TWO - Him
The Ancient Rome.
45 BC.
The Legions had departed to Egypt under the command of Julius Caesar. For some it was a glorious day in which the army would reaffirm its dominion of the territory ruled by Cleopatra. Caesar's detractors, on the other hand, claimed that all that mattered to the Emperor was his physical relationship with the Queen of Egypt. The most radical of them even dared staining the good name of Mark Antony, the emperor's closest, by arguing that both men had an intercourse with the woman, and among themselves.
But none of that mattered to Pyro Artorius. There he was, cradling the ravaged body of his beloved Aretea, as sorrow corroded him. While he was farewelling the Emperor, an obligation under his position as advisor of Caesar, thieves - or maybe some political opponent to Caesar - had entered his dwelling, and raped and killed his dear wife.
He glanced up, feeling a sensation in his head. Now was a fine time for immortals to call in. At the door, a female silhouette appeared, barely visible by the increasing blinding harsh daylight, and he let out a furious shriek:
"HERETIC!"
-----
London.
Present Day.
Clarice woke with a start, completely soaked in sweat, feeling how the humidity made the atmosphere unbearable. It was very warm. She worriedly looked around, only to find herself alone amid the darkness of her apartment. It had been a dream, a vision of the past life of Pyro Artorius, the immortal she had beheaded. She gazed out at the moon, so full in its white emptiness, then scratched her wet hair and took off the black nightdress she was wearing. Completely naked, she went to the shower for a bath.
-----
On the opposite street's rooftop, a man was taking photographs of Clarice, taking advantage of the latest advances in night vision lenses. He could feel under his jeans his reaction to her nudity. He wondered if he should not be used to it by now. For he had a room full of pictures of her. Sleeping, getting dressed, making love with occasional partners, walking to work and, of course, fighting immortals.
It was indeed a mad obsession. It had all began as work. He was paid a minimum for keeping an eye on an immortal. He was young when he had started. It was shortly after the soccer World Cup took place in the States, and after witnessing two immortal women in a battle. The watcher - for that was his job - of the woman who lost knocked him down and next thing he knew was the eternal secret of the existence of immortals. The man faced him with a choice: he could live and join the group of watchers, or he could die.
Clarice Minon had been her second assignment. The first one was a British guy who lost his head in France. He had never been to Europe and he found it mesmerising. Then they told him he would have to watch her. And he had done so, relishing every second of gawking into the intimacy of such a beautiful woman.
But somewhere in the way he fell in love with her. And suddenly the oath he had made against ever revealing the organisation he worked for, or contacting the very immortal he was supposed to only watch, meant squat to him. Like the position in IBM he had turned down upon his return to the States, which the Watchers had allowed him to take.
Instead, he had called in at the residence she shared with Gregory Briggs, in response to a newspaper advertisement requesting someone who could help them with the young kids they had taken under their wing. He claimed he wanted to do something away from the computer world, and that doing it for free would make him feel fine. Actually, he felt fine only by seeing her close.
They got along, and though he wanted Briggs out of the way - not dead though, merely out -, he knew that it would kill her. Until the dreaded day in 1997, everything was OK. That day, he followed Clarice carefully to the shop and back, and ghastly watched the aftermath of the massacre occurred that day. The five kids, which he liked a lot, dead, just like Briggs. He never dared appearing before her again...
Marcus Lecter passed a hand over his growing brow to wipe out the sweat that was tripping down. He was not young anymore. He was close to his forties and the mat of red hair he had once had was gone, replaced by an almost totally barren head, in which only a small mat of orange and white bristles remained. His wife had dumped him five years ago for believing Clarice was his lover, after having found some pictures of his assignment. In hindsight, it was better that way. He had never let her into the secret of his true employment, and his spouse still believed he worked for a computer company.
On the opposite street, Clarice was returning to bed, without any clothes and with her blonde curls and slender body wetted. Marc shook his head and started taking photographs again, wishing he had the chance to join her. He wouldn't have it. Not now, and maybe never... but he doubted she had a lot of time ahead of her.
Clarice had got herself into heavy stuff, the sort of stuff that goes beyond anything permitted. There was only one other immortal that had dared do something so outrageous, and that eternal person had been beheaded soon after. And only the Lord - or Satan maybe - knew the full consequences of it. He had cried and wept like a child when he saw her commit the wrongful act, foreseeing a coming apocalypse. But he was still there, and so was she.
He glanced at his trusty cellphone, the same one he had owned since he joined the organisation. After that day, that dreaded Rubicon he could not forget, he had phoned Joe for help, hoping to find relief there, but he only conveyed his panic to the other...
-----
Paris, France.
Winter, 1997.
"Yeah?"
Joseph Dawson had been playing his electric guitar. He was not trying B.B. King, or Clapton, not even the late Byron. He was merely jamming, improvising, something that helped him shake off the cold. The bar was empty and the phone had startled him, echoing ghostly under the notes.
"Joe? This is Marc Lecter."
"Hey Marc! How's it going?"
Marc was a fine chap. He had met him a couple of years ago. Joe was watching his assignment, Duncan MacLeod. Lecter was watching his. Unfortunately, Marc's immie lost a battle. Now he was watching Clarice Minon, a very interesting jewel for what Joe could tell.
"Going. How're you and your buddy MacLeod?"
Everybody knew now that Joe and Duncan were friends. The fact that Joe had broken his oath had cost him dearly, but there had been many others who had unfulfilled their word in most terrible ways, so he managed to remain in the organisation.
"I don't know. He's been out of sight for quite a while..." Joe halted, feeling pain upon the evocation of the reason MacLeod had vanished.
"I read your report on Ryan's death... is all that Zoroastrian theory true?"
A cold shiver ran through Joe's back. He glanced at the door and for a second, everything seemed to turn red. He closed his eyes and blanked his mind. Then he opened them and focused on a bottle of gin near him.
"I don't know..." he whispered. "How can I help you?"
"I screwed up, Joe."
Marc sounded worried. Okay, Joe thought. What could have happened?
"What did you do, buddy?"
"I got in touch... with Clarice."
Joe grinned, glancing up at the rooftop in relief. Many a thought had ran through his head while trying to guess what had occurred. He remembered when he had been told to give Marc his new assignment. The kid had gazed at the picture and whistled cheerfully in recognition of her beauty and left the bar in a happy mood, unlike the gloominess he had brought with him upon the death of his other assignment.
"It's nothing I haven't done, and you know it. Just don't go to the extreme of helping her corner other immortals."
Joe allowed himself to grin. Do what I say but not what I do. He had helped Duncan MacLeod and even the late Richie Ryan find another immortals. But it had been due to special circumstances.
"No. I'd been helping her and Briggs with the kids."
Marcus sounded concerned. Joe was worried. And why did he say I'd been and not I've been?
"Okay. Tell me what happened." He demanded.
"I followed her to the market and when she returned... their house was fallen down... the kids were dead... and..." his words came out hurriedly, almost as if he were choking.
"Calm down. Did she die?" Joe articulated every syllable stiffly.
"No... but I wish she were..." Marc's voice cracked and Joe could hear the pain,
"Marc... you're scaring the shit out of me."
"I'm fucking scared, Joe. If what the records say it's true, then..." Marc silenced to give way to sobs that shattered Joe's composure.
"Marc!" he bellowed. "What happened?"
And the rant began...