Hello Ladies and Gentlemen! Today, I present to you, my most esteemed and wonderful readers, Chapter 23 of Athena! My fingers are crossed that you are reading this in the reasonable months of oh, I don't know, winter. And not… as with chapter 22… nearly ONE ENTIRE YEAR LATER.
Fingers crossed.
As always, thank you to those of you who continue to read, review, and wait patiently for me to update – you all deserve gold medals for patience because I take so dang long to write a chapter that it's not even funny anymore. In fact, it's really just stress/panic/irritation-inducing. But alas… that's also what happens when you enroll in college. You start out thinking that it's such a great idea, then you just end up thinking that the world is on fire and you're on fire and you're in hell. Don't try this at home kids.
Friends, as a warning: this chapter is long. This chapter is wordy. This chapter is emotional. Stay with me, friends.
Enjoy!
Regards,
J.B.
Music that inspired this chapter: Lullaby, Scarlet, The Monarch, and Chrysalis - The Last Breath by Delain; The Holographic Principle – A Profound Understanding of Reality, Divide and Conquer, and Once Upon a Nightmare by Epica; and Cities in Dust, the cover version by The Everlove.
*Disclaimer: The title of this chapter – "Hands of Lust" – is taken from quote of Oscar Wilde's below…
"Yet each man kills the thing he loves – by each, let this be heard. Some do it with a bitter look, some with a flattering word. The coward does it with a kiss, the brave man with a sword! Some kill their love when they are young, and some when they are old; Some strangle with the hands of Lust, some with hands of Gold: The kindest use a knife, because the dead so soon grow cold."
– The Ballad of Reading Gaol, Oscar Wilde
American Barracks
London, England – 1943
0500 Hours
Victoria Bradleigh stared listlessly into her tea, watching the hot water turn from light gold to deep and rich red, watching the tea leaves swirl in a tiny vortex as she twirled her spoon round and round. Her titian hair was still damp, bound in a long braid that draped over her shoulder. She glanced at her wristwatch, which seemed to tick so loudly as to imitate a human heart, beating and pounding and throbbing in her ears. She closed her eyes, and with nimble fingers unwove the braid, letting her fingers brush out her tangled waves. As she worked, she quietly counted to 60 five times, five minutes for perfectly steeped tea.
She drank her tea in silence. She braided her titian hair again, and coiled it into a tight chignon at the nape of her neck. She listened to her wristwatch tick, and bleakly mulled over the hour and forty-five minutes of sleep she had received, thinking groggily of the three and a half hours she would have received on a much more comfortable mattress thousands of miles and an ocean away. The ability to sleep was one that Victoria Bradleigh was almost certain she had been (very rudely) robbed of at the ripe old age of twenty-three, when a very conceited and positively tempestuous German scientist was forced to begrudgingly accept her into his life. In vengeful retaliation, he made no bones about imposing on her his grueling daily agenda, which consisted of rising no later (and preferably earlier) than five o'clock, and working tirelessly (without interruption) until at least eleven o'clock at night. Were she to sleep even a minute past the hour of five, the man insisted on barging into her quarters to personally drag her from the blankets, tossing her onto the floor like a ragdoll and barking at her all the while that there was pressing work to be done. She remembered the scene far more vividly than she cared to recall – his dark hair a misshapen tangle against his deathly pale skin, ice-blue eyes glistening with the most unnerving mixture of annoyance and dark glee. He was at once a rigid soldier and a childish trickster. It visibly irked him beyond comprehension that here this cocky, mouthy American woman had the audacity to meddle with his precise schedule. She, lying there on the floor, flat out refusing to rise until he gave her the privacy she deserved, glaring at him with all the coldblooded defiance she could muster in her tiny frame. And yet, he seemed almost delighted at the opportunity to bedevil her whenever she challenged him (of which she made it her business to do at least once a week.)
Victoria smiled sadly. Few were allowed entrance into the private world of Johann Schmidt, a world in which he tentatively allowed the icy façade that he constructed around him to thaw and crumble away to reveal a man much more humble. The vibrancy, compassion, and empathy that lay beyond those piercing blue eyes revealed a man that really, truly longed for human contact and attention. He longed to love and to be loved, but love was a luxury that he had long been denied. If he could not, then, receive the love he longed for, he would renounce all that spoke of love, of happiness, of joy, of life. He would shut out anything that evoked the very idea of love. And within him, he manifested hatred and a cutting desire for revenge. Revenge for being denied the right to even feel happiness.
But he hadn't been denied happiness – that was the one thing that absolutely boggled her mind, and it broke her heart to splinters whenever she thought of him, whenever she lamented over the terrible things he had done, the terrible things he intended to do next. She was almost certain that the destructive rampage that the man she had known as Johann Schmidt – not the "Red Skull" or any other moniker – would never end. She was almost certain that the happiness he sought, the love he sought, would never be found. It was almost as if he didn't want to be satisfied, for a world in which he was able to achieve what he desired would leave him with no vengeance to harbor, no anger to manifest. The bone-deep lust he had, the wanting he had – it was so ingrained in him that she felt surely a world without it would drive him over the edge.
Victoria had been one of the few to be granted access to the workings of this man's mind, to his desires, to his hopes and dreams, to his insatiable and unstoppable lust. Lust for control, lust for power, lust for fame, fortune, for the happy life that had been forcefully yanked from his grasp the very day he was born.
He had let her into his world. He let the walls of ice melt away, he had shed that bitter and spiteful façade, and he had loved her and he had let her love him. And in those quiet moments, she had been able to see the real man behind that bitter scowl, behind the heavy leather uniforms and walls of chrome.
Johann Schmidt was a man worlds apart from the Southern gentlemen she was accustomed to, with their drawling accents, their double-breasted suits, and their sprawling plantation homes and centuries-old money. He had no intention of whisking her off to his ancestral home and making her a dainty domestic belle, made to sit out on the porch and do embroidery, looking the picture of sheltered femininity. He did not lavish her with gifts, he did not insist on helping her into her coat or taking her hand whenever she descended a particularly steep flight of stairs. He certainly couldn't be bothered with holding a door for her. He didn't address her as "ma'am" or "miss" and thank God he didn't insist on calling her "little darling" or "sweet pea", as the debonair suitors of her youth had.
Her mouth quirked in a smile. He did, however, insist on referring to her as "Kleine" or "Little one", though it was with a playful smirk rather than a tender gaze.
Johann Schmidt was by far the most interesting man she had ever met, combining exoticism and worldliness and a taste for fineries with sharp wit, honesty so brutal that it bordered on rude, and a penchant for black humor.
He could recite Goethe and Dostoyevsky from memory, he could nimbly perform even the most technical of Chopin's masterpieces without ever setting eyes on a piece of sheet music, and his flawless etiquette would have set her mother to swooning.
He was as comfortable in a rowdy working-class biergarten as he was in a snooty Berlin café; he deftly navigated through the shadier back allies of every city he traveled to, and he serenely bartered with even the burliest street vendors that would have set her hair on end. He spoke at least seven languages with the fluidity of a native-speaker, and the smoothness with which he transitioned from the cultured accent of an upper-class Berliner to the distinctly Bavarian dialect of his childhood was nearly undetectable.
He was so wildly different from any man she had ever met before – at once enigmatic, sophisticated, devilishly charming – but also, salt of the earth, human.
He was funny – a quality that all of the dull beaus she'd reluctantly courted seemed never to have. His specialty was in schoolboy pranks, such as rudely pouncing on her whenever she slept a minute past the hour of five, wicked glee written across his face as he taunted her. Or sneaking into her room in the dead of night, silent as a corpse, frightening the daylights out of her whenever he crept up on her. And suggestive humor was never ruled out, given that the man took it as a challenge and not a fact when she refused to be lured into his bedroom. At times, he was more like a younger brother than a colleague (and much less, a love interest) – forever pestering, forever seeking to rile her.
He was kind – wrapping his arms around her in the dead of night, when sleep refused to take her. Kissing away her homesick tears, consoling her with soft and lilting words. Wanting to know who she was, rather than what she was worth. Not caring about the family she came from, the wealth her name entailed, and why ever she'd chosen to pursue an education rather than marry and have a family and carry on the legacy of gentility, as women where she came from were expected to do. Laughing at her tales of gaudy cotillion balls, and telling his own about the horrid upper-class fops he'd had the displeasure of working for as a young and ambivalent bellhop. Bringing tears to her eyes as he somberly recounted his childhood, from his abusive, drunken father to his grueling life on the streets of Regensburg.
It was in such moments as those that his multifaceted brilliance, which commanded the awe and reverence of everyone in his presence, did not seem so intimidating. In fact, he seemed so very human, so very approachable. It was in such moments that the desperate wanting in his eyes became so painfully visible, the desperate longing for someone – anyone – to understand the pain and the loneliness and the insecurity that cowered behind the wall of cold aloofness that he had built up. There was so much longing in those ice-blue eyes, longing for so much more than the superficial, awestruck praise that was lavished upon him by his contemporaries.
It had taken Victoria a very long time to break down the defenses he had built up, to break down that wall of icy, prickly arrogance that so characterized Johann – to see the real man behind the façade of steely confidence. To outsiders, he was and wanted to be seen as cold, menacing, and uncompassionate. He wanted to treat others as cruelly and unfeelingly as he had been in the past.
But what he truly wanted was contact. Someone to lift the weight of insecurity from his chest, someone to relieve his mind of the nightmares that barred him from rest at night, someone to know how deeply he had suffered.
His wants were always in constant conflict, and though he fought vociferously to appear as though he was in control of those wants, he really did not know at all what it was that he yearned for.
He expected to win love by showing cruelty.
He expected to win happiness by showing hatred and anger.
He wanted love, but he hated love. To love was to be weak. To be merely happy was to settle for something less.
He wanted perfection.
He wanted far too much.
Victoria closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. Perhaps at one point in her life, sleep had come easily to her, unaccompanied by an anxious mind or a remorseful heart.
But insomnia had evolved into her constant companion, mocking and taunting her with nightmares that threatened to destroy her sanity. Even in the solace of her own bedroom, thousands of miles away, it seemed as though his voice was always there.
"I'd really rather forget last night, you know." That was what he had said to her, on that horrible night – her last night in Berlin before her "mission" was finally terminated, permanently. Last night. Last night, he had proposed to her, and he had hit her until she bled when she had rejected that proposal. For what other choice had she, as an American agent, a spy for the United States? To accept his proposal would be to betray her nation, and everything at home that she held dear to her. But there was something else too, something else that had held her back, that had kept her from fulfilling her heart's deepest wishes, to go with this man that she had fallen so desperately in love with.
She had been privy to every side of Johann Schmidt – the good, the bad, the heart-wrenching. She had experienced firsthand the abrasive, acerbic front he put on before strangers. She had experienced the loving, compassionate side of him, when he had held her tenderly and kissed her and assured her that her deepest doubts would never come to fruition. He had raised her up when the deepest homesickness had drained the life from her, when she worried obsessively over exactly that which she could not reveal to him – the double-life she led, the lies she was expected to tell for her country. But Johann had never once questioned why sadness, distress, and depression had so often overtaken her. He had only ever held her, and consoled her, loved her. And she had loved him. She had let her heart lead her, regardless of how her mind had screamed at her to stop. She knew that to love him was to jeopardize everything that she had been sent to Germany to carry out, but she had done it anyway, because this was a man that understood her, and she understood him. He had only ever shown her love, compassion, and companionship, while the rest of the world could only criticize his coldness, inhumanness, insanity, and unfeeling cruelty.
She had thought she had seen every side of him.
She had not seen his rage.
"I'll come with you." He'd said.
"I'm going back to America, Johann. I can't see you anymore." Her heart clenched. "I'm sorry."
And the door had closed, separating her from the man that she had loved, and would continue to love for the rest of her days.
And she had turned her back, thinking that it was done, that it was over. That everything was finished and final.
With a solid blow, he'd kicked down the door, sending splintered shards of wood careening across the room.
He had grabbed her from behind, one arm clenched around her waist, his other gloved hand coming to close around her throat. Her screams were stifled by his hand, slender fingers digging into her cheek.
"I loved you, Victoria." His voice was so sickeningly quiet, so perfectly even, so indifferent. "I have given you everything, I have poured my heart out before you. I have held you, I have wiped away your tears, and this is how you repay me. With betrayal."
A gloved hand snaked from her waist, caressing her stomach, gliding to her breast. He mouthed at her ear lustily, sharp teeth grazing her flesh. Tears streamed down her cheeks, her heart pounded so hard it threatened to jump through her ribcage. His body pressed against her, the slick leather of his jacket, his arms pulling her into him, forcing her into his rigid embrace. With a short click, something cold pressed into her chest, and she could feel the sharp point of a jackknife licking at her breast.
A whimper escaped her lips, and he chuckled lowly in her ear. "Shhh," he purred, his voice so dreadfully sweet and gentle – it made her stomach churn. "How does it feel, darling? Still want to play god, still want to toy with the hopeless maniac, hmm? Is that why you've turned on me? Have my contemporaries convinced you that I'm merely a madman, intent on world domination?" His lips trailed across her neck. She struggled against him, and the knife's tip bit into her skin. She tried to scream, but the hand at her mouth gripped her face tighter, stifling her voice. "Careful, Kleine," he cooed. "We wouldn't want you to impale yourself, would we? That would be a terrible accident."
She cried silently, her entire body shuddering against the tip of his knife.
"Why do you cry, my love?" he purred. "Aren't you happiest when you're in my arms?"
He let his gloved hand fall away from her mouth, letting it rest against her bosom, his fingers lightly grazing the cold metal that bit into her skin. "Don't you love me, Victoria? Don't you want to spend the rest of your days with me, don't you want to be my wife?"
"How can I love you when you treat me this way?" she spat. "How can you expect me to love you when all you show me is hate?"
"You can show me how to love." He kissed her cheek.
"You can start by removing the knife you're holding against my chest." She snapped.
He laughed – it was a harsh, malicious rasp, and it made her blood run cold. "But that would be too easy, my love. You wouldn't learn anything from your mistakes."
"If those mistakes include choosing to reject you, I don't think I'll lose very much sleep."
He laughed again and pressed a kiss into her neck. She shuddered at his touch, and he laughed louder. "I think you will when my knife is embedded in your breast. Of course," he whispered huskily, "You'd also be dead, so I suppose you wouldn't care."
"So you would stoop to murdering me simply because I did not give you what you wanted?"
"Now Victoria, you know practically everything about me. You should have expected this – you know how angry I get when I am denied that which I desire."
"Don't you think murder is a bit extreme?" Her voice cracked with the words.
His heart seemed to skip a beat – she could feel it against her spine, his breath seeming to catch. His voice was icy when he murmured in her ear. "After all I've suffered, my dear, nothing is too extreme to me." The knife tip dug deeper into her skin, drawing blood. Victoria gasped at the pain, and Johann laughed behind her, pulling her tighter against him. "It does not have to end this way, Victoria." He whispered. "Marry me, darling, and this will all be just a bad dream, I promise. You'll always wake up in my arms, and you'll always be safe."
"Why in God's name would I marry anybody who's threatening me at knifepoint?!" She screamed. "Am I safe in your arms now? Am I really safe right now?!"
"Was I holding you at knifepoint last night, then?" He hissed. "Is that why you rejected me? How interesting, that I have no memory of such a weapon. Go on then, Victoria, tell me truly – why did you say no?"
"Because I am an American and you are a Nazi! You are German, and your government is planning to destroy an entire race! And my country is not about to stand for that! For me to marry you would be to commit treason against my country, and I am sorry, I am not about to excommunicate myself from my family, from my friends, from everything I've ever held dear. I love you, Johann, or at the very least I loved you, but that's a pretty extreme sacrifice to make, don't you think?"
"I told you that I would come with you." His voice was earnest.
"And you would sacrifice your loyalty to Germany? You would sacrifice your loyalty to Hitler?"
"Hitler is a means to an end. He's merely been a tool for my acquisition of power."
"Would you give up HYDRA, and everything you plan to 'achieve' through HYDRA? Because that is what coming with me to America would mean, Johann. Would you give that up? Would you give up that control? From what I have seen of you tonight, I highly doubt that you would be at all willing to make that sacrifice."
"You don't think I'd be willing to make a sacrifice for you?" His tone resumed its icy contempt.
"You would never be satisfied with me." She answered, staring out at the dark room before her. His grip seemed to loosen on the knife.
"Whatever is that supposed to mean?" He answered icily.
Victoria closed her eyes. "If you really loved me, Johann, you would not have come here tonight. If you really loved me, you would not have been able to hold a knife to me, to threaten me with my life." His arms seemed to loosen around her, and she turned to face him, forcing his knife away. She stared defiantly into his ice blue eyes.
"You want a woman who is going to give you exactly what you want when you demand it. You are fully expecting me to love you by showing me nothing but hatred and anger and cruelty. You want a woman who is going to love you by letting you dominate her, by letting you make her suffer, and feel the pain that you have felt. I love you, Johann. But I am not that woman, and I will never be that woman. No one deserves to suffer the way that you have, no one deserves to be treated the way that you have. But it is not my fault that you have suffered, and I will not be made to take the blame for your suffering."
His gaze faltered, his mouth quirked as if to speak, but he was silent. But she wouldn't take her eyes off of him. "So if you intend to kill me tonight, Johann, I suggest you go ahead and do it. My answer is final. I will not marry you."
He said absolutely nothing – merely stared at her, his eyes glassy and lifeless, as though her words had knocked the wind out of him.
He dropped the knife, and left in silence.
That night had played over in her dreams like a broken record for well over ten years now. It played out, in some variation, nearly every night. Wrenching her from sleep, her body soaked in cold sweat, her vocal chords wearing themselves out from screaming and sobbing. Forcing her to watch the man she had loved with all her heart turn into an unfeeling, bloodthirsty monster.
One thing only kept her from completely losing her grip on sanity. Or, perhaps it had the opposite effect, but at the very least it fueled her drive to keep toiling away in this world. Phillips thought she was insane, but then again, he knew little of what had happened between her and Johann Schmidt. He did not know that Johann Schmidt had walked into that room that night with every intention of murdering her.
And yet, here she was, alive and still in possession of all of her vital organs. She had not even lost a finger to Johann Schmidt's dagger.
Johann had spared her that night. Perhaps she was overestimating the power of that simple fact, but it was enough to keep her hoping – desperately, maybe vainly – that in that monster, there was humanity. In the creature that Johann had become before her eyes, there was something within him that had made him drop that knife and walk away. It was the profound hope for his redemption that kept her clock ticking, that kept her from drowning herself in the stormy waters of omnipresent depression.
Victoria stared out at the cinderblock walls of her quarters, taking in their silent darkness. She nimbly fingered the ruby and diamond pendant at her throat. She rarely took it off, despite Phillips' persistent balking. She did not frankly care if someone were to accuse her of being a HYDRA informant – the right people knew of her early connection to the organization, and had long ceased to question her refusal to give up the pendant. It had become a talisman of sorts – as much a part of her heart as Johann had once been. And still was, if she was being entirely truthful with herself.
She closed her eyes as she ran her fingers over the finely cut gems that adorned the macabre looking octopus. She remembered falling to her knees in that dark hotel room, shivering uncontrollably, and weeping as she clutched that pendant – the skull face grinning wickedly down at her as she held it up to the moonlight, as if cackling at her fear. And yet, she hadn't torn it off of her neck – she hadn't hurled it over the balcony of that hotel suite, into the rain that had furiously pounded the pavement below.
She had chosen to keep it, and although she often questioned the decision, in the end, she had not regretted it. It was a reminder – painful and poignant, perplexing and distressing, yes… but also, strangely beautiful and even calming in its way.
She wagered that most women would have looked upon the pendant with some measure of disgust – to the uninitiated, it must have appeared truly hideous. A grotesque, grinning skull face covered in tiny rubies, with writhing tentacles punctuated by sharply cut diamonds. The gems sparkled loudly, but of course, such a piece of jewelry was not likely to ever grace the neck of a waiflike model on the cover of Harper's Bazaar.
Yet, Victoria had not been struck dumb by the macabre nature of the necklace – rather, she had almost laughed at it. It was something so – so absolutely typical of Johann, given that nearly everything the man owned was emblazoned with the HYDRA insignia. Even his car – hulking monstrosity that it was – was bedecked with a large silver HYDRA medallion. While seemingly everyone else in Germany paraded around with swastikas on their sleeves, Johann Schmidt's loyalties stood out.
"So, what do you think of it?" he had asked excitedly when he gave it to her, rocking back and forth on his heels like an impatient schoolboy. "Tell me, do you like it?"
"It's um… it's very interesting." She replied tentatively, turning the bedazzled pendant over in her hands.
"You think it's ugly." Johann's tone had fallen flat, and though he stood behind her, she could almost feel his dejected frown.
Victoria glanced over her shoulder to confirm – indeed, his pale features had crumpled into a decidedly depressed frown.
"Now, is that at all what I said?" She turned to face him, holding up the pendant to the evening moonlight that shone brilliantly through the panoramic window. "I did not say that it was ugly. In fact, I think it's absolutely beautiful – just, in a different way. But I like different. I can wear this and feel confident that no other woman in the whole world has anything like it."
Alas, Johann was not convinced. He stared at his jackboots with a petulant scowl, dark hair trembling over his pale forehead, his thin frame close to convulsing with emotion – anger, disappointment, she could not quite tell.
Victoria sighed inwardly. She stepped forward, resting her hands lightly on his chest. "Different doesn't mean ugly, Johann. Would you prefer it if I said "exotic" instead?"
"I should've guessed that you would not like it. It isn't beautiful – it's macabre." He muttered.
Victoria shook her head. "Oh, don't be so melodramatic. Johann, I really do think it's beautiful. And again, different does not mean ugly. This is an absolutely unique necklace – and no one else in the world has it, so I will also be absolutely unique. And it'll be a wonderful conversation piece when my mother drags me to her ladies' club luncheon. Can't you just picture that? A room full of middle aged women choking on their finger sandwiches staring at my –"
Here, she fluttered eyelids and pretended to grow faint – "My utterly macabre, absolutely horrid, cultish, witch-like amulet that was no doubt given to me by some Satan-worshipping foreigner because Lord Almighty knows that no respectable gentleman in Charleston would have ever dared give me something just so wretchedly uncouth." She winked at Johann playfully. "Just think of their ugly hats too. And won't their jaws drop when I tell them that a really quite dignified German scientist – absolutely renowned in his homeland as a brilliant visionary – gave it to me? I'll tell them, 'he designed the insignia himself, you know. He does that in his free time – designs all manner of things, not limited to really very frightening automobiles, aeroplanes, highly destructive rifles that can incinerate Mrs. Johnston's hideous Sunday bonnet from 100 yards away without setting a hair on her head aflame… you know, things like that. And then I'll calmly continue sipping my tea and holding my majestic pendant up in the sunlight so that all of the pretty gems sparkle a thousand times brighter than Florence Mayweather's gaudy engagement ring. It was an ugly engagement ring anyway – although, she wasn't much to look at herself."
Victoria glanced at her wristwatch absently. "See, now you've got me rambling about Florence Mayweather and I haven't spoken to her in a coon's age."
"I was exhausted just by envisioning the ugly Sunday hats." Johann answered drily. "Anyhow, I had hoped that you might debut your finery in perhaps a more dignified setting than a luncheon for the infirmed females of your neighborhood."
"Now I suppose that could mean one of two things: dinner and an evening at the opera or several miserable hours spent watching the high command of the Gestapo grow increasingly incapacitated by drink. I'm really hoping you're suggesting the former."
Johann's ice blue eyes gazed out at the swirls of glittering snowflakes, thrown up by gusts of Alpine wind, and in the shadows, his lips quirked into an amused smile.
"You are so very demanding, my dear, esteemed lady." He cast a sidelong glance at her, smirking now. "Although I must admit that an evening spent with you as company is decidedly more attractive than a political outing."
Languidly, he crossed the laboratory, taking Victoria in his arms. A slender, pale hand rested against the small of her back, the other splayed possessively across her hip. He smiled down at her, blue eyes glittering. But his smile was not entirely innocent, no – there was something within those piercing blue irises, something dangerous, something altogether frightening, something unknown. He pressed a kiss onto her forehead, chuckling quietly.
"Of course," he purred, "My intentions for you and your new jewels extend far beyond merely displaying them before the general public."
He took her chin in his thumb and forefinger and kissed her deeply. When he spoke, his lips brushed against hers, the slender hand pressing gently against the small of her back, drawing her ever closer.
"I want to change this world, Victoria." He whispered softly.
Her eyes fluttered closed as his lips gently caressed her face. She smiled bashfully and lowered her face, staring at her shoes. "I know that you will," she answered. "I would expect nothing less of you."
"But I want you to change this world with me, darling." His cool fingers grasped her chin again, tilting her face so that his piercing irises stared into hers with a deep passion. "You have shown me something that I had long believed would never be granted to me, Victoria. You have given me such devotion, such love and tenderness. You have changed me, so profoundly that it still bewilders me." Here, he chuckled softly. "I was once a bitter man, my love. But you have given me happiness. Happiness that I will never let go of – I would go to the ends of the earth, I would throw everything away, if it meant holding you in my arms for all eternity."
Tears pricked Victoria's eyes and her heart seemed to clench within her. She blinked them away feverishly, but Johann had already taken notice.
"Hush darling, why do you cry?" He soothed, peppering her face with kisses so light – his lips barely ghosting over her skin. "Victoria, I want you to be my queen. We will change this world together, we will revolutionize, we will revitalize this crumbling order – darling, the wonders of the world will be at our fingertips. Victoria, my dearest, there will be no insolent little men to tell you what to do, you will not be consigned to a life of domesticity, I can promise you that. Now, won't you turn around so that we might put your new finery on?"
Silently, Victoria turned around, feeling hot, salty tears stream down her cheeks. Her heart thumped solidly in her chest, as though it were pounding against her ribs, threatening to bust out of them. She felt Johann's slender fingers against her throat, their touch cool against her burning skin. She felt the cold silver of the necklace's chain, and heard the soft click of the clasp fastening at the nape of her neck. Next, Johann's arms had snaked around her waist, pulling her tiny frame against him. His lips mouthed at her neck hungrily, and his arms tightened around her. And the tears continued to stream down her cheeks, her body trembling ever so slightly beneath his strong, protective grip.
Not from fear, no – she did not fear being in his arms, feeling his touch, his warmth. She did not fear the almost frenzied mania of his words, his impassioned, perhaps far-fetched desire for her to be his queen. She did not fear this man in any way, and she absolutely refused to give in to the fear that he might have wanted to inspire in others. She refused to give in to the fear that her contemporaries – and even his, Johann's, contemporaries – cultivated around this man, that he was some mad visionary beyond the point of redemption.
No, she did not weep because of fear.
Johann had abandoned his impassioned fervor – his lips did not mouth at her desperately, ruthlessly, consumed by desire. His arms loosened around her waist, and she felt his eyelashes tickle her skin, felt him nuzzle into the crook of her neck, pressing soft, tender kisses against her.
"You are still crying, my love." He said softly. "Why is that?"
Victoria smiled sadly through her tears. "You said that you would go to the ends of the earth for me. Do you mean that?" She asked quietly, shifting in his arms to look up into his bright eyes.
"Darling," Johann said softly, "I cannot image a world in which you are not at my side."
"But we are star-crossed, Johann." She whispered, feeling the tears well up with renewed vigor, salty and bitter. "You are considered by all accounts my enemy, and I am considered yours. For you to love me, you would be forced to give up your loyalty – not simply to Hitler; I know that you hold no affection for him. But, you would be forced to give up everything, Johann. Everything you've struggled for – HYDRA. Would you be willing to give that up for me? You would be giving up far too much for my sake, and… I can't have you do that."
But Johann merely smiled at her, and bent down to kiss her cheek. "My love, whatever are you talking about? We won't have to give up anything, loyalties will not divide us – we will be loyal to no one, no petty men will stand in the way of our success! Darling, when HYDRA takes on this world, we will change it for the better. We will never have to be apart, darling. There is greatness out there for us. Politics will not force us to abandon our love, Victoria. Don't be foolish, don't be afraid of such things."
Victoria shook her head. "But Johann, what if it doesn't work? Have you ever thought of that? Have you even considered the possibility? Johann, I choose to see the good in your dreams, but there are far more people out there that see only hatred and violence. The world is a far bigger place and HYDRA is but a finite body within it. What if you fail? What happens then? What happens if your plans fall down around you, what then? Johann, you can't live in a dream world. And all of this, everything around us, all of this is a dream right now, right here, right in this moment. Johann, I love you more than anything else in the world, but I can't live the way that you do. I can't live in a world that hinges everything on the finite chance of something so radically different being one hundred percent successful. And if it doesn't work, God only knows what will happen to you. They'll come at you from all sides of the world – America, Germany, England – axis or allied, they all see in you the same exact thing: an enemy. They'll destroy you."
Victoria was trembling convulsively now, choking on her tears, choking on the reality that was all too real for her, while watching the man she loved willingly freeze himself in a fantasy world. And it was killing her – to know that this man would go to the ends of the earth for her, throw away everything for her, give up everything for her – a spy. But even then, the question ate away at her heart – would he really do it? Would he really throw HYDRA away, and everything that he believed in with it? And all for her, a woman he had known for such a finite period of time? Perhaps it was a selfish question, but she had to ask – would he truly?
She felt Johann's slender hands grip her shoulders – gently, but firmly – and he looked into her eyes with such sincerity that her tears seemed to ebb, just slightly.
"Victoria, I might be a dreamer, but I am no fool." His tone was sobered now, as though purged of its earlier excitement. Now, he spoke quietly, measuredly. But not angrily or bitterly, as she had thought he would respond – there was no onslaught of rage or hatred. There was comfort in his words, spoken so softly.
"You have spoken so passionately about what I would be forced to sacrifice," He said softly, "But you know, I have thought more about what you would be forced to sacrifice in these past weeks than I would myself. Darling, I know that I ask for a great deal of you. I know that I am selfish, Victoria, I know that weakness well. I realize that what I ask for, to most people, would appear to be too much. I don't want you to feel pressured, Victoria, I don't want you to feel afraid or apprehensive. And Darling," He touched the ruby and diamond pendant at her throat lightly, "Darling, whatever might happen to us – pleasant or otherwise – I would ask you to wear this, for as long as you can. Whatever forces might conspire against us, Victoria, I will always love you. Even if you are torn from my arms, you will always be in my heart."
He kissed her, his hands still resting firmly on her shoulders, as though anchoring her, holding the fear, the grief – holding it all at bay. He lingered at her lips, and when he spoke his mouth brushed against hers.
"Will you promise me that much, Victoria? Will you wear it always? Even if it does make you look like a traitor before your peers?" His lips quirked into a sad smile.
Victoria looked deep into his ice blue eyes, feeling the warmth of his hands against her skin.
"I promise." She whispered. "I will wear it for as long as I live. Johann, I will never stop loving you."
Victoria had kept that promise. She had worn that necklace every day – even if it had made her look like a HYDRA sympathizer. The irony of his words often tormented her – she was indeed a traitor, but not to her country. To him. She often tormented herself with the constant question – would he have come with her, to America? Would he truly have given it all up? And had he, would everything have worked out? Would they have lived happily ever after? What if, what if, what if? – it was a constant voice in the back of her mind.
And then, the biggest elephant in the room – that stormy night in her hotel suite, with Johann holding a dagger to her chest.
But, his words to her resounded in her mind whenever she held that pendant up to the light, whenever she felt its familiar surface beneath her fingertips.
"Whatever forces might conspire against us, Victoria, I will always love you."
Johann had walked away that night in the hotel suite. He had dropped the dagger, he had spared her life. Perhaps it was a foolish hope. But Victoria refused to let it go. Even after all these years, even when all evidence suggested otherwise, she refused to believe that Johann Schmidt was beyond redemption. A truly evil man could not have said those words, words charged with such beautiful, heart-wrenching, raw emotion.
Perhaps it was a foolish hope.
But Victoria had kept her promise. She had never stopped loving Johann Schmidt. And somewhere, deep within her heart, she felt a strange sort of certainty – that Johann Schmidt had not stopped loving her.
A sudden rap against the door jarred her from her daze. She grabbed her wristwatch, tossed aside on her bed – over an hour had passed, while she'd been lost in her reverie.
"Yes, what is it?"
A very young looking soldier popped his head in the doorframe tentatively.
"Uh, sorry to bother you, Dr. Bradleigh. Subject Athena would like to talk to you, if you don't have any engagements this morning. The request has already been cleared by Colonel Phillips."
Victoria squinted at him. "Subject who?"
The soldier looked at her blankly for a moment, but his eyes lit up suddenly with realization. "Ah, Ms. Hofstadter, that is – 'Athena' is the codename that the Colonel has registered her as in the archives."
"Oh, I see. She – she asked for me? When did she wake up – Phillips said they had to tranquilize her last night – has she recovered, are you sure she's up to talking? I don't want to disturb her if…."
"She woke up about a half hour ago, ma'am. And she was very insistent about seeing you."
Victoria exhaled deeply, clearing her head. "Is there any way you can bring her here, to my quarters? The room Phillips has her in isn't very comfortable – I want her to be as relaxed as possible, I don't want her to be uncomfortable."
The soldier shifted uneasily. "I would have to clear it with Colonel Phillips, ma'am."
Victoria shook her head. "Never mind that, never mind – I'll clear it with him, I'll take care of it. If she's up to it, bring her here – if she's very tired, I'll come to her."
"Right ma'am, I'll see if she's up to it straight away."
"Thank you, Corporal."
XXX
A kettle whistled furiously on an electric hotplate set in the corner of the room on the poured concrete floor. The room was a great deal warmer than her cinderblock cell, and more spacious too – although just as dim and dusty. Still, Mina shivered, sitting tentatively on the edge of Victoria Bradleigh's cot. Every inch of her was numb – not with cold, but… something that she could not discern and did not want to discern. It was as though she was incapable of feeling. She barely registered the woolen blanket that Dr. Bradleigh had gently draped around her trembling shoulders, or the steaming cup of tea that she placed in her hands, which Mina had apparently outstretched at some point in time, but could not even recall the movement. Everything seemed mechanical and sluggish.
"Do you take milk or sugar with your tea?" Dr. Bradleigh's voice rang warmly and gently in her ears. She noted absently that it held the same peculiar accent as Robert Leigh's voice, although it was much softer and more restrained. Cultured, even – as though she had been trained to speak in such measured tones.
Mina nodded numbly. "Milch und zucker." She answered, but quickly shook her head, registering her words. "I mean uh – milk and sug…" but Dr. Bradleigh merely raised a pale and slender hand to halt her, smiling softly.
"Ich verstehe dich." She answered simply, and then continued on in German, "Would you prefer to speak in German? That is, if you want to talk – you don't have to, if you don't want to. I have no obligations this morning. My grammar might be a little rusty, so forgive me that."
"Oh, I've gotten so used to speaking English. German is… almost a little painful at this point." Mina answered quietly, staring into the deep rich red of the tea in her cup.
Dr. Bradleigh nodded. "As you wish. If it is easier to… articulate your thoughts in German, please feel free."
"Thank you." She whispered, watching silently as the titian-haired woman dropped first a spoonful of powdered milk into her cup, along with a teaspoon of sugar.
"My apologies for the quality," She said, gesturing to the tin of powdered milk that sat on her dresser. "Milk is scarce here. Do you care for more sugar? If I recall correctly, your uncle had a wicked sweet tooth." She smiled slightly – as if reminiscing.
Mina felt her heart clench within her chest – the blood seemed to harden to a thick sludge in her veins, and every inch of her ached. "Yes," she rasped, her voice harsh from disuse. She coughed and cleared her throat. "He was always fond of sweets. Though, he never cared for tea."
"Black coffee." Dr. Bradleigh said softly. "With an ungodly amount of sugar. Sometimes a shot of schnapps or brandy, if he hadn't slept in some days. He rarely slept – he was always working." She stirred another spoonful of sugar into Mina's tea, before sitting down on the stool before her dresser. As she poured hot water into her own mug, she continued on. "I – I don't want you think that I'm being insensitive. But, I find that sometimes a little small talk helps to ease into… harder conversations. I want you to feel comfortable here. No one's listening, you aren't being put on record. You can tell me whatever is on your mind, if you wish to. And, if you just want to… to embrace the silence, if you just want to think, if you want to cry, if you want to scream, to let it all out – please, do whatever makes you comfortable, do whatever you want – whatever you think will be most helpful."
Mina nodded gratefully, but she was silent for several long minutes – staring into the swirling red liquid, feeling its heat against her cold skin. Words – words could not describe the pain she felt, the anguish, the grief, the anger. Anger at him, anger at herself.
"I should have known." She whispered, staring down into her cup. "I was such a fool – to keep hoping all this time that… that he was different."
"You were not a fool, Mina. You love your uncle. And it is evident that he loves you, deeply – or else, you would not have those happy memories that you do. We go long stretches for the ones we love – we're willing to believe in almost anything that will redeem them. That isn't a bad thing. We believe in them because we love them, and because we see the goodness in them, even when no one else can. Sometimes, they themselves can't even see the goodness in them, or do not want to. I think that, in your uncle's case, he sees goodness as a weakness. So he denies that goodness, and refuses to believe in that goodness. And that is what hurts us the most – to see our loved ones reject our belief in them. But, Mina, you mustn't forget that your uncle loves you. You mustn't abandon that love."
"My uncle nearly killed me." Mina whispered bitterly, tears welling in her eyes. "He lied to me, he deceived me all these years, knowing that I would blindly believe everything he said. Because he was all that I had left. And now I don't have anyone. How can you love someone and yet, hurt them so deeply? Betray their trust without any remorse? How can you love someone and yet treat them so unfeelingly?"
Dr. Bradleigh was silent – pensive, almost, and her bright green eyes seemed to gleam strangely in the dim light, as though even they were filled with tears.
"And he revealed himself to me by sending me a corpse, dressed in his clothing, wearing the face of the man that I have known all my life, that kissed me and wiped away my tears and told me that everything would be wonderful when he changed the world, when I was his princess, when the world was ours. Lies – every single word he told me, a lie. And I knew it. I knew that he lied to me about so many things and yet I sucked in every word, I lived it and breathed it and believed that everything he did was for me. Now, I see that everything he did was for him. I was just a convenience – perhaps his desires seemed less selfish if he convinced himself that I was the object that motivated them." Mina spat, hot and salty tears streaming down her face, choking her words.
"And was this his farewell? To make a mockery of my love for him, my devotion to him? To pretend as though I had driven Johann Schmidt to suicide, that everything was my fault because I was not willing to be his pawn? It's so pathetic – to think that he really believed that my emotions were like his puppet strings, to continue playing the part of the lowly scientist. God knows, he knows that I've discovered who he really is, I've seen the monster he's become – and yet, he still thinks that because I'm his dear, dear niece that I'll fold, that I'll melt into his hands, that I'll ignore the reality that I've seen. That I'll keep on naïvely believing that everything he says is true, that he is my only benefactor left in this world, that he is the only ally, the only friend I have left. Even now, when we're thousands of miles apart, he thinks that he can control me. What kind of love is that? I ask you, what kind of love is that?"
Dr. Bradleigh sighed deeply. Her eyes gleamed brighter now, and Mina felt certain that the woman's eyes were indeed filled with tears. She opened her mouth, as if to speak, but she shook her head.
"As… as sad or as cruel as it might seem, it's Johann's kind of love. It's a very heady cocktail of emotions and… most of the time I didn't know what those emotions were, myself." She said quietly. "For as long as I knew him – and although it was brief, it felt like I'd known him for ages – Johann was the most passionate individual I had ever met. Passionate in a good sense and a bad sense. He was either your best friend, your closest ally or – your worst enemy. It all depended on what mood he was in. He wanted – he wanted too much. Good was never good enough. There was always something better. He was always striving for something, he was never satisfied with what he had – and other men would have killed for what he had. He had everything at his fingertips – every luxury. But you know, I think it was a consequence of his childhood. He… he had suffered through so much, when I met him. He had suffered so much, he had been denied so much – that he didn't want anything anymore, nothing could possibly make his life better. That was what he believed. He had resigned himself to misery, he wanted to be bitter. He convinced himself that he didn't want anything when, in reality, I really think that he did want love – he did want human contact, he did want affection."
Dr. Bradleigh shook her head. "But that was exactly the problem – he wanted all of the things that he swore he didn't need. The man that he wanted to make himself out to be was not the man that he was. But he would never admit that. I think that he wants very desperately to love you, Mina, he wants very desperately to have you in his life – but, unfortunately, you are one desire. And you conflict strongly with his other desire – HYDRA. And so he – he doesn't know what to do. Because… when I knew him, he didn't know what to do. The conflict within him, it was so – so clearly written across his features. And it was killing him, it was plain to see. Mina, I realize that everything I've just told you probably doesn't sound very sympathetic or helpful but…."
She closed her eyes, and inhaled deeply. "Mina, Johann was the most empathetic person I have ever met in my life. He – he had this otherworldly knack for understanding emotions, he could read people like open books, he knew suffering when he saw it, and – he was so kind, so compassionate. There was so much humanity in him and – and everyone here thinks that I'm insane but I still very strongly believe that he can be redeemed. No matter how low he stoops, no matter how far he goes, no matter how much I want to tear my hair out because of him, I know that there is goodness in him. And if anyone can inspire that goodness in him, Mina, it is you. Please, do not give up your hope yet."
"But how do I do that, Dr. Bradleigh?" Mina's voice echoed hollowly. "How do I reconcile the evil in him with the good? You, yourself, told me that he has made his choice, that there is nothing I can do now, other than hope to God that he somehow has a change of heart. Do I just forget all the pain that he has caused me? That is what I have always done – convinced myself that his lies are laced with good intentions, when clearly they are not. How am I to discern the truth of his words from the falsities? It's impossible."
Mina was silent for a moment. Her body was far too tired to dissolve into the hysteria that her mind begged for. Weeping would do little to console her. It would only perpetuate the agony.
"Surely my uncle has not hurt you in the way that he has hurt me." She whispered, shaking her head.
"That is not entirely true." Dr. Bradleigh answered pensively. "However, my situation was quite a bit different from yours."
"He had a photograph of you." Mina said quietly. "I found it at the base."
Dr. Bradleigh immediately sat up straighter, green eyes bright and wide. "Did he?" she asked, simply but rigidly.
Mina retrieved the crumbled, badly damage photograph from the pocket of her uniform - miraculously salvaged from the carnage of the day before. She unfolded it gingerly and placed it in the outstretched hand of the titian-haired woman.
She watched as the woman turned the photograph over and over in her hands, analyzing it as though it were a specimen in a petri dish. Her green eyes flashed from curious to pensive to filled with grieving tears, although no tears spilled. That was an outstanding feature of the small, redheaded woman – her eyes had seemed to gleam with tears this entire time, and yet, as if stubbornly, she refused to let her tears spill.
Dr. Bradleigh ran her slender, porcelain-white fingers over the back of the photograph, squinting at the blurred and stained inscription, perhaps long ago written by Johann's hand.
"He called you Charlotte." Mina noted quietly. "Why?"
The woman smiled sadly. "Goethe. The Sorrows of Young Werther." Her green eyes flashed brightly. "I was stationed in Germany for three years, as a more or less clandestine agent of the United States. I was to play the part of a scientist – well, not a part, really. I am a scientist, after all. I was posing as a scientist employed by an American arms contractor interested in the designs that Johann had published, primarily via his organization HYDRA – finite, then, but with the sort of potential that made the military uneasy. In reality, I was intended to dig up as much information as I possibly could about the Nazi Party – what they were doing, what they were planning, what they were intending to do. Hitler was gaining power by the day, and while America was not, at least at the time, interested in initiating a global conflict, they wanted to keep an eye on his activities."
"But why my uncle?" Mina asked, puzzled. "Why not Himmler or Rommel or...?"
"Too high-profile. Johann, at the time, was relatively unknown. But, he was exceedingly powerful – and he harbored a personal vendetta against the party. HYDRA was nowhere near the force that it is now – but that was exactly what made it so 'attractive' to us. HYDRA was growing rapidly and it was becoming increasingly estranged from Hitler. We saw it – and moreover, Johann – as an ideal target. If someone could penetrate the organization, and develop a personal relationship with Johann, it was the hope that we could successfully sway him to break off from the Nazis entirely – and, hopefully, join forces with us to ensure that Hitler's power was contained, and neutralize it if necessary. What we were weary of, however, was that HYDRA would grow so rapidly that it would not need anyone else's help – Hitler's or otherwise. I was intended in that mission to act as the catalyst – I was tasked with not only persuading Johann to give up vital information about the Nazis' progress, but also to unearth vital information about HYDRA's progress in the process. And if I deemed that HYDRA was an organization of uncomfortably formidable power, it was my task to either persuade Johann to join forces with the United States, in order to neutralize the threat that he posed – or, if that failed, to indeed prove that HYDRA was more of a foe to us than Hitler was."
Dr. Bradleigh looked down at the photograph that she held in her hands. "As you can see," she lamented quietly, "I failed in that mission. I did not neutralize HYDRA; I did not convince Johann to abandon his plans with HYDRA. If nothing else, I provoked him to destroy. I did the one thing that a 'spy' is not supposed to do – the singular textbook error. I became emotionally involved in the 'part' that I was playing. I fell in love with Johann. And he confided in me, oh yes – he told me everything I was looking for and then some. I discovered that Johann Schmidt was no friend of the Nazis. He was something much worse. He nursed a grudge against all of society – he could name every man that had ever wronged him, and he wanted to destroy them all. He truly believed that the world was so corrupt that the only way it could be saved was by completely razing it to the ground, and rebuilding on top of the ashes. A new world order of superior men. And when every rational voice in me was screaming at me to back out of that operation, I didn't. Because I was so hopelessly, tragically – every adjective – I was so in love with Johann, that I could not accept the fact that I couldn't redeem him, that I couldn't make him see the reality of what he was doing."
The tears streamed, now. Victoria Bradleigh wept silently, expressionlessly, her bright green eyes having dulled and dimmed. Mina sat before her, unable to look into the titian-haired woman's eyes for too long, for they held such a profound sadness within them.
"And, when it became apparent that I was unable to achieve anything in that mission, other than collecting information, I was pulled out. And that was when I had to make a decision: betray my country, walk away from everything of value to me – my family, friends – and stay with Johann. Or, betray Johann, walk away from the love that he had given me, and the love that I had given him, and put him out of my life forever. I tormented myself for days on end, wondering if there was another way, if there was a way that I could salvage what we had. What if he came to America with me? Would he be arrested as a terrorist? All of the evidence that I had fed to my superiors painted Johann as a homicidal megalomaniac. Well, what if he gave up HYDRA, what if he cut off his ties completely to everything he had in Germany? But would he do that? He had scraped and scraped for HYDRA, he had thrown everything he had into HYDRA, he had completely alienated himself from all of society for HYDRA – would he really throw it all away for me? A woman that had lied to him and betrayed his trust entirely?"
Here, Dr. Bradleigh paused, reaching her slender hands behind her neck, unclasping a delicate silver chain that hung around her throat. A glimpse of sparkling rubies glinted in the dim light of the room. In her outstretched palm rested a grotesque and glittering octopus, a clash of blood-red rubies and pure white diamonds, set in sterling.
"So, I made my choice." Victoria Bradleigh said quietly, looking down at the pendant in her palm somberly. "I knew that whatever choice I made, it was going to torture me for the rest of my life. That was the price I was going to pay for my mistake. But I couldn't, in good conscience, expect Johann to sacrifice everything that he had labored over for me. I knew that my leaving so abruptly would devastate him but – " She closed her eyes, sighing deeply. "I had seen all of the good sides of Johann. I hadn't seen the bad – the one that everyone talked about. When he proposed to me, on my second to last night in Berlin, I had no choice but to reject him. And – "
Here, her voice faltered markedly. "He hit me. Over and over and over until I bled. And he stormed out. And, I thought, 'well, it's over now. It's done. The worst is over.' God, was I wrong. No, no it was most decidedly not over. He returned the next night – my last night."
The titian-haired woman looked up at Mina, her green eyes shining, her pale hands trembling, the glittering pendant casting queer prisms of light along the concrete ceiling. "He – he held me at knifepoint and demanded that I marry him. And, though he did not say it explicitly, it was very heavily implied that if I did not, he was going to plunge that dagger into my chest."
"Dr. Bradleigh, I…" Mina started, but her voice faltered and trailed off.
"No, wait – there's a moral to this, I promise. There's a light at the end of the tunnel. I swear to you. Please. Stay with me, please." The woman's voice held firm now, she sat up straighter, the pendant gleaming ever brighter in her hand. "He spared me, that night, Mina. I'm still here, I'm all in one piece. And you know something, everyone in the whole civilized world probably thinks that I'm some raving lunatic, but that – that – that singular fact, that is what has kept me from losing my mind. He spared me, he dropped the knife and he walked away. And I have worn this necklace every day, and I have remembered the words that he said to me once, the words that I want you to hear, because I know what you have been through, I know the pain that you have suffered."
She breathed in deeply. "When he gave me this necklace, he told me that whatever forces conspired against us, he would always love me. That even if I was torn from his arms forever, I would always be in his heart. And I have remembered those words and I have kept them in my heart, and they are what keeps me going – even if the force that conspired against us was the conflict in his heart or the conflict in mine, he promised me that I would always be in his heart. And he has always been in mine. Mina,"
She reached out to Mina, her porcelain-white hands outstretched towards her. Trembling, grief-ridden, Mina took the woman's hands.
"Mina," Victoria's bright green eyes gazed into hers firmly, strongly. "Those words were meant for you every bit as much as they were for me. Be strong, Mina. Show him how strong you are, keep fighting it, do not give up. On him, and most especially, on yourself. Don't be the coward that I was – don't run away from him, don't stoop to his level no matter how low he might go, don't nurse a grudge against him. Show him how strong you are, show him how much you care, how much you are willing to fight to show him that what he is doing is wrong. Don't give up, Mina. I told you that he had made his choice – you have made yours. Stand your ground. The ones we love are often the ones that cause us the most pain. You will overcome this. I know I sound like a broken record. But I believe in this, I believe in you."
Tears streamed down both of their faces, the redheaded woman holding Mina's hands tightly, like a mother comforting a grieving daughter.
Mina nodded almost feverishly. "Okay." She whispered. "Okay, okay I will do it. I will do it. I will show him. I will show – myself."
A hollow rap at the door echoed loudly in the small, concrete room – jarring both of them. A tawny-haired noncom poked his head into the room, his eyes darting about nervously.
"Dr. Bradleigh, Ms. Hofstadter – Colonel Phillips wants both of you to report to the war-room immediately. A conference is being held to discuss how to proceed in light of the events at the HYDRA main-base."
The redheaded woman sighed and mumbled, "Leave it to Phillips to interrupt everything."
Mina shut her eyes wearily. She was so tired – and this was a nightmare that she desperately wanted to wake up from. But she was far past that point, now.
"I am ready." She answered quietly, but firmly.
XXX
HYDRA Base
The Alps – 1943
Approximately 2400 Hours, The Night Before
The biting Alpine wind howled bitterly and remorsefully – as if in mourning. He raised his outstretched arms to it, letting it wash over his crimson flesh and caress his gnarled, disfigured face. The moon bled through the shattered panoramic window, bathing him in its otherworldly light. He closed his hooded eyes, letting the bracing chill of these majestic mountains that he had come to know so intimately whisper upon his skin – like a lover's poisoned kiss. Shrouded in heavy black leather, he turned from the shattered window, shards of broken glass crunching beneath his jackboots as he walked.
A faint, ethereal blue glow pulsated rhythmically from the tesseract's steel and chrome holding device – carefully transported from Alsace. He removed a black leather glove with his teeth, allowing slender, scarlet fingers to firmly grip the handle of the holding device. He pulled up on the latch and twisted it deftly, allowing the blinding turquoise light of the tesseract to flood into the barren laboratory. It hummed and trembled and pulsated like a rabid creature, longing desperately to be unleashed on the world, to wreak utter havoc on this civilization that had so cruelly imprisoned it.
But Johann held only savage contempt for this awesome jewel – his jewel, the jewel of Odin's treasure room, left carelessly in a Norwegian church by its ungrateful, unworthy human guardians, left to collect dust in a rotting wooden box, as though it were merely a common artifact. The jewel that it had taken him so long to find, the jewel that he had massacred so many stupid, insolent men – no better than swine – just to simply get his hands on it.
And this was how it had repaid him – suffusing its fantastic, glorious, splendor into a weak-minded, delusional little girl with fleeting, wayward passions. A stupid little child that had no desire, no respect for the power that she had been given. Power beyond all comprehension was at her fingertips and yet she gaped at it in horror rather than lust.
That power belonged to him and only him. The world would have laid in decimated ashes at this moment if that power had ever graced his fingertips – and yet, here he stood, gazing into that ethereal turquoise glow, surrounded by rubble and debris.
So this was how the gods treated their children.
Long, crimson fingers hovered over the blinding turquoise cube, trembling as the pulsating hum rang ever louder in his ears, rhythmic and entrancing.
"No longer will I fear your touch," His voice was soft and measured – almost reverent. But there was only deep and writhing wanting within his heart.
A slender, agile hand reached out swiftly towards that awesome jewel, grasping it firmly, strongly. He held it above his head, his long blood-red fingers cradling the tesseract – its brilliant light washing over his horrific, twisted features.
He closed his eyes, trembling uncontrollably beneath its magnificent power, bathing himself in that ethereal glow, feeling its strength lick at his fingertips, bracing against him, wanting to flood into his veins, to release its vicious might within him, wanting him to be its willing receptacle.
He threw back his head, arms outstretched, waiting lustily, desirously – waiting for the power to fill his entire being with might.
A singular moment of silence – the pulsating, rhythmic, deafening hum cut off raggedly, as though it was voice had been extinguished.
Silence.
Then, chaos.
A thousand writhing, agonized screams exploded in his head, his eyes gripped by a pain so raw and razor-sharp – it spread rapidly, gripping every inch of his frame with crippling agony. His ice-blue irises rolled back into their sockets, ethereal blue light flooding like hellish cascades – blinding, blinding, blinding.
He crumbled to his knees like a shattered china doll, the impact as he collapsed onto the steel and chrome floor sending such sharp, unbearable pain pulsating through his limbs, twisting them, straining them, strangling them – endless writhing agony.
Voices – screaming, singing, howling, crying, hissing, snapping – rich tenors, deepest baritones, screeching sopranos – a choir of chaotic hell screaming in his skull, writhing and slamming against his braincase, shattering bone-marrow with splintering, fracturing pain.
A cacophonous symphony of siren song – bleating like thousands of dying souls, crossing the river to Charon, weeping, screaming, moaning, howling –
A singular voice – clear and rich and melodious – cut through the maddening din. His skull lolled from side to side, his frame trembling convulsively, suddenly gripped by thick, heavy fatigue.
"Johann Hermann Schmidt. Son of Hermann and Martha. Son of the perished life-giver. Son of the Drunk and the Repugnant. That is your name, is it not?"
Johann's head snapped back, blinding, agonizing light flooding his eyes, pried open wide, as though the gods' fingers held them taut against the light that poured forth.
The melodious voice dissolved into a terrible cackle – hoarse, vile, and wretched. The voice that spoke boomed deafeningly in his ears, pain shooting through his skull with syllable, thunderous and mighty.
"But no – you are not a man, you are not a son – there is no woman on this earth 'superior' enough to be your mother, for so holy and flawless do you see yourself. No, you have shed your inferior, mortal name – you are not a man, you are a monster of disgusting proportions. Johann Schmidt died years ago in the fires of selfish lust – you wanted perfection so dearly that you were willing to destroy yourself. And look at what you have created! A hideous, demonic creature wrought with flaws and lust and desire and an insatiable hunger for blood and for destruction. Your desires rule you, not your intelligence. Your selfish wants dictate your actions – you are not a man governed by logic or science, you are a man governed by disgusting, gluttonous greed. You are the Red Skull – you are not a man. You are not superior. You are a creature of your own lust. You are lower than the lowliest of beasts that skulk this earth, and yet you stand here demanding that I give you my power, that somehow you are deserving of it."
Thousands and thousands of screeching, wretched voices – so many, clashing together – hideous, cacophonous music within his tormented psyche – the pain –
"We do not grant our power to selfish, mortal men that parade about pretending that they are gods."
Thunder cracked deafeningly – splitting the sky, veining it with brilliant white lightning – the wind howled, rain and sleet pounded in a gusting deluge, flooding the laboratory –
"Johann Schmidt, you are truly a man deserving of death – so egregious and numerous are your sins. How strange it is, that you speak so acrimoniously of the little girl that we bestowed our power upon – she did not seize our power, you fool – it was given to her because she was righteous and you were power-hungry and deluded. You call yourself a visionary, a leader of superior men, a savior of the modern world – let us show you how wrong you are."
A brilliant flash of white light seared his retinas –
Thunder, cracking loud – rain pounding the pavement with rigid fury. A darkened room – a tall, lanky figure bedecked in black leather – the silvery gleam of dagger – a woman in a royal blue, satin bathrobe, her porcelain skin deathly pale in the haunting light of the moon – black, gloved hands clawing at her waist, at her breast – the gleaming tip of the knife biting into her flesh hungrily – her fearful cries piercing the silent night – words – "How does it feel, darling? Still want to play god?" – "My answer is final! I will not marry you!" – the silver knife spiraling through the air – striking the floor with a deafening clanging – Victoria – beautiful as she was – weeping on her knees, clutching a ruby and diamond pendant – holding it up to the moon – screaming, screaming, screaming –
A hideous crimson creature – black leather – gloved hands holding a trembling, tawny-haired girl by the throat – "Do you feel powerful, girl?" – her glassy, grey eyes – so beautiful and innocent – blood streaming from her face, her arms, her legs – "Fight me! Make me feel alive!" – The crimson creature hurled her across the battlefield, her body slamming against the steel and chrome floor – the sickening crack of bones – tears staining her ashen, dying face –
A coffin – a blond-haired corpse – a silicon mask being expertly pasted to his dead flesh – "Until we meet again, my little goddess," – a deathly pale, thin young woman, on her knees, holding a fake face in her outstretched palms – screaming, screaming, screaming, screaming – crying out in agony – "Uncle, Uncle, no! No! No! No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!" – weeping, screaming, writhing about – soldiers surrounding her – sinking a needle deep into her porcelain flesh – she crumpled into their arms – blackness – again, the gnarled crimson creature – cackling, cackling, grinning with wicked delight –
Tears streaming down that ashen, porcelain face – "To make a mockery of my love? Sending me a corpse wearing the face of the man – the man that kissed me and wiped away my tears – I believed him! I believed everything he told me – lies, all of it, every word! – I sucked in every word – everything that he did was for him – his desires seemed less selfish if he convinced himself that I was the object that motivated them!"
The beautiful, titian-haired woman – "Whatever forces conspire against us" – "I will always love you" – "You will always be in my heart" –
Again, the crimson creature – languidly stretched across a chaise longue – grinning with wicked delight – "I am the only thing she has left, Zola" – "She will comply" –
Slender crimson fingers ghosting across her porcelain cheek – "In the end, Wilhelmina, I want you to know. I will not stop carrying out my mission – and we will fight you" –
Shades – shades of horrible, terrifying, gripping images flashed across his mind's eye like an endless film reel – first a crimson creature – then a masked man – beating her – beating her senseless – hurling her across a room, punching her, hitting her, choking her – a cocky young man bedecked in black leather – holding a knife to his lover's chest –
"Think carefully of the ones you love, Johann Schmidt, for they still walk the surfaces of this world – the world that you want so desperately to destroy. Beware, Johann Schmidt – for the only world that you will destroy – will be your own."
"Lies!" Johann's voice cut through the din raggedly – screaming, screaming, screaming – the word was bitter and acrid on his tongue – "Lies, you tell me! Lies! All of it lies! I will save this world! I will revitalize this world, I am the visionary, I am the god of all! You have cheated me! You have betrayed me! Lord Odin, I am your only disciple, how dare you lie to me!"
He fell to his knees – the light, the voices, the pain – all of it – gone.
Like a whisper, carried off by the howling Alpine wind, and the icy sleet and snow that pounded the steel floor relentlessly, unfeelingly.
Tears streamed down the rigid contours of his blood-red flesh – his breaths were ragged and short, they convulsed through his trembling frame in spasms. He held his head in his hands, weeping uncontrollably.
"They betrayed me – they left me behind, they left me in the dust," He choked on his words – Mina, Victoria – how could they love him? They had betrayed him, they had rejected his visions – why – why would the gods show him this? Why would they show him this carnage, why would they make him the villain? Why would they tell him – their only son – that he was doomed to fail, that he was selfish?
The words sank into his flesh like razor sharp knives, like bullets – all he had ever wanted was the blessing of the gods, the divine message – that he was justified, that he was righteous, that he was the savior of the world. And this – this – this blasphemy, this was what they told him. How could they be so wrong? How could they abandon him now, when he was so close to victory?
Whatever forces conspire against us – those words, they echoed in his mind over and over and over like infernal, godforsaken chanting –
"You will always be in my heart," He whispered, swallowing hard. "My loves… where are you, my darlings? Why are you not here, by my side – this world will be ours…"
But his loves had rejected him – but why? Why had they seen in him only madness, why had they seen in him only cruelty, why couldn't they see that what he did – was for them? Were Mina's words – did they ring with truth? Was he truly being so selfish, so unfeeling, so –
No – no, this was weakness, this was damning empathy – his only, age-old weakness – no.
Every inch of his frame convulsed with vivid fury.
"Group Captain!" He snarled, his voice savage and raw.
A masked HYDRA officer scurried into the room, trembling with fear.
Johann stood, thrusting his broad shoulders back in his heavy, leather uniform, holding his head erect.
"Ready the fleet. Tomorrow, we strike."
"Jawohl, Mein Herr. What is your target, sir?"
Johann ran his tongue across his sharp teeth lustily. "My target – is everywhere. Hail HYDRA!"
XXX
American Barracks
London, England – 1943
0730 Hours
Chester Phillips sat at the head of the long conference table, scattered with wrinkled maps, photographs, coffee cups, ash trays laden with smoking, dying butts and still-burning embers. He felt so impossibly – old. As though he had been fighting this war for centuries – not decades. And every fiber of his being wanted this to end. He wanted to go home – not to a base, not to a subterranean bunker, not to Washington – home. For God's sake, he wanted to go home and go to sleep, surrounded by nothing but the quiet hill country of his Texas home. Thousands of miles from this godforsaken hellhole, this wretched room, where he had conferred with his men, shook hands with his men, embraced his men, dispatched his men, said goodbye to his men – for so many of the young boys that left this room, left it forever, only to return home to America in stark black body bags. And all because of one selfish, greedy bastard that simply refused to surrender. But what reason did he have to surrender, anyway? No matter how close they came to defeating him, he always seemed to come out unscathed – one step ahead of them, one tier above them, grinning down at them in wicked glee.
Johann Schmidt didn't care about the men he killed, he didn't care how high the body count soared – he wanted destruction. The insanity of the plan was of no consequence to him.
Chester Phillips looked at the men and women that surrounded this table – Captain Leigh, all of Dog Company, Dr. Victoria Bradleigh, Wilhelmina Hofstadter – they sat and waited silently for him to speak.
"Men, Dr. Bradleigh, Miss Hofstadter – you all know why we're here, today."
Faces – sad, angry, and, above all, tired – stared back at him grimly, nodding in confirmation.
Phillips closed his eyes for a moment, sighing inwardly. "As of approximately twenty minutes ago, I have ceased receiving reconnaissance status reports from the Alps. Now, I'm sure that you all can imagine why that might be the case."
Silence answered him.
Phillips cleared his throat and leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling. "That reconnaissance team was attacked by HYDRA death squadrons twenty minutes ago. Every single soldier in that reconnaissance team was killed. I had the misfortune of listening to the final man of that team report in before being shot, himself."
He paused, sitting straighter, resting his clenched fists on the table. He looked around him, looking at the faces of his men, of his colleagues. Wilhelmina Hofstadter sat silent and pensive before him, staring out glassily, lifelessly, as though not looking at anything in particular, but simply existing.
"HYDRA is launching their final initiative. Today. The leader of said death squadron was kind enough to leave me with that bit of information, after obliterating my recon captain."
"Final initiative – " Wilhelmina Hofstadter seemed to resurface from her daze.
"Final." Phillips' tone fell flatly on the rigid silence of the room. "As in, blowing up half of the eastern seaboard in a matter of hours, part two. And God only knows where else. Only this time, he's banking on us not interrupting him. Somehow, I have the gut feel that absolutely no planning went into this – he's either lost his mind, or he figures it's now or never. Regardless of what he's thinking, we need to take down that bastard before he has the chance to clear the Alps."
"It'll be a suicide mission," Robert Leigh remarked sullenly from the end of the table. "For us, for HYDRA – Schmidt isn't afraid of death, he isn't afraid of how many people he'll kill. Hell, I don't even think he cares if he gets killed in the process, so long as he achieves what he's set out for: total and apocalyptic destruction. He's lost too much time already – this is insanity, but he doesn't give a damn. Sir, there's no way we can stop him – we'll never be able to reach the Alps in time and even if we do – "
"No." Wilhelmina Hofstadter spoke up suddenly, firmly.
Phillips and Leigh turned to her simultaneously.
"We will stop him. We must – or else it's the end for all of us. We have to stop him."
"And do you have any brilliant suggestions about how we might achieve that?" Phillips retorted drily.
The young woman's grey eyes flitted nervously to her left, where Dr. Bradleigh sat, staring at her folded hands in her lap. She was silent, and rigidly still. Wilhelmina Hofstadter then turned her gaze to Phillips, looking him dead in the eyes.
"I can stop him." She said quietly.
"You. Just you? That's you're brilliant idea?"
"Chet," Victoria Bradleigh whispered tentatively, glancing at him with shining green eyes.
Phillips raised a hand to the redheaded woman. "Quiet, Bradleigh." His eyes remained ever fastened to the grey eyes of the young woman, staring back at him defiantly. "Alright, I'm listening. What's your brilliant idea?"
"He wants too much. He wants the world, yes, but the world alone is not enough. He wants me within that world, as well – he wants control over the power that I have, but he is also desperate to find some sort of moral justification for his desires. That has always been his aim. He is desperate to convince not just me, but himself, that I am the reason that he is so hungry for control – I am the 'greater good' that he has convinced himself that he is fighting for. Not against. I would force him to make a choice. Between me, or the control that he lusts after. Perhaps that is pinning too much value on myself, but I know that it would work. For he has done it to me all this time, and he has felt so confidently that I would fold beneath his will. He is clearly tormented, Colonel. He had every opportunity to kill me, yesterday, and yet I am still alive. Why waste all that time fighting? He literally held me by the neck and yet he did not snap it, when he had every opportunity to."
Phillips eyed her wearily. "And how exactly do you plan to do that? How would you get him into a situation where he would be forced to choose?"
"That is where I would require a great deal of trust from you, Colonel Phillips. Because I would need to be offering myself up to him alone. It would be far too great of a risk to attempt to stage a full-scale attack on the base – it would only provoke his rage. I need to appear as though I've come alone – as though I am the final offering, the final attempt at making peace with him and neutralizing him. I could play off of his emotions then, I could get into his head – it's been so long since he's seen me, alone, not in the middle of a battlefield. I would not be surrendering myself to him – that is not the objective. The objective would be for me to be – almost saying goodbye to him. Colonel Phillips, it would be just like one of his ploys, that's what I'm intending. Like him sending me a corpse with a petty sob story of how I drove my uncle to commit suicide because I refused to see the righteousness in his plans. But this time, I'd be turning everything around – he would be driving me to commit suicide because of what he's done. That is my plan, Colonel. I would have to die – or at the very least, appear to die. It would drive him over the edge, Colonel – I am certain."
Phillips felt his jaw drop. "Wait a minute – wait – you're… you're going to die – no, no – no more people are dying because of this bastard, not on my watch. I've seen more men die in the past month than I have in my entire career."
"But Colonel, no one else will have to die. I will be the only one, Colonel. Not your men – me, an insignificant child of the enemy. Colonel, it has to be this way. It has to be this way to be convincing. I suppose if you want, you could outfit me with a revolver loaded with blanks but Colonel – I am one person. And the price is not nearly as dear with me as it would be with hundreds of your men fighting against a lunatic with no visible end in sight. And if you are fearful that my death will not guarantee his surrender, perhaps Captain Leigh and several men from Dog Company could accompany me – I'm sure that they could manage to commandeer a few HYDRA uniforms somehow. If nothing else, they can see to it that my uncle is killed before he has time to detonate his bombs. Please, Colonel Phillips. This is my fight – let me be the one to end this, for once and for all. I am the only person that can make my uncle see the madness of what is he doing. Please."
"Why not blank bullets?" He answered stonily. "Why not play him the way that he's played us? He set Captain Rogers up to die in that fighter jet and made us believe that he had died in the process, only to have HYDRA regroup a mere days afterward. He played with all of us, Miss Hofstadter. This is as personal to me as it is to you. And I'm not willing to sacrifice another life because of this son of a bitch. I want to rub it in his face at the end of the day that he failed. And what better way to do that than to play with his mind the way that he's played with all of ours." Phillips eyed Mina levelly, before casting a sidelong glance at Victoria Bradleigh, who sat rigidly in her chair, emerald eyes gleaming brilliantly.
"I'm in." Robert Leigh spoke up. "Dog Company?"
A choir of voices spoke up around the room, "We're in" – "Us too".
Phillips cast a cursory glance around the room, nodding affirmatively. "Alright, Miss Hofstadter, what's your answer?"
The girl's grey eyes flitted from side to side. "Let's finish this." She said finally.
Phillips still was grim, eyeing her levelly. "You better hope to god this works."
The girl nodded back at him. "That, you can be quite certain, I will be doing most fervently when we get there."
XXX
HYDRA Base
The Alps – 1943
1200 Hours
The biting Alpine wind pounded against their exposed backs, the damp of the earth seeping slowly into the heavy canvas cloth of their uniforms. They lay under the shadow of a roadside gulley, plastered to the wet ground. Mina, Robert Leigh, along with four other men from Dog Company – they waited in rigid silence. They were some twenty kilometers out from main-base – twelve miles, only fifteen or so minutes by vehicle.
"So," Captain Leigh said softly, lying to Mina's right. "We're waiting for a truck?"
"Yes, we are waiting for a truck."
"It better be a nice truck. Considering my ass was nearly barbecued in the last truck I was in." Leigh grumbled bitterly.
"You volunteered to come here, Captain Leigh."
"I volunteered before Phillips ordered me to volunteer."
"You also volunteered all of Dog Company."
"Well, what can I say? I'm a captain – I get to volunteer whoever I want. And if I'm gonna die today, I'm sure as hell not gonna die alone."
"I would have come alone."
"Yeah, but that wouldn't be nearly as fun. If nothing else, I'm sure to get some first-rate drama out of this."
Mina cast a sidelong glance at the American man lying on his stomach next to her. "How you can have a sense of humor at a time like this is positively beyond me. Aren't you terrified? Because I am terrified, Captain Leigh, very terrified.
"Well, there's no sense in humming the death march just yet. If we give up hope that quickly, we might as well go back to London. Why waste our time here?" He cleared his throat. "So, we're waiting for a truck, why exactly?"
"Because. It needs to look as though I was taken here, as if I 'volunteered' to go. If I were to walk up to the front door accompanied by you, it would look a bit suspicious if two American soldiers were just casually stopping by to say hello, don't you think? And, the truck, I would certainly hope, will be manned by HYDRA troopers, providing you and your comrades with the HYDRA uniforms necessary to slip into the base with me without being detected. Which leads me to the question of, how good is your German?"
"Well it depends, would you like low, high, or central German?"
"Central dialect will do," She eyed him levelly. "High if you're looking to impress the Bavarian in him." Then, more seriously, "Captain Leigh, your German will need to be extremely impressive to get past the sentries. Germans are extremely sensitive to differences in dialect, accent – we can pick up even the subtlest of differences. Your German struck me when I first heard it as nearly perfect. HYDRA must have foreigners in its ranks – otherwise it would be pointless for them to have basecamps in places like Alsace – Alsace is a resort town to my uncle, it holds no strategic value. The tiniest hint of an accent might well pass, but please make it sound European."
"You have such little faith in me, my dear lady." He muttered. "I speak French and German fluently – and my French accent could kill. I'm familiar with the sounds of Alemannic German and Lorraine Franconian if that helps any – if he's got men up in Alsace. I'm a born actor – don't worry about me, you worry about you. And, if you'll look to my right, you'll see Frankie, here. Frank Goldberg – born in Berlin, immigrated to America when Hitler came in and relations with the Jewish population got frosty. I'm the better improviser, but if they start having their doubts, he'll take over the talking. Satisfied?"
Mina stared at him blankly. "Why the hell didn't you tell me that when we were on the plane here?"
"I like to keep you waiting in suspense."
She shook her head. "I can't believe you're making jokes right now."
"Nervous habit. I do it when I'm scared shitless."
"Truck! Now – coming this way!"
"Right." Leigh whispered – "Men, in your positions. Mina – you ready?"
"Yes, I'll head out now."
Leigh nodded grimly. "Godspeed." He whispered.
Mina crawled out of the gulley and stood up tentatively – eyes darting about. They were in the thick of the misty, Alpine woods – surrounded on all sides by dense pines, the road ahead the only path in the thicket. She swallowed hard and walked limply out into the middle of the road, standing with her arms raised high over her head, feeling the searing pain in her thigh working its way up and down her leg. Yesterday's bullet, despite her accelerated healing abilities, still stung bitterly. She willed a burst of blue light to erupt from her palms for but a few moments – as if to send up a flare.
The truck was but a few yards off now – though the fog might have obstructed their view. She sent up another short burst of blue light, then let her arms drop to her sides. She stood there – silently, waiting. She supposed they could have run her over – in fact, the idea sounded quite lovely, in comparison to what she was about to do.
The truck rolled to a halt in front of her, a glaring HYDRA noncom hunched over its wheel. His partner was the first to exit the vehicle, rifle poised cautiously in his hands.
"Who are you?" he barked, but his voice was rigid with fear, uncertainty. His fingers trembled on the rifle.
"You know who I am." She said softly. Her voice could betray no anger, no impatience, no fear – only quiet, cold resignation. An extinguished flame – a broken spirit. Someone who had given up, and given in.
His icy eyes glared at her with as much menace as his thin, youthful frame could muster.
"You are Wilhelmina. Herr Skull's niece – the benefactress of HYDRA." He sneered. "Why have you come here?"
"Because it is useless." She answered hollowly, layering her words thickly with despair and distress. "My uncle plans to destroy the world today. And I am powerless against him. I have fought and fought, and now I am tired. I wish to say goodbye to this world, and to be reunited with him again." She willed icy tears to roll down her ashen cheeks, but they were bitter and burned against her skin. "I surrender myself to HYDRA."
The HYDRA trooper lowered his gun tentatively, giving her a look that was equal parts fear and bitterness. His lips twisted into a cruel smile.
"Surely you did not come here by yourself, girl. This is a trap, isn't it? How else would you come to be in the middle of the woods in the middle of the mountains, thousands of miles away from civilization – the Allies aren't stupid. Why ever would they leave you here, their most powerful weapon?" His tone fell flatly, acidly on the cold mountain air.
"They left me here to die, yesterday." She answered flatly, looking down at her beige trousers, the left thigh stained from where the bandages on her leg wept. "My uncle shot me in the femoral artery. I was bleeding out – the Americans thought that I would die of the wound. They did not know of my accelerated healing abilities. I am no use to them dead, so they left me out here in the woods. I have been here all night long, unable to move. The power of the tesseract was able to accelerate my recovery, and it kept me from bleeding to death. The Americans have betrayed me. My uncle was right. I have nowhere left to run." More tears, she willed them to spill. "Please," she said, mournfully, making her voice crack. "I want to see my uncle again. Please."
The trooper smiled at her, revealing yellowing, crooked teeth. "It would be my pleasure, my queen." His words dripped with malice. "My comrades and I will be rewarded lushly in the new world, for returning you to Herr Skull. Please, come." He gestured toward the truck.
Mina bit her lip. "Thank you." She followed the HYDRA trooper, walking past Leigh and his men, invisible in the shadow of the gulley. The guard turned her around to face him, removing a set of heavy metal cuffs, glowing and humming with the eerie blue light of the tesseract's energy, and locking them around her wrists. "Just as a safety precaution, my lady." He sneered. "In case you feel inclined to perform any tricks."
But as the HYDRA trooper began to help her into the front seat of the truck, grinning at her with wicked delight, the lanky figure of Robert Leigh crept tentatively out of the gulley, pistol equipped with a silencer held at the ready.
She set one foot into the truck – but the weight of the fallen HYDRA trooper fell against her, his blood smearing across her uniform –
Next, the driver, who had been staring rigidly beyond the windshield all this time, swiftly dispatched by Leigh's pistol, the bullet whizzing past her face with exact precision.
Not a sound had echoed this entire time, other than the quiet crunch of leaves beneath Leigh's shoes, or the sound of the two executed men falling limp against the vehicle.
The three other men disappeared behind the truck while Leigh silently lifted the body from where it had fallen, nearly on her lap, investigating the back of the truck-bed.
Two solid thunks hit the cab's wall – two more bodies.
"All clear! Only two of them in the back – dozing, the bastards!" Frank Goldberg's lightly accented voice called out to them.
Leigh nodded to Mina. "Alright, one step down."
Mina shut her eyes, sighing inwardly. Leigh helped her into the truck's cab.
"Better leave those on," He gestured toward the cuffs. "It would look a little strange if the prisoner was casually left unbound when they investigate us."
She waited silently as Leigh and the other men stripped out of their beige uniforms and changed into the heavy black leather of the HYDRA troopers' uniforms. Her heart pounded in her chest. In truth, she had really hoped that they wouldn't have got this far – it would have been so much easier if the HYDRA troopers had just shot her dead in the middle of the road. She was powerless in death – in death, it was perfectly acceptable to run away from one's fears. In life, she had no choice but to face the positively gargantuan challenge that loomed over them deep in the Alps.
And what if it didn't work? What if she didn't even get a chance to fire the fated gun, the magazine fully loaded with bullets and a single blank, and hidden beneath the heavy leather of her bomber jacket? What if she didn't even get a chance to talk with her uncle – even for but a moment? And worse still – what if Johann continued to ignore her desperate pleas, as he had all this time? She could no longer delude herself and pretend that the Red Skull had brainwashed her dear, doting uncle – no, no 'Uncle Johann' no longer existed. She would be forced to stare up into the malicious, hooded eyes of that gnarled crimson face, forced to look upon that face with all of the hope and love that she could dig up from the depths of her heart.
For truly, love was the sole force onto which she was pinning all of her desperate hope. Her love for the man that she desperately hoped still lived beneath that ugly crimson guise, and the love that she hoped he still had for her – regardless of how great the rift between them had become.
Captain Leigh climbed up into the truck cab, looking almost ghoulish, bedecked in black leather. It made her skin crawl – to see those hideous uniforms again.
He twisted the key in the ignition.
"Alright, onward. That was a nice show out there. Very convincing."
"Rest assured, that is not what I'm going to tell my uncle. I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of such a sob story." Mina muttered.
The truck creaked and sputtered to life.
They drove in silence, the Alpine wind picking up as the afternoon sun began just slightly to wane. Strangely, Captain Leigh offered no witty remarks about their situation. A misfortune, really – his comic relief provided a blessed distraction from her thoughts. Without it, her mind buzzed incessantly.
"Mina," Leigh spoke up, staring straight at the road ahead of them. "If this doesn't work… you know that – "
"We have to kill him." She answered flatly, robotically.
"Yes."
She looked down at the floor of the truck cab, closing her eyes for a moment. "Do you think I'm a fool for believing that… that there is still goodness in him? That maybe my words will mean something to him?"
Leigh was silent for a moment. At last, he answered. "No. I don't. It's not my place to tell you if you're a fool or not, anyhow. None of us have that right. Because none of us have seen the side of your uncle that you have, the side that you are accustomed to. None of us have seen the man that your uncle was. We've only ever seen the monster. And, it's easy for me or anyone else to tell you to push past the love in your heart that you have for him. It's easy for an outsider to tell you to get over your feelings, to forget them – to forget yourself. But none of us have ever been in your shoes. None of us can tell you how to feel or what to believe in. That's up to you. You are the only one that truly knows your uncle."
"So, that makes me the only one that can stop him, I'm guessing. Or a bullet to his head." She swallowed. "I'm just afraid that if it comes to that, that I won't I have the strength to fire that bullet."
"You'll know what to do when the time comes, Mina. I'm going to stay as close to you as possible when we get to the base. If it comes to that, and you can't make that choice, I might have to make it for you. But…. I will try to save him, Mina. I give you my word on that."
Mina nodded tearfully. "Thank you." She whispered.
Leigh was silent, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel, the dense pines whirling by as they drove onward.
"I'm putting my money on an air strike." He mumbled, staring straight ahead. "That's how he'll launch the initiative. That's the only way he'd be able to cover the stretch of ground that he's aiming for." He said flatly, staring at the road ahead.
"He has a monstrous fighter jet. The airfield was the central artery of his weaponry – the fleet was easily some five hundred crafts. But – when we were able to secure the base – "
"We didn't have it secured long enough to get all of those aircrafts out of there. And we couldn't afford to destroy them – that airfield was a veritable goldmine of technology. But Howard Stark – he was the tech designer before Rogers passed – he wasn't able to get out here before HYDRA struck back and reclaimed the base. And Bradleigh had only just gotten in London, and she didn't want anything to do with HYDRA. We needed to have it extensively analyzed – it would have taken weeks, months. Besides, trying to evacuate all of those planes in the middle of enemy territory? A Luftwaffe scout was bound to take notice. Schmidt's got the heart of the spoils in his hands right now."
"That's a comforting thought." Mina muttered darkly.
"You need to get on that jet."
"Obviously. But what about you and the others? My uncle has airmen – they're an entirely different division from common scouts, truck drivers in particular – you'll stick out like sore thumbs. All of us need to get on that jet, or at the very least one of you. Sure, I can try and fight them by myself but what if I set off any of his explosives in the process? Fighting in a wide open airfield is one thing – a flying deathtrap thousands of feet above the ground is quite another."
"If we could all get on the jet, we could take out any of his sentries while you try and negotiate something. Then he'd be really backed into a corner." Leigh mused under his breath. "No time to talk, now – we're at the gates. We'll figure it out – you just watch your back, ok?"
Mina felt her blood run cold.
The hulking, black metal pillboxes that guarded the loading docks of the HYDRA main base stood out starkly amid the razed clearing, the dense foliage of the evergreens falling away to reveal the stark black, jagged façade of the mountains. Dark, narrow slits stared out at them from the pillboxes, and no doubt the beady eyes of sentries, their machine guns primed and ready for instant fire, waited patiently for the truck to receive clearance.
They sat rigidly in the truck cabbie, waiting as a black-clad guard stalked up to the driver's window.
"Papers," The guard snapped rigidly, rifle slung across his chest menacingly.
Leigh reached into the breast pocket of the black leather uniform, removing the grey identification booklet. Identical to the one that Mina had filched on the night that she had snuck into the HYDRA main base – what seemed like ages ago.
The guard whisked the grey booklet from Leigh's outstretched hand, thumbing through it with gloved hands. Apparently satisfied, he handed it back to Leigh, grinning smugly.
"And what have you here, Corporal?" The guard inquired, eying Mina lasciviously.
Leigh spoke in cold, clipped German – making his voice airy and nasal, reminiscent of only the most pompous of Schutzstaffel staff officers that had colored her Berlin youth.
"The niece of Herr Skull, sir. My comrades and I found her stranded on the main road."
The guard raised an eyebrow.
"She surrendered herself, Corporal?"
"Yes, sir. In fact," here, Leigh smirked over at her, his lips seemingly razor thin, teeth sharp and malicious, "She begged us to take her here."
The guard's lips peeled back into a snarling grin. He rounded the truck's engine to the passenger's door, sticking his head into the open window, leering at Mina.
"Well now, look what we have here. Did the wind blow you here, little girl? Were the Allies unkind to you?"
Mina spat in his face in reply.
The guard recoiled, yelling. He glared at her viciously, clutching the offended cheek, and lashed out at her with a gloved hand, savagely hitting her jaw.
In a knee-jerk reaction, Mina tried to strike at him with her power – only to receive a bracing electrical shock from the cuffs that bound her wrists. She cried out in pain, jerking at the cuffs desperately as the electrical charge bit at her flesh.
The guard cackled raggedly. "That'll teach you not to misbehave, won't it?" He snapped. He turned to the sentries and barked, "Open the gates!"
XXX
They walked silently into the cavernous maw of the airfield, the biting Alpine wind howling mournfully. Leigh's gloved hands rested firmly on her shoulder blades, propelling her forward, as though she were his charge. The other three followed silently behind. The hulking, black fighter jet loomed overhead, its huge shadow blanketing the entirety of the expanse in gloomy darkness. The sun had vanished from the horizon, and the sky was painted shades of white and gray by the pockets of snow that swirled upon the air.
Rows upon rows of HYDRA death squadrons stood ramrod straight, bedecked from head to toe in black leather, their masks alien and unsettling. And at the head of them all –
He stood there like a god.
His back was turned, the smooth crimson flesh of his scalp standing out starkly against the black and grey backdrop of the airfield. He wore a heavy leather tunic, his broad shoulders thrust back, his head held erect. He stood before six aviators, each of them swathed in heavy, fleece-lined bomber suits, their masks angular and insect-like – almost reminiscent of worker-bees. He did not speak to them, however – rather, he stared beyond them, as though eying up the burgeoning storm clouds that blanketed the sky.
Leigh halted her, pressing firmly against her shoulders. With a silent look, he bade her to wait, as the two other men came up behind her, grasping her arms firmly.
Her heart pounded in her chest as she stared ahead, watching in silence as Robert Leigh approached the creature of her nightmares.
"You have found her." His – Johann's – voice rang out clear and firm in the eerie silence of the airfield. He did not turn to face Leigh, nor did he even bother to cast a passing glance at him. He simply stood there, staring on into the white abyss of the sky before him.
Leigh's German was softer and more reserved when he spoke, lacking its earlier confidence – but, this was a purposeful move, made to make him sound deferent before this… this master of HYDRA.
"Stranded on the main thoroughfare, Mein Herr. My comrades and I intercepted her."
A pause. "We have intercepted radio transmissions from the Allied headquarters in London. It would seem as though she had escaped from their custody – they are in hot pursuit of their prize. Already, they have dispatched several battalions to apprehend us. We must move quickly. Where is my niece?"
Mina felt her heart skip a beat at his words – the Allies – had Phillips sent reinforcements?
The two soldiers at either side of her – Frank Goldberg and another American trooper in disguise – simultaneously squeezed her arms. Yes – reinforcements.
Leigh's voice remained composed. "She is here, Mein Herr." He backed away, turning towards her.
She trembled in the grasp of the two American troopers. She thrust her shoulders back, mirroring his stance, and held her head erect. Rivulets of nervous sweat trickled down her temples. She was so tired.
The smooth, crimson head turned to face her, gazing at her from afar with cool, calculating indifference.
Every inch of her trembled – with rage. She bit her lip, forcing herself to remain emotionless before him.
He walked toward her – languid and catlike. He stopped mere inches from her, his ice blue eyes gazing down at her.
But now, they lacked that cold indifference – rather, they too seemed as fatigued and weary as she felt. She let her eyes wander over the sharp, angular contours of his crimson face, trying desperately to reconcile that ghoulish façade in her mind with the face of the silicon mask that she had known all her life – the façade that had represented warm and gentle love with the real and flawed guise beneath. But a closer look into his eyes betrayed something – in their tired, glassy nature, there seemed to be guilt and deep remorse buried within – sorrowful, mourning.
He glanced at the soldiers to either side of her. "Release her." He ordered rigidly.
She stood silently, refusing to avert her gaze from his, as the Frank Goldberg's fingers felt nimbly for the catch on the heavy, electrical cuffs. Likewise, he stared back at her, almost lifelessly.
The cuffs fell away, and she rubbed at her wrists, wincing as her fingers came in contact with the reddened electrical burns on her flesh.
His gloved hands – cool and smooth to the touch – grasped her wrists lightly. She stared down at her hands as he turned them over in his gloved ones, examining the burns on her flesh silently.
"Why have you come here, Mina?" He asked quietly. She expected for him to sound smug, arrogant – but there was not a trace of vanity in his tone.
"Why do you think?" Her voice echoed loudly off of the steel walls of the airfield. She stared into his ice blue eyes boldly. She cared little if he grew angry with her, now. There was little he could do in retaliation, anyway. He had no time to waste – if the Allies were preparing to attack, he could not afford to interrogate her.
He eyed her levelly, the ghoulish crimson face betraying no emotion. "I would like very much to believe that your faith in the Allies as your protectors has failed you. However, somehow I feel that that is only a fraction of the picture."
"I have come because I have no other choice. The allies' efforts, my efforts are useless against you. You are insistent on destroying this world that I love. You have proven that absolutely nothing can stop you, not even me. You are so convinced by your own beliefs of how this world should work that you feel entirely justified in destroying everything that stands in your way. And you have succeeded marvelously." She reached out to him, letting her hand ghost lightly over the rigid contours of his face. "In your lust for destruction you have completely destroyed my heart with your endless deceptions."
His ice blue eyes flickered to her pale and slender hand, which she held there for a moment more before letting it fall to her side.
"It was necessary." He said quietly, though there was guilt in his bright eyes and it stood out plainly. His voice lacked the cold arrogance that it had had when holding her by the neck in that airfield, staring into her terrified eyes.
"No, Uncle." She shook her head. "You have lied to me and deceived me and mistaken my trust for blind loyalty. And yet, you act as though I am the one that has betrayed you – as though I am the one that has selfishly, mercilessly destroyed your heart over and over and over again. Am I really deserving of the suffering that you have put me through, Uncle? Because I had the audacity to disagree with your beliefs and to state as much? When have I lied to you, Uncle? When I have twisted your words and betrayed your love, I ask you, Uncle – look deep into your soul and tell me when I have deceived you as you have deceived me."
The emotions that warred across his face were painfully obvious, every inch of him trembling – not with anger, not with cold rage. With sadness – tortured guilt mingled with deep and resounding grief.
But, he said nothing – as though he could not find the words or the strength to combat her. He turned to Leigh, who stood pensively, gazing out ahead of him at the sea of faceless soldiers.
"Corporal, you and your comrades are to be commended for your services today, in returning my niece to me. You shall accompany me and Wilhelmina on our final voyage to the New World." He gestured to the hulking fighter jet that loomed above them ominously.
Leigh bowed deeply, his voice firm and confident. "We are honored, Mein Herr."
Mina glanced behind her – Goldberg and the two other American troopers mimicked his bow, their faces utterly void of emotion.
The angular crimson face, with its ice blue eyes cast a remorseful glance at her, his gaze fixed on her for only but a moment.
"Come," He said quietly, looking away. "We must hurry." He cast a glance at the rows of troopers that stood reverently before him. "Seal the gates!" He barked. "We will not have any interruptions, this time. See to it that the Americans are annihilated."
In cold and lifeless response, a veritable choir of "Hail HYDRA!"
Johann walked swiftly to the fighter jet, mounting its ladder and climbing up into the cockpit above. Mina followed him numbly, casting a quick glance over her shoulder to confirm that Leigh and the others followed suit. Her gaze caught Leigh's for but a moment – his head twitched just barely, as if to nod in confirmation. She swallowed hard and continued up into the cavernous maw of the jet.
XXX
The dense pines that lined the main thoroughfare leading to the HYDRA main-base flew past him, the military truck speeding through the Alpine forest, falling in line behind the Allied convoy, a hundred strong, followed by a force of eight hundred men. Chester Phillips sat back in his seat, smoking impatiently, his fingers drumming against his thigh. Dr. Victoria Bradleigh sat beside him, rigid and silent, dressed in Army fatigues. A large blueprint was spread across her lap, and her small, pale hands were splayed across its surface.
"Excited to try out your new toys, Bradleigh?" Phillips remarked drily, careful not to betray the anxiety that gripped every nerve in his body with steely resolve. The petite scientist had been sending in a steady stream of blueprints for her latest design of a high-speed stealth bomber to the London headquarters for the past six months – the news had only just been delivered that twenty of them had been successfully completed, passed testing, and were primed for combat. And Phillips was beyond eager to try them out on the battlefield. "I've gotta say, your timing's impeccable. Maybe there is a god watching over us… though he's a little late to the party."
"If any of my babies get so much as a scratch on them, Phillips, I'll see to it personally that the high command nails your ass to the wall." The redheaded woman snapped.
"I'm going to pretend that it's my men that you're so worried about getting hurt."
Victoria glared at him with fire in her eyes. "Them, too."
Phillips stuck his head out of the truck window, gazing up at the near-white skies above them – a fleet of twenty sleek, slim aeroplanes soared near silently high above them, shrouded by the clouds as they ascended further into the air.
"And you said that they're programmed to jam Schmidt's radars?" He said, sitting back in his seat.
"HYDRA shouldn't be able to detect any activity in the air on their sonars. Effectively, they'll be invisible until they're right up on their tails. They'll just have to watch out for oncoming ground fire."
"Somehow I get the feeling there's gonna be a lot of that." Phillips muttered.
XXX
Johann paced about the cockpit impatiently as the aviators strapped themselves in, setting the coordinates for the navigation system. At the center of the cockpit, the tesseract lay securely in its holding device, humming and pulsating furiously. Mina stood on the cockpit's mezzanine, gazing at it wearily, while Leigh and the others spread themselves out at intervals around the cockpit, looking on in silence. She examined Johann's face in earnest, trying to decipher the clash of emotions that twisted the already gnarled features of his face. A mixture of cold fury – impatience at the aviators' apparent slowness in calibrating the hulking aircraft – and that resounding, tormented guilt. Somewhere deep within the crimson creature that stood before her, and she struggled to find within his menacing glare the warm and passionate nature of the man that she had known as her uncle. Her words in the airfield had struck a nerve in him, she felt confident – the war of emotions in his eyes, in the set of his jaw, of his mouth – it was as though a desperate battle was raging in his mind. He seemed visibly to struggle against the emotions in his heart, the emotions that her words – poignant and raw as they had been on her tongue – had forcefully evoked in him. And these were emotions that clearly he was familiar with – and had shoved down with vengeful resolve in the past.
She guessed that it had been easy for him to ignore them when he was not forced to confront them, as she had forced him to now.
"The bombs have been primed. Preparing for takeoff, Mein Herr!" The chief aviator called out.
Johann nodded, cracking his jaw and probing at it with clearly vexed fingers. He strode towards her, reaching out with a gloved hand to grasp her shoulder firmly.
"Sit. Secure yourself." He said quietly, nodding toward the seat just beyond her. His gaze fixed onto hers for but a moment, and she stared at him in desperation, pleading with her eyes. Hot tears began to trickle down her cheeks, and she felt her mouth tremble with wrenching remorse. She expected Johann to glare at her bitterly – as he had done so many times before, whenever she had tugged relentlessly at his heartstrings. But he did not. No anger flashed in his ice blue eyes when he looked at her – almost apologetically. The gloved hand that had rested on her shoulder came to rest on her cheek for but a moment.
"No tears now, my dearest." He said softly, and nudged her shoulder lightly, gesturing towards the seat that was built into the far wall.
Mina closed her eyes against the hot tears, and reluctantly sat down and strapped herself in. Leigh and the others followed suit, staring straight on ahead of them.
Johann strapped himself into the main controller's seat, and adjusted the levers with deft fingers.
Within moments, the plane was rolling forward – building up speed, accelerating along the dimly lit runway – the horizon before them getting larger and larger, hurtling towards them with near-blinding speed.
She was thrown back in her seat as the tarmac fell away from the hulking aircraft and they soared into the air – the engines roared deafeningly as they ascended higher and higher, farther and farther away from the earth below.
The ascension was sharp but fast – they were evening out and levelling in the air, no longer angled sharply towards the skies.
Johann's voice rang out clear and firm – "Set course for the first target, Captain."
"Setting course for New York, Mein Herr."
Mina's eyes flashed towards Leigh's, seeking out his face. She trembled frantically in the straps of the seat – what now, what now?!
She caught Leigh's gaze – he had undone the straps on his seat, and his slender hand rested firmly at the blaster at his belt, the humming blue light of the tesseract's energy pulsating from it rhythmically. He stared back at her fervently, his gaze flashing to the weapon in his hand, and back at her. He was at the perfect angle to fire his weapon – Johann's head was parallel to where his gun would be aimed.
She parted her lips to mouth in silent intervention – to urge him to wait –
A furious, metallic rattling punched into the steel and chrome walls of the aircraft in a deafening cacophony of noise –
The cockpit jerked forward, the silence positively obliterated by the metallic rattling – punching – the horrific screeching of metal being torn apart.
The aviators looked at each other in horror, their gazes flashing to where Johann sat rigidly, his frame convulsing with palpable, visible rage.
"What is this?!" He screamed into the din, his voice ragged and terrifyingly guttural – like a lion unleashing its furious roars. "What is happening?! There is no aircraft in this world comparable to the strength of this machine!"
The punching and ripping of steel grew ever louder – it echoed metallically from the rear of the aircraft. Johann whirled, swiveling his chair to face them.
"Secure the aircraft!" He screamed at Leigh, his eyes flashing murderously to the others. "Gods be damned, destroy them, destroy the bastards, whoever the hell they are! Rain fire upon them!"
Mina was plastered to the wall of the cockpit, every muscle in her body rigid and screaming for action. But Leigh and the others immediately darted out of their seats, their blasters glowing furiously at their belts – they dashed out of the cockpit into the rear hold of the aircraft, where the bombs were stowed. The cacophony of machinegun fire flooded into the cockpit as the heavy door slammed shut behind them.
Johann turned back to the controls, screaming at the aviators to fire the plane's rifles, not even bothering to look at her.
Now – now! – Her mind screamed at her – act!
She undid the straps of her seat and darted out to the cockpit's exit –
"Wilhelmina! Get back here!" Johann's voice screamed over the din as she pried open the heavy steel door,
"I'm going to help them!" She cried, blue fire glowing at her fingertips, and darted out – slamming the door shut behind her before Johann could protest anymore.
Out in the belly of the massive steel craft, Leigh and the three other American troopers fired frenziedly at the bomber pilots, who scrambled to climb into the tiny bomber crafts secured in the hold. The rear of the aircraft was all but gone – blown away by Allied fire – a massive swarm of tiny, silvery fighter jets gaining on them rapidly, their guns firing incessantly, puncturing the already badly damaged metal of the hulking HYDRA plane.
A HYDRA trooper tried to lunge past her to his bomber craft but she caught him by the throat, incinerating him with a single blast of blue fire. Leigh had successfully shot two – the others were systematically finishing off the bomber pilots with a flurry of blue fire –
Mina's heart pounded in her chest – with numb fingers she grappled with the gun under her leather coat, opening the magazine –
The blank bullet seemed to glare up at her –
She needed to finish off the pilots in the cockpit – they were all that stood in the way of her and Johann, they were all that stood in the way of the final confrontation –
"Blank bullets be damned." She whispered, pulling the blank out of the magazine and hurling it out the decimated back end of the aircraft. Johann would lose his mind when she blew those pilots away in a scorching stream of ethereal blue fire – this was not a game in the way that Chester Phillips saw it, she simply could not risk playing games with her uncle. If she was going to take her life to stop Johann's bloody rampage, she was damn well going to do it right – Johann would unleash the fires of hell on Leigh and the other three trooper when he discovered that they had massacred his flight crew.
A bullet in her skull – a real bullet, that erupted in spattering bloodshed – that would be quite literally the only thing to obliterate the blind red rage in his eyes –
He needed to make a choice for once and for all – his precious world order, or her, the sick little girl that he had taken under his wing all those years ago. She was going to force his hand.
He had played with her emotions as though they were his playthings. Now, it was time for her to play with his.
With steely, final resolve – she threw open the cockpit door and let loose a torrent of blazing blue fire.
XXX
He felt the heat of her onslaught long before she reached him. The cacophonous din of enemy fire ripping apart his aircraft, the rivaling explosions from tesseract-powered pistols, his own screams, running his voice ragged and raw – everything, at once –
Became silent.
He moved as if in slow-motion – everything had slowed to a halting crawl, time seemed to have stopped in that cockpit, everything precise and fluid –
Words.
They screamed over and over and over and over again in his head, like a broken record.
The only world that you will destroy will be your own.
He turned slowly in his seat, standing before her, feeling the searing heat of her glorious blue fire – it flowed around him, barely licking his flesh, heaven-sent, miraculous – so perfect and flawless in its beauty – it decimated everything it touched.
The aviators – their screams rang so poignantly in his ears, so sadly and beautifully and haunting as they died – as their shrieks were cut off with vicious abandon by her flames –
My little goddess.
Her words – You have destroyed my heart with your endless deceptions.
When have I betrayed you, Uncle?
Rage.
It fired through his veins – raw and wonderful – it revitalized him, it gave him new life –
Everything was happening so quickly, so – so out of his control –
But none of it mattered now.
All that mattered – was her.
She stood there before him, panting, trembling convulsively, tears streaming her ashen cheeks, her grey eyes gleaming with pain – so much pain
Conflicted – his brain, it was utterly scattered – save her – kill her – No, you have caused her so much pain – make it end! – Set her alight! – No, but I can't –
"Uncle!" Her screams cut through the din in his mind, through the din of rattling guns –
"Uncle, make this stop! When will it ever end, when will the carnage ever stop?!" She was screaming and weeping uncontrollably –
He stalked forth, walking slowly towards her, his gun drawn and aimed directly at her heart –
She was backing up, she was backing into the aircraft's rear, the Alpine wind blowing with savage fury through the plane –
"You have brought this on yourself!" His voice screamed at her savagely. "You have betrayed me, you have ruined everything that I have ever dreamt of! You have destroyed everything, you stupid girl!"
He fired blindly – an explosion of blue fire racked the aircraft – one of the young soldiers was immediately decimated –
Her voice – it sheared through the din like a knife.
"Stop!"
She stood there, the wind beating against her feeble frame – she stood at the edge of the aircraft – the open, endless, bottomless sky looming just beyond her –
Another step and she'd fall to her death.
He held his gun firm, his slender, gloved fingers hovering over the trigger –
The two remaining troopers stood at him agape, hands rigid on their own guns –
"Listen to me!" She screamed – her voice was so wrought with pain and suffering –
"Listen to me, Uncle! Please, Uncle, make this stop! When will it ever stop?! I love this world, Uncle, I love it with all my heart, why do you destroy it, why do you want to raze it to ashes, why?!"
He trembled convulsively, every nerve in his body on fire. "I – I do this for you, Mina!" He screamed, his voice raw. "Everything I've ever done is for you!"
"No, Uncle," Tears streamed down her ashen cheeks. A blur – there was a gun in her hand – what was she doing with it? "Everything you do is for you, and for your selfish desires!"
The gun – its barrel – it was brandished at her temple, her pale fingers hovered over the trigger.
"Mina, what are you doing? Mina, stop it, put the gun down, put it down!"
"I love this world, Uncle. The world that you speak of so passionately is one of destruction and greed and hatred and evil. That is your world, Uncle. And I want nothing to do with that world. This is my world, Uncle. And if you are so hell-bent on destroying it, I wish to die with it!" Her greys flickered to the gun in her hands and he felt his heart stop – it slammed against his ribcage.
Tears streamed down her face – his heart broke in two.
"A wise woman once told me that I had to make a choice – I had to choose between praying desperately that you would sense, that you would stop this carnage, or fighting you, facing you, confronting you. I have made my choice, Uncle. This – this is my choice. And Uncle, whatever forces conspire against us,"
Whatever forces conspire against us –
His hands held her beautiful face,
"You will always be in my heart!"
You will always be in my –
A shot rang out – hollow and resounding –
Her head was thrown back from the force of the bullet's impact – blood – bright and vivid crimson – it burst forth from the wound in her skull –
She fell backwards, plunging into the cold Alpine winds –
"Mina!" He screamed – his heart split in two –
Johann dropped the gun and sprinted forth – vaulting over the edge of the burning aircraft – plummeting after her –
Seven hundred thousand feet above the ground.
Falling, falling, falling –
The wind beating at them – he spiraled downward – his arms outstretched –
He caught her waist – her lifeless glassy eyes staring up at him, wide and beautiful and –
Dead.
He held her tight in his arms –
They would die together.
Together, at long last.
His little goddess.
XXX
Phillips stood at the edge of the airfield – smoking wreckage surrounding him – the din of gunfire echoing off of the steel walls –
A smoking aircraft was descending haltingly – it was fractured, crumbling – but still it flew, shuddering, sputtering – slowing as it descended –
And then, far off in the East – an eclipse of bright blue fire split the grey skies –
XXX
Leigh stood over the control panel – his fingers trembled over the bomb detonator – its lever pushed forward, set to detonate –
He pulled back on the lever – the blinking red screen clicked loudly – green light lit up the controls –
A screeching, mechanical voice "Bombs Disabled. Bombs Disabled. Bombs Disabled."
XXX
Falling, falling, falling.
The ground rose up to meet them – the wretched crimson beast with the dead girl held tightly in his arms, tears streaming down his blood-red face –
An eerie blue light seemed to encapsulate them as they fell – farther and farther down, the brilliant emerald of the Alpine pines so peaceful and vivid and – quiet.
They fell – the two of them, intertwined – the crimson beast and the dead girl.
The once grassy woodlands, now frosted with winter's ice and snow, met them in a cold but welcoming embrace –
The strange blue glow enveloped them in its loving arms –
A voice echoed in the crimson creature's mind – sweet and gentle,
You have repented, Johann Schmidt. Your world will be spared the destruction that has been wreaked upon it. Wake up now, children – we have use for your brilliance, yet. Evil still walks the surfaces of this world. Wake up – Wake up, children –
They lay there, on the cold, hard ground, eyes shut tightly – for surely, they were dead.
But the crimson creature opened his eyes, heavy with fatigue, and gazed at the beautiful young woman that lay beside him –
There was no blood in her hair, no blood on her flesh, no gaping wound in her temple –
And she looked at him, with blinking, questioning grey eyes that were very, very much alive.
Their quest – it was not over.
Part I: Fin.
