After the excitement of the Crete expedition, Brinkman was aware that time seemed to be stretching out again. Elizabeth Archer was running tests on the axe-head, but with little to show for it. The UDT activity was about the same as usual, although standing orders now were for the RAF to keep clear of them. In several incidents planes had simply disappeared after making contact. So long as the UDTs were not actually attacking, it was safest to avoid direct contact. Dr Wiles continued to collate the tracking and interception data.
Leo Davenport and Sarah spent time searching through the British Library and the British Museum archives for any clues about the third axe-head, and Guy was helping Miss Manners and Sergeant Green organise the new photographic department.
‘Department’ was an exaggeration. With the help of Alban in MI5, Brinkman had managed to arrange for two secretaries at the Ministry of Information to look through photographs. With the discovery that an Ubermensch could potentially be identified in photographs, it needed someone to look through any photographs that might reveal one lurking.
Miss Manners had grand plans to station photographers on busy streets taking flash-lit photographs of crowds in the hope of finding any Ubermensch.
The arguments against were mainly logistic. But also, as Wiles pointed out, unless you knew the identity of everyone in the photograph, seeing an Ubermensch in a crowd was hardly helpful except in confirming its existence. But in fact there was no evidence of any Ubermensch currently in Britain anyway.
The compromise was that the Ministry of Information, which had access to photographs taken every day all round Britain in other Allied countries, should check them for anything unusual. The two women given the job were told only vaguely what they were looking for, and that it was thought to be an experimental enemy camouflage technique used by spies to avoid showing up properly in photographs.
When she had time, which was rarely, Miss Manners retired to the Séance Room. Here she closed her eyes and tried to relax into a state where she might hear the voices, see the images. With the Vril becoming more active, the air must be alive with their strange communications. If she could tap into even a tiny fraction of that information it could prove invaluable.
Success was limited. The strongest signals were from UDTs over Britain. She caught images of the countryside seen from above, flying past at incredible speed. Little else made any sense. She could get stronger impressions, over greater distance if they actually held a séance of sorts. Perhaps the combined effort of several minds enhanced the signals. But still all she saw was the gloomy underground vaults and chambers so reminiscent of the North African base and labyrinthine tunnels that Leo and Guy had described …
She kept up her work photographing wives and children for the Snapshots from Home project, sending the pictures to the soldiers who were missing their loved ones.
* * *
Guy wasn’t really sure what to make of the séances, until his name came up. It had become something of an end-of-day ritual to gather in the Séance Room and spend a few minutes helping Miss Manners settle into the relaxed, semi-trance state where she might glean further information about the Vril. It seemed bizarre, but Guy had to admit he had experienced far stranger things in the last year.
The frustration was that they seemed to have wrung as much information from the process as they could, and none of it was especially helpful. If they were lucky, Miss Manners might pick up some background detail or the shadowy realm where the Vril were located. She kept meticulous notes of every session. But without knowing the locations of the places she ‘saw’, or the details of the vague things she ‘heard’ it was all of limited value.
‘If nothing else,’ Guy joked to Sarah as they entered the room for the latest attempt, ‘I get to hold your hand in the dark.’
‘I’m putting you between Leo and Miss Manners,’ she told him.
‘Spoilsport.’
As usual, the four of them sat in the flickering candlelight, fingers touching, silent and still. Miss Manners breathed deeply several times as she settled herself. She murmured words and phrases that Guy couldn’t hear, but which she had told them were to help her relax and put herself into a receptive frame of mind. Techniques she had learned from Crowley, he guessed.
‘Glass!’ she exclaimed suddenly. ‘Someone – Leo – get the glass.’
‘Of course.’ Davenport got up and went to a side table where a tumbler stood next to a stack of squares of card.
‘Are you all right?’ Sarah asked.
Miss Manners was surprised more than anxious. ‘I can see letters,’ she told them.
‘Are you sure it’s the Vril?’ Guy asked. ‘They don’t usually communicate in words.’
Leo positioned the upturned glass in the centre of the round table, then placed the pieces of card round the edge. Each was marked with a letter or number. ‘Let’s find out, shall we? Forefinger of the left hand on the top of the glass everyone, if you please.’
‘Will it be in English?’ Sarah asked.
‘Possibly, or it could just be gibberish,’ Miss Manners admitted. ‘Now concentrate, everyone. Empty your minds of everything except the glass itself.’
He shouldn’t really have been surprised, but Guy felt a jolt of astonishment as the glass moved. It slid smoothly and easily across the polished surface of the table, touching the card lettered ‘N’ before moving on to ‘G’.
Leo had his pen in his free hand and a spare piece of card beside him. He noted down the letters as the glass travelled between them. Guy tried to keep track of the letters in his head, but they seemed to make no sense:
N G R A D P A V S H I K H B O R T S O V W I
But gradually something seemed to resolve out of it. ‘W I L L W A I T’ he realised as the glass moved on. There was a pause, and he thought it was finished, but then the glass moved again.
P E N T E C R O S S
Startled, Guy pulled his hand back from the glass.
‘Sorry,’ he murmured, reaching out again. He gave up trying to follow the letters, his mind was numb. His name – how could it have spelled out his name?
‘It’s a loop,’ Leo said eventually. ‘We can stop now. It’s the same thing coming round again.’
‘But what’s it say?’ Guy demanded. ‘It spelled out my name – who’s doing that?’
‘I think I know,’ Leo said. He was smiling as he turned the lights on. ‘I think you will too once I work out where the breaks in the words are in all this jumble. Tell me, does Pavshikh Bortsov mean anything to you?’
‘It’s Russian,’ Guy said, looking at where Leo had written the words out on the paper.
‘Which would make sense. See.’ He showed them the full message.
PENTECROSS HAVE AXE MEET ME IN STALINGRAD PAVSHIKH BORTSOV WILL WAIT
‘Our friend Hoffman, the Russian German?’ Pentecross said. ‘But how can he be sending us this?’
‘He knows what we’re doing, he must be hoping we’ll intercept this.’
‘But, how is he transmitting it?’ Sarah said.
‘I would guess,’ Miss Manners told them, ‘that he is holding a séance.’
‘But what does it mean?’ Sarah asked.
‘We’ll need a map of Stalingrad,’ Leo said, ‘but I suspect he is telling Guy where to meet him, and that he will wait until we get there.’
‘We?’ Guy echoed.
‘Well I’m not letting you go on your own. And if Hoffman has the third axe as he claims then we can’t just ignore this.’
‘Pavshikh Bortsov could be a location,’ Guy said. ‘It means “Fallen Heroes” so it might be a monument or something.’
‘I’ll find out how you can get to Stalingrad,’ Miss Manners said. ‘Though I have to say I don’t envy you the trip.’
‘Don’t be like that,’ Leo told her. ‘It isn’t every day one gets an invitation from the spirits to visit one of the most dangerous places on Earth.’
* * *
If she had spoken English, she might have understood the significance of what she saw. The letters flashed through her ancient mind, imprinting themselves one by one. It was a repeating sequence, and she saw it most nights.
In her chamber – her sanctum – deep below the North Tower of Wewelsburg Castle that housed the Hall of Generals, the Seer sat alone in darkness. From here she saw so much. She could feel so much. The suffering and death from across the world; the aspirations and ambitions of the SS officers within the castle itself; the voices of the spirits that screamed desperately at the mortals who could not hear them; the cold, hard thoughts of Himmler himself.
And the dark, creeping malignancy of the Vril as they clawed their way through the deepest corners and recesses of their underground realm and of her mind.
Her thoughts were broken by the light from the door as it swung open. She struggled to her feet, ignoring the pain, and turned to see who it was although she had known he was coming. Her gnarled, crooked hand reached for a walking stick to support her weight.
The lights came on, gleaming on the high forehead and small round glasses of Heinrich Himmler.
‘Have you anything to tell me?’ he asked.
Her answer was scratchy and frail. ‘Nothing that you want to hear.’