It wasn’t a question, but Milo nodded anyway, the movement weighed down by his powerful guilt.
“Yes, General.” Milo sighed, then found he couldn’t manage to keep his head up. “Yes, sir.”
Ludendorff raised one claw to scratch his chin.
“This will take some time to discuss,” he said, his voice flat, betraying nothing. “I think it would be best if you allowed the general staff to consider the gravity of all of this. Unprecedented times, but we need to carefully consider the possible responses to this situation.”
The way the general said the last word made the wizard raise his head from where it hung miserably between his bowed shoulders. The black coat across them seemed heavier than ever.
Milo could read nothing in the dying warhorse’s expression. As he looked around the room, he wished he could say the same of the faces staring at him. Many of them were fighting to hide it, though some doing better than others, but he could smell the truth despite their posturing. They were scared.
A few years ago, that might have made him proud—cocky, even—but now Milo was wise enough to know the truth.
What men like these were afraid of, they destroyed.
2
These Stains
Ambrose was waiting for him in the entryway of the general staff offices. The big man had been forbidden to enter, though the instruction wouldn't have stopped him except for Milo’s nodded acquiescence.
The bodyguard studied Milo’s expression but didn’t bother to ask how it had gone. Without a word, they left the general staff building and stepped into the late afternoon sunshine of Berlin. The chill of fall was in the air despite the sun, and Milo told himself that was why he shivered and drew his surcoat tighter.
“We free for the rest of the day, or do they want you back later?” Ambrose asked from his position at Milo’s shoulder.
The magus shrugged as he looked up and down the street, marveling at the economic bustle of the city. As long as one didn’t look too closely at the posters on the walls, one could forget there was a war going on as one walked the streets. People went about their business and seemed untroubled by the incredible violence being done in their name and on their behalf.
The violence that Milo had accidentally become a master of.
“I need a smoke,” he grumbled, ineffectually patting the extra-dimensional pockets worked into his ensorcelled coat. He knew there was no tobacco, but he was unable to think of anything else to do.
He patted around, staring blindly at the street until Ambrose produced the precious carcinogen and some rolling papers.
“Thanks,” Milo muttered as his fingers began the automatic process of feeding his addiction.
Ambrose eyed him with obvious concern but didn’t comment until Milo had returned the cigarette materials.
“So, that bad then?”
Milo nicked his thumb and snapped a flame into reality with a miniscule necromantic ritual. He lit the cigarette and then snapped again to dismiss the flame. He took a long toke and then pinched the paper-rolled tobacco between his forefinger and scarred thumb.
“Let’s go for a walk,” the wizard announced, with a sour look over his shoulder at the general staff offices looming behind them. Without further preamble, Milo hung the cigarette from his lip and took off down the street, head down and hands shoved into his pockets.
“We headed anywhere in particular?” the big man asked as he stutter-stepped to catch up with Milo’s long strides.
“No,” the magus muttered flatly around the cigarette between his teeth.
“Then can you take this thing?” Ambrose grumbled, holding out the eagle-skull cane he’d kept tucked under his arm. “I think the witch is trying to whine at me, but it keeps coming across as whispers that make my ears twitch.”
Milo snatched the cane without slowing his pace. A second later, his steps were being announced by the rap of the metal-capped tip on the pavement. A second after that, a cold, jagged voice raked through the avenues of his thoughts like a biting north wind.
This fetish is a work of necromist mastery and supreme masonic artisanry and is powered by one of the most necromantically talented ghuls in the history of that storied people. It is not a walking stick!
Despite himself, Milo smiled as the cane connected again with a sharp tap.
We can’t have the silly humans knowing that, Milo thought back. Now shush before you blow your cover.
“Giving you what-for, is she?” Ambrose asked as he moved to stay shoulder to shoulder with Milo, who nodded through a rush of blue-gray smoke.
“She doesn’t appreciate her disguise,” Milo murmured as they crossed a street and merged into the broader flow of foot traffic.
For some time, there was no conversation. Milo was unable to say anything, and Ambrose seemed determined to give him as much space as he desired on the matter. They moved through the commercialized city center past the post office buildings, trolley stations, and shops. Some people gave them an uncomfortably wide berth, while others nodded respectfully or smiled at their uniforms as they passed. A trio of young men in business suits threw them jaunty salutes as they passed, but it all slid off of Milo’s mind as he valiantly fought a futile battle to shake off the memories of the photographs in the file.
You are troubled, Imrah noted. What has happened?
A bitter, snarling smile curled one side of Milo’s mouth at the question.
My booby trap for the Soviets worked too well, he thought, then very carefully allowed the cane-bound spirit to peer into his memories of the general staff meeting.
Imrah’s failure to make an icy retort at what she saw made his heart drop inside him. He expected her to ridicule him for being a sentimental human and act as though this kind of carnage was typical. After all, hadn’t she been the one to set loose a demonic tide of all-consuming slime? Surely, she would brush this off callously, and he could push back in a ferocious bid to save his humanity.
But no
