Allie's War Season One (24 page)

“Rolf! They know what you are!”

He doesn’t look at his wife, but at the stretch of skin and tufted hair.

He swings the ax before he has completed his last stride, embedding it between the man’s shoulder blades. It sinks down to the thickest part of the blade.

Revik slams the wooden stock forward, ripping it out with a thick, wet sound and Blauvelt screams and screams and screams...

Revik’s wife screams with him.

Unflinching, his face a mask of emptiness, Revik raises the blade and swings again...

...I AM LOST. I am lost.

A farmhouse lays buried in snow, two forms huddled in ratty blankets, a man and a woman. The woman is pregnant, at least seven months, and she is asleep, though the man is not.

Revik lays in the dark, watching the snow fall through the square window at one end of the hay loft, and his face looks almost dead to me now.

His eyes sharpen with a sudden flash of light, and he raises his head.

His skin is whiter, his weight less. His beard is shorter, and unevenly cut.

He is listening. There is a resignation in his eyes as he looks down at his wife. She has lost weight also, and her dark hair is matted with dirt, limp on the straw by her hollow cheeks and eyes bruised with fatigue. When the doors burst open below, he hesitates, then shakes her gently awake. Hearing the sounds in the barn, she stiffens, clasping his arm.

“We are caught,” he says quietly. “They know we are here.”

Her eyes widen like a frightened animal. “No—”

“You need a doctor, Ellie.”

She starts to argue, but he puts a finger to her lips. He is just sitting there when the SS Commander lifts his head above the lip of the hayloft, holding a Lugar. Before the man can speak, Revik sits up, raises his hands so they are visible.

“Rolf Schenck?”

Revik nods. “That is me.”

“You are under arrest.”

His wife, still half-lying beside him, bursts into tears.

...DARKNESS FILLS ME, cold. I hear her last words to him. She thinks he let them be caught, and there is some truth to that, too.

He did not do it for the reasons she thinks.

He has no place to take her, not anymore.

You want to die so much? I hope they torture you! I hope they beat you half to death...

She bursts into tears, clutching at him, begging him.

...And then she is gone, too.

There is nothing to push against, nothing with which to push. A faint whisper of voices speaks softly, a tinge of warmth that he will not let near enough to feel. The light is gone.

It is gone.

...I WAKE IN the dark.

The mind-numbing disinterest remains.

Anger lives here, as well, a wanting of...something. That something is death, but death itself feels unsatisfactory. His muscles hurt from disuse, and of all things he would like to use now, it is them.

He amuses himself with their minds instead, if they are foolish enough to be alone with him. He flexes the only muscle he can, and ignores the voices that grow fainter and fainter as he learns new trails in the light.

They know what he is.

His marriage is void. He was never married.

He gets the followers, too...those who believe him an angel beside them who think him a devil. He doesn’t discriminate; he hates them all. His wife gets her wish, too. They beat him when they’re bored, but it’s never enough...for them, or for him.

He has forgotten the reason that brought him here, the thing that once seemed so important.

It is a story to him now, and childish. In any case, his own people will not come for him now. Not anymore. Perhaps not even before he became a murderer.

This will all end soon. He knows enough to allow it to happen. He sits, leaning on a stone wall. His hands crumple together in his lap, his wrists encased in iron chains. His face is covered in bruises. His skin twitches when a fly alights on a cut, but he does not brush it away.

It happens again. And again.

Then...a clanking emerges from outside.

The door opens and Revik squints as two men enter. Surprise touches his light; his internal clock tells him it is too soon. But these are not priest and guard. The first man is of medium build and wears expensive clothes. Where his face should sit, I see only a blur, a movie screen on which several movies are being projected at once.

The second man I know from Golden Gate Park.

Like Revik, Terian does not appear to have aged. He wears the black uniform of the Gestapo. On him, it looks like a party costume.

“Rolf Schenck?” the man who is not Terian says.

Revik looks the two men over. He doesn’t know either of them.

“I've answered all of your...questions,” he says. “Or would you like to hit me some more?” He raises his bound hands. “Maybe you could take these off? I could use the exercise.”

Terian laughs, nudging the man with no face.

“I'll hit him, sir,” he says. “He seems to want it so badly.”

“No.” The new man’s focus stays on Revik. “No. I think we could find better ways to spend our time together. Perhaps, as Terian here believes, we could be frank with one another, yes?”

Revik gives Terian a dismissive look, looking at the man with no face.

“Does he make you feel safe, worm?” he says only.

The faceless man smiles through his shifting countenance.

“You are operating under a misconception, Rolf. I do not speak for the Reich, nor for any of the human governments. I would like to offer you a job. One you’ll find interesting, I think, even apart from your current lack of options.”

Revik scans the human in the expensive clothes. He cannot read this faceless man. He assumes the seer with him shields them both.

He lets his hands fall to his lap, shrugs.

“I'll be otherwise engaged. Or hadn't they told you they plan to cut off my head?”

Terian laughs, and Revik’s eyes flicker back to his.

“I told you, sir.” Terian smiles, looking at Revik like he’s his favorite new toy. “He will be well worth our time...once we’ve honed the snarl a bit.”

The faceless man acts like he doesn’t hear. “I think we can help you with your little problem, Rolf,” he says. “Or should I just call you Revik? Living amongst us hasn't made you forget yourself entirely, I hope?”

Revik’s eyes swivel to Terian, this time in utter disbelief.

“Yes,” the faceless man says. “I know who you are. Not only Rolf Schenck, German patriot, but Dehgoies Revik, seer of clan Arenthis.”

Revik continues to look only at Terian. He speaks in that other language next, the one with the clicks and rolling purrs.

Only this time, I understand him.

“What game is this?” Revik says to the other seer. “You gave our clan keys to a human? The elders will
hang
you for this...”

It is the faceless human who answers him though, using the same language.

“Rules were broken, it is true,” he says, gesturing smoothly, seer-like. Revik follows the motion with his eyes, his expression stunned. “But you can be selective with rules as well, Rolf. Such as the one against choosing a mate from among the females of my kind.”

He clucks his tongue ruefully.

“...For these things tend to happen with humans, do they not? Sadly, my kind does not have the same respect for loyalty. Nor do most in my race understand the true repercussions of commitment...” His hands open as if in prayer.

I see a ring on his finger, what looks like an Iron Cross.

“She was lovely, cousin,” he adds. “I am sorry you lost her to such a vile representative of my species. Truly.”

Revik’s eyes change. For the first time, they belong to the Revik I know. The anger and youth is leached out of them.

“What do you want?” he says.

I glance at Terian, who is smiling. His gaze is predatory too, like he sees that thing in Revik, and wants it.

“My name is Galaith,” the faceless man says. “Perhaps you have heard it?”

There is a silence. Then Revik snorts a short laugh.

“You are the scourge of the seer world?” he says. “The one who downed Syrimne, single-handed? You are lying...”

Terian takes a step closer, his humor less visible now.

Galaith holds up a hand to each of them, like a teacher breaking up a fight at school.

“Who I was is perhaps less important than who I have become,” he says diplomatically. He asks Revik, “Why have you not simply walked out of this cell, cousin? If you wanted out, they could not hold you.”

Revik lets his shoulders unclench. Still eyeing Terian, he shrugs, folding his arms tighter.

“Perhaps I deserve to die,” he says.

Galaith nods. “Are you so tired of this life then?”

Revik stares at Terian. “Perhaps.”

The faceless man glances at Terian, too. They exchange a subtle smile, then Galaith’s voice warms.

“I understand, cousin. More than you know. But, you see, there are many like you and I, Rolf. Tired of senseless death and war. Tired of the world being led by liars and old men, dreamers and fanatics. Those who feel the Codes, laws, bibles and prejudices of both species no longer represent the current realities of either. We would like to see these Codes...” He smiles. “...Modernized, as it were.”