The legacy of the dark blood

Chapter 45

The five villages

Some horses joined the chase after the timely escape from the palace and outwitting the merciless death once again; though by then, the agents were more than a kilometer away from the scene of the incident. They plunged once more into the thick mists of the forest where the sun's rays entered with increased difficulty; the path was flooded with tall evergreen trees, many of them already bare, although the conifers retained their characteristic dark green color. Moss stood out on the rocks and some thin trunks lying felled on the ground forced them to slow down.

They finally arrived at another of the villages bordering the dark forest; from that point, they contemplated its interior with a green color that mixed with black in the deepest part. They found no soul in that place to the agents' delight, except for the crows perching on the bare trees of the late October autumn.

The village consisted of a few half-timbered and brick-built houses in a triangular shape; only one of them particularly larger than the others. They didn't know how long the place had been deserted, but they had no intention of checking any of them, remembering all the loathsome episodes they had experienced in the villages. Nick opened the doors of one of the huts with a rusty key and entered the place abruptly; Liz and Bernard followed him even though the officer had not invited them in. Once inside, he lit some oil lamps with a lighter, thus breaking the darkness inside; it was not as neglected as they thought, inside there were kept some of the weapons that the German officers had used in their encounters.

"What is this place?" asked a curious Liz.

"We raided it before entering the palace with other agents," said Nick, turning his back to them while he organized some of his weapons, "these are the guns of the agents that were with me. None of them made it".

Bernard entered and collapsed on a chair, he did some breathing exercises to catch his breath, he still didn't believe that they had really come out alive from a scenario that seemed inevitable; Liz, however, felt a smell inside that made her nauseous and cough. The scratches on Bernard's shoulder and face were beginning to annoy him; his companion approached him to assess the severity of what had happened.

"What a nice family," Bernard complained in a wry tone as Liz gently ran her fingers over his scratches.

"I know," she nodded serenely, "The Hozmanns are bastards".

"Yeah, and that Ulrike .... is a lovely girl" joked Bernard after complaining about the burning after Liz accidentally squeezed one of the affected areas.

Watching the scene with disinterest, Nick grabbed some cotton pads and a bottle of antiseptic alcohol from a drawer and threw them at Liz without worrying about her catching them. She managed to catch them, but preferred not to reproach the officer for not handing them to her; after that, Nick leaned against a wall completely ignoring how Liz cleaned her partner's wounds while he made an effort not to scream from the pain.

"Well," Nick bellowed, running his hand through his dark, greasy hair, "I see you've already recovered, what are you waiting for to get the hell out of here?"

"You're not serious, are you?" reproached Liz jumping to her feet, although Nick still didn't pay much attention to them, he turned his back to Liz and started to check some vases placed on the windows "It's going to get dark soon and we don't know where..." Before finishing, she felt again that scent that made her very uncomfortable. It didn't take her long to realize that the flowers Nick was watering were the same ones from the cemetery garden and it was their fragrances that caused her reaction; she started coughing and moved away from the vases instantly. Nick noticed and looked at her with disdain waiting for an explanation of what happened.