by H J Peterson
She forced herself to turn and look at him. There he was: sitting on an old, ruined, velvet chair, his plague mask covering his face, the hood of his long-sleeved tunic up, every inch of his skin covered like the coward he was.
Adelric tried to poke his head out from the stairwell, attempting to see what she was staring at. “What is it? What do you see?”
The Archangel cocked his head to the side slightly. “And that must be dear Niels Achthoven.” He stood up from his seat and held his arms out, almost inviting. As inviting as a man that had literally ripped the muscles in her leg apart could be, anyway. “Do come in: I swear, I don’t bite.”
It took a lot of courage on Hiro’s part, but finally, she forced herself to put one foot in front of the other and walked into the small room with Adelric.
The gun hidden in her waistband suddenly felt very, very heavy. She could do it: she could pull out her gun and shoot him right then and there before he could even cry for help. Sure, she’d probably get killed before she’d stepped foot on the stairs, again, but… well, didn’t she sign up for the police force in the first place so she could make the world a better place? Because it would definitely be a lot better without that bastard in it.
And yet, she just couldn’t do it. She couldn’t just shoot him, not when he had a whole organization behind him to make him a martyr for this cause.
“You can stop right there and hand your weapons to Miss Schultz,” the Archangel said. Hiro didn’t even notice that Klara was there, wearing her usual slacks and men’s shirt, until she stepped out of the shadows of the wall behind Hiro and Adelric.
“You heard the man,” Klara said, glaring between the two of them. “Give ‘em up.”
Adelric pulled his gun out from his waistband immediately, but Hiro didn’t. She couldn’t give it up: that gun was one of her only viable options to defend herself if it came down to it. Sure, she knew how to fight (her father had insisted that she learn before he died) but she was out of practice: they would have her dead before she’d done any damage.
Klara raised an eyebrow. “Yumi, do you really expect me to believe that you don’t have a piece on you? I’m not that stupid.”
Hiro hesitated for a moment, then pulled the gun out from her waistband. Needless to say, she wasn’t exactly happy about it.
“Of course,” Hiro said through clenched teeth. “I know you aren’t stupid.”
There was a flash of anger in Klara’s eyes, but she didn’t say anything. Instead, she put the guns on a table on the wall to their left, far enough away that Hiro knew for a fact that she wouldn’t be able to reach if things went south.
“Much better,” the Archangel said with a nod. He motioned to some chairs in front of the velvet chair he’d been sitting in when they got there. “Now, would the two of you sit down? We have much to discuss, and time is of the essence.”
The three of them–Hiro, Adelric, and the Archangel–all sat down in the chairs. Klara took her usual spot in the shadows, brooding, her arms crossed defensively over her chest.
“Tell me,” the Archangel said, crossing his legs, “How dedicated to my little cause are you? I’m certain that you understand I can’t have people willing to turn on us.”
Red flags went up in Hiro’s mind. That comment had felt like more than a harmless jab to her. It felt like… well, call her paranoid, but it kind of felt like a suggestion, like he was telling them that he knew exactly what they were doing, there.
And that made her really, really nervous.
“You don’t have to worry about that, sir,” Adelric said. He took Hiro’s hand and squeezed it. Was it just her, or was he trying to be… comforting? Whatever the reason, it took a lot of restraint on Hiro’s part to not rip her hand out of his. “Yumi and I are loyal to a fault.”
Hiro could almost see the Archangel raising an eyebrow in her mind’s eye: the short silence that followed Adelric’s comment felt like an eternity as the man considered what Adelric had said, debating whether or not they were lying.
And all either of them could do was pray that the monster sitting in front of them would take their world for it.
“Of course, you are,” the Archangel said. Hiro let out a silent sigh of relief: she hadn’t even heard a twinge of sarcasm in his reply. He held his hands up, motioning to the room around them. “That’s why we’re here, after all. Despite the fact that your job yesterday was rather messy.”
Adelric winced. Hiro might have questioned it, had it not been for the fact that the kid was back in his natural, criminal element: it was a natural reaction, for him.
“Now, in light of what I just said, this request is going to seem rather… peculiar,” the Archangel said. “How would the two of you feel about performing another messy job?”
Both Hiro and Adelric frowned, confused. After all that, he wanted them to make a mess of another job?
“Allow me to explain,” the Archangel said. “As you already know, I’ve threatened to make opening night for the Überhaus’ next opera rather… interesting. That’s the job I’ll need the two of you for: I need you two, along with Miss Schultz over there, to do a marginally good job of ruining the night, but not by too much.”
“Why don’t you want it to be a good job?” Adelric asked. “If it’s a terrible job, then the nobility aren’t going to be that scared, will they?”
“Believe me, Mr. Achthoven: it’s not going to take much to tip the scales and topple this house of cards that it the current government,” the Archangel said. Hiro could almost hear the smile on the bastard’s voice. “The noblemen’s council is already balancing on the edge of a sword after voting to keep the Überhaus open, despite my warnings, and the king’s council isn’t much more stable. This attack will drive them over the edge. They’ll do nothing but quarrel about how to handle this situation. They’ll ignore their duties to the people, just as they have since their formation five-hundred years ago, and the people will notice even more than normal as the papers report that decisions still haven’t been made. It will set up my end game quite nicely.”
It took so, so much will power for Hiro to not show her worry. The Archangel was more right than he’d ever know. She’d been in the Vorbereicher House when they took the vote. Friedrich had said that the council was more united than he’d ever seen them, and it was still one of the most bitter, argument-filled meetings she’d ever witnessed, and with how tense things had been even after they’d reached an agreement, she knew that the Vorbereicher House would be in a chaos too hellish for her to imagine. Even less would get done, and the already horrible relationship between nobles and commoners would be even worse.
Class warfare would come to Vorbereich, and it wouldn’t end until the gutters ran red with blood.
She had to tell Berkowitz: maybe they’d be able to keep things from getting to that point.
“So, what do you say?” the Archangel asked. “Are you ready to change the world with me?”
She almost said no. She wanted nothing more than to not be a part of this awful plan, but she knew she had to: the more they’d be able to contain this, and, maybe, they’d even be able to stop this whole revolution.
“We’re in,” Hiro finally said.
“Excellent,” the Archangel said. He stood up and looked over at Klara. “Miss Schultz will brief you on the rest of our plan: I’m afraid that I have a little get-together to attend.”
The Archangel left, and the planning began.
XLV. FRIEDRICH
Friedrich woke up that morning with a headache and an extreme hatred of sunlight.
He looked around his room, blinking at the morning light that was coming through his window. He felt like he’d gotten hit by a train. Repeatedly. He couldn’t even remember what had happened after that… how many drinks had he had? He didn’t remember anything past that third drink. But, he must have had more than that: he wouldn’t feel this rotten if he’d only had three drinks, right?
The door to his room opened, and C
hayim walked in. “Friedrich? Are you awake?”
Friedrich groaned and pulled the blankets over his head, a little more. “Can’t I sleep for another ten minutes?”
“No; you have an hour and a half to get to the church.” Chayim pulled the blankets off of Friedrich before he could get a firm grip on them. “Pardon my being frank, but you look terrible. How much did you drink last night?”
“Enough to know I’m never drinking, again.”
Chayim sighed. “Let’s get you up: I don’t think Katalin would appreciate you being late to your own wedding.”
Friedrich groaned as he rolled onto his side. He was right, of course; that didn’t mean he wanted to admit it, by any means. “I know, I know.”
He slowly sat up and swung his legs out of his bed, scratching his head. He was lucky he didn’t fall right back over: heaven, was he having a horrible bout of vertigo! “I’ll get my suit on, then. I don’t suppose you know of a really good way of curing me, do you?”
Chayim smiled slightly. “I’ll go get you some coffee.”
He left, leaving Friedrich alone in the room.
He sighed as he stood up and stretched his arms over his head. Well, thus far, the day of his wedding was not going to plan.
Friedrich had managed to stumble halfway across the room when the door opened to his room, again, and a very frazzled Viktoria stormed into the room, followed by two nervous-looking attendants. She was already dressed in the clothes she would be wearing to the wedding: a green, silk dress, with pearl earrings, necklace, and a hairpin, which kept her brown hair up and out of her face. A face that was much more panicked than he thought he’d ever seen her, before.
Immediately, Friedrich regretted not putting on his robe before he went to get dressed. He was only wearing a pair of bed shorts, and being practically naked in front of his mother and two female attendants wasn’t something he’d ever wanted, especially not on the morning of his wedding…
Oh, hell! How real all this was suddenly dawned on him. He was getting married that day. To a woman that his father didn’t exactly approve of. That was crazy!
So crazy, in fact, Friedrich began to feel like he was on the verge of throwing up.
“Friedrich, why aren’t you dressed?” Viktoria said quickly as the two attendants blushed, realizing the fact that he was practically naked. “We have to leave soon, and you still have to eat!”
“Because I just got up,” Friedrich murmured as he rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t feel so good; I think I had a little too much to drink.”
Viktoria clicked her tongue, disapproving, rushing over to his closet. “Friedrich, you’re killing me; you’re absolutely killing me.” She went into his closet with the attendants to go get his suit. “Please tell me you aren’t sick; I really don’t want you throwing up all over this suit!”
“I don’t think I’ll be sick, mom.” The second Friedrich said it, he knew that it was a lie: his stomach was in a thousand and one knots, and he wasn’t even sure if it was completely the alcohol’s fault. “Besides: Chayim went to get me some coffee; I’ll be just fine.”
“And I’ll be just fine once you’re in this suit,” Viktoria said as she pulled the garment bag out of the closet. The attendants quickly rushed over and began to gently pull all the pieces of the suit from the bag. “Now, let’s hurry: we still have your hair to worry about, and from what I’ve heard from the telegraphs from the church, getting to St. Janika’s is going to be very difficult.”
Of course, it was. It was going to be the wedding of the century, according to all the tabloids. There’d been all sorts of reports going around, and Maddox even told him about a betting pool centered around where the wedding would take place, and whether or not House von Thurzó would be sworn enemies with House Eltz by the time this whole wedding business was over. The odds, according to that betting pool, were not in their favor.
Frankly, they weren’t the only ones skeptical about the way this was going to turn out.
The attendants began to help him get dressed, handing him articles of clothing for him to put on. And put them on, he did: he slipped on the undershirt, shrugged on and buttoned the black tunic with gold braiding, yanked on the pants, pulled on the socks and the knee-high boots, all in record timing. At least, as far as his sluggish mind was concerned. If he had to guess at how fast he’d really been moving, though, he would probably say that it wasn’t that fast. His mother seemed to get more anxious by the second: pacing the floor, fiddling with things in her hair, asking attendants that weren’t doing much at that moment about how she looked and whether or not anything was out of place on herself or Friedrich; he was half-tempted to tell her to relax, but he knew full well that would just make it worse.
Chayim came back into the room just as Friedrich was pulling on the boots, holding a tray with a coffee pot and a few mugs on it, as well as a small cup with milk in it. “I have some coffee for anybody that needs it.”
“Thank you, Chayim,” Viktoria said as she pulled Friedrich’s ornamental saber from the closet, leather scabbard, belt, and all. “If you don’t have anything else to attend to, would you mind pouring me a cup with a little milk in it?”
“Of course, my lady,” Chayim said with a nod as he poured some coffee into one of the mugs. He glanced up at Friedrich as he did. “I’m going to go ahead and assume that you would like a cup, Friedrich.”
Friedrich scratched the back of his head. “If that coffee is going to cure my headache, then I would love a cup.”
“It will,” Chayim said as he mixed some milk into his mother’s cup. “Trust me: I made an especially strong brew, today.”
He handed Viktoria the cup. She took it gratefully, downing nearly half the cup in a few seconds. Nobody in that room could hide their shock, including Friedrich. Viktoria was one of the most proper people he’d ever known: the fact that she’d even taken the coffee was out of character enough.
He put on the belt with his sword as Viktoria closed her eyes and sighed, almost relieved. “That’s very good, Chayim. Thank you.”
Chayim bowed his head slightly as an attendant came over to Friedrich and began to brush out his shoulder-length hair as he fumbled with his buckle.
“Thank you, Lady Totefels,” Chayim said. He began to pour Friedrich’s cup with coffee as he tried to shoo the servant doing his hair away. The servant didn’t leave, though. She probably figured that anything he might do was going to be a lot better than what Viktoria might do to them if he wasn’t ready for the wedding in time.
Not that he could blame them: Viktoria Totefels didn’t really appreciate when even small plans went awry.
Chayim handed Friedrich a cup of coffee as the attendant quickly did his hair up into a tight, short tail with a ribbon.
Friedrich looked into the cup, frowning. “No milk?”
“Trust me: you aren’t going to want to dilute this with milk,” Chayim said as the attendant finished tying his hair up. “If you drank as much alcohol as I think you did, you’re going to want as much of this stuff in your body as you can get.”
A little resigned, Friedrich drank some of the coffee, doing his best to not turn and spit out the foul-tasting liquid, or to snatch some of that milk and mix it into his drink. Chayim wasn’t the smartest man alive, but if there was one thing he knew he could trust him on, it was tricks to sober up quick: after years of caring after Lord Eltz after nights spent drinking enough hard liquor to make a horse woozy, the man had practically turned treating hangovers into an art form. If he thought that this was going to help him sober up for his own wedding, then it was going to help, and it was going to help pretty damned quick.
Friedrich coughed after he got that first mouthful of coffee down. “That’s some really strong stuff.”
Chayim nodded. “It needs to be: it’s the same brew Lord Eltz drinks the morning after a party.”
Viktoria turned and gave him a look. She didn’t seem angry: just a little surprised.
Chayim only seemed to remember that Lord Eltz’s wife was standing right that at that moment. He quickly turned and bowed to her, his cheeks burning bright red. “O-of course, I mean no offense to your lord husband, my lady. I-I just-“
“Oh, it’s quite alright,” Viktoria said with a flippant flick of her wrist. “I know about my husband full well.”
She turned to one of the attendants. “What’s the time, Sarah?”
Sarah pulled a pocket watch out from the pocket of her apron and checked the face. “A quarter to ten, my lady. If the traffic estimates are correct, we have a half an hour at the most before we need to leave for St. Janika’s.”
Friedrich began to swig a little faster as Viktoria sighed, exasperated. Chayim was right: he would need all the help he could get to get him through this day.
“We don’t have a second to waste, then!” Viktoria said quickly. “Chayim, I need you to take the coffee back to the kitchens and get the carriage ready.” Viktoria turned to look at the other attendants as Chayim gave a curt bow and rushed out of the room, taking the coffee with him. “I need the three of you to ready some food: we’ll be having breakfast in the carriage.”
Wait: breakfast?
“Mom, I don’t need to have breakfast,” Friedrich said as the attendants bowed and left in a hurry. “Really: I’m not even hungry.”
“Oh, you’re going to have something to eat,” Viktoria said as she walked towards the door. Friedrich followed her out, trailing behind her. “If you don’t have some breakfast, you’re going to pass out at the alter and embarrass yourself, and I don’t think I could stand to watch that!”
So, she was already thinking of the worst-case scenarios.
Friedrich could feel his stomach writhing in him, again. He knew from the second he felt it that he couldn’t eat anything: if he did, it was going to come right back up, and that was the last thing he wanted.
It was kind of depressing, really. This was supposed to be his wedding day-what was supposed to be the happiest day of his life-and he could already tell that it was well on its way to being the disaster of the century.