The White Baron by David Eveleigh
The White Baron
By David Eveleigh
Copyright 2015 David Eveleigh
“Efeu” is an open-source character created by David Eveleigh. She may be used by anyone, for any purpose, under the sole condition that the work featuring her is accompanied by this paragraph. Feel free to use her as you see fit. Just make sure she doesn't start using you.
Cover image courtesy of https://www.publicdomainpictures.net/
Also By This Author:
The All Hallows Eve Series (Retro Superhero Adventure)
The Life And Crimes Of Fraulein Efeu Series (YA Sci-Fi/Horror)
Brickabrack Hall (Spooky Children's Comedy)
The Trouble With Jokes (Dystopian Flash Fiction)
The darkness was almost complete. Only a slight sliver of lamplight crept through the drawn blinds and into the roach infested motel room. It stretched across dilapidated wooden floorboards to a slowly rotting desk, where it illuminated the Professor's face in a low orange glow. His eyes darted to the window as an air raid siren wailed somewhere in the distance. Hearing it was a reminder of the sword which hung above his head and of the evil force that he was faced against.
He held the telephone's receiver in his sweaty palm. The Professor was convinced that the line was bugged, but he had no choice. He could not risk being seen in the bombed-out London streets. After all, who knew how many members of His Majesty's kingdom were really spies for the German Fatherland?
“Don't worry,” he said, “the notebook is still safe. But please hurry. If the Nazis find out I'm here, my life won't be worth spit. If she finds out I'm here...”
The Professor stopped in mid-sentence. He listened to the voice on the other end. However, whatever words of assurance it offered him appeared to have the opposite of their desired effect.
“No,” he interrupted, “you don't understand. That woman is diabolical. She's a monster!”
He spent a moment in silence. Outside, he heard the rumbling engine of a Mercedes halt just below his window.
“Alright,” the Professor said, “twenty minutes. I'll be expecting you.”
He hung up the phone and breathed a cool sigh.
It will all be over soon, he told himself. However, both his thoughts and his newly found calmness were interrupted by a brief flicker across the blinds, followed by a sharp noise in the dark.
Schreck...
The sound repeated itself, drawing closer as it did so.
Schreck...
Schreck...
Schreck...
The White Baron, the Professor thought. His face grew pale. The darkness that had once protected him from enemy eyes now hid the most lethal of all assassins.
An assassin that was closing for the kill.
The Professor grabbed the telephone, but it was already too late. He felt a violent pinch on his arm. Then came the dizziness. He stumbled forward into the blackness as it became even deeper. The sliver of light faded from his eyes, until he was swimming in an inky abyss. His knees buckled and he collapsed face down on the floor, where he lay while his body cooled and stiffened.
***
Twenty minutes passed in total stillness. The siren still echoed from over the horizon, its operators unaware that the approaching raid had already claimed its first victim. The Professor's corpse remained untouched by everything except the orange sliver, which shone a spotlight over his gaping mouth and staring eyes. Suddenly, the doorknob rattled. A light tap followed, accompanied by a whisper.
“Professor?”
The knob rattled again, but the lock refused to yield. Then came the loud banging of a body slamming itself against the door. Finally, the wood splintered and gave way. Light poured in from the hall, framing the corpse in a rectangular yellow glow. But that same light also framed a silhouette standing at the threshold. The figure stepped towards the body and knelt beside it. It was the shape of a man whose hair was greying at the temples, his face lined by years of hardship. Around his neck, he wore the collar of a priest. He crossed himself and uttered a short prayer for the Professor. Hopefully, the man's death would not be in vain.
The priest felt the floorboards underneath the desk until he found one that was loose. Removing it, he discovered a small, leather-bound notebook. He smiled as he opened it. This was the key that he was searching for. A weapon in the war for the souls of humanity. He began to read the pages eagerly.
“I have discovered,” the Professor had written, “that in his quest to create a master race, Hitler has turned to the occult for aid. An organization calling itself 'The Thule Society' is spearheading his dream, combining science with black magic in utterly inhuman experiments. Overseeing this whole operation is some kind of self-styled 'priestess' calling herself Efeu, whose very name strikes fear in the hearts of both Allied and Axis officers alike. One byproduct of her experiments is creature nicknamed 'The White Baron'. This monster...”
The priest's attention was broken by a sharp noise in the dark.
Schreck...
Schreck...
He realized that he wasn't alone. The Professor's killer was still in the room. The priest backed away from the shadows, seeking the protection of the yellow light, as the sound drew closer.
Schreck...
Schreck...
His eyes darted to the doorway. It had been locked when he'd arrived. The only other way inside would have been the window. Yet it was only open a couple of inches. Nobody could have squeezed through such a small crack.
Nobody human, at any rate, he thought.
Schreck...
The noise was so close that he could almost reach out and touch it. His left hand explored the desk behind him in search of something to defend himself with. His fingers touched cold metal. A letter opener.
Schreck...
The priest swiped his weapon in the direction of the sound, but cut only the empty air.
Schreck...
A shadow brushed past his cheek. He lunged for it with all his might, plunging his blade into the darkness, and felt the weapon make contact. For an instant, an unholy screech drowned out the sound of the air raid siren. But it died almost as soon as it had begun. The priest pulled the letter opener out of its target and switched on the lights.
Lying on the floor in a pool of black ichor was a large white insect. It reminded him of a grasshopper in some ways. The priest's eyes fell back on the journal.
“One byproduct of her experiments is a creature nicknamed 'The White Baron'. This monster has been bred from the common locust using Efeu's devilish methods. It is larger in size, albino, and has developed a stinger containing a deadly neurotoxin. Furthermore, its brain has progressed to the point where it can be trained to kill on command, making it an almost perfect agent of murder.”
The priest closed the book and sighed. A hundred of the Third Reich's demonic secrets were contained within its pages, secrets that he could now expose to the proper authorities. Nervous that he might have been seen, he fled from the motel room, down the stairs and into the war torn streets of London. He tread as stealthily as possible down those roads, sticking close to the alleys in case he would have to make a break for it. Although orange lamplight illuminated his path, the siren acted as a reminder that he would have to find a shelter before the Luftwaffe arrived. However, his ears detected a second sound. The soft thunder of a car engine was dogging his heels. He kept his pace steady and unassuming until a blinding pair of headlights came out of the night. Moving like lighting, they pulled up and halted right beside him. The priest stopped in his tracks and watched as two figures emerged from a freshly polished Mercedes. The first was a tiny man wearing round glasses and sporting a toothbrush moustache, a pale shadow of the Fuhrer whom he was trying to emulate. But the second, she was tall and
“Efeu is pleased that you have found the Professor's notebook for us.” He said. His mistress held out her long, curled fingernails expectantly. But the priest only shrank from her. Shrank from that damned eye which could penetrate his very being. It did more than observe him. It was as if a will infinitely more powerful than his own were impressing itself upon his mind. Even her fragrance multiplied until it threatened to suffocate him.
“I'll never give this to you,” he said, “what you are doing is unholy. You people will burn in Hell.”
Efeu laughed and uttered something in her own tongue.
“Unholy?” her companion translated. “Father, don't you see that we are your only defence? Oh, our methods may seem harsh. But do you really think that the atheistic Bolsheviks in the Soviet Union will tolerate your presence? Mark my word, in a hundred years, maybe less, they will have successfully demonized you and all your caste in the public eye, just as we too have been demonized. Instead of being praised as God's teachers, you shall be spat on as fanatics and pedophiles. Tell us, where will the souls of the faithful stand then?”
The priest said nothing. What could he say when faced with that eye and its superhuman will? Under its gaze, the scent of almond perfume became a gas chamber. He choked as he struggled to hold his breath. Unfortunately, the need for air proved overpowering. He inhaled deeply and filled his lungs with Zyklon-B. Like opium fumes, it made a dream pass before his eyes. He had a vision of alien hordes gathering in the east. He saw them rising up. They came to strip this land of its race and culture. Of its religion. The only thing standing between them was this supernatural creature who beckoned him with an ivory claw. So, with a tremor in his soul, the priest chose to give up his prize.
“Danke.” The veiled woman said after he handed her the notebook. He watched as she and her interpreter climbed back into the Mercedes and sped off into the night. As their taillights disappeared, he found himself wondering why he had ever opposed Hitler in the first place.
“There is no freedom from illusion. There is only the illusion of freedom.”
-Translated from Efeu's private journals
The End
Also By This Author:
The All Hallows Eve Series (Retro Superhero Adventure)
The Life And Crimes Of Fraulein Efeu Series (YA Sci-Fi/Horror)
Brickabrack Hall (Spooky Children's Comedy)
The Trouble With Jokes (Dystopian Flash Fiction)