‘No…!’ Ella blurted out.
With a thin smile of triumph dressing his mouth, Crowley turned his attention to Ella. ‘My, my, a cross-racial show of affection. My cup really does runneth over. This will make my work at Wewelsburg all the more delicious. The Leader has evinced a great deal of enthusiasm to meet you again, Mademoiselle Laveau, but what condition you are in when he meets you…’ Crowley glanced back to Vanka and gave a sardonic laugh. ‘I presume you are aware of the punishment for the Race Crime of Miscegenation, Maykov? It’s gelding.’ He shook his head in mock dismay. ‘I am disappointed in you, Maykov, it’s never advisable to mix business with pleasure, though I admit your slattern of a PsyChick has a certain appeal.’
‘I’m no slattern…’ began Ella but her protest was stymied by a slap across the face.
The pain was worth it. Despite the difficulty she had in reading Crowley, in that instant she knew what he had planned for her and Vanka and it was an insight that made her blood run cold. But she had learned other things too… important things.
All she had to do now was get away from this monster.
‘Be quiet! I will not be interrupted by a primitive such as you. Remember I have seen you perform! No woman other than a trollop would disport herself in such a lascivious manner. Your kind should know their place, and in your case that is on your back.’
It was the gleam in the man’s eye that gave Ella an idea. ‘Dat’s right, Sir,’ she said, mumming her NoirVillian accent. ‘Ah would sure like to perform on mah back for such a fine man like yous.’
‘Disgusting,’ muttered Crowley, but his interest in Ella seemed to ratchet up a little.
‘An’ then maybe you’d get to feel mah fine, long legs around yous.’ And to the astonishment of the three men crammed in the steamer’s cabin she began to slowly draw the hem of her long skirt up over her legs. ‘Dey says ah’s got the prettiest ankles in all ob de JAD.’ As though to emphasise the point, she wriggled her foot around. ‘But ah tinks dat it’s mah calves that are de nicest.’ She pulled the skirt up over her knee and hooked her leg around so that Crowley could get a view of her silk-stocking-encased calf. ‘Den dere am some gentlemen who am ob de opinion dat it is mah thighs dat am de fings dat makes paying for me to service dem worthwhile.’
Ella artfully drew the skirt over her thighs. Three sets of eyes were locked in stunned appreciation of the succulent flesh she was displaying. Then she started giggling. ‘Ob course it might be de ting hidden between mah legs dat dey find most exciting.’ With an evil little wiggle she delved her hand under her skirt. When it reappeared it was holding the small but very businesslike revolver Rivets had procured for her just the day before, a revolver that she was pointing straight between Crowley’s eyes.
‘I would be obliged, Your Holiness, if you would lower your weapon
… the one you’re holding in your hand, that is.’ All trace of the NoirVille accent had vanished; now her tone was much more threatening. ‘I shall count to three and if you haven’t surrendered your weapon by then I will shoot you through the eye.’
‘My dear young lady, don’t you realise that my colleague here has a pistol jammed in the ribs of your friend Vanka Maykov?’
‘One!’
Crowley swallowed hard. ‘This is ridiculous. Shoot me and you won’t get ten yards.’
‘Two!’ Ella decided not to count to three.
Screw playing fair.
Instead she shot Crowley in the shoulder, the impact of the bullet causing him to pull the trigger of his own weapon. The gun exploded, the bullet smacking with a wet thud into the SS sergeant’s leg. Vanka didn’t need a second invitation: he smashed his elbow back into the thug’s face.
‘Out!’ he shouted as he pushed open the steamer’s door and jumped into the road, kicking the second SS trooper standing guard there squarely between the legs as he did so.
All Hel broke loose. A steamer that had been trundling along Blumenstrasse swerved to avoid the door that Vanka had thrown open, crashed into a dray cart hauling a shipment of potatoes coming in the opposite direction and demolished two stalls standing by the side of the road. In seconds the street was reduced to a shouting, cursing, fighting chaos and it was a chaos that Vanka, dragging Ella behind him, used to escape Crowley’s goons.
They reached Vanka’s rooms a breathless ten minutes later. Immediately he was sure they hadn’t been followed, Vanka sent Rivets off to reconnoitre the Resi and to see what was happening there.
The boy was back in less than an hour. ‘By the Spirits, Vanka, you’ve really gorn an’ done it now. The streets is swarming wiv Checkya. They say there’s bin an assassination attempt on His Holiness Comrade Crowley by some Shade bint who’s a WhoDlum crypto. From wot I’ve bin told they’re puttin’ guards outside every Blood Bank in the ForthRight and at every mooring point along the Rhine and the Volga, and they’re searching every cart and steamer leaving the ForthRight.’ He shook his head. ‘Yous an’ Miss Ella ‘ere are a couple of really ‘ot potatoes.’
‘Fuck.’
‘I fink there’s more bad news as well, Vanka. I sees that black item Louverture bin led away for questioning by the SS.’
‘There goes our chance of smuggling you out of the ForthRight, Ella. Our best bet is to stay hidden until the SS get tired of looking for us.’
‘I can’t do that, Vanka, I’ve got to save Norma Williams,’ said Ella quietly. ‘When Crowley slapped me’ – and here she brought her fingers up to the four red welts that decorated her cheek – ‘I read him… not clearly, his mind is too well shielded for that, but well enough. Norma Williams is alive and Crowley has her held in a place called Wewelsburg Castle.’
‘Then the cow might as well be dead,’ snorted Vanka. ‘Lots of people go into Wewelsburg Castle but I’ve never heard of any of them coming out. It’s the headquarters of the SS. We’ll never be able to rescue her from there.’
‘I know,’ admitted Ella. ‘But the other thing I learned from Crowley is that he’s having her moved soon. They’re taking her somewhere to use her in the Rite of Transference. I couldn’t read where – Crowley had blocked that piece of information – but I know she’ll be moved on the last day of Winter. That’ll be our chance to rescue her.’
‘First you’ve got to find where Crowley’s taking her.’
‘To do that I need to get into a Blood Bank again. Once I’m there I’ll be able to find out about Norma and I’ll be able to help the people of Warsaw. Working the IM Manual has given me an idea as to how I can have the Varsovians escape Heydrich.’
‘What? Have you gone crackers? You won’t be able to get within half a mile of a Blood Bank without the Checkya spotting you.’
‘Which is the last Bank that Beria and his crew would think I would use?’
Vanka thought for a moment. ‘Oh fuck… the one in the Ghetto.’
31
The Demi-Monde: 82nd Day of Winter, 1004
I regret to inform you, Comrade Leader, that my Ministry has received a communication from Venice, endorsed by Doge Catherine-Sophia, stating that until ForthRight troops have been removed from the Warsaw Ghetto all trades handled by the Rialto Bourse with respect to the ForthRight will be suspended. It should be recognised that a full ninety per cent of intra-Demi-Mondian trades are conducted through the Bourse and that almost seventy per cent of the ForthRight’s blood bonds and promissory notes are held by Venetian financial institutions. Without the loans raised on the Bourse it will be difficult for my Ministry to finance the longer-term ambitions of Operation Barbarossa. The ForthRight Guinea will also, effectively, be off the Blood Standard, which will have major – negative – repercussions in terms of its rate of exchange vis-a-vis other Demi-Mondian currencies.
– letter written by Comrade Commissar Horatio Bottomley, ForthRight Chancellor of the Exchequer, to Comrade Leader Heydrich, dated 82nd Day of Winter 1004
When, six hours later, the three of them – Rivets had insisted on coming along to protect Vanka and the ten
