Nebula Awards Showcase 2009 (40 page)

“He seems to have a thing about Jews.”

Weill frowned. “What sort of thing? I’ve never really noticed. Many of his friends are Jews. I am, and Klosterheim.”

“Sagittarius is a friend of his?”

“Oh, more an acquaintance I should think. I’ve seen them together a couple of times.”

It began to thunder outside. Then it started to rain.

Weill walked towards the door and pulled down the blind. Through the noise of the storm I heard another sound, a strange, metallic grinding. A crunching.

“What’s that?” I called. Weill shook his head and walked back towards the bar. The place was empty now. “I’m going to have a look,” I said.

I went to the door, opened it, and climbed the steps.

Marching across the ruins, illuminated by rapid flashes of gunfire, I saw a gigantic metal monster, as big as a tall building. Supported on four telescopic legs, it lumbered at right angles to the street. From its huge body and head the snouts of guns stuck out in all directions. Lightning sometimes struck it, and it made an ear-shattering bell-like clang, paused to fire upwards at the source of the lightning, and marched on.

I ran down the steps and flung open the door. Weill was tidying up the bar. I described what I’d seen.

“What is it, Weill?”

The short man shook his head. “I don’t know. At a guess it is something Berlin’s conquerors left behind. A land leviathan?”

“It looked as if it was made here . . .”

“Perhaps it was. After all, who conquered Berlin—?”

A woman screamed from a back room, high and brief.

Weill dropped a glass and ran towards the room. I followed.

He opened a door. The room was homely. A table covered by a thick, dark cloth, laid with salt and pepper, knives and forks, a piano near the window, a girl lying on the floor.

“Eva!” Weill gasped, kneeling beside the body.

I gave the room another once-over. Standing on a small coffee table was a plant. It looked at first rather like a cactus of unpleasantly mottled green, though the top curved so that it resembled a snake about to strike. An eyeless, noseless snake—with a mouth. There was a mouth. It opened as I approached. There were teeth in the mouth—or rather thorns arranged the way teeth are. One thorn seemed to be missing near the front. I backed away from the plant and inspected the corpse. I found the thorn in her wrist. I left it there.

“She is dead,” Weill said softly, standing up and looking around. “How?”

“She was bitten by that plant,” I said.

“Plant . . . ? I must call the police.”

“That wouldn’t be wise at this stage maybe,” I said as I left. I knew where I was going. Bismarck’s house. And the pleasure garden of Felipe Sagittarius.

It took me time to find a cab, and I was soaked through when I did. I told the cabby to step on it.

I had the taxi stop before we got to the house, paid it off, and walked across the lawns. I didn’t bother to ring the doorbell. I let myself in by the window, using my glasscutter.

I heard voices coming from upstairs. I followed the sound until I located it—Bismarck’s study. I inched the door open.

Hitler was there. He had a gun pointed at Otto von Bismarck, who was still in full uniform. They both looked pale. Hitler’s hand was shaking, and Bismarck was moaning slightly. Bismarck stopped moaning to say pleadingly, “I wasn’t blackmailing Eva Braun, you fool—she liked me.”

Hitler laughed curtly, half hysterically. “Liked you—a fat old man.”

“She liked fat old men.”

“She wasn’t that kind of girl.”

“Who told you this, anyway?”

“The investigator told me some. And Weill rang me half an hour ago to tell me some more—also that Eva had been killed. I thought Sagittarius was my friend. I was wrong. He is your hired assassin. Well, tonight I intend to do my own killing.”

“Captain Hitler—I am your superior officer!”

The gun wavered as Bismarck’s voice recovered some of its authority. I realized that the HiFi had been playing quietly all the time. Curiously it was Bartok’s Fifth String Quartet.

Bismarck moved his hand. “You are completely mistaken. That man you hired to follow Eva here last night—he was Eva’s ex-lover!”

Hitler’s lip trembled.

“You knew,” said Bismarck.

“I suspected it.”

“You also knew the dangers of the garden, because Felipe had told you about them. The vines killed him as he sneaked towards the summer house.”

The gun steadied. Bismarck looked scared.

He pointed at Hitler. “You killed him—not I!” he screamed. “You sent him to his death. You killed Djugashvili—out of jealousy. You hoped he would kill me and Eva first. You were too frightened, too weak, to confront any of us openly!”

Hitler shouted wordlessly, put both hands to the gun, and pulled the trigger several times. Some of the shots went wide, but one hit Bismarck in his Iron Cross, pierced it, and got him in the heart. He fell backwards. As he did so his uniform ripped apart and his helmet fell off. I ran into the room and took the gun from Hitler, who was crying. I checked that Bismarck was dead. I saw what had caused the uniform to rip open. He had been wearing a corset—one of the bullets must have cut the cord. It was a heavy corset and had a lot to hold in.

I felt sorry for Hitler. I helped him sit down as he sobbed. He looked small and wretched.

“What have I killed?” he stuttered. “What have I killed?”

“Did Bismarck send that plant to Eva Braun to silence her? Was I getting too close?”

Hitler nodded, snorted, and started to cry again.

I looked towards the door. A man hesitated there.

I put the gun on the mantelpiece.

It was Sagittarius.

He nodded to me.

“Hitler’s just shot Bismarck,” I explained.

“So it appears.” He touched his thin lips.

“Bismarck had you send Eva Braun that plant, is that so?” I said.

“Yes. A beautiful cross between a common cactus, a Venus Flytrap, and a rose—the venom was curare, of course.”

Hitler got up and walked from the room. We watched him leave. He was still sniffling.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“To get some air,” I heard him say as he went down the stairs.

“The repression of sexual desires,” said Sagittarius, seating himself in an armchair and resting his feet comfortably on Bismarck’s corpse. “It is the cause of so much trouble. If only the passions that lie beneath the surface, the desires that are locked in the mind, could be allowed to range free, what a better place the world would be.”

“Maybe,” I said.

“Are you going to make any arrests, Herr Begg?”

“It’s my job to file a report on my investigation, not to make arrests,” I said.

“Will there be any repercussions over this business?”

I laughed. “There are always repercussions,” I told him.

From the garden came a peculiar barking noise.

“What’s that?” I asked. “The wolf hounds?”

Sagittarius giggled. “No, no—the dog-plant, I fear.”

I ran out of the room and down the stairs until I reached the kitchen. The sheet-covered corpse was still lying on the table. I was going to open the door onto the garden when I stopped and pressed my face to the window instead.

The whole garden was moving in what appeared to be an agitated dance. Foliage threshed about and, even with the door closed, the strange scent was unbearable.

I thought I saw a figure struggling with some thick-boled shrubs. I heard a growling noise, a tearing sound, a scream, and a long drawn-out groan.

Suddenly the garden was motionless.

I turned. Sagittarius stood behind me. His hands were folded on his chest. His eyes stared down at the floor.

“It seems your dog-plant got him,” I said. “Herr Klosterheim.”

“He knew me—he knew the garden.” He ignored my challenge.

“Suicide maybe?”

“Very likely.” Sagittarius unfolded his hands and looked up at me. “I liked him, you know. He was something of a protégé. If you had not interfered none of this might have happened. He might have gone far with me to guide him. We could have found the cup.”

“You’ll have other protégés,” I said.

“Let us hope so.” His voice was cold as the stars.

The sky outside gradually began to lighten. The rain was now only a drizzle falling on the thirsty leaves of the plants.

“Are you going to stay here?” I asked him.

“Yes—I have the garden to work on. Bismarck’s servants will look after me.”

“I guess they will,” I said.

Once again I’d gotten to keep the Cup, but I told myself this was the last time I played the game. I wanted to go home. I went back up the stairs and I walked away from that house into a cold and desolate dawn. I tried to light my last Black Cat and failed. Then I threw the damp cigarette into the rubble, turned up the collar of my coat, and began to make my way slowly across the ruins.

T
he Andre Norton Award for Best Young Adult Science Fiction or Fantasy Book is an annual honor that was first given in 2006, for works published in 2005. It honors the memory of one of the field’s most prolific and beloved authors, Andre Norton, a SFWA Grand Master and author of more than one hundred novels, including the acclaimed Witch World series, many of them for young adult readers. Ms. Norton’s work has influenced generations of young people, creating new fans of the fantasy and science fiction genres and setting the standard for excellence in speculative fiction writing.

Nominations are based on the same process as the SFWA Nebula Awards, except that a book begins its eligibility on the date it is published anywhere in the world in the English language, and the Andre Norton Jury may add any number of works to the preliminary ballot and up to three works to the final ballot. Any book published as a young adult science fiction / fantasy novel is eligible, including graphic novels, with no limit on word length.

Previous winners are
Valiant: A Modern Tale of Faerie
by Holly Black and
Magic or Madness
by Justine Larbalestier. The 2008 winner is
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
by J. K. Rowling.