'...in half a minute the letter was unfolded again, and
collecting herself as well as she could, she again began
the mortifying perusal...'
- Jane Austen, 'Pride and Prejudice.'
Chapter Two: The Mortifying Perusal
The office at Raven's Flat was unusually peaceful, the silence broken only by the quiet tapping of multiple keyboards and the sound of a magazine's waxed pages being turned. Most of the STN-J was using the unexpected lull in activity to catch up on their much-neglected paperwork. Even with the addition of a new craft-user in the form of Sister Éloise Maçon, they barely had enough people to hunt effectively, and the necessary paperwork was left undone until either someone got around to it, or the desks became lost beneath the stacks of files and folders.
Doujima, on the other had, had seen the time as an opportunity to catch up on her Gucci. She ran her fingertip the glossy image of a leather pump, then flipped the page again. Éloise was watching her with covert disapproval, which Doujima ignored. Sooner or later, the older woman would adjust to the way things were organized at the Japan branch. None of the others had even twitched an eyelid when she had pulled out the magazine instead of turning on her computer.
She had also found that one of the advantages of Kosaka becoming Administrator was that he had moved into his own office, and was much less likely to spot her goofing off. So not only could she enjoy her reading material, she could do so in relative peace. Even if the nun was still watching her like a paranoid schoolmarm.
The last page of her magazine arrived too soon, and she sighed as she closed it. On the back cover, a woman in thigh-high boots, a long coat, and little else pouted up at her with painted red lips. "Airbrushed," she informed the picture, and stood with a yawn and a sigh.
She stretched slowly, then pushed the chair all the way back with the heel of her foot and stepped away from the desk. The chair rolled a few feet, and stopped only inches from a stack of folders that was already dangerously close to toppling. "I'm going to take a break and get something to drink. Does anyone else want something?"
"Because all of that hard work you've been doing has to have worn you out," Sakaki grumbled.
"Does anyone besides Sakaki want something?"
"Some water, s'il vous plaît?" Éloise asked, and even her English was so heavily accented that it was hard to understand. She always spoke English on the job, because her knowledge of Japanese was very nearly nonexistent, and unlike Robin, she didn't seem to be making any effort to learn.
Doujima hadn't seen fit to inform the craft-user that she spoke flawless French, or that she had spent most of her childhood in villa about twenty miles up the coast from Marseille. She felt no great desire to get to know the woman, and she certainly didn't feel any of the affection that she had so quickly developed for Robin. In fact, she didn't like their newest member much at all. She couldn't even say why, but the soft-spoken Éloise grated on her nerves... Perhaps because she always seemed to be watching, judging them in her own quiet way.
Karasuma had said that she was being paranoid. Doujima had replied that she had spent over a year watching the STN-J, and should be trusted to know when someone else was watching them.
Needless to say, the argument had not convinced Karasuma.
"Fine, fine," she replied, and gave Éloise a hard look that was meant to say, 'I'm keeping my eye on you, missy.'
Éloise just seemed confused.
With another little sigh, Doujima made her way towards the break room. Even though Robin had been gone for quite some time now, there was a full pot of coffee brewing on the counter. To the best of her knowledge, no one but Michael even drank from it, but someone always seemed to prepare a pot. It just sat there, until it became burnt or stale and a new pot was made, a silent monument to the young woman who had somehow wormed her way into their hearts. Doujima didn't even think that any of them had realized how important Robin really was to the STN-J until she was well and truly gone, dead or in hiding. She couldn't imagine their doing something like this for Kate, or for Éloise, if she were to go. Or even Amon, who had been beloved in his own way.
Or herself, when she went.
The thought made her wonder why she hadn't been called back to Headquarters yet. It was something she had wondered a lot, recently. In fact, she hadn't heard anything from either Venice or Rome in the time since the Factory's collapse. It was almost like they had forgotten her entirely, although she knew that this wasn't the case. It left her at something of a loss as far as what she was supposed to do. Her assignment here was done, but no one seemed inclined to give her a new one and, while she was a competent spy, she wasn't a terribly good Hunter. In fact, she was almost useless for field work; she just wasn't trained for it. The others had been taught how to track, how to work as a team, how to dodge being turned into mincemeat by a witch's powers and still shoot straight... She had been taught how to lie, how to pry, and how to cover her own ass if she needed to.
She had just pulled the refrigerator door open when she heard someone else step into the room. She turned, and found herself facing Éloise, who was standing with one hand resting lightly on the doorframe. She was a tall woman, but not physically imposing, a fact that had less to do with her slender build and more to do with the fact that she seemed to lack any sort of presence. It was easy to forget that Éloise was in a room. It was difficult to judge her age... Older than twenty, younger than forty, but probably somewhere right in the middle. Her brown hair bore no trace of gray, and at the moment it was tucked away under a nun's customary veil, which most days she seemed to forget. Her face was round and soft, and the look in her pale eyes always seemed mildly critical to Doujima, as if the world were somehow a disappointment to her. "Miss Doujima? May I speak with you a moment?"
"No one's stopping you," she replied. She turned to retrieve a bottle of water from inside the refrigerator, then stepped away and closed the door. "Although I don't know why it couldn't have waited until I came back out there."
"This is a matter of some discretion, I'm afraid."
Rather than make another snappy comment, Doujima leaned her weight lightly against the counter and turned her full attention to the other woman. The water bottle remained unopened in her hand. "I'm listening."
Éloise reached into the folds of her black dress, and extracted something that gleamed white under the room's fluorescent lights. An envelope, Doujima realized. It was edged in red and blue, and even from across the room she could see that the writing on it was in Italian.
"A love note, for me? Why Éloise, I'm touched. I should tell you that I'm already involved with someone, though. I'll just break your heart."
"Non, it's not from me. It's from Rome."
"Are they excommunicating me already?"
The woman visibly struggled not to lose her patience, and Doujima smirked. "From Headquarters," Éloise informed her, through clenched teeth and tight lips.
The smirk faded from Doujima's lips, and she put the bottled water down on the counter. She extended a hand for the letter, and Éloise gave it to her without another word. However, when Doujima went to rip the envelope open Éloise raised a hand to stop her, and shook her coifed head emphatically. "Not now, not here. Later, when you are alone."
Doujima considered opening it in spite of the other woman's protests, but in the end she acquiesced, folding the envelope in two and tucking it into the pocket of her jacket. She could almost feel it sitting there at her hip, as if it held some hidden heat that radiated through the layers of her clothing and into her skin. Burning a hole in her pocket, indeed.
"Why are you the onedelivering this to me, instead of Chief Kosaka doing it?" she demanded, narrowed eyes moving to rest on the slender form of the woman in front of her. "You're here to keep an eye on the STN-J, aren't you?" The words popped out of her mouth without her really intending to say them.
Éloise met Doujima's eyes with her own pale ones, a strange color that wasn't quite blue but almost violet. "You know how this game is played, mademoiselle. I can't answer that question."
"Which one?"
"Any of them."
It didn't matter. She had already as good as admitted it. "So I'm to be replaced?"
Éloise hesitated, then shook her head. "Non. Not quite."
Doujima frowned. Then something clicked. "You don't work for Alfonso. Then who...?" She wasn't going to get an answer, she realized, but the mystery presented by the older woman was too great to be left unsolved.
The expression on Éloise's face was almost haughty. "I do not answer to L'Espagnol if that is what you mean. Beyond that, it is none of your concern."
For a moment, Doujima could only stare at her. "Are you really a nun?" she finally asked.
"Yes," Éloise replied, and her lips trembled for a moment in what was almost a smile. The expression looked foreign on her face, and Doujima realized that it was the first time she had seen it. "As you are well aware, the best lies are laced with truth. You can't claim that you aren't, in part, exactly what you pretend to be."
"I'm not sure that was a compliment," she muttered, and once again got a trembling little half-smile in response.
"Probably not," Éloise agreed amiably. She tilted her head, her tall frame still blocking the door. "Are we in accord, then? You won't say anything about our little tęte-ŕ-tęte to the other Hunters, will you?"
Doujima remained silent for a moment, then nodded. "What is there to say?" She patted the pocket where she had placed the letter. "Besides, I suspect these are my walking papers. If that's the case, it's not my place to interfere, not anymore." All the same, she was just protective enough of her teammates to feel a little pang of guilt at not telling them about Éloise. Yet another person sent with the intention of deceiving them. It was a wonder that there was any sort of intra-team trust left at all.
Well, she and Robin had turned out well enough. Perhaps the same would hold true for Éloise. With another little pang, she realized that she actually was going to miss the people here, if she was, indeed, being ordered back to Italy.
"Merci, and you may suspect whatever you like," Éloise said with a shrug, neither confirming nor denying Doujima's theory. "You will know for sure when you open the letter."
Doujima snorted.
Another one of those brief hesitations before speaking, which seemed to indicate that Éloise was wondering how much she was able to say. That told her that, while Éloise might have been a capable snoop, she was not a polished liar. Perhaps her religious convictions interfered. "Be careful, mademoiselle. I will be honest and say that I do not like you, but... I know of the STN's tendency for sending its agents into danger, and I wouldn't want to see you come to harm."
"You don't have to tell me," she replied, brushing off the expressed concern. She picked up the water, tilting it back and forth meditatively for a moment before she tossed a smile at Éloise. "You be careful too. Craft-users don't seem to fare too well around here." The comment sounded spiteful, even to her own ears, a vicious reminder that their last two craft-using Hunters had ended up dead.
There were times when she thought that she wasn't a very nice person.
"Do me a favor?" she asked, coming to a decision. She continued on before Éloise had a chance to refuse, brushing past her to leave the break room. "Tell the others that I'm leaving early today? Thanks."
Doujima could practically feel Éloise's reprimanding glare on her back as she sauntered down the hall. As she pushed open the door, she spared a final glance at the other woman.
Watching, as usual. It didn't bother her as it generally did. She knew what watching was like.
The letter had arrived that morning, almost a month after it had been written. Like the rest of Robin's infrequent letters, it had been delivered by hand, this time carried by a pretty young woman with sly dark eyes and a Spanish accent. As always, when he had asked about sending a return letter, he had received a nothing but a secretive little smile and a silent shake of the head. This was not the first such messenger, and although he would admit it was probably safer than sending news through conventional channels, it made him wonder just who his brother's wayward charge had been associating with in the long months since she had left Japan.
Dear Nagira, it began.
Amon and I are in Barcelona at the moment. I think that it's safe to tell you that, because we'll be gone by the time this arrives in Japan. I don't like being this cautious about writing, but Amon is too worried to allow for any correspondence, and I understand why he worries. From what we've been able to determine, SOLOMON still believes that we died when the Factory collapsed, and it would be best if they continued to believe that.
I don't like Spain. I think that has a lot to do with the fact that I don't speak the language – Spanish isn't as close to Italian as a person might suppose. Still, people make an effort to cross the language barrier to communicate with me, so it's not as bad as it could be. And I always have Amon to talk to.
That made him wonder as well, because she had mentioned it in other letters. Couched in vague terms, she had told him about how certain people seemed to be going out of their way to speak to her, to get to know her. This was where she got her mysterious messengers, and he couldn't begin to guess what it meant. Robin was a wonderful girl, but why would 'certain people' (what people?) go out of their way to communicate with her, much less be willing to travel into a strange country to deliver her mail?
He didn't think that there was any way for him to get an answer, but it was an interesting puzzle all the same.
Last night was the Eve of St. John, and the street outside of our hotel was thronged with celebrants. Esperanza, the woman who has volunteered to deliver this note to you, insisted on dragging me out to sit by the bonfire and join in the feasting. It was more fun that I expected it to be, although I drew the line at taking part in the dancing. She says that the Festival of 'el Grec', which begins at the end of the month, is something wondrous to behold, but Amon says that we'll have moved on by then. We move quite a lot these days.
I'd like to ask you about the people at the STN-J, and how they're doing, but I know you can't respond. I don't even know if you kept in contact with them after the Factory came down. If you have... Could you perhaps drop a hint that Amon and I are alright? I miss them – and you – quite a lot.
I don't know when I'll be able to write again, but I'll try to make it soon. I hope that you are doing well for yourself.
Robin
Nagira set the letter down on his desk with a sigh. Poor kid. She never complained, but it didn't take a genius to read between the lines and realize that she was feeling uprooted. No matter how many peculiar friends she made along the way, it had to be hard, moving from one place to another as the wind (and his brother's moods) blew.
Unfortunately, there was nothing he could do about it. Even if he had been of a mind to pay them a visit – which he wasn't, because he wouldn't risk their safety in that way – he had no way of finding them. They would be long gone from Barcelona by now, and even he wouldn't be able to track down two people who were intent on hiding without so much as a vague idea of where they were. He didn't even know if they were still in Europe. Resignedly, he swung himself to his feet, ambling across the room to put the letter through the office's well-used paper shredder. It wasn't the sort of document that he could leave laying around for anyone to find.
Hanamura had been speaking quietly into the phone for the past few minutes, but now she hung up with a soft "humph" and turned in her chair to give him the fish eye. "You have cases," she said, without preamble. "You are not taking her out."
With an introduction like that, it didn't take much effort to figure out who Hanamura had been on the phone with. Much to his surprise and occasional dismay, she and Doujima had taken a strange sort of liking to each other somewhere along the way. Nagira thought that it might have had something to do with the blonde's unwillingness to bear mildly his secretary's comments, as Robin and some of his previous light-of-loves had done. There had been some truly spectacular spats early on in the relationship, but the two had now reached a cautious truce... If it could be called that. Hanamura continued to refuse to call Doujima by name, but referred to her as his 'mistress', which was still a great deal kinder than some of the things she had called his previous love affairs.
That still didn't stop her from berating him if he left with Doujima during office hours.
"She's waiting downstairs?" he asked. The secretary sighed and nodded grudgingly. Nagira retrieved his coat and walked out the door with one last cheery wave to Hanamura, who looked livid but not terribly surprised.
Come to think of it, he had to wonder if her uncharacteristic acceptance of the situation came not as a result of any action on Doujima's part, but from simple shock at the unprecedented length of the affair. As a general rule he didn't keep lovers for long and, although he couldn't say for certain, he didn't think that Doujima's track record was much better than his own. However, for reasons he couldn't quite pinpoint, this seemed to be working out well for both of them. Perhaps it was because they didn't function like a conventional couple. There were no set dates, no carefully planned meetings; he would just show up in the lobby of Raven's Flat, or come home to his little-used apartment to find her waiting outside his door. Anniversaries and milestones were ignored with what bordered on glee. He couldn't recall ever buying her a gift, although she had once had his coat dry-cleaned for him. Evenings out invariably ended up turning into evenings in – and no doubt mutual desire was one of the reasons behind their continuing involvement.
Perhaps a very big reason, he thought amusedly, as he stepped through the front door of his office building and found her standing on the sidewalk impatiently. As usual, the kiss exchanged in greeting was not a polite peck on the lips, but deeply involved, and prolonged enough to draw a vaguely scandalized look from an old woman who passed them by. Doujima's fingers curled gently into the hair at the nape of his neck, and even once they had separated she didn't let go.
"Work sucked," she said. "Buy me dinner."
Of course, no one would ever claim that Yurika was low-maintenance.
"You mean you actually worked today?" he wondered jokingly. Even if he was well aware that he didn't have any room to throw stones when it came to that particular topic, he sometimes couldn't resist the urge to poke fun at her and see how she reacted.
"No, but the others did, and I just love them all so much. It's hard to watch them suffer," was her lighthearted response. She released him, her hand lingering momentarily on the curve of his shoulder before dropping back to his side. "Except for Sister Maçon. I don't love her. I want to drop her in a river and see if the stories about witches floating are true."
He raised an eyebrow, unsure of how to respond to that. Generally, the specifics of their separate jobs were not discussed. It was too touchy a subject, and too risky when each knew that the other was, in essence, working for the enemy. So it was avoided, lest it throw a wrench into what otherwise seemed to be a perfect arrangement. Although, as time went on, he found that it was becoming less and less easy to dance around the issue, especially when they spent a good number of their nights together.
She caught sight of the look on his face, and smiled quickly, waving a hand to show that an answer wasn't necessary. "Forget about it. Just..." She went to touch something in her pocket, then caught herself and once more let her arm drop straight. "That reminds me. Can you hold on just a moment? There's something that I need to look at before we go."
Nagira didn't bother to remind her that he hadn't actually agreed to buy her dinner, and indicated that she should take what time she needed. He watched curiously as she pulled an envelope from her pocket, and ripped into it like a kid on Christmas. The expression on her face was strange, devoid of her usual humor and filled with the strangest mixture of relief and dread.
A sheet of plain white paper was removed from the envelope. The angle at which she held it made it impossible for him to see what was written on it, but it couldn't have been very long, because only a moment later she was folding it back up and tucking it away into her pocket again. Her movements were slow and careful, and her lips were pursed in thought.
For a moment she simply stared at her hands, and when she looked up again he couldn't help but feel that she had reached some sort of decision. Something devious, if the faintly wicked tilt of her mouth was anything to judge by. Almost without meaning to, he braced himself for whatever surprise she was thinking about springing on him.
Her eyes were amused, but there was a challenging light to them as well, as she asked, "How would you like to take a trip to Venice?"
Disclaimer: Witch Hunter Robin is not mine.
Notes: Once again, a very big "thank you" to WiccanMethuselah for her wonderful beta reading. Coming up next, Turning, in which Doujima and Nagira arrive in Venice.
