The Keep. Part 8

"Something's wrong with one of the bulbs down there. The first one-it's going out."

"So?"

"It's fading out." He glanced at Flick and then back down the corridor. "Now the second one's fading!" His voice rose half an octave as he lifted his Schmeisser and c.o.c.ked it. "Get over here!"

Flick dropped the key, swung his own weapon to the ready position, and ran to join his companion. By the time he reached the juncture of the two corridors, the third light had faded out. He tried but could make out no details of the corridor behind the dead bulbs. It was as if the area had been swallowed by impenetrable darkness.

"I don't like this," Waltz said.

"Neither do I. But I don't see a soul. Maybe it's the generator. Or a bad wire." Flick knew he didn't believe this any more than Waltz did. But he had had to say something to hide his growing fear. Einsatzkommandos were supposed to arouse fear, not feel it.

The fourth bulb began to die. The dark was only a dozen feet away.

"Let's move into here," Flick said, backing into the well-lit recess of the rear corridor. He could hear the prisoners muttering in the last room behind them. Though they could not see the dying bulbs, they sensed something was wrong.

Crouched behind Waltz, Flick shivered in the growing cold as he watched the illumination in the outer corridor continue to fade. He wanted something to shoot at but could see only blackness.

And then the blackness was upon him, freezing his joints and dimming his vision. For an instant that seemed to stretch to a lifetime, Private Karl Flick became a victim of the soulless terror he so loved to inspire in others, felt the deep, gut-tearing pain he so loved to inflict on others. Then he felt nothing.

Slowly the illumination returned to the corridors, first to the rear, then to the access pa.s.sage. The only sounds came from the villagers trapped in their cell: whimpering from the women, relieved sobs from the men as they all felt themselves released from the panic that had seized them. One man tentatively approached the door to peer through a tiny s.p.a.ce between two boards. His field of vision was limited to a section of floor and part of the rear wall of the corridor.

He could see no movement. The floor was bare except for a splattering of blood, still red, still wet, still steaming in the cold. And on the rear wall there was more blood, but this was smeared instead of splattered. The smears seemed to form a pattern, like letters from an alphabet he almost recognized, forming words that hovered just over the far edge of recognition. Words like dogs howling in the night, naggingly present, but ever out of reach.

The man turned away from the door and rejoined his fellow villagers huddled in the far corner of the room.

There was someone at the door.

Kaempffer's eyes snapped open; he feared that the earlier nightmare was going to repeat itself. But no. He could sense no dark, malevolent presence on the other side of the wall this time. The agent here seemed human. And clumsy. If stealth were the intruder's aim, he was failing miserably. But to be on the safe side, Kaempffer pulled his Luger from the holster coiled at his elbow.

"Who's there?"

No reply.

The rattle of a fumbling hand working the latch continued. Kaempffer could see breaks in the strip of light along the bottom of the door, but they gave no clue as to who might be out there. He considered turning on the lamp, but thought better of it. The dark room gave him an advantage-an intruder would be silhouetted against the light from the hall.

"Identify yourself!"

The fumbling at the latch stopped, to be replaced by a faint creaking and cracking, as if some huge weight were leaning against the door, trying to get through it. Kaempffer couldn't be sure in the dark, but he thought he saw the door bulge inward. That was two-inch oak! It would take ma.s.sive weight to do that! As the creaking of the wood grew louder, he found himself trembling and sweating. There was nowhere to go. And now there was another sound, as if something were clawing clawing at the door to get in. The noises a.s.sailed him, growing louder, paralyzing him. The wood was cracking so that it seemed it must break into a thousand fragments; the hinges cried out as their metal fastenings were tortured from the stone. Something had to give! He knew he should be chambering a sh.e.l.l into his Luger but he could not move. at the door to get in. The noises a.s.sailed him, growing louder, paralyzing him. The wood was cracking so that it seemed it must break into a thousand fragments; the hinges cried out as their metal fastenings were tortured from the stone. Something had to give! He knew he should be chambering a sh.e.l.l into his Luger but he could not move.

The latch suddenly screeched and gave way, the door bursting open and slamming against the wall. Two figures stood outlined in the light from the hall. By their helmets, Kaempffer knew them to be German soldiers, and by their jackboots he knew them to be two of the einsatzkommandos he had brought with him. He should have relaxed at the sight of them, but for some reason he did not. What were they doing breaking into his room?

"Who is it?" he demanded.

They made no reply. Instead, they stepped forward in unison toward where he lay frozen in his bedroll. There was something wrong with their gait-not a gross disorder, but a subtle grotesquery. For one disconcerting moment, Major Kaempffer thought the two soldiers would march right over him. But they stopped at the edge of his bed, simultaneously, as if on command. Neither said a word. Nor did they salute.

"What do you want?" He should have been furious, but the anger did not come. Only fear. Against his wishes, his body was shrinking into the bedroll, trying to hide.

"Speak to me!" It was a plea.

No reply. He reached down with his left hand and found the battery lamp on the floor beside his bed, all the while keeping the Luger in his right trained on the silent pair looming over him. When his questing fingers found the toggle switch, he hesitated, listening to his own rasping respirations. He had to see who they were and what they wanted, but a deep part of him warned against turning on the light.

Finally, he could stand it no longer. With a groan, he flicked the toggle and held the lamp up.

Privates Flick and Waltz stood over him, faces white and contorted, eyes glazed. A gaping crescent of torn and bloodied flesh grinned down at him from the place where each man's throat had been. No one moved ... the two dead soldiers wouldn't, Kaempffer couldn't. For a long, heart-stopping moment, Kaempffer lay paralyzed, the lamp held aloft in his hand, his mouth working spasmodically around a scream of fear that could not pa.s.s his locked throat.

Then there was motion. Silently, almost gracefully, the two soldiers leaned forward and fell onto their commanding officer, pinning him in his bedroll under hundreds of pounds of limp dead flesh.

As Kaempffer struggled frantically to pull himself out from under the two corpses, he heard a far-off voice begin to wail in mortal panic. An isolated part of his brain focused on the sound until he had identified it.

The voice was his own.

"Now do you believe?"

"Believe what?" Kaempffer refused to look up at Woermann. Instead, he concentrated on the gla.s.s of k.u.mmel pressed between both palms. He had downed the first half in one gulp and now sipped steadily at the rest. By slow, painful degrees he was beginning to feel that he had himself under control again. It helped that he was in Woermann's quarters and not his own.

"That SS methods will not solve this problem."

"SS methods always always work." work."

"Not this time."

"I've only begun! No villagers have died yet!"

Even as he spoke, Kaempffer admitted to himself that he had run up against a situation completely beyond the experience of anyone in the SS. There were no precedents, no one he could turn to for advice. There was something in the keep beyond fear, beyond coercion. Something magnificently adept at using fear as its own weapon. This was no guerrilla group, no fanatic arm of the National Peasant Party. This was something beyond war, beyond nationality, beyond race.

Yet the village prisoners would have to die at dawn. He could not let them go-to do so would be to admit defeat, and he and the SS would lose face. He must never allow that to happen. It made no difference that their deaths would have no effect on the ... thing thing that was killing the men. They had to die. that was killing the men. They had to die.

"And they won't die," Woermann said.

"What?" Kaempffer finally looked up from the gla.s.s of k.u.mmel.

"The villagers-I let them go."

"How dare you!" Anger-he began to feel alive again. He rose from his chair.

"You'll thank me later on when you don't have the systematic murder of an entire Romanian village to explain. And that's what it would come to. I know your kind. Once started on a course, no matter how futile, no matter how many you hurt, you keep going rather than admit you've made a mistake. So I'm keeping you from getting started. Now you can blame your failure on me. I will accept the blame and we can all find a safer place to quarter ourselves."

Kaempffer sat down again, mentally conceding that Woermann's move had given him an out. But he was trapped. He could not report failure back to the SS. That would mean the end of his career.

"I'm not giving up," he told Woermann, trying to appear stubbornly courageous.

"What else can you do? You can't fight this!"

"I will will fight it!" fight it!"

"How?" Woermann leaned back and folded his hands over his small paunch. "You don't even know what you're fighting, so how can you fight it?"

"With guns! With fire! With-" Kaempffer shrank away as Woermann leaned toward him, cursing himself for cringing, but helpless against the reflex.

"Listen to me, Herr Herr Sturmbannfuhrer: Those men were dead when they walked into your room tonight. Dead! We found their blood in the rear corridor. They died in your makeshift prison. Yet they walked off the corridor, up to your room, broke through the door, marched up to your bed, and fell on you. How are you going to fight something like that?" Sturmbannfuhrer: Those men were dead when they walked into your room tonight. Dead! We found their blood in the rear corridor. They died in your makeshift prison. Yet they walked off the corridor, up to your room, broke through the door, marched up to your bed, and fell on you. How are you going to fight something like that?"

Kaempffer shuddered at the memory. "They didn't die until they got to my room! Out of loyalty they came to report to me despite their mortal wounds!" He didn't believe a word of it. The explanation came automatically.

"They were dead, my friend," Woermann said without the slightest trace of friendship in his tone. "You didn't examine their bodies-you were too busy cleaning the c.r.a.p out of your pants. But I did. I examined them just as I have examined every man who has died in this G.o.dforsaken keep. And believe me, those two died on the spot. All the major blood vessels in their necks were torn through. So were their windpipes. Even if you were Himmler himself, they couldn't have reported to you."

"Then they were carried!" Despite what he had seen with his own eyes he pressed for another explanation. The dead didn't walk. They couldn't!

Woermann leaned back and stared at him with such disdain that Kaempffer felt small and naked.

"Do they also teach you to lie to yourself in the SS?"

Kaempffer made no reply. He needed no physical examination of the corpses to know that they had been dead when they had walked into his room. He had known that the instant the light from his lamp had shone on their faces.

Woermann rose and strode toward the door. "I'll tell the men we leave at first light."

"NO!" The word pa.s.sed his lips louder and shriller than he wished. The word pa.s.sed his lips louder and shriller than he wished.

"You don't really intend to stay here, do you?" Woermann asked, his expression incredulous.

"I must complete this mission!"

"But you can't! You'll lose! Surely you see that now!"

"I see only that I shall have to change my methods."

"Only a madman would stay!"

I don't want to stay! Kaempffer thought. Kaempffer thought. I I want to leave as much as anyone! want to leave as much as anyone! Under any other circ.u.mstances he would be giving the order to move out himself. But that was not one of his options here. He had to settle the matter of the keep-settle it once and for all-before he could leave for Ploiesti. If he bungled this job, there were dozens of his fellow SS officers l.u.s.ting after the Ploiesti project, watching and waiting to leap at the first sign of weakness and wrest the prize away from him. He had to succeed here. If he could not, he would be left behind, forgotten in some rear office as others in the SS took over management of the world. Under any other circ.u.mstances he would be giving the order to move out himself. But that was not one of his options here. He had to settle the matter of the keep-settle it once and for all-before he could leave for Ploiesti. If he bungled this job, there were dozens of his fellow SS officers l.u.s.ting after the Ploiesti project, watching and waiting to leap at the first sign of weakness and wrest the prize away from him. He had to succeed here. If he could not, he would be left behind, forgotten in some rear office as others in the SS took over management of the world.

And he needed Woermann's help. He had to win him over for just a few days, until they could find a solution. Then he would have him court-martialed for freeing the villagers.

"What do you think it is, Klaus?" he asked softly.

"What do I think what what is?" Woermann's tone was annoyed, frustrated, his words clipped brutally short. is?" Woermann's tone was annoyed, frustrated, his words clipped brutally short.

"The killing-who or what do you think is doing it?"

Woermann sat down again, his face troubled. "I don't know. And at this point, I don't care to know. There are now eight corpses in the subcellar and we must see to it that there aren't any more."

"Come now, Klaus. You've been here a week ... you must have formed an idea." Keep talking, he told himself. The longer you talk, the longer before you've got to return to that room.

"The men think it's a vampire."

A vampire! This was not the kind of talk he needed, but he fought to keep his voice low, his expression friendly. This was not the kind of talk he needed, but he fought to keep his voice low, his expression friendly.

"Do you agree?"

"Last week-G.o.d, even three days ago-I'd have said no. Now, I'm not so sure. I'm no longer sure of anything. If it is a vampire, it's not like the ones you read about in horror stories. Or see in the movies. The only thing I'm sure of is that the killer is not human."

Kaempffer tried to recall what he knew about vampire lore. Was the thing that killed the men drinking their blood? Who could tell? Their throats were such a ruin, and there was so much spilled on their clothes, it would take a medical laboratory to determine whether some of the blood was missing. He had once seen a pirated print of the silent movie, Nosferatu, Nosferatu, and had watched the American version of and had watched the American version of Dracula Dracula with German subt.i.tles. That had been years ago, and at the time the idea of a vampire had seemed as ludicrous as it deserved to be. But now ... there certainly was no beak-nosed Slav in formal dress slinking around the keep. But there were most certainly eight corpses in the subcellar. Yet he could not see himself arming his men with wooden stakes and hammers. with German subt.i.tles. That had been years ago, and at the time the idea of a vampire had seemed as ludicrous as it deserved to be. But now ... there certainly was no beak-nosed Slav in formal dress slinking around the keep. But there were most certainly eight corpses in the subcellar. Yet he could not see himself arming his men with wooden stakes and hammers.

"I think we shall have to go to the source," he said as his thoughts reached a dead end.

"And where's that?"

"Not where-who. I want to find the owner of the keep. This structure was built for a reason, and it is being maintained in perfect condition. There has to be a reason for that."

"Alexandra and his boys don't know who the owner is."

"So they say."

"Why should they lie?"

"Everybody lies. Somebody has to pay them."

"The money is given to the innkeeper and he dispenses it to Alexandru and his boys."

"Then we'll interrogate the innkeeper."

"You might also ask him to translate the words on the wall."

Kaempffer started. "What words? What wall?"

"Down where your two men died. There's something written on the wall in their blood."

"In Romanian?"

Woermann shrugged. "I don't know. I can't even recognize the letters, let alone the language."

Kaempffer leaped to his feet. Here was something he could handle. "I want that innkeeper!"

The man's name was Iuliu.

He was grossly overweight, in his late fifties, balding on his upper pate, and mustachioed on his upper lip. His ample jowls, unshaven for at least three days, trembled as he stood in his nightshirt and shivered in the rear corridor where his fellow villagers had been held prisoner.

Almost like the old days, Kaempffer thought, watching from the shadows of one of the rooms. He was starting to feel more like himself again. The man's confused, frightened countenance brought him back to his early years with the SS in Munich, when they would roust the Jew shopkeepers out of their warm beds in the early morning hours, beat them in front of their families, and watch them sweat with terror in the cold before dawn.

But the innkeeper was no Jew.

It really didn't matter. Jew, Freemason, Gypsy, Romanian innkeeper, what really mattered to Kaempffer was the victim's sense of complacency, of self-confidence, of security; the victim's feeling that he had a place in the world and that he was safe-that was what Kaempffer felt he had to smash. They had to learn that there was no safe place when he was around.

He let the innkeeper shiver and blink under the naked bulb for as long as his own patience would allow. Iuliu had been brought to the spot where the two einsatzkommandos had been killed. Anything that had even remotely resembled a ledger or a record book had been taken from the inn and dropped in a pile behind him. His eyes roamed from the bloodstains on the floor, to the b.l.o.o.d.y scrawl on the rear wall, to the implacable faces of the four soldiers who had dragged him from his bed, then back to the bloodstains on the floor. Kaempffer found it difficult to look at those stains. He kept remembering the two gashed throats that had supplied the blood, and the two dead men who had stood over his bed.

When Major Kaempffer began to feel his own fingers tingle with cold despite his black leather gloves, he stepped out into the light of the corridor and faced Iuliu. At the sight of an SS officer in full uniform, Iuliu took a step backward and almost tripped over his ledgers.