CHAPTER NINE

PHILLIP

The town of Siegen was wedged into the forested valley like a tick. Steep slate rooftops crowded around battered copper spires, but the military administration building, that whitewashed hulking monstrosity, was the easiest to spot: it was the one currently on fire. Thick, woolly black smoke blotted out the twilight as Phillip and Simone edged along the ridge. Just down the slope from them, the compound’s perimeter was fenced in with razor wire. But the shadows prowling the fence’s edge were not guards.

“Not again,” Simone said.

Phillip unclipped his sidearm and crouched against a nearby tree. “The army really should’ve mentioned these things in training.”

“Up ahead!” Simone called.

Phillip twisted in the direction Simone was aiming, toward their ten o’ clock. He’d have to teach her to use clock-face directions later. A shadow figure had dropped down from a tree branch and was crawling toward them on all fours. No—all sixes.

M u U c h too late . . .

That goddamned voice again, the one that was both inside his skull and all around them, blaring like a pipe organ. Simone fired, striking it along its lengthy neck. The monster twisted toward them with a sharp hiss, but didn’t slow its crawl.

“You sure that’s how to kill them?” Phillip asked.

Simone ejected the spent bullet casing from her rifle and cocked the next. “It worked before!”

Phillip dropped his rucksack and quickly fished out gauze and the vial of camphor from the first aid kit. After snatching up a stick from nearby, he wound a strip of gauze around one end, then smeared camphor on it. Simone fired two more shots, but the creature was still advancing. Phillip struck a match and held it to the camphor-soaked end of the stick.

The hissing cycled up into a shriek.

“Not a fan of fire?” He waved the makeshift torch forward, warding the beastie off. It leaned back from him, reflected flame glistening in its dead eyes, but kept all its limbs firmly planted in the underbrush.

W I L L not stop—

“We’ll see about that.”

The monster watched him for a moment more, then turned and leapt at Simone.

She screamed, rifle firing, but it was too close for her to get a good shot. Phillip pitched the torch at the monster’s feet as its front claws slashed at Simone’s chest.

“GET BACK!” he screamed at her, not that she needed the encouragement. She twisted in the monster’s grasp and dove down, sliding easily out of her oversize hunting parka. The sea of dead, crackling leaves at the monster’s feet sparked and hissed as Simone scrambled backward.

THEY MUST PAY—

The monster bared its needle teeth at him—then howled as the flames crackled along its body.

It didn’t burn like he thought it would, like meat charring through. Instead its muscles turned stringy, dangling as it tried to scramble out of the rush of fire. A molten, limp arm flopped forward, claws swiping for Phillip, but then dropped to the ground and disintegrated into a tuft of acrid smoke.

“Congratulations,” Simone muttered. “You’re going to burn the whole forest down.”

“A thank-you might be nice.” Demons and mangled bodies and whispers and blood. Maybe, just maybe, he was in over his head after all. With a shiver, he slung his pack onto his back and skirted around the growing blaze, eager to get the hell on with their mission. He’d come here to help, but so far, it felt like all he’d done was fight to survive; the feeling settled, splinter-like, under his skin. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to go. “Which way to the rendezvous point?”

They skidded forward, along the slope that edged dangerously close to the Nazi compound; it was either burning forests full of demons or burning buildings full of Nazis.

Then they heard the shouting from down the slope. “Keep running!” someone shouted. In English.

Simone’s teeth were rattling, but she managed to slot fresh bullets into her rifle with shaking hands.

“Wait.” Phillip yanked her by the sleeve. “That was an American.”

“He must be who set the compound on fire.” She glowered at Phillip. “I can see the resemblance.”

Phillip bit his tongue and crept closer toward the trees, then ducked behind a thick trunk. Three figures sprinted across the narrow yard and the road that ran the length of the ridge down below. Behind them, more creatures lurched on unsteady legs, skin sliding and sloshing around.

“Oh, God. It’s more of those mangled ones.”

“At least I can shoot those.”

The humans drew closer—two boys and a girl, all of them splattered with blood. Phillip ducked back behind the tree trunk as Simone took her first shots. “Try not to shoot the actual humans!” Phillip shouted.

“Why not? They look like Nazis to me—”

As Phillip peeked back out from around the tree trunk, the girl plowed into him, sending them both flying and crashing into dead leaves. “What in the hell—”

“Sorry!” She tried to extricate herself from him as she spoke in German—thankfully one of the handful of words the army made him learn. “Sorry—”

Her dark hair was wispy with loose waves, cut short around her ears. She wore a grimy dress that might have been blue once. He settled her off of him carefully; she weighed less than their mountain dog back home. Deep pouches under her eyes and a tightness in her face spoke of exhaustion, starvation. She wasn’t one of the monsters. Same as them, she was prey.

“Who are you?” he asked. “Uh—Sprechen Sie Englisch?”

She blinked at him with wide, dark eyes—not anger, not fear. But Simone’s rifle fired again before she could answer, and they both whipped around. Phillip crouched, defensive, but the girl looked ready to bolt like a startled deer.

“Don’t shoot!” The American-sounding boy had reached the forest edge. He was dressed like a Nazi, but if he was one, his American accent was shockingly good. Phillip looked between the girl and him, then reached for his sidearm, but it had gotten lost somewhere in the leaves when the girl plowed into him. “Please don’t shoot! We aren’t with them—”

Simone kept her rifle trained on the guy as he came closer, pausing just long enough to fire over his shoulder at one more demon-human corpsey thing. There was another boy with him, dressed in a guard’s uniform—at least, as far as Phillip could tell. It was covered in quite a lot of blood.

“Aren’t with who?” Phillip asked, answering in English. “The Nazis? Or those . . . things?”

“Neither!” The blond white boy, the American-sounding one, stepped closer, though he kept his good hand raised. His right shoulder was crusted with drying blood. “Look, we can explain . . .”

But his explanation was swallowed up in a vicious growl as another monster dropped out of the trees. Its limbs seemed to sprout out of the mouth of a man’s severed head; human arms and legs dotted some of the many appendages as they scraped through the dead leaves. The head swiveled toward Phillip and fixed its bloody eyes on him.

“Jesus Christ.” Phillip took a step backward, but he was afraid to move too quickly. Was that how they hunted? Movement? Maybe he was thinking of lions. Dinosaurs. Carefully, he took another step back as the creature let out a rattling hiss.

Bang. Bang. Simone let loose a barrage into the creature’s torso, shredding the head it had grown from. But all that did was prompt the creature to unfold, new dimensional horrors of body parts, blood vessels, throbbing organs crawling out of the skin it was shedding as it angled itself at Simone.

Blood will be repaid . . . Li-ammmmmm.

“You can only shoot them if they’re using human bodies.” The blond American stepped forward, stretching something between his hands like a shadowy Jacob’s ladder. “These ones are a little sturdier.”

“And how the hell do you know?” Phillip screeched.

With a grunt, the American snapped his palms together, and sparks of violet shot from his hands. The monster squealed, an ear-splitting noise, and stretched tall as though it were being hoisted into the air. Its flailing limbs skittered dangerously close to Phillip’s face, revealing razor-like edges on the insides of its joints. Then the monster snapped free of whatever was holding it—and pounced right at Phillip.

“Motherfucker—”

The razor flashed right in front of his face—

And with another scream, the creature shrank back, curling in on itself before it vanished, like someone had slammed shut an invisible door.

For a moment, they were all silent. Phillip didn’t know where to look. Up in the trees for more monsters? Across the field for more Nazis? The American staggered forward, clutching his bleeding shoulder.

“You gotta . . . send them back through the barrier,” he said.

Then he dropped to his knees.

Simone tossed a sharp look toward Phillip as she leveled her rifle at the boy. She was asking his opinion, he realized, once the shock wore off. As to whether they could trust him. Well, there was a first time for everything.

“You a Nazi?” Phillip asked, shuffling toward him.

The boy grimaced as he shook his head. “American. Same as you, I’m guessing.”

“What’s the capital of Idaho?”

“How the fuck should I know? I’m from New York!”

Well, that much checked out. “Name the Andrews Sisters.”

“Patty, Maxene, and . . . Shit, I don’t remember. Maxene’s the cute one anyway.”

“The blonde?” Phillip challenged.

“No way. The dark-haired one.”

Phillip couldn’t argue with that. He jerked his chin at Simone, and grudgingly, she lowered her rifle.

The girl who’d plowed into Phillip was sitting in the dead leaves, arms wrapped tight around her chest. God, she was so thin, frail as a bird. The ferocity in her glare, though, was enough to warn off someone three times her size. She narrowed her eyes at him, and he realized he was staring.

“Don’t suppose you know the capital of Idaho?” Phillip asked her.

She huffed and turned to Simone. “Are there more of them coming?” Her English accent sounded sturdy and husky, though her voice was worn out, like a threadbare towel.

“Not that I can see.” Simone’s thumb flicked the cocking mechanism of her rifle, louder than was strictly necessary. “But if you don’t start explaining yourselves . . . What those things are, and how you were able to get rid of them—”

“Liam. Liam Doyle.” The blond boy moved to extend his right hand to Phillip, then thought better of it, wincing and readjusting his grip on his shoulder. “I can explain, but you’ve gotta give us something, too. We need help. We need . . .”

“Free French. Libération-Nord,” Phillip said, to an annoyed groan from Simone. “Well, she is. I can’t really go into details as to what I’m doing here, or why, but—I’m with her.”

The dark-haired boy shuffled over to the girl who’d plowed into Phillip, and they murmured in German. Finally she lifted her head. “Rebeka. And my brother is Daniel.” Her glassy brown eyes met Simone’s, challenging.

“Listen,” Liam said, “if you’ve got a safe house we can go to, or—somewhere secure—”

“If you’ve set a military compound on fire, nowhere will be safe for you,” Simone said, her tone flat.

Liam gritted his teeth. “There’s gotta be something we can trade you. Tell me what you want to know.”

But Simone just laughed at him. “There is nothing I need to know that badly.”

“You sure about that? Your Libération might,” Liam countered.

This was getting them nowhere, and meanwhile Siegen burned, sure to draw more Nazis like rats to garbage. These people clearly needed help, and Phillip wasn’t about to leave someone out in the cold. What was the point of any of this if he did?

“We could use their help,” he said to Simone. “It’ll make my job go faster. Give us some cover. And if they know how to deal with those things—”

“You are not in charge here. You—you Americans are not in charge.” Simone’s lip curled back. “Where were you when the tanks stormed into Paris, when Pétain rolled over and let those monsters scratch his belly—”

“Hey. We’re here now, aren’t we? We’re doing what we can,” Phillip said.

Simone swallowed and turned away from him, forcing down whatever rage she’d been about to unleash. In the little time he’d spent with her, Phillip had learned she was nothing if not a master of burying things: emotions, bodies. It made his own heart ache.

“Come on,” Phillip said. “We’re all on the same side. This is why we’re here, isn’t it? If we can’t help three people who need it, how the hell are we supposed to help millions more?”

Simone worked her jaw from side to side. “Fine. You can follow us to our safe house at the next town and explain yourselves there. If you haven’t burned it down, too.”

Liam smiled, a bared-teeth grin. “Perfect. We’ll regroup there. Figure out our next steps,” he said to the German siblings.

“Answers first.” Simone jabbed a finger eastward. “After that, I don’t care what you do.”

Rebeka glanced toward Phillip as they started their hike. The defiant glint had left her expression now that Simone had backed down, but she kept the look of someone far too used to staying behind her walls. “Sorry for running into you,” she said in English.

“I think you had bigger problems at the time.” He looked her over, the ragged dress and holey stockings. She carried herself as though she were used to being stronger, broader; he could see it in the proud jut of her chin, the determined tilt of her eyes. It made Phillip wonder what she was like before. Who she might become still.

“As long as those monsters burn,” she said, jerking her head toward the military compound, “I’ll be just fine.”

He had to agree—the demons and Nazis alike.

Darius had laughed at him once, back when he explained the digital computer he’d been designing. Still trying so hard to prove you’re more than your inheritance, huh? He always cut too close to the bone. Maybe he had been striving for acceptance, for something that would always be out of reach. In the end, it did so much worse than that—devastation he couldn’t begin to undo.

Maybe that was why he wanted so desperately to help this weird bunch that burned down a Nazi base. The same reason he’d fled from Tulsa and jumped out of a goddamned plane. Because he wanted to prove his usefulness, his ability to do the right thing. But once again, he couldn’t shake the feeling it was all about to blow up in his face.

Their destination was Hallenberg, a few towns east of Siegen. They’d planned to meet up with a Siegen shopkeeper in the Magpie network after nightfall, but instead of the stifling silence of curfew, Siegen was practically shimmering with activity as military vehicles and Gestapo trucks raced toward the administrative compound. The safest thing was to head to their next stop in Hallenberg, and they were all ready to put the smoldering wreckage as far behind them as they could. Phillip was itching to actually get to work on their mission. But he was here to help people, right? And these disasters sure seemed like they needed help. Anyone who’d pulled down the Nazis’ ire was okay in his book.

“You will leave first thing in the morning,” Simone told the newcomers. “Every last Gestapo thug will be hunting for you, and we don’t need that kind of heat.”

“And why not?” Rebeka asked. “What are you doing that’s so important?”

“Nothing that concerns you—” Simone started.

“No one who saw our faces is still alive.”

It was the first time Phillip had heard Daniel, the German boy, speak up. He was even taller than his sister, rivaling Simone for height, but where Simone had the sturdy muscles of someone who worked with their whole body, Daniel looked like yarn cast onto a wire frame. And Phillip didn’t need his first aid training to tell that the blood on Daniel’s clothes and face, drying purplish in the starlight, was not his own.

They marched for eight kilometers, ten. Liam and Daniel spoke in hushed tones, ignoring Simone’s glowers, but Rebeka only stared into the darkness when Phillip tried to catch her eye. Small talk made him feel wound up like a transistor coil, all nervous potential and too much surface space. He was used to bumbling through champagne chatter at his parents’ parties. She deserved better than that.

“You weren’t afraid of the monsters,” she said softly. Her accent made it hard to tell whether she thought that was a good thing.

“Then I guess I’m a good actor.”

Her smile twitched upward. “You’ve been here long?”

“I, uh . . . I’m probably not supposed to say.”

She nodded to herself. “And they only sent the two of you. Seems rather dangerous. You agreed to this?”

“It’ll be worth it if we can pull it off.” His breath lodged in his throat, caught on warring instincts as he scrounged for something more to say. None of the social rules he’d constructed for himself applied here. He didn’t have a schematic for any of this.

“And if you can’t?” she asked.

His shoulders dropped. “Then it was worth trying.”

Her eyebrows rose with something like respect.

Phillip caught himself whistling “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” as they continued on. But it was at once too quiet and too loud in the vast emptiness of the forests around them. The sharp crunch of leaves trampled beneath five pairs of feet. The question of what in the hell they’d all gotten themselves into.

Finally Hallenberg emerged, a smaller hamlet curled up next to the forest alongside a dismal creek. Half-timbered Bavarian buildings clustered around a picturesque central square complete with a fountain, currently dry. Few lights sketched the shapes of curtained windows; the streetlights were dark husks against the starry sky. Probably just a precautionary measure against potential air raids. But there was an optimal volume of activity they needed to disguise themselves, and this fell on the side of too sparse.

“We head for the church,” Simone said. “Act like you’re supposed to be here.”

The “church” turned out to be Himmel Kino, an old sanctuary converted into a movie theater, the marquee out front dark where it jutted from a plain whitewash-and-slate façade. They huddled beneath the entry, but the carved wooden doors had been locked. No showings tonight, Phillip supposed. With one hand on her rifle, Simone made five quick little knocks.

Nothing happened.

Dogs barked in the distance, the frantic, anxious noise of a pack eager to attack, then died down. Pigeons cooed down at them from where they’d nested in the eaves of the marquee. The air smelled smoky and stale, like fireplaces stoked to life for the first time after their summer rest.

Finally, there was a slow, dragging sound on the other side of the wooden door, then the clatter of chains being unwrapped. Liam shifted his weight impatiently at Phillip’s side. Phillip couldn’t blame him, with a wound like that. He was in for a rough night trying to patch himself up.

Was it the shadows under the marquee, or was Liam’s face now edged in black? It looked like black veins shooting from his eyes. Phillip looked closer, eyebrows drawn down, but the illusion shattered. He must have imagined it.

At long last, the door cracked open, and a pale woman’s face appeared through the seam. “Curfew. Showing’s canceled for tonight,” she said in German, and started to shut the door once more.

“Wait.” Simone blocked the door open with her shoulder and continued in French. “J’ai besoin d’emprunter un parapluie.”

Uncle Al had drilled Phillip on these phrases, but his accent was so bad he barely recognized them in Simone’s flawless French. Something about borrowing an umbrella. He burrowed down into his coat.

The woman exhaled, like she was just as tired of this game as they were. “Rouge ou noir?”

“Je préfère vraiment le bleu.”

The woman yanked open the door. She was broad, with a jaw made for chewing rocks and, as the full view of her revealed, was missing her left arm below the elbow. A neat knot in her olive coveralls concealed the truncated limb. She ushered them inside, eyes narrowing at each successive person who limped through her door.

“Sorry,” Simone said, switching to English. “We picked up a few strays.”

“I did not know the circus was in town,” the woman muttered, though her accent seemed to feed the words through a cheese grater.

“We found them fleeing Siegen, or what’s left of it.” Simone gave Phillip a pointed look. “We’re supposed to help everyone on our side, or so I’ve been reminded.”

Phillip ignored her. “Is there a doctor or someone we could summon? He’s been shot.”

“Not by me,” Simone added. “Yet.”

The woman shook her head. “We’re on curfew tonight because of an ‘incident’ at Siegen. That’s what the loudspeaker trucks said, anyway.”

Phillip steeled himself. “Guess I’ll have to do it, then.”

“You’ll want to hole up in the projection room. It’s a mess, but the sort of mess with good hiding places. There’s a false panel behind the cabinets. Oh, but the projection equipment—be careful with it. You’ll see I’ve added an extra switch to the side. Under no circumstances should you touch it, ja? Only in emergencies.”

The woman introduced herself as Helene as she limped her way through the foyer of the church, under Gothic ribbed ceilings painted with strange, brightly hued images. Phillip was too used to Tulsa’s clean lines, sharp Art Deco, forceful façades. This church, for all the drab white and slate of its exterior, was an untidy mess of primary colors creeping out of black and white. He kind of loved it.

“There’s the staircase. The projection room’s in the old choir balcony. If you need something to eat, the kitchen’s in the rectory.” Helene swung her right hand toward a doorway and twisting staircase beyond. “I’m supposed to host an officer matinee of The Great Love tomorrow, so I suggest you make yourselves scarce by then.”

“And the radios?” Simone asked anxiously.

“We’ll deal with them in the morning.” With that, she waved them off and vanished into the rectory.

As soon as Helene was gone, Simone gripped Liam by the injured shoulder, thumb digging into his wound. “You promised answers. Now talk.”

Liam groaned loudly in response.

“Jesus Christ, Simone!” Phillip rushed forward to pry her off. “At least let me patch him up first. Would probably help if we weren’t leaving a blood trail to our hiding spot.”

Liam managed a strained smile. “Do you know what you’re doing?”

“They taught me how to do a field dress in basic.” Phillip winced. “Aaaaand I probably shouldn’t have said that.”

“Fine. But then we need answers,” Simone said.

They shuffled up the staircase in single file toward the projection room. Rebeka caught Phillip’s gaze as they entered the messy converted balcony. “Thank you,” she said quietly. “For helping us.”

Phillip’s stomach fluttered. “Someone had to, right?”

He settled Liam down against the wall, then started to work his arm free from the shredded sleeve of his jacket. “I’d figured you were army,” Liam said. “Pretty sure I’m the only American moron who isn’t out here on Uncle Sam’s orders.”

Phillip tore open the gauze pack and dabbed a vial of peroxide onto the wad of bandages. “You think you’re a moron? I volunteered.”

Liam relaxed with a grin. “Why’d you go and do a thing like that?”

Phillip flinched. Now it was his own nerve that was exposed. “Felt like the right thing to do, I guess.” A pat, easy answer. He was used to the weight of his decision: the delicious look on his father’s face when he announced he was leaving; the remorse he’d felt every time he built a new circuit diagram for Mr. Connolly, wondering how it might be misused next. But he wasn’t ready to let these strangers in like that.

“Right,” Liam said, but he didn’t sound convinced.

Phillip pressed the gauze to the wound and scrubbed. It had to sting worse than an Oklahoma summer, poor bastard. The blood had started to dry, thick and tacky, on his collarbone, but Phillip could feel the hard nob of the bullet beneath it. Extracting it was a little out of his repertoire, but they had no choice. Maybe it’d be like threading a loose circuit back into place (though he doubted any patient would be much comforted by that analogy).

“You a Dodgers man?” Phillip asked, once he’d let up the pressure on the wound. He needed Liam nice and distracted while he worked the tweezers.

Liam shook his head. “Damn Yankees. Used to go to Dodgers games, though, with my . . .” Only the slightest pause, but Phillip felt it in the way Liam’s muscles tensed. “My pops—oof.”

Phillip eased the bullet loose in a spurt of fresh blood and felt his own stomach flip. Liam hissed through his teeth and squeezed fists around his jacket, then slowly slumped back.

Phillip discarded the bullet, then cleaned the wound up once more. “It’s LaVerne, by the way,” he said, while Liam straightened up and tested his shoulder. “The third Andrews sister.” A trust offering.

Liam smiled. “I guess I’m more a fan of Bing Crosby.” He moved his arm in a slow circle, still wincing, but he was looking less waxy now, at least. “Not bad. You a medic?”

Phillip wet his lips, hesitant. “Engineer.”

“Really!” Liam sat back with a grin. “Theoretical physics. Princeton.”

Phillip let out a low whistle. “You study with Einstein? I usually don’t give you theoretical boys much credence, but I gotta say, his theory of relativity . . .”

“How about you? Let me guess . . . Mechanical engineering?”

“Electrical,” Phillip said. “Digital computing, radio waves, circuitry, I design it all.” Or he did, anyway. Dimly, he wondered if he’d ever have the guts to design something new again.

“Frequency generation? I’ll have to pick your brain about something I’ve been working on later. I’d love to see—”

“Enough.” Simone pulled up a chair from the projectionist’s desk and sat across from Liam, her rifle resting in her lap. “You said you had answers.”

Liam exchanged a glance with Phillip, like he was asking for help. But Phillip knew better than to go against Simone’s will. Slowly, Liam nodded, clammy sweat gathering on his brow.

“I do. But they aren’t gonna be answers you like.”