My Immortal The Vampires of Berlin (15 page)

The
Luftwaffe
pilot raised his hand. So did Thor, a soldier who had lost his left arm in the invasion of France. Neither man thought Sebastian’s plan—whatever it was—had a snowball’s chance in hell of succeeding, but the idea of surrendering to the Russians scared them, despite the promise of lenient treatment being touted by Soviet propagandists.

Frederick spit on the ground. “Enjoy your lost cause, you rat bastards.” And with that, he raised the white flag and led the rest of the men down the street.

Five minutes later, Sebastian and Wolf led their new rag-tag squad into the Hotel Neptune. As they entered, Dieter slipped and fell. As the men helped Dieter up, their attention shifted from his blood-soaked pants to the smashed and mutilated bodies that were scattered all over the place. It was butchery on a scale they had never seen before.

“Oh my,” Klaus said. “This is terrible.”

“Yeah, sorry. We had a little incident.”

“A little incident? This was no little incident,” Klaus replied. “This was a bloodbath, man. An orgy of violence.”

Dieter was astonished. “Are you guys serial murderers?”

“Pretty much,” Wolf replied. “Now, grab all the ammo and grenades you can find. You’re going to need it.”

29

The street remained eerily quiet as Frederick led the trek to the Russian lines. The death and destruction that they passed on the way was incredible.

The men wept when they passed the bread line, where the grim reaper took the form of an artillery shell. Out in the open, the poor hungry people had no chance against the white-hot steel that sliced their bodies to ribbons.

“I’ll never see my wife again,” a soldier sobbed.

“Stay strong,” Frederick replied.

A young soldier spotted a Russian sniper peering down at them from a rooftop. “I have a bad feeling about this. We should go back.”

“Everything will be fine,” Frederick replied. “We just have to make contact.” Then he waved the white flag back and forth and shouted. “Hello! We surrender! We have documents issued by the Red Army that guarantee us treatment in accordance with the Geneva Convention!”

Red Army soldier Alexander Lebel watched the Germans approach with bitterness in his heart. He had lost all three of his brothers when the SS locked them in a woodshed in reprisal for a partisan attack. The problem wasn’t the detention, it was the fact that the SS set the shed on fire and sprayed it with machine gun fire while his brothers were still inside. Now, the murderous bastards were asking for mercy and he was the one behind the machine gun. These Germans weren’t wearing black SS uniforms, but that didn’t matter to Alexander. They were all the same.

The surrendering Germans were caught off guard when the machine gun erupted. Most were cut down where they stood. Some tried to run away, but only one got more than a few steps.

Back in the Neptune, Wolf raised his binoculars as the staccato gunshots rang out. It saddened but did not surprise him that the men who Sebastian had just tried to talk out of surrendering were dead. He watched the lone survivor wave the white flag as he crawled back towards the hotel. With a single shot from a sniper, Frederick collapsed to the ground and died. His precious flag turned red with his blood.

Wolf lowered the binoculars and sighed. His calm acceptance of the situation was in stark contrast to the panic that enveloped the Hotel Neptune.

“The final assault has begun!” Klaus screamed hysterically. “We’re going to die! We’re all going to die! We’re doomed!”

The panic spread fast and spiraled out of control. “What are we going to do? We’re doomed!” Axel screamed. “We’re doomed!”

“We’re doomed! We’re doomed! We’re doomed!” Dieter added to the chorus. “We’re doomed!”

Wolf pointed his machine gun at the men. “Shut up! Shut the hell up!” he yelled. “Do I have to shoot all of you doom and gloom motherfuckers?”

Stunned silence.

“You wouldn’t really shoot us, would you, mister?” Dieter asked sheepishly.

Wolf sighed. “Most likely not. But you need to calm down or I will give it serious consideration. If you stay calm, we can execute the...” His voice trailed off.

“Plan,” Dieter said, finishing his sentence.

“Major, what exactly is the
plan
?” Klaus asked. “How do you plan to get us out of Berlin? Tell us your genius plan.”

The men stared at Wolf and waited for words of wisdom and comfort. They waited for hope.

Unfortunately, Wolf had no words of wisdom for them. Nor comfort. Nor hope. He stared at the ground and lit a cigarette that he had found in a dead Russian’s pocket.

“Major, tell us the plan. It will be much easier to execute the
genius
plan if we know what it is,” Klaus said.

Wolf rubbed his temples. He had no idea what to tell them. Point of fact, they were going to die. He debated lying to them for a drag or two of the cigarette. He wondered if it would even be possible to organize them into a fighting force if he told them the truth. Above all, he had to keep them calm. In war, panic equals catastrophe. His philosophy was that if you stay calm, you could survive any combat situation.
Unless, of course, you are in a destroyed city that is surrounded by a million enemy soldiers.

“That’s not the final assault,” Wolf said, crushing the cigarette on the floor. “They just took care of your stupid friends. They also woke up every Soviet soldier within ten blocks and killed our chances of getting out of here quietly.”

“Do something!” Dieter begged. “We can’t just stay here until they butcher us.”

“There is nowhere else to go,” Wolf replied. “The tunnel led us here. We can’t shoot our way out with this motley crew and we just lost the element of surprise. Now, we need to prepare defensive positions and try to hold out until the government formally surrenders.”

“That is the plan?” Klaus asked. “Try to hold out until the government formally surrenders?
That
is your goddamn genius plan?”

“Look old man, there is no—”

“
That
is the genius plan?
That
piece of crap? An elephant with a paint brush could come up with a better plan than that.”

“But we believed you!” Dieter cried. “We need a plan!”

“We can go back into the tunnel,” Sebastian said.

That comment shut everybody up. There was finally something else on the table besides sitting around the Neptune and waiting for death to arrive. They all looked at Wolf with hope in their eyes again.

“Where is this tunnel, Major?” Klaus asked.

Wolf shook his head and sighed. “We can’t go back there. It’s a suicide mission.”

“It’s our only chance,” Sebastian said.

“Come on, Major,” Thor said.

“Please...” Dieter cried.

“Listen, men. That tunnel is not a way out of here—it will just take us back to Berlin Cathedral or the Soviet positions. Either way, we’ll be in Russian hands. Like I said, it’s a suicide mission. A death sentence.”

Sebastian smiled. “Eva didn’t think so.”

30

The squad followed Sebastian down the tunnel as the sounds of the Battle for Berlin resonated above them. “I hope this little underground expedition doesn’t end in Red Square,” Klaus said.

“If it does, I’m going to kill some more Russians before I go,” Thor replied.

“Relax, Lefty. If we’re lucky, we’ll get out of Berlin without firing another shot,” Sebastian said.

Suddenly, there was a squeal. Dieter fell to his knees and aimed his
Panzerfaust
at the sound.

Luckily, Sebastian was able to throw his hand up before the kid got the shot off. “Don’t shoot!” he yelled. “You’ll bring the ceiling down!”

Dieter lowered the
Panzerfaust
and Klaus thumped his helmet. “Think before you shoot,
dummkopf
. Think!”

Wolf aimed the flashlight at Dieter’s intended target. The ruby eyes of three large black rats reflected in the light. They were chewing on a corpse that looked remarkably like a deflated balloon. “Something sucked out his blood,” Thor said. Then he turned and puked.

“Hey, now. There is no projectile vomiting allowed on the tour of terror,” Axel teased.

“Buzz off, pilot,” Thor replied as he wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “Or the next stream of puke goes on you.”

Wolf stepped over the pool of vomit and handed Dieter a pistol. “Here, junior. The next time that you decide to declare war on the rats, use this. You won’t kill all of us in the process. Got it?”

Dieter nodded silently. Lesson learned.

“Good. Let’s go,” Wolf said.

Guns at the ready, the squad continued down the tunnel as quietly as possible. Twenty meters later, the sound of chanting echoed through the tunnel.

“What the hell is that?” Thor asked.

“Shhhhhh,” Wolf replied. “Get down.”

The men crawled towards the sound until they came upon a huge cavern ringed with torches. In the center of it, Eva lay on a gray stone slab. Her eyes were closed.

Rodika held a silver dagger and chanted in a foreign tongue. This vampire was strikingly beautiful but much different in appearance than the twins; she was taller and had platinum blonde hair and blue eyes that complemented her distinctive Slavic facial features. She also had a high raspy voice, like a serpent. Behind her, Zina and Dumitra kissed passionately.

“What the hell is this wacky shit?” Sebastian asked, rubbing his eyes.

“Vampires,” Wolf replied. “Now do you believe me?”

Sebastian not only believed him, he was already running the battle plan through his head. “We have to stop them before they hurt Eva,” he said.

“Stand down,” Wolf warned. “They are far more powerful than you can even imagine.”

“She saved our lives,” Sebastian replied, not taking his eyes off of the dagger. Then Zina and Dumitra joined in the strange chant; the words accelerated and filled the chamber with a hypnotic ostinato. When Rodika raised the dagger into the air above Eva, Sebastian got on one knee and pointed his rifle into the cavern.

“Get down! This isn’t our fight,” Wolf implored.

“To hell with that—I’m not going to watch them kill her,” Sebastian replied.

Thor didn’t help the situation. “There are only three of them. We can take them out.”