“Who are you?” Kane demanded.
The chair slowly spun about. A beautiful blonde woman sat there. She wore a patch over her right eye. Her smile was a cold, disquieting thing.
“Magda!”
“Hello, John. Nice to see you again. Even if it is only with one eye.”
“I thought the Night Queen killed you.” Kane felt numb all over.
“But you didn’t wait around to find out, did you? You ran like a frightened little girl.”
The world spun. Kane staggered and dropped into the closest chair. “I’m sorry.”
“Yes, you are. A sorry excuse for a man.”
“What was I supposed to do? We were facing creatures out of hell.”
“I did not run.” Fischer pounded the desk with her fist. “I suppose that is what I get for putting so much stock in an American. You are all mongrels, your blood tainted by your ridiculous ‘melting pot’.”
Kane didn’t know what to say. He held his tongue until he could bear the silence no more. “What happened to your eye?” It was a foolish question, but he could think of nothing else to say.
“Brock Stone shot me.”
“Stone? He survived?”
“Him, Trinity Paige, his friend with the hook hand, the girl from the bureau, they were all there at the end. You would know that if you hadn’t run away.”
“I will end him,” Kane said. “I will take revenge on all of them.”
“Brock Stone is no longer your problem. You are now my faithful hound, and you will do as you are told. And we have more important matters to attend to.”
“I will do whatever I can to make it up to you,” Kane said.
“I know you will. And I promise, if you abandon me again, the consequences will be dire.” Fischer leaned forward and lifted her eye patch. Where her eye had been, a tiny black cloud roiled. “The Night Queen is not entirely dead.”
Kane slumped back in his chair, rendered speechless by what he had just seen. Fischer replaced her eye patch and sat back.
“Gerhard, fetch Mister Kane a cup of coffee. Two sugars and two creams.”
“That is how my mother takes it,” Gerhard said. He and Fischer exchanged amused glances. Kane’s face burned with shame. “Would you like your coffee in a mug, or something more delicate, like a teacup?”
“Leave it, Gerhard,” Fischer said. “He has the rest of his life to face up to his cowardice. And who knows, he might even reclaim his manhood.”
“Just tell me what it is you want from me,” Kane said through gritted teeth.
“I am working with a man called Heinrich Himmler,” Fischer said. We are heading up a new division of the Schutzstaffel. It is called the Ahnenerbe.””
About the Author
David Wood is the USA Today bestselling author of the action-adventure series, The Dane Maddock Adventures, and many other works. He also writes fantasy under his David Debord pen name and science fiction as Finn Gray. He's a member of International Thriller Writers and the Horror Writers Association. David and his family live in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Visit him online at www.davidwoodweb.com and get a free reader's guide to the Dane Maddock universe and his other works.