Agatha H and the Voice of the Castle

The clank had paused to listen and was now slowly looking about the great chamber. “Sparks…” It mused, “What are you people doing down here? Where is the Lord Heterodyne? Which of you bellows pumpers is his Chief Assistant?”

“I am!” Tarvek again strode forward. “Now listen to me! You did not hear Lucrezia!”

The clank stared down at him and lazily twirled the girder around her fingers as she spoke. “I know who I heard.” The girder froze, pointing at Tarvek’s face. “And you? I see the resemblance, and can well believe you to be a degenerate whelp of the Valois.” Again the girder moved around its hand. “You are no assistant to the House of Heterodyne and I have no patience with your obvious lies.”

The girder arced down and Tarvek caught it in his hands. The momentum of the great piece of metal drove him several steps backward, but he remained undamaged, and held it firm.

“I am not lying,” he said in a strained voice, “Look about. Do you see Lucrezia here?”

“You…are surprisingly strong.” The clank paused. Its head moved slightly with a whine of servos, and it was obvious that it was examining the others.

Violetta’s jaw sagged down. “That’s a steel girder. How—?”

Von Zinzer grimaced. “Post-revivification rush.⁹¹ He’ll feel it later.”

Meanwhile, Tarvek fought to bring his mind to speed. He’d pay for everything that happened to him later, but here and now… he felt the pressure on the girder relax, minutely. He spoke again.

“Yes. I am. Now listen. The person you heard was Lucrezia and Bill Heterodyne’s daughter, Agatha. The current Lady Heterodyne. Yes, she sounds like her mother, but she’s the last person who would help Lucrezia in any way.” His voice lowered to a menacing growl—“And I will not let you touch her.”

The girder was pulled back abruptly as the eyes of the clank flared bright. “The current Lady Heterodyne?” The clank began to vibrate. “Then the old Lord is dead?”

Tarvek nodded slowly. “Dead and gone for many years. Agatha is the last of the Heterodyne famly.”

“The…the last? But his brother?”

“Also gone. Agatha is the last, I tell you.”

The clank looked off into some mechanical infinity. “A girl child…” it mused. “If true, I could work with that…but…”

Next to Violetta, Lucrezia groaned as she regained consciousness. “Miserable lackeys,” she whispered. “I’ll feed your flesh to the spiders. Grind your bones to powder to sweeten my tea…”

Von Zinzer slapped a hand across her mouth. “Violetta! Hurry!” He searched for the last couplings and yelped. “We’re all prepped here! Really, really prepped! Ow! And she’s biting me!”

Violetta resolutely tried to ignore him and keep her attention focused on the tortuous sequence scrawled on the paper before her. She flipped another switch. “Going as fast as I can,” she shouted back.

The clank focused again upon Tarvek. “The last of the family… and she is a true Heterodyne? You are sure?”

Tarvek nodded. “Absolutely. She has even been accepted by the Castle.”

The girder smashed into the floor at Tarvek’s feet. “Oh, no, she has not!” the clank screamed.

At this, Lucrezia roused enough to look at what was happening around her. At the sight of the angelic muse, she squealed in fear and froze, allowing von Zinzer to slam a final restraint across her mouth. “Now!” He turned and yelled even as he tightened the last buckle. “Hit it now!”

With a roar, the generators spun faster, and bolts of electricity began flowing through Agatha’s body.

Violetta shielded her eyes against the glare and stared at the console. “Power readings—” She paused in surprise. “Um…the power readings look pretty good, actually.”

Professor Mezzasalma strutted up to her side and shrugged self deprecatingly. “Well…a circuit is like an elegant lady, spot–weld her enough and—” He caught sight of the angel for the first time. “What the hell is that?”

As the machinery crackled, the angel looked up and nodded approvingly. “I will speak with your ‘Lady Heterodyne.’ Release her from this array and I will judge her worth.”

Tarvek made a placating motion. “Not yet. She’s sick. We’re treating her right now. If we decouple her before we’re finished, she will die.”

“That’s done it,” von Zinzer sang out. “The readings are flattening aaaand…There! That’s it! She’s dead as a doornail!”

He looked up to see Tarvek glaring at him. “What?”

“Ix-nay on the ead-dey!” Tarvek hissed. Of course, it was too late.

The angel turned its head towards Tarvek. “Wait. You’re telling me that this girl was the last of the family, and you fools have just killed her? Before my very eyes, no less?”

“Oooh, sorry about that…” von Zinzer whispered, his eyes widening.

Tarvek smiled desperately. “Well, only a little.” He took a deep breath. “Look, it’s very simple. Yes, she’s technically dead, but it’s a kind of rolling death thing, so she’s dead, yes, but still dying, so you can’t really say that she’s all the way dead, which is important, because—”