III - Sad News.
Paris, France.
Le Blues Bar.
It was a mostly gloomy place. Beaks of light peered through minor windows. Wooden chairs set over wooden tables was most of what met the eye. There were some unlit neon lights and the walls owned several framed pictures. The place was surely far more interesting at night. At barely midday, it seemed almost abandoned.
There was music on the background, stemming from somewhere. Someone ripping off a guitar magnificently, delivering some magical tunes, and a rough, sad voice singing. Whoever it was, it was really good.
Diana's impressions were magnified by Clarice's attitude. She looked around with disinterest. She sat at the bar, placed the guitar case she carried by her and tapped her fingers impatiently. Diana thought her tapping could almost make some sort of drum beat for the music. But as if her mind had been read, Clarice pounded three times against the bar, each pound harsher.
The music stopped abruptly with a final dissonant chord. And then she heard the same raspy voice calling out.
"I'll be right there!"
The playing man (and barman, Diana felt she could safely assume) appeared from a dark recess. A small, greying man in his early fifties, who walked aided by a cane. He went behind the bar and approached them.
"Hi." He offered his hand to Diana. "I'm Joe Dawson."
Diana grabbed it and said her name. He focused on Clarice. Diana expected the same pleasantries to take place but he only stared at her. Her look, on the other hand, was not a happy one.
"Hi, Clarice."
"Dawson." She said stiffly.
"You look well. Lost some weight?"
"Some." Clarice muttered. "It's bound to happen when you're on the run."
Joe smirked and produced three glasses and a bottle of scotch. He served one, and asked Diana silently. She shook her head. He served another for Clarice. She sighed in haste.
"This is her usual mood lately?" he winked at Diana.
"What do you want, Dawson?" Clarice said, her voice a couple of notches higher. "You know the rules. You mustn't interfere."
"I know." Joe sipped his drink. "But it's my game, not yours."
"You've messed with our game as well." Clarice nearly barked at him.
"It saved your neck…" Joe said, never losing his temper, yet always looking at empty space rather than at her. "Didn't it?"
Clarice didn't reply. She angrily downed her drink. Then she stole Diana's and drank it down.
"You're a Watcher?" Diana asked.
"Yes. I see that Clarice has told you. But it's better that way."
"Better?" Clarice asked acidly.
"So I can speak without holds."
"What happened? What can be so damn important for you to summon me so overtly? Does it have something to do with--?" she stopped and scowled at Joe.
"Have you talked to Marc lately?"
"After it happened and I ran, he faced me in Brisbane. I sent him away. For his own sake."
"Yeah. A fellow Watcher reported seeing the two of you together after you killed his immortal. He was reassigned to an older immortal in Bucarest." Joe poured himself another drink and downed it. "He didn't take it well. Not at all."
"What do you mean?"
"He said it was only a matter of time, nothing without solution. It only took the death of one." Joe's voice edged down slightly. "So he went after him… but…"
Diana saw Joe's eyes watering. She glanced at Clarice. Her mentor numbly shook her head and approached one of the tables, where she remained motionless for a few seconds. Then, abruptly, she pushed away one of the chairs, which landed harshly on the floor, and pounded the table in frustration, letting out a heartbreaking shriek as she collapsed against it, kneeling on the floor.
Diana was about to start for her when she felt Joe's hand on her shoulder. She glanced and saw him shaking his head.
"Who… what…?" she stammered. "What's… the big deal you're not telling?"
"Clarice beheaded her first immortal on holy ground." Diana's eyes widened in shock. "She had no clue of the game, or the rules. Well, there were some ancient immortals that enforced that rule. And they hunted her. Her Watcher, Marc, saved her once, but then asked another watcher for help. But this watcher turned out to be an immortal in disguise."
"Huh?"
"Yeah. He had us all believe he was just a historian researching the life of one of the immortals thought to be only a legend: Methos."
The name sounded oddly familiar to Diana. "But he was actually Methos?"
"Yep. To cut it short, Methos and Clarice must stay as far away as possible from each other, for both's sake. Marc… he was in love with Clarice." Joe poured some more scotch and downed it quickly. "She rejected him and Marc thought that if he killed Methos, all would be well. But…"
"Methos killed him instead…" Diana completed the sentence sadly.
Joe just nodded. Clarice was coming back.
"WHERE IS HE?!" she bellowed as he grabbed Joe by the shirt.
"Calm down, Clarice. You shouldn't go after him, he will kill you." Joe tried to cool her off.
"Not if I kill him first!"
Diana gazed in shock at Clarice. Her eyes were red, tears had streaked down her cheeks, leaving the traces on her face. She had never seen her like this. Her shock, as her thoughts did too, went away when she sensed an immortal around.
It was a peculiar premonition. It did not feel like the others did. She could almost say she was familiar with the Quickening of that immortal… whoever it was.
She glanced at Clarice, whose face had mutated from sadness to frustration, and from frustration to a horrid expression of anger. She shifted to Joe, who looked at Clarice as if she were the Grim Reaper.
The door opened, and a tall, slender man in his early thirties appeared. Surprise was in his face, not even more than the one Diana felt when she heard Clarice yell:
"YOU!"