I - Sacrifice
The Swiss Alps. A monastery.
In the bed, Darla Hails moaned. The man behind her pressed hardly. She moaned again, this time louder as she leant all her weight on her hands and knees. Her face touched the stone wall as he pushed harder inside her. Another push, another moan. A situation that continued for some more minutes, until he let her go. She loosened her legs and stretched in the bed. She felt his hands over her naked body, caressing her. He blew over the layer of sweat that covered her back and she giggled girlishly.
"Jin, that was... good!"
The man lay beside her. She gazed at him. He was shorthaired, and much wisdom was behind his Oriental eyes. She jerked her head closer and kissed him. He grinned.
"I fear it's time you left." He said gently. He was quite the gentleman, but a wild beast when it came to sex. She nodded. Her departure had a reason. The monks would be rather disturbed if they learned that there was fornication going on inside their holy place. Though they must be deaf, she thought.
She got up and put on her underwear. A brown robe followed. She slowly opened the door and checked out. It was clear. She waved at her lover, hurried out and tiptoed until she got inside her room.
She moved past the bed towards what the bathroom was: a seat with a hole that was placed over a latrine, and a tube surging out of the wall with a chain beside it. She pulled the chain and a gush of warm water erupted out of the tube. Darla stripped and placed herself under the water. Sweat slowly began to be shaken off. With it, Jin's scent as well.
She sensed what most immortals called feeling the quickening of another immortal: that tingle in the head announcing that there was one of her kind nearby. She did not like the quickening expression. For her, feeling a quickening was feeling the power of an immortal unleashed upon his or her beheading. Giving things more than a meaning made things more complex, and in a life or death Game like theirs, immortals should try to keep things as simpler as possible.
She got off the water and put on her robe. She strode to the bed, knelt to take out a briefcase and sighed before opening it. She assembled the three pieces of metal contained therein and a broadsword she held in her hands. She left the room and paced towards the main door.
Darla had spent better than two years inside the monastery, needing time to think. Her mentor, Victor Kruger, The Kurgan, was alive. She had gone on a beheading spree after Methos, believing that that immortal had been his vanquisher. Upon learning that Victor still lived, she had retreated in the monastery, hoping holy ground would help her decide her next course of action. In all that time, she had not encountered an immortal that was not Jin.
She walked into the open. Snow fell lightly over her, and she felt her hands freezing. It startled her but she moved on, intent on everything but at the same time thinking. Jin Ke had arrived ten months after her. He was an ancient immortal, hoping to regain his honour lost two millennia ago. At first, they had only sensed each other. In time they had begun to talk. The sex fanfare was eight months old now.
The monastery had iron gates that extended ten metres around its main building. By the entrance there was a shape. It was not Jin Ke. This man was large and stout, unlike Jin's slim figure. She already knew it was not her lover. She was able to recognise Jin's buzz. This man's... he could feel the evil... an evil that was familiar to her.
"One can find sluts everywhere, even here." The man blurted out viciously.
She smirked and wielded her sword. Now his face was clear. There was no mistake as to who the man was. His mouth stretched into a grin. Darla gritted her teeth when noticing the large scar on his face.
"Tempus..." she muttered.
"I am surprised to see you here, Hails." He grunted as he entered holy ground. "I never thought you were fond of the monk type." He winked an eye. "Though I heard they never get tired."
She felt like slamming her sword against his throat. But she couldn't. Holy ground. We don't kill in holy ground. Victor had said it... why was she thinking of him? He had faked his death to get rid of her. She bore him some grudge for that. She knew she would find him eventually, but she had decided not to look for him, not if she could avoid it.
Another immortal was felt around. Darla recognised Jin Ke's buzz and turned. Her lover was walking towards them. In his hand was a spear, one he had been teaching Darla how to use. He looked angry.
"Kronos!" he growled.
"Hello, Jin Ke." He began to fidget around. "The dame and I were chatting... waiting for you."
Jin Ke made the spear swirl before standing in a fighting stance, legs opened and knees slightly bent, the right arm extended forward holding the top of the pike, the wooden part of which was folded under his left arm. "Whenever you want."
"Don't bother. He is mine." Darla grunted as she walked out of holy ground. Kronos followed her with the eyes, gave a quick glance to the Asian, who looked frustrated, and then moved himself out.
"I will not allow this!" Jin Ke said as he stepped out too.
"A challenge has been made. You shall not interfere." Kronos said, mocking a regretful face. "Don't worry, my friend. I will be gentle."
Darla was waiting. Kronos moved towards her. He thrust left of her, aiming at her shoulder. She parried the blow. He retreated before attacking again. This time his blade connected with her unarmed arm, just as Darla's sword countered at his neck. He tried to duck. A squawk was heard.
She retreated to let her wound heal. Kronos was squatting on the floor, holding the left part of his face. Blood tripped from where his hand was. He slowly stood up and removed the hand. Right then she noticed something pulpy and red on the tip of her sword. Darla eyed at the thing, her face ashen. She looked at Kronos. There was a red hole in the left socket of his face. The left side of his face was stained in blood. The thing was the eye missing. He glared with his single eye. He was angry.
Kronos stormed forward. He deflected her rightward blow but could do nothing when his left foot connected her stomach. She staggered back, unbalanced. He thrust her chest, which she could not defend. His blade entered next to her heart. She gasped and spat blood as she fell on her knees.
"Kronos!" Jin Ke called, spear ready.
"You won't interfere, Jin Ke. Your honour of sorts won't let you."
"Let her live." Jin threw the spear away. "And you will have my head."
Kronos looked at Darla. Her fleshy mouth was tarnished with blood. She shook her head, her eyes moist. Words did not come out, though her mouth had moved. He retired the sword from her body and everything went black for her...
-----
Darla's whole body shivered as she returned to reality. She had only blinked and the images of Jin Ke's last moments had crammed in her head, flashing before her vividly. Those images had been haunting her since Jin's death. She had taken his body back to China to be buried, and was now standing before his grave.
His death had been hard for her. Jin Ke had been the only man she had had true intimacy with. Her defilement had been brutal at the mercy of three rapists, in the last moments of her mortal life. After that, the only person that had touched her intimately before Jin Ke was Gabriela Maria Cuadra Saavedra. The Argentine immortal and her shared six crazy months in the late eighties, but Darla had had to kill her after Gabriela lost her mind. Now Jin Ke was dead too, but he would be avenged.
She was cognisant of her want of possibilities against Tempus, Kronos, Alarm Clock, or whatever the now one-eyed immortal felt like calling himself. She also knew she needed further training. She had already met the best mortal teachers in Asia. But now an immortal had to finish her training. And only one name sprang to her mind.
She began to walk away, and the visions of the Alps visited her again. Only this time, before dying, there was something else in the background. Under the pale full moon, beholding the fight from the distance, three shadows stood. She could only sense evil in the daunting images of those three men. Three horsemen.
