Reading Online Novel

Astronomy(55)



The two men loaded her onto a service elevator. They could barely contain their glee. Things at the V-Werke must have been slow indeed.

They tried to make conversation with a couple of white-uniformed sorcery corpsmen standing quietly at the back of the elevator. They were in a sharing mood. She heard them ask, Wasn’t she pretty? They were taking her now to a spot that Florian had used for similar purposes in the past. (Similar, she thought, except he’d been alone at the time.) And then she was off to the Research Center for Breeding Studies, and they were off to the Summoning Tower to greet the new masters of the earth.

The two white-uniformed men from the Sorcery Corps stared at her. The shorter one made a small sound of exasperation, or embarrassment. He looked away.

The taller one with the sad eyes said not a word. He appeared to be waiting on something. She could tell he was anxious. His cheek muscle jumped.

The soldier glanced at her quickly and then away again. Susan realized she was staring. She forced herself to face the door.





Chapter Twelve

“YOU ARE CURIOUS ABOUT THOSE MEN.” Florian laughed. He knew something. He had something she wanted.

In fact, her thoughts were deep and private, way beyond any hope of rescue. To the contrary—she had been wondering about the rescue of Charley Shrieve. Here he was, sending people off to die again, and helpless to do anything but save the world. When the time came, who would rescue him?

“Those white uniforms,” Florian intoned. “You don’t want to fool with them.”

Ralf Koehler nuzzled up beside her. “What we did to you was nothing. They make us look like gingerbread men.”

Florian chimed in: “I saw them put the Itch on a man who had jostled one of them in a corridor. He scratched himself till he bled to death.”

Indeed, he threatened to have them put the Itch on Susan if they were not convinced of her ardor. That, she figured, was the tragic outcome of reading the Necronomicon for pickup lines.

Ralf Koehler was more sanguine. He punched the top of her head in some Teutonic gesture of affection. “I will truly regret seeing you sacrificed,” he said. “Maybe if you treat us right, I will put a bullet in you before Yog Sothoth uses you.” He smiled and patted her on the shoulder.

He was feeling expansive, she realized. He was trying to be nice. Another minute and he’d be apologizing for that unseemly business with the ball peen hammer. What do you say about guys like this? Men amazed her.

Another tremor shook the island. The corridor went dark. Koehler cursed prodigiously. The lights had been flickering throughout the last two hours, some side effect of the Summoning, no doubt. But a night like this, darkness held terrors.

They heard something down the hall. Footsteps? Some sort of rustling. “Dammit,” Susan said. She didn’t even know if she could run away at this point.

Florian lit a match and held it before him. They were all half expecting some oily-skinned monster. He sighed with relief to find one of the white-uniformed men from the elevator standing before them.

“You got out of the Summoning too, eh?” Ralf and Florian chuckled.

Ralf said, “Come on with us. We are about to hold a little ceremony of our own.”

He was a tall man, and the light of the match seemed to disappear under the brim of his helmet. It caught maybe the glint of a cool blue eye, a little weary, a little sad. The soldier neither challenged nor shrank away. He just stood there, staring at them. Despite the German uniform, there wasn’t much question he represented a change in their plans.

Koehler demanded, “What is this about?”

Susan knew what this was about. All she had wanted since falling into this place was a fair fight. Until this moment it had been her alone versus roomsful of German soldiers. Suddenly, it was two on two. Her fair fight was at hand.

They were asking Charley for his name, for his unit. They were starting to fidget with their holster flaps, look anxious. Maybe they were starting to realize what was really up. No matter, they were so focused on him they never even noticed Susan step away from them.

She did a quick tally on her hand-to-hand skills. She had nothing to put into a punch, not till her shoulders healed a bit. She wondered how her kicks had been affected. Could she still kick hard enough to do any damage?

She heard Florian offer her to the silent man in front of them, first dibs. No sloppy seconds for a serious man like you, Oberstürmführer.

Oh yeah, she could kick.

Florian may or may not have known whom he was dealing with. At some point, impatience got the best of him. He went for his pistol.

Susan stepped on the back of his knee, right at the pivot point between thigh and calf. Florian went down, firing a wild shot into the ceiling. Shrieve crushed his wrist under a boot heel and kicked him into silence.