Page 37 of Geist Fleisch
The shopkeeper stared at him, confused, even as the boy stopped writhing.
“Ist mein Vater!” the boy snapped sulkily, twisting out of Callum’s grip and folding his arms, knowing he’d found an accomplice.
“Ja.Ich ist…” Knowing that less German would make for a better play, Callum leaned down and shook the boy gently by the shoulders. “Did you steal from this man? Did you?”
Whether he understood or not, the boy shook his head vehemently, then pointed in the direction his friends had gone. This produced another snarl from the shopkeeper, which Callumplacated with a shake of his head. With one final curse, the man stalked off back to his shop.
Once they were alone, the boy looked up at Callum and grinned. “Vielen danke!”
Before he could run off again, Callum stopped him and held out his hand. With some reluctance, the boy handed over the firecracker Callum had felt concealed in his coat. When the boy went to run off again, Callum coughed, getting a box of matches for his intuition. Now, the kid could leave.
It wasn’t the subtlest diversion, but as long as Anne had the good sense to duck...
Callum had heard about Silvester, the night Germans all over the country celebrated New Years’ Eve by drinking themselves silly and letting off fireworks that prioritised sensation over safety. The tradition, so Anne had said, had slowed after the war, as more Germans sought neither to waste limited funds nor be reminded of their country’s bloody, crippling humiliation. So be it. Tonight, Callum would celebrate an early Silvester in the most obnoxious and arguably most dangerous way possible. Damn! What if the ghosts sensed what was going on? What memories of the battlefield could this diversion stir up? He would just have to hope his little show stayed in the mortal world. He only needed a few seconds.
The matches caught with surprising ease, as did… Callum’s heart caught in his throat as he recognised the explosive as a basket bomb. He pondered—in the few seconds between throwing a rock to break Suzi’s window and throwing the firework in after it—what a stray spark or a resultant fire could do near a fully stocked bar. But his gift was avoiding sight, not foresight, and he’d already committed to the plan.
The eruption was loud and strong, accompanied by the cracking of wood, the whistling of peripheral sparks and the shouts of frightened Nazis. Black smoke rose from the broken window, followed by more from the front door as one of the men threw it open.
Callum covered his nose and dove inside as the Brownshirts tried to extinguish the small fires that had broken out across three tables mercifully far from the bar. If anyone had seen him, they didn’t show it. This included Anne, Suzi, and Brigitte, who sat at tables in three different parts of the room, guarded by three gigantic but committed Brownshirts, who’d kept their posts through the whole kerfuffle. For better or worse, Callum was inside. He hoped the dark would shield him, or quicken his translucency or… something!
Not that approaching Anne without an apparent face or hands was the best plan either. Bloody hell!
The thug guarding Suzi shouted something at her, getting an eye-roll in response. Suzi had a black eye. The man had one also, with a cut, swollen lip to match. How did these men plan to find their way into a ghost nightclub when they lacked the good sense to not fuck with a lesbian bartender?
As the smoke cleared and the last fires were stomped out, three of the Nazis ran out onto the street, unaware the perpetrator was watching them from behind a long curtain that concealed a private table. He checked his hands again. Faded, but not gone. Come on! Either disappear or don’t, damn you! He cast his gaze around the room, counting five remaining men. That made nine of the bastards… not impossible odds if what Suzi had dealt out to her guard was any indication, but not odds he cared to test, either. Step one, down. What the hell was he supposed to do now? He cursed silently as the three menreturned. So much for his advantage. He looked again at his hands. They were opaque, but not invisible. He couldn’t believe he was wishing this shit would go faster.
The man who’d left the bar before his firework stunt returned with a plump, balding man at his side, one whose face dripped with arrogance beneath his spectacles. Rohm, the creep who’d had his arms around the two men at Eldorado, before they’d become food for Jacqueline and Robert. Callum cursed himself for not calling them. Had he been afraid of their monstrous power and appetites? Not half as afraid as he’d been of Heinrich’s threat. It had sent him straight to the bar, and it was too late to go get help now.
Rohm weaved through his gang of toughs until he reached Brigitte. Anne shouted something at them in German, but the men ignored it. Anne, never one for being ignored, continued, earning a slap for her troubles which she repaid with a solid stomp on the attacker’s foot. The Nazi spewed a furious barrage of German back at her, only to be silenced by his impatient superior. Callum knew Anne’s only use to them was as bait. It didn’t matter if what they had planned was Heinrich’s scheme or Hitler’s. He needed to get Anne, Brigitte, and Suzi out of there,now.
Rohm’s earnest conversation with Brigitte was too low for Callum to hear, but he could add two and two. They wanted access to Max and his friends. An army of invincible, ghostly soldiers, ever renewable. Casualties? What casualties? They were already dead! And if the Brownshirts could not enter Max’s world, they would bring its fallen soldiers into this one. Brigitte was the expertise, Anne was the bait, and he was the key. Suzi was collateral damage, which didn’t bode well for her if Callum didn’t do something soon.
“Max,” he whispered, not knowing if it would do a damn bit of good. He’d never, after all, seen Max manifest on the living side of Suzi’s bar. “Max, answer me, please.”
Rohm touched Brigitte’s jaw, but the American kept her cool until he withdrew it and conferred with the lieutenant who’d fetched him. Callum tensed as the subordinate’s muscles flexed in his brown uniform. The man was no Heinrich, but any fight he picked with Callum would be over quickly, with Callum on the losing side.
Callum jumped as a loudclunkbroke the silence behind him. He turned to see a candlestick roll away on the floor after hitting the wooden table… a candlestick he couldn’t possibly have bumped.
The lieutenant stalked toward the curtains that guarded his refuge. Callum froze as the man pushed them open and looked right at him, his broad chest blocking Callum’s view of the rest of the room. Callum braced himself for the man to grab his collar or worse, and drag him out. But the brute just stood there, confusion crossing his deep brown eyes as they bore into Callum.
The lieutenant’s comrades called to him, until the man brought down a meaty fist to haul his prey into the bar. Callum twisted and writhed, but the Nazi’s grip was firm. He heard Anne cry out, but this was hardly the time to explain why she could see straight through every inch of his exposed skin, as she surely could. The brute handling him exchanged more remarks in German with his superior, though his soft tone belied the violence with which he’d grabbed Callum. There was no throwing Callum against a table or a wall either. The man just held him firm, speaking matter-of-factly with his commander.
Before Callum could demand an explanation, the fellow yanked the back of his collar and forced him toward the toilets, his gateway to the bar that sheltered Max, Ferdi, and all the others. A lack of English could only mean they didn’t need Callum’s cooperation, just his presence. Suzi watched in horror. Anne objected in strenuous German, in between begging him in English to tell her he was all right.
“I’m fine!” he called several times as the brute continued manhandling him. Was he fine? Would Max be fine? Could he take this muscular bastard down once they were behind the curtain and improve his odds, just a little?
Only Brigitte remained silent, watching them… until she smiled.
The German shoved him through the curtain and into the area next to the sink. The man closed the curtain behind him, his once hard face now filled with concern. “Alles gut?” he asked, putting his hands on Callum’s biceps and squeezing gently. “Callum, ist mich. Alles gut?”
“Max?” Callum fairly breathed, at last recognising the kindness that had usurped the Nazi’s face. “Oh my God! They’re…”
“Ja, ja,I know.” Max breathed steadily in his new fleshy suit as their lack of a common language again stifled communication.
Callum wished he knew more—
Max pulled Callum close and took him in a long, deep kiss as if he’d been in command of this thug’s form his whole life. Strange as it felt to him, Callum didn’t resist, allowing Max to draw them both deeper.
