Swordbearer

By Vega

Standard Disclaimers Apply

Part Twenty-One: "Shish-kebab"

November 1st, 2006 - 5:23am

Grey Suit lunged for the dropped sword and I wondered why the hell he didn't have his own gun. Or snipers. Or help, for that matter.

This whole thing seemed rather poorly planned. Had he really been banking on the poisoned beer killing Garret and me, and just lopping my head off in the parking lot. Had he really not made any back up plans?

Had he really come after us with just Professor Martin as his back up?

Pretty fucking pathetic Dark Lord, if you asked me. He went down another five notches in my internal Potter-o-meter.

He was no longer Lucius Malfoy. He was now Goyle Sr.

If he proved himself to be any more stupid, I'd have to demote him to Draco, or worse, Filch.

Garret fired again and the bullet skimmed Grey Suit's ear. He jerked backwards, and Adam rolled onto his side, effectively pinning the sword under his ass. It wasn't the smoothest of moves, but it kept the deadly blade out of anyone's hands.

Garret only had a revolver –and where the hell did he get such an antiquated piece, anyway – so at most he only had four shots left. If he hadn't re-filled it after earlier tonight, then it left him with two.

Better to assume he only had two.

Right, my turn.

I drew my sword, gripped the hilt in both hands, and ran at Grey Suit.

"Fuck!" he shrieked, and skipped backwards, out of the way.

He had been a decent skill at the swordfighting when Adam and I had been weakened and slowed down by poison, but now I was healthy again, and pissed, and he was weaponless. Behind me I heard Martin begging Garret not to hurt him, and Adam shouting at Garret to shoot the son of a bitch in the foot.

Grey Suit tripped backwards again, trying to avoid my furious slashes. I wasn't aiming to kill him, just maim him. A lot. The blood began to blossom on his ruined hand again, and I knew that I had the advantage. He was ill from the shot, probably weak from blood loss.

All I had to do was whack him on the side of the face hard enough with the flat of my blade and it would be all over.

He ran, I chased. We left the others by the door. I could hear the beeps of Garret's cell phone number pad.

The distinctive tone for 9-1-1.

Adam was safe. Martin was cowed. Garret was in control.

All I had to do was get Grey Suit to stop running away from me like a terrified rabbit.

God, I am so arrogant and stupid sometimes.

He whirled around, let the momentum of my thrust carry me past him. There was a flat cracking sound. Stars burst between my eyes. The back of my head suddenly hurt, a lot, and I couldn't seem to focus on any coherent thought.

Had a gun, my scrambled grey matter managed to come up with. Underestimated. On the other side of the field. Too far from Garret. Dying now, ouch, ouch, ouch.

I fell.

Men who loved me both screamed. The ground trembled. Feet ran towards me. Too damn far away.

Shit, shit, shit.

Eyes closed. Couldn't get them open.

Shit!

Fingers fought with mine for the blade. The world was sinking. I was sinking.

"Oh, lass," Donnell whispered.

I refused to let go. The other fingers got more desperate as the feet pounded closer. My head fucking hurt.

I jerked.

The death spasm grabbed me and I thought, Fuck if I'm going alone!

I brought my arm up, slammed it into the air. The blade met resistance. Another spasm wracked me and I used it, used the electric shudder of my nerves to push the blade in further.

Grey Suit screamed. Someone else groaned.

I dragged my eyes open, sucked in my last breath.

Grey Suit was impaled on my sword, hanging limply, already dead.

Garret was behind him, an arm locked around Grey Suit's throat. He looked surprised.

"Ga...rreeeeh?" I managed to form a mockery of his name with my exhalation.

He coughed. Blood flecked his lips, dribbled down his chin.

"Abby," he whispered.

Death made me let go and they fell.

I could hear sirens in the distance.

"Someone gonna fucking untie me!" Adam shrieked, and it was the last thing I heard.

Oh, no, no, no I thought before I could think no more.

I woke in the back of an ambulance. It was rocking back and forth, making my already delicate stomach broil.

"Ugh," I said.

"She's awake," a paramedic shouted. "The bullet has been rejected by her body. Lift your head miss--" I did as he told and he reached behind me and plucked up the bloody bullet from the pillow. "Thank you."

He put the bullet in a plastic bag, checked his watch, marked the time on the bag, and set it aside. He changed the pillow and helped me to lay back down.

"That's disgusting, you know," I said. "All Wolverine-y."

"It came out of you," he replied, looking slightly startled.

"Which is why it's disgusting."

I closed my eyes to try to block out the nauseating vertigo.

Then I sat bolt upright. "Garret!" I screamed.

The paramedic's wide hand pressed against my chest, trying to get me to lay down again. I resisted and he gave up.

"Where's Garret?" I screamed.

"Mr. Small was airlifted to Hamilton General Hospital," the paramedic said soothingly.

"Will he be okay? Oh, god, Garrett..."

The paramedic looked away.

"Is that a no?"

"We don't know," he said. "His lung was punctured. He was drowning. They're doing everything they can."

"I killed my best friend," I whispered. Finally, I lay back down and the paramedic looked relieved. "Where are we going?" I asked him.

"Police station," he said. "They wanted to take you in a car. We wanted to take you to the hospital. We compromised – you have to go to the station now, but we made them at least let you go in an ambulance in case there were complications."

I scoffed. "I'm Immortal, what kind of complications could there possibly be?"

The paramedic shrugged. "Dunno. I've never seen anyone wake up after getting their brains scrambled," he said softly.

I wuffed out a laugh. "Remind me to tell you how much it hurts – in blatant detail – sometime."

The paramedic turned a funny shade of mint. "Er. No thanks."

The first thing I heard when I entered the police station downtown was Adam's voice shouting.

"You have got to be the dumbest man to hold a PhD in the history of the world!"

"But, but," Professor Martin burbled.

"This strange guy comes to you, says he heard you had aspirations to be a Watcher, and asks you for all the dirt on Abs and you just gave it to him!"

"He had Watcher ID!"

"Any jerk kid with a decent printer can have Watcher ID!" Adam snarled. "And any regular moron would have called the Hotline to confirm it! Didn't any warning bells go off when he asked you to help him kill us!"

"He didn't ask until after he had poisoned you. He just said that you two were in danger and we had to get you out of the city!"

Adam made an extremely angry sound. It was followed by a meaty thwaping sound and a body hitting to floor.

The police officer escorting me hurried over to the door that separated Adam and Professor Martin from the rest of the station. He opened it on an interrogation room. A mortal woman in the corner, holding a note pad and pencil tightly in white knuckled hands, looked shocked.

Adam was rubbing his knuckles.

Professor Martin was laying on the floor, unconscious. Probably with a few teeth loose.

"Aw," I said. "And I wanted to kick him in the junk."

Adam looked up. "He'll wake up eventually," he said, and a wicked grin grew on his face.

"Mr. Pierson, Miss Diedre," the police officer behind me said, motioning for two younger cops to drag Martin to elsewhere, "We're ready to take your statements now if you'd like to take a seat. Another detective will be in shortly to take you to a different room, Mr. Pierson, but you can calm down here. Do you mind if we use tape recorders for--"

More shouting echoed through the police station, cutting him off.

I snapped my head up, whirling to face the door.

No.

No.

That son of a bitch was dead.

I'd put the sword through his gut myself.

"No, no, no!" he was howling.

Then my head hurt. I winced. And then I laughed. I laughed and laughed and laughed.

Grey Suit was dragged by the door, a large, muscley cop clinging to each arm. His suit was bloody, torn, but the skin that showed through underneath was perfectly smooth, and whole.

"You, you!" he snarled with blazing eyes. "You infected me!"

"Come along, sir," one of the cops snarled. "There's a nice cozy jail cell waiting for you. You'll enjoy it. You're Immortal now – what's twenty years in the clink?"

"Nooooooooooooooo!" Grey Suit yowled and they dragged him away.

"Now that," I said, feeling smug and content, "Is what I call a plot twist."

Adam chortled. "Dramatic Irony at its finest, to be sure."

"Mr. Pierson? Ms. Diedre?" the detective said. "Your statements?"

November 3rd, 2006 – evening.

And just like that, Adam was leaving.

I stood in his dining room, staring at him with wide eyes.

"What do you mean, you quit?" I repeated, aghast.

"I said I quit. St. Catharines freaks me out. Too many psychos."

I slid closer to him, took his hands in mine. "There was just the one."

He lifted his hand and ran his thumb over my lips. "I'm gonna go put my head under the sand for a little while. Hide. Get rid of the willies. I feel like I'm being watched."

"So you'll just take off?"

He kissed me softly, gently. "You could come with me."

I shook my head. "I can't. Garret's still in the hospital. He needs me. And he's my Watcher. If I went, and he could follow, they may reassign him."

Adam sighed heavily and ran his hand through his short dark hair. "I expected this," he said.

"Expected what?" I asked, anger leaking slowly into my voice.

The fingers wrapped around mine squeezed. "I see the way you look at him while he's sleeping. I watched you the last time we visited the hospital."

"Adam..."

He kissed me again to stop my protest.

"Maybe another time," he whispered.

"Another time?" I laughed softly against his mouth, our foreheads touching. "Like when?"

"I dunno," he said. "See you in Paris, steps of Notre-Dame, in exactly one hundred years."

I bit the tip of his beautiful nose gently. "Cocky young ass."

"That's me."

"So, that's it then? Just like that? Over?"

He shrugged. "For now."

"For now," I agreed. "You wanna come to the hospital with me this afternoon?"

Adam pulled back slightly and scoffed. "What, and watch you make out with the Watcher who's replaced me?"

I thwapped his arm.

He made a face and rubbed the spot I'd hit. "Hey, I'm still tender from getting shot there."

"Liar."

"I am. But I gotta pack."

"Right," I said. "Pack."

November 10th, 2006 – afternoon

I waved good bye to Adam.

He waved back from the rear window of the bus.

Yes. I was sad he was going, but happy with how things had ended.

One day, I would see him again, I hoped.

I turned and gave Garret a little kiss on the cheek. Garret was using me as support to lean on. He was still pale and weak, but he looked better every day. He didn't have to stay at the hospital any more, and seeing as the Watchers had moved him and I wasn't allowed to know where he lived, he had been staying at my place where I could... ahem... take care of him.

Yes.

Pretty decent on the happy ending, if I did say so myself, even if I knew I would miss Adam.

Nortre-Dame. Front Steps. A hundred years from now.

I thought I could wait.

I was just glad that Adam had been as open, and honest, and trusting, and understanding as he had been. Our relationship had been based on complete honesty.

I was glad that Adam hadn't had a dirty little secret.

God knows I was sick of those.

End.

Thus ends Swordbearer!

Please feel free to join the Swordbearer Writer's Circle, at

t v . g r o u p s . y a h o o . c o m / g r o u p / s w o r d b e a r e r /

write your own fanfiction based in the Swordbearer universe. Everything and everyone is welcome.

Remove the spaces, and Ill see you there!

--Vega