"Wait. Where are you?"
"Boston. Jeez, Yukio, would you pay attention?"
"What in god's name are you doing in Boston?"
Rin massaged the bridge of his nose. Being stuck at the stupid airport, that's what he was doing. He'd had to wait for Kurikara to pass a security check, then his phone had died, and now he was tied to a wall outlet while it charged and wouldn't have been able to call Yukio if he had left because the airport was the only place he was sure would have free wifi. Thankfully plugs were the same in America.
He had no idea where he was or where he should have been headed, hadn't really slept on the plane, travelling for the last thirteen hours, only to arrive in Boston and have it be the nearly the same time the same day he had left. Something about crossing the International Date Line but most of the explanation another passenger on the flight had given him had gone right over his head.
"I'm looking for Daphne. Now will you just google all the churches around here?"
It was the third time Rin had asked him to do that since he'd picked up the phone. He hadn't realized how terrible his English actually was until he'd gotten off the plane and suddenly everyone around him was garbling away in it and he couldn't read any of the airport signs and every time he thought maybe he might ask someone for help or directions, any semblance of a vocabulary he might have had went fluttering away completely and he just ended up gawping at them. He couldn't quite figure the Internet out either.
"Why do you need me to do it?" Yukio asked.
"It keeps giving me the American Google…"
"You can still use that."
"Would you just do me a favor and look it up?"
"Okay, okay! Sheesh. Give me a second…"
"Thank you."
On the other end of the line, Rin could hear Yukio shuffling to get out of bed. What time was it there? Like one AM? No wonder Yukio sounded so irritated. No wonder Rin felt so exhausted. He really hadn't thought this through.
Yukio sighed. "I'm at the computer. Do you want to know all the churches in Boston?"
"Nah, just the big ones with connections to the Knights of the True Cross."
"Okay…"
Yukio started typing—Rin could hear the click, click, click. Some girl came and sat down on the floor next to him and asked something in English. Rin just stared at her until she pointed at the wall outlet and held up the end of her own phone charger, raising her eyebrows. Rin nodded, giving her a thumbs up.
"Thank you," she said, or at least that's what he thought she said. Rin just smiled awkwardly as she plugged her phone in.
"There was another semicaper attack this afternoon." Yukio said.
Rin tensed. "Shit. What form? How many?"
"Maybe twenty in their third form. A couple of our Senior Exorcists got burned pretty bad."
"Shit."
"Yeah."
"Are they okay?"
"Should be. Nothing's certain yet. Okay, I've got a list of churches…"
"Great."
The sooner Rin patched things up with Daphne and the two of them were on a plane back to Japan the better.
Yukio read the list off and the two of them collectively decided the Cathedral of the Holy Cross was their best bet. It was the biggest thing in the area and pretty close to the airport. Rin seemed to remember Daphne having mentioned a church that had a similar, if not the same, name at some point, and even if it wasn't the one, no doubt somebody there would be able to point him in the right direction.
"You should be able to get there pretty easy on the bus."
"Thanks, Yukio."
"Sure. Anything else?"
"No. I think I'm good."
"Okay. I'm going back to bed."
"Okay. Thank you."
"Be careful, you lunatic."
"I will."
"Bye."
"Bye."
Rin hung up and then sighed, just looking at his phone in his hands for a second. What if Daphne wasn't in Massachusetts anymore? What if the people at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross had never heard of her, assuming he could even get himself there? What if Mephisto was wrong and Daphne hadn't ever been here in the first place and was actually just holed up in her apartment in Academy Town? He'd probably end up lost and wandering around Boston until he found someone who spoke Japanese, which seemed unlikely, and as soon as he left the airport he wouldn't have wifi anymore. Rin sighed again. He was such an idiot.
"Rough day?"
The girl who had sat down next to him smiled when he looked at her.
"What?" he said.
She laughed an awkward laugh, like she was surprised and a little embarrassed. "Hard day?" She spoke a little slower the second time.
"Oh." Rin nodded. "Um…yes."
He knew "yes." And "no." And "where is the bathroom," but none of that was going to be particularly helpful for finding Daphne.
"Do you need help with something?"
"What?"
"Help. Can I help you?"
He recognized one of those words. Help? Was that what she'd said? The girl started to squirm a little and it was then Rin realized he'd been staring right at her face as he'd tried to figure out what she was saying.
"Oh! Shit. Sorry, um, sorry. Yes. Please. Um…directions?"
She perked up. Contact. "Yeah. Where do you want to go?"
It took Rin a second to puzzle the question together, then he asked if she could tell him how to get to the Cathedral of the Holy Cross on public transit.
"Sure."
She opened the map app on her phone, typed something into the address bar, and pulled up the cathedral just like that. She offered the phone to Rin so he could look.
"You're gonna get on the SL1 right outside Terminal E, then switch to the SL4 at Boston South Station. It should only take, like, thirty minutes."
Rin squinted at the route, trying to memorize it.
"Just get off when you see the cathedral."
He nodded. "Thank you."
"Sure. Does that make sense?"
He hadn't the slightest idea what she'd said, so he just smiled and nodded, and the next second his phone finished charging, so he thanked her again and took a picture of her screen and the map, picked up his backpack, and hurried off in the direction he assumed Terminal E must be in. Daphne was close. He could feel it.
Underneath the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, unknown to most of the public and out of their view, was another nave, transept, and chancel, another cathedral almost, and underneath that was a series of rooms and stairs and storage, all for the use of the Knights of the True Cross. Daphne had only just lately collected Castor, Pollux, and Helen of Troy out of one of the cleansing chambers that afternoon. It had been days since she'd touched them.
They felt different now. Cleaner, maybe. Lighter. She was feeling a little lighter herself. A little more level-headed. She touched the tip of Castor to the floor, secured it, then lifted herself into a handstand. Still now, Daphne closed her eyes.
Father Michael was right. She couldn't go running halfway around the world every time she reached a breaking point. She'd done it twice already in the last year—once to Japan and now back. She needed to figure out a better way to deal with things.
The last few days had helped. Being away from her life at True Cross, being home at Holy Cross. The Purge had come on strong after dinner the night before. After a lot of throwing up and sweating and feeling like hell, her head felt clearer now than it had in years.
Coming out of the handstand, she summoned Pollux and began a series, preparing to reconnect with her blades—all of them, including herself, cleansed.
Three hours later, after getting off the bus at the wrong stop, incredibly tired, hungry, and irritated, Rin finally found the stupid cathedral. He had no idea how he'd managed to wander in circles around it for so long without seeing it—the thing was freaking huge—but he had, and now it was after three o'clock and he kind of wanted to punch the next person who assumed he could speak English in the mouth. So when he got excited and tried to go up to the doors and received a nice little anti-demon shock for his troubles when he stepped through the break in the fence, it pissed him off way more than it should have.
"Shit, shit, shit!"
Stumbling backwards, Rin got away from the gate as fast as he could. He continued to throw swear words at the fence until a priest opened up the front door and shouted at him from the steps.
"Hey! Demon! Move along or I'll come out there and exorcise you."
Rin threw his hands up. "I don't speak mother freaking English! I have no idea what you're saying, all right?! Jesus, would you people knock it off with the privilege already? I get it. I'm an idiot. I read you loud and clear!"
He had more to say, but someone started laughing and the sound of it caught Rin off-guard, so he looked at the dude standing on the steps who was chuckling and shaking his head.
"Well I'll be damned," he said.
Speed, good. Connection, good. Heart, still a little uneasy but getting there. Daphne could feel the strength of the remaining Purge increasing as she spun Castor and Pollux through the air, turning in a tight circle. She started to hum, a Puritan hymn she'd been taught when she had first received her blades: "Awake, My Soul, Stretch Every Nerve." The lyrics were inscribed on Helen of Troy.
She almost didn't hear Father Michael when he said her name.
"Daphne."
She stopped, turning around to see what it was that he wanted, but he wasn't alone. That was—
"Rin?"
Castor and Pollux fell from her hands.