Angel's Fury (22 page)

Kyle looked at the floor. ‘G-Giza, 3200 BC.’

‘Does the Doctor gather us together in every incarnation?’ I whispered.

Lizzie licked her lips. ‘I-if you killed Seth . . . I mean Zillah . . . d-do you think . . . maybe some of us might have, you know, hurt or . . . k-killed each other in past lives?’ She was looking at Kyle and her eyes were wide with panic. ‘How could we do that to each other?’

Nobody spoke for a long minute. Finally Kyle clenched his fists. ‘Oh man, what does she want us to become? . . . Or do?’

Max thumped the sofa. ‘That settles it. We can’t go back to the Manor.’

* * *

Cold had seeped into the bricks around us and we stared at the floor, unable to reconnect.

Every atom of my body was aware of Seth. He kept a constant distance from me, as if touching me even by accident would stain his skin. Every so often he rubbed his mouth as if to remove the corruption of my lips. I wanted to cry.

‘What do we do?’ Belinda’s voice was tiny.

Seth gestured miserably towards the book. ‘I say we take the book to my dad’s law firm and let the police sort this mess out.’ He got to his feet, still not looking at me. ‘We passed a phone in the hallway. If it’s still connected, I’ll make a call and get him to send someone for us. The Doctor’s psychotic; we can’t let her damage us any more.’ He left the room and out of the corner of my eye I saw Pandra sag.

Her white hair, dried to fluff, no longer poked the sky in defiant spikes. The style now made her look like an old woman rather than a rebellious teen.

If the Doctor treated her like a daughter, how must she be feeling?

I shifted across the carpet until my sodden jeans touched hers. ‘I won’t leave you,’ I whispered. ‘You can come home with me.’

She moved her leg so we no longer touched and snorted. ‘My choices are pretty limited, aren’t they? I’m too old for foster care now.’ She turned her back on me, curled up and faced the wall. ‘I can’t deal with this tonight. I’m going to sleep.’

Seth’s low voice murmured through the stone. He must have managed to get through to his dad. Unable to hear individual words I just listened to the rise and fall of his tones.

His dad’ll send someone for us tomorrow and I’ll never see him again
.

In one night I had lost both Pandra and Seth. I felt as if my heart was bleeding into my chest.

It serves me right. I was a Nazi and I deserve to be alone
.

Gradually the others fell asleep.

I leaned against the wall, unable to close my eyes for fear of what I might see. When Seth saw that I remained awake he groaned under his breath and came to sit next to me, careful not to let any part of his body touch mine.

Finally he broke the near silence. ‘I know it wasn’t you.’

I looked at him sharply, but his gaze was fixed on his fingers. ‘It wasn’t you, exactly, but . . .’ he tailed off. ‘I just need some time,’ he murmured. His eyes lifted: confused, angry and lost. ‘It helps to know that the guy I see every night didn’t exactly live a long and happy life, you know?’

I stared at my knuckles.

‘I need to get my head round this.’ Seth hugged his knees and I tried to look at him without seeing an overlay of Zillah.

I couldn’t. In my eyes it was her long dark hair that fell over his shoulders, her slim fingers that were clasped round his legs.
I pictured the gunshot that had killed her and choked back a wretched sob.

We’re both haunted by the death of the same girl
.

My back slumped until I was curled up against the wall like an animal in its burrow. There was a lump hidden deep in my jacket: Bunny. I pulled the old toy towards my face and inhaled. The book still sat in the centre of the room and so, like the others, I went to sleep with the light on.

I’ve never been invited into the library before. My chest is so swollen the buttons of my uniform are creaking. Frau Asche must be pleased with me. I pause to adjust my lapels and check there are no scuffs on my boots, then I knock smartly
.

‘
Herein.
’

I push the door open. Frau Asche is sitting in the centre of the room, a large book open in front of her
.

Lifting her attention from the text she looks at me. ‘You’ve achieved leadership of the local Hitlerjugend, Kurt.
’

I nod and pride sizzles through me
.

‘
I have important news for you.’ She rises and walks round
the table. ‘The training academy wants you. Do you know what that means?
’

The academies were designed to nurture future Party leaders. No one from Hopfingen has ever graduated to one. I’ll be the first. I nod vigorously to show my understanding and the Frau smiles. ‘You have a great destiny, Kurt, and I will be there to guide you.
’

As she turns back to the table I wonder if I can borrow a poetry text and take my chance to peer around the library. However, it is not the books but the large paintings hanging on every wall that capture my attention
.

Terrifying religious scenes surround me. In one I see the great flood. The artist has taken pains to focus on the terror of the drowning masses and the pleading in the faces of those who reach for rescue. In the centre of the frame a mother stands hip deep in swirling water. She thrusts her baby towards Noah but his arms remain resolutely crossed
.

Distressed, I turn from that painting to another, which shows what appears to be a giant, forging through the flood water, a bull on each shoulder. His face is grimly determined as he heads for higher ground through the rising foam
.

Yet another piece of art shows an angel, his wings being torn from
his back, his legs and shoulders in the process of being pinned to the night sky
.

‘
Kurt.’ I snatch my attention from the paintings and return it to the Frau. ‘There is just one thing I am not happy with. Reports of cruelty to the younger members . . .’ Her voice trails off
.

I blink. Surely she isn’t serious? Such things are encouraged, to weed out the weak, but I’m a fair leader to the younger boys; I don’t indulge in unnecessary cruelty. Who’s been saying otherwise?

‘
I-I don’t know what you mean,’ I stammer
.

‘
Exactly,’ she snaps. ‘A future leader of the Nazi party needs to be hard, to make his men strong. I’ve been working with you for some time now, Kurt, and I don’t see any evidence of the strength that a leader needs.
’

‘
I . . .
’

She slams her hand on the book. ‘We’ve talked about this, Kurt. If you want the dreams to leave you, you need to indulge the creatures plaguing you. The more you ignore them, the harder they will work for your attention and you know what that means.
’

I catch my breath and my reflection distorts in the shine of my black boots. ‘What must I do?
’

The Frau licks her lips. ‘When I get back from my next trip to
Berlin I’d like to hear that you have been nurturing strength in the other boys. Cull the weak. They have no place in Germany.
’

I didn’t sleep the night through, none of us did. Every so often I’d jerk awake, heart pumping, convinced the Doctor was about to burst through the door.

Then there were the times we were all woken by the sound of another of us deep in the throes of a nightmare. Each time a scream or sob shattered my sleep I moved to comfort the dazed dreamer and by the morning we had all relocated into a huddle with the sofa as a base. Yet even in the confusion of the huddle Seth was careful not to let his limbs touch mine.

Eventually I was pulled out of my nightmares by a yank on my right arm.

My eyes shot open and I raised my fists, prepared to fight for my freedom. I blinked away the blurry detritus of the night and, when I could see clearly, realised it was Seth who held me. My heart lurched.

His hair was messy from sleep but his eyes burned.

‘What is it?’ I struggled to sit, lifted my head from Lizzie’s leg and moved Kyle’s shoulder from my left arm. The other two rolled
over, but didn’t wake. I glanced at the window. Daylight was yellowing the curtain edges. ‘Is it the Doctor?’

Seth shook my elbow. ‘Pandra’s gone.’

‘Gone?’ I looked, as if I’d find her somewhere in the pile. Then I realised someone else was missing. ‘Where’s Lenny?’

‘Do you think she’s gone back to the Manor?’ Belinda combed her hair with her fingers.

Lizzie’s gaze darted into the dawn shadows that edged the room. ‘What I don’t get is – why did she take Lenny? They’re not exactly natural partners, you know?’

Max nodded. ‘She hates Lenny even more than the rest of us.’

A distant thought was nagging at me. Something about what Lizzie just said:
they’re not natural partners
.

My fingers fumbled in the pocket of my jeans. There I found the paper Seth and I had lifted from the Doctor’s notebook. At the bottom I read the words ‘
Natural partnership with Grand Dragon
’ and I frowned.

‘Does anyone know what a Grand Dragon is?’ I barely asked it out loud but the room quieted around me, silenced by the strangeness of my whispered question.

‘I do.’ It was Max. ‘Why?’

I passed the paper over to him and he read the smudged print with a frown.

‘We found it in the Doctor’s office.’ I explained.

‘Let me see.’ Belinda’s tone had Max wordlessly passing the paper on, but his eyes, for once, were elsewhere.

‘What does it mean?’ Seth prompted him.

‘You guys have never heard of David Curtiss Stephenson?’ Max shuddered as he read the name indented on the top of the paper, and his American accent seemed stronger than usual.

I shook my head; we all did.

‘We studied him in history class last year.’ His fingers worried at a button on his jacket. ‘The Doctor thinks one of us was Stephenson?’

‘Max,’ I snapped. ‘Who was he?’

‘Is this important?’ Lizzie had the paper. ‘If the Doctor is on her way, shouldn’t we leave and talk about it later?’

I was about to agree, but Max reached across Belinda and gripped Lizzie’s arm. ‘Lenny’s missing so this is important.’ He swallowed and released her. ‘If one of them . . . no, it’ll be Pandra.
If Pandra was Stephenson . . . Well, he was KKK.’

There was a shocked silence then Belinda tossed her head. ‘You mean Ku Klux Klan right? Well, duh, Lenny isn’t black, so why would she hurt him?’

Max sighed. ‘It wasn’t just African Americans that the Klan didn’t like, Bel. And David Curtiss Stephenson was a Grand Dragon.’

Seth frowned. ‘What does that mean exactly?’

‘A Grand Dragon was the head of the KKK for a state. Stephenson was head of
twenty-three
states. He was like
the
Grand Dragon. Just in Indiana he got the membership to about . . . three hundred thousand people.’

‘What happened to him?’ As I leaned forward Seth raised his eyebrows. ‘
Something
must have happened to him, or Pandra wouldn’t be here,’ I explained.

Max nodded. ‘Cassie’s right. There was this woman, Madge Oberholtzer.’ He refused to look at any of the girls. ‘Stephenson kidnapped . . . and raped her.’

‘What?’ I sat bolt upright, remembering Pandra’s room, filled with pictures of a tormented woman.
She’s called Madge something
. I looked pleadingly at Max. ‘Then Pandra might not be Stephenson.
She told me she
stopped
Madge from shooting herself.’

He shook his head. ‘Madge Oberholtzer did try to shoot herself. When Stephenson stopped her she took poison.’ He looked me right in the eye. ‘His prison sentence started the decline of the KKK. He died in 1966.’

Seth’s voice jerked me back into the here and now. ‘He’s got Lenny.’

I blinked. ‘You mean
Pandra
has him.’

‘Pandra isn’t herself. She’s been in the Doctor’s control for longer than any of us. Right now she’s probably more Stephenson than she is Pandra.’

Lizzie’s usually sunny face was haunted. ‘He sounds more evil than my past lives put together.’

Seth nodded and did not look at me.

‘
Close to emergence
,’ Kyle whispered. ‘Oh man, that’s what the paper says. Close to emergence.’

‘That must mean Stephenson is close to taking complete control of Pandra,’ I whispered.

‘So Pandra’s taken Lenny back to the Doctor?’ Belinda looked confused.

‘No.’ Max shook his head, half bowed. ‘That’s not Stephenson’s
M.O. She’s taken him somewhere to punish him.’

Immediately my thoughts flashed to Pandra’s secret place.

Surely she wouldn’t take Lenny back there: it’s the first place I’d look
.

‘We have to split up.’ I sat straighter. ‘I’m going to search the woods around the Manor. I have a feeling she might have gone back there.’

I can stop her, whatever she’s doing. If the others find out about her secret place, they’ll never forgive her. They’ll want to leave her with the Doctor
.

Seth nodded. ‘The woods are a big place. I’ll help you search them.’ He gestured at the others. ‘You guys pair up and look around the farm and dale. Don’t do anything risky. My dad’s sending people to pick us up at midday so we need to be back here by then.’ He gauged their subdued faces. ‘Okay?’

Quietly the others paired up.

‘We’ll take the road towards the village,’ Belinda said, and Max nodded.

Kyle shrugged. ‘Lizzie and I’ll take the farm and fields.’ He turned to Seth. ‘What if we find her?’

Seth was tying his hair firmly into an elastic band. ‘Then one
of you better stay with Lenny while the other goes for help. Do what you have to with Pandra.’

Kyle and Max looked at one another, eyes narrowed, and I shivered. For Pandra’s sake I hoped I’d find her first.

Outside nothing stirred but wisps of mist that clung to clumps of mud. As we crept out of the kitchen door a crow shot up from a dip with a whirr of feathers and a raucous cry.