And, because I haven't said it for a couple chapters now, I suppose I have to break my own heart by declaring I don't own WHR.
Chapter 4: At All Costs
The chauffeured sedan slid to a halt outside a grandiose townhouse not far from the apartment it had recently left and Morgan took a moment to just look at it. For a priest who had taken a vow of poverty, Juliano lived awfully well, she decided wryly. It was understandable. The man who was the head of the Hunting program of Solomon, premier Hunter Trainer and Master Hunter in his own right held a unfathomable amount of power in his aged hands. Solomon rewarded him with a comfortable living. It was only a fair trade. This man had given his life to the organization she worked for; had been at the top of his game and holding the reins of power before she'd even been born.
This thought made the trip to the door a nerve-wracking affair. She was due to meet with this powerful man, and though she was far from weak or insubstantial, she couldn't help but feel dwarfed by the man called Juliano Colegui. It wasn't simply his towering stature or broad shoulders. Every aspect of Juliano, from the wild white hair to the intense eyes overwhelmed a person with an aura of power.
The butler let her in and informed her that his master and hers were awaiting her in the Father's private study. Squaring her shoulders, she followed the servant past decadently appointed rooms and waited as he announced her and beckoned her in.
Father Juliano was sitting behind a massive mahogany desk with his fingers steepled under his chin, but he rose politely as she entered. He waved her into an antique armchair on the other side of the desk and beside the chair where Father Adrian sat with preternatural stillness.
The Master Hunter did not sit again until she had sat herself and politely refused the offer of refreshment. His lined face was softened into a smile but his light green eyes were all business as he asked, "I hope Amon is satisfied and comfortable with his arrangements."
She returned the smile nervously. "Comfortable undoubtedly, but never satisfied, at least if my intuition is correct."
Father Juliano nodded at this. "If I were in the business of diagnosis, I would say Amon suffers from divine discontent. Admirable, especially in our line of work. But his soul is burdened by the responsibility of an insatiably guilty conscience." He smiled and shook his head. "But my life was never devoted to psychiatry, nor do I have your keen insight, your 'intuition' as you call it. So, my dear, what can you tell us?"
She swallowed. "Well sir, the doctors tell me he is making an exceptional recovery. His wounds are all but healed, though the damage within might take more time to subside." Juliano nodded for her to continue. "His frame of mind is less certain, however. There's a lot of confusion, understandable in this situation. He has many questions and is frustrated by the lack of answers."
"He is used to being the man people report to. He does not take lack of control or authority with good humor, a sentiment I completely sympathize with."
Morgan highly doubted Juliano had been burdened much with either situation, but left the comment unremarked upon. "He is restless, but I wouldn't call him reckless."
She felt a tug on her conscious mind and closed her eyes, then nodded. "He is a consummate Hunter, and has the patience to reflect this."
Juliano directed his reply to the Father sitting beside Morgan. "I would agree with your assessment, Adrian." Then his piercing eyes returned to Morgan. "Anything else?"
And here she felt her nerves rising a little. "Sir, I'm afraid all I have is this general knowledge at this time." His face reflected his disapproval, and she rushed to explain herself. "Sir, his emotions of frustration and confusion are clear, but his deeper mind is closed. Utterly closed, I've never run up against something like it unless the person was trained to protect themselves from psychic attack or intrusion."
"And he had no such training." Morgan didn't have to ask how Juliano knew this. A Hunter's training was his ultimate concern and he knew all on the subject.
Still, Amon's ability to block out her very powerful psychic Craft was impressive and she had to pursue the issue. "I understand that Amon is a Seed. Is there a possibility that his Gift is psychic in nature?"
Juliano grimaced at this. "If you understand that Amon is a Seed, it is because he prefers it that way."
Morgan opened her mouth to protest and point out that his own file told as much but Juliano would brook no interruption. "And no, his Craft is not psychic in nature."
Morgan, though baffled at this, could read the Father's tone. End of discussion.
He steepled his fingers again, deep in thought, then turned to Adrian again. "What about when he was under the influence of your Craft?"
Morgan closed her eyes and memorized the statement and then opened them again. "There was one image," she said softly. "A girl's face looking up from below, green eyes, reddish blond hair. She was crying, reaching her hand to him."
Juliano made no physical reaction, but Morgan's fine tuned Craft felt him cringe slightly. "Was there any further detail to the image?"
Morgan shook her head. "I'm sorry sir, but no."
Disappointment was carefully concealed behind Juliano's studiously bland expression. "Very well. Your continuing assignment then, Agent Excelior, is to find a way behind that wall." He stopped and looked at her hard. "At all costs. It is vital I know what's going on in his mind right now."
Morgan gripped the arms of her chair unconsciously. "Father I don't think I can-"
Juliano set one hand softly on his desk, all the motion needed to quiet her. "Excuses are of no use to me Morgan." The look he gave her now was cold, and she felt sudden sympathy for those Juliano had Hunted. The gaze alone was paralyzing. She couldn't have looked away if her life depended on it.
"Get into his head, Morgan," he said in measured tones just above a whisper. "Be creative. He is a very private man, but," and here his eyes pierced her utterly, "Amon is still a man. There are ways, Agent. I expect you to find them."
That young man holds the key to a very important riddle, Morgan, a voice whispered clearly in her mind. Juliano had released her from his gaze at last and she turned to Father Adrian who was studying his hands. Have you not wondered why a single Hunter from Japan has suddenly caught the attention of so many people of power within the organization? She nodded as Adrian glanced at her from the corner of his eye. He is at the center of a situation that cuts to the heart of Solomon. We need the information he has.
"It would be helpful if I knew what I was looking for," Morgan responded recklessly to Adrian's declaration, blanching even as the words left her lips. It wasn't her place to know more than what her master and the Master Hunter chose to tell her. To suggest they had not told her enough was insubordination and the fire behind Adrian's eyes suggested as much.
However Juliano didn't seem particularly perturbed. He looked thoughtful, almost uncertain. But then his features resolved to their usual state of calm integrity.
"Look for his partner," he finally replied, cryptic as always. "She's the key you need. Everything else will organize around that."
And with that he rose, an indication that the others follow his example. "Thank you for the briefing, and thank you both for your efforts in this matter. I don't think I need to remind you," and here he was looking at Morgan, "that this matter is of highest clearance and not to be divulged under any circumstances."
Both Hunters nodded, and with that he bid them goodbye and the butler appeared to escort them to their car. Once settled on the leather seats and rolling toward Adrian's slightly less grand apartments, Morgan let her hands rest for a moment on her face before raking them back through her hair.
You need to learn the difference between thinking and speaking young one, Adrian spoke wryly in her mind.
She snuck a guilty glance at him and nodded meekly. "Yeah, I flubbed that."
All kidding aside, you need to take this seriously, Adrian admonished like the father figure he was to Morgan, his features firming even more than the expressionless norm. And it needs to be tonight. Juliano is expecting all haste.
When she didn't answer, Adrian put a wizened hand on her forearm, capturing her attention. He rarely touched anyone, and she looked at him with surprise.
Morgan, go there tonight. Find a way in. Time is running by, and it is not on our side.
She looked beseechingly at him. "Father, how? How do I get into Amon's mind?"
And here he looked out the window, by all appearances ignoring her plea. However in her mind came the answer, tinged with ironic humor.
She started like a sleeper waking and turned fully to Father Adrian. "You want me to what?"
The light was fading to gold and rose outside the grand windows, and Juliano absently watched the fading light soften the edges of the angular city outside. After the two Hunters had departed Juliano had returned to his office and pretended to attend to various mundane matters, but it didn't take long for him to push it aside with frustration. His mind was moving much too fast, and moving in a direction contrary to irrelevant busywork such as input to decommission ratios of the last five years. So he did what he always did when his mind refused to be harnessed by his will – he prayed.
A room in his manor had been put aside for just such a purpose, free of distraction and over-extravagance, and his steps led him to the place with the assurance of long practice. A very old wooden prayer bench with kneeler was situated in the middle of the room, facing a large crucifix flanked by candle sconces that burned day and night. He sank to his knees at the bench and pressed his clasped hands to a furrowed brow.
Please Lord, his mind called out to the intangible, please let me right this wrong. Please don't let Robin be the atonement for sins older than she is.
But at the thought of the young woman his will unraveled, please being the only truly formed prayer as his mind raced along its own forbidden path.
If I had only known … so many things, so much ignorance and pride has led me to this moment. If only I had known what the Arcanum really was, I would never have put her in the path of it. I should never have let her go, not knowing what Zaizen intended to use her for. Zaizen, in his fear of spies, in his need for secrecy with his damnable project, only agreeing to a new team member if it was her. Damn him; damn him for knowing I am her grandfather and for holding it over my head all these years, the knife constantly hovering over my head for fifteen long years. All the while appeasing him for the sake of his knowledge, letting him blackmail me using Robin's very existence, silencing my conscience about his demonic project to save my own reputation. A reputation marred by my own conduct so long ago that it may as well have been another man who did it.
But I did do it, his stoic mind reminded him firmly, I had an affair while in the priesthood, a member of Solomon, and with a witch to boot, God help me. And Maria was the result. And how, Lord, how was I to hunt my own daughter? What fault was it of hers that she was a witch? The sins of her father, original sin of a whole new meaning…
He had been over it so many times before. Every night the same debate, the same justifications, the same conclusions revisited so often they were threadbare as the velvet he knelt on. And yet the doubt and guilt remained. Sins that built on each other, atoned or not, until the present moment.
The daughter of my daughter! It is not her sin, he cried to his silent God, casting his eyes to the crucifix, yet I am weak. I see nothing but darkness ahead and my heart is so heavy. God, he begged his Maker, God I must do the thing I didn't do fifteen years ago but now, even now I am too weak to do it myself. How wretched I am that I must send another in my place, how wretched, how cowardly. God, please show me the way, I must kill her and my soul cries out against it, I must resign myself to Your will but my heart rebels and I am lost. Please Lord, please…. Please.
And as he whispered the word over and over again, cracked rasping and shuddering breath, he no longer knew what he was asking for.
"I feel utterly ridiculous," Morgan sighed to herself, once again in the car, a car that she was beginning to feel like she lived in. She tried not to fidget with her hair, which she had spent far too long coaxing into the 'tousled but sexy' look. However she couldn't help but pluck self consciously at the short denim skirt she was wearing, the only sexy, non work attire she owned that was casual enough to pass off as normal and not as a ploy to soften Amon up. Soften him up, she mused with a self-conscious half smile. I don't think soften is what Father Adrian had in mind when he told me to dress sexy.
Morgan wrenched her mind away from the double entendre she had just created and tried instead to focus on her mission once the car reached its destination. Her job tonight was to bring Amon a nice dinner. She reached out and reassured herself for the zillionith time that she had not in fact left it on the kitchen counter. Over food and some wine she was instructed to ingratiate herself with the cold Hunter, looking for any chink in his armor that would allow her to glimpse the information Juliano insisted on having.
At all costs. Morgan heard Juliano's words in her mind and she suppressed a shiver. She was authorized by her foremost superior to use any means necessary to accomplish her mission. Including lies. False friendship. Morgan swallowed hard. Seduction. Yes, both her masters were relying on her considerable charms to disarm a seasoned Hunter enough for her to plumb his mind for information.
Not like this, a small voice pleaded in the back of her mind.
She had gone undercover before, of course; this was not new ground. She had dissembled and deceived for the sake of her mission many times before. But for the first time she felt remorse for her falseness. For once she could admit to herself that the desire for intimacy in order to gain proximity was no act. Amon was an intriguing man, an excellent Hunter, and yes, he was unnervingly attractive.
No, finding the desire to seduce him wouldn't be a problem. The only problem would be swallowing the regret that she was using him.
The sedan slid to a halt and she opened the door.
Walls, no matter how beautiful and tastefully decorated, could not be anything but barriers in Amon's eyes and he glowered at them, pacing the luxurious apartment like a caged panther. Restless, he watched the gathering dark outside, did a circuit of the living room, dining room, kitchen, and bedroom before returning to the windows and checking the progress of the setting sun. It was mocking him, taking its time, making it abundantly clear that it was free to take all the time in the world. It was free, free, and he was not.
Of course Morgan had not expressly stated that he was imprisoned, but she may as well have. Amon was no newcomer to Solomon. The dark suited attendants downstairs were not attendants at all. They were agents, and they were Amon's jailers. Any attempt to leave would be met with stiff resistance, and Amon's healing condition constantly reminded him he was not quite ready for a fight.
At this thought Amon probed his shoulder lightly and rolled it a few times, continuing his course through the apartment. It came down to choices, his dispassionate brain explained, and he had several.
He could, for instance, sit down on the sofa as he had sat in the hospital bed and cooperate, placidly waiting for whoever was behind all this to make their will known. He grimaced. Not godamn likely.
Another choice would be to open that door, go downstairs, and rush the guards, hoping his stamina and stitches held up against what would definitely be no schoolyard scrap. This choice was more appealing and he worried it briefly like candy on the tongue, but shook his head not long after. A choice, certainly. But a foolish one, and lacking any finesse. Besides, he had no weapon, a problem his opponents certainly wouldn't have.
All right then. He paused at the large window for the upteenth time and stared through the glass. What he needed was stealth, stealth and no small share of luck. A look out the window informed him of the lack of fire escapes in his apartment, but maybe in another… perhaps the roof…
Suddenly his footsteps halted mid stride. Why, he asked himself, am I trying to leave at all? Where do I intend to go? What do I intend to do once I'm there? I want answers, but where would the answers be if not with the person who brought me here?
Amon actually groaned aloud in frustration and threw himself into an upholstered chair nearby. His need to leave, he decided after consideration, was simply on the principle of refusing to acquiesce to the will of a person or persons who had so far shown no intention of explaining any of their actions to him, not to mention their identity. And Amon, never accustomed to sitting idle when he could be moving ever closer to the goal, balked at the idea of enduring even one more motionless hour.
If they won't give me answers, Amon thought, then I'd best go find them. But where to go? His brain turned this problem over in his mind several times before the lightbulb lit.
Of course. Somehow his being in Rome and the recent events in Japan revolved around a single person; he felt confident in this assumption. And what better place to find the man who knew her best?
Yes, he decided firmly. Juliano Colegui was the person to talk to. If he got out of here, he could find the Father. After all, Amon was a Hunter and not wholly without resources.
And what if, his maddeningly rational brain questioned, Father Juliano is the very person who has been keeping you here? "So much the better," Amon replied out loud. What better way to assert his independence and resolve than to arrive on the Master Hunter's doorstep, forcing the older man's play and refusing to be ignored?
And if Juliano wasn't the man behind all this, then surely he must still have some worthwhile insight. He wouldn't be ignorant of the situation in Japan, not at the level he was at. Not with one of his Master Hunters closely involved, his own ward by some accounts.
Decided at last, Amon rose to his feet. It was time to find a way out and pay an old but very powerful man a visit.
Morgan entered the downstairs lobby and nodded curtly to the agent standing watch there.
"Any activity?" she asked as she pressed the call button for the elevator.
"Not a sound," he replied, trying unsuccessfully to hide his boredom as he shifted from one foot to the other.
Morgan, however, could feel his mind shake off the cobwebs fairly fast as his eyes scanned her from head to toe and back again. The elevator seemed to be having even more trouble than usual and she cursed under her breath. The male agent was all eager attention now, offering to hold the bag of food, insinuating that she may need help running the elevator.
She brushed him off and shut the grate firmly in reply, pushing the third floor button with more determination than was strictly called for. The lift took its time getting her to Amon's door, and she spent the time pondering why comfortable clothes such as sneakers couldn't be considered sexy attire. Her feet and ankles, unaccustomed to high heels, were wobbling and complaining simultaneously.
Morgan finally made it to Amon's door and she didn't give herself time to think, reaching out and knocking firmly instead. A moment passed, then stretched, and then became uncomfortable. Perhaps he was asleep. She knocked again, and again had no result. So she slid her key into the lock and eased the door open, calling his name loudly as she entered as not to invade his privacy.
The bag of quickly cooling food dropped to the floor with a squelch.
Morgan teetered out the door, cursed the elevator, then kicked off her damned heels, sprinting barefoot down the stairs two at a time.
She reached the bottom and slid across the glossy floor only to grab the flirtatious agent by his lapels.
His mouth was agape with surprise, and she closed her fist around the desire to slap him. "Find him," she choked, releasing him to fumble through her handbag for her cell phone.
"Wha…. What? Who?"
She raised her voice over the heartbeat thundering in her ears. "Find him!" she yelled while pushing him toward the door. "Find Amon!"
Morgan turned her back on his confused and panicked expression as her call connected on the other end. She fought to control her voice, control her breath.
"Father, we have a problem."