IV.
"You have to know it's a snare of some sort." Rider said as he drank from his own cup. When Louise had first mentioned Camille's invitation he had immediately been suspicious of the circumstances.
"It seems unlikely it's anything but, though I can't quite figure out the particulars of it." Louise had begun to actually ingest the pastry she had earlier only mangled. "She had seemingly retained such a complete incognito until this point. Why break it now with this strange invitation and sacrifice any chance for a surprise attack? And why deliver it through the Juge of all people?"
"Maybe she believes now is the proper time for the two of you to face one another?" Rider suggested, his own mental gears turning. "As your sister she must surely have some manner of respect for you, perhaps this is the decisive battle."
"She made me promise to let no other enemy defeat me before we faced one another. I had taken that to imply she wanted to wait until we were the only Masters remaining before combating one another."
"You are her sister, you should know her better than anyone else." Rider observed casually.
"And that's what is bothering me most." Louise admitted with audible frustration. "It doesn't seem to line up with how I would expect her to act at all."
"Regardless, we are going aren't we?" Rider replied dryly.
"Of course. I am not going to pass up a chance to see her again." Louise said with a coolness that surprised even herself.
"Are you ready to face her again though? Considering what such a reunion will entail..." Rider purposefully let his words trail off, trusting that the implication of what he didn't say was enough.
"Look at me, Rider." Louise said, waving her hands over her body to indicate everything that had happened up to this point. "If I've not been prepared to face her by everything I've been through up until now, I don't know what much else could."
"I'm assuming though..." Rider purposefully trailed off again.
"I refuse to kill her, Rider." Louise's response was exactly what he expected. "You handle her Servant, and are free to see to my safety as much as you wish, but only so far as it won't endanger her life. If possible I will face her alone." Louise placed her empty coffee cup on the table as she spoke. "The faster we can defeat her Servant, the sooner there will be no more need for violence between us."
The pair left the cafe in, if not high, at least far better spirits than they had entered it. As Louise reached the door to head outside she took notice of the young man who was on break dashing a spent cigarette into a nearby ashtray and turning to return inside. She reached the door shortly before and, in a move somewhat unlike her, she bade Rider to wait a moment and held the door ajar for the young man to enter first. The server at first motioned with his hand for Louise to go before him, but before he could finish the gesture Louise insisted, "No, monsieur, by all means." The young man shrugged his shoulders and muttered a quiet thank you as he passed. Louise wasn't sure why she had paid the worker any mind, but chalked it up to the longing feeling she had experienced the first time she saw him. Once outside Louise remounted her bike while Rider, sure no one was observing him, dissipated back into his invisible spirit form. -"Onward to Ali's then?"- Louise asked as she clipped the strap of her helmet on.
-"It would seem that we have few other options at this time."- Rider replied. -"Besides, I'm quite curious to find out what he considers so important that he deigns to disturb our own activities."-
The rest of the ride to the Mandarin Oriental Paris was uneventful and Louise was directed into the private guest parking garage as if it were the most natural thing, despite her not being a guest at the hotel. The private parking had its own door that led into the hotel proper, so Louise had no reason to go through the main entrance and she crossed from the garage entrance and into the large and sparsely occupied lobby. Louise had reached the reception desk, which stood across the yawning expanse of room from the entrance and right next to the express elevator, and was beginning to ask the receptionist if there was anything she needed to do before being allowed access to the VIP floor when she received a mental message from Rider.
-"This may be hard to understand, Master, but I seem to be incapable of coming any closer to your current location. I seem to be rather impaired from going much further than just beyond the garage entrance."- Rider's frustration was evident even via the wordless communication.
The receptionist was just finishing explaining to Louise that she was registered as a VIP's special guest and therefore was allowed entrance at all times while Louise replied to her Servant. -"I'm not sure why I didn't think there would be, but it is likely that Ali has installed a bounded field that is made to repel Servants and phantasmals. When I get up I will ask him to drop it momentarily to allow you access."-
"Is that all, madame?" The receptionist asked.
"Oh," Louise started, having almost forgotten the receptionist was there. "Yes. Thank you very much." Louise left the young girl and proceeded to the waiting elevator. As the gilded polished steel doors slid open to allow her entry, a large man in a maintenance uniform of some sort, toting a massive heavy looking tool-case, waved to Louise to hold the door for him. Louise, just like with the server at the cafe only a short time earlier, found herself holding the door for the lowly workman as he jogged into the elevator.
"Thank you very much, Madame. Kind of you." His voice was dark and heavy, and held a note of intellect that was impossible to miss. He raised his hand and touched the tip of the cap he wore as if to signal a sort of salute, though all the motion really accomplished was for it to be pulled down even further over his features which were already completely obscured by it.
"Of course, monsieur. Just so you know, this is the express elevator, it only goes to the top. I trust that your destination is not elsewhere?" Louise injected what friendliness she could into her tone.
"Correct." His voice, quiet but thick, was colored with something that seemed almost like a chuckle. "Straight to the top."
As the doors closed Louise tried, despite the man's lowered cap and guarded posture, to get a better look at him. Though she could make nothing of his actual facial features she could at least see from his bare neck and uncovered hands the dark black of his skin and the messy rough stubble that was growing around his face. She had seen his hand clearly when he had raised it to tip his hat and had taken notice of his abused finger tips, the nails were chipped and broken, and the skin around them was covered in torn skin tags and callouses. It made sense, the young mage thought, he was clearly in a line of work where one's hands were rarely spared most forms of abuse.
Louise was grateful that the elevator ride had been blessedly short, as nearly the whole thing had gone by in complete silence, save for the simple tones of a rendition of 'The Girl From Ipanema.' As the mechanism chimed indicating they had reached their destination, the doors glided open to allow the passengers to exit. Louise turned to the right, the path that led to the entrance of Ali's suite, while her taciturn companion turned to the left, a path that led him directly to a maintenance door marked with several signs that all in different ways indicated limited access.
"Best of luck, monsieur." Louise said awkwardly, feeling like she should offer some form of goodbye without being sure what would be appropriate.
"None needed. But thank you." He replied. Louise could almost hear the smile she was incapable of seeing.
Back down in the lobby Rider was beginning to feel, despite being invisible to all the other people who came and went by, quite ridiculous. He would occasionally try to put himself against the mutually invisible barrier, but found his momentum always redirected back the way he had come. He hoped that Ali would not waste too much of Louise's time with nonsensical pleasantries and would be prompt in lifting the field so that he might join them upstairs. Having himself been quite amorous in his youth, Rider was quick to recognize Ali's intentions with Louise, though he did not detect even a hint of the same feelings from his Master, and could understand the other mage wanting to keep her Servant away, even if just for a short amount of time.
The doors of the front entrance were opened, almost instinctively it seemed, by a pair of valets for a woman who had just approached them. As she passed between the two employees, neither of whom she even feigned glancing upon, they could not help but to stare indiscreetly at her as if drawn by the same unseen magnetism that had prompted them to open the way for her. Though pulled up higher together on her head, the ringlets of her golden hair were still plentiful and fell past her shoulders, bouncing and brushing against her as she walked. The deep azure halter dress she wore had a long slit up the left side that amply showed nearly the whole length of the pale alabaster leg beneath. The top of the garment was equally generous in displaying other parts of her person as it tied behind the back of her neck which was adorned in a fashionable yet gaudy diamond necklace. Had it not been for the large dark sunglasses she continued to wear, even as she entered the hotel, the other guests would have been able to see that her sparkling blue eyes matched the hue of her provocative garment.
The woman, the sharp impact of her stiletto heels echoing loudly as she walked, approached a row of seats that occupied a space under a large window looking out on the street, situated only a few paces from the garage entrance. She took a seat, letting all her motions give visibility to her body she was clearly so proud of and looked around as if trying to assure herself she was alone. Content there were no hotel guests or employees within earshot, she opened her clutch, and began to apply a deep red lipstick to her features. "The best thing about my inherent talents," She said as if talking to herself. "Is that along with concealing my own presence and person, I can more easily detect those who are doing the same."
She paused after this line, as if allowing another participant in the conversation to reply to her thinly-veiled threat.
"I know you're with the little lady, the young aristocrat, the little miss. I've only seen you from afar up until now so I can't say for sure why, but I do know this." She placed the lipstick back in the clutch and turned her head towards her invisible counterpart, lowering the sunglasses as she did so that all the malice contained in her vibrant blue eyes might be visible. "I hate you instinctively with every drop of blood that courses through my veins. I will enjoy toying with your Master as I kill her, but I only pray I will get to enact a more savagely painful end upon you before I do." Assassin licked her lips as she finished the menace, some of the freshly applied lipstick staining the tip of her tongue as she did so.
She waited for several seconds, invisible or not, silent as he was, she could feel the other Servant burning up with fury and hatred, and that knowledge alone gave her inordinate joy. "If I kill her first, I hope you'll wait at least a few minutes before disappearing so that I can enjoy having my way with you also." With this final provocation she rose from her seat, as though reacting to a signal of some kind, and strode confidently across the lobby towards the express elevator as though the bounded field were no longer there.