He Who Walks in Shadow (10 page)

“Can we trust him?”

I turned to Henry. I had not considered the question. In fact, doubting Guillaume had never entered my mind.

“He’s proven true so far. Besides, I don’t know that we have much choice.”

“Quite a coincidence, don’t you think? Him showing up at the ball? Him having seen your father?”

I hesitated. It was true; quite a coincidence, indeed. “Well… Zann is his professor. It’s no surprise that he was there.”

“And where, then, do you think his loyalties lie?” My eyes were drawn downward, and I noticed that Henry was clutching his pistol.

“Oh now, wait a second, Henry. We’ve no reason not to trust him.” Henry was not one to be paranoid, but the situation was obviously getting to him.

“I haven’t known Guillaume for long,” Margot said, finally reminding us of her presence. “Still, he has shown himself to be trustworthy. If he says he will help you, then he will. You can count on that.”

There was a rustling in the bushes ahead of us. Henry drew his pistol and pointed it into the night. Guillaume stumbled towards us. The smile faded from his face when he saw the gun.

“Whoa, whoa!” he said, a little too loudly. “It’s only me!”

For a moment, it looked like Henry wasn’t going to put the pistol down. “Sorry,” he said, finally lowering it. “I guess I’m a little on edge.”

“We all are,” I added. “But we have to be careful. The last thing we need is one of us shot.” I stared at Henry until he nodded, and I hoped that whatever doubts he held were forgotten. “What did you find?”

“Nothing,” Guillaume said. “Nothing at all. There’s no one on the grounds. Not even a guard. We are clear.”

“All right, what now?”

“We’ll head through the gate and follow the wall along the perimeter. It would be faster to go across the main yard, but we’d be in the open for too long. We can’t risk it.”

“Agreed,” Henry said.

“The place we seek is more or less directly across from here, in an unused part of campus that the students call the Roman Court. Many years ago, when this school served the House of Hohenzollern, the area was a barracks and training facility for the Imperial Dragoons. There’s a castle-like structure at its center. Completely abandoned now. That’s why your father’s appearance stuck with me. I was only there because I like the peace and quiet, the isolation; it helps me think.”

“But it wasn’t isolated then.”

“No, and that was strange. He didn’t seem as though he was under any duress, but there were two men, flanking him on either side. I guess if he had made any effort to escape, they would have stopped him.”

“Is there anything special about this building? Anything we should know.”

Guillaume shrugged. “There were always rumors. People talked, as people are wont to do. Some said it was built on an ancient ruin, from Roman times. That’s where it got its name. But others said it was even older, and that the runes that marked its foundations were in no language that anyone—even the professors at the University—recognized.”

My eyes met Henry’s, and I saw an old fire burning within them. “Sounds like just the place,” he said, “for a Thule Society coven. We’re close now, girl. Close indeed.”

“Well, gentlemen,” Margot said, “perhaps the time for talking has passed, no?”

“My thoughts exactly,” I said. “Lead the way, Guillaume.”

We crept around the perimeter of the university, following the curving outer wall as it swept around those hallowed halls of learning. What we sought was a classroom of sorts as well. One where young men were indoctrinated into a society that sought the destruction of all things mankind holds holy. The Thule are not unlike many of the cults—both ancient and of recent vintage—that worship the old gods. Their particular catechism holds that the German people were created by the Old Ones as a master race, one meant to rule all others. It is as baseless and insane as any of the perversities that their ilk peddle to the weak-minded and the desperate, the hungry for power and those who would rule over others. Whatever a victim’s sickness, the Thule and societies like them offer the cure. And thus they all march on to their destruction—and ours as well.

It wasn’t long before we had finished our circuit. We hadn’t seen another soul, and now the gothic-style castle of the Roman Court loomed above us. It seemed just as Guillaume had described it—utterly abandoned. The front door was chained, and hanging from the chain was a heavy padlock. I could hear Henry sigh.

“Locked up tight,” he said.

“They didn’t take Dr. Weston through the front.” Guillaume whispered. “Come on.”

We followed him around the side of the massive structure. Sure enough, there was a side door hanging half open that made a mockery of the security at the front.

“Eureka.”

Guillaume gently pushed the door, and I was surprised that it opened without a sound. A black maw loomed before us. We’d brought flashlights, but to that point, we hadn’t dared to use them.

“What do you think?” I asked.

“I don’t think there’s any danger in it,” Henry said. “Something tells me that if they’ve got Carter inside, he’s not on the main floor, if you catch my meaning. Still, let’s stay as inconspicuous as possible. One flashlight.”

He stepped into the darkness. When he turned the flashlight on, it didn’t so much obliterate the night as cut it in half. A heavy shroud still hung over everything that did not fall within the beam.

“Now what?” Guillaume asked.

“We look for something unusual, something out of place. It’s the foundation of this building that’s important. Remember that. That’s where they’ll be. We just have to find a way down there. Margot,” Henry said, “you stay just outside the doorway and keep watch. If anyone else approaches, warn us and then hide. You probably shouldn’t have come, and I don’t want you getting into any more trouble.”

I thought she might protest. Instead, she simply nodded and moved to her post. Good girl. The rest of us fanned out. We were in the main chamber, a common area of sorts, with a great fireplace at one end and bookshelves on every wall. Some of the shelves were barren, while others were filled to overflowing with texts of every sort. I walked along, examining them in the dim light.

Most were military texts, histories of war, strategy, tactics, an exegesis on epic blunders in battle. There was also general philosophy, some mathematics texts, a copy of Tocqueville’s
Democracy in America
. But it was one book in particular that caught my eye. It was a massive volume, a complete history of Germany, from ancient times up until the unification wars of the late nineteenth century. And unlike every other book in the library, it was completely devoid of dust. I smiled triumphantly, grasped the book, and pulled. I fully expected a latch to click, a door to open, a wall to slide away. Something dramatic.

Instead, nothing.

The book came away so easily that I almost fell when it ended up in my hands. Defeated, I slid it back into its place.

“Look at this!” Guillaume whispered, a little too loud for comfort. Henry and I hurried over as he pointed at the floor. At first we saw nothing, but the dust in front of this particular wall was different from everywhere else. There were no footprints or any obvious evidence that anyone had passed through, but something had disturbed the dust ever so slightly, leaving an unmistakable swept pattern. It was a subtle clue, indeed, and I was impressed with Guillaume for noticing.

Henry ran his hand along the wall, feeling every crevice in the bricks. He stopped when his finger trailed over a small hole. He shined his flashlight at the spot, and then it was obvious.

This wasn’t a wall; it was a door.

“That’s a keyhole,” I said.

“Yes,” Henry muttered. “But where’s the key?”

It took me only a moment. I spun on my heel, walking back to the shelf of books. I removed the history of Germany, and this time I opened it. Sure enough, in a depression cut into the pages within lay a small key.

“Fantastic!” Henry almost shouted. “Bring it here.”

He took the key from me, sliding it into the hole in the wall. He didn’t even have to turn it. There was a click, and the panel popped slightly away from the wall. I returned the key to the book and slid it back in place. Maybe we could get out without being noticed after all.

Beyond the door was a ruin. A pile of rubble formed a rudimentary staircase down, while the rough-hewn, solid-stone ceiling showed that this structure—whatever its purpose and original design—was carved from the living rock. Modernity clashed with the ancient, as wires were strung along the wall, electric lanterns that hung at regular intervals casting a pale light over the cave. Nor were the walls themselves bare. As we descended, they grew thick with runes from the time of Arminius and perhaps even further back into the mists of the past. It was little wonder the Thule held this place as holy.

We proceeded with caution now. Whatever we sought, it was close. The air was thicker, warmer. It stank of humanity. Then we turned a corner and saw it.

We were standing on the second level of a great stone circle, a temple of titanic slabs of granite. Stonehenge might be its nearest cousin, though this place was complete, without the decay that centuries of exposure to the elements can wreak on even the hardiest of rock. It was a splendid find and would have been more so were it not for the garish banners that hung from every corner, black flags bearing yet more bastardized runes of lost antiquity, painted in a brilliant red. And lucky were we that we emerged on the second level and not the first. Otherwise, we would most certainly have been seen.

For Erich Zann stood in the middle of that great circle. And before him, in a chair with his arms spread wide behind him and one leg crossed over a knee—the image of perfect repose—sat my father.

Journal of Carter Weston

July 24, 1933

I write this from the Alsace, on the border between France and the Ruhr Valley. That I ever left accursed Germany is a miracle, one worked by the hands of my oldest friend, Henry Armitage, and my dearest daughter, though I wonder if now she regrets my liberation.

This extraordinary day began with a rude awakening. A soldier barged into my room well after the midnight hour. It was not the first such late-night disturbance during my captivity, and thus it surprised me little. But there was something in the soldier’s demeanor, something in his eyes, that said this time was different. When I saw Zann waiting for me in the central chamber of the ancient, Theodic temple, I knew that bizarre happenings were afoot.

“Why Dr. Zann, to what do I owe this unexpected honor? I always took you for more of the early-to-bed type.”

Zann smiled flatly, that same icy sneer he always seemed to bear.

“I’m considering moving you, professor, but before I do, I wanted to talk to you one more time, here, in this most sacred place.”

He walked around the stone circle, trailing his hands along the columns and their deep-set runes, caressing them almost lovingly. In fact, it might have been the tenderest moment of Zann’s life.

“Don’t you hear them, professor? The ancients? Calling to you? Whispering their secrets? Asking you for your help?”

“I hear only you, Dr. Zann,” I said. “Yours is pretty much the
only
voice I hear these days. And I tire of it.”

The grin faded. “And so it shall continue, my friend, until you give me what I want.”

“I’ve heard that threat before, too.”

“And I made good on it, did I not? You are here, aren’t you?”

“But not for long, it seems. Tell me, if you love this place so much, why would you leave it? Getting too hot for you in Berlin? Somebody find out something they shouldn’t have? About your little group, maybe? The government onto your cult, perhaps? Illegal, is it not? Occult dabblings were all well and good when you were in the wilderness, but in power? Well, then they can be quite the embarrassment. Not good for the Reich at all.”

I relished the discomfort evident in Zann, for it was unusual to see him not in control.

“The Reich,” he said, “has its eyes on this world, which I suppose, is fitting. It prepares for a thousand years of dominance, and it is even ready for whatever comes after. Did you know that all the new buildings in Germany are now being designed to make striking and impressive ruins? So that the glory of Germany will live forever, at least in memory? Quaint, isn’t it? But I have my eyes on a higher goal. An eternal one. One that never fades, never decays.”

“Then maybe you have a new torture chamber prepared for me? Going to beat the truth out of me? I’d like to see you try.”

Zann simply glared. I wondered, as I often did, if I had pushed him too far. It was true I wasn’t bound and Zann, visibly at least, was unarmed. But with only a word he could have me killed, shot down then and there. That he hadn’t done so already was a testament to how much he wanted the answers he believed I possessed. Still, unstable men can be unpredictable—and dangerous.

“Dr. Weston,” Zann began, “it seems always that you are full of questions, but so rarely full of answers.”

I laughed, and the sound of it seemed to pain him. “Must be the professor in me.”

“And there is the contradiction, or so it seems to me.” Zann pulled a chair from in front of one of the stone pillars and sat down. “One does not see the things you have seen, learn the things you have learned, without wanting to know more. Help me, and those truths will be ours.”

“You have the book, Dr. Zann. You can read it as well as I. What do you need me for?”

“I can read it, yes. But the book has secrets that would take decades to unfold. Decades that you have had. The book has chosen me, Dr. Weston. It speaks to me now. And yet even when you knew that it was a crime against nature to keep it, when you knew that it was not yours to possess, you refused to deliver it to me. In the past, men who have refused to relinquish
Incendium Maleficarum
have met with, how shall we say,
unusual
ends. And yet you live. It must have allowed you this respite for a reason. You must have a purpose as yet unfulfilled. I believe I know what that purpose is. You are destined to help me. The unknown calls to you. I know that it does.”