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bigasswritingmagnet · 4 days ago

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Blood Will Out Ch 23 - Two More Important Conversations About Secrets

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One did not race through the halls of Castle Heterodyne, but Higgs and Agatha did walk very quickly. Agatha’s heart was banging in her chest, and she wondered if having a heart attack trying to fix the castle was going to become a new family tradition.

“He’ll make it,” Higgs said.

“You don’t know that,” she snapped. “And I don’t want to hear any platitudes about how he’s tougher than he looks. You can’t willpower your way out of organ failure.”

“No,” Higgs said calmly. “He’ll make it because you want him to, and in my experience, when a Heterodyne decides someone isn’t going to die, they don’t.”

Agatha didn’t stop, but she did slow and look up at his face. His expression was always so calm, almost to the point of boredom, but he glanced at her very quickly from the corner of his eye.

“I notice we are now alone,” she said, and saw a tension...not release, but shift. He was relieved to be getting this over with, but was not going to enjoy the actual getting over process.

“We are,” he said, slowly. “Although I don’t know if this is the best time or place.”

“But it’s the time and place we have,” she said. “I’ve been hearing Grandfather talk about Jägers for years. I know how the process works, and I know how long it takes – if you were old enough to have experience with my ancestors, you’d look like a Jäger.”

Higgs winced. He looked away and rubbed his jaw.

“Yeah,” he muttered. “I should.”

“...not would,” Agatha said slowly. “Should.”

There was a clanking, juddering sound, and a suit of armor wandered around the corner ahead of them. It saw them, or sensed them, or whatever it did, and began to move towards them. Agatha wasn’t particularly afraid, as it didn’t seem quite able to raise its arms high enough to grab the handles of the two swords strapped to its back.

Wordlessly, Higgs reached up, grabbed a brass rod that had once held a now long-rotted tapestry, and tore it out of the wall.

Actually, since the curtain rod was bolted very firmly in place, he tore out the chunks of granite around the fixtures.

“Hey!” the castle cried.

Higgs swung and caught the suit of armor on the side of the head, slamming it into the wall and crushing the helmet almost completely flat. The suit of armor collapsed, twitching. The impact also sent great cracks spiderwebbing along the wall.

“Do you mind?”

Higgs ignored the castle, and hefted the rod over his shoulder in the motion of a soldier shouldering his spear.

“Yeah,” he said to Agatha. “Should.”

Agatha, recognizing when she had stomped right on a sore point, said, “Sorry.”

Higgs shook his head.

“’salright. Helps me do my job.”

“Which is?”

“Dunno if I should tell you that, just yet.”

“My lady, Vole has told me to inform you that your inamorato-to-be has been stabilized, though he recommends you not dally.”

Agatha felt a wave of relief wash over her, so powerful it made her legs shake. She stumbled, and Higgs caught her arm, steadying her.

“I’m okay,” she said. Then she frowned. “...my what?”

“We need to get you somethin’ to eat, after this,” Higgs said, quickly letting go of her arm. Agatha smiled, recognizing the tone of someone trying very hard to sound like they weren’t fussing. She’d been hearing it a lot in the last year or so, when Teodora argued with Saturnus.

Higgs halted in front of a statue of a man and a snake trying to bite each other’s heads off. He reached out and pressed down on two of the scales on the snake’s back. There was a clunk and the statue, as well as the wall behind it, swung forward to reveal a wide, dark hallway with long thin horizontal lines carved into the walls. There was a lantern hanging on a hook just inside the door. Higgs lit it, then his pipe, then picked up the lantern and gestured for her to follow him.

Agatha forced herself not to look over her shoulder when she heard the doorway swing shut behind her, and hurried after Higgs. With the lantern lit, Agatha could see that the thin lines were actually letters. Someone had carved a message into the stone, but the words were too small and delicate to have been done with normal stoneworking tools.

Not wanting to stop, Agatha could only get a few snatches of words. She couldn’t tell if it was a prayer, a curse, or a plea. With a shiver, she picked up the pace until she was next to Higgs.

“I thought we were going to the library.”

“Shortcut,” Higgs said. “Sort of.”

“I’m kind of in a hurry here,” she said, trying to sound patient.

“It’s farther to walk, but safer. Fewer traps, for a start.”

“You know a lot about the castle.”

“Been around it a long time.”

“How long?”

Higgs did not respond.

“Grandfather told me about the Great Movement Chamber,” she pointed out. “If I’m allowed to know that, I think I’m allowed to know about you.”

“That’s what I was thinkin’,” he said, “and I don’t have the ego to assume I’m a more important secret than that.” Here he gave her an almost apologetic look. “I was also thinkin’, ‘but he didn’t tell her about me’.”

“Maybe he didn’t tell me because it’s a lot harder to pass off ‘we’ve got a secret Jäger spy in the Empire forces’ as just telling me stor—” Except he had told her that, or something like it. But...no, no, that couldn’t possibly be...yes, Higgs had said he was old enough that he should look like a Jäger, but surely if he was that old, surely he’d at least have the teeth…

“There’s a seventh general,” she said. Higgs did not react. “Grandfather said he’s the spymaster. He stays hidden.”

Helps me do my job.

“He said he’s the oldest Jäger still alive. That he was one of the first.”

“That’s right.”

“You’re one of the first.”

Higgs stopped so suddenly Agatha almost bumped into him. Slowly, Higgs turned, lifting the lantern a little higher, his eyes searching her face. Agatha thought maybe she could guess what he was looking for, and hoped he could see it there.

“Yes,” he said, “I am.”

Agatha was far too aware of how long this was taking, but she was also aware that this was important. He was the oldest Jäger alive, and she was the daughter of the first Heterodyne who hadn’t liked them.

“It’s very nice to meet you,” she said, “and I’m very glad you’re here.”

For a moment, he didn't react. Then his shoulders untensed ever so slightly. Higgs reached up and touched the brim of his airman’s cap, the faintest of smiles on his lips.

“Feelin’s mutual, my lady.”

The machine that kept Tarvek alive was reminiscent of a cocoon in shape and design, but cut lengthwise and turned on its back. Inside the cocoon were tubes and wires that ended in needles, pumps that would move blood and mysterious concoctions in and out of a body. There were also leather straps at the right height for the head, shoulders, waist, knees, and ankles of a man of average height.

Gil had not made a snide remark about using them, in case Vole took him seriously.

The machine was torturous – well, it was literally a torture device, designed to keep someone from dying of a poison without curing them, allowing one to observe and record a poison’s symptoms at one’s leisure. Vole had remarked, with unnerving fondness, that Lord Saturnus had found it a marvelous way to spend a rainy afternoon.

But at the moment, it was also torturing the people who weren’t even hooked up to it, via a squeaky fan that Gilgamesh could not find without turning the machine off and taking it apart. He kept looking, though, because the only other thing to do in that room was sit quietly and watch Tarvek not die until Agatha got back. And he would keep not dying, with no cure and no comfort, dying forever and ever, but never managing to die.

“It’s not going to work.” Tarvek’s voice was thin and hoarse. Gil stood so he could see over the lip of the pod and glared at Tarvek.

“Well, unless you want me to turn it off so I can take it apart—”

“No. Not that. This. Curing me. It won’t work. There’s...there’s too many things this could be. The materials here are so old...it’ll take too long to identify the poison, and even longer to figure out how to reverse it.”

“You’re right,” Gil said breezily. “We’ll just have to leave you here to die.”

“Yes.”

An icy lump formed in Gil’s throat, and slid all the way down to his stomach.

“What do you mean, yes?”

Tarvek gave him an unamused look.

“I mean, if it takes longer than half an hour for Agatha to—” He flinched as a fresh wave of pain hit, then slumped back again. “—if it takes too long for Agatha to find an antidote, you need to convince her to leave me here.”

“I am not doing that.”

“You have to. She doesn’t have the time to waste on me.”

Vole, seated in the corner shining the brass on his uniform, rolled his eyes – or at least he moved his head in a way that suggested he was rolling them, it was hard to tell – and stood up.

“If hyu is goink to have de big self-sacrificink hero talk, I iz gon vait outside.”

When he was gone, Gil turned back to Tarvek.

“We need you alive, remember?” Gil rose and moved to stand next to Tarvek. He reached out to touch his arm, but hesitated. He could feel the fever heat rising from Tarvek’s skin without making contact. “So you can tell Baron Wulfenbach what really happened?”

“If Agatha gets the castle working at full capacity, it won’t...won’t matter who he believes. Sturmhalten marched on Mechanicsburg and attacked without authorization. Besides. If she...kills my father...the Baron’ll...probably give her...a medal.” He laughed, a breathless, bitter laugh. “I would.”

“You want her to kill your father?”

“Yes.” Tarvek’s eyes flew open and he glared up at Gil. “Someone has to. Someone needs to.”

“Listen, all of this is bad, but – but he’s still your father.”

“Would you say that about yours? Knowing all the things he’s done, all the deaths and fear and horror? If someone asked you if he should die, would you say no?”

Gil hesitated. He reminded himself that Tarvek was talking about Petrus Teuful, and Gil absolutely thought that man had deserved to die. But saying ‘yes, I think it’s good my father is dead’ was not something he wanted to speak into the universe, no matter what Tarvek thought he meant.

“But your father isn’t...my father.”

“Female Sparks in our generation go missing because the Geisterdamen kidnap them, in case they are Agatha. They bring them to Sturmhalten, where they strap them into a machine that tries to imprint the memories and personality of Lucrezia Mongfish on their brains. It doesn’t work, because they are not Agatha. The girls either die, or their minds are destroyed and the Geisterdamen kill them. And my father helps every step of the way.”

Gil’s mouth hung open.

“So yes. My father is not your father. But he needs to die. They all need to die.”

“You knew?” Gil exploded. He grabbed Tarvek by the shoulders and shook him. “Your father has been killing children for years, and you knew this whole time?”

“No!” Tarvek snarled. He was panting hard, but his glare was as strong and fierce as Gil’s. “I knew my father was involved in the Knights of Jove, and I knew they worked for Lucrezia, but I didn’t know about the girls until two years ago, and didn’t know what they were doing or why until after Agatha left!”

“Two years—!”

“Who would I tell?” Tarvek demanded hysterically. He grabbed Gil’s shirt and pulled, hauling himself up and Gil down until they were nose to nose. “Who would believe me? The Baron? After he threw me out? He would show up, and he’d look, and he’d find nothing, because we are very good at hiding from him, and then he’d call me a liar and leave and nothing would change except I would be dead!”

He let go and collapsed back into the machine, his chest rising and falling as he gasped for air.

“I think...Lucrezia...was involved...with the Other...somehow. It’s...connected, I know it is. I didn’t...have time...to find out how...before I ran.”

“Did you tell Agatha any of this?”

Tarvek shut his eyes. Slowly his breathing began to slow, until he could speak normally, although he still sounded out of breath.

“I told her most of what I knew back in Sturmhalten. I haven’t told her anything new. I needed everyone to trust me. I couldn’t come in and say the darling wife of their Heterodyne was a monster. But then...you saw how Agatha reacted. I didn’t want to...distract her. She’s not safe until the castle is fixed. She’s going to hate me.”

He began to cry. Not the gritted-teeth gruffness of a teenage boy trying to be enough of a man to hide it, but the soft weeping of a boy on his deathbed.

“She’s the only friend I have,” he choked out. “She trusted me, and I didn’t tell her, and she’s going to hate me just like you do, and you were my best friend and I wanted to help you and now you don’t even care if I die.”

“I do care,” Gil said. His voice cracked and so did the wall he’d been trying so hard to keep up in his heart, and he pulled Tarvek into a fierce hug, only just remembering to be careful of the needles and tubes hooked into him. “I care.”

“I don’t want to die,” Tarvek whispered, hugging back with all his strength, which was terrifyingly little.

“We won’t let you.” Gil's throat went tight. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I told the Baron about your hiding place. Agatha was right, I should have, I should have trusted you, you never did anything to me, but it was so much and I… No one had ever been that nice to me before, all the time, and it was…it was so easy to believe it was just another trick. The way you always talked about how your family did things…"

"That's…not illogical," Tarvek said. "But you were the first person I wasn't trying to use."

“Hokay, I fou—” Vole froze in the doorway. Gil and Tarvek tried to jerk away from each other, but Gil had become tangled in the wiring. Vole let out an exhausted sigh. Gil turned red and even Tarvek’s face managed to scrounge up enough blood to blush as they tried to untangle themselves.

After the longest and most embarrassing fifteen seconds of their lives, Tarvek and Gil were free, and with much shuffling and throat clearing, looked to Vole. The former Jäger was slightly rumpled, and a button was missing from his jacket. He held up a blood-spattered leather case.

“If hyu two is done vit de touchy feelinks talk, Hy found anodder Smoke Knight. Mebbe hyu use dis to fix hyuself up.”

“Yes!” Tarvek exclaimed, eyes going wide. “Smoke Knights carry antidotes to all their poisons!”

Vole tossed it casually to Gil, who caught it and hurriedly unzipped it.

“I’ll—” He stared at the many, many vials and powders and needles, all of which were unlabeled. “Give...this to you.”

Tarvek selected a vial of something clear, uncorked it, sniffed, wrinkled his nose, and downed the contents in one go. He screwed up his face at the taste, but almost immediately the color began to return to his face.

“It worked!” Gil exclaimed.

“No,” Tarvek said, although he already sounded normal. “That won’t last for long. It’s just to help me think clearly while I figure out what they gave me and how to fix it.”

“Und ven hyu is done makink sure hyu dun die, hyu fix voteffer dis iz.” Vole held up his hand, showing a long scratch on the back. The skin around it was completely black, and the cut was oozing purple. Gil and Tarvek stared in horror.

“Maybe we should fix that first,” Gil said weakly.

“Yeah, we should definitely fix that first.”

#girl genius #gilgamesh wulfenbach #tarvek sturmvoraus #axel higgs #agatha heterodyne #grandfather saturnus au

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