Angels & Shadows

Chapter 10

Chapter 10

There were four of them sat in the ill-lit room. They were more comfortable in the dark as it complimented their nature and they drew power from it. The atmosphere was menacing. Three of them were men and the fourth was a hard faced woman who appeared to be in her early to mid-twenties. She sat apart from the men. The men’s body language showed that they had a deep respect for the woman, or if not respect, then fear. Her hair was piled above a high forehead, she was reasonably pretty but her scowl and ice cold eyes took away any illusion to that.

Adolphius looked back at the three of them through his mirrored, aviator sunglasses. His soft brown hair was swept sideways across his forehead and the stereotypical toothbrush moustache was now exchanged with a full jowl beard that framed his thin lips. He addressed the woman coldly.

“So Fraulein Grese you have failed me again. You failed me in the concentration camps in the Second World War where you allowed yourself to be caught by the Allied Forces, and you have now failed twice to kill the Robinson brats. Explain yourself.”

Irma Grese was one of the cruellest women in history, she was known in those days as ‘the Bitch of Belsen’. Grese was the second highest ranking female in the concentration camps of Auschwitz and Belsen where she administered torture and death to tens of thousands of people as part of Adolph Hitler’s campaign of ethnic cleansing.

Grese’s love for her work included sexual assault, torture and murder by the pistol that she always carried with her and used with sadistic enthusiasm. Her particular joy was selecting those for the gas chamber and in that she was merciless, separating wives from their husbands and children from their mothers.

Grese was tried and convicted for her crimes against humanity and sentenced to death. She was transferred to Hameln prison where she was hanged in December 1945, or at least a carefully selected and prepared lookalike was. Adolphius had made the substitution and Grese now owed her life to him.

“Adolphius…”

Grese began, her voice was without emotion. She was unscathed by Adolphius’ verbal assault and she could see him falter at her total lack of fear of him. Fear was the force of ruling power over the Shadows and Adolphius was playing a losing hand with Grese.

“You so easily discount the dozens of Angels that I have culled where you and your men have failed. It seems you need a woman to do a man’s job these days.”

Her look was cruel and disdainful and Grese thought that she saw him flinch involuntarily under her attack. The chink in his armour spurred her on.

“I think that you’re losing your stomach for the job Adolphius. As for the Robinson siblings, it was unusual and just unfortunate that they were not in the car with their parents when I cleansed them. On my second attempt it cost Williams’ life to save them. One less Angel as far as I see it.”

Adolphius was fuming. He was losing face in front of the other two Senators who were quietly enjoying the exchange. Infinitely worse still, the Supreme Senator herself had read him the Riot Act and he was left in no doubt that to fail to neutralise the Robinson siblings, would ultimately result in his retirement (a euphemism commonly used for death). The Supreme Senator or ‘the Hydra’ as she was known, received funding in the order of £100 billion annually through her global network of cells. This money was essential for funding instability programmes and the power struggle against the Angels. This was under extreme threat if the Robinsons were allowed to develop.

“Your failings have allowed them to meet with the Matriarch Maelströminha. Already she will have shown them how to access their abilities and their strength will be growing by the day. When the brats have learned to work together and combine their forces fully, the balance of power will once more tip the Angels’ way. If that happens, then our time left on this earth will be measured in centuries. If the boy is allowed to spawn with the Matriarch, then a new generation of Angels with renewed abilities will be born, and our expectancy will then be only decades at best.”