The Division of the Damned (32 page)

The journey up had been brutal too. Muschinski’s death had shaken them all but that
was
only to be the beginning. Grand had taken a bullet to the leg from the senior NCO on their lorry. In the field, if a civilian had been wounded, Von Struck might have shot the man who had done it himself. However, as it was only a prisoner, the guard was only made to do a couple of extra duties as punishment. One of his duties was to take the prisoners for sport, hence the fact that Grand was now taking a thrashing for being last in the sprints again.

Von Struck found it unbelievable the way they’d been handled by the SS, their own brothers in arms.

"The apocalypse is all but upon us and the
dogs are turning on themselves.
" Rohleder had preached his reading of their behaviour in a mock serious voice.

All that they had achieved behind enemy lines counted for nothing with the concentration camp guards. The bravery shown by Von Struck’s troop in the field bore little currency with these rear echelon toughs.

They were disarmed, and when they were manacled, bound and helpless, th
e beatings began. SS soldiers
—
German SS soldiers
—
punched the squad as if they were common criminals. One of the NCOs, laughing maniacally, started shooting near their legs and feet for sport.

Finally, the inevitable happened and a round gouged out a large
piece of flesh from Grand’s left leg. This was the source of a lot of amusement for the guards and it was only when Von Struck struggled to his feet and demanded that Grand’s leg be seen to that the laughter stopped.

"And wh
o are you to demand anything?" H
e looked at Von Struck’s rank and spat, "Standartenführer?”

Controlling his anger, Von Struck spoke low and clear so that only the NCO, a Rottenführer, could hear
.
"See to that man’s wound or I’ll see to it
that when we get back,"
he
said as he
looked around the truck at the men, "we will kill you the first chance we get. Every time you take a work party out and we’re on it, you won’t be able to turn your back on us as we will be plotting your death.”

The guard’s arrogant smirk transformed to a papery smile and froze like a mud-pack. The doubt in his eye hardened again as he made his decision. He nodded to one of his subordinates. "See to him. Put the weapons down and conserve your ammo." Then he turned to look Von Struck in the eye. "We may need it for when they try to escape. We’ll let Müller deal with them if they all make it back alive.”

However, they were vacant words and the convoy rolled on to Dachau without further upheaval. They arrived at night and the men were woken by whistle blasts and dogs.

"Raus, raus, alle raus
—
”

They staggered up from the numbing floorboards and shuffled out, stiff and cold from sleep and inaction. Blinded by searchlights, they jumped down from the truck to be shoved by a waiting NCO in the right direction. Von Struck stumbled away only to be stopped by one of the men in charge.

"You there, stop right where you are.”

He halted and turned to look in the direction of the voice. Looking into the lights, he couldn’t make out who had said what until the d
isembodied voice approached him.

"Remember me, Standartenführer?”

Von Struck was disconcerted. He knew straightaway who it was. "No, sorry, I don’t.”

"It’s unimportant, Mein Herr. I remember you and that’s all you need to know.”

Von Struck read the malice in his tone and swore inwardly. He remembered alright. It was the NCO whom he had given a rollicking for beating the Englishman, and now he knew he was in trouble.

And so he was.

Chapter 39

Inselman was
at his cell five minutes early.

"Ready?” He seemed somewhat uptight and Smith guessed it was the status of the visitor making him jumpy. He idly wondered why a lowly guard, and not the camp commander and all his toadies, was taking him to see one of Himmler’s trusted circle.

"Is it just you taking me to see him?”

”Yes, now come on, he’ll be here soon." They walked the corridor and into the canteen.

"Sit down. Try to be calm. I’ll be outside acting as a guard until he comes. Are you ok?”

”I’m fine, old boy. I think you’re the one who should have a sit down."

"I know," he grinned sheepishly.
"
I
t’s a big day for me
,
too. I’ll explain later.”

He closed the door behind him and left Smith to his thoughts. The door opened again. He stood up, as was the drill in the camp when a German entered the room, and gasped as he saw who it was.

Oberstgruppenführer von der Heyde stood framed in the doorway.

"Hello, English
, are they treating you well?" H
e laughed
.
"You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

"What the hell is going on?" he said as he fell back down into the chair.

Michael turned and nodded for Inselman to clos
e the door. "Is he fit, Heinz?”

"He’s ready to be moved but he doesn’t know a thing.” Inselman had lost all his earlier nervousness and was talking to the SS
g
eneral on equal terms.

"Can somebody please tell me what is going on because I really am in the dark here
?
Michael, don’t tell me you’re the mysterious higher-up who’s been looking after my interests, and since when have you been a German? This is all too bizarre to be true.”

Michael ignored his shock.
"English, are you ready to be told everything? There’s a lot to be said and a lot to take in. Once again I’m going to have to ask you to make a choice. Are you ready for the truth?”

"Try me.
I think I’m owed at least an explanation. Where did you go? The last thing I remember was running from the wolf, or whatever it was, and being woken up to come here."

"I promise to tell you everything in good time but you must hear me out first. Can you do that?"

He pulled a chair round in front of Smith to sit with his legs astride and his arms on the backrest.

"Tell me everything," Smi
th said, shaking his head.
"I still can’t get over you in an SS uniform.”

Michael acknowledged the situation with a smile and ploughed straight in. "Heinz here is one of the Brothers in my Order. As soon as I heard you were being sent to Dachau, I called in a few favours to get a man on the inside. Parzich has a terrible morphine problem and his family asked my help to secure his position here so he wouldn’t be sent to the front. I called him and he was only too happy to oblige me. Parzich may be a bullying oaf but he does know when he has to deliver.”

Smith nodded as if impatient to hear the rest.

"So I sent one of the Brothers here as the final part of his ini
tiation." He turned to Inselman.
"And I’m very glad to be able to say that you have passed your test, Brother.
Welcome to our small but close b
rotherhood.”

Inselman beamed his pride and Smith smiled at his evident delight. These last months he had come to rely on him and had seen him as an ally, however now he felt like a big brother taking pleasure in his younger sibling’s success.

The moment passed and Michael turned back to Smith. "You may or may not have heard of the Order of the Teutons, the Teutonic Knights.”

Smith nodded that he had.

"A subordinate order to the Teutonic Knights is the Order of Dobrzyn and that is to whom we have given our pledge. It was formed in the thirteenth century to initially defend against the Baltic Prussian raids but due to the small number of knights, and their lack of success on the battlefield, the Order was integrated into the Knights of the Teutonic Order in about 1235 or so. But we weren’t just swallowed up by the Teutonic Knights, we remained a separate body within the larger organisation and were given the task of fighting more, shall we say, extraordinary enemies, namely vampires."

He looked for a response but Smith stayed passive and so Michael carried on. "The vampires you have met in Transylvania are by far the biggest threat to the human race that has ever been. They are the enemy I have sworn to destroy.” He paused. "Heinz may have told you about my connection to Himmler?”

Smith nodded that he had.

"Well, it’s true. Heinrich is deeply enamoured of our Order and wants so desperately to join. He was very near too, but we voted him out at the last minute, thank God. Anyway, he asked the Order for assistance in cultivating your brother, the Dracyl, and
bring
him into the war on our side. I’m ashamed to admit that certain members of our assembly did not show the right spirit of the Order and, ignoring centuries of vampire-hunting tradition, they bowed down to his request. It could have been a disaster but I had the idea of sending Rasch to help find a scientific answer for the vampire’s quest for immunity to sunlight. Rasch is a
brilliant scientist but he would never be able to chemically alter the vampire’s genetic make-up. The vampires are an ill-fated race, born of the curse invoked thousands of years ago. There’s too much wizardry involved to treat them merely through science. And that brings us to how we are going to fight them.”

Smith blinked.
"We?”

"Of course.
I can’t fight them on my own. I’ll need your help.”

"Wait a minute." Smith had questions of his own. "First off, you tell me why you were there when I arrived. You were one of Maria’s trusted
circle
. What happened?”

Michael nodded and sighed. "My half-sister, Iullia, was a nun in a small convent in the Carpathian mountains. It was a very strict and isolated order and they lived far away from civilisation, so they were the perfect target for the Dracyl’s night-time raids. They were safe enough inside the convent walls but if they were caught outside, after dark, there was no hope to be had. My sister was the goatherd of the order and, when one of her goats went lame, she didn’t make it back to the convent in time.

“
I heard from the Mother Superior about what had happened and decided to go to the
c
astle to try and get her back. I went there but it was too late, she was already under Lilith’s control. I posed as a beggar and asked for a job. I don’t know why, but Maria took to me and she hired me. I've always had the impression that she's known who I am and kept me there to enjoy my helplessness in the situation.”

Smith thought of Maria for the first time in months. "When you s
ay she took to you, do you mean
—
”

"No, English, I never slept with her. I was too far below her station. Lilith only wanted to lie with the likes of the Son of Utu. Pitiful beggars don’t get a look-in.”

Smith smiled. "Is that how you became embroiled with the Dracyl or did the Order
send
you?”

Michael’s shoulders slumped resignedly before he continued. "The Order is not what it once was. Since the Nazis came into power, it seems certain high-ranking knights have forgotten our vows. Let’s just say that the promise of influence and power has poisoned the decision making. The Grand Master and his cohorts were all for ignoring the Dracyl threat to please Himmler. I went there on my own and I’m afraid that, except for a few of the Brothers, the Knights of Dobrzyn will not give us any support. The politics of the Order are diabolical and the Grand Master is playing a two-faced game.”

"I see.”

"So, English, now we get to the crux of the matter. How do we kill your brother? This could be complicated so I’ll keep to the relevant points, ok?”

Smith noted that Heinz had locked the door from the inside and had come to sit by Michael, as if wanting to hear all the details for himself.

"I think that’s a good idea. Start off with how we’re going to kill the Dracyl because the last time we spoke you weren’t sure how to," Smith commented.

Michael and Heinz noted the 'we' and the way he’d distanced himself from his brother by calling him 'the Dracyl
.
' It was a positive sign and encouraged Michael to press on. "A long time ago, an English knight, Thomas of Trent, was called to destroy a vampire. Thomas wrote about it and how he had not managed to kill the
vampire, but
he had shown the terrorised villagers how to surreptitiously erect a holy symbol to protect themselves.”

"I never saw
anything when I was there that
—
”

Michael held up his hand for him to stop. "He told them to plant a tree.”

"A tree?”

"A tree?" echoed Heinz.

"I know which tree it was
—
”
Smith broke in but stopped when Michael again held up his hand.

"You see,” he continued, "the key to fighting vampires is belief. If you believe in a benevolent higher power, it’s possible to be able to use an icon of that belief as a weapon or a tool against them. How do you think they fought vampires in ancient Greece, or Iraq or Sumeria? They didn’t follow the Christian God, so how did they combat vampires without crosses and holy water?”