“For the Reich!” Dr. Übel shouted, and pulled the master switch.
Tendrils of eldritch lightning exploded out from the orb, encompassing the maroon-clad soldiers of the Death’s Head Legion. Even the most seasoned soldiers observing the ceremony took a step back. The purple light flashed outward, and then flowed like water over the Death’s Head soldiers, who held their ranks. It seeped into their every cell. Dr. Übel looked toward his senior technician, who raised his one arm in a thumbs-up after checking the readings on his machinery.
It was working! Dr. Übel thought. It was really working! His army was being born before his eyes.
On the observation stage Major Hoffstetter was slack-jawed in amazement. It was one thing to see the process applied to the six draugrkommando officers. But on this scale—almost a thousand soldiers—it was mesmerizing. Skorzeny watched with wary interest. Only Colonel Uhrwerk showed no reaction.
Then something unexpected happened. There was a flash of crimson light near where the prisoners were gathered. A bolt of red lighting struck the orb and the gauges on the machinery went haywire. Steam screamed out from the emergency valves. Sparks exploded from the cable connections.
Dr. Übel’s assistant looked up at the doctor, panic on his face.
The men of the Death’s Head Legion began to scream. On the platform, the six draugrkommando officers—Hauser and his fellow leaders—fell to their knees clutching their heads. Everyone started looking around, focusing finally on the exploding tendrils of bloodred energy the orb was now throwing off like sparks from a fire.
Tentacles of red energy danced from the orb. They reached out and enveloped the closest rank of Death’s Head Legionnaires, who screamed inhumanly and dissolved into dust. The last four rows started backing away from the orb. Those closest to the orb were struck by the tendrils. They collapsed to the ground, skin melting from bodies as their organs liquefied. Those ranks farthest away turned to run but fell to the ground as the fingers of light brushed against them. The remaining men, some two-thirds of the thousand legionnaires, shook, screamed, and fell to their knees in agony. They twitched and convulsed, blood pouring from every orifice as well as their eyes and fingernails. Finally—mercifully—they lay still.
“Shut it down! Shut it down!” Dr. Übel was screaming, his own control panel exploding in a shower of sparks.
Dr. Übel jumped from the platform, raced to the control boards and shoved the technician out of the way. The whole machine was shaking. He pulled the master switch and the orb went dark.
Only then could he see the ropes of red energy reaching out from the prisoner’s enclosure and toward his orb. It lasted only a few seconds after the orb went dark, but the red energy lit up the night. Then a wave of energy from the orb exploded outward. The lights in the courtyard went dark, and the entire area was enveloped in darkness. Only the moon and a few torches that hadn’t been dropped provided illumination.
The SS guards who recovered their senses threw open the gate of the enclosure. At gunpoint, they ordered the prisoners to either side of the enclosure. As the prisoners parted like a wave, one of them remained, facing the guards defiantly in the torchlight. She stood barefoot in her white dress, her eyes and hands still glowing red from eldritch energies. Her breathing was heavy and sweat poured from her when she suddenly collapsed to the ground. Terah and Deitel rushed to her side, where Terah cradled her head.
Major Hoffstetter was demanding answers, and Dr. Übel ordered the guards to bring the girl to him.
“What has happened, Doctor?” Hoffstetter yelled, his eyes still wide with fear. It was deathly quiet in the courtyard. Hauser and the other five draugrkommando officers were shaking their heads, looking dazed.
Colonel Uhrwerk hadn’t moved.
“I don’t know what happened!” Dr. Übel shouted back. “But tell your men to stay away from the orb. Do not approach it!”
Some of the SS guards were rounding up torches. They gave wide berth to the fantastic machine and the piles of dust, melted flesh, and dead bodies in maroon uniforms. Others dragged Terah and Deitel, who were holding up Amria, before the platform. They brought along Filotoma for good measure.
“You!” Dr. Übel said, pointing at the Gypsy girl. “What have you done, witch?”
Though she could barely lift her head, Amria smiled. Her voice was raspy and weak.
“I am . . . the unnamed power of God’s wrath . . . visited upon the heads of those whose hands . . . are washed in the blood of my sisters and brothers,” she said. “I bring death.”
SS men with torches provided the only light. The rest of the armed men stood guard over the prisoners, or else formed a perimeter. Only half of the SS men, sentries and guards, were armed; those not on duty and who served as part of the honor guard carried no weapons.
It was hard to see more than twenty meters in the courtyard. Battery powered emergency lighting flickered and strobed to life. The wind caused the shadows to dance in the torchlight.
Skorzeny, who had wanted no part in this abomination, saw that no one was in charge. His first concern was security and the well-being of the garrison’s personnel. With three squads of storm troopers in the woods surrounding Poenari, three dozen on sentry, guard, and sniper duty, there were about ninety SS men in the outer courtyard at the moment. Only about forty were armed.
All of the engineers and technicians were also in the courtyard, to witness Project Gefallener; more than 120 people there now, with a dangerous machine and very little light. The wehr-wolves bayed. The nachtmenn locked in the stables howled.
“What has happened?” Hoffstetter demanded again.
Dr. Übel pointed a bony finger at Amria.
“The little witch. She corrupted the energies of my machine. I don’t know how, but she disrupted the whole process. She ruined everything. Now all of my legionnaires are dead.” His voice choked with anger. “Every last man of the legion! God damn you!” he yelled at the Gypsy girl.
A quiet fell over the entire outer courtyard. It was so quiet they could even hear the light breeze that would sneak into the castle walls.
Dr. Übel grabbed Amria’s arm and shoved her into the rest of Rucker’s team. “I want them all shot. Now!”
Then, from across the courtyard still swathed in darkness, there came a shuffling sound. Almost every head turned to look. Barely visible in the darkness, it looked like an injured man trying to walk toward the light. Or maybe there were two. Behind them the rest of the courtyard, including Übel’s machine, was lost in a pool of utter darkness.
“There are survivors,” one of the SS sergeants announced. “Heinz, Gutmann, Mueller—grab a medical kit and come with me.”
The four charged across the courtyard. These were, after all, their brother SS soldiers. Those around the platform in the torchlight could barely see what was happening. The emergency lights at the far end of the courtyard were still strobing and flickering, making it impossible for their eyes to adjust to the darkness. Then the shuffling stopped. They could just make out the men appearing to struggle with the wounded soldier. Undoubtedly, Skorzeny thought, the victim was in shock. He’d seen it before—wounded men actually fighting against those trying to render aid.
Then came a bloodcurdling scream. And another. And another.
Then it was silent again. But only for a moment. There was a crunching sound. A sound like wet canvas being ripped. And then the shuffling resumed.
Another SS sergeant close to the platform gave a rallying cry.
“All SS men who are armed, come with me,” he shouted over his shoulder.
Almost forty soldiers charged toward the darkness. Only a few with machine pistols remained behind to watch the prisoners.
“No, wait!” Skorzeny shouted. It was too late. They were gone into the darkness.
Skorzeny leaped down from the observation platform and yanked a torch from the hand of an SS man. He ran forward and threw it in the direction of the screams they’d all heard before. The torch
struck the ground and clattered across the cobblestones, coming to a stop just ten meters in front of the wounded survivor.
It was a Death’s Head Legionnaire. He continued shuffling forward. Blood was smeared over his mouth and hands, his eyes sunken and skin pallid, his hair singed. He moved at a shambling gait, unsteady on his feet.
“Gott,” Skorzeny cursed.
He snatched a machine pistol from another SS man and charged forward to within twenty-five meters of the legionnaire.
“Halt!” he called.
The man kept walking forward.
Skorzeny fired a short burst at the man’s feet as a warning, and then another over his head.
“I said halt or I will shoot you!”
The man didn’t react at all.
Skorzeny raised the MP-40 and squeezed the trigger. He emptied the remaining 9mm rounds into the man’s chest in less than four seconds. He saw the rounds striking.
Every single round.
The man barely reacted at all. He—it—just kept walking forward.
“Jesus,” Skorzeny muttered, then loaded another magazine and opened the bolt, chambering a round. He extended the stock and cradled the weapon in his shoulder. Taking careful aim at the man’s face, he squeezed the trigger. He fought the rise of the barrel for the four seconds it took to empty the thirty-two-round magazine, blasting the thing in the face. It went down, half its head shorn off. It did not move again.
Skorzeny backed away at a fast clip.
There were screams from the darkness. Several machine pistols started firing—the muzzle flashes providing the briefest glimpses of what was happening. It looked like a melee between dozens—hundreds—of men.
The observation platform stood near the gate to the walled, inner courtyard. It faced the outer gate of the castle wall. In the center of the courtyard, Übel’s machine was lost in the darkness. Skorzeny did not like not knowing what was going on. He grabbed a flare pistol and fired it up in an arc that would bring it down above Übel’s machine, some hundred yards away.
The flare ignited above the machine, its descent slowed by a small parachute. In the wavering light they saw a glimpse of what Hell must be. More than sixty of the maroon-clad legionnaires, all of whom they’d seen fall to the ground, were dead because of the crimson energy of Übel’s machine. Their skin was pallid and the hair of most was burned away. The blood that had run from their mouths and eyes and ears was now burned and crusted, their eyes milky white, and the uniforms of some of them still smoldered.
Yet they were on their feet and moving forward with an awkward gait.
They set upon the fifty SS soldiers who’d charged into their midst and began tearing them apart. Two were pulling a screaming man’s arms in different directions until one of them ripped an arm away from the body with a sound like pulling a boot out of deep, thick mud. Another one of the creatures charged a soldier trying to unjam his weapon. The trooper finally cleared it and opened fire, but by then the thing was atop him, tearing out his throat with its teeth. Another group of creatures huddled around a body, pulling organs out of a storm trooper, which steamed in the cool night air. They pulled out ropes of his insides, feasting on them and fighting over them like it was a game of tug-of-war. Men screamed as teeth crunched through their skulls. The occasional clatter of gunfire erupted, but to no effect. The storm troopers were already surrounded. There was no escape for them.
After the last screams died out, the faces of the creatures, one by one, turned toward those gathered around the observation platform, frozen at the sight of the bloody tableau. Blood and flesh dripping from their hands and mouths, they began shambling towards the light—toward the living. Their gait seemed less awkward than before.
“Why . . . what is happening?” Major Hoffstetter asked no one in particular.
Hauser forced himself to take in a lungful of air so he could speak.
“The dead are coming,” he said. “They are coming for all of you.”
“Wh-Wh-Why?” Hoffstetter asked, his voice rising.
“The dead hunger for the living. The dead hate the living.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
Poenari Citadel
Wallachia Region
In darkness broken by the flickering emergency lights, the descending flare, and torchlight, the people in the outer courtyard of Poenari Citadel panicked. In the center of the outer courtyard, hundreds of the creatures were feeding on the remains of the storm troopers who had charged into their midst. Hundreds more were shambling toward where the living were gathered, just outside the gate to the inner courtyard.
The living dead were among them. A dozen frightened engineers carrying torches made a mad dash toward the outer castle door, hoping to circumvent the throng of ravenous creatures that surrounded Übel’s machine and those now moving toward where the inner courtyard. Before the engineers could make it halfway they were set upon by the creatures and torn to pieces. The things were getting faster, Terah noted. Major Hoffstetter was screaming in a high-pitched voice for the SS soldiers to protect him. A few formed up around the major, but only two of them had weapons.
The sight of the undead closing on them caused some technicians and engineers—and a few soldiers—to run mindlessly away. The outer courtyard was enclosed, so they ran straight into packs of the creatures no matter which way they ran. The creatures moved more slowly in death, but they were quick enough. The screams of the dying echoed off the castle walls.
Few kept their heads. Skorzeny was one of them.
First he grabbed one of the SS soldiers, one whose uniform bore a signals unit patch.
“Soldier, I need you to get to the radio room,” he ordered.
Then he grabbed two engineers by the back of their necks. They were wide-eyed with fear.
“You two, get it together. I need you to go with the corporal here. Get him to the radio room and then get those generators back on.”
He pulled a pad from his pocket, scratched out a short coded message and gave it to the corporal.
“As soon as you have power, send this message on the alert three frequency,” Skorzeny said. The corporal was surprised—that was one of the highest priority signals in the military, usually reserved for field marshals.
Skorzeny jumped up on the platform. The undead creatures were still a good fifty yards away, and most were still busy feeding on the platoon of SS men and the ones who had panicked.
“Achtung!” he barked in his command voice. “All armed soldiers, form up right here. Fall in!” he said, pointing to the left of the platform.
His commanding voice and confidence somewhat calmed the soldiers and the engineers.
About fifteen soldiers formed up. They carried Schmeisser MP-40s. A few only had their service pistols. Skorzeny looked over to the prisoner enclosure, where he saw three soldiers armed with machine pistols. They hadn’t fallen in.
He jumped down from the platform, sprinted toward the enclosure and grabbed one of the three by the front of his tunic.
“Are you deaf? Form up over there,” he barked at him.
“I . . . sir . . . we are needed to guard the prisoners,” the soldier replied.
Skorzeny looked at the enclosure where the gate was open. Terah stood in front of the gate with her hands on her hips and fire in her eyes.
Skorzeny slapped the soldier in the face.
“Idiot. Those aren’t prisoners anymore. They’re on our side. It’s the living against those things out there.”
Skorzeny snatched the MP-40 from the soldier’s hands and tossed it to Terah. She caught it with ease, checked the magazine, opened the bolt, and unfolded the stock.
“Yes?” Skorzeny asked the implied question.
“For now,” Terah said. “Until this is over or we’re all dead.”
“Good enough,” he replied.
Skorzeny ordered the other two soldiers to hand over their machine pistols and sidearms. He gave Filotoma one MP-40 and kept the other and a pistol for himself. H
e sent the unarmed guards to stand among the unarmed engineers and technicians.
He hesitated a moment before handing the other pistol over to Deitel, telling him, “I’ll sort you out when this is all over, traitor.”
On the platform, three of the six draugrkommandos were agitated. At first they just fidgeted a little—something that should never happen. Then they had their hands to their heads and fell to their knees.
The other three draugrkommandos, including Hauser, noticed their companions’ behavior and moved without prompting. They picked up the three affected draugrs bodily and hurled them away from where the living had gathered, far into the courtyard, knocking over a few of the shambling, mindless feeders. Hauser and the other two had easily ten times the strength they’d had in life. The three affected draugrs writhed on the ground in agony where they landed. They wanted to scream but didn’t have the presence of mind to inhale.
Skorzeny saw it all.
“What the hell?” he said, the muzzle of his machine pistol pointing at Hauser’s head and his finger squeezing the trigger tight without opening fire.
Hauser stared at Skorzeny with his empty eyes for an eternity. Finally, he made himself draw a breath.
“They were infected by the orb,” he said. “By the Gypsy’s spell.”
Sweat poured from Skorzeny’s brow and into his eyes, the salt burning. He didn’t risk blinking.
“And you three aren’t?” he asked.
Hauser and the other two shook their heads.
“We are loyal to the Reich,” Hauser said in that raspy, dead voice. “We are loyal to our creator.”
“Why? Why aren’t you affected?” Skorzeny asked.
Hauser drew another breath to speak.
“We do not know,” he said.
For the longest time Skorzeny considered pulling the trigger. Clearly, though, the three remaining draugrkommandos were in control. For now. And they could be useful.
Shadows Will Fall: The Spear of Destiny: Part Three of Three Page 7
