Witch Hunter Robin Fan Fiction ❯ Binah (Understanding) ❯ The City Aeneas Built ( Chapter 16 )

Robin stared listlessly at the seat-back ahead of her. She was at the window, but did not watch the view of white, cottony clouds beneath them. It was gorgeous blue daylight outside. She barely noticed. Amon had shuffled her through airport security; they didn't have time to look suspicious because they didn't have time to be nervous or otherwise incriminate themselves. Michael had fabricated rather excellent false papers for them. They were at the back of the plane, with engine noise over-riding sane thought. Occasionally the engine would cough or hiccup and Amon flinched, wondering if after all of their struggle, they would finally die at thirty-five thousand feet.

One surprise was Nagira and Doujima's insistence on coming with them. He was unaware that they had made travel arrangements, too. “Hey, buddy, I need to escape, too,” Nagira had reminded his brother. “Things are just a little too hot, right now. If Solomon looks and can't find you, I'm the first one whose door they'll bang on.”

“But why Doujima?” Amon had asked.

“She's my cover, of course! We're getting married.”

“What?” Amon blinked.

“Not really, silly!” Doujima said, tapping Amon on the chest with the back of her hand. “That's our excuse! We're eloping!”

Amon looked between them. “You're insane.”

“Insanely in love, you mean,” Doujima teased, wrapping her arms around Nagira's middle.

“Hey, we should hit Antwerp,” Nagira suggested. “I'll find you a nice big rock, there.”

“Really? How big?”

Amon tuned them out. Everything had gone to hell. Touko. His mother. Michael. Kobari. His mental stamina was shot. He desperately needed for the world to stop—he wanted off the ride. Robin had attained what looked like zen blankness. She stared at nothing, and continued to do so as the plane lifted off into the air, and eventually achieved cruising altitude. Now she did the same. A vodka tonic in a cheap plastic cup sweated in Amon's hand. He passed it over to her side. “Drink this,” he said.

Robin blinked slowly. She looked at him, then at the drink. “Oh,” she said, and put both hands around it. She stared at it for a while, then tentatively sipped.

“No, all at once,” Amon said. “You can do it, go on.” Robin drank, grimacing, and even took the last remaining drops. She handed him the cup. “Do you want another one?” he asked.

Robin shook her head. She stared at her loosely-knotted hands. “Aren't you sad?” she asked, out of nowhere.

“Yes, I'm sad,” Amon answered honestly, uncertain of where this was going.

“Then, why…” She turned around to face him. “I can't tell, by your face, if you're hurting.” Her lips pinched. “You always look sad, Amon.” Her brows furrowed. “Unless you're angry.” He was about to say something, tell her he'd been happy, that she'd seen him so, when her head came to rest on his shoulder suddenly. He wasn't sure if it was just the alcohol taking effect or the combined weight of events dragging her down. “Solomon took your smile, didn't they?” Robin theorized, her voice solemn and slightly intoxicated. “They stole it.”

“Yes, Robin,” Amon said, leaning down. “That's exactly what happened.”

“You smiled so much when you were little…” Her voice edged into sleepiness. “You were so perfect, when you were little…”

“That was a long time ago,” Amon murmured into her hair.

“I couldn't do anything…” Robin dug her cheek into his arm. She sniffed, hard. “I couldn't do anything…”

“Neither could I,” Amon replied, “for either of them.” He kissed her scalp. Odd, that a touch he'd never have considered a week ago felt almost commonplace, now. It was a single, chaste touch, but in making it he realized how much he'd wanted it, even needed it, for much longer. And Robin didn't protest—she seemed to derive strength from the attention, touching him now with her hands as well as her eyes. He laid a cheek on her head. “Go to sleep, now,” he urged.

“Your mother was pretty, Amon, I saw…” Her eyes had already dropped closed.

“Both of our mothers were very beautiful,” he agreed quietly, feeling her relax into sleep, remembering the photograph he'd seen of Maria Colegui. “And you look just like yours,” he whispered, feeling the gentle, rhythmic warmth of Robin's sleeping breath through his shirt.

***

The Leonardo da Vinci International Airport is a crablike, steel-and-glass monstrosity that would appear more at home in a science fiction novel than an hour's bus ride away from the ancient city of the Caesars and the Pope. Complete with three terminals, motorized causeways, and the greedy bacteria of equally nondescript and absurdly expensive American hotels crowding around its every orifice, it was a horror for Amon to contemplate. He was hyper-aware of every surveillance camera, of which there were many. During the 1980's, terrorists had killed a few innocent bystanders at the airport itself, and neither the airport's security forces nor the Roman police had ever forgotten the incident. He felt oppressed from the moment he set foot off the plane. In large part, this had to do with the fact that upon his last visit here, he was injured and confused—Robin's alleged “Hunt” had not proceeded according to plan in the slightest, and it seemed that Solomon wasn't even interested in her; Zaizen had led him astray. Despite the cheerful fluorescent glow of the airport, Amon could still remember himself, sweating with the pain of what he halfway-suspected were internal injuries, still bearing the bruises of Solomon's plastic bullets, trying to figure out what the hell was going on while his mind spun with paranoia.

“Take it easy, buddy,” Nagira said, rubbing his brother's back in a friendly, guffawing-Japanese-tourist kind of way, as though understanding somehow the content of Amon's thoughts.

Doujima dragged Robin in the direction of a restroom, and Amon watched after them with plain worry in his face. “I've never been in a situation this bad, before,” he realized suddenly. “When I came here the first time, after Robin's Hunt, it was different.”

“Hey, at least you know the layout of the joint.”

Amon turned to him. “I was alone, before. With you three along, I can't afford to take the same chances.”

“You weren't who you are, now, then,” Nagira reminded him. He leaned forward into his brother. “For one thing, you couldn't ice shit over.”

This was true. Amon squared his shoulders, watching Robin and Doujima return. “There, now, what shall we do?” Doujima asked. “I don't know about anybody else, but I'm starving.”

It rather appalled Amon that Doujima could think of food at a time like this, when they were in the heart of a security web probably watched in no small way by Solomon, but he heard his brother concur in the expected way. “Baggage claim should have doors to the street level,” Nagira said. “We can probably find a cab, there.” He tapped Robin on the shoulder. “Hey, kiddo, can you navigate?”

“What?” Robin asked, blinking.

“You're the one who was raised here, sweetheart! You can read the signs! Direct us!”

“Oh, right,” Robin said, nodding vaguely, and proceeded on. None of them had actually checked baggage, knowing what a security trap that was, but they headed in the direction of baggage claim anyway. Robin carried her small valises numbly. She shuffled along a few steps ahead of them, apparently following only her nose, seemingly heedless of the gleaming, noisy airport world around them until a random group of men getting coffee at one ubiquitous Starbucks (even at the center of the espresso world, the Americans still reigned supreme, Amon noted) whistled lewdly. Amon's head came up, his temper flaring. His immediate thought was that someone had catcalled to Robin, but Robin apparently thought differently—she dropped her bags unceremoniously and marched up to the men at the gentrified coffee bar and pointed at Doujima.

And then from her mouth was let free the longest and most lovely string of curses Amon had ever heard. It poured out like liquid poetry, all rhyming words and rolled `r' sounds. His Italian was limited, but Hunter training under some of Italy's finest had given him an ear for the vile things Robin was now suggesting that the coffee-drinkers were, do, for whom, and for how long. Her tiny mouth moved at a speed he previously would have classified as impossible for her. Gone was her halting, uncertain voice—it occurred to him for the first time that in her first language, she was almost a different person. Flecks of her saliva stuck on the men's faces. She gesticulated wildly at Doujima, and his limited Italian caught the phrase “my sister” in there somewhere. As her furious invective permeated the air, Robin's posture straightened; she took on her Walled City stance. Her cheeks colored. The men subjected to her cursing slowly shrank away from her, browbeaten into submission by the sheer force of her nervy rage. They put up their hands, waving and surrendering, and began shouting apologies to Doujima. Robin drew one more scornful breath, seeming to make herself ready for another onslaught, but stopped short. Turning on her heel, she picked up the valises, and began marching again, not nearly so defeated as before.

“Feeling better?” Amon asked behind her in Japanese, on an escalator.

“Yes,” she answered decisively.

“Hey, Robin, is that why you always covered up all the time?” Doujima asked, as they departed the escalator. “You know, with the long sleeves and long skirts and stuff?” She gestured at her arms.

“Yes,” Robin answered, once more someone recognizable as she spoke Japanese. “I don't like being…noticed. And, the men here…” She looked at the floor. “I mean, not that they would, but…”

“Oh, don't be silly,” said an Italian voice in Japanese from the busy baggage claim area. A woman in a creamy beige skirt suit that highlighted a fantastic, voluptuous figure stepped out from the crowd. Even under the unflattering fluorescent light, her black hair, tinged with auburn, shone, and her skin appeared to glow. “You're quite lovely, Miss Sena, there's no use denying it.”

Robin didn't seem to know whether to blush or run away. Amon, realizing they had time for neither, stepped forward. “Who are you?”

“You must be the warden.” The woman smiled, but sized him up the way she would a workhorse or some other beast of burden. “Well, you certainly fit the description, at least.” Her smile brightened a bit, revealing almost alarmingly white teeth. “My name is Monica Zabini. Welcome to Rome.”

“Are we supposed to know you?” Amon pushed.

“No, you're not,” Zabini answered crisply. “But I am here at the request of our late mutual friend, Mr. Kobari.”

“How do we know that for sure?” Robin asked, piping up.

Zabini smiled. “An excellent question. I will prove it to you in the usual way. Obviously, Kobari would tell me a detail from his life that only one or two people would know, specifically one of you. Although there are four of you, which is unexpected. However, there is room! Back to the original point.” She turned abruptly to Amon. “Moments after the death of his son, Mr. Kobari saw you in the archway leading into Harry's, his restaurant and bar. He there confessed to you that the reason he helped to exile his son was because his son reflected back to him a fear he had as a Seed—a fear of some darkness lying in wait, in his very blood.” She paused, making certain she had established eye contact. “He told me that at the time, you were in a unique position to understand his words. Is what I have said true?”

The airport bustled around them. They carried on their unusual conversation in the banal surroundings of baggage claim, as people did battle to get their overlarge luggage off the buzzing steel carousel. Amon's mind was elsewhere, on Kobari's words, on the evening during which he'd heard them, and the tears on the barman's face—tears he'd not shed for his own death just hours earlier. “It's true.” He nodded. He looked at Robin, who watched him. He nodded again, just to her, and she seemed satisfied.

“Right then,” Zabini said, and smiled once again at everyone. “Unexpected guests, please introduce yourselves.”

Nagira's lip quirked. “I'm Syungi Nagira, Amon's brother,” he said. He bowed a little, apparently dumbfounded.

“And I'm Yurika Doujima,” the blond Hunter said. “I-”

“We are well aware of your record, Miss Doujima,” Zabini said. “In my family, even Solomon's secrets are not so very secret.” With brisk, efficient movements, Zabini knelt and began frisking Doujima, apparently searching for weapons.

“Hey, that's my girlfriend…” Nagira looked confused just for a moment longer, then appeared to realize what exactly he was watching—that being another woman giving his woman a thorough feeling-up. “Hey,” he said, more to himself than anyone else, “that's my girlfriend…”

Robin stared up at Amon, mystified. He shook his head softly. Zabini, content with her search of Doujima, moved on to Nagira. He gave her a lazy grin, but she didn't return it. “Hey, you're not going to search him?” he asked, jerking a thumb at Amon when Zabini began leading them outside the doors. She turned.

“The warden can wear whatever armaments he deems necessary in his protection of the Eve,” she stated clearly. “It is not my place to judge his decisions in his most expert area.” She began leading them once more, and they emerged into the early evening in Italy. She waved a hand in the air vaguely.

“Well, I don't know if I'd call him an expert…” Nagira said. A rather elegant black limousine rolled up to the curb. “Holy shit…” He cleared his throat. “Hey, uh, Miss Zabini…this family of yours…it's not, like, what I think it is, right?” He folded his hands on the roof of the car.

“No, Mr. Nagira,” Zabini answered, opening one car door. “It isn't like what you think it is. It is exactly what you think it is.”

***

The Zabini stronghold, or one of them, as Monica Zabini pointed out, was located north of the city by a few miles, in a rocky outcropping of hills overlooking, of all things, Solomon headquarters. “My forebears, being themselves Witches, rather enjoyed looking down on the Hunters' property,” she explained. The limousine whispered up to a gated entrance complete with video surveillance and armed guards. The driver, a man Monica addressed as Pico, showed identification and they were waved through onto a cobbled drive lined with softly glowing electric lamps. The vehicle climbed a gentle hill, the horizon of which revealed the sprawling, Baroque outlines of an estate home. Windows blazed with golden light. The drive curled behind the house to a car-park where several other luxury vehicles waited. It was a brightly lit garage, with the light of fluorescent bulbs glittering on an impressive group of gleaming cars.

“I apologize for bringing you around the back, like this,” Monica Zabini said. “You'll miss out on the foyer. We're particularly proud of that foyer.”

They exited the limousine and were instantly surrounded by a group of toughs in business casual attire, who shepherded the rather puzzled pseudo-family of Japanese visitors into an elevator, with Zabini leading the way. She stepped out of the elevator, leading her travel-weary group into a small room filled with coats, hats, shoes, umbrellas, and other accoutrements. “This is the mud room,” she informed them. “While it is not so customary in Italy as in Japan to remove one's shoes before entering the home, if you wish to do so, you may do it here. Mostly, this room is for wet things from the pool.”

“There's a pool?” Doujima asked brightly.

“Yes, Miss Doujima, there is a pool. Although I will warn you,” and here her eyes shifted to Nagira, “that it, too, is under constant surveillance.”

Nagira seemed to deflate, having apparently read his girlfriend's mind. The Italian woman watched them carefully before turning to Amon and Robin. “Naturally, warden, we will be apprising you of our home's security system, and introducing you to our staff, after you have had a good night's rest.”

“Understood,” Amon said.

“Well, now it's time for you to meet Papa,” Monica said, smiling. “He's been so excited to meet you.” She led them across a well-kept, intricately tiled floor, an extension of the foyer she had raved so much about, and into the west wing of the home. A series of doors eventually opened upon a private den, upholstered in deep green and cherry wood. The room smelled of cigar smoke and leather. At first it appeared that no one was present, but a pair of French doors opened onto a small balcony overlooking the wavery blue lights of the pool. There, sitting at a small wrought iron table, was a man in his shirtsleeves, smoking contemplatively from a quality cigar that, Amon realized, Administrator Zaizen might have given a month's salary to attain.

The man mumbled something in Italian under his breath and Monica tsk'ed him from behind—apparently his words were none too polite. At this the old man turned, revealing a rugged, still-handsome face topped by gleaming silver hair that still grew in thick. For just a moment he looked forbidding, almost predatory, but instantly he smiled and his face changed completely. The sharp black eyes became merry and bright. He addressed Robin, throwing up his hands in a welcoming gesture. The hands clasped themselves around her shoulders, and he kissed both her cheeks. To Amon's surprise, Robin returned the gesture, smiling openly. Then the old Mafioso held her at arm's length, taking stock of her, his grin still in place. Amon's fragmentary knowledge of Italian from days past was coming back to him—the first words from old Zabini's mouth were “how beautiful.”

Monica Zabini apparently agreed, speaking in Italian with her father. Robin's head ducked shyly to the floor. Both Zabinis made noises that roughly translated into “how cute!” in any language, and Robin blushed still further. Ever so softly, she shook her head, as though denying their verdict. Signor Zabini replied by placing a fond arm around Robin's shoulders and giving her a little side-hug. His eyes met Amon's above her head. Zabini's face slipped fractionally. His eyes darkened, although if it was with surprise or warning, Amon could not tell. He said something in Italian to Amon, and Robin spoke back to him. She nodded at Amon as though to make reference to him, and then introduced Nagira and Doujima, who smiled back tentatively. Zabini had eyes only for Amon, however, and surprised him by taking a hold of him and embracing him heartily, thumping him on the back. After twenty-five years of Japanese culture, in which touching a stranger was considered rather brash, Amon was a bit unprepared, and was still processing the interaction when the other man let him go. His eyes connected with his brother's, and Nagira's seemed to say quite literally: when in Rome, buddy, when in Rome.

***

Further introductions were apparently to be made later, for it was not long after this that Monica Zabini and her father, who later haltingly addressed himself as “Vincenzo,” dismissed them from his private den and instructed Monica in some matter. “I'm to show you to your rooms,” she said. “One extra is easy to manage, of course,” she told Nagira and Doujima, and quickly ushered them into a room across the hall from Amon's. Amon was shown his room next, all cherry paneling and bookshelves, and an off-putting polar bear rug on the floor. The bear snarled at their feet. Amon noticed Robin tiptoeing around it.

“Your rooms adjoin, naturally,” Monica added, opening a door into a much brighter room filled with botanical prints and exotic flowers kept under glass hoods. Also under glass were rare butterfly specimens in sapphire and amethyst, forever maintained in their shadowbox frames, kept on the walls for all to see. High windows shaded by gauzy white curtains looked into the hills. Robin's new bed, so high off the ground that it was accompanied by a footstool, was draped with blue, the bedspread itself a pattern of blue roses on white silk. Robin's luggage waited beside an open armoire hung with beveled mirrors.

“It's lovely,” Robin said politely.

“The bathroom is just across the hall from you,” Monica supplied. “Please let me know if there is anything else you require. For now, though, I suggest some sleep.”

Robin nodded. “Thank you very much.”

Monica looked at Amon. “For tonight, your doors are still being watched by armed men,” she informed him. “Do not be surprised if you hear them outside.”

“Thank you,” Amon replied. And with that, Monica Zabini left the room.

For the first time in what seemed like days, Amon was alone with Robin. An uneasy quiet settled between them. Robin looked around the room, a little mystified. She hugged her arms. “I'm going to break something,” she murmured, half wistful, half wary.

“I doubt they'll penalize you,” Amon answered. “These people seem to adore you.”

Robin nodded slowly. “It's so different in Japan,” she said. “Here, everyone is so…” She gestured in great loops and whirls with her hands, indicating the garrulous reception she'd experienced. “I'd forgotten. At the convent, it was different. And in Japan, no one is like that.”

“It will take some getting used to.”

Robin blinked and smiled at him. “I forgot to warn you, about the men here,” she said. “They hug.”

“It's odd,” Amon said flatly.

“It's just the standard greeting-”

“It's still odd.” Amon's lips quirked. “Even my brother doesn't do…that.”

“I'm sure Don Zabini is just trying to help everyone feel comfortable around him,” Robin explained. “I'm sure, being the man that he is, he's so used to everyone being afraid of him…it must make him feel very alone.”

Only Robin, Amon reflected, naturally found it in her heart to sympathize with mobsters, without glorifying their ways. “Do you know anything about him?” Amon asked.

Robin didn't answer straightaway, but instead began unzipping her jacket. She moved to hang it in the armoire. When she had done so, smoothing it on the hanger, she kicked off her sandals and wiggled her toes on the antique, floral-pattern rug. She then went to her bed, and climbed atop it. She lay on her stomach, her chin propped up on her hands.

“I heard about the Zabini family, when I lived here,” she began. “But only in whispered conversations. I heard bits and pieces, here and there. It was not meant for my ears.”

“But you heard it anyway.”

Robin nodded. Her eyes were distant. “There was a rumor going around that their family helped and housed Witches, in addition to their organized crime affiliations.” Her eyes flicked up to him. “I guess we know the truth of that, now.” She frowned. “You can sit down, Amon,” she reminded him. “You don't have to stand.”

Amon looked doubtfully around him at the white brocade divan, and its matching parlor chairs edged in dark, ornately-carved wood that stretched into slender, sloping legs. “I'd rather stand,” he said.

“Your room is more comfortable,” Robin said. “I like it better.”

“We were barely there two minutes.”

“I still like it better.”

“Oh? I thought you were scared of the polar bear.”

A flash of indignation lit Robin's face. “I am not!” Her brows furrowed at him. “I like the polar bear. It's not his fault the taxidermist made him snarl like that.” Her hands folded, and she put her chin on her crossed arms. “We should name the polar bear.”

“You need sleep.”

Robin shook her head stubbornly, moving like a Robin-shaped serpent on the bed, her head moving slowly from left to right. “I'm not tired,” she insisted. “This bed is too big…I'll drown in it.” Her eyes were dropping closed. “I slept on the plane…”

“Yes, but I didn't,” Amon said. He began moving about the room, finding the switches to the delicate blown glass lamps that infused the room with their light, and extinguishing them. Corner by corner, the room darkened. Robin's eyes were now closed, but she was still shifting slowly on her covers.

“I'll wake up and break something,” she murmured. “They'll be mad…”

Amon came to the bed and pulled down one corner of the covers, and he urged her toward it with one hand to her elbow. Reluctantly, she began to half-roll, half-crawl to it. Her legs slid under the covers first, then the rest of her. “It's them who should worry about angering you,” he intoned. “Remember that.”

Robin's hand came out from under the covers, wandering into the air blindly. It found Amon's wrist. “Keep the door open, like always,” she whispered. “I want…in case…”

“I know. I will.” Amon took hold of her wrist carefully, and let her hand rest on the pillow beside her head. He paused. “But this tucking-in business has got to stop. I won't do it again.”

Robin's eyes opened, completely lucid, darker than the shadowy room. Silently, they asked if she'd done something wrong, pushed the boundaries too far. Amon let a small smile play across his face in the dark. He resisted the urge to reach out, touch her. “Teasing,” he murmured.

Robin's hand came up again, an index finger finding the groove at the corner of his mouth. “Smiling,” she responded, grinning back.

Amon answered by holding a finger to his lips in a silent “sshh…” gesture of implied secrecy between them, turned out her last light, and left the room—careful, of course, to leave the door a little open.