It was a familiar dream, one that had long ago ceased to bother him. It was a nightmare-but-not; more like a story with him as a participating viewer. It wasn't frightening but it wasn't cheerful either.

It was just plain strange.

The warm summer breeze blew teasingly through the air, through his hair, whispering along through the grass and the trees. He was younger then, shorter, just out of jumping range of what he was trying to obtain. The long brown hair that hung down from the tree branch above him fluttered in midair, the wind catching up the sounds of her giggling and sweeping it off into oblivion.

"Matka," he murmured, reaching upwards. His hands were smaller, his arms thinner, his voice higher and less defined—he couldn't have been more than fourteen, every time, in the dream. His mother had been long dead, by that time in his life.

And yet there she was, in the tree high above him, dangling a puzzle piece out of his reach. No matter what he did, how he tried, he could never reach it. And she never made any movements to help him reach it. She rocked back, leaning back in her position in the tree, sides shaking with laughter. Her long, undone brown hair was in disarray, hanging long and messy, making her look even crazier than she had in real life.

But she was beautiful, and she was alive in these dreams.

And she was looking at him with her big copper-grey eyes, laughing, and laughing, and laughing, holding the puzzle piece out at arm's length. One lightly bronzed foot hung down from the tree branch she sat upon, swinging back and forth idly. His mother's laughter had always been an odd mix between beautiful, joyful laughter and the outright lung-bursting laughter of the mentally ill.

It was the same, even in dreams. Even in dreams, she was as much of a mystery to him as she had been when alive.

..........

Commotion outside the door awoke him, his brain swimming with thoughts of his mother and puzzles, and a moderate hangover. Amon grimaced upon sitting up and pressed an open palm to his temple tightly. It did little to alleviate the dull ache behind his eyeballs.

The door to his room swung open, revealing Nagira in a state of more-or-less-dress. He looked at his scowling brother and nodded. "Yeah, me too. Get up. There's a message here."

Amon moved stiffly out of the bed, feeling as if he hadn't used his body in ages. Sitting on the edge of the mattress for a moment to gather his wits, he stood and pulled an old black t-shirt out of his bag, pulling it on. He looked most undignified in a pair of grayish sleep pants and a ratty old shirt, but Nagira's manner spoke of urgency. Amon walked to the door and discovered Robin standing in the hall, a moue upon her face that was similar to his own upon awakening. She'd managed to don a familiar old ochre skirt under her usual night-wear slip, but had simply pulled a sweater around her shoulders to cover up the rest of the way. Robin's normally wide green eyes seemed incapable of opening all the way, and Amon had a good idea why.

"Your first lesson in the evils of alcohol," he said to her, and then nodded at Nagira. "Let's go."

.............

The simple words on the more than resplendent piece of paper in front of Amon were not doing much to cheer his already semi-foul morning mood. His head pounded, he was internally berating himself for his foolishness around Robin the evening prior, and now this.

Robin, from her balled position in a chair, looked up at Amon with a wince. "What does it say?" she asked quietly, as if her own voice was ringing too loudly in her ears.

Trygve, whom was in a similar state of undress to the rest of them, sat behind his desk, rubbing the bridge of his nose under his glasses. "It says they already know you're here. Apparently those hoity-toity bastards have been keeping tabs on you, or on me—or perhaps on both."

"Who?" Robin asked, dazedly. "SOLOMON?"

Amon handed the piece of paper in his hands to Nagira, who began to look over it intently. "No. Whatever this 'committee' is, it knows we're here." He sighed, rubbing at his eyes, harshly regretting his decision to drink so much the evening before. "And it sounds as if it's irritated that we didn't come straight to them."

"So like them," Trygve snarled, a rare moment of anything but kindness from their host. He was fuming, his glasses amplifying the anger in his blue eyes, the muscles in his arms twitching as he clenched and unclenched his fists. "They consider themselves the gateway to everything. As we speak, they're probably plotting various ways to either keep you quiet or just get rid of you, altogether."

Nagira sighed, letting the paper waft down to the desk. "So much for negotiations, huh?"

Robin, stunned out of her sleepy, hung-over state by the sudden animosity in the conversation, sat up and held her hands up. "Now, wait...this doesn't mean that we can't still negotiate with them and come to some sort of agreement." Her face twisted into a confused frown. "I don't understand what makes them so powerful, anyway. If they don't like us, then so what. What does that letter say, anyway?"

Trygve took up the embossed piece of stationary and held it in front of him, adjusting his glasses. "To our friends Trygve and Sigrún, and their esteemed guests from Japan: We hope all goes well in your house. The trip of the esteemed guests must have been a long and arduous one and we appreciate their need for rest. We are, however, greatly insulted—"Here, Trygve's voice was bitterly twinged, "—that you did not first present the guests to us, for them to make use of our services. It would have been the polite thing to do, but we understand your faux pas. You must be very busy with the business of running such a large, powerful, respected coven." Trygve paused, rubbing the bridge of his nose once more. "Fuckers."

Robin frowned. "That's in the letter?"

"No, that's just my general reply to all of their cute little sarcasm," the blonde man answered. He looked back to the letter, glasses back in place. "We will meet in the future, to be sure. Accept our invitation to dine at a winter home this evening at seven o'clock, on Knippels-brogade near the Christiens Kirke, building number 67."

Trygve looked over at Nagira who nodded, knowingly. "And leave your human guest behind," Trygve finished, and Robin looked to the lawyer in shock, then back to Trygve. Her visage of shock quickly faded into indignation.

"Why would they want us to leave Nagira here?" she demanded.

"He's a human," Trygve said bitterly. "They'd rather not have anything to do with him, unless it's to have him shine their shoes or cook their meals. He has no place there." The blonde man leaned back in his desk chair, a pensive mask upon his face. "What concerns me the most is not the matter of whether or not they would like Nagira to attend; it's the matter of them having a house here in Copenhagen. They didn't used to." Stroking purposefully at his moustache, Trygve turned his sight back to the letter. "I've sent Finn to downtown Copenhagen to wander about a bit and see what he can see, find out what he can find out. Some of the coven might still be here in town from last night, aside from those who already live here in Copenhagen."

The sour mood in the room was infectious and clinging, and it was probably only being worsened by the fact that three—not for certain four—of the people in the room were battling hangovers.

..........

By midday, Robin had felt infinitely better. This was only after she'd spent the rest of the morning lying in bed, in the dark, trying hard not to think but mostly failing. After the ache in her head had begun to subside, she'd gone into the bathroom for her bathing ritual, and emerged feeling hungry.

Lurking around the house, she didn't spy a soul. Quietly she slipped into the kitchen, undoubtedly forbidden territory, and looked into the giant refrigerator—also undoubtedly forbidden territory. Feeling distinctly criminal, she snuck back up to her room with grapes, an apple, and a small hunk of some sort of cheese.

As she ate, she continued trying to prevent herself from thinking too much on the implications of the letter. She knew next to nothing about these mysterious witches who seemed to hold so much power in the world. She didn't even know how much power they actually held. It was becoming rapidly apparent that they probably weren't the most genial of people. It was also becoming apparent that they may have inherently resented her for something.

Frustrated, chewing on a piece of cheese, Robin flopped back on her bed. She'd noticed that it had been neatly made while she was in the bath, presumably by Helle or Beatrix. One last sizeable bite finished off the both the cheese hunk and Robin's stolen lunch. Resting her hands on her bosom, Robin stared up at the white molded ceiling with its golden-bronze embellishments. The worries and questions in her head were spiraling into innumerability, and she closed her eyes, biting her lower lip.

Just for a moment, she told herself. Just to relax. ...and perhaps see if anyone knows anything.

Concentrating, Robin discovered with surprise-that-wasn't-really-all-that-surprised that it was getting easier and easier for her to slip into the otherworld, the normal blackness of closed eyelids expanding outward perceptibly, glowing spots upon glowing spots popping up out of the growing void.

Her otherworld self—always represented as her own body, she wondered what the other witches saw of her, if they saw her at all—floated around in the void, knees drawn up to her chest, her henna-coloured skirt hanging down into nothing.

"Hi. It's me," she whispered out into the anti-air, to the orbs of light. "I guess I just wanted to...go someplace quiet."

Lights grew and dimmed in response. Robin wasn't sure if that meant that people could hear her, or if they were simply aware of her consciousness, or if they were protesting the intrusion, or what. "It's nice here," she went on, timorously. "I was so afraid of this place at first, and then Amon had warned me not to come here any more..." She looked around her in confusion. Normally she could find Amon, no matter what. He was always the brightest glow, closest to her. His presence was mysteriously absent. "...but now it isn't such a problem, I don't think."

Having no tangible reply will make one think that one is talking to one's self.

"What is the committee?" Robin asked suddenly, craning her head up and straightening her posture. She released her knees and let her legs down, floating along through nothingness like some sort of bizarre angel. "Who are the committee? I know someone here has to know something. If they're witches, they're probably even here themselves. Somebody? Anyone?" Robin was moving about then, not quite cognizant of how she was making herself do it. She was hovering through the space, drifting between the glows. "Can you even talk to me, or do I have to talk to you?"

The whispering murmur, the voices of the witches, at first just a barely audible background noise, grew in intensity, rising to a volume and a noise that resembled the sound of ocean water. Robin frowned.

"I thought I told you about all talking at once!" she barked. She felt like a grade school teacher. The murmuring died down, and for a while, it stayed that way while Robin hovered in hope and annoyance.

Hi. A voice out of the gloom. I can hear you. Who are you? You're in my head. Why am I hearing voices in my head? They're not mine, I know that much.

Robin whirled towards the sound within her mind, turning to face a non-existent direction in space. "Where are you? I'm coming closer. I want to talk to you."

NO. Don't come near me. What are you and why are you in my head? The voice demanded, sounding panicked and female. I'm going nuts. I'm losing my mind.

Robin, whom had began to float forward propelled by whatever mysterious power it was that moved her, stopped short. "You're not. You're a witch. I'm a witch. We can talk."

This has never happened to me before. I think I'm just going bonkers.

"It's different, this time. You must have heard me asking questions, and some part of you...I'm not sure which or how...responded." Somehow being inside of someone's mind, Robin surmised, must have been like being in their living room uninvited. "I'm Robin. I'm the Eve of Witches."

The Eve of Witches doesn't exist. It's a fairytale that old ones tell little ones before supper time in the evening. I don't care what ANYONE says, I don't believe the stories.

Robin's face darkened. "Why not? I'm in your head, aren't I? I'm talking to you, aren't I?" Her queries were met with silence. "I just want to ask you some questions."

Oh, sweet Father. Fine. Ask me questions. But make it quick—my children are playing in the fields and I need to bring them in for a bath. I suppose stranger things have happened in a witch's lifetime. For all I know, you're THEM, come to take me away and kill me. I certainly don't believe that you're the Eve of Witches, though.

Robin's dark face darkened even more, if such a thing was possible. "Where are you from? In Europe, presumably; you know about the committee."

I'm...I live in Romania. And yes, I know of the committee. Who doesn't? the voice asked, the formerly suspicious female voice turning acidic. Committee. Murderers, that's what they are.

Green eyes narrowed, interest piqued. "Tell me more."

You want to know, voice? I'll tell you. They kill witches and humans for sport. They abuse their power and extort those whom they think they can turn a profit from. It is as if they are mafiosos. I have even heard... The voice trailed off into nothingness, faint murmurs of what it was. Oh, Jesu, I can't believe I'm talking to myself like this.

"You're not talking to yourself," Robin reassured, even though she was certain the witch-woman wouldn't believe her. "I'm the Eve. I swear. I know you don't believe me, but have faith. I'm going to meet this committee, and I need your help...and the help of anyone you can gather to talk to me. Tell them to search for me. I'll find them, somehow, here in this place."

Oh, Lord, I don't believe this. Fine, 'Eve', I'll tell you. I've heard they deal with THEM, the pathetic, scared little monsters—feebly grasping at the power they can accumulate, enough so to side with those who would just as soon as kill them as look at them!

Her tongue was momentarily punctured between her teeth, her heart beating faster, her whole body set on edge. "Them? You mean...SOLOMON?"

Who else? The voice snapped, almost irritably. I don't even like to think of them. It's bad luck. You...whoever, whatever you are...would be best to avoid the witches of the high committee. You're lucky if they don't seek YOU out. They...they killed my father and my uncle, those dirty bastards. They are not worth the dirt beneath my feet. They're a dishonour to the name of witch.

Robin's fair brows twitched in interest, and she lay down on her stomach in the nothing, propping her elbows up on black space. "What happened?"

My father and my uncle, they were involved with the Gift—years ago, trying to use the Gift to relieve oppression through the government, in the Eastern European countries. It turns out that the committee had ties through the governments, blood ties, money ties—it was not good money for them to have revolutionaries besmirching their plans.

"And?" Robin waited for a reply, the murmuring of the others in the background faded to almost absolutely nothing, the sound of television static in a faraway room.

My mother, my sisters, my youngest brother and I received my father's hands in a box on St. Valentine's Day, years ago. My aunt and her children received a similar gift on the same day, years ago. Both had identical notes enclosed: 'Those whose hands seek to undo the work of their peers often find themselves idle.'

Robin tilted her head to the side, wincing. Against her will, her mind conjured up images of crying children, a comatose-through-shock mother, and a bloody parcel sitting upon a kitchen table. In horror, she realized that it wasn't her mind that was producing such images, it was the mind of the other witch.

You. You can see it. I can FEEL you seeing it. What are you?

Shuddering, Robin opened her eyes fully and stared into blank space. "I...am the Eve."

Are you ready to have the body parts of the ones you love mailed to you? Are you ready to have your supposed people turn against you, if you truly are what you say you are? The voice was low, questioning, serious. They care not for their fellows. They care not for the laws and rules that should govern a sovereign society of brothers and sisters. They care only for power and recognition, esteem. If you are who you say you are, you are nothing but a small bug to them. They will crush you, just as they crush anyone who stands against them. The voice paused, and in the silence there was despair and sadness. Just like they crushed my vader and my unche...if you are who you say you are, abandon your course. Fight SOLOMON, instead. They are a far less lethal enemy.

A dry, cold wind was blowing within Robin, a wind of hate and rage and sadness. These people whose favour she was supposed to curry were murderers? Heartless monsters concerned with their own gain and power? Her fingers twitched, her jaw clenched. Righteous indignation boiled in her throat. "SOLOMON comes last. Unity of witches comes first. And those who will not unify will submit," Robin growled, not recognizing her own voice. How was it that she found it so much easier to be forceful, intimidating there in the otherworld? "This committee does not frighten me. I am the Eve. They will understand and comply or they will—" She stopped, turning her head to the side again, her mouth burning with the fierceness of her words. "—They will understand."

If you'd like to think so. The voice sighed, harried. My children come. Go, spirit. Whatever you are. Leave me. I have three shrieking children to force-feed the same old potatoes again. Being the Eve must be nice—new food, every day? We get awfully sick of potatoes.

Her mouth open to reply, Robin felt a breeze in her face as if someone had slammed a door. "Hello?" she queried experimentally. There was no reply, and it was then that she realized that her communication with other witches—at least at that point—was a two-way ordeal. She wasn't able to simple pry their minds open and rummage around; they had to allow her in, or at the very least be accepting to the idea of a voice, reaching out through the void to speak. Skirts rustled as she sat up, searching the blackness around her with timid curiosity. "Anyone else?" she inquired, watching the innumerous orbs around her flicker in response, and the sea of murmuring rise to crest on an invisible shore.

..................

"Robin. Robin." Amon's hands were on her shoulders then, the thin and insubstantial little bits of body that they were, shaking gently. "Robin. Robin." His mind quickened to panic but he smashed it down, ignoring it.

She was just lying there asleep, after all. Asleep, with her mouth moving, whispering to herself, her mind definitely wandering. She was just very deeply asleep. His hands tightened on her tiny shoulders, shaking a bit more fiercely; more out of need for her to come back than out of need to be so ferocious. "Robin!" Kelly eyes snapped open, unfocused and dreamy, wandering around the room. His hands remained locked onto her skinny shoulders like they were ladder rungs that kept him from falling into nothing.

"Amon," she breathed, her voice sweet and drowsy, and began to sit up. His grip on her shoulders eased some but disturbingly enough—to him, at least—did not release. Ginger hair sliding over his hands, Robin drew up into a sitting position, looking down at her knees. "I was sleeping," she nearly purred, her voice still fuzzy and in disuse from sleep. A slim white hand went to her head, ruffling her silken hair some. "I was...in the otherworld, again."

Amon forced his face to remain straight and solemn, unaffected by the internal fear of her power. "And?"

"Nothing," she spoke dismissively, disconnectedly. "Just talking." The sleepy kelly eyes opened fully, taking in the fabric of her skirt, her bed covers. Body acting before mind, Amon moved his hand up to the back of her head to tilt it, forcing her to look up at him. Her head moved without much resistance, too compliantly.

Missed and ignored opportunity number five bazillion for a kiss.

"Are you alright?" he asked. Robin's green eyes took up most of his vision and focus but he managed to catch the shapes of stems and an apple core out of the corner of his eye. "Eating in bed?" he enjoined, eyes sliding over to the discarded food skeletons.

A sound suspiciously like a moan came from Robin's lips, and her shoulders tugged against Amon's other hand, leaning backwards. "Lunch," she muttered, by way of explanation for the foodstuffs on her bed. "I'm...fine. I'm just tired. I meant to relax but incidentally very little of that happened." He released her and watched her flop back on the bed like a lifeless marionette. "I don't understand why I want to sleep so much."

He watched her lying there on the bed, looking up at him. "It's your age," he said pointedly. "Teenagers sleep the most out of any age group, you know." A minute smirk threatened to break out onto his face, despite his partially foul mood (head still slightly throbbing). "I would think that having a massive hangover wouldn't help things any either."

Robin's eyebrows drew together, a puzzle working in her mind. "Hangover?" she asked confusedly. "What's that?"

....................

Robin looked good. She looked damn good, even Nagira had to admit that much to himself. She looked like one of those cute little business types one would see on the Tokyo bullet trains, the girls who walked past purposefully in their clicking little heels, making one's head turn to follow them. Sure, she wasn't quite as curvaceous as some of the women that had made Nagira's head turn on the bullet trains, but then again she was still young, and she was just so damn small anyway.

His brother was going to get a severe nosebleed when he saw her.

"You look sharp, kiddo." He looked down to her feet, noticing the same old pair of black Mary Janes on her feet. "Didn't you have any snappier shoes to go with it, though?"

Robin turned pink and looked at her shoes. "I can't walk in them," she admitted in embarrassment. "The heels are too big and they're extremely uncomfortable."

Well, at least Robin wasn't one of those women who'd cram their feet into the most uncomfortable shoes possible just to look good and then spend the rest of the evening bitching about how much their feet hurt. Nagira shrugged. "Oh well. Those work fine." Robin looked at herself in a frame mirror that hung on one of the walls in the entry hall, appraising her outfit; little black cardigan and a deep russet-hued strapless number that came down to the middle of her shins, sticking to what little curves she had in all the right places and still managing to look demure and businesslike at the same time.

Sigrún had good taste in clothes. Nagira reminded himself to tell the woman this the next time he saw her, which had been few and far between lately. It seemed as if the woman and her child—both of them—had sequestered themselves away in a bedroom somewhere in the house, refusing to come out. She'd apparently appeared for just long enough to help a frustrated Robin with her hair, parting it on the side, smoothing it, and then pulling it back into a ponytail. Then she'd hauled back off to her bedroom with Eirikur, presumably back to bed. She hadn't been feeling very well, recently.

Sigrún's absence meant that Trygve more oft than not spent most of his time bouncing back and forth between his office and the bedroom, checking on his wife and son and even bringing meals up to them himself, ushering away the maids. Inside the parlor, Finn was smoking and attempting to find some sort of outlet and cable hookup that would allow him to install a television.

"No damn TV in this house," he'd muttered to Nagira earlier, who'd walked in on the American's hunt for an electrical outlet. "How do you people live without a TV?"

"Easy," Nagira had replied, snickering. "We're not Americans."

Finn looked at him balefully. "Oh ha ha. You do realize you've just earned yourself a token Hello Kitty joke, right?"

"What are you going to do tonight, Nagira?" Robin queried out of the blue, bringing Nagira out of his internal assessment of the house. He shrugged, sticking his hands into the pockets of his deep greenish slacks.

"Dunno," he replied, casually. "It's just going to be me and Finn here, and Sigrún—if you count her, considering she's in her room all the time now." A noise at the top of the stairs drew Nagira's attention and he noticed his brother coming down the stairs, adjusting his already impeccable tie. "The man of the hour," he commented, watching Amon almost stop on the stairs when Robin turned to look at him and he caught full sight of her.

"Where's Trygve?" Amon asked neutrally, arriving in front of Robin and his brother. His eyes refused to acknowledge that Robin was there.

Robin, however, unintentionally refused to be ignored. "He's bringing the car around," she supplied, looking at her ex-partner. "He said that he would drive tonight just in case we...needed to leave in a hurry." She looked momentarily worried but the emotion passed from her face quickly. Then, honestly and innocently, she appraised Amon's appearance. "You look very sharp," she commented brightly, and he looked over at her in an almost dreading manner. His eyes lingered a bit longer than was usual for him while looking at Robin.

"You look nice as well," he acknowledged, uncomfortably. Nagira wished he had a camera. If Amon ever blushed, he probably would have been doing it right then.

"Well, I suppose you two'd better go out there and wait for Trygve to come around," Nagira said, ushering them towards the door. "He should be around any second, eh?"

Pausing at the door so Robin could grab her coat, Nagira continued to herd the two out the front door with a faint smile on his face. "Bye, kids!" he called cheerfully from the door as Robin and Amon descended the front step's stairs. "Have fun! Don't bring her back too late now, young man, y'hear?"

The look of utter death that Amon fired off at his brother and the way Robin turned around and waved cheerfully made Nagira wish once again that he had a camera.

............................

His Craft was lurching and he couldn't stop it. It was part apprehension, part wariness, part trying to keep his tongue in his mouth. Robin's appearance was getting more and more dangerous with every passing day. At this rate, he was going to end up like a stuttering teenager on his first date by the end of the week.

Headlights on the road were ungodly bright, and Amon winced against them with each passing car. The steady chugging of the old Checker's engine sounded like a symphony of clicks, beats, and whirs to him, and he found himself really having to concentrate on what Trygve was saying in order to hear him. Everything else was just sensory overload. He could smell Robin in the backseat, some sort of pleasant mix of new clothing and freshly washed skin and hair.

The inside of his mouth tasted like metal. Trygve was talking to him.

"These people are absolute elitist bastards," he said, voice dripping with distaste. The Checker came to a slow, lumbering stop at a light, flanked on all sides by small, efficient European vehicles. The stop lights were so bright in Amon's eyes that they were starting to turn into small starts, points of light coming out from them like solar rays. "They'll try to intimidate you and they will try to use their status in society against you. And if they seem rather...what's the term...? 'Sketchy'? If they seem sketchy to you, it is probably because they are."

Amon looked to Trygve, the subtle chugging vibrations that came from the Checker's engine feeling like an earthquake to Amon's senses. "What are these people involved in? You never really explained." His voice was booming even though he hadn't spoken all that loudly.

Trygve soured. "A lot of things. Nothing they can be caught for, I don't think, unless they make a misstep. I know they kill people."

"Kill people?" Robin's startled voice came from the backseat.

"Kill people," Trygve reaffirmed. "It's their solution to problems. They run very much like a mafia would; whatever their business is, wherever it is, they're going to protect it through any means necessary. They immensely dislike people interfering with their ways."

"Kill people," Robin murmured to herself in the back seat, quiet enough to where Trygve couldn't have heard it but Amon's overly-sensitive hearing picked it up with little difficulty. He turned to look back at her through the car's darkness, finding her with her arms folded over her middle, her eyes staring thoughtfully out the long, wide window. She looked more pensive than upset, so Amon let it slide.

"Just our luck to inadvertently fit into the interfering role," he said, turning back around to stare out at the sunbursts of light along the road that represented tail lights and street lamps.

....................

Upon their arrival at the house—a large, red, impressive affair of a tall, thin flat—Amon noticed with a large level of discomfort that his Craft was refusing to submit to his commands and calm down. The light sheen of sweat on his forehead was drying in the cold wind, but it must not have been drying fast enough—Robin noticed and looked at him with concern, to which he cast his glance away dismissively. She said nothing but idled at his side, walking next to him, keeping step with him out of concern. Trygve walked ahead of them to the large front door of the flat and gave the brass knocker a couple of powerful taps.

Moments later the door opened, revealing a young man in a sharp suit, looking out at them impassively. "Welcome," he said in a polite monotone, opening the door wider, spilling light out across the trio. Amon winced. "Your hosts have been expecting you."

As the young man—obviously a butler or a doorman of sorts—held the door open for them and they walked in, Robin thanked him quietly and then thanked him again when he immediately turned to help her out of her coat upon shutting the door. Folding the fabric carefully and neatly, he hung it on a rack near the door impeccably. He turned to Trygve and Amon and held out his hands. "Would you gentlemen like for me to hang your coats for you?"

Heart pounding, Amon quickly shrugged out of his overcoat and handed it to the young man, who accepted it with smooth and deliberate movements. The doorman's robotic qualities were doing nothing to help Amon calm down—from the moment he'd walked in the door, his sense of impending doom had only grown.

It's just a fucking dinner meeting, Amon's mind reassured him. Even if they do already hate you, even if you're potentially taking a dangerous gamble—it's just a dinner meeting. The doorman, saying something, indicated that they should follow him down a dimly-lit hallway towards a set of doors. Trygve followed first, and Robin, looking up at Amon with concern, waited until he moved to follow along.

The eerily calm young man opened the double doors at the end of the dim hallway to reveal a sitting room, parlour of sorts. The smell of expensive cigars hung heavy in the air, and the sounds of muted conversation drifted out. No one looked to the door, even though Amon could clearly make out six distinct heads and faces, around the room. Trygve squared his shoulders and walked in, and Amon imperceptibly bristled at the way the doorman stared at Robin as she walked in behind Trygve.

He managed a steely look at the doorman, who looked back at him blankly, as he entered the room last.

Once the doors were closed behind them, only then did some of the heads turn. Amon looked at them all quickly—five men, one woman. They ranged in age from what appeared to be around his age to perhaps early sixties. Their Icelandic companion, in front of them, smiled broadly and crossed to the front of a loveseat. The man on the loveseat closest to him stood, revealing a powerful build and a sharp, no-nonsense suit.

"Ah, Trygve," the man intoned, and Amon immediately bristled then—a Czech accent. This man was what Amon himself was a part of. "So good of you to come! But you are devoid of a wife, I see?"

Trygve, exchanging customary social pecks on the cheeks, managed a strong smile. "Thank you for having us. Sigrún is otherwise detained—she is with child, once again, and this pregnancy has not been as easy as the first was."

"I am sorry to hear such news." The rest of the room was silent except for the tall Czech man. Amon was scanning him silently, taking in his wide shoulders, his buzz-cut salt and pepper hair; and when he turned, the sharp lines of his face, the definite square of his jaw, the cleft of his chin. This man appeared as if he had been in the military at some point in time. "And you, new friends, so good of you to come as well." He rounded the couch, coming towards Amon and Robin. Amon almost sensed Robin's desire to shrink away, but she stood her ground.

"My name is Reznik," the man said, extending a firm hand towards Amon, whose mind immediately set off warning bells. Reznik. Reznik means butcher, his mind screamed at him. He ignored it and shook hands with Reznik, a small war of hand-shake grip strength occurring. They nodded at each other, and Amon spoke.

"My name is Amon," he said. And then, even though his mind screamed no at him: "You are already aware of this, I think."

Reznik laughed as Trygve began to socialize quietly with the other five people in the background, obscured by the intensity of the situation in front of Amon. "Ah, yes. I was. I am. I'm also aware of the fact that you're half-Czech."

Amon forced his face to remain neutral, staring evenly into the dark brown eyes of the severe-looking man in front of him. "Yes. My mother was part Czech. I was born there."

Reznik nodded, silently and discreetly sizing Amon up. Apparently done with his appraisal, he turned next to Robin, a smile on his lips—a smile that somehow seemed like a smile that a butcher would have, and Robin in front of him was little more than a piece of meat to be cut up and doled out. Amon's teeth were threatening to grind. "And you, my dear—Robin, is it?—you are a vision. I am so glad that you could join us this evening," he complimented, and then exchanged the customary polite kisses with Robin. She smiled at him, her most winning, bright smile—which just made her look all the more ripe for the butchering, a lamb among dogs.

"I'm very glad to meet you, Reznik," she said, voice calm and cheerful. "This is such a wonderful opportunity for all of us."

Reznik, watching her smile at him, widened his own butcher-smile. "Yes it is."

.........................

Silently, as calmly as possible, his eyes slid around the table as the food was served, set in front of them perfectly and pristinely as if they didn't have their own arms and legs to move about.

First off was Reznik, head of the table—apparently the official or unofficial head of this so-called illustrious committee. Severe, militant, and Czech—a man after Amon's own heart, if only they hadn't been immediately opposed to each other from the get-go. There was a secret cunning about him, a disguised-yet-overt predatory nature about him that made Amon's skin crawl and his teeth set on edge. It suddenly occurred to him that most people probably felt precisely the same way about he himself, and Amon resolved not to think about that much.

Next was the apparent oldest of the group, an old Scottish man named Donald. The old man hadn't said much; only chain-smoked hundred-dollar cigars and stared at everyone, his hand resting on his gut as if he was someone's complacent grandfather.

Next to Trygve, who was in between Donald and Reznik was Julien, a Frenchman. He was seemingly the youngest of the group, perhaps around Amon's age. Distinctively effeminate, bordering on foppishness, Julien seemed to be the lowest threat from the committee. Amon, his brain working in insidious ways and the cogs of his sub-brain, the almost criminal aspect, figured that he could grab Julien by the neck and have done with him in one quick turn of the wrists. There didn't look like there'd be much of a fight.

Next to Julien was Paz, the only woman among the six witches that made up the committee. She was older, perhaps pushing forty; but curvaceous and beautiful. There was something about her that was disturbingly attractive, perhaps her well-rounded figure or her movie-star face, but her eyes spoke of chronic untruthfulness. Amon might have admired her appearance, having no other choice as a man; but he didn't like her one bit.

At the other end of the table was another elderly man, perhaps the same age as Donald, or rapidly approaching. His name was Teodor, and he was a Romanian. Amon himself, shockingly, hadn't been able to pick up much from the man on his own, relying upon his own instincts. However, Robin, upon meeting him, had stiffened and spiked like spines on a cactus, invisible crackles of electricity almost shooting up from her skin. Something about the man had definitely spooked her, and Amon, after having been around Robin for so long, had become attuned to Robin's reactions. Something—he wasn't sure what—was definitely right out about the old man.

Then there was himself and Robin at the table, Robin nearest to Teodor, and on Amon's other side was a middle-aged man named Oskari, a Finn. According to Reznik and the rest of the group, the Finn didn't speak much English. That was perfectly fine with Amon. As far as he was concerned, one look at Oskari's shifty blue-green eyes that never seemed to settle on any one thing for too long, and he'd already made a judgment about him.

Dinner commenced. The sounds of silverware on plates clinked through the small but lavish dining area. Robin, in a show of restraint, slowed down and ate her food like a lady. The food tasted like metal in Amon's over-sensitive mouth.

They'd jumped straight out of the pan into the fire. His mind churned. There was no one around them save Trygve that Amon would even remotely consider trusting at all.

"So," Teodor began in a heavily accented voice, stroking his long goatee, "you have been running from SOLOMON for long time?"

Amon, who had a mouth full of veal, didn't open his mouth to speak. Talking with one's mouth full was nearly one of the seven deadly sins to him. Robin, who quickly swallowed her food, replied for him. "Yes," she answered. "Well, I suppose not so terribly long, actually. It just seems very long...it's been rough at times."

"Yes, SOLOMON is ruthless," Teodor surmised, reaching for his glass. "I think they are finest hunters in world. Nothing escape them. They get the prey."

"That's not entirely true," Trygve said, looking down the table to the old Romanian man. "They're only so big. They only have so far of a reach." The silence among the people at the table was nearly deafening to Amon and a slice of his brain waved little red flags at Trygve's instigation of a touchy discussion with the old Romanian.

"They reach wider than you think," Teodor murmured darkly to Trygve. His words carried either foreboding or dislike, Amon couldn't distinguish which. Food in his stomach churned unpleasantly and without warning he set his fork down purposefully, staring blankly at his plate. He was done with food for the time being. A helpless feeling arose within him; he knew that if he ate any more he would more than likely be sick, his body too nervous and tense to function properly. Robin was looking at Teodor with a look that was a mask meant to disguise several different emotions. The impression of a live-wire, charged with nervous energy, was radiating from her again.

Amidst the gentle din of polite yet somehow dangerous dinner conversation, Amon felt a tendril of Robin's probing mind reaching out to him furtively, perhaps trying to gauge his level of discomfort. He might have been out of sorts and mentally scattered, but his brain still worked enough to clamp down its walls and effectively lock Robin out. She withdrew quickly, mortified at having been caught trying to investigate—but Amon knew, looking over at the blonde girl who was avoiding making eye contact with him, that if she'd really wanted to get past his mental defenses that she probably could have with ease.

...........................

The touch of well-manicured, mauve-brown lacquered nails alit on Robin's shoulder, lingering almost intimately near her collarbone. Turning her face upward, she was met with the sight of the woman Paz's rounded, sensual olive-hued countenance. A smile pulled the bee-stung, glossy lips into a somehow suggestive curve and Robin was uncomfortable, resisting the urge to squirm.

"Why don't you join me outside, Robin?" she asked in a voice that sounded straight out of a noir film—the nightclub dame, sprawled on a piano in a slinky black dress. "I'm going to step out for a moment to have a cigarette."

Robin couldn't help but look to Amon for approval, instantly wishing that she hadn't. The amusement of the others in the room save Trygve was almost material. His visage was odd, unreadable, scrambled; so Robin took initiative and stood, nodding to the Spanish woman. "I'll join you."

"Excellent." They left the room through a set of double doors, Paz ahead of Robin with dangerous curves and swinging hips. Moving through a darkened room they reached another set of double doors that led to a small balcony overlooking a small inner courtyard. The interior of the building was shrouded in shadows, and the sultry figure of Paz looked to be little more than a dark, nondescript figure. She lit her cigarette, the smart snap of her lighter illuminating her face for a split second, and then the world sank back into darkness, smoothly exhaled smoke hanging in the cold air above their heads.

"My patience for men and their machismo power wars is only so big," the woman said after a delay, to Robin. "Men are somewhat useless, with the exception of a few tasks."

Robin tittered, shivering in the cold air. Gooseflesh rose on her body. "I see."

Paz looked over at her through the dark, her brown eyes magnetic even in the darkness, heavy black lashes batting. "Not that you would know, I assume."

Some extremely rarely used cogs in the very feminine part of Robin's brain turned and she fought the urge to blush as she realized what the older woman was talking about. "Oh. No." The way the older woman was looking at her was unnerving.

"That's a shame," the committee woman murmured with a click of her tongue. "I haven't met the human you keep company with, but you seem to have extraordinarily good taste in witch men." A cunning smirk appeared in the darkness. "You don't mean to tell me that it's accidental, either, do you?"

The young blonde was somewhat bewildered at the turn the conversation was taking. "Oh, well...it rather is, I suppose." She itched to be back inside at Amon's side, in tremulous safety, away from ambiguous conversation.

A faint sound of disbelief issued from Paz's mouth along with a streamlined jet of smoke. "You mean to tell me that you and none of your so-called 'caretakers' have...?"

Robin shook her head fervently. A blush was creeping into her cheeks then and she couldn't help it. The thought of Trygve or Nagira made her extremely uncomfortable and somewhat disgusted—she couldn't make herself see them in that light—but the thought of what the woman was insinuating between Robin and Amon was bordering on sensory overload.

"Huh." Paz shrugged with delicately and carefully groomed eyebrows. "You being the Eve of Witches and all," and Robin blinked at the inflection in the woman's voice on her title, "I'd figure that any and all men with half of an ego couldn't wait to get between your legs."

"I...don't think it's like that," Robin managed meekly. These were thoughts she didn't even allow herself to think often, let alone topics fit for discussion with a woman she barely knew, a woman who was for all intents and purposes her enemy.

There was charged silence between the two women until Paz looked over to Robin, expectantly. "Do you plan on ruling the witch world as a virgin queen forever, then? Elizabeth the First, reincarnated as a witch?" she asked, bluntly. Before Robin could answer, Paz's look towards her darkened somehow, became more serious. "There are ways around it, little Robin."

Warning bells were going off in Robin's head. For a split second, she feared that the woman was going to try to harm her. The look in her brown eyes, though, was something else. "Ways around what? I'm not certain I understand." The Spanish witch was advancing on Robin, and the young girl's heart was pounding. Pristinely manicured nails flicked the cigarette away with disinterest, brown eyes eyeing Robin like she was an after-dinner treat.

"You really are a little girl, aren't you?" Paz asked rhetorically, one of her hands latching onto Robin's arm with a startling firmness. Robin froze as the older, slightly taller woman advanced to a point within Robin's space that was almost—that almost implied—

"I think you're rather adorable, really," Paz drawled, and Robin's eyes widened to the size of small moons when the perfect nails began to stroke across her cheek, towards her hair. "You're no Eve of Witches, though." Robin was frozen under the older woman's touch, which somehow seemed to repulse and bewitch her at the same time. "I'll give you a little bit of advice, gatita—go home and be the innocent little baby for your caretakers to fawn over. You have no place here. As a fellow woman, I feel it is my duty to tell you this. You are no match for those men in that room. Go home and forget this foolish Eve business."

Green eyes unblinking, Robin's slightly trembling lips fell open, searching for words. Paz's body was pressed against hers then, the warmth from her curves almost searing. The warning bells in Robin's head sounded like the bells of Notre Dame at that point. "I have no home to go back to," she answered finally, quietly. A hint of resolve and defiance managed to make itself present in her whispered declaration.

"Poor gatita," Paz breathed, her voice nearly hypnotic. "No home to go to. You're adorable, but it isn't going to garner you any protection here. If you insist on trying to prove yourself, I would suggest you hide behind your men and let them do it. You are not capable of doing anything for yourself, I think."

Silence. A smirk. "I kind of like the idea of that."

Robin only had time for one more breath before the other woman's lips were on hers, firmly and insistently, smooth and slick and glossy against Robin's own nervous saliva-wetted ones. Her heart jumped up into her throat with a confused mixture of emotions, fear predominant among them—and the Spanish woman's tongue was inside of her startled, frozen mouth for only a second, enticingly yet repulsively.

And then it was over, and Paz was stepping back, smirking at the terrified, immobile Robin wickedly. "Capitulate and your home could be with me, gatita." She sashayed over to the double doors of the patio, hands resting on the door handles lightly, caressingly. "If you stay like you are now, I don't think I would mind that so much. It could be fun."

Robin's mind alternated between reeling and malfunctioning.

"But before you come inside, and before you sit yourself back down between your men and pretend to be capable," she murmured, "you'd do well to take that ridiculous look off your face and wipe the lipstick off your lips." Robin's hand moved robotically to her lips, wiping the residue of warm brownish-pink lipstick away.

Back inside, Robin having re-entered the flat a second after Paz, she sat back down on the loveseat next to Amon. Her face was open and discreetly startled but she refused to acknowledge the way Amon was studying her subtly, trying to figure out what was wrong with her. She'd just been kissed. Her first kiss.

And it had come from a woman who seemed more like a demon than a woman.

Repressing a shudder, Robin opened her ears to the conversation that was taking place among the men, ignoring Paz as she came around to stand behind the Finnish man Oskari's chair, leaning against it suggestively. "...modernization is they key." Reznik was speaking, his clipped Eastern European accent sounding businesslike. "Witches of old didn't realize they power they could have over simple humans, the power they wielded by the simple fact of their existence. Instead they hid away, cowering, trying to blend in and use their powers either for good or not use them at all."

Amon looked away from Robin and over to the committee head, eyes narrowed in thought. Robin looked over, as well. "How many times has the story been recorded in the annals of history? A witch, trying to use their powers for good, to serve the foolish, ignorant human population as a healer, or a shaman...then, the humans turn against the witch and burn them. This is foolishness. Why cater to humans?"

"Humans have ever feared what they do not understand," Donald, the old Scot, spoke up for perhaps the first time that evening through a cloud of expensive cigar smoke. "They go around with their little lanterns held high, trembling, and shoot whatever the lantern does not illuminate, whatever lives in the darkness."

"And furthermore," Reznik continued, steepling his fingers, "why cater to those who cater to humans?" For a split second Robin could have sworn that he stared at her but it had happened so fast that she couldn't be sure. "That is weakness. That is for young, scared fledglings who can't stand on their own and seek to curry the favour of humans to stay alive."

Robin couldn't help but feel as if the man was talking directly to herself, Amon, and Trygve somehow.

"How do we, then, modernize?" Trygve asked of Reznik. Out of the corner of her eye, Robin noticed Paz staring at her, then staring at Amon.

"We play the humans' game, and become better than them at it," Donald spoke up again, wrinkly, pouched old face almost hiding his eyes. "They seek to control through fear, through laws, through money, through politics, through religion. They've done rather well thus far." He took an appreciative puff from his cigar, eyeing it with beady, gleaming orbs that were lost in his ancient face. "We are doing better."

The question that had been lurking on Robin's mind was suddenly vociferated by Amon. "And what of SOLOMON?"

"Not a concern of ours," Donald replied. "Perhaps a concern of others, but not of ours. They can be rather helpful, at times."

Amon's face was unmoving, grey eyes flat and intent. "Helpful." He watched the old man keenly. "In what manner?"

Reznik leaned forward, grinning. His face frightened Robin. "They're humans, mostly. And humans are so easily manipulated, especially when frightened, or when presented with money or power."

Silence befell the room. Only Robin noticed Amon's tension, a telltale tightening of the cords and the muscles in his shoulders and neck. His fingers stroked his beard somewhat, ponderously. "The same can be said of some witches." The silence in the room thickened; Amon was tap-dancing on thin ice with his words. "What purpose can witches hope to achieve by even manipulating SOLOMON? By frightening humans?"

The committee was looking at him as if he'd just grown a second head. Robin was frozen and Trygve stared at some object in space at his side, possibly wondering what the hell Amon was doing. "Shouldn't the focus of energy be eliminating SOLOMON, not manipulating them?" Amon asked of Reznik pointedly, the two men staring each other down. "And what do you have to gain by even associating with them?"

It felt like the token awkward scene in a movie, in which a character had overstepped his bounds, and the room had fallen so silent that the viewer could hear the crickets chirping.

Without warning, Reznik's face melted into amusement and he began to laugh, loud and long. Amon continued to stare at him, obviously not very much amused himself. "Funny that an ex-Hunter should speak those words!" the Czech man managed between guffaws. "Why eliminate what serves us, what does not frighten us?" he asked Amon, once he'd started to calm. His severe face retained the unnerving smile. "Why bother using a baseball bat to swat at a fly?"

He looked at Robin, then, and Amon tensed so much that Robin could feel it moving through her mind, through the fabric of the loveseat. "Why bother eliminating the weaker members of a society when we've got foolish humans to do it for us?" Robin and the committee leader looked at each other for a moment, and cold realization sunk in when Robin realized he was insinuating something about herself, and SOLOMON attempting to eliminate her.

"Why do you want them to eliminate witches?" Robin queried softly, in subtle disbelief. "Aren't we all witches?"

"To varying degrees," Oskari replied, his accent so thick that it was difficult to understand him.

"SOLOMON thinks they're hurting the witch population at large by Hunting them, by picking them off," Julien spoke up, lounging in his chair fluidly, blue-green eyes looking at Robin from underneath lashes that seemed too long to be male. "They're just eliminating the weak. It's natural selection at a quickened pace."

Grinning, Paz leaned over the back of Oskari's chair, hands straying to the fairer man's shoulders. She looked at Robin, her eyes smoldering. "It saves us the task of having to get our hands dirty. Someday, SOLOMON will find themselves opposing an army of the strongest, and the best."

More silence befell the room, Trygve looking over to Amon and Robin with a look of warning on his face, as if to say you are putting yourselves in over your heads, and you are taking me with you.

Reznik leaned back in his chair, his face smug and eyes dark. "And when such time comes," he began, drawing the attention of the three non-committee members to him immediately, "those who have survived will need a strong leadership." He smiled at Robin, menacing and kind at once. "We are prepared to assume that role. We have been for some time. This is what we have been working for."

His eyes continued to bore into Robin's and she could have sworn that just for a fraction of a second, she heard a voice in her head that whispered and the leadership does not include you. She swallowed imperceptibly, wetting her dry throat. In no uncertain terms, Reznik was telling her to back off.

The door at the far end of the room opened quietly. The movement was enough to draw attention to it however, and Reznik turned in his chair suddenly towards the intrusion. The same smooth, robotic doorman from earlier that evening stood there, an envelope in his hand. "A message has come for you, sir. It is of utmost importance." Paz took initiative, hands sliding off Oskari's shoulders as she crossed the room to take the envelope. She nodded at the doorman and closed the door, moving to Reznik and handing the envelope to him. Amon and Robin looked at each other subtly as the intimidating man opened the envelope a peek and looked inside. Just after casting a very quick, meaningful glance at the old man Teodor, he looked to Amon and Robin brightly, then to Trygve.

"I am so sorry, friends," he said, "but a matter of great importance needs to be addressed immediately. I'm afraid that we shall have to call this delightful evening to an end." He stood as Paz, Oskari, and Julien looked at each other semi-secretly and moved towards the exit without even saying a word to the trio of outsiders. "Please forgive our rudeness. You are more than welcome to stay for the evening here, if you'd like, to save yourself the trip."

Robin, unusually, was the quickest on the draw in the speech department. "Thank you for the offer, but we needn't burden you with our presence this evening." She smiled at him, pointedly ignoring the way Teodor looked at her. "You have business to attend to; it's understandable that we have to leave now."

"Such a polite, gracious little girl," Teodor said, moving to his feet. He joined Rezik in looking down on Robin. "You remind me of women in my Romania."

Robin looked at him with her nicest smile, frantically trying to block out the imagery of a bloody box on a kitchen table, screaming children, and a woman holding herself, rocking back and forth. The imagery from the Romanian woman Robin had been made privy to in the witch world swam behind her eyes every time she looked at the old man. "Ah. I'm honoured."

And then he was looking at her—more like through her, her green eyes little more than a thin changing screen that ill-concealed her naked thoughts behind. Panic seized a part of Robin. Numbly, she felt her hands being taken up between Teodor's own, gently, caressingly, as if he was a kind old grandfather sitting with his favourite granddaughter. "No, Robin—I am honoured. So nice to see polite, smart girl again...so kind and good."

His smile turned knowing and Robin's heart skipped a beat, the jagged hands of disgust and fear digging nails into her heart and lungs.

"Your hands seek to do work greater than you," he intoned, smile eating into Robin's defenses, singing I know you know without saying a word. "How honourable."

........................

Tensions in the Checker ran high. Robin was mute in the back seat, her hands gripping her thin arms through her heavy coat tightly, her body shivering despite the car's heater working overtime to make the interior warm. In the front seat, Trygve and Amon grew dangerously close to angry arguing.

"Those people are like witch Nazis," Amon stated flatly, his voice louder than usual. "You're telling me that we're supposed to somehow endear ourselves to people whose master plan is some sort of wide-spread witch genocide?" he asked of Trygve pointedly, who drove the car in terse silence. "I cannot believe that you'd even associate with them, let alone ask me to and to drag Robin and my brother into the fray."

"We don't have a choice," Trygve answered, his voice moderated carefully to reign in disgruntlement.

Amon, in the front seat, looked to the blonde man fiercely. "Bullshit. How can you sit there? How can you sit there in the same room with those people, and watch them tell us to our faces that we're not worthy of living? How can you listen to them implying that we are weak, that we run for a reason?" Amon's voice was steadily rising, and Robin was wincing. "How can you let them tell us in more or less words that they can and will kill us if they see fit?" he finished, voice betraying helpless rage.

Trygve's control over his own anger snapped. "How could you have sat there and called them out, Amon?" he growled back, maneuvering the large vehicle through traffic with intensity. "I bow to them because I have no other choice. These people have more power than you think—they could easily kill us all with—"

A noise like the growl of a dog came from Amon. "Power! You speak of their power continually, but so far you haven't done much explaining." He looked at Trygve pointedly, the ferocity of his gaze not lost in the dark of the vehicle. "So far we've been completely in the dark about who these people are, what their power is, and what they do. If you want me to know my place you'd better start giving me some information."

"They work through governments and they work through SOLOMON. They use money and influence to eliminate those who oppose them, those who cross them." Hands pounded on the steering wheel in frustration. "And damnit, I don't know much more! You've seen it yourself, now—they're completely insane. I have no idea what their larger plan is. I only know that it isn't right, and that I feel obligated to do something about it. Witches turning against each other, witches killing other witches for sport or whatever it is they're doing—I only know that this serves SOLOMON and so-called 'humans' more than it serves witches. I curry their favour because it puts off the day that my family or my friends will come into danger, and it gives me time to try to work against them, to formulate a plan."

Silence reigned, and Robin retreated further into herself in the backseat, unhappy at the argument ensuing in the car.

Amon sighed heavily, his foul mood radiating like an aura around him. "I don't fucking believe this," he said, to no one in particular. "Not only do we have to worry about concealing ourselves from SOLOMON now—which may incidentally be manipulated, to some extent, by this committee of psychopaths—but we have to worry about being eliminated in some sort of witch holocaust." He rubbed his gloved hands into his eyes. "Wonderful."

"You would do well not to provoke them," Trygve said to Amon, lowly, after a long spell of charged silence.

"Would I?" Amon asked in a fury. His hand indicated Robin in the backseat, jabbing through the air. "Would I do better to just lie down and let them roll right over me, straight to Robin? Straight to my brother, and whoever else is around? Should I just back down gracefully, simpering apologies, and let them establish some kind of bizarre witch-Reich? Am I supposed to just accept their superior rule and live the rest of my life in fear of people that I can't even manage to conjure an iota of respect for?"

"I don't fucking know!" Trygve shouted in an outburst. "For now, you should just work on trying not to open your mouth and prove something, and getting everyone around you killed! That's a start!"

........................

Nagira's sleep had been uneasy and generally shitty. Trygve, Amon, and Robin had returned to the house the evening prior irritated and unnerved, and Nagira hadn't been able to get a word out of either Robin or Trygve at all. Robin had actually gone immediately up the stairs and sequestered herself in her room, not emerging for the rest of the evening.

After sitting in the parlor with Nagira and Finn for a bit, Amon had finally recounted some of the evening's events at the dinner. Finn didn't seem startled by Amon's account of the committee members; in fact, he'd shrugged and said something heavy with the effect of nonchalance.

"That's those assholes for you," Finn's words had been. "They're completely nuts and they're on some sort of genetic-supremacy-mission or something. They're like the Italian mafia meets American politics meets the Gestapo. They don't like you, you die. You're weak, you die. You fuck around in their political affairs, you die. You look at them wrong, you die. It's a lose-lose situation, and the odds just keep getting worse."

It hadn't sounded very good to Nagira at all, and he sympathized with his baby brother, who was seething with helpless, defenseless rage; like a cornered cat surrounded by dogs. Nagira also lamented his own uselessness, not even allowed to attend the dinner with the others by some freak twist of genetic misfortune. Humans. Humans and witches. Weren't they the same thing? Witches were humans, with a little genetic tweaking. It wasn't as if they didn't have the same weaknesses and emotions, the same shortcomings and potentials.

Nagira recalled Amon mentioning to him, once, that Toudou—Robin's long-dead father (or father-figure, rather, creator, what have you)—had seen witches as a species altogether different from humans; a race of Gods who'd since lost their powers and needed to regain them.

Lying there in bed, the morning just starting to peep through the curtains, Nagira folded his hands behind his head and thought. He wasn't entirely certain that he believed the whole witches-as-Gods theory. He thought about Robin, the world's first test-tube witch. Toudou had done a good job; that was to be sure. Not only was Robin becoming exponentially more powerful—just like Toudou had intended for her to do—but he'd also succeeded in creating the most human non-human Nagira had ever met. It was unreal to him, at times, to look at little Robin and know that she didn't necessarily have parents, per se; that she'd had a woman who'd borne her and a man who'd contributed his seed, but that she'd been scientifically altered and preened until she was just right.

When Nagira thought of science experiments involving humans, he pictured Frankensteins and Swamp Men; human experiments gone horribly wrong; deformed things with two heads and tentacles for legs that snuck up on horny teenagers in cars and killed them. He didn't envision Robin, who was probably the most perfect person he'd ever met. Maybe more people needed to be genetically altered before birth. It could stand to make the world a better place.

At times, Nagira even allowed himself to think far into the hopeful future, one in which his baby brother would stop being such a stubborn asshole, one in which he and Robin didn't have to run for their lives or look over their shoulders all the time. He pondered the existence of a child between Amon and Robin, and how it would be in many ways, a fulfillment of Toudou's hope for witches. A child whom would more than likely inherit the abilities of its two parents, packing all the powers of its mother and its father in one body, making it quite possibly the most perfect witch ever. An all-powerful, intelligent, attractive child with perfect senses and the ability to reach into the minds of others...such a child could be either a beacon of hope or an incredible danger to the world, depending upon what happened and who came into contact with him.

The notion of such a child was frightening and exciting at the same time. Nagira only hoped that such an imagined child would inherit its mother's bright, kind disposition as opposed to its father's sullen one, but perhaps glean a bit of its father's savvy and wit to keep it alive and on top as opposed to its mother's naivety.

The sound of a door opening swiftly outside of Nagira's room stirred him from his early morning thoughts and compelled him to rise from his bed. He opened his own door and poked his head out, spying his brother standing in the doorway to his room, eyes squinted and head cocked slightly like a hunting dog listening for the faraway call of birds.

"What?" Nagira hissed from his doorway, regarding his brother oddly.

Amon's face turned dark and serious. "I hear crying. And screaming. I thought it was Robin, at first, but then I realized it was coming..." He trailed off as the two brothers beheld a brown-haired girl clad all in black pounding up the main staircase, then tearing down the hallway in the opposite direction. Close behind her was Finn, likewise moving at breakneck speed towards a small staircase at the very opposite end of the hallway. The two running figures appeared to have not even noticed the brothers in the doorways.

"What the hell is that all about?" Nagira managed, incredulously. He opened his door wider and stepped out slightly, looking down the hallway. "Is there a two-for-one sale going on upstairs or something?"

"Shhhsh." Amon growled, swatting a hand at his brother. His face implied intense concentration for a few seconds, and then he relaxed somewhat and looked over to Nagira. "There's more than one person hollering up there. Something isn't right."

Face growing taut and wary immediately, Nagira set his jaw. "You don't think there's been an intruder, do you?" The look exchanged between himself and Amon said that they'd both been thinking and perhaps fearing the same thing; an intrusion from either SOLOMON or the committee, somehow, perhaps with violent connotations.

The sounds of footfalls pounding around on the ceilings above their heads came down through the air, and both men looked up.

Seconds later Robin's door opened quietly, revealing a mussy and sleep-haggard figure that was moderately recognizable as the girl herself. She rubbed at her head as if it ached, and closed her eyes, some sort of sorrow etched across her still-sleepy features.

"There's nothing we can do," she murmured, still massaging her temple. "It's Sigrún."

Nagira blanched, looking to Robin urgently. "She's...dead?" he pressed, gravely.

Robin shook her head. "No. But her child is. She's miscarried." With that announcement, Robin turned slowly, back hunching, and shuffled half-heartedly back into her room and closed the door gently.

Exchanging a startled look, blanketing silence fell between the men in the hallway as the sounds of feet continued on the ceiling above them. Eventually Amon released a heavy breath as if he'd been holding it in, and Nagira rubbed at his forehead, eyes wide in disbelief.

"Well, shit," the lawyer managed. "It's shaping up to be a great day already. Hell." Uncaringly, he reached into his room blindly, fumbling at the table by the door for a pack of cigarettes and a book of matches. He lit up in the hallway, knowing he wasn't supposed to, but figuring that no one would care very much at the moment. He let out a long, large cloud of smoke and ran a hand through his disarrayed hair.

"A great day, indeed," he murmured through smoke to his taciturn brother, who simply leaned against the doorframe of his bedroom, hand rubbing at his beard and eyes staring unfocused at the carpet at their feet.