London, England; July 1939
Joseph Joestar pressed his knee into the overstuffed suitcase he'd been helping to pack while his wife, Suzie Q, forced the container closed. Once it'd been fastened, they both stepped back and waited for it to spring open. It didn't. Joseph let out an exasperated sigh.
"Do you really need to bring all these things?" he asked, "you have ten scarves. How often do you really wear scarves?"
"You would have your wife walk around without a scarf to wear?" Suzie asked in what seemed like mock indignation, but there was also that part of her that seemed serious. He grimaced.
"They have clothing stores in New York. Biiig stores."
"But these are Italian-crafted clothes, JoJo!"
"Clothes are clothes!"
"Don't be silly."
Joseph sighed again and watched her leave the room, no doubt to grab more things they "needed" to pack before leaving for America with his former master, who'd turned out to be his mother, Elizabeth. It still hadn't quite settled into his mind yet, the realization that he was no longer an orphan. He'd been one way for so long it was hard to imagine being anything different.
He glanced around the room and grinned impishly when he heard Suzie Q's footsteps heading his way. As soon as she entered, he leaned down and pulled a lacey black and white bra from between the two pillows on the bed they'd shared.
"Uh-oh," he teased, "you forgot one."
Suzie huffed at him and snatched it out of his hand.
"These are delicate," she argued, "they go in another bag."
"Another bag!?"
Joseph slapped his hand to his forehead. He was about to start yet another futile argument against luggage when the door chime sounded from the floor below. He sighed.
"Just try to finish packing before the week is up," he teased while walking past her and into the hallway.
He practically bounded down the stairs and up to the front door. When he opened it to see who'd come to visit, his eyebrows shot up interestedly. Although the man before him was wearing an unremarkable brown coat and black fedora, he recognized the face immediately. After all, it was hard to miss the large metal prosthetic and unblinking lens of an eye that'd taken the place of half of the man's face.
"Stroheim!" he exclaimed.
The German officer stuck a finger to his lips and glared at him.
"You know tensions are high, JoJo," he scolded him in a whisper. He lowered the finger. "War is just around the corner. I don't think we will see each other again after this last meeting."
"Right," Joseph replied, smiling guiltily, "in that case, you must have something important to tell us?"
"It's personal business," Stroheim answered, seeming almost appalled by his own words.
Joseph had always thought he took himself too seriously. He watched him reach into his coat to produce a beige folder with two small German words written on its corner.
"My duty to the Fatherland is paramount," Stroheim told him sternly, "but you have earned my respect as an ally, despite the political tension between our nations. I owed you this much." He offered the folder to him.
Joseph tried not to look too amused as he took it and flipped it open. He was greeted by a wall of text on what appeared to be some sort of official form.
"It's all in German," he muttered.
Stroheim reached out and turned the form over to reveal a rather hastily-translated English version of the same form.
"An autopsy report from Switzerland," he explained, "and a certificate of death."
Joseph's heart sank.
"Caesar."
The German nodded.
"Due to his status as a valued ally of Germany, I had his body recovered from the castle. He deserved a proper Catholic burial, and someone to keep his memory. Naturally I thought of you."
Joseph tried to keep his hands from shaking too much as he looked over the report, his face grim. He and Lisa Lisa had left Caesar's body behind. Their mission had been too important then, but he had always wished he could've given his dearest friend a good funeral. Perhaps it was enough that the Germans had thought the same, but he should've been there too.
"Thanks," he managed to say, "at least I know he's not in that damn castle anymore."
Stroheim nodded.
"I agree." He glanced toward the car waiting for him and the driver watching them patiently. "I'm sorry to leave so quickly, but I'm needed elsewhere and it is risky for me to remain in this country for long." Despite his location, the German saluted him quickly. "Be well, Herr Joestar."
Joseph didn't return the salute, but nodded his thanks nonetheless. He backed up and closed the door slowly, his eyes fixed on the contents of the folder he'd received. He'd never seen an autopsy report before. It seemed odd to him that he'd receive one at all; they all knew what'd killed Caesar.
Or perhaps not? Joseph's brow creased when he spotted what the German doctor had written as the cause of death. Suffocation? Joseph tossed the folder down on the end table by the door and took the clip off the small bundle of papers to flip to the next page.
"That's impossible!" he shrieked.
"Why are you so excited all of a sudden?"
Joseph glanced back toward the staircase to see Suzie watching him with her arms folded.
"You said you'd help me pack," she pouted coyly.
"N-nothing," Joseph replied, his eyes wandering back to the report on the table.
Suzie grinned.
"Are you hiding things from me?" she asked, her voice sweet and song-like, "it better not be a love letter."
To his surprise, Joseph's heart leapt and his prosthetic hand clicked shut of its own accord, crumpling the folder and its contents in a tight fist.
"No!" he pulled the folder free and slapped the certificate on the table as he attempted to smooth it out. "This isn't happening-!"
Suzie walked forward and looked down at the mess of crumpled paper. She gasped and covered her mouth with her hand.
"Oh," she whispered, reaching down with her free hand to take the certificate. "Well, we can't go to America now," she stated, taking her hand from her mouth to touch the paper gently, "we have to go see him."
Joseph nodded and backed away from the table before he could cause any more damage to the little physical evidence he had of Caesar's existence. Suzie peered up at him.
"Are you alright?"
Joseph shook his head.
"He always called me an idiot," he murmured, "I didn't realize how right he was."
"You're not an idiot, honey."
Joseph groaned and backed himself against the wall before knocking his head against it in frustration and slapping his hands over his face.
"He was alive! He was alive and I left him! I should've known!"
Suzie only stared, shocked. Joseph pried his hands off his face and stared back at her.
"He was alive, Suzie!"
"You're not making any sense."
"Under the rubble! He was still alive! If I was just paying more attention I could've saved him!" Joseph snatched the autopsy report from the table. "It says it all right here," he cried, "he suffocated for ten minutes!"
Suzie gasped and the certificate toppled out of her hand.
"I…" Joseph continued, his voice diminished to a regretful whisper, "I let it happen. He gave me everything he had and I let him die."
Suzie met him quickly and wrapped her arms around his enormous frame.
"Caesar wouldn't blame you for something like that," she assured him in a soft murmur, "you said it yourself; you didn't know."
Joseph sighed the tension out of his breast and nodded.
"I know," he said, "and what's done is done. The least we can do is pay our respects…but it could be too dangerous to head to that part of Europe now."
Suzie released him and picked the certificate off the floor to look at it.
"What part of Europe?" she asked.
"Switzerland or Germany, I guess," Joseph replied. He gestured toward the certificate with his chin. "Doesn't it say?"
"It says 'unknown location'."
Joseph's brow furrowed and he looked over her shoulder at the slip of paper.
"It's handwritten, too," he murmured, "that's…"
"Wrong," Suzie concluded.
Joseph took the certificate and stuffed it back into the folder before snapping it closed. "Wrong" was the perfect word for it. The certificate might've been left unremarkably blank, but someone had very clearly written on it.
"I need to go back to Switzerland."
"What?" Suzie exclaimed, "but you just said it was too dangerous!"
Joseph held the folder aloft.
"Whoever wrote on this did it to tip me off! Something fishy's going on out there and I need to find out what, for Caesar's sake."
"How can you be so sure?" Suzie asked, "maybe it was a mistake."
"I've seen enough Germans to know this isn't how they operate."
Joseph snatched his jacket off the coat rack by the door and stuffed the folder inside it. Suzie sighed and watched him put the jacket on before rushing out the door. She grimaced and turned back toward the stairs, but stopped when the door opened again. Joseph spun her about and gave her a quick, but tender kiss.
"Don't worry about me," he told her, "I'll be back in no time."
[Next]
Joseph laid low on his stomach atop the green ridge he'd climbed to overlook the valley below. He almost didn't recognize it in the midst of the Swiss summer, without the layers of snow that'd covered it the last time he was there. Everything was a luxurious and cheery green, but it did little to raise his spirits. He doubted he could ever forgive the sight of the castle below him.
He could see the enormous hole in the wall, leading to the room where he'd seen his last glimpse of Caesar, that oozing stream of blood beneath the rock he'd thought had crushed him. To think his friend had been alive down there, trapped, soured his mood even further. He had to tell himself, again, that it wasn't his fault. The only thing he could've done differently was to dig the man he'd thought was already dead out from under a solid slab of stone, with the Pillar Men and their vampires still lurking nearby. Had he done that, things might not have ended in their favor.
Joseph looked to his right when he heard his old family friend, Robert E. O. Speedwagon, crawl up beside him, a pair of binoculars in hand. He handed them over and Joseph peered down at the structure below, zooming in on the hole just as two men in unremarkable clothing stepped out. One was carrying a can of paint, which the other used to draw a broad yellow X on the crumbling wall.
"They're dressed casual enough, but there's no reason for two guys to be painting X's on castle walls out here," he mumbled.
"Let me see."
Joseph handed the binoculars back and continued to watch the men curiously through squinted eyes.
"Yes, I agree," Speedwagon muttered while observing the pair, "and by the way they're carrying themselves, I'd say they're no average mountain peasants. They have the bearings of trained and drilled soldiers."
"German?"
"Too early to tell. We'll need to get closer."
Joseph put his hand on the top of the binoculars and pushed them away from the older man's face.
"We?" he whispered, "If they're Nazis, this is no place for an old man to go snooping around."
Speedwagon sighed at him.
"Isn't that why you're here?" he asked, "besides, if the Nazis really are tampering with anything even remotely related to the Pillar Men it's important that my Foundation knows about it."
"Why? It's not like they're still around. Can't the government handle it?"
Speedwagon smiled wryly.
"You think it'd be easy to convince the British parliament that the Germans are dabbling in supernatural forces proven to not only exist, but to have recently endangered the entire world only to be stopped by a couple of boys with magic powers?" He laughed to himself. "I'd be tossed in the asylum immediately. Without Von Stroheim's division on our side, the Speedwagon Foundation is our greatest ally against whatever the Germans are planning to do. "
Joseph groaned quietly.
"Then send some of your younger agents or something," he argued, "do you know how much trouble I'd be in with Granny Erina if you got yourself killed out here?"
Speedwagon shrugged.
"It's just an old castle, JoJo. There aren't vampires or ancient gods in there anymore, just human men. I can handle men."
Joseph sighed in resignation and watched the two soldiers round the corner of the castle.
"Then let's go," he declared once they were out of sight.
He quickly hopped to his feet and hurdled over the ridge onto the hill's slope below. He allowed gravity and his momentum to carry him swiftly to the hill's base, where he slid to a stop in order to take a quick and cautious look in both directions. Satisfied he was still relatively alone, he rushed over to the hole, where he slapped his back against the wall beside it before turning to peek inside. Empty. He wished he knew if that was a good or bad sign.
He heard Speedwagon come up beside him, then a sharp metallic click. He looked back to see the old man brandishing a pistol. He cocked an eyebrow at him.
"What?" Speedwagon asked.
Joseph shrugged.
"Nothing, nothing."
He stepped through the wall's hole just as he had the first time. As much as he wanted to suppress them, memories of that time began to flood back like the worst kind of déjà vu. Some of the rubble had been cleared away by the Germans, which made the entry easier, but it wasn't long before he spotted the stone itself. Broken into three smaller pieces, it no longer resembled a giant slab of a cross but the hints of old, dried brown blood told him enough. He grimaced and looked away.
In the spot where Caesar had met his end was a cracked indentation in the otherwise solid stone floor. The basement was beneath them, he knew, which explained the partial collapse in the wake of the violent fight that'd killed his best friend. There, the old blood smears were larger and more pooled. The dip in the ground was proof enough that Caesar could have survived the ceiling's collapse, only to suffocate beneath the weight of the stone. The thought of it made Joseph sick to his stomach. He roared in frustration and kicked one of the smaller stones against the far wall.
Caesar himself was gone, as Stroheim had told him, but there was no indication of where he might've been moved.
"We ought to try keeping it down," Speedwagon commented as he looked over the scene.
"Sorry," Joseph hissed, although it wasn't entirely true. He focused on the fact that Caesar's death had been properly avenged; he was in no position to go losing his temper. Still feeling a little pouty about it all, he stepped over the stones and toward the stairs. "Let's just figure out what the Nazis want with this place and get out of here."
Joseph took the lead as he and Speedwagon carefully made their way up the crumbling stairs and further into the dark structure. Once they were away from the natural light provided by the large opening in the previous room, Speedwagon clicked on a flashlight and they continued slowly through the damp, rotting halls. They stopped when the light beam landed on a painted yellow X. A stick of dynamite wired to a radio receiver was fastened directly on top of it.
"Yikes," Joseph muttered under his breath, "these guys aren't messing around."
"They're going to blow the whole building," Speedwagon concluded, the urgency in his voice growing considerably, "they're trying to cover something up by destroying the evidence! There's no other explanation."
"This place is falling apart. I'd want to blow it up too." Joseph sighed and looked back. "Anyway, if there was anything to find here I'm sure they already moved it. I say we grab those two and ask them about it."
Speedwagon sighed.
"We've only just started searching. Don't you think we should be a little more thorough than that?"
"Sure, but what can a bunch of stone walls tell us that the guys trying to blow it up can't?"
"So, you speak German?"
Joseph turned around to look back at him and frown excessively. His frown deepened when he spotted the two guns pointed in their direction from the end of the hall.
"So, that thing you said about keeping it down?" he murmured out of the corner of his mouth, "we probably should've done that."
As soon as Speedwagon turned to look back, one of the rifles clicked as its bearer cocked it.
"Don't move," one of the men ordered, his accent thick. Whether it was Swiss or German wasn't apparent to Joseph's inexperienced ear.
"Ahh," Joseph breathed nervously, "goo-den tag!"
"Papers, now."
"What is 'papers'? No spre-ken zee English!"
"Even I know that was awful," Speedwagon whispered hoarsely.
By then, the two men had closed the distance between them and it was plain to see they were far from amused.
"Papers, or you're dead!"
Joseph groaned and whipped his leg up to kick the barrel of the first man's rifle far from its mark while grabbing the other and twisting it from the second man's grip. Encouraged by the looks of shock on their faces, he swiftly punted the nearest of the two into the wall and grabbed the other by his face before throwing him to the ground with a mighty heave. Grinning proudly, he picked the stunned and frightened man off the floor, holding him by the collar of his coat. He shook the man just enough to rattle him, then glared at him menacingly.
"What're the Germans planning?" he demanded, "where's Caesar!?"
"What!?"
Speedwagon sighed again.
"JoJo, you should ease into an interrogation," he suggested quietly, "I doubt a grunt like him would even know who Caesar was."
"Then I'll settle for the plans part," Joseph grumbled, shaking the man again.
"I know nothing!" he squealed, "let me go!"
"Don't lie to me! Why are you going to destroy this place? What are you trying to hide?"
"Orders! Only orders! Please don't hurt me!"
Speedwagon walked over to them and showed his pistol very clearly to the man.
"Who gave you the orders?" he asked.
Joseph nodded and glared at the soldier he held.
"H-here!" the soldier stuttered, reaching into his coat.
Joseph grunted and raised his fist.
"No, no! It's not a weapon, I swear!"
The enormous Englishman narrowed his eyes at the smaller man, but allowed him to dig into an inner pocket in order to produce a telegram.
"This is all I know," the soldier whispered timidly, "now, please, let me go."
Joseph snatched the paper from him and tossed him aside before taking a look at it. He didn't know why he'd expected it to be otherwise, but the entire thing was printed in German. He groaned loudly.
"What does it say?" he demanded.
Instead of answering the soldier looked to his left. Joseph looked as well to see the second of the pair press a button on what looked like…a radio transmitter.
Joseph shouted in alarm and launched himself into Speedwagon, knocking the older man away from the wall. An instant later, the dynamite blew, sending the ceiling down in a rain of debris. Joseph scrambled to his feet, grabbed Speedwagon's suit jacket by the lapel and started running as the hall began to crumble around them. He leapt through the doorway into the next room, a violent plume of dust bursting after him as the remainder of the hallway disappeared into a pile of rock.
Joseph released Speedwagon and coughed, waving the dust away from his mouth and nostrils. He could hear rumbling in other parts of the castle as well. They might've interrupted the soldiers' charge planting, but clearly enough had been placed to cause serious damage. He looked back.
"That was our way out," he grumbled.
The old man stumbled to his feet and nodded.
"This building isn't going to last long after a blast like that."
Joseph grabbed the flashlight from him and directed its beam toward a couple of narrow light rays that disturbed the otherwise inky darkness. A window! It was boarded up, but they hardly had time to be picky about it. He tossed the flashlight back and ran to the window. He rammed his shoulder into the old boards, splintering them, and jumped back to try it again, then again. At last, the wood gave way and he toppled outward. He yelped in surprise and grabbed the window sill before he could tumble back-first into the dirt below. Speedwagon reached forward to grab his free hand and helped him pull himself back in.
"This is probably going to hurt," Joseph warned him.
As if they needed more to worry about, the floor in the center of the room caved in, leaving them with a large hole and some very unstable bricks to stand on. The old man was forced to jump forward against the wall when the one beneath his feet started to teeter downward. Joseph grabbed his bicep.
"Sorry," he chirped lightly before tossing him out the window.
Joseph hopped over the sill and out into the open air, his scarf flying wildly as he plummeted toward the ground. He rolled over his shoulder as he landed, but slipped and wound up on his side. He grunted uncomfortably as he propped himself up on his elbows to watch the castle vanish into a cloud of smoke and debris behind them. Relieved, he let his upper body fall back down into the grass, his face plopping into a soft green tuft.
When he heard Speedwagon groan, he pulled his face off the ground and hopped back on his feet. He rushed over to where the older man had landed and knelt beside him.
"You're okay, right?" he asked nervously, "nothing broken?"
Speedwagon groaned again and looked up at him.
"I think not." He slowly pushed himself up, aided by Joseph. "But I think I've had enough excitement for one lifetime," he concluded once he was sitting upright.
Joseph released a sigh of relief and leaned back on his rear to sit. He opened his hand to extract the crunched telegram and straightened it out.
"So, what do we do with this, then?" he wondered aloud.
Speedwagon gestured toward the nearest mountain.
"I had a group of my people secure a hunting lodge further up," he replied, "with luck, one of them might be able to translate it for us."
"Might?" Joseph repeated.
The old man let out a long sigh.
"We're in Switzerland, JoJo," he breathed, "if they can't someone can."