He stopped before the dangling form of his fellow officer. Woermann's belt buckle swung two inches in front of Kaempffer's nose. He looked up at the engorged, puffed face, purple with stagnant blood.
. . . the eyes again. They seemed to be looking down at him. He glanced away and saw Woermann's shadow on the wall. Its outline was the same—exactly the same—as the shadow of the hanging corpse he had seen in Woermann's painting.
A chill ran over his skin.
Precognition? Had Woermann foreseen his death? Or had suicide been in the back of his mind all along?
Kaempffer's exultation began to die as he realized he was now the only officer in the keep. All the responsibility from this moment on rested solely on him. In fact, he himself might be marked for death next. What was he to—?
Gunfire sounded from the courtyard.
Startled, Kaempffer wheeled, saw Oster look down the corridor, then back to him. But the questioning look on the sergeant's face turned to one of wide-eyed horror as his gaze rose to a point above Kaempffer. The SS major was turning to see what could cause such a reaction when he felt thick, stone cold fingers slip around his throat and begin to squeeze.
Kaempffer tried to leap away, tried to kick backward at whoever it was, but his feet struck only air. He opened his mouth to scream but no more than a strangled gurgle escaped. Pulling, clawing at the fingers that were inexorably cutting off his life, he twisted frantically to see who was attacking him. He already knew—in a horror-dimmed corner of his mind he knew. But he had to see! He twisted further, saw his attacker's sleeve, gray, regular army gray, and he followed the sleeve back . . . up . . . to Woermann.
But he's dead!
In desperate terror, Kaempffer began to writhe and claw at the dead hands. To no avail. He was being lifted into the air by his neck, slowly, steadily, until only his toes were touching the floor. Soon even they did not reach. He flung his arms out to Oster but the sergeant was useless. His face a mask of horror, Oster had flattened himself against the wall and was slowly inching himself away—away!—from him. He gave no sign that he even saw Kaempffer. His gaze was fixed higher, on his former commanding officer . . . dead . . . but committing murder.
Disjointed images flashed through Kaempffer's mind, a parade of sights and sounds becoming more blurred and garbled with each thump of his slowing heart.
. . . gunfire continuing to echo from the courtyard, mixing with screams of pain and terror . . . Oster inching away down the corridor, not seeing the two walking dead men rounding the corner, one of them recognizable as einsatzkommando Private Flick, dead since his first night in the keep . . . Oster seeing them too late and not knowing which way to run . . . more shooting from without, barrages of bullets . . . shooting from within as Oster emptied his Schmeisser at the approaching corpses, ripping up their uniforms, rocking them backward, but doing little to impede their progress . . . screams from Oster as each of the corpses grabbed one of his arms to swing him headfirst toward the stone wall . . . the screams ending with a sickening thud as his skull cracked like an egg . . .
Kaempffer's vision dimmed . . . sounds became muted . . . a prayer formed in his mind:
0h God! Please let me live! I'll do anything you ask if you'll just let me live!
A snap . . . a sudden fall to the floor . . . the hangman's rope had broken under the weight of two bodies . . . but no break in the pressure on his throat . . . a great lethargy settled upon him . . . in the fading light he saw Sergeant Oster's bloody-headed corpse rise and follow his two murderers out to the courtyard . . . and at the very end, in his terminal spasms, Kaempffer caught sight of Woermann's distorted features . . .
. . . and saw a smile.
Chaos in the courtyard.
The walking corpses were everywhere, ravaging soldiers in their beds, at their posts. Bullets couldn't kill them—they were already dead. Their horrified former comrades pumped round after round into them but the dead kept coming. And worse—as soon as one of the living was killed, the fresh corpse rose to its feet and joined the ranks of the attackers.
Two desperate, black-uniformed soldiers pulled the bar from the gate and began to swing it open; but before they could squeeze through to safety, they were caught from behind and dragged to the ground. A moment later they were standing again, arrayed with other corpses before the open gate, making sure that none of their live comrades passed through.
Abruptly all the lights went out as a wild burst of 9mm slugs slammed into the generators.
An SS corporal leaped into a jeep and started it up, hoping to ram his way to freedom; but when he slipped the clutch too quickly, the cold engine stalled. He was pulled from the seat and strangled before he could get it started again.
A private, quaking and shivering under his cot, was smothered with his bedroll by the headless corpse he had once known as Lutz.
The gunfire soon began to die off. From a continuous barrage of overlapping fusillades it diminished to random bursts, then to isolated shots. The men's screaming faded to a lone voice wailing in the barracks. Then that, too, was cut off.
Finally, silence. All quiet as the cadavers, fresh and old, stood scattered about the courtyard, motionless, as if waiting.
Suddenly, soundlessly, all but two of them fell to the courtyard floor and lay still. The remaining pair began to move, shuffling through the entry to the cellar, leaving a tall, dark figure standing alone in the center of the courtyard, undisputed master of the keep at last.
As the fog swirled in through the open gates, inching across the stone, layering the courtyard and the inert cadavers with an undulating carpet of haze, he turned and made his way down to the subcellar.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Magda awoke with a start at the sound of gunfire from the keep. At first she feared the Germans had learned of Papa's complicity and were executing him. But that hideous thought lasted only an instant. This was not the orderly sound of firing on command. This was the chaotic sound of a battle.
A brief battle.
Huddled on the damp ground, Magda noted that the stars had faded in the graying sky. The echoes of gunfire were soon swallowed by the chill, predawn air. Someone or something had emerged victorious over there. Magda felt sure it was Molasar.
She rose and went to Glenn's side. His face was beaded with sweat and he was breathing rapidly. As she pulled back the blanket to check his wounds, a small cry escaped her: His body was bathed completely in the blue glow from the blade. Cautiously, she touched him. The glow didn't burn, but it did make her hand tingle with warmth. Within the torn fabric of Glenn's shirt she felt something hard, heavy, thimblelike. She pulled it out.
In the dim light it took her a moment to recognize the object that rolled about in her palm. It was made of lead. A bullet.
Magda ran her hands over Glenn again. She found more of them—all over him. And his wounds—there weren't nearly so many now. The majority had disappeared, leaving only dimpled scars instead of gaping finger holes. She pulled the ripped and bloody shirt away from his abdomen to expose an area where she felt a lump beneath his skin. There to the right of the blade he clutched so tightly to his chest was an open wound with a hard lump just beneath its surface. As she watched, the lump broke through—another bullet, slowly, painfully extruding from the wound. It was as wonderful as it was terrifying: The sword blade and its glow were drawing the bullets from Glenn's body and healing his wounds! Magda watched in awe.
The glow began to fade. "Magda . . ."
She jumped at the sound. Glenn's voice was much stronger than it had been when she had covered him. She pulled the blanket back over him, tucking it around his neck. His eyes were open, staring at the keep.
"Rest some more," she whispered.
"What's happening over there?"
"Some shooting before—a lot of it."
With a groan, Glenn tried to sit up. Magda pushed him back easily. He was still very weak.
"Got to get to the keep . . . stop Rasalom."
&nbs
p; "Who's Rasalom?"
"The one you and your father call Molasar. He reversed the letters of his name for you . . . real name is Rasalom . . . got to stop him!"
He tried to rise again and again Magda pushed him back.
"It's almost dawn. A vampire can't go anywhere after sunrise, so just—"
"He's no more afraid of sunlight than you are!"
"But a vampire—"
"He's not a vampire! Never was! If he were," Glenn said, a note of despair creeping into his voice, "I wouldn't bother trying to stop him."
Dread caressed her, a cold hand against the middle of her back.
"Not a vampire?"
"He's the source of the vampire legends, but what he craves is nothing so simple as blood. That notion crept into the folk tales because people can see blood, and touch it. No one can see or touch what Rasalom feeds on."
"You mean what you were trying to tell me last night before the soldiers . . . came?" She did not want to remember last night.
"Yes. He draws strength from human pain, misery, and madness. He can feed on the agony of those who die by his hand but gains far more from man's inhumanity to other men."
"That's ridiculous! Nothing could live on such things. They're too . . . too insubstantial!"
"Is sunlight 'too insubstantial' for a flower to need for growth? Believe me: Rasalom feeds on things that cannot be seen or touched—all of them bad."
"You make him sound like the Serpent himself!"
"You mean Satan? The Devil?" Glenn smiled weakly. "Put aside every religion you've ever heard of. They mean nothing here. Rasalom predates them all."
"I can't believe—"
"He is a survivor of the First Age. He pretended to be a five-hundred-year-old vampire because that fit the history of the keep and the region. And because it generated fear so easily—another one of his delights. But he's much, much older. Everything he told your father—everything—was a lie . . . except for the part about being weak and having to build his strength.'"
"Everything? But what about saving me? What about curing Papa? And what about those villagers the major took hostage? They would have been executed if he had not saved them!"
"He saved no one. You told me he killed the two soldiers guarding the villagers. But did he set the villagers free? No! He added insult to injury by marching the dead soldiers up to the major's quarters and making a fool out of him. Rasalom was trying to provoke the major into executing all the villagers on the spot. That's the sort of atrocity that swells his strength. And after half a millennium of imprisonment, he needed much strengthening. Fortunately, events conspired against him and the villagers survived."
"Imprisonment? But he told Papa . . ." Her voice trailed off. "Another lie?"
Glenn nodded. "Rasalom did not build the keep as he said. Nor was he hiding in it. The keep was built to trap and hold him . . . forever. Who could have foretold that it or anything else in the Dinu Pass might someday be considered of military value? Or that some fool would break the seal on his cell? Now, if he ever gets loose in the world—"
"But he's loose now."
"No. Not yet. That's another one of his lies. He wanted your father to believe he was free, but he's still confined to the keep by the other piece of this." He pulled the blanket down and showed her the butt end of the sword blade. "The hilt to this blade is the only thing on earth Rasalom fears. It's the only thing that has power over him. It can bind him. The hilt is the key. It locks him within the keep. The blade is useless without it, but the two joined together can destroy him. "
Magda shook her head in an attempt to clear it. This was becoming more incredible every minute!
"But the hilt—where is it? What does it look like?"
"You've seen its image thousands of times in the walls of the keep."
"The crosses!"
Magda's mind whirled. Then they weren't crosses after all! They were modeled on the hilt of a sword—no wonder the crosspiece was set so high! She had been looking at them for years and had never even come close to guessing. And if Molasar—she had to start thinking of him as Rasalom now—was truly the source of the vampire legends, she could see how his fear of the sword hilt might have been transmuted into a fear of the cross in the folk tales.
"But where—"
"Buried deep in the subcellar. As long as the hilt remains within the walls of the keep, Rasalom is bound by them."
"But all he has to do is dig it up and dispose of it."
"He can't touch it, or even get too close to it."
"Then he's trapped forever!"
"No," Glenn said in a very low voice as he looked into Magda's eyes. "He has your father."
Magda wanted to be sick, to scream No! But she could not. She had been turned to stone by Glenn's quiet words . . . words that for the life of her she could not deny.
"Let me tell you what I think has happened," he said into the lengthening silence. "Rasalom was released the first night the Germans moved into the keep. He had strength enough then to kill only one. After that he rested and took stock. His initial strategy, I think, was to kill them one at a time, to feed on that daily agony and on the fear that increased among the living each time he claimed one of them. He was careful not to kill too many at once, especially not the officers, for that might drive them all away. He probably hoped for one of three things to occur: The Germans would become so frustrated that they would blow up the keep, thereby freeing him; or they would bring in more and more reinforcements, affording him more lives to take, more fear to grow strong on; or that he might find among the men a corruptible innocent."
Magda could barely hear her own voice. "Papa."
"Or you. From what you told me, Rasalom's attention seemed to be centered on you when he first revealed himself. But the captain put you over here, out of reach. Therefore Rasalom had to concentrate on your father."
"But he could have used one of the soldiers!"
"He gains his greatest strength from the destruction of everything that is good in a person. The corruption of the values of a single decent human being enriches him more than a thousand murders. It's a feast for Rasalom! The soldiers were useless to him. Veterans of Poland and other campaigns, they had killed proudly for their Führer. Little of value in them for Rasalom. And their reinforcements—death camp troopers! Nothing left in those creatures to debase! So the only real use he's had for the Germans, besides the fear and death agony gleaned from them, is as digging tools."
Magda couldn't imagine . . . "Digging?"
"To unearth the hilt. I suspect that the 'thing' you heard shuffling around in the subcellar after your father sent you away was a group of the dead soldiers returning to their shrouds."
Walking corpses . . . the thought was grotesque, too fantastic even to consider, and yet she remembered that story about the two dead soldiers who had walked from the place of their dying to the major’s room.
"But if he has the power to make the dead walk, why can't he have one of them dispose of the hilt?"
"Impossible. The hilt negates his power. A corpse under his control would return to its inanimate state the instant it touched the hilt." He paused. "Your father will be the one to carry the hilt from the keep. "
"But as soon as Papa touches the hilt, won't Rasalom lose control over him?"
Glenn shook his head sadly. "You must realize by now that he's helping Rasalom willingly . . . enthusiastically. Your father will be able to handle the hilt with ease because he'll be acting of his own free will."
Magda felt dead inside. "But Papa doesn't know! Why didn't you tell him?"
"Because it was his battle, not mine. And because I couldn't risk letting Rasalom know I was here. Your father wouldn't have believed me anyway—he preferred to hate me. Rasalom has done a masterful job on him, destroying his character by tiny increments, peeling away layer after layer of all the things he believed in, leaving only the base, venal aspects of his nature."
It was true. Magda had seen it happening
and had been afraid to admit it, but it was true.
"You could have helped him!"
"Perhaps. But I doubt it. Your father's battle was against himself as much as against Rasalom. And in the end, evil must be faced alone. Your father made excuses for the evil he sensed within Rasalom, and soon he came to see Rasalom as the answer to all his problems. Rasalom started with your father's religion. He does not fear the cross, yet he pretended to, causing your father to question his entire heritage, undermining all the beliefs and values derived from that heritage. Then Rasalom rescued you from your would-be rapists—a testimony to the quickness and adaptability of his mind—putting your father deep in his debt. Rasalom went on to promise him a chance to destroy Nazism and save your people. And then, the final stroke—the elimination of all the symptoms of the disease your father has suffered with for years. Rasalom had a willing slave then, one who would do just about anything he asked. He has not only stripped away most of the man you called 'Papa,' but has fashioned him into an instrument that will effect the release of mankind's greatest enemy from the keep."
Glenn struggled to a sitting position. "I’ve got to stop him once and for all!"
"Let him go," Magda said through her misery as she contemplated what had happened to Papa—or rather, what Papa had allowed to happen to himself. She had to wonder: Would she or anybody else have been able to withstand such an assault on one's character? "Perhaps that will free my father from Rasalom's influence and we can go back to the way we were."
"You will have no lives to go about if Rasalom is set free!"
"In this world of Hitler and the Iron Guard, what can Rasalom do that hasn't been done already?"
"You haven't been listening!" Glenn said angrily. "Once free, Rasalom will make Hitler seem a suitable playmate for whatever children you might have planned on having!"
"Nothing could be worse than Hitler'" Magda said. "Nothing."
"Rasalom could. Don't you see, Magda, that with Hitler, as evil as he is, there is still hope? Hitler is but a man. He is mortal. He will die or be killed someday . . . maybe tomorrow, maybe thirty years from now, but he will die. He only controls a small part of the world. And although he appears invincible now, he has yet to deal with Russia. Britain still defies him. And there is America—if those Americans decide to turn their vitality and productive capacity to war, no country, not even Hitler's Germany, will be able to stand against them for long. So you see, there is still hope in this very dark hour.”
Adversary Cycle 01 - The Keep Page 34
