Chapter 25 — The Village

In the village square, the clotheslined Verfolger came back to the world one nightgown at a time. He tore the laundry off his face, then the cracked gas mask under it, and stood up into the watching silence of a town with no men left in it — only women and children at the windows, and one blonde American limping up the lane with a broken matinee idol slung over her shoulder.

Dottie set Bradley down against a rain barrel with something almost like care. “You broke your ass,” she said. “That’s really gonna complicate sitting, huh?”

Bradley’s answer was a sound no language has letters for.

Then the screaming started.

The last Nazi didn’t see her coming until she was almost on him. He was too busy howling at the villagers, waving the rifle overhead, the veins on his neck bulging like ropes. When he turned and saw Dottie—a slab of American muscle, one-legged, face smeared with someone else’s blood, glass eye gleaming—he actually hesitated.

He barked a nervous laugh, flicking the safety off his rifle. “You? What can a crippled woman do against the Third Reich?”

Dottie stopped three feet away. She planted her foot in the mud and let the wind catch her hair. For a second, nobody moved. Then she smiled, the glass eye lighting up. “I’m not just a woman,” she said. “I’m a wrestler, dammit, and I’m going to kick your ass.”

He swung the rifle to his shoulder. She stepped left, closed the gap, and slapped the barrel aside. The shot went high, ricocheted off a chimney and vanished into the sky. She went low, leading with her bad leg—no use pretending it wasn’t there—and tackled him at the hip.

They fell together, landing hard in the slush. The Nazi kept hold of the rifle, but Dottie had both hands around his throat. He punched her face, once, twice, but she just squeezed tighter, thumbs digging for the windpipe. The Nazi drove his boot into her prosthetic, trying to shatter the joint. The wood cracked. Dottie grunted, but she did not let go.

He broke her grip with a desperate twist, then headbutted her. Her nose exploded, blood fountaining down her lips, but she grinned through it. “You’re going to have to do better,” she snarled, and spat a gob of red into his eye.

They rolled, scrambling for control, boots and knees and elbows smashing together in a tangle. The Nazi finally got on top, pressed the rifle to her throat, and leaned in.

“Say goodbye, Amerikaner,” he hissed, squeezing the trigger.

Click. Empty.

Dottie used the half-second to hook her fingers under his chin and gouge upward. He jerked, losing balance. She rolled him, straddled his chest, and began raining blows into his face, lefts and rights alternating, every punch shattering bone and skin.

The first two women in the crowd gasped. The next one shouted. The sound rolled through the onlookers like a virus—every woman, every girl, every child seeing something they’d only dreamed of. A voice from the back screamed, “Kill him!” and a dozen more took up the call.

Dottie, hearing the crowd, grinned wider. She glanced back, caught the faces: some crying, some laughing, all hungry.

The Nazi got his hands around her neck, fingers digging deep, trying to crush her windpipe. Dottie let him. She let her face go purple, let the world fuzz at the edges, then spat a tooth in his face and laughed, loud as a gunshot.

“You like choking women, huh?” she rasped. “Try this on.”

She bit his finger, hard. He screamed, jerked his hand away, and she used the opening to slip free. He grabbed at her again, but she wriggled sideways, rolling them both over and over in the slush.

Now the villagers surged forward—garden tools, kitchen knives, broom handles raised. The Nazi, seeing the mob, panicked. He got Dottie in a chokehold, twisting her hair in his fist.

“Back away!” he roared, “Or I break her neck! You all obey! NOW!”

Dottie went slack in his arms. The world went blurry, but she remembered the trick—always sell it, let them think they’ve got the win.

She relaxed her body, let her neck loll. The Nazi loosened the hold, ready for the crowd to obey.

She jerked her head back, smashed his nose flat, and then, as his grip faltered, slipped her wig clean off her head. He was left holding nothing but sweaty blonde curls.

He stared at the wig, confused, as the real Dottie—bald, blood-covered, and mad as hell—twisted in his lap and drove her elbow up into his chin.

He went over backward, limp.

Dottie stood, spat blood, and looked at the crowd. “Well?” she yelled. “He’s all yours.”

The first woman stepped up, a potato fork in her hands. She jabbed it into the Nazi’s thigh. He screamed, tried to crawl away. The next woman brought down a rolling pin on his spine. Then a third—child, maybe thirteen—stabbed at his boot with a pair of shears.

The crowd swarmed him, angry hornets after a bear. They buried the Nazi in arms, legs, and weapons. His screams echoed down the fjord, echoing off the ice and out to sea.

Dottie watched for a moment, then limped away, wig in one hand, the other waving to Bradley, who just stood at the edge of the square, jaw dangling.

She walked past, shrugged, and said, “Told you they didn’t need saving.”

Behind her, the screams faded. In their place, the sound of women laughing, high and bright and alive.

Dottie grinned, wiped the blood from her lips, and looked up at the sky. The clouds were thinning, the first hint of sun peeking over the ridge.

Dottie came back down the lane painted like the end of a horror picture, wiping her knuckles on an apron somebody had pressed into her hands, and stopped in front of Bradley. She looked at him for a long moment — the ruined hair, the cast-iron cheekbones, the man who in four months of war and one full year of her company had never once looked at her like a steak or a fight.

She patted him on the head, twice, the way you pat a good dog.

“I’ve made a decision,” she said. “When we get home, you’re my tag team partner. I’m keeping you.”

Bradley opened his mouth to explain, gently, that he had retired from wanting things.

Nothing came out. The truth — and it confused him more than any koan ever had — was that he had already thought of a team name.

Down the open road, over the hills where the truck had died, thunder rolled across a perfectly clear sky.

Chapter 26 — The All-American Never Goes Over

The world narrowed to a single stretch of frozen mud, a Nazi truck turned turtle, and a chariot straight out of the sagas, pulled by horses white as teeth in a wolf’s mouth. Frank “The All-American” Zill gripped the reins in one hand, the other brandishing the gold belt in a slow, lazy twirl. Elston “Borneo Wildman” Fowler rode shotgun, eyes flicking over the battlefield like a chess player reading six moves ahead.

They brought the chariot to a stop with a spray of gravel and ice. Frank let the gold belt spin, let it catch the gray light, let it dazzle and blind. Across the clearing, Dr. Viktor Metallgeist crawled from under the Nazi truck’s fender, hair in his eyes, blood in his mouth, face a mess of sweat and rage and dirt.

“Lost something?” Frank called, holding the belt high. “Looking for this?”

Metallgeist pulled himself to his feet, using the twisted bumper for leverage. His lab coat hung off him like a molting snake, every inch spattered with oil, mud, and the spray from a dozen wounds. The only thing holding him together was pure, undiluted hate. He staggered toward them, hands out, like a sleepwalker hunting an enemy in his dreams.

The chariot horses shifted, sensing the violence in the air. Frank stepped down, boots squelching in the slush. He let the gold belt droop from his fist, casual, just out of reach. Elston followed, rolling his shoulders, setting his jaw.

“Why don’t you just surrender, Doc?” Frank said. “You got your ass handed to you by a bunch of cave girls and a couple of American freaks. Not your day.”

Metallgeist spat a glob of blood into the snow. “You think this is over, Zill? You think the history books will remember the names of your pathetic ‘Brigade’? They will not remember your country, your mothers, your children—nothing. Only the Reich, and the men with the courage to seize destiny.”

“Can we skip the lecture?” Elston said. “I left my flag at home.”

Metallgeist didn’t even blink. He moved in slow, measured steps, every motion more controlled than the last. The tremor in his hands stilled. The hunched spine straightened. For a second, Frank saw the shape of the man who’d broken prisoners in the camps, who’d torn the spines from living men and called it science.

Metallgeist’s voice went soft. “Give me the power of Thor. Now.”

Frank raised his eyebrows, held the belt up like a prize. “This what you want? Come and get it.”

Metallgeist lunged. There was no warning, no windup, just instant acceleration. He closed the distance in three strides, faster than a healthy man, faster than anything that should have survived the night. His hands snaked for the belt. Frank jerked it away, grinning.

“You got slow, old man,” Frank said.

Elston flanked, circling, always in the doctor’s blind spot. “Looks like the Reich forgot to feed their genius,” he taunted. “You want the belt? Say please.”

Metallgeist’s lips curled, but he didn’t take his eyes off the prize. He bared his teeth and waited, tense as a steel trap.

Frank laughed and tossed the gold belt to Elston. The Wildman caught it on the fly, spun it over his head, let it glint.

“Here it is, hero,” Elston said. “You want power? Take it. Let’s see what you do.”

Metallgeist hesitated for half a breath, suspicion warring with obsession. Then his face collapsed into pure animal panic. He lunged again, this time catching Elston off-balance. The two grappled, hands locked over the belt, knuckles whitening, tendons popping. They spun, collided with the chariot, knocked the wheel clean off its axle.

Frank watched, amused, then stepped in to “help.” He wrenched the belt free and, with a little showman’s flourish, slammed it into Metallgeist’s chest. The doctor stumbled, stared at the trophy in his arms. He caressed it, eyes wild, then started to buckle it around his waist.

Elston whistled. “Look at the king of the ring,” he said.

Metallgeist fumbled with the clasp, nearly in tears with anticipation. He fastened the belt. He threw his arms out to the sky, as if expecting thunder, or fire, or at the very least a tickle of Norse god juice.

Nothing happened.

He stood there, triumphant and ridiculous, gold belt gleaming against torn uniform and blood. He waited for the world to change.

Frank leaned against the busted wheel and gave a slow, mocking clap. “Hell of an entrance, Doc. Now take a bow.”

Metallgeist stared at the belt, then at his hands, then at the two Americans. “You… lied,” he whispered.

Frank grinned. “You really think they’d leave the real one just lying around in a box for you? They gave you the one that fits your style, Doc—a fake. Nothing but a prop.”

The world caught up to Metallgeist all at once. The red faded from his face, replaced by something even nastier. His lips peeled back. He screamed, grabbed at the belt, ripped it from his own waist so hard the clasp sliced his fingers.

Then, without warning, he tore off the remains of his coat, flung it aside, and stood there in undershirt and uniform trousers. Frank and Elston both took a half-step back. For a walking corpse, the man was built: not like a weightlifter, but like an old farm tool, all lean muscle and cords and old scars. Every inch of him was a bad day waiting to happen.

He flexed his neck, spat blood, and bared his teeth.

“Then I will take the real belt from your corpses!” he shrieked, and came at them with everything he had.

Frank and Elston circled, hands up, ready for the fight.

There was nothing left to say.

The next thirty seconds were a newsreel from every backwoods gym and bingo hall in the lower forty-eight. Zill and Wildman worked in perfect sync, not a word between them. The first time Metallgeist charged, they let him come—Frank feinted left, Elston ducked low, and together they locked hands around the Nazi’s thighs, hoisting him up and over in a double-team backdrop that sent him ass-first into the icy muck. He bounced once, then rolled, boots digging for purchase.

Metallgeist didn’t even bother brushing off the slush. He came again, this time faster. Frank sidestepped, grabbed his wrist, and Irish whipped him right into the wagon’s busted axle. The wood cracked, splinters slicing Metallgeist’s arm, but he didn’t even bleed. He bounced back, and this time Frank tried for a clothesline, but Metallgeist ducked and hit the ropes—really the side of the truck—then launched himself at Elston.

Wildman took the hit, grunted, then wrapped the doctor in a bearhug. “Got you now, bastard,” he growled.

Metallgeist grinned, eyes bugging. “You have nothing,” he whispered. Then he dropped his weight, bit Elston’s ear, and yanked a fistful of his own belt—yanking the fake Megingjörð off his waist and smacking Wildman across the mouth with the heavy gold plate.

Elston reeled. Metallgeist followed, slamming elbows and knees into the Wildman’s gut, grinding him down with a rhythm that was more prison riot than wrestling match. “You are nothing,” Metallgeist spat. “Just a fat American. Worthless.”

Frank caught him from behind, tried to hook the arms for a German suplex. Metallgeist twisted, slipped the hold, and kicked back—hard. The boot caught Zill in the knee, buckled him. Metallgeist spun, and with a scream, jabbed his thumb into Frank’s eye.

Frank saw white, then nothing. He staggered, tried to blink the stars away, but Metallgeist didn’t let up. He grabbed a handful of snow, ground it into Frank’s face, then raked his fingernails across the torn skin. “You see? Even your eyes are weak.”

Elston, blood bubbling from his lips, lurched in and grabbed Metallgeist from behind. “Cheap shot, asshole,” he grunted. He yanked the Nazi up onto his shoulders—an honest-to-God fireman’s carry. With a guttural heave, Wildman dropped to one knee and slammed Metallgeist to the ground. The impact jarred the whole road.

But Metallgeist just laughed, rolling with the momentum. He slithered out, grabbed Elston by the boot, and yanked him to the dirt. Then he pounced, knees first, and started wailing on the Wildman’s skull.

Frank, wiping blood from his eye, tried to stand. Metallgeist saw the movement and kicked him square in the ribs. Frank doubled over, pain electric in his spine.

Metallgeist stood over them, breathing hard, chest streaked with blood. “You think you matter?” he hissed. “You think the world will remember you?”

Elston, face mashed into the slush, mumbled, “Longer than they’ll remember you, asshole.”

Metallgeist grabbed Elston by the hair and dragged him to the side of the truck. With a grunt, he bashed Elston’s skull against the bumper. Once. Twice. A wet crunch. “This one doesn’t have the Megingjörð,” Metallgeist snarled. “He’s too weak.”

Elston slumped, blood mixing with road grime, not out but very close.

Frank staggered to his feet, vision doubled, chest burning. Metallgeist turned, saw him, and charged. Frank had just enough time to brace himself before the Nazi hit him full on, both men tumbling into the snow, rolling and kicking and gouging at each other’s faces.

A flash of memory: Indiana, the dirt ring behind the VFW, the time Frank bled on the mat and got stitched up with fishing line. He always finished the match.

Frank got a hand around Metallgeist’s neck, squeezed, squeezed, but Metallgeist bit his thumb and forced the grip open. Then the Nazi drove a knee into Frank’s gut, and the world spun.

Metallgeist climbed on top, raining down punches, every shot a punctuation mark. “I am the new man,” he spat. “You are relics.”

Frank caught the next punch, twisted Metallgeist’s arm until the shoulder popped. Metallgeist barely flinched. Instead, he headbutted Frank, then slammed his skull into the ground.

Frank’s vision went black for a second. His mouth filled with blood. But he locked his hands together, found leverage, and rolled Metallgeist over. He drove a forearm into the Nazi’s windpipe, and for the first time, Metallgeist choked.

Elston, dazed, crawled over, dragging one leg. “Double team?” he asked, voice raw.

Frank grinned, wiped the blood from his teeth. “Always.”

They got Metallgeist up, each man grabbing an arm. With a classic tag move, they Irish whipped him toward the chariot, then followed close behind. Frank bent low, grabbed Metallgeist’s legs, while Elston climbed the chariot frame—painful, but worth it. On three, Frank hoisted Metallgeist onto his shoulders, and Elston launched from the wheel well, smashing Metallgeist with a flying clothesline.

They called it the Doomsday Device. It hurt like hell. Metallgeist crashed to the earth, bounced once, and lay still.

Frank and Elston staggered back, hands on knees, breathing like racehorses.

Elston spat blood, grinned. “He’s tougher than he looks.”

Frank laughed, and it hurt. “He’s uglier, too.”

Then Metallgeist got up.

He didn’t stand so much as unfold. He moved like a marionette, joints creaking, blood running down his nose and both ears. He tore off his undershirt, flexed, and the cuts and wounds were already scabbing over, flesh bubbling as if he’d been dipped in acid.

“That’s not normal,” Elston whispered.

Frank didn’t argue.

Metallgeist smiled. “Now, we finish.”

He rushed them. Frank met him head-on, arms wide, while Elston went low, trying for a trip. Metallgeist expected it. He planted a boot on Elston’s head, mashed it into the dirt, then caught Frank in a standing chokehold.

Frank thrashed, feet off the ground, lungs on fire. He tried to claw at Metallgeist’s eyes, but the Nazi just grinned and squeezed.

Elston, seeing Frank’s face go blue, acted. He grabbed the fake belt from the mud, looped it around Metallgeist’s neck, and yanked with every ounce he had left.

Metallgeist let go, tried to spin and break the hold, but Elston wrapped the belt twice, then used it to haul the Nazi back, toppling them both. Frank collapsed, coughing and gagging. Metallgeist twisted, bucked Elston off, then turned on him with eyes that looked dead and ancient.

He straddled Elston, fists rising. “You want to see power?” Metallgeist roared. He brought both hands down, hammering Elston’s face.

Frank, on his knees, watched as Elston’s head jerked left, then right, then snapped back. Blood exploded from the Wildman’s nose. His face swelled, black and purple.

“NO!” Frank bellowed, and launched himself at Metallgeist. He tackled the Nazi from behind, drove him face-first into the dirt, and bit down on Metallgeist’s ear with all his strength.

A chunk came off. Metallgeist screamed, rolled, and caught Frank with an elbow to the temple.

Frank blacked out for a split-second, then came back to Metallgeist standing over him, boots planted on either side of Frank’s chest.

Metallgeist looked down, a god surveying a ruined world. “I am the future,” he said, voice shaking with rage and victory. “Your blood will stain the snow for a thousand years.”

He raised both hands, ready to end it.

Then he lowered them. Killing the All-American was too small an ending — a squash, not a main event. He wanted a verdict. He wanted the man to watch himself lose.

He reached down, palmed Frank’s head, and lifted him to his knees. Zill’s face was a horror show: split lip, swelling black eye, the beginnings of a cauliflower ear already curling the edge of his left lobe. But his neck was still thick, and his jaw set like poured concrete.

Metallgeist set his thumbs to Zill’s temples, the fingers curled around the occipital bone, and squeezed.

Elston managed to get up, staggered into view, but Metallgeist didn’t flinch. The Iron Curtain Claw, the move they’d all seen in the Zurich newsreels: pressure on the skull, grinding the nerves, the quickest way to turn a wrestler into a twitching sack of memory loss.

Zill’s eyes went bloodshot, his whole body tensing, but he didn’t scream. He just looked up at Metallgeist, sweat and tears running down both cheeks.

“You lack the will,” Metallgeist whispered, pressing harder. “You lack the clarity. In this new world, only those who can erase mercy will be remembered.”

Frank gasped, “You ever watch a match to the end, Doc?”

The Nazi cocked his head. “I have seen every ending.”

Frank managed a smile, teeth pink with his own blood. “Then you know the real champs never wear the belt on the walk-in. They hide it, so nobody jinxes the finish.”

Metallgeist didn’t register the words at first. Then, as the sound rolled over him, he looked up.

Elston stood on the road, his whole body trembling, the sweat beading his brow and running through the furrows of old scars. He had a hand tucked under his jacket, and when he pulled it free, the leather was in his grip: old, almost black, studded with iron and stamped with runes.

The Megingjörð. The real one.

For a second, nobody moved. Even the trees seemed to be waiting for a bell.

Zill, face purple with pressure, managed a cough and said, “You want to see a real main event?”

Metallgeist let go, dropping Zill into the slush. He took a single, measured step toward Elston, the eyes gone full predator. “Do you even know what you’re holding?”

Elston didn’t answer. He stared down at the belt, his hands shaking so bad the studs rattled. He looked at Zill, then at the Nazi.

“Wildman,” Frank croaked, “it’s your show now.”

Elston’s fingers fumbled the clasp, and for a moment, it looked like the blood loss would win out, that he’d collapse before he ever got the leather around his waist. Then he cinched it tight, pulled the tongue through the old iron buckle, and yanked until it bit into the flesh above his hips.

Nothing happened.

Metallgeist laughed, but the sound was high and reedy. “You believed the legends? You think it turns men to gods? There is no magic, Elston. There is only will.”

Elston raised his head. His eyes were no longer brown. They burned, electric blue, each iris ringed with sparks like static off a power plant coil. The tattoos on his arms lit up, not ink now but lines of living cobalt, lightning crawling the veins. He smiled, then howled, a sound that shook the birds out of the trees.

Thunder rolled, sharp and instant. The road vibrated. Even the Nazi took a half-step back.

Elston lowered his chin. “You want the belt, come and take it.”

Metallgeist didn’t need a second invitation. He charged, faster than anyone that age had a right to move, hands clawed for Elston’s face. Elston sidestepped, grabbed Metallgeist by the collarbone, and flung him, one-handed, into the side of the ruined truck. Steel buckled. The Nazi hit the mud, rolled, and came up grinning, white teeth and red gums.

“You are still flesh,” Metallgeist said, “and I have broken flesh since before you were born.”

He went for Elston’s legs, trying for a single-leg takedown, but the Wildman just braced and lifted Metallgeist clean off the ground, high over his head, body straight as a flagpole. Elston walked him to the nearest tree, a pine thick as a barrel, and slammed Metallgeist through it, snapping the trunk clean.

For a second, all you could hear was the wind in the high branches.

Metallgeist crawled from the fallen tree, fingers digging furrows in the mud. The white of his shirt was streaked with sap and bark. But he came, relentless, even as his right arm hung limp at the shoulder.

Zill, still on his knees, watched the physics of the world come unglued.

Elston kicked the Nazi, just once, and sent him skidding across the road like a hockey puck. Metallgeist tried to get up, but his legs gave. He bared his teeth, hissed, and started to laugh.

“It’s only power,” he rasped. “And the world always belongs to the ones who want it most.”

Zill forced himself upright. His hands were numb, but his brain was still running. He locked eyes with Elston and barked, “Go for the finish. He won’t stop until you end it.”

Elston nodded, took a single step toward the Nazi, and stopped.

He never got the chance to take another step.

He shouldn’t have been able to move. Not after a tree to the ribs. Not after a century’s worth of trauma in under a minute. But Metallgeist just clawed at the road, digging for purchase, and came up laughing.

“You see?” he spat, the blood trickling from his gums. “Even now, you cannot finish. You are weak—always weak.”

Elston stepped forward, blue arcs running from his hands to his elbows. “You want finished? Try this one.”

He grabbed Metallgeist by the shoulder and hoisted him up. The Nazi tried to rake Elston’s eyes, but the Wildman just blocked the arm, twisted, and speared him—head and shoulder driving through Metallgeist’s gut. The impact snapped them both through the trunk of another pine, the bark splitting in a spray of sap and needles.

The tree groaned, then toppled with a wet, snapping roar.

Metallgeist bounced, landed face-first, but Elston didn’t let up. He threw Metallgeist back up the road, a full-body heave that would have cleared an Olympic javelin pit. The Nazi hit the mud, skidded, and rolled.

Frank, still on his knees, wiped the blood from his mouth and said, “Jesus Christ, Wildman.”

Elston grinned, sparks dancing off his teeth. “You want a piece, All-American?”

Frank got to his feet, limped over, and stared at Metallgeist, who was now trying to crawl up the banking with only one working arm. Frank stomped on the Nazi’s back, pinning him in place.

He leaned down. “You ever hear of the 4th of July Leglock, Doc? I doubt it.”

He grabbed Metallgeist’s left leg, twisted it into a figure four, and dropped his own body weight onto the knot. The knee bent with a sound like an egg cracking. Metallgeist shrieked, flailed, tried to punch Frank, but his reach was nothing. Frank torqued the hold, harder, until the Nazi’s heel almost touched his own ass.

“Submit!” Frank hollered, just like in the ring.

Metallgeist spit a curse, then screamed again.

Elston watched, arms crossed, the Megingjörð pulsing with each breath.

The fight should have ended there, but Metallgeist had one last move. He twisted, clawed at the ground, and managed to flip Frank over, reversing the pressure for a second. But Frank, with the muscle memory of a thousand matches, just grinned and used the roll to switch to a full kneebar. He yanked back, and something inside Metallgeist gave way.

For a second, there was only breathing. The wind, the noise of the broken trees, the slap of blood on mud.

Frank let go. Metallgeist lay there, gasping, one leg mangled, face pressed into the slush.

Elston wasn’t finished. He climbed the root ball of the felled pine — fifteen feet of torn earth and splintered heartwood — and stood against the boiling sky with the lightning still crawling his arms, and for one second he was every poster ever printed, every gimmick ever believed.

Then he came down.

The Borneo Super Splash landed like something dropped from an airplane. The road jumped. Snow leapt off the branches for fifty yards in every direction, and Dr. Viktor Metallgeist folded around the impact and stopped pretending he was winning.

Elston rolled off him and lay in the slush, chest heaving. His hands found the buckle, and he peeled the Megingjörð away — and every light in him went out at once, the blue draining from his eyes, his muscles going soft as the power let him go. Frank caught him by the shoulder before he could tip over.

“You good?”

“Tired,” Elston managed. “Like a six-hour match. What a trip.”

He offered the belt to Frank.

Frank took it, the old leather warm, the iron studs wet with blood and sweat. It was heavier than it looked.

“Your turn, All-American,” Elston said, voice thin but steady.

Frank looked at the belt, looked at Elston, then at Metallgeist, who was still alive, still watching.

“I don’t know if I—” Frank started.

Metallgeist didn’t wait for an opening. He lunged up, grabbed the belt, and yanked it free. For a moment, all three wrestlers had a hand on it, but the Nazi’s grip was inhuman. He twisted, broke Elston’s wrist free, then pulled the Megingjörð to his own chest.

“Die Macht ist mein!” Metallgeist howled, holding the belt over his head like a title at Madison Square Garden.

Frank tried to grab it, but Metallgeist shoved him away. The Nazi, leg broken and face ruined, still had enough hate to power a small city.

He tried to fasten the Megingjörð around his own waist, fumbling with the buckle, but his hands were slick with blood.

The sky above went black, clouds rolling in out of nowhere. Thunder rattled the ground.

“NO!” Metallgeist screamed, struggling with the clasp.