Author's Note:  THIS IS A STORY ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST.  It is, by nature,
disturbing.  I have attempted to treat the Holocaust in a sensitive and
respectful way; however, some persons may prefer not to read this story.
Due to violence, strong language, and sensitive subject matter, reader
discretion is advised.
        This story features my own original characters.  Wagner's gargoyle
nature was inspired by Disney's Gargoyles, the character "Johann Sevarius"
is intended to be a relation to a character on that show, and it was from
that show that I first learned of the Illuminati Society.  This story is set
five years before Wagner encountered the Manhattan Clan.
        "A German Requiem" was written by James Fenton.  All characters,
with the exception of Russian ace Lily Litvak, are fictional.
Unfortunately, a skinhead gang calling itself the NLR, Nazi Low Riders, is
not.  Thanks to Mer for information on Mercedes staff cars, and to Dylan
Blacquiere for taking me to the art gallery in Charlottetown, going through
the Holocaust exhibit and asking, albeit innocently, what Wagner would think
of it.
 

BLACK WINGS PASSED OVER

by Mary "Stormy" Pletsch
 
 

        How comforting it is, once or twice a year,
        To get together and forget the old times.

                                  --James Fenton, "A German Requiem"
 

AUGUST 1992    ARIZONA WAR MUSEUM
 

        Richard S. Wagner swung the museum door wide and began his nightly
shift.  The building was quiet as usual, the previous guard having been in
the process of getting into his car just as Wagner turned in the driveway.
The humanlike gargoyle had raised a hand in greeting as the man drove past,
leaving Wagner's black 1942 Mercedes staff car as the only vehicle in the
War Museum's parking lot.
        He didn't often drive that automobile around on regular business.
He had a modern vehicle which was also a black Mercedes, but considerably
less conspicuous than the WWII staff car.  However, tonight was a night for
remembrance, and besides, he worked at a war museum.  Those who knew he had
it thought that the car was a restoration piece he worked on as a hobby.
They had no idea he'd owned it for fifty-six years.  In the deserted parking
lot, there was no one to ask questions.
        Tonight the place was his, which was just the way he liked it.
Wagner took off his black leather jacket and left it in the car.  He
unfolded his wings, shutting his eyes and enjoying the sensation of
stretching them wide.  It was a luxury he could not afford in the company of
humans, and it felt so good!  Finally, when they started to ache, he relaxed
them and let his five-fingered wing hands grip the epaulettes of the black
uniform tunic he wore.  His wings hung in loose folds behind, and the golden
gauntlets on his wing hands looked like clips pinning a cape to his
epaulettes.
        First things first.  He signed in and began a once-over check of the
museum.  Medieval Conflict, The Battles of Napoleon, The Civil War, and the
Great War Gallery were secure and in order.  Wagner took a quick sweep past
The Gulf War, America's Modern Fighting Forces and the Vietnam Memorial
Hall, shrugging off the discomfort he always felt at being reminded of
Vietnam, before heading for the place where he intended to spend most of the
night...the Second World War Wing, which was the first door on the right
from the entrance hall.
        There it was.  The uniforms, maps and equipment were like old
friends to him, and it was because of them that he had applied for the job
of night watchman here at the War Museum.  He could have been a researcher
or writer if he had wanted to, but this was the job that appealed to him.
Wagner admitted that the natural gargoyle drive to protect was still strong
in him, but the true reason for his choice of profession was that here,
surrounded by memorabilia of the greatest conflict known to mankind, he felt
at home.
        He needed that feeling tonight.  For over a year now he'd been lying
low, leading an almost normal life except for the fact that he couldn't go
out and about by daylight.  Most people would have described his current
situation as boringly ordinary, but to Wagner, it was a blessed release from
the life of a special operative for the Illuminati.  In the last months, he
had rarely even thought about the Society, except to wonder when they'd
contact him with a job and ruin his comfortable new lifestyle.
        That question had been answered yesterday night.  The Illuminati
wanted to send him to some place whose name he couldn't even remember, to do
a job he'd yet to be told about, aside from the fact that it would be a
long-term undercover assignment rather than an in-and-out assassination.
Something about a civil war there.  He'd assumed it was one of the breakaway
Russian republics, whose names he'd never bothered to memorize.  In fact,
he'd rather hoped it was, since the reason he'd been off duty in Arizona was
to allow the furor in Russia to die down.  He'd spent 1991 making hits on
certain Russian politicians the Illuminati had wanted eliminated.  If it was
a breakaway republic, he'd have a brilliant excuse not to go there.
        Later tonight, he'd work on his defence.  Now, though, he wanted to
put the entire issue out of his mind.  The past was a wonderful place to
escape from the present, or the future.
        He walked down the gallery with a bit of his old fighter-pilot
swagger, his wings swinging behind him.  His eyes scanned every exhibit,
allowing the familiarity to comfort him.  Then, at the end of the hall, he
noticed that in the the week he'd had off, something new had been set up.
        HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL.
        Wagner frowned.  That was something he didn't want to look at.
Reminiscing was much more enjoyable when one employed selective memory.  He
prepared to turn and head back to the other side of the gallery when a line
on a plaque caught his eye.

        It is not your memories which haunt you.

        ~But of course it is,~ he thought, with an internal glance backward
to his days as a captain in the Luftwaffe...or as a gunman with the IRA...or
as a commando and secret traitor in Vietnam, all under the directives of the
Illuminati.  Curious, and against his better judgement, he read on.

        It is not what you have written down.
        It is what you have forgotten, what you must forget.
        What you must go on forgetting all your life.
        And with any luck oblivion should discover a ritual.
 
        Wagner noted that the lines belonged to a poem by James Fenton,
called "A German Requiem."  It was an elegy for the German Jews killed in
the Holocaust, and it was mounted on the wall beside a message introducing
the visitor to the Holocaust exhibit and a warning of the graphic nature of
some of the contents.
        What you have forgotten...
        Wagner looked down at the medal around his neck, the black Teutonic
cross which in English was called the Knight's Cross, and the devices of oak
leaves and swords which covered the loop that held it to its ribbon,
indicating subsequent awardings.  He had worn it on every mission he could,
and it had been a comfort before.  Now it felt like a weight around his
neck.  The swastika in the center of the medal gave off a dull shine.  He
smirked--it was his cross to carry.
        What you must forget...
        There was something nagging in the back of his brain, something he
struggled to repress because, while he wasn't quite sure what it was, he was
certain that it was something he did not want to think about.  He spun on
his heel and came face-to-face with a life-size image of the gateway to
Auschwitz.
        What you must go on forgetting all your life.
 

        POLAND    DECEMBER 1943
 

        He was an assassin, not a mailman.
        Wagner grumbled as he swung the steering wheel of his black Mercedes
staff car to the left to navigate a turn in the rough Polish road.  What a
job to wake up to.  He'd rather be back with the squadron, flying missions
on the Eastern Front.  He half-smiled to himself as he realized he was
likely the only person who would ever say that.  Of course, he didn't feel
the biting cold nearly as much as his human comrades, and there was still
food to be found in the woods and fields of Russia--as long as one didn't
mind eating the local wildlife raw or half-frozen.  Humans and their odd
conventions.
        He also had better odds of survival than did the human members of
the Luftwaffe.  His night vision was far superior, enabling him to spot
Russian fighters long before their pilots knew he was there.  It was only
one of the many benefits of belonging to a nocturnal species.  Another
benefit, this one uniquely gargoyle, was the automatic healing granted by a
day of stone sleep.  He blessed his nature the night he lay battered and
bleeding, pinned in the cockpit of his downed Messerschmitt, knowing that
despite the pain, his injuries were not severe enough to prevent him from
living until dawn.  Knowing that the evening after, the Russian fighter
pilot would be a marked man...or woman.  Lieutenant Lily Litvak of an
all-female fighter unit had been the first to leave him in such a condition.
        Then there was the...no, not exactly companionship.  He had never
been close to anyone in the unit.  Friendship was a luxury he could not
afford.  Surely a person who associated with the enigmatic Hauptmann Ritter
von Stein, as he called himself, would notice that his hair never needed
trimming, that any wounds he might sustain were completely healed by the
evening after, that his incisor teeth were unusually long and might even be
described as fangs.  He bathed as often as did the humans, but on missions
into the wilderness he always went alone.  How else would he explain his
clean appearance each evening, uniform pressed as if it had been freshly
ironed?  He snorted with ironic laughter.  ~Let alone explaining my stone
sleep.~
        It was hard enough convincing the others to accept his cover story:
that he suffered from a skin cancer which required him to rest, undisturbed,
all day.  He often heard the word "vampire" whispered behind his back.  He
was certain, however, that only the most superstitious humans actually
considered vampirism to be a plausible explanation.  The gargoyle wondered
what his fellow supporters of the "ubermensch," the Aryan superman, would
think if they knew that the six foot, blond-haired, blue-eyed, athletically
built Ritter von Stein (as he called himself in Russia) was not even a man
at all.
        No, it was not companionship he found at the squadron.  It was a
means of indulging his gargoyle nature, his innate urge to protect.  Russia
was many miles from his home, a castle tucked into the Bavarian mountains.
While he could travel the distance to Schloss Adler, he knew in his heart
that he could never rejoin his clan.  They would not accept him, not now
that his appearance had been altered to that of a human man.  All he
retained were his long sharp teeth and the mighty black wings that were
currently folded up beneath his uniform, and even his wings had been carved
into a new shape.  The sleek batlike pinions were now crossed by an ugly row
of skeletal joints to enable them to fold up and be concealed beneath human
clothing.  He supposed it was a small price to pay to retain not only the
ability to fly, but also the last obvious sign of his true gargoyle nature.
        In Russia he was far from home and permanently cut off from the Iron
Clan, but he had succeeded in transferring his loyalty and protectiveness to
his squadron.  He was not popular there, but even those who disliked him
were guarded by him to the best of his ability.  No matter what his face
looked like, he was still a gargoyle.
        And like any other gargoyle, he was uncomfortable being this far
away from his protectorate and those he had come to view as his charges.
The Illuminati had promised him that this job would be a short one--go to
Poland, assassinate a resistance leader in Warsaw, and return to his unit.
Now the job had come and gone and he was still in Poland, delivering the
package on the seat beside him to a doctor by the name of Johann Sevarius.
        Assassination.  His job did not sit comfortably with him.  The vivid
details of a night in England came into his mind, the time when he had shot
the human friend of a group of English gargoyles.
        ~That was self-defence,~ Wagner told himself.  ~The man knew I was a
German and had pointed his gun at me.  Even being taken prisoner would have
meant my certain death at dawn.~
        Then there was the endless string of hits he¹d performed in the name
of the Illuminati.
        ~Von Sturm is ruthless.  If I'd refused he'd have had me shot.  It's
as simple as that.  A fair exchange, one life for another.  The target dies
so I might live...~
        Could that be an excuse when there had been so many targets?  A life
for a life was one thing, but in the process of keeping his own he'd killed
many times.  Surely his soul--or what was left of it--could not begin to
balance those he'd sent to early graves.
        ~Don't be a fool.  If you'd objected they'd have simply killed you
and sent another assassin.  This is how your life must be.~
        He shook his head, brushing back the long blond bangs that fell
forward over his forehead and concealed the slight ridge the stonemason had
left when he had removed the long crest that had once curved back over the
head of Wagner the gargoyle, and split into two spirals which had sat
overtop of his hair just above the points of his ears.  He still found it
odd to be able to comb his hair from brow to neck and not hit that crest.
        Wagner began to hum under his breath, the tune of Beethoven's Fur
Elise filling the car.  He loved music and was a magician at the piano.
From the first time he'd heard the haunting melodies, all he'd wanted was to
be a musician.  Instead he was driving through the Polish evening with a
package on the passenger seat of his car and an oft-used handgun in his
pocket.
        ~They say Lucifer was once the angel of music.~  His mouth twisted
into a wry smile as he continued into the night towards the little town of
Auschwitz.
 

        The doors of the bar swung wide, and into the smoky room walked a
man who could have been the model for one of Goebbel's propaganda posters.
He was tall, well built, and held his head high with pride.  His eyes were
as blue as the Rhine; his hair the colour of wheat.  He radiated strength
and energy, and Ilonka, the barmaid, could see the heads of the serving
girls turn as the Teutonic stranger walked into the room.  Ilonka noticed
the Knight's Cross around the newcomer's neck, the ribbon of the Iron Cross
through the buttonhole of his black uniform, and a gleaming Luftwaffe medal.
No wonder this soldier was proud.
        Yet there was an unease there too, a discomfort which Ilonka picked
up as those blue eyes swept the room, noting every customer and every worker
in the bar.  The newcomer rested his arm on the bar, almost casually, but
she was certain that should anyone in the room make a wrong move, this man
would react in an instant.  The blue eyes fixed on her, their centers even
blacker than the uniform of their owner.  "I'm looking for Sevarius.  Herr
Doktor Johann Sevarius."  The head turned and Ilonka received a handsome
profile of the stranger's chiselled jaw as his eyes took in all who were
looking his way, extending his question to them.
        A young sergeant got to his feet and saluted.  "Sir, you won't find
him here in town.  He almost never leaves the camp."
        "Camp?"
        "Just outside town," the sergeant said, and gave directions as the
stranger's fist clenched and unclenched rhythmically on the bar.
 

        Half an hour later, the humanlike gargoyle walked through the camp,
his every footfall stirring up a small cloud of the fine white ash that
seemed to cover everything here.  In his right hand he carried a bag which
contained Sevarius' package.  His eyes were fixed forward, staring at
nothing, and his jaw was firmly clenched.  The brutal guards who cradled
hungry black weapons, the emaciated prisoners with their baggy tattered
clothing and haunted eyes, the stinking barracks, the clipboards holding
papers of death warrants writ large, loomed at the edges of his vision but
did not register in his mind.  There were Things Not To Be Thought About,
and this camp was first and foremost on that list.
        Every time he engaged an enemy fighter, he had to force himself not
to think of his opponent's fear and pain.  Every time he killed, he had to
bar the thought of his victim's grieving family from his mind.  Every time
he put on the black uniform, he had to deny what it stood for; he had to
pretend he did not know the cause he had been ordered to uphold.  Pretending
was considerably harder when one was walking through the very heart of
darkness.
        On the right, a crowd of soldiers were clustered around a tiny hole
at the bottom of the barbed-wire fence.  One of them, a corporal, bent over
to examine the fence over the hole.  "Escape," he hissed through clenched
teeth.
        "No, Heini.  The hole is too small for a man."
        "But for a Jew-rat?  Never underestimate what they will do..."
        "Send out search teams," barked their sergeant.  "And take the dogs.
If anyone did get out that way, we will find them."  His lips split into a
cold smile.  "If possible, bring them back alive.  We can make an example
out of them.  Or perhaps the good doctor is in need of some new test
subjects..."
        To Wagner, the words were unearthly, unreal, like something in a
dream.  They had no meaning.  They had no bearing on the world, not on his
world.  He moved on.
        He finally reached the hut he was looking for and rapped on the
door.  The door was opened a crack and the head of middle-aged man with trim
brown hair thrust out of it.  His eyes could only be described as reptilian.
He wore a lab coat which had once been white, but was now stained by all
manner of fluids, some of which were blood.  The freshest stains were human
blood, by the smell of them.  Wagner attempted to drive the scent from his
sensitive gargoyle nostrils.  "How may I help you, Hauptmann?" the man
asked.
        "I'm looking for Doctor Johann Sevarius."
        "Speaking."  The man smiled coldly.  Wagner heard rustling within
the room, and rolled up on the balls of his human feet--a pose natural for
gargoyles--attempting to see into the hut.  Sevarius deliberately maneuvered
to bar his way. "Are you part of the camp staff?"
        "No.  I¹ve been sent to deliver a package."
        "My experiments are highly classified," Sevarius informed him, and
Wagner detected no boasting in the statement.
        ~He's not saying that to build himself up.  He's hiding something
from me.~  Wagner frowned down at the doctor, who was several inches shorter
than him.  Nevertheless, the gargoyle drew himself up to his full height and
settled his most arrogant air around his body like a cloak.  "Believe me, I
have clearance."  He glared down at Sevarius, and reached for the signed
Fuhrer Order he carried in his left pocket.
        Mephistopheles von Sturm, head of the Illuminati, had procured the
Fuhrer Order for him.  The Nazi leaders believed that collaborating
 with the Illuminati had more than paid off.  Wagner knew that the
Illuminati had given Hitler much of the backing that had helped him gain
power.  He could not yet advertise that fact; von Sturm was adamant that the
Illuminati remain the "silent partners" of the National Socialist Workers'
Party, and enforced the regulation by permanently silencing any opponents.
Or rather, by having individuals like Wagner do the silencing.  That,
however, was another matter; what mattered now was that Wagner held an
order, signed by Hitler, authorizing him to action independent of any
superior officers save Hitler himself.  No one needed to know that the
orders he followed came not from Adolf Hitler but from Mephistopheles von
Sturm.
        It was a distasteful necessity, but it often had benefits as well as
drawbacks.  It had enabled him to get around the customary military medicals
and hide his gargoyle nature; conversely, the Illuminati forced him to use
it to gain permission to go on missions away from the squadron, usually
assassinations.  Now, though, he was about to put one more mark in the
Œbenefit' category by using the Fuhrer Order for the simple pleasure of
putting the doctor in his place.
        "It's rather foolish to believe anyone in a place like this," the
doctor said, eyeing Wagner up and down in a manner which made him most
uncomfortable.  For a brief irrational moment, he wondered if Sevarius had
guessed that he was not human.
        "Believe this."  Wagner held out the Fuhrer Order.  "This bag
contains a package for you."  He glanced furtively around.  There was not a
prisoner in sight; they seemed to avoid this area.  There were, however, a
handful of guards watching the doctor and the strange officer for the simple
lack of anything better to observe.  "It would not be wise to do so in plain
view."  The Illuminati were sticklers for secrecy.
        "Very well."  The doctor leaned back into the room.  "Ludwig!  Olga!
Clean up in there immediately!"  The sounds of scuffling came from the
chamber as Wagner impatiently tapped his hands on the outer wall of the hut.
Finally Sevarius stepped back and allowed Wagner to enter.
        The first thing the gargoyle did was sniff the inside of the room,
and what met his nostrils was profoundly disturbing, even more so than the
stained gurney in the center of the room, the filthy scalpels, the odd
liquids that sat in bottles on the counters and occasionally in puddles on
the floor.  Wagner could smell chemicals, and under their harshness were the
pungent aromas of blood and sweat, as well as other smells which were more
similar to those of beasts.  Worst of all, worse even then the sickly sweet
odour of death, was the scent of fear.  The room positively reeked of it.
In front of the closed door at the back of the room, Sevarius' two
assistants glared at him with their arms folded in front of them.
        "Let's have it, then," the doctor demanded.
        Wagner stepped a few paces forward, trying to disguise his
discomfort, and as he paused, his hearing picked up a low moan coming from
behind the closed door.  The gargoyle ignored the doctor's insubordination
and handed over the bag.
        As Sevarius slit the paper wrapping of the package with a scalpel,
Wagner asked him, "So, your job is to provide medical care for the guards
and prisoners?"
        "The guards prefer to go to the doctor in town," Sevarius said with
a low chuckle, opening the box.  A cruel smile slit his lips as he removed
several bottles of liquid from the package.
        Wagner's eyes swept the piles of apparatus at the side of the room.
"You seem to be underequipped."  His hand reached out to a pair of electric
cables sitting on a nearby table.  "These could probably be put to better
use at the motor pool."
        "Leave them."  The doctor's eyes blazed into his.  "You are meddling
with things you know nothing about."  His eyes travelled along the
dark-clothed officer¹s frame once again.
        Wagner's mind ran a quick feasibility study, soon coming to the
conclusion that drawing his Walther and shooting the doctor and his
assistants on the spot was a rash and unadvisable course of action.  More
was the pity.
        Johann was bowing his head over a letter enclosed in the package
with the vials, smiling and nodding.  "Very good."  He turned to Ludwig and
Olga.  "We have instructions to proceed with our latest experiments.  There
are people who are very interested in the results."  The gargoyle shifted
his stance to get a little closer to Sevarius, and for a few moments he was
able to glance at the words typewritten on the paper.  He caught a glimpse
of the words "mind control" and "maximum human endurance levels" before the
doctor folded the letter back up.
        Olga and Ludwig both had cold smiles on their faces.  "What about
the genetic mutation experiments?" Ludwig asked, directing the question to
Sevarius but staring at Wagner the whole time, grinning cruelly.  ~You can't
stop us,~ he seemed to be saying.
        "Test subject Gliedschirm, Breva is still experiencing cerebral
bleeding," Olga reported, giving him the same mocking smile.  ~You see what
we¹re doing here, but what are you going to do about it?  Officer.  Young
arrogant Luftwaffe officer, what can you do?~
        Sevarius looked back over his shoulder.  "Is that all, Hauptmann?"
        "Yes," Wagner found himself saying, and turning around stiffly.
"I'll be going now."  His voice was mechanical.
        Johann Sevarius chuckled.  "I rather expected you might"
 

        In the business of war, Wagner had seen many unpleasant sights which
had sent other men into nausea, shock or worse.  Those experiences were
enough to tear the mind, human or gargoyle, apart.  Living through them
relied on discipline and complete focus on the task at hand.  Living after
them was most easily done by shelving the nightmare memories in some lost
corner of the mind, to be forgotten shortly afterward.  By the time he'd
walked across the compound, Wagner had almost managed to wipe the experience
in the doctor's hut from his mind.  Soon, he knew, he would eliminate his
entire visit to Auschwitz.  The sight of his car was like a beacon from
heaven.  He felt the same way he did when he was approaching his home
airfield in the hour before dawn, out of ammunition in a damaged aircraft.
        Wagner leaned hard against the side of the Mercedes for a moment,
collecting himself and searching for the energy he would need to re-fix the
emotionless mask on his face just long enough to drive out of Auschwitz once
and for all.  He bowed his head, closing his eyes and drawing in a few
ragged breaths.  The faces of the prisoners danced through his thoughts,
glaring at him accusingly in the instants before they vanished from sight.
They were the residue of the thoughts he had all but suppressed.
        His ears pricked and he realized that other officers were in the
area, any one of whom could come across him in this most ignoble position
and ask some very awkward questions about his acceptance of the great and
glorious cause.  ~Erase memories later.  Act now.~  He steeled himself and
opened the door of his car.
        Approaching the gate, Wagner resisted a sudden irrational impulse to
step on the gas and crash through it, holding the pedal to the floor until
he was as far away as possible.  Instead he braked to a halt with the same
iron discipline that had held him together through mission after mission for
the Bavarian Illuminati.  He locked his body and mind in position as he
waited for the time when he could pass through.
        The guard was in a morbidly good humour.  Wagner showed his pass and
was given a wave to proceed, but as he lifted his foot off the brake he
noticed a long line of huddling prisoners--mostly old people and
children--coming out of a shed and progressing towards a building labelled
BATH HOUSE.  They clutched bars of soap and looked around in stunned
confusion.  Some of the children were crying for parents who were not there
to respond.  The elders quietly took the children in their arms and held
them as the straggling line relentlessly progressed towards the bath house.
        The guard followed his gaze and laughed, showing all his teeth.
"Ah, the delousification of the Reich."
        Wagner's mouth twitched and his discipline faltered just enough for
him to press on the gas pedal a little harder than normal.  The black
Mercedes jerked forward, sprinting from the mouth of hell.
 

        He kept his face cold and impassive as he drove down the road that
led away from the town of Auschwitz, towards the highway that would take him
towards Leningrad.  The moon was rising overhead, a detached witness to the
events of the night.  Wagner pressed down a little harder on the gas,
watching the trees whip by.  The car's interior was a little self-contained
unit, isolated from the world outside, holding him safe as he travelled into
the darkness, back to Russia, back to his squadron, away from this place...
Away.  He could feel the camp's aura looming larger and larger behind him,
threatening to swallow him up.  A cry tore from his throat as he realized
that no matter how fast or how far he drove, he would always carry Auschwitz
around with him, in his mind, in his heart...
        What had Faust told him?  "Certain sacrifices must be made for the
advancement of the Illuminati and the general good."  In other words, one
could not make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.  It was a comfort
every time he'd been sent on an assassination.  Surely one life was a small
price to pay for a world in which gargoyles would be safe to live in the
open.  He was the only one of his kind who knew what it was like to be a
part of human society, and even he could not do it without concealing his
true nature.
        Someday, though, that life would be over.  Then, von Sturm said,
humans and gargoyles would live together in true harmony.  Gargoyles would
be the vanguards of peace, watching over the humans to quell their more
destructive impulses and ensure everything in the new world order took place
on time:  the planting of the crops, the nursing of the sick, the education
of the young.  Humans merely needed shepherding to curb their quarrelsome
tendencies.  The Illuminati had a plan to accomplish that and bring about a
better world.
        ~And this world will be born out of blood and fire?~
        It was an odd thought to cross his mind, and as he drove he turned
his attention to pondering this new question.  It proved a convenient escape
from the memories he wished to forget.  Puzzle though he might, he could not
see how the worldwide conflict he¹d found himself enmeshed in could bring
the Illuminati's goals any closer to reality.  Von Sturm's master plan,
which he had been aggressively pursuing for almost two hundred years,
sounded similar to the most idealistic interpretation of Communism.  Wagner
knew that in practice, Communism was far, far different from the workers'
paradise its ideology had promised.
        ~Perhaps von Sturm's new world order will be just as different in
practice.~
        That thought was outright treason and so Wagner von Schloss did not
allow his mind to pursue it.  ~I must guard against such notions.~  He'd
thought of treason before, in those moments when he'd come up against the
dark side of the Illuminati and struggled to make sense of what he saw
there.
        It started with Brunhilde, the lovely hunter-green gargoyle who had
been his mate.  She had found him attractive enough when he had been a young
crested warrior, so full of hope and promise.  That attraction had vanished
like the stars from the early morning sky the second he'd been recarved into
a human form.  She had wanted a strong soldier as a mate; having him
sacrifice his gargoyle features in the name of the Illuminati had not been
part of the plan.  Fickle, perhaps, but he had loved her.
        ~Love?  Was it really, truly _love_?~
        ~I don¹t even know what love is.~
        Yes, he did.  Love was the young man who¹d thrown himself across his
injured father to protect him from Wagner's gun.  The father had been his
target, and his instructions were to kill him at any cost.  When the son had
tried to stop him, he'd simply shot him first.  Minutes later, his father
followed the son to whatever afterlife awaited them.  He still remembered
hearing the cries of agony when the rest of the family had found the two
bodies.  What had he _done_ that night?
        Think of Russia.  The Soviet pilots who fell like insects swatted
from the sky, not from any lack of bravery on their part but rather from
their hopelessly antiquated equipment.  Perhaps the Russians were the truly
courageous, for they had to know how the odds were stacked against them, and
yet squadron after squadron came forth to face the invaders every day.
Their compatriots on the ground did the same, and the result was devastation
beyond Wagner's comprehension.  The bodies of all the soldiers were horror
enough, and yet he could not neglect to add the starving Russian civilians,
the German soldiers losing digits, limbs or lives to the bitter freezing
cold, the towns and cities in ruins, the people of all ages and
nationalities stricken by rampant disease.
        ~Purge.  The old order must die so the new might be reborn.~
        But why did those deaths have to include people like Bootsi, the
young teenage pilot who'd lived with an eagerness to serve the Fatherland
and died in Wagner's arms on a rainy spring night in France beside the ruins
of his downed fighter?  Why the little Russian girl he¹d shared a slice of
his bread with--she couldn't have been more than six or seven--and later
seen lying dead in the street with a bullet hole in the back of her head?
And why--why all those people in the camp?  How could even the Nazis have
allowed that Sevarius to....do what he did?  What could those prisoners have
ever done to deserve their fate, the elderly, the children, the confused men
and women who wondered why their God had forsaken them, only to come up with
no answer?
        These were certainly Things Not To Be Thought About, and Wagner
struggled to replace them with something else.  He concentrated on the road
ahead, examining every stone and rut and overhanging branch.  It was much,
much easier to concentrate on the task at hand and let other things happen
as they would, out of sight and out of mind.  As he scanned the sides of the
road for diversions, he noticed a flicker of movement in the bushes.
        He slowed the car and let his keen eyes pierce the darkness.  Far
ahead, the bushes rustled and out stepped a child.  He was about thirteen,
with a head of dark curly hair and a turned-up nose, and Wagner could easily
have imagined him at home on a playing-field, or classroom window, or
running along the street with friends, were it not for the hunted look on
his face.
        ~Lost, most likely,~ the gargoyle thought, and wondered how the
youth had come to be wandering about in the Polish forest in the dead of a
winter's night.  Another explanation hovered just out of his grasp, but
Wagner acted on the hunch it gave him.  He instinctively pulled over quickly
and killed the headlights of his car.  The boy was scanning the road,
looking for the vehicle he had heard.   Moments later, a troop transport
passed Wagner's position and the boy disappeared back into the bushes until
its motor had faded from even the gargoyle's sensitive hearing.  Then two
figures cautiously poked their heads out of the foliage.
        With the boy was a little girl, perhaps four or five.  She held
tightly to his hand and appeared very frightened.  The youth whispered in
her ear, gesturing back into the forest.  She shook her head and clung to
him.  Satisfied that he was alone, the boy stepped out onto the roadway, and
in the dim light of the waning moon, Wagner saw the Star of David sewn to
the boy's rumpled shirt.
        ~A hole too small for a man...but not too small for a child.~
        The boy beckoned, and another girl, a year or two younger than he
was, emerged with a baby in her arms.  The little girl tagged along behind,
and she too had the star on her dress.
        ~Children.  Small enough to slip out from under the noses of the
guards during intake.  Likely their parents provided a diversion that their
children might live.~  He corrected himself.  ~Might escape.  It's a prison
camp, after all.~  Then he considered what might motivate parents to bid
helpless children to flee into the wilderness with only another child to
lead them, and coupled his thesis with some of the things he had seen:  the
doctor¹s hut, the lines for the bath house, the chimneys that belched smoke
day and night, and the ash...the ash that still clung to his boots.  ~Might
_live_.~
        Live?  What chance did four children have, lost in the Polish
countryside and with trained soldiers on their trail?  In the distance, a
dog howled.
        Wagner straightened the Knight's Cross around his neck.  ~It is none
of my business.  I am opening my thoughts to putting myself in a dangerous
situation that could well mean my death, not to mention loss of honour and
outright treason.~
        ~I could proceed, pretend I hadn't seen them...no.  Even that is
neglect of duty.~
        ~Why am I thinking this way?  These children are none of my
concern!~
        Children.  They were _children_, for God's sake.  ~How could
children stand in the way of the Illuminati's goals?  They are lost in the
wilderness and ignorant of the ways of the world.  They know nothing of
grand designs; they are condemned simply for _being_...~  Condemned as
gargoyles had once been, long ago, when their existence had been known to
the world.
        ~Is existence such a crime?~
        His ears perked.  He could hear, behind him on the road, the baying
of dogs.  For these children, their escape attempt had ended before it had
even begun.  What had the sergeant said?  Sevarius could always use new test
subjects...
        Before he was aware what he was doing, he had started the car,
U-turned on the road, and headed back towards the camp to intercept the
search team.
        He came upon them within a few minutes, pulling over and stepping
out of the car towards the sergeant in charge of the team.  The man's sleepy
eyes grew wide when he realized that a highly decorated officer was coming
his way, out here in the middle of nowhere, and he raised his arm in the
standard salute.  "Heil Hitler."
        Wagner returned the salute.  "Good evening, Herr Feldwebel.  A fine
night to be out and about."
        The sergeant snorted.  "Hardly, sir.  Were it not for my sense of
duty to the Fatherland, I would be asleep in my bed."  Several members of
his detail were yawning as well, the gargoyle noted, most likely the result
of a late night at the bar the evening before.
        "And what duty could have you traipsing through the fields at all
hours of the night?"
        "Perimeter security.  It is my task to ensure all Jews delivered to
the camp remain there."
        "Surely the camp has better security than that," Wagner chided.
        "It is impressive, sir, and if I might boast, extremely efficient in
processing the subhumans.  However, we pride ourselves on our thoroughness
and prefer to ensure that none have slipped through our net."
        "I noticed nothing coming up the road tonight," the gargoyle lied.
The sergeant's men were leaning on one another, and the sergeant himself had
to stifle a yawn.  Wagner raised a blond eyebrow and remarked, "Tired troops
are most inefficient and rarely serve the Fatherland effectively."
        The sergeant interpreted the remark as a sign of Wagner's disfavour,
just as the gargoyle had intended, and did the best he could to defend
himself.  "Sir, we have only so many men and security is a vital concern..."
        Wagner cut him off, his voice soothing now.  "You seem like a
devoted soldier, Herr Feldwebel, and devoted soldiers deserve reward.  Take
the evening off, all of you.  You have earned it."
        The sergeant looked stunned for a moment, and then his face broke
out in a wide smile.  "Thank you, Hauptmann," he said as he saluted.  He
barked orders to his men, all of whom gave Wagner an eyes left as they
turned around to head back to their quarters.
        ~That gets rid of the soldiers--for now,~ Wagner thought.  There
were more such units, many more, hunting in the night.  ~If I¹m going to do
this--~ he couldn't bring himself to call it treason ~--I might as well
finish the job.~  Once the sergeant and his men were out of sight, Wagner
U-turned in the middle of the road and put the gas pedal to the floor,
racing back to the spot where he had seen the children.
 

        An hour later, Wagner von Schloss, Captain in the SS, crouched on
the lower branches of a tree with his wings folded behind him.  He wondered
how he would explain the deep scratches in his dress boots, and half-laughed
at the ridiculous thought of submitting a recommendation that jackboots be
made suitable for perching in trees.  Then he returned to the task at hand,
sniffing the wind for scent.
        The car would only slow him down now.  He'd covered a lot of ground
from the air, and he was sure he'd caught a flicker of motion from this area
as he soared overhead.  Now it was a matter of pinpointing the creature
responsible...
        His ear perked as he heard a sound carried on a breeze.  A night
bird perhaps?  Moments later it came again, and this time it was definitely
the crying of a baby.  In a rush of wings, the tree branch was left empty,
swaying from the powerful takeoff of its former occupant.
 

        "Hush," Rachel whispered, but in her arms little Eli only struggled
and kicked the more.
        "He's probably hungry," Esther suggested, tugging on the older
girl¹s worn dress.  "I am too."
        "We haven't any milk," Rachel moaned, and could not help but wonder
if she'd drink it all herself if they had.  She hadn't had anything like a
decent meal in the month she'd been at the camp, and the poor diet, coupled
with the amount of exercise she'd done in walking all night, carrying the
baby, not to mention the constant presence of fear, were conspiring to bring
her down.
        "We must keep going," said the oldest, Josef, grasping her hand.
"If they catch us, we will die."
        Rachel nodded and struggled on, wishing to God that she would wake
up and find herself safely back in her bed in Heidelberg with her little
brother beside her, not walking through the Polish forest, carrying a baby
whose parents--whose true name--she did not know.  Eli was what she had
chosen to call him.
        The parents, whoever they might have been, had hidden their baby in
a travelling case.  They had gone to their deaths in the ovens.  The baby
had gone to the processing shed, where Jewish workers sorted out the
newcomers' possessions.  Jewelry and valuables went in one bin; rags in
another, to be sed in manufacture for the German army; photographs in a
large box that was later burned along with its contents.  Rachel had been
the one to find little Eli while working her shift at the end of the day,
and a lax guard detail had enabled her to hide the baby under her apron.
She knew her brother, Josef, had planned to escape that evening.
        She didn't know who Esther's parents had been either.  They had
taken a terrible chance during intake that afternoon.  Josef had distracted
the guard while Rachel had grabbed the hand of the first child she had seen
and pulled her away from the line of newcomers.  All the other little girls
and boys taken into the camp, the ones whom Esther had played with in the
crowded cattle car that had brought her to Auschwitz, were too young to work
for the Nazis.  They were now part of the fine white ash that drifted down
from the oven smokestacks like tears.
        Josef tried to act brave as he led the little band further away from
the camp.  The cruel truth was that he had very little idea of how to get to
the place he hoped to reach.  The words of his mother cycled through his
head.  ~Josef, you must get out.  You must take your sister and get away!~
        "But I don't know where to go," he had said.
        "Away!  To Krakow if you can."
        "Why can't you come with us?"
        She had sighed, and with that sound he finally came to understand
the feeling of bitter suffering he had read about in the Talmud.  "My son, I
love you."  She had knelt down and stroked his hair.  "But I am assistant to
the leader of the sorting detail.  The guards will notice my absence.  They
will be slower to notice yours.  You are smaller, small enough to slip
beneath the fence."
        "What about Papa?"  His fingers had traced the numbers of her
tattoo.  He had a similar one on his arm.
        She held him close, and when she drew back there had been tears in
her eyes.  "Papa is dead."
        He had suspected as much.  His father had been injured in a factory
accident when he was very small, and his left arm had been almost useless
after that.  It had never prevented him from being a shopkeeper, but the
Nazis weren't looking for shopkeepers, and they preferred to weed out the
weak early.
        His mother had made him memorize the lines that gave him hope now,
as surely as any sacred reading.  He recited the address again and again in
his mind until it became a comforting rhythm set to the tempo of his
footfalls.  The children were concentrating on nothing more than putting one
foot in front of the other when directly ahead of them, the bushes rustled,
and their worst fear stood before them.
        He wasn't a stormtrooper.  His uniform was pure black, not the grey
of the camp guards, and some kind of gold ornament glittered on each
shoulder in the wan moonlight.  He was alone, without even a dog, and he
carried no weapon in his hands.  Had the four Jews been adults, they might
have attacked a lone Nazi; but they were not adults, only scared children,
and the figure before them was like something out of a nightmare.  Rachel
cried out and stumbled onto her knees, releasing her hold on the baby.  He
slid down her lap and began crying loudly.  Esther screamed, a shill barb
that pierced the night, and hid behind Rachel for protection.
        Josef tried to think, but his thoughts were scared mice skittering
around in his head.  The fear in the air was palpable.  He felt that it was
his duty to take care of the others, but what could a boy as yet too young
to grow a beard do against a soldier?  He could not even face up to a camp
guard, let alone this apparition of starlight and darkness that had come to
bestow the wrath of the Lord.
        ~My son, you must save yourselves.~
        ~My son, you must save _yourself_.~
        ~Save myself.~
        At that, Josef obeyed his body's command to run.
 

        Wagner stood before the children for a fraction of a second, waiting
to see how they would react.  At first, they all seemed paralyzed with fear,
and that would make his job easy enough.  Then the boy had broken to run.
        ~If he wants to run, it's his own problem.  Let the dogs get him.~
But that was cruel, and besides, Wagner couldn't let the youth get away.
Groups of gargoyles needed only one individual to start something before the
others felt pressure to follow suit.  In this respect, humans and gargoyles
were much alike.  Wagner could see the little girl considering the same
action herself as she clung to the older girl, wanting to flee and yet too
afraid to let go of her elder's sleeve.  Unless he wanted them all to panic
and scatter into the forest, he had to stop the boy.
        He¹d dropped to a crouch in one fluid motion as soon as the boy
turned around.  One lunge had gotten the gargoyle airborne, and from there
it was only a matter of spreading his wings and gliding down onto the
fleeing boy like a bird of prey.
        One moment, the Nazi had been on the other side of the girls.  The
next, he was directly behind Josef, clasping the boy's shoulder in one great
hand.   Josef struggled, but could not escape.  Suddenly, he realized that
the grip, while intensely firm, was not painful as long as he was not
fighting it.  Josef settled down, knowing his attempts to be futile, and
turned his head to look into the blue eyes of his captor.
        "Don't run.  I won't hurt you."  At these words, the dumbfounded boy
allowed Wagner to turn him around to face the girls.  "Don't be afraid.  I
know that's a lot to ask, but I'm not here to hurt you."  Josef relaxed a
little.  So far, the black-uniformed man had not reacted as a guard would
have.
        Wagner stood up for a moment, sniffing the air and listening for
sounds of pursuit, then dropped back to the level of the children.  "Quiet
the baby," he ordered, and a stunned Ruth complied as best she could while
the gargoyle added, "The forest is full of troops searching for you."  His
eyes probed the vegetation.  "We don't need them to hear us."
        "Who are you?" Josef stammered.
        The blond stranger ignored his question.  "So now you're out.  So
where do you think you¹re going?"
        "Krakow."
        "Why Krakow?"
        Josef gulped, as if he¹d said too much already.  The newcomer may
not have done anything hostile yet, but he was still a Nazi, and not to be
trusted.  ~But if he's a Nazi, he doesn't act like any Nazi I've ever
known.~
        "Listen, kid, if I put you on the main street of Krakow you¹d just
be picked up by the first patrol and sent right back to Auschwitz."  The boy
remained silent, and a note of irritation crept into Wagner's voice.  "Look,
if you don't tell me anything there's no way I can help you."
        ~Stupid.  StupidstupidSTUPID!~ the gargoyle berated himself.  ~There
is no WAY this kid is going to trust you, not with you standing here in full
dress uniform.  Look what you've gotten yourself into--the kid'll get caught
and tell them all about the traitor who said he wanted to help...~  He
should have simply driven on.  Well, there was no help for it now.  He'd
started, and now he had to see it through.
        "You're going to help us?" Rachel asked, incredulous.
        "Yes.  And it's my neck on the line now too, if I'm caught with you,
so I¹d appreciate a little cooperation."
        "Why should we trust you?" the boy asked, and the question sparked
both irritation and an irrational stab of anger.
        Wagner raised his eyes to stare directly into Josef's, and the boy
could see an unearthly glow around the eyes of the man in the black uniform.
The stranger's voice, too, was deeper, harsher, and something not entirely
human as he clipped his words.  "What choice do you have?"
        There was that.  The man blinked, and when his eyelids opened, his
eyes had returned to normal.
        "Are you with the Resistance?" Rachel timidly asked.
        Wagner paused for a moment, actually surprised by her question, and
then nodded.  In a way he was, now.
        "My uncle is a member of the Polish resistance," Josef said.  "He
sent us letters, telling us to flee Germany for a safe country, and if we
could not find one, to join him in Krakow."  He paused a moment more.  "This
is where my mother told me to go," he said quietly, and recited the address.
        "That's only thirty miles from here.  Hardly a secure place to be."
        "Some of the people in the camp were from Denmark and Belgium and
Romania and they weren't safe there either," Josef retorted without
thinking.  He suddenly realized his rashness and added, "Sir."  The German
simply looked at him and nodded.  He swallowed and continued, "My uncle will
move us through the resistance network.  That starts in Krakow."
        Wagner's jaw set in a firm line.  "Then Krakow it will be."  He got
up and held out his hand to the little girl, who hesitated only a moment
before she wrapped her fingers around his.  "Come."  Wagner walked off into
the darkness, the older two trailing after him with the baby in Josef's
arms.
 

        Wagner checked the road, but there was no one in sight.  Nor were
there any scents of humans, dogs or vehicle exhaust, and the night was
quiet.  He gestured, and the four Jewish children emerged from the forest
and approached the black Mercedes staff car.
        Esther reached for the door handle, but the gargoyle clasped her
hand in his and led her to the back of the vehicle.  He shoved the key into
the latch and unlocked it.  Rachel and Josef both peered into the trunk.
Wagner grasped the handle of his suitcase, the collar of his overcoat, and
the top of his toolbox, lifting them out and putting them on the side of the
road.
        He examined the inside of the trunk and its red carpet lining.  The
children looked up at him, a combination of hope and resignation on their
faces, a look of deep concentration on his.  He leaned over, aiming
carefully, then proceeded to form a fist, grit his teeth, shut his eyes, and
drive his hand downward with all the force of an angry gargoyle.  Ruth
whimpered when she saw the stranger's eyelids flash as if a powerful lamp
had been turned on behind them.  The metal of the bottom of the trunk
separated beneath the blow, opening a hole in the bottom of the car.
        Wagner winced and withdrew his fist.  There was a nasty cut down the
outside of his left hand.  He fell to his knees and grabbed ahold of the hem
of Esther¹s dress.  "Mind if I borrow a little?" he asked through clenched
teeth.  The child stared at him, uncomprehending, and Wagner tore a strip
off the dress and used it to bind the wound.
        Josef peered in at the hole.  "What¹s that for?  Sir."
        "Air.  Now in you go."
        "We¹re going in the trunk?" Esther squealed.
        Wagner crossed his arms and lifted an eyebrow, a smile playing
around his lips.  "Sorry, but it's the best seat I can offer you."  He was
gratified by a slight smile on the girl's mouth.  "This way, even if I get
stopped on the road, no one will see you.  Now, if I do stop, I want you to
say _nothing_.  Do nothing.  Not even if you hear voices around the car,
understand?  If they hear you talking or banging on the lid, we'll all end
up shot.  Verstehen?"  All three nodded.  "Now in you get."
        Wagner lifted Esther into the trunk as Josef clambered up and in.
Then he frowned; the space was desperately small, and he feared the children
might all smother, especially the baby.  He rested his attention on the
little human being held in the older girl's arms, and came up with another
idea.
        "You'll be in the back with the baby," he said to Rachel.  He opened
the rear door of the car.  "On the floor.  You must take even more caution
to be still and keep yourself covered."
        As Rachel settled herself in on the floor between the seats, Wagner
laid his greatcoat overtop of her.  He opened his suitcase and removed
several more items, carefully wrapping them around her and the baby, leaving
the odd gap for air.  By the time he was done, nothing more than a heap of
clothing and miscellaneous items could be seen on the floor of his car.
        At last, the gargoyle lowered the trunk lid gently to ensure that
Josef and Esther were all the way inside, and then shut it closed.  He
walked around the back of the vehicle and deposited his toolbox and
now-empty suitcase on the opposite side of the car from the concealed girl
and baby.  Moments later, the Mercedes roared to life and started down the
road to Krakow.
 

        He stopped half an hour later at a small roadside inn.  The place
was somewhat out of his way, but right now that didn't matter.  Fifteen
minutes ago, the baby had started crying, likely from hunger.  To keep it
quiet on the way into Krakow, the baby would need to be fed.
        Wagner sauntered up to the counter as any young Luftwaffe fighter
pilot would, winking rakishly at the serving girls, and requested two loaves
of bread.  Then, with his best "lady-killer" smile, he asked the waitress if
she would please fill his canteen with water.  She was quite happy to
comply.
        Wagner ground his back teeth together as he waited.  He hated being
in places like this.  He worried that everyone in them would suddenly
realize that he was not human like the rest of them.  The attentions of
human females were especially awkward.  He had to encourage them, as any man
would; and yet, he had to be careful that none of the girls made up her mind
to come home with him.  He'd made a habit of wearing a wedding ring he'd
picked up in a pawn shop in Paris so that he would have a valid excuse.  The
gargoyle admitted that what disturbed him most was the fact that he found
certain of the women attractive, even though they were not of his species.
It was frustrating, frightening, and confusing all at once.
        God, he needed a smoke.  It was a bad habit he was pressured to
indulge in when he was unusually tense.  Ah, well, many others on the
Russian front had also picked it up, and on a far more regular basis.  But
he must not make excuses.  Wagner made a note that in the future, those
around him on a regular basis might realize what his smoking signified and
use the information against him.  He would have to guard against that--or
play it to his advantage.
        If he had ever been entitled to a cigarette, though, tonight was
certainly the night.  He requested three packages from the innkeeper and
laid down several Marks too many, only to receive too little change in
return.  Tonight he did not question it.  He would receive more than his
money's worth shortly.  The innkeeper had told his wife to fetch the
cigarettes, and she had handed her baby to her older daughter in order to do
so.  Where there was a baby, there would be milk, and hopefully bottles as
well.
        Wagner slipped the cigarettes into his pocket as he walked out the
door.  No sooner was it shut than the gargoyle was around the side of the
building, peering into the windows until he found the kitchen.  The window
proved no match for a gargoyle's strength and within moments he was inside,
helping himself to a baby bottle which sat on the counter.  As he filled it
with milk from the pitcher, he kept his ears and nostrils perked for
approaching humans, but none came.  By the time the innkeeper's wife entered
the kitchen, the black Mercedes with its fragile human cargo was long gone.
 

        Once he was well down the road from the inn, Wagner von Schloss
turned his car onto a dirt track and drove further into the forest before
stopping it.  He walked around to the back and opened the trunk, allowing
two heads to pop out for a breath of air.  The little girl's cheeks were
wet; she'd obviously been crying.  Wagner handed the boy a loaf of bread and
the canteen before closing the lid again.  The other loaf, and the bottle,
went under the greatcoat in the back seat.
        He was saving these children who'd have died for nothing.  He was
betraying his comrades who'd died for the cause.  Strange, how he felt both
good and badly at the same time.
 

        It was just after four-thirty A.M. when they finally entered Krakow.
The guards at the check points--and, surprisingly enough, there had been
several check points--had been too tired to do anything more than a perform
a cursory examination of Wagner's identification papers.  The baby had been
blessedly quiet, for which Wagner was grateful.  He could easily have killed
every man at the checkpoint, but murdering those from his own side was still
a last recourse.
        It did not take him long to find the address he was looking for,
despite an unusual number of German Army troop trucks, support vehicles, and
even the odd tank in the roads.  The street where the children¹s uncle lived
was empty at that hour of the night.  The gargoyle's eyes swept up and down
the street before he opened the trunk of his car.  "We're here.  Quickly
now."  Josef and Esther hastily clambered out of the trunk, and Wagner shut
it.  He opened the back door of the car and proceeded to rouse Rachel.
        Wagner examined the building, his eyes probing the darkened windows.
"Suppose your uncle's not home?"  He wondered what he would do if there was
no one in the house.  He could hardly stay and care for the children
himself.
        "Then we will wait for him," Josef replied, his hand still clutching
the nibbled remnant of the loaf Wagner had given him.  He took Esther¹s
hand.  Followed by Rachel, who carried Eli, they made their way up the
crumbling concrete steps to the door.
        Wagner made his way around the automobile.  His keen eyes caught a
flicker of movement at one of the windows; the face of an older man peered
suspiciously at his vehicle.  It meant his job was done.  ~I¹ve helped them
as much as I can.  They are now on their own.~
        ~And that,~ Wagner thought to himself, ~is that.~  He started his
engine and drove off, never once looking back as the door opened cautiously,
as Rachel hugged her uncle, as Josef watched the black car vanish into the
night.
 

        Shortly thereafter, Wagner located a hotel where he could spend the
night.  His keen eyes picked up unusual activity as he parked his staff car
in the town square.  German troop transports and support vehicles were
parked in a block on the opposite side of the square, and SS commandos
dressed in winter camouflage walked to and from the various buildings.
~It¹s as if the town were to be used as the staging ground for an upcoming
assault.~
        Dawn was fast approaching as Wagner checked himself into the hotel.
The hotel, too, was choked with hard-faced Nazi soldiers who were burdened
with an impressive array of weaponry.  They took no pains to conceal their
weapons and swaggered around the city as if they were waiting for one false
move from an unfortunate peasant to give them an excuse to wipe Krakow off
the map.
        Passing a particularly arrogant pair of stormtroopers, Wagner
wondered how the two men would fare in a fight against an angry gargoyle
with a concealed handgun.  He smirked to himself, imagining a stormtrooper
on his knees in tears after one look at Wagner's glowing eyes and pointed
fangs.  Then the gargoyle shook his head, reminding himself that he must
never underestimate an enemy.  It was just such underestimation that had
time and again given him the opening he needed to kill swift and sure.
        As he took the room key from the hotel manager, Wagner did not need
to look outside the window to know that the first rays of the morning sun
were already peeking above the horizon.  He could feel the impending day in
his bones.  Before he entered stone sleep, though, he wanted a question
answered.  He turned, addressing the manager as he left the foyer for his
room.  "There are many personnel in town.  What for?"
        The manager, a man of late middle age, was obviously frightened by
the military-political nature of the question.  "They are here to eliminate
the resistance."
        "Jews?"
        "Some of them are.  Others are Poles who..."  The man swallowed
hard.  "...who...object...to your presence here."
        "I see."  Wagner nodded, his thoughts racing back to the Jewish
children.
        ~I have done more than my share.  They are on their own now!~
        The gargoyle addressed the frightened man.  "Thank you.  I am very
tired and will be resting throughout the day.  I am not to be disturbed for
any reason.  Is that clear?"  The manager nodded in agreement.  "Good."
Wagner opened the door and went inside.
        He closed it, locking and bolting the door, then went searching for
the nearest closet.  There was an armoire on the other side of the room
which looked promising.  He sprinted over to it, flung one of its doors
wide, and jumped inside.  He was reaching out to close the doors after him
when the sun rose, encasing him in stone.
 

        Wagner awakened at evening the next night with a clatter of hundreds
of fragments of stone skin against the inside of the armoire.  He yawned,
scratching himself on the back of the neck with one hand as his mind
reviewed the events of the night before.  He was in the process of removing
his tunic and shirt in order to stretch his wings when he remembered what
the hotel manager had told him almost half a day ago--that the unit of
stormtroopers was in town to root out the local resistance.  The same group,
no doubt, that the boy's uncle belonged to.
        ~You did what you could.  They are ON THEIR OWN NOW!~
        He shook off his thoughts and wondered if they'd consider him late
by the time he arrived at his base in Russia.  He thought of possible
excuses he could use, thought of what he had actually done last evening,
thought of those children who'd escaped from hell only to be abandoned in
purgatory, as the death squads descended...
        ~Gott verdamnt.~
 

        "Where's my gun?" Friedrich Tetzel asked his friend.
        "How would I know?" the other soldier replied.  "If you'd take
better care of your equipment you wouldn't have these problems.  You're
forever losing things."
        "I set it right here."  Tetzel thumped the now-empty table.  "I know
I did!"  By this point, his machine gun was almost a mile away, and six
hundred feet above the frozen soil, nestled on a bed of black uniform cloth
between two leathery wings.
 

        Wagner searched the roads and forests around Krakow for hours while
the moon rose in the sky, reached its zenith, and began to fall again.  He'd
perched atop the uncle's home for a good hour before he'd lost his patience
and broken in.  There had been no sign of any life there.  They'd likely
left in daylight.  Who was to say where they were now?
        He'd almost convinced himself of the hopelessness of his mission
when he heard shouts and a few scattered gunshots from the forest below him.
Wagner's sharp eyes picked out a group of about fifteen SS commandos running
through a clearing, guns at the ready.  He moved his line of vision forward
and saw the objects of their pursuit:  a middle aged man and the two older
Jewish children.
        Wagner would never know that baby Eli had been adopted by a local
family, or that little Esther was on her way to France with a local
resistance agent, posing as his daughter.  What he did know was that the
three beneath him were certain to die.  The soldiers were quickly closing
the distance between them and their quarry.
        Tetzel's stolen machine gun was heavy on his back.  Until now he'd
managed to convince himself that what he was doing had no bearing on the
German cause.  Four Jewish children would not affect the outcome of the war.
Freeing them caused no one any harm.  Saving them now would be something
else again.
        As he dove from the sky, he realized that he had crossed a line from
which there was no going back.  He'd committed himself to another cause.
 

        Abraham Sargnegel realized the futility of running seconds later.
If the Germans were going to gun him down, he could take a few of their
number with him.  "Keep running!" he urged his nephew and niece, as he
stopped and withdrew a 9mm automatic from beneath his jacket.
 

        The SS corporal thought it was an airplane at first.  Bullets came
down like lightning, striking down the men around him.  His ears missed the
roar of engines or the swoop of a metal craft pulling out of a dive.  All
his eyes could make out was a dark shape that passed overhead, briefly
blanking out the stars.
        Somewhere near him, a wounded man screamed in agony.
        "What the hell's going on?" another soldier demanded.
        "Where is it?" cried a third, covering his head as if to ward off
the wrath from above.  Several men who were not wounded began firing their
machine guns randomly into the sky.
        There was no sound, no warning before the deadly hail came again,
from a lower level and with greater accuracy, cutting a swath in their
ranks.
        "Find where it's coming from!" ordered their lieutenant, his quarry
momentarily forgotten.  The soldiers searched the forest all around them in
a hopeless quest for a machine-gun nest.  The gun chattered again, then
abruptly fell silent while there were still a few soldiers standing.
        "Fan out and find them!" the lieutenant called to his remaining men.
"Corporal!  Help me deal with the Jews.  They mustn't get a..."  His voice
died off in a gurgle as a bullet buried itself in his chest.
        Bang.  Bang.  Two more men fell.
        Ahead of him, there was a rustle of wings, and the corporal actually
dropped his gun in shock at the sight of the dark winged being that
descended from the sky, placing itself between the commandos and their
quarry.
 

        "What in God's holy name..." Sargnegel began, his right hand still
clutching his gun.
        "Uncle, don¹t shoot!" Josef implored him.
        "I thought I told you to run," the man replied angrily, but he
listened to the boy anyway.
        "That's the man...thing...who saved our lives."
 

        Wagner fired his Walther until the magazine was empty.  He stuffed
it in his pocket and evaluated the odds.  There were still two men standing.
He lunged himself at the armed one.
        The SS man fired a shot that went through Wagner's left wing.  The
wound smarted, but did no more to stop the diving gargoyle than a pebble
thrown at a windshield would stop a freight truck.  Wagner's left hand
pushed the soldier over with the force of the gargoyle's full weight, while
his right hand ripped the gun from the man's grasp.  His left wing furled,
and he brought the wicked hooked claw positioned halfway down his wing into
a downward arc.  Wagner released pressure on the man, backing his body away.
The soldier, the wind still knocked out of him, did not move.  Wagner's body
no longer shielded his prey from the wing claw which came down like a scythe
and ripped his throat out.
        The corporal was charging him.  Wagner simply spun around and cuffed
the man hard on the side of the head, driving the corporal's skull around
considerably farther than it was intended to go.  His neck broke with a
sharp crack.
        On the ground, a man with a gunshot wound in his leg was moaning.
This soldier was likely to survive.  Likely to tell.  The Nazis would be
unable to make sense of his report; unfortunately, the Illuminati would.
That would mean Wagner's death.
        ~My life or his.~  The gargoyle answered it as he'd answered that
question every time before.  He took a knife off the body of a nearby
commando and slit the wounded man's throat.
        The others were either dead or close to it.  He watched them
impassively until he was certain that all fifteen were dead.  Only then did
he turn to face the Jews.
 

        Josef tore his eyes away from the bloody meat that had once been men
in uniform.  Before him, the German officer who had saved their lives stood
in the midst of death, still as a statue, face showing no emotion.  The
knife hung from his left hand like a limb on a willow, and while it dangled
non-threateningly, it seemed to be part of the creature himself.  Behind
him, a pair of mighty and terrible wings spread to the sky.  Josef's eyes
took it all in, not comprehending half of what he saw, knowing only that the
being in front of him had come from nowhere and slaughtered the
stormtroopers without mercy.  His mouth worked a few times before he could
articulate the words.  "What are you?"
        Wagner looked down at the boy and realized that some form of answer
was required.  Explaining the truth would not suffice; he would never
understand, and anyway, it would take too long.  Already Wagner knew he
would be sleeping in the woods during the coming day, and he wanted his
stone form to remain undisturbed.  ~For all the boy has been through, he
deserves a response.  One he can understand.~  Wagner studied the Star of
David on the boy's shirt and came up with a summation.
        "I'm the avenging angel," the dark figure replied, staring into
Josef's eyes.  It turned slowly, its wings folding behind its back, and
stalked away over the killing ground.
        There was no reply to that, could never be.  The boy's uncle was
still staring, dumbfounded, at the place where the apparition had vanished
when  Josef ducked his head and started to weep into his uncle's coat.
 

AUGUST 1992
 

        And with any luck oblivion should discover a ritual.

        ~Or rediscover.~  Having remembered, Richard S. Wagner wanted
nothing more than to forget again.
        He blinked his eyes a few times and skipped ahead to a later segment
of the poem.  He was more than likely reading them out of context, but he
didn't particularly care; they provided a small comfort.

        But come.  Grief must have its term?  Guilt too, then.
        And it seems there is no limit to the resourcefulness of
                recollection.
        So that a man might say and think:
        When the world was at its darkest,
        When the black wings passed over the rooftops
        (And who can divine His purposes?) even then
        There was always, always a fire in this hearth.

        ~Yes.  Guilt has had its term.  And there was always some decency in
my heart.~
        It was then that Wagner heard the footsteps in the museum¹s entrance
hall.
 

        Holocaust memorial.  What a ridiculous idea.
        They called themselves the NLR:  Nazi Low Riders.  They were a gang
of hardened young animals, many of them born to ordinary suburban families,
many of them often left wandering the streets in their young teenage years
while their parents were on the long commute home or while their single
mothers were working or while their harried babysitter attempted to care for
younger children and didn't notice them amble off.  Looking for a substitute
family, they were easily influenced by those with the authority of adults
and the rebelliousness of teenagers all in one package.  More often than
not, that package also included a good deal of hate.
        There were six Low Riders outside the War Museum tonight, each of
them carrying a flashlight.  After a particularly inspiring reading from
"Mein Kampf," Frank Foster, the group¹s scholar, had been reading the paper
when he had noticed an article describing the new exhibit at the War Museum,
the Holocaust Memorial.  Foster liked the War Museum.  It was full of neat
weapons and, of course, exhibits to the glorious pageantry of the Nazis.
Monuments to the movement's finest hour.  A Holocaust Gallery--well, that
would just ruin the whole thing, now wouldn't it?  Besides, victims were not
the stuff of exhibition.  That was to be reserved for victors.
        Foster's complaints had quickly been picked up by tall, muscular,
twenty-three-year-old Buck "Blade" Stroop, who took great pride in his
German heritage and decided that the War Museum needed to be encouraged to
clean up its act.  George Webley was the first to volunteer.  Frank
suspected that Webley didn't care too much about the cause of National
Socialism; he was just in the NLR so he could fight people and trash things.
        Blade's volunteering to lead this evening's "mission" was enough to
encourage Kurt McKenna to ask to come along.  That, of course, had started
Kurt¹s younger brother Ty pestering for the same privilege.  Ty was only
twelve, and George was laughing at the kid's audacity when Blade had said
yes.  Blade had explained that they needed someone small, fast and
inconspicuous-looking to act as lookout while the rest of them went into the
museum and trashed the Holocaust Gallery.  And so, Ty was along this night.
Sixteen-year-old Kurt McKenna hoped the little brat didn't do something to
make Blade mad.  He idolized Buck Stroop, the only father figure he'd ever
had.
        "So how's this gonna work?" Monica Smith asked.  Monica, the sixth
member of the group, was Buck's girlfriend.  She was reasonably pretty and
as tough as any other Low Rider's girl--she had knifed a black kid in the
back after he got in a fight with Buck--but toughness was not what had
earned her a place on tonight's mission.  It was a general rule in the NLR
that guys did the dirty work.  However, the NLR leaders were smart enough to
recognize that no guy in the group could crack a lock or disable a circuit
as quickly as Monica Smith, who'd grown up next to her father in his machine
shop after her mother had passed away.
        "Ty stands watch outside.  Monica cuts the electricity, and that's
when I smash the front door and we go in.  The new gallery gets trashed, but
we leave everything else alone.  Got it?  Everything else in there is good
stuff," Buck said with a grin.  "Now, what have you all got?"
        Smith withdrew a switchblade from her pocket, then opened the
toolbox she carried to display the wire-cutters prominently on top.  "For
the service of the New Reich," whispered Frank Foster dramatically as he
showed the group a short hatchet and a can of spray-paint.  "I think we
should leave a little message for the cops explaining why we were here,"
Frank suggested, handing the can to Ty McKenna.  "Swastikas.  Die Jews.
Stuff like that."
        "Good thinking," Buck agreed, as Webley produced a wicked-looking
hunting knife with a serrated edge and gave a sharklike grin.  George also
brandished a length of steel pipe in his left hand.
        The best thing Kurt could get his hands on was a crowbar, which he'd
swiped from his grandparents' garage.  Kurt felt vindicated when Blade
nodded in approval.  "Nice work, kid."
        Ty showed Buck a tin whistle and the little Swiss army knife he'd
gotten for his birthday, and Webley snorted with laughter.  Buck, however,
nodded to Ty as well.  This was part of the ritual.
        Now it was Buck's turn.  He drew a length of chain out of his
pocket, placed the pipe in his hand beside it, and reached dramatically into
his waistband.  From it he withdrew a Beretta handgun, which he showed to
the others.
        "Wow," Kurt said, staring at the gun.   Its metal seemed to shine
with a dark aura.  Then a more disturbing thought crossed his mind.  "You're
not actually gonna....use that, are you?"
        "That depends on if our guard thinks he's some kind of fucking
hero," Buck replied tersely, slipping the gun back in his waistband.  "If
he's smart about it, I won¹t."
        "Security guards are pussies," laughed Webley.
        Foster put his hand on Kurt's shoulder in a patronizing way.  "Don't
worry about it, kid.  Legally, guards aren't allowed to even carry guns, and
this one's probably some fat old grandfather who knows better than to mess
with the Low Riders."  Kurt hoped he was right.  Impressing Buck was one
thing, fights were one thing, but to actually watch someone die?
        Blade looked down at Ty.  "Remember, you gotta keep your eyes open.
Blow that whistle if you see cops or anyone else sneaking around."
        "I won't let you down," Ty promised, then trotted over to the front
of the building where he crouched down beside a bush.
        "Monica, babe?" Blade asked.
        "The lights go off, but someone's home," Smith replied with a smile,
opening the toolbox.
        "Good.  The rest of us go in around the back."
        Kurt tagged after Webley, imagining how impressed the other NLRs
were going to be when they heard about tonight's event.  It was wickedly
exciting, skulking around in the dark with these older members, wearing a
black T-shirt and baggy pants with the black, white and grey patches of
urban cammo gear.  Kurt would never admit that he'd gotten the pants at a
skateboarding store at the mall rather than from army surplus, where Blade
and George got their gear.  Foster wore a rather average looking pair of
jeans and a red plaid shirt, but pinned to the shirt's lapel was a tiny Nazi
party pin that dated back to the thirties.  Kurt felt a thrill of
anticipation run through him.
 

        The other NLRs had just gone around the back of the building when a
1994 Chevrolet Cavalier pulled into the parking lot.  Beside the bush, Ty
McKenna held his breath, wondering whether the mission was going to be
stopped before it had even started.  The car door opened, and out stepped a
pretty brunette woman in her mid-twenties.
        Ty McKenna watched as the woman locked her automobile, took a key
out of her purse, and entered the museum.  He waited for the door to close
before he darted forward to read the identification sticker on the
windshield of the car.  SARA BERNSTEIN, RESEARCH DEPARTMENT.  ~Uh-oh,~ Ty  thought, ~Buck is not gonna like this.  What'll we do?  Better tell Buck.~
He ran off towards the rear of the building.
        The first person he came across was Monica Smith, who was just about
to cut the power lines.  "Monica, wait!" the boy cried as he dashed by.
Smith followed after him, confused, and arrived just in time to hear Ty
telling Buck, "We got a problem.  There's someone around the front."
        "Whaddya mean, someone?" George Webley snarled, turning his
attention away from the nearby window.
        "Lady researcher.  Sara Bernstein, her ID said."
        "A fucking Jew," Foster cursed.
        Blade chuckled coldly.  "I don't think we¹re gonna have any problem
keepin' a Jewish bitch in line."  He smacked the pipe into his hand. "Babe.
Let them get inside before you cut the power.  Give ‘em five minutes."
        "We're going in anyways?" Kurt asked.
        "You bet, kid.  We ain't passin' this up.'
 

        The moment he'd heard the footsteps, Wagner had whipped his head
around and frozen, his muscles tensed for flight, his eyes fixed on the
doorway.  The next sounds that met his ears told him that he had several
moments before the newcomer would enter this hall.  Had someone appeared in
the doorway, that person would have seen the night security guard dressed in
black jackboots and an immaculately pressed, vintage 1940¹s, black Nazi
uniform, with the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords hanging around
his neck, the ribbon of the Iron Cross through his buttonhole, the pin of
the Luftwaffe on his tunic pocket, various other assorted medals, major's
rank, and what seemed to be a long leathery cape hanging from the golden
clips on his epaulettes.
        ~Probably museum staff.~  He tried to think of who might be around
after hours, and suddenly became acutely conscious of what he was wearing.
~I can't let them see me like this.~  The dark wings flared, and he jumped
into the sky, his pinions beating downwards as he flew into the rafters.
        He perched on a beam and let another bound give him altitude to
glide into a corner.  Dropping into a crouch, he wheeled around so he could
look down and survey the room.  ~One good thing about being re-carved.  I
lost enough body mass so these wings can actually make me fly.~  It was a
trick no other gargoyle could duplicate.
        "Rick?"  A woman¹s voice called down the corridor.
        ~Gott verdamnt!~  Sara Bernstein.  Museum employee, pretty girl,
working towards a Master's degree in History, specialty:  Jewish History.
She often worked on exhibits at nighttime, and that was how he'd come to get
to know her.  He didn't get much company on the night shift, and her
companionship especially welcome.  He considered her to be one of the few
friends he had in this city.  ~Of all the people to catch me in this
uniform...~  He couldn't let her see him, and that was final.
        "Rick!  Are you here?"  She peered though the doorway at the other
end of the hall.
        "I suppose he's not around," Sara said to herself, since the museum
was empty and there was no one to hear.  She was a little disappointed.  Her
eyes fixed on the floor as she walked down the hall to the Holocaust
Gallery.  Richard Wagner was a handsome and personable man, always willing
to share a coffee with her, if a little close-mouthed about his personal
life.  She'd actually tried to ask him out a few times, only to be gently
and politely turned down.  Often she wondered how a man who was so friendly
and attentive at work could keep the rest of his life a complete enigma.
        ~It¹s odd,~ Sara thought, ~that there isn't anyone at all on guard
duty.~
        Abruptly, the lights went out.
 

        "Done!"  The four NLRs could hear Monica's voice calling from around
the side of the building.
        "Great," Buck Stroop grinned.  "George?"
        "My pleasure," Webley said, as he shattered the window with his
pipe.
 

        The instant the museum plunged into blackness, Wagner stiffened and
scanned first the rafters, and then the floor below.  His gargoyle eyes
glowed softly, piercing the night.  Below, Sara Bernstein was groping for a
wall she could use to get her bearings.
        Power shortage.  He took to the air again, dodging beams, until he
was above the entrance hall.  Here he folded his wings and dropped down to
the floor.  The power was out throughout the building.  Wagner sprinted to
the power box and threw the switch for the generator.  The emergency lights
whirred to life throughout the museum, casting dim and multiple shadows
amongst the exhibits.  The gargoyle's blue eyes scanned the rows of fuses,
but could discern nothing wrong.
        A look out the front doors told him that the buildings across the
street still had power.  That was when the old feeling of danger set in.
Instantly suspicious, Wagner decided to test his theory.
        He was out the front door in a few long strides.  There, at the
front of the building, was a kid, about twelve years old, painting a
swastika on the wall.  At the sound of the door opening, Ty McKenna dropped
the spray can and reached into his jeans pocket to blow his whistle.
        ~Better look, just to make sure it's not one of the NLR.  Wouldn't
Blade love it if I blew the whistle on him.~  Ty turned his head to see if
one of the gang members had emerged from the front entrance.
        At first, Ty wasn't sure.  For a moment, he wondered if Frank Foster
had pinched one of the WWII Nazi uniforms and put it on.  Frank, however,
was skinny with sandy hair, glasses and freckles.  The man on the porch was
none of those things, and the ice-blue eyes that locked on Ty seemed to burn
with an inner fire.  Ty reached for the whistle.
        ~Kid.~  Wagner's face remained impassive but his emotion was that
which matched an evil grin.  ~Scare.~  Wagner bared his teeth, giving the
kid a good view of his fangs, and growled low in his throat.  Three steps
had him directly in front of the little punk, his wings billowing behind him
just like a cape, and Wagner let his eyes light up a little as he snarled,
"Get away from my museum."
        Ty gripped the whistle in one sweaty palm, but he found that he did
not have the air in his lungs to blow it.  Whatever this man in front of him
was, he wasn't a cop or a guard.  His eyes were glowing in a terrifyingly
freaky way, and the growl in his throat was more frightening in its quiet
control than any roaring beast in a horror movie.  And this was no movie.
The man's hand grabbed Ty's shirt collar and lifted him right off his feet
in one effortless move.  Ty got a good look at the long white incisor teeth
which gleamed in the light, just a little yellowed, not the least bit
fake-looking.
        "Go," the man said, and dropped Ty.  Then, from out of his right
pocket, the man drew a silver handgun.  "Go!"
        Ty couldn't even scream.  He gulped and ran as fast as he could down
the street.
        ~Verdamnt kind,~ Wagner thought, returning the gun to his pocket,
and then a disturbing thought struck his mind.  ~He couldn't have knocked
out the power all by himself.  No tools.  Just a kid.  That whistle...
There's more.~
        From the back of the building, there came a crash.
 

        George Webley was never happier then when he was breaking things,
unless, of course, he was blowing things up.  He used the pipe to brush away
some of the shards of glass from the window ledge, and allowed Blade to
climb inside first.  Smith had evidently done her job, because there were no
alarms.  Kurt McKenna held his flashlight in the window so Stroop could see.
When Stroop was in and had his large Enforcer light switched on, Webley
picked up Kurt from behind and lifted him in.  Foster followed, and Webley
was the last one in, glass crunching underneath his jungle combat boots.
Kurt hoped the glass wouldn't slice through the soles of his Nikes.
        "Are we waiting for Monica?" Kurt whispered.
        "No," Buck Stroop replied.  "She'll make her own way here."
        "Then let's get the party started," George smirked, sweeping his
flashlight over medieval lances and swords, looking for the Holocaust
Gallery.
 

        Wagner spread his wings and sprinted forward a few steps until he
had speed enough to propel him into the sky.  He took only a few moments
climbing for altitude.  He soared over the building like a hunting eagle,
his eyes scanning all four sides.  There!  At the back of the museum, a
young girl in a black fake-leather jacket was climbing in a broken window.
Wagner frowned--the air should have been split by the scream of alarms.
Evidently the toolbox in the girl's right hand had contained the necessary
equipment to take care of that.
        It did not contain the equipment to deal with an angry gargoyle, and
even if it had, the last thing Monica Smith was expecting was a threat
diving out of the sky behind her.  She had just set the toolbox down to ease
her left leg over the broken glass in the pane when powerful hands seized
her from behind.  The next thing she knew, she was watching the wall of the
museum zip by in front of her face.  She fought to turn around and see what
was happening, but could not.
        The wall abruptly vanished from before her eyes, and as she looked
down, she could see open concrete sinking away beneath her--was that the
_roof_?  Suddenly, her upward flight halted and he fell.  The hands released
her on the way down and she landed with a thump on the roof six feet below.
        With the wind knocked out of her, Monica tried once more to turn
around.  The maneuver was accomplished for her by a rough hand which picked
her up by the front of her jacket.  The hand's owner took a few steps
forward, and Smith found herself dangling off the edge of the roof.  She
tore her eyes away from the ground two stories below to focus on her captor.
He was even more terrifying than the height.
        The man was dressed all in black.  ~The security guard from the
secret police,~ she thought irrationally, and then her breath caught in her
throat as her airway closed up halfway and refused to re-open.  Her captor's
eyes were glowing like phosphorus, and in their depths they were a cold, icy
blue, more alien than anything she'd seen on a bad trip.  Smith realized
that the man was holding her effortlessly off the ground with one hand, and
should her captor slacken his grip, she would plummet to her death.  She
couldn't decide whether it would be more frightening to fall, or be brought
onto the roof with this creature that held her.
        Monica finally managed to find his voice.  "Buck?  Buck!  George!
Frank!"
        ~More?~ Wagner thought.  ~Dammit, there¹s more!  Why didn't I think
of that?~  What he said, though, involved lifting his prisoner right up to
his face until their noses touched.  "How many of you are there?" Wagner
hissed.
        "Six," Monica croaked.  "Don¹t kill me.  Please."
        ~If she's one of the six, there's five more left.  Four, if the kid
was part of their gang too.  That means there's four or five inside there
and...Sara!  Scheiss!~  His eyes flashed, and their sudden luminescence
drowned the blue centers out completely.
        Monica Smith never saw the blow coming, and never felt the impact as
the black-uniformed stranger tossed her several meters across the roof.
Fortunately for her, Wagner had not used his full strength.  In the days to
come, she'd curse the whiplash in her neck, never knowing the gargoyle could
have snapped it easily if he'd wanted to.  For the meantime, though, she lay
unconscious.  When she finally came to, she would wonder how the hell she
had ended up on the roof.
 

        Sara Bernstein heard the approaching footsteps and nervously stepped
a pace backwards.  "Rick?  Is that you?" she asked tentatively.
        "Don¹t move, lady."  They came around the corner at the far end of
the hall, near the Holocaust exhibit.
        There were four of them.  The leader wore a black T-shirt which
showed off his tattoos, a pair of olive drab army pants, and knee-high
combat boots.  He brandished a steel pipe, and Sara could see that the
tattoo on his left bicep was an Iron Cross.  She knew right away that the
situation was potentially deadly.  On the leader's left was another young
thug, his hair shaved off just like his leader's, and dressed completely in
camouflage fatigues.  He grinned and drew a wicked hunting knife.  To his
right stood a boy of perhaps twenty in a plaid shirt with a hatchet.
Following behind came a teenager in black T-shirt and urban cammo pants,
toting a crowbar.  This one was a bit more hesitant and stared at Sara,
wondering what the other gang members were going to do.
        "We don't need no dirty Jews here," George Webley stated.  ~Frank
Foster coulda said it better.  Explained why they stink and all that.  But I
can say it faster.~ "Fuck all Jews."  ~There.  That oughtta do it.  Now, to
trash stuff!~  His pipe smashed an exhibit case with a diary displayed
underneath.  Sara gasped.
        "The police will be here shortly," Sara said tersely, hoping the
skinheads would fall for her bluff.
        They didn't.  Blade Stroop smiled coldly.  "No, they won't.  The
alarms and phone lines are cut."  He turned to the others.  "Kurt!  Frank!
George!  Take out the trash.  I'll keep an eye on our....guest."
        High above them, right under the rafters, black wings passed over.
 

        Kurt steeled himself.  He was still working his mind past the
societal taboo of even touching these things, let alone destroying them.  He
focused on a display case of Jewish passports and badges, swung the crowbar
back and forth a little like a baseball player warming up, and let fly.  The
case cracked with a loud complaint.  One more swing shattered it completely,
knocking the artifacts out onto the floor.  ~This is easier than I thought.~
Across the room, Webley was dragging his hunting knife down the life-size
photo of the gate to Auschwitz.
        Meanwhile, Frank Foster had damaged the Holocaust exhibits in his
line of travel and emerged to see a magnificent diorama.  There was a
genuine Mercedes staff car in front of him, its chrome shining brilliantly
and its body polished to a high gloss.  On either side, mannequins held
banners and flags adorned with swastikas.  Beside the car stood a
magnificent replica of a SS officer, replete with full dress uniform,
standing proudly at attention with his head held high and looking as if he
breathed.
        Frank paused a moment and took a few steps forward, staring in
wonder.  The display was wonderfully impressive.  His eyes scanned the
placard below--THE NUREMBERG RALLIES, it said, complete with photographs and
several paragraphs of information.  Frank wished he could have been part of
it.  Truly, he'd been born fifty years too late.
        Foster looked up again to see the SS officer looking directly down
at him.  The statue blinked.
        He didn't even have time to scream before the "mannequin" jumped
over the velvet ropes in one fluid movement.  Its left hand seized him by
the throat, giving him barely enough air to breathe.  The hatchet fell out
of his hand in the shock of the moment.  The man's eyes glowed with an
unearthly light, and they were focused on the Nazi party pin on Frank's
collar.  They darted to gaze into his own, and the lips split in a cold
smile.  "You think you're a Nazi, kid?" his captor asked.  The man's right
hand quickly felt Foster's pockets, waistband, and anywhere else he might be
concealing a weapon.
        Wagner glared at the young man in his left hand and couldn't decide
whether to feel loathing or pity.  ~The war's been lost for over fifty years
and this kid wants to be a Nazi?  Well...perhaps I can change his mind.~
Wagner pulled out his Walther and let the barrel of the gun trace a line
across the guy's face.  "Do you have any idea what Nazis do to people they
don¹t like?  Perhaps I can show you.  How would you like that, hmmm?"  He
deliberately let his old German accent creep back into his voice, thickening
with each word.
        "Noooo," Frank Foster moaned, shutting his eyes and praying that the
nightmare would go away.
        Wagner growled and tossed the skinhead back against a wall like a
rag doll.  As he lay there groaning, only semi-conscious, Wagner's gun
raised as if under its own volition.  The gargoyle's first impulse was to
shoot the guy twice in the heart.  Twice, in case your first shot missed.
It was a common technique among those who killed on a regular basis.
Leaving this young man here, inside the museum, was much more of a risk than
leaving the girl on the roof, where she was likely to be stuck and certain
to be farther removed from Sara.  Wagner hadn't lived a hundred and six
years by taking chances, or taking prisoners.
        But this time Wagner wasn't at war.  He wasn't on an assassination
assignment, either.  This time, there would be a reckoning.  Technically, he
reminded himself, he wasn't even supposed to be carrying a gun, and he would
have to make an account of this incident the next evening.  It would be
difficult to dispose of bodies and clean up evidence under these
circumstances, and then there was Sara to consider--he doubted she'd keep
something like that a secret.  She had too much of a conscience.
Furthermore, he could not afford to take his time making a decision.  A
quick once-over caused him to conclude that the wannabe Nazi wasn't going
anywhere any time soon.  Wagner moved off, picking up Frank's hatchet on the
way.
 

        Kurt moved around the corner.  He looked over a wall full of plaques
bearing victims' testimony before he started to knock the plaques off the
wall.  He read the odd phrase, but the words did not begin to sink into his
mind.  He struck randomly, attacking some displays and leaving others stand.
The sporadic nature of his assaults caused him to travel forward quickly,
and soon a soft groaning attracted his attention.
        Frank Foster lay on his side against the wall, moaning and moving
his upper arm very slightly.  Kurt swallowed hard and ran over to him.
"Frank?  Frank, are you okay?  What happened?"
        "God....a monster, a monster," Foster moaned, and faded into
unconsciousness.
        "Frank?  Frank!"  Kurt shook him, but Frank wasn¹t responding.
        More terrified than he'd ever been in his life, even including the
time when big Jack Richardson had beat him up, Kurt checked to make sure
Foster was still breathing.  He was, but an ugly bruise had started to form
on the side of his head.  His lower arm looked as if it might be broken,
too.  Kurt didn't know what he could do with an unconscious person.  But
Buck would.  Buck could fix anything.
        "Buck!:  Kurt McKenna ran back to the opening of the Holocaust
Gallery.
 

        That was one down.  Three more to go.
        He worried about Sara.  His instincts were telling him that if the
gunman had wanted to shoot her, he¹d have done it right away.  Furthermore,
even considering his gargoyle nature, it was only one of him and four of
them, and he had no idea what weapons they might be carrying.  Unsuspecting
of danger, the skinheads didn't know enough to stay together and that would
make it easy for him to pick them off one by one.  After he took care of the
men, then he could go after the leader.
        He'd certainly taken the last one by surprise.  He'd held his
breath, trying to look like a statue, intending to jump the boy from several
meters away.  It had been a lucky break, actually, that the plaid-shirted
hatchet carrier had been so enthralled by Nazi history that he'd walked
right up to the display.  Disturbing, but lucky for Wagner.
        ~But luck must not be trusted.~  He thought once more of Sara and
felt guilty for not going to her immediately, poor strategy or not.  If he
heard a scream, he'd be across the hall to her in moments.  ~If that gunman
does anything to her...~
        ~...reckoning be damned.~
 

        ~Smash.  Crash.  Trash.  Thrash.~  George Webley found this little
ditty to be very poetic.  He'd shredded the life-size photo and had just
bashed a mannequin's head off.  Foster would have wanted him to leave the
one in German uniform alone--respect for the Reich and all that--but it was
so much more fun to drive the hunting knife into its chest.  He struggled to
pull it out and realized that a real human body didn't have nearly so much
resistance, unless, of course, you accidentally drove your knife in too high
and got it stuck in the rib cage.  Human ribs were incredibly strong and
could actually break knife blades.
        Kurt McKenna came tearing around the corner, the soles of his shoes
skidding on the varnished floor.  "George!"
        "What?" Webley growled.  He didn't much like kids.  They couldn¹t
fight for crap, and this one was not just distracting him--he was being
annoying as well.
        "Something got Foster!"
        "What the fuck are you talking about?"
        "Frank's unconscious over there–" the older McKenna pointed
backwards "--and I dunno if he's even breathing and..."
        "Shit."  Now George would have to go look.
        "Where's Ty?"  Suddenly, all Kurt wanted was his little brother,
safe and sound beside him.  "What if it got Ty?"
        "If you won't fuck off, then fuckin' hurry up and show me," George
snapped, wanting to get this over with as soon as possible.

 
        Buck Stroop grinned coldly.  The Jewish bitch was obviously upset,
watching his Low Riders smash her damned Jew exhibit.  Good.  Lies, most of
it.  Fucking Jews, trying to take over everything, drive out the whites, and
then making it like white people were to blame.  Where else could the
niggers and packis and spics have gotten the idea from?  Well, he would make
her watch the destruction.  After that, well...there were several
interesting possibilities.
        He tried to decide whether or not to kill her.  He'd been to jail
for two years already, weapons offenses, and had no desire to go back.  On
the other hand, the museum was deserted--no witnesses--and he didn't know
her personally.  Random acts of violence made it so much harder to pinpoint
a perpetrator.
        Sara Bernstein was frozen in terror, not daring to move lest she
provoke the gunman, but in her mind she sent a prayer to God heavenward,
praying for her safety.  As she ended the prayer, an ugly thought crossed
her mind.  Her resulting anger and fear overcame her better judgement.
        "What did you do to Rick?" she demanded.
        Stroop looked away from the damage the others had caused and glared
at Sara.  "Who the fuck is Rick?" he asked.
        ~If he doesn't know, then he hasn't seen him,~ she thought.
~Maybe...~  She didn't answer the skinhead's question.
        Blade swaggered closer and brandished the gun.  "I said, who the
fuck is Rick?"  He enunciated the words in a mockingly exaggerated way.
        "A coworker," she whispered.
        "And he's supposed to be here tonight?"
        "He...he said he might be dropping by.  Maybe."
        Buck stroked his jaw, assimilating this new information.

 
        "Jesus God," George whispered, staring at the unconscious form of
Frank Foster.  "This is some serious shit."  Kurt was staring up at him,
expecting him to magically know what to do.
        Inside, Webley's mind was racing.  ~Security guards don't do this.
I've tangled with guards before and they don't do this shit.~
        George's cry was much like Kurt's.  "BUCK!!!!"
 

        Wagner had been stalking the teenager.  He had seemed hesitant,
uncertain, a "softer" target, and so the gargoyle had decided to eliminate
him before going after the maniac with the hunting knife.  Unfortunately, he
hadn't had time to make his move before Kurt and George had doubled up.
        He'd have trouble pinning two guys with his Walther.  A handgun
really couldn't cover two targets, and the skinheads would know that.  In
this museum, though, there were other weapons which could.
        He dropped out of the rafters in the World War Two exhibit area.  He
told himself he was selecting a German weapon because the German display was
the closest to the Holocaust Gallery, and not because he felt an inner
attraction to Nazi equipment.  Whatever the reason, the gargoyle formed his
wing hands into fists and drove them hard against the glass of a display
case.  The golden gauntlets protected him from the shards, which he swept
out of his