Cassandra and the Sisterhood
Hope Triumphant II: Sister
CHAPTER 8
(World population: 7.36 billion)
THE BEAST BELOW
Autumn 2013
Edinburgh, Scotland
After her niece's funeral, Alex spent nearly another two weeks in the U.S., but the morning after she returned to Scotland she went to Cass's flat to apologize.
The dark young woman from the shelter opened the door. "Oh hullo, Alex," she said cheerfully. Her hair was braided into cornrows with yellow and blue beads, and she wore Cass's green silk dressing gown over a white T-shirt and purple sweatpants. Her feet were bare. Her toenails were blue with white and yellow daisies painted on each one.
It took Alex a moment to remember the girl's name. "Maureen. Good morning."
"I expect you're looking for Cathy," Maureen said. "She went out to buy eggs so we could have crepes for breakfast, but she'll be back soon." Maureen opened the door wide. "Come on in!"
Alex did, but kept her coat on.
"Tea?" Maureen offered, already heading for the kitchen area against the far wall. "It's a bit chilly out still."
It was chilly inside, too. "Please," Alex said, though she would have preferred coffee. But she couldn't ask Maureen for it; coffee—like heating oil—was expensive these days. She found her gaze going to the sleeping futon off to her right, a rumple of sheets and blankets, with Phoenix curled in the exact center. The cat opened her golden eyes briefly, stared at Alex, then went back to sleep. Two pillows were at the head of the bed. On the left pillow lay a few long hairs of golden-bronze; on the right pillow lay hairs of curly black.
"Here you are!" Maureen announced. She set a tray with two steaming mugs, a sugar bowl, and a pitcher of milk on the knee-high table. She flopped down onto a cushion and started ladling sugar into her mug.
Alex lowered herself carefully to the other cushion, keeping her face impassive when her joints protested, and wishing once again that Cassandra would buy some chairs. "Furniture needs to be dusted," Cass had said when Alex had mentioned it a few years ago. "Besides, it's a small flat, and I like open space." Aside from the wall of bookshelves and the sleeping futon, the table was the only piece of furniture in the room.
That, and the harp that Connor had given to Cassandra as a Christmas gift, seventeen years ago. It stood in a place of honor near the door.
Alex added milk, but no sugar, to her tea, and then smiled at Maureen. Maureen smiled back, completely at ease. "I've been out of town," Alex began.
Maureen nodded. "Cathy mentioned."
Alex kept smiling, even though Cassandra had never mentioned anything about Maureen to her. But then, Alex hadn't exactly been communicative herself lately, had she? And that was why she was here. "I didn't realize you and she were …"
"Such 'close friends'?" Maureen said, grinning now. "We haven't been, until two weeks ago. And we aren't. But we might. I hope. Right now, we're taking it slow."
Alex blinked, trying to make sense of all that. "Are … are you dating?"
This time Maureen absolutely beamed. "Yes. I couldn't believe it when Cathy asked me out."
Alex was having some trouble believing it, too. Not that she hadn't known that Cass had been with women, but that had been centuries ago. For the first ten years Alex had known her, Cass hadn't shown interest in sex of any kind, not even (Cass had mentioned it once) with herself. These last three or four years she'd dated a variety of people, but not one had progressed from "going out together" to "staying in."
It seemed things had changed.
"I mean, she's just gorgeous," Maureen was going on. "Like a film star. And as for me …" She laughed. "My feet are huge, my teeth are crooked, and my backside's as broad as a bus!"
"Oh, no," Alex protested, because while Maureen was solidly built and maybe a little on the plump side, she certainly wasn't fat. "You're very attractive."
"Thanks!" Maureen said. "Don't get me wrong. I like myself fine, but I know I'm not in Cathy's league. But she's not stuck on looks, not like some women are."
Alex reached for her cup again. Cassandra didn't need to worry about her looks.
"So," Maureen said, blissfully sharing the story of her budding romance, "Cath and I are still just dating, to see how we like each other. Last night we were watching a movie, and then it started to rain, so I stayed. We went through a pitcherful of daiquiris and got kind of loopy. I braided her hair, and she painted my toenails for me." Maureen stuck out her foot to admire the decorations.
"She's quite an artist," Alex said. Her tea was nearly half gone, and Alex took two more large swallows then got up to leave, breathing out slowly as her knees creaked in protest. "Would you tell her that I stopped by?"
Maureen hopped to her feet. "Oh, you don't have to go. She should be back soon."
"I have some errands to run," Alex said. "But please do tell her I'd like to see her again. Soon."
"Cassandra called," Colin said when Alex walked in the kitchen door.
Alex called her back right away. "How about a walk in the Botanic Garden?" Alex suggested. She knew Cass loved to spend time there. "And then I can take you out to lunch?"
"I'd like that," Cass answered, and they met at the West Gate at eleven. The day had warmed, and Cass wore white sandals and a flowing dress with great splashes of pink on white. She had beads braided into her waist-long hair, and her toenails had pink and white flowers on blue. All she needed was a peace sign painted on her cheek to be a flower child from fifty years ago.
"I'm sorry, Cass," Alex said, as they walked in the shade of tall pines. "I really don't know what came over me."
"I do," Cass said. "Death often makes us angry, and even more so with people who don't have to die."
A brutally frank reason, but true enough. Alex could see that now. It made sense. She stepped carefully around the puddle in the center of the path, a reminder of last night's heavy rain. "Not much surprises you, does it?"
Cass crossed the puddle with one easy stride. "Not anymore, no."
Not after three thousand and some years. "Cass," Alex said, stopping and turning to her friend. "What I said, that last part …" She was relieved when Cass nodded; Alex didn't want to have to repeat that nasty comment about not knowing anything about giving birth. "It was unkind—and also untrue. I'm sorry. I'd take it back, if only I could."
"I understand," Cass said, just as warm and sympathetic as she had been six months before, when Alex had lashed out at her over Colin hearing the voices in his head—and hearing other things, too.
"I always thought you just … put up with it," Colin had said to Alex the morning after Connor had taken the Immortal's head. "What Dad had to do." Colin's gaze had dropped to the marks at her throat, those pale red tracks on even paler skin, evidence of the urgent and demanding passion from the night before. Alex had pulled her bathrobe closer around her, feeling exposed and naked in front of her son. Other marks and even a few faint bruises had suddenly throbbed beneath her gown. "But you get off on it," Colin had said in horrified disgust. "It turns you on when he kills."
Alex had realized then that the voices weren't the only things Colin had heard—and felt—inside his head after Connor had come home. It wasn't like that, not really, she'd tried to explain, first in words and then in her letters when Colin had gone so far from home, but it was a horribly awkward business between a mother and a sixteen-year-old son, and Colin had retreated into embarrassed silence, saying finally, "I still love you, Mom, but I don't want to talk about this anymore."
Alex hadn't wanted to talk about it, either, certainly not to Cassandra, and not to Connor. He'd had enough on his mind. And Colin was home now; everything was fine. Everything would be fine.
"Believe me," Cass was saying with a rueful smile, "I know all about wishing I could undo things I've done. Let's put this behind us, shall we?"
"Yes," Alex agreed immediately, but she noticed Cass hadn't said "Let's forget this." But then neither of them was likely to forget it any time soon, and Cass was a stickler for telling the truth. She'd learned that lesson the hard way.
"What happened, Cass?" Alex asked, ready to listen now, but Cass looked at her blankly, so Alex added, "When you left town so suddenly three weeks ago and then came over to the house to talk after you got back?"
"Oh, yes. That. I'm fine now. I talked with Maureen."
"Oh."
"It was about Roland," Cass explained. "Maureen understands abusive relationships. She helped me."
"Oh," Alex said again. "That's good."
"It is."
Alex and Cass started walking again. "So, what's this with you and Maureen?" Alex asked. "That's new, isn't it?"
"Yes," Cass said, looking radiant now, and very much a woman in love. "New and sudden. It took us both by surprise, I think, but—oh, Maureen's wonderful! I've known that for years, as a friend and a colleague, but now …" The radiance softened into misty-eyed love. Alex had seen that look on Cass's face only a few times before, when she'd held the infant Sara in her arms.
"Maureen's sweet, yet tough," Cass went on. "She's so beautiful, so strong in who she is. And she's funny, with a good sense of humor. Innocent, and by that I mean clear-eyed. She sees things." Cass stepped across another puddle. "She's good for me." Cass bent to pick up a pine cone from the ground then stroked the brown triangular bracts with her thumbs. "I hope I'll be good for her."
"Have you told her?" Alex asked. "About your 'age'?"
Cass turned the pine cone around and around, following the spiraling path from the tip of the cone to the stem. "Not yet. But soon. Certainly before we become lovers." She gazed straight ahead to where the path led uphill, a spot of brightness between the darkness of pines. "I won't have lies in my bed, not anymore."
"I think that's wise."
Cass met her gaze sidelong with a rueful grin. "I may not be surprised often, but I definitely can't claim to be wise. It's taken me centuries to figure that one out. Do you know," she said, stooping to set the pine cone back down, "except for Methos, I think I have hidden things and lied to every single person I have ever slept with?"
Cassandra had certainly lied to Connor, and hidden things too, when she had taken him as her lover over four hundred years ago. Connor still carried the scars. Not as deep now, and not as painful, but always there. Alex had worked hard at helping her husband heal. Not one of them would ever forget that, either, even though they had put it behind them and moved on.
"What about your husbands?" Alex asked. "Didn't you tell them?"
"Oh, they knew about immortality, but not about my time with Methos. I never even told my first husband, not all of it. And I never told anyone the truth about Roland. I was always lying, always hiding and pretending. With Methos, the relationship wasn't honest, but I was. I hid nothing from him. I gave him everything."
"You didn't have much of a choice," Alex noted.
"No. But I do now, and I'm not going to hide or pretend anymore," Cass declared.
"I hope it works out, Cass," Alex said sincerely. "It's been a long time for you."
"Yes, it has," Cass agreed, then by unspoken consent they dropped that subject immediately, for Cassandra's last relationship had been with Alex's husband. Connor and Cass were friends now, that was all; Alex had absolutely no doubts about her husband's love. Connor had made himself abundantly clear on that topic, and Cass never visited the MacLeods unless Alex was home.
They reached the top of the hill and came out into the sunshine of a brilliant October day. The stands of maple and beech glowed red and gold, and Alex and Cass stood for a moment, admiring the view. "The rock garden?" Cass suggested next, and they followed the winding paths to where gentians formed blue pools among gray rocks. The heathers were fading nearby.
"I'm hungry," Alex announced after they had strolled through the Chinese garden on the south side of the hill. "Where would you like to go for lunch?"
Cass chose a vegetarian place a few minutes walk away, and they took their seats at a small, round table. A tree stood in the center of the octagonal conservatory, and it branches provided a leafy ceiling for the entire room. "How was your visit in the States, Alex?" Cass asked, unfolding her napkin.
"The funeral was hard, but it was good to see Mom and Pete again. They're holding up. Lara was drinking a lot, but Pete says that's not usual for her, so she'll probably be all right after a while." Alex had seen Connor drink more, and with less reason than the death of a child. "I saw some friends, and I spent last week with my mom. I stopped by our old place." That had been hard, too, to see the barn and house her father had worked on so neglected, to see her mother's garden so overgrown. "It's been empty for nearly two years, and hardly anyone farms in the valley now. Even the Hogeweides are gone, and they've been there since before the Revolution."
"Radiation?"
"No, it's upwind and upstream of D.C. Just … no interest. Family farms don't make any money, it's not near any main roads, and there are no jobs left there."
"Is much of the land in the valley for sale?"
"I suppose. Probably cheap, too, what with the depression. It's beautiful, especially now with the autumn colors on the hills. And in the winter with the snow…" Alex fell silent, remembering long treks through the woods with her father, playing catch in the summer evenings with Pete in the back yard, early morning horseback rides across the fields…
"Sounds like a good place for one of our schools," Cass said.
"Yes," Alex said, now envisioning the house and the barn busy again, with people laughing in the kitchen and horses running in the pastures. "It would be." She set her napkin on her lap. "I'll get that started right away."
Their waitress arrived, and Cass greeted her by name. They chatted like old friends, until Cass finally ordered a grilled tomato sandwich. Alex decided to try the vegetarian haggis, just so she could mention it to Connor later today and see the look on his face. She was also looking forward to seeing his expression when she told him that Cassandra had found herself a girlfriend. Rachel would be very interested, too.
Cass poured them tea, and Alex closed her eyes as she sipped at the hot lemon-flavored brew. After lunch, she was going home to take a nap. She didn't handle jet lag well anymore.
"What are things like over there?" Cass asked.
"Strange." Alex set down her tea. "Daily life goes on, although a lot of people are out of work, and things are scarce. Bananas are impossible to find. But it doesn't look like a war's on. Except in a very few places, there is no destruction or bombed buildings, no tanks rusting on the roads. You could almost think nothing's changed, that it was just a bad recession. Except flags are absolutely everywhere, and everybody wears color-coded bracelets, all the time."
The customs authority at the airport had snapped one on Alex's wrist before he would let her through the gate. The slim plastic band was red with narrow white and blue stripes.
"That's because you've been out of the country for a long time," explained her mother, who had come to the airport to vouch for Alex's identity. Mom's bracelet was mostly white with red and blue. "Members of the armed forces or emergency services are mostly blue, but every citizen wears the red, white, and blue. Foreign nationals have green."
"No yellow stars?" Alex had asked.
"It's not like that, Alex," Mom had said with gentle reproof. "We don't discriminate. We're all Americans, no matter what our color or creed. And the bracelets have our medical chips in them and our IDs, too. A lot of lives have been saved with these, and when they put the program in last year, a lot of lost children were found."
Evann, an "old" friend of Connor's, wore a bracelet that was mostly blue, since she was currently known as Captain Evann Hennessy, 9th Air Intelligence Wing, United States Air Force. "No, they're not that easy to counterfeit," she had said when Alex had asked during a quick visit to Evann and Sean Hennessy's home. "And they're not easy to take off. They were originally developed for tracking prisoners on parole. When we put the program in we found a lot of wanted criminals, people with expired visas, illegal aliens, that sort of thing."
Alex wasn't used to thinking of the United States as one huge jail. "It's different now," Alex told Cass. "Very … insular."
Cass didn't seem surprised. "Even though they're turning inward, the U.S. is still a dominant force in the world. Their movies and music reach millions, and stories and songs have changed worlds before. I'll be moving there soon." She turned her head, the beads clicking in her hair. "Here comes our food!"
After lunch was over, they went back outside into the crisp fall air. "Would you like to go running together tomorrow afternoon, Alex?" Cass asked.
"I can't," Alex replied. "Connor and the kids and I are going sailing, our last outing for the season."
"Some other time," Cass suggested.
"That would be nice," Alex said, but she knew running hills with Cass wasn't likely, not anymore. Alex would only slow her down.
"Arthritis," was the cheerful diagnosis when Alex went to the doctor later that month. "Not at all uncommon at your age. But don't worry. We'll fix you up with some pills." The next diagnosis was another footfall on her grave. "Those fibroids are still growing," the doctor said with a grave shake of the head. "A hysterectomy would get rid of them all. You're into menopause now, aren't you?"
"Yes."
"Well, we'll keep on eye on them and see. If they don't give you any problems, come back next year!"
The years went by faster all the time.
RELUCTANT HEROES
October 2013
Arkansas, United States
A Quickening, decided recently appointed Field Watcher George W. (for Washington, not Walker, as he'd had to explain over and over when he'd been in high school a decade ago) Baker, was even better than the grand finale of fireworks on the Fourth of July. He knew Regulation 01-02a said he wasn't supposed to hang around after the beheading, but he'd never seen a Quickening before, and as peaceable as his Immortal was, it might be decades before George ever got this chance again.
George edged his way around the grain silo, hoping for a better view. Lightning splintered the cloudy sky, giving a glimpse of harvested cornstalks standing in rows like little black teeth, and slamming into the taller black silhouette of the winner Immortal. More lightning raced down the metal wall of the silo. George hastily moved away, over to a concrete wall, then watched the rest of the show with oohs and aahs.
After his Immortal had gotten rid of the body, taken the extra sword, and left the scene, George started to compose his report in his head. Regulation 01-13a stated that nothing was to be written down or recorded in any way in the field.
He was halfway to his car, trying to decide between "valiant" or "courageous," when the men with the machine guns arrived.
"I'm not a spy," George protested yet again, nervously aware of the two military police on either side of him, and painfully aware of the aches in various places that he knew would be ugly bruises very soon.
The balding Air Force major seated behind the desk glanced up from his computer. "Then why were you on the perimeter of a military facility in the middle of the night, Mr. Baker?"
Regulation 01-01a: Preserve the secret of Immortals. Never divulge any information about Quickenings, the Game, or the Prize. Guard these secrets with your life. Death before dishonor. All Watchers everywhere depend on you.
George told the truth. "I didn't know there was a military facility anywhere around here."
"Uh-huh," the major said slowly. "OK. Then why were you in the middle of a cornfield in the middle of the night?"
"Uh … astronomy is a hobby of mine," George said, and it had been, back when he'd been a boy, for a couple of months anyway. "I was looking at stars, away from bright lights."
One of the MPs snickered; the major said, "Uh-hunh" this time. "The ceiling's at twelve hundred feet," he observed dryly. "Not many stars to be seen."
"I meant…" George licked dry lips, trying to calm down. He could still talk himself out of this. He didn't have to try to kill himself tonight, and at least he didn't have to explain one of those wrist tattoos some of the older Watchers still wore. All he'd had was a signet ring, and he'd ditched that in the field as soon as he'd seen the guns. This would work out OK. "I meant I was looking for a good place to look at stars on another night. Someplace with some shelter, out of the wind. You know Orion will be visible soon, with winter coming on," he added, trying to sound excited about that.
The major just looked at him. "Uh-hunh. Is that why you set those fires out there?"
"What?" he said, confused by the change of topic.
"Were you cold?"
"No, I—" The Quickening, George realized. Lightning, scorch marks, burns. "I didn't set any fires."
"Uh-hunh." He turned back to his computer and scrolled through the bio of one George Washington Baker (SSN 608-34-1578) displayed there. "I see you were in Europe a few years ago, going to a school in Geneva."
George hastily reviewed his cover story. "Yes, that's right."
"Why?"
"I wanted to see some sights after college, before I got a regular job, and they had a work-scholarship program."
"And what did they teach at that school?"
Watchering 101. "History, mostly," George said. "It's a lot like a big library. I did some translating and transcribing and got classes in return."
"What languages?"
"French."
The major leaned back in his gun-metal gray chair, making it creak, then studied George. George decided not to smile and tried for innocently helpful instead. "Isn't French one of the official languages of Switzerland?" asked the major.
"Yes," George said then added a "Sir" to that, hoping to put the major in a better mood.
"Seems to me like they could find some French speakers of their own. Don't you think?"
"Yes, I guess so."
"Then why'd they bring an American over?"
"It's … an exchange program with a sister company over here."
"Really." The major peered at his monitor. "And yet now, you're an orderly in a hospital in Arkansas. Much French at that hospital?"
"Some," he answered truthfully. "People from Louisiana."
"Any history there? Any transcribing duties?"
George shook his head. "I decided history wasn't for me."
"Let me see if I've got this right," the major said, leaning his elbows on his desk. "This 'school' sponsored you to live in Europe for two years, trained you, and then you come back here and don't even work for them, or for their 'sister company.' Doesn't sound like they got their money's worth." His eyes went cold. "Or maybe they did. Lock him up," he ordered the MPs.
"Wait!" George protested as the MPs grabbed his arms. "I'm an American citizen; when can I talk to a lawyer?"
The major was already typing at his computer. He sounded bored as he said, "Traitors automatically forfeit all rights of citizenship."
George knew that. Everybody knew that. But that was only for convicted traitors, and he hadn't been convicted of anything … yet. "Don't I at least get a phone call?"
The major stopped typing. He came over to where George was standing. "A phone call?" he repeated with sarcastic disbelief. "So you can contact the other members of your organization?"
George had been hoping to do just that.
"The people in D.C. didn't get any phone calls," the major continued with quiet menace.
"I know," George said quietly. "My brother was there."
"So was my wife," the major said coldly. "While you, Mr. George Washington Baker, were in a foreign country, going to 'school.' And now here you are, betraying the memory of your own flesh and blood."
George started shaking his head, wondering how it all gotten so bad so fast. He should never have broken Regulation 01-02a. He should have tried harder to run away. He should have come up with better lies.
"You're a traitor as well as a spy," the major accused.
"No, I—"
"A terrorist then."
"No!"
"The Homeland Security Agency will make that decision," the major said, returning to his chair. "They're going to want to talk to you."
George gulped. He'd heard about "talks" with the HSA. Suddenly, trying to kill himself tonight sounded like a really good idea.
Death before dishonor, George reminded himself for about the hundredth time the next morning as he sat wedged in between two HSA agents in the back of a car, and it was only nine a.m. But then his day had started three hours earlier, and it hadn't started out well. The guard had tossed a bucket of icy water into his face to wake him up, then followed that with the snarled command: "Get up, spy."
"I'm not a spy," George had protested, after he could breathe.
"Shut up, spy," the guard had ordered and shoved a tray with food into the cell.
As he'd eaten the lumpy oatmeal and sipped at the lukewarm water (no luxuries like coffee or tea were wasted on prisoners), George had considered possible means of suicide. They'd taken his belt and his shoelaces, and there weren't any blankets or sheets in the cell. There wasn't enough water in the toilet to drown himself. He'd read of falling on a sword, but falling on the plastic four-inch sfork they'd given him with his breakfast seemed unlikely to do the trick.
Being shot while trying to escape was probably his best bet, he'd decided, but when he'd tried to make a run for it as soon as they got outside, the guards hadn't used their rifles. They'd used their fists, adding fresh bruises and new blood on top of the old. He'd been too dizzy after that to even walk, and they'd dragged him to the car.
And so, at 8:34 that drizzly autumn morning, George had found himself shoved between two HSA agents into the back of a blue sedan, speeding across the endless flat brown fields of Arkansas and wishing quite earnestly that he were dead.
His wish was granted at 12:37 that afternoon. A semi-trailer crossed the center line on the rain-slick highway and totally demolished the blue sedan. Later that day, after the ambulance and the fire trucks and the police reports and the insurance reports, the driver of the semi-trailer reported in to his employer. "The priority package for Henry S. Anson will not arrive as scheduled," the driver typed into a coded manifest for Falcon Transports & Shipping.
Back came the answer almost immediately: "Acknowledged." A few minutes later, a company bulletin arrived: "Some holiday bonuses will be given early this year."
The driver strode off whistling, looking forward to the extra cash.
28 October 2013
Watcher HQ, France
Rhee shattered the usual tedium of the Watcher Council's Monday morning meeting by arriving late to the conference room and announcing: "Immediately after a Quickening on Saturday evening, a Watcher was arrested by the United States military near an Air Force base."
Jesus God, thought Joe, feeling sick. Not again. "Who?" he rasped, breaking the tense silence around the dark table.
"George W. Baker, graduated from the Geneva academy in 2011, assigned to Gregory Powers."
"Where is Baker now?" Joe asked.
"He was killed on Sunday afternoon, as he was being transported for interrogation."
Olenskaya lifted an eyebrow and said to Rhee, "Your section is most efficient. Impressive work."
Too bad somebody didn't give Olenskaya a real up-close and personal example of that kind of efficiency, Joe thought viciously. Impressive work, his ass. She was talking about murdering one of their own!
"The Guard did not kill him," Rhee corrected. "It was a traffic accident."
Joe let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. That was bad, yeah, terrible even, but not quite as bad as he'd feared. He hadn't known the boy, didn't even recognize the name, but he'd do something. Write a letter to the next of kin, make sure the family was taken care of … something.
"We were fortunate," Rhee said, as he had said about those two Watchers in that firing line ten months ago. "But next time…" He leaned forward. "I say this again: we have to stop Watching. Now."
"We've already scaled way back," Joe protested.
"Only in the field," Wildorfer said tartly. "Building three new training centers in addition to the seven academies was ill-advised."
"Nobody wanted to be left out," Joe explained with a "what else could I do?" kind of shrug. "This way each of the ten divisions has something."
Wildorfer was patting at his moustache again. "Such duplication is unnecessary, inefficient, and expensive."
Joe didn't answer. He'd heard it all before, and not just once, either. Besides, Joe had already given Central America, Eastern Europe, and Western Asia his firm promise to upgrade the centers to full-fledged academies soon, or at least before he retired next year. "Speaking of duplication," Joe said to Olenskaya, "how's the Chronicle project coming?"
"Transcribing so many files takes time," she replied with a window-dressing smile. "We must be precise and thorough, so as not to lose any detail of our histories. It is our legacy." She looked at Wildorfer, and her smile disappeared. "Our scanning technology is not of the best."
"The one you requested has been classified as secret by three governments," Wildorfer said. "It is inaccessible. In any case, you have already exceeded your budget for the year."
"Because of this project! We are working overtime—"
"I know," Wildorfer broke in, and Joe looked at him in surprise. Wildorfer never interrupted anybody. He was already trying to back-peddle, giving everybody an apologetic smile and spreading his hands helplessly. "You must understand, all of you, that with the global disruptions our finances are not the best. And recently, some of our investments have … not done well," he admitted, biting his lip in shame. He looked around the table. "I am trying to conserve our capital, to prepare us for the difficult times ahead, so that the Watchers will continue for centuries to come, but … you … you cannot keep spending money this way! All of you! The Guard always has to have more guns, more training, more men, more security cameras! The Guild builds and builds and buys and buys, and Chronicles never keeps a computer more than a month! And all of you always want more, and I cannot—" He broke off there, seemed about to weep. Joe looked away.
Kananga finally spoke up. "We are all seeking to ensure the future of the Watchers, each in our own way. The Guard protects us, the Guild instructs us, the Chronicles preserve our knowledge. So it has been through the ages; so it will be for ages to come."
Joe wondered if Kananga had been watching Yul Brynner in "The Ten Commandments" again. "So let it be written; so let it be done" sure sounded good, but Joe had never found that things worked out that easily around the Guild hall. Maybe he needed to be a pharaoh instead of a tribune, get one of those chariots, a scepter …
Damn. He needed to get real. He needed coffee. Joe poured himself a cup and started paying attention again.
"Yet without the work of the Exchequer, none of us can do our jobs," Kananga was saying, and that was true enough. Joe resolved to listen more to Wildorfer from now on, instead of just getting irritated with the little bean-counter. "And our job is watching Immortals," Kananga went on. "It is a sacred trust, from those who have gone before. We must not betray them." He stood and headed for the door.
"First Tribune Kananga!" Rhee called after him in frustration.
"No more today," he ordered without stopping.
"We must—"
Kananga turned around. "What you ask is a matter for the full executive council to decide. Our quarterly meeting is in two weeks. You may submit it for the agenda, if you wish. Again. Though I doubt you will find any more success than you had the last three times." He left the room with Wildorfer and Olenskaya trailing in his wake.
Rhee and Joe remained behind, staring at each other across the table. Rhee was drumming his fingers in frustration, those fingers that could find every single pressure point in a human body in about two seconds flat and knew exactly how to inflict excruciating pain. In the training sessions over at the Guard hall, Joe had watched Rhee take down opponents twice his size and half his age. He was facing a different kind of opponent now. "Kananga never used to be so hard to talk to," Joe said.
"That heart attack this spring," Rhee said. "Now he is afraid to move, afraid of change. He thinks he can cling to the old ways and find safety there."
"At least you got him to shut down the in-house newsletters and get rid of the mailing lists. And the tattoos are gone. Even mine," Joe said, rubbing his thumb over the shiny circle of smooth skin on his wrist where the laser had taken off the decades-old tattoo. He still missed it. Truth to tell, he'd been one of the last holdouts. He'd earned that damn tattoo. Twice. But in the end, he'd caved. Rhee was right. A permanent mark like that was hard to deny or explain. Joe rarely wore the heavy signet ring with the Watcher emblem that had replaced the tattoos—it wrecked his fingering on the guitar and was a downright menace on the climbing wall at the gym. So he left it at home in a drawer. Everybody at HQ knew he was a Watcher anyway.
"Tattoos," Rhee said with disdain. "Newsletters. There is so much more that we cannot hide." He pushed his chair back and started to pace. "I am their expert on security, and yet they do not listen when I tell them we are exposed!"
"So don't tell them," Joe suggested, remembering the words his high-school English teacher had often written across the top of papers in red. "Show 'em instead."
Rhee abruptly stopped his pacing. Then he sat down in Kananga's chair. "Joseph, if I propose at the next executive council that the Watchers go quiet, will I have your true support?"
"Damn, Rhee," Joe said. "You're asking me to put all my people out of work."
"They have other jobs."
"Rhee …" Joe rubbed a hand through his hair. "I know Kananga's being a hard ass right now, but he's got a point. Watching Immortals isn't just a job; it's our calling. It's our duty." Joe tried to be accommodating. "Look, I'll have my people scale back even farther, use more long-range devices, take more precautions, that sort of thing. OK?"
Rhee looked at him for a long moment, then nodded. "OK."
ROAD NOT TAKEN
Winter 2013-2014
Edinburgh, Scotland
The first time Maureen said, "I love you, Cathy," Cassandra knew she'd waited too long. She answered, after only the smallest of hesitations, "I love you, too, Maureen." Then they kissed, their first kiss, lips petal soft, cool and gentle, then slowly blossoming, opening to the warmth of the fire within.
"Wow," Maureen said with a shaky laugh. She ran a gentle finger down the bridge of Cassandra's nose. "Too bad lunch is over. I'd like to try that again."
"So would I," Cassandra said, but she knew that it couldn't happen yet, and it might never happen if Maureen decided to leave her. But there was no way around it. The lies couldn't go on.
That evening Cassandra went to Maureen's place to tell her the truth. The two-room flat was unpretentious and cheerfully messy, just like Maureen. Christmas lights festooned the fish tank in the corner, and posters of tropical flowers decorated the walls. Cassandra would have liked to spend the majority of her evenings there, but Phoenix got bored spending so long by herself, so Maureen came to Cassandra's flat most of the time. Cassandra moved a pile of Sandman comic books from the sofa to the floor so she could sit down, then let Maureen bring her tea and biscuits. Maureen liked being the hostess in her own home.
"So," Maureen said when she finally sat down. The mugs of tea were steaming on the floor, with the plate of biscuits between them. "What's up, Cathy? When you called you said we needed to talk."
"I need to tell you some things. About me."
Maureen picked up a biscuit and munched it in one bite. "Go."
Cassandra started with the easy part. "My real name isn't Cathy Pelton. It's Cassandra."
Maureen blinked but nodded after only a moment. "So Alex did call you Cass. I thought I just didn't hear her saying 'Cath' right that time. Cassandra," she said, trying out the name. "It's pretty. Like you."
She offered Cassandra her hand, and Cassandra took it, holding on, knowing they had a lot further to go. "I love you, Maureen," she said, because she needed Maureen to know that part was true.
"And I love you." She grinned. "Cass."
"I like hearing you say my name," Cassandra said. "I needed to hear you say my name."
Maureen squeezed her hand. "I understand. Names are real. Did you change it because you didn't want him to find you?"
"I have changed my name because of that, but not this time. He's dead."
"Oh." Maureen blinked again. "When?"
Now it started getting harder. "Seventeen years ago."
"Sevente—" She stopped and stared, a wrinkle between her eyes. "God, what were you, twelve when you met him?" She stopped again, looking horrified. "He wasn't your father, was he?"
"No," Cassandra said softly then took a deep breath. There was no turning back now. "Roland was my son."
It took nearly half an hour to explain. "So, you're … how old?" Maureen said, now standing on the other side of the room. Cassandra hadn't moved from her seat on the sofa. The mugs of tea were untouched and stone-cold.
"I'm not sure exactly," Cassandra said. "I was at the fall of Troy."
"Troy. Like Helen of Troy? Like in that film we went to this summer? So, that's what? Three thousand years?"
Cassandra nodded. "A little more, maybe a century or two."
"A century." Maureen blinked, like she'd just woken up. "Or two. Right." She ran both hands through her thick black curls. "Geez, Cathy, I— No, wait. It's not Cathy. You're not Cathy. You're Cassandra. Right?"
"Yes."
Maureen started looking worried again. "Not the Cassandra? The one who told everybody what was going to happen and nobody believed?"
"No."
"Good."
No hiding. No pretending. Not anymore. Cassandra took a deep breath. "But I do prophesy. I have visions and dreams."
"Right."
"I'm sorry, Maureen. I wasn't trying to trick you, but I have to hide what I am, all the time." She looked straight at Maureen and admitted, "I lie."
"No shit," Maureen said. "Like when you told me that your parents were missionaries in India. Like you being 'home-schooled.' Like you being married four times, not just once. Like you saying stuff like 'I was younger than I am now' whenever I ask you when something happened or how old you are." Her hands were on her hips, and she was standing right in front of Cassandra now, staring down. "No shit, you lie."
"I'm sorry," Cassandra said again, looking up at Maureen. "I'm sorry I lied to you. But I'm not lying now, and I don't want to lie to you, ever again. That's why I'm here now, tonight, telling you these things."
"Almost three months we've been going out," she accused. "You sure took your time about it."
"You took almost six months before you told your grandmother about your relationship with Denise."
"Yeah, well … Gran's old," Maureen said defensively. "I didn't think she'd understand." She stared at Cass then abruptly sat down on the arm of the sofa. "Shit. You didn't think I'd understand about this immortality stuff, either, did you?"
"I know how hard it is, Maureen." Tears came into her eyes, another opening of a door, and Cassandra let them fall. "But I don't want to hide from you, not anymore."
Maureen ran her hands through her hair again then looked at Cassandra warily. "I guess I said you didn't have to, didn't I?"
"You did," Cassandra agreed, smiling a little as she remembered that moment, when Maureen had so easily opened the door that Cassandra had kept locked all these years. "And I said it wasn't so simple as it seemed."
"And that was no lie," Maureen muttered, and somehow that struck both of them as funny, and they smiled at the bizarreness of it all; then Cassandra held out her hand.
"I love you, Maureen," Cassandra said again. "And that is no lie."
Maureen slid slowly from the arm of the sofa to the seat cushion, then took Cassandra's hand between her own, but cautiously, almost afraid. "I fell in love with Cathy," Maureen said. "I don't know who you are. Cassandra." Then she grinned, and the door swung open wide. "Not yet. I'd like to."
The next three weeks whipped by, filled with shopping and holiday parties, with questions and answers and stories of times long ago. They still weren't lovers; they had agreed to take it slow, to give Maureen a chance to get used to the idea that Cassandra had lived for thousands of years, to give Cassandra a chance to get rid of the lies. Maureen loved hearing about Cassandra's past lives, the history, the clothes, the food, the fun part of being immortal.
Other parts weren't fun. "I've been a slave," Cassandra told Maureen a few days before Christmas.
Maureen opened her mouth, shut it, then blinked a few times. "I guess you must have been. Things were different a long time ago, weren't they?"
"In some ways."
"Was it bad?"
"Some times. Other times, no. It could even be good. As a slave, I had a home, a protector, legal standing in the community, no responsibilities, no decisions. There were times that I wanted to be owned. I even sought out masters and put myself into their hands."
"You sold yourself?" Maureen said in horror.
"I traded my freedom for security. But don't we all? In some way?"
"Yeah, but … not that far. Not like that. That's like staying with the guy who beats on you just because he pays the bills. It's being dependent in the worst way. It's sick."
Cassandra nodded. "Yes, it is. But so was I."
"Because of Roland? And Methos?"
"They certainly reinforced that behavior in me." She could even smile about that now, if only a little, painful and ironic. "But so did the cultures I lived in. And so did I. It was a survival strategy that worked for me, and so I repeated it, time and time again."
"And now?"
"I'm breaking that habit. I'm not looking for someone to tell me what to do anymore."
"You trying to be a take-no-shit kind of woman, Cass?"
Cassandra returned Maureen's smile. "Just like you."
After Christmas, Cassandra brought up the other side of that coin. "I've owned slaves," she told Maureen. "I've bought and sold people on the block."
Maureen pulled away, got up and walked around the room. "Things were different then, weren't they," she said finally, as she had said the week before.
"In some ways."
"Were … were you kind?"
"Sometimes. Sometimes, I was very cruel."
Maureen stood looking at her, then shook her head and walked out the door. Two hours later she called and asked Cassandra to meet her in the park. "Gran's told me stories, you know," Maureen said, while she and Cassandra walked on faded grass beneath bare branches of trees. "Of the old days, back in Jamaica, when her family still lived like slaves. They used to actually be slaves."
"I know."
"But so were you. Lots of times."
"Yes."
Maureen picked up a small twig from the ground, worried it with her fingers. "Right after I walked out, I was thinking: 'If you knew how bad it was to be a slave, how could you be cruel?' And then I thought: It's just like at the shelter. The abuse is passed along, like a disease."
Cassandra nodded. "Once given power, a victim can easily become a batterer."
They walked up the hill. "Have you ever killed anyone, Cass?" Maureen asked next.
She'd been expecting this one, dreading it. "Yes."
Maureen didn't seem too surprised, but then Cassandra had been carefully paving the way for weeks by mentioning battles and raids. "How many?"
"By my own hands, thirty-two."
Maureen twisted the twig until it broke into two pieces. "Why?"
"Self-defense, often. Protecting others, sometimes." Cassandra forced herself to go on. No more hiding. No more lies. "The rest…" She'd once told Methos that she didn't enjoy killing, had never enjoyed killing, but that was yet another of those lies she'd been telling herself for years. She had no justification for hating Methos; she was more like him than she had ever wanted to know. "The rest were because I wanted to. Because it was fun."
Maureen stopped walking. "That's sick."
"I know."
They stood there, facing each other, under the stippled shadow of trees, until Maureen asked, carefully, "How long ago was it, that you thought it was fun?"
Cassandra had to think about that. The most recent time, she'd been in a brothel, and Romans had been around. After Aurelius's reign? Yes. But before Constantine took the throne, and definitely before she'd met Tak-Ne again. Sometime in there, anyway. "About seventeen hundred years."
Maureen started to laugh, an almost hysterical, disbelieving sound. "Seventeen hundred frigging years." She tossed the pieces of twig away, shaking her head. "None of this seems real."
This was not a good time, Cassandra decided, to mention the Game or the Prize. Or the Voice. Or the Watchers. Or the time she had tortured a man to death with honey and leather thongs and exquisitely sharp knives. He'd come to the brothel and asked to be "tamed." Cassandra had smiled and volunteered for the job. It had taken her three days.
"Let's just not talk about this for a while, OK?" Maureen asked. "We've got that big dinner-dance party at the MacLeods on New Year's Eve tomorrow; let's just go and have some fun."
"Fine by me," Cassandra agreed with relief, but she knew the respite couldn't last. She hadn't realized she had so much to tell.
"I love your hair," Maureen said the day after the party, after they had finally woken up, eaten a lazy breakfast and then taken a nap. They had stayed out dancing at the MacLeods' till dawn. Cassandra sat in front of a mirror while Maureen stood behind her, using long sweeping strokes of the brush. "Have you always worn it this long?"
"No," Cassandra said, remembering a time when slave-sellers had hacked off her knee-length hair, then stripped her naked and paraded her in front of the buyers. A merchant had paid two silver coins for her. A wigmaker had bought her hair for three.
Should she share that with Maureen, or should she gloss over it and move on? The truth, Cassandra told herself firmly, but the truth didn't have to include every depressing detail. Nobody wanted to deal with all of that, and besides, it got boring after a while. "When I was a slave, they usually kept my hair short," Cassandra said, keeping the words casual. "The owners didn't want people wasting time on their hair, and besides, almost everybody had lice."
"Euuuw!"
Cassandra laughed at the expression of disgust she saw in the mirror. "Soap was a luxury for the rich. Or worse, in some times and places, even rich people didn't bathe."
"I'm glad I live now."
"So am I," Cassandra agreed. Maureen lifted the hair to brush the underside, and Cassandra shuddered at the sudden whisper touch of cold air at the nape of her neck. Roland had hacked off her hair, too. She didn't want to remember that. She didn't want to remember him. She didn't want to tell Maureen. She didn't want to deal with immortality now; she just wanted a chance to have a normal life for a while, to laugh together, to live … to love.
Green eyes stared at her from the mirror, from a face both familiar and unknown. "I belong to myself now," Cassandra declared. "So I'm growing my hair long."
Maureen leaned over and placed a kiss on the top of her head. "I'm glad. I love your hair."
But there were other things Maureen didn't love. "You're going to a meeting? Again?" She shoved her dinner plate aside. "I thought we could go out tonight."
"It's important," Cassandra explained.
"You've been to 'important' meetings every night this week. Last weekend you were out of town."
"I was teaching a class at the music convention. It was scheduled back in July."
"Yeah. I know. You told me." She got up from the table and started shoving her sweater into her bag.
"I invited you to come."
Maureen shrugged. "Not much for me to do, except listen to other people talk about pedal technique and 'modal progression,' whatever that is."
"It's when—"
"I'm not into music, Cassandra," Maureen interrupted. "I can't tell Bach from a bongo. We both know that."
At the use of her full name (Maureen always called her Cass; she'd said it sounded more like Cath), Cassandra stopped offering excuses and started listening—really listening—instead. "You feel as if you're not important to me."
Maureen dropped her bag on the floor and faced Cassandra full on. "Damn right."
Cassandra admitted what she'd done wrong. "I've been ignoring you."
"You sure have!"
Cassandra didn't deny it, and after a moment, Maureen sighed then came over to sit next to Cassandra on the floor. "You're always gone, Cass," she said, now sounding wistful instead of accusing. They held hands, and Maureen leaned against her side. "I miss you."
"I miss you, too," Cassandra said, stroking Maureen's beautiful hair. The black curls clung around her fingers, twining in soft tangles. "But my job with Phinyx takes up a lot of time."
"No shit," Maureen muttered, and Cassandra smiled at that familiar phrase even as sudden tears came to her eyes.
"Let's go away this weekend," Cassandra suggested, wanting to make things right between them. "Maybe a whole week. Just you and I. We could go to a romantic place near the sea."
"Romantic?" Maureen started to smile. "You mean…"
Cassandra leaned forward to kiss her, the lips honey sweet, then warming to fire under her own. "Want to stop taking it slow?"
The cottage was cozy, the sea and the sky immense. The surge of the surf beat in their blood. The days were honey, stingless; the nights were wine-dark with love. Cassandra had forgotten what it was to touch, to be touched, to love. Maureen taught her anew.
When they returned to Edinburgh the magic continued, every day, every night. Cassandra had not been so happy in centuries. Until one evening, lounging on the sofa and watching a movie set in the west coast of Ireland, Maureen said, "Isn't it gorgeous there, Cass? We could have a little cottage by the sea, like that one we stayed in last month. Plant a garden, keep sheep, raise a family."
Cassandra's hand stopped its lazy caress of Maureen's back.
Maureen flipped over, lying with her head on Cassandra's lap, looking up. "I know you can't get pregnant, but I could. The same way your friend Alex did. We might even have twins! Wouldn't that be great?"
"Maureen…"
"I know you love kids," the eager chatter went on. "I've seen you with them at the shelter. I've heard you talk about Sara and Colin for hours on end. I've seen the look in your eyes when you hold a baby." She took Cassandra's hand and kissed the palm. "I want to share that with you, Cass. I want to give you that."
A gift unbidden, a gift from the heart. A gift Cassandra could not accept. Not now. Goddess, not now! "I do want children, and I would love to have them with you, Maureen, but…" Cassandra bit into her lip before she said, the words nearly a whisper, "Not now."
Maureen blinked, confused but not hurt. Not yet. "Why not?"
"I'm not ready. I still need to heal."
"You're doing fine!" came the loyal protest.
"I'm doing better," Cassandra corrected. "I don't feel ready to mother a child, Maureen."
"I'll help."
"I know you would, but children need both parents fully committed and involved. I can't give that. Not yet."
"All right. In a couple of years—"
"That's not the only reason, Maureen. Children take so much time. There—"
"'So much time'?" Maureen repeated, sitting up and facing her. "What do you mean 'so much time'? I get decades. You get centuries."
Cassandra tried to explain. "It's true I don't age. I do have time. But the world doesn't. Things are getting worse all the time, going too fast. I need to be able to focus on the work and put my energy there. A family would—"
"Get in the way," Maureen supplied, the anger coming now and showing in cold, precise words.
"Tear me in two," Cassandra corrected quietly. She took Maureen's hands in her own. They lay there flaccid, with no response, but at least Maureen wasn't pulling away. "If we had children, Maureen, I would want us to live as a family. I would want to wake up with them and go to sleep with them, and with you, every day and every night. I wouldn't want to miss an instant. But these next few decades are critical. If Phinyx doesn't work, the entire global ecosystem may collapse. I don't want any child to have to live in that kind of world, especially not our child."
"So your work with Phinyx comes first."
"It has to."
She nodded slowly, then took her hands out of Cassandra's grasp. "I've already seen how it comes before me."
"Maureen—"
She was already off the sofa. "You live forever. Can't you spare forty or fifty years for me?"
Cassandra let out a slow breath. "I do want to be with you, Maureen. I want us to be together for a long time."
"Really? How?"
Cassandra didn't have a ready answer, and Maureen didn't give her much time. "You don't want a partner, Cassandra," she accused. "You want a lover. A fuck-buddy."
That's not true! Cassandra started to say, but Maureen's dark, angry eyes challenged those unspoken words and forced her to examine her heart. What did she want? Love. Companionship. Passion. Acceptance. Someone to come home to. Someone to make a home for.
But had she? Had she nurtured Maureen as much as Maureen had nurtured her? Who cooked? Who compromised? Who waited at home for the other to come home from work? Who was 'the wife'?
Cassandra closed her eyes in dismay. Such an age-old trap, so easy, so ingrained. "I didn't—" She wiped away tears and tried again. "I didn't mean to use you, Maureen. Truly. I do love you. When I'm with you, I feel more alive than I have in centuries. You make me so happy, and I want to make you happy, too. I thought …"
"What?" Maureen said, but more curious than angry now. She sat down again, at the far end of the sofa. "Where did you think we were going, you and me?"
"Going?" Cassandra shook her head helplessly. "I haven't thought that far. I've been going day to day, Maureen, just enjoying what we have. But also, I'm afraid, every day."
"Why?"
"Because every time I tell you of things I've done, I wonder if that's the day you'll decide to leave."
"I don't scare that easy," Maureen said stoutly.
The blind courage of the ignorant. Cassandra had barely begun to tell of evil deeds.
"Maybe you Immortals can afford to live without thinking of the future," Maureen was saying, "but I can't. I'm almost thirty-two. I want a family, Cass. I want children. That's what I want in my life."
Cassandra nodded, knowing that desire from centuries of aching need, knowing how deep that craving went. They should have had this conversation months ago. They should have taken things slow. Except … she had been, hadn't she? Slow to trust, slow to commit, slow to realize that she was still hiding who she was.
Cassandra took Maureen's hand and kissed it, then pressed her cheek against the palm. Then she let go. "I'm sorry, Maureen," she said softly. "I can't share that kind of life with you."
Alex set their tea on the kitchen table. "Cass, for your birthday next week …"
Cass looked up from a Phinyx finance report. "Yes?"
"I usually take you out to dinner. This year I was wondering if you'd like Maureen to come with us? Or do you and she have other plans? You and I could pick another day."
"The third would be fine, and just you and me," Cass said. "Maureen and I don't have any plans, not for anything." She closed the report and set it aside. "We broke up last night."
"Oh, Cass, I'm so sorry."
"So am I." Cass reached for her tea but only swirled the liquid round in her cup. "She was good for me, but I wasn't good for her. But she'll find someone else." She smiled, but with no brightness there. "It's best this way."
Alex nodded, remembering the time during their courtship when Connor had decided to leave her, wanting to keep her safe. She hadn't let him go. "The Game isn't easy to live with."
Cass looked up. "Yes, the Game." She set her cup down. "And Phinyx, too. Maureen wanted more from me than I can give to anyone right now." Cass stood and went to the window, looking out at the rain on the garden. "But even without that, I don't know if it would have worked. There were so many things from my past."
"Cass, do you have to tell everything? Is the past that important?"
Cass turned around, leaning her back against the wall. "I hope someday it won't be. But it's not in the past for me. There's so much that still hurts, Alex, so much that I need to be able to talk about with my partner. There was too much. I couldn't dump all that plus immortality and the Game on Maureen."
Alex nodded, even as she was wondering if Cass would ever find a partner, because someone who could handle immortality—and handle Cassandra—would have to be a very special person indeed.
"Maybe I'll call Grace," Cass said, half-joking. "She's used to the Game. She's been in an abusive relationship."
Both she and Alex smiled at the outrageousness of that idea. Grace and Cass made an unlikely pair. "How about Amanda?" Alex suggested next.
Cass assumed an expression of fear. "Oh, no! Amanda is more than I can handle."
"Elena?"
"Even worse! Besides, she's married now." Cass turned to look out the window again, sounding serious this time. "Maybe I'll give Ceirdwyn a call."
Alex wasn't smiling either, not anymore. "You should," Alex replied then stood and left the room. In the hallway, she caught a glimpse of herself in the round mirror on the wall. A familiar face—same blue eyes, same high cheekbones, still beautiful … but with graying hair and wrinkles, and with more wrinkles yet to come.
Connor was married, too. Now.
This story is continued in Chapter 9