by P. W. Child
As he and his youngest stepped through the kitchen doorway, his son was met by the jaws of a ferocious Rottweiler that came from the darkness like a living shadow, sinking its teeth into the soft flesh of his freshly shaven throat. Herr Mueller pulled his hunting knife and shoved it swiftly into the animal’s heart. With a yelp the beautiful black creature sank to the floor, pulling its target down with it. But Herr Mueller did not have time to dislodge the dog’s jaws from his son’s neck before the next one leapt through the air and landed hard on them.
Gun shots sounded loudly from the other room as the third brother stood his ground against two intruders who passed Herr Mueller and his fallen son.
It was all a haze to the old man who suffered a brutal blow to the back of the head. Unable to focus, unable to stand up, his vague vision found the bleeding woman who had betrayed them. He was pleased to see that she wasn’t moving anymore.
Chapter 10 – The Train to Weimar
Nina arrived in Germany after a two day trip from Edinburgh. To get to Weimar, she elected to take a train trip to get a feel for the country without looking down on everything. It was surprisingly cold in the mainland of Europe, but Germany was clearly having an early peak. Nina expected to see snow, but so far the towns she had passed were just prone to frigid winds and occasional downpours.
In her travel luggage, and she always travelled as light as possible, she had her best insulated boots and way too many pairs of socks. Some would say at a glance that Dr. Nina Gould was perhaps obsessed with her knitted footwear. Of all things, she preferred the alpaca variety sent to her by Padre Loredo from New Mexico, a gift which became habit after she helped him locate some old Mexican archival scripts on the Apocrypha.
Leaving the breathtaking historical churches and architecture of Erfurt after only a night of rest at a modest Bed & Breakfast, Nina embarked on her railway travel to meet Sam in Weimar. Regrettably she could not stay longer to do some sightseeing, because she had been unable to establish contact with her German friend, who she was hoping to ask to hold on to Sam’s camera until she could get there. It did not bother her that much, though, as she needed to see him, whether she wanted to admit it or not, and this was the perfect excuse. After all, did he not summon her?
Erfurt had more churches than houses, she thought. The brilliant ancient structures were definitely an architect’s wet dream, not so much more than it gave anthropologically inclined historians like her a bit of a boner. Nina smiled at her own thoughts. It was true what they say – one never really grows up past the slang and expressions of college life or youth in general, no matter what age you are or what profession has made you a community snob, an esteemed member of society.
The train’s steel on steel clacking was remarkably hypnotic, compelling Nina to lie back in her private compartment and enjoy the passing outside world through her square window.
She did not want to doze off, for fear of another nightmare or one of those annoying bouts of déjà vu she seemed to endure more and more of late. Her meds had her sleeping too much, nightmares included, so she ditched them. Thirteen hours of sleep a day was simply counter-productive in every way, she reckoned, and with or without the bad dreams, she still had to deal with the horrendous time lapses that somehow made her psychic. Like Groundhog Day, as Nina thought of it, she kept having episodes of déjà vu so vividly that she could almost pass herself off as a precognitive professional by now.
A woman’s hand appeared on the doorway of her compartment and a friendly plump face greeted her a moment later.
“Guten Tag!” the woman said cheerfully.
“Good morning.” Nina smiled wryly, not really in the mood for company.
“Do you mind if I sit here for a while? There are two men in my section who give me the creeps and I am getting off at the next station. I won’t be a bother,” she pitched to Nina in a sincere tone. A horrid turquoise windbreaker hugged her full figure, which looked comical to Nina.
“The next station is over 25 kilometers away,” Nina reminded her, more to cordially protest than to share information.
The woman sat down gratefully and replied with a smile, “I know.”
“Okay, well…I’m a smoker and…” Nina started to snap at the stranger, attempting to put her off.
“Me too! But we are not allowed to smoke on the train, didn’t you know?” she told Nina in the most patronizing tone she had ever heard.
“Yes,” Nina grunted passive aggressively, “I know that.” Irritated beyond control, Nina narrowed her eyes at the indifferent intruder and folded her arms over her chest like a disgruntled teenager and sank back into her bunk. She pulled her extra coat over her, a thick long angora wool number that made her look like a Womble when she wore it, and she gave the woman a steely look.
“If you don’t mind, I have not slept in a long time. I will be taking a nap for a while. Is that okay?” the petite historian lined her announcement with sarcasm, but the fat chick with the thick skin did not respond to her in turn with some snappy comment.
“Of course that is okay with me,” she smiled warmly and reinforced her unbearable obtuse manner with a firm grip on Nina’s forearm. The historian ground her teeth behind her closed lips, but she chose to ignore the unwelcome guest in her compartment and sleep it off. She hoped that, when she woke, they would have reached the next station and she’d be rid of her.
Two hours later, they had entered the province and Nina woke from a dreamless sleep, for once not plagued by nightmares of things she would rather have forgotten.
“Oh thank fuck for that,” she sighed through a half smile when she saw that she was once more alone in her quiet first class compartment. Learning from experience as a young university student, Nina had a habit of sleeping propped up against her baggage on the trains of Europe. It did not matter to her that she was now using proper luxury transport as a professional adult and regarded herself as a snob, no less, she still slept like this on public transport, no matter what extravagance they slapped on their menu’s.
Through the window she could see nothing but the black of night and she wondered what was hiding out there in the cloak of darkness. Staring into the reflective surface of the black square, Nina wondered what Sam was messing with this time. For all his experiences, for all his attempts at being less reckless, he always ended up stepping in dog shit – whether he was lured by money or simply had too much of a sense of adventure. It sounded serious and the fact that Sam was shot had Nina very worried for the degree in which he must have been involved in this one. It made her remember the weapons smuggling ring he exposed years before which cost him the loss of the love of his life, when he barely escaped with his own. This job must have been something similarly big, equally dangerous, for him to once more end up in the sight of a rifle.
“Excuse me, dear,” a woman suddenly said from the doorway, where her thick fingers locked around the door. Nina saw her reflection in the window she was staring at and her heart sank when she turned her head to face the woman and saw that it was the exact same woman she had tolerated in her compartment before.
“Come in,” Nina invited without any enthusiasm, if only to not endure the woman’s whiny voice or indifference to blatant insult. By now Nina had grown so accustomed to the constant repeats of events hitting her at least once a week, so much that she now treated the stubborn time loops as personal psychological flaws she would have to chalk up to some sort of post-traumatic stress bullshit.
The woman was going to speak, but he petite historian interrupted her.
“I know how annoying it must be for you, those men in your section,” she sighed matter-of-factly just to spook the overweight irritation in the ugly jacket. And it worked.
“Are you a physical person?” she asked Nina.
“A physical person? Well, I would think so. I keep in shape, although I’m a smoker, like you…” Nina tried to humor the woman by actually engaging in the conversation as the odd rows of street lamps and occasional
yellow security beams started showing outside in the dark, slowly passing from one side of the black square to the other.
“You know I’m a smoker!” the astonished hen exclaimed, slamming her stubby hands together. “So, you must be a physic!”
Nina almost threw her head back and erupted in laughter, but noticing that they were approaching the station lightened her mood and she decided not to be a condescending bitch.
She smiled, “You mean, I’m psychic.”
“Yes, of course. That’s what I said, wasn’t it?” the woman frowned abruptly.
“Oh! Look! Weimar, we have arrived,” Nina smiled suddenly and pointed at the window where the central station came into view. It was almost 10pm, but Nina had made reservations at a hotel near Sam’s hospital. She could not wait to see him again, to look into his soft dark eyes and feel his essence envelope her once more. She always felt so safe around Sam Cleave – not in a survival way, but in an emotional way, as if she could tell him anything and he would never judge her, never hate her, never care about her flaws. Her feelings for Sam compelled her to throw herself into an unknown and potentially dangerous situation again, but she would not have it any other way.
Ch apter 11 - Curiosity
Sam looked around so he would not be discovered. It was past lights out in hospital ward C where he shared a room with a junior patient and one other man, older than Scotland, who never opened his eyes. If anyone in the room had farted, Sam would be convinced that the old man was indeed dead and beginning to reek. That was the extent of his inanimate existence, but Sam thought that perhaps the living corpse was awake whenever he was asleep, and vice versa. Nevertheless, it creeped the journalist out and he tried to never really look in the direction of the emaciated old patient.
Instead, the child intrigued him with his dark, exotic looks and his infatuation with the playing card he insisted on keeping with him at all times. Now Sam’s curiosity had gotten the better of him and it was well before his sleep threshold, so he got up and snuck over to Radu’s bed. Sam, always the professional, had cultivated the ability to remember names and therefore knew the boy to be one Radu Costita and something about the child told Sam to memorize his name. Somehow it seemed important. He came out of nowhere, had no relatives and spoke Romanian in his sleep. He was not German and he seemed to be homeless, two things that made Sam curious.
The corner of the large card protruded from under the boy’s pillow. Radu was sleeping soundly, although his breathing was so slight that Sam had trouble telling when he was inhaling and exhaling. In fact, he seemed to have adjusted his sleeping habits to fit in with the old cadaver in the other bed. Sam chuckled when he imagined the look on Radu’s face if he woke and saw the towering journalist standing over him in the dark. His thoughts always drifted to the worst scenarios when he was nervous or found himself in places he was not allowed to be. Sometimes his random ideas were horrific and sinister, other times they were filled with hilarity which provoked him to laugh at the most inappropriate moments.
Once more combing the room for shadows from the corridor, Sam reached out to the corner of the card and pinched it between his fingers. Very gently he pulled it out from under the pillow. It was hard to make out what it depicted in the lack of light, so he tip-toed on the cold floor to the small restroom. He closed and locked the door, before he turned on the light and sat down on the toilet lid.
“Whoah, this is special, laddie. A tarot card?” he whispered in the buzzing white light of the small cubicle. He propped up his arm on the thick silver support handle fixed to the tiling and studied the unique picture. Sam was no expert on the esoteric at all, but he had a basic knowledge of tarot cards. He knew that they were divided into Major Arcana and Minor Arcana. As far as he could remember, their suits were vastly different to ordinary playing cards. They were bigger, made of stronger material and their suits were divided into Swords, Cups, Wands and Pentacles or Discs. But there were no numbers on these types of cards and they were not for playing, they were meant for a more serious type of divination and their trickery a tad more devastating in its repercussions.
Sam frowned, the hard shadow of his dark brows consuming his eyes in its shade as he scrutinized the picture.
There were no wands, or swords, or any of those symbols. The picture did not represent any of the characters normally depicted upon the Tarot. He did not know them all, of course, but this card did not represent the Fool, the Devil, the Hanged Man, the Sun, the Moon and the others he knew of from watching bad horror films. As far as he knew, there was never any such tarot card as one with a maimed young boy wandering around with his eye plucked out.
“What a horrible fucking idea,” he scoffed quietly as the truly nefarious nature of the painting drilled through into his mind. Even his fingers began to tingle inadvertently at the touch of the strange card. He turned it to have a look at the back, but found only an unknown emblem in the center with a lavish purple background in patterns of lambrequin that felt a little bit like suede under the touch of his fingertips. Through his hands he could feel a distinct electrical charge, no more than the tingle of a light battery current, but evident nonetheless.
“Psychosomatic,” he reprimanded his senses in a whisper which sounded exceptionally loud in the quiet of the restroom. Sam was never one to just assume the paranormal when something had a reputation of having vaguely arcane or magical qualities. He could not, however, dispute the fact that the card had now quite the hold on his interest and suddenly he could absolutely understand little Radu’s fascination with it. It was not just the physical effects of what the item evoked, but much more the feeling of awe it held in that it felt almost alive in his hand, radiant with inexplicable energy. Sam thought of the tarot card as borderline conscious, as if it held locked inside it some sort of intelligence.
There was no indication of where the object was made or by whom, nor any name to credit the painter of the awful picture. It was certainly a guess as to the age of the thing, not that Sam could tell exactly, but it was obviously very old. Since he was not qualified to determine its age, he smiled at the idea he got as to who would be able to – Nina Gould. Although she was not an art expert, and although she specialized mainly in recent history, primarily German history, he knew she would be able to tell from what country it originated, at least.
He knew he had to show it to Nina the following day when she showed up to collect the camera from him. For a moment he reached for what was usually his jeans pocket to pull out what was usually his cell phone so that he could take a snapshot of the peculiar piece.
“Ag, goddammit!” he cussed under his breath when he realized just how inconvenient his life was without his phone. Sam had never been one of those super techy types who had the latest and the first in technology, whether it was information technology or communication gadgets. As a matter of fact, he could not care less what brand he was wielding at any given time, as long as it could send messages and take pictures, which was pivotal in his line of work.
Only now, here on the lid of the bog in the German hospital in the middle of the night, did he truly realize the value of his shitty Samsung. He liked his shitty Samsung. It worked effectively and was comfortable to handle, not those extra thin jobs where his strong hands would slip and slide, punching in two letters at once when he did not focus. Every time Sam would take his old phone people would look at him like he just whipped out his dick, but he did not care. He knew he had the means to buy the best, but chose not to fall for advertisements and status symbols.
Would Radu allow Nina to see it, though? Sam sat thinking on it for a bit, wondering if he should keep it with him until she arrived, but that would be common theft and he did not want the poor boy to lose his favorite possession again, dumping him into a torrent of frantic crying spells at his loss.
No, he would put it back and in the morning he would ask Radu if his lady friend could have a look. Why would the child refuse? He did not mind showing it off. In the quiet shadows
he stalked back to Radu’s bed and with clumsy effort he pushed it back under the pillow without waking the lightly snoring Radu. Sam chuckled at the slumbering boy who grunted like a drunkard. Sam looked at Radu before he returned to bed.
Fuck, this would really awkward if someone had to walk in now, he thought to himself as he stared at the sleeping young boy, but the child intrigued him. He seemed to be completely alone in the world, even though the medical staff kept referring to his ‘aunt’, of whom he clearly had no knowledge. The whole thing did not sit well with Sam, so he vowed to keep a close eye on Radu to see if there was anything scaly about his dubious aunt. Inside Sam there was a distant longing to be a big brother, perhaps even a father. There was a sentinel heart in him, a need to right the wrongs and protect those who cannot see the wolves circling until it was too late.
Chapter 12 – At the hospital
“…Morgen, Herr Cleave,” her voice shook Sam’s brain into a state of alert and faded gradually into the white noise of his ears. Its sharpness pulled him reluctantly from the warm, safe darkness of the womb his mind was curled up in from the fatigue and the valium.
“Morning,” he groaned, sniffing and rubbing his eyes. His wild dark hair fell on his shoulders and framed his strong features and he ran his good hand over the top of his hair to get it out of his face.
“Good god, do we have to have the blinds open so early in the morning?” he complained with his hand over his eyes. Sam winced at the blinding rays that glared from all sides like daylight outside the entrance of a cave.
“The blinds are shut, Sam. You are just misty from the drugs. Relax,” he heard her more clearly now.
“Nina?” he smiled, still guarding his eyes with his hand.
“Aye.”
“So glad you could make it. To tell you the truth, I feel better with you holding on to my gear than some strange woman,” he said too loudly. From the small family visiting the old corpse patient, a teenager scoffed and chuckled at Sam’s words. Nina snickered with her, winking at the girl’s penchant for double entendres, and then turned back to Sam.