Breach (Cold War Magic novel, A) - Softcover

Chapter 1

At a dimly lit street corner on Sebastianstraße, a few miles south of Checkpoint Charlie and uncomfortably close to the East German border, two men in government-issue overcoats warded off the autumn cold and tried their best not to look like Americans. Or spies.

“You know, I have a lighter,” the shorter man said. His breath steamed.

“I don’t need a lighter,” the taller man said through lips clenched around a bobbing cigarette.

It was quiet, as expected. There would be more signs of life farther westward, where routine had mostly replaced rubble, but stillness usually prevailed along the border. For this evening’s business, that was for the best. Overhead, a skeletal moon proved to be a disinterested accomplice, leaving the night dark even by West Berlin standards. The only other light came from the heavily curtained windows reluctantly overlooking the empty road. And, of course, from the otherworldly silver-white flicker of the Wall. Its magical threads pulsed softly and steadily, like breath.

The shorter man tilted back the brim of his hat. Dark curls popped out over a pale forehead. “From where I’m standing, Jimbo, it looks like you need a lighter.”

Jim frowned. “How about you worry less about me and more about watching for our guests, pal?”

“But watching your little show is far more interesting.”

Ignoring his companion, Jim took in a slow breath through his nose. He concentrated, murmured the words he’d been taught as best as he could remember them, and snapped his fingers.

The sound echoed hollowly down the quiet street. The cigarette remained unlit.

“The ladies must love this.”

“What would you know about ladies, Dennis?” What was the problem? This usually worked, though he had to admit it had been a long time since he’d failed out of St. Cyprian’s University of the Arcane.

Dennis laughed. “I may not have your chiseled jawline, but I do have something you clearly lack.”

“And what’s that, pal?”

“Self-awareness.”

In the gloom behind them, the “construction site” they had hastily thrown together looked more like a spent battlefield. Heavy green trucks (labeled us army in a previous life) were parked at odd angles next to aged German civilian machinery. Mounds of torn-up asphalt had been piled nearby. It had been costly (and a little sad) to dig up a perfectly good road, especially when plenty of streets in Berlin were still pocked with the cratered reminders of the war, but everything had to look authentic. Thick canvas tarps had been erected around the most sensitive areas of the site, blocking whole sections of the glittering Wall from view, to dissuade their more curious neighbors. Some things might be hard to come by in West Berlin, but it never lacked for prying eyes.

Snap. And again, nothing.

“See,” Dennis said, “this is why I, like most hardworking Americans, don’t bother with magic.”

“I thought that was because the examiners tested you and found you had no magical ability. Or charisma.”

“I don’t remember them testing for charisma.”

“In your case, they didn’t have to.”

Dennis shrugged. “Well, we can’t all be as magical as you, Jimbo, can we? Do that one again, where you snap your fingers and nothing happens. I love that one.”

The magic spell he was trying to cast wasn’t hard. Maybe he was mispronouncing the first word; Latin had never been Jim’s strongest subject. He’d always thought magic would be a lot simpler if he could just say the incantations in plain English. His disappointed professors hadn’t been very sympathetic to this point of view.

Was the accent on the first syllable or the last . . . ? He snapped his fingers again and this time was rewarded by a prickle across the back of his neck, and a tiny orange ember of flame hovering in the foggy air above his hand like a benevolent spirit.

“Huh,” Dennis said. “Would you look at that?”

“What did I tell you?” Jim said. “Magic.” He held up the tip of his cigarette to the floating fire and puffed his cigarette to life. He sucked in a long draw, the smooth, hot air filling his lungs. For a moment, he savored the acrid taste of the smoke and sweet flavor of victory. Then ducked as the flame suddenly exploded in an angry sunburst, like a journalist’s flashbulb, if it had been designed in hell.

Dennis’s eyes were wide. “Does that usually happen?”

A little singed and with the ruins of his cigarette crumbling through his fingers, Jim swore foully, first in English, then in German for good measure. “This damned city,” he said, mostly to himself. “Nothing works right here, not even magic.”

A surly voice surprised them out of the dark. “There’s this concept in intelligence work you two knuckleheads might want to look up,” it said. “It’s called subtlety.”

“Sorry, Chief,” they said in unison as Arthur joined them. He looked annoyed, but then again, he always did. The head of Berlin Operating Base wore a scowl effortlessly, as though his face had been molded that way by a disgruntled sculptor. His brown suit, the one that seemed expertly tailored to fit poorly, was scarred with the usual unintentional creases. His tie, a stained, threadbare mistake, hung on for dear life.

“They’re late,” Arthur said.

“Not late, Chief,” Jim said. “Just running on European time.”

Arthur snorted, which could have been a laugh or a rebuke. “Just keep your eyes open and let me know when they get here,” he said. “Oh, and Jim? Leave the magic to the professionals and the Commies.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Our wayward guests are causing enough stress on my ulcer without you—”

“A shod m’hot nisht geredt fun moshiach,” Dennis said.

“In English, Dennis, or I’ll—” Arthur began.

Dennis nodded toward the intersection ahead. Two cars, glossy with accumulated mist, were coming toward them. “You goyim would say: Speak of the Devil and he shall appear.”

The British got out first and dutifully greeted Arthur with firm, terse handshakes. Their leader, a burly Scotsman named Alec with a dark wild forest of a beard, had to stoop when he made his greetings.

Shortly behind came the French, a smaller, more somber contingent. They spoke in low whispers with Arthur for a long minute before he led them within the tent.

They gathered behind the tarps and trucks, a knot of foreigners ruling over the land they had rightly and thoroughly conquered, silent in expectation. Silent, that is, until Alec spoke.

“Would you look at this lot? One well-tossed grenade over the Wall and half the brains in Western intelligence go up in smoke,” said the big Scot, who nearly filled the cramped space by himself. He shoved an elbow into Jim’s ribs. “And that’s just if they get me.”

Alec had been a guerrilla fighter in the Highlands during the German occupation and had the scars to prove it. Jim had always wanted to ask him about what it had been like, but Arthur had been quick to wave him off. Some things are better left where they lay, had been his advice. Some wounds don’t heal right.

“Forgive me,” said a thin, dark-haired man. His English was excellent though his French accent unmistakable. “You said ‘brains’ but I believe you meant ‘fat.’”

Alec’s laugh nearly knocked down one of the tarps. “Emile, you didn’t tell me they’d started issuing you frogs a sense of humor.”

Emile was something more of a mystery. Jim had read his file, if you could call it that: a single sheet of paper, barely half-filled, with the only interesting bit of intel being his preferred brand of cigarettes. His age was hard to guess, but everyone in France was a veteran of some kind or another.

“Alec, ask Jim to light a cigarette for you,” Dennis added from a corner.

“Enough,” Arthur said. He eyed the assembled men with the red-rimmed glare of the unwillingly sober. “It’s late, I’m tired, and none of you are very fun to look at, so kindly shut up.”

With all mouths closed and eyes turned toward him, Arthur grunted. “Let’s get this over with so you can get back to your bosses and tell them we’re not crazy.” He motioned impatiently to one of his men standing by one of the trucks. “Just very unlucky.” The agent untied a cord and pulled back the canvas sheet that had been drawn over this section of the Wall. The others pressed in.

It wasn’t easy to see it, even when pointed out. Just a shadow, no more than an inch square, nestled in the shimmering weave that made up the Wall. But on closer inspection, it was more: a flaw, a withering of the magic.

A breach.

Alec spoke first. “That’s it? That’s what we’re all getting so ruffled about? I could barely stick my wee finger in there. I don’t see many East Germans or Soviet spies sneaking through, no matter how little they feed them.”

“Are we certain this has not always been here?” Emile said quietly, his eyes never leaving it. With care, he touched the area around the breach, the soft crackle of the magic filling the silence.

“We are,” Arthur said. “And there’s more.”

This was news to Jim. “More?”

Arthur nodded. “It’s growing.”

Alec lurched back, nearly knocking a few of the others down in the process. “Growing? You never said anything about growing.”

Jim felt a little sick. Dennis wasn’t looking much better. Suddenly their joking didn’t seem as funny. They’d been briefed on the breach shortly after it had been found, but at that point there was still hope it wasn’t as bad as they feared. But if it were growing . . .

“We couldn’t confirm until a few minutes ago,” Arthur said. “We took another measurement and . . .” He pulled a folded slip of paper from his pocket and scanned it. “Five percent growth since discovery.”

“Five percent? That’s . . .” Alec said.

“This is a more serious problem than we thought,” Emile said. “I will need to send this information to Paris.”

“With the utmost security,” Arthur added.

“You do not think the Soviets already know?” Emile asked.

“It is their Wall, their magic,” Arthur said. “But even if the hole went all the way through, there’s not a lot of opportunity for them to examine it from their side, not unless they’re using a spotlight at a hundred yards or a rifle scope.” He rubbed his eyes. “And besides, even if they know, we don’t want them to know we know.”

“This is why we Americans build our walls out of bricks and concrete,” Dennis said. “Not fairy dust.”

Emile whispered to his companion, then said, “The timing of this concerns us.”

“How so?” Jim asked.

“This breach is a potential crisis between East and West,” he said, “and it comes only weeks after our governments began to rearm West Germany.”

“Over Moscow’s strenuous objections,” Arthur said.

Alec regained his composure enough to speak. “Am I the only one thinking about what happens if that wee hole doesn’t stop growing?”

“If the Reds keep their pants on, we can handle a limited breach,” Arthur said. “Just another gate to watch.”

“But what if it is more than that? What if the whole bloody thing comes down?”

It was Emile who answered. “We would have thousands of refugees attempting to cross the border within hours. The East Germans would be forced to stop them. The Soviets would assist, of course, and we would be required to match any show of force with our own.”

“And suddenly we’re all pointing guns at each other again,” Arthur said.

“Not just guns,” Jim added.

“A lot more than just guns,” Arthur said. “With fifty thousand civilians right in the middle. Civilians, I might add, who will be stupid and brave enough to force the issue.”

“It’ll be another war,” Alec said, the first quiet words out of his mouth.

“It’ll be the last war,” Arthur said. “We’re getting too good at killing each other not to do it right this time.”

“What is the United States going to do?” Alec asked.

“Ask Eisenhower. Ask the commandant in Zehlendorf,” Arthur said. “I just gather intel.”

“Arthur . . .”

“What do you want me to say? We’re going to prepare,” Arthur said. “Boys will start shining their combat boots, politicians will be polishing their sabers. The same dance with an updated tune.”

“And what are you going to do?” Emile asked.

Arthur sighed. “What else?” he said. “Figure out a way to keep the whole damn roof from falling in. Any of you all know anything about magic?”

Jim tried not to laugh at the question. There weren’t many people out there who could help with magic on this scale. After the German invasion, British magicians were an all but extinct species. The French were hardly in a better position. No, this one would fall to the US of A, no matter how little Mom and Pop America would like it.

“What about you, Jim?” Arthur said. “You went to school for this stuff. Can you offer any magical insight here?”

Jim stood by the breach. It didn’t look much bigger than when he’d first seen it a day or two ago, but he didn’t doubt the measurements. “Sorry, Chief,” he said. “They kicked me out long before we covered magic like this.”

He thought about St. Cyprian’s, and about the fireball blowing up in his face. He was pretty sure his eyebrows were a little burned. Carefully, Jim put a finger into the breach and felt only the cold. “I think we’re going to need to call in the experts for this one.”

Chapter 2

“Whatever you do,” Karen said, “don’t move.”

“Why can’t I move?”

“You’re moving.”

“I’m not moving.”

“Your lips are moving.”

“Why can’t my lips move?”

“Because you’re scaring Bing.”

“I think that might be the scalpel.”

“No, not Bing,” Karen said. She stroked the rat’s white fur and he looked up at her expectantly, tiny nose twitching. “He’s proud to do his part for magical research. Now hold him steady.”

Gerald held Bing in place while Karen made a shallow half-inch cut along the rat’s right leg. The blood was bright and quick, as if dropped on snow.

“See? He didn’t even feel it.” Karen set the scalpel aside and reached for the first element of the spell: powdered goat’s horn.

“Think this one will work?” Gerald asked.

“No idea,” Karen said as she sprinkled the grayish powder.

“But we’re trying it anyway?”

“That’s why they call it research,” Karen said. She handed him the transcription Allison had typed up. “Here,” she said, “read this. Your pronunciation is better than mine.”

“Come now,” Gerald said, taking the paper reluctantly. “Your magic runs circles around most of the people in this building.”

Karen smiled at that, though she didn’t believe a word of it. “Go ahead,” she said. “I want you to do it.”

With Gerald’s Midwestern accent droning two-thousand-year-old words in her ear, Karen set out the other prescribed magical reagents, making sure the dried hemlock didn’t touch the salt of an inland sea. She wanted to roll her eyes; these complicated spells never worked. The extra details always struck her as someone trying too hard. Good magic didn’t have to be so arcane.

“Ready?” Gerald asked.

“Let’s ma...