Ian Tregillis - Bitter Seeds

The doctor gave the order to cease fire. The machine gunner stopped. The last echoes of gunfire died away, and then quiet befell the parade ground but for the ticking of the rifle barrel and the whoosh of superheated air in Reinhardt's updraft.

The flames disappeared. Reinhardt looked as though he hadn't moved a hair, although now the chest of his uniform exhibited the metallic sheen of vapor-deposited lead. Perhaps as much as a kilogram. His dignity might have been preserved, but the uniform was ruined anyway.

Greifelt marveled at the sight of the bullet slag. He cocked his head toward the doctor, though he continued to stare at Reinhardt. His voice small and uncertain, he murmured, “But why wasn't his uniform scorched away?”

Reinhardt presumed to answer for the doctor. “Because I willed it not to be so, Herr Obergruppenfuhrer.”

It was the same reason Klaus didn't fall through the earth when he became insubstantial: because doing so would contradict his Willenskrafte. Some things were trickier than others in this matter of the mind. Klaus's lungs did not absorb oxygen in their ghost state. Heike had yet to fully master her own Willenskrafte, to make her ability encompass her clothing as well as her body.

Unlike Reinhardt, Klaus required no tricks to preserve his dignity. The bullets winged through his wraith-body and shredded the wall behind him. Their momentum presented no problems. And when the barrage ended, his uniform was pristine.

Yet Himmler seemed less pleased than he had been with Reinhardt's presentation. He did not return Klaus's sharp salute when the demonstration ended. Instead he leaned over to whisper to the doctor again. The doctor shook his head.

He's concerned because my skin is too dark for an Aryan , thought Klaus. A mongrel shouldn't be able to do what I can . It was maddening, and disappointing, but he knew his chance to prove himself would come soon enough.

Buhler cringed behind Kammler during their turn in front of the gun. Kammler's face turned red and his eyes bulged slightly as Buhler savaged his leash. “Wall. Wall !” Lead splattered against an invisible barrier and tinkled to the fire-glazed earth at Kammler's feet.

Rudolf's ability had never lent itself directly to dodging bullets—at least, he hadn't yet mastered it before the accident—but the sight of him swooping over the range would have gone over extremely well.

Stupefied, Greifelt broke out of his trance. His lips moved, but he made no sound. Formality failed him. “My God,” he said. “I can't believe what I'm seeing.”

Himmler slapped von Westarp on the back. “You've done it, my friend. You've created a new breed of man.”

The doctor's chest swelled. He smiled. Smiled . “Watch it all. Watch my children at work.” He pointed to the truck rumbling onto the field.

It puttered to a stop. A layer of cotton duck, mottled green and brown like a forest canopy, hung over the ribs of the cargo bed. A pair of mundane troops from the LSSAH hopped out of the cab. They threw the tailgate open with a clang . A half dozen men climbed out of the truck, shivering in the breeze, blinking at the sun. Unkempt, threadbare, emaciated. Jews, Communists, Roma, and other enemies of the state from one of the labor camps. The truck pulled away.

Klaus, Reinhardt, and Heike joined Kammler and his handler on the field. Heike unsheathed her knife. Reinhardt blew her a kiss. She vanished, leaving her uniform suspended in midair.

The prisoners scattered.

Buhler pointed to the fastest one. “Hurl!” An invisible hand slapped the fugitive across the field. He landed atop another of the condemned men. They crumpled to the ground in a tangle of broken bones.

Flames engulfed another man before he'd run ten yards.

Heike disrobed amidst the chaos. The last of her clothing hit the ground as Reinhardt torched another fugitive.

Over the years, they'd killed many in training. But in all that time, Klaus mused, Reinhardt had never once looked a victim in the eye. Klaus knew how to make a much better show for the doctor and his guests. Normally he crept up to his targets like a wraith, then finished them quietly. Knives were easier, but they weren't impressive. And today was Doctor von Westarp's day.

He sought out one of the Roma prisoners, a particularly filthy wretch with olive-colored flesh like Klaus and Gretel. He tackled the man and kneeled on his chest. The bastard kept squirming, so Klaus grabbed his throat and put his weight on it.

“Close your eyes,” he whispered. “I'll make it quick.”

In the end, the man still resisted. After glancing to ensure he had the dignitaries' attention, Klaus reached into the man's chest. He hooked the aorta with two fingers, feeling life pulsing from a fluttering heart. His victim flailed again when Klaus severed the artery.

The final kill fell to Heike.

Her breaths gave her away, diaphanous vapor clouds that materialized as they left her body. But her training took hold, and the traitorous exhalations came less and less frequently. Klaus's own demonstration still had his chest heaving; it took no great leap of imagination to feel the fire in Heike's lungs as she stalked the prisoner.

The last puffs of her breath drifted away. His eyes darted back and forth as he turned, half-crouched and panting, in slow circles. A feral intensity limned his eyes with white. Clever beast: he watched the ground, trying to track her, but Reinhardt's demonstration had annealed the earth, scorched it into a crude ceramic.

His back arched, and his head tipped back. Slender Heike exhaled as she grappled with him. He wrestled with a hole in the mist, a ghost wreathed in her own breath. The outline of the knife moved toward his throat, but in his flailing, he caught her wrist. She struggled; he was stronger. He thrust out her arm and bent double, flipping her over his back.

“Hoompf ...” The impact knocked the wind from her lungs and jostled the plug from her battery harness. Heike reappeared, sprawled on her back at the prisoner's feet. A hint of blue tinged her lips and cheeks, and the chill had stippled her naked body with gooseflesh.

Reinhardt tensed, singeing the fine hairs on the back of Klaus's neck and hands. Years of witnessing such unplanned reappearances during her training sessions had fueled his all-consuming obsession with Heike.

The prisoner dashed for the forest on the far side of the complex.

“Stop him!” von Westarp shrieked.

There was little chance of the prisoner escaping; far less chance that he'd get word of what he'd seen to somebody who mattered. But that was beside the point.

“Kill him now! He embarrasses me!”

A furrow of flames rent the earth in pursuit of the fleeing prisoner, but then he turned the corner and disappeared out of sight behind the barracks.

Ha ! Klaus could cut straight through one of the laboratories to catch the prisoner, and then he would be von Westarp's favorite.

Obergruppenfuhrer Greifelt cowered behind crossed forearms and screamed as Klaus charged through him. Klaus headed along a diagonal for the far end of the laboratory, to intercept the prisoner as he passed through the gap between the buildings on the long sprint across the clearing. He'd ghosted through the soundproofed walls and the polished steel surgical table in the operating theater before it occurred to him to check the gauge on his harness.

The needle rested in the red.

“ Scheisse !” He skidded to a halt against the far wall of the theater. The bricks gouged his palms.

By the time Klaus emerged outside, the prisoner had nearly entered the trees near the pump house. His path put him back in view of those assembled on the firing range. Apparently Reinhardt had depleted his battery, too, because the running man didn't burst into flames. Not so the telekinetic imbecile. Buhler gesticulated at the escaping prisoner with one hand as he yanked on Kammler's leash with the other. “Crush! Crush!”