The Black Gate

by Michael R. Hicks

  Opening her eyes again, she turned around, taking in the magnificent obelisk of the Washington Monument rising above more cherry trees lining Independence Avenue.

  Her lips curled up in a smile laden with irony. Independence. Her first true day of independence, free of the abusive and manipulative people who had ruled her entire life, had been a month ago to the day. It had been a long, difficult journey.

  She had covered the three hundred kilometers from Arnsberg to the port of Antwerp, Belgium in three nights, holing up during the day in the cool darkness of cellars beneath abandoned houses. She was able to wait until the second night before hunger drove her again to feed. While she could still appreciate the taste of human food, it held no nourishment for her. She could have eaten all day and still been ravenous. Draining the energy from animals, she found, would only barely sustain her. The only real sustenance for her body was what she took from other human beings. Armed with that bitter knowledge, she tracked down a group of German POWs being escorted to the rear, snatching one of them in the darkness and burying the remains. The Allied guards she left in peace.

  In Antwerp, she was faced with a difficult proposition. She needed to board a ship to cross the Atlantic, but the passage would take at least a week and she had vowed not to take innocent lives. Moving across the docks and through the ships like a shadow in the darkness, she finally found what she needed: a ship bearing American soldiers who had been convicted of serious crimes and who were being returned to the United States for imprisonment. She took four of their lives, tossing the bodies overboard, before the ship docked at Newport News, Virginia.

  Once in America, things became far more difficult. She was a stranger in a strange land, without money, able to speak only broken English, without any credentials or identity papers. With Peter gone, there was no one she could turn to, no one who might possibly comprehend what it was that she had become. The only thing that kept her from sliding into mortal depression was Peter’s journal, which she kept with her always. It had become the focus of her accursed life.

  While she despised herself for doing so, she became a thief, stealing money, clothes and anything else she needed to survive. Working her way north to Washington, D.C., she spent some time becoming familiar with the capitol city before finally contacting Aaron Connelly of the OSS.

  And now, here on the Kutz Bridge, she waited. Peter’s journal was in her purse, and her heart was torn at the thought of giving it up. It had given her a sense of purpose, and she wasn’t sure what she would do after she handed it over to Peter’s colleague. While she certainly didn’t want to die, living an immortal life as the thing she had become was a terrifying prospect. An eternity alone, feeding on the living.

  A man in a black trench coat and matching Fedora hat strode purposefully along the sidewalk on the north side of the bridge from the direction of the Lincoln Memorial. Few pedestrians were on the bridge at this hour, which is one reason she had chosen the location for this meeting. The other was that it gave her a clear field of view and an easy escape over the railing into the Potomac River if things went wrong.

  The man stopped directly across the street and, after a quick glance around, turned to look at her.

  Holding his gaze, she withdrew Peter’s journal from her purse and held it up so the man could see it in the glow cast by the street lights. After giving a curt nod, he waited until there was a break in the car traffic before he stepped from the sidewalk into the street.

  ***

  Connelly’s heart was hammering in his chest as he joined the woman on the south side of the bridge. She wore a black dress and shoes, with a black lace veil over her face. While certainly unusual dress for an evening walk, it was hardly remarkable to see a woman dressed for mourning, given the number of men still dying on the front lines. “Guten Abend, Fräulein,” he said quietly. He would never pass for a native German, but he could communicate well enough. “I’m Aaron Connelly.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” she said, also in German. “You know me as Garbo, Peter’s contact in Arnsberg.”

  Connelly nodded and let out a slow breath. “He didn’t make it out, did he?”

  “No,” she whispered, shaking her head. “I am so very sorry.” With great reluctance, she handed him the journal. “He kept notes on the project. There were two journals, but I was only able to save this one.”

  Holding his breath, Connelly flipped open the blood-stained soft bound journal, noting the bullet hole through it. “Except for these diagrams here, it’s all in numbers.”

  “It is a book cipher Peter used. He was able to tell me that it was one in his home library, but did not have the chance to say which one. I am sorry.”

  Connelly frowned. “That’ll make things a bit tricky, but we’ll see what we can do.” Closing the journal, he sighed. “Your last report said that Peter was working with the Germans. Was that true?”

  Tears welled in her eyes as she slowly shook her head. “No. I was wrong, but was captured before I could tell what really happened. Peter sacrificed himself to save us, all of us.”

  “Listen,” Connelly asked, “I’d like you to come back with me to OSS Headquarters to debrief you. We have so many unanswered questions about…”

  The rest of his words were lost in the squeal of tires on asphalt.

  ***

  One moment Connelly was standing there in front of Mina, asking her to go with him to OSS Headquarters. The next he was gone, his body hurled down the street by the car that had swerved onto the sidewalk and hit him, but missed Mina by the breadth of a finger.

  “Nein!” In a flash she was beside Connelly’s broken body, but it was too late. He stared up at the night sky with dead eyes as a rivulet of blood flowed from his shattered skull.

  Behind her, a car door opened. “Ah, shit,” someone muttered. It was the driver. He stumbled closer, and Mina could smell whiskey on his breath. With glazed eyes, he looked down at Connelly’s body. “Hey, you all right, Mac?”

  Her face contorting in rage, Mina grabbed the driver’s neck with one hand and squeezed. He barely had time to raise his hands to defend himself before his vertebrae cracked and popped. Mina dropped him, still twitching, to the ground as onlookers, rushing to the scene, cried out in surprise and fear.

  With one last look at Connelly, she scooped up the journal, which lay close to the OSS officer’s smashed body, and vanished into the night.

  ***

  Pushing the boy away and gently but firmly removing his hand from her thigh, Marlena said, “I’m not sure about this.”

  With a melodramatic groan, Ernst, her boyfriend, said, “What’s wrong?”

  Even in the moonlight, she could see the pout on his face, and she had to put a hand over her mouth to keep from grinning. Ernst wouldn’t like that. He had a very prickly ego.

  They were lying among the trees — saplings, really — beside the old viaduct that had been destroyed during the war. The Ruhr River burbled a few meters away. The old trees that had been uprooted during the bombings had been replaced, but the new ones were barely taller than Marlena. While the railroad tracks had been put back into service, the stone arches of the viaduct still hadn’t been fully repaired. Labor and material was still scarce in 1947 West Germany, and rebuilding the viaduct wasn’t exactly a top priority.

  She had been down here before, of course, but only during the day. Coming down here tonight had been Ernst’s suggestion after their successful escape from their homes and unwitting parents.

  “What’s wrong?” Ernst repeated, his hand slowly creeping up her thigh again.

  “That tickles!” She giggled, putting her hand over his. Deciding that it would be all right to let him venture just a bit farther, she slowly moved his hand up until his fingers brushed her panties. “And that’s as far as…”

  She broke off as the ground trembled and a geyser erupted from the moonlit waters of the Ruhr, drenching them with spray.

  “Oh!” She got to her feet, with Ernst besi
de her.

  “What was that?” Ernst moved to the edge of the water. “You felt it, didn’t you?”

  “Of course I did.” Marlena shivered, but it wasn’t from the cold. “Ernst, be careful. Remember how big those bomb craters were. Maybe they weren’t filled right. Or maybe there’s one that hasn’t gone off.” Unexploded bombs were an ever present hazard in much of post-war Germany.

  “Stop worrying.” Ernst scanned the water and the ground around them. “We’re not sinking and we haven’t been blown up.”

  “Look!” Marlena pointed at the water, just a meter or so from shore. Something had bobbed up to the surface amid the momentary turbulence in the river.

  Ernst leaned forward, peering at the object. “Someone’s there!” He waded in, and was nearly waist deep before he could reach the body that was whirling slowly in the current.

  “Be careful!” Marlena shouted. “Maybe we should get my father?” Her father was the head of the local Polizei.

  “We can’t just leave him! He could still be alive!” Ernst took the man by the wrists and quickly hauled him back to shore.

  Marlena knelt down beside the naked soul. “He can’t have been dead very long. He’s not bloated and doesn’t smell.” While Arnsberg hadn’t seen as much devastation as much of the rest of Germany during the war, there had been enough. She and Ernst had both seen plenty of bodies.

  Ernst pushed just below the man’s rib cage, trying to pump out any water from his lungs. A small dribble emerged, but that was all.

  Taking the man’s wrist, Marlena felt for a pulse. “He’s dead. His heart’s not beating.” She reached over to his other hand, which was clenched tight around what looked like a rubber tube.

  With a frown, Ernst pressed again. Then once more, harder this time. More water dribbled from the man’s mouth.

  Ernst was about to try again when one of the man’s hands flashed out, impossibly fast, to grip Ernst’s closed fist.

  “You’re alive!” Ernst said, jubilant. Then he shrieked as the bones of his hand snapped, crushed in the grip of the dead man come to life.

  The man’s eyelids opened, revealing orbs that glowed like hot coals.

  Marlena backed away, screaming, as the man reached up with hands that glowed like flame, putting them on either side of Ernst’s head.

  Thrashing and screaming, Ernst grabbed a rock with his free hand and smashed it down on his assailant’s head. The man squeezed his hands together, putting more pressure on Ernst’s skull, and the boy wailed in agony. Dropping the rock, he grabbed at the man’s hands, trying to pull them free. All in vain.

  “Ernst!” Marlena reached down to grab a rock herself.

  “Run!” Ernst cried.

  Marlena watched as her boyfriend seemed to shrivel before her eyes. Dropping the rock, she fled through the darkness. She almost made it to Hüstener Strasse, the road that ran beside the Ruhr and beneath the viaduct, when an iron hand clamped onto her shoulder, crushing the bones.

  She went down screaming and a heavy, cold, wet weight slammed on top of her, driving the air from her lungs. Flipped over onto her back, she looked up to see the Devil’s own face staring down at her. She stared into Satan’s burning eyes, her soul drawn into Hell as the man reached out for her with his glowing hands.

  ***

  His acute starvation now reduced to mere ravening hunger, Baumann tossed the two shriveled bodies into the Ruhr. He took a deep breath, savoring the fresh air, and looked up at the stars. It was a sight he had never again expected to see.

  But this night of freedom held only questions for him. Had the Reich fallen in the time it had taken — however long it had been — to dig his way free of the subterranean tomb where Peter had nearly trapped him? Was the Führer still alive? Had the Red Army and the Anglo-Saxons overrun his Fatherland, or had they been repulsed? All he knew at the moment was that the night sky was devoid of the drone of RAF bombers and the streaks of antiaircraft fire, and lights shone from many of the buildings and houses he could see, the wartime blackout clearly over. That could only mean that one side or the other had won. He now had to find out which had been the victor, and which the fallen.

  Clutching the precious journal that he had sought to preserve in a sheet of rubber he had found in the submerged lab while searching for a way out, Baumann began moving up the hill north of the old castle toward the nearest house. He had much to do, so very much to do, but first things must come first.

  He had to feed.

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  DISCOVER OTHER BOOKS

  BY MICHAEL R. HICKS

  In Her Name: The Last War Trilogy

  First Contact

  Legend Of The Sword

  Dead Soul

  In Her Name: Redemption Trilogy

  Empire

  Confederation

  Final Battle

  In Her Name: The First Empress Trilogy

  From Chaos Born

  Forged In Flame

  Mistress Of The Ages (Coming Soon)

  In Her Name Trilogy Collections

  In Her Name: Redemption

  In Her Name: The Last War

  Harvest Trilogy

  Season Of The Harvest

  Bitter Harvest

  Reaping The Harvest

  Visit AuthorMichaelHicks.com for the latest updates!

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Born in 1963, Michael Hicks grew up in the age of the Apollo program and spent his youth glued to the television watching the original Star Trek series and other science fiction movies, which continues to be a source of entertainment and inspiration. Having spent the majority of his life as a voracious reader, he has been heavily influenced by writers ranging from Robert Heinlein to Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven, and David Weber to S.M. Stirling. Living in Florida with his beautiful wife, two wonderful stepsons and two mischievous Siberian cats, he’s now living his dream of writing novels full-time.