Disclaimers: Darius, Duncan, Amanda, Felicia, Kenny and the idea of the Immortals are regretfully not mine. Brianna, Marcus, Wendy, Dominic, Anastasia, Daria, Becca, Benji, the Cousins and the Blessing family are.
New York, 1986
Wendy Michaels yawned as she walked down the street. It was late, and she had her first day of classes tomorrow morning. She had rarely been to big cities, growing up in a small town in Montana that no one she had met so far in New York had even heard of. But today had been wonderful, and she knew she had been right to go to medical school at NYU. She couldn't think of a better place to be than the city. She had just spent the day window shopping in Greenwich Village and hadn't been able to resist the temptations of a delicate silver necklace and a pair of harem pants, though she really couldn't afford them. She had heard all about the dangers of the big city from her parents from the movies and from her friends; but though her behavior had crossed the ambiguous definition of "safe" many times this week, she had not yet seen evidence of any threat.
As she turned the corner to get to the subway station, Wendy suddenly realized that her experiences so far had been luck. There were three young men leaning against the wall, leaning over a strange contraption that looked like a glass bowl with tubes. They looked up as she turned the corner. By the time she had registered what she was seeing and tensed her muscles to run, they had already grabbed her. She screamed, but they only laughed as they threw her against the wall. "Don't know where you're from, bitch," the one with red streaks in his hair said, "but this is New York. No one's gonna come help you if you scream, you probably scared away anyone who might bother." He laughed, deep in his throat, and his friends grinned as they grabbed her purse and packages. Wendy had very little knowledge of big city crimes, but had the impression that they were almost always fatal, and often very slow and painful.
Red Hair pushed her against the wall, and she could see he had a switchblade in his hand. "You want it, don't you?" It was not a question. Wendy closed her eyes in terror. The knife slashed down her front and her eyes snapped open as she screamed in pain. Her blouse was torn completely open, and there was a line of blood running down her front. Her bra was torn, but not severed, and Red Hair slashed the knife twice more before it finally broke. She was sobbing and screaming, incoherent. Blindly, she thrust a knee up in desperation, only to have her attacker laugh and shove it aside easily. "Stupid bitch. You think you can stop me?" His friends laughed, impatient for their own turns with this unexpected windfall.
"No, but I'm pretty sure that I can stop you," came a voice from behind them.
The boys turned around. Before them was a man in his early thirties, wearing workout sweats, with a katana at his waist. "Fuck off," one of them spat, "get your own snatch."
The man whirled impossibly fast, somehow taking out both of the boys nearest him in a blur of motion. Then he pulled the one with red hair away from Wendy before the boy could use her as a body shield. He pulled away from the boy, waiting for the younger man to charge. When he did, the man with the katana simply moved aside, striking his hand to the back of the man's neck. There was a moment of silence as the man looked first at the limp bodies on the ground, and then around him to see if there would be any more trouble. Then he picked up his coat and an oddly shaped bag, which he had apparently discarded before challenging the boys, and walked over to the trembling, bleeding girl sitting on the sidewalk. "It's all right, you're safe. They can't hurt you now. What's your name?"
She looked up at him, terrified. "W-W-Wendy. Wendy Michaels."
The man offered her a hand up. "Marcus Macleod. Hang on a minute," he unzipped the bag, and put the sword in it. Then he slung it over one shoulder. "Now take my coat." He gently placed it on her shoulders, and stooped to pick up her purse and packages. "Now, do you mind going to a hospital, or should I call a private doctor? I don't know enough about medicine to stitch you up without leaving scars, though I do a good field dressing." He smiled gently.
Wendy paused, looking him over. "Um, I..." she faltered. She felt herself on the edge of hysterics, and didn't trust herself enough to answer.
Marcus frowned, worried. "Right. I'm taking you home; the hospital would ask too many unanswerable questions." He flagged down a cab, gave an address to the driver, and sat back in silence, keeping a hand on Wendy's arm that was firm enough to reassure her, but not enough to threaten her. She wondered absently if he had practice in this sort of thing.
They arrived at an apartment building on the West Side, and Marcus paid the driver and helped Wendy out of the cab. Then they took the elevator to the tenth floor and came to apartment 10D, which had only one deadbolt. Marcus used the key and ushered his guest inside, flipping the light switch. "Let me see what I can do for you, and then I'll call a doctor," he decided, guiding her to the couch. "I'm going to have to examine you," he told her reluctantly, "but I promise to be a gentleman about it." He waited for a moment as she decided, then hesitantly pulled open the coat. Marcus eased it off her, then fetched a pair of scissors, a wet washcloth and some Tylenol from the bathroom. He cut off the remnants of her blouse, then gently washed the slashes on her breasts and stomach. Wendy watched him fearfully, waiting for the slightest sign that he was going to rape her, but his eyes were clinically detached. She wondered how he could have a doctor's professional attitude without medical training.
Marcus went to the kitchen and got the phone, then came back into the room. "Hi, Mom? It's me. Yeah, I know, but something happened. I need a doctor here; can you ask someone to come and help an assault victim? Good, thanks. Love you too." He clicked the off button. "She says there'll be a doctor here in half an hour, no questions asked."
Wendy, wondering precisely how he was managing all this, decided to start with her first questions and work her way up. "What did you mean when you said a hospital would ask unanswerable questions?"
Marcus looked rather uncomfortable. "Wendy, (may I call you that?) I don't think you want to know the answer to that. Leave it for now, at least."
Wendy nodded, filing it away for later. She didn't want to upset him. "How did you learn to fight like that?"
He shrugged, the ghost of a smile on his lips. "My Mom taught me."
Wendy thought about her own mother, who, for all her talents and qualities, would not know how to get a hospital doctor to make a house call in the middle of the night or teach combat if her life depended on it. "She sounds pretty amazing."
"You don't know the half of it." Marcus was encouraging her questions to make sure she didn't fall asleep out of shock. If she ran out of topics, or started probing too deeply, he would switch to asking rather than answering her questions, but considering what she had just been through, he didn't want to badger her without getting her to trust him first. He was entranced by her strong features and thick brown hair, and the body which under any other circumstance he would have been staring at avidly. He decided it was best not to let her know that until she didn't have molestation on her mind.
"What do you do?" she asked, looking around at the apartment.
"I'm an investigator over at the DA's office. And you?"
"Lowly medical student at NYU," she answered demurely.
He shook his head. "I really don't like people who put themselves down. NYU medical is pretty stringent about who they accept." He looked deep in her eyes, "And someone who has had to earn the money herself to go there, aside from the little her parents could spare, isn't lowly. She is determined, intelligent, and strong."
She looked at him. "I bet you say that to all the girls." She wanted to deny that anything he said had affected her. He was attractive, and she decided from his confident attitude that he knew it. His blond hair was curling softly around his ears and neck, and his gray-blue eyes seemed friendly, but aloof. His body was muscular and quick. This was someone she didn't want to anger, though she wasn't sure she could get him angry.
"I could do a Sherlock Holmes and tell you how I came to those conclusions, but I assure you I don't say it to all the girls. Another trick I learned as a kid was observing people. There are some who'd swear I was psychic." He grinned boyishly.
Wendy looked at him. "I never thanked you, Mark."
Marcus winced. "You can thank me by not calling me Mark." Before she could worry if she had upset him, he asked, "So what's your hometown like?"
For the first time since arriving in the city, Wendy felt no embarrassment as she described her hometown, the landscape, the people she loved, her house, her family. She told him about Ginger, the big dog she missed already, who had been a member of the family for 12 years. About her two little sisters, Karen and Moira. About her dad reading the bible and singing in the evening, and the rest of the family holding each other and singing along. About the smell of her mother's cooking on a crisp autumn afternoon.
Suddenly there was a bell, and Wendy jumped. Marcus walked to the door and picked up something that looked like a phone. "Come on up," he called, pressing a button. He waited by the door for a minute, then opened it when the door bell rang. In walked a man in his fifties, carrying a medical bag. "Hi, Andrew," Marcus greeted him, "Your patient is right over there."
Andrew was as decent as Marcus had been, making her as comfortable as possible as he tended to her. He worked on her for what seemed like hours, keeping the stitches small and neat. Marcus watched on approvingly, and from what she could see at her angle, Wendy agreed that this doctor was very good at what he did. "Aside from the obvious, did you note anything, Marcus?" Andrew inquired as he clipped the black thread he had used for the stitches.
Marcus shook his head. "I didn't ask, I was trying to keep her mind off it, and I probably wouldn't have known what to do, anyway."
Dr. Andrew, as Wendy thought of him, ordered Marcus to leave the room. Then he stripped what few clothes Wendy was wearing and examined her, asking her if she felt any pain anywhere. The examination was as complete and professional as possible, and the doctor decided that she had two bruised ribs and a broken collarbone, but nothing that wouldn't heal if it was coddled. "I would suggest sleeping here for the night. I'd prefer bed rest for a day. If you have engagements you can't break tomorrow, you should still try to take it easy and get plenty of rest. Here's my number, call me in three days so I can remove the stitches."
"Thank you," Wendy said.
The doctor smiled. "My pleasure. Tell Marcus what I said about the bed rest."
"Don't I owe you money?" Wendy asked, worried about the cost, but unwilling to take charity.
Dr. Andrew shook his head. "It's already paid in full. Don't worry, this happens to me all the time. There are procedures, and they've been followed. Now good night, and get some sleep." With that, he left.
Wendy replaced the coat, and then called Marcus in, telling him what the doctor had said. He nodded. "That's what I thought. Are you hungry?" When she shook her head, he took her arm. "Come on, bedtime." He ushered her into a bedroom that was clearly his, and for a moment, she was terrified again. Then he got out an enormous tee shirt and handed it to her. "Put this on and get some sleep," he ordered, "I'll see you in the morning." He asked her if there was anything she needed, then left. Wendy slipped into bed, confused and exhausted, wondering at the enigmatic man who was unlike anyone she knew.
In the morning, Wendy awoke slowly and in pain, but less than the night before. She brushed her teeth with toothpaste and her finger, not wishing to intrude further on hospitality by sharing a stranger's toothbrush. When she went back to the room, she found clothes laid out for her: the harem pants and necklace she had bought, and a white oxford men's shirt that worked as a blouse. Marcus was in the kitchen with a hearty breakfast, she ate quickly, gave him her phone number, thanked him, and ran off to class.
As she entered the subway station, she saw a newspaper and froze at the headline. THREE BOYS MURDERED; DRUG WAR, OR MORE? She swallowed hard. Yes, the hospital would have asked some unanswerable questions. Just what sort of a man was Marcus?
It had been more than three months since the botched mugging that had introduced Wendy to Marcus Macleod, and she still knew as little about him as she had the night they met, though they were now 'going out'. Certain parts of his life he talked about freely: his job, life in New York, how he felt about her. Other parts were sacrosanct; she couldn't pry a single detail out of him about his mother, his childhood, whether or not he had a father, and where he went every Tuesday night. She knew he went out fighting somewhere, because on those nights he always took his sword bag, but he never talked about who he practiced with, or if he enjoyed himself, or even what level martial art belt he had.
She clearly remembered what had happened when she had asked him about the newspaper headline that said the three boys he had rescued her from had been found dead. He had sighed, and his gray-blue eyes had grown shadowed for a moment. "Wendy, they were armed, and you were right in the middle of the alley. I couldn't take the time to knock them unconscious, there was too much risk that they would kill you if they had half a moment to think about what they were doing. Before you ask, no, I don't normally kill people, and it made me feel sick. But I'm very happy you're alive, and you should be too."
That was the last they'd spoken of the incident. Wendy found herself deliberating all the time about how she felt about Marcus, the enigmatic man who refused to trust her with anything important and killed people when necessary. Despite all that, she loved him, but without trust, without knowledge of who he really was, she didn't see anything coming of it.
A similar thing happened when she asked him why he had only one lock. He had replied that it was professional courtesy between thieves, most of those in New York wouldn't rob his apartment, and the others didn't know how to get past a deadbolt. She didn't understand how he would have met half the thieves in New York, and decided it had to do with this D.A. work. He had laughed at that a little under his breath, and replied, "If you like."
Marcus never let her come and go in his apartment, his theory was that since she didn't live there, what business did she have there when he wasn't home? There was no way for her to sneak in and look at things. So one morning, when Marcus stepped into the shower, she took a photo album off the shelf and began flipping through it with one ear on the shower. The first picture up showed a tree-lined river. In front of the river, hugging each other and facing the camera, were two people, a boy of about ten with red-blond hair, and a teenage girl with long black hair and laughing green eyes. Both sported wide grins.
The next photo was of the boy, who was holding a large trout and looking justifiably pleased with himself. The next two or three pages showed each of them casting off, and then another snapshot of the two of them hugging each other. Wendy smiled as she flipped the page. Then her smile faded. The same little boy and teenage girl were whirling, blurs before the camera. But there was no mistaking the Japanese swords they wielded. Katanas. Pictures of them fighting each other. Of the little boy fighting a dark man with a ponytail. Of the teenage girl fighting the dark man. It was this last snapshot that captivated her, the expressions on their faces seemed so frightening, like the man was regretting the need to kill her, or something. Like the girl had just shut off all emotion.
A wet hand dropped onto her shoulder, and Wendy shrieked in surprise, dropping the book. The shower was still running, but Marcus was standing in the doorway, extremely angry. "I forgot my comb," he explained tightly, and moved to get the item. Wendy clasped her seat with whitened knuckles. She had never seen Marcus angry. She didn't want to find out what a man who killed people when he was calm did to people when he was angry.
Marcus went back into the shower, and Wendy closed the book with trembling hands. When he emerged again, he was dry, though his hair was still damp, and the towel was still wrapped around his waist. He sat down heavily on the bed, and he looked old and tired. "Wendy, you shouldn't have looked through my things without asking." He looked at her, saw how frightened she was. "But maybe I've been a little too secretive, and that isn't fair in a relationship. The problem is that not all my secrets are mine to reveal; a lot of my life is based on other people's secrets. Bring the album over here. As long as you promise not to ask any questions, I'll try to tell you what I can."
Nervously, Wendy took a seat next to him and gingerly handed over the book. Marcus held it, unopened for a moment as he talked. "I'm an orphan, Wendy. Because of that, my devotion to my mother is absolute, because if she hadn't taken me in, I'd be dead by now, just another street rat. It happened when I was maybe ten years old. I had been kicked out of so many foster homes that I didn't care anymore what happened to me, I just wanted to be on my own. I ran away to live on the streets of Chicago. I was starving. I lived by pick-pocketing and tried not to get caught. One day I saw this lady walking along in a nice dress, and I reached for her purse. The next thing I knew, I was dangling in midair from the strongest grip I had ever encountered. I thought she was going to scream for the police. Instead, she started lecturing me on my pick-pocketing technique!
"After she established that I didn't have anywhere to go or anyone to rely on, she asked me if I wanted to come home with her. I said yes; I was impressed with her in a way that I had never been with anyone. She gave me a pretty odd proposition. She said that I could live with her and be her son, or go back to the streets, or she could find me someone else to foster me. I chose her, and we had a trial year of it. Her name was Emily Blessing, and it turned out that she had adopted me because when she was young and in trouble, someone had done the same for her. We got along just fine right from the start. She educated me until I was ready to go to school, taught me to fight when I begged her to, and got me straightened out. She even helped me find my birth mother, whom I've decided not to associate with. After the year was up, I changed my name from Mark Carrin to Marcus Macleod, after the man who had taken her in, Duncan Macleod."
He flipped through the book to the pictures of them fighting. This is me," he pointed to the boy. "This is my Mom," he indicated the teenager, who looked far too young to be a mother, "and this is Duncan. Technically, he's my grandpa, but he says it makes him feel old when I call him that." The man with the dark and sorrowful eyes seemed to stare back at Wendy, and she wondered what had happened to make his eyes so old when the rest of him looked so young.
There was more pictures, and Wendy started noting the things that weren't spoken as well as those that were. There were very few pictures of other boys, apparently either Marcus hadn't had childhood friends or they hadn't wanted to be photographed. There were pictures of his birthdays and graduations, and a picture of him with a sexy woman in her thirties when he was a scrawny college student. "That was Amanda. She said when I decided I was going into law that I should know everything there was to know about crime, so she taught me how to rob banks and homes. We didn't actually take anything, just got experience, but it taught me what signs to look for when someone's been robbed, and it made the thieves in New York think of me as one of their own. They know they'll get a fair trial when they go up against me, though they'd like it better if I wasn't a lawyer at all."
The photos raised more questions than they answered, but at least Wendy felt like Marcus was finally trusting her with some parts of his life.
In between shifts, Dr. Emily Blessing checked herself in the mirror as she washed her hands. Another harrying day in the emergency room, but there was no sweat apparent on the wrinkled forehead she presented to the world. Small wonder; the face she wore was as false as the rest of her identity. Brianna Macleod, whenever she disguised herself as the sixty-year-old doctor, thanked whatever deity was responsible for the invention of latex masks. Although Brianna would look like a fifteen-year-old for eternity, she could hold on to a persona for fifty or sixty years, simply adding touches of age to her masks whenever appropriate. This mask made her look like an elderly woman of delicate features and silver hair, a fairy grandmother with an iron spine.
She had learned self-hypnosis and studied acting to make her personas as believable as the latex masks she wore. When she wore that mask, she was Emily Blessing, and not even a truth serum could break that front. Unless there were extreme circumstances, such as either her beeper going off while she was Brianna or an Immortal approaching her as Emily Blessing, she made sure the two lives never intersected. It was the only way to survive.
For the hundredth time, she wished she had the courage to go back to the Harlem hospital system, but she couldn't stand seeing how futile her efforts to help mortals were. Here, at least, if people came into the emergency room they would not return there a month later with a sheet over their head.
Darius had taught her well: in every life she 'paid' for her immortality by performing good works for mortals. It didn't matter what form this took, so long as she lived her life with the understanding that her Immortality was a gift given so that she could help mortals.
However, this was not as completely self-sacrificing as it appeared. Brianna was a trauma specialist, but she worked in a hospital in New York City, and not even in a bad neighborhood. She could go to Afghanistan and make a real difference, possibly, but she had her limits. She knew she would break down completely if she had to care for people with no proper medical supplies and without even completely clean conditions.
Tending to people had taken many forms over the century and a half Brianna had been alive, ranging from sneaking people across the borders in W.W.I and W.W.II to working on a kibbutz in Palestine. The few times she chose careers that could not be interpreted as helping people, such as her stint as an artisan who made stained glass windows, she balanced this by contributing large amounts to charities and spending her free time working at poorhouses.
She was going to have to think of what to do next, soon. Her current persona as Emily Blessing (she thought her long-dead sister might have wanted her name to live on, and so she used the name from time to time) was getting old, and it was about time for her to retire. She *liked* Emily Blessing though, she liked the persona and she loved being Marcus's mother. She was sorely tempted to stay on in this life as a retiree, just to hold on to that a little longer.
One night, while Marcus and Wendy were having dinner at his house, Wendy put down her fork. "Why won't you introduce me to your mother?" she asked, "It's been six months already; I don't think she even knows I exist. Are you ashamed of me or something?"
Marcus looked at her for a long moment. "You know that's not true. I wouldn't be involved with you if I didn't love you and care about you."
"If you really cared about me, you'd be delighted to show me off to your family," she argued, "You've met *my* family after all, and you know all about them."
Marcus sighed, trying to judge her mood. "Wendy, has it occurred to you that, considering the things you have seen me do, my family might be a little bizarre, even scary? The truth is that I love you, and I don't want to lose you if my family frightens you off. I love them, and I wouldn't change them for anything, but they might be a little hard for you to accept." Wendy looked him right in the eyes, saying nothing. Marcus finally rolled his eyes and muttered, "Don't say I didn't warn you." He reached for the phone and dialed a number. "Hi Mom, how are you? Really? That's great. Listen, Mom, Wendy wants to meet you, and I think the best place for that would be the farmhouse. Next weekend? Sure, we can drive up. Mom, is this okay for you? All right, then we'll see you next weekend. Love you too." He put the phone back in it's cradle and sighed. "I really hope you're up to this, because I'd die if I lost you."
The next weekend, Wendy packed up her medical textbooks and clothes and headed over to Marcus's apartment, where his car was packed and ready. Though Marcus seemed tense on the drive up to Connecticut, he talked with Wendy about trivial matters as if it were just another country drive.
The farmhouse was large and painted dove-gray with white trim and a large wrap-around porch. It was kept in good repair, and the garden around it was flourishing nicely. Marcus pulled in behind a 'Caddie from the late sixties that was sitting in the driveway. The door of the house opened, and an old woman in a green floral dress came out to meet them, smiling.
Wendy's first impression of her was favorable. Though the old woman embracing Marcus was much older than the one in the photo album should have been, she wore her years magnificently, as if time had distilled her most vital essences and made them more potent. She was short, at most five feet, but her sharp green eyes and forceful posture would keep even a large man at bay. Though her hands and face were wrinkled and spotted, her grip on Marcus's back was strong, and her delicate and lively features made her age seem beautiful.
Dr. Blessing whispered something in Marcus's ear, and he looked at her quizzically, then snorted and waved at the trees at the far end of the yard with a fake grin on his face.
Finally Marcus and his mother finished their enthusiastic greetings, and Marcus turned to introduce Wendy. Dr. Blessing smiled warmly and nodded appreciatively at Wendy, but Wendy had the feeling that the woman didn't touch people she didn't know. She did, however, chase them both inside with promises of a delicious dinner yet to come.
The dinner was indeed fantastic; it was obvious where Marcus had learned to cook. The conversation mostly consisted of Dr. Blessing and Wendy comparing horror stories of medical school, with Marcus staring off into space. Wendy was truly surprised by Dr. Blessing: though it seemed that the woman obviously was no one to trifle with, she could not possibly be the girl with the sword, nor did she seem like the sort who would learn martial arts herself.
Finally, when everyone protested that they couldn't eat another bite, Dr. Blessing took a clean plate from the kitchen and put a healthy portion of the remaining dinner on it, arranging it nicely and putting outside the door. When Wendy asked about it, Dr. Blessing gave a snort of laughter. "As you will hear later this weekend, child," she explained in her sweet Scottish accent, "I am unfortunately under constant surveillance. When I discovered that I was being observed, I started 'watching my watcher', so to speak. He keeps pretending I don't know, but I do leave dinner out for him every night. We've gotten to the point where he'll at least give up the pretense long enough to eat my food, but won't talk to me at all. I feel like I'm trying to tame a squirrel. That was why I had Marcus wave when you arrived, I always like teasing that man when he's on duty."
The answer left Wendy more confused than before; she felt as though she was trying to put together a hundred-piece puzzle when she only had ten pieces. But she let it go for the time being, hoping that the answer would be clearer later.
The next morning, Wendy woke up with Marcus by her side and the smell of breakfast in the air. She got up and walked down to the kitchen, where she found Dr. Blessing making French toast. "Thought the smell would get your eyes open, dearie," the doctor said in her grandmotherly, Scottish voice. "I've been up since dawn doing exercises and chores. You young people just have no stamina. You might want to take a walk later, Marcus knows some lovely paths through the woods."
"Thank you, Dr. Blessing," Wendy replied, "I'll be sure to ask him."
"Dearie, I want to make things very clear for you," Dr. Blessing said, "You'll hear many things this afternoon, and I want to assure you of two things. First, you can leave whenever it becomes too much for you. Nothing's keeping you here. Second, I love my son dearly, and I want him to be happy. If you feel you love him but can't stand me, I am prepared to let him go, for his sake and yours."
Wendy smiled. "I know that won't be necessary," she assured the older woman, "but I can see how much you love him, if you would do that." She touched the woman's hand, and though Dr. Blessing's first reaction was to pull away slightly, she relaxed and covered Wendy's hand with her own.
Marcus and Wendy took a walk in the woods later, going to a grove of trees next to a waterfall. They made love there, and Marcus tried to take and give as much as possible, in case it was the last time. "I wish this could go on forever," he murmured throatily in her ear as they lay on the grass, sated.
"There'll be plenty of time later, Marcus," Wendy teased, "You're acting as if the world was about to end."
Marcus sighed heavily. "I'm just not sure you'll want to be with me, after you hear what Mom has to say," he answered. He looked at his watch. "I think we should get back to the house. It's getting late."
Lunch was silent and tense, much in contract to the warm atmosphere of dinner the night before. When they were finished, Marcus cleared the table as Dr. Blessing led Wendy to the training room she had shown her the night before on the tour of the house. Behind them, Marcus entered the room and locked the door, behind him. Marcus and Dr. Blessing gripped each other's hands for a moment, both of them tight-lipped and white-faced. Then Marcus pulled a gun from his pocket, and with an expression of utter love on his face, shot his mother at point blank range in the chest.
Wendy wasn't even aware that she was screaming, she was scrabbling against Marcus to get through the door, begging him to let her out. He caught her hands and forced her to stop struggling, forced her to turn around and look at the dead body lying in a pool of blood on the floor. Wendy's mind was blank, she struggled helplessly against Marcus, who simply held her in a grip as hard and unyielding as stone. When she tried to close her eyes against the sight, he ordered her to open them. "I'm only doing this once, Wendy, keep your eyes open." Something in his voice made her obey and stop struggling.
As she watched, she saw the impossible. Dr. Blessing's chest began to heal, as the gaping wound sealed itself shut with little flickers of blue lightning. Then suddenly the woman spasmed and her eyes flew open, and she lay on the floor for a moment gasping for breath. Then she turned around for a moment and then stood up and turned back. Facing Wendy was the girl from the picture, her hair short and black around her shoulders, blood glistening on her clothes, a latex mask and a wig in one hand. When she spoke, her voice had no hint of Scottish accent, and was completely different from that of Dr. Blessing. "My name is Brianna Macleod. I have lived for nearly two hundred years, and I am Immortal."
Unbelieving, Wendy's hand drifted to the unmarred skin on Brianna's chest. "How is this possible?" she whispered, gone to a stage far beyond panic, fear, or disbelief.
"No one knows. It just happens to some people and not to others. Yes," she nodded to Wendy, "there are others like me. None of us get old or sick, and we just recover after death. I had my first death when I was fifteen back in 1823, so for the rest of eternity I have to look like this. I just create personas and masks, pretending to get older so I can stay in one place longer than ten years."
"Are you a vampire?"
Bria shook her head. "Not in the slightest."
"Is Marcus an Immortal too? Would our children be Immortals?" Wendy's mind was whirling as the parts of the puzzle began to come together.
"I made very sure when I adopted Marcus that he wasn't immortal. And Immortals can't have children. But there are several things you should know about. We Immortals go around killing each other. Permanently, I mean. Supposedly the only one left will gain what we call the Prize, an unknown power that will make its bearer the ruler of the world. I don't kill unless I am forced to, but there will always be people coming after me. I have a reputation, and people like the notoriety of killing one of the best. And there are those who watch our kind, like the man in the woods. Supposedly they are supposed to observe and never interfere, but they might decide Immortals are too dangerous and come after them. There may someday be a risk of one of them killing me in his quest to save humanity, or testing the two of you to see if you are Immortals."
Wendy looked the girl over. Before this confession, she had had trouble seeing Dr. Blessing as the sort who would teach her son to kill. After it, she had trouble seeing Brianna as a nurturing mother who had the devotion of that same son. "Then there's danger to us?"
Marcus loosened his hold on her so that his embrace was comforting, rather than confining. "Mom exaggerates, as usual. I've never had a moment's worry from either Immortals or Watchers."
"There's always a first time, Marcus. And just because you've never had trouble doesn't mean trouble doesn't exist. I've seen things and heard stories that would make your heart break, you know that. If Wendy is going to make a decision, she should go into this with her eyes open and all the information."
"I've never had a moment's worry," Marcus repeated to his mother in a voice that brooked no argument. "I love you, Mom."
"I love you too, but I think Wendy has enough on her plate at the moment. Sweetie, if you have any more questions, you can ask me. And remember, you don't have to decide anything this weekend." With that, the woman turned around and sighed. "I'd better get a mop and clean this mess up." Then she looked down and laughed. "And put on clean clothes while I'm at it!"
All day and all night, Wendy kept turning things over in her mind. Was this the sort of family she would want to bring a child into? Were these the people she wanted to share her life with? She remembered the spy in the woods, the paper's headline after Marcus rescued her. She considered the secrecy of the past six months. She thought about the tenderness Marcus had shown when helping her heal after the attack, and of how much she loved him. She recalled how welcoming and kind Brianna had been when she had arrived.
"Dr. Blessing, I think I do have some questions," she ventured to the girl on Sunday afternoon.
Bria sighed. She was dressed in jeans, with no masks, makeup, or pretenses. "I thought you might. But let me make something clear to you. When I'm dressed as Dr. Blessing, I'm Emily Blessing. When I'm like this, I'm Brianna. Never call me by the wrong name. When I adopt a persona, I separate it entirely from myself, and I don't like crossing the two."
Wendy considered this, then asked, "Why did you adopt Marcus in the first place if it's so dangerous for us mortals to be around you?"
Brianna sighed. "Selfishness, I suppose. It's lonely associating only with Immortals, especially since you can never completely trust them not to take your head when your back is turned. I'm not the only one, a lot of Immortals take mortal lovers, or let in a few friends on the secret. But--" she flipped open the small sketchpad she held in her lap. "You see this picture?" she showed an etching of a black man with a sad smile on his face. "This was Jonathan. He died because he was my friend, and thought he could protect me when an Immortal came for me. He didn't even know what I was, and he died for it anyway. I can't protect you or Marcus, no matter how much I want to."
Wendy looked down at the picture and swallowed, seeing how kind and friendly he looked. If she made the wrong decision, would she herself be just another picture in this sketchbook some day? "Is it worth it?" she asked.
Brianna looked at her calmly. "As much as it's 'worth it' to care about anyone, I suppose. It's worth it to me. It's worth it to Marcus. But the stakes are high, you don't have to get involved. And I told you, you can choose to be with him and tell me to take a hike." Faced with the possibility of losing a dearly loved son, she stood up to walk back into the house, not wanting Wendy to see her cry.
Later, watching Marcus and Brianna train together, watching him stab her, watching her always stop her blade an instant before it could touch him, Wendy came to a decision. "I want to stay." she decided. "I love Marcus, and I want to be with him, and I'll accept the risk."
Marcus dropped his sword and ran to her, whirling her around in his arms. Brianna just stood there, tears of joy and relief in her eyes.
New York, 1993
Brianna came through the door arm in arm with Marcus and Wendy. "That was the best retirement party I've ever had," she commented, "Now the question is what to do with myself for the next few years. I've never actually been retired before, after all. I usually just move on to a new life."
"You still could," Marcus observed, "it wouldn't change things between us." He settled into an antique chair. Emily Blessing had Victorian tastes and decorated her house in that fashion, though Brianna didn't care one way or another for the period. There was, however, a rather large television and stereo system in the living room. On the mantle were pictures of Marcus and Wendy's wedding, baby pictures of their twin girls at birth and later, running around and active in the yard of the summer house that had always been Bria's real home.
"I'm not changing until your kids are old enough to be told," she declared with determination, "Six years old is too young to either keep a secret or have your grandmother die, and I want to be with the twins as much as possible. Speaking of which, do you need to get home?"
Wendy checked her watch. "We told the sitter to stay until midnight, we have another hour. We never get out like this anymore, I thought the three of us could just sit and talk."
Brianna was about to agree, when all of a sudden she felt fear and panic spread through her. She looked around for anything that might be causing it, but didn't see anything. Then came a stab of pain and terror, making her double over in agony. Marcus instantly leapt to her side, kneeling by her and demanding to know what was wrong. She yanked away from him, feeling electricity explode through her. The Quickening blasted through her with the force of a maelstrom, bringing her to her knees as the blue mists circled her. Finally, she collapsed to the floor, weeping.
Darius was dead. That was the only explanation. She could feel him inside her, as strong as when he first taught her to control her gifts. Somehow, she had absorbed his Quickening instead of his killer. She touched her face. The mask she normally wore was melted and burnt, she quickly ripped it off and stood up shakily, looking around the room. The light bulb had exploded, leaving them in frightening darkness, and when Brianna's fumbling hands found the candle on the mantelpiece and lit it, she saw that the television set had shattered and partially melted, as had the VCR.
She still couldn't believe it, it was simply too hard to understand. She would have to call Duncan and find out who had done it. She covered her eyes for a moment in silent supplication, praying that Darius's soul had found the reward it so richly deserved. Marcus and Wendy were still chorusing their questions, and she found their voices too loud and quick, grating on her senses. "Darius is dead," she informed them quietly, not feeling the comforting hand Marcus placed on her shoulder.
She tried not to think too hard about herself. She knew the Quickening had changed her, she didn't want to know how much, not just yet. She had to call Duncan, he was in Paris, he would know details of what had happened. And she needed to hear his voice, to reassure herself that she still had one father left. Now more than ever, she needed her family.
The funeral was in Paris, and Bria took Marcus, Wendy and the girls along with her. Wendy had met all these people at her wedding, and many of them came to the house when they were in town, but somehow it was different now. Most of them were usually cheerful and joking, except Duncan, but now even Fitzcairn and Amanda stood silently over the grave. Duncan looked even more grim than usual.
Wendy found out later that Duncan had "taken care of" Darius's killer. She was torn between relief that the problem had been taken care of without her mother-in-law killing anyone, and feeling like she was trapped in The Godfather, married to the mob and watching this filthy business going on, not involved, but up to her eyes in it. For the first time since Bria had explained the concept of Immortals to her, Wendy wondered what sort of family she had married into.
New York, 1996
Brianna sighed as she came home from the gym, slipping off her sneakers and socks and heading immediately for the bathroom. Once there, she peeled off her clothes and slid into the hot shower. She gave a low moan of relief as the pulse of the hot water began to make a dent in the tight knots in her shoulders and back. Now that she was retired, she had precious little to do with herself except exercise and catch up on her reading, so she did both almost fanatically. She was also working on several stained glass designs, one of her two favorite artistic mediums.
As she wrapped herself in a fluffy towel of the same shade of dusky rose as her bathroom, she went to check her phone and email messages. The first three phone messages were from friends, things she could attend to later. The fourth made her stop dead in her tracks.
"Brianna Macleod? This is Felicia Martins. I have your family. You will hear from me when I'm ready to deal with you. Don't bring in anyone else, or this could get nasty."
Brianna forced herself to sit down, relax. She threw out a mental call to Marcus, knowing that even if he was sleeping, she would be able to reach him. Instead, there was a thick fog, which probably meant that he was drugged. She had always respected Wendy's privacy, and thus had no way of latching onto her mind clearly, but she had set up back doors in the minds of her three grandchildren. The three of them had a similar response. If she wanted to link in with Wendy she would need to be calm and have greater concentration, but it seemed obvious what had happened. This Felicia, whoever she was, had kidnapped Marcus and his family in order to manipulate Brianna, and it seemed equally obvious that this person was either an Immortal or a Watcher. In order to insure that none of them were harmed, she would have to reach them before Felicia was ready for her.
Brianna forced herself to calm down and prepared herself for combat, dressing appropriately. Then she knelt on the floor, moving into a meditative position, and waited for her family to regain consciousness. She prayed that Felicia, whomever she was, had been careful enough to insure that the children didn't overdose on whatever drugs she had used to subdue them. She must have come upon them one at a time, but within the course of a few hours, or she would never have been able to pull it off. If she had taken them as a group, Marcus would have fought her, if she had bided her time longer between catching them, someone would have had a chance to realize what was going on and raise an alarm of some kind. That implied that she was crafty and capable, and knew how to use resources well. It also implied that she was worried about Brianna's skill level, or she would not have bothered with a scheme this complicated to psych her out.
Brianna thought about the children most. Though she loved Marcus as much as her own life, he was an adult who knew how to take care of himself. She had seen to that. But Daria and Becca were only nine, and Benji was only thirteen months old. They didn't know how to defend themselves, nor how to act in a hostage situation. Felicia might even blame Benji for crying, though he was too young to have much control of that. The kids didn't even know about Immortals, they would have no idea what was happening to them. Wendy, at least, should be all right. The woman had a cool head when it came to protecting her children, and she had no bravado. But Brianna prayed that she was doing the right thing by spoiling Felicia's plans.
Brianna felt something stirring in Marcus's mind and reached for it, insistently prodding him awake, and then forcing a full rapport on him, so that she would see and experience everything that he did. Then she began visualizing how far away he was, and got moving. This was as bad as playing 'Hot or Cold' and the stakes were incredibly high, but she didn't exactly have a choice in the matter.
It was the most harrowing night of her life. Listening to Felicia explain her plans to Marcus and the others, hearing screams and feeling sharp pain when Felicia decided Benji's flesh would make a good surface on which to hone her sword. She forced herself to be completely aware of what they were thinking and feeling, so that she could track them, but if she stopped for a moment to grieve or feel fear, she would never get up again. It would overwhelm her. She kept sending her thoughts to Marcus, reassuring him. It's going to be okay. I will find you, I swear. When she reached the building, an old, deserted warehouse, she stopped and fished her set of lock picks out of her sneaker. She wasn't Amanda's pupil for nothing. Then she shielded her family completely out of her mind, geared herself up for battle, and focused the whole of her mind on Felicia, forcing the woman not to notice her Quickening. Any one of her teachers from Darius to Rabbi Levi would have skinned her alive for abusing her abilities like that, but she didn't particularly care about giving Felicia a fair chance. It wasn't like Marcus and his family had been given a chance to defend themselves, why should Brianna be chivalrous? She slipped into the building easily and moved to the far room, opening the door.
The sight that greeted her was one out of her nightmares. Felicia had turned suddenly to see who was coming through the door, and still held Benji's body in one hand. The other hand held her sword. Marcus, Wendy, Daria and Becca were cuffed to a pipe running along the floor of the far wall, and it was obvious from the stench that a day and a night locked in this cell had been unpleasant for all involved.
Felicia was most certainly an Immortal, one with dark hair cut short and wide, calculating features. She was dressed in a cat suit decorated with artistic chain mail. "How did you find me?" she hissed angrily.
Brianna ignored Felicia's question, and realized it was useless to ask the woman to let her prisoners go. She forced herself to ignore all her feelings, pushed them down to deal with later. "Is he dead?" she inquired, nodding to Benji.
"Yes, it's amazing how tenacious he was, though. I got a good four hours of pain out of him before he expired." Felicia grinned.
"Let's take this to the outer room," Brianna demanded, "I think they've seen enough for tonight."
"Oh, you know what they say," Felicia retorted in her crude voice, "the family that slays together, stays together."
Brianna looked steadily at Felicia and held out one hand, accepting Benjamin's tiny corpse. Cradling the baby in her arms, she walked over to Wendy and placed the baby in her lap as tenderly as possible, ignoring Wendy's moans of anguish and the low groan that came from Marcus. Then she walked back to Felicia and slid into an En Garde position.
Felicia leapt forward, and Brianna parried and riposted as dispassionately as though she were practicing in a dojo. She whirled and turned and flashed her blade to confuse Felicia, whose style was wild and overly aggressive. When Felicia came in for an upward parry that would have left a path open to Brianna's throat, Brianna responded with a quick C-lunge that pierced her opponent's lung. When Felicia fell to the floor, Brianna kicked her sword away and paused. "What I'd really like to do to you is kill you by cutting away small pieces until there is nothing left," she growled in a low voice, "but I don't think that would be good for my soul." Her blade flashed down without a moment's hesitation.
There was a moment of sanity, a moment where the lull between the beheading and the Quickening seemed to stretch out eternally, while she tried mutely to apologize to the people she loved, whose trust she had failed. Then she felt the hairs on the back of her neck raise as the lightning began to caress her with its massive spasms. The Quickening was violent and painful, and Brianna was dimly aware of the traumatized spectators watching her. As the pain and the ecstasy faded, Brianna was left with a last 'gift' from Felicia, memories of exactly what the woman had done to her family. Still spasming from the electrical shock of the Quickening, Brianna crawled over to the pipe and examined the cuffs that bound the mortals: thick plastic ties that had notches at one end and a loop at the other, better than handcuffs because they couldn't be wriggled out of. Brianna calmly set to cutting them off with the edge of her sword, freeing the twins first before she went to work on the adults. Both children were somber and silent, and Brianna wondered how deep the damage ran in their minds, and how many years it would take to finally release the pain they had just absorbed. She noticed that Daria was missing the last joint of her pinkie finger, she remembered Felicia doing that for amusement so that she could tell the girls apart.
As she released Marcus and Wendy, she saw unmitigated hatred in Wendy's eyes. "Get away from us," the woman hissed. She cradled the body of her dead child, tried to gather her living ones to her. "Get out of here!" she screamed. "Go kill yourself before someone decides to take another one of my children!"
Brianna looked at Marcus and saw how torn he was, still in shock. He wasn't mentally capable of making a choice like that. She knelt by the girls for a moment, ignoring Wendy. "Daria, Rebecca, I'm really your grandmother. My real name is Brianna Macleod, and it's my fault this happened. All of it. Listen to your mother and never ask about me again." She kissed them both, unmindful of the gore, and felt her control snap. Shaking with sobs she would not vocalize, she kissed Marcus as well, then stepped away. "I love you. All of you. But it was a terrible mistake to bring you into this life, and the damage is done. I'll never be able to express to you how sorry I am." Then she turned and walked away, disappearing into the night.
When she returned to her apartment, she turned on the shower and cried for three hours, not caring when the temperature scalded her skin, nor when the hot water ran out and began to freeze her. All that kept playing through her mind was the memories of exactly what she was responsible for, remembering Benji's body, the look in her son's eyes, the missing finger that was the least of what had been stolen from the twins now. She began packing. It was already morning; she called up a storage place and moved all of her things there.
After she moved all her files from her regular computer to her laptop and formatted the drive, she opened a program on the laptop. She broke the encryption and started the Relative Stranger Protocol, creating an identity for herself. She needed to get away from the city, kill off all signs of her connection with Marcus. That much was clear. But what was not clear was what she was going to do next, so she made a general persona that could at least cash in on a will and leave it to her next identity. Then she took a bag that contained money, travel tickets, a leather bound copy of De Bello Gallico from Darius and the disks for the RSP, and went about faking her own death.
Twenty four hours later she was on a plane, with pain she could not begin to articulate and not a clue as to what she was going to do next. Though she often re-used names for different personas, she knew that she could never again use the name Emily Blessing.
End.