MIRIAM DIDN’T LIKE LYING, and she especially didn’t like lying to Jane, though she seemed to be doing a lot of that lately.
She’d told Jane she knew what she was doing, but nothing could be further from the truth. She was planning to jump into Querner’s body—she was sure she could do that. As for what she could do to ruin his attempt to create a diabolic weapon, she really had no idea.
She did know that she would have to put a lot of herself into this journey to get what she wanted out of it. An ear wouldn’t do. She needed something meatier, weightier. Something more personal. As difficult as it had been to carve away her ear, the bit of cartilage was fundamentally inessential. With her fingers, Miriam gingerly traced the edge of the ear she’d sacrificed with the veil knife. Her skin and flesh felt the same, but she sensed something was missing. She assumed that would be the case with her next sacrifice, too.
Miriam had weighed her options and decided that this time, for this journey back to that terrible forest, she would use her strange, dull knife to cut off her spirit’s foot. Her right foot, to be specific.
She knew from experience that it wouldn’t hurt. It was just upsetting to saw through something attached to her, incorporeal though it might be. And of course, there were the consequences. If removing a bit of her spirit’s ear had so altered her appearance that she’d frightened her own best friend, what would cutting off a foot do?
She wouldn’t die. She was fairly certain of that. Badgerskin hadn’t led her wrong yet. Her spiritual flesh would heal and regenerate, with time.
It wasn’t as if she had a choice. She couldn’t stop—not now. There was much more at stake than her life.
It was time to stop worrying and start acting.
The taste of the sublingual tablet was so familiar to Miriam now, with its odd notes of lemon and ash. Also familiar was the feel of the veil knife in her hand, and the eerie coolness of the liquid diabolic essence in its bottle.
She drank the whole thing this time. She didn’t know how long she’d be gone.
Miriam gasped without sound when she finally brought the blade of the knife to her ankle. There was a little resistance when she pressed, like trying to slice cold cheese, but a few little sawing motions worked the edge in deeper. When she cut it free, it dropped into the waiting palm of her left hand. Black smoke welled in the wound and dispersed, drifting off like smoke until it dissolved away entirely.
It was so odd. It was her foot, translucent but in every other way the twin of the one that was still attached to her leg. Thankfully, it was already dissolving into vapor, so she breathed it all in and waited to see with her spirit’s eyes what flew or crawled past the grove where her father’s bones lay silent in the dappled sunlight.
THE PAPER WASP HAD BEEN an effective vehicle, so once again Miriam borrowed one of their number to get herself to the infirmary, and then beneath it, down the stairs, through the keyhole, and into the Dark Lab beyond.
The place was dark and cold—cold enough that her wasp body became a little less responsive. She kept flying to stay warm, exploring the premises.
She hoped she was early, not late, for whatever they would do today . . .
She found a table set with various types of scientific glass and apparatus whose purpose Miriam could not perceive as she stalked among them on her six slender legs. Then she buzzed over to the cages full of miserable animals snuggled in their meager bedding.
Finally she turned her attention to the doors. Other than the one she’d come through, there were three, two with keyholes. The one on the far wall was without one. Miriam selected the right-hand door and crawled through the keyhole only to enter into an even darker chamber. She immediately felt her connection to the wasp weaken.
Lead walls, perhaps—or some other way of suppressing diabolic energy. But why . . . ?
Miriam urged the wasp toward a dim light shining on a pedestal in the center of the room. Whatever it was, it was under a cloth. She landed on it, her wasp feet sinking into velvet of all things. What with the war, Miriam hadn’t touched such luxurious fabric for years, but the wasp’s carapace and feelers did not register the sensation as her own fingertips would.
She crawled all over it, noting that the object was spherical, about the size of a large walnut, but with a strange and springy texture. She burrowed her way under the cloth to get a closer look.
It was a marble—or rather, it wasn’t. It was perfectly round like one, but soft rather than hard. As Miriam got closer to it, looking deep within the swirling, shining interior, she felt the energy radiating from it.
It was a familiar energy. Even suppressed by the room, Miriam could tell it was some sort of concentrated source of diabolic essence. It had been extracted, purified, and then concentrated into what seemed like a gel contained by a rubbery skin that Miriam suspected would withstand a fall to the floor. Or perhaps it would burst on impact, with unknown results.
Querner had discussed creating a weapon. Miriam was no munitions expert, but she had a feeling this was likely to be an extremely important component.
There wasn’t much else she could do in regard to this ball of energy—at least, not at the moment. And not in this body. The wasp was getting tired, so before flying to the other doorway to see what lay beyond it, Miriam landed on the desk in the center of the room. It was tidy—of course it was tidy, with stacked papers and letters in a file and fountain pens and a letter opener and so on and so forth.
The stacked papers were notes. She crawled beneath the cover and managed to get it off with a brief burst of flight that further exhausted her. But here was her chance to see what Querner was up to . . .
Experiment 12
The Hunter Sisters
Of course Querner would have a title page. Annoyed, Miriam tugged it off, buzzing angrily, the wasp body protesting every moment of activity. Then—at last—she began to read.
It was a slow and laborious process due to the wasp’s eyes, and its unwillingness to move if it didn’t have to, but soon she became absorbed in the reading.
The Hunter Sisters, also known as the Furies, have plagued the Reich for years. Early members of the OSS, they came to notoriety as their activities have not been limited to the usual sorts of espionage; indeed, their exploits include training an all-woman spy network in Istanbul under Lanning McFarland, separate from the Dogwood chain and much more effective, and then later penetrating several of our installations in Austria and Germany.
Before their diabolic corruption became generally known, it was believed that the Furies had been so damnably effective due to their truly uncanny similarity to one another. The assumption was that they were triplets, but in reality they are several years apart in age (Mary being the youngest, Martha the middle, and Prudence the oldest of the girls). Their near-identical features are not the result of nature, but of diabolic manipulation. How their father—for that is whose responsibility they are—came to create them, we may never know; he was a wild diabolist and did not reveal his secrets to them. They themselves had no hand in the process. Under duress they all revealed that it was their own mother upon whom they were molded; surely the Jew Dr. Sigmund Freud would have quite a lot to say about that. They, too, must have sensed the deviation in such a desire on the part of their father, for they fled to Paris from the United States, and took many pains to differentiate themselves from one another.
Then came the war, and their decision to become spies for the Allies turned their similarity into an asset rather than a liability.
Miriam had to pause to painstakingly flip the page.
Tests have revealed that the demon responsible for their altered appearances is none other than the unspeakable horror known as the Dreamer in the Darkness. The summoning of the Dreamer has been forbidden by all diabolic organizations, reputable or otherwise, due to the intensity of its aspirations. None of the Furies know how their father summoned it. We must all hope that its secrets died with their sire, for the agent we sent to the family homestead found nothing, only a cold hearth and no forwarding addresses for their surviving siblings.
Such things are beyond the scope of my experiments, and yet thoroughness and posterity both demand that I record their origins. My hope is that the capture of the Furies will lead to a great advancement for the Reich, if I am able to manage it—a weapon that will weaken the resistance of the Allies and what traitors exist yet within the glorious Fatherland.
It is generally known that while a diabolist may consume specific diabolic essence, once it is processed by the body, it becomes general diabolic essence. And yet, this understanding must be expanded if we are to succeed in our quest to cleanse the world in fire and in righteousness. We are out of our reserves. There it is, in plain language. The stores of our specific essences have been depleted by the war as has been our network of diabolists and those willing to trade with us. This is our last-ditch effort, as the Americans might say; a gambit where we will risk all to save all. While using the Dreamer is a crime I never imagined myself committing, if I can simply extract some of its specific essence from these women, I believe I can create a weapon the likes of which has never before been seen. It will kill many but change more, for the Dreamer was once known as the Pied Piper, due to its ability to ensnare, persuade, and sway. If I succeed, and add the Dreamer’s essence to the—
At that moment, the door with no keyhole flew open and the lights came on in the room. Querner was there, wearing large thick mitts and carrying a bright purple pyramid-shaped crystal. He was saying something to an unfamiliar nurse as she scribbled something on a clipboard, while Nurse Franzi, still wearing the cattle prod at her waist, pushed a gurney at a near run.
Upon the gurney lay a young woman. She appeared to be moaning—Miriam couldn’t hear in the wasp’s body—and more troublingly, her body seemed to be smoking; yellow clouds billowed off of her as if she were an overheated engine.
Miriam buzzed away from the desk, flying to the doorjamb to see if she could read their lips as they spoke.
The vantage point was a decent one; when Querner handed off the crystal to unlock the door she’d not yet explored, Miriam could see two other women lying slumped against the wall of the chamber, their wrists chained to rusted metal rings jutting out from the tiled walls. Their faces were indeed surprisingly identical to the wracked visage of the woman on the gurney. They both perked up a bit when the door opened and called to their sister.
Their sister did not look up.
The prostrate woman’s lack of response seemed to agitate the middle child of the bunch. She began to speak to Querner—to shout at him, Miriam assumed, given how accusatory her expressions and motions were. Miriam almost didn’t need to hear the conversation to understand it. The woman was both threatening and pleading with Querner; he was responding mildly and reasonably. He was smiling—Germans always smiled so much—which is why it was all the more terrifying when he reached over and slapped her face. Hard.
Miriam didn’t see the woman’s response. She was too angry and, blinded by this anger, she let the wasp take over. Leaving her unobtrusive position by the door, Miriam sped at Dr. Querner and stung him on the neck, just above where his collar ended.
Miriam made her escape as his hand came up, and she had the small satisfaction of seeing him frown. Then she fled the insect to rest, escape, or die as it wished, selecting the caged marten as her next host.
“I can’t see it,” said the nurse with the clipboard. “It must have flown off. I wonder how it got down here?”
“Help me with her, please,” said Nurse Franzi. She was trying to get the moaning, smoking woman onto a bench, but she seemed to be hot to the touch.
“What have you done to her?” demanded one of the Hunter sisters. “Prudence! Can you hear me? Prue!”
The one on the gurney—Prudence—had started to look less solid. Miriam was sure of it. Whatever yellow stuff was billowing out of her, she was changing due to its absence. Her flesh seemed to be relaxing and her clothes were becoming too tight, whereas a mere moment before they had been reasonably fitted; this phenomenon showed no signs of stopping, her body seemed to be flowing out of itself like a cracked egg. The nurse kept touching her gingerly and pulling away her hands as if she’d been burned.
“Many comings and goings over the past few days,” said Querner sourly, as he rubbed at his neck. He seemed completely unperturbed by the disturbing situation before him. “Careful now! Don’t drop her! She may survive, and if she does, I would like to interrogate her. For now, I must simply await the results of my experiment.”
Miriam squealed, and her lithe body seemed to curl from under her as she thrashed against the metal bars of the cage in fury. Await the results! Wait how long? She couldn’t stay forever, and every cleave cost her. The spirit-foot she had given up—who knew what state she would be in when she returned? She couldn’t keep on like this. She needed answers today.
“Something has upset the marten,” observed Querner. Miriam quieted down when she noticed the doctor looking at her keenly. He came toward her.
Miriam was acting on pure animal instinct when she backed away from him; this, however, seemed to satisfy him.
“A lot of spunk in you, little one,” he said, with horrible fondness. “Good. I did not expect you to recover from that last procedure, but your vital essences seem to have recovered nicely.”
He turned away then, but his pleasure seemed to sour as he looked at his desk. The scattered papers brought a furrow to his brow. Of course they did; Dr. Querner was clearly not the sort of man to leave his desk in such a state!
“Something is wrong here,” he said as a great thump and then a few screams came from the room where the two nurses were attempting to manage the steaming girl. “Ach! What is it now?”
“She—” The nurse who had held the clipboard backed out of the room, hands held high. “She woke up, and she grabbed Franzi’s arm, and wouldn’t let go, and—”
“Let me through!” Querner gave a last glance at his desk and then headed back into the other room. But before he’d gone far—before Miriam had thought it through—she released her grasp on the marten and jumped into Querner.
Or at least she tried to. She experienced the unsettling but distinct sensation of bouncing or sliding off him. She could find no purchase and ended up in the marten again, like a rubber band snapping back.
It was a struggle to maintain control of the beast, so she put the experience from her mind as best she could. She could research later. Now was not the time to puzzle it out.
“Mien Gott, give me the cattle prod!” said Querner.
A zap and a screech—Miriam couldn’t see from whom, from her cage, but it was Franzi who emerged, clutching what looked like a badly burned arm close to her body. As another zap and a screech echoed through the subterranean chamber, Miriam decided to try again to cleave to another human.
She had to fight for control of the clipboard-wielding nurse. The woman did not want to yield to Miriam, but Miriam’s dedication and experience won out in the end.
Once Miriam was in control, she reached for the letter opener on Querner’s desk. With it in hand, she snuck up behind Franzi in the chaos and held it to her throat.
“Dr. Querner!” She held the knife tighter when Franzi struggled against her; after that, the nurse was as quiet as the mice in the cages. “Stop that—or your nurse dies!” Querner did stop; he poked his head out of the room beyond, looking very surprised indeed.
“Nurse Antje?” He blinked at Miriam from behind his glasses. “No . . . not Antje. It is you . . . the diabolist who has decided to try to be a hero. Tut, tut—are you stealing someone else’s body with your soul? That is quite rude, you know, though an ingenious way to sidestep my wards that prevent scrying. I just never expected anyone to be mad enough to try body swapping . . . the costs!” He laughed. “Desperate times for all of us, aren’t they?”
“We’re coming, Querner,” said Miriam, trying to tough it out a little to cover up how she still didn’t have a plan. “All of us!”
“Are you now? How delightful. You’ll forgive me if I carry on?” He gave her almost a chagrined look. “If all of you are coming, then needs must, for the devil is driving—”
“I’ll kill her!”
“Do you what you must, and so will I,” said Querner, turning away. “Franzi’s allegiance is unquestionable—she would die for the Führer, and if this is how, I am sure she will accept it with grace and dare I say it? Enthusiasm.”
Only then did Miriam remember what Querner had told her, not Franzi—that there was a button somewhere that would release a gas that would turn the Dark Lab into more of a mortuary than it already was. She had to prevent that as surely as she had to prevent Querner from completing his diabolic weapon.
“Now where were we,” said Querner, kneeling down beside the fallen Hunter sister. She had gone very quiet. The yellow clouds coming off her were smaller and less substantial, but her body’s slackness was horrifying to behold. She looked raw, like spilled cake batter oozing across a countertop, or a jellyfish decomposing on the sand.
“Leave her alone!” This was one of the other sisters. Her accent was harsh and American; it sounded less like the voices Jane liked to do while imitating her favorite actresses and more like when she’d played the part of a gangster during her little reenactments.
It seemed so long ago, when they had used to do that—but it wasn’t. Not really.
“I shall not,” said Querner, again in that smug, reasonable tone that made Miriam want to scream. “I shall do with her as I please, and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop it.”
Miriam gasped, not from alarm but because Franzi elbowed her in the side, hard. She grabbed Miriam’s wrist with her other hand and twisted. It wasn’t Miriam’s body, but Miriam was the one who felt the pain, keenly, and she gasped as she dropped the letter opener. It hit the floor and spun away out of reach.
Before Miriam could think of what to do Franzi shoved her, hard. Miriam fell onto her rear end, her tailbone shooting pain up her spine. As Miriam struggled to get her wind back, Franzi retrieved her cattle prod from Querner.
“Pull a knife on me, will you?” cried Franzi, before jamming the rod into Miriam’s stomach.
The pain was excruciating. Miriam writhed as the electricity surged through her borrowed body. She convulsed, unable to control any part of herself; her arms and legs were no longer under her hard-wrought control. Every nerve felt struck by lightning—until Miriam remembered she need not endure any of this.
The jump from Nurse Antje to Franzi wasn’t as difficult as the jump from the marten to Antje; she cleaved to the nurse like a foot sliding into a familiar boot. The pain ceased immediately, and once Miriam got her wits back, she realized the prod was in her hands now.
She jammed it into her former host, right at her neck. Nurse Antje screamed the same scream Miriam had just uttered . . . and then she stopped. When Miriam withdrew the prod, the woman did not move except to twitch a few times.
“Good work, Franzi,” said Querner. “A pity about Antje though.”
Miriam smiled to herself for only a moment before turning to jam the cattle prod into the meat of Querner’s torso.
The doctor yowled like a cat. Staggering backward, he tripped over where the puddle of Prudence lay still on the floor; a second yelp followed as Querner’s exposed skin gave off a somewhat pleasant smell, like cooked pork, unfortunately followed by the aroma of burning hair. Apparently what had been Prudence was still hot to the touch. He rolled off her. Prudence’s poor flesh bounced back like a jelly as Miriam followed after the doctor, jamming the cattle prod into his groin for a second strike.
The smell of urine covered up the others; Miriam left him to moan and clutch himself in agony.
Prudence wasn’t moving at all. With time being of the essence, she turned to the other two women.
“This is a rescue,” she said, as they looked on in amazement. “I’m rescuing you.”
A moment passed before the elder of the two—Martha, the one who had admonished Querner—spoke.
“Who are you?”
“A friend. Querner was right, I am body-hopping, for lack of an easier term for it. The cost is immense. But worth it, I think, if I stop him and get you out of here.”
“Why should we believe you?”
Miriam hadn’t anticipated being asked this, not with it still up in the air whether their sister was even still alive. “Because . . .” Miriam looked from the nurse on the floor to the prostrate form of Dr. Querner. “Why would I do that to them if I wasn’t trying to help you?”
“Any number of reasons,” said Mary, the youngest Hunter sister, chiming in at last. “This could be another trick of Querner’s.”
“All I can do is promise you it’s not,” said Miriam. “I didn’t intend to rescue you, not when I started all this. I came here to find out what happened to my father. Querner held him here . . . for experiments, I suppose . . . and now he’s, he’s . . .” Martha nodded. “But there’s no reason I shouldn’t help you now that I’m here.”
The two Hunter sisters exchanged a look, and nodded at once. It was a bit disturbing, actually; their similarity of face, build, and affect was not that of siblings, with the natural variations found even in identical sets of twins or triplets. They were copies of one another—or, if Querner’s notes were to be believed, copies of their mother.
“Get his pistol,” said Martha, and Miriam felt pretty stupid for not thinking of that herself. Querner was recovering; she ought to have done that first thing. But once she had his weapon in her hand, the only thing she could think of was getting rid of it.
Miriam had fired guns before; Nancy owned a rifle, and Edith—poor Edith—had once brought out her fashionable Astra 300 to let the girls try firing it. Jane had enjoyed it; Miriam had not, and currently she found the weight of the Luger in her hand overwhelming in its terrible responsibility.
“Wha . . .” Querner stirred. Miriam pointed the pistol at him, training it on his chest. “Franzi? No . . . of course it is not.”
He got himself up on his elbows as Miriam trembled. She contemplated just shooting him, but she had questions for him, like where he kept the keys to the Hunter sisters’ manacles.
And in any case, she really didn’t want to. The death of the man she’d slain while in the owl’s body always hovered at the edges of her thoughts. The idea of being haunted by a second ghost was undesirable to her, even if it was the ghost of the man who killed her father.
“Where are the keys?” asked Miriam. “The keys to their manacles! Tell me!”
“In my pocket,” said Querner calmly, as if she were a small child being told the answer to an often-asked question. “I won’t stop you from taking them. Do so any time. Much more interesting to me is how you’ve managed to body-hop so . . . potently? What an astonishing price must you be paying! And all to stop me. Why, it leaves me quite breathless. I’m flattered, I really am.”
“Take them out and toss them over to Mary and Martha.”
“What if I don’t? And don’t worry, I know your answer will be academic in nature. You won’t shoot me.”
He was probably right, but his confidence was irritating. Not willing to concede the point, Miriam cocked the Luger.
“Suit yourself,” she said. “I can get them off of your dead body easily enough.”
Querner stood and dusted himself off, but there was nothing he could do about the piss stain on the front of his trousers. It didn’t seem to bother him much; he grinned at her. “You’re quite the gangster, aren’t you? I suppose I’d better comply with your demands . . . or else! Isn’t that right?” But he did chuck the keys over to the sisters.
Mary took them and began to fumble with them. Miriam wished Mary would figure out how to free herself faster, but she was working one-handed. Martha was chained too far away from her to help, and the lock on her manacle seemed to be sticky.
“I thought I had made this lab impenetrable,” said Querner, as he watched Mary struggle. “And yet, you have bypassed my defenses utterly. I anticipated that some forms of astral projection might be a risk, but not what you’re doing. Dying for a cause is one thing, but to live for who knows for how long as some hollowed-out thing, risking the intrusion of every enterprising spirit . . . not many would do that, even for such a cause as this.”
Miriam said nothing. The grinding of the lock as Mary impotently labored over it was maddening.
“I wonder who you are,” said Querner, as if he had not a care in the world. “A diabolist, that is for certain. But beyond that . . . is this personal? Is it for a cause?”
“Both,” said Miriam, before she could stop herself. “My father—you killed him . . .” she trailed off.
“I can’t say that narrows it down,” said Querner. “Recent?”
“I don’t know,” said Miriam. “All I know is that he’s lying dead outside in the forest.”
“Tell me his name, and I’ll tell you how he died.”
Miriam laughed at him. Did he think she was so stupid? “I honestly don’t care what you did to him.” This was true—she didn’t. It didn’t matter. “I just want to destroy you.”
“And yet I still live.” Querner shrugged. “Though I can’t say the same for you for much longer,” he stage-whispered, as Mary shook out her red and bruised fingers. She still had not gotten herself free.
“Stop!” cried Miriam, but Querner had called her bluff. He lunged for her, grabbing for his pistol. Miriam froze but Martha was a quick thinker—she stuck her leg out, tripping the doctor before he could get his pale hands around the gun.
Querner came down hard on his face, but quickly rolled over, squirming and clutching at a bloody nose. In the confusion, Miriam tucked the cattle prod under her arm and set the pistol on the bench to unlock Mary’s manacle.
“Now me!” said Martha, but Querner had gained his feet. Slipping in the blood that gushed from his nose, he again lunged for the Luger.
Miriam was elbowed aside as Mary went for it, too. She got there first. The report was deafening. When Miriam’s watering eyes let her see again, she perceived Querner through the smoke. He was clutching at his arm; great gouts of blood pumped from it, but he was still moving, heading for something with great intention.
Miriam gave up on Martha’s manacle. “He’s going to burn us,” she cried, rolling to her feet to chase after the doctor.
“What?” asked Mary, but there was no time. Querner was running for a metal box affixed to the wall. Miriam willed her borrowed legs to move faster as Querner fumbled with the latch.
Then Mary screamed, “Get down!” and Miriam dropped to her knees right there on the stone floor of the lab. Pain shot up her bones and into her hips and from her hands into her wrists as she caught herself. She was glad she’d acted so quickly, however, when the pistol fired not once more, but thrice in a row, bam bam bam.
Querner slumped lifelessly against the wall. The metal door of the box swung open, creaking in the sudden shocking silence of the room. Within, a solitary red button gleamed.
They were safe from the threat of the lamps and the gas, but Miriam knew the gunshots would draw swift attention. She turned to share this revelation with Mary and was surprised to find Querner’s Luger pointed right at her face.
“Now let’s talk about you,” she said.
“Your sisters . . .”
“Can wait. Yes, even poor Prue. I have to secure this situation. So, who are you?”
Miriam decided honesty would be best. “My name is Miriam Cantor. I’m . . . I’m Jewish—Jewish enough that I had to leave, at least. But my parents stayed—they were diabolists, do you know the Société des—” Mary was nodding. “They were captured. I traced my father here. I was too late for him, but I still wanted to help.”
Something in Miriam’s words had convinced Mary. She still seemed suspicious, but she lowered the Luger and turned her attention to her restrained sister.
Martha, once freed, immediately slid down to see to Prudence.
“She’s dead,” she said after a moment. Miriam wasn’t surprised. Prudence barely had human shape anymore.
“I’m sorry,” said Miriam.
Mary glanced through the door at where Querner lay. “At least he won’t ever find out if he was successful. I can’t imagine there’s someone else waiting to step into his shoes and win the war for them. They were trying to make a weapon, you know,” said Mary. “Some sort of bomb, powered by diabolic essence. That’s why we were investigating, but they caught us, and of course Querner realized we’d been . . . altered. Once he found out how, we were done for. It became a different project. He became obsessed with the idea of producing a bomb with a diabolic fallout that would win over the survivors to the Nazi cause.” She shook her head. “That’s all I know.”
“Do you mind if I look through his notes? Go through his desk?” Miriam did her best to sound innocent as she dangled the keys at them.
“Let her,” said Martha, as Mary started to protest. “We need to get out of here.”
Mary nodded, and Miriam did indeed amble to Querner’s desk. She gazed down at the papers that lay there, rustling them about for a few moments to allay any suspicion from the other room. Then, taking the keys in her hand, she crept to the other door.
A bomb, powered by diabolic essence . . . that had to be the purpose of the marble-like item in the other room. A massively concentrated diabolical power source for a bomb . . .
If the remaining Hunter sisters knew what lay beyond the other door, they would want it. Maybe they’d have more of an idea of what to do with it, but Miriam had a way to instantly get it much, much farther away from the Nazis.
She had just pulled the velvet cloth off of the soft marble when she heard them behind her.
“What’s that?”
Miriam palmed the sphere before turning around. Once again, Mary had the pistol trained on her. Miriam’s armpits prickled with sweat and her knees got a little less solid-feeling inside her skin.
“Just looking around,” she said, but she knew she didn’t sound convincing.
“What did you find? You have something in your hand. I saw you take it.”
“I didn’t take anything,” lied Miriam.
“Show me your hand, then.”
Miriam played for time. “Mary, this room suppresses diabolic energy. It’s hard for me to hang on to this body in here.” That, unfortunately, was true. “Do you mind if we step into the main room?”
“I do mind, as a matter of fact,” said Mary. “You’re keeping something from us. I want to know what it is before anyone goes anywhere. Show me your hand.”
“I don’t want to fight with you,” said Miriam. She was now dangerously close to losing her hold on Nurse Franzi. “Please, we can help each other, we’re on the same side, so let’s just step—”
Mary cocked the pistol, and Miriam knew then she was done here, in this lab. She squished her tongue around the inside of her mouth to get as much saliva going as she could and then popped the marble-sized sphere there.
It had seemed smaller when it wasn’t in her mouth. Hopefully its softness would save her from choking.
“What did you—” shouted Mary, and to Miriam’s surprise she fired the gun, but it made a mere click instead of blasting Miriam in the face.
Miriam swallowed as Mary cursed.
“God damn Kraut-made Luger piece of—”
But Miriam never heard the rest of it, as the moment she felt the soft marble of diabolic energy slide down her gullet, she let go of Franzi’s body.
The mirror dropped from her hand and bounced; the knife, too, fell from her weak fingers and stuck into the floor dangerously close to her foot.
Miriam woke some time in the night, still in her chair. As she stumbled toward bed, her foot struck something that went rolling across the floor to shatter against the wall.
It was her father’s devil-trap, returned from wherever it went when Miriam used her mirror, but Miriam was too exhausted to care much about it.
WHEN A KNOCK AWAKENED HER the next morning, Miriam knew something was very wrong with her. She didn’t feel exhausted, as one might after a sleepless night; her body felt different, unfamiliar and unresponsive.
Another knock made her wince. Miriam called out that she’d be there in a moment. She rolled onto her side to ease out of bed only to be greeted by the sight of her father’s devil-trap lying in big jagged pieces on her bedroom floor.
“Miriam?”
She’d worry about it later. For now, she had to get to the door, afraid as she was about what Jane would say when she saw her.
Jane looked absolutely traumatized.
“Is it bad?” croaked Miriam.
“Awful,” she whispered.
Miriam was surprised—not by her answer, but her phrasing. Usually Jane was diplomatic about such matters.
Jane bit her lip. “Sam . . . Sam’s dead.”
That was not at all what Miriam had expected to hear. “What?”
“Last night.”
Miriam felt a cold chill. “How did he die?”
She didn’t know what “natural causes” a young man might die of, but she still hoped for that to be Jane’s answer.
“They say it was some sort of wild animal. His neck was snapped, and he had been torn to pieces.” Jane’s eyes briefly found Miriam’s before she looked away again. She seemed curiously guilty. “It sounds like it might the same creature that got our ducks,” she said, in a voice scarcely louder than a whisper.