Author: linaerys (my fansite: http://www.geocities.com/linaerys/kroenen/index.html)
Title: Made in Hell (2/3)
Pairing: Ilsa/Kroenen, sort of
Rating: Hard R for sex, violence and torture (I would say NC-17, but I think the next one will be worse)
Disclaimer: Characters belong to Mike Mignola and Guillermo Del Toro
Feedback: pretty please with sugar on top
Summary: This is the second in a series about Ilsa and Kroenen working together. In my version of their world, in 1930 Rasputin has yet to make an appearance. Leon Strasser was introduced in The Dueling Club but that's not necessary reading. Follows Chapter 1: Flirtation.
The Story So Far: Ilsa meets and makes a pact with Kroenen--she'll help him in exchange for power, but she does not yet understand what this means.
Chapter 2: Courtship
A few days later Strasser delivered package. The velvet box was heavy and he did not say whom it was from, but Ilsa knew. She opened it and within lay two thick bladed knifes and wrist sheathes for them. The straps were made of black leather. The blades sat on the inside of her wrists until the press of a button, when they slid forth with a satisfying click. When she put them on she wanted never to take them off.
She wore long sleeves to hide them, but couldn't help releasing and sliding them back whenever she had a chance. She felt dangerous until she cut herself without thinking when she reached to brush her hair out of her face. When Strasser came by the next day, she showed him the cut on her arm. The cut from Kroenen's scalpel had healed quickly, but now she had another parallel to it from the knives. Ilsa searched Strasser's face for some reaction to the cut other than gallant concern, but there was none. He did offer to teach her how to wield the knives more carefully.
Soon began a rhythm to her days of mornings spent in the gymnasium teaching her clumsy body how to fight with a foil, with knives, and with her hands. Under Strasser's tutelage she learned to shoot as well. She spent afternoons reading books chosen, she supposed, by Kroenen: histories, political screeds, and obscure occult volumes.
Without Kroenen, Strasser was a perfectly light companion, charming and courtly. Ilsa could not decide how conscious he was of being under Kroenen's thrall, and something kept her from asking. Even without a master's control, Strasser would have been a careless, forgetful man, the kind of playboy who slid through his life on beauty and charm.
Kroenen gave him a fair degree of autonomy, or else he was busy elsewhere, for in the days and weeks that followed, Ilsa never heard Strassers speak in anything but his own voice. For a while Ilsa relished having this rich and golden man on her arm. She let him take her to the glittering dance halls and enjoyed her former school chums' shock at her good fortune. One even told her she had all thought Ilsa too clumsy and mannish to catch such a fine gentleman. But it did not take long for Ilsa to grow bored. She found herself searching Strasser's eyes for some hint of cold cruelty--she had to admit she longed for it.
One night Strasser and Ilsa danced cheek-to-cheek at a club, to the sounds of muted trombones, and Ilsa snuggled up to him. She did it at first out of boredom, just to see what would happen. If his investment in his dilletante charade were as great as she thought, he would take the bait. She pressed her breasts into his chest and tilted her face up to his. All around them couples kissed, but Strasser seemed oblivious, and Ilsa sighed. She licked her lips and took one more deep breath to further enhance her décolletage, determined that if this did not work, she would simply grab the next passing man.
Luckily Strasser took the hint, and bent his head to hers, giving her a full lipped kiss. So boring was the thought that leaped to her mind, but then she gave herself up to the sensation--sensual pleasure usually distracted her, at least for a little while. When they left the dance hall, he spoke little, in sharp contrast to his usual forgettable monologue. Ilsa could not tell who was home in his head. If anyone, she scoffed.
Her body was aroused though, and she put her head on his shoulder as he drove her home, and he put his hand on her knee. The house was dark, and they tiptoed up to her bedroom. Her father was either dead asleep or out all night at a political meeting and he had never disturbed her trysts before.
Strasser seemed content to take her lead. She pushed his suit jacket off his shoulders, and turned around for his help with the zipper. When she had her dress off and stood before him in her heels and stockings, she said to him, "Say something." Her stomach fluttered; what voice would she hear?
"You're beautiful," he said softly. His own voice, not Kroenen's and Ilsa could not say if she was disappointed or relieved. He took over then, and pushed her down on the bed. He kicked off the rest of his clothes, except his socks, and pushed her panties aside with his hand. Ilsa was not ready, so she rolled him over and sat on top of him.
From above, she noticed, Strasser was lovely. Fencing gave him long, lean muscles, and she traced these with her fingers. She felt warm all over except where the knives still bound to her wrists chilled her skin. He pushed a finger and then two up inside of her, and she moved back and forward against him making herself ready. Finally she eased him inside of her, and sat for a moment, smiling her sweetest smile at him in the dim light. Damn Kroenen, she thought, I hope he pulls this memory out of you. I hope he chokes on it.
She rocked back and forth, and he held onto her hips, guiding her motion, but he did not seem to be in any hurry, and neither was she. As she let her mind grow blank she felt some kind of magic stirring, like she had in Kroenen's study when she read the strange script. At first she thought it was Strasser's master coming to take him over, and she froze, but no, this came from somewhere within her.
Suddenly the knowledge from all the books she had been reading fell into place. She felt the magickal power generated by the sex, and felt her mind and body gathering it and storing it. It felt good, but not good enough, and she knew with some unerring instinct what would make it better. Blood. Blood or death. Before she could think about it, she pressed the levers that loosed the knives and drew two furrows down Strasser's perfect chest. She could see under his skin the veins and arteries, bones and nerves--the map of his life. She wondered if Kroenen saw this in everyone, if that's why he was such a gifted surgeon.
Blood welled out of his chest in wide rivulets and orgasm broke over her. Strasser spasmed once and then fell back, his mouth open in a silent scream. She felt like cup full to overflowing with the liquid power.
Without speaking she commanded Strasser to bind his chest and leave, and he obeyed like a zombie. She added a little threat to keep him from getting blood in her father's house, and he gathered up his clothes and left. She heard the car pull away. When she looked at herself in the mirror her blue eyes had gone dark, pupils dilated and almost covering the iris. She waved her fingers and saw the glass ripple.
Ilsa noticed that some of Strasser's blood had covered her hands and arms, and there were some splashes on her legs, but she did not want to wash it off. She wrapped her nakedness in a long coat, and went out the door into the cool night. Steam rose off her as she walked. She felt the potential of the night, the dark shadows and threats of violence that lived within each person she passed. Two men riding in a car together passed her and broke into a vicious argument. She could feel it when they crashed into the side of a house a few blocks later. She could feel it add to her power. She moved through the city like some female Loki, spreading dark fire where she went.
It had not been very long, no more than an hour, since she and Strasser had left the dance hall, and now they were just starting to close. Couples and men alone, drunk and horny, spilled out onto the streets. She called one of the men to her with the crook of a finger. He thought he was going to have her against the stones between two buildings, but she left him there, unsatisfied and bleeding out his life's blood onto the damp pavement, and the tide of power carried her onward.
[][][]
Five hundred miles away in Italy Kroenen sat in an empty hotel room. He had set certain events in motion that would bear fruit, and now he merely awaited the rising sun and the train back to Berlin. A girl's dead body lay in the bed behind him. She had not been as good company as he had hoped. He left just enough life in her to send her walking out of the hotel, but soon after she would be a corpse. He kept his mask on, so even if she found someone to talk to before the end, he would not be blamed.
Kroenen paced back and forth in front of the window. He never slept, and even if he had, this would have jarred him awake. He felt the tether he had to Strasser shudder and break, and the power that flowed in from his link to Ilsa make him lose his balance. She was not his slave, and he could not feel what she felt, nor see what she saw, like he could with Strasser, but he knew she had come into her power. He had not expected it so soon.
Then he frowned. What had happened to Strasser? He reached out through the link and felt only a blank. Was this Ilsa's doing?
[][][]
The next day Ilsa slept until evening. She awoke when she felt a tugging within her chest, a summons, and she knew where to go. Some man she did not recognize opened Kroenen's door, and led her wordlessly down into the study. She looked at the books in the bookshelf, and could now understand every title.
One kept drawing her eyes back. It was a diary with Russian writing on the spine, but within the script were the strange characters that before she could read but not understand. She started to turn the pages, faster and faster.
She jumped when Kroenen came in, again wearing bloody gloves and his mask, which he took off and laid on his desk.
"I'm told the Berlin police have three unsolved murders from last night," he said when he came in. Ilsa shrugged. "If you don't care to keep a low profile, I can keep you locked up and out of trouble." He smiled--a bland smile, but it looked frightening on his cadaverous features.
"And if that doesn't work, I can think of more inventive ways to keep you under control." Ilsa had visions of herself under his scalpels and bone saws and shuddered. "I've patched up Strasser," he continued.
"That's not his blood," she said. She could not say how, but she could feel, even across the room that the blood on his gloves belonged to someone else. She itched to rub it into her hands, to taste it.
"I had hoped to be there for your first time," he said with a leer. She made a disgusted face, but he affected not to notice. "I'm sorry it had to be sex that awoke your powers. After all that protesting."
"This book," she said, changing the subject, and trying not to blush. "I think this holds a key to the Great Work."
"What do you know of that?" he asked.
She made a dismissive gesture. "Certain things have . . . become clear, or at least clearer. The forces that give us power, they long to be loosed." He nodded, and she continued. "Within this book is someone, or something, who understands them better than either of us." Kroenen frowned, and his eyes grew blank for a moment before he nodded.
"This is truth," he said.
"You need me for this." She held the book out to him, and he opened it, grimaced and then closed it quickly again.
"I do," he admitted. "I cannot read this. This book hid itself in my library for five years, and yet it jumped out at you. Yes, the Work needs you. But now you need it, too. There is no walking away. Read it, and let me know what you learn," he commanded and turned to go.
"Oh and Ilsa, my dear," he said, as he paused at the door, "please leave Strasser out of your little games for now. I don't think he can keep up with you."
"What am I supposed to do then?" she asked angrily. "I'm hungry!" She had not meant to sound so desperate, but she felt it, a gnawing emptiness somewhere deeper than her stomach, a craving.
"I can teach you. It just takes control. Control and someone who can take more damage." Before she could react he opened the door and left.
[][][]
She haunted his library, which continued into the catacombs beneath the building. She had never been a bookish girl, but understanding the Russian diary had become an obsession with her. One of Kroenen's silent servants provided her with notebooks and pens, and fetched food and drink for her. She slept one night curled up on one of his couches and woke to find a blanket draped over her.
Sometimes she heard screams from room across the hall she would go and press her hand to the door, gathering the scraps of power that escaped. One day she saw Strasser, and he bowed and kissed her hand as if nothing had happened. She used her newfound powers to press in against his mind, but Kroenen had wiped the incident from him, and he remembered nothing.
The blood Kroenen spilled in his laboratory only served to whet her appetite though, and by the end of the week she was shaky with need.
"Report," he commanded, as he did every day when he visited.
"No," she said. "I'm missing . . . you can't just expect me to taste power like that and give it up." She knew she sounded petulant but did not care.
"I didn't expect you to drink so deeply," he countered. She pouted and stamped her foot and his lips twitched with amusement.
"Come with me." She followed him into his laboratory. A body of indeterminate gender was strapped down on an operating table, covered with a translucent shroud. Kroenen handed her a surgeon's mask and put back on his gas mask.
"Infection is the greatest risk," he said.
"To them or us?" Ilsa asked. Kroenen turned his head toward her. Ilsa found herself resenting the way she could not read his expressions, but he seemed more at ease with his face so covered. Something in the relaxed way he moved made Ilsa think this was his true home.
"To him," Kroenen said, exasperated. "His open wounds leave him vulnerable to infection."
"But you're just going to kill him," Ilsa protested.
"Not so. See here." He beckoned her to come closer to the prone form and lifted up the covering. Ilsa had been subconsciously looking away from this torture scene, but now she steeled herself and walked over. The limbs all had multiple sutured seams running their lengths, except one leg whose flesh was laid open to the bone. Ilsa looked in and saw a steel rod fused to the femur with wires that went into the knee and hip joints. Her eyes went wide and Kroenen nodded slightly and covered the leg with a plastic sheet.
"You probably don't want to see the face then," he said, amused. Ilsa could see nothing but a red mass behind the translucent sheet covering the figure's head, and was grateful she could see no more. She swallowed convulsively a few times.
"What . . . what is this for?" she asked when she thought she could trust her voice. The words still came out thickly. Her love affair with blood was borne of sex and passion; this cold precision seemed too detached for her, and some still-human part of her rebelled at the sight of this person slowly being turned to a machine.
"He's not feeling any pain, if that's what worries you," said Kroenen, still in that indulgent tone. "Pain causes shock, shock can cause death, and I want him alive, after a fashion." Ilsa rubbed at her thigh with her hand reflexively; the image of the surgery in progress was still burned into her mind. Kroenen walked over to the wood paneling on one wall and pushed it in with his fingertips. It sprang back and revealed a tunnel going off under the earth, a twin to the one on the library side of the building. Ilsa saw a dim glow emanating from the space behind.
She stepped closer and saw row upon row of large tanks of liquid, each with some humanoid creature within. The creatures had odd metal attachments in their arms and faces, and were covered with the seams of surgery. "Six hundred and sixty-six," whispered Kroenen. "Eventually."
"Why?" asked Ilsa.
"The number is symbolic."
"No . . . why do it at all?"
"It is an army. To protect the fatherland, to do the master's will." The words sounded rote to Ilsa's ears, like something he had said countless times before, but Kroenen tended to speak in monotone, and she could not be sure.
"This gives you power?" she asked. She could feel no magic in this room, only the chill embrace of science. "No hot blood spilling over your hand, no thrill of the chase, just this?" She started to lower her surgical mask, and his hand shot out, faster than thought, and caught her arm before she could complete the motion. Ilsa rolled her eyes and wrenched her arm out of his grasp. His fingers felt like they had metal running through them, and she could feel where each one had bruised her.
"If that's what you want," he said, "it can be arranged." He had produced a scalpel from somewhere and was now twirling it between his fingers. "You must be more careful though. Although, your murder of the Party secretary's son did turn out to be fortuitous. We're just deciding now whether to blame the Jews or the Communists."
Ilsa looked down at her feet. She felt like a child in trouble with her parents and saying "oops" did not quite seem adequate. Kroenen wagged a finger at her. "You should have some idea of who your victims are. This man--" he gestured at the body on the operating table "--was a Russian, a suspected Communist, and no one will miss him."
"I will, I'll be careful," she said eagerly.
"Hmmm." Kroenen considered for a moment, still toying with the blade. "I suppose you may go out and find your prey," he said finally. "But only if I come with you."
Next: Chapter 3--Consumation
Title: Made in Hell (2/3)
Pairing: Ilsa/Kroenen, sort of
Rating: Hard R for sex, violence and torture (I would say NC-17, but I think the next one will be worse)
Disclaimer: Characters belong to Mike Mignola and Guillermo Del Toro
Feedback: pretty please with sugar on top
Summary: This is the second in a series about Ilsa and Kroenen working together. In my version of their world, in 1930 Rasputin has yet to make an appearance. Leon Strasser was introduced in The Dueling Club but that's not necessary reading. Follows Chapter 1: Flirtation.
The Story So Far: Ilsa meets and makes a pact with Kroenen--she'll help him in exchange for power, but she does not yet understand what this means.
Chapter 2: Courtship
A few days later Strasser delivered package. The velvet box was heavy and he did not say whom it was from, but Ilsa knew. She opened it and within lay two thick bladed knifes and wrist sheathes for them. The straps were made of black leather. The blades sat on the inside of her wrists until the press of a button, when they slid forth with a satisfying click. When she put them on she wanted never to take them off.
She wore long sleeves to hide them, but couldn't help releasing and sliding them back whenever she had a chance. She felt dangerous until she cut herself without thinking when she reached to brush her hair out of her face. When Strasser came by the next day, she showed him the cut on her arm. The cut from Kroenen's scalpel had healed quickly, but now she had another parallel to it from the knives. Ilsa searched Strasser's face for some reaction to the cut other than gallant concern, but there was none. He did offer to teach her how to wield the knives more carefully.
Soon began a rhythm to her days of mornings spent in the gymnasium teaching her clumsy body how to fight with a foil, with knives, and with her hands. Under Strasser's tutelage she learned to shoot as well. She spent afternoons reading books chosen, she supposed, by Kroenen: histories, political screeds, and obscure occult volumes.
Without Kroenen, Strasser was a perfectly light companion, charming and courtly. Ilsa could not decide how conscious he was of being under Kroenen's thrall, and something kept her from asking. Even without a master's control, Strasser would have been a careless, forgetful man, the kind of playboy who slid through his life on beauty and charm.
Kroenen gave him a fair degree of autonomy, or else he was busy elsewhere, for in the days and weeks that followed, Ilsa never heard Strassers speak in anything but his own voice. For a while Ilsa relished having this rich and golden man on her arm. She let him take her to the glittering dance halls and enjoyed her former school chums' shock at her good fortune. One even told her she had all thought Ilsa too clumsy and mannish to catch such a fine gentleman. But it did not take long for Ilsa to grow bored. She found herself searching Strasser's eyes for some hint of cold cruelty--she had to admit she longed for it.
One night Strasser and Ilsa danced cheek-to-cheek at a club, to the sounds of muted trombones, and Ilsa snuggled up to him. She did it at first out of boredom, just to see what would happen. If his investment in his dilletante charade were as great as she thought, he would take the bait. She pressed her breasts into his chest and tilted her face up to his. All around them couples kissed, but Strasser seemed oblivious, and Ilsa sighed. She licked her lips and took one more deep breath to further enhance her décolletage, determined that if this did not work, she would simply grab the next passing man.
Luckily Strasser took the hint, and bent his head to hers, giving her a full lipped kiss. So boring was the thought that leaped to her mind, but then she gave herself up to the sensation--sensual pleasure usually distracted her, at least for a little while. When they left the dance hall, he spoke little, in sharp contrast to his usual forgettable monologue. Ilsa could not tell who was home in his head. If anyone, she scoffed.
Her body was aroused though, and she put her head on his shoulder as he drove her home, and he put his hand on her knee. The house was dark, and they tiptoed up to her bedroom. Her father was either dead asleep or out all night at a political meeting and he had never disturbed her trysts before.
Strasser seemed content to take her lead. She pushed his suit jacket off his shoulders, and turned around for his help with the zipper. When she had her dress off and stood before him in her heels and stockings, she said to him, "Say something." Her stomach fluttered; what voice would she hear?
"You're beautiful," he said softly. His own voice, not Kroenen's and Ilsa could not say if she was disappointed or relieved. He took over then, and pushed her down on the bed. He kicked off the rest of his clothes, except his socks, and pushed her panties aside with his hand. Ilsa was not ready, so she rolled him over and sat on top of him.
From above, she noticed, Strasser was lovely. Fencing gave him long, lean muscles, and she traced these with her fingers. She felt warm all over except where the knives still bound to her wrists chilled her skin. He pushed a finger and then two up inside of her, and she moved back and forward against him making herself ready. Finally she eased him inside of her, and sat for a moment, smiling her sweetest smile at him in the dim light. Damn Kroenen, she thought, I hope he pulls this memory out of you. I hope he chokes on it.
She rocked back and forth, and he held onto her hips, guiding her motion, but he did not seem to be in any hurry, and neither was she. As she let her mind grow blank she felt some kind of magic stirring, like she had in Kroenen's study when she read the strange script. At first she thought it was Strasser's master coming to take him over, and she froze, but no, this came from somewhere within her.
Suddenly the knowledge from all the books she had been reading fell into place. She felt the magickal power generated by the sex, and felt her mind and body gathering it and storing it. It felt good, but not good enough, and she knew with some unerring instinct what would make it better. Blood. Blood or death. Before she could think about it, she pressed the levers that loosed the knives and drew two furrows down Strasser's perfect chest. She could see under his skin the veins and arteries, bones and nerves--the map of his life. She wondered if Kroenen saw this in everyone, if that's why he was such a gifted surgeon.
Blood welled out of his chest in wide rivulets and orgasm broke over her. Strasser spasmed once and then fell back, his mouth open in a silent scream. She felt like cup full to overflowing with the liquid power.
Without speaking she commanded Strasser to bind his chest and leave, and he obeyed like a zombie. She added a little threat to keep him from getting blood in her father's house, and he gathered up his clothes and left. She heard the car pull away. When she looked at herself in the mirror her blue eyes had gone dark, pupils dilated and almost covering the iris. She waved her fingers and saw the glass ripple.
Ilsa noticed that some of Strasser's blood had covered her hands and arms, and there were some splashes on her legs, but she did not want to wash it off. She wrapped her nakedness in a long coat, and went out the door into the cool night. Steam rose off her as she walked. She felt the potential of the night, the dark shadows and threats of violence that lived within each person she passed. Two men riding in a car together passed her and broke into a vicious argument. She could feel it when they crashed into the side of a house a few blocks later. She could feel it add to her power. She moved through the city like some female Loki, spreading dark fire where she went.
It had not been very long, no more than an hour, since she and Strasser had left the dance hall, and now they were just starting to close. Couples and men alone, drunk and horny, spilled out onto the streets. She called one of the men to her with the crook of a finger. He thought he was going to have her against the stones between two buildings, but she left him there, unsatisfied and bleeding out his life's blood onto the damp pavement, and the tide of power carried her onward.
[][][]
Five hundred miles away in Italy Kroenen sat in an empty hotel room. He had set certain events in motion that would bear fruit, and now he merely awaited the rising sun and the train back to Berlin. A girl's dead body lay in the bed behind him. She had not been as good company as he had hoped. He left just enough life in her to send her walking out of the hotel, but soon after she would be a corpse. He kept his mask on, so even if she found someone to talk to before the end, he would not be blamed.
Kroenen paced back and forth in front of the window. He never slept, and even if he had, this would have jarred him awake. He felt the tether he had to Strasser shudder and break, and the power that flowed in from his link to Ilsa make him lose his balance. She was not his slave, and he could not feel what she felt, nor see what she saw, like he could with Strasser, but he knew she had come into her power. He had not expected it so soon.
Then he frowned. What had happened to Strasser? He reached out through the link and felt only a blank. Was this Ilsa's doing?
[][][]
The next day Ilsa slept until evening. She awoke when she felt a tugging within her chest, a summons, and she knew where to go. Some man she did not recognize opened Kroenen's door, and led her wordlessly down into the study. She looked at the books in the bookshelf, and could now understand every title.
One kept drawing her eyes back. It was a diary with Russian writing on the spine, but within the script were the strange characters that before she could read but not understand. She started to turn the pages, faster and faster.
She jumped when Kroenen came in, again wearing bloody gloves and his mask, which he took off and laid on his desk.
"I'm told the Berlin police have three unsolved murders from last night," he said when he came in. Ilsa shrugged. "If you don't care to keep a low profile, I can keep you locked up and out of trouble." He smiled--a bland smile, but it looked frightening on his cadaverous features.
"And if that doesn't work, I can think of more inventive ways to keep you under control." Ilsa had visions of herself under his scalpels and bone saws and shuddered. "I've patched up Strasser," he continued.
"That's not his blood," she said. She could not say how, but she could feel, even across the room that the blood on his gloves belonged to someone else. She itched to rub it into her hands, to taste it.
"I had hoped to be there for your first time," he said with a leer. She made a disgusted face, but he affected not to notice. "I'm sorry it had to be sex that awoke your powers. After all that protesting."
"This book," she said, changing the subject, and trying not to blush. "I think this holds a key to the Great Work."
"What do you know of that?" he asked.
She made a dismissive gesture. "Certain things have . . . become clear, or at least clearer. The forces that give us power, they long to be loosed." He nodded, and she continued. "Within this book is someone, or something, who understands them better than either of us." Kroenen frowned, and his eyes grew blank for a moment before he nodded.
"This is truth," he said.
"You need me for this." She held the book out to him, and he opened it, grimaced and then closed it quickly again.
"I do," he admitted. "I cannot read this. This book hid itself in my library for five years, and yet it jumped out at you. Yes, the Work needs you. But now you need it, too. There is no walking away. Read it, and let me know what you learn," he commanded and turned to go.
"Oh and Ilsa, my dear," he said, as he paused at the door, "please leave Strasser out of your little games for now. I don't think he can keep up with you."
"What am I supposed to do then?" she asked angrily. "I'm hungry!" She had not meant to sound so desperate, but she felt it, a gnawing emptiness somewhere deeper than her stomach, a craving.
"I can teach you. It just takes control. Control and someone who can take more damage." Before she could react he opened the door and left.
[][][]
She haunted his library, which continued into the catacombs beneath the building. She had never been a bookish girl, but understanding the Russian diary had become an obsession with her. One of Kroenen's silent servants provided her with notebooks and pens, and fetched food and drink for her. She slept one night curled up on one of his couches and woke to find a blanket draped over her.
Sometimes she heard screams from room across the hall she would go and press her hand to the door, gathering the scraps of power that escaped. One day she saw Strasser, and he bowed and kissed her hand as if nothing had happened. She used her newfound powers to press in against his mind, but Kroenen had wiped the incident from him, and he remembered nothing.
The blood Kroenen spilled in his laboratory only served to whet her appetite though, and by the end of the week she was shaky with need.
"Report," he commanded, as he did every day when he visited.
"No," she said. "I'm missing . . . you can't just expect me to taste power like that and give it up." She knew she sounded petulant but did not care.
"I didn't expect you to drink so deeply," he countered. She pouted and stamped her foot and his lips twitched with amusement.
"Come with me." She followed him into his laboratory. A body of indeterminate gender was strapped down on an operating table, covered with a translucent shroud. Kroenen handed her a surgeon's mask and put back on his gas mask.
"Infection is the greatest risk," he said.
"To them or us?" Ilsa asked. Kroenen turned his head toward her. Ilsa found herself resenting the way she could not read his expressions, but he seemed more at ease with his face so covered. Something in the relaxed way he moved made Ilsa think this was his true home.
"To him," Kroenen said, exasperated. "His open wounds leave him vulnerable to infection."
"But you're just going to kill him," Ilsa protested.
"Not so. See here." He beckoned her to come closer to the prone form and lifted up the covering. Ilsa had been subconsciously looking away from this torture scene, but now she steeled herself and walked over. The limbs all had multiple sutured seams running their lengths, except one leg whose flesh was laid open to the bone. Ilsa looked in and saw a steel rod fused to the femur with wires that went into the knee and hip joints. Her eyes went wide and Kroenen nodded slightly and covered the leg with a plastic sheet.
"You probably don't want to see the face then," he said, amused. Ilsa could see nothing but a red mass behind the translucent sheet covering the figure's head, and was grateful she could see no more. She swallowed convulsively a few times.
"What . . . what is this for?" she asked when she thought she could trust her voice. The words still came out thickly. Her love affair with blood was borne of sex and passion; this cold precision seemed too detached for her, and some still-human part of her rebelled at the sight of this person slowly being turned to a machine.
"He's not feeling any pain, if that's what worries you," said Kroenen, still in that indulgent tone. "Pain causes shock, shock can cause death, and I want him alive, after a fashion." Ilsa rubbed at her thigh with her hand reflexively; the image of the surgery in progress was still burned into her mind. Kroenen walked over to the wood paneling on one wall and pushed it in with his fingertips. It sprang back and revealed a tunnel going off under the earth, a twin to the one on the library side of the building. Ilsa saw a dim glow emanating from the space behind.
She stepped closer and saw row upon row of large tanks of liquid, each with some humanoid creature within. The creatures had odd metal attachments in their arms and faces, and were covered with the seams of surgery. "Six hundred and sixty-six," whispered Kroenen. "Eventually."
"Why?" asked Ilsa.
"The number is symbolic."
"No . . . why do it at all?"
"It is an army. To protect the fatherland, to do the master's will." The words sounded rote to Ilsa's ears, like something he had said countless times before, but Kroenen tended to speak in monotone, and she could not be sure.
"This gives you power?" she asked. She could feel no magic in this room, only the chill embrace of science. "No hot blood spilling over your hand, no thrill of the chase, just this?" She started to lower her surgical mask, and his hand shot out, faster than thought, and caught her arm before she could complete the motion. Ilsa rolled her eyes and wrenched her arm out of his grasp. His fingers felt like they had metal running through them, and she could feel where each one had bruised her.
"If that's what you want," he said, "it can be arranged." He had produced a scalpel from somewhere and was now twirling it between his fingers. "You must be more careful though. Although, your murder of the Party secretary's son did turn out to be fortuitous. We're just deciding now whether to blame the Jews or the Communists."
Ilsa looked down at her feet. She felt like a child in trouble with her parents and saying "oops" did not quite seem adequate. Kroenen wagged a finger at her. "You should have some idea of who your victims are. This man--" he gestured at the body on the operating table "--was a Russian, a suspected Communist, and no one will miss him."
"I will, I'll be careful," she said eagerly.
"Hmmm." Kroenen considered for a moment, still toying with the blade. "I suppose you may go out and find your prey," he said finally. "But only if I come with you."
Next: Chapter 3--Consumation