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by Jess Nevins
[rated PG for a couple of bad words]
What has come before: By order of King Agon, 12 Inhumans were dispatched to Warsaw to help in the fight against the Germans. They made contact with Citizen V and, to prove their trustworthiness, destroyed an SS barracks, killing over 30 SS butchers.
The Gates of Heaven:
And the Vox Dei did speak unto Gaghiel, one of the Guards of the 6th Heaven, and unto Sarahiel, one of the seven Guards of the 2nd Heaven, saying, "There Is A Threat To The Four Dimensions Of Space And Time Within The Mortal Multiverse."
And Gaghiel did bow his head, and Sarahiel did say, "Where, O Lord?"
And within the minds of the two angels did appear an image of a large crystal, set atop a platform, in a galaxy some distance from the site of the Creation, where the Presence made Its Thought manifest and all that is was created.
And Sarahiel and Gaghiel said, "Mighty Is The Creator. Sublime Is The Creator. The Creator Is One." And the angels did depart from Heaven for the mortal sphere.
Just after sundown on January 22nd, 1943, Modeus and the 11 Attilanians gathered in the office of Citizen V and listened to his proposal.
Citizen V said, "Okay. Here's what we're going to do. By now the Germans will have checked out the barracks. They'll know that I didn't do it and that the resistance couldn't have done it. They--"
Samale said, "Speaking of the resistance, when are you going to introduce us to them? If we're going to be risking our lives for you and them, we should at least meet them, so that we know who we're fighting for, and they know who is risking their lives for them."
Citizen V curtly shook his head. "Negative. You're a security risk; the only one who'll contact them is me. That way, if you're captured, you can't tell them anything."
Beelsebaob visibly bristled. "You dare imply that we would cooperate with these Ger-mans?"
Citizen V said, "No, but they've got skilled torturers, the SS does, and anyone can be broken, if they go at you for long enough."
Dubbeel said, "We are not humans - our wills are much stronger than yours. You insult us by suggesting that mere pain would cause us to betray ourselves, or you."
V shook his head. "You don't understand. They've got mind-readers there, who can walk into your head and take your thoughts and personality away, until all that's left is what they're looking for. And that's not even counting the ones who can manipulate your pain endings. Trust me; they can force even you to talk."
Beelsebaob said, "But--"
Modeus said, "Enough." Though quiet, his voice somehow had enough force to carry to the corners of the room, and it held a note of command that caused Beelsebaob to slam his mouth shut.
Modeus said, "He's right. Basic theory for insurrection security dictates compartmentalizing knowledge among the resistance fighters. V, you probably don't know anybody beyond your immediate contacts, do you?"
V nodded. "That's right. I know my cell members, and a couple of sympathetic folks among the civilians, and that's it."
Modeus nodded. Samale said, "But we've got the right to--"
Modeus said, "Enough, Samale. Have you forgotten your vow?"
Samale stiffened. Modeus said, "Remember that, and keep your silence. V, go on."
V said, "Thanks. As I was saying...the Germans will know that no one from around here will have done this, and so they'll call in some specialists to investigate. One of the people doing the investigating will the district commander for this area. His name is Baron Heinrich Zemo, and he's a foul, murdering, evil bastard. Zemo tortures and kills, and he takes Jews and Poles and performs experiments on them. He's a rabid dog, and he needs to be put down, and that's where you and me come in."
"I think I know where Zemo and the other SS men will be staying tonight. So, in a couple of hours, after they've finished gorging themselves and are getting ready for sleep, we attack."
Alces said, "And the others with Zemo?"
V said, "Kill them all."
Alces said, "But...the guards? They're just soldiers, doing their jobs. We have to kill them, too?"
V glared at the tall figure and said, "Fuck em. They're...if you'd seen what they do...they..." He sighed and shook his head and said, "Trust me...Alces, was it? Alces, trust me. No German who is here is innocent. Certainly not an SS man. If their hands aren't bloody it's because they've stood by while their friends have been busy killing. They're all guilty, and they all deserve to die."
Modeus said, "These are not civilians and these are not soldiers defending their homeland. These are conquerors in a foreign land. Leave no one alive. Those are your orders."
The other eleven nodded, Alces with some reluctance.
Citizen V said, "They'll be in the Hotel Bristol, on Krakowskie Przedmiescie, which is about a klick West of here. Some of you can fly, I take it?"
Modeus nodded. "Those of us who can carry those who cannot. We will carry you."
V shook his head. "No, that's not quite what I was thinking..."
Three hours later Jozef Prywatna was busying himself in the wine cellar of the Bristol, looking for a good Chateaubriand for that nice Reichsmarshall, when he smelt an awful stench, and then he heard a noise from behind him. He saw a figure loom out of the darkness of the rear of the cellar. Jozef turned to yell for help and a bullet took him in the back of the head. Dubbeel, climbing into the wine cellar from its entrance into the sewer, whispered to Citizen V, "Was that necessary? He wasn't a soldier."
Citizen V spat on the corpse and whispered, "No, he was worse. He was a collaborator."
Citizen V crept forward, his Luger held steady before him, until he reached the foot of the cellar stairs. He peeked up the stairway and saw that Prywatna had left the door at the top closed. He turned to the six Inhumans behind him and said, in a low voice, "As I said, this leads to the kitchen. Through the doors at the end of the kitchen, and you're into the main dining room. Beyond that is the lobby. Up the stairs from the lobby, and then down the hall; the rooms on both sides of the hall are bedrooms, and that's where Zemo and the others should be. They should be up there by now, and the only ones we should run into before that are wait staff, who I don't think will sound an alarm. Ready?"
Seeing their nods, he silently walked up the stairs, made sure that the other six were right behind him, and swung the door open.
The kitchen staff were busy at their tasks, preparing various dishes, and didn't notice the seven at first. When they did, they stopped, their eyes widening, and then as one they raised their hands and laid down on the floor. Citizen V nodded and ran to the end of the kitchen and pushed through the swinging doors...to be met by the sight of 12 uniformed SS men, and two men wearing the black uniforms of the Valkyries, sitting at two long tables. Their heads turned as he entered, drawn by the sounds of the doors swinging open and expecting the head waiter with their wine.
Citizen V's left hand went for his holstered gun as he opened up on the officers with the gun in his right hand. He killed four before the SS officers began diving for cover. He took a step forward and felt Dubbeel and Micrurus enter the room behind him, and then one of the Valkyries blurred forward at him, and he felt something hard knock the gun from his hand, and then what felt like a foot hit him in the stomach and knock him backwards into the two Inhumans.
Micrurus jumped forward, but the Valkyrie leapt over him, and then ducked under Dubbeel's eyebeams, which hit the drapes along the far wall and set them on fire. Citizen V felt more than saw the other Attilanians jumping over his body into the room. V saw the other SS officers hiding under the table; as they saw him seeing them, he drew his other Luger and opened fire on them.
There was a crash from upstairs, and Citizen V began to hear screams from the second floor, and the bellows of two of the flying Inhumans.
After that things got confused, and later Citizen V would never remember much of that particular fight; he recalled the smoke and heat as the fire from the drapes spread to the rest of the hotel; the screams of the wait staff as they realized they were caught in a burning building, with a group of people intent on killing each other; the roar of guns and the smell of cordite; Sphenodo and Scutiger dueling with the super-fast Valkyrie; and the yells of pain from the second floor of the hotel.
Citizen V came back to himself as he and the others were racing through the sewers, their arms full of food and blankets and ammunition. V began swearing, keeping up a steady stream of curses as he and the Inhumans ran through the filth. It was only once he and the others were back at V's home that he stopped, and then only to catch his breath.
When the flyers arrived, V said nothing, silently watching them dig into the captured food with pleasure and recount the battle to each other. After several minutes he took Modeus aside and quietly said, "You didn't get him, did you?"
Modeus reluctantly shook his head. "No, I did not."
V clenched his fists and raised his right arm to strike the wall nearest to him, then, with an effort, restrained himself. "Damn it, Modeus, that was the whole point of the raid! What happened?"
Modeus said, "By the time we found which room he was in, he was already escaping out the rear window. When I ran to the window he opened fire from the ground with a particle beam weapon - V, you did not mention that he would have advanced weaponry such as that."
V stared at him, mystified, and then said, "I...I didn't know. I mean, I knew that he'd had a `death ray' of some kind, but I thought Fury had destroyed it."
Modeus said, "Had I known...perhaps I could have killed him. But when he fired it at me I ducked out of the way, and by the time I looked back he was gone."
V idly chewed on a crust of bread as he thought. He finally said, "That was, in all likelihood, the best chance we're going to get with Zemo. That really is too bad...well, eat some food. I need to think about what we are going to do next."
Modeus nodded and rejoined the other Inhumans and started to eat. V thought for a long while as he ate, at his wit's end as to what to do next.
When he and the Inhumans were done, they turned to look at him. He finished off his thermos of water and set it down, avoiding their eyes. Finally he looked up at them and said, "To be honest...I'm not sure what to do next. Modeus, do you have any ideas?"
Modeus slowly said, "It would seem to me that the logical next target, if this Ze-mo cannot be found, is whatever facility or group of people whose destruction will hurt the Ger-mans the most. Surely you have a list of such targets?"
V shook his head. "I...I never thought that far ahead, mostly because there wasn't any point. The best I've been able to do is piecemeal stuff - a couple of Germans here, a truck or two there. I hit the railyard once, but...oh, for Heaven's sake. It couldn't be more obvious."
Modeus waited, then said, "Beg pardon?"
V, still shaking his head, but now with a look of disgust on his face, said, "Too much time down here and too little sunlight is rotting my brain. That must be the answer."
He looked at the Inhumans. "The railyard. That is the next place we'll attack."
Modeus said, "And what is at this rail-yard that demands we risk our lives destroying it?"
V said, "That's where...where the Germans ship the...the Jews. To the death camps, I mean."
Modeus nodded slowly, but with a finality. "I see. Yes, that is certainly a deserving choice for destruction."
V said, "So...gather `round. This is what we'll do..."
The rest of the night was spent laying plans, and the following day sleeping. Although the Inhumans were having trouble adjusting to sleeping during the day, the combination of the exertion from the fight and the tension and stress before and during it exhausted them, and they managed to get almost enough sleep despite the hours being wrong for them.
Just after dusk that day, as the twelve, and V, were finishing up their "breakfast," V said, "So - you're all clear on what we're going to do, then?"
Samale nodded and said, "We understood you the first time you explained--"
He stopped as Modeus held up his right hand. V looked at Modeus, then felt it, too - something was wrong. He scrabbled for his guns as the blanket in front of the door to the office was pulled open.
The first...thing...through the door was a grey mist. It seemed at first to be a simple fog, but there was something about it that made looking at it unnerving, and the way it moved and hovered in the air was purposeful, and highly unnatural. The second figure into the room was a short man, about 5'6", of completely average looks. His Valkyrie uniform was perfectly pressed, and the lightning-bolt insignia gleamed. He looked at the Inhumans, raising his eyebrows slightly, and then looked straight into Citizen V's eyes and smiled.
V came within a moment of losing bladder and bowel control, and he stammered, "Bar--bar--Barbarossa!"
Modeus, hearing the raw fear in his voice, said, "Who?"
The Valkyrie, ignoring Modeus and looking at V, smiled genially and said, in an Oxford accent, "Such recognition is always a pleasure. Especially by an honored foe, such as yourself." He turned to Modeus and said, "I am Barbarossa, Lieutenant of the Fuhrer's Valkyries. May I inquire as to your identity?"
V, seeing the shift in the curtains behind Barbarossa and glimpsing more figures behind him, said, "Don't talk to him - KILL HIM!"
Modeus' brow furrowed, and he turned his head to look at V as he said, "Do not take that tone with...me..." He then fell over as Barbarossa's hand emerged from his chest, holding something bloody. Barbarossa said to V, "Your allies are clearly not human, but they die just as easily."
Dubbeel's eyebeams flashed across the room and raked Barbarossa's body as Samale and the other Inhumans leapt as one at him. The mist flowed forward and envelop Samale, who jerked to a stop in mid-step. His eyes widened, and a look of fear crossed his face, and then, in a shockingly quick period of time, the mist ate right through his head and torso.
Barbarossa ignored Dubbeel's heat vision; he grabbed Belile by the throat with his left hand while with his right he slapped Castorida on the head. Castorida was flung horribly against the wall and lay where he fell, his head at an awful angle to his body. As the mist moved on to Scutiger, disintegrating his head and body as quickly as it had Samale's, Barbarossa crushed Belile's throat; Alces got both hands around Barbarossa's neck but then was casually thrown off by Barbarossa, who tossed Belile's body across the room just as two other Valkyries entered the room from behind Barbarossa.
Citizen V, his hand shaking, held his Liberator on Barbarossa, but then he saw that Barbarossa's attention was momentarily taken up with tearing Alces' arms out of his sockets, and that the mist, who V had an awful suspicion was Autumn Fog, was busy killing Micrurus. V leapt up and pulled himself into the air vent over his cot. Feverish with fear he scrambled through the vent, grabbing the belongings he'd stuffed there when Modeus and the others had first appeared, and when he emerged into an alley almost a hundred yards away from the grate by which he normally entered the sewers he did not stop to see if anyone was behind him, but ran through the streets of the Warsaw ghetto, his heart pounding. It was only when he reached his back-up "home" - a cellar in the burned-out shell of what had been a church before the Germans arrived - that he stopped. For the rest of that night, and the three days following, he waited for the Valkyries, and Barbarossa, to catch up to him.
They never did, and eventually he was convinced that he'd actually escaped - they were, he guessed, too busy slaughtering the Attilanians to remember him at that moment - but he never felt comfortable in Warsaw again, and thought of no place as "home."
In Attilan King Agon sighed and turned his observation sphere off. He felt some guilt and sorrow, but he was sure he had done the right thing, and as time passed the deaths of the 12 weighed less and less on his mind. They had died nobly, trying to fight against evil. King Agon thought that a noble goal, and was sure that any other leader in his place would have done the same thing. He had made an attempt to help the outside world; more than that no one could ask of him.
In Spirit-Space, over the Shi'ar Throneworld, the souls of the Necromancer, the Karcist, and the Thaumist, the most powerful mages of the Shi'ar Imperial Guard, met.
The Karcist said, "You two had the same dream that I did?"
The Necromancer nodded. "It stinks of prophecy. I've been doing this long enough to know what is true and what is whimsy, and when I should pay attention to something like this. And this is a dream that should be hearkened to."
The Thaumist spoke, his voice sounding weird even to the spirits of the Necromancer and Karcist. This was something that had always bothered both of them; in Spirit-Space you appeared and sounded as you really were, without the special effects that mages always used to impress the unwary, and yet somehow the Thaumist still sounded unworldly; the Necromancer and the Karcist had both given this some thought and decided that it was the Thaumist's golden mask which did it. Although both had heard rumors about what the golden mask really was - possibly the entrapped spirits of various dead Shi'ar gods, killed off by the Divine Twins when they'd assumed power, eons ago, or perhaps the temporal embodiment of one of the servant demiurges of Master Order - neither knew for sure what it was, simply that it made the Thaumist extremely powerful. He said, "There is something deeply wrong. Some awful storm is coming, some great threat to the Order Of Things. We must be prepared to repulse it. The Guard must be made ready."
The Karcist nodded. "I agree. I have...J'n, have you spoken with any of your usual contacts?"
The Necromancer nodded, somewhat reluctantly. "The dead cower when I ask what is coming. There is much fear in the afterworld, Z't'r."
The Thaumist said, "I am...reliably informed that the dream was a fragment of the future, traveling backwards in time. Our minds are only capable of understanding it in dream-form."
The Karcist said, "So it is prophecy, then?"
The Thaumist said, "Yes. Of a sort. The essence of the message is true; the particulars, however, can be changed. You of course know what the gem was?"
Both the Karcist and the Necromancer nodded. The Thaumist said, "Very well. We must inform the Guard that they are to soon fight for all reality. They are currently gathered together, listening to D'kuz; I will now tell them of the threat."
He muttered an incantation, and his spirit disappeared. The Karcist and the Necromancer returned to their bodies and dressed for combat. On two dozen worlds, Imperial Guard members, looking at their monitors and expecting to hear their assignments from First Worshiper D'kuz, saw instead the Thaumist's mask. He said, "The First Worshiper's orders for you must wait; an emergency has arisen that must be attended to at once. There is a threat to the M'Krann Crystal that we must defeat, or the entire universe will be conquered..."
In the Castle Unnameable the Zauberer felt his breast swelling with enthusiasm and anticipation. Now - now - he was going to, at long, long last, succeed. Mostly forgotten by him were the repeated failures, the humiliating silence he'd received when he'd made his sacrifices and asked for aid from the Dread One, and Loki, and Nightmare, and Set. The Zauberer knew, with an assurance too unshakeable to be questioned, that what he was about to do would succeed.
Standing in the roofless, open room atop the Castle, left hand holding the flesh-covered Tlon edition of Alhazrad's Al Azif (an edition written in Arabic in approximately 737 C.E., and which the Zauberer knew for a certainty was only the third hand-written copy made of the original Al Azif), right hand held high in a conjurer's gesture and his magical energies flowing through him, the Zauberer read the forbidden words from a summoning not performed on Earth for millennia, ending with the blasphemous sentence, "Ia! N'rgl phag'n w'nafthi N'gah-K'thun j'rknz fhtagn! Ia!"
He paused and then cried, "Empower me, Forbidden One, and what happens will aid your spawn!"
Then it came - the power, such power as the Zauberer had only dreamed of, and unbidden the words sprang to his lips, and the Zauberer mouthed an incantation he was not aware he knew, and the new power flowed through his body and out, and somewhere far, far away the Zauberer felt mystic barriers shattering and falling, and things making ready to step into the world of reality - things whose long, long wait was at last rewarded - things who were headed to the Castle Unnameable, and who would finally be able to make Zauberer's dreams come true.
And all across the Earth all things that could dream suffered horrible nightmares, and Merzah the Mystic found himself receiving, against his will, the nightmares and bad feelings of millions of beings, and he clawed himself free of his sheets and woke up screaming, "THEY'RE COMING BACK! THEY'RE COMING BACK!"
Author's notes:
Our cast of Inhumans was: Modeus, Belile, Beelsebaob, Samale, Dubbeel, Scutiger, Hymenopter, Sphenodo, Castorida, Micrurus, Picforme, Alces.
The Shi'ar scene in this issue ties in to Liberators: Another World, Not My Own #3; all four issues of that miniseries lead in to issues #24 and #25, and possibly the annual, of Liberators proper.
Next issue: Noblesse Oblige
