Nothing stirs in the courtyard of the castle in the cloudy afternoon.
A giant scarlet banner adorned with the swastika hangs from the highest tower in the castle. Wind intermittently makes it flap and rustle. The wind doesn’t reach down into the courtyard, the air is clammy and still, with a slight odor of decay coming from somewhere. Sunlight is revealed and then hidden by the clouds racing across the sky. Not much light reaches the bottom of the courtyard; the shadows are long even in early afternoon. Sometimes there’s a faint electrical buzzing sound coming from somewhere, like a giant wasp trapped in a glass.Continue reading “(Fang of the SS) CHAPTER 22: Vampires vs. Wehrmacht”→
Wetzel looks up from the map that he’s examining by flashlight. He’s in the passenger seat of his jeep. Krober leans over the back of his seat and looks at the map and where Wetzel is indicating. “We’re about here now and here’s the castle. A couple of hours. We should probably stop soon, then. Let the men rest until sunrise, then get on the way, arrive and catch the bloodsuckers napping.”
Mueller, the driver, swears and jerks the wheel. The other two men look up and see a fighter plane come screaming out of the sky, on fire, and slam into the desert not far away from the road that they’re on. There’s the sound of a hammer hitting metal and a large dent appears in the hood of the jeep. A spent fighter plane round neatly rests in the middle of the dent.Continue reading “(Fang of the SS) CHAPTER 21: Pieces Start To Gather”→
Mirsky glances upward as he hustles to the hangar but he can’t see anything through the darkness. Fighters and bombers roar as they take off, one after the other, joining their brethren who are already in the air, flying from other airbases along the front, filling the night with noise. He admits it, it gives him a thrill to be a part of such a huge death dealing machine as the US Army when it’s rolling.
“Ok, so jumpin’ out of plane is a lot fuckin’ harder than it looks.”
Mirsky limps into the hangar behind Maccabbee. “But I gotta say, Rabbi, I’m not too happy with your plan.”
Maccabbee stops and turns to Mirsky. “Sergeant. Benny. It’s the only way that you get to come along on the mission. We’re parachuting out of a plane tomorrow. There’s no way you can get trained in time.”
“Yeah, but…”
“Malkuth will take care of you. It what he does, takes care of people. He’ll get you down to the ground safely.”
Mirsky does a great imitation of a kid who doesn’t want to take his medicine. “But him carrying me, me strapped to him like some baby…”
Maccabbee’s been trained to listen compassionately and understandingly when people come to him with the stupidest shit. So he doesn’t roll his eyes or cast aspersions onto Mirsky’s masculinity. He just claps the Russian hitman on the shoulder. “You’ve got to get on the ground somehow, we need you down there, and this is the best way that I could think of.”Continue reading “(Fangs of the SS) CHAPTER 19: Mission Is Go!”→
For the last several kilometers along the abused dirt road, Wehrmacht Captain Rickard Wetzel and the vehicles of his command have been passing German Army vehicles: trucks, jeeps, armored personnel carriers, trucks towing artillery pieces, motorcycle couriers, even some tanks, all heading in the opposite direction, towards the front. Now, in late afternoon as the sun breaks through the clouds, they come to their destination.
It’s a Wehrmacht forward command post that’s using an abandoned village as a gathering place and an easy map point. Similar to the one a hundred kilometers or so the west where Wetzel and his soldiers had destroyed the American patrol.
Wetzel raises his goggles as his jeep comes to a halt. He looks back to see the rest of his vehicles pull up behind him. Krober gets out of the lead truck and Wetzel goes to meet him.
If you like this story, you might like this comic book.
As night falls, a businessman returns from a hard day of meetings.
“Ok, so I pieced off the crap game to Stankovic, introduced Ferris to Muldoon over at the quartermasters, and told Darlac to find another sucker for his dope bizness.”
Mirsky is walking between the tents of Camp Cuckoo talking to himself. It’s an old habit and one that people have warned him about for years. He doesn’t care all that much. When he talks to himself, he uses such a mix of ungrammatical Russian, Yiddish, English, and even some Greek that he picked up on the Odessa wharves, that no one really has any chance of understanding what he’s saying. “Jumping out of a plane is gonna be a fuckin’ nightmare. But it’s Leah. So, sure, I’m going to jump out of an airplane in two days. I survive that, I make sure the Rabbi survives this queen bitch monster we’re going up against, and then, little sister, I’m coming to make sure you’re safe.”
He stops his monologue. Something different up ahead, around a couple of tents. Not the usual chanting, weird mechanical noises, or something that sounded like some sort of wolf fucking some sort of cat. No, this is much more familiar to Mirsky. The voices of drunk and stupid authority throwing its weight around. A gentle smile appears on Mirsky’s face. He rolls his shoulders, loosening muscles. He cracks his knuckles. He heads towards the voices.Continue reading “(Fangs of the SS) CHAPTER 17: The Zombies, They Like White Meat”→
He wishes he were more tired, he’d notice them less, care less about them, then. But now, shaved, rested, he’s aware of their stares as he walks through the busy town hall. The building is busier than it ever was when this place was just a small sleepy French colonial town in the Tunisian highlands. The sounds of typewriters and voices and boots echo against the shot up walls and the smoke stained ceiling. Somebody recently tried to hold this building for a while. Maccabbee steps on a blood stain that’s been scrubbed halfheartedly back when the Americans turned the building into their HQ. Not enough time, not enough wear for the stain to have faded. The Kabbalist shivers when he catches the echoes of the death. A German kid, dying hard, bleeding out, warmth pulsing into cold, doesn’t want to die, he whispers something that Maccabbee can’t hear, doesn’t want to hear. He grits his teeth and moves on through the people. Continue reading “(Fangs of the SS) CHAPTER 16: Among Strangers”→
Promethea by Moore and Williams. Another huge influence on this book.
“Well, this is bullshit!”
Geburah’s not shy about expressing its frustration and Maccabbee steps away a little bit to avoid the flailing arms.
Mirsky’s walking behind the two of them as they go towards the HQ for this Army base and he shakes his head. So very pleased that the Rabbi’s taken my advice to avoid scaring the goyim. He had to have a golem go with him to this meeting and he had to pick the weirdest looking one. I can see that helping this guy is going to be a walk in the park. At least I got him to shave and put on a clean uniform. Doesn’t look like death on stick anymore. As much, I guess. And maybe his nose won’t start bleeding when he’s in front of the brass.
Camp Cuckoo is on the far side of this base and everybody around them is regular Army. The three of them are picking up a lot of attention and that’s giving Mirsky the fidgets. It’s not just that Geburah’s a tall, beautiful four armed walking statue. It’s also that Geburah’s positively dripping with weapons. Four shoulder holsters, four automatics, a rifle, a couple of grenades, and big bush knife strapped to one thigh. The base has grown up a small Tunisian town, abandoned when the war rolled up to its doorstep, and the brass picked the town hall as the HQ. That’s where the three of them are heading, through the constantly moving throng of soldiers and equipment. Trucks and Jeeps of troops moving up to the front and ambulances and Jeeps bringing back the wounded. Supplies and equipment being shifted around. It’s loud with engines and shouts. The mud sticks to their boots.Continue reading “(Fangs of the SS) CHAPTER 15: The Creation Of Geburah”→
Sergeant Augie Toffer has a rock in his boot and it’s driving him insane. Which means that his mind isn’t on his job. Not that it matters, in the end.
The abandoned village up ahead is just a small cluster of buildings around a spot where the road widens into a stopping point. The American patrol is coming up the rutted dirt road. They’ve been out since dawn, marching up the foothills of the mountains of central Tunisia. At least it’s stopped raining, a soft drizzle that made everything miserable. Now the sun’s out and the clouds have retreated to the tops of the mountains in the north. It’s cold.Continue reading “(Fangs of the SS) CHAPTER 14: Enter The Wehrmacht”→
Mirsky’s got a pissed off look on his face and he’s muttering to himself. Because he’s so intent on his own internal dialogue, questioning the sexual habits of Duvall’s mother and just how someone that stupid could actually get promoted to captain, and in Army Intelligence no less, which, he realizes pretty much answers his own question, because of all that, the skinny Russian Jew doesn’t notice that the inhabitants of Camp Cuckoo that cross his path: a mad scientist, a witch, something bipedal and wrapped in bandages, and others, all of them get out of his way. Continue reading “(Fangs of the SS) CHAPTER 13: The Hitman And The Rabbi”→
