thousand guineas he’d been promised – finally emerged, foul and stinking, through the manhole in Zapiecek Square in the centre of Warsaw’s Old Town, Ella made the silent pledge that that was the very last time she would ever travel by sewer.
This was reinforced by the experience, when she first poked her head out through the manhole, of having a rifle shoved in her face by a ragged boy who looked barely old enough to shave. That the boy had a piece of tattered cloth with the words ‘Lieutenant: WFA’ scrawled on it pinned rather crudely on the sleeve of his filthy jacket only confirmed to Ella just how desperate the plight of the Varsovians was.
‘Who goes there?’ the boy squeaked.
‘My name is Ella Thomas, and I am the girl who, if you prod me with that rifle one more time, is going to jam it up your ass and pull the trigger.’ The cold fury in Ella’s eyes persuaded the boy to back away.
‘Gor… I’m sorry, Miss Ella. I didn’t recognise you, wot wiv yous bin covered in all that shit.’ He paused as though waiting for some reaction from Ella. ‘Don’t cha know me, Miss Ella? It’s me, Lieutenant Michalski.’ He stepped as close to Ella as the smell coming off her would allow. ‘You ain’t bin down in those sewers for four days, ‘ave you? No wonder you smell so ripe.’
Ignoring him, Ella eased herself out through the manhole and spent a few minutes trying to massage some warmth back into her hands and her ass. Finally, feeling vaguely human again, she gave Lieutenant Michalski her best effort at a smile. ‘It’s good to see you again, Lieutenant, and congratulations on your promotion. I would appreciate it if you would have someone take us to the headquarters of Colonel Dabrowski. It’s vital that we meet with him right away.’
Dabrowski looked up when the three of them entered and gave a tired smile. In the few days since she’d last seen him he seemed to have deteriorated terribly: his face was gaunt and his skin the colour of old parchment. His voice trembled when he spoke. ‘Now here are some bad pennies. I never thought to see either you, Colonel Maykov, or your friend Miss Thomas again.’ He peered into the gloom towards Rivets. ‘And who’s he… re -inforcements?’ He laughed at his own weak joke. ‘So you made it, eh? I thought when I heard that you’d been ambushed in the sewers that that was the end of you. Pull up a seat.’ He nodded to three oil drums. ‘Aren’t you going to welcome our visitors, Captain Dashwood?’
Trixie stared at Ella with a look of real dislike on her face. ‘Did you organise the delivery of the blood?’
There was no point in sugar-coating the pill. ‘We organised it and I paid for it,’ explained Ella, ‘but our contact has been arrested by Beria. As we understand it, there’s no chance of the blood being delivered.’
Trixie gave the door a savage kick. A mist of brick dust drifted down from the ceiling. ‘I knew we should never have trusted a fucking Shade.’
Ella felt Vanka move closer to her: he was obviously as nervous of Trixie as she was. The girl seemed borderline out of control.
‘Please… Captain…’ the Colonel pleaded. ‘You must forgive the Captain. These have been difficult days.’ He looked at Ella and gave a wan smile. ‘You tried, and for that I am grateful. But now it is over. We lost control of the Warsaw Blood Bank to the SS this morning.’
‘How bad is the situation?’
‘We have two weeks… possibly less. There are close to three million civilians crowded in the Industrial Zone and without blood we are finished.’
‘I might have another idea,’ began Ella. ‘Another idea about how we can save the people of Warsaw.’
‘My, my, Miss Thomas, you Daemons are very devils for ideas, aren’t you?’ The sarcasm in Trixie’s voice was palpable. ‘What will it be this time? Will you use your Daemon’s knowledge of the Demi-Monde to fly all of us out of the Ghetto on winged horses?’
No one spoke, but the silence was almost audible. So far as Ella could judge, Trixie seemed to be on the brink of a nervous breakdown. The savage fighting had finally taken its toll.
‘You’re quite right to be doubtful, Captain Dashwood,’ Ella began, ‘and you’re equally correct in believing that, as a Daemon, I know things about the way the Demi-Monde works that you don’t.’ She took a deep breath. ‘It may be possible to alter the Demi-Monde so that your people can escape the Ghetto.’
‘How?’ said Trixie quietly.
‘Actually it isn’t my idea: it’s Colonel Dabrowski’s. I think I might be able to open the Boundary Layer.’
‘Oh, stuff and nonsense,’ said Trixie scornfully. ‘No one can do that.’
‘I think I can,’ said Ella simply. ‘Not permanently, but long enough for your people to escape.’
There was a stunned silence. Even Vanka seemed shocked by what she had said.
Dabrowski broke it. ‘How long will you be able to keep the Boundary open?’
‘I don’t know,’ admitted Ella, ‘but certainly for no more than an hour. The Demi-Monde is governed by people – by Spirits, if you prefer – who have granted me the power to make changes to your world, but these changes will only last one hour. That might be long enough to move your people out of Warsaw.’
‘Move them where?’ asked Trixie.
‘Into the Great Beyond.’
‘Absolutely ridiculous,’ she sneered. ‘We don’t know what the Beyond is like. We might not be able to live there.’
‘I think you will,’ answered Ella carefully; she didn’t want to complicate matters by mentioning PINC. ‘My understanding of the Demi-Monde is that its geography and climate are uniform: this means that in the Beyond the air will be breathable, the wood workable, the soil farmable and the water drinkable. You can see for yourself that trees grow happily there and that the Beyond is home for a great many animals: buffalo, ibex, wild pig…’
‘But what about blood?’ said Trixie scornfully. ‘No DemiMondian can live without blood.’
‘There are Blood Banks in the Beyond,’ interjected Vanka. ‘When Speke made his balloon ascent he reported seeing them.’
‘Look, Captain Dashwood,’ added Ella, ‘I’m not saying this is a perfect solution to your problems. In the Beyond your people will have no access to the goods and commodities provided by the Industrial Zone. It’ll be a pretty primitive life.’
‘But it will be life,’ said Delegate Trotsky, quietly. ‘All my people have here is the certainty of death.’ The old nuJu shifted his backside on the oil drum he was using as a seat. ‘It has long been the dream of my people that one day we would journey to the Promised Land, a place where nuJus would have a home and be free of persecution. We nuJus made a Covenant with ABBA that in exchange for our obedience to His laws He would lead us to the Promised Land. It is this Covenant that has sustained us through all our trials and tribulations. Perhaps the Promised Land referred to by the Prophets is the Beyond? Many nuJu theologians have speculated that it might be.’
Trixie gave the door another kick. ‘With all due respect, Delegate Trotsky, this isn’t the time for religious revelations or mystic prognostications. We need hard-headed RaTionalism. There are almost three million people trapped here in the Ghetto: we must be sure that they are not escaping certain death here in the Demi-Monde for certain death in the Great Beyond.’
Ella nodded sympathetically. ‘I appreciate your frustration, Captain Dashwood, but it’s no use me promising something I can’t deliver. I’m not even certain I’ll be able to open the Boundary at all. But it is a possibility and anything must be better than sitting here watching your people being pounded to death by SS artillery. And, as your Colonel has said, you have only two weeks’ supply of blood left.’
‘How will you perform this miracle?’ asked Trotsky.
‘Whilst I was in Berlin I gained access to a thing called the IM Manual…’
‘The IM Manual?’ he murmured. ‘A strange coincidence: Immanual is the nuJu Prophet our holy writings foretell will lead my people to the Promised Land.’
‘The IM Manual allows me to make alterations to the DemiMonde, but to do this I will have to get into the Warsaw Blood Bank. The only way to use the IM Manual is through one of the Bank’s Transfusion Booths.’
Trixie gave another sneering laugh. ‘Then doing that will take a second miracle, Miss Thomas: the SS have now occupied the Warsaw Blood Bank.’
‘Can you retake it?’
Trixie ran a cordite-blackened hand through her cropped hair. ‘Maybe. Temporarily. It’ll take two hundred fighters to take the Bank and to hold it. How long will you need in the Bank to work this magic of yours?’
‘Thirty minutes.’
‘Make that three hundred fighters. The problem isn’t so much fighting our way into the Bank, it’s that there
