X-Calibre Trilogy: Long Hard Road Out of Hell

I was exhausted and as much as I wanted to go get Miriam, I knew I was tired enough that I wouldn’t be as alert as I’d need to be in case we ran into trouble. We’d hauled ass getting to Berlin; I’d been up throughout the morning; I hadn’t slept in over twenty-four hours. I got to my room and threw myself down on the bed, too tired to even change out of my clothes. I slept like the dead for the rest of the morning and throughout the afternoon, finally waking to Peter’s efforts. I raised an eyebrow when I saw what he’d chosen to help in his quest – the blunt end of the sheath to one of my katanas.

“Figured you’d try to kill me if I got within range,” he shrugged and propped the sword back against the wall next to the other one. “Time to get ready for the party, mate.”

I stretched and jumped into the shower while Peter fulfilled my request for a large cup of strong coffee. I grumbled as Iubbeubbed myself clean; I knew this was an excellent opportunity to remove the Chancellor from power and we probably wouldn’t get another shot like this in our lifetimes, but I was still annoyed that I wasn’t able to get more than a few hours respite from all the running around. It almost seemed like there was some kind of conspiracy to keep me from getting to Miriam.

“Here you go,” Peter handed me the steaming mug as I walked into the room with the other assassins.

“Danke,” I nodded to him.

“Let’s go over this again,” Alexander looked the rest of us over. “The Ball starts in just over an hour. We’ll give them time to get into full swing, get some booze into them, and show up around seven. Nightcrawler, you said that you want time to check the grounds and watch the mark. How long do you think you’ll need for that?”

“A good hour to be sure I can get to the Chancellor with minimal fuss.” I took another swallow of coffee, feeling the stimulant hit my bloodstream. I had the feeling I’d need another of these before we got on the road.

“Shouldn’t be a problem,” Alexander nodded. “We’ll have people out on the floor, mingling with everyone else and gathering intelligence. They’ll be tapped for you to listen in, so listen carefully for when the mark is moving. Another team will be hunting the grounds for the Faberge Eggs that are supposed to be there, so the kill team doesn’t need to worry about that.”

“What about the security, though?” I frowned, skeptical. “All the big names are supposed to be there, nicht wahr? They’ll have their own body guards in addition to the police.”

“True, but that’s not your concern. The rest of us will give you enough cover to get your part taken care of.”

I stifled another yawn and shrugged. I knew the socialites and aristocrats would think helicopter surveillance would mar the festivities, but even they would have to make some concessions in the name of safety, surely . . . Screw it. If they wanted to be idiots and rely on the desire of rich people to appear invulnerable, so be it. Peter was staying behind for this one, and I could get myself out of any trouble I ran into after I did my part. Everyone else could fend for themselves if they had to.

I still wasn’t as awake as I felt I should have been by the time we got to the Chancellor’s mansion; I also had a slight scratch to my throat that implied the beginnings of a cold. I hadn’t been ill in years and yet I had felt my health improve once I hit this world – that I’d gotten sick made me realize just how much physical stress I’d been under lately. Not enough sleep, not enough food, too much running around, too much worrying . . . it was beginning to add up.

“Alright there, Nightcrawler?”

I sighed and nodded at Alexander; he raised an eyebrow but let it drop. The rest of us were silent as we rode along, the buildings gradually becoming more affluent as they streaked by the windows, and then it was time to get to work. A few of the others lit up cigarettes to have an excuse to have the windows down, effectively airing out the van when I saw my landmark and teleported outside. I landed on the side of another house, hidden in the shadows as I braced myself for the impact and continued momentum that would accompany such a jump. From my vantage point I could see my companions turn the corner leading to the many bright lights illuminating the mansion. I continued to cling to the walls of the buildings and jumped between them until I was across the street from the building; now that the Nazis knew about the smell accompanying my teleportation, I didn’t want to use that for the moment. As I hung to the wall directly opposite the main entrance I bit my lip and thought. The easiest thing would be to ‘port onto the roof and find the mark through the skylights, but too many people would know I was there if I did that. As I’d expected, the building and grounds were swarming with armed security in a ratio that was probably somewhere around one official for every four guests. It would be very hard to sneak in using more conventional methods, but that was what I’d have to do if I wanted to give myself enough time to do this right. I swore under my breath and began to move.

The biggest trick was getting across the street in the first place. There was a straggler pulling up on my side of the boulevard and I latched onto the passenger side panels, hoping the driver wouldn’t need to check his mirrors in the next two minutes. When they got up to the roadblock patrol I quickly moved to the undercarriage and held onto the frame, trying desperately to not cough as I waited for the valet to take the car and park it. Goddamned diesel engines . . . don’t keep them clean and they’re ungodly filthy . . . I waited a few minutes and then peeked out to see if any other valets were nearby. They weren’t, so I got out from under the car and crept through the car park, using the automobiles as cover. I was at the back of the building where the service entrances were and I saw one of the doors propped open, vans displaying the logo of a caterer parked nearby. I entered the building through that door and started down the hallway, moving along the ceiling between the hanging overhead lights to avoid the hired help. I stopped when I got to the first intersection, pulling out the schematics for the building that I’d been provided and checking them for the best route to the ballroom. Take the right, second left, back to the right and all the way down to the service elevator that would take me close to the roof. I nodded and folded the papers back up and got going.

“Sohnes Weibchens [Son of a bitch].” The elevator was on another floor and not responding to the call; someone was using it or hadn’t bothered to close the doors on it when they were done. There went my idea of getting inside and popping the hatch on it to climb up the shaft. Out came the papers again and I opted now to chance the broad staircase down the hall to my left. I checked for the elevator on the next floor and didn’t see it; but it was there on the third floor with no one around it. I got in and up the hatch, latched it shut behind me, and scaled the walls up he fhe fifth story, which the schematics had designated as storage space. I could hear the attic fans running and willed myself out to the open area beyond the elevator shaft and as close to one of those fans as I could get without getting caught in it myself. The noise from the motors drowned out the sound of my teleport and I was very glad for that – there were actually guards up there!

“. . . believe they’ve got us up here. I just want to know who we pissed off, you know?”

“It could be worse. We’ve got the quiet job tonight. How would you like to be the poor bastard who has to get rid of the drunks before they cause trouble?”

“Are you stoned? This isn’t some third-rate bar. Nobody signed up anyone for bouncer duty.”

“Hey, you’ve never worked one of these society functions before. You have no idea how catty some of these bitches get once they’ve had a few.”

“Hey—“ I froze when the rookie stiffened and sniffed the air. “You smell that?”

“It’s called mildew,” the other one dismissed it from his position a few meters away.

He sniffed again and turned around, looking into the shadows for me. I had crouched behind a carton and stayed there, hoping he was rookie enough to come closer without calling for backup. He kept walking and I lashed my tail around his throat, yanking him deeper into the shadows to hold him still as he struggled to get free. He went limp moments later and, when I could no longer feel his pulse struggling against me, I let go of him and eased his body to the floor. Now, time to take care of the other one . . .

“About time, Nightcr—“

My eyes went wide in surprise as I cut off his words. I pulled his arms behind him so he couldn’t activate his GPS and slowly uncoiled my tail enough for him to get a breath of air.

“Turn up my radio,” he gasped. “I’m patched into the same frequency as the others.”

I cautiously dialed the volume higher and heard the other crew at work, whispering among themselves as they moved into position to steal the Eggs.

“One of the pilots called out at the last minute, so you’ve got a window of five minutes, when I tell you, to get up to the roof and get inside before another helicopter makes a pass.”

I let him go and studied him, trying to recognize him. It bothered me that I couldn’t place him as anyone within the Cabal; I reached for my swords.

“If you kill me, the Sicarii will lose one of their few insiders within the SS. We do come in handy from time to time, you know . . .”

I studied him for a few seconds. “If you have lied to me, I will personally hunt you and your family down,” I warned him.

“I expect as much,” he answered, massaging his neck. He peered at his watch. “Your cover starts in forty-six seconds.”

I went to the outside vents and looked out through the slats to see a police helicopter heading away from the building. I tried in the relative silence to hear for another one that was out of my line of sight but couldn’t adequately judge it; the attic fans were making too much noise for me to be sure.

“Twenty seconds.”

I quickly debated this. If this man was right and I’d have a good five minutes then I could get in, find the mark, and get out undetected. If I were particularly lucky, I might even spot Miriam during all of this. If he was wrong or deceiving me, then I’d have to drop in and make a scene before making a run for it.

“Five seconds.”

Screw it. Alexander hadn’t seemed concerned about the security; perhaps this was why.

“Three seconds, two, one, go!”

I stopped thinking and flipped the switch that would put me on pure instinct as I teleported onto the roof outside. As promised, there was no air cover at the moment. I turned up the earpiece I was wearing as I moved to the skylights to look in on the ballroom and heard the snatches of tell-tale conversation giving the mark’s location. The band had just stopped playing so he could give some kind of speech; he was surrounded by about a dozen guards; one of them had caught a glimpse of his woman’s garters somehow and did you know she’s got a gun tucked into that?

I could see him, raising his champagne flute in a toast to something or other, cheering in the new season with everyone else. I didn’t see anyone short enough to be Miriam in the crowd and sighed. Then I heard the thwipping beat of the helicopters again as they headed in for the return pass – and there was no way five minutes had begun to pass. Shit. The garter woman must have been the one up there dressed in flaming red; I counted fourteen SS standing behind the Chancellor. Fifteen people packing heat – one mark – now or never.

I ‘ported again and came out behind the mark, grabbed him, teleported us both up to the ceiling to create extra time due to confusion, snapped his neck and dropped him before transporting back out onto the roof. I stopped just long enough to confirm that he’d landed on the parquet tiles as a dead man before moving again, the image of the newly terrified merry-makers fresh in my mind. I could hear the helicopters more clearly; by now they probably knew something had happened and would be looking for me. But something about this wasn’t right on top of the lack of promised time . . . there had only been three aircraft total patrolling the area as my team and I had come up to the festivities. Now there were about a dozen converging on the southern spires that would give me a clear view of the rest of the city should I choose to teleport back home. The situation only got worse when they opened fire upon me simultaneously.

Well, so much for the others. It was probably me they wanted more than anyone else right now anyway; but I wasn’t about to become a martyr for the cause. I bamfed over the lawn and into the yard of another estate on the other side of the gardens and woods; cling to the walls and race across them before throwing myself into another teleport; veer to the left and let them see me on a building there; hold that course for several pieces of property; there, on the right, good shadows, bamf; good, they’re heading the other direction – damn, spoke too soon.

I wound up taking a really long way home because of all the changing of direction I required to lose my pursuers. I took a southeastern direction for some time to keep them in residential areas that they couldn’t afford to shoot up because of the excessive collateral damage; then I managed to slip off to the west where I hitched a ride part of the way back on a public transit train, hanging onto the last car until we came up on the next scheduled stop. By that point I was a good twenty kilometers from the uptown area I’d been fleeing and had enough shadows to navigate back home at a more leisurely pace that effectively avoided detection by anyone else. That was no small feat now that half the city was out on the streets – my adventure must have made the emergency news bulletins or something because, as Peter had predicted, riots were starting. I had to stop and keep still several times as bands of angry citizens passed by with weapons ranging from simple projectiles such as rocks to portable explosives – Molotov Cocktails, anyone? – to guns. I also had to look away from the action and try to ignore it when they succeeded in pulling innocent people out of their buildings to lynch for the blood that was on my hands. This was the ugly part of humanity that I found heartbreaking; and I couldn’t do anything about it without endangering myself at this point. There were too many and all of my earlier acrobatics and teleporting had left me physically exhausted.

By the time I crossed the threshold to the Cabal it was a little past midnight. Peter had waited up for me when it became clear that I wasn’t returning with the others; Magdalena had apparently tried to stay up as well but fallen asleep in the chair next to Peter.

“Everything alright, mate?” Peter whispered, easing up from his seat. “Wot happened out there?”

“Murder, mayhem, manslaughter,” I whispered back, rubbing my eyes tiredly. “I got the mark but had to lose damn near the entire police force. And once I was clear of them I had to wait out the rioting that’s going on until it moved on enough for me to keep going.” I yawned, feeling my fatigue all at once now that I was home. “But, the job’s done. I’m going to go pass out now. Don’t bother me unless there’s a dire emergency.”

“Think I’m stupid?” Peter smirked a little as he got out of my way. “I’ll be in myself once I let Jonathan know you’re back.”

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“That’s . . . by Allah . . .”

Magdalena wasn’t the only one who was horrified by the news. She, like several others in the briefing, showed visible signs of her repulsion. I wondered if it was possible to be too jaded – my first reaction was to compare it to the Atrocity Zones and dismiss the Nazis as amateurs. “It’s meant to draw me out,” I sighed, looking over each person in the room. “They know I’m here, and they know I can teleport.”

“And you’re big publicity. There’s nothing the SS would love more than to be able to display your remains as a public attraction and sign of their ability to protect the populace.” Marius sighed heavily; as head of the Berlin Cabal, he would be expected to do something to help the hundreds of Jews held captive in the maze of tunnels under the streets. “I hate to say this, but we’ll need you to help rescue those people.”

I shrugged, my tail weaving absently behind me. “You know it will be a trap. How do you plan to go about this? I’m not invincible, and I can’t teleport everyone out. That’s impossible.” I finished my second cup of coffee since being woken up again at four and suppressed a yawn. This was turning into a very long day.

“You could get us inside, then we could break them out from within,” a young man whose name I did not know suggested.

“Possibly,” I nodded, “but what will we use to free them? Explosives? In such a confined area we could kill the people we’re trying to save.”

“The whole area is heavily guarded,” Jonathan supplied. “Just getting there with enough of our people to help will be a damn sight. We won’t have the luxury of time to extract even a handful of them.”

“So wot are you suggestin’?” Peter’s accent was a sharp contrast to Jonathan’s, despite their shared British heritage. “Leave them there to rot? Sorry mates, couldn’t be helped?”

“I’m suggesting nothing of the sort,” Jonathan answered the accusation. “But I, unfortunately, do not have an answer to our dilemma.”

“There are Elders here, aren’t there?” Magdalena leaned forward in her chair, her hands clasped in front of her. “Perhaps one of them could invoke the Metatron for this.”

I glanced at Suzanne, who had gone rigid with apprehension. She remained silent, however.

“No one has invoked her within this lifetime, and with good reason,” Marius answered. “So far there has been no one capable of withstanding her powers.”

“I’m not talking about a sustained possession,” Magda countered. “Merely a momentary invocation, just long enough to gather everyone and get them to safety.”

“Even the legends do not tell of so large an exodus,” Mathias, an aging Priest, spoke. “The largest was of a group of fifty. There are hundreds of people to be saved. Such a feat would surely drive insane anyone who managed to live through it.”

“What exactly is so dangerous about this Metatron that people go mad from her?” I addressed him directly.

“The Metatron’s powers are great,” Mathias’ gaze was curious. “She is not of this world, and is tasked with guarding the whole of creation. Her mind becomes linked with that of whomever dares invoke her, and rare indeed is the cleric with the capacity to hold their own mind together once she departs from them. It is not the possession that is dangerous, but the reversal.”

“But there have been people able to handle it.” I nibbled on the tip of my tail, a gesture of physical distraction I tended to employ when deep in thought.

“Yes, long ago, between two and three generations removed from us.”

Suzanne was shifting uncomfortably now; I pretended to not notice this. “How do you know when you’oundound one? Trial and error?”

“By God, no!” Mathias was taken aback. “Only those who already display an increased aptitude for the occult are considered, and then they must consent to an invocation. We cannot force anyone to take the Metatron, nor would she take possession of someone without their knowledge and blessing, so far as we can tell.”

“There isn’t anyone who can do it; why are we wasting time talking about it?” the man with the idea of breaking them out from within asked.

I glanced from him, to Mathias, to Suzanne. She flinched under my eyes.

“She’s just a child!” Marius was aghast. “Everyone who has ever invoked the Metatron has been an adult, at least in their thirties. What you suggest is madness!”

“When were you first able to see things, Suzanne?” I crouched beside her, keeping my voice as gentle as I could.

“I can’t do this, Nightcrawler.” Her voice was strained and barely above a whisper. “I’ve not had any training. I’m too young.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty.”

“Hardly a child, I’d think.” I barely smiled. “You started manifesting your gifts in your early teens, ja?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “Why does that matter?”

“Have you ever been wrong?” Everyone was staring at us; I ignored them and tried to keep Suz’s attention on me alone.

“No.”

“And when you try to use it, it gets stronger?”

She nodded, licking her lips nervously.

“That’s how it was with my gifts. One day I was just an ugly kid, the next I was suddenly a god among men. And it’s scary, I know.” I sighed as memories began to parade through my mind. “It’s a lot of responsibility. Having that much power can seem overwhelming, and it will be if you let it control your life.”

She was curled into a ball now, trying to hide from what I said. “But what I can do is nothing like what you’re capable of. How can you compare it like this?”

I looked to the ceiling for a moment, choosing my words so that they would sound more appealing to her. “Where I came from, the range of abilities was very broad. I worked with a woman who could read thoughts and move things with her mind and two men who could knit their bodies to repair wounds in seconds. The leader of my resistance there could pull the metal from the earth with a wave of his hand. His wife could fly, was bulletproof, and could literally bury a man into the ground with one punch. I fought alongside one person who could control the weather and another who could touch things and make their atoms vibrate so violently that they exploded. And when children were found who could do all these wondrous things, a man who could make himself into metal and a woman who could take his hand and make him so light he could walk on molecules taught those children how to master the gifts God gave them at birth, but turned on as they began to grow into ad. Yo. You are like I am, and as they were. You are more powerful than you or anyone else has given you credit for, Suzanne.”

Her eyes were wide and watery now. When she spoke, her voice was a choked whisper. “But there has been no one to teach me. And even if there were, I don’t think I can do what you’re asking me to do.”

“Doubt is the poison that holds us down, and fear the mind killer. Let me teach you. Just for today. And then you can decide for yourself if you are ready to try.”

The silence in the room was tense. It seemed like everyone was holding their breath. After several minutes of silent de, Se, Suzanne nodded and uncurled herself from the tangle of limbs she’s contorted herself into. “Okay,” she said quietly. “I am willing to learn what you can teach me.”

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Teaching Suzanne was more difficult than I thought it would be. Peter was easy – he already knew a surprising amount about how to kill people or disable them using his preferred weapons, and his tactics would not be far removed from mine when all was said and done. Working on something concrete and tangible was much easier for me than walking someone through how to use a Mutant power they’d never explored before. I suddenly had a lot more respect for what Piotre and Kat did with their lives.

“You mean you’ve just allowed your power to happen to you? You’ve never played with it before?” I blinked in surprise.

“No. It scares me . . . so much of it is overwhelming to me.” She suddenly seemed like a child instead of the aloof woman I’d known before. “When it happens it isn’t just a vague notion of what will happen. I see it. I taste and smell and hear everything. It’s like what’s going to happen is already happening when I see it.”

“How do you know when it’s your ability, then?”

“It’s . . . overlaid somehow. Like a photograph that has been double exposed. I see what’s going on at that moment in a more solid way, and what will happen on top of it in a more transparent way. But it’s just as real to me as everything else.” She looked down to fiddle with the hem of her blouse.

“Hmm.” I nodded. “Is this the only ‘strange’ thing you can do?”

Suzanne blushed. “Sometimes it’s almost like I can hear what people are thinking. There have even been a few times when I’ll answer someone and they’ll look at me oddly and tell me they hadn’t said anything.” She kept fingering her clothing. “And I seem to be very sensitive to what people are feeling. If someone is very upset or angry, I become sick to my stomach. When people around me are afraid, I become skittish. When they’re happy, it feels like I’m wrapped in a big blanket, it’s very warm somehow.” She continued in a low voice, “You gave off a very interesting combination when you asked me about Miriam.”

Now I was blushing. “Es tut mir leid [I’m sorry].”

“It’s okay,” she shrugged. “You didn’t know . . .”

“Well, where to start with you . . .” I trailed off for a moment. “Do you know com common factors the others who have accepted the Metatron had? What gifts they shared?”

“They all seemed to be in tune with what people were feeling and thinking, from what I’ve been told. They’re described in the legends as compassionate and giving people, but also as a little loopy. They made people nervous.”

“Let’s work on that, then. Go ahead and clear your mind.” She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths to do this; I made my mind a blank slate almost effortlessly, the result of Jean’s work on telepathic shielding. “Now,” my voice was soft, “what am I thinking about?”

Silence for a moment, then, “There’s a small house, a cottage, really . . . mountains nearby, but I can’t see them. Trees, a forest. It’s sunny outside, and warm . . . birds are singing to one another . . . you’re looking at a woman with blue skin and red hair and eyes like yours. She’s sitting under a tree with a book. She’s happy. You’ve come to her with a large person, someone you respect. He has blonde hair and brown eyes and – and claws . . .”

I kept my eyes steady and the picture of my childhood in my mind as she started at dad’s description. “What else, Suzanne? What else am I thinking?”

“You’re so small next to him, but you’re also very happy. You and he just returned from the river. You caught a lot of fish today, enough for the rest of the week. Your father is proud of you, and you’re happy that he’s proud. You’ve come to show your mother the good job you did. You know she’ll be proud, too.”

I let the memory drop. Suzanne’s eyes fluttered open and she blinked a few times.

“Was I right?” She licked her lips nervously.

“On every detail,” I smiled. “How do you feel?”

“I have a headache all of a sudden.” She blinked a few times.

I reached over to the table nearby and handed her the bottle of aspirin. “I thought you might. That’s normal when you first start to try using them.”

She smiled wanly and downed a few pills. “Should we keep going?”

“If you’re up for it,” I answered. She nodded her assent so I tried a different angle.

“Oh, no pictures this time?” She bit her lip.

I kept quiet except for the thoughts I focused upon.

“You are only coming through in waves,” her voice lilted with the melody I remeed. ed. “Your lips move, but I can’t her what you’re saying . . .” She broke off abruptly with a laugh. “What an odd song!”

“What?” I asked innocently.

She tilted her head and looked at me curiously. “What was the fleeting glimpse of?”

“I understand he did a lot of drugs. Could have been anything.” I silently mused that she should have seen the movie the way I had – high on pot and drinking a beer.

“Why do you need to be stoned while watching it?” she asked.

I grinned. “I didn’t say anything.”

Her eyes grew wide. “I’m sorry!”

“Don’t be!” I laughed, delighted. “That’s a good sign . . . Ready for another one?”

“Sure,” she smiled shyly.

“Your telepathy probably goes both ways—“

“What’s telepathy?”

“Talking with thoughts. It should go both ways,” I continued. “Try sending me something now.”

“Um, okay . . .” She frowned a little bit before closing her eyes again.

I lowered my mental shields and saw what she was sharing. “You’re in a very large room, the windows are open to the air and the curtains are billowing out in the breeze . . .” I owedowed my eyes as though that would help me somehow. “There is a desk and oil paintings on the walls. Lots of books behind the desk, and a leather chair. The man sitting there is not happy with you.” I frowned; she was also sending her emotions with the memory. “You didn’t mean to scare your brother like that, but you don’t understand why your faths sos so upset. He is saying something to you in French . . .” The scene faltered for a moment while she translated for me. My eyes grew wide at what was said. “Ach, Suzanne . . .”

The scene faded as she stopped broadcasting. She sniffed and looked off to a corner of the room, biting her lip. “He threw me out after that. He thought I was a disgrace to the family.”

“I’m sorry,” I said quietly. I hadn’t expected her to share something so personal with me. We sat quietly for a moment.

“Reaor aor another go?” she asked once she was calm again.

We practiced her telepathy for another hour or so, took a break, and went on to her empathic ability. She was able several times to combine them – unintentionally at first, then later in the evening she could do it at will. When we broke for breakfast she thanked me telepathically for the lessons.

“Do you feel more confident with them now?”

“Yes, I do.” She smiled at me. “It’s been . . . educational.”

I certainly thought it had been. I’d only shared more of my background with Miriam in this world . . . but Suzanne had shared quite a bit as well. As I contemplated this I realized I wasn’t uncomfortable around her anymore. I also realized that as weirded out as I’d been with her, most everyone else probably felt that way about me.

“Not everyone,” Suzanne smiled, half-formed thoughts of girl talk with Magdalena dancing across my synapses.

I looked sharply over my shoulder at her as I slammed down the mental defenses I should have put back up right away. Maybe she “heard” them go down – she had a shocked look on her face as soon as they were in place again.

“What?” she asked nervously.

I looked aheadin ain and said just loud enough for her to hear, “I don’t want details on what you two discussed, do I?”

Suzanne hesitated. “No, you probably don’t,” she finally answered.

“How did it go?” Mathias was waiting for us in the dining roon ann anxious look on his face.

“Really well!” Suz beamed at him.

I excused myself from the conversation on the premise that there was sure to be religious aspects to discuss that I shouldn’t be in on. Minutes later I was sitting at one end of a half-occupied table to eat, Peter sitting across from me with a plate of his own.

“You look funny. You okay, mate?” Peter chewed and swallowed something as he studied me.

I nodded and stirred my coffee. “Ja, I’m just tired.”

“Yeah, okay.” He saw through my excuse but knew better than to pry. We ate in silence and when we were done I tried to meditate, trying to get the snatches of Magda’s repeated words out of my head.

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We were walking through the sewage systems underneath Berlin a few hours later, after we’d had time to formulate a plan. Our group was small to minimize casualties. The way Marius figured it we wouldn’t need more than we had if the plan succeeded and if it didn’t, it was a lesser loss to the Sicarii. Peter had insisted on coming with me; we were joined by one of Jonathan’s spies, two other assassins for crowd control, Suzanne, and Mathias. The idea was very simple: the spy would show us the way, Peter and the assassins would keep the Nazis busy, and I would teleport the two clerics into the makeshift prison. Once we were in Mathias would walk Suz through the incantation one last time and ideally she would be able to get us all out of there and back to headquarters.

“There, just past the upcoming bend in the tunnels,” our guide whispered to us. “There were about thirty guards stationed last night. Good luck to you.”

The man slipped away, backtracking our route. I looked over the small group. “Ready?”

“Aye,” Peter nodded, his sentiment shared by everyone else.

“Let’s go.” We’d agreed before hand that I would give them the diversion they were probably expecting, and that once they realized we were there I would ‘port back and grab the clergy. I bamfed into their midst, swords at the ready, and killed a handful right off the bat. “Lovely morning, gentlemen!” I grinned as I kept them looking around and guessing. They began shouting orders at one another, their instructions becoming more frenzied as my backup arrived. Once they were all engaged I bounded from the battle to the shelter provided by the curve in the sewer tunnels, grabbed Suz and Mathias by their arms, and bamfed us into the middle of a crowd of very shocked captives.

“Okay, everyone. Please, settle down . . .” Mathias was addressing the group, quieting them to explain what it was we intended to do. I ignored the staring and gaping of those immediately able to see me in favor of watching Suzanne work. She looked very nervous so I walked over and spoke quietly to her.

“Fear is the mind killer.” I kept my voice firm and steady but calm enough so that she could still concentrate on her spell. “Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear.” I now noticed that she’d begun standing taller and was tilting her face towards the streets above us. “I will permit it to pass over me and through me,” I continued quoting. The air around me grew very warm very quickly and I could barely see a reddish glow surrounding her. “And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.” The glow grew stronger as she raised her hands above her head. “Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”

I jumped back when the fire burst forth from her, my eyes wide with shocked concern. I quickly realized that the fire wasn’t consuming her, however. It merely seemed to be dancing around her. She lowered her arms, dropped her gaze back to our plane, and then glanced over her shoulder in the direction of the battle raging without. She wordlessly extended a hand towards the newly erected brick wall, turning it into melted slag so that she could see past to the fight. Then she sent forth from that same hand a plume of fire that almost looked like a hand itself and used it to pull our own towards us.

It was singularly the most amazing and destructive and beautiful thing I’d ever seen. I was in awe, complete and total awe – it was a feeling I’d long ago given up for lost. Suzanne extended her arms out to the sides as though inviting a huge group hug and in response the fire around her grew and expanded to encompass us all. The resulting heat began melting the bricks around us and as the Nazis looked on in a mixture of disbelief, fear, and astonishment they began to become trapped in the lava. Some of them noticed this before the bubbling remains of the walls reached them; they were still of mind enough to begin running. I missed the looks on the faces of the ones who couldn’t run; a tongue of flame wrapped around me and covered the whole of my vision in a collage of reds and oranges. The warmth was surprisingly pleasant to me, but before I could actually register this thought I was being unwrapped from the fire and saw the Cabal’s common room before me.

I took a deep breath and exhaled sharply, astonished to see that all of the captives as well as all of the Sicarii seemed to have been transported alive and intact. I turned to find Suzanne, intending to compliment her on a job well done, when I saw the flames shrink back into the red glow. It faded quickly, the last remnants visible in her eyes, an eerie flicker of supernatural power that faded into smoke as though it were a snuffed candle.

“Oh, shit!” One of the assassins barely caught her as she began to fall. Her eyes had rolled back and she’d begun convulsing once the Metatron left her; Mathias was there in an instant, barking orders and calling over any available priest or priestess to help him tend to her. I was pushed away as was everyone else, so all I could do was watch as they carried her away to another part of the Cabal and hope she would survive.

“I’ve only got two words to say about wot just happened,” Peter’s voice came from my left side. “Bloody . . . fuckin’ . . . Hell.”

I nodded my agreement slowly, the excited chatter of the crowd reduced to so much meaningless static.

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The rest of my morning and most of my afternoon were taken up with the assigned task of processing our new friends. All five hundred and eighty-two of themhad had help of course, but it was still a trying job to undertake. Families were gathered back together, names taken down and recorded, interviews conducted to determine who among them wished to join the Sicarii now that they had nowhere else to go. Compounding the difficulty of it was the fact that many of them had heard of me before today and wanted to meet me. Each new recruit who had to talk to me about the contributions they could bring with them had to endure delays each time someone wanted to shake my hand, thank me for answering their prayers, or any other manifestation of such nonsense. I ate my lunch without taking a break for it, gulping down bites of bread and pirated luncheon meat between questions.

“How many in your party?” Chomp, chew, swallow.

“Five,” the man answered.

I looked up and noted a wife and three kids. “Any formal training in combat practices?” Chomp, chew, swallow.

“Not unless you count bar fights.”

I marked down a No. “Any trade skills?”

“I have skills as a carpenter. I’ve also done a bit of plumbing in my time, too.”

I wrote this down as well. “See Aemelie next,” I pointed to the girl next down the line from me, handing the man the paper I’d just been writing on. “She’ll assign you to your sleeping quarters.”

“Thank you.” He tried to hide his interest in my deformities as he took the file from me. I said nothing about it as it was so frequent that it wasn’t worth wasting the energy to comment on. I must have seen that not-discreet-enough glance a million times already today; it was all I could do to keep from being overtly rude to them at this point. I turned my attention to the next person coming my way and readied another sheet, trying to ignore the whining voice of the last man’s smallest child. He was no more than three – that annoying age when everything is me me mew now now now.

“Stop crying, Uwe. We’ll get to eat soon.” He’d picked up the child to try to sooth him, but to no avail. The child kept crying, complaining that his tummy hurt from being empty for so long.

My mistake was looking up to glare at them for not keeping the boy quiet. He was red-faced and wet with tears, and staring with undisguised hunger at the remaining half of my lunch. I forced myself to look back at my papers, to ask another question, but couldn’t get through half the answer before my guilt consumed me. It wasn’t like I didknowknow what it was like to be a starving child; that one winter outside of Karlsruhe, when the famine killed off the game and the surrounding towns and villages were so eager to kill me and mom and dad that they were sending scouting parties into the mountains after us, had left us all the worst for the wear. I was not much oldean tan this boy, six years old then, and so malnourished by the time Spring came that I’d begun to develop Scurvy.

“Here,” I sighed, reaching over to the next line with my tail, holding the food up to the boy. His father looked at me with surprise and asked if I were sure. “Ja, I’m sure.” I felt Uwe’s little fingers brush against my tail as he took the sandwich from me. He took a tentative bite, nibbling at the bologna before taking a larger bite that silenced his crying. “I was there once, too.”

“God bless you, sir,” Uwe’s mother smiled at me. “You’ll be in my prayers tonight.”

I caught sight of the star around her neck and smiled tightly. “Kein problem [No problem]. Good luck to you.”

I finally got a break from the processing duties at about six o’clock that night. I retreated to my private quarters to have an undisturbed stretch, pulling as many of the kinks and knots out of my frame as I could. Then I threw my clothes to a corner of the floor and headed for the shower. I’d been given the rest of the night off – probably because Marius recognized I’d kill someone if I had to endure one more kid grabbing my tail to see if I was as fuzzy as I looked – but I was too anxious to waste the time listening to the radio programs or gambling at cards or dice, or even to attempt catching back up on my sleep despite my obvious need for it. I’d been dying to see Miriam. My stomach flip-flopped as I thought about her. Was she hurt? Was she ill? Suzanne had said she’d never been wrong in her premonitions, and I still remembered her disquieting comment about how I’d wish she were dead when I found her. I couldn’t imagine wishing for her death . . .

Just what had Suz seen?

I pushed the thoughts away forcefully. I had not come all this way to just give up on her. No matter what happened, I could never wish her to be gone like that. Not even if she changed her mind, said the Nazis were swell guys, and she didn’t want to come with me. No, I’d arrive at her home and take her away with me and, with luck, the affection she’d hinted at before would still be there. At the very least she’d be free to do as she wished.

I had just finished dressing and was brushing my teeth when Peter slipped in, heading for the bathroom with the same intent as I’d had earlier.

“Goin’ out to the club tonight, eh?” he called over the running water.

“If that’s what you call downtown apartments,” I hollered back. “I’m going after Miriam tonight. Since you’ve been bothering me incessantly about her all this time, I suppose you can tag along if you want.”

“Right generous of you, Governor,” he answered as the room filled with steam again. “I’m honored.”

I rolled my eyes, spat one last time into the sink, and sat on my bed to wait for him. I was disturbed moments later by the sound of someone rapping on my door.

“It never ends,” I mumbled as I got up to answer. Magda was waiting on the other side, a small smile on her face at the sight of me. I slipped out into the hallway to find out what she wanted.

“I heard about your lunch.” Her smile grew a bit wider. “That was very sweet of you to do.”

“How is Suzanne doing?” I changed the subject before it had time to grow legs. The look in Magda’s eyes made me uncomfortable; it was too soft somehow.

Magda’s smile became strained. “We’re not sure yet. She’s not dead, so I suppose that’s at least a little promising. She’s in a coma from the looks of things.”

I sighed heavily and looked at the ground. I had been afraid that she wouldn’t be able to handle it. If there had been time, if it had been up to me, she would have been trained sooner, she wouldn’t have been thrown into this . . . but on the other hand, she’d known the risk she was taking. She’d decided she was ready to take it on. No one had twisted her arm, no one had said she had to go in and free all those people. If there wasn’t a way to do it, it would have been seen as a terrible but regretful loss. No blame would have been passed on her or anyone else. I groaned inwardly when it finally hit me that if Suz died from the experience my political dealings around here would become very unstable. Especially if I brought in mouth number five-eighty-three to feed tonight.

“It’s not your fault,” Magdalena said quietly, studying me carefully. “You saw a solution and tried to help implement it. That’s part of your job.”

“I know,” I sighed.

The door opened and Peter emerged, freshly scrubbed and, for once, looking half-way presentable. “Ready whenever you are, fearless leader.”

“Oh! You’re going out?” Magda’s wide eyes blinked.

“Well, I did stop in Berlin with an end in mind,” I reminded her, my unease growing as her face fell a little before she caught herself. “There’s not another crisis in the works, is there?”

“No,” she blushed a little. “I just – never mind.” She turned a deeper shade of red. “I’ll see you when you get back.” She forced a smile and walked quickly down the hall and away from us.

I took a deep breath as I watched her retreating form. This only fed my growing suspicions, and I didn’t like those suspicions in the least.

“I give it about two days,” Peter shook his head. He was watching her too. “And I get to charge admission. You’ll get a cut, of course, seein’ as how you’re the prize and all.”

I turned to look at him, noting the way he tried with all his might to keep the smirk from growing into a full grin. “Shut up,” I sighed. “For once, just shut up.”

“Wotever you say, Governor.”

I ignored it when the choked laughter came a half a minute later.

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My heart was pounding as I turned the last corner before my destination, my thoughts veering off in a million different directions. Only one thing was in focus: Miriam was alive and I’d be with her again soon. The butterflies assaulted my stomach once more and I tried to keep them at bay. Only a few meters more and we’d be there . . .

I looked up at the windows, counting them to match the blueprints I’d seen earlier of her building. There, that balcony had to be hers. I willed myself to the underside of the balcony above hers and peeked inside. Ach, she was changing out of her clothes – that had started a nasty fight once before; I wasn’t about to pick that fight twice. I waited a few moments before peeking in again. She was in a different dress now. I swallowed nervously, went back to the street for Peter, and teleported us inside.

The expression on her face when she turned the corner to investigate the sudden noise in her previously empty apartment shifted rapidly from shock to delighted surprise. I felt faint with relief when she rushed me to throw herself into my arms, burying her face in my neck and telling me she was glad I was safe. She was happy to see me . . . I inhaled her scent as I held her tightly, never wanting to let her go.

This was it. I’d finally found her. She seemed okay – no injuries, no sign of illness – and my emotions soared again. She was okay! We were going to be okay. We pulled apart a few minutes later and I introduced her to Peter. To my surprise he had nothing smart-assed to say, just shook her hand and even went so far as to call her “ma’am”. But all the rest could wait, the catching up and the story I’d surely have to tell to satisfy the burning curiosity in her eyes when I mentioned the word “apprentice”; I told her we’d head back as soon as she grabbed a few things to take with her.

Then the bomb dropped.

“What do you mean you’ve been marked? By whom?” I was suddenly very apprehensive. Whoever it was had obviously scared her.

“Have you heard of the Sicarii?” she asked in a small voice.

Peter and I looked at one another, comprehension hitting us both at the same time. “Yes, we have,” I answered slowly. “What do you mean, they marked you?” I didn’t like the sound of this at all. Something was very wrong – the insistence that I take out the Chancellor, the sudden capture of all those people so soon after I got done with the job, the need for me to work with all of the refugees despite numbers enough to not be hampered by one missing person, the push to get here so fast in the last few days at Marius’ insistence . . .

“She’s the informant Klaus told us about,” Peter’s voice wavered, his expression one of dulled horror. He looked like he was in the process of working something out that he didn’t want to find an answer for.

“Yes,” Miriam nodded. “I’ve been . . . persuaded to gather information for them. They implanted me with a tracker and told me that if I ran they’d hunt me down and kill me.”

I felt ice sprea thr through my body. “When did this happen?”

“Last night, just before they executed the Chancellor.”

I felt like I was going to vomit. All this time I’d been asking about her and they chose to take notice all of a sudden right when I get to Berlin? But why?? Why Miriam? Why wait until now?

“She was too vague, wasn’t she?” Peter sounded pissed off as he spoke of Suzanne, his fingertips dancing over the hilts of his knives.

“Or I’m too God damned dense.” The nausea got worse when I realized just how badly I’d fucked up, even with her help. She’d told me to hurry, but she hadn’t meant to get the message to Miriam that I was coming. Suz had meant to drop everything and go get her, my forced insomnia and Marius and all the rest of the Sicarii be damned. But disobeying an order, especially one of the magnitude I’d been given that night, would have gotten me thrown out and both of us hunted anyway. Something was nagging at me, a piece of the puzzle that my mind simply refused to recognize at that moment. “Did they say anything at all about why they chose to tap you?”

“Not really.” Miriam stood beside me in the chair I couldn’t remember sitting in and reached for my hand, squeezing gently. “All they said is they were tipped off by someone called The Ghost.”

Until that comment I hadn’t thought it would be possible to feel any more ill and not display a physical manifestation of it; but that’s what happened for a split second. I doubted McMurray would have said anything, and I hadn’t told anyone else except Rohleder that I was going after Miriam—Of course. That queer look and funny smile when we parted ways on the beach . . . she’d gotten me back in a very big way for my reaction to her advance on me.

There was a reason Dad had always said “frails are anything but.”

“You’ve got that look like you’re about to hang someone by their entrails,” Peter observed, taking a small step back from me. “Who’s The Ghost?”

“The Ghost is a ship, not a person.” The icy feeling inside me had changed into churning hot anger. “But I know exactly who tipped them off, and if she’s lucky that’s the least I’ll do to her for this.”

“Ah, anyone want some coffee?” Miriam asked nervously. Peter accepted but I declined. I was wide awake for the first time in days; any more coffee and that’s all that would be running through my veins. She excused herself to go brew a pot, leaving Peter and me alone in her living room.

“Johnny’s Ghost?” Peter asked quietly after a moment.

“Was [What]?” I looked at him, eyes narrowing.

“The ship. It’s Johnny’s Ghost you’re talkin’ about?”

“What makes you say that?”

“I’ve heard of them.” He shrugged. “You said you crossed over from New York, and I know the captain goes there from Spain quite a bit.”

I nodded but offered no other answer.

“Who was it that ratted her out?”

“She called herself Rohleder.”

“Yank, about your height, blonde with brown eyes?”

“You know her?”

Peter’s expression was sour. “Aye, I met her. Never did like her.”

I laughed humorlessly and shook my head.

“I’ll hold her down when you find her,” he offered in all apparent seriousness. “But in the meantime, you might want to check on Miriam. I think you scared her.”

“Ja, you’re probably right,” I grunted as I got to my feet. I found her at her kitchen counter, leaning over the wood and looking tired. I softly closed the door behind me and announced myself by apologizing to her.

“You have a right to be angry if someone betrayed you,” she answered in an equally quiet tone.

“That’s no excuse.” I slowly closed the gap between us, gauging her reaction as I did so. “I’m sorry,” I apologized again.

She leaned heavily against the counter and stared at the floor. “It’s so damn unfair,” she started, her shoulders slumped and her nose starting to turn red with the need to cry. “I didn’t think you’d come for me but you did and now I can’t—“

My heart cracked at her confession. And she was right – what had happened to us had been unfair – but all we could do was figure out how to move forward in the face of it. “Life isn’t fair, liebe [love],” I stated, my tail pushing up slightly on her chin so she’d look at me. “But I think we both learned that a long time ago, nein?” I felt the beginnings of tears too and the feeling only got stronger when I saw the tears standing in her eyes. When her lips started to tremble I brushed her cheek with my fingertips as I had the night this all started in that deserted church halfway across the world from us. She threw herself into my arms again, sobbing freely as I wrapped my arms around her and rocked her gently. I couldn’t think of anything comforting to say so I kissed and caressed and held her tight, focusing on her so that one of us was strong for the time being. Once we were alone and safe I could tell her everything that had been rolling around my brain, and I could listen to everything she had to let go of . . . She stopped crying when I ran my tail up and down her back in broad sweeps, and after a few minutes of this I decided she probably needed to laugh as much as I needed to hear her laugh. I smiled a little when she jerked at the touch behind her ear and held her close so she couldn’t squirm away. I had her giggling in short order and, as I’d hoped, it lightened the mood significantly.

“You and that tail are an evil combination, mister.” Her eyes were still a touch red around the edges but were twinkling a little now. She ran her fingers through my hair as she smiled up at me.

I weaved my tail in her peripheral vision in a jest of menace. “You’re just upset that you had to beg for mercy again,” I grinned.

“You think I’m upset about that?”

I shivered at the way she traced the contour of my ear, an intimate contact that left no doubt for me now as to how she’d wanted our friendship to start going. “Are you upset about something else?” I murmured and leaned into her touch, intending to kiss her lips.

“Disappointed is more like it.” She turned her head and kissed my ear lobe while ruffling the fur at the back of my neck, earning my gasp at the sudden pleasure. “Shame on you for teasing me and running off,” she taunted me in a throaty whisper as she lightly knotte hai hair in her fingers.

“It’s only teasing if there’s no payoff. But if you want a good teasing . . .” I slid my tail under her skirt and around her thigh, squeezing lightly. She trembled a little and I wondered if her knees were going to give out on her; I held her firmly around her hips, my thumbs tracing the curve of her waist.

“I want more than teasing from you, but there are children in the house.”

I made a point of moaning in disappointment as I released her leg. “Later then. I promise.” I let go of her hips to slide my touch up to her back, my lips meeting hers in a tender kiss. She responded favorably and parted her lips to dart her tongue over mine; I accepted the silent request this time and kissed her deeply, closing my eyes as I let myself get lost in her. She pressed into me and I held her tightly to me, my hands massaging her back through her dress as she deepened the kiss even further. My God, she was so passionate . . . all the emotions I’d been holding back came forward and I actually felt a little light-headed when we pulled apart several minutes later. I bowed my head and touched my forehead to hers, gazing deeply into her green eyes. “Ich liebe dich [I love you],” I admitted, my heart warming when she returned the endearment.

“We should go back out there.” Miriam smiled and blushed as she turned to the cupboards for coffee mugs.

“I think we should just have Peter watch television for the rest of the night,” I laughed, searching her refrigerator.

“He won’t be upset?” She filled three cups with what smelled like somed ofd of flavored blend.

“He’s a tough kid, he’ll deal with it,” I assured her, sliding my arms around her tummy and pouring cream into a mug for myself. “How do you take yours?” I hovered the carton over the next mug in a way that kept my tail away from the steam. She began to laugh and made a choking sound as she cut herself off. I could imagine the thoughts that made her laugh. “Your coffee, you lecherous wench!”

“I’ll tell you when,” she giggled. “And where do you get off calling me lecherous?”

“I’ve tried to behave around you, so I’ll forgive you for not knowing I have awards hanging on the gutter walls.” I nibbled her ear as I finished topping off her coffee. She took a deep breath and leaned back, letting me support her weight. “I can send him home if you like,” I offered softly.

“I’ll think about She She turned her head and made a happy noise when I stole another kiss from her. “Mmm . . . there’s only one problem.”

“What’s that?”

“I don’t know your name. I think we’re past pseudonyms, don’t you?” She smiled and headed for the kitchen door, coffee in hand, and I followed her.

“You’ve got me there, liebchen. My name’s Kurt—“ My eyes went wide as she opened the door and I grabbed her around the waist again, more roughly this time as I teleported us to the back of the kitchen out of instinct. I was distantly aware of the ceramic shattering on the tiles but ignored that in favor of watching our uninvited guests come in after us.

“What? What is it?” Miriam sounded afraid and stayed behind me, peeking over my shoulder.

“That’s exactly what we’ve been asking for some time now,” someone answered her from behind the wall of SS who’d rushed the kitchen to crowd us. “I’m surprised, Miriam. You’re so vanilla with me that I never dreamed you were into beastiality.”

So this was Erich Heidelmann. I drew my swords and prepared for the fight ahead of us, ignoring his slight against us both for the moment. I’d take care of him later.

“You’re standing between me and my property,” Heidelmann continued with barely restrained contempt. “Step aside and I won’t order them to kill the boy.”

I watched as they brought Peter in, his limp form draped over the arms of two soldiers. Another one drew his pistol and held it to his hereadready to fire.

“Go ahead,” I grinned, seeing Peter’s subtle wink. “He’s a pain in my ass. You’ll be doing me a favor.”

“And I thought the Sicarii had more loyalty to their own.” The man was obviously amused by this and had a peculiar glint in his eye. There was something else behind his words and my mind raced as I tried to figure out what that was. “You heard it. Kill him.”

The pistol went off, Peter twisted out of its path and slashed across the man’s wrist with the blade he’d been palming, and then planted two more of his blades into the men nearest to him. Heidelmann shouted orders to kill us but leave Miriam breathing before running from the action; Peter and I engaged the soldiers and took them down within minutes. As soon as the last one was down I went after Heidelmann, who was outside the apartment now and looking around as though expecting backup troops that hadn’t arrived. I grabbed hold of him rontront of the frightened and bewildered neighbors who’s peeked into the hall to see what the commotion was about and dragged him back into the apartment.

Miriam and Peter were waiting in the living room and Heidelmann wasted no time unloading his contempt on Miriam. He seemed so convinced that he’d given her some kind of gift by purchasing her like a slab of meat and using her as he saw fit. But Miriam wasn’t about to have any of it now that she was free to speak her mind, and she threw back at him with as much fire as he’d dealt her. When sas das done I told her that he was hers to deal with; she asked for one of my swords and I passed one to her. She didn’t do a bad job on him considering my blades were too heavy for her to wield properly; he died relatively quickly and with minimal fuss.

“Don’t know about you,” Peter commented after Heidelmann was dead, “but I’m a tad bothered by the fact that no one’s come up after these blokes.”

“They’re probably waiting until we get outside,” I speculated. “I just don’t understand why he came here with them.”

“He probably wanted to see you for himself,” Miriam answered. “He liked to take risks, probably thought he was bulletproof.”

“Idiot,” I sneered at his corpse and resheathed my sword. “But Peter’s right, we need to get moving. Where can we stop on our way home?”

Peter was already going to look out Miriam’s windows. “You have to see where you’re goin’, aye?” He pulled the curtain back a crack and recoiled in shock. “Bloody Hell but there’s a lot of cops down there!” He let go of the fabric and turned to face us again. “The closest safe house is about five kilometers from here, due east as the crow flies.”

“What about the Sicarii?” Miriam piped up, visibly nervous again. “They’re sure to notice I’ve gone.”

“Even Marius can’t deny we had to get you out of here, gel. If he tries to give us Hell, too bloody bad I say.”

“Who’s Marius?”

“My boss.” Just thinking about him pissed me off. “We need to have a long talk. I asked about you all over Europe but no one knew who you were. He would have been the one to approve you as a source of information, which means he told the others to keep quiet for some reason.”

“You joined the Sicarii?” Miriam’s eyes were as wide as saucers. “But why?”

“I didn’t think they were assholes at the time,” I answered truthfully as I took them both by the hand and teleported. We came out into a band of men wearing armor and bearing guns, and they opened fire on us before the smoke even cleared. I didn’t even think about it until I’d started to jump us around the area, the smoke and bullets making it more dangerous for them than it did for us simply because I could see through all of this but they could not. Once I was sure they’d killed some of their own and wouldn’t be able to radio any others with the direction we were heading, I turned us back to the east and ‘ported again. The same scene met us and I swore a long line of silent invective. They knew where we were and where we had intended to go, so I asked if they had any ideas where to head now.

“Sorry mate, not a one for you—“ Peter’s words dropped off as he became dead weight, falling out of my grasp and onto the pavement to my right. It was then that I felt several sharp impacts in time with the crack of the guns and looked over at Miriam.

“Kurt?” She was gasping for air and had panic in her voice; she reached for me as I stumbled and landed on my knees.

Despite being flooded with adrenaline, the contents of the darts was so strong that what little I’d already metabolized was affecting my body. I too was gasping for air now and I felt panic knife at me when my muscles trembled under the weight of my own body. “I tried, liebe,” I managed to croak out before she crumpled to the asphalt, her eyes sliding closed. I was trying without any great success to pull the darts from my back with my tail, but that took too much concentration for me to sustain it for long. And even though I was unable to move in any kind of controlled way I was still getting hit with the damn things. My eyes stopped working as my limbs turned to jelly and I lost consciousness before I even hit the ground.

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I sighed and rolled over, the sheet moving over my hips as I laid on my side. The bed was soft and warm; the pillow beneath my head smelled faintly of some kind of scented soap. I must have been very tired to not remember returning to Dorian’s home; but if I were here with the sunlight warming my body and a peaceful silence surrounding me, things couldn’t be too bad. I reached out drowsily with my tail to find Miriam (she was here, surely) but encountered no other bodies besides my own. Hm, must have gotten up to use the bathroom. I yawned leisurely and settled back into the bedding. It felt so good to be somewhere clean and well-kept for a change; I intended to enjoy it for as long as I could.

I woke up again when I felt someone playing with my hair. I smiled slowly and reached up my tail to lightly caress her hand. “Guten morgen, liebchen [Good morning, sweetheart],” I murmured, assuming it was still before noon. “Wie gehts [How are you (informal)]?”

“I’m good. Did you sleep well?” Miriam’s voice sounded a little funny, a bit deeper than normal. Had she caught a cold on the ride back across the Atlantic?

“Ja,” I shifted again. “I’m not ready to get up, though. Why don’t you come back to bed, Miri?” Miri? I’d never used a nickname with her before but she didn’t seem to mind. She slid into bed behind me, spooning me so that her left arm was around my middle and her breath was on my bare shoulder. “Mmm, you feel good . . .” I wrapped my tail around her leg. Oh, she was already dressed! Ambitious woman, already prepared to take on the day . . . I leaned back into her and smiled a little wider.

“We’ve certainly been through a lot lately, haven’t we?” she asked as she played with my fur.

“Mmm-hmm,” I agreed. “But it’s over now.”

“What about the Sicarii?”

“Ach,” I sighed. I still had to deal with Marius, apparently. But what had happened? How did we end up back in New York? Were we on the run from them? I’d figure it out later after I had a cup of coffee. “Peted I d I will deal with them later, don’t worry about it.”

“How did you join them, anyway?” She laid her cheek against my shoulder.

“Someone on the Ghost told me they’d help me find you.” My eyes were still closed as I spoke. “So when I got to Madrid I ran into Peter and his brother, and they took me to the head guy there.”

“What’s the Ghost?”

“Johnny’s Ghost. It was the submarine I crossed to Europe on.”

“Oh, okay.” She traced small circles over my stomach. “And they just let you in?”

“Nein, I had to do a job for them first.” I shrugged. “After that I was in, had to take another job to get to Berlin, though.”

“What job was that?” She kissed my shoulder softly, her lips moving slowly down to my arm.

“Escorted refugees on their way to Siberia.” I yawned and took her hand in mine. “They figured that if I was going to be going that way, I ought to be doing something for them.”

“Makes sense,” she slid her hand out from under mine, back up to my side, and to the waistband of my pajama pants. “And they knew where I was, hm?”

“You know they knew; they just didn’t tell me. I got a lead on you through someone I met in a bar.” I started in surprise when her hand moved to another part of my anatomy.

“Anyone I’d know?” She was teasing me through the fabric, distracting me from answering. “Well?” Her voice held laughter as she touched me.

“Singer named Christopher,” I whispered, thoroughly enjoying what she was doing. I moved to roll over so I could see her as she seduced me.

“No, not yet.” She kissed my shoulder again, her actions eliciting a moan from me. “Chris told you where to find me? I didn’t realize he knew where I lived.”

“He didn’t.” I moved myself into her hand. “Gave me his address so I could find you. Was someone else in the group who told me where to find you.”

“Who told you?”

Her touch was more firm, the rhythm of it driving me insane. I shivered in delight and used my tail to touch her the way I had only once before, earning a surprised gasp from her. “A priestess there,” I answered after I heard her sigh happily.

“Your priestess?” She lightened her touch to keep me teetering on the edge.

My heart pounded in my ears and I sped up my own pace in retaliation. “Nein, not Magdalena. That one’s name is Suzanne.”

Miriam pressed against me as my tail worked on her. She danced her fingertips over me again, and her voice was almost as labored as mine now. “What’s Magdalena like? Is she nice?”

“I don’t want to think about her right now,” I whispered as a wave of guilt passed over me.

“What do you want to think about?” Her throaty whisper floated across my ear.

“Making you come again.” I was rewarded with her noises of pleasure and a renewed interest in my own anatomy.

“Race you for it.” She slid her hand inside my clothing, nuzzling her face in my shoulder as I pulled out the last stops in response to her challenge.

Moments later we were both sated and lying together, Miriam still spooning me as we basked in the afterglow. She’d brought me there first, which meant she’d won . . . but with that kind of a contest, there really wasn’t any losing, was there? I took her hand in mine again, leading it to my lips so I could kiss her fingers as I voiced my affections. This was so nice, this was how life should be . . . I moaned in protest when she moved away later, the shifting of the bed rousing me out of my light sleep.

“Go back to sleep, honey,” she murmured and kissed my temple. “Peter’s waiting for me.”

“Okay,” I yawned. “Save me some coffee.”

“I will.” She tousled my hair before leaving. After the door clicked shut behind her I settled into my pillow and dropped back off to sleep.

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I was very groggy when I woke again later. I forced my eyes open and found a needle in my arm, which was attached to an IV drip nearby. I blinked in confusion and looked around to find where the beeping in the room was coming from. It was a heart monitor, the cuff wrapped around my bicep.

“Was zum Teufel [What the Hell] . . . ?” The room wasn’t the one I’d stayed in the last time I was here, although it was still furnished very nicely. I saw sunlight shine on polished wooden floors and looked over the edge of the bed to see a rug waiting for me if I chose to get up. The bedroom suite was made of some sort of dark wood, mahogany I guessed. The door to my left was closed, a woman standing nearby. I didn’t recognize her and that worried me. I tried to remember how I’d gotten to America again, what happened between here and Berlin, and found I could not. Adrenaline surged through me and I moved to sit up.

“No!” She rushed over, gently pushing me back down. “You’ll make yourself sick again. Please, lie down, Kurt.”

How did she know my given name? I’d only ever told Miriam . . . And how was I sick? I was just tired. I pushed back up against her hands, trying to sit up. “Who are you?” I demanded even as my vision began to blur. I caught a flicker in my peripheral vision – a doctor, from the looks of him.

“Do as Elizabeth asks, sir. You are lucky to be awake at this point. Please, don’t jeopardize your health.” The doctor stood on my other side, a clipboard in his hands.

“Where am I?” My head was swimming and the rest of me didn’t feel too good either. I surrendered to the pressure of Elizabeth’s hands, allowing myself to sink back into the mattress.

“You’re safe here, Kurt. As Doctor Fitzgerald says, your health is rather precarious at the moment. Just take it easy for a while, okay?”

Elizabeth’s voice was familiar to me although I couldn’t place it at the time. I squinted to see her more clearly. “What happened to me?”

“You don’t remember?” She sat on the edge of the bed, her eyes full of concern.

“I . . .” I took a deep breath. I remembered fooling around with Miriam this morning, but perhaps that had been some sort of hallucination. If I were unwell, she wouldn’t do something like that. Before that . . . Mein Gott! “Miriam! Where’s Miriam??”

“Miriam is okay. She’s recovering in another room. What do you remember, Kurt?”

“We went to fetch her, but Heidelmann showed up with armed men. We killed them all and got away . . .” The rest was a blur. Snatches of memory teased me, something about the police, and they had been shooting at us. “I don’t remr anr anything past the shooting. We were heading for the safe house.” I blinked to clear my vision and failed miserably.

Elizabeth patted my hand kindly. “We heard there was some sort of commotion downtown so we sent out a few scouts. You’re fortunate they found you when they did and brought you here. Are you based in the Berlin headquarters?”

“Why?” I narrowed my eyes further, a warning bell ringing distantly somewhere inside me. I knew Elizabeth from somewhere, I just knew it. What I didn’t know was if she was on our side or not.

“Surely they should know that you and your friends are injured,” Doctor Fitzgerald answered for her. “We should send them word of your condition.”

“The nearest Cabal will know where I am from,” I answered evasively. “They can tell whoever needs to be told.”

Elizabeth and the doctor exchanged glances over my head. I tried to snatch the clipboard out of his hands with my tail to see what was on it but my tail was strangely uncooperative. Instead of striking out precisely as it normally would, I watched it move in slow motion before dropping limply off the edge of the bed. Concerned, I raised my hand in front of my face and found that the action was tougher than it should have been. My entire arm felt like lead and as I let my arm drop back down I saw echoes of it trail eerily in an arc.

“What is your surname, Kurt?” Doctor Fitzgerald had a pen hovering over the clipboard now.

I didn’t like this. “Kurt is just fine, Herr Doktor [Mister Doctor].”

“For your file, that’s all. Come now, what’s your name?”

I closed my eyes and said instead, “You don’t need me on all this stuff. Leave me alone and I’ll get better, whatever is wrong with me. I’m sure there are others who need the medicine more than I do.”

“The darts they hit you with were pretty strong,” Elizabeth said from far away. “We want to make sure you’ll be fine, so let us help you.”

“Do you have any allergies, Kurt?” the doctor asked now.

“Ja. Stupidity,” I growled. “Just go away.”

“We’ll stay with penicillin.” His pen scratched on the paper. “Have you had any surgeries or operations in the past?”

Did the time I pissed Logan off and he almost took out my appendix without anesthesia count? I sighed, feeling myself beginning to fall asleep again. It would be nice if they stopped pestering me over dumme Zeuge [stupid stuff]. “If I tell you my last name, will you go away and let me sleep?” I figured that since they knew my first name, my last name wouldn’t hurt anything.

“I suppose,” the doctor sighed.

“Darkhoelme.”

“How do you spell—“

“D-a-r-k-h-o-umlaut-l-m-e.” My eyes snapped open when I felt a needle go into my other arm a moment later.

“I’m just going to run some tests, that’s all.” Doctor Fitzgerald finished extracting my blood, backing away hastily with the large vial when he saw that I was upset enough to try to move again. He hadn’t finished filling it; and while I would have been more satisfied to see the vial smashed to the floor and rendered useless, it was still marginally pleasing to know that he wouldn’t get the full sample. He left the room without another word and Elizabeth follohim him after telling me to go back to sleep.

I closed my eyes and drifted off again.

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Reality returned to me in hazy half-dreams after that. The doctor was there sometimes, but always it was Elizabeth. She sat and talked with me, patting my hand or petting my hair as though she were my mother. In fact, during one of the visits when I was quite delirious, I might have even called her Mutti [Mom or Mommy]. I don’t remember now. I don’t remember what she asked exactly, but she seemed very interested in what I did for the Sicarii. I was too tired to be alarmed and spilled out words as though they were water. I asked to see Miriam but there was always some reason why I couldn’t – usually it was my health, or hers, or both. I was disappointed. I missed her, and deep inside I was worried. Not that I could muster the strength necessary to do anything to find her. I still couldn’t move my limbs easily, my vision was constantly impaired, and my hearing seemed to echo.

I wanted to sleep a lot.

I was settling down to sleep again, looking forward to the soft bed and the warm covers and the quiet interrupted only by that persistent beeping that never went away. What was it, anyway? I thought I’d known at one time, but I forgot it now. It couldn’t be that important. I rolled over and began to drift off. I dreamed I was in Antarctica again, somewhere between the ferry and Avalon itself. I drowsily flexed my fingers and toes to warm them back up but it wasn’t working. The wind was picking up now, driving snow in under my cowl so that it melted on my skin and froze into my fur. Some gadget of Mom’s was beeping at us from within the crates Cain was carrying and I resisted the urge to break them open and smash the contents – Mom would be pissed with me if I made it harder to get the guns to Avalon. We trudged on through the ice and snow, none of us exchanging words. They would have only gotten in the way. I sighed, depressed to see everything in shades of grey no matter where I looked. At least it didn’t stink like America did . . . the frigid air here was clean. As I thought about the States I remembered something Dad told me once.

“Why do I bother with this?” Dad’s voice drifted into my mind. I had been barely eighteen, a fresh recruit to Magneto’s cause, and decided to chance getting to know the old man again. “Because we’re in Hell. Stayin’ here’s a choice, but it ain’t my choice. Me, I’m on the road outta here. We all are. But don’t go gettin’ any ideas that you signed on for somethin’ easy, boy. The way in mighta been right pretty, but it’s a long, hard road outta Hell, an yer road might only come out with that Reaper ta meet ya. Don’t ever forget that.”

Gradually scents and colors came back and instead of walking through frozen ground we were slopping through mud. It was gorgeous! Even Mom was smiling, and she never smiled anymore. If I hadn’t been so self-conscious I might have started dancing and bellowing out something approximating a song. But that was foolish, these people would think me mad, so I just stood there and took in deep breaths of grass and flowers and animals and cooking fires; let the wind sweep over me with warm air. Oh, it felt so good . . . I unclasped my cloak and let it fall to the soft grass at my feet, my mostly black clothing soaking up the rays of the sun and warming my body again. As Cain set the crates down to welcome us to Avalon I let my smile split into a full grin – the batteries must have run out because the beeping had finally, mercifully, stopped altogether.