Witch Hunter Robin Fan Fiction ❯ Binah (Understanding) ❯ A Time for Every Purpose ( Chapter 25 )

Binah: 24: A Time For Every Purpose Under Heaven

 

Notes: Okay, true believers, here it is. The End. Le fin. It's been a long time in coming, and I wholeheartedly apologize for keeping your hopes up, then dashing them, then bringing them back again. But it's all over now, for better or for worse, and our heroes have met their fate.

 

. . .

 

“What do you mean, you can't find her?” Nagira growled.

 

He was awake, which meant he was conscious enough to be angry. And while his medication eased the pain, it also hazed what sense of social propriety he had left. He fixed a gimlet stare on Monica, who sat beside his hospital bed, hands folded, ankles crossed. She wore a navy suit and matching pumps. The outfit was strangely conservative, for a woman of her ilk.

 

“Mr. Nagira,” she said in measured tones, “we are doing our utmost-”

 

“You offered us help,” Nagira interrupted. “You offered us asylum. You said we would be safe. And because your family can't make money the legitimate way, I've lost my brother, I've lost Robin, and I've lost-”

 

The door creaked open. Doujima was in a wheelchair. Her pallor was ashen. “Honey,” she said, blinking back tears.

 

“Oh, baby,” Nagira murmured. A nurse wheeled Doujima in carefully. Monica stood, giving the couple more room. Doujima reached for Nagira's hand. “You made it,” Nagira said. He kissed her fingers. “You made it.”

 

“I have something to tell you,” Doujima said.

 

“What is it?”

 

“The doctors, when I woke up, they told me…” Doujima's face crumpled and she burst into tears.

 

“Baby, if it's about you walking again, I think you're just as sexy in a wheelchair,” Nagira joked. His voice was weak. He stroked her hand. “Just tell me what it is, and we'll figure it out, together.”

 

Doujima shook her head. “It's not that,” she said. She sniffled mightily. “They told me that we were pregnant,” she said, in a small voice. She pounded the mattress with her other fist. “I had no idea, Syungi, really, I had no clue—I was only a week late! I thought it was the stress!”

 

“Hey, a baby, that's great!” Nagira said. He kissed her forehead. “I don't know how I'll feed the kid, given that I have no firm left, but we'll figure it out-”

 

“That's not all!” Doujima cried. Her fist uncurled, drifted upward, and the hand covered her face. “We lost it,” she said. “It's gone.”

 

Nagira felt the anger drain from him completely. In its place was nothing, only a sense of emptiness, as though he'd been pumped full of fog. He gripped her hand, hard. His glance rose to Monica. “I'll never forgive you for this,” he said to her. “Get out of my sight. Come back when you have my brother, or Robin.”

 

. . .

 

When Amon awoke, the Cardinal was sitting outside his cell. St. Martin still looked pristine and neat, as though the years' worth of untouched grime in Solomon's brig hadn't fazed him. “Mr. Nagira,” he said, when Amon blinked. “You're awake. How gratifying.”

 

In answer, Amon gave him the finger.

 

“You're just as clever as ever, I see,” the Cardinal said. “I was hoping that we could talk.”

 

Amon rolled over, and faced the wall.

 

“I have news for you,” St. Martin said. When Amon said nothing, he continued. “Your brother, and your former associate, Miss Doujima, have awakened.” Amon held his mouth shut. He bit his tongue. He would do his own celebrating, later, when the self-important bastard on the other side of the cage was gone. “It seems that Miss Sena appeared at their hospital, shortly before their rather inexplicable recovery.”

 

Of course she did. If she couldn't save me, she'd save them.

 

“After that, she disappeared.”

 

Amon listened to the Cardinal's vain attempt to keep frustration out of his voice. It was obvious that Solomon wanted to keep an eye on Robin. Again they had underestimated her—they had expected that Amon was the brains of the operation and that without him she would be useless, when in fact she had evaded capture more efficiently now that they were apart. The irony was not lost on Amon, and he wondered, not for the first time, if she would have been better off without him. He had assumed that as her warden he was fulfilling a necessary role, but perhaps not. Perhaps letting Robin fly free would have been best. Could he have really presumed to protect her, after all? She had more power in her little finger than hordes of witches; she had faced off against gangs of attackers. What was his intervention, in the face of that?

 

“Do you have nothing to say, Mr. Nagira?”

 

Amon merely shifted on the cot.

 

“We have no idea where she might be. Her grandfather Juliano Colegui, who was a dear friend of that Inquisitor you so casually killed some days ago, I might add, is also nowhere to be found. We thought he might return to his monastery, but so far he has not.”

 

Tough shit, Amon thought.

 

“We have kept watch on the Zabini estate, of course. You know, it wasn't us who flushed you out. It was a rival family in the Cosa Nostra. It seems that certain factions of the Girardi family have been itching for a fight, since the latest don took power.”

 

Isn't that special, he thought. Do you want a cookie?

 

“I do not want a cookie,” St. Martin said aloud. “Although the idea itself is not unpleasant.” Amon listened to him fold his legs. He fought down his terror. He clamped his hands into fists.

 

You've been able to listen in, this whole time.

 

“Indeed, I have,” St. Martin answered. “You don't think I rose to my position in the Knights of Solomon without, as they say, a little help from my friends?”

 

Just how much cock did you suck to get to the top, then?

 

“Mr. Nagira!” St. Martin said, feigning shock. Amon heard the chuckle behind his words. “Such language!”

 

You can hear me, right now?

 

“Of course I can.”

 

Good. I want to tell you a secret.

 

Now aware of St. Martin's presence within his mind, Amon could almost feel the other man burrowing in, deeper. He willed himself not to flinch, not to retch. Single-Eye was a child in comparison to this man's skill at mental invasion—Amon suddenly doubted that Vincenzo Zabini would feel St. Martin's incursion, if it came to that. Amon sensed the other man's curiosity; having him inside his head felt like staring into a film closeup of a spider's head: too many eyes, too many fangs.

 

“What is it you wish to show me?”

 

This.

 

And, for the first time in quite a long time, Amon let loose the memory which fueled his personal ice storms. He had not re-visited it in years. Until this moment, it was entirely too painful—it felt like a piece of shrapnel lodged inside him. But now, it was nothing. It couldn't hurt him. Nothing could, not anymore. He wasn't sure when that had happened. Between the shooting and the running and the surrender of all his personal freedom, he must have misplaced the pain, somewhere.

 

In truth he remembered this moment with perfect clarity: He was seven. His feet were bare. It was one of his mother's precious few good days—a day when she actually answered his questions. He was wearing a t-shirt with Kimba the White Lion on it. At seven, he had loved Kimba. He and Syungi were always fighting over the TV, because Kimba re-runs were on the same time as new Voltron episodes. In fact, they were doing just that, when Amon's mother called them to dinner. Nagira let him up from his pinned position, quickly put him in a headlock, and marched him to the kitchen. Amon's mother was making tonkatsu, his favorite. The oil was still bubbling and spitting inside the wok. He heard his mother warn them to stay away from it, because droplets of boiling oil could hurt them. It was an old warning and he had it memorized. It was strange to hear someone else interrupt it, when the front door burst open.

 

Amon recognized the men who had taken his father away immediately. It was only a few weeks ago, but he knew that he would never forget them—he still had nightmares. For a moment, there was silence, with the woman, the two children, and the men with guns all staring at each other. Syungi still had him in that headlock. It was starting to smell. Then there was a click, and Syungi forced him to the floor, covering his whole body. Amon twisted and writhed, trying to get up, but Syungi was so heavy… Amon craned his neck, nearly choking, in time to see his mother's lips harden.

 

The wok, full of boiling oil, flew across the room and straight into the gunmen's faces. Some spattered on Amon's mother's sweater, but she did not flinch. The first bullet caught her in the chest. She looked down at it in surprise. The next caught her in the shoulder, and she half-spun, so that the next two buried themselves in her stomach. The next found her head, just before she fell, and Amon saw the explosion of red and gray and white, before the ruin of her head hit the floor.

 

“Bastards!” Syungi shrieked, his pre-pubescent voice cracking. He stumbled upward, and slipped in the blood on the kitchen floor before upsetting the group of knives on the worktop. He grabbed the santoku and brandished it—it looked massive in his hand—before driving it, hard, into the thigh of the nearest man. He received a club to the head, for his trouble, and collapsed.

 

The men advanced into the room slowly. Amon was aware of a terribly high sound, like the air-raid sirens in old war movies. His face hurt. His throat hurt.

 

“Somebody quiet him down,” one of the men said.

 

Amon was still lying down. His mother's blood was an ever-widening pool on the floor, dark, almost black, foul-smelling, and on a level with his eyes. And it was creeping steadily, insidiously, to his place on the floor, like evil liquefied, and Amon knew that if it touched him, he would surely die.

 

Then, in his line of sight, there was the toe of a boot. And after that, blackness.

 

There was a moment's pause, before St. Martin asked, “Why did you show that to me?” His voice was quiet. Amon wondered suddenly if he'd perturbed the old man.

 

Solomon turned me once. I won't make the same mistake again.

 

“You have associated your mother and Miss Sena in your mind.”

 

Paging Dr. Freud…

 

“Mr. Nagira, I already know that you do not know where Miss Sena is,” St. Martin snapped. “Your mind is an open book to me. If you had known, I would have found her, already.”

 

So you came down here for the company? Getting lonely, at the top?

 

“I merely wanted to inform you of current events. I thought you might want to know that your brother and his lover are alive, and that Miss Sena remains unharmed…by us, at least. What dangers may have befallen her in the interim are beyond me.”

 

Amon grinned. There's something else I want to show you.

 

“More treasured childhood memories?”

 

Right out of the family album.

 

Again he felt that sickening burrowing, as though maggots had infested his still-living flesh. Amon pushed the feeling aside. When he felt that the other man was watching him, he quickly fastened on to the feeling. He could feel St. Martin in there, much as he'd felt Single-Eye, and he focused all of his energy on holding St. Martin's consciousness in place.

 

“Mr. Nagira-”

 

This is what she's going to do to you, when she finds you.

 

At which point, Amon gave Cardinal St. Martin Robin Sena's Greatest Hits: blistering skin, hair on fire, eyes exploding. He gave the old man his recollections, in detail, of all Robin's best handiwork. Amon's memory was a good one, and he pumped everything he could into St. Martin: the smoky smell of burning flesh, the impossibly high screams of people whose bodies were aflame. He felt St. Martin squirming, trying to get out of the mental strangle-hold Amon had on his awareness. He was out in moments, but not before Amon had shared with him one last memory—that of Single-Eye, on fire, screaming, as his body melted from the inside out.

 

“Mr. Nagira,” St. Martin said shakily, “I would have thought you had a greater opinion of Miss Sena's compassion.”

 

I do. It's the only reason you're alive.

 

. . .

 

Constantino Girardi sat waiting in Monica Zabini's office. The sounds of reconstruction blared all around him: a circular saw, a foreman talking to laborers. Monica was just outside the door, talking to an interior decorator who sounded as nervous as Constantino felt. It seemed strange to think that he might die in this room—it was a very well-kept office, with creamy leather and fresh calla lilies in Waterford crystal. Like most other men of his profession, Constantino knew quality when he saw it, and had been deeply impressed with the Zabini home from the moment he stepped inside it. If he were not so afraid, he would have undoubtedly enjoyed it a great deal more.

 

“Mr. Girardi,” Monica said. Her voice was frosty, and her hand was outstretched. Constantino half-rose to shake her hand. She held his hand for a moment longer than necessary, staring him down as she did so.

 

He sat down heavily. “I'm sorry,” he blurted.

 

“What?” Monica asked, smoothing her skirt before sitting down.

 

“I didn't order the attack on your home.”

 

“I know that,” Monica snapped. She crossed her legs. “You couldn't control your own men, and they attacked us without provocation.” Monica leaned forward. “Have you any idea of the trouble you've caused me?”

 

Constantino flushed. Acid burned in his stomach. “Whatever idea I may have, I know it cannot compare to the reality of what has happened.”

 

Monica sighed. “That is true,” she agreed. “Your inability to maintain control upset plans which you have no clue about.” She blinked. “Did you come here to apologize?”

 

“Yes,” Constantino answered. “And also, to ask a favor.”

 

Monica leaned forward. One perfectly-groomed eyebrow arched. Constantino caught a whiff of her perfume, and a distant part of him noticed that it was strangely androgynous, musky. Monica blinked. “You are either very brave, or very stupid,” she said.

 

Constantino swallowed. “I know.”

 

“You were the one who let the peace be broken. I have every right to kill you where you sit.”

 

“I know,” he repeated, looking at the floor. “But before you do, I'd like you to help me find my sister.”

 

Monica stood, and crossed over to him. With one hand, she tipped his chin up. “Your what?” she asked.

 

“Elena,” he said. “My little sister. Patriani has her.”

 

With a surprisingly dexterous hand, Monica gave him a small, hard slap that left his cheek stinging. “Your stupidity knows no bounds,” she sighed. She faced away from him now, arms folded, staring at a massive grandfather clock made in multi-faceted, leaded crystal. “I will help you find her,” Monica said, finally.

 

Constantino blinked. “You will?”

 

“Yes. How much is your sister worth to you?”

 

He frowned. “My sister is priceless to me, Monica.”

 

Monica turned on her heel. “Good. Then, your whole operation should do, in exchange.”

 

“What?”

 

“I'm buying you out,” she said. She went to a nearby desk, and pulled out stationery, and a pen. She pulled out the chair. “I think it's perfectly fair, after you've destroyed part of my home and sent my friends to the hospital. Patriani and his men will have no chance of setting up their own syndicate without your support—they wanted war, and they'll have one. It will be a nice, tidy, short one, and they will end up dead, which is what would have happened to you, if I had not decided to do you a favor.”

 

Constantino was sputtering. “But…what happens to me, after it's over?”

 

She smiled. “You run like hell, in the other direction,” she said. She nodded at the desk. “Now, I want the names of each of your contacts, along with detailed information about what each of them does for your business. Can you manage that?”

 

Constantino nodded silently. He moved to the chair, and sat down. Suddenly, he felt very tired. Monica placed the pen in his hand. “Ring the bell, if you require any refreshment,” she said, and left. Seconds later, he heard the definite sound of a key, locking him in.

 

. . .

 

Juliano Colegui sat in Rabbi Murano's library. The two old men were staring at the same scroll. They had sat and watched it for a matter of hours, neither unrolling it any further, simply examining. Presently, Juliano cleared his throat.

 

“Was Robin any good, as a pupil?”

 

Murano nodded. “Diligent,” he said. “Willing to learn. She truly wanted to refine her control of the Craft.”

 

“And was she progressing?”

 

“Indeed. With more time, I would have taught her and Amon to work together more efficiently.”

 

At the mention of the other man's name, Juliano's face seemed to darken. “When I first knew Amon, his Craft had not yet awakened.”

 

“He was what we might call a late-bloomer, yes,” Murano said. “He was lacking in control. I think for him, his Craft was tied to his emotions. It was buried inside him, along with the power to empathize with others, or the emotional security necessary to make himself vulnerable. When his Craft emerged, so did those other things and I did not envy him one bit—for him, I think it was like being Robin's age, all over again.”

 

Murano chuckled cheerlessly, and leaned back in his chair. He folded his hands across his stomach. “But Amon's Craft is not what you hold against him, is it?”

 

After a moment, Juliano shook his head. His icy blue eyes played over the rabbi. “I have been trying to discern what exactly troubles me, but there are so many different things…”

 

“For instance, the fact that if your former protégé had his way, your grand-daughter would no longer be a bride of Christ,” Murano said.

 

Juliano gave Murano a look which Murano had previously seen only on wet cats.

 

“Do you feel betrayed?” the rabbi asked.

 

Juliano shifted uncomfortably. “It is not that simple.”

 

Murano moved his hands expansively. “This is the closest thing you will have to confession, Father, until we can all come out of hiding,” he said. “I suggest you do your best.”

 

Juliano drew breath. He opened his mouth, and began.

 

. . .

 

Robin enjoyed her work at the convent. She awoke early for matins, attending Mass before breakfast. To her surprise, she had forgotten the natural rhythm of the Mass—there were moments, while reciting the Creed, when she realized she was stumbling over the words. This shocked her. She had grown up in the Church, had been raised by nuns. She knew that this in no way changed God's opinion of her—she was a human being like any other, in that respect—but it was more than a little disturbing to think that she could have forgotten so much, so quickly.

 

The work was hard, but she was good at it. After breakfast she went to a duty board, and picked up cards indicating her tasks for the day. It was all so very simple. One used a combination of water, lemon juice, and rock salt to clear grime from the interior of a washing machine. A bottle of white vinegar diluted in a bucket of warm water helped to de-scale tubs and shower stalls. Shaving foam, when wiped across a mirror, would de-fog that mirror for a month. Simple hand soap, rubbed vigorously on sheets or napkins before washing them, would clear most stains from blood or chocolate. Wet newspaper was the best for buffing wooden furniture.

 

Cleanliness was next to Godliness, after all, Robin decided.

 

Every Wednesday she attended a rosary service at noon, instead of eating lunch. Every evening, she cleared the dinner plates and helped wash them. Steam billowed up from the industrial-sized stainless-steel sinks, and she felt anonymous, ghostlike, shrouded in the wet fog. She watched food spiral down the drain.

 

Robin learned that it was best not to allow herself to think very deeply, about anything. If she did, she would inevitably begin crying. This was especially true if she attempted open prayers to God. If she opened her mouth to pray, her prayers would always be for Amon, and then forgiveness, but she was always in tears before Amon's name was finished passing her lips. It was dreadfully inefficient, and embarrassing. Crying in front of Amon had been bad, but crying by herself felt worse, somehow. She reminded herself that she was not really alone—God was with her—but it was cold comfort. So she resorted to the official prayers. She made regular pleas to St. Jude, the patron saint of lost causes. Before bed she whispered a full rosary to herself, letting the rhythm and her own exhaustion lull her into sleep.

 

She still woke up in tears, but no one around her was dead, yet, and she was grateful.

 

One day she returned to her room only to find her pendant gone, and to her surprise, she felt only one sharp pang of loss. A passing tourist, or maybe one of their children, had probably taken it. The convent was always losing things. Plates and forks somehow always wound up as “souvenirs.” She had left it behind while she cleaned, not wishing to damage it. Now she had only one link to the past—her glasses—and she kept them with her always. It did not matter that she no longer wore them. They were hers. She intended on keeping them.

 

Fall was coming. She took up crochet. It was something all the older nuns in her former convent knew how to do, but which she had never learned. Now she understood why they favored it so. It was easier than knitting, and the rhythm was pleasant. Her entire existence seemed to be about rhythms, now: her day followed the same rhythm, the Mass followed a rhythm, as did her nightly rosary, and her stitches did the same. She could say half a prayer for each stitch, which ensured that she did them all in even numbers, and soon she was well underway on a plain white shawl.

 

Weeks passed. Then months.

 

The Arcanum wished to be let free. There was a constant temptation to use her powers. She could feel them there under the surface, just as strong as ever. But it was much easier to refuse temptation, now. She had remembered that there was a whole life before her powers, before the STN-J, before the Arcanum. The Craft did not encompass her entire identity. She was still a whole person, without her powers. She was still useful, without them.

 

. . .

 

Amon was growing a beard. It was coming in slowly. He'd never once had a beard. He was unaccustomed to the itch. But it would be a cold day in hell before he asked Solomon for a shaving kit.

 

In fact, he asked them for very little. The food came at regular intervals. He considered himself lucky to be kept far away from other prisoners. Undoubtedly there were more, but they were probably more proficient in the Craft than he, and if they discovered that he was a former Hunter, he would probably be dead inside of a few seconds. It was quiet, where he was, just the electric hum of the lights and the sound of water in pipes. He didn't make trouble for his guards—if they wanted to read porn outside his cell, it was fine with him—and in return they gave him things, like newspapers or gum. He liked the paper. It told him that he wasn't missing a hell of a lot—Italy's political situation was just as fucked as usual, and the Japanese soccer team wasn't really doing much at the World Cup. He watched for articles about spontaneous fires or arson, but there were none. Wherever Robin was, she was holding herself in check. He found the thought oddly comforting.

 

St. Martin still made his visits. Occasionally, he came by with a file or two. He mentioned difficult cases that the STN-I was still working on. He wanted Amon's input. Amon looked at them, but offered no opinion or strategy. He knew that the only reason St. Martin inquired after him was because he imagined that Amon would let slip a thought about Robin. The old man obviously suspected that Amon knew more than he was letting on, when in truth Amon was just as in the dark as everyone else. It was just Robin's style to drive everyone a little crazy with guessing—didn't she like to go off on her own, at the STN-J, to handle enemies her own way? Wasn't that how this whole thing had started, with a note on the kitchen table, saying she had gone to eliminate a target by herself?

 

He had lots of time to think about these things, now.

 

One day St. Martin arrived at his cell without any files in tow. This time, he did not even sit down. “One of our operatives found Miss Sena,” he said. It was all he said. This time, Amon did not even feel the intrusion into his mind. Instead, St. Martin put his hand through the bars, and let something drop from his hand. It swung from there, back and forth, red and glittering.

 

Robin's pendant.

 

Amon stood, and crossed to where St. Martin's hand reached through the bars. He stuck his hand out. St. Martin let the pendant slip from his fingers. Amon caught it. It felt cool, and smooth. He frowned up at St. Martin. “Why did you give this to me?”

 

The old man only smiled, made a small bow, and left.

 

Amon retreated to his cot. He folded his legs up to his knees. His pants were feeling looser, these days. He no longer had the heart for eating—months of Robin's cooking had spoiled him, he realized. Checking to make sure he was alone, Amon uncurled his hand, and peered at the pendant. It was much as he remembered it, silver filigree on red stone. What the stone was he had no idea. He had never asked Robin about it. It was obviously a family heirloom. He thought it more polite not to ask. It seemed almost like a piece of blood-colored amber. The small thing frozen inside—what it really was, he hesitated to imagine—fit that theory. Perhaps some artifact or another was encased there.

 

The troubling questions were how Solomon had found Robin, and what they had done with her, afterward. He had a feeling that St. Martin wanted to question her himself, so if Robin were in custody, Amon doubted that St. Martin would have gone to the trouble of delivering the pendant. It was more likely that they had obtained the pendant, but not Robin. She could have evaded capture, and left it behind. Perhaps she'd sold it for some quick cash, and they'd stumbled upon it. Or maybe this was not the real pendant. It could be a facsimile, designed to shake him up. They had tried that earlier, with the Earth Craft user. They were acting as though Amon still had information—like he had a deal to make. Like if they just pushed him enough, he'd give something up. Or maybe they just wanted to break him, as though that much hadn't been done already. Amon dug dirt from the filigree with a thumbnail. His fingers slipped on something on the reverse side, and he flipped the pendant over.

 

Oh, yes. They wanted him broken. They wanted him broken into a thousand pieces.

 

There, wedged into the silver claws holding the stone in place, was Amon's childhood photo. He was two years old, and smiling. His mother was holding him, smiling also. It was the picture he and Robin had fought over, the one Syungi gave her after Margarethe Bonn found them, and he revealed his powers to Touko. At the time, he was incensed that Syungi would discuss something so personal with Robin without asking him, first, much less give her such a personal token. He was angry that Robin presumed to ask about his childhood; it was none of her business. But, like most everything else, it ended with Robin in his arms. It ended with Amon telling her that he would rather die, than hurt her. It ended with Robin promising never to fear him again.

 

She kept it with her, this whole time.

 

“Oh, Jesus God,” he murmured.

 

He barely noticed, when the cold seeped out of him, and his cell frosted over from floor to ceiling.

 

. . .

 

It happened for Robin on Halloween afternoon.

 

She was sweeping the entryway, before an All Hallow's party for the neighborhood children. They were instructed to dress as their favorite saint, mortification optional, with the best costume winning a special prize. (The previous year, Robin had learned, a boy dressed as St. John the Baptist won for sticking his head through a paper plate spray-painted silver and daubed with imitation blood, thus posing as the decapitated saint's head on a platter, just as Salome had requested it.) Robin had been working all day to make the convent presentable for the party. She was quite tired, but she enjoyed the special crackle of expectation and potential that hung in the Halloween air. Having been raised in the Church, she knew the many significances of Halloween—even how the Romans had co-opted it from the pagans, and how the Spanish conquistadores had unsuccessfully attempted to overturn the Aztec rituals for honoring their dead. She knew that Halloween had drifted far from its roots, and was now a mostly commercial affair. But she thought there was something special about any holiday which involved children. Christmas would not be Christmas without little ones. Halloween was just the same.

 

She was so busy sweeping that she barely noticed a mother push through the gate with some difficulty. The woman held a baby on one arm, a shopping bag full of food in one hand, and a pre-schooler's hand in the other. Her purse and a baby bag hung hooked on one elbow.

 

“I'm sorry!” Robin said, and rushed up to pull open the gate. It squeaked as she did so, and she was careful to latch it open. “Can I help you?” she asked.

 

“If you could just hold the baby a minute,” the woman said, and handed Robin the infant before she could refuse.

 

“Hello, there,” she said. The baby gurgled. She was not a particularly pretty baby. She still had the angry red flush of the newly-born and frustrated, as though she were utterly disappointed with the world at hand and thoroughly annoyed that it had yet to conform to her tiny will. Her mouth was wide and toothless, like a frog's, but she had a surprising profusion of dark hair, which was clotted with cereal crumbs and stuck in every direction possible. Presently she balled her fat fists and thumped Robin with one of them while yanking her hair with the other.

 

“You're a real fighter, aren't you?” Robin asked. The baby's head rolled back and she seemed to regard Robin anew.

 

“Oh, that's for sure,” the mother said, nodding vigorously. She was re-tying her older child's shoes, and spoke up from her kneeling position on the ground. “She fights everything. This little one couldn't be out of my womb fast enough!”

 

Robin smiled. “You couldn't wait to make life go your way, hmm?”

 

“They're so courageous, when everything is new, like that,” the mother said. “They don't know how to fear anything.” She rolled her eyes. “When you grow up, you're afraid of everything. You're afraid to leave the house, with what they say on the news! But not babies. At that age, everything is about exploration.”

 

Robin stared into the little one's eyes. “Is that true?” she asked. “Are you really that brave?”

 

“I'm brave,” the toddler said. His voice and speech sounded older than his physical age. Perhaps he was just small, Robin thought. She shifted the baby on her hip.

 

“Is that so?” she asked. She surveyed his costume. He was dressed as a medieval knight. “And who are you?”

 

“I'm Saint George!” he said, rattling a plastic sword in its scabbard. “I slay dragons!”

 

Her mouth said: “That's very brave of you indeed,” but her heart said: I want this.

 

I want this.

 

It was as though the sun had finally emerged from a bank of clouds. Everything seemed clear and bright. Wind rustled through the trees, bringing down autumn leaves of claret and gold, sending them skittering across the churchyard, and curling about Robin's ankles. With it came the scent of apple cider and the beginnings of a charcoal fire—they would be grilling meat, tonight; it was the convent's final outdoor meal of the year. The children would play Halloween games for candy, while the adults looked on, watching day darken toward night, watching the bonfire reach higher, remembering a time when Halloween and harvest meant something—when they still believed in magic, when they still believed in Witches. Ecclesiastes was right, Robin decided. To everything there was a season, a time for every purpose: a time to lose, a time to seek, a time for war, and a time for peace.

 

This time, Robin ignored the Arcanum entirely, and for the first time in what felt like years, addressed her thoughts directly to God: Being the Eve means leaving the garden, doesn't it?

 

Robin's vision blurred, and she blinked. She smiled and looked at the woman standing before her. She was busy adjusting her son's costume armor.

“Does it ever bother you,” Robin began, surprised at how small her voice sounded, “that some day, they'll rebel? That they might leave you behind?”

 

Straightening, the woman shook her head. She picked a piece of lint from the immense, impossibly-colored plume on her son's plastic helm. “No,” she said. “Not really. Isn't that just part of growing up?”

 

Slowly, Robin nodded. “It's just part of the cycle, isn't it?” she asked.

 

“Part of the rhythm,” the mother said, smiling, before excusing herself, lifting her baby from Robin's arms, and going on her way.

 

She left Robin staring at a gate which she herself had opened only moments before, staring out at the world beyond the hedge, while the wind plucked more leaves from the trees, and said it was time for the season to change.

 

. . .

 

Saying that she was not feeling well, Robin left off work for the rest of the day. She escaped to the bathing area, claiming that she had a chill, and wanted to steam it out. Shared colds being the bane of communal living, the bathing attendant quickly hurried her off to a private tub and closed the curtain with a decisive rattle.

 

Once submerged, Robin entered the thinking mode she usually reserved for bathing. Although she had been reciting prayers since her first day at Nostra Signora di Lourdes, she had not truly meditated, or come to peace with her thoughts. In her attempt to direct her thoughts, she had simply stopped thinking. And while this had spared her some pain, it had also made her a stranger to herself—and she felt alienated enough, already. Now she was in a tub filled with water so hot her pulse throbbed, and she felt sweat trickling down her temples, almost heard her own heart beating; she was reminded of her own living self. The past few months felt like a dream which she had just woken from. And she had so much to do, upon waking.

 

She needed a strategy, first.

 

There were a few things she wanted. She wanted to free Amon. And while one part of her quailed at the thought that Solomon might kill him, if she made the attempt, another part, a piece of her tactical mind, said that Solomon would not risk losing its only bargaining chip.

 

She wanted to end the war. Because really, she reasoned, the war had been going on for quite some time now, silently, in fits and starts, in back alleys and abandoned places, in the Walled Cities of the world. Bringing the war into the light of day would not stop the killing or the suffering. It would not end the marginalization of Witches. In fact, it would likely increase it. Meanwhile, Witches like the Faceless, or like the Zabinis, would continue dominating their corners of the Craft-using world—using their power only for gain. While Robin appreciated what Monica and Vincenzo had done for her and her friends, Robin knew that they were using their Crafts to get ahead in the Cosa Nostra.

 

Witches weren't free. So they had to live outside the law, because the law had no place for them. If the rest of the world knew how numerous Witches truly were, it would surely make a place for them at the table.

 

And yet, cataloguing was not the answer. Robin had no desire to carry a card or wear a tattoo designating her as a Witch. She did not want to live in a different part of the city. That was not freedom. Freedom did not mean hiding. Freedom did not mean being afraid, all the time. It meant sunlight and days at the zoo. It meant the chance—just the chance—to make one's own decisions, for good or ill.

 

Robin did not know how to ask for these things. She did not know how to lead anyone. She was not a representative of all the Witches in the world. Witches came in all shapes and sizes. They were children, like Minori Yoshida, or old people, like Methuselah. They were men and women, rich like Monica Zabini or poor like Shiro Masuda. They all had different Crafts. Even having the same Craft as another Witch didn't really count for much, Robin thought. So far, Robin had met only one other Witch with a Craft like her own—Saki Yoshioka—and as far as Robin was concerned; they had had very little in common, before Amon gunned Saki down.

 

There was no way to represent Witches. They simply had to represent themselves, as individuals. But that would only work when they had the same rights and freedoms as other individuals.

 

Was politics really the answer, to this problem? Did Witches need a lobby, or a voting bloc? Did they need campaigns and electorates and seats in parliaments and places on subcommittees? Would that solve anything?

 

No. But the chance to vote would be nice.

 

What Robin wanted was a chance at a normal life. She wanted the same chance that everyone without her powers was given. She imagined that other Witches and Seeds wanted the same. They did not want to be labeled. They wanted to label themselves. How could a person live freely if others had already defined her, pigeon-holed her, put her in a box or a ghetto and said her destiny would be dictated by a single word? Wouldn't it be better to take the same risks as everyone else, and be judged by actions and decisions, like those others, rather than by innate abilities one had no control over?

 

It was a lot to think about. But the water would not cool, anytime soon.

 

…

 

 

When the Halloween festivities were in full swing, Robin dressed in a simple white shift the nuns had given her upon her arrival, and wrapped her new shawl about her shoulders and head. She had finished it that very evening, while turning over the many problems of freeing Witch-kind in her head. Where once her stitches were loose and floppy, they were now tight and precise. She was pleased with it. In the dark, it looked even paler. She wrapped it tight and let her glasses hang from her collar. She didn't even bother with shoes. No one saw her leave.

 

There was a long time to think, between Nostra Signora di Lourdes, and Solomon HQ. The Halloween crowds were out in full force, but they gave her a wide berth. Her Craft kept her warm, but she imagined that the sight of a young woman in sleeping clothes and bare feet suggested madness to everyday passersby.

 

Yes, she thought. Madness. It was madness to continue on this way, with a plan like this one, with only one desire in her heart, one priority in mind. Surely, they would kill Amon. And then it would all be over, for good, because her plan had made no room for that contingency—Amon's death would be her own, Eve or no, because without him she would go well and truly mad this time, and murder more people than she could count.

 

There had to be another way.

 

She continued walking.

 

There was a long avenue leading up to Solomon HQ. Robin looked to the hills. Somewhere, up there, was the Zabini home. She wondered if they were watching. She began crossing the square, and was only halfway across it when the guards standing outside noticed her. They fanned out, surrounded her. She heard their handheld devices chirping and coughing. She heard guns being drawn.

 

“I'm here for Amon Nagira,” she said clearly.

 

When the first bullet came, it pinged off her shield. So did the others which followed it. From inside the shield, it looked as though she had stepped into a field of brief, exploding stars. They were all around, and they would have been beautiful, in their way, if they were not meant to kill her.

“I don't want to hurt you,” she said. “I only want your help.”

 

And with that, the nearest gas main exploded, sending a column of fire into the air, and the men tumbling to the ground.

 

“Now, will you listen?” the Eve of Witches asked.

 

. . .

 

Amon felt the explosion, and with it, a wash of relief. He knew it could mean only one thing, and the following series of smaller explosions only reinforced this view. He had no idea what the outcome would be, but events were now in motion. And anything was better than simply waiting. So when St. Martin came for him, he was ready. He tucked Robin's pendant inside his shirt. He felt a tingle of nervousness, and tried to remember the last time he was nervous to meet a woman. He was grinning, when St. Martin arrived, doing his best to look calm and collected and regal. The red of his Cardinal's robes only exacerbated the irritated flush in his elderly cheeks.

 

“Your Eve broke our deal!” he said, through the bars.

 

“It was me you dealt with, not her,” Amon reminded him. “She doesn't owe you shit, old man.”

 

St. Martin bared his teeth. “We'll see about that,” he growled. He nodded at two guards, who opened the door, and muscled Amon out with a minimum of struggle.

 

. . .

 

By now, there were helicopters, and cameras.

 

“There is no coven but my coven!” Robin called, as attacks both magical and physical bounced off her shield. “And my coven has no room for Witches who use their power to subdue their fellow man!”

 

With a flick of the wrist, Robin ripped the guns from her attackers' hands, and then gathered them in a stockpile, where she began slowly crushing them into nothing.

 

“The Eve of Witches has no use for war,” she continued. “Many times I have heard that war is the only answer, but that is not the truth! I say now that Witches who want war have no place with me, and that they will be Hunted!”

 

“The time has come to share our gifts, rather than hide them. Witches have a unique ability to serve this world and its people, to help eradicate famine and disease and inequity. And yet, they have never been given the chance to help!”

 

Robin opened her arms wide. She sent two armed tanks soaring through the air. They landed, gently, on their hatches. She stared into the faces on the other side of the shield. They wavered, in the heat.

 

“Once, you worshipped us as gods,” she said. “Then, you treated us like dogs. Now, we ask only to be your brethren. We are humans like you. We deserve to be treated as such.”

 

“MISS SENA!”

 

Robin recognized the Cardinal immediately. He had a gun pointed at Amon. She bit down a scream. Amon had a beard now, and he looked so much thinner. She wondered how much of him they had hurt. She wondered if he would ever tell her.

 

“You broke our agreement!” St. Martin yelled. “Now I have to kill this man!” He raised the gun to Amon's head. “I hope you know what you're doing, Miss-”

 

The bullet was in his brain before he could finish the sentence.

 

When Robin turned, she saw a luxury vehicle with an open window, and a gun pointing out. She saw a distinctive, fluffy white sleeve waving at something. It must have been Amon, because now Amon was running.

 

She could just barely see him, with her vision blurred so badly by tears, and soft whimpers emerging from her throat despite her best efforts. He was just a phantom against the light of too many fires, a piece of shadow come to get her. He was running, and she could barely stand. Guards were running past them, cars were speeding after the shooter. Robin heard an ambulance, or many ambulances, and fire trucks. She dispelled the shield just for a moment, to let him in, and then it enclosed them once more, stronger now with two inside.

 

They stared at one another.

 

Robin moved first, reaching tentatively, just gripping the loose sleeves of his prison garb with her fingers. The tears were coming down openly, now, and there was nothing she could do to stop them. Amon wiped them away with a thumb, and took a glance at her.

 

“Robin, where are your shoes?”

 

She burst into something half a sob, half a laugh, and threw herself into his arms. “I love you,” she said into his shirt. She shook her head furiously. “I love you, and I'm sorry it's like this, but I love you and I can't do this by myself, Amon-”

 

“I love you, too,” he said.

 

When she staggered, and stared up at him, he clarified: “I love you more than my own life, Robin.” He leaned their foreheads together. “So you tell me how we end this war, and I won't let anything get in the way, any longer.”

 

“Amon,” she whispered. “Amon…”

 

“I love it when you do that,” he answered, shutting his eyes. “I loved it the second I heard it.” He drew her hands up around his neck, and folded her in close. That electric tingle was between them again. She could feel it on the skin of her brow, her ear, her face, where his lips were now drifting over her. She couldn't believe how much she had missed it. It was like missing one of her very senses. “So, Robin,” he murmured, “did you have a plan?”

 

“I hadn't thought this far ahead,” she admitted, eyes fluttering closed. “But, I'm getting an idea…”

 

“Ideas are good.” He gently pushed the shawl away from her hair. “So, what's the big idea?”

 

“Do you remember the lightbulbs, when they killed Tenchou?” she asked. “And the way the network went down, after we…after Rabbi Murano showed us…”

 

“Binah,” Amon said. He nodded. He nodded over at the Solomon campus, where the forces were preparing their second assault. A grin crossed his features. “Fire, and water, together, make lightning.”

 

“Electricity,” Robin said.

 

Amon cast a long look at HQ. “Tell me it's not that easy.”

 

“The whole database is in one location,” Robin answered. “Where else do you think Solomon would keep their servers?”

 

“Euro-centric fuckheads,” Amon muttered. He turned to her. “So, what do we do?”

 

Robin smiled. “Mostly, what we were doing before…” Amon grinned, and tilted his head to kiss her. “Wait!”

 

“What's the matter?”

 

“Amon, I'll have to go…inside,” she said, tapping his forehead. “You didn't like that, last time.”

 

“I was stupid, last time,” he said. “Go inside all you like. It's only fair.”

 

Robin's brow crinkled. “What's only fair?”

 

He held her face in his hands, and said, “You'll see when you get there.”

 

. . .

 

Amon dove into the kiss.

 

A moment later, Robin's hands were on him, just as impossibly warm as he remembered them. They sent hot electric tingles across his skin and down his spine. He licked her lower lip, heard her murmur in response. She pressed closer to him, and he held her there, tight. His body still remembered her every curve. A moment after kissing her, he wondered how he could have gone so long without it. Had he really managed to abstain, for so long? As if she had heard him, Robin opened her mouth, and Amon licked inside-

-only to feel her doing the same, inside his head.

 

Someone else was here, he thought he heard her say, before a feeling like a bath of sunlight ran down his entire being, and she melted into him, slow as honey and just as sweet, filling his veins with gold.

 

He felt light. He felt young. The world was good, and he had a place in it, and he would do anything to defend it. His skin crackled and his blood fizzed and he knew what the meaning of “in love” was, because he was inside it, they were inside it, together—this beautiful cell of their own making.

 

Robin burned inside him. She burnished him clean.

 

Do you trust me, she asked.

 

“Yes,” he answered.

 

I have known you only in part, she said. But I want to know you fully, and you to fully know me. I want to understand you. I want understanding. Love is the greatest form of understanding there is.

 

Amon realized, distantly, that tears were streaming down his face. There were no words to encompass this feeling. Nothing he could say would improve the moment, or put a finer point on it. He loved Robin, and she loved him. They would work out the rest.

 

“Okaeri,” he said. Welcome home.

 

. . .

 

 

“What are they doing?”

 

“What does it look like, Sakaki?” Karasuma asked.

 

The group at Ravens' Flat was clustered around the monitor in their meeting room, watching a live feed of the events in Rome. Sakaki flushed. “This is no time for sarcasm, Karasuma-”

 

“Hey, guys,” Michael called. He was seated in front of his computer, typing furiously. “Something really weird is happening…”

 

“What do you mean?” Margarethe asked. She crossed and stood behind Michael, one hand on his shoulder.

 

“The Witch registry,” Michael said. “It's disappearing.”

 

Margarethe leaned forward, and watched the registry scrolling through, deleting itself, line by line. The emptiness at the bottom of the screen gobbled up the information: names, dates, addresses, lineages. Whole family trees burned up, lost to Solomon forever.

 

“Can it be copied?” Margarethe asked.

 

“It's going too fast,” Michael answered. “And I wouldn't copy it, even if you wanted me to.”

 

“I didn't ask you to,” she said, and patted his shoulder. She strode into the other room. She noted that Karasuma was weeping, quietly, and that Sakaki wore an expression of mild shock and envy. They all had possessed their suspicions, but no one had imagined that Amon Nagira and Robin Sena could be so openly passionate.

 

All of them, that is, excepting the woman who stood in the room's darkest corner, staring at the screen.

 

Margarethe's eyes met Touko's, just before the younger woman's eyes hit the floor, she wiped her eyes, and left.

 

Margarethe watched her go. “We're all going to be out of jobs, tomorrow.”

 

“I was thinking about a vacation, anyway,” Sakaki said. “I hear Hawaii's great in the off season.”

 

“Not Hawaii,” Karasuma said. “I have a feeling…”

 

“What?”

 

Karasuma's smile was soft and knowing. “I have a feeling that we'll be invited to Italy, soon,” she said.

 

. . .

 

Please continue on to the Epilogue, “Love Never Ends.”