by Libbylawrence
Linz, Austria — April, 1987:
Dr. Angelika Muller had seen something that she wasn’t supposed to see, and her curiosity changed her life forever. She had always ignored childish admonitions such as “curiosity killed the cat,” because it was her precocious intellectual curiosity that had made her a prodigy as a girl. Her proud father had nurtured her love of learning and had actively encouraged the brilliant girl to develop her academic talents until she reached what had appeared to be the auspicious beginning of a promising career. Now, although only in her early twenties, Dr. Muller was viewed as one of the most brilliant scholars in the field of intellectual ancient history. It was true that Dr. Muller wisely kept some of her own views concerning the Nazi Party and the Thousand Year Reich to herself. While she secretly enjoyed poring over old texts with references to lost Atlantis or hidden Nordic civilizations, she knew that any open discussion of such topics would make her a contemporary, young blonde female version of the famously exiled Dr. Johann Georg August Wirth.
I may loathe much of Hitler’s ideology, but I respect his power too much to even whisper my theories around this place, she thought. Any anti-Nazi theory is suppressed swiftly and violently. My poor father taught me that lesson by losing his life. It was the most painful thing he ever taught me!
She knew that belief in certain bizarre theories was not necessarily forbidden by the Nazi elite. However, when such theories contrasted with traditional Nazi doctrines, they became problematic, and their supporters became extinct.
So the pretty blonde researcher maintained a demure façade and obeyed her superiors even as she secretly held all of them in contempt. She was very conflicted, because she passionately cared about academic integrity and the freedom to question or to learn. However, she also obeyed the doctrines strictly enforced by her stern superior Dr. Kurnburg, even though it meant that any fact that was contrary to official Nazi policy or doctrine had to be altered, suppressed, or denied.
She confined her professional studies to appropriate, party-approved topics and maintained a cool demeanor while working in one of the most openly brazen centers of Nazi aggrandizement in all of Europe. She admired much of the Führermuseum with its lofty towers and majestic dome, but she knew that just as its damaged exterior still showed how much opposition to and hatred of Hitler and all he stood for remained in the world, it was nearly overshadowed by the insidious Axis ability to rise anew from the ashes of ruins like some immortal bird of prey.
Hitler spent his youth here in Linz from 1898 to 1907, and his dream of making this shrine to all the things he loved almost came true, she thought, her high heels clattering on the pavement as she walked across the Nibelungen Bridge spanning the Danube River.
She noticed workers carefully restoring the huge plaster casts of Siegfried and Kriemhild that once stood beneath the great granite arch. She knew that Hitler had intended the so-called Fuhrermuseum to rival the museums of Munich and Dresden for sheer splendor. An opera house and a grand hotel had once been part of the impressive complex, but those edifices had long since been destroyed in the 1970s by a combination of looters, rebels, and ordinary people who had rejoiced in destroying any symbol connected with the tyrant who had dominated the world for so many years.
However, the severely damaged structure had been restored in many places, and while reconstruction work was very much an ongoing process, she could picture it as it had once been. She admired the grandeur, but not the ideology behind it all.
This place reminds of Wagner’s works, she thought, sweeping, dark, majestic, and yet lacking in humor or any essential humanity. Of course, it is just a popular misconception that all the Nazi elite love Wagner. Hitler is obsessed with that composer because he originally identified with his own struggles for acceptance and time in an exile of sorts, but his officers sleep through the operas and do all they can do to avoid attending the performances their Fuhrer so reveres.
As she pushed her long, pale blonde hair away from her thin wire glasses, she sighed in display at an all-too-familiar sight as her high heels clattered across the pavement, and she approached the main facility.
A uniformed SS officer stood directly in front of the doorway that led to the research facilities and archives where Dr. Muller and other staffers of the modern Ahnenerbe think tank worked.
The officer laughed harshly as he gave orders to four other ordinary guards. The security staffers were under his command, and he lorded over the poor staff as if he was Himmler reborn. He had dark heavy brows that almost met above his thin nose, and his entire demeanor was one Angelika knew all too well.
They are like cruel little boys who want to harm anything they cannot understand! she thought.
Smiling in a lupine manner as the beautiful blonde scholar approached, the officer stepped aside with a broadly mocking gesture of deferral.
“Enter, Doktor, enter!” he said with a leer. “How you brighten these dusty halls of knowledge!”
Dr. Muller nodded curtly and hurried forward, only to feel his rough hand drop over her wrist and hold her in place. “Captain Braun, release my arm,” she said. “I do not like to be touched!”
Braun grinned and leaned closer until Dr. Muller could feel his hot breath in her ear. “Come now, Angelika,” he said. “These games are hardly amusing. You and I must come to an understanding. We work so closely together here, and we could do so much more if you would only yield a little!”
Trembling with rage, Angelika pulled free from his grasp, even as he laughed his annoying laugh and turned to his fawning minions. He is a monster! she thought, slamming the door behind her. I spend more time worrying about how to avoid his clumsy advances than I do on proper research!
***
Later, as Dr. Muller concluded her daily work and heard the last of her co-workers depart, she prepared to gather her belongings and exit when she heard the unmistakable approach of Captain Braun.
I recognize that arrogant stride anywhere! I will not be trapped alone with that animal! she thought, hastily turning off her desk lamp and ducking beneath a long table that was covered with various reference tomes and research papers.
Crouching beneath the table, she waited as Captain Braun entered the room and crossed it with his typical swaggering gait. He didn’t see me, so why he is hanging around? she wondered.
To her surprise, Captain Braun made his way over to an ornate brazier that decorated one corner of the room beside rows of massive bookcases. As he twisted the decoration with a casual gesture born of long familiarity, the narrow section of wall that remained in view between the nearest bookcases slowly receded to reveal a hidden doorway.
I can’t believe it! I’ve worked in this room for over two years, and I certainly never suspected the room contained a secret passage! she mused. Of course, every schoolgirl knows Hitler was devious to a fault!
After Captain Braun departed through the hidden door, the passageway closed behind him. No trace of its concealed opening could be detected. Has that voyeur been watching me from behind that wall all this time? she thought with a shudder.
Hurrying out from under the table, she made a desperate decision born more of curiosity than wisdom. Tomorrow night, I’m going to see exactly what rests behind that passageway! she vowed. I may live my professional life based on Nazi lies, but this is one mystery I’m going to solve regardless of the risks!
***
True to her word, the next evening found the curious Dr. Muller making her way through the hidden passageway where a few moments of walking led her to what appeared to be a series of tunnels.
I can’t believe my eyes! she thought. The whole Fuhrermuseum is full of catacombs or underground tunnels. I can see heavy burdens have been carried through these tunnels, too. There are grooves where wheeled carts have made regular passage. The tunnel walls are nearly smooth as well from the touch of those who walked through them. These catacombs receive all too frequent use, and I may be discovered at any moment! I wrongly assumed Braun was possibly the only person who knew they existed or used them!
She stiffened as she heard muffled voices from ahead, and thought her rather weak eyes could detect some source of distant illumination. Her heart raced as she slowly crept forward. I can’t go back now! I simply can’t! she thought.
Pressing her body against a wall, she listened. I hear several voices. They seem to be singing… or chanting, she thought.
She swallowed hard, then peeked around the corner. Incredible! she thought.
What Dr. Muller saw was a heavily polished table covered with an expensive fabric of some type. Mystical symbols or glyphs decorated the walls as rich tapestries blanketed the chamber, and flickering torches cast an eerie glow over the scene.
Captain Braun stood at one end of the table, while his loyal lackey Huber stood nearby, watching his leader with eager, darting eyes. A sultry woman with heavy red curls sat across from Braun and watched listlessly. A burly brute of a man sat to her left, opening and closing his hands in a nervous ritual of some type. Finally, a gaunt bald man with a hacking cough stood at one side and led the group in the odd chanting Angelika had detected.
I know Braun and Huber, she thought. I’ve seen the woman before. I think she consults on matters of occult history. Her name is Hilda something. The sickly man who seems to be leading this bizarre ritual is Dr. Kurnburg himself — my superior! What kind of strange ceremony is this? Could this be part of the Thule Society that supposedly conducted occult rituals during the earliest days of the war, and is rumored to have gathered many occult objects since the new war began?
Peering into the room, she recognized a wide array of objects that lined the tables and hung from the walls. Jewels, grimoires, weapons, talismans, and relics of every description! I think I’ve discovered the purpose of these tunnels. The Nazi elite have hidden the treasures of looted Europe, America, and Africa within these catacombs in order to protect them from the various attacks on the museum above that occurred after the end of the war. I think my own boss may be leading his version of a contemporary magic society!
She watched in amazement and horror as the group leaned forward over the table and carefully positioned five perfectly round stones. Rune stones? she thought. They look like ancient Nordic rune stones. The small raised stones are covered with carvings. The carvings represent ancient words of power. They are conducting some kind of spell!
At that moment, her heel came down on a loose stone, and she stumbled directly into view of the occupants of the hidden chamber.
Whirling toward her, Captain Braun suddenly smiled wickedly as he caught sight of her. “Doktor Muller! You are a welcome sight!” he said, roughly grabbing her and pulling her over to the table.
At that moment, Dr. Angelika Muller realized that her curiosity just might have sealed her fate. I was never supposed to see that hidden door in my workroom. I was never supposed to come here! she thought. What am I going to do now?
Dr. Kurnburg frowned as he looked intently at the young woman. “Angelika, I do wish you had not found us. I respect you and have affection for you, but I fear your impetuosity leaves us little choice. We cannot let you depart this room alive!”
“Please, let me go!” pleaded Angelika. “It was a mistake! I didn’t mean to come here! I won’t tell anyone about this place!”
Captain Braun rubbed one finger across his lip and said, “More to the point, my dear, we won’t let you tell anyone!”
“When I realized the occult implications of some of these relics stored here since the fall of the Reich,” explained Kurnburg, “I assembled a group of likeminded seekers of power, and we began to use this particular chamber for experimentation into the unknown. Trust me, it’s been most difficult to keep these treasures here for our own use. If Doktor Thirteen were to learn about them, I fear all of our efforts will be for naught, and our lives as well. (*) I’m afraid we have little choice but to terminate you with extreme prejudice.”
[(*) Editor’s note: See Freedom Fighters: Bend Sinister, not yet published.]
“You always were a haughty ice maiden!” spat the normally servile Huber. “I’m glad to see you brought down in this way.”
Glancing around the room, Angelika’s eyes rested upon one object: a gleaming sword with a golden hilt hung across one tapestry that depicted the doomed lovers Siegfried and Kriemhild. Their likenesses were also being restored on the bridge outside as she recalled.
Angelika realized that her only hope for escape would be to somehow fight her way free from the secret society. She also felt a strange compulsion to touch the sword. She imagined a singing voice whispering to her and urging her to grasp it. It felt as though it was meant for her or had been waiting specifically for her touch.
Leaping across the room without pausing to realize that she was taking the greatest risk of her entire life, she grabbed the sword. As her hands made contact with the polished metal, a blinding flash of lightning filled the room despite being far beneath the earth.
Angelika also felt a remarkable change come over her body. She still recalled everything she had ever known as Dr. Muller, but she was no longer a mere brilliant, demure scholar. Now she was a tall, magnificent warrior woman with a long braid of golden hair and powerful but lithe musculature.
No longer did she wear the simple business suit and heels that marked her customary wardrobe, but was now attired in a red and gold breastplate, a brief metal-ribbed skirt, and laced sandals. A golden cloak rested across her shoulders, and a weapons belt of some sort hung low on her hips.
A name came to her mind, and she instinctively realized that in some way that it was also her name now. She was a reincarnation or modern manifestation of the ancient German princess of legend Kriemhild herself, but with the added power of her rival for Siegfried’s love, Brunhilda the Valkyrie.
Smiling coldly, she gripped the sword with a new confidence. She was a Shield Maiden, a Sister of the Sword. She was powerful and deadly, combining femininity with an almost elemental power. Perhaps most astonishing of all, the formerly demure and mild-mannered Dr. Angelika Muller loved every sensation of her new identity.
Stepping forward with the grace of a warrior, she smiled confidently as she saw the others in the room draw back in awe, shock, or fear. “Captain Braun, you seem at a loss for words,” she said in booming voice. “It improves your demeanor considerably!”
Braun hesitated, then grabbed his gun and fired directly at the transformed woman. Valkyrie (as she now thought of herself) raised the gleaming sword and deftly deflected the bullets with ease. She marveled at her own superhuman reflexes, even as she confidently accepted them as natural to her new role. “Your weapon is singularly inefficient,” she said. “A pity for you that my own is far more lethal!”
Leaping atop the table, she casually scattered the rune stones with one foot as she closed in on the startled Nazi.
“Angelika, calm yourself!” Dr. Kurnburg cried out. “You must see the remarkable thing that has occurred to you in the light of a scholar! You must not act rashly!”
Valkyrie grabbed the gaunt man by his jacket and lifted him into the air with one hand. She was about to hurl him across the room, but stopped and merely shoved him onto the table. “Do not presume to order me again!” she shouted. “I am no longer your meek assistant!”
Huber had scurried for the door, but Valkyrie was faster and tackled him, sending him crashing to the ground even as the larger man closed in on her from behind. She lashed out with a kick that sent him sprawling to the ground.
She laughed a surprisingly delicate laugh, and then noticed Hilda. The red-haired woman had not fled, nor had she made any obvious effort to help her colleagues.
Valkyrie started to approach her when she spotted something almost concealed by a tapestry. Cables! she realized. The room may be illuminated by those ancient torches, but power of some type is being fed beyond this chamber into other tunnels!
Leaping upward, she brought her sword down on the cable. But even as it was sliced neatly in half, nothing happened.
The red-haired woman’s expression became distraught for the first time since Valkyrie’s remarkable arrival. “She has damaged the generator!” she cried. “If the back-up fails to restore power, the damage could be serious!”
Valkyrie smiled and said, “That was my intention, you Axis sow!”