'O who hath causèd this?
O who can answer at the throne of God?
The Kings and Nobles of the Land have done it!
Hear it not, Heaven, thy Ministers have done it!'

- William Blake, 'King Edward the Forth.'

Chapter Fifteen: Who Hath Caused This?

Amon had taken one look at her, shaken his head, and turned towards the door.

Doujima had known that packing some of her simpler gear had been a good choice, and she basked in the knowledge that it was unlikely that anyone without a trained eye would see beyond the short, dark wig that she had donned and the large, wide-rimmed glasses. Plain, nonprescription glasses really were a good addition to any spy's kit, since they obscured the face without being as obvious about it as, say, a pair of sunglasses. There were more elaborate ways in which she could disguise her appearance, of course, and she would have to consider adopting some of them when this was all over, but the glasses and the wig would do for now.

None of that was any help at all, of course, when Robin chose to reenter the room just as Doujima and Amon were leaving it. She sighed noiselessly when she saw them, the only outward indication of inward exasperation being the slightly deeper rise and fall of her chest. "Nagira isn't going to be pleased that you've left without him."

"I don't doubt it," Amon said, obviously completely unconcerned with how his brother would feel about their sudden absence. "Doujima insists."

She felt that it was awfully unfair for him to pin this all on her.

Robin gave her a long look, then nodded, the same quick sharp jerk of her head that Doujima had always associated with decisive action on the younger woman's part. "I'll keep him busy until you return. Try not to take too long." Having committed herself to the scheme, she returned the way that she had come, back beyond the door that Nagira and Fiametta had gone through earlier.

"Looks like we have permission," Doujima muttered, still not used to the idea of Robin being in charge of... well, anything.

"Let's go," Amon said, and led her outside, into a dark Venetian night not unlike the one that she had left, two days earlier.

"Really, it's fine," Nagira said, and ticked it off on the fingers of his right hand as the fourth time he had said something of a reasonably forgiving nature, and been ignored. Watching Caesar grovel had been entertaining, at first – the guy was a master, really – but now it was starting to wear on him.

He sighed as the man went off on another round of verbal self-flagellation. There was a glint in his eyes that was not repentant at all, and Nagira had the dark suspicion that this, whether or not it had started as a sincere apology, had since turned into a twisted vengeance for some perceived offense he had committed, either against Caesar or the Witch Queen. He had been rude, of course, but he could hardly think of anything that would deserve having to sit through this, a rambling plea for forgiveness in a broken combination of Italian, English, and, much to his dismay, extremely bad Japanese.

He wasn't surprised that Robin had left the room after a few abortive attempts to put a stop to it, and was unspeakably grateful when she returned, raising her hand in a gesture that instantly put a stop to the clumsy flow of Caesar's words. The Italian stood, and brushed off his knees, as if he hadn't, seconds earlier, been bowing and scraping in an attempt to gain forgiveness that had already, repeatedly, been granted.

"Nagira," Robin said, a question in her voice.

"Yeah?"

"I need to talk to you."

"What about?"

"The truth."

Father Juliano Colegui was old, but he was also remarkably vital, in spite of his fading powers, and it was a rare day, indeed, when he felt as old as he was. Today was one of those days. This entire week was one of those days.

Priests confessed, just as their flocks did, to their superiors in the Church. He couldn't remember the last time he had sought out the quiet, dark sanctuary of a confessional, couldn't remember the last time that he had unburdened himself to another. He had the feeling that the truth had not been what had come tripping through his lips, even then. These days, he preferred to avoid that part of his devotions, rather than lie during a time when those lies would be particularly dreadful, spoken as they were within the Lord's house. The things he carried were not things that he could, or would, trust to another living being. While he still respected the sanctity of confession, whoever listened to him might not, and there were things that he preferred that the rest of SOLOMON not know.

He could only hope that God would forgive him for his negligence, as he hoped he would be forgiven for so many other sins. He had suffered in life as few others did; perhaps that would save him from some measure of suffering in the hereafter.

Hope. How foolishly did he cling to his own, when Maria's hope was six months dead, burned by the flames of her own power. Perhaps that was a sign, and he would burn, too, sooner or later. Sooner, the way that he felt tonight.

Was it wrong of him to hope – that word again – that his granddaughter would not be there to greet him, when he did? SOLOMON had called her the Devil's Child, but she was his Maria's child, too. Surely the act of existing, of being created, was not enough to condemn her. Surely his God, cruel though he could be, was not so cruel as that.

"What do you say, my friend?" he asked the empty air. There was no response. The man to whom the question was addressed was gone, much more recently departed from this earth than either his Maria or her Hope.

He bowed his head, and only a quiet step from the hallway outside his door alerted him to someone else's presence.

"You should have a fire."

He looked up at Éloise Maçon, the nun that he had sent to watch the STNJ and report to him. He had recalled her as soon as the details about the inquiry into Alfonso's death (or rather, to be honest, the search for the files he had hidden before his death) had come to light. He had claimed that he wanted her insight into the character of Miss Doujima but, in truth, he had wanted her company, the company of one of the few people within the organization that he trusted implicitly.

"I'm not cold," he informed her quietly. It was a lie, but the cold he felt had little to do with the unseasonable chill that had descended over Venice, and fire would not be the thing to drive that chill away. It would only serve as a reminder of what he had lost, and of what he might yet have to face.

Éloise looked disapproving, but she didn't countermand him. Instead, she crossed the room to the thermostat, a mostly unused piece of modernity that stood out glaringly against the aged wood paneling that covered the walls of his rented house. A flick of her fingers drove the heat up a few degrees, and the vents rattled a protest even as they roared to life, the clanking of the ancient heater drowning out anything he might have said. Éloise retreated after promising to bring him some warm tea, leaving him alone once more in the near darkness of the room, with only his thoughts for company.

A short time later, after the heater had rattled itself back into silence, he heard the door downstairs open, and the quietly tense murmur of voices from below. He dismissed it as soon as he heard the door close again. There had been SOLOMON agents in an out of his house for the past two days, and Éloise always resented their intrusion on her perceived territory.

"And thus," said a quiet voice from the doorway that Éloise had so recently occupied. "I clothe my naked villainy with old odd ends stolen out of holy writ, and seem a saint when most I play the devil."

Juliano froze and, if he hadn't recognized her voice, the memory of another accusation made in the dark outside of the fallen Factory would have been enough for him to identify his visitor. Then, they had bandied Shakespeare back and forth, a brief relief from the grief he had known they shared. Then, she had used the words as an accusation against her father, acknowledging his reproof of the man's well-known ambition. He was not entirely surprised to find that accusation now directed at him, albeit for a very different reason.

"Is that really what you think, Miss Doujima?" he asked, unable to keep the weariness out of his voice.

"I don't know what to think," she replied, stepping into the room and pulling the wig from her hair. Her eyes looked very dark behind the lenses of the glasses she wore. Even on that night outside of the Factory, when they had shared as much truth as either of them were capable of, there had been an air of... frivolity... to her. That was gone now, and they grew up so fast, these children of his. She was his, if only by virtue of her association with his granddaughter, with his friend, both gone now and them as the only survivors.

There was a connection in that, in surviving after everyone else was lost. It made him want to confide in her, since he couldn't confide in anyone else. But she was lost, too, hunted by the organization that he still – still, after everything that had happened – served.

"I see," he said. "Please come in. If you are going to throw my wicked deeds in my face, I would rather we both be comfortable while you did it." He waved to the armchair across from him.

The hesitation before she sat made him sad, made him want to stoop with his suddenly felt age and bow his head again. He didn't. Instead, he sat carefully erect in his chair, scrutinizing her with care as she settled on the very edge of her seat. He met her eyes, and she slipped the spectacles off her nose, as though that thin veil of glass would keep her from reading the truth in his gaze.

"Did you know?" she asked, and this she did without even a hint of hesitation. "Did you betray him, too, Father? You were his friend."

Unexpectedly, the accusation made him angry. Angry that she would presume, even if she had every right to do so. "You are correct. He was my friend and, as such, I did everything within my power to save him." He took a deep breath, calming himself, and she waited with ill-concealed impatience for him to continue. After a moment, he did.

"When it was reported to the Assembly that Alfonso was... reevaluating his loyalties..." here she snorted, and he paused to stare at her silently until, with poor grace, she motioned that he should go on. "When the news came, I was astonished. You must understand, I had known the man for years and never, never had I known his loyalty to the confraria to waver. His faith in our mission had led me through my own periods of doubt when we were younger, and his friendship had sustained me through times when personal grief nearly overwhelmed my devotion to both SOLOMON and my calling. He was an intelligent man, and a skeptical one, but his allegiance had never before been called into question. It was inconceivable to me that he might lose his way, a point which I was most vocal about within the Assembly.

"I was not the only one who felt this way, and at first it was dismissed as nothing more than nonsense, or perhaps some young pup's bid to oust his superior in order to further his own ambitions. However, inquiries were made, and it soon became clear that the information we had received was not in error.

"When that became clear, when I was no longer able to deny that my friend had strayed from the path set down for him by SOLOMON – and, worse even than that, that his slip had been brought to the attention of the Assembly – I asked for clemency. I begged to be allowed to travel to Venice, both to confirm our suspicions beyond any cause for doubt, and to convince him, if I could, to reestablish his faith in the organization that we had both served for so long."

He paused, and closed his eyes briefly, not wanting her too-keen gaze to read the pain there. "Clemency was granted."

Oh, he had been a fool.

"In a unanimous vote, the Assembly agreed to my plan. I should have seen, then, what was afoot. Not all of those who run SOLOMON were Alfonso's enemies, and he had proven himself valuable over time. I, too, am not without my allies. In spite of the organization's intolerance for those who have strayed, I might have, in time, convinced them to overlook his infraction, and to give him another chance. I might have brought Alfonso to Rome, where I, by calling upon our long years of friendship, might have swayed him, and where he might have swayed the Assembly. He had done it before, over the years, through his own unique blend of charm and blackmail. My first thought, however, was to get to my friend and convince him of his folly, because I would not... I could not watch someone else dear to me be hunted, as my protégé was. My own haste in condemning Robin as a traitor made me hesitant to act decisively in regards to Alfonso. I wished to convince him and, if I could not, to aid him in concealing his defection. I would have done that, yes, even if it made a traitor out of me as well, in order to save him. To do these things, I had to be away from SOLOMON's watchful eyes and so, rather than bring Alfonso to me, my first plan of action was to go to him.

"No sooner had I left Rome than our enemies – his, and mine – moved to mobilize SOLOMON against my friend. In my absence, with no voice as strong as mine to champion his cause, they convinced our fellows within the Assembly that, not only could Alfonso not be forgiven for his trespasses, but even a hint of betrayal on his part presented a too great risk to our mission to be allowed. I knew nothing of this, and I arranged to meet Alfonso as soon as I arrived in Venice. We met for dinner, as old friends who have not seen each other in a long time are wont to do.

"It became immediately obvious to me that his betrayal was in earnest, that not even I could convince him against it, and that, moreover, he refused to conceal this change of heart from SOLOMON and pretend loyalty, even if he had none. He was on fire, alight in a way that I had not seen in years. Even so, he was too wise to make a spectacle of his defection until he was ready to break completely with the organization; he knew that to do so would call them down on his head, and he was not yet prepared for that. He was quite surprised that I had learned of it, in fact, but to me he confessed all, confident that my loyalty to him would not fail. It was Robin, of course, that convinced him of the rightness of his actions. You will know of it by now, I am told – her creation, and Toudo's beliefs about her eventual purpose. In vain, I argued with him. I told him that she was dead; he would not believe me. I told him that the mad ravings of a scientist could not prevail against the wisdom of the church, and that Toudo was mistaken; he disagreed. Every point I made he disregarded or dismissed and, at the end of the evening, I let him go, exhausted, but fully intending to present my case to him the next day, and the next, if need be.

"I was never to have the chance. By morning, Alfonso was dead, and I was forced to play along with the charade that was made of the inquiry into his death. It was pronounced that he had died by means of Craft, rather than the poison that I, and every other member of the Assembly, knew had stopped his heart and ended his life. They had to lie, you understand, rather than decry him as a traitor before the rest of the organization. Even in death, Alfonso had the power to topple them; the Assembly could not admit that one of their number, the infamous Spaniard, had turned his back on them. They would loose face, and the rank and file of SOLOMON might begin to question their own beliefs, if they learned that one of the omnipotent, omniscient Assembly had gone from Craft-user to Witch. And so, Alfonso was made out to be a victim of the witches he would have gladly joined given the chance, and I, his friend, allowed the lie, because I understood the necessity of it. You see, Miss Doujima, even after all that had happened, I was, and am, still loyal to SOLOMON. My faith is habit, cemented years ago by the very man whose death, were it otherwise, might have called me to question it.

"It was soon discovered, however, that the Spaniard had played one final, malicious joke on those who had destroyed him. His files, the only records of the network of spies he had spent years building, could not be found. SOLOMON was frantic. As a result, you were called in. I was instructed to give you strict orders not to look into your mentor's death, orders which I knew would go unheeded. Who, after all, can stop a spy from questioning – or a daughter from grieving? The rest you know. Judge me as you will."

Brave words, when he felt like the censure he so well deserved would break him apart. Still, he refused to drop his gaze from hers; eventually, it was Doujima who sighed, and twisted her head to contemplate the cold fireplace beside them. "I can't. Damn it. You tried. You fucked it up, but you tried. That's all anyone can ask of a friend, I guess, and all that I can expect." She paused. "You say that you're still loyal to SOLOMON. Does that mean that you're going to call the Hunters on me?"

"I suppose," he said, "that we all define loyalty in our own way. I am loyal to my mission still, yes, but I have been loyal to Alfonso for as many years as I have been loyal to SOLOMON, and that, too, is a difficult habit to break. I feel that, while he might forgive me for my part in his death, he would never forgive me if I had a hand in yours. Him, at least, I would like to meet in the hereafter with a clear conscience." Juliano echoed her earlier sigh, and closed his eyes. "If you have what you came for, Miss Doujima, you should go."

He heard her rise at the same time that he heard Éloise's hurried steps outside the room. She burst in without bothering to knock, breathless from her run up the stairs. In spite of that, her voice was crisp and clear as she said, "Hunters. Approaching the house. Many of them, Father."

He was moving almost before he knew it, flinging himself out of the chair as Doujima muttered an oath. "They've been watching you," she said, as if he couldn't have figured that out for himself.

"Yes," he said. "They'll see you if you exit through the front. Come."

"Where?"

He smiled grimly. "Surely you did not believe that any friend of Alfonso's would be left without an alternative escape route?" He pounded his hand against the fireplace's mantel, and a piece of decorative masonry slid inwards. At the same moment, a thin panel of the wall popped out, revealing a doorway almost too narrow to step through, and an equally narrow set of dark, winding stairs. "Go. This passageway will lead you down to the alley behind the house."

"And what do you plan to do?"

The question surprised him. "I will follow when I can," he said shortly, and half shoved her into the passageway. She yelped in protest, and he pushed the panel back into place over the door. There was no seam in the smooth wood, nothing to show that it was there.

"You should have gone with her," Éloise said quietly. He shook his head in refusal, but didn't bother to explain.

He had failed so many; he would not fail another. Doujima would escape, because she was Alfonso's student and he doubted that they would find her again, once she went to ground. He would remain.

Someone had to be there to greet the Hunters.

The stairway was pitch black, and smelled strongly of mildew. The space was cramped, so cramped that Doujima's hips and shoulders brushed the walls on either side, making it impossible to become lost, even in the dark. The sharp, spiraling curve of the descent made it equally impossible to fall since, if she missed one of the stairs in the dark, she would only slide a few steps before running into the next turn, and a nice solid wall upon which to brace herself. So, in spite of the steepness of the steps and the complete lack of light, it was a fairly safe way of making a clandestine exit from Juliano's house. It was also something straight out her worst, most claustrophobic nightmares.

It took her a few moments to find door, and that catch that released it, once she reached the bottom of the stairs. She escaped with a gasp of relief, to find that the alley behind the house wasn't much better. Compared to the stairway, it was bright and open – too open for her to feel secure, when she knew that she was being hunted.

There was no sign of Amon. He had decided to wait for her outside, rather than risk himself and Robin by appearing before Juliano's eyes, Lazarus for real this time, resurrected from the dead. She had agreed at the time, but now began to doubt the plan. Her need to make a hasty escape spurred her on; her inability to do so until she had located Amon held her in place.

The coldly unmistakable feeling of the barrel of a gun pressed against the back of her head halted all thoughts of escape.

"Come to ask the good father for final rites before you die, witch?" Charlie asked her.

"More of a social call, really," Doujima said breathlessly, attempting, and failing, to keep her tone light. "He has really excellent fashion sense, for a priest. I wanted his opinion on whether or not my shoes match my purse."

"The shoes aren't bad," Charlie said. "But the disguise you wore to get here needs some work. I would have recognized you a mile away. I'm an awful shot," he continued casually, "but I doubt there's much of a chance that I'll miss from this distance, wouldn't you say? They don't use Orbo, here in Italy. The bullets in this gun are rune-inscribed and guaranteed to pierce the defenses of even the most powerful of witches. Which hardly includes you, but I thought it was best to be careful. I'm sorry, Yurika, but I couldn't risk you getting away, again."

"Why, Charlie," she said, with a forced laugh. "I never knew that you though of me as the one who got away. Some torch you've been carrying, huh?"

She could practically feel the silent waves of revulsion coming from him as her barb struck home. "Shut up," he spat. "Filth. I never wanted you."

Liar! Liar! Liar! It was repetitive whisper in her ear, repeating over and over after Charlie spoke. It felt like the same bolt of intuition that would strike her whenever she knew she was heading down the right path in an investigation, but didn't know why. It felt like that, but stronger, more infallible. That whispering voice sounded like Charlie, and it told her that, when he said he didn't, had never wanted her, he was lying. Some small, internal part of him rebelled against that lie, spy though he was, and that same part of him was determined to let her know it.

So this was her Craft. This was what it felt like to be a witch. Good. Powerful. Too bad that it wouldn't get her out of this; if she lived, being a walking lie detector would prove to be of incalculable value but, for now, it was more than useless.

"Liar," she said, giving it voice for the simple satisfaction of saying the word out loud.

A shot rang out in the alley. It took Doujima a handful of startled, confused moments to comprehend that it wasn't her blood and brain matter scattered across the wall, gleaming in the darkness like some morbid Pollack painting.

The thought made her gag. By the time she had turned to face Amon, Charlie's body splayed between them, she was shaking. Nerves, a delayed reaction to having a gun held to her head, and the sudden realization that, had Amon aimed a few inches lower, it might have been her blood, her brains, decorating the wall.

"You're lucky that he was so much taller than you," Amon said, as if he had read the thought clearly on her face. His own face was coolly composed, untouched by the violence of the moment as he gazed at her from over the barrel of his upraised gun.

"I think I might throw up," she informed him, and was remotely glad that she sounded just as calm as he did.

"Later," Amon said curtly. He put the gun away, much to her relief, and stepped forward to take her elbow, helping her to step over Charlie's body with more care than she would have expected from him. "That shot would have drawn attention. We need to go."

What followed was a dizzying flight through the streets, twists and turns meant to confuse pursuit, even after it became clear that there was no one following them. They were only a few blocks from Dr. Moreno's office when Doujima dug her heels in and pulled them to a stop, panting.

"Doujima, we need to keep going," Amon said, with what had to be a herculean attempt at patience. "It's not safe out in the open." He glanced at her sharply. "I wouldn't have expected this reaction from you. This can't be the first time you've seen someone... hunted."

"How many times do I have to say it?" Doujima ground out. "I. Am not. A Hunter. I. Am. A spy." She shook her head sharply, both to dismiss her own words and to clear her head. "I'm not coming back with you." That was easy enough to communicate; the reasons why took another few moments to formulate. "I think it would be best if I disappeared for a while, after tonight."

Amon studied her. She resisted the urge to squirm. "How long a while?"

"A week. Maybe two. Long enough for some of the commotion to die down, and for you and Robin to figure out where you – we – need to go, from here. I'm with you. I meant it when I said that." Amon continued to stare at her, and she knew that she needed to complete her thought, even if she didn't want to. "Long enough," she said, finally, "for you to get Nagira out of Venice. Back to Japan."

Amon was silent for a beat. "I shot a man for you, tonight," he said. "Do not ask me to do your dirty work in regards to my brother."

"That's..." Absolutely fair, her troublesome conscience informed her. Still, she wished that Amon was more in the habit of sugar-coating difficult truths before forcing her to swallow them. It would have made his words feel less like a sucker punch. "Asshole. You had me break his head once; I would think you'd be the last one to reproach me for breaking his..." Heart, but she couldn't say that, either.

Amon continued to watch her, and she thought there was something ironic in his normally stoic expression, as if he knew what she had been about to say. Of course he knew. "Do what you have to," he said. "I don't care. Take whatever time you need. I'll get Nagira out of Italy for you, because I do agree that we need to remove him, as much as possible, from the situation with SOLOMON, and you don't currently have the resources to do that. However, you brought him here, and you will be the one to tell him that you're sending him away. Agreed?" His tone brooked no argument.

Doujima sighed. "Agreed." She tilted her head back, shock washed from her mind by the flood of plans that began to form there. "One week. Tell him to meet me at the Sea Customs Port, and make sure he isn't followed. Arrange for him to leave directly after."

Amon looked at her. She sighed again.

"Please?"

"Fine."

"Thank you."

"Don't mention it."

They looked at each other for a moment, before Amon inclined his head and turned to continue on his winding escape through Venice's streets.

"Good night, Amon."

There was a pause, as both of them contemplated the scene that probably awaited him back at the doctor's office.

"Unlikely."

Disclaimer: You know the drill.

Notes: Because my lovely beta reader is sadly absent, I have chosen to post this without having it proofread by someone other than myself. This is dangerous, because I tend to typo like a monkey wearing mittens. If you noticed some errors, that's why.

Next chapter, Choice, is the end.