The Gift

Oops, I almost put the next chapter up first by mistake. So more commenty stuff is in the next Chapter. Mysterious person revealed!

Karl, Franz, Tomas, Erich and Laura stared in what could only be termed amazement, and in Laura's case possibly fear, at the sight that met their eyes at the end of the attic.

"O.K. I know that wasn't there before!" said Tomas in awe.

Spread out before them was a vast hall, though how that could be possible in this attic was a mystery. To either side of a thin bridge was a long drop to the floor which was covered in gears and cogs of some sort, and on the walls stretching away left and right were many openings and gothic styled balconies. On the other side of the hall, which the bridge led to was a hexagonal building decorated with more gothic carvings and sculptures of strange daemons.

"Do you like it?" came a harsh, rough voice behind them, and they all jumped, except Franz. Instead, he just turned around and regarded the speaker with his calm gaze. He was dressed in a skin-tight suit of some blackish material, leather gloves and jackboots, what looked like an old gasmask, and he had two strange swords sheathed at his sides.

"I thought someone was watching us," Franz said, "but I didn't think it would be you, sir."

Kroenen tilted his head slightly, causing the glass 'eyes' of his mask to glint.

"I based it on the Master's mausoleum in Russia," he told them, gesturing to the massive room. There was a slight hint of irony in his voice. "I suppose it really is his mausoleum now, though I doubt he'll stay dead for long. Follow me; I have something else I need you to see."

"Um…Vater…I have something to tell you…" Karl ventured.

"I already know."

"And you're…you're not angry?"

Kroenen turned to look at his son. "Oh, I am angry. Very angry. But that can wait, for now."

At this quiet pronouncement, a shudder of dread seemed to run like electricity through Karl, and he looked down, with quiet terror in his eyes.

"I suppose you brought the Jew to appease me, as if I were the Ogdru Jahad."

"Yes."

"Well, I'm sure I'll find some use for her."

The five teenagers followed Kroenen across the bridge and into the building that seemed almost to float in the centre of that vast hall. Inside it was a single chamber, the walls lined with sharp metal spikes, the floor polished black obsidian. At the very centre thin cracks could just be made out, marking another smooth circle. Kroenen went over to a small black panel by the entrance and pulled off his left glove and touched his hand to it. Franz noticed Laura staring and he supposed this was natural. Kroenen's skin was very pale, with countless old scars and still stitched-up cuts twisting across it. He and the other Sonnenkinder were used to it, but it must be startling to someone who had never seen it before.

There was a grinding sound echoing through the walls now, and the circle in the centre of the room was slowly rising up, revealing itself to be only the top of a cylinder of tinted glass. Some sort of shape could be discerned within it, but not very clearly. Then, when it was fully out of the floor, the glass slid back, and everyone's eyes opened wide, most especially Laura's.

It was Kroenen's old uniform, from the days of the Second World War, an S.S. uniform with a trench coat over the top of it; secret blades hidden in its sleeves. Karl stared at it as if in a dream.

"I think it's about time you had this," Kroenen told him.

"Why?" Karl said softly, hardly daring to breath.

"I understand that you find the lessons at Cambridge a little boring. So I think it's time for you to do a little…experimenting on your own." He held up something which glinted. It was an Iron Cross. "I think I might just let you have this too, after you've proved yourself." They all knew what he meant.

"How many?"

"Oh I'll leave that up to you. But make sure that it's impressive. And I will require…proof."

"Of course Vater!" Karl replied, bowing, an expression of awe on his face. "Of course!"

Franz thought that Kroenen would probably have been smiling under his mask; if it hadn't been Kroenen that is.

As they were coming back down the stairs out of the attic, with Karl holding the uniform as if it was made of delicate china, Franz stepped back a pace to ask Kroenen something.

"Sir, how is it that you could make that huge…place…up there while we were away? How could it even fit?"

"This castle can be deceptive, you know that. It wasn't actually that big on the outside. And as for how I made it…" he shrugged, "if I told you that, I would have to kill you, and that would be a waste, wouldn't it."

Franz wasn't sure whether Kroenen was joking or not. That line sounded just a bit too clichéd for him. He wasn't about to test his luck though.

After Karl had gotten changed into his new clothes, and very striking he looked too, his father took them down to his lab to decide what to do with Laura. The place was very dark except for a few areas where the bright clinical light illuminated marble or metal tables, some tilted at angles, others flat, with deep runnels down them. In some, sticky red blood was dripping down into the drainage system, already half congealed. Franz was reminded strongly of a table he had seen at a visit to the Imperial War Museum in London, in the Holocaust Exhibition, which had been used in one of those so called hospitals where the doctors eagerly practised involuntary euthanasia. These were of the same design.

Kroenen lifted a box of a chair and sat down, toying with a scalpel that lay on a table nearby.

"What shall we do with you?" he said softly to Laura. She didn't reply, but she was trembling with fear. The smell of blood, death, and burned flesh was in the air. "I wonder…"

Kroenen turned to his son. "Are you hungry?" he asked.

"No, Vater, I'm fine."

"Well, I have some plans, but for the moment, I think that I shall keep her for a while yet. If you're not hungry, perhaps you should go and do a bit of…hunting, hmmm?"

"Yes, Vater," Karl replied, bowing again, and left.

"I don't suppose you want anything to eat?" Kroenen asked the others. "Didn't think so. You can go."

They too left, leaving Laura alone with Kroenen in the dark laboratory.

Karl would have continued thinking about his youth, but he was interrupted by Felix at his door.

"I have a mission for you. Orders from the President herself. Do you remember Versipillis IV?" the head of Area 51 said.

"Of course! The werewolves! I thought President Bush had dealt with the ones that were left?"

"They're back, as Versipillis V. You need to deal with one of their agents."

Karl nodded. Back to work then. His life was not exactly easy…