by Phil Foglio
Agatha smiled a smile her ancestors would have been proud of. “Just as I thought.”
“Castle!” A shaken Tiktoffen demanded. “I order you—”
The Castle cut him off. “Really, Professor. I may not be able to hurt you, but no one else may hurt my Heterodyne.”
Agatha strode towards him, smacking the wrench into the palm of her hand. Her voice was taking on an odd, unsettling tone. “Well, well. It appears that I can hurt you without any consequences at all. How terribly unfair! Try to steal my beautiful castle, will you?”
“Steal? Me?” Tiktoffen’s hand rippled and a homemade knife appeared there. “You arrogant upstart. Let us find out who can hurt whom.” He came in low and fast. There was no initial testing of Agatha’s abilities, it was obvious Tiktoffen wanted this fight over and done with as quickly as possible. Agatha remembered Zeetha’s lessons and pivoted, allowing him to slip past, while blocking a last-second swipe with her wrench.
“Give up, girl,” Tiktoffen snarled. “It is not too late. You couldn’t manage this without me, anyway!”
Agatha stayed on the balls of her feet and watched the arm holding the knife. “By ‘this,’ I assume you mean ‘kill people and bluster.’ I’ll cope without your experience.”
“No.” Suddenly the knife was in Tiktoffen’s other hand slicing a shallow cut into Agatha’s leg. “I mean juggle the thousand enemies who will come to try and take this place now that the Baron is dead!”
This declaration brought Agatha up short. “Dead!” Tiktoffen leapt in and sliced one of the straps of her leather apron, leaving a light scratch under her collarbone.
In a fury, Agatha lashed out with the wrench, delivering several well-placed blows. “I cannot believe I fell for such a cheap bluff!”
Tiktoffen staggered back, wiping blood from his nose. “It’s no bluff,” he cried. “The Baron died when the Great Hospital collapsed! The empire will go up in flames!” He again darted in. Faster than the eye could follow, he jabbed the back of Agatha’s hand, sending her wrench spinning away.
He grinned in triumph. “And I will be the master of the strongest castle in the most impregnable town in all Europa! Blissfully unencumbered, I might add, with a chit of a girl stupid enough to bring a spanner to a knife fight!”
Agatha pulled back and smiled nastily. “It’s harder to break things with a knife.”
Tiktoffen looked at her blankly, then stared at the device in his arm, now shattered and giving off small trails of smoke. With a last small patter of flashes, its sensors went dark. “AARGH! What have you done? What have you done?”
“I’ve freed my castle,” Agatha replied. “It’s off your leash, now.”
“You think it’s that simple?” Tiktoffen snarled as he cradled his arm. “You think you’ve won? The Heterodyne Boys hated this place! Your family abandoned it! The Castle is mine now! It wants to be mine! It’s been working with me for years!” He was screaming up towards the ceiling. “Castle! Do you hear me? I came here willingly! I’ve spent years repairing you! Helping you! You must choose me! You know I’m your ally! I’m the one who loves you!”
There was a terrible silence, then the Castle spoke slowly. “And I am fond of you, Professor. You were a much-needed point of sanity when that was something I myself could not supply. And you never gave up.”
A marble column two meters in diameter and easily five meters tall dropped from the shadows of the ceiling and crushed the professor flat. “Which is why I shall end this quickly.”
The Castle continued to speak, although its audience was no longer listening. “But, you did not repair me. I don’t believe you ever could have. I am not complete without a Heterodyne.”
Agatha coughed, choking on the cloud of dust that had been thrown into the air. She wondered if she were imagining the slight tinge of sadness in the Castle’s voice. “Thank you,” she said. “I . . . was a little worried you might not choose me, after all.”
“Nonsense, my Lady. The professor was amusing, but I have no need of clever outsiders who, as you say, put me on a leash.” The Castle’s voice now carried oceans of disdain.
Agatha tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Glad to hear it. Now let’s take a look at this device of his.”
“What?” The Castle sounded shocked. “Oh, you don’t want that. I’m sure it’s totally destroyed.” A few more stone blocks hammered into the top of the pillar.
“I’ll be the judge of that,” Agatha said, tapping her foot.
“But why? Here we are getting along so well.”
“Well, A: Because I want to see how it works so I can defend you against anything similar. And B: While I am becoming weirdly fond of you, I still don’t actually trust you.”
“Hmph. Clever girl. You will be a fun one. But no matter the depths of his megalomania, the professor was not family. You most certainly are. Therefore I would not crush you.”
“That leaves a lot of leeway.”
“Oh, now you’re just being suspicious.”
“You’re the one who told me that exact wording is important.”
“Indeed I did. But switching gears, if I may . . . In my current state of repair I cannot see the details, nevertheless I must report that the professor was correct: the Great Hospital has been destroyed.”
“What? How?”
“I do not know. There were multiple attackers. It is quite likely that the Baron truly is dead. A pity. He was a loyal ally of the family. Ah well, it comes to all of you eventually, even the devious ones.”
“Oh.” Realization hit Agatha all of a sudden. “Then, Gil . . . ”
“Ah. Unfortunately, you probably won’t need to worry about him for much longer. From what I can hear, Vole is intent on killing him—and they are currently out of my reach. I am sorry, my Lady. I would do something if I could.” Without a word, Agatha turned and dashed back the way she had come.
The Castle’s voice followed her as she ran: “Now, don’t cry,” it sounded jovial. “When this is all over, I shall find you some lovely new consorts. Lots of them!”
Agatha ran faster. “No!”
“Nonsense, my Lady. You still have a spare—” It paused. “Oh. Perhaps not. It sounds like Vole intends to kill both of them. Ah, well. Back to square one.”
“First of all,” Agatha shouted as she ran, “they are not replaceable!”
“Ah. Of course not, my Lady,” the Castle purred.
“Second of all, I sincerely doubt that thug can actually beat them, unless he sneaks up on them somehow.”
“Yet, you drop everything and rush to their rescue?”
“I still have work to do back there, remember? Anyway, if I let all that other stuff distract me, what would happen to you? Have you thought about that? Do you really want Mechanicsburg to fall because I was too boy crazy to think about anything useful?”
“Hmm.” the Castle pondered this. “True, once or twice, some of the more romantically minded of the family have caused problems . . . and I still have structural damage from the great Saint Valentine’s Day Riot, but that was such fun . . . even so, in your hurry to get back to work, you have completely forgotten Professor Tiktoffen’s nasty little device.”
Agatha blinked. “Ah. Oh. Yes . . . can you keep it somewhere safe for now?”
“Well, it is under a large, heavy pillar, so, yes.”
“Good. Just remember that I want it back later. No dumping it into a furnace or something.”
“Perish the thought,” the Castle said primly. “And I am so glad that you are not one to let romantic concerns distract you—”
“Of course not.” Agatha answered, matching its tone. “That would just be silly.”
“—because more enemies have arrived. The battle is about to begin in earnest.”
A dozen tiger clanks padded along, staring up at the trio that walked along the top of the great blade. Vole, in the lead, moved with much greater surety than the two men who followed him. They shuffled their feet, determinedly not l
ooking down at the metal-fanged faces peering up at them.
Vole waved them forward impatiently. “Hokay, dis gun be simple-peezy, yez? No fancy schtuff, just shoot dem, hokay?”
The two men grunted assent just as Gil and Tarvek jumped out from behind a furnace, threw a pair of hammers, and darted back under cover. Each hammer found its target and, with matching shrieks, the men following Vole toppled off the blade and vanished into a red-tinged flurry of metal below.
“Idiot! You missed Vole!”
“So did you!”
“Quick! Throw something else!”
Two more tools shot out. One slammed into the side of Vole’s head, the other knocked off his tall, white hat. Vole watched it fall out of sight, then turned to face them. His face was an inhuman mask of rage. “Hyu die now,” he proclaimed.
“You call that throwing?”
“Hey, at least I got his hat.”
Vole lunged around the corner of the furnace, only to discover no one there. “Schtupid brats,” he growled. “Hyu iz already dead. Hyu just needs to hold schtill so hy ken finish de job. Hyu schtupid empire iz over. Vunce hyu iz dead, de Pax Transylvania will fail! Europa vill crumble to her knees!”
From atop a storage tank, Gil shouted down at him, “And you want that?”
Vole answered with a burst of gunfire. “Ov cawze,” he roared, “Death and destruction efferyvere! Keel or be keeled! De rule ov de most vicious! Eet vill be glorious! De Jägers vill vunce again be de schtuff of nightmares!”
From somewhere behind him, Gil yelled again, “I thought you weren’t a Jäger anymore. You said so yourself!”
Vole laughed. “Dose oldt fools who served hyu poppa—dey vos an embarrassment to de very name. Dey vill die! Professor Teektoffen, he sez dot hy vill lead a new pack of Jägers! Strong, ruthless Jägers! Harvested from de strongest ov dose who come to serve de new masters ov Mechanicsburg! Ve vill burn Europa to de ground und gnaw her bonz!”
Gil glanced at Tarvek. “This guy’s nuts.”
“You think?” Tarvek shrugged. “It’s why the Jägers disowned him. He tried to kill Bill and Barry. Said they were too weak to be Heterodynes.” Tarvek sighed. “The idiots forgave him, of course.”
Gil frowned. “I could take him if it wasn’t for that gun.”
Tarvek perked up. “Really? Allow me!”
Seconds later, Tarvek appeared, capering atop a bank of exhaust valves. “Give it up, you elephantine kitchen goblin! Even when the Pax Transylvania falls, I will maintain the peace as the Storm King!”
Vole spun about, screaming. “No hyu von’t! Hyu gonna die!” He swept up the broom in his hands . . . and stared at it in astonishment. “Vot der dumboozle?” he gasped.
From a catwalk, Violetta popped up, cradling Vole’s rifle. “You royal fool,” she screamed at Tarvek. “What are you doing? You are not my responsibility anymore! Don’t just jump in and expect me to save your blue-blooded butt!”
“Like you could resist such a beautiful opportunity to show off,” Tarvek smirked. “Besides, I knew—”
The broom, thrown with the force of a javelin, cracked into his jaw, sending Tarvek to the ground.
“SHODDOP!” Vole screamed. “Hyu annoyink schmot guy! Hy vos gonna keel hyu anyvay, bot now Hy iz gonna keel hyu dead!”
“No.” A voice spoke from behind Vole, who spun in time to receive a solid smack to the jaw from Gilgamesh, “You shut up!”
The ex-Jäger fell to his knees. Gil wearily cracked his knuckles. “Do we really have to do this again, Captain?” Gil sighed. “I would have thought that thrashing you once would have been more than enough.”
Vole nodded reasonably. “Hokay—funny ting about dot.” Faster than the eye could see, he lashed out, catching Gil squarely in the gut, sending him flying into a bank of meters. At the same time, he snatched up a bit of shattered pipe and fired it over his shoulder, catching Violetta squarely on the forehead. She dropped from sight. He then strolled over and addressed the gasping man. “Dis time, hy dun gots to vorry about hyu poppa.” With the ease of long practice, his boot snapped out and smashed into Gil’s jaw. “Dis time, hy dun haff to vorry about schtupid leedle details like keepink hyu alive!”
He grabbed Gil and slammed him back into the wall of instruments so that Gil was looking straight into his inhuman eyes. “Und dis time,” he hissed, “hyu knocked my hat off. So dis time—”
—SLAM—
“Hy iz gunna vin, und hy iz gunna do it by keelink hyu—”
—SLAM—
“Into leetle bits!”
—SLAM—
Vole looked into Gil’s dazed face and smiled. “Iz dot different euff for hyu, brat? Hy mean, hy dun vant it to be borink, yah?”
“Excuse me . . . ” Tarvek, a crowbar slung over one shoulder, waved a hand. Vole and Gil stared at him.
“So, Wulfenbach—just checking—is this going to be some kind of macho exercise where you insist on battling a potentially superior opponent alone in some kind of misguided attempt to ‘prove’ your intrinsic worth?”
Gil frantically shook his head. “No,” he gasped, “I’m only that stupid in front of Agatha.”
“Drat.”
Further conversation was cut off by Vole using Gil as a flail to smash Tarvek across the face. The prince regained awareness as Vole, his hand around his throat, slammed him up against the wall next to Gil. Vole was grinning and shaking his head. “Ho, ho,” he chuckled, “vot a joke!” He rapped Tarvek against the wall. “Hyu vos gonna be de Storm King? And hyu—” It was now Gil’s turn to be slammed. “Hyu poppa seriously thought hyu vos vorthy ov hiz empire?”
He shook his head in disgust. “Hyu haz been hangink around vit dose losers dot allowed demselves to be domesticated by hyu poppa. Hyu haz never ektually fought a Jäger for real, vich iz vhy neider vun ov hyu vos taking me seriously, vich is insultink! Important lesson, cheeldren, when hyu iz supozzed to fight—” He slammed their heads together. “—FIGHT! Dun play at fightink while stendink around beink all schmartarse.”
He started to slam their heads together again, but stopped halfway to their pates, a look of disgust on his face. “Hyu iz a disgrace. Dere ain’t even any spawt in killink hyu pampered clowns.” He sighed. “But hit gots to be done. Thenk goodness neither ov hyu losers gots a hat.” He considered this and smiled. “Ennyvay, it vill be fun to tell dot Heterodyne sow all about how hyu died, yah?”
He tightened his grip around their throats until their eyes bulged slightly. He then leaned in and lowered his voice conspiratorially. “Und hey, dun feel too bad. Hy tink de two ov hyu vould haff been dem dangerous hiffen you’d had a chence to grow op a leedle.” He squeezed—
—and howled as a bullet tore through his chest. His hands spasmed, Gil and Tarvek dropped and bonelessly slid off the ledge to the ground below. All around them, the security clanks paused in their endless prowling and stared at their supine bodies.
Violetta frowned. “Oh come on, that was a sweet shot.”
Her irritation was justified. Vole, obviously not dead, had dodged behind a conduit. “Dot voz a nize shot, sveethot,” he called out gaily. “Bot dey iz schtill gun be dead guyz!” Once out of Violetta’s sight, he touched the wound on his chest and grimaced. Then he leaned over the edge and called out, “Hoy, heroes! Hy gots a fun idea! Hif vun ov hyu jumps up now for der kittehs, de odder might be able to get avay in time to vatch me keel hyu gurrrl friend!”
Tarvek and Gil, surrounded by a ring of curious clanks, stared at each other. At the exact same moment they exploded into action, both screaming: “Don’t screw this up!”
The clanks lunged. Gil and Tarvek were only saved because the giant clanks got in each other’s way. The two found themselves facing each other as they clambered atop the same clank.
“You know,” Tarvek shouted, “perhaps we should have discussed this!”
“Too late, now!” This appeared to be the case. Steel claws pulled them down. Fang-lined jaws opened all around them—
“GRRAAAARGH!!” A tearing metallic shriek filled the room and the tiger clanks froze. After the briefest of pauses, the clanks retreated, leaving Gil and Tarvek in the middle of a slowly growing circle of clear floor. Before them stood Krosp, arms behind his back, a smug grin on his bewhiskered face. “Looks like I arrived just in time.”
Gil blinked. “Krosp! You mean . . . you—?”
“Hurr hurr hurr . . . ” The security clanks parted and a larger version strolled forward. “You are very amusing, little emperor,” it growled.
“Give me the moment,” Krosp snarled, tail lashing.
Theo and Professor Mittelmind stood at the clank’s shoulders. Theo waved at Gil. “We brought Von Pinn—” he hastily corrected himself. “Madame Otilia! We fixed her up just like your notes said! She’s going to be just fine!”
Mittelmind rubbed his hands together. “Lucky for you, we’ve made improvements!” He indicated the docile ring of clanks around them. “I was able to analyze the command circuits and, as a result, all of these wretched things will now obey her!”
Tarvek and Gil staggered to their feet. “Good job,” they chorused.
At that moment, a great explosion was heard in the distance. Several seconds later, the entire castle shuddered like an angry lizard in aspic.
“What was that?” Sleipnir cried.
“Our time’s run out,” Tarvek replied. “The Castle is under direct attack!”
Theo showed an assured grin. “If we can signal Castle Wulfenbach—” He was interrupted by the loud crack of a gun, and a spurt of blood from his shoulder.
Everyone took cover behind the great clanks. Mezzasalma dragged Theo, clutching his shattered shoulder. On the walkway above, a fierce battle was taking place. Vole had managed to catch Violetta and wrest the gun out of her hands.
Now, one might think this would be a short fight but, in fact, Violetta was scrambling over Vole like a monkey on a tree, jabbing him everywhere with an apparently endless supply of small daggers that she would have sworn were poisoned—but so far, they were having no effect.
