Chapter Summary: Despite the strain in their relationship caused by Servant 29's treachery, Ethan and Karl formulate a plan. News of Karl's deception reaches Miranda.
X
The next morning, Karl woke to the barrel of a gun in his mouth. It was nothing out of the usual but quite annoying nevertheless.
Reality struck him all at once and he attempted to rear out of his bed. But the thick ropes binding his wrists to the posts pulled him back and he realized that he was trapped. With a fucking gun stuffed in his mouth, no less.
Ethan's eyes narrowed as Karl attempted a muffled curse around the barrel of the gun. Judging by the look on his face, he wasn't the least bit phased by Karl's thrashings and muted yelling. With one hand still on the trigger, Ethan reached beneath his coat and retrieved the small leather journal that Karl knew so well.
"Ethan's desperation makes him malleable. And stupid. All the better for me," Ethan recited in a low voice, "I'll use his own obsession against him, let him wade through the clouds of his own mind until I can take what I need from him. Let him think that we are friends. And then? Kill the sorry bastard. He's too unstable to be kept alive. Sound familiar?"
It didn't. Karl couldn't remember writing a single word of whatever the hell Ethan was reading, even though the man's eyes were roving over the pages of the journal. Someone must have written the strange entry - someone whose intention was to force a splinter through the fragile relationship built up between the two men.
Fuck, Karl tried to say. But the barrel of the gun was still lodged firmly in his mouth, poking the back of his throat with a steely coldness. A LEMI. He could tell by the weight and the shape wedged against his tongue. Struggling was futile, as the binds around his wrists were infuriatingly tight and the gun in his mouth left him no choice but to relent to whatever sadistic game Ethan was playing.
A soft click and whizz sounded through the room and Karl glanced at his doorway in alarm. Servant Number 29 stood framed in a halo of light pouring in from the hallway. She smiled deviously as she fanned the Polaroid picture in the air and then stuffed in beneath her shirt.
"The New York Times will pay a lot of money for this," she informed him as Ethan held the gun steady in his mouth. "An ageless Romanian Lord tied to his bed by his American boyfriend? Salacious."
"You can leave now," Ethan informed her in a low growl. She sucked her teeth and put her hand on the door.
"Trust me, Winters. I have no intention of seeing what happens after you take the little kinky ropes off."
With that, she closed the door. He could hear her laughter trailing down the staircase as sweat poured from his forehead. There was a beat of tense silence before Ethan pulled the gun away and took a step back, the pure loathing on his face never once showing signs of cracking.
"Just what the hell is wrong with you?!" Karl howled. "Christ, Winters, did that moonshine get to yer fucking head!? Untie me, you bipolar freak!"
"Two things I don't like," Ethan said, holding up two fingers. "Being called a freak, and being lied to. I suggest you choose your next words carefully, Heisenberg, because you're already on a thin fucking line."
Karl chose to ignore this and instead focused all of his energy on attempting to gnaw through the binds on his wrist. Whoever had tied them was obviously an expert at the sort of thing, and this infuriated him to no end. Never in his one hundred years spent within the village could he have ever imagined ending up tied to his own bed with a gun shoved down his throat. He spat a fiber of string in Ethan's direction and immediately began working at his other wrist with his teeth. All the while, Ethan watched him from his spot in front of his stove. The orange firelight licked hungrily at his pale cheeks, washing out that odd unformed youthfulness that seemed to hang around American-bred men.
Finally, the thick bindings gave way beneath his teeth and he yanked his wrist free with an enraged roar. Ethan's eyes widened slightly as Karl barreled towards him. Though he was quick to hunch his shoulders against the oncoming attack, his neck had been left vulnerable and Karl grabbed hold. The stove went tumbling backwards in an explosion of hissing light as Karl shoved Ethan against the wall and held him pinned there by his throat. Though they were similar in height, Ethan's feet dangled uselessly above the ground as Karl tightened his grip, digging his fingers into Ethan's pale skin. He didn't know what he wanted to say. He didn't know what he wanted to do. He thrust his free hand back, preparing to knock every single tooth straight out of the damned American's gums, but something stopped him. They stared at each other in silence, their narrowed eyes met and labored breaths dancing back and forth as the space grew hotter by the second.
"Alright," Ethan's voice gusted from behind his clenched teeth, spraying Karl's face with spittle. "You wanna punch me? Do it, then! Show me who you really are. Let's see what you're really made of, Heisenberg."
Karl clenched his fingers in his hand, promising that he would enact vengeance as he watched the quiver of Ethan's iresis. He'd shatter his nose, he'd pick his limp body off the floor and smash it into his wall, he'd break both of Ethan's ankles, he'd-
His hand uncurled from Ethan's neck of its own accord.
He watched as if in a daze as Ethan crumpled to his knees before him and braced both hands against the indented finger welts now lining his throat. There was no real explanation for the sense of sorrow that welled up in Karl and forced him to take a few steps back. But then, like an unwanted ray of burning sunshine, realization swept across his mind: Ethan was the closest that he had had to a friend in a long time. The thought of Ethan turning against him - or being turned against him by some unknown, outside force - disjointed and unnerved Karl. The feeling was all too reminiscent of what he had felt when he realized, many years ago as a young man, that Salvatore had succumbed to a sense of madness that would forever sever the ties of their relationship.
A hundred years old, and the only thing that Karl had come to fear was the thought of eternal loneliness.
He swung himself around and gazed at the wooden board framed above his desk. Then, as Ethan watched with watering eyes, Karl began to tear off the pictures tacked to the board. Gone was Mother Miranda's face. Gone were the somber visages of his siblings X-ed out in red: Alcina Dimitrescu, Donna Beneviento, Salvatore Moreau. The remnants of who they once were crackled and coiled upon themselves beneath the fire of the stove. But that was not enough - he had to see everything obliterated. He tore away at the maps with no discretion, ripped the photograph of Mia Winters in two, crushed the hastily scrawled bible verses between his palm until they were nothing but moist, tattered pulps clinging to his fingertips. All that was left, then, was the empty wooden board. A heady sense of pulsing lunacy riding his heartbeat forced him to grab the board by its edges and tear it away from the wall, revealing an old glass window pasted over with yellowed news clippings behind it. He heard Ethan jump to his feet with a curse as he swung the board around and listened to it collide with the wall. For a brief moment, he simply stared at the window, unsure of what he still needed to do. Then, he lifted his foot and shoved his boot through the thick pane. Tingles erupted all along his ankle as glass shattered around him, stinging his cheeks with tiny pinpricks that cut his skin like shrapnel. Sunlight blasted around the room and he forced his body through the vacated space, his eyes closed as he breathed in the village air and clung tight to the windowsill. Deeper and deeper, he filled his broad lungs until he was near to bursting. It was only when he was on the verge of suffocating from holding his breath too long did he open his eyes and clutch the golden cross pendant lying upon his chest. Further, riding the very ridges of the village's horizon, an army of black thunderclouds had begun to gather and roil across the land . He could smell the metallic scent of rain in the air, feel the very tingle and shiver of electricity clinging itself like a magnet to his own strange and cursed biology. The storm was approaching fast, battling for its place along the hem of the sun-speckled sky. It would be there in a day or two, tops. A strange thought occurred to him then: maybe he wouldn't live to see the tail end of the storm. Maybe this was it. Perhaps this was God's final portent to him: You lift me up to the wind and cause me to ride, and You dissolve me in a storm. Job 30:22.
He pulled his body back into the room and turned to face Ethan. No, he decided. He would not harbor any ill will toward Ethan. If he was in the man's place, he probably would have done the exact same thing. The two of them shared eerily similar characteristics. Damn, he figured. Ethan Winters was more of a brother to him that Ken - or even Salvatore - could have ever been.
"The hell you learn to tie knots like that?" Karl asked, rubbing his aching wrists for emphasis. It was a light-hearted question, stupid at its surface but meant to convey a message: nothing has changed between us.
Ethan rubbed his neck uncomfortably before stooping to pick up his gun and settling it along his belt. The message had been received, and Ethan's sheathing of his weapon had communicated his own response: we'll act like this never happened.
"You could say my wife and I were pretty adventurous before the birth of our daughter," he said, somewhat evasively. Karl couldn't help but snicker at this.
"Sounds to me like she's one hell of a woman!"
"Was," Ethan corrected him and Karl had to bite his tongue. He knew damn well that Mia Winters was still alive and locked away in Miranda's laboratory. But he couldn't reveal this to Ethan, not yet. Who knew what the news of her survival would do to the relationship that had been built up between the two men?
"Listen," Ethan said tiredly before running his stained sleeve across his lips. "I'm going to do us both a favor, despite my better judgment. I'm going to pretend that that little diary entry of yours meant nothing, alright? I'm going to assume that you were just angry that I killed your brother. Or Sturm. Or whatever the hell you called that damn machine. I'm going to pretend….that in the past few hours that we've gotten to know each other, you've had a change of heart. You're still capable of that, right?"
Karl said nothing to this.
"Good," Ethan said with a nod. "From this moment forward, we have a clean slate. I'm going to forgive you, Heisenberg, but I'm never going to forget that you are -" Ethan's eyes flashed in his pale face as he stared Karl down. "-at heart, a starving mutt."
"All loyalties are tested when desperation comes into play," Karl muttered to himself, using the very same words that he had spoken to Miranda many years ago. Ethan nodded with a faint smile riding his lips. Finally, the two men had reached an understanding. If they weren't so wrapped up in their own separate egos, they would have reached across the room and clasped hands.
"Alright then, Mr. Americano." Karl fished around in his pocket for his cigars. Finally, he found one and held it gratefully to his lips as he flicked a lighter along its end. "What's first on our holy agenda?"
"I'm tired of waiting. I have all of my daughter's flasks. I just need to put her back together."
"And Miranda?" Karl asked as smoke tumbled from his nostrils.
"She won't let me fix my daughter without putting up a fight. Killing her is still high on our list of priorities, right?"
There was something veiled beneath that question that took Karl a moment to decipher. Then he realized: Ethan had most likely read all of his journal entries and was fully aware of Karl's previous infatuation with Miranda. No doubt it was skepticism over Karl's abilities that made Ethan raise a brow.
"Why, I want that bitch dead as much as you do, Ethan!" Karl said, avoiding his eyes. "Why the fuck do you think I built up a metal army?"
"I'd assume that you had nothing better to do," Ethan said back, somewhat cattily. "Alright. So, what? We just go storming the ceremony site and sit back while your little soldats do the grunt work?"
"Believe it or not, Ethan, I'm nothing like your ol' Shakespearean Macbeth. My hands are clean beneath these gloves! I like to keep 'em that way." In response to Ethan's questioning look, Karl smiled and proclaimed in a grand voice, " 'I am in blood, stepped in so far that, should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go'er!' "
Ethan took a deep breath in, obviously holding something back, and Karl was slightly irked by the fact that Ethan seemed in no way impressed by his Shakespearean knowledge.
"Thing is," Ethan said slowly. "The Duke. He told me how to put Rose back together. But I don't know if I can trust him. I need confirmation - hell, I need to hear it from Miranda's mouth before we kill her. I can't risk Miranda dying, and the secret of my daughter's reanimation dying with her."
"So you want to, what, Ethan, infiltrate Miranda's lab? You'd have better luck infiltrating a rattlesnake's nest!"
"For which I'd probably need a snake charmer." Ethan raised his head and cast Karl a grin that was both surprisingly handsome and extraordinarily devious, a complete change from Ethan's usually gritty scowl. "I don't find you very charming, but I still think you're the best suited for the job."
"Y-you mean-"
"Miranda still thinks of you as a son, right?" Ethan uncrossed his arms and walked right up to Karl, close enough to make the village lord uncomfortable. "She still thinks you're her ally. And she probably thinks I'm dead. All I need you to do is go to her and get the information that I need to save my daughter. In return, I'll help you kill her."
"L-look," Karl tried. A noise at the closed door caught his attention, but he thought nothing of it. "You're going about this all wrong. What impression do you think Miranda will have if I go…gallivanting up to her and asking questions about Rose? She'll think I'm up to something!"
"I don't fucking know!" Ethan suddenly exploded. "Be dramatic! Be deceptive, like you always are. If you get this right, she won't expect a fucking thing-"
It was obvious now. Someone was hanging around outside the door. Both men paused and turned to look at the shadow sliding around beneath the doorway. Karl sniffed irritably before storming over and flinging the door wide open. But there was no one there. He cocked his head and listened to the soft footsteps retreating away from them and was inclined to wonder if a certain pesky servant had been listening in on their conversation. Unlikely, he reckoned. Servant 29 had made it very clear that she found Karl pitiable but, ultimately, boring.
"Remember, Heisenberg," Ethan said from behind him as Karl swept his gaze back and forth across the empty hallway. "You get this right, and I'm taking you back to America with me."
These words were enough to make Karl take a deep, shuddering breath in. It was eerie, how similar Ethan's offer sounded to Marianne's. Despite never having the chance to meet, it was like both Ethan and Marianne knew of Karl's deep-seated desire to be liberated from the village and taken to the freedom-laced shores of America. All that he needed was for one of them to guide him. Perhaps, he figured, every starving mutt craved the security of its leash.
He leaned back into the room and closed the door softly before turning once again to face Ethan. "You got yourself a deal, Ethan," he said. "And a damn good one at that! Very well. I'll go to Miranda's lab and have a little soiree-"
"But you're not going alone," Ethan quickly interjected. "I'm going with you."
"But-"
"No buts, Heisenberg. Remember: I may have forgiven you, but I sure in the hell don't trust you. I'll hide out while you get the information. And when you're done, I want you to deliver it straight to me. No cutting corners. Not this time."
Something occurred to Karl, then. If Mia Winters was still alive, then she must have still been locked up in the laboratory - the exact place where Ethan was planning to hide out. A single misstep in their plan could reveal the reality of her survival and dissolve the tentative alliance between him and Karl. So, Ethan wanted to hide out while Karl spoke to Miranda. What would happen, Karl mulled, if Miranda revealed the one thing that Karl didn't want Ethan to know?
Though, he figured, there were a lot of things that Miranda could reveal that he didn't want Ethan to know.
So they'd have to go incognito - no direct contact with Miranda, and no stepping foot inside the laboratory for Ethan. It was better this way, Karl figured. Though the thought of hiding Mia Winters from Ethan nagged at his conscience, he was forced to promise himself that it was all for the greater good. Eventually, the two Winters would unite, over Miranda's cold body most likely. Then, Karl would step back into the shadows, brush his hands together, and consider himself freed of the matter.
He took a deep inhale of cigar smoke and blew it in the space above Ethan's head.
"No," Karl growled in that unnatural baritone that made his throat ache. Damn his brother. "Y-you're not going to sit here and dictate the rules of this game. Approaching Miranda directly is dangerous. The woman is intelligent and more perceptive than you could ever imagine! Trust me, Ethan. I've known her my entire life, unfortunately." Karl paused and smothered the cherry of his cigar along his desk. "I'll take you to her lab. If she's not there, then you'll hide out in the yard while I get a little look around. Got that? And before you ask, if she is there then we hightail it back to the factory, and set up a plan for another day."
"Sounds like you're bidding for time," Ethan said.
"And it sounds like you still don't know jack shit about me," Karl spat back. "Take my deal or no dice. Got it, kemosabe?"
Ethan thought this over for a few minutes. Karl watched his eyes shift over to the corner of the room where the cobweb-misted shadows had no doubt offered some sort of indecipherable resolution, judging by the look in Ethan's eyes. Then Ethan's eyes slid back towards Karl's face. His pupils gave a slight quiver and bounce as they traced the keloid scars running along Karl's face. Much like Marianne, Ethan seemed either uninterested or highly unimpressed by the tales of toil and hardship that the scars themselves told. It occurred to Karl that Ethan and Marianne would have made a highly compatible couple and this unsettled him to his very core.
"Deal," Ethan finally said.
"So when do we ride, Mr. American?"
Ethan gave a tired nod. It was obvious by the vacant look in his eye that the toil and battles in the village had wizened Ethan terribly. But there was a resolution to his face that raised Karl's spirit tremendously. I trust you, Karl wanted to say as he watched Ethan place a protective hand over the gun hanging from his belt. I trust you, you goddamned son of a bitch.
"Tonight," Ethan said
The two men leaned forward and clasped hands. The wriggling firelight slid across their faces as they held each other's eyes, their palms clammy but tense as they grinned at one another. Much like their fingers, their fate had been intertwined once again. And if all went to shit, Karl realized, he'd be fine so long as he had Ethan Winters by his side.
"For Rose?" Karl said, less of a question and more of an affirmation. Ethan nodded.
"For Rose."
X
Mother Miranda.
The sound of piano music wafted around the bathing room, wavering gracefully between a gentle tremble and then a sudden clatter. It was as if the piano player was suffering a slow descent or - perhaps, Miranda meditated - a deliberate ascent into madness. Indecisiveness. Insecurity. She lifted her finger from the edge of the porcelain tub and bounced it along lazily with the shifting melody, occasionally jabbing at the air with the tip of her sharp nail as if punching a black piano key. Then she let her finger down and slid deeper into the black water that had long since run cold.
It has been unnerving in the beginning, the way that the black mold tended to leach out of her. It had taken no more than a few minutes for the water in the tub to thicken and turn night black. Mold poured from her eyes instead of tears. It bubbled up from the slits in her skin when she, moved by a morbid sense of curiosity, cut her skin. It dampened her cheeks when she was impassioned, coated her tongue, and stained her teeth when her mouth watered. There was a stench to it as well, akin to rust or blood, she didn't know. Whatever scent rose off of her fungal limbs was lost to her, as she had become accustomed to it.
There was a furtive knock upon the door. She closed her eyes and rocked her head back and forth in time with the melody, feeling the weight of her hair plastered across her bare chest and the heaviness of her hands upon the tub's rim. Everything felt like a thinly veiled blessing. Euphoria had been a subtle thing that had crept up upon her, untethered her from the worries of the world, and liberated her from her earthly concerns. She would have been inclined to think that this was what God felt like. But then again, she figured, God's decision to stay holed up in heaven for fear of what he had created made him a stupid and cowardly thing. Such was the disposition of weak men.
"At the age of seventy-five, the renowned Spanish painter Francisco Goya retreated from society and crafted fourteen works of art that would later become known as the Black Paintings," she said in a dreamy voice, her eyes still closed as the other woman stood nervously in the doorway. "It was said that he was mad or, perhaps, driven to insanity by his self-imposed alienation. Manufactured insanity, I believe, would be a much more appropriate term." She paused and listened intently to the suddenly romantic trill of the otherwise eerie piano music. "It is easy for those unmarred by misfortune to cast suppositions upon those who have bled without a drop of blood spilled upon the narrow passageways of their lives. But the paintings - they were crafted upon the very walls of Goya's home. Terrible things, one would be inclined to say, that were not meant to be seen by the virgin eye: Saturn devouring his son, men advancing upon each other with raised cudgels, witches gathered at the Sabbath, Judith seducing Holofernes before cutting off his head. Terrible and great.
It was only upon his death did society stumble upon his Black Works. And as all bleeding-heart, ravished sycophants do, they took his works and plastered them all over the world. Oh, how the world loves to hail the artistic beauty of the maddened only when the maddened are dead - when their insanity poses no risks to manufactured order! And so I have often wondered to myself….what will society think when they unearth my work? Will they consider my beauty madness or my madness beauty? As the Seven Wonders of the New Age fall, will the world clutch its heart in its hands and wonder if maybe…maybe there was an Eighth Wonder that could have saved them all?"
The music fell to a pensive lull, its notes slightly scattered but in some ways still melodic. Miranda's eyes remained closed as she traversed the inner workings of her mind. The other woman's hesitant silence did not concern her as, by that point, all but one of Miranda's plans had come to complete fruition.
Ethan Winters was dead. The flasks were within her reach. All that she needed to do was put Rose back together and then reanimate Eva. If all went according to plan - and there was no reason for it not to - she would gaze upon the reflection of her daughter in Rose's eyes. Start all over again, raise her from infancy as was her due right as a mother.
The euphoria from her successes was positively intoxicating.
She opened her eyes and slid her gaze toward the doorway. A small woman with an eternal snicker and eyes like that of a bird of prey stood frozen with indecisiveness upon the threshold. Genevieve 'Just Call Me Gen' Martin: or Servant Number 29, as Karl had been insistent on calling her. Miranda remembered meeting Gen as if it was yesterday: the woman's flashy new bike standing upright near the laboratory door, the fresh-off-the-racks hiker's backpack, and gold-rimmed designer sunglasses. "I'm writing a story on the sticks," the woman had said with that clipped American brashness that irked Miranda to no end. "The sticks," the woman had added, a condescending tone slipping into her voice. "The wild. The Romanian outback?"
Miranda would have lulled her into the laboratory and made her fodder for the next experiment, easy. But there was an opportunity to be made, she realized. Though her concern for Karl Heisenberg had become diluted throughout the years, a certain pressing intuition made her wonder if it would be best to keep tabs on him, as he had done to her whilst she was in America. Many years ago, Salvatore had brought to her attention certain journal entries written by Karl that betrayed his hatred for her. It couldn't rightfully be said that Karl had all of his wits about him, and yet he had wits enough to cause trouble in her private kingdom if he so decided. She had to be cautious. As far as she knew, he still had an army of mechanical soldiers to his name.
So she had struck a deal with the woman: all of the information that she desired, but in return, she'd act as a spy on Miranda's behalf. Go to Karl's factory, Miranda had told her, offer your services under the guise of servitude and watch him. Report everything to me.
Gen had proven to be a good spy. If there was one thing in the world that still made Lord Heisenberg cower, it was the verbal backhand of an intimidating woman. He had let Gen into his home, suspected nothing as the American woman watched him like a hawk and delivered news of his comings and goings back to Miranda. The intel had proven mostly uninteresting. Until that night…
"Moonlight Sonata?" Gen asked in an unusually high-pitched voice. She cleared her throat and watched Miranda's pale leg rise from beneath the black water. Miranda allowed herself a small, private smile. Unbeknownst to many, she was very aware of her own strange and animalistic charm.
"Now that's a good girl," Miranda cooed, relishing in the other woman's palpable sapphic fixation. Sure, Gen had needed a little convincing in the past. Miranda had been more than happy to oblige, having lost interest in the fumbling phallic folly of men-folk many years before. She slunk her hand along the tub's rim and crooked two wet fingers in the woman's direction. "What have you come for?"
"You," Gen said, the double entendre of the words lost on no one. Miranda allowed her a moment to collect herself. "I mean, I-"
"Spit it out. You like to spit, don't you?"
The woman closed her eyes and took a deep breath in before saying, "Ethan Winters is still alive."
Miranda chucked and twirled a finger around the viscous water, mentally willing herself to ignore the heat rising in the pit of her stomach. "No. No, no, no, you silly thing. Ethan Winters is dead! Heisenberg killed him!"
"No," Gen said urgently. There was tension riding along Miranda's lips, slowly drawing a stiff frown across the lower half of her face as she watched the ripples spreading from her finger.
"Heisenberg lied to you," Gen continued, taking a brave step forward before freezing in place once again. "Sturm didn't kill Ethan. Winters survived and…Heisenberg kept him alive. They're together. In his factory. Right now. They struck up some kind of bullshit alliance. And-"
"And?" Miranda said slowly, musically, lifting her finger from the water and observing the black rivulets running along her nail. The piano music had begun to fade into a new melody and she twirled her finger through the air along with it, mentally drawing out invisible notes in the air. The heat in her stomach had reached a boiling point, so hot that it felt as if her bath water would singe the very skin off of her bones. Her intuition was never wrong - she had a feeling that she knew what was coming next.
"And," the other woman hesitated before giving her head a dazed shake. "They're planning something. They…are planning on killing you, Mother Miranda. I heard it all when I was listening at Heisenberg's door. They are going to come to your laboratory tonight and try to find information on how to put Rose back together. And when they get that information, they're going to try to kill you. Heisenberg…betrayed you, mother."
Heisenberg…betrayed you, mother.
"Oh," Miranda said softly. She paused, listening to the music swirling around the bathroom. There it was: that gut-wrenching sensation like a flame licking hungrily at her her innards, traveling upwards through her belly, chest, and throat. It took no more than a second to completely consume her, but she maintained her calm facade. The act of betrayal on Heisenberg's part wasn't really of any concern to her - no, perhaps, she had known that one day he would reveal his pathetic and cowardly traitorous intentions. After all, all young boys would at some point rise in rebellion against their mothers. It was the fact that he had lied to her without a hitch in his words. A knife twisted in the back hurt more than a knife twisted in the belly.
Then so shall it be, she thought to herself.
"Come here," she said to Gen. The woman approached her dutifully and then knelt at the edge of the tub: shoulders back, hands clasped between her thighs, chin high as Miranda had taught her. Miranda took a second to glance out the window. Beyond, a black and heavy storm was making its coming known. Soon, the land would be raked by tendrils of white thunder. The sky would explode and vomit its rage upon the lands. All would be washed away in torrents of thrashing rain and raving firelight. Something was coming: a battle in the village. She had been around long enough to recognize a portent when she saw one. The treacherous bastard Heisenberg would not live to see the tail-end of the storm. She would make sure of that.
She leaned over the edge of the tub, the black water rocking violently as she reached for Servant 29's face. The woman's skull collapsed like a squashed melon upon itself beneath Miranda's fingers. The piano music rose to a crescendo as she stepped out of the tub and wrapped a thin black robe across her body. Something gave way beneath her bare foot - Genevieve's eyeball smeared with blood and brain matter - but Miranda paid it no mind. She was humming to herself softly as she closed her eyes and retrieved a small, serrated blade from the pocket of her robe.
So the treacherous bastard-son Heisenberg would have to die. Then so shall it be. She'd see it done.
She smiled as the music died away into pressing silence, offering up its last desperate trill before succumbing to nothingness. A storm was approaching, unveiling itself along the horizon. The electricity rode the tides of mold coursing through her blood, filling her with restlessness and euphoria. Then so shall it be.
She pressed the blade against her lips and sighed.