The Lightning Vampyre
Me: Another one!
To TeaTime: Thank you!!! The words from the White Rose I found on their Wikipedia article, I didn't translate them, they were already translated into English, but they are real I didn't make them up. They are lovely words. I am definitely going to write about Eliás becoming a High Priest, which happens in 1960. Lenobia will go home when the war ends, which isn't far from now and then he doesn't see her until the Resurrected time. It's partially already written, I can't decide if the Vamp Council would be supportive or be hell-bent against it.
I tend to see things through the eyes of the adult vamps, I particularly like Lenobia, Dragon and Anastasia, obviously lol, Lenobia because she's Lenobia, she's a horsewoman I'm a horsewoman, and Dragon and Anastasia, out of all the relationships in the books theirs kinda struck me from the beginning because in the vamp world where everything is so sexually overt, to marry, to love one person and stay faithful to one person seems very special to me.
If I were in the books, Zoey, Aphrodite and the Twins would annoy the Hell out of me, Damien and Jack aren't too bad I suppose, Erik Heath Stark and Loren might as well be Zoey's chewtoys, I can't stand that they have no purpose other than to be her boyfriends. Although I like Stevie Rae she's a bit naive, Neferet is quite cool but she's evil. If I had to re-pick the main character I would probably pick Stevie-Rae or Damien, I think. ;) I can't think of a way to send messages, I was gonna ask if you had SchülerVZ or something, but you need a name for that. If you have an account, you can access my e-mail address via my profile, accounts are free and you can delete it afterwards if you like, but otherwise I'm all out of ideas.
3rd May 1945
It had been four weeks since the German vampyres had been admitted to the Infirmary, the break into May being a stressful one. Eliás growled to himself under his breath – that vampyre anaesthetic drug needed serious work, despite being an excellent analgesic, it rendered patients amnesiac. No one who was given the drug in large doses was able to remember the events that had happened to them approximately thirty-six hours in the run up to administration, and their memories were groggy even afterwards as well. He swore to himself that if this war ever ended, which, thank the Goddess, it was now showing serious signs of doing, he would work on that drug, play around with the chemical structure a little bit, see if he could tweak it. Although, interestingly enough, patients were able to remember sounds and physical contact, but not what they saw through their eyes. Friedrich had questioned the German vampyres about it for him, and they had recognised his voice when he spoke to them, but hadn't even realised it was the same person on sight alone. It was the most annoying thing he had ever come across in Chemistry – making progress with these people, and then having to give them another dose of painkiller and being dragged kicking and screaming all the way back to square one. Despite this, they were all responding well to the treatment, and thanks to the vampyre anatomy having an extremely fast regenerative ability, the two male vamps had been up and about a little, but the female had remained almost comatose for all except a few hours of it.
It was now approaching midday, the windows of the Infirmary shuttered and locked down, keeping out any speck of sunlight there might have been. A few lamps were lit along the ward, but otherwise, it gave the impression that it was actually in the dead of night, the sleeping figures gently snoring, their chests rising and falling in a slow rhythm. In the dim light, Eliás worked through each bed, checking the drips, the IVs, that the notes were up to date. Veronika, who had worked an eighteen hour shift, he decided, had done enough, and he had offered to do the late shift for her. Just another half an hour, and another nurse would be here to relieve him. He shivered – the Infirmary was colder when there weren't bodies bustling and better things to do. The patients had electric blankets in their beds, a luxury that Eliás only dreamed of.
There were so many, indeed, that Eliás had almost forgotten about Antonie.
Almost.
Still every night when he went to sleep he tried to contact her again like he had the night after she died. Never again had he received an answer, however Eliás rather thought that that was due to her deliberately not answering him than the link being dead. He could still feel her presence lingering in his mind, the link was open, he was sure of it. Why wouldn't she reply? He got the idea that she was trying to wean him off her. It had to be that way, like she had died a mortal woman and there was no telepathic power. He had to move on with his life. And, for a little while over these two long years, he thought that he had done. Hadn't he?
A shuffle to his right caused him to look down the ward, like a matron looking over a dormitory. It was the female vampyre – he was sure she had been sleeping a minute ago. She was sitting up, pulling at her hospital nightgown uncomfortably. Eliás watched her for a moment, his attention aroused when she swung her legs out of bed and sat on the edge. Putting down the notes file and making a mental note of the bed he had got to, he took quiet steps up the ward until he got to her bed. She didn't notice he was there until the last minute and spun her head around, her long blonde hair whipping over her shoulder. There was confusion in her eyes and he felt a pang of sympathy. She didn't recognise him. Again.
"Dobré ráno Lenobia." He said, putting his hands in his pockets.
"Good morning Lenobia."
Her eyes narrowed and a small smirk pulled at her lips. She knew the sound of his voice even if she didn't remember what he looked like. "Dr. Svboda..." she said, raising her eyebrow slightly, before asking; "Was gücken Sie da?" "What are you looking at?"
Eliás looked at her sitting up and raised an eyebrow himself, continuing as if she could understand every word. "Co děláš?" "What are you doing?"
She looked at him blankly, before shaking her head, tutting to herself and swinging to bedcovers back, as if to chide herself for simply being here. "Ich hab genug von diesem verdammten Krankenhaus..." she muttered, "Ich will hier 'raus!" "I've had enough of this damned hospital... I want to get out of here!"
She seemed to be mentally bracing herself, before trying, gradually, to shift her weight off the bed and onto her feet, her knees shaking, before she fell back onto the mattress again. Looking thoroughly annoyed, she tried again, this time managing to stand, forcing herself to do it, the determination on her face was colossal. Eliás nearly blinked, he already admired her courage, it was like a vibe radiating from her, she was going to do it, even if it hurt her. He knew that a doctor of medicine, or indeed any sensible person should be telling her to get back into bed, but then again, he wasn't a doctor of medicine, despite being the closest thing to one the vampyre world had. Whether or not he was entirely sensible was also debatable. He toyed with the idea, and decided that he would let her try. If it was to give her peace of mind, or only to humour her, or both, Eliás wasn't sure. He could see she was going to fall again before she knew she was, and took two long strides to her side and caught her in one smooth motion. As soon as she was close enough to the bed to sit again, she launched herself away from him, like he had a deadly disease that she would get just by breathing the same air as him. Her face was stern and stubborn.
"Ich kann das alleine." She said, crossing her arms.
"I can do it by myself."
Eliás had a fairly good idea of what she thought – he had seen her try to walk, once before, and had accepted help from a female nurse, but not from him. She didn't want a man to help her. He supposed that holding one's own when you're the only woman in an army was crucial, in the same way men didn't like to accept help from women sometimes because it undermined their ability to do something themselves. He himself related, but he declined help from anyone, male or female. It was about pride. And if she wanted to try, he would let her. Raising both of his eyebrows, he held out the palm of his hand as if to say 'after you'. She gave him a tiny smile, an intuitive expression, before trying again to walk. She managed a few steps again, before the pain in her legs and stomach became too much and she fell. And he was there to catch her, again. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her up, being especially careful to avoid her gunshot wounds as he did so. She pulled a face at him, but this time made no attempt to knock him away, even putting an arm around his shoulder to steady herself as she took more steps.
"Můžete udělat to."
"You can do it."
"Ihre Anfeuerung brauch' ich nicht."
"I can do without your cheerleading."
"Sarkasmus..."
"Sarcasm..."
She suddenly looked at him, her grey eyes lively, like she had finally understood him. "Sarkasmus? Das kenne ich doch!" "Sarcasm? I know that!"
"Sarkasmus?"
"Sarkasmus."
"To znamená, že totéž v němčině?"
"It means the same in German?"
She laughed. "Es bedeutet das Gleiche." "It means the same thing."
His eyes also lively with recognition flickered in the weak light, finding it ironic that the word their languages had in common was 'sarcasm'. Chuckling, he noticed her shiver beneath her nightgown.
"Vám je zima."
"You're cold."
She seemed to know that he had felt it. If she had been stronger, she would have persevered, regardless of what he thought, but she was so tired... Sleeping twenty hours a day and still tired... She yawned, and gestured for him to turn back towards the bed. With bleary eyes, Lenobia saw the floor slowly fly out from under her feet, and something firm under her knees. He had picked her up? Normally Lenobia would have considered it embarrassing, she would take herself, thank you very much, but she felt a niggle of respect for this one, this male vampyre with a magical affinity, which was almost as unlikely as a woman in the army. Almost. It was a little thing he had that in common with her. He wasn't mocking her, he wasn't judging her, he accepted what she wanted to do, and let her.
She felt the mattress beneath her as he laid her down and pulled the covers over her and turned her electric blanket on.
"Danke..." she whispered. She felt the weight of the IV again as he connected her back up to the drip. He looked at his watch, and suddenly seemed disserted, disappointed. He looked at her briefly, before his hand, very sluggishly and reluctantly reached for the painkillers. Was it time again? The helplessness in his eyes spilled over to her, he was sorry.
"Spí dobře." He said quietly. "Sleep well."
Lenobia felt a cold tingling sensation in her arm where the IV was, and knew no more. Eliás wanted to throw the bottle on the floor. It was irritating, frustrating that a silly play on words was becoming someone's life. When knowing no more meant knowing less.
The medication needed topping up every eight hours. After each administration, the patient would sleep for at least five hours. That meant that three times every day, Eliás would reintroduce himself to the German vampyres. No time did they recognise him, and Friedrich wasn't available to pull away from his classes at all hours for translation services. However, on one occasion, he had discovered that the one, Matthias, could speak some Czech. It was very disjointed however, and he could only say simple things. Lenobia and the other male, Uwe spoke none at all, and so his conversations with them were restricted to hand gestures and asking each other the way to the beach in very loud voices, so to speak, although Lenobia didn't give the same effort. Probably because she was the most severely wounded but also Eliás doubted that she could be bothered to waste her energy.
And there he was thinking about her again.
It was his job to tend to all the patients in the Infirmary, not just her. If he spent anymore time looking over his shoulder at her the nurses would start asking questions.
"Dobré odpoledne Matthias." He said, approaching the bed of the first German vampyre, "Mé jméno je Dr. Svboda."
"Good afternoon Matthias. My name is Dr. Svboda."
"Good afternoon..." the soldier replied in Eliás' language, his voice quiet, but not as weak as it had been, "Where am I?"
Eliás spoke slowly and clearly. "You are in the Prague House of Night. You were brought here after you were shot."
He looked confused. "This I no remember..." he said, "You sure?"
He nodded. "Positive."
The vampyre sighed with frustration, but also in defeat. "Damn it."
"How are you feeling?"
"Strange..." he said, "How long I be here?"
"You have been here for three weeks now."
"I sleep three weeks here?"
"No, you have woken since then. It's the painkillers, the medicines, they have amnesic side-effects." He explained. Matthias had asked him this every day for those three weeks. Every day he asked where he was, who Eliás was. It would have been annoying if it hadn't been so sad. And he knew what he would say next too.
"And Uwe and Lenobia, you find them too?"
He nodded. "Uwe and Lenobia are here too. Both are alive, if only just."
"Good..." he nodded, "There were humans with us too..."
"They are being taken care of by the human medical services, I don't know about them unfortunately."
At that moment, Veronika burst through the doors, sprinting up the ward. "Dr Svboda!!!" she hissed, "There's a German Captain at the gate!!! With the same piping colour as hers!!!" she pointed to Lenobia, "We have to move them, now!!!"
"Why would he come up here???"
"How the Hell should I know???!!! Just help me with these drips!!!"
Eliás looked around him for places they could hide three beds. "Put them in the isolation room no one will go in there!!!!" he said, kicking the holding brakes off the wheels at the foot of each bedpost and holding the drip steady as he and Veronika pushed Matthias' bed into the tiny isolation ward. "We'll tell them we've got a really nasty case of TB!" It was too small, only meant for two occupants, but somehow, he and Veronika managed to stuff the three patients in one by one. The door was completely opaque, the little plaque reading 'Isolation' deterrent enough for anyone who couldn't see inside.
She opened the door and pulled the last bed through. "It's only the two, the captain and a private. All the way from Berlin! Berlin!!!"
"Why would Adéla even let them in???"
"Because she wants to prove to them, on an occasion when there aren't too many of them, that we have nothing to hide."
He threw a frantic glance back at the isolation ward. "Nazis knock on the doors every day and she has to pick now???"
Veronika took a sneaky look around the door. "Act normal." She said, "Here they come!"
"What???" Eliás hissed, before burying his nose in another patient's chart at lightning speed as the doors opened again.
Adéla entered first, ever gracious, her long silver hair like a train behind her, her head high, followed by two men. The one was rather short, had muddy brown hair and wore the uniform of a private. The other was tall and elegant, about his own height, his stride long and confident. He was extremely young to be a captain... As soon as he entered, a breath of cold air swept over them. He was as fair as Hitler could have possibly wished for, his skin pale but not sickly. His face was handsome, but hard. Eliás got the vibe that this man was dangerous, like you would fear for your life if caught out of order, and actually had to remind himself who the more powerful vampyre was.
"Dr. Svboda." Said Adéla as she approached up the ward, "This is Private Kreutzer and Captain Engelheimer, they have requested an audience you."
Captain Engelheimer?
That was Lenobia's rank, and name. Eliás noticed that the men were missing something – Marks. They were humans. Was he her consort, or something like that?
The Captain spoke some sharp words in German, and the Private stood forward. "The lightning vampyre. It is a pleasure to make you acquaintance Dr. Svboda." He said. His Czech was good, but he spoke in a very automatic way. It didn't take a genius to work out that he was just a translator.
He looked at the taller, fierce man. "Likewise, Captain." He said, the sarcasm subtle. The Private translated.
"Doctor, my intelligence has informed me that three of my regiment have fallen into your hands after an incident in Munich." Said the Captain, his face looking furious as he said it, his glare frightening, "I wish to see them."
Eliás widened his eyes as if it was news to him. "I'm afraid your intelligence must be mistaken Captain, we have not treated any German soldiers in months."
The Captain looked around himself suspiciously, almost as if he were smelling the air for them. Eliás' eyes flashed to the revolver at his waist. "I don't believe you." He said, his eyes burning holes in Eliás' own.
He feigned confusion. "Then I am afraid I cannot be of any further use to you." He said.
Captain Engelheimer smirked, and promptly removed his hat from his head. Pulling his glove off his hand, he placed his thumb over his forehead and wiped downwards. Moving his hand, he revealed a filled-in crescent moon on his brow beneath smeared make-up. He looked around at the private, who did the same, and then to Adéla, before putting his hat back on and covering it again. So they were vampyres. He must be Lenobia's mate. Alright, he was a vampyre, that didn't mean he wasn't a Nazi. Eliás still trod carefully.
"Alright. But I still no nothing of whom you speak." Now that needed two translations. One into German, and another into common sense. It meant 'prove you're on our side'.
The Captain looked around again and seemed to decide it was safe. "My three troops were injured in Resistance work. This is the closest vampyre hospital behind Allied lines. I have been circulating the rumours of their deaths but I have to be seen to be checking, just in case some nifty resistance blighters picked them up."
Eliás looked warily to Adéla, who nodded. "Fine." He said, reaching for the keys attached to a loop on the waist of his lab-tunic and walking towards the isolation ward. The Captain and the Private followed him, while Adéla remained where she was.
Slotting the key into the lock, he twisted it and jerked the door open. They did not seemed impressed with the way in which they had been packed into the tiny room. "We were told that German officers from the same regiment were approaching, what were we supposed to do?"
"Pull them out when I wasn't looking, perhaps?"
Eliás shot an annoyed glance over his shoulder at the captain as he pushed past him, and looking over his men, and woman, with hard eyes. Treading through what little space around the beds there was, he made his way over to Lenobia's bed, wrapped her hand in his, leaning over her protectively. She stirred a little, and squeezed his hand.
"Doktor...?" she murmured.
The captain's eyes narrowed to slits, his pupils looking at Eliás out of the corners of his eyes. "Lenobia? Ich bin's Erich." "Lenobia? It's Erich."
"Erich, was haste denn hier verlor'n?"
"Erich, what are you doing here?" Literally: "What did you lose here?"
"Anscheinend dich. Ich hab mich oft gefragt wo genau du denn so lange warst."
"You, apparently. I've been asking myself where exactly it is you've been for so long."
"Tut mir Leid."
"Sorry."
"Mir auch. Ich mach mir doch Sorgen um dich."
"Me too. I'm worried about you."
"Musst du nicht, du sollst doch wütend sein! Ich bin durchgefall'n! Ich bin schuld dass die Kinder nicht rausgekommen sind!!"
"You don't have to, you should be angry! I failed! It's my fault the children didn't get out!!!"
"Ist es nicht. Mehr hättest du nicht tun können."
"It's not. You couldn't have done more."
"Lügner."
"Liar."
The captain shot another look around again. "Kümmern sie sich gut um dich?" "Are they taking good care of you?"
"Ja... der Doktor ist stundenlang da."
"Yes... the doctor's always there."
Eliás watched them conversing in what he was sure was gibberish. She sure could ramble for someone with critical injuries. He seemed extremely protective of her. Snapping his fingers, he called the translator to his side and spoke.
"Thank you for tending to my sister." He said sternly.
His sister?
Come to think of it, there was a certain resemblance. Eliás wanted to slap himself around the face. "You're very welcome."
"I have been trying to ensure them safe passage back to Germany..." he said, "But it's impossible. Even with the armies in retreat. Until Germany agrees to unconditional surrender on all fronts, the War isn't over, which will be determined on the 1st May, Kanzler Göbbels is planning to send a General to negotiate a surrender of Berlin with Soviet General Chuikov, but it's unlikely he will be authorised to make an unconditional one."
"So they're still no nearer to an agreement."
"Sadly not. And it's likely that Prague will be one of the last cities to be liberated, although the human Czech resistance fighters are planning an uprising in preparation for the arrival of the Soviet Army."
Eliás closed his eyes and shook his head. "And pray, when will that be?"
"Any day now. Kanzler Göbbels is at the end of his tether. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if he chose the same way out as Hitler. Regardless, I can't move them out until Berlin surrenders, otherwise they'll face a firing squad as soon as they step onto German soil."
"We figured as much."
"And it'll be risky even after that, but I just want them out of here."
"They cannot be moved until their health is good enough."
The captain looked down at his sister. "She knows who to contact." He said, sighing, "I've heard what the palliative drug does. There is little point in me staying."
"Maybe write to her. If it comes through the resistance people."
He met Eliás gaze. "Maybe." He said, turning his head then to Adéla, "Do you give me your solemn word that you will do all in your power to aid their recovery?"
Both nodded. "Absolutely." Said Adéla.
R&R!