Maxim Jakubowski - Paris Noir

At Bardot’s demand, Captain Hess drew his elaborate, ornamental dagger from the scabbard at his belt and cut the ropes binding the metatemporal detectives. His deep-set eyes were dreamy, as if he believed himself the victim of an hallucination. Constantly his gaze returned to the great scintillating scales moving gently in constant balance, their movement continuing to create the deep booming, like the heartbeat of the multiverse.

Klosterheim snarled. ‘How do you think you can defeat my plans now, merely by turning the tables on my servants?’ And then, without warning, he rushed at Hess, pushing the startled Nazi to the edge of the moonbeam road. Before the detectives could reach him, he shoved again and this time Hess’s arms flailed as he fought to keep his balance. He reached towards Klosterheim, yelling something unintelligible, and then he fell backwards.

They watched him drop, spinning and waving his awkward arms, like a scarecrow, falling, falling down towards the Balance, passing the swaying beam until he disappeared in the pulsing light coming up from one of the cups. They heard him scream, a high-pitched and terrible noise, and then he had been swallowed into the light which flared suddenly scarlet.

Klosterheim stepped to the edge and watched with an air of satisfaction. ‘A sign of my good faith, I hope.’

Colonel Hitler swore in German. ‘You killed him. You killed my closest friend!’

Klosterheim shrugged. ‘It’s disputable that he’s actually dead, but my master needs blood and souls.’ He shrugged then. ‘The Grail-’

‘That thing is not the Grail!’ growled Röhm. ‘There cannot be two grails!’

Now Klosterheim smiled. ‘Not in your mythology, perhaps. But one cup holds the stuff of Chaos, the other holds the stuff of Law. That is what regulates the multiverse. That is why they are in constant conflict.’

Still cursing, the Nazi colonel reached down and picked up his fallen Luger. In one movement he pointed and pulled the trigger, firing shot after shot into the mocking figure. Again came that cold, humourless chuckle. Klosterheim spread his arms and looked down at his unwounded body. ’I am not so easily killed, Colonel Hitler. How can you take away the soul of a man who has no soul?’

Still Una Persson did not move. It was as if she were waiting, perhaps to watch the opposed groups destroy one another. Still that enigmatic amusement filled her indigo eyes.

Only when Röhm retrieved his own automatic pistol and pointed it at her did she frown. Begg was sure, eternal though she might be, that she was not invulnerable.

’Arioch! Arioch! Aid me now!’ called Klosterheim in that strange voice which seemed to deaden the air it filled.

Begg acted. He knew he could not kill Klosterheim easily, but the Nazis would soon return their attention to the detectives. He raised his Webley and, taking careful aim, shot Röhm between the eyes. The captain’s expression changed from anger to surprise. And then he, too, lost his balance and fell, his body spinning downwards to stop suddenly, as if in the grip of some powerful magnetic force which held him spreadeagled and screaming silently in space above the Balance.

Another shot. And this time it was Lapointe who sent Captain Goering into the void, to hang in the air immediately above the cup which held the weight of Chaos.

‘No!’ cried Una Persson suddenly. ‘No! Don’t kill them! Not yet! You don’t know what you’re doing. There’s a plan-’

But Begg had no choice, for the malevolent club-footed Goebbels screamed something about betrayal and turned his gun on her. The Webley’s bullet found its target in Goebbels’ heart and another Nazi went down, whirling and shrieking, to come to a sudden halt just before he was swallowed by the cup which now boiled with smoky scarlet and black.

‘You fool, Sir Seaton!’ cried Mrs Persson. ‘No more shooting, I beg you. Don’t you realise you’re aiding Klosterheim? Their souls are already pledged to Chaos. They are the blood sacrifice they intended to make of you. One last action and he can use them to destroy everything. Everything!’

Begg was confused. He kept his Webley levelled at the remaining Nazi, the slavering, terrified Hitler, who whispered in his lisping Austrian: ‘She’s right. Nothing but harm will come from killing me.’

‘Then get on your knees and keep your hands above your head,’ snapped Begg. Slowly, every part of his body trembling, Hitler obeyed. Taffy Sinclair knew his old friend well enough to understand that Begg accepted that he had, inadvertently, done Klosterheim’s work. The beat of the balance changed subtly. Now it was as if they heard distant wildfire, like the crackling and snapping of burning timber.

Una Persson came to stand beside Begg. He stepped backward as if she threatened him, but instead her expression was one of mixed anger and fear. ‘I did not believe you could follow me,’ she said. ‘Oh, Seaton, your courage is now likely to lose us the fight – even perhaps destroy the multiverse! Do you understand what this means?’

And still the massive, sword-like balance, its cups swaying and groaning, continued to beat and pulse and the light around its hilt was like a golden halo surrounding metal of a blackness greater than the void. From somewhere below, Begg thought he heard the murmur of distant laughter.

Klosterheim’s voice joined in that laughter. It was the bleakest, most desolate sound Sir Seaton Begg had ever heard. He lowered his gun, looking helplessly from Mrs Persson, to Klosterheim, to the kneeling, gibbering Hitler and to his friends.

‘Oh, by Jupiter!’ he whispered as realisation dawned. ‘Oh, my good Lord! What have I done?’

The booming of the great balance had now taken on a different, arrhythmic note. Under its deep, masculine voice, Begg thought he could hear the thin screams of the Nazis. The gulf surrounding the not-dead men apparently boiled with blood and black smoke.

‘We would have mastered creation and moulded it in our desired image until the end of time,’ wept Hitler. Begg did not care that he now lowered his hands and buried his face in them. ‘Klosterheim! That was what you promised me!’

‘Like you, my friend, I have made many promises in my long career.’ Klosterheim’s toneless voice betrayed no emotion. ‘And like you, Colonel Hitler, I have broken many promises. I helped you and your followers because it suited me. Now you have failed me. It no longer suits me. Your actions brought my enemies to me and we have reached this pass. Only the blood and souls of your colleagues will compensate for your clumsiness.’ He turned to the metatemporal detective. ‘My master has his initial sacrifices, thanks to you, Sir Seaton. Now he will come to my aid, as he said he would…’

Begg could not disguise his own self-disgust. He was about to speak when a new voice, light and mocking, sounded from out of the scarlet mist behind them. He recognised the voice at once.

‘Oh, do not count on Lord Arioch turning up just yet, Herr Klosterheim.’ The newcomer’s tone held mockery, amusement, a kind of courage which could belong, Begg knew, only to one man. He looked in surprise back down the road which had brought them here. Strolling towards them, swinging his cane, for all the world as if he were still the insouciant flâneur of the Arcades de l’Opéra, wearing full evening dress, including a silk-lined cape and a silk hat, which emphasised the bone whiteness of his skin, the glittering crimson of his eyes, was Monsieur Zenith. ‘Good evening, gentlemen.’ He lifted his top hat. ‘Mrs Persson. This is not quite the scene I imagined I would find. Where, for instance, are Herr Hitler’s friends?’