Chapter 22: His Treacherous Savior
Disclaimer: You know the drill: Hellboy characters do not belong to me. However, Erica Schwarz and the plot that is not from the movie are mine.
Author's Notes: The rumors that I fell off the edge of the earth were an exaggeration, and I am back after lots of adventuring to bring you the newest chapter. Thank you all so much for reviewing; they offer encouragement and ideas like nothing else! Now to resolve that nasty cliffhanger from last time…
"Without trust there is nothing."—Anonymous
Yefimovitch Mausoleum
Underground
Hexagonal Stone Lab
Day
The cold edge of Kroenen's baton sword sliced into Erica's flesh. A sharp gasp escaped her lips followed by a high-pitched whimper as the icy edge dug deeper. Hot blood spilled from the wound and ran quickly down her neck, then slowed as it hit the plane of her chest and soaked into her shirt, spreading through the fabric like a gory blossoming flower.
Kroenen's hand stilled a hairsbreadth from cutting into her arteries and the cartilage of her esophagus. He pulled the crimsoned blade out and Erica writhed uselessly against his arms as he held it, hovering threateningly, just over her bloodstained skin.
Erica panted, her breaths shallow and wheezing. She trembled with pain and adrenaline; tears spilled from her eyes, tracing twin paths down her cheeks. This was not the worst wound Kroenen had given her in their history together, but she knew if it had not been for his skill as surgeon she would already be dead. As it was the wound was not life threatening, but the amount of blood was certainly spectacular.
Across the room Hellboy had come to a complete standstill, an expression of horror in his golden eyes. Desired effect achieved, Kroenen noted. He glanced down to check on Erica. Pain had completely drained her face of color; she was as pale as a porcelain doll. But she would be alright. His Angel of Death was resilient.
He directed his attention back to Anung-un-Rama. "Lassen Sie Ihre Waffe fallen!" he rasped.
Hellboy stared at the assassin, unable to understand but recognizing that he was demanding something.
Erica spoke up, her voice strained. "He said drop your weapon."
"What? No way—!"
Kroenen twitched his baton sword towards Erica's neck.
"Whoa!" Hellboy yelled, throwing his arms up in surrender. "Okay! Okay!" Slowly, he bent over, reaching out to lay his gun on the floor.
For a moment Erica thought he might actually do it. Then she saw the glint in the demon's eyes.
Oh shit, she thought, Kroenen—
Hellboy charged like an out-of-control locomotive with a bellowing roar that shook the wooden floorboards.
Kroenen had no time to think. He hooked an arm around Erica and threw her to the floor, out of harm's way, and whirled his right baton sword towards the demon's face. Hellboy threw out his stone arm like a shield and the blade bounced off. A whistle heralded the second incoming blade and the demon punched it aside—
Swip!
The other baton sword slipped in from the side, slicing across the bridge of Hellboy's nose. Hissing in pain the demon lowered his head to glare at the assassin. Blood dripped down his face below eyes smoldering with anger.
And then Hellboy snapped.
As fast as Kroenen was he didn't get his crossed blades out of range before Hellboy seized them in a crushing grip and yanked. Doggedly, Kroenen held on—and Hellboy brutally punched him right in the middle of his steel mask. The metal crumpled and a spider web of cracks raced across the glass of the left lens; it shattered and screws and bits of hardware popped off as the stone fist pummeled his mask like a battering ram.
Karl! Erica screamed in her head.
Propelled by fury and desperation she surged up from the floor with a hoarse cry of dismay tearing from her throat. Made clumsy by haste she fumbled and tripped over herself; it was like the air had turned into frozen mud just to hold her back from saving the man she loved. Watching helplessly, Erica retracted her wrist blades and struggled to her feet feeling sick to her stomach; the fighting pair was just feet away but it might as well have been miles—she knew this time nothing short of death could separate them.
The onslaught of metal-crushing blows halted and Kroenen gurgled inarticulately; his head jerked as Hellboy dragged him closer.
"You killed my father!" the demon roared into the smashed ruin of the Nazi's mask. "Your ass is mine!"
With a forceful grunt Hellboy hauled back and delivered a final punch. Limbs flailing, Kroenen's body flew backwards and smashed into one of the glass panes. The window shattered explosively and the assassin slid to the floor in a crash of splintering glass shards.
Cursing, Hellboy took a moment to wipe at his bleeding nose with the back of his hand. Across from him Kroenen leaned against the wrought iron railing in front of the window and struggled to push himself into a sitting position. An asthmatic wheeze rasped from the assassin's throat, then again, louder and steadily gaining strength. Incredibly, he was laughing.
Kroenen wasn't just laughing because the demon and his fat balding companion were standing on the massive trapdoor in the floor, completely unaware of their impending doom. No, it was the beautiful, terrifyingly murderous expression of fury on Erica's face as she clenched her fist around the hilt of a knife, her steely eyes locked on Anung-un-Rama.
She was magnificent.
Oblivious to the avenging angel poised behind him, Hellboy curled his lips in disgust at Kroenen. "What are you laughin' at you Nazi son of a—"
Someone forcefully tackled him from behind. An arm locked itself tightly around his throat and hung on—
"AAAARRrrrrgh!"
A dagger plunged into Hellboy's back just below his right shoulder, piercing leather-tough skin and taut muscle to the bone. Reflexively, Hellboy twisted sharply and shrugged his shoulders, dislodging his attacker and hurling him to the floor. The demon whirled around, stone fist raised and ready to obliterate—
The black clothed blur skillfully ducked and retreated out of range, positioning itself protectively between Hellboy and the clockwork assassin.
Hellboy gaped in utter shock.
Familiar fierce grey eyes gazed back at him with steely purpose. Crouched and ready to spring, Erica discarded the dagger and drew her baton swords with hands stained crimson by Hellboy's blood.
"Back off!" she ordered. Her voice was thick with anger.
"What the hell?" the demon exclaimed.
Manning was equally astonished. "I—I was right!" he babbled, pointing at Erica and sounding oddly elated. "I was right! She—she—she's with them! I told Myers—!"
Kroenen laughed manically behind his treacherous savior; the sound of it both harsh and exultant.
"My Angel," the assassin emphasized through his totally unrestrained cackling. "Mine!"
"E…" Hellboy murmured, bewildered. His voice was soft; hurt and disbelieving. Erica could practically see the puzzle pieces falling into place in his head as he realized that her fight with Kroenen and the threat to her life had been nothing but a sham. It pained her to turn on him, but no matter how much she was torn between loyalties she was not going to back down while Kroenen was in danger.
Hellboy moved towards her. Instantly on the defensive, Erica flipped her baton swords forward and took up an attack position.
"You don't wanna do this," Hellboy said warningly.
"Ja! I do! You would do the same thing for Liz!"
Comprehension slowly dawned on the demon's face. "Liz? Erica, are you out of your fucking m—?"
She held up her hand, cutting him off and urgently signaling for silence, then cocked her head to better hear the faint sound she had detected. From beneath the floor came a grinding of gears that filled her with dread. A memory surfaced of the same sound: gears whirring, a thud of six support bars drawing back, and then there should be a—
Click.
Erica's eyes flicked down to the old dusty floorboards and she hurriedly stepped back—
The middle of the room split like the segments of an orange and dropped down into darkness.
Hellboy plummeted through with a yell. Manning slid after him; his fingers just barely latched onto a crack in the floorboards and he hung there, half in, half out of the hole in the floor. The phonograph and chair toppled past him. Below, Hellboy's left hand shot out and closed around a rope, stopping his fall with a bone-rattling jerk.
With one foot on solid ground Erica teetered precariously on the edge.
She caught a glimpse of Kroenen, frozen in horror as he stared at her—and then she fell.
The darkness of the pit rushed up at her. Instinctively Erica lashed out with her baton swords. Her right blade bit deep into wood and her heart-stopping fall halted abruptly, wrenching her shoulder. Hissing in pain and knowing what was coming next, she drew her knees up to her chest. Metal shrieked below her feet as thick iron spikes shot up through the floor of the pit, overturning the gleaming white bones of the trap's past victims. Quivering, the six-foot spikes stopped beneath Erica as she hung there, twisting and turning.
Just feet away from her Hellboy was in a similar predicament, holding on for dear life to a rope that dangled from the ceiling. Of the three of them that had fallen only Manning had managed to escape and scramble back onto solid ground; his wan, anxious face peeked over the edge at them.
The irony, Erica thought bitterly, her feet scrabbling for purchase on the smooth stone wall. Stupid, stupid, stupid! I know what these things look like. I should have—should have seen it—
Her muscles strained and protested as she tried to pull herself up one-handed. Not happening.
She tilted her head back to see if there was anything else to hold on to—and there was Kroenen, peering over the edge of the trapdoor at her through the lenses of his destroyed mask. He gracefully held out a gloved hand. Smiling with relief, Erica swung her other arm up and caught his fingers; strong arms easily pulled her to safety.
"Danke," she murmured, grateful to have her feet back on terra firma.
Careful not to cut her with his swords, Kroenen pulled her into an embrace, thankful she was unharmed. "It was nothing," he whispered. He grasped his mask by the chin; in its damaged state it practically fell off in his hand, exposing his lidless eyes and raw-gummed lipless mouth. Kroenen did not care, and neither did Erica. She gazed unflinchingly back at him as he leaned in to possessively run his tongue along the side of her face from jaw to eye.
"That's just nasty!" Hellboy muttered from the depths of the pit.
Manning, for once, seemed to agree with the demon; he gagged and then bent over and retched.
Laughing, Kroenen pulled on his mask. Breaking away from Erica he flourished his blades; light flashed dazzlingly over their edges as they came within inches of the rope Hellboy hung from.
"Enough," Erica said firmly. She laid a hand on his shoulder to pull him away. "You swore you wouldn't kill anyone. Now help me get him—"
TINNNNNNG!
Like a well-aimed discus a gear whizzed out of nowhere and struck Kroenen's mask. Across the room Manning smirked and readied another.
"Don't even think about it," he said.
Realizing Manning had misconstrued her words as a threat instead of a request for help in hauling Hellboy's tailed butt out of the hole, Erica started to explain but was forced to duck when Manning hurled another cog.
"Take that you Nazi bitch!"
A strangled grunt alerted her that she had more pressing problems than Manning. With almost mechanical smoothness she turned—and her heart stopped as she spotted Kroenen crouched at the edge of the hole. A rope was looped tightly around his neck and he had frantically jammed his baton swords into the floor to anchor himself. Hellboy heaved on the other end of the makeshift lasso and Kroenen lost his grip; he fell onto all fours, leaving his blades embedded in the floor.
Before she could cut the rope Hellboy hauled himself out of the pit, grabbed the assassin's ankle, and hurled him over the edge.
"NEIN!"
Erica screamed and lunged for him, dropping her blades and nearly toppling in herself. Her fingers snatched at the air.
Too late.
Kneeling on the floor Erica stared down into the pit, her hands white-knuckled and shaking where they gripped at the edge. Her mouth worked soundlessly in horror.
Kroenen was suspended above the floor of the pit by the three spikes that pierced his body. One had gone through his left bicep, another speared his left thigh, and the third impaled his chest just below his sternum. As she watched, Kroenen dazedly reached out to touch the rusty spike that protruded from the middle of his chest, as though he couldn't quite believe that he had been skewered by his own trap.
Heavy footsteps approached and Erica felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up as Hellboy's shadow loomed over her. She turned—the side of a boot crashed into her ribs, knocking her flat on her back. Gasping for breath she gaped up at the demon stooping under the weight of a massive cogwheel like Atlas with the world on his shoulders.
"That's all for you, pinhead," Hellboy spat. Below him Kroenen wriggled like a fish caught on a hook as he tried in vain to escape from the half-ton of metal suspended above him.
Hellboy glanced sideways at Erica lying on the floor, imploringly reaching out to him, and then with a mighty heave he tipped the gear into the pit.
CLANG!
The giant cog slid down the metal shafts trapping Kroenen, pulverizing one of them and coming to rest at a slant with one edge propped up against some of the spikes.
At Hellboy's feet Erica was shrieking incoherently in German. The demon stepped towards her. Time to get to the bottom of this, he thought. Hopefully she was upset enough that she would just reveal everything; what seemed to be going on, that she was on Rasputin's side, just couldn't be true—it didn't make sense. Regardless, whatever she had gotten herself into wasn't looking too good from where he was standing.
But an easy confession wasn't to be. The second he moved Erica executed a swift roll that carried her away from the edge of the pit. She fluidly got to her feet. Weaponless, she feinted left, and when he moved with her she ran to the right.
Smack!
Trying to be relatively gentle Hellboy brought her down with a left-handed punch. Unfortunately he still over-did it: Erica fell into one of the stone walls and slid to the floor in a limp heap, blood oozing from a nasty gash at her temple. She was out cold.
Sighing, Hellboy carefully propped her up against the wall and then snapped a pair of handcuffs onto her wrists behind her back. His fingers found the pulse in Erica's throat just above the half-congealed slash from Kroenen's blade.
"Damn. She'll be out for a while," he muttered, pulling away. Fumbling in his coat pockets for a cigar stump, he joined Manning over by the pit.
Manning chucked his handful of gears over the edge, ineffectually adding to the immense weight that had crushed Kroenen. He dusted his hands off before shoving them into his coat pockets. "You know, I've been tracking her since the subways incident; had Myers assigned to tail her. I knew she was a double agent—knew it. Felt it right here in my gut," he said, prodding at his ample stomach through his coat.
Hellboy shook his head and clamped his teeth down on the cigar; his hands returned to his pockets, rummaging for a lighter. "Nah, that's just what it looks like. Somethin' else is goin' on here. She can't be a traitor. Deceivin' us for six decades is outta the question; she and Broom were too close. And Abe would have known—he wouldn't have kept quiet about somethin' like that."
"She stole that knife she stuck in the wall back there," Manning insisted, jabbing his thumb over his shoulder at the room on the other side of the blade-lined corridor. "Lied in all her reports. She was covering something up. Kept saying that clockwork Nazi was knocking her out instead of killing her. And from what we just saw, clearly they were working together. What was that—that licking thing supposed to be? A kiss?" He shuddered.
"Mmmmph. Abe's not gonna be happy about it, that's for sure," the demon grunted around the stub in his mouth. His searching fingers closed on the cold metal of his Zippo lighter and he pulled it out, gesturing at Erica. "We're not gonna be gettin' any answers for a while—by the time she wakes up we'll be done here."
He flicked the lighter open and thumbed at it repeatedly, struggling to get a flame out of it.
"What're you doing?"
"Lightin' my cigar—"
"Come on, you never light a cigar that way," Manning said, taking the malfunctioning lighter from him. He pulled out a matchbox; he struck a match and it flared into life, filling the air with the smell of burning sulfur. "You use a wooden match. Preserves the flavor, you see?"
Hellboy puffed on his cigar and nodded, smiling. "Thank you." And not just for the match, he thought. That thrown gear could not have been timed better.
"And thank you," Manning replied.
Having come to some sort of brotherly truce by saving each other's lives, the two stood in pensive silence for a few moments, wreathed in tendrils of tobacco smoke. Then Hellboy took the cigar stub from his mouth and ground it out.
"I'm goin' on ahead; you'd better stay here. I'll find a way out. We'll come back for you."
"Stay here? With her?"
Hellboy stopped in the doorway and threw out his arms in exasperation. "She's handcuffed and unconscious. What more do ya want?"
"Dead comes to mind," Manning muttered under his breath as the demon vanished through the doorway.
Alone now, Manning glanced nervously at Erica's still form, and then around at the gears still spinning in the walls.
"Creep-y," he said. For lack of anything else to do he started pacing, peering at some of the clocks and scattered papers with the interest of someone painfully bored and tense but trying not to show it.
XXXXX
Underground
Narrow Tunnel
Liz moved down the tunnel, picking her way through the narrow space. Parts of the ceiling had collapsed long ago and pieces of timber, disintegrating coffins, and corpses formed a chaotic barrier in the narrow passageway. Wet earth fell on Liz's shoulders as she squeezed past. In front of her Agent Stone splashed through shallow puddles as he forged ahead; Myers trailed behind her, carrying the two grenade belts.
Their radios crackled to life and Hellboy's voice came through. "Hey, Sparky, you there?"
Liz flicked the beam of her flashlight over the rough rock walls, carefully advancing. "Yes. Find anything yet?"
"Just that Nazi pinhead. I took care of him, but we have a problem."
Liz rolled her eyes slightly. Imagine that. "What is it?"
"Somethin' with Erica."
"She's hurt?"
"Yes, but that's not it. Not exactly."
The pyrokinetic turned a corner, stepping over a heap of skulls. She had absolutely no patience for guessing games right now. "Spit it out, Red."
There was a burst of static as Hellboy exhaled heavily. "It looks like she's a traitor."
The three of them stopped in their tracks and exchanged uneasy glances.
Myers broke the silence. "What do you mean?"
"I don't know the details yet—but she was defendin' that clockwork zombie. Stabbed me in the back. Literally."
"Jesus," Myers murmured in surprise. He ran a hand though his damp hair. "Manning was right."
Liz shot him a sharp look that told him to be quiet and explain later.
Hellboy continued. "I knocked her out, and Manning's keepin' an eye on her, but watch out. I don't know how much our mission is compromised. Red out."
Except for the constant dripping of water the tunnel was dead silent, the air thick with the three's collective shock and dread.
"Shit!" Agent Stone cursed. "Do you know how much she could have given away?"
"Yeah," Liz replied, her heart heavy. "Everything."
XXXXX
Hexagonal Stone Lab
Manning was thoroughly engrossed in a set of drawings he had found on the floor. Sure, the flesh laid open and fused to machinery was disturbing, but the sketches were so detailed that they were fascinating in the same macabre way as a train-wreck.
Damn, this guy had a couple screws loose, he thought. Manning flipped the page over and went on to the next, skimming the sepia-toned ink for any recognizable words hidden among the German script.
Somewhere behind him an eye cautiously slit open and watched his hunched shoulders. After a few minutes when it became apparent that the man was absorbed with the papers and unlikely to turn around, nimble fingers silently moved into action. Slipping into the back of a boot they deftly drew out a slender blade. With head lolling and eyes still closed in appearance of unconsciousness, the ex-assassin awkwardly angled the knife point upwards behind her back; a subtle flick of a wrist jammed it into the lock on the handcuffs. She jiggled it back and forth; with a final push and twist the lock gave.
The handcuffs hit the floor without a sound.
"What exactly is this?" Manning muttered to himself. He gave up, crumpled the drawing into a ball, and tossed it neatly through a hole in one of the glass panes. Sighing, he scratched at his head and put his hands in his pockets. Where was Hellboy? Maybe he should radio him and find out—
Steel as cold as ice touched the back of his neck.
Manning froze, instantly drenched in sweat. He knew who it had to be even before the Nazi assassin spoke.
"Hands out of your pockets," Erica hissed menacingly in his ear. "And pull them out slowly. Now!" She punctuated her words by pressing down on the blade.
Shakily, Manning held his hands up and put them on his head. Summoning some latent courage, he muttered, "Just what is it with you and that Nazi wind-up toy playing possum, huh?"
Erica didn't answer. Her free hand darted in from the side to rifle through his pockets, searching for the gun the BPRD distributed to all of its agents.
"How'd you get out of the handcuffs?" he asked over his shoulder.
"They're as standard-issue as your gun," she replied, pulling the latter out of his pants pocket. "The basic design hasn't changed in the past twelve years. I routinely practice escaping from them—just in case. Now walk."
Manning did so; Erica followed him with her ever-present knife hovering between his shoulder blades, prodding him forward. His heart hammered furiously while his stomach tied itself in knots. Having an assassin behind him was far from comforting: was she going to push him into the spike pit, or was she planning on cutting him up and feeding him in pieces to a Sammael?
"So what are you going to do with me?" he asked. His voice quivered more than he had hoped.
"I'm not going to hurt you."
Manning raised his eyebrows. "That's good to know." He continued shuffling forward at dagger-point. "So what's with the knife?"
"I'm not so sure you're not going to hurt me."
He snorted. "You're the one waving the knife around."
"It all serves a purpose," Erica said cryptically. "I didn't know what was going to happen here, and you and Hellboy probably just crushed our only hope of winning this."
"Good," Manning said resentfully. "All of you can rot in h—"
"I'm not with Rasputin," she growled, startling him because her voice was suddenly much closer to him than before. She was practically breathing down his neck. "I'm fighting to keep you—me—all of us alive. There's no time to explain and even if I did you wouldn't believe me; not here, not now."
Manning's shuffling had brought him to the door Hellboy had gone through a while ago.
Erica leaned in closer and her voice took on an ironic tone. "You're just going to have to trust me on this one."
"As if!"
Erica's hands collided with his back, shoving him out into the passageway. Stumbling, Manning regained his balance just as Erica threw his handgun the length of the hall.
"You'll need this!" she yelled.
—and slammed the door in his face. Heavy locks thudded home.
This time Manning didn't bother to pound on the door. Bending over, he retrieved his gun and pocketed it, wondering why Erica had given it back. Whatever—she was probably as crazy as the rest of them.
He looked left and then right. Now what? Maybe he would try to find Hellboy...
An unearthly, eerie howl echoed from somewhere underground and slowly died away.
…On second thought, maybe he would follow his own orders and just stay put.
XXXXX
Hexagonal Stone Lab
Beneath the giant gear Kroenen was still alive.
Though at this point the clockwork assassin was almost wishing for the icy hands of death to steal him away and take him into the folds of oblivion. That black void would at least be free of the crushing pressure of the cogwheel's weight mercilessly bearing down on him and pinning him immobile to the floor. The spikes impaling his body were not exactly comfortable either; the shock induced by the wounds had dulled the pain to a barely manageable though not quite pleasurable agony. This was not the controlled pain he liked. He was hyper aware of each damaged muscle, each ragged, shredded piece of flesh, and his hands itched to hold the cold metal tools that could repair them.
But first things first: the gear would have to go. And with only one free arm and leg, no matter how enhanced by his tinkering with clockwork, there was no way he would be able to move it himself. One option was to slowly tear his limbs free from the spikes, but that was a measure of last resort because of the massive amount of damage it would entail. His only other hope, tiny though it might be, was Erica—and based on the conversation he had overheard she was unconscious and therefore temporarily unable to assist him.
So he waited in the darkness, listening to the ragged sound of his breathing and the clanking of his damaged clockwork. There was a soft, nearly inaudible hiss somewhere off to his left: sand oozing from his wounds.
A sudden scuffle and loud, angry words above him drew him out of his thoughts. Two pairs of feet walking, and—Kroenen's heart leapt as he detected Erica's voice amid the tense conversation. Then a door slammed and silence abruptly returned, seeming to stretch out into infinity. Kroenen counted the moments by the steady ticking of his clockwork heart, waiting to hear his Angel's voice again. Nothing. No voices, no movements. He was alone.
Then the familiar sound of an even more familiar pair of jackboots came from above him, heels tapping as their owner strode towards the pit from the direction of the door that had closed seemingly hours ago. Kroenen was sure he recognized the sound of the footsteps, muffled and distorted as they were by the enormous gear crushing him and the odd shape of the pit. He was certain no one else walked like that. Did he dare to hope?
"Kroenen?" Erica called softly to him. He could hear the doubt in her voice and knew she was uncertain if he could hear her, or if he had been crushed into nothingness.
"I'm going to get you out. Just hang on, alright?"
If his chest was not being flattened by the gear's immense weight, Kroenen would have laughed. He admired Erica's tenacity and loyalty, but he could not imagine there was anything she could do. Determination was a strong force, but by nature it was intangible; it only had the desired effect if one had the right tools at his disposal. And at the moment his Angel of Death had only herself. Still, she had proven herself resourceful in the past; perhaps she would be able to find a way to help him.
There was a rattle of heavy chains being shifted and rearranged. "No one deserves such a fate," he heard her mutter angrily. "I'll see Red and Manning in hell before I let them leave you like this."
Kroenen smiled mentally. He knew she was talking to him in the hope that he could hear her, and that if he could that he would stay conscious.
Erica's footsteps methodically circumnavigated the room, followed by the ear-splitting shatter of glass as she broke each and every remaining window.
She is either in a very bad mood, or she has an idea, Kroenen thought wryly. His own humor in such a situation surprised him; perhaps the steady loss of the sand that served as his blood was affecting him more than he had realized.
Metal scraped across the floorboards, followed by a series of thumps, clangs, and curses from Erica as she muscled something into place. More rapid footsteps and chains dragging over the floor—
CRASH!
The impact of chains hitting the top of the gear reverberated through the thick metal and into his chest. Kroenen grunted in discomfort.
"Sorry."
There was a soft scuffling as Erica climbed down into the pit. Old dry bones crunched beneath her boots as she walked around the gear, hooking the chains to it. Then silence. The assassin guessed that Erica must be climbing out of the pit again.
"Okay, here…we…go!" she muttered, straining against something.
Whatever it was gave way. Immediately the sound of the revolving clockwork in the walls grew louder; the speed of their rotation was increasing, and it sounded like they were struggling against something—
The colossal weight of the cogwheel shifted and then abruptly lifted from Kroenen's body. The relief was unbelievable; almost unearthly satisfying. He lay there reveling in the ability to simply expand his chest and breathe. Above him metal creaked as the cogwheel inched higher and higher and finally reached the top of the pit and was maneuvered to the side. It clanged like a huge manhole cover as it dropped to the floor with an earthshaking boom.
Seeing the configuration of ropes and hooks above him, Kroenen suddenly understood: Erica had created a winch by running a chain through pulleys and attaching one end to the enormous cog and the other to the gears in the walls. They had simply wound in the chain until she swung the gear aside.
And speak of the devil…
Erica looked down at him, her pale face creased with worry. Kroenen twitched and raised his head, letting out a soft groan. A smile tugged at the corner of her lips but quickly vanished; her task was far from finished. Grabbing a rope she quickly slid down it and joined him in the pit.
She sank to her knees beside him, her legs landing in the soft white powder spilling from his wounds. There was an alarming amount of it, especially pooled on his chest, but there was no point in stopping its flow since freeing his body from the spikes would cause more of it to pour out.
Kroenen gestured at his face with his free arm and found he didn't even have to ask.
As he had wished she would, Erica leaned over him and her fingers, remembering their paths from so long ago, easily found the buckles at the back of his head and slipped the straps from them. His hand rested gently on her wrist, the smooth leather of his glove sliding along her skin as Erica reached forward and carefully peeled away the remains of his shattered, mangled mask. Kroenen could take in air more freely now; he had not realized how suffocating the dented metal had been until it was gone.
Erica set the mask aside. "I'd ask if you were okay, but I think it would be pointless." She smiled sadly.
"Agreed, Angel," he said raggedly. He raised his head and gazed down the length of his body, inspecting his injuries. They were extensive, but nothing that could not be repaired. If there was anything fortunate about his situation it was that the spikes had gone through the muscles beside his bones instead of through the bones themselves.
"Maybe I could rig the winch to pull you up off the spikes," Erica mused.
"Nein—that would require a somewhat more delicate operation than the raw power needed to lift the cog, and we do not have enough time for you to make the proper adjustments. I suggest we take a more direct route." Kroenen gestured at the daggers on her belt.
Erica frowned in uncertainty. "You want me to cut you free?"
"In the interest of time, ja. I will not be particularly useful at saving you from being sacrificed if I am lying down here."
Erica hesitated. And not because she doubted her medical skills; she had worked with him before—many times—to repair his injuries or assist him in making alterations when his two hands had not been enough. And yes, he had definitely gotten a high off of the pain that was certainly not within the realm of what was appropriate, but at least he had managed to somewhat control himself while in her presence so as not to distract her or make her too ill at ease. What he did in his own quarters behind closed doors afterwards she had never cared to contemplate. Now she wasn't so sure how he would react. Though she knew it was necessary to free him, and quickly, because time was passing with every tick of his clockwork heart and every grain of sand that fell from his wounds, she hung back, reluctant. With what had passed between them in the last few days, Erica knew that Kroenen's response to the pain she would cause him would no longer be restrained by some semblance of professionalism.
No, this was at risk of turning into something far more heated and impassioned.
Abe would definitely not approve.
Of course, the fish-man certainly would not have approved of Kroenen licking her face either.
Erica shook her head. That aside, Abe had told her to do whatever she needed to come back alive. Freeing Kroenen was one of those things. And it wasn't like she could help the fact that the clockwork assassin got off on pain.
True, she thought, but you could also tell him to control himself. Erica frowned. She really hoped she wouldn't have to go there.
Kroenen seemed to intuitively sense her dilemma. His permanent lipless grin widened and his voice took on a mischievously wicked tone. "Come now, Angel, no need to be a shrinking violet. You are about to have a crash refresher course in anatomy and flesh reanimation. I would think you would relish the opportunity to be in control."
Erica slowly blushed as his words sank in and quickly turned away, hiding her flushed face under the pretense of drawing a dagger from her belt. She was certain the clockwork man was toying with her, setting up double-entendres that sounded completely innocent and business-like.
The soft chuckle from Kroenen, dark and sinful as chocolate, confirmed her suspicions.
Bastard, she thought, involuntarily blushing again. Kroenen could be a gentleman when he wanted, but he could also be a complete scoundrel.
Once she had banished the unwanted color from her face she turned back to him, determined to keep this as strictly surgeon-to-assistant as she could. Kroenen, at least for now, seemed to have decided the same.
"My arm first," he instructed.
The spike had impaled his arm just above the elbow, between the muscle and bone. On the one side a thin, painfully stretched piece of flesh and some strands of black fabric was all that kept his arm anchored to the metal. Relatively thin, anyway; with the blue veins and straining muscles just below the pale, almost translucent skin, it reminded her disturbingly of a chunk of raw chicken laid out on a butcher's block. It was so taut that white rib lines had appeared, something Erica had only ever seen on stretched fabric.
This, undeniably, was going to hurt.
Poised over him, Erica hesitated for a moment, the dagger glinting in her hand.
"Are you—are you sure about this?" she asked. "I mean—"
Kroenen fixed her with his staring blue eyes. His free hand wrapped gently around the hand in which she was holding the blade. "You will not harm me," he said, his voice level, reassuring. "If anything, I will enjoy it."
Gently, caressingly, he trailed a finger down her arm and then along her thigh to end drawing unhurried spiraling patterns on her knee. Her skin tingled and she barely resisted the impulse to writhe just a little under his touch, unsure if she wanted to get closer to it or twitch away. In fact, she was generally uncertain if she found his statement and actions toward her unsettling or alluring, or perhaps even some bizarre combination of both.
"Just don't scream," she muttered. She could have sworn she heard him laugh quietly in response; the sound velvet and full of dark promise.
"If I do, I assure you it will not be in pain."
Erica bit her lip and braced herself. She would do it with one clean cut, she decided. And then she pushed down on the blade. She felt the slight resistance as the dagger encountered and then sliced cleanly through his sinewy bicep, through skin and muscles, flaying the flesh of his arm to the gleaming white bone. Dust poured out, forming little hills and kicking up in a cloud that filled her nose and choked her with its dryness. The task done, the blade slipped free and slammed into the floor, bringing her arm to an abrupt halt. Erica did not quite dare to look at what she had done, or how Kroenen was reacting to it. His drawn out moan and his fingers still tightly gripping at her thigh were more than enough.
Erica stared at the floor, focused solely on breathing. Oddly, she felt exhilarated. It was similar but different to what she had felt while fighting Kroenen. A few grains of sand skittered into her line of vision, drawing her eyes to follow their rolling, bouncing path as they scattered.
"You are panting, Angel," Kroenen murmured. His voice was rougher than usual.
Feeling oddly guilty, as though she had been caught doing something illicit, she immediately stifled it. Then, realizing her reaction was ridiculous, she allowed herself to take in air as her body wished. Erica heard the assassin breathing heavily as well and she wondered at it, unsure whether having this kind of power over him was thrilling or repulsive, and then dared to consider if maybe, just maybe, she could like it… She pushed the thought away, covering her internal conflict with sarcasm.
"Ja, well, it's not like I'm under any amount of stress here. I'm only lost underground in the mausoleum of an insane mystic monk who wants to murder me as a blood sacrifice to seven gods of chaos who are probably going to destroy the world, not to mention that I attacked my team members and then threatened and locked one of them out of this room so I could rescue you, and the BPRD thinks I've betrayed them. And you asked me to hack into your body to free you from the spikes of your own trap. Ja, everything is just fine!"
Erica finally forced herself to look over at Kroenen; heedless of her ranting he was maneuvering his mangled arm off and away from the spike that had pierced it. Shreds of cloth and flesh hung from the incision she had made; metal gleamed from inside the wound, fused to muscles and ligaments. She watched with a sort of horrified fascination, unconsciously leaning closer for a better view as he probed the gash with his other hand, his fingertips sliding skillfully over his own muscles as he assessed the damage.
"You did well," he said, then looked up at her. Erica suddenly realized her face was unexpectedly close to his; she didn't remember moving. He laughed. "Taken a sudden liking to the view?" He tilted his head at her; Erica got the idea it was his form of a wink.
"Um—nein, nein—just—if I'm going to help you repair that, I have to be able to see…"
"You are volunteering yourself?" He sounded surprised.
She hesitated, then, "Ja."
"Very well then," he said, pleased. Unbelievably, he sounded almost cheerful. "But first, we must finish here. My leg next, I think. I will start on my torso." He pulled a long, slender knife from his belt with his intact arm.
He's enjoying this way too much, she thought. Erica inspected his thigh; like his arm and torso the spike had not pierced the bone and instead had passed through the flesh beside it. With another quick slash his leg was free, his sand-blood pouring out over her hands and knees as though she had smashed an enormous hourglass. The clockwork man let out a long, sibilant sigh. After a moment the ticking of Kroenen's clockwork suddenly got much louder. Thinking that he had somehow moved closer to see his leg, she looked up—and felt the blood drain from her face. The assassin had slashed open his abdomen. Erica was thankful for the poor lighting and that all she could see was a few gears and ivory ribs. And was that a metal rod in his pelvis instead of the rest of his spine—?
"A pretty sight, is it, Fräulein?"
Startled, she found herself looking up at his mask again. He gestured at his stomach and the metal rod.
"Four crushed vertebrae. The result of the portal generator explosion. You remember, ja?"
Her mouth had gone dry. She nodded.
"I find it intriguing that history keeps repeating itself," Kroenen said, and rolled over in one quick motion, pulling free of the last spike and coming to rest on his back in front of her. He pushed himself up into a sitting position with his uninjured arm, leaning his back against the spike. White sand continued to pitter to the ground but did nothing to deter his strangely good mood. "For instance, I have been impaled twice at rather epic moments involving both of us."
Erica smiled and moved closer so she was kneeling facing him. "For the record, I think that with the trying to kill me, knocking me out, and beating me up, we're pretty even."
"Ja, we are that, are we not?" he murmured, running his hand along the side of her face and through her silky brown hair. Reluctantly, he dropped his hand to his lap. "We have work to do, you and I."
"Alright. Just tell me what to do."
Kroenen's lipless grin widened in a smile. "As you wish."
The work was hard, and laborious. Each layer of severed muscle and its accompanying mechanisms and clockwork had to be repaired before the skin above it could be drawn back together. And they didn't have nearly enough time. Even with the both of them there was work enough for days, work Kroenen told her, as she hurriedly fetched more suturing thread, or engraved sigils on metal wires, that must be finished before nightfall. They would have to take shortcuts.
Hyper focused, Erica lost all sense of time. There was only melting metal, and silver tools flashing in the darkness of the pit, and tangles of thick black thread through new holes in already scarred flesh. Sweat ran down her face and between her breasts; sand and dust clung to her damp skin. Sticky with oil and blood from her own injuries, Erica brushed her hands off on her pants legs, leaving long red-brown streaks across the black fabric.
The methodical work consumed her, and it was only hours later that, exhausted, she came out of her daze of intense concentration and found herself sitting on a chair, shivering in just her tank top and tilting her head at an awkward angle so Kroenen could finish stitching the gash across her throat. Her leather coat and long sleeved shirt lay abandoned on the floor.
They were no longer in the pit; at some point they had relocated so they could both work on Kroenen's repairs without the hindrance of the spikes. While she waited Erica watched the gears turning hypnotically in the walls; they clanked occasionally as their teeth bit together.
With a slight tug Kroenen's nimble fingers neatly tied the last stitch. He snipped the excess thread off and gazed down at her through the dark lenses of his mask; he had put on a spare while they were working to protect his eyes. Tenderly he brushed away the dried blood on her face that had trickled down from her temple.
"You are a glorious, beautiful, absolute mess," he said. She could hear the smile in his voice.
Erica laughed and looked pointedly at his tattered clothing and the fresh sutures crisscrossing his flesh. "Speak for yourself."
Kroenen stepped away, flexing his limbs. "It will do for now," the assassin told her, pleased. "When this is finished I will reopen the wounds and make more permanent repairs." With one hand he automatically wound the key of his clockwork heart; with his other he drew a baton sword and began experimentally spinning and flipping it, checking his reflexes.
He was trying to hide it from her but Erica could see him wincing; muscle spasms raced over his limbs as he forced them through their movements. Not bad for someone who had practically been lying in pieces hours before, but he was far from tip-top condition.
"So…what happens from here?" she asked, leaning forward with her elbows resting on her knees.
"I cannot tell you."
"Why?"
"Your reactions will be more realistic if you do not know what is coming."
"Kroenen, you cannot seriously be thinking about single-handedly taking on Grigory Rasputin, Ilsa, Hell Hounds, and the Ogdru Jahad in that condition."
The assassin looked slightly insulted. "Why not?" he challenged. "I seem to remember a certain apprentice of mine doing the same thing a few decades ago."
"But I had help," she said in exasperation. "I had an entire troop of soldiers. We don't even have the agents from the BPRD anymore, and you're hurt."
"If you have a better idea, I suggest you share it," he said, his voice hinted with venom.
He had her there. At a loss for words Erica's eyes cast about the room, searching for inspiration. She found none.
"You could at least tell me what's going to happen," she muttered, picking at the dried blood crusted on her tank top. "It is my life—and soul—that's at stake here. Not to mention the rest of the world." Her eyes fell on the assassin's black SS uniform; among the broken glass and chaos of the hexagonal room it still hung neatly on its hanger. "And you'll have to put on different clothes, or they'll know something's up—"
She stopped abruptly, gazing intently at his uniform. The vague beginnings of an idea stirred in her mind and she got up and went over to it, looking it up and down critically.
His attention attracted by her sudden movement and silence, Kroenen had followed her. "You were saying? Erica?"
It was a fool's idea, a shot in the dark, and it could easily get both of them killed. But it could work.
"Do you have another of your masks in here?" Erica asked. "We're going to need it."
Author's Notes: Please review; I value all comments and suggestions.