Authors: Michael R. Hicks
The Black Gate (29 page)
Marlena knelt down beside the naked soul. “He can’t have been dead very long. He’s not bloated and doesn’t smell.” While Arnsberg hadn’t seen as much devastation as much of the rest of Germany during the war, there had been enough. She and Ernst had both seen plenty of bodies.
Ernst pushed just below the man’s rib cage, trying to pump out any water from his lungs. A small dribble emerged, but that was all.
Taking the man’s wrist, Marlena felt for a pulse. “He’s dead. His heart’s not beating.” She reached over to his other hand, which was clenched tight around what looked like a rubber tube.
With a frown, Ernst pressed again. Then once more, harder this time. More water dribbled from the man’s mouth.
Ernst was about to try again when one of the man’s hands flashed out, impossibly fast, to grip Ernst’s closed fist.
“You’re alive!” Ernst said, jubilant. Then he shrieked as the bones of his hand snapped, crushed in the grip of the dead man come to life.
The man’s eyelids opened, revealing orbs that glowed like hot coals.
Marlena backed away, screaming, as the man reached up with hands that glowed like flame, putting them on either side of Ernst’s head.
Thrashing and screaming, Ernst grabbed a rock with his free hand and smashed it down on his assailant’s head. The man squeezed his hands together, putting more pressure on Ernst’s skull, and the boy wailed in agony. Dropping the rock, he grabbed at the man’s hands, trying to pull them free. All in vain.
“Ernst!” Marlena reached down to grab a rock herself.
“
Run!
” Ernst cried.
Marlena watched as her boyfriend seemed to shrivel before her eyes. Dropping the rock, she fled through the darkness. She almost made it to
Hüstener Strasse
, the road that ran beside the Ruhr and beneath the viaduct, when an iron hand clamped onto her shoulder, crushing the bones.
She went down screaming and a heavy, cold, wet weight slammed on top of her, driving the air from her lungs. Flipped over onto her back, she looked up to see the Devil’s own face staring down at her. She stared into Satan’s burning eyes, her soul drawn into Hell as the man reached out for her with his glowing hands.
***
His acute starvation now reduced to mere ravening hunger, Baumann tossed the two shriveled bodies into the Ruhr. He took a deep breath, savoring the fresh air, and looked up at the stars. It was a sight he had never again expected to see.
But this night of freedom held only questions for him. Had the Reich fallen in the time it had taken — however long it had been — to dig his way free of the subterranean tomb where Peter had nearly trapped him? Was the
Führer
still alive? Had the Red Army and the Anglo-Saxons overrun his Fatherland, or had they been repulsed? All he knew at the moment was that the night sky was devoid of the drone of RAF bombers and the streaks of antiaircraft fire, and lights shone from many of the buildings and houses he could see, the wartime blackout clearly over. That could only mean that one side or the other had won. He now had to find out which had been the victor, and which the fallen.
Clutching the precious journal that he had sought to preserve in a sheet of rubber he had found in the submerged lab while searching for a way out, Baumann began moving up the hill north of the old castle toward the nearest house. He had much to do, so very much to do, but first things must come first.
He had to feed.
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BY MICHAEL R. HICKS
In Her Name: The Last War Trilogy
In Her Name: Redemption Trilogy
In Her Name: The First Empress Trilogy
Mistress Of The Ages
(Coming Soon)
In Her Name
Trilogy Collections
Harvest Trilogy
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Born in 1963, Michael Hicks grew up in the age of the Apollo program and spent his youth glued to the television watching the original Star Trek series and other science fiction movies, which continues to be a source of entertainment and inspiration. Having spent the majority of his life as a voracious reader, he has been heavily influenced by writers ranging from Robert Heinlein to Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven, and David Weber to S.M. Stirling. Living in Florida with his beautiful wife, two wonderful stepsons and two mischievous Siberian cats, he’s now living his dream of writing novels full-time.
