I managed not to hit him, somehow. “So you let people wearing gargoyle and hyena masks, the latter with a hard-on, into your pantheon?”
He gave me a cold stare. “Whatever was effective.”
Marion Gilbert pointed the skewer at the mask. “He didn’t just let them into the rituals. He was the man in the hyena mask and his sister wore that one. People like them do not lead normal lives in any way.” She shook her head. “They think the process blanks everything out, but I remember, after the sacrifice of a young woman, I saw them-incest was no taboo for them…”
Rothmann looked completely unperturbed, glancing at Gwen and holding her gaze for a few moments. My suspicions of incest had been correct, but that only opened a new door into the abyss.
“Dana Maltravers,” I said, catching Rothmann’s eye. “Are you her father?”
He shook his head. “The research that Dr. Mengele and my father carried out in the camp, and that my father continued after the war, suggested that genetic defects were a danger. No, Dana is not my daughter. With Irma, I always wore a condom.”
“What happened to her father, then?” I asked.
Rothmann glared at me. “Are you sure you can handle the answer?”
I held his gaze. “You killed him, didn’t you?”
He laughed. “Wrong. Irma did. He was one of the first sacrifices when we reinstituted the Antichurch.”
I took a deep breath and forced myself to move on. “What about the blinding of the victims after death? Was that really necessary?”
He raised his shoulders. “The original Antichurch did that. Besides, our father lost his sight toward the end of his life-heavy smoking had damaged his eyes. My sister and I felt that was the kind of commemoration he would have relished.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” I said callously. “That didn’t put Irma and you off smoking though, did it?”
Rothmann looked at me evenly. I hadn’t laid a finger on him.
“What about Karen and me?”
He frowned. “Surely you have worked out why we abducted your lover. Her investigation into a certain London investment banker was becoming a problem.”
“Gavin Burdett of Routh, Ltd.”
“I know you saw him recently in Washington.” He smiled. “Let’s just say he is no longer of any significance.”
“What? You killed him, too?”
Rothmann shrugged. “He was expendable, and besides, his personal needs were becoming an embarrassment.”
“But Karen’s free now.”
“Like you, she escaped,” he said, giving me a tight smile. “So there’s nothing to worry about.”
“You better not have harmed her or our child,” I said, raising a fist over his bloodstained thigh. He ignored it and kept looking straight ahead.
“I’ll tell you something I don’t understand,” I continued. “Why did the Star Reporter pay so much attention to the occult murders? You suspected one of your own people was the killer, but your own rag was full of the story every day.”
Rothmann gave me a look that suggested I was mentally deficient. “Woodbridge Holdings owns numerous newspapers. Do you imagine we would censor such a major story from all of them? Murders mean major earnings for papers like the Star. Besides, we knew the investigations were going nowhere.”
“You had your niece on the spot. Shame about Dana’s career.”
“She successfully framed you and bought us time. Besides, we have plenty more like her. But you, you should have kept quiet after we took your partner,” Rothmann went on. “We had no specific interest in you.”
“I love Karen. She’s carrying our son.”
He blinked slowly. “That was what Lister said would be your weakness.”
A cold finger ran up my spine. “Lister?”
“You didn’t think he was just a pawn, did you?
“Gordy Lister is involved in all our plans. He masterminded the kidnappings, both Karen Oaten’s and your own.”
We really had blown it when we let Lister go, but I couldn’t do anything about that now. “What about Joe Greenbaum?”
“He had long been a thorn in the sides of companies such as ours.”
“Lister set the bomb?”
He looked at Gwen again. “No, he did not.”
I let my head drop. The sick fuck. “You used her?”
“Yes, we did. And her brother. They have turned out to be excellent operatives. The Jew Greenbaum’s work has been atomized for good.”
I felt the blood boil in my veins. The bastard was wrong there, but I wasn’t going to tell him about the data stick yet. I wanted to get off the boat alive and it might be a useful bargaining tool.
I looked at Marion Gilbert. “The double weapons for each victim referred to you and your bother?”
“And to the…the Fuhrer and the professor, and power of two. They were an inspiration to me for a long time…but not…not anymore.” She stepped closer and I realized she had reached the end of her tether-her eyes were wild and her hands were shaking. She raised the skewer high.
“No!” Rothmann screamed. “Barbarossa! Barbarossa!”
This time, the instant I heard the name, I felt my knees give way. My mind filled with clashing images and sounds, but beneath them I felt a strong will that I could no longer resist. I knew it was foreign to me, I knew it was evil, but I was completely in thrall to it. The clamor ceased and I opened my eyes, ready to defend the man who had spoken the word.
Gwen had advanced on Marion Gilbert, who was bleeding from her right hand. Marion slashed at the younger woman. That was when I realized Gwen was holding a combat knife very similar to the one I had acquired during my escape from the camp.
“Now, my Fuhrer?” she asked, her eyes bright.
Rothmann saw that I had moved closer to them. “So, Wells… Are you ready to do your duty?”
I was looking down on myself, as if I were a spirit floating free. I had no control over the self that was in my body.
“Yes, my Fuhrer,” I heard myself say.
“It seems the process advanced further into your brain than we thought.”
The disembodied part of me was trying to understand what was going on.
“You see, Marion?” Rothmann was saying. “Things have changed since your time. We are now able to master even the most difficult subjects without prolonged treatment. Sometimes it just takes several repetitions of the trigger to prompt a response.”
The doctor took another swipe at Gwen, but the younger woman easily avoided the weak blow.
“You…you don’t control him,” she gasped. “He got out of the camp, he’s been working with the police…”
Rothmann laughed hoarsely, his face white as he clutched his wounded thigh. “If I tell him to attack you, he will do so.”
Marion Gilbert looked at me and I saw that she was wavering.
I sensed that my eyes had gone as blank as Gwen’s.
“Wells!” the Fuhrer yelled.
I watched as my body immediately tensed.
“Give him the knife!”
Gwen looked at the Fuhrer dubiously.
“Go ahead!” he roared.
I took the blade from her and weighed it in my hand. It felt comfortable there.
“Stop it,” Marion Gilbert said, her voice faint. “I can’t…I can’t take anymore.”
Rothmann gave her a triumphant look. “Gut her, Wells,” he ordered.
Watching in horror, I saw my body take up a combat stance, knees bent and arms in front of the chest. I tried to take control, but I had no access to the part of my being that was wielding the knife. But my victim was too quick for me.
Marion Gilbert was against the bulkhead, holding the remaining skewer vertically. The steel shaft was closer to her body than it had been. “I hope all your plans come to nothing,” she said in a low voice. Then she took a deep breath and pressed the point against her throat. With a desperate wail, she shoved the skewer upward to its hilt. A few seconds later, she crashed lifeless to the floor.
I felt my separate self slip back into my body and the knife drop from my hand. “Did you…did you make her do that?” I stammered feeling more like myself again.