Chapter 17 — Adler von Helmut

Oscarsborg’s basement smelled like piss and wet brick. Water ran in seams down the walls, puddling on the floor where the stone had given up trying to keep secrets. Rats moved fast and low, hugging the angles, eyes slick as old olives. Zill kept his head up, counted each step as Smith jabbed the Luger into his spine.

“Move it,” Smith said, voice even, like he was reading a grocery list. “We don’t want to keep our hosts waiting.”

The world shrank to a corridor so tight Zill had to twist his shoulders. Above, the sounds of a dying war: distant cracks of gunfire, something heavy hitting stone, men yelling in a language Zill didn’t care to learn. None of it mattered. All that mattered was the way Smith walked—confident, steady, never glancing back. Smith didn’t expect Zill to try anything. Zill kept it that way.

They took a left at a slumping archway, then a set of steps down. The temperature dropped. At the bottom, a row of cells, iron bars that looked hand-forged, streaked with rust. The lights were bare bulbs strung on a cable, each one flickering like it hated being alive.

Smith opened the nearest cell, waved Zill in with the barrel. “You first.”

Zill stepped in. The floor was straw and slime. The cot was a board with no padding, sagging in the middle like a smile on a corpse. Zill turned, hands loose at his sides, watching Smith for any angle. Smith gave him none.

Smith clicked the cell shut, then holstered the pistol, keeping his hand on the grip. He looked Zill over, head to foot, like a car buyer picking over the competition. “Comfortable?” he asked.

“Bite me,” Zill said.

Smith grinned. “No need for patriotism now, Frank. You lost.”

Zill gripped the bars. “How’d you do it? How do you sell out your own?”

Smith shrugged. “Not that hard. I’m not a Nazi. Just a businessman. The world’s burning down, Frank. There’s no flag that’ll stop the flames.”

“Bullshit,” Zill said. “You were with us. You ate with us, fought with us. You watched men die for this.”

Smith’s eyes flashed, then cooled. “Men die every day. The only difference is who gets paid when they do.”

A rat ran across Zill’s boot, tail whipping like a tendon. He barely felt it. “You could’ve just walked. Why drag me out here?”

Smith leaned against the bars, close enough to whisper. “Because Metallgeist likes spectacle. He wants to break you. Wants to watch the All-American bow to the Reich.” Smith’s breath fogged the air between them. “Don’t take it personal, Frank. It’s just the main event.”

Zill watched Smith’s hand, the way the thumb caressed the grip of the Luger. He wanted to rip the arm off, beat Smith with it. But the bars stayed cold, and Zill’s fingers were losing feeling.

“You’re not going to get away with it,” Zill said, forcing the words through clenched teeth.

Smith snorted. “I already have. You think I’m the only one? There’s a thousand like me on every continent. No more sides, just winners and dead men.”

Zill let the silence stretch. Water dripped from the ceiling, steady as a metronome. Far off, something exploded, then a scream, then nothing.

Smith checked his watch, then locked the cell with a big brass key. “I’ll come back for you after the fireworks. Or not. Depends on how generous the Krauts are feeling.” He turned to leave, then paused. “You want a tip? Quit believing in the work. The work doesn’t believe in you.”

Zill spat at Smith’s feet. The glob hit the straw and vanished.

Smith walked away, boots squelching in the puddles, whistle low and tuneless. The sound faded, replaced by the scuttle of rats and the distant, echoing madness of a world tearing itself apart.

Zill wrapped his hands around the bars and squeezed until the skin split open, just to remind himself he was still a person and not a prop.

Above, the fortress shook with a new kind of thunder, as if the world’s worst secrets were finally clawing their way out of the dirt.

The main hall of Oscarsborg Fortress looked like it had been designed by a committee of undertakers and church janitors. Banners hung from the ceiling, most too charred to read. The torches on the wall were electric now, but the old brackets and sconces remained, so the light bent and twisted in weird ways, throwing hard shadows on the stone.

The portcullis at the far end groaned, then shuddered up on an ancient chain. Through the haze stepped Dr. Viktor Metallgeist, flanked by Eisen Verfolger. The masks gave them the look of an army of insects—black glass eyes, stiff black coats, boots moving in lockstep. Metallgeist moved at the center, not leading so much as allowing himself to be carried forward by the possibility of spectacle.

They advanced. Every step echoed, the click of the boots a metronome for a funeral march.

At the far end of the hall, in a high-backed chair that looked stolen from a Dracula movie, someone sat, his back to the room. He didn’t move until Metallgeist reached the ring of broken flagstones at the hall’s center.

The chair creaked, then slowly spun around.

El Aguila de la Muerte wore a Nazi uniform, gold braid and all. It didn’t fit right—the sleeves hung over his hands, the buttons were one size off. But the mask, green and gold and unmistakable, was still his own. He’d put on white gloves, like a maître d' at the world’s shittiest restaurant. Behind him, Elston Fowler lurked in a black shirt and a blood-red sash, the cut of the uniform suggesting Italian origins. At their side stood Dorothy Betts, poured into a silk dress that looked expensive and filthy at the same time. Her hair was pinned up, glass eye replaced with something blue and feline. She smoked a cigarette holder and crossed her legs, all the way up.

Metallgeist slowed, stopped, and then—almost imperceptibly—nodded to his guards. The masks fanned out, four to each side, rifles pointed down but ready. The echo of their movement died. For a moment, only the hum of the light and Dottie’s slow drag on her cigarette filled the hall.

It was the big one who spoke first, in German so crisp it sounded rehearsed. “Herr Doktor. Did you really think the Führer would send only one man of the Sicherheitsdienst on so important a mission?” he boomed — Fowler, at parade rest — while the little officer beside him stared through Metallgeist as if grading his uniform.

Metallgeist’s lips twitched. “I expect nothing. I only secure results.”

Von Helmut’s smile was white and bright in the mask’s mouth. He drew a printed card from his breast pocket and held it up between two fingers: THE RESULT IS ALREADY IN HAND. WE HAVE BEEN HERE FOR HOURS.

“The Obersturmführer wishes you to know the matter is settled,” Fowler said. “As for me—” he clicked his heels, mad-dog eyes gone flat and proud “—Il Lupo di Borneo, on loan from Mussolini’s Blackshirts. They say I cannot be killed by mortal men. They are correct.”

“And the woman?” Metallgeist asked, gaze flicking to Dottie.

Von Helmut waved the question away with two gloved fingers, and Fowler supplied the file: “French. Sassy. Dangerous in bed, impossible out of it. But enough introductions. We did not expect the honor of your visit.”

Dottie’s French accent was a crime scene. “Sacre bleu, the pleasure is all mine.”

Metallgeist did not laugh, but the corner of his mouth curled, just once. “And what is it you want, then, since you have made such a show of yourselves?”

Von Helmut spread both arms, as if revealing a magic trick, and Fowler laid it out: “We were told to recover the artifact. The Megingjörð. Thor’s Belt. It was easier than we thought. The defenders—” Fowler nodded to the ruins beyond the hall “—were brave but not clever.”

Metallgeist’s eyes narrowed. “You have it?”

Dottie reached under the table and pulled out a battered strongbox, wood stained with dark streaks. She set it on the table, then patted it like a loyal dog.

“Inside,” she said, “is everything you came for.”

Metallgeist took a step forward, and the Verfolger raised their rifles a hair. Metallgeist waved them off, then approached the table. His hands hovered above the box, savoring the moment.

Unseen on the rafters, just above the main floor, Benjamin Bradley lay flat, one hand gripping the detonator, the other curled around the edge of the roof beam. His hair was dusted white with stone chips. The championship belt was just out of reach, stashed behind a loose block of granite.

He licked his lips, eyes darting from Metallgeist to Rivera, then to the box.

Von Helmut’s eyes stayed fixed on Metallgeist. He produced another card and laid it on the strongbox lid like a sommelier presenting a label: THE HONOR IS YOURS, HERR DOKTOR.

Metallgeist didn’t answer. He flipped the latch, opened the box, and looked inside.

Bradley, above, thumbed the trigger, waiting for the signal.

Fowler swept a hand toward the lockbox, booming on behalf of the silent officer beside him. “As you see, Herr Doktor, the prize is ready for delivery. Obersturmführer von Helmut does not repeat himself — he does not, in fact, speak at all; his voice was given to the Fatherland, and the Führer wept. If you wish to return it to Berlin and claim the credit, by all means. We are interested only in the bonus.” Rivera inclined his head a precise half inch, imperial and mute.

Metallgeist’s face didn’t move, but something behind his eyes went sharp and metallic. He snapped the box shut and turned, calling out in German. The Verfolger straightened, and two advanced to flank the table.

He said, “And your price?”

Von Helmut bowed a stiff quarter inch. “Safe passage,” Fowler said for him. “And, if you are feeling generous, perhaps a promotion. I hear the pay is better at the top.”

Dottie exhaled a blue cloud. “All we want is to walk away. You can have the belt. And the glory.”

Metallgeist considered, then smiled a cold, corpse smile. “Of course. A generous offer.”

He waved to the guards, who took hold of the box and began to carry it back toward the portcullis.

Metallgeist lingered a moment, eyes darting from Rivera to Dottie, then to Fowler.

“You will forgive my skepticism,” he said, voice low. “But why do I sense a trick?”

Rivera spread his hands, the picture of wounded innocence, and Fowler translated the gesture: “A trick? Herr Doktor. My colleague is a simple servant of the Reich, and I am a simple wrestler from Borneo. Neither of us would know the first thing about tricks.”

Bradley, above, flexed his finger on the trigger, waiting.

Metallgeist smiled, shook his head. “We shall see.”

He turned, following his men back toward the exit. For a moment, the only sound was the crunch of boots and the rattle of the strongbox.

Dottie stubbed out her cigarette, mouth twisted up in a half-smile. She leaned in to Rivera, voice a whisper: “You think he bought it?”

Rivera shrugged, still smiling behind the dead man’s mask, and turned one palm toward the ceiling.

“He wants to,” Fowler said. “Wanting’s enough. He’ll open it before he gets twenty steps.”

Bradley, watching, thumbed the safety off the detonator and waited for the spark.

The box fell open with a clatter. The championship belt inside gleamed like a fever dream—gold plates, rhinestones, “WORLD’S GREATEST” etched in cheap enamel, the kind of thing you’d win at a county fair for knocking over milk bottles. Metallgeist’s hands hovered above it, fingers shaking with anticipation. He looked to the left, then right, made sure the guards were watching, then lifted the belt with both hands.

For a second, he was a kid at Christmas.

Then his smile cracked. The weight was wrong. The leather was too soft. He turned the belt in his hands and read the stamp on the back plate: PROPERTY OF THE CENTRAL STATES CARNIVAL CIRCUIT. SECOND PLACE. There was no German for it, but the mockery translated fine.

Metallgeist dropped the belt, eyes wide with hate. “What is this?” he shouted, voice booming off the stone.

Fowler smiled, slow and wolfish. “It’s a trophy. For the runner-up.”

Metallgeist bared his teeth. “You think you can make a fool of me?”

From the rafters, Bradley leaned into the light, beltless but grinning. “Nobody makes a fool of you, Doc. You do that all by yourself.”

The world went bright, then noise. The first explosion was under the floor; the second tore out a wall behind the portcullis, sending stone and Nazi banners flying. Dust churned, torches went dark, and in the chaos, the Eisen Verfolger flailed for their gas masks, as if the blast could only be survived through deeper inhalation.

Dottie and Rivera ducked behind the table as flagstone rained down. Bradley dropped from the rafter, landed on the back of one masked soldier, and rode him to the ground. He grabbed the fake belt, wound it tight in his fist, and slugged the man in the face with the gold buckle. Rhinestones flew like baby teeth.

Metallgeist tried to run for the side exit but a chunk of ceiling cut him off. He staggered, then turned, eyes wild. “You think you’ve won?” he spat at Dottie. “You think this matters?”

Dottie planted a boot on the table, using it as a springboard. She flew at Metallgeist, grabbed him by the collar, and yanked his face down onto her knee. Cartilage popped. Blood sprayed.

“I think it matters to you,” she said.

Rivera seized a machine pistol from one of the guards and emptied the clip up at the banners, just to bring more dust and fear into the room. The ceiling started to crack, huge slabs dropping in slow, inevitable sheets.

Wildman Fowler scooped the strongbox, gave the fake belt a little salute, then dragged Bradley and Rivera toward the nearest exit. Dottie followed, wiping her nose with the back of her hand, mouth set in a line that said “this ain’t over, not by a damn sight.”

Below their boots, under all of that dying stone, the All-American was still locked in a cage.

And the water had started coming in.

Chapter 18 — The Collapse

The walls bucked. Mortar dust snowed from the ceiling, mixing with the haze of burning paper and the stink of old sewage. The fortress shook again, harder this time, as another blast punched a new echo down the old stone halls.

Smith staggered against Zill’s cell, arms splayed for balance, the Luger barely clinging to his numb fist. He spat a curse—lips split, teeth red—then aimed the gun back at Zill. “Stay down, you son of a—”

Zill did not stay down. He shoved both arms through the bars, hands balled into mitts, and caught Smith by the shirt collar and the chin. Smith’s eyes went wide, animal, as Zill jerked him forward, face-first into the cold iron. Bone met metal with a noise like a dropped wrench. Smith tried to pull away, but Zill cinched an arm around his neck, turning the world narrow and black.

“You want the All-American?” Zill hissed through his teeth. “Come get a taste.”

Smith gurgled. The Luger barked wild, a snap of light that sent the slug into the ceiling. Ricochet sang above them. The blast was so close the powder burned Zill’s scalp. Neither man flinched. Zill’s knuckles whitened as he locked the hold. Smith’s hands clawed at Zill’s forearm, nails digging trenches in the flesh, but the grip only got tighter. The veins on Zill’s biceps ballooned, spiderwebbing blue under the skin.

Another explosion, closer. The ground rolled. The keyring—Smith’s keys, fat and brass—flew from his belt and landed just outside the cell, clattering on the wet stone. Both men saw it. Smith’s boots kicked, scraping for purchase, but the chokehold was surgical, perfect, a textbook sleeper from a man who’d learned from the best.

Smith’s heel caught the keys, kicked them further away. He tried to shout, but Zill’s bicep cut off anything but a hiss and a string of spit. The Luger clattered from his hand. He tried to break the hold, but the bars let Zill use the whole weight of his body, braced against the old masonry.

“Give it up,” Zill growled. “You’re finished.”

Smith’s face went purple, then red, then something waxy and gray. His hands scrabbled for the bars, for the keys, for any leverage at all. He slammed his palm against the iron, desperation replacing calculation. The bones in Zill’s forearm ground into Smith’s windpipe. Smith’s boots kicked the stone, the impacts sending shock through both bodies. Zill did not let go.

“You’re a traitor, Jimmy,” Zill spat. “You don’t get to walk out.”

Smith made a wet, retching sound and lashed out with an elbow, catching Zill in the mouth. Zill’s head rocked back, but the hold held. He bared his teeth, lips split, and twisted the headlock harder.

Another tremor rippled through the basement. Dust choked the air, mixing with the sour stink of cordite. Somewhere above, the shouts of men, the pop of rifles, then another blast—this one closer, deeper, like the sound of God clearing his throat.

The keys sat on the floor, just out of reach, glinting dully in the half-light. Zill tried to reach with his toe, but Smith used the moment to twist, bucking his whole body sideways. Both men slammed against the bars, the iron humming from the impact. Smith’s fingers darted, brushing the keys, but Zill yanked him backward, slamming his skull into the bar with a hollow thunk.

Blood ran from Smith’s nose, down Zill’s arm, greasy and slick. Smith coughed, a last burst of energy, and managed to grab the keys with the tips of two fingers. Zill saw it, saw the keys inch toward Smith’s hand, and wrenched the headlock even tighter. Smith’s arm shook, the keys jittering, then fell from his grasp. Zill’s knee locked around Smith’s ribs, squeezing every bit of breath from him.

“Not today,” Zill growled, voice shaking with rage and effort. “You don’t get to be the last man standing.”

Smith’s pupils went wide, glassy. His mouth worked, but no sound came out. Still, he didn’t give up—he hammered Zill’s forearm with his fist, over and over, until his knuckles cracked and bled.

“Why’d you do it?” Zill snarled. “Why sell us out?”

Smith made a noise like a laugh, low and choking. “No sides,” he croaked. “Only…winners.”

Zill crushed him, using every ounce of hate and memory and the years of being told he was just a dumb brute in tights. He squeezed until Smith’s hands went slack and the keys rattled to the floor again, this time closer to the bars.

But the fortress was dying. Another explosion rattled the ceiling, and a chunk of mortar crashed down, missing Zill’s head by a foot. Water poured from the crack, flooding the cell in icy rivers.

Zill’s arms were going numb. He set his teeth and kept the hold anyway — and then, down the corridor, over the roar of the dying fortress, came the sound of boots. A lot of them. Coming fast.

The great hall roared like an engine room on fire. Flags hung in tatters, choking in the aftershocks of Bradley’s detonator. Dust billowed off the rafters, rolling in waves that blurred the sharp, insectile lines of the Eisen Verfolger as they regained their feet. Glass showered from the high windows, shards catching the last daylight before the snow swallowed them whole.

Metallgeist was first to recover. He strode to the center of the hall, boots crunching on glass and bone, arms up like a maestro cuing the overture. The Verfolger fell in around him, perfect wedge formation, rifles leveled at the far doors.

Dorothy “Dottie” Betts limped in from the left, boots stomping through a minefield of rubble and shell casings. Her left hand fished something from the torn lining of her jacket—a fat gray cylinder with the stenciled letters “U.S. Army—Experimental.” She twisted the cap with her teeth and hocked it onto the stone floor.

The smoke bomb blew in a perfect, dense column. The Verfolger vanished into the whiteout, their first volley wild, bullets clanging into the iron chandeliers and shattering the rest of the bulbs. Dottie moved low, palms skimming the floor for balance. Something loomed in the mist—an Eisen Verfolger, faceless in the mask. Dottie used his momentum against him, ducked under his swing, and drove her steel knee into his groin with a force that echoed up the man’s spine. The man folded in half, grunted once, and fell sideways into the fog.

She didn’t wait for applause. Dottie fished a length of chain from her waistband and swung it over her head, a lasso of pure malice. She hooked the next Verfolger around the ankle and yanked, tripping him into a perfect scorpion flop. Before he could rise, she stomped the back of his knee and dropped a fist into the glass of his mask, caving it in. Blood and air hissed from the hole. Dottie grinned, glass eye glowing like a lamp.

Wildman Fowler stormed through the haze, tackled the nearest Verfolger at chest height, and rode him through a table in a crash of splinters. The move was less wrestling and more auto accident: both men landed in a heap, but Wildman kept his hands around the man’s neck, squeezing until the mask bent inwards. The Verfolger thrashed, kicked, then went still. Wildman grunted, stood, and scanned for the next fight.

At the far end of the hall, Metallgeist prowled through the smoke, arms wide, searching. “Come out,” he sang, voice echoing against stone. “Heroes! Show me your courage!”

A movement to his left—Dottie, skidding behind a toppled bench. Metallgeist lunged, fast for a man with that many scars and that little meat on his bones. He caught Dottie around the waist, spun her off her feet, and slammed her into a pillar.

Dottie gasped, but didn’t drop the chain. She looped it around Metallgeist’s wrist and yanked, bringing his face down to hers. Then, without warning, she bit him—right on the fleshy part between thumb and forefinger. Metallgeist shrieked, surprise and pain in equal, ugly parts.

“You little shrew—” he tried to wrench free, but Dottie bit deeper. Blood welled up, slick and hot, running down her chin. Metallgeist punched her in the stomach, once, twice. Dottie grunted but didn’t let go.

From the balcony above, there was a crash and a yell. A human figure—lean, dark-haired, championship belt in hand—smashed through the stained glass and dropped onto Metallgeist’s back with both boots extended. The force knocked all three to the floor.

Bradley rolled to his feet, arms out in a flourish. “Showtime, you Nazi bastard.”

Dottie wiped her mouth, spat a glob of blood and skin, and cackled. “Didn’t think you’d make it, pretty boy.”

Bradley winked. “Never miss my cue.”

He and Dottie squared off against Metallgeist. The doctor cradled his bitten hand, eyes full of murder, and gestured for the nearest Verfolger to close in. The hall lit up again with the muzzle flashes of submachine guns, but the smoke and falling debris made every shot a coin toss.

At the other end of the hall, Jose Rivera—El Aguila de la Muerte—scrambled over a barricade and came face to face with a Verfolger in an officer’s cap. Der Leiter.

They circled, sizing each other up like two wild animals. Der Leiter moved first, a snap kick aimed at Rivera’s knee. Rivera caught the leg, twisted, tried to dump the man, but Der Leiter spun with the force, landed on his feet, and countered with a punch that barely missed Rivera’s temple.

Rivera tried a rapid-fire combo: three body shots, a feint, then a right cross. Der Leiter blocked every punch, never blinking, his arms moving like they were wired directly to Rivera’s brain. The rhythm was too perfect, too fast. Rivera broke off, surprised, one question ringing in his skull — who the hell was this?

Der Leiter answered with a sweep of the leg, catching Rivera mid-step. Rivera sprawled, rolled, came up in a crouch, and feinted again. This time, Der Leiter stepped in close, went for the throat. Rivera ducked, drove an elbow into the man’s ribs, then tried for a choke of his own.

They staggered, locked together, each man’s breath fogging in the cold. For a second, neither moved. Then Rivera felt something—a twist, a catch in the way Der Leiter’s shoulder flexed. A wrestling tell. Rivera went limp, let his own weight drop, and flipped Der Leiter over his head, sending him crashing into a heap of broken chairs.

Der Leiter came up smiling, eyes cold behind the mask.

But now there was a new problem: a Verfolger with a pistol, moving up behind Rivera.

Rivera’s instincts screamed, but before he could turn, Der Leiter moved. He reached out, batted the gun aside. The bullet went high, punching a hole in the ceiling. The Verfolger glared at Der Leiter, confusion evident even behind the mask.

Der Leiter spoke, low and urgent, in rapid German. The Verfolger hesitated, then backed off, gun still raised but no longer aimed at Rivera.

Rivera’s head spun — what was the man playing at? — but Der Leiter only shook his head and charged again, driving Rivera backward with a flurry of short, vicious jabs.

Across the hall, Wildman and Dottie retreated behind a toppled bookcase, Bradley providing cover fire with a looted Schmeisser. The Verfolger took cover as well, but their discipline was breaking. Too much smoke, too much chaos, and the constant thunder of the crumbling fortress.

Metallgeist, clutching his bleeding hand, limped to the dais and barked orders at his men. “Cut them off! Bring me their heads!” The Verfolger moved to encircle, but every step was dogged by the Brigade: Dottie tripping them with her chain, Wildman throwing bodies like sandbags, Bradley taunting them into bad positions.

Then, another explosion. The wall to the left blew in, sending a stone block the size of a motorcycle skidding across the floor. Verfolger and Brigade alike hit the deck. The smoke got worse.

Wildman yelled, “Time to go!” and grabbed Bradley by the collar. Dottie scooped up a handful of spent brass, loaded her fist, and followed. Rivera ducked a punch from Der Leiter and sprinted for the exit, trailing blood from a cut above his eye.

Metallgeist howled with rage, but the Brigade was already halfway down the side corridor. A fresh volley of bullets chased them, but most bit stone.

They ran, coughing and cursing, through a maze of collapsing hallways. Above, the ceiling groaned. Snow and daylight filtered in through fresh holes, and the far-off wail of sirens cut through the noise.

Wildman took the lead, navigating by memory and animal instinct. “This way!” he barked, never slowing. The others followed, ducking under fallen beams, leaping over corpses and cratered stone.

Behind them, Metallgeist and the Verfolger gave chase, boots slapping in perfect rhythm, guns at the ready. But the Brigade knew these halls better, or maybe just wanted it more.

They burst down a staircase, barely ahead of the next collapse. At the bottom, the world was smoke and darkness.

Somewhere ahead, over the roar, came sounds no soldier makes — the meat-and-iron rhythm of a hold being kept, and a voice they knew, half war cry, half gasp.

It was Zill.

They didn’t think, just followed the sound, into the guts of the dying fortress.

Behind them, the ceiling came down in a roar of rock and dust, sealing off the way back.

The Brigade kept running, straight into hell’s basement, enemies on their heels and no plan left but to survive.

The corridor was a slaughterhouse—blood, water, and plaster caked to the walls. When the Brigade tumbled in, Dottie in the lead, her chain at the ready, they almost didn’t see Zill at first.

He was on the ground behind the bars, arms thrust through, hands welded around Smith’s neck. Smith’s face looked like a party balloon ready to pop. Zill’s own face had gone beet red, veins wriggling like eels beneath the skin. The air stank of copper and old sweat.

“He’s a traitor!” Zill managed, voice somewhere between a gasp and a war cry.

Smith’s boots pounded the floor, scraping, searching for any purchase. His tongue lolled, face slick with sweat and snot. “He’s lost his mind!” Smith gurgled.

Dottie barreled forward. “Hey, hey—break it up, or so help me, I’ll break both your heads!”

Wildman elbowed past, eyes never leaving Zill’s deathgrip. He saw the Luger on the floor, scooped it up, then—without warning—leveled it at Zill’s face.

“Before I help you,” Wildman said, voice colder than the snow outside, “I want an apology.”

Zill, mid-choke, couldn’t quite parse it. “Are you kidding me?”

“For what?” Dottie yelled, half-panicked, half-incredulous.

Wildman’s paint was cracked, flakes of red and black mixed with the dried blood on his face. “For Memphis. For that time you screwed me out of the belt, then told everyone I cried about it.”

Zill stared, squeezing Smith by pure habit. “You’re pulling this now?”

“I am,” said Wildman. “Say it.”

A bullet from upstairs punched through the ceiling, showering them with grit. Smith seized the moment, twisted, tried to ram his elbow into Zill’s face, but Zill never let go.

“Fine!” Zill snarled. “I’m sorry, okay? I shouldn’t have buried you. You deserved the belt.”

Wildman squinted. “Say you lied about the crying.”

Zill’s lips peeled back. “I lied about the crying! You’re a tough son of a bitch, you don’t even have tear ducts!”

Wildman considered, then nodded. He turned the Luger on Smith instead.

Bradley, who’d followed the group at a dead sprint, now bent to grab the keys from Smith’s limp hand. He fumbled with the lock. “Could we please do the therapy session after we’re not all dead?”

A crash upstairs—Metallgeist and the Verfolger coming closer. The floor groaned under the impact.

Bradley popped the lock, yanked the door open, and Zill finally released Smith. The traitor flopped to the stones, gasping, but Wildman was on him in a flash, boot on his back, gun pressed to the back of his skull.

Smith coughed, clawed at the ground. “You can’t shoot me. We’re on the same team.”

Dottie spat. “You switched teams, you prick.”

Smith rolled his eyes up, a weird calm settling on his face. “Listen, Elston. You’re not a killer. None of you are. If you were, you wouldn’t be doing this in a dungeon with the building falling down around you.”

Wildman cocked the pistol. “Maybe I want to do it here. Always had a flair for the dramatic.”

Bradley and Rivera hauled Zill to his feet. He staggered, then straightened, hands shaking but steadying.

“Just do it, Elston,” Zill said, voice shot through with contempt and something like relief.

Smith’s lips quirked. “You don’t have the guts. You’re a showman, not a murderer. You’ll waste this moment, just like you wasted the belt.”

Dottie lunged, yanked Smith’s hair back. “Want me to do it? I’ll do it.”

Rivera watched, silent and wary, like a man who’d seen a hundred endings and never believed in any of them.

Wildman’s grip on the gun never wavered. But his eyes, dark and deep, flicked from Smith to Zill, to Dottie, then up to the ceiling, where another crack was racing across the plaster.

“No,” Wildman said. “I want everyone to see.”

He stepped back, motioned Zill and Dottie through the cell door, then walked Smith ahead of him, the gun never leaving the traitor’s spine.

They made it five feet before the entire ceiling began to buckle.

Bradley shouted, “Move!” and all five sprinted down the corridor, just ahead of the collapse. The floor behind them peeled up, swallowing the dungeon in a roar of stone and mud.

At the next landing, the Brigade skidded to a stop. The air was black with dust, every breath full of grit. Zill grabbed Wildman, hauled him back from the edge. Dottie grabbed the chain, wrapped it around Smith’s wrists, and cinched it tight.

From above, the rhythm of boots—a fresh squad of Verfolger, masks gleaming in the dust. Metallgeist’s voice, a cracked sneer: “Surrender, and I will grant you mercy. Maybe even a moment on the radio before you die.”

Bradley laughed, high and wild. “We never surrender, you hack!”

Dottie spat at the floor. “Come down here and get it, you corpse freak!”

Metallgeist obliged. He led his squad down the broken stairs, boots ringing on the stone, his ruined hand swaddled in a bloody bandage. “So. The mighty Americans are now rats in a hole.”

He gestured, and the Verfolger raised their guns.

Smith twisted in Dottie’s grip. “You’ll die too, you idiot,” he hissed. “You can’t shoot through a cave-in.”

Metallgeist laughed, dry as old paper. “I don’t have to. The fire will do the rest.”

Bradley squared up, belt in hand, and grinned. “You want it? You have to beat us.”

Rivera limbered up, bouncing from foot to foot, eyes fixed on Der Leiter, who appeared at Metallgeist’s side like a shadow.

Wildman flicked the gun to Zill. “Your shot, All-American.”

Zill nodded, raised the pistol, and sighted it on Metallgeist’s heart.

Above, another rumble. The whole fortress groaned. Cracks snaked across the floor, then—like a magician yanking a rug— the ground vanished beneath them.

The entire squad, Brigade and Verfolger alike, plummeted into the darkness.

They fell as a knot, arms and legs tangled, curses and screams echoing off the stone. Zill grabbed at Dottie, caught her by the sleeve, then lost his grip. Bradley tried to twist midair, aiming for a soft landing, but it was all rock and frozen air.

They hit, hard, somewhere deep in the earth. For a moment, there was only silence.

Then, above, the last of the fire and stone poured in, sealing the hole. The fortress above was gone. Only the black remained.

In the dark, Zill’s voice: “Everyone alive?”

A groan from Dottie. “Define alive.”

Wildman: “Still here.”

Bradley, always first to recover: “What a finish.”

Somewhere in the dark, Smith coughed, then started laughing.

They waited for the world to stop spinning.

But even in the dark, Zill could hear it — the faintest echo of a crowd that wasn’t there.

Below the grave of the old world, the Brigade waited for the bell.