Meltdown

by Concolor44

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Chapter 11: Infiltration

You would be wise to stay here and stay hidden.

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Monday 26 July 1841, 10:30am

Anton made to rise. "I'm going to go kill him now."

"Sit." Radimir grabbed his arm and pulled him back down.

"You want me to do it. You know you do."

"I know nothing of the sort. You made such a fuss and complained so much about having to talk to that ass that Nic finally volunteered to work with him to get you to stop griping … and besides, we need his information."

"I'd be willing to do without it just to shut him up."

Pavel and Miloslav both raised their hands, then looked at each other and grinned. "We'll do it."

Anton pointed at them emphatically. "See? See?"

Radimir gave the three of them a hard look. "You two, finish filling those grenades with holy water. Anton, give it a rest. Don't you need to go sharpen something?" Anton subsided, grumbling, while the others laughed at his expense.

Nicolai walked back into the house at that juncture and slumped into a chair, dropping his head into his hands. Radimir asked, "You get anything else?"

"… Yeah. You bet." His voice was slightly muffled, coming from between his hands as it was. "Turns out the Queen made this huge warrior snowman that lives in her ice castle on the mountain. Little Prince Hero-Man defeated it by whacking one of its legs off."

"… Warrior snowman?"

"His name is Marshmallow."

Radimir couldn't quite suppress his incredulous snort.

"And you can have the next go-round. I'm done with that idiot."

"… Right. I think that's one piece of information we can safely ignore." Grinning, the leader looked back and forth between Anton and Nicolai. "You've both dealt with madmen before this. What's so special about the Prince?"

Nicolai looked up and met his questioning gaze. "You remember Grand Duchess Elena's oldest boy?"

Radimir squinted briefly. "Paul, wasn't it?"

"Yeah."

"What about him?"

"You remember that whiny bitch he took up with at his eighteenth birthday party?"

"Oh, God, do I ever. Natasha …" He snapped his fingers a few times. "Natasha …"

"Gregorov."

"Yes! Great day, but that woman would …" He stopped and narrowed his eyes at Nicolai, then gave his head a toss in the direction of the neighboring building. "You mean to tell me he's anything like her?"

"Twins separated at birth. Had to be."

"Really."

"Right. I'm done. I'd rather face that sorcerer again."

Radimir finished oiling his blades, stored them, and stood. "Very well. Since none of you ladies seems to have what it takes, I guess I'll just have to go show you how it's done."

"Good luck with that."

Forty-five minutes later, Radimir stomped back into the common room clenching his fists hard enough to threaten their blood supply, and grinding his teeth at the inanity of the man.

Anton spotted him first and leaned back in a deep laugh. "So, Brave Leader, tell us how it is done."

"Don't start."

"Did he give you anything useful?" asked Nicolai.

"Possibly. It was difficult to tell among all the grandiose threats against the Queen, petty threats against his brothers, and promises of how his reign in Arendelle is going to be the stuff of legend."

"Told you so."

"I said, don't start." He walked over to a cabinet and pulled out a small bottle, uncorked it, and took a long swallow.

"Vodka, Radimir? He must have really gotten on your last nerve."

The tall man shook his head at both the slow burn of the potent drink and his companion's statement. "He had stomped all over my last nerve in the first five minutes. Then he pulled out a wood rasp and started filing away what was left."

"Heh. Did he sing for you?"

"Heavenly Host on a stick, yes! That is the most horrific …"

"I know," Nic interrupted, chuckling. "He sounds like a musk ox choking on a bagpipe."

"What in the world did the Princess ever see in that man?"

"She was young and foolish and lonely. Easy prey." He paused for a second, then added, "And he probably cleans up well."

Radimir sighed. "Eh. Nothing else for it. He was talking a bit about the layout of the lower floors, when he could spare a minute from puffing out his chest, and I need to get as much information out of him as I can before nightfall."

"Ah. Then you'll kill him?"

"Absolutely not! I don't want to be the one to send him to Hell. You think I want Lucifer himself mad at me?"

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12:10pm

Hans dropped his spoon into his soup bowl and stared at Radimir in stark disbelief. "… What do you mean, 'not kill her'?"

"Why do you care?"

"BECAUSE I WANT HER DEAD, DAMN IT!"

The assassin had moved back out of spittle range just in time. "Well. That isn't up to you, now is it?"

"What the HELL are some of the world's best ASSASSINS going after that Ice Bitch for if you aren't going to KILL her?!"

"That's not our contract."

"… Not your contract."

"No."

"What kind of idiot hires assassins but tells them not to kill the target?"

"And that would fall under 'You Don't Need To Know'."

Hans paced the length of his room several times, building up a head of steam. "I CAN NOT FUCKING BELIEVE THIS! HOW CAN YOU BE SO OBTUSE?! I THOUGHT YOU WANTED ME TO HELP KILL HER! THIS IS INSANITY! RANK STUPIDITY OF THE WORST KIND! WHY WOULD YOU EVEN AGREE TO …"

Radimir intercepted him at the halfway point, promptly twisted him into a very painful joint lock, and smashed his face up against the rough wood of the wall. In a total deadpan, he intoned, "I have a thing or so to say to you. You are going to listen to me. You are not going to speak until I have finished. Are we clear?"

When he could blink the stars of pain out of his eyes, Hans gave a small whimper of assent.

Radimir let him go and pointed to the narrow bed. Rubbing his aching shoulder, Hans sulkily walked over and flopped down.

"It would seem to me that, given your understanding of how I earn my keep, you would not wish to antagonize me. But you haven't demonstrated a noticeably high degree of wit in any other aspect of life so far, so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised." He glided over to stand immediately in front of Hans, which caused the Prince to have to crane his neck to look up at him. "If all we needed to do was kill the Queen, she would have been dead within a few hours after we got here. I have an extremely accurate rifle, and with it I can pick which one of your eyes to hit at two hundred and fifty paces. But that isn't what we were paid to do. Our contract is to capture Elsa of Arendelle. She is to have her eyes gouged out and her hands and feet cut off, then we will deliver her, bound, to our benefactor. What he does with her after that is none of my concern. Nor is it yours, beforehand. If you wish to enact a personal vendetta against her, you may do so after we have fulfilled our contract." He leaned down until they nearly shared breath. "Until then, you will answer my questions to the best of your admittedly shaky ability, maintain a respectful distance when I don't need to speak with you, and stay completely away from Elsa of Arendelle. If you harm her in any way, if you make it even slightly more difficult to fulfill our contract, I will reduce the remainder of your miserable existence to such an adventure in pain that Hell's demons will be in envy. Do you understand these terms?"

Hans, his mouth gaped open, nodded.

Radimir straightened and moved toward the door. "I have preparations to make. You would be wise to stay here and stay hidden. From what I have been able to determine, the general feeling among the populace here is that flaying with salt-encrusted knives would be MUCH too merciful a death for you. You should think on that." He paused for emphasis. "We will speak later." And he left.

Hans sat there in shock for quite some time. Yes, certainly, what they had in mind for Elsa exceeded his wildest expectations for paying her back for all her insults. He would never have been able to do it by himself. But …

… but they were robbing him of his revenge! He wouldn't get to swing the sword (or light the pyre, or slowly slit her throat while watching the terror rise in her eyes, or drive a thousand nails into her, or hang her unnatural carcass from a tree in the wilderness and let the crows have her, or any of the other remarkably sick ideas he'd had for ending her life). The anticipation of feeling her spirit ebb away under his own hands was all that had kept him going for the last several weeks. He had to live long enough to escape, and then …

But he had already escaped, and ultimately it would do him no good. All he could do now was sit to the side, useless, while others took the pleasure in his stead. Resentment rose like bile in his throat. He wanted personal contact, had to have a personal responsibility for her death.

He had to do it himself. Nothing else would suffice.

In his fevered mind, the assassin's threats paled and receded, finally becoming inconsequential beside his desperate need for closure.

And they were going to deny him that?

No, he decided.

No.

They were not.

He stood and glared around the room for a moment, then stalked over to the mirror and stared at his reflection for quite some time. He noted a thin line of blood that oozed from a cut where the wood had abraded his face, finally nodding as the pieces of his plan fell into place. He would require a razor.

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12:45pm

The Guild had access to a lot of very intriguing toys, not the least of which was the fine 1792 Ramsden telescope that Anton employed to spy on the castle. He'd found three different perches, each at least half a league from their target, but well within the fantastic instrument's capabilities. If Elsa had been perusing a book, he could have read it over her shoulder.

It pained him slightly that such a stunning creature as the young Queen was destined for so ignominious a death. He had a great and life-long appreciation of the female form, and he'd rarely seen one as immaculate as hers. But his pain was only of the aesthetic. He had not a shred of actual conscience left in his soul, and the hideous suffering she would undergo didn't enter into his calculations at all. This was just a job. He had taken part in dozens of such contracts over the decade he'd been with the Guild.

He had to admit, though, that this contract was somewhat out of the ordinary. In almost every case, the one hiring them would want a given rival (or the rival's relatives) dead. Sometimes it would be clandestine, a poisoned dart in the dark; that would send one kind of message. Other times, the assassination would be a public affair, perhaps even messy and loud; that would send a very different kind of message. A few times, they had been instructed to make it look like an accident or natural causes, which was usually the most fun. He could get creative with situations like that.

This time, though, Anton could tell with no mental effort at all that their benefactor held some sort of extreme personal animosity toward the mark, though he didn't know why. They had never met, of that he was sure. And the Cardinal didn't just want her dead. He wanted her humiliated and emotionally destroyed. Then he could hold a very public tribunal, followed by a very public auto-da-fé of the Ice Witch, which he felt for some reason would secure his place as the next Pope. Privately, the assassins thought he had traded his brains for soggy wool, but for the weight of gold he was paying the Guild, they could humor him.

And really, a job was a job. It was nothing personal.

Usually.

Find the mark, take the mark, get the money. Toast another successful contract.

But they all hated sorcerers on principle, and this sorcerer had killed three of them, and that made it personal. That state of affairs hadn't occurred in the lifetime of any current member of the association. It was an insult to the Guild, and such insults could not be allowed to stand unanswered.

They would secure the sorcerer's head, once they had Elsa, and take it back to Russia for taxidermy. It would make a fine addition to their display case, and yet another warning to anyone who felt inclined to oppose them.

He panned around the castle, looking for one or the other of their targets, but the closest he could get was the old man who hung around with the sorcerer. He was cooling his heels in a padded chair in one of the halls fronting the south side of the palace, and (apparently asleep) hadn't budged for over an hour.

They needed to kill him, just on principle. Anyone who would work for a sorcerer wasn't stable enough to be permitted to live.

Activity. Someone in palace livery pushed a covered tray on a small, wheeled cart along the hallway. The old man stood up, they spoke, and then the servant left the cart and walked away. The old man knocked on the door.

Anton concentrated, adjusting his focus.

The old man opened the door and pushed the cart in, and Anton's eyes widened in alarm. Through the door, he could see a portion of a couch, upon which lay the Queen. Over and behind her stood the sorcerer … and between her head and his outstretched hands, a blue glow suffused the air. He was placing some sort of spell on her!

The old man used a foot to shut the door.

Anton sat back, agitated. Well, he thought, we pretty much knew what he was. Nicolai will be pleased to know he was right. But suspicion, even strong suspicion, was no match for seeing actual proof, and viewing the damned being enacting his evil upon the Queen chilled him as few things had in his life. His eyes hardened. Stealing her from his grasp would be doing her a favor, no matter how grisly her eventual death. At least her soul would be intact. It would be up to his team to rid the Earth of another of those accursed creatures. He began putting away the telescope.

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5:30pm

Miloslav, who was fluent in Norwegian and conveniently blond, had gone out earlier and wandered through the market and visited a few alehouses to get as much information as he could, and had made a remarkable discovery. When he got back to their hideout and shared his findings, Radimir's grin blossomed slowly and stayed in place. "And you are sure of this?"

"Completely. She sent them all away, along with the whole staff. According to one of the guards himself, she said enough good men had died and she thought it too dangerous for them to stay and guard her. He was positively morose about it. She even had all the guests transferred to hotels, and did they ever put up a fuss!" He chuckled. "Not as big a fuss as her sister did, though. From what I picked up, she's a right little spitfire, and utterly loyal to the Queen, and the level of bitching she pitched was epic. Anyway, the hotels are full, and are surrounded by two rows of archers with crossbows. I guess she wants to make sure we leave them alone."

"So the sorcerer is the only one left?"

"Him and his servant."

Anton piped up, "The old guy with the gray beard."

"Yeah, him."

"She's relying on her ice magic to save her," mused Radimir, "that, and the sorcerer."

"Hey," spoke up Nicolai, "maybe the sorcerer is making her do it?"

The others thought that over briefly. Pavel shook his head. "Doesn't add up. You know what sorcerers are like. He's after the kingdom, and he'd want her protected, and wouldn't give two shits how many guards died to keep her safe."

"Huh," answered Radimir. "Okay. That makes sense. So it's her doing." He shook his head in disbelief. "That level of altruism can get you in a lot of trouble."

"So I guess that spell he was putting on her wasn't a mind-control thing, then," said Anton quietly.

Miloslav said, "Maybe it was a protection spell? If he knew they weren't going to have any guards …"

"Right. That makes sense, too." Radimir looked around at the other four, then picked up a grenade. "Which makes exposing her to holy water a top priority. That will break his spell, and we'll be able to get to her." They had worked out several possible ways to incapacitate the Queen so that she wouldn't be able to focus well enough to control her ice magic, and carried several gas canisters that would do nicely.

"Very well, then. Our current plan is still valid. We'll get some sleep now and start the mission at midnight."

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