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.Duel	By : keithcompany Category: G through L > Highlander Views: 1431 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Highlander, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1
- 2
Eve found a secluded spot near the ocean and parked. It was a perfect day for a trip to the beach, she thought. The sky was clear and there was a light breeze.
Hardly anyone was on the sand, though. It was mid-week and a school day. She shook her head and looked over at Destiny in the passenger seat.
Her roommate was still shaken by the ordeal. Literally, her hands trembled as she tried to life the soda to her mouth. She needed something more filling than drive-through, but Eve suspected she needed explanations more.
"Here," she said, gently helping guide the straw into Destiny's mouth. The younger woman sucked desperately. Eve reached past her to take a flask from the glove box. "Want some medicinal rum?"
"God!" she croaked. "You killed him!"
"I'll take that as a yes," Eve said. She poured a tot into the diet soda, replaced the lid and guided the straw in again. She swigged her own mouthful and leaned back. "Yes, Destiny, I killed him. He was going-"
"To kill us both, I know, I heard him. You killed him." She waved one of her hands aimlessly. "I'm not saying you didn't have cause. But... You killed him. With a SWORD!"
"Yes."
"And then lightning struck?" she kind of asked. Because it wasn't lightning, but nothing else in her world matched the Quickening.
"Not exactly," Eve said. They sat and sipped a bit more. "Think of it as... Well, as the victor in our duel, I got all his magic."
"Magic."
"Yes."
"You cut of his head and got his magic. How did you know he had magic? You have... You have the same magic, right?"
Eve smiled. Destiny always had been quick. "Yes. I have that magic. It's how I found you. My magic... I can feel others with the magic."
"And cut their heads off." She shook, her hair flying back and forth. "I'm kinda fixating on this, aren't I?"
"Perfectly natural," Eve said. "It's probably your first beheading."
"At my old school," Destiny said, in a little girl's voice, "we weren't allowed to behead people."   Eve blinked. "Not a Magic Schoolbus Fan?"
"Missed that one," Eve shrugged. "You have lots of questions and I think you deserve lots of answers."
"But...?" Destiny guessed. Eve shook her head.
"No buts. Full disclosure. That's why we're here." She waved to indicate the privacy surrounding them.
"Oh. I thought it was to minimize witnesses to my breakdown." She sipped, slurping on the bottom of her empty soda. Eve handed over the flask.
"Des... There's a race of people living among humans. We're called Immortals. We can heal almost any wound."
"Except beheadings."
"You get a gold star," Eve smiled. "Yes, except beheadings. We appear as children, fostered in families that lost a baby or raised as orphans. And one day, we get hurt or wounded or killed... And we get better."
"Better?"
"I was buried under a house in London...during The Blitz. When they dug down to recover my body, I sat up, dusted myself off and asked if they'd sounded the All Clear."
A laugh burst from her listener. "Yes," Eve went on, "they promptly shit themselves. Anyway, someone found me and taught me what I was.
"We have a prophecy. At some point, we'll all be drawn together and fight it out for the Prize. No one really knows what The Prize is. But some people want it, and will do anything to get it."
"Like kidnap me to set a trap for you," Destiny said slowly.
"Yes. But I outsmarted him and got him in a fair fight. And won."
"By cutting his head off."
"Okay," Eve said, "you are starting to sound...judgmental."
"You said it was understandable!"
"I also understand date rape, but that doesn't mean I can't find it annoying."
"Would you cut off your rapist's head?" Destiny asked suspiciously.
"I always have," Eve said. She looked Destiny in the eye. "Both of them."
"Both rapists?"
"Both of his heads," she said with a wicked smile. It got another laugh. "Aaaaanyway... Well, we all train. At the very least, we need to defend ourselves. We don't all seek the Prize. Those guys, we say they're playing The Game. The rest of us just want to get by. So we-"
"You work out endlessly. You train in four different forms of martial arts."
"Six."
"And you never tell people you died in the soccer riots of last year." Destiny nodded sharply. "And you take care of me."
"No," Eve laughed. "No, the Blitz was World War Two." Destiny froze. "I'm ninety four years old."
"You're... You're..."
"I stopped aging when I 'died.' Physically, anyway. But I have learned a lot, and aged inside."
"I found a grey hair yesterday," Destiny said softly. "So if we stay friends, I'm going to watch you do the Dorian Grey thing while I look like his picture."
"It's not that bad," Eve started to say.
"It will be that bad." Her voice was still calm. "I... I'll be by later to pick up my things. During your workouts. There's plenty of time then."
It hurt, but it wasn't completely unexpected. Eve got this or a similar reaction one time out of ever four reveals. She reached down to pop the trunk. "Keep the apartment, Destiny. The rent's paid for through... Well, 2016. And take the car."
She opened her door and stepped out. "Let me get my bag out of the trunk." She shouldered the portable easel and stool, with her rapier hidden inside. Then she closed the trunk and waited for Destiny to step out. She'd try to get a goodbye hug as the other woman crossed to the driver's side.
But the other door didn't open. Was she reconsidering breaking it off? Then the brake lights came on, the engine started. Destiny had slid her butt over rather than face Eve one last time.
She stepped clear and watched her best friend of the decade drive off towards the city. The walk to a hotel wouldn't be quick, but she literally had all the time in the world.
----------
She'd made it as far as the beachside casino's parking lot when she felt the Quickening. Various Immortals she'd known described it differently.
For her, when the aura of her 'power' touched the edge of another Immortal's aura, she felt a tightening around her ribs. Skin, muscles all seemed to squeeze her, like being in a giant's grip.
She looked around. There were only a few cars in the lot at this time of day. But there were always some.
Then she felt a tugging sensation. That meant two Immortals. This was probably not a coincidence.
Whoever the jerk was that kidnapped Destiny probably had friends. They'd followed her to the beach and... "Oh, God," she muttered. Had they stopped Destiny while she was leaving?
She closed her eyes to concentrate. The two auras were off to her left. She looked. A parking garage was under construction. Barricades kept cars from entering, but that was no barrier for her.
Tightening her grip on the straps of her easel, she started to run towards the garage. It was a poor tactical choice. If it was an ambush, they already knew she was coming.
But if they had Destiny, she couldn't walk away. So once inside the structure, she eased her pack to the ground and withdrew her sword. And went looking.
Just as she reached the top of the second level's ramp, the lights flickered. It was a Quickening. Someone had taken a head and was taking all the loser's power and knowledge.
They'd be helpless until the end of the arcing and sparking, she knew. She ran forward, trying to figure it out.
WAS it a coincidence that she was here? Or had two kidnappers had a falling out? Or... Maybe someone was rescuing Destiny for her?
The smell of ozone and burnt insulation was overpowering as she climbed to the fifth level. Immortal duels were hard on modern technology, though the concrete seemed unaffected.
There was no lightning, no explosions... Whatever had happened, she was too late to ambush the winner. She slowed and walked carefully forward. And heard a strange metallic squeaking.
"Hello?" she called. "Destiny?"
The squeaking got closer. Suddenly a man walked into view. Eve blinked and realized he wasn't walking, he was riding a unicycle.
There was no sense of urgency in the man. A short fellow dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, he ambled back and forth as he pumped his vehicle around piles of construction equipment.
And he carried....a weird weapon. Like a spear, if the maker had only ever seen Bowie knives.   A big blade on a short handle, it had serrations on the back and gleamed in the late afternoon sunlight.
She brought her sword up to guard. "What's going on here?" she asked.
"You should know," he said amiably. "You already did it once today."
"Stay back!" she said.
"Nah," he replied, swooping in to stab at her with the shortspear. She deflected it easily. He twisted away, pedaling a bit faster.
"What is that?"
"Kwang," he said, "Pygmy weapon. An expert with this can kill an elephant." And suddenly he was going past her again, weapon aimed at her eyes. She parried and riposted, getting a quick cut into his arm.
He looped away, shaking the blood down off his arm and muttering. But he didn't seem in much pain, and the blood was gone when he turned around.
"How old are you, dearie?" he asked.
"Old enough to remember men with manners," she growled. He swept in and stabbed and she got another cut.
"Ah. I remember the time before chivalry," he said. Another lazy attack, another cut. All he did was shake off the blood and mutter.
He was healing faster than anyone she'd ever seen. How old was he? Chivalry was...what, 11th Century? So at least a thousand.
"Why are you fighting like this?" she asked. "Are you... If you're not serious about the Game, neither am I. We can just walk away."
"Boring," he said. "I'm trying to find something interesting about you. Maybe your death?" He turned, tilted over and shot towards her.
She suspected a trap. Lissette had drilled and drilled into her that older Immortals loved to set little traps in combat.
But the best thing about Traps was that sometimes you trapped yourself. It was almost an out-of-body experience. She watched as her reflexes took over. His weapon approached, steady and predictable.
She sidestepped, set herself and swung. And his head came off quickly and easily. It was her smoothest beheading since Munich.
Eve recovered and searched the shadows for another threat before the power took her...
Lightning flickered in bright blue arcs, bouncing around the empty stalls and thick stanchions. A portable power supply burst in a shower of red sparks.
The unicycle spun through the air, then bounced away. The body of her opponent rose, blue fire shooting from the open wound.
"And now," a voice thundered, "the cool shit."
The power took her and lifted her from the ground. She kept her fist tight on her grip of her weapon, but let the rest of her body bounce and twist as the power moved her.
But something was wrong. The power was beating against her, but not entering. She tried to reach out, to grab it, to draw it inside.
Then light flashed, from INSIDE her eyes. A steady fire burst forth, connecting her face to the dead man's neck. She saw his body steady, though she couldn't explain how she saw anything.
Then the body reached down and picked up its own head. The eyes regarded her from the crook of the body's elbow.
"Naughty, naughty, Eve. Fighting on sacred ground! What will your sensei think?"
"I don't... It's... It's not sacred," she fought to spit out.
"Well, that's where you're wrong," he said. And started to swell. The voice got louder, but distant, fuzzy, hard to understand. He was saying something about consecrating the garage to an ancient god.
And he floated over her head. The power ripped at her clothes, made her sword heavy. She never let go, but somehow the wire-wrapped grip swelled up to where her fingers just couldn't hold it.
Still floating in mid-air, she realized she was naked, weaponless and going through something she'd never heard of. HER power was flowing out, though she'd won.
Finally, there was a loud boom and the Quickening faded. She dropped to the ground, bruised and battered. Her hands automatically swept the area, looking for her sword.
"I'm tempted to let you find it," her assailant said. She glanced up, expecting him to be bracing for the death blow.
And glanced up, and up, and up. He towered overhead, a giant. And not just 'a tall man,' he was the size of a steeple. And his head was in place. He smiled, then brandished that spear thing, the kwang.
It broke apart in his hand, becoming a walking stick and what looked like a very fat Bowie knife. That slid into the small of his back, probably into a sheath....
And he reached down...
Eve found it hard to focus. She hurt all over. Her bones felt like lead and muscles felt like shattered glass. Even Lissette's hardest training never made her eyelashes hurt.
She wondered if she was dead. All this was the last hallucination of a beheaded immortal. That made sense. She closed her eyes and sank down to the concrete.
Let her brain die on the last drops of blood left in her skull. She refused to engage the delusion.
That's when a giant hand wrapped around her chest and lifted her. "Still with us?" her killer shouted. She opened on eye painfully.
Just until I die," she growled. She tried to growl, anyway. It sounded a bit like she whined. That must have been part of the delusion.
"That can be arranged," he said. Cheerful, but not unkindly. Then she felt like she was falling. She glimpsed a parachute, then realized it was a pillow case.
He's taking me home in a pillowcase, she thought indignantly.
Then she died. The blackness rose up and the pain ended.
---------
Then Eve woke up. She felt a lot better, though still a little tender here and there. She sat up. She was in a dim space. It looked like wooden walls held together by thick cables.
And it smelled strongly of cedar. She was naked and there was no furniture. Not even a towel to wrap around her hips.
She rose gingerly and leaned against the wall nearest her. Across the room was a door, outlined in bright light, sunshine. She stepped over to it.
An oversized wooden latch held it shut. She opened it and stepped out. And fell. She had just a moment to realize that there was no porch, no step. The house was suspended over a drop...
It was higher than the highest dive she'd ever braved, even after she found out she was Immortal. And the water rushing up was ivory colored and shaggy.
Eve twisted in the air and managed not to land head first in the carpeting. The impact stunned her but wasn't immediately lethal. And for Eve, if it wasn't immediate, it wasn't lethal.
She lay there for a moment, listening to her bones pop back into place.
The room around her was more of the delusion. Giant, if tasteful furniture loomed around her. It seemed to be a living room. There was a big, big, big screen TV and a computer desk.
And a minifridge in the corner. Seeing that made her aware of just how thirsty she was.
Her killer stepped into the room, glanced across at her little room...and at the gaping door, then down to where she lay.
"Well, look at you!" He said. He pulled a chair up close and sat down. He still loomed. "Smart enough to open a latch, but too dumb to look before leaping. Are you okay?"
"My spine's rearranging itself," she grunted. He nodded.
"Good, good, good. So, the instant healing's still in effect is it?" He seemed satisfied.
"Didn't you know?" she asked. "You did this to me!"
"Well, I've never stopped the process before," he shrugged. "The few times it happened, I let it go on until they were gone."
"What..." She tried to lift herself to a sitting position. Her arm complained, telling her she'd broken it. She'd missed that, what with the spine being all crunchy.
Just as she gasped and fell back, his hand shot out. Warm and dry, it was like a waterbed filled with tennis balls. She sank against it, cradling the broken arm to her shoulder.
"What happened?" he asked. "Well, come here." His other hand scooped under her legs. She noticed the scale and thought. In his grip, she looked to be about the size of a Barbie doll.
God, she thought, I hope he doesn't make me wear Barbie's clothes. That waist is a killer.
He eased her onto a table, then stood. There was a wet bar and he poured a drink. "Oh, baby!" she murmured. He came back with a small bowl of iced water. She cupped her hand and slurped it up rapidly.
"Yeah, dying takes it out of me, too," he said. "Anyway, there's a reason we don't fight on hallowed ground."
"It's a rule," she said between drinks. "But Lissette... My teacher said it just weakens our weapons."
"That's what the younger ones believe," he said, nodding. "Back in the day, though, I was worshipped as a god myself. Blood sacrifices and everything. I consecrated the parking garage to me."
She stopped drinking and stared up at him. Icewater dripped off her chin. She hardly noticed it impacting her bared breast.
"Who were you?" she asked softly.
He waved the thought away. "Water under the bridge. Suffice to say, some of the first Immortals I dueled? You would only know them from the Old Testament."
He reached out to wipe her chest, sweeping the water away with one fingertip. "I go by Lincoln, this decade."
"Why shrink me?" she asked. "You were toying with me. Why not just kill me?"
He shrugged. "Bored." His hand lifted. He stroked her hair gently. "And I thought you might make a fun pet."
"Pet!" she squeaked. She was pretty sure she squeaked. It was because of shock, surprise and outrage, but it didn't help any in her current position. She paused to slap his finger away, then pitched her voice lower. "You're not going to make a pet out of me!"
"As a matter of fact," he said. "I have made a pet out of you." His hands shot out to grab her around the waist and thighs. She struggled, but couldn't stop him from collaring her with a length of scratchy twine. "I've collected you in the wild," he said as he did this. "Brought you home, made you a little house... Now it's just to see if I can domesticate you."
She tugged at the twine, realizing that it was actually kitchen string. And backed away from him. He played it out, watching her. "It's for your own protection," he went on. "Like an ocelot I used to own. If it got loose, it wouldn't find a jungle outside. The environment would be deadly for it."
Lincoln tugged her back towards him. "Like you. If you were out there, other Immortals could sense you, find you and rip your head off with their bare hands."
"I'm not going to run away!" she snapped. She untied the knot and threw down the string. "I'm going to stay by your side. Not because I love you, oh glorious master of mine. But because I'm going to figure out how to kill you, behead you and get my power, and hopefully my size, back for good!"
The giant looked down at her and nodded approvingly. "Also like my old ocelot..."
---------
He snagged her up and gave her the tour. His home was a condo. Nice but not too nice. Tastefully appointed but not too ostentatious."
"Lesson number one," he said. "Ostentation draws attention."
"I knew that," she said. "Any time I see a news article about a fantastic price paid for something, I wonder if that's an Immortal."
"Good," he nodded. There was a workout room in the basement she'd have killed for. It even had a small tub of a swimming pool. Though tiny, it had a pump that provided a current, like a water treadmill.
"You'll work out here when I do," he said.
"Why?" she asked.
"You want to get fit and trim and able to kill me, right?" She nodded. "Then I'll train you."
"I won't call you sensei, either."
"No, no, of course not. You're my pet."
"Pet, slave, captive," she muttered.
He took the stairs two at a time. She hung onto his knuckles and hoped the hopping sensation would stop before she puked. "Not a slave. Slaves do things for my benefit. Cook, clean, toil in the fields, raise the children, shoe the horses, rub my dick with lotion, fight in an arena for my amusement... They can be trusted within a limited set of circumstances."
"Trust? That is SO not me," she said. The living room was tiny. He didn't seem to entertain much. Which was too bad, the kitchen was twice that room's size.
"So how do you define pet?" she asked. Half the stuff on the counters she knew to be the highest quality culinary equipment on the market. The other half...she couldn't even identify.
"You exist for my amusement."
"Fetch?" she guessed.
"Eh. I've had dogs."
"And an ocelot," she pointed out.
"Exactly. No, I think I'll enjoy teaching you some skills."
"How to tilt at windmills?" she suggested. He smiled wryly at her.
"How to joust with real giants," he replied. She liked that he'd caught her Don Quixote reference easily. That was getting more and more rare these days.
Then she remembered she wasn't on a date. Or even flirting. Damn it, she thought to herself, I will not like this bastard. Semantics aside, he's caught me like a slaver.
By the time she'd thought this through, he was up a floor and showing her his office. That was the room she'd been in before. Now, from above the table tops, she saw files and pictures, business receipts and what looked like maps.
"Business is booming?" she observed.
"This isn't business," he said. "I have people for that. This is where I track Immortals."
"Oh. That's how you found me." He laughed at that, but refused to explain.
They went up another floor and found his bedroom.
The bed was lower than she'd have expected. Obviously his tastes were foreign to hers. The bed was dark, almost black wood. It bore a dark red canopy and was piled high with furs.
"Now, this room is consecrated to me, too," he said. "So no killing me in my sleep."
"Wait, THIS room?" she asked. "The... The whole condo isn't...holy?"
"Where's the fun in that?" he asked. He lowered her gently to the ground, then turned and walked out. "I'm going to make lunch. Meet me in the kitchen if you want a taste."
Naked and unarmed, she ran after her captor. "How about the stairs?" she called. "Are the stairs sacred?"
Lincoln just laughed. "You like mozzarella or provolone on your pizza?"
"Seriously, you fucker!" she shouted. She jumped down the stairs with little regard for the drop. Her toes complained a little, but they mostly healed before landing on the next step. "What if you trip in the bedroom doorway and fall and break your head off? Does that count?"
He rounded the third floor landing and he was gone.
----------
She wasn't sure what he served. Partly that was due to the new scale, where peas were the size of oranges. Also, she doubted she'd ever seen this dish before.
He'd cooked a sort of omelet, with noodles, grains and lots of vegetables, all in one pot. A heaping spoonful went into a small bowl for her, he took the rest.
Lincoln offered Eve a handkerchief she could have made a tent out of. She raised one eyebrow. "We dress for dinner," he said. She wrapped herself and sat by the bowl.
She glanced around. He had three forks, two spoons and a knife, but offered her no utensils. "If I eat with my hands, are you going to make me sleep outside?"
"Like a dog," he chortled. "No. Pai Mei used the threat of demeaning her to motivate her. You're already my pet."
He folded a paper cup for her and dipped wine into it. They began eating.
"I'll hold off your training until we can make some clothes for you. I don't mind being nude, or seeing you nude, but I get self conscious if I run naked."
"Okay," she mumbled around her food. "But why train me?"
She didn't see him move. Suddenly she was swept back to the roll of paper towels in the table's center. He held two of his forks against her arms, the tines pinching her wrists and pinning them in place.
"Puppy doesn't ask how much the Persian rug costs," he lectured. "We don't teach puppy the process for cleaning doggy waste products from expensive imports. We simply teach puppy to go on the paper. Puppy learns to go on the paper. Because he's told to. And because the consequences are uncomfortable for puppy."
"Yes, sir," she grunted. He instantly removed the forks and went back to eating. She rubbed her wrists, but there wasn't a mark on them.
She went back to eating.
"Anyway, clothes first," he went on. "We'll start with running, see what you're capable of. Then move on to balance..."
---------
Before the clothes, he took her into his office and measured her. Height and waist she expected. She wasn't surprised that her bust size interested him. But her hands interested him more.
He used calipers to measure each digit's length, each knuckle's width. Every measurement was recorded in a ledger. She glanced at it as he started to write them down.
"Madame Tussaud's!" she exclaimed.
"You recognize it?" he asked, surprised.
"Sure. Worked for them after the war. This is how they measure celebrities for the wax figures. In great detail." She looked up at him with suspicious eyes. Far greater detail than a tailor needs."
"I'm not sure if you'll recover your size on your own," he said. "So we'll do this every so often." He moved down to measure her knee. She cooperated, just as interested in possible growth as he was.
"Who'd you do?" he asked as an aside.
"I painted Churchill's eyes," she said. He nodded.
"I did Picasso's hair." She nodded back and offered him the other leg. Then she frowned. Once again, she was meshing well with a man she intended to kill if she had to chew through his throat with her bare teeth.
He laughed at her expression. Probably read her mind. The older ones did that.
-------
Eight days later, Eve was completely over any sympathetic feelings for the horrible evil cruel vindictive giant bastard.
She ran the track he'd laid out and cursed him under what little breath she had left.
Lincoln and produced a roll of thin yellow tape and crawled around the floor of the exercise room. She'd followed along as he taped the boundaries. It ran along the wall, except for a few spots where she was to sprint, hopefully dodging his great lumbering feet.
The path went through the bars of some of his exercise equipment, with the tape dutifully marking up the sides, around the bars and down the back again.
She ran until he said stop. He never told her how many laps she was assigned. That meant she couldn't count down to a finish. She also couldn't make deals with herself to motivate. No 'hot shower in four more,' 'a real Coke in two more.'
And after the third day, he started to put obstacles in the circuit. The first one was a gallon jug of water. Yellow tape tracked up the sides of that. She threw herself up without pause.
She never even considered going outside the established boundaries. Partly because this was to her benefit, and she needed to a lean, mean, giant-asshole-killing machine.
But mostly, she just assumed that Lincoln was like every other trainer she'd ever worked with and possessed eyes in the back of his head.
At least she wasn't naked any more. He'd made two sets of sweats for her, two sets of 'hang-out-in-the-cage' shorts and tees, and a swimsuit.
On days he wasn't swimming in place, she got to turn off the pump and do laps. Hypothetically, anyway.   The second day of training, he'd lowered her into the pool, but she'd been so exhausted.   He walked off as she sank straight to the bottom.
Laying there, watching the last bit of air bubble out and rise away, she remembered learning to swim in Edinburgh. Lissette was unimpressed by her early efforts.
One day she'd taken Eve by the arm, looked deep in her eyes and said, "Dearie. If y'ev'r inna boot tha' goes down, y' best bet is ta grab sommat heavy."
"I'll sink!" Eve protested.
"Aye, y' weel. But y' won' drown, an' once onna bottom, y' can run ta safety!"
She still wasn't sure if her old mentor had been serious.... Back in the present, Lincoln had finished his cool down, fished her out, held her hair as she vomited water from her lungs, then wrapped her in a fluffy towel while he made breakfast.
Nothing was ever said about it, but the next time she saw the pool, it had a submerged shelf at one end. Just deep enough for her to sit and soak in the heated water for her allotted time.
All but her nose submerged, thinking happy thoughts, like rigging his treadmill with lethal voltage.
--------
Afternoons were projects. Mondays he carried her to his bedroom and the fireplace. "I'll eventually rig up a forge here," he said. "You'll make your own weapons. But for now, we'll just make spears and fire-harden the tips."
"I get to lance you?" she asked cheerfully.
"You can try," he laughed. He produced some ash skewers and talked her through sharpening a few.
But in attempting to harden the points, they ran into difficulties. Lincoln was uncompromising about the 'right way' to do it. And by the time she held the tip of her spear in the correct part of the fire, the outer edges were starting to cook her hands.
He rearranged the wood a few times. It never quite helped. She watched him do it again, then grabbed three spears and ran out of the room.
For once, the eyes in the back of his head were shut. He was concentrating on the technical issue. She could hear him talking as she jumped down the stairs.
"Maybe I make the skewers three times as long, and you cut them down after your tip is where did you go? Hey!"
She ran faster, careless about the possibility of falling. She just made it to the kitchen when he stormed down the stairs. The shelves of cookware were practically a staircase to her at this point. She swarmed up and ran down the counter.
He was still a floor up when she reached the toaster. She jumped up and pushed the handle down with her feet. That sound alerted him. But when he arrived, she was leaning comfortably on the side of the toaster, unexposed to the heat.
With the tips of two spears shoved into the slots. She rotated them slowly, as if toasting a marshmallow. He paused, clearly wanting to say she was doing it wrong.
But eventually he shrugged and turned away. She ran down the counter and threw the still-smoking weapon at his shoulder.
He spun to snatch it out of the air, brandishing it over her head.
Which brought him in range for her to throw the second one into his cheek.
------------
Tuesdays were research. He carried her into the office and stood her on the desk.
"Today, we'll learn how to find-"
"Why do you always carry me?" she asked, tucking her shirt back in.
"What?" It was very rare that she could say anything he wasn't expecting to hear. She relished his momentary confusion. "I... I can't wait for your itsy bitsy steps. I have things to do, I'm a busy man."
"Yeah, but it's uncomfortable! Maybe I could ride on your shoulder?"
"Oh, yes, I'm going to get in the habit of putting you near my throat." She shrugged, busted. He tapped the computer screen. "This is how I found the man I killed before you showed up."
"Who was that?"
"That was the Dutchman. He's the one that set the Viscount on you."
"You... You avenged Destiny's kidnapping, too?"
"I thinned some stupid from the gene pool," he said. "Dutchman was a canny fighter and a good strategist, but his blind spot was his financials."
"Who are you?" she asked.
"What?" It was a double score. He was surprised and exasperated at another interruption.
Too fucking bad.
"The Dutchman. The Viscount. The Islander. I've heard of The Kurgan. The Highlander. Both of them. The Frenchman. The Egyptian. The Samurai. The Yankee. Lissette was The Saxoness. What do they call you?"
He considered her for a long moment. She started to wonder if she was going to get batted around with a rolled up newspaper.
"The Akkadian," he said.
"Okay," she said. She'd have to look that up. She turned to the computer. He shook his head and started lecturing.
"One way to find Immortals is to look for their money." He opened a folder and showed her a statement. She recognized a few words, but not much else. "This is a company that exists only to pay bills on a private residence."
"That seems odd," she said dutifully.
"It is. Companies exist to make money, not spend it." He fanned pages out. "Four companies that exist to pay bills. Note that the board of directors are all names in alphabetical order. Mr. Abel, Mr. Baker, Mr. Charles-"
"We can't have kids," she said. He wiped his face with his hand. "Well, you said you removed the Dutchman from the gene pool. But he can't father kids. So he's not-"
"Shut the fuck up, or I'll make you run on the treadmill. On my setting." Since that would launch little Eve into the air like a lawn dart, she shut the fuck up.
"Anyway, the CEO of each company is one man. He has a paperwork history that goes back four years, then jumps twenty years without entry or comment, to his birth certificate."
"Faked his ID using someone that died in infancy?" she guessed. She'd done it. They all did.
"Exacly!" he beamed, as a proud father. Or a proud trainer of an award-winning bitch. "Now, how does that help me find him?"
"Well, we can't carry swords on airlines," she said slowly. "And someone playing the Game would want to be armed at all times. And to be free to travel to wherever he wants to take a head.
"So I'm guessing one of the bills is for the purchase and maintenance of a private plane. You find that, find his flight plans, and you know where he'll be. If you can get there in time, you'll find him."
"VERY good," he said. He leaned back. "Okay. You learned today's lesson in record time. Let's play."
"Play?"
"A movie? A game? Make candied apples?"
She stared at his beaming face. "Tell me about Akkadia," she said, sinking down to sit cross legged on his desktop. His eyes lit up.
"Well, it was the cradle of civilization..."
-------------
Wednesdays he went out. After a brief workout in the basement, Lincoln carried her up to the kitchen, then left. He was dressed for running, so she assumed he jogged.
With the Kwang blade on his hip like a big knife. She had no idea how he explained it to cops, but he apparently had a good one.
He always returned at dinnertime. And he came back in street clothes, so there was a gym or another home or a lover out there somewhere. She refrained from asking questions she didn't need the answers to.
She spent the day exploring. She thought she was supposed to. He knew she'd be throwing herself up and down stairs all day, which explained the ease of the morning's workouts.
There were dozens of hiding places in the condo. Usually with a weapon inside. She began to form ideas. Ambush him in the living room and paint the sword with contact poison.
Set it up to make sounds as one breaking in while he was on the toilet, rig the touch panel to release a big weight on his skull.
As the days wore on, she started to wonder if there was a surprise abandonment in the future. A 'lost in the wilderness, use your wits and one toothpick to survive' thing. So she started secreting supplies into her own hiding places.
And finally, after a month or so, she realized the real reason for Wednesdays Without.   And set up her ambushes.
He walked right through her first four snares. The fifth tripped him, but instead of falling, he threw himself forward, did a handspring and landed right where she waited. She shouted in wordless frustration as he plucked her spear away.
He used it to skewer the meat he broiled for dinner. "Huh," she grunted when he offered her a cube of meat.
"What?"
"Well," she said, sliding the food off of her weapon, "it LOOKS like beef. But it FEELS like I'm eating crow."
"No," he said slowly, considering. He rolled the spear over his knuckles, back and forth. "You just lost. You might consider an actual attack, not a trap."
"I've considered it," she said. She pantomimed running up and stabbing at the air, then losing her weapon, then flying through the air as her invisible opponent drop-kicked her to the horizon.
He laughed and handed over the weapon. She placed it beside her plate and ate.
-----------
Thursdays were for combat. He set her down on the living room floor and stood a few paces away.
"Okay," he said. "Come at me."
She looked from the oversized toothpick she held to the giant standing so alarmingly high. "No," she said.
"Come on. I need to know what you're capable of. WE need to know what you're capable of. Come at me. Come and get me."
"You move like greased thought," she pointed out. "I know what you're capable of. I can't risk a fair fight." She stepped back.
"So don't fight fair," he shrugged. "The Immortal tradition is ritual single combat. Doesn't mean you have to sit still for the other guy."
Something about that phrasing... "Other guy? Are you... Are you training me to fight you or other Immortals?"
"Shut up," he said, lowering himself to his knees. He shoved one hand awkwardly into his pants, at the hip. His other hand, empty, hovered in front of him. "Come on. Or do you want me to tie it behind my back?"
"Are you making me an attack dog?" she accused.
"No!" he snapped. "It's just... Well, if I die tomorrow, you'll be alone, out there where the others can find you. You need to be ready to defend yourself."
"Or," she said with a tone of surprise. A new thought had occurred to her. "If I kill you and the Quickening DOESN'T restore my size... I'll have your power and knowledge, but I'll still be The Dolly."
"Whatever," he said, shrugging. "Just come at me." She lifted her spear like a lance and charged.
He fended her off easily. "But the attack dog idea has some merit."
"Woof," she barked, trying to roll over his wrist to stab his thigh. He popped her up into the air and elbowed her into the sofa.
She rolled back up and charged at an oblique. He leaned back and stiff armed her into the back cushions. "No, no," he said. "Maybe we could get you a dog. You walk around under her. Another Immortal feels your power.
"But when they locate it, it looks like they've found the first canine Immortal."
"Which would give me a moment's distraction?" she realized, pausing in her attack. He pounded her to the ground, then stood. She lay still, stunned, wondering if her spine was broken.
"You've got to focus, Eve."
"Eep," she yipped.
"You've got a marvelous muscle to mass ratio right now. You should be able to jump over your own head." She was not only a captive audience, she was paralyzed. He strode back and forth, narrowly avoiding stepping on her. "Your nerves are faster. They must be. Nerve signals travel at the speed of light, and yours have a sixth as much distance to travel."
"Yes, sir, but math was never my strong suit."
He laughed at that. "I watch you. You're actually controlling yourself, I think subconsciously. You pull your own attacks to match what you expect they'd be." He nudged her hip with the toe of his boot. Pain blossomed through every limb and she cried out.
"Coming back, good, good," he muttered. "You're thinking too much. You need to really pour yourself into attacking me, find out what-"
She screamed in rage and rolled to her side. One leg collapsed but not before she managed to shove her spear into his shoe.
Eve found she had all the time in the world. His voice turned to a low grunt. Movements slowed. And she could select the eye of his shoe's lacing to poke through.
It slid in quickly through the edge of the tongue and his sock. Then the skin. She felt it grind against a bone, piercing between two and down into his arch.
When her leg collapsed it just meant more of her weight ended up driving the weapon.
He started to scream. The point wouldn't penetrate the sole. Her hands slid down the shaft.
Then everything snapped back to normal. He yanked his foot up and bounced around the room. There was a grunt and a yank and he collapsed into his overstuffed lounger.
"Maybe I can barb the next one?" she asked.
He winced and tried to match her nonchalant tone. "Maybe work with straight weapons for a while, just to be sure this wasn't a fluke." She delighted in his continued rubbing of the offended foot. That was purely psychosomatic; the tiny wound was certainly healed by now. No, she had surprised him. Almost as much as she had surprised herself.
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