by Michele Lang
His reply stunned me. I had expected to have to resort to official maneuverings, fake stamps, that sort of thing, to get permission to leave. The kind of subterfuge that can take days to orchestrate. But Antonio didn’t need any of that to fly.
So, to Poland.
7
The field behind the warehouse was impossibly small, choked with weeds, and it was encircled by a crumbling but still quite substantial looking wall. I supposed if I died in a wreck I could return, as long as the plane did not burst into a fiery inferno upon impact.
But Raziel …
I held my breath as Antonio spun the propeller and I punched the ignition button. Antonio’s plane was an ancient Fokker Spider, held together by a tangle of wire, insubstantial and flimsy looking, but the tiny four-cylinder engine obediently coughed into life.
Antonio leapt onto the pilot’s seat; Raziel and I shared the passenger seat in the back. The Spider shuddered nose to stern, and with a puff of acrid, oily smoke, we began bumping over the grass and rubble. The brick wall came closer and closer with greater and greater speed.
The engine began to whine, and the plane shook so hard I thought a wheel was going to bounce right off. The roar of the engine became deafening and I could see every crack and crumb of brick breaking off the face of the wall in front of us.
In my mind, I imagined Gisele’s voice like a breezy caress, encouraging the plane to rise. And flooding through my senses, cool and exhilarating, came the clean scent of mountain Tokaj pine, and the cool breeze that tickled the far-off branches swaying against the sky.
My fear fled from that beautiful vision as the plane gave a terrific lurch and hauled itself from the earth. The brick wall fell away directly below my feet, and with a groaning snarl from the engine we were airborne and on our way out of Hungary.
Compared to the lumbering Polish bomber, this was like flying without a plane at all; the sensation intoxicated me. Budapest shrank below my feet, became compact and singular, a dusty jewel set in the mosaic of the earth. This, I thought, is how the world once looked to Raziel.
I watched the city bank and turn below us as Antonio pointed the airplane’s nose to the north. Far below, now, I saw the Chain Bridge, the huge and ornate Parliament building, the brilliant Danube flashing sun diamonds over its murky surface, now crowded with boats of all kinds. Somewhere far below us was Dohány Street, the Great Synagogue, and my home, but I could no longer make out the different streets and apartment buildings.
We had abandoned the flat on Dohány Street to its fate. I had entrusted our few homely treasures to the neighbors upstairs, the charming, shy, and delightful Ady family. As long as they were safe, our few mementos would be, too.
But how long were the Adys to be safe? Were they safe, even now, from the storm we now flew into?
I yanked my thoughts away from the buildings below me, and redirected my gaze to the northern horizon. We had a long way to go, and I didn’t know how far the plane could fly without more fuel. Perhaps more important, I had no idea how long Antonio could drive himself, in full daylight no less, before his bloodlust once more overtook him.
Contrary to human lore, vampires did not instantly die from exposure to sunlight. Perhaps the legend arose from the extreme sensitivity to the sun that vampires do endure. But though the sun cruelly burned a vampire’s skin, he was much more likely to die at the hands of irate villagers finding him abroad and vulnerable by daylight. Antonio would burn, but the sun alone would not be enough to kill him.
We stopped to refuel in Tokaj, of all places, and then our journey north took us across the rolling, lush Slovak countryside and over the Tatra Mountains. Antonio flew erratically now. Before, I hadn’t realized the difference between merely hazardous flying and about-to-die flying. But the difference, once one is presented with it, is unmistakable.
The engine began to sputter as first one wing and then the other tilted into the air like a seagull’s wing.
Once again, I could hear Gisele’s voice in my mind, blessing the airplane, the engine, and the pilot. As we lurched along I imagined Gisele’s sun-kissed chestnut curls whipping like a flag in the wind.
Like me, Gisele was a born witch but untrained; and also like me, the misfortune of war brought her gifts to the surface out of desperation. I had always known my sister was uncommonly sweet-tempered, humble, and patient with her harum-scarum older sister; I never had imagined how those traits could manifest in the world through her witch’s powers. And that power had taken her from me and driven her into Poland.
The engine coughed and for a terrifying moment the propeller stopped spinning. “Go! Turn!” I could hear Gisele in my head, now; I wove my magic through the memory of her pure spirit.
The acrid smell of burning hay rose to where we buzzed along like a half-dead fly. I craned my neck to see far, far below: a battle was raging.
It was tanks and artillery versus Polish cavalry. The horses were tiny, courageous specks, running into the path of Panzers. Through a scrim of smoke, I saw that the field was covered with fallen horses and men, and I could not tell whether the fire had been set intentionally or if an errant shell blast had lit the dry grass in the field by unhappy accident.
I had seen my share of death before this, but never actual battle, not even at a distance. Antonio bellowed curses in Polish and shook a blistered fist at the battle. He shoved the nose of the plane down and we plunged toward the battle, losing altitude.
I again craned my head far over the side to make out the details. But before I could learn any more I heard a roar rising from behind us.
A black Luftwaffe plane with a swastika bloodred along the side screamed out of the smoke and directly for us. In the airstream directly behind the Stuka I could faintly discern with my witch’s sight the figure of a woman, leaning forward like the prow of a ship, bearing a spear and a sword.
I summoned her name: Freda; and her creed: she was a valkyr, a German war spirit. In the same way that seafarers linked their fortunes to sea spirits who rode the prow of their ship, the pilots of the Luftwaffe often flew under the protection of the valkyrie. The Teutonic war spirits protected their planes and attacked other air creatures; without the valkyr, the Stuka would have been just another warplane, more vulnerable to both conventional and magic attack.
“No,” I murmured, and felt my magic grow dark and hot around me, coming to a rapid boil. The sight of the carnage below only fueled the intensity of the magical charge building up inside of me.
With a hard jerk, I summoned Freda out of her perch, and she was so surprised by my presence that I tore her completely free and threw the Luftwaffe plane into a tailspin. I folded her wings together hard; with a terrible scream she plunged downward to annihilation onto the field far below.
The Luftwaffe plane recovered itself before the spin became fatal: the pilot was excellent. And the plane was suddenly bearing down upon us once more, bullets tracing and exploding in an arc above our heads.
I threw a cone of protection over us, but it was terribly difficult to keep it steady in the face of Antonio’s erratic flying. However, our jerky, unpredictable flight made us a difficult moving target, too, and by keeping the plane’s attention on us we spared the Polish soldiers below: for the plane had been strafing them when we came upon it in the sky.
I gathered a dark ball of energy, a malignant grenade of a spell, and I hurled it with all my might at the Luftwaffe pilot’s head.
Direct hit. I could not hear him screaming, but I saw the plane shudder with the impact. It all but glowed with heat, and though the gunner kept shooting the shots now went wild.
The plane went into another tailspin, but this time I knew the pilot would not revive to pull them out of it. The plane spun faster and faster, like a child’s whirligig, until it smashed into a column of German infantry and exploded in a flaming fireball.
Exhausted almost to fainting, I released my wards with a gasp, and wildly scanned the sky for another plane, but I could see none.
My head drooped forward onto my forearm and I watched the wrecked plane burning far below us. Neither the pilot nor the gunner had jumped free of the plane in time.
We had gotten a little bit ahead of the battle, deeper into Polish territory, when the plane’s engine, despite all my encouragement, finally gave up and died.
For a moment we hovered in the air in complete silence, the clean-scented orchard air as sweet as wine. Then the nose of the plane hitched up a little, dipped gracefully, and we went into a spin like the one that had killed the Luftwaffe pilot and his gunner.
I could not summon a soulless plane back into the sky. But Antonio was a better pilot than I had given him credit for: he pulled us out of the tailspin and we crashed into a big field of corn, badly rattled but at least not burnt to death.
We sat together, stunned, in the sudden silence, and then I heard Antonio. “Get out. Quickly. This plane could still burn.”
The vampire’s presence of mind saved us. We scrambled free and into a grove of linden trees at the edge of the field, right before the engine belatedly caught fire and exploded.
Antonio had a broken arm, and I had a long scratch all up my leg that fatally laddered my silk stocking and spotted my best skirt with blood. Our valise, still inside the plane, must have been burned up.
But the zlotys were safe, tucked into my brassiere. I checked my breasts, and basked in the knowledge that with this money we could get anything else we needed. I sighed, and just like that I blacked out, as if the lights of the world had been shut off by a giant hausfrau in the sky.
* * *
When I came to, Raziel was sheltering me in his arms. I kept my eyes closed and pretended to be still gone. It wasn’t hard to pretend: my head was exploding with a headache, and waves of nausea rolled through me as I lay there.
“Is she dead?” Antonio said, voice hoarse. It took all my concentration to keep my lips from twitching with a smile: he sounded terribly excited by the prospect.
“No, just stunned a bit,” Raziel said, his voice soft.
“Excuse me, sir,” Antonio said. “Is she your girl? Your fiancée, if you know what I mean?”
A long pause, and I held my breath, the better to hear Raziel’s answer.
“Why do you ask?” he finally said as he cradled my body closer against his legs.
“I must … feed. Or by full night I will be crazed, I will rip apart the first person I meet, man, woman, or child.”
Tension hummed through Raziel’s body like a coiled wire pulled tight. “No. You cannot touch her.”
I melted against him and sighed: a mistake, because Raziel could now tell that I had come back. “Look, she’s stirring.”
My eyes fluttered open and I could not help a little groan. “So dizzy,” I muttered.
“Try me, Antonio,” Raziel said, his voice quiet.
My head hurt worse; I knew exactly what he meant.
“Feed from me,” Raziel said. “I can trust you.”
I tried to sit up and failed. “Are you mad? He’ll kill you!”
My head spun, and then abruptly the world steadied itself.
“We do what we must,” he said. “Our ideals become golden calves at the moment of truth, Magda.”
“But—”
“No buts, not anymore.”
“I don’t think you understand.”
My face flushed when I saw the expression on Raziel’s face; I hadn’t meant to speak to him as to a child. I hoped he knew I meant no offense. I still remembered who he was.
Raziel smiled back, not defensive at all, but he gave no sign of changing his mind. “Antonio is our brother in this war.”
It hurt me to imagine it, even worse than the thought of Bathory feeding on Gisele. Gisele had the remnants of her innocence to protect her; Raziel had seen too much in his long existence to entertain any illusions about the state of our Polish friend’s tormented soul.
At least I didn’t have to worry Antonio would turn him: bloodlust vampires can only kill; they can’t make more vampires. But I wasn’t so sure Antonio could control himself once he got started.
The heat of the still-flaming airplane pushed at our bodies like a giant, invisible hand. I could not speak; only nodded my reluctant assent. Raziel kissed me, hard, and he got up. “I am ready, Antonio.”
Without a word or hesitation Antonio bent to his wrist and slashed. Raziel grunted with pain, then sighed, a strange groan that mingled pain and an animal pleasure. Their connection was too intimate to watch; I turned to look instead at the burning plane, and abruptly was dizzy again.
I returned my attention to Raziel—I could not look away any longer. Expressions passed over Raziel’s face like fast-moving clouds: fear, shock, pain, an atavistic longing to complete the connection. Ecstatic union is the vampire’s attraction, the lure they use to attract their prey. I had taught myself immunity to the vampires’ charms, but the temptation to surrender was always there, lurking like any forbidden desire, just under the surface.
The air smelled of burning engine fuel; of apples and wheat. The countryside of southern Poland unrolled from beneath our feet.
My throat tightened as I again remembered Raziel’s sacrifice the night we had battled Asmodel at Heroes’ Square in Budapest.
And then suddenly my entire body jolted with a terrible realization, one that meant our immediate and certain death.
“Raziel,” I called, in a sudden panic.
My voice pulled him out of his trance, and Raziel pushed Antonio away from him. He turned to me, blood dripping drop by drop from his wrist.
Raziel saw the horror overtaking me and he closed the distance between us in an instant. “Something is wrong. Tell me.”
“My powers and creed, the tin. The tin.”
“What? You’re not saying…”
We both turned, not toward the vampire still licking Raziel’s blood from his lips, but to the melting wreckage of the burning plane.
I had leapt to safety, leaving everything behind. Including the paprika tin containing the bound demonic spirit of air, Asmodel.
“Fire is his native home,” Raziel muttered.
A low cackle rose from the flames. The sound made my skin crawl.
I wrapped my arms around Raziel’s waist to keep myself from fainting. “I’ve got to catch him again … and please, somehow, you’ve got to help me.”
8
Asmodel answered me. The cackle rose to an unholy scream, and the flames rose high above us, taking on Asmodel’s demonic form.
I recognized well the curving horns, the huge fangs, the protruding tongue, all of it now encased in fire.
Asmodel gave a roar of triumph, and I staggered backward in the blast of heat. But I held my ground. I had to.
“No,” I began. I said it three times, louder and louder, even as the demon grew before my eyes into an evil inferno. Raziel stayed close to me, and I half turned. My body shook with exertion, and I had not even begun to do battle with my escaped adversary.
“Magda, you must contain him.”
“Help me, Raziel!” I tamped down the panic as well as I could: terror was Asmodel’s friend, not mine.
“I am here.” But frustration roughened Raziel’s voice: not so long ago, he could have helped in obvious ways, using a celestial sword and angelic powers bestowed upon him by virtue of his station. Now all he could give me was all of himself.
That gift was precious, and it would have to be enough to stop Asmodel from getting away. Or I would unwittingly become a key element of Hitler’s victory over Poland. And I could not live with that knowledge.
“Sing psalms, Raziel,” I said urgently under my breath. “Sing!”
He immediately launched into the most heart-rending rendition of the Twenty-second Psalm I had ever heard: “My God, why have you forsaken me?” It was not what I had expected: I half hoped he would sing a warlike psalm about smiting evil or something similar.
But Raziel knew our adversary better than I did. Asmodel hes
itated, and a strange expression came over the demon’s crackling, flickering face: shockingly wistful. Orphaned. I knew that pain all too well.
As Raziel sang, the psalm changed me. I rose against my enemy with more compassion than before, and though compassion is dangerous because it often leads to softheartedness, it keeps you human.
I raised my arms and began to sing the Testament of Solomon, in harsh counterpart to Raziel’s psalm. Asmodel flinched away from the sound and bellowed, trying to drown out the sound of our voices. But my song was spell and could not be silenced with a scream. His voice only augmented the power of the spell I wove, tied us closer together.
“Asmodel,” I said. “Come forth, out of the fire!”
He squirmed and shrank, flickered in and out of the flame. Then, before I could restrain him, he shot out of the fire and over my shoulder.
I whirled to face him, but the demon was intent on flight, not battle. I turned fast enough to see where he was headed: to where Antonio had crumpled to the ground.
I could not help crying out: Antonio’s face was ashen gray, the color of death. Raziel had not given him nearly enough to revive him; a fine foam of spittle and blood pooled on his lips and chin.
The force of the demon’s blow knocked Antonio sideways. And before I could stop him, Asmodel entered Antonio’s body and asserted full possession.
I could see it in the way the eyes glowed red, in the self-assurance and the vampire’s swagger, an arrogance poor Antonio had never displayed in life. His broken arm had hung limply before; now Asmodel waved it wildly, disregarding the terrible pain he must be causing his unwilling host.
“Leave him,” I warned, but my voice trembled. I had never even heard of a possessed vampire, let alone seen the horrible spectacle for myself.
“Die, bitch,” he snarled in reply. He launched into a biting diatribe in Polish, ending by vomiting violently through Antonio’s bloody mouth. It was all Asmodel at the forefront; Antonio’s spirit, if it was still there at all, was crushed to the back of his own skull.
Without warning, he lunged for my throat, fangs fully extended. Raziel put himself between us, and blocked the now-possessed vampire from reaching me. Man and demon fought together on the ground, fists against fangs.
