Chapter 5: Nazis and Werewolves

Erika yanked open the door to the maid’s closet that Volker had directed her to and wasn’t surprised to find that the uniforms inside were the skimpy sort of thing he undoubtedly preferred to have the help wear when he was home alone with them.

She considered slinking her way into one but decided against it. He said he wouldn’t turn her in, but she couldn’t trust him. And since seducing him hadn’t worked, she would have to get the information she had come for another way.

Just because this day had gone to hell in a handbasket didn’t mean that she was going to give up. She began to shift back to her wolf. Her shoulder had stiffened up and was swollen and bruised and the contortions that were required for the shift were excruciating.

She wanted to scream, or let out a snarling howl, but kept it in. Walking on four legs hurt even more now than it had earlier, but she had no choice. Even slowed by the injury she would be faster this way.

Heavy boots were ascending both staircases now. She’d been in Volker’s den once during a party. In the den he had a bar, a billiards table and plenty of room for little groups to break off into their own little discussions. The men had been drunk, waving big cigars around and pontificating loudly about how each of them individually were going to win the war. The women had been schmoozing.

She ducked into the den, considered hiding behind a sofa but then decided that hiding in open is usually the best way.

There was a bearskin rug in front of the fireplace. On one wall was mounted the head of a large elk. She struck a pose in the closest corner, her injured leg raised and curled under her, her teeth bared in a snarl like so many trophies. She told herself to relax, to slow her breathing.

She was standing stone still when two soldiers came in. They took a cursory look around and left—clearly not two of Germany’s finest. The entire episode reeked of the sort of silly thing one might see during the animated short before a film at the cinema.

But it worked.

When the soldiers were satisfied that the traitor to the Führer was not on the grounds, they loaded up and promptly left, off to search for her elsewhere. She suspected that the guard presence was stronger now than it had been when she had arrived. That could be a problem.

She slipped downstairs and located a long kitchen knife, taking it between her teeth. It was time to see if Volker had the power to resist a knife to the throat as effectively as he had resisted her advances. She would get what she wanted.

Or she would slit his throat.

In another universe where the scourge of Nazi barbarism didn’t exist, perhaps they could have been friends, maybe even more than friends. She liked strong, intelligent men.

But this one, whether he wanted to admit it or not, was a Nazi, and therefore, a monster. If she didn’t get what she came for, at least there would be one less Nazi rocket scientist around to complete the project.

And as she thought about it, even if she did get what she came for, one fewer Nazi rocket scientist would be a good thing.

*

Schutzstaffel Lieutenant Herman Schmidt used the time on the train to the French coast to go through his papers. The Schutzstaffel, which he and his colleagues in this fanatical Nazi branch of the military simply referred to as the SS, were sticklers for detail as much as they were pioneers in the study of the occult.

There is much more to this world than we can see, he often reminded himself. His experiences had borne that out.

In Estonia he had been very close to a breakthrough. While rounding up a horde of filthy gypsies, a division of SS found themselves in a very peculiar situation, one that cost several of them their lives.

Those gypsies who cooperated were marched several kilometers to a railyard where they were to be packed together in railcars for the trip east. Those who put up a fight didn’t last long. They were shot and the bodies dumped in a ditch.

A machine was brought in to push dirt over the bodies and when the operator of the machine stepped out of it, he found all eight of the soldiers who had been standing there dead. Several had puncture wounds to their necks. Several others were missing their heads altogether.

It appeared that not one of them had gotten off a shot. Five kilometers away the same situation occurred at the railyard. The suddenly free gypsies scattered into the woods. Several were later apprehended. Most refused to speak. Schmidt had convinced a couple to cooperate by means that some would have found disturbing.

They testified that something had come down out of the sky, something in the shape of a man. Autopsies of the SS soldiers at both sites found that many had been completely drained of their blood.

Those witnesses were summarily shot while Schmidt wrote up his report, a report that speculated that perhaps a vampire had been to blame. A similar incident had occurred in France, and he was sent to investigate. The situation with the two Gestapo agents didn’t seem to him to have been the work of a bloodsucker.

This sounded like the work of something else. Lieutenant Schmidt was anxious to have a look at the bodies of the two men. Had it been a werewolf?

He hoped so.

He’d apprehended a coven of witches. He’d taken the head off of what he was certain was a vampire, although the body had spontaneously combusted upon contact with sunlight, so there had been no proof.

A werewolf would be, to use the French, the crème de la crème. There were legends of packs of werewolves hidden in hamlets all across Europe for years, but no proof. They were a sly lot.

If he could capture one, a real werewolf, that would really be something. In fact, it would be something that the big man himself would find quite interesting.

The train pulled into the station. Schmidt rounded up his papers, tucked them into his briefcase and disembarked. He stepped onto a darkened platform.

“Lights out after dark these days,” said a voice from the shadows . “It seems a little silly. The Allies lack the courage to try to invade via the beaches along here. By the way, I’m the man who called you. They shook hands.

“Major Seidenberg,” he said.

Schmidt considered Seidenberg how far they were from the coast but didn’t, The war was someone else’s concern. The creatures of the night were Schmidt’s concern.

“Take me to the bodies of the Gestapo agents. I want to see them posthaste.”

“Not much to see,” the other man said.

“Exactly why I want to see them,” Schmidt replied.