Fools Everywhere
 

They don't tell you things like this at the Watcher academy.

Oh, they tell you some of the immortals are complete bastards.  You can't miss that lesson, not with some of the examples we see.  They tell you some of them might well be saints.  Well, come on, we train in Geneva, do internships in the chapterhouse in Lyons.  You can miss Darius?  You'’d have to be blind, deaf, dumb, and, most importantly, flunking.  What they don't mention is that these potentially centuries-old people can be such complete and utter morons.

Caroline Hollingsworth is an idiot right up there with the worst of 'em as far as I'm concerned.  Most women landing in the Game would figure they're largely outclassed until they learn to be tricky and sneaky, or build up some major muscle and some major skill in some kind of sword work or martial art.  Hell, boxing would be a good start; it would at least teach her footwork.  Not Caroline, though.  She figures being a field hockey champion will get her through the first few years.  Can't see why she'd think that; it didn't keep her from breaking her own neck in her own house.  She was drunk, the idiot.  Fell down the damn stairs.  Great way to join the Game, huh?

Anyway.  She's tall, yeah, but tall enough to hide a halberd?  Not a chance.  I don't think there's an immortal alive who could.  Not in modern society.  And she doesn't even use a halberd or a spear; she's using a hockey stick.

I will say that working a blade edge into a hockey stick is one of the more... unique weapons I've ever seen.  (But for this I aced the weapons identification section at the academy?  Oh, well, it'll help with an opponent, if she ever has one.)  And it does make sense.  She's damned nasty with that thing, that's for sure.  And it's one of the duralloy handles; she probably could block another immortal's sword with it.

But when your life depends on your ability to win a fight, what kind of moron pisses off her teacher so completely that he throws up his hands and throws her out?  Literally in the first case and damn near literally in the last?  Jack's precise words were, "Don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out!"

She's frustrating the hell out of me.  I mean, even before I saw an immortal fight and got recruited (and Amanda is one hell of an incentive to research something!), I could have come up with better ideas of how to do this.  Say, oh, computer school and as nasty a martial art as I could find where the sensei would let me in the door, and all the running I could fit in around the two?  Right after I memorized the location of every bit of Holy Ground within a hundred miles or so.

She's immortal, for crying out loud.  She might run short on sleep, but she won't stay sick even if she runs herself down so far that something manages to get past her immune system.  Hell, Caroline doesn't even get hangovers and that's an accomplishment given the way she drinks.  Putting in time on that kind of training is the necessary capital for a really long-range investment like, say, living a few centuries in the Game, right?  Wrong.  Not Caroline.  She's going to give me white hairs and I'm only twenty-five.

One thing she's doing right, anyway:  staying in shape.  Well, and staying inconspicuous.  If she's gonna live in Chicago as an immortal, at least she has enough sense to be working and training at one of the fitness clubs.  Kinda boring to Watch, but sensible on her part.  But damn it, there are really good dojos here -- why in hell hasn't she joined one?  Jack certainly recommended enough of them.  Hell, I thought I got frustrated with her.  I think he's just given up and written her off as a loss.  Can’t say I blame him.

Oh, well.  Off for another exciting evening of, gag, bar-hopping.  God, it's a good thing she’s immortal.  Her liver needs it.  On the other hand, her bank account needs the money she'’s spending if she's gonna have the kind of mobility, down the line, that an immortal needs.  Of course, Caroline's not working on finding out how to change her name, or what kind of job skills will be mobile, or how to stay inconspicuous.  What in the hell is she going to do in, say, ten years when she still hasn't aged past twenty?

Who am I kidding?  Caroline's not going to last that long.  She just won't think.

# # #

"Elvis is English?" the blond young man repeated disbelievingly, his accent pure London to any knowledgeable ear.

Haresh Clay smiled at him, delighted once again by the open play of emotion across Carter's face.  He'd first fallen in love with the new immortal because of his joy in life and its absurdities.  In the nine centuries since, he had yet to fall back out of love.  Haresh reached out, mahogany hand in sharp contrast to the flax-yellow curls he was pushing back out of his lover'’s eyes.  "That's what the woman said, yes.  You rescued me from her just in time.  And you need a haircut."

"What?  And take away your grip?" Carter teased him, grinning as Haresh's face softened even more from its usual stern lines.  Haresh Clay no more needed to be rescued....  His mind wandered back to the overheard comment and he muttered, "Elvis was from somewhere south of here.  There'’s a Canadian figure skater named Elvis....  Maybe Elvis Costello?"  He chuckled at last, giving up on the comment.  "She must have been crazy.  Or drunk, although it's early for that."

"I thought that would amuse you," Haresh agreed and settled his back more comfortably against the bar.  He'd come directly to the bar from a shareholders meeting and still wore his cream silk shirt and the chocolate-brown suit pants.  Carter, on the other hand, wore denim and leather and cotton, as casual as Haresh was precise.  Carter's face and nature were shaped for laughter, Haresh's for severity and war, down to the shaven head so that no opponent would ever use even his hair against him.  The two of them in combination was a dichotomy of styles that balanced perfectly.

"You were right," Carter said, blue eyes still bright with laughter.  "It did.  How's your drink?"

"Fine," Haresh commented with a shrug.  "Almost worth the price, even."

"The meeting was a nuisance, then?  You looked annoyed," Carter probed with apparent casualness, then frowned as Haresh stiffened.  "What is--"  He fell silent as the approaching immortal came within his own range.  "Damn.  And here I wanted to have dinner and catch a movie."  Instead he shifted to set his own side against the bar and began looking casually across the dancers and prowling wolves hunting sex for the night.

It took only a moment to spot the tall, solidly-built young woman frowning and examining everyone in the crowd suspiciously.  Carter snorted as he looked her over, from the short, layered brown hair to the expensive cross-trainers.  "Great.  An infant.  Is she even old enough to be in a bar?"

"They do card here."  Haresh was still examining her suspiciously, although he'd raised his glass to his lips again.  He sipped and set it back down, then turned partway towards the bar and his lover.  "But you're right.  She's an infant.  There's no challenge to that one.  Let her grow up a bit."

"If she makes it," Carter sighed, still watching.  "She's heading this way, and I think she's drunk."

"I'll take her if it comes to that," Haresh reminded him, dark eyes growing angry.  His finely featured face was still impassive, but light gleamed off the gold of his watch as he set his glass on the bar in a single smooth, impatient movement.

"Caroline Hollingsworth," the girl introduced herself, voice faintly burred with intoxication or bravado.  "New in Chicago?"

"No," Carter warned her, straightening up and letting some of the steadiness of centuries of challenges show through.  She didn’t look the type to be able to read that, however.  "Not new at all.  We've been through quite a few times.  Why don't you go somewhere else?"

"What, not big enough to play the Game, blondie?" she asked, leaning in to intimidate him.  She wasn't much smaller than he was, either.

She was nowhere near as intelligent, though.  Caroline started and stepped backward a pace when Haresh turned from the bar and bared his teeth in a shark's smile, apparently startled to find him immortal, too, or drunk enough to have forgotten he was there.

"We're big enough.  You're not old enough, though.  Go away, child, your vintage needs to mature."

"What?" she sneered at him.  "I'm not good enough for you?  And I was talking to him, baldie."

"No," Carter warned her harshly, "you aren't good enough for this."  He reached for her arm, and she yanked it back, nearly splashing her drink.  "Go on, girl," Carter said, his words low and measured, "take your drink and your head and go."

"Oh, right," and she glared at him, crazy enough or young enough to ignore Haresh’s menace and pay attention only to Carter.  "I'm supposed to wait for you to come through the city again?  Until I'm not expecting you?  I don't think so."

"No," Haresh purred, suddenly looking forward to a simple fight, a simple quickening, and an electric evening with his lover to settle that quickening.  He moved just far enough to make her look at him rather than Carter.  "You don't think at all, girl.  You're vicious, but not ready to learn.  There's an abandoned warehouse on 12th, near the lake...?"

"I know it."  She smiled, drunk and arrogant and convinced that immortality would get her through anything.  "How much time you need to get there?  Since blondie here ain't old enough to go out on his own?"

Haresh smiled, precise now and rapacious.  "Oh, he's old enough.  I'm hungrier, though.  I'll be there in forty-five minutes, infant.  If you’re smart... you won't be."

"I'm no coward," Caroline growled, stalking off without realizing yet that she had no names for them, no ages, nothing except a promise that they'd seen Chicago plenty of times before.

Carter glanced at Haresh, not quite frowning but clearly unhappy.  "She's a child."

"She's a fool."  Haresh glanced back at him, then said softly in Arabic, "She is a threat, my heart."

Carter slid into Arabic just as easily.  "She's an idiot.  She'd never find us; you know that."

"She is a threat."  Cold, harsh, relentless voice, but Haresh reached out to barely trace Carter's cheek with the tips of his fingers.

"Because she wanted to challenge me?"  Carter shook his head, his gaze matched steadily to his lover's.  "She was smart enough to leave you alone, at least."

"Because she's a fool.  Because she's a pawn in the Game--"

"--because she challenged me," Carter repeated, hand coming up to catch Haresh's.  Gold-tanned fingers threaded through dark, strength to strength, length to length.  "I don't care, you know.  That you take the fights."

"I want you to live."

"I have to live," Carter told him simply.  "I've got your heart.  I wouldn't want to drop it for something as stupid as being dead."

"Then remember that."  Haresh’s voice was shockingly gentle in contrast to his harsh words.  "I won't lose you."

"How could you?"  Carter smiled at him, amused and aroused and content, and tightened his grip on his lover's hand.  "You have my heart, remember?"  He straightened up, pulling away from the too-noticeable positioning... but he didn’t let go, either.  More practically Carter went on, "Do you have to do this?"

"She's an idiot," Haresh said grimly and, reluctantly, released his lover.  "Fool enough to walk in front of a car -- or fool enough to stay here too long waiting for us to come back and give her a chance."

That, Carter had to admit to himself, made sense.  It could have just been the alcohol, but she had seemed stubborn enough, reckless enough, to stay too long and be seen not to age.  And she had, in the end, been the one pushing the point.  So Carter shrugged, and smiled, and surrendered.  "Let me finish my beer, then."

That easily, that smoothly, with the worn, offhand casualness of arguments that had flared and been handled centuries before, they settled their differences and slid back into synch with each other.  Nothing was more important.  Not to them.  Not in decades or centuries or on any continent in the world.  Not anymore.

Apollo was right.  The nastiest curse I can think of right now is seeing the future and not being able to do anything about it.  That's what he cursed Cassandra with and that's how I feel right now.  I knew it was going to happen, but....

Caroline's dead.

Permanently dead.  Head on cracked crazed concrete dead.  And I was right.  It was a massacre.

What the hell was she thinking?  She walked up to two immortals -- come on, Caroline, two of them? -- and challenged.  Hell, she didn't know who they were -- they wouldn't tell her at the warehouse because she hadn't asked back at the bar -- but I think I do.  I'm not entirely sure, but... how many pairs like that can there be?  A tall, slim, bald black man with a scimitar and his equally tall, blond male lover, who had a long sword but never drew it.  Never moved to interfere.  She was only a year in the Game.  I think she ran into two fighters who'’ve played this for a thousand years now.  Haresh Clay is a very serious player in this Game of theirs, and he and Carter Wellan are kind of hard to miss.  Which is part of the reason I remember their names from the courses on the major players.  It's like remembering Connor MacLeod wears a ratty trench coat and tennis shoes, given a chance, and has a laugh like rusted barbed wire; or that Melvin Koren has a scar down the right side of his face, from forehead to mid-cheek over the eye and is considered too dangerous for any Watcher to track.  I can still name off and list recognizable details of over a hundred of the nastiest fighters in the Game, the ones who can and do show up anywhere.  Haresh and Carter are had to miss, hard to misidentify.  I could be wrong... but I don't think so.

Maybe someone will tell me when I send in the closing report on her.  I hope so.

Oh God.  I'm shaking.  It's hot as hell in here, muggy, Chicago summer heat, and I'm shaking.  It's not like I ever met her.  Not really.  She was a stupid, willful, ignorant....  Oh God, I Watched the woman for a year and she's DEAD.

Why am I crying?  I just saw her on the streets.  I went to the gym every day so I could check on her.  I'm in the best damn shape of my life because of a dead woman who was so God damn hard-headed and stupid she pissed off her teacher and drank her immortality away into challenging a fast, quick, mean man who I think was just trying to protect his lover.

I mean, I saw them kissing just before the fight.  It... scared me, to see that much love between anyone, that much risk.  They're both immortal.  I saw the blond's sword, the way he was following the fight.  He knew exactly what was going on, how his lover would fight.  I could see it, the same way I could see the tension in him, the 'what if' and 'please, no.'  The same things I was saying, and I didn't even like Caroline, damn it!

She's dead.  My first assignment, my first immortal.  And she's dead.  Oh, God.  All the times I felt so fucking superior... was it just because of what I'd studied, what I knew most immortals did to live, to win?  I never even tried to contact her, to straighten out the stupid shit she was doing, the lousy habits she'd gotten into.  Should I have?  Am I going to see her in the street every time I turn around?  Like some girlfriend I broke up with?

They don't tell us about this in the Academy.  We think our immortals are going to outlive us, that we're studying history in the making.  What do I do now?  She's history, all right, and it's over.

Caroline stalked into that with her hockey stick like she was going to go for another record-breaking year.  She even dodged and blocked his first couple attacks with the scimitar.  And then he smiled, white teeth and black skin and a sense of humor darker than he was.  I'm going to see that smile in my dreams tonight.  It should have been in Jaws, right before the shark came up.  You should have brought a bigger boat, Caroline.  Because he ducked under her swing, and that curved blade spun around the way it's supposed to and there was blood all over the floor.  I could smell it, see it on the concrete, and it was so dark in there that the blood looked maroon, not red, almost black.  It was... thick on the floor, and she yelled.  Not really a scream.  I don't think it hurt yet, it sounded more like she was furious.  She never thought she was going to lose until then, I don’t think.  Didn't think she could lose, more like.  Spoiled rich kid.  Dead rich kid.  Spoiled immortal.  Dead immortal.

How do I write this into a report?  How do I produce something cold and detached and professional when I can still see red spraying into the air and across the concrete, when I can still see her face when the shock kicks in and she realizes she's dead?  She knew.  That's why she tried to run.

The black man took her stick away and spun it, like it was nothing, like he'd been using spears all his life and that life was longer than mine will ever be.  Spun it and took her head off while she was trying to get out, get away -- trying to live.  I wanted to yell, tell her to hurry, he was gaining.  The blond guy wanted to yell too, I think.  Fists clenched and mouth one tight, worried line, and too damn stubborn to say anything, or maybe he was afraid to distract his lover.

And then the lightning was done -- and it didn't take long, did it?  Short life, short epitaph, Caroline.  Jesus.  I'm glad I've got this journal, because that wouldn't go over real damn well in an official report, but it's true.  But the blond guy pulled his lover up off the ground.  They're almost the same size, but it's like looking at a retriever and a rottweiler; you know which one's safe and which one isn't.  Pulled him up and held him, just wrapped his arms around him and held him, and then walked him out of the warehouse and into the night.

And I stayed.  I got to hide her body, and deal with her hockey stick that the guy just dropped next to her.  I dealt with her car, so that the police will think she skipped town.  They'll wonder why the bank account hasn't been closed.  They'll wonder why her apartment still has her clothes.  Her parents will wonder if she's okay, if she's alive or dead, and why she hasn't called to tell them something.

And I won'’t be able to say.

She was an idiot.  I know this.  I've been saying it for months.

Some days I hate this job.  At least I'’m calmer now.  My handwriting's almost legible.  I don't even think I'm going to throw up again.  All right.  I can be professional and write the damn thing, right?  Right?

When I submit that closing report... I'm going to request an immortal with enough sense to come in from the rain.

If I can just stop shaking and crying to write it.
 

Elvis Stojko is one hell of a figure skater from Canada.  Only man I've ever seen who could dance on ice to techno....

The line about 'Get a bigger boat' is roughly quoted from the movie Jaws.

I refer to Haresh and Carter as 'canonical slash' because of the chronicle entry for them in the Watcher CD.  It reads as follows:

"I think when Carter died, Haresh lost his reason to live.  In his final fight, the spark just wasn't there, the drive that had made him a formidable opponent for eleven centuries was gone.  It died with Carter.  It is so rare to find someone like Carter was to Haresh, the perfect companion, the one perfect love.  They were so different, so opposite, and yet so very right for each other, like a glove and the hand that modelled for it.  The Ashanti warrior and the carter's son from the outskirts of London, for nine hundred years, in war, in peace, in rage, in celebration.  Together, through it all.  When Richie Ryan killed Carter, he also killed Haresh.  MacLeod only picked up the pieces and sent him to be with his soul's companion."

Lyrics provided by Amand-r ("Buddha of Suburbia") and Rowan ("Everywhere").  Sorry, Rowan, couldn’t work in that one line we discussed.  Not in this one.  And what this has to do with them is beyond me.  Anyone else got a clue?

Lovely graphics courtesy of