ALLIANCE (Descendants Saga)

by James Somers

  “What is all of this anyway?” he asked Mengele.

  The doctor was going over the arrangement, looking entirely pleased with what he had put together for his demonstration.

  “I have come up with a new serum based upon your blood,” Josef said proudly. “Animal trials on rats were very interesting, but I wanted you to be here for the first human trial.”

  “And this is related to your proposal?” Adolf asked.

  “Yes,” Josef said proudly. “However, this is only an experiment with the serum. Any effects will subside by tomorrow.”

  “It’s not permanent?”

  “Not yet,” Josef explained. “For permanent changes to be made, I would have to introduce the serum through a viral carrier. My plan would utilize a rhinovirus in order to promote speedy transmission from host to host.”

  “A rhinovirus?” Adolf asked dubiously.

  “The same virus that carries what we refer to as the common cold,” he clarified. “No one has yet come up with a cure for it. The Allies will be helpless.”

  “And then whatever happens will be permanent?”

  Mengele grinned knowingly. “The serum which I will introduce here,” he said, indicating the bottle of blood, “will cause his tissues—muscles, organs, even his brain—to be transformed temporarily. Think of it like a boy eating sugar. That rush of energy does not last. Neither will this because it is not introduced into the cells in a way that effects fundamental change. The virus carrier can do this when the time comes to unleash it upon the Allies.”

  Adolf nodded thoughtfully. “But where would this virus be released? Certainly, not on the battlefield. If they infected our soldiers as well as their own—”

  Mengele was nodding. “Correct,” he interjected. “A battlefield would not accomplish our aims. It would be introduced into their cities. Transmission would occur person to person through body fluid transfers. I’ve already conducted an experiment using caged rats. The entire dozen were infected or dead within seconds.”

  “They killed one another?”

  Mengele turned to look at the label he had placed upon the blood bottle. Adolf followed his gaze curiously. A four letter word written in capital letters.

  “I’ve labeled this new variant strain a little differently,” Josef said. “The Berserker Strain was focused upon control. The ability of a soldier to unleash his fury in tightly controlled bursts. The man remained. But this variant extinguishes the man completely. He is left ravening and mad like a beast, killing indiscriminately. Well, at least the uninfected. They seem to recognize one another as like minded and then work in concert, though they will kill one another if food becomes scarce, or if there is too much competition.”

  Adolf read the word aloud, wondering what in the world Mengele had spawned from his blood. “Rage.”

  Symptomatic

  For a short while it had seemed like nothing at all had been administered to the Jew lying upon Josef Mengele’s operating table. Adolf had watched as the doctor opened the IV tubing valve, allowing the blood to flow into and throughout the man’s emaciated form. One half hour later, nothing of consequence had occurred.

  But then the man grew fevered. Adolf sat at a small table with Mengele, drinking coffee. The room grew noticeably warmer. The doctor had noticed this also. Adolf turned to look at the patient.

  Josef was grinning like the cat that ate the canary. “It’s beginning,” he said.

  The Jew was flush now and trembling. His arms and legs were bound to the table with thick leather straps. Presumably, the man would thrash about as the serum overcame him. Josef stood expectantly. Adolf unconsciously did likewise.

  He wasn’t fearful of what might happen. After all, Adolf had faced far worse things—creatures whose unbridled fury would cause an entire platoon of hardened soldiers to run screaming in terror. These he had killed with his bare hands in his younger days.

  The patient’s trembling now turned to full blown tetanus, his muscles straining and pulling his quivering form rigid. He cried out then, bloody slobber spraying as his jaw clenched down tight upon his tongue. The end of the appendage fell onto his bare chest as the Jew’s head thrashed back and forth, his eyes wide and wild with rage.

  Adolf backed away, remembering Josef’s words about the transmission of this disease through contact with bodily fluids. He knew he should have been immune—the serum had been derived from his own blood—but that knowledge was little comfort while watching the man transform into an enraged beast.

  “Stop this,” Adolf said suddenly.

  Mengele looked queerly at him. “Sir?”

  “Stop this at once,” Adolf said more forcefully.

  The doctor seemed not to know what to make of his Fuhrer’s reaction to the experiment. Everything was going according to plan.

  “Please do not be distressed,” Mengele said. “He’s only a Jew.”

  Adolf gave Josef an incredulous look. “I’m not worried about him,” he bellowed over the growing din. “I just don’t want it loose.”

  As if to punctuate this concern, the right wrist strap came loose from its mount on the operating table. One hand was now free. The Jew came up off of the table as much as was possible. His legs were still bound at the ankles and his left wrist also.

  Adolf and Mengele both backed away now.

  “I thought you said those straps would hold it,” Adolf said accusingly. “Put him down now.”

  The doctor turned to one of his work tables, fiddling with a vial of some drug that Adolf did not recognize. Josef inserted a syringe and needle combination through the stopper on the bottle and withdrew a small amount of fluid. He put down the vial again and held the needle out before him.

  Looking at Adolf he said, “This is cyanide.”

  The ravening Jew was reaching frantically for them, scrabbling on the table top, trying desperately to get to them. Bloody mucus spilled over his lower lip, down across its chin and onto the emaciated bare chest. Behind the blood-washed teeth, the stump of the gnawed tongue waved back and forth at them like a severed tentacle.

  “Do it,” Adolf hissed.

  Josef hesitated. He wasn’t sure where he might get hold of the man without coming into reach of his free arm. The man was flailing hard to be free of the restraints.

  Adolf noticed the doctor’s hesitation. “You’ve inoculated yourself, haven’t you?”

  “Of course,” Josef said. “I just don’t want to have my hand taken off in the process.”

  Adolf rolled his eyes. He reached for the syringe and took it carefully from Mengele’s hand. “I’ll do it then,” he said.

  Coming to the foot of the bed, Adolf shoved the needle straight through the bottom of the struggling man’s foot. He held it there for a moment, puzzled. Mengele’s patient had not reacted to a piece of metal nearly the size of a nail being shoved into the arch of his foot. He was still thrashing, but nothing had changed.

  Josef was watching this also. He had seen similar results in the rats he had given the serum to. They ignored pain. Almost as if the brain could not comprehend the sensation any longer. He also knew what would happen when the cyanide was injected.

  Adolf depressed the syringe plunger, forcing the cyanide into the man’s body. He withdrew the needle and tossed it back onto the table, waiting. They watched the writhing, thrashing Jew. After minutes, nothing had happened.

  “Are you sure you drew up cyanide?” Adolf asked when there was no change in the man. “He should have been dead in under a minute.”

  “Seconds,” Josef said, grinning at his patient.

  Adolf glanced over at him. “You knew?”

  Mengele nodded. “Medications have very little effect. Poisons are the same. The rats could not be killed apart from catastrophic physical damage.”

  A dull cracking of bone and tearing of sinew resounded throughout the room. The raving maniac on the table had torn his shoulder out of joint completely in his attempt to free himself. The wrist strap still held firm.
Now the arm dangled stiffly from skin pulled taut at the shoulder. The joint had been severed, but the elastic skin was still intact, giving the beastly man more maneuverability without freeing him.

  Josef nodded thoughtfully. “Amazing isn’t it?” he asked. “Even then he didn’t notice the pain. An entire shoulder joint pulled apart and he doesn’t care a thing for it.”

  The Fuhrer was not as amused as Mengele.

  “Enough,” Adolf said. He removed a long black-bladed dagger from his belt beneath the lab coat. He strode quickly to the man, fainted with his outstretched left hand to draw the maniac’s attention, and then struck down into the chest with his knife. Blood boiled from the terrible wound, but the man kept fighting, trying to get his teeth into Adolf’s arm.

  He had stabbed directly into the man’s heart, but the man kept fighting. Slowly, and only after a great deal of blood had poured out of his chest, did the crazed Jew begin to lose his momentum. His body spasmed finally and then went slack. Until that final moment, his teeth had continued gnashing, his hands reaching, wanting to get at them until his last breath expired.

  Adolf stood with the dagger in his bloody gloved hands for a long moment. Josef stood with him as they stared at the corpse on the operating table. The eyes were open wide but now still. The one arm was disjointed at the shoulder, the head of the humerus pushing hard at the skin as the body had collapsed in a twisted state. The ankles were bloody also, the skin sheared away on the leather straps.

  “Sir?” Josef finally asked. “Are you all right?”

  Adolf started, seeming to wake from a dream. He held up the dagger, looked at it and then let it fall to the floor where it clattered against the tiles, splattering them with drops of coagulating blood. He wasn’t breathless, or terrified, only very still.

  When he spoke finally, he said, “What happens to the world, if this cannot be contained?”

  “We will only use it on the Allies,” Josef stated. “We can keep it contained. In fact, we can contain it geographically by unleashing it in North America first. The Allies cannot stand against us without the involvement of the Americans. They’ll have to recall their troops immediately in order to deal with the growing outbreak.”

  “Matters at home would take precedent over Europe,” Adolf said, furthering the thought. “But then what? Leave North America as a plague continent?”

  “The vaccine can be synthesized from your blood, my Fuhrer,” Josef said. “While you live, the effects can be reversed.”

  Adolf smiled at this. “But by then their governments will have collapsed and their cities will be in ruins. All the better a state for my army to come across the sea and take over once I’ve conquered Europe.”

  “Exactly,” Josef said confidently.

  Adolf looked back at the dead patient. There was still one roadblock to implementing this plan. He could still be overruled by the Fallen. It was time to speak with his father’s father. He only hoped the angel would listen to reason.

  Permission

  The Mercedes-Benz 770K staff car trundled along the winding road of the Olbersalzberg in the Bavarian Alps toward the Berghof. Hitler’s personal home near Berchtesgaden had long remained his favorite. However, the war had made security an increasing problem.

  He noticed with disdain the barracks which housed many SS soldiers in order to maintain constant patrols around the Berghof. The smoke machines which had been installed to hide his chalet style home from enemy bombers were, thankfully, not in operation today.

  Truth be told, Adolf understood why these measures had been deemed necessary. He was the Fuhrer of the greatest nation in the world. He must be kept safe. Not to mention that the Allies were closing in upon Germany.

  He had even taken his own more personal measures in order to avoid assassination by both human and Descendant agents. He and his beloved mistress, Anna Parks, each had their own body doubles. Using his mental control over her, Adolf had caused Anna to accept the name Eva Braun. She was known publicly by this name.

  The real Eva Braun happened to be a different, less lovely woman altogether. She had been paired with Adolf’s doppelganger and the two had hit it off quite nicely. They might have even fallen in love by now, but Adolf cared not the least. Their purpose was to look and act like Adolf and Anna so that it remained much less likely for assassins to see success.

  These days, Adolf rarely made public appearances at all. It could even be said that his stand-in was running much of the war effort on his behalf. He might have worried about this were it not for the fact that he had hand picked the man for the job.

  Karlheinz Schuschnigg was an intelligent man and loyal to his Fuhrer. He had been consenting to the extensive plastic surgery which had been required to transform his appearance and he enjoyed the luxury and seeming power the position afforded him. After all, he was, for all intensive purposes, one of the most powerful men in the world now, even if it was only for the sake of a ruse.

  He was allowed to use the Berghof, when Adolf was not scheduled to be there, and any other home or convenience that the Fuhrer had been afforded. They convened together regularly in secret and through correspondence sent between them by way of Adolf’s personal valet, Heinz Linge. Despite even these securities, he had placed Karlheinz under his personal mental control just as he had with Anna and many others. He would obey him without question, to the death if he required.

  Adolf’s staff car passed through the gate with its two flanking guard houses. Two soldiers saluted with arms raised as his car passed between them. The Mercedes meandered along the drive until finally pulling before the house itself.

  Heinz was already waiting to open the door. When Adolf exited the vehicle, his valet closed the door and followed him inside. He walked on through the entrance hall, passing curious specimens of cacti in majolica pots. He had taken to collecting them as a dalliance, fascinated by their prickly tenacity, surviving in conditions where others perished. He fancied himself to be of a similar nature.

  The corridor took him past the large dining room paneled in costly cembra pine, his private study complete with telephone switchboard, and the entrance to the Great Hall. One of his favorite rooms in the house, it featured a collection of Teutonic furniture as well as a large world globe. He imagined controlling every country whose image had been inscribed upon it. An expansive red marble fireplace took up most of a side wall like the very mouth of Hell, and on another Hollywood movies were sometimes shown from an adjoining projection room.

  “Miss Parks has been asking after you since her arrival, sir,” Heinz said.

  “Where is she?” he asked.

  “She is walking with the dogs,” Heinz replied. “May I relay a message to her?”

  “Only that I will see her at Dinner, Heinz,” he said. “Until then, I’ll take some time alone on the terrace to unwind.”

  Heinz nodded. “Very good, sir. I shall inform her and lay out one of your evening suits.”

  “Has there been any recent communiqué from Karl?”

  “None sir,” Heinz reported. “He is on his way to a conference at the Reichstag. When he telephones, I shall relay all that he says.”

  Adolf nodded and went on, walking toward the glass doors leading to the expansive terrace. Heinz withdrew without another word. The Reichstag in Berlin may have been the seat of German power, but Adolf was fully confident in Karl to represent him there.

  Adolf pushed through the doors, walking out onto the terrace. He was afforded a sweeping view which included snow capped mountains in his former home of Austria. Each time he looked upon them he remembered his beloved mother. And he remembered the Jews who had killed her there, renewing the fire in his heart.

  He stood there stone still like a statue, allowing the breeze to wash over him. His mind was a storm of possibilities, survival his primary concern at this point. How long will I be able to stand in this place? he wondered. How long before the end comes?

  Two figures stood upon the terrace unseen, watchin
g the man known by the world as Adolf Hitler. His hands were clasped behind his back which was held very straight. His pressed uniform presented him as the brave leader of a self proclaimed master race.

  “Ah, the noble human form,” Southresh intoned with a doe-eyed expression of melancholy. “I believe I might actually wretch.”

  Lucifer stood with him, but he did not comment on the remark. He just watched the son of his son. Southresh noticed the disappointment there in his expression. It wasn’t because the man had failed to become the villain he had always envisioned. Rather his disapproval stemmed from the fact that Adolf was not to be. He would not become the architect of the world system that Lucifer still desired to create.

  “Are we here to kill him?” Southresh asked when Lucifer remained silent.

  “That won’t be necessary,” he said finally.

  “No, I suppose the Allies will shortly dispose of him,” Southresh said.

  “Perhaps,” he replied coolly.

  “Of course they will. He may have won a few battles, but he’s lost the war. Now, it’s only a matter of time.”

  Southresh stood invisible in the human host of Toshima, the Japanese assassin. “You could let me deal with him.”

  “I never remove a piece from the board,” Lucifer said.

  “More chess metaphors?”

  “He could still prove useful, even if his end is near. Besides, you have enough toys to play with. What of the girl?”

  “I’ve led her on one goose chase after another,” Southresh said, grinning. “She’s tenacious. I’ll give the little imp that much. She’s chased me all over Japan with that cursed sword.”

  “Then I suggest you return to the game there,” Lucifer said. “Germany will be lost, but Japan may still present difficulties for the Allies. The Japanese value victory over their own lives.”

  “That all depends on whether you’re the one giving it or not,” Southresh said. “You don’t see the nobles crashing their planes into enemy war ships. Humans are all the same. Give them power and they find more value in their own skins.”