by Al Ewing
Well, when they shook hands with the Devil, they could tell him that they had only been obeying orders. Doubtless he wouldn't have heard that one before.
Aldous von Abendroth watched his two remaining men carefully. They were good boys, both of them, and they would know what to do in this situation. The fighting men of Eagle Staffel had been trained to react to any contingency, and von Abendroth was confident that this grim scenario would prove no exception. The insurgent could not be allowed to escape, nor could he be allowed back near the shards of glass. Once had been far more than enough.
He narrowed his eyes and nodded almost imperceptibly at the two remaining men. They returned the nod and began Manoeuvre Vierundzwanzig. Both of the young Lieutenants began to carefully creep in opposite directions, neither too quick nor too slow, Lieutenant Bauer moving to one end of the central aisle that ran the length of the Church, and Lieutenant Ritter heading off the other, blocking El Sombra's access to those remaining glass shards. Once the two were sure the insurgent was trapped between them they would open fire, aiming for the head and upper torso - a classic pincer movement. It was von Abendroth's role in the manoeuvre to keep the masked man's attention focussed on him for the vital moments, taking care to draw his fire without spooking him enough to make a run for it. In von Abendroth's eyes, the procedure was much like luring a dangerous animal - a tiger, perhaps - into a trap, ready for the hunter's bullet. The Hauptmann believed that in comparing his foe to a tiger rather than an ape, he was respecting the danger El Sombra represented.
But there are more dangerous animals in the world than tigers, and they walk on their hind legs.
Aldous von Abendroth ostentatiously aimed his gun as though to fire, and watched the prey carefully through the rifle sight. As was expected, the masked terrorist crouched, readying himself to spring at him as the two trusted Lieutenants moved into position. Unseen by the insurgent, they raised their guns, aiming, tracking...
And then El Sombra took a step back.
Von Abendroth blinked. He was surely about to spring, to attempt a frontal attack - why would he step back? Unless he knew about the two guns on either side. Unless he wanted them in the perfect position to-
"Don't fire!" von Abendroth screamed.
Too late.
Two fingers squeezed two triggers at the exact moment that El Sombra threw himself flat and the two remaining men of Eagle Staffel found themselves staring down the barrels of each other's guns. The thunder of machine-gun fire filled the old stone building, echoing across the pews, mingling with the sound of lead piercing vulnerable organs and the screams of dying men. The organist added the final touch in a crashing minor chord.
As the bullet ridden corpses hit the cold stone floor, El Sombra picked himself up and made a little show of dusting himself down. "And then there was one. Any requests from our musical friend before I send you to join them, amigo?"
Aldous von Abendroth could only stare. In less than two minutes, this scarecrow had destroyed nine of the finest soldiers in the Reich - men he had considered his own sons. Eagle Staffel had been annihilated. The boyhood dream of every young man in the Fatherland had been crushed at the hands of this greasy, unshaven, bloodthirsty maniac.
His voice boomed through the empty space like cannon fire as he fought to control his fury. "You! You don't even know what you've done today, do you, schweinehund? Those were the finest young men I've ever known! We wrestled together at sunrise! Well, now Hauptmann Aldous von Abendroth will avenge their deaths! Come closer, you grotesque abomination! Come closer that I might crush you as easily as I would crush nature's miracle, the..."
El Sombra cut him off. "You're flying low, amigo."
Von Abendroth choked on his words and instinctively glanced downwards. "What?"
The ball of the masked man's foot rocketed up into von Abendroth's jaw, sending him tumbling backwards against one of the pews, the constant churning wail of the organ providing a musical counterpoint to his humiliation. He snarled, recovering quickly and moved into a fighting stance.
The older man feinted a punch to the insurgent's belly, then dropped without warning into a sweeping kick aimed at the ankles, sending the masked man tumbling to the floor to smack hard against the tiles. As El Sombra attempted to raise himself von Abendroth stepped forward to stamp the heel of his leather jackboot down hard against the centre of his back. The fight would go out of the terrorist once von Abendroth had snapped his spine and left him convulsing on the stone floor like a gutted fish.
El Sombra rolled over, putting up his hands to catch the boot as it sped downwards, then twisting hard, sending von Abendroth off his feet to slam into the ground. There was a sickening crack as the Hauptmann's head hit the wood of one of the pews, and his eyes squeezed tight for a single agonised moment - and that moment belonged to El Sombra. He launched himself forward, bringing an elbow down against von Abendroth's throat, his other hand pinning his arm. He repositioned his weight, bringing his centre of gravity down hard on his elbow, attempting to use his own body weight to crush the Nazi's throat.
Aldous von Abendroth growled through gritted teeth, his breath sounding much like the whining of a deflating balloon, and brought a knee up hard, catching the insurgent where it hurt. It was enough to make El Sombra relax his grip for a second, and Von Abendroth took his chance. He gripped the masked man's shoulders, shifting his weight backward as the knee followed through, driving the masked man's body over his head. Then he swung his other leg up, kicking El Sombra hard in the belly, the momentum driving the terrorist onto his back as he desperately tried to take in a breath. Von Abendroth was on him in less than a second, gripping his throat and slamming his head back down against the stone as he wound his thickly-muscled neck back, like a coiled spring. Von Abendroth might have been the Hauptmann of Germany's most prestigious Staffel, but he still knew how to deliver a dirty blow when he had to.
There was a hard cracking sound as von Abendroth threw his head downward, mashing his forehead into the bridge of El Sombra's nose and banging the back of his head into the floor - once, twice, blood spurting and flowing down over the masked man's moustache and into his mouth. One more would see him finally go under, and then Von Abendroth could finish the job by twisting his head all the way around on his shoulders, and finally consign this ragamuffin to the pit of devils he belonged in.
El Sombra would not give him the chance. He twisted savagely, bringing his legs up underneath von Abendroth's belly, then pushing upwards, launching the Hauptmann over his head to sail into the altar.
The top of his head smacked hard against the carved face of a baby cherub, and all he could see for a moment was a pulsing red light, building and dying away with the agony that radiated from his cracked skull. He'd received worse injuries. All he needed was a moment - a split-second. He concentrated his mind, willing away the pain, readying himself to uncoil. Even over the tumult of the organ, he could hear the terrorist's bare feet as they slapped the stone floor behind him. He would wait for the masked man to get closer and then, when he was within reach, von Abendroth would spin, aiming the heel of one palm into the centre of his forehead. The rock smash blow would drive the brain against the skull - and that would be that. All he had to do was wait for El Sombra to come closer... closer still...
Now, thought Aldous von Abendroth.
And then a single bullet tore through the back of his head, spattering his brains and fragments of his skull across the front of the altar and stilling such thoughts for all time. El Sombra tossed the smoking Luger to one side.
"I had a feeling that bullet would come in handy today."
He Sombra looked around the church at the carnage he had created, and felt a sudden wave of tiredness wash over him. What had this been for? He was spent and aching, covered in cuts and contusions, and Carina was still missing. He decided to head back to the shack and see if Jesus had returned yet. He needed to talk things over and work out some sort of plan of action. It was clear he was going
to get nowhere if he continued charging into situations like a raging bull. He smiled softly. Jesus would know what to do. He was a good friend, his only real friend in this terrible place.
He shot a glance at the organist, still playing merrily away. The music of choice was now a funeral dirge, sombre in tone but played with a manic, disturbing glee. It sent a shiver through El Sombra's spine, but he could not find it within him to confront the organ player on the matter. The figure at the instrument seemed so wretched, a deranged madman endlessly pounding his keys, one more victim of the bastards and their tortures. Instead, El Sombra simply turned to make his way out through the front door.
The double doors of the church were locked tightly. He should have expected that. Presumably the keys were with the -
The organ screamed.
El Sombra whirled around, unable to believe what he was seeing. He watched, wide-eyed, as the brass pipes began to peel themselves off the wall, clanking and shrieking and blowing steam, clicking together, reconfiguring themselves. It was like watching the skeleton of some grotesque metal animal building itself from the ground up.
Within less than four seconds, the organ had fully transformed from the musical instrument that had provided such sinister accompaniment to the deaths of Eagle Staffel into what looked like a large mechanical spider, scuttling forward, steam hissing in sinister clouds from the brass legs of the beast. In the centre was a cockpit of sorts - the keyboard formed a semicircle around the organist as he played on, discordant notes flowing from the spider-creature as it obeyed his commands. What El Sombra had taken for the hood of a monk's habit was actually an executioner's mask, and behind it, a pair of bloodshot eyes glittered with a mad passion for murder and death. This was Master Minus' own experiment combining human and robot technology. A terrifying apparition torn from a mind devoted to pain and misery. This was das Drehkreuz!
The Spider.
El Sombra scowled. Trained soldiers were one thing, but this was definitely his cue to leave. He somersaulted forward, aiming to flip onto the altar. His next move was to jump, reaching upwards to catch the edge of the shattered window and haul himself through it to the relative safety of the outside world.
It was a move he never got to make.
The Spider moved with impossible speed, scuttling across the floor of the church and up the wall to block the circular stained-glass window with its body. Suction pads cunningly concealed at the end of the brass legs held it in place as the organist hung horizontally, strapped in his chair, merrily playing his frenetic melody of destruction. El Sombra paused, disturbed by the sheer strangeness of the creature that hung there like its arachnid namesake - and that instant's hesitation was enough. The Spider brought up two of its eight brass legs and sent a hissing jet of scalding steam down to engulf the altar. El Sombra hurled himself back, barely escaping being boiled alive by the thing that hung from the window, and fell hard against the stone with a sickening thud. He'd taken too much punishment in recent weeks, and now every such impact seemed to jar right through him, awakening old hurts and pains.
He swallowed hard and drew his sword. Escape was impossible. It was going to be all he could do simply to stay alive in the face of this threat. Der Zinnsoldat had been bad enough, but that, at least, had been predictable. Its computer brain made it easy to out-think. This was being controlled by a human being. A mind sent far beyond the edge of madness by the devilish practices of the Ultimate Reich. There could be no predicting it, and evidently no avoiding it.
The only way to survive would be to kill it.
He began to step backwards, slowly luring the Spider down from its perch. If superheated steam was its main weapon, it would want to stay close enough to kill. And it wouldn't want him to get hold of the key to the main doors.
He took a single step sideways, reaching for Aldous von Abendroth's corpse.
The Spider pounced.
It was on him in less then a second. The hot brass pipes, dripping with condensation, swiped at his feet in an attempt to send him tumbling to the ground, the organist's eyes alive with a demented glee as his fingers ran up and down the keyboard in a frenzy. But El Sombra had been expecting the attack. He leapt into the air, landing on one set of pipe-legs and then hurling himself at another, using them to swing away towards the pulpit and landing, cat-like, atop it. He could feel the blisters forming on his hands and feet, but the machine reacted the way he hoped, the spider-legs clanking into each other as the machine tried to spin round, almost toppling over. The look of glee on the operator's face was replaced by one of berserk hatred, as his fingers cascaded over the keyboard, urging the monster on after its prey.
El Sombra dived down from the top of the pulpit, rolling between the thing's legs as it let off another thick cloud of scalding steam. The Spider was impressive, even fearsome, but for all that, it was only as good as its pilot. It might have seemed like a wise move to Master Minus to put this lunatic in the control seat. After all, he would have needed someone who was unlikely to be troubled by the deaths of Eagle Staffel, should they fail in their mission -but now that the machine had lost the element of surprise, El Sombra knew he could defeat it.
As the massive monster machine swivelled around in an attempt to get at him, the long metal legs banging against each other hopelessly, El Sombra darted to the Spider's left, towards the altar, before pushing off it to the right as though part of some human game of bagatelle. He moved quickly, and for a moment the simple joy of action overtook him and he let out his familiar, joyous laugh, so that it echoed through the church, mingling with the crashing chords and wild stabs made by the organ-creature. Wherever the maddened organist directed the terrible engine of destruction, he encountered only empty space, with El Sombra laughing merrily and challenging him with a swipe of his sword, sometimes a few feet away, sometimes across the room. And then the Spider would turn, and sway, and tilt, and lash out crazily with the brass pipes that were its legs, all the time coming closer and closer to toppling completely.
When it finally did, it seemed a mercy.
El Sombra ran at it and, at the last second, let himself fall into a skid, the moisture that had collected on the smooth, cold stone of the floor aiding him as he flew underneath a pair of clashing, crushing spider-legs. Maddened with hatred, the spider desperately tried to reach beneath its own body to catch at him. The mechanism was already severely off-balance from his last few manoeuvres, and this proved to be the final straw. Brass legs clattering against the stone, the suckers at the ends clinging in a terrified attempt to right itself, the Spider slowly toppled sideways, crashing down like a house of cards.
El Sombra saw his moment, and took it.
He hurled his sword like a javelin. The blade sliced through the air before plunging deep into the heart of the organist. The eyes under the executioner's hood bulged in pain, and as the music sighed away with a final screech of indignation, he turned, fixing the masked man with a look of terrible accusation.
El Sombra smiled grimly. "You signed up for the wrong side, amigo. Don't start crying now."
Those were the last words the hooded organist heard. He slumped forward, the look in his eyes freezing, becoming the terrible stare of a corpse.
El Sombra waited, expecting a trick. He'd been foolish to disregard the organist while he was alive, he wasn't about to make the same mistake just because he was dead. He waited a full minute, muscles taut, ready to spring if there was the slightest danger. But there was none. Eventually, he relaxed, breathing out slowly, letting his heartbeat return to normal. It was time to retrieve his sword and get out before anyone came to check for his body - or bring in backup.
He walked forward and gripped the hilt of the sword, readying himself to tug it free from the chest of the dead man. On an impulse, he took hold of the executioner's hood. No harm in seeing the face of the poor bastard underneath.
He tugged the black cloth upwards - and then fell back, pale as death, a strangled cry stillborn in his throat.
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The face under the executioner's hood belonged to Jesus Santiago.
His expression was a grimace of fear and terrible sorrow, as though even in death he was begging his only friend not to take his life. In brutal counterpoint to that look of terror and despair, El Sombra's sword jutted from the centre of his chest, evidence of guilt. He took another step back, his silent, cold accuser staring at him, with eyes that would never see again.
And then the Spider reared forward once more, all the more terrible now for its silence, as the cruel metal legs struck with a ferocity they had lacked before, the brass pipes smashing one after another against his skull, slamming into his sides to crack already bruised ribs, blasting him with scalding hot steam.
He put up a token resistance, but the once mighty El Sombra now stumbled where he once leapt, trembled when he once held fast, and the joyous laugh that had once boomed from his throat had been replaced by a shattered, broken whimper of defeat and despair.
Within seconds of this unequal combat, he slumped to the ground, mentally and physically broken.
And the last thing El Sombra saw, before the darkness claimed him, was the face of the friend he had murdered.
"The church is a wreck. But I've pulled all the workers off cleanup in the Great Square to get to work on it. I'm confident it'll look perfect for the proper wedding tomorrow."
Master Minus raised an eyebrow as he spoke into the telephone. "One night is not a great deal of time to restore a church, Herr Generaloberst..."
"Nonsense. I've had them working on fixtures and fittings a week in advance. You didn't think I was going to leave the place as it was, did you?" The voice on the other end of the line was as stony as ever, but there was a warmth in it now, a sense of self assurance that had been missing since El Sombra's arrival. "I have a new stained glass window ready to install, and an altar to go with it. God is dead, Master Minus, and we have killed him. It's time we redecorated his ugly little house to show that off."
