My Immortal: The Vampires of Berlin

by Lee Rudnicki

  As the pandemonium spread, General Krebs broke out in a cold sweat and grabbed Chuikov’s sleeve. “But that’s not what I said, General Chuikov. I am here to offer you the opportunity to surrender to Germany.”

  “And I made you a counteroffer, which I then accepted on your behalf. I have no more time to talk to insane clowns. This concludes our meeting. Goodbye.”

  Then Chuikov went back to his steak.

  Joseph Goebbels had a nervous breakdown when he heard the news about Germany’s surrender on the radio. He and his wife Magda then murdered their kids by making them eat the cyanide-filled candy that Hitler had given to them at his farewell party. The wicked pair left the Führerbunker hand in hand and committed suicide just outside the front door.

  General Krebs returned from his ill-fated mission to the Soviet lines and saw the bodies of Joseph and Magda lying in a ditch. Realizing that the war was truly lost, he went down into the bunker and poured himself a stiff drink. When the glass was empty, he shot himself.

  Later that afternoon, Soviet loudspeakers announced Germany’s unconditional surrender. Leaflets containing the order were distributed to the dazed defenders. With the exception of a few scattered areas of desperate resistance, the Battle of Berlin was over.

  73

  Bring on the Night

  Vlad’s eyes were closed and he had long since stopped responding to his questions. Wolf didn’t think the vampire was dead yet, but he was definitely fading fast. What seemed like a beacon of hope now struck fear in his heart. If the Nazis can render a powerful vampire helpless, what chance does a mere mortal have against them?

  Suddenly, Vlad’s eyes opened and he spoke. “The End of Days is upon us.” Then he fell to the floor and burst into flame. Vlad the Impaler was gone.

  For the first time in his life, Wolf gave up. He accepted that his fate was to rot in a jail cell in Prague Castle while the Nazis inflicted further death and cruelty upon the world. This is where it ends, he thought. It’s over. Screw it.

  He closed his eyes and allowed his thoughts to drift to happier times back in Heidelberg with his family.

  74

  The Resistance

  The second phase of Operation Tristan continued in Prague Castle. The guards strained to hold the girl down as Heydrich read from the spell book. “I COMMAND thy Evil one! Come forth! When blood comes not, Demons come not! Thy Evil one, COME FORTH!” he shouted.

  “I COMMAND thy Evil one! Come forth! When blood comes not, Demons come not! Thy Evil one, COME FORTH!” the guards repeated.

  Suddenly, the bed shook violently and the spell book flew right out of Heydrich’s hands. The portrait of Frederick the Great fell to the floor. Eva opened her eyes and sat up. “You’re going to bleed tonight, Heydrich,” she said ominously.

  As the panicked guards struggled to push her back down, the room was briefly filled with an intense red light that emanated from the girl’s eyes.

  Eva was fighting for control.

  75

  Stealth and Savagery

  The steel door moved. At first, Wolf thought he imagined it. Then he put his ear to the door. It’s definitely vibrating. It was almost like someone was trying to push it open from the other side. He peered through the small window, but there was no one there.

  He shrugged it off. Then the door shook harder and became impossible to ignore. He stepped back as the vibrations accelerated until the door hitting against the frame sounded like a machine gun. Finally, the door snapped off its hinges and crashed to the floor.

  Wolf cautiously stuck his head out of the cell and peered down the hallway. Nothing. He had no idea what had just happened, but he instinctively knew that somebody just gave him a chance—and he was going to take it.

  He moved with stealth through Prague Castle. His main problem was not having a gun. If a guard spotted him, his only hope would be an immediate and vicious attack.

  That theory was tested when he turned the corner and ran into a guard who was carrying food and water for the few prisoners that the Nazis actually wanted to keep alive; Wolf not being one of them.

  Fueled by adrenaline, Wolf rushed the guard at full speed. Food went flying everywhere. Wolf fought like an animal, even viciously biting the guard’s hand and clawing his face. After few seconds of desperate fighting, Wolf got the hapless guard into a stranglehold and snapped his neck. One down, he thought as he dropped the lifeless body into the brown puddle of rat stew that covered the floor.

  Wolf caught the guard posted outside of the cellblock by surprise, but he was strong—that one succumbed only after Wolf pushed his thumbs deep into his eye sockets.

  As he wiped the blood and eye fluid from his thumbs and the guard’s submachine gun, he heard somebody yell.

  It was Heydrich.

  76

  End of Days

  Heydrich’s voice shrieked with the power of a thousand demons. “I COMMAND THY EVIL ONE! THY EVIL ONE, COME FORTH!”

  Suddenly, the door burst open. The guards went for their guns, but they weren’t fast enough—Wolf dropped both of them with a quick bust from the MP-40.

  Heydrich calmly put the spell book down as his guards writhed and died on the floor in front of him. “You’re wasting your time, Major Kepler. Operation Tristan is complete. You can’t stop it now.”

  “Your fucking war is over,” Wolf growled. He pulled the trigger and the room was filled with the crashes and echoes of shots.

  Heydrich reeled backwards as the bullets ripped into his guts. When the clip was empty, he straightened up, his wounds healed. “I disagree, Major,” he shot back. “The real war has just begun.”

  Suddenly, it all made sense to Wolf. And just as suddenly, his odds of survival were much worse than he had anticipated. “Oh, Christ,” he said. “You’re a vampire.”

  “The world is a vampire,” Heydrich replied as he circled the soldier like a lion stalking its prey. “You could have had it all.”

  “You price was too high,” Wolf said as he struggled to keep Heydrich in front of him. “The vampires understood that, didn’t they? The Nazis threaten all life on Earth. That’s why the vampires sent assassins to kill Eva, their own goddess. They sacrificed their own future for the sake of the planet.”

  “Wrong! Our elders were too stupid to understand that Adolf Hitler’s unique qualities make him the perfect business partner. They failed to think outside of the box.”

  “You sold the world. But you are too stupid to realize that Hitler will exterminate you as well. His goal is not the furtherance of Nazi ideology—it is the extermination of life itself. Including vampires!”

  “Enough!” Heydrich screamed.

  Music: “As the Blood Flows” by Trip Device

  Wolf tried to jump out of the way, but Heydrich was too fast; the vampire grabbed his throat and squeezed hard. Wolf turned purple and struggled to remain conscious as his airway was closed off. He couldn’t breath, couldn’t think. It felt like his head was about to pop off.

  “Shhhhhh. Do not resist,” Heydrich whispered. “It will be easier that way. By the way, remember my statement about ripping your heart out?”

  Heydrich then plunged his fist into Wolf’s chest, sending a pink mist into the air. “I wasn’t lying...”

  Paralyzed and wide-eyed with fright, Wolf remained conscious as Heydrich’s hand moved through his chest cavity. Then, the cruel Nazi vampire ripped Wolf’s heart out of his body and showed it to him as he died.

  Heydrich dropped the lifeless body to the floor. For the grand finale, he took a bite out of the heart and then threw it against the wall. The organ exploded like a tomato, scattering bloody pieces all over the place. Then he laughed out loud. “Evil defeats good ... because good is fucking dumb!”

  With his enemy vanquished, he stared at the girl. He knew that the Tristan ritual had worked, but he didn’t know exactly how it had worked—it hadn’t been performed in nearly a millennium. Point of fact, Heydrich had no idea what would happen to Eva or how Adolf
Hitler would reappear to lead them to the Final Victory.

  Then, an odd tapping sound caught his attention.

  To Heydrich’s surprise, there was a white raven on the windowsill. He stared at the bird. The bird stared at him. He stared at the bird. The bird stared at him. “Mein Führer?” he finally asked.

  The raven flew away and climbed high into the sky, until it was almost invisible. Heydrich’s bemused expression changed dramatically when it suddenly reversed direction and dove towards the window at high speed.

  The bird hit the window like a missile and the glass exploded. Once in the room, the raven instantly transformed into Sebastian and the two powerful vampires were locked in immortal combat.

  Sebastian’s attack was desperate and ferocious, but Heydrich sent him to the floor with a mighty roundhouse kick to the side of the head. When he tried to crawl away, Heydrich lifted him over his head and slammed him down onto the ground. Finally, the Nazi vampire kicked him in the side, breaking four ribs.

  The young warrior lay on the ground, dazed, stunned and bloodied as Heydrich stood over him with a hypodermic needle. “Welcome to life as a vampire. I hope you like garlic serum. I prepared this batch especially for you.”

  Sebastian summoned strength from within and kicked the needle away just before it punctured his skin. He rolled across the floor and took off running. Heydrich gave chase. Just as he caught up to him, Sebastian grabbed a flagpole out of its base, spun around and stabbed him right in the eye.

  The shocked vampire staggered backwards and screamed in pain as he frantically tried to pull the lance out of his eye-socket. Unfortunately for Heydrich, the counterattack wasn’t over—Sebastian swept his feet out from underneath him and sent him falling backwards. Then he jumped onto his chest and pushed the flagpole down as hard as he could. The silver spike went straight through Heydrich’s skull and imbedded itself into the floor.

  With the Nazi vampire effectively nailed to the ground, Sebastian broke the swastika off of the footboard of the bed. The sharp edge glistened in the light as held it over Heydrich. “Any last words, demon?”

  “You’re making a big mistake,” Heydrich gasped. “There won’t be anything left of Germany when the Allies are done with it. They will break it into pieces.”

  “Which is a far better fate than you have to offer,” Sebastian replied indignantly. He didn’t give Heydrich a chance to say anything else—he slammed the swastika down onto his neck like a guillotine and didn’t stop pushing until the silver blade cut through his neck. The Nazi vampire’s head fell away from his body and disappeared in a burst of flame. The malevolent Reinhard Heydrich was history.

  Sebastian stood up and nearly blacked out from the excruciating pain. His heart sank when he noticed that Eva wasn’t breathing. Oh my God. I’m too late.

  Her eyes opened. A bright light engulfed her body.

  Sebastian stepped back as the leather restraints snapped and Eva’s body rose into the air. As she levitated, Eva spoke in a loud booming Adolf Hitler voice that filled the room.

  “IN THIS FATEFUL BATTLE THERE IS BUT ONE COMMAND! IN THE END, GERMANY REMAINS VICTORIOUS IN SPITE OF ALL! THE FINAL VICTORY OF THE PURE ARYAN RACE!”

  “Goddamn it. Goddamn it to hell,” Sebastian muttered. He knew what had just happened to Eva. And it wasn’t good.

  “IN THIS FATEFUL BATTLE THERE IS BUT ONE COMMAND! IN THE END, GERMANY REMAINS VICTORIOUS IN SPITE OF ALL! THE FINAL VICTORY OF THE PURE ARYAN RACE!”

  In desperation, he broke the flagpole in half. “Damn you!” he yelled as he raised the sharp end into the air.

  Eva’s expression instantly softened. “Sebastian,” she cried in her natural voice. “Please don’t hurt me. I love you.”

  Sebastian’s hands shook as Eva cried and begged for her life. But he couldn’t stop. Hitler’s soul was inside of her. For the sake of humanity, he knew what he had to do.

  “Please,” Eva cried, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I love you, Sebastian. Don’t hurt me. I love you.”

  “I love you too, Eva,” he said. Then he plunged the wooden stake right into her heart.

  The room shook violently as Eva convulsed. Blood and vomit poured out of her mouth and her demonic scream was heard far from Prague Castle. Just when Sebastian thought that his eardrums would burst, the incredible noise stopped. The light disappeared and her body dropped back down to the bed.

  Then, silence.

  Sebastian climbed into bed next to Eva and held her lifeless body. Then he wept. He wept not only for the young vampire, but also for the millions upon millions of innocent people who had lost their lives in the awful war.

  Suddenly ...

  Eva’s eyes opened.

  TOP SECRET

  FOR THE PRESIDENT’S EYES ONLY

  CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT

  CHIEFS OF STAFF

  DOSSIER: 7371

  CODE NAME: MY IMMORTAL

  JULY 7, 2027

  CIA ANALYST SUMMARY OF EVENTS IN BERLIN GERMANY THAT LEAD TO THE PUBLIC DISCLOSURE OF CLASSIFIED INFORMATION REGARDING OPERATION TRISTAN

  77

  Days of Future Past

  The President held a staff meeting as Air Force One taxied across the runway.

  “Are you okay?” CIA Director Waldon asked.

  “Just a little nervous,” President Duarte replied. “How is Mr. Zigmund doing back there?”

  Waldon smiled, relieved that the concern etched on the President’s face wasn’t the precursor to a public nervous breakdown. “He’s fine, Mr. President. In fact, he’s watching Avatar 3 again. He enjoyed the flight.”

  “I wish I could say the same,” the President replied. “There’s nothing like taking office in the middle of an international crisis. I’m a wreck.”

  “You’ll be okay sir,” Waldon said, his voice ringing with confidence. “We’re starting with something easy tonight—a World War II memorial. We’re going there to support the Chancellor. She’s taken a lot of heat in the press for the incident at Humboldt University.”

  “Are you worried about her? This is pretty intense.”

  “She’ll be fine,” Waldon replied. “Chancellor Gottlieb is a lot of things, but fragile is not one of them. She’ll always do the right thing, regardless of how unpopular or problematic it might be.”

  “That’s true. Remember Oslo? People are still talking about how she got on the table and screamed at the British delegation about the BP oil spill. Now, that was chaos,” the President recalled. “And that disaster didn’t even happen in her country.”

  “If she ever gets bounced out of German politics, she can always run for mayor of New Orleans,” General Hastings quipped.

  “As much as the Chancellor’s unpredictable moves get her in trouble, they also keep her foes off balance. In any case, we’ll get through the ceremony tonight, then get a good night’s sleep at Hotel Adlon,” Waldon said.

  “The Adlon? Isn’t that where Michael Jackson stuck his kid out the window?”

  “Yes, Mr. President. Something like that.”

  “That is a perfectly chaotic addition to this trip.”

  Waldon shook his head. He didn’t get the joke.

  “What about tomorrow?” the President asked.

  “In the morning, we’ll meet with Putin and Chancellor Gottlieb in the Russian Embassy. The first item on the agenda will be to determine how we can get our intelligence agencies to work together to prevent future incidents like this. Richter should have never gotten that close to disclosing the dossier.”

  “We should deploy more Delta teams; one in Yokohama and one in Rio,” Hastings said. “If we can coordinate with Spetznaz, we can have a strike team almost anywhere in the world within an hour or two.”

  President Duarte was overwhelmed. “It’s starting to sound like the collective default plan is just to kill anyone who is on the verge of taking the news public?”

  “Yes, Mr. President. It’s a horrible situation,” Waldon admitted. “But consider the alternati
ve. Consider what would happen if people found out that the United States government agrees to kill quotas; that we conceal the fact that humans are not on the top of the food chain; that vampires—and not NATO—are the reason that another major war has never broken out in Europe; that we would have lost World War II without them. If people learned the truth about how the world is really governed, global hysteria and rioting could result. Perhaps a worldwide revolution. The public can’t handle it.”

  President Duarte did not share the gloomy outlook. “I have to believe in my heart of hearts that if the day comes when the secret gets out, people of all cultures, nationalities and faiths will accept vampires as part of the Earth’s natural ecosystem. The creatures must kill to survive, but they are no more a threat to our survival than the Bengal tiger. We must share the planet with them.”

  “Let’s hope we never find out,” Hastings replied.

  “How did my predecessors deal with this situation?” the President asked.

  “Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Obama—they all did pretty well,” Waldon replied. “It’s not easy, of course. Rumor has it that Nixon headed for the presidential liquor cabinet right after he read the dossier. Then he wanted to launch missiles. No one was sure where he wanted to shoot the missiles, but he was definitely ready to press the button. I guess he was pretty upset.”

  The President smiled. “And then what?”

  “He fell asleep on the couch watching the Ohio State game. I suppose he just accepted it. After that, he sent Kissinger to talk to them, mostly. Kissinger was extremely resourceful and creative in unique diplomatic situations. He got everything worked out.”