Page 94 of Shadow Ticket
—
Keeping pace withthe lunar cycle, tensions within the Vladboys have been building up, sending them out after prey each time in a more dangerous state of arousal. Trivial disputes are apt at any moment to erupt into violence. Local women go more and more in fear of their safety, cover their hair, stay in groups. The weirdly erotic charge accumulates, untilvrrrooom!here’s the Vladboys out on another massive prowl, unmuted machinery slowly thundering through devout villages where nothing mechanical is allowed—filling up the lanes and alleyways, while shut behind doors suddenly unreliable, guarding doorframes no mezuzah can protect, Jews wait, anxiety growing meantime among the Vladboys as the population of Jews available for persecution seems to be getting smaller lately, and any phantom, any report of a sighting in low light, any unexplained density passing among the streets and alleyways after nightfall that can be shot at, is apt to qualify as a “Jew.” Ace is an understandably welcome catch, with the Flathead an unexpected bonus, which the boys keep insisting is a Jewish motorcycle.
“Weiss Manfréd makes one,” Ace tries to point out, “but the displacement’s under 100 cc’s. This engine is much bigger, 750 or so.”
“Harley. David…Son, this is son of David, no?”
“Two guys from Milwaukee, I don’t think they’re Jewish.”
“American, same thing.”
Meantime when nerves are on edge and everyone is in easy reach of a weapon, never get into an argument over cards.
Somewhere close by, an ordinarily friendly cruce game has unexpectedly flared into violence when a visiting Fascist, maybe only unfamiliar with the ornately detailed Hungarian deck, fails to follow suit. Demands that his hand be examined, considered impolite but not illegal, don’t help much. Voices are raised, then fists, then hands as firearms are produced and aimed.
Within minutes of the first shot, gunfire has become general. “We’ll be back. Csongor, keep a careful eye on the Jew.”
“I’d rather come along with the rest of you.”
“No telling how this will develop. Better to have somebody in reserve.”
Csongor is a sort common in these parts, an apprentice vampire doomed never to develop past journeyman, despite which everybody’s afraid of him because they think he’s mad, as in mad dog, a glitter in his eyes telegraphing trouble long before he’s insideZa dom!radius, by which point it’s too late…
Punctuating the rifle and machine-gun fire, hand grenades and tank and anti-tank guns can now occasionally be heard. Because in situations like this it soon becomes advisable to get flat and under cover and wait there for longer than you think you might need to, Ace and Csongor presently find themselves sheltering under a good-size Czechoslovakian army truck, a Tatra six-wheeler. “Don’t suppose you know what’s become of my Mauser,” Ace in a friendly enough way. “Unless you people think that’s Jewish too, like my bike.”
“We meant no disrespect. We only assumed—”
“Yeah, nothing personal, forget it. You boys sure get cranked up over anything Jewish, don’tcha.”
In the bursts of light from explosions and military traffic on the move, Csongor finds himself gazing at a tattoo on Ace’s arm of a mad-eyed zombie on a BMW bike as seen from a few degrees below flat-on, an angle providing a good stretch of apocalyptic sky to frame him against. “Die Todten reiten schnell,” the Vladboy reads from the Gothic lettering there. “Something about the dead ride fast.”
Ace shrugs. “Some old poetry.” The tattoo artist in Berlin, years ago, threw it in for free.
Csongor can’t let it go. “And do they? the dead. Ride fast?”
Ace is smiling, though not sociably. “I never spent much time in math classes, too busy learning how to hot-wire cars, but from what I recall you’re never allowed to divide anything by zero. Over there, among the dead, time has no meaning anymore, so to get distance per hour you’d have to divide by zero, which even if it was legal would still give you infinite speed. OK so far?”
“Is this what they call Jewish physics?”
“No idea. But I already may’ve begun to cross over to the next world, not dead yet but pretty damaged. Maybe worse than some little troop of amateurs know how to do.”
“Tough Jew.”
“If you like. But now stand by, you’re about to see the genuine article, heading our way.”
It’s the pocket-size golem Zdenek, his elegant touring car fueled up and raring to go, its original finish now camouflaged in brushland shades as if he’s expecting to be in trouble sometime soon. With him is Hop Wingdale.
“Saw you go under the truck, thought you might need a ride out of here.”
Zdenek’s left arm turns out to be a modified ZB-26 Czech light machine gun, with the magazine built into his shoulder. “This is one of many earthly variants of Azrael, the Angel of Death,” he informs Csongor, “a Jew less forgiving than some you may have hoped to come across, who has been keeping a busy schedule and is still a little backlogged, though be patient, shmuck, you’re at the top of the list, it’ll be your turn before you know it.”
“Best be on your way,” Ace suggests, “while you’ve got him in a good mood. Nice chatting with you, Csongor, hope you won’t get into too much trouble.”
“This isn’t over,” replies the Vladboy peevishly.
“It never began. Stay safe, pal.”
Zdenek hits the gas.
