Lycanthropos Read Free

enough."
    Blasko laughed. "And you will live longer yet, Mother. I often think that you are immortal." She was by far the oldest person in the Gypsy band, and was thus addressed as ‘Mother’ by everyone, even though none of the twelve children to whom she had given birth were still living.
    She returned his gentle laughter with a shrill, brittle cackle which seemed to shoot forth from her toothless mouth. "I have survived for more years than I care to remember, Blasko. And immortality does not attract me." She walked forward and smiled maliciously into the face of the other man. "What do you think, friend Kaldy? Is immortality all that people think it is?"
    The other man did not respond. Indeed, from the blankness of his expression it might have almost seemed that she had not spoken to him at all. Blasko regarded the old woman with a cautious, rather respectful disapproval. "Mother, please. Leave him be."
    "I’d love to leave him be," she muttered, placing the dish of stew on the ground beside Blasko. "I’d love to leave him here and go on our way without him. I don’t know why you seem to feel that you have to..."
    "Mother..." Blasko began, and then smiled. "Thank you for the food." She recognized his thanks as the dismissal it was intended to be, and she turned to walk back toward the camp. She was about to mutter a parting criticism when the sound of gunfire shattered the dusk and screams and cries of fear mingled with shouted orders in the nearby Gypsy camp. The old woman seemed to fly through the forest back toward her people as if her absence was somehow related to whatever was now happening, as if her presence would somehow serve to protect the others. Blasko followed her after a few moments...they were his people too, after all...and, after an even longer hesitation, the other man, the one whom the old woman had addressed as Kaldy, followed Blasko.
    The shouts grew louder as they drew closer to the camp, and the old woman drew in her breath loudly, fearfully, as she saw the reason for the commotion. She was not so learned in the ways of the world that she could identify by the soldiers who had invaded the camp, but by the flickering firelight and the dying rays of the sun she was able to see the insignia they wore, the skull and crossbones upon the black cap, the two lightning bolts upon the collar, the black, twisted, hooked cross within the white circle upon the red arm band. She did not know what the Schutzstaffel was, she had never heard of the S.S., but the presence of danger communicated itself to her and spoke to every fiber of her being. She had known danger all her life, the danger that can be known only to those who never rest, are never safe, never welcome, never truly home.
    Blasko came up behind her and was soon joined by Kaldy. They stood and watched as the black-garbed Germans herded the Gypsies into a circle near the fire and kept them motionless under the barrels of their guns as the wagons were first searched and then put to the torch. Blasko, Kaldy, and the old woman stood off to the side and watched, as if what was happening was something in which they were not involved; but then they were seen, and the S.S. commander barked a few words to two of his soldiers, and they ushered the three stragglers into the circle with the tips of their gun barrels.
    A few moments of tense silence preceded the words of the commander of the S.S. squadron. He walked forward into the circle of captives and allowed his cold blue eyes to drift lazily and with undisguised distaste over the assembly. He was a tall man, thin but muscular, with a cruel mouth set beneath a thin nose, and his bearing and demeanor bespoke confident arrogance as he placed his balled fists on his hips and demanded, "Do any of you speak German?" There was no response at first, and so he repeated his question a bit more forcefully. "If you value your lives, you will reply. I know what you Gypsy scum are like. You travel all over