She squinted through the night at the guards. Four men in Rumanian uniforms flanked the closed wrought-iron gate, two to a side. Their rifles were slung, but their posture was not that of tired, bored men. During her tenure in the Resistance she had spent many a tiresome hour observing guards. It was past two in the morning now, and men who had been on guard duty this long were generally fighting off sleep and tedium.
“They do appear to be more vigilant than routine and monotony would imply,” she noted. “But that has no bearing on our plan. Shall we?”
Her father had thought about adding his voice to the other men asking his daughter to withdraw from the coming fray, but he knew it was a moot discussion. This was a debate the two of them had circled repeatedly, ad nauseam. He just felt the catch in his heart at the thought of her endangering herself or, God forbid, being harmed.
But he knew how headstrong she could be, and so he swallowed his protest, stomped on the clutch, yanked the truck into gear, and pressed the accelerator.
The engine growled and the truck rolled forward, gaining speed with every rotation of the immense tyres. It was not an ordinary lorry they had stolen. The vehicle had been specially constructed to plow snow-drifted roads in the winter. The six giant wheels grabbed the pavement, and a huge V-shaped steel blade fronted the entire hood, angling past the width of the cab.
Van Helsing had raised the blade, not so far as to make the engine vulnerable, but high enough to protect the cab occupants. He peered over the blade and aimed at the gate.
One of the gate guards heard the rumbling engine and aimed a spotlight at the truck. Another shouted a “Halt!” that could barely be heard over the engine noise and coughing muffler.
Van Helsing paid no attention to the order, just pressed his foot upon the gas pedal until he felt the floorboard. The vehicle increased speed. The other two guards now joined in the shouting, their voices unintelligible as the engine whined at full exertion.
The four guards pointed their rifles, two kneeling, two standing behind. The thought struck Lucille: These were not humdrum factory guards, these were professional soldiers, disciplined and prepared.
They fired at the onrushing truck. Bullets pinged off the plow blade. Two shattered the windshield. Lucille turned to her father in alarm, but the old man merely brushed the broken glass from his face and kept driving. She used the barrel of her pistol to clear the rest of the glass from the window, aimed at the guards, and emptied her entire clip at the four men. Next to her Renfield giggled.
The guards leapt away from the gate, just as the truck struck the wrought iron.
The plow cut into the gate with a great crash. The truck slowed as it dragged the wrought iron across concrete. There was a horrendous grinding, and sparks flew from the contact.
Lucille was able to reload, lean out the side window, and shoot the two guards on her side of the cab before the men could regain their feet. She put all her bullets into them.
Renfield tossed a grenade past Van Helsing’s nose. The grenade landed in the lap of one of the guards. Lucille did not see the explosion—the truck was through the gate by then—but she heard the eruption behind her, felt the concussion.
Up ahead was the factory. A ramp for loading and unloading machinery inclined toward a wooden double door that led into the plant floor. The door was not wide enough to allow the plow truck through.
Van Helsing never wavered. The truck shot up the ramp, and the plow plunged through the doors. Wood shattered under the impact; bricks were torn from the support columns. The truck exploded into the factory itself. The motorised monster shuddered to a stop, body halfway inside, steam belching from under the hood.
Lucille leapt from the cab, surveyed the scene. She heard gunfire, saw the source: Harker shooting up at the ceiling. She followed his aim and saw a guard fall from the catwalk.
And across that same catwalk strode Dracula, his goal a glass-enclosed office at the end.
There was a booming sound. Lucille recognised the report of a shotgun and saw Dracula’s cape whip as if by a sharp wind. She sought the source and spied a crouching floor guard chambering another round, taking aim again at the vampire.
She ejected the empty clip from her Luger and reloaded.
FROM THE WAR JOURNAL OF J. HARKER
(transcribed from shorthand)
Dracula was but a few steps from the office when two German officers stepped out to meet him on the catwalk, drawing their pistols. Some kind of challenge was issued, but I could not hear it over the noise of machinery and the gunfire on the floor.
With amazing speed Dracula rushed at them, grabbed each man by his Sam Browne belt, and, with an astonishing display of strength, lifted both men over his head and slammed them into each other. Their heads met and crushed each other’s skulls.
Dracula hurled them to the floor below as casually as discarding an empty cigarette pack.
I began moving toward the guard wielding the shotgun at Dracula, but I heard gunfire and saw the man duck down. Searching for the source of his diffidence, I saw Lucy firing her Luger at him.
Van Helsing was firing a carbine through the open window of the cab, using the plow as cover.
Every floor guard sought cover behind some machine, and we found ourselves in a full-fledged gun battle.
The workers scattered to hide from the gunfire. I manoeuvred toward the guard with the shotgun, who fired another round at the vampire. The glass in the upper office fractured and rained down like icicles from a roof, shattering into glittering fragments on the floor.
Dracula ignored the windowpane waterfall and charged into the office. One Nazi stepped forward and aimed his pistol at the vampire, ordering him to surrender. Whether the German was foolish, brave, or an imbecile, it mattered not to Dracula as he seized the obstreperous fellow, forced the head to one side, and feasted on the vulnerable throat.
He drank. The German raised his pistol, trying to shoot Dracula in the head. I uttered a warning, knowing it could not reach the vampire’s ears.
Dracula suddenly pulled away from the man in revulsion.
“Diseased!” Dracula hissed, spat out the blood, and snapped the victim’s neck before he could pull the trigger on his Walther. The vampire turned to face the other German, who fired his PPK. Four rounds, directly into Dracula’s chest. The vampire leaned back, driven by the power of the bullets. He winced, but that could have been from the noise for all the harm the bullets did him.
The shooter could see the hunger in Dracula’s red-shot eyes, the blood dripping from his fangs, smeared across his mouth. The man put the Walther to his own head and fired the one shot needed to avoid the fate before him. Dracula shook his head, at the waste of blood, I suppose.
Below the office, the tool room door flew open and five men hit the stairway at full gallop. I recognised the uniforms. Waffen SS!
I sprayed slugs from the Thompson at them. Two fell; two sought refuge behind a drill press. The fifth man tripped, tumbled, his weapon falling from his hands. I fired a burst at him, missed. Using all four limbs, he clambered up the stairs toward the office.
Dracula was opening the file cabinets and dumping the contents onto the floor. He didn’t see or hear the SS soldier come up behind him. But he saw the shadow loom over the wall in front of him and turned just in time for the Nazi to stab him in the chest.
Dracula gasped, yowled in pain like a wounded animal. His hand snapped out and grasped a fistful of the German’s jacket, pulled the man toward him, and bit, drinking deeply. The soldier writhed futilely, hands flapping, feet dangling, kicking, the struggle growing weaker by the second.
EXCERPTED FROM THE UNPUBLISHED NOVEL THE DRAGON PRINCE AND I
by Lenore Van Muller
Lucille was stunned to see another half-dozen well-armed German soldiers suddenly rush into the factory from a back door. Where were all these damned Germans coming from?
She had seen the SS pour out of the tool room. Although she was gratified when Harker
cut down most of them, the presence of the German soldiers momentarily dumbfounded her. Harker had not reported any Nazi presence in his reconnaissance, much less an SS contingent. Harker had detected only the Gestapo staff creating the “undesirable” list. These reinforcements could only mean that this was a well-planned trap.
She recognised one of the SS men, a tall Lieutenant with a severely pocked face. He had manned one of the roadblocks in Brasov. What was he doing here?
Lucille emptied a clip from her Luger at the new assailants. They sought safety behind a bin of raw steel parts. She reloaded.
Meanwhile, her father fired from behind the plow blade. Renfield reached into his satchel and withdrew another hand grenade.
“No!” Van Helsing ordered. “Too many innocents!” He had to shout over the gunfire. Renfield reluctantly put away the grenade.
“To the office!” her father ordered him. “Fire the records!”
Renfield grinned, slung his sapper satchel, clambered out of the cab, and sprinted across the factory floor, dodging and weaving through the machines. She was impressed by his sudden agility, as nimble as a football player dancing through a field of defenders.
Lucille and her father kept shooting, keeping enemy heads low so that the mad sergeant could dart from one point of cover to the next.
Lucille took aim at the tall Lieutenant, who was edging his way along a stack of raw steel, heading for the office stairs. Her finger began its squeeze on the trigger when she was abruptly pulled onto her back.
One of the Rumanian guards had jumped her. The Luger was flung from her hand as she wrestled under the weight of her attacker. A labourer hiding under the assembly line rushed to her aid, but was knocked back by a bullet fired from some unseen shooter. The other workers reacted by crawling deeper into the recesses of their hiding places.
Her father was encountering his own difficulties. His weapon, an old French MAS 38, jammed and he was trying to clear it. Two SS, realising he was not returning their fire, rose and rushed him. He was a dead man.
They quickly made it to the truck, flung the doors open, and aimed their weapons at the old Professor, who dropped his. One of them spoke: “He is the one we are to capture?”
“No,” said the other, checking a photo. Van Helsing caught a glimpse of a grainy picture. Dracula on the train.
“Then I can kill him, yes?” the first soldier asked and raised his gun to Van Helsing’s head. He never had a chance to pull the trigger.
Workers appeared behind the two Germans, labourers gripping pipe and steel rod cudgels. They swarmed over the SS and beat them beyond death. It appeared to the Professor that the workers had a surfeit of anger.
Lucille was fighting for her life. The guard had her throat wrapped in his hands, squeezing until she could not draw a breath. Her lungs burned, her vision began to dim. She struggled with all her waning strength and was able to gain her feet.
They staggered in a crude dance until Lucille was backed into the immense tower of thundering steel that was the ten-ton press.
The machine was still pounding away, great, deep, booming clashes of steel upon steel. Usually sheets of brass were fed into its oily maw to be bent into large tubes. Now it pounded only air, shaking the factory floor with small earthquakes every time the dies slammed together. With her hips pressed against the base, Lucille felt the rhythmic cataclysm through her entire body.
No matter how hard she fought against him, the guard was pressing her backward, her spine curling and her head being forced under the press. The back of her skull hit the hard metal die and that was enough to give her the impetus to fling herself out of danger. She threw out a hand, fingers scrambling like a crab on a rock, blindly feeling about for any kind of weapon. Her fingers found a wrench and hefted it, swung it at the head of her attacker, attempting to brain the lout. He knocked the wrench aside with an upthrust elbow. The wrench flew out of her hand, landing in the mouth of the press. One great stamp and the wrench was flattened instantly.
Lucille saw this and knew that her skull would be crushed even easier.
With a hand under Lucille’s chin the guard was slowly but surely forcing her head toward the meeting of the press dies. Her senses were painfully acute, the acidic sting of solvent in her nostrils, the heavy odour of lubricating oil, a tinge of ozone, in her ears the explosive concussion of the press slamming steel against steel. She was going to die.
With a surge of strength the guard pushed her head onto the press platform. She could look up and see the ten tons hurtling toward her face. With a sudden increase of will, she lunged out of its path at the last second. The steel dies collided inches from her nose. She felt the rush of air propelled out of the gap, like foul breath blown into her face.
The press rose again to ready another descent. The guard changed his attack. Letting loose of her throat, he put both hands on her waist and lifted, thrusting the upper half of her body under the press. He held her there.
She panicked, watching her death dropping from above, struggling with every bit of her strength. She saw the upper die rush toward her face.
And was unexpectedly pulled out of the way. The press chomped down like the gates of hell slamming shut.
She looked away from the press and found herself in Dracula’s arms. Arm, for he was using only one. She looked into his pale amber eyes, then back at the site of her near destruction. Six inches of her hair lay upon the bottom die of the press, as neatly clipped as if by a barber.
She turned back to her saviour. “I owe you my life,” she said, her voice hoarse through her tortured throat.
“Hold on to it,” Dracula said, “for it is precious.”
And he turned to face the guard who had been assaulting her. The man was sprawled on the floor where Dracula had thrown him. The Rumanian rose, snatching up a pry bar, and charged the vampire. Dracula caught the steel bar in mid-strike and tore it from the man’s grasp, then flipped it in his hand and hooked the guard under the rib cage, hoisted him like a fish on a pike, and hurled the body into the jaws of the ten-ton press.
Lucille turned away so as not to witness what occurred next. But her ears heard the wet mashing. Dracula held her close and she wrapped him in her arms, clinging to him as if to a floating timber in a stormy sea.
FROM THE WAR JOURNAL OF J. HARKER
(transcribed from shorthand)
I stood there impotent, powerless to do anything as I saw Dracula tear Lucy from the peril of death. I had tried to get to her as she battled the guard, but a withering crossfire kept me back. Dracula had seen the same fight at the ten-ton press and just leapt from the catwalk, flying down thirty feet or more. With his tattered cape billowing behind him, he looked like nothing more than a great crow descending onto his prey. He threw the Rumanian soldier away from Lucy, snatched her from the mouth of the machine. When she gratefully embraced him my heart stopped still in my aching chest.
But gunfire interrupted my selfish contemplation and I saw Renfield trying to climb the stairs to the offices, but driven back repeatedly by enemy gunfire. I let loose with a salvo of my own, and the soldiers ceased firing for a moment, long enough for my Sergeant to achieve his goal.
Inside the office he set his incendiary charges and timer. I loaded a fresh clip into the Thompson, preparing for a new volley from the SS soldiers.
But once again the labourers responded, as they had with the salvation of Van Helsing. They attacked the soldiers with every sort of tool: wrenches, screwdrivers, pry bars, and any improvised bludgeon, venting a fulsome store of animosity accumulated during their forced servitude. The soldiers were rendered dead and more in seconds.
Renfield climbed down the office stairs without incident. I met him and we joined Van Helsing at the truck, where Dracula and Lucy were already waiting. Renfield was tossing timed blocks of gelignite about the factory, next to fuel and oil barrels, alongside ovens glowing red hot, one atop a fat pipe that had stenciled warnings on the tube. He was sowing mayhem like a farme
r tossing turnip seeds into the loam.
“Time to absent ourselves,” Van Helsing said. “How long do we have, Sergeant?”
“Fifteen minutes,” Renfield responded.
“We need to hurry if we are going to take care of the bunkers and munitions,” I said, trying to ignore how Dracula and Lucy still held each other.
“Aye, the rest of the charges are pre-set,” Renfield told us, in his rational mode. “Just dump ’em and pop ’em.”
“I’ll help you,” I volunteered. “Lucy, you and your father evacuate the civilians. Dracula, watch their backs?”
“That I will,” the vampire answered.
Then the office burst into flame with one great explosion of fire.
Renfield giggled.
I checked my watch and glared at him. “Fifteen minutes, my arse.”
He shrugged. “Ach, lowest government bidder” was all he said.
EXCERPTED FROM THE UNPUBLISHED NOVEL THE DRAGON PRINCE AND I
by Lenore Van Muller
With her father, Lucille hurried the workers out of the factory. Some of them informed her that there were more soldiers occupying a barracks next to their own domiciles.
She was surprised that these had not been awakened by the battle inside the factory, but obviously the routine manufacturing clangour had masked the gunfire.
Dracula went directly to the building indicated. He entered the barracks and she heard the same bloody havoc that echoed the slaughters in the railroad car and at the airfield.
The workers meanwhile commandeered the various trucks and military vehicles inside the compound and loaded them with their compatriots. Some of these poor people were so weak from overwork and malnutrition, mere skeletal figures, that they had to be carried.
The two Englishmen ran among the pallets of completed artillery shells stacked in the yards behind the barracks, dispersing explosive charges like boys delivering newspapers.
Dracula vs. Hitler Page 34
