Chapter 1: Krieg
Disclaimer: Hellboy characters do not belong to me. However, Erica Schwarz is mine.
Author's Notes: I have returned from a long hiatus from writing fanfiction. My intention is to post a few short stories that were just never developed enough to make it into A Shadow to a Heart or Though Heaven Bar the Way when I was writing them. So if they left you wanting more Kroenen and Erica, I hope these will satisfy.
November, 1942
Germany
The sharp crack of gunfire shattered the pre-dawn stillness.
Pop-pop! Pop-pop-a-pop!
The ambush had turned into a massacre. Just the way Kroenen liked it.
Trapped in the ravine with their backs against the very motorcade they had intended to destroy, the MI6 agents were pinned down by their attackers who were concealed in the forested slopes above. Too late they had realized that the trucks were a decoy; the priceless paranormal artifacts and occult texts were long gone, sent by circuitous paths to their new owner. Originally the historic relics had been appropriated by Nazi soldiers with orders to ransack Europe's museums, grand houses, and castles. The Fuehrer had a taste for fine European art, and for displaying the more famous works as proof of the Third Reich's supremacy. Grigory Rasputin was content to sort through the leftovers for the real objects of power.
Power that the paranormal division of MI6 clearly did not want him to have.
A bullet zipped by Kroenen's head. Nonchalantly, he raised his arm and fired back, and the man fell. The clockwork assassin caught glimpses of movement among the trees on the other side of the ravine. His apprentice, Erica Schwarz, was over there leading a small unit of handpicked Schutzstaffel soldiers; it was her visions of the future that had supplied warning of the agents' imminent attack. Kroenen had strategized accordingly: they had ambushed the ambushers.
The sharp report of a rifle off to his right announced that one of his snipers had picked off another agent. The pale glow of dawn was in the sky; it was the cold, washed-out watercolor light of winter, but it was sufficient for the marksmen to see their targets. The dirt road at the bottom of the narrow valley was strewn with bodies.
The remaining MI6 agents took shelter inside or under the trucks. The assassin studied the situation, eyeing it as though it were giant version of his customary evening chess game. It would be too time consuming to wait for the agents to show themselves one by one. And though grenades would quickly put an end to all of them, Kroenen was hoping to take at least one alive for interrogation. The Fuehrer would want to know how so many MI6 agents had crept this deeply into Germany.
Turning his mind to Erica, Kroenen mentally reached out to her through the blood tie they shared. He could feel her waiting, patient but expectant, for his signal. Wordlessly he called to her, and felt her rising excitement in reply. His Angel of Death was eager for the hunt. Behind his mask, a ghost of a smile flitted across his nightmarish face. Silently he descended the hill to meet her. The SS soldiers followed.
No sooner had the assassin stepped foot on the path then a grenade detonated. The hellish fireball took out a truck and ripped the passenger door off another. The agent hiding inside hastily scrambled for the driver's door—Erica appeared out of nowhere. She caught the man by his elbow, hauled him out of the vehicle and threw him to the ground. Twin blades flashed above his unprotected back; spine severed and lungs filling with blood, the man slumped without a cry. Already in search of another victim Erica turned on her heel, her leather trench coat billowing out behind her like a pair of heavy black wings. She saw Kroenen and smiled; above the smooth skin and high cheekbones of an alabaster angel, Erica's steel-grey eyes were wild with the ecstasy of bloodlust. Then she slipped between the trucks and was gone, pursuing a man that was making a run for the tree line.
Movement in his peripheral vision alerted the assassin to a pair of agents dashing from cover, brandishing bayonets. A casual flick of Kroenen's wrists extended long blades from the sheaths on his arms. The blades outreached his opponents'. He brutally slaughtered the men, exhilarated by the power he gathered from the spilled blood and broken bone.
The road was a warzone. MI6 men struggled against elite SS soldiers; in the thick, bitter smoke of burning tires grappling men disappeared and reappeared. Fire blazed. Fresh blood steamed in the frigid air. Among the chaos of battle Kroenen caught glimpses of Erica, her tall slender frame weaving gracefully through the maneuvers of combat. She had lost her SS hat in the fighting, and strands of long chestnut hair were slipping free of the elaborate braid coiled at the back of her head.
If only you had been with me in the trenches of the Great War, Kroenen thought wistfully. The sight of her going over the top, striking fear in the hearts of men, would have been magnificent.
All too quickly the skirmish was over. Kroenen was disappointed. He had hoped the men would present a greater challenge, and therefore the opportunity to draw more power from their deaths. Ah well…surely there would be one or two left alive. The interrogation room offered him the luxury of time. There he could satiate his bloodlust slowly, meticulously. Already his palms longed for the scalpel, the signature tool of his interviews.
The SS soldiers stood guard amongst the burning vehicles. A few of the soldiers were bloodied, but there had been only two casualties. Not a single MI6 agent was left standing. Like specters of death, Kroenen and Erica prowled among the fallen. Each body was turned over by the toe of a boot; there were few survivors. Those that still breathed but were too badly wounded to be worth questioning were efficiently and ruthlessly dispatched.
Erica bent to slit a man's throat. She reflected that perhaps it really was the merciful thing to do; the man had taken a gunshot to the stomach, and would have been in agony for hours before passing. Her interest, however, was nothing so honorable. Hot arterial blood gushed out to coat her leather gloves, warming her cold hands and bringing with it a rush of dark power. It felt good.
"None worth saving over here," Erica announced. She wiped her crimsoned blades on the corpse's jacket and then retracted them into the forearm sheaths. Nimbly she got to her feet, warm exhales streaming from her mouth in little puffs of white fog that dissipated into the winter air. Killing had its thrill, but the high was wearing off. She had had enough. What she wanted now was a hot bath, clean clothes, a good meal, and then the red velvet armchair in front of her study's fireplace. Perhaps Grigory would have finished sorting through the plundered occult relics and she could peruse one of the new texts…
There was a flutter of movement on the ground between two tires.
BAM!
Something ripped into her chest, tearing a line of agony deep inside her ribs. Close on its heels came another bone jarring impact, this one slightly lower, and blinding pain.
I've been shot, she thought dazedly. A handgun…twice?
Another explosive thud reverberated through her bones, followed by the snap of breaking ribs. Erica was not certain if she had been shot again, or if it had been the force of her body striking a torn off fender and then the earth. It hardly mattered; it was excruciating and every attempt to draw a breath was like being stabbed by knives. She gasped anyway; choking on hot, thick blood that she desperately hoped was from a broken nose and not from punctured lungs. Biting cold was seeping up her limbs; her hands and legs tingled painfully as numbness set in.
Darkness rushed above her; there was the clap of leather, the familiar scent of boot polish and old blood. Indistinct noise and movement boiled around her. A man shrieked.
Then, blissfully, there was nothing.