The Division of the Damned (33 page)

"Yes, ok, I understand that, but a tree?”

Michael nodded.
"Tell me, how did Jesus die?”

"He was crucified on a cross.” Heinz wordlessly nodded his concurrence.

"How do you know this? Where does it say that?”

Smith shrugged.
"In the Bible, of course.
Everybody knows that. What’s your point?”

"My point is that there are conflicting accounts for the death of Jesus. In fact, the contradictions in the Bible have kept scholars busy for generations. The Scriptures are confusing when it comes to how Jesus Christ was murdered.”

Smith shook his head
.
"That can’t be true. Jesus was crucified on Calvary,
it’s
common knowledge.” He looked to Heinz who was nodding, albeit in a very reserved manner.

"I don’t want to linger on this but basically we have the wel
l-
known scene of Jesus dying on a cross, which we all know about, and a couple of other scenarios,” Michael answered him.

Heinz beat Smith to it
.
"What other scenarios? Jesus died on the
cross,
it’s as simple as that.”

"No, it isn’t as simple as that. Peter wrote in Acts that he was killed and then hung on a tree. Paul wrote in Galatians that he was killed and hung on a tree. Was he stoned, which would have been the traditional form of execution? Did he die of a stab wound to the side? Was he strangled or hung? It really is v
ery vague, and Brother Inselman
—
”

"Yes?” Heinz answered.

"You should brush up on your Bible studies if you really want to get on in the Order.”

Heinz muttered that he would and Michael continued. "The tree is a very complex theory, though. It has been argued that it’s a case of bad translation, that it’s a metaphor and a hundred other things, but what interests us is that they mention a tree. Are you both with me so far?”

Smith was looking unconvinced but Michael forged on nevertheless
.

"Just take my word for it that a tree can be used as a religious icon. Can you accept that much?”

Dubiously, Smith answered, "Yes, but wait a minute. We’ve got to the point where a tree has been mentioned. Why is it that none of the Christian denominations use a tree instead of the cross?”

Heinz looked from one to the other as Michael answered. "How do you know it hasn’t been used? The early Christians used the sign of the fish as their secret symbol, so perhaps another, long-forgotten branch of Christianity used a tree as its symbol. The fact of the matter is that the stories that went into the New Testament were the pick of the bunch. The stories and legends were collected and the best four gospels were picked out to represent God’s word to humanity. The Council of Nicaea in 325 decided which stories would go into the New Testament and which wouldn’t. So what we think of as being the absolute word of God is actually the most sellable of a whole library of stories. So how do you know that some other Christian cult didn’t have a different symbol to characterize their belief? You don’t know, nobody does, and it is irrelevant at this time.”

"Ok, fine. Let’s continue.”

Michael composed himself and
carried on.
"The villagers planted a tree and their belief in its powers nurtured in it a latent force for good. There was no interaction between the people and the tree. They just simply believed in its power to protect them.”

Smith butted in again. "I still don’t see how they could simply take your man’s word for it that a tree would save them.”

Michael sighed, and taking off his cap to wipe his forehead, he theorized on what Smith had asked. "I suppose they were so desperate that they would turn to anything to help them.”

"Yes but a tree doesn’t grow overnight, it takes years. What kept them strong in their faith?”

"Well, Thomas was a very clever man. He knew that the villagers
weren’t too sharp on the main players in the Bible. I mentioned Paul as one of those who had referred to the tree. Paul was a very important figure in the early church. It was Paul who opened up Christianity to the Gentiles. You see, Christianity was firstly seen as a Jewish religion. Jesus and all his disciples were Jewish. Paul managed to recast Christianity as a universal religion and suddenly it boomed as it became the official religion of the Roman Empire. What we know as Christianity should really be called Paulism or Paulianity. Paul brought Christianity to the world. Thomas played up how important Paul was, making him almost as holy as Jesus himself.”

"So
?” Smith shrugged.

"The early European Christians were just as anti-Semitic as the Europeans of today. Nobody trusted the Jews then. They were foreigners in their own lands.
When the villagers heard it was Paul who had blessed the idea with the tree, Paul the man who had taken Christianity away from the Jewish monopoly, as it were, they were happy to accept Thomas of Trent’s ideas.” Michael sighed again.
"What can I say? That’s what our learned men in Marienberg say. Whatever the reason, they grew the bloody tree, ok?”

"Ok, ok, fine.”

"The tree gathered, as I said, a power about it that has no earthly explanation. But to Lilith it was all too real. The power in the tree was like a flame to a moth for Lilith. She recognised the potential of that power to bring about a reversal to the old days. If you remember, Lilith had also lived as a spirit in Inanna’s tree, the Tree of Life, before the war with the Gods. So the tree held magical connections for Lilith to her old life, to the times when she possessed her own powers.”

"So, you mean that if she were to be able to return to the tree somehow, she would regain her powers?”

"Yes and she would become stronger as the Book will have been proven to be correct. She would definitely be strong enough t
o take over for
the Dracyl. Just think about it for a minute: a five thousand year
-
old demon, intent on power, with
her own
vampire army.”

"Hitler and Stalin would look positively angelic in comparison," muttered Heinz.

"So what do we do now? The tree is there
.
I’ve seen it, and I’ve felt its power.”

"You have?
W
hen?”

"When Maria
—
I mean Lilith
—
took me into the village. That’s the tree, isn’t it, the one in the middle of the houses?”

Michael nodded solemnly. "Yes, that’s the one. The ring of houses holds a shrine for each of the names in the Book of Blood. It was the Dracyl’s attempt to curb the tree’s power. There’s a shrine devoted to you in one of the buildings, too
.
”

Smith wasn’t surprised. Nothing could surprise him after all he’d been through.

"What happened to the villagers?” Heinz asked.

"Oh, they moved on. No more harm came to them and they gradually drifted off to the towns and the cities. There was a brief uprising against the Dracyl around the time of the First World War, but it floundered and the leaders were killed. That was really when they began to leave.”

Smith sat forward in his chair.
"So what’s the plan? You’ve told me about the tree and Lilith,
and
I know about the vampires, so where do we go from here?”

"This is my plan. According to the Book of Blood, they will perform the ceremony t
o end Utu’s curse on the twenty-
second of December, the Winter Solstice. Before that date we have to gather a small force of trustworthy men to travel down and disrupt the ceremony. I figure that because the Son of Utu is on our side, and because we have enough time to train our men in the use of the sword, we have a good chance.”

"Sword?
Why don’t we just shoot them?”

"I really wish it was that easy. Bullets will wound them but only silver will kill them. I have some swords, silver ones, but not many. Their blades are hardened and just one nick and the vampire will die. I have twelve of them.”

”Just twelve?
We’re going to need an army. Don’t you remember how fast they moved? We’ll never manage it with just twelve men!”

"English, at the moment we are only three. If we could get ten men together I would be happy. Ten is the number old Czerolka said we’d need. The Brothers in my Order will not help and I know for a fact that Himmler is not going to sign over an army to me to fight his secret weapon. So that leaves just us and whoever we can find. As for the vampires' speed, well the Book of Blood states that the shadow of the tree is the great leveller. Everybody is equal in power under the limbs of the tree.”

"So if we stick to being under the tree we have a fighting chance?" Heinz asked eagerly.

"That’s the way the l
ibrarian at Marienberg sees it. Of course he could be wrong, but I doubt it.”

Heinz smiled to himself.
"Czerolka, the old goat, the only one of the Elders with any backbone.”

Smith broke the mood with a question
.
"What about the baby? What will become of him?”

"The baby is of no concern to us. It’s only mentioned briefly in the list of names. You were the catalyst for this chain of events. It all lay on whether you would sleep with Lilith. If you hadn’t, nothing would have come of it, but you did and now we have to fight for the right of our
species to live in freedom. Believe me, if the vampires ever walk the day again, it will be the end for humanity as we know it.”

"What will happen to Maria after this?”

"English, I don’t know. All I can say is that if we don’t disrupt the ceremony on the Winter Solstice, we may have a vampire plague on our hands of pre-Biblical proportions.”

Heinz stood up and walked to one of the barred windows. "Who else can we approach? If the Order won’t support us and we know that Himmler won’t, then who?
The Allies?”

"What do you think, English? If you could get a message across to England, would they help you?”

"You must be joking. What would I say?
Hello, this is Smith
here,
could you send us a couple of chaps over to help fight a plague of vampires?
”

"It was just an idea. I thought about going to my old unit but they’re in the East at the moment and I don’t know where. I don’t even know who the commanding officer is now.”

"Does that matter? I mean, you are a
g
eneral now,” Heinz suggested.

"It’s too risky. What if he gets suspicious and asks headquarters what to do? Then it’ll all be over before it’s started.”

Smith was rubbing his chin thoughtfully. He stood up and started to pace
.
"I’ve got an idea, but you’ll have to sort it out.”

"What is it?”

"I think I know where we can press-gang a couple of men for the mission,” he said, looking out to the troopers sprinting in the yard.

Chapter 40

SS-Sturmbannführer Martin Gottfried Weiß smiled as he stood up to greet Michael as he entered the room.

"Congratulations on your promotion, Herr Oberstgruppenführer,” he said, walking around his desk to shake Michael’s hand.
"When did you get it?”

Michael knew the
camp c
ommandant of Dachau personally, and although he didn’t really like him, he was a useful person to know. He had learnt a long time ago that it was better to cultivate a connection with shallow charm than destroy one with inconsequential truths.

"Ach, these things are being given away as Christmas presents now that Ivan wants to come visit.” He smiled back and clasped the commandant's hand like an old friend. "Listen, Martin, we have to talk. You have some men in the SS compound and I want them set free under my charge.”

Bemused and guarded, he asked why.

"I’m on a mission that could change the whole course of the war, under Himmler’s direct supervision.”

Weiß had been in the concentration camp system since 1933 and he knew how it operated. He had started off as a watchman and worked himself up through the ranks. He was tall, dark, very jaded and used to the demands of the upper echelons. High-ranking party officials came to him all the time demanding prisoners for a pet project, or a cut-price workforce for a 'friend’s' factory. However, they always went away empty-handed if they didn’t have the right paperwork with them, or at the least a weighty bribe.

"Have you got the right papers for their release, Michael? I can’t let prisoners go without their papers being correct,” he emphasised.

Michael considered pulling rank but he knew that, as unlikable as the man was, he was a first rate organiser. This was his second tour as
c
ommandant at Dachau,
having already served here as c
ommandant in 1942 to 1943. He’d been recalled in March to reinstate order to the bedlam that Dachau had become.