Night and morning with my tears;
And I sunnèd it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.
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Chapter Two: Methuselah
Kate hated the Walled City with a passion.
She hated the dilapidated buildings, and the gloomy alleyways, and the closed-faced, silent inhabitants. She hated the fact that everything here seemed muted and colorless, as if the life had simply seeped out of it. She hated that it was always cold here, even in the middle of summer. She hated the smell; fear and desperation, and the more earthy scents of urine and mold and rot.
Kate was finding it a lot easier to hate, these days.
For the past two months, she had traveled the narrow streets of the Walled City at least once a week, huddling into the warmth of her favorite blue jacket and keeping her head down. The people here knew her by sight now, knew her purpose for being there among them, in spite of her status as a SOLOMON craft-user. They would glance at her face... then look away, and hurry by as though she had some rare and deadly contagion that they didn't want to risk catching.
It had long ago stopped bothering her.
She slowed to a stop as she approached her destination, raising her head above the sheltering collar of her coat only long enough to step from the pavement into the barren, dirt-floored room. The old woman was already waiting for her there. She always was.
It seemed like forever and a day since Kate had first sought this woman out, following the rumor of a powerful witch who ruled over the twisted labyrinth that was the Walled City. She had been surprised at what she found, and a little disbelieving at first, but the Methuselah had wasted no time in alleviating her doubts. Now she brought the woman what information she could on SOLOMON, their actions and their plans, even though she had long ago lost track of why.
She suspected that she hated the old woman a little, too.
That was okay. In spite of their arrangement, she got the feeling that Methuselah didn't like her much, either.
"Katherine," she greeted, in a voice cracked with age. She never called her 'Kate', even though Kate had never even volunteered her full name.
Wordlessly, Kate fished into her jacket and removed a thin sheaf of papers. She stepped forward and left them on the ground between herself and the Methuselah. They never came any closer than that. It reminded her of her working relationship with Amon; never touching, never speaking unless they had to. Oh, but how he would have hated to be compared to this woman, the closest thing that Tokyo's witches had to a queen.
The irony of the thought very nearly made Kate smile. She had precious little to smile about these days.
"I won't be returning here again," she said suddenly.
The Methuselah watched her out of strange, knowing eyes. "Having cold feet, are you?" In spite of the harsh words, Kate could tell that the ancient witch knew that this wasn't the case. She always knew. She knew everything, and Kate hated that too.
All the same, she felt compelled to answer. "No," she said, and her voice came out whispery-soft. She cleared her throat, and tried again. "No. I've been followed the last few times I came here. I... don't think that I have much time left."
She remembered the dark car that had trailed her here today, the shadowy figure that she had half-glanced lurking around outside her building that morning. "Not much time at all," she murmured, her hands clenching in the folds of her black slacks.
"I see," the Methuselah replied. She was silent for a long moment, and Kate began to think that was all that she would say. "If you wish, you may stay here, and we will keep you safe from the confraria. That is why you came here and betrayed them in the first place, is it not?"
Kate couldn't help but feel that this was a grudging offer at best. No matter how many secrets she had handed over in the past months, the old woman never seemed to forget or forgive the fact that she was still a member of the 'confraria', still one of the brotherhood of witch-hunters that made up the rank and file of the STN. "No," she said, once again, "It won't help. There's nowhere that I can hide. Nowhere where they can't reach me."
The old woman didn't argue.
"However..." Once again, Kate had to swallow and look down before she could continue. Her throat was dry, the words did not want to come out. It was no longer fear that made it hard to speak; it was anger. Anger seemed to be all she felt these days. Anger and hatred, choking her. "You know what else you can do for me."
The Methuselah was silent for a long moment before she nodded. "You came to me out of fear, in the hopes that your turning traitor would somehow save your life. That has changed, hasn't it?"
"It has," she whispered.
"You wish for vengeance," the old woman said flatly, "Against those who have consigned you to death. Against SOLOMON."
"Nothing that ambitious," Kate replied. Near her feet, the dirt swirled and resettled. She ignored it; she was used to such out-of-control bursts of power by now. The previous night, she had accidentally thrown her TV into a wall. That morning, the plate with her breakfast had hopped off of the kitchen counter of its own accord. "I'd settle for some poetic justice."
She didn't need to be more specific about her intentions. The Methuselah leaned forward in her chair, and used the stick in her hand to scratch a symbol into the dirt, the lines strong and steady even though the woman's hands shook with age. It took Kate a moment to recognize the rune as, which looked like nothing so much as a stylized uppercase F. It was the rune of communication, but it could also be used to share knowledge and information – both commodities which the Methuselah was rumored to have in abundance.
The information that she had requested flowed into her, like water. This time, when she hesitated to speak, it really was because of fear. In spite of her brave words, she did not want to die. "That's the only way?"
"Poetic justice, you said. I gave you only what you asked for. If you cannot protect yourself from those who you once called your comrades, then at least the one who spills your witch's blood will live to regret it."
Kate felt that now-familiar rage rise within her. It felt like an old friend, and once again the dust on the floor danced upwards, erasing the carefully drawn rune at the old woman's feet. She didn't even bother to argue at hearing the word 'witch' applied to herself. What else was she now, if not a witch?
"He'll regret it, all right," she said, looking down at her hands but not really seeing them. Her fingers curled into her palms, leaving little crescent-moon impressions in the creamy skin. "He won't be forgiven."