The Favor

When he suggested we go to my apartment, I was a bit put out-after all, bear in mind that I was a student at the time and potentially not the best housekeeper! But that didn't seem to matter to him at all-his hand was busy rushing up my thigh as I unlocked the door, and we just sort of rolled into the living room kissing each other. He leaned me against the wall as he closed the door, and within moments, we were stripping again-he laid me on the floor after kicking piles of my crap out of the way.

His hands were wrapped around my wrists-this seemed to be the way he liked it, him restraining me-but I wouldn't have it this time! I wrapped my legs around him, tight against his thighs and I rolled him over. He didn't seem to mind, only smiled at me-damn! I never saw a more evil smile-beautiful. He still gripped my wrists, but it was my body guiding the lovemaking-my needs.

As I lowered myself, and felt his cock deeper inside me, I felt like he was a part of me. My breath was taken away-I bowed my head is if in worship, but then found my rhythm, and stroked myself against him.

He closed his eyes and let me work, and I couldn't help but scan his body-amazing. One minute he was scaring the shit out of me, the next I was halfway losing my heart to him. I wondered if it was just the sex, just me and my over-active hormones-but I knew it wasn't. Damn him. I ran my hands over his chest, and it was muscular, fine-and I realized I never felt this way about a lover before. My thighs clasped him tighter, and he raised himself up to hold me as we came closer, and I felt out of my head! I throbbed against him, feeling like this shuddering thing, and he was throbbing within me. When I looked at his face again, his eyes were still closed, and it seemed to me his face was like a prayer. Even with the scar. I couldn't fathom it-so help me. What the hell did I get myself into?

I felt myself weak against him, and gasped for breath, and he too, was breathing heavily, and then I collapsed, falling on him, and we lay there. I kissed him and his mouth was so warm I couldn't think of anything better than being on top of him like that, with his cock between my thighs, not wanting more pleasure, just embracing. I knew I couldn't spend a lifetime like that-but I really couldn't think of a better use of my time than loving. I just didn't know if I had any business loving him.

Not that I think anyone has any business loving me-it's just, a girl can't be too careful with her heart. I was going to find that one out.

****

"You rode, as you put it, with this guy. So he's supposed to be the oldest one," I said, looking down at the grainy photo of the sprawling figure. A fairly unlikely-looking figure, to tell the truth. "So it's true."

Kronos gave me a look. "What do you mean?"

"The AMA says your nose never does stop growing as long as you live…"

The next look silenced me. Okay, so I'm not always funny. But somehow, I don't know why, I had gotten to feel close enough to him to joke-once I realized he didn't have any interest in my head. I was beginning to really like him. And now we were talking about him. It was almost like a typical date, in a weird little "he's a psycho and I'm not so well myself" kind of way.

"He's only elder by a few centuries. I didn't want you for this for your sense of humor, but for your skills, your special talent, if you will." I was about to say something, but he stopped me. "Not that one," he grinned. "The other thing you've done. The deadly one."

I looked at the picture again. "But you can't mean for me to-I don't understand."

"You will. Tell me about what's in that safe deposit box," he said, changing the subject, and taking a seat. One foot goes up on my coffee table. "Why didn't you destroy it when you realized what it was?"

I couldn't let my eyes meet his; they would give me away. I refused to answer. But he had to realize that labs don't blow themselves up. I tried. I just horribly failed. But I contained it. And as for keeping the plan-well-it might have scientific value someday.

"I saw your professor's notes."

Professor Roberts, he meant, who had taken an extended sabbatical recently. Very recently, and very suddenly, too. I still wasn't answering. I appreciated the way he let me imagine the worst, though.

"Very clever of you to use your own DNA. It's resistant to microphages, anti-virals. Shame they kicked you out of the program. If you were only…"

Oh, that did it! He was intentionally trying to get my goat…well he could have it horns and all!

"Now you look here! They did not kick me out because of the virus! Heck, they're funded by a company on contract with the U.S. government! They'd have found uses! I was…" I bit my lip, a little ashamed. "I was flunking out. Besides, after the investigation-I don't think my lifestyle really needs a lot of investigation-what do you think?"

"I think they might find it interesting." Gorgeous eyes-evil, but gorgeous. He was enjoying playing with me like this.

I ignored him. Yes, I'm sure the FBI would find my lifestyle interesting. Particularly the parts that involve beheading people. Thank you, Kronos.

"Get back to the favor. If you want what's in the safe deposit box for some stupid plan, you better fill me in on why." I put my finger down on the picture. "And where does he fit in?" I couldn't imagine why anyone would want this-unless someone really wanted global destruction. And what kind of messed-up bastard would want that?

I had to ask, didn't I?

****

I listened as he told me all about it, the Horsemen, the murder and pillage and rape, the being gods among men and Immortals alike, destroying gods visiting terror on village after village, wiping out tribes of people. And he told me of how it never got old, the killing-the thrill of deciding who lives, and who dies. I was beginning to get a picture of why he was this way. Violent. So violent. But I didn't quite get it.

I didn't understand, or think it important for me to. I don't have four thousand years of immortality behind me, and I wasn't there. Maybe the world was different then-or maybe it was exactly the same. Drive-bys, gangs, mass suicide of cults, mass genocide of peoples, the world may have always been this way, twenty centuries B. C. or twenty centuries A. D. Short and nasty and brutal for mortals, long and nasty and brutal for us, and that was only if we played it right. I could almost picture some of the hard guys I grew up with being this way, if they were Immortal and living in a world that offered a lot of opportunities for bloodshed. A lot of them seemed to think they were immortal, and a few didn't seem to mind killing.

I thought it was sad, but I couldn't hate him for it. I could be appalled, horrified, you name it-but I couldn't hate him. Maybe I should have.

I mulled it over, from what he saw as the "glory days," to Methos' betrayal, and the end of the Horsemen. I could see what the appeal was-it was like a gang-being part of something bigger than himself. But all the same, it was breaking my heart-here was a desire for power and control so extreme-but then wouldn't it be that way? Extremely old, extreme passions. I could understand, but I couldn't.

No way to relate it to myself. That disk I had in the safe deposit box began as a plan, however misguided, to "fix" mankind. It seemed so easy, after all. A simple cold virus, paired with a few separated strands of RNA-my Immortal RNA. A strand of information designed to mutate the human genome. I hoped to make Immortality contagious, transferable.

Pretty ambitious plans for an undergrad pulling a 3.2, but there you go-I think big. I just didn't realize what could go wrong.

What I ended up creating was a hazard-level-4 virus that could wipe out millions. The virus replicated itself at a disturbing rate, triggering the immune system in horrible ways-eventually driving it to consume its host. I closed my eyes, picturing the poor animals that first got a taste of my so-called "gift." My best intentions were a potential Armageddon. It almost made me think I could follow him into this madness-it wasn't like I was going to make it worse-hell, it was already pretty bad. It was not as if he had a plan.

Then he said something that made me appreciate the way his mind worked.

"It doesn't even have to be used. The threat of it is enough."

"What do you mean?" I asked, bewildered.

That astonishing clever look again, those wheels that turned so deliberately. He possessed something subtle in that dark soul of his after all. He was something.

"For testing Methos."

Ah, but it did keep getting back to the old guy, after all.

****

We talked the night, splitting a bottle of Jim Beam between us, discussing this and that--why it was worth risking a few lives, and why I should do it. If there was anybody who could almost make destroying the world sound good…but I wasn't buying it.

"It is making history," he explained. "Don't you want to have a legacy? Your actions are the only legacy you'll ever have."

He was right. I saw that in a microscope, four months ago. The in vitro didn't take. The cell wouldn't divide. I was infertile. And to top it off, I wasted all that money on condoms and the Pill. I realized it wasn't an anomaly, but rather a fact of my new life. My cells were not like mortal cells, not even my ova. I was unchangeable. I wouldn't know any quickening in my belly but the sick electricity of some poor bastard's demise-the memories that flood, then ebb, the power that burns, but fades. Wasn't that the thought that drove me to the lab in the first place? The thought that I was different?

"My legacy will be death?" I asked, slowly. "The death of a few. Of tens? Hundreds? What if we did have to show our hand? This is a TYPE-FOUR. Air-borne. I know what it can do. You read the notes-I saw the results." I closed my eyes against the sudden image I had-cages of rabbits-dead rabbits. Not a pretty sight.

"But we will be careful." He put his arms around me. How could he be so warm and so cold at the same time? Threaten the world at large, but then try to make me feel safe? Insanity. He was insane-and I didn't mind. Made me wonder about myself, a little. I was under his spell, I thought. It's a game within the Game--try to be the last one standing and keep your marbles at the same time. Kronos hadn't managed that. "I promise you…I know you have your integrity but," his eyes got a faraway look, "he must believe."

"Believe," I echoed. I nodded, but didn't feel much agreement. But at the same time, I knew what Kronos was capable of, and couldn't say anything else. There it was again-desiring him, and scared of him, I couldn't decide how to feel.

I was beginning to hate this Methos. I saw him as a betrayer, not as a brother to him. Was it his fault that Kronos had this anger? Why did he feel he had something to prove? I heard what he had to say about how the Horsemen ended, and I could sense he was holding out on me. I hated this idea of Horsemen, and of destroying the world. Why couldn't it be simple? Why did it have to tie into destruction and things past and done? Why couldn't it be as simple as sex? But of course, there must be a world, a Game, other people. So I did the only thing I knew to do.

"He'll believe. If he knows anything about epidemiology and you show this shit to him, he'll believe. But, just speaking of beliefs, now-I believe I want to continue this discussion in the bedroom." I kissed him, and then knelt beside him, resting my hands on his leg. "I'm a little better persuaded there."

****

I'm sure I'm not the first woman who bedded a man to shut him up. We made love desperately; I wanted badly to clear my mind of this new information I now had about him. It was one thing to imagine that he was older, experienced, that his life was exotic; another thing altogether to see for myself what that might mean. And he seemed desperate, not to convince me, just…desperate.

It made me wonder. At what stage does nostalgia become insanity? Can someone really long for "the good old days," when the world they were experienced in is in ruins below shifting sands and forgotten by time? When it's all legends? Could some one thousand years of life be spent in the pursuit of destruction, could someone come so close to depravity, and love it-miss it like a limb, like a vital extension of one's own being?

Maybe he could.

I could shut him up. He couldn't have continued on in that vein even if he wanted to. When we were spent, we lay together on my bed, spacey, staring into darkness.

"I wondered…" he began, tracing a finger up my arm, aimlessly.

"What?" I asked, heart pounding. Let's not waste this with conversation, I thought. Please don't ask if I can help you destroy the world, or yourself.

"You were never taught. Did you?"

I restrained a laugh. Guilt. He was a surprising man, wasn't he? I felt a surge of affection I couldn't stand. He introduced me to Immortality, but not formally. And now he wondered if I had "done it." Beheaded one of my own kind and experienced what we truly were. Of course I had. I had found out the hard way.

"Twice," I replied, not knowing if that were good or bad. I was still alive. That part was good.

"And?"

And. I was a killer, now. I learned, when it first happened, that it was possible to kill. I swear to God, I took that Quickening like I was being struck by lightning for doing something wrong. But it wasn't punishment, it was just another lesson. I took life, and I honestly felt "better him than me." And I knew then that some things were worth killing for, even if it was only to see the next morning's funny pages.

"It's what we do," I shrugged, and nestled close to him. "They started it, I finished it, and I'm the one who is better off." I looked at him in the half-darkened room. There was just enough light to see his expression, tense and uncertain. "I learned. It was okay."

I hadn't learned a damn thing and it wasn't okay. I was a killer. I felt ill when I disposed of the bodies and I cursed him for pulling me into this and I cursed myself for not having the guts to let them take my head. I looked over my shoulder constantly waiting to be picked up for murder, or waiting for another engagement. It was not okay.

But I had said the right thing. He relaxed, and we slept.

****

I woke up, wondering if he would be there. Somehow, though, I knew he would. In the light of day, the idea still seemed ridiculous. What sense did it make to use the world as a plaything to prove a point to a man who probably has more than moved on? He was in the shower. If you're going to tell the four-millenium-old psychopath you love that you don't think you want to help him make a terrible mistake, it's best to do it with some coffee in you, so I went to the kitchen to make breakfast. I busied myself, and I felt stupid, hot little tears forming in my eyes whenever I let myself think about it. So I didn't think.

He came into the kitchen in just jeans, his hair wet, and I was taken with how simply right it felt to have him here. Maybe there are crazier feelings than being taken with a man, but I don't know any. When I love, it's instant, strong, and utterly unconditional. His being a murderer didn't matter, because I was a killer, too, and the thought of genocide wasn't unthinkable, because I could help him pull it off.

"You've thought it over," he said, simply.

"I told you once we were the same," I began, after what felt like an eternity of considering just how I should say this. "You showed me that. And it is true. We are the same."

A smile spread on his face. I raised my hand to show that I wasn't finished.

"We don't let anything go. You don't let this Horseman thing go. I don't want to let you go. But more than that, I can't let myself go. Running the risk of hurting so many people…so many lives that could be ruined…I can't see this."

I could see anger building up in him, a terrible, terrible rage that I couldn't understand.

For a crazy half-second, I thought I would take it all back…if I could only make the rage go away. But nothing would do that.

"You think I've given you a choice." He grabbed my shoulders, roughly. "If you won't give it to me, I'll have to take it!" he hissed.

A pang went through me, but not of fear, because I didn't think he would kill me. It was a pang of sadness. There was only one thing I could do, now.

"My safe deposit key is on that chain," I said, shrugging to loosen his grip on me and then pointing to the key rack on the kitchen wall. "It's marked. The file has a password to open it. The password is 'MYSTERIUM.' It's from the Bible. It's the name of the whore who rides the back of the Beast. Spare me the joke."

"'Revelations,'" he commented.

"Never figured you for paying attention in church. You can have it, not my cooperation. It contains the basic knowledge on how to create it. What you do with it is up to you.

"Now, how do you like your eggs?"

He looked at me, dumb-founded. I sighed, half-relieved at my decision to give in. It was out of my hands, I figured.

"I can't stop you. I can't un-create the virus. All I can do is let you have it. But, sweetie, the pan is pretty hot, so you're simply going to have to figure out the egg question."

He wanted an omelet, so I had to break a few eggs. I tried not to think about what he would do with the information. He tried not to ask me again to be part of his plans. We glanced at each other and didn't speak. I couldn't leave things like that. I wanted to ask him why it had to be this way-but I didn't think he had the answer to that one any more than I did.

We ate in silence, and then I couldn't take it anymore. I can't, really, leave anything alone.

"If there was anything else you wanted from me. Something that wasn't…" But I didn't know what I could do. It was hopeless. Or maybe, I was hopeless.

"There is," he said, and my heart leapt. Our eyes met, and I felt a connection was renewed.

He continued. "You've given me the means to an end. But we both know what that end might be."

Yeah. The Horsemen rule or the world dies. Or the Horsemen die, with him among them? Was that this sadness that was hanging in the air-that we both suspected this could only end badly? Only he had invested too much of himself to pull back?

"I know," I said, my voice catching.

"If I'm betrayed, what would you do?"

I saw what he wanted me to say. I knew this had nothing to do with the rules and nothing to do with the Game. If Methos turned on him, or if some other Immortal butted in, I should take him out, ludicrous as it sounded. He wanted to know if I would kill for him, and it touched me. He wanted to be avenged. He wanted to be missed.

It would be easy to lie, and say I would avenge him, and he'd be gone after all. It was an easy lie not to get caught in. But that wasn't how I felt. I simply would want to do it. I can't explain that. As sure as I suspected there was more to him than violence, I suspected there was something more to me. I would try to find it in myself. I just didn't know if he had any right to ask me, any more than I would have a right to do it. But then, it struck me, with total sadness, maybe there wasn't someone else to ask, and it made me wonder what made him so alone. If he was so sure of what he was doing-why the hell ask me?

"It would be the last mistake some poor bastard makes," I said, empty. "The Rules be damned."

And I meant every word as I sat there. He was not even my mentor. I never learned a blessed thing from him. But there it was. I would want blood. You learn something new about yourself every day. Of course, I'd only been at this a year and was green and it was impossible. But I'd want to.

"It's just," I began, lamely, I knew. "For me, I know this is it…but…"

He knew. He touched my hair, wrapping a curl around his finger. Our eyes met, so I asked. It even seemed easy to ask.

"I just want one more night with you."

****

And that was the only thing I could imagine wanting-just a little more time. I don't know what I thought. Maybe I thought, somehow, if I just listened, if we talked, this could somehow go away. I knew he was showing me a side of himself he didn't usually show…it made me half-believe I could do something. I was young, and I was an idiot.

And, though there was nothing I could do-he stayed.

It was different this time, more tender, if anything. We had shared things I don't think two people have, or maybe, should, share-he told me more about himself, and I wanted to tell him about me, but couldn't. He might have understood, but I doubt it. I was scared-terrified, and I didn't want anything to happen-how could I make someone like him understand that? It was like he didn't know fear. Nothing I could say would have convinced him, so we simply made love.

His touch was warm, gentle, even. When he held me, I could almost not care if the world was coming to an end-I felt safe. Sure, that's a stupid way of looking at things-but it was the world he wanted to ruin-not me. He was a psychopath, but that was beside the point. He was a man, and I felt for him.

We explored each other. It sounds intense when I put it that way-but that was what we did. I tasted him, his mouth, his sweat, his semen…he drew out the knife, and tied me to the bed, and this time I was willing. I tasted his blood and he tasted mine. He reminded me of my promise as he traced the blade over my skin. He licked at my wounds, even the gash between my legs. It felt like we were one-but I knew we weren't. We couldn't really be together-this was a moment in time-nothing more.

How did this happen? We had drawn blood from each another, barely knew each other, but when we were making love it almost justified to me the waste of the whole rest of the world, if I only thought that could make him happy. I could almost have said "yes" and agreed to do anything for him, even if it meant ruining everything I knew. I just don't know what it could have meant to him.

I wanted to make him happy, but I understand now that maybe nothing could. His mind had been made up long ago-to him, this was an easy thing and using my virus just a contingency. To me, it was just senseless. But some things were simple, after all-

He introduced me to Immortality-and death.

I loved him.

I was roughly 100% sure that he would be killed, but if he wasn't, and somehow carried out his plan, I'd be responsible for genocide. I bred death in a test tube, and he cherished my genius for destruction, even if it was all a terrible mistake.

Simple-see?

Nothing is ever simple. It is amazing the things you can tolerate. None of that even seems important. You want to know what matters to me? I can still feel him, even after so much water has gone under the bridge-I feel him. I remember what it was like to have him holding me tighter than I've ever been held, as if he were a drowning man clinging to a raft. I remember his lips, so insistent, his tongue probing against mine. It was as if he tried to make me understand with my body what my mind wouldn't.

He let me mount him again, to throw my legs astride him and have him thrust deep into me. I ground against him, roughly, gently, deeply, but still-it was magic, that's all. He held my hands as I writhed against him, and it seemed like an eternity before I broke down into spasms-and tears. I lay myself down, my head on his shoulder so he wouldn't see.

It was all so natural, physical, perfect, and wrong. It felt like there was no difference between us in age or time-he had a few thousand years on me, but so what? We were the same. We both hurt. We held each other-that was what mattered.

I felt strange, and sad. I was fading. I felt so tired. I wanted this night to last forever, and it wouldn't. It couldn't. I felt cheated.

How many nights did insomnia keep me awake, and I wished I knew sleep? More than I could count, but it wasn't happening this time. Exhausted, I rolled aside, and Kronos mounted me, riding me. He fucked me hard and deep, and I felt him in my bones. I wrapped my legs around him drawing him closer, tighter, and I felt the churning again. I came.

But I was wiped out, and I slept. And I woke up, feeling horrible. Before, I knew he would still be there; this time, I knew he was gone. The bed felt empty, and so did a part of me.

I pulled myself out of the bed, searching. The key was gone from the rack-of course it was. And he was gone. Suddenly, my apartment and everything else seemed vast and frightening. But there, on the coffee table, where not long ago he had rested his feet, he had left a diskette, with a note.

"If you search long enough," it read. Intriguing.

I loaded it, curious as to what it could be. It was something fascinating, but I don't think I'll get to that just yet. I just want to say something.

He was wrong, but he wasn't stupid. And nothing ever really ends without some new beginning.

And I don't let anything go.

On to "The Bridge"

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