Bitter Seeds

ten

3 November 1940

Reichsbehorde fur die Erweiterung germanischen Potenzials

The machine shop was a loud place. Klaus worked alone in an isolated corner, far in the back. Building incubators he could handle; the rest of the new construction projects left him feeling ill. He hated to think about the ovens.

He didn't realize somebody had approached him until the tip of the spanner turned orange. Wisps of smoke spiraled up from the blackened pinewood beneath the bolt he'd been tightening. Klaus dropped the tool when heat came surging down the handle into his hand. It slapped the floor like a dollop of taffy.

“Did I get your attention?”

Klaus turned, sucking at the new blisters on his palm. Reinhardt stood behind him, looking slightly amused.

“Haven't they sent you to Africa yet?”

“Not yet.”

The stink of melted linoleum emanated from where Klaus had dropped the tool. It glowed a dark red-black color as it sank into the floor. Klaus grabbed a pair of tongs from an adjacent workbench and dumped the spanner into a water barrel, creating clouds of steam.

“You could have yelled,” said Klaus. “Or tapped my shoulder.”

“And risk startling you?” Reinhardt shook his head. “That could have been dangerous. You're very jumpy.”

“Dangerous to whom, me or you?”

“I had your well-being in mind,” said Reinhardt. “Do try to be gracious about it.”

Klaus fished the spanner from the barrel. The handle had warped, and the jaws had sagged out of true. Reinhardt's stunt had reduced it to so much mangled steel.

Klaus said, “You've ruined it.”

“I'll melt it down if they wish to recast it.”

“What do you want? I'm busy.”

“Pabst wants to see us,” said Reinhardt.

“You and me? Now? Why?”

“I presume he wants to discuss the doctor's plan.”

“What plan is this?” asked Klaus, sucking at the burns on his palm again.

Reinhardt put on a wholly unconvincing show of forgetfulness. “Oh, of course, this is the first you've heard of it. The doctor mentioned it over breakfast.”

You mean after breakfast, thought Klaus. Doctor von Westarp wouldn't tolerate your chatter while he digested.

“What ever this entails,” he said, “I hope it doesn't delay your deployment. That would be a shame.” Klaus used a clean rag to wipe the metal-and-sweat smell from his hands. It ripped the blisters open.

“No more a shame than after all these years, your best use is as a carpenter.”

“Do I have time to wash?”

“They're waiting now.”

“Of course they are,” said Klaus.

He followed Reinhardt to the farmhouse. They passed Heike and Gretel, who were whispering in the niche beneath the stairs. What ever Gretel's grudge against the statuesque blond woman might have been, it seemed to have passed.

Reinhardt leaned over the balustrade to blow a kiss at Heike. She turned her back to him, shuddering.

Klaus caught a snippet of the conversation as he followed Reinhardt up the stairs. “ ... disappointment is terribly profound,” Gretel said.

Heike said, “But my training. I've improved so much.”

“Perhaps. But in their eyes, it is not enough. They see only failure.” Gretel laid a hand on Heike's forearm. “It is unfair.”

“What will I do?” Heike moaned.

The little he heard of this exchange surprised and startled Klaus. He'd gathered that Pabst and the doctor were quite pleased with Heike's recent breakthroughs. He made a mental note to check on her later.

The second floor housed the rooms where Klaus and the others slept. It was emptier these days. The Twins were gone, and Kammler was off with the wolf packs, peeling apart the hulls of American merchant marine ships and their escorts. The staircase at the front of the building, for the doctor's official visitors, was wide and grandiose. But Klaus and Reinhardt took the former servants' stair instead.

The parlor hadn't changed since Klaus's last breakfast there, prior to Gretel's failure to warn the fleet. The gaps amidst leather-bound volumes on the shelves had moved around, and now a new set of scribbles covered the doctor's blackboard, but otherwise it was the same. The doctor's sanctorum, his workspace. Where his intellect reigned.

Pabst and von Westarp stood at the observation window, again speaking in hushed, urgent tones. Pabst turned when they entered. They saluted. He took a seat at the doctor's long dining table. Klaus and Reinhardt followed suit. The doctor remained at the window in his threadbare dressing gown, gazing outside with his arms crossed behind the small of his back.

Pabst spoke. “The two of you await new deployments.”

“I'm ready at any time,” Reinhardt said.

“So am I,” Klaus added. “I proved myself in England.”

Reinhardt laughed. “I proved myself long before that.”

“You torched a hotel in a fallen city. Any imbecile with a box of matches could do that. Kammler could do that. I went straight to the enemy's heart and brought Gretel back alive. It wasn't so simple.”

“You went straight to the enemy's heart and went sightseeing! I would have known enough to strike while I was there. A killing blow, too, had it been me. I—”

“Enough!” shouted Pabst. “Your deployments have been postponed. We need your combined talents here.”

Klaus looked at Reinhardt. Please don't make us partners. He wondered, not for the first time, if in a fight he could squeeze Reinhardt's heart, or scramble his brain, before Reinhardt burned him to death.

Reinhardt was watching him, too. Probably doing a similar calculation in his own head.

Pabst said, “There are two issues.”

“What issues?” Klaus asked.

“The first comes from your sister. She has foreseen an assault upon the Reichsbehorde.”

Reinhardt objected. “Herr Standartenfuhrer. One must point out that neither the threat nor the source are particularly credible. It's hard to believe that anybody would be foolish enough to attack this place. But if they are? Let them,” he said. “And Klaus's lunatic sister is untrustworthy. To the point of treason, if I may say so.”

“She's done more to advance the Reich's war effort than any other single person,” Klaus said.

“Is that so? Remind me. How many men died during the attempted invasion?”

Pabst slapped the table with his open palm. “Quiet.” The doctor's tea service rattled on its platter. “You are here to listen.”

He collected himself. “Regardless of Gretel's recent performance,” Pabst continued, “we will take her warning seriously. You will stay here until the threat has passed. Kammler has been recalled from the North Atlantic.”

Reinhardt muttered his assent. Klaus acknowledged the order.

“After that, the doctor has special plans for the pair of you.” The significance of the standartenfuhrer's wording wasn't lost on Klaus, and he doubted Reinhardt missed it, either. As the head of the REGP, Doctor von Westarp outranked Pabst. If the doctor chose to exert his opinion on military matters, there was little Pabst could do.

The doctor spoke. “The Reichsbehorde,” he said, “is overdue for a recruitment drive.”

Klaus kept his expression neutral. He'd been expecting this, of course. The incubators and the new monstrosities meant the doctor expected a wave of test subjects in the near future. It was an open secret.

Pabst said, “The doctor envisions a second generation of the Gotterelektrongruppe.”

“My work has grown stagnant,” said the doctor at the window. “I wish to circumvent my previous mistakes.”

This, however, caught Klaus by surprise. He wondered what that meant.

“Forgive me, Herr Doctor,” Reinhardt said. “The war will be over many years before new subjects could be ready to join the Gotterelektrongruppe. It will take too long.”

Von Westarp grew still. A moment passed before he said in a flat, angry voice, “That remains to be seen.”

So many incubators. How do you plan to fill your crematorium, Doctor?

Pabst cleared his throat. “The doctor believes”—again, that phrasing, distancing himself from this decision—”that loyal families will gladly give up their sons and daughters when they see your magnificence on display.”

Ah. No more foundling homes, then.

Klaus barely remembered how he'd first arrived at Doctor von Westarp's orphanage. He had one hazy, dreamlike memory of riding in a horse-drawn hay wagon. He wondered if they truly had been orphans, or if a mother and father had given Klaus and Gretel to the doctor.

The meeting devolved into a planning session. Pabst discussed preparations for the attack Gretel claimed to have foreseen. After that, the doctor explained in great detail a touring recruitment effort. The sun was low in the sky by the time Klaus and Reinhardt were dismissed.

Reinhardt followed Klaus down the narrow stairs. He asked, “He's not planning to replace us, is he?”

“I suppose that also remains to be seen.”

Heike's room abutted the stairwell on the second floor. Klaus heard sobs coming through the wall. So did Reinhardt.

He knocked on her door. “Liebling, are you well?” No response. Only sniffling. “I stand ready to comfort you.”

“Leave her alone,” said Klaus.

“Call when you need me,” said Reinhardt to the closed door. The sobbing resumed as they went downstairs.

Klaus took a simple dinner of stew and black bread while mulling the doctor's recruitment plan. He couldn't understand the expectation that parents would willingly give up their children to Doctor von Westarp. He and Reinhardt might have been strong arguments for greatness, but the wires attached to their skulls were bound to alarm parents and volunteers. Klaus's thoughts kept returning to the hay wagon. How had the doctor obtained his subjects the first time around?

He resolved to discuss these things with Reinhardt. The salamander was an arrogant ass, but he was no fool. And if he remembered how he'd come to be at the REGP, Klaus would want to hear that story. He didn't consider asking Gretel; no matter how much she knew, it would turn into a waste of time.

That night, Klaus dreamed of the hay wagon and a sickly tow-haired boy.

Reinhardt proved difficult to find the next morning. He wasn't on the training ground. Nor was he in the mess, the machine shop, the library, the ice house, the gymnasium, the laboratories, the briefing rooms. And it wasn't Sunday, meaning Reinhardt wasn't breakfasting with the doctor.

Klaus returned to the farmhouse to check Reinhardt's room again. He found Gretel sitting on the stairs above the second-floor landing.

“Have you seen Reinhardt?” Klaus asked.

“He's in there,” she said, nodding at Heike's door.

“Really?”

“Truly.”

“How long has he been in there?”

“Thirty-seven minutes.” She paused. “Thirty-eight.”

Klaus lifted his hand to knock, but Gretel said, “I wouldn't.” He looked at her. “He'll be out momentarily.”

And he was. Reinhardt emerged from Heike's room, smiling to himself as he buckled his belt. The smile disappeared when he saw Klaus and his sister waiting outside. His pale eyes widened in alarm. But he straightened his uniform, regained his composure, and went downstairs without saying a word.

Gretel called after him. “Reinhardt.”

Reinhardt paused between the first and second floors, his back to them.

“Happy birthday,” she said.

Reinhardt trotted down the stairs.

Happy ... ?

Reinhardt had left Heike's door ajar. Klaus knocked. “Heike? Are you all right?” No answer. He knocked harder. The door swung open.

Heike lay sprawled on the bed, naked from the waist down. Her skin had a bluish tint. She stared at the ceiling, unblinking. She'd been dead for hours.

15 November 1940

Milkweed Headquarters, London, England

We have the power to annihilate the Jerries today,” said Marsh. “So why are we pissing about with defensive measures when we could be grinding them into paste?”

Floorboards squeaked underfoot as he paced. He looked around the table, glaring at each person in turn. Six people had been summoned for this meeting in Stephenson's office. In addition to Marsh and the old man himself, Lorimer was there, as were Will, Hargreaves, and Webber.

Nobody met his eyes. Not even Stephenson. Marsh knew that his passion made them uneasy, as though they were made witness to things better left private. They treated him like a ghost. Like something that shouldn't be seen. It had been that way since Agnes ...

Meaningful glances ricocheted through the trio of warlocks. They were a secretive lot. Even Will kept his own counsel more often than not these days.

All eyes turned to the warlocks. Seated together side by side, they looked like an illustration of the Riddle of the Sphinx. Will, with the dark bags beneath his bloodshot eyes, was morning's infant. Webber's eyes had long ago sunk into his skull; along the way one of them had become a colorless marble. He was the middle-aged man of noon. And Hargreaves, who'd lost more than an eye when fire ruined the left side of his face, was the old man of evening. It was like gazing upon a capsule summary of one man's life.

Marsh cracked his knuckles while waiting for a response. The bristles of a beard tickled the backs of his fingers when he pressed them to his jaw. It surprised him. He tried to remember how long it had been since he'd last shaved, but couldn't.

Will opened his mouth as if to speak, hesitantly, but didn't say anything until Hargreaves gave him the nod.

“It's more complicated than that, Pip.”

“Complicated? We're at war. Defeating the enemy is our one and only job,” Marsh said. “I fail to see why this is so difficult for you to comprehend.”

Lorimer said, “Moment ago you said 'annihilate.' Grinding them into paste isn't the same as defeating them.”

“They're annihilating us!” Marsh kicked his empty chair aside to stand over the Scot. His reflection in the polished cherrywood tabletop was that of a bellowing madman. Perhaps he was just that.

Stephenson pointed at Marsh. “You. Sit.”

Marsh tossed the chair upright. “This isn't bloody advanced maths,” he muttered, taking his seat again.

Stephenson looked at Will and the other warlocks. “You three. The man has a point.”

Will waited for another nod before answering again. Ever since he had taken it upon himself to recruit the others, he'd been something of a liaison for them. But Marsh had never seen him act so deferentially to them. “There are rules that limit what we can do. Certain actions that must never be undertaken.”

“Such as using the Eidolons to kill,” said Webber. The sound of his voice was surprising, almost alarming, in its normality. Marsh had never before heard the man speak English. Only Enochian. He wondered if warlocks ever spoke Enochian to each other, rather than to the Eidolons.

“What kind of shite is this?” said Lorimer. “You lot did exactly that in the Channel.”

Hargreaves spoke for the first time. “Bite your ignorant tongue and choke on it, Scotsman. We did no such thing.” The heat-glazed skin around the side of his mouth wrinkled in unpleasant patterns when he spoke. His voice wasn't quite so normal as Webber's. Enochian had etched itself into the soft tissues of his throat.

“Eat shit, you plug-ugly—”

“The Eidolons didn't kill those men,” Will interrupted. “They altered the weather. Changed the wind and the sea. After that, events followed their natural course.” Looking at Marsh, he concluded, “But the important point is that no man died through the direct action of an Eidolon. The Eidolons themselves did not shed a drop of human blood.”

Stephenson took a long drag on his cigarette. The smoke swirled up to join the growing cloud over the table. “That seems a rather academic distinction.”

“Oh, it's not, sir. The Eidolons want blood. We mustn't give it to them.”

Stephenson frowned. “Why blood?”

“Because blood,” said Will, “is a map.”

Lorimer: “What the hell does that mean?”

“Consider this,” said Will. “What do we know about the Eidolons? Very little, but for two things. One: they are omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent. And two: they don't like us. Our existence ... offends them in some alien way we can't hope to understand.” Will shrugged. “They're beings of pure volition. Perhaps they're offended by the notion that anything as profoundly limited as we are could also express volition.”

Marsh thought back to the sensation of overwhelming malice he'd felt, the first time he'd experienced the presence of an Eidolon, the day he'd severed Will's finger. We are pollution. A stain upon the cosmos. And we are not welcome here. And then he understood Will's didactic point. The Eidolons are godlike beings that want us dead.

“How is it we're still here?” he asked.

“Exactly!” Will nodded vigorously, pointing at Marsh. “That's precisely the point. They want to erase us. And yet, they haven't. Why? Because they can't find us. They know we exist, but they see every point in the universe. All of time, all of space, all at once. And it's all the same to them. So which points are you”— he pointed at Marsh—”and which points are a distant star? They have no way of telling. Weeding us out is a virtually impossible task. Even for them.”

Marsh thought this through. Furrowed brows told him that Lorimer and Stephenson were doing likewise. The other warlocks looked bored and irritated.

“It's a problem of demarcation,” said Marsh.

“Yes. Imagine I told you all our problems could be solved by squashing one particular ant in Britain. How would you find it?”

“This is all fascinating, I'm sure,” said Stephenson, “but what does this have to do with my question? What does blood have to do with any of this?”

Marsh nodded, feeling the same irritation. He shifted in his chair, trying to find a posture that eased the ache at the small of his back. Like his beard, he couldn't remember how long he'd had it. Since he started sleeping on the cot. When had that been?

“Blood is special. The blood coursing through your veins, around every crumb of your body, defines locus points in space and time that bracket your human experience. In other words, blood provides a map that directs the Eidolons to our very limited level of existence. It enables them to focus on us. To see us.”

Marsh thought back to how the Eidolons noticed him when he severed Will's fingertip. Gretel's nails had drawn his blood. It brought him to their attention.

They've given you a name.

Will said, “That's why every negotiation begins with a token. We capture their attention with a combination of blood and Enochian. After that, well, every interaction with the Eidolons is a transaction. Every deed, no matter how small, carries a blood price.” Will raised his hand, displaying the stump where the tip of his finger had been.

Hargreaves frowned in disapproval. A grievous price for such a trivial negotiation. But then Marsh thought, A fingertip? I'd give so much more than that, and gleefully, if it meant having Agnes back. Expressing that thought sparked something in the back of his mind, but Marsh put it aside as Will continued.

“We barter for the lowest possible price. Once that's established, we carry out payment, and the Eidolon wills the deed into existence. Its volition shapes reality.”

“But they've seen plenty of your blood,” said Lorimer. “Why haven't they erased you lot?”

“Because they're smarter than you,” said Hargreaves. “They know that by eliminating us, they lose their access to the rest. But that is no good. They want us all gone. Every soul on Earth.”

Lorimer fell silent. He looked pale.

Stephenson crushed out his cigarette. Smoke eddied about his fingers. “So they demand blood,” he concluded. “The more you spill, the more people they see.”

“As far as they understand. To them, it makes sense: shedding a person's blood should give the Eidolons the map of that person's existence. But of course, it doesn't work that way because we—” he gestured at himself, Hargreaves, and Webber “—position ourselves as a buffer.” Will shrugged again. “It must be rather frustrating for them. Or it would, if they had feelings.” His eyes clouded over, as though he were gazing upon a dark storm. Quietly, he added, “And so their prices increase. Every day.”

Marsh shifted again, but the ache in his back wouldn't subside. He stood, stretched. Outside, sunset painted orange the barrage balloons over Pall Mall. Lengthening shadows inched across London's inconstant skyline. The Blitz kept the city in a state of flux.

“You want blood prices?” he asked. “Thank the Luftwaffe for doing your job for you. They're spilling our blood every miserable day.”

“Yes, Pip. Blood is spilled every day. But it has no bearing on our work.” Will shook his head. “They don't know what blood is; only that they access it through us.” He gestured at the warlocks again. “For that matter, we should be glad they don't understand our civilization any more than you understand the inner life of a bacterium. If they ever do understand us well enough to comprehend hospitals and blood transfusions ... Well, that will be a very bad day.”

“I still haven't heard a compelling reason why you refuse to end this war overnight,” said Marsh. He pointed at the window. “If we die, it won't matter if it's at the hand of Jerry or the goddamned Eidolons.”

“We're doing what we can. But we mustn't let the Eidolons start extracting prices on their own. We'd lose control over what information they obtain. Given enough information, they'll be able to fill in the gaps. They'd see all of us. And that would raise merry hob with, frankly, everything. It would all fall apart.

“So I hope you understand, Pip.”

“I understand that Agnes died for naught, and you lot are content to leave it that way.” Marsh slammed the door when he left.

The ache in Marsh's hip turned into a tingling pins-and-needles sensation along his leg. The cot frame creaked as he shifted his weight. He folded the thin pillow in half and propped it under his head. He'd roll again after the ache moved from his hip to his neck. He put his hands under the pillow to prop up his head. The stretched canvas felt rough against the backs of his hands.

A bead of water trickled down one corner of the storeroom. It was raining outside. Marsh crossed his arms across his chest to ward off the damp. Rainwater distilled the odor of mildew as it percolated through the stones.

The prisoner, Gretel, had slept here during her brief incarceration. Marsh had found reminders of her presence when he'd first started sleeping here. Long, black hairs draped across the pillow; the smell of a woman not his wife. Unlike Marsh, she'd had no trouble sleeping on the cot. But also unlike him, she'd been drugged.

Congratulations. It's a girl.

Why Williton? The question had become a lodestone aligning the iron filings of his thoughts. It made no sense. The only special thing about Williton, thought Marsh, was Agnes. And it was no coincidence.

But now he knew what to do. He didn't know how long the idea had been gestating at the back of his mind. It had crystallized during the long, restless hours he'd spent vainly trying to sleep after the maddening conference with Stephenson and the warlocks. It was strange, the way something so obvious had to simmer for so long.

The steady drip of water resolved into footsteps in the corridor. Marsh yawned and rubbed his eyes.

“I don't understand,” Will said from the doorway, “why you won't accept my offer and stay at the Kensington flat.” He looked around the storeroom as he entered. He nodded at the mildew. “I admit it lacks the same ambience. But I'd wager the sleeping arrangements are at least equal to what you're enjoying now.”

Marsh sat up on the edge of the cot. “Hi, Will.”

Will's suit had changed. Now it was a royal blue herringbone pattern, as opposed to the charcoal gray he'd worn at the meeting. Neither combination included a tie, Marsh noted. Will had stopped wearing ties altogether.

Marsh added, “Good morning, I suppose.” His own clothes hadn't changed since yesterday. Or was it the day before? Down here, day and night melted together into one sleepless blur.

“I didn't wake you, I trust.”

“No.”

Will used a toe to drag a stool from the corner of the room. It was far too short for him. He had to fold himself like a carpenter's rule in order to sit. His knees rested higher than his waist.

“Do think about the flat,” he said. He placed his bowler on one knee. “Better still, go home to your wife.”

Marsh frowned.

“How is she?”

“I couldn't say,” said Marsh in what he hoped was a tone that implied the subject was closed. He didn't feel up to another argument.

He rested his back against the wall, letting his legs drape over the edge of the cot. Rough stone pressed painfully against the ripples of his spine. The cold and the discomfort helped to wake him.

“You look terrible,” said Will. “Nip?” He opened his suit coat to reveal the tip of a silver flask tucked in the breast pocket.

“I thought it was morning. A bit early, isn't it?”

Will shrugged. “Thought it might get you back on your feet.” He let his suit coat fall closed again. “I came to see if what we told you yesterday made sense. Hargreaves would go off his nut if he knew I was doing this, but I wanted to make certain you understood our objections. I'm willing to discuss things further, if it will help.” He sighed. “I'm sorry about the meeting.”

“Me, too, Will. I was wrong.”

“Don't concern yourself, Pip. We're all of us under tremendous pressure right now,” said Will, playing with the brim of his hat. “Short tempers are the order of the day. No hard feelings.”

“Wrong about Agnes.”

“Oh?”

“She doesn't have to die for nothing. She doesn't have to die at all.”

Will stopped. Slowly, with great deliberation, he set the bowler back on his knee. He adjusted it twice. Then he sat up straighter. His ches swelled with a deep breath. He held it for several moments before responding. “I don't know what you're suggesting, Pip.”

Marsh looked straight into the deep, dark things Will's eyes had become. “Bring her back.”

The lines around Will's eyes disappeared. He stared at Marsh, wide-eyed but silent. His head drooped. He looked at the floor. He ran a hand through his ginger hair, massaged the nape of his neck. Still looking down, he said, “I'm sure I didn't hear you properly.”

“Bring my daughter back,” said Marsh. “Make the Eidolons give her back to us.”

Will ran his hands over his face. He sighed. “Pip.”

“I'll help you. Anything you need.”

“I ... I don't know where to begin—”

“The price doesn't matter. I'll pay it.”

“What if the price is your own life? Yours for hers?”

“I'd agree to that in a heartbeat, Will. I don't care what it costs.”

Will said, “I can't believe we're having this conversation. This is monstrous.”

“More monstrous than having the power to save her life and not using it?”

“First of all, Pip, nobody—nobody—has the power to save her life,” said Will. He shook his head. “I'm sorry, truly sorry, my friend, but she's forever gone. If I could, I'd undo it all for you and Liv. But I can't.”

“I knew you'd say that. But this isn't simply about me and Liv. It's our chance to thwart them, to stick it to von Westarp's brood.”

“Now I know I'm not following you.”

“Ask yourself, Will. Why Williton? What was so important about one insignificant little village in Somerset that Jerry had to bomb it into powder?”

“I haven't a clue. But I'm sure you'll tell me.”

“It was Agnes. They wanted her dead, Will. I'm sure of it. They wanted my little girl dead.”

“Oh, my God,” Will muttered. More loudly: “Are you even listening to yourself? You sound like you've gone completely and utterly round the bend.”

“It's the only explanation that makes sense. We know they'd been watching us, Liv and me.”

“Do you realize what you're saying? Can you honestly look me in the eye and tell me you believe the Luftwaffe conducted a raid specifically for the purpose of killing one infant? And that now you want us to reverse her death?”

“I don't care how it sounds.” Marsh grabbed Will's arm. “Bring Agnes back.”

“You should care, because you sound like a raving nutter. And as for Agnes, even if we went so far as to resurrect her body, I promise you, the thing inside it wouldn't be her. The thing that was Agnes has gone somewhere else.” Will shook his head. “Ask the others if you don't believe me. They'll tell you the same, but they won't frame it so compassionately.”

He continued, “I wish I had the power to undo things. I wish I had the power to breathe just one person back to life. To make up for ...”

Click. It felt like a cog slipping into place. Separate parts of Marsh's mind came together and engaged.

Part of him still grappled with Will's objections. Marsh put that aside in a special place where he could go back to it later; he wasn't ready to consider that Will might be right. This was different, something new.

Cogs turned. And turned. And turned.

“Are you listening to me?” Will asked.

“I'm sorry, Will. What did you say?”

“Nothing at all. I was merely unburdening myself to you. It won't happen again.”

“No, earlier. Before that. About Agnes.”

“She's somewhere else now.” Will sighed again. “You need to accept that.”

“That was it. You said she's gone somewhere else.”

“A figure of speech. What of it?”

Marsh cracked his knuckles against his jaw. “You've just given me an idea.”

“Oh, bother.” Will crossed his arms over his chest. “I'm listening.”

“You said yesterday that the Eidolons are omnipresent.”

“They are, insofar as nothing can be everywhere, I suppose. They don't relate to things like we do. If you imagine points in space and time as bricks in a wall, the Eidolons would exist in the mortar between the bricks.”

“In that case, let me ask you,” said Marsh. “What prevents us from using them for transportation?”

Silence stretched between them long enough for another drip to become audible. Finally, Will said, “Are you suggesting we should regard the Eidolons as our own private Tube system?”

“Like a Tube system with no distance between stops.”

Will said, “This is the third mad thing you've said this morning. You need to start sleeping, Pip.” He stood. “I don't like what happens to you when you don't.”

Marsh stood as well, feeling animated for the first time in days. “Are you willing to tell me that nobody has ever thought of this before?”

Will's mouth opened and closed soundlessly for a few seconds. “It—well—that is, there are legends ...”

“So let's do something legendary.”

3 December 1940

Milkweed Headquarters, London, England

The window behind Stephenson's desk afforded Will a grand view of St. James' Park and the preparations under way there. Sleet pattered against the mullioned windowpanes, sounding like the impatient tapping of fingernails. It trickled down, slowly collecting along the sash like diseased hoarfrost.

The sleet had started out as a bone-cold drizzle within the fog that rolled off the Thames the day before. It was an unusual fog, but still a natural manifestation, rather than something wrought through prices and negotiations. Nobody complained. It kept the Luftwaffe at bay.

Down in the park, swaths of camouflage netting fluttered violently in a gust of wind. Moments later the same gust splattered a new layer of sleet against the glass. Will stepped away from the drafty window.

For the moment, he had the old man's office to himself. It smelled of winter rain, stale cigarette smoke, and Stephenson's brandy. Will helped himself to more of the last thing. He concentrated on pouring, but the liquid slopped over the side of his tumbler and trickled down the side of the desk.

“Oops,” he said to nobody in particular. “Opps.” He giggled. “Secret ops.”

He sipped again. The brandy burned on the way down, but the fire died when it reached the ice in Will's stomach. Nothing could melt that.

Outside, across Horse Guards' Road, a ten-foot privacy fence had been erected around two acres of royal parkland. Inside the rings of fences and sentries, under the camo, stood a jumble of tents. At least a dozen, but probably more by now. Will couldn't see well enough through the thickening weather to count them. But they'd been popping up like toadstools since the fog rolled in. There were one or two Nissen huts down there as well.

The encampment put Will in mind of a violent carnival. (“Carnival.” He giggled again. “Farewell to the flesh.”) Several tents had been erected to protect the machines that Lorimer and the science boffins had designed. One tent would soon contain a stone plucked from the lake in the center of the park.

All part of Marsh's ill-conceived plan to attack the Reichsbehorde. Marsh and his crusade.

The door opened, sending warm yellow light across the darkened office. Will's reflection appeared in the window. He looked like a haggard ghost hovering outside the Admiralty building, a revenant spirit condemned to wander endlessly through a landscape of winter fog.

“Beauclerk? What are you doing in my office?”

Will turned. Stephenson tromped in. Droplets of ice water sparkled in his graying hair. He shrugged off a sodden black mackintosh, flipped it off his shoulder with his good arm, and hung it on the coatrack in the corner in one practiced motion.

“Watching the festivities,” Will answered. He jerked his chin toward the window. It made the room spin. He shuffled sideways.

“Don't you and the others have more pressing issues to occupy you right now?” said Stephenson. The empty sleeve pinned to his shoulder flapped up and down as he kicked off his galoshes.

“I came to talk to you about that very thing.”

Stephenson turned on the light and joined him at the window. He looked pointedly at the bottle on the desk and the tumbler in Will's hand. “Dozens of men down in St. James', working their arses off in this weather, and you're up here having a little party.”

“I'd offer to share, but ...” Will took the bottle by its neck and waggled it upside down above the floor. Nothing dripped out. He set the bottle back in Stephenson's drawer, where he'd found it.

Stephenson looked around the room, assessing his office for further indignities. Will knew he'd left several strewn across the old man's desk. A finger's worth of spirits seeping across the blotter. A bent letter-opener. Scrapes and gouges in the finish along the edges of the drawer.

It had surprised Will to discover that the old man had taken to locking his desk drawer. Apparently he'd noticed the bottle slowly going empty.

“You're pissed. On my brandy.”

“Me? Heavens no. Empty stomach. Low blood sugar.” Will giggled again. “Blood. Yes. That's the problem.”

“Beauclerk.” Stephenson shivered as he said it. Perhaps owing to the draft; perhaps not. “I am wet, I am cold, and I am hungry. I wanted to come inside, dry off a bit, down a bracer to warm me, then go home and eat dinner with Corrie. You will note that nowhere on this list of desires did I include chatting with a soused toff.”

The room wobbled. Will plopped down in the wide leather chair behind the desk.

“And get out of my chair,” said Stephenson. He gave the chair a swift tug. It spun, and so did Will. Will lurched to his feet. Stephenson took the seat he vacated. “What the hell is wrong with you to night?”

“We need to talk. One Englishman to another.”

“Would knowing I'm Canadian born make you go away any sooner?”

Will waved away the objection. “We're none of us perfect. Take me, for instance. Completely pissed.” He gulped from the tumbler. “Runs in the family, you know.”

Stephenson sighed. “How long have you been waiting?”

“I really couldn't say.” Will pointed at the empty bottle. “How full was that when I found it?”

“Do I need to call a ride for you?”

“He's quite mad, you know.”

“Who's mad?”

“Your boy.” Will waved his arm at the window, slopping the remaining brandy with a gesture that encompassed the park and, by extension, all Marsh's works, and therefore Marsh himself. “Marsh.”

“He's not my boy.”

“Oh, but he is. He is, he is. Perhaps not by blood, but—Ha. There it is again.” Beads of liquid splashed across the desk when he set the empty tumbler down. “Can't get away from it, can I.”

“I wasn't jesting about wanting you out of here. Is this about Marsh?”

“It's about this whole bloody project.” Will pointed outside again. “It's a terrible idea. Sir.”

Stephenson said, “It's a brilliant idea.”

“What ever it is that you and Marsh hope to achieve with this ploy, I tell you true, it will end badly.”

“We can hobble the Reichsbehorde in one stroke. We stand to obtain the research as well. Britain needs us to do this.” Stephenson looked outside, down at the park. The fingernail rattle of sleet against the window had tapered off; a handful of cottony snowflakes blazed in the office light as they eddied past the window.

“It's a brilliant idea,” he repeated. “It's Milkweed's chance to balance the scales. And we have to take it now. At present they can't have more than seven or eight, perhaps a dozen at most, of von Westarp's creatures running around. But how long will it be until they number seven hundred? Seven thousand?”

“Have you forgotten that we don't even know what the woman, Gretel, can do? We had her, right here, and we still have no idea.”

“Marsh suspects she's some sort of mentalist.”

“All the more reason not to do this. If she is as he says, they'd only have to capture a few squad members to get a complete picture of the state of Milkweed.”

“Which is why every member of the team will be issued a cyanide capsule. Including you.”

Will rubbed his face. “Look. Sir. You and I both know that on a typical day he's the smartest chap in the room. But what's escaped your notice is that he's not the smartest fellow right now. He's not thinking clearly. Hasn't been since Agnes died.”

“He's mourning.”

Will ran a hand through his hair. Too late he realized his fingers were sticky and smelled of very good brandy. “Of course he is. But it's not just that. Did you know he's been sleeping down in the storerooms?”

Stephenson frowned, his head jerked back in surprise.

“They had a falling out. Liv and he.”

“When did this happen?”

“As best as I can determine, soon after they returned from Williton. He's fanatically private about his home life, you know.” Will shook his head. It hurt, getting cut out of somebody's life. “It wasn't always that way.”

“They lost a child. Tragic? Yes. And yes, their marriage may falter. But he'll get the job done.”

Will said, “You coldhearted bastard. We stood there in your garden, you and I, while they said their vows.”

“I have larger concerns right now. And so do you. I recommend you go dunk your head in a bucket and pull yourself together.”

“I'm telling you, sir, he's not himself. And if you let him, he's going to take us so far off the fucking map that 'Here be Dragons' will be a quaint memory.”

“Jesus, Beauclerk. You're raving—”

“He wanted us to resurrect his daughter. Bring her back to life. It's true. Practically fell to his knees and begged me to make it happen.”

“Can you do that?”

“Oh, not you, too. Of course not. The best result, the very best, would be nightmarish. But that's just it, sir: Marsh doesn't care.”

The outburst left Will feeling light-headed again. He took the chair across the desk from Stephenson. More snowflakes glittered past the window behind the old man. It was getting dark outside.

As if reading Will's thought, Stephenson rose and pulled the blackout curtains. “He is very focused. Always has been. I'll grant you that much.”

“Focused? Was that your reaction when he pinched your motorcar?”

Stephenson scowled. “That was understandable, given the circumstances.”

“And yet you say he's not your boy,” Will muttered to himself. To Stephenson: “You're not listening to me. He's fixated on one thing and can't be bothered to think past that result or the consequences of getting there.”

Stephenson turned. He pursed his lips, staring across the desk with narrowed eyes. “You're frightened.”

“Of course I'm frightened. I'm not an imbecile.”

The old man sat again. “Your colleagues are rather excited about this.” The unspoken word danced through the space between the two men like a snowflake: teleportation.

“They're eager to see whether or not it actually works. To them, it's an experiment. But they won't be the ones traveling piggyback on an Eidolon.”

“If it works, it will change the war overnight. We'll have the ability to send men and materiel anywhere we want, and to retrieve them just as easily. Without the Eidolons, this raid would be impossible. It would be a one-way trip for those men, assuming they made it as far as the farm in the first place,” said Stephenson. “But with the Eidolons, nothing, nowhere, is beyond our reach. Imagine inserting a squad directly into the Berghof. Or sending a half ton of explosives to the OKW.”

“These actions aren't free. If we tried to make this our standard means of waging warfare, the blood prices ... well, we'd end up doing Jerry's work for him. And consider this. Every person who goes on this little jaunt, including most especially your lad Marsh (don't give me that look) will be giving himself to the Eidolons for safekeeping during the transition. And again on the way back. Assuming anybody comes back.” Will waited for his head to stop spinning. He summarized, “It's a bit like using a pride of lions to escort a zebra across the Serengeti. Bloody daft.”

“I think you're overstating things just a bit.”

“Overstating? Understating. Here's yet another consideration for you: the blood price. Nobody knows what this will cost. This is so far beyond the pale that the others won't even hazard a guess.”

“The prices haven't been a problem thus far. I don't see why this would be any different.”

Will tasted blood. He'd bitten a chunk out of the inside of his lip. The blood seeped across his tongue, chasing away the brandy.

Not a problem? So that was it, then. The old man truly was an icy bastard. Will had first sensed it during the trip to Dover, where they'd seen the Eidolons in the Channel and the toll this took on local children. He'd hoped it wouldn't come to this. But it had.

Stephenson had an agreement with Hargreaves and the rest of the warlocks; he indulged their fanatical insistence upon keeping blood prices “in the family.” Anything that threatened to breach the connection between the negotiator and the price—such as appealing for outsiders' help in paying it—was dangerous and therefore strictly forbidden. But the old man knew damn well what was happening. The escalating prices had forced the warlocks to seek out new tools and new training; Stephenson had arranged for their demolitions training with the Special Operations Executive.

Not a problem? The old man didn't consider the prices a problem, because he wasn't the one paying them. But that would change, if they stayed on this course.

“You know nothing of these things.” It was all Will could say, and perhaps even that was too much. He stood. “Think about what I've said. Good evening, sir.”

Will paused in the doorway on his way out. “What I tell you twice I tell you true, sir. This will end badly.”