The Creature with Three Faces
1982
The weather that day was gray, cold and dreary. The sky was full of clouds that threatened to open up and pour down rain at any moment. The weather didn't matter to Methos; this was one of those days when nothing could matter to him. He felt like a sheet of wallpaper; blending into the background, blending out of reality, out of individuality. He walked the endless streets of the city, blending in with hundreds of other people coming this way and that, heading here and there. He didn't know any of them, he didn't know anything about any of them, and he didn't care to either, they didn't matter to him.
His life was in a rut. It was nothing new, it came up once every 500 years or so. He'd spend a few weeks feeling like hell, the feeling would eventually pass, and he'd feel like a member of the living again. It wasn't just an emotional thing though; his whole life seemed to be at a standstill. He was debating on what his next identity should be, where he should apply for his next job, and then there was the whole mess about the Watchers. He'd been debating with himself for a couple years about joining, and posing as a rookie who worked on the Methos archives…after all, he'd told himself a hundred times, what better way to hide? He'd be in charge of finding himself and he'd made sure it never happened. Still there were risks, there were always risks…but at the same time it just seemed his best place to hide.
The back of Methos' skull felt like it was ready to cave in. The alarms were going off inside of his head; there was another Immortal nearby. But who? Methos looked around at everybody he was passing, nobody noticed him, nobody paid him any mind, and several shoved right past him. He didn't stop but kept looking around, trying to see anybody who stood out, who had stopped to notice him. Nobody ahead of him, nobody to the left, and nobody to the right, he turned back around and he felt his heart stop.
He had to get away. He turned and started running, he knew he had been spotted; but if he could get away before the other Immortal caught up with him…he only hoped he could. He took many twists and turns through the city in his attempt to throw his pursuer off the trail; by the time he finally slowed down, the afternoon had turned into evening and it was darker out than before. Methos stopped when he was somewhere on the other side of town and he knew that he had lost the other Immortal a long ways back; he still couldn't think straight but his head was clear, clear of the noise, clear of the buzz, clear of everything it seemed.
His heart still pounded against his chest like a war drum. His breath came in short and heavy gasps and he could feel sweat running down his entire body. There was that age-old sensation of pins and needles sticking into the back of his neck that refused to go away.
Methos looked up at his surroundings…this was a relatively empty part of town. A bunch of warehouses and brick buildings all shut down, abandoned, and forgotten. He headed down a narrow alleyway between two buildings and just as he reached the end of the alley, he felt the quickening again. Before he could turn to look, a figure stepped out of the shadows beside the building and grabbed Methos by the throat; he was completely paralyzed with fear and shock, he could barely make a sound.
"Why can't you ever leave me alone?" Methos, almost tearfully, asked of his pursuer, "Every time I think I'm finally going to move on with my life, you always come back and ruin everything I worked for."
His abductor had gotten both of them out of that alley and into a ground floor rooms in one of the abandoned warehouses. There were no lights but even in the dark, Methos could see the other man; this soulless creature who had tormented him for thousands of years.
Methos saw the lips slightly part and the teeth show as the other Immortal said, "You're over dramatizing again, that was always one of your worst features."
"Why are you here?" Methos asked, not in any mood to beat around the bush.
"You know why I'm here, Methos," the man said, "I take it you haven't forgotten that little discussion we had the last time I came to see you?"
"I remember," he said defiantly.
"And?"
Methos shook his head, "No."
"No what?"
"I won't help you. What you have planned, you're going to have to do it alone because I refuse to be a part of it."
"It's a little late in the game to become so damn holier than thou, don't you think?" the other man asked as he closed the distance between the two of them.
Methos felt the other man's breath on his neck; he felt like a bug on a slide under a microscope, being examined, his every move recorded, observed, scrutinized. He wanted to scream, he wanted to lunge at this person; he wanted to jump out of his skin and out of the window they'd climbed in, but he knew he couldn't.
"I hate you!" Methos told him.
"Today, sure…but in a day, two days, a week, you'll be begging me to come back, you always do," the other Immortal replied as he put his hand on Methos' shoulder. To Methos, it was a very threatening move to make; he felt as if a large, venomous creature had slithered up on his body and was an inch away from his face, a breath away from the kill.
Methos silently cursed himself as he felt his eyes stinging with the tears that were building up, "I wish you were dead."
"You had your opportunity to see to that many years ago and you didn't take it," the other man responded smugly, "Not one of your finer moments as Death, now was it? And you still can't bring yourself to doing it, can you?"
Methos turned and looked the man dead in the eyes and slapped the hand off of his shoulder.
"Oh come now, Methos…don't be so stubborn…you wouldn't like the outcome."
"Oh? Like what?" Methos asked.
"I'm sure you wouldn't appreciate your brothers finding out about this whole thing," he was told, "Especially your dearest brother of them all, Kronos…how do you think he'd react when he found out?"
"You wouldn't dare," Methos said.
"Wouldn't I? I don't think you're willing to try your luck though, are you? Because you know what would happen if I'm right, and you know I am."
Methos stood where he was, unable to move and yet his whole body was trembling. Why he was, he didn't know, maybe out of disgust, or exhaustion, or anxiety, and he knew part of it was also because there wasn't any way out of this and he knew it; but he'd be damned if he'd ever admit it.
The other Immortal placed his hand right beside Methos' neck and ran his thumb up along Methos' throat. Methos sensed a definite threat in that touch, and he was getting to the point where he just didn't care anymore.
"Take your damn hand off of me," he growled quietly.
Again he saw those damn teeth in that sickening smirk, and he heard that blood chilling laugh in the heartbeat before both hands reached out and grabbed him by the collar of his trench coat and threw him up against the wall, hard.
"You can't get away from me this time, Methos," he said, "This time you're going to do what I tell you."
"And if I don't?"
"You will."
"Kronos used those answers too," Methos said, "They seldom worked."
"Ah, but I am not Kronos, am I?"
No, what this man was Methos faced now was something far more dangerous and horrible. This was a proven case where evil had no name, because there wasn't one in the entire human language to describe it with any justice.
He felt the other man draw close to him again, felt the hot breath, could almost feel the lips on his flesh as the other man spoke.
"Don't press your luck with me, Methos, you know you'll lose."
Methos felt the other body press against his and every inch of his body squirmed and he became sickened when he felt that nauseating kiss, just before he was grabbed roughly and thrown to the floor.
An hour later Methos still lay on the floor, feeling completely dead inside. About the only pleasant thought to him at that time was the never ending urge to crawl under a rock and die. It certainly would've been more dignified for him than the current situation he was in.
"Well Methos," said the other man who stood leaning against a wall, looking down at him, "Are you still going to play hard to get or are you going to accept this as your fate and cooperate with me?"
Methos crawled along the floor a few inches before pushing himself onto his feet. He hesitated before saying anything in response, finally settling on, "I hate you."
"I know you do, but that still doesn't change anything," the other man said, "Are you going to help me or do we have to continue with these little games?"
"Little games my ass," Methos spat at the other man.
"Your choice, Methos. I don't know why you insist on being so stubborn, so hell bent on torturing yourself. When are you going to accept the fact that you can't escape from me? I'll always find you, and it's just as well. You really wouldn't be able to survive without me."
"Want a bet?" Methos spitefully remarked.
"You might be fast, Methos but you can't run forever…eventually you always stop, and every time you do, I'll be there waiting."
Methos couldn't believe it had come to this. "This isn't going to be over until one of us is dead, is it?"
"No, it won't."
And as much as he despised this man, Methos knew the truth was he couldn't bring himself to kill him; no matter how much he wanted to, no matter how much easier it might make his life.
"Alright…" he said quietly, then again, louder, "Alright you bastard! You win…what do you want me to do?"