1943 Rome, night.
I am the night predator. Der Jagermeister. None can escape from me.
Luther Waldemar dressed in normal clothes, though he could do nothing about his blond hair, he wore a newsboy cap in an attempt to cover it. He wore knit clothes that looked the worse for wear, thinning in the knees and all the hems were frayed in some way. He wandered through the darkened Via Giuseppi Missori in Rome.
Luther was following a man. He was getting sick of his own Tuscany accent, and wanted a few things. First, he wanted a Roman accent to his Italian, so he wouldn’t sound like he was a country bumpkin. Second, this man he was following knew of some Jews in hiding, and Luther wanted to know where they were. Third, this man was a high-ranking member of the Fascist party, Ettore Rossi, and had escaped the original SS dragnet.
Rossi knew he was being followed, as he picked up the pace. Luther smiled and followed, and easily overtook him. After a short scuffle, he dragged him into a side alley and into a doorway. “Ettore Rossi?”
“I will tell you nothing!”
“Oh, oh, yes you will.” Luther pulled out his huge SS hunting dagger and unsheathed it. Then he cracked the side of Rossi’s head with the butt of it. He fell down, unconscious.
Luther guided him to the ground, kneeling next to him. He took off Rossi’s jacket and placed it over his knees as he knelt at the man’s head.
Luther was very glad he hadn’t eaten anything today in preparation for this. First, he scalped the man, as he had scalped many men in his life during the Indian wars. The man moaned, well-knocked out.
He then grabbed a hold of the man’s head and twisted his neck, knowing that killed him. The next thing he did was chop down hard using the dagger, a dagger made for stabbing and tearing out the hearts of deer and elk. He had honed it to the finest edge, so that it cracked into the skull of the man, getting stuck on the bone. He hacked again, eventually severing the top of the skull off in five strokes.
A pool of blood in the skull greeted his eyes, and he swallowed. He hated to do this. It was too late now. Cradling the man’s head between his knees, he put the knife down, and then took both hands and scooped out the gray and white matter that was the man’s brain.
Luther muttered a prayer, “Bimadeesh’d omayy; Bime’jeye man’too meye’ah, kee-nigh. He lives here; his fellow spirit clearly shall be mine.”*
He buried his face in the bloody mass and began to eat, starting with his frontal lobe. He closed his eyes, and the man’s memory became his own:
a horse, when he was just a boy, kicked up and hit his brother in the chest, so he could never breathe again properly…
my name is Ettorie Giovanni Rossi
i am married to Anna Rosa Ferrero
i have three children…
Luther breathed, and dug in again.
He learned the man’s likes and dislikes. The women he loved. What he did. And, eventually, his language, the culture, his beliefs, and where the Jews were.
He stopped and said the prayer in Italian. He shook his head, and struggled for his sense of self.
i am black fox
i am 356 years old
i have many lovers
I am a Standartenfuhrer of the SS…
A horse kicked my brother —
He squashed that memory.
I rode horses with the Chippewa.
I loved Saginaw, Ketagan, Asakibek–
He took a few more breaths. “Soniac.” He dropped the remainder of the brains to the ground. He realized his knees were soaked with blood, even through the jacket. He got up, swearing.
So much blood.
He realized he must have looked like hell, covered in blood, his face in blood. He tasted blood and sugar in his mouth, and forced himself to keep it down. It would take about an hour or so before he came back to himself, he could sort everything out, realize where he was. He’d lose memories in between, however, and he never knew what memories would be eliminated for this new knowledge to be assimilated.
He waited by the body as he sorted his mind. Parts of Ettorie and Black Fox warred within himself – what was his, what was Ettorie’s? He tested a few Italian words and was happy with how they were pronounced. What language did he lose in order to keep this one?
Finally, he looked up at the moon, luna. He pronounced himself fine. However, he was a total mess. He ended up wasting another two hours looking for somet clothes hanging off a line. The pants were too short and the shirt was too tight, but at least he wasn’t covered in blood. He clapped the hat back on and headed back out into the streets, heading toward the northwest end of Vatican City.
The man’s name was Road-Guide. Luther thought was the most idiotic name to give another person. He also thought “conductor” was idiotic for a person on a train who collected tickets, but there was no accounting for naming conventions.
Fifty Jews were going to be transported through this Road-Guide this night, and Luther was going to make sure he was there to stop it.
((Because of the complexity of Donavon Riovan, I am going to have to roleplay this out with him to get the correct conversation. I will put up the conversation – edited for clarity and description – here when it is completed.))
* – (Reimagining of Algonquin ceremony taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midewiwin)
Words: 948
Comments: Continued meeting with Donavon. Casey’s met the man twice in his life only.