The Very Bad Day
A Highlander: The Raven story
by Amy M. Denton
Nick's day was going from bad to worse. In fact, his whole week was going to bad to worse. In the blink of an eye, he had gone from mortality to immortality.
And he hated it.
He sat on a barstool in Amanda's bar, determinedly drinking his way through her liquor supply. Oh, sure, he could have gone somewhere else and gotten drunk but he would have been tossed out after a while. Here, he could sit all day and there was not a damn thing she could do about it.
She had already done enough.
He had seen little of her in the past couple of days, coming and going by him as little as possible.
Fine by him.
He reached for the next bottle on the bar but froze as his ears started to ring so violently and painfully, that he clapped his hands over them to shut out the pain. The pain passed after a moment, allowing him a chance to take a breath. Where had that come from?
Then it dawned on him. The ringing had to be the approach of another Immortal.
So, that's what it felt like. No wonder it had stopped Amanda in her tracks every time she sensed another Immortal. It hurt.
He slumped down on the barstool, the moment of discovery gone. This was just great. He didn't have a weapon of any kind and some headhunting nut was coming.
The perfect end to the perfect week.
He heard footsteps behind him but didn't bother to turn around. He did not want to see his death coming, not that way. He'd rather it be a surprise but instead of the feel of a sword at his neck, there was the sound of a person sitting down. Whoever it was plopped down next to him at the bar without so much as a 'Hello'.
Nick shot the newcomer a sideways glance and saw Adam Pierson, the man who had been introduced to him as Lucy's nephew, but, obviously, was not.
Oh, this just got better and better.
Adam stood up on the bar stool and leaned over the bar's edge. "May I?" he asked.
Nick nodded.
Adam ferreted out a bottle of beer and sat back down.
"How long?" He asked, unscrewing the lid.
Nick paused and looked at him. "Excuse me?"
"How long have you been an Immortal?" Adam replied, taking a drink from the bottle. "You weren't when we met and that was only a couple of months ago."
Nick poured himself another drink.
"Four days."
"Ah, that explains that."
"Explains what?"
"Why you look ready to kill the world." Adam took another drink. "That attitude is completely counterproductive, you know. You're stuck with it now."
Nick snorted and said "Like I had any choice in the first place."
"Like any of us had any choice in the first place. "
"Pardon?"
Adam chuckled and said "That's right. Becoming Immortal has very little to do with choice. It didn't with me. I didn't wake up one morning and think 'Hey, I'd like to be Immortal!'. I think my Immortality came at the end of a sword but I don't remember, it's been so long. Amanda, got whacked over the head after stealing bread from a plague house. Something happens to everyone..."
"Something violent..." muttered Nick.
"Shot, stabbed, skewered, run over, drowned..." Adam went on. "It happens to everybody." He took a long draught from the bottle. "Pardon my ghoulish curiosity but, how'd it happen?"
"Amanda shot me."
Adam blinked and put the bottle down. "She did what?"
"Amanda... Shot... Me." Nick snapped. "What part of that did you miss?"
Adam's eyebrows went up, whatever had gone on must have been ugly. Amanda wasn't in the habit of shooting people.
Wrinkling his brow, Adam asked "Did you get in her way or something? What'd you do?"
Nick poured another drink, gulping it down before continuing. "I made the fatal mistake of getting involved in her goofy world. That's what I did."
"And after that?"
"One of her Immortal buddies came to call, looking for some women's brother. I got in the way."
"And that's where the gunshots came in?"
Nick focused his bleary eyes on Adam once. "Why do you care?"
Adam shrugged. "I'm bored and I have nothing else to do. Do you?"
Nick shook his head after a moments thought.
"So, what happened next?"
Bit by bit, Nick laid out the whole, disgusting story. The brother, the sister, the so-called magician, the threats against the sister, the fight in the alley, ending with the poison and the shooting.
Adam listened, nodded, drank his beer and nodded some more. When Nick was finished, he took another swig and said "If I understand this right, you're not mad because you're Immortal, you're mad because she didn't stop and ask if you wanted to be one."
Nick nodded. "Damn right, maybe I wanted to die. I certainly felt like it."
Adam rolled his eyes. Where does she find them?
"Did you just listen to yourself?" he asked.
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"Did you just heard what you said? Excuse me, but you're dying. Do you mind if I turn you into an Immortal? There's nothing to it. You just have to whack off a few heads every once in a while." Adam shook his head. "It hasn't sunk in with you yet. You don't get a choice. You don't get asked. It just happens. So get over it. Before you find yourself on the losing end of a fight." He slid off the bar stool. "You never know who's out there. It might be me who comes after you. I could use an easy kill."
He left the beer bottle on the bar and walked toward the door. Just before he reached it, he spun back and called to Nick "Tell Amanda that I stopped by."
He was gone before Nick could reply.
Nick stood outside Liam's cathedral, off to one side, giving him plenty of time to talk and greet his parishioners after the Sunday morning service. The cathedral's carillon above the two men ringing out the last notes of Fredrick Handel's Messiah into the crystal-clear blue sky. A cool, light breeze, a forerunner of Fall, stirred the leaves along the ground as well as Nick's hair and Liam's robes, only adding to the beauty of the day.
Yet the beauty around Nick was in direct contrast to his mood. All he wanted to do was crawl into yet another whiskey bottle. However, after waking from his alcohol induced stupor, Adam's words were still in his brain, forcing him from the bar in search of someone to talk to.
Upon the reaching the church, he got another taste of Immortality. That damn ringing in his ears, again. That was going to be real annoying. He watched Liam's eyes search the crowd, seeking the other Immortal before coming to rest on him, one eyebrow raising in a silent question.
He simply nodded and waited until Liam had finished conversing with his flock before joining him at the church's front door.
Liam measured Nick with a practiced eye before asking "When?"
Nick smiled and said. "Are you sure you have the time to hear this?"
"Well, at least you haven't lost your sense of humor." Liam replied, chuckling. He put his hand on Nick's shoulder. "Come inside, I have a bit of time before Confession begins."
"So, this guy named Adam, comes in looking for Amanda. She's not there, so he sits down next to me at the bar and starts looking for a beer."
"And?"
"He knows what I am and doesn't particularly care. He thinks it's funny that I feel sorry for myself. He's amused. But he said I'd better stop feeling sorry for myself before some Immortal, maybe him, came along and solved my problem for me. And then he just gets up and leaves." Nick looked at Liam. "What is with you people? You just wander in and out whenever."
Liam bit back a smile. "Nick," he said, gently "you are one of you people now."
"Thanks for reminding me."
"I'll tell you one thing. He's right, whoever he is."
"You don't..."
Liam started to laugh but stopped. "No, I don't know him. I don't know every Immortal anymore than you know every mortal. I happen to know Amanda, she happens to know me, we happen to know you." He shrugged. "Sorry."
Nick sighed. "This has to be complicated, doesn't it?"
Liam shook his head. "No, but you're making it so. You have three choices. You can do nothing, hope the Immortal World ignores you and spend the rest of your days looking over your shoulder in the fear that someone is coming to get you. You can do like scores of other Immortals, myself included, and live on Holy Ground forever or you can learn to use a sword, defend yourself and become part of The Game."
Nick went from irritated to confused in the space of seconds. "The WHAT? Live WHERE?"
Liam made a face. "Oh, that's right, she hasn't told you yet. I'll leave the explanation of 'The Game' up to Amanda, like it or not, she's your mentor now." He held up a hand to forestall a comment. "I don't want to hear it. I'll be nice and explain the other part. 'Holy Ground' is anything that is considered scared by any religion. And I do mean any religion. This building," He gestured to the walls around them. "the ground it sits on, the land surrounding it, is considered Holy Ground. No Immortal will ever fight you on it, ever. Not even the most evil of Immortals will violate that rule."
"There are rules to being Immortal?"
"Yes, not many, but Holy Ground is one of them." Liam stood and looked at the clock on the mantle before sitting back down. "No matter where you are, what country you're in, where ever you are on the globe, there will always be some form of Holy Ground." A smile twitched at Liam's lips. "Of course, in India, that might require climbing on a cow. They're scared there."
Nick almost smiled.
"I chose the second way, to live on Holy Ground. I actually like it. It's peaceful here and I don't have to worry about someone coming after me."
"But that guy, Sean whatshisname, he said you killed his mother and he was going to kill you anyway." Nick said.
"Ah, that...Well, shooting his mother was accident but he didn't know that. He didn't know The Rules either, that was his main problem. No one ever bothered to tell him. I frankly don't know what would have happened had he taken my head. There is a story that the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius was caused by two Immortals fighting on Holy Ground."
"Okay. So I'm safe on Holy Ground as long as the other guy knows the rules."
"That was the first time that had happened to me. You WILL be safe on Holy Ground, I can tell you that. You're welcome to stay here with me. I don't have much in the way of creature comforts but I could always use the company and a spare hand, but you don't strike me as the Holy Ground type. You'd get bored. I also don't think you're the kind to just sit there and let something happen. Which leaves the last choice..."
"Picking up a sword."
"Exactly."
The clock on the mantle went off, signaling the hour, causing Liam to stand. "Time for Confession. You're welcome to stay as long as you want and collect your thoughts. I'll be around."
Nick shook his head. "No, thanks. I need to be going."
As the two men reached the front of the church, Liam grasped Nick by the shoulders and said "Make up your mind quick, before someone else does it for you. If you're gone, who am I going to play basketball with?"
Nick smiled. "You'd find somebody."
The day, which had started out so promising had turned cold and sullen in the time Nick had been in the church. Turning up the collar of his jacket against the bitter wind, he walked out of the churchyard and onto the sidewalk. Overhead, the dishwater gray clouds scuttled across the sky, threatening to loosen their deluge on the city but Nick paid them no mind.
As he walked, his mind kept returning to one inevitable conclusion.
What it really came down to was, did he want to live or die? Having already died once, he did not wish to repeat the experience. With both Adam's and Liam's words ringing in his ears, he turned the corner to the street the bar was on and clapped his hands over his ears. An Immortal was in the area.
He winced and thought. Do you ever get used to it?
A casual glance around the area told him no one was there. Which meant the Immortal was probably at the bar. Hopefully, it was just Amanda. With a determined air, he continued to walk down the street to the bar's entrance and opened the door.
It's a good day to die. He thought, letting the door swing shut behind him.
It was only Amanda, seated at a table, pouring over a stack of books. She barely glanced up as Nick came in.
"Hello, Nick."
"Hello, Amanda."
It was the most they had said to each other in almost a week.
"Someone named Adam came looking for you."
"I know, he just left."
Silence returned.
Finally, with a sigh, Nick sat down across from Amanda. "I don't think, I'll ever be able to forgive you for what you did."
She looked up from the books and met his gaze straight on. "I understand."
"That said, I don't want to die, again. Teach me how to swordfight."
A glimmer of a smile ghosted across her face. "Certainly. How about this afternoon?"
He nodded and rose from the table. "I'll be here."
A Highlander: The Raven story
by Amy M. Denton
Nick's day was going from bad to worse. In fact, his whole week was going to bad to worse. In the blink of an eye, he had gone from mortality to immortality.
And he hated it.
He sat on a barstool in Amanda's bar, determinedly drinking his way through her liquor supply. Oh, sure, he could have gone somewhere else and gotten drunk but he would have been tossed out after a while. Here, he could sit all day and there was not a damn thing she could do about it.
She had already done enough.
He had seen little of her in the past couple of days, coming and going by him as little as possible.
Fine by him.
He reached for the next bottle on the bar but froze as his ears started to ring so violently and painfully, that he clapped his hands over them to shut out the pain. The pain passed after a moment, allowing him a chance to take a breath. Where had that come from?
Then it dawned on him. The ringing had to be the approach of another Immortal.
So, that's what it felt like. No wonder it had stopped Amanda in her tracks every time she sensed another Immortal. It hurt.
He slumped down on the barstool, the moment of discovery gone. This was just great. He didn't have a weapon of any kind and some headhunting nut was coming.
The perfect end to the perfect week.
He heard footsteps behind him but didn't bother to turn around. He did not want to see his death coming, not that way. He'd rather it be a surprise but instead of the feel of a sword at his neck, there was the sound of a person sitting down. Whoever it was plopped down next to him at the bar without so much as a 'Hello'.
Nick shot the newcomer a sideways glance and saw Adam Pierson, the man who had been introduced to him as Lucy's nephew, but, obviously, was not.
Oh, this just got better and better.
Adam stood up on the bar stool and leaned over the bar's edge. "May I?" he asked.
Nick nodded.
Adam ferreted out a bottle of beer and sat back down.
"How long?" He asked, unscrewing the lid.
Nick paused and looked at him. "Excuse me?"
"How long have you been an Immortal?" Adam replied, taking a drink from the bottle. "You weren't when we met and that was only a couple of months ago."
Nick poured himself another drink.
"Four days."
"Ah, that explains that."
"Explains what?"
"Why you look ready to kill the world." Adam took another drink. "That attitude is completely counterproductive, you know. You're stuck with it now."
Nick snorted and said "Like I had any choice in the first place."
"Like any of us had any choice in the first place. "
"Pardon?"
Adam chuckled and said "That's right. Becoming Immortal has very little to do with choice. It didn't with me. I didn't wake up one morning and think 'Hey, I'd like to be Immortal!'. I think my Immortality came at the end of a sword but I don't remember, it's been so long. Amanda, got whacked over the head after stealing bread from a plague house. Something happens to everyone..."
"Something violent..." muttered Nick.
"Shot, stabbed, skewered, run over, drowned..." Adam went on. "It happens to everybody." He took a long draught from the bottle. "Pardon my ghoulish curiosity but, how'd it happen?"
"Amanda shot me."
Adam blinked and put the bottle down. "She did what?"
"Amanda... Shot... Me." Nick snapped. "What part of that did you miss?"
Adam's eyebrows went up, whatever had gone on must have been ugly. Amanda wasn't in the habit of shooting people.
Wrinkling his brow, Adam asked "Did you get in her way or something? What'd you do?"
Nick poured another drink, gulping it down before continuing. "I made the fatal mistake of getting involved in her goofy world. That's what I did."
"And after that?"
"One of her Immortal buddies came to call, looking for some women's brother. I got in the way."
"And that's where the gunshots came in?"
Nick focused his bleary eyes on Adam once. "Why do you care?"
Adam shrugged. "I'm bored and I have nothing else to do. Do you?"
Nick shook his head after a moments thought.
"So, what happened next?"
Bit by bit, Nick laid out the whole, disgusting story. The brother, the sister, the so-called magician, the threats against the sister, the fight in the alley, ending with the poison and the shooting.
Adam listened, nodded, drank his beer and nodded some more. When Nick was finished, he took another swig and said "If I understand this right, you're not mad because you're Immortal, you're mad because she didn't stop and ask if you wanted to be one."
Nick nodded. "Damn right, maybe I wanted to die. I certainly felt like it."
Adam rolled his eyes. Where does she find them?
"Did you just listen to yourself?" he asked.
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"Did you just heard what you said? Excuse me, but you're dying. Do you mind if I turn you into an Immortal? There's nothing to it. You just have to whack off a few heads every once in a while." Adam shook his head. "It hasn't sunk in with you yet. You don't get a choice. You don't get asked. It just happens. So get over it. Before you find yourself on the losing end of a fight." He slid off the bar stool. "You never know who's out there. It might be me who comes after you. I could use an easy kill."
He left the beer bottle on the bar and walked toward the door. Just before he reached it, he spun back and called to Nick "Tell Amanda that I stopped by."
He was gone before Nick could reply.
Nick stood outside Liam's cathedral, off to one side, giving him plenty of time to talk and greet his parishioners after the Sunday morning service. The cathedral's carillon above the two men ringing out the last notes of Fredrick Handel's Messiah into the crystal-clear blue sky. A cool, light breeze, a forerunner of Fall, stirred the leaves along the ground as well as Nick's hair and Liam's robes, only adding to the beauty of the day.
Yet the beauty around Nick was in direct contrast to his mood. All he wanted to do was crawl into yet another whiskey bottle. However, after waking from his alcohol induced stupor, Adam's words were still in his brain, forcing him from the bar in search of someone to talk to.
Upon the reaching the church, he got another taste of Immortality. That damn ringing in his ears, again. That was going to be real annoying. He watched Liam's eyes search the crowd, seeking the other Immortal before coming to rest on him, one eyebrow raising in a silent question.
He simply nodded and waited until Liam had finished conversing with his flock before joining him at the church's front door.
Liam measured Nick with a practiced eye before asking "When?"
Nick smiled and said. "Are you sure you have the time to hear this?"
"Well, at least you haven't lost your sense of humor." Liam replied, chuckling. He put his hand on Nick's shoulder. "Come inside, I have a bit of time before Confession begins."
"So, this guy named Adam, comes in looking for Amanda. She's not there, so he sits down next to me at the bar and starts looking for a beer."
"And?"
"He knows what I am and doesn't particularly care. He thinks it's funny that I feel sorry for myself. He's amused. But he said I'd better stop feeling sorry for myself before some Immortal, maybe him, came along and solved my problem for me. And then he just gets up and leaves." Nick looked at Liam. "What is with you people? You just wander in and out whenever."
Liam bit back a smile. "Nick," he said, gently "you are one of you people now."
"Thanks for reminding me."
"I'll tell you one thing. He's right, whoever he is."
"You don't..."
Liam started to laugh but stopped. "No, I don't know him. I don't know every Immortal anymore than you know every mortal. I happen to know Amanda, she happens to know me, we happen to know you." He shrugged. "Sorry."
Nick sighed. "This has to be complicated, doesn't it?"
Liam shook his head. "No, but you're making it so. You have three choices. You can do nothing, hope the Immortal World ignores you and spend the rest of your days looking over your shoulder in the fear that someone is coming to get you. You can do like scores of other Immortals, myself included, and live on Holy Ground forever or you can learn to use a sword, defend yourself and become part of The Game."
Nick went from irritated to confused in the space of seconds. "The WHAT? Live WHERE?"
Liam made a face. "Oh, that's right, she hasn't told you yet. I'll leave the explanation of 'The Game' up to Amanda, like it or not, she's your mentor now." He held up a hand to forestall a comment. "I don't want to hear it. I'll be nice and explain the other part. 'Holy Ground' is anything that is considered scared by any religion. And I do mean any religion. This building," He gestured to the walls around them. "the ground it sits on, the land surrounding it, is considered Holy Ground. No Immortal will ever fight you on it, ever. Not even the most evil of Immortals will violate that rule."
"There are rules to being Immortal?"
"Yes, not many, but Holy Ground is one of them." Liam stood and looked at the clock on the mantle before sitting back down. "No matter where you are, what country you're in, where ever you are on the globe, there will always be some form of Holy Ground." A smile twitched at Liam's lips. "Of course, in India, that might require climbing on a cow. They're scared there."
Nick almost smiled.
"I chose the second way, to live on Holy Ground. I actually like it. It's peaceful here and I don't have to worry about someone coming after me."
"But that guy, Sean whatshisname, he said you killed his mother and he was going to kill you anyway." Nick said.
"Ah, that...Well, shooting his mother was accident but he didn't know that. He didn't know The Rules either, that was his main problem. No one ever bothered to tell him. I frankly don't know what would have happened had he taken my head. There is a story that the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius was caused by two Immortals fighting on Holy Ground."
"Okay. So I'm safe on Holy Ground as long as the other guy knows the rules."
"That was the first time that had happened to me. You WILL be safe on Holy Ground, I can tell you that. You're welcome to stay here with me. I don't have much in the way of creature comforts but I could always use the company and a spare hand, but you don't strike me as the Holy Ground type. You'd get bored. I also don't think you're the kind to just sit there and let something happen. Which leaves the last choice..."
"Picking up a sword."
"Exactly."
The clock on the mantle went off, signaling the hour, causing Liam to stand. "Time for Confession. You're welcome to stay as long as you want and collect your thoughts. I'll be around."
Nick shook his head. "No, thanks. I need to be going."
As the two men reached the front of the church, Liam grasped Nick by the shoulders and said "Make up your mind quick, before someone else does it for you. If you're gone, who am I going to play basketball with?"
Nick smiled. "You'd find somebody."
The day, which had started out so promising had turned cold and sullen in the time Nick had been in the church. Turning up the collar of his jacket against the bitter wind, he walked out of the churchyard and onto the sidewalk. Overhead, the dishwater gray clouds scuttled across the sky, threatening to loosen their deluge on the city but Nick paid them no mind.
As he walked, his mind kept returning to one inevitable conclusion.
What it really came down to was, did he want to live or die? Having already died once, he did not wish to repeat the experience. With both Adam's and Liam's words ringing in his ears, he turned the corner to the street the bar was on and clapped his hands over his ears. An Immortal was in the area.
He winced and thought. Do you ever get used to it?
A casual glance around the area told him no one was there. Which meant the Immortal was probably at the bar. Hopefully, it was just Amanda. With a determined air, he continued to walk down the street to the bar's entrance and opened the door.
It's a good day to die. He thought, letting the door swing shut behind him.
It was only Amanda, seated at a table, pouring over a stack of books. She barely glanced up as Nick came in.
"Hello, Nick."
"Hello, Amanda."
It was the most they had said to each other in almost a week.
"Someone named Adam came looking for you."
"I know, he just left."
Silence returned.
Finally, with a sigh, Nick sat down across from Amanda. "I don't think, I'll ever be able to forgive you for what you did."
She looked up from the books and met his gaze straight on. "I understand."
"That said, I don't want to die, again. Teach me how to swordfight."
A glimmer of a smile ghosted across her face. "Certainly. How about this afternoon?"
He nodded and rose from the table. "I'll be here."