Awakening (Birth of Magic #1) Page 24

  She wasn’t very happy about it. Her voice sounded like Alexis’s as she said, “I’m sorry. I’m so useless.”

  “No you’re not. You’ve been a great help already.”

  “Vivien says I’m just a secretary.”

  I put a hand on Bernice’s shoulder. “Not everyone is cut out for fighting. Like your grandmother.”

  She smiled a little at this. “Grandmamma never could kill anything, not even spiders.”

  “She’s a sweet woman. Like you.”

  “I haven’t been so sweet. Everything they’ve done, I’ve helped them.” I barely had time to brace myself as she threw herself against me. “If Grandmamma knew what I’d done, she’d hate me forever.”

  “No, she could never hate you. You’re her babies. You always will be.” I let Bernice cry it out for a few minutes, which gave me more time to gather my strength. When I decided to finally get moving, I sat her down on the bed. “Do you have my jacket?”

  “Vivien has it. She wants to keep it as a trophy.”

  That would make things more difficult, but not impossible. While Vivien and Lorain were good fighters, they didn’t have my experience, or Naoko’s training. I had bested them the first time in the castle, when I had still looked like a middle-aged woman. Now that I was young again, I’d be that much better. “Don’t worry about it. You just stay here and wait for me to come back.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then we’ll find Celia and end this.”

  With that I snuck out of the bedroom and made my way to the kitchen again. The Nazis had taken all of the knives, cleavers, and other implements. I would have to go with something a little more primitive. Returning to the dining room, I used a Static Charge spell to hurl one of the chairs into a wall. The old chairs were tough, but not enough for one leg to snap off. Hefting it, I determined the leg would do for a makeshift club. Not much of a weapon considering Vivien and Lorain would both have guns.

  Armed with my club, I set out for the throne room. I hoped Bernice wouldn’t have a change of heart and try to warn her cousins about me. I didn’t want to have to put her down too; I would need her help to find Celia.

  They sat in the throne room on the dais where they had tried to raise demons earlier. Lorain looked even more like her grandmother as she knitted what looked like a scarf. As Bernice had said, Vivien was wearing my jacket, despite that it was about four sizes too big for her smaller frame.

  She snatched the knitting from Lorain’s hands, hurling it to the floor. She got to her feet and growled, “I don’t know why we don’t just kill that fucking witch.”

  “The Chairwoman said not to. She said she has plans for Great-Aunt Stephanie.”

  Vivien took my Colt out of the holster and leveled it at her cousin. “She is not our aunt. She’s not anything to us. She’s a witch. You’d better remember that.”

  “Sorry,” Lorain said, looking down at the floor. She hadn’t been as sensitive as Bernice, but she wasn’t as emotional as Vivien either, something she got from her grandfather’s side of the family. “Will you lower the pistol now?”

  “Maybe.”

  I chose that moment to step out of hiding. I raised my club and charged at the dais. I didn’t plan to get anywhere near them, not with so much open space between the door and the dais. What I planned for was for Vivien to wheel around and aim the Colt at me. She smiled in a way that reminded me of Celia as she aimed for my heart and then pulled the trigger.

  Just like back in Ethan’s lab, the gun turned red-hot in her hand. Vivien howled in pain and threw the weapon away from her, to the floor. “You fucking witch!” she screamed. “I’m going to kill you!”

  Vivien had always been hot-tempered, prone to violent outbursts. According to Alexis, Vivien had flipped over the dining room table on her ninth birthday when she didn’t get the gift she wanted. Everyone’s cake and drinks had wound up on the floor and the candles had set fire to the curtains. Her father gave her a proper whipping, but she never apologized for it. “Next year get me what I want,” she had hissed with the last stroke and her father had thrown up his hands in defeat.

  So it didn’t come as a surprise that she would fling herself at me for hand-to-hand fighting instead of pulling another weapon. She was trained well enough to duck when I tried to hit her with the club. I hopped back just in time to avoid getting hit in the chest by the heel of her hand. I spun my left leg around to trip her, but that was only partially successful. She stumbled backwards before regaining her position.

  “You aren’t going to beat me this time. I don’t care how young you look,” she said.

  She was quick, but her lunge was too predictable. I sidestepped it and then brought the chair leg down on her head. Not hard enough to break her skull open, just enough to give her a nasty headache. She tottered for a moment, turning to glare at me. “Not again,” she whispered before she collapsed to the floor.

  Before I could turn back to the dais, I heard the metallic click of a gun. Turning, I saw it was an ordinary Luger, not my Colt. Lorain’s face showed no reaction as she aimed at my chest. “Drop the club and then raise your hands,” she said.

  “You going to shoot me?”

  “Yes,” she said and I believed her. I dropped the club and raised my hands.

  “So who have you murdered for the Chairwoman?”

  Lorain shrugged. “A couple presidents. A pope or two. I don’t keep track. Not like Vivien. Or your daughter.”

  “You know about Celia?”

  She shrugged again. “I didn’t until I saw you. It’s pretty obvious. You’re so much alike. I’m not just talking about your hair. You’re a couple of hotheads. You let yourselves get taken in by emotion too easily. Like with that boy.”

  “Ethan. What about him?”

  “She’s going to throw her life away for him. Maybe not right away, but in time she’ll crack. You’ve seen it, haven’t you? Love. What a waste.”

  I stared at her, trying to read that calm mask of hers. “I’m not the only one with an illegitimate child, am I? I seem to remember your grandmother saying you and the chauffeur got pretty cozy. Whatever happened to the baby?”

  The mask slipped a little, her cheeks turning red. The Luger shook a little in her hand. “I lost it. She died.”

  “The Chairwoman didn’t save it?”

  “She was too late. But she saved me.” The gun steadied in her hand. The same trick wasn’t going to work on Lorain; she was too rational for that. I would have to find some other way to get to her before she put a bullet in my belly.

  I didn’t need to think of any pulp magazine heroics this time. From the corner of my eye I saw a flicker of movement in the doorway. Bernice had ignored my advice and followed me; just in the nick of time. I wasn’t sure what she was planning, but whatever it was, she’d need a little more time for it to happen.

  “So let me guess: when Celia slips you’re going to bump her off and become the Chairwoman’s new favorite, right? Then you’ll finally be the big shot of the family instead of Vivien. Must really chafe your ass to have to do what she says all the time. She’s so emotional.”

  “It’s not going to work,” she said. “You can either go back to your room like a good girl or I’ll put a bullet in each of your knees and drag you there.”

  “Sounds like someone’s getting angry.”

  A second before she would have shot me in the kneecap, another shot rang out. This one went over both of our heads, into the wall. Bernice stood halfway across the room with a gun trembling in her hands. As she’d indicated, she wasn’t much of an assassin.

  She did give me the opening I needed. When Lorain spun around on her cousin, I lunged forward to bat the Luger from her hand. I seized that wrist, yanking it behind her back until she cried out with pain. She tried to trip me, but her kick was too weak to topple me. Instead, she ate the floor as I shoved her down.

  With my other hand I scooped up the fallen Luger. “Time for a little of your own medicin
e,” I said and then sapped her with the butt of the pistol.

  I waited until I was certain she was unconscious before standing up. Bernice stood in the same place as she had been, the gun falling from her hands. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  I smiled at her. “It’s all right. You did good, kid.”

  We tied up Bernice’s cousins, leaving them in the bedroom where I had been. If the Chairwoman was coming, she could untie them. Or maybe some of their Nazi friends if they stopped by. In the meantime, Bernice and I had to rescue Ethan from my daughter.

  Chapter 24

  I had been to Berlin a couple of times before the wars. That made it easy to vanish us in near the waterfront, in an alley where we weren’t likely to surprise anyone. As Ethan had, Bernice blinked a few times to clear her vision. “The Chairwoman said you could do that, but I didn’t really believe it.”

  “Beats taking a train,” I said. I gave her another minute to adjust to her new surroundings before I asked, “Where are they going to hole up?”

  “I’m not exactly sure. Somewhere in the Chancellery.”

  “The Chancellery? As in Hitler’s house?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Goddamnit.” I hadn’t been to the Chancellery, but I’d seen it before. It was a fairly ordinary mansion as far as housing for heads of state went, but Hitler was bound to have turned the place into a fortress. Especially now with Celia bringing Ethan there. “Can you get me inside?”

  “Me?”

  “You’re the Chairwoman’s assistant, right? You should be able to get us past the guards.”

  “I might be able to get in, but I don’t think they’d let you in.”

  “You mean the jacket would give me away? I can leave it behind.”

  “Not just the jacket.” Her hand waved from my boots up to my head. “You’re too much like her.”

  “You only have one redhead in your little club?”

  “I don’t mean just your hair. It’s everything. Your attitude. The way you talk. They’ll think you’re trying to infiltrate the place as her.”

  Bernice’s logic made a certain amount of sense. Celia and I looked very much alike and from what I’d seen, we had much the same attitude as well. That was probably why we’d gotten along so well at Cuthbert, and why we cared about the same man. “You’re probably right. We’ll need a disguise for me then.”

  “Can’t you use your magic to make yourself look like someone else?”

  “I could, but it’s really unstable. And your friends might have some more charms around to stop me from using magic. Better to do it the traditional way.”

  I took off my jacket, leaving it on top of an old milk crate in the alley until I needed it again. Without it, I was passable enough as an ordinary woman that none of the soldiers milling around the corners should notice. At least so long as I didn’t bring attention to myself.

  We found a drugstore and went inside. Though the labels were all in German, I could read them well enough to find a bottle of peroxide. “What’s that for?” Bernice asked.

  “A disguise. Come on.”

  I didn’t have any German money with me, nor did Bernice, so I had to slip the bottle of peroxide into a pocket of my tunic. Bernice tensed up at this, not the reaction of someone used to high-pressure situations. “It’ll be fine,” I said. “Just walk nice and easy. When we get near the counter, start giggling.”

  “Why?”

  “So it seems like we’re having an ordinary conversation. Just two normal people in a drugstore. Understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” I got the ball rolling when we were in sight of the counter. “That is so very true,” I said loud enough for anyone to overhear. “She has always been so absentminded.”

  Though she wasn’t used to this kind of work, Bernice picked it up easily enough. She giggled loudly, sounding only a little nervous. “I remember when she put down the sugar bowl in the kitchen for her cat and tried to serve us a bowl of milk.”

  We passed through the doors without any trouble, Bernice’s body the pocket containing the peroxide. From there we needed somewhere to use it. I kept us moving until I saw a café that didn’t look too busy. “Let’s go,” I said.

  In the bathroom, I instructed Bernice on how to do the quickest dye job in history. It would be a lot easier back in Rampart City, but I didn’t want to risk being spotted right now. “Be careful with it,” I told her. “Don’t get any in my eyes.”

  She didn’t dribble any in my eyes or on the rest of my body. My hair had turned platinum blond, to the point of nearly being white without any of my red roots showing. When this was over, she might have a future as a hairdresser.

  I kept my hair covered with a kerchief as we left the café. The owner looked as if he wanted to question why we had taken so long, but I silenced him with a hard stare. He went back to washing his glasses. That made me think of Andre and I wondered if any Nazis had paid him a visit yet. I hoped not.

  “I suppose we ought to do something about my clothes too,” I said. “Find something a little more feminine.”

  “That would be a good idea.”

  As luck would have it, there was a department store right across the street from the Chancellery. Stealing a dress was much easier than stealing a bottle of peroxide. The hard part came in finding something appropriate. I let Bernice handle this, since she knew far more about Nazi security. She chose a plain black gown, the kind of dress appropriate for a funeral. Maybe she was trying to send me a message. I took a second dress in with me, keeping them close together, so that they blended with one another.

  I took the dress into the dressing room. It fit a bit loosely; I wished Alexis were here to do some quick alterations, but she was still back in the archives. She might still be a fat teenager or she might be back to herself. Or maybe the Chairwoman had tracked her down and taken her away from me again.

  I forced those thoughts aside as I put my clothes back on over the dress. The second dress I held out in front of me as I left the changing room. I put that dress back on the rack and then walked away. Unless an employee had been paying real close attention, it would seem as if I’d decided against buying the dress after trying it on. Just in case anyone was watching us, Bernice and I walked around the rest of the store, as if we were actually shopping.

  In an alley I took off my normal clothes and the kerchief from my hair. “What do you think?” I asked.

  “You look a lot like Lorain,” Bernice said. “Except the eyes.”

  “Let’s hope they aren’t paying that close of attention.” I took Bernice’s arm and then motioned to the Chancellery. “Let’s go.”

  ***

  The German Chancellery was essentially a big square surrounding a garden. The main entrance was on the side of the building facing the department store, so that we had to just go across the street. Black-clad guards stopped us before we could get up to the gate. I nudged Bernice in the ribs, signaling her that now was the time for her to shine.

  “What business do you have here?” the guard asked.

  “We are here on business from the Chairwoman.”

  The guard stiffened at this; he clearly had heard of the Chairwoman before. “Wait here,” he said, leaving us with another guard, who kept his machine gun pointed at us and didn’t seem like the type who would be shy about using it on us.

  I could hear the guard exchanging words with someone, probably trying to figure out if anyone from the Chairwoman was coming today. When he returned a few minutes later, the guard brought an officer with him, a major from his epaulets. The major’s eyes narrowed first at Bernice and then even more at me. “Who are you?”

  “Bernice Gallo. This is my cousin Lorain.”

  “We were not expecting anyone else from her today.”

  When Bernice spoke, she used the language of magic. I recognized the words as the first four in a Plague of Locusts spell. I thought she might be trying to use magic again or signaling me to do so, bu
t then she stopped and the major nodded. “Very well,” he said. “You may enter.”

  With that, we entered Hitler’s inner sanctum.

  ***

  The place was like a museum, except for a lot fewer tourists and far more soldiers roaming the hallways. I saw a few other women scurrying around, all of them with the look of servants or secretaries. None who looked as if they worked for the Chairwoman. And none who looked like Celia.

  “Where do you suppose she is?” I whispered to Bernice.

  “I don’t know. They never talked about this in front of me. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s all right. We’ll find them.” We stopped at a stairwell going up. Ethan had worked on the third floor at Cuthbert, but that wouldn’t be Celia’s style—or the Headmisstress’s. They would take him somewhere underground, a basement where no one could see him. I didn’t see any stairs going down, though. Those would probably be hidden away.

  We kept walking around the sedate corridors without any luck. Not that I expected to find a sign saying, “Hitler’s secret lab.” I had hoped we might find a stairwell to at least get us down to the basement.

  After wandering around for a half hour, we took a break. Outside the window was the garden, where at the moment a crew of workers in dirty coveralls were planting new trees and flowers. “A little late, aren’t they?” I said.

  “There wasn’t much choice about that. They finished building Hitler’s air raid shelter there not long ago.”

  I stared at the garden, at the fresh plants being put into the ground. “His air raid shelter is beneath the garden?”

  “Yes.” She looked at me, not understanding. “What’s the matter?”

  “That’s where Celia is.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I know her. What better place to keep him than in a bunker? No way for him to escape and it’s out of sight from everyone.”

  “That makes sense. How do we get down there?”

  Bernice hit on the next problem. They were sure to have tight security protecting the entrance to the bunker. The Fuhrer wouldn’t let just anyone go down to his lair. I could maybe use a spell to break the place open, but then we’d have half the Third Reich coming down on us in minutes.