The Assassin's Blade

by H J Peterson

  Friedrich’s blood turned cold. He knew who else was there before he emerged from the smoke like a demon from hell.

  The Archangel had arrived. And judging by the massive pistol in his hand, he meant business.

  Nobody moved. Nobody so much as dared to breathe as the Archangel raised his pistol and aimed it at Maddox’s head.

  He pulled the trigger.

  The Archangel cursed as something smacked into his shin.

  Friedrich turned toward Katalin, more than a little surprised. She was standing, her hand held out towards the two of them; she must have manipulated the bullet.

  The Archangel looked up at them. Friedrich couldn’t see his face, but even so, he could feel his eyes boring into the two of them. He could almost see the murderous look in his eyes.

  A chill ran down Friedrich’s spine. This is it, his mind told him. He’s going to kill us all!

  Maddox was pulled away from the psychopath as the Archangel strode forward, walking as if that bullet didn’t even sting. One of the lords–a minor one that made his fortune in pharmaceuticals–knelt down and began to tend to Maddox’s bullet wounds. The Archangel held his hands out, as if daring somebody to try and shoot him. Nobody did. Nobody even tried.

  “Emperor Manfred II and Lord Dieter Eltz,” the Archangel’s voice boomed through the ballroom like thunder. “You stand accused of high treason against the people of Vorbereich.” He stood with his feet apart and his hands behind his back, like a soldier at attention. “Would you like to address the court before your sentencing is carried out?”

  “Guards!” Manfred II shouted, drawing his dueling sword. “Guards, arrest him!”

  The Archangel simply laughed at that. It was cold, sinister… frankly, it made Friedrich feel a little sick to his stomach.

  “Do you really think there’s any of your precious guards left to protect you?” he asked. “That explosion took care of them.” He looked over at Maddox, who stared at him with a look to kill in his eyes. “That little bastard over there is the only one left, I believe. I hope that isn’t too much of an inconvenience for you, your grace.”

  Friedrich saw something die in Maddox’s eyes. He must not have realized that all those other guards were dead. The thought made Friedrich’s own stomach turn. The Archangel isn’t human, Friedrich decided. No man would be so calm about killing so many people so fast!

  “What do you want, then?” Manfred II asked. Even from where he was, Friedrich could see his grip on his sword get tighter. “Money? Power?”

  “I think I’ve made my wishes quite clear,” the Archangel said. “I want to put all of your heads on spikes and let the people rule for once in their lives-“

  What happened next happened without warning. Before the Archangel could finish his sentence, Katalin grabbed Friedrich’s steak knife and threw it at the Archangel as hard as she could.

  Her aim was true. The knife spun in the air, whizzing right in between Manfred II and Lady von Braun, and landed right in the Archangel’s stomach, a little to the right.

  The Archangel cursed, putting a hand on the knife as the entire ballroom turned to look at Katalin. Friedrich didn’t know whether or not he was just imagining it, but he thought he saw the corner of his wife’s mouth pulled up slightly in a smile.

  Friedrich wasn’t entirely sure what he should think of that. Sometimes, he forgot that his kind, loving, new wife had the potential to be a killing machine.

  The Archangel seemed more annoyed than anything about getting a knife thrown into his stomach. He didn’t even act like he was in pain. Instead, he pulled out the knife and began to inspect the blood-soaked blade, seemingly disinterested.

  Friedrich couldn’t look at it: even after just a few seconds, he could feel the blood drain from his face, the black dots dancing in his vision as his body went on the brink of passing out. He looked down at the table, supporting himself with locked arms, and began to take deep breaths, hoping it would be enough to keep him from keeling over.

  A knife clanged as it hit the ground. When Friedrich looked up, he saw that the Archangel had tossed the knife aside and was striding towards them.

  How the hell did he manage to act like the bullet to the leg and the stab wound to his stomach didn’t hurt? He wasn’t a Doc or something; the police said he was a Dodger, and it was impossible to be two things at once. The only people that had two were the people in children’s stories.

  “That’s the second time tonight that you’ve tried to kill me, Miss von Thurzó,” the Archangel said. Friedrich tried to get between him and Katalin, but she didn’t move: she stood resolute, almost daring the Archangel to try something. “I’m rather surprised: I didn’t think you were a Dodger.”

  The fact that he’d just revealed that secret didn’t seem to faze Katalin. Her face simply remained hard and cold as she stared at the Archangel. “You’d be surprised by what some people can do.”

  Suddenly, Maddox’s gun was launched from its spot with surprising speed, heading straight for the high table.

  Friedrich just about jumped out of his skin when he saw the gun barreling towards them, but of course, Katalin didn’t. Instead, she snatched it right out of the air with one hand, the heavy smack of the gun against her palm enough to make him wince.

  She brought the gun up against her shoulder and took aim at the Archangel. It never ceased to amaze Friedrich how relaxed she looked with a gun in her hand.

  That was the point Friedrich decided that the time had come to support his wife rather than try to stop her. He drew his sword and pointed the tip at the Archangel. He knew he probably wasn’t fooling anybody, but he couldn’t just let Katalin stand against that mad bastard alone, could he?

  “Get out of here,” Katalin ordered. “Get out of here, or so help me, heaven, I’ll kill you where you stand!”

  The Archangel didn’t seem amused. He raised his pistol and took aim at Katalin. Still, she didn’t back down.

  “Make me!”

  A gunshot went off.

  Friedrich’s heart stopped. Had his wife just gotten shot?

  Thank heaven, Katalin wasn’t the one that fell. Instead, the Archangel cursed, grabbing at the spot he’d been shot in.

  However, he didn’t grab his stomach or anything. He put his hands… on his back?

  That was when Friedrich saw it. Somebody had given Maddox a pistol, and he’d been the one to shoot the Archangel, all while the Doc that was working on his shoulder did what he could to stop the blood that still oozed from his bullet wound.

  “Wish granted,” Maddox muttered.

  The Archangel turned to face Maddox. Friedrich could see the rage etched on his face in his mind’s eye.

  Before anything could be done, though, sirens began to cut through the night like a knife. It sounded like the police were finally coming for the most wanted man in Vorbereich.

  The Archangel looked around the ballroom at the crowd of terrified nobles. “Well, my friends, it seems that it’s time for me to retire.” He turned towards Manfred II and Eltz. “Don’t forget, my lords: your day of judgment is near. I certainly won’t, and neither will all the people you’ve betrayed.”

  Before anybody could stop him, the Archangel burst through the front doors and into the night.

  Katalin sighed and plopped down in her chair the second he was gone. She was back to normal, now, her face no longer an angry, stony mask.

  She looked over at Friedrich as he plopped down right next to her. “So much for enjoying our wedding night, huh?”

  L. ADELRIC

  Adelric woke up the day the Überhaus’ new opera was scheduled to open to the sound of a gun clicking.

  Needless to say, that scared the hell out of him. He grabbed the knife out from under his pillow and sat up, frantically searching the apartment for the intruder.

  “Sleep well?”

  He relaxed and put the knife down. It wasn’t an intruder, at all: it was just Hiro, getting ready. From the looks of it, she’d just f
inished cleaning out her pistol: she was inspecting the gun, and she had all the tools she needed on the table in front of her.

  “Kind of,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. Heavens, why was he so stiff? And why did his head hurt so bad? It felt as heavy as a rock. “What about you?”

  “Not a wink, actually,” Hiro said bluntly. She didn’t sound all that happy with him, though he didn’t remember being annoying. “I was too busy going through the plan, making sure that everything would be ready: we weren’t exactly able to get much done before you went and fell asleep on me.”

  He frowned. Suddenly, he was feeling very, very violated. He didn’t think he’d been carried back to bed… ever. “Did you… did you carry me to bed?”

  “Yeah,” Hiro said. She looked up at him. “I did accidentally hit your head against the doorframe, though. Sorry about that.”

  He put a hand to the back of his head, where his headache throbbed and pounded against his skull like a hammer. Sure enough, there was a pretty good-sized lump on the back of his head.

  “How hard did you hit my head?” he asked as he got up.

  “You don’t need to know that,” Hiro said as she put the gun down on the table. She rolled her head around, apparently trying to crack her neck. “All you need to know is that all the planning for tonight is done. Everything should go smoothly, as long as we keep our wits about us.”

  She yawned, stretching her arms above her head.

  “That’s good,” Adelric said as he stood up and did the same. “Are you going to bed, then?”

  “I don’t need to,” Hiro said, standing up and walking over to the coffee pot. “Just need to get a few cup of coffees in me, and I’ll be fine.”

  She really was a cop, wasn’t she?

  “Yumi, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Adelric said. “We don’t have to be there until seven, tonight: you have the whole day to rest up.”

  “I told you, I’m fine,” Hiro said with a yawn. “Really: between you, my brother, and the boss, I don’t think I’ve ever had anybody be so damned concerned about my well-being.”

  “No, you’re not fine,” Adelric said. He never thought he’d be this way with Hiro, but hopefully, she’d be sluggish enough to him to get out of the way of a punch. “You’re not going to be all that useful if you can barely keep your eyes open.”

  Hiro gave him a look. He prayed that his assumption would be right, and that she wouldn’t be able to kill him.

  Instead, though, she just sighed and scratched the back of her head. “I guess you’re right: sleep sounds good, right now.”

  She dragged her feet over to her bed and plopped down, face first. “If you make so much of a peep, I swear on all that’s holy, I’ll kill you.”

  Noted.

  It wasn’t five minutes later before her chest was slowly and steadily rising and falling, peacefully asleep.

  Adelric quietly sighed, relieved. Thank goodness: he’d been worried about how grouchy she probably would’ve been had she stayed up.

  Once he was sure that she was asleep, he grabbed his violin case from its spot on the side of his bed, went into the other room, and pulled it out.

  Of course, he wasn’t planning to actually play it: he valued his life way too much to practice the violin while she was trying to sleep. Instead, he left his violin bow in the case and gently plucked the strings through his usual warm-up, the sound barely echoing through the room.

  He began with his usual routine: he played through all twelve of his major scales, then did technical studies in all those keys, just as he was taught back when he was younger. It wasn’t nearly the most exciting thing in his repertoire, but it was one of the most important things in it: as that woman back at the brothel he was raised at had always said, it was pretty damned hard to play technical runs in music when you couldn’t even play your damned scales right. Granted, these studies were some of the only things that woman could play (she couldn’t actually read sheet music, so learning songs was nearly impossible for her unless she did it by ear), but it had done its job. It taught him how to play quickly, and with a little training, it made it so he could learn just about every song he wanted, as long as he knew which scale to play for all those runs.

  Once he’d gotten through the warm-up, he began to play through his usual set. He plucked at the strings quickly and quietly, the fingers on his left and moving in tandem with the fingers on his right. It felt great to be back to playing: that whole undercover operation thing had really cut into his practice time. It had been why he’d been so tired the other night, when they’d started their planning. He hadn’t really realized just how much those nights cost them, or just how exhausted he actually was.

  Or the fact that, despite her profession, Hiro was one of the deepest sleepers he’d ever known. Literally: she either didn’t have a clue about the violin he’d brought with him, or she’d decided to not mention it.

  He liked to think it was the first option. Everybody needed their own little secrets, and that happened to be his.

  He just prayed that the wrong person wouldn’t find out; he wasn’t technically supposed to have that violin, and he didn’t think he could handle having it taken away.

  Especially now that judgment day had arrived. That violin was the only way he could really relax, now that the time had come to do or die. They would either arrest those members of the Archangel’s organization that were involved with the attack on the Überhaus, or they were going to get killed.

  And that thought absolutely terrified him.

  He had to stop playing for a minute as his hands began to shake so badly, he could barely play. He was already this anxious about this thing? Dear heaven; he still had hours to go until he and Hiro actually had to go to the Überhaus!

  He sighed. He was going to be a complete wreck by that time came, wouldn’t he?

  Once he could finally breathe a little easier, Adelric began to play the hardest song he knew how to play, one that only the best of violin players in the world could play anywhere close to perfect: Konzert 4, movement 3: Eine Kleine Danse mitt der Nacht. It should force him to focus enough to distract himself from what would be happening that night.

  That song–considered to be Hubert Münster’s masterpiece–tested Adelric’s playing speed like no other piece did. And that was at thirty beats under performance tempo. His fingers danced along the board as fast as he possible could, his other hand plucking at the strings like some manic machine running on the edge of control and chaos. Any other thought vanished, and he only had one thing on his mind: the notes and the rhythms he was playing. The song was infamous for seeming completely random, without a clear pattern to the scales used on the runs and the arpeggios, requiring the violinist unfortunate enough to be playing the lead part to think on the fly. Not acting meant slowing down; acting too fast meant the tempo spiraling completely out of control. The fact that Adelric could play it within a hundred beats to performance tempo was impressive in of itself.

  Of course, however, that wasn’t quite good enough for Adelric. His violin playing was the one area in his life where he didn’t back down. Ever. He’d been building that song up for over a year at that point, and he would build it up until he got to performance tempo-

  “What are you doing?”

  Adelric just about jumped out of his skin. When he turned in the direction of the voice, he saw Hiro leaning against the doorway. She didn’t exactly look happy. In fact, she looked down right ready to kill him.

  He could feel the blood drain from his face. For the first time in a long while, he found himself praying to heaven.

  “I-I’m really nervous,” he said quickly, bringing his violin away and out from under his chin. “I know I wasn’t supposed to bring it and all that, but I just… I-I just couldn’t bare to leave it, you know?”

  Probably not. Most people found his little obsession with the violin a little strange. It was just a fancy piece of wood with metal strings on it, people loved to remi
nd him. What’s so special about it? You can buy one that looks just like it practically on every block in Königstadt.

  Well, other violins just weren’t the same. They weren’t his. They felt wrong. After having that violin since he was big enough to use it, his violin felt less like a piece of wood and more like an extension of himself. Losing it would be like losing a limb.

  And with his history with the police, he sure as hell wasn’t going to trust them with it.

  Hiro didn’t proceed to yell at him. Instead, she just closed her eyes and sighed. “I guess that makes two of us, then.” She pulled a necklace out from under her shirt. It was a small locket, one that looked like it had seen a lot in its life.

  Adelric frowned, confused. From his experience, girls tended to keep pictures of their boyfriends in their lockets. He had no idea that she had a man: she struck him as the kind of person that was way too focused on her job for romance.

  “You have a boyfriend?” Adelric asked.

  Hiro frowned. She looked like she’d just licked a lemon.

  “No,” she said. “It’s my parents.”

  Adelric suddenly felt like shit. He had a feeling that something awful had happened to them. It was a common story in Vorbereich, especially in the middle and lower classes. Everybody seemed to either be a war orphan or had their parents die from the diseases or famine that had killed so many people in the years after the war with the Lindtin powers. More often than not, it was a little of both.

  When had Hiro’s family come to Vorbereich, anyway? She’d obviously been there for awhile, but he was pretty sure she hadn’t been born in Vorbereich: there were still things about her that were a little off.

  “What happened to them?” Adelric asked.

  “Dad died coming home from the war when the ship capsized,” Hiro said, looking down at the locket, a distant look in her eyes. “My mom kind of lost it after that, so my brother Ichirou saved up the money to bring the three of us over here. I haven’t heard from her since.”