The Magicians of Night - By Barbara Hambly Page 0,53

now, was barred, wire laced into the glass. Through it he could see a vast, bare yard under the glare of yellow floodlights, row upon row of bleak wooden barracks beyond and, past them, a wire fence closing off the compound from the dreary, endless darkness of the pinewoods. Wooden towers stood along the fence, manned by dark shapes with glinting machine guns. Between two such towers was a wire gate, which gray-clothed sentries opened to admit the smaller of Schloss Torweg’s two flatbed transport trucks.

The truck turned in the yard, pulled to a stop before a building opposite the barracks; more guards emerged from the building’s lighted door into the floodlit glare. With them was Dr. Weineke, her graying fair hair pulled back tight and every button buttoned, though it must be nearing four in the morning, and another man in a more ornate black SS uniform whom Rhion guessed was the commandant of the camp. Auguste Poincelles climbed down from the truck cab, rumpled and unshaven but moving with that gawky, skeletal lightness characteristic of him. He said something to Weineke and gestured; she nodded, and the camp commandant craned his head a little to see as guards untied the canvas flaps of the truck’s cover.

They brought out three stretchers, one of which they hadn’t had a spare blanket to cover.

“Jesus!” Rhion shut his eyes, but not fast enough—for an instant he thought he was going to be sick. The facets of the crystal bit his palm as he clenched his hand over it, as if that could let him unsee what he had seen. “Oh, God...”

“What?”

He pressed his hands to his face, unable for a moment to speak. By the face—or what was left of the face—of the woman on the stretcher, she’d been conscious for most of it.

Then anger hit him, terror laced with rage. Though violence had never been part of his nature, he’d have horsewhipped a man who’d perform such acts upon so much as a rat. Baldur had read him secondhand accounts of the accursed Shining Crystal group, but the thought of such things actually being done, no matter in what cause—the thought of the kind of power that would result and what it would do to those who summoned it—turned his stomach and brought sweat cold to his face.

“Are you all right?’ Hard little hands touched his shoulders, soft breasts pressed into his back. “What did you see? What is it?”

He shook his head, and managed to whisper, “Your father’s all right,” knowing that would be her first concern. “It’s just—I looked out through the window... He’s at Kegenwald, all right. Weineke was there, and Poincelles—Poincelles drove the truck...”

“What truck?”

He shook his head again, trying to rid it of what he knew would always be there now, as if burned into his forebrain.

“What did you see?” She pulled him around to face her where she knelt on the floor. When he wouldn’t answer she snagged her purse from where it lay at the foot of the bed, took out a tin flask, and pressed it into his hands. He wasn’t sure whether the stuff inside was intended to be gin or vodka, but it didn’t succeed at either one. Nevertheless, it helped.

After a long moment he whispered hoarsely, “Back in my world those in the Dark Traffic—the necromancers, the demon-callers—usually have trouble getting victims. I see now they just don’t have the right connections.”

“You mean von Rath’s doing human sacrifice.”

Though he knew she was only thinking in terms of throat-cutting, he nodded.

“Papa...”

“It’s all right,” he said quickly, seeing the fear in her eyes. “I’ll help you get him out.”

For the length of an intaken breath she was just a girl, wonder and gratitude flooding her wide dark eyes. But the next moment all that she’d done to get this far came back on her, and her body settled again, her parted lips close and wry. “And what do you get out of it?”

“I need his help. I need the help of a wizard to get me back to my own world.”

He almost laughed at the speed with which she adjusted the cynical exasperation on her face to an expression of grave belief.

“All right. What do I have to do?”

“You don’t believe me, do you?”

“Of course I—” She paused, regarding him for a steady moment, then shook her head. “No. But I know I can’t spring him alone.” For a moment they sat in silence, their knees almost touching in the smudged ruin