Wolves of Dacia – Chapter Nine – The Saboteurs

[Miki Yamuri]

Chapter Nine – The Saboteurs

(Wolves of Dacia – Anthony Burns, all rights reserved)


Earlier that morning

With the wind agitating his window-casement and anxiety doing as much for his cardiovascular system, Lieutenant von Ritter got precious little sleep in spite of his exhaustion, and only of such a shallow and troubled nature that he could well have dispensed with it. It was mainly distinguished by a dream that might have embodied his subconscious dread, but did nothing whatsoever to relieve it. Rather duplicitously, it began with what seemed to be an awakening: he dreamed that he heard noises outside his chamber door, not loud but persistent, like scratching and incoherent whispering. Frightened almost but not quite to the point of panic, he drew his Luger, perfectly oblivious to the fact that it had been confiscated by the security guards. Had he realised that fact, he would probably have relaxed, or even have shot himself in the head with the phantom pistol in the hope of propelling himself into a more appealing dreamscape. As it was, however, he tentatively approached the door, grateful that his unshod feet made little noise but with the gun always trained ahead, while the noises continued. He paused at the door, gave his visitor about half a minute to get bored and leave (an arrangement that would have suited him no ends), but was disappointed in this hope, so he took a firm hold on the door handle (also forgetting that his escort had locked the real-life door), took an even firmer grip on his Luger, and wrenched the door open.
The noises ceased instantly, but whoever had caused them had, impossibly, fled the scene: all that Johann saw was a glimpse of a shadow vanishing around the curve of the spiral staircase, heading downwards. Finding himself, as it seemed, the victim of some cowardly prankster, his fear gave way to indignation, and he set off in pursuit, descending a considerable distance and passing many doors before he caught sight of his nemesis: again, no more than a fleeting shadow passing through an open doorway. He quickened his pace, and was through the doorway moments later, but already the corridor beyond was vacant. Several doors led off from it, though even the nearest of them was far enough to leave him astounded that anyone could have covered the distance so quickly. Aside from a concealed trapdoor or inter-dimensional portal, however, it did seem the only plausible route the prankster could have taken, and so Johann followed suit.
The room it led into was also uninhabited, but Johann’s frustration was immediately forestalled by bewilderment at its furnishings: like leftover props from some American science-fiction serial, or possibly a stone circle for very modernised druids, towering metal cabinets lined almost the entire wall space, their sides and faces liberally decked out with cooling vents, blinking lights, switches, dials, and glass screens illuminated with writhing, serpentine light-wave patterns. The combined sounds of their fans and motors, enlivened by the occasional pop of an exploding thermionic valve, was by no means gentle upon his eardrums, but it failed to drown out a familiar – if not welcome – sound from behind him: the whispering he had heard at his door; just as incoherent, yet too strong of tone and purpose to pass for mere air currents. He also had the sense that there was more than one lurker responsible: at least two hissing, wordless voices seemed to be engaged in ardent conversation, of which the principal note was definitely anger or resentment.
Johann swivelled back to face the door, only to find that it had vanished, leaving a black void in its place from which the whispering seemed to emanate. As he watched, its edges became hazy and unfocused, spreading along the walls and into the room. As the shadow passed over the instrument banks, the flashing lights and illuminated screens went dark, the black glass barely visible against the black metal, until he was surrounded by stark black monoliths against a backdrop of pure darkness, and the centre of the room became an island, inexorably decreasing as the shadow crept inwards. The whispering became more intense at it closed in, and though he was unsure if it was not just his terrified imagination embellishing the facts, there seemed now to be some words mixed in with the infernal gibberish: hard to distinguish, but among the most repeated of them, disturbingly, was his own name. As the context became clear, however, his fear dissolved, and the dream world along with it:

“… haven’t the time for this. Rise and shine at the double, Lieutenant. There’s work that needs … Ah, back among the living, I see,” declared the hearty, patronising, familiar voice which Johann, upon opening his eyes, saw to belong to Colonel Dragomir. “I do hope you had … Well, I can see full well you didn’t have a restful night, if the sweating and the writhing is any indication. Bad dreams, lad?”

“I don’t normally -” began Johann, with defensive embarrassment, but Dragomir forestalled him with a dismissive gesture.

“I meant no reflection upon your courage, Lieutenant. Nightmares are an occupational hazard of sleeping in this castle, alas. The nature of the experiments here … but you’ve yet to be cleared by the director, so better if I leave it at that.”

“This is a research centre, sir?” asked Johann, cautiously.

“Part of its function, certainly.”

“I see … and it’s all quite … well … above board, and all?” he asked, with every effort not to directly accuse his senior officer of treason. “All fully authorised? And my being here has all been cleared with- ?”

“You are here on my orders, Lieutenant, and since your high command has assigned you to me for as long as I require your services, you need not fear being listed as a deserter,” he declared, not unsympathetically but very firmly. “The work we do here is vital to the war effort, and that’s all it behoves you to know, for the present. Now, if you can curb your curiosity, and let us return to the issue of your services … There is a young lady in a chamber two floors down in this wing. She’s a refugee from that Romani settlement that our SS friends-”

“Were they- ?” began Johann, a familiar sense of sick dread threatening to rise up in his throat, but hastily beaten back down by the colonel:

“They escaped, thanks to some completely anonymous and untraceable whistle-blower … Lieutenant. The whole settlement was evacuated before the troopers were even on the scene. The lady downstairs, however, got herself a little lost in the mass exodus, but she’s quite safe now. I’m too busy to attend to her, so I’m afraid you must play the chamberlain. I expect she’ll want food and drink, and water for washing. See here,” he ordered, unfolding a basic, machine-printed map that covered a limited area of the castle, with a few marked locations. “ We are here, and she’s down there. There’s a small kitchen down on the next floor, here. I’ll give you a key that will unlock any interior door on this wing. That will suffice for her present needs, but will not allow access into the rest of the castle, and I’ll thank you not to try. If you find a door locked to you, you may assume that it contains nothing of any interest, or certainly nothing that you need be interested in. I trust that is clear.”

“Perfectly, sir,” replied Johann, with no reluctance (his dream and last night’s events having left him with no desire for unnecessary exploration), as he accepted possession of the map and an ancient brass key. “After I’ve attended to her, shall I- ?”

“You may keep her company, or retire here if she’d prefer her solitude. Either way, the pair of you must wait it out until the evening. That’s the great time for activity in this place, such is the nature of our work. No secrecy spared, and so forth. The pair of you would do well to get as much rest as you can. Farewell,” he declared, making for the door. “My apologies for being so abrupt. It would be a lie to say all has gone according to plan, but I am at least gratified that Brother Shandor fulfilled his orders without any trouble. I like to see good, sound self-interest triumph over superstition.”

“On which unhelpfully cryptic announcement he left, his swift, regular steps receding down the spiral staircase and into silence, while Johann pulled on his still-damp boots; tidied up his appearance as well as he could for want of a razor, mirror, comb, iron, or indeed any instruments other than his fingers; examined the colonel’s map; and within a few minutes set out to locate his unexpected charge. Though crude, the map was perfectly clear for the small area it covered, and he had no trouble in finding the room. Nonetheless, he lingered outside the door in some uncertainty, the absence of sound from within making him wonder if the inhabitant was asleep. Even though his own sleep had been interrupted, he had no wish to share the ill fortune, and so with extreme care he unlocked the door and eased it open, grateful that the hinges seemed to be well-oiled. When the gap was wide enough to afford him a proper view within, he realised that he had been over-cautious: she was not asleep, but kneeling upon the floor, her back to him, amidst a bizarre assortment of dismembered books and loose pages resembling nothing so much as a library after a visit from the Hitler Youth. Whether she was reading or praying – either seemed as likely from her attitude and silence – she was so absorbed in it that Johann remained reluctant to force his presence on her, and took only a couple of hesitant steps before pausing behind her, craning around a little in order to find out what occupied her so (and whether it was something he could politely interrupt). He caught a glimpse of ancient calligraphy on yellowed pages in her hands, before she glanced over her shoulder, their eyes met, her face froze, and before he had time to think of a suitable greeting, she had snapped her book shut and swung it around like a battle-axe. A nauseating crack in the region of his nose was immediately succeeded by an even more nauseating pain, and the taste of his own blood; and the belated cries of recognition, dismay, and apology from his attacker were not instantly of any great comfort …

************

The “small kitchen” on Dragomir’s map did not even live up to that humble description, proving to be more along the lines of a stone-walled closet in which most of the space was occupied by an old, cumbersome sink unit, and a cast-iron water heater so tall and ornately wrought that it could have passed for some massive Victorian funeral urn. There was no fuel for it, which was just as well, as the addition of heat to the cramped room would have rendered it more like a baking oven. Johann sat on the floor beside it, clutching a bloody handkerchief to his face, while Andreea filled a billycan with cold water from the single tap, vaguely wondering from where the water was being piped. Her thoughts drifted to the river in the catacombs and the coffins she had seen suspended below its surface, and she fervently hoped that the pump was at least located further upstream (while idly recalling the man in the settlement who had objected to washing his pots downstream from her laundry, and wandering what he would make of the current plumbing arrangements). At all events, it was all she had to treat the wounds she had inadvertently inflicted, and having turned off the flow she knelt down by Johann, gingerly took the handkerchief from him, steeped it in the water (which had the primary effect of dying both an even shade of light red), and carefully set to cleansing his battered face.

“It doesn’t look too bad,” she said, a shade too emphatically, as her ministrations gradually uncovered a very crooked nose and badly scraped, raw-looking skin. “Mind you, a few drops of iodine wouldn’t go amiss on those abrasions. Your colonel might at least have locked us up within reach of a first-aid kit.”

“Prob’ly din’t occur to him we’d be in the mood for beating each other round the head with books,” said Johann, with more sarcasm than ease. “Kind of mithtake anyone might’ve made.”

“What do you expect, creeping around like an assassin?” she asked with defiance, but also a slight reddening of the face. “Besides which, there must be any number of ways you could injure yourself in this old ruin without trying too hard. Those spiral stairs we’re exactly built with safety as the main concern, the doorways are low, the floors are uneven, and it’s chilly enough for a nice bout of pneumonia. A few basic medical supplies don’t seem too much to expect.”

“Must be keeping them elthware. We could try the other rooms in this wing.”

“Your map doesn’t fill me with hope. This hovel seems to be the only facility provided. I doubt our hosts get much use out of these ‘guest quarters’, and since they were only expecting you to be lodging here today, they haven’t exactly pulled out all the stops.”

“I’ll live, I darethay, with or without a nothe,” replied Johann, his strained effort at nonchalance only exacerbating Andreea’s fervour to make some amends.

“I know the colonel told us to stay put,” she said, keeping her voice very level and reasonable, “but if he knew about this-”

“Forget it, if you’re thinking of climbing out of a window and running for help. This ithn’t worth you taking a plunge into that damned gorge, or getting a thniper’s bullet in your back, like as not, even if you manage the climb.”

“Nothing so heroic, Lieutenant. I still have my pocket knife, and the clumsy old locks in this place aren’t exactly the last word in security. I’ve picked worse than them. Not for a while, I grant you, but I was dextrous enough as a kid. Even the padlocks the farmers used on their barns and chicken coops were more sophisticated than-”

“You burgled farms when you were a kid?” interrupted Johann, amazed rather than appalled, though infuriatingly naïve nonetheless.

“Sometimes I did. People will do the funniest things when they’re starving,” she replied, with an icily oppressive casualness that put even an apologetic reply out of the question. “Anyway, it won’t be any trouble for me to search further afield. I may not know the place, but I’m certain I heard some machinery on my way up from the lower levels. That might be a good place to start looking for supply rooms.”

“They’re bound not to take kindly to it, though. I don’t think a battered nose is likely to impreth those security guards.”

“You needn’t come,” she replied, with a slight resurgence of coldness, though not enough to freeze his indignation:

“Hey! I didn’t mean …” he began, recovering some voice as the emotion induced his beaten, blood-choked airways to dilate. “Look: I’m here on orders. You’re the one who should be more worried if they catch you snooping around off limits. By all accounts, you’re more or less here by accident.”

“True enough. Then you better had come along,” she declared, taking out her pocket knife and heading for the door. He opened his mouth to protest some more, but inspiration had deserted him, and with a resigned sigh he dragged himself upright and set out in her wake. She proceeded along the ground floor corridor to the tower door at the end, which proved unyielding at first, but soon capitulated after a few seconds’ application of her slender knife blade to the ponderous lock mechanism. Her pleasure at finding her old skill intact was quickly forgotten as she opened the door and caught the faint mechanical hum drifting up the stairwell.

“Maybe a generator,” she speculated, listening intently for sounds of human activity and grateful to be unsuccessful in finding any. Also taking note of Johann’s silence, she turned back and saw the poorly suppressed dread written all over his face, making a gruesomely appropriate accompaniment to his ghastly pale, blood-spattered complexion. “Look: you really don’t have to come down with me, but I think you’re worrying unduly. They know we’re not enemies, and one look at your face ought to convince anyone why we needed to-”

“It’s not that,” he interrupted, though with no sense of reassurance. “It’s that sound … I’ve heard it before. There was this dream I … Forget it,” he abruptly added, at the incredulous look she had been unable to keep in check. “It’s not important.”

“Well if you’re quite sure-” she said, with a pronounced effort at sympathy that tried and failed not to sound patronising.

“Let’s just go, shall we?” he curtly suggested, marching ahead of her down the spiral staircase, towards the faint but constant drone. Abandoning all protest, and by no means displeased at not having to undertake this exploration alone, Andreea followed and caught up with him. The door on the floor below was closed but unlocked, and opened onto a long corridor of bare stone, faintly lit by a few widely spaced electric bulbs, crudely rigged along the centre of the ceiling, their wires exposed. The still, cold air had an unpleasantly acrid smell, and there was no natural light, but the mechanical hum now sounded much closer, and the general lack of dust and cobwebs also testified that this area was regularly used. Andreea advanced cautiously, wavering between the thought of actively seeking out someone to whom they could declare their presence and intentions, or simply finding a medicine cabinet and sneaking back out without inviting any such potentially awkward encounters.
The first door they came to stood ajar, and the monotonous drone emanated from it very powerfully, lending the gloomy, echoing corridor an atmosphere akin to being in the engine room of a U-boat. That impression was by no means diminished as she glanced within the room, and was met with a scene of such technological complexity that even Dragomir’s mad alchemist of an ancestor would have considered it to be nothing less than witchcraft: LOCI’s vast, black accumulator banks clicked and whirred their way through a myriad of calculations, mechanical typewriters clattered out status reports, and the green wave patterns on the oscilloscope screens flickered hypnotically before the two trespassers, like a swarm of phantom sea-serpents in glass bowls.

“Our resistance friends must have Colonel Dragomir to thank for this,” she said, with faintly awestruck bewilderment, as she entered the room, sparing a quick glance for the small brass door plaque that bore the unhelpful acronym ‘CDEC’. “I somehow can’t picture them having looted this stuff from a local ham radio shop.”

“Resistance?” asked Johann, while looking around the machine-filled room with an air of more horror than she could well account for, and put it down to the exaggerating effects of his gruesome, bloodstained appearance that would have befitted any Shakespearean ghost. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“This is a resistance base … or at least that’s what your colonel told me,” she answered, with a chilling rush of uncertainty. “I take it he told you- ?”

“Exactly the opposite,” he interrupted, with resentment now accompanying his fear. “I made a point of asking. If word ever got out that I’d deserted, my family could expect a visit from the Gestapo, or worse still.”

“Perhaps they just want you as a hostage,” suggested Andreea, with a concerted effort to make this statement sound encouraging.

“Maybe,” he replied, as dejectedly as before, then added, thoughtfully, “Look … seeing as you’re so good with locks, how do you feel about sticking that knife of yours into the front door of this accursed place?”

“I’m warming to it … in principle,” she answered, while applying said instrument to a nearby filing cabinet, which put up very little resistance. “Not the front door, though. This knife is fine against locks, but I wouldn’t like to try it on a guard. I’d suggest we take the route out through the catacombs, only-”

“Fine by me. I’d sooner put up with a few old stiffs than-”

“You’ll end up as one, unless I can find a map to the place. I was led through there blindfold, and my name isn’t Miss Memory, so I suggest you keep watch while I sift these drawers,” she advised, while rummaging through the first stack of documents.

“Worth a try,” muttered Johann, unconvinced, but standing guard by the door nonetheless. “If you’re not too long about it, anyway.”

“That depends on our hosts. They seem to file things away on a principle of total chaos. I’ve got photographs of Egyptian tomb paintings, Greek and Roman tablets, and God knows what this one is.”

“Viking runestone, I think,” suggested Johann, glancing back into the room just long enough to take in the photostat print Andreea had taken from the cabinet. “I covered some Nordic art in my first year, but don’t ask me to translate it. Hey; do you think that’s what this machine could be for? I know I heard something about complex machines being developed to crack military codes. Maybe-”

“Maybe you should think twice before divulging any more official secrets, if you still want to avoid that call from the Gestapo? You could be right, though. A language is basically a code, and there’s piles of this stuff in here. Sadly no maps, but … I take it back,” she declared, tugging a card folder from the drawer and scattering enough photostats of hieroglyphs, Chinese bronze inscriptions, and Aztec codices to fill a museum catalogue. Upon its front was a typed label that read ‘Interior Plans’. Her small resurgence of hope suffered a rude check, however, as she opened the folder and was presented with a stack of punched data cards, each labelled for a different area of the castle, but no actual printed copies of maps.

“Punched cards?” asked Johann, glancing around as she flicked through the stack and located a card labelled ‘Sub-Basement Levels’. “What use- ?”

“You just stay alert while I figure this out,” she snapped, trying to sound purposeful but mostly sounding desperate. “The map is on this … or the instructions for drawing it, at any rate.”

“Which would be lovely, if either of us could read machine.”

“They can’t have made it all that difficult to perform such a simple task,” she replied, with an ardent effort at convincing herself. “If I can only find where it slots in-”

“You’ll probably electrocute yourself.”

“I’m not a simpleton, Lieutenant,” she defiantly replied, finding his lack of faith in her abilities – however justified – to be a potent stimulus.

“You’re not an expert with that contraption, either. God knows how long it could take to figure it out. We can’t afford-”

“Would you call this progress?” she interrupted, inserting the card into the input slot she had located on the front panel of a metal box, stationed on a desk next to a mechanical typewriter. There was a single button on the panel, marked ‘Read’, and she pushed this with an assumed air of confidence and a tight knot of apprehension in her stomach. The immediate result, though not fatal, was unpromising: a high-pitched whine filled the room, and one of the wave patterns on the oscilloscope screens went wild, thrashing about so fiercely that it barely resembled a continuous line. For several seconds the typewriter remained obstinately silent, while Johann, understandably preferring not to be in the same room as a loud, wailing alarm, abandoned his post by the door, came over, and was on the point of recommending that they make a break for it, when the wailing cut out and was replaced by an equally unmelodious percussion of clattering metal, as the typewriter burst into life. As the typescript snaked its way off the roller and into the light, Andreea’s moment of smug elation was forced to make way for uncomprehending horror. Instead of the hoped-for map, there were only a few lines of plain text, of no very encouraging nature:

ABORT … ERROR ON 3 … REROUTE … CANCEL … ANDREEA … DAUGHTER … HELP ME … US … TRAPPED … DARKNESS … SHEOL … DAUGHTER … HELY878G … ERROR ON 3 … REROUBNC73628R82G …MY ANDREEA … HELP ME … DRAGOMIR … OUR JAILER … DO NOT TRUST … MY DAUGHTER

“Must be a trick,” said Johann, in a desperate whisper. “The colonel must have preset that message. Simple enough to get the information on your family. Oldest con trick in the book.”

An oppressive hiss from Andreea silenced any further hopeful, half-baked theories, while the typescript continued emerging, its message following the same theme:

FOR MY SAKE … AND THAT OF YOUR FATHER … FOR ALL THE IMPRISONED ONES … THE KEY … THE MACHINE … TRANSMITTER … SEND SIGNAL … DAUGHTER … SEEK … WIRELESS CONTROLS … FREQUENCY 6.16 … FIND DIAL … MORSE CODE SENDER … SEND THE SIGNAL … BINARY CODE … SHORT PULSE = ZERO … LONG PULSE =1 … HURRY ANDREEA … THE SIGNAL IS 00101001110100010110110101001101 …

This threatened to go on for some time, the stream of numbers stretching beyond its second full line before Andreea cut across the monotonous rattling, in a shaking voice that nevertheless retained a note of defiance, either belying or belied by the tears running down her face:

“My mother was a healer. She had no interest in technology. If you’re her, then tell me how you learned radiotelegraphy in Sheol.”

The typewriter paused, but took up the flow after only a second’s worth of ‘consideration’:

MANY ARE HERE … AND THE MIND IS NAKED … ALL THOUGHTS ARE KNOWN … NOW ATTEND … THE FORMULA WILL NOW RESUME … 0111010101001111010010010011101 …

“No doubt it makes fascinating reading, chica,” said a voice from behind them; female, harsh, and Spanish-accented, “but some of us need to learn to mind our own business.”

Andreea felt little fear as she turned to face the speaker, and saw three figures at the doorway: Colonel Dragomir; an unshaven, haggard, and frightened-looking Oriental man in a dirty lab coat; and a dark-haired woman with a close-fitting black uniform, a stony expression, and a Mauser pistol in her hand. The plainness of this threat was even vaguely reassuring, insofar as it was a mundane and straightforward evil, as opposed to the nightmare it had distracted her from. Far more keen than her fear was Andreea’s sense of guilt at having brought this misfortune upon Johann, although as far as she could tell behind his mask of blood, he seemed tolerably resigned to this turn of events, and not remotely displeased at the premature end of their adventure.
Even the fact that the grim-looking woman and the ragged scientist were both vampires, making no attempt to conceal their deathly pallor and bestial teeth, was of limited shock value to her. The temperature in the room might have dropped a degree or two since their entry, but unlike the insidious creature that had bitten her in the catacombs, neither of these seemed inclined to flaunt demonic powers. The woman, indeed, seemed barely capable of expressing herself without resorting to brisk gestures with her gun, by which method she directed Andreea and Johann to step away from the desk and to put their hands up. The man, by contrast, was a wretched-looking bag of nerves, throwing frantic glances at the machine, the prisoners, and Dragomir, though he seemed afraid to meet the latter’s eye. This was easily done, as the colonel had eyes for nothing but the machine; his hard, emotionless gaze roving over LOCI’s panels, briefly taking in the typewriter (which seemed to have concluded its bizarre message, or given it up as a lost cause), and eventually fixing upon the oscilloscope screen in which the hyperactive wave pattern resembled only a shimmering, shapeless green blur.

“There: the interference is on circuit three,” he declared, indicating the screen. “If you’d like me to consider sending you down below for your desertion, Dr. Yamamura, then I advise you to triangulate the source of that immediately.”

“I wasn’t deserting,” protested the scientist, half-heartedly, while taking a data card from the desk drawer beneath the reader. “I had to get more valves from storage, they’ve been burning out at such a rate-”

“You could have used the intercom.”

“Too much static, sir. Could be the same interference,” he suggested, moving to the panels and flicking several switches. “Need to reroute this before I run the program … and that’s done,” he announced, turning back to the reader, whereupon he removed the card inside it, inserted the new one, and pressed the button. This time, the typewriter rattled out only a few numbers, then fell silent. Dragomir tore the paper from the machine, and read its latest output aloud:

“Bearing: two hundred and seventy-two degrees. Elevation: zero degrees. Range: thirty-six metres. That puts it …”

“Stationery supply room, just down this corridor,” said Commander Navarro, before he had time to conclude his mental arithmetic.

“Let’s go,” ordered Dragomir, rather stiffly. “Better bring those two along, Commander,” he added, jerking his head slightly in the direction of Andreea and Johann. “I had no idea they’d prove so slippery, so let’s not tempt fate.”

They filed from the room and down the passage, Dragomir striding in the lead; Andreea and Johann plodding behind, hands in the air; and Commander Navarro bringing up the rear, her pistol trained ahead; while the scientist remained with the machine, no doubt having taken the colonel’s displeasure at his having previously left it unattended to heart. Near the far end of the corridor, Dragomir turned right into a doorway, into which the prisoners followed at the curt insistence of their armed escort. As Andreea entered, her initial view was of nothing very inspiring: any medieval atmosphere this room may once have possessed had been comprehensively vandalised by the addition of several rows of prefabricated metal shelves, bearing stacks of office paper, boxes of paper clips, spare typewriter ribbons, and many more artefacts equally lacking in Renaissance spirit. Dragomir turned into the long alley between two of these shelves, briefly disappearing from sight before she drew level with him again. He now stood still, his attention focused on a figure on the other side of the room: vague, colourless, and with a hazy pattern of stonework showing through it, it might have passed for a human-high mirage, but for details such as the long, medieval gown it wore; the high, elaborate hairstyle; and the face between them. To call it a human face would have been to stretch a point, as no human face outside the realms of a doctored or ruined photograph ever appeared so blurred and shapeless. As she watched, however, it focused into a more defined, and familiar countenance, though one she had not seen for many years. The loving expression it turned upon her was rendered particularly eerie by the sense that it did not belong on that body, but had been substituted for the apparition’s original face like a cheap special effect. Nevertheless, it left Andreea feeling hollow and helpless.

“Jesus,” muttered Johann, whom she had quite forgotten though he stood practically at her ear. “Err … that wouldn’t by any chance be your mo-”

“It isn’t anyone,” interjected Dragomir, forcefully. “A projection. Spiritual rather than mechanical, I grant, but a parlour-trick nonetheless. They can take a shape for themselves from your memory, Miss Petrescu, just as they can from the memories left imprinted in the molecules of this castle, or any other such ‘haunted’ abode.”

“‘They’?” repeated Andreea, in barely more than a whisper, her tearful face focused upon the translucent figure and its plaintive, out-of-place expression.

“What ought one to call invaders that have no form in this dimension except such borrowed clothes as this?”

“Why would it- ?”

“To sabotage my research, of course, by disrupting the smooth running of my machine. There’s a lot of it going round these days,” he added, with a nasty significance that trouble Johann but was lost upon Andreea.

“I meant, why would it take on my mother’s face?” she asked, with slightly increased resolution but no decrease of tears.

“One would suppose to manipulate you, or at least to discourage you from cooperating with me. Speaking of which, you’ll now oblige me by returning my amulet. This thing may be a nuisance rather than a threat, but I would rather LOCI was running at its peak. The amulet, if you please. It may protect you against the supernatural powers of even a hardened ex-guerilla vampire such as our commander here, but I can assure you that her bullets are not undead, and unlikely to be as easily repelled.”

Do not help him, Andreea. He is no better than his ancestors who treated our people like cattle, or those who expelled you from university. His kind are happy to use us and even flatter us, until we become inconvenient. For my sake and your father’s, do not serve this gadje … this friend of fascists and mulos.

The phantom lips had not moved a millimetre, and Andreea was perfectly confident that the voice, intended for her, had only been heard by her, as she reached into her pocket, pulled out the bronze pentagram the colonel had given her, and held it out before her.

“If this ‘projection’ is for my benefit,” she said, icily, “then I’ll be the one to do any exorcising that needs doing.”

“You’ll do what the man tells you, if you don’t want-” began Navarro, but was hissed into silence by Dragomir. Andreea had the suspicion that he found her reaction to this mental torture to be an interesting scientific curiosity, and that provoking thought stoked the fire of her indignation. Slowly, out of lingering uncertainty rather than fear, she approached the apparition, her mind receptive to no external sound but only the pleading voice that seemed to transmit directly from the spirit world to her brain, now with a judgmental note, and also a trace of fear:

You would betray your own mother, child?

You would ask your own daughter to risk being shot? Thought Andreea, neither knowing nor caring whether she was heard, but attentively watching the apparition’s face for any reaction. As she came within six feet of it, the face simultaneously began to lose focus and gain emotion, distorting and blurring into a parody of a human face, like some Ancient Greek theatrical mask fixed in an expression of impotent malice. If, in this latest mutation, there was any last-ditch attempt to frighten her, it proved of no avail: her absolute certainty of its deceit hardened Andreea’s resolve, and she covered the remaining distance in two swift steps, thrusting the amulet into the heart of the apparition. The chill upon her hand was intense, but brief: in the space of a few seconds, the figure had dissolved into a mere cloud, then a wisp, then finally into nothingness. She had barely registered this fact when the colonel’s hand swiped through the now-empty air and deprived her of the pentagram.

“My compliments, but just in case you’ve any thoughts of using that for any other purpose …” said Dragomir, stowing the talisman in an inner pocket, out of sight (to Commander Navarro’s mild, but visible relief). “Not that it would help you in the slightest when you meet the director, which you certainly shall be doing, just as soon as can be arranged. I won’t say it didn’t cross my mind to recruit you to our little cause, but I think now you must agree that you’ve seen far too much for me to even contemplate letting you go. Still, chin up, girl. The secrecy of our organization has to be our main concern, but you may prove to be useful enough to survive.”