Lycanthropos (14 page)

"Murder sites," Schlacht replied. "The day after Kaldy escaped last month, two people were found torn apart and partially devoured here and here," and he pointed to two of
the check marks. "The day after that, after the second night
of the full moon, three people were found in the same
area, not a half kilometer from the other two." He moved his
index finger to another set of check marks. "Last night was the first night of this month's full moon, and I made certain that any unusual deaths in the area be reported to me immediately. Here and here," and he pointed again, "three locals killed, mauled, eaten, last night."

Festhaller nodded. "Same area."

"Precisely. It appears that Kaldy does not move about
much. He probably hides in the woods during the day or hides
in a barn somewhere, and then when the change comes on him he hunts, but he doesn't seem to travel very far."

"So we are headed for the area of the previous murders,"
Festhaller concluded,

"Yes," Schlacht nodded. "I'm hoping that our werewolf
will not be able to resist the bound and helpless meal we
are offering him."

"Good plan," Festhaller said. "Risky, though."

"Of course it is. But I've been a soldier at war for
four years now. Risk is nothing new to me."

Weyrauch wondered to himself how much risk attended the administration of a concentration camp or the arresting of Gypsies in
Hungary
and Jews in
Slovenia
, but he chose wisely not to ask. Instead he said, "Helmuth, I really don't think I can be of much use to you on this little expedition."

"You are along to observe and evaluate, Gottfried, as I explained to you a month ago when we began our project. Now
be quiet."

"But…"

Schlacht's eyes glared at Weyrauch murderously.
"Gottfried, if you don't shut your mouth I shall find myself tempted to stake you out instead of Blasko." Weyrauch
lapsed into nervous silence.

The two vehicles drove along the uneven surface of the packed earth road for a half hour as the sun sank ever closer to the horizon. Then, as the sun began to disappear behind the distant treetops, they stopped and a squadron of S.S. climbed out from the rear of the transport truck.
Schlacht, Festhaller and Weyrauch got out of the limousine, and Schnurr, the driver, pulled Blasko from the front seat roughly by the arm.

Weyrauch and Festhaller stood to the side and watched for the next few minutes as the S.S. went about setting up their trap. The vehicles had come to a stop beside an indentation in the dense woods which bordered the road, an indentation which, had it been deeper in the forest, would have been described as a clearing. The S.S. soldiers set about sledgehammering a long iron stake into the cold, hard ground, and Blasko was then bound to it by a short chain that was padlocked onto the connecting links of his handcuffs. Then the black shirts began to climb up into the trees on all sides of the clearing, those on the ground passing up to those in the branches the ends of large nets into the mesh in which had been inserted hundreds of sprigs of wolfsbane. Nets similarly adorned were spread out on the ground on all sides of the captive, terrified Gypsy, and the corners of the nets were attached to block and pulley mechanisms, the nexus of which were nailed to the tops of
trees.

When the preparations had been completed, Schlacht motioned for Festhaller and Weyrauch to accompany him as he walked over to Blasko. "Herr Professor, how good is your Italian?" The question posed was
pro forma
, for Schlacht knew full well that Festhaller was multi-lingual, like most reasonably
educated Europeans.

"Adequate for my needs, Herr Colonel. Why do you ask?"

"This old Gypsy communicates with my cousin in some
barbaric dialect which seems similar to Italian. I would like you to attempt to translate a few questions for me,
Herr Professor, if you would be so kind."

"Certainly, Herr Colonel."

"Ask him if we have sufficient wolfsbane to control the
creature."

Festhaller posed the question in Italian and Blasko replied in the Romansch dialect. "He says we have more than
enough."

"Good. Ask him if the presence of the wolfsbane will act
as a repellent, keeping the creature away from us."

The question was asked and answered. "He doesn't think so, Herr Colonel. He isn't certain, but he says that the
plant does not seem to annoy the creature by its scent. It merely causes weakness."

Schlacht nodded. "Well, we shall see. Herr Professor, I suggest that you wait in the limousine. Gottfried, wait there with him." Weyrauch rushed back into the automobile and Festhaller followed after him, quickly but without
haste. Schlacht took his revolver from his holster
and reached into the pocket of his tunic. He took out a handful of the specially commissioned silver bullets he had ordered and began to load the gun.
No sense in
taking unnecessary risks
, he thought to himself. And then he
too got back into the limousine and waited as the sky grew black and the full moon floated amid the dark clouds. Nothing was visible in the clearing other than the old Gypsy tied to the post. All of the S.S. were up in the trees, and the two motor vehicles sat dark and silent on the roadside.

This has to work
, Schlacht thought as he watched from the rear seat of the limousine.
We must capture this creature. This simply has to work
.

Silence reigned for the next twenty minutes. And then
from the near distance came a sound, a frightening blend of
a howl and a shriek. It sounded like a wolf, but a wolf consumed by pain and anger and hatred and hunger. Schlacht closed his hand upon the grip of the revolver and looked
carefully out at Blasko.

No second howl followed the first. The low moan of the cold
alone disturbed the otherwise absolute silence. Five minutes passed, then ten,
then twenty.

And then the werewolf emerged from the black darkness of
the forest.

Weyrauch shrank down into his seat as Festhaller and Schlacht leaned their faces toward the window, to see what was about to transpire. Festhaller had seen only a
film of the creature which was even now creeping into the
clearing toward Blasko, and Schlacht had been so
preoccupied with his own survival and the immediacy of danger the night Kaldy had made his escape from the Ragoczy Palace that he gazed with wonder at the beast as if he were seeing it for the first time. "
Gott im Himmel
."
Schlacht muttered.

"
Teufel aus Hölle,
" Festhaller corrected him in a
hushed, tremulous whisper.
God in Heaven
, Schlacht had said.
Devil from Hell
, Festhaller had replied.

The werewolf was as Schlacht had remembered, but the brilliance of the moonlight
as
it danced upon the sleek fur and illuminated the fangs and talons lent the apparition an
eeriness that caused the hair on Schlacht's nape to
bristle. The long, almost simian arms swung from side to side as the creature loped toward Blasko.

The old Gypsy was trembling as the beast drew nigh him,
and he screamed, "Janos, it is I, it is Blasko!" in the Gypsy tongue. "Stop, Janos. Stop! Run away! Run away!"

The werewolf, unable to understand the words of its erstwhile keeper, rushed at Blasko; but the sound of a
whispered exclamation of astonishment from one of the S.S.
in the tree tops reached the sensitive ears of the beast, and it stopped and turned to the sound not two feet before
it would have entered the trap. It roared furiously and,
with one bound, jumped to the trunk of the tree, its sharp
claws digging into the wood as it clambered rapidly upward
toward the soldier.

The S.S. opened fire from all sides and Blasko tried to shrink down as close to the ground as possible as the
bullets whistled all around him. The burning lead struck
the werewolf in the back, in the chest, on the arms and
legs, the face and head, and ricocheted impotently away. The
creature reached up at the soldier whose voice it had heard and grabbed him by the arm, pulling him downward. The soldier screamed as his grip on the branch weakened, and he fell a few feet before the creature stopped him, catching him with its jaws and holding his neck in its teeth much as a mother cat might hold a kitten. The werewolf crushed the man's spinal cord between its powerful fangs, and then dropped the shuddering body to the forest floor.

The creature remembered Blasko, remembered the motionless prey in the center of the clearing, and it dropped gracefully from the tree and began once again to rush at the helpless Gypsy. The werewolf crossed unknowingly into the perimeter of the trap, and in an instant the weights were released and the edges of the nets drew
together and hoisted the creature up toward the treetops.
The werewolf thrashed about madly, but the wolfsbane had its desired effect almost immediately. The muscular arms which had ripped iron from stone were now unable to tear hemp, and with every passing moment the creature became more and more quiescent. Its head lolled as if drugged and its eyes
glazed over.

One of the S.S. ran over to the limousine and asked, "Herr Colonel! Shall we cut him down?"

"Absolutely not!" Schlacht replied, masking with imperious irritation the profound delight he felt at the capture of the werewolf. "We will leave him as he is and
wait until dawn. He will be considerably easier to deal with
when the sun rises."

As the night wore on to morning, a careful watch was kept upon the captive werewolf. It moved only occasionally, and uttered only sporadic moans, making no attempt to escape, showing no evidence of an awareness of its situation. The sun rose in due time, and Weyrauch, who had been a fascinated if terrified witness to the events which had just transpired, rose up from the floor of the limousine and looked about at the clearing. There were S.S. everywhere, most of them dismantling the instruments of capture, a handful keeping armed watch on the captive: but what fascinated Weyrauch most was the sight of Kaldy, once again human in the dim light of early dawn, once again the
thin weakling he had first met in the Ragoczy dungeon,
huddled on the ground in Blasko's embrace, his face buried
in the older man's chest, weeping as if the burden of
overwhelming sorrow had broken him in two.

Petra Loewenstein had been working on the project for
only four weeks, but she had already taken a strong dislike to Colonel Schlacht, a dislike which she felt was heartily reciprocated. This fact alone was sufficient to make her contemplate his expected reaction to her report at their impending meeting with less than
enthusiasm.

Many factors accounted for her dislike of the S.S. Colonel. His initial reaction to her transfer from Dr. Mengele's staff at
Auschwitz
had perhaps set the tone for their subsequent relationship. Schlacht had been less than happy to see her when she reported to his office. There was, he had later confided to Festhaller within range of
Petra's hearing, a decidedly ‘un-Aryan' quality to the woman, and he was less than pleased with the fact that she
was indeed a woman, and a civilian as well. He had looked at
her papers with an irritated meticulousness as if he were
seeking an excuse to send her back to Mengele at the camp in
Poland
. He had found none. Himmler's order directed Mengele
to transfer a chemist of his choice to Schlacht's project, and Petra Loewenstein was the chemist of his choice. "Loewenstein," Schlacht had muttered, his eyes fixed on the transfer order. "Your name sounds suspiciously Jewish. And ‘Loewenstein' instead of … "

"Yes, no
umlaut
over the ‘o'," she finished for him, and then enunciated the spelling variations of every subsequent proper noun. "
Loewenstein,
not
Löwenstein.
I am a Rhinelander, Herr Colonel. I was born in the town of
Arweiler
in the
Rhine
Valley
…"

 
"What does that have to do with…"

"…and as you probably know…"

"Fräulein!" Schlacht said angrily, "I do not appreciate being interrupted!"

"Neither do I!"
Petra
replied in a cold, even tone. They glared at each other for a moment. "As I was saying, I am from Arweiler in the
Rhineland
. Many Rhinelanders use the ‘oe' instead of the ‘o-
umlaut
.' Dr. Goebbels, for example, instead of Dr. Göbbels," she said, spelling both forms of the propaganda minister's last name.

Schlacht drummed his fingers on his desk with irritation. "The French influence, I suppose." She shrugged. "But your name, regardless of how your spell it…it sounds Jewish…"

"And yet it
is
not,"
Petra
had responded. "My racial credentials are there with my orders. I am an Aryan, Herr
Colonel."