Lycanthropos

by Sackett, Jeffrey

  "Gottfried, get to the point!"

  "Yes, yes, the point is that Zoroaster was apparently either a monotheist or at least a dualist. He wandered around ancient Iran preaching about one supreme deity, Ahura Mazda, and one primordial force of evil, Angra Mainyu."

  "Like God and the Devil?"

  "Precisely," Weyrauch said. "Zoroaster said that the entire universe is nothing more or less than a stage for the eternal struggle between good and evil, between Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainyu, between absolute righteousness and utter iniquity. And he said that the struggle goes on constantly within each human being!"

  Louisa began to discern his drift. "Are you saying that…you think that Herr Kaldy is...is somehow..."

  "A personification, an embodiment, something of that sort? It could be. It could be."

  Louisa looked at her husband with astonishment. "Gottfried, are you trying to tell me that Herr Kaldy is suffering under the curse of a pagan god?! Are you serious?!"

  He shook his head, impatient and annoyed, and responded in a rushed and hurried manner. "There is a school of thought in Progressive Theology which accepts the possibility that the Judeo-Christian tradition of God’s revelation is not the only one, that God did reveal himself to Zoroaster as Ahura Mazda, and possibly also to the Pharaoh Amenhotep IV, Akhnaton, as the monotheos Aton."

  "Gottfried, please!" she interrupted. "Slow down, and think, will you? You are a Christian, Gottfried! God is God, and there is no other!"

  He paused, closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "All right, listen to me carefully."

  "I always do." she said sarcastically. "I hang on every word."

  "I want to remind you of a few things which you already know, but probably haven’t thought about," he went on, ignoring her remark. "You know what the Babylonian captivity was, do you not?"

  "Of course, I read my Bible." She paused and then added pointedly, "And I pay attention to it as well." Her husband did not rise to the bait of the implied insult, so she went on, "The Babylonians conquered ancient Judah, destroyed the temple in Jerusalem, and took the Jews as captives to Babylon."

  "Correct, and they remained there until Babylon itself was conquered and they were sent back to Jerusalem and ordered to build a new temple to the Lord." He paused. "Do you remember who sent them back, who released them, who ordered them to build a new temple?"

  "Of course I remember," she said, annoyed at his patronizing attitude. "It was..." She stopped speaking as she began to understand his point.

  "Cyrus the Great," he finished for her, "the King of Persia, a Zoroastrian! Think about the opening words of the book of the prophet Ezra, Louisa. ‘Thus saith Cyrus, the King of Persia: The Lord, the God of Heaven, has given unto me all the kingdoms of the earth,’ et cetera, et cetera. Don’t you see, Louisa? The Jews and the Persians worshipped the same God by different names!"

  "Gottfried, wait a minute..."

  "And when the promise of the Messiah was about to be fulfilled, whom do we find wandering into Judea from out of the east to visit the manger in Bethlehem? Zoroastrian priests! And there’s more, Louisa, there’s more. The Hebrews had no concept of the Devil before their contact with the Persians in Babylon. The earliest sections of scripture include no explanation of the origin of evil; for example, in the second book of Samuel it says that God caused King David to conduct a census of Israel, and then punished Israel because the king had conducted a census. Makes no sense, does it?"

  "No," she agreed, "not if what you’re saying is accurate."

  "It is accurate, believe me. Second Samuel, chapter twenty-four, a very early, possibly contemporary account of the event. But," he said dramatically, "when the same events are recounted in First Chronicles, chapter twenty-one, written after the Babylonian captivity, the census is not God’s idea, it is Satan’s idea. Don’t you see? The Persians believed in the Devil, they called him Angra Mainyu, and the Jews incorporated that bit of divine revelation into their own, because the revelation came from the same source!"

  Weyrauch was startled to hear Janos Kaldy laughing softly. "This is really quite amusing, Herr Doctor, quite amusing indeed."

  The minister did not know quite how to respond to Kaldy’s laughter. "Kaldy, don’t you understand? We may have uncovered something which relates to your origins!"

  "Permit me to remind you of what you are trying to say," Kaldy said, his laughter subsiding. "You are saying that for some reason, God turned me into a werewolf."

  Weyrauch did not reply immediately. He remembered Schlacht’s sarcastic blasphemy of a short time before, and was uncomfortable with the realization that he had in all seriousness suggested essentially the same thing. "Well, I don’t mean that..."

  "If it’s true, of course, it has another amusing aspect," Kaldy went on. "If I am indeed an ancient Persian, it means that I am the purest Aryan in all Europe!" He laughed again. "It is fortunate that Festhaller is no longer with us. He would have to classify me all over again!"

  "I’m sorry, Herr Kaldy," Louisa said, "but I don’t find this at all funny. The very idea that someone would blame this horrible thing on the Lord...!"

  "Louisa, I’m not saying that, necessarily..." Weyrauch began.

  "Allow me to put both your minds at rest," Kaldy said. "From what our hypnosis sessions have reminded me about my own past, I am at least fifteen hundred years old. I have spoken Latin without being Roman, German without being German, French without being French. I have spoken Turkish and Romansch and the language of the Gypsies, without belonging to any of those nations. The fact that I came up with a sentence in ancient Persian means absolutely nothing. For all we know, I once spoke Chinese and Eskimo."

  "Of course, Gottfried," Louisa added, relieved and pleased by Kaldy’s observations. "You are allowing your learning to interfere with your common sense. You know as well as I do that there is nothing in Christianity or Judaism to allow for the ridiculous, blasphemous idea you were beginning to suggest." She paused. "And I’ll wager that there’s nothing in Islam or Zoroaster’s religion or in any other legitimate faith either."

  Weyrauch nodded slowly as he thought about Kaldy’s explanation and Louisa’s remarks. "Yes, yes, you’re right. I suppose I was just, well, carried away by the intellectual symmetry of the whole thing."

  "Intellectual symmetry," Louisa muttered with exasperation. "May the good Lord protect us from our own intellectuals. It’s just as Dietrich always says about Hegel and Marx and Nietzsche. Our German thinkers can build complex, magnificent thought systems on the basis of ideas that a ten-year-old child could demolish."

  The mention of Bonhöffer irritated Weyrauch, and he said, "And that reminds me, Louisa. Helmuth made it very clear to me that we had better uncover some believable facts about Kaldy’s origins, or when your precious Dietrich is finally shipped off to a concentration camp, you and I will be there to greet him."

  She emitted a curt, scornful laugh. "I’m not afraid of Helmuth."

  "Then you are an idiot," he replied seriously. "He isn’t your little cousin in Lederhosen anymore, Louisa. He is a mass murderer."

  "Eyewitness testimony from a willing collaborator," she snapped. "An unimpeachable source!"

  "Damnation, Louisa, we are in danger!" he shouted.

  "Donna," Blasko asked softly in the liquid tongue of the Alps, "can you take a moment to tell me what you are all saying?"

  "What was that?" Weyrauch asked. "What did he say?"

  "He wants to know what we are arguing about," she replied testily. "And inasmuch as I prefer speaking with him to speaking with you, I shall inform him."

  "You do that," Weyrauch muttered and then turned to Kaldy. "Lie out flat. We must try to go back farther in your memory..." He paused. "If indeed you are not just playing with us..."

  Kaldy smiled condescendingly as he moved onto his back. "You will pardon me. Herr Doctor, if I say that you are not worth the effort which would be involved in such a deception. I cooperate so that my friend Blasko may escape torture and
death, at least temporarily, and because of the remote possibility that you may learn something which will enable me to die."

  As Weyrauch absorbed yet another insult from yet another source, Colonel Helmuth Schlacht drummed his fingers impatiently upon the surface of a lab table as Petra Loewenstein watched the second hand of the wall clock make yet another slow, regular circuit. "Has it been long enough?" he asked.

  "Another minute, Herr Colonel," she replied, keeping her eyes on the clock. "Just to be certain that his system has assimilated the enzyme."

  Neither Schlacht nor Petra nor Corporal Vogel nor the two guards paid any attention to Walter Heine, one time assistant bank president, university graduate, loving father, devoted husband, dutiful son, Auschwitz inmate number 456098, Jew. Heine was bound hand and foot, tied to the back of the stiff wooden chair, doubled over in excruciating pain, trembling, sweating, weeping. The solution had been injected directly into the vein in his arm five minutes before, and though he screamed in agony, he had not died.

  "Time enough," Petra muttered and then picked up a scalpel and approached the shuddering figure. "Sit up," she ordered coldly. When he did not respond, she pushed his head back and repeated. "I said, sit up!" Heine struggled to move his shoulders up to align themselves with his head, and the exertion of his muscles caused a spasm of pain to shoot through his body. He screamed again, but the scream was ignored just as if it had been the squeak of a white mouse.

  Petra placed the blade of the scalpel against Heine’s forehead and after a moment’s pause pressed it down and pulled it quickly across the skin from temple to temple. Then she stood back and observed. She turned to Schlacht. "No blood, Herr Colonel. No cut, no wound, no mark."

  Schlacht smiled and nodded to one of the guards. "Stand aside, Fräulein, if you please." he said.

  Petra complied, and when she was safely away from Heine the guard leveled his Schmeisser submachine gun at the prisoner and opened fire. The rapid series of explosions was deafening in the confines of the small room, and the smell of gunpowder caused Petra to cough and close her eyes.

  When she opened them again, dozens of flattened bits of lead were lying on the floor in front of Heine, and the prisoner was still screaming, still weeping. Still alive.

  "Yes!" Schlacht shouted. "Yes! Reload! Repeat!" The guard removed the spent clip from the gun and replaced it with a fresh one which held another thirty rounds, and then emptied the submachine gun once again into the terrified man, with the same results. Schlacht grabbed another Schmeisser from the hands of the other guard and walked forward. He pointed the barrel directly at the chest of Walter Heine and opened fire. Heine bounced back from the impact and then fell forward, blood streaming from his chest. His shuddering body ceased to move.

  "He is dead?!" Petra asked, strangely excited. "The experiment is a failure?

  "Not at all, Fräulein." Schlacht replied, laughing loudly. "The dilution of the enzyme allows us to kill him, but look! Look!" He gestured at the flattened bullets which littered the floor. "We shot him ninety times before we killed him! What are the chances of a soldier being hit by ninety bullets in a battle? This is invulnerability, practical invulnerability! This is success, Fräulein Loewenstein, undreamed of success!" He turned to Vogel. "Assemble our volunteers. You will find the list of names on my desk. And arrange for transportation for all of us to Hunyad. We will initiate the final stage of the experiment there."

  "Jawohl, Herr Colonel," Vogel replied and then rushed off to comply.

  Schlacht turned and looked happily at the dead man as he said to Petra, "Find Weyrauch and tell him to report to my office. I’ll have Vogel arrange for him to join me at Hunyad. But take your time about it, powder your nose first or something. I don’t want Gottfried to know that he’s going somewhere until I’ve already left Budapest. I don’t want to have to ride in the same car with him. The less I see of him, the better."

  "As you wish," she said quietly.

  Schlacht turned to her. "Fräulein Loewenstein, you seem surprisingly subdued." She shrugged ambiguously. "Don’t forget that when the official record of this experiment is written, yours will be the credit for the discovery. Your place among the scientific elite of the Reich is secure. A month ago you were one of a dozen chemists on Mengele’s staff. A month from now, if I have anything to say about it, and I assure you that I will, you will have your own staff to assist you in your own research."

  She smiled at him. "Thank you, Herr Colonel, that would be very, very gratifying. The opportunity to pursue one’s own independent projects is a dream to most scientists. And I know what my own research will be."

  He returned her smile. "Yes, and I approve. As I told you before, I need to know how to kill them too." He took her warm hands in his as he said, "We shall avenge your family and secure the Reich at one and the same time, Petra, you and I, together."

  Her smiled broadened. "You make it sound like an alliance, Helmuth."

  He nodded as he took her into his arms and drew her to him. "The Führer has said many times that the convergence of aims is the soundest basis for cooperation."

  "Well," she whispered, "if the Führer says it, then it certainly must be true," and then bent her head back slightly to receive his lips against her own. Schlacht’s hands moved slowly down from her waist to her buttocks. As they kissed, he closed his eyes and pressed her body against his. She melted into his arms and sighed softly, entwining her arms around his neck and pressing her belly against him.

  But her eyes remained open and cold.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  "Can you hear me, Kaldy?"

  "I hear you, Herr Doctor."

  "Backward in time, Kaldy, backward in time..."

  "Yes..."

  "Back past Hungary, past France. Back past Romania and Mongolia and Novgorod and Britannia..."

  "Yes..."

  "The centuries are rolling back, year by year, Kaldy. The memories are surfacing, you are living the past once again..."

  "Yes...yes..."

  A long pause. "Where are you now, Kaldy? When are you now?"

  "I am in prison. I am chained to a wall in a prison."

  "Are you still in the Bastille, Kaldy? Have you not gone far enough back into the past?"

  "No...no...not the Bastille...a prison...not the Bastille…"

  "Is Merlin imprisoning you, Kaldy? Have you not gone far enough back into the past?"

  "Merlin…I kinow no Merlin…a prison…a prison…"

  "Is Claudia with you, Kaldy? Is Claudia with you in prison?"

  "Claudia…Claudia…I know no Claudia…"

  "You do not know a woman named Claudia? You have not yet met Claudia?"

  "I know no Claudia..."

  "What year is it, Kaldy? When are you in prison?"

  "Non eum sed meum…non eum..sed…meum..."

  "What are you saying, Kaldy? What are you speaking, Latin? ‘Not him, but me.’ What does that mean, Kaldy? What are you saying?"

  "Non eum sed meum...peccavi, non peccavit..."

  "You are guilty but he is not? Who, Kaldy? Who is not guilty?"

  "Non eum...non eum...non eum..."

  Lucius Messalinus Strabo planted a powerful kick into the unprotected side of the sleeping figure that lay motionless in the dust before him. The figure did not stir, and the centurion kicked him once again, deriving some measure of satisfaction at having a helpless object upon which to vent his frustrations. At his age and with his family connections back in Rome...his third cousin married to a senator, after all!...he certainly should have a career more honorable and profitable than the one which had consigned him to the command of a mere century of soldiers in this barbaric pesthole of a city, far from the amenities of civilization.

  "Wake up, scum!" he shouted and directed yet another kick at the motionless man. People walking past the dusty alleyway in the light of early morn knew better than to stop and look, let alone attempt to interfere. Strabo laughed and the three soldiers standing beside joined in his lau
ghter. He looked at them and joked, "He must have had a bit too much wine last night."

  "Yes," one of them agreed, still laughing, "he seems to have built up quite a thirst." As he said this he nodded toward the two mutilated bodies which lay in the dust nearby. It was just after sunrise, but the intense heat of the season seemed already to be putrefying the dead flesh.

  "I said wake up!" Strabo shouted once again, punctuating his command with another kick. "I don’t really care if you barbarians murder each other, but you won’t do it on my watch! The law is the law! Now wake up!" and he kicked the sleeping man yet again.

  The supine figure’s eyes opened slowly and he raised himself up on one elbow and looked around him. He saw the gutted corpses and looked away, not so much repulsed or horrified as reminded of a painful and familiar reality. "You’ve had a busy night, haven’t you?" Strabo asked with cruel humor. "Well, get up, animal. We aren’t going to carry you to your execution. I said get up!"

  Two of the soldiers grabbed the man by his arms and pulled him roughly to his feet. They wrenched his arms back behind him and tied his wrists together with a strip of leather that Strabo had pulled from his belt. "I think the procurator has had a busy night," one of them said to Strabo. "Perhaps we should just kill him here and be done with it, and not bother..."

  "You know better than that, Plautus," Strabo said. "We have to teach these barbarians the value of Roman law, and we can’t do that if we ignore it ourselves. Besides, no matter how bad a night the procurator has had, he would send us all to the galleys if we executed a prisoner without official permission."

  Plautus seemed disgruntled. "We killed enough of them last year..."

  "That was the suppression of a revolt, the maintenance of order," Strabo pointed out, "not the execution of an apprehended murderer. You know the difference as well as I do, Plautus, and don’t pretend otherwise." What is this Tuscan doing in the army? Strabo wondered with disgust. He looked at the prisoner and said, "Come along, piece of filth. I’m not going to waste all morning with you." He turned and began to walk through the already crowded streets toward the procurator’s official residence, a building which would have seemed modest in Rome but which was actually opulent in the ‘barbaric pesthole’ of Jerusalem.