Berlin - April 10th, 1945

  The streets of Berlin were a restless graveyard where the living and the dead shared the same broken ground. Soldiers swarmed through the ruins, dragging wire, stacking sandbags, and barking orders that vanished beneath the distant thunder of artillery. A ceaseless tide of gray uniforms moved like ants trying to rebuild a mound that had been kicked apart.

  Getting into the city hadn’t been difficult for Emmett. Alone, there were countless gaps a single individual who was careful, could easily take advantage of. He pushed deeper and deeper into Berlin not quite knowing where he was going.

  His boots crunched over the littered streets, broken glass and pulverized brick crunching beneath his soles. Every step echoed too loud in the hollow city. The air was thick with ash and decay, heavy with the stench of smoke and blood. Each breath scraped his throat, tasting of soot and ruin.

  He walked with his head low, a scarf pulled high across his face, the brim of a flat cap shadowing his features. His jacket was too small in the sleeves, his trousers frayed, his boots caked in dried mud. Nothing about him stood out, which was the point. Beneath the coat, his knife hung at his side and tucked against the small of his back was a Walther P38, cold and heavy against his spine.

  The city stretched around him like a corpse, gutted and hollow. Windows gaped like empty eye sockets, the streets carpeted with rubble. Here and there, bodies lay where they had fallen. Some fresh, others bloated, their skin waxy and pale. He paused at one that had slumped against a lamppost, its head tilted back, mouth hanging open to the sky.

  “Hell of a welcome,” he muttered, spitting in the dirt before tugging his collar up higher against a bitter breeze.

  “What did you expect?” came the answer, smooth and easy.

  Henri walked beside him, hands in his coat pockets, cigarette burning between his lips as if the city were still alive. His stride was confident, light, completely unbothered by the debris.

  Emmett didn’t look at him right away. He knew that Henri wasn’t really there. It had been weeks now, and Henri had become a regular companion. That thought should have terrified him, but it didn’t. It was almost comforting in a sick sort of way.

  He sighed, finally answering, “Not sure I guess.”

  Henri gave a knowing nod, the gesture practiced and familiar. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a cigarette, holding it out between two fingers. “Smoke, Mon Ami?”

  Emmett gave a short laugh, shaking his head. He’d tried taking one before. His hand had passed clean through, and left him feeling a little empty on the inside. “No thanks,” he said, his voice low. “I hear they’re bad for you. Thought about quitting once or twice.”

  Henri’s laughter rolled through the air, light and mocking. “I’ll believe it when I see it, Mon Ami.”

  Emmett grunted in reply, rubbing his temple as he scanned the ruins ahead. A building caught his eye. A grand hotel, or what was left of one. Its upper floors were gutted, the facade pockmarked and cracked by bombardments. Shattered windows yawned open like wounds. Yet something about it called to him. Shelter, maybe. Or the faint chance of something useful inside.

  Henri had reached the entrance before him, his shoulder braced against the warped door. “It’s stuck, Mon Ami,” he announced dramatically. “Perhaps we try the basement?”

  Emmett ignored him, pushed the door, and it gave with a loud squeal, swinging open into darkness. His footsteps echoed through the lobby, each one hollow and lonely.

  The hotel had once been beautiful. Even in ruin, its grandeur showed through. Cracked marble pillars stood like tired sentinels, their veins blackened with soot. A chandelier, ruined but stubbornly clinging to the ceiling. Dust hung in the air like smoke, catching thin beams of daylight filtering through windows and cracks in the walls. A red carpet, charred and stained, still traced a path toward a reception desk that was half collapsed.

  Emmett approached the counter, eyes falling on the bell sitting perfectly upright amid the wreckage. Somehow untouched. He reached out and tapped it once. The small ding echoed through the room like a ghost. He tapped it again, faster this time, a wry grin forming on his face.

  “One room, please,” he said in a pompous voice. “Your finest accommodations.”

  The echo of his words lingered longer than his humor. The grin slipped. He exhaled and shook his head. “I’m losing it,” he muttered, his voice low but heavy in the empty room.

  Henri appeared behind the counter, cigarette now gone, his expression patient. “I suppose you are, Mon Ami. There is no one here, you know?”

  Emmett rubbed his temples, refusing to meet the hallucination’s eyes. “I know, Henri… I know.” The words trailed off into silence, swallowed by the hollow building.

  He moved deeper inside, his boots crunching over shattered glass and scattered plaster. The air smelled faintly of mildew and smoke. He found the kitchen without much trouble. A ruined shell like the rest. Cupboards gaped open, shelves hung crooked, the floor littered with the remains of pots, shattered plates, and rusted utensils. It looked like every scavenger in Berlin had picked it clean.

  Still, Emmett had always been good at finding what others missed.

  He crouched, shifting debris with his boot, the sound of metal scraping tile filling the silence. “Come on,” he growled softly. “Something’s gotta be left.”

  Henri stood nearby, toeing a dented can with his boot, his tone exaggeratedly mournful. “Not even a scrap, Mon Ami.”

  Emmett didn’t answer. He reached under a collapsed shelf and froze when his fingers brushed against something cool and cylindrical. He pulled it out. A tin can dented but sealed. The label was faded to nothing.

  “Lucky day,” he said with a half-smile. He turned it over in his hands, shaking it beside his ear. “Guess it’s mystery meat.”

  Henri peered at it suspiciously, smoke curling from his nostrils. “Knowing your luck, Emmett, it will give you food poisoning.”

  Emmett jabbed his knife under the lid, cutting along the edge then pried it open with a crack, tossing the lid aside. “Probably,” he muttered, scooping the contents out with his fingers. The taste was vile. Salty, and vaguely sour. But it was food.

  “Here I am,” he said between bites, his tone bitter and amused all at once. “In Berlin. Chasing a damn nazi werewolf I survived with through Poland.”

  He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and moved toward a side office. The glass pane on the door was long gone. He knocked once on the frame, mock polite. “Room service,” he quipped, pushing it open. The room was a wreck. Papers scattered, furniture overturned, the air stale.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  “Froze half to death with her,” he said, his voice dark now. He yanked open drawers, slamming them shut when they came up empty. “Only to get knocked out and handed to the Germans like a goddamn gift.”

  He yanked an empty drawer free of the desk and hurled it where it crashed against the wall. His laugh was humorless. “Sounds like a bad picture show.”

  He reached into the last drawer and paused, fingers brushing glass. When he pulled it free, his grin returned. A bottle of brandy, dusty but still corked.

  “But nope,” he said softly, holding it up to the light. “It’s my life.”

  He bit the cork free and took a long drink. The liquor burned like fire, spreading warmth through the chill in his chest. He leaned against the desk, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, then laughed. A ragged, feral sound that filled the empty office.

  “Here’s to Berlin,” he said, raising the bottle before taking another swig.

  Henri, ever faithful, lifted his own dented flask in salute, eyes glinting with that familiar, knowing amusement. “à ta santé, Mon Ami.”

  Unable to find anything else Emmett left the kitchen, brandy bottle in hand, and moved towards the crumbling stairwell. The marble steps had split under the strain of the bombardment, chunks missing and railings half torn from the wall.

  Each step as he ascended drew a pained grunt from him, his legs stiff and trembling, but he pressed on. The dim light from the windows guided him upward, through the ruined silence of what had once been luxury.

  The air on the upper floors was a little clearer. A strange reprieve from the acrid smoke that hung heavily in the streets and the smell of mildew and dust from the lower levels. He moved down the corridor, checking rooms as he went. Most were shells. Ceilings collapsed, furniture charred, wallpaper curling from the damp. Then he found one that wasn’t.

  The door opened with a creak, and for a moment he just stood there in the threshold, staring. The room was almost intact. The wallpaper was yellowed, the curtains half-hanging, and a thin layer of dust coated everything, but the structure itself had held. The bed sagged but stood, and sunlight filtered weakly through a cracked windowpane, glinting off the glass shards on the floor.

  But what truly caught his attention was the bathroom beyond.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” he muttered, stepping through the doorway.

  A porcelain claw-foot tub sat in the corner, untouched by the war that had gutted everything else. Dust clung to its rim, but otherwise it gleamed faintly under the light.

  “Time for a bath,” he said with a crooked grin, almost laughing at the absurdity of it.

  He set the bottle down on a dresser and rolled his shoulders, scanning the room for anything that could serve as firewood. He scavenged what he could in and outside the room. Broken chair legs, splintered doorframes, even a section of a headboard. Dragging them into a pile beside the fireplace. With some effort he soon had a rolling hot flame burning, the room flickered with gold and orange, shadows crawling up the walls.

  Filling the tub proved to be more difficult. He found an old metal bucket in the hall and followed the pipes until he found one cracked and leaking a slow stream of water. The work was tedious. Fill, heat, pour, repeat. But within an hour the time the tub was mostly filled, steam clouding the mirror and rolled out the doorway in thick tendrils.

  Henri leaned casually against the frame, his silhouette hazy in the glow. “It’s too hot, Emmett,” he said, his voice carrying that familiar teasing lilt. “You’ll boil like a lobster.”

  Emmett dipped a hand into the water, testing it. “Not even close,” he said dryly. “Wouldn’t cook rice at this temperature.” He looked up at the Frenchman, who was smiling like he had all the time in the world. “Do me a favor and give a man some privacy, yeah? Go stand guard or something.”

  Henri gave an exaggerated salute, grinning from ear to ear. “Of course, Mon Ami. Enjoy your bath.”

  Emmett rolled his eye and shut the door behind him. The latch clicked softly, sealing away the ghost on the other side.

  He set the pistol, the brandy, and his knife on a towel cabinet beside the tub, then began to undress. His clothes came off slowly. Layer by layer, stiff with dirt and dried sweat. His body was a map of scars, the pink and white marks catching in the firelight. He ran a hand along the jagged wound on his abdomen where the bullet had gone through back in France. The skin around it still looked angry and tight.

  Wiping the steam from the mirror, he studied his reflection. The gauntness had eased since Poland. He’d managed to eat, to rest if that word even still applied to him. But his eyes were the same. One blackened empty hollow beneath the patch, the other a pale green reflection of the man he used to be.

  He turned from the mirror and sank into the water with a hiss between his teeth. The heat bit at first, then melted into relief. His muscles loosened, the aches fading one by one. For the first time in months, he felt warmth that wasn’t from fire or fever.

  He took a long pull from the brandy and let his head rest against the porcelain. “Well, this is nice,” he muttered, voice dripping with sarcasm. “A spa day in the heart of hell.”

  His gaze fell on a rag lying crumpled on the floor. He stretched an arm over the side of the tub, snagged it, and dunked it into the water. He started to scrub himself clean, slow at first, then with growing force. Each pass of the rag felt like scraping the past from his skin.

  When he reached the jagged scars on his thigh, he paused. His gaze fixed on them for a long moment, and the memory surfaced whether he wanted it to or not. The cave. The freezing dark. Eira’s hands, steady and sure, stitching him back together.

  She’d saved him more than once. After the river, after the fall. She had dragged him through hell just to hand him to the Germans in the end.

  He clenched his jaw, scrubbing harder until the skin stung. It wasn’t just betrayal. It was humiliation. He had spent years learning to stay one step ahead of everyone. Enemy, ally, it didn’t matter. And she had fooled him.

  He scrubbed harder until his skin turned raw. “You should’ve killed me, Eira,” he muttered under his breath. “Would’ve been cleaner for both of us.”

  He squeezed the rag as if to steady himself.

  Weeks of chasing rumors came flooding back. He’d followed rumor after rumor through the broken remnants of the Reich. Slipped between German lines wearing stolen uniforms, passing himself off as an officer, a courier, even a medic once. Always chasing whispers. Until every trail had pointed the same way.

  Berlin.

  He didn’t know if she was alive. For all he knew she was buried somewhere in the mud between here and the Oder. But a part of him, that stubborn, half-mad instinct, said otherwise. She was alive. And if the Reich was pulling its monsters into the capital, she’d be there too.

  And she wouldn’t die by anyone else’s hands but his.

  He stood, water pouring off his battered body, and dumped the remaining bucket of cold water over his head. The shock made him gasp, and for a fleeting second, he felt truly awake.

  He dried himself with the towel hanging by the wall. The fabric was surprisingly soft, untouched by soot or grime. Then he noticed the robe beside it. A deep burgundy, lined with velvet. He laughed quietly. “Who the hell stayed here, a king?” he muttered, slipping it on.

  He never noticed the name stitched on the back in looping gold thread.

  Goebbels.

  Back in the main room, Henri stood with a rifle slung over his shoulder, pacing in front of the door like a soldier on guard duty. His posture comically stiff, like he was on parade.

  “At ease,” Emmett said dryly as he crossed the room.

  Henri dropped into a lazy slouch. “Just doing my duty, Mon Ami.”

  Emmett shook his head and set the pistol and knife on the nightstand beside the bed.

  “Emmett, you should lock the door,” Henri said from across the room, nodding toward it.

  He walked over from the bed and eyed the lock on the door, tested it, and frowned. It felt inadequate. One solid kick would send it flying.

  Emmett grabbed a chair and wedged it under the handle. The legs scraped against the floor with a satisfying squeal. “There. Perfect.”

  Satisfied, he limped back to the bed and lowered himself onto it with a groan. The mattress sagged beneath him, the sheets faintly musty but still intact. It was the first real bed he’d seen in months.

  “I’ll keep watch,” Henri said, puffing up his chest again. “None shall disturb your sleep, or at least they’ll die trying.”

  “Thanks.” Emmett said smirking faintly, rubbing his temple. “Sleep now, for the morning is wiser,” he muttered, repeating one of his father’s old sayings.

  “Wise words,” Henri said softly.

  The smirk faded as Emmett stared up at the cracked ceiling. His body was warm and clean, but his mind was already restless. “Tomorrow,” he said quietly. “Tomorrow, I start tearing this city apart. Brick by brick. I’ll find her.”

  Henri smiled faintly from the door. “We’ll find her, Emmett. She’s still alive. I know.”

  Emmett met his gaze for a long moment, wanting to say something but not finding the words. Instead, he exhaled slowly and closed his eye.

  The bed felt like heaven compared to the cold ground and the rough cots he’d slept on for weeks. His muscles loosened, his thoughts dulled, and for the first time in longer than he could remember, the darkness that took him didn’t feel cruel.

  Henri watched as he drifted off, his figure flickering faintly in the firelight, a ghost standing silent guard.