Countdown: Twenty-Three Victims
By ElsaF elsa@frohman.net
Rating: PG-13 (violence and implied sexual activity)
Spoilers: None -- Spike historical
Summary: Spike and Dru in World War II
July 1943
Hamburg burned for nine days.
It was glorious at the beginning -- bombs falling one
after another, sending up fountains of flame into the
night sky, roaring like hell itself. You could feel the
ground shake with each impact. The fires sucked up all
the air and stirred up cyclones. The heat burned off
clothing and turned humans to dry husks then ash. Even
the paving stones burned.
But at the end, it was like any other fire -- ash and
embers and smoke and dirty water running through the
gutters.
Dru and me, we stayed far enough away from the city
center that we didn't burn up. Right, you'd think that
was a given, but I had to restrain my dark princess.
She wanted to walk into the inferno. I had to remind
her over and over that she'd be dust long before she
got to the center of the conflagration.
We watched from the roof of a church at the edge of
town. Her eyes sparkled. "It's hell, Spike," she
whispered. "It's come for us. I can hear it calling my
name."
"Can you, love?"
"It's a great beast. It crouches and roars and calls
out to me. We must go into it, Spike! It's waiting for
us. It cries out with the voice of a griffin. It wants
to eat us, and make us its own."
"No sweetheart. It's not time, yet. We'll get to hell
soon enough."
"Will you take me to hell, my brave knight?"
"I'll take you anywhere you want to go, princess. But
not tonight. Let's just sit back and watch the pretty
fires."
"I can think of something better," she hissed in my
hear, wrapping her lovely arms around me.
We made love on that church roof, with the light of the
burning city flickering on the copper sheathing. All
the while below, the streets were thick with people
fleeing the searing wind and flames. Their terror
drifted up to us. We could smell it and we could hear
it, and it made us laugh as we held on to one another,
riding the tide of fear and despair in a torrent of
arousal.
It was just luck that we were in the city when the
Allied bombers came. We'd left England for the
Continent to taste the war. Not that there wasn't
plenty to snack on in London. But with the blackout
rules, and the general English tendency towards order,
it just wasn't as exciting as coming to the
battlefields.
We made love for hours that night. And when we were
done, Dru lay back against the roof and laughed. Seeing
her so happy filled my heart until it felt like it
would burst.
"I'm hungry," she said at last.
"All you can eat," I said, gesturing down at the
surging humanity in the street below. "And nobody'll
miss a one of them."
"Let's find someone special," she replied with a toothy
grin. "I want something ever so tasty."
"And you shall have it. What do you fancy? A family?
Oh, I know. There's an orphanage down the street. Lot's
of tender young ones."
"Oh, yes! That would be lovely," she said, clapping her
hands like a happy child.
-----------
We made our way through the panicked crowd in a state
of euphoria. I grabbed a snack or two along the way --
why wait?
We were cutting through an alley, when a jeep suddenly
pulled across and blocked the opening at the far end.
We turned back and another blocked the way we'd come
in. Bloody hell! In the midst of all this chaos,
someone had been tracking us. We'd probably attracted
their attention with our little public display of
affection on the rooftop. Who'd of thought anyone would
be looking at us, when the bombs were falling and the
city was turning to molten lava.
Not that a parked jeep was going to contain us. I had
Dru's hand and we ran down the alley intending to leap
the vehicle at the end. That was easy enough. We'd be
over their heads before they realized we had moved.
But the soldiers knew what they were dealing with.
Before we got close enough to jump, the driver of the
jeep had a crossbow out and was pointing it at my
heart. And there were others. Soldiers poured into the
alley from both ends and surrounded us. Some had
crosses, most had crossbows. We were handcuffed and
bundled into the back of a truck parked just out of
sight beyond the end of the alley.
-------------
They took Dru away, and left me handcuffed to a water
pipe in someone's office. It was an old building
refitted with modern plumbing, so the pipes were
exposed. I tested the strength of my restraints. The
handcuffs were strong, but the soft, lead pipe wasn't.
It was only going to take one strong yank to free me.
But I waited. Better to get an idea of what these
people had in mind first.
I didn't have to wait long. A tall, gaunt man in an SS
uniform came in. He had steel-gray hair, cropped short
and a scar across one cheek. In short, he looked like
one of those cartoon Nazis they run in the London
tabloids.
"Willkommen," the cartoon Nazi said.
"You've got no idea what a bad idea this was," I said
in German.
I yanked on the handcuffs and the pipe snapped. Water
started pouring out onto the floor, but it didn't touch
me, because I was already across the room, bearing down
on my would-be captor.
He didn't flinch, I'll give him that. My hands were
still behind my back, but I didn't need them. I
barreled right into him and knocked him onto the desk
on his back. My fangs were already against his neck
when he spoke.
"Before you do that, you might look out the window," he
said calmly. There was something about his tone of
voice that stopped me. I backed off a little.
"Take a look. I'm not going anywhere."
I went to the window and looked out. We were on the
first story, a floor above ground level, and the window
looked out over a courtyard. In better times, it would
have been a garden. Now it was a staging area for
military operations.
In the center of the courtyard was a reflecting pool,
and over the pool a simple A-frame had been constructed
to suspend an iron cage.
Dru was in the cage.
"The pool is filled with holy water, in case you're
wondering," the officer said calmly.
Seeing Dru caged that way -- it filled me with rage. In
that moment of white-hot anger, I snapped the chain
that held my manacled wrists together.
"You're going to pay for that," I snarled.
The officer seemed amused. "We have a tarpaulin ready
to cover the cage before dawn. However, if I do not
personally give the order, the cage will remain exposed
when the sun comes up. I believe that is approximately
two hours away."
His confidence enraged me, but I held my temper.
"You needn't glare at me so. I don't intend to harm
your mate. I just needed a bit of leverage, so I can
talk to you. You may find that our interests are
aligned."
"I seriously doubt it," I growled. But I forced my
demon face back inside.
"I am Col. Werner. What may I call you?"
I just glared at him.
"Very well, it is not important. Let us get down to
business.
"You arrived in Hamburg four days ago. In those four
days, you have killed eleven people."
"Twelve," I interjected.
"Really? We must have missed one of the bodies."
"Dropped it off the bridge into the river."
"Ah, I see. Twelve then. It hardly matters. I'm not a
policeman. I'm not arresting you for murder." He
gestured toward the window. "Your body count is
inconsequential when you compare it to that." The red
glow of the burning city was visible over the rooftops
beyond the courtyard.
"Got to agree with you there," I said with a laugh.
"You humans are always coming up with better ways to
kill each other."
"See? Our interests aren't so different."
"So, you've worked out how to mass produce corpses.
What's it to me? They're no good to eat the way you
kill them."
The Nazi laughed. "The Fatherland could make use of
your special skills," he said.
"The Fatherland? Are you joking?"
"The Third Reich will eventually triumph over all. Even
your kind -- unless you become one with us."
I raised an eyebrow. "Bit overconfident, aren't you?
Way it looks to me, you're getting your ass kicked out
there tonight."
The Nazi snorted. "This -- this is nothing. Most of the
dead are civilians. The Allies waste their bombs. We
will prevail."
"If you say so. What's it got to do with me?"
"You are a predator. Like me. You live to kill. You
revel in your victims' pain and terror. We are
brothers.
"I'm offering you all the victims you could hope for.
Rivers of blood. Join us. You could be invaluable to
our mission."
"Let me get this straight. You want me to join you --
so you surround us in an alley, handcuff us and throw
us in the back of a truck, then you cage my woman. I
hope you'll forgive me for being skeptical of your
friendly intentions."
"I needed leverage to ensure that you would listen to
me, my friend. I have no illusions. I know how
dangerous you are."
"Do you?" I said with a laugh. "I'll take that as a
compliment. But, I'm afraid I'm going to have to
decline your generous offer. I don't give a damn about
your mission, one way or the other.
"You were right to consider me dangerous. I am -- in
ways you can barely imagine. But you still made a big
mistake. You think women are weak, don't you? I think
you've rather underestimated my dear Drusilla."
Not all vampires can do the thrall. I've never been any
good at it. But Dru is one of them that can. More than
that -- she's better at it than anyone I've ever known.
I'd been watching out the window through the entire
conversation with my comic opera Nazi. I saw the young
soldier assigned to guard her fall under the spell of
her voice. I couldn't hear her from up here, but I
could imagine it. She would start out talking in her
little girl voice, pleading with her guard for
compassion. And as he listened, she took control of his
will. The boy had waded into the pool and opened the
cage. He'd carried her over the deadly water and set
her down on the dry flagstones.
He was dead now.
The SS officer looked out the window and saw the empty
cage, its door ajar. He turned back to me, and for the
first time, I saw fear in his eyes.
He wasn't afraid for long.
-----------
In the chaos of the firebombing, most of the troops
assigned to that headquarters were out in the town --
desperately trying to move equipment away from the
inferno.
There were twenty-three SS officers and enlisted men on
the premises, though. They were the ones left behind to
defend the headquarters and help with the commander's
little project to recruit a vampire.
I've read since that 40,000 people perished on the
first night of the bombing. I've got to hand it to the
military types. That's just neat.
I've never read anything about what happened to that SS
squad. I suppose it just wasn't significant in
comparison to what happened to the rest of the city.
But Dru and I know that of those 40,000 victims,
twenty-three were ours.
We ate well that night.
By ElsaF elsa@frohman.net
Rating: PG-13 (violence and implied sexual activity)
Spoilers: None -- Spike historical
Summary: Spike and Dru in World War II
July 1943
Hamburg burned for nine days.
It was glorious at the beginning -- bombs falling one
after another, sending up fountains of flame into the
night sky, roaring like hell itself. You could feel the
ground shake with each impact. The fires sucked up all
the air and stirred up cyclones. The heat burned off
clothing and turned humans to dry husks then ash. Even
the paving stones burned.
But at the end, it was like any other fire -- ash and
embers and smoke and dirty water running through the
gutters.
Dru and me, we stayed far enough away from the city
center that we didn't burn up. Right, you'd think that
was a given, but I had to restrain my dark princess.
She wanted to walk into the inferno. I had to remind
her over and over that she'd be dust long before she
got to the center of the conflagration.
We watched from the roof of a church at the edge of
town. Her eyes sparkled. "It's hell, Spike," she
whispered. "It's come for us. I can hear it calling my
name."
"Can you, love?"
"It's a great beast. It crouches and roars and calls
out to me. We must go into it, Spike! It's waiting for
us. It cries out with the voice of a griffin. It wants
to eat us, and make us its own."
"No sweetheart. It's not time, yet. We'll get to hell
soon enough."
"Will you take me to hell, my brave knight?"
"I'll take you anywhere you want to go, princess. But
not tonight. Let's just sit back and watch the pretty
fires."
"I can think of something better," she hissed in my
hear, wrapping her lovely arms around me.
We made love on that church roof, with the light of the
burning city flickering on the copper sheathing. All
the while below, the streets were thick with people
fleeing the searing wind and flames. Their terror
drifted up to us. We could smell it and we could hear
it, and it made us laugh as we held on to one another,
riding the tide of fear and despair in a torrent of
arousal.
It was just luck that we were in the city when the
Allied bombers came. We'd left England for the
Continent to taste the war. Not that there wasn't
plenty to snack on in London. But with the blackout
rules, and the general English tendency towards order,
it just wasn't as exciting as coming to the
battlefields.
We made love for hours that night. And when we were
done, Dru lay back against the roof and laughed. Seeing
her so happy filled my heart until it felt like it
would burst.
"I'm hungry," she said at last.
"All you can eat," I said, gesturing down at the
surging humanity in the street below. "And nobody'll
miss a one of them."
"Let's find someone special," she replied with a toothy
grin. "I want something ever so tasty."
"And you shall have it. What do you fancy? A family?
Oh, I know. There's an orphanage down the street. Lot's
of tender young ones."
"Oh, yes! That would be lovely," she said, clapping her
hands like a happy child.
-----------
We made our way through the panicked crowd in a state
of euphoria. I grabbed a snack or two along the way --
why wait?
We were cutting through an alley, when a jeep suddenly
pulled across and blocked the opening at the far end.
We turned back and another blocked the way we'd come
in. Bloody hell! In the midst of all this chaos,
someone had been tracking us. We'd probably attracted
their attention with our little public display of
affection on the rooftop. Who'd of thought anyone would
be looking at us, when the bombs were falling and the
city was turning to molten lava.
Not that a parked jeep was going to contain us. I had
Dru's hand and we ran down the alley intending to leap
the vehicle at the end. That was easy enough. We'd be
over their heads before they realized we had moved.
But the soldiers knew what they were dealing with.
Before we got close enough to jump, the driver of the
jeep had a crossbow out and was pointing it at my
heart. And there were others. Soldiers poured into the
alley from both ends and surrounded us. Some had
crosses, most had crossbows. We were handcuffed and
bundled into the back of a truck parked just out of
sight beyond the end of the alley.
-------------
They took Dru away, and left me handcuffed to a water
pipe in someone's office. It was an old building
refitted with modern plumbing, so the pipes were
exposed. I tested the strength of my restraints. The
handcuffs were strong, but the soft, lead pipe wasn't.
It was only going to take one strong yank to free me.
But I waited. Better to get an idea of what these
people had in mind first.
I didn't have to wait long. A tall, gaunt man in an SS
uniform came in. He had steel-gray hair, cropped short
and a scar across one cheek. In short, he looked like
one of those cartoon Nazis they run in the London
tabloids.
"Willkommen," the cartoon Nazi said.
"You've got no idea what a bad idea this was," I said
in German.
I yanked on the handcuffs and the pipe snapped. Water
started pouring out onto the floor, but it didn't touch
me, because I was already across the room, bearing down
on my would-be captor.
He didn't flinch, I'll give him that. My hands were
still behind my back, but I didn't need them. I
barreled right into him and knocked him onto the desk
on his back. My fangs were already against his neck
when he spoke.
"Before you do that, you might look out the window," he
said calmly. There was something about his tone of
voice that stopped me. I backed off a little.
"Take a look. I'm not going anywhere."
I went to the window and looked out. We were on the
first story, a floor above ground level, and the window
looked out over a courtyard. In better times, it would
have been a garden. Now it was a staging area for
military operations.
In the center of the courtyard was a reflecting pool,
and over the pool a simple A-frame had been constructed
to suspend an iron cage.
Dru was in the cage.
"The pool is filled with holy water, in case you're
wondering," the officer said calmly.
Seeing Dru caged that way -- it filled me with rage. In
that moment of white-hot anger, I snapped the chain
that held my manacled wrists together.
"You're going to pay for that," I snarled.
The officer seemed amused. "We have a tarpaulin ready
to cover the cage before dawn. However, if I do not
personally give the order, the cage will remain exposed
when the sun comes up. I believe that is approximately
two hours away."
His confidence enraged me, but I held my temper.
"You needn't glare at me so. I don't intend to harm
your mate. I just needed a bit of leverage, so I can
talk to you. You may find that our interests are
aligned."
"I seriously doubt it," I growled. But I forced my
demon face back inside.
"I am Col. Werner. What may I call you?"
I just glared at him.
"Very well, it is not important. Let us get down to
business.
"You arrived in Hamburg four days ago. In those four
days, you have killed eleven people."
"Twelve," I interjected.
"Really? We must have missed one of the bodies."
"Dropped it off the bridge into the river."
"Ah, I see. Twelve then. It hardly matters. I'm not a
policeman. I'm not arresting you for murder." He
gestured toward the window. "Your body count is
inconsequential when you compare it to that." The red
glow of the burning city was visible over the rooftops
beyond the courtyard.
"Got to agree with you there," I said with a laugh.
"You humans are always coming up with better ways to
kill each other."
"See? Our interests aren't so different."
"So, you've worked out how to mass produce corpses.
What's it to me? They're no good to eat the way you
kill them."
The Nazi laughed. "The Fatherland could make use of
your special skills," he said.
"The Fatherland? Are you joking?"
"The Third Reich will eventually triumph over all. Even
your kind -- unless you become one with us."
I raised an eyebrow. "Bit overconfident, aren't you?
Way it looks to me, you're getting your ass kicked out
there tonight."
The Nazi snorted. "This -- this is nothing. Most of the
dead are civilians. The Allies waste their bombs. We
will prevail."
"If you say so. What's it got to do with me?"
"You are a predator. Like me. You live to kill. You
revel in your victims' pain and terror. We are
brothers.
"I'm offering you all the victims you could hope for.
Rivers of blood. Join us. You could be invaluable to
our mission."
"Let me get this straight. You want me to join you --
so you surround us in an alley, handcuff us and throw
us in the back of a truck, then you cage my woman. I
hope you'll forgive me for being skeptical of your
friendly intentions."
"I needed leverage to ensure that you would listen to
me, my friend. I have no illusions. I know how
dangerous you are."
"Do you?" I said with a laugh. "I'll take that as a
compliment. But, I'm afraid I'm going to have to
decline your generous offer. I don't give a damn about
your mission, one way or the other.
"You were right to consider me dangerous. I am -- in
ways you can barely imagine. But you still made a big
mistake. You think women are weak, don't you? I think
you've rather underestimated my dear Drusilla."
Not all vampires can do the thrall. I've never been any
good at it. But Dru is one of them that can. More than
that -- she's better at it than anyone I've ever known.
I'd been watching out the window through the entire
conversation with my comic opera Nazi. I saw the young
soldier assigned to guard her fall under the spell of
her voice. I couldn't hear her from up here, but I
could imagine it. She would start out talking in her
little girl voice, pleading with her guard for
compassion. And as he listened, she took control of his
will. The boy had waded into the pool and opened the
cage. He'd carried her over the deadly water and set
her down on the dry flagstones.
He was dead now.
The SS officer looked out the window and saw the empty
cage, its door ajar. He turned back to me, and for the
first time, I saw fear in his eyes.
He wasn't afraid for long.
-----------
In the chaos of the firebombing, most of the troops
assigned to that headquarters were out in the town --
desperately trying to move equipment away from the
inferno.
There were twenty-three SS officers and enlisted men on
the premises, though. They were the ones left behind to
defend the headquarters and help with the commander's
little project to recruit a vampire.
I've read since that 40,000 people perished on the
first night of the bombing. I've got to hand it to the
military types. That's just neat.
I've never read anything about what happened to that SS
squad. I suppose it just wasn't significant in
comparison to what happened to the rest of the city.
But Dru and I know that of those 40,000 victims,
twenty-three were ours.
We ate well that night.