by James Somers
Cole was attempting not to make it sound like an accusation, especially after having words only a moment ago. It was, however, difficult to make it come out any other way. She had been gone more than present since they had come to live in the United States, always traveling abroad, tracking her elusive prey.
Her father and Cole had often spoken of this, both of them worrying for her safety. No doubt, as this behavior continued, with no relief brought about by success, Sadie would naturally grow more bold in her attempts. Her own safety would be sacrificed for any last ditch gambit, and Cole privately wondered when the day would come that she would not return at all.
Sadie nodded without replying, as though she had been insulted. “I’ve told my father already,” she said. “I’m traveling to Japan.”
“Not Berlin?”
“Southresh is in Japan,” she said. “I believe he is still using his previous host, Toshima. I have intelligence to that effect. No doubt he has the Emperor’s ear. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was the reason why the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor two years ago. Who else could have persuaded them to risk bringing the Americans into the war by so brazen a move?”
Cole considered it, nodding slightly. “I’m sure you’re right,” he replied. However, he wasn’t interested in this line of conversation. He wanted to hold her, to persuade her not to leave again. Not even because it was Southresh she intended to find, but because they were drifting apart and it seemed that soon there would be no recovering the closeness they had once known.
Instead of speaking his true feelings, however, Cole backed away from them, retreating to the shameful tactic of using her father’s health against her. “He’s not well, you know?”
Sadie looked up at him. She probably smelled a rat in his comment, but it could not be denied that what Cole said was true. And, equally true, was the fact that, as Brody’s daughter, she shouldn’t be gallivanting about Europe and Asia while he was in such a state. All of these things had, by and by, been stated before, either by Cole or Brody himself—all to none effect. There seemed little point in stating it all again now.
She took two steps toward him, tears held welling in her eyes. “You know that I have to go, Cole,” she said.
He sighed heavily now, reaching out to take hold of her shoulders. “I only know that you will go. You do not have to do this.”
“Yes, I must,” she said. She did not draw away from him. “If I do not avenge them, then I will have no peace. What kind of wife would I make then? What kind of mother?”
“Yet, if you persist in this savage anger, you risk your life and any we could have together.” Cole replied more insistently now. “I have been waiting, Sadie, waiting for years in the hope that we might come together.”
“I’m sorry if I’m not worth waiting for,” she said angrily, half-heartedly attempting to pull away.
“You know very well, that is not what I meant. You only mean to deflect my statements because you are unwilling to face the facts.”
“And what are the facts?” she asked, looking into his eyes steadfastly.
The welling anger ebbed away from him. Cole smiled a little, feeling exasperated. His mounting bluster deflated. “I love you,” he said. “I have for as long as I can remember.”
“I’ve loved you as well, Cole. You’ve always been like a brother to me.”
Shaking his head, he said, “No. I love you. I want to marry you, to raise a family with you. I’ve made no secret about my feelings for you.”
“I know,” she said.
“And do you not also love me? Do you not want to be my wife, to have children together, to give up all of this warfare for a better life?”
The tears which had been building now rolled down her cheeks as she stared into his eyes. Sadie nodded slightly, choking on her next words a little. “I do, Cole,” she answered finally. “But not yet. Not until this is finished. I cannot give myself to anyone right now. I would only hurt you.”
“It’s too late to worry about hurting me,” Cole said. “Every time you leave, I watch the woman I love placing her life and our future into jeopardy. Do you not feel that we are pulling apart? How long can that last?”
“Are you saying that you won’t wait for me?” she asked, genuinely now and not just for spite.
“I’m saying, Sadie, that I fear you will pull so far away from me that you will not care if you return or not. My only hope is that this has not happened yet, that there remains some part of you that wants a life with me and is unwilling to give that future up.”
She softened then and smiled weakly. Leaning forward she placed a delicate kiss upon his lips. “I haven’t given up that future,” she said. “Only, please don’t give up on me. I still have to leave. But my leaving is with the hope of finishing this course so that I may go on to the life you describe, a wonderful life that I would very much like to have. Can you wait for me?”
Cole tried to smile, but it was half-hearted at best. Releasing her, he said, “I’m not going anywhere. I’ll look after your father.”
She nodded and then gave him another small kiss, as though to reassure him of her intentions. Cole received it, but there was little conviction. He did not suppose for one moment that she would ever stop this madness. She would hunt them until they took her life, and he would never see her again.
Auschwitz , 1945
“Twins Out!” shouted the doctor. He walked the line, his white linen physician’s lab coat flapping behind him. The prisoners in the camp had the notion that this made the doctor appear like an angel with white wings. An angel of death.
Doctor Josef Mengele had taken the position here at Auschwitz nearly six months ago at the behest of the Fuhrer. His experiments required fresher subjects. Auschwitz was receiving trains regularly. The ghettos had been emptied by now as the Fuhrer sought to eradicate the hated Jews.
Hitler had come to Germany as a savior to their people, rallying the Aryan race against the lesser species of men inhabiting the world. Adolf had shown a particular malice for the Jews, something deeper than the scientific evidences found in Darwin’s theories which clearly showed men unequal.
These matters of science had been enough for Mengele. In fact, it was the German race that rightly deserved to sit atop the world as the pinnacle of Natural Selection. It was a proven fact.
Of course, there were doubters, like the Japanese, who wrongly assumed that they should be the masters of the world. They were mistaken, of course. However, those matters would be settled once this war was won by the Axis powers. The proper order would come to be once Hitler proved himself against the Allies. Despite recent setbacks and miscalculations, he still trusted that the Reich would prevail.
In the meantime, Josef’s experiments were necessary to this cause. He had been appointed to the task of perfecting a serum based upon the peculiar properties of Adolf’s blood. The Berserker Strain was his Fuhrer’s pride and joy. Still, there were also his personal dalliances—his research regarding twins, for example, remained his particular fancy.
He felt that he was on the verge of important discoveries, if only he could reserve time for his own pursuits. Unfortunately, the Fuhrer was scheduled to arrive today. His expectations would be high. They always were. The matter of side effects had never been resolved. There was always some destructive problem, whether blindness, or catastrophic organ failure, hemorrhagic complications.
The subjects never lasted. Even if some were useful for a time, as the blind soldier had been not long ago, they all ultimately ended in failure. Adolf was growing impatient with him. Only his great skill with the manipulation of viruses kept him alive. Truth be told, the Fuhrer needed him.
Emaciated figures did their best to stand at attention. They kept their expressions neutral, their faces downcast lest the doctor’s stern derision cause one of the soldiers to step forward and shoot them dead upon the spot. This was not an uncommon occurrence. No doubt today’s inspection would send the elderly and infirm straight
to the gas chambers.
But this was life, such as it was. Those living it still clung to some meager hope that the God of Israel would somehow deliver them from the genocide come upon them. Though, day by day, as they toiled at useless work beneath the ash cloud from the ovens, that hoped waned.
Mengele searched the lines. There were no twins in this lot so far, and he was nearly finished. This perturbed him. He wanted to at least secure one set of new subjects before the Fuhrer arrived.
A line of cars rumbled toward the camp upon the only road in or out. Staff cars, adorned with the small flags above the headlights bearing the eagle of the Reich paused long enough for the camp gates to be opened. The soldiers opened to the Fuhrer hastily.
Mengele sighed heavily. His time was up. Adolf would demand his full attention now. Frustrated, he handed his clipboard to a subordinate. He was angry and ruffled at the intrusion as well as the frustrating demands placed upon him for results that stubbornly eluded him.
“And these?” his lab assistant asked, looking over the lineup.
Josef glanced at the assembled Jews. None of them dared to look at him. They stood in the cold, shivering helplessly, their ragged breath hanging in the air as snow fell gently upon them.
“Send them to the showers,” Josef said indignantly.
“All of them?” his assistant asked.
“Of course, all of them,” he replied. “I have no time for them now.”
Mengele trudged away, leaving the lineup. He walked toward the long building which served as his laboratory. There was no need to meet the Fuhrer’s car at the front of the camp. His driver would drop him off at the laboratory momentarily anyway. The commandant might be expecting an official inspection, but Hitler left such matters to others. The Berserker Strain was the real reason he had come.
Adolf waited. The good doctor was testing his patience, and it was wearing thin. Results should have been forthcoming by now. It had been too long since Adolf had used one of Mengele’s experiments to destroy the site in the Amazon Jungle where his late aunt, Luxana, had established a kingdom for the sprites. He wanted a solution to his mounting concerns with the war. Matters had taken a turn for the worse of late.
However, the problem of Mengele’s serum causing catastrophic physiologic problems to his patients had thus far never been resolved. As powerful as the subjects briefly became, they remained useless for real war. Blind soldiers would simply not last in the midst of mortar explosions and machine gun fire, neither those whose bones became so brittle that they shattered, or the many who bled out from every orifice until they ceased to function.
And those were only the best case scenarios. Many others had suffered sudden heart attacks, liver failure, he couldn’t count how many strokes, and then their was the one that had killed several SS officers before blowing his own brains out. It seemed like a disaster awaited the project at every turn.
Nearly two years had passed without sufficient progress from Mengele. He pondered strangling the man, but thought better of it. The doctor was, after all, a genius in his own right, despite his morbid curiosity.
It was now 1945, and the Allied forces were closing the noose about Adolf’s neck. His intelligence department indicated that the Americans were very close to completion of a terrible super weapon. Adolf had his scientists working toward an Atomic weapon, but setbacks abounded here as well.
Still, there was the serum. His berserker rage, unleashed during his battle within the coliseum at Trinity years ago, had given him the idea in the first place. If this power could be isolated and then carried to host subjects through a viral strain then a super human army could be developed to win Adolf the war.
After all, atomic weapons were not ideal. Scorched earth made for a poor empire. But men could be set loose anywhere. There was nothing like an army of men who fought with such terrible rage and violence that no one could stand before them. These would fight to the death without fear, and if the massacre of the sprites was any indicator, they would kill many before they fell in battle.
Mengele appeared at the vaulted door to his laboratory. “If you are ready, my Fuhrer?”
Adolf stood, now wearing a similar white lab coat along with a surgical mask and a pair of protective goggles. The doctor handed him a pair of rubber gloves when they stepped inside the door. There was probably no danger to a Descendant from the strain. The necessary components had come from a Descendant in Adolf, but caution never hurt.
The vault sealed itself with a hydraulic hiss. On the far end of Josef’s laboratory sat an electron microscope with which the doctor could manipulate his viruses. A collection of test tubes and other scientific brick-a-brack sat on a workstation nearby. Closer to the middle of the chamber Mengele had ordered a surgery to be built.
This was not quarantined from the rest of his lab, but had rather become the center of it. A patient lay awake strapped to the operating table. Adolf observed the Jew impassively. He felt no pity for the creature. As far as he was concerned, this was better than that race deserved.
He still held the Jews responsible for the death of his mother. They had been the ones watching him. They had been the ones who called him demon in their native Hebrew. If he accomplished nothing else by this war, he meant to see them all eradicated.
The side wall was lined with clear acrylic cylinders, each large enough to allow three grown men to stand side by side within them. The cylinders were presently occupied with what Adolf could only deem recent failures of the doctor’s experiments.
At the top of each cylinder was a system of tubes that could pump oxygen in, or remove it altogether. Other substances could also be introduced—the Berserker Strain for example. It delivered as a colorless, odorless vapor. Several days of incubating then produced these wretched creatures. Adolf recoiled from closer inspection. He had just eaten a healthy lunch and wished to retain it..
Only one of the subjects appeared to still be alive. The other dozen had expired in one way or another, leaving unsightly messes within their cages. The last was busy thumping his cranium against his cylinder’s transparent inner wall. Already his white skull was exposed. Torn flesh, little more than bloody pulp by now, was splattered against the acrylic. This beastly man had gone quite mad and was intent on beating his own brains out.
Adolf glared at the specimens. “Is this the progress you promised me?”
“That all depends upon the results you hope to achieve, my Fuhrer,” he replied, paying close attention to his patient strapped down upon the stainless steel operating table.
Adolf rounded on the doctor. “What I want from you is an army that will fight to the death, furiously destroying my enemies.” He stepped toward Mengele at his operating table. “In case you haven’t realized it yet, this is all about to come crashing down around our heads. The Allies are closing in.”
“Exactly, my Fuhrer,” Mengele said. He swallowed hard, noticing Hitler’s clenching fists. The Fuhrer had been known to kill men with his bare hands. Josef did not wish to be his next victim. He would tread carefully as usual. “If your army has proven incapable of defeating the Allies then perhaps it is time to let the Allies destroy themselves.”
“Explain,” Adolf demanded.
“Well, sir, so far I’ve had no luck finding a way to make mortal men like you,” Mengele said. “You are quite unique.”
In his younger days, Adolf might have received such flattery with a grin. However, this situation with the war had seared his ego. He was close to losing what opportunity for world dominion he had left.
Already, he had lost his close contact with his angelic benefactor. Lucifer had not been nearly so attentive since the war effort began to go badly for him. It was just one more sign of things to come. Adolf was near to desperation.
“My uniqueness has little to do with this,” Adolf said. “I’d call it simple incompetence, Doctor. I’ve obviously put my faith in the wrong man for this job.”
“With all due respect, my Fuhrer, I am
the only man for this job,” Josef said. “As I was saying, what could not be done one way, might still be accomplished another way. What we’ve thus far considered to be detrimental side effects may have been exactly what we should have been looking for all along.”
Adolf grew angry. He gestured stiffly toward the acrylic cylinder where the test subject was still madly crashing his skull against the inner wall. “You’re telling me that will win the war for me? A man beating his brains out?”
“What if that man was your enemy beating his brains out?” Josef asked. “Doing so instead of fighting against you?”
Adolf paused, considering the doctor’s words.
“Infect them with this?” Adolf asked.
Mengele smiled. “Precisely,” he said. “What better way to win the war?”
“But I wish to rule mankind,” Adolf said, “not destroy them!”
“Destroy some so that others may be ruled,” Mengele bargained. “It is not the world that resists, my Fuhrer. Only the Allies threaten us.”
Adolf considered this further. He did need some sort of solution. If nothing more was forthcoming, he would lose to the Allies and either be imprisoned or executed. And, if Lucifer persisted in his unwillingness to help him turn the tide, what choice did he really have?
“I wanted to show you something interesting today,” Mengele said, turning to the patient waiting upon the operating table.
Adolf gave closer attention to the setup Mengele had assembled around the bed. The man, a Jew taken from the camp prisoners, was gaunt of frame and pale of skin. His eyes remained fixed upon some set point, stoically disregarding him and the doctor. Whether he was sedated or not Adolf could not say.
From a pole with a rolling base, hung a bottle of blood which was attached by a tube and needle running to the man’s arm into his vein. As yet, none of the blood was flowing. Beside the bed a box shaped device appeared to be monitoring the patient’s heart rate and possibly his blood pressure, though Adolf was not familiar with medical equipment and could not be sure.