I stood in a tangle of brush with Maleva, her proximity unnerving me a bit. She smelled of vanilla and some exotic scent I could not place. We reconnoitred the palace, and I realised how difficult the task before us seemed to be.
The entrance gate and the road that curved up to it were guarded by two machine-gun nests. An attempted breach there would cost us too many lives. And the walls were so steep as to defeat an alpine mountaineer. I remarked upon that.
Maleva turned to me. “Not for Maleva,” she said and, giving me a quick kiss, she scurried to the base of the wall. I had difficulty recovering from this second demonstration of affection on her part, wondering if she did this with everyone, every man. Was she just a physically affectionate type of woman, or was she sending me signals that I was not receiving properly? Or maybe she was teasing me. What is my failing that the attentions of a female always vex and distress me so?
I was emotionally flummoxed and not paying attention to the job at hand. I tried to refocus and craned my neck to keep watch on the two sentries patrolling the parapets atop the castle. There were mercifully few guards on the wall, the inhabitants resting on the security of the precipitous revetments. And I have to admit that I was fearful about attacking such a formidable alcazar. Especially considering we were about to do so with a band of amateurs, not soldiers, not even experienced Resistance fighters but instead an untrained group of . . . there was no other word for them—entertainers. And one only a slip of a girl.
But then I, and the German occupants, had not considered the unique talents of Maleva. She clambered up the rocky slope like a child up a tree, finding handholds and footholds where I saw none. Upon reaching what appeared to be the smooth skin of the building proper, she jumped up to grab the sill of a lower window and from there leapt from staggered window to window with breathtaking agility until she was high enough to reach the out-thrust roof supports. Hanging from one of these massive beams, she hoisted herself up onto the roof itself. The feat happened so quickly and was so astonishing that I nearly forgot where we were and almost clapped my hands together in applause. Now who was the amateur?
From her precarious perch Maleva began to haul up the cord looped around her waist.
That slim twine was attached to a stouter rope she secured to the steel base of a lightning rod fixed atop the roof peak.
One by one, I and five of our gypsy legion climbed the rope, knotted every yard or so for the ease of our ascent. Once on the roof, we silently moved across the tiles, having shed our shoes and laced them about our necks. We made our way across the clay tile in our stocking feet or, in some cases, bare feet.
A good thing, too, for as soon as we achieved the rooftop we were able to spot the two guards on the parapets. They patrolled the square of the tallest tower, a Nazi flag flapping noisily from the pole over their heads. The Germans paraded around the rectangle of the tower, taking turns. The parapet was just above us, and one glance in our direction would give us away.
We crept cautiously toward the low wall, timing our movements for the brief moment the tower guard had his back to us. This occurred only during one short side of his box march. Our incursion took infinite patience as we waited silently for the man to complete the rest of his walk and give us his back once more. We were able to get only one of us across the distance each time.
When enough had crossed, Maleva and three gypsy men scurried over the parapet. One of the men ran up behind one Nazi sentry, leapt up onto the man’s shoulders piggyback style, covered the guard’s mouth with both hands, and hauled him over onto his back. Maleva rushed up with another of her fellows and, while he stripped the German of his weapon, she withdrew a knife out of her stocking and stabbed the guard in the heart, slipping the blade between his ribs with deadly accuracy. I noticed that she jerked the knife handle in a back-and-forth fashion, thereby slicing the heart. A much-practiced technique? Again, a swift and silent operation.
They moved on to the next sentry, this time Maleva simply slitting his throat from behind, and I was left with the question of why I keep getting entangled with women who are so ready, even eager, to kill. And so damned good at it.
EXCERPTS FROM UNIDENTIFIED DIARY
(translated from the German)
— It feeds! IT FEEDS! the Major cried out, whether from surprise or excitement Herr Wolf did not know.
The Tommy added his screams to the pandemonium as the machine-gun crews shouted queries as to what was happening.
The Tommy’s blood-chilling howl resonated around the stone walls as the Vampire buried his face in the hollow of the man’s throat. Then, just as abruptly, the Creature released his victim. There remained a smear of blood across the Tommy’s neck and in turn across the face of the vampire, who hissed at us like a riled cat and, in so doing, displayed the elongated teeth of a predatory beast.
Herr Wolf admits to gasping.
Major R drew his new sword with a snick of metal against metal and ordered the cell to be opened.
FROM THE WAR JOURNAL OF J. HARKER
(transcribed from shorthand)
Because the second parapet guard was dispatched as easily and quietly as the first, my doubts about the competence of the gypsies, and particularly the girl, were now forgotten. Hell, if I had a company of the blighters I could win the war.
Having eliminated the danger of being spied by the sentries, we were now able to walk from the outside wall to the inner and look down upon a small courtyard three storeys below. Throwing our rope over this side, we descended to the courtyard level. Maleva and two of the gypsies remained on the parapet to secure and keep watch from the high ground. I gave her a nod as I approached the rope and she smiled back at me, the white of her teeth like a beacon in the dark.
After descending into the courtyard one of the Romani, who knew the castle from when his mother read the Tarot cards for the late Queen Maria, led three of our party to cover the doors leading into the castle.
We gathered behind a generator that had recently been set in the courtyard. It smelled of diesel, the chugging and clattering only slightly muffled by the wall of sandbags stacked around it to the height of eight feet.
Our mission was to secure the main gate. Since the guards stationed there were expecting any possible trouble to originate outside, they had no suspicion that the danger lay within and behind them. Crossing the courtyard by staying within the shadows, I stopped my team within a few metres of the machine-gun nest. The gun and the men were facing the road that led up to the gate.
There were three men in the sandbagged position, lounging, smoking cigarettes. It appeared that one was sleeping in a sitting position. I assumed that they took turns napping, ready to wake their fellows when the Sergeant of the Guard approached. Beyond them were two more guards flanking the wrought-iron gate, both smoking, in that ease of one bored with monotonous duty.
Inside my gloves my hands were sweating. I took the gloves off and wiped my slick palms on my pants leg, switching my kukiri knife from hand to hand.
I could feel the cold stone through my socks and was eager to put my shoes back on, but I knew that the task ahead of me had to be completed before this luxury was afforded. It seems trivial that I was thinking about my feet and how the hasty killing of a man or two was all that stood between me and my comfort, but I suppose these are also the priorities of battle.
Remembering the lessons taught me at the spy finishing school, I crept forward and picked my target—the man sitting behind the machine gun, as I felt he was the most important. One pull of the trigger would alert the entire castle and we would have a massacre on our hands. Outnumbered and in close quarters, we would have no chance. I thought of Maleva and the brave attack she had committed just moments before and I leapt over the sandbags.
Reaching over my target’s head, I stuck four fingers into his mouth, prying it open and pulling back on his upper jaw, stretching his neck to the fullest, then sliced the taut throat. Thank you, Training Sergeant Charlie Hall.
I turned in time to see my gypsies eliminating the other Germans. The gypsy next to me merely snatched the helmet off his guard and slammed the steel rim into the man’s temple, thusly rendering the victim instantly unconscious, if not dead. The helmet rang like a bell and the gypsy issued the coup de grace with his dagger.
At the gates, the two guards suffered the same kind of fate. While the gypsies stripped the soldiers of their weapons and ammo, I strolled to the gate and waved a white handkerchief at the dark night beyond the castle road. Out of those shadows came Lucy, her father, Ouspenkaya, and the rest of our band.
We had breached the fortress.
EXCERPTS FROM UNIDENTIFIED DIARY
(translated from the German)
The Tommy lurched away from the Vampire, clutching at his throat, blood seeping between his fingers. He screamed at us who stood on the other side of the bars.
The Vampire crouched in the corner, fangs bloody.
The cell door was opened and two of the Major’s men reached in to drag the Englishman out. It was imperative to remove him while he was infected and before the Creature could kill his victim.
The Major held his silver sabre at the ready as the Tommy collapsed to the floor. Clasping the Englishman’s legs, the two soldiers tried to drag him out of the cell. But at the door, the bitten man resisted, grabbing at the frame to prevent his removal.
At this moment Herr Wolf should have realised that something untoward was afoot.
As the Tommy stretched under the pull of the guards, the man’s neck was fully visible and it was evident that there was no wound upon the skin, that the blood there had originated from the bloody cut on his palm. Everyone had been duped.
Herr Wolf shouted an alarm. But it was too late to close the cell door. The Tommy had wedged himself in the doorway.
The Major shouted commands to his men. — In or out! But close the damned door!
The Vampire launched itself across the cell at blinding speed, forcing the steel door to fly open with such force that it slammed against the wall. It caught one of the soldiers betwixt wall and door and crushed him to death.
The Major was also knocked aside, propelled into Herr Wolf, and both fell to the floor in a tangle of arms and legs.
Dracula stood in the corridor, free, facing the machine-gun crew at the end of the hallway and six armed SS beyond.
The Major composed himself enough to shout an order to fire. Herr Wolf and the Major pressed themselves to the floor as the stupefied machine-gun crew gathered their wits about them and began to shoot.
The Vampire leapt straight into the air and clung to the ceiling. How it accomplished this feat Herr Wolf had no idea. Quickly skittering overhead like some insect, the Creature made fast for the gun crew. They elevated the gun barrel to track the vampire, but bullets ricocheted without hitting their target.
Dracula landed behind the gun crew and made quick work of the six SS soldiers stationed there for Herr Wolf’s security. The vampire grasped one of them by his leg and swung the body like a cudgel to batter the other five. This demonstration of strength astonished Herr Wolf and thrilled him at the same time.
The Vampire attacked the gun crew next, feasting on one while choking another and kicking the third. The kicked man flew twenty feet down the corridor and hit the wall with a crunch of bone and splat of meat. Most amazing. And most unpleasant.
Dracula broke the neck of his meal then turned and fixed his gaze upon Herr Wolf, who felt the malign malice in that glare. For the first time since the trenches, Herr Wolf felt his demise was at hand.
EXCERPTED FROM THE UNPUBLISHED NOVEL THE DRAGON PRINCE AND I
by Lenore Van Muller
As the gate to the castle opened, Lucille and her father entered to greet Harker. A splash of blood glistened on his sleeve. She embraced him and uttered a grateful sigh.
“You’re safe,” she said, not even pausing to look at the dead Germans being dragged away from the machine-gun nest.
“I’m flattered that you care enough to worry,” Harker said, and she searched his face to see if he was joking or if that same old issue still perturbed him.
“We’re not out of danger yet—rather, we have stepped into the lion’s mouth,” Van Helsing warned.
They left two of the gypsies behind to keep the gate secured and hurried across the courtyard to the castle’s main entrance. They faced a massive wooden door set inside a projecting doorway of formidable stone, worn by time and weather.
Lucille looked above them, examining the frowning walls that lined the courtyard. Dark windows bespoke a sleeping enemy and promised little interference, but Lucille knew this quiet respite would soon change.
The door itself was old, scarred and studded with large iron nails. Easing it open, they found the entryway vacant. Two stairwells presented themselves, one curving up and one spiraling down. Harker turned to the gypsies accompanying them.
“Who knows where the Germans bed their troops?” Lucille was amazed that he asked this in their language. On the trip back to Brasov she had observed him conversing with the gypsy girl Maleva, supposedly learning her native tongue. Lucille had thought it a ploy, an excuse for the Englishman to spend time with the exotically beautiful girl. So he had actually learned something, as stilted as his elocution might be.
She was not surprised that he had been enchanted by Maleva. It seemed that the English male, so repressed, was quite vulnerable to the exotic women outside his inhibited little island. In India, the Far and Middle East, Africa, these pale, stifled men quickly succumbed to the unique charms of the foreign female. Lucille was just happy that his ardour was no longer aimed at her. She did detect within herself a twinge of jealous injury at how swiftly his attention had shifted—the fickleness of youth, she supposed—but mostly she was relieved that he had moved on.
One of the Romani raised his hand, a fifteen-year-old boy with eyelashes long enough for Vivien Leigh to envy. He explained that he had previously been a prisoner in this castle, forced to help collect and wash the bedding of his captors. Lucille recognised him as one of those rescued from the concentration camp train. A woman did not forget a boy as pretty as this one. He would break some hearts—if he lived through tonight.
“You come with me,” Harker told the boy, then addressed Lucille and her father.
“Professor, I think it would be best if you remained in the courtyard to protect our rear. Lucy, if you could go below with the gypsy king and his men and release the prisoners, I will set a surprise for the Germans with one of Renfield’s tricks.”
With a sardonic grin, he hefted a satchel that they had recovered in the ruins of the Van Helsing basement. She knew it was filled with a few pounds of gelignite and another pound of screws and nails for shrapnel.
He clapped a hand on Ouspenkaya’s shoulder. “And I will make sure Maleva is brought safely from the tower.”
He saluted Lucille and the rest, then dashed up the stairs with a “Chocks away, and good luck all.” The boy followed and quickly passed Harker to lead the way.
Lucille smiled at his commanding manner and again at the mention of Maleva. She was sure the two were sharing more than language lessons and if not yet it was definitely in their future. Again, if they had one after tonight. She was fully aware that they were but a dozen against a tenfold enemy.
Lucille followed Ouspenkaya down into the bowels of the castle. During Harker’s instructions, the gypsy king had outfitted himself in an SS uniform pilfered from one of the dead gate guards.
Reaching the landing where the stairs ceased, they entered a short hallway that made a sharp right turn. The passage was lit by gas jets, this section of the castle not yet electrified. Their shadows were projected on the wall next to them, doubling their meager numbers as they sneaked up to the corner.
Peering around the turn, Lucille saw two German guards posted at a large door. Beyond the door, according to their guide, was a ballroom, and beyond that the passage to the subterranean prison where th
eir comrades and the Prince were being held.
Ouspenkaya pulled a bottle of spirits from one pocket, jabbed a cigar into his mouth, and winked at us. He made a few adjustments to his German costume, smiled, and set off. Turning the corner, he staggered down the hall, bumping into the heavy furniture and bouncing off the wall. As he weaved his way to the guards at the door he spoke in slurred German.
“Good time in town tonight.” He brandished his bottle. “Taste this stuff. What ‘Old Shatterhand’ called firewater. Got a light?”
He took a huge swig from the bottle, held out his cigar. One of the guards fumbled in his jacket pocket for a match and offered the flame to the gypsy.
Grasping the match hand with his own, Ouspenkaya puffed his cheeks and spewed alcohol into the air. The match ignited the spray and fire bloomed in the dark hallway. The human flamethrower sprayed the guard’s face, engulfing the man. The German’s hair and clothes caught fire. Another swallow and the gypsy set fire to the astonished second guard, frozen in place, staring at his comrade’s sudden combustion. Both men began to howl.
As the torched men batted at their flaming clothes and skin, Lucille and her father sprinted down the hall and knifed them.
Stepping over the smouldering bodies, two gypsies pushed past them and opened the great doors.
The ballroom was empty, and they hurried across the parquet floor, leaving two gypsies behind to man the door and hide the bodies. The room was large, high-ceilinged. Overhead, crystal chandeliers wrapped in sheets hung like giant wasp nests. The walls were lined with mirrors, and Lucille saw herself and the gypsies in myriad multiples. She glanced at the reflections and the sight startled her. They looked like bandits, hard-boiled killers on a homicidal vendetta. Which was not that far from the truth.
Hurrying into the next room, only a small vestibule, they found another spiral stairwell, the steps leading one way—down.
Dracula vs. Hitler Page 45
