The scattered drops turo a light mist as Kus made his way through the Old City. Though the streets were lined oher side with two-story brick buildings adorned with wrought-iron balies meant to evoke a sense of a home behind, he was not lulled by the nostalgic atmosphere of the evening.
Here and there loomed those more dipidated than their neighbors, boarded-up windoeeling paint looming out of the gathering darkness. The haphazard graffiti from close to his apartment gave way to the symbols and tags of rival German gangs vying for influen this part of the city.
Dr. Halter’s office was near here, otherwise he would have done his best to avoid the area. As it was, Kus had ied with a number of gang members during the daytime, and for the most part were people like everyone else. That is, so long as you did not engage in the darker side of human nature. Drugs; prostitution; illegal gambling; all of these and more were avaible in the area if you knew where to look. But Kus never went looking.
Much like his other trips to work, Kus kept as close to the ter of the beaten-down sidewalk as possible. Moving as quickly as he could from streetlight to infrequent streetlight, Kus couldn’t help but feel the tension ease from his shoulders as he finally saw the front door of Dr. Halter’s offi front of him.
He hesitated.
A figure cloaked in red leaned against the buildio the door, cigarette in hand, idly puffing away and pletely ign the rain beginning to e down. Kus kicked himself for hesitating, for no sooner had he paused than the gang member, for that is what he almost surely was given his colors but of what gang he did not know, casually flicked the cigarette into the street.
“Well?” The man asked in a growl that sent ice down Kus’ spine. Despite the gang member being a bit smaller than himself, Kus still got the sense of barely trolled violence emanating from the man. “Dr. Halter said that you were on your way here, freund. We thought that you would have e quicker.”
“I’m no friend of yours,” Kus spat back before he could help himself.
“Freund oder der Dummkopf, I don’t care. The good Doktor assured us you would be able to fix a problem with der papierkrieg, and that is all I care about. Now e, i is getti out.” So saying the man pulled the door open and disappeared up the stairs into Dr. Halter’s office.
Kus hesitated again. The German words the man used indicated he was either fresh from the homend her up in one of the gangs iy. Perhaps both.
No. Kus gathered himself and stepped with sure strides towards the door himself. If there was ohing all the people of Volksturm k was that the gangs might be cruel and violent, but they did not go out of the way to harm those not involved in their activities. That way only y folly as, despite the deg nature of the city around them, the police of the Inner City would desd on them with the wrath of God if they started c outside the lines, so to speak.
Those thoughts gave him a small measure of fidend buoyed Kus as he stepped through the door and up the short flight of stairs to the office beyond. The receptionist’s desk in the small waiting room was empty, which he should have expected as it was now going on nine o’clo the evening. Elke had likely left some time ago, and for that he was gd. If he was wrong about the gang tonight, Kus preferred that the nice older woman, who often brought him ara coffee, was nowhere he office tonight.
Kus stepped through the door and moved along the corridor to Dr. Halter’s own office space. Pushing it open, Kus immediately cursed everything that he had ever learned about the so-called proper behavior of the gangs of this city.
Dr. Halter was dead.
Tied tightly to his office chair, his body slumped over thick rope in the middle of the room. His hands a had been duct-taped tightly, but not so covered that he couldn’t see where the nails had been wrenched free. Blood dripped down his mentor’s face from where his right eye had been removed, the gaping socket staring down vatly at the floor. Shirt torn asunder, long cuts traced themselves up and down his chest and side. Even now the blood still seeped from them. He likely had died right after the phonecall.
The door shut slowly, almost gently behind him. Jerked from the macabre examination of his friend’s corpse, Kus steps without thought deeper into the room. His eyes nded owo men revealed to have been standing by either side of the door. Shaggy hair and dressed in red with feathered tattoos trag their their arms, they smirked at Kus. The smirk was nothing though. It was those dead eyes that screamed Kus was in trouble and that every night after this, if he was lucky to experieny, would be pletely ged by the events that were about to unfold in this room.
A hand came from behind him, almost gently grasping his wrists as a short length of still red-stained rope was ed around them, restraining him. It was tight, but not so much that he still couldn’t work his fingers, which is what Kus assumed was the point, as the man that had been outside led him to Dr. Halter’s puter, pressing him down into the chair behind the desk. Dark eyes just as dead as those possessed by the men at the dazed down into Kus’ own.
“I told you, Anselm, Christoph, some times der honig lockt den Dummkopf.”
“Right, Albrecht,” respohe man on the left. “Hope he get us what the good, Doktor was uo give us.”
“Er wird es tun, wenn er leben will.” Albrecht said, his gaze not leaving Kus’ face. “Now, mein Dummkopf, before Dr. Halter left us so suddenly, he assured us that you, as his assistent would be able to access the information on his puter that you had so invely locked away.”
So that was what they wanted. Patient records. It couldn’t be anything else, as only Dr. Halter had access to the payment information his ts provided. But why would they care about simple records?
“Well?” Albrecht said with a frown, jarring Kus to the fact he had been sitting silent, starring into the gang member’s face.
“Ah, right. The records. Sure, just give me a few minutes and I get you anything you need.” Kus was almost surprised at how calmly he spoke. Never before had he been in a situation anywhere near as threatening to his safety as what he now found himself in. Well, perhaps that wasn’t true. Half-remembered dreams of floating over a hospital bed in the presence of a monstrous shadooke with all the authority of an emperor briefly appeared in his mind before just as swiftly being pushed aside. He had to focus. Turning his attention to his task, Kus awkwardly typed in his passwords to the puter.
“Is the binding really necessary?” Kus asked as he began pulling up files on the desktop.
“With how pliant you are being, maybe not,” Albrecht responded, ing to stand behind him to look at the puter s, eyes flig over names and dates. “But they will stay on until you get us what we need.”
“And what is it you need?”
“That,” Albrecht said reag over Kus to tap the s.
“Gise Wagner?” Kus asked, reading the name aloud.
“Perhaps,” Albrecht aowledged Kus’ question, but theured vaguely at the s, “but I meant all of it. Eaame and the personal information that es with it. That is what we are here for tonight, and what you will give us.”
Albrecht bent over the desk, reag for a pen and notepad. For a single, insane moment, Kus sidered tag the man from a seated position. After all, he had at least thirty pounds and several inches on him. But as he felt his muscles begin to tense, he caught the sideways gnd the barest hint of a smirk oher man’s face while his other hand lingered over a letter opener lying fotten on the desk. He was baiting him. Albrecht was hoping that Kus would make a move. Well, he would have to be disappointed.
Albrecht’s hint of a smirk turned into a full-fledged frown when Kus made no move against his feigned vulnerability. Letting out a dramatic sigh, Albrecht wrote down an email address and ha over to Kus.
“Send everything there.”
Kus nodded in uanding. It took several minutes, as Dr. Halter had a lot of ts. Times were tough iy, and the man hadn’t the heart to turn away those who couldn’t afford checkups. It had been one of the things Kus had liked most about the man. He hoped to be able to help others in a simir capacity one day.
That thought hit him hard as his fingers moved over the keyboard. Looking up, Albrecht had moved over to the other mehe door. Engaged in some whispered versation, Kus didn’t take a moment to wonder what they were talking about, instead, his fingers were already moving faster. Seleg all the files, Kus put the same password he always used for the puter on them as well.
While this might lead to trouble, for now, Kus felt pelled to do something. The Blood Eagles were the worst of the worst. Everyone iy khat. Anything they were going to do with that information could only be a bad thing for a lot of i people.
Right as he was finishing sending the st files, Kus picked up muttering by the mehe door. Most of it was indistinct, though he did pick out a single senten German that sent a wave of utter revulsion and horror roiling through him.
“Die W?lfe würden kapitulieren, wenn ihre Hündinnen und Jungen gefangen würden.”
He strained his wrists so hard that the binding around them creaked, but the rope held firm. He’d heard the rumors, as anyone living iy might have, that tensions had been increasiween two of the city’s most promi gangs. The Storm Wolves and the Blood Eagles had been at odds for years now, but supposedly there had been a marked upti the fightiweeely. While the ic had been well within the boundaries of where fighting might happen, Dr. Halter had said just to keep his head down and avoid getting involved. A lot of good that had done for the doctor. Clearly the Blood Eagles here tonight hadn’t cared about the doctor’s desire to remain uninvolved.
He tugged on the restraint once more, as hard as he could, but even his respectable strength was not enough to rip his wrists free. He set his hands, now burning from the fri of the rope, back down on the desk. Perhaps sensing that Kus was done, Albrecht gestured his fellow Blood Eagles to the door, where they nodded ahe room on some errand.
Albrecht stepped back over to the desk, looking down at Kus. “Well, if you are all done sending the files art ways here, mein Dummkopf.” The man reached down and began to uhe knots holding Kus’ wrists restrained.
Kus found himself nodding in agreement, but, almost as if he was standing looking down at his body, he felt words e dripping from his mouth.
“What was that you said about kids?”
Albrecht paused, fingers still gripping the final knot holding Kus’ bound wrists. Lifting his hands free, Albrecht gently patted Kalus’ hands then looked into his face. The tension that had just been about to leave his shoulders came back with a vengea the look Albrecht was giving him. Dead eyes over an expressionless face.
“Now, mein Dummkopf, why did you have to go asking that question? I had wondered how much of the old nguage you spoke. Clearly the answer is too much.”
Barely had the Blood Eagle uttered that st word when the first strike of his fist came blurring out of nowhere, knog Kus to the floor, chair ing down in a ctter o him. Rough hands grabbed him, still dazed from the blow, and dragged Kus to the other side of the te doctor’s desk. A kick, casual with its pt, pushed the corpse in the rolling chair to the far wall. The blow came down hard and fast, a fist to the other side of his head. Stars shown in his eyes, but they were already whirling away following the kick that smmed into his groin.
At first Kus tried to fight back, but even with his legs still free, Albrecht was a virtuoso with his fists a. No sooner did Kus attempt to stand up than he had his legs taken out from underh him. Each double-handed blow he swung at his weaving adversary was either a too-slow miss or, worse, it was smacked aside with almost palpable pt. Kus felt like weeping from the helplessness, but after the dozenth blow any tears he was g were of blood for the abuse to his fad body.
Finally, after who knew how many blows, Albrecht let Kus’ barely scious body cure up in a ball on the floor.
“Ist er tot?”
“No, though I am sure he wishes he was at this point,” Albrecht responded. “Now, Anselm, help me with his legs. Christoph, you get the doctor.”
Knowing nothing good was going to happen if he was taken by the men, Kus found he couldn’t put up any more of a struggle even if Albrecht had said they would be killing him here and now.
Firm hands grasped him under his already bruising arms, while aner set grabbed his ankles. As ohey hoisted him off the floor into the air. The st sight he had of the room as the two men carried him out was Christoph cutting the corpse of Dr. Halter Free, then tossing the body up and over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift, heedless of the blood now spttered across his clothes and face. Shifting the body to make sure he had its weight right, Christoph then followed on the heels of the Blood Eagles carrying Kus.
The hallassed in a blur and the hing the barely scious Kus knew he was outside. Frigid rain, now ing down a bit harder than earlier, roused him enough to see the operunk of a car backed up close to the sidewalk in front of Dr. Halter’s iceremoniously, Kus was tossed in first. Landing hard, he let out an involuntary hiss of pain. That hiss turned into a long groan as he felt the corpse tossed in on top of him. With a sm, the trunk was closed and moments ter the car was moving.
