Louisa hesitated for less than an instant. Then she tore the wolfsbane from the bars and thrust the key into the lock
Helmuth Schlacht regarded it as fortunate that he had been assigned to supervise the construction of the concentration camp at Hunyad, for it had afforded him the opportunity to requisition whatever supplies he wished, without having to explain in any detail what they were for.
A certain amount of concrete was needed in any construction,
and the fact that he had requisitioned much more than was customary for such a purpose had not been questioned. And when he had ordered the labor battalion to dig a pit fifty feet deep and fifty feet square and then to line the walls and floor of the pit with cement, it had elicited a few quizzical looks but no arguments. One did not argue with a colonel of the
Totenkopfverbände,
the "death's head units" of the S.S. Even the Gestapo kept its distance from the Nazi elite, though both were controlled by Himmler.
Schlacht stood on the top of the wall, the edge of which
was level with the ground, and looked down at his creatures.
He held his arms akimbo as he smiled at them, at the
fifteen pairs of burning yellow eyes, at the fifteen sets of
snarling fangs, at the thirty taloned claws, and he delighted in the angry, bellowing howls that rose up from
the large enclosure fifty feet below.
It had been a bit of a risk, building this holding pen
for his werewolves, for he remembered from Kaldy's escape
from the Ragoczy Palace that these creatures were capable of prodigious leaps, but, as he had guessed, fifty feet was too
high for even things such as they to jump to freedom. They could, of course, have boosted each other up against the walls, but he knew that their subhuman minds could not have
conceived of such an idea. So now, with the chain-link
ladder of metal and wood piled up and resting on the top of the wall, his creatures could snarl and bark and howl and spit to their hearts' contents. They were down in the pit, and there they would remain until sunrise.
Schlacht cocked his head slightly as he looked at them,
their faces and forms clearly visible in the bright electric
light.
They are not quite the same as Kaldy
, he mused.
It must be because the enzyme was diluted. They are not as large, not as furry, their muscles are not as thick, their
posture not as bent as the original from whose saliva the
solution had been derived. And, of course
, he reminded himself,
they can be killed
. He smiled again and emitted a
short laugh.
It isn't easy, but it can be done
.
He had been standing there for over four hours, watching the things that would soon make
Berlin
the capital of the
planet. Only Corporal Vogel was with him, and his loyal and ever silent adjutant had stood waiting for the order that
would send him to bring the monsters their food. But Schlacht had been so captivated by the incredible sight of
fifteen werewolves running about the holding pen that he had allowed the time to pass unnoticed.
At last, he turned to Vogel and said, "Their appetites
must be terrible by now, don't you think? I'm not being a very good zoo keeper." Vogel smiled at the quip. "Go," Schlacht ordered. "Bring our friends their evening meals." As Vogel ran off to comply, Schlacht looked back down at the
creatures.
This is so much more entertaining than tying them
up and covering them with wolfsbane
, he thought.
That is
what we will have to do when we are on campaigns, of course,
but for now, this is better than going to the opera! I must film this, perhaps tomorrow night. The Führer must see
this!
He turned a few minutes later when he heard the sound of
approaching feet, screams, and weeping. Vogel was leading thirty S.S. soldiers, each pair of whom was dragging one prisoner toward the edge of the pit. Fourteen of the prisoners were dressed in the customary prison garb, the ill-fitting white shirt and pants with gray vertical stripes. The fifteenth prisoner, the fifteenth sacrificial lamb, wore a clerical collar.
Schlacht walked back to the end of the procession and grinned cheerfully at Gottfried von Weyrauch. "Well, old fellow, ready to meet your Maker?"
The minister was weeping like a child as he begged, "No, Helmuth, please, please. Helmuth, please, don't,
don'tâ¦"
"Oh, Gottfried," Schlacht said, feigning annoyance,
"don't be such a baby!" He leaned forward and sniffed,
crinkling his nose. "I do believe that you've soiled
yourself, you filthy man!"
"Helmuth, please, oh, please don't, Helmuth, please don'tâ¦"
Schlacht folded his arms across his chest and pretended to be serious as he asked, "Would you like an opportunity to save yourself, old fellow?"
Weyrauch had reached the point at which his reason was
deserting him, and instead of responding to the question he
just kept weeping, "Don't, Helmuth, please, please..."
The colonel gestured the two soldiers away, and as they
released their grips on Weyrauch's arms Schlacht put his own
around the minister's shoulder amicably. "I tell you what, Gottfried. Just because we are family, I'm going to give you a chance to prove your worth."
"Anything, Helmuth," he blubbered, wiping his eyes and choking on his own tears and phlegm, "anything, anything,
I'll
do anything, anything, just don't, please, please
don't, please...
"
"Gottfried!" he snapped, seeming suddenly angry. "Pull
yourself together! If you are going to demonstrate your manliness to me, you're going to have to stop all this childish nonsense!" Weyrauch struggled to establish some control over his terror, and Schlacht smiled at him and patted his back comfortingly. "Good, good. Now come with me
. "
Schlacht led Weyrauch toward the front of the line, to the edge of the pit where two of the S.S. were holding a thin, screaming young woman in her early twenties. "You must be strong to be a German, Gottfried, you must master your emotions and follow your orders, regardless of what they are. It is such an attitude which has already made us the
masters of
Europe
."
"Y...yes...yes," Weyrauch agreed, nodding his head idiotically, "yes, yes..."
"
Reichsführer
Himmler often reminds his men that we
must resist any urge toward mercy or kindness or human
sympathy when we are dealing with the enemies of the Reich,"
Schlacht went on. "I don't think that you have the capacity for such discipline, Gottfried. But if you can prove to me that you have, then I will have to assume that I may
perhaps have misjudged you."
"Anything, Helmuth, anything, anythingâ¦"
"Good fellow," he said, smiling again and slapping Weyrauch on the shoulder. He gestured at the woman on the edge of the pit. "Push her in."
Weyrauch gaped at the woman as the two soldiers thrust her at him, and she fell to her knees and wrapped her arms around his legs, screaming in a language he could not understand. She stared up at him with desperate, pleading
eyes and hugged his legs tightly as she screamed on and on.
Weyrauch looked at Schlacht, and began again to weep. The
colonel shook his head and said, "Now, don't disappoint me, Gottfried, don't embarrass me in front of my men. Go ahead,
push her in."
Weyrauch looked back down at the pathetic figure that was clinging to his legs, and then back up at Schlacht.
"Helmuth, don't, please don't make me... don't, please..."
Schlacht smiled at him. "A simple choice, isn't it, old
fellow? My werewolves have to eat. You can be waiter or you
can be meal. It's up to you."
Weyrauch looked again into the woman's terrified eyes, and then looked down at the snarling, howling creatures
fifty feet below. He reached down and put his hands into the
woman's arm pits and lifted her up.
"I'm
sorry," he wept in utter misery.
"I'm
sorry, but I don't have any choice, don't you see? I'm sorry...I'm sorry..."
He pushed her away from him and she fell screaming into the jaws of death which opened for her below. He could not
bring himself to look into the pit, to see the woman torn to
shreds as the famished werewolves ripped her with fang and claw and forced chunks of human meat down their gullets.
"A good start, Gottfried," Schlacht said approvingly, "but you are lacking in a certain enthusiasm." He pretended to think. "Let's try another, shall we?" He nodded to the next pair of guards, and they dragged a frail old man with a thin beard to the edge of the pit. The old man squinted his eyes myopically but said nothing, did not resist, neither screamed nor begged nor pleaded. It was not that he had resigned himself to death; rather, the endless misery of existence and the brutality and horror and sorrow of the past few years had robbed him of the capacity to care.
"Come now, Gottfried," Schlacht said impatiently. "Don't
tell me that a man with as much education as you have is going to allow himself to fail such an important test. This is an examination, old fellow, this is your final exam!"
Weyrauch did not look at the old man's face. He closed his eyes and pushed him into the pit, and the subsequent roars
of the werewolves were deafening.
Schlacht shook his head. "No, Gottfried, I'm sorry. You're just putting on an act, trying to impress me. Your heart just isn't in
this."
He turned to the soldiers who had
been holding the old man and was about to order them to toss
the minister to his death when he heard the sound of nearby gunfire. He turned to see Hauptmann Flieger, the camp commander,
crying, "Colonel Schlacht! Colonel Schlacht!" as
he came running toward them.
Schlacht walked away from the edge of the pit and asked, "What is
it,
Flieger? What's wrong?"
"Two of your creatures have escaped!"
Schlacht shook his head. "Impossible, impossible. I have been standing here watching them ever since the sun..."
"Don't tell me that it is impossible!" Flieger shouted. "They are attacking my men! They are killing my men!"
Schlacht ran toward the sound of the explosions with Flieger, Vogel and those S.S. who were not holding prisoners, but they had not run ten yards when the two werewolves rounded the corner of the nearest barracks and charged at them. One look told Schlacht everything he needed to know, for the creatures that were running toward them were true werewolves, not the
Lycanvolk
that he had created; and he knew in an instant who they were, and that they could not be killed.
"Fire on them!" he shouted to his men, hoping that the S.S. could keep the creatures busy while he escaped. "Forget
the prisoners! Open fire!"
The soldiers drew their weapons and began to shoot at
the creatures, but the werewolves ignored them, ignored the
bullets, ignored the gunfire, as they broke through the hastily assembled line of soldiers and ran directly at Helmuth Schlacht.
Schlacht ran for his life but the speed of the werewolves was much too great for him to put any distance between them. One of the werewolves, the larger of the two, tackled him and brought him to the ground and then ran off to attack the other soldiers. The smaller of the two, smaller only when compared to its fellow, reached down, grabbed the S.S. colonel by the throat and pulled him to his feet. Helmuth Schlacht screamed as his face was drawn close to the face of the monster, as he saw the salivating maw of the werewolf seem to smile at him, coldly, cruelly, hatefully.
Schlacht pounded with his fists and kicked with his feet, but he was powerless against the lupine monolith. The creature's burning yellow eyes seemed almost to dance with wicked glee as it stared at the terrified man for a moment and then picked him up in its powerful arms. It walked slowly and deliberately to the edge of the pit. Then it threw him in.
Schlacht screamed again as he plummeted into the midst of the ravenous creatures below, one of whom unintentionally broke his fall. Instinct led him both to thrust his arms forward and to twist his body so as to roll when he hit bottom. His instincts were good, for the fall did not kill him outright; but his left arm broke and he hit his head on the concrete. The impact sent him reeling into unconsciousness, but another jolt of pain roused him almost immediately. He opened his eyes to see one of the creatures sinking its fangs into his leg. Schlacht tried to strike out at it with his right arm, and his shocked and benumbed mind was confused when he realized that he no longer had a right arm. One of the werewolves had torn the arm from its socket and was even now stripping it of flesh. Schlacht gazed at the spectacle dumbly for a moment, and then darkness engulfed him as razor-like talons ripped his head from his body.
The smaller werewolf had rejoined the larger and together they ran through the camp, killing the
soldiers and oddly ignoring the prisoners, who ran screaming
from the city of death out into the darkness of the countryside, unaware that their salvation had been the intention of the monsters who were everywhere slicing black-capped heads from black-uniformed shoulders, tearing
jack-booted legs from bleeding torsos, ripping open throats just above the lightning bolts on the S.S. collars, gouging
red hearts out of shuddering bodies through torn black tunics
.