Vole raised his head and shook it. Gil looked down at him. “You listen to me trying to be civilized, and you all think, ‘Oh, he’s nothing. Him, we can ignore. Him, we can push around. We can do whatever we want—he won’t be able to stop us.’”
He turned away. Vole flexed his back, sprung to his feet with a single movement and, screaming, launched himself at Gil from behind.
With perfect timing, Gil bent and gently placed his stick on the ground. Vole sailed past overhead.
Gil stood up. “No one ever takes me seriously unless I shout and threaten like a cut-rate stage villain.” He sighed again.
Vole tried again and suddenly found himself seized by Gil, who effortlessly held him up above his head. “Well, you know what?” the young man asked conversationally, “I can do crazy. I really can. And it looks like I’m going to have to.”
With that, he slammed Vole to the ground. “Agatha is in danger.” Another slam. “This whole town is in danger.” Another. “If I’m going to be able to help her at all, I’ll have to give up all this ‘being reasonable’ garbage—” Another slam, and this time he somersaulted up and came down hard on the Jäger’s head with both feet. “And show you idiots what kind of madboy you’re really dealing with!”
Vole thrashed slightly and Gil kicked him in the face. A sudden realization made him pause. His eyes got wide for a long moment. “Oh. No. Oh no!” He again addressed the air with the attitude of someone experiencing a terrible epiphany. “This…this must be how my father feels all the time!”
He thought about this for another moment and sighed. Then he glanced down. He pulled Vole’s head up so that he could glare directly into the now-terrified eyes. “So. Are you going to follow orders? Or are you going to keep attacking me until I have to kill you—at which point I’ll just have to use one of these Jägers instead?” So saying, he hooked a thumb towards the astonished group that had watched him dispatch Vole.
This attention shook Ognian out of his stupefaction and he raised a point of order. “Ectually, ve dun take orders from hyu.”
Instantly three fists smashed into his jaw, sending him to the ground.
“What was that?” Gil asked.
“Notting!” Four voices answered as one. “Ve’s goot!”
Gil turned back to Vole. “So?”
“No!” The cowed Jäger bleated. “I’z sorry, sir! Vot iz hyu orders, sir!”
Gil nodded. “I am going with these Jägers. Tell no one except my father that you have seen me. I have much to do, so I shall be busy. Right now, I want you to find the body of whoever was in charge of those war clanks. The sooner you get his head to my father or Dr. Sun, the easier it will be to get coherent memories. Do you understand?”
“SIR! YES, SIR!”
“Then go.” And pausing only to grab his hat, Vole loped off towards the burning machines.
The group watched him go in silence. Finally Dimo nodded respectfully. “Not bad.”
Gil shrugged. “My father once wrote a monograph on how to communicate in the workplace.”34
“…Iz dot so?”
Gil nodded. “All seven popes ordered it burned.”35
Dimo snorted. “Vell, Hy guess hyu iz feelin’ better.”
Gil stared off at the burning machines. “Is he gone?” His voice was a whisper.
Dimo blinked. “Vot?”
“Vole. Is he gone?”
“Yah. Uv cawrze. He run off…”
“Good.” And with the gentlest of sighs, Gilgamesh Wulfenbach collapsed face forward, completely unconscious.
The Jägers stared down at him. Ognian rubbed his jaw and grinned. “Hy likes dis guy!” He leaned down and swung Gil up over his shoulder with one hand. “He’s fonny! Let’s get him fixed op qvick, yah?”
Jenka winked. “Hif only becawze hyu Mizz Agatha likes him!”
All the Jägers perked up at this. “Iz dot so?”
Jenka nodded. “Accordink to de Generals.”
Dimo grinned. “And he likes her too! Dot’s mighty goot to hear.” He glanced at Gil, “He seems like a sturdy vun. And vit Mizz Agatha, hy tink dot’s gunna be impawtent.”
Maxim set his hat at a jaunty angle. “Hy vill teach heem how to impress de gorls!”
Ognian gave Gil a pat. “Hy vill teach heem about de birds and de veasles!”36
Dimo assured Jenka, “Und hy vill teach heem how to avoid dose two.”
She nodded. “Den ve might ektually see more Heterodynes yet.”
The current Heterodyne was kneeling on Moloch von Zinzer’s chest, her gloved hand frantically clamped over his screaming mouth. “Quiet,” she hissed. “Quiet! I don’t want to hurt you, but I will if you act stupid!”
Moloch’s scream dwindled to nothing. Agatha wasn’t sure if this was because he was listening, or because she was blocking his air intake. “Now I’m going to take my hand away. I’m giving you one chance. Don’t make me regret it!”
She gingerly removed her glove and Moloch took a deep breath. Then he spoke—very fast. “I really must apologize for threatening you back on the airship. I was really scared and under a lot of stress and—”
Agatha gently placed her hand back over his mouth, cutting off his stream of words. “Keep quiet,” she said gently, “and we’ll call it even.” Moloch looked surprised. “Really? You’re not going to kill me?”
“Not unless I have to.”
“I can work with that.”
They rolled apart and climbed to their feet. Moloch examined her. Agatha had changed since their time on Castle Wulfenbach. When he had first met her, she had obviously been a soft townie. From what he could see, she was now in much better shape. But more importantly, mentally, Agatha had seemed to be in a vague, pleasant fog a lot of the time, occasionally snapping into a terrifying sharp focus. Now… she seemed even more focused. A lot more focused. Looking at her now…she was obviously watching him, but her eyes—her eyes were moving. Constantly. In quick little snaps. Every other snap brought them back to Moloch, but she was looking at everything.
Moloch had always had a good “survival sense.” He knew when it was time to retreat. When to avoid the gaze of a sergeant looking for “volunteers.” This sense had only been sharpened here in Castle Heterodyne, where a misstep could cause him to be killed in any number of unexpected ways.
That sense was screaming at him now. Screaming in the same way as when he had found himself hauled up before Baron Klaus Wulfenbach himself and discovered that the Ruler of all Europa had made a mistake. About him.
The Baron had thought Moloch a Spark because of a machine that Agatha had built. He had never really understood why they had all automatically assumed it was him and not Agatha but he was not going to be the one to tell the Baron that he’d made a stupid mistake. So he’d tried to fool the smartest man in Europa.
There was a certain perverse pride to be felt because he had managed to do it for longer than two minutes, but at the three-minute mark, the fear of discovery had begun to erode the satisfaction, and by the time the whole thing had come crashing down several days later, he had almost been relieved that it was all over.
There were some who had argued that his sentence to Castle Heterodyne had been a bit harsh, considering that it was usually reserved for deranged Spark criminals, excessively loyal minions, constructs, and such.
However, it was also the traditional punishment for those who had impersonated Sparks, and thus, here he had been sent.
Moloch had no illusions about some hypothetical degree of “fairness” about life in general and his in particular. He just did what he always did—the best he could with the crap he had, and, occasionally, life handed him little unexpected victories. He wondered if this was supposed to be one of them. Schadenfreude did not come naturally to Moloch. He had to admit that although she had been the root cause of his current set of problems, Agatha had never actually betrayed him, done him direct harm, or treated him as anything other than a comrade in misfortune.