France—Spring, 1944
“The Nazis are up to no good in the Black Forest.”
I managed not to point out that the Nazis were rarely up to any good anywhere. Hence the need for the Resistance.
My superior, Claude Joubert, was not happy to be working with a woman. He was even less happy to work with a woman of Haitian descent who was rumored to be a witch. Certainly it was the twentieth century, and we should be above accusations of witchcraft, even in France, but we weren’t.
“What would you like me to do, sir?”
His already thin lips thinned even more. “There is a castle in the depths of that forest, surrounded by a moat, guarded by the SS. No one has been able to discover what they are doing. None of our agents have heard a whisper of the purpose of this place.”
“Perhaps it is merely another of the Fuehrer’s many retreats.”
“If so, then why are they bringing in Jews, priests, nuns and wolves.”
“Wolves?” I repeated.
Claude peered at me over the top of his tiny, thick glasses. “That is what you choose to question, Renée? The wolves?”
It seemed fairly obvious to me that wolves was the word that did not fit. Yes, Hitler was obsessed with them. No one knew why. Perhaps it was just because Adolph meant noble wolf. Not that he was in any way noble.
“Why would they bring wolves inside a castle?” I asked.
“That is what you must find out.”
Getting into Germany wasn’t difficult. It was getting out of Germany that was the problem. Especially with Gestapo on your heels. But that’s another story.
I took the train from Paris to a small town on the border as myself, then I disembarked and donned my usual disguise.
I was a tall, solid woman. If I dressed as a man, people believed it, especially since I’d chopped my hair to an inch of my scalp. The locks still wanted to curl—they always did—but I flattened them with a heavy, felt hat. Just as I'd flattened my more than ample breasts with several yards of cloth. The only ones who peered closer were German soldiers, and I’d learned that hauling a cartload of manure, then spreading more than a bit onto myself, would insure enough distance between us so that they didn’t guess the truth.
My great-grand-mère had been a slave, my great-grand-père had not. Subsequent ancestors had been mix and match, causing the shade of my skin to be darker than most, but lighter than many. My blue eyes and ability to speak flawless German helped. I did not look like a member of the master race, but I didn’t look like a Haitian ex-patriot either.
I had come to Paris with dreams of being an actress, then become caught up in the war and stayed because I could not live with myself if I left and did nothing. I was still an actress of sorts, but now, if I failed in convincing my audience, I died.
It took me less than a day of travel before the forest appeared on the horizon. Twice soldiers stopped me. The scent of my cart, of me, made their eyes water so badly they barely glanced at my impeccably forged papers.
I sold my horse and cart in the last village before the trees and walked the rest of the way. Whoever had provided us with this intelligence had also provided us with excellent directions to the castle. I guided off a compass and the rising moon. Before midnight that nearly round moon glinted across the surface of the aforementioned moat.
The place appeared impenetrable—made of stone that had stood for ages, surrounded by the moat, the only way in was the drawbridge. Not to mention the goose-stepping brutes on the battlements. I had no idea how I was going to slip inside and discover what they were up to. And if I managed that, how would I get back out?
First things first, I wasn’t going to be able to sneak in anywhere smelling like this. I’d seen a pond about half a mile back, and I hurried in that direction.
As I approached, a doe and her fawn lifted their long graceful necks from the water. The mother snorted at the sight, or maybe the scent, of me, pawed the ground, and the two of them ran into the woods.
“I don’t blame you, mein freund.” I set my knapsack on the bank, withdrew a fresh pair of trousers, shirt and accruements, along with lye soap. It would remove the smell and, most likely, the top layer of my skin.
I lost the soiled garments and waded into the pond, scrubbing as I went. The water was even chillier than the air. Spring in the Black Forest could not be described as balmy. But I'd bathed in colder weather, with murkier water. I counted myself lucky to have found a way to bathe at all.
I spread a thick layer of soap all over, then ducked beneath the surface to rinse. When I burst free, I gasped—not at the cold, which I'd expected, but at the sight of the man who watched me from the shadows of the trees.
I might not have seen him if he hadn’t drawn on his cigarette; the tiny orange circlet flared against the cool, blue night. He was tall, slim, and his hair sparkled like silver beneath the moon.
He flicked the cigarette. It arched up, up, up then fell at the water’s edge, hissing like a snake. “I apologize, Fräulein. I did not know you were here.”
I didn’t bother to ask how he knew I was a woman. The answer was as clear as my breasts bobbing with the breeze. I sank until my chin was level with the water.
“Why are you here?” he continued.
“Why are you?” I returned, my German as convincing as his.
I wished that he would step free of the shadows so I could see his face. He no doubt wished I’d rise from the depths of the pond so he could see a whole lot more.
“Did you come from the castle?” he asked.
I wasn’t sure how to answer. I had come from the castle. But I didn’t come from the castle. Had he seen me there? Followed me here? If he was a resident of the place he knew I was not, and a lie would mark me as suspect even more than I already was.
However, wouldn’t he have shot me already if that were the case? Probably not yet. He would want to know why I was lurking about, what I had planned, and most importantly, who had sent me.
I carried a cyanide capsule on every mission for just this reason. If I died, I died, but I would not give away the names of my comrades so they could die too. Unfortunately, the pill was in my knapsack, which sat closer to him than it did to me.
“I’d be happy to discuss that with you, but I’ve become chilled.” I lifted my chin and gave him my most haughty stare, the one I modeled after my voodoo queen grand-mère.
I wished I'd learned the spells she'd offered to teach me. I didn't believe in magic—who could live in this day and age and believe in such witchery?—but she'd had a vast knowledge of herbal cures and nature-based poisons. I felt a sudden, sharp pang for their lack. All knowledge was power, and I could use any advantage these days. I vowed to myself that if I ever got back to Haiti, I'd learn all that my grand-mère would share.
“If you would turn, so that I might dress?”
“Turn so that you might run, you mean?”
“How would I run without clothes and shoes?” More quickly than I’d run with them. I'd spent my childhood in Haiti, where shoes were a luxury and clothes were less confining than here. But he didn't know that.
“I will turn so that you may dress. However—” He drew a pistol from his coat and stepped from the shadows into the light. His eyes were a brilliant blue, and his gun was a Walther PPK—favored weapon of the Gestapo. “Run and I will shoot you.”
If he wasn’t a Nazi, he certainly acted like one.
But he kept his word, facing the trees while I put on my clothes—dark, long sleeved shirt, loose trousers, bulky jacket and boots. I kept mine and didn’t run. Yet. As any woman, I reserved the right to change my mind.
I shoved my hand into my knapsack and retrieved my capsule, tucking it into a pocket just in case. I also withdrew my knife and hid that in a sheath beneath my coat for the same reason. “You may turn.”
He'd secreted the PPK again; I wasn’t sure where. His coat—dark, non-descript like my own, but obviously of better quality—gave no hint of the location. His garments gave no hint of an occupation. Which didn’t mean anything. Or maybe it did. The Gestapo wore no uniforms. They were secret police.
“Now, share with me why you are in the woods, bathing like a wood nymph?”
“You first.”
He blinked eyes that were eerily light even in his pale face. I’d surprised him, and he didn’t seem like a man easily surprised. His lips, nice lips—much less thin than any of the rest of him—twitched. “I was not bathing like a wood nymph.”
“No, you were staring like a satyr.”
His eyebrows, heavy, thick and as fair as his hair, lifted. “I am a man. What else would I do?”
I could think of a few things men would do, but I didn’t want to give him any ideas.
“Fräulein,” he began, then stilled.
In the distance, voices lifted and lights bobbed in our direction.
“Button your shirt and get behind me.”
The PPK was in his hand again, and I hadn’t seen him reach for it. Something stirred in my belly, then settled a bit lower. Attraction to a probable Nazi? Impossible. More likely the fear that I’d have to swallow a cyanide capsule at the age of twenty-one.
“Your shirt,” he snapped.
I’d been too concerned with putting on clothes and getting my fingers around the poison; I had only fastened the garment part way. My décolleté was clearly visible. No wonder the man had called me a wood nymph.
I buttoned the shirt to my neck then pulled my coat tighter. Unfortunately those buttons had been lost long before I had found it. I wished I’d had time to bind my breasts again, but no help for it now. If whoever that was in the woods was an enemy—and here, who wasn’t?—and they found me, I was dead anyway. By their hands or my own.
The stranger's long, elegant but bony fingers enveloped my own. I wasn’t a tiny woman, but he was much taller than me. That happened so rarely, I was a little dazzled by it. He drew me behind the foliage on the far side of the pond, where we lay on our bellies and waited.
The rattle of chains at first made me think horses and carts approached. He’d been smart to hide, as the pond would be a good place to water the animals—except they had no animals. The chains were for the people.
Men, women, even children bound together at the waist—feet free to walk, hands tied. My companion tightened his fingers around mine. I hadn’t noticed he still held on, my gaze too intent on the scene before me.
The prisoners were thin, dazed, dirty—common enough in prisoners—what wasn’t common were their clothes. The men wore black pants and loose, flowing, colorful shirts, the women long, rainbow hued skirts and white peasant-style blouses with scarves covering their heads.
They passed by, gazes down, shoulders hunched. No water for them. Their guards were clearly SS, herding them toward the castle. That the man with me had hidden from them was curious to say the least. Did that mean I could trust him? Or did it just mean he wanted me to?
Silence settled over us as cool and smooth as the surface of the pond. By unspoken agreement, we waited until that silence had extended a good long while. Even when we got up, we did so as quietly as we could and when we spoke, we leaned in close and whispered.
“Who were they?” I asked.
“SS.”
I resisted the urge to curse. How could he be so infuriating and amusing at the same time?
“You know who I meant.”
The moon slanted across his face, making him appear skeletal. He was not an attractive man. So why was I so attracted?
“Gypsies,” he murmured.
I’d never seen any. I’d have to take his word for it.
“Why are they here?”
“Why are any of the people they have taken into the castle here, liebchen? More importantly, why are the wolves?”
The endearment, spoken so close to my ear, in an enticing rumble, distracted me. Then I heard the rest of the sentence and jerked back. “Who are you?”
He pressed his lips to my forehead, starling me so much that I let him.
“Edward,” he said absently.
“No.” I curled my fingers around his biceps, surprised at the rock hard muscles I found there. “Who are you?”
“The directions to the castle had to have been sent by someone. Did they not?”
“That someone was you?”
It wasn’t until his gaze met mine that I realized he’d spoken, then I’d answered, in French.
I snatched my hand from his arm as I reached for my knife. He continued to stare at me so calmly, I paused with my hand brushing the hilt. If he’d wanted to kill or capture me he could have. He’d hidden from the SS too. Despite his Aryan appearance and accent, he knew about the castle, the inhabitants.
And me.
I hadn’t been told I was meeting a contact. Didn’t mean there wasn’t one. Didn’t mean there was. Just because I’d spoken French shouldn’t mark me as a spy. He’d spoken it too.
He grabbed my chin, turned my head so that the sheen of the moon nearly blinded me. Full moons on a clear night were sometimes as bright as the sun. This moon wasn't quite full, but it was close enough.
“You look very much like a gypsy.”
I blinked.
“Except for the color of your eyes.”
“Sadly that is not something that can be changed like a shirt.” I yanked my chin free of his grasp.
“With enough misdirection, it should be all right.”
“Misdirection? All right for what?"
“Trust me,” he ordered, then he fisted his hands in the shirt he’d told me to button and yanked outward, popping every one of them all over the ground.
My eyes widened; my mouth opened, and he kissed me. More surprising than that, I kissed him back. I blame it on the moon.
I’d thought those lips luscious, and I’d been right. They tasted like sweet, sun ripened pears. Or maybe that was his tongue, which plunged within and distracted me from what I’d been about to say.
What had I been about to say?
I’d been kissed before but never like this. Edward Whoever knew what he was doing, and he made me want to know too. Oh, so many things.
How could I go from chilled to hot? From annoyed to aroused? On edge to so much edgier? How fast could I tear off his clothes? How fast could I tear off mine?
His narrow palm cupped my bare breast and I remembered—he’d already made a very good start.
His thumb, calloused by years of . . . who knew . . . rubbed over my nipple making it harder than the chilly pond had done. I wanted the heat of his mouth to soften it and my fingers, which had somehow lifted to his neck, now tangled in the thickness of his silver-gold hair, urging him downward.
Someone cleared their throat. I tried to jump back, but Edward pulled me closer, held me tighter. The scent of him wafted over me—sweet heat and the promise of oblivion. I swayed.
He cast me one quelling glance and lifted his head. He appeared completely unaffected by both me and the interruption, while my heart thundered. From the kiss, the touch, the man, the shock?
Yes.
“I will bring her back when I am finished, Sturmmann. Shoo.”
“I—uh. Sir?” The voice was young but definitely as German as the words.
Sturmmann translated to storm trooper but was a rank loosely equivalent to a private, even in the SS. Nevertheless, the sturmmann could have been a problem if Edward hadn't heard the soldier’s approach and put his newly born plan to a test.
I shouldn’t be angry about that—it was probably going to work—but I was. He’d made me yearn with the mere touch of his mouth. I’d been captivated, dazzled, seduced by the taste of his tongue, and he’d been pretending. I wanted to kick him in the shin. So I did.
My behavior fit the part. Edward's reaction did too. He slapped me so hard I fell onto the ground, cheek stinging. But it allowed me to hide my face and more importantly my eyes.
“Go away,” Edward said. “I’m busy.”
“You were with the group that just brought in the gypsies?”
Edward gave a short, sharp sigh. “If I’d been with them, I’d be with them. I was sent after this woman.”
“She’s a gypsy?”
“Did I say that? Run along.”
The boy hesitated.
“Do you know who I am?” Edward asked softly.
“Gestapo.”
I held my breath, waiting for Edward to deny it, but why would he? Even if he wasn’t, it was best that the sturmmann thought so. Everyone was afraid of the Gestapo, even the German army. And they should be. Operating as a secret police force meant they could do anything they liked to anyone. Not that the Nazis had that many rules about such things anyway. But in an army that did what it liked all over the place, the Gestapo did worse.
Footsteps retreated. When I could no longer hear the swoosh of black boots through old leaves, I lifted my face. “What happens when someone wants to see your identification?”
He shrugged, the movement causing his dark shirt to shift so that his collarbone shone stark and sharp in the flare of the moon. I wanted to lick it. I smacked myself in the forehead. Maybe it would help.
“I am sorry I slapped you, Renée.”
I hadn’t told him my name, which only reinforced my belief that he'd known all about me even before he’d found me.
He grasped my forearms and hauled me upright with more strength than someone of his build should possess. “Forgive me?”
I already had.
“I understand why you had to slap me, why you had to kiss me.”
He stilled, his large hands tightening even though I stood on my own two feet. “I don’t think you do.”
“It was an act.”
“The slap, ja. The kiss? Nein.”
I laughed. He didn’t. Instead, he shifted and something harder than his hands, than that collarbone I was so fascinated with, bumped my hip. It wasn’t a pistol.
I should have stepped back, shocked, offended, horrified. But I wasn’t, and I had no more explanation for that than he had for the kiss. Perhaps it was the danger, the constant threat of imminent torture and excruciating death that had taught me to take my pleasures where I found them. I might not have another chance.
I stepped in, pressing the part of me that still called to that part of him a whole lot closer. His blue eyes met mine, and he arched a blond eyebrow. “The child believed me. He will tell them what I wanted him to.”
I found him calling the sturmmann a child when Edward was probably only a few years older amusing, endearing. And that I thought that was almost as disturbing as my uncommon attraction, far too soon, for a man I should loathe.
I lowered my hand from his arm to his pants, cupped him, then ran my thumb over the prominent tip. His teeth ground together so loudly I feared he’d crack a molar. “The best way to turn pretend into reality is to turn pretend into reality.”
His expression had glazed over as I fondled him. If possible he grew larger, became harder. I got a little glazed myself.
“Wh-what?”
"Just kiss me, Edward. Kiss me.”
When he didn’t, I kissed him, and not just to make our fiction a fact. I wanted him in ways I’d never wanted anyone else. So I had him in ways I’d never had anyone else either. We might not get another chance.
The night was cool but we were warm and, together, we became warmer. He was hard—everywhere—muscles and sinew and bone. I traced them all with my fingertips.
He learned every inch of me with lips and tongue. He touched me with such curiosity and reverence I wondered if he’d touched anyone before. I remembered the skill of his kiss. I didn’t think virgins kissed like that. Then again, I don’t think I’d ever kissed one.
He spread his coat over a bed of leaves, then lay next to me and continued to kiss me until all I saw and knew and breathed was him. He rose above me, blotting out the silvery moon.
My breath caught as he entered me, stretching, filling, plunging. I hadn’t realized how alone, how frightened I'd felt, until I was neither of them any longer. I lifted my hand, cupped his face and he kissed my palm.
“Edward,” I whispered, the word as much of a caress as his body sliding into mine.
The sound of my voice, the wonder in it, made me come with a strength and speed that surprised me.
He cursed, pulling out, then he pulsed against my stomach. I was touched that he’d thought to do so, impressed that he’d had such control. I stroked his hair as our breathing slowed.
He pressed his mouth to my neck, then my chin, and I blinked against a sudden and unruly burn of tears. This was goodbye, and we’d only just said hello.
“We should go,” I said before he could.
He lifted his head. “Everything will be all right.”
I nearly loved him for lying to me.
A few moments later we were dressed, and he’d tied my hands with a rope he drew from his pocket. Why he had a rope in his pocket was not a question I wanted to ask or hear the answer to.
“First we must discuss the plan.”
“I'm a gypsy. Except . . . " I frowned. "Won’t the other gypsies know I’m not?”
His lips curved. “This occurred to me as well, which is why I never told the boy you were one."
He hadn't, and I should have wondered why, except I'd been wondering about the taste of his skin.
Wondering things like that could get me killed.
"If I'd had more time to plan than an instant I would have considered that they are bringing other undesirables here too," Edward continued. "You fit the description of those better.”
His ability to think on his feet was almost as impressive as his other abilities.
“I'd rather not pretend to be Jewish. They have a very short life expectancy in Germany.” One of the many reasons I'd stayed when I might still have been allowed to go. I was as intolerant of persecution as the persecutors were intolerant of far too many things.
“All over Nazi occupied Europe,” Edward agreed. “But you could easily be a French nun.”
I glanced at the area where we had just lain together. “Not that easily.”
“It’s a better tale, Renée.”
“You told the sturmmann you were going to—” I waved at that ground.
“I did.”
“But I’m a nun.”
“Not really.”
“Still, they’d think you—“ I cleared my throat. “A nun.”
“Sadly, that will only increase my caché in such a community.”
Nazis. Right. I shivered.
He drew me to him and rubbed my arms, my back. “You’re freezing.”
I wasn’t cold, but I let him believe it. I needed him to hold me for just a little while longer.
Lust flared again, surprising me. Other women had spoken of such feelings, and I hadn't believed them. Sex was something one did; it was not something one craved. Or at least I hadn't craved it.
Until I'd craved him.
“Speak French only,” Edward said as we approached the castle. “As if you don’t know German.”
I nodded. Not only would the speaking of French add to my “cover” but the not-knowing of German might entice someone to say something he wouldn’t otherwise in my hearing.
I was more nervous than I could recall being before an operation. I soothed myself with the knowledge that if worse came to worst, there was always the cyanide.
I shifted my bound hands to my pocket. It felt far too empty.
Frantic, I patted my trousers—first on one side, then on the other, even though I knew I'd put it in the right pocket and not the left.
“I had to take it, liebchen. Otherwise they would.”
“No." The threat of being trapped, imprisoned forever was almost more than I could bear.
“A nun with a cyanide capsule is no nun." He started forward again, and since I was leashed, I had little choice but to follow.
The sentries didn’t shoot us. The drawbridge lowered across the moat; the dark maw of the doorway yawned empty and wide. Thanks to the sturmmann they already knew we were coming.
I dragged my feet, hung my head, kept as far away from Edward as I could. As we entered the cool, shadowed stone interior I mumbled the rosary in French. Couldn’t hurt.
An SS guard with the insignia of a hauptsturmführer—an officer equal in rank to a captain—stood just inside. Before the man could question him, Edward’s arm shot up. “Heil, Hitler.”
The officer's arm followed suit, and he echoed the greeting.
Edward flashed his identification, which was impressive enough to have the fellow's eyes widening and his heels clicking as he gave a half bow. “Kriminalrat!”
Edward was a major? A man didn't get to that high a rank without doing things that he shouldn't.
“Your name, Hauptsturmführer?”
“Lawrence Gerhardt.” The man clicked and bowed again.
I nearly suggested a session of boot licking, but refrained.
“This is Sister Renée. She has been a thorn in the side of the Wehrmacht. I’ve heard you are doing some interesting work here. Perhaps you will have use for her.”
“Certainly, sir.” Gerhardt reached for my leash. “Thank you.”
Edward pretended not to see the proffered hand. “I’d like a tour. You can show me what you have accomplished so far.”
The officer's arm lowered. “I—uh—don’t think so, sir.”
Edward stilled. “I must not have heard you correctly, Larry.”
I had to cough to cover the laughter that bubbled to the surface first at the shortening of Lawrence, then at the expression of the hauptsturmführer over the same.
Edward cast me a disdainful glance. “We slept in the open one night, and she’s caught a cough. The French are so . . . “ His lip curled. “Weak.”
I considered kicking him again, but I had a feeling I'd be more than slapped this time and not by him. I knew the Germans found it amusing that France had surrendered so quickly after their invasion. I also knew they found the Resistance a lot more trouble than they'd ever dreamed it might be.
“Perhaps she isn’t a good candidate for this project,” Edward continued. “No matter. I can take her with me until I tire of her.”
“Or leave her here until we do.”
Edward appeared to consider this, then shrugged. “I will decide after you show me your progress.” He motioned for the officer to lead on.
The man did not move. “No one is allowed to see the project.”
“Not even me?”
“I’m surprised you’re asking, sir. You know that I can’t.”
This time when Hauptsturmführer Larry reached for my leash, Edward handed it over. What on earth could they be up to in this place?
I cast a final glance at Edward. He blew me a kiss and I nearly smiled. If anyone had seen the gesture, they'd think it torturous sarcasm. Only he and I knew it for what it was—a promise that he would not let me die here.
I hoped.
Larry and I descended a stone staircase into the dungeon. Expecting dank and dark, I blinked at the bright lights. Several white-coated Aryan types scurried about adding this to that beaker and that to this one. Holes had been cut in the walls around the main room, their openings covered with iron barred doors, behind which stood men, women and children—many of whom I recognized from the group of gypsies in the forest—as well as several wolves.
The wolves snapped and snarled at the workers, who ignored them. The people stared at me with eyes that pitied.
The hauptsturmführer dragged me toward what appeared to be an empty cell. He unlocked it, shoved me within and left. Behind me, something growled.
The cell wasn’t large, but the back end narrowed, falling away into darkness. Within that darkness there was movement, a scuffle, then a snarl.
“Let me out!” Despite my terror, I remembered Edward’s admonition to speak in French.
No one even glanced my way.
I cringed against the bars as eyes gleamed, but the figure that came out of the darkness was human.
“Bonjour, mademoiselle. I am Heinrich Abel. You need not be afraid tonight.”
What an odd thing to say.
“Need I be afraid in the morning?”
Heinrich was young—perhaps my age, or a few years older. Dark haired, dark eyed, with pale skin that made me think he’d been in here for a very long time.
“You need not be afraid in the morning either. But when the full moon rises tomorrow evening things will change.”
“What things?”
“Me.”
“I don’t understand.”
He beckoned me into the shadowy depths of our cell. “Herr Doktor is making werewolves.”
I choked. “What?”
“The Führer has requested a werewolf army.”
He spoke French. With a German accent, yes, but his French was very good. Why, then, did everything he said sound so wrong? Perhaps because everything he said was insane.
Not only was Hitler tossing all the Jews, problem Catholics and now gypsies into the camps, but I’d heard he was throwing in mental defectives. This wasn’t a camp, but it was a prison with the same set of inmates—if you left out the wolves.
“I am not crazy, mademoiselle.”
I was usually much better at concealing my thoughts. Considering my occupation, I needed to be.
“Renée.” I glanced at the white coats outside our cell. “Sister Renée.”
Heinrich’s eyebrows lifted. “Truly?”
I shrugged, which was all the answer I was going to give.
“You’ve seen these werewolves?” I asked.
“I’ve been a werewolf.”
I suppose I should be grateful they'd tossed me in a cage with a lunatic and not a wolf. Then again . . .
“I see that you don’t believe me. Why do you think there are wolves in these cells?”
“Everyone knows that Hitler is fascinated with them.”
“They have been mutating viruses, combining the traits of the wolf with virulent illnesses. The easier the infection spreads between victims the better.”
“That’s impossible.”
“It was, until they brought in the Rom.”
“Who?”
“The gypsies refer to themselves as the Rom. They are magic.”
I wasn't sure how to respond to that. He seemed to believe in magic people as firmly as he believed he was a werewolf. Anything I might say would do no good.
“There is no other explanation for my affliction," he continued. "The blood of a pure Rom, combined with the most virulent disease and the impressive traits of the wolf was injected into me two months ago. Beneath the full moon, I become a lycanthrope. Teeth, tail, fur. The only thing that does not change is my eyes. Werewolves retain their human eyes. Remember that. Remember too that when I shift, I will kill. I cannot stop myself.”
I doubted he would actually turn into a werewolf beneath the moon, but if he believed that he did and that he would kill . . .
I was probably dead.
I observed what was going on in the laboratory all night. If the scurrying minions weren’t actually making werewolves, they thought they were, and so did the prisoners. The whispers and cries of wolf, werewolf and demon in several languages whenever they were dragged from their cells and injected with whatever poison was being made told the tale.
“Why aren’t they injecting me?” As far as I could tell, I was the only one.
“I think they want to see how fast you’ll turn.”
I did a pirouette. “Fast enough?”
Heinrich’s smile was sad. “How fast you’ll turn into a werewolf once I bite you.”
“I thought you were going to kill me.”
“Once infected the dead rise as werewolves.”
This was going to be swell.
As I hadn’t had any sleep for at least two days, I dozed. Screams awoke me—several times—but the day passed in a haze. Food came. I wasn’t hungry, but I ate. One never knew when, or if, there might be another meal.
“It’s coming.” Heinrich had begun to sweat. His hands shook. Poor man.
“What’s coming?”
“The moooooon.”
The word became a howl that was echoed by the wolves. It sounded like more howls than we had wolves, but howls were funny that way.
I shuddered, whether from the howls, the chill that had crept in as soon as the sun descended, or the absence of Edward for far too long, it didn’t matter. I had to do something to save myself.
“Heinrich,” I said in my best Sister Renée voice. “You are not a wolf.”
“Not yet.” His voice had lowered to rumble.
How did he do that? He sounded more beast than human. He began to unbutton his shirt.
“What are you doing?” My Sister Renée voice was gone, and a frightened child had taken her place. Anything Heinrich did without clothes was not something I wanted him doing while we were locked in a cell together.
“If I burst through my clothes I won’t get any more.” The shirt fell to the floor. His trousers followed.
I glanced toward the laboratory. I’m not sure why. No one there had been any help so far.
Every white-coated attendant stood outside the bars of our cage staring in. Several had notepads and writing implements.
“Get me out of here!”
Not one of them responded. They were staring past me at—
I spun. Heinrich’s back had hunched in a way human backs did not. Were his teeth growing longer? Sharper? That had to be impossible, yet it wasn't.
I wagged a finger at him. “Stop that.”
He snarled and snapped at my finger. I barely got it out of way in time and only because I stumbled back. I smacked into the bars. Someone tittered.
“What is going on here?”
Edward!
Though relief made my legs wobble, I didn’t take my eyes off of Heinrich. I knew better.
"This is my prisoner and she needs to be alive for questioning."
"Hauptsturmführer Gerhardt brought her here. We did not know."
"Everyone out."
“Sir, I don’t—“ one of the white coats began.
“Mach schnell!” The sound of a pistol being cocked was followed by the frantic scramble of human departure.
Heinrich slid out of the light and into the shadows as keys rattled. The cell door opened. I was pressed against it so hard I fell into Edward’s arms.
"What happened?"
I wasn’t sure where to start. In the end, I didn’t have to.
Edward cursed. I turned, then I slammed the door an instant before the black wolf crashed into the bars. It slavered and snarled and gnawed on the iron, swiping a paw with razor sharp claws through the opening in my direction.
Edward shoved me behind him. “They put you in a cell with a rabid wolf?”
“No.”
Edward jabbed his finger at the wolf. “What do you call that?”
“A minute ago I called him Heinrich." I contemplated the great, black beast. "I suppose he’s still Heinrich.”
“Darling, what did they do to you?”
“No one's touched me.” I lifted a hand. “I swear. They wanted him to bite me. To make me like him. Hitler has ordered a werewolf army.”
The concern on Edward's face deepened. “Renée —"
“I know what I saw, what I heard. I was told to discover what they were doing here, and I did.”
"I've heard whispers that a guerrilla force, called the werewolves, is being trained to fight the Allied invasion," he said. "That must be what we've stumbled onto."
"If by guerrilla force you mean werewolf army, then yes."
“A werewolf army is insane.”
“Nazis,” I murmured. “Redundant.”
“Allow me to rephrase. A werewolf army is impossible. There was a wolf in the depths of that cell. The animal was drugged, and it woke up. Heinrich is . . . hiding.”
Heinrich wasn’t hiding. He was right there. I hadn’t seen him change, true. But I had seen him. More importantly, I’d seen his eyes. They now stared at me from the face of that wolf exactly as he’d said they would.
“Are those the eyes of a wolf?”
Edward frowned. “The virus has altered them somehow.”
He was right, but we were discussing two different viruses—rabies versus lycanthropy. They were similar in many ways but not identical. How would I make him believe?
I snatched his PPC and shot the wolf in the chest. The report of the weapon echoed so loudly the cries of the incarcerated and the yips of the real wolves stopped.
Heinrich dropped to the floor. Blood ran in a rivulet across the stone. His eyes stared; his chest did not rise and fall.
“We need to go.” Edward removed the gun from my hand.
I kept my gaze on the still, black wolf. It’s ear twitched.
Edward drew me toward the staircase as the wolf sat up.
I resisted. “Look."
Edward let out an impatient huff, but he looked. Then he blinked. "It wasn't dead."
"The wound is gone."
"No, it's merely hidden by the fur."
The bullet left the wolf's body with a splurch, arching through the air and pinging against the ground, then bouncing until it landed next to Edward's black booted toe. Blood streaked the metal and a few black hairs clung.
Heinrich lifted his lip, showed us his teeth, then resumed trying to gnaw through the bars.
“Only silver will kill them.” An ancient Gypsy addressed us from the nearest cell. “The flames that result are exquisite.”
I’d like to see that. “Are there any silver bullets here?”
The old man shook his head. “They don’t want them dead. They want them to multiply.”
“Then how do you know that silver kills them?”
“I am very old. I have seen many things, including the ruvanush. The werewolf. They are not new to this place or this time. They have been alive for always." He spread his ancient gnarled hands. "What is new is the virus. They have made it so strong it will spread like their hatred and intolerance across every land that there is. An army that cannot be killed except by silver, able to change their enemy into the same . . . “
I hadn’t thought Edward could become paler, but I was wrong.
“We have to stop them,” he said.
I wondered what had convinced him of the truth. Probably the bullet popping out of the no longer dead werewolf. But who knew?
“How?” I asked.
“Silver." His gaze met mine. "A lot of it.”
“All right." I tried to take the cell keys, but he wouldn't let them go.
"We can't release them now."
"You can't release us ever," the gypsy man said. "We're already infected."
My eyes stung. "I'm sorry."
Not only about what had happened to these people, but about what would happen when we returned.
With silver.
“Where is Hauptsturmführer Gerhardt," I asked as Edward and I hustled up the stairs. The man hadn’t seemed inclined to let Edward tour the facility yet here he was.
“Larry ate cyanide.”
I'm sure ate was a euphemism for was forced to swallow.
“How are you going to explain that?” I asked.
“I don’t have to. He’s dead.”
“But—“
“Every officer has a cyanide capsule. If Larry took his too soon, it isn’t my fault.”
Edward seemed angrier about Larry than he should be. “What did he do?”
“He was breathing. Wasn’t that enough?”
“Yes, but—“
“He wanted to share you.”
“You killed him because he wanted to share me?” I repeated.
“Yes. Well, no." He let out an impatient huff. "I'm sure you've surmised that I'm not who I seem. They think I'm Gestapo, and a Gestapo would have shared you."
I set my hand on his chest. “But you’re not Gestapo.”
"To get where I am in the ranks I’ve had to do things I—” His lips tightened. “There are many who wouldn't be able to tell the difference."
"I'm not one of them."
"If I’d let Larry live it would have been difficult to explain why I would protest sharing a captive who was on her way to Dachau anyway.”
“Dachau?” My voice trembled.
“Treblinka. Auschwitz. Where do you think prisoners go?”
“I don’t think the prisoners here are going anywhere but to the front lines. With fangs.”
“I didn’t know that at the time.”
"If you had?"
He lifted a slim shoulder. “I’d have killed him sooner.”
We reached the head of the stairs. I expected the white coats to be waiting, but the hall was empty.
Edward and I hurried to the door. Outside the moon shone brightly, turning the forest an eerie blue-green-silver and sparkling off the insignias of the dozen SS guards already marching across the drawbridge.
I stifled my gasp of recognition at the sight of the man they surrounded. I’d been shown his picture. Everyone in the resistance had. He was on the list of those we'd been ordered to kill on sight, no matter the cost. Hitler. Goering. Goebbels. Himmler. And—
“Dr. Mengele," I whispered.
Herr Doktor was the Angel of Death. The man rumored to perform horrific experiments in the camps. After what I'd seen here, I knew those rumors were fact.
Edward whispered my name, and in that single word I heard everything. He cared for me more than he should. I felt the same. But we had come to this point because of something greater than ourselves, and what we'd discovered was greater than anything discovered before. We had to do whatever was necessary to make certain we stopped this. Even die.
“Kriminalrat Mandenauer!” Mengele came forward, arms outstretched.
I hadn't known Edward’s surname until just now. Was it his true name? Did it matter? I was probably never going to see him again. Nothing that involved Josef Mengele ever ended well.
Edward accepted the embrace. I wanted to run, but where would I go?
“What brings you to the Black Forest?” Herr Doktor asked.
“I followed, then captured this prisoner. We stopped at the castle for the night.”
“How did you know we were here?”
“I observed some of your men bringing in a load of Gypsy trash.” Edward's voice, his face and bearing had become pure Nazi. “I am happy I was able to see you, sir, but we are expected elsewhere."
Mengele shook his head and took Edward’s arm. “We will dine, drink, talk. I get so little time to socialize with colleagues.”
I tried not to wince at the word colleague but I don't think I managed it. The idea of Edward, the man I'd touched, kissed and—I admit it, loved—being called a colleague, even though he wasn't, of this butcher sickened me.
“Your work is important. I wouldn’t keep you from it. This woman is a leader of the Resistance. I must take her to Berlin for questioning.”
Mengele’s sharp eyes turned to me. I refused to look away. There was nothing in this man's face that would mark him as a monster. Which made him exactly like all the monsters I'd ever met.
“Questioning is a hobby of mine.” Mengele flicked a hand toward the stairs. “Take her to a cell.”
“No,” Edward said.
Everyone stilled. Rifle barrels shifted in Edward's direction.
The doctor lifted a thin, black eyebrow. "What difference does it make who questions her, Kriminalrat?"
I sensed Edward's struggle. He couldn’t break his cover. He had to get out of here so that he could inform others of what was going on. He had to return with silver bullets. If he were suspect, he would be detained, followed, perhaps killed.
If I had to die so that Edward could live, I would. Gladly. And not just because of the mission.
Because of the man.
Edward never even glanced my way. He couldn't. I knew that. But it would have been nice to see those blue-blue eyes one last time.
Instead he threw is arm around the shoulders of the Angel of Death. “Will there be brandy?” he asked.
I don't know what Edward did, how he managed to have me taken to Berlin before any experiments were performed upon me, or any questions asked of me. I fear that he promised things he should not have. Because the monsters were released—and there were more things in the castle than werewolves.
It took me decades to find him again. By then I was a voodoo queen with more magic than most, and Edward had become the greatest werewolf hunter of all time.
There were many things we could blame on the moon, but the greatest was the love that had been born in the depths of that deep, dark forest—a love that, for me, never died.
The End
If you enjoyed this prequel to the Nightcreature Novels, there are eleven full-length novels, two novellas and one short story in this series. Please turn to the “Also By” section for a complete listing of the Nightcreature Novels.
The Nightcreature Novels begin with the RITA® award winning BLUE MOON.
Read more about Renée in MIDNIGHT MOON.
Enjoy a visit from Edward in every Nightcreature Novel.