“Why, it has the Heterodyne sigil on it. Was this for me?” She snapped it open. Within lay nestled a large, gold trilobite brooch. Lucrezia smiled in admiration. “Dear Klaus. You always thought of everything.”
“Who are you?” The voice was ragged, but the steel behind it was unmistakable.
Lucrezia tried to smile like an idiot. “Why, Herr Baron. I’m Agatha Heterodyne—”
“No.” Klaus heaved himself up onto his elbows and stared at her. Sweat poured from his face. “Speech patterns. Facial expressions. Body stance. I know you. Who?” He grimaced in frustration. “Arrgh. Something wrong with my head. Can’t think!”
Lucrezia felt a frisson of fear. He shouldn’t be this coherent, this focused, so quickly. She leaned in and smiled. “The confusion will pass. You were choking—”
“You did this.”
Lucrezia abandoned the pretense. He was already hers. “Why yes, I did. And quite handily too.”
Klaus’ eyes widened. “Lucrezia!”
She flinched. “How did you know?”
“Heard you gloat too many times.”
Lucrezia smiled grimly. “Well, you’ll hear it a lot more often from now on.”
“I think not!” Klaus’ voice began to return to its full power. “I’ll—”
“Silence!” Lucrezia hissed.
Klaus’ voice failed him in midsyllable. His eyes bulged and he clutched at his throat. Lucrezia felt a wave of triumph roar through her. “It’s working! My beautiful little wasp is controlling that magnificent brain!”
As the implications of this hit Klaus, he froze, and he stared at her. Lucrezia felt another jolt of fear from the expression on his face. With some effort, she shrugged it off. Klaus was harmless now.
“You should be happy, Klaus,” she said. The Baron’s mouth jerked upwards in a death’s head grin. Lucrezia swallowed. What an impossible man.
“I’ll give you what you want,” she said soothingly. “A Wulfenbach/ Heterodyne alliance, as civil and sweet as pie.” She sat back on her haunches. “It’ll just be controlled by me.”
She stood up and leaned over him. “Let me help you get up,” she said quietly. “Look grateful.” Klaus jerkily extended a hand and Lucrezia once again experienced the sensation of a mountain rising beside her as Klaus slowly got to his feet. Around them, the troops cheered, and her daughter’s friends looked relieved. She’d have to deliberate on what to do about them.
She waved at the crowd and spoke from the corner of her mouth. “Don’t worry, I’ll play the good little girl... in public.”
She smiled and pulled out the trilobite locket. At the sight of it, Klaus’ eyes widened and he stared at her with an unreadable expression on his face. “I’ll even wear my little family sigil so everyone will know who I am! I’m so glad you thought to bring it.”
With a giggle, she unsprung the pin and speared it through her collar.
With a snap, she closed it.
Her smile faltered.
There was a sound.
A whine. Like a mosquito. It was getting closer. No... not closer—
A clamp slammed onto her brain. “NOOOO!” Lucrezia screamed as she fell into the darkness.
Agatha blinked, and found herself facing an astonished crowd of people. She smiled in delight. “I’m back!”
Behind her, Klaus’ greatsword reached the top of its arc and swept back down towards her neck.
CHAPTER 13
People they say that the Heterodynes—
They will return.
They will come laughing and singing,
sheepish because they have kept us waiting.
They will smile and wink and
Show us marvelous things that will
Make the world a’right and then
They’ll a’pat our heads and put us to bed.
But I thinks the Heterodynes—
They will return.
They will come with fire and smokes
and machines a’blazing in the night.
They will stare at us from bloodspattered faces
They will pull us up and roughly exclaim
“We bought you years, but you’ve done nothing
and now the monsters are a’snapping at our heels!”
There was an explosion of movement, and Lars leapt forward. With a sweep of his arm, Agatha was thrown to the side, the Baron’s blade slicing a few stray strands of hair from her head. She tumbled from the wagon, everything around her a blur. She realized she was clutched in Maxim’s arms, but the Jäger wasn’t looking at her.
Towering overhead was the Baron, sword dripping gore. He kicked aside a body at his feet. “Damn fool,” he muttered. His eyes locked on Agatha’s. “Kill the girl!” he roared. “Kill her companions, if you must. Kill them all!”
Maxim dropped Agatha to her feet, and with a hiss, pulled a slim rapier from its scabbard and with three strokes, cleared a space around them. “Time to fight!” he sang out.
Klaus made to leap, and a glittering flash of green and blue exploded before him as Zeetha attacked screaming. Klaus barely parried in time, and with an oath, leapt backwards to avoid the slicing Quata’aras.
Agatha darted forward and knelt at Lars’ side. All of her medical knowledge delivered the same terrible answer. Lars’ eyes opened and gazed at her blankly. “Agatha?”
“Don’t move!” Agatha said desperately. She shucked her jacket and tried to tear off a strip. The heavy fabric stubbornly refused to tear. She whimpered in frustration.
Lars gently patted her hand. “It’s amazing,” he whispered. “I never even guessed. But it’s so... so perfect.”
“Lars, stop moving!”
His head fell back and he gave a ghastly smile. “Oh, that’ll happen soon enough.”
“NO!” Agatha gasped. “No, you’re just in shock! I can—”
Lars cupped her chin. “It’s okay, I can even promise I won’t panic afterwards.” He chuckled, and a bead of blood welled up between his lips.
Agatha wanted to scream at the helplessness she felt. “I don’t have any instruments,” she said, “I can’t—”
“Shh.” Lars feebly tried to move his hand. Agatha clasped it in her own. “’S probably for the best,” Lars whispered. “A Heterodyne girl and... and an ordinary guy like me... probably lucky I lasted as long as I...”
Agatha waited for Lars to finish, and then saw that he had.
Around her the battle raged. The three Jägers ringed her with a shield of carnage. Always on the move, they mowed through soldiers. Never slaying, but leaving a trail of wounded who tied up even more troops.
On the roof of one of the wagons lay Ardsley Wooster, who had taken out one of the snipers and was busy finishing off the rest with their comrade’s own rifle.
And at the center of the fight, drawing almost everyone’s eye, were the Baron and Zeetha. Both were terribly fast. The Baron swung his greatsword with a deceptive ease that sent it screaming through the air. Zeetha couldn’t hope to block its unstoppable force, but she danced between the strokes and at times seemed to fly. Klaus’ coat was sliced in dozens of places, and not all of the blood that covered him was from Lars.
But fury and speed would not hold up in the long run against superior numbers. Even now the troops facing the Jägers were falling back and beginning to fire at them from a distance. From the surrounding wagons, a line of the tall brass fighting clanks strode forth. In unison, they raised their machine-cannons and fired a quick burst into the air. The human soldiers began to pull back. A bullet punched through Maxim’s side, eliciting a howl of annoyance.