FOUR - Help
London.
Present Day.
Clarice shivered as she shook her palms together. Autumn annoyed her. For one day it was warm and unbearable, and the next was cold and windy. Like that night, with the first advances of winter mercilessly making her quiver. Not even the thick wool sweater she was wearing under the ever-present long warm coat saved her from it. And she had ran out of cigarettes. The bench she was sitting on was stone cold, and the Tube was taking a lot to make it to the station.
There was no one else on the station, neither on this side or the other. The train she was expecting was the last of the day, and she had to fetch it in order to avoid forking out a taxi. Her savings had been done a couple of years before and her current job, as a hotel clerk, did not pay enough for her to afford a long trip in a cab.
She heard the distant whine of the metal wheels whirring against the rails, approaching the station. Surreptitiously, she felt something else. She stood up and slowly paced towards the edge, as the wagons came out of the tunnel. The subway decreased its march. Clarice examined the passing faces, hoping not to spot there the immortal she had sensed.
The doors opened and two passengers - an elder priest and a teenager made up in the new romantic fashion - got off. She walked in and plopped into a seat. The doors closed and the train started moving. She sighed in relief, glad of having escaped an encounter. Then she suddenly stood up, sensing she was wrong. There was somebody there.
The feeling came from her left, and it was moving towards her. She rose and drew out her rapier, lashing out to the air to warm her muscles. Then he appeared. A tall, well-built man, with long black hair, darkened skin and a glowering pair of black eyes. Clarice shivered upon his looks.
He smirked viciously and produced a large broadsword from under a beige mackintosh that seemed too small for him. The hilt of the weapon seemed to have a design akin to that of the Egyptian sphinxes, sculpted in golden metal, if not gold itself.
"Heretic..." he hissed.
Clarice spread her legs and bent her knees slightly, as she stood in profile and raised the sword above her head. The other gave a calm step, then another, before rushing towards her. His first blow was a chop that missed her. She took distance, always on guard. He thrust at her neck. She opposed her blade, but his strength was such that she found herself pushed against the floor, struggling to keep her balance while containing the violent attack.
The other began to guffaw. She felt weak against him. Never had she faced such a strong opponent. His blade began to overcome hers, and the tip of it grazed her throat. A minute cut cleared the way for a small amount of blood that started to ooze out. The man lifted up his blade and made it fall again harder on her. She fell on her knees, still blocking.
An inaudible sound made Clarice fear beyond her senses. She fixed her eyes on the waging blade she owned, and saw how a disturbing crack in it grew bigger. Not now, she prayed silently. He put up the blade and chopped down fiercely yet again. Her rapier broke and his sharp weapon slashed her shoulder and left breast. She squawked as she instinctively dove away from him.
"Damn!" she cried, tossing the useless weapon and holding her wound.
The train started to slow down. That meant that it was close to the station. She might have a chance to get away, provided always she could distract her opponent for a time enough for her to do it.
"Who are you?" she queried in a painful hiss.
"I'm Logozz."
Logozz. Only that? What sort of name was that? Probably one of a very old immortal, in the days before memory, when surnames were still unnecessary.
"Why... are you after me?" she gasped, feeling how the wound stopped its bleeding.
"You have broken the Rule!" he bellowed preternaturally. She could sense a purpose in him, something she had never sensed in the other immortals.
"The Rule? But there's more than one Rule." She tried to argue.
"There is only one Rule." Logozz uttered.
The train entered the station. It braked and the doors opened. Clarice slowly walked off, being followed by the other. She studied him, trying to find anything that might help her. But she could not. This Logozz would not spare her head, not even if she were to offer herself, Maria Sharapova and all the other models from the Sports Illustrated calendar as his sex slaves for eternity.
The loud bang disturbed her as she felt something thin blowing past her ear towards him. Logozz shrieked while he held desperately his chest. Traces of blood started to appear through his coat. She turned, and noticed a man waving at her. He was tall, and had red and white hair. He resembled an aged version of Marc... but Marc was dead, wasn't he?
"Clarice, move!" he bellowed. He also sounded like Marc. Realisation dawned on her. She had never found Marcus' body. She had simply taken him for dead. But what in hell was he doing there? Now that he was by her, there was no doubt. It was Marc. "Move... he will wake up soon."
"Where?" she asked as she began to run.
"Anywhere but here..." he said as they ran up the stairs and emerged into the chilly streets of London.
They ran for two streets until Marc halted her by a public phone. He inserted a coin and dialled a number. She stared fondly at him while he waited for the call to connect, checking that Logozz did not show up.
"Adam? It's Marc... Deep st... Yes, it's Logozz... what did you want me to do? Let him kill her?... Three streets from Trafalgar Square... We need your help... Please..."
Marc hung up and shook his head. He glanced at her and looked away.
"Who were you talking to?" she asked.
"A friend. He's done some research on this guy Logozz. He might help us."
"You know...?"
"Yes. I know you are immortal. You've taken a head on holy ground and many immortals want your head." Marc stroked his head, feeling emotional distress.
"Where were you all this time?"
"I..." Marc stammered, deliberating whether to talk or not.
The whirr of a van startled them. Clarice eyed suspiciously at a black van that had parked nearby. She glared at Marcus, who seemed calm. Why? A thin man got off. Clarice did not know him. Whoever that immortal was, he was surely the friend that could help them.
"I'm Clarice Minon." She introduced herself when the man came close enough.
"Adam Pierson..." the other replied with a nod.
Marc observed suspiciously the scene. Pierson had always been too good with ancient languages for someone his age. Extremely good and, as a matter of fact, far better than anyone with a lifetime of study and analysis. Remarkable, but impossible for a mortal. Only now he gave it a thought, that Clarice introduced herself as she did when meeting another of her kind.
"Adam... you are immortal!" he snapped.
"I'm, Marc. Just don't spill the beans." The reply was calm, but his eyes gave away the concern. "Where is he?"
"I shot him. It should take a while for him to wake up."
"You don't know him." Adam mumbled as he motioned towards the van and glanced in the direction of the subway.
"And you do?" The mortal queried as he opened the passenger door of the van and climbed in.
Adam was about to get inside the car when Clarice grabbed his shoulder. He turned, finding an inquisitorial pair of eyes demanding answers. He shrugged, and then sensed the presence of Logozz, angrily erupting out of the Tube into the street. His sight posed on Clarice, whose stiff expression had morphed into something akin to fear. She silently pleaded for him, about something he could not know.
"My sword is broken... I can't fight him." She finally hissed.
"It won't make much of a difference." Adam replied. His eyes went past her to study the appearing shape of Logozz, now dressed in trims fit for the twenty-first century. A stirring feeling of nostalgia gripped him for an instant, evoking the very old days.
"Damn!" Clarice swore spotting her hunter.
"Come on!" Marc cried from the car. "We have to leave!"
Clarice and Adam did as told. They rushed to the vehicle, and he sat behind the wheel, while she dived into the backseat. The car, though, refused to start. Now Logozz' face was visible. His hard face had changed. Now he seemed calm, and not in the least anxious to attack. He stopped a few metres away from the van.
"What the f happens with him?" she snapped.
Logozz stretched his lips, and a broad grin posed on his face. She realised that quizzical gesture was not aimed at him. She glanced at the man she had just met, who was finally getting the car to work as he coldly fixed his eyes on the hunter.
"Move, Adam!" Marc bellowed.
Adam turned on the car and drove towards Logozz at a reasonable speed according to the circumstances. The Egyptian made a reverence at first, but then surprised when the van ran him over. He managed though to let out a one-word shriek, a word that Adam did not notice, but Clarice and Marc did.
"Death!"
-----
Daylight sneaked in through the closed shutters and rested on Clarice's closed eyes. She first opened her left eye, then the right one, and her mouth opened to yawn as her lids moved up and down repetitively. After thirty seconds or so of blinking, she rose from the bed and wearing only her underwear, went to the toilet adjacent, if within the same private space, to the bedroom.
She stared at her reflection. There she was. Clarice Minon, the immortal who had taken a head on holy ground and had a bunch of fanatics after her. And the blame could only be pinned on Gregory Briggs. But she felt she couldn't blame him. Not now that he was dead. Not ever. Even if he had not told her what immortality truly consisted in, her love for him - even in death - spared him her conviction.
She washed her face, returned to the bedroom, opened a drawer and found an array of feminine clothes. She changed her underwear, put on a new pair of jeans and a long-sleeved tee shirt. As she walked out of the bedroom Pierson had allocated her in, she wondered why he had woman clothes in his bedroom... would he be a drag? He found a large alley, flanked by the walls and at least other eleven bedroom doors. At the end of it, she recognised the stairs she had numbly walked up the night before, bewildered after having been closer to definite death than ever.
Clarice went downstairs and found a large door-window open. Her still-asleep mind awoke upon the ordinary feeling of an immortal around. She walked out to a balcony from which a large space beautifully covered with yellow leaves, furnished here and there by naked trees, could be seen. Leaning against the rail, sipping something in a cup, Adam Pierson was eyeing blankly at the scenario ahead of him.
"Good morning, Clarice." He said charmingly without turning.
"How did you know it was me?" She joined him at the rail. "It could have been any other of us."
"Not really." Adam sipped a bit more. "Your quickening emits a different kind of signal. It's... hard to describe... but it's peculiarly unique."
"Oh..." she shrugged. "Where's Marc?"
"I sent him to do some shopping. There's a bakery that makes some nice croissants. Expensive, but they are worth it."
"He didn't know you're immortal... but he knew about me and Logozz..." Clarice shivered due to the cold, so she stole the cup from Pierson's hand and drank. It seemed like tea, but it was something different... and awful.
"It's a special drink that was prepared in the Mesopotamia three thousand years ago. It was said that it could help you relax." Adam grinned as he took his drink back.
"So you're that old?" she taunted before waving at Marc, who was returning with a bag of things in his hand. A cold sweat ran through Clarice, remembering what had happened the last time she had gone for groceries for somebody else.
"That Frenchman is a thief!" Marc grunted, having in a rush climbed up the stairs and walked in.
"They are worth it, my friend." Adam grabbed the bag and went inside, followed by the others. "Besides, if you want them cheap, take the train and go to France." Adam stuck his hand and a large croissant came out with it, finding its dwelling place in the host's mouth.
"With that guy behind us, you eat croissants?" Marc groaned.
"You won't be able to stay alive if you die of starvation, will you? Remember you're not like us."
"You haven't answered my question." Clarice complained. "And... what's with you and Logozz? He knew you."
"And that thing he shrieked..." Marc added.
"Death." Clarice let the word in a rush. Adam finished his drink and sat at the table, extending his hands in an evident motion to join. She took the head, Adam at her left, and Marc at his left.
"I've had many names over the millennia. My real name is not important, but you may keep on calling me Adam Pierson. I'm more than five thousand years old."
"Damn bastard!" Marc snapped. "It's so damn obvious."
"What?" Clarice questioned.
"He's Methos."
The words fell like a hammer on Clarice. Methos, the legendary immortal said to be the oldest of them all. But if that was the case, if Pierson was Methos, and if the old immortals wanted her head, then why was he helping them? But first was something else.
"What... how do you know about immortals, Marc?"
The mortal looked away, scratched the few hairs he had and returned his eyes to Clarice. He glanced at Adam, who nodded with some resignation.
"I belong to an organisation called the Watchers. We've recorded the activities of immortals for a long time, never interfering with their lives... I was your watcher..." Marc's hand balled into a fist.
Clarice rationalised what he had said. She stood up, and abruptly went up to him and punched him in the face. Marc fell down and she jumped over him, hitting him with her hands. Adam grabbed her away as Marc remained on the floor.
"You son of a b! You could have helped Greg... you could have let me know!" she shrieked.
"Clarice..." Adam tried to calm her down, but she was hysterical, weeping disconsolately as she breathed heavily. He slapped her in the face. "Clarice!"
She touched where he had hit her and sat down again, shying away from the others into her folded arms, before beginning to cry again. Adam helped Marcus up, and he sat down too, feeling bad for her, and miserably guilty.
"I joined the watchers to find a way to keep track of some, and to remain away from other immortals." Adam continued, hoping the mood would improve something.
"The Horsemen." Marc gasped lowly, insisting. "Kronos, Silas and Caspian... Famine, War and Pestilence. Silas was reportedly defeated by an unknown immortal... the fourth horseman was never found." He grinned. "You are him... Death."
Clarice raised her head upon that. There was indeed something going on that she had no clue of.
"How do you know Logozz?"
Adam found himself cornered. He knew he had to speak if he wanted to keep the couple with him and alive, rather than away and at the mercy of Logozz. For he dared not think what might happen if Logozz took Clarice's head. If the legends were true, and so far they had been, then...
"Fine... well, the story starts about five thousand years ago..."