Witch Hunter Robin Fan Fiction ❯ Binah (Understanding) ❯ Evolution ( Chapter 4 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Robin. Dead. Too late.

Amon's eyes snapped open. The living room was dark; it must have gone full night outside while he slept. The copy of Yukio Mishima lay open on his chest, spine up. He dog-eared one page, and put the book aside. Sitting up, he noticed a thudding pain in his head, and pinched his nose to focus on something else. Opening his eyes, he saw that his glass of water on the coffee table was completely frozen solid. Somehow, he wasn't surprised.

Trying to pick up the glass to let it melt in the sink, he found that it was frozen to the table; even the drops of condensation had frozen. At least it would explain why he was so hungry, all of a sudden…he wondered if telling Robin about the glass was a good idea. She had asked him to show her every example of the power that came up, even if he thought it was nothing. He stared at the glass, and listened to the apartment. Downstairs was the ubiquitous restaurant noise, which he'd learned to tune out. There was the refrigerator's soft electric whine, but no noises of Robin in the bath, or anything else he wished to avoid. So he stood, feeling the hunger even more upon changing positions, and went down the hall. A soft murmuring was coming from Robin's room. He frowned. Who could she be talking to? He knocked.

“Come in,” she answered.

“Who were you talking to?” he asked. She was sitting as she always did when no formality was required, with her knees up to her chest. Somehow she'd switched from the tight jeans to a very tiny pair of denim shorts, that exposed most every inch of legs that were shockingly white for the summer, and cigarette-slender, leading to equally narrow feet and toes that curled into the comforter.

“No one,” she answered. “I was trying to remember something.”

“Aloud?” How in the world did ankles survive, being that slim? How could they carry weight at all?

“It was an oral piece.”

“What?” Amon's head shot up.

“I had to give an oral, to the priests.”

“You…what?”

Robin continued to look at him as though it were the most normal thing in the world. “An oral examination. I had to recite a piece, for the priests who taught me in the convent.” She blinked. “That's not done, in Japanese schools?”

A voice in his mind which sounded very much like Nagira's was having a good laugh at Amon's expense. “Not often,” he muttered. “What were you reciting?”

“Pieces from the Inferno,” she answered. Something like a smile fluttered across her features. Her smile was always so timid; more like a caged thing wanting to know if it was safe to emerge, than a beloved pet anyone would keep around for very long. “It's been a long time, and I wanted to know if I could remember it.”

“There aren't copies in Japan?”

“Not many in Italian,” she answered. “And it sounds much better that way.”

“Oh?” He crossed his arms, waiting. “Prove it.”

Robin smiled genuinely, this time, although the moment her face recognized its movement the smile was replaced with a resolute line. Only the sides of her eyes crinkled, in amusement. “You always did look like an old Jesuit,” she murmured, and abruptly shut her eyes, hugging her knees with her arms. Her mouth opened, searching for something, and then the words came, lilting, full of sun and music. They ticked and tocked back and forth out of her mouth in perfect meter, and yet also with the closest thing to passion he'd ever heard from her voice. She sounded like another person, full of mastery and control. When it was finished, she trailed off, opening her eyes slowly. Her face was full of hope.

“I have something for you,” he said. The smile returned. If possible, her posture tightened even more; she reminded him of a coiled spring.

“Where is it?” she asked.

“On the table, in the living room.”

She was off the bed and around him in a blink. He watched her make her brisk way into the darkened living room, pouncing on the glass immediately. To his surprise, she picked it right up off the table, and sucked moisture off the top. “It's nice and cold,” she said, turning, glass in hand. Ice bits clinked in it. “Thank you, Amon.”

“It was frozen to the table, earlier.” He watched her enter the kitchen; followed her. She opened the refrigerator with one hand, and held the glass to her face with the other. She knelt, rummaging around in the machine for something to eat.

“You're lucky,” she said suddenly.

“How's that?”

She paused. “When I was small, the nuns in the convent took turns watching me sleep, so that I didn't light myself on fire when I had a bad dream.” Her plundering of the refrigerator was more half-hearted, now. “They would tell me that if I didn't learn how to control my Craft, I would wake up on fire, surrounded by smoke and flames, with my skin melted to the sheets, and no one there to hear me…” She faltered.

Amon suddenly saw each of their former enemies, people that Robin herself had incinerated, but in place of their screams of agony he heard Robin's, saw her face on their torched bodies—pictured a younger, defenseless version of her with ruined skin and blistered limbs, the smell of charred flesh in the air. And then there was a younger, frightened Robin, huddled under the covers while evil old harpies told her macabre bedtime stories about her own power…

“Amon,” she whispered. He blinked, barely registering the frosty glass until she moved it, and there was no clinking of ice. It was frozen solid again. “You're doing it, even now,” she whispered. “I can feel the glass getting colder.” Her eyes widened. “Are you angry at me?”

“Not at you,” he murmured. He searched within, finding that elusive thread of power that was freezing the glass. It felt more like a sound inside himself, a muffled howling, like a storm kept at bay by old windows. It wasn't something that he could touch or hold; only watch…it died.

“The sisters should have known better,” he sighed, feeling the power hide itself again. “Obviously, they were wrong about you.”

“What do you mean?”

He looked her up and down. “I don't see any burn scars, do you?” He coughed, realizing he was paying far too much attention to her little feet. “How did you know I was dreaming?”

Robin shrugged. “I just knew.” As though ultimately displeased with the refrigerator, she stood up and shut it. “We can go out, now, if you like.”

“Good idea,” Amon replied, and soon they were ready.

***

Wisely, Robin had opted for her dark jeans, and a black twill zip-up jacket. She kept twisting about in her seat, however, all the way to the Walled City, as though the jeans were an unwelcome, lecherous touch that she could squirm away from. “Stop fidgeting,” Amon said.

“I'm sorry.” She ceased moving. The Walled City loomed up in the Tokyo night before them. There it stood, against the sky made mauve by city light; its black steel spires an odd pastiche of late-twentieth-century designs. The Walled City continued to rise as its inhabitants fell from grace; as more Witches arrived there, more slumlords built upon the existing structures. And there in the foreground, facing the heart of Tokyo was the giant cross carved deeply into the concrete on the frontmost tower. For Amon, it was reminiscent of the crosses one saw on coffins; the symbol was not meant to ward off demons, but rather to keep them locked within.

Amon nudged the car into an alley that looked particularly quiet, away from the silent Witches and Seeds crowded on dim front stoops. He patted all of his weaponry briefly, making sure he could reach it at a moment's notice. “We don't have any of Michael's information backing us up, or any support to speak of, you know,” he said.

“We don't need the STN-J's database to Hunt Single-Eye,” Robin said confidently. “Your nose will do just fine.” She tapped hers, idly.

“The fragrant olives?” Amon asked, referring to the scent Single-Eye left in the air whenever he used his power.

Robin nodded, her eyes focusing inward. “Yes, there is that,” she answered. “But you haven't noticed?”

“Noticed what?”

“Your sense of smell,” she said. “It should have improved.”

“The day you made breakfast,” he spoke immediately, the memory of scent hitting him fresh, as though it were only moments old. “I thought it was just that I was hungry…”

Robin shook her head softly. “It's the Craft,” she murmured. “Your sense of smell, your reflexes, all of your senses; they will improve, the more you use it.”

“Why?”

She turned to him, finally. “You're part of a Hunted population. It's evolution.” And with that, she left the car.

At night, the Walled City was twice as menacing. Amon's memories of the place were already complicated enough—here he'd found Robin after she eliminated the old Witch Methuselah, the younger Witch's face full of remorse, fear, and wonder at once; that day she'd attained the knowledge of 400 years' worth of Witches and not known it. Here he'd seen her eliminate the Master Hunter Sastre, a man she'd been trained by, and a man Amon had learned about in his own training. Here, Amon knew, she'd saved the life of his own brother. Here, he'd watched, and tried pretending that he could still kill her. At night, every shadow in the Walled City was a Witch Hunter as cold and ruthless as himself. It was here in the Walled City that his own power, useless and crippling as it was, had awakened and made him into a Hunted creature, prey for other Hunters.

Robin walked on a bit ahead of him, her nose pointed a little to the air. Her hands were jammed into her pockets, and her new sneakers made little noise on the garbage-strewn alley. They melted into the cement, absorbing sound before any could be made. It was a slow, graceful movement, and yet he could see, because he was trained to see such things, that every muscle was tense; she was capable of reacting at a second's notice. She made her way through an open space in the alley, and headed toward another dark opening in the confusing network, and just as a foreign voice within said “Lovely…” she whirled, and Amon's heart began to hammer.

He recognized the fear almost before feeling it. There was his heart, pounding painfully inside him at a speed that he could not control, and his breath coming fast and light; his knees caving under that rough, scrabbling something that felt like rats crawling up his spine and into his brain, chewing on his mind as they went… “Get out!” he shouted, and felt a howling inside him become ice on the street, spreading helplessly like a frightened dog's urine on carpet. “Get out…”

“Nice seeing with two eyes again,” the foreigner inside said, cheerful and macabre. Amon clawed desperately at his hair, trying to breathe deeply and bring himself under control. But the power was out, now, leaking from him and freezing everything it touched. Unbidden, Amon's head raised (he was a puppet now, and knew it with a sickening, morose certainty), to look at Robin's wide eyes and apprehensive face. She watched as the ice crawled up the surrounding alley walls, edging her ever further away from him as she backed away from its progress.

“Amon,” she whispered.

“There's the little troublemaker,” the voice within him purred. It felt like a bad recording; one he couldn't quite hear all of but still grated on his every nerve. “You especially should know that, right, Witch Hunter?” The question mocked him, dancing on the edges of his perception, its cruel jest teasing him with everything he'd become.

“Fuck you,” Amon muttered, starting to sweat.

“I think things would be easier without her, don't you?” Single-Eye asked, his voice growing in strength as Amon's own willpower drained. He was shaking, now, but not from pain or exhaustion; more from the wordless, gibbering panic he felt taking over his gut and threatening to boil over into his mind completely, reducing him to screams or worse. He shuddered, feeling Single-Eye take control of his own power, knowing there was nothing he could do to stop it. The other Witch directed it effortlessly, pointing that high and desperate wind directly at Robin. He saw it, felt Single-Eye see it also.

“Don't,” Amon whispered. The power left him in a bolt and he squeezed, crying out in pain that felt like every hyper-extended muscle he'd ever had magnified a hundredfold as he tried calling the power back. He felt it brush something searingly hot; Robin's own shield. He spat blood with relief, unwittingly having bitten his tongue too hard in his effort.

“Don't tell me you don't want her out of the way, Witch Hunter,” Single-Eye teased. Amon shivered helplessly. “All she does is make you weak…she's made you a monster, too, just like…” and here Single-Eye probed someplace excruciatingly painful and tender, and Amon screamed aloud, “your mother.”

“LEAVE HER ALONE!” Amon bellowed, clutching his head and digging his forehead into the mercifully cold ice.

“Which `her' do you mean?” Single-Eye asked, his voice dripping delighted insinuation.

“Amon,” Robin said clearly. The ice had ceased its advance. Her eyes were resolute; he knew that look far too well. She stepped out on the ice, at once losing her footing and attempting to re-balance herself. Single-Eye sent a shock of power her way that knocked her on her knees. She made a small sound of pain. To Amon's horror, knife-sharp shards of ice came to life around him, and shot themselves at her, speeding through the air only to melt around her shield of heat, splashing around her as they fell. He felt each ice-arrow touch and steam before her as though she'd touched him herself.

“Robin, don't…” Amon pleaded. “Get out…”

Her face came up from the ice. Her mouth was one single line, and her eyes were gimlets. “Amon,” she whispered. And then, impossibly, she began crawling to him.

“No,” he breathed. “He'll make me…” Amon shook his head helplessly, watching in horror as Robin put one hand in front of the other, and dragged herself across the slippery ice. More shards came; they battered against her shield and she flinched with the effort of stopping them. He was horribly reminded of the way her face looked in a scope, before he pulled the trigger.

“This is what has to be done, Witch Hunter,” Single-Eye informed him. Robin crawled, and ice flew.

“No!” The arrows wouldn't listen, piercing the shield briefly; shuddering into water as he felt a thud of hot resistance within himself.

“Amon,” Robin muttered, her hands trying to find purchase where there was none. Her crawl was awkward; her palms could find no resistance and thus no traction and her knees pushed her ineffectively forward. She kept slipping and falling. Her hair came up wet from the ice. She began pulling herself forward on her forearms and elbows, slowly, inch by precious inch.

“He's going to make me kill you,” Amon hoarsed. Another volley flew and he desperately tried to call it back; again feeling that hollow squeeze when they wouldn't return to him. Steaming water rained on Robin's face as the arrows melted. She brought her face, wet, tired, and steely, up to meet his stare.

“He doesn't know you,” Robin insisted, slipping again, righting herself, continuing. It was then he noticed the glasses, his misanthropic little gift to her so long ago, glinting on her red face. And then, suddenly, there was his memory of the girl who had stared down his own gun and told him that she trusted his heart, completely unaware of his own inability to even load the weapon. In his sweating, mind-bending torture, the truth was sharp and clear: he'd rather have died that day above Nagira's law office, than shoot her himself.

“You'll have to kill me, first,” Amon gasped. And then, the pain vanished, he wasn't afraid; the howling wind rushed around him to protect him and soothe his aching heart with blissful cold. The power was his just as Robin tumbled into him, gripping his shoulders and neck. She didn't say that it was going to be fine, or that things were all right, now. She didn't hold him as she'd done Sakaki. Instead, he felt lips at his ear, and something down in his gut jerked at the register of her voice.

“I know you're in there, Single-Eye,” Robin whispered, her voice water on hot coals. “And so help me God, but I can't forgive something like this.”

Vertigo assailed Amon, and he could suddenly see Single-Eye seeing from within him, feel the other Witch's terror as his one good eye burst into flame and his face began to bubble and pop, and his scream filled the air…the attack was over. Amon shuddered; fell sideways into the ice with Robin's arms there to soften the fall. The numbing ice soothed one side of him and he gradually relaxed, was aware of Robin's breath and his own, panting like a wounded animal. Her pulse, heavy and rapid in her neck, was at his ear.

“I'm so sorry, Amon,” she apologized faintly. “I should have known better…”

“You did nothing wrong,” he managed, and tried to sit up. Amazingly, he felt the power come with him. It followed him, like iron filings to a magnet. He looked at Robin, her jeans and jacket wet, her hair a sopping, stringy mess. He shook his head at her, still a little bewildered, and offered her his hand. She took it uncertainly, and he hauled her up again from the ground. She shivered. Finding himself able to stand, he brought Robin up with him again.

“You don't feel weak?” she asked, teetering a little on her feet.

He shook his head, a little surprised. “I'm fine, now,” he answered. “Robin, I think…” He closed his eyes, and let some of that icy wind blow onto a nearby wall covered in old posters. Drawing it back, he opened his eyes, and there was some splotchy frost there where he'd aimed. Unconsciously, he'd brought his right hand up to help him aim. “It's with me, now. I can feel it.”

“Good,” she murmured, and fell to her knees.