The Secret of Lions

by Scott Blade

  Black and red bruises had been left on his body by a large, blood-drenched mallet that lay on the floor near the corner of the room. The head of the hammer was warm from the strikes against the Frenchman’s stomach and side. A pail, half-filled with vomit, rested on the floor next to him. He had been tortured for hours, and now he was beyond fear. He had given up long ago.

  Hitler was notorious for being able to avoid traps. The French assassin did not care how dangerous his assignment was; he had had to accept it for his country. He was a patriot.

  Hitler had successfully avoided the assassin’s attempt to kill him.

  61

  Anna and I had moved away from the wall with the painting of a woman’s face long ago. We escaped into the warmth of the kitchen. Waiters would occasionally go in and out the main kitchen doors. Some of the waiters carried out new trays filled with snacks or drinks. Except for the traffic of the waiters, the two of us were alone.

  “Peter, we have been talking for an hour now and I have not heard you mention much about the politics that your father talks about all the time in his speeches,” Anna said.

  Her neckline revealed her dark tan. Her eyes sparkled. All of the boys I knew wanted Anna. She was one of the reasons many of the other sons of Germany’s elite looked forward to these parties. They all wanted to see her. Tonight, however, she chose to talk only to me. No one else mattered.

  “My father doesn’t involve me too much in the politics he deals with. I have heard his speeches when he writes them, but I have no input. I suspect he is going to start involving me more someday, as I grow older.”

  “Do you think that he will give you his job one day?” she asked.

  “One day? Maybe. I don’t know. He is always grooming me to say the right thing or he is teaching me how to make decisions. He tells me what to wear. What music to listen to. When I can talk and to whom I may talk. There are even people who tell me what to think.”

  One of Hitler’s aides, a gangly man, walked into the kitchen at that moment and searched around and then stopped, his eyes directly on me. He beckoned me to follow him.

  “I’m sorry to interrupt you two, but the Führer is asking for you, Peter,” the aide said.

  “I must go,” I said. I stood up and stretched my legs. Then I headed toward him.

  “Peter,” Anna said.

  “Yes,” I stopped and turned back around to face her. She was standing now.

  “Will I see you again?” she asked.

  “I hope so,” I said, and then followed the aide into the banquet area.

  The violin music resonated through the kitchen doors as they opened. The music filled my ears. I followed the aide through the array of guests. We stopped occasionally so that I could acknowledge one of my father’s powerful friends. One such friend was Anna’s father. He smiled at me in a peculiar way, as if he had something to say, but he thought it best not to say anything.

  The aide led me down a flight of stairs and into a part of the building I had never been before. Of course it could be troublesome for any boy my age to keep up with all of the rooms in the building, especially when we were always in different buildings to begin with. Hitler hardly stayed in the same building over a month at a time. We had numerous homes all over Germany, especially in Berlin. Many of our homes were kept secret.

  At the bottom of the stairs, a guard sat behind a desk and another stood behind him in front of a thick steel door. This door led into an underground bunker. I assumed it was where my father negotiated his private dealings.

  Hitler never told me about any of the things that went on in the bunker. And there weren’t too many things he didn’t share with me. At least that was what I had thought up until that day. I believed, wholeheartedly, that we didn’t have any secrets between us. He had really brainwashed me into believing that he was my father.

  The guard at the desk looked up at me for a moment and saluted me in a way I had never seen before.

  He said, “Hail Hitler,” with an outstretched arm raised toward the ceiling.

  The aide returned the salute, and they both stared at me strangely for a long moment. I looked at them in confusion, and then catching on, I mimicked the same salute. I had never been saluted before.

  “Hail Hitler,” I said.

  “Perfect form, sir,” the guard said. “You may enter.”

  The guard signaled to the other one behind me. He turned to the door and retrieved a key from under his shirt. It was tied to a silver chain; he knocked on the door twice near the bottom, signaling his entry. He unlocked it, pulling the door open. After waiting for us to enter, he shut it behind us.

  Following the aide, we made our way down into a small chamber. Inside, Hitler was waiting with two guards and a middle-aged man. There was something strange about the middle-aged man. He seemed emotionless. His eyes, his face—there was no expression on them. He had short black hair and rugged features. He appeared battle-hardened. He wore a black shirt and black trousers. He looked down at me with piercing eyes.

  I had never seen him before. He was not in a uniform, but he seemed to obey my father as if he were a personal servant.

  “Peter,” Hitler said. “This is Beowulf. I’m sure you have heard mention of him.”

  “No, Father, I haven’t,” I said.

  “Well, Beowulf is many things to me and to Germany, but for now, think of him as a patriot and loyal friend to your father. He loves this country and your father. He is a skilled man and soldier. He performs many services for us.”

  I trembled at the meaning behind the word services. I hoped no one noticed, particularly my father.

  Hitler stepped over to me and grabbed me firmly by the shoulders.

  “Today you will begin to learn new lessons, important lessons. I have been proud of you your whole life. Continue to make me proud,” Hitler said, gazing deeply into my eyes.

  “Yes, sir,” I said. I broke off his gaze and peered over to Beowulf.

  I lied when I’d said I had never heard mention of Beowulf. I had heard the name before. It was a name of violence. Beowulf was a cold-blooded killer, heartless and soulless. His name had been uttered by my father’s lips before. I had overheard his name is whispers and hushed conversations. He was a notorious assassin. He was wanted in France, England, and even in Russia. No one was sure of his country of origin. And I knew little else about him.

  “Peter, I have prepared you for many aspects of leadership; you have been taught by some of the most prominent minds in all of Europe when it comes to theory, mathematics, literature, and art. Now it’s time you start to learn about leadership,” Hitler said, pacing.

  Hitler and Beowulf led me back out into the hallway and around a corner. We passed the door where I had entered and made our way to one of many doors in the long corridor. Hitler reached out and turned the knob and pushed the door open. The odor inside the dark room intruded into my nose. I began to choke on the wretched smells. It smelled of sickness in there.

  Three people were in the dank room. One man was tied to a chair. His side was bludgeoned, and his eyes were dry and bloodshot. Most of his teeth were scattered across the floor; dried blood covered his face. The blood was blackish. This was the first time I had seen so much blood.

  “Father?” I said, trembling. “What is this?”

  “This, my son, is what you must learn,” Hitler answered. He gestured to the guards to leave the room, and they did.

  The man in the chair was exhausted and unwilling to move when they first entered. Seeing Beowulf jumpstarted the prisoner; he severely shifted and struggled in the chair. He convulsed back and forth, fighting his restraints. Neither the chair nor the restraints budged. The chair was bolted to a wooden plank attached to the floor.

  Beowulf picked up the mallet from the floor and looked over at Hitler, who gave a nod to demonstrate his approval. Hitler stood behind me and placed each of his hands on my shoulders so I could not turn my head. He didn’t want me to look away.

 
Beowulf swung the mallet down and crushed the man’s big toe on his left foot. The prisoner screamed out in French. Blood splattered in all directions across the floor in front of him. The toenail had splintered and shattered in several places. The entire foot turned black almost immediately. Some of his bones poked through his skin.

  Beowulf raised the hammer again and slammed it down. The next two toes splattered worse than the first had, and again the Frenchman screamed out in pain.

  “No!” he screamed. Tears streamed out of his eyes and down his face.

  Beowulf raised the mallet again.

  “Stop!” I screamed out.

  “Quiet!” Hitler said, squeezing my shoulders tighter. Then he said, “Continue, Beowulf.”

  Beowulf continued. The next blow was to the man’s right foot. His whole foot cracked. The sound intensified with the man’s scream. It sounded like every bone in his right foot shattered along with each toenail. The blood ran off the wooden plank and down to a drain I had just noticed for the first time. The drain was rusted and appeared to be overflowing with the blood that had passed through over the last few hours.

  Hitler released me. I scampered to the wall and leaned against it. The scene I witnessed horrified me to the core. Blips of a past memory flashed in front of my eyes, but they were too fast for me to grab onto.

  Flashes of a lion appeared. Then flashes of my mother, but I could not connect the two memories. I had blocked out the events of my early childhood.

  “Now tell me again, what is your name?” Hitler asked the Frenchman.

  “Fuck you!” he responded. His speech was slurred because most of his teeth were on the ground and his gums had already started to swell.

  “Beowulf,” Hitler said.

  Beowulf smiled and tossed the hammer to the ground. He reached behind his back and pulled a long knife out of his pocket. The blade glimmered in the dim light of the room. The blade was not very thick but razor-sharp with one serrated edge.

  Beowulf leaned over the man in the chair and grabbed his right arm. The prisoner struggled against his tormentor as best he could, but Beowulf quickly stabbed the blade through the man’s inner elbow and into the arm of the chair. He twisted the blade in the wound. Then he tried to pull it out of the arm, but it was stuck in both the wood of the chair and the bone of the man’s arm.

  With tremendous struggle, Beowulf recovered the knife from the man’s arm. Then he grabbed the Frenchman's other arm. He began to stab when the man finally blurted out his name. He said his name in French. He said it too softly for me to hear, but Beowulf heard it.

  After the man’s identity became known, Hitler stood closer to me. He said, “That’s enough, Beowulf.”

  Beowulf wiped the blade off with a blood-soaked towel and returned it to what looked like a small scabbard near his back pocket.

  Hitler smiled at me and guided me to the door.

  “Wait here for one more moment,” Hitler said and then turned toward the man in the chair and pulled a gun from inside his suit jacket. He fired the gun twice into the man’s chest.

  My mind flooded with horrific glimpses of a lost dream. It was the face of my mother, a face I had nearly forgotten. Suddenly, I was grasping at fractions of what she might have looked like. And there was a boy. He held a gun, but the glimpses vanished from my mind.

  I wondered if the boy was me.

  Chapter Six

  Feast of Wolves

  Dijon, France

  1936

  62

  A cobblestone street led up to the little house. It was dimly lit, and the rain made it even darker. A figure stood near the high hedges along the street corner. He peered out from under the rim of a dark hat. The rain drizzled off the hat and hindered his vision just slightly. Beowulf’s face was covered in stubble. His eyes were black and soulless.

  The streets were empty. He was on the outskirts of Dijon, France. He had traveled across the German-French border. No one had stopped him. No one suspected him of anything. The Germans had marched up and down the French border for weeks. They were ordered by the Führer to do so.

  Hitler ordered them to march, just to test the French response. He wanted to see what they would do exactly. However, the soldiers were ordered to retreat if the French showed any opposition. They never showed any resistance at all, and Hitler was satisfied. The incursion Hitler ordered also had another purpose; it was to distract the French from Beowulf’s journey across the border. It was to make it easier for the assassin to cross into France.

  He’d walked into town only an hour earlier. He searched for a certain house, a house that he now stood in front of. He watched it from across the street, waiting for the lights to go out, and finally most of them did. The last light that shone from the front of the house had just gone dark. He felt the shotgun scrape his leg under his trench coat as he walked up the street.

  The gate to the front yard of the house was unlocked; he opened it. The gate squealed. He looked around at the other houses on the street; none of the neighbors were awake. He continued into the house. It was dark inside, but his eyes adjusted to the faint moonlight leaking in through the windows. He found the kitchen and quickly swept his gaze around the room, the shotgun ready at his side. There was no one there.

  He followed the tiled floor until he reached the living room. A little girl slept quietly on the couch. She appeared to be about 10 years old.

  Beowulf suspected she might be faking sleep. So he pointed the gun at her and took aim. She did not move. She was completely asleep. He lowered the weapon and began to search the rest of the home. He wanted to locate all of the occupants before firing a shot and alerting any of them.

  In the hallway he peered into an empty bedroom. It seemed to be the little girl’s bedroom. The wallpaper was covered with pink flowers. Scattered all over the top of the bed were well-dressed dolls. Each doll was meticulously clothed. Their hair was perfectly combed.

  Beowulf continued down the hall and found the master bedroom. A small boy, around three years old, slept on the bed. The boy’s hair was messy. He was shirtless; he lay face down.

  Beowulf followed a flicker of light that emitted from a door in the back of the bedroom. The door was slightly ajar. He walked to it and peered in through the crack. He saw a woman bathing in a tub. Candles surrounded her. The candles dimly lit the entire bathroom.

  The woman was alone. He watched as she lathered her legs with a bar of dull, white soap. Her raven black hair was soaked and slicked back. He jarred the door open with the barrel of the shotgun. A slight creaking sound emanated that was almost unnoticeable.

  The woman kept bathing. She hummed softly to herself. Her humming masked the creaking of the door. Beowulf moved closer to her. He could see her naked body. Water glistened off her bare breast. The water was gray and murky. Beowulf could see his shadowy, distorted reflection in it as he approached. The woman did not notice him. Instead, she watched her hand gliding the soap across her stomach and chest.

  Beowulf stepped onto a blue bath mat that lay in front of the tub. The woman noticed him in her peripheral vision and jolted around to come face to face with the shotgun’s barrel.

  Terrified, she whispered to him, pleading, “Please, don’t hurt my children,” she begged repeatedly. “You can do whatever you want. You can take whatever you want. Please? Please? Just don’t hurt my children.”

  Beowulf smiled at her and fired the gun into her chest. Her body sprang back in the tub. The water splashed out over the edges and across the floor. He moved closer to her and put the shotgun in her face, but he did not fire.

  Instead, he backed off and watched as she struggled to breath. Her chest, ribs, and torn flesh were exposed. Blood emerged into the murky tub water. Flesh and bone were covered in blood. He watched her eyes roll back in her head. She coughed up more blood. Unsuccessfully, she tried to move. She reached toward Beowulf. After a short period of struggling, she stopped.

  Beowulf turned back to the bedroom. He came in
to the room and found the boy, now wide awake. He rubbed his eyes. The shotgun blast had awakened him from a deep sleep. He squinted, trying to focus on Beowulf.

  The shotgun barrels pointed at him. Beowulf fired. The second barrel went off. The blast propelled the boy into the air and against the wall. A pool of blood separated his torso from his shoulder and part of his neck. His small right hand jittered around on the floor.

  Beowulf stopped over the boy and popped the barrel of the gun open. He pulled out the two empty shell casings and threw them onto the bed. Reaching into the inner pocket of his jacket, he pulled out two new shells. He reloaded the gun and focused on the bedroom door. He expected the girl either to run into the room or to run out of the house, trying to escape.

  He turned the corner and aimed the gun at the doorway to the living room. She did not enter. He walked directly into the living room and saw her running out the front door. He fired. The shotgun blast shot through the wall next to the front door. Wood splintered all over the small foyer, but the girl got away.

  Beowulf walked out of the house after her. She was already out of the yard and beyond the gate. She made it a quarter of the way down the street. He estimated he only had a few moments until she was completely out of range. He aimed and fired the last round. The bullet tore straight through her side.

  The girl flipped onto her back and landed on the street. Beowulf opened up the barrel again and dumped the empty casings out onto the street as he turned through the gate. The casings bounced a couple of times.

  He shut the gate behind him. He walked down the street to the girl. She half-crawled down a hill. Even as he approached her, she continued to try to escape. He reached into his jacket, but he did not have any more rounds for the gun. He shut the barrel and lowered the gun to his side. The hilt rested on the ground next to her.

  She was crying. He reached down with his hand and covered her mouth and nose. She started to suffocate. She struggled against him. She clawed at his hands and scratched his wrists with her fingernails; her attempts did nothing but infuriate him. He continued to suffocate her until she stopped breathing.