Meryl quickly rubbed out an oncoming ache in her forehead as Elizabeth, with Vash in tow, approached where she and Milly stood. For a split-second Meryl contemplated just ducking behind the nearest market stall and running like hell to avoid meeting them, but Milly was already waving at Vash. Meryl resigned herself to a conversation.
"Hello, Mr. Vash!" Milly said brightly. Her smile held fast when she turned it on Elizabeth as well, but Meryl knew it had lost its true warmth. "Miss Elizabeth," added Milly, nodding.
"I'm sorry, my dear," Elizabeth told Milly kindly, in that smooth low voice. "I never did catch your name."
"Milly Thompson." Unusually, Milly didn't add any pleased to meet you or how are you? Her smile was still bright, but Meryl thought she could see an edge to Milly's expression; something different, something distrustful.
Elizabeth turned her gaze towards Meryl, exaggerating how much she needed to bend down to meet Meryl's eye. She regarded Meryl with polite curiosity. "And yours?" she asked.
"Meryl Stryfe," said Meryl, equally politely. She smiled, but didn't bother trying to force too much sincerity into it. Elizabeth, on the other hand, practically beamed now and spoke with false enthusiasm, saying, "Meryl? How quaint!"
Meryl's smile tightened as she gritted her teeth and tried not to glare at the woman.
"You don't meet many Meryls these days," Elizabeth continued, sagely. Then she pursed her lips and spoke condescendingly as if to a child, cooing, "Do you, Poochi."
For a moment Meryl actually thought Elizabeth was addressing her, and she was seconds away from leaping for the woman's throat. Meryl felt Milly seize the back of her collar and twist it over in her grip. It almost strangled Meryl, but it effectively kept her in place for the few moments' time it took for Vash to appear at Elizabeth's shoulder and bark, "Yes, Ma'am!"
Elizabeth turned a devilishly smooth smile on Vash and he practically shivered in delight as she reached up to stroke his long nose with one silk-gloved finger.
"Who's my good little guard-doggie?" asked Elizabeth, still in that patronizing voice that made Meryl's teeth grind together.
"I am!" Vash squeaked, absolutely beside himself with joy.
"Guard dog?" hissed Meryl, trying hard to keep from screeching the words at an ear-splitting pitch. She was glad Milly hadn't released her collar yet.
"Well, of course!" said Elizabeth, giving an airy laugh. "Vash is my bodyguard!"
"Bodyguard?" asked Milly, her voice abnormally sharp. Meryl actually glanced up at her partner in surprise and Milly's entire countenance shifted back to her usual kindness in an instant. "Why would you need a bodyguard, Miss Elizabeth?" she asked, curiously.
Elizabeth tapped two fingers against her temple. "To protect this," she said. "The plants are lost technology, and I'm one of the last who has any knowledge of their workings."
"And how is that, exactly?" Meryl demanded, unable to throw on the same neutral façade as easily as Milly had. She gave a small gurgled cough as Milly twisted her collar a little further. "Miss Elizabeth," she added, weakly.
Elizabeth's light tone changed slightly to something more ominous. Her gaze went suddenly sharp behind that sweet smile. "That's precious information, my dear," she told Meryl, her low voice now almost menacing. Then that charming persona reappeared as she said, "Thankfully, I have Vash here to keep me safe."
"Safe from what?" asked Milly, finally losing her patience entirely. The fact that Elizabeth could affect Milly like this made Meryl certain—more certain than anything else could—that the woman was hiding something.
Elizabeth seemed to have lost interest in the conversation, or had rightly inferred that Meryl and Milly were no longer even pretending to be fooled, and she ignored the question entirely.
"Come along, Poochi," she said, beckoning to Vash.
"Yes, Ma'am!" he yipped, trotting along happily at Elizabeth's heels as she glided away. Meryl and Milly said nothing as the pair disappeared into the market's crowded thoroughfare, but Milly's face was set in a stubborn frown.
"I don't like her," she said, definitively. She finally let go of Meryl's collar and Meryl straightened the rumpled fabric of her cloak and tunic where it encircled her neck, coughing a few times to clear her half-crushed windpipe.
"I really don't like her," Meryl growled her agreement, clenching her fists tight at her sides.
As far as Meryl was concerned, the evening was ruined. She looked around at the market and at the street performers that had so intrigued her just a few minutes ago, and was both saddened and angry at Elizabeth that she could no longer enjoy herself. Now all Meryl could think about were the myriad different ways Vash could be getting himself in trouble with that wretched woman.
Milly seemed to have no trouble in not dwelling on the preceding conversation and recaptured her usual, unswervingly serene nature within just a few minutes.
"Look, there's another juggler!" she called excitedly, already moving through the crowd toward the performer. Meryl couldn't bring herself to follow immediately and Milly looked back over her shoulder, wearing a puzzled expression. "Aren't you coming, Ma'am?"
"No, I think I'll just go back to the inn," Meryl replied, trying not to sound as miserable as she felt. "Maybe I'll turn in early tonight." Her brain was just a Worst-Case-Scenario engine now, inventing a broad spectrum of possible accidents or explosions—god, Vash was going to be at the plant, if he was to continue following Elizabeth around. She was getting anxious just thinking about it.
Meryl caught sight of Milly's worried frown and she hurried to give her partner a reassuring smile. "It's alright, Milly," she said, making an effort to make it convincing. "You should stay. Have fun!"
Milly seemed torn, concerned at Meryl's strange shift in mood but clearly eager to stay and wander the market further. She hesitated a moment longer before saying, "If you're sure..."
"Go on," Meryl urged, nodding. Milly beamed at her and waved as she moved away into the crowd, calling, "Good-night, Ma'am!"
Meryl waved back and held the smile until Milly turned away, then felt it slide off her face to be replaced by a grimace, her lips pressed together in a thin line. She tried hard not to hunch her shoulders as she slunk away in the opposite direction. The straightest route back to the hotel led Meryl past the empty market stalls where she thought she had seen the saxophone player earlier and she looked hopefully into the shadows again, though no mysterious musician appeared there to tell her the name of that song...
The saloon was nearly as busy as the market had been and Meryl had to squeeze her way through a maze of crowded tables and the tray-bearing waitresses weaving between them. The old woman usually behind the bar was busing tables now, making room for new customers as soon as anyone paid their tab and left, and she nearly bowled Meryl over once while carrying an impressive number of drained glass tankards in each hand.
It took almost three minutes just to get across the room to the stairs and Meryl was so glad to grab hold of the banister and haul herself up that she took a moment to catch her breath before continuing.
At the third floor landing, Meryl was surprised to see Vash and Elizabeth standing further along the hall, presumably in front of Elizabeth's room. For some reason Meryl found herself unreasonably annoyed to see Vash practically pressing Elizabeth back into the door as they whispered to each other under cover of the woman's wide-brimmed hat.
Meryl scowled and turned the corner, taking the last flight of stairs leading up to her room. At the last minute, she gave one final glance over her shoulder, just in time to see Elizabeth's door slam shut in Vash's face as he tried to enter the room after her. Startled, Meryl paused on the first step, her hand barely alighted on the banister.
Vash bounced off the door, giving a grunt of surprise as he stumbled backwards. For a moment he just stood there outside Elizabeth's room, staring in dismay at the closed door. Then, heaving a great sigh, Vash turned toward the stairs, frowning sulkily and rubbing the end of his pointed nose with one hand. He caught sight of Meryl and froze, and for a split-second they stared at each other in surprise.
Embarrassed to be discovered spying, Meryl darted out of sight up the stairs and hurried to her own room, locking the door behind her as quickly as possible. She stood still for a moment, listening for any footsteps coming down the hall to Vash's door, but aside from faint saloon-noise coming up through the floorboards everything was silent. Meryl sighed, and then looked around her empty room.
It wasn't often she had time to herself (she usually shared a room with Milly, and the younger woman was more fond of chatter than of silence), and now that Meryl was presented with the opportunity, she knew exactly what she wanted to do.
She undid the clasp of her cloak and draped the garment over the back of her chair as she walked across the room to her suitcase. Rummaging around the bottom, pushing leggings and blouses aside, Meryl pulled out a blocky item, wrapped in several thick layers of soft felt. Unfolding the fabric revealed a pair of heavy, battered, leather bound books.
Meryl carried only two books with her in her travels, and they were actually two copies of the same novel, entitled David Copperfield. They were even the same edition. One copy she had inherited and the other she had found by chance at a bookseller's, in a market much like the one still carrying on across town.
The bookseller didn't seem to have known the book's value; he sold it to Meryl for a measly $$15 when, as an Old Earth artifact (the publication date inside the front cover was in a system of measurement Meryl didn't even recognize), it could have been worth thousands, maybe more.
But Meryl would never think of selling it.
She treated the books as carefully as though they might crumble to dust in her hands; they were extremely fragile, practically falling apart. In the past, people had clearly tried to the fix broken spines with thick tape or some kind of sticky paste, but the cracked leather covers were peeling away and the corners were blunted from age and everyday handling.
And one was 11oz lighter than the other.
Meryl didn't need to pick them up to know which was which, but the one she chose now was the heavier, and Meryl carried it with her across the room and sat down on the bed with her back to the wall. Carefully, she unknotted the string she used to bind the book closed for travel and the covers fell open to a page marked with a worn white ribbon.
Removing the ribbon, Meryl let the book rest on her lap and smoothed the pages flat. It took her a while to find where she had last left the story (she made slow progress, reading as infrequently as she did), but after a few moments scanning the page, her finger tracing each line of text as she looked for something familiar, Meryl recognized a passage she had read before.
She flipped back a page or two to remember where she was in the narrative, and began reading.
Of course, Meryl didn't know most of the references made to people or places, and she couldn't understand the lost technology described, but she loved the odd language and the words in how the characters thought and spoke. She was baffled more often than not by the setting, but in the end it was just a story about living a hard life, and that story transcended centuries. Transcended worlds.
After awhile, Meryl heard footsteps in the hall and she glanced up from her reading. The footsteps stopped practically outside her room, and after a few moments Meryl heard Vash's door open and close. Waiting to hear anything else—though what she was expecting, she didn't really know—Meryl let the book fall momentarily closed. Vash seemed to be moving around the room and at one point Meryl thought she could hear furniture scraping across the floor (she frowned at this, puzzled), but it eventually quieted and Meryl went back to her book.
But now she was distracted, and she wasn't really taking in the words on the pages in front of her. She had started thinking about Vash, and about the plant, and about any number of things that could go wrong. And mostly Meryl thought about Elizabeth, and how much she disliked the woman. How little she trusted her. How wrong the whole situation felt.
The book snapped shut a little harder then Meryl would usually let it, and she put it aside. Elizabeth was trouble, she knew it. But Vash didn't, or at least that Idiot didn't. Meryl wanted to warn him about the woman, about the wrongness she and Milly both felt. She wanted to tell him to be careful, wanted to hell him not to trust Elizabeth, she wanted to stop from him making a catastrophic mistake—but she wasn't sure how.
She stood and began pacing the length of the room, back and forth.
Meryl wanted to warn the man in red, not the Idiot. She wanted to talk to that man who had always resolved the impossible dilemmas they faced together, not the googly-eyed, skirt-chasing moron she'd met again in the market. But she didn't know how to find one instead of the other when dealing with Vash, and it was maddeningly frustrating.
When she suddenly tasted blood Meryl realized she had bitten her thumbnail down to the quick and she forced her hands down to her sides, where they ended up clutching at the hem of her tunic as she walked stiffly across squeaking floorboards.
Finally Meryl decided she was going to talk to him, one way or the other. She left her room with a decisive stride, though it took only three steps to reach Vash's door.
She reached up to knock, but the door opened suddenly and Meryl nearly collided with a pair of—hm—professional women. Realizing she stood face-to-bust with the first woman, a leggy brunette in a long blue gown, Meryl hastily backed up a few paces. The woman looked just as surprised to see Meryl and pulled her long cigarette holder out of the way to avoid poking Meryl in the eye.
The second woman squeaked as she bumped into the brunette, who had stopped abruptly at Meryl's appearance. She peered down over the first woman's shoulder and Meryl saw an identical look of surprise on a face framed by short-cropped locks of red hair.
The brunette seemed puzzled for a moment but then smiled knowingly down at Meryl.
"Don't bother, honey," she whispered, gesturing toward the room behind her with the cigarette holder. "He's out cold."
Shocked by the implication—she would never!—Meryl couldn't even muster an argument to the contrary before the two women moved past her down the hall. The redhead pulled the door shut, though she released the handle halfway and let momentum do the rest. Meryl moved quickly to slip inside the room before the door could close behind her. For a moment she waited for her eyes to adjust to the dark. Then she surveyed Vash where he lay in bed, flat on his stomach and snoring loudly.
"It's really too bad," Meryl heard one of the women say as they walked away down the hall. "You don't get the chance to sleep with a guy like that every day..." The other hmmed her agreement.
Vash continued to snore, and Meryl crossed her arms over her chest, leaning against the wall by his bed.
"You big faker," she muttered, prodding Vash in the back with the heel of her boot. He rolled over in an instant, grinning.
"So what if I am?" asked Vash, bright green eyes sparkling up at Meryl. He put his hands behind his head on the pillow and shrugged. Meryl nodded toward the closed door.
"Aren't you passing up a golden opportunity?" She raised her eyebrows as she said, "They couldn't wait to get their hands on the Humanoid Typhoon." Among other things...
"They're not my type," Vash told her, with that mischievous twinkle back in his eye.
"What is your type?" Meryl asked, the question escaping her mouth without her really thinking about it.
"Wouldn't you like to know," said Vash. Meryl flushed immediately; it was that other voice, and those other eyes looking at her now, and she could hardly breathe as he gave her an oddly sultry little half-smile. Suddenly the room was over-warm and she just wanted to beat a hasty retreat and run for the door.
"Why are you here, anyway?" Vash asked suddenly, and the spell holding Meryl was broken. "Sneaking around, kicking people in the back. It's very rude," he told her, his lower lip jutting out in an impressive pout.
"Oh please," Meryl said, going from flustered to annoyed in an instant. "I just came to warn you."
"Of what?" Vash asked, his voice again more serious than it had been a moment ago. Meryl could see, now, that his eyes had that grave expression she had seen so many times before. And she was relieved; this was the man in red.
"She's hiding something," said Meryl. "That woman can't be trusted."
When Vash didn't bother asking her to specify which woman, Meryl knew he understood. For a moment he held her in that serious gaze, and then abruptly he was smiling up at her again.
"We'll see," he said, grinning.
"What?" hissed Meryl. She stared at him in disbelief and Vash just shrugged again. Meryl spoke again, trying to make him see reason. "Need I remind you what happened the last time you took a bodyguarding job?" Meryl shuddered, vividly remembering the cold of the water soaking in through her clothes, how scared she'd been, how tightly she'd gripped Vash around the chest... She blinked and she was back in Vash's room, staring down at his infuriating Idiot-grin. "It nearly killed the both of us!" she shouted.
"Ah! But it didn't," he pointed out, holding up one finger as though he was actually arguing this as a point toward the merit of his current plan—whatever the hell that was. Meryl gritted her teeth and tried not to scream at the top of her lungs.
"Fine," Meryl growled. Her hands were clenched into fists at her sides. "Fine," she said again. Then she bent down to jab a finger, hard, into the middle of Vash's chest. "This time... If anything goes wrong? I will let you drown."
For a moment Vash looked surprised, but then he laughed out loud; one of his good, honest laughs that rang out to fill the room. His eyes sparkled up at her now as he have her a wide, genuine smile and said, again, "We'll see."
Thrown off-balance by his laughter and puzzled again by that cryptic remark, Meryl left the room and slammed the door behind her. She thought she could hear Vash still chuckling, and she returned to her own room even more frustrated than she had been when she'd left it. Growling, Meryl looked around for something to distract her.
Seeing David Copperfield still sitting on her unmade bed, Meryl sat down again and took up her reading, trying to tell herself she had done all she could in talking to Vash. She kicked off her boots (which was a testament to her anger; normally she'd take more care in their removal) and lay down on her side. She knew it was a bad idea, knew she'd fall asleep before making any real progress in the book, but it was so comfortable...
Something struck the wall near her head and Meryl woke, confused. She had fallen asleep (as predicted) with the book open on her chest and now she sat up groggily, wondering what was going on. Now there was the sound of something heavy falling to the floor, and Meryl realized the noises were coming from the other side of the wall, from the other room—from Vash's room.
She scowled. What could that Idiot be doing over there?
Meryl sat up angrily, setting her book aside again and preparing to stand, planning to go next door and threaten to beat the shit out of Vash if he didn't quiet down. Just as Meryl leaned down to pull her boots on again, a wicked-looking curved blade nearly as long as her arm suddenly sprouted out through the wall, just where her head had been moments ago. Meryl shrieked wordlessly in alarm, throwing herself flat to the floor and scrambling away as quickly as she could. The blade was withdrawn again and the loud thumping sounds—of what she now realized was a fight—continued in the other room.
Meryl grabbed two derringers from where her cloak hung over the chair and hurried out to the hall. When she tried the knob on Vash's door and found it locked, she hesitated. From within the room came the sound of metal on metal, two blades meeting with shearing force, and Meryl was decided. She used both bullets of one derringer to splinter the ancient wood door frame surrounding the lock, then shouldered her way through as she discarded the empty pistol.
It was confusing, what Meryl saw next.
The man facing Vash wore a dark blue body suit, and there were blades attached to the suit's arms and legs, almost like short swords strapped to each forearm and shin. Razor-sharp and sickle-shaped, it was easy to see that it was one of the arm-blades that had nearly skewered Meryl moments earlier.
Now the man's long hair was whipping around his masked face as he took rapid swipes at Vash, who was dancing just out of range. Vash hadn't even drawn his revolver yet, Meryl saw. Though with a shock she noticed that the double-edged blade hidden in his boot had been triggered—and cut cleanly in half.
Both men turned at Meryl's entrance, and Vash certainly looked surprised. Meryl couldn't see the attacker's face through his mask but she could only guess that his expression would be similar.
"Stop there!" Meryl ordered, aiming the second derringer solidly at the stranger. The masked man just rushed her, crossing the room quickly and raising one bladed forearm as he attacked. Something else moved swiftly in the very edge of her peripheral vision but Meryl stood her ground and fired once at her oncoming attacker.
But the man blocked the bullet with the blade of his left arm, sending it ricocheting across the room to shatter the glass mirror by the door.
What the fuck?
Meryl gaped at the man in disbelief, too stunned to fire again or even to move out of his path as he still ran toward her, ready to bring that curved blade down slicing across her body. There was another gunshot and another ricochet and then Vash was there between them, pulling Meryl backwards and out of the way. Meryl saw the flash of light on the blade's razor-edge as it came down on Vash, but didn't know if it struck him or not. She fired almost blindly from behind Vash, unable to see much of anything under his long arms.
This time she heard the bullet hit flesh, and the stranger gave a sharp grunt in pain. Meryl pushed Vash out of her way, just in time to see the masked man jump out the shattered window and disappear into the night. She ran to the window and looked out, but the man was gone. Then she turned to Vash, furious, in a strange mix of both anger and almost terrified concern.
"Idiot!" she said, hurrying toward where Vash had fallen. "I was fine," Meryl hissed, wondering in the back of her mind if it was true. He was standing and she grabbed him under one arm to help steady him. "You could have been killed! Are you hurt?" she demanded.
But Vash ignored her.
"Did he cut my jacket?" he squeaked, horrified. Vash was shaking Meryl off his arm, frantically trying to look over his own shoulder to see any potential damage done to the back of the brilliantly red duster.
Meryl gritted her teeth, but inwardly she was relieved. Too many times Vash had stood between her and danger, and she was afraid that eventually they would face a situation where only one of them would walk away—and by now she knew which one of them it would be.
Vash was still doing awkward pirouettes, trying to see the back of his jacket, and Meryl walked to where the mirror lay in splinters on the floor. She couldn't believe the man had blocked her bullet with a blade...
A small object on the floor suddenly caught Meryl's attention.
Shitshitshitshit—
Adrenaline surged through Meryl's veins as she turned, taking two running steps before launching herself at Vash. She tackled him backwards into the bathtub along the wall, but he was too tall to fit and his head knocked into the porcelain as Meryl fell heavily onto his chest.
"Ow!" Vash hissed, looking up at her incredulously. "What the hell—"
His next words were drowned out by an explosion that made the air throb around them, pressing in on Meryl's ears in waves even as it shook the whole world around them. Her eyes were shut tight against the brilliant flash of light but it still burned through her eyelids and she winced as the bathtub was thrown sideways, skidding roughly across the uneven floor.
The overhead lamp had shattered and was raining glass down on them, and Meryl felt Vash wrap his arms up to cover her head and shoulders. Then Meryl was thrown from Vash's grasp as the tub struck something with a deafening crunch of splintering wood. The tub tipped suddenly sideways and Meryl rolled out—into nothing.
Her stomach lurched as everything disappeared around her, and she screamed as she fell.