Crucified: The Rise of an Urban Legend (Swann Series Book 9)

by Ryan Schow

  Quietly he undid his belt, removed the clothes below his waist, then hiked up The Countess’s dress to reveal a sophistication of old underpants he barely understood. In a sudden rush of force, he tore them down, then clamped a hand over her mouth and set himself upon her.

  The struggle—at first unwanted by The Countess—became an effort she finally fell into rhythm with. How long had she been denied human contact? When was the last time she’d had a man make love to her? By his study of history, it had been entirely too long. When he was done, as she lay her head back on the ground, spent, he wondered if they would have connected so well in current times. Looking up, the swell of her breasts still rising and falling from the exertion, she said something to him in her native tongue, something he didn’t understand. For a moment, she seemed enchanted, almost grateful for the contact.

  He sat up, crawled over the top of her, then punched her in the face with all his might. Her head jolted sideways and sat unmoving on the floor. As she lay there, unconscious, blood drizzling from her left nostril and trickling down her face, he fixed her clothes, then stopped and briefly gasped at the sight of her.

  Scurrying away backwards on palms and heels, he could barely find his breath.

  My God, he thought, it’s true!

  Only after a moment or two, when he was sure she would not awaken, he crawled on hands and knees toward her face, specifically to her hung-open mouth and the rows of fangs contained within. Had she physically sharpened her teeth like that, or had they gone to points for him just now?

  “Vampire,” he whispered in his German tongue, more thrilled than horrified. He never imagined the rumors could possibly be true. For a second, he wondered if Aloysius was like this. If these genes transferred to him as will.

  Was he a vampire?

  Aloysius never liked the sun, but he could be in it. And though he was moody as hell, Adolf never dealt with issues of bloodlust or hunger.

  Unless he hid them…

  Adolf put his clothes back on, then slipped out of the prison cell, locked the door and returned the keys to the guard who had dutifully slept through it all.

  Outside in the castle’s main hall, where he knew his leaving would not disturb the guard, he accessed his time travel dash board, entered in the time and coordinates for nearly nine months from now. Moments later he was stolen from this time and returned with force to the very same place, nearly nine months later.

  Adolf Hitler, in his original form, appeared in a room full of people with a riotously loud entry. Adolf appraised his surroundings. By his count, there were six or seven or eight women and a pair of men. They all reeled from his sudden, boisterous appearance. No one said a word. They couldn’t speak. They just stood there, aghast.

  Adolf strolled over to the table that looked like it was being prepared for a feast, grabbed a knife beside an overflowing plate of various cuts of meat, then charged the two men first before running down the women moments later.

  When he had slaughtered them all, he sat down on the floor, legs weak, chest heaving, practically hyperventilating from exhaustion.

  Looking around, the place was washed in gore. There were dead people everywhere, splayed out, eyes open but glazed over. Somewhere along the way, in the struggle, his shirt had torn open and he now wore three sets of bloody fingernail trails, the long lines of self-defense raking down his face and arms, his exposed chest.

  Invigorated, his heart rate finally slowing, he lay down on the floor, his head resting on an arm. He pushed it away, lie next to the last dead woman. It didn’t matter that he was lying in her blood, that it smelled rich with copper, that it was intoxicating and revolting at the same time. All that mattered was that he’d won.

  He didn’t look at her, but she was slumped over sideways with a butcher’s knife sticking out of her throat.

  When he finally had the strength to climb to his feet, he retrieved the knife, then found his way to Countess Bathory’s cell. At first he wandered through the various hallways looking for something familiar, a landmark from last time, but it was the distant sounds of mewling he eventually followed.

  Ah, the sounds of a woman in labor!

  Splendid.

  Adolf crept down the hallway, past the bricked up room that held The Countess captive, and to the wide open door. He couched low, kept himself out of sight. He stole a look inside the room, quickly, sparingly.

  He spotted two guards and a midwife inside.

  The guards remained oblivious to him, their downcast eyes taking in The Countess’s overgrowth of pubic hair, and her nudity. Taking three deep breaths, Adolf readied himself, then he stood and charged the larger of the two men, knife clutched in hand and ready to fight to the death.

  The knife found its way into the man’s throat in spite of the Grizzly bear beard he wore. The two of them went down hard, but Hitler spun out of it, rolling fast to his feet and ripping the blade free. He then launched himself at the other guard, aiming for his throat but catching the man in the collar instead. The knife struck bone, twisted sideways, failed to reach anything vital, much less an organ or two.

  The beating that followed was unlike anything Hitler had ever experienced. He was the Führer! No one dare lay a hand on him! Yet the guard laid hands and feet upon him both in a fury and without mercy. For a second he thought he would die there, in that castle, in the Countess’s prison cell on the day of his son’s birth.

  Would they even know who he was?

  Would they care?

  No.

  Here, he was not the Führer, he thought as he sustained blow after brutal blow. This was the 1600’s and he was just a maniac with a knife.

  A man yet to be born.

  This man, this guard, he pummeled Adolf over and over again, cracking bones in his face, breaking bones in his arms and legs, punching apart his ribcage. His body was howling in agony while at the same time getting overrun with a blast furnace heat: Holland’s Fountain of Youth serum. The heat alone told Adolf the serum was working diligently in his body, making his recovery quick.

  Unfortunately it was not quick enough.

  The man finally stopped hitting him, exhausted. Adolf was laid out on the floor, his face busted all over, blood splattered everywhere, arms and legs and fingers broken, his ribcage in tatters. The guard assumed he was dead. No one could survive that. But Adolf Hitler could.

  And he did.

  He laid there quietly, playing dead for longer than he wanted. The guard pulled the knife from his collar, buried it just under Adolf’s own collar bone with a grunt of satisfaction. Adolf masked the pain. He waited. When enough time had passed—when his body had the time it needed to get him ready for round two—he opened his eyes and quietly got to his feet. His skin was still burning with the heat of healing and agitation bellowed in his heart.

  Slowly, he removed the blade stuck inside him, wincing as he tore back the flesh that had healed all around the blade. Adolf wrapped up the last guard from behind, drove the knife down into his chest, twisting and turning and yanking it out, then twisting and turning some more.

  The man was trying to grab him, and then the knife, but Adolf jerked the blade out and stabbed him over and over again before the he staggered forward and finally dropped first to a knee, and then down flat on his face.

  Adolf stood there, huffing, hurting. He turned to The Countess who was now screaming in pain both from labor and fear. The midwife was sobbing, not hiding her obvious fear. She couldn’t seem to decide whether to run for her life or continue trying to deliver The Countess’s baby. The Vampire Bathory sounded like a dying cow with her knees propped up and her bedclothes collected around her waist. Her wet, frantic eyes went from her knees to her midwife to Adolf. She was trapped, helpless, vulnerable.

  When Adolf flung the blood off the blade and stalked over to the two women, Countess Bathory pointed an accusatory finger and hissed one word, a word he knew in spite of not knowing her language.

  “You!”

  Kick
ing the midwife out of the way, Adolf sliced open Elizabeth’s swollen belly amidst her struggle and amidst her strain, and he found the child.

  In seconds the boy was cradled in his arms, the umbilical cord crudely sliced, the afterbirth a slimy coating he had no time to remove. From his pocket, he pulled out a time travel device, swallowed it, and then he entered in his return time and location. He couldn’t wait to be swallowed from this barbaric world.

  Before he left, he had the joy of seeing The Countess Bathory in the final throes of death. In his arms, the child was in the middle of a hiccupping/crying jag that was murder on Adolf’s ears. Looking down, he showed Elizabeth their shrieking child, then said one word, the most important word: “Aloysius.”

  Her mouth opened, a labored gasp.

  Adolf stared down coldly upon her, and then he stomped on the side of her head before being sucked out of that timeline.

  The second he arrived back at the lab, the baby was dead as Adolf feared he would be. It wasn’t an easy trip, even for him—a grown man in the height of his youth. For a baby, he couldn’t imagine.

  Holland readied the crash cart, immediately went to work reviving the child. Traveling had suffocated him. Within moments, however, young Aloysius was breathing again. By that time, the grown Aloysius was in the lab, alive and well, overseeing everything.

  Adolf looked up at him and said, “This is you, my son.”

  The child was a filthy thing—the umbilical chord cut an inch too long and sticking out like some eyeless, sackless dick. The alien-looking afterbirth cloaking the child’s squirming body gave a less than savory first impression. The child was crying though, which meant he was alive.

  At least there was that.

  Aloysius put his hands over his ears and then to his father, he said, “Get this…child…cleaned up and meet me in the other room. We have many things to discuss.”

  In his native tongue, Adolf Hitler, the Führer, looked up at his son and said, “I would caution you to use a less direct tone with me. You’re a driven man, admirably so, but I am still your father.”

  Aloysius stopped, thought about it, then continued on, not a word of acknowledgement to the man.

  Chapter Eight

  After returning from New York and saying good-bye to Savannah at the San Francisco airport, Raven caught a cab to Netty’s place. She took the elevator to her friend’s floor, started to knock, but stopped herself just before her knuckles hit the door.

  She took a deep breath.

  Technically she would have been there less than a year ago, but in her reality, it was more like seventy years.

  Using her heightened senses, just to make sure, she read the energy signatures inside the apartment.

  There were two females.

  She relaxed the minute she recognized the swirling energy of her friend. Raven knocked on the door lightly. Netty answered. Netty, her best friend who had not seen this new version of her. Instead of smiling, the Russian looked her up and down, then frowned.

  Okay…

  “Another perfect girl,” Netty finally said. Raven felt the weight of her friend’s sour mood. Sadly, she expected this.

  “Genetically speaking, yes,” Raven replied.

  “All these perfect girls are making me suspicious,” Netty said, letting her in. Raven shut the door behind her, saw Irenka sitting on the couch, pregnant, beautiful, relaxed.

  In a casual, almost dismissive tone, Netty said, “This is my mother, Irenka, but since you’ve come from the great cosmic egg, I’m sure you know that.”

  She didn’t bother to introduce Raven by name, but then again Netty didn’t know it, so Raven really couldn’t blame her for being such a butthole about the whole affair.

  “Hello, Irenka. I’m Raven,” she said. “Raven Swann.”

  That caustic energy swirling around Netty seemed to peter out for a second, the air between them settling into a perfect stillness. You could feel it—that tension turning to understanding. Slowly the Russian girl turned to look at her. The encumbrance of her gaze bore a cold, substantial weight.

  It was a small admission her friend recognized, a pseudo-confirmation that put her bitch fit on pause. In Netty’s eyes, Raven saw understanding, but she also saw hurt and the sting of betrayal. The emotion surprised Raven, left her feeling more uncomfortable than she already felt.

  She loved Netty.

  She loved her and never wanted to hurt her, but she did. And why wouldn’t she have hurt her? Netty felt abandoned by her. Because she had abandoned her friend. No denying that.

  Irenka shook Raven’s hand and offered a polite smile. Otherwise she remained on the couch, one hand on her pregnant belly, rubbing it slowly, lovingly the way an expectant mother would.

  “Can we talk in your room?” she turned and said to Netty.

  “Yeah, I guess,” she said, flummoxed. “I’d say follow me, but you know exactly where my room is, don’t you?”

  “It’s not that hard to figure out,” Raven replied. “Living quarters up front, bedrooms and bathrooms at the back.”

  “Look who’s the architectural genius,” she quipped. This was snarky Netty. This was about-to-lash-out Netty.

  Raven knew her friend was harboring old suspicions. As a deep weariness took shape inside Netty’s mind, Raven felt the young Russian gearing up for a fight. She could only imagine what was coming next. Knowing Netty, she would either deliver a profanity-laced tongue lashing or an immediate dismissal followed by the kind of silent treatment Raven thought of more as a long winter than a short-lived retribution.

  Netty stalked into her room, plopped down on her bed, folded her arms and said, “Tell me everything, and if you lie to me, if you withhold anything, this will be the last conversation we ever have as friends.”

  “You’re rather sharp for meeting me for the first time,” Raven said, sitting down on the bed a few feet away from her friend.

  “My mother and I are not getting along.”

  “The pregnancy?”

  “Her boyfriend. She wants us to move in with him. I said I’m staying here. We’re two Russians in a Mexican standoff over an Italian man and a bastard child.”

  An unexpected giggle escaped Raven.

  “This is the cute one with the Bugatti, right?” Raven asked. Netty’s face went slack, her body completely still. “Is it because he’s hot AF, or because she has her baby and you lost yours?”

  Netty’s face became a gathering storm. “You were never this direct before, Savannah.”

  No longer feigning pretense, Raven said, “Yes, but that’s before my DNA was hijacked and I became…everything you see now and so much more. It’s the ‘so much more’ part I haven’t told you about. Not because I don’t trust you, or love you, but because I think once I tell you what has been done to me, the things I’ve done, you might not want to be my friend anymore and that would kill me.”

  “After my baby was taken—”

  “Yours and Brayden’s,” Raven corrected.

  She swallowed hard. “Yes.”

  “Go on.”

  “I realized whatever it was you’d become, it was affecting more than just you. Our entire school is dead, Savannah. Sensei is…” She abruptly stopped speaking. Fresh tears gathered in her eyes and she seemed to go someplace else.

  “Broken,” Raven softly whispered. “I know. I healed him though. Physically. But mentally, I told him he couldn’t give up because even though they’re all gone, you and I are not.”

  “Does he know you’re…you?” Netty asked, wiping her eyes.

  “He does.”

  “Why?”

  “Sensei is intuitive on a level I’ve never seen before. He doesn’t just see me. He sees my expressions, my nuances, the way I walk, talk and fight. He is not fooled by outward appearances.”

  “He’s probably only seen three perfect people in his life: you, you and you.”

  “You had your inklings,” Raven said.

  “Of course.”

&nbs
p; “Yet you didn’t talk to me?”

  “Why didn’t you talk to me?” Netty shot back. “Why do you think I kept beating on you at school? I wanted you to talk to me!”

  “I was going to, but then I learned you were pregnant with Brayden’s baby and that really shocked me. That’s why I barely hit you back.”

  She looked down, then away.

  “That’s it?” Raven asked. “You just look away as if you have nothing to say for yourself?”

  “I can fuck who I want, when I want and I don’t need anyone’s permission.”

  Netty’s brash tone, complimented by her ability to so recklessly drop f-bombs (even though it sounded kind of cute and sassy coming from her), never failed to move Raven. She cleared her throat, vowed to be the bigger person.

  “He was your first,” Raven said.

  “And my last,” she said, “as of this moment.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re going to have another Chloe moment. Because being a pseudo-lesbo wasn’t the answer to boy problems then and I doubt it will be now.”

  She made a face, glared hard at Raven.

  Raven scooted closer to her. She felt Netty’s energy open up, fold around her, almost like a cocoon. She put her arms around her Russian friend. Netty sat stiff for a moment, fighting her hardheaded instincts, but just as Raven knew she would, Netty put her arms around her and let herself be held.

  The tug and pull at her heart, the sudden well of emotion, Raven knew what was coming next.

  “You left me,” she whispered.

  “I was protecting you,” Raven replied. “I was looking out for you, trying to keep you safe.”

  “It didn’t work, did it?” Netty said, her voice choked with so much emotion.