Chapter 9: Fortune of War

Ypres, Belgium 1915

It was the middle of the afternoon and D slept peacefully on the muddy wooden pallet, covered by a muddy woolen blanket, unaware that the sergeant was hovering over him. The old sergeant tried not to take any special notice of the young conscripts, but he couldn't help but notice D. He'd been watching the tall, pale young man from the moment he'd marched in carrying more gear than a mule. In the sergeant's opinion, D was the perfect soldier- he was incredibly strong and athletic, he obeyed instantly, he never complained. But there was something unnerving about him- the sergeant couldn't quite put his finger on it. He knew that some of the other boys were actually scared of D, but not the sergeant. He'd forgotten how to be afraid a long time ago. But the way D stood so perfectly still- why, next to him, trees would look downright fidgety. Maybe that was why he was such a good spy- that, and the fact that he spoke German flawlessly.

The sergeant tapped D's shoulder. "Sorry to wake you, my boy, but I'm sending you out again tonight." D nodded and sat up immediately. "You're going over to the French Algerian division. Make sure you check in with the Lieutenant when you're ready." The sergeant turned and stalked off down the trench, looking for lazy soldiers to scold. D tied the laces on his mud-caked boots.

It was April 22, 1915. D had been on the front lines in France for four months. After settling Mrs. Belus and the children into their new home, D had decided to try to integrate himself into human society. And that was how he wound up fighting the Germans in Ypres Salient on the France/Belgium border, making almost daily raids into No-Man's Land. D had lived for a century and a half, yet he had never seen or imagined anything like the violence and carnage of the war. There were times when he started to doubt if humans were any better than vampires after all, especially when the machine guns opened up. The smell of blood constantly permeated the air and D was sickened by it. Not once during the war did the smell of blood appeal to the dhampir.

D walked softly along the edge of a crater formed by an artillery blast. The earth was soft and D moved without a sound. He caught a glimpse of his reflection in the murky puddle at the bottom of the crater, and realized that a second face was staring up at him: a dead man lay on his back just inches below the surface of the polluted water, his skin white and his eyes wide open. D looked closer and realized it was only half a man- the unfortunate soldier had been torn in two just below his ribs. D walked on. The German lines were barely five hundred yards away. Here and there on the ground were mangled and decaying body parts- an arm, a hand, a leg, a pile of rotting intestines that had fallen from a recovered corpse. Suddenly D heard artillery fire begin from behind the German lines.

"Here we go again," D's hand said, distinctly aggravated. "I swear, I wish I possessed your foot instead of your lousy hand, so I could help you run away at times like this. Come on, D! We gotta get out of here! What are you doing?" D was staring in the direction of the French trenches. The artillery shells were already raining down, and the German guns continued to blast. Where the shells hit the earth, strange yellow clouds were beginning to form over the mottled landscape. The yellow smoke curled and flowed in streams, pouring into the craters and down into the trenches. D had never seen anything like this. Faintly, D heard the first cries of urgent terror from the French troops. D sprinted towards them. "Oh, wonderful, just perfect- run towards the danger, what a good idea!" the hand complained loudly. Then it made a snuffling noise. "-What?" it gasped. "That- that smell- what is it? What's going on? Let me see, let me see!" D's hand twitched and strained and D held it up in front of him, palm out.

"That smoke," D said, not breaking his stride.

The demon in his hand made a horrible rasping hissing noise. "That's… it's unbelievable- this is unprecedented- that's poison, D! They're mad, D, they're insane! Don't get close to it! Get out of here, get out of the whole damn war! Don't you see? They'll do anything to kill each other- even this! Get away from it, it's poisonous, it's deadly!"

D didn't reply. The thick yellow haze was seeping towards him. He heard people screaming and cursing just ahead through the smoke, and also much worse sounds of people choking and dying. D came to a halt at the edge of a trench. The thick smoke had filled the trench and was already burning D's eyes and throat. He caught a glimpse of a man crawling along the bottom of the trench blindly, coughing and retching horribly. Further ahead, people were struggling up out of the trenches and running in all directions, stumbling, firing their weapons, collapsing in the soft dirt and gasping for air, only to swallow more of the poison. D jumped down into the trench. The crawling man was curled up on his side now, dead. D ran down the trench, the gas searing his eyes. He could barely see the foggy outlines of crumpled bodies. He could hear the last of the cylinders impacting the earth and releasing their poison. D found a man who was still alive and bent down to scoop him up. He slung the man over his shoulder and went on. Suddenly D realized that the gas was affecting his ability to breathe. He choked and gasped, squeezing his eyes shut. He heard rather than saw another soldier struggling for air ahead on his left. D hefted him up onto his other shoulder and staggered forward. "What are you doing?" his hand shouted in growing alarm. "You can't waste time saving these people- you're going to die any minute now yourself! You have to get up above the smoke! Up!"

D obeyed and with inhuman strength he hauled himself and the two other soldiers up over the side of the trench. But the cloud of gas was still surrounding them. D began to cough violently, something he'd never experienced before, and his lungs began to burn, causing him terrible pain. His body shuddered, wanting air. There was a crater just ahead where about a dozen Algerian soldiers had gathered in their frantic escape. Apparently the gas had missed this area initially, leaving it as a sort of sunken island in the first few moments, but now the deadly yellow smoke was creeping in from all sides, leaving no escape for the men. Already they were gasping and sputtering, vomiting and choking, stumbling about in blind panic. Some ran off into the smoke. One ran back towards the trench he'd abandoned mere minutes earlier and tumbled over the edge into the yellow cloud below. Hideous, agonized sounds came from all around, their sources obscured by the smoke. D fell to his knees, needing air. The men he had tried to rescue tumbled to the ground beside him. "You idiot!" His hand accused. "You know you need to breathe! You've been breathing your whole life, what made you think you could stop now?" D was suffering like the humans now, making muffled moaning noises as he fought for air, poisoning himself further with each strangled gasp. D collapsed on the ground, twitching. His ashen face pressed into the mud, his fangs bared and eyes shut tightly, D began to die.

"oh God," groaned the hand. "You're in a bad spot this time. I hoped it wouldn't come to this." The mouth of the shriveled face opened wide, and then wider, and with a loud windy roar a swirling vortex of air formed and was sucked through the demon's mouth into nothingness! The cloud of gas in the immediate area began to diminish immediately, being sucked away in the air swirling down into the mouth in D's palm. Within a few seconds all the gas within a hundred-yard radius of D was gone- sucked away. The demon snapped its mouth shut and scowled, and then gazed up reproachfully at D's grey face with its empty black eyes. "You lucky bastard," the demon mumbled in a somewhat affectionate tone. "You have to admit, you're amazingly fortunate to have somebody like me around to save your hide once in a while."

D began to breathe the clean air and his lungs began to heal. It was too late for half of the people around him, but at least a few of them would survive. D gulped a few more breaths down through his open mouth and then clenched his teeth and grunted. He pressed his palms flat against the damp earth and weakly pushed himself up into a sitting position. He was alive.

D was one of about 2,000 prisoners taken by the Germans that evening after the first poison gas attack of the war. Late that night, when it seemed like most of the other prisoners around him were asleep, D stared down at the palm of his left hand. He coughed as the demon's wrinkled face formed, grinning hideously. "What did you do?" D rasped.

The face looked annoyed. "Is that any way to thank me for saving your life?" it asked gruffly. D began to cough again and the demon waited for him to finish. "I tried to tell you not to--" the hand began, but was interrupted by coughing again. "Serves you right," it muttered as D's chest heaved. "Maybe next time you'll listen to me. And you ought to be thanking your good fortune that I was able to save you this time."

"But how did you do it?" D asked in a ragged whisper.

"You don't realize how fortunate you are that I happen to have this particular talent. I can swallow things. I simply sucked up all the poison. And it tasted incredibly foul."

"Where did it go?"

"You mean the poison? Who knows! It's gone for good, that's all I can say for sure. In the past I've had to clean up evil magic and dark energy and that sort of thing. But if I have to, I can get rid of tangible things too, like the gas that nearly killed you today."

"You can get rid of anything?" D asked incredulously.

"Of course there are limits. For example, I draw the line at living creatures. Better make that large creatures. You want me to swallow a ghost? No problem. But a cow or a zombie or something like that? No way."

"Why didn't you tell me this before?"

"What good would it have done you?"

D's brain sputtered. He could think of countless times when he would have wanted some evil magic swallowed up. "The gathering of aristocrats at my father's castle," he said. "My father had me under some kind of spell. You could have helped me then."

"I don't think so," the hand said gruffly. "That was intense, firmly grounded magic. I can tell that you don't understand what I'm talking about. But I bet over the next century or so you'll develop an instinct for when I can help you and when I can't."

D was silent for a moment. "Where did you come from, anyway?" D asked at last.

The demon face grinned. "That's a story for another day," it said, and disappeared.

D spent more than ten months as a prisoner in Germany. One day D decided he had been a prisoner long enough. He stole some civilian clothes and escaped, intending to make his way back to Ypres. Just outside the prison camp was a muddy road heading southwest. Several miles down that road D began to encounter overturned carts half-sunk in the mud, mangled human bodies, scattered supplies and broken equipment, dead horses and mules with bloated bellies and stiffened limbs, tongues hanging from their mouths. D walked past it all impassively, until he heard a plaintive sound from behind one of the broken wagons. Stopping to investigate, D discovered the one creature that had survived the attack on the convoy: a young, exhausted horse, trapped in the mud and harnessed alongside a dead mule. Judging from the state of the corpses all around, D guessed that the horse had been trapped there for two days, but it was not beyond saving. He picked up a shovel.

Two nights later he rode into a small town and got a room for himself at the only inn. He paid extra to make sure that the horse would have its fill of hay to eat. While he was there he learned of the latest events in the war: the Germans had sent a million men to attack Verdun. On February 21st, 1916, the battle began with nine hours of continuous artillery bombardment. The next day the Germans began using new weapons called flamethrowers. On February 25th the Germans captured Fort Douaumont, one of the two main fortresses, but the French weren't going to give up Verdun, despite being badly outnumbered. The land was nothing but mud everywhere, and thousands of men had been buried alive by the relentless artillery. The death toll on both sides was incredible. The most recent news was that yesterday, March 2nd, the Germans had attacked the other fort, Fort Vaux. D made up his mind: he would go to Verdun.

On March 6th, in the middle of a blizzard, D arrived at Verdun. At dawn on March 8th, D found himself in a formation, holding a rifle, walking steadily towards a patch of snowy woods filled with German machine guns. The guns opened up and men fell screaming all around. D gritted his teeth and almost lost his balance as three bullets tore through his stomach. Several steps later, the bullet wounds were completely healed. The woods were about 200 yards away. The French regiment continued forward, stepping over and around the dead and wounded. A hundred yards away from the wood, D heard the command to fix bayonets. For a few seconds he studied the sharp blade at the end of his rifle, curiously drawn to the cold gleam of the steel. Suddenly the men all around him were running forward, running into the woods. D ran too, right up to a German machine gun. The gun fired, spitting bullets at him. D rushed past the weapon and brought his bayonet to the throat of the young German gunner. The German was stunned. So was D. Now what? His heart pounded furiously. Would he kill this German, this human? Scenes from the past year flew through his mind. He remembered the trenches and the bodies and the clouds of poison gas. He remembered the gruesome deaths he'd witnessed. And slowly he drew back his weapon.

In that instant a French soldier charged up beside D and drove his bayonet through the young German's throat. The boy slumped to the ground, blood erupting from his neck and mouth as the bayonet was wrenched free. "Come on!" the Frenchman screamed savagely to D, running ahead, looking for another target. But D stood still, listening to the screams and the sound of battle all around him. He looked down at the boy at his feet, bleeding brightly onto the dull frozen ground. D turned his face to the sky and watched the indifferent snowflakes fluttering down. A vast, powerful sorrow wrapped broken wings around his heart. Someone shouted ecstatically that the Germans were retreating.

It was a victory.

Although he honestly didn't know what compelled him to stay, D remained at Verdun throughout the bloody spring and summer. He participated in almost every action, but he never once ended a human life. Instead, he worked diligently to save as many as he could. He gained a reputation for being able to sense where a live man had been buried, and rescued dozens of soldiers who would have suffocated otherwise. By the end of August, 400 thousand men had died at Verdun. Verdun was one huge morbid graveyard.

D gazed passively at that moonlit graveyard now, leaning against a ruined wall of Fort Douaumont. His eyes, once blue, were now grey and lifeless. "Hmmm… for once nobody's shooting," D's hand observed. "It's almost unnerving, isn't it? But I'm sure they'll start up again soon and put us all back at ease. Any minute now." D ignored the sarcastic comment, surveying the battlefield calmly. "D, what are we still doing here? You're not helping them win, you know. The only way anybody's going to win is when one side runs out of people. Haven't you realized that yet? I'm telling you, this is-"

"-Madness," D supplied. The hand faltered.

"Yes, madness, exactly," it said. D sighed. "All right," the demon urged. "Tell me what's going through your crazy tortured brain."

"Something Richard Rowntree said," D admitted. He closed his eyes. "…about the madness of being human. I didn't understand him then."

"But you do now?" the hand asked hopefully. "If so, that's great, because then we can finally get out of here! Lesson learned: people are crazy. Time to move on."

D opened his eyes and stared out blankly at the corpse-riddled, cratered landscape. "I think I understand the madness. But there's got to be something else, and I need to know what it is."

"Something else?" the hand repeated, sounding offended. "For God's sake, what? Friendship or love or something like that? Hope or faith or joy, something like that? Because if that's what you're looking for, I can tell you for certain that you're NOT going to find it here. This is the very doorstep of hell! Look around, D. Look at those bodies- legs, helmets, hands,"

"Wolves," D said.

"-wolves?" the hand asked, changing its tone. Two of the shaggy animals were racing over the ravaged land, heading directly for the fort. As they got closer D could see that one of them was wearing a harness with a sort of pouch attached to one side. Within minutes the wolves were circling D, growling. Then suddenly they both yelped, and stood paralyzed, their fur standing on end. Their eyes began to glow red. And then they spoke.

"Your father sends his greetings," the wolves growled in unison. "We've brought you a message. Read it." Wordlessly, D opened the pouch on the wolf's harness and removed a thin leather envelope. With another yelp, the light in the wolves' eyes went out. The animals shook themselves as if dazed, and then, with a mistrustful look at D, they turned tail and fled the way they had come.

"This ought to be interesting," D's hand grumbled. "Come on, let's see what it says." D opened the envelope and read:

Dearest Son:

I have been keeping track of you and I am surprised that you have chosen to remain involved with the war. As you have doubtlessly noticed, the war is progressing wonderfully. Unfortunately I cannot reveal my plans to you in your present state. But perhaps the ugliness of war will finally strip you of your fondness for humanity, so that you can join me as I restore the power of our race.

Anyway I must get on to matters of business. Since you turned the legal age, you are entitled to the equivalence of an 'inheritance'. Exactly half of everything that belongs to me is rightfully yours now, and for me to keep it for myself would look suspicious. In the interest of maintaining the pretense that you've assumed your proper identity, I am giving you your inheritance.

In addition to all preexisting treasure and accumulated funds, the war has been incredibly profitable for me thus far. Therefore I am turning over to you a considerable fortune, and I'm curious to see what you'll do with it. As a sign of our supposed cooperation, I will send you half of all my profits henceforth. Your fortune is waiting for you at Chantil castle.

To ensure that you retrieve your inheritance in a timely manner, I have taken the liberty of eliminating the bank accounts of the late Richard Rowntree. If you don't help them, that woman's surviving family will be evicted from their lovely home and will be living on the streets by next Wednesday.

Sincerely,

Your Father

D folded up the letter and was quiet for a moment. "That's pretty low of him, to blackmail you by threatening those poor kids again," D's hand remarked.

"It's Thursday," D said softly. "We have 6 days to find Chantil castle and get back to England." Without another word, D went and saddled his horse.

A/N: Can you tell how that chapter was supposed to be so much longer? Verdun was unbelievable. Someday I will go there. I'd like to tour lots of WWI battlefields, actually… but especially Verdun. The bayonet charge through the snowy woods really happened- it's one of my favorite WWI moments. Lt. Col. Macker led the charge- he was a real old-school Napoleonic-style badass. Sadly, Macker was machine-gunned to death only two days later… anyway the next chapter was tough to write but it had to be in there to set us up for the next fun part.