Chapter One Eternity for a Game?

When you have an unlimited life expectancy and near-instant healing, the amount of things to worry about decreases sharply. Pain? Torture? Injury? They do not last. Everything ends sooner or later. You just have to take your time. And he had eternity. He'd lost an arm once. It grew back. Of course, those were interesting decades, but he lived through them. He always did. The alternative was not very appealing to him.

Death. If there were anything on the planet that could still frighten him, that was it. The mere idea of permanent death. Not surprising really, when you consider that he were fully expecting to be alive to witness the sun swallow the earth billions of years in the future. He'd long ago accepted immortality as a gift, and so he'd never been able to understand those who were so eager to waste it.

When he spent time to think about it, he assumed that never having had a Teacher indoctrinate him with the Rules of the Game might have been instrumental in him never having participated in it. After the shipwreck that killed him, it'd taken him almost 30 lonely years to get off that bloody island, and by then he was very much aware of what he was. Apart from the neck thing, of course. And the quickening. That had come as a shock.

Knowing that he couldn't die he'd become a mercenary the moment he set foot on solid land again. He'd fought in wars, protected merchants and killed for money for almost a century by the time he met another like him.

Taking his shocked reaction to the buzz as an indication of youth and inexperience, the headhunter had announced that they were both immortal, and that Michael would die permanently when his head came off. Shortly after that he'd died as Michael cut trough his defences like a chainsaw through plywood.

Unfortunately for him, even back then Michael had been inquisitive. When he woke, tied up with the skill of an ex-sailor doing part-time kidnappings, he'd spent several hours whimpering out all that he knew about the Game and the rules it was played by. And then Michael experienced his first Quickening.

It had been a rush, excruciatingly painful and pleasurable beyond words. And when he recovered he wept for the man who had given up eternity for a game. He'd sworn never to Challenge anyone. It was one of the few wows he'd not broken in his life.

He'd never made any wows about not taking heads, though. To keep his little piece of eternity, Michael was willing to take it from others, but only as a last resort. Which meant that his latest challenger had already lived longer than a mortal attacking him would have.

"I don't carry a sword, friend. I'm not participating in your Game." Michael was giving James a last chance to walk away. Any further aggression and he'd have no choice but to take the youngster's head.

"No sword? And here I actually thought I'd have to work for your head. There is no walking away from the Game. There can be only one, and your head is mine!" The last few words came with a grin as James stepped forward, preparing to collect yet another quickening.

He never saw Michael flick his wrists, bringing a dagger into each hand. Daggers that almost immediately left in underhand throws, one aimed at his heart, the other going for his throat. It was a move Michael had spent years perfecting to such a degree that it would take a very lucky, agile and skilled opponent to evade or block one of the daggers, yet alone both. And that opponent would still have to face the silenced .22 Michael had used the distraction to pull and aim at their head.

James suddenly found himself unable to breath, owing to the dagger that had pierced his throat, and his arms were getting so heavy, he couldn't hold on to the sword as he slowly keeled over, staring in disbelief at the man looking at him with something close to sorrow over the barrel of the gun following him down.

Seeing as both daggers hit, Michael didn't pull the trigger, merely tracked James with the gun as he dropped to the ground, checking the positions of the daggers to make certain that James was not merely faking death.

After a few seconds, Michael stepped sideways before approaching to remove the sword from James limp hand. Taking the head here were possible, but that could easily ruin Michael's current identity and leave him with one or more Watchers tracking him, or worse. Looking around for witnesses, he began going through the available options while making sure that James would not be a danger should he wake up.

He pulled out a nylon string with a pair of sliding blocks and quickly looped it around James' throat. The garrotte would strangle James when he awoke, and the blocks, placed over each their main artery, would cut off the blood supply to brain. The effect would be one immortal to awake soundlessly, remaining conscious for seconds, and dying in minutes. Satisfied with the placement of the blocks, Michael clicked the lock on the string, and covered it all with a piece of tape textured to feel like human skin to prevent James from discovering, and maybe removing, the cord that was killing him.

There were no way he could allow James to keep his head. He'd been willing to kill him despite his truthful assurance that he was not carrying a sword. Not exactly honourable, nor allowed by his interpretation of the rules of the Game, and while Michael weren't playing the Game, and didn't see any reason to obey its rules, he really detested players who cheated.

The biggest problem right now was Watchers. James had been a headhunter, and as such the chances of him having a Watcher trailing him were unacceptably high. That meant a witness to this whole episode, possible loss of a long-term identity and the Watchers uncomfortably close. No choice but to find the poor bastard and take care of the problem.

He really hoped it was only one Watcher. Two would mean he'd been spotted earlier. That would lead to identity-loss, running and a lot of work erasing his tracks. Not to mention lots of pain before they died for the two Watchers to find out what they knew.