Mid-afternoon. The sky had darkened, swirling, the unforgiving Icelandic wind kicking up about fifteen notches. It whistled all around the Mercedes mercilessly, every once in a while threatening to jerk the wheel from Nagira's hands if he didn't hold tightly enough. Nearing the halfway point to Gróa's house, the sky became impossibly black and snow began to rain down, without abandon.

"Great. Just fucking great," Nagira grumbled, watching as the snow began to slowly but surely pick up in intensity, the wind whipping it in at an angle, until he was forced to slow down to a little below thirty kilometers an hour. The Mercedes just barely inched along, Nagira unable to see anything more than three feet in front of him. The world was nothing but a giant blur of white, illuminated by the fog lights and the headlights on the SUV. Amon leaned forward from the back seat, squinting out at the road.

"Let me drive," he said, and the brothers switched spots, bringing the cold and the snow of the outside in on their clothes when they finally closed the doors. Robin shivered, slightly, in the passenger seat.

Amon's eyes stared ahead, unflinchingly, open impossibly wide. His knuckles gripped the wheel until they turned white, and his face broke out into a light sweat. Robin looked over at the speedometer--inching up, slowly, forty kilometers, fifty kilometers, sixty kilometers. They were going decidedly faster than Nagira had been, but Robin knew it was because Amon was pushing his Craft, seeing further down the road than any of them could possibly see.

"Hey, don't go too fast, now," Nagira chided, looking up from the back seat. "Even if you can see, like, five hundred miles down the road or something, it doesn't mean that you have supernatural car-handling abilities." He lit up a cigarette and cracked his rear window very slightly. "Especially in blizzard surroundings."

Amon's expression did not change, nor did his eyes move from the road ahead of them one iota. "I can't see five hundred miles down the road," he replied, sounding as if he were deep in concentration, "as a matter of fact, even I'm having a difficult time seeing right now. There's no colour variation anywhere and there's a lot of movement--it's not easy." Robin tried squinting ahead out of sheer curiousity, to try to see what was ahead of them--all she got for her pains, was a dull ache behind her eyes. Amon was right; too much white, too much movement. "I'm just seeing vague shapes right now, the vague curve of the road. That's going to become a lot more difficult to see once it's completely covered with snow, so that's why I'm hurrying. I don't want us to have to stop...unless you fancy trying to dig this vehicle out of a snow drift with your bare hands."

Nagira made a face. "Ugh, no. Go faster."

Robin looked to Amon, a question in her eyes--not that he would have been able to see it, since all of his attention was still focussed on the road. "This means that if you are right and something is happening at Gróa's, then we could be potentially stranded there."

Nagira leaned forward, suddenly, to poke his head in between the two front seats. The cab was filling slightly with his cigarette smoke due to poor ventilation. "She's right," Nagira said, seriously. "If there's something seriously wacky going on out there, do we really want to be stuck there in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by snow and no escape?"

Amon furrowed his brow slightly, the cords in his neck tightening. Robin, looking over at him, noticed that he still hadn't shaved his face that afternoon, and that his shadow was intensifying. "We won't make it back to Reykjavík now, if we turn around. We'll be stuck either way we go, I fear." His mouth tightened. "We don't have much of a choice."

Nagira looked between the two in the front seat, holding Robin's gaze meaningfully and turning and watching a droplet of sweat roll off the bottom of his brother's chin. "Someone up there really dislikes you two, you know that?" he asked, dryly. Amon's mouth tightened even more, if at all possible.

"Get rid of that damn cigarette," he said, irritably. "It's burning my eyes."

---------------------

By the time they got to Gróa's, the snow was being whipped by the wind so hard that it was coming in sideways, and whipping up off the ground in ground blizzards that made it even more difficult to see. Gróa's house looked like a giant lump beneath all of the snow, and the trio stalked up to the door through the rapidly deepening snow, Robin belatedly wishing that she owned a pair of pants. Her tall boots were shielding her feet from the snow, and the fabric of her skirt was heavy enough to keep it from blowing up or anything of the like, but the freezing wind was definitely reaching her legs and making them numb. They reached the small home's stone front step, the door having no shelter around it to protect it from the driving wind and snow.

Robin went to the door first, but Amon's gloved hand pushed her back and then reached up to knock on the door loudly, banging with his fist as hard as he could without attempting to be violent. If she was in there, she was going to have quite a bit of difficulty hearing the knocking over the din of the storm.

They waited about thirty seconds, Amon staring at the door expectantly, Robin waiting slightly behind him, shivering slightly, and Nagira behind her reaching into his coat sneakily to check his sidearm--supplied by Amon, of course. After no reply, Amon reached up and pounded onto the door again, squinting his eyes against the wind. Robin's face had started to get numb from the repeated whipping of the wind, and she only imagined that Amon's face must have been freezing, since it had still been slightly sweaty when he stepped out of the Mercedes.

Still, no reply. Nagira took the intiative and stepped up onto the step next to Amon. With his own gloved hand he reached out and turned the doorknob once, decisively.

The door cracked open. Inside, there were no lights on. Robin's stomach dropped an inch upon seeing no lights on in the house, and dropped another inch upon seeing the look that Amon gave to Nagira, who nodded. Nagira entered the house first, slowly, moving into the darkness cautiously. Amon went behind him, his hand already stuck inside his heavy coat, reaching for his gun of choice--a .440 Cor-bon Desert Eagle. Robin knew this by heart.

Amon had taught her everything she'd ever need to know about the gun because it was the largest, the simplest, and the deadliest gun that he figured she'd be able to handle--in case she'd ever needed to.

Which would probably entail her pulling it out of his cold, dead hands.

His hand kept her pushed slightly behind him as they entered the house, the sound of the wind and the feeling of cold dimming some. Robin closed the door gently behind her, very quietly. Nagira stood in the front room, his gun already drawn. He wasn't about go for being polite and keeping it in the jacket until he needed it. He looked back to Amon, and raised an eyebrow.

The house was silent. Dead silent. And there were no lights on anywhere.

The .440 Cor-bon Desert Eagle had several different kinds of ammunition available for it. Robin's brain couldn't remember at the moment--nor was she even sure why she was thinking about the bullets in Amon's favourite gun, or why she was thinking about the gun at all--what all the different types were, but she did recall Amon mentioning to her that he always kept bonded-core hollowpoints, for the .440. The bullets had better ballistics, the muzzle velocity was increased, they--

Robin's brain jolted out of its train of thought as Amon began to sniff the air, suddenly, his eyes wide. Nagira turned to him, gun out and at the ready. Amon's hand was still in his coat, and suddenly he brought it out with the gun in hand. He looked at Nagira.

"I smell blood," he whispered.

Robin's stomach turned. Amon and Nagira had been right, something was definitely wrong--but she had the feeling that it was not wrong in the sense that they had originally told her about. There was blood in the house, and it looked like no one was around--no other cars outside, no movement, only the snow and the wind and the awful feeling in her gut--and something was very, very wrong.

Amon and Nagira began to move towards the kitchen, two tall figures moving in the darkness, both guns at the ready. Robin lingered a bit in the main room, feeling helpless. The hair on the back of her neck was standing up, suddenly--something was very, very wrong.

Closing her eyes, she took in a deep breath and reached out, as far as she could, and her mind found Amon first of all, his Craft burning like the surface of the sun with the force of its current exertion. Stretching more, quickly, worried about her vulnerability while standing there in a darkened room with her eyes closed, she reached out to the edges of the darkness around her.

One. Another, then, moving. Robin gasped and her eyes flew open, looking to Amon and Nagira. To her suprise, she found that Amon was already looking back at her, eyes wide, perhaps having sensed her reaching. He looked at her urgently.

The wind howled around the house, whistling, whatever light from the daytime obscured by the blizzard. Robin pointed towards the back of the house, and Amon nodded, signaling to Nagira.

Someone was there. Two someones were there and they were witches--which meant that neither one of them was Gróa. Amon and Nagira moved towards the narrow, L-shaped hallway that led from the main living area, curving to the back of the house, and Robin moved slowly towards the kitchen, frowning and tense. I thought SOLOMON wasn't allowed to enter the country, anymore? her brain whispered to itself as she entered the room where she had dined the day prior. Wouldn't they stop any SOLOMON agents trying to enter Iceland?

She could hear the footsteps of Amon and Nagira going down the wooden- floored hallway.

Not if they didn't know they were coming, her brain answered itself, sadly. And if there was something that SOLOMON wanted badly enough--like you and Amon--then nothing would stop them, not even a government ban.

She kept moving, her Craft tensed and ready to burn. Heading for the stairs that led down into the cellar, Robin stopped short, her breath sucking in gaspingly.

Blood. Blood smeared, bloody handprints going down the railing--

--gunshots. A bullet flew through the kitchen wall above her head, startling her shield into action despite the fact that the bullet would have sailed two feet over her head. The metal projectile incinerated, and she turned from the stairs, blood forgotten. Nagira shouted; the sound of more gunfire, bullets flying through the walls, and feet on the wooden floor. Robin headed towards the open doorway of the kitchen, breathing hard, scared of what she might turn the corner to the hallway and find.

All she found when she turned was a bright flash of light issuing from around the corner at the end of the section of hallway, the part hidden from her vision. The flash momentarily illuminated everything as if the house was a microscope slide. In the split second of white-hot light, she watched the figure of Amon--hidden behind a small alcove wall that looked as if it led to a back door--turn and crumple to the ground. Robin's heart jumped in terror, her mouth falling open.

Had her brain been so busy being stunned by the flash that she'd missed the gunshot? Without thinking, she started moving towards Amon's fallen form.

Another gunshot. A thud. A strange sound, like the sound of a fire roaring--and then Nagira shouted her name in a tone that meant only one thing.

Danger.

Before she could even think of what could possibly be happening, the fire-roaring noise returned and she was thrown to the floor from--from--above? her mind frantically reeled, struggling desperately against some foreign, heavy weight. A loud, heaving gasp had escaped her at having the wind knocked out of her so unceremoniously.

It was a man. It was a man, atop her, and his hands flew to her throat before she could even think. Her ears dimly processed Amon shouting her name, and Nagira's feet pounding, and the sound of her own kicking. Her brain compiled and ran through several different thoughts in the space of a millisecond, spurred into frightened action by the fact that her own hands pried helplessly at the hands that were at her neck digging into her windpipe, so fiercely that she found her air supply immediately and completely cut off.

Can't use the fire. Too close to me. Might be burned. Can't breathe. Can't move. I--Robin's sight went black with her eyes still open, but she knew it was not the blackness of impending unconsciousness. It was her sight, sliding into the otherworld, dark except for beholding the light atop her that represented the man. A witch.

Her mind lashed out, pushing into the light as hard as she possibly could. It distorted and bent, fell inwards upon itself. After a split second it had collapsed inward upon itself so far that the funnel in the middle had depressed and blown out the backside of the light, leaving a neat little tunnel through the middle of it.

And suddenly, she could breathe. The hands at her neck loosened almost immediately, and the weight atop her fell backwards. Still dazed, she frantically kicked it away, her vision shaky and blurry, light dark light dark light dark. Hands on her arms pulled her up, urgently, and her wobbly vision beheld Nagira, staring down into her face.

"God, Robin," he said, shakily. "Are you alright?"

She nodded, the ache in her throat and the fuzziness in her head forgotten instantaneously. "Yes." She began to pull in Nagira's grip towards the direction of the corner of the L-shaped hallway--precisely where she'd seen Amon fall. "Amon!" she cried, frantically. Her vision was still too blurry to be able to see anything very clearly at all, and all she saw was some minimal stirring of the dark lump that was her ex-partner.

"I'm fine, Robin," he called back, sounding nevertheless very injured, somehow. "I'm just...stunned. I can't see." Robin's brain semi-processed this but not completely, not really understanding how Amon could have been thusly stunned and Nagira could be fine. Then she started to pull in Nagira's grip in the opposite direction, towards the kitchen. Her pulling was so insistent that Nagira released her after a moment, startled by the force of her near-hysterical vehemence. He turned his eyes to the man lying on the floor, near the hallway.

Blood leaked from his ears, nose, mouth, eyes. Robin had killed him, somehow. Nagira's mind flashed back to Amon's words from the night prior, after Robin had fainted: ...but that was an attack meant to disable and disorient a threat. With more force put into it, with more honing from Robin...that particular attack could probably stop an opponent's brain completely.

Robin ran unsteadily towards the kitchen, her hand fumbling blindly at the top of the cellar stairs for a light switch, which it found. The stairway leading downwards was illuminated, revealing that there was a very large quantity of blood leading downwards, streakily and spottily, as if someone had been injured at the top of the stairs and left to...

Robin heard Nagira come up behind her, behold the sight in front of him and start to say her name, but she was tearing down the steps before he could do anything, her heart pounding. Her feet slid about a bit in the semi-congealed blood, causing her to almost lose her balance and grab the bloody railing for stability.

At the bottom of the stairs, she turned to look into the illuminated cellar. A shriek escaped her mouth immediately, as Nagira appeared right behind her, breathing hard. Upstairs, Amon had heard Robin's shriek and hollered her name back, desperately, questioningly.

There, in the corner of the cellar in a frighteningly large puddle of blood, was the crumpled form of Gróa. Upstairs, Amon continued to holler, his voice gaining in volume and level of desperation at the lack of reply from Nagira and Robin.

Nagira grabbed Robin strongly and turned her away from the scene in the corner of the cellar, and then almost shoved her towards the stairs, which she stumbled towards numbly. "Go," he said. "Go to Amon." Robin, hands shaking and mouth dry, complied. Gripping the bloody rail for support, she pulled herself up the stairs, tears beginning to leak out of her eyes. The sounds of scrambling could be heard from the hallway upstairs and Amon's frantic roar of her name, as well.

"I'm here," she called back shakily. The sounds of scrambling got louder the closer she got to the hallway, and she found a wide-eyed Amon on his hands and knees in the dark, staring at her knee level.

"You smell like blood," he said, looking into nothingness. "You reek of it."

Robin dropped to her knees by him, wiping her bloody hands on her skirt frantically, trying to get rid of the sight of Gróa's blood all over them. Amon's hands reached out blindly and grabbed her, staring into her face--more or less. He swallowed. "She's dead, isn't she?" he asked, his face drenched with sweat, eyes glazed.

Robin shuddered, the full effect of the disgust and fear finally hitting her. Her throat, where she'd been nearly strangled, began to ache in earnest and she continued to wipe her hands on her skirt, repetitively. "She's--she's in the cellar," she began, stuttering. "There's blood--blood all over the stairs and the wall and the floor and she's lying there--"

"Fuck." Amon's voice cut into hers, frustrated. He stared, unfocussed, into the middle of her chest, mouth slightly open, teeth grinding against one another. "I still can't see. Are you alright, Robin?"

Her hands rubbed manically at the thick black fabric of her skirt. They still felt slimy, and as if she was possessed of Amon's Craft as well, she swore she could smell the metallic stink of the red liquid cleaving to her. "I'm fine," she whispered. "Someone tried to choke me and I couldn't--"

From downstairs in the cellar came the loud, echoing boom of Nagira's shout: "She's still alive! I don't know how, but she's alive! Amon, get down here, now!"

Robin's body jerked mindlessly into action the moment she'd heard that Gróa was still alive. She stood quickly, grabbing at Amon's arms fiercely, dragging him upwards with difficulty. How could she still be alive? Robin's mind reeled in disbelief, her body turning quickly to support the unsteady and stumbling Amon. He held on to her as she guided him along, almost dragging him but for the moment not caring. There's blood everywhere, all over everything--how could one person have that much blood in them, lose it all, and still be alive?

Amon's feet caught, unsurely, on one of the kitchen table chair legs, and she slowed her pace, gripping him tightly--as much for his own need for balance as for her own need for comfort. Unseeingly, his arm gripped back, tightly. She was shaking slightly as she helped him along.

"It's going to be be alright," Amon said to her suddenly, quietly, as they descended the bloody stairs towards the cellar and Nagira, and the minimally-alive Gróa.

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Hi. It's Meris. I know this one is short and there's a lot of things left unexplained--like how did Robin manage to be attacked from above in a one-story house? What the hell is wrong with Amon? I promise these things will be explained in short order, in the next chapter--I'd just wanted to get this scene out before I lost the picture I had in my mind. And for those of you who are curious, or confused, or whatever about the layout of Gróa's house, relax! I have made a shitty diagram in MS Paint for you to peruse (and probably end up more confused than you were! HAR)

Here's the link to that (remember to type in the www bit and all):

And I suggest that all download and listen to the song "Cowboys" by Portishead while reading this chapter. It's creepy and evil and reminds me of...this. I don't know.