Lycanthropos (27 page)

Damn her!

He reached the front door and grasped the handle of the brass door knocker. As he swung it down against the strike plate, the door itself creaked slightly open under the impact. Weyrauch frowned as he pushed the door open.
Foolish thing to do, leaving the door unlocked like this. Just because he's an important man in some circles in
Germany
doesn't mean that he's immune to burglary
...

Two thoughts found their ways into Weyrauch's mind as he entered the foyer of the house. The first, more a peripheral impression than a concrete thought, was that the door was not merely unlocked, that the lock itself had been
shattered.

The second was a memory from his childhood. His father, an executive with a prominent import/export firm, had returned from a business trip with a present for his son. He had purchased a small, black cocker spaniel puppy in
England
, and little Gottfried had named him Schatzi. The puppy had been adorable as all puppies are, never more so than when he would be given a meaty little bone which he would then guard from everyone in the vicinity. It had seemed so comical, Weyrauch remembered, to see the playful little dog lose all his playfulness as his eyes stared in manic, carnivorous intensity, as he bared his
little
teeth and growled menacingly to warn off anyone who might dare to take his
bone away.

This memory became very vivid to Weyrauch at that moment, for the look in the eyes of his puppy was the same look which he saw in the eyes of the creature that was feasting upon the torn, bloody, mutilated body of Joachim Festhaller. The growl of warning, so cute in the cocker spaniel, sent shivers through Weyrauch's seemingly paralyzed body when it issued forth, deep, low and rumbling, from the throat of a werewolf.

Weyrauch stumbled backward and pulled the door shut behind him as he half ran and half fell down the steps of the house. He ran madly down the street, not knowing where he was going, not even truly knowing where he was, knowing only he had to flee, that he had to escape, knowing only that Claudia had found them, that Kaldy's companion of centuries knew who they were, that she was going to kill them, kill them all.

He ran and ran, past silent and empty Vigado Concert Hall, past St. Stephen's Basilica, past the darkened
Parliament
Building
. He ran with the Danube on his left and then crossed the
Margit
Bridge
and ran along the river's opposite bank, back down toward the center of the city. He ran for what seemed to be miles, until at last his heart and his lungs and his legs were unable to maintain the frenzied pace which he had set for them. He stopped by a lamp post and leaned against
it,
half doubling over in his exhaustion, one hand clutched to his chest as if to calm his wildly beating heart. He looked up at what he had thought to be the deserted street and saw that the werewolf was not ten feet away from him, staring at him calmly. Weyrauch looked into the cold, yellow eyes of the beast, and he saw the face
of death.

The werewolf walked slowly toward him, its arms swinging from its sides in an almost simian manner, shreds of human
flesh
still
dangling from its panting, bloody jaws. It ran its red
tongue over its fangs in an oddly lascivious manner, and Weyrauch could smell the creature's foul, fecal stench, a stench of decay and wet, dirty fur, as it drew closer.

And then he remembered the wolfsbane.

He pulled the sprigs from his pocket and held them out at the beast, which stopped moving and seemed to blink its
eyes in surprise and confusion, its animal mind unable to understand why it felt suddenly weak and ill. It took a step closer to its prey and then stepped back, shaking its large, furry head. For a moment that seemed to Weyrauch to be an eternity, the werewolf stood and stared at him. Then it turned and ran off into the darkness. Only the reality of his terror, only the fear of losing his grip on the wolfsbane, kept Weyrauch from fainting. He was afraid to move from the lamp post, afraid to stray from the light, and so he stood there clutching the wolfsbane, his body trembling from head to foot, his lips moving in frenzied, silent
prayer.

Time passed, an hour, two hours, three hours, and still he had not moved. Then a troop truck turned the corner and stopped in front of him. The S.S. sergeant who was driving the truck leaned out and shouted something at him in Hungarian. Weyrauch looked at him dumbly and then, as if the sound of a human voice had awakened him from a nightmare, he cried out. "I am German! I am German!"

"If you are German," the sergeant replied angrily, "then you should know better than to violate the curfew!"

Weyrauch ran over to the truck. "Take me to the
Ragoczy
Palace
immediately!"

"This is not a cab!" the driver replied.

"I am Dr. Gottfried von Weyrauch. Your commander, Colonel Schlacht, is my cousin. I have just barely escaped with my life from...from..." He could not finish the sentence. He knew what the S.S. did with madmen, and he would surely be thought mad if he told the sergeant the truth. "If you don't believe me, contact Colonel Schlacht's adjutant, Corporal Vogel, at the
Ragoczy
Palace
." He grabbed the door handle of the truck desperately. "You must take me to the
Ragoczy
Palace
immediately!"

The sergeant looked at him hard for a few moments and then, deciding that he had better not risk Schlacht's anger if this idiot was telling the truth, he said, "Go around and get into the back."

He ran around to the rear of the truck and was helped inside by two of the S.S. who were riding within. And then, feeling safer and more secure, he surrendered himself to his overtaxed nerves and fainted.

As the truck drove away, two glowing, yellow eyes watched it from the shadows. The creature was angry and frustrated that it had been somehow prevented from killing its prey, but the subhuman, inhuman mind was not capable of
understanding what had weakened it and made it feel
ill.
Like any animal, the creature did not think in words or even in pictures, but merely registered feelings. When a few
minutes later two Magyar curfew guards walked past on the other
side of the street, the creature's anger and frustration
vanished and were replaced by new feelings.

…still hungry…

The creature crept silently toward the border guards.

…more meat…

An eruption of screams and snarls and the sound of tearing cloth and ripping flesh.

…good…

A soft hiss and transient wisps of steam as the warm red liquid fell on the cold pavement.

…good…

Silence on the dark street.

…good…

…good…

The next cycle of the full moon was four weeks away, and everyone involved in the project attended to his or her respective tasks. In a sense the absence of Festhaller
simplified matters somewhat. Petra Loewenstein had found him
an insufferable, overbearing, libidinous boor, and she was
able to work with many fewer distractions in his permanent
absence than she had previously. Of course, after Weyrauch
told her the next morning of Festhaller's death at the hands
of the werewolf, she had been visibly shaken
. She returned to her research with her customary efficiency and dedication, but she seemed to have grown
increasingly nervous as each passing dusk brought them all
one night closer to the next full moon.

Festhaller's death was also not entirely unwelcome to Colonel Schlacht. The Professor's status as a civilian expert with connections in the Chancellery had made his
relationship with Schlacht a bit strained, even though the
S.S. officer was clearly in charge. Now, with Festhaller's
rather limited remains safely buried, there was no question
whatsoever of anyone less than Himmler himself serving to counteract Schlacht.

Weyrauch recovered from the psychological shock of his
brush with death, but the experience had left him with a personal determination to learn how Kaldy and his companion
had become such creatures, to understand the nature of their
change, to learn to control them, to learn to destroy them.
He worked now for himself as much as for Schlacht, as much
out of fascination as fear.

Louisa spent her days talking with old Blasko, and Blasko looked forward to her daily visits. Deep affection
was growing between the old Gypsy and the young German, and
this affection itself deepened Louisa's sorrow and her
shame.

And Janos Kaldy sat in motionless silence, staring off into space, only speaking when spoken to, unconcerned and uninterested, submitting to Weyrauch's hypnosis, cooperating with neither enthusiasm nor trepidation. He remained in aloof, morose self-absorption as he awaited the personal hell into which he would be cast with the appearance of the next full moon.

And somewhere, they all knew, Claudia was waiting too.

 

"Kaldy...Kaldy..."

"Yes."

"Can you hear me? Do you know who I am?"

"Yes, Doctor."

"Have you reached another moment of importance to you?"

"Yes, Doctor."

"Where are you, Kaldy? What year is it? Do you know?"

"We are walking through the snow...there is ice on the
branches..."

"It is winter?"

"Yes. Winter."

"What year is it?"

"I do not know."

"Where are you?"

"I do not... I am not certain..."

"Do you have any idea? Any idea at all?"

"It
is...
it is...before Poligny..."

"Long before? Long before Poligny?"

"No. Five years. Less."

"And where are you, Kaldy? Look and listen. Tell me where you are."

A pause. "The realm of the Ottoman Turks. Yes, we are in the
Carpathian mountains
...in the realm of the Turks."

"The Carpathians...today that is in
Romania
. You are in
Romania
?" No response. "Is Claudia with you?"

"Claudia is always with me."

"Why are you in the Carpathians, Kaldy?"

"To die. We have come to die."

"Why the Carpathians?" No response. "Why do you believe
that you can die in the Carpathians?"

"While we were in
Constantinople
we heard rumors...stories
around campfires..."

"Stories about what, Kaldy?"

"Someone there who we hope will be able to kill us. Rumors. Legends."

"Who do you hope will be able to kill you, Kaldy? Rumors and legends about whom?"

A pause, and then, "Vampires..."

 

They walked in solemn silence along the pitted, winding dirt road which led from the small village up toward
the castle that stood ominously upon the promontory. It was just past noon. Sunset would not be for another five hours.
Claudia ran her fingers through her hair to dislodge the snow and ice which had settled upon it, and wrapped the heavy woolen cloak more tightly around her lithe form. Janus Chaldian wore no cloak, so he merely held the top of his collar closed with his right hand and kept his left hand
thrust into the pocket of his tattered trousers.

Neither of them was subject to physical harm from the assault of the cold, snow-laden winter wind, but they felt the cold and it made them uncomfortable. They had come a long distance on foot, never bothering to make any substantial preparations for the changes in climate which
they knew they were to encounter. They had long since
ceased to think in such terms, for they were as invulnerable to the numbing cold as they were to the spear tip, and the blistering desert sun was as harmless to them as the blade of the sword. When they noticed that they were growing cold, they acquired what clothing they could. When they noticed that they were growing warm, they shed what clothing they had and it never made the slightest difference in any terms other than temporary comfort. When others died of
thirst amid the rolling Arabian sands, they continued on
unaffected; when others froze to death on the sweeping Russian steppes, they continued on in their endless, pointless journey.

And so they had come on foot from
Syria
, a journey which had taken them over a year. In all that time, they had not needed to cross the borders of the Ottoman Empire, for in this, the nine hundred and ninety fourth year since the Hegira of the prophet Mohammed (or the one thousand six hundred and sixteenth year since the birth of Jesus, as the Christians would call it), the Ottoman Empire stretched from the borders of Persia to the eastern shores of the North African Mediterranean, from the marches of Poland and Hungary to the
highlands of Upper Egypt.