“I wonder if she had family.” Britta bit into the cheese.
“I don’t know.” Suddenly there seemed so much I didn’t know.
“At least she had her Watcher.”
I didn’t say anything regarding that. I knew from my studies that not every Slayer was identified in time to provide her with a Watcher.
“I am so ashamed.”
“Why?”
“Because only moments ago I was celebrating these new powers that I had been given, glorying in the fact that I had become the Slayer. I didn’t even stop to think that someone had to die to give me these powers.”
“I think you’ll be forgiven that.”
She looked at me then, and there were tears in her eyes. “It all sounds so good, doesn’t it? I get to be the Slayer, one girl in the entire world, a Chosen one. Like a fairy tale from one of the Brothers Grimm that Poppa used to read me when I was a little girl.” She paused. “But this isn’t a fairy tale, is it, Friedrich?”
When we were alone like that she often called me by my first name. When I had objected mildly, she had told me that we had a partnership and she had learned from her father’s business that partners were equals. Only some partners were more equal that others, judging from the amount of risk each took on a venture. We both knew who the more equal partner was between us. A Watcher may train the Slayer, but a Watcher will never be a Slayer.
“No,” I told her gently as I could. “Being the Slayer is not a fairy tale.” I took no more of the fresh strawberries and blueberries she’d brought for our midmorning snack because they were suddenly ashes to the taste.
A moment passed, and then Britta asked the question I knew that she would ask and that I dreaded most. “How do you think she died?”
I recalled all the accounts I had read from past Watchers that had lost Slayers. All of those accounts suddenly seemed to take on new weight and meaning. I looked into her green eyes and knew I could not lie to her.
“Horribly, I’m sure,” I replied in a voice that was whisper thin.
The breeze rattled through the branches and rustled the leaves. The clearing felt hollow of a sudden, and we seemed a million miles away from anything we knew.
“I can’t help wondering,” Britta said, “if she died alone. Surely, that must be the most horrible thing of all.”
I didn’t say anything for I didn’t want to make mention of any of the terrors that past Slayers had faced. Those young women led solitary lives apart from their friends and families till the day they died.
“Don’t think of dying, Britta,” I told her. “Think instead of living. I have trained you well, and you have been an exemplary student. You will succeed where others have failed. I believe that.” At the time, I didn’t feel like I was lying. I desperately wanted to believe what I was telling her.
Britta placed her hand on top of mine. “Promise me one thing, Friedrich.”
I hesitated and tried to cover that. “If I can.”
“Promise me that no matter what happens I won’t die alone.” Then she realized how that sounded. “I didn’t mean that you should die with me, only that you would be there should the time come that I would be killed.”
I looked at her. What else could I do? “I promise you,” I told her, “that you won’t ever die alone.”
* * *
After we had returned to the Kessler family home, Britta found that her father had left a surprise for her. A coach and team stood waiting out in front of the main house. Her mother quickly explained that Herr Kessler had left a list of shopping that he wanted Britta to attend to.
This lifted Britta’s spirits immediately, as I knew it would when I heard her father’s request. Fräu Kessler had no real desire to take a long ride into Munich or to deal with all the people that lived there now. Fräu Kessler was from old peasant stock and very proud of her roots.
I excused myself and retired to the guest house where I had lived these past two years and dressed in a suitable attire to accompany Britta. I believe that my accompanying Britta made it easier for Herr Kessler to send Britta into the city. Fräu Kessler made a point to always ask Britta about the promising young men she might have seen in the city. Subtlety was never Fräu Kessler’s strong suit. And should Fräu Kessler ever learn of my opinions in this regard, please offer her also my strongest apologies—for everything.
I dressed slowly, for I knew I would be waiting on Britta. However, on this day I was much surprised to find the young woman talking to the driver and waiting for me. She chided me for being so slow and I apologized profusely.
In short order, we departed the Kessler estate and made our way toward the city. The road was in good shape and well traveled. I noticed that Britta’s conversation was more with Herr Kauptmann, the driver, and with Fräu Kinkle, her chaperone, than with myself.
I maintained my silence and spoke only when spoken to, following the lead set by my more equal partner.
Still, riding with Britta was always an enjoyable event. Those who knew her in any regard knew her to be a stimulating conversationalist. Britta had the knack of hearing any story and being able to repeat it word for word, gesture for gesture, and in the same manner in which it was first heard, if even years later.
Other instructors she’d had when she was much smaller told her she had the mind of a writer, the soul of a poet, and the elegance of an actor. I believed them. If Britta hadn’t been slated to become a Slayer, she could have been any of those things. I think Herr Kessler had in mind to make her part of his company when the time was right, but now I will never know.
Two motorcars passed us as the horses pulled the coach. One of them was going into Munich and the other was on the way out.
Britta acted like a child again as she watched the motorcars. “Oh look, Herr Kauptmann!”
“I see them,” the gray-haired old man in livery stated, nodding his head.
“Wouldn’t you one day like to drive one of those big motorcars?” Britta waved excitedly to the motorcar’s driver, who waved back to her enthusiastically.
“Oh no, Fräuline Kessler. A coach and a team of horses suits me just fine,” the old man said. “Me and those fine horses of your father’s, why we understand one another.”
Britta had been striving to convince her father to buy one of the motorcars for the family, but Herr Kessler refused, insisting that there was no place a motorcar could go that a good team of horses couldn’t go as well. I think Herr Kessler equated the motorcars with the Great War. Those battles were the first fought with men and mechanization. I truly believe that it was the most horrifying war ever fought.
The second motorcar, trailing a cloud of dust, was soon out of sight, and Britta’s conversation with Herr Kauptmann returned to the stores she needed to go to and the order that she wished to go to them.
* * *
The winding, tree-lined road widened and appeared more traveled as it neared Munich. Even from some distance away I could see the three-hundred-foot twin towers of Frauenkirche Cathedral, which was built in the fifteenth century, in the old section of the city that sat along the western bank of the Isar River.
Most of the buildings along the Marienplatz, the best-known square in the city, had been built with baroque and rococo architecture. The bold centerpiece next to the Church of Our Lady Cathedral was Neues Rathaus, the city hall.
When I had occasion to spend time in Munich, I loved walking the streets and drinking while reading a book or making entries in my journal in the beautiful beer gardens. While Britta was shopping, I usually spent many happy hours in the shadows of the Sendlinger Gate or the Isar Gate, and now and again strolling through the Hellabrun Zoo or the Haus der Kunst, an art museum that I favored among many others I’d had opportunities to visit before the Great War and my new calling.
Herr Kessler owned a printing shop that provided stationery and printed books, a factory that made optical and precision instruments, another factory that made railroad parts, and the brewery he’d
inherited from his grandfather on his mother’s side. By current standards, Herr Kessler was a wealthy man even before considering his estates and farmlands. He had escaped the bankruptcy that seemed to stalk the middle-class German after being made responsible for reparations after the Great War.
We left Herr Kauptmann at the public stables and began making our rounds. By this time, I knew most of Britta’s routine, though I seldom stayed with her these days. However, after receiving the telegram, I felt the need to stay close to her. She wasn’t overjoyed at the prospect, but I think we both managed as elegantly as we could while serving our own agendas. Fräu Kinkle remained a discreet distance behind us.
Besides doing her parents’ shopping, Britta also enjoyed looking at the latest fashion trends. The city housed a number of textiles factories and clothing manufacturers and brought in many new dealers to trade fairs and international exhibitions.
I don’t know quite what I expected as we wandered the city. I’d read many accounts of the Slayer’s purported abilities. Besides the incredible strength and speed that put her on a more equal footing with her savage prey, Britta was also supposed to be able to take more damage than a normal human and heal much more quickly.
And she was supposed to, by some arcane method that had never been quite explained, sense vampires and other demons.
I suppose, as we wandered around on her shopping errands, that it was this sensing of vampires that I awaited. I watched warily. As a mecca of industry and the arts as well as possessing an international flair, I felt certain that Munich was home to any number of foul fiends. How could it not be?
* * *
After two hours of shopping, though, the only things that Britta and I accumulated were packages and parcels. I trailed after her through the aisles as she purchased everything on the lists she’d been given. Herr and Fräu Kessler’s lists tend to be extremely detailed and complete.
While Britta seemed to be indefatigable, I found myself soon exhausted.
“Herr Lichtermann,” Britta said, addressing me formally as was her custom in public places, “you do look preoccupied. Perhaps you’d like to spend a little time at that bookstore you enjoy so much.”
I straightened my spine resolutely. Standing in the dress shop with my arms filled with boxes I didn’t look like the man of action I always viewed a Watcher as being. I had met no few such men while I was in training, and the ones I constantly looked up to were the ones who always appeared rough and ready, as Theodore Roosevelt had always been thought of.
“I shouldn’t leave you here,” I replied, though in truth, I longed to get out of the shop. Britta had the extraordinary gift of being able to look at the same merchandise again and again, seemingly with the same interest she’d had the first time.
“I’ll be fine,” Britta told me, smiling.
“Are you sure you haven’t . . . sensed something?”
“You would be the first to know. Go on and enjoy yourself, Herr Lichtermann. If something should come up, I would find you and let you know immediately.”
Knowing neither of us would enjoy ourselves if I didn’t heed her suggestion, I took myself down to the book dealer’s.
* * *
I bought a new leather-bound journal I had been eyeing in the shop for some time, thinking now that I was the official Watcher for the Slayer, it was time that I made a better presentation of my work.
The book dealer’s is a small yet roomy place, filled with bookshelves and small, round tables that guarantee privacy for those who want it, as well as a gathering place for those who wished to meet and exchange ideas on whatever subjects caught their fancy.
I sat at one of the back tables against the western wall so that the sunlight fell on me. Perhaps I was more sensitive to the sun now that I thought vampires might be pursuing my young charge as well as myself. The foul creatures can’t walk into full daylight lest they burst into flames and be consumed.
I tried writing for a while, but looking at the pristine, white paper before me only intimidated me. What could I write about? That my young student could now run faster and was stronger than she’d ever been? How helpful would that be for the next Watcher who had to care for the Slayer assigned to him?
That, I realized after only a moment’s reflection, was a particularly morbid thought. I sighed in disgusted defeat and closed the new journal. Was there ever an instance of a Watcher and a Slayer who hadn’t encountered vampires and their ilk through out their career? I wondered. How would I ever write the treatises and articles and monographs on the Slayer and her work if we never encountered the foul denizens we existed to stand against?
Now, of course, as I sit here in this mausoleum and listen to the skittering claws of rats crawling through the tombs, I realize how foolish I was in that moment.
Thankfully, I spied a used copy of William Blake’s Songs of Innocence, which I had not read in a few years. Of late, all my reading time had been consumed with manuals and treatises on demonology and other related topics. I purchased the Blake book as well and spent a little time reacquainting myself with the great poet’s works.
After what seemed to be only a short time, but which I judged by the descending sun and the third beer stein I had emptied while I read was a few hours, Britta swept into the book dealer’s shop.
Her beautiful angel’s face looked radiant, and I knew something exciting had happened.
I stood so abruptly I almost knocked over the table. “Britta,” I said, looking her over carefully to see if she’d suffered any damage. It was the first time outside of a practice session that I’d ever done anything of the like and I realized later that an onlooker could have misconstrued the whole event.
“Have you enjoyed yourself, then, Herr Lichtermann?” she asked.
“Yes, thank you,” I replied. “And how has your day been?”
“Most productive. Mother and Poppa will be very pleased by the progress I have made.”
“Progress? Then you are not finished?” I’m afraid I must have had a sour and disappointed look on my face at this point.
“It won’t be much longer,” Britta promised. “The rest of the shopping is only a matter of picking up regular orders. In the meantime, I’ve discovered something.”
I looked at her hopefully, my heart hammering in my chest. A vampire? I wondered. A demon? What might it be?
“I was talking to Marta—you know Marta?”
I did know Marta Bruesehaber. Herr Bruesehaber owned an estate nearly the size of Herr Kessler’s only a few miles away. Herrs Bruesehaber and Kessler had competing breweries but managed several stationery stores together in other cities.
I nodded.
“She just told me that there is a movie company in Munich this very day,” Britta went on excitedly. “She said they’re here to make a new picture called Silent Screams. It’s one of those morbid horror pictures like Nosferatu.”
Of course, I was very familiar with Nosferatu. And I was vaguely familiar with the picture-making industry that had found a home in Munich.
“Why is this picture so interesting to you?” I asked.
“Because it’s a picture,” Britta said in mild exasperation. “I’ve never seen a picture being made before.”
I shook my head. Pictures were a novelty for me. I rather disliked the idea of sitting in a crowded theater with strangers watching the flickering black-and-white images parade across a screen. I found someone else’s imagination too stultifying to entertain me. I much preferred a good book, such as the Blake I had so recently purchased.
“And Marta told you that you could watch this new picture being made?”
“Yes,” Britta said. Her green eyes flashed. “She met a young man named Gunter who is one of the film studio’s key people. They’ve become friends. The motion picture agency rented one of the mansions in the old part of the city. Marta’s father has invested some money in the picture, so Gunter invited her to the open house the picture company is putting on this evening.” r />
“And she in turn invited you?” I asked.
“Yes. Oh Friedrich, please say that you will go with me. I know that Poppa won’t go to something like this, and if you don’t go I know he won’t let me.”
I heard the desperation in her voice and wanted to ignore it. But I knew how much Britta enjoyed new experiences.
“Please, Friedrich,” she said. “After all that talk of death this morning something like this would be so much fun.”
I looked at her and tried to remind myself to be stern. I was the Watcher of the Slayer now. Didn’t that put frivolity behind me? And behind her as well?
My head said no, but my heart said yes, and before I could believe it I heard myself telling her I would go with her. If I had known then what the consequences of such a weakness on my part would have been, I would have been able to change so many things.
But it’s just as probable that even more people would have died had we not gone. I shall seek some solace in that meager belief.
* * *
In the end, Herr Kessler agreed that Britta and I could attend the motion picture party at the rented mansion. Herr Kessler, I might add, didn’t give in to his daughter’s wishes as quickly as I had, but I defend my own weakness with the fact that I knew how drastically her life had changed that day and he still had no inkling.
At seven o’clock that evening, Marta and her driver picked us up at the main house in the spanking new motorcar her father had purchased only that day. Herr Bruesehaber had chosen to move on into the twentieth century, and I knew that decision would be a source of great debate with Herr Kessler the next time they went birding.
Riding in a motorcar wasn’t a new experience for me, but Britta was positively thrilled. She and Marta chatted on like two magpies while I shared the front seat with the driver. The man went very slowly, and I could tell he hadn’t much experience with any kind of vehicle.
Since we rode in an open touring car, only the diamond-studded night and the leafy canopy of the trees that lined the road were over us. For the first time ever, I felt strangely vulnerable.