“Rome?”
“From the Vatican.” Corrado scratched his stubble. “You want to talk with him? Will it make you feel better about what you have seen?”
Giovanni’s eyes unfocused as he stared at the priest. Then he nodded.
“Hey, Babbo, this guy wants to talk to you,” Corrado called out across the room.
The priest stood and moved as if uncertain of his footing. As if his feet were submerged. He looked to have been muscular and then run to fat, but now the fat had dissipated and his skin was sallow and bag-like.
He came to a stop near Giovanni and Corrado. His priest’s collar was long gone. His eyes were glazed by lack of sleep or war-weariness. Both.
“You’re that new one,” he said. “You have a pretty wife.”
Giovanni nodded. “Yes, and a son. But I don’t know what happened to him. I wanted him here with me, but he’s missing. And now I’m not sure I want him here. I don’t know what I want. Except… I want to know that what I saw out there cannot exist.”
The priest sighed and sat stiffly near them.
He pointed at Corrado and said: “He calls me Babbo, dad, because he’s not very religious.” His expression was more sympathetic now. “I see how much you fear for your son. What happened?”
Corrado moved away, checking on his men.
“I was out working when the Germans picked me up for one of their damned slave-labor details. I didn’t intend— I… found myself fighting even though it was the last thing I wanted. My son was out with his friend Pietro, playing, as he does every day since their school was closed. That was when Corrado’s men grabbed my wife too, but my son wasn’t home. I’m grateful, they may have saved her, but now I want to find Franco and they won’t let me go.”
“My name is Father Tranelli. I will have a word with Corrado. He’s a good man, but he feels responsible for his fighters, and he cannot separate his hate for Germans from his responsibilities. But you saw what the Germans use against us…”
“What are they, Father?” The tremble in Giovanni’s voice betrayed how haunted he was by the horror.
“They are men who have the ability to turn into wolves. You must remember the legends? The Middle Ages were full of sightings, convictions, and executions of so-called wolf-men. Mothers still terrify their unruly children with tales of the uomo-lupo, the wolf-man, or the lupo mannaro – the werewolf. We have always had the legends, especially in the hill villages. But after the Germans became our occupiers and the war seemed already lost, they brought in the Werwolf Division as a rear guard. You know the damned Nazis, they like all that occult stuff. Nobody paid any more attention than to anything else they do. They have already a reputation for shooting civilians and imprisoning anyone they deem dangerous. But as Corrado will tell you, partisan units began coming into contact with groups of these wolves. First our fighters found their sentries killed, torn apart and disemboweled. Men on lonely outposts were killed by mysterious animals. But then the attacks became brazen, and now sometimes several werewolves will attack a patrol or even a safehouse.”
“But why can’t you kill them?” Giovanni slapped his hand on the table. “I saw your men shoot them at point-blank range and yet the wolves survived and still reached them.”
“Werewolves are magical beings, young man. I have no other explanation. They are of the devil, perhaps. They cannot be killed by normal means.”
“Then if there are many of them, we’ll all die…”
“These monsters are vulnerable to one thing. You saw yourself. They are averse to silver. Any weapon made of silver will have an effect on them, and bullets cast from pure silver can kill them. It acts like liquid fire inside their bodies. We have dispatched quite a few, recently. And tonight. But we are still susceptible to their attacks.”
“Why not make silver bullets by the thousands then?”
“My friend, because there is not so much silver to go around. The people used it for money in the early days of the war, when they needed to buy food for their families. Whatever they hoarded is not nearly enough. We use whatever we can get, but we have to make it count. Whenever new people join us, we ask for their silver. It is still not enough.”
“How can you still have your faith after seeing… after seeing that?”
“Who says I still have faith?” The priest rubbed his tired features with a claw-like hand. “Well, I do, even if it’s not like before. I know things have changed in my mind. But I’m a Jesuit, and I can persevere through anything, as Jesus himself was able to do.”
Corrado had returned and heard the last part. “Have you told him yet? The worst part?”
“No, but I will now.” He sighed a long sigh and Giovanni thought he heard the rasp of disease coming from him. “We learned that it’s much better to be killed by the beasts than merely bitten. A man bitten but not killed will inevitably turn into a monster on the next full moon.”
Father Tranelli shook his head. His brown eyes were watery.
“Dio mio.” Giovanni crossed himself. Startled, he realized he hadn’t done so in years. “This is why even the corpses were… stabbed and…”
“God forgive us, yes. Beheaded. We believe it’s the only way to make sure.”
Giovanni was reminded of what Corrado had said. “You spoke of the weapon. It was the blade? Something about the Vatican?”
Tranelli glared at Corrado for a second. “I was in Rome a year ago,” he said, finally nodding and rubbing his thinning hair, “but originally I’m from a small village about fifty kilometers from here. It… it was a village. Now it’s a butcher shop that has been closed a long time. The people there, they were my family and my flock, and this damned Werwolf Division went there and slaughtered all of them because of one shot a boy took at a German soldier. These hellish things, they were let loose in the town square and by the time they were finished, there were thirty-eight butchered corpses. It was worse than what they usually do, line people up and shoot them. This time they… they hunted them down and tore them to pieces, all for the sake of vengeance. When I heard, it was too late to save anyone from my family. The people I grew up with. Everyone was gone. All I could do was pray over what was left of their corpses, and hire men from the next town to dig a long line of graves. It was all I could do, you see?” His skin seemed feverish. The priest clawed through his thinning hair again, a habit by now. “But it wasn’t all I could do. I made a visit to the Vatican library. The Prefect is a friend of mine, and he has the keys to the secret archives which almost no one is allowed to see.”
He paused again. “Corrado, do you have wine?”
“No more for you, Babbo,” said the wiry partisan leader. “I need you almost sober.”
Tranelli licked his dry lips. The priest seemed used up, dried out.
“Va` bene, figlio mio.”
“You were saying,” Giovanni prodded. “About the materials stored in the secret archives.”
Father Tranelli hunched over the rough table. “Yes, there are many secrets in the catacombs below the Vatican,” he whispered, perhaps afraid the Germans would hear. Perhaps afraid something else would hear. “You see, the archives are located beneath a modern building, but there is an area at the rear of the newer section where walls were breached and the archives now include a long portion of the maze that makes up the fabled Roman catacombs. This area is under lock and key and watched over by armed guards, for the Vatican has acquired many books and other items in its history about which the world would be amazed and surprised to learn.”
Like an omen, air raid sirens started their frightening wail. Tranelli closed his mouth. Moments later the rumble of Allied engines reached them just before the rattle of anti-aircraft batteries and the rolling thunder of bomb drops.
Tranelli shrugged. “And so it continues. Where was I? Ah yes, the silver weapons. When I spoke to my friend, the Prefect of the Archives, and we discussed these cursed wolves and their aversion to silver, he showed me an old book – medieval, at the least
– in which a mystic theorized that silver was a symbol of purity from time immemorial. And, as we all know, thirty silver coins were the payment Judas received for his betrayal of Christ.
“But the Prefect went even further than that, my young friend. You see, he told me that another book on his secret shelves contained the description of a pair of weapons fashioned from relics of the crucifixion. Someone was charged with smelting the thirty coins and using the silver to plate two daggers fashioned from a metal spear-point. It was no simple spear, however, but the spear of Longinus, the centurion who inflicted the fatal wound on Christ while he languished on the cross. Normally death comes to the crucified by asphyxiation. The Roman soldier later realized his spear had been blessed by its contact with the holy flesh and repented, even though his act had been merciful.”
The priest paused here, wiped his dry mouth, and clearly wished for wine. “I don’t know exactly how it came about, but the silver-plated blades were specially intended to kill werewolves, which up to that point had been invulnerable to any weapon. Since then, it is said, all silver is abhorrent to wolves. The silver-plated weapons were matched with wood from either the Longinus spear, or from the true cross – or from both, the book was imprecise, as old tomes often are – which was fashioned into scabbards for the daggers.”
“What’s the value of that?” Giovanni asked, interested despite his meager belief. In the distance, Allied planes pounded the harbor. He hoped this time, at least, they had found their target. Giovanni also hoped the German warships anchored there were taking a beating.
The priest explained: “One thing, the sanctified wood seems to veil the silver’s presence, so a werewolf cannot quickly sense the imminent danger of a formidable opponent, making it easier to take one by surprise. The mystic I spoke of further theorized that the holy weapon might be used by one man afflicted with the werewolf disease to fight and vanquish another, because he would be able to keep the blade close to his body without himself suffering the excruciating burns the silver would have caused him otherwise. The mystic called the dagger the werewolf’s werewolf killer.”
“Well, all this knowledge is fine and good, and your friend was certainly helpful, but what good has it done here?”
“After showing me the book, the Prefect went to a locked cabinet in this most secret of places and from it he removed a wooden case which held both daggers. He gave them to me, my friend, and I have brought them to Corrado.”
“My God.”
“Yes, perhaps it is God giving us an advantage. Perhaps it is something older than God. I am certain I do not know.”
“What does your friend think is the origin of these monsters?”
“My friend recounted the famous legend of Romulus and Remus, the babes who founded Rome – but more importantly, who were abandoned and later suckled by a she-wolf. Every schoolchild has heard this one, but there is an older, lesser-known legend in which the two male babes were not rescued, but were the offspring of the she-wolf, the result of copulation with a human. In this version, the babes Romulus and Remus were the first shapeshifters, and they passed on the gene to their own offspring. Perhaps the full moon’s influence on the night of conception has something to do with it. No one knows. But nothing could kill the cursed wolf-men until the Christ’s death led to the fashioning of the daggers.”
Giovanni digested the priest’s words.
“Now I want wine, Corrado, damn you.”
Outside, the all-clear sounded and the city came crawling out of its holes.
4
Giovanni blinked as they led him out of the air raid shelter they called Sanctuary.
It was dark, but even so it was brighter than the candle-lit cavern below.
After the all-clear, Corrado had assigned two men to accompany Giovanni to his apartment, where he hoped to find Franco.
Giovanni followed the tall, strangely nicknamed werewolf-killer Turco (who didn’t appear in the least Turkish) and a taciturn hulking giant of a man named Manfredo. They had given him a newer German P38 pistol he had again tucked into his belt, a commando-style knife, and in his hands he carried another Beretta submachine gun.
Just like that, it seemed, Giovanni had become a partisan.
Porca fortuna!
He was content to know Maria was as safe as she could be in the shelter, which was extensive and well-stocked, but his son’s safety was on his mind. And, if he were honest with himself, his own safety was as well – now, if he were stopped by the Germans, he would be summarily executed.
They crept through the ruined street, hoping that when they reached Giovanni’s there would be buildings left standing. No bombing could be completely accurate, but the amount of civilian devastation ringing the port was incredible. Parts of buildings spilled out debris and belongings, some still smoldering from this last Allied bombing run, which had mostly missed the harbor after all.
Here and there Giovanni saw a bloody arm or leg protruding from piles of brick and cement rubble. Confused survivors stumbled over the broken remainders of their lives, searching for loved ones, or memories to salvage.
Dazed, Giovanni followed Turco and Manfredo as they led him in redundant zig-zags down the street.
Turco held up a hand and they stopped, crouching low behind the remains of a brick wall. The thin, bearded academic didn’t look like a seasoned partisan, but Corrado had called him one of the best.
Giovanni couldn’t see what had caused Turco to stop them so suddenly.
Then a match flared only a couple meters away on the other side of the broken wall, and Giovanni made out a reflection on a German coal-shuttle helmet and the glint of a long bayonet fitted to the muzzle of a Mauser rifle.
Posted to catch us, Giovanni thought, his throat seizing and his heart racing.
Turco pressed his index finger on his lips, then waved Manfredo closer. His hand told Giovanni to wait there, under cover.
The two partisans crawled silently along their side of the wall until they reached a demolished corner. Shattered bricks lay all about. Giovanni could barely see, but these men had lived as outlaws for so long he assumed they’d developed night vision. They were now positioned immediately behind the unsuspecting sentry, as far as he could tell.
Suddenly there was a rattle of equipment, clothes, and debris as Turco went in high and dragged the German backward, his hand clasped tightly over the unfortunate’s face to keep him from shouting.
Manfredo lunged in from the side with the silver-bladed knife, ruthlessly plunging its length into the German’s side a half-dozen times. While Turco pulled the dying soldier back over the wall, Manfredo finished the job by slitting his throat with one savage motion.
They laid the bleeding, dying soldier on a bed of shattered bricks and raided his pockets and belt pouches for ammunition and food. A few moments later, a spasm took him and he sighed his last. Manfredo spat on him.
Turco nodded at Giovanni and they were on their way.
Giovanni gritted his teeth.
The whole encounter had taken less than a minute.
They continued, carefully avoiding the flickering light of fires that marked where gas lines had erupted, and any movement by crossing from shadow to shadow, occasionally hearing screams of pain and fear from people trapped in the ruins of their buildings. Giovanni’s heart cried, but Turco motioned them on, indicating they had to ignore the victims or they would themselves be sacrificed.
“We stop, we die,” he whispered.
Soon they left the devastated section behind with only a glow from the fires to mark what they had seen. As they approached Giovanni’s neighborhood, he was grateful to see that his building still stood – a seven-storey stucco-sided tenement with solid marble floors and heavy clay tile roof. It looked unharmed and his heart swelled at the thought of finding Franco at home.
“Watch out!” Turco cried, and lunged past.
Giovanni saw the glint of silver.
And heard snarling behind him.
&n
bsp; 5
By the time Giovanni managed to whirl around, the wolf was on him.
But Turco had also lunged at the attacking beast and intercepted the muscular body in mid-air. They both crashed into Giovanni and the three went down in a tangle of arms, claws, and fangs.
Giovanni dropped the Beretta and tried to wrestle the wolf with his bare hands, while Turco attempted to bring his magical blade to bear and still avoid the slashing teeth and claws. The wolf was damnably quick, out-maneuvering both men and making the three a blur that the giant Manfredo could do nothing about.
Giovanni kept the jaws away from his throat by pushing the red-eyed head away. Turco struggled with the sheathed dagger. If the Jesuit had been right, then the wood scabbard was shielding the wolf from the silver blade. Giovanni tried to shift the balance of the three squirming bodies to give Turco a chance to draw the blade.
But the wolf seemed to predict each attempt. Giovanni could either avoid the snapping jaws or help Turco. And the wolf knew it. He could read the monster’s intelligence in its demon eyes, which were neither animal nor human.
Turco grunted when the wolf clawed his face, but his grunt turned to a tortured scream – his cheek had been torn open and his jaw dislocated. Still barely managing to deflect the beast’s fangs, Giovanni realized with horror that the monster’s swipe had ripped Turco’s left eye from its socket and it hung from its optic nerve leaving behind a black hole in which he swore he could glimpse hell itself.
“Shoot him!” he shouted at Manfredo, who was frozen in place with his pistol extended, trying to draw a bead on the monster without striking either human. “Damn you, shoot him!”
Turco opened his mouth and screamed incoherently as the wolf suddenly gained the advantage and its snapping jaws tore the partisan’s clothing to shreds and dug savagely into his belly.
Giovanni felt the gush of hot blood and intestines wash over his chest and pried himself out from under the dying partisan and the savage monster. As he rolled out from under the two, it was clear Turco was dead.
SNAFU: Wolves at the Door: An Anthology of Military Horror Page 13