ONE - Her

London.

Present Day.

Clarice Minon was sitting inertly on a bench barely hidden amid a pair of green bushes that resisted the tendency of the season and maintained their colour. All around her, trees nearly stripped of leaves and brownish yellow bushes revealed the almost complete victory of fall. On her lap rested a book she had grown tired of reading, and now she was just letting time pass.

Ahead of her, past her green shelter, a group of kids was playing soccer over the yellow rug of leaves. Wrong word, she thought. Football, they call it here. An elderly woman was feeding crumbs to a group of doves. Cold breeze blew and autumn leaves glided, swaying peacefully by its force. Naked branches danced under the wind in a slow motion illusion caused by the omnipotent daylight. Her cold pair of watchful eyes oversaw the living trying to relish their life the most.

For they would die. Sooner, or later. Perhaps the striker of one of the soccer... football teams would grow old and die of a very old age. Or maybe he would be run over by a car when leaving the park he was playing in.

But she would remain. It was something she was still unable to rationalise. She was not old. She was not 30 yet, though her face still looked like a teenager's, her blonde hair was needless of any bleach or dye, and her breasts and rear were still firm, without push-ups or any other aide. And that would not change. Not even in a thousand years. Unless, of course, her head and her body bid adieu to each other.

Immortality. She was still unable to accept it, because all had happened so fast. She was an American 17-year-old schoolgirl in her uniform returning home after an ordinary day. She chose to stop by a drugstore for some cigarettes, a vice she was still unable to shake away. Meanwhile, on the opposite street, a thief had the owner of a hardware shop at gunpoint. A quirk of fate made Clarice leave the store as the thief began his runaway, while the shop owner attempted a quick shot. He hit... her.

The awakening had been difficult but she was quickly found by someone who took her in and made her life span longer than what fate demanded. A few years of bliss followed before the harsh, raw and crude immortal reality knocked at her door. Then it all began to fall apart, and it still did.

She felt a presence all around. She took her hands off her warm long coat. The right one slipped under to stroke the cold hilt of a rapier, and her fingers embraced it. She stood up, and tried to read the different signals that her mind received. Slowly, the pieces began to appear. It was a tortured soul, whoever he or she was. That immortal had been alive for too long, and she sensed grievance in the quickening, an ancient pain surely stemming from a wound ever unhealing.

Clarice began to tread through the park, feeling the presence stalking her, approaching and retreating with every step she took. Her head cocked right and left, looking around for a clear spot. A place she eventually found after a couple of minutes. She entered an almost perfect square naturally formed by lines of rebel trees that endured the demand of autumn.

She first heard it. The crunch of leaves being stepped on as a gust of wind blew her hair backwards. She grasped her weapon and drew it out as she turned, her blade colliding deafeningly with another sword, wielded by another person. It was a man, apparently no older than twenty-five. A small moustache framed his defiant grin and his brown eyes scowled harshly at her. He pushed forward and then retreated.

"I'm Clarice Minon."

"I am Pyro Artorius." The man grunted meanly.

"We don't have to do this." She softly said, lowering hardly anything her guard.

"Yes, we do." He barked before lashing at her.

Her blade deflected him off to his left and she left-elbowed his face. Heedless of the blood that was beginning to trickle down his nose, he stormed forward again. She stood her ground and dodged a vicious yet reckless chop that landed awkwardly on the floor, immediately after which she jabbed Artorius' left side. He let out a whine of dolour as his knees touched the ground.

"If I let you live, will you leave me alone?" she queried.

"You know I cannot... I must not!" he proudly replied.

"Then I'm sorry." She retired the blade from his body. He gasped painfully as he held his bleeding wound.

"Feel sorry for you, Heretic. I'm departing now, but soon you will." He hissed.

She raised her weapon and let it fall over Artorius' neck. The blade faltered upon touching it, but its path to the ground was never interrupted. She sighed, her eyes concentrated on the blood that was beginning to flow out of the headless neck of the vanquished. It was dark, dark and thick.

The wind did not blow anymore. The leaves began to soar and a small whirlwind formed around Clarice, sweeping them. Then she felt embarked by his quickening. His body began to quiver. At first slowly, then it went hectic. The corpse began to soar as a flash of light erupting from it engulfed her. She shrieked as the power of Artorius became one with hers. With it, all his emotions, and an unfathomable pain that was millennia old. Then the body landed on the floor and the quickening was over.

She fell on his knees and a split second later, her face hit the ground. Her body twittered from the shock after the quickening. Her mind was bewildered, incorporating Artorius' knowledge to hers and the one from the immortals that she had beheaded. She wanted to stand up and leave, but she couldn't. Her limbs refused to move, and her mind was storing the new memories, and also opening once again the door to the past, and to the last days of happiness as an immortal.

-----

Santa Monica, CA.

Summer, 1997.

Clarice treaded slowly through the promenade, holding with her arms three paper bags filled with food and other supplies necessary for the maintenance of the five mouths she had to feed. Of course, she was not alone in that endeavour. She had two valuable friends. One was her lover as well. Gregory Briggs, also her mentor.

Right after her death, at the hospital, Greg had impersonated a DO that claimed that Clarice had not been hit by a bullet, but stained by blood, and the shock made her pass. He took her out of hospital and told her that he was immortal, and so was she. She would live forever. They embarked on a five-year-tour around the world. Seven months ago, they had settled in Santa Monica and taken in a small group of homeless boys and girls.

Greg had a lovely beach house not far from the store. It had ten bedrooms and an enormous living room with a gigantic 29'' TV and a laser disc player with the latest releases. The boys loved to sit on the sofa and watch "The Lion King", "Aladdin", and other cartoons for hours. In the meantime, she and Greg had time for themselves.

She set foot on the sand and walked ten steps then halted shocked. She should have seen the cock vane of the house already. She tremulously stepped forward and the bag she dropped. The paper container bent in the air and the goods landed on the hot sand. She lost her balance and fell on her knees as tears began to trip down her cheeks.

Next to the skyline, the house was destroyed. She could see it clearly. Something had made it fall down. But what could be powerful enough? Clarice crawled towards it agitatedly and noticed something else which froze her blood. Greg... dead!

Indeed. Gregor was lying on the floor, with a sword similar to the one Mel Gibson used in "Braveheart" still clung to his left hand. To his left, silently affixed in a gesture of horror, was his head. Scorched around it was a revolting stain of blood.

She commanded herself to look away and what she found was more than she could have ever endured. Her five treasures, the five precious kids she loved as her own... they were all dead as well, scattered around like garbage. She lifted herself up and roamed towards the inert body of the tender Elle, whose rosy cheeks had been slashed from side to side. She stroked her brow and moved to the next one: the contumacious Al, who bore a sickening gash in his stomach.

She eyed the remnants of what had been her home and sadness embarked her again. Fresh tears rolled down as she saw her other three jewels trapped under the ruins. The red-haired Gael had the skull crushed by the falling roof. The other two, Ivan and Kay, the three-year-old twins, lay without life by where the door had been.

Clarice could not stand it anymore. She turned away and her guts gave in to pain. She fell on her knees and let a yellowish liquid substance containing her digested breakfast erupt from her insides. She gasped and stared at it, wishing she could drive away the despair she was feeling as easy as that. Then she felt it.

Sensations in the back of her head like a mute choir of angels. She stood up and softly tottered towards Greg's body. It was something the two of them shared: a strange feeling tinkled in their heads whenever one of them was approaching the other. But it did not come from him. It would always go away when they were close but now she was next to him and the buzzing remained.

Was there somebody else like them? The implications of what she was thinking made her forget about what had occurred and focus. Greg was dead, but they were immortals, so they could not die. He had told her to keep her immortality in secret, because people would not be able to accept it. They had not even told Marc... oh god Marcus!

She began to look around the ruins, without being able to find any other corpse. She wondered if it was something good. Perhaps Marcus, the thirty-year-old guy Harvard undergraduate that was a permanent aide had not been there that morning. Or maybe... he was under the ruins.

Concentrate, Clarice, she told herself. She returned to her inner debate. Only someone who knew that they were immortals could have killed Greg. So there had to be another of them. But why? What was the purpose of killing someone? There were many possibilities: it could be a foe of Greg from the Middle Age, or maybe from the Renaissance.

She shook her head and felt the sensation once again, itching painfully through her head. She closed her eyes and tried to figure out where it was coming from. She guessed it could not be far. Clarice began to move up towards the city, knowing she would find the murderer of all that had mattered to her.

AUTHOR's NOTE: For the first part, I used as a source the song "You Can Still Be Free", by the (unfortunately split) Australian duo Savage Garden, featured in the album "Affirmation." The first verse I adapted and included herein. Great song, if overlooked (as many others) because of the duo's commercial ballads.