He went out the door first, gun up and ready, looking down either side of the dimly lit hallway. Robin followed behind him, fumbling for her glasses, hands somewhat sweaty. Amon jerked his head slightly towards the end of the hallway not containing the stairs; the one that led upwards and off into parts unknown. The right end of the hallway was where the stairs were; where Robin could neither see nor hear footsteps or any sign of human pursuit, but she trusted Amon's abilities, and followed as he began to run down the hallway, away from the threat that only he could perceive at that moment.
As they rounded the corner at the end of the hallway, turning left, the sharp cracks of gunfire behind them began, holes exploding into the wall at the end of the hallway almost immediately after Robin had rounded the corner. Amon was right, they'd hoped to catch them unaware; sneak up on them, shoot them when they weren't looking. The hunt was on.
They rounded another corner at the end of another hallway, and by then Robin didn't need her ex-partner's super-human senses to hear them coming—angry voices, pounding feet. Close, so close. Another corner turned, another hallway before them. Was this a concert hall or a maze? Robin wasn't sure—and she would have kept running blindly had Amon's arm not snapped out immediately after the corner, hand grabbing her coat and pulling her back fiercely. Her body performed an almost comical twirling action and came around to thump against the wall heavily, next to Amon, who was as close to the corner as he could get without any of his body showing. Listening to the footfalls gravely, he turned around the corner quickly and fired shots; one, two, and then ducked back around the corner so quickly that he seemed to blur in Robin's vision. A millisecond later a chair that had been in the hallway came flying down the hallway, smashing off part of the corner Amon was hiding behind. It flew into the wall opposite them with such force that the four legs smashed through the wall and the chair hung there, looking like a section from some sort of surrealist painting.
"Go," Amon breathed, after having spent a startled second to take in the chair. He grabbed her shoulder and turned her physically, giving her a little shove to propel her to running. She sprinted down the hallway, Amon on her heels, threatening to overtake her—a sure sign of his Craft at work. Her all out sprint, shockingly enough, was usually much quicker than his—at least it had been, until his Craft had awakened. The hallway came to a T at the end, with two choices—left or right. Robin chose right on an impulse, and in front of them was a large steel door; imposing, industrial, words in Dutch that she could not read printed upon it. Almost sliding to a halt in front of it, she grabbed the handle and pulled backwards, hard, expecting it to be locked. The door flew open, almost causing her to go flying backwards into Amon, whose insistent presence ushered her through the doorway, beholding the metal staircase in front of them with hope and dread alike.
Amon slammed the door behind them, and Robin turned to look at it briefly as he started to sprint up the stairs; two and three at a time, speed almost defying explanation. A spark in her eyes flared and was gone; the metal of the door handle dripped and bubbled as she turned to begin to sprint up the stairs after Amon. "Where are we?" she cried up to him, suddenly two flights of stairs above her. He stopped, waiting for her.
"To the roof," he said, and waited until she'd passed him, and then ran behind her, having slowed his pace greatly. Below them, very audible pounding was heard on the door—they were obviously attempting to open it—and suddenly the whole door came flying inwards as Robin looked down at the bottom of the staircase. It hit the wall with a metallic crash, and three figures came running in, the hail of gunfire beginning almost immediately.
"Keep going!" Amon said, and she obeyed. He stopped and turned, firing back down below, but only four or five times, just enough to cease the bullets from below. Apparently they'd realized that Amon was in a much better firing position from above than they were from below. Robin looked below her again to see the three figures gaining, and Amon turning to resume running. The door from the first level, which had obviously been blown in by some kind of telekinetic blast, came flying up the staircase suddenly and much to Robin's horror, would have cut Amon into two neat pieces at the waist had he not suddenly increased his speed greatly, seeming to move ten feet in the blink of an eye. The door-turned-weapon flew through the wall, and she kept running; first place in the demented race that was occurring on the staircase. A door, in front of her; more metal and words she could not read. This door had a push-bar opening mechanism, and she threw herself against it with the force of her momentum only to be rewarded with the wind being knocked out of her and sore ribs. It was locked.
Metal melting, metal dripping, glowing red. Her boot kicked the door open from the bottom as the locking mechanism ceased to exist. Problem of a locked metal door; solved.
Amon flew through the door a second after she did. They were on the roof, and she whirled around to look at him as he came bolting through the door, face paler than pale, drenched with sweat, gun in hand. He stepped to the side suddenly, out of the space of the width of the door. Just as his move had been completed and he'd rolled to his knees facing the door, gun pointed, the door came flying outwards, buckling in the middle with the force of the invisible blow.
It would have hit Robin, had it not been incinerated to a pile of molten goo before it could do so. Liquid metal bubbled and pooled out along the structure of the roof, starting to smoke and spread. Amon moved back to the space near the now empty door frame, gun ready. A figure appeared in the door.
What had been the figure's head was obliterated in a supernova of garish red and a flashing thunderclap from the gun in Amon's hand. Robin felt sickened, somewhat, but she'd learned long ago to be disturbed by death in such violent, horrifying proximity after her own death was averted and it was safe to sit down and be disturbed by such things.
A feeling of a wind-gust, blowing Robin's hair and skirt about her somewhat—she braced herself for some sort of impact that never came. Instead, Amon flew past her like a puppet-man on strings, body thumping against a plastered dome behind her, sliding down to the roof surface in a tangle of arms and legs as he tried to right himself for a landing. It didn't work and he ended up on his back, momentarily stunned. Robin turned back to the door opening, retreating backwards somewhat, the burning beneath her skin increasing.
She was ready for them, when they finally did come through that door. Behind her, Amon was coughing. She couldn't afford to look behind her to see if he was going to be alright or not. With Amon possibly out of commission behind her, the task of keeping both of them alive was left to her.
The second one came, gun firing—his Craft was obviously something not battle-useful. Every bullet burned to nothing before it could reach Robin, her brow lowered with the effort of her shield. The second Hunter, obviously bewildered, kept firing frantically, which was exactly what Robin wanted him to do. Not a single bullet actually came within two feet of her—or even anywhere near Amon, thanks to the range of her shield. The third Hunter came through the doorway, holding a gun, but not appearing too concerned with it. Immediately Robin knew he was the one who'd been making weapons of doors; the one who'd almost cut Amon in half, the one who would have cut her in half as well had she not melted the door.
Hunter two, wide-eyed, ejected the empty magazine from his gun, and reached for a new one. It was exactly what Robin had been waiting for him to do, and her green eyes sparked.
He disappeared in a flash of white-hot flames, leaving little more than a very tiny bit of ashes behind. The third Hunter, bewildered, loosed a telekinetic blast at her, the invisible wrecking ball hitting her equally-as-invisible shield—which suddenly flared to life with arcs of fire like a solar flare up-close; the force of the Hunter's Craft pushed Robin backwards on her feet some, boots scraping across the roof as the blast pushed, tried to get past her fire, to no avail.
The Hunter was determined. Blast after blast came from within him, slamming uselessly against the wall Robin had constructed for herself, along with bullets that he fired, interspersed. She dug her feet in and steeled herself, biding her time. An opportunity would open up, eventually; all she needed to do until then was keep her wall strong, be alert, and not let anything through. A tiny voice in her brain wondered, worriedly, how long he could keep it up for—and, conversely, how long she could keep it up for.
Wind; air, a gust from behind her, putting a stab of fear into her heart—how did he break through?, her mind reeled in the split-second space before there was a flash and a boom and Hunter three's head endured the same fate that the first Hunter's had. Startled into confusion, Robin's barrier ceased to exist, her brain relaxing unintentionally as it attempted to figure out what had just happened. She blinked.
Amon was in front of her, suddenly, extremely winded and, if at all possible, paler than he had been before. Sweat dripped from his chin almost non-stop. She let out a shaky breath and hurried over to him, making a point to not look at anything but him due to the abundance of bio-mass, for lack of a better term, around them. "Are you hurt?" she asked, breathlessly, and he shook his head a response, words evidently not possible for him at the moment.
In the distance the very faint sound of strange, European sirens was heard. "Politie," Amon forced out, wiping uselessly at his face with his sleeve, trying to prevent sweat from running into his eyes. He was wincing, slightly—no, more like squinting. Robin resisted the urge to throw herself at him, hugging him tightly, and instead ran to the edge of the roof about fifty feet away, and looked down. About another fifty to seventy-five feet from where she was standing was a metal ladder, small and hazardous-looking, leading down the lengthy expanse of building.
"Here," she called, jogging breathlessly to the point where the ladder was, Amon jogging half-heartedly behind her. "A ladder. Can you…climb?" she asked, tentatively, and regretted her concern almost immediately. Amon's weary eyes hardened and his jaw set, determined; as if he had something to prove. Before she could say another word, he was stowing his gun away and had practically vaulted himself over the decorated lip of the roof, climbing down the ladder with breakneck speed. Robin watched him for a moment, frowning slightly; going down a ladder at that speed wasn't safe in the first place, let alone in the condition Amon was in, but she said nothing. Easing herself over the wall, she began to climb down the ladder herself, going far slower than Amon had. The sirens were getting closer, but were still a ways away.
At the bottom, she looked at Amon, his pale, sweat-dripping face; and then, without another word, they set off down the alleyway quickly—Amon marching doggedly on, refusing to let weakness show, Robin walking at his side, wondering idly where on earth all the abundant fog had gone.
At the flat, there was no time to rest. Without any words exchanged, both Robin and Amon headed off to their respective rooms, shoving belongings into bags, each with an air of what could only be described as resigned, familiar defeat. Nothing had changed, nothing ever changed—even when they thought that perhaps it had.
Will it ever? Robin found herself thinking as she zipped up her bag and pulled it off her bed, half-dragging half-hauling it to the main sitting room. Amon appeared in the sitting room seconds later, his own bag in tow, face still pale. Considerably less pale than it had been, and less sweaty, for certain. His hair was still extremely damp with perspiration, however. He looked at her, sternly.
"Are you still so ready to believe that SOLOMON has—or will—give up?" he asked, pausing briefly. She stared back at him, trying not to let her defeat show—and, she thought, perhaps partially failing to do so.
"Yes," she replied, even though she wasn't sure if she fully believed it. He only looked at her evenly, in response, mouth a taut, downturned line, all traces of any benign curve that may have been there earlier in the evening gone without a trace.
"I see," he commented, flatly, as he was often wont to do. Silence. Then: "Come. I've called a taxi. We're leaving tonight."
Robin stood, hefting her bag up and over her shoulder with considerable effort; when had it become so heavy? As Amon slung his own bag over his shoulder he kept his back ramrod straight, shoulders squared powerfully; which either meant that his bag had not gotten any heavier since their last clandestine move, or that he was making a show of his capability in order to disguise his absolute exhaustion. Robin watched his steps as they exited the flat, walked down the hallway: definitely a show of capability. Amon's feet seemed heavier and clumsier than they usually were.
Below, in the street, a plain black cab waited. Thankfully, Hunters did not.
The port of Amsterdam was foggy, dark, quieter than it would have been during the daytime. Robin sat quietly in the backseat next to Amon, who spoke at length with the driver in Dutch; about what, she had no clue. Finally, after an eternity, it seemed, Amon handed the driver money and they exited the vehicle, retrieving their bags from the rack on top of the small car. Amon barely even waited for it to pull out of the way before he started walking along the road, down towards the docks. Robin watched him for a moment and then began to walk after him, catching up within a moment.
"What are we doing?" she asked, her brow furrowed. "Most boats will have stopped passenger service by now, won't they have?"
"Not the one we're looking for," Amon replied, enigmatically. Robin figured that the conversation in Dutch between the cab driver and Amon had clued him in to the existence of this particular boat; either that, or he had called a contact immediately upon returning to where they had formerly been staying. "Wanhoop."
"Huh?" Robin cocked an eyebrow at the unfamiliar word. "Is that the name of the boat?"
"Yes." Amon looked at her briefly as they descended some concrete stairs, down to a dock ramp, the air clammy and cold around them, the sound of the water lapping around boats filling it. "Appropriately, it's Dutch for desperation. We're going to London—tonight."
Desperation. Robin's mind was lost in dark thoughts, her body repeatedly tried to force tears to her eyes, her heart ached as she watched Amon, who was so obviously exhausted, worse for the wear, and somewhat angry with himself—yes, desperation is right. "London? Again?"
"Yes, again. It was so popular the first time around that this little pleasure cruise decided to stop there again."
They'd been chased out of London the same way they were being chased out of Amsterdam at that very moment. The irony threatened to crush Robin and leave her broken into little pieces there on the dock if she thought about it too much.
Amon's bitter sarcasm caused Robin to fall into lengthy silence. She spoke not a single word during their entire walk down the dock, spoke not a word as they located the boat and Amon spoke in Dutch with her captain, spoke not a word as they left the lights of Amsterdam behind, after money was paid and sea-faring preparations were made.
As the captain piloted the ship from the small enclosed cabin on the deck, Amon sat down on floor of the cabin, back against the wall. He suddenly looked ten years older; as if he hadn't slept in a week and had just run a marathon. Robin seated herself beside him and was somewhat startled (but not much) when he fell fast asleep, hands folded in his lap, head leaned back against the wall. She scooted closer to him, in increments, until she was barely pressed against his side, her leg touching his slightly, their arms just barely brushing, trying to be close without being intrusive. She'd moved closer expecting that with the occasional gentle tossing of the small boat in the waves, Amon would have slumped to the side some and would have needed something to lean against; in spite of the slight yawing of the boat now and again, however, he remained bolt upright.
Robin was not sure if this disappointed her or amazed her. Perhaps both.
"Het verlaten van Amsterdam in een haast?" the captain spoke suddenly, and Robin's eyes slid up to him, her mouth moving uselessly. Not only had she no idea what he had just said, but she had no idea of how to reply.
"I…I can't speak Dutch," she said, unsurely, feeling rather stupid. The captain turned to look at her, briefly, smiling gently. His eyes were a time-worn blue beneath rapidly fading blonde, bushy eyebrows.
"I can speak English, a little," he replied, heavily accented. Robin breathed a slight sigh of relief. "You are leaving Amsterdam with a hurry?"
Robin bit her lip. Amon had often reproached her for sharing what he considered too much information with strangers. However, he appeared to be dead to the world at the moment, so she figured a small conversation with the boat's captain couldn't hurt things any. "Yes. It didn't…" She fumbled for a suitable excuse. "…suit us."
The Dutch man laughed slightly, shaking his head. "It doesn't, most of my passengers." He looked back at her again, same gentle smile. "My name is Petyr."
Robin smiled back, timidly. "I'm Robin." She looked down at the sleeping man next to her, so unguarded and measures less dangerous and severe-looking in his sleep. "This is Amon."
"Hope for better luck at London, yes? Not better weather—Amsterdam and London, almost same weather." He laughed, as if he'd said something incredibly funny. "Fog always, too much rain. Always grey."
Robin, recalling her bonding session with the fog earlier that day—God, how long ago that seemed!—shrugged slightly, her sweater brushing up and down the sleeve of Amon's overcoat. "I kind of like fog."
"Then why you leave Amsterdam?" Petyr the captain asked with an incredulous, smoke-and-whisky sounding laugh, and Robin found she could not reply.
Petyr's English was not good enough to have lengthy conversations, and for a while, Robin and he habitually misunderstood each other until she excused herself and went outside, feeling useless. It was incredibly frustrating to try to talk to someone whom you couldn't understand very well, and whom couldn't understand you very well, either. Amon still slept, still upright, unmoving. He looked as if he'd been arranged that way; as if he was a corpse at a funeral viewing. He slept so deeply that he had not even noticed her watching him, and awoken.
Outside, the dark sea stretched out around the boat on all sides, grayish-white waves of the North Sea breaking against the ship slightly. The North Sea, she knew, became particularly nasty the further north one went, and she was thankful that they didn't have to travel too far north. She didn't really care for sea-travel in the first place; the feeling of looking around one's self and seeing nothing but water as far as the eye could see was a semi-frightening thought to Robin. Not only was the ocean boundless on all sides, but boundless below, as well. Who knew how deep it went down, and what lurked at those depths? When complimented by the endless sky above (especially a nighttime sky), Robin felt as if she were in an alternate dimension, a black hole.
The boundless space was oppressive. Even more oppressive than the small cabin filled with misunderstood, awkward words had been.
The door opened behind her. She already knew that it was Amon. Sensing her absence, he'd awoken. Same as always. He may have been sleeping deeply, but no matter how deeply he slept, he always seemed to notice that she was gone.
He appeared next to her, at the railing of the deck, blinking eyes that were the same colour as the night North Sea, looking less worn than he had before. "What are you doing out here?" he asked.
"Getting some air," Robin replied, not really sure what she was doing, herself.
"I thought you disliked the ocean," he countered, and Robin had no idea how he'd known that. She couldn't recall ever having mentioned her dislike of the ocean to him, but whatever.
"I do," she answered, after a hesitation. They stood there together in silence for a moment, watching the sea. It seemed strange and uncomfortable to Robin for them to stand there in such oppressive surroundings in silence, so she spoke. "Why were you in such a good mood earlier today?" she asked him suddenly, if only to break the silence. She honestly wasn't expecting him to give her any kind of explanation.
"I was drunk," he replied. He caught her look of disbelief, as if saying 'You? Drunk? Yeah right'. "Honestly. To be honest with you, I was still intoxicated while we were running for our lives."
She didn't know what to think of that particular revelation. If Amon hadn't just informed her that he'd been drunk all day, she never would have even guessed. He hadn't acted drunk in the least, or what people who were drunk were supposed to act like, or…Robin was kind of confused as to how and when he had gotten drunk so early in the day, and she vociferated this fact.
"My room," he informed her. "I bought a bottle of scotch on my birthday—it's a bit of a tradition, I guess. I decided to open it today, and I'd been drinking it." He grimaced, looking irritated—at nothing in particular, at everything, she supposed. "I suppose that's why I decided it would be a fantastic idea to go cavorting about the city." Amon's eyes scanned the sea, void of any discernable emotion. "I suppose it's accurate to say that no matter how many birthdays I have, how many annual bottles of scotch I buy—that I won't get any older and wiser."
Robin processed all of this, and then came to a realization. He was talking. "Are you still drunk?" she asked, pointedly.
"Mildly," he replied, truthfully.
"Perhaps that's why your Craft seemed to take so much out of you, tonight?" Robin queried, and watched Amon's face darken almost instantaneously. "I mean, it seems like it'd be difficult to operate when…" She trailed off, upon noting that the dark cloud over Amon's face was intensifying.
"It all comes down to a gun and I," Amon said, after an obviously angry silence. Robin wondered if he was ever going to come to terms with the fact that he was a witch, or if he was just going to keep pointedly ignoring it by never speaking about it for the rest of his life. "My Craft has nothing to do with me staying alive. I did it for years without one—"
It occurred to Robin that Amon hadn't really answered her question, but that didn't matter. She had another one. "What do you think it is? Your Craft, I mean. How does it happen? What gives you those powers?" Hers seemed easily explained to her; control of fire, the beginnings of a mild mastery over other elements, and now, apparently, the developing ability to seek out other witches. Amon's seemed unusual to her, although somehow perfectly fit to him. What hunter in the world didn't wish that their senses, their reflexes were better? As in much better? The Craft, however, seemed overwhelm Amon at times, and it seemed to take quite a toll on his body, as well. But what was the most disconcerting about all of it, to Robin, was that he appeared to not yet be able to exercise, really, any power over when it came and went, and how strong it wanted to be. Amon's Craft seemed to be of a mostly defensive nature, which meant that if it got the best of him, he was more or less a sitting duck. If his powers overpowered him, he wouldn't even be able to move, to use his gun, to hear anything—
As he stood looking down at her for some measure of time it appeared as if Amon was a gathering storm; building up his anger inside to drop it all out on Robin like rain. For whatever reason, however, his face and his eyes seemed to cave in light of Robin's level, inquisitive look. I'm just wondering, just curious. Just trying to know you better, Robin thought to herself, catching a glimpse of something intense going on in Amon's eyes—even if it was only for a fleeting second that she saw it.
"It's as if you're running," he began, quietly, so quietly it almost startled Robin with the secrecy and intimacy of its nature. "Running, trying to get up to top speed. You reach top speed, but you can't stop. You keep going—your legs keep moving, more and more energy coming from out of nowhere. Your body feels like it could go forever and ever until it can't anymore—but your brain feels overloaded."
There was silence between them then, Robin trying to process how such a thing would feel, body able to keep going, adrenaline coursing through your veins—but the mind, unable to keep up. "It sounds frightening," she admitted.
More silence, swallowed by the oppressive nature of the sea, and the sudden lack of Amon's overbearing presence—it seemed as if the invisible air that surrounded him everywhere he went had shrunk a few sizes.
"It is frightening," he admitted, and then said no more.
Robin said no more as well; she could not bring herself to poke and prod at an open wound in Amon's side, could not bring herself to kick him when he was down by asking him any more questions.
"London again?" she asked finally, an echo of her words from much earlier. Amon seemed more likely to answer her this time around, however, rather than snap at her. He seemed to pick himself up and put himself back together a bit before he spoke to her, looking more like the man she knew all too well when he looked down at her; partner, protector, daddy-knows-best-warden. Beautiful creature, Robin added silently.
"Yes," came the reply, Amon looking at her, seriously as ever. The corners of his eyes crinkled slightly; he was the only person that Robin had ever seen who could truly smile with his eyes. This was his way of reassuring her—possibly thanking her, Robin wasn't too sure. "I'm so sick of bangers and mash that I could scream, but yes, London again."
She had to giggle somewhat at that comment. Another day, another death averted. They were still alive.
