"But how will you know?”
"I just will, believe me. I’ll be there when you set off.” He stood back and thumbed a tear away from her cheek. "Just one thing, though … " His face took a serious turn.
"Yes?”
"Whatever you do, don’t forget to bring some clothes with you. They don’t seem to manage the change too well and I don’t want to have to walk to the Castle in the nude.”
She laughed and the melancholy lifted. "Of course. Any particular colour or fashion?”
Borkin, who had silently watched from the side added, "I think that Comrade Stalin does a very nice line in tunics."
The driver broke their smiling circle with a whispered report to Borkin. "We must leave and get the Doctor to a field hospital, if we can find one.”
They packed up as much as they could and left the corpses to the forest to dispose of.
Chapter 52
Transylvania
She hated it. She knew she was doing the Devil’s bidding by breast feeding him but she didn’t have it in her to let him starve.
"He’s only a baby,” she chided herself and buried her conscience in a landslide of denial. However, every night the Dracyl came to visit the child and check on its health, and every night his presence drove home her profanity against her God.
The child was asleep now and she lay on her bed waiting for the Count to come. The lock clunked and the door swung open. Like a violent storm he strode in, arrogant and expecting. The train of vampire soldiers that followed him everywhere stood outside the door like timid in-laws waiting to see the child.
She shot off the bed and backed against the wall. It was a purely unconscious act that stemmed from her deep-seated fear, but the Count grinned like a gloating tiger when it happened.
Maria followed him in. They ignored Iullia and both stopped in front of the crib. The Count looked down straight-backed whereas Maria bent over the baby.
"How does he look?”
"He looks good. All will be well. The plans for the rite are falling into place as predicted. Soon you will be the master of the world and I will sit beside you.”
The Dracyl’s eyes flashed in triumph as he envisaged the fulfilling of the prophesies and the subjugation of the human race. "It’s got to be perfect, Demon. Nothing can be allowed to go wrong.”
Maria looked up from the crib. "It won’t be perfect because your brother is gone, the Book as well.”
She stopped as she saw irritation darken his features and decided on a different tact, "But I think destiny will throw its hand in and deliver them both to us. Your brother needs only be here in body but the Book must get here whole and intact”.
"I’ll send my men out to find it … ”
"No." Maria stopped him, the count looked annoyed. "Fate will deliver it to us, I’m sure of it. Trust in your destiny and the Book will obey.”
Maria didn’t know if that was the truth but it sounded convincing and the Dracyl looked mollified.
"Good," was all he answered. He turned to Iullia. "Look after him, woman, and I might let you live." He stamped his foot and, with a flourish of his cloak, was gone, leaving the two women alone.
Maria approached Iullia and stopped just before her. Stroking her hair like a mother to a child, she whispered in her ear, "He won’t let you live, girl. He’ll kill you with his own hands. Kill the child and have done with it.”
Iullia closed her eyes in despair and fear. It went against every grain in her body to even contemplate killing a baby but she knew that Maria spoke the truth. Yet somewhere deep inside, a spark of anger flickered and the flames of virtuous resentment swept through her.
Maria kept up her relentless monotone. "Kill the child and end this heresy. You know what will happen if you don’t?”
Iullia leaned vehemently into Maria’s face. "You only want me to kill the child to weaken the Dracyl. You’re just as evil as he is."
Maria acted like she’d been slapped and almost asked how she knew. Iullia saw the moment and pressed home her attack, her voice growing stronger with each word. "I know everything, Lilith, everything. I won’t kill this child for you, I won’t do your bidding so you can take over the Dracyl’s army. I will look after this child until the day of the ceremony comes.”
"For what? So a vampire can rule the earth?”
”He won’t rule anything because my God will stop him. I place my faith and trust into his hands and he will deny you, he will deny you both.”
The demon took a step back, "Ha! Your God is dead, girl. He’s given up on humanity.”
”Never!”
"Mankind, his favourite monkey, has annoyed him too much with its doubt and sinfulness”
"No!" said, her voice rising.
"You and your kind turned your back on him, not the other way around, girl. You have forsaken your only redemption and now all that awaits you is your devil’s hole.”
"Never!” Iullia screamed.
"Yes, and on the night of the ceremony, I will see you beg for your life and laugh when they kill you,” Maria spat back, her face just inches away.
A moment of silence spanned between them until Iullia broke the pause. "Never! You fear him, you fear the Lord God Almighty, I know it and he will deny you the power you crave.”
"Maybe once I was afraid, but now I’m whole again and I know no fear. I fear no one. No God can stand in my way because I have outlived them all.”
They shouted over each other, each one unwilling to give way until Maria gave Iullia a resounding slap. "You will be sorry you spurned me, girl, and I will laugh when they drag you down to be bled like a lamb on the altar.” She span around and stalked out.
Alone again with just the baby, Iullia looked at the open doorway. "Never,” she whispered to herself, "never.”
Chapter 53
Wewelsburg
December
It had taken over a month to restore the horses back to health after their journey from Romania. Of the original eight, they lost just the one, Tiger. Grand’s massive gelding had died not long after their arrival at the castle. Bernd took it as stoically as ever but they all knew the loss of his trusted mount had taken its toll on him.
"It’s a tragedy,” Henning explained to Smith. "In Dachau he was beaten nearly every day we were there and he took it like a rock. But this has affected him, this has really affected him.”
Smith could only raise his eyebrows and nod in phoney understanding. It seemed strange to him to be attached so closely to a horse. He couldn’t even remember being that attached to a person. "He’ll get a new one though," he lamely offered.
Henning shrugged. "It doesn’t work like that, though, does it? If only it really was that easy, eh?"
Smith wanted to ask why it doesn’t work but he held his tongue. The whole concept was perfectly alien to him and he guessed it would remain so until he died.
It occurred to him that here, among the enemy as it were, was the first time that he had actually experienced true camaraderie, not the hollow camaraderie of the mess, riddled with politics and hierarchy, but the simple comradeship of the normal soldier. They all got on with each other and were relying on each other to get the job done. He actively liked them and they liked him back. It felt good.
Had he really been so insular for all those years? As a child and adolescent, he had relied on his sport to make people like him but he had never had any friends. In the mess he hadn’t wanted any contact with his contemporaries because he thought them ridiculous and foppish. All the time he’d been laughing about the other members of the mess, had they been laughing at him he wondered?
He mulled over the situation as he brushed his horse down and decided it was probably just as bad in the German army. Just as rigid, just as disciplined and just as hierarchical as the British army, only with different uniforms and goals.
He concluded that the distinction was that here there were no careers to be made, no lives of his men to gamble. It was a straight fight with all hands on
deck. The chiefs fought alongside the Indians and every man held the same worth.
He stopped brushing and moved to look his horse in the face. "Never look a gift horse in the face,” he whispered to her, "but you look alright to me.”
She was a brown mare and that’s all he knew about her. She had a name but he had decided to christen her something that appealed to him. "You look after me and I’ll look after you, is that a deal, Chels?”
He called her Chelsea after probably the only intimacy he had ever really experienced in his life, with his first girlfriend. He looked into her large, pretty eyes and decided that they would be friends. He wanted to like her because he knew it would be reciprocated and he’d found that he really liked being liked.
The next day they gathered in the yard by the main gates. Czerolka watched wordlessly as they made their last adjustments. The horses were fully loaded for the first time but the weight didn’t seem to bother them too much. The pack horses took the bulk of the ammunition, spare weapons parts and food. They kept these to a bare minimum on their personal mounts, limiting their supplies to personal kit, weapons and ammo.
"I think we’re ready, old man," Rohleder called over to Czerolka.
"I doubt any of you are really ready, Rottenführer.”
"We’ll ride to Paderborn and walk them in through the town to cool them off. The trains are on the sidings ready,” Michael announced.
A solemn mood descended around them as the moment hit them all. This was it. Czerolka recognised the feeling and nodded at the recollection. They had new-found uniforms, their weapons were modern and their faces were young, however, the emotions they were experiencing were as ancient as man himself.
Fear thrives on the contemplation of the unknown and he knew that each man must now face his fear and beat it. He hadn’t wanted to say anything at all but to wish them all the best, nevertheless he realised that if they left without him addressing them, he would regret it.
"Brother von der Heyde, I would like to speak to the men if that is alright with you.” Michael looked surprised but quickly gave his assent.
The old Librarian hobbled silently up the stairs to be at head height to the mounted troops who looked at him in silence.
"Men, when I took my oath as a Brother in the Order, I was convinced I was joining an honourable and righteous movement,” he started. "Now, sadly, all that remains of that spirit are the two comrades who ride with you. I would give my all to do battle one last time with the forces of evil but I know that would be unreasonable and vain. So I stand before you, a man who would gladly die for the cause but who is not allowed to do so, a man who envies your mission but knows he can think of nobody better to finish the job started all those millennia ago. You have all been given the best we could give by way of training and equipment. Now you must go and use all that you’ve learnt to break the evil that threatens to engulf the world. You are the last bastions of humankind and I beg you to bear that in mind when you ride to destroy the Dracyl. Scorch the words 'Deliver us from evil' on your hearts and destroy this atrocity in the name of mankind.”
A moment of silence passed and Rohleder, the cynical and jaded Rottenführer from the red light district in Hanover, rode forward and turned his horse to face the troops. Wordlessly he pulled his sword and held it aloft, looking each one in the eye. With his new uniform, his polished sword and the steel of resolve in his heart, he looked the ideal of Nazi propaganda, only now he fought for his species and not for an immoral political ideal.
"Deliver us from evil!" he shouted brandishing the silver blade. "Deliverance!” And the cry was taken up by the rest.
Their eyes alight with the fire of belief, they shouted their battle cry over and over again, ever louder, ever more ecstatic, and loudest among them was Matheus Nau. "Deliverance!”
Czerolka smiled, for he saw no trepidation there now. They had grasped their calling and he knew they could now only fail by misfortune and not by fear.
Chapter 54
Romanian Forest
They were ready to go back. Reuben had suffered a bad concussion but was better after having spent three weeks in recuperation. They had much to thank Borkin for as he had arranged their accommodation and rations.
As promised, he had spoken with the General who had not been too grief-stricken about the loss of his Political Officer.
"So the bastard’s dead, eh?”
”Yes. Comrade General, killed by the werewolf.”
"Right, well let’s forget the comrade bit then, shall we, Lieutenant? A werewolf, you say? Vampires, werewolves - it’ll be zombies and witches next." He shook his head in disdain.
"Er, General, about the Jews ... what do we do with them?”
General Yakov Kurakin pondered a moment. "Can’t say I like Jews much, Borkin. I don’t really care what they do. Let them go." He dismissed Borkin and looked back down at his paperwork. Borkin stood his ground and waited.
"Is there something else, Lieutenant?”
"Sir, the older Jew is ill. He may not regain consciousness if he doesn’t receive medical attention.”
"So? I have thousands of men under my command, why should I be bothered about one sick Jew?”
"Sir, he was the one that alerted us to the whereabouts of the Fascist atrocity camp. If he dies, we may have no other witness for the trial of the perpetrators.”
The General nodded in understanding. "Good point, Borkin. See to it that he receives the proper medical attention. I can’t have my star witness kicking the bucket before the trial. Are you sure he knows where it is?”
”Sir, we plan to go there as soon as he is fit.”
"Where is it on the map? Show me and I’ll send someone there myself.”
"He didn’t say, Sir. If you remember, the Commissar wanted to go there but he was killed.”
Kurakin smiled knowingly. "Yes. I thought you’d want to keep that to yourself." He looked Borkin up and down as if making a decision. "He was an arrogant bastard, that damned Commie. You’re not a Bolshevik, are you, Borkin?”
Borkin paused before choosing his reply, "I am a patriot, General.”
"I thought as much,” he smiled. "Don’t trust the Communists unless you have to. They’ll stab you in the back as soon as look at you. They’re all bastards to a man. Vodka?” He produced a bottle from under his desk and poured out two very large measures. The General drank it down in one and Borkin, instinctively realising that he was sealing a pact, followed his example. Then the General told him what was to happen. "See to it, Borkin. Get him fixed up and find me that camp. I’m not in the Party's good books at the moment but if I get an atrocity camp under my belt, I’ll see to it that we both do well out of it. I’ll make sure the area around it is left alone until you’re ready. That’ll be all for now, Lieutenant. The next time I see you will be the night before you leave. Don’t say a word to anybody and don’t trust anybody. These walls have ears. Good day.”
Three weeks later they were ready. In those three weeks Reuben had been nursed back to health and Stephanie had grown closer to Borkin. He was kind, reliable and trustworthy, qualities that had always attracted her, not to mention good looking. She had contemplated starting a relationship with him until a chance meeting with Reuben’s doctor had changed her circumstances.
"Isn’t it obvious, girl?" he’d asked after she had told him about her fainting spells and sickness. His German was good but she could tell he didn’t like speaking it. He felt her stomach and shook his head.
"Am I undernourished, Doctor?”
"Undernourished and pregnant. Eat as much as you can and look after yourself. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have soldiers with real problems to attend to.”
Stephanie was too dazed by the news to say anything. Her mind raced with the weight of the development - pregnancy, motherhood, a child and a second chance. She hadn’t even contemplated being pregnant, but now it was out she knew he was right. There could only have been one father, Rohleder. She knew now that she had to
find him. He had to be alive and she had to find him.
Borkin, who had patiently waited for her to make a decision on them both, took it in his stride. "He must be some man, this Fascist," he said when she spoke with him.
"Olaf, he isn’t a Nazi, as you are not a Communist. Please understand, perhaps I was unfair to you for letting us get so close, but it would be more than unfair to hide his child from him. You are good but so is he. It’s just that this is his child, and for all the bad luck he’s been dealt with in life, he deserves this.”
"I don’t lose easily but I see that you have thought this out, and because of what I feel for you, I’ll respect your decision.”
She felt the tears welling up at his unhappiness but she wiped them away and took him in her arms.
"You are a good man, Olaf Borkin. I have only ever said that to one other and he’s the father of my baby. I hope that means something to you.”
He smiled sadly down at her, knowing it would never be. "It does, Stephanie Stern, it does.”
The next day they left the headquarters. Because of General Kurakin’s political unreliability, the Division had no orders to advance until a new political officer was detailed to his staff, so consequently they were still at the same location they had returned to three weeks earlier.
They were three, a disillusioned Communist, an elderly Professor and a pregnant woman, mounted on the oldest nags in the Division. They owned one knife and one rifle between them.
On the edge of the forest they heard a slight growl that set the horses on edge. There was nothing to see but they knew what it meant.
"Where is he?" Borkin asked, not without a tinge of concern.
"He’s near. He’ll come when he wants to,” Stephanie answered.
Reuben nodded. "Or when we need him.”
The first flakes of a snowfall fell lightly around them, mirroring the mood of their departure. They rode on in silence, oblivious to the weather, each with their own thoughts and each with their own agendas.
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