Page 40 of Geist Fleisch
If Anne saw him, she didn’t show it, which was probably for the best. ‘Saw him?’ A grim sort of joke. He kissed her cheek and squeezed her hand anyway. “I’ll see you soon.”
Callum stripped off his clothes, the cold no longer bothering him as he followed Robert and the women. They hailed a taxi, where Robert instructed Callum to get in before giving the driver strict directions to Anne’s apartment in Kreuzberg, via the Institute on the edge of Tiergarten. The driver didn’t question the odd routing, even when his door opened, then closed without remark as he completed the detour. Callum stared up at the house, letting the cool snow melt on his shoulders. Realising how suspicious it probably looked, he brushed it off, giving his hair a good shake to be sure. He then turned up more of the snow to obscure his footprints. He still had so much to learn.
He circled two thirds of the way around the Institute before finding an open window. What did he owe Frank, or Robert for that matter? His life?
He heard tires scrunch through snow, the stilling of a truck’s engine and the slamming of its door, before an exchange in brutish-sounding German suggested his task was about to get a lot more complicated, and that Frank would need his help more than ever.
He grunted under his breath. Here the fuck went nothing.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Callum rolled over the window sill, wincing as he landed hard on his shoulder. The loud bump caught the attention of the young man with green-painted fingernails, who glanced at him, but said nothing. Callum lifted his hands up in front of his face and saw right through them. He was gone, at least for now, without so much as a shadow to give him away. He jumped at the sound of hammering on the front door.
The green-fingernailed scholar swiftly opened it and scurried out of the way, allowing the Brownshirts to spill inside. Like starved dogs they stalked from room to room, tearing books off shelves, ripping papers from desks and walls, barking orders and jibes at one another and looking for ‘deviants.’
Callum gasped as something sharp jabbed his shoulder. He watched green fingernails drop silently out the very window that had granted him access. The mad bastard had stuck him with something, but what? And why?
Callum counted seven Nazis. But the casual way with which the man had let them in, the way he’d quietly slipped out, and the absence of the Institute’s other associates… They’d known this was coming, and faced with a fight they could not win, had slipped out to fight another day.
In that case, where was Frank?
At no time had Callum actually seen a point—assuming there was one—where the Institute ended and Frank’s domain of monster studies began. Nor could he simply walk through walls and find out.Geist Fleischor not, he was still very muchFleisch.He dove out of the way as one of the Nazis pushed a bundle of books off its shelf onto the floor. It was only a matter of time until one of these twats swatted or tripped over or threw something at him that would give him away, assuming his gift didn’t fail him first. For now, at least, they couldn’t see him. But the way they stalked through the halls, tearing the place apart… He had to find Frank before they did. He needed a way to search quicker thanFleischwould let him. Could he call to Max, somehow? The ghost was not his to command, yet the name found his lips like a subconscious incantation.
“Hier,” came a whisper behind him.
He turned in time to see Max flinch, unable to hide his awful scars outside the club. But Callum would not look away. Not now. As they spent the next moment staring at each other, ignoring the chaos that surrounded them, he knew Max could see him too.
“Du brauchst mich?”
Their language barrier on the other hand…
Callum considered what he needed Max to do. To float through every room in the place, through walls and cupboards in search of a secret panel or opening? Or to the basement or the butler’s fucking pantry in search of an endangered Frank, while Callum sat idle, waiting and hoping?
Great bloody plan, fool!
“Hilfe?” Max clarified, pointing to himself, then Callum. “I help you?”
It was a lousy time for a German lesson, but yes, Callum would take all theHilfehe could get. Before he could object, Max’s scarred face shot toward him, stretching and opening its mouth until it wrapped around Callum’s. He couldn’t breathe. He could no longer move, or scream. He could only wait as Max’s spectral form entered him through every opening, crack and pore. His heart seized. His stomach lurched. He wanted to vomit, choke, piss himself and beat the ground with his fists all at once, and every inch of his body felt like it weighed twice as much. But as Callum staggered to his feet, the feeling faded. He still felt solid, but the intrusion no longer weighed him down. Instead, it invigorated him. He felt its familiar warmth spread through his body, sending pins and needles through to his fingers and toes.
Don’t resist me.The words were in English, but the voice was all Max.
Callum went limp, allowing Max to barrel down on the first Brownshirt. The man cried out as Callum’s unseen form slammed into him like a rugby player, pushing him to the ground. Callum’s right fist cracked hard across the target’s face, breaking the man’s nose with a punch that left him out cold.
In an instant, Max had Callum back on his feet and was charging toward a Brownshirt who’d begun tearing books from one of the shelves only to get distracted by one of the pages. Callum’s hand cupped the back of the man’s head and slammed it into the wooden shelf. The Nazi collapsed among the books he’d scattered on the floor, limp fingers still wrapped around the volume that had caught his eye. One of the fallen man’scomrades knelt to check his pulse, and got an unseen kick to the face for his concern.
“Ah!” Callum gasped as the blow jarred through his bare foot and leg. “Careful!”
Shhhh!!!
But the kick’s recipient had already heard the English word. Clutching his face, he barked the alarm to the remaining Brownshirts. Every man in the place spun to face Callum. Another solid kick to the Nazi’s face laid him out next to his comrade, but the other four were already closing fast.
Callum knew that to stay still would be his undoing. He went limp again, allowing Max to weave him through the men like an agile puppet. While their leader quickly dismissed several shouts ofGeist,the Nazis stalked from room to room, searching for theEnglischspy. Now, Callum understood. What was he, if not the perfect spy? That was, if he could keep his bloody mouth shut.
Callum jumped as his leg clipped one of the Nazis. The man spun around, eyes wide like he’d just… no, the manhadjust felt a ghost. Max slammed Callum’s fist into the thug’s temple, then threw him headfirst into the wall. Another Brownshirt on the floor and three more to go. They scurried out of the way before one of the other men could corner them. This wasn’t helping him find Frank!
“Spiegel! Spiegel!” barked one of the remaining Germans, a soft-faced youth of no more than twenty.
Callum looked in the direction the boy was pointing in, watching his own eyes widen in horror as the mirror on the wall betrayed him. There he was, exposed in every sense, a faint green glow around his eyes and neck that might have revealed Max to the knowing eye.
