade Commissar Dashwood)

Norma had no idea how long she had been held in the cell. There were no windows so it was impossible for her to distinguish night from day. In fact, the only way she could mark the passage of time was by the trays of food that were periodically pushed under her cell door, but as all she was fed was fruit and water the meals soon merged into one. There was no breakfast, lunch or dinner in Wewelsburg Castle, there was only feeding time.

Now she was really stuck in the Demi-Monde. Now she was really one of the Kept.

By her best estimate, it was maybe a week since she and Ella Thomas had entered the sewers. She remembered going down into that stinking blackness, she remembered the brick smash -ing into her knee, she remembered being swept away, fighting for her life in those putrid rapids, but after that … nothing. The next memory she had was lying – cold, wet and exhausted – washed up on a mud bank at the side of the Rhine.

A couple of children had found her and then two burly men had carried her to a mean little hut and dumped her on a cot beside a pot-bellied stove to dry out. The Witchfinder had come the next day. She remembered him examining her – she still had the bruises where the bastard had poked and prodded her – and then he’d had her loaded into a closed steamer to transport her to Wewelsburg Castle. She knew the name of the place because the Witchfinder had taunted her for the whole of the hour-long drive, taunted her about the impossibility of being rescued from Wewelsburg Castle.

For days all she had to do was sleep, eat and listen to the rats scratching around in the darkness. Only once had her captors visited her, to strip her of all her studs and her earrings and make sketches of her tattoos, but even this they had done in total silence.

But today, she sensed, was going to be different. Today there seemed to be a frisson of excitement in the air. From what Norma guessed to be early morning she had heard people scurrying to and fro along the corridor outside her cell and the barking of orders.

Now, as she lay on her hard cot, she heard boot heels snapping on the flagstones as someone marched down the corridor towards her cell. The footsteps came to a halt at her door. She heard a key turn in the lock and then the creak of the door as it reluctantly opened on oil-hungry hinges. Her visitor entered the cell holding a lantern before him and Norma had to flinch away, shielding her eyes from the glare.

‘On your feet, Daemon.’ It was the Witchfinder, his voice hard and angry.

It took a real effort of will for Norma to sit up. She had given up hope of being saved, she had given up hope of ever getting back to the Real World.

‘Take her,’ the Witchfinder ordered. ‘I want her cleaned up and her hair dyed – and I mean all her hair – within two hours. She must be made presentable for His Holiness.’

Two women SS warders grabbed Norma, pulling her to her feet, then dragged her out of her cell and along the corridor to a small, cold bathroom decorated in surgically white tiles. There they tore off all her soiled clothes, forced her to stand under a scalding hot shower whilst she was washed and scrubbed and her hair bleached a platinum blonde colour.

When they had finished, the Witchfinder came to inspect the naked Norma. ‘She has no tail,’ he observed in a disappointed voice.

‘Daemons of her rank are subtle creatures, Witchfinder Major,’ answered one of the female guards, ‘able to ape the form of humans perfectly.’

A disappointed grunt from the Witchfinder. ‘She is very gaunt,’ he observed.
‘Perhaps a little too gaunt.’

‘Not gaunt, Witchfinder Major, healthily slim,’ replied the guard. ‘Her diet has been in full accordance with the principles of Living&More laid down by His Holiness Comrade Crowley. Since she came to Wewelsburg, she has been fed just fruit and filtered water. All bad humours and harmful toxins have been purged from her body. She is purified just as the Other, in ExterSteine, has been purified.’

The Other? ExterSteine?

‘Very well,’ said the Witchfinder. ‘Bring her to the steamer.’ From somewhere Norma conjured the strength to protest. ‘Look, pal, I ain’t going …’

She was silenced by a savage slap across her face. ‘Be quiet, Daemon, you are not to speak. If you utter one further word I will have you gagged. Remember, I know you for the trickster you are. You should understand that all have been forewarned to be on their guard lest you seek to subvert them with your unholy wiles and your silver tongue.’

Norma almost cried: she was so tired, so dispirited, so helpless that she was only a moment away from being broken. She was just so fed up with being in pain, being cold and being abused. All she wanted was to get out of the Demi-Monde and to go home.

But at least they let her retain her modesty, handing her an ankle-length sheath made of rough white cotton which she gratefully slipped over her body. Then they manacled her wrists behind her back and led her to a steamer standing puffing in the courtyard of the Castle. Well, not just a steamer but a veritable convoy of steamers. Crowley, it seemed, was taking no chances: he didn’t want there to be any risk of Norma being rescued again.

The Witchfinder called over the SS-major in command of the convoy. ‘You understand your orders, Comrade Major? Your men will provide an escort to the Hub and will then establish a cordon sanitaire around ExterSteine at a distance of one mile. Under no circumstances are you or any of your men to come closer than that, otherwise your somewhat uncouth psychic vibrations will interfere with the ritual to be conducted by His Holiness Comrade Crowley. Understand?’

The Major snapped a salute.

So she was going to have the pleasure of Crowley’s company again, presumably so that he could enact his Rite of Transference. The chances were in a few hours she would be dead. A strange calm descended on Norma: she determined to meet whatever fate had in store for her philosophically.

It was her first sight of daylight since she had entered the sewers an eternity ago and she was surprised by the glorious feeling of sunshine on her face. The last time she had been outside, the Demi-Monde had been in the grip of Winter, but now there was a definite feeling of Spring in the air. Unfortunately her enjoyment of the sunshine was short-lived. The Witchfinder gave her a hefty shove in the back to bundle her into the rear passenger cabin of the steamer and once she was seated he blindfolded her.

They drove for perhaps twenty minutes until finally, after bumping along what was obviously an unmade road, the steamer came to a halt and Norma was pushed outside. By the smell of her surroundings she knew that she was no longer in the city: the air smelt almost fresh, there wasn’t even a hint of the foul tang of overcrowded humanity that perfumed the Rookeries. She was in the countryside, which meant she was in the Hub. It was a suspicion reinforced when she heard birds singing. Birds didn’t sing in the Rookeries, they coughed.

As she was pushed roughly forward, she felt the cold of snow beneath her naked feet, but after a walk of ten minutes or so this was replaced by rough stone.

‘Climb,’ ordered the Witchfinder in her ear and Norma found herself stumbling up a long, steep stone staircase, so long that by the end of it her damaged knee ached like the devil and her breath was coming in pants. Then, with the wind cutting through the thin cotton of her dress, she was led across what she imagined to be a narrow wooden bridge.

With a touch on her goose-pimpled arm the Witchfinder brought her to a halt and removed the manacles from her wrists. ‘Welcome to ExterSteine, Daemon,’ boomed out a familiar voice.

It was Spring Eve: Freyja’s Night.

Tonight was the night upon which Crowley would perform his magic, when he would perform the Rite of Transference. And from what Ella had learnt from Trotsky and the IM Manual, the rite would be held at this mysterious place ExterSteine. If Ella was to save Norma Williams, then she had to do it before dawn: once the Rite of Transference was complete Ella wasn’t even sure there would be a Norma Williams left to rescue.

But getting to ExterSteine seemed an impossible task. Here she was stuck in the chaos of the Ghetto’s Industrial Zone with less than eight hours of the last night of Winter remaining. Just eight hours to save Norma Williams. There was however one ray of hope: the word was out that once Baron Dashwood’s mishmash of an army had been brought into some semblance of order then the attempted breakout of the Ghetto would go ahead. Presumably with the SS still confused by the Baron’s attack, there was a better chance of success, but having seen how weak and tired the WFA soldiers were it was difficult for Ella to be optimistic.