The Day After

a Noir fanfiction by Ken Wolfe

Kirika awoke from a sound sleep and did not move a muscle. She
never moved when she first woke up, that had been second nature
to her since before she could remember. She always took a moment
to sense her surroundings, to remember where she was. Right now,
she was in the front seat of a car, driving at highway speed. It
was dark. Bandaged wounds all over her body throbbed and ached.
Especially the one in her abdomen.

It all came back quickly. She was in the Range Rover that
Mireille had driven from Paris to the Manor. They had left the
Pyrenees Mountains behind and were headed back to Paris. Altena
and Chloe were both dead. And Mireille had saved her. Mireille
had snatched Kirika back from the brink. Mireille...

Kirika opened her eyes and saw the dark highway lit by the
headlights. She turned to look at the Rover's driver. The young
blonde Corsican woman's attention was fixed on the road. Sensing
Kirika's movement, she glanced over at her companion for just an
instant. "Did you manage to get some sleep?" she asked, her
blue eyes fixed on the road once again.

"A little," Kirika replied. She had only been dozing on and off,
it was unlikely she had got much more than an hour of proper
sleep. "It looks like it's getting light."

"Yes, it will be dawn soon. We're about an hour from Paris. I
guess that morphine must have worn off by now. Can you hold out
until we get to Doctor Marquis?"

"Sure." She had certainly endured far worse than this for far
longer. "Have you been driving all night?"

"Pretty much. I just stopped for gas and a rest."

"It couldn't have been for long," Kirika said, noting that
Mireille was driving within the posted speed limit and doing the
mental arithmetic of time and distance. "How do you feel?" She
noticed that Mireille had only one hand on the wheel. The other
arm, the one that had been shot, was resting at her side.

"Like hell, if you must know," Mireille quipped.

"You should have woke me and switched places."

"Don't be silly, you're worse off than me." Mireille smiled a
little. "Besides, you don't even have a driver's license, what
would happen if we got pulled over?" She glanced at Kirika
again, worry showing on her face. "You should take your
temperature."

There didn't seem to be much point since they were only an hour
from the hospital, but Kirika complied. The digital thermometer
showed only a slightly elevated temperature. And other than the
throbbing wounds and the bone-deep weariness she felt okay. It
appeared she had no serious infection, always a danger with a
stomach wound. Mireille and Kirika had tended to each other
carefully before starting their journey, cleaning and dressing
their wounds and getting the preventative shots. They were both
well trained and well practiced in field medicine, as were any
professional assassins worth their mettle. And with what
Mireille had brought along they could have practically operated
a field hospital out of the back of this Rover. The only really
serious injury between the two of them was Kirika's gunshot
wound to the abdomen. But it was not immediately
life-threatening, and they were able to stop the bleeding.
Kirika had insisted they did not need to stop at a hospital
along the way, they could wait until they came to Paris and paid
a visit to Doctor Marquis. Kirika had been treated by him more
than once already. He ran a small private clinic on the
outskirts of the city. He was a friend of Mireille's who would
treat gunshot wounds without asking embarrassing questions.

Kirika had insisted, wanting to get back to Paris as quickly as
possible. She needed to convince herself that there was still a
normal world out there, a world beyond the nightmare that was
the Manor.

"That village looked a lot better in the dark," Mireille
commented.

Kirika understood that Mireille was leaving her the option of
not talking about it. She had been grateful that they had driven
through it at night. Even what little they had seen by
headlights had told the tale. Mireille must have seen much more
clearly by daylight, on her way up to the Manor. "I saw it burn
down," Kirika said softly. "They were Soldats. A whole village
of Soldats. Even the children knew who I was and knelt before
me. But they were loyal to Artena. When the Soldats from Paris
came to claim me, the villagers killed them. They fought off an
entire company of heavily armed soldiers while I escaped. Women,
children, old men, everyone, they just marched into battle like
they didn't care-"

"Kirika," Mireille said softly, laying a hand on Kirika's bare
leg. "Stop it."

"Sorry." Kirika sniffed and wiped a tear away. A moment later
she was back in control. She laid her hand gently on top of
Mireille's. "You shouldn't move this arm if you don't have to."

Mireille patted Kirika's bare leg and let her arm rest again.
"It was a small village," Kirika continued in a more controlled
voice. "But there were hundreds of them. They must all be dead
now."

"My God," Mireille breathed. "Even with the instructions from
Graipaul the village was hard to find. I looked for it on maps
before I headed out, but there was nothing. Soldats could just
wipe it off the Earth without anyone knowing. Damn them," she
hissed.

"Who is Graipaul?" Kirika asked.

"Remi Graipaul. You saw him at the Manor. The silver-haired one
with the cane who spoke to us."

"I remember."

"He's the one who told me how to get to the Manor."

Kirika frowned. Up to now she hadn't had the time or leisure to
give any thought to how Mireille had come to be at the Manor. It
was something like a miracle to her. But she knew that miracles
do not happen, everything has its price. "What did he want you
to do?"

Mireille surprised Kirika with a cheery laugh. "You might say
that I was his wild card."

They did not speak for the remainder of the trip. The lights of
Paris made their presence known on the horizon, just on time to
be drowned out by the rising sun.



--------------------------------------------



Doctor Marquis and the duty nurse were waiting for them when
they got to the clinic. The doctor examined them, gave them
stitches where required, and had the nurse help them get cleaned
up. The sun was well up by the time they drove back to
Mireille's apartment, They changed clothes and collapsed on the
bed. Kirika was asleep in seconds. They both slept the whole
morning through. Kirika woke first. She usually did wake up
before Mireille did. But this time it was understandable,
Mireille had not slept in over twenty-four hours.

And yesterday had been the busiest day of their lives.

Being careful not to disturb her partner, Kirika rolled onto her
back  She turned her head to look at the sleeping woman beside
her. It was summer and this old building did not have air
conditioning, so they just shared a white cotton bed sheet.
Mireille was uncharacteristically on her back, but very
characteristically in the extra-large white shirt that went down
to her thighs. It was her usual sleep wear, just as the
undershirt and shorts were Kirika's. Mireille looked exhausted,
even in sleep. Kirika smiled, remembering what Mireille had said
the first time they had woken up after sharing this bed. "Well,
thank God that neither of us snores."

Kirika didn't have the heart to tell her that was not quite true.

She just laid there and stared at the ceiling for a while. The
noonday sun reflected off the bronze radiators under the windows
to paint little abstract patterns there. It was a spare,
functional room, with nothing more than a chest-high partition
separating the bed from the remainder of the room that
constituted the main living area. In the few months Kirika had
lived here, she had quickly come to view it as home. The
apartment she had in Japan had certainly been no home, it had
simply been a place to sleep and to brood over the mystery of
her existence. The Manor may have been home to her at some
point, but now she could never think of it as anything other
than a torture chamber. And certainly not-

Kirika gasped, gripping the side of the mattress hard. She
trembled as a tidal wave of vague, disjointed memories surged
through her mind. /This is your home now, girl. If you do as
you're told, we'll take good care of you. If you don't, then the
Eternal Darkness will take you./

"Kirika?"

She started, looking over to see Mireille propping herself up on
one elbow. "Kirika, what's wrong?"

There was no point trying to pretend that nothing was wrong. "I
was remembering things."

"A nightmare?"

Kirika shook her head. She released her grip on the mattress.
"No. Waking memories. Nothing that really made any sense. I just
suddenly felt frightened. I don't know why. I'm sorry, did I
wake you?"

"Probably," Mireille said in a way that suggested it did not
matter. "How long have you been up?"

"Not long. I was just lying here thinking."

"Of what?"

"I guess of our Pilgrimage to the Past."

"Our pilgrimage is done now," Mireille said gently but with
finality. "We found out what we wanted to. Now let it go."

Kirika turned her head away. "We've already found out far too
much," she whimpered..

She felt Mireille's hand on her shoulder. "Kirika, please don't
turn away from me. You can feel sad about what happened. But
don't look away in shame, I won't have that."

With great effort, Kirika turned to look in Mireille's eyes
again. Her warm smile was like a benediction. A benediction she
did not deserve. "How can I not feel ashamed of what I did?"
she asked in a tremulous voice. "I made you an orphan like me.
What greater sin could there be?"

"That's what they want you to think," Mireille said. A hint of
anger simmered behind her eyes. "Everything they did to the
sweet little girl you were was to convince you that you and
everybody around you are all beyond redemption. They wanted to
turn you into the darkness. Into Noir. Well, they failed. You
proved that yesterday. You came back from the darkness."

Slowly, Kirika managed to smile. She put her hand on Mireille's.
"You brought me back from the darkness. How can I ever thank
you?"

Mireille smiled impishly. "Well, I suppose you could make me
some tea."

"Sure."

They made the bed and checked each other's bandages for any sign
of fresh bleeding. Then they both got busy preparing a very late
breakfast. For Kirika it was nothing but clear broth, on
doctor's orders. Mireille didn't have much appetite either. Soon
they were done, and Kirika made the tea. They sat close together
at the little round table by the windows. Kirika could see that
Mireille had just cleaned up the place enough to make it livable
again. The broken glass had all been swept off the floor and
furniture, but none of the remaining shards in the window frames
had been removed. There were still bullet-holes everywhere. The
computer was wrecked, and the pool-table certainly could not be
used for pool. Not that they ever had played pool, mind you. And
there were only the two good chairs left. The Knights of Paris
had certainly tried their level best to send Noir to oblivion.
It had been their most difficult fight, the one that had helped
to finally send Kirika over the edge.

She finally noticed the little table over to the right of the
windows. The potted plant that had stood there since Kirika had
moved in with Mireille was gone. "Where's the orchid?"

"Casualty of war," Mireille said absently. She noticed how
Kirika was looking at her. "Yes, I found your note under it,"
she added testily.

"Oh." Kirika continued to watch her. Was that really all
Mireille was going to say?

At length, Mireille sighed and looked her in the eye. Her
expression was strained, she seemed to be uncomfortable.
"Kirika, I'm sorry."

Kirika's heart fluttered. /I appreciate what you were trying to
say, but.../ No, please don't say it!

"I broke our promise."

"What?" This was not what Kirika had expected to hear. When they
had first begun their pilgrimage to the past, Mireille had
promised that when they solved the mystery of their past, she
would kill Kirika. She had been happy to accept the promise.
Perhaps at some level she had been aching to atone for the
murders she did not even remember. Kirika pleading with Mireille
to keep their promise and kill her was the last thing she
remembered before waking up in the nameless village of Soldats.

"I should have told you why I couldn't do it," Mireille said,
her voice thick and strained. "But I just ran away. Both from
you, and from myself. Leaving you crying in that graveyard was
the cruelest, most cowardly thing I've ever done. I can't tell
you how sorry I am. But you see, it was only later that I
realized why I couldn't keep that promise, why I could never
kill you."

Mireille smiled and nodded. "Kirika, yes of course I love you
too."

Kirika just stared at her, too stunned to speak. Involuntarily,
she brought a clenched hand to her breast. She smiled, and her
lip quivered. She could barely get the words out. "I wanted to
tell you for so long, Mireille. But it would have been unfair. I
knew one day you would have to keep our promise. I had to keep
that last bit of distance between us."

"I know." Mireille held out her hand. "Let's close that distance
between us. Once and for all."

Kirika took her hand.. Once again, Kirika could not find the
words. But this time it did not matter. Mireille had simply said
what she had already proven yesterday. Kirika had wanted to
throw herself into the Eternal Darkness and rid the world of the
monster that Soldats had turned her into. But Mireille had
refused to let her go, had begged her to come back. "Thank you,
Mireille."

"I have no right to make another promise to you," Mireille said.
"I hate that. Because I'd like so much to promise you that I'll
never send you away again."

Kirika closed her eyes and shook her head, dismissing Mireille's
implied apology. "You don't need to. I already know it."

Mireille smiled. "I don't imagine our time in this world will be
long. But whatever time we have left, at least we won't be
alone."

"No." Mireille's hand in hers was so comforting, but even that
could not stave off the overwhelming anxiety that came over
Kirika upon hearing Mireille's words. Their shared fate as Noir
hung over them, even in this little moment of peace. It was like
a deaths-head hanging outside the window, silently grinning at
them. Mireille was right, their remaining time in this world
might be measured in days or minutes. "Mireille... What are we
going to do now?" she asked softly.

Mireille paused to pick up her cup and sip at her tea, as if
that helped her to collect her thoughts. When she spoke, it was
not with the detached professionalism with which she had usually
passed information on to her partner. It was with a sincere,
slightly anxious tone closer to how Kirika spoke just now. It
was just what one would expect from two people who were planning
their lives together. "Graipaul told me he wants us both to join
Soldats. Not just as assassins, but as leaders. To be part of
the inner circle."

That surprised Kirika. "Do you believe him?"

"If you mean do I trust him, of course not. But I believe in his
self-interest. Bringing us into the fold would be a real feather
in his cap. You and I would certainly not have any real power."
A wry smile graced her lips. "Soldats is like any other
syndicate, it's an Old Boys' Club through and through. But the
name of Noir must have great power in Soldats. Our very presence
would lend credibility to those who held our leash."

"Credibility?"

Again, the wry smile. "I mean credibility the way a Mafia Don
understands it, as a threat that can be followed up on."

"So we would be Soldats' enforcers."

"More like their bulldogs. Probably most of the time we would
have to do nothing more than be visible, whenever Soldats needed
to remind anybody how disloyalty would be rewarded."

Kirika thought about that for a while. What Mireille said made
sense. She could picture exactly how Soldats would use the name
and faces of Noir to strike fear and awe into minions and
enemies alike. At length she shook her head and looked into
Mireille's blue eyes again. "I couldn't do it, Mireille. I just
couldn't work for the people who made me kill your family."

Mireille smiled sadly and squeezed her hand. "No, of course not.
Neither could I." Her smile remained, but her expression and her
voice darkened. "Not unless we were planning to betray them."

Kirika frowned. "Do you have something in mind?" she asked with
more than a little trepidation.

"Nothing specific. We still know so little about them. But if we
did join them, we would learn more."

"Keep your friends close..."

"And your enemies closer," Mireille finished for her. "We could
bide our time, wait until we knew enough to really hurt them."

"They would be expecting that."

"Of course they would. They would be watching us like hawks. But
that cuts both ways. They already know everything about us, more
than we know ourselves. We have nothing to lose by being among
them, and everything to gain."

"They would test us," Kirika pointed out. "They would do
everything they can to test our loyalty."

Mireille looked unimpressed. "What could they ask us to do that
we have not done already?"

Kirika shivered, thinking of the ancient torture chamber in the
catacombs of the Manor. "There are things worse than killing,"
she said in a soft, tremulous voice.

Mireille nodded. "I know. But being part of Soldats' inner
circle would put us where we could hurt them the most, maybe
even deal them a deathblow. Is there anything we could not do
for that?"

After a moment, Kirika slowly nodded. "There is one thing."
Mireille seemed to guess what she was talking about, but Kirika
was sure she was mistaken. "No, I don't mean to kill you. If
they want to strike fear of the Eternal Darkness into their
enemies, the fear of Noir, they would need both of us alive. But
people like Soldats always think in the long term. You and I
won't live forever. When we are gone, they will want the legend
of Noir to live on. So one of the first things they would make
us do would be to start grooming our successors."

Mireille's eyes widened in growing shock and understanding. To
do what Artena had done, to put a gun into the hands of a
child...

"God!" Mireille released Kirika's hand and looked out the
window, as if the blue afternoon sky could dispel the darkness
in her heart. "You're right," she whispered. "I could never do
that."

She did not need to complete the thought for Kirika. Joining
Soldats, even with the intent of betraying them, would be their
downfall. And Kirika felt in her heart that what she had
suggested was the least of it. Soldats had been festering in the
darkness for a thousand years. Without a doubt they could
conceive horrors that mere assassins, even the dreaded Noir,
could never dream of. "One way or another, they would either
break us to the yoke, or destroy us."

Mireille nodded, still staring out the window. "They'll never
let us alone. If we can't join them, we'll have to fight them."

Kirika watched her lovely Corsican partner, worried about what
she was hearing. Mireille was a romantic at heart, she truly
believed that with enough drive and perseverance nothing was
impossible. That belief could be fatal. "As soon as they
believed we could never be theirs to command, they would spare
no effort to kill us. The rules of the Trials would be over."

"The rules of the Trials were over when they attacked us here!"
Mireille shouted. "We are already at war with them."

"Mireille..." Kirika knew there was no point arguing with her
when she was this upset.  At length, Kirika rose from her seat.
"I'll go make some more tea."

They sat in silence for a while. The sounds of the bustling city
outside the shattered windows were softened into a gentle white
noise by the distance. Occasionally there would be a closer
noise, a car driving down their street or the laughter of people
walking below their window. Normal people leading normal lives.
Kirika looked at the bullet-riddled walls that contained her.
She felt trapped by them. What an utterly proper cage for a
beast such as her. It was a fitting cage to protect all those
normal people from her.

A fly that had come in through the window began to bother
Mireille. She waved it away with a strangled sound of
irritation. "Need to get some flypaper," she muttered.

"We'll have to repair the windows eventually," Kirika replied.

"There's not much point. We'll be abandoning this place soon
anyway."

"What?" Kirika said anxiously.

Mireille looked intently at Kirika. "I figure that Graipaul will
wait for a few days or a couple of weeks. But eventually he'll
pay us a visit. Or maybe he'll be presumptuous and just send a
flunky to tell us where we'll be reporting for work," she said
bitterly. "We have to be long gone before then."

Well at least that made sense. "You think the next chance he
gave us would be the last one."

"Yes, it would. He must be under pressure to deliver us, so he
won't wait for long and he won't take no for an answer. He would
settle for the next best thing, which would be to bring our
heads back to Soldats. There are probably elements who would
just as soon come kill us now. But I'm willing to bet Graipaul
can hold off the dogs for a while. We have at least a couple of
days to recover and plan what we're going to do."

"They will be watching us."

"Yes, of course they will. When we do make our break, we will
have to do it discreetly. Just head out as if we're going
shopping, and not come back. We'll go to my safe house."

"The safe house?" That was Mireille's name for the little
apartment she kept at the other end of the city. Kirika had only
been there once, when they dropped in to clean up and rest after
a run-in with Soldats agents in that area. Besides the two of
them, nobody knew about it but the landlord, and he knew
Mireille only by a false name.

"We'll be leaving everything behind, so it will be fine until we
can find something better."

"Mireille, are you intending for us to stay in Paris?"

Mireille looked surprised by the question. "Yes, of course. This
is where most of my contacts are, and this is where the heart of
Soldats lies. This is where we need to be."

"Why?"

"To fight them of course, you silly girl!"

"Is that what you want to do?"

"Well what did you think we would be doing?"

Kirika looked away, unable to face Mireille's angry stare
anymore. "I thought that's what we were going to talk about,"
she said, unable to keep the resentment out of her tiny voice.

Mireille made a little regretful grunt in her throat. She took
Kirika's hand. "I'm sorry. You're right, this is what we should
have been talking about. I'm so used to being on my own."

Kirika looked at her, still feeling hurt. "We've been together
nearly half a year." The edge was taken off her voice, but not
the sadness.

Mireille nodded. "Yes, we have. And I know, I've treated you as
more of a hanger-on than a partner. I... I guess closing that
last distance between us isn't as easy as I thought it would be.
But I want to, I really want to."

Kirika smiled shyly. "So do I."

Mireille's expression sobered. "But Kirika, we have to face
reality," she said gently. "If we don't join Soldats, then
they'll come after us. We'll either fight them or die."

"They can't come after us if we're not here."

"Soldats are everywhere, Kirika. Soldats are the world."

Kirika shook her head vigorously. "They're not the world and
they're not everywhere. They may not even be the biggest, oldest
or wealthiest syndicate in the world. They're just the best at
staying invisible, staying in the darkness."

Mireille frowned. "Kirika, do you know something I don't?"

Kirika hesitated. She knew what she wanted to say, but she had
to make sure she was separating fact from wishful thinking.
Otherwise, Mireille would never listen to her. "I know what
you're asking, but no. I still don't have any clear memory of my
time with Soldats. But I just have to think of what we've seen.
Soldats were trying to make inroads into the Taiwan syndicate,
but so far they have failed. They are not omnipotent."

Mireille looked at her thoughtfully for a moment. "So, what do
you think we should do?"

"I know what I would /like/ to do," Kirika said, her soft voice
fortified by an edge of urgency. "I'd like for us to go as far
from here as possible, to some place without a name. Some place
where Soldats would never even think of looking for us."

Mireille smiled for just an instant. "It's a tempting idea. But
are you really okay with that, just leaving? After finding out
what they did to both of us, are you willing to just let it go?"

Kirika thought about that for a moment before replying. "My
whole life has been scripted by Soldats. If we stayed here to
fight them, that would just be part of the script. Of course I
hate them, how could I not? But I want to do something that's
not part of their script. I..." Her voice broke, and she
squeezed Mireille's hand, trying to draw strength from it. "I
want to take my life back from them."

Mireille regarded her with a pained, sympathetic expression.
"Kirika, I'm not sure it's that simple."

"Why not?" Kirika asked desperately. "Are you saying there's no
place in the whole world where we could live in peace?"

"Oh, I have no doubt we could escape and disappear," Mireille
said sadly. "But then what? If we start up business again, any
contract we took could be a trap set by Soldats. It would be
just as if we were fighting them right here."

"Start up business?" Kirika asked. "Is that what you want to do?"

"It's not a matter of what I want. It's what we need to do to
survive. This isn't a business you can just retire from. Every
time we kill we make enemies. Who knows how many you've made
that you can't even remember now. We have more to worry about
than Soldats."

"We could take precautions. Even if we are found out, we're not
helpless."

"We would be if we lost our edge."

Kirika stared at her in disbelief. "Are you saying we need to
kill people just to keep our edge?" she asked incredulously.
"Just for-- for practice?"

Mireille looked like she was annoyed at this argument, but she
was trying very hard not to sound angry. "Call it what you will.
For better or worse, you and I are predators. That is what
Soldats has made us into. If we stop being predators, we will be
eaten up."

Kirika shook her head slowly. She hated herself for what she
needed to say next. "That's what they want us to think, that
there's no exit. If we believe that, then they've won."

Now Mireille really did look angry. "You remember enough about
the underworld to know that nobody can ever really leave. And
that we live and die by the support of the people around us.
Here I have people who I have known for years. We live by being
each other's eyes and ears. That's how it works."

"I know all that. But how many of those people can you really
trust, Mireille? Your Uncle Claude must have introduced you to
most of those contacts. But he was working for Soldats the whole
time. Even if none of your friends are Soldats, they are
certainly known to Soldats." She withered under Mireille's
frosty stare. "I'm sorry Mireille, but you must have thought of
this yourself by now," she concluded in a tiny voice.

"Of course," Mireille said bitterly. "I am a child of Soldats
after all. My life has been scripted by them no less than
yours." She sat perfectly still, contemplating the shattered
windows. Kirika watched her nervously. The Corsican woman had
already had plenty of time to consider the consequences of what
Artena had told them at the Manor. Mireille was one of the three
children blessed by the High Priests of Soldats, groomed to
become Noir. Everything in her life had been carefully planned
to place her on the path they wanted, to turn her into an
assassin, one of the Black Hands of Soldats. Nothing would have
been left to chance.

Kirika could practically feel the grim realization sinking into
her partner's mind as she watched Mireille's angry, despairing
expression. Her life here in Paris had been no less bogus than
Kirika's life under her false identity in Japan. They had given
her this life, and they could just as easily take it away.

At length, Mireille looked at her and nodded. "Okay," she said
in quiet finality.

Kirika felt like she wanted to cry in Mireille's place. "I'm so
sorry," she breathed.

Mireille smiled. "I wish I could forget my past like you have.
That would make it easier to just pick up and leave."

Kirika was unsure how to respond. "Well, I probably don't have
much worth remembering," she said. "Most people don't remember
anything from before they are four years old. I must have been
training under Soldats even by that age." Kirika averted her
eyes nervously. /Because I could not have been more than six
when I efficiently assassinated your family/.

Mireille did not appear to be disturbed by the subtext of
Kirika's statement. "You must have had a much harder time than
me," Mireille said with a gentle smile. "Uncle Claude was a
strict teacher. But he did everything he could to make sure I
was as happy as I could be. He almost made the training fun."
Her expression darkened. "He made killing people seem like the
most natural thing in the world," she said more softly. "When I
turned eighteen he told me he was going away, that I had to make
my own path now. But he made sure there was only one path for
me, didn't he?"

"Mireille..." Kirika hated when she had no idea what to say. She
thought back to the day when Mireille had returned from her trip
to Corsica. Mireille had told Kirika what Chloe had said to her
there: you are a child of Soldats. A child of the people who
murdered your family. Standing with her there on the roof
watching the sunset, Mireille had broken down and cried. Kirika
had ached to know what she could do to comfort her partner, to
help her endure the pain. But she still did not know.

"I agree we have to leave Paris for good," Mireille said. She
was using a much more businesslike tone, as if they were just
discussing another contract. Kirika was glad that Mireille had
accepted what to her was obvious. But somehow they were talking
on a less intimate level now, and Kirika regretted that.

"It might be best for us to leave Europe altogether," Kirika
responded.

"Yes, I think you're right. Soldats calls themselves 'the
world,' but Europe is their true home. This is where they are
strongest. The further from here we are, the better."

Kirika was happy that Mireille agreed at least with that much.
"Do you have any place in mind?" Kirika asked encouragingly.

"It has to be somewhere that both of us can easily blend in
without attracting attention. The anonymity of a city in an
immigrant country would be best for us. Probably somewhere in
the New World. What language are you more comfortable with,
English or Spanish?"

"Either."

"Same here. I guess that leaves us a lot of options."

Kirika smiled. "You're a creature of the city, aren't you?"

"More or less." Mireille's expression sobered. "I hope you
didn't have a vision of us on a little island or in a lonely log
cabin somewhere."

Kirika averted her eyes shyly. "I guess I was thinking something
like that."

"Didn't I say, this is not a business you can just retire from?"
Mireille asked quietly but firmly.

Kirika was at a loss for words. Once again, the bullet-riddled
walls loomed over her like the bars of a cage, closing in on
her. She involuntarily hugged her arms around herself. /No exit.
No exit./

"Kirika?" Mireille called gently.

"You're right. I know you're right. But I wanted so much to
believe that we could leave this world of shadows behind." She
looked desperately into Mireille's piercing blue eyes. "Are we
so steeped in sin, that we can never play in the sun?"

Mireille smiled warmly and reached over to take her hand. "Of
course we can play in the sun. This has nothing to do with
punishment or atonement for sin. It just has to do with earning
our daily bread."

She knew what Mireille really meant. Kirika had said it before
herself. Their daily bread was purchased with the blood of the
people they killed. "Is that really the only way for us?"

Mireille sighed. "Kirika, if we try to set up some life outside
the underworld it will be a lie. It would be just like the fake
life you had in Japan. Even without knowing the why of it, you
knew that it was wrong. That is why you sought me out. Do you
think you could just go back there now? Do you think you could
go back and pretend none of this had happened?"

Kirika thought long and hard. Mireille just sat patiently,
holding her hand. She was right, of course. In Japan, Kirika had
successfully played the role of innocent high school student.
She even had friends there. There were three other girls she had
been hanging around with. They had done all the normal things
together, going out shopping, eating ice cream at cafes, singing
in karaoke rooms. It had even been fun, sometimes. But in her
heart, Kirika had felt alone. As long as they did not know what
she really was, she would be alone no matter how many friends
she gathered around her.

Her friends had been sad when she told them she was moving to
live with her parents again. They were probably still sending
letters to the fake address of her nonexistent parents,
wondering why she never wrote back. Kirika tried to imagine
going back to them now.

"You're right," she said reluctantly. "It would be a lie. I
guess that was why I had imagined it would be just the two of
us, far away from everything. There would be nobody to lie to."

"We would be lying no matter where we went," Mireille said. "The
underworld is all about lying. Do you think you could live with
just that, just the lie and nothing else?"

Kirika looked into her eyes. "Have you ever tried?"

Mireille really seemed taken aback by that question. "No..."

It appeared as if Kirika had opened up a new possibility in
Mireille's mind. This emboldened her to drive her point home.
"Don't you think we could try? Of all the sins we could commit,
is living a lie so terrible?"

Mireille's expression was inscrutable. She closed her eyes for a
moment. Then she looked at Kirika again. It looked as if she had
made some decision. "Okay, why don't we try."

Kirika's heart leapt. "You mean it?"

Mireille smiled just a little. "We can take a sabbatical. I
think we've earned it. And we've certainly got enough money to
live off for a while. It will give us plenty of time to think.
Maybe in time we can come up with a better answer. But Kirika,
you know we can't let ourselves go soft."

"I know. We can still keep our usual training regimen."

"I don't mean just that. We shouldn't wait for too long before
finding work again. It doesn't even have to be taking on
contracts. But whether or not we are assassins, we can't escape
the fact that we are creatures of the underworld. That is where
we will be earning our daily bread."

"I know." Kirika understood at least that much. Any legitimate
work that made use of their specialized skills would perforce
subject them to very close scrutiny. They would have a hard time
explaining how somebody of Kirika's age had her skills.

Mireille's all-business expression softened. "We'll just keep
our eyes open for anybody who is looking for hired guns without
asking questions. We're bound to find something." She smiled.
"Hopefully a nice cushy job where we just have to look mean and
never fire a shot in anger."

"Okay." Kirika could not keep from smiling. She wanted to tell
Mireille how grateful she was. But she wondered if Mireille
could even understand what hope she had given Kirika. For the
first time she felt in her heart that one day they could really
emerge from the shadows into the light.

Mireille's smile became mischievous. "Do you think you'll feel
up to hobbling over to our usual place for some target practice
tomorrow?"

"I lost my Beretta at the Manor."

"So you did. I guess you can use my other Walther."

"I'll have to get accustomed to it."

"You should. I know you're more comfortable with those old
Berettas. But some day having sixteen rounds instead of seven
will come in handy." She got up and walked over to the pool
table. She was still favoring her bandaged leg. "My spare has a
grip customized for me, just like this one. But it should be
okay for you." She picked her Walther off the pool table and
pulled it from its holster as she walked back. She flipped it
around to catch it by the barrel and held it out to Kirika.
"Here, see how you like the feel of it," she said with a warm
smile.

Kirika's mind bifurcated. She was in their apartment in Paris
and in Mireille's house in Corsica. She saw Mireille's warm,
loving smile and Artena's warm, loving smile. Mireille said "See
how you like the feel of it" and Artena said "Your three targets
are through those doors. You know what to do, don't you?"

Kirika screamed and slapped the gun out of Mireille/Artena's
hand. She staggered back, knocking her chair over and almost
tripping over it. She backed into the partition wall that hid
the bed, standing there panting and trembling.

Mireille regarded her with shock and bewilderment. Her eyes
narrowed and Kirika could sense her hackles going up. The
question was written on her face: who is this I'm facing and can
I trust her?

Kirika couldn't stand it. She buried her face in her hands and
whimpered. In real time it must have been more than ten years
ago, but in her time it might as well have been yesterday. She
could see Odette regarding her with that kind, gentle smile that
was so much like Mireille's, just before Kirika put a bullet in
her head.

"Kirika." The voice was closer. She felt hands gently take hold
of her shoulders. "Didn't I tell you I won't have this?" she
said sternly.

Mireille was right. Kirika had no right to hide her face. She
opened her eyes and faced Mireille. The Corsican woman's face
filled her vision. She did not look angry as her voice had
suggested, just confused and regretful. "Kirika I'm sorry, what
did I do?"

Kirika shook her head. "It's not your fault, you couldn't have
known. That was exactly how Artena handed the gun to me when-"
she choked on the words, they just would not come out. Her eyes
blurred with tears and she closed them, sending trickles down
her cheeks.

"Oh God." Mireille pulled her closer until Kirika's bowed head
rested gently against her shoulder. "How can I make you believe
that you are forgiven?"

"I don't know," Kirika whimpered. She clenched her fists at her
sides, steeling herself to not cry. "I don't know."

"It'll be okay," Mireille whispered. "It will hurt less every
day. Believe me, I know. You just have to give it time."

Kirika nodded and gave a little sound of acknowledgment. They
stood like that for a while. When Kirika felt a little more
under control, she lifted her head. Mireille stepped back and
looked at her intently. "I'll go put the gun away."

Kirika shook her head. "It's not the gun. It was just how you
handed it to me. I'll be fine now."

Mireille regarded her with what Kirika could not help thinking
was more than just worry. She could tell, the Corsican woman's
hackles were still up. "Maybe we should just take it easy for a
few days. We're both in rough shape."

"Okay."

Mireille walked over to retrieve her gun from off the floor. She
returned it to its holster and took it to the closet. Kirika
walked over to the short stairway that led up to their bed and
sank down onto the stairs. She was still shaking, and felt
utterly drained.

A moment later Mireille walked back down the stairs and sat down
beside her. Kirika wondered what she would say, but the blonde
just sat quietly, not even watching her. Kirika could imagine
why. She was probably confused about what had just happened. And
she was afraid of saying the wrong thing, saying something that
would open the gate and let out the monster that they both knew
lurked inside Kirika.

Kirika knew she would have to be the one to break the silence.
"This is why I wanted to get away," she said, still leaning on
her knees and staring at the floor. "That other person inside
me, she hasn't gone away. I can still feel her there, waiting.
I'm so afraid. I don't know what might set her loose."

"I do."

Kirika looked over to Mireille, who returned her gaze. "What let
her loose was me pushing you away. I'll never do that again.
I'll never abandon you."

Kirika smiled sadly. "I don't think you believe it's that
simple. Otherwise you wouldn't be looking at me that way." It
had not been said in an accusatory way. Thankfully Mireille
seemed to know that, she just regarded Kirika with a slightly
more worried and apologetic expression. "But hearing you say
that does make me feel better. Thank you."

"I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried about you, Kirika. I've
had more than ten years to recover from what happened in
Corsica. For you it's still fresh. You can't expect to just get
over it all at once. But you have to /want/ to leave it behind."

"I do want to. But Corsica may only be the beginning of it."
Kirika was terrified to talk about what lurked inside her, but
she knew she had to. "Soldats had me for another ten years after
that day. What else did they make me do? Maybe there are worse
memories waiting to bubble up. I think it's already started to
happen. If it gets worse, it might pus me over the edge again."

"It could be that those memories lie only with your other self.
You might never get them back. I think that would be for the
best."

Kirika shook her head. "I don't know. I've unlocked the gate to
the past, but I'm more confused than ever."

"You know..." Mireille started hesitantly. "Uncle Claude took me
to get psychiatric help after we left Corsica. The doctor was
very kind, he really helped me a lot. Maybe that's something you
should consider."

"My case would be very hard to explain without revealing that
I've been a killer for hire."

"Are you kidding? If your doctor actually believes you then
he'll be too scared to try and turn you in."

Kirika smiled despite herself. Her concern about confiding in a
doctor had been serious, but Mireille's response seemed to be
more or less flippant. Humor was not Kirika's forte. She had
never said anything deliberately funny in what she remembered of
her life. But people sometimes found unintended humor or irony
in what she said, more often than not to her puzzlement. Her
friends in Japan certainly had, and Mireille sometimes did. That
was fine, she would hate to think that she could never make
Mireille laugh.

She was surprised when Mireille put an arm around her shoulder.
"You shouldn't be scared of that other person," Mireille said.
"I saw her, talked to her, and fought with her. She doesn't have
anything that you don't have. Even if she does remember
everything Soldats did to you, so what? It does not make her
stronger or better. I think she is just the part of you that
knows how to kill, stripped of everything else. She's just you
without love or hope. As long as you don't give in to despair,
you can never become her again. That's what I think."

Kirika smiled at her. "Does this mean I don't need to go see a
doctor?"

"Well, think about it anyway."

"Okay." Sitting here with Mireille like this, Kirika could
almost believe that the darkness would have no control over her
if she did not let it. That vision of Artena had frightened her
terribly. But the darkness had not really threatened to encroach
upon her. It had just been her own overwhelming shame and
horror. That was bad enough. But Mireille had said it would
become a little bit better each day.

"I think we'll both feel better when we're far away from here,"
Mireille said.

"Yes, I think we will."

"When we've settled in at our new place, we should make a point
of taking up a new hobby. That will help us stop brooding about
the past. What do you think you would like to do?"

Strangely enough, Kirika could not remember anyone asking her
that question before. In Japan she had more or less tagged along
with her friends, agreeing with whatever they wanted to do. In
Paris with Mireille it had been pretty much the same. To
actually think of something to do for its own sake was a novelty
to her. She had started to develop an interest in painting, but
even that would probably have never happened if Mireille had not
been the first to suggest it. "Something outside. Something out
in the country."

"That's sounding good. Do you have anything in mind?"

"Mountain climbing."

"Well, you don't think small do you?" Mireille said cheerfully.
"Never mind starting with hiking, you want to go straight for
the big time."

"Is that not a good idea?"

"No, I think it's great. We'd probably get bored with something
that isn't a little bit dangerous. Uncle Claude took me caving
in the Pyrenees a couple of times. That's sort of similar, and
it was pretty fun."

"I don't know if I would like caves."

"For my uncle and me, doing things in the shadows was just
second nature. But now, I think I would prefer climbing up in
the open, under the sun. Yes, that's definitely a great idea."

Kirika smiled shyly. "It's your turn. What would you like to do
after we've moved?"

Mireille's eyes crinkled in delight. "I am a creature of the
city after all, so for me it's got to be shopping."

"For what?"

"Clothes, of course. We'll be traveling light, so we'll both
have a whole new wardrobe to build."

"Is that really a hobby?"

Mireille pouted. "Well, I know you don't treat it as one. When I
told you to go get yourself a warm jacket you were back in less
than half an hour!"

"I found one my size in the first shop I looked."

"Oh, Kirika, Kirika, Kirika. I can see you have much to learn.
But don't worry, when we're done we'll have you looking like a
super model."

"You're teasing me."

Mireille cocked her head in theatrical puzzlement. "Why?"

Kirika looked away. She could feel herself blushing. "You're the
one who is beautiful enough to be a model," she said awkwardly.

Mireille squeezed her tighter. "So are you. But you're only as
beautiful as you present yourself to be. You were a real
knockout in that dress we got you for the job in Ulgia. Wasn't
it fun dressing up like that?"

It was an interesting choice of words. In Ulgia, Kirika had
dressed up as a hostess for an elegant garden party. All the
better to get close enough to her target to put a fork through
his brain stem. At the time her only concern had been to blend
into the background. But she had certainly noticed how
differently men - and more than a few women - had looked at her
when she was dressed up. "I didn't really think much about it at
the time. It was just a disguise."

Mireille sighed. "Oh dear. This is why I insisted on at least
doing your hair for you. Left on your own you probably would
have walked into a barber shop full of old men. I don't even
want to think about what they would have done to my cute Kirika."

"Now you are teasing me."

"Well, wouldn't you have?"

"No. I would have gone to a hairdresser. A a professional would
do the job properly."

Mireille looked cross. "Meaning what?"

Kirika smiled and gave her a sidelong glance. "I liked having my
hair cut by you. It felt nice putting myself in your hands. I'm
sorry, did that sound strange?"

"No. I liked it too. But you're right, from now on you go to a
professional. We'll give you a whole new look."

A strange memory - a nice, benign memory - snuck into Kirika's
mind. "In Japan, one time I almost got talked into dying my
hair."

"Who suggested that?" Mireille said sharply. "One of those girls
you were hanging out with? If anyone did that to you I swear I'd
kill them for free."

"I like blonde hair."

"But it's not for you," Mireille said flatly. She flipped her
long hair away from her face with a flourish. "Take it from a
natural blonde, there are some things you shouldn't try and
fake." She ran her hand through Kirika's hair. "I love your hair
just the way it is."

"Th- Thank you," Kirika said with a thick voice. She wiped a
tear away.

Mireille leaned forward to get a better look at her. "Kirika?
Did I embarrass you?"

"No, no, it wasn't that," Kirika said, no longer holding back
the broad smile that was begging to be shown. She put her hands
over her heart. "I just suddenly felt very, very happy. We've
never talked like this before. I... I didn't know it could feel
so nice."

Mireille smiled and gently stroked her back. "I seem to be doing
nothing but making you cry today."

Kirika shook her head. "No, you've made me happy. Not just
today, but right from the day I met you. It just hurt that I
wasn't able to tell you."

"I wasn't able to tell you how I felt either," Mireille said.
The affection showing in her voice and her eyes held Kirika
entranced. "I didn't realize it myself until you were gone. You
snuck into my heart through the back door. Just like a little
thief."

"Mireille..." Kirika reached out a hand towards Mireille's face,
then hesitated. Mireille just looked into her eyes with a fond,
slightly puzzled look. She must be wondering what I'm up to,
Kirika thought. She let her hand drop back to her side. "I've
grown so used to keeping that last bit of distance between us.
No matter how I feel, it's hard to break the habit."

"I know," Mireille said. "For us, nothing is harder than
trusting somebody."

"No, I don't think it's really that. I'm just not sure what I'm
supposed to be." Mireille just looked all the more puzzled.
Kirika felt there must be some better way to ask this, but
somebody like her would not know any better way. "What I mean
is, I don't know how you see me. Am I your friend? Your lover?
Your little sister? I just don't know."

Mireille shifted around to face her more squarely. "Are you
afraid I'll be offended if you do the wrong thing?"

Kirika just nodded. Her anxiety threatened to overwhelm her.

"The answer is that there is no wrong answer. Let me show you."
She took Kirika's face gently in both her hands, leaned forward
and kissed her. Kirika closed her eyes. The sensation of
Mireille's warm lips against hers made her shiver and sent her
heart racing. A moment later it was over. Kirika opened her eyes
and looked into the blue eyes just inches from hers. Mireille's
hands shifted back to cradle her head more firmly. "You can be
whatever you want with me. I'll never turn you away. I just want
you to tell me what's in your heart. Can I be anything I want
with you?"

"Yes," Kirika whispered.

Mireille smiled. "You and I are soul-mates. We need each other
like we need air to breathe. That's what I realized yesterday,
when I thought I would lose you. We need to be everything to
each other. Who knows what we will need tomorrow or the day
after. But right now, I need a friend most of all, and I think
that's what you need most of all. Does that sound okay?"

It sounded better than okay, it sounded wonderful. Kirika wanted
to say so. But right now all she could manage was a quiet "Yes."

Mireille wiped the tears off Kirika's cheeks. "Look at you, your
eyes are all red. You'll really have to stop this."

"I'll try." It was like she was trying to do half a lifetime of
crying in one day. But being held by Mireille like this was
strangely calming. The tension drained from Kirika's body.

Mireille released her and leaned back. She had her impish smile
back. "I can't believe I did that. The last time I kissed a girl
it was because she wanted to kill me."

Mireille must have been talking about Intocabile. "The kiss of
death. What a meaningless kiss."

"Not really." Mireille took both of Kirika's hands in hers. "A
kiss can say lots of different things. Intocabile's kiss told me
'I promise to kill you.'"

Kirika smiled. "And yours told me, 'I want to be your lover.'"

Mireille nodded. "Is that really okay?" she asked softly.

Kirika felt that she should show her instead of tell her. She
leaned forward and they kissed again. She held it a little
longer, but broke off before her heart started racing again. She
felt like she was glowing.

Mireille's face was also slightly flushed. "It said, 'I want you
too'."

"That's right."

Mireille squeezed her hands. "I have to admit you're not quite
the lover I had always imagined for myself."

"Why is that?"

"Well, you're a girl for one thing."

Kirika frowned. It was such an obvious and basic point, how was
it that she had not even thought about it? "Um... Will that be a
problem?"

Mireille's eyes opened wider and her mouth formed an adorable
little "Oh" of astonishment. She seemed on the verge of saying
something, but then her lips pursed as if she were holding back
some sort of outburst.

A moment later Mireille threw her head back and laughed. Her
eyes scrunched up and her whole body shook as she took great
lungfulls of air and laughed. Just when Kirika thought the
laughing fit was about to end, Mireille surprised Kirika by
grabbing her and pulling her into a tight embrace. Kirika yelped
and her head was jammed awkwardly between Mireille's chin and
shoulder. "Oh Kirika, you're precious," Mireille said in a
light, breathy voice.

"Did I say something strange again?"

"No, you asked a perfectly reasonable thing. That's what was so
funny."

"Oh." Kirika really did not understand. But she got the
impression that she wasn't going to get an explanation. So she
just shifted into a more comfortable position and wrapped her
arms around Mireille's slim waist. She was all but sitting on
the Corsican woman's lap now.

She felt Mireille kiss the top of her head. "No, it won't be a
problem. But Kirika, I really think we need to sleep on this.
We've already covered a lot of ground today, don't you think?"

"Okay." Kirika just sat there held against Kirika's chest,
listening to her breathing slowly fall back to normal. She truly
felt that Mireille was her soul-mate, a heart she understood as
completely as she possibly could. Yet how was it that somebody
she understood so thoroughly could still surprise her so much?
She imagined that Mireille must be wondering much the same thing
about her.

Mireille relaxed her hold on Kirika, which she took as a signal
to disentangle herself. She looked into Mireille's eyes, trying
to fathom what was behind them. Right now she just looked very
contented. "What a look you're giving me. Did I spook you that
badly?" Mireille asked.

"No. I just don't seem to know what to expect from you."

"You look like you were expecting me to throw you onto the pool
table and have my way with you."

"Why the pool table?"

"Oh Lord, I give up. It will be another hundred years before I
can get a rise out of you."

Kirika smiled apologetically. "Maybe it will." Mireille was
right, Kirika could not imagine herself laughing like that. It
really might take that long.

Mireille stood up. "My ass is getting sore, sitting on these
stairs."

"Would you like some more tea?"

"Sure. Between your crying and my laughing, I think we both need
it."

Kirika made the tea and brought it to the table. They sat
quietly there for a while, warmed by the afternoon sun. Kirika
felt contented, yet utterly spent. Mireille was right, they had
covered a lot of ground today. It was more than she had ever
dreamed of. She contemplated the prospect of running from here
and living with the woman she loved so much. It was difficult to
fathom. Just the idea of having a future to look forward to was
a marvel in itself. Trying to picture it in her mind was still
all but impossible.

Mireille closed her eyes and seemed to doze off. Kirika smiled
as she watched the Corsican's lovely face. Kirika seemed to
notice for the first time that Mireille was really not that much
older than her. When awake she always had an air of calm
assurance or grim purpose that made her seem older. But there
were ways in which Kirika felt older than her. Mireille had all
the recklessness, optimism and capriciousness of youth in
abundance. Kirika must have had all youthful exuberance beaten
out of her years ago. Mireille was like a link to a phase of
Kirika's life that she had skipped over entirely. Maybe it was
her illusion, but Kirika felt that in Mireille's company she had
been able to come alive, little by little. Maybe with Mireille's
help, she could get back just a little of the life that had been
stolen from her.

But there were more immediate concerns to take care of before
she could start thinking that far ahead. Soon Mireille woke from
her nap, and they talked a bit more about their immediate plans
for a clean getaway. They agreed that moving to the safe house
would be a good first step. They would do that in two days, or
at most three. It would be at least another week before Kirika
was in good shape for a long trip, so that would give them a few
days in relative safety to arrange the trip. They would take a
train out of the country to one of the major airports elsewhere
in Europe, perhaps in Germany or Switzerland. That would be a
safer point from which to exit Europe than the Paris airport
would be. They would settle somewhere in the Americas. But
Mireille felt they should fly to a temporary home in the New
World before deciding exactly where they would settle. She had
long ago identified Paraguay as a good place to disappear if she
ever needed to. It sounded to Kirika like as good a
staging-point for their journey as any, so she agreed.

One of the first things they would do after moving to the safe
house would be to get another laptop computer. The loss of their
old one had not really hurt them. All their data was actually in
encrypted files they duplicated on servers in two different
countries. All they needed to access them was their account
passwords and their decryption key. The passwords they both
memorized. The key could be recreated by a commonly used program
that generated keys using a phrase as a seed. Mireille had told
Kirika the phrase a long time ago, it was a passage from an
obscure French novel.

"We've probably got all sorts of contracts sitting in our
inbasket," Mireille observed.

"What will we do with them?" Kirika asked.

"That's an interesting question." Mireille seemed to note how
Kirika was now watching her nervously. "Maybe it's my turn to
ask an important question. We've talked about what you and I are
going to be to each other. But what are we going to be to the
world?"

Kirika had an idea what she meant. It was not what she would
choose to talk about right now. But she knew it was important.
And they had to make some decisions fairly soon. "There's just
one thing I know for certain. I don't want to be Noir."

"Neither do I. At least, not the Noir that Artena or Soldats
wanted."

Kirika was troubled by Mireille's reply. "What other kind of
Noir can there be? Even to people who know nothing of Soldats,
that name is given only to assassins."

"That's true. But there are assassins, and then there are
assassins. What we have been doing is very different from what
Artena or Soldats had planned for us. I can only guess at what
Artena was really thinking, the woman was obviously certifiable.
But she seemed to have some idea of a grand crusade where we
would travel the world slaying people in high places at her
whim. Soldats would have us putting down anybody who has the
audacity to challenge them. Crusaders for some twisted idea of
justice, or enforcers for a glorified mob. We have been doing
neither. We have just been running a business, taking cases
based strictly on the risk and return."

"I'm not sure that's true." Mireille just raised a slim eyebrow,
looking to her to explain. "When I studied the materials for the
contracts we took on together, I also reviewed your past
contracts. Both the ones you undertook and the ones you
rejected." Mireille did not react to her confession. "I'm sorry,
I know I wasn't supposed to."

Mireille shrugged. "I gave you access to the files, and I never
told you not to read them." She smiled. "Actually I thought you
were looking at the new ones to see if you wanted to question
the choices I was making."

"I was looking at the new ones too. The one thing I noticed is
that there have been a lot of contracts out on people who had
refused to cooperate with one syndicate or another. People who
refused to be corrupted. They were lucrative contracts with
minimal risk. Yet you never took any of them."

Mireille regarded Kirika with an unreadable expression. She
leaned forward onto the table, closed her eyes and bowed her
head. It looked like she was resting, but Kirika could sense
that she was considering her answer carefully. "I know what
you're thinking. It must look as if I would only agree to kill
people who had it coming. But it has nothing to do with that.
It's very hard to explain."

After a further pause, she looked up at Kirika once again. "A
few years ago Uncle Claude took me on a job in Central America.
I wouldn't do the actual hits back then, I was just along for
support and backup. And to get my 'sea-legs' as he put it. It
was a Catholic Bishop who was making trouble for a local drug
lord. He was encouraging and organizing people to resist paying
protection money, to refuse to help harvest the dope and
whatnot. He was reckless with his safety, making little attempt
to protect himself. Probably the only reason the client came to
us was that his local enforcers were afraid of what would happen
to them if it became known that they had gunned down a man who
was loved and revered by thousands. It should have been a simple
job.

"We set up in a neighboring town, observed the target for a
while, and decided on a night raid on his house. There were
locals watching out for him, but they had no idea how to secure
a building. We entered his bedroom, expecting him to be asleep.
He was at a roll top desk, reading a huge bible by lantern
light. He looked up as my uncle entered and I took station at
the door. What I saw in his face I'll take to my grave. There
was no fear, just sadness and pity. Pity for us. I had such a
feeling of foreboding, I almost cried out for my uncle to stop.
But Uncle Claude killed him with two shots from his silenced gun.

"Then it all went to hell. Somebody walked out of a room I
/know/ we checked on the way in, and screamed to high heaven
before we could silence her. That seemed to wake up everybody
within a mile of the house. And somehow most of them were
running up all the escape routes we had planned out. They all
seemed to know what we had done, and came after us. Most of them
just had clubs or knives. I lost count of the number of people
we killed fighting our way out. We were out of ammunition
altogether by the time we made it to the edge of town. Uncle
Claude and I spent the whole night plunging through the jungle.
We had night-vision equipment and they didn't, but they kept
finding us anyway. If more of them had been carrying guns, we
wouldn't have made it."

Mireille's gaze fell again. "It was only when it got light and
we made it to our jeep that I saw Uncle Claude had been shot. He
hadn't said a thing to me, I had not even noticed. I had to
drive back to our hideout and patch him up as best I could. He
nearly died."

Mireille looked into Kirika's eyes again. "Mine was a syndicate
family, we were all about corrupting people. The uncorruptable
are anathema to us. When I was little I would hear the grownups
talking about people who would not cooperate with the Corsican
mob even though it meant certain death. They spoke of these
people with contempt. They were naive, stubborn idealists who
did not understand how the world really works. It was inevitable
that this world would hand them an early death. But even then, I
could sense the undercurrents of awe when my family spoke of
these people. We simply could not understand them. We hated
them, and it seemed we even feared them. On that night in the
Bishop's room, I think I began to understand why."

Once again, Mireille appeared to be lost in thought for a while.
"Everything I understand about the world would lead me to
believe that innocence is impotent. And most of the time it is.
It just gets snuffed out, either by death or by corruption. But
when it does survive, it can grow into a power we cannot even
imagine. The few times my Uncle Claude would speak of this, he
would simply say that the hand of God protected certain people
in this world. I don't think I can believe that. Artena was
right about one thing, in the face of all the world's sin,
heaven holds its silence. I just feel in my bones that the
uncorruptable have a strength we cannot fight. They terrify me."
She looked intently at Kirika. "They are more dangerous to
people like you and me than anything else in the world."

"The Bishop is dead," Kirika pointed out. "You are not."

"Our client was killed a year after we concluded our contract
with him. A rival drug lord took over his territory. But it
seems he was never able to make any headway in bringing his new
territory under his thumb. The Bishop is on his way to being
beatified, and his successor has gone further than he ever did,
even so far as compelling the government to take action against
the drug lords. In any other contract I've taken, as far as I am
aware my client achieved whatever it was they wanted to by
seeing my target killed, even if all they wanted was revenge.
But this client would have been better off if he had never hired
us. And we nearly suffered his fate."

"And you think it was because your target truly was a saint,"
Kirika said, making it more of a statement than a question.

"I'm probably just giving in to superstition," Mireille said by
way of an indirect answer. "Or maybe it's just me rationalizing
and trying to ease my guilty conscience. It's easier to believe
that I only kill people who deserve it. But if I steer away from
killing the innocent it is out of fear, not out of any sense of
justice. I am a killer for hire, pure and simple."

"You are not speaking in the past tense," Kirika said gently.

Mireille's expression became sad. "Please believe me, I'm not
trying to make this decision for us. I just don't want you to be
under any illusions about what we have been doing."

Kirika was grateful for Mireille's honesty. "We need to decide
what we are going to do with the name of Noir, don't we?" she
asked with some trepidation.

"Yes, we do. Right now that name and everything it implies
belongs to us. We have to decide whether we are going to try and
get rid of it, or try and make it our own. Neither choice will
be easy. This name comes with a thousand years of baggage. It
has been with us our whole lives. And it's not something that
can be easily tossed aside or easily changed to our will."

Kirika clutched at her heart involuntarily. "I want nothing more
than to leave that name behind us. But somehow I think trying to
do that would just make things worse."

"How do you mean?" Mireille asked.

"Noir will always be a part of us, whether we want it or not."

"I think we have to accept that Noir will be a shadow hanging
over us for the rest of our lives," Mireille said. "The things
we have done cannot just be swept under the rug. No matter where
we went or what sort of life we made for ourselves, we would
always be looking over our shoulders. We would always be
wondering whom we could trust, and when one of our many enemies
might find us."

"Yes, there's that too."

Mireille cocked her head in apparent puzzlement. "Are you
thinking of something else?"

Kirika hesitated before answering. "It's difficult to explain.
We've been talking about Noir as if it's just the name people
use for us, or as if it is just the sins we have committed. But
it's everything that you and I..." Her chest tightened up in
remembered pain. "And Chloe ever were. We are Noir and it is us.
We can't leave it behind any more than I can..." She wrapped her
arms around herself, as if to help contain the monster that
lurked within her.

Something like grim comprehension came to Mireille's face. "I
think I see what you are saying. But Kirika, I know you don't
want to just go on as we have been doing."

"No, I don't," Kirika said firmly. "I'm not sure how to say
this. Killing comes so easily for us, we hardly even think about
it. If we just went somewhere and tried to pretend it was
otherwise, nothing would really change. Somehow it would eat us
up. I don't know." She averted her eyes. "I just feel that if we
want to become something different, if we want Noir to be
something different, we can't just hide it away. It won't work."

Mireille was silent for a while. She seemed to be carefully
considering what Kirika had said. "Many times in my life I have
tried to imagine myself taking all sorts of different paths,"
she said quietly. "But somehow it always seemed unreal. I think
it's because whenever I am playing a role other than killer, it
is always a front. We travel under false identities which we
have constructed. Sometimes we would travel for weeks under
those assumed names. We would almost become comfortable with the
charades we were playing." Her expression became more sad. "But
underneath we were always the same, weren't we?"

Kirika nodded. "Changing our names won't change what's in here,"
she said, holding her hand over her heart. "We are not the
monsters Soldats tried to make us into. But we are killers down
to our bones. To us it comes as naturally as breathing."

Kirika could sense the anguish that was overcoming her partner.
She was afraid that she had said the wrong thing. "That doesn't
mean we still have to be hired assassins," she added quickly.
But the hope in her voice sounded contrived. "You said there are
other options."

Mireille nodded. "Yes, there are. But even if we are not
assassins, we will still be hired guns for the underworld. We
will have to be prepared to kill at any time. Can you live with
that?"

Mireille was right, of course. It was just like she had said: in
the underworld, credibility is a threat that can be followed up
on. There was no room for bluffing. "I think we will have to,"
she said reluctantly. She smiled shyly. "And I think I can, as
long as you are with me."

Mireille returned her smile, but there was an undercurrent of
worry there, as if she wondered whether Kirika really could live
with it. Or whether it might push her over the edge again. "If
we have to make Noir our own, then what should we be trying to
change it into?"

"I'm not sure. I think you were changing it before we even met.
You won't target the uncorruptable. Whatever the reason, I think
that was a start."

"I told you that's not what it looks like," Mireille said, her
voice becoming more stern. "I wasn't passing judgment on
anybody. That's what Artena wanted us to do. She wanted us to
strike the fear of God into her enemies."

"I know," Kirika said hesitantly, realizing she had made herself
misunderstood. "We are trapped in the world's webs of sin. We
may need to kill to stay alive. But we can still decide what
rules we live by, can't we?"

"You know the harsh rules that the underworld works by,"
Mireille said, the anger now mostly gone from her voice.

"Yes, I know. But people can live within those rules and still
hold on to their humanity. Just like your friends here in Paris."

To Kirika's relief, that seemed to strike a chord with Mireille.
"There are many people in the Paris underworld whom I admire
very much. Some of them have even been killers, just like me.
But the best of them only cross the line when their lives are at
stake. We could do worse than make them our role models." A
wistful smile graced her lips. "This is so strange. I was the
one trying to tell you that we need to play the cards we're
dealt. But it turned out you needed to tell me the same thing.
The truth is, I was nurturing a private fantasy of just taking
you away somewhere and never looking back. But you're right, we
need to change ourselves first."

Kirika was happy to hear Mireille's answer. She still felt in
her heart that Mireille had been starting to change Noir into
something else all by herself, even if she were not consciously
doing it. But she did not press the issue. "I've had that same
wish," she said softly. "But just wishing won't make me
something other than what I am."

"We'll find our place in the sun one day," Mireille said. "We
just have to keep seeking the light."

Kirika smiled in unabashed joy. "I've already found the light.
It is my love for you and yours for me. That will sustain me in
the darkest shadows."

"And me," Mireille said with a smile that Kirika thought she
would melt under. "We will have a long time to talk about it.
But I want to know, what is it that you want people to say of us
when they speak of Noir?"

Kirika thought about that for a while before answering. "That
only the innocent and the uncorruptable are safe from us. That
we keep our word without fail. That we are loyal to none but
each other. And that we will be death to any who threaten us or
threaten whomever we have agreed to serve."

Mireille watched her with a neutral but attentive expression.
"That sounds like a fine enough answer. Do you think that
someday we will find a better one?"

Kirika wanted to take a leap of faith and say yes. But she could
not lie to Mireille. "I don't know. Maybe if we can live in
peace for a little while, that will help us find a better
answer. I don't know what it might be, not yet."

Mireille nodded. "Okay. Then for now that's our answer. Noir is
out of circulation until further notice, but we will be back."
Her whole face slipped into a smile that was both playful and
deadly. "Let Graipaul and Soldats wonder what has become of
their delinquent Black Hands of Death."

Kirika did not take the same satisfaction that Mireille seemed
to take in imagining Soldats stewing in the fear of their own
creations coming back to haunt them. They could fester in the
shadows for another thousand years, for all she cared. But as
long as the name of Noir belonged to the two of them, at least
it would not belong to Soldats. If they wanted it back, they
would have to tempt the Eternal Darkness and come take it
themselves.

Mireille pushed her chair away from the table. "Well, I'm really
tired of all this deep talk." She rose to her feet. "You know, I
haven't even read a newspaper in days. I'll walk down to the
newsstand."

"I can come with you."

"You should probably stay off your feet as much as you can. Will
you be okay on your own for a few minutes?"

"Sure."

Mireille went to the bedroom and soon came back dressed in a
long skirt and jacket that hid her bandages. "Anything else you
think we need?"

"Could you get me a cream soda?" Kirika asked.

Mireille looked at Kirika with her adorable expression of
open-mouth surprise. It quickly changed to a fond smile. "You
know, I think that's the first time you've ever asked for a
treat all by yourself."

Kirika felt embarrassed. "Really?"

"Really. It's too bad you can't eat ice-cream yet, or I'd go get
us a couple of cones on the way back."

"Get one for yourself if you like."

"I can go without. Hunger loves company, after all. I'll be back
soon."

After Mireille had left, Kirika walked to the window and leaned
out to watch her exit the building and walk towards the store.
The Corsican girl seemed to be expecting that. When she was only
a short distance away she turned around to look up at their
apartment window. She stopped just long enough to blow Kirika a
kiss. Kirika smiled and waved. She watched until Mireille
disappeared around the corner. Out of habit she found herself
scanning the street for anything suspicious. She knew the knot
of worry in her stomach was just her usual feeling of
protectiveness. It was reasonable to conclude that if Soldats
were planning to kill them right away then they would have done
it by now. Still, she was relieved to see that Mireille had
taken the purse she kept her gun in.

Kirika sat at the table for a little while, just gazing out the
window. She would have liked to go out in the sun, just to
convince herself that this really was not a cage she was in. But
Mireille was right, it was best for her to move around as little
as possible. The gunshot wound in her abdomen still ached.
Strangely it would have been in the same place she had been shot
when they were in Iraq, except then she had been shot from
behind. But this time she had taken a bullet for Mireille.
Perversely, she looked down and smiled as she lightly put a hand
over the bandage. This one was a wound of love. Mireille would
probably look at her with that familiar expression of surprise
and puzzlement if she actually said such a thing. Kirika seemed
to have a habit of saying strange things, but she was slowly
learning. Living with somebody who had a much more
well-developed sense of irony than she did was an education in
itself.

Kirika stood and stretched, wincing as her various bruised
muscles protested. Yesterday had been rough on both of them. She
had almost stopped noticing, what with all the "deep talk" that
Mireille had found so tiring. And it was tiring. Deciding the
fate of Noir today seemed to have taken as much out of her as
fighting for her life had taken out of her yesterday.

Kirika walked over to the bathroom and washed her face. Between
her crying and the sweating from her panic-attack, she needed to
freshen up. After drying herself she turned to take another look
in the mirror.

The pitiless killer glared back at her contemptuously. "Just
give it up," she whispered.

Kirika screamed and backed into the wall. She brought her hands
up to her face and shook her head. "That's not me!" she cried.
The thing with her face just stared back at her with those
inhumanly cold eyes, unmoved. Kirika closed her eyes tight.
"That's not me!" she shrieked, even as she knew it was a lie.
By a supreme act of will she resisted the unbearable urge to
run. This was one enemy she could not run from. What she saw in
the mirror was nothing but a reflection of the monster inside
her. There was nothing to do but to stand and fight it.

Kirika brought her hands back down to her sides, clenched into
fists. She opened her eyes again. This time her own reflection
looked back into her eyes with defiance, daring that soulless
thing to appear again. It did not. But Kirika could not shake
the feeling that it was laughing at her. /Laugh all you want.
I'm not afraid of you. Mireille is right, you're just me without
love or hope. I would be pathetic if I let myself become you./
She received no answer in return.

For a couple of minutes she stood there and watched her
reflection. For all that they had learned on their pilgrimage to
the past, Kirika saw the same questions written on that confused
and frightened face. Who am I? What am I? Where did I come from
and where am I going? Her pilgrimage might be over, but her
search for the truth was just beginning.

But she did not - would not - regret having taken the
Pilgrimage, however painful the truth had turned out to be. She
now knew enough about her past to know that she rejected the
path that her former masters had laid out for her. With Mireille
at her side she would find a better path, even if it took a
lifetime.

Feeling a little calmer now, she went back to sit at the table.
/Should I tell her?/ She really did not want to hide anything
from Mireille, it did not seem right. But she knew in her heart
the real reason she wanted to pour her heart out to Mireille. It
would be so comforting to cry on her shoulder, to have her love
tell her that it was going to be okay. Trying her best to think
about this properly, Kirika could see how that would be worse
than keeping it to herself. The thing inside her was her own
personal burden to bear. Mireille's love could help her bear it,
but it would be wrong to ask her to share the burden.

She already knows what lurks within me, Kirika said to herself.
I must show her that I can deal with it on my own. She has done
so much for me, I can at least bear this much for her. If that
is just part of the penance I must do for my sins, then so be it.

When she heard Mireille unlocking the door, Kirika found herself
making her way to entryway. "Welcome back, Mireille."

Mireille looked surprised to see her there. "What are you doing
standing here?"

"I missed you."

Mireille smiled and lightly tousled the top of her hair. "You're
a funny girl."

Mireille had brought drinks for the both of them. After she
changed back into her oversized shirt, they sat down on the
couch in the bedroom, with the papers piled between them.
Mireille had got all the major Paris dailies, plus the London
Times and some of the English and French weeklies. They read in
silence for a while. Mireille was more of a news-hound than
Kirika was. Kirika's reading was usually restricted to what she
could put to immediate use. That was how she had learned cooking
and the proper ways for preparing good tea and coffee. When
Kirika came to live with her, it soon became evident that
Mireille had a much more well-rounded education than Kirika did.
Mireille had occasionally taken her to art museums and to see
music concerts. To the degree that Kirika was competent to
judge, Mireille appeared to be well-versed in art, music,
literature, history, philosophy and politics. For all that, she
kept surprisingly few books in the apartment. When Mireille was
done with a book she would usually just take it to one of the
used-book stores she frequented. And she seemed to have no
interest in popular culture, they did not even have a television
or a radio in the apartment. Of course, from what little Kirika
herself knew of popular culture it appeared to be mostly
fictional and highly suspect depiction of lifestyles that were
supposed to be exciting and dangerous, spies and detectives and
so on. It was hardly something that would catch the interest of
a pair of professional assassins.

They were both very fast readers, so they breezed through all
the papers in a couple of hours. Up until now Kirika had simply
considered keeping up with current events to be part of her job.
Their contracts could involve travel to any part of the world.
It was essential to have current knowledge of the political
situation in every country and region. This was both to assess
the possible risks of each contract, and to have a better idea
of the environment they would be working in if they decided to
accept a contract. Despite Kirika's efforts to close the gap,
Mireille's grasp of current politics was clearly much more
comprehensive. It was the main reason she was the one to decide
which contracts they would accept. Kirika's involvement had
always come only when they came to planning the actual
operations. And Mireille also knew where to go when there were
gaps in her knowledge. She had spent two weeks searching in the
internet sites of both conservative think tanks and radical
activists, poring through back-issues of journals at the
libraries and ordering copies of primary sources from both
government and private sources before deciding to accept the
contract in Ulgia. Of course she also received much valuable
information from her personal contacts in the underworld, both
local and remote. But she always did anything she could to
double-check any information she received from those sources. As
she was fond of pointing out, the underworld was all about lies.
The process of using this information to assess the risk of a
contract was an art in itself. Mireille would explain at least
part of her reasoning to Kirika each time, to make sure they
both understood what they were getting into. For the most part
Kirika understood Mireille's reasoning. Some of the contracts
were no-brainers. The fairly regular requests to assassinate the
Prime Minister of Israel were not even kept on file, they went
straight to the bit-bucket with no reply. There were some people
you just did not mess with if you hoped to see another sunrise.
It was the borderline cases that required careful judgment to
weigh the risk against the reward, and this was where Mireille
excelled.

Yet for all that, much of what Mireille read seemed to be just
for her own personal interest. It was not something Kirika had
really been able to comprehend. She had always felt somehow
detached from the human drama that was going on around her both
near and far. Somebody with no past and no future to speak of
had no place in that drama, of what interest could it be to her?
In a way she still felt detached from the world she read about
in these papers. It was a world she could walk in and engage in
only when she was in disguise acting under false pretenses. But
in fact she was engaged with this world in a way that most
people were not. Through her work with Mireille, she had learned
much of what was really going on behind the headlines in various
parts of the world. The underworld was not so much a separate
world as it was the part of this world most people never got to
see. It was like the inscrutable Dark Matter that astronomers
seemed to think constituted the bulk of the universe, something
that was invisible and that only gave subtle hints of its
existence. Kirika and Mireille were no less part of this world
she was reading about than anybody else was. The only difference
was that they were able to navigate the murky depths that most
people never saw.

"Penny for your thoughts."

Kirika looked over at Mireille, who was leaning on her hand and
watching Kirika with her impish smile. "Pardon?"

"You've been reading that page for the past fifteen minutes at
least."

"Sorry, did you want this section?"

Mireille shook her head. "No, I was just wondering what had got
you thinking so intently."

Kirika forced an embarrassed smile. "Nothing in particular.
Well, everything, I guess." She folded up the paper and put it
down. "So much has happened to us in the past couple of days. I
feel like I can barely keep up." She gestured to the papers
piled between them. "Yet here we are living in the same world we
were before. It's as if nothing has really changed."

"Well, in a few days we'll be on the other side of the world.
Then it may be easier to believe that things have changed for
us."

"Yes. I'll be sad to leave here, it's the only place I've ever
called home."

"We'll make a new place to call home."

"Yes." Kirika understood now. The only thing that made this
place home was that Mireille lived here with her. Wherever they
lived their lives together, that would be home.

"Shall we have something to eat?"

Kirika was surprised to discover that it was late enough to
start thinking of dinner. She had not even noticed the sun
dipping towards the horizon. The sunlight angled in through the
windows at a much shallower angle now. It was easy to lose track
of time when you slept half the day away, and then spent the
other half making irrevocable life-changing decisions. They
moved to the kitchen to prepare dinner. For Kirika it was just
the same broth and Jell-O again. When they were done, Kirika
offered to make tea again. But Mireille said she had something
else in mind. She went to the bedroom and came back with a
small, dark bottle. She put it on the little table. "I'll go get
the glasses." She walked over to the kitchen. Kirika leaned
closer to get a better look. It was Corsican brandy, vintage
1924.

"It's one of the few keepsakes we managed to grab when we left
Corsica," Mireille said as she returned with the glasses. She
placed them on the table and sat down. "I have no idea what I
was saving it for. But I'd say this has been a remarkable enough
day to celebrate. Besides, it would be impractical to take it
with us, so we might as well finish it off."

"All of it?" Kirika asked incredulously.

"Well, not tonight. We have at least tomorrow as well."

"Do you think I can? I mean..."

"Oh, I'm sure Doctor Marquis would approve. This is a peerless
elixir, better than any medicine known to modern science." She
filled up each of the enormous brandy snifters almost halfway,
which probably constituted at least a third the contents of the
little bottle. Mireille took her glass, and Kirika  hesitantly
took hers. "Confusion to our enemies," Mireille said, raising
her glass.

"Confusion to our enemies." It would take forever to sip at this
much liquor, so Kirika let a generous amount past her lips as
she inhaled the rich aroma of the dark brandy. It burned
pleasantly as it slipped down her throat. "It's delicious."

Mireille grinned. "Makes a nice change from tea, don't you
think?"

They drank in silence for a while. Kirika found her thoughts
drifting back to the night when it was three of them sitting at
this table.

"You look sad," Mireille observed.

"I was thinking of the night we sat here with Chloe."

"It wasn't your fault," Mireille said with the stern gentleness
that Kirika was becoming used to hearing.

She nodded. "I know. But I wish that we could have found some
way to save her."

"I doubt that was ever possible."

Kirika frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Of the three of us, she was the one who was brought up on the
whole idea of the Grand Retour. It was like she was born into a
cult. She would never have accepted all three of us leaving the
Manor alive. Her whole life was probably spent preparing for the
day when the True Noir would be chosen. She would have killed
one of us, or died trying, no matter what. That was Artena's way
of making sure that her trial by combat would take place, damn
her."

Kirika knew that was true. But it was just so sad. "I hope
Soldats didn't just leave her there."

"Old criminal societies tend to be thorough about tying up loose
ends. And they are usually bound up in ceremony and their own
twisted sense of honor. I'm sure she was given burial, even if
it was in a nameless grave."

"I would like to have visited her resting place. To tell how
sorry I am."

"I think you told her already," Mireille said softly.

Kirika smiled sadly. "Yes, I suppose I did." Chloe's last act in
life had been to try and kill Mireille, something Kirika could
not let her do. She had stabbed Chloe through the heart an
instant before the one who called herself True Noir would have
done the same to Mireille. Kirika's eyes had met Chloe's in that
moment. Those eyes had said "How could you do this to me, how
could you choose her?" /I'm sorry Chloe, it was because I love
her./ She hoped that Chloe had understood at least that much.

Mireille raised her glass again. "Departed friends. May they
find peace."

"Departed friends." Kirika drank to Chloe, who had been a friend
to her for just a little while. Kirika's alter ego had been in
control for most of the time they had been together, so she only
had dim memories. She remembered a happy kindred spirit, a
sister in all but blood who had looked upon her with love and
devotion. It was not her fault that Artena's savage game had
inevitably turned that love into violent jealousy.

Kirika would like to have taken their drinks to the roof and
watch the sunset from there. But Mireille would have rightly
pointed out she should be moving about as little as possible.
The brandy was quickly going to her head. Mireille was not much
of a drinker, and Kirika even less so. Normally they might share
a bottle of wine when dining out, and only Mireille ever had the
occasional drink from her modest bar here at home. This was more
than she was used to, and it was making her sleepy.

"It looks like this is going to be our nightcap," Mireille
observed. Kirika had hardly been aware of the passage of time.
She may have even dozed off for a moment. It was past sunset
now. They had no lights on in the apartment, so it was quite
dark now.

"Yes, I think it is." It was pretty early to be going to bed,
but she was bone tired and it looked like Mireille was too.
"Thank you for sharing it with me. It must mean a lot to you."

"Sharing it with you is what gives it meaning."

Kirika smiled. "Mireille, could you share something else with
me?"

"What's that?"

"Your past. All of it. I want to know everything you've seen,
everything you've done, everything you've learned. Everything."

Mireille cocked her head, looking rather puzzled. "What's
brought this on all of a sudden?"

"I have no past worth remembering. I know I'm asking a lot, but
would you share yours with me?"

Mireille regarded her with what looked like growing
comprehension. Slowly, her lips curled into a broad smile. She
took Kirika's hand. "Yes, of course I will. But you know, what
you're asking will take a lifetime."

"I know. That's the idea."

Mireille laughed. "You really are a funny girl." She stretched
and yawned. "Well, I'm ready for bed, so the only thing I'll
share with you today is this. Never, ever mix Scotch whiskey
with prune juice."

"Why not?"

"Ask me some other time. If I tell you before going to bed it
will just give you nightmares."

They took a few minutes to finish off their drinks. Then Kirika
followed Mireille to the bedroom. Mireille got under the covers
but Kirika just sat on the edge of the bed. "What's the matter?"
Mireille asked.

Kirika was not sure what the matter was. It was like she had
unfinished business. Somehow she felt the answer lay in
Mireille's face. The last glimmer of twilight was just fading
from the moonless sky, so her pale face was lit only by the
reflected light of the street lamps outside. Suddenly she knew
what it was, the one simple thing she still needed to say.
Kirika leaned over her, taking Mireille's hand in her own, their
fingers intertwining. She looked into liquid blue eyes wide with
expectation. "I love you, Mireille." She bent down and kissed
Mireille deeply. Mireille made a muffled sound of protest and
took hold of Kirika's shoulder, gently but urgently pushing at
her. Kirika broke away from their kiss and raised her head,
suddenly full of anxiety. The hand that Kirika held in her own
was trembling. "I'm sorry," Kirika said breathlessly. "We said
we'd sleep on this, didn't we?"

"Yes that too," Mireille said with a strained voice. "But more
to the point my arm really doesn't want to bend that way just
now."

"Oh!" Kirika quickly released her hand. She hadn't even been
thinking, that was Mireille's injured arm. Kirika had
practically been pinning her to the bed. "Oh, I'm sorry, that
was so stupid."

She tried to slide away from Mireille, but the blonde had her
good arm around Kirika's shoulders. "Oh, come here," Mireille
said softly. She coaxed Kirika down close beside her. "If you
want to get cuddly that's fine. But neither of us is going to be
in any shape to do acrobatics for a while, so please behave
yourself."

"I'm really sorry," Kirika said miserably. "Does it hurt?"

"No more than it did already. And leaving that aside, what did
Doctor Marquis say about not exerting yourself? That means no
monkey-business, okay?"

"Okay." Kirika felt like such an idiot. She had just wanted so
much to return the affection Mireille had shown her today.
Tentatively, Kirika slipped her arm over Mireille's abdomen.

Mireille rested her hand over Kirika's. "That's more like it,"
she said in a sleepy voice. "You're not crying, are you?"

"No. You're not mad at me, are you?"

"No."

Kirika wanted to make amends somehow. "Let me make breakfast for
you tomorrow. What would you like?"

"Let's see. I'll probably be hungrier tomorrow. How about you
just keep feeding me pancakes and syrup until I say uncle."

"Okay."

"Wherever we decide to live, we'll probably be eating out less,
so a bigger kitchen would be a good idea. I hear houses in
America tend to have kitchens you could play tennis in."

"A house would be nice," Kirika said. "A beach house."

"Getting a little ahead of ourselves, aren't we?"

"It's just what I've been imagining, that's all."

"And what else have you been imagining?"

"I'd like to have cats. Lots of cats."

"I guess we'll have to. Otherwise you'll probably have the place
crawling with whatever flea-infested strays you find. But for us
a watchdog may be more appropriate."

"I like dogs too. We could have both."

Mireille chuckled lightly, something Kirika felt through her
chest more than she heard. "Are we going to be running a petting
zoo?"

"Do you want to?"

"Oh, I'm giving up for today. Good night, Kirika."

"Good night." Kirika closed her eyes. She imagined the beach
that she and Mireille would walk along every day. It had been
her own private fantasy for some time now. Now it could finally
become more than just a dream. And maybe in living that dream
they would be able to find a better answer to what Noir would be.

"Just give it up," the voice inside her head whispered. "I will
always be with you."

Kirika's body did not even tense up. Wrapped in Mireille's
embrace, the fear washed through her and became nothing. She
smiled. Yes, you will always be inside me, she answered. But as
log as /she/ is with me, you will never win.

When the bad dreams came, Kirika just laughed at them.



The End

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