Page 42 of Geist Fleisch
Heinrich gave Frank a grin that chilled Callum with its false sympathy. “Three times now, you have invoked his name. What are you expecting, friend? What loyalty do you think he owes you? Perhaps you simply fear what is to come. I can take that fear from you, if you wish.”
Frank’s scream echoed off the room’s darkened walls. Ropes that had not been there before now glowed like fire irons across his skin, cutting through his clothes as they tightened.
“Stop it!” Callum threw himself hard against Heinrich, which sent the villain stumbling, even as he laughed. “I’ve already said I’ll do what you want!”
Frank’s screams faded to a staccato whimper that didn’t make Callum feel much better. For her part, Jacqueline had stayed well clear of the burning ropes, which vanished as quickly as they’d appeared.
“You, Callum, understand better than any of us that there is more to the world than what we see.”
“Just tell me what you want.”
“Cal…”
Callum tensed, sure that Frank’s murmurs would get him a fresh round of lashing burns. Jacqueline had peeled away his ruined clothes, revealing the gruesome scars Heinrich’s demonstration of power had left behind. Jacqueline shook her head, her face grim.
“And you’ll fix Frank up too, if you want my help.”
“Oh, so nowyou want to bargain?”
“I mean it! And don’t tell me you can’t do it. This is your bloody handiwork.”
Heinrich tilted his head, his face seeming troubled, if only for a second. “Unfortunately, my powers have never included those of healing.”
“You miserable bast—”
“Don’t worry. When my master arrives, you may petition Them directly.” The man’s inscrutable expression left Callum unsure if this was an offer or a threat. “But I wouldn’t suggest wasting more time.”
“Do as he says,” added Jacqueline, with no more passion than if she were reading the weather on the wireless. “It’s Frank’s only chance.”
“Only chance?” Callum snapped.
“No,” Frank whimpered. “Both of you—”
“It is decided,” Heinrich interrupted him with triumph. Without further warning or ceremony, he took Callum’s all-but-transparent wrist in an unshakeable grip and guided him toward Frank and Jacqueline. Callum gritted his teeth as Heinrich pushed his hand closer to Frank’s raw wounds. If Max was ever going to flex his ghostly powers, now was the time. The monster tightened its grip on him. “Disappoint me now, and I’ll see you survive a fate much worse than his.”
Callum grimaced as Heinrich pushed his fingers deep into Frank’s wound. They pierced muscle and brushed bloodied and blackened flesh as screams filled the room. At last, with Callum’s hand good and coated in the slickness of Frank’s blood, Heinrich withdrew it and walked Callum with cold deliberateness to the hole behind the mirror. The gateway that had brought him here from the Institute’s mortal surface.
Contact with Callum’s hand brought forth the swirling green mists as surely as if he’d summoned them himself. They sucked the blood from his hand with an unnatural hunger. The green mists brightened until they became a white light Callum could no longer watch without being blinded. But Heinrich watched with a fascination that gave way first to awe, then to a humility that bordered on joy, something Callum would never have expected to see on the man’s face.
Callum leapt away as a long white tendril of energy burst from the hole, widening it until it consumed the wall around. The portal was now big enough for Callum to pass through, should he ever wish to take complete leave of his senses. What had he done? What had he let into the world? He shot a quick glance at Jacqueline, who looked back at him with steady resolve. He’d no way to know the vampire’s mind. No way to know what she expected to come next. But the look on her face left him twosimple possibilities. Either this would pass like a bad dream, or they would all soon die here, Heinrich included.
“Beautiful!” The zealot gazed upon his deity, unbothered by the light. “Have you ever seen anything so miraculous, Callum? Are you ready for what you most want in the world?”
Callum could barely hear him over the wind that now howled through the opening. Jacqueline laboured to get Frank’s arm over her shoulder and began dragging him toward the light. Callum was beside her in a flash, trying to take Frank’s weight. “What are you doing?”
“Callum,” Frank said in a voice so weak, Callum feared their tussling would finish him off. “Trust her. You’re about to be more… more impor…”
Jacqueline shook her head as Frank’s lolled to one side. “He won’t survive here. Please!”
Callum didn’t know what made him believe her. Perhaps it was her cool head amidst this madness. Perhaps it was her ability to stay beneath Heinrich’s radar. He was helping to manoeuvre Frank’s weight toward the portal before he knew it. They’d barely neared it when one of the tendrils, its energy sharp as a living bolt of lightning, wrapped around the wounded man’s wrist and pulled him in.
Heinrich stared in amazement, then let out a cruel laugh. “Make your pleas quickly, Callum. I think my master is hungry.”
Callum’s stomach tightened with rage. Frank. They’d given up Frank, and for what? To feed Heinrich’s god? He lunged at the man, but Jacqueline held him back with surprising strength.
Heinrich fell to his knees, whispering, his voice joining the winds in grim harmony. “Claim this world’s undying armies.”Heinrich dipped his finger in the congealing blood of the Nazi at his feet and smeared it across his face. He began unbuttoning his shirt, stripping himself to the waist before smearing more blood across his bare chest, down his arms and over his muscular shoulders and neck. More tendrils reached from the doorway, caressing Heinrich’s face and body, suckling on him like leeches of energy and light. The man’s grin was blissful Nirvana on his face.
Would the being kill him? Callum didn’t trust it to stop with Heinrich if it did. But before they could act, the light creature withdrew into the doorway. The rest of the room’s light began to fade, until all that remained illuminated was Heinrich’s face. The man’s eyes grew wide with anticipation, then fear as he watched the portal, licking and biting his lips.
