Unholy Crusade, part twelve

3

Gretl sat on the roof of the Victoria, a pseudo-Victorian building in the centre of town. It had been a theatre in the 1960s, a cinema in the 1980s and was now a trendy wine bar on the ground floor with a cheap and nasty nightclub occupying the two floors above it. If there was anywhere to pick up scum in this town, the nightclub in the Victoria was the place.

The night was still young and she had barely woken but already the craving was threatening to overwhelm her. She had been hooked on cigarettes when she died and the need for nicotine had been tremendous. Her body ached, her mind pulsed with every heartbeat and she felt herself become so tense whenever she could not get one more draw on those little white sticks. She experienced the effects of withdrawal whenever it was a choice between cigarettes or little Claus having a new pair of shoes, or the right books for school, or any one of a hundred other things a growing child needs. Money had been tight, but she could always fight the cravings when things got too bad.

She would give anything to feel those cravings now. Compared to the hell she faced each night, they were paradise.

She scanned the crowds that were starting to form outside the more popular pubs and clubs. Somewhere in each crowd there was a target. She just needed to find one. Which unlucky sod would it be tonight?

Outside the Victoria, a man in a white tracksuit sauntered over to a blue Fiat, looked both ways, then leaned into the passenger-side front window. Gretl watched him talking to the driver; saw him pass something over to him and receive something in return. Then he stood up, patted the roof and walked away.

'Dealer,' she thought, keeping her eyes on the car. 'Perfect.'

4

'Allo there, darlin',' the dealer grinned. His smile was crooked, like he's taken one too many punches to his already less than perfect face while growing up. 'What can I do for you?'
His eyes flicked up from her chest for a brief second, meeting hers. It was all she needed. As his jaw sagged in the vacant way that told her he would do anything she asked.

She smiled. 'Let's go for a ride.'

He started the car and headed out of town. Gretl looked around the car as they drove, taking in the black jacket slung on the back seat and bulge in the dealer's trouser pocket. Either money or drugs. She hoped it was money, drugs were useless to her.

'Stop here,' she said.

The dealer pulled over to the side of the road and stopped the car.

She leaned over toward him, put her hands on his shoulders and whispered in his ear. 'Sleep.'
He closed his eyes and went limp, his head falling forward. She pushed it to one side and bit down hard on his neck. The blood flowed slowly, but it was warm and the pleasure centre of her brain stepped into overdrive as its sharp, iron taste flowed over her tongue. Her heart raced, her pupils dilated. She sucked at the wound, gulping the warm, red liquid as fast as she could. She had to get as much out as possible before the wound clotted. It was a personal rule; one bite per victim. Any more and she risked killing the poor sap.

Killing was Allemand's territory. Despite everything he had taken from her, she still had her conscience.

The blood stopped. She licked sorrowfully at the young man's neck, savouring the last of his precious, life-giving fluid, then slumped back in her seat and let it work its magic on her. The wounds that had not healed since the night before closed, leaving no trace. She looked whole again. Human. The spectre of death lifted.

Her business concluded, she searched the man's pockets, finding a roll of twenties, a half-empty packet of cigarettes and a bic lighter. She took them all, pulled him out of the car and drove back into town.

Unholy Crusade, part eleven

Chapter Five

1

Cartwright paced back and forth in front of a large window overlooking the street. He was flicking through a grey file, one of a seemingly endless number of similar files Seth had until now kept locked in the drawers of his office cabinet. The old man had been working on this case for far too long, and from the look of some of the documents he was reading, cuttings from newspapers from all around the world, he had not been working alone.

He finished reading an article about a serial killer in Adelaide in the 1920s and looked over at Seth. He was sitting at his desk, pecking at his keyboard with two fingers. He had been working here for longer than Cartwright had been out of school and yet the guy had never found time to learn to use a computer.

Seth looked over at him. 'Seen enough?'

'I don't know,' said Cartwright. 'It's hard to believe one guy is responsible for all this. It goes back decades.'

'You saw Gretl. How do you explain her?'

Cartwright looked at the older man. 'You think she's a...hell, I don't even know what to call her.'

Seth began tap-tapping on the keyboard. 'I think she's a vampire.'

'No way,' Cartwright snorted. 'No fucking way.'

'I saw her skin burn up in the sunlight. She started to look normal after drinking blood. Her death certificate is sat on my desk. What more proof do you want?'

'I saw a kid with a sunlight allergy on the television once.'

Seth looked up from the computer. 'Did she drink blood?'

'You can't honestly think that was real.'

'Why not? What else was it?'

'It could have been anything! The girl's clearly a fucking loon!'

Seth turned back to the computer. 'Keep reading.'

'Why? What am I going to find?'

'Enough evidence to make you change your assumptions about the world.'

Cartwright turned toward the window and looked out at the late afternoon skyline. There were dark clouds on the horizon and there was a chill in the air already. The night was going to be long, cold and unwelcoming. Just what he did not need.

2

'Condition one,' Seth had said. 'We share everything. No secrets. If you find something out, I want to know about it.'

He had not expected her to provide so much so quickly. Hand-written notes, scrawled on scraps of paper in the most illegible writing he had ever seen. She must have been collecting this crap for years, and now all he had to do was write it up in a decent form, then cross-reference it with everything the Ministry had in its computers. That would take days, but who cared? It was necessary, and he had people to do it for him.

He had chosen to type it all up personally, so he had a chance to read everything as it was going in. It would take all day to sort out the scraps of paper, put them into a coherent order and then type them up but there was nothing more important to do.

He finished typing the last sentence of a file on Allemand's movements in the 1980s. Places he had lived, people he had worked with. Some of this tied in with investigations Seth had run years earlier, but he had never heard of Allemand before.

'He works through intermediaries,' she had told him. 'Don't expect to turn up anything on him directly.'

He was chasing a ghost on the word of a woman who stank like a latrine and whose skin fell off in bright light. He was taking a lot on faith, that much was certain.

She didn't smell as much after she drank blood, he thought. What other surprises is she hiding?

Cartwright burst into the office, carrying a file in one hand and a coffee in the other.

'Got him,' he said, dropping the file onto the desk and jabbing at a photograph.

'Who?'

'Allemand. He's a sneaky fucker but he can't hide forever.'

Seth looked at the photograph. It was in a newspaper clipping from a French newspaper in the late 1960s. In the background of a picture showing the aftermath of a car accident was a tall, thin man with light coloured hair and a beard. The printing was too low quality to give any more information.

'What makes you think it's him?' Seth asked.

Cartwright handed him a printout of a photograph. 'I found this on a website charting the history of the Scholz family in Munich.'

'Who are they?'

'Nobody important, until you see him.' Cartwright pointed to a young man, likely the eldest son of the family. 'This was taken around 1901, before the family were called Scholz. The young lad there is called Hans Allemand.'

'So what happened to him?'

'Apparently he went off to fight in the first world war and never came back.'

Seth stared at the photograph. The boy could not have been more than thirteen when the picture was taken.

He handed the photograph back. 'It's a start. See what else you can find out about him.'

Unholy Crusade, part ten

2

Jeremy felt like he was floating, detached from everything around him. The world swam around him in a haze of dark clouds and confusion. Somewhere, he could not tell if it was close or afar, a gunshot sounded. He saw flashes of light, shouts and cries, snatches of barked orders. None of it seemed to register fully in his mind.

The girl was there; the one from the meeting. She was fighting someone. Had he also been at the meeting? Was this the meeting, going on right now? He could not be sure. The man pulled a gun, fired at the girl, hit her full in the chest. She staggered backward, almost fell but righted herself at the last moment and lashed out at the man, hitting him square in the face with the palm of her hand. Now he staggered backward, lost his footing and fell.

The girl dropped down on top of him, landing with her knee on his chest. Jeremy heard a cry of pain. Was it from the man? He could not tell. It did not matter. In Jeremy's mind, none of what he was seeing or hearing mattered. The man on the ground lashed out with his fists, sometimes connecting with the girl, sometimes not. She did not seem to care.

She reached out with both hands, took hold of the man's head and twisted.

Now Jeremy was looking up at the girl, seeing her in detail for the first time. She was attractive, but it was not her looks that made her so. She looked plain, the kind of girl he wouldn't give a moment's thought if he passed her in the street. But there was something else also, something that held his attention. He couldn't put his finger on it.

She took her hands off him and stood up. He could not breathe. He could not move. His thought tightened as he gasped for breath that would not come. He could feel his mind going cold and numb. His body felt like it was no longer part of him. It was lost in a sea of agony. The bitch had broken his neck! He was going to die, and she was the one that had killed him.

She walked away, and he saw she was no longer the girl from the meeting. Now he looked more closely, he could not believe he had thought she was a girl at all. It was Reggie. Reggie had done this to him. The old bastard! He'd set this whole meeting up to get rid of Jeremy and his men.

The world lost focus and once again Jeremy was floating in the cloudy realm where nothing was real. His mind burned with rage. He thought he could trust that old bastard but he had been wrong. Now Reggie was going to pay.

He woke in a cold sweat, sitting in the leather chair by a fire that was no more than barely glowing embers now. The whisky glass was still in his hand. He looked at it like it was alien to him.

'Then why was he not there?'

The German's words echoed in his mind. How had he known? Who could say.

All that mattered right now was that Reggie Dixon was going to pay for what he had done tonight. Good men, loyal men, had died because that old shit had ratted them out.

He would pay dearly.

Unholy Crusade, part nine

Chapter Four

1

Jeremy Pellier sat nursing a whisky. Reggie wanted him back in town but he was too drunk to drive. He would get some rest and head back first thing in the morning. A hangover would be the least of his problems and he knew it all too well, but that problem was hours away.

He downed the whisky and poured himself another. What harm would one more do?

He heard the study door open, and turned to see a tall, thin man with thick blonde hair entering. The man closed the door and walked over to where Jeremy was sitting. He took the other of the two leather armchairs by the fireplace.

'Who the fuck are you?' Jeremy asked.

'We have a mutual acquaintance,' the man said. His voice carried the subtlest hint of a German accent.

'You obviously didn't hear me. I'll ask again: who the fuck are you?'

'You can call me Hans,' said the man. 'I am told Monsieur Dupont was disappointed by tonight's meeting. I would like to know why.'

'Tough shit. Now get out of my house.'

Hans leaned back in his chair and looked at Jeremy like he was assessing him.

'Mr Pellier,' he said. 'You disappoint me, clinging to these outdated notions. Your house indeed! How can any of us claim ownership of something that may very well stand for longer than we ever could?'

'What the hell are you talking about? Get out, you babbling prick.'

'Possessions, Mr Pellier, are an illusion. We cannot own anything, not one atom. We merely take charge of them for a time; then pass them on when we ourselves pass on.'

'Look, fuck off will you. I'm a busy man.'

Hans leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees and looking James straight in the eye. James found himself transfixed, unable to tear himself away from the other man's piercing gaze.

'Tell me what happened tonight,' said Hans.

The blonde man's stare burned into James' mind. His eyes prickled, his skin crawled, but he could not turn away.

'Where do you want me to start?' he asked. The words seemed to flow out of his mouth without his mind controlling them.

'Who told the girl we were coming?'

'I don't know.'

'Very well. Who knew about the meeting?'

'Only those who were there,' said James. The words seemed distant, as if heard through cotton wool. He felt as though he was floating a little way behind his body. 'And Reggie.'

'Who is Reggie?'

'Reggie Dixon. He runs the Blexham Green Boys. But he wouldn't rat us out. He had a lot of money resting on this deal.'

'Then why was he not there?'

Hans sat back in his chair and seemed to visibly relax.

The clouds lifted from Jeremy's mind and suddenly he felt more aware of himself. The chair solidified around him, his hands gripping the arms. He felt dizzy and a little sick, like he had just stepped off a fairground ride and was still spinning on the inside.

'What the fuck?' he said. 'What did you fucking do to me?'

'Nothing whatsoever,' said Hans, watching him closely.

'Look, just get the fuck out will you?' Jeremy blustered. 'I'm a busy man.'

Hans nodded. 'Very well.'

He stood and made his way to the door. Jeremy watched him go, flustered and with beads of sweat forming on his brow.

At the doorway, Hans turned and smiled. 'Good night, Mr Pellier. No doubt we will meet again.'

He left, closing the door behind him.

'Not if I see you first,' Jeremy muttered.

Unholy Crusade, part eight

6

He could have pushed to stay outside. Some other men would have. Another time, he might have but not this time. The way her flesh had burned in the sunlight, even the low light of the early dawn; the way that rotten stench had clawed at his lungs, getting worse by the second, as the dawn light grew stronger. In the end did he really have a choice?

Not if he wanted to know what was going on.

He followed her back inside. She opened the heavy metal door like it was hardly there. He closed it behind them, pulling with all his strength. The hinges were rusted and almost immovable. How much strength was hidden in her gaunt body? She'd done the seemingly impossible right before his eyes.

Cartwright had pulled his gun on her when she opened the door, but he didn't get the chance to fire. Seth grabbed the weapon as soon as he saw it, twisted the man's hand and disarmed him. The stupid bastard obviously needed a lot more training.

They walked down the stairs and back to the empty flat in silence. Questions could wait until they were out of sight of any prying eyes. People would be getting up to go to work within a few hours; chances are some were already up and about. No sense in letting ones self be overheard if you could help it.

Gretl headed straight for the kitchen, pulled a bag from her coat pocket and poured the contents into the glass on the counter. With her back to the door it was hard for Seth to see what exactly she had been carrying.

She picked up the carton of orange juice, shook it and put it down again.

'It's empty,' said Cartwright, nursing his right shoulder. 'We checked.'

'Pity,' Gretl replied. 'It takes the edge off.'

She sipped at the contents of the glass, keeping her back to the two men.

'Look,' Cartwright continued. 'Can someone please tell me what's going on here?'

'Ask your boss,' said Gretl. She downed the last of the glass's contents and started to cough. Seth stepped forward to help her. She raised a hand, stopping him. 'I'm fine. Tell your friend why you're here.'

'Not until you explain to me what the fuck happened on the roof.'

She turned and looked at him. Her skin looked smoother, less blemished. The sores were closing, healing, right before his eyes. 'We talked. What more is there to say?'

'Let's start with someone telling me what exactly you are,' said Cartwright. 'Cause I'm pretty sure dead people don't walk the streets and I've never in my life seen someone go from looking like a disease-ridden tramp to someone who's almost healthy in the blink of an eye.' He grabbed the glass from the woman's hand and sniffed the contents. 'What the hell is this stuff anyway?'

'Blood,' said Gretl. She looked from one man to the other and back again. 'Don't you two know anything?'

Cartwright stared at her, not sure whether to laugh or leave. Seth folded his arms and simply waited for her to continue.

'Look, I thought you were after Allemand. Clearly I was mistaken. So why are you here?'

'Why would we be after Allemand?' asked Seth.

'I asked first.'

Seth shook his head. 'Doesn't work like that. If you want my help, you'll answer my questions.'

'Got im Himmell,' Gretl muttered. She ran a hand through her hair. Seth noticed it had grown back and now looked full of vigour. 'He's the head of a cartel that spans Europe, Russia and parts of the Far East. Nasty little shit, too. Works through local crime mobs, keeps out of sight whenever he can. Very hard to track down.'

'And he's coming here?'

'I'll make sure of it. After the way the meeting at the docks went down, his favourite lap dog is already here. I can use him to lure him out.'

'So that's why you were down at the warehouse?' asked Cartwright.

Gretl nodded.

'You upset months of planning for us, you know.'

'Do I look like I care?' She turned to Seth. 'Are you going to help me or not?'

'You're sure Allemand is the one I should be going after?'

'Dupont is the one who ordered the hit, but he does nothing without Allemand's say so.'

'What are you talking about?' asked Cartwright.

Gretl ignored him. She kept her eyes on Seth, watching him for any hint of what he was thinking.

You don't get the man who killed him. Thanks to this bitch you'll never get the chance.

But you can get the man who sent him. Is that enough?

I honestly don't know but there's only one way to find out.

Seth nodded. Perhaps it was tiredness, or the realisation of what he was getting himself into but he felt every one of his fifty-three years.

'We'll help,' he said. 'But there are conditions.'

Gretl leaned against the counter, appraising her companions, weighing up their strengths and weaknesses in a glance. 'There always are. Name them.'

Unholy Crusade, part seven

5

The morning light began to brighten as the Sun rose over the horizon. Gretl raised her arm to shield her eyes from the onslaught. Seth hardly registered the change, but found the reaction of his quarry intriguing.

'Do you really expect me to believe you're dead?' he asked, matter-of-factly.

Gretl looked at him through eyes that were now barely open, mere slits in puffy, red skin. 'What you think of me is unimportant. What you want to do about the man who killed your son is all I'm concerned with.'

Seth stared at the woman. She certainly smelled dead, and she seemed to be unconcerned with the open wounds and sores that covered her skin. She was clearly not in complete control of her faculties, so her claims to be deceased could be easily ignored.

But then there was the death certificate. And the newspaper reports, with photographs showing a woman who looked exactly like her. Insane or not, those would be difficult to fake.

Cartwright thumped and kicked at the heavy metal door trapping him inside the building. Gretl glanced at the door, then at the horizon. She looked distinctly ill at ease.

'Something wrong?' asked Seth.

'Make up your mind,' the woman snapped. 'Do you want to deal with the man who killed your son, or do you want to scurry away home?'

Don't rise to her, he told himself. She's trying to provoke you.

'Tell me who this man is.'

'Sollte nicht hier aufgekommen haben,' Gretl muttered.

'What?'

She sighed, and looked down at the gravel. 'His name is Allemand. Hans Allemand.'

'I don't recognise the name.'

'There's no reason you should. He works through other people. Stays in the background. He is hard to find.'

'Which is why you want my help.'

She looked up at him. Seth thought for a moment that there were more sores on her skin now, but dismissed the notion as nothing more than his imagination.

'I did not come here to find you,' she said. 'You came to find me.'

Seth folded his arms. If she didn't want to be here, that was something he could play to his advantage. 'So why are you here?'

'There's no time for this! Maybe later, but not now.'

'Gretl,' Seth said, keeping his voice even but stern. 'Why are you here?'

She sighed and turned away. 'Because Allemand is coming.'

'I meant here as in here, on this rooftop. Why bring me up here when you obviously don't want to be outside?'

She kicked at the gravel. 'Are you going to help me or not?'

'Not unless you tell me what's going on.'

She turned around quickly, her face a picture of anger. 'Fine! I brought you up here to kill you. You broke into my home, you had a man outside watching me and you won't leave me alone. I brought you up here and trapped you so I could kill you then kill your friend.'

Seth's first instinct was to go for his gun and blow the bitch away. He suppressed it for the moment.

'Why?' he asked.

'Because I thought he sent you.'

Seth glanced at the horizon. 'It's going to be dawn any moment.'

Gretl nodded. 'I need to get back inside.'

'I think we need to talk more.'

She shook her head. 'Not out here.'

'Why?'

She pushed up the sleeve on her left arm, revealing bare skin as white as chalk. It began to turn red almost immediately. Blisters arose, turned to sores and wept a deep, red-black puss.

'Jesus!' said Seth. 'What the fuck?'

Gretl pulled her sleeve back down over the damaged skin. 'If you want to talk, we do it inside.'

Unholy Crusade, part six

4

The heavy metal door to the roof stood open at the end of a short corridor with bare, grey walls and a dull brown carpet. Outside the early morning sunlight was beginning to creep over the horizon. The rain battered the flat, gravel-coated rooftop and pattered on the ceiling.

Seth glanced around, saw no sign of the woman, and hurried out onto the roof with Cartwright behind him, out of breath from running up the short flight of stairs.

'Gimme...a minute,' Cartwright puffed. He leaned against the wall at the top of the stairs. 'I need to catch my breath.'

Seth went on without him. He stepped out into the rain and looked around. The woman was nowhere to be seen.

'Shit,' he muttered.

From the corner of his eye he saw a shadow move. He turned around. There was nothing there.

Behind him, he heard the crunch of wet gravel.

He spun around, ready to catch the woman this time. Something struck him in the chest. He staggered backward, away from the door.

The woman stepped forward, grabbed the door with one hand and slammed it shut. Inside, Cartwright hammered on the metal but the door did not budge.

'Now we can talk,' said the woman. 'But make it quick.'

Seth straightened his tie, a ploy to buy some time while he got his bearings and assessed the situation in his mind. He was on the top of a three-storey building with one clear exit route, currently blocked by a woman who was clearly fast, strong and in need of a hot bath. His companion was trapped inside, and his other companion was dead in a car. Had she killed him? Now was the time to find out.

'Why did you kill Thomas?' he asked.

The woman looked at him blankly. 'Thomas who?'

'George Henry Thomas,' said Seth, pointing down at the street. 'The man in car down there.'

'That's nothing to do with me. I haven't a clue who you're talking about.'

Cartwright hammered on the door. It did not budge.

'You want me to believe there's a man dead outside the building we know you've been living in, and it's has nothing to do with you being here? That beggars belief.'

'I'm not the only person living here. Now do you have any better questions? I have other things to do, you know.'

'Fine. We'll get the CCTV and find out what happened ourselves.'

'You do that.'

The woman turned to leave.

Seth sighed. 'Greta, wait.'

The woman stopped, looked around at him. 'What now?'

'Why are you here?'

She looked at him, appraising him, judging his worth.

'Who are you?' she asked.

'I'm with the Ministry--'

'No,' she said, sharply. 'Who are you? Not who are you with.'

'I'm Seth Baron. The man trying to break through the door is Stephen Cartwright.'

'Baron...' Greta mused. She chewed her lip as she thought. Seth noticed one of her teeth was pointed, like it was chipped or had lost a cap. She looked up at him suddenly. 'Any relation to David Baron?'

'My son,' said Seth.

'I'm sorry for your loss.'

'I'm sure you are,' Seth sneered. 'Thanks to you his killer will never see justice.'

Greta shook her head slowly. 'It wasn't justice you were looking for.'

'And how the hell would you know? You don't know me.'

'Because I'm looking for the same thing.'

The woman walked forward. The rain coursing over her was doing nothing to rid her of the stench that clung to her like a second skin. She looked him in the eye like she could see into his soul.

'The man who killed your son is still alive. Mark First was not the one who called the hit, he just pulled the trigger. I can help you find the man responsible for your loss.'

'Why would you do that?'

'Because he's also the man who killed me and my family.'