travelling cloak.
She stiffened her shoulders and in an act of will ordered herself to stop trembling: people would think she was frightened. She was a Dashwood and no one would accuse a Dashwood of ever being frightened, especially not this idiot of a sergeant. If an ordinary soldier could show no fear then neither would the daughter of a commissar.
But it was difficult not to be scared. Up until a few moments ago the whole evening had had a surreal quality. It had been as though she had been caught up in a dream – a nightmare, really – that what was happening to her wasn’t actually happening to her. But the Sergeant had brought her crashing down to earth: there was nothing dreamlike or whimsical about Sergeant Wysochi. He was a huge man, broad-shouldered and with hands like paddles. He also stank, possessing that wholly masculine odour conjured from the mixed smells of tobacco, Solution, sweat and leather.
Trixie hated him.
‘What’s happening?’ she whispered. ‘Where’s Captain Dabrowski?’
‘Shut up.’ As Trixie was fast discovering, Sergeant Wysochi was a man of few words and most of them curt and unpleasant.
There was a crunch of snow under a boot to Trixie’s left and Dabrowski, wearing a camouflaged dublonka and toting a repeating rifle, stepped out of the shadows. ‘The occultists are in the ballroom, Sergeant, so it’s any moment now. Are the men ready?’
‘Yes, Sir.’ It seemed that the Sergeant wasn’t any more garrulous with his captain.
‘And the bombs?’
Bombs?
‘Zajac is manning the detonator. As soon as he hears the shot he’ll blow the gates.’
By the pale moonlight Trixie saw the Captain work the bolt of his rifle, sliding a round into the breech. He flicked off the safety catch and gave Trixie a meaningful look. ‘You will do exactly as the Sergeant here tells you, Miss Trixie, nothing more and nothing less. That way you’ll survive. Understand?’
Trixie’s throat was suddenly so dry that all she could do was nod.
‘May ABBA be with us,’ muttered Dabrowski.
And then things really became surreal.
A window next to where they were standing was thrown open and a small figure fell through it onto the soft snow. Trixie jumped back in shock.
The Sergeant thrust out a strong arm and pushed Trixie protectively behind him. From behind Wysochi’s comforting bulk, she was amazed to see this first fugitive being followed in short order by two others, one of them a girl wearing not very much at all and the other a tall, long-haired man. The three of them began to sneak around the side of the building, and as they did so light from a lantern caught the face of the smallest of the three. It was the Daemon!
A wide-eyed Trixie watched the Daemon march around to the front of the house and began shouting orders.
With a silent signal to Captain Dabrowski, Sergeant Wysochi, with Trixie following him, began to creep after the three escapees. As they reached the corner of the Manor, Trixie could hear the Daemon speaking with the driver of Heydrich’s steamer, but before she quite realised what was happening, Sergeant Wysochi strode forward to take control of the situation.
For Ella, everything seemed to be coming unravelled.
As Norma began arguing the toss with the steamer driver, a red-jacketed sergeant came marching up.
‘Do as the Lady Aaliz…’
Lady Aaliz?
‘… orders, you fool, and jump to it,’ the Sergeant snarled as he turned to address Norma. ‘I have been asked to accompany you, m’lady. Your father ordered that I bring two men with me to act as escort.’ He nodded to the two soldiers standing in the darkness behind him.
Ella had to admire Norma Williams’s aplomb: she handled a situation that was fast descending into farce with a degree of imperturbability Ella had never seen equalled. ‘Very well, Sergeant, I suppose you can serve drinks,’ Norma sneered, ‘whilst I and my friends play bridge.’ This girl, Ella decided, was a Vanka-class bullshitter.
For a second the steam-limo’s driver was paralysed by confusion. It might have been that all of a sudden the Blood Hounders patrolling the grounds of the Manor began to howl or that he wasn’t used to being given orders by Poles, but whatever it was, this confusion cost him his life. Ella had never seen anybody killed before, but she had never imagined that murder was an act that could be performed with such cold-blooded efficiency. The enormous Sergeant conjured a long, vicious-looking knife out of nowhere and drove it straight through the driver’s throat forestalling any noise or protest he might have been inclined to make.
‘I’ll drive, Captain.’ Without waiting for a reply the Sergeant stepped over the still twitching body of the driver, hauled himself up into the steam-limo’s cabin and began to shift levers. Immediately the puffing of the steamer’s pistons increased in tempo.
‘Get in,’ the Captain ordered. They needed no second telling: Vanka bustled first Ella and then Norma into the passenger compartment and then dived in after them. They were joined an instant later by the Captain and a second soldier.
‘Are you ready, Sergeant?’ called out the Captain as he scrab-bled inside.
An answering grunt came from the Sergeant, who immediately pushed open one of the steamer’s windows and fired a single shot into the air. In reply there were two explosions. The first ripped open the large wooden shed that was serving as a temporary barracks for the SS garrison and the second – the larger one – smashed open the gates that guarded the Manor’s grounds.
The steamer gave a lurch and began to shudder forward, steam from its mighty cylinders enveloping the vehicle. It seemed to take an age for it to pick up speed. As the huge wheels crunched over the gravel, all Ella could hear through the armoured glass windows was the ringing of alarm bells and the yelling of running men. It was the Sergeant who seemed to know what to do: he leant out of the window and calmly shouted at the SS guards who were streaming out of the Manor, ‘Don’t shoot, you fools. I have the Leader’s daughter with me.’
As the steam-limo sailed unopposed around the Manor’s drive and out through the shattered gates, Ella sat back, stunned by the realisation that she had done it, she had rescued Norma Williams.
She had really, really done it!
She looked up to congratulate Vanka and was surprised to see him leaning out of one of the steamer’s windows giving the finger to a white-uniformed officer who had just emerged on the steps of the Manor.
Part Three
Warsaw
MAP OF THE COVEN.
25
The Demi-Monde: 55th Day of Winter, 1004
‘UnderMentionable’ is the ForthRight term for an individual who has – because of supposed racial deficiency or religious, political or sexual deviancy – been illegally stripped of all rights and protection he or she formerly enjoyed as a citizen of the ForthRight. However, the deprivations suffered by the ForthRight during the Troubles – it is estimated that over 200,000 fighters died during this vicious and senseless civil war – has resulted in the relaxing of certain of the criteria normally used in determining whether an individual is or isn’t an UnderMentionable. The
