Bitter Seeds

Klaus picked a direction at random. “Gretel! Where are you?”

Shouts and footsteps echoed throughout the cellar as his pursuers split up to trap him.

It went against his training, not to mention his better judgment, to go so long without checking the gauge on his battery harness. But the harness was concealed beneath his uniform, and he couldn't easily dispense with it while being pursued. Plus, the disguise would be essential to their journey back to the shore.

Luckily for Klaus, most of the doors were suited with tiny windows, so he didn't have to waste the charge on his battery by peeking into each room. Several of the rooms were dark, however, so he'd had to reach inside to trip with light switches. Gretel wasn't to be found in any of these rooms, nor did she respond when he called her name, if she was nearby.

He zigzagged through the cellar with the civilian who had first recognized him relentlessly on his heels.

The German bastard was fast, and clever. Each time Marsh or somebody else got within arm's reach, or dived for him, he'd jump through a wall, or through the men themselves. Marsh managed to stay with him, though it meant running an obstacle course created by the other men.

The dodging and bumping, twisting and jumping, revived the ache in Marsh's knee. It pulsed hot, threatening to give out at any moment. Not now. Not now.

There was a bulge under his quarry's shirt, near his waist. Much like the woman. Marsh noticed the way he kept reaching for it, almost as if out of habit, every time he pulled his little trick.

The prisoner's battery had a gauge on it.

You want to check your battery... . Marsh stumbled, wrapped in his own thoughts. “Ooof.” He crashed against a brick wall as the Jerry clipped through another corner. The battery is your weakness.

Marsh played the hunch. When another knot of pursuers neared the intruder, he yelled, “His wire! Go for the wire!”

The German raised a hand to the back of his head, reflexively protecting himself even though it was unnecessary. He slipped through the crowd and disappeared around another corner.

Aha, thought Marsh. Gotcha.

At last.

Klaus spied his sister lying on a cot inside a small storeroom. “Gretel!” He ghosted through the door. It clanged a few seconds later as his pursuer pounded on it.

Gretel blinked her eyes, yawned, and stretched.

“Gretel, get up. Are you hurt?”

“I was having the loveliest dream.” She sat up. Over the banging on the door, she added, “You interrupted it, brother.”

Klaus took advantage of his pursuer's delay to swap out his battery. In his haste, he fumbled with the buttons on his uniform, unable to grip them properly with his mangled hand. Gretel undid the buttons and pulled his shirt. She grabbed a spare battery from his harness, strapped it into the empty spot on her own harness, and plugged in. Klaus pulled the wire from his depleted pack and reconnected it to the other spare.

A k-chink from the door lock announced that his pursuer had found the key to Gretel's cell. Klaus grabbed his sister's hand.

“You must not release my hand until I tell you. And hold your breath. Do you understand?”

She patted his cheek. “So serious.”

That was the closest he'd get to a yes.

The Gotterelektron coursed into his mind as the door groaned open on rusty hinges. Klaus imagined himself an overflowing vessel, imagined the Gotterelektron spilling over into Gretel, carrying his Willenskrafte along with it.

If they went out through the wall of her cell, they'd come out underground. They had to get back up to ground level first. Klaus pulled his sister through the doorway and the bruiser standing in it to block them. The man jumped back in shock and tumbled to the floor, though to his credit he didn't unleash a girlish scream as Obergruppenfuhrer Greifelt had.

They rematerialized again once they passed him, to conserve the battery. This one would drain even faster, because two bodies drew from it now.

Gretel blew a kiss over her shoulder. “Farewell, my darling, until we meet again.”

Marsh flinched. He couldn't help it.

The intruder charged him as soon as he wrenched the door open. Marsh had been braced for a fight, but when the bloke came at him, he tensed for a collision because his body took over and reacted on the basis of prior life experience. Even though he knew damn well what this fellow had in mind.

Face to face, eye to eye, and then—just for a blink—they occupied the same space.

It had been different with the Eidolon. That thing existed in the gaps between everywhere and between everywhen, sidling through the mortar of the universe. To say that he and the Eidolon had occupied the same space was imprecise, like saying that the bricks of a retaining wall and the mortar within it were one and the same.

The memory alone left Marsh feeling naked, skinless, formless, and insignificant.

The Nazi passed through him without evoking any sensation. Not even an itch. Like he truly wasn't there.

He and his girlfriend—Gretel, he called her Gretel— were just people. Damned unusual people, perhaps, but in the end they were people. Will was right. The Eidolons had nothing to do with this. Marsh saw that with the benefit of his inside-out view during the instant when the intruder and prisoner ghosted through him.

He still jumped, though. He couldn't help it.

On instinct, he tried to spin about and grab the girl's wire, but his hand breezed through her neck. It surprised him, tipped him off balance. He sprawled on the floor.

Gretel glanced over her shoulder. She blew a kiss, announcing, “Farewell, my darling, until we meet again.”

Marsh jumped to his feet and gave chase. But unlike the escaping duo, he had to dodge the others trying to block, grab, and tackle them. The fugitives acknowledged no obstacles in their dash for the stairs.

“Clear out! Clear the corridor!”

He closed the gap on the long straightaway to the bottom flight. A number of others—Marsh glimpsed Lorimer there—planned to take the fugitives on the stairs, and so this stretch of corridor was empty.

Sprinting to catch up to the pair, he became aware of a new sound amidst the pandemonium.

Panting.

If Marsh had needed a further assurance that the figures he chased were merely a man and a woman, and not supernatural entities, this would have cinched it.

Running just a pace behind them, striving to bridge the last few feet and snag the girl while the pair was momentarily substantial, he could see the flush on their faces, hear their breath.

Of course! You can't breathe when you're a ghost.

“Clear the bloody stairs!”

Marsh barged through the crowd on the stairwell, but far slower than those he chased. The fugitives reached the top and made their exit through the wall. He came up short, slamming against the same wall. His mind raced along with his heartbeat as he crouched with hands to knees, catching his own breath.

Now I understand the rules.

Klaus couldn't evade pursuit quite so nimbly with his sister in tow. They breezed through the men and their outstretched arms like ghosts in a haunted forest.

Smaller Gretel couldn't match his strides. He half pulled, half lifted her up the stairwell as they bounded up to the ground floor. Once up top, he pulled her through the outer wall. They passed into cool, moist air. After the noise and chaos inside, Klaus found nightfall in London disarmingly sedate.

It became more difficult to pull Gretel along once they rematerialized. As a ghost, she offered no resistance to his tugs. But as a physical entity with a physical body, she could not, or simply would not, match his sense of urgency. She stumbled along behind him as he led her across a street to an open green space.

“Stop! You there, stop!”

Klaus halted, spun. The challenge had emanated from across the street, back from where they had come, but