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“Tara! Of course. Roland and I see to the lower floor as soon as it gets dark!” Katia assured her. “Just as always. ”
“Of course,” Tara said. Actually, she had never thought about making certain that the house was locked up.
“Thank you! Bonne nuit!” she said, and started up the stairs herself.
She looked into her grandfather’s room, feeling a surge of protective uneasiness.
The curtains were open; the doors to the balcony were ajar as well, allowing in a touch of fresh air.
Tara closed them, and locked them, and paused by her grandfather’s bed.
His chest rose and fell in the deep breathing of relaxed sleep.
She leaned down over his forehead. She came close, but didn’t quite touch him, leaving just the hint of a kiss upon his brow.
In her own room, she yawned. Like Ann, she was exhausted. She took a moment to survey her reflection in the mirror. Drawn. Haggard looking. Luckily, she wasn’t as pale as Ann.
Her cousin worked long, long hours. Tara was ostensibly on vacation, but she loved what she did. And she hadn’t so much as stopped anywhere to buy canvas and paints.
She left the mirror, drew back the covers, kicked off her shoes, and paused. A sense of unease had filled her again.
It suddenly seemed all-important to make sure that her room, like the main door, had been securely locked.
She walked to her balcony doors. Her drapes were closed. She didn’t open them, but drew one aside.
She checked her doors, and felt a strange sense of relief to find them securely locked.
Then she stared through the panes at the night.
And there, in the strange pale glow of a half moon, she saw the wolf again.
The animal stood, as if it were a rigid sentinel, guardian of the night—or a creature at the portal of Hades.
Perhaps it had three heads, like the demon dogs of legend.
It did not She could see the animal clearly silhouetted in the pale glow. It was massive. “That’s no shepherd!” she muttered aloud.
As she did so, she suddenly heard a howl.
Deep, chilling. A howl to the sky, the heavens, the moon . . . or hell itself.
Tara started to shiver.
She closed the curtains, and turned, but had to look again.
There was no wolf on the road. There was nothing. . .
Nothing but the shadows of the night
CHAPTER 9
The dreams were back, worse than before.
Twisting, turning, remembering. The hours of being watched. The different drugs. The shots that sent an unbelievable burning sensation streaking through his limbs, causing him to cry out with agony and strain against the steel bonds that held him to the bed.
Then sometimes, Dr. Weiss. Slipping him different drugs, drugs that ended the agony.
Nothing had impaired his hearing.
His comprehension of the language grew, and from bits of conversation, he began to glean more and more of what was going on.
For so long, the tyrant had held an advantage, but now the tide was turning.
And in the midst of agony, there was comfort to be had in that.
In another time, in another place, he had sat with his father by a stream. A man who had fought a different war, survived, and learned in time the value of peace and freedom, he had taught his son that there were many things worse than death. And from that kind and sage old man, he had gained a certain strength. He didn’t fear death. Far too often, he would have welcomed it.
Weiss gave him the will to survive. Weiss, who told him stories about his people. Those who risked their lives to save others, and those who were not so lucky as to escape detection, who had given their lives for others. He met men among those who should have been his enemies; a few guards who stood with their eyes averted when Weiss helped him, and a woman, the mistress of one of the worst of the officers, who smiled in the man’s face, and did her best to help prisoners escape. Weiss would often whisper to him late at night. He would hear about the war, and about the world, and about people. People who might be judged badly.
There were those who were passionately against the regime, but were afraid. Not so much for themselves. For their wives, their children, their loved ones. But one day, the world would know that there had been heroes among those thought of as the enemy, heroes against insanity.
And he believed. It was easy, because he knew Weiss.
His will to live grew, because of Weiss’s constant flow of news, and because of the bits of conversation he began to hear, and comprehend. The great tide was turning. Every day. Fighting had bogged down in Russia, and this new enemy was learning what so many had learned in agony before—the landscape itself was often more than the most powerful force could endure. Frigid temperatures, mountains of snow. The earth herself protecting her sons, a people battered by brutality and discrimination. There were other places where the great effort was crumbling, places where the people in the greatest danger began to take heart, and fight back.
In those days he learned that he would never judge any man, or woman, by their nationality. By their color, their religion, their sex. Goodness came in many guises, including this man, his friend, Weiss, and the others, whose humanity continued to override their fear.
He didn’t know how long he had been there; it felt like years. Pain could make a moment an eternity.
But there was a change. And one night, and when the others were gone, Weiss sat next to him and he spoke about the collapse of the empire, and that the commanders, beginning to realize their own brand of fear, were planning to raze the camp.
The gas chamber would work around the clock; the crematorium likewise. Prisoners were to be killed, rather than left to be found. Credence could not be given to what the world suspected.
“I have to get you out. . . out. . . and yet, you know nothing yet Nothing. Nothing of what you are, of what you have become, of what you must do, how it must be. ” The doctor was distracted. The lieutenant thought that the pressure had at last unhinged his mind.
“They’ll come for you. They’ll want you to disappear, they’ll make you nothing more than ashes, and there will be nothing to know, nothing to speculate upon. ”
“Guard yourself, my friend,” the lieutenant said softly. “Your people will need men like you. ”
“My people—no people—will ever believe that I did my best in my small way. ”
“If what you say is true, and the war is lost, there will be trials. You will stand trial, and there will be those who have survived who will speak for you. ”
Tears fell down the doctor’s cheeks. “I have not done enough. Like others, I have been too afraid for myself. ”
They were both startled when the door suddenly burst open. The head “physician,” Andreson, strode in, followed by four of the guards. They were gaunt, tense, angry and—as customary—armed. There was an aura of something more about them today. It was visible in the way that their eyes flicked around nervously. In the way they wet dry lips far too often.
“Weiss!” Andreson said coldly, eyeing the good man. “Well, I knew you were a traitor! I knew all along. Not that it mattered. You did nothing that I didn’t allow. But the time has come for change, and well, I didn’t really intend that you should survive the war at any time. ” Weiss suddenly found a great deal of courage. He stood with tremendous dignity. “No, sir! I have not been the traitor, never to my land. Never to her true heart And never to my God. And I have never expected to survive the war. ”
Andreson turned to the men who followed him.
“Kill him,” he said flatly, but raised a hand. “Slowly. Shoot where he will feel the pain long before he dies. ”
The lieutenant didn’t know what it was that surged into him. But it was power unlike anything he had ever felt before in his life.
Adrenaline.
Fur
y.
Suddenly, his rage was such that he was able to break the bonds and shackles that had held him prisoner for so long. He didn’t struggle.
He merely burst free.
Andreson shouted out orders that his men must fire quickly. He fell back.
Yet none of it was to any avail.
The lieutenant could move with a speed to match his strength. Bullets were fired, yes, he could feel them tearing into him, but they did not stop him.
He reached for Andreson. The man who had tortured him day after day. Who had threatened and attempted to humble and kill Weiss.
Reached for him . . .
He remembered that much.
Then he saw that Andreson lay before him, in a pool of blood, as if he had been wrapped in barbed wire. And the others were shouting something, words in their language that he didn’t understand. They were taking aim again, and trying to kill him, trying to kill Weiss. He knew only that he had to stop them, and that, amazingly, he was still able to move as their bullets ricocheted wildly around the room.
The first two . . .
He grabbed both by the throat Slung them together, dropped them. Then the second set of men stood before him, white as sheets, still trying to kill.
like Weiss, they fell to the floor.
Like Weiss, they were torn to shreds.
And the sounds of bullets striking walls, floor, glass vials, bedding . . . came to an end.
All was silent.
Someone was touching him. Weiss. “We’ve got to get out of here. Now. You’re bleeding, you’re . . . ” Weiss stared at him. He was breathing hard. “Can you still hear me? Do you recognize me? Come, come, I have to get you to safety. ”
He realized he was hurt. Half dead, probably. He’d been riddled with enough bullets. Weiss was pulling on him . . . strangely. He was crawling along on all fours, sliding along the blood-spattered floor. He looked back at the tangle of dead men. He blinked the blood from his own eyes, thinking he had seen movement
“They’re not. . . dead. ”
“God, yes, they’re dead!” Weiss told him.
There was a roaring in his head. The lieutenant was afraid he was going to pass out Weiss led him from the building, toward the rear, and the break in the back of the high, barbed wire fence.
He knew why the break was there without being told.
It was the path through which the bodies of the dead were taken for disposal.