Witch Hunter Robin Fan Fiction ❯ Binah (Understanding) ❯ There Are Secret Doors ( Chapter 8 )

The next day, Robin went outside.

Amon watched her from the kitchen door. He stood in the doorway, both doors open, his hand on the screen door's handle. The irony did not fail to escape him—as he opened the door to let her out, doors within him closed off one by one. They closed softly on black silence, hiding from all others what he could no longer risk showing, and as Robin ventured to change their circumstances, his slow return to his old self began. No respite was ever permanent, he reminded himself. And all things came with a price, especially their safety. From his position in the shade, Robin looked especially bright—spending these summer days inside had left her skin white and vulnerable to the sun. From his place in the long afternoon shadows, she glowed. He watched her squint, and hold her hand up above her brow to find their quarry.

William Neville sat at his little table as usual, and when Robin approached him, he graciously stood, bowed, and held out a chair for her. Robin instantly stiffened; courtesy was not something she was used to. Or so Amon guessed; there was no way to be sure. Neville and Robin shared a few polite words, then Robin stood, inclined her head, and made her way back up the stairs again.

“He says that we're to meet him at midnight, at this address.” She held up a small calling card with Neville's name on it in both English and Japanese. Written on the back of it was an address within the Walled City.

“Memorize that, and burn it,” Amon ordered. Robin blinked at the command, but dutifully went to stand before the sink and look at the card for a moment before watching it catch fire. Just as the small flames began to lick her fingers, she dropped the entire thing into the sink, and washed away the ashes.

Amon looked back at his place on the couch, and his book beside it, on the table. It would be very easy to return to that place, prone and relaxed, relatively content to simply be still, and all that came with it. But that time was over, and instead he went back to his room, and brought out his gun cases.

“Did Neville make a stipulation on weapons?” he asked upon his return, beginning the process of opening each case on the kitchen table.

“No,” Robin answered. She was stirring a drink, watching him with transparent puzzlement.

“Good.” With mechanical, well-practiced precision, he began cleaning.

***

“If you're just going to sit, I would like you to look over the past fifty years' worth of unsolved arson cases in the Tokyo area,” Magarethe had told Doujima that morning, before the older Hunter left the office without explanation.

“Bitch,” Doujima muttered, once she was gone. Rather than bring up any of the case files, she flipped violently through a fashion magazine, giving the models murderous stares and swinging her right, crossed leg with jerky, rhythmic anger.

After that, Michael should have known better than to prod her. But something was deeply unsettling to him, and he knew that if anyone had the answer to his questions, it would be Doujima.

“There's nothing saying she isn't right, you know,” he began. Behind him, he felt rather than saw Doujima stiffen. It was a testament to his long hours in the office that he knew her body language so well.

“Leave it alone, Michael,” she said tiredly.

Michael leaned back in his chair, still not looking at her. “You'd think that Solomon would have looked harder, you know? Especially with Robin's history, wouldn't they have wanted real funerals for everyone?”

And here, he'd really stepped in it. Perhaps it was very Western of him to need that kind of closure, but a part of Michael had always wanted for there to be a normal funeral for Amon Nagira and Robin Sena. He wanted to mourn them properly, with other people, and not in the small, quiet moments when a case wasn't distracting him from the grief that he had yet failed to fully finish with. Without those moments that he recognized as signifying the passage of a life, without those solemn prayers, without that interment, Michael had a harder time believing that they were actually dead.

And because it was Doujima who knew Solomon so well, because it was she who had told her superiors that Robin and Amon were dead, and most of all because she had lied before, Michael wasn't sure if he could believe her, now. His former co-workers' deaths seemed more like a legend than a fact. Without their bodies, it was simply more difficult to believe Doujima's version of the truth. The part that irked him the most about Magarethe Bonn's insistence on an investigation was how much he wanted her to be right—he wanted them to be alive. He wanted his instinct upon hearing of Single-Eye's immolation within the Walled City to be correct. But he knew that if Bonn did in fact find them, it would spell the end of both Robin and Amon's freedom. If they were alive, they were so only as ghosts, wandering between the winds.

“Maybe Father Juliano had a funeral for Robin in Italy,” Doujima said softly. “It was where she grew up, after all.”

“There wasn't even an obituary, Doujima,” Michael countered. “Does that sound like Solomon, to you?”

“Go out and look for them yourself, then!” she shrilled, standing up suddenly. Michael turned now, to see Doujima standing over him with her arms crossed. For the first time since he'd met her, she actually looked her age. Exhaustion of some kind was imprinted clearly on her features—for the first time, he saw past the makeup.

“You don't have a collar anymore,” Doujima reminded him. “You can leave anytime you want! So if you're so convinced they could be out there, why don't you have a look?”

“Because I'm not the one who knew where they were, last time,” Michael answered quietly. He refused to look away from her glare as it softened and her skin paled. For a moment she looked almost sad. Then anger took over. Not hot anger this time, but a trembling, end-of-the-rope kind of rage that he had never seen from her. It was the kind that could make a person cry.

“Nothing anyone says is ever good enough for you,” she whispered. He frowned. She turned away, and began packing her things. “Fine,” she said. “Look, if you don't trust me. Go ahead. I don't care. Really, I don't.” She slammed a sunglass case into her bag, and grabbed up her keys with white knuckles. Her purse knocked against her ribs, bounced, and rested there again. “And while you're out, get a fucking haircut.” She left.

***

Miho bumped into Doujima as the angry Hunter was leaving the office. This happened quite literally—not looking, each collided into the other, standing too close for a moment while Miho steadied Doujima with her hands.

“Hey, what's wrong?” Miho asked.

“Nothing,” Doujima lied. Miho smiled at her friend's obvious mendacity. For a double-agent, she wasn't very good at obfuscating the truth.

“No, really, tell me,” she said.

“It's just that that guy upstairs really pisses me off, sometimes,” Doujima answered, looking at the ground. One hand twisted the leather of her purse. The other was kept in a fist.

“Michael? Did you two have a fight?”

“Yeah…” Doujima looked up. “I guess it was pretty stupid. But I've been under a lot of stress, lately…”

“Are things not going well with Nagira, if it's all right for me to ask?” Miho tilted her head at her friend.

“Oh, no, it's not that,” Doujima answered, smiling helplessly. “The opposite, actually. I…I think I really love him, Miho.” This time her eyes met Miho's, and they were shining.

“No wonder your head's in the clouds,” the other Hunter said softly, smiling. “I guess I'll see you later, then?”

“Right,” Doujima affirmed, nodding. Soon, she was on her way. Miho made her way to the elevator, and stepped into its cage, pausing to look at the odd architecture therein that was a combination of old-world style and 21st century functionality. She pressed the number five key, to be allowed into the office. She leaned against the back wall of the elevator.

She wondered why it was that if Doujima had fought with Michael, her powerful, radiating thoughts, detectable with only a brush of the hand, were of Amon and Robin. She wondered what it meant, and feared the answer.

***

Michael took a good look at himself in the mirror.

He hated to admit it, but Doujima was right. Those little tufts behind his neck were really funky. And not in the good way, either. Frowning, Michael adjusted his glasses. He'd show her. He let himself out of the fluorescent, humming office restroom, and checked the status of his security system. It was a slow day; nothing even remotely interesting. But that was probably a good thing.

“Where are you off to?” Miho asked, looking up to see him leave.

“Doujima suggested it was time for a haircut,” the hacker answered, shrugging.

Sakaki paused his handheld game. Its musical chirping died momentarily. “You're going on her advice?” he asked, leaning against the back of his chair, having straddled it earlier. “She's the one with Farrah hair! It's so last year!”

Both Miho and Michael frowned, and looked pointedly at Sakaki. In unison, their heads tilted to one side.

“What?” Haruto demanded.

***

Getting a haircut, Michael Lee soon discovered, was harder than it looked. First of all, unlike a great many of the Japanese citizens his age, he wasn't interested in making a statement. Well, unless that statement was “fuck you, Doujima,” of course. But he somehow doubted that getting it buzzed into the back of his head would go over well at the office.

Michael had stopped missing a lot of his American standbys after so long in Japan. When he was caged by the STN-J, things like sunlight, fresh air, and the opportunity to stretch his legs became of higher importance. With one of the fastest networks on the planet at his disposal, he could still watch American tv, listen to American music, even see American movies. Sure, he couldn't breathe a word to a soul online about them, but even his isolation became something he could get used to. He was doing fantastically interesting stuff, and getting paid handsomely for it. The irony was that he had nowhere to spend the money. Even shopping online for gadgets got tiring, when he didn't have anyone to impress with his new little toys.

In the outside world, his other-ness was more apparent. Despite years speaking Japanese in the office, his oral comprehension still wasn't the best. Shopkeepers and strangers on the street spoke much faster, and they used slang he wasn't familiar with. He realized just how much everyone at STN-J must have been slowing down, for him. It was unnerving. Still more unusual were the bizarre combinations of katakana and hiragana in shop windows, written in neon, or appearing on billboards and electronic advertising displays. They blipped by too fast for him to read. Asked to read code, or do research into old files, read tough technical Japanese, and Michael was fine. But little things, like slogans, or something a bit more poetic, and he still felt a tad insecure. He had a feeling that there was a larger joke buried in all those characters, and that he was probably missing out on it.

So it was at moments like these that he wished he were back in the States, where a barbershop, a simple, easygoing barbershop, would be easy to find and deal with. No, he did not want his hair spiked and teased and coated in a hundred different unlikely colors. He wanted it trimmed. Not a fashion manifesto that spoke to Japan's current boom of part-time workers spending all their money on image, just a trim. A little off the top, a little off the bottom, and maybe someone could do something about his ears…

Finally, after woefully deciding that a haircut wasn't in the cards, and opting for kiwi shave ice instead, Michael stumbled upon it. Immediately, he knew it was the place for him. It was populated by old men, some of whom played checkers or dominos outside, under the shady awning that bore the shop's name: Mr. Lucky's. There was even a matching good-fortune cat in the window, one paw raised, fat as Buddha in his later years, and wearing a similar grin. It looked more like a place in one of America's numerous Chinatowns than anywhere in Tokyo. He went inside.

Only one old man was getting his hair cut. It was being done so with meticulous care by a young Japanese girl, whose own auburn-highlighted hair hung down just to her shoulders in feathery layers that grew shorter around a face with creamy skin and surprisingly open brown eyes. In spite of himself, Michael smiled. The girl must have caught him looking, because she smiled back at him, in the mirror that she and the old man faced. “I'll be with you in a minute,” she assured him.

“Okay,” Michael answered. He sat down, and leafed through some magazines.

“Are you happy with it, Okuda-san?” the girl asked, a few minutes later. She smiled at the old man in the mirror.

“Of course, Aiko-chan,” he answered. “You're the only one who knows how to cut my hair. My wife tried once, and I may as well have put a bird's nest on my head!”

“I'm sure it wasn't that bad,” the stylist, apparently named Aiko, replied, preparing her customer's bill.

“You didn't see it,” the customer said ominously. He paid, and left a good tip, by the shy, delighted smile on Aiko's face. Michael reminded himself to do the same. “I'll be back next week!” the old man said, and bowed before leaving.

Aiko put the money away, and looked at Michael. “Next week, huh?” he asked. “You're pretty popular.”

She ducked her head, as though the compliment were a Frisbee that she dodged to avoid at the last second. Her hair half-covered her face, with the motion. But there was the barest hint of a smile on her face. Michael couldn't help himself—there was something innately good about shy people that he trusted implicitly.

“It's easy to do, really,” Aiko said, one hand fluttering in the air nervously. “Nothing special.”

“Still, it must be nice to have a job where you can make people so happy,” Michael said. “Not many people can say that about their jobs.”

“I guess,” she murmured, still smiling, but looking at the floor, now. “But I'm sure that you came here for a haircut, not to listen to me natter on!” Her face came up, flushed, and all the words left her mouth at once. She directed him to another chair, and began putting her fingers in his hair, testing its length. Almost immediately, Michael's eyes closed. He forced them open.

“You can natter on,” he said. “I'm sure lots of people natter on to you while they're in the chair. You must feel like a bartender, hearing everyone's troubles.”

Aiko giggled. “It's a little bit like that,” she admitted. “The patrons are a bit better behaved, though.” She tugged his hair. “Would you like it to be washed, first?”

Michael tried to remember the last time a beautiful woman had offered to wash his hair. “That's a great idea,” he said. “Lead the way.”

Aiko directed him to some sinks in a screened-off area of the shop, and had him recline in a chair. “Can I ask you to remove your glasses, please?” she said. This Michael did, blinking to re-adjust his eyes to the colors around him. The yellow of his lenses always threw things off, a little. “Can you see, without them?” Aiko asked.

“Oh, yeah,” Michael answered. “I just wear them to cut the glare from my computer screen.”

“You work with computers?” Aiko turned on the warm water, and used a small hose to soak Michael's hair with it. It trickled down his neck and he willed himself not to shiver.

“You could say that,” he answered. Aiko hit a particularly sensitive spot on his scalp, causing a deep tickle at the base of his spine. He writhed, a little. “Tickles,” he muttered.

Aiko giggled. “It's okay,” she said. “That happens to a lot of people. Something about the water, I guess. You can wiggle around. No one else is here to see you.” But she turned the water off, and began shaking something into her palm, and rubbing her hands together. She plunged her fingers, now covered in something slippery and smelling of coconut, into his hair. “Your hair is very dry,” she said matter-of-factly. “This is a conditioner to re-moisturize it, so it can be healthy again.”

“Mmm-hmmm…” Michael heard only a few words out of her sentence, instead choosing to relax and drift off. He hadn't realized until now just how long it had been since he'd been touched by someone else…he'd forgotten how pleasant…

“All done!” Aiko said. She was rinsing his hair out. “Now we can cut it. What did you have in mind?”

Michael opened his eyes slowly. He smiled genuinely, but kept his thoughts to himself. It was a survival skill, at STN-J. “Just a trim,” he answered.

***

Predictably, the address led them straight into the Walled City. Robin had been correct about the car—Amon had missed using it. The BMW was not meant to go neglected. Sure, it was a bit of an older model, but that hadn't diminished its responsiveness, or the pleasant, throaty purr it gave when put to use. In the summer night, he opened the moon-roof and let the wind tease their hair, a little. Robin tried to relax in the breeze, but it didn't take a man with his kind of skills to see that she was crawling out of her skin.

Of course, there was the possibility that it was all a trap. In fact, it was more than likely that upon their arrival, they would be tested yet again. Certainly, Robin's loyalty to him—Amon discontinued that line of thought. He didn't need to start thinking in that direction, as though Robin's “loyalty” to him should matter in the slightest. It was enough that they had formed a certain kind of trust. He reminded himself that although he had promised her something, she had promised him nothing—she could promise him nothing, not at this stage of her life. She would change, grow out of him. Her sole warden could be replaced by a host of protectors, all more powerful than he in the Craft. She would grow up, and he would outlive his usefulness. It was inevitable.

Still, her powers of intuition sometimes bordered on the uncanny. “Will they try to test us again, Amon?” she asked.

“They will most likely test you,” he answered, his eyes on the road. “They saw how well I performed in my last trial.”

Robin looked at him sharply, as though to reproach him for his bitterness, but she said nothing. He didn't respond to the silent temptation to reply that she was offering, and continued looking only at the road, bearing them smoothly and inexorably to their ultimate destination.

***

It was a warehouse. They had driven all the way to the old subway line, and from where they were parked, they could observe the old tracks rusting under the night sky. It was the very border of the Walled City—a forgotten industrial wasteland. Amon sat in the car and scoped the surrounding rooftops for snipers. Indeed, while they may not have been equipped with guns, observers of some kind were there, only partially concealed in the shadows. They weren't quite professionals at this game, yet, Amon noted with something not far distant from smugness. His hands sought his guns and found their reassuring weight in their holsters. He sighed. “Ready?” he asked.

Robin shook her head softly. “No,” she answered.

“You want to turn back, now?”

Again, she shook her head. “No. I just don't like warehouses.”

Amon was suddenly and vividly reminded of the old Greek story—he wasn't sure who had told it to him, perhaps it was an instructor during his Hunter training, or perhaps it was even Zaizen himself; the cruelty inherent to the narrative was certainly something that Zaizen would have relished telling a young boy. It was the bit of Spartan history saying that boys trained in the Spartan army (the best army in all of Minoan Greece, the one that never stopped, perfecting ground warfare) were forced to hunt their own game to eat, every day. But if they were caught with the animal by a master, they would be disgraced, even killed. The story went this way: one day, a boy brought a fox back to the barracks, under his shirt. But he was late returning, and did not have time to kill the fox before bringing it with him. So he kept it under his tunic. Knowing he would be humiliated before his peers and superiors if the fox were revealed, he let the fox slowly eviscerate him with its trapped claws and teeth while he listened with other boys to a lecture on military craft. He died a true Spartan soldier, choosing torture over dishonor.

Amon thought about why Robin would have a seemingly inexplicable fear of warehouses, and the fox ate his guts a little more. Rather than mentioning it directly, however, he merely pulled aside his jacket, revealing one of the guns. He removed it from the holster, and laid it in his palm.

“Do you know how to use one of these?” he asked.

Robin nodded, staring at the weapon. “Yes.”

“Then, you should have little to fear, from one.” He silently willed her to understand his meaning. She stared at him with those wide green eyes that appeared at once too innocent and too aged for her body. Amon was a Hunter, one level of certification below the level of Master. Holstered to him, the guns were his hands, his eyes. “I can't put these away, Robin.”

“I know.” Her voice was wistful, almost sad. Unexpectedly, she reached out and folded his fingers back over the gun. Something electric brushed between them. “Let's go,” she murmured.

They exited the car and crossed toward the warehouse. Amon let Robin walk a little ahead of him; being the taller one, his eyes naturally sought out dangers far above-ground. Robin's gaze was resolutely fixed on the large, hangar-like doors of the warehouse. The interior was apparently unlit. She reached it before he did, and began pushing one of the doors aside, making a little noise with the effort. Amon reached above her silently, and pushed it easily aside. She looked up at him briefly, but reading no expression there, turned back to the darkness, and walked inside.

Amon wasn't sure when exactly she had slipped her glasses on, only that she must have done so, or else have developed catlike qualities of vision, as a multitude of candles blazed into life around them. The light exposed a group of silent people of all shapes and ages, all dressed in drab, dark clothes. Amon recognized them immediately. They were the disaffected poor of the Walled City. One of them walked out of the crowd waiting on either side of the entrance, and leveled a stare at Robin. Amon smelled the attack coming, and the gun was in his hand and pointed before he could think. An attack soon followed immediately: a minor one, telekinetic in nature. Robin blocked it easily and it bounced harmlessly off her shield of heat. Amon was able to follow the fight but only in the smallest way; he felt a gathering of power on the part of Robin's opponent, but Robin's power was far more familiar and detectable. The ice storm inside him recoiled a little at its natural enemy, the heat, but Amon held his ground. As long as he stood behind her, there was little to fear. The gun stayed out anyway, now trained on the others in the crowd, as he watched for an attack from the side.

Another telekinetic attack followed. This time, the opponent sent three wooden crates at Robin. They caught fire almost immediately, and fell to the ground as cinders. Murmuring began in the crowd. Another in the crowd stepped in to take the attacker's place. This one was apparently an Earth Craft user, although on a small order, and not yet able to use the power of illusion. She sent a small earthquake Robin's way: Robin braced herself and shook for a moment, and then slid her feet outward, bracing herself on the ground with one hand in a movement not unlike a stretch. It was, Amon thought, something her old dress would never have afforded. He waited for her to rise, but she didn't, instead resting in her extra-limber position, daring the opponent with the arrogance only teenagers can muster to attack her while she waited like this. The attack did come a microsecond later, in the form of a cloud of gravel. The pebbles sparked like flint against Robin's shield as she rose. She began walking forward. He followed at a distance, wanting to give her her freedom, but wanting to protect her all the same.

“I want to speak with the person in charge,” she said, walking. Volleys of pebbles and old bricks assailed her. They fell like stone rain against the shield. “I was asked here by a man named Neville.”

“Miss Sena, you didn't think it would be that easy, did you?” Neville asked, stepping out of the shadows. His white suit was ethereal in the dimness. It was tinged a soft gold by the candlelight. Amon watched in consternation as ice-arrows surrounded their now-familiar spy, and shot themselves at Robin. He tensed, heart hammering. As before, the arrows melted around Robin, becoming water on the concrete floor. She continued walking. More volleys came, and she melted each of them. “Come now, stop being defensive!” Neville called out, and, stretching out his hand, froze the water on the floor into a thick coat of ice that only ceased when it hit Robin's shield and steamed angrily. Were Robin to step on it, she would inevitably slip and lose her concentration. Amon tried to keep his attention on the half-fight, half-ritual, instead of remembering that other test, with Single-Eye. Robin looked down at the coat of ice. She brought her attention up to Neville. The ground burst into flames, headed straight for the Ice Craft user. Loud steam boiled up from the floor, shrouding her briefly in its cloud. A perfect pathway was now cleared for her. It did not stop until flames licked Neville's shoes. Robin shook droplets of water from her long hair.

“Did you think my skill would not have improved after Single-Eye?” she asked.

Her answer came in the form of two girls roughly Robin's age, both Japanese. Amon noted with some interest that they were twins. They came running up behind Robin, out of the shadows. “Robin!” Amon barked, a not sure which twin to hit first. Robin whirled, blocking both with her shield and one of the dirtiest looks he'd ever seen cross her face. His hand froze, curled around the weapon. Robin's usually wide eyes had gone narrow, and her soft mouth was a single, cruel line. It was a moment before Amon understood what was so eerily familiar about the expression: it reminded him of himself.

The moves he might have also recognized, if he had taken the time. As it was, he was more surprised than anything else, when one of the girls barreled into Robin, and received a hard right fist in the eye for her trouble. This sent her reeling back into the crowd, while the other twin, enraged, went after Robin and was stopped short with a brutal punch in the stomach. She moaned a little in pain, as Amon noticed tendrils of bizarre satisfaction curling in his gut at the sight of Robin entering a real fight with her two latest enemies. His gun-hand relaxed, slightly. The girls panted, obviously angry, as they circled Robin. He realized that it was time to let her do this by herself—it was her test, not his. Robin drew herself to her full height, and Amon watched her body go still. It was similar to the way she had looked that first night he'd seen her use her Craft, when she had dodged her attacker with a tiny, graceful, endlessly frustrating movement. Robin sunk her hands deep into the pockets of her black twill coat. The twins ran as one toward her, and were met with her shield. They backed away, holding their hands. “No fair, it burns!” one called.

“You attacked me from behind,” Robin reminded them. She kept walking. And here Amon knew they had come almost full circle—for Robin looked and sounded just like him, fighting. She had attained the cold, calm clarity that he strove for. He wondered if the need for it was something she'd learned from him, or something that the fight with Single-Eye had impressed upon her. He had little time to wonder, however, as one twin, heedless of the pain and howling, perhaps to gather her courage, ran forward straight into the shield and, screaming, took a swipe at Robin's eyes, dislodging her glasses and stealing them.

Shit. Robin stopped, mid-step. The crowd must have seen something on her face that he, standing behind her, could not, for they went silent almost immediately.

“Give me back my glasses,” she intoned. Her voice was still quiet and unassuming, but Amon recognized the tone. It was that same hissing whisper, that same water on hot coals that he knew from her battle with Single-Eye and others. She had used it the first time she had killed someone with the Craft. Robin held her hand out, to receive her accessory back.

“I nearly burned my arm off to get these, no way!” The twin looked at her purple arm. She was shaking with shock.

“Those glasses help me to be more precise,” Robin explained calmly. “If you do not return them to me, I may set more than just your hair on fire.” Her glance moved briefly. “I may miss, and hit your sister.”

Amon reminded himself that Robin, though she may have been raised in a convent, was also trained by Master Hunters—arguably some of the cruelest men on Earth. He had seen her kill her own instructor with barely two words spoken between them. He had seen her light a young girl's gloves on fire. Her threats were not idle. In fact, it was rare that she took the time to make them. It was one of the reasons she was so dangerous. It was also the reason he was staying with her. And for as much as he wanted her to stay the innocent convent girl forever, not to become tainted like him, there was a definite swell of pride on his part as he watched her unflinchingly handle her enemies the way a Hunter would.

“Y-You wouldn't dare,” the burned twin accused.

Robin responded by setting both of their tresses on fire.

There was screaming. As one, the crowd parted nervously, edging away from the two girls on fire. “Take your fucking glasses!” one shouted, and threw them at Robin. She reached out effortlessly and caught them. “Make the fire stop!” the other one cried out.

“I can't stop it,” Robin answered, a hint of remorse in her tone. “It's the second law of thermodynamics. Entropy is always increasing.” She put the glasses back on, and pushed them back on the bridge of her nose. By now, Amon was striding up behind her. “Perhaps you should roll around on the ice,” she suggested.

“Now, now, Miss Sena-” Neville was back. Robin's head snapped up.

“Don't you `now, now,' me,” Robin retorted, interrupting him. Gone was the meek Robin; she'd left the building a while ago. “You asked me to come here. You asked for a leader. I didn't think you wanted a soft one.” She paused, and stared at the crowd. “Do you know where your families went, when they entered the Factory?” she barked. It was a harsh sound to Amon's ears, but he knew her idea was sound: these people needed to know the danger they were in. “They were sucked dry of their gift, and used as human livestock to create a substance that would castrate you of all your powers.” Shocked murmurs moved through the crowd. Amon watched a new look cross Robin's face as she took hold of all of them with her voice and words. “I killed the man who planned all of it. I killed him the same way I killed your old leader, Methuselah, after she gave me all her knowledge.” Robin threw her shoulders back and pointed her chin up, somehow making her jeans and sneakers regal, adding years to her age in a single breath. “When I return, I expect that my time will not be wasted.” She turned smartly on her toe, and began walking toward the exit. Amon followed.

Robin's feet crunched in the gravel as she made her way to the car. Amon used a remote to unlock it, and Robin practically threw herself into the vehicle. Amon took his time, and slid into the driver's seat. Robin stared out the windshield, and slowly, very slowly, put her hands on the dashboard and let her face rest in them. Her spine went slack; she was no longer the Eve of Witches, or the Devil's Child, just Robin Sena.

“I want to go home,” she whispered. There were tears in her voice. Amon started the car.