Who Watches the Watcher?
A Highlander novel by Sisiutil
This story is fictional and does not contain any references to any actual persons living or dead. All characters contained in this story who appeared in the Highlander franchise are the property of Warner Media/Davis Panzer Productions, Inc.
Chapter 5: Theresa
New York, 1985 AD
"Mom, do you think Madonna is Immortal?"
Christine MacNeil glanced at her teenage daughter, raised her light blonde eyebrows, and laughed softly. "No, sweetheart, we're pretty sure she isn't." She went back to tearing apart a head of romaine lettuce in preparation for dinner.
"That's too bad," Terry MacNeil said. "'Cause then? She'd be around making music, like, forever."
Christine's amused blue eyes studied Terry. To say her sixteen-year-old daughter was obsessed with Madonna would be an understatement of mythic proportions. The wall of her room was plastered with pictures and posters of the pop singer. Terry had done an intentionally terrible job of dying her auburn hair blonde to look more like Madonna. She dressed like Madonna, in black tank tops, tights, and floral print dresses that a rummage shop would be embarrassed to sell. She had started wearing a rosary around her neck even though she wasn't Catholic—which was a good thing, because no good Catholic would be caught dead wearing a rosary in that way.
It had all started with that movie, Desperately Seeking Susan, which Terry had now seen at least a dozen times since its release that spring. Now she had all of Madonna's records and Madonna was all she ever talked about—except for Immortals, of course. Now she'd found a way to combine the two topics.
"I'm sure she'll have a long, productive career as long as she has fans like you, dear," Christine said, brushing a loose strand of light blonde hair away from her pale, slender face. "Do me a favor and turn the oven to 375, would you?"
Christine put the lettuce in a salad spinner and told herself to count her blessings. At least her daughter talked to her, unlike the sullen, silent treatment the parents of several of Terry's friends got. And Terry kept her knowledge of Immortals to herself—she had never breathed a word of the 'family secret' to anyone, not even to her closest friends. Her parents had been insistent on that point.
She and her husband had resolved, when they first brought Theresa home, that they would never discuss Immortals around their daughter. But inevitably, in the household of two Watchers, things slipped out; when Terry came to them at the age of six and asked, "What's a kick'ning?", they'd realized they would have to educate her. Interestingly, Terry expressed no interest whatsoever in becoming a Watcher. She wanted to be a pop singer. Failing that, an astronaut, or a dancer, or a doctor, or...her career preferences changed as often as the weather, but Watcher was never on the list.
"Hey Dad! We're in the kitchen!" Terry yelled a few minutes later when both women heard the front door open and close. Though both her parents worked for the Watchers, they worked in different divisions which were housed in different offices—discretely disguised as regular businesses, of course—so her mother usually made it home before her father.
"Thank you, Terry," Christine said sarcastically as she put the stuffed chicken breasts into the oven, "but could you yell a little louder? I don't think they heard you in Hoboken."
"Oh, hardy-har."
David MacNeil walked into the kitchen of his Brownstone apartment and stood in the doorway. Christine's husband, though only forty-seven years old and youthful for his age, looked old and tired tonight. He held his suit jacket over his shoulder and slumped against the door frame. His short blonde hair, which had started to go gray, was mussed and matted. His collar was unbuttoned, his tie askew. He wore a saddened expression on his face.
"Whoa, Dad, who died?" Terry asked tactlessly, looking at her father's morose appearance.
"Terry!" Christine admonished her. "David, what happened?"
"Got some bad news today," he said simply. He walked into the kitchen, pulled back a chair from the table and collapsed into it. "Honey, I could really use a beer."
Christine opened the fridge and pulled out a can of beer. She set it on the table in front of her husband along with a glass and sat down beside him, waiting for him to explain what had happened.
"Dad?" Terry asked as her father poured his beer. "You're kinda scaring me."
"Sorry, pumpkin." He looked at his wife. "There was an incident in Paris last night," he started.
"Is Joe okay?" Christine asked anxiously. Dawson was a close friend, and Christine knew he was stationed there. David MacNeil was a Watcher team lead, with about one hundred Watchers reporting to him, mostly from across North America but some in Europe as well. Dawson was one of them.
"Joe's fine, honey."
Both Christine and Terry breathed a sigh of relief. Terry adored her Uncle Joe; he wasn't really her Uncle, but he was just about one of the coolest guys she'd ever met. He was a Vietnam Vet; he'd lost both legs in that conflict, but managed fine without them, which Terry admired. He played guitar better than anybody she'd ever heard, and he was a top-notch Watcher on her Dad's team. And he treated her like a grown-up. Ultra-cool dude, no question, as far as she was concerned.
"So, what is it then?" Christine asked.
MacNeil sighed and took a long swig of his beer. "Marcellus," he said. "He's gone."
"Who?" Terry asked, but her parents ignored her.
"Oh no," Christine said as she closed her eyes and sighed. She shook her head sadly, then looked at her husband again. "Who did it?"
"You'll never believe it," MacNeil said, shaking his head as well, but in disbelief.
"Who?" Christine asked again.
"Duncan MacLeod," MacNeil replied, his eyebrows raised. Christine's eyes widened in shock.
"Ooo!" Terry exclaimed excitedly, not really following the conversation. "Duncan MacLeod?" The other ultra-cool thing about Uncle Joe was that a couple of years ago, he had been assigned to the coolest, cutest, hottest Immortal around as far as Terry was concerned. Her parents frowned on Terry developing too avid an interest in specific Immortals, especially one with a reputation like Duncan MacLeod's. Still, she'd found it hard to hide her schoolgirl crush on MacLeod from them.
"Try to remain calm, princess," MacNeil tiredly told his daughter with a wan smile. "This isn't a happy occasion," he told her.
"Sorry," Terry said, admonished. "I might understand all this better if you tell me who this...Marcel Marceau guy is. He must be a bad one, right? If Duncan MacLeod took him out?"
"His name is...was...Lucius Gaius Marcellus, Terry," Christine explained in a subdued tone. "And he wasn't one of the bad ones. He was a Roman, one of the last ancient Immortals. He and Duncan MacLeod were friends. Or so I thought. David, what on earth happened?"
"We're still trying to piece that together," MacNeil said, spreading his hands. "They obviously had an argument about something, something big enough to make them pull out their swords and have at it. Apparently Darius and Fitzcairn were there and couldn't talk them out of it."
"I don't know about MacLeod," Christine interjected, "but there's only one thing that would get Marcellus' blood up that way: Alodia."
"Okay," Terry spoke up, unwilling to let her parent's conversation get away from her once more. "Out of the loop, here, again. What or who is Alodia?"
MacNeil turned to his wife. "Y'know, maybe you should give her the Reader's Digest version," he said. "I was desperately trying to get my facts straight this afternoon. I could use a refresher, too."
Christine MacNeil was Senior Chronicle Librarian for North America—a position of great prestige. She was basically in charge of all the Watchers' records for the continent, and then some. Many of the Watchers' Chronicles had been smuggled over to the United States before and during the Second World War to protect them from falling into Nazi hands, and had never been taken back. One of the most extensive Chronicles that wound up in the New York Watchers' library was that of Marcellus.
While Christine hadn't done much field work as a Watcher, her abilities as a researcher and her near-photographic memory were almost legendary within the organization. She had become familiar with Marcellus' tale many years before, when she first started with the Watchers. Organizing his huge back-catalogue of records and reports dating back centuries was one of her first assigned tasks as a Chronicle librarian. Though she had never even seen the man, Marcellus was one of those Immortals whose story was so familiar, he felt like an acquaintance. But she had never related his tragic story to Terry before.
"Let me get dinner on the table," Christine said, desperate to do something normal that would settle her nerves after this upset. "Terry, come and help me, and then I'll tell you all about Marcellus."
A few minutes later, when the family was seated in the dining room with their food in front of them, Christine began to tell Marcellus' story. MacNeil sat back and admired his wife's encyclopedic memory for detail—a definite asset in her job. It felt good to do this, after the sad news he'd received. This was how his family often spent their evenings—with either MacNeil relating a recent event one of his Watchers had witnessed, or with his wife telling a story from the Chronicles.
"Lucius Gaius Marcellus, Citizen of Rome," her mother began after swallowing her first mouthful of dinner, "was born just over 2500 years ago and died last night in Paris."
"Could you pass the details, please?" Terry asked, eliciting a subdued laugh from both her parents.
"We think he was born around 545 BCE and became Immortal in 509 BCE, probably in the uprising that led to the creation of the Roman Republic." Christine continued, adopting her strict historian's tone and terminology. "We don't know for sure because almost all of the BCE Chronicles are lost. The first thousand years of his life were wrapped up with the rise and fall of Rome—first the Republic, then the Empire."
Christine chewed and swallowed a mouthful of food, then continued. "For a thousand years, Marcellus served Rome in almost every capacity imaginable. He alternated between lives within Rome itself and lives outside—first in the Italian provinces, and later in the Roman Empire's more far-flung provinces. He served as a general, a senator, a centurion, a bureaucrat, a Praetorian Guard..."
"Mmm!" MacNeil interrupted her; it was part of their pattern, allowing him and his wife to eat their dinner in turn as Terry listened avidly. "Remember that British TV series we watched on PBS last year? I, Claudius? I heard Marcellus was the Praetorian Guard that put Claudius forward to be Emperor after Caligula was assassinated."
"That's an unsubstantiated rumor reported in a very early chronicle, dear," Christine said, the hard-nosed historian within her showing.
"Didn't he also hang around with Methos at that time?" MacNeil asked.
"Whoa!" Terry exclaimed as her eyes opened in amazement. "Isn't he, like, the oldest one of all?"
Methos was, indeed, supposedly the oldest living Immortal, over five thousand years old. But no Watcher had reported seeing him for at least a century, and some of the older Chronicles' mentions of him were spurious at best. He had become something of a legend, and doubts and debates circulated about his very existence—the Watcher's version of the Sasquatch or the Loch Ness Monster.
"Yes, to both your questions. They must have been an interesting pair. Methos, as we understand it, was rather cynical, enjoyed living, and avoided confrontations with other Immortals. Marcellus was ruthless and shrewd and rarely flinched from a fight. While Methos was devoted to staying alive, Marcellus was devoted to Rome. He loved Rome the way some men love a woman, and would do anything for her."
"Okay, sounds like he was a little on the obsessive side," Terry commented. "Rome fell, though, right? What happened to him then?"
"After Rome was sacked by the Visigoths, Marcellus went East to serve in the new capitol of the Empire, Byzantium," her mother continued. "Marcellus served under Constantine, Justinian, and several other Byzantine emperors, but he eventually left. I guess Byzantium, or Constantinople as it later became, just wasn't Rome. He wandered for a couple of centuries; he followed the Silk Road to the East. He studied martial arts in the Eastern monasteries and served warlords in both Japan and China for a time. Somehow, in 878 CE, Marcellus turned up in Britain, of all places. Just when the Saxons, who had invaded that island themselves only a few centuries before, were in the fight of their lives against another invader—the Vikings."
"Whose side was Marcellus on?" Terry asked.
"No one's, at first, as far as we know," her mother answered. She frowned. "After the fall of Rome the Watchers weren't well-organized enough to keep someone following Marcellus all over the planet. As a result, much of what we know was pieced together from other historical accounts. But here's what we do know: Marcellus fell in love," Christine said with a satisfied smile.
"Oh, man. Now I remember this part," MacNeil said, rolling his eyes and shaking his head ruefully. "The women at the office love telling the guys about this part."
"What?" Terry said, unimpressed. "That he fell in love? So what? Everyone falls in love."
Christine smiled at her daughter. "Sure, everyone falls in love. But not everyone falls in love and stays in love for one thousand years."
Terry's eyes went wide and her mouth dropped open. "Whoa! He stayed with the same chick for a thousand years? She was Immortal too, right? Had to be."
"Yes," her mother said, that satisfied smile still on her face. "Alodia was the daughter of a Saxon nobleman. She was a beautiful young woman...long red hair, green eyes, figure to die for. And she was a warrior; contrary to her society's traditions, and no doubt the over the objections of her family, she fought against the Vikings with the men." Christine paused, knowing she had her daughter on the edge of her seat, and munched on some of her salad.
"So what happened?" Terry asked. "How'd they meet? How'd they fall in love?" Like all sixteen-year-old girls, she adored stories of romance. Her father remained silent and rolled his eyes yet again.
"Well," Christine continued, "the story is a little sketchy. What we know is that Marcellus came across Alodia and a small group of Saxons fighting a much larger group of Vikings. Marcellus rode to their rescue and drove off the Vikings all on his own."
"Cool!" Terry said, smiling. "So he saved her life and swept her off her feet. Was she Immortal yet?"
"No," her mother answered. "That apparently happened a few days later. There was a huge battle between the Vikings and the Saxons at a place called Edington. The Saxons won, apparently with Marcellus' help, but Alodia died in battle that day. Later that night, she revived. Her family thought she was a demon, as usual with a new Immortal. They drove her off, banished her. Most new Immortals have to go through that ordeal alone, but Marcellus was there for her. He took her out of Britain with him."
"Wow..." Terry sighed, "that is just so romantic."
"Oh, Jesus," her father groaned, his eyes rolling.
"No swearing in this house, Mister," his wife scolded him. "Just for that, you get to clean up."
"So what happened next?" Terry asked as her father began to grumpily clear dishes away.
"They next appear in the Chronicles around a decade later in the South of France. Alodia was his student and, we think, his lover by then. A few years after that, in 891 AD, they were married in Carcassone. We know that for sure because it was a quickie ceremony and they needed two witnesses to make it legal. Guess who they grabbed off the street for that purpose? Their two Watchers!" Christina said with a laugh. "Can you imagine?"
"They must have been sweating bullets," MacNeil chimed in from the kitchen.
"Anyway...for the next few centuries, they traveled the world and seemed very happy. Here's the thing I found interesting: these two warriors nearly stopped participating in war altogether. Marcellus in particular hardly ever served as a soldier or general during that period—he also avoided being any sort of a statesman. They seemed to prefer living with common folk.
"They ran taverns and stables, farmed, traveled with trading caravans. They traveled extensively; they spent most of the sixteenth century in Asia, and visited the New World as well. They also didn't go out of their way to challenge other Immortals; we have more records of them making friends than enemies. It wasn't until the rise of Napoleon, and then the British Empire, that they got involved in wars and statecraft again."
"The British Empire probably reminded ol' Lucius of his glory days in Rome," MacNeil offered as he returned to the table.
"Maybe," Christine said, "but I think their new young friends may have persuaded them to join in as well. Especially Reginald Blount. He was their student and a British noble."
"Hmph," MacNeil grunted. "They weren't always together," he said.
"What's your point, David?" Christine asked with a raised eyebrow and a smile.
"Absence makes the heart grow fonder?" MacNeil offered, a dubious tone in his voice.
"You know where the door is, pal," his wife shot back, earning a giggle from Terry. Christine shrugged. "Of course they spent time apart. They probably got bored from time to time. They often parted ways for years, even decades. But they always got back together, and they spent more years together than they did apart." Christine then sighed sadly, and MacNeil seemed intent on studying a spot on the dining room carpet.
"Okay," Terry said during the pregnant pause, "why do I get the feeling this story doesn't have a happy ending?" Christine patted her daughter's hand and continued.
"I'm afraid it doesn't. In the late nineteenth century, Marcellus and Alodia were living in Mexico. They adopted a young boy named Antonio Sanchez and raised him as their son. It turns out he was an Immortal, and after he had an accident which brought this out, they then took him on as their student. In 1912, Sanchez was fighting in the Mexican revolution with Pancho Villa. Another Immortal, a five-hundred year-old Spaniard named Alberto Luis Ortega, apparently betrayed Sanchez' unit and, in the process, took Sanchez' head."
Christine paused. Whenever she thought about this part of Marcellus' story, she couldn't help thinking about her own beloved daughter and what she would do if anyone caused her any harm.
"So...one of them tracked down this Ortega guy, right?" Terry asked tentatively. She sensed from her parents' subdued tone that things had gone from bad to worse.
"Yes," Christine answered. "Alodia encountered him a few years later, in 1915. They fought and...she lost," she finished quietly.
"Bastard got lucky," MacNeil murmured. He pretended not to, but the romantic, tragic tale got to him every time he heard it too. "She was six hundred years older than him and more experienced. She should have taken him. Bastard got a lucky blow in somehow."
"That seems to be the case," Terry's mother agreed sadly. "Alodia's Watcher at the time was a woman who didn't know much about swordplay, and Ortega's didn't witness the fight, so it's hard to know for certain, but..." Christine paused and sighed. "Sometimes it happens, a younger, or less skilled, or less experienced Immortal manages to get the drop on an older one."
"How did Marcellus take it?" Terry asked, her young face saddened by the tragic story of the Immortal lovers. Her parents exchanged a worried look; Terry caught it. "What? What did he do?"
"Honey," MacNeil said after clearing his throat, "you know how we've always told you that the Watchers operate in secret, that none of the Immortals we watch know of our existence?"
"Only a gazillion times, Dad," Terry said as she rolled her eyes.
"Well," he said hesitantly, "that's...not entirely true."
Terry felt her stomach clench nervously. Though fascinated by her parents' stories of Immortals, she had come to realize that these extraordinary beings were dangerous; some were downright evil. She knew some Immortals had killed ordinary people who had discovered their secret. If they found out about a whole organization of mortals devoted to recording their activities, an organization that included some of the most important people in the world to her, including the two in this room...
"Dad, what do you mean?" she asked anxiously.
"Marcellus...knew about the Watchers," he said quietly. "The only Immortal who does...did. We know this because of his actions that day, when his wife was killed." He looked at his own wife. "Tell her. Don't leave anything out. It's time she knew. She's old enough."
Christine nodded and took a deep breath. "We had two Watchers planted as servants in Marcellus' household, a husband and wife team, the man primarily watching Marcellus, the woman Alodia. They were the ones to break the news to him. He accused them of withholding information. In particular, he accused them of knowing more information about Ortega than they let on. They denied this. And then...he tore open the sleeve of the husband's shirt and exposed his Watcher tattoo," Christine explained, her fingertips brushing against her own tattoo. "He said he knew all about the Watchers, our Chronicles, and our activities, that he had always known."
"'I've always known'," MacNeil quoted the century-old chronicle. "I remember being warned about this when I started with the Watchers. What the hell did he mean? Did he just know about those two Watchers, or did his knowledge go back further?"
"That's the million-dollar question, David," Christine responded. "But we don't know what he meant. And now we never will." She paused and sharply drew a breath before continuing. "He pulled out a sword and held it to the throat of the man's wife, the female Watcher. Marcellus told her husband to divulge everything he knew about Ortega—his aliases, his location, everything—or he would eviscerate the man's wife right there on the spot."
"My God," Terry breathed, wide-eyed. "What did the guy do?"
"What could he do?" her mother said with a shrug. "He told Marcellus what he wanted to know."
"So," Terry asked, "Marcellus went and whacked this Ortega guy, right?"
"Not for lack of trying," her mother told her. "Apparently Ortega didn't realize exactly who he'd killed right away, or who she was married to. But he ran into his teacher, Grayson, right after he'd killed Alodia."
"Whoa, Grayson?" Terry stopped her mother. "Isn't he one of the bad ones?"
"Not one of the good guys, that's for sure," Christine agreed. "Works as an arms dealer these days. Grayson apparently warned Ortega about Marcellus. Ortega went underground—disappeared. We've completely lost him ourselves; he's in the corkers file, though he hasn't resurfaced. Marcellus has been looking for him for years, looking for revenge."
"Maybe Ortega is dead," Terry suggested. "Maybe someone else got him."
"Possibly, but we don't think so," Christine said and shook her head. "Another Immortal would probably talk about it at least, or his killer's Watcher would probably have reported it. But that hasn't happened. No, I suspect the scumbag will pop up shortly once he finds out the man who was chasing him is dead," Christine concluded with a sad sigh.
"So he'll never have revenge for his wife and his son," Terry said sadly. "Is that why you two are so sad about this?"
"It's not that simple, princess, MacNeil said. "I know we're supposed to be objective, but we're human. You hear a story about a one-thousand year love affair, you can't help but be affected."
"Despite all put-on appearances to the contrary," Christine said to her husband with a knowing smile.
"Yeah, yeah," MacNeil replied, feigning annoyance. He wasn't about to share it with Terry yet, but one of his tactics he'd employed to woo Christine had been professing that their love would make that of Marcellus and Alodia pale in comparison.
"The thing is," he went on, "Marcellus became one of the good guys because of her. During the rise and fall of Rome, he was a ruthless, bloodthirsty bastard. 'Scuse my French," he said with a nod to his wife. "But when he met her, he swore off war, and taking heads, and just became this...regular guy. Your mother used to read me excerpts from some of his Chronicles from that period. His Watchers just loved him, he was so happy and generous and full of life." MacNeil shook his head. "And now he's gone, and his wife's killer is probably still alive, and Duncan MacLeod has to live with the guilt of taking a friend's head. There's nothing good here," he said quietly, "Nothing at all."
"Well, maybe Duncan will go after Ortega," Terry offered. "Y'know, a debt of honor?"
"I don't think so," MacNeil answered, shaking his head. "MacLeod's pulling out of the Game, apparently. Packing up his girlfriend and moving to the States to live quietly. After this, I can't blame him."
"This is really sad," Terry said, stating the obvious while blinking away a tear that had suddenly appeared in one of her hazel eyes. Her mother reached over and patted her hand reassuringly.
"It's tragic, Terry," Christine said, her voice quavering. "That's all that can be said. Come on, help me get dessert ready."
A few minutes later, the MacNeil family quietly finished some apple pie and ice cream—Terry's favorite—in silence, each lost in their own sad thoughts. Suddenly Terry turned to her mother and spoke.
"Mom," she said, "I know tomorrow's Saturday, but are you going in to the office?" Christine looked up from her dessert in mild surprise.
"I wasn't planning on it, why?"
"Well, if you were, could I come with you?" Terry asked. "I just...I'd like to read about them. About Marcellus and Alodia. I dunno," she said with an adolescent shrug, and cast her eyes back down to her dessert.
Christine exchanged a surprised look with her husband. Terry had always found their stories at the dinner table interesting, but had never shown an interest in reading those 'dusty old books' as she called the Chronicles. She'd always preferred her mother's fast-paced, abridged versions of the Immortals' lives.
"I suppose I could get a head start on closing Marcellus' Chronicle," she said. "Maybe you could help me with some of the research? Which would mostly consist of reading his and Alodia's Chronicles. I might even be able to convince the Watchers to pay you for your time."
"Really?" Terry said, her head popping up and a smile coming to her face. "Cool!"
"That's when it all started for me," Theresa told Marcellus as she took another sip of the tea he'd served her. "I wound up helping my Mom with the research, because there was a lot of material on you two. So I started reading your Chronicles. And you...you fascinated me. Not just because you're one of the last of the ancient Immortals or because of everything you did for Rome. You fascinated me because of the love story. This story about you and your wife, a thousand-year love affair. It really got to me, it touched me." She paused and took a sip of the tea.
"Especially when I saw how she changed you. The man who saw Rome rise and fall was a ruthless bastard, like my dad said. But the man who married Alodia...he was a good man. I admired him. I...wanted to meet him," she said quietly, and shot a quick glance his way. "Though I thought I never would, because you were supposedly dead. So I settled for being close to people like him, Immortals, hoping I'd find one like him one day."
Then Theresa turned to look at him. Her brown eyes regarded him with loathing. "But now I have met you and I wish I never had," she said, her disgust evident in her voice. "You're a shadow of that man in the Chronicles. You've been head-hunting non-stop ever since you resurfaced, something you hardly ever did when you were with Alodia. And now you're a goddamn drug dealer, selling poison to mortal kids! It's the same thing I saw with Lizzy Knight: someone you care about dies, and you go straight to hell."
Marcellus said nothing. Instead, he stood and walked over to stare at his late wife's portrait again, leaving Theresa to stare at his back. "We had a deal," he said a moment later, without turning around. "That I'd tell you how I faked my death."
"Yes," she said. Emotionally, she didn't really care anymore; intellectually, however, as a Watcher, she had to know.
"It was a simple matter, really," Marcellus explained as he turned around. "MacLeod owed me more than a few favors. On top of which, he wanted to pull out of the Game and be left alone. What better way to ward off other Immortals than convincing them you've killed one over five times your age? And that you've taken his Quickening, and all his knowledge and skill with it? It bought he and Tessa several years of peace together," he said with a wistful smile, remembering the lovely young Frenchwoman and MacLeod's love for her. He'd always thought of them as a married couple, and thought of the peaceful years they had together as his wedding present to them.
"He didn't like lying to Darius and Fitz," Marcellus continued, "but I convinced him it was necessary, and he was prepared to do anything for Tessa. Apparently he gave quite a performance; those years he spent training as an actor paid off. We set off a few fireworks inside the factory, and Bob's your uncle."
"So...MacLeod didn't have an affair with your wife?" Theresa asked uncertainly. As part of her fascination with Lucius Gaius Marcellus, she had become intimately familiar with the story of Marcellus' supposed death. Details of it had come to light through revelations by Darius, Fitzcairn, and especially MacLeod after the fact. Whatever other Watchers thought of his friendship with MacLeod, Dawson had added reams of missing details to the Chronicles in the past five years.
"Oh, no!" Marcellus replied, and chuckled to himself. "Alodia and Duncan? That's rich!"
"But the letters," Theresa reminded him.
"Oh, those," Marcellus said, still smiling. "Yes, Duncan did write those. Alodia used to read them to me; they used to send us into fits of laughter. MacLeod was not even out of his first century and was still quite the country bumpkin when he wrote those. Barely literate, too. That's why she kept them: they were a source of vast amusement through the years." He paused and looked at Theresa; she looked mildly offended, obviously thinking him rather cruel.
"Look, we didn't have cable back then, all right? Hmph," he grunted as he turned from her, "Well, it did get embarrassing after awhile. We eventually had to tell MacLeod to knock it off after fifteen years. The man never could take a hint, not when it came to, you know..."
"But the Watchers..." Theresa objected from the couch. "There were four there that night!"
"Were there?" Marcellus asked, his eyebrows raised. "And how many of them saw the fight?" Theresa's brows furrowed as she thought that over. "Owens stayed at the church," the Roman recounted. "Sullivan was near Fitzcairn outside. Dawson stayed in the van. The only one who saw anything..."
"...was Mick Porter," Theresa realized. She looked at Marcellus. "But he reported seeing your beheading, your Quickening..."
Marcellus walked back to his chair and sat down. He sighed and his face took on a sad, thoughtful look "How do you think I know all this? Mick Porter," he said quietly, "was my friend. And a good man." He turned his gaze to Theresa. "I deeply regret his passing. You can choose to believe that or not, but I do."
"You and Porter were friends?" Theresa asked incredulously. "And...the Watchers never found out about this?"
"Who watches the Watcher?" Marcellus asked rhetorically with a shrug. "I approached him and bought him a drink one night; that goes a long way with a Cockney, let me tell you. He wasn't completely surprised; you'll recall that I've displayed knowledge of your organization before."
"When your wife died," Theresa remembered.
"Yes," Marcellus replied a little wistfully, glancing at the painting again. "I admit, I first approached Porter out of sheer ruthlessness. I wanted to use him to see if the Watchers had any information on Ortega. It was as though the man had vanished off the face of the earth." He turned to Theresa. "You know he plundered the Aztec empire with Cortez, don't you? The man has gold stashed all over the world. So he had the resources to disappear like that. At any rate, Porter sympathized with my desire to avenge my wife. He'd read the Chronicles, as you did. I suppose he found our story affecting as well. But, he told me the Watchers had no more knowledge of the bastard's whereabouts than I did." Marcellus sighed, recalling the time he'd spent with Porter.
"Well, we became friends. I don't think I'd realized, in the sixty-some years since Alodia had died, just how lonely I'd become. I hadn't spent much time with old friends, or met any new ones; I just kept hunting for Ortega. Porter...helped me heal a little. He loved all my old stories; what Watcher wouldn't? And he had a few of his own to throw in. He used to be SAS, did you know that?" Theresa shook her head. "Mick was the one who came up with the idea."
"Of faking your death?" Theresa asked.
"Yes," Marcellus nodded and gazed intently into Theresa's eyes. "You asked how I'd faked my death, but you didn't ask the more important question, which is why. It was to draw Ortega back out. To make him feel safe again, so I could find him. A brilliant idea on Mick's part. I'm a little embarrassed I didn't come up with it myself; in my defense, I didn't want to put Mick in that position. But he offered."
"Whoa!" Theresa exclaimed. "You're saying that Mick Porter, a veteran Watcher in good standing, submitted a fake report? That he lied to the Watchers?"
"My dear," Marcellus said patiently, "let me ask you something. Suppose you were given the choice of betraying the Watchers or one of your parents. Suppose you'd discovered your mother had altered or even stolen a Chronicle. What would you do? Turn her in?" Theresa looked away from him and said nothing.
"I thought not. An organization, no matter how much you devote yourself to it, is still just a large, faceless entity. People are quite another matter. Mick Porter was my friend. He wanted to help me. And he had no great love for Alberto Ortega. Why are you so surprised? You know Joe Dawson, don't you? Look at all the things he's done for MacLeod—all out of friendship."
"But...why worry about deceiving the Watchers?" Theresa asked.
"Just to be on the safe side," Marcellus answered with a shrug. "In case Ortega knew, or found out about the Watchers."
"So, what now?" Theresa said, shaking her head, still finding it hard to accept everything he'd said, but sensing it was true. "Are you back in the Game because Ortega has resurfaced somewhere?"
"Have you ever wondered," Marcellus went on, seemingly ignoring her question, "why we Immortals keep using the same name over and over again? MacLeod hardly ever uses an alias, and mine—Lucas Marshall, Lucius Marcellus...don't you think it would be easier for us to cover our tracks if we used different names?"
"I guess," Theresa said, frowning. Where is he going with this? she wondered.
"Partly it's because no one other than the Watchers notices or cares, and few of us know about you people anyway," Marcellus went on. "But names have power. They remind us of who we are, where we come from. And the longer you live, the more attached you get to that name." He paused and stood up. "One of the largest crack cocaine operations in this city is run by a man named Albert Lewis."
Theresa shook her head. She was still several steps behind him logically, trying to connect the seemingly disparate dots he was talking about. Though she did recall 'Mr. Lewis' was the name the other drug dealers they had encountered that night seemed to refer to as the head honcho.
"So?" she asked.
"Albert Lewis. Alberto Luis Ortega." Her eyes widened, but then she frowned. "Oh, I have more evidence than just that flimsy coincidence. Suffice it to say I know that it's him. He's resurfaced, as I knew he would. Took him a decade, but he's back, trying to breathe the air like a free man again." Marcellus smiled wolfishly. "I can't wait to see the look on his face. Just before I chop off the head it's on, of course."
Suddenly, it all fell into place for Theresa. She closed her eyes and let her head fall into her hands.
"You're not dealing drugs," she said morosely.
"I believe I said that several times earlier tonight," Marcellus replied.
Theresa raised her head and looked at him. "You're trying to get close to Ortega," she said.
"Of course!" he replied passionately. "Just as I got close to Knight, and Jones, and Templar, and Markoff, and so many others whose heads I've taken since I resurfaced myself a year ago. Yes, I've been taking heads, because I've been settling scores, my dear. Mortals have courts to right their wrongs. Immortals do not. When an Immortal falls, only another Immortal can avenge him. That's what I've been doing. Not collecting heads for their own sake. I've been avenging my friends, my...my family," he finished, his voice reduced to a whisper.
"But...it won't bring them back," Theresa said. "They're gone, killing their killers won't fix that."
"Ah! That's where you're wrong, little Watcher," he declared. Theresa looked at him as though he was crazy. "They're here!" he said, thumping his hand against his chest. "Their Quickenings! I can feel them, feel them all inside me, if I just…close my eyes and let everything else go quiet. They're all here, inside me, in my heart," he said and placed his hand over his chest. "Except for my wife and my son. Ortega has them. He has no right to them. They belong with me. So I've come back, to claim these...shattered fragments of the ones I have loved from the scum who stole them from me," he said, then sat down heavily in his chair.
Theresa watched the ancient Immortal's gray eyes. She thought she saw a deep, tremendous loneliness there. She realized he was right, that their Quickenings would live on inside him as they had inside the Immortals who had first taken them. Perhaps that was all the solace he had left. Theresa took a deep breath and blinked away the tears that had formed in her eyes.
"I am...so sorry for what I said to you before," she told him. "I'm a fool. I'm a Watcher, but I'm blind," she said. "I don't know anything."
"Don't," Marcellus told her. "Don't beat yourself up. Life's too short, believe me, I'm an expert on that." Theresa looked up at him and laughed softly, as did he. "You are right, though, killing the killers won't bring them back." He took a deep breath and stared off into the distance. "For a thousand years, I lived for Rome. Then Rome fell and I was lost. I found Alodia and for a thousand years I lived for love." He sighed heavily. "For the last eighty years I have lived for vengeance. It's a cold, empty thing to live for. Ortega is the last. When I take his head...I don't know what I'm going to live for anymore."
"The Prize?" Theresa said. In response, Marcellus smiled and laughed bitterly.
"I cannot begin to tell you how disinterested I am in the Prize," he declared. "Whatever the hell it is. None of us truly knows. But I know I'm not worthy of it. I've lived too long, I've become...too cynical, too bitter, too ruthless. It should go to someone younger. Someone like MacLeod," he said, nodding. "MacLeod would be worthy of the prize. He's a good man."
"You're a good man," Theresa insisted. "You're worthy of it too."
"Well," he said, looking up at her. "That's the nicest thing anyone's said to me in a very long time, little Watcher," Marcellus said, smiling at her. "You're wrong, of course. But you're young."
"No, you're wrong. But you're old," she countered, and they both smiled.
"What am I going to do with you, little Watcher?" Marcellus asked her.
Theresa stared at him, trying to fathom his meaning. She knew he meant her no harm; if she'd doubted it before, she was certain of it now. Before her was, she felt certain, the man she'd read about in the Chronicles, the man who had inspired her to learn more about Immortals and eventually become one of their Watchers. But she sensed that he wanted her out of the way...out of harm's way. Well, too bad, she thought.
"Let me do my job," she said. "Until they reassign me or kick me out, I'm your Watcher. Let me watch. Let me come with you when you confront Ortega."
"Are you insane?" Marcellus said, then laughed derisively. "Ortega's men think you're a narcotics officer of some sort, remember? Bringing you along is a good way to get both of us killed! No. I think you should stay here until this is all over." He stood up and made a dismissive gesture at her, then turned to take his empty mug to the kitchen.
"No!" Theresa shouted angrily. She stood up from the couch and placed her fists on her hips. "Screw you, Citizen of Rome! You think just because you're twenty-five hundred years old that you can order me around? I'm a trained Watcher! I've followed other Immortals into dangerous places, and I'm not going to let a plum assignment like you waltz off without me tagging along! So unless you plan on chaining me to the bedpost, Mister, you better get used to the idea of having me around!"
Marcellus studied her, his gray eyes narrowing as she glowered at him. She had bravery, and spirit, this young woman; he'd remarked on it before, and her display of it now...it aroused him. It reminded him of Alodia. His eyes wandered down over her body and back up again, giving her a traditional, very intense once-over. The corners of his lips curled into a roguish smile.
"I could get very used to that idea," Marcellus said, his voice a low, husky murmur. He laughed softly. "Chained to the bedpost, eh? Funny, you don't seem the type."
He took a casual step towards her. Theresa stood, frozen in place, shocked at how the situation had shifted so suddenly; she was bewildered, uncertain how she should react. Her body had been aroused to anger a moment before. The pounding of her heart in her chest now made her suddenly aware of her body, aware that she had nothing on but a thin cotton t-shirt, and he had nothing on but black silk pajamas.
She was locked inside a warehouse basement with an Immortal, a warrior nearly a hundred times her age. She looked into his eyes, those ancient grey eyes that had seen empires rise and fall, that had seen more sunsets and sunrises than she could count, that had looked upon so many beautiful women and now looked upon her. For the first time in over a decade, she felt blood rise to her cheeks in a girlish blush. Her throat felt dry.
"I won't chain you," he said quietly, his head shaking slowly. "I want your hands to be free. Free to do whatever they wish." He took another step towards her. Then another. She didn't move away. "Free to touch, to hold, to caress..."
He was close now, his voice a barely audible murmur. Theresa could feel the warmth of his body from where it stood in front of her, perhaps no more than a foot away. His eyes were narrow as he studied her face through his lashes. She recognized the scent of his cologne: Eternity. How appropriate. She was breathing deeply now; she could feel her breasts rising and falling behind the thin cotton that covered them.
Of course she'd fantasized about him, this man who had loved one woman devotedly for a millennium, what woman wouldn't? But she had forced herself to forget those fantasies, to repress them, when she began her Watcher training. Now those fantasies, and the feelings they fed off, came back with a vengeance. Though she stood in a concrete basement room, her body suddenly felt very warm.
"You are so beautiful," he whispered. His hand slowly reached out towards her face. His fingertips touched her cheek, touched them more softly than summer rain. His fingertips glided over her lips, which parted slightly. She closed her eyes and shuddered as she released the breath she'd been holding, letting it caress his fingertips as it escaped. She could sense his face moving closer to her own. "So beautiful, and so young..." he whispered, his lips almost on top of hers.
"No!" she exclaimed, her eyes opening, as she stepped back away from him. Of course she was young, much younger than him, she always would be; she was a Watcher, not an Immortal. She backed away to the far end of the couch, standing so its full length was between them. "Oh God," she said, her hands held up in front of her, "I'm not even supposed to be here!" She looked at him. He seemed slightly stunned; he stood stock-still, watching her. "I'm sorry," she said, crossing her arms and holding them over her breasts, her head shaking back and forth. "I can't do this! I'm a Watcher! I'm your Watcher! This is...wrong!"
"I apologize," Marcellus murmured as held up one hand apologetically and directed his gaze at the ground in front of him. "I meant no disrespect." Theresa began to calm down, thankful he wasn't going to force the issue. His eyes lifted to look into hers once again. "You are very beautiful," he said, "and I..." he paused, and his eyes glanced at the portrait of the woman he'd loved for over a thousand years. "Well," he said, the corners of his mouth curving into a sad, rueful grin, "let's just say it's been awhile."
Theresa looked into his eyes and saw, once again, the loneliness she'd seen there before. She saw the desperate need he had to reach out, to connect with another being, and she saw the fear he had of having that connection broken. She looked into his ancient gray eyes and felt as small and as insignificant as she did years ago, looking up at the Milky Way from a grassy knoll in the Hamptons when she was a girl. No matter how long she lived, no matter how many people she herself lost, she could never know, could never approach the monumental loneliness of this man. At that moment, she suddenly knew that she could refuse him nothing. She was sure he knew it, was sure he could see it in her eyes. Her body, her very soul, were his for the taking. A word, a gesture, and she would be his.
They stood in silence, eyes locked, for a very tense moment. Then he spoke. "We should both get some rest," he said calmly, and conflicting feelings of relief and disappointment washed through her. He paused for a moment, then walked around the far end of the couch, away from her and into the hallway. "Turn out the light when you go to bed, Theresa," he said gently over his shoulder. "We'll talk about Ortega in the morning." He walked into his bedroom and closed the door.
Theresa slowly lowered her body to the couch. She wrapped her arms around herself, crossing them over her breasts, and took a deep breath and released it. She sat there, calming herself, for some time. A few minutes later she rose, turned out the light, and returned to the spare bedroom. She fell onto the bed and fell asleep almost the moment her head hit the pillow. She had not locked the door behind her this time.
Across town, in a West side suburb given over to large, pricey homes on expansive grounds, stood a three-storey, century-old brick building that had once been a very exclusive private boy's school. Ivy covered the bottom half of the former school, and the building was surrounded by several hectares of grassy parkland, which was in turn surrounded by a tall brick fence, recently topped by electrified wires.
The school had been converted to a luxurious private residence a few years back by a wealthy software tycoon. He had been forced to sell it two years ago when the software industry's dominant company suddenly decided to compete with his company's product. It now belonged to one Albert Lewis, who supposedly owned an import and export firm. That was not far from the truth—Lewis actually ran the largest drug operation in town.
Lewis had begun his climb to the top of the local drug world three years earlier, ruthlessly eliminating his competitors until no one was left to challenge him. He rarely emerged from his secure estate except when necessary to oversee his multi-million dollar illegal business operation. He had no fear of competitors; he had eliminated any who could have posed a threat to him. If he feared anything, it was others of his kind: Immortals.
Alberto Luis Ortega had only recently assumed the alias of Albert Lewis and resumed living openly among others. For decades he had lived in hiding, anonymously, in fear of the wrath of the man whose wife and adopted son he had killed: Lucius Gaius Marcellus. The ancient Roman was more than two thousand years older than Ortega, and Ortega's teacher, Grayson, had warned him of the man's tenacity and deadly fighting skills. So Ortega had hidden, often living in miserable poverty to ensure his anonymity.
But Marcellus was dead. Ortega hadn't believed it at first; he still wasn't sure he completely believed it. But over a decade had gone by, and no one had reported seeing him. The Immortals who had witnessed his Quickening were among the most honorable and honest of their kind, and Ortega had recently acquired confirmation of Marcellus' demise from another source. Besides, Ortega had grown weary of the hiding and running. So he had emerged from his anonymous hiding places and lived in the opulent, illicit comfort befitting a modern drug lord.
Still, it was prudent to keep one's skills sharp. Which was why, this evening, Ortega stood in the large, refurbished gymnasium of the former school where he now lived. Large lightning rods had been installed in the gymnasium, their heavy metal shafts penetrating the earth beneath the room to capture and dispel the excess energy thrown off by a Quickening.
A few yards away from Ortega stood another Immortal, sword in hand, nervously facing him in combat. Around the edge of the gymnasium stood Ortega's four most trusted lieutenants, including Robert Duke, all of whom knew of his extraordinary nature. Each stood in the center of one of the gym's four high walls, their backs against the painted cinder blocks..
"Come on!" Ortega beckoned to the Immortal before him. In his right hand, which was covered by a black dueling glove, Ortega held a blade of the finest Castilian steel, forged in Toledo four centuries ago. Ortega wore a loose white shirt and black pants. His jet-black hair formed tight curls on top of his head, and was cut severely short on the sides and back.
The Immortal opposite hesitated, glancing around the room at the four men witnessing this event. Each man held a gun. A few minutes earlier, the Immortal had attempted to run and escape. One of Ortega's lieutenants had shot him. When the man revived, he found himself back in the middle of the gymnasium, facing his irascible opponent. The Immortal reached up and brushed sweat away from his forehead, beneath his mop of short blond hair.
"I don't want to fight you," he protested.
"Then you'll die," Ortega replied, a nasty smile on his face. He stepped towards his opponent, his sword tip dancing from side to side.
"I'll die anyway!" the Immortal protested. "Your men will kill me!"
"Maybe," Ortega said with an amused shrug. "Maybe not. If you kill me, someone in this room gets a promotion. Now come on!" Ortega swatted at the man's Ivanhoe sword with his rapier; the blades rang out as they clashed.
Ortega's words weren't entirely true. His lieutenants knew that if Ortega died, they would end up on a turf war with one another to claim his empire. None of them was an Immortal. They were all middle-aged, wealthy, and comfortable. If Ortega lived, the status quo was maintained. They also knew that the lieutenant who drew a sword to cut off Ortega's head would probably get three bullets in his back from the others for his trouble. So they watched, eyeing each other and the two Immortals in the middle of the room a little uncomfortably.
In the center of the gymnasium, the battle was finally on. Ortega swung his sword in a series of skillful attacks which his opponent desperately parried. Ortega stopped, his opponent backed up, and the two Immortals circled one another.
"Come on," Ortega said with a smile, beckoning to his opponent, "show me what you've got!"
The other Immortal ran towards him, shouting angrily, swinging his sword to Ortega's right. The Spaniard parried; his opponent countered to his left. Again Ortega parried easily. He quickly slashed his sword tip down across his opponent's body. The other Immortal screamed in pain as his right thigh was cut open.
Ortega danced back. He held his arms open wide, inviting the injured Immortal to attack. His opponent grimaced, then swung wildly at Ortega. The Spaniard laughed and jumped back, easily avoiding the blade. The man lunged and Ortega side-stepped, parrying with a downward blow. He then slashed back towards his opponent and cut open the man's shoulder. The man yelled in pain and dropped his sword.
"You're not even trying!" Ortega snarled in disgust as the blond Immortal picked up his sword with his left hand. Ortega rolled his dark eyes. The man took a limping step towards him and lunged. Ortega contemptuously parried the blow and drove his sword tip into the man's heart. The blond Immortal's mouth dropped open, and his eyes widened in shock and pain. Ortega withdrew his blade and his opponent dropped to the floor, dead.
Ortega signaled for his lieutenants to draw near. As they walked closer to him, he casually tossed his sword to one.
"Cut his head off when I'm gone," he told the man. "Then get rid of the body."
"Don't you want his…whatchimacallit?" Duke asked.
"His Quickening?" Ortega responded contemptuously. He stepped towards Duke. "A Quickening is the sum of an Immortal's knowledge and power. This fool," he said, gesturing dismissively at the other Immortal's corpse, "has neither. All I'd get for my trouble is a headache and the shakes for an hour." Ortega turned to leave the gymnasium. He signaled for Duke and another man, slightly younger and more slender than Duke, to follow him. "Robert, have you found out anything else about this…what's his name…Marshall?"
"Nothing," Duke said, shaking his head as he followed his boss. "If he's a fed, he's new. No one knows anything about him."
"You think he's a cop?" Ortega asked. They left the gymnasium and began to walk down a long hallway lined with paintings and sculpture.
"He had that woman working with him," Duke replied. "Used that flash grenade to haul her ass out of there. That sort of heroics has cop written all over it."
"What do you think, Andrew?" Ortega asked the other man.
"There is another possibility," Andrew Howard said. He had short black hair, just starting to gray at the temples, and bright blue eyes. He wore a crisp blue suit, white shirt, and an Ivy League tie. He looked like the chief of staff for a congressman rather than a lieutenant for a drug lord. "He could be an Immortal."
"And the woman?" Ortega asked.
"Yet another Immortal?" Howard said with a shrug.
"We don't work in teams, Andrew, you know that," Ortega responded as he turned a corner and continued down another hallway. "It's against the Rules of the Game, remember? Even when Lady Alodia came after me, she came alone."
"She could be a Watcher," Howard said. Ortega stopped and turned to look at him.
"One of yours?" Ortega said, his eyes narrowed.
Howard nodded. Unconsciously, his right hand brushed over the Watcher tattoo concealed beneath the left sleeve of his suit jacket and shirt sleeve. Howard had made a deal with Ortega just over two years before: in exchange for being allowed to watch the Immortal—and living a comfortably extravagant lifestyle—he fed Ortega exclusive information from the Watchers about other Immortals.
"No, that makes no sense!" Ortega said, frowning. "Why would he bother saving her? You have contact with me, but the Watchers forbid that. He wouldn't have known who or what she was."
"Maybe he knows about the Watchers. More of you Immortals do these days. And if she talked, she might reveal who and what he was," Howard suggested. "Or maybe he's just one of the chivalrous ones, like MacLeod."
"Maybe," Ortega said with a nod, then continued walking down the hallway. "But I'm inclined to agree with Robert on this—it sounds like a couple of cops to me. Still, look into it. Contact the Watchers and find out if there's an Immortal named Marshall with a female Watcher. And Andrew…" Ortega paused, stopping in his tracks again and turning to his Watcher lieutenant.
"Sir?" Howard responded nonchalantly.
"Try to find me a better sparring partner next time, will you?" Ortega said in a mildly annoyed voice. "This one…what's the expression…sucked. Good night."
Howard nodded, but Ortega had already turned away and walked into his bedroom, closing the door behind him, leaving his two lieutenants in the hall. They looked at one another briefly, with the sort of silent glance that spoke volumes between two men who worked together but may someday be rivals. They then parted, each heading in a different direction in the huge refurbished school-turned-mansion.