Spike and Dru: Pretty Maids All in a Row (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) by Christopher Golden

From the Publisher

It's 1940, and Europe is ravaged by World War II—an ideal environment for demon paramours Spike and Drusilla. The anniversary of Dru's resurrection as a vamp impends, and Spike wants to celebrate. What better gift than Freya's Strand—a powerful necklace rumored to allow its wearer to shape-shift at will? Spike learns of a demon named Skrymir, who claims to possess the bauble and is willing to trade.

Spike's task is ti infiltrate the Watcher's Council headquaters and get his hands on the list of young women in training to take over as Slayer should they be called. In exchange for Freya's Strand, Spike must kill the reigning Slayer, a brazen young woman named Sophie, as well as the Slayers-in-Waiting. And if he succeeds, it could mean the end of the Chosen One—all of the Chosen Ones—forever...

Publishers Weekly

Bored by the monotonous 1940s New York City nightlife, longtime lovers and vampires Spike and Drusilla venture to war-ravaged Europe in search of Freyja's Strand, an ancient gold necklace that allows its wearer to shift forms, in Golden's (Immortal) fourth Buffy: The Vampire Slayer thriller. Acquiring the coveted artifact, however, requires doing the bidding of the comically portrayed ice demon Scrymir, who possesses the necklace yet is oblivious of the trinket's priceless powers. In order to transform the world into a realm of darkness in which he will be the ruler, Scrymir instructs Spike and Dru to kill all the Slayers-in-Waiting, a group of 20 or so girls spanning the globe who are trained to assume the role of Vampire SlayerDif and when the current slayer, Sophie Carstensen, should die. A number of suspenseful, gory battles occur as the charismatic Spike and his simpering girlfriend track each potential slayer and finally confront their greatest challengeDSophie herself. Meanwhile, an impatient Scrymir strikes the Council of Watchers (a group of seers who train slayers) in a frightful yet banal display reminiscent of numerous cartoon battles. Although Golden's characters are only marginally developed and his details at times unnecessarily gruesome, the narrative's swift momentum and engaging action sequences make for breezy entertainment. Avid fans of the series will buy the book, of course, but word of mouth could also bring newcomers to this mysterious world of dark creatures and cruel intentions. (Oct.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Product Details

• ISBN: 0743418921
  
• ISBN-13: 9780743418928
• Format: Mass Market Paperback, 368pp
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
• Pub. Date: June 2001
• Age Range: Young Adult
• Series: Buffy the Vampire Slayer

• Read an Excerpt
• Read a Sample Chapter

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One

Spike stood on the deck of the Aberdeen, cigarette clenched between his lips, and leaned perhaps too much against the rail. It was twilight, and the last of the sun's rays lit the tips of the waves on the western horizon. The ocean was rough and beautiful, ephemeral turbulence on the surface belying the eternal calm below.

The boredom was killing him.

The engines rumbled loudly below the thrumming deck, their smell inescapable for anyone who actually had to breathe. In the dining room each night Spike and Drusilla sat and ate the slop that was served to them. They did not have to eat for sustenance. On this trip, however, if they dined with others aboard the ship it was for the sake of appearances only and almost not worth the trouble.

Monotony. The same faces passed by on the deck each night. Three British airmen returning home to do their duty for His Majesty. A young lady and her governess en route via England to an elite Paris boarding school. The filthy crewmen and anxious-looking stewards. The fat American woman whose pinched features threatened at any moment to explode in a torrent of abuse poured upon her bespectacled, quavering husband. He represented an American firm that hoped to introduce new techniques in steel welding and shipbuilding to the British for the war. Apparently no one had explained to him that the British were not bloody likely to be taking advice from the Yanks, if anyone.

Nearly every one of them had been the object of his homicidal fantasies during the voyage. Most had escaped unscathed. It would not do to have the truth about his and Drusilla's nature revealed to a passenger ship full of humans already on edge because of the outbreak of war. Particularly not in the middle of the Atlantic.

Spike took a long drag on his cigarette, the ember at its tip glowing in the dark, and leaned out across the rail to stare down at the water churned up by the Aberdeen's passing.

"Careful there, mate. This old girl's in good shape, but the rail might not hold."

The voice was gruff, British, and by now familiar. It belonged to Jack Norton, one of the grimy men responsible for keeping the old vessel's engine running. He often walked the deck to stretch his legs after a shift below and was among the very few living souls on board that Spike had no immediate urge to kill.

Smoke drifted in twin streams from Spike's nostrils, quickly sucked away into the cold spring night. "I can think of worse things, Jack. A little bit of a dip, some chaos aboardship, 'man overboard,' all that. It'd be a bloody joy about now. How do you do this all the time without going out of your mind with the boredom?"

Norton stroked his gray mustache, unmindful of his dirty hands. "Who says I'm not out of me mind?" he said, expression quite serious. "Tell the truth, lad, it don't really bother me. I'm down below, me mind on me work. Don't have much time to think about it."

The crewman paused, studying Spike closely. "You and the missus have a fight?"

Spike frowned. "I don't think I like that question."

"No offense, sir," Norton replied, unaffected by Spike's apparent annoyance. "It's only that yer on yer honeymoon here, ain'tcha? Makin' yer way home. You've spent near every waking moment in yer compartment, celebratin' like."

"Well, that's what newlyweds do, isn't it?" Spike snapped. "We've come out for meals and walks around the deck and the like."

"Aye. But this is the first time I've heard ye sayin' how bored you are. None of my business to be sure, but I've a feeling if I was on me honeymoon with that pretty bird o' yours, I wouldn't be bored, or at least I wouldn't act it. Just a friendly bit of advice, as me ol' mum used to say. Worth what you make of it."

The impulse to kill Jack Norton just then was quite strong. Spike resisted it. Instead he took another puff of his cigarette, felt the burning in his throat, and then snorted plumes of smoke back into the air. He shook his head.

"So you don't think I should go for a swim, Jack? That's what you're saying?"

"That's what I'm saying," Norton agreed. "I expect you knew that, but we're all feeling a bit dodgy these days, aren't we? What with the U-boats prowling about down there..." He gestured toward the water. "...and three people lost on this trip already."

Spike raised an eyebrow. "Three?"

Norton glanced about to make sure no one else was within listening distance. "The captain don't want us talking about such things with the passengers, but aye, the count's up to three now. The first one was that doctor from New York. Hastings was his name I think. Same night one of the nightwatch went missing. A piece of the rail give way. He were up there watching for subs, so he might have gone over by accident. Might have."

"But then in the storm last night..."

"Aye," Norton said gravely.

As if on cue, the fat American woman and her ratlike husband ambled by on the deck, out for an evening stroll. Many of the passengers stayed belowdecks as much as possible, uncomfortable with the roll of the ocean and the openness around them. Not this pair. The woman visibly flinched as she walked through the trail of smoke from Spike's cigarette. She turned up her nose as she paused to regard him.

"Pardon me, sir, if I might inquire? What manner of tobacco is it that creates such an awful stench?"

Norton grumbled something under his breath and tried to diminish his large frame somehow. He was uncomfortable around passengers other than Spike. Only the stewards were meant to have contact with them.

For his part, Spike pinched the cigarette in his fingers, put it to his lips and drew in a lungful of smoke. He did not need to breathe, but could duplicate the process at will. With a devilish grin, he exhaled smoke into the woman's face. Her husband blinked behind his glasses as his wife began to cough.

"It's Turkish," Spike told her. "A bit exotic for you, dear, but you should get 'round to that part of the world sometime. Like as not they'd slit your throat for being such an obnoxious cow."

The woman had the imagination to glance at her husband as if he might have the temerity to offer some retort. He seemed frozen, rooted to the spot, and managed only to look flustered and fiddle with his spectacles as if he were warming up for some tart rejoinder. None was forthcoming however. His wife marched away in a huff and her mate followed as though she held his leash.

Spike turned his attention back to Norton who was staring at him with an expression of amazement. "You were saying?"

"Now see here," Norton said stuffily. "I may only be one of the blokes stoking the engines 'round here, but it isn't proper for you to speak to a woman that way."

"Spare me." Spike sighed. "You'd like to see her overboard next, I'd wager. You were telling me about last night."

The crewman seemed about to chide him again but then chuckled and shook his head. He glanced about once more, then slipped into the conspiratorial tone he had been using before the Americans had approached.

"Coulda been the storm, right enough. But Webley, the man went over last night, had eleven years at sea. Not the kind of man ye expect to fall overboard, even in a real guster."

"So that makes three," Spike noted. "But if they weren't accidental, then what? Does the captain think you've got a killer on board?"

"Worse," Norton said, his voice barely a growl. "Nazi spies."

Spike brightened. "Oh, right! Now there's a bit of excitement."

"Keep it down, mate. You'll have me in a fix if anyone finds out I let it slip."

"Not to worry, Jack. Ol' Spike can keep a secret," he reassured the man. With a grin, he flicked his still burning cigarette overboard and watched it spin down into the raging sea.

Read a Sample Chapter

Chapter One

Spike stood on the deck of the Aberdeen, cigarette clenched between his lips, and leaned perhaps too much against the rail. It was twilight, and the last of the sun's rays lit the tips of the waves on the western horizon. The ocean was rough and beautiful, ephemeral turbulence on the surface belying the eternal calm below.

The boredom was killing him.

The engines rumbled loudly below the thrumming deck, their smell inescapable for anyone who actually had to breathe. In the dining room each night Spike and Drusilla sat and ate the slop that was served to them. They did not have to eat for sustenance. On this trip, however, if they dined with others aboard the ship it was for the sake of appearances only and almost not worth the trouble.

Monotony. The same faces passed by on the deck each night. Three British airmen returning home to do their duty for His Majesty. A young lady and her governess en route via England to an elite Paris boarding school. The filthy crewmen and anxious-looking stewards. The fat American woman whose pinched features threatened at any moment to explode in a torrent of abuse poured upon her bespectacled, quavering husband. He represented an American firm that hoped to introduce new techniques in steel welding and shipbuilding to the British for the war. Apparently no one had explained to him that the British were not bloody likely to be taking advice from the Yanks, if anyone.

Nearly every one of them had been the object of his homicidal fantasies during the voyage. Most had escaped unscathed. It would not do to have the truth about his and Drusilla's nature revealed to a passenger ship full of humans already on edge because of the outbreak of war. Particularly not in the middle of the Atlantic.

Spike took a long drag on his cigarette, the ember at its tip glowing in the dark, and leaned out across the rail to stare down at the water churned up by the Aberdeen's passing.

"Careful there, mate. This old girl's in good shape, but the rail might not hold."

The voice was gruff, British, and by now familiar. It belonged to Jack Norton, one of the grimy men responsible for keeping the old vessel's engine running. He often walked the deck to stretch his legs after a shift below and was among the very few living souls on board that Spike had no immediate urge to kill.

Smoke drifted in twin streams from Spike's nostrils, quickly sucked away into the cold spring night. "I can think of worse things, Jack. A little bit of a dip, some chaos aboardship, 'man overboard,' all that. It'd be a bloody joy about now. How do you do this all the time without going out of your mind with the boredom?"

Norton stroked his gray mustache, unmindful of his dirty hands. "Who says I'm not out of me mind?" he said, expression quite serious. "Tell the truth, lad, it don't really bother me. I'm down below, me mind on me work. Don't have much time to think about it."

The crewman paused, studying Spike closely. "You and the missus have a fight?"

Spike frowned. "I don't think I like that question."

"No offense, sir," Norton replied, unaffected by Spike's apparent annoyance. "It's only that yer on yer honeymoon here, ain'tcha? Makin' yer way home. You've spent near every waking moment in yer compartment, celebratin' like."

"Well, that's what newlyweds do, isn't it?" Spike snapped. "We've come out for meals and walks around the deck and the like."

"Aye. But this is the first time I've heard ye sayin' how bored you are. None of my business to be sure, but I've a feeling if I was on me honeymoon with that pretty bird o' yours, I wouldn't be bored, or at least I wouldn't act it. Just a friendly bit of advice, as me ol' mum used to say. Worth what you make of it."

The impulse to kill Jack Norton just then was quite strong. Spike resisted it. Instead he took another puff of his cigarette, felt the burning in his throat, and then snorted plumes of smoke back into the air. He shook his head.

"So you don't think I should go for a swim, Jack? That's what you're saying?"

"That's what I'm saying," Norton agreed. "I expect you knew that, but we're all feeling a bit dodgy these days, aren't we? What with the U-boats prowling about down there..." He gestured toward the water. "...and three people lost on this trip already."

Spike raised an eyebrow. "Three?"

Norton glanced about to make sure no one else was within listening distance. "The captain don't want us talking about such things with the passengers, but aye, the count's up to three now. The first one was that doctor from New York. Hastings was his name I think. Same night one of the nightwatch went missing. A piece of the rail give way. He were up there watching for subs, so he might have gone over by accident. Might have."

"But then in the storm last night..."

"Aye," Norton said gravely.

As if on cue, the fat American woman and her ratlike husband ambled by on the deck, out for an evening stroll. Many of the passengers stayed belowdecks as much as possible, uncomfortable with the roll of the ocean and the openness around them. Not this pair. The woman visibly flinched as she walked through the trail of smoke from Spike's cigarette. She turned up her nose as she paused to regard him.

"Pardon me, sir, if I might inquire? What manner of tobacco is it that creates such an awful stench?"

Norton grumbled something under his breath and tried to diminish his large frame somehow. He was uncomfortable around passengers other than Spike. Only the stewards were meant to have contact with them.

For his part, Spike pinched the cigarette in his fingers, put it to his lips and drew in a lungful of smoke. He did not need to breathe, but could duplicate the process at will. With a devilish grin, he exhaled smoke into the woman's face. Her husband blinked behind his glasses as his wife began to cough.

"It's Turkish," Spike told her. "A bit exotic for you, dear, but you should get 'round to that part of the world sometime. Like as not they'd slit your throat for being such an obnoxious cow."

The woman had the imagination to glance at her husband as if he might have the temerity to offer some retort. He seemed frozen, rooted to the spot, and managed only to look flustered and fiddle with his spectacles as if he were warming up for some tart rejoinder. None was forthcoming however. His wife marched away in a huff and her mate followed as though she held his leash.

Spike turned his attention back to Norton who was staring at him with an expression of amazement. "You were saying?"

"Now see here," Norton said stuffily. "I may only be one of the blokes stoking the engines 'round here, but it isn't proper for you to speak to a woman that way."

"Spare me." Spike sighed. "You'd like to see her overboard next, I'd wager. You were telling me about last night."

The crewman seemed about to chide him again but then chuckled and shook his head. He glanced about once more, then slipped into the conspiratorial tone he had been using before the Americans had approached.

"Coulda been the storm, right enough. But Webley, the man went over last night, had eleven years at sea. Not the kind of man ye expect to fall overboard, even in a real guster."

"So that makes three," Spike noted. "But if they weren't accidental, then what? Does the captain think you've got a killer on board?"

"Worse," Norton said, his voice barely a growl. "Nazi spies."

Spike brightened. "Oh, right! Now there's a bit of excitement."

"Keep it down, mate. You'll have me in a fix if anyone finds out I let it slip."

"Not to worry, Jack. Ol' Spike can keep a secret," he reassured the man. With a grin, he flicked his still burning cigarette overboard and watched it spin down into the raging sea.

"Do a chap a favor though. Give us a shout if you hear any more, right? If there is a Nazi spy on board, I'd like to get a few licks in myself. Break a few bones for His Majesty."

Norton's expression became grave, his jaw set grimly. "Will do, sir."

They said their good-byes and Spike shoved his hands in his pockets and went back belowdecks. He bumped into an older British couple, the Bracketts, he thought he recalled, and nodded an amiable enough greeting. Not much farther along, he came to his stateroom. When he pushed the door open, Spike found Drusilla brushing her long raven hair and singing softly to herself. A violent little lullaby whose lyrics were never once the same.

She turned to pout at him. "You were gone too long, Spike. Hurt my feelings. The ocean hissed and I was afraid at first. Then I grew angry and it slunk away."

Spike went to Drusilla and kissed her silent. Then he stroked her face lovingly as he regarded her. "The bloody fools think they've got spies on board, Dru. Think there are Nazis killing the crew."

"Spies!" she exclaimed, her eyes flashing. "How exciting."

As he often was when around her, Spike was overcome suddenly with the intensity of his feelings for Drusilla. He stared at her, glared even, almost angered by how deeply she affected him. Lights seemed to dance in her eyes, and the corners of her mouth turned up in a mischievous, seductive smile. Overwhelmed, he kissed her again, harder this time, and ran his hands over her body. His tongue flickered into her mouth, and Drusilla bit it hard enough to draw blood. Spike hissed with the tiny pain, but did not withdraw. He felt her curves beneath his hands. His fingers trailed up to her throat and he untied the little bow that held her shift in place. It slid down her pale body, alabaster skin veined with blue ice.

They made love in a brutal frenzy on the floor next to the corpse of Webley the steward, whose dead eyes watched with blank jealousy. Later they drank of him again. In the small hours of the morning, the lovers slipped out together to dump his body over the side and into the tumultuous waters below.

The submarine sliced the rough ocean surface, the light of the moon gleaming off the imposing armor of its conning tower.

Kurt Raeder sat deep within its bowels and wished for a shower. Not only that, but he wanted every other member of the crew of U-28B to have one as well. He sat with the submarine's other petty officers in their quarters and ate what passed for food after four days at sea. The four men sat in silence on the lower bunks in the U-room, heads bowed to avoid striking them on the metal frames above. A grim air of disappointment mixed with their stink to contaminate the entire vessel.

A convoy had passed within forty nautical miles of them and they had missed it. U-29 and U-5 had reached it in time and done a great deal of damage but they had been out of the action. They had sunk only one vessel -- a merchant ship -- since the outbreak of war.

"Damned convoy," Petty Officer Walther grumbled, dropping his spoon into the slop in his bowl. "What is the sense of a convoy of ships? They make a larger target traveling together. I have never understood it."

Kurt frowned. "It is a big ocean. Ships traveling together are less likely to run across one of our patrols and even if they do they have armed escort. It is all about the odds."

He might have said more but the others all glanced at him distastefully and then went back to their meals. Jaw set angrily, Kurt put down his bowl. He ought to have known better than to respond to such a question. It proved Walther's ignorance but attempting to correct one of the other petty officers was fruitless. Kurt's uncle was Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, commander in chief of the German navy. Kurt could have had any job on the ocean, but he chose to serve under it. U-boat crewmen were valiant and clever. Their clandestine operations required courage and stealth and were vital to the Führer's plans. Uncle Erich had attempted to dissuade him, but Kurt was steadfast. Submarine service would be everything he had ever imagined.

Or so he had thought.

He lived, now, in a Type VIIA U-boat; crammed into the steel cylinder with forty-five other men. From outside, the sub was the size and shape of a passenger train car. Within, however, the size was revealed to be an illusion. The vessel's interior space was filled with machinery; it was one long gangway along which the men moved during shift changes. Even the captain had only a desk hidden by a curtain. There was no privacy aboard a ship like this. No room to move save to sleep or do the job that he had been sent to do. Nobody washed or changed his clothes. When the U-boat was submerged the toilets did not work. The stink of men and oil and mold was thick enough to choke on.

Kurt had chosen this. He might not even have regretted it, for there were benefits as well. The things he had imagined about U-boat service were true. For other subs. But U-28B had sunk a single merchant ship, nothing more glorious than that. And the other men hated him because he was so obviously their intellectual superior and because his uncle was Grand Admiral Raeder.

The others all dropped their spoons. Mealtime was over. Kurt's shift would begin soon. It was still night above and he and others on his shift would shepherd the boat through the night and into the dawn hours until the captain awoke. By then they would turn for home. A day for rest and refueling, and then out to sea again. It had not turned out to be all he had dreamed but Kurt would not allow himself to become further discouraged. He would do his job and speak to his uncle about advancement. If word spread and bitterness trailed in his wake, so be it. He realized that the only way for him to prove his worth was as a captain with a U-boat of his own to command.

"Your turn, Raeder," Walther grunted.

Kurt made no response as he picked up the bowls and spoons from the table in the middle of the corridor. The others folded down the table's leaves. With them up, no one would be able to manuever along the passage. Kurt carried the bowls toward the galley, squeezing through other crewmen's quarters and past the captain's desk on his way. Before he reached his destination he heard shouts echoing down the passage all the way from the command center.

A target had been sighted.

Kurt grinned even as the submarine -- which had been running on the surface to conserve time and fuel -- began to dive. He stumbled with the pitch of the U-boat but regained his footing before he dropped any of the bowls. As U-28B dove he rushed to the galley, shoving men aside, and dumped the bowls in a sink.

Quick as he was able, he manuevered back along the ship's single corridor until he reached the command center. His clothes were always damp aboard U-28B, but now they were damp with sweat as well. The sweat not of fear but of anticipation. Within the command center all was now silent. The chief stood motionless between the men of the bridge watch. In the small space between the periscope shaft and the interior wall of the conning tower, the commander sat on the periscope saddle, feet on the controls that would rotate the entire mechanism, hands on the levers that would raise or lower it.

The periscope motor hummed. The periscope rose. The commander spun around the shaft on the saddle as the men watched quietly.

"There," he whispered. "A passenger ship under British flag."

"A passenger ship, Commander? Shall we move on?"

The commander froze. Took his eye away from the rubber ring of the periscope to turn slowly and glare at the chief. "Move on, Haupt? We're at war. The Reich does not move on. We have only one vessel sunk to our credit. Now that we have this opportunity in front of us, I won't return to port with that on our log."

"But, sir, if the ship has no military use -- "

His words were ignored. At his post, Kurt Raeder allowed himself a tiny smile. Men like Chief Haupt did not understand blitzkrieg, did not realize what war meant to the Reich.

The commander put his eye to the periscope again. When he spoke, his words were guttural and low. Precise. They were obviously lies for the benefit of those with a conscience about such things, but no one would question him. It was his vessel to command, after all.

"There are deck guns on the ship," he said. "Torpedoes ready. Fire at will."

Spike was asleep on the floor of their cabin aboard the Aberdeen. When the ocean was particularly rough, he preferred the floor to the bed for some reason. Drusilla did not argue. There was nothing they could do on the bed that she was not equally happy doing on the floor -- or anywhere else for that matter. When he slept, Spike looked like a corpse. All of their kind shared that attribute. His flesh was cold and his chest did not rise and fall with even the false semblance of breath.

It aroused her to look at him that way. She was tempted to wake him but changed her mind. Instead, she sprawled luxuriously across the bed, nude and lascivious, and simply enjoyed the sounds of the ocean. Her head was at the foot of the bed and she stared at the porthole on the wall above it. With a coquettish smile, Dru issued a mental invitation to the gods and sprites of the ocean to come and ravish her. Though she did not expect an answer, she hoped for one.

Should Poseidon himself come up from below to take her, Spike would wish his sometimes cantankerous nature had not prevented her from waking him to satisfy her. Drusilla relished the thought and arranged herself on the bed to be more attractive should even a selkie or merrow hear her mental call or sense her craving.

Close by she heard the aching echo of carillon bells tolling in time with a mournful voice singing "Danny Boy." Drusilla was aware it was a voice only she could hear, but enjoyed it for its music nonetheless. It was made even more special by the knowledge that this performance was solely for her.

She stretched and shuddered with pleasure. When she glanced at the porthole again she giggled, a playful smile caressing her features. There were fish outside the little window. Their room was far above the surface of the water, but the fish swam beyond the glass just the same, creatures of all stripes and sizes.

Drusilla frowned in alarm. The fish were frightened, she could feel it. They began to scream. She recoiled, her momentum causing her to slide off the bed to land on the floor beside Spike. Hands over her ears, she sat there and screamed her lover's name.

Spike sat up instantly, alert, scanning the room for any sign of danger. For a moment, she saw in his eyes that he would kill for her, and she loved him for it.

Then he scowled. "Bloody hell, Dru, stop that racket. What's the matter with you?"

Drusilla lowered her gaze, wrists crossed in front of her face so that she might hide her face from him.

"A voice sang me a beautiful dirge. Then the fish danced at my window and began to scream."

He frowned. "A premonition, pet."

"A nasty whisper, Spike. So much water."

"We're surrounded by water, Drusilla. Think you might be a bit more specific?"

The first torpedo struck the Aberdeen just then and the sound of the explosion was nearly blotted out by the noise of tearing metal. The ship rocked.

Spike sighed. "Oh, bollocks," he muttered, as the second torpedo struck and the ship began to tilt in the water. "Just my bloody luck."

Several torpedoes from U-28B had hit their mark. The passenger ship would go down quickly, Kurt knew. The British had not yet learned properly to armor their seagoing vessels, nor how to compartmentalize them so that the hull might be breached and only one section flooded, allowing the ship to continue its course.

Kurt hurried from the command center toward the hatch that would take him onto the deck. He heard the chief shout his name and turned angrily.

"Petty Officer Raeder," Chief Haupt said gravely. "You will return to your post immediately."

"No, sir. Langsdorff is ill. Someone must take his post at the deck gun."

Haupt knew this, but no one had given Kurt the command to take Langsdorff's post. The chief wore a look of bitter contemplation. He would not want to reward such a breach in the chain of command but he would also not want to offend Grand Admiral Raeder. On the other hand, they both knew quite well that there was every chance Kurt would be driven overboard by the sea or the gun's recoil.

"Very well," the chief snapped. "Move along."

Elsewhere in the U-boat another torpedo was fired. It would likely be the last. The British ship was sinking and undefended. The artillery and flak gun on the deck would finish her off. In the petty officers' quarters, Kurt pulled on a thick sweater knitted by his mother and a heavy rubber jacket. He turned the collar up and slipped binoculars around his neck. When he at last climbed the ladder up to the open hatch he could hear the guns firing.

U-28B's engines were still. She was nearly stopped in the water. The waves thrashed against her hull and washed over the deck. Kurt grinned wildly as he fought to keep his footing. Heinrich Gort was at the flak gun. It was meant as an antiaircraft weapon, but Gort fired upon the passenger liner regardless.

The British ship was on fire. It slid into the water slowly and inexorably, but the fire burned on those sections not yet submerged. Kurt imagined he could hear the screaming but knew, sadly, that it was merely wishful thinking. He reached the primary deck gun, an 8.8 centimeter artillery weapon. Others were already there. Together they turned the gun on the sinking ship, loaded the weapon, and fired.

The shell hit the deck of the other ship and exploded. Even with the spray in his eyes, Kurt knew he had seen several bodies fly. He laughed as they prepared to fire again.

Then he noticed something else. The British had put a lifeboat over the side. Perhaps more than one. There were people in it, rowing away from their sinking ship.

"Johannes," he said to the man beside him. "Go below. Bring guns."

The other looked at him with alarm, but Kurt set him with a hard look and after a moment Johannes complied. Even as he fired the deck gun at the devastated vessel again he kept his eye on the lifeboat.

Spike and Drusilla had waited patiently as their room flooded with water. Dru had even closed her eyes for a few minutes, enjoying the sensation of the water lifting her. Spike was furious beyond rationality and could not let go of that rage as the ocean invaded. Electricity sparked and the room was thrown into near total darkness. A human would have been unable to see at all, vampires could see better in the dark.

When the flow of water into the room had ceased he pushed off the wall and floated to Drusilla. He tapped her arm and her eyes opened instantly. She grinned, seemed almost to laugh. No bubbles escaped her mouth.

Together they swam out into the corridor. Debris floated in the water; perhaps the largest bits of debris were the corpses. The elderly British couple Spike had thought were called the Bracketts were among the drowned dead, though from the look on Mrs. Brackett's face he judged that she, at least, had died from fright.

The pressure of the water on his ear drums was uncomfortable. His clothes were saturated, of course, and that made swimming more difficult. But he had taken the time to pull some clothes on and he'd be damned if he was going to take them off now. Drusilla, on the other hand, was still completely naked. When the water had first begun to flood their compartment he had suggested she dress, but she was simply having too much fun to bother. Now as they made their way underwater toward the ship's sunken deck, she flitted about like some sort of sea sprite.

Despite himself, Spike smiled. She was mad, but he loved her. To see her enjoying herself so much, exalting in the chaos that surrounded them, reminded him of the way she had behaved in Prague decades before on a night when they had both nearly been killed by maddened crowds.

The memory would have made him shudder were it not for the pleasure Dru took in chaos, even now. To her, life and death were both ecstasy.

Mad old thing, he thought, watching her.

When they swam from the Aberdeen out into the open ocean he was still smiling. Then they breached the surface and the silence of the ocean was torn apart by the chaos above. Screams ripped the night air and echoed to the stars. Spike faced the ship, half-sunk or more by now. The fire was bright enough to light the surface of the ocean all around. People clung to the portion of the vessel that was still above water and crew members shouted for passengers to jump. He spied Jack Norton, feet and hands on an outer deck railing as if it were a ladder, and thought it a pity that the man was fool enough to save others through some twisted sense of human nobility rather than save himself.

Gunfire sounded behind him and Spike turned in the water. He was tossed by the rough surf so he did not see right away the source of the shooting.

"Oooh, bad, bad men," Drusilla said, her voice barely audible over the cacaphony around them, though she treaded water beside him.

Spike saw it then. A German submarine. There were two lifeboats not far from it and dozens of people in the water attempting to put enough distance between themselves and the Aberdeen that they would not be drawn down into the ocean in its wake. On the deck of the U-boat, Nazi seamen stood fast and fired upon the humans in the water.

"Fun as it's been, love, this whole sinking is quite an inconvenience," Drusilla said in a little girl voice, as though she were sternly reprimanding one of her many dolls. "I think we should kill them."

"Bloody well right."

They began to swim. When they were in range of the German machine guns, Spike saw the fat American woman who had so annoyed him on deck throughout their journey. She had a bullet hole in her right cheek and a large section of the back of her head was gone. Already the ocean water was washing the gray matter from within her skull. It floated beside her on the surface of the ocean, roiling with the waves, spreading like a tiny oil slick.

The old cow had more brains than I'd've given her credit for, he thought.

Right about then the first bullet tore through his shoulder.

"Kill them!" Kurt screamed.

An enlisted man named Scharnhorst stood before him, holding tight to a deck rail, flinching as Raeder's spittle flew into his face. "They are civilians," Scharnhorst argued. "Their ship is sunk, no longer a threat. We must rescue them."

Kurt fumed. "You were posted to a battleship before this, weren't you, Scharnhorst?"

"Yes sir."

"Battleships have room to carry prisoners of war. U-boats do not, you fool!" Kurt told him. "If you kill them now you are merely saving them the misery of drowning. Now do it!"

Scharnhorst hesitated. Kurt was astonished. The man was going to refuse once more. He opened his mouth.

"Just give me your weapon then," Kurt demanded.

Relieved, Scharnhorst did as he was told. The other half dozen men on deck were systematically executing those who had escaped the sinking ship. The gunfire blasted the air, pounded their ears, chopped flesh and water.

Kurt slammed the stock of the MG34 machine gun into Scharnhorst's face, shattering his nose and driving him off the deck into the water below. There, in the ocean spray, he was just another face in the water. Kurt cut him in two with a strafing of bullets from his own weapon.

From off to his left there came a great deal of shouting. He fired at a floundering man who was just slipping under the water, killing him before he could drown, then he carefully walked the deck to see what the noise was about. What he saw stopped him dead in his tracks. He nearly lost his balance.

A beautiful woman with raven hair stood completely nude on the deck of the submarine, ocean water splashing her body and washing only the tiniest drops of blood that slipped from the many bullet holes in her flesh. Even as he watched she pitched Johannes overboard, then pulled Heinrich Gort to her. Her face changed suddenly, became grotesque and evil, and she sank her teeth into the flesh of the man's throat. Gort was powerless to stop her. His legs quivered and he dropped his weapon to the deck.

"God in Heaven," Kurt muttered to himself.

Some kind of demon. It has to be. He shook off his fear and raised his weapon. A hand clamped on his shoulder from behind and spun him around. He would have fallen into the water if not for the fingers that gripped his throat, crushing it. The weapon was torn from his hands.

He stared into the face of a monster. It walked like a man and wore human clothes but its features were twisted and hideous and its eyes glowed with an evil yellow light.

It was annoyed.

"I'm so bloody tired of asking this question," the monster said, its British accent stunning Kurt as if someone had struck him. "Does anyone on board this floating scrap heap speak even a word of English?"

Kurt frowned.

The thing's protruding brow shot up in surprise. "You understand me, Gerry? You do, don't you?"

Kurt's mind reeled. The British have monsters on their side, creatures of Darkness fighting the war for them. The Führer doesn't know. How can we combat such beings?

They could not.

"I speak English, demon," Kurt confirmed.

The creature grinned, then looked past him at the naked woman. "We've got one, Dru," he said, tongue flicking across the fangs that protruded from his mouth. Then he studied Kurt closely. "You sank our transportation. We're going to need yours. We just had to find one of you who could soddin' understand us."

"Then you need me alive," Kurt said firmly.

The demon gave him a doubtful look. "Don't flatter yourself," it said.

It yanked his head back by the hair and sank its fangs into his throat and all the strength went out of him. Kurt could not even scream as the vampire drained his blood, ocean spray striking his face.

By the time his dead eyes opened the following night every man on board the U-28B was dead. He was among five members of the crew who had not been allowed to remain that way. Of those who rose from the dead, he was the senior officer. The vampires had given him his command even faster than the Grand Admiral could have managed.

In exchange, all they wanted was transport to their destination.

With Spike and Drusilla on the bridge of the command center, Captain Raeder and the bloodthirsty crew of the U-28B set a course for the western coast of Norway at ten knots. The diesel engines growled. The mariners drank the cold blood of their dead fellows before it could become completely stagnant.

ª and Copyright © 2000 by Twentieth Century Fox