Sarah slept better the second night, not waking until almost eleven. She lay in bed for several minutes thinking back over the events of the previous night.
As he had promised, Tustrum had been waiting in the Embassy dining room when she returned from the Kremlin. He was dozing in a chair, his feet stretched out under the table, an empty whisky glass in front of him.
He jolted awake as Sarah pulled out the chair next to him and sat down. She felt every bit as exhausted as the man looked.
He wiped his eyes. ‘Sorry, what time is it?’
‘Almost two in the morning.’
‘Christ – where have you been?’
‘I probably shouldn’t tell you,’ Sarah said.
He nodded. ‘Fair enough. So long as you’re all right.’
‘The evening had its moments, but yes, I’m fine. I’ll see you tomorrow.’
Sarah and Vasilov had cautiously checked there were no Vril lurking in the shadows or waiting behind the hole they had torn in the wall of the Archive. But it seemed the one that attacked them was alone. Perhaps it had been left on guard, or been sent back to obtain some other item.
‘Or it somehow got separated from the others,’ Sarah suggested.
‘I need to tell the Kremlin commandant what has happened,’ Vasilov said. ‘We need to block off this opening. Make sure they cannot return.’
‘Do you know what they took?’ Sarah asked.
Vasilov nodded. He looked pale. ‘I believe so. I shall have to check to be certain. But first I must alert the commandant. You should go.’
‘I need to know why the Vril were here,’ Sarah insisted. ‘What they took.’
Vasilov shook his head. ‘You cannot stay here. I will check what is missing, and get a message to you. Or, no,’ he decided, ‘I shall write to Elizabeth. You will see she gets the letter?’
‘Of course.’
‘Then Larisa will bring it to the Embassy. Tomorrow.’ He called her over, giving her rapid instructions. ‘But now, she will take you back while I find the commandant.’ He glanced at the gaping hole in the wall. ‘The fact that one of them was still here – it could mean that others will return.’
‘It could,’ Sarah agreed. ‘We should all get out of here. Let the soldiers sort it out.’
They returned through the white-stone tunnels to the opening into the Arsenal Tower above. Then through the metal gate and up the spiral staircase. At the top, Vasilov left them. He shook Sarah’s hand, then leaned forward and kissed her gently on each cheek.
There was a different guard on duty at the exit, but he spared Larisa and Sarah little more than a glance as they left. Outside, it was raining. Larisa shivered, but declined Sarah’s coat when she offered it. They walked briskly back to the Embassy, parting company in the same narrow alley where they had met several hours previously.
As Sarah turned to go, Larisa pulled at her sleeve, turning her back. For a moment, the woman stared impassively into Sarah’s face. Then she pulled Sarah into a fierce hug. When they separated, Sarah took off her coat, and this time Larisa accepted it.
Vasilov was as good as his word. When Sarah finally emerged from her room the next day and checked with the front desk, there was an envelope waiting for her, addressed to ‘Mrs Elizabeth Archer, care of Miss Sarah Diamond’. She recognised Vasilov’s handwriting from his earlier letter. She considered opening it, reading what Vasilov had discovered.
But no, she decided. There was likely to be more than just a note of what the Vril had taken. Whatever friendship Vasilov, Elizabeth, and Elizabeth’s husband George had enjoyed was not hers to share. She pushed the envelope into her pocket, and went in search of Tustrum. He might have news of Guy and Leo. But whether he did or not, it was time for her to head home …
* * *
The Vril had scratched her as it hid from the soldiers – the same soldiers as moments earlier had shot the girl’s mother. She screamed from the pain, the last pain she ever felt. Being so small, the infection spread rapidly through the little girl’s body. So young and inexperienced, so innocent and naïve, her mind was easy to control even without a bracelet to focus the Vril influence.
Her instructions were simple: find the rogue Ubermensch, and get the axe from him. Now it was almost within her grasp. The man with the bracelet was a problem. She had thought he was with her, was an Ubermensch. But then he had been injured, so either he was not yet fully absorbed into the Vril, or he was not an Ubermensch at all. Either way, he knew what she was, he had seen.
Somehow Davenport managed to grab her wrists, pushing her away from him. But the girl was incredibly strong.
‘Help me!’ he yelled. ‘Get her off!’
Guy and Hoffman were running, scrambling over the rubble to get to him. He felt her nails rake down his cheek, the warmth of blood. Then Hoffman was there, one arm round the girl’s waist as he dragged her away. Her legs were kicking, arms flailing. He couldn’t hold her and she broke free, hammering at Hoffman’s chest.
The axe-head he had been holding fell from his grip and landed amongst the other fallen stone. The girl dived for it, grabbing it with both hands, scrambling off across the broken landscape.
Guy threw himself at her, dragging her down. She swung her hand, the heavy axe connecting with his shoulder. His grip weakened, she tore herself free and was off running.
But Davenport was back on his feet and in her way. She didn’t try to avoid him, but lowered her shoulder like a diminutive rugby player, crashing into him and sending the bigger man sprawling. He managed to grab hold of her sleeve, pulling her off balance. It slowed her down enough from Hoffman to launch himself at the girl. The axe-head went flying again and the girl wriggled out from Hoffman’s grasp and scrambled after it.
It skidded through a doorway, falling over the threshold. The wooden floor had burned away, leaving the blackened spikes of charred timbers jutting from the remaining walls. The girl fell to the ground that was several feet below. The fall should have winded her, perhaps even fractured her leg. But she was unaffected, immediately searching round to see where the axe had fallen. Within the walls, the light from the distant fires was dimmed and the whole place was in near-darkness.
Hoffman jumped after her, Guy and Davenport clambering down more cautiously, Davenport trying not to put weight on his injured leg. The girl eyed them cautiously. Then she caught sight of the axe, the white stone picked out in the grey ash and soot covering the ground. She ran across and picked it up. Holding it in one hand, raised like a weapon, she edged round the walls, inside the broken timbers.
There were only two ways out of the shell of the building – back the way she had come, past Hoffman, or through a side door where Davenport was now standing. She feinted towards Hoffman, then ran at Davenport, axe raised ready to strike.
Guy’s first shot caught her in the shoulder. It barely slowed her. The second shot hammered into her chest, knocking her sideways. But she kept coming at Davenport. He stepped aside at the last moment, so that the axe swept down onto nothing. The vicious force of the blow unbalanced her, and she stumbled into the low side wall. One of the sharp wooden joists ripped through her clothes, scraping past her side. She ignored it, and started to scramble up towards the doorway.
Davenport grabbed for the axe as she climbed, but she swung it at him, holding on to the side wall with one arm. The blow knocked him backwards.
Then Hoffman was there. He grabbed her round the waist with both arms, dragging her back, staggering to keep his balance as she thrashed and squirmed and hammered at him with the axe.
‘Now what?’ Davenport yelled.
The sky above burst into brilliant light as a series of explosions rang out nearby. The flashes strobed across Hoffman and the girl, giving their movements the staccato quality of an old movie. As if in slow motion, Hoffman lifted the struggling girl to shoulder height. Then he shoved her violently away from him, towards the jagged, broken joists jutting out of the wall.
Two of the wooden struts pierced her body, one erupting from her chest, the other through a shoulder. A gelatinous mass of orange tendrils squirmed out, pulsing and throbbing round the wounds. The girl screamed – the first sound any of them had heard her make. She shuddered, tensed, rocked back and forth as she tried to free herself, but she was stuck fast on the wooden stakes.
Hoffman grabbed her hand, holding it tight in his as he prised open her fingers and removed the axe-head.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said quietly in Russian. He turned to Guy and Davenport, who were both watching in horror and disgust as the girl writhed and snarled. ‘Let’s get away from here.’
* * *
‘A scratch from that creature in the Vault at Wewelsburg was all it took,’ Hoffman said.
The three of them sat round a small fire in the cellar of what was left of a house. Davenport and Guy had food with them, but Hoffman assured them he wasn’t hungry.
‘It was a few hours before the infection took hold. Then I was numb. Like I didn’t know what to do. After a while, there was a voice, if I can call it that. Someone else’s thoughts inside my head – more pictures than words, feelings and cravings. I had to get one of the bracelets from the Vault.’
‘But you didn’t?’ Davenport said.
‘No. I’ve spent so long pretending to be what I’m not, locking my thoughts away and ignoring them as I play at being someone else, that I could resist the urge. When I first became German, there were times when the stress was so intense I just wanted to tell someone: “This is all a lie. I’m not Werner Hoffman at all, I’m a Russian who had the misfortune to be born to a German mother and speak her language.” It was a bit like that, resisting an overwhelming desire to do something I knew was stupid. Suicidal.’
‘The bracelets are how they control an Ubermensch,’ Guy said. ‘We know that.’
‘They don’t always need the bracelet though,’ Hoffman told them. ‘I imagine it enhances the control, amplifies it. That girl, she didn’t have a bracelet but the Vril evidently controlled her utterly. A young mind, easily influenced…’ He stared into the dancing firelight. ‘She was dead already,’ he murmured.
‘Tell us what happened,’ Guy said. ‘After you were infected, if that’s the right word.’
‘The Vril still tried to control me. I saw images of the axe-head, amongst other things. Nachten – one of Himmler’s archaeologists – he was searching for it too. But you probably know as much as I can tell you about the axes.’
‘We know there are three of them,’ Guy said. ‘And we know they slot into some sort of mechanism buried on the island of Crete.’
‘The Vril are everywhere,’ Hoffman said. ‘Thousands of years ago they came to our world.’
‘But what do they want?’ Davenport asked.
‘I don’t know exactly. But they are colonists, imperialists, conquerors. To be honest, I can only see what they show me, and that’s less and less each day as they realise I’m of no use to them. Some things still sort of seep through. But I couldn’t tell you if the Vril are any more active now than they have ever been. Perhaps it’s only now, as we develop flight and the ability to detect their craft and transmissions, that we’ve noticed them. Or perhaps they’ve decided we’re ready to be … harvested.’
‘Harvested?’ Guy said. ‘What do you mean?’
Hoffman shrugged. ‘When the Vril first arrived, the human race was undeveloped. They’re nothing if not patient, and incredibly long-lived by our standards. So the Vril waited until humanity reached a point in its development where we’d be useful to them. But useful for what, I’m not sure.’
‘Not a very pleasant thought,’ Davenport said. ‘But what do these things do?’ He pointed to the axe lying beside the fire.
‘The Vril left colonies here. A few of the creatures are active, but most sleep in huge hibernation caves deep below the ground.’
‘And there’s one of these below Crete?’ Guy guessed.
‘The axes are actually the keys that will unlock that chamber, and awaken a vast army of Vril. We have to stop them. Make sure they sleep on.’
‘Well, they only have one of the three keys,’ Davenport said. ‘So that must be a good start. We have that one, and another back in London.’
Hoffman closed his eyes for a moment. ‘No,’ he said when he opened them again. ‘We only have this one.’ He picked up the axe-head and weighed it in his hand. ‘The one you had in London has been recovered by the Vril.’
Guy was shocked. ‘Are you sure?’
Hoffman nodded. ‘Certain.’
‘Then what’s happening back in London?’ Davenport said.