The gray pall of industrial smoke mixed with the heavy-hanging rain clouds in the late evening sky over Berlin. A long black car wove its way through the streets below, the swastika flags flying at its front snapping and rustling in the stiff, cold wind that drove those clouds ever closer. Within the dark car, eyes more gray than the sky and colder than the wind watched the city moving by… but the mind behind the eyes was focused on a different place and a different time…

Monaco… one year previous almost to the day…

The cliff-front villa rang with laughter and music as a six-piece chamber ensemble played rousing waltzes for the large group that filled the villa nearly to overflowing. Voices were raised in many tongues as the guests mingled and partied late into the night; French, English, German, Italian, each seeming to try to be louder and more jovial than the next.
The host of the gala stood at the head of the stairs overlooking the main hall, smiling to the crowd that thronged through the large house and accepting nodded or shouted greetings as they passed, drinks in hand. None were astute enough… or sober enough… to note that above his wide smile and hearty laugh were eyes like the North Sea in winter… icy and troubled, threatening a storm to come.
A lady with a well-known face passed the foot of the stairs and cast a smiling greeting up to him, he recognized her as being on vacation from her acting career in America. With a laugh she tossed a rose up to him as she disappeared into the throng and he caught it with an arched brow and returned smile. Turning to a second lovely lady that held his arm, he offered the rose with a gentler smile.
"Perhaps more fitting for you than I, dear." He murmured as she took it from his fingers with a gay smile. His eyes flicked to hers and he noted the creases of stress there, taking in the near-panicked glaze that filled them. Drawing an antique watch from his pocket, he made a show of checking the time and exclaiming at the late hour, seeing relief flood through his companion's eyes. A few well-placed excuses and apologies, and the two were retreating deeper into the house away from the night's reverie.
In moments, they had gained the third floor and put a thick door between them and the noise. In comparison to the din below, the silence in the room was a relief beyond words, and as the door closed she turned and fell into his arms with a heavy sigh.
"Sweet Mother of God, my love… do they never stop?" She breathed, beginning to tremble beneath his hands. "One more moment and I was sure I would have screamed, thank you." She nuzzled her face into his chest and slipped her arms around his waist, but his hands remained at her elbows and his body felt as though carved from stone. She looked up slowly, and he could see her fighting fear with a failing will, her soft blue eyes searching his. "Chulain? What is it, my love… you are angry?" Still he did not respond, and she drew away slightly, biting her lip and dropping her gaze from his. "If you are afraid I will fail tomorrow, my darling… please do not be. The idea fills me with dread, yes… but you have my word that it will be done as it must… for the good of England." She took a deep, shuddering breath and lifted her eyes to meet his again, seeing the storm that brewed there. "Tomorrow I will meet with my 'lover' one last time… and he will die as you require. One less Nazi spy in Whitehall… and one less servant of darkness in the world. I promise you."
He spoke slowly after a moment, his voice hardly above a whisper, yet with venom in every syllable of such potency that she recoiled as though slapped, held in place only by the suddenly iron grip on her arms. "Your… word? You… promise? Magda…" With a sudden jerk he let her go, and her struggles to be away from him sent her falling back onto the lounge that lay behind her. "…I should kill you now…" He stepped forward and she winced back, raising an arm in useless defense, horror filling her face. "What? Chulain… how can you say this, my love? What have I done?" She stammered in shock as he paused a step away from her. "How can you be so cold? Please…" She reached a hand forward, horror turning to pleading, "…I love you."
With blinding speed, his hand shot past hers and reached for her throat, redirecting at the last instant from that tender flesh to grip the front of her party gown and jerk her to her feet. His face had lost all emotion and seemed carved from granite as he pulled her to eye-level, her toes hardly touching the ground. "One less spy… one less servant of darkness…" he growled, his lips hardly moving. "…but one more as well. Were you truly going to go through with it Magda? Were you going to kill him as was the plan? Or… do you love him too much for that now?"
Magda's mouth opened, and she tried to feign shock… but the look in his eyes convinced her not to. He knew, somehow he had found out and he knew. She dropped her gaze and wilted in his grip, the tears and fear overtaking her, though now she feared Chulain more than the coming day. Her voice trembled on the verge of sobs as she spoke, "It was easy to think of him as a monster before I knew him… before he had been to my bed… but he is just a man. Sweet, funny, sometimes tired and worn… not a monster at all. Just a man doing what he thinks is right for his country." She looked up as the tears flowed. "Love him? No… not really, though I do care for him dearly. Still, he is not you… no one could be…" She raised her hands, but with a tiny look of disgust Chulain pushed her back from him, allowing her to fall back onto the cushions of the lounge once more. He looked down at her as she recovered, and his voice held less emotion than before. "How much have you told him?"
Again she reached for him, halting short of his hand as his look arrested her. The pleading note in her voice gained strength as she searched for a sign of the love she had always seen in those dark gray eyes. "Not much… and nothing important… a little here and there of England's movements, much of which we already discussed and you approved that I should tell. Nothing of you, my love… nothing. I swear it." She watched him stare at her in silence through many beats of her heart, her fear growing and her face twisting with the emotions she was fighting to control. Finally she could take the silence no longer and she slammed her palms into the cushions beside her, her voice restrained from a shout to a hiss. "Damn you!! Have you no heart left? I love you! I would never betray you! He is human, and frail, and weak, and has made mistakes, but he is not evil!" She balled her fists and looked at them, shaking them uselessly with nothing to strike or grasp. "He is human… more than can be said for you it seems." She looked up at him, tears flowing full force down her cheeks in mascara-tainted rivulets. "Have you forgotten what it means to be human? Have you forgotten how to love? Have you been lying to me this entire time, these many months since Rome? Have you?" Her hand opened and reached for his one more time, "Have you?"
Slowly, he took her hand and gazed down at it, shifting his fingers in a way that caused the antique gold ring on her finger to catch the moonlight. He thought of Rome… and the evening he had given the ring to her… "Yes," He breathed, dropping her hand and turning away. "…yes I have." As her hands flew to her mouth and she stifled an aching gasp, he picked up a leather case from a side table and turned back to her. Unbuckling the clasp quickly, he opened it in his palm and dropped it beside her. "Him… or you. Either way the cause is served and darkness loses ground." As she looked in horror between the case and him, he turned and strode across the room to the open window. Before she could speak, he had stepped up onto the sill and leapt, disappearing into the night.
In pain and rage, her hand found a heavy marble ashtray on the table beside her, and with a sob she hurled it after him, her curses finding no words harsh enough to voice them. Rage, frustration, betrayal and fear welled up in her to force more tears to flow, and she slumped back into the cushions grinding the heels of her hands into her eyes as she cried. With a sudden movement she snatched up the leather case and drew back her arm to throw, but dropped it into her lap instead, slumping over it and fingering the contents as she wept.
A tiny ampoule of amber fluid… and a beautiful ring with a decidedly deadly intent…

Berlin…

The car came to a halt with the slightest squeak of brakes, and Chulain brought his focus back to the present as the driver came around to open his door. Drawing his black trench-coat close around his shoulders against the clutching wind, he stepped from the car and glanced up at the building in front of him. Long banners of the Nazi party flapped and snapped in the wind from the front of the grand old hotel, and uniformed guards stood at strict attention at both the head and foot of the wide entrance stairs. His driver spread an umbrella above him against the beginning drizzle, and with a nod he started up the steps, sure that the approach of a Nazi Staff car had not gone unnoticed.
Chulain was less than halfway up the broad steps when his suspicions were confirmed by the appearance of a gray-uniformed officer at the head of the stairs, and it was with some satisfaction that he saw the man blanch at the eagles and twin lightning slashes that marked his black uniform. Pausing in front of the now very nervous officer, he smiled coldly and raised his hand, palm outward. "Sieg Heil." He let his voice betray an edge of boredom and disdain, and saw the other man's nervousness increase appropriately as he snapped to attention and returned Chulain's salute. Reaching into his coat, he withdrew a sheaf of documents and snapped the out brusquely, being forced to shake them imperatively once before the other man took them with a swallow. He waited as the officer opened them with trembling fingers and shuffled through them, returning to the letter of introduction and reading it carefully, beads of sweat beginning to mark the man's lip and brow.
Finally, he looked up to Chulain and handed the papers back with a shaking hand. He was forced to swallow twice before he found voice to speak under Chulain's coldly bored scrutiny. "Hauptmann Krieger… we… we weren't expecting you for two more days. I… we have not had time to prepare for your arrival…" He swallowed again, and obviously debated for a moment saluting yet again.
"Precisely, Oberleutnant Schear… precisely." With that, he swept past the man and through the broad doors, noting how the hotel had been converted to a Nazi headquarters, though the banners and uniforms were still not enough to hide the grandeur of the old building. As he heard Schear's steps quickening up behind him, he spoke again without slackening his pace across the lobby or turning his head. "If all is in order, there is nothing that need be done to prepare for my arrival. If all is not… no preparation will help…" He smiled thinly at the uniformed staff that they passed, catching the fearful glances at his crisp black SS uniform. "In either case, I am here… and the inspection begins… tonight."
With a casually disdainful gesture, he swept his coat from his shoulders and handed it to Schear, turning the Nazi officer into a doorman without regard. He added his hat to the pile his coat made in the man's arms, and turned to him with an almost painfully cheerful smile. "I will not be needing escort, Oberleutnant… I know what I am looking for, and if it is here it cannot be hidden. Have your staff continue about their work as though I am not here. Should my presence need to be felt…" He dropped the smile abruptly. "…it will be." With a nod he turned his back on Schear, leaving the man fighting terror at the implied threat.

Schear sat at his desk, drenched in the sweat of fear and shuffling papers uselessly. Every few minutes he glanced at the clock, and each flash of lightning or crack of thunder outside caused him to start violently, despite the half-empty bottle next to his elbow that had begun as an attempt to calm his nerves. Time seemed to crawl by, yet he knew hours had passed since the Hauptmann's arrival.
Why had they sent an SS officer to carry out the inspection? What did they suspect? What did they know? The questions plagued him and he reached for the bottle again… but his hand closed on empty air. He stifled a scream unbecoming an officer into a slight squeak as he heard the clink of bottle to glass just behind him. Turning first his eyes, then his head, Schear looked up into 'Krieger's' face as he leaned past him and set the full glass precisely in front of him. An odd smell wafted from the SS officer's uniform, and Schear was distracted by how stiff and oddly shiny the uniform sleeve looked. As 'Krieger' moved around the desk to stand in front of it, Schear noticed that much of the man's entire uniform held the same appearance… almost as if drenched in…
"Blood…" he choked, recognizing the smell. His heart turned to ice in his throat as he looked up into those cold gray eyes. "Krieger' smiled. "My inspection has been a complete success. I have found what I came for." He carefully began peeling off the thickly drenched gloves he wore as Schear stammered through several stages of panic. He waited calmly as the other man grabbed his desk phone and yammered into it… with no response from the other end. He waited further before speaking as Schear spent his breath on shouts for aid that received no answer. "There is but one final matter…" He dropped the gloves on the desk, and snatched away the gun that Schear had grabbed up out of a half-open drawer. He smiled and let his vampire's fangs show as he crumbled the pistol into useless parts between his hands, letting the pieces clank and thud onto the desk. "One year ago you escaped me, Oberleutnant Schear." He emphasized the rank with a note of acid. "You were never meant to leave Monaco alive." He leaned down onto the desk and smiled a friendly, charming smile. "In the past months I have come to regret that mistake many times over, and because of you many of my colleagues have died… while you have gained a promotion for your troubles." He watched many layers of confusion and fear overlap in the man's eyes, and paused for a moment in consideration.
"Do you truly not know who I am?" He murmured, watching the quailing man closely. "…and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on it was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto him over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger…" he whispered. Before Schear could answer, Chulain snapped a hand forward in a lashing strike that spun the man completely out of his chair and onto the floor. He watched as Schear's body stiffened and spasmed, signals within it jammed and confused by a broken neck, finally relaxing with the rasping sigh of death.
He turned and opened the office door, setting himself to the last step in his night's work.

Magda lay in the large bed and stared at the ceiling as the storm raged outside the hotel. She wished for the tenth time that it was really still a hotel and that she could ring for room service, anything to break the monotony until her lover returned from his evening's duties. She thought about dressing for a swim and availing herself of the pools within the hotel… but knew that the guards beyond her door would never allow that. Though technically a 'guest', she knew that she was far from trusted. Schear's word alone allowed her the luxury that she enjoyed, even if it was still under lock and key. With a sigh, she rolled onto her side and stared out the window at the raging storm. Her lover… she wished that was truer than it felt… and she closed her eyes against images of gray eyes darker than the storm clouds beyond her window.
As the lock to her room clicked, she rolled to look, a smile of habit beginning as she expected to see Schear in the doorway. She sat upright and snatched the covers close to her as she saw instead a thin black silhouette in the light from the hall beyond. A moment's indignation became shock and creeping horror as she saw her room guards sprawled in the hall, the carpet beneath them showing growing stains. "So… you've come…" She whispered, feeling a certainty settle over her that was only proven by a lightning flash that revealed the face she expected to see. She sighed as a sudden, deep resignation struck her. "I knew you would sooner or later. It was only a matter of time." As Chulain stepped into the room she swung her legs from the bed and stood, unconsciously straightening her gown before folding her hands in front of her patiently. He walked forward slowly, and despite her resolve she closed her eyes and stiffened, waiting…
She almost gasped as she felt her hand taken in a gentle grip, and opened her eyes as it was raised and the ring on her finger touched and turned in tender fingers. He was looking at it softly, and as she began to speak he interrupted with a barely audible whisper. "There is a car outside with a loyal soldier as driver, he has been instructed to escort you anywhere on the continent you wish to go, beyond if you desire." He looked up at her then turned, dropping her hand and stepping towards the door, but paused to look back at her once before gaining the hall. She saw a slight look of confusion, a hint of pain, soft tenderness and a seemingly infinite sadness mixed in his gaze as he spoke. "I did not lie… and I have not forgotten… not yet…"

Then... before she could answer... he was gone.