Read Blood Red City for Free Online

perhaps unheard.
    But this latest image was more ‘insistent’ than the previous shapes and thoughts that had insinuated themselves into his mind. A shape, little more than a shadow unless he concentrated on it. Then details became apparent. But he didn’t want that. He wanted it out of his head.
    He did his best to ignore it, concentrating instead on his memories of Alina, the girl he had left behind in Russia when he ‘became’ a German. When he took the identity of Hoffman, and embarked on the life he now lived. With every day, the memories seemed to fade, and all that was really left was the cracked, brittle photograph he kept hidden in his room. It showed her sitting on the step outside her house.
    But the image displaced the Vril in his mind. For years now, Hoffman had held two people inside his mind and learned to switch between them. The Russian soldier he used to be was kept in check, hidden so deep even he barely remembered who he had been. Mikhael had died the moment Stalin sent him to infiltrate the SS.
    Now he struggled to suppress another part of his mind in the same way. Just as he was both German and Russian, so he was now human and Ubermensch. It had been hard at first – almost impossible to resist the urge to put on one of the bracelets in the Vault. But he knew that if he did he would be entirely suborned to the Vril cause, their thoughts and instructions amplified by the bracelet. Every day, every hour that he resisted it got a little easier.
    But still the images rose unbidden in his mind. A Vril bracelet allowed one of the Watchers to see through the eyes of an Ubermensch, forming a connection between the two. Similarly, the bracelet allowed the Vril to control the Ubermensch. But even without a bracelet Hoffman saw what they wanted him to do, just as some of the Watchers could see through the eyes of an Ubermensch without the need for a bracelet. How long before he was fully Ubermensch himself, he wondered? How long before one of the sleepers awoke and saw through his eyes?
    There were advantages, if you could call them that. Hoffman knew from his own experiences that an Ubermensch could survive all but the most destructive of wounds. If he cut himself, he did not bleed, but the thin orange filaments that now grew inside him curled out and repaired the damage. At first, the sight of them had made him feel sick. But he had managed to come to terms with the fact that they were a part of what he had become.
    Another change was that he barely needed to sleep. But even so, he was tired. He was tired of the deception, tired of the unforgiving stone walls of Wewelsburg Castle. Tired of not knowing whether his reports made a difference, or were even received. Of not knowing how Alina was – even if she was still alive. Tired of everything.
    He wanted to go home.
    *   *   *
    If Jed had sent the film to be developed at the paper he would have had prints back the next day. But he didn’t want Felix to know he had another set of photos. Not until Jed himself had seen them. Not after the way Felix had practically confiscated the camera from him and dismissed the whole ‘battle’.
    There was a little place Jed knew off Seventh Street. The main shop was a dispensing chemist, but they developed photos too, sending them away to Kodak. Jed could have done that himself, but he was naturally wary. He didn’t really believe that Felix was keeping tabs on him, but Jed was taking no chances. He wasn’t sure what he had on the film but he was sure he wanted to keep it to himself for the moment.
    The chemist was short and balding, with a sheen of perspiration across his forehead as he checked a ledger for Jed’s name.
    â€˜Haines, Haines, Haines,’ he murmured as he ran a sweaty finger down the page. ‘Ah yes … Yes.’
    â€˜There a problem?’ Jed asked. There was something in the man’s tone that made him suddenly uneasy.