They set off belatedly just before eight the next day, seven men and one woman all packed in one truck. The wagon was American, a part of the Lend Lease agreement. Reuben sat in the back with four soldiers on escort duty. Borkin sat in the front with Stephanie and the driver.
"No, I don’t think the Commissar will be coming with us in the wagon. He has his own driver and vehicle," Borkin was explaining.
"He has his own car?” Stephanie asked, shocked.
"Yes, a Jeep. It’s American, like this truck. When the war is over we will pay back America in full what we owe but first we must smash the Fascists," he recited dutifully.
"Is that normal for every officer to have his own vehicle?”
"Not really but he does seem to wield an awful lot of power for a political officer. Normally they just organise lectures and the like for the troops like a sort of political teacher. But that one really was running the show. I reckon the General wasn’t thought of as being politically reliable enough by Moscow and the Commissar was there to keep an eye on things. Between you and me, I think the decision makers up top have realised that killing the good generals because they didn’t support the Communists was a bad idea, especially in times of war.”
"That’s not a good way to run an army," Stephanie smiled.
She liked Borkin. He was pleasant and relaxed with her; a bit like Michael but without the baggage. She’d thought long and hard about where he might be by now. He was probably dead, which was a shame because he was the first man she had met who was genuinely through and through good.
Michael wasn’t polite, he wasn’t refined. He had told her of his past in the red light scene and all the dubious transactions he had made at the time. However his likeability and uprightness came from somewhere within. He possessed an unadulterated integrity that Stephanie admired and found attractive.
They drove through the day and into the unchartered territory between the fronts. The truck found it hard going on the closely wooded track but their progress was steady and they covered a good distance before Borkin decided they should set up camp. They didn’t make it as far as they had hoped but Borkin seemed used to disappointment and he shrugged philosophically when Reuben pointed it out to him.
The Commissar had finally caught up with them, and his driver set up his tent. He held himself aloof from the others, as did his driver, and it didn’t escape Reuben’s notice that the other soldiers all stopped talking when he looked in their direction.
Reuben hadn’t been able to communicate with any of the guards, and their glowering silence only helped to unnerve him even more.
"I don’t like this. Going back there, I mean,” he whispered to Stephanie.
"Neither do I but what do you want to do?" she whispered back.
"Escape of course," he breathlessly exclaimed.
"Where to? There’s nowhere to go to. The Russians on one side, the Germans on the other, we’ve got to stick it out with the Russians until we know what to do. To blindly run away now would only make things harder for us.”
Reuben nodded resignedly. "Let’s get some sleep. I’m freezing.”
Borkin had ordered that no fires be made but the commissar had overruled him and a small fire was lit. They sat around its spluttering flame, silent in thoughtful reflection. The guards were sharing a bottle of vodka on the other side of the fire and periodically they would laugh coarsely at some joke or other. Reuben and Stephanie concerned themselves with how much vodka they were drinking and its possible effect on their guardians if any German or, God forbid, vampire soldiers attacked, but they were soon to realise that that wasn’t their real problem.
As the evening blurred into night, Reuben noticed from time to time the way one of the guards would slip a scheming glance at Stephanie. Reuben was no fool and he knew what was going through his mind. He also knew he wouldn’t stand a chance if the four of them decided to make a move on her. He looked desperately around for Borkin but he couldn’t see him despite the full moon illuminating the encampment.
The hours passed by and the fire was now blazing. The Commissar was, at this point, singing loudly in his tent after drinking a bottle of vodka, and his driver, who was meant to be on guard, was slumped on the floor in an alcohol-induced coma.
Any form of soldierly bearing was thrown to the wind as the men gave vent to their need for clear spirits. It seemed to Reuben that the victories the Red Army had achieved in the last couple of months had visited on them an undeniably hazardous form of audacity.
After scanning the immediate area for Borkin he turned to Stephanie to tell her he was going to try to find the lieutenant. To his horror he saw that all four of the guards were looking at her with open interest.
Stephanie stared back at them in unspoken defiance. "Typical,” he muttered to himself, "where are the good guys when you need them?" He shook her shoulder to attract her attention. "Don’t look at them. Ignore them. Perhaps they’ll lose interest." But as he said it he knew the suggestion was wasted.
They smiled at her, holding the vodka aloft and beckoning to her to come join them. Stephanie wordlessly stared back at them, challenging them to come nearer with the set of her expression. Reuben thought fast and had an idea. Sighing, he said in a weary voice, "Let me go and talk to them. They won’t hurt an old man.”
Stephanie turned to him in alarm, "Why? I can handle myself. I’ve fought off far bigger than those four imbeciles, I can tell you.” Reuben smiled inwardly at the bravado, his plan had worked. Now she was interested in talking him out of a confrontation with the four Russians whereas before she had been looking for the fight.
However, events overtook them as the four guards suddenly stood and advanced on the pair. Stephanie leapt to action but instead of backing away she bent down and plucked a burning branch from the fire to use as a weapon.
One of them said something and they laughed loudly. Reuben stepped forward as they approached, more as a reflex action than as a deliberate movement, to try and talk to them. He smiled through his fear, opening his arms in appeal, palms outstretched. They were mere yards away and Reuben put his hands together as if in prayer, wordlessly begging them not to follow through on their intent. It was all to no avail; the Russians ignored him and made to push past.
Reuben felt Stephanie move up behind him and a new resolve coursed through him. He stubbornly moved into their path again and the nearest guard deftly swung his rifle butt up into Reuben’s face. He fell back and into Stephanie, momentarily putting her off guard. The men seized on the opportunity and rushed forward to grab her. She swung the stick around to jab at the first’s eyes with the flaming bough but they were too fast and they easily swamped her, pulling her to the floor.
Reuben sprang to the attack, wordlessly pulling one guard off her and setting about the next. The second was not so easily moved and he turned to fight properly. Then the first joined in with the heavy end of his rifle, clubbing Reuben again to the ground.
The butt smashed down over and over, mostly on Reuben’s arms as he tried to protect himself, but every third or fourth strike found his head and Reuben felt unconsciousness violently gripping him with every bone-jarring hit.
Stephanie fought her attackers with a strength born of rage. After the death of her husband, she had sworn to herself that no man would use her again. For her it was death or submission and she fought with that in mind. She scratched the eyes of the attacker that lay on top of her, biting, kicking and struggling with all her might. However, the men were so heavy and she could feel her strength ebbing away. She screamed in impotent fury at her physical weakness and the attacker laughed horribly into her face.
Despite her struggling, she felt a snakelike hand slide up her inner thigh, another closed on her knee and started to prise her legs apart. She groped wildly for a weapon, her vehemence now finding new strength. Her hand clasped on a bayonet scabbard, and then the bayonet itself. In one swift but unpractised movement she seized the handle and pulled, but nothing happened. Th
e blade, held in its casing by a clasp, stayed firmly in its sheath. She pulled harder, jerking it with all her might but again nothing happened.
Her attacker had stopped in his endeavours as he felt her hand trying to jerk the blade out but bellowed his amusement into her face when he realised what had happened.
Stephanie knew she was going to die, and just when all seemed lost, as her mind finally accepted the inevitable and she began to mechanically chant to herself, she sensed more than heard the click from behind the laughing Russian, then the heavy clunk of a bolt action being worked.
Her attacker froze and wordlessly jumped up, his hands moving to his unbuttoned fly. She briefly closed her eyes and looked up to see a grim-faced Lieutenant Borkin and the truck driver holding rifles at the four guards.
"Are you hurt?" he asked without taking his eyes from the four.
"No, I’m … ” then she remembered Reuben. She sat up straight and found Reuben on his back, unconscious. Scrabbling up, she half-ran, half-crawled over to where he lay.
He was out cold, or so it seemed, until she pulled one of his eyelids up. Then, letting out a long moan of pain, he turned his head and opened his eyes.
"Did I win?” he closed his eyes again. "I don’t feel like I did. What does the other guy look like?”
She stroked his head, "You’ll be fine. Just sleep a while.”
He smiled back and closed his eyes. A tear of thanks for his survival welled up in her eye and she swept it quickly away. It could have all gone so horribly wrong had Borkin not come in time.
They had been so close to death that, with a start, she realised she had mentally begun to chant the Shema Yisrael, the Hebrew prayer recited at a birth or when confronted with imminent death. Did her true spiritual roots sit so deep that they would only appear when all seemed lost?
She looked up to where Borkin stood and saw, instead, a pair of glowing eyes. Her scream was the catalyst for the attack. All she caught were the teeth and claws before, for the second time in two days, unconsciousness overwhelmed her.
Chapter 51
The Forest in Romania
Reuben came around as they loaded his makeshift stretcher onto the lorry. He opened his eyes and was startled to see Mordechai looking down at him. Reuben did a quick double take at how well Mordechai looked. He seemed unaffected by the Count's attack, and in fact looked like a more dynamic, robust caricature of the Mordechai he knew at the castle. Muscles, which he had never seen on him before, bulged under his tunic and Reuben convinced himself he was dreaming - the Russian uniform and the flat stomach also seeming to prove the dream theory.
"Mordi? I don’t understand … " he trailed off.
"I’ll tell you everything another time” Mordechai answered gravely. The tarpaulin at the back of the truck dropped, and as soon as they drove off, Reuben fell back into a deep, deep sleep.
Borkin had woken Stephanie earlier with a drop of cold water on her lips.
"Wake up, it’s all over now," he told her as she opened her eyes.
"What happened?" was all she could muster.
He looked into her eyes as if making a decision, but just nodded that all was good. She sat up to take another sip of water and was shocked to see Mordechai, muscular and lithe, sitting on a tree stump crying into his hands. She shook her head in disbelief. Was she seeing things? Was it a trick of the moonlight?
"Mordechai, is that you?” Curious, she stood up and walked over to him. Then she saw the carnage that lay around her.
Thankfully the light of the moon did not show the blood but she could easily make out the severed limbs and heads strewn around their camp. With a clinical detachment, she surveyed the area and noted how many heads she saw. It seemed to her that only Borkin and his driver had survived the attack, and with that thought came another. Who or what had caused this bloodbath? Had she seen a vampire before she fainted?
All these thoughts flashed through her mind in an instant as she crossed over to the weeping Mordechai. She was shocked to note that he was naked but she dismissed his state of undress and crouched down to the side of him.
"Mordechai, is it really you? What happened to you? You’ve changed so … " she wondered aloud. He didn’t answer but briefly looked up from his hands. Tears glazed his eyes and he managed a brief smile before plunging his face back into his hands. She wanted to cradle his head in her arms but the eeriness of his return to the living, and the change in him, held her back.
Borkin came over, still visibly shocked, and said, "He saved us, he saved you, me and Pavel here," he indicated his driver, "but I don’t know about your friend the doctor. He’s badly concussed and I can’t wake him up. I think we should make a stretcher and take him back to headquarters. I can speak with the General and we’ll see what we can do for him.”
"Yes, but what happened here? I saw … " she stopped to turn away from Mordechai, "I saw him die! The Count that you were meant to meet killed him in front of us.”
From behind them she heard a resolute sigh. "He didn’t kill me. He can’t.”
She turned back, "I see that Mordi. What happened? I’m glad you’re back but how did you survive? I don’t understand.”
"Get me some clothes and I’ll tell you.” He sniffed and laughed sadly. "I feel such a nebbish here.”
Borkin had already sorted out a pair of trousers and a bloodstained tunic, so Stephanie turned her back to let him dress.
"Back at the castle, you remember the werewolf attacked us?" Stephanie nodded, then her eyes widened as slow realisation crystallised into solid comprehension.
"You mean he bit you? You’re a werewolf, is that what you want to say?” Mordechai didn’t answer but she knew it was true by the misery he broadcast. She looked to Borkin who wordlessly confirmed her fears.
"After the wolf attacked us, I felt a small itch at the back of my neck where the beast had nicked me. It healed inside of an hour and I gave it no more thought until the first night out in the open.”
"Why, what happened?" Stephanie asked. She sat close to him now to warm herself in the cold of the dawn and she studied his face in rapt attention as he related the story.
"I’m not really sure. I woke up, it was still dark and I could hear everything around me. I mean everything. Birds rustling in the trees, animals breathing in the undergrowth, insects killing and eating each other. The noise was unbelievable but gradually it grew less as I was able to discern the individual sounds from their direction. I know it sounds unbelievable, but I could even hear your heartbeat, Reuben’s too.” He paused in contemplation. "And my eyes - the dark was changed to day and I could see everything like a sunny afternoon. But the biggest change came in the sense of smell. I could make out everything. I didn’t need to see things or hear them because I could almost visualise the birds or animals, even the insects, just by their smell. I decided to keep it quiet and I fell back to sleep. The next day it was gone and I put it down to it all being a dream. I knew I was changing into something but I didn’t know what. Or perhaps I didn’t want to know. Finally, when the Count caught me, I knew what it was that was changing me. As he landed on the back of my horse, he said he could smell the wolf in me and I knew I was damned for all time." He stopped and put his face back down to his hands.
"What happened then?" she coaxed.
He shook his head. "You saw, didn’t you? He bit me, let me fall and I ran off into the woods. In my fear I realised I could change into a werewolf at will." He looked back up at her. "This whole myth about a full moon is meshugaas. I change whenever I want and most of the time I know exactly what I’m doing.”
”Most of the time?”
"When I’m hungry or angry, I lose it, I mean I really lose all control. I know what I’m doing but the rage in me is almost unstoppable. I’m just glad I didn’t kill you or Reuben," he looked to Borkin, "or you my friend. Thank you for helping them.”
Borkin nodded, "No, no, I thank you. I don’t know what would have happened after we had them under cont
rol, and they were desperate, bad men.” He turned to Stephanie. "He took them out so quickly, it was amazing. I don’t think … sorry but I have no words, it was all so quick.”
Mordechai concurred, "I know, friend, and it amazes me too. I wonder how we survived the attack in the Castle. I can only imagine that his heart wasn’t in it.”
Borkin shook his head again to Stephanie, "The power was, unimaginable. The speed … ” he trailed off.
Stephanie broke his deliberations. "So what do we do now, go back or go to the Castle? I’m for going back.”
Mordechai nodded. "Yes, you must go back and get help for Reuben but I must go on.”
"To the Castle? You’ll be killed," Stephanie breathed.
"I have no choice. Every cell in my body is crying for me to go back. I’ve fought it since the attack, but now I know you’re both safe I have to follow my gut feeling. I have no choice.”
Borkin broke in, "We’ll go back and try to fix the Doctor up. He can’t go on.”
"But the Count will kill him," then to Mordechai, "Don’t you see that?”
"Do you think I like this, being a werewolf, a farzeenish, a monster? I must go and undo this and I can only do that there.”
"Then wait for us, we’ll go together. You can’t go on your own.!” She fell down onto his shoulders and cried. "Please, Mordi, I’m begging you to wait for us to come with you.”
He patted her back and nodded silently, pondering his next move as he waited for her to stop crying. After a while she stopped and Mordechai told her of his decision. "I will come with you but I will not live in the company of other men. I am no longer human, I am a beast, a monster, and I don’t want to be chained up when the Rusish Armey start getting nervous. I will wait in the wood for you. I can hunt and it appeals to me more than eating borschtsch for the next couple of weeks. When you are ready, I will join you.”
The Division of the Damned Page 28