The Obscurati (7 page)

There’s no uniform or badge. There’s no ID card or secret handshake. Diddly-squat.

We didn’t even get our names on a cake or anything. Wait, vampires don’t eat cake. Never mind.

The truth is that there is nothing to stop some master vampire from popping up to claim he is Obscurati.

Wait, no real Obscurati would ever make such a claim. And if another vampire did and we found out about it, it would be the last claim the vampire ever made.

Hamlet, Oberon, and I became members of the vampire Delta Force in Europe. We became vampire Yamam, and, in theory, nobody could know. When called, we’d just make somebody dead and not even get a newspaper story or “attaboy.”

Chapter 6

O
BERON
was born in Dresden in the eastern part of Germany in 1915. He is fifteen years younger than I am. I turned him when he was the same age I was when I was turned. I was born fifteen years sooner, but we are really the same body-age: twenty. It’s a weird vampire thing that is hard to explain.

His birth name was actually Viktor. His hometown of Dresden was full of great museums and music. It was the cultural heart of the German state of Saxony. Viktor grew up surrounded by the very best of European culture.

He was smart—nerdy, maybe—in school. He told me that some of the other boys taunted him because he was so pretty. Viktor was beautiful, but never ruggedly handsome.

He had an older brother, a younger brother, and a younger sister. His older brother was a little embarrassed to be related to Viktor, but he was much older and was already on his own when Viktor was an infant. By the time Viktor was ten or eleven, the older brother stopped coming to the house when Viktor was there. His own brother rejected Viktor because he wasn’t rugged enough.

At school, it was Viktor who had to stand up for his little brother and sister. He was closer to their ages, so they all went to the same school. Even though he wasn’t rugged and manly, Viktor taught himself how to protect those he loved.

Over the years, he trained himself to be quiet. It was his idea of self-preservation, but it worked to make him more mysterious. The bullies could tease him over his looks but not because he was effeminate. They would have had to tease him because he was so quiet. He only spoke when spoken to and almost never looked anyone in the eyes. It was like Viktor was in a separate universe. He created a shell, and the little boy would hide inside.

Maybe he had to be like that.

His father beat his mother and all the kids. It was savage, and it happened consistently. Viktor says he had a broken arm or leg several times a year, and they were all caused by the beatings. The sister had bruises, and his little brother almost always had a cigar burn or two. The father must have been a real piece of work, and he thought he would keep getting away with it forever. Daddy made a big mistake: you never should underestimate Viktor/Oberon. He stays quiet, and he looks meek. He never got angry, but he knew how to protect his little brother and sister. The world had forced him to understand cruelty and protection.

What kind of man beats a thirteen-year-old kid and a ten-year-old girl? What kind of father puts cigar burns on a six-year-old boy’s arms? A really sick-ass man, that’s what.

One summer night when he was thirteen, his father caught Viktor having sex with a fourteen-year-old boy. Victor had hit puberty when he was twelve or thirteen. That is an early age for puberty, I think, but that’s what he said. The boys weren’t making any noise, but his father just walked into the bedroom to find Viktor’s dick inside the other boy’s ass. The father started beating Viktor and the other kid and then stormed out of the room screaming. Viktor and the kid got dressed and ran downstairs to the kitchen.

The father was going wild, attacking everyone. Just as he was about to clobber the other kid with a rolling pin, Viktor picked up a knife and plunged it into his father’s chest. The man went down with a surprised look, like he couldn’t believe that Viktor would actually stab him. His mother was screaming. His fuck-buddy was standing against the far wall, afraid to say or do anything. Viktor noticed that his sister had come into the kitchen and was hiding under the dining table. His little brother was probably still asleep.

So they had a body to deal with. His mother was hysterical and wasn’t going to be any help. Job one was to get her calm. Viktor talked to his mother for half an hour until the woman could stop shaking long enough to pay attention to what needed to be done. Viktor told his mother that everything would be okay and that she would be better off without her husband. He told her how much he beat all the children, and she seemed shocked. She had either been living in denial or really hadn’t known how much of a monster the husband was. Somewhere along the way, her motherly instincts kicked in. It was like the motherhood engine roared to life, and she knew that it would be better for her family. She seemed to know that Viktor had acted the only way he could. He had protected his mother and brother and sister.

Viktor’s boyfriend helped with the body. Viktor cut his father into pieces, while his mother and boyfriend stuffed each piece into bags. His mother was crying; the other boy was crying or in shock. I think Viktor was just paying attention to what needed to be done. Stoic. If he had any residual anger, he was keeping it inside. Viktor had a job to do: dispose of dear old Daddy.

When he told me this story, he was quiet and calm and matter-of-fact. He was full of steely resolve. It wasn’t that he avoided emotions or kept things bottled up, but inside he was one of the strongest and quietest people I’ve ever known. He had to be, for self-preservation.

While his mother stayed to clean the kitchen, the two boys put all the bags into a cart and headed for the woods that began behind the house. The other boy was shaking, and neither of them said anything. Viktor knew that animals would come and scavenge the body parts. They emptied a bag every dozen meters. When the cart was empty, the boys tossed it and the empty bags into a river and sat for hours.

His friend cried, but Viktor just stared at the creek to watch the cart float away. No comfort. No anger. It was what it was.

The boyfriend promised never to tell anyone what had happened, but Viktor knew he couldn’t risk it. Viktor didn’t want to live his whole life looking over his shoulder, wondering if the boy or his own mother had talked. He told the boyfriend to report what had happened to the police, but not to tell them about cutting up the body. He was just supposed to say that Viktor had hauled the body off somewhere. He asked the boy to give him about an hour head start. They hugged and parted. The other boy was shaking, out of fear or shock.

Victor killed his father at age thirteen. Society wasn’t able to protect his family, so he had to do it. Can a kid ever get over that kind of trauma? If the police found out, he would be locked up or executed. If they didn’t, he would still have to live with the memory of that night. That kind of memory would never grow dim with time. That kind of wound would never become a scab or scar.

He went back to the house and told his mother that he was leaving. He changed clothes and left the bloody ones where the police would find them. Viktor left Dresden forever. He would never see his mother or brother or sister again. Instead of suffering with broken arms and legs, he was going to have to live the rest of his life with a broken heart. He would have to know that the thirteen-year-old kid inside had become a killer, justified or not.

At that moment, Viktor simply ceased to exist. He hitched a ride on a freight train and decided his new identity would be Oberon, just because he liked the sound of the name. It was a good German name, and I don’t think he knew it was also one of the lead characters in Shakespeare’s
Midsummer Night’s Dream
. All he had was a new name, one change of clothes, a picture of his mother, and a mind full of the most awful memories any child can be asked to carry. He knew that he was a murderer and that he could never see the family he loved.

Somewhere in Bavaria, he jumped off the train. Menz found him walking through the woods on his estate and took Oberon in. Menz never demanded an explanation. I think he refused sex when Oberon offered it. Menz just made sure he was well-fed and offered him a job. Oberon joined the human staff at Menz’s Bavarian estate as a groundskeeper. When he was older, Oberon became a blood donor. Menz offered him free schooling, like he did all the blood donors. Menz had papers drawn up to match Oberon’s identity, but I think I’m the only one who knows his real name and the reason Viktor had to disappear. The papers were forgeries, but they would pass the closest official scrutiny. Menz had his methods.

There’s no statute of limitations for murder, but he could go public today. He could go on TV and tell the world. Nobody would believe that it happened in 1928 or that he is now a hundred years old. The story might get him locked up for being crazy, but not for killing Daddy.

Oberon studied engineering in college, and he was an okay student. When the First World War broke out, Menz let Oberon stay at the estate. The teenager went into hiding because he didn’t want to fight. Oberon hates to fight, and he almost never gets angry. He is one of the most even-tempered humans or vampires I’ve known, and he is so quiet and smooth.

I always wonder if his demeanor is genetic or because he still keeps himself boxed up after being beaten so relentlessly as a child. He never wanted to talk about it. It took me fifty years to get him to open up as much as he did. I never pushed too hard. Of course I wanted to know, but I respected it as a sensitive topic. There were facts about his childhood that I just didn’t need to know. There are still holes in what I know about his childhood, and I accept that. I didn’t need to open all those old wounds. If he ever wants to talk, he knows I will be a good listener.

I wondered if there was some sexual abuse from his father or brother, but he never wanted to talk about it. I didn’t push the issue. When he is ready to tell me, I will be there to listen.

After he told me the story, he reached for my hand and squeezed it. He stared at the ground while holding my hand. What was going on inside that head? It can’t be healthy to internalize so much pain, but he never showed so much as a second of anger toward his father or his life on the run.

During World War II, I know that Oberon always watched for news about Dresden. He saw his older brother’s name on a list of those killed near Stalingrad, and his only reaction was a single nod of his head: no love between those two. Oberon wasn’t pleased that his brother had been killed, but he accepted the news with more calmness than I could imagine. One nod of the head, and the chapter on his older brother was closed. The brother who rejected him as a kid was dead.

He feared the Allies would bomb Dresden or that the Russians would overrun the city, and he was always pleased when there was no news. Dresden was spared. There were some military targets, but it was mainly a cultural center. All the buildings were historic, and they stood without any destruction. It had become a city of refugees and prisoners of war. The population had grown to over a million by 1945. The war was almost over. Dresden would be saved.

Then came February 13, 1945: British and American airplanes dropped 650,000 incendiary bombs into the middle of that ancient city over the course of three days. It created the largest firestorm ever seen. The fire caused winds as powerful as a Texas tornado. It fed on itself, and Dresden was consumed. German newspapers said 250,000 people were killed. It was a holocaust all to itself. Officials later said the death toll was much lower, but it was tough on Oberon. Winston Churchill even said the bombing was “unwise,” but that wasn’t a consolation for those who knew people in the city.

It was one of the few times that I saw him cry. His family. His friends. They were all gone.

I
KNOW
that the Nazis were awful people and had to be stopped. The insanity started without anyone noticing. Germany was brutalized after the Great War. Our borders were redrawn, and we were forced to pay huge sums of money. We had no money, of course, but France demanded what we had.

In 1936, the country almost tossed Hitler out of office because the humans were starving. The chancellor had paid a huge sum of money to the farmers so they could buy seeds. The military wanted the funds, but Hitler told them to do without. Guns or seeds? You would think this was an easy decision, but it was very controversial at the time.

Germany went insane. Literally insane. People didn’t just wake up one day and start hating others. It was a gradual change, but somebody could have made a case for putting the whole country into a loony bin. We hated the French, and our leaders told us that they were inferior. The Germanic people of central and northern Europe were being robbed of the greatness they deserved.

Lechmont Manor was full of Jews, gypsies, and gay people, and we kept all of them safe in hiding. More and more arrived every week. Menz reinforced the foundation of the mansion and expanded the basement without any officials knowing. He made the new underground rooms accessible only through a secret door in the day room. It was a huge area that could house a thousand people. The humans hauled out the dirt one bucket at a time. The entrance to the stairwell looked like a wall, and there was even a fireplace in front of the stairs. You’d press a certain brick to unlock the door, and it would slide out of the way.