The legacy of the dark blood

Chapter 48

Ghosts of the past

Liz was counting on Bernard having managed to escape the fearsome clutches of Holzmann's executioner. With that thought in mind, she left Nick to look after Anika while she went in search of her companion. Deep within the inhospitable and dark place, she found no trace of Holzmann's executioner, not even as she approached the small residential area they had previously raided. She felt the raindrops sliding down her face and through her hair, but she did not stop for a minute despite the discomfort this entailed. She passed by the hut where little Anika was sheltering, not letting her guard down at any moment. She entered at a slow pace, not detecting any noise except for one of the horses that still remained in the area looking for food.

She knew that shouting its name or even calling it on the radio transmitter could be sentencing them to death, remembering her first experience at the beginning of the mission. She tried to conduct the search without using her lamp, relying only on the lunar glow behind the dense autumn clouds. She stopped dead in her tracks after spotting a human body slumped over a broken barrel with tar spilling down the sides; her heart was beating so fast that she felt her chest would burst into flames, that image drew in her mind the worst-case scenario. As she drew closer to the corpse she felt a force on her center of gravity that made her collapse to the ground on her knees, disconsolate as she had never felt before.

"Bernard," moaned the girl, stubborn not to confront reality, sobbing. She checked the face of the deceased, it was him, her partner had fallen in an attempt to protect them and the mission, he did not manage to escape.

At once, Liz burst into tears, clung to her friend's body, falsely hoping that he would wake up and give her a smile. She remembered that the agent had a wife and a son; one more family that had been torn apart thanks to the perverse designs of the Holzmann family. Max's abandonment, Chris's betrayal, his state of impurity and the fall of several German officers had affected her, but as she contemplated that devastating image, she felt she had had too much already. She looked towards the forest with a blurred vision as a result of the tears that ran down her face mixing with the rain; she felt that there was no longer any reason to continue fighting, she did not know if there was now anything that would motivate her to stay alive. She looked at her gun carefully, dominated by grief and sorrow; she grabbed her loaded gun that rested on her forehead and slid her index finger over the trigger.

"NEIN!" a faint female voice stopped the mad action. Liz looked back, still disconsolate feeling that some angel had descended to bring her to her senses; that angelic figure was none other than Anika, who was running towards her with difficulty due to the rain. Behind her came Nick checking the perimeter with his rifle, who came to a screeching halt as he checked the reason for the commotion; for the first time, Liz saw Nick with a shocked expression.

Anika looked at Bernard's body; despite not getting to know him well, she closed her eyes expressing sadness. She looked at a shattered Liz with her tender blue eyes, she was carrying her gun in her hand. The girl took a step towards Liz and hugged her, saddened to see her still collapsed on her knees on the ground; Liz responded by doing the same and bursting into tears once again. Although she had only known her for a short time, she felt a powerful comforting force as if she were being hugged by her mother instead of an unknown child; with that act, Liz began to feel a special affection for the little girl even though she was still consumed by the tribulation of her friend's passing.

Nick, for his part, ignored the scene and gave a report of what had happened to his colleagues at the asylum. He went over to the girls after they had stopped hugging each other and helped Liz to her feet by holding out his hand; her tears mingled with the drops of precipitation that tended to spread over the area.

"Let's go," Nick told her in his sorrowful voice, despite what had happened, he remained as serious as ever, "there's nothing more to do around here.

They agreed that they could not return to that place, now that Holzmann's executioner had discovered that both Anika and the agents were sheltering there from the deadly beings that prowled Reich der Finsternis. The agents were forced to enter the bowels of the forest, covered by a dense mist within which the most horrid manifestations might be waiting to momentarily quench their unquenchable thirst for blood. Only the glow of the moon amidst a cloudy sky guided part of their path. Anika, however, was not at all disturbed.