Three
"Don't expect mercy from me, kiddo."
"I won't."
"Good. Don't expect it from the world, either."
"I don't."
Natalia said little as she drove the Rover into town, following Klaus’ white Opel Olympia. Black Spot truly was – as Gerard had described – in the middle of nowhere. They could’ve driven from one side to the other in four minutes. Two turns brought the car to the Johnson Inn. Any expert would describe in loving tones how it was homely yet offbeat, giving a taste of the local culture that nonetheless wouldn’t overpower the sensitive needs of those that chose to bed there.
Natalia was no such thing; she reserved a room, ordered a late dinner (it was nearing sundown), and transported their belongings herself, leaving the car parked just outside among a handful of equally weathered beasts. She completely ignored the pub for the moment, promising to acquaint herself with it later.
Kiritsugu, who knew better than to protest, was left to unpack in the second-floor room Natalia had rented, with orders not to say a word, while she went next door to converse with her new partner.
“You arrived quickly,” he commented as she made herself comfortable in one of two straw chairs on the small balcony, facing the sinking sun. Klaus took the other one himself, cracked open an Emu Bitter, had a taste, and visibly held back from retching. Natalia chuckled, and with a sour face he passed the drink over. “I wasn’t expecting many takers. Few can handle coming all the way out here. Least of all those dragging along a child.” His English was impeccable. Only the slightest trace of an accent.
“The boy’s an assistant,” Natalia said, choosing her words carefully. “Well trained, too. He won’t get in the way.”
“He hasn’t even reached puberty,” Klaus retorted. “How old is he?”
“Old enough to have killed a man in cold blood. Now, I suggest asking a better question.”
The Enforcer paused, and for the first time since their introduction, gave Natalia a professional once-over. She did the same.
Initially, the resemblance was overpowering. As Natalia looked past the superficial, however, she became aware of just how different reality was from a picture. Weisse Spielmann was young and fresh, if weary. Klaus sported lines on his face fit for a man twice his age. His nose was crooked in two places; broken in the line of duty, most likely. Lips were pulled taught and worn into a frown rather than a smile. In his sunken eyes, Natalia read a familiar, hungering emptiness. She’d glimpsed it on the rare occasions she looked into a mirror. Nowhere did she see ‘Dog of the Association’. This beast hunted for himself alone.
She was impressed.
He wasn’t.
“You arrived quickly,” he repeated, scowling. “Too quickly. Who do you work for?”
“Myself,” she replied, taking a sip. The drink wasn’t strong, and went down rather smoothly. The bitter taste lingered in her mouth, duelling with the dry air. “The almighty pound, if you want to get technical.”
“You really are a freelancer.” He frowned. “Biting off a bit much, are we? Don’t your kind tend to stick to easier game?”
“Not as shiny, maybe, but that’s about it.” All the warmth bled away from Natalia’s speech. “I’m of the mind that a Designation’s worth squat when you’re looking at how dangerous someone is. I’ve seen skin-and-bones druggies with toothbrush shivs that could have your fancy game gutted and hung in a minute. Desperate, sleep-deprived nobodies with nothing to lose, going up against your typical upper crust magus - people that could incinerate them with a snap of their fingers - and winning.”
Klaus said nothing. Natalia took another swig and nodded, satisfied with the taste.
“You were the one that put out a call for help,” Natalia said pleasantly. “Didn’t seem particularly picky on paper, but perhaps I’m wrong. Is this personal, Herr Spielmann? Should I leave you to seek Herr Other-Spielmann yourself? Is this an Enforcer-only club you’ve built here?” She half-rose out of her seat.
Klaus waved her down, grimacing.
“No. I suppose not. Sit down.” She did. “Very well, Ms. Kaminski. I’ve been harsh. This is, indeed, a rather personal matter, so you’ll have to forgive any abrasiveness on my part.”
She waved the words away, slightly amused. “Forget it. Now let’s cut to the chase. There’s a time for foreplay and this ain’t it. How about you start by telling me why we’re in the middle of nowhere?”
Klaus squared his shoulders and leaned forward, resting elbows on knees. “I don’t know,” he said. “This is one sleepy town out of hundreds. Probably not much more than a thousand people in it. I can’t tell you why he fled here, of all places.”
“Then, can you guess? He’s your brother, isn’t he?”
Klaus deflated. “And I haven’t seen Weisse in years. Truth be told, I mostly know him from childhood. He was a fanciful one, not suited to rule or battle. It was a request from the family that I speed up the search. Most who are Designated can get away for years without pursuit.”
“Politics.”
He gave a weak laugh. “What else? Most of our targets are just idiots that happened to anger the wrong Lord. Perhaps once a year, we get to hunt down someone that actually deserves their Designation. I may have been harsh with you, Freelancer, but there are things to envy about your position.”
“And yours. A steady paycheck, for one.” Natalia decided she could work with this man. He was testy, weary, and obviously stressed, but seemed to possess enough honest mettle to not cause her any trouble. Though she was a loner by heart, cooperating with others to share a bounty wasn’t particularly rare. She’d even accrued a fair share of acquaintances after years of dicey situations. “Well, I don’t care about whatever internal politics made this happen. Family business should stay in the family. But you’ll at least tell me what kind of arsenal he’s packing, won’t you?”
At this, Klaus smiled, showing glistening teeth. “Very little. As I said, little Weisse was always prone to flights of fancy. He could rarely settle down long enough to make headway in his studies. His file from the Clock Tower tells me he hadn’t remedied that error during his study there. And he’s soft. With a gun, even your assistant has a fair chance of dispatching him. The one thing he’s any good at is fleeing.”
“If he shook off an Enforcer, he can’t exactly be terrible at it.”
“A lucky accident. I told Alec not to take him lightly, and then… well, here we are.”
Natalia was of two minds about the news. It sounded too good to be true. A Sealing Designate that posed no danger and would land her tons of money once he was brought was a dream job. And yet...
“What’s the catch?”
“Pardon?”
“What aren’t you saying? Why’d your partner bail? Why are you desperate enough to put up with a freelancer like me? If it were as easy as you described, I’d be completely unnecessary.” Natalia drained the rest of the can and set it on the table, pushing it back to Klaus. Her eyes were narrowed, her mouth drawn into a tight line.
“Ah.” He nodded. “Well, I thought it was obvious. We are in Australia.”
Natalia blinked. “And?”
Klaus sighed. “Of course. I’d assumed. You’ve never worked for the Clock Tower, so you wouldn’t know. This country is a bit… special.”
“How so? It’s part of the Association, isn’t it? Not like America.”
“In name, yes,” explained Klaus, “but in practice, we have little control over it. Take Japan as an example. Even if it secludes itself from us, the Association still has a foothold there. Australia, however, is independent in all but name. It’s an open secret, really. In 1890 there was a certain conference in Melbourne, after which this country’s federation and separation from Britain were set in motion. That same year, an uprising by Australia’s indigenous magi began. They’d been waiting, you see, for the time to fight back against their European oppressors. There was no organization, no union of force; hundreds of squabbling tribes simply agreed that the enemies they knew were better than those they didn’t. By the dawn of the twentieth century, all of the Association’s representatives here had either died of mysterious circumstances or been chased out of the country. Oh, on paper we still rule, and there is still a representative confined to Sydney, but no one makes the mistake of believing the Association has any sort of power here. The local magi play by their own rules, and they don’t take kindly to meddlers from London.”
“Wouldn’t the Clock Tower fight back? They could easily crush that kind of disorganized rebellion.”
Klaus nodded. “They could, but it wouldn’t be worth the trouble. This land is painfully average; only a few distinctive ley lines. Supposedly the border between the new world and the old one is thinner here, but maybe one or two magi could actually take advantage of that, and they’d have to deal with constant, relentless opposition that would continue for years. The Vice Director didn’t see much point to holding on to this place, and neither did most of the Lords.”
“So you’re saying…”
“Yes.” Klaus nodded. “I have no allies here. On the contrary, if we stir up trouble, we run the very real risk of angering the beehive. It’s a diplomatic nightmare, mostly because there’s no one to with which to diplomatise.”
“For you,” Natalia murmured, finally realizing her purpose. “But not for me. Because I’ve got fewer ties to the Clock Tower.”
“That fact may help, but don’t rely on it. We know very little of how the magi here operate. Xenophobia isn’t measured by letters on paper. My partner was wise enough to heed those words, and I don’t blame him for it.” Klaus was truly worried, and he didn’t bother hiding it. “Now, there should be at least one magus in the area, but I haven’t been able to track them down.”
When he put it that way… Natalia frowned. The thought of some enigmatic watcher interfering was not a comforting one. She wasn’t the type to walk on eggshells. “So what do we do about it?” she asked. “Get in contact with the magus? Explain our circumstances? Maybe they’ll even help out.”
“We do nothing,” said Klaus firmly. “If we keep a low profile, they should have no reason to interfere. Even if he is an enemy of the Clock Tower, Weisse is no friend of this land. He’s unlikely to find a safe haven here. On the contrary, if he causes too much of a fuss, the locals may decide to aid us, just to be rid of him. Of course, the opposite is also true. We’re on even footing.”
“So whoever wakes the guard dog gets bitten first? What a joke.”
“It won’t be a joke when you wake up naked in a ditch, covered in blood and tribal paint,” he snapped. “What confuses me is, again, why Weisse fled here when there are plenty of better places. America is just as remote, easier to hide in, and almost as far from the Association’s reach. Anyone that studies at the Clock Tower for any amount of time learns of Australia’s dangers. He should be well aware that this place hampers him much more than it does us…”
Someone knocked on the door. Klaus’ right hand went to his left pant pocket, grasping at some unseen weapon, but Natalia rose out of her seat without bothering. She opened the door, ignoring Klaus’ hissed warning.
It was Kiritsugu. He made no mention of having listened to the whole conversation through the wall on Natalia’s orders (a simple wine glass was almost as useful as an enhanced hearing spell). Instead, he held up a hand to his ear. Natalia ushered him in and closed the door, applying the sound-blocking enchantment Klaus should’ve had up in the first place. Being alone and not needing to speak to anyone sometimes led to essential preparations being neglected, something she knew all too well after having made the same mistake in the past. A talk was needed.
But first…
Now that there was silence, the sound of sirens in the distance could be heard. Kiritsugu knelt down and tapped the floor.
Natalia followed his example, tracing out a sound-enhancing circle with one finger on the soft wood.
Voices drifted into the room from below, which happened to be the busy pub.
“...oh God, it’s real...”
“Haven’t ever had one before…”
“...Rob, take the kids home and lock the door…”
“...corner of Main and West…”
“...and Tim’s gonna have his hands full…”
“Are the police gonna make a statement…?”
“A murder! A real murder!”
“Ned just called, says it’s a nightmare…”
“...it’s Gina. Oh, what’ll they say…”
Klaus stepped forward and scratched out the circle. “Enough,” he hissed. “No more.”
The sirens had grown louder, somehow.
“Right.” Natalia was the first to speak. She rose from her seat and pulled on her overcoat. “Kid: prepare the camera and meet me downstairs. I need to see this.”
“Yes-.”
“No!” Klaus’ protest would’ve reached across the hotel, were it not for the noise dampening spell. “Did you not hear a thing I said? The police will be there, along with probably half the damned town. What part of ‘low profile’ don’t you understand?”
Natalia didn’t slow down. She started checking pockets, looking for the keys, as Kiritsugu parked himself behind her. “This is obviously our mark’s doing,” she said. “Unless we fucked up fifty years of peace just by renting a room. Looks like you don’t know your brother as well as you thought you did.”
Klaus ground his teeth together. “Be that as it may, we both know going to that crime scene will get us noticed in a heartbeat. We’re obviously not locals and no one will recognize us, except for the magus, who will almost certainly be there, whether through a familiar or in-person.”
“And you know that we need to see this,” Natalia said. “It’s evidence, proof that you were wrong and there’s something we don’t know. We can’t let knowledge like that slip away.”
“Um.”
Two heads snapped towards Kiritsugu. ““Yes?””
“I could go. I’m a kid. They’ll just think I’m a tourist. Low profile.”
A heartbeat passed. Klaus scoffed, but Natalia didn’t. She raised an eyebrow and gave the proposal a good ten seconds.
It wasn’t a perfect idea. Kiritsugu was Japanese; he would still stick out like a sore thumb among the populace. Black Spot was too small to be a tourist town, so his cover would be flimsy. This was without considering the dangers of letting him wander outside alone.
After ten seconds… “You can put the Beretta together in two minutes, right?”
“A minute and twenty-three.”
“Okay,” she said. “That’ll work. Grab the camera, and then take the Beretta and run over to snap some photos.”
Kiritsugu nodded, determination blazing in his eyes. It wasn’t a perfect plan, but it was still better than the alternative. A suspicious child was preferable to a suspicious adult.
Klaus was still sceptical. “We are professionals. We shouldn’t be employing children. Besides, it’s dangerous for him alone, even in a small town like this.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” Natalia said softly, her eyes like steel as she stared down at Kiritsugu. “But this one’s already halfway to being a man. Get on it, kiddo.”
Kiritsugu nodded one more time, and then was off.
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Originally Posted by black1blade
