Agatha H. and the Clockwork Princess

Involuntarily, Vrin’s hand flew open and the sword clattered to the ground. Instantly, she snatched it up again. “You filthy changeling,” she snarled. “That won’t work on me! I’ll kill you both no matter what you say —”

“VRIN, STOP!”

This time the handle smashed into Vrin’s jaw, snapping her head to the side. Vrin fell over.

“Maybe it won’t work on you. Not completely. After all, you know I’m not really her. But there’s a part of you that doesn’t know that. And that’s the part that slows you down. So just give up, okay?”

“How dare you?” Vrin screamed in rage as she rolled to her feet. “I can control my own mind! You will die!”

“VRIN, KNEEL!”

The unexpected command froze the Geister as she was in mid-leap. As she teetered for a second, the broom handle hit her clean upside the head with the full force of the over-the-shoulder sweep that Agatha gave it, throwing Vrin back hard enough to lift her off the ground and drive her head into the stone wall. The Geisterdamen bounced back from the wall and collapsed in a heap.

Agatha stood ready, panting, but the woman warrior didn’t even twitch.

“Give her another one for me,” Tarvek said through clenched teeth. Agatha turned to him and sucked in a breath between her teeth. Sprawled against the wall, Tarvek was covered in blood.

“I should give you a smack of my own,” Agatha said, shaking her broom, but Tarvek could see that her heart wasn’t in it.

“Please don’t,” he said, in case he was wrong, “Bleeding heavily here.”

A bemused voice from above sighed. “Ah, well, I suppose we should do something about that.”

The two of them looked up. Staring down at them was a group of Wulfenbach soldiers, two of them clad in long, green cloaks with, Agatha realized with a start, Slaver Wasp skulls atop their heads. They were flanked by a pair of the tall brass trooper clanks, whose machine cannons never wavered from them.

The speaker was a short, plump, elderly soldier, with a meticulously cut, snowy white beard, who was casually sitting, his feet dangling over the edge.

“They say you can judge a person by their enemies.” He pointed his pistol towards the still comatose Vrin. “So you two are lookin’ pretty good right now. But I’m sure you could change my mind by doin’ somethin’ stupid.”

Agatha dropped her broom with a clatter. The soldier smiled. “That’s a good start, Fraulein. I’m Sergeant Scorp, First Vespiary Squad. Second Division. Second Army of East Transylvania.”

One of the cloaked soldiers leaned in. “Sergeant, I believe that’s the Heterodyne girl!”

The Sergeant’s eyes flicked up towards the giant figure who’s words were still booming out through the town. He then looked back to Agatha. “Really? She looks shorter.”

“What? But of course she’s—”

“—Jokin,’” the Sergeant said gently.

The cloaked soldier looked at his superior for a moment and then nodded uncertainly. “Ah. Humor. Yes?”

Scorp rolled his eyes and sighed. “Yes, Dmitri, humor. Go check ’em out.”

“Yessir!” Without another word, the two cloaked soldiers leapt the four meters to the ground, effortlessly landed on their feet, and approached the three. From large, wicker baskets at their sides, they produced bizarre, six-legged creatures, which they held up to each of them in turn.

Agatha—“Clean.”

Tarvek—“Clean.”

Vrin—The weasels shrieked and thrashed about in their handler’s hands. “Revenant.”

Scorp pushed the brim of his hat back and considered this. “Mighty interestin’,” he declared. “Is that young fella ready to move out?”

The medic wrapping Tarvek’s chest frowned. “He won’t like it.”

Scorp chuckled. “Trick question, son. He ain’t really got a choice.”

Agatha stepped up. “We need to see Baron Wulfenbach as quickly as possible.”

The Sergeant nodded. “Oh, you will. Though he might not appreciate you accusin’ him of bein’ The Other and all.”

Agatha’s eyes bugged from their sockets. “What? That’s not what I said!”

One of the Sergeant’s eyebrows arced and he jerked a thumb upwards. “Oh, really? Ain’t you been listenin’?”

For the first time, Agatha actually absorbed the words booming out from the colossus above them. “—Zzzk —Baron Wulfenbach was...is The Other—”

“Tarvek—” she began.

“Thought you said that boy shouldn’t move,” Scorp said.

“I didn’t think he could!” the corpsman said in amazement.

“Live and learn,” Scorp said cheerfully as he aimed his pistol.

A few minutes later, the squad was again on the move. The medic strode along, wiping his hands on a rag. “Did you have to shoot him in the leg?”

Scorp shrugged. “Figure I did him a favor. Iffin’ she’d got to him first—”

In the arms of one of the large brass clanks, Tarvek writhed in agony. Partly from the pain in his leg.

“It’s your own fault,” a furious Agatha informed him for the twenty-eighth time, “And better than you deserve! Why did you alter my message?”

The effort of keeping his stories straight caused the sweat to pour from Tarvek’s brow. “I didn’t do it! Lucrezia did. She wanted it found after we left Sturmhalten. That way, even if you broke free of her, it would keep you and the Baron from talking.”

“If you’re innocent then why did you run?”

Any number of reasons, as well as convoluted definitions of the word ‘innocent,’ ran through Tarvek’s increasingly chaotic brain. I’m going into shock, he realized. Oh, that’s just perfect.

What he said was the simple truth; “You look very scary!”

Agatha opened her mouth, and then checked herself. If she looked anything at all like she felt—“I feel scary. In fact like I’m about to ignite! Why aren’t I exhausted?”

Realization jolted through Tarvek, snapping him closer to coherence. “Oh dear,” he muttered.

“Now what?” Agatha demanded.

Tarvek took a deep breath. “Listen—you’re drugged. With a massive load of stimulants. Lucrezia insisted that her priestesses see her moving on her own.”

“You’re joking! She wanted to feel like this?”

“Don’t hit me!” Tarvek bleated, “I had to give her a quadruple dose. Your body’s been awake for days now. If you get excited, your brain could kind of short circuit. You’ve got to stay calm!”

“Calm?” She shouted, “I feel jittery and angry and... and I have a... a terrible pressure on my chest! Like I have a... a...” She paused, and then reached under her shirt and into her cleavage. She gave a start of surprise, and pulled out the miniature Hive Engine. “And what on earth is this? ” she demanded.

Klaus had intended to join the troops in the initial foray into the town. If he was honest with himself, he’d been rather looking forward to it. I’ve been hanging around the Jagers too much, he thought.

But this plan had collapsed with the appearance of the giant apparition over Sturmhalten Castle. He trusted the even-headedness of his commanders, but many of the rank and file troops had lost friends and family to The Other.

A Lieutenant stomped into the Command center Klaus had established in the port hangar bay of DuPree’s