“I’m sorry,” I murmured. Stefan sipped his liqueur without comment.
“It is not your fault.” Janek waved his hand. “It is no one’s fault. But it is a bitch of a disease.”
He told me his story.
Before that afternoon, I hadn’t known much about Lou Gehrig’s disease. I hadn’t known much about the history of Poland under German occupation during World War II, either. I mean, I knew about the Holocaust and the concentration camps and the general course of events, but it had all seemed very distant. Well, except for that time I watched Saving Private Ryan, which obviously doesn’t count.
Listening to Janek Król tell his story, it felt very immediate, very real, and very, very horrifying.
He told it in a matter-of-fact manner without belaboring the details. He had been a teacher, a man of profound Christian faith, and a childless widower. He had been diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease after experiencing symptoms far milder than he did today shortly before the Nazi German invasion in 1939.
Oh, and for the record, the disease is incurable, inexorably debilitating, and inevitably fatal. It really is a bitch.
I hadn’t known about the Nazis’ efforts to eradicate ethnic Poles, the thousands sent to the concentration camps or killed outright, and I hadn’t known there was a Polish government in exile, coordinating resistance efforts including an organization dedicated to providing shelter, food, and false documents to Jews across the country.
“Oh, yes,” Janek said in a dry voice. “It is estimated that it took ten Poles to save the life of one Jew.”
In the ongoing cultural genocide during the occupation, in which a lot of academic institutions were destroyed, surviving Polish children were forbidden to receive an education beyond the elementary level, the theory being that it would prevent a new generation of leaders from arising. Even as his condition continued to deteriorate, Janek’s role in the resistance had been as a teacher, part of an underground campaign to educate those very children.
“An important role,” he acknowledged. “Not a vital role. But I knew people who performed such roles, providing military intelligence to the government in exile. In 1941, the Gestapo began to suspect such a man of my acquaintance, an asset of great value.” He shrugged. “I took his place.”
“How?” I asked softly.
Stefan refilled our shot glasses with liqueur. Janek took an effortful sip and coughed. “How is not important,” he said. “Nowadays, such details do not matter, only to historians. It is enough to say it was done. The suspicions of the Gestapo were diverted, and they took me instead of him.” A spasm convulsed his right shoulder and ran down his arm, and the shot glass slipped from his hand, falling onto the table. Janek swore in Polish.
“It’s okay,” I said while Stefan rose to fetch a dishcloth. “You really don’t have to tell me this.”
Janek fixed me with his intense gaze. The hunger in his eyes was palpable, and I fought the urge to kindle a shield. “Yes,” he said. “I do.” He waited until Stefan had mopped up the spill and refilled his glass before continuing. “I knew I would never return from this mission and I was at peace with it. Already, I was a dead man walking. I told myself it was not a form of suicide, that there was no sin intended, and that God would forgive me for the sacrifice I made. But I lied to myself. I knew what I was doing and why. And so did God.”
There wasn’t a whole lot one could say in response to that, so I didn’t say anything.
Wrapping his two fingers and thumb around the shot glass, Janek lifted it to his lips, sipped and grimaced. “The Gestapo questioned me for many days. You will have read about such techniques, for your own government used them not so very long ago. It was only the knowledge that I was giving my life to save another’s, to serve my country, that gave me the strength to endure.” He stared into the distance. “To this day, I do not know how it is that I failed.”
An involuntary sound escaped me.
“Oh, yes.” Janek’s gaze shifted back to me. “Just before he killed me, my tormentor made certain I knew. You let a few things slip, Mr. Król, he said to me. You’re not who you’re pretending to be. But that’s all right. We’ve got the right fellow now.” His crippled hand tightened around the glass. “To prove it, he recited my acquaintance’s name and address, the names of his wife and children. I was filled with a rage and despair such as I have never known. Seeing this, my tormentor laughed. And then he said they had no further use for me, and shot me.”
Across the table, Stefan’s pupils waxed in silent fury.
“So.” Janek relinquished his grip on the shot glass. “I died; and I returned. The first of many times. That is how I discovered that God did not forgive my sin.” His mouth tightened. “Of what happened next, I will not speak to such a beautiful young woman.”
“Daisy should know,” Stefan murmured. “Janek was in captivity when he became Outcast. Had he been physically hale, it is likely that he would have been able to orchestrate an escape once he gained sufficient mastery of his new ability.”
“Even without an underworld present?” I asked. “Or did this take place in, um . . . ?”
“Wieliczka?” Stefan shook his head. “No. But the ground was soaked with sufficient blood for necromancy to function.”
“I thought that only worked on islands,” I said. “Because they’re circumscribed by salt water.”
“There are places in this world that have seen sufficient horror to fuel death magic for centuries,” Stefan said. “Janek was sent to Dachau.” With an abrupt motion, he downed the contents of his shot glass at a gulp. Apparently, there were times when that was called for, and this was one of them. “The Nazis conducted medical experiments at Dachau,” he said in a dispassionate voice. “They were excited by the possibilities presented by a man who could not die. Until the encampment was liberated in 1945, the Nazis tried many experiments to see if Janek’s ability could be transferred to another subject. Many, many experiments. Blood transfusions, organ transplants, limb grafting—”
“Stop!” I felt sick. “I’m sorry,” I said to Janek Król. “Oh, God! I don’t mean to be rude. I mean, your story should be told. The world should bear witness to it or something, but . . . why me? Why here and now?”
Janek gazed at me without blinking, his pupils wide and fixed in his dark eyes. “So that you will understand what I have suffered when I ask you to put an end to this immortal existence of mine.”
“When you—” I swallowed hard. “You’re asking me to kill you?”
“Yes, young Daisy.” Janek Król inclined his head to me. “I am asking you to kill me.”
Twenty-seven
I found myself on my feet with no memory of having risen from my chair, pacing back and forth in Stefan’s condo, my tail lashing while the two Outcast at the table watched me without speaking.
“I don’t get it.” I stopped pacing and flung my arms out. “How is asking me to kill you any less suicidal than sacrificing yourself to the Gestapo?”
Janek Król sat upright and dignified in his wheelchair. “It is not.”
“So . . . why?”
He folded his hands in his lap. “I have prayed on this for many days, since first my good friend Stefan told me of your existence, and the great and terrible weapon you possess. I believe it is a sign from God that He has forgiven me. I believe He is calling me home.”
I stared at him. It was hard to believe that after all Janek had been through, his faith remained so strong; and even harder to believe the logic behind his conclusion. “By means of a hell-spawn with a dagger given to her by the Norse goddess of the dead? That’s God’s way of telling you it’s okay to commit assisted suicide?”
“Yes.” Janek’s eyes glittered fervently. “Beyond the Inviolate Wall, God cannot intervene directly on the mortal plane, but He can use any tools that come to hand. Including a pagan goddess, and yes, the offspring of a fallen angel.”
I plopped back into my chair, poured myself a shot of liqueur
without asking and downed it. “What about you?” I asked Stefan. “Do you think my existence is a sign of God’s forgiveness?”
Stefan hesitated. “I think it is possible,” he said at length.
I eyed him. “Tell me you’re not planning on asking me to kill you.”
He gave me a faint smile. “No.”
“Good.” I looked back at Janek. “Why does it have to be me? I mean, there is another way, right?” I felt guilty even suggesting it—the only other way for one of the Outcast to die was to starve to death, deprived of all emotional sustenance until they lost their wits, devoured their own essence and ceased to exist. Stefan had told me once that it would require many months of solitary confinement.
And yes, I’d just suggested that prospect to a Holocaust survivor who’d spent years in a concentration camp being subjected to medical experiments too gruesome to contemplate.
On the other hand, he was asking me to kill him.
“It is true,” Janek said. “But that way leads only to nonexistence and the eternal void, not the possibility of heaven or hell.”
“I don’t mean to question the tenets of Outcast lore,” I said. “But, um . . . how do you know? I mean, presumably no one’s come back from the eternal void to report on their dissolution and nonexistence, right?”
By the way, yes, I’m aware that I hadn’t questioned that particular tenet when I’d been called upon to dispatch two ghouls last summer; maybe because Hel herself had sentenced them to death and ordered me to ensure that it was done, maybe because they were guilty of a heinous crime. Or maybe because if I’d looked too closely at what I was doing, I’d have lost my nerve.
Across from me, Stefan shifted. The two men exchanged a glance.
“I have seen the void,” Janek said quietly. “And it terrified me.”
“Oh.”
“At some point in our long existence, most of us have made the attempt,” Stefan murmured. “Many have seen the void. Few have continued willingly.”
I swallowed. “I see.”
Janek gave Stefan an inquiring look. “Have you spoken to Daisy of your first death?”
“No.” He shook his head. “I have spoken to her of how I died and was made Outcast. Not the death itself.”
“It is a painful subject.” Janek drew a slow, deep breath. “At the moment of passing . . . for some, it is the white light, or so they say. I think it is because there are no true words to describe it. For me, it was like a sound, like the sweetest chord ever struck; only it was not music or even truly a sound, but a sense of homecoming, as though I had been lost in the wilderness for the longest time, wandering lonely and afraid, only to hear my mother call my name, her voice filled with love, and the promise of rest and comfort—” He halted and clenched his teeth, a tremor running through his body. “Forgive me.”
I nodded.
“It was a fleeting glimpse of glory,” Janek continued with an effort. “And then it was gone, as though a door had been shut with great violence. And I was Outcast, filled with all the rage and despair with which I died, and a hunger, a terrible hunger, ravaging my soul. But I have never forgotten that glimpse.” His voice grew stronger. “And I will not sacrifice its promise to the eternal void.”
Well, it was kind of hard to argue with that. “Is that how it was for you, too?” I asked Stefan.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “I would use different words, but the sense that Janek describes . . . yes.”
“Does it happen every time you, um, die?”
“No.” Stefan shook his head again. “I think we would go mad if it did. To be offered such a glimpse and denied it, over and over.”
“Some of us do go mad, old friend,” Janek said quietly. “Some of us embrace the ravening.”
“Yes,” Stefan said. “And some of us fight it.”
“Yes.”
They sat together in silence, two veterans of battles I couldn’t begin to imagine sharing memories I couldn’t begin to fathom. It felt unseemly to disturb their reverie, but again . . . hello? I’d just been asked to kill one of them.
“How can you be sure it would be different this way?” I asked Janek. “What if I, um, do what you ask”—I couldn’t bring myself to say kill you—“and there’s nothing there but the void?”
It was Stefan who answered. “Dauda-dagr is a charmed weapon given to you by a goddess of the dead, Daisy. It is my belief that it will dispatch its victims to the afterlife, not the void of nonexistence.”
I raised my eyebrows at him. “You seem awfully certain about something that can’t be proved.”
“I am,” he said mildly. “Perhaps you have forgotten that I told you that when I was a Knight of the Cross with the Red Star, I was a member of a branch of the order that studied occult afflictions.”
“At a hospital in Prague,” I said. “Oh, I haven’t forgotten. I may forget how to pronounce Wie . . . Wiel . . .”
“Wieliczka,” Stefan said. “And since my days with the order, I have had six centuries to study eldritch phenomena. You witnessed two members of the Outcast meeting their final deaths at your hand some months ago,” he reminded me. “Tell me, did it seem to you that it was the void they faced?”
“Wieliczka,” I repeated. “Okay, fine. No. It seemed to me that they faced a second chance at redemption or damnation—most likely the latter, given the whole business of engaging in rape and torture. Which leads me to my next point.” I turned toward Janek. “It’s not that I’m not flattered to be considered a sign of divine grace and all, but what if you’re wrong? What if God hasn’t forgiven you, and it’s damnation and hell that you face? It could be worse than Dachau.”
“I am willing to take that chance,” Janek said.
“I’m not sure I am,” I said.
“Daisy.” His dark eyes blazed in his gaunt face. “This I believe to be true. It is as I have said; when I faced death the first time, I lied to myself. I told myself it was not a true form of self-murder, that it was only for the greater good. That was the lie. Yes, I wished to spend my death for a purpose, but it is also true that I wished to hasten the process of dying.”
I raised my voice. “And you revere a God who blamed you for it?”
“I revere a God who abhors lies,” Janek said firmly. “Now, I no longer lie to myself. I think perhaps there is no sin greater than losing faith in God’s infinite forgiveness. That is where I failed before. Now, I am ready to make an end to my long suffering, and God in His mercy has restored my faith and shown me the way. You.”
Tears stung my eyes. “I don’t want that responsibility!”
Across the table, Stefan stirred. “Dauda-dagr is a weapon of great power, Daisy,” he said softly. “When you accepted it from Hel’s hand, you accepted the mantle of responsibility that came with it.”
Oh, for God’s sake. “I’m not fucking Spider-Man!” I shouted at him.
Stefan’s pupils waxed abruptly as my temper ratcheted up, his irises shrinking to frosty rims. “Excuse me?”
I stood up and walked away from the table. At the big picture window, I leaned my forehead against the cool glass, probably leaving a smudge. Outside, it was a gray November day. The river reflected the overcast sky, its gray surface ruffled by the cold breeze. Bit by bit, my anger drained away.
Stefan approached me from behind, standing close enough that I could feel the warmth of his body. Part of me wished he’d put his arms around me. Part of me was afraid I might slug him if he did. Okay, maybe I was holding on to some residual anger after all. But Stefan didn’t do anything. He just stood there, offering his presence.
“I don’t want to do this,” I whispered without turning around.
“I know.”
“You could take it away from me, couldn’t you?” I said. “The fear, the uncertainty, the doubt?”
“Most of it,” Stefan said. “The intellectual questions you are wrestling with would remain. But without the underlying emotions, they will no longer seem to matter.” He pa
used. “Is that what you want?”
“No,” I murmured. “If I do this, I need to own it. I just . . .” I shrugged. There were no words.
“I know,” Stefan said again. He was quiet for a long moment. I didn’t expect him to speak again until I succumbed to the inevitable and gave in to their request, but he surprised me. “Daisy, what does all this have to do with Spider-Man?”
It caught me off guard. I let loose an involuntary gasp of laughter that turned into a ragged sob, and Stefan did put his arms around me then. I leaned back into his embrace, letting the tears streak my cheeks. “This isn’t how I imagined our reunion.”
“I know,” he said for a third time, his breath stirring my hair. “I’m sorry.”
“I know.” I freed one hand to wipe at my tears. “It’s because what you said reminded me of a line from the movie. Spider-Man,” I added, realizing my explanation was a total non sequitur. “The one with Tobey Maguire, I mean, not the new one. It just came up the other night. With great power comes great responsibility.”
“I see.” Stefan took a deep breath, possibly trying not to laugh. “Actually, I believe the quote may first be attributed to Voltaire.”
“Oh.” I didn’t want to admit I wasn’t entirely sure who Voltaire was. I thought he might be the guy who said, I think, therefore I am, but I wasn’t positive. Actually, that’s not true. The part about not wanting to admit it, I mean. I’d rather stay here, gazing out the window with Stefan’s arms wrapped around me while he allayed my ignorance regarding French philosophers, than face what would follow, but delaying wouldn’t make it go away. No matter how long I stood here, Janek Król would be awaiting my answer with terrible patience.
I didn’t want to do what he asked. I really, really didn’t. But there was no one else in the world who could grant Janek the release he yearned for, and if I tried to walk away from this responsibility, his story and the sight of his tortured body that had endured so much for so long would haunt me for the rest of my days.
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