Blackbone (25 page)

He wriggled and struggled to escape her. He whimpered and begged. She held him and worked him, and the pressure rose to an unbearable peak. He felt himself reaching beyond his endurance, rushing toward a plateau he had never scaled before. His body whipped beneath hers in a frenzy of excitement. He quivered on the cot like jelly.

She rose in front of him, gave him a wicked smile, then displayed what he had feared all along—his organ lying limp in her hand—the badge of his impotence—the trophy of his unconsummated wedding night—the shame of his failure with Frieda—

As he screamed out her name in a terrified protest, she ripped the sheet out from under their bodies and held it out to him, a silent offering. He stared at it.

The guard at the end of the hall started out of his midnight doze. He listened but heard nothing more. He didn’t bother to check.

Gebhard let water run into his mouth and spill out. He ducked his head under the spray and shook his hair. Steam was building up in the tightly closed hut. Gebhard didn’t care. And if they caught him, so what? He felt wonderful—clean, revitalized, defiant. He spread his legs and took a piss. The yellow river washed down the sloping floor to the drain.

Moving down the line of pipes, Gebhard reached up and turned on the other spouts. Within seconds every shower head was going full blast. The room was alive with spraying water, and steaming up fast. Mist swirled around him. He laughed and danced in it, grabbed imaginary beers off imaginary tables, downing them in wild flourishes.

A tendril of black smoke seeped under the padlocked door and wafted upward. It curled and tested the lowering cloud of moisture. Then the rest of the nightform came in and mingled with the vapor, saturating it with darkness.

Gebhard raised his imaginary stein to the heavens. His voice rang out, “Every god in his house, and every man in his shower! Give us this moment, and give us this power!” He held the back of his head and drank, then dropped the stein, stretched out his arms and prepared to let out a triumphant yell.

It never escaped his lips.

The sound was deafening, like a three-hundred-pound depth charge exploding in a tomb. The hut shook, and Gebhard was thrown to the floor. In shock, he looked around and saw the arch of an engine room overhead. He was naked on the deck. Rivets were popping around him. Walls of water slammed across the compartment, drenching the engines. The deck flooded quickly. Gebhard lay in a rising ocean, stunned and frightened. He heard voices yelling commands in German. A shadowy figure splashed by and nearly trampled him. Gebhard rolled. His bare ass hit the diesel casing and he screamed from the burn. He jumped up and looked around wildly, his mind screaming that this was impossible, but his eyes were telling him it was real.

A second blast slammed the boat sideways and threw Gebhard into a tangle of other frightened men. More rivets gave way. The compartment was filling up. Down at the end he saw a hatch close and the latch drop. A wheel spun, trapping him.

His worst dream was coming true. For an entire year of devoted, sweat-streaked service, he had avoided this, but now at last it had come—his moment, his final reckoning with God—

Pipes burst, drenching a man behind him with oil. The engine sparked and the man erupted in flame.

Gebhard charged away from him, toward the hatch. He hit his head on something and was spun around. The hull faded from sight. He reeled along the concrete floor, from shower to shower, under the sprays and out again, then his hand found the diesel casing. He shook his head to clear it. A stream of water hit his face. He tried to move out from under it, but his legs wouldn’t work. His head throbbed, and the water stung his eyes. He closed them and heard voices reverberating dankly off the hull. Ripping sounds. Metal shrieking, giving, breaking up. His head lolled under the spray. His mouth and nose filled up, and he gagged and choked. He managed to stumble away and open his eyes, but he couldn’t see: there was a misty darkness all around him.

The lights had gone. The sub’s power was out. He could no longer hear the men or the diesels, only a throbbing rush from someplace, the hiss of water, the racketing splash as it pummeled the deck.

Heart pounding, Gebhard reached out and felt nothing. He stumbled faster, his bare feet splashing. What’s making it so dark? He hit the wall full force and cracked his head.

He stood against it, dazed and dizzy, trying to stay upright. His hand moved along the wall and felt his hook and the towel. He snatched the towel down but couldn’t hold on to it.

It fell into the stream at his feet and was carried along toward the drain.

Salty warm wetness flowed down Gebhard’s cheek and into his lips. He tasted blood and the knowledge made him weaker. He staggered after the towel, a white beacon in the dark, covering the drain. A pool of water was forming and backing up toward him. The room began to spin. Gebhard’s knees buckled. He collapsed into the water pooling around the plugged drain. He tried to move and couldn’t. All strength had gone out of him. The water slopped over his cheek, washed off some of the blood. It bubbled into his mouth.

Gebhard screamed at himself to move, but his body wouldn’t cooperate.

The blackness descended over him, embracing his body, devouring the fear and panic that drove his heart to its wildest contractions. His body was seized with violent pain. His jaws snapped open involuntarily. He couldn’t get his breath. Water flowed through his lips and filled his lungs. The djinn fed and fed and fed...

Until there was nothing more.

Seconds later, the nightform left the hut and flowed quickly across the chilled ground toward the back end of camp, toward the base of Blackbone Mountain and the mine shaft. Black tendrils whipped against the night air, lashed out in triumph, as the djinn felt power course through its essence. Power from fear. Even greater power from death. Power enough now to move mountains.

In Hut 7, Mueller sat up and tried to figure out what had disturbed his sleep. Drawn to the window, he rubbed mist off the pane and peered out. Light swept the back end of the camp.

There was something out there. Below the fence, around the caved-in part of the old mine shaft, blackness moved against the light. Then the light was gone.

Mueller hesitated a moment, wondering if it was an animal. He turned and pulled on his boots then threw on his coat. That wouldn’t be warm enough: Mueller was sensitive to the cold. He wrapped himself up in his blanket and went out.

Keeping to the shadows and out of the roving searchlights, Mueller passed the shower hut, ignoring the rush of the furnace and the faint sound of running water. He was intent on getting to the back fence. He went around the last hut and peered up the slope. Something was different about that tiny patch of terrain. He had stared at it so often, had seen it so frequently in his dreams, that he more than anyone else in the camp would know if something had changed. Something had.

With mounting excitement, Mueller sprinted across the remaining ground. He reached the base of the slope and looked up. He couldn’t believe what he saw. Where before there had been a solid wall of rubble over the mine shaft entrance, now there was a gaping hole.

Mueller scrambled up the slope. He flopped on the ground just beneath the hole as the spotlight swept toward him. He threw the blanket over his body and waited. The light passed.

Mueller poked his head out and stared at the hole. It was better than he could have hoped for—large enough to crawl through! Gripping the edges of it, he pulled himself higher. He stuck his head and shoulders inside and whistled softly.

There was an echo. The shaft was open.

Cursing himself for not bringing a light, he withdrew and looked around. It wouldn’t do to be caught here now —not with the find of the century. Nor could he leave it as he’d found it. In the morning the MPs might spot it and dynamite it closed again. What to do? The blanket. The spotlight had moved right over Mueller’s blanket, which was olive drab, and almost matched the ground here. The sentry operating the light hadn’t noticed it.

Mueller stuffed the blanket into the hole then climbed above it and, cupping his hands, pulled dirt down over it. When it was completely concealed, Mueller ran down the slope, turned, and looked back up.

From this close, which was as close as the MPs ever got in daylight, the hole was invisible. So was the blanket. Mueller hurried back to Hut 7.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow night!

As soon as he was gone, the nightform wafted out of the hole, seeped around the blanket, and crept down the slope.

Chapter 19

Hopkins charged down the slope, buttoning his shirt, a coat slung over one arm, murder in his eye. He flew through the open gate, signaling two MPs to follow. Vinge was waiting at the shower hut. Hopkins paused to listen to the running water. A look of intense pleasure crossed his face. Someone had defied orders and was having himself a little midnight wash. Hopkins pulled the key and slipped it into the padlock. He ripped the lock off and kicked open the door.

A cloud of escaping steam swirled past him. The MPs held their tommy guns at waist level. When the mist cleared, Hopkins saw the showers going full blast, a deepening pool of water where the floor sloped to the drain—and in the pool a body.

“Alert the camp. Sirens, lights, the works!” Hopkins snapped. As Vinge took off, Hopkins walked forward, slopping into the pool, turning off the showers one by one. Finally, he stood over the body in calf-deep water, looking down at Gebhard’s staring eyes beneath the surface. There was a gash on his forehead, but most of the blood had been washed away.

The air-raid horn erupted outside, mixed with MP whistles. Sweeping lights filtered through the back windows. Hopkins saw that one was slightly ajar and smirked. So that’s how the stupid sonofabitch got in. But who killed him?

In Hut 7 men collided in the corridor in a mad scramble to get outside. Mueller collared Bauhopf and wordlessly dragged him into Room 2 and pointed out Kirst, who was sitting up in his bunk, slouched against the wall, his chin on his chest, eyes narrowed, brows lowered. Through bared teeth, his voice came in a ghostly rasp—

“Gebhard... Eckmann... deeeeaaaaaddddd...”

Bauhopf’s eyes widened. Mueller ran to get someone else. Bauhopf realized he was alone with Kirst and backed swiftly to the door.

The outer door opened. Cold air blasted in. With it came an MP shouting,
“Raus! Raus!
Everybody out!”

Bauhopf turned in time to see Mueller and two other men being shoved past by the MP. Mueller pointed into the room.

“You, too!” the MP shouted at Bauhopf. “And your sister there.”

Bauhopf jumped at a touch on his sleeve. He whirled. It was Kirst, stumbling past him, dazed, confused. He went out after the others. Bauhopf followed, no longer sure of what he had seen or heard, but determined to confer with Mueller about Kirst.

Loring Holloway stopped at the bottom of the stairs in the shelter of the entry way and stood with a blanket over her shoulders, watching the commotion below. There was Gilman running through the gate. MPs double-timed down from the barracks and into the compound. She saw the Germans forming up, the MPs surrounding them with weapons. A cold spot blossomed deep in her stomach. She knew instantly that the djinn had been at work.

Gilman stared down at Gebhard’s naked body lying in a pool of reddened water. Hopkins showed him the contusion on Gebhard’s head, the soggy towel plugging the drain and the open window. “Someone forced him in through the window, made him strip, bashed him on the head, then helped him drown. Made it look like an accident.”

“But not to you,” said Gilman.

“They’ve got a lot of tricks, Major, but I’ve seen ‘em all.”

“Evidently.”

“If you want, sir, I’ll prepare a report for your signature.”

“No. I may file a different report.”

Hopkins frowned thoughtfully. “Suicide, sir?”

Someone stumbled through the door—the guard from solitary. “Sir—” he said, choking on the word—

“Sir, it’s Eckmann!”

Gilman swung the cell door open and stared at what the guard had discovered only a few minutes earlier. One end of a sheet from Eckmann’s cot was tied securely around the eight-foot-high window bars. The other end was around Eckmann’s neck. Eckmann’s body lay flat against the cell wall, hanging from the window like a grotesque human tapestry. His face was blue, his tongue swollen and nearly bitten through. His eyes bulged and displayed his final fear and madness.

Hopkins stepped in and stood behind Gilman. The guard refused to enter, remaining in the corridor, shivering—and not from the cold.

“What happened?” Gilman turned and asked him.

“I don’t know, sir. I heard a sound a while back, sort of a yell, but—but the prisoner had yelled out a few times during the day. I didn’t think it was unusual. He never wanted anything. So I didn’t check this time. Sir, if I’d thought something was wrong, I’d have come back here. That’s the truth.”

“I’m sure it is. Go on.”

“When the siren went off, I got worried it might set him going again, so I came back and—” He motioned toward the cell. “I found—that.”