She was standing at the end of the bridge, absolutely still, gazing out across the water. It had taken Alban and Miss Manners twenty minutes to find her, following different trails of wet footprints. It looked like she had been standing here all that time. Silent and still.
‘Let me,’ Alban said, gesturing for Miss Manners to wait. ‘You saw what she did to Green.’
‘She’s my friend,’ Miss Manners told him.
But she hung back while Alban approached the woman. Passers-by were looking curiously at Jane Roylston as they passed, taking in the sodden clothes, the wet hair plastered to her scalp. Her blouse clung to her, the shape of the metal bracelet on her upper arm clearly visible through the thin material.
‘Miss Roylston?’ He touched her arm. She didn’t react. ‘Miss Roylston, are you all right?’
There was no reply. Alban glanced at Miss Manners and shrugged. She joined him, and when Jane still did not respond took her friend’s arm and gently turned her away from the river.
‘Penelope?’ Jane said, puzzled. ‘I’m sorry. I was … waiting.’
‘What are you waiting for?’ Miss Manners asked.
‘To be told what to do. I must know what to do.’ She frowned, and clutched at Miss Manners’ hand. ‘Do you know what I should do?’
‘I think you should come with us. Come on.’
With Alban following close behind, Miss Manners guided Jane, leading her back towards the Station Z offices.
‘Is this a good idea?’ Alban wondered.
‘It’s the only idea I have. What about you?’
‘She seems calm enough now, I suppose.’
Jane walked as if in a trance, not seeming to notice what was happening around her. Not hearing Alban and Miss Manners as they spoke.
Green was already back at Station Z. He had been bruised in his encounter with Jane outside the British Museum, but was otherwise unhurt. He looked up in surprise as Jane came in, Miss Manners and Alban close behind.
‘It’s all right,’ Alban assured him. ‘She seems quite calm now.’
He and Miss Manners told Green what had happened. Jane sat quietly at Sarah’s desk, her hands clasped on her lap. Her clothes were still wet, water dripping to the floor.
‘I checked on Mrs Archer,’ Green said, ‘after you two ran off and I lost you. She’s a bit shaken, but she’ll be all right.’
‘Thank goodness for that,’ Miss Manners said. She was ashamed to realise she had completely forgotten about Mrs Archer.
‘She’s a tough old bird, and no mistake,’ Green went on. He nodded at Jane. ‘Not the only one, it seems. I’ll make her some tea.’
‘Your universal remedy?’ Miss Manners joked.
‘The poor woman’s soaked through. I’m sure a hot drink will do her good.’
‘If she’s an Ubermensch – or Uberfrau, I suppose,’ Alban said, ‘why’s she just sitting there? The others have all tried to kill us. So did she, less than an hour ago.’
‘She’s delivered the axe,’ Miss Manners said. ‘That was her mission. Now she’s waiting for orders, I think.’
‘Then how do we make sure she doesn’t get any?’ Green asked. ‘Because you can bet they won’t be healthy for us.’ He headed off to put the kettle on.
‘If I’ve understood this,’ Alban said, ‘they transmit instructions into her mind, like a radio message – yes?’
‘As far as we can tell,’ Miss Manners agreed. ‘The people Guy and Leo saw at Wewelsburg, drawing, they intercepted the messages going back to the Vril.’ She gently touched the bulge on Jane’s arm where the shape of the bracelet was still visible. ‘These bracelets must be how the instructions are relayed and received, don’t you think?’
‘They must be something to do with it,’ Alban agreed. ‘So maybe we can block the transmissions somehow. Stop her new orders from ever coming through.’
‘We can try,’ Miss Manners said. ‘And I’m sure it would help if we could get that bracelet off her arm, which might also be easier if we can block the signals, at least for a while.’
‘And how do we do that?’
‘Well, given that we can tap into the Vril’s communications by holding a séance, maybe there is an occult way to exorcise them from her mind completely.’
‘Exorcise?’ Alban echoed.
‘There are ancient ceremonies, rituals, handed down through time. Some of them at least seem to the derived from the science and knowledge of the Vril,’ Miss Manners said. ‘What if an exorcism isn’t just some form of religious words and symbols, but the remnants of something more tangible, more applicable?’
‘Vril science?’ Alban shook his head. ‘You think an exorcism could actually be some sort of scientific process?’
Green returned with a mug of tea in time to hear this. He set it on the desk in font of Jane, and gently lifted her hands and clasped them round the mug. After a moment, Jane lifted the mug and sipped at the steaming brew.
‘Did I hear that right – you’re going to hold an exorcism?’ Green asked.
‘Well, it can’t do any harm I suppose,’ Alban said.
Miss Manners was at her desk, opening one of the drawers and pulling out her camera. ‘But I think we should wait until she’s got her strength back. It’s likely to be a rather traumatic experience, so she may need a day or two to recover. And before that, I want to take Jane’s photograph.’
* * *
‘We have to move,’ Hoffman decided. ‘The Vril will know what has happened. They know we have one of the axe-heads.’
‘Can you walk?’ Guy asked Leo.
Leo stood up, tentatively putting weight on his bad leg. ‘Just about,’ he decided. ‘So long as I don’t have to run, it should be all right.’
‘They will be heading this way,’ Hoffman said. ‘I can feel them, probing my thoughts, trying to assert their control.’
‘So do we try to keep out of their way, or take the fight to them?’ Guy asked.
‘Do they know where we are?’ Leo wondered.
Hoffman shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. They are in contact with the girl. They know I am in the city, and was close by. But without a complete, direct link they don’t have any more information than that.’
‘Many of them?’ Guy asked.
‘I don’t think so,’ Hoffman said.
‘I vote we take the fight to them,’ Leo said.
‘Risky,’ Guy pointed out.
‘This place is bad enough as it is,’ Leo told him. ‘Imagine if they start turning more people into their Ubermensch creatures. God knows what it’ll be like then.’
‘The Vril themselves are easier to deal with than the Ubermensch,’ Hoffman agreed.
‘We still have to find them,’ Guy said.
‘Or let them find us,’ Hoffman suggested. ‘I can feel them inside my mind. If I let my guard slip, they will see what I see. They will know where I am.’
‘Draw them to us?’ Leo said.
‘Exactly. And choose where we face them.’
* * *
Despite Leo’s insistence that he was on the mend, he was still limping and so they made slow progress through the shattered city. As dawn’s first light began to break over the ruins, they found themselves in the broken remains of another square. There was movement on the far side, figures picking their way through the fallen debris.
Guy, Leo and Hoffman ducked into cover behind what was left of a wall. Across the rubble-strewn area they could see the German soldiers making their cautious way towards them. There were six in total. The soldiers moved between areas of cover, slowed by the uneven ground. But there was a space to one side of the square where they were exposed. The buildings along that side had been completely demolished, leaving little by way of shelter.
They crossed the open area one at a time. The first soldier stumbled as he ran across the rubble. His comrades watched anxiously as he recovered, kept moving, and finally made it to the cover on the other side. Relieved and emboldened, three of the others made the journey together. They were midway when the shots rang out.
The noise echoed round the area. One of the soldiers was flung backwards by the force of the bullet that caught him in the chest. A second fell sideways, clutching at his leg just above the knee. Another shot ripped into him as he stumbled. The third soldier hesitated, then ran on, leaving his colleagues behind. His legs seemed to keep running even when the front of his chest disappeared in a red haze.
Answering fire from the two soldiers still on the far side of the square hammered into the building where the snipers were hidden.
‘They must have seen the muzzle flashes,’ Guy said.
Closer to them, the soldier who had made the first journey across the square rose up from his cover and hurled a stick grenade. It turned end over end in the air, disappearing into the ruins of the building where the shots had come from. A moment later, smoke and flame billowed out of the ruins, followed by the percussion of the blast.
A volley of shots from one of the other Germans gave his colleague the chance to hurry across the square and join the one who had thrown the grenade. The man moved awkwardly, hampered by the heavy cylinders attached to his back.
‘Flamethrower,’ Hoffman said grimly.
Even as he spoke, a jet of liquid fire shot out from where the two soldiers were sheltering. It bathed the outside of the broken building with orange, leaving the brickwork charred and black where it had been. The third soldier dashed across to join them as the fire ate into the ruins.
‘This way,’ Hoffman said in a low voice.
To Guy’s surprise, he led them not away from the Germans, but towards them. Skirting round the shattered buildings, they approached the soldiers from behind and slightly above. Edging closer, Hoffman drew his handgun. Guy didn’t realise what he was intending until he rose up above a broken section of wall and fired.
The first soldier was hit in the chest, knocked backwards. The second got off a single shot, which ricocheted off the brickwork close to Leo. Then Hoffman’s bullet dropped him like a stone. The third soldier was firing the flame thrower and didn’t seem to notice the fate of his comrades. His face snapped from grim determination to abrupt surprise. He fell backwards, a stream of flame arching up over the building as he toppled back, before it cut out.
Hoffman jumped down into the rubble, picking his way past the fallen soldiers towards the building.
He called out in Russian: ‘Are you in there? It’s safe – they’re dead.’
Guy and Leo followed him as he clambered up into the wrecked house. Guy expected at any moment a bullet from the sniper would hammer into his chest. But they got inside with no problem.
What remained of the internal walls was as blackened as the outside of the building. Several small fires still burned on the floor, and one in the remains of the ceiling. At the back of the devastated room, a dark shape lay stretched out – as if it had been trying to claw its way through the back wall. It was impossible to tell if it had been a man or a woman. All that remained was a smoking, blackened mess in the vague shape of a human being. The charred remains of a rifle lay twisted and melted close by.
Movement in the far doorway. A rifled aimed at them. Guy swung round, bringing his gun up.
‘No!’ Hoffman shouted in Russian.
The woman – barely out of her teens – stared across the room at them, eyes filled with a mixture of hatred and fear.
‘It’s all right,’ Hoffman said gently. ‘The Germans are dead. I shot them. We’re on your side.’
The woman’s rifle wavered slightly, but she didn’t lower it. Instead she kept them covered as she edged across to the window and peered out at the bodies below. She stared down for a moment, then spat. The gun lowered, and the woman collapsed slowly to the ground, sobbing suddenly.
Guy instinctively moved to comfort her. But Leo caught his arm. He pointed out of the window across the shattered square.
‘We’ve got more company.’
Another group of German soldiers had appeared. They made their way cautiously through the rubble.
‘They must have heard the shots,’ Guy said. ‘Maybe even seen what happened.’
Hoffman helped the woman to her feet as Guy and Leo watched the smudges of field-grey uniform almost invisible in the colourless landscape. Without comment, the woman levelled her rifle, steadying it on the broken edge of the window. She glanced back at the blackened mess on the other side of the room, then set her eye to the rifle sight.
‘Is this a good idea?’ Leo asked. ‘I can’t help feeling we’re both outnumbered and outgunned.’
But before Guy or Hoffman could reply, the rifle kicked back in recoil. The sound of the shot was deafening inside the ruined room. Out in the square, a soldier cried out and collapsed behind the wall he had been clambering over.
The woman worked the bolt on the rifle, muttering to herself as she did.
The next shot kicked up a thin shower of dust from the rubble, missing its target by inches. The woman cursed, and reloaded.
‘Leo’s right,’ Guy said. ‘We should go. Can we persuade her to leave, do you think?’ he asked Hoffman.
‘I doubt it. But we may not have to.’
His words were punctuated by a scream from outside. Guy turned quickly back to the remains of the window.
In the distance a German soldier was silhouetted against the ruins. Upright, back arched, mouth open. A dark spear was thrust through his body from behind, emerging in a bloody mess from the front. As Guy watched, a dark shape reared up over the dying man. Its sharp, serrated tentacle withdrew abruptly from the soldier. For a moment the man didn’t move. Then he collapsed, falling straight down like a string-severed puppet.
Hoffman spoke quickly to the woman. Her face was pale and her eyes wide, but she nodded, aimed, and squeezed the trigger of the rifle.
The bullet hammered into the bloated dark body of the Vril. It exploded in a mass of tissue and viscous, steaming liquid.
The other German soldiers were running, all thought of cover gone as more Vril emerged from the ground beneath them.
‘They must have burrowed under the rubble,’ Leo said. ‘Persistent buggers, aren’t they?’
A soldier screamed as his legs were ripped from beneath him by a mass of dark tentacles. Another turned to fire at the Vril, but was dragged down before he could get off a shot.
‘How many can you see?’ Guy demanded.
‘Half a dozen,’ Leo said.
‘I count seven,’ Hoffman told them.
Another soldier dropped, this time from a bullet fired by the sniper beside them. Her next shot severed a Vril’s tentacle, and the air was filled with inhuman screeches of pain, until she fired again and the creature was splattered across the ruins.
The last of the soldiers was almost at the edge of the square when two Vril erupted from the broken ground beside him, hammering into his body and knocking him down. He was carrying a rifle, bayonet fixed to the end. It scythed through the glutinous body of one of the creatures, ripping it open. But the other Vril’s tentacles tore the gun away and the man’s screams faded and died.
‘Five left to deal with,’ Hoffman said grimly.
‘They’ll just hide in the rubble,’ Leo told him. ‘We’ll never pick them off from up here.’
‘And if we go down there…’ Guy said. ‘Well, we’ve seen what will happen. Unless…’ He leaned forward, peering out of the remains of the window to the bodies of the first group of soldiers, lying sprawled below.
‘What are you thinking?’ Hoffman said.
‘The flamethrower,’ Guy told him. ‘As long as there’s still fuel in those tanks.’
‘You know how to operate it?’ Leo asked.
Guy shook his head. ‘Haven’t a clue.’
‘I do,’ Hoffman told them. ‘Come on.’ He turned to the woman. ‘Keep us covered, as best you can. But if things get too dangerous, just go. Leave us.’
She started to protest, but Hoffman shook his head. ‘Just stay safe,’ he told her. ‘Keep doing what you do best. You’re a good shot.’
Hoffman went first, clambering over the window edge and dropping easily to the ground on the other side. Guy followed, reaching up to help Leo down. Even so, Leo winced as he put weight on his injured leg.
‘We should hurry,’ Hoffman said.
Across the ruined landscape they could see dark shapes oozing up from between piles of rubble, scuttling towards them.
‘They know we’re here,’ Leo said.
‘They can sense me, now they’re close,’ Hoffman said. ‘The axe too.’
Together they struggled to unbuckle the heavy fuel cylinders from the dead soldier. Above them the woman’s rifle cracked out several shots. One caught the edge of a Vril, sending it scuttling away, a dark trail leaking behind it.
As Hoffman and Leo finally managed to get the flamethrower free, Guy drew his gun. He scanned the nearby rubble and debris for any sign of movement, any shadow that was just a little too dark. Something moved in the crevice between a fallen wall and the ruins of a doorway. Guy’s shot ricocheted off the stone.
‘Ready,’ Hoffman announced.
He strode forward across the rubble, flanked by Leo and Guy. The rifle barrel in the window above them tracked their movement. As they neared the area where the Vril had attacked, they could see that the ground was a mass of squirming shadows. Sensing their approach, the creatures rose up suddenly in front of them.
A rifle bullet took one immediately, splattering the gelatinous creature across its fellows. Undeterred, they surged forwards. Just as Hoffman ignited the end of the flamethrower. Fire jetted out, raking across the ground and scorching its way into the Vril. Black smoke billowed out. The shrieks of the creatures filled the air, and the sudden stench was impossible to ignore.
Slowly and methodically, Hoffman worked his way across the square, squirting flames into the smallest opening in the rubble. Off to one side, a Vril suddenly hurled itself out of the ground, scuttling rapidly towards them. Guy’s shot knocked it sideways. A bullet from the sniper burst into its body. A sweep of the flamethrower reduced it to a charred mess imprinted on the rubble.
It was not just the Vril that were the enemy. Guy was acutely aware that there might be more Germans in the area – drawn by the noise or following their comrades. Both he and Leo paid as much attention to the edges of the square as they did to the ground closer to them.
Most of the Vril seemed to have been caught by surprise in Hoffman’s first assault. Another was trapped and burned in a narrow crack in the debris. Others might well have been incinerated as Hoffman made his way through the ruins. It was impossible to tell.
Eventually they reached the end of the square. Hoffman sprayed flames across an area of unmarked ground, leaving a black trail. But the flames were less fierce than they had been as the fuel started to run out.
‘Is that all of them, do you think?’ Leo asked.
‘I don’t sense any more,’ Hoffman said.
‘But some of them could have got away?’ Guy said.
Hoffman nodded. ‘It’s possible,’ he conceded. ‘There are always more.’
‘So what now?’ Leo asked.
‘Thank our friend,’ Guy suggested, glancing back towards the building where the woman was concealed. ‘Then I think it’s time we got out of this godless place.’