The Ludwig Conspiracy(152)

Luise sighed and directed Steven on along the corridor with her gun. “You don’t understand, Steven. How could you? Yours is the branch of the family that has not bred true to its stock and must be cut off. I’m sorry to put it so bluntly.”

By now they had reached the end of the corridor. Ahead of Steven, a mighty hall almost fifty feet high opened up—a perfect copy of the Neuschwanstein throne room.

Or in fact the original itself.

He looked at the colorful mosaic images of animals on the floor, the paintings on the walls, the blue columns and the massive chandelier hanging from the ceiling by chains. Luise’s footsteps echoed behind Steven as he walked into the middle of the room. Once again the industrialist looked all around her, and there was mingled grief and resignation in her face. Then, with great care, she put the nylon bag containing the treasure chest down on the mosaic floor and took Ludwig’s statutory declaration out from her neckline.

“I have looked for it for so long,” she murmured, kissing the letter, and then she tossed it carelessly away, so that it sailed to the floor like a tired moth. “All over.”

There was silence for a moment. Then Luise’s expression changed as a crazed smile played around her lips. She fished a small black device the size of a cell phone out of her pants pocket and began pressing keys. It made a beeping, buzzing noise like a badly set alarm clock.

“Of course I knew I must be prepared for such an attack,” she went on. “You must always be prepared for anything, don’t you agree? As Ludwig was. It is said that he would have liked to blow his castles sky-high rather than leave them in the hands of those unworthy of them. And that is exactly what I am going to do now.”

Steven missed a breath. “You’re going to do what?”

Luise looked at her cousin with vacant eyes. “I have had a number of explosives built into my pretty little castle, and I can set them off whenever I like by remote control. You have to know when the end has come. Three, two, one . . .”

“Luise, no!” Steven tried to wrench the little device out of her hand, but it was too late. She had already pressed the last key, and she threw the little black box high in the air and away from her, From somewhere on the other side of the walls came a regular beep repeated at intervals of a second.

“We have five minutes,” Luise said dreamily. “The last five minutes in my palace. Come along, Cousin. Let us pray together. This is the end of our family. The end of the line.”

Steven stood rigidly beside her. Only seconds later did he seem to awake from a nightmare. “If you think I’m going to die with you, you’re much mistaken. You . . . you psycho!”

He turned to the exit, but Luise’s cutting voice stopped him in his tracks.

“You’re staying here.”

Steven spun around and looked down the steel barrel of the Derringer.

“What a disgrace,” Luise growled. “If you haven’t lived like one, then at least die like the descendant of a king.”

“Never. You can go to hell on your own.”

Without thinking, Steven flung himself at Luise, his arms spread wide. He heard a report, a bullet hissed past close to his cheek, and then he was on her. He pressed her body to the floor with his full weight and tried to seize Luise’s hand holding the Derringer.

It’s like back then, he thought. All those years ago in the burning library. And our fight is only now coming to an end.

But although she was slightly built, the industrialist was surprisingly strong. She rammed her knee into his groin, and Steven fell on his side, groaning. Then she aimed her gun straight at his face.

“Die, you filthy bastard. You thief. You’re a traitor to the family. Now . . .”

Steven seized hold of the Derringer and turned it aside. Luise tried to kick him again, but this time he was ready. He brought up his knee and used the short moment of uncertainty to bite Luise’s wrist as hard as he could. She screamed and dropped the gun. The next moment Steven was holding the pistol. Still lying on his back, he aimed it at his cousin.

Luise Manstein stood over him, her makeup smeared, her short gray hair standing out on all sides around her head. She looked like a defiant ten-year-old throwing a tantrum. She raised her painted fingernails like claws, and naked madness gleamed in her eyes.

“How . . . how dare you bite My Majesty?” she screeched. “You useless little lackey, you filthy bastard . . .”

Steven pulled the trigger.

Luise stood there for a moment as if turned to stone, and only then did she realize that the bullet had missed her. She broke into deranged laughter.

“You’re a coward and a failure, Steven,” she said. “You may have Ludwig’s blood in you, but your branch of the family will wither, and no one will ever speak your name again. You . . .”