The Division of the Damned (44 page)

The g
eneral nodded in understanding. "Good point, Borkin. See to it that he receives the proper medical attention. I can’t have my star witness kicking the bucket before the trial. Are you sure he knows where it is?”

”Sir, we plan to go there as soon as he is fit.”

"Where is it on the map? Show me and I’ll send someone there myself.”

"He didn’t say, sir. If you remember, the c
ommissar wanted to go there but he was killed.”

Kurakin smiled knowingly. "Yes. I thought you’d want to keep that to yourself." He looked Borkin up and down as if making a decision. "He was an arrogant
bastard, that
damned Commie. You’re not a Bolshevik, are you, Borkin?”

Borkin paused before choosing his reply
. "I am a patriot, G
eneral.”

"I thought as much.” H
e smiled. "Don’t trust the Communists unless you have to. They’ll stab you in the back as soon as look at you.
They’re all bastards to a man.
Vodka?”
He produced a bottle from under his desk and poured ou
t two very large measures. The g
eneral drank it down in one and Borkin, instinctively realising that he was sealing a pact,
followed his example. Then the g
eneral told him what was to happen. "See to it, Borkin. Get him fixed up and find me that camp. I’m not in the Party's good books at the moment but if I get an atrocity camp under my belt, I’ll see to it that we both do well out of it. I’ll make sure the area around it is left alone until you’re ready. That’ll be all for now, Lieutenant. The next time I see you will be the night before you leave. Don’t say a word to anybody and don’t trust anybody. These walls have ears. Good day.”

Three weeks later they were ready. In those three weeks
,
Reuben had been nursed back to health and Stephanie had grown closer to Borkin. He was kind, reliable and trustworthy, qualities that had always att
racted her, not to mention good-
looking. She had contemplated starting a relationship with him until a chance meeting with Reuben’s doctor had changed her circumstances.

"Isn’t it obvious, girl?" he’d asked after she had told him about her fainting spells and sickness. His German was good but she could tell he didn’t like speaking it. He felt her stomach and shook his head.

"Am I undernourished, Doctor?”

"Undernourished and pregnant.
Eat as much as you can and look after yourself. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have soldiers with real problems to attend to.”

Stephanie was too dazed by the news to say anything. Her mind raced with
the weight of the development
—
pregnancy, motherhood, a child and a second chance. She hadn’t even contemplated being pregnant, but now it was out she knew he was right. There could only have been one father
—
Rohleder. She knew now that she had to find him. He had to be alive and she had to find him.

Borkin, who had patiently waited for her to make a decision on them both, took it in his stride. "He must be some man, this Fascist," he said when she spoke with him.

"Olaf, he isn’t a Nazi, as you are not a Communist. Please understand, perhaps I was unfair to you for letting us get so close, but it would be more than unfair to hide his child from him. You are good but so is he. It’s just that this is his child, and for all the bad luck he’s been dealt with in life, he deserves this.”

"I don’t lose easily but I see that you have thought this out, and because of what I feel for you, I’ll respect your decision.”

She felt the tears welling up at his unhappiness but she wiped them away and took him in her arms.

"You are a good man, Olaf Borkin. I have only ever said that to one other and he’s the father of my baby. I hope that means something to
you.”

He smiled sadly down at her, knowing it would never be. "It does, Stephanie Stern, it does.”

The next day they left the headquarters. Because of General Kurakin’s political unreli
ability, the d
ivision had no orders to advance until a new political officer was detailed to his staff, so consequently they were still at the same location they had returned to three weeks earlier.

They were three, a disillusioned Communist, an elderly Professor and a pregnant woman, mou
nted on the oldest nags in the d
ivision. They owned one knife and one rifle between them.

On the edge of the forest they heard a slight growl that set the horses on edge. There was nothing to see but they knew what it meant.

"Where is he?" Borkin asked, not without a tinge of concern.

"He’s near. He’ll come when he wants to,” Stephanie answered.

Reuben nodded.
"Or when we need him.”

The first flakes of a snowfall fell lightly around them, mirroring the mood of their departure. They rode on in silence, oblivious to the weather, each with their own thoughts and each with their own agendas.

Chapter 55

Transylvania

Maria’s eyes ripped open as the revelation concluded with its final image. She sat bolt upright on her bed. The stress of the birth and the constant charade had taken its toll on her strength, but now she had just received a vision that would change all that.

"It’s coming," she breathed
. "I
t’s coming and it’s bringing him with it.”

Now she knew she could not fail. The Book was coming back.

*  *  *

The Dracyl surveyed his troops from the roof of one of the barrack blocks. They were now numbered in their hundreds, up to nearly a thousand, but it still wasn’t enough. He reviewed their ranks in the half-light, consoling himself with the knowledge that this was just the beginning. Their time would soon come, he knew.

Russian, German, Ukrainian, Jew, all wearing their original uniforms, or rags in the case of the Jews.
Himmler had stopped the delivery of SS uniforms after the first two hundred and now his warriors looked more like a gang of partisans than a regiment of soldiers. The first troops were also issued swords but that had also stopped. Now they had to rely on their talons and teeth, which was enough when the quarry was only man.

To the
c
ount, though, the uniforms were irrelevant. All that mattered was that they belonged to the Dracyl. They spoke in the Dracyl tongue and were subject to the myths, laws and traditions of the race of the haemovore.

"Tonight, my chi
ldren,"
he said,
for they were his brood,
"we hunt to quench our thirst but we also hunt to swell our numbers.”

The vampires bristled in their bloodlust to be away. They longed for the hunt and he felt it.

"Yes, you want the chase and you need to feed, but hear me now, my children of the night, you must do more than feed. Our numbers are too small. We need fresh blood to harvest our quarry." He lifted his arms and the mob was silenced. "Bring me
warriors,
bring me souls so that we can extend our dominance over man to the entire world.”

As one the vampire horde howled and hissed their accord and took off into the night. Only the Dracyl remained with his generals.

They were five: Arak, the most senior, stood to the side; the other four lined up in front of him. Although the Dracyl had picked them as his generals, they were still dressed in the clothing they wore when they were turned. A German Jew, a Ukrainian and two Russians, all had
survived the camps and were chosen for their size. They listened intently to what the Dracyl said to them, massive, dog-loyal and eager to get away to feed.

He looked them over and realised that picking his generals for their bulk over their intelligence had not been such a good idea, but at least he had Arak to keep them in line.

"Make no mistake, we need numbers. The time is nigh and we must take what we can. Every Russian soldier can be drained to an inch of his life but I want his soul. Don’t let your men’s greed get the better of them. Numbers are everything now.”

They grunted their understanding in unison.

He nodded and they flew off, leaving the Dracyl alone with his plans.

Chapter 56

Three weeks later

The journey south, though arduous, was blessed with good fortune throughout. Their train was strafed twice but they suffered no casualties and it took them all the way to the Hungarian border. They crossed easily into Hungary despite the Feldjäger roadblocks and the deluge of refugees that clogged the roads, their SS uniforms and another forged letter from Himmler clearing the way before them. Even breaching the Red Army lines had been accomplished without seeing a
Russian,
and all wondered how long their luck would hold.

They stuck to the tactics that had served them so well during their time in the quarry, riding only by night and then full pelt, relying on the dark and their speed to cloak their identity. It was problematical now, due to the extra packhorses, but their fortuity held out.

They by
passed Budapest to the north of the city and marched directly east. The Romanian border marked the end of their rations and they were driven to stealing from the local populace, a fact that didn’t sit well with Von Struck.

"Boss, if we turned back and forgot about the whole thing, do you think we’d be doing the locals any favours?" Rohleder pointed out.

"Let’s keep it to a minimum. We only take what we need.”

"The b
oss is right
;
we don’t want to starve the
c
ommissars when they come to confiscate the food for the glorious Red Army, do we now?” Henning piped up.

The Romanians had changed sides under King Michael 1st in August and yet, despite this, the first Romanian farmer they happened upon seemed overjoyed at the sight of German soldiers.

"Are you coming back t
o kill these damn Communists?" H
e laughed harshly. "They took everything, including my sons, for their bloody war.”

"No
old man, we’re not coming back.
" Von Struck smiled.

"Now that is a damn shame,” he responded in heavily accented but fluent German. His shoulders sagged in resignation but he perked up again when Rohleder asked if he had any food for them.

"Yes, yes, come in, come in. I hid some from the Ruskies when they came looking for rations.”

They settled in his barn for the night, and as they ate their fill of salted pork, the farmer told them of the situation. "Four weeks ago Russian soldiers, our new allies, came and confiscated everything they could find to help feed their troops. They took everything that was edible and left us with nothing. For all they cared, we could starve to death. I’m German and that damn King Michael has made some deal that anything owned by a German must go to the Russians as a part of the
reparations to Russia.”

"So why are we eating so well, old man?” Nau asked between mouthfuls of meat.

"Because I’m clever, my boy, that’s why. The week before that, they visited my friend in the next valley and cleared him out. He came to me and told me what had happened. He had nothing left, nothing
.” H
e paused and looked around for effect
. "S
o we did a deal. I brought everything to his farm for him to look after until the Russians were gone. They came to my house, took what they saw and left. I gave my friend half of what I had and I kept the rest. Do you see what I did there?
Clever, eh?”

They nodded in agreement.

"And your sons?"
Inselman asked delicately. Nodding sadly he answered, "Yes, they were taken too, not by the Russians
,
though. They were here right up until last week and the authorities came and said that since I didn’t have a farm, now that the Russians had cleared me out, I didn’t need my sons, so they must now fight for Romania.”

"Are there many German farmers still here?" Von Struck asked, a ghost of a plan stalking the back of his mind.

"Not many, no. The majority of them left before the Russians came. But there are a few and I know them all.”

"Do you think they would help us get to Klausenburg?”

"Of course they would!” He was shocked at the idea that they wouldn’t help.

"Even with an Englishman in tow?”
Smith put in. The farmer nodded stiffly.

Michael needed to confirm this. "Are you sure of this? We’re on a mission that was ordered by Himmler himself. It’s very important.”

"Don’t talk to me about that idiot. I’ll help you because you’re German and that’s all. If you don’t like it then you don’t have to accept my help, but I won’t do anything for that stupid arse, Heini.”

Rohleder snickered from the back of the barn
.
"You know what
?
I think I like this man.”