by David Bishop
"I've enough strength left to see you damned," Eisenstein snarled.
A fresh batch of explosions rocked the cabin, landing to the east and to the west. They were close enough to shake dust from the ceiling over our heads, making everyone look up. Like the walls of the cabin, the roof was made of rough-hewn logs. The wall dividing us from the main part of the building did reach all the way up to the roof, but there were small gaps between the wall and the roof logs. Above us was a thick cloud of mist that must have been slowly gathering during all the time we were talking with Constanta.
"Bojemoi. It's a trick!" I shouted. "He's been taunting us so we wouldn't notice the others slipping into here!"
"Get ready!" Eisenstein shouted, throwing the crossbow and bolts across the room to me. Sophia grabbed her drinking flask and threw a handful of holy water into Constanta's face, burning the skin from his skull. He screamed in pain, summoning the other vampyr down to protect him. By the time they had coalesced into human form, the three of us had backed into a corner of the bedroom where all the other weapons were stored. Eisenstein retrieved his sickle as Sophia picked up the hammer and half of the wooden stakes.
Six of the vampyr formed a shield around Constanta, while the others slowly advanced on us. I fired my first bolt and missed all of them, the wooden shaft embedding itself in the wall above Constanta's head. I willed my hands to stop shaking long enough to load another bolt into the crossbow. By the time it was in place the vampyr were almost on top of us. Eisenstein sliced his sickle through the air, removing two of their heads with a single blow. As the creatures exploded into dust and ash, I got off another shot, firing at point blank range into the chest of another vampyr. The angry creature stumbled backwards, looking down in dismay at the quarrel protruding from its torso, before exploding like the others. Sophia darted forward and stabbed one of her wooden stakes into the vampyr. A moment later she hammered it home and the fiend died, squealing in protest at being despatched.
The other two vampyr threw themselves at us simultaneously. Sophia ducked beneath their lunge by dropping into a crouch. One of the monsters closed a cold, grasping hand round my neck, shoving me back against the wall. The blow nearly dislodged the crossbow from my grasp but I clung on to it, my fingers desperately fixing another bolt into position. The other vampyr attacked Eisenstein, smashing his sickle to the ground. It drove him back into the corner, but Eisenstein found one of the bayonets and rammed the steel upwards through the creature's mouth and into its brain. Sophia sprang up from the floor and finished the monster off with another stake, hammering it through the creature's back.
I used one arm to keep the vampyr attacking me away from my neck while getting my crossbow into position. "Take this, you bloodsucking podonok!" I shouted, firing my weapon. The vampyr vanished, replaced by a cloud of debris.
Eisenstein retrieved his sickle while Sophia turned to see what the other Rumanians were doing.
"Bojemoi, they're setting the svolotch free!" she cried, pointing at our enemies. Two of the disciples were carefully lifting the necklace of garlic from around Constanta's neck. I rapidly reloaded my crossbow and fired, destroying one of the vampyr. But the other one completed the task, even though his hands were burning from contact with the garlic. No sooner had the necklace been removed than Constanta dissolved into a cloud of translucent mist, his sneer of triumph hanging in the air a moment later than the rest of him, taunting us. I reloaded and fired again, but my bolt passed harmlessly through the mist before killing another of the remaining vampyr. Then the cloud began dissipating as quickly as it had formed.
"No!" Eisenstein shouted, lunging across the room. "You're not getting away from me again!" His sickle decapitated one of the Rumanians and stabbed into the chest of a second, piercing the creature's heart. Both bloodsuckers exploded, but another dived at Eisenstein and buried its fangs into his neck.
"You'll have to do better than that, zasranec," Eisenstein retorted. He punched the creature in the head, sending it staggering backwards as two jets of blood shot into the air from the wounds on Eisenstein's neck. He sliced the head off his attacker, turning the vampyr into dust like its comrades. I loaded another bolt into my crossbow and finished off the final disciple, the one that had been nursing its scorched hands.
"Where did Constanta go?" Sophia asked, her eyes searching the room for any trace of the vampyr lord. I looked round but could see nothing to show he was still inside.
Eisenstein rammed his shoulder into the wardrobe, forcing it away from the window. It was still dark outside, but I could see explosions and the muzzle flash of gunfire among the trees outside.
"The battle has nearly reached us," Eisenstein said. "Constanta will be able to slip away in the confusion. We'll never find him now!" He screamed a curse, slamming a fist against the wardrobe.
I heard a whistling sound, getting lower in pitch as it got louder.
"Incoming!"
All of us dived to the floor as the cabin took a direct hit from an artillery shell. I never knew which side had fired the projectile, but the effects were devastating. The door splintered inward, shredding itself against the bed frame, while the roof collapsed. Broken logs tumbled down all around us, one of them crushing Eisenstein's right leg underneath it. He howled in pain, his cry not unlike the one Constanta had made a few minutes earlier.
When the dust and debris from the explosion began to settle, I picked myself up and struggled over to where Sophia and Eisenstein were. She was already trying to move the fallen log off his leg, but it was too heavy for her. I got my fingers underneath it and managed to shift the log to one side. Eisenstein screamed in pain again as the circulation slowly returned to his crushed limb.
"Water. Get him some water," I urged Sophia. She went in search of the drinking flask while I assessed the damage to Eisenstein's leg and neck.
"How bad is it?" he asked weakly.
"Your tango dancing days may be over," I said, attempting a joke.
"I meant the neck wound."
"I know what you meant," I replied, peeling back the collar of his gymnastiorka to see where the vampyr had bitten him. The new wounds were already forming into tiny mouths, each one opening and closing hungrily. "No worse than what Constanta did to you."
"That bad?" Eisenstein asked, resignation in his voice. I saw Sophia coming back with the drinking flask and merely nodded. She crouched beside him, unscrewed the lid and tipped a little liquid on his dry lips. They burned and sizzled, the holy water scalding his mouth and chin. He cried out despite himself.
"Grigori, I'm so sorry," Sophia said, wiping the holy water away.
He smiled at her, sadness in his eyes. "It doesn't matter now. You'll have to find Constanta without me. You have to stop him."
"Don't give up on us yet," she pleaded, standing up again. "I'll get some ice from the lake's edge. You can suck chips of that for moisture."
"No, don't leave me," Eisenstein said. "There's something I need you to do for me. Both of you."
"What is it?" I asked, already suspecting what his answer would be. But he didn't reply. Instead, his eyes widened as he looked past Sophia. I twisted round to see what had taken his attention.
Constanta was standing behind Sophia, his lips drawn back to reveal his fangs. She realised something was wrong and glanced back in time to see the vampyr lord looming over her. Sophia flung the last of the holy water into Constanta's eyes, blinding him. He howled at her and wildly flailed the air with his talons; viciously sharp nails cutting skin and artery and flesh. Then he turned into mist and was gone, a passing cloud lost in the fog of war. It all happened in a matter of seconds, life and death colliding in the time it took me to react.
Sophia collapsed in a heap by Eisenstein, her neck sliced apart in four places, blood forming a pool on the floor beneath her. She tried to speak but couldn't, her vocal chords torn apart by Constanta's savagery. Eisenstein embraced her, his hands tenderly cradling her head, his tears falling onto her face like a baptis
m. Sophia touched a finger to her neck, dipped it in her blood, and then ran the finger across Eisenstein's lips, nourishing him. Her eyes closed and did not open again. The last sound she heard was Eisenstein's weeping.
I watched her die, but I was utterly numb, unable to think or even feel. Another life lost to the vampyr: another victim, another callous killing. Sophia was gone and so was a part of me. I could not grieve like Eisenstein. He had lost his lover and his soul. All I had lost was the ability to cry. It seemed like nothing at the time, but it has troubled me ever since. Strange the things you lose in war.
We waited another eleven hours before the Red Army advance finally reached our position. The cabin took no more direct hits, though it might have been a relief if it had. I made a field dressing for Eisenstein's crushed leg, using wood from the shattered lean-to as splints and Sophia's portyanki to bind the wood in place. He helped me dig a hole in the ground where the lean-to had been. Fortunately, the woodpile had protected the soil from the elements, so the ground wasn't frozen. I finished the job Constanta's talons had started and cut off her head to make sure she couldn't be resurrected by the vampyr. We found an old kerosene lamp in the ruins of the cabin and used its remaining fuel to set fire to her body, adding wood to the blaze to give Sophia a proper funeral pyre. That way she could rest in peace for eternity, with any taint of the vampyr burnt from her body.
I left Eisenstein to say his goodbyes as the fire burned down, wandering to the edge of the frozen lake to smoke a cigarette. Somewhere along the way I had taken to tobacco. It got some heat into my lungs and kept my fingers occupied: good distractions from having to think or feel or wonder. I didn't want to do any of those anymore. After a while Eisenstein limped down to join me, watching the sunrise in the distance. He stared at the golden disc as it crept above the horizon, letting the light wash over him. Perhaps he hoped it would destroy him, extinguish the exquisite pain he must have been feeling. But, unlike most vampyr, he remained curiously immune to the sun.
"It seems my curse is to live, to survive," he said eventually.
I handed him something I had discovered in the remains of the cabin: a small silver emblem, the six-pointed Star of David. Eisenstein smiled as he took hold of it.
"This has been my salvation and my damnation, Victor. It was a political officer, a kommisar like you used to be, who caught me wearing the Star of David. He accused me of being disloyal to the Communist Party because I put my religion ahead of everything else. I tried to tell him that denying my faith was like denying my ability to think, but he would not listen. He told me I would end up in a shtrafroty if he ever got his way. He was true to his word."
"What happened to him?"
Eisenstein smiled. "The fool tried to tell a general how best to organise the blockade's front line defences. The general was not impressed by this upstart and had him made a captain in the Red Army. After that, the general sent the former kommisar to a front line shtrafroty unit to help organise the defences. The captain's name was Alexandr Brodsky." Eisenstein closed his hand around the Star of David. "Despite everything that's happened, I still believe in the revolution, just like I believe in my faith. If you don't have anything to believe in, you might as well as dead - or even undead."
I heard soldiers approaching through the silver birch trees. "What do we do now? Should we tell them what's happened here?"
"Would you believe our story?"
"I suppose not, but..."
Eisenstein laid a hand on my shoulder. "Have you any portyanki left? I need to bandage my throat before those soldiers get here. One pair of vampyr bite marks on the neck is hard enough to explain, but two, that's inviting trouble."
I dug in my knapsack and found enough strips of cloth to bind his wounds. "What will you put against the new bites to stop that infection from spreading?"
He produced a red star badge with the hammer and sickle emblem inside it and shoved that against his latest bites. Eisenstein winced as the badge burnt into the skin, a wisp of smoke rising into the air.
"Like I said, I still believe in the revolution. That and my faith will do the job."
I helped him finish binding the two emblems in place, sealing his bites again.
"You didn't answer my other question, Grigori. What do we do now?"
Eisenstein smiled. "You've never called me Grigori before, I think. Constanta was right about one thing - the siege of Leningrad is effectively over if this advance breaks the blockade. That's why the vampyr were pulling out. There's nothing more they can do here. This battle is over, but the war goes on. Not just the Great Patriotic War with the fascists, but humanity's war with the undead. We need to find allies, people like us, who know what we do, and who are willing to find and fight these monsters. People who will help us hunt the vampyr to the ends of the earth, if need be. We can't fight this war alone, you and I. We need help."
The smile faded from his features, his face a sallow husk of what it had once been. When he spoke again, his voice was a whisper of pain and torment. "You already know how this will end."
I remember something Constanta had mentioned during his meeting with the general, about losing many of his kind during an attack by German soldiers at Ordzhonikidze. The incident sounded like a coordinated effort to destroy the vampyr by men who were supposed to be their allies. I mentioned this to Eisenstein, who thought it offered hope.
"Remember Haustein, the German officer we tried to bring back from Ivanovskoe?" he asked. "This proves that not all the fascists are willing allies of Constanta and his kind. Who knows, perhaps one day we and the Germans can recognise the vampyr as a common foe, and unite to wage war against them. We'll need such alliances to have a hope of winning."
Russian soldiers emerged cautiously from the trees to our left. I yelled to them and they shouted back, wondering how we had gotten here before them.
"It's a long story," I replied.
EPILOGUE
"You already know how this will end."
That's how I began this story and that is how I end it. You know how this part of the story finishes. History tells you that the Red Army advance code-named Operation Spark led to the overland blockade of Leningrad being lifted a few days later. Many thousands of kilometres to the south, the German troops at Stalingrad were close to surrendering. The tide of war had turned against the invaders. True, the city of Leningrad would not be truly liberated for another year, but the war of terror against its people and its defenders was over. Constanta and his kind did not trouble those within the blockade again.
For Eisenstein and myself, this was merely the beginning of a long journey together. We would fight in many more battles, see many terrible things and powerful foes. We would find allies on our own side and, eventually, a few among those we once considered our enemy. We would see a lake of human blood and witness the downfall of Berlin. We would experience horrors to chill the coldest of hearts and forge friendships that would last a lifetime. How long our lives would last was another matter entirely.
The Siege of Leningrad was over, but the war for the future of humanity was only beginning. I was a soldier in that war. I carry the scars left by that terrible conflict, the wounds on my body and the marks on my soul. But I never shed another tear, not from the day I saw Sophia Gomorova die. I sometimes wonder if I will ever cry again. It does not matter, but it is the sort of thing that keeps me awake at night - that, and my memories of Borodin and Uralsky, Strelnikov and Yatsko, Antonov and Brodsky, and poor Grigori Eisenstein. No man living or dead deserves what happened to him. Some are fated to give everything they have for others, and Grigori Eisenstein was such a man. But that is another story, another tale. Believe me, if you wish, but now you know a little of the truth. And you already know how this will end.
GLOSSARY
Russian words or phrases, unless otherwise stated. German nouns are usually capitalised. Russian words are written as phonetic spellings.
Aufstieg - Growth (German)
bliad' - wh
ore
bliatz - bitch
Blitzkrieg - Lightning War (German)
Bojemoi! - My God!
burzhuiki - free-standing stove
Chort tzdbya beeree! - The devil with you!
da - yes
dacha - holiday home
Dämmerung - Twilight (German)
Djavoli - Devil, Devils
Doroga Zhizni - Road of Life
dubiina - idiot
Feuerzauber - Fire Magic (German)
gaduka - snake, serpent
gefreiter - Lance-Corporal (German)
gymnastiorka - shirt or blouse
Halt! Wer geht dort? - Halt! Who goes there? (German)
Hände hoch! - Hands high! (German)
hauptmann - Captain (German)
kasha - grain porridge
kommisar - political officer
Leningradskaia Pravda - Leningrad Truth
Leningradskoi armii narodnogo opolchaniia (LANO) - Leningrad People's Militia Army
Leutnant - 2nd Lieutenant (German)
Mestnaia protivo-vozdushnaia oborona (MPVO) - local air defence
Moisin - rifle
Narodnyi Komissariat Vnutrennikh Dei (NKVD) - People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs
Obergefeiter - Corporal (German)
oblast - region
Ostfront - The Eastern Front (German)
pilotka - cap
plashch-palatka - rain cape
podonok - A person that is the lowest of the low
portyanki - Narrow cloth strips wrapped round feet as socks
Pravda - Truth, a Russian newspaper
samovar - a metal urn for making tea
shapka-ushanka - synthetic fur-lined hat
sharovari - trousers similar to jodhpurs
shtrafroty - penal company
Smert Krofpeet - death to blood-drinkers