WARNING: This book is not transferable. It is for your own personal use. If it is sold, shared, or given away, it is an infringement of the copyright of this work and violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
This book is for sale to ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It contains substantial sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which may be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.
All sexually active characters in this work are 18 years of age or older.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover Photo Credit: Kateryna Govorushchenko
Cover Design: SheReads
Vampires of Prague © 2008 Elliott Mabeuse
eXcessica publishing
All rights reserved
Vampires of Prague
By Elliott Mabeuse
Chapter 1
It was a darkness that held her like a second skin—something rich and close and gently protective, like the arms of a lover, as comforting as the ocean on a summer’s night, as deeply reassuring as the breathing of trees in a warm spring breeze.
But there were lights in the darkness and they were coming closer—two yellow points of light observing her, watching. The darkness seemed to tighten around her till it was no longer comforting, until it gripped her and held her like cloth or the strands of a spider’s web. Now the lights were eyes and the eyes were approaching, gliding her with conscious malevolence.
Something was aware of her. Something was coming for her. Something had her in its thoughts and she could feel what it was thinking—thoughts of piercing the darkness and exposing her, ripping through her protection to let another darkness enter, a different darkness that was calm and comforting but was an absence of light, cold and draining, and she felt this darkness as it surrounded her, burning where it touched and drawing her breath away, and as she felt herself emptying she felt a presence. At the edge of this darkness she felt another presence, bright, aware, strong for her . . .
There was a shriek, a wail—inhumanly loud and seemingly unending.
Lydia jerked her head and awoke with a gasp as the lights from a switch house flooded in through the window and the train plunged into a tunnel. The lights shocked her, and the whistle echoed off the rock-hewn walls.
The dream faded as quickly as it had come, her fear trailing off with the last echoes of the whistle, leaving her with nothing but a deep sense of relief and an embarrassed smile at her own nervousness. She put her hand to her mouth, shocked at how deeply asleep she’d been, then looked about, afraid she’d been seen. Had she cried out?
The compartment was empty and orderly, the soft yellow lamplight reflecting on the deep gloss of the wood-paneled walls, the sprigs of violets trembling shyly in their charming vases by the door. There was nothing quite as tidy and safe as a German train, she thought, and her sense of relief deepened.
The papers she’d had in her lap had fallen to the floor, and she bent and picked them up, carefully lifting her dissertation proposal and regarding it as if it had caused the troublesome dream. She glanced again at the note on the cover.
This is your proposed thesis, Lydia?? That vampires are some kind of secret sexual desire?? (Again with the sex???) My dear, haven’t we talked enough about this?? Am I your beloved Herr Dr. Freud with his sex nonsense?? You disappoint me, Lydia!! And what will I say when your Papa asks?? We must talk!!!
She smiled. She’d intended to rile the professor and pull his beard, but not hurt his feelings. Still, she had no intention of backing down. It was time the theories of modern psychology were applied to the ancient vampire legends, and that’s what she intended to do.
The professor’s indignation had spilled onto the next page. She flipped over the cover and read on.
What we study is oral literature, Lydia. Not everything is id and ego and sex!! (Your generation worries me—) I assure you, there is more to the world than that! These legends are based on fact!!! If you’ve learned nothing else from me, I would hope you’d at least learned that!!!
Don’t be so naïve—Evil exists and it is not just inside our minds!
I have something to show you when we get to Prague that may cause you to rethink your theories. Then we will talk!!
--FH
She read the note through twice more before she managed a smile, needing the comfort of his idiosyncrasies—the mention of “your generation,” the precise penmanship and excited overuse of exclamation points—to dispel the uneasiness caused by her dream and his absence from the compartment. She’d been so looking forward to this trip together, a chance to have that discussion and show him the villages where she’d done the interviews for her proposed dissertation, but the professor had apparently missed the train in Berlin, and she’d have to meet him in Prague. She was alone in their compartment with her papers and books.
Something to show you when we get to Prague . . .
She raised her head and stared out the window at the dark wall of firs that rushed by like a black curtain, the sky beyond flecked with cold, white stars. She could see her reflection in the glass, and she tried on a more sober and thoughtful expression. She still didn’t have that studiousness and sense of purpose she’d need to impress the examining committee for her doctorate. She looked too young, too pretty, and too highly privileged, a bit spoiled—not serious and dour enough. She’d have to learn to scowl more if she were ever to get to the upper levels of academia. She could no longer rely on her femininity and attractiveness to discomfit her professors.
A village passed by, the lights appearing suddenly in the dark. The houses huddled around the brightly lit square where stood a statue of a boy with his dog. A tavern, doors tightly closed, stood at one end of the square, windows glowing orange from the fire within. She remembered this village. The statue gave it away; otherwise it could have been any of the others she’d visited conducting interviews.
These small market towns were all the same and all treated her the same way—initial mistrust and embarrassed silence, then dismissive laughter from the young men followed by teasing and cautious flirting, and finally, once they were sure she wasn’t there to make fools of them, a few people making shy contact, plucking at her sleeve or waiting for her outside—this one knows, or that one, they’d tell her, or go out to the edge of the clearing where the old widow lives. She can tell you. Women, almost always women.
And then the stories—how he flew to me in the night, put his spell on me, and left me helpless, stood in the moonlight without casting a shadow, entered the cottage through the locked door and leaned over my bed! And his touch, Fraulein! His touch and his eyes! Like fire and ice. How handsome he was and how powerful! I fainted dead away from horror, and God above only knows what evils he worked on me! And when I awoke, my nightclothes were all awry and I was uncovered in my own bed! It was horrible, Fraulein! Horrible! May God have mercy on me! Lydia could still feel the weird, visceral thrill as the women whispered their secrets to her, their stories of eyes in the dark, hands that knew no decency, lips that drained them of their essence.
Of course these women were speaking of sex! Couldn’t anyone see that? Starved for a man’s touch and longing for his lewd touch but unable to face the fact of their own desires, their subconscious minds fabricated these stories, mixed them with dreams, and vampires were born. They dreamed up the vampire as their ancestors had once dreamed up the incubus, the shadowy demon lover who came in the night to make unholy love to them in their beds as their husbands snored at their sides. As the village women nervously told their stories to her, Lydia felt almost a voyeur’s pleasure. She grew warm with excitement, she softened in empathy. It was all so obvious.
She softened now just thinking about, even though that had been long ago, back in the late spring and summer of 1935, and while the faces of the women she’d interviewed were still fresh, the names of the villages were already growing hazy in her mind. This was autumn of 1937, and the sunny woods she had bicycled through in search of information now had a darker and more menacing look, and it was not just the darkness of the night and the chill of the Sudeten autumn that accounted for this feeling of oppression.
The whole world had taken on a dark and sinister air in the last two years, but she tried not to think of that. She was leaving Berlin for now, and ahead lie Prague and her father’s comfortable home, and even though Papa had chosen to wait out these politically perilous times in the safety of his flat in Paris, old Josef, the butler, would still be there—and Eurydice the cook and Mila her maid these many years, and the professor would no doubt soon be there with his new project (and his “surprise”!). It would be good to be back home and sleep in her old childhood bed again. And whether she went back to Berlin or not, or stayed in Prague or perhaps even closed the house and joined Papa in Paris, that she could decide later.
There was a sudden knock on the compartment door, and Lydia looked up sharply. She hadn’t been paying attention, and they were nearing the border now—the contentious patch of ground known as the Sudetenland. There’d be officials to deal with and papers to be shown.
“Yes?”
“Border police, Fraulein. May we enter?”
“Of course.” She scooped up her dissertation and the books she had scattered on the seat and stacked them in a neat pile, trying to obscure the titles. She told herself she didn’t fear the Nazis, but she was well aware of the trouble they could cause.
A small, stooped man with big ears and large hands stepped into the compartment, followed by a thickset blond with short, bristly hair and the brown uniform of the Nazi SS. The uniform seemed brand new and a bit too tight, the smaller man’s suit too large.
Straight from the barnyard, Lydia thought—a black mouse and a brown pig . . .
“Officer Matasyk of Czechoslovakian customs,” the small man said by way of introduction. He gave a cursory bow of his head, but his eyes betrayed the excitement of a small man given big powers. “This is Oberscharfuehrer Dolhardt of the SS, German border security. May we see your ticket, Fraulein, and your passport?”
Lydia reached into her bag as Dolhardt’s eyes quickly glanced around the compartment, and Lydia wondered what he was looking for. Weapons? Spies?
She found her papers and handed them over, keeping her face neutral. These impositions and the roughness of the street were reaching into the university now, a fact she deeply resented. Matasyk glanced at her student identity card and then Dolhardt rudely pulled the papers from his hands and examined them closely, holding the passport up to catch the light from the fixture against the wall. He had the hard, brutish look that she always associated with members of the party, and she unconsciously pulled her jacket closed, as if his inspection might include her body.
Matasyk smiled apologetically. It seemed to be his permanent expression. “Fraulain Devineau, we understand you’re traveling with a Professor Henckele of the University of Berlin. Would you know where he is at present?”
“I’m afraid I don’t. I believe the professor missed the train in Berlin,” Lydia said. “He was supposed to meet me at the station and never did, and I haven’t seen him since I’ve been aboard.”
“Missed the train?” Matasyk asked.
Lydia shrugged. “He’s done it before. The professor is a very busy man and often distracted by his work. It’s not the first engagement he’s missed. He’ll simply take a later train, I’m sure. We’re to meet in Prague.”
“Ah,” Matasyk said, still smiling. “You’re aware he already has some things aboard the train in the baggage car, some large crates? Would you know what they contain? Did you perhaps bring them aboard?”
Lydia looked at him blankly. “No, I didn’t. He must have sent them ahead.”
“Of course. And may I ask, what is the nature of your visit to Prague?”
Both men swayed as the train passed over a switch and the lights flickered briefly, but their eyes stayed on her.
“I believe the professor intended to engage in some research there,” she said. “He probably meant to use the archives at the university or perhaps the castle and wants me to assist him. We’ve done that before. I live in Prague.”
“Yes, I know, Miss Devineau. You’re one of the merchant Devineaus, aren’t you?” He turned and spoke to Dolhardt. “A wealthy family in the retail business with a fine house on Czarda Street. Stores in Prague, Berlin, and Paris too, if I’m not mistaken. Jewish too, aren’t you, Miss? Isn’t that right?”
“Yes. I’m Jewish.”
Lydia flushed with anger and nervousness. She wasn’t ashamed of her religion, but the fact was, she hardly practiced it at all. She celebrated Christmas with her Christian friends and went to church with them more often than she went to synagogue, but strangely, the more assimilated she became, the more her Jewishness seemed to stick out. And these days it was a real political liability. The way Matasyk had said it was personal—an accusation, a threat—and in that instant as he leered at her, she had the distinct sensation that his face changed. Perhaps it was the light or caused by her nervousness, but it seemed as though his nose extended and his chin receded, his eyes becoming more ratlike and feral as he looked at her.
Lydia stared at him, transfixed. It was as if she could even see the bones moving in his face, crawling about under the skin like living things. And then she had the horrible feeling that the bones in her face were starting to move as well, as if responding to something in the smaller man’s. There was a loose feeling in her jaw, her cheeks, the bones above her eyes. She felt suddenly faint.
She said nothing, resisting a sudden urge to touch her face to make sure. Her stomach tightened, but she held her tongue. Dolhardt was staring at her while Matasyk’s greedy eyes shifted to see whether the German had properly appreciated his knowledge of local family histories.
“And what sort of research would you be conducting with the professor?” Matasyk asked with feigned politeness. His face had returned to normal.
Lydia looked at him with relief. It must have been some trick of the light. He stood there with that smile on his face, and Dolhardt was watching her very carefully as she relaxed. You’re tired, she told herself. Just tell them what they want to know and get rid of them. They’re just pests.
“I really can’t say,” she said. “I work for the professor. He’s my thesis adviser at the university, and he called me last Monday and said he had work to do in Prague and asked me to accompany him. As I said, I live there, and he’s stayed there as a guest of my family before. He’s always welcome. He told me he’d meet me on the train, the five o’clock out of Berlin, and that’s our usual arrangement. The tickets were waiting for me at the station.”
“And were his there as well?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t ask. Usually he’s waiting for me in the compartment. Gentleman, I really don’t understand all this sudden interest in a simple trip to Prague.”
“So, he might be on the train?” Dolhart asked. “Hiding somewhere, perhaps?”
“Hiding?” Lydia asked. “Why on earth would he be hiding? Perhaps he met a friend or colleague. Perhaps he’s in the club car. Or perhaps he just missed the train. What is this about? Why are you asking me all this?”
“Then you know nothing about the nature of his work in Prague or the reason for his visit?”
“No.”
It was no trick of the light. It was back—Matasyk did look like a rat again, and what was even more disconcerting was that it didn’t just seem to be Matasyk. The entire atmosphere in the car seemed to be changing, drawing in and thickening, until Lydia had the impression of sitting in a baleful cylinder of yellow light hurtling through the night with the two men, as if the train were entranced. She sank back into her seat and wondered if she perhaps had a fever. Matasyk was holding his hands like paws, rubbing his thumbs against his index fingers as he regarded her.
“He didn’t mention anything special about this trip or tell you he’d need time alone or mention the names of anyone he’d be seeing? Anything of that nature?”
While she kept her attention on the two men, Lydia was able to steal a glance at herself in the dark window. She could see no obvious changes, and whatever that sensation had been, it had passed, but she was growing uneasy. They were hovering over her like birds of prey and showing no signs of letting up.
“Perhaps if you tell me what you’re looking for, I can tell you if I know anything,” Lydia said. “Professor Henckele knows a great many people but is hardly the kind of man to keep secrets. You suspect him of being a spy? Is that it?”
Matasyk smiled but ignored her question. “Did the professor say anything about working with the police in Prague?”
“Police? Certainly not.” Lydia was alarmed. There’d been no mention of police.
Matasyk turned his eyes to the other man, but Dolhardt had twisted his head around to read the title on the top book in Lydia’s stack, Ullman’s Vampirism and Lycanthropy in Bohemia and Silesia, a classic in its field, an ancient book from 1852. He reached out a thick hand and opened the cover and let the pages slide against his thumb, stopping at a woodcut illustration of a woman being fondled by a bird-like creature. The bird’s arm was under the woman’s skirts and his beakish snout was pressed against her throat as if in a kiss. The artist hadn’t been skilled, but the woman was in a pose of unmistakable pleasure, an attitude of sexual rapture. The drawing had the enthusiastic crudeness of pornography.
Dolhardt scowled in disgust, and Lydia felt herself blush. The ancient illustration was obscene, or as obscene as they came in Ullman’s day.
“Just what is the professor’s area of interest, Fraulein?” Dolhardt looked up sharply, his finger holding the book open.
“Anthropology. Folklore. Mythology.”
“Anthropology,” he repeated. “What is that? The study of other races, isn’t it? Colored people in Africa and the like? Primitive people? And you’re his assistant?”
“That’s right. I’m earning my doctorate under him.”
He let the cover fall. “Folklore is fairy tales, no? So is mythology. You study such things at a German university?”
Lydia said nothing. She could have mentioned the Fuehrer’s great love of Wagner’s opera’s, but she said nothing. Dolhardt took out a handkerchief and wiped his hands, as if the book had been contaminated. “Why would the Prague police ask for the help of a professor of fairy tales? Can you tell me that, Fraulein?”
“I don’t know anything about the police. All I know is what I told you. He asked me to accompany him to Prague, and I was to meet him on this train. I assumed we were going to do research. We’ve gone to Prague several times in the past to do research in church archives or visit the university there. I didn’t know anything about police. I had no idea that this trip would be different.”
“Perhaps someone’s been turned into a frog?” Matasyk joked, but the other man didn’t smile.
Dolhardt stood up to his full height and tucked his handkerchief into his trouser pocket. Matasyk slunk into the background as if to make room for him. The blond was a big and powerful man, and it was obvious now who worked for whom. That feeling of being in a strange, enchanted place had not left Lydia, but now took on a definite menacing flavor.
“The situation in your country is delicate, Fraulein,” Dolhardt said. “I don’t have to tell you how the Germans in the Sudetenland have been mistreated by your government and harassed by the Czech police. It makes one wonder that a German professor would have such friendly relations with the very people who oppress his countrymen. It makes one wonder that he should be invited to confer with the very police who oppress his fellow Germans, people who are longing to join the German Reich. Doesn’t that seem odd to you too? Perhaps he tells them fairy tales? Do you think that’s possible?”
Lydia said nothing.
“Or perhaps he’s telling them something else? What do you think, Fraulein? Is the professor a man of strong political opinions? We know he’s not a party member, which is unfortunate. Might he be telling the Czechs something more than fairy stories?”
“You’d might as well tell us now,” Matasyk said. He stood up and held onto the luggage rack above Lydia’s seat, leaning over her in a show of intimidation. His suit was stained and threadbare, and she saw now that he was nothing more than some petty official who’d been thrust into a position of power by his collaboration with the Nazis, possibly a former baggage master or train conductor. He had that smallness about him, that spitefulness. “If he’s on this train, we’ll find him and he’ll be questioned. You might save us some trouble by talking to us now.”
Dolhardt sat down easily on the seat opposite Lydia and looked at Matasyk with contempt. “Wait outside,” he said. “And see that we’re not disturbed. Can you do that?”
The little man looked at him briefly, then pursed his lips, realizing he’d overstepped his bounds. He smoothed his tie and exited the compartment. Dolhardt watched him go, then crossed his beefy legs.
“I am the authority on this train, Fraulein Devineau, empowered to apply the law as I see fit, conduct searches, execute arrests, and use whatever force is necessary to serve the Reich and the interests of the German people. Do you understand?”
He let his hard gaze linger on her for a while, then his eyes slipped down to her breasts and back up to her face.
“You dress well for a student,” he said. “Your professors must enjoy having you in their classes. There aren’t many women in German universities. One woman with so many boys?”
Lydia said nothing. She lifted her head and looked out the window at the rushing darkness. Dolhardt reminded her of a sausage in his brown suit, but not in a comical way. There was something unsettling about him that went beyond his physical threat. As Matasyk had reminded her of a rat, Dolhardt had about him something worse, a hard emptiness inside she could feel. Again, there was that unsettling feeling of the space around them closing in, the light becoming palpable and enfolding.
“It’s no longer our policy to admit Jews into our universities. Someone must have pulled some strings for you, eh, Fraulein Devineau? Someone could just as easily pull them the other way if you don’t cooperate.”
“I told you I don’t know where he is.”
“I’m not talking about the professor now. I’m talking about a different kind of cooperation.”
The train clattered over a signal and the car rocked gently. Dolhardt leaned back and opened the bottom buttons on his vest.
“That book you have there—the one with the picture of the bird and the woman. What’s he doing to her, Fraulein Devineau? Do you know that one? Why don’t you tell me about it?”
Lydia sat up straight, pressing her head against the seat back. “It’s a vampire legend.”
“And what’s he doing to her, Fraulein? I’d like you to explain it to me. I want to know what a Jewess studies in our German universities in her fine clothes. Is he touching her between her legs? Is she enjoying it? What do you make of that?”
The train rocked and both their bodies rocked in concert.
“Why don’t you lift that dress up and show me where he’s touching her, Fraulein Devineau? You must have learned that in your class, I’ll bet, sitting around wasting time with your stupid fairy tales and your fingers in your cunt. Why don’t you lift your dress up and show me what you know, you whore?”
Lydia closed her eyes. Her heart was racing, and she felt the pressure of hot blood in her face. She would get up and leave the compartment, she decided. Stand up and walk into the corridor—
She heard a soft thud and opened her eyes. Dolhardt was still sitting across from her, head pressed lazily against the seat back, a smile on his lips, one hand extended. On the floor of the car, gleaming on the carpet in front of her was a small silver pistol with a white pearl handle. Dolhardt smiled.
“Well, well. A hidden weapon. Terrible, Fraulein! Terrible. How could you? Pull a gun on an officer of the Reich while he was conducting his lawful business? That was a very foolish and dangerous move, Fraulein. Now you leave me no choice but to conduct a most thorough search of your person, using force as I see fit . . .”
He stood up.
“How dare you!” Lydia shrank back, protecting herself with her hands.
“Just shut up,” Dolhardt said, leaning over her. “Or should I bring Matasyk in to assist? Maybe I should. Maybe I should have a witness who can help explain the bruises, if that’s all you get away with . . .”
He towered above her, reached down and slid his hand beneath her jacket and closed it around her breast. Lydia pushed him back and got one hand against his face but he slapped it away and knelt on the seat, pressing himself against her, holding her wrist.
“Damn you! You pig!”
His big hand closed on her breast and his ruddy face pushed against her throat and Lydia pushed at him and raised her knees defensively, but that only caused her skirt to slide down her legs and Dolhardt pushed his hand under it to touch her. She felt his hand at the top of her stockings, on the bare flesh above their tops, his filthy clawing fingers.
She tried to swing her arm at him, but she had no room now. He was lying nearly on top of her, his fingers grasping for her nipple under her bra, his other hand fumbling with his zipper. Lydia snarled with fury, her heart hammering in her chest with fear and rage, but he was big, heavy. He lay on top of her crushing her, his fingers working at the zipper of his trousers—
The train passed over a switch, and the lights flickered off, leaving the compartment bathed in the red glow of a trackside signal lamp. The whole train gave a hard, unexpected lurch as the iron wheels stumbled on the switch points and the compartment door flew open and the whistle howled, and when the lights came on again Dolhardt looked over his shoulder to see a stranger standing in the doorway, quite still, looking at him, the light glinting off a pair of dark blue spectacles.
“Who the hell are you?” Dolhardt froze, then, receiving no answer, slowly stood up, combing his hair back. Lydia sat up straight, pulling her clothes into order.
The man wore the wide-brimmed traveling hat and long, fur-collared coat of the old aristocracy, and though he wasn’t an especially big man, he seemed to exert a strange presence or pressure in the room, and Lydia had the impression he had somehow quite intentionally blown or kicked the door open.
Again, there was that feeling of light having thickened or congealed in the compartment, this time quite strong and unsettling, and this time quite clearly focused on this stranger. Matasyk crowded in behind him from the hallway looking confused and alarmed and gesturing in apology: “I told him to wait, not to go in, that you were busy, Reich’s business . . .”
“Excuse me,” the stranger said. His voice was soft and quite controlled. “I’m looking for Professor Henckele. I was told this was his compartment.”
The effect of the light was very unsettling. It seemed to be writhing around the stranger like snakes or worms, and Lydia blinked her eyes to try and dispel the illusion. She felt for a moment like she was falling toward him.
“I asked you who the hell you were,” Dolhardt demanded. He gestured toward Matasyk. “Didn’t he tell you to keep out?”
The man nodded politely. “He might have said something to that effect, yes, but it’s very important that I see the professor. I’m Dr. Szandor Arnyak.”
The type of hat he wore was no longer in fashion, and his eyes, when he lifted his face, were covered in blue-tinted spectacles. Beneath his coat he wore a rather foppish suit in the poetic Bohemian style of twenty years previously, totally passé in the new, militaristic Berlin. He carried a leather valise in one hand and a gold-headed walking stick in the other, and now the light seemed to be behaving, though Lydia still had the most extraordinary sensation as she looked at him that it was seeping around him in almost-visible tendrils, like ivy.
Dolhardt was still fuming. “And what do you want with the professor? What’s your business here?”
“I’m a former student of the professor’s, and my business is personal.”
Dolhardt looked him up and down. “I’m Oberscharfuehrer Dolhardt of the Shutzstaffel, and this is Officer Matasyk of the Czech border police. I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you for your papers.”
Arnyak moved into the compartment. Dolhardt gave ground.
“I’m a citizen of Czechoslovakia as is this young lady, I believe,” Arnyak said. “We’re in my country now. I don’t have to show you anything. I suggest you leave this woman’s compartment, my German friend, before I remember what it was I saw when the door opened.”
Dolhardt got to his feet. “Do you know who you’re talking to?”
The stranger reached into the inside pocket of his suit and produced a piece of paper. He shook it open and showed it to Dolhardt. “My good friend and patient Herr Oberguppenfuehrer Heinrichs Frankenmuller of the SS has given me this letter of safe passage and requests that his people do all they can to assist me in my travels, Oberscharfuehrer. You are one of those people, are you not? Would you care to take a moment to read it?”
The German looked at the letter, and Lydia could see the sudden fear in his eyes. The muscles in his jaw clamped tight as if he were biting back words. Then he carefully folded the paper back up and handed it to Arnyak. He turned and gave Lydia her passport, executed a clumsy little bow, then stiffly exited the compartment, carefully compressing his bulk as he slid by Arnyak to avoid touching him, his face very red. He walked out into the companionway, and without so much as a look back, turned to his left and strode away.
Arnyak put the paper back in his jacket pocket and sat down next to the little man. “And you—Matasyk, isn’t it? Josef Matasyk? You’ve been a conductor on this train for years. You’ve joined with the Nazis now?”
Lydia looked at Matasyk, then at Arnyak. The little man looked terrified, and she couldn’t understand why. He sank back into the seat as if hoping it would absorb him, and the abject fear in his eyes gave his smile a garish desperation. “I’m just doing my job, Pan Arnyak. I’m just a customs officer.”
“Why are you questioning this woman? She works for Professor Henckele, doesn’t she? Of what interest is that to you?”
Matasyk twisted in his seat as if trying to move as far from the stranger as possible. “The professor has been summoned to Prague to assist the police,” Matasyk said. “And there’s some suspicion that he may be a spy working against party interests. She may be his accomplice, or perhaps his mistress.”
Lydia listened in disbelief, not only to what was being said, but to the way Matasyk was saying it as well—as though under threat of death, the words spilling out with obsequious urgency, and she couldn’t imagine what kind of power this Szandor Arnyak must possess to evoke this level of fear. Matasyk was almost writhing in discomfort under the stranger’s gaze.
“His mistress?” Arnyak slipped his glasses back on thoughtfully and Lydia saw a brief smile cross his lips. She could tell he didn’t smile often. He looked at her conspiratorially, and for the second time that night she felt herself blush. He wasn’t a handsome man, but there was something charming about him, something knowing.
“And who’s so curious about this, Matasyk? Who cares so much about the professor?”
“SS Prague Special Operations Group, Pan Arnyak. Our orders come from Prague, from Klaus Hrana,”
“And who is he?”
“I don’t know, Pan Arnyak. That’s all I know. They call him The Shadowcaster.”
Arnyak looked at her. “The Nazis love their secret names. Who is he, Matasyk?”
“Oh, let him go,” Lydia said. “It’s hardly worth it.”
Arnyak smiled. “No. I’m curious. That is, if you don’t mind?”
Lydia shrugged. The fact was, she was rather fascinated with the hold Arnyak had on the small man, some sort of mind control.
“Answer me, Matasyk,” Arnyak said.
“I don’t know, Pan Arnyak. I just heard these words.”
Arnyak stared at him, and the little man sank even deeper into his chair and gave out a tiny squeak, as if he were being squeezed.
Arnyak brought his face close and his voice was a sibilant hiss. “Your face, Matasyk! You’ve been changing again! Shall I fix you?”
“No! No! Love of God, Pan Arnyak! No!” Matasyk writhed in the seat, his hands clawing at the leather.
Arnyak sat up and smiled benevolently at Lydia. To Matasyk he said, “Matasyk, you’re an idiot and a fool. Get out. There aren’t any spies here.”
The little man slid from his seat and almost fell to his knees, managing to get his feet under him at the last instant. He got up and quickly went to the door, where he tried to collect himself, pulling down his vest and running his fingers through his hair, then stopped as if suddenly confused or disoriented. He stepped out into passageway and stood uncertainly, the compartment door standing open behind him.
The whole episode was bizarre, and Lydia watched in fascination as Matasyk stood in the corridor, swaying with the motion of the train like a drunken man with no idea of where he was.
She looked at Arnyak, who was sitting opposite her, his legs crossed, also watching Matasyk. There was that trick of the lights again. They seemed to be gathering around the man, forming a brownish, rosy glow. The lenses of his spectacles looked unnaturally blue. She half expected his face to start moving in that disconcerting manner, but it didn’t.
She felt hatred coming off him in waves, directed at Matasyk, and finally he said, “To your left, idiot. To your left. Go down to the last car and out to the platform. Stand there and piss on your hands, you horse’s dick! You asshole, Nazi shit! Do it!”
Matasyk lurched upright as if someone had pulled a string and staggered off to his left and disappeared. Arnyak stood up and closed the compartment door and locked it and pulled the shade. He collapsed back into the seat and put his hand over his eyes.
“The entire nation’s alive with vermin,” he said. “Crawling with them. Please excuse my outburst, Fraulein, but I’m not well and I have no patience for their type.”
Chapter 2
Lydia regarded Arnyak as he leaned back and opened his coat. He took off his hat and placed it on the seat next to him, then removed his spectacles and rubbed the tiredness from his eyes. He had wild, dark hair fraught with gray and an aristocratic nose, but what struck Lydia most were his eyes—deep and arresting and capable of great warmth, but great anger and suffering too. And they had a look of suffering in them now.
He was ill. There was no doubt. But instead of making him an object of pity, his illness gave him an edge of danger, like a wounded animal.
“Thank you for what you did just then,” Lydia said. “ You saw what happened?”
“Yes. I saw.”
He sat back and looked at Lydia with that same detached indifference he’d shown to Dolhardt, considering her the way a man considers an object he’s thinking of buying, without embarrassment or regard for her feelings. Coming on top of what just happened, it was more than she could bear. The anger she’d withheld from the other men now burst forth.
“Please,” she said. “Dr. Arnyak. I wish you wouldn’t stare. If there’s something you’d like to ask me, be civil enough to come out and ask. Otherwise, direct your gaze elsewhere. I’ve had enough of being stared at tonight.”
“I’m sorry. I apologize. I didn’t mean to stare. I forgot myself. This is all something of a shock. I was really expecting to see the professor here tonight. We had an agreement. Business to conduct, quite urgent.”
“Well, I’m sorry, but I’m afraid you’re wasting your time. What I told those men is true. He really isn’t here.”
His face softened then, and he smiled. “Forgive me, Miss Devineau. I’m sorry we had to meet like this, and I won’t stay longer than necessary. It’s a matter of considerable urgency that I get to see him as soon as possible. My name is Dr. Szandor Arnyak, late of Berlin—”
“Yes, I heard your name,” she interjected. “But just who are you, Dr. Arnyak, if I may ask? Those men seemed quite impressed with your piece of paper.”
“Let’s just say I’m a former student of the professor’s and a long-time friend and associate. I have connections in high places among some of the Nazis. I’ve known that fool Matasyk for years, and the German was apparently impressed by my letter of passage. It’s signed by a rather highly place party member.”
“Then you’re a member of the party too?”
“No. I detest the Nazis and all they stand for.” He paused, watching for her reaction. “This man who wrote the letter was a patient of mine. I prescribe drugs for him.”
“Drugs?” She was familiar with the rumors about some of the Nazi leaders and their various perversions. She found the whole matter very distasteful.
“Yes,” he said. “He comes to me because I have no qualms about prescribing drugs that other doctors are more reluctant to prescribe. I give him all he wants because quite frankly I don’t care whether they kill him or not.”
The man put his spectacles back on, and Lydia looked at him. He was dangerous. Possibly mad, possibly an agent.
“Well, again, thank you for getting rid of those pests, Doctor, but really, I’m quite capable of taking care of myself from here on . . .”
“No doubt you are,” he replied. “But these petty officials can be very intrusive, and I’m quite anxious to see the professor myself—as a friend, but as I said, on a matter of some urgency.”
“Well, I’m afraid you’re out of luck, Doctor Arnyak. As I was telling those ‘gentlemen,’ the professor really did miss the train in Berlin. He’s not aboard as far as I know.”
The light in the car still had an unusual quality, as if this Szandor Arnyak had the ability to cast a gauzy pall on the very illumination from the lamps. That was nonsense, of course. The electric lights must have dimmed for some reason—it happened all the time on trains. Still, it was disconcerting, and in the softer glow, he was staring at her again in that way he had, his eyes penetrating behind the blue lenses, seeming to look inside her.
“You don’t know that for certain,” he said softly. “Perhaps he ran into an old friend or colleague and is visiting with him in another compartment? That would be like the professor.”
“Well, he was to meet me here and he’s never appeared, so that’s what I assume. It wouldn’t be the first appointment the professor’s missed.”
Arnyak picked up his hat and toyed with it thoughtfully. “I’m imposing on you. I’ll wait for him outside then. I don’t doubt your word, Miss Devineau, but I’d be most surprised if he missed the train. Some engagements are more important than others, and we’d made specific plans to meet here. I was counting on seeing him personally. I don’t suppose he mentioned me to you?”
Lydia shook her head. “No. He told me nothing.”
Arnyak seemed genuinely distressed, and Lydia felt for him. He didn't seem to be the type of man to ask a favor or importune anyone, and she felt responsible, as well as curious.
“Stay then, Mr. Arnyak. You’d might as well wait here. You were a student of his? Not recently, I take it, or I would have heard of you. And how is it you know my name?”
“I studied with him years ago,” he said. He sighed with resignation and sat back down in his seat. “Well before your time and while I still had my practice, but I stay in touch. The professor and I share common interests. I even attended his last few lectures in Berlin. I was there when you spoke too. I found your ideas quite fascinating. I’d welcome a chance to discuss them with you.”
He fixed his eyes on her in such a way that Lydia almost blushed. Szandor Arnyak wasn’t a pretty man, but he saw with more than his eyes, and he touched something private inside of her. Lydia had her share of young men at the university, but this was a man, and someone who wanted to discuss her work.
She searched for something to say, aware that she was staring now. “You live in Berlin, then?”
“No longer. It wasn’t like it was ten, twenty years ago. It was paradise then, but that’s all over now, so I’m going home to Prague. People like me are no longer welcome in Berlin. The Nazis have taken over, and it’s all finished.”
“People like you?”
He smiled politely but didn’t answer. He nodded at Lydia’s stack of books. “You’ll have to be careful with your research too. Your Dr. Freud is a Jew. His ideas aren’t popular in Germany right now, fascinating though they might be. Personally, I wish you well with your work. I know the professor thinks very highly of you.”
“He mentioned me?”
“Oh yes. We don’t communicate often, but he told me about you. His little psychoanalyst, he called you. His scientist. Applying Freud and Jung to the legends in Ullman and Von Richter? That’s very clever, a most promising approach.” He smiled at her, a wise, conspiratorial smile.
Lydia’s book and papers were like an intimate part of her and the way his eyes caressed them gave her a strange and not unpleasant little thrill. This was a man who loved books too, she could tell, and that mattered to her. He was, in fact, quite striking now that she noticed it, and despite his rather outmoded clothing and slight pallor, he gave off an unusually strong aura of male virility—a sense of danger.
“The whole field of myth and folklore is changing, as I’m sure I don’t have to tell you,” he went on. “Professor Jung is doing some fascinating work on the collective unconscious, and by studying myths common to all mankind, we are discovering truths that are like a map of how our minds secretly work, both the conscious and, more important, the dark and mysterious unconscious. In studying myth and folklore, Fraulein Devineau, people like you and the professor are blazing a trail toward the understanding of mankind’s highest hopes and deepest and darkest fears. It’s terribly important work, Fraulein, and you have my deepest admiration.”
Lydia listened to him in rapt fascination. How could she not?
“Yes, well—yes. You’re right, of course, Dr. Arnyak. I must say it’s flattering to meet someone who understands what I’m attempting to do. What sort of doctor did you say you were again? Medical?”
He was staring at her again, a slight smile on his face. “Yes, that’s right. But I keep up on such things. I don’t practice any more. I have other interests now.”
She nodded.
She was suddenly aware of their situation—a man and a woman in a private compartment of a train, hurtling through the dark and enveloping night. Because she never got to indulge in her taste for fine clothes while at the university, Lydia had dressed for this trip with particular care, choosing from the finest and most expensive style her father’s buyers could procure—fine silk blouse and cashmere jacket, fitted wool skirt, and the kind of Parisian undergarments and stockings that would have caused a scandal among her classmates. For the first time since leaving Berlin, she was aware of her clothing, and she knew he was aware of it too, just as the pig Dolhardt had been. She realized that she felt an odd attraction to this stranger.
She had no sooner realized this than the sound of the train changed, the steady clack of the iron wheels becoming louder and thunderous as the train left the spaciousness of the open fields and plunged into a forest so thick and crowded it seemed almost like they’d entered a tunnel. Arnyak reached over and pulled down the shade on the window.
“Forgive me,” he said. “These are the woods of Kastmiriz. It’s bad luck to look at the woods at night.”
Lydia looked at him and then smiled. “Only if you believe in vampires, Doctor Arnyak. Isn’t that so?”
She watched him as he sat down. “Yes, I suppose so. Only if you believe in vampires and other spooks. They live in these woods; isn’t that the legend? Just a superstition, an indulgence. It’s a habit, that’s all. The farm boys used to throw stones at lighted coach windows, though. Why take chances?”
The shade remained down as he settled back into his seat. The professor had always done the same when they passed through these woods, insisting on pulling the down the shades despite Lydia’s protests about silly superstitions. The professor had always seemed afraid—Arnyak just seemed cautious.
“Do you wear a crucifix too, Doctor Arnyak?” she teased. “Carry garlic in your pocket?”
He smiled. “Does it bother you, Miss Devineau? I can keep the shade up.”
“No, of course not.”
“It does. I’m sorry . . .”
“No, don’t be silly.”
“Well then, it shouldn’t bother you if I lower the lights. That’s the other part of the superstition. That they’re attracted to the lights. Would it bother you if I turned off the light here? We’d still have the light from the corridor. We could talk in the dark.”
Lydia looked at him. He was daring her. “By all means. And then you may lift the shade so we can see if we attract any vampires. You know, of course, that I don’t believe in them? The professor’s told you?”
“Yes. I know.”
Arnyak stood up and turned off the lights in the compartment, then raised the window shade. There was a dim glow from the corridor, but not enough to create a reflection in the window, and they could sense the dark wall of trees rushing past in a never-ending stream. The sensation of being in a tiny capsule hurtling through an infinite darkness hit Lydia with more force than she’d expected, and she almost gasped at the sensation, an almost physical feeling of flying in the pit of her stomach. She saw Szandor Arnyak remove his spectacles and sit down on the seat opposite hers, and she had to fight to overcome the urge to cover herself, as if she were suddenly naked.
“So, your basic idea is that the peasants dream of vampires because they’re sexually frustrated, is that fair to say, Miss Devineau?” he asked. “The visitors from the night are a way of sublimating the sexual desires they cannot face with their conscious minds?”
His voice was low and gentle, and said from the darkness of the car, seemed almost accusatory.
Lydia wasn’t put off. She’d defended her ideas so many times, in front of so many professors. “Yes. Basically, that’s it. So much of the symbolism is obviously sexual,” she said bravely. “The penetration, the blood, the sensation of flight and association with evil and animal desires, the association with sin and pleasure. Seen in the light of Freudian dream analysis, it’s all really quite obvious.”
“Yes. And on one level you’re absolutely right. And that’s what attracts us and fascinates us about vampires. Because, of course we all are fascinated. In Berlin, in Prague, all over we find a hunger for novels and films and stories, pretending to be vampires, indulging in outrageous escapades, even blood drinking. Even—in Berlin—there was the case of a poor boy trying to fly from a roof top and breaking both legs.”
“No!” she laughed nervously.
He laughed too. “Yes. Of course. It’s the excitement and romance. The power. But there’s something you should know, Miss, if you’re going to pursue this subject. This sort of romance, this carnality, is not really evil. It’s no more than what we might call license or wickedness, this kind of sexual adventure. It’s important we make a distinction. Wickedness is what we do when we feed our passions, when we indulge in vice—drink to excess, or engage in too much sex or sensual pleasure. Evil is something else entirely, something that causes great harm to other people because we just don’t care, because we’ve lost the ability to care, we’ve lost our ability to empathize. I think the professor has told you of this. I don’t know if you understood, Lydia.
“People don’t speak much of evil today, and when they do they confuse it with wickedness. They think they’re the same, and they’re not. They’re most definitely not the same.”