Hello everyone, I am a terrible person.
Here I was thinking 'I'll write more during the summer and update more and it'll be great because I've got time!' and then not only did I not update at all, I barely wrote anything either. Long story short: I suck at time management.
Warnings: confusing chapter.
Chapter Nineteen
Home, sweet home.
He never thought that this would be how he would return to Norway, how he would return to the city he was born and had spent the early years of his life in. He thought that he would return with his brother by his side and that they would retrace the steps of their parents to the land that was home yet never home.
But that was a dream long withered.
Now, he returned with a monster by his side, her smile cutting and cruel yet beautiful, components of a bomb scattered inside their several baggages.
"It's a good thing I look so young," Magyar commented. They were walking with their arms linked, a backpack slung over his shoulder, a suitcase in each of their hands. "It would have looked strange otherwise."
It was strange nevertheless. She was, after all, married. They both were, but her with a man, and he with revenge, with a dream, with a purpose that would one day condemn him to death.
They had taken a taxi from the airport to a nearby hotel, then left through the back door of that hotel to walk on foot to the actual hotel they were staying in to avoid as much as possible being tracked.
They passed a group of chattering young women, and Magyar wrinkled her nose at them.
"They speak funny."
"It's the Bergen accent."
"It's weird."
He did not reply. They continued walking in silence.
"There."
He looked where Magyar pointed. It was an inconspicuous building, not very tall, clearly filled with offices and other boring things that Hell used as a mask to hide its rotting underside.
"We'll do it tomorrow," he decided.
"Tonight," Magyar amended.
"Tomorrow." He stood firm. He wanted tonight to explore his childhood home before he unleashed his weary wrath.
Magyar did not bother arguing again.
They arrived at the hotel, small, simple, and cozy, and carried their suitcases to the room that they would share. He did not bother unpacking anything.
"Leaving already?" She sounded more amused than offended. "Can't stand being in my presence for so long?"
He shrugged. They both knew that wasn't the case. They got along just fine. Something else was bothering him; something that felt like a ghost had latched onto his back and was screaming at him to return. A sense of déjà vu? He didn't know. All he knew was that he needed to get out: to breath the air that he had once breathed, to walk the streets he had once known.
"What about...?" She didn't finish her sentence, simply gesturing at his discarded suitcase then making a complicated hand gesture that resembled assembling something followed by an explosion.
"Tomorrow," he said, and left.
For now, let him return his ghosts to their graves.
"You're late."
Lukas scowled. "I was lost. Your directions weren't exactly clear."
Elizabeta Héderváry raised an elegant eyebrow. "I thought you knew this city well."
"Not as well as you, it turns out." He rolled his eyes. "And either way, normal people don't exactly go around looking for abandoned warehouses and stuff. We consider that creepy."
She pouted, but there was a glint of amusement in her sharp green eyes. "Are you calling me creepy?"
"Are you suggesting that you're not?"
Héderváry shrugged. "I consider 'creepy' too negative of a word to describe me. I prefer 'intense'."
Lukas raised an eyebrow. "I did not get much of an intense impression from you. Creepy is still the superior description."
"Is it because I tortured you?" Her smile widened to show teeth as Lukas scowled slightly, feeling his unhealed stitches twang. "Gives the impression of a psychopath, does it?
"Let me show you something even more psychopathic," she continued when he did not react. "Turn around."
Lukas hesitated before obliging. He didn't know what to expect, but whatever possibilities his mind had conjured, none of them was a child.
He recognized the child, vaguely and vividly.
The coppery red hair and that vicious scar slashing horizontally across the bridge of his nose and right cheek, yes, and the gun that had been pressed against Emil's temple what felt like a year ago but was really less than one month before now pointed towards Lukas—they did not haunt his dreams per se, but it had, after all, been what started it all. He could not possibly forget. This was the child at New York City who had tried to use Emil as a hostage in exchange for Mathias and had hunted them into the grips of the Underworld.
But now that the night was not warping the child into a beast, Lukas could see that his eyes were not bright like those of an enraged animal but a sorrowful shade of metallic blue-gray and that his hands were shaking.
"You remember Lars, I presume?" Héderváry's voice echoed behind him, making his skin crawl. He was suddenly reminded of the Prison, when that taunting drawl had circled and choked and cut him. "A very talented child. A few more years and he'd be the best hacker in all of the Underworld, though his physical abilities might not be perfect."
The child—Lars—took a deep shuddering breath, finger tightening around the trigger, hands still shaking violently.
"It's why he's here," said Magyar. "Training."
He heard the sound before he realized that the child had pulled the trigger, and then darkness swallowed him whole.
Lukas realized that he had not known true fear—not when he was dragged into the Underworld by Mathias barging into his life, not during those several times when he was being chased down by highly-trained killers, not even when Magyar pressed a knife against his back—until he heard those four words:
"Emil Steilsson will die."
He could not breathe. "How?"
"It is protocol in the Labs for newly delivered materials—that is, people—to have a chip implanted in the brain, first to monitor their condition, secondly to be able to conveniently wipe them out if necessary. It is, of course, practically impossible to extract without the right technology." Elizabeta Héderváry smiled. She could taste his terror, his rising horror, but though she seemed to revel in it, she seemed empty. Faceless under her elaborate masks, hollow inside her cold vessel. She was no less terrifying, but she was also pitiful. "All of the information from and control of the chips are connected to the Lab computers which, unfortunately for us, were all destroyed when you and your rebel buddies bombed the place. Ever since then, we have been trying to retrieve information and connection to those chips."
"You've succeeded." This was nightmare. This was Lukas's worst possible nightmare. They thought they were safe outside; they were so stupid—
"We are succeeding." That was only a marginal relief. "And we will not hesitate to press the kill button the moment we've succeeded. All of your new friends and your brother will die immediately, while I can simply kill you here, easily."
Lukas could hear it. Unless.
"Unless," said Héderváry, "In three days, we will meet again. Come with me willingly, and lives will be spared."
"Be held as hostage or die," Lukas concluded. "That's not much of a choice you're offering."
Héderváry's smile twitched slightly. She was amused. "It's not intended to be."
"Fine." Lukas turned away from her, daringly, though he knew that Magyar would not kill him now. After all—
"See you in three days."
Mathias thought that he had not known true fear—though if he did he doubted he would remember it—until it became evident that Lukas wasn't just gone, he was taken. By Magyar, by the Underworld, because that was what they did: they take and they kill and they destroy. It was the civil war all over again, only smaller scaled and—
War?
Mathias didn't remember fighting in a war, but this was what it was, this was the cycle of his life: fight a war, lose everything, die, return, fight—though not always in that order.
And he was, this time, on the verge of losing everything. Again.
Was this despair or desperation or determination? Denial, perhaps? Stubbornness, too, now that he thought about it.
Mathias did not want to lose everything again. He would start a war before he did. Or maybe the war was already over and they had lost, that was why he was losing everything again. Or maybe he was still fighting a war and this was the war room and—
He felt so confused.
But maybe this really was in the middle of a war. All the occupants of the apartment number 502, now known as 'the Base', were gathered around in an uneven circle as if they were discussing strategies and tactics. The only difference was that nobody was speaking, and in the middle of the circle were not maps and papers marked with red markers or pinned down with knives, but Roderich Edelstein.
Roderich Edelstein and his phone, to be more exact.
"She might be busy," he was telling the others, "It's kind of a bad habit of hers; it always takes her several calls to pick up."
This was, as a matter of fact, the fourth time Magyar's fiancé was dialing her number, and everyone crowded around him was getting a little impatient.
"She told me she was visiting her sister in California," Edelstein continued, "So she may be preoccupied at the moment."
"I'm pretty sure Magyar does not have a sister," answered Gilbert. "I've slept with her before."
"Can you please stop flaunting that around?" Ludwig was, unsurprisingly, mortified by his older brother. "It's not exactly something to be proud about."
"And it's kind of irrelevant," added Nathan. "Just because you slept with her doesn't mean that you'd know whether or not she has a sister."
"What would you know?" Gilbert twisted to face the teen. "You've probably never even touched a girl before."
"Please," Ludwig groaned while Nathan flushed.
"I know that she doesn't have a sister." Edelstein dialed the number again. He was beginning to look a little frustrated as well. "Or a brother, whom she apparently visited in Australia half a year ago. She's not the best liar, if I am to be honest."
"Australia?" Emil looked alarmed. "When?"
"Nearing Christmas," answered Edelstein. "It was very suspicious."
"Mister Edelstein," said Kiku, nothing but polite, "Did you know that you are engaged to one of the most dangerous people in the world?"
"I suspected somewhat." Magyar's fiancé pressed his phone to his ear. "I find it reassuring."
"Reassuring?" Vash repeated incredulously. "You've been kidnapped and are currently trying to call your evil fiancée to pick up so she can make a deal with us!"
"But not dead," Edelstein reminded the former Prison guard. "That's what matters, in my—Oh, hello, Eliza."
The room fell silent.
"How are you? Your sister?" A pause. "Yes, Eliza, your sister. You told me you were visiting your sister in California." He paused once more. "I see. When will you be back?"
The people around him exchanged somewhat alarmed looks. It was surreal to see someone having such a typical conversation with Magyar. The Magyar. They could catch snippets of her voice from the phone, whose volume had been turned to the loudest, and she sounded so... normal. Human. Un-Magyar-like.
"How have I been?" Roderich glanced around him. "Well, I'm also faring quite well, though I have been kidnapped."
"What?" The one word was forceful and sharp, but not panicked. Emma gestured at Edelstein to press the speaker button.
He did so, then said, "I think they want to make some bargain with you."
"Hello, bitch," Gilbert called out. "Remember me?"
"Gilbert Beilschmidt," Magyar said, and this time, it was truly Magyar who spoke. The sharp, crisp coldness, the harsh cruelty that marked everything Magyar had ever done. "Disagreeable as always, I see."
"Only to you, Lizzie." Gilbert snatched the phone out of Edelstein's hands and plopped down into a sprawl on the nearest couch. "Now, to business. For your information, I am currently holding a knife to your little lover's neck. Every time you lie, I will cut off a finger, so answer truthfully: Do you know where Lukas Bondevik is?"
"Yes."
"Does he happen to be in your possession?"
"Yes."
Gilbert paused. Mathias stood at his shoulder, staring intently at the phone with shadowed eyes. His fists clenched and unclenched, as if he wanted to wrench the woman out of the phone and strangle her.
"Why?"
"Leverage."
"Well, now we've also gotten leverage."
"So?"
"So..." Gilbert looked up at the tall blonde, who continued to glare at nothing in particular. "Trade?"
This time, Magyar paused. "We'll have to see."
She hung up.
The Base was silent. Everyone merely stared at the dark screen, unsure as to how to continue.
The phone rang.
Gilbert picked up immediately. "Hello?"
"Take care of Roderich for me," said Magyar, and hung up once more.
Lukas remembered a time not too long ago when every time he was knocked out, he woke up to screaming. This was, of course, while they were dealing with the Underworld, and it seemed fitting somehow, even though the screaming wasn't always necessarily screaming, but music.
The first time was also the first time he killed a person—a child—and something in his stomach coiled immediately at the memory.
The second time he had been knocked out by Vladimir Popescu—Lukas wondered how the Trader was doing now—and had been woken by Alfred's off-tune karoake in his plane.
The third time he had woken to silence and coldness that was soon replaced by screams—his screams—and the warmth of blood—his blood.
This time, he woke once again to silence and coldness and darkness, and for a moment, he was in the Prison cell, on the verge of torture again, and panic began to rise—
Then there was a gentle rustle, and he opened his eyes, slowly regaining his senses, and Lukas realized that he was in a rather comfortable bed whose covers were still a bit too thin and it was not completely dark. His eyes had to search for the light, but in the corner of the room was a single lamp perched on a desk, and sitting before the desk, flipping through a thick book, was Elizabeta Héderváry.
His head and limbs felt incredibly heavy, yet he forced himself to sit up. Magyar heard him struggling and looked up, and Lukas was startled to see that she looked fatigued and fragile, with shadows pooling into every hollow of her face and figure—or maybe it was all just the lighting.
His tongue felt like a dead slab of meat in his mouth, yet somehow he made it move, stumbling over his confusion, "Are you going to torture me again?"
"Does it look like I'm going to torture you?"
Magyar reached up and flicked a switch. Pale light exploded overheard, and Lukas squinted for a moment.
It hadn't been the lighting. Elizabeta Héderváry—Miss Héderváry—Magyar—Lukas didn't know what to call her anymore, not even in his head—had bags under her eyes and chapped, bitten lips and a weariness that weighed her to the bones.
"Where am I?"
"Some Underworld base," answered Magyar. "That's all you need to know."
"For hostage?" It began to feel normal to speak again. He noticed a cup of water on the small cabinet beside his bed, which he sipped gratefully. "What are you trying to get from kidnapping me?"
Magyar took a moment to think of a response. "Mathias Køhler... once told me that you meant everything to him."
Lukas felt his eyes widen, his heart flutter. A strange joy stirred inside of him and he wondered if he was blushing until Magyar continued,
"I have been sent by the Underworld leaders to destroy that. To destroy him."
And everything came crashing down.
"You're not going to torture me, and you're not going to keep me hostage," stated Lukas. "You're going to kill me."
"Essentially, yes. That is the role of a hostage, isn't it?" And she sounded regretful, which, as a matter of fact, only made him want to laugh. "That is what they want."
"They—" But Lukas knew who 'they' were, even if he didn't know exactly who they were. "But why? Isn't the Underworld gigantic? Is Mathias really that important, that annoying to them—who? China?"
"No." Magyar took the book on the table and replaced it on her lap, but didn't open it. She held it as if it was an anchor, safety. Lukas realized with no small amount of surprise that it was a copy of the Bible. "Not China."
That hardly meant anything. "Of course not. It's China, after all. This would be below him."
"Perhaps," Magyar admitted, "Perhaps not. I don't know."
Lukas blinked slowly. He was trying to recall every bit of information he had on China—which was not very much, of course, coming only from a brief conversation about the vague history of the Underworld—something about a civil war and Mathias and Magyar. "You've never met him before?"
"Sure. But that was a long time ago." Now she sounded sad, and she fingered the cover of the Bible.
"Does he not deal with the Underworld anymore?" Lukas asked. "Retired?"
Magyar sighed. "China is dead."
"Dead," Lukas repeated, unbelieving.
"Killed," Magyar corrected. "It's why nobody has ever really met him, and if they did, it was before the end of the war."
"The civil war."
"Yes."
"How?"
Magyar shrugged, but the pinched corners of her mouth told him that she knew. "He had a lot of enemies. The Viking was only one of them, and the farthest away at that."
Lukas felt confused, a little disoriented. He did not know much about the Underworld, yet something felt wrong. There was a massive hole in his knowledge and things were slipping and disappearing into that chasm. "I don't understand."
"The Viking—Mathias," said Magyar, "Was a small nuisance. Remember, we won the war, and Mathias was leading the opposite side. Well, he was the last leader standing, a beacon of hope, so we wanted to destroy it utterly. But China—" and now Magyar laughed, a weak, helpless chuckle, "Contrary to popular belief and myth, China is kind, though he does have a knack of justifying his actions to make them seem crueler.
"We faked Mathias's death so any more of his supporters would lose hope and give up, but to those who were close, whom China trusted enough, we know that Mathias was treated just like any common enemy of the Underworld: sent to a Prison, sent to a Lab. To us, it was establishing that even the legendary Viking was no more than a small problem that we'll just easily discard into the depth of hell once he is broken. It was a reminder that he was only a sixteen-year-old boy, not an actual threat."
Sixteen. Lukas tried to remember what he had been doing at sixteen. He was still struggling to find a way out of the orphanage, even if it was illegal. He had been determined to get Emil out of that hellhole (No, that wasn't hell, he realized now. This was Hell) as soon as possible. "How long did the civil war last?"
"Three years, more or less. We also call it the Underground War, since no one outside of the Underworld really knows about it." Magyar flipped to a random page in the Bible. "It kind of began when the Paradizo founders were bombed on the twentieth anniversary of Paradizo." She paused. "You know what is Paradizo, do you?"
Lukas nodded. "Some others explained it to me briefly."
"Hmm." She closed the book. "It was a massive program. Enough to create armies. It's why there was a civil war. It's why now, the Underworld is so vast."
"But wasn't Paradizo just to help orphans and such? How could there have been enough conflict to start a war?"
Magyar shrugged again. "For me—and China, of course, it's why I joined his side—we did not like that Paradizo was a private organization that was very selective with the children it would help. It chose only the best, the most talented they could find and obtain, and they made them even better. We wanted it to become public, maybe government-run, though I doubt that'd be a good idea, and just help as many children as possible, not just the talented ones."
Lukas could see her point. For a moment, he felt almost bitter that Paradizo had never chosen him or Emil, but then he thought that it was better that they had never been found. They would have fought in the civil war then, probably, and Lukas was not appealed by that thought in any way.
"It's somewhat funny," Magyar mused. "Paradizo never really reached the Americas. It stayed in the East. It was the Underworld that spread here."
"How did Paradizo become..." like this? Even if there was a civil war, this was too drastic a change. From an organization to help children to one so deeply rooted in crime it was practically the black market itself—it was difficult to imagine.
"China died," answered Magyar simply. "And those who replaced him were greedier and focused more on lining their pockets with gold than helping people."
"Why didn't you take over China's place?"
"Maybe I would have." Magyar's lips tilted slightly, as if contemplating that option for another world, another life. "Maybe I should have. But by the time China died, I already had Roderich. I didn't want to lead an organization."
That made sense; Lukas felt like he could understand. He nodded slowly, then said, "Somebody once told me to tell you that you're a bitch."
Magyar laughed. "You'd have to be more specific. There are too many people who would love to call me that to my face."
Being more specific was probably a bad idea; it would most likely end up with dead bodies.
"Don't worry," she said, sensing his hesitation. "I'm not planning to kill anyone."
"I don't trust you."
"No one does."
That was the truth, which was not reassuring at all.
"When did you meet this person?"
"Some time ago," answered Lukas vaguely.
"With Mathias? Looking for your brother? He or she is in the Underworld, of course."
Of course. Lukas nodded.
"Occupation?"
"Trader."
Magyar smiled and sat back. "That would be Vladimir Popescu, I presume. Next time I see him I'd have to tell him that his brother is doing fine. Don't worry," she repeated, "I won't kill him."
Brother, huh. Lukas thought back to that brief encounter with the strange Trader all those months ago. It felt like the Underworld functioned on the desperate and anxious love of brothers and sisters, and was held together by hostages and kidnappers.
"Do you have anymore questions?"
Yes, so many. He was filled to the brim with questions that he didn't know how to ask, was too afraid to ask, because the more Magyar spoke, the more he felt like he was seeing something, yet remained just as blind as ever.
"Why..." And then it struck him. "Why are you telling me all this?"
Because he was going to die either way and it didn't matter?
Magyar was thoughtfully stroking the spine of the Bible. "There is a possibility that I will die very soon. I do not know for sure yet, but I have a feeling that something is going to go wrong, and my feelings are hardly ever wrong."
She caught sight of the alarm that flashed across Lukas's expression before he quickly tried to tuck it away, and chuckled. "It is quite funny, isn't it? Many people think that I'm invincible; sometimes, I think that I'm invincible.
"But, in the case that I'm not, I think I have to tell you." She stood, set the Bible down, and headed towards the door. A card appeared in her hand, but she did not swipe it. Instead, she turned back to Lukas.
When she spoke again, her voice was soft, more human than Lukas had ever heard her. "I feel like, even though she hated this world, she would have wanted you to know about it."
She?
Lukas opened his mouth to ask, but Elizabeta Héderváry was already gone.
In the end, he was still Norwegian, which amused him because he could barely speak the language.
Then again, it didn't really matter. He didn't need to open his mouth to bomb a building. All he needed was to look Norwegian and seem Norwegian, and that was easy enough.
So he strolled into the building like anyone else, walked around like anyone else, then exited like anyone else.
He was at one point vividly reminded of a scene from The Shawshank Redemption, when the main character was scattering dust into the prison courtyard while pretending to simply be strolling along happily.
This was exactly what he was doing, except instead of scattering dust, he was sowing bombs.
A new gadget of Antonio's, quite handy: bombs the size of a pinky nail, but thinner and transparent with more force than a landmine. Except unlike landmines, he was not leaving its victims to chance.
Two hours later, a building belonging to a discreet company was blown up, the force of the explosions crashing through the windows of its neighbors, but the possible causes—or lack thereof—of the incident baffling the police and investigators. Though suspected to be connected to the bombing of Frankfurt, lack of evidence continued to leave the cases unsolved.
He found this all rather amusing. It wasn't like he had been trying very hard to be discreet—the bombs testified to that, no doubt—nor did he really try not to be seen.
Then again, sometimes the things done in broad daylight are the most difficult things to see. It was a basic concept for magicians and killers.
"Done exploring?" Magyar asked when he returned to the hotel room.
There was nothing to explore. This may be his past, but it was a forgotten past that he no longer needed for the future. This was just one more city, one more target, one more piece of the dream fulfilled.
One more step towards the end.
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