Seven for a Secret by Elizabeth Bear Page B

„The graduates ride in cars this morning.”
    She frowned at him, surprised. He smiled. He carried no umbrella, and the rain dripped from the brim of his uniform cap. Not the gray school uniform, tonight, but the polished black of the secret police, with the snarling wolf’s-head on its shoulder. They weren’t supposed to know that Herr Professor was also Colonel, but of course all the girls had whispered it behind their hands. And now, to see him so dressed—
    „You will be officers in an hour,” he said. He touched the wolf head. „You must be accorded dignity as officers.”
    For the first time in her memory, she saw him smile. He had a good smile, warming his plain rugged face, and an expectant expression. When she looked down, she saw his hand extended, for a formal clasp.
    Hesitant, she took it.
    „Congratulations, Miss Grell,” he said, and gave her a squeeze that creaked his leather gloves. „Welcome to a glorious service.”

    The rain dripping down the clerestory windows across the nave, one level above the triforium, resolved into transparent streaks as gray light grew behind. Although the clouds would protect him from direct sun—as long as they held—the wampyr was careful to keep to the shadows. As much visual impact as he might have, leaping from above the arcade in flames, it was an experience he could as soon do without.
    Alice skulked beside him, the cloak drawn close about her shoulders so she vanished into the shadows of the pillars. She settled into herself, silent as the grave, breathless as a corpse, and made herself vanish.
    She was growing up.
    Ruth had said the cadets would arrive with the dawn the gray light heralded, so the wampyr was unsurprised when he heard footsteps below. Many footsteps, purposeful, and following them a swell of light.
    The interior of the cathedral had been fitted with electric lights, many-branched chandeliers on their creaking chains. Alice drifted behind him like a ghost, at the ready. “Crypt,” he murmured, and she departed as if the wind from the opening door had guttered her out.
    As the wampyr peered through a pierced-stone grille that must have been worked by a master stonemason, he saw women enter the church and set about the homely tasks of keeping the house of the Lord. They brought green boughs and hothouse flowers for the altar, spread pressed linens so the crisp smells of sizing and lavender-water rose into the air. They brought bread and wine, set candles, laid out the liturgical tools. Before they were quite finished, just as they were squaring corners and effacing themselves, more busy footsteps joined them. The wampyr saw robed men moving briskly below, the military-tailored black-and-silver cassocks of German Christian clergy swinging from their shoulders. Among them, moving to the altar, was one whose black was relieved by masses of bullion, his white surplice flashing with crimson and gold embroidery and swinging tassels. A Bishop of the German Christian church, then—a high Christian magician in service to the Chancellor. Someone who might have rivals, but few betters among the ritualists of the Church.
    Abby Irene, Sebastien thought, would have to have been restrained from spitting over the rail. If she could have kept herself from laughing savagely at the irony of a pagan ceremony freighted with Christian pomp. Of course, it was all pagan at the root, was it not? Layers and layers and layers of time, things changed under their weight until they became almost unrecognizable. Like the wampyr, like the cathedral itself.
    The flurry of activity took only three-quarters of an hour. The wampyr wondered if the organist would attend, but no crashing, experimental chords told of his arrival. The wampyr would have felt the bass notes as a rumble under his breastbone he thought would make a human heart stutter. It was just as well; he pitied the wolf-girls the delicacy of their ears. There was something to be said for the hearing of the