Magda slid her hands across the hilt of Ottokar’s sword, savouring the feel of the rough grip against her palms. It was a link between daughter and father, a reminder of who he had been. In her ears she could hear his voice – only slightly slurred by drink – encouraging her to greater discipline in her swordsmanship. Pain flashed through her, pulsating from her heart down into her very toes. The sense of loss was almost overwhelming. Unlike Inge, she’d never stop loving Ottokar. She wondered if that meant the pain she was feeling now would never go away.
Across the parlour, the others were talking. It was happenstance, but she found her gaze focused on Bernger. She could see the hurt he was suffering. It was etched on every line of his face. His anguish was only too familiar. He’d lost his father, right before his eyes. Helpless to act but at the same time blaming himself for not doing something to stop it. Magda felt ashamed that she couldn’t muster any regret over Bruno’s death. There should be something, but there wasn’t. She didn’t repent the hate she’d felt for the man. She wondered though if she would have felt any satisfaction if it had been her sword rather than the dungeon’s trap that had put an end to Bruno. Because as things stood, there was only emptiness.
‘The duardin are gone,’ Klueger stated as he paced before the guests. ‘If there was any question about the horrible rite Count Wulfsige performed, there’s none now. The Mardagg has been called up from the Blood God’s infernal kingdom. It will infest those who ate the profaned food and drew into themselves the mark of Khorne. Then it will use these hosts to murder their parents.’ It was a mark of the witch hunter’s agitation that he didn’t shun the use of the profane names, as though by speaking them he could defy the power of the beings they represented.
Magda saw the fear that shone in the eyes of the older guests. They cast anxious looks at their own children, horrified by their presence. Even Saskia Krebs stirred from her dreamy indifference to stare at her son, Thilo, as though he were some venomous reptile. Magda felt her heart sag when she saw the same fear in Inge’s face. Her mother tried to muster a reassuring smile, but it looked devoid of emotion. A mask adopted to hide her inner dread.
‘There is more,’ Lothar told Klueger. ‘Something perhaps none here have considered.’ The alchemist pointed to Abarahm. ‘Your mother, did she love you?’ The aelf slowly nodded. Lothar turned to Bernger. ‘And there can be no mistaking the intention of your father when he… died.’
‘What are you saying?’ Hiltrude demanded. She pulled her hand away when Roald tried to grasp it. ‘What are you saying, you filthy poisoner!’
Lothar shrugged at the insult. ‘You should thank me for that poison, as you call it. Perhaps you would already be dead if you had more children for the daemon to choose from. More tickets in this lottery of death we have all been condemned to.’
Abarahm rose from his chair and regarded Lothar with an icy stare. ‘Why did you ask how Nushala felt about me?’
‘Because he thinks it was more than arrogance that made her walk out into the courtyard,’ Magda suggested. ‘He thinks she deliberately provoked them into killing her.’
‘That’s horrible!’ Inge cried out.
‘It is absurd,’ Hiltrude scoffed.
Lothar shook his head. He turned towards Klueger. ‘What do you think? Horrible, I agree, but absurd I do not. There was purpose in these deaths. Not simple self-destruction, but self-sacrifice.’
‘The daemon would spare a potential host if there was no victim associated with them,’ Klueger said.
Magda slid across the divan and grabbed hold of her mother. She felt Inge tremble in her grasp. They locked eyes. She wondered if her own gaze held the same expression of horror that she saw in Inge’s. All she could do was hold on to her and shake her head, desperate to keep the thought from her mother. She remembered what her parents had said, that they would do anything to protect her.
‘Monstrous,’ Hiltrude said, her voice choked as she blurted the word.
Roald echoed her sentiment, if not her tone. ‘Is there logic behind this vile speculation, or is it simply depraved imagination?’ He directed a sideways glance at Hartmann, a stern look that the merchant couldn’t hold.
‘Magic obeys certain laws in order to manifest in the Mortal Realms,’ Lothar said. ‘Even the blackest sorcery drawn from the Realm of Chaos must be subject to rituals and incantations, limitations that confine and focus its dark energies. Conjuring the daemon has shaped aetheric chains to sustain its presence. One of those chains is Mhurghast. The castle itself is a boundary for the daemon. Another is the vindictive bonds described by the count when he summoned the fiend. It possesses a host and then hunts a victim. These too are chains.’
‘And if the chain is broken,’ Bernger said. ‘If the father dies then the son is spared?’ Magda could hear the guilt in his voice.
Klueger rapped his fist against the wall in a gesture of frustration. There was fury in his eyes when he answered. ‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘I don’t know if Bruno and possibly the aelf as well died for a noble purpose or a useless… I just don’t know. This daemon’s unlike anything I have encountered before.’
‘But if the link between parent and child is broken,’ Roald said, ‘then won’t that confound the fiend’s ability to manifest?’
‘It will,’ Lothar declared, ‘but I do not know to what degree. It may simply mean that once the daemon has killed all of its designated victims, it will still possess those who are left behind.’ He bowed apologetically to Abarahm. ‘It could simply mean that instead of escape, you get put at the back of the line.’
Magda gave a start when Hartmann suddenly lunged to his feet. The merchant moaned in horror. He waved his hands in the air and cried out to the other guests.
‘What good does it do to sit here and babble on and on?’ Hartmann wailed. He swung around and pointed his trembling hand at Herlinde and Heimo. ‘The daemon’s looking for a new host. Any moment now it could take over one of our children just as it did Brond!’ He glanced back at Klueger. ‘You’re supposed to know how to protect people against this evil. Why aren’t you doing something?’
‘Herr Senf, that is enough,’ Hiltrude barked.
Hartmann shuddered under the authority of the baroness and retreated back into his chair.
Klueger looked across the parlour. His eyes lingered on Magda. She could tell that he had reached some sort of a decision, but when he gazed at her he hesitated. Whatever he had in mind, Magda was prepared to trust him. She gave the slightest nod, hoping none of the others would notice.
‘We’ll do something,’ Klueger said. ‘Mhurghast’s a big place. There are many rooms on the floors above us. As we don’t know who’ll be chosen to act as the daemon’s host next, those who are threatened will be confined. Each in a separate room.’
Roald took up the suggestion with evident excitement. ‘I have been in the castle many times. Each of the bed chambers can be locked from the outside.’ He adopted a contemptuous look. ‘The count was always suspicious of visitors and didn’t want them wandering around at night.’
‘Then we’ll make use of those rooms,’ Klueger said. He smiled apologetically at Magda. ‘They are unlikely to be in readiness, but you’ll forgive the discomfort.’
Abarahm scowled at the witch hunter. ‘You do not mean to confine me.’ Despite the melodic lilt in the aelf’s voice, there was a threat in his words.
Klueger managed to surprise Abarahm by lowering his right arm to display the pistol gripped in his left hand. ‘That’s exactly my intention. One way or another.’
Lothar walked over to the aelf. ‘Be sensible,’ he advised. ‘We are not certain if you are still menaced by possession. Do as the witch hunter says.’
Abarahm’s scowl deepened. ‘It is an affront upon my dignity.’
‘If I am going to confine my only daughter, then I do not want to hear about an aelf’s dignity,’ Roald snapped.
The remark brought Liebgarde to her feet. Shock was on her face. ‘You can’t mean to lock me away, papa!’
Hiltrude moved to comfort her child. ‘Of course not, dear. No one is making you go anywhere.’ She cast a challenging glare at Klueger.
‘With deference to your rank, your ladyship,’ Klueger said, ‘Liebgarde will be confined just like all the others.’ Magda knew he was thinking of her when he added, ‘None of us wants to consider where this fell spirit may strike next.’
‘Then I am going with her,’ Hiltrude declared. ‘I will not have my daughter left alone to the horrors of this castle.’
Roald knelt beside the baroness. ‘Be sensible. What if Klueger’s right and our daughter is the next–’
Hiltrude’s eyes blazed like a raging fire. ‘Von Woernhoers do not turn into monsters! Liebgarde is a von Woernhoer. A von Woernhoer by blood, not marriage!’ She swung around and returned her gaze to Klueger. ‘If you insist on imprisoning my child, then I am going with her.’
Klueger nodded. ‘If that’s your intention, know that I’ll be incapable of protecting you.’ He turned to the other guests. ‘If any of you want to stay with your children, I’ll not stop you. But I will warn you. When the daemon comes, you may be placing yourself right beside it.’
Magda shivered. The daemon would come. When it did, who would be next to feel its evil growing inside them? Bernger? Liebgarde? Heimo? Herlinde?
Or would it be Magda Hausler?
The room Bernger found himself in was spacious. Once it might have been described as opulent, but there was a patina of decay everywhere. The blackwood panelling was chipped and splintered from the attention of rats. There was a musty smell about the bedding, and the golden frame had lost its glitter beneath layers of dust. The flue in the fireplace was caked in soot, and smoke seemed reluctant to be drawn up into it. The sheet that covered the heavy chair near the room’s narrow window had been there so long that when he went to pull it away he stripped a layer of paint from the arms.
Every instinct inside the thief told Bernger to rebel against his confinement. When Klueger was moving to lock the door, he felt an urge to rush the witch hunter. But these impulses to seek freedom were not strong enough to penetrate the despair that numbed his brain. Bruno was dead. He had died to protect his son. Now it appeared his sacrifice might have been in vain.
‘What do you think it feels like?’ Bernger asked Klueger. ‘What’ll it be like when the daemon comes?’
Klueger paused at the door. ‘Possession can be an insidious thing. It steals upon a person without their knowing. At first it’s subtle. A strange thought, an alien idea. Then, when the daemon’s essence gains a firmer hold, wild impulses will seize the host. Strange thoughts become stranger actions. The personality of the host is perverted by these influences. The more the soul strays from the usual custom, the more the daemon twists it. Twists it until it breaks and there’s nothing left.’
‘Then it doesn’t start with the physical change?’ Bernger pointed to his eyes, reminding Klueger of Reiner’s and Brond’s blood-filled orbs.
‘No. By the time there’s a physical symptom, the daemon has already taken hold.’
Bernger shook his head. ‘That means it could already have chosen its next host.’ He thumped his hand against his chest. ‘Even when my father was… Even at that moment, the fiend might already have been inside me.’
Klueger did not mince words. ‘Possible,’ he agreed. ‘The moment it left Brond’s flesh it would have been seeking its next vessel. That’s why all who were marked have to be confined. None of us knows who could be next.’ The witch hunter glanced at the right wall, in the direction of the room where Magda was held. Bernger saw something akin to panic in Klueger’s eyes. ‘With a lesser daemon, there are tests and trials that could reveal its presence from the first moment. The Mardagg is not so easily exposed. It’s among the Blood God’s great daemons and is not without its own profane protections. We’re not helped that the fiend is more subtle than most that serve Khorne.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Most of Khorne’s daemons expend themselves in reckless bloodshed and carnage. They’re entities of the moment, immediate and terrible in their havoc. This one’s different. It can be infernally patient and bide its time if it anticipates the opportunity for an even greater slaughter in the future. I think Ravensbach is almost fortunate that Count Wulfsige restricted its attentions as he did.’
Bernger turned to the narrow window and looked at the lights of the town below the hill. ‘What’ll it do once it has done everything the count summoned it to do?’
‘That’s a question I fear to consider,’ Klueger confessed. ‘It uses its hosts, but it draws no energy from them. Those it kills are different. The life force of those killed by the daemon will empower it, lend it a firmer presence in Chamon. If that power grows great enough, it may break free from the count’s designs. Should that happen, none will be safe. The “chains” Lothar speaks of would be utterly broken. It would be able to go where it liked and butcher whoever it came upon.’
‘I understand,’ Bernger said. ‘There’s far more at risk here than just ourselves. You did the right thing to confine us.’ He shook his head. ‘If we’re confined, then you’ll be able to subdue the daemon when it first tries to manifest. When it may still be weak.’
‘That’s my intention,’ Klueger said. ‘I’ll keep watch in the hall outside. The Order of Azyr has trained me to be sensitive to the presence of daemons. When it begins to take control of its host, I’ll know and I’ll be in position to act.’
Klueger started to leave the room, but turned before closing the door. ‘The traps Alrik showed you…’
‘I’ve told you all I know about the way they operate and how to get past them,’ Bernger said. ‘I can explain them again if you need me to, though Baron von Woernhoer or Hartmann might know as much as I do at this point.’
‘Yes, they were very attentive to your report,’ Klueger said, a grim smile flickering across his face. ‘But it wasn’t about the traps the cogsmith told you about. It’s the ones that could be deeper in the dungeon. The ones that are still unknown.’
Bernger thought he understood Klueger’s problem, but he could see no way to help him. ‘I only know about the first four rooms.’
‘Indeed,’ Klueger said. ‘But – you’ll forgive me – you’re known to have some ability when it comes to getting around traps. Bernger Walkenhorst’s professional activities aren’t unknown to me.’
‘A delicate way to express it.’ Bernger bowed to the witch hunter.
‘I have little time for delicacy. What I want to know is this – do you think you saw enough in the mechanisms Alrik did show you to figure out how other ones might work?’
‘Use the known to predict the unknown?’ Bernger gave it some thought. He could imagine Bruno looking down at him with disapproval, reproving him for his thievery. ‘It’s hard to work out how a duardin’s mind works. The key to bypassing any trap is knowing the designer’s work, and I have seen several examples.’
‘Give the problem your attention,’ Klueger said as he stepped into the hall and closed the door. ‘Lives will depend on it.’
Bernger stared at the door for some time, Klueger’s parting words echoing through his brain. It was an onerous responsibility the witch hunter had set upon his shoulders. One that had come to him too late. The life he would have saved was already lost. His own, he felt, didn’t really matter. Creatures like Lothar, Hartmann and Roald weren’t people who would be missed – Ravensbach would be better without them.
Then Bernger thought of Magda, and his cynicism faltered. She, at least, was someone he would help if he could. He owed it to her for the harm his father had inflicted on Ottokar. Yes, she was someone he would be willing to risk the dungeons for.
Bernger sat down on the edge of the musty bed and pondered Alrik’s mechanisms and whatever similarities they shared between them. Anything that might hint at what else the cogsmith had designed for Count Wulfsige.
Roald could hear bats creeping about in the canopy that covered the enormous bed. He was not sure which offended him more, that the chamber to which he’d withdrawn had been neglected to an appalling degree or that even in such decay it was more magnificent than anything in his own home.
The baron pulled his coat tighter, trying to coax some more warmth from the garment. He cast a longing look at the cold hearth. He wanted dearly to light a fire, but he knew he couldn’t take the risk. It was reckless enough to have a candle with him, but he wasn’t going to wait in total darkness. He’d taken precautions so that the light was shielded from the door. He considered it doubtful that even Klueger would notice anything if he passed by.
There was, of course, the chance that the witch hunter would spot Hartmann, but that was a risk Roald was prepared to take. The fat coward would do his utmost to keep from being noticed, and if he was, well, he wouldn’t have to feign fear to sell Klueger on his story about wanting to be close in case there was trouble.
Roald regarded the weapons lying on the table beside the candle. He’d purloined them from the trophy room while Klueger was busy locking up the children. An ugly barbarian mace was his pick. Fashioned from the claw of some reptile, it would leave the sort of rending marks a daemon would be expected to make. The crescent-shaped dagger was Hartmann’s. If the fool slashed wildly enough with it, he might make it look like the daemon’s work. It mattered little. Once the deed was done, he’d have no more use for Hartmann.
The sound of someone outside the room caused Roald to cover the candle. Every part of his being was alert and focused now, fixated on the door as it slowly opened. He breathed easier when he recognised the short, hefty outline of Hartmann as he slipped into the room.
‘Klueger has been patrolling outside the bedrooms,’ Hartmann whispered. ‘I’ve been watching him, like you said.’
‘Then why aren’t you still watching him?’ Roald snarled at his confederate. ‘We have to watch for our chance. At some point he’s sure to visit the girl, Magda. That is when we move.’
The merchant grinned. ‘That’s why I came to see you. We don’t need to wait. Klueger’s gone.’
Roald took up the weapons and walked towards Hartmann. ‘You’re certain? How long’s he been gone?’
‘Only just now. It’s better than you planned. He didn’t go to see the woman. He went downstairs.’
The information struck Roald as too good to be true. ‘Downstairs? Why would he stop patrolling?’ He gave Hartmann a stern look. ‘You’re certain he didn’t spot you?’
Hartmann nodded. ‘Positive. He never knew I was there. I watched him from the landing, and he was headed to the parlour.’ The merchant chuckled. ‘Maybe he required some liquid fortifying for his vigil.’
Roald didn’t think that likely. Witch hunters were abstemious to the point of asceticism. Whatever had drawn Klueger to the parlour, it wouldn’t be the count’s liquor cabinet.
‘Come along,’ the baron ordered. ‘We’ll see. If he’s gone downstairs, the opportunity is better than I’d hoped for.’
The two men moved out into the darkened hallway. Each carried a candle, warding back the blackness, allowing them to pick their way down the corridor. Roald’s ears were keyed to the slightest sound that might betray the witch hunter ascending the stairs. Every step he took, he half expected Klueger to emerge from one of the rooms and confront them.
The first occupied room the men passed was where Thilo Krebs was confined. They could hear the alchemist’s son pacing back and forth. Roald imagined it must be a hard thing to bear alone, wondering if at any moment you would lose yourself and become a monster.
‘Here,’ Hartmann whispered. The next door was the room where the von Woernhoers had been sequestered. To the last, Hiltrude had remained obstinate about not being separated from Liebgarde, so she’d been locked away with her.
Roald stared at the door. He could picture his lovely daughter inside. She would be lying on the bed, her face red from weeping. Hiltrude would be trying to reassure her, though of course the baroness was too dictatorial in her manner to put anyone at ease.
One last chance to stop. Roald recognised that fact. He could turn back now, but for what? To wait until Liebgarde was possessed and the daemon came for him? No, this was what made sense. If the daemon couldn’t manifest without a victim to hunt, then it certainly couldn’t manifest without a host to possess.
Without a word, Roald handed Hartmann the knife. The baron looked down the hallway to the door of the room where the younger Senfs were confined.
‘The baroness?’ Hartmann asked.
Roald didn’t hesitate to answer. ‘Both of them. Come now, Herr Senf. I’ll have two lives to my account. It’s only fair that you should have the same. You’ll need to settle her first, then… then Liebgarde. Make it quick.’
He left the merchant and hurried down the corridor. Roald didn’t look back until he was outside the room and had his hand on the key in the lock. Then he glanced over at Hartmann and nodded. They would enter the rooms simultaneously, lest some cry of warning arouse the other targets.
Roald flung open the door and dashed into the room. It was brightly lit by the fire that crackled in the hearth. He saw Heimo turn from warming his hands before the flames. The youth had a bewildered look on his face when he saw the baron. Only at the last moment did he spot the clawed mace in Roald’s hand. Heimo threw up his arm to protect himself. Roald struck anyway, the reptilian claws ripping through his victim’s flesh.
Heimo stumbled as blood gushed from his torn arm. He fell to the floor and tried to scramble towards the wall. Roald pounced on him like a hunting sabretusk. The barbaric mace smashed the man’s head and slashed his scalp. He wilted under the blow, but Roald hit him again and again, bashing his skull until clumps of his brain clung to the saurian claws.
Certain his first victim was dead, Roald spun around to find the second. In his haste, he’d left the door open, a route of escape for Herlinde had she seized upon it. Instead Heimo’s sister sat on the bed in open-mouthed horror, completely paralysed by the brutal murder. Only when Roald came at her did she regain something of her senses. She threw herself from the bed and made a dash for the door, a frightened howl escaping her lips.
There was only the one cry. Roald caught Herlinde’s hair as she ran for the door. He pulled and dragged her back towards him. The instant she was in reach, he struck at her with the mace. The weapon smacked into her head with such savage force that the claws embedded themselves in her skull. She crumpled to her knees. A garbled moan left her mouth before she pitched face-first to the floor.
Roald tried to tug the mace free, but it was caught fast. He didn’t make a second attempt. He was eager to be gone from this den of murder.
Retreating back into the hall, Roald could hear fists pounding against the doors to the locked rooms. The others had heard the sounds of violence, but so long as they hadn’t carried downstairs, there was still time to achieve his purpose. The baron ignored the prisoners and rushed to the door Hartmann had opened.
‘Hiltrude,’ Roald muttered, shocked when he saw the baroness appear in the doorway. She was a horrible sight, her lavish gown drenched in blood. Her neck was deeply gashed, as were her arm and bosom. There was a glazed look in her eyes, for which Roald was grateful. Even as the woman was dying, he was afraid of her.
Hiltrude groped blindly for the wall as she came into the corridor, using it to steady herself. She tried to speak, but all that came from her mouth was a bubble of blood. Though he’d conceived the plot, Roald felt disgusted. Hartmann, in his panic, had proven to be a butcher. The baron backed away from the door. He didn’t want to see Liebgarde in such a state.
Hartmann abruptly raced into the hall. The merchant’s face was so pallid it might have been sculpted from alabaster. His clothes were even more drenched with blood than Hiltrude’s. He held the dagger in both hands, clasping it close to his breast as though it were a holy icon. The look in his eyes was one of abject terror.
‘Baron! Your daughter!’ Hartmann tried to run past Roald. The baron had just caught hold of the man when he heard slow footsteps moving through the room Hartmann had fled.
Roald froze in the hallway. A horrible, familiar charnel reek smashed into his senses. It was the smell of carnage far greater than that which he’d just perpetrated. The murderous scent of the daemon.
‘We’re too late!’ Hartmann cried. ‘She’s possessed!’
It was all Roald could do to pry the dagger from his hands. He tightened his hold on the merchant before risking a look into the room. At once he leapt back. Less than a foot away was the advancing figure of Liebgarde. Or at least something that had been Liebgarde. His daughter’s face was contorted into a visage of blood-crazed depravity, her eyes dripping pits of crimson gore. Most awful of all, though, was the unnatural growth. Her body was stretched, her clothes taut against the elongated bones. In places the skin was cracked and split, unable to restrain the ghastly metamorphosis.
‘Run!’ Roald hissed at Hartmann. He pushed the merchant ahead of him as they fled down the corridor. The baron risked a glance over his shoulder. Some life must have yet lingered in Hiltrude, because Liebgarde had stopped just outside the door to mutilate her mother with fingers that were swiftly becoming talons.
Of all the horrors that shuddered through his brain, the most terrifying were the words Hartmann had used. It was too late. Liebgarde was possessed. That meant that when she was finished with Hiltrude, she would come looking for her father.
Klueger was aware that he was being watched when he left the hallway and started downstairs. Hartmann was keeping tabs on him. That meant Baron von Woernhoer was somewhere nearby. The two had been thick as thieves since returning from the dungeon. He didn’t know what they were planning. At the moment, he didn’t care.
The witch hunter walked the desolate halls. Candles lit the path between the stairs and the parlour, but their light did little to offset the grim atmosphere that haunted Mhurghast’s passageways. To Klueger it felt like stealing through a mausoleum. The castle had no part with the living. It was a place for the dead.
Sigmar’s justice could defy even the hand of Death. Klueger had seen with his own eyes the immortal Stormcast Eternals, divine warriors reborn to serve the God-King, cheating Nagash even as the Great Necromancer reached out to claim them. Yes, the power of Sigmar was absolute if the cause was just.
If the cause was just.
It had been Klueger’s lot to do many terrible things as a witch hunter, but always he had felt justified. He did what he did because he did so in the name of Sigmar. To protect the innocent and stamp out the seeds of corruption. He had deliberated on his choices and executed them without bias. The judgement of holy books and sacred teachings informed his actions. Never had selfish interest played a role. Not until now.
Klueger saw the parlour door ahead. He lingered outside for a time, listening for any sound from within. He expected to hear voices. Lothar and his wife, Saskia, should be inside, along with Inge Hausler. Strain his ears as he could, he caught no sound. Briefly he considered turning back from his purpose. Then he heard footsteps inside the room. Someone was walking towards the door.
Inge stepped out into the hall, peering down the corridor in the other direction. She waited a few moments, then turned to go back inside. When she did, she spotted Klueger and jumped back in surprise.
‘You startled me,’ she said.
‘That’s the hallmark of a witch hunter,’ Klueger replied. ‘But in this case I was only able to do so because you were preoccupied.’
Inge nodded. ‘I was looking for Herr Krebs and his wife. He wanted to investigate Count Wulfsige’s library and took Saskia with him.’
‘Then they’re not here?’ Klueger asked. ‘What about Baron von Woernhoer and Herr Senf?’
‘They’re gone too,’ Inge said. ‘I don’t know where.’
Klueger nodded. ‘You’re alone. That would explain your nervousness. Mhurghast isn’t the sort of place one should be alone in.’
A bit of fire blazed in Inge’s eyes. ‘Yet you saw fit to lock Magda away by herself. Shouldn’t you be up there watching the rooms? Waiting to see… who will be next.’
‘It’s because of Magda that I came down here to see you.’ Klueger removed his hat and held it towards the door. ‘What we have to discuss is private. If you would join me in the parlour.’ Klueger waited for Inge to precede him. As she walked past, his fingers worked at the lining of his hat, tearing at the felt.
Inge went towards the fireplace. ‘I know you have feelings for my daughter,’ she said. ‘I haven’t approved of you. I wanted better for Magda. Someone who doesn’t lead such a dangerous life. Someone who would always be there for her. Now all I care about is someone who can just get her out of here. If you can do that, she’s yours. With my blessing.’
Klueger stared at Inge’s back. He finished plucking the thin cord from under the felt. He wound it between his fingers, feeding it from hand to hand. ‘I’ll need more than your blessing to save Magda.’
Klueger caught Inge just as she turned towards him. He got the garrotte around her neck and twisted it tight. The woman fought, kicking at him, trying to grasp the cord and pull it away. Fitful gasps rattled up from her throat. She wheezed and coughed as her body tried to draw air into her lungs.
Grimly, Klueger maintained the strangling grip. He kept one eye on the door, watching for any of the others to appear. Every second he was left alone with Inge felt like a gift from Sigmar. An endorsement of the desperate lengths he’d been driven to.
Inge’s struggles grew less violent as the strength was choked out of her. Though her face was contorted into a grimace of agony, Klueger thought he saw understanding in her eyes. It was instinct that made her fight him. In her mind and in her soul she knew why this had to be. Why this had to happen.
Klueger was placing all his hopes in the death of Magda’s mother, just as Bruno had placed his faith in his own death.
‘I’ll get Magda out of here,’ Klueger told Inge as a ghastly rattle sounded deep in her throat. Her face had taken on a purplish hue. Her eyes rolled back, exposing the whites.
‘I’ll do whatever it takes to save her,’ Klueger vowed.
It took him a moment to realise he was making his promise to a corpse.