Bitter Seeds Read online

  News of the assignment had eased the foul mood that had enveloped Reinhardt since Klaus’s elevation to von Westarp’s favorite. For months, random objects had developed a tendency to erupt into flames in Klaus’s presence.

  Reinhardt’s new boast was that he had learned how to reverse his ability, to pull heat out of something. It meant he could vitrify a swath of sand and cool it into a crude but passable roadbed in moments. Klaus watched. First, the air above the sandpit shimmered. Then the sand turned dark as the individual grains lost their cohesion and relaxed into slag. Dust and debris skittered along the ground past Reinhardt’s boots, pulled along by the updraft. The furnace heat felt like sunburn on Klaus’s face. The liquefied sand fractured and buckled as Reinhardt willed it cool. It made a hideous noise like the shattering of a million dinner plates.

  The entire process took seconds. A Sonderkraftfahrzeug half track plowed forward, crossing from the solid earth of the training ground onto the simulated desert. The makeshift roadbed held. Without the benefit of Reinhardt’s alchemy, the heavy armored vehicle would have sunk to its front axle.

  But the result was akin to driving over a road paved with shards of glass. The front tires shredded explosively.

  “Piss on Christ’s wounds!” yelled Reinhardt.

  “Perhaps you can regain the doctor’s favor with comedy!” Klaus called.

  “Piss on you, too,” said Reinhardt. The air around him started to shimmer again.

  Klaus left. He passed the new pump house as he headed for the tree line at the far edge of the training ground.

  The ground rumbled beneath his boots. He staggered. Slack-jawed Kammler shambled across a minefield, deflecting each detonation back into the earth with the force mirror of his willpower. His long leash snaked along the ground to where Buhler chanted at him through a megaphone.

  Klaus found his sister strolling through the carpet of leaves under the oak and ash trees at the edge of the farm. She walked slowly, studying the ground before taking each step. Little blossoms of blue and white dusted her wild black hair with flower petals.

  She went through phases. Back in Spain, it had been the modernist poets. This summer, she’d taken to collecting posies. But the weather was changing; Gretel would have to find a new hobby soon.

  “Gretel.” She didn’t look up. As usual.

  Klaus joined her. Leaves and twigs crackled underfoot.

  “Keitel is here. You shouldn’t keep him waiting.”

  “We have a few minutes.” She stopped and cocked her head, staring at nothing in particular. “He has diarrhea.”

  “The doctor will have something to say about that,” said Klaus. He offered his hand to guide her around a thornbush. Gretel took it, shifting the flowers she’d collected from one hand to the other.

  “Come. We’ll find a vase for those,” he said.

  She gazed across the field to where Reinhardt raged.

  “Poor junk man,” she said.

  Klaus led her around the far side of the farm, toward where Keitel and von Westarp would be waiting. The route took them past the gunnery range that had become Heike’s personal training ground. The guns here fired nonlethal wax bullets designed specially at the REGP, back in the days when it had been the IMV, the Human Advancement Institute. They wouldn’t kill, but the pain was enough to make one wish they did. Klaus remembered his sessions on this range vividly, and he had the scars on his chest to ensure he’d never forget the lessons learned here.

  Most of the others—Klaus, Reinhardt, even Kammler—had graduated beyond this facility years ago. Heike had yet to master it.

  But she was getting close. She’d been training like a demon all summer. Ever since Klaus and Gretel had returned triumphantly from England. Reinhardt had been given an assignment even before that, back in Spain. And now one of the Twins had gone to Latvia. Soon even Kammler would be in the field, and Heike would be the last of von Westarp’s children to be deemed complete. Nobody wanted to be the sole focus of his disappointment.

  Heike stood at the bottom of the obstacle course. The wind teased her hair. Then she disappeared, uniform and all. Reinhardt had been quite upset when she achieved this breakthrough. He’d spent hours watching her train, relishing the moments when her concentration lapsed and he could glimpse, ever so briefly, her naked body.

  The gunners opened up, releasing a hail of projectiles across the field every time a bell, chain, or flag indicated the passage of the invisible woman. Most of the bullets splattered harmlessly against the brick wall, but once or twice Klaus heard the “Hoompf” as a round clipped Heike. But she maintained her concentration and didn’t reappear.

  “She’s improving.” She’d be a formidable assassin. Nearly as good as Klaus when she came into her own.

  “Don’t you think?” he asked, turning back to Gretel.

  The corner of Gretel’s mouth quirked up, and the shadows returned to that place behind her eyes. Quietly, she said, “Heike has her uses.”

  Klaus sighed. There had been a time when that half smile filled him with dread. Now it just made him angry.

  Gott. She’s going to fuck it up for me.

  “Don’t do this, Gretel.”

  She looked up. She blinked. She turned for the house.

  Klaus grabbed her wrist and spun her toward him. Her arm was so thin and his grip so tight that his thumb and forefinger overlapped by more than a knuckle. Her skin was warm to the touch, though she’d spent the entire day outside. She stumbled, bumping into his chest. Her hair smelled of the purple bellflowers dangling from her braids.

  “What ever you’re thinking, don’t. Things are going well now. Don’t ruin this.”

  “Are they? Are they truly?” She looked him in the eye. “Do you enjoy building coffins, brother?”

  He tried to hold her gaze, but flinched away. “I’m tired of getting swept along in your wake.” He let go of her arm. “Do something for me for a change.”

  Gretel cocked her head, looking him up and down. Then she linked her arm in his and rested her head on his shoulder as he escorted her back inside.

  “Twenty-one thousand. Four hundred. Seventeen,” she whispered.

  21,417. Klaus wondered if that was supposed to mean something to him. He didn’t ask.

  nine

  10 September 1940

  Soho, London, England

  Will spent the afternoon at the Hart and Hearth, waiting to plant the W bomb in his briefcase. He stared at the empty pint in his hand, listening to how it rang as he slid it back and forth along planks of polished beech. The glass clinked when he tapped it against the brass rail and asked the barman for another.

  He wondered if the Nazis would commandeer the breweries when they arrived. He wondered if German beer differed greatly from British beer. Perhaps they’d build biergartens, too. That wouldn’t be so bad.

  Then again, if things went well to night, the invasion would be postponed at least until spring. If not . . . well, he’d have blood on his hands, no matter the outcome.

  The barman refilled his glass. Will nodded his thanks. Drinking made it possible to endure the wait. God bless you, Pip, for introducing me to the wonders of the pint.

  There had been a time when Will resisted such simple comforts. It seemed silly now. As much as he hated the man, he understood his grandfather differently these days.

  His new drink had a thick head of foam. Will imagined it was sea foam, and that if he listened, he could hear the crash of advancing surf. It wouldn’t stop until he drowned.

  The Hart and Hearth that Will remembered so fondly had become a thing of the past. Gone were the roar of conversation, the clink of glasses, the shimmering firelight on the ceiling. The fireplace was dark. The drive to conserve fuel, even firewood, had trumped tradition.

  People still came, people still drank, but the atmosphere had changed. They greeted each other a little too enthusiastically. They laughed a little too loudly. And they drank—when there was drink to be had—a little too se
riously. It was the cumulative effect of months of living with a siege mentality.

  These were the men and women who huddled in the shelters at night, got up the next morning, climbed over the rubble, and returned to work. Day after day after day. They came to the pubs for companionship, for the illusion of normalcy. But in truth, every person there was drinking alone, seeking the fortitude to make it through the night. Like Will.

  He did his best not to notice them, or to be noticed. Rubbing elbows felt a bit ghoulish to night.

  As the afternoon wore on toward evening, Will saw many people glancing at pocket watches or the brass-and-mahogany grandmother clock in the corner. The barman clicked on the wireless a few minutes before six. It gave the valves time to warm up properly.

  He rang the bell over the bar with two quick clangs on the hour. “Six o’clock!” he announced.

  The pub fell silent. Listening to the BBC six o’clock news was a national daily ritual. The patrons abandoned conversations and dart games to crowd the bar. A tradesman inadvertently kicked Will’s attaché case. Will held his breath as the case toppled over with a leaden thump. Nothing happened. Will, shaken but relieved, leaned the case against the bar, and shielded it from further offense.

  Frank Phillips read news of the war. Luftwaffe raids had leveled the foundries in Shropshire, Lincolnshire, and Dorset. In Africa, General O’Connor’s offensive against the Italians had begun to falter. He might have had a fighting chance with reinforcements, but of course there would be none. Fighting continued in Greece and Italian East Africa. Admiral Decoux, the Governor General of French Indochina, had granted the Japanese basing and transit rights throughout his territory. The tonnage of lend-lease shipments from the United States continued to decline, owing to ferocious wolf packs and a flagging commitment overseas. President Roo se velt’s impassioned arguments for increasing aid to Great Britain were increasingly unpopular with the American people and its isolationist Congress.

  Hitler’s naval blockade was in some ways worse than the Blitz. Common knowledge said they’d stopped dyeing horse meat green. It was no longer unsuitable for human consumption. The Ministry of Food denied this vocally.

  Interest in the state of the outside world had been more keen in the spring, before Dunkirk, when Britain still believed it was in this war, and that victory could be had. These days, the state of the outside world was somewhat academic. The topic on everybody’s mind, the subject of true interest, was the weather.

  But Will didn’t need the wireless to tell him about the weather in the Channel. He’d helped shape it. The fog had lifted, and a stillness had come upon the sea. The Eidolons had returned to their demesne, receded into the crawlspaces around time and space.

  But the Met Office knew nothing of Eidolons and blood prices. It simply reported that the Channel was calm and clear. The unspoken corollary was that nothing stood between the south coast of England and the German invasion fleet in France. Will drained his glass and swallowed loudly, drowning out the gasps, the sobs of dismay.

  To night, of all nights, the Jerries would come in droves. And not just bombers, but paratroopers, too, if Milkweed’s gamble worked. The first tendrils of invasion.

  The warlocks had concluded their marathon negotiation with the Eidolons; now they sought to begin anew from scratch. But the intervention would be costly. By unspoken agreement, none of the Milkweed warlocks worked near his home neighborhood to night. It was easier that way.

  Will had chosen the Hart and Hearth for two reasons. First, he knew he’d need the services of a public house before the night was through. Second, it had a shelter on the premises. This he knew through firsthand experience, having been stuck here during more than one raid.

  He called for another pint. The world had gone fuzzy at the edges. He wanted to keep it like that until the work was done and his share of the blood price paid.

  The barman left the wireless on after the BBC update ended. Jack Warner and Garrison Theatre filled the void in conversation. It was unnatural for a pub to be so quiet. As unnatural as a stove without a teakettle.

  A number of patrons filed out in ones and twos. Probably those with families. Will begrudged them the excuse to leave.

  It was a long wait spent keeping himself on the edge of numbness. But when the banshee wail of air raid sirens finally broke the monotony, he found they’d come too soon. He wasn’t ready yet. He could still feel his fingers, his toes, the quickened beating of his heart.

  The barman flung open the door behind the bar. A narrow staircase led down to the cellar. “Right!” he called. “Everybody down here!”

  The patrons queued up behind the proprietor. Will tried to look natural as he lugged the attaché case, but it was quite heavy and threatened to overbalance him. Another door at the bottom of the stairwell opened on the cellar proper. An overpowering latrine stink wafted out of the shelter when the barman cranked this door open. Men and women covered their noses as they filed inside. Somebody, probably the barman’s son, had forgotten to empty the pails and coal scuttles from the previous raid.

  The air was cool and damp down here, but not enough to suppress the smell. Several cords’ worth of firewood were stacked along one wall. Pillows, blankets, and thin mattresses had been laid out between rows of metal shelves. The shelves themselves were bare but for dwindling supplies of tinned meat and withered, eye-studded potatoes.

  Will took a seat by the door. He counted nineteen souls in the shelter. Part of him was clinical, and obsessed over the mathematics. A simple calculation, he told himself. Dozens of lives for the sake of thousands. But most of him yearned to run away and drown in the surf.

  Several faces he recognized, regulars like himself. He imagined they recognized him, too, as he’d been coming here for tea and atmosphere since long before the war. Before everything changed. Will remembered the evening he’d introduced Marsh and Liv, right upstairs. He wondered how many married couples over the years had met right here at the Hart and Hearth.

  The ground shook. Tins rattled on the shelves.

  He propped the attaché case on his lap. He waited for the others to hunker down for a long night. When it appeared they were settled and unlikely to surprise him, he cracked the case open, using the lid to shield the contents from casual onlookers. He’d already smeared his blood on the explosive charges, so that through him the Eidolons would gather new blood maps for nineteen souls: Will’s share of the blood price. Will set the timer for ten minutes. Then he double-checked it, closed and locked the case, and slid it behind a pile of firewood.

  Will waited as long as he dared—less than two minutes, to be sure, though it felt like eternity—until a moment when it seemed he’d been forgotten. He slipped out through the cellar door as quietly as he could.

  He hoped that if anybody saw him, they’d presume he’d gone barmy and leave him to his fate. It happened on occasion; people went mad in the shelters. Above all, he prayed that nobody followed him outside. That would make for an awkward confrontation when the Hart and Hearth demolished itself. The blast would level the building. Tomorrow, the overworked rescue men combing through the debris for bodies wouldn’t be bothered to notice that the damage pattern didn’t match that of Jerry’s bombs.

  Whether or not his departure went unnoticed, nobody came after him. Running about outdoors during a raid was a fine way to get oneself killed.

  Upstairs, he paused again to take in the pub one last time. He’d been sitting right over there, at the table under the stag head, when he first met Liv. The three of them, she and he and Marsh, had chatted there, one table over. Will shook his head, said his farewells, and pinched a bottle of gin from behind the bar. He’d earned it. He dropped the slender bottle into the deepest pocket of his coat. Then he stepped outside.

  Chaos. Sirens echoed across the city while the thunder of ack-ack guns rattled windowpanes up and down the street. Chuffchuffchuff. Chuffchuffchuffchuff. A fireball illuminated the skyline to the north. The ground rippled. Pavin
g stones clattered beneath Will’s feet.

  He took the first cross street, eager to put at least one street between himself and the pub. He tried to pick a direction that took him away from the heaviest concentration of bombing, but it was all around him.

  The blackout had become a jumble of flickering shadows. Searchlights crisscrossed the sky, blazing through the smoke and occasionally flashing across a barrage balloon. When that happened, the reflected glare shone on the streets below like a few seconds of full moon. Meanwhile, a flurry of tracer rounds from a nearby battery cast shadows that slithered underfoot. The sky glowed orange with fire.

  Will ran. The gin bottle knocked against his hip. The earth shook again, rattling the bones of London. When the bomb he’d planted became just another element of the pandemonium, he was several streets away and bounding down the stairs of the Tottenham Court Tube station. Several of the people taking shelter there looked up in surprise when they saw him. Clearly, said the looks on their faces, this latecomer was a madman.

  How right they were.

  Early the next morning, while the Hart and Hearth still burned, and while an invasion fleet sailed within sight of British soil, the Eidolons returned to the Channel.

  12 September 1940

  Reichsbehörde für die Erweiterung germanischen Potenzials

  If you can spare a moment, Herr Doctor,” said Klaus, “there’s an issue with the new incubators.”

  Von Westarp paced the length of the debriefing room. The breeze from his passage elicited a papery rustle from the dried wildflowers arranged in milk bottles on the sill.

  He paused at the window long enough to glance outside again. “She did this to humiliate me,” he said before launching into another circuit of the room. “Where are they?” he asked nobody in particular.

  The doctor had put his dressing gown aside long enough to squeeze back into his SS-Oberführer uniform. It didn’t fit as it once had; the past year had been good to him. Klaus made a point not to look at the paunch straining at the doctor’s belt and buttons.