Parsifal, pure in his white cloak, pure and with edges only slightly softened by the passing of time. He'd searched for the grail, the statue - how ironic that his own mission was one just as righteous. That statue was perhaps too near the edge of the embankment, but its isolation let him test its purity of white. Just as the night's dark protected him from prying eyes.
Cut. Cut and cut again. Cut, chip, cut, crack, cut, a razor-thin blade taken to a block of marble. Steady work could chip the edges of the squared muscles, the crisp surface nicked to reveal deeper veins of dark. Grey. Black.
Black as silken hair, blacker than the ink of a dark night, or the water that was so near his feet.
The entire knife was eighteen centimetres long. Slightly angled blade was a mere eight and only one-and-a- quarter at it's widest point. It was a Stag, made in Ireland. The blade wasn't well kept, with a faint bit of grime that he would have polished off if he'd had the notion. It folded smoothly in half, and he palmed it for a moment before tossing it into the water the body had been found in. He could have sworn that it had skipped twice before finally sinking in.
He kept few keepsakes for very long - and the two months he'd kept that blade had been long enough. He knew why some of the rust was on the edge of that blade, inside the neat horn casing. Blood, left on a blade that hadn't been cleaned since its last gruesome task. A task he'd wanted to remember for as long as possible.
No-one would ever guess that he'd done it. Never - why suspect *him*? There were so many others to suspect, people more likely…
It wasn't as if the man hadn't had enough enemies.
The rust was a product of iron, of the red wetness left so long on that edge, so there was irony in the rust on that blade. It wasn't aesthetic in the least - reality, iron on steel had been the victor. He'd never be a suspect.
That thought soothed through his mind like a warm wash of water, unlike the chill water that lapped at the edges of the river-bank and at the toes of his shoes. Free at last, free of so much. Never again would a blonde head popping up in the middle of a mission make a commotion.
Never again would they have to go chasing after some rare piece of film or bit of artefact that was crucial. No more entanglements with the two Bears ruined by an inappropriate appearance of the master thief.
Every rule of attack had been broken, every faith and every façade. He'd had the sense to finally recognise what needed to be done, even when others couldn't let go. Eroica's men… would move on. They seemed like mice at times, scurrying from one piece of cheese to another. More cheese would come along, another thief would use and flaunt with them, and they'd take the bait.
He'd just grown tired of watching all that baiting, tired of watching others be reeled in by such a shallow man. Promises of a rich, wild life, parties, joy…
And now the folder that bore the name of Eroica, that listed him as an informer, nuisance and aid, would be closed and slid away. Dead - gone from the earth, and from his sight.
The edges of his eyes crinkled a little, as he smiled at the thought of finally being freed. Perhaps the case would be investigated for a few months more. Perhaps he'd have to work on it again, perhaps he'd be interviewed again for information as to who could have done such a brutal crime.
Who, conceivably, could have sliced a thin blade across the Earl of Gloria's neck, then snapped the bones beyond? Who would have had such anger and purpose as to cut off his hands and his hair?
The hands had been found in the trash-sorting plant, spotted by an observant worker who'd realised they weren't a mannequin's. The hair he'd tossed out the window of his car - the police had spotted it, or the remains of the wad he'd knotted together. There was just enough of those golden locks left, when the night-time traffic was done with it, to identify that it was indeed from Lord Gloria. The Earl's men had reported his disappearance to NATO intelligence and the police exactly after twenty-four hours had passed.
Three weeks later, a dredging of the river had yielded the gruesome results of the Earl's body.
A terrible thing that the fishes and currents had ruined the thief's beautiful face. The funeral for him, held back in England, had been closed casket, and had effectively signalled the end of the Gloria lineage. He hadn't attended, but there was no reason for anyone to have expected him to! He'd been nothing to the man. Those who'd been expected to attend had done so, and even a few unexpected individuals had attended.
No-one had expected a razor wire to chip at such fine marble, to reveal the grey and black streaks. Impurities that made him sick to his stomach to see - a proof of façade. There was relief in him that the thief was gone, and yet the murder had caused so many repercussions.
It was hard to forget the sight of the Earl's little black-haired accountant in a seething rage, screaming 'murderer' at the wrong man. That visible brown eye had held no tears - just a seering hatred, just an unbearable pain.
Still, he assumed it was just that the mice missed their cheese. A little mourning, and they'd be over it. The investigating would stop, and life would be as it had been before the thief's arrival into a world he didn't belong as a part of.
And no-one would ever suspec-
The sound of a familiar foot-fall, familiar even through the wet soil of the Rhine's edge, even walking down the angled embankment, told him to be alert again, to not bask so much in the memories that were crawling through his mind. Another footfall, confident, calm and a little careless. Always careless around him, always a little more trusting…
And *he* deserved to get that trust, not that thief, not that perversion. Not the man who'd been grey and black entirely, who'd struck the marble whiteness through with those twisting, twining lines.
Threads of cigarette smoke in the air made themselves as much a tangible presence as the gun pressed lightly against his back. A small metal circle pressed between his shoulder blades, against the cloth of his suit's jacket.
"I didn't expect it to have been you." The man who had him at gunpoint drew a slow breath of smoke, exhaled near his ear, and then inhaled again - just air. His voice was a bellow softened to blend away into the night's air, and it tugged at every string of obedience.
"No-one would have." His head lowered a fraction, looking down into the water again. "I did it for you. Seems I was too late to have it be useful, Major."
"Seems you're right." The Major's voice, since the murder, had grown colder, grown empty. His smiles, rare already, were unseen, his laughing sneers at the enemy. "Z… Erich. Come with me, and we'll get you help."
"Don't call me Erich. I haven't had that for a name in years." But he followed the man's orders - of course, the man most suspected of the murder had been the one intent to find the real killer. He let his hands slide into the air a little ways, only to have the gun press a little.
"Don't bother with that shit - I know you won't run, Z."
"You're right, Major. I won't." He turned his head though, focusing his eyes on the glow of the cigarette's tip. "You didn't appreciate what I did for you. You've never appreciated…"
"You killed a good man."
He could see now, in shuttered green-grey eyes, an anger and pain to match that of the money bug's. The ruinous streaks of black and grey in the pure white.
If he had've known before what he did then, he wouldn't have chipped away at the marble, even accidentally. A little grey, a little black, in thin lines, was acceptable. Chip enough, and too much of the dark was revealed…
It was such a disappointment to learn that his marble block was just as impure as the heart of the man he'd killed.
"He wanted the weapon I had - he asked to see it, and then I let him see it close. He can't ever touch you again, Major Eberbach. He can't ever degrade you with his cock again, can't ever hurt your soul by having you say that you l-"
The butt of the Major's gun came down against the side of his head; he fell to the ground limp, feigning unconsciousness.
Iron Klaus wouldn't kill him, not his protégé. He couldn't tell what was in the man's mind just then, but it wasn't his murder.
After all, it wasn't his fault that the rose vine hadn't tangled well with a razor wire.
Razor Wire by Kat