The vulgarity was jarring, a raw crack in his usually controlled facade. It was Andrei's despair given voice. For a long, suspended moment, he stood there, paralyzed by the weight of it. The entire edifice of his revenge, his quest for power, his very identity, teetered on the brink of collapse. He could stop it. He could warn Peter, confess to Karl, try to flee this self-made hell.
But then, a different voice cut through the turmoil. It was not Andrei's, it was not the ghost of his former self. It was the voice that had been forged in the crucible of the Baron's warehouse, tempered by violence and betrayal. It was the voice of Lutz Fischer, the Marauder.
Enough.
The single, internal command was like a bucket of ice water. It didn't argue morality. It didn't offer comfort. It stated a simple, brutal fact.
The boy is already lost. Karl is in that room with him. There is no saving him. This hesitation is a luxury you cannot afford. It is a flaw. A fatal one.
The transaction is complete. Peter's life has been spent. To balk now is to waste the investment. It renders his sacrifice, however unwilling, meaningless. It guarantees your own death and the Baron's continued reign. Is your fleeting guilt worth that?
No, the Marauder answered. It is not.
The storm of emotion didn't vanish, but it was compartmentalized, walled off behind a barrier of pure, ruthless will. He could feel it, a screaming, wounded thing in a locked room at the back of his mind. But it could no longer touch the operator.
He straightened up. His breathing, which had been ragged, evened out. The tremor in his hands stilled. He looked in the mirror again. Andrei was gone. Only Lutz remained.
'Regret is a poison,' he thought, the sentiment now cold and sharp. 'Henrik was wrong. There is no path without it. The only choice is which regrets you can live with. I can live with Peter's death. I cannot live with the Baron's victory, Peter made his choice by joining the Vipers, he could have been killed at any moment in a quarrel or gang fight.'
The path was clear again. Not clean, but clear.
He turned from the washbasin and walked back to his cot. The time for introspection was over. Now was the time for the final, physical preparations. He had to be a machine.
He began with the harness, going over it one last time with a methodical, dispassionate eye. He checked the spring-load on Creed's sheath.
Click. Shhh-click.
The sound was a metronome, pulling his focus into the present, into the tangible.
He checked the parrying knife's quick-release. He counted the throwing knives in his bandolier. Seven. He opened each pouch on his belt, his fingers brushing against the contents like a blind man reading braille.
Finally, he slung the sawed-off shotgun over his back and settled the revolver in its hip holster. The weight was familiar, a promise of violence that was now a comfort.
Each action was a ritual, a step away from the man he had been moments before and toward the instrument he needed to become. With every buckle fastened, every weapon checked, he walled off the part of him that was screaming over Peter's fate. He buried Andrei Hayes beneath layers of leather, steel, and resolve.
He was not a good man. He knew that now. He was a weapon, pointed at a target. And tonight, he would be fired.
Actually, he wouldn't be fired, he would quit, bringing his boss down with him.
The moral conflict was not resolved. It was simply… set aside. It was a luxury for a future that might never come, a problem for a man who might not survive the night. The only thing that mattered now was the next move, and the move after that.
He sat on his cot, the fully-armed harness a second skin of deadly potential. The warehouse was silent around him, holding its breath. He closed his eyes, not in sleep, but in a state of focused readiness. The ghost of Peter's face flickered behind his eyelids, but he did not flinch. He acknowledged it, and then he let it go.
The thin, greasy porridge tasted like ash in Lutz's mouth. He forced it down, each swallow a mechanical act. The warehouse was quieter than a tomb, the men eating in a state of stunned silence, their earlier excitement utterly extinguished. And then, faint but unmistakable, it came: a high, thin sound, muffled by a closed door but piercing in the quiet. A scream of pain, cut off abruptly.
Lutz's spoon froze halfway to his mouth. Every muscle in his body went rigid. He didn't need to guess its source. The room where Karl had taken Peter. He focused on the grain of the wooden table, on the chill of the tin bowl in his hand, on the steady, metronomic beat of his own heart. He built the cube in his mind, a fortress against the sound. It is data, he told himself. An expected outcome. It changes nothing. He resumed eating, the porghum now utterly flavorless, a necessary fuel.
When he was done, he stood, his movements precise and deliberate. He walked towards the Baron's office, the weight of his harness and weapons a grounding reality. He had to face the architect of that scream and convince him of his loyalty. It was the most dangerous performance of his life.
He knocked on the heavy oak door, the sound unnaturally loud.
"Enter." The Baron's voice was flat from within.
Lutz opened the door and stepped inside, closing it behind him. The Baron was at his desk, not working, but simply staring into the middle distance, a glass of amber liquor in his hand. The air still carried the faint, psychic residue of his earlier fury.
"Baron," Lutz began, his voice carefully calibrated to mix respect with urgent concern. "I've… heard the men talking. The things they're saying… are they true?"
The Baron's flinty eyes shifted from the middle distance to focus on Lutz. "What things are they saying, Lutz?"
"That you're going to perform a ritual. Tonight. Using the artifact from the ship." Lutz let a flicker of awe, of nervous excitement, show on his face. "With all respect, sir, I find it… incredibly risky. The Church will know. They'll throw everything they have at us. But," he continued, his voice firming with resolve, "But if the choice is set, if this is our path, then I'll do everything in my power to help. If you succeed, we might just have a chance to turn this around."
Lutz had his hand resting on Creed's hilt.
The Baron watched him, his expression unreadable. For a terrifying second, Lutz was certain the man could see straight through the performance, right down to the cold, calculating engine at his core. Then, a slow, grim smile touched the Baron's lips. He was pleased. The show of loyalty, the acknowledgment of the plan's audacious brilliance—it was exactly what a leader in his position would want to hear.
"The men are talking, that's true," the Baron said, taking a sip from his glass. "But they're talking about a lie."
Lutz allowed his carefully constructed expression to crumble into one of pure, unfeigned confusion. "A… a lie, sir? I don't understand."
"It's a farce," the Baron stated, his voice dripping with contempt. "A story spread by that new boy. Peter."
Lutz's eyes widened. He took a half-step back, as if physically shocked. "Peter?" The name was a perfect blend of disbelief and dawning horror. "The… the new guy? That kid? He's been following me around for days, trying to… I don't know, praise me, ask me questions about how things work. I thought he was just a stupid, eager brat trying to find his place." He ran a hand through his hair, the picture of a man realizing he'd been duped. "Shit, was he pumping me for information?
The Baron observed his reaction, and Lutz could see the last vestiges of suspicion fading from his gaze. Lutz's performance was fitting the narrative perfectly: the trusted operative realizing he'd been used by a clever, treacherous novice.
"His plan?" the Baron scoffed. "No. He's not that clever. He's an idiot who heard a whisper—Gods know from where—and thought spreading it would make him important. He doesn't have the wit for a long-term deception. Just the vanity to believe a secret makes him powerful."
Lutz let out a low, frustrated breath, shaking his head. "An idiot with a big mouth. And now the Church will believe it. They'll think this is our moment of greatest vulnerability." He looked up, his gaze sharpening as he shifted gears, becoming the pragmatic operative again. "They'll strike tonight. They have to. They can't risk you succeeding."
"My thoughts exactly," the Baron grunted.
"Then we have to be ready," Lutz said, his voice now all business. "We're fortified, but we can be smarter. I've been looking at our defenses. I have some ideas. Small things, but they could make a difference. Choke points we can enhance, lines of sight we can clear… if you'll give me the permission, I can oversee the final preparations. Make sure we're as sharp as we can be."
He was offering to be the Baron's loyal foreman, putting the final touches on his own death trap. The irony was so profound it was almost dizzying.
The Baron studied him for a long moment, then gave a single, curt nod. "Do it. Use whoever you need. I want this place locked down tighter than a bank vault."
"Understood, Baron," Lutz said, snapping a crisp, respectful nod. "Thank you. We'll be ready for them." He turned and left the office, closing the door softly behind him.
As Lutz's footsteps faded, Gunther Vogler sat in the sudden silence of his office. He took another long swallow of his drink. The meeting had gone perfectly. Lutz's reaction had been textbook: shocked, loyal, proactive. It was exactly what he wanted to see from his best remaining asset.
And yet…
A faint, nagging unease settled in the pit of his stomach, a flaw his Lawyer intuition couldn't quite resolve. Lutz had been a little too perfect. The shift from concerned loyalty to tactical readiness had been a little too seamless. The story was clean, the logic sound: Peter, the vain fool, spreads a rumor; Lutz, the dedicated operative, is horrified and moves to fix the damage.
But something felt… staged.
He replayed the conversation in his mind. The widening of the eyes. The step back. The hand through the hair. It was all correct. But was it a bit too correct? Like an actor hitting his marks with precision, but forgetting to imbue the performance with the genuine, messy chaos of human emotion?
He shook his head, draining his glass. He was being paranoid. The pressure was getting to him. Karl was in the next room, diligently extracting the truth from the real source of the problem. Lutz was out there, right now, strengthening their defenses. This was no time to doubt the one man who had consistently delivered results, even returning bloodied from a hunt for their phantom enemy.
He poured himself another drink, the liquid sloshing into the glass. The unease remained, a cold, hard thing in his gut that the alcohol couldn't warm. He couldn't articulate it. There was no evidence, no logical flaw to point to. Just a deep, instinctual feeling that somewhere, in the complex web of lies and violence he presided over, a thread was pulling loose. And he had just given that thread permission to weave his shroud.