A few minutes later, they were on the road again. His head still ached, but altogether he felt better – at least physically. Mentally, he was in a state of doubt and disappointment at himself. Hadn't Benji told him to act like a tough guy? And what had he done? He had just shown them weakness. He had made a complete fool of himself.

Damn you, you foolish lout, you madman, you freak.

At least that bar fight wasn't that bad, he tried to comfort himself. I took those three big bullies on single-handedly, and I won.

And what does that prove? Nothing.

He could have cried with frustration.

Knox directed him along a road with almost no traffic, urging him to go ever faster. There was a salty smell on the wind, informing him that they must be quite close to the coast by now. If the road made a sudden turn now over a sheer cliff – he imagined the car falling down into a dark abyss, greedily swallowed by the ocean's cold waves. Knox would have time enough to regret that crazy speed while they fell. And maybe he'd kill that maniac before they hit the water. Just for one time in his life unleash his hatred of the world. And then die, perish as if he had never existed. Nobody would miss him.

Once more he called himself a freak. First, how on earth should he manage to kill Knox in a matter of seconds and of what use would it be? Second, he felt yet too young to die.

What would dying feel like, he wondered. Would it hurt? And what came after it?

What had it been like when his parents had died? And all the others he had known and loved? He hoped it had been at least painless, fast and painless.

And then he heard the screams again…

Why? he thought bitterly. They had managed to flee from Ceausescu and his Communist regime only to die where they thought they were safe. They had left their home in vain after all. And maybe Ceausescu's henchmen would have found them a more humane way to die.

He remembered the dictator well, although he had been fairly small when he had seen him. Ceausescu had stood on the balcony of his palace and waved genuinely down at the crowd. Not much older than three, he had not quite been able to believe that this was a bad man, as his parents used to tell him. He only knew bad men from his grandparents' stories, and those bad men were much different.

His grandparents… He remembered the open fire and the smell of toffee apples on cold winter days, the smoke of grandfather's pipe curling up towards the rafters of the living room, the rows and rows of books up to the ceiling… He was helping his grandmother with hanging up the washing, listening to stories full of dark riders in the night and undeads rising from the grave, longing for the warm blood of the living… A storm was shaking the trees of the forests of Transylvania, he could see it before his inner eye, large black bats with glowing red eyes riding on the wind. A shudder crept over his back, at the same time full of pleasure and excitement. Somewhere there was a castle on a rock, and it this castle lived Dracula, king of vampires. And there was the princess he held captive, and the noble knight…

His grandfather's stories were a lot different. When he sat on the old man's knees, the gaze of his grandfather's bright blue eyes would wander off far away, and he would tell his godson of the days of his youth and of the great war. As he had looked up years later when already at the orphanage, Romania had entered the treaty against the Soviets between Germany, Italy and Japan in 1940, and in 1941 they had been on Germany's side when the war against Russia began. Tall, fair-haired and with his bright blue eyes, his grandfather had been accepted into the SS straight away and even made it to lieutenant – Untersturmführer, he recalled. It had been his grandfather who had taught him German, and he had used to speak it quite fluently, even better than his parents. "I want you to be a warrior someday", his grandfather had often said. "A real warrior." And every time he had answered: "Yes, granddad. Someday I will be one."

He remembered the late evenings at his grandparents' home, when he would be already more or less asleep before the fire. Then sometimes the adults would start talking with hushed voices; he did not know why. He merely knew it was about Ceausescu, the man who lived in a castle and was bad, just like Dracula, the man who had people locked up and tortured and killed and whatever else you might think of, all in the name of the international community of workers and the fight against capitalism, whatever that might be. The little boy lying on the rug in front of the fire did not truly understand.

Later on, he had. When an older boy at the orphanage had proclaimed to be a communist, he had beaten him almost to death.

He wondered what had become of his grandparents. Were they still alive? Had they survived Ceausescu's reign of terror?

One day he would go back home and look for them. One day he would.

But not yet. He was not ready yet.

And maybe he would go looking for the man who had beaten his mother and make him regret it for the rest of his miserable life.

It had been late at night, and he had woken from the sound of agitated voices. There had been light outside his room. And there had been strange men in uniforms, searching the house, every corner of it, leaving a terrible mess behind. One had dragged him out of bed and brought him to the living room, placing him in the custody of a tall, dark-clad officer who was shamelessly smoking, tipping the ashes onto the carpet.

"Where are my parents?" the small boy asked. "Haven't they told you that you're not allowed to smoke in the house?"

The officer regarded him with a lazy sneer and flicked some ashes at him, so that he took a step back. "Listen, you little brat", he growled. "Your parents might be gone for some time. You stay here and behave yourself, or else… you might not like the consequences."

Though irritated and scared, he could not stop himself asking: "What exactly do you mean by consequences?"

Obviously with strained patience, the officer knelt down before him, clouding his sight by a thick fog of smoke. Without taking the cigarette from his mouth, he grabbed the child by both shoulders and looked him in the face. "Being cheeky, are we?"

He did not quite know how to react. He was afraid of the man, and the cigarette smoke was making him sick. So he just bit his tongue and looked at the stranger. Was this a mighty man? A bad and mighty man? Somehow he wished to be in the officer's position, not in his own.

"Here, son of a traitor, where did you get those bright eyes?"

What had he just called him? Son of a traitor? A traitor, that was something bad. Something very bad. Hot rage boiled up in him, and he answered the man's stare hard. "I'm not a traitor's son", he said, with a deadly calm he had not yet heard in his own voice. "And I have blue eyes because I'm of the noble blood of the West, and because my ancestors are descended from the Romans, who were here before all the barbarians from the East came."

And then he understood what it meant when one's gaze bored into the other's. He felt his lips go dry. How would the man react?

He shouldn't have said that.

Keep the eye contact, just keep it…

When the officer spoke again, his voice sounded strangely raspy. "Who told you that?"

"My father."

"Your father." Slowly the officer rose to his feet. "So we've got the right man after all, eh?" With this he turned on his heels and left the room.

"See the castle over there, Anthony?"

He ran after the man, out into the hall, from where he could hear his mother's voice. They've got the right man… They've got him… "Turn him loose!" his mother cried. "Let him go!"

He threw himself at one of the soldier's legs, but the next moment he felt a terrible pain in his head and landed on the floor hard, and a boot dug into his ribs…

His vision was dancing in and out of focus…

"Anthony?"

And then someone was thrown down beside him, the officer towering over both of them…

"My boy", his mother's voice whispered into his ear. "Calm down. Don't cry. It's all over now."

He blinked at her dizzily, saw the bruises on her cheek and did not understand. "Where's Dad?" he murmured.

"They took him with them. But he'll be back. Don't cry. He'll be back."

For the very first time in his young life, he doubted that his mother really believed what she was saying.

Was he only imagining things, or was there a drop of moisture running down her face, over the bruises?

"Anthony, I'm talking to you!" Knox bellowed.

He flinched and sat up straight in his seat, banishing the officer's leering visage back to the dark place where all his unpleasant memories lingered.

"Paying attention finally? Good. You stop at the nice little castle over there."

He nodded, embarrassment flooding his mind.