Swordbearer

By Vega

Standard Disclaimers Apply

Chapter Eighteen: "Hallucinations"

October 31st, 2006 - midnight

I just wanted it to be over with.

Take my head or not, I don't fucking care.

Just stop speeching at me.

"I dunna remember yae bein' such a whiner," Donnell said in my ear.

"I've had a bad few weeks. Shut up," I hissed back. "You're dead."

"An you'll be to, if ya nae draw yer sword and kill this grey rat."

"...stain upon all the word! I will erase you abominations from the face of..." chattered the man in the Grey Suit.

"Abs?" Adam hissed out of the side of his mouth. "Who the hell are you talking to?"

"Dead husband," I said. "Not now."

Adam's skin was turning a funny dusty colour and I wondered if he was going to keel over soon. I wondered if I was going to keel over soon.

If the poison didn't kill me within the next five minutes, this poncey bastard's rant just might.

"Right," I said. Out loud. I pointed at Grey Suit, who looked annoyed that I had interrupted his Klan moment. "You, shut up and fight." Then I pointed at Donnell. "You shut up and go back to wherever it is that ghosts go."

"Ya canna be rid o'me that easy," he said pleasantly, hands folded behind his back. "I'm waitin' for yae."

"So what, I'm gonna die?"

"Maybe."

"Fuck that," I said, and lunged at Grey Suit.

He was almost too shocked by my supposed talking to thin air to parry properly. Almost. He spun out of the way, sword smacking lightly against my own, and the forward momentum of my thrust sent me skidding clumsily along the asphalt.

Well, you try swordfighting while you're being poisoned to death.

Adam was mildly more successful, getting in a few good blows before Grey Suit cracked him on the back of the neck. Adam hit the pavement nose first and I heard it crack. Aw. And it was such a cute nose, too.

Both of us were laid flat on the ground, unable to muster the strength to pull ourselves up. My world was swaying, getting darker. Donnell stood patiently at the edge of my vision.

"I never loved you," I told him.

"Yer a liar and ye know it, lass," he said back.

"What?" Adam gagged around a face-full of gore.

"Oh, not you. I still like you fine. You. Father made me marry you, but I never loved you. I was happy when you died."

He smiled. "Yer still a liar."

"It didn't hurt to lose you," I insisted.

"Still lyin' lass."

I heard the scrape of a blade ring across the ground. I could feel is shake the asphalt, careen up my spine, making my teeth rattle with the vibrations. It was getting closer, slowly, purposefully coming towards me.

And the arm that wielded that blade belonged to a man who hated me just because I existed.

"Where is that delightful little sonofabitch, Small?" Grey Suit asked. I felt the live edge of sword slip through my hair, shaving off a few locks. "We still have so much to discuss."

"Watching," I hissed, before turning my attention back to Donnell. "I am not lying. It didn't hurt to loose you. You meant nothing to me, and when you died I didn't feel a thing."

"It tore yae apart to realize tha' I died and ye lived, lass, and there was nothin' yae could do tae bring me back. Tae share what ye had."

"No."

"It hurt when I died."

"No."

"An know yae won't love another for ye fear ta loose them, too. Ya fear the hurt."

"No."

"Yes," said Grey suit. "I am going to take your head."

"Oh, shut up," I snarled at him and swung my sword up. The tip grazed along his cheek and split the skin. Grey Suit took a startled step back. He raised his hand to his face, touched the cut and winced, then stared at the blood on his fingers. "What, never bled before?"

"Oh, do die," he said and raised his sword above his head.

I closed my eyes.

Donnell said nothing.

Someone fired a gun.

A sword clattered to the ground beside my head. Hot liquid splashed onto my face.

I opened my eyes.

Grey Suit was clutching his hand around a bloody jumble of raw meat. Which used to be his other hand. Oh, ew.

I looked down my nose towards where I had heard the gunshot go off. Garret stood there, arm still slightly askew from the kick of the revolver he held. His tattoo was stark against his pale skin. He looked about as sick as I felt.

"Ah, there you are," Grey Suit hissed at Garret. "Took you long enough to come save your bed-warmer."

"Shut up!" Garret snarled, at the same time as Adam's "Hey!" and my "I'm not warming his bed!"

Grey Suit rolled his eyes around his frothing grimace of pain.

"Kill her, Small," Grey Suit said. "Kill her and prove your allegiance to us."

This time Garret rolled his eyes.

"You've gotta be kidding me," he said. "Who the hell wrote your script? Hamilton Deane?"

"Kill her!" Grey Suit screeched.

"I've told you," Garret said, straightening his arm. "I want no part of you guys. I'm a Watcher. I want Immortals to exist. It's a damn good paycheque."

Adam groaned, tried to roll over onto his back, failed, and groaned again. "What the hell kinda job are you doing that it's a good paycheque? I was in the wrong field."

"Besides," Garret went on, "I'm kind of partial to that one."

"Yes, the one who slept with the first Immortal to come along."

"Hey!" I said.

"The lad has a point, ye keen," Donnell noted. "An why an Immortal over the Watcher lad when ye were just as keen to be with the boy? Cause he couldna die on ye?"

"I get the point, stop twisting the knife!" I snapped at my dead husband.

"I don't care," Garret said. "It doesn't matter. I still love her."

"Fuck, I hate this part," Adam groaned, shuddered once, and fell still.

"Goddamn it," I hissed.

And Grey Suit was still fucking bleeding on me.

"Small, I warn you," Grey Suit snapped. "If you are not with us, you are against us. We will wipe them off this planet and then we will go after the Watchers who tried to protect them. They are monsters."

"You know, I've heard this speech before," Garret said. His fingers tightened on the butt of the gun briefly. Squeeze, relax, squeeze. "Didn't do much to convince me then. Not doing so much on the convincing now. Your threats, your bribes. It's all as superfluous as ...as..."

"As rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic," I provided helpfully.

"Ooh, good line."

"Thanks."

"Fine then. I'll kill you," Grey Suit snarled. Well, at least he had changed tactics, a little.

I slapped him feebly with the flat of my blade. If I'd had the coordination and the strength, I would have chopped off his leg. Eh. "Hey, fuck off," I said. "Leave my damn Watcher alone."

Garret blinked at me. "I thought you hated me."

"I do. I just don't particularly want to see you dead."

"So are you still mad at me?"

"Kinda," I admitted. "Not as much."

"There, that wasna hard now, was it?" Donnell goaded.

The man in the Grey Suit screamed in frustration and bent to retrieve his sword with his non-mangled hand. Garret fired again. The bullet flew over Grey Suit's head. It was a warning shot.

If it had been me, one warning was all this asshole would have got. One warning shot to the hand.

In the distance, I could hear the beginnings of the thin whine of police cars. About damn time. Someone inside the bar must have heard the first gun shot.

Wasn't entirely sure how the cops would come down on this one. Adam was already dead, so would Grey Suit be charged with attempted murder, or full on first degree manslaughter? After all, Adam wasn't going to stay a corpse forever.

Grey Suit heard the sirens too.

He dropped the sword and staggered towards Adam's body. He gripped Adam by the back of his tinfoil and tugged on Adam's empty sword sheath.

"Don't just stand there, you fool!" Grey Suit snarled. "Help me!"

There was a meaty thunk. Garret dropped to the ground. Blood bloomed on the back of his head. He was still breathing, but in shallow pants. The gun fell from his lax fingers, lanced into Adam's leg, and stopped.

That was gonna sting when Adam woke up.

If he woke up.

Behind Garret's prone form stood Professor Martin stood, face pale and nervous looking, holding a blackjack.

"Well fuck me sideways," I said. "I thought you liked me."

Then breathing became too hard so I decided to stop.

Together, the two mobile humans grabbed Adam and shoved him in an idling car nearby. Grey Suit stripped off his tie and wrapped it around his bloody appendage.

Professor Martin tried to get behind the driver's wheel, and Grey Suit shoved him off and slid in himself. Martin scurried for the passenger side, and barely made it before Grey Suit jammed the gas and the car squealed away.

I couldn't even roll myself enough to catch the licence plate number.

Or the colour, cause, hey, dying.

Adam's Ivanhoe lay neglected and forgotten on the pavement. A long, naked scrape ran up the side, from where he had drawn it against the brick wall.

That would need to be pounded out later. Or industrial-strength sanded. Shitty, it had been a nice looking blade.

Well, wasn't this night just going peachy. Oh, yes. Best damn Hallowe'en Howl ever.

I turned my eyes to Donnell. He smiled fondly.

"Are you a poison-induced hallucination?" I thought at him.

"Aye, probably," he said.

Then I died.