Baltimore, Or, The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire

279 Pages·2007·5.2 MB·English

by  Mike Mignola

BALTIMORE,
or,
THE STEADFAST TIN SOLDIER
AND THE VAMPIRE
by Mike Mignola & Christopher Golden
Copyright © 2007; ISBN: 978-0-553-80471-3
For Bram Stoker, Mary Shelley, Herman Melville, Hans Christian Andersen,
and my wife, Christine.
—M.M.
For Maurene Golden, Denis Golden, Brian & Mary Golden, Gerry Golden, Terry & Diane Golden, and
George & Elaine Sacco, and in memory of Richard Golden and of my father, James Laurence Golden, Jr.
Your unwavering support and enthusiasm have always meant the world to me.
This dedication is long overdue.
—C.G.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors would like to express their profound gratitude to Anne Groell, editor
extraordinaire, for her tireless energy and enthusiasm, and for insights that truly
gave Baltimore a little something extra. Our thanks also to Josh Pasternak and to
Glen Edelstein and the entire Bantam team. Special thanks, of course, to our
spouses and children, for putting up with us. And a special thanks to Guillermo
del Toro. He knows why.
PRELUDE:
REQUIEM
______
"There were once five and twenty tin soldiers,
all brothers, for they were the offspring
of the same old tin spoon."
—The Steadfast Tin Soldier
by Ham Christian Andersen

On a cold autumn night, under a black sky leached of starlight and absent the
moon, Captain Henry Baltimore clutches his rifle and stares across the dark
abyss of the battlefield, and knows in his heart that these are the torture fields of
Hell, and damnation awaits mere steps ahead.
On one knee he pauses, listening, but the only sound comes from the chill
autumn wind that carries with it the stink of death and decay. Baltimore gestures
to the men picking their way through the darkness behind him, then moves in a
crouch toward a small rise that could be a mound of war-torn earth ... or a hill of
corpses.
He falls to one knee behind the mound, which is indeed an innocent pile of dirt,
excavated in the process of digging a trench. But Baltimore feels no relief at the
discovery, save that the small mound provides better cover than corpses would
have. Bullets pass through putrefying flesh far easier than through hard earth.
In the thick of the night, only a madman would attempt to cross the ravaged No
Man's Land that separates his battalion from the Hessians. The blasted tundra is
furrowed with dank, muddy trenches and strewn with the bodies of the dead.
Bales of barbed wire are stretched in winding serpents across the field.
Yet madmen they are. The battalion commander has determined that someone
must traverse that damned earth in the dark and bring the fight to the enemy.
Desperation demands it. Without some twist of fate—brought by gods or men—
the dawn will find them in circumstances most dire.
The mission has gone to Captain Baltimore.
He has led his platoon away from the safety of the battalion camp, out of the
forest that now seems so far behind them, and fifty yards into No Man's Land.
Ahead lies at least four times that distance before they will reach any decent
cover. The Hessians are camped in thick woods on the other side of the
battlefield.
Baltimore knows that he stands at the very edge of the world. How else to
explain the dread that slithers in the hollow of his chest and wraps itself around
his soul? He must be on the threshold of Hell, for he can conceive of no patch of
ground that could be farther from home and family and comfort. Yet this is the
nature of war. To become a soldier, to spill blood and evict human souls in the
name of faith or country, means traveling so far from home that home becomes
as distant and cherished a memory as innocence.
He yearns for them both, even as he realizes at last—only now, only here—that
they are lost to him forever.
As a boy he had kept to his room on rainy days and played with his tin soldiers,
had cast them as enemies and caused them to kill one another on the battlefield
of his blanket. But tin soldiers do not bleed. They go back in the box and live to
fight another day.
Soldiers of flesh and blood also end up in a box, but theirs is of heavy pine.
Baltimore has seen far too many soldiers bleed, and go into that wooden box in
pieces. Dread flows in his veins now, making it difficult for him to move. Death
waits for him on that ravaged ground and he has no wish to meet it. His bones
ache with a chill that is more from terror and sadness than the November air, and
he can scarcely breathe.
He raises a hand and signals his men, first to the left and then to the right. In two
lines they hurry forward, flanking his position on both sides. Their motion is
barely a whisper to disturb the darkness, yet to him they seem far too loud. As
they come nearer he can hear the soft tread of boots upon hard earth and the
chest-deep grunts of grim men tired of killing.
They take shape in the darkness, figures topped with the flat plate helmets of the
allied forces, carrying rifles at the ready. Nearest him is Sergeant Tomlin, whose
rifle lies cradled in his arms like a newborn.
The night sky is hung low with billowing clouds. Only the barest hint of light
filters through from the heavens. Tomlin's eyes glint in the dark, and now that he
is close, Baltimore sees the urgency in the man's features. His skin prickles with
fear, and his chest aches with the pounding of his heart. Baltimore has never
been a coward. Yet now he hesitates, in the worst place imaginable for such a
pause.
With no other choice, he nods, raises his hand, and signals again.
Ebon shapes move out across the field. Baltimore and Sergeant Tomlin split up,
go around the earthen mound, and even at that distance the sergeant exists as
little more than a dark patch of moving shadow. Baltimore clutches his rifle so
tightly that the grip pains him. His legs move seemingly of their own accord,
carrying him across the torn-up earth. He nearly stumbles over a dead soldier, his
body burnt so badly that it is impossible to tell whether he had been friend or
foe. The dead man's face has run like melted wax.
"My God," he whispers to the night.
Tomlin scurries left to meet up with his detachment and Baltimore tears himself
away from the gaze of the dead man to join up with the detachment on the right.
Soft grunts and the shush of canvas and cotton uniforms can be heard up the line
where Tomlin's group convenes, but the night has swallowed them.
In a crouch, Baltimore steals along the ruined ground, his men falling in around
him. He lifts a hand, glances around for Norwich, the corporal with the wire-
cutters, and finds the man right beside him, the twin handles of the tool jutting
from his pack.