Chapter Summary: Fast forwarding a bit. Ethan Winters has killed the other three lords and is on his way to kill Karl. Karl realizes that a decision must be made.
X
Karl sat hunched over in his chair, staring blankly at the door to his office. There was a silence in the room, interrupted only by the hushed crackling of the wood in his stove. His golden cross pendant twirled restlessly between his fingertips, close enough for him to kiss it. But was God in the room, just then? It was hard to tell. Judging by the turn of events, God was actually out on the village docks waging war in the name of his vendetta.
The pendant did another twirl between his fingers. He sniffed, irritably.
There were seven men in the room with him - the last of his factory workers and, following the Lycan ambush orchestrated by Miranda, the last of the living mortals in the village aside from Ethan. On the day of the attack, they had all been hard at work in the factory and thus had been spared the horrors of the day's events. Now, for the first time, they sought refuge in their master's presence and had gathered in his office under some pretense that he did not care to remember. Most likely it had had something to do with their concerns over the future of the factory and his intentions with them. He could see them in his peripherals: lining the walls with their arms crossed, breathing heavily, sweat blooming across their undershirts as they watched him watch the door.
Their questions had been silenced with a flustered wave of his hand and a shake of his head. No doubt they had seen the Xed out pictures above his desk: two of the village Lords gone. Slain by Ethan Winters. Only two pictures remained unmarred: Miranda's and Salvatore's. Sensing their master's unease, the factory workers had elected to remain in the room to wait and see what would come of his agitated impatience. He would have liked to be alone at that moment but couldn't muster the strength nor concentration to send them away.
He sniffed again and pressed the pendant to his lips. He couldn't have cared less about the fate of the Supersized Bitch. But Beneviento had only been a child. There hadn't been any time for him to rectify his wrongs where she was concerned.
"It's a test," he muttered to himself. Several men lifted their eyes and stared at him curiously. "It has to be. Why else would Miranda bring him to the village? Kill me…move up the chain…"
The door to the office slammed open and they all startled. A short woman with jet black hair stood breathing heavily in the doorway, her energy distracted as she glanced at him and then moved her gaze along the pictures lining his desk. Servant Number 29: yet another glossy, ambitious hiker who had taken a trek up to the village to gather information for her magnum opus: a tell-tale expose meant to glamorize the rustic village just enough to pique the papers' interests in all that was erotically exotic.
Supposedly.
Somehow, a few days back, she had ended up on the factory's doorstep and beguiled him into letting her stay past her welcome. Information for her little paper in return for servitude. Simply translated: she had wanted to study him like a moth beneath a lamplight, then go back home and brag about her ability to befriend dark-skinned foreigners. Beguiled was perhaps too sweet a word and servitude was an exaggeration, seeing as how she spent her days pilfering his cigars and peppering him with questions sopping in sarcasm. Nonetheless, the attention stroked his ego, and her Park Avenue eyes unnerved him. The first and only time that he had tried to kill her had been met with a swift uppercut to the chin that had left him incapacitated for days.
Definitely a spy sent by Miranda. He sniffled.
They all watched her knock her bootheels against the doorstep, every one of them eager to hear the news that she brought with her, and yet too suffocated by anxiety to give voice to the question on all of their minds. Karl watched from eyes squinted with inebriation as she crossed the room in long strides and swiped a red marker from off of his desk. Without hesitation, she placed the cap between her teeth, yanked it off with a toss of her head, and drew a large X across the face of Salvatore Moreau.
No one spoke. The implication of what she had done was simply too much for any of them to process. And so they simply stared in a stupified silence as she turned around, curled her tiny fingers around the edge of the desk, and addressed Karl in a cold voice
"Salvatore Moreau is dead."
Still, no one spoke. The men in the room glanced back at him, waiting for a response, and then drew their eyes back to her.
"What do you mean, dead?" One of the village men finally asked.
"Dead. He bit the bullet. He kicked the bucket. He's pushing up daisies."
"I know what 'dead' means," the man growled.
"So asking me what it meant was just a waste of time," she said back. "Yours and mine. Salvatore has gone to meet his maker."
"How did it happen?" Another man asked after another round of awkward silence. Karl still hadn't spoken, and this put them all on edge. He was sitting as he was before: curled in his chair and simply staring her down as he twirled his pendant between his fingers. Servant 29 gave a full-bodied shrug and then knocked her boots against the floor again, shaking the snow off of her unscuffed Timberlands.
"He lost the battle against Ethan Winters."
"Who's Ethan Winters?" One of the men asked.
"The next in line to be a village lord, judging by how things are going." Finally, she glanced at Karl. Worry briefly broke through her unaffected facade before her expression returned to business neutral. "The man's got an impressive resume, I'll give him that. Killed three lords…on his way to murder the next..."
Karl gave an unnecessarily aggressive sniffle but otherwise remained silent, his eyes riveted on her face.
The men began to shuffle anxiously around the room. Several of them put their heads together and began to whisper amongst themselves, while the rest simply stared at Heisenberg. It was hard for them to tell if the man hadn't heard a word that his servant had said, or if his unnatural stillness and eyes squinted to a slit were both warning signs of an explosion to come. Servant 29 scratched impatiently at her bottom lip before sighing, obviously unimpressed with the proceedings.
"M-my lord," one of the men finally said, turning to Karl with his hands held out before him. "The village is in ruins. Countless are dead. Our families and children…"
"The factory, my lord," another man interrupted him. "There is no hope for it anymore. For years, you've had us working under your command, with no knowledge of what we were building or sustaining. And we did not question it. But now that there is no one left…who or what are we working for? Surely, the demand for whatever it is you have been building has died out-"
"Where will we go?" Another man asked. "What will become of us?"
"What will become of you, my Lord Heisenberg, now that there is an assassin in the village killing off the other Lords-"
"Where is he?" Karl finally said, the sudden sound of his rumbling baritone frightening everyone in the room. "This…bastard Win-ters?"
Servant 29 looked up from her phone, realized that he was talking to her, and sheepishly mouthed 'me?' as she pointed at her chest. "He should be here any minute," she said before looking back down at her phone. He didn't know what the fuck was making her grin at the screen. There wasn't a damned speck of signal in the village, anyway.
Definitely a spy.
"The Duke sent him your way," she added, the tone in her voice and raised brow implying that he was very stupid for not already knowing this. "So…is this the part where you change your britches or do you Romanians like to free ball it?"
He pushed himself up with his hands on the shoulders of the men on either side of him. They immediately buckled beneath his weight and fell to their knees on the ground. Karl had always been the tallest and strongest man in the room, but hearing Servant 29 talk about Ethan's feats had begun to make him question the latter statement. This was no longer some game, he realized - this wasn't some silly test of Ethan's strength meant for the amusement of them all. Ethan had damn near won. There was a pressure building along the back of Karl's neck as if Ethan had placed his foot there and was slowly pressing down. He ran his hand along his raised hackles and gave a shivering sigh.
"Where exactly is he?" He growled.
"You ever try taking a look out of your own window?"
This could have meant a variety of things, coming from her, but he chose to take it as a sign that Ethan was close enough to be a considerable concern. Kill me, he thought to himself again, move up the chain. Karl would never consider himself an easily scared man, but one look at his shaking hands revealed the truth. Worrying over his death had never been high on his list of priorities. But circumstances had become odd, and tense.
He tilted a cigar against his lips and lit it slowly as everyone in the room watched. He'd never forgive Miranda for her role in the whole fiasco. If it wasn't for her, he'd probably be long since settled in America in a medical lab coat, playing daddy-dearest with Marianne under a wall full of gilded certifications.
"You're right," he said quietly to the men around him. He blew a stream of smoke from between pursed lips and glanced up at the ceiling. "The factory is no more. Your work here is done. I'd suggest you all pack what little possessions you have and run. Run hard and run fast, gentlemen, because you cannot even begin to comprehend the magnitude of the battle that is about to be waged in your dear little village." He popped a smoke ring at the center of the room and then inhaled deeply. "And if you don't run fast enough I will catch you and I will kill you. Call it charity! And as God-duh so loved his creations, I have love enough in my ol' rusted heart to spare each and every one of you from what is to come - by any means necessary. Run now!"
The men took one look at the thunder in his eyes before filtering quickly out of the door that he opened for them. There wasn't a word spared for the kindness of their master who had let them into his factory and paid them handsomely for their toils. Instead, they averted their eyes and passed by him with shoulders hunched defensively against his glare. It was ironic, in a way. Years ago, he had been exiled from the factory as the grandfathers of these very same men watched on. Now, he was the one casting them out into exile. The tides and shifts of power had worked in his favor so far. He wasn't sweet on the idea of Ethan Winters challenging such a fortunate turn in fate.
Servant 29 stood in front of his desk, one ankle crossed carelessly over the other. The back of her heel was knocking impatiently against the leg of his desk, the sound of it driving him crazy. Upon the meeting of their eyes, something seemed to soften in her expression.
"You should probably leave," he said.
"Why?" She said back, just as quickly. "I'm not the one being hunted down by a Goomba with an 'interesting body.'"
"You've been reading my journal again. I highly suggest you drop that habit."
"Threats from men don't scare me. Especially threats from walking dead men."
The corners of his lips lifted into a small, mirthless smile. "You really think that Ethan Winters has gusto enough to kill me?"
"I was there when he slaughtered Alcina, Donna, and Moreau. Hiding out and watching everything, as per your instructions. I took notes and everything. And what I came to realize is that Ethan Winters has one thing that you don't."
"And what, pray tell, is that?"
"Something worth living for. A family. A daughter. You've got nothing, Karl, but a vague sense of paranoia built on the crumbling foundation of your obsession with killing Miranda. While you've been sitting around shoving the nail of your pinky finger up your nose, Ethan Winters has been out there in the snow, proving to himself every second that he's stronger than whatever Miranda throws at him. So yes. I do think that Ethan Winters has gusto enough to kill you. You will die face-down in the village dirt that spawned you, and if you're lucky I'll remember to mention you in the footnotes of my expose."
And that was exactly why he liked her, and couldn't find it in his heart to turn her away. The flagellating brutality of her honesty was all too reminiscent of Marianne.
She plucked the cigar from his hands and took a long, impressive drag. "I can tell that you're about to cry. Maybe you should leave. Put your affairs in order before Ethan-" here, she stopped and slid her finger around her neck while making a rather uncomfortable noise.
"I get the sense that you wouldn't cry for me if Ethan does manage to put a bullet in my skull."
"Karl Heisenberg," she sighed. "There is no one left who will cry for you."
X
A few hours later found him kneeling in the factory yard, his hands braced against his cheeks. Rivulets of melted snow cascaded from his fingers and dripped onto his pants, dampening the fabric. He had spent most of the morning scrounging the frosted weeds for ice to press against his face. His body felt as if it was rioting against itself: becoming hot and cold in turns, trembling at random moments, forcing that ever-present squint into his eyes. He didn't know what was fake and what was real anymore. The radio shows that often played in his mind, thanks to his electromagnetic powers, had taken on an ominous edge. It was hard to tell if this was an effect of the rolling tides of inebriation that rocked his body, or if the universe itself was simply taunting his weakened state. How could a man who had fought so hard - climbed so far up the food chain, attainted the title of ''lord' and ruled his land - have fallen so swiftly and cruelly?
He knew the answer. His world had been turned upside down, and it was hard to find a single person or event to blame it on. It could have been the years of abuse forced upon him by his brother, the gaslit facsimile of love cast carelessly at him by his father, Miranda's orchestration of holy terror upon the land, or even the death of Marianne. Maybe it was all of these things - maybe he was just the crown jewel upon the thorny chaplet that encircled his head. In any case, there was only so much that he could take, and he felt himself quickly nearing his bursting point. Every word that Servant 29 had spoken had been an arrow fired straight through his heart, and he had failed in his attempts to hide it.
You've got nothing, Karl.
You will die face-down in the village dirt that spawned you.
There is no one left who will cry for you.
Wake the fuck up, Karl.
Wake the fuck up.
He couldn't bring himself to resent her cruelty, as he had known these things all along.
He moaned behind his hands as the icy droplets continued to spill from his fingers and splatter along his pants. The thin keloid scars slashing across his face felt rough and disgusting against his fingertips. The simple reminder of his disfigurement was the final straw that broke him and he began to sob into his palms. Luckily, there was no one around to witness his breakdown. The factory men had long since left in pursuit of safety and survival - the lucky pricks - and Servant 29 had disappeared somewhere deep into the innards of the factory.
For some unknown reason, he couldn't help but think of Mother Miranda. His own mother had died during his birth - a fact that his father had always been fond of reminding him - and Mother Miranda had always been the closest thing to a mother that he could have ever had. How he wished that things could have turned out differently! Instead of poisoning him with her mold and warping his mind with sweet little lies, he wished that she could have been true: called him a son and meant it, loved and cared for him, drawn him in with kindness instead of beautifully veiled cruelty.
By then, he had already come to decide that Mother Miranda had deceived him with her stories about Ethan. He knew the truth. She had brought the American man in to test him, see if he was strong enough to be a part of her family. She would have Ethan kill him and then herald him as her new chosen son. In his mind, Karl saw Mother Miranda drawing Ethan close and then encircling him with her pale arms, the feathery drapes of her cloak flushing around them like an all-consuming black storm. Betrayal had many, many faces.
"Behold, I am weighed down by you," he muttered to himself, "As a cart full of sheaves is weighed down…And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever-"
"I thought that we were beyond bullshit bible scriptures."
Karl opened one eye and peeked from between his fingers. There, leaning against the factory doorway, was Marianne. She held his eye as she lifted a cigarette to her lips and ballooned her cheeks out around a mouthful of smoke.
"Go away, Marianne," he hissed. "You're not real."
"You're in no headspace to define what's real and what's not. Your brain is fractaled to shit, Karl. I mean god-duh damn. You lose track of one more puzzle piece and you're dead meat."
"To hear that damn bitch of a servant tell it, I'm already dead meat walking."
"Well, you certainly smell like it," she said as she knocked her cigarette ash against the doorway. "I may be a hallucination of your coke-fizzled mind, but I can still pick up your ripe scent. 'Member when I stripped you down and scrubbed the dirt from beneath your nails in the Potter's Field? You screamed like a baby!"
"What the fuck do you want?"
"To keep your head on your shoulders. Until the job is done."
"What job?"
She glanced up at him in annoyance. "You're supposed to kill Miranda. If not for yourself, then for me. Or did you already forget that she murdered me in cold blood and had the audacity to call it charity?"
"After you fucked my brother?"
"After she shapeshifted into my body and made you think that I fucked your brother. Come on, Karl. Wake the fuck up, handsome. She's spent the past ninety-two years toying with you. You wanna spend the rest of your life being her sniffling plaything?"
"She has a new sniffling little plaything. Or haven't you heard? Ethan Winters is the new hot commodity in town."
"About that…'' She lowered herself down onto the stair step and cast her gaze along her crossed legs. There wasn't a single breeze rustling the sun-doused weeds encircling the factory, and yet her hair was ruffling gently along the edge of her shoulders. The sight of its stiff, chemically treated strands brought a nostalgic sense of comfort for him. "I know you ain't scared of him. You're scared of how he makes you feel: powerless and vulnerable. He killed what little family you have left. I know you have nothing but hatred in your heart for your siblings but, that's just it - they were your siblings. Alcina…Donna…Sal. Except Sal was different - once upon a time he was your friend and a close one at that. But anyway -" she shook her head, lightly. "I digress. Ethan is strong. A worthy adversary. But he doesn't have to be. An adversary, I mean."
"Get to the point, doll.."
"Use him, Karl. And use your head while you're at it. Your whole life you've been used. What's the matter with turning right back around and balancing the scales a little? Using someone for your benefit. You both have reason to hate Miranda. So why not join forces, combine your strengths and rip her from her throne? The Lone Ranger didn't always ride alone…"
"Ethan wouldn't want to join forces with me. I'm the one who cut up his daughter-"
She shook her head again at this as she tore apart the small sprigs of grass between her heels. "He doesn't have to know that. No, it's probably best that you don't tell him. Make him an offer, Karl, one that he can't resist. He seems reasonable. And handsome-"
"Shut the fuck up," Karl growled and she smiled.
"Look," she said after a moment. "Rosemary Winters is powerful - more powerful than her father and Miranda combined. Take Ethan, use him to help you get rid of Miranda, then kill him and take his daughter."
"W-why would I kill him?"
"'Member that story that you always tell? About the dog that you were forced to shoot because it bared its teeth at you? Don't give Ethan a chance to bare his teeth at you - and make no mistake, honey, he will turn right back around and bare his teeth at you. Use him. Get the job done. And then get the fuck out of dodge with Rosemary Winters in tow."
"Alright," he said with a nod of his head. He couldn't deny that what she had said had made sense. She had always had a way with words, and her suggestions at that moment were sounding particularly sweet. Or maybe it was the simple fact of her - or, her specter - being the last person in the village who maintained faith in him. "Alright. So what do I do first? How do I go about setting this plan into motion?"
"Clean yourself up," she said, yanking her head back up and trapping him with the intensity of her gaze. "Wipe that powder from your nose. You know that gentlemen take on many forms. So choose the best form for the occasion-"
"A greater showman than God," he said and she nodded with a smile on her face.
"Truly your best form. Draw Ethan in. Dazzle him, like your brother used to dazzle the members of Miranda's congregation. Use your bravado to your advantage, make an impression - make it so that you simply cannot be ignored. You know what to do. You always have, you rat bastard."
She bit her bottom lip, braced her chin against her palm, and crooked her pinky at him. The sight of the old hand gesture filled him with giddiness and he tipped his hat at her as he pushed himself up from the snow. The last thing to fade was the look of adoration in her eyes before her form disappeared completely - evaporated like steam flushing through the air.