It hadn’t taken much detective work, a few of the Hydra agents had mobile phones on them and one phone number kept popping up in all of their phones. The phone company had given the police the address of the number as quickly as it took to print of information on the account. Nina, her guest had opted to sit this out and take a nap as this was well in the realm of “Normal”, sadly enough. It had taken as long as it took Johanna to get changed and join her daughter and the Counter Terrorist team at the entrance of “Orlok’s house of horrors.”
All of the police took notice when Johanna exited the police truck. She had opted to dress patriotically… the people needed to know Captain Germany was back. From the second the toes of her yellow leather thigh boots swung out of the van the men and a few ladies all turned and watched. The Synthetic red catsuit was made of bullet resistant material and rated to stop nine millimeters by itself and was covered with a shiny waterproofing layer that gave it shiny finish. Her two Mauser P8A1 pistols were housed in red leather thigh holsters that hung from her belt. She placed the black leather arm long gloves on the door handle and smiled for a second, under the fine grain leather was more of the very best bullet resistant material that her Germany could provide her. She hooked the black elastic lower face mask and pulled it up over her mouth and nose. Her ample bosom, neck and head were covered in black leather coated soft armor panels. Johanna pushed the back of the helmet slightly to adjust her hair under it.
“Take a picture boys,” Johanna said smugly, “You can ogle those later, right now you need to get your minds focused on the mission and not on my body.”
“Er… Yes Captain!” was the collected response.
Johanna found Sin standing behind a group of police in riot gear with bullet proof shields.
“Director Schmidt,” Johanna said.
“Captain Germany. We are about to search the horror house,” Sin said.
“Ready,” the officer in front of the shield wall said.
Both Johanna and Sin nodded. The Officer put his Mauser MKb 36 behind his body and pounded on the door.
“We are closed,” a voice called from inside, “No show tonight and it is only 3 in the afternoon!”
“OPEN UP NOW!” the officer shouted.
“WE ARE CLOSED!” came the response.
“OPEN UP NOW BEFORE WE BREAK DOWN THE DOOR!” the officer shouted.
The door flung open and a pathetic man appeared… he was pale to the point of almost being an albino, he had one ear pointed like a horror movie character and a shaved head. His clothes consisted of a bathrobe, a grey t-shirt, pajama pants and Johanna noted grey fuzzy rabbit faced slippers.
“Eh…” the man started mumbling something that sounded like a reference to America, before stating in English, “Got Warrant?”
“Here,” the officer at the door responded in German handing over the paper.
The man took the paper and looked it over. He scratched his head then backed in and waved theatrically.
“Welcome, come in,” the man said in German.
“Let’s go,” Sin said, “Show us the office and let’s see some identification.”
The German police followed and kept their MKbs ready. They fanned out into the various rooms as they moved. Sin and Johanna went into the self-proclaimed “Gates of Hell” that was the front door to the business. They walked in and went to the back stage area. Up a stair way there was an office.
“Your ID?” the Police office behind the man asked.
“In the top drawer,” the man pointed at a desk.
An officer got it and handed it to Sin and Johanna. It was a Romanian Passport. Sin opened it and looked at the name. It had the surname of Orlok and the given name of Graf, the German word for count.
“Count Orlok? You are Romanian?” Sin asked before switching to Romanian, “You run this attraction?”
“Yes,” the man responded in Romanian.
Sin handed the passport to Johanna.
“Like the old Murnau film?” Johanna asked.
“Yes!” the man snapped his finger and pointed at Johanna, “Yes! I changed my name and adopted the persona of the Vampire!”
Johanna stared at the excited man in his vampire make up.
“I am the questioning you, do not assume everyone here can talk in Romanian…” Sin snapped, “What can you tell me about these people?”
Sin handed over a stack of photos of the Hydra agents without their masks when they arrested.
“Oh them,” the vampire sneered, “Tell them they are fired! They just up and disappeared two nights ago.”
“They worked here?” Sin asked.
“Yes, he was my werewolf,” the man went over a few of the pictures, “He was my Frankenstein monster, she was a witch, he was an American Movie Maniac.”
“How did they come to work for you?” Sin asked.
“A while back I hired a group,” the Romanian said, “And since then when one told me they were about to leave they would recommend a friend to replace them. The time cards are there on the wall with the schedule.”
Sin pointed to the papers the man spoke of and the closest police officer grabbed them and handed them over to Sin.
“The Werewolf forest? Castle Frankenstein? Jack’s London?” Sin looked at the diagram in the stack.
“They started right around the time the Dead Bride film came out,” the Romanian recounted, “I needed a lanky man and a woman to be the character from the American film. A man that looked Johnny Deep and Burton showed up and started recommending friends to replace my actors when they would leave. Since then I have hired mostly on their recommendations.”
“Dead Bride Film?” Sin pinched her nose as she spoke in German.
“Oh, I remember that,” a police officer said, “My sister made me take her to it. She loved ‘Nightmare Before Christmas.’ She made me take her to it.”
“Yes, Tim Burton!” the Romanian spoke up in German, “We do a Nightmare show ever December! Bring your sister!”
“Ahem!” Johanna interrupted, “Back to the Hydra agents.”
“Yes,” Sin said before continuing in Romanian, “Why is your number in their phones?”
“Look at the schedule,” the Romanian said, “their phone numbers are there, I called them, they called each other from the office phone when we needed someone to come in and they called the office to see about getting shifts.”
The man went throw the pictures again.
“Were these people all arrested?” The Romanian asked.
“How did the pay work?” Sin asked.
“Cash, middle of the week since most of our door fees were collected on the weekends,” The Romanian said, “I would take out the money from the bank in the morning and pay them out in the evening when they got here. After they got paid, they went to get dinner and didn’t return.”
“So that was when?”
“Wednesday. I have been closed ever since, no cast,” the Romanian throw his arms up.
“We have to search the whole place,” Sin informed the man.
“Their stuff in is the room right back there,” the Romanian pointed behind him, “Take it all, it saves me the trouble of throwing it out.”
“Why are you so pale?” one of the Police officers asked.
“I have always been pale,” the Romanian said, “I found with my ears I could play a vampire and I have since shaved my head and continued make myself more vampire like. I normally don’t go out during the day, I work all night and as such have only got more pale. At about three in the morning we close down, we clean up, and I go for a walk to the bank to drop off the deposit and then come home and go to sleep in my room over there.”
*
Sin and Johanna walked out of the building. Sin started brushing herself off.
“We didn’t even have to do any fighting,” Sin said.
“No, that was surprisingly peaceful,” Johanna said.
“I still feel like I need a shower!” Sin shuttered.
“I do as well!”
“Maybe you should have brought the Shield Vampire as well,” Sin chuckled.
“I don’t want to think about what he would have wanted to do with or to her,” Johanna shuttered.
“I get the feeling that he might have ignored her in favor of the men under our command,” Sin rolled her eyes.