"That's... a lot of guns. Do you collect them?"
"No. Anything a collector takes becomes lessened in the process. These are just tools of the trade."
The Clock Tower was a magical place, but it could also be a smelly one. Natalia Kaminski briefly considered Reinforcing her lungs as she passed by a particularly noxious room. The Zoology department was known to be an unpleasant environment for clean freaks, and said assumption had turned out to be more than accurate. The old stone building hadn't been made to isolate fine scents and signals, and magical tampering could only go so far. Each room was a separate biome prepared by its respective Magus, marked as such by simple steel plates bolted above every door, and each room leaked just a tiny bit. Natalia counted the numbers as she paced, stopping when she reached 315. She pushed past the slightly ajar door and was greeted by a room that seemed to double as both an office and a petting zoo.
It was the size of a small gymnasium. Most of that space was taken up by a miniature mountain that ascended to the ceiling, with the rest being various enclosures. At a writing desk at the very corner of the room, covered in droppings and sleeping mice, sat a thin, disheveled man. He half-turned to greet Natalia as she intruded, met her eyes, split into a toothy grin, and swiveled back to a grubby paper full of statistics.
"You're early," said Gerard Leone, the office's owner. He took a moment to pet a shaved Santa Cruz sheep that bumped into his leg, and then scribbled his signature on a few more papers and pushed them out of the way. "The list's not here yet." For as long as he'd known her, Natalia had rarely been one for wasting time.
"Nice to see you, too," Natalia said. It even smelled like a petting zoo. An extinct Badlands Bighorn bumped up against the back of her legs, and she took it as a sign to take a seat on its strengthened back. It wasn't her first visit. "Ever consider getting an air freshener?"
"Wouldn't last a minute," replied Gerard. He shuffled a few papers into various drawers, finishing his work, and then turned, leaning back against his desk to get a good look at Natalia. She was still the beauty he'd known for four years, but the complete lack of warmth in the way she carried herself had long since killed off any interests he might have had. Even the more sensitive animals were wary around her. "The department head tried to implement a clean air policy once. It couldn't have been more of a failure. No one cares enough except the visitors, and we've no obligation to impress them."
"That hurts, Jerry."
"Don't call me that," he wanted to say, but Gerard's rebuttal was interrupted by the flapping wings of a Racing Homer. The pigeon slipped through the door and settled on Gerard's head, cooing softly. He swiftly detached a small parcel from its legs. "Guess you're not early," he said. "Here." He tossed Natalia a tiny book. When she opened it, the pages ballooned until it was the width of her hand. The bird, meanwhile, was swiftly put into one of the many cages lining the walls of the room, though not without enough fight to have Gerard cursing and nursing a bloody finger by the end.
Natalia flipped through the book. "It gets thicker every time," she remarked. "Even with us freelancers doing our best, it's like we haven't made a dent."
"People are losing it," Gerard complained. "You nab one crazy, two more show up."
"Mm." The hit list had every single wanted magus in the world printed on it. Most freelancers were content with publicly available bounties, but there was an entirely different level that few knew about. Some magi had grudges, other wanted their jobs done discreetly, and a few didn't want just anyone chasing after their target. Getting the full list meant finding a guy, and Gerard was Natalia's guy, working his smelly job at Zoology and giving her a new list every few months in exchange for whatever small request popped into his mind at the moment. Normally he'd fax in new cases, but every so often a visit was necessary, just to remind him that she hadn't bit the dust yet.
Natalia stopped near the back, where the most dangerous bounties were. "Didn't know Vorzak got upgraded," she noted.
"Oh, he went off the deep end," said Gerard as he thumbed through a sheaf of files that looked to have been chewed on. "Did a number on the Enforcer the Association sent his way. Guy came back half-dead, raving about demonic bees. I'd stay away from that one if I were you."
"Well you're not," Natalia said. Gerard could almost think it was a joke. "Maybe next time." She thumbed through the book, arriving at the end scowling. "Got anything that pays out more?"
Gerard laughed. "Not unless you bring the Vice Director an Ancestor's head on a stick. Why, suddenly got a hankering for some luxury in your life?"
In fact, the reason was simple; Natalia was feeding twice as many people after the Alimango incident. But she'd be damned if she let the Association know that. "Just gimme the good stuff," she said. "I need cash and I need it fast."
"What you need is a savings account," Gerard quipped, but he acquiesced and pulled a page out of his file. He handed it to Natalia. "Take a look. Special assignment. Just came in yesterday. I didn't tell you, but the Association's been trying to nab this guy for weeks. Two enforcers were on his tail until he ran overseas, and now they're getting cold feet at the thought of going so far from home."
The mark was fairly unassuming compared to the average. No sunken eyes, no pale skin or deformations. No withered or unusual hair and no Mystic Eyes glaring out of the page. He could've passed for a regular Joe in normal society, which gave Natalia pause. But one look at the price tag and she knew there was no putting it down.
"Sealed?"
"Yep. But it'll be open season in a month. They're giving it one more shot and then leaving it alone. Not worth the resources, see. Guy's not especially dangerous, but he's a pain to nail down."
"And you thought I couldn't handle him? Spit it out. Why you keep something like this a secret?"
"'Cus there's a catch." There always was. "It's a two-person job. Non-negotiable. One of the enforcers bailed, but the other one's raring to go and isn't picky about the partner." Natalia's expression was self-explanatory. "Yeah, that's what I thought. You always work alone, don't you?"
Natalia stared at the target, not answering. He was so mundane. Even Gerard, a rather tame Magus by most standards, smelt of a dozen different animals, several of which were either legally extinct or didn't actually exist, and looked like he didn't know one end of a razor from the other. But this one, that had been Designated to be Sealed by the Association, was the picture of normalcy.
Weisse Spielmann. Twenty-seven years old. Third son of the eight-generation Spielmann family. Talented at Anthropology, specializing in soul-soul interactions with a minor focus in flesh manipulation. Dropped out of his classes before graduation due to unsatisfactory results. Despite poor performance as a magus, he was considered a dangerous hazard and was to be captured with high priority, dead or alive. The file made no mention of why he'd been Sealed in the first place, but then again, few ever did.
Natalia handed back the paper, her brows furrowed. "Every girl's got her price," she said. "I'll take it."
"Didn't think I'd see the day!" Gerard didn't bother hiding his surprise. "Well, it's your funeral. I'll call and set things up. Ever been to Perth?"
"Which one?"
"The one in the middle of nowhere."
.../\...
Emiya Kiritsugu had never been on a plane before. His first ride was a nervous one, not helped by the fact that it was an overseas trip, or that the Boeing 707 on which he rode had a habit of shaking terribly when they so much as neared any clouds. He gave up on looking out the window after the third straight hour of sky and ocean.
"Natalia," he said, turning to his companion. "My ears hurt. Is that normal?"
Natalia opened her eyes. She looked over, saw a pale young boy shivering in his seat, and sighed. "Swallow," she advised. "Or ask one of the other passengers for some chewing gum. It's just the air pressure. You'll be fine."
That shut him up for a good fifteen minutes, as the boy experimented with various expressions and contortions until the pain was finally gone. Of course, a child's inquisitiveness is infinite.
"Natalia," he asked. "Why did you bring me along? You always left me alone for your other jobs."
This time she didn't even bother opening her eyes. "Because this could take more than a week, kiddo. I can't leave you to fend for yourself for longer than a day."
"So I can-?"
"No," she said. "You get to stay in a nice hotel, eat good food, and walk around while I'm working, all on the Association's dime."
Kiritsugu bit his lip and looked around. All the other passengers were either snoozing or clearly didn't care. "But what if you need help?" he whispered.
"I'll have a partner for that. Get some sleep."
"I can't." Kiritsugu fidgeted, uncomfortable in his small seat with little in the way of leg room. "It's too shaky. What if the plane crashes?" In a situation like this, he was almost a normal child. Almost.
Natalia gave him a rare smirk. "It won't. You can bring down one of these things with a crappy RPG, but it'll survive any weather short of a hurricane."
"What about a typhoon? A cyclone?"
"Same thing, kiddo."
"But what about-!"
"Just keep watch." Natalia pulled out the earplugs that had been distributed on the plane earlier, stuffed them in her ears, closed her eyes, and leaned back, deciding that at least she would be getting some sleep. Kids were annoying.
.../\...
The airport at Perth was like a well-oiled machine that hadn't made it through a ten-car collision. A burst of heat was the first thing that greeted the travellers, blowing away expectations that Australia would be anything like Britain. They touched down and were sped through customs and arrivals thanks to a liberal application of hypnotism and forged documentation, especially necessary for Kiritsugu, who only had the foggiest idea of what a passport was. Seeing delays and poor service at every corner, perhaps owing to the fact that the airport only had a single functioning terminal, Natalia was glad for the smaller conveniences of magecraft.
They rented an old Range Rover that Natalia had taken a liking to and bought enough jerry cans of petrol to last a week. The next four hours were spent buying various supplies and preparing, and then they were off. Perth was smaller than London, and they saw very little of it, since the airport was several kilometres from the city centre. Kiritsugu, now off the plane, returned to quiet, introspective boy she'd grown used to. At one point Natalia thought to turn on the radio.
"I fell in to a burning ring of fire.
I went down, down, down,
And the flames went higher.
And it burns, burns, burns,
The ring of fire…"
She switched it off upon seeing Kiritsugu's face, and resolved not to touch the damn thing for the rest of their stay.
Swiftly they reached the city limits, and it was then that the heat started to become truly offensive. Perth was mostly fine thanks to its proximity to the ocean, but the further they traveled inland, the hotter it got. The clear skies offered no protection; only the clean air rushing through the car as they barreled along helped stave off the heat. Occasionally they would see some large wonder in the distance, from intricate rock formations to scars in the ground that could've been the results of grand battles between Heroes or simply the erosion of time, but such things were rare. It was mostly just flat and uninteresting outback. Over the course of several hours, the roads made a slow transition from clean highways to well-worn dirt. Towns and roadside petrol station were few and far between as they headed inland. After a few hours and a handful of turns, it truly did feel like the middle of nowhere, with only the odd road sign to remind them of civilization. Several times Kiritsugu glimpsed animals, giving their car a wide berth.
They parked near an almost empty town called Wiluna to rest for the night, after twelve straight hours of driving.
"Natalia," Kiritsugu asked the next morning, following a fitful night of poor sleep. "Where are we going?"
"A small town called Black Spot," she replied, staring straight up at the morning sky. "Weisse Spielmann is hiding there, furthering his experiments."
"Like my dad." There was an unspoken question in his words. Natalia saw no reason not to answer.
"It won't be like Alimango. The target this time is a Hermit. It's in his best interest not to make any waves. He's likely holed up there, trying not to attract attention. It'll be quick and clean."
"And no one gets hurt?"
Natalia gave him a rueful smile. "Only him. Now, do you know how to drive?"
"Eh? No…"
"Good." She braked, bringing the Rover to a sudden stop in the middle of the road. There wasn't anyone to be seen in any direction. Natalia undid her seatbelt and pushed open the driver side door. She turned off the engine and handed the bewildered boy the keys. "By the end of today, you will."
.../\...
Another solid day of driving brought them where they needed to go, passing by an endless series of hills, dotted with shrubs and acacia trees. It hadn't taken too long to get used to the climate; for Kiritsugu it was close enough to Alimango, and Natalia had traveled enough to not mind.
The town sat nestled between a horseshoe-shaped range of low hills peppered with thicker tree cover than was normal. Just from a glance, Natalia couldn't tell what reason it had for existing, nor why it had gotten its name. The sign near the outskirts revealed nothing:
'Welcome to Black Spot.
A refuge from the world.'
Natalia, who'd taken over again, stopped the Rover right before the sign. She exited and stepped right up to it, opening her mouth and tasting the air with her tongue like a snake. Kiritsugu was still sleeping in the back seat.
"Barrier field," she noted. "Well made, too. Was it Spielmann…?"
"Yes." Something sharp pressed against her back. Natalia could feel it through her reinforced overcoat. She hadn't sensed a thing. "Now, stranger, you'll tell me what you're doing here."
"Business," she said. "Nice to meet you too."
"Turn around."
She did. There was a combat knife pointed straight at her heart. The man was identical to the picture of Spielmann, except for longer hair, an unshaven chin, and one eye perpetually closed. "Sloppy," he sneered. Then he stiffened.
Kiritsugu pressed a Calico firmly against the man's back. "S-sloppy," he said. "Drop it."
The man laughed, lowering the knife and holstering it. "So it is you," he said. "Klaus Spielmann, Enforcer." In place of the knife, he extended one hand.
Natalia took it. "Natalia Kaminski. Freelancer. We've got a lot to talk about, partner."