The Secret of Lions

by Scott Blade

  It rose up ten meters in the air and blocked our passage through the alley. Flames lit the other side.

  “No! No! What are we going to do?” Anna said. She banged her fists on the brick.

  I looked around for a moment. I saw a thick, wooden door in the building to the right.

  “In there,” I said, trying to turn the knob, but the door was locked.

  “Stand back,” I said, pointing the gun at the lock. I shot it out. The cylinder burst.

  The door began swinging slowly toward us. I grabbed Anna’s arm and led her through the swinging door. Once we were through, I slammed the door and pushed a heavy chest in front of it. I quickly began sweeping the corridors and open doorways in the building with the gun. I was ready to shoot anyone who came into sight. The building had no signs of life.

  We found ourselves in a jewelry store. The front of the building was covered with windows, but they were barred from the outside. I wasn’t sure if the owner or the Nazis had put the bars up.

  “Look for stairs. I’m going to try the front door,” I said, letting go of Anna’s arm. We headed for the foyer.

  Anna loomed around in the darkness, looking for the stairs leading up. Feeling around on the wall with her hands, she found a light switch. It flickered and sparks shot out from the cover as she flipped it up. The hallway lights came on. They were dim, but they allowed us to see where we were going.

  “I found the stairs,” she called out to me.

  I’d found the front door. I struggled to open it, but it was locked. It was steel. The urge to try shooting the lock surfaced. However, I realized it would not work without wasting most of my bullets. I only had five left, and the Todesgruppen were closing in.

  “The door is of no use. We’ll have to jump from a higher floor,” I said.

  Anna ran up the stairs first. As her feet connected with each step, I watched the door we’d gone through. I pointed the Colt at it, waiting to shoot anyone who came in. For a long moment, I expected to see one of the soldiers enter. It was my hope I could shoot one by surprise; perhaps that could buy us some time.

  “Peter?” Anna called from the top of the stairs.

  I looked up at her for a moment. In the corner of my eyes I saw two of the Todesgruppen entering the doorway in front of me. The first soldier pointed the flamethrower directly at me.

  Fire spit out in a single, elongated burst. Flames streamed toward me. I heard Anna call out my name. I heaved myself over the railing, rolling onto the hardwood staircase. The flames just missed me. It scorched the entire lower part of the staircase and wall. Large sections of the wallpaper combusted. Flower patterns melted away to reveal the dark, oak wood that lay beneath.

  A longer burst of flame thrust out from the flamethrower’s barrel. The blaze rose up and burned past me. Lying on my back on the stairs, I hugged as close to the wall as possible. The heat was intense. It set the entire wall below me on fire.

  “Peter?” Anna screamed from the top of the stairs.

  “Keep going!” I yelled up at her.

  Another stream of flames followed. The soldier moved from the foyer closer to my position. The floorboards squeaked under his combat boots. I gripped my handgun tightly. Still on my back, I squirmed up the stairs. Stopping halfway up, I aimed the gun, resting my elbows on my stomach.

  I pointed it into the fire below, hoping the soldier would walk out. I waited for a long moment, but the soldier did not reveal himself. There were no more bursts of flames.

  Suddenly, I heard Anna scream from above me. There was another sound: loud and metallic. It was like an engine. I knew the sound. It was the sadistic hum of the chainsaw.

  I looked above me and saw the large soldier wielding the chainsaw and staring right back at me. Our eyes locked for a moment, and then I raised my gun. Before I could take aim, the soldier vanished into the darkness of the second floor, where Anna had disappeared.

  She continued to scream. I leapt to my feet. Before I could pursue the large soldier, a stream of flame hurdled over the railing and engulfed my path. The entire top of the staircase was ablaze. I winced for a moment in pain from the intense heat standing before me. The thought of brazing through the wall of flames entered my mind, but before I could act, the fire spread and thickened to make it a death trap.

  I had no choice but to retreat back down the stairs. Anna’s screams continued to penetrate through the wall of fire and into my ears.

  Slowly, I backed away from the fire as it approached me. It followed me with each step I made.

  Now, I heard a new noise. It was the floorboards creaking beneath me. Swiftly, I turned to gaze upon the tip of the flamethrower. The barrel appeared beyond the railing, through the burning banister. The soldier wielding it had not yet appeared.

  I pressed my back to the wall and crouched down out of sight. I waited for the right moment. The soldier’s helmet appeared through the fire. In an instant his eyes locked with mine. It was the perfect moment to strike.

  I leapt over the burning railing and onto the soldier. The force of my body pushed the soldier’s back against the wall. He screamed out in pain as his bones crashed into the weight of the flamethrower pack as it hit the wall behind him. The soldier pulled the trigger on the flamethrower erratically. Flames shot out. The stream engulfed the spot where I had been perched on the staircase.

  I was too close to the soldier for the flames to hit me. I had the gun pressed against the soldier’s chest at point blank range. My left hand shoved the soldier’s chin up so his head was against the wall.

  Immediately, I noticed the other soldier who was standing in the foyer. He was stunned by what he was witnessing. A machine gun shook in his hands. I flipped my hostage so that the hostage’s back faced the other soldier. The hostage had now become a human shield. It was easy for me to hide behind the hostage because he was wearing that large flamethrower pack.

  The other soldier had not yet fired his gun, which would certainly kill the hostage. They both knew this. The hostage started to beg and plead. He cried out to the other soldier not to fire.

  “Shut up!” I shouted, pushing the gun farther into the man’s chest. “Now, you in the foyer, do not fire! If you shoot that gun you will hit the flame tanks and kill all of us, not to mention your friends upstairs. Now drop your gun.”

  “Fuck you!” The other soldier screamed.

  He began firing his gun. Bullets ricocheted off the walls around me. The soldier’s machine gun was an automatic.

  Gunshots echoed throughout the entire building. I held my breath and squeezed into my human shield for protection. My hostage screamed and started to resist violently. I fired a single round into the man’s chest. He stopped squirming.

  Bullets were hitting the tank on his back. I did not realize it, but blood splattered on my clothes. Now, I was forced to hold both the hostage and the heavy flamethrower tanks up with my free hand, while still holding my gun. The tank had resisted the bullets thus far, but I was not sure how much longer it’d last before erupting.

  I released my grip and shoved the hostage as hard as I could toward the gunman in the foyer. Taking a couple of steps back, I knelt down. Aiming the Colt, I fired four rounds. Bullets from the machine gun barely missed me as they whizzed through the air. Every bullet I fired flew directly past the flung hostage and into the other soldier’s chest, except for one.

  It tore through his neck. The soldier stopped firing immediately. The bullets whipped him off his feet, and he landed hard against the floor. Blood gushed out of the bullet holes. The body convulsed violently. He gripped his throat with one working arm. He hacked up blood.

  I heard Anna scream once again from the floor above. I jumped to my feet. The shaft of the Colt was exposed, signaling I’d used all of the bullets. I tossed the gun and ran over to the fallen soldier. Reaching down, I retrieved the MP40 and ejected the magazine. It was empty. I searched the fallen soldier for more magazines.

  There was nothing—no magazines, no oth
er guns, nothing. The only weapon I found was a stiletto with a long blade. It was like an ice pick with a slightly thicker blade.

  I pocketed it and then looked over at the other soldier. I tried to lift the flamethrower, but it was too heavy for me to carry around. Also the air smelled like gasoline, and I knew the tank had been penetrated during the struggle. It could explode at any moment.

  I searched the soldier and found nothing. Despite feeling unsatisfied with the stiletto, I still charged out of the building in order to search for another way up to Anna. I looked over the alleyway cautiously. I remembered seeing two other soldiers, one with a MP40 machine gun and one with a shotgun. Plus, I remembered the sniper. I knew the large man with the chainsaw was up there with Anna.

  Anna’s screams still echoed throughout the building. Before I made it into the street, I heard a bursting sound, like a water pipe rupturing. I turned back toward the foyer. The flamethrower tank was leaking profusely. Only a split second went by before I realized what was about to happen.

  The tank exploded. A massive cloud of smoke and intense heat that seemed to appear from nowhere filled up the entire first floor of the building and spread past me onto the street. The force of the explosion hit me in nearly the same moment. It lifted me off the ground and threw me twenty meters out into the street. I hit the ground hard and rolled until I crashed into a pile of debris.

  Blood seeped out of my forehead. I felt numb all over. I looked up in time to see a second explosion. This one consumed the upper floors of the building. My eyes were heavy and swelling up. I tried to stay conscious long enough to determine whether or not Anna had survived.

  A long moment went by. I fought the overwhelming need to blackout—to rest. Paralysis began to consume me. I could only lie on the ground and watch the burning building. Suddenly, I heard a faint, shrill sound.

  Anna was screaming again. Her scream was the last thing I heard before I could no longer fight my body’s urge to shut down. I blacked out.

  The screams silenced for the moment. Smoke rose around my body as I lay in complete stillness. The sun appeared over the horizon, creating the dullest orange tint around the battle-ridden town. The orange hue was such a faint glow that the skyline appeared to be in a sunset, not a sunrise, as though the light had faded away.

  76

  I stirred under the smoke. My eyelids unveiled my green eyes. I took a sudden breath of air. My chest heaved up and expanded to its maximum capacity. I could feel my lungs opening up to the air. I felt my energy suddenly returning.

  I stood up and hacked up some dirt that had managed to get lodged deep in my throat. I spent the next few minutes trying to breathe regularly. I had no idea how long I’d blacked out for, but the sun was an indicator that it’d been a while.

  Anna was up on the second floor somewhere. I tried to gather my strength. I was terrified because she’d stopped screaming; only the silence that comes after the dust settles remained.

  Once my breathing returned to normal, I headed toward the nearly destroyed building. Inside, smoke filled the air. I could make out the charred remains of one of the soldiers that I’d killed. Fire still burned throughout the building. I tried to make it to the bottom of the stairs but couldn’t.

  “Anna!” I called up to the second floor. There was no answer.

  I searched the pockets of my coat. I found the stiletto. It was the only weapon I had left.

  Suddenly, the fires of Warsaw and the violence that surrounded me induced a flashback. A memory flooded my eyes. It was my mother’s death. She whispered a name, and I said it aloud, “Willem.”

  I looked up at the second floor from the street. Fire raged from the windows. I walked around the building and looked for a way up. But the upper floor was only accessible from the stairs. At the lowest wall, I continuously leapt up and tried to grab the roof. I jumped up over and over again, but I couldn’t reach it. I jumped until I couldn’t jump anymore, until my knees hurt and my joints strained.

  Finally my body gave up. I could no longer jump. I couldn’t even stand. I lay back on the pavement. I lay there watching the building burn to ash. I lay there watching my friend and first love burn to ash.

  Part Five

  Savages Unleashed

  Chapter Ten

  Blood in the

  Artist’s Brush

  Poland, 1939

  77

  Standing on the street, I was different. I had changed. I was virtually unrecognizable to anyone who might have known me.

  To the soldiers, I was a pampered schoolboy. Because I was the Führer’s son, they thought that I was a spoiled brat. Ever since I came out into the public eye, people saw that I was given everything, that I was spoiled. They didn’t know the truth. Few of Hitler’s colleagues knew who I really was.

  Anna was dead. My life was a lie. All I felt was a smoldering fury. It raged inside me, consuming me like a forest fire.

  I walked down the street. My cold eyes were glazed over and stunned. A cool breeze blew around me. It shifted my torn, ragged coat. Pallid stains and soot covered my clothes. They were blackened from the fire. My heart was blackened from the fire.

  As I continued toward the building where I was supposed to be sleeping, soldiers passed by. Most of them stopped to stare at me. The ones who recognized me saluted me immediately. They were confused to see me on the battlefield and covered in filth. In fact, most were shocked to see me at all. For the most part, my existence was more of a legend than anything else.

  Many of the soldiers were just beginning their day. Some went to breakfast. Others went to their assigned units. As for the conquest of Poland, the bulk of the job was finished. The purpose of their presence now was to police the new German territory.

  Some clean-cut officers walked by me. They whispered something as they passed. For a moment, one officer considered speaking to me, but he could see the anger in my eyes. He had seen me before but never like this. My anger was reminiscent of Hitler’s anger.

  I did not give them a second look. I continued on toward the federal building, to my temporary quarters. Not sure of what to do, I decided to speak with my father immediately.

  However, in the corner of my eye, I saw a large man crossing the street away from me. The man walked into a bakery with a chainsaw strapped over his shoulder. I saw that blood stains covered the rusted blade. I clenched my fists tightly. My rage was fueled further by seeing him, the man who had killed Anna.

  Unexpectedly, I was surrounded by a band of young soldiers marching down the street. Still, my eyes focused only on the bakery the large soldier had entered. Through the front window, I watched as the man wielding the chainsaw sat down across from other members of the Todesgruppen.

  The men wore tired expressions on their faces. They must have spent the rest of the night searching for me. It didn’t matter. They were in front of me now.

  I walked toward the bakery before I realized it. Along the way, three of the young marching soldiers broke ranks to stop me. They were not sure who I was or even that I was German.

  “Where do you think you’re going, son?” the oldest, highest-ranking soldier asked me. I looked at his hand, which was suddenly grabbing my shoulder.

  I peered up at him with a scowling stare.

  “Get your hand off me,” I demanded.

  The soldier began to reach for my wrist to detain me. Without thinking, without faltering, I slipped the stiletto out of my jacket. With one hand covering his mouth, I stabbed the blade twice into his heart. In an instant, the soldier became lifeless, leaning against me.

  The other two soldiers were stuck in the moving crowd. I took advantage of this. I propped the body against a severely bent street lamp, but not before stealing the Luger from his holster.

  His friends, the pursuing soldiers, lost sight of me. There were too many people in the crowd to keep up. I left my soot-covered jacket on the ground to throw them off my trail. I continued up the sidewalk.

  Now I was standing righ
t in front of the bakery window. I looked down at the gun and checked the ammo. There were seven bullets in it. Looking back through the window, I counted six men seated at the table, one standing by the door, one leaning against the back wall, and the last one came out of the bathroom on the farthest end of the room. There was a total of nine soldiers.

  Some of the men were not responsible for Anna’s death, but most were. I didn’t care about the others. I held the stiletto in one hand and the gun in the other.

  Through the window, I saw that some of the soldiers stared back at me. I couldn’t tell if they were a part of the Todesgruppen or not. I knew for sure that the large man, whose back was to me, was the same man who had killed Anna. I could have returned to my room. I could have ignored him, but I couldn’t stand for that.

  I noticed for the first time that the soldiers were playing cards. They all stopped after seeing me. I attracted their attention because I stared at them so intensely. I opened the door and entered the bakery.

  One of the soldiers sitting across from the big man stood up and signaled for me to leave. Another soldier, standing in the doorway to the washroom, wiped both of his hands on a white towel. The other soldiers looked relaxed. I noticed that four of them carried Lugers.

  Their guards were down. None of them feared me. This would be my advantage.

  Again, the soldier demanded I leave. When it was apparent I was not going to abide, he backed out of his chair and moved toward me. I waited for him to get closer and then I lunged at him with the stiletto. I jabbed the blade three times into his chest before any of the others reacted.

  I pulled in close to the dying soldier and used his body as a human shield. I fired a single shot at the man standing in the doorway of the bathroom. The bullet tore through the washcloth that he held out in front of his face. Blood splattered across it.

  Rapidly, I fired a couple of rounds into the first soldier to brandish his pistol. The man returned fire as he was jerked off his feet. He accidentally shot the shoulder of the large man seated across the table, the one I was after.