1636 The Devil's Opera (Ring of Fire) (55 page)

Ursula must have seen something in his face.

“What do you think he is doing, then? Surely you have a guess!”

Ursula’s tone was savage and her face was hard. It was obvious she would have an answer from him.

“You will have no peace from this,” he warned her.

“I don’t want peace! I want the truth! I want to know what is happening with my brother!”

Ursula’s face was pale, almost as if carved out of ice. It drew Gotthilf; drew him in a way no other woman had ever drawn him.

“Very well,” he capitulated. “We think—and it is only a guess, mind you—we think that he has set himself up as a stalking horse to trap those who would hunt him and you.”

At that, Ursula wavered on her feet, and Gotthilf sprang forward to ease her onto a chair. His mother and sister clustered around her, and he stepped back.

After a moment, the young woman raised her head and motioned Frau Marie and Margarethe back.

“Is he still alive? My brother?”

“We think so. No body has been found.”

The word
yet
hung in the air between them, for all it had not been spoken aloud.

Ursula leaned back and placed both hands atop her cane before she spoke again.

“
His
body has not been found, you mean. But what of others? What of those you say would be hunting him?”

Gotthilf shrugged. “There are two corpses in the city morgue, apparently dead at your brother’s hands, and three men in the city hospital with serious injuries. Two of them may be crippled for life. The witnesses we have are all clear that they attacked him.”

Ursula’s hand flew to her mouth at the mention of the dead men, and if possible she grew even paler.

“So, if we are correct in our guess,” Gotthilf finished, “your brother’s plan to hunt the hunters has succeeded to this point.” He looked away from Ursula to see Simon crouched in misery in a corner of the room. “It remains to be seen how successful it will prove to be in the end.”

Chapter 62

Hans had very little warning.

There was a sound of running feet behind him. He looked around to see half a dozen or more men swarming toward him in the moonlight.

Hans had been heading toward that same nook in the Neustadt where he thought he would be safe for the night. Now, all he could do was tuck himself into an angle in the freestanding wall of an old building that had burned in the great fire of 1625 and had never been rebuilt. At least there no one could get behind him, and they were forced to come to him almost head-on.

He settled his back against the stones of the walls, holding the walking stick in both hands. He was glad that Frau Anna had given him the stick. It would be put to use one more time tonight.

The pack slowed their pace, and came to a stop just beyond his reach, settling into a semi-circle. They were silent.

“Devil got your tongues, lads?” Hans mocked.

“You are a dead man, Metzger,” a cold voice said.

“Ah, is that you, Ernst?” Hans laughed. “I wondered how long it would be before you found me. Of course, I’ve been leaving a trail behind me all over town.”

He laughed again. “Got some new boys, have you, Ernst? Did you tell them the reason you need them is because I hammered five of your men into the mud yesterday, left two of them for dead and the others probably crippled for life?”

“You are a dead man, Metzger,” Ernst Mann repeated.

“Maybe I am. But I’ll tell you this: if I am, I’m not the only one. Hope you’ve all made your peace with God, boys, because I’m not going to meet Him alone.”

Several of the men drew knives at that. Hans blessed Frau Anna yet again for the heavy coat, the gloves, and even the wrappings around his ribs. He didn’t expect them to keep him alive to see the dawn, but they would keep him alive longer; long enough to put paid to this pack, perhaps. He trusted Chieske and Hoch to take down Schardius, but he was going to make sure that the devil’s tools before him didn’t return to their master.

He had no fear, he realized. None. He knew he was going to die here. But every one of these men that he took with him was one less that could threaten his sister. And at that thought, a white heat filled him.

“Come on, boys,” he taunted them. “Either come take me now, or crawl home to your holes as craven curs!”

* * *

The fight didn’t last long. Fights with those kinds of odds seldom do. And to an outside observer, it would have seemed just an extended flurry of grabs and hits. But to Hans, time seemed to slow down as he prepared to sell himself dearly.

The first man to die didn’t see the walking stick in Hans’ hand until right before it rammed through his eye and into his brain. He dropped with a choked scream, fouling the footing for those who followed him. Unfortunately, the walking stick wedged in the eye socket. Hans cursed as he had to release it.

The second man came from the left. His knife snagged in Hans’ coat. Hans reached out and grabbed the man’s shoulder, then delivered two rapid hammer blows to the attacker; one of them smashed out several teeth and the other might have broken his jaw. Hans pushed him back to fall over the body of the dead man.

The third attacker had tripped over the dead body. His knife lunge missed Hans entirely. But his body didn’t. Off-balance, he tripped again and fell into Han’s right side, with his shoulder landing squarely atop the broken rib.

“Ungh!”

White fire sheeted through Han’s mind as pain blazed throughout his body. He fell back against the wall behind him, and for a moment that support was the only thing keeping him on his feet.

But even as Hans grappled with the pain, his hands seemed to move of their own accord as they grabbed the man’s head and twisted.

The third attacker dropped at his feet, head looking back over his shoulder.

There was a brief pause as the others drew back a step or two. Hans breathed heavily, air rasping in and out of his throat. Hunched over the pain, he stepped his left foot forward a bit and turned his right side away from the attackers. He knew he couldn’t take another hit like that last one.

They stared at each other in the moonlight; Hans on one side and Ernst Mann and his remaining cohort facing him across a puddle of moonlight.

“So, it is down to you, Ernst,” Hans rasped. “You and Otto and Jurgen and Wilhelm. Are you enough? Are you enough to do what that devil Schardius has ordered?”

“We are,” Ernst replied in his cold voice.

The warehouse manager beckoned the others close.

While they whispered, Hans breathed deeply, sucking in as much of the cold air as he could. He could feel the sweat beading up on his back, chilling in the cold. He had lost his hat, and could feel the night breeze off the river stirring his hair. He glanced up for the barest of moments to see the moon sailing above him.

A good night to die, he decided.

Hans drew himself up as the others separated, spreading out as much as the angle of the walls allowed. He beckoned to them.

“Come and get me.”

* * *

The last of the fight was short and savage. Otto launched himself from the far left, making cuts and lunges with his knife that at first were blunted by the heavy coat. Jurgen stood to the front and swung fists at Hans’ face and head. Wilhelm came from the far right and somehow managed to snake his arm around Hans’ throat, attempting to choke him.

Hans had no choice. He kept his left hand and arm raised somewhat to shield the knife. The fists he just had to duck or ignore, because the arm around his throat had to go. He reached up and began breaking fingers. Wilhelm grunted as the first one snapped, hissed with pain when the second followed. When the third followed, he bellowed and tried to push away.

Hans reached back and grabbed Wilhelm by the hair, hauling him around in front of him to take a couple of hits from Jurgen’s hard fists while he gathered himself. Then he threw Wilhelm to the ground and kicked him in the head—possibly hard enough to kill him; certainly hard enough to take him out of the fight. Then Hans threw fists at Jurgen and Otto. Some landed, some did not. He felt some stinging places where Otto’s knife had penetrated the coat or the rib wrappings. He could feel blood trickling down his face from where Jurgen had reopened some of the cuts he had sustained in the fight with Recke. But he was still on his feet, still taking and dealing damage. The night was not over.

Hans surged forward, grabbed Jurgen’s shoulders and smashed his forehead into his foe’s face, shattering his nose and spraying blood over both of them. He pushed the dazed Jurgen away and rounded on Otto, who was moving in to stab him again. Before he could block it, Otto’s knife had sheathed itself in his left side, low down below the rib wrappings.

A cold pain shot through Hans. He knew that now his minutes were limited. He could feel blood beginning to flow out.

Hans’ left hand dropped down to pinion Otto’s hand on the hilt of the knife. His right hand flew out to grasp the front of the other man’s throat. With a grunt and a heaving twist, Hans crushed and tore his foe’s larynx.

Dropping the convulsing Otto to die where he lay, Hans turned back to Jurgen, who was standing still and clutching his bleeding nose. Still holding the knife in place in his wounded side, hissing at the fresh pain felt with every movement of his body, Hans delivered a kick to demolish Jurgen’s right knee. Then he aimed a boot at the other man’s throat. But before he could deliver it, he felt a blow on his back, and a fresh stinging. He turned his head slowly, to see Ernst backing away, staring first at his knife and then at Hans. Obviously the coat and wrappings had played their part one more time.

Hans followed through with the kick to Jurgen’s throat. The
crunch
was a pleasing validation that there was another foe down. All the while he stared at Ernst, standing wide-eyed in the moonlight.

“Come take me now, Ernst,” Hans husked. He could feel his legs starting to tremble, his arms droop from the blood loss. He didn’t have long.

Ernst obviously hesitated. Hans had taken out a half-dozen of his men before his eyes. Four of them were dead and another might well be.

On the other hand, it had to be obvious that Hans was hurt.

Hans waited. He had no hope of chasing Ernst if he ran. He hunched over a little more, not altogether feigning hurt.

Ernst stepped closer, then with a rush he stabbed at Hans. The knife didn’t penetrate the rib wrappings. Just as Hans gripped his shoulder, Ernst drew the knife back and thrust again.

“Die, damn you!”

This time the knife went in low, between the hips and below the wrappings. It was sharp, and penetrated the trousers, skin, and abdomen with ease.

Hans hissed at another wave of cold pain. This one would kill him, he knew. The blood was flowing faster. He so much wanted to rant and rail at Ernst, tell him what he thought of him and his master the devil Schardius. But there was no time.

He wrenched Otto’s knife out of his body with his left hand, turned it, and thrust it into Ernst’s belly. Hans watched as the other man’s eyes opened wide in shock and his mouth dropped open. He gave a heave with his shoulder, and ripped Ernst open from navel to sternum. Ernst’s eyes rolled up in his head and he collapsed, sliding off of the blade of the knife.

Hans dropped Otto’s knife and stumbled a step or two away before he dropped to his knees, then sagged to one side and rolled onto his back.

“Thank you, God,” he murmured, “for allowing me to defend my sister. If my hands are too bloody to enter heaven, then I will enter hell knowing that she is safe.”

The darkness closed around his vision, narrowing until only the whiteness of the moon could be seen. As that grayed out and the darkness continued to close in, one last thought passed through his mind.

Consequences.

Chapter 63

Franz awoke to a feeling of weight on his chest and something tickling his nose. He opened his eyes to see Marla’s face just inches from his own, a tress of her own long hair in her fingers teasing his upper lip and nostrils.

When she saw his eyes open, she swooped in for a languorous and lingering kiss, then bounced up to sit beside him in the bed.

“It’s opera day, Franz. Get up! We have so much to do!”

She jumped to her feet and began getting ready for the day. Franz rolled over on his side, and watched her gathering clothing and washing her face, all the while humming a melody that he finally recognized as “I Feel Pretty,”
from
West Side Story
. One of these days he hoped that Andrea Abati would follow through with his oft-stated plan to stage that musical. He would really like to see how the
Adel
and the patricians and the bürgermeisters would react to it. Probably not going to happen soon, though, given how dissonant the music was. One day, though.

“Franz!” Marla pounced on him again, dragging on his hand. “Get up!”

No help for it, he decided. And in truth, today was going to be a busy day. So he sat up and swung his feet over the side of the bed.

It didn’t take long to prepare. Franz donned his normal conductor’s suit: black velvet long trousers in the up-time style, and a short-waisted royal blue velvet jacket over a white shirt. He ran a comb through his hair, and he was ready to go.

Normally it would have taken Marla somewhat longer than that, but since she would be putting on stage makeup at the opera house and arranging her hair to match her costumes in the performance, she had just thrown on a shirt and her jeans.

“Ready to go?” Franz asked.

“Ready,” Marla replied, pulling a pair of brown leather gloves out of her coat pockets.

“What happened to your other gloves?” Franz asked, opening the door for her.

“I guess I’ve lost them. I thought I left them at the opera house, but when I went back to look for them the next day, they weren’t there.”

“Too bad. I was just getting used to pink, purple and green all in the same knit.”

Franz ducked as Marla swung at him.

* * *

Gotthilf was already gone the next morning when Simon came down to the eating room. Ursula and Margarethe were there; Ursula sitting quietly picking at a roll, Margarethe chattering about something.