The scattered drops turned to a light mist as Klaus made his way through the Old City. Though the streets were lined on either side with two-story brick buildings adorned with wrought-iron balconies meant to evoke a sense of a homeland left behind, he was not lulled by the nostalgic atmosphere of the evening.
Here and there loomed those more dilapidated than their neighbors, boarded-up windows and peeling 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 influence in 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, Klaus had interacted 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 available in the area if you knew where to look. But Klaus never went looking.
Much like his other trips to work, Klaus kept as close to the center of the beaten-down sidewalk as possible. Moving as quickly as he could from streetlight to infrequent streetlight, Klaus couldn’t help but feel the tension ease from his shoulders as he finally saw the front door of Dr. Halter’s office in front of him.
He hesitated.
A figure cloaked in red leaned against the building next to the door, cigarette in hand, idly puffing away and completely ignoring the rain beginning to come down. Klaus 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 Klaus’ spine. Despite the gang member being a bit smaller than himself, Klaus still got the sense of barely controlled violence emanating from the man. “Dr. Halter said that you were on your way here, freund. We thought that you would have come quicker.”
“I’m no friend of yours,” Klaus 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 come, inside, it is getting wet out.” So saying the man pulled the door open and disappeared up the stairs into Dr. Halter’s office.
Klaus hesitated again. The German words the man used indicated he was either fresh from the homeland or higher up in one of the gangs in the city. Perhaps both.
No. Klaus gathered himself and stepped with sure strides towards the door himself. If there was one thing all the people of Volksturm knew it 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 lay folly as, despite the decaying nature of the city around them, the police of the Inner City would descend on them with the wrath of God if they started coloring outside the lines, so to speak.
Those thoughts gave him a small measure of confidence and buoyed Klaus 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’clock in the evening. Elke had likely left some time ago, and for that he was glad. If he was wrong about the gang tonight, Klaus preferred that the nice older woman, who often brought him an extra coffee, was nowhere near the office tonight.
Klaus stepped through the next door and moved along the corridor to Dr. Halter’s own office space. Pushing it open, Klaus 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 and feet 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 vacantly 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, Klaus steps without thought deeper into the room. His eyes landed on the two men revealed to have been standing by either side of the door. Shaggy hair and dressed in red with feathered tattoos tracing their way up their arms, they smirked at Klaus. The smirk was nothing though. It was those dead eyes that screamed Klaus was in trouble and that every night after this, if he was lucky to experience any, would be completely changed 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 wrapped around them, restraining him. It was tight, but not so much that he still couldn’t work his fingers, which is what Klaus assumed was the point, as the man that had been outside led him to Dr. Halter’s computer, pressing him down into the chair behind the desk. Dark eyes just as dead as those possessed by the men at the door gazed down into Klaus’ own.
“I told you, Anselm, Christoph, some times der honig lockt den Dummkopf.”
“Right, Albrecht,” responded the man on the left. “Hope he can get us what the good, Doktor was unable to give us.”
“Er wird es tun, wenn er leben will.” Albrecht said, his gaze not leaving Klaus’ 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 computer that you had so inconveniently 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 clients provided. But why would they care about simple records?
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“Well?” Albrecht said with a frown, jarring Klaus 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 can get you anything you need.” Klaus 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 shadow that spoke 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, Klaus awkwardly typed in his passwords to the computer.
“Is the binding really necessary?” Klaus asked as he began pulling up files on the desktop.
“With how pliant you are being, maybe not,” Albrecht responded, coming to stand behind him to look at the computer screen, eyes flicking 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 reaching over Klaus to tap the screen.
“Gisela Wagner?” Klaus asked, reading the name aloud.
“Perhaps,” Albrecht acknowledged Klaus’ question, but then gestured vaguely at the screen, “but I meant all of it. Each name and the personal information that comes with it. That is what we are here for tonight, and what you will give us.”
Albrecht bent over the desk, reaching for a pen and notepad. For a single, insane moment, Klaus considered tackling 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 glance and the barest hint of a smirk on the other man’s face while his other hand lingered over a letter opener lying forgotten on the desk. He was baiting him. Albrecht was hoping that Klaus would make a move. Well, he would have to be disappointed.
Albrecht’s hint of a smirk turned into a full-fledged frown when Klaus made no move against his feigned vulnerability. Letting out a dramatic sigh, Albrecht wrote down an email address and handed it over to Klaus.
“Send everything there.”
Klaus nodded in understanding. It took several minutes, as Dr. Halter had a lot of clients. Times were tough in the city, and the man hadn’t the heart to turn away those who couldn’t afford checkups. It had been one of the things Klaus had liked most about the man. He hoped to be able to help others in a similar capacity one day.
That thought hit him hard as his fingers moved over the keyboard. Looking up, Albrecht had moved over to the other men near the door. Engaged in some whispered conversation, Klaus didn’t take a moment to wonder what they were talking about, instead, his fingers were already moving faster. Selecting all the files, Klaus put the same password he always used for the computer on them as well.
While this might lead to trouble, for now, Klaus felt compelled to do something. The Blood Eagles were the worst of the worst. Everyone in the city knew that. Anything they were going to do with that information could only be a bad thing for a lot of innocent people.
Right as he was finishing sending the last files, Klaus picked up muttering by the men near the door. Most of it was indistinct, though he did pick out a single sentence in German that sent a wave of utter revulsion and horror roiling through him.
“Die Wölfe 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 in the city might have, that tensions had been increasing between two of the city’s most prominent gangs. The Storm Wolves and the Blood Eagles had been at odds for years now, but supposedly there had been a marked uptick in the fighting between them lately. While the clinic 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 friction of the rope, back down on the desk. Perhaps sensing that Klaus was done, Albrecht gestured his fellow Blood Eagles to the door, where they nodded and left the room on some errand.
Albrecht stepped back over to the desk, looking down at Klaus. “Well, if you are all done sending the files we can part ways here, mein Dummkopf.” The man reached down and began to untie the knots holding Klaus’ wrists restrained.
Klaus found himself nodding in agreement, but, almost as if he was standing looking down at his body, he felt words come dripping from his mouth.
“What was that you said about kids?”
Albrecht paused, fingers still gripping the final knot holding Klaus’ 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 vengeance at 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 language you spoke. Clearly the answer is too much.”
Barely had the Blood Eagle uttered that last word when the first strike of his fist came blurring out of nowhere, knocking Klaus to the floor, chair coming down in a clatter next to him. Rough hands grabbed him, still dazed from the blow, and dragged Klaus to the other side of the late doctor’s desk. A kick, casual with its contempt, pushed the corpse in the rolling chair to the far wall. The next 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 slammed into his groin.
At first Klaus tried to fight back, but even with his legs still free, Albrecht was a virtuoso with his fists and feet. No sooner did Klaus attempt to stand up than he had his legs taken out from underneath 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 contempt. Klaus felt like weeping from the helplessness, but after the dozenth blow any tears he was crying were of blood for the abuse to his face and body.
Finally, after who knew how many blows, Albrecht let Klaus’ barely conscious 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, Klaus 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 another larger set grabbed his ankles. As one they hoisted him off the floor into the air. The last 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 splattered 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 Klaus.
The hallway passed in a blur and the next thing the barely conscious Klaus knew he was outside. Frigid rain, now coming down a bit harder than earlier, roused him enough to see the opened trunk of a car backed up close to the sidewalk in front of Dr. Halter’s clinic. Unceremoniously, Klaus 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 slam, the trunk was closed and moments later the car was moving.