Bloodstone punched the speaker button on my desk phone. “The girl is safe?”
“You have something of mine, and I want it.”
“Don’t be coy. It was never yours.”
“It was meant to be mine. I have searched long enough. You will bring it to me. An innocent life hangs in the balance.” Bernhard hissed coldly. “Twenty-fourth and Camelback, near the bookstore.
You have twenty-five minutes.” He cut the connection.
I hit the speaker button again. “No cops?”
“Contra-indicated.” He shook his head slowly. “Don’t bother to bring your pistol.”
“Bernhard is a kidnapper, and he likes to play with guns.”
Bloodstone shook his head. “This time he is playing with something far more powerful, and it will consume him. No gun, no violence.”
Our stares met, but it would be easier to win a stare-down with the Lincoln Memorial than with Bloodstone. I raised my hands in surrender. “No gun. No violence.”
“Good.” His eyes became violet slits. “I will get the box. We will take the Jaguar.”
We loaded the box in the trunk, Bloodstone piled into the rear seat, and I slid behind the wheel. We made it to the parking lot with five minutes to spare. Once I found a space, a van pulled up blocking us in. A man emerged from the back, opened our passenger door and dropped into the seat beside me.
I looked at him. “Box is in the trunk. Where’s the girl?”
“Shut up and drive.”
“If you think…”
Bloodstone squeezed my shoulder. “Bernhard suspects trickery. And he wants witnesses.” Bloodstone settled back into the shadows. “Where are we going?”
My guide, who looked a bit rougher than the guys who took Dani, jerked a thumb toward the van. “Follow it.”
I did as ordered, but I didn’t like any of it. A quick swap would have worked well, but Bernhard wanting us there while he inspected the cloth was not a good sign. We were being kidnapped. We could identify our kidnappers. The easiest way to escape prosecution was to put a bullet in each one of us. After reading about Bernhard, I had no doubt he’d do that and likely declare he was giving us a sacrament.
Blessed is he who is anointed with 119 grains of lead.
We didn’t have to travel far, just southwest to Thomas and 16th, to a mortuary. We drove around back to the receiving area. I pulled the Jaguar into an empty hearse bay, and the van blocked us in again. I popped the trunk, and Bloodstone retrieved the box.
Four men led us into the mortuary and to the first viewing room. The rectangular room had a dozen rows of seats, and I found them disturbingly full. It looked like a costume party and the theme was Nuremburg, 1936. Most of the men wore snappy Nazi uniforms, complete with the ceremonial daggers and an Iron Cross or two. The women wore stockings with seams running up the back.
Bernhard, however, took the cake. I was raised Catholic, so I’m used to priests being swathed in layers of cloth. Over a black cassock that had been belted with a Sam Browne belt, Bernhard wore a chasuble of red, with a big white circle in the middle of his chest. That featured a swastika in black, and what looked to be a holstered Luger sat at his right hip. He even wore a red miter fixed with the swastika, so he was all decked out for a High Unholy Mass.
We were directed to the front, toward the dais that had a massive Nazi flag as the backdrop. Three chairs had been placed over to my left, and Dani sat in one closest to the wall. I sat next to her and took her hands in mine.
“You okay?”
“Just scared.” Dani gave me a hopeful smile. “Is this really happening?”
“It’ll be okay.” I tried to force confidence through my voice, but I was feeling as if I were trapped in some B-grade rip-off of an Indiana Jones movie. And me without a whip or anything.
Bloodstone delivered the box to Bernhard. The High Priest handled it reverently-as if the reliquary contained Hitler’s bones-and placed it on a table opposite us. He centered it between two censers, scattering the thick ropes of sweet white smoke rising from them. Bernard brushed his fingers over the lid as if caressing a lover and then turned around and motioned for the congregation to be seated.
Between him and the audience lay a low bier, which wasn’t too hard to imagine in a funeral home. On it lay something shrouded with a red cloth. It had that unique outline that suggested it was a body, but there were clearly parts missing. At least one foot was gone, and probably an arm. The chest wasn’t that round and there definitely was a hunk of the skull missing.
Bernhard waited for Bloodstone to sit in the third chair, then raised his hand. “It is time, my friends, long past time. Bow your heads.”
I didn’t. I studied the crowd. A bunch of them looked the way I’d expect white supremists to look, with prison tattoos or shaved heads, but the others really sent a chill through me. They looked normal, even those of an age to have been fighting against the Germans in World War II. Out of the uniforms, they’d have been unremarkable, and they looked affluent, too. Hatred isn’t cheap, and they could finance a lot of it.
Bernhard solemnly intoned a prayer. “Lord Jesus, by Your words, in Your name, great miracles have been wrought. Men have been raised from the dead. We ask You to look upon our brother, Adolf, and through Your love, restore him to the life so cruelly cut short, so he may continue the work of avenging Your murder.”
As the others murmured “Amen,” Bernhard whipped the red cloth off the thing in front of him. Desiccated, dried up, burned in places, with plenty of pieces missing and ivory bone visible through torn flesh, there was no mistaking it for a body. Somewhere in college I remembered reading that Hitler had shot himself, and loyal minions tried to burn his body. The Russians had interrupted them and had dragged the remains back for Stalin, never to be seen again. And, yet, I recalled hearing rumors that the body was still preserved in some KGB archive somewhere.
That can’t be Hitler’s body, can it?
Bernhard turned and opened the reliquary. From it he drew the homespun cloth and unfolded it. It looked like a man’s cloak, all woven of one piece, which he draped over the corpse from toes to crown. He smoothed out the wrinkles, and Dani grabbed my left arm, burying her face against my shoulder. I gave her a squeeze, then dragged her to her feet as Bernhard gestured and the congregation rose.
“Lord Jesus, in Your name we ask that life again flow into our brother Adolf. The mere touch of the hem of Your cloak was enough to cure the blind, the leper, the ill and the dead. This perfect raiment, which could not be sundered and, therefore, was diced-for in fulfillment of prophecy, graced You as You raised Lazarus. Bring us back our brother, for Your glory, and the glory of Your chosen people.”
Bernhard modulated his voice, starting low and building higher. The intensity increased with each sentence. Enthusiasm filled the final words. It brought them to a peak. Everyone listening got caught in the cadence, leaning forward as his voice rose, settling back as it subsided.
As each sentence built the anticipation, Bernhard’s hands clawed down through the air. They grazed bare millimeters above the cloak. His hooked fingers plucked at invisible strings. I could almost hear them thrum, and feel them vibrate through my chest.
And into the corpse.
Dani squeezed my arm hard. “Oh my God, Connor, it’s moving!”
It couldn’t be, but the cloak rippled. A corner slipped back from the blackened left foot. I searched the corpse for a sign of breath. I looked for any movement at all, to see a hand rising or the head turning.
Bernhard reacted with a triumphant hiss. “Behold the miracle!”
His words came faster now, and more power filled them. Members of the congregation gasped. They whispered. Some pointed, others hugged, and it was not out of fear. They were as exultant as Bernhard as the monster that had been Hitler began to regain life.