Edelweiss "Edel" Braverhund wandered through the Kunst Museum of Art in Coven, taking in the sights. She wasn't there to meet anyone, at least not as far as she knew, or to do anything nefarious. In fact, if she was being honest with herself, the Kunst was probably the real reason she had come to Coven in the first place.

Sure, there was the whole marriage equality fiasco that had her underlings in an uproar. But unlike them she could give a flying fuck who stuck what in where or in whom. The Howl was a means to an end. It always had been and always would be.

Her father Gershwin had taught her at a young age that hate was a useful tool, but a poor master. Even when he had gathered the katzen and other undesirables to experiment on, he hadn't hated them. They had simply been kindling, fuel to stoke the flames of progress. But from their sorrows and torment something beautiful had been born.

Using an unholy mix of stolen katzen and human technology Gershwin had jump started hund medical science by decades, if not centuries. The Döbian council had been promised super soldiers, killing machines that would turn the tide of the war. And Gershwin had not disappointed them.

He had called his creations warhunds. They were stronger, faster, tougher and could interface directly with technology as well as each other. They were also cheap to produce because the nanotech that converted hunds into warhunds was self replicating. Though he hadn't let the council know about that particular feature.

Elite units had been augmented, but the regular soldiers had not. Looking back, Edel almost wondered sometimes if her father had wanted Döbi to lose the war. If he had been playing both sides against the middle to further some secret goal or scheme of his. After all, he had only created the warhunds in order to bring back the family he had lost.

Edel had died very young. But her clever father had brought her back from beyond the grave and pressed her mind into this body she now wore. Then he had continued to improve her, making her stronger, upgrading her wetware and hardware. After he died she had built on his work with the help of the Howl.

Her bones and sinews were reinforced with aramid fibers and ceramics. Her vascular system was self healing and her heart was fully synthetic. She could run for hours without tiring, rip a car apart with her bare hands, and take an anti-tank round to the chest without flinching.

She had as much to do with a standard warhund as they had with a peasant farmer. Her father had created many improved warhund variants in his pursuit of perfection. The rasierhunds had been good, but she was something much better. She was a-

"Panzerhund…" Edel whispered, not realizing until she spoke that she had said the word aloud. She was a panzerhund, perfect and beautiful, death incarnate. Unstoppable. There was a reason the Howlers called her the "Golden Scythe", and it wasn't just because of her blond fur.

Edel could move so fast that she seemed to blur, the unaugmented eye just couldn't keep up with her. That paired with the superior processing power of her enhanced warhund wetware meant she could move and react to threats nearly instantaneously.

But that speed came at a cost. Micro fractures would begin to form in her bones and her connective tissues, even reinforced as they were, would eventually start to break down and weaken. If she moved too fast for too long eventually something would break. But she had hopes that someday hund material science would catch up with her needs.

After all, she was essentially ageless. Who knew what the future would hold. Though of course there was also the heat build up issue. That might be a bit harder to solve.

Edel stopped to admire a painting from one of the old Dansk masters. It was an interior scene by Constantin Hundsen. It showed him and his friends gathered together, smoking long pipes while a human watched lazily from a chair. At first it didn't seem like much, but the details were exquisite.

Art was one of the few things she was truly passionate about, a fact which surprised most people who didn't try and look beyond the surface. She was also incredibly fond of fly fishing, could sing in a lovely soprano, and had an excellent orchid collection. But no, nobody cared about those things.

As she looked at the painting she was once again reminded of the incredible attention to detail that the old Dansk artists were known for. It was amazing to see such depth and accuracy in a painting hundreds of years old. Open windows showed fully rendered cityscapes. Other artists of the time would have just closed the window.

Edel wished she could paint like that. Though to be honest she lacked the patience to learn. If something didn't come easily to her she tended not to try.

Her feet took her to a familiar painting, one she hadn't seen for decades. The first time she had come to this particular museum it had been with her father during the Döbian occupation of the city. As a high ranking party member Gershwin and his family had been treated like visiting royalty. Anything they had wanted to see, touch, or even take home had been theirs.

So when she had shown an interest in this particular work of art her father had simply plucked it off the wall and handed it to her. It was not particularly large, just over a hundred centimeters in either dimension, a cubist representation of hund acrobats.

Her father had hung it up in the library at the lake house. It had stayed there until his trial and execution, after which the vultures had come to take everything that should have been hers.

She wasn't alone in the gallery where the painting was displayed. There was an old hund sitting on a bench, looking at the painting intently. He was ancient, perhaps old enough to have fought in the war, and he wore his ears in a Döbain high cut.

Edel paused, though time had been far kinder to her she was also quite old. Perhaps they were the same age. Without speaking she sat down on the bench, hoping the old hund would take the hint and move along.

But no, he just sat there, a puzzled look on his face. Eventually he seemed to come to a conclusion, smile, nod to himself, then let out a low chuckle.

"What is so funny?" Edel asked in Döbian.

"I couldn't figure out what was wrong with the painting, then I realized and now I can't unsee it." He replied back in the same language. "Tell me if you spot it."

She looked at the painting, it was as she remembered. The dancing hunds, the angular lines, but also something was off. It was like, eating a favorite food at the wrong temperature. The taste of the painting in her mind was wrong and it didn't evoke the same feelings within her.

"Something…" Edel mused, standing up to get a closer look. "Yes, you're right."

She looked back at the old hund, seeing his face for the first time. There was a strange gold adornment around his eyes, like liquid metal. He was also incredibly familiar, though she couldn't remember how she knew him.

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"Do we know one another?" She asked, deciding to get any awkwardness out of the way.

"I was a Jagdkommando." The old hund gave a curt nod. "We served together, though we lost touch when you joined the Howl. How have you been?"

Edel shrugged. "I have been as well as I can be." She sat back down and turned to face him, still unable to remember the old warhund's name but happy to see someone from the old days. "How have you been?"

"Oh, quite a life I have lived since last we talked!" The old hund said with surprising joy. "I became a police officer in Möhi after the war, met my wife, moved to Sühi, had children and grandchildren, retired. It has been a good life. Thank you for asking. What of you? Any children?"

"One, he's an idiot." Edel admitted. "But I do love him. He's an architect that builds horrible eco friendly buildings, no style, no soul, however they are very energy efficient or so I'm told."

"Wonderful!" The old hund clapped his hands. "I have a grandson who is vegan. A vegan hund! I hate everything about it, but then I remember when he was a pup who ran head first into walls and I think… perhaps… it is my fault."

Edel laughed. It was good to just talk to someone from the old country, but she couldn't stop thinking about the painting. She gave it another look. Everything seemed to be in order, so why did it feel wrong somehow?

"Ah, would you like a hint?" The old hund asked.

"Yes, but only a small one." Edel squinted. "It's… no…" She tried to put into words what she was feeling but all she could say was that it felt wrong.

"This is what the painting should look like." The old hund said. "There, you have all you need to solve the mystery."

Edel frowned. Yes, he was right! This was what the painting should look like, but not what it had looked like when they owned it! She felt her tail wagging with excitement. Everything was right about it, except the fact that it was in perfect condition!

How had she forgotten about the tear right down the middle from when she and her brother were rough housing in the library? She had gone to tackle him and smacked face first into it.

"Is this a forgery?" She asked excitedly.

"Oh yes, and a very good one." The old hund nodded. "Probably reproduced from the scans and pictures that the curators took during the beginning of the occupation. Or perhaps the painting we know is a reproduction, and this is the real one? The Dansk smuggled out many of their most famous works for safe keeping once the city fell."

That was the question wasn't it, Edel pondered. It was funny how she remembered the painting, but not the massive rip. Then she realized the answer to another question that had been bothering her and suddenly her heart fell. She looked at the old hund, searching his face for anything she might recognize.

"Are you… him?" She asked, hoping against hope that this wasn't one of her brother's ghosts coming back to haunt her, but somehow still happy to see him, even if it was just an echo. She had loved her brother, almost as much as she had hated him.

Then again, everyone had always loved Kerner. They had just heaped praise and adoration at his feet while she stood there in the background, ignored.

The old hund nodded. "Mostly." He replied. "I would say I'm as close to being Kerner Braverhund as anyone can claim to be. Though now, having lived a full life of my own I find myself wondering if I ever really was him. There is no real way to test for fidelity, except perhaps this."

Edel sighed. "You know I didn't mean to kill him." She let the lie hang in the air.

"That's alright, I forgave you years ago." The old hund looked over his sister. "At first I thought it was an accident, then I blamed our father, but eventually a friend pointed out the obvious truth. So being a police officer I started digging, and we hunds are so very good at digging."

There was an electronic chime as the museum PA system prepared to deliver an announcement. But instead of hearing about a new exhibit or a lost bag she heard a recording of her own voice.

"Kill him, or I'll kill you." The recording said. "It's going to be him or you."

Then once again silence filled the museum and Edel looked at the old hund in shock. He shrugged. "The outgoing lines on the barracks phones are recorded in case of security breaches. You're lucky they ruled my death an accident or you would have been strung up right next to father." He laughed, that same dry chuckle. "But I'm not here out of some misguided need for justice."

"So what do you want, an apology?" Edel asked.

"No, the time for apologies has long since passed." The old hund looked at her. "I wanted to see you with my own eyes and get a feel for who you had become, before I made my decision on what to do with you."

"And?" Edel asked, feeling more curious than threatened. Her body was the pinnacle of military science, and he was wearing the old worn out form of a first generation Jagdkommando. There was nothing he could do to her, even if he wanted to.

"I have decided that you are my sister, for better or for worse, and that comes with certain family obligations." The old hund stood up and walked towards the painting, gesturing to one of the Dansk security guards who was sitting in a plastic chair over in the far corner of the gallery. "Would you be so kind as to fetch the curator for me? Tell him my sister would like to take this painting home."

The security guard got to his feet and walked off without a word. Edel watched him go with a building sense of unease. That wasn't supposed to happen.

"You see, I have been busy these last few decades." The old hund continued, pulling a cigarette from his pocket and lighting it from an antique silver lighter. Edel felt the urge to point to a no smoking sign, then realized to her surprise that there were none. There however was an ash catcher. It was tall, thin and silver. She had mistaken it for a piece of art. That sense of unease quietly multiplied.

"I am going to destroy the Howl." He explained calmly as he stood between her and the painting. "And I'm giving you the choice to die with them or do something else with your life. Of course, I already know what you'll do, but I'm hoping that you take my offer."

He bared his teeth and let out a low threatening growl. "Because if you don't do as I say, dear sister, I will rip you limb from limb this very night."

Edel lunged toward him without warning. The violence of her movement cracked the tiles underneath her feet as she pushed off, her fist nearly breaking the sound barrier as she attacked. Off in the distance she could see the curator and the security guard approaching, their movements so slow compared to hers that they seemed almost still.

But as her fist was about to make contact and crush the old hund's face she could only watch in disbelief as he deftly stepped aside. How could he be that fast? Nobody was that fast.

It was too late to pull her punch, she had put all her force into the blow, the momentum of it was unstoppable. She watched in horror as her fist went through the painting and then screamed in pain as she hit the concrete wall behind it.

Bones shattered and an electric jolt went up her arm all the way to the shoulder. Edel felt her teeth click together in her mouth. Her hand was so mangled that it felt like sharp rocks in a rubber glove.

She spun around, looking for her brother, fighting through the pain, but he was already gone. The only sign that he had even been there was the lingering smell of cigarettes. How had he moved so fast?

The curator approached her cautiously. "Ah… you…" He looked from her ruined fist to the ruined painting. "If it isn't to your liking I might suggest perhaps a sculpture by Rodent, or if you prefer a painting, Henri Mastiff?"

"What?" Edel shook her head to clear it. She had to get out of here before the police came. You couldn't just punch a hole in a national treasure and hope nobody would notice. "What are you talking about?" She demanded as she eyed the exits.

"Your brother said you wanted to take a painting home, this one is… damaged." The curator said weakly. "Not that we can't repair it, if it's the one you want."

"They are very good." The nameless security guard said helpfully. "Top notch. After those activists with the red paint came through here they were able to fix everything good as new."

Edel looked around, nobody was running towards them and no alarms were going off. That was… disturbing.

"So, will you be taking the painting?" The curator pressed.

Edel looked at the painting, once again it was ripped down the middle, just like she remembered. "Yes, please wrap this up for me." She said, deciding to heed her brother's warning and leave the Howl.

She was proud, arrogant, even homicidal. But she was not stupid. The old hund had led her into a trap, given her a warning, proved she couldn't hurt him, then showed his power and influence by gifting her a national treasure as if it was nothing.

If he could do that, who knew what else he was capable of? Besides, if he did wage war on the Howl… perhaps a power vacuum would form. Maybe she could even steal some of their resources in the resulting scuffle.

Edel smiled. Yes, she would tell leadership that she was going investigating a new threat, then wait and see what happened. If he attacked the Howl and failed, they would praise her for seeing it before anyone else. If he succeeded, she could rob them blind.

"Thank you, Brother." Edel said, knowing that he was probably still watching her through a security camera or listening through a hidden microphone. "I'll take your advice and perhaps do some traveling."

"South Katzenlund is very nice." The curator said helpfully. "It's undergoing a kind of revival."

"Is it now?" Edel asked, "Tell me all about it…"