'Might the change become permanent?'
Ten Brincken shook his head and grinned like a gorilla. 'Nothing will ever be permanent, Herr Poe. The forms of these creatures will forever be fluid. They will adapt to conditions wherever they are required to fight.'
The Baron folded his wings, still at attention, and looked through the aperture in the tower walls. Out there, stars glinted like razor-edges. The camouflage netting blew in. A strong wind swept the floor of the tower room. Scientists clutched rebellious notes. Poe shivered in his coat.
Ten Brincken and Rotwang circled the shape-shifted flier with prayerlike mutterings. Poe trailed after them, unable to resist the creature's pull. Manfred von Richthofen was no longer human. Animal smell seeped around him, raising tears in Poe's eyes and a sting in his nostrils. The musk was so strong it could be tasted like pepper.
Poe tried to conceive of comparisons: a gargantuan gargoyle, a beast warrior, a killer angel, a Teuton demigod. None would do. As the Baron said, he was himself and that was all there was.
The scientists backed away, leaving Poe at the giant's feet, looking up. The netting was removed from the aperture and Richthofen walked to the platform. His bootfalls shook the flagstones. Poe kept pace, striding in the shadow of the Baron's wings.
Drawing his shoulders in and bowing his head, Richthofen eased through the gap in the wall and stood on the platform. His chest expanded. His wings filled out, air pouring into them.
Poe followed, ignoring the windblast. The platform was suspended over empty space. Below was a sea of darkness. The stars mirrored in the lake were the only nearby indication of ground level. Fire-flashes marked out the trenches a few miles distant. Tiny screams persisted in the thunder of bombardment.
Richthofen stood on the lip of the platform, wings spread like black sails. Kurten, roped at the waist to Haarmann lest he be swept off the platform, fastened the hooks of the Baron's boots, binding his legs together up to the knee. Leather pouches slung round the flier's thighs were packed with extra drums of ammunition. An armoured helm fitted over his head, cut away from the flaring ears. Some of the Baron's comrades wore protective goggles in their shapeshifted form, but Richthofen scorned such comforts. His eye-sockets had risen into gogglelike ridged orbits.
Poe fought the wind and moved nearer the Baron. Theo called, telling him to be careful. Under his breath, Ewers prayed Poe be carried off into the air and dropped into the forest.
The Baron turned to look back and opened his mouth, baring foot-long fang-teeth. The inside of his mouth was a startling red, a wound in his black-furred face.
'I'm hungry, poet,' he said. 'How does their nursery rhyme go, "I smell the blood of an Englishman"?'
Poe was startled. He had not thought the shape-shifted Baron capable of ordinary speech. His voice was surprisingly little changed.
'If you have to, write my obituary.'
Richthofen's shoulder-joints revolved as his wings lifted. He tipped forward, falling stiffly from the platform. His wings caught the air. A backwash forced Poe to his hands and knees.
The Baron dipped beneath the platform. Then he soared above it, spiraling towards stars. He did not flap his wings constantly, but glided on the currents, forcing himself through the air by will-power. An occasional beat was enough to keep him aloft.
Poe tried to stand, but was struck shivering. His boot slipped and he fell hard, sliding towards the edge. The Baron had been a wind-break. Now Poe was the only speck on the platform, winds threatened to dash him away. He stood again, carefully, and made a firm footing. Richthofen was nearly over the trenches, visible only because fires gave his underside a faint reddish glow. His flight was swift and elegant.
Returning to the tower, Poe was pulled inside by Theo.
'You should be more careful, Eddy. I'd have a thorny time explaining your loss to Mabuse.'
Poe was still shivering.
The scientists huddled, filling out forms, arguing minor points. The attendants put things away. General Kamstein stood where the Baron had changed, looking down at Richthofen's abandoned robe. Like a valet, Kurten whisked the garment away and brushed it off.
Theo clicked his heels and saluted. Karnstein returned the honour.
'Manfred is a brave lad,' the elder said. 'I pray he'll return safely.'
if I chose to worry about anyone, I should save my fears for those who will be hunted down by Baron von Richthofen. He is, after all, invincible.'
Karnstein's face was grey, true age showing through apparent middle years.
'Kretschmar-Schuldorff,' he said wearily, 'no one is invincible.'
32
A Restorative
Kate awoke in the echoing dark of her skull, eyes sealed by the grit which formed if she slept through two or three days. The thread binding her to an unaging corpse was weaker than since her death. Her body was a hotel, suddenly emptied by a change of season or the outbreak of international crisis. No longer a home.
Fierce heartburn told her feeding was a matter of urgency. Extreme urgency. Her swollen and jagged fang-teeth were broken marbles in her mouth. She was drooling, losing needed fluid. With a gulp, she swallowed spit.
Her eye-gum cracked. It was night. She was still in Edwin's billet. In addition to her dress, a sheet had been tucked around her. The makeshift sleep-clothes smelled off. She wasn't wearing her specs.
A man sat on the bed. In the unlighted room, a cigar end burned like a distant sun. His silhouette was slumped.
'Edwin,' she croaked. Her dry throat hurt.
The silhouette turned up a lamp. It was Charles, his face shockingly aged by the lamp's deep-etched shadows.
'What have you done now, Kate?'
Stabbing pain pierced her burning heart, as if she had been roused from lassitude by a die-hard Van Helsingite with a stake of hot iron.
'Edwin ...'
Charles shook his head.
'Winthrop is a changed man. A much-changed man, though not perhaps quite as you expected.'
It was not fair! Charles assumed too much, reached wrong conclusions. Blame was being unequally assigned. She could not make her voice work. She could not explain.
I thought we agreed you were to leave France?'
Kate made fists and thumped her chest. She was embarrassed Charles should find her in this condition. Apart from wretched feebleness, she was unclothed.
'You are a sorry creature,' he said.
Charles stubbed his cigar out in a saucer and stood. He creaked a little like an old man, and hung his head so as not to bump the ceiling. He knelt by her, letting out a breath of exertion as his knees locked. There was an enamel basin under the bedside table. Charles found a damp flannel and applied it to her face, wiping dried trails from around her mouth and grit from her eyes. Satisfied, he took her glasses from the table, unfolded them, and eased them on to her face.
She saw the room in dizzying, sharp focus. Up close, the tiny lines around Charles's eyes were crevasses.
'Thirsty,' she said, deliberately. The word was unrecognisable, even to her own ears. She was furious with herself. She must be captain of her vessel. 'Thirsty,' she said again, clearly.
Charles half-understood and reached for a jug of water that had been beside the basin.
She shook her head. ' Thirsty.'
'Kate, you presume a great deal on our friendship.'
She couldn't tell him what she meant. She could not explain why her red thirst was so urgent. She had lost too much blood, to Arrowsmith's Blighty cases, to Edwin ...
He touched her throat. A spark passed between them. Charles understood. His time with Genevieve had taught him.
'You are close to starved. Bled white.'
He held the lamp close to her face. She blinked as he peered at her.