Project Twin Fires 004

 Chapter 3 The Oath

A few minutes later, Adrian sat in the living room, the letter in front of him. His face buried in his hands, tears working their way between the gaps in his fingers, dripping down, staining the old parchment below.

“So you are Sam.”, said the young woman, her voice soft. She was looking at him with a guarded expression tinged with worry.

“No.”, Adrian said. “Yes. Not really.”, he looked up, his eyes red, “I was. A very long time ago. I am someone else now. Been many different men since… this.”, he pointed at the letter. He hung his head looking at his feet, “I thought I left that behind.”, he shook his head slowly. “But right now… right now I feel what it was like. What it was like to be Samuel Everard,” a smile appeared on his starting small but quickly growing broad, reaching from ear to ear, he looked up again beaming at his guest. “Those where good times, ridiculous, often dangerous, but never boring. The smile froze, “Until I lost her…”, and shattered.
A long silence followed, he kept staring past his guest into a world that now only existed in his memories, while the woman waited for him to return.
He exhaled slowly, deflating falling back into his chair until he was just the crumpled remains of an old man. “After that I wasn’t Samuel ever again.”, his eyes still unfocused remained open and unblinking.

“…er…”, said the woman, “Sir?”

He blinked, quickly at first, then more slowly trying to force some moisture back into his eyes. “Yes?”

His guest seemed relieved to see him move again, her posture relaxing visibly. “So… who are you know?”, she asked.

“Now? Now, I’m Adrian McDougall. At least that’s who I’m supposed to be.”

“Supposed to be? Did something go wrong? Changed into the wrong body?”, she asked, a fain glimmer of curiosity starting to glimmer in her eyes, “That one you get there, is pretty old.”, she said looking at him with sympathetic sorrow.

“What? Got?” said Adrian.

“So what is your deal anyway.”, by now most signs of sympathy had faded from her face,having being replaced by something intensely analytical, she had started pacing around him examining him closely. “Do you transfer your mind to another host? Is it some kind of possession? Do you build yourself a new body?”, she hesitated for a second, “No that can’t be it. You’d not make such a body if you could.”, she shook her head. “So spiritual? Or are you some kind of ancient parasite or symbiont?”, noticing his horrified expression she said, “Hmmm, no parasite then. So some kind of regeneration? Like the doctor?”

“What doctor?”

She was about to answer that question but thought better of it. “It would just confuse you more.”, she looked up towards the ceiling, brows knit in thought, “Let me put it this way, when you die, through some kind of magic or force, your old body is remade into a new one and that transformation also changes your mind? The price you have to pay to cheat death?”

“What…no? Interesting concept though… But, no. I don’t die.” Adrian said.

She looked him straight in the eyes. “So how comes that you are now Adrian Mc…somethingsomething and no longer Sam Everard, or any of the other people you where between then and now?”, she raised her eyebrows as she said that.

“It’s Samuel, only Elinor ever called me Sam.”, he said. “And I don’t die. I’m immortal. What I do is change who I am, every once in a while.”

“So you just change your name. Man that’s lame.”

“It’s more than that.”, why did no one ever understand that. “Whenever I reach a point where my live is complete in a way, be it good or bad, or just because to much time has passed, I retire form the world, go into a deep hibernation, leave my old life behind,” he cast a quick glance at the letter, “and when I wake up again I start a new life.”

“That makes sense…” the woman in front of him said nodding slowly, “Oh shit!”

“What?”

“I have the worst timing in the world.”, she said her eyes growing wider. “I thougt you could help me, but I am to late… or to early… in an case I’m fucked.”

“I beg your pardon?”, Adrian said. “Also who in Gods name are you?”

“I am Britta May.” She said, pointing at the letter she added, “Elinore, was my ancestor and I came here to ask you to fulfil your oath.”

“The oath…”, Adrian was looking at the past, Elinor frail and old looking at him with a sad smile.

“You and your grand gestures,” she said. “You don’t have to do this. What’s important, is that you are here, with me. Now.”

“I want to.” Adrian said, trying to hold back his tears, his tears however would not be held back. “I couldn’t save you…” he looked at her, her body emaciated, her face gaunt, her eyes now cloudy, their old fire now just embers. To his surprise his heart found new ways to break even further.

“Sam.”, she said her voice calm. “I’m fine. I lived such a long life and I’ve been blessed to have you by my side this whole time. I’m tired. And as much as I would love to spend more time with you and all the others, I’m also looking forward to be able to rest.”

“This.”, he waved his hand at here, “is not right. It is not what was supposed to happen. You should not have to die. You were not even supposed to grow old… It’s wrong and it is my fault…”, he looked out of the window, outside the sun was setting, bathing the world in warm light, it would have been a beautiful evening under other circumstances.

“How is this your fault. This is the way life is.” Said Elinor. “At least for most of us. Everyone great and small, animal and human, grows old and dies.”

“I don’t.”

“You are an exception.”, she said, her voice inflected by the deep authority of a mother, “It is also not as if you didn’t try. How long have you been looking for a way dear?”

 “More than sixty years… Since the day I knew you.”

“Even before we were together?”

“Yes.”

“What if I had rejected you?”

“You did.”

As she relived her memories she began smiling again. “A couple of times.”

“You thought, I was an idiot.”, he said, pouting very slightly.

“No. I never thought that you were an idiot. I found it extremely exhausting having to listen to you waffle the whole time.”, she laughed. “However in time I came to see your charming side, your curiosity and your openness. That I really liked. Also you made a real effort to win me over.”, as she was remembering her eyes became clear and she sat up more, life slowly returning into her frame. “The impressive part, the part that saved you,” she shot him a pointed glance, “was that you made an effort to understand me and you moving closer to me. Most other men usually tried to convince me to move closer to them.”, she took his hand pulling it closer to her. Her hand was dry and cold. “I chose well and I even manged to make so much less annoying.”, the energy slowly seeped out of her again, she relaxed back into her pillows here eyes turning slightly opaque again. “You worked so long on making me immortal. You never gave up and you stood always by my side until the very end. What more could you have done?”

“Succeeded.”, he said clenching his jaw.

Elinor shook her head gently. “You are such a child.”, she sighed.

“It is one of my great qualities.”, he tried to put on one of his most winning smiles, it came out faint and crooked.

“It is a quality you have.”, she said, “Sometimes it’s even one of your good ones.”

His smile did not give up working its way slowly towards victory, when he remembered that it was only a matter of days before he would never be able to talk to Elinor ever again. His chest constricted, breathing became and effort, the smile was washed away by a new stronger wave of tears. “I don’t want you to die. There is so much left for us to see, to experience, there is so much that I still want to share with you. I…”, he sank with his face towards her hand sobbing, holding on to it.

Her voice was calm but cracking, “I know. I wish I could stay with you longer too. But I’m so very tired, my love, I need to rest.”, she slowly stroked his head, as tears began to well from her eyes. “I’m so sorry. I just can’t go on anymore. You know I look forward to find some peace. It will just be hard not to be with you, I will miss you so much.”, the hand caressing him stopped moving grabbing hold of him instead. After a while the hand relaxed, “But then I will be in Paradise, waiting for and you’ll still be here.”, she chuckled.

He looked up, his eyes bloodshot, his voice a rasp. “What if there isn’t an afterlife?”

“Really? This question? From you of all people?”, she said, shaking her head. “What did Epicurus say again?”

“There is either a heaven, in which case everything is fine, or there is nothing in which case everything is still fine because when we are nothing we also won’t care about anything anymore.”, he croaked.

“When I showed you his teachings you really got carried away by them for quite a while.”

“The man had some very good points.”, he said slowly sitting up again, wiping his tears with the sleeve of his shirt.

“Yes but you did go a bit overboard with the whole thing. As usual.”

“No sense in doing things half hearted.”, he said. “One of my most charming qualities?”

“Not half hearted, but your need to always do things,” she thought about the right way to put it, “double hearted? It can be very exhausting. But no. This is really is one of your most charming qualities. Being swept along with your newest obsession or getting you to obsess over something with me. That really makes you smile, Lucifer.”

“So I am the devil now?” he said, mock offended.

“Well you did tempt me. Over and over again.”, her mouth and eyes coming alive with a deep smile that told a thousand stories. “And you of all men shine the brightest.”

For a while the just held hands lost in each-others eyes.

“So,” Elinor said after a while, she shivered slightly as the cold night air was now seeping through the window, “about that oath of yours.”

He blinked, “It is the least I can do.”, he handed her an envelope. “It’s all here written down so that you can pass it on to our children, grand children, one generation after another until the time comes for me to fulfil it.”, he sat up straight as he said it his voice now steady, deep and full of conviction. “I could not save you.”, it took him a bit to remain steady, “But in the time of their greatest need. When they are under the greatest danger and there is nowhere else for them left to turn to, they can call me and I will help them. I will save them. This I swear, on my life, my honour and all my knowledge.”

She laughed. “You spend far to much time in the theatre my love.”, she laughed, it was warm and deep, she extended her hand with a flourish, “Well then Lord Everard, I do accept your gracious offer, may our family flourish and grow strong and should a great dark force arise to threaten one of our great scions you shall hasten from what ever great fortress you are residing in to their side to escort them into the bright light of victory.”, she took the envelope holding it close to her heart.

“I love you Elinor.”

“I know, my love.”




                    *    *    *



Adrian was still looking at the tear stained envelope in front of him very slowly rising out of the memories of Samuel Everard. The young woman was no longer standing next to him, a quick look around revealed that she had flopped down on the couch, both feet on the table staring towards the ceiling, with an expression of anger mixed with a strong dose of growing despair. Every once in a while her lips moved, but she made no sound, he hand gripping the strange wrapped up narrow cross, holding it close to her chest.
When she noticed that Adrian was looking at her, she pulled her self up a bit, putting her feet back on the floor. She looked over to him trying to push a flimsy pokerface over the storm of her emotions.

“Are you OK again?”, she asked. “You had a major senior moment there. Is that how it happens? How much time do you have left anyway?”

“How what happens? Time left?” Adrian said, trying to remember if he had somehow missed a part of the conversation.

“Before you have too…”, Britta appraised him brows raised, “…lie in your sarcophagus? Build a cocoon? No? Dig yourself in int the earth?”

Adrian did not know what to respond to that and tried out an indulgent smile.

She sighed, “You said, that once your life phase comes to an end you go into a coma to regenerate… How long do you have left?”

The confusion expanded filling the room.

“I don’t know how long it will take… er…”, he was still trying to find a way to explain what was happening in a way that would make sense to the young woman maybe then they coul start finding some proper answers.

“Come on.” Said Britta standing up her eyes fixed on him, “at least a ballpark guess.”, she gesticulated waving around the narrow cross which appeared to have a certain heft to it, “Months? Weeks?”, another pause her straight posture slowly melting into a slump, “Days? Please don’t tell me it will be days…”, he arms now hung limply at her sides.

“Days?” Adrian sitting up in his chair, “No. I will be decades before I will even consider going into the long sleep again.”, he suppressed a shudder at the thought of another long sleep, “Truth be told, I’d be happy if I don’t need to go into the long sleep for a century at least. I’D even consider getting a… job.”, this time the shudder would not be denied.

Britta was looking at him finding a bit of steel to put back into her backbone. “That’s good to hear I guess.”, she exhaled, “But you are soooo old. How does that even work?”

“I’m immortal. Of course I’m soooo old”, he had to take care to not let his imitation of her expression slip into mockery, “Which is probably the reason why you came to me in the first place, right?” this was a good point though Adrian, one which he hoped would yield answers for a change.

“That’s not what I meant. I know that you are a facultative immortal…”     

“Facultative?” he asked.

Britta just waved ignoring the question, “… I did not expect you to look old. I mean, for your age you do look pretty good I guess. I was just expecting something…”, she blushed very slightly, “…younger?”

Adrian tilted his head. “So, you don’t want my help because of the way I look?”, he inhaled preparing to start a ‘young lady’ diatribe, hesitating for a second as he realised how old that would make him sound, the getting furious at himself because he even thought that.

“It’s not the way you look.”, Britta said, despite there being a tinge of disappointment in her expression, “It’s more that instead of having now less problems I can’t shake the feeling that I just made everything worse. I thought you could help me…”

“With what?”, Adrian said, allowing his patience to slowly slip away.

“Instead, I’m putting you at risk too and will need to protect us both…”, she gripped her narrow cross tighter, now with both hands, reminding Adrian of a renaissance picture of a saint turning to God in her final hours, maybe with to much reproach in her expression than would be considered pious.

It took him a moment to get what Britta had just said. “I beg your pardon?”, he said, standing up to his full hight, his back stretching further then it had in decades adding two inches to his hight and taking away 5 years from his appearance. “You protecting me?”, his voice would have made angry Moses proud. “Young lady, I have faced things you can’t even imagine. I have fought enemies beyond your wildest imagination. Things you’d not want to see in your deepest nightmares.”, as he inhaled his muscles started filling out, colour slowly returning into his grey hair, his eyes now perfectly clear regaining their glow, “And beyond that I’m still standing in the tides of time growing more powerful with each passing day where every one else has succumbed to it. Great cultures, people, kingdoms, cultures and empires rose and fell while I stood witness to them. All of them ground to sand and ashes, while I still remain.”

A silence followed that quickly transitioned from heavy in meaning to awkward. The fury that had flared up int Adrian had faded as quick as it had risen. Britta was staring at him with large eyes, she had tried to take a step back but the sofa was in the way so she was leaning back to get a bit more space between the two of them, the base of her cross pointed towards him to keep him at the distance.

“OK Gandalf,” she said, “I’ll take the ring.”

 “What?”

“It means that you can chill man… I was worried about you. Sorry I meant no offence.”, Britta slowly relaxed again lowering the point of her cross again. “You can be quite impressive when you flip out.”, she gave him a quick nod of approval.

  Now it was Adrian’s turn to relax. He sat down again in his chair. His posture remaining in its straighter conformation. “It’s OK… I should apologise too, it was unseemly behaviour on my part. There seems to be quite some confusion about our respective situations. How about this. I will go to the kitchen make us a nice infusion of Hierba Luisa, while I do that you can gather your thoughts, then will sit down with a nice cup of tea and start again?”

“Sounds good to me.”, she said.

A little while later they sat huddled over their mugs of steaming tea. Adrian didn’t say anything, waiting for Britta to take the lead, concentrating on the surface of his tea working very hard to ignore the letter that still lay on the table opening a vast abyss of memories that right now were unwelcome.

“I’m a huntress”, Britta finally said. Adrian looked up at her, the first traces of a question worming their way to his mouth, he tried to keep them away, the glance Britta shot him helped to eradicate them. “Not the dressing in green, hiding in the bushes and shooting Bambi kind.”

Adrian wondered what a “Bambi” was but decided to remain silent.

“I eliminate supernatural threats.”, she paused, Adrian had the impression that it wasn’t to impress him but that she was looking for the right words. “It is the family business?”, she tried, she grimaced, “That sounds wrong. It is a vocation?”

“A tradition.”, Adrian ventured.

Britta mulled it over for a moment. “Kinda. It’s hard to explain. We are a normal family, but then that’s what I would say having grown up with it. It is a tradition because we’ve been doing this since for ever…”, she glanced at Adrian, “…we’ve been doing it for many generations. I don’t think it would qualify as ‘forever’ for you. There were times in the past where it was our main job so to say. These days it is something done on the side. But we aren’t mercenaries… You have to pay for our services though… er…”

“Take your time.” Adrian said, leaning back sipping his tea.

“OK. If there is a threat we will become active, we have to. I mean it’s the right thing to do, right? You don’t just standby when someone is about to be murdered when you have the means to protect them.”, she said.

Adrian nodded.

“At the same time what we do is hard work, its a craft and it is built on many centuries of experience. It’s a craft. You don’t give that away for nothing. On one hand you need to earn a living, on the other hand we deserve respect and recognition, you know?”

“How much recognition and respect can be found in a coin?” Adrian asked, while the words are still slipping out of his mouth he was already cursing his lack of discipline. This was the part where he listened and learnt instead of offending the speaker. He could feel Ishraq’s disappointment wash over him from the distant past.

Britta was just looking at him blinking slowly, Adrian was trying not to wince, when he saw that she was was starting to smile at him.

“Right? I always wondered about that. Part of it is that hunting takes time and we need weapons, materials, training, you know that all costs money. Still, how is presenting an invoice making people respect you? Dad says that it is part of the tradition, mom tells me not to waste time with wishy washy philosophy and Eric is an idiot…”

“Eric?”

“My older brother.”

“Makes sense.” Adrian said.

“So I did my own research into the family history. Took me a while but I guess this happened during the time of the bright shadow.”

“Good name.” Adrian said, “Never heard of that. What era is that supposed to be?”

“The enlightenment. The light of reason began to shine in Europe psuhing away the shadows of superstition and the dark arts. It’s funny really because in the beginning the hunter clans, where highly respected, an integral part of the push towards a better age. We helped sort the wheat of true knowledge from the chaff of superstition. We hunted down the enemies of process, we helped eliminate those who would wield the arts without responsibility and seal the most dangerous knowledge until the time that the new light shone bright enough that it could again be unearthed by a humanity that had advanced sufficiently…”

Adrian laughed. “Oh those assholes!”, he quickly stifled the laugh and looked at Britta. She just returned the look with a crooked smile.

“Nah, it’s OK”, she said still smiling, “From what I read ‘we’”, she made finger quotes as she said that, “where horrible assholes. During the later years of the movement some of the hunter guilds where eradicated as they were deemed to far removed from the light. One of my favourite parts of that story. Somehow humans can’t seem to be able to turn everything into a religion and then have fanatics ruin it.”, she shook  her head, “In the end what happened next served us right, I guess. When it was decided that the world was in order, the hunters were not needed anymore. The light had cast all shadows away…”, she snorted, “As if… Well in the end many of the lines died when they went secular. The ones who survived had to get proper jobs and do the hunting on the side. Where they once were hailed as heroes, after that people made fun of them at best. The rest of time time it was calling them names, often suspecting them of being some kind of charlatans or con-men who were responsible for the problems they caused in the first place…
That’s the time when the bit with getting paid in coin, favour or what ever else, which in turn became a tradition. Kinda works too. Most of the time people don’t need us. Either the official protection forces can handle it or the people don’t even know that we exist much less how to call us. In the end we mostly work for people like you and people like you, and I mean no offence and this is with all due respect etc… call us it us usually because of reasons that they are to blame for in the first place.”, she paused watching Adrian waiting for his reaction.

Adrian laughed. “Don’t worry. Pretty much guilty as charged.”

“Also these kind of people are usually filthy rich in one way or another. And if you can pay and it is you own fault? It’s only fair to get paid in advance. We are putting our lives on the line after all.”

“I agree.” Adrian said, “But now back to the part where I can help you? You seem to be capable enough. I mean you found me in the first place, which is in equal parts annoying and impressive. You come from a bloodline of hunters. You did read the letter, so this has to be a very serious situation.”

“It is.”

Silence filled the room again, slowly expanding.

“So…?” Adrian said.

“Thing is, this is an educated guess of sorts.” She paused again, her gaze wandering. “A very well educated guess. Went to university educated. Right now making its PhD I’d say.”

Britta was squirming in the sofa, avoiding Adrian’s eyes. He just waited.

“Someone is hunting us, people like me and my family. They are being careful about it. Spread across the world. The mortality rate all in all still pretty much within the standard deviation. However, to many hunters are missing in action, no bodies, that is strange. Also the ones that leave a corpse are usually mutilated, in a way that is consistent with what they were hunting. And yet… It’s strange you know, they miss key organs or limbs often connected to their main powers and what makes it really suspicious, the monster always disappears with them.”

As Adrian listened to Britta he began leaning forward a bit, his body tensing up ready to go into action at a moments notice. “That does sound very serious. But also extremely suspicious. What do your parents say to all this?”

“Nothing.” Britta said eyes cast down.

“Nothing? You told them all this and they did not react? I… why?”

“They said they were going to ‘look into it’ and that I could relax. I don’t think that they are taking it seriously enough. When they do I’m afraid it will be to late for me…”, she said.

“What aren’t you telling me right now?” Adrian said, he knew that he was either missing an important point or that Britta was withholding some vital detail. “What you just said sounds extremely alarming and painfully obvious. How can they they ignore this?”

“Because it only sounds obvious. Educated guess remember?” Britta said, looking up again, her brows knit together, “It would be obvious if it happened only in one country. It would still be hard to hide if it happened in Europe. However this is spread across the entire world. A hunter’s dead body is found, his liver missing, after hunting a werewolf? Weird. But there are many possibilities why that could happen. Stranger things have happened. A huntress going after a malevolent living flame disappears? Again strange, especially if the flame is never heard from again. But, you know you find some ashes, some paraphernalia of the hunt. It happens. Two brothers, veteran hunters, well known in the community drive into a town were a recently reopened mine has led to some very strange deaths and disappearances and they solve the problem but are tragically ‘killed’ when the mine collapses while they are still inside? Tragic, especially if you consider that that would be more of a rookie mistake. But how do they say happens to the best of us.
You see where this is going?”

“Maybe?” Adrian said, “If this had all happened in say… Spain, it would start looking suspicious, however if this happens all across the globe it would get lost in the noise…”

“Exactly.”

“I’m asking this from one professional to the other, what makes you think this isn’t just noise?” Adrian said, keeping his voice as measured as possible, he did not want this to sound like he was doubting Britta as an individual, this was starting to sound really interesting. It was essential at this point to make sure that Britta’s suspicion was based on more than her instincts running wild. That was Ishraq was fond to say was the ‘way of the animal’.

Britta squared her shoulders, her eyes now piercing his, after a short while she relaxed slightly but kept her gaze fixed on his face as she went on, “As I said I don’t have hard proof. It is hard to know what really is happening in the hunters world. We are not a cohesive group. There is now international association. We have contacts, we here rumours, we work with our networks and read the news looking for telltale signs and do a lot of detective work. We work in obscurity. Has its advantages, but in this case, it makes it easy for an aggressor to hide.
If you were an aggressor looking to… harvest(?) hunters. How would you do that?”

He nodded. “I see your point. This could simply be paranoia, which in your line of work comes with the territory, it is a plausible scenario at least.”

“Right. Now my information is not perfect, but I know enough to see that something is wrong. Also,” she said holding up her index finger, “there is something else. It started with the harvest of organs and body parts and then shifted to disappearances. There is almost no harvesting anymore. The ratio of hunter and monster both being eliminated has remained vaguely the same…”

“Vaguely?”

“As I said, this is all within the margin of error. If this is done by someone he or she or it has done its homework, at least when it comes to statistics. This may as well be normal and me just paranoid.”

“So what is there to convince me that you are right? If I help you keep you safe from an imaginary threat we will have a very long and very boring adventure.” Adrian asked, intrigued with where this was going. He felt a tingle in his skin, a feeling of potential energy building, this could still turn out to be a dud, but there was a strong potential in this story. He had to probe it carefully to see if it held together.

“First of all the switch from mutilation to disappearance, it happens at roughly the same rate.”, she said.

Adrian nodded, both to Britta as well as to him self, this fit, when he extended his will to gently pull at this thread it did not budge.

“Second, it starts with rookies, this makes sense the first few years of a hunter are the most dangerous, but then after about 5 years or so of active duty, veterans start to survive for a longer time. If you make it there you usually last decades. These days most survive long enough to pass on the baton to their children or apprentices and go into semi-retirement.
Here though? After the first 2 or three rookies it is only veterans who are targeted. This happened with the mutilations, then when they stopped this pattern repeated with the disappearances.”

Pull. Resistance. The faint taste of metal in the air.

“Also a paradoxical flaw.” Britta said.

“Oh?”

“Double eliminations”, she said, “Are most probable with Veterans. If you are expire inced enough to have survived over a decade it will be very hard to kill you without you taking your mark with you. This however is something that doesn’t happen all that often. The numbers in the statistics add up as long as you don’t look to closely at them. This looks, feels, tastes and smells suspicious. And when my instincts tell me that something is wrong, I do tend to listen and investigate.”

The living room was slwoly starting to glow in a weak violet light that only Adrian could see.

“How long have you been hunting?” he asked.

She grimaced, “Proper hunting? Two years.”

“Not long enough to have developed a solid professional instinct.”, Adrian said eyebrow raised, “It also makes you a rookie. Which should mean you are not a target.”

She pressed her lips together and almost looked away. Almost. “I know and I’ll come to the rookie part too. This is why I wanted to make sure. My instinct isn’t good enough and I believe that if your instinct tell you something, anything and you have the time to double check you should do it. Back to the point. Suspicious number of Veterans disappearing and they sometimes disappear under circumstances that are bullshit. I mean, a werewolf. Like in one? How high was that hunter to be killed by one of them? While losing his liver? And why the fuck did the werewolf suddenly disappear? Having just eaten a great hunters liver, it would become more powerful and either more feral or more cunning? Why leave its territory? You smell the bullshit too? And let’s say it left why was it never heard from it again? If it was mortally wounded in the battle, after consuming a fucking hunters liver mind you, it crawled away so far into the wilderness that its corps was never found? The disappearances are even worse. So this is the third point, can we agree that this smells fishy?”

“It stinks enough to make the angels in heaven puke.” Adrian said.

Britta snorted, shook her head and continued. “Fifth point and this is where things get really interesting,” she grinned, leaning closer towards Adrian lowering her voice, “the targets are all special in different ways.”

“Special how?” Adrian asked also moving closer matching her conspiratorial voice.

“First it was like taking samples all around the world. That could have still been random. A trick to not get spotted but by now all of the target have something special about them. Black hair and green eyes, for example. Or identical twins but one male one female. You see?” Britta asked.

“What about the two brothers? Where they targets in the early phase?”

“Huh?”   

“The two brothers who disappeared in the mine.”, said Adrian.

“Oh them. Nope they are special. They are known to pretty much every hunter everywhere. If you want to enliven a boring family party just ask what the people think of them. To some they are heroes, others are just waiting for the day where they push the envelope that tiny bit to far so that they themselves become targets and others still think they are idiots…”

“What’s you opinion about them?”

“Idiot heroes, sexy though.”, she grinned, “What makes them specials is that they have worked a bit to close to the enemy, they are tainted, in a sense they are themselves supernatural creatures. They also keep very interesting company. Them disappearing while pushing themselves too far? Plausible. Balances Karma. Supremely ironic. Far to funny to their enemies to not be believed. I call bullshit again though. Buried alive in a mine that was probably the main source of power of some backwater cultists? Please…
But again back on track. The fifth and the final point. The pattern kind of breaks but comes full circle.”

“You should try becoming a fortune teller, you certainly know how to talk like one.” Adrian said.

Britta just rolled her eyes. “Dude, don’t ruin my story.”

“Sorry?”

“So the last point. The people who disappear are now not only veterans anymore. It started with kind of random samples around the world, then went to veterans, moving towards veterans which all stood out in the field in some way or another and now it seems to be focused on individuals that are special in a one of a kind way.”, she leaned back her conspiratorial smile spreading on her face.

Adrian was not quite sure of how to react to that. “You haven’t told me all that to convince me that you are the chosen one.”, it wasn’t really a question. He was just trying to sort through what he just heard.

One corner of Britta’s mouth fell like the most disappointed shooting star, the other twitched slightly. “Is that what you have taken away from what I just told you?”

“No. No it’s not. But you are still not telling me the most important part. Why are you here? Why do you need my help? Or to be more precise what is it that makes you special?”, he raised his hands in what he hopped she would see as a conciliating gesture.

Britta’s face froze, retreating into a more serious expression, her eyes fell. Adrian thought, that that part was off.

“What did you do Britta?”, he asked keeping his voice as calm as possible. The young woman in front of him had been so happy to share her ideas and theories but this was a point she had been avoiding the whole time.

“I…”, she she inhaled slowly, “I… How to put this…”, she pressed her fist against her lips, “OK… This isn’T as dramatic as it sounds. But in short: I should not exist.”

“In which context would that ever not be dramatic?” Adrian asked.

“It’s not about me as a person. It is OK that I exists. This is not some emo emo ‘Oh woe! Hath I only not been born.’ shit. OK?”

“OK…”, he said.

“It’s actually fucking stupid on so many levels.”, Britta said, her colour returning to her with her rising indignation, “In our tradition, the first born child carries on the tradition as a hunter. The second child does not. The second child must remain removed from the tradition at all costs. The third born is then again taught the ways of the tradition. While the first goes out hunting, gaining experience, the third is continually trained and taught. In the end you have the main warrior with the most practical combat experience and the back-up who is also kind of the savant who knows the more occult secrets. And for the second child? Fuck all. Zero. Nothing.”, the last part she had hissed through her teeth.

“How old are you anyway, if you don’t mind me asking?” that was incredibly stupid.  She had gone from sitting with her fists closed, to standing like a rising flame, her gaze alone was enough to push Adrian back deep into his chair with their sheer fury. The she now held the narrow cross by the short end in her right hand it’s far end now pointing directly in Adrian’s face.

“I do actually mind.”, she said glaring at him. “I mind a lot.”

Adrian knew that now he had to chose his next words with utmost care. He pressed his lips together, forcing himself to resume breathing but in the most inoffensive way possible. “I’m very sorry.”, he said and he meant it, “I had assumed that you are not yet so old as to take offence at that question…”, he let that stand in the room, Britta’s rage was tinged by a hint of confusion which was replaced by suspicion. “I maybe should have asked how long you’ve been a hunter.”, the narrowed eyes and increased tension in her body told him that that was a poor choice.

“You already know that.If you had listened to me you’d…”

“You have been a huntress for 2 years now. I remember. I did listen. I was mostly concentrating on the pattern you were describing, I’m  just trying to get all the facts together…”, he waited for the reaction. The threat in front of him was still there but suspicion was ascending. In this case that was good.

“Look I personally don’t really care. I’m over a thousand years old, to me…” ‘you are all children’ was what he wanted to say, but every animal instinct inside of him that was tasked in keeping him alive kicked in the door to his speech centre to silence him before it was to late, under the threat of violence his mind reworded this very carefully, “…everyone under a hundred years is mostly the same.”, he fought hard not to let it sound like a question. It worked. The fury was reduced to smoldering embers directed at others, while the suspicion slowly retreated keeping a hairy eyeball on Adrian.

“So why do you ask?”, she said, her voice still carrying the afterimage of violence.

Adrian wanted to shrug, but as he saw the suspicion on the other side casting a pin point focus on him, he stopped mid-shrug his shoulders pulled up. His instincts that had surrounded his mind surrounded glared at him, some with arms crossed, others cracking the knuckles of their fists daring him to say something stupid again. “It is just information. The more details I know the better. It gives me, us a better insight of what your enemy in the shadows is planning.”, he had decided that it was a good time to treat the situation as fact. “Maybe it doesn’t mean anything. Maybe it does. Could be have a numerological meaning, the time of your training, compared with the digit sum of your age… er… I maybe should have asked for your birthday first, that digit sum is carries great weight in certain occult systems. You have told me enough to infer that you are the second child, you have an older brother, Eric, you mentioned,” as Adrian spoke Britta slowly relaxed,the point of her ‘cross’ dipping towards the floor. He started to relax himself a bit, not too much though as his instincts where still very close to killing him themselves to save at least a shred of their dignity.
“You also have a younger sibling.”, he said. He would have smiled at this point but did not dare to.

Britta’s now looked mostly tired, “Freya.”

“Your younger sister?”

She just nodded.

“Leaving you stranded in the middle while they get to learn all the cool stuff, right?” he saw how her expression hardened again,  this time however her anger was directed to a place far away.

“Eric is an idiot,” he quoted Britta, “and Freya is an ingrate, right?”, it took Adrian a lot of effort to make that question sound deeply rhetorical.

“Ooooh you have nooo idea. She’s the worst. I mean she doesn’t even really care about all of this. She loves the mundane part of life. I don’t get it? Why can’t she take over that part of the family. I mean we are in the fucking 21st century. You know mom said it was OK, even dad didn’t mind… much… But oh she had to do it anyway… That little… She knew I was preparing for it, that I wanted to take over.”, as she talked her anger grew again but now it was not focused on Adrian anymore. After he was done being happy of not being the centre of that particular firestorm he noticed, the immense power emanating from Britta. Her fury, no her passion was a source of incredible power.
“I was doing her a favour!”, she raged on. “But she loves to be the centre of attention. But you know what?”

“It didn’t stop you.” Adrian said.

“Damn right it didn’t. I know more then here, I train more and longer and harder. When I study the lore I really work on understanding it. Fuck, I love reading the lore. She doesn’t. She has top be pushed every inch along the way… You know what the worst part is?” she asked, the flames of her fury now fully under her control.

“No?”

“The worst part is that the idiot that has to tutor her so that she doesn’t fall behind is me.”, her eyes were windows to a furnace that just waited for anyone to come near enough to turn into ash.

“That is outrageous.” Adrian said. He meant it but he still did not dare to raise his voice. “So…?”, he implied the rest of the question.

“My age?”, she asked.

“All of your ages actually. Numerology etc…”

“Eric is 20, still an idiot though. Freya is 14.”

Adrian knew better than to do anything beyond existing in the most inoffensive way possible.

“I’m 16.”

‘Figures.’, he didn’t say.

“So?” she asked him, her gaze again piercing him, for a second Adrian feared that his thought’s had been too loud, so that she had been able to somehow hear them.

“Er…”, he said.

“Numerology?”

“Right. Eric is a 2. Nice balanced number especially in conjunction with the twenty. How long has he been training?”

“Six years.”

“Thrice two. Good. Stable. And Freya?”

“Not even a year.”

“Her number is 5 a breaking point, unstable…”

“You can say that again.”, she snorted.

“And you have been training for two years. You are a seven, twice broken number, balance in chaos, the threshold before you reach the number eight, representing higher balance. With your training that’s a nine, again an unstable number, but full of potential but also short of reaching the first tier of perfection in the number ten.”

“Yeah… maybe not…”

“I beg your pardon.” Adrian said.

“It’s officially two years.” Britta said.

“Officially? How? You weren’t even supposed to learn it at all, right.”

“Well two years ago was the point when I had pestered my parents enough to let me train. I could still walk a secular path. After all Freya didn’t want to become a huntress anyway. Also if she did… she would probably need all the help she could get, right? Lacking interest and motivation is a really big hurdle…right?”

Adrian did again not say a lot of things, he just nodded. “So, unofficially how long.”

“Four years.”, Britta said a mixture of defiance and pride in her voice.

“You have studied the occult arts and how to combat arcane adversaries since you where ten?” he asked. That was incredible. It was incredibly dangerous and foolish at that. “And your parents…”

“Didn’t know of course, are you crazy? They would have killed me if they had known.”

Of course… ”Thus unofficial.”, he said.”But how did you hide the combat training?”

She shrugged, “Martial arts and fencing with the long sword isn’t really arcane. In the first years I mostly studied the lore, the channelling arts, meditation, the flow of power through the body, the flow in the river of souls. The kind of stuff you can do alone.”

His eyes grew wide. “That’s incredibly dangerous.”

“I know that now.”, she said, “But back then it was just really interesting and I was very careful. I’m not an idiot.”

“You were ten and without a teacher.”, he said.

“Still not an idiot. The books were very clear about the dangers, the limits and portents of warning. I mean some of that stuff was really scary to me. Still is… really.”

“I am still afraid of the river of souls.” Adrian said shivering.

“Well there you have it. 16 and four years of training.”

“So that would not be a nine but an eleven.In this combination you are in a twice unbalanced position, chaos all around you. A position of extreme fragility. But also extreme potential.”, Adrian said, leaving out the ‘if you mange to survive long enough.’, part.
“It also explains why your hunter of hunters would like to catch you. You broke a scared sequence, you are right now in a state of incredible magical potential, even a second class hovel mage could turn you into a terrible weapon. And you are an unchosen.”

“Unchosen?”

“By fate, tradition and destiny you were supposed to be mundane. More so than even someone who was just born into a secular life and stayed there. You were supposed to be ward off the occult and yet here you are. You are a fate breaker by your own will.”

“See?” she said smiling again for the first time in a long while, “I am special. Makes me fit the pattern. A rookie but not like the others.”

“You are special in the worst way?”

“Are you trying to commit suicide by being an ass again?” she asked her eyes narrowing.

“No. I mean, and I am talking from a destiny/fate perspective here, you aren’t chose to anything. No greatness. There will be no prophesy about you. No portents or om,es during your birth and life. Well until you persuaded your parents to let you walk the path of the huntress, probably sealed when you sister chose not to turn her back on her birthright. When that happened and you refused to back down, you broke fate and you chose yourself.”

“Nice!” she beamed.

“In a way. You are a phenomenon that most sages don’t think about. People like you either die spectacular deaths early on before they can leave their mark on the world or they become such forces of change and chaos that they appear as chosen as the greatest of the chosen of destiny.”

“That sounds very cool to me.”, she said still grinning, “I’m not dead yet. So greatness awaits, right?”

“That’s a way to put it… Wait… something here isn’t right.” Adrian felt something, something was amiss.

“How did you notice the pattern? If it is so well hidden… What made you look? Also if you don’t know about unchosen fate breakers what made you think that you are a target?”

“Oh… Right, that’s also kind of the catalyst that made me go look for you… I was attacked by creatures of of boiling shadow and oil darker than black.”, she said her grin ebbing out a bit.

Adrian closed his eyes, for a second, he inhaled slowly, without opening his eyes he asked, “That thing you are carrying with you isn,t a cross, is it?”

“No that’s Katsa.” Britta said

“What’s a Katsa?” Adrian asked.

“It’s a name. Katsa is my sword.”

He exhaled opening his eyes. “Of course… How good are you with the sword?”

“I’ve been training with it almost every day since I was ten.”

“Good”, Adrian said, he knew know what that strange feeling was, everything about the situation had been so very weird that he had not noticed. A dissonance that had appeared a while ago which only now that he understood what Britta actually wanted. “Because your friends of shadow of oil have found you and while we were chatting were breaking through the defences of my house.”

Britta showed only a short flash of panic, which she immediately got under control, when she started to unwrap her sword.

“Britta, can you see in the dark?” Adrian asked.

“No.Why?”

“Because that would have made things much easier.”

“How?” Britta asked, finally pulling her sword free from its cloth sheath.

Adrian pointed at a window, where they could see their own reflections, which where covered by condensing clouds of a slick fluid darkness that as it came together started swallowing all light. When the shadows appeared to be holes where the windows had been cut away leaving holes opening to the deepest void. They heard the snap of cracking glass followed by the noise of it being being ground to powder.

“Because then I’d have turned off the light in the house before they could have entered through the windows and we would have run.”

Out of the fissures in the windows the dark shapes slowly pured into the room.

“And now?” Britta said, moving away from the couch and the table to a spot where she could freely swing her sword.

“Now you fight.” Adrian said climbing on his chair, while he closed his eyes and opened his mind.

“Wait, I fight?” Britta said, casting a quick look back at Adrian before focusing at the growing oil shadows again.

“You fight, while I try to find out a way to push them back.”

“So you are not fighting?” she asked, a hint of panic in her voice. She caught herself again, calmed her breath and concentrated on her blade mouthing an invocation. The blade started to fog up, tiny golden droplets of golden light condensing on its blade. “Don’t you have a weapon?”

“Apart from my sharp wit? No.”, he said.

“What kind of immortal are you?” Britta said as she raised her sword now dripping light into an offencive stance, cross guard close to her head the tip pointing towards the nearest shadow.

“A very successful one. And I’d love it to stay that way. So please more fighting and less talking so I can concentrate on opening us a way to freedom.”

“Lovely.” Britta said, stepping forward thrusting her sword forward into the advancing shadow.

Project Twin Fires 003

 Chapter 2 Arrival

The first week was the hardest. On one hand he had to get used of being an Adrian. Not that easy, being an Adrian felt more smooth and relaxed than being a Zacharias, who was man of action and a devil may care attitude. Inhabiting a body that felt older than dirt was another thing. Everything was incredibly hard to do and slow and exhausting. The worst part was his mind, that was as sharp and quick as always, which had to push and pull his decayed body to do anything at all and it took patience which he did not have. Maybe this was a lesson? Life trying to give him a more Adrian point of view? Of course that was bullshit, but one thing he had leaned very early in his life was that although most things in life happened just by sheer random chance, it was often better to take that randomness with all its sharp edges, spiky bits and uncomfortable angles and pack it into a plausible story. Giving it purpose and a deeper meaning. He wasn’t given this frail husk to become more Adrian like, nor had he named himself that way to ‘go with the flow of life’. But by deciding that this was how it worked he forced order into the chaos, he used his narrative, his will to make life conform to his wishes.
He had to smile as remembered how pleased his teacher was when he, during his very first life when he had still been Ferran de Finisterre, had finally understood this lesson. It had taken him so long and he had taken the longest, stoniest way to get there. He had been incredibly tempestuous back then, he had left his home and family behind for the heathen lands to the south to learn the secrets of magic. It had looked very promising at first, Granada was a city of incredible splendour when he was young one of the great centres of learning in the entire world. He manged to impress a teach who took him under his wing and then had tried to kill him with ridiculous arguments, strange philosophical ideas, odious riddles, oh how he hated those but worst of all: no magic. None at all.
Until he got that first lesson. Real magic wasn’t ‘magic’ one could not simply say some words of power or wave the arms ominously and make miracles happen. One had to accept reality first, its inevitability, the vagaries of life. All the horrible things that made life hell, all the reasons Ferran had fled his old life, what had driven him towards foreign and arcane knowledge. “You can’t break the world, Ferran.”, Ishraq his teacher had told him, “You can’t change fate. You can’t dictate your will on the universe, for this is only possible for Allah, all glory and praise be to Him. How ever you can accept the world, become one with it and then suggest how your way is the same as the way of the world. You can persuade it to walk with you. The more you are one with the world, the more you move with it, the more it will be moved by you.” That had made no sense at all to him for a long time. But when it finally it threw open the gates towards the realm of magic.

Adrian laughed. “This is almost better than magic.”, he was standing under the shower, hot water rushing over his body, warming him, washing away his bad mood, filling him with wonder. When lady Alania had told him that most of the house was forbidden to him as it would take time for him to get used to the new world, he had been disappointed, he had his bedroom, a small but very nice library, a corridor and a bathroom. But what a wonder the bathroom was. Flowing warm water. Endless amounts of flowing warm water. He could take a shower and let in a bath! At the same time. Ridiculous. But oh so gratifying. He was really looking forward to a bath, but that had to wait, for while he had no doubt he could getting into the bathtub without any problems, he did not think that he would be able to get out again without help. An indignity he could do without.

Day by day he overcame more and more the inertia of his body and got it going again. The first few days wh was mostly in the library reading up on the history of the world. He had started with big leather bound tomes rich with the detailed knowledge. After one, rather fascinating morning, he noticed that it would take him years to get even near the present. Also what he was reading about what happened in 1929 and 1930 made him despondent. For Adrian the great depression had not even been a week ago.So he switched to the lighter books, then the the colourful soft covers filled with pictures, neat little diagrams and ‘Did you know?’ boxes as well as glossy magazines. He could devour many of these in a single sitting and would only stop when the housemaid cam to serve the food.

On the figth day he was allowed into the garden. He wondered why, it was just a garden… Well whatever, he was happy to be outside, enjoy the sun and have an open space to pace around as he was trying to make sense what was happening to the world. The Second World War had shocked him deeply, every once in a while he had to stop look around, listen to the strange sounds coming from the city, breathing the air that carried the scent of the ocean with it, how had they come out of that? Everything around here was so normal.

Two days later the kitchen was opened to him. Not much of a shock here. It was a strange mix of what a proper kitchen should look like with some strange additions that seemed to have escaped from a pulp magazine. He especially enjoyed the microwave. A futuristic oven that looked like it had been washed to hot and had shrunk so that it would only if a large plate but heated up anything that contained water in mere seconds. Apparently by using electro-magnetic waves. He loved that. Once he learnt how to use the device, it used some form of arcane numerology that would have made Hermes Trismegistos proud, he insisted of heating up his soup or stew himself. He waved his arms dramatically and commanded the hidden waves that lived in within the lodestone and was enticed by the galvanic forces to transfer heat into his food. He never had felt that much like a real mage in that moment, and he could actually work real magic. He thought that was incredibly funny. The staff also laughed, a bit nervous at first but far more open after a while. He knew that they were mostly laughing at him, but you take the joys in life from where you can get it. Also since he was now obviously a bit crazy they treated him much more like a normal human being.  

After ten days he entered the living room. Another room where he thought that he could have entered it much earlier. While still old, he was now more like a well maintained 90 instead of a well embalmed 100 and moving around helped him. In the end it was just a living room. Oh no a futuristic couch! An over there two horrible chairs, that would have been out of style in 1920. Or maybe he was to be protected from the fire place, that moder fixture of the far future? He turned around still looking for why he had to wait almost two weeks to be allowed her. It must be the the glass table around which the couch and chairs were arranged. It was made of glass, this strange material unknown to the lesser visitors of the past like him. He let himself fall into the couch feeling rather miffed. Sitting there he finally the strange mirror. It stood there on a small wooden altar, the looked like it was made just to place the strange lying monolith on it. Had the forgotten to put the tain in the back of it? He got back up and looked at it closer. The reflexion was poor. He poked it with his index finger. Nothing happened. He emptied his mind, opened himself to the strange blind window in front of him. Nope. It was not magic, but it was a masterwork of incredible intricacy. He looked behind it to see a mess of cables coming out of it. An electrical device? He upheld his meditation, trying to feel if there was some kind of sympathetic connections. The strongest was with the couch. An altar of sorts? It felt at the same time religious but also deeply profane. Fascinating. And there was something else. A small black rectangle, very vaguely reminiscent to the blind mirror. He took the box, it was covered in buttons.
He remained transfixed for the next hour or so, he did not even think to sit down, there was a moment where he had thought that he would have to go looking for his jaw later. Through that window, he saw the world, other worlds, places near and far, and he was surrounded by sound. It took him a while to realise that the decorative obelisks standing in the room, where some form of loudspeakers. He should have read more pulps he noted. This was like a hundred cinemas all appearing at once.
When he woke up the next day, twisted into an unnatural shape, the dark window still still showing its never ending mirages he conceded that confronting it with this technology on the tenth day showed a deep belief in his mental capacities.

After a few days entranced by the dark window, he started to regiment himself. He brought his books and writing materials with him. The strangeness of the 1980s had to wait for now, as he needed to understand for one how this strange device worked and he took notes of what he was seeing. It was clear that a lot of what he saw was just cinema, but other parts where showing reality or sometimes pretended to be real? It was a bit confusing at first. It showed him the present though and it prepared him for the emergent pattern machines, the big ones that were monoliths in their own way, which connected to a galvanic type writer, a dark window and strange pushy-shifty device allowed the user to manipulate what was happening behind the dark window. Oh and the ridiculous everything tablets which everyone seemed to be using all the time in certain motion pictures. At first he thought he was watching some kind of badly written science fiction story where people had access to all knowledge, and maps, and cameras, and music, and everything… He then noted that when it was fiction the devices were far larger then when it was real.

On day twenty he entered the office which had its own computer, as the emergent pattern machines were called.

After a month he got his everything tablet. This he got from lady Alania herself who was checking personally how he was doing and spent the rest of the day explaining it to him. Adrian could not get over that this devices wer called “smart phones”. There was nothing even remotely telephone like about them, apart of course that one could call someone with them from pretty much anywhere. After he gotten used to it he also received a laptop, which was a computer, but foldable and light. So that he could carry it around.
And a so called tablet. Which was like the everything ‘phone’ but larger, could do all the same things, but was larger. After he had furiously complained about it to the lady, her laughing most of the time while he was venting his frustration of how any of that made any sense, she returned to him with a so called e-book reader. Which looked like a tablet. But its dark window was black and white and not dark. It was to expensive and elaborate to be just a practical joke by the lady. So exasperated and tired he asked her why in Lucifer’s name one would need one of those things. Alania told him that they retained their galvanic power… sorry charge… far longer and they used something called electrical paper which made it more pleasant to read. “Also”, the Lady said, “This one here, contains more books than the library of Alexandria.”, she smiled and left shortly after.
Adrian hated himself for loving the reader so much. In time he got used to his ‘phone’, really enjoyed the computer and had developed a love hate relationship to the TV. Oh was absolutely enamoured of the sound system. He loved immersing himself in music, either when he was researching the world or just drifting away in daydreams and thoughts. Which led to the lady bringing him another gift. An MP3-player. He had been inhaling to start another tirade about why he should use a tinier version of the smart phone, just to listen to music. But then he reminded himself that that was not a very Adrian thing to do. So he just exhaled slowly.

“Does it use electrical musicians?” he asked.

“No.” The lady Alania said still amused but a bit disappointed by his reaction. “They just sound better. I also brought you few headphones chose the ones you like the most. It will be my last gift to you.”

He just arched an eyebrow.

“When you feel like it you should leave the house and have a look around the real world, it’s about time.” She said.

“Oh.”, right the world, was still outside, he had been lost in his research, he was still outraged by the 70s, deeply confused by the 80s, amused by the nineties and wondering why the new millennium had been at the same time so horrifying and yet boring.

“Are you having a senior moment?” Lady Alania asked, letting do the implications do all the hard work.

“What? No. I… It’s been a lot and I have been enjoying my life as a hermit a lot.”, he considered what he had just said for another moment, “How very Adrian of me.” He smiled.

“You were more exiting when you were asleep…” she said without humour. “You need to get out and get to know your neighbourhood. San Isidro is very nice and safe, if you wander walk in the direction of Miraflores it is shiny and Barranco which is interesting. Don’t stray to far though the city can be dangerous.”

“I’m over a thousand years old mom. I can take care of myself thank you very much.”

“And you still look almost one thousand years old my child.”, she pinched his cheek. Examined him for a moment. “I’d say you are back to a health seventy? Don’t do anything to dramatic before you are back in your forties OK?”, after a short pause, “On the other hand seeing how Adrain you are being lately, please do something. At all. It’s good for you.”

It took him a few more weeks to read travel guides and blogs and polishing his Spanish back up to decent levels. The latter part was embarrassing, he was born in Spain but he had not kept up with his mother tongue in a long while.
So after three months of sheltering he opened the front door of his house and went exploring. 

He hesitated for a moment, standing on front of the door set in the wall that shielded his house from the outside world. So far he had been slowly introduced to this new age room by room, behind this last door was an entire new world that had moved so fast during the time he had slept. When he retreated the world had fallen of a cliff and never stopped accelerating even as it had caught fire almost turning to ash it had not stopped. A phoenix which was not stropped by small trifles like being reduced to dust, it had died in motion and reborn in motion. It had travelled so far from the point where Adrian had decided to lay Zacharias to rest that this new present seemd as far away from him as his first life in the past. His jaw tightened, he inhaled and opened the door.

The city outside was… just a city.What confused him the most was how normal it all seemed. People where still just people. Yes they were wearing strange clothes, but Adrian had lived through more than 1000 years of fashion, 1000 years of filled with so many attempts on the life of good taste, this wasn’t really that impressive. There was a lot of variation in what the people where wearing. The colours where nice. But it was the year 2020, he laughed and shook his head, he was so incredibly far in the future, but everyone was looking so mundane. He didn’t really know what to he had expected, especially after having watched the new world through the dark window. The cars where everywhere and look suitably advanced, he would have not been surprise if they one of them taken off and flown to the stars or something, however in the end they where just very fancy cars.
The first day he didn’t travel far, just a walk around the block and then walking down the most promising streets. Always returning back to his home when it felt that he was still close to his house, but when he turned around the street looked somewhat strange. A strategy that had served him well over the centuries. Especially when he had to leave a city in a  hurry and get used to a new home quickly. The inquisition hadn’t been much fun.

During the first few days the feeling of familiarity gave way to a growing feeling of unease he had expected on his first day. It were the small things that felt wrong. Pretty much everyone had an everything device, he still hated calling them “smart phones”, it was such a misnomer. He was a man who had learnt of the power of names, how proper naming was a path towards power, yet these little devices which were connected to electronic libraries filled, well with everything really, were so ridiculously misnamed. They were deep grimoires which opened the doors to all truths and all lies mankind knew. Calling them by such a profane name devalued them it also obscured their darker nature.
To make them work one had, through arcane rituals, close a contract with the Provider, an inhuman entity which he later learnt was the manifest will of a company, the Provider gave one a true name closing the connection to the device. Once this was done one could communicate in writing, with speech and even through moving pictures to everyone else who also held one of these devices, as long one knew the others true name. He wondered why the religions drawn towards the cleansing powers of fire had not acted against them. But that was mostly his medieval mind talking.

The thing was, people where constantly using these things. Always with one foot in this world and with the other foot and the other. He had never been a friend of pacts closed with inhuman entities, that always lead to all kinds of misery. And yet here was humanity where everyone from small children to the old were bound to their pocket monoliths. Hrodpreht would have loved this another immortal around his age, who was utterly fascinated with the outer forces. They first met inside a ruined temple of a forgotten civilisation, Adrian was mostly curious Hrodpreht was doing an experimental series of blood sacrifices to the presumably dead gods to see if they where maybe just sleeping or casting their inhuman gazes on other worlds. Hrodpreht had been the first immortal Adrian had met. They had travelled together for while, Adrian had hoped to learn more about immortality; being freed from the fetters of mortality was far more confusing that he had thought. Their partnership didn’t last long. They had very different views of the world, also Adrian was convinced that Hrodpreht with his love for the dark, the forbidden and the mind breaking was depite his robust immortality destined to die young. The last time he had met him was during the Great War, Adrian traumatised and disillusioned was trying to get as far away from Europe as possible, while Hrodpreht was pushing deeper into the most contested territories. If that mad bastard was still around he would be ecstatic about this development. 

It would take him a while to get used to it. He could not shake the feeling that there was a force blind to mankind that was growing deep into human minds. Maybe it was just all the electromagnetic waves that now where everywhere. What annoyed him to no end was that he kept catching himself being no better than the others. He would consult his endless grimoire about the weather, the latest news, make it take pictures of fascinating spots he discovered during his exploratory strolls to the outside world. Or make it play music to him so that he could take a step back from reality moving through it like a ghost. That made it much easier to just try and absrob the spirit of this new era with its strange idiosyncrasies. He quickly mastered the art of making playlists, so that at will he could change the atmosphere of his surroundings at a whim.

The pestilence that had gripped the world, as it turned out was a virus that depending on its whims and the hosts cellular peculiarities would pass unseen, maybe causing damage to the hosts organs with out them noticing or causing symptoms from the mild to the deadly. It was like natures version of Russian roulette, only that nature in this case was holding the gun to humanities head.
Everything looked perfectly normal outside though. This was nothing like the plague for example or any other of the more dramatic diseases that had haunted mankind over the centuries. Adrian was more afraid of it than of all the others because it was so unassuming. Again much like the technology around him, it made its presence known in small and strange ways. Many people where wearing masks, to protect themselves and others, that however had hardly any impact on daily life and could as well have been a stylistic choice of the new times or it could just as well have been a measure against one of the lesser diseases.
The strangest thing was that there now where days for men and days for women where they were allowed to leave the house and when they had to stay inside. So whenever Adrian was outside to explore the streets, there were only other men around. Like the phones this was something that was not really obvious at first but created a feeling that something was off.

Something isn’t right.

This was the feeling that lodged itself into Adrian’s heart as the months passed. Despite some high points in his excursions, like discovering a large park where ancient olive trees grew who had been around for almost 500 years. Several food places, all of them spectacular, the enjoyed the Chinese place and a small takeaway place that sold freshly fruit juice and roasted chicken the most.
There was also the day when he found the sea. He knew it had to be around here somewhere as he could always smell the salt in the air, often when he was wandering about he could also feel a fresh breeze carrying the smell of the deep dark waters of the Pacific ocean. Nevertheless it had taken him weeks to finally get there. He was following his old method of exploration, by the time he had discovered new park, much smaller than the one with the olive trees, the ocean’s presence in the air had turned into something familiar, vanishing in the background just as the sound of the cars and the deep love their drivers hat for their horns, that he hadn’t given it much thought anymore.
He walked through a grove of trees, when the city just ended. Behind him was Lima sprawling seemingly endlessly in every direction, crawling north and south deeper into the desert, to the east crawling up the Andes, to the west though it came to an abrupt halt. The city sat on a cliff over a hundred meters above sea level. In front of him was only the ocean and the sky. He stood there for a long time lost in memories. Mostly of his youth where he had spend a lot of time standing on cliffs looking out at the Atlantic dreaming of adventure and freedom. He was from a place called Finisterre, literally the end of the world, which was exactly how it had felt back then. Behind him all of Europe and Asia in front of him nothing. Just the Mare Tenebrosum.
He did not notice the tears silently running down his face. He was lost in this old feeling that for a thousand years he had tried to get away from, yet here he was all of the world, all of his lives behind him and in front of him, nothing, just the end of the world.

After the day he had found the Pacific his rejuvenation had slowed considerably. His feeling of foreboding became stronger. Although he would never admit it, least of all to himself, he started to avoid certain places. Always the ocean as well as certain corners, that felt especially off. And so bit by bit he retreated back into his house. His excursions becoming shorter, focused more on what was familiar, avoiding the unknown, the unsettling and the irksome.
His body had reached an age of 70 when he stopped growing younger. His mind turned inward, for the fist time in his life it started to become old. Zacharias would have been horrified seeing his greatest fears come true, Adrian didn’t notice. Adrian didn’t care. Adrian just wanted to be left in peace, spending most of his time reading books. When the government of Peru declared a full quarantine lock-down, he was relieved. No his hands where bound, he had to stay at home.
With a sigh of relieve he sank into his favourite chair in the library, a cup of hierba luisa tea at his side, filling the room with its citrus aroma. This was perfect. He sipped the tea, and opened the large leather bound tome, a work on the history of the late middle ages. It was a great book that brought back so many memories of his past lives. Those had been exiting times, the light of the Renaissance was already starting to illuminate the horizon of this fading age, European scholars rediscovering the great works of antiquity. What a time to be alive. He smiled stepping back into the past.

Time lost any meaning. The man who should have been Adrian, had retreated from the world. The library was now the centre of his existence. He had even started a project. He began to look for the histories he had lived through. At first to relive his glory days, soon he became irritated by the many errors in them, the weird interpretations by people who obviously had no idea of the deeper context of what had happened. How could they? They hadn’t been there! Then he started to notice that depending on the time an culture the person writing came from one could see how much they projected their personal view on the things that had happened in another place and time. That was hilarious to him. He had spent weeks laughing. The idea had struck him while he was back in the kitchen, it was the middle of the night, the help had long left for home, as he was making himself another hierba luisa. He knew. He was there. He could correct the accounts. He could write a monograph, setting things right. When his tea was ready he went back upstairs and started immediately with the work which would consume most of his waking hours.

Day turned into weeks into months.

Until one day, in the middle of the night someone rang the bell of his home. He had almost fallen of his chair. For one there was still a strict quarantine that was strictly enforced by the state. An there was also the little detail that there should be no one ringing his doorbell at all. The help had their own keys. Lady Alania never visited without announcing her plan to do so well in advance, besides, now that he had been up and awake for months and could bloody well take care of himself she had as was usually faded away from his life. She was a busy dragon who would keep in touch eventually.
He decided to ignore it.
The bell rang again. Twice.
He rolled his eyes, steeled himself and kept reading his book. He would not move. Who ever it was he highly doubted that he wanted to see them.
He was starting to relax again, when the bell started ringing again. Repeatedly. He reached for his mug of hierba luisa, that would sooth his nerves, helping to weather the sonic storm. It was empty. He cursed in a dead language mostly forgotten to mankind and got up.Who ever it was should better leave soon, as he was feeling his righteous anger rising. He went to his bedroom, there was an intercom next to the door. He turned it on looking at the tiny monitor. It was too dark to see the person outside clearly. The closest streetlight had burnt out a few days ago, no one had replaced it, he didn’t care, until now. There was someone there. Standing to close to the camera to make out any details, it was a person, obviously and it was carrying a cross? Not small, but also not very large. Maybe something that you would take to a procession? He looked at the strange silhouette trying to make sense of it, when he was rattled by another ring of the doorbell.
He pushed the button on the intercom that allowed him to speak with whoever it was standing outside there terrorising him.

“Yes?”, he said, his voice harsh, making it very clear that he was not in a welcoming mood.

A female voice, not the least impressed by his attempt to scare hr away answered, “I am looking for Sam Everard.”

His heart constricted as he heard that name, breathing became a monumental task, his blood more or less disappeared from his body, leaving him him cold and dizzy.

“Hello?”, the female voice said, “I said I’m looking for Sam Everard.”, she waited for a few seconds then added, “It is an urgent matter.” The faintest of cracks appeared in her calm voice as she said that.

Inside the man who should be Adrian, who had been Zacharias and almost 400 years ago was called Samuel Everard, had to fight just to remain standing. He forced him self to breath in, the air rattling and wheezing into his lung. He swiped his brow damp with cold sweat with his hand. “Sam Everard…”, he wanted to lie but he couldn’t, “Is long dead.”

“So you know him?” she asked.

“I… It’s been a long time… that I heard his name. He…”, he couldn’t think of anything coherent to say.

“So, it’s you?”, she asked.

“I am not Samuel Everard.”, anymore.

“Well…”, she said, “I wanted to talk about a promise he gave a long time ago.”

A chill ran down his spine and he started to shiver. Old memories, not forgotten but carefully storned away in a special place of his mind and heart, burst into his mind. He could feel her hand, small and frail on his arm. The smile on her face now marked by a long life full of joy and sorrows, it was still radiant and warm, carried all her wit and charm with it, neither old age nor grey hair could hide the radiant beauty of her soul.

“Oh Sam…” she said shaking her head. “I wish I could keep going, like you and believe me, I hate this more then you, it’s me who is going to die after all and how dull will heaven be without you.”, she looked him in they eyes, her gaze filled with sorrow, “how long will I wait there for you to come back to me.”, she looked away again, “But then, I’ll have all the time in the world.You Sam, you need to move on. Carry me in your heart, but you need to move forward.”

“I mean it,” Samuel said, “you have my word my evening star.”

“Oh Sam,”, she shook her head, “are you calling me the devil again?”

“That is the morning star.” He said.

“It is the same star, you know that.”, she laughed, he always fell for it. It always made her laugh how angry he got for her, int was funny, it was also always worth it for what came next.

“What is important is that it is the brightest star in heaven, just as you are the brightest one on earth.”, he said.

Despite all these years, despite her being convinced that there where many other stars much brighter then her in the world she blushed.The sincerity of his words, his passion, it always got her.

“Also you are trying to distract me. It won’t work, not this time. I will give it to you in writing. Wait here.” He got up and left the room. Elinor wonered what he thought she would do, jump out of her bed and run away?

“Sir?”, the woman outside Adrian’s house said, “I know it is you.”, there was a hint of doubt in her voice. “I know you once gave a promise.”, the figure outside moved a step back, revealing a young woman, who had a long slender cross lying on her shoulder. With one hand she held up an old parchment envelope. “You made promise.”

“Come in.” Adrian croaked and pushed the buzzer.

Project Twin Fires 002

 Chapter 1 Bad Timing

The man who had once been Zacharias Lockwood was drifting in darkness, no thoughts or feelings, he just was. No that wasn’t right. He noted the absence of feeling, the drifting though infinite space. That meant… “I’m waking up.”, he thought. “Still in a dream…?” He tried to remember. He had just lain down in bed, the covers which at first had been uncomfortably cold against his bare skin had soon warmed, so embraced he had drifted into the long sleep and now… he was here. It was cold. Not the freezing cold of winter, it was more insidious than that, this was a creeping cold that was slowly leeching away all the energy of a body. This was the chill one felt when, returning home from the cold, huddled under blankets in front of the hearth fire was still inside the body. This cold would be hard to shake. This was a cold that meant death was close.

He opened his eyes. Darkness. Floating. Cold.

This was not right, he tried to feel his way around. But there was nothing to grab hold of. He was suspended in a void, he could not see, hear,touch anything. “This is a dream.”, he said. He heard nothing. “This is a dream and I have to wake up.”, he focused his thoughts. The darkness changed, becoming mundane. He started feeling his body, the blankets covering him the mattress below. His mind that one second ago had felt focused and alert was suddenly sluggish. Waking up. He felt horrible, the cold from his dream had followed him into the waking world, but faint smile bloomed on his lips. “I knew that was a dream.” He intended to say, but everything that escaped his lips was a mumbled croak. He forced his eyes open. To bright! He closed them again. He heard a pained gurgle. Was that him? He took a deep breath, he failed miserably, he felt him self gasp, air rattling into his lungs in stuttering gasps.

“Don’t be alarmed.”, it was the voice of Lady Alania, it was very calm and soothing. Which was deeply alarming.

Another failed attempt at inhaling deeply. He squinted through one eye. The light was not that overwhelming. Everything was blurred. He lay in a bed, under several covers, why was he so cold, the room was large, flooded with daylight. Damned daylight. And a warm breeze a bit to humid to be truly pleasant was making the heavy curtains, the colour of something between violent and red, flutter. It smelled of the sea. The lady Alania stepped into his field of view, he recognised here figure, her long hair, the flowing blue summer dress and of course her voice. The voice which was to smooth, to soothing and most alarming to warm for the old dragon.

The lady sighed. “I mean it. Do not be alarmed.” He could her the patience draining from her voice, what had started as a mellow suggestion had turned into a frosty command. This calmed the man that wasn’t Zacharias anymore.
“I feel horrible.” He heard himself say with a voice so brittle and old, it reminded him of something made of old, crumbling paper, that once touched would instantly turn to dust.

“I know.”, said lady Alania, again trying to be comforting.

“Am I dying?”,  he asked, “Did something go wrong.”

“No you are not dying, as long as I watch over you you will live.”, this was a declaration that dared heaven and earth to stand in her way, “Even if you don’t feel that way, you are perfectly OK. All things considered”, she paused for a moment, “The world however is wrong. Everything changes so fast, but your kind remains the same. The higher you soar, the more your limitations hold you back.”

“Wh…”, he tried to ask a question and then thought better of it. He tried to move. His body responded, with all the grace of a long jilted lover who had had a long time to cultivate his misgivings now suddenly called after years for a personal favour.

“It’s to early to bring you back…”, lady Alania started, “It is also to late.” A moment of angry silence followed.

Not Zacharias, managed to drag one of his hands out from under his covers trying to move them away. A herculean task. As the covers slowly moved it was like mountains where being moved off his chest. Another rattling breath. He forced his eyes fully open. He still could not focus on the lady. Hard as he tried.

“How long…” he asked with his crumbling to dust voice.

“Ninety-one years.”

Even shock and surprise came with a deep lack of enthusiasm. He felt his breath kind of catch, his heart not quite giving a fuck thought about skipping a beat or two and then thought better of it and just want into a random rhythm it thought was a decent enough approximation and his blood vessels gave a pantomime impression of constriction. His mind however, came fully back to live, started racing, running around sounding an alarm to which all the parts of his body reacted with a worn out smile to.

“Too long.”, he said. “Why?!”

“Because the world has gone crazy. Everything is happening at an incredible speed. The American Empire is breaking apart.”, said lady Alania. “The European empire is already back to its usual infighting, trying on the one hand to pretend that everything is business as usual while at the same time they are trying to passive aggressively stare each other into compliance. The Chinese empire has awakened  again, now standing tall in new clothes hiding its old body, getting ready to take on the rest of the world. So is the Russian empire. I have no idea what Australia is doing, I don’t think they know either. Japan… is being Japan. Right now I can’t quite decide which version of it, it is turning into right now. The mercantile robber merchants, have manged to elevate themselves into the new world religion and have somehow manged to destroy themselves as individuals but at the same time turned their ideas into the new gods.”

“I…”, he interjected, just to stop that stream of words, “I don’t understand anything of what you are saying. Falling empires? Merchant gods? Is… am I still dreaming?”

“I wish, then we could both wake up together.”, she said, “That is also the reason why I woke you up now. It is a bad time. Again. It is always a bad time. I try to time it well. Cultivate your horde. Keep an eye on your and find a good stable place and moment to bring you back.”, she inhaled deeply slowly shaking her head, she turned around walked over to the window looking out side, the sunlight making her outline sparkle as if  covered by a thin layer of frost. “There just never was a good time. The Second World War was a disaster of an unimaginable scale.”, she turned back to him her gaze more reptilian than he had ever seen before, “And I can imagine horrors far beyond your apeish minds.”, her expression broke leaving behind a subtle, deep rooted terror, “At least I thought I could. But you went to far, as always but this time… Your kind has now sun-fire bombs. I have cousins of fire aspect who laugh at them. Nervously. After that… everything just went faster and faster. It’s not that the nature of your species changed, but somehow you managed to break free from nature in all the wrong places while your minds did not keep up with it.”, she turned back to him, “The worst of both worlds. The first basic tools of creation in the hands of animals not fit by nature with minds to grasp neither their nature nor the consequences of their actions.”

“Second world war?” he was used to being told that he was part of a species that had just falen from the trees and had hit their head once reaching the ground, but another world war…? “Like a second Great War?”

Lady Alania turned back to him and blinked, she had to walk back in her mind to the point where that had been a topic. “Yes. Another ‘Great War’, this one was actually far worse than the last.”

He tried to blanch, his body was still not up to the task and decided to just let gravity have its way with his blood. The effect was similar enough. “But… After the Great War. How was that possible…? Where did it start?” , maybe in Asia? Africa? South America? Places remote enough to not have seen the real terror.

“In Europe.” Said lady Alania very carefully, like a doctor lancing a boil.

“Again?”

She just nodded.

“But… How… We all saw how that ended…” he was at a loss of words and thoughts and feelings. “Never again…”

To his great surprise lady Alania started laughing. A great clear laugh that would wash over the nearby streets making people stop trying to make out its source, smiling at the deep mirth of it and their smiles then breaking when they heard the malicious edge underneath it.

“Never again.”, Alania managed to press out, between two bouts of laughter. She wiped away a tear from her eye. “Never again… You have no idea how often I have heard that one while you were sleeping. Back in the day it took you a hundred years or so to forget, three generations maybe? Now you can count yourself lucky if you idiots manage to remember for three years.”, she chuckled, “By the Great Mother and the Eternal Ice, the old Emperors would have loved this time.”

“Old Emperors?” he had lost track of the conversation again. “Which ones? The romans?” Alania started laughing again. ”The Chinese?”, he ventured trying to think of emperors even older than them. Egypt perhaps?

“No much, much older, before your time.”, Alania said, she lifted a finger to stop him before he could say anything more, “Before the rise of the ape-men.”, she said. “That is you, your species.”, she added with a bright smile radiating enough condescension to make the stones in the walls feel offended.

“Yeah. I know. Ugh… ugh… Me ape-man, you great dragon queen…” at least now they were on familiar territory again. Deeply annoying, but this at least felt normal.
“So, what is waiting outside for me? A barren wasteland? How many humans are left? What level of civilisation can I expect.”, he saw that Alania was shaking again, fighting very hard not to start laughing again. “Renaissance at least?”, pretty please. Oh and running water would be great. one really got used to running water. And flushing toilets! Those where the best. Seeing the lady shaking her head he thought that it may be better not to get his hopes up.

She chuckled and a wide smile grew on her face filled with childlike fun framed by a thin layer of madness. “Oh, my friend Za…”, she paused remembering not to use his dead name, “er… my friend the… dark stranger?” she snorted amused this time without any questionable qualities. “No. You have returned into a golden age that in your history has no rivals and, if I do say so myself, is among the greatest that has ever exited.”

“I don’t understand.”, he said growing tired of the confusion.

“I don’t either. I wish I had listened to my father and taken philosophy seriously…” she sighed. “I really don’t.”, she thought for a while. The man who was not Zacharias knew better than to interrupt her. “Hmmm… Imagine all the best qualities of your kind and all the worst.”

He nodded.

“At the same time.”

His face scrunched moving a sea of wrinkles into the thinking configuration. It was very expressive and dry and old. He thought he could hear a crumpling sound.

“Think of Italy in the Medici era.”

Oh god, yes. His face origamied into an expression that represented the understanding of the most ancient sages.

“And now turn that up to eleven.”

More shifting of old creaking skin, now into confusion. This was a lot of work but also fun in a strange way.
“Up to eleven?” he asked.

“Is that a new expression?” she wondered tilting her head. “Well, good sir, imagine all those qualities, dark and light, amplified”, she snickered here for a reason he didn’t understand, “a thousand fold, nay by many myriads, the fire that bold Prometheus stole from the gods, so carefully cultivated by noble man, so great in reason, so moved by the deepest passion into a conflagration that,” she now pointed out into the sky her voice becoming more and more melodramatic, “shines so bright, that it rivals the fire of Helios, Mithras, Inti, the Sun itself. Behold oh mortal, your brethren not happy to fly soaring into the sky, and reaching to the stars, have created with their fire a sun of their own. Down here on this very earth.”, she thundered, having way to much fun. “Like Icarus. But lazy.”

He nodded in a way that he hoped would calm the dragon, her eyes had shifted into their original form, slit pupils in giant pale blue pupils, her breath pure frost making it snow every time she exhaled. “So a now golden age. But also the end of the world.”

Her eyes returned to normal, she waved a dismissive gesture with her hand. “Not the world. Just your greatest civilisation. I am soo looking forward to Xalnithia waking up from her nap. Knowing her by the time she wakes up this will be long gone. Her face, when she realises that she slept trough a golden age that will live in the myths for millennia to come.”, she smiled with childish glee. “Really, I haven’t seen anything like this, ever before. So in a way, you came back just right. You’ll get to live through these most interesting of times and you won’t believe your eyes when you see what strange fruit you science has born.”

“Is that why you brought me back?” he asked, trying to find anything that made a lick of sense to him. Everything he had heard so far was just disorienting him. “So that I could see this golden age?”

“No. I should have brought you back earlier. But everything that is happening is happening to fast. Whenever I think I can see the forces that mould the world, everything changes, just like this”, she snapped her fingers, “And suddenly everything changes. Looking back everything makes sense, I guess. But it is all so very, very impulsive, irrational and often stupid. Well…”, she shrugged. “I had to bring you back now, because as it turns out your long sleep will kill you in the end. Either that or it will drain you so much that you’d better be dead.”

He shivered at that. His long sleep was what kept him ‘alive’, refreshing his mind, his nature. Giving him time to rest, to become a new man in a new time. The thought that it was also a way to lose control over his body and waste away in a manner that he was desperately trying to prevent.

“Relax.”, lady Alania said, her voice calm but commanding, “Your mind is still sharp as ever. It is just your body that has grown old, very, very old, while you were sleeping. Which brings us back to the point. I brought you back now because I couldn’t wait any longer. Not long and you’d have been unable to move on your own. No idea what would have happened to you then… And look at you”, she said with an encouraging smile, “you look a year younger already. Maybe even two! And your eyes are clearing up.”

Oh right. The focus was still horrible both near and far, but in the middle about where lady Alania was standing and the window, he could see clearly again.

“Judging from experience it will take you only some months to become your old self again. Right now I would advice against leaving the house. You will have some very good personnel, taking care of you for at least the next four weeks. They will get you back up and running.”, she eyed him up, “up and walking at least. It might take a bit longer. However, because it was my fault that you are in this condition, I will cover the costs of the staff. As you get better you can decide if you want to keep them or prefer to do things yourself. At which point you will take over the costs as usual. Also the house will be paid through your estate. It is larger than than what we had planned, so I gave you a discount of 10% as a courtesy. It is yours, so your expenses are reasonable.”

“That sounds fair.”, he said. Now it was his turn to study her, something wasn’t quite right. “What are you not telling me? How is my estate looking anyway?”

She locked eyes with him, looking at him without blinking. He resisted the urge to look away. No matter how human she looked, staring into her eyes made it impossible not to see the dragon. He swallowed.

“You estate is doing well all things considered. Depending how you treat it… You will be OK for over a hundred years as long as you live a normal, comfortable human life.”, she said her eyes still locked with his.

“And if I go crazy?”

She shrugged, “If you go crazy? Knowing you and your talents I’d say, once you find something suitably decadent to do. You’ll be broke within 24 hours.”, she smiled.

“No luxuries then?”

“Depends on the luxuries. You are well off. You can indulge yourself. You will get a healthy monthly stipend and as I said. Live a comfortable normal”, she stressed that word, “life and you will be fine for a century. But you are no Edmond Dantes.”

“I could have been the count of Montecristo” he grinned.

“He is a fictional character, man with no name…”

“Based on a true story!”

“No. He isn’t”

“He could have been.”, he said.

“He isn’t real. Just like Sherlock Holmes and James Bond.”

“Who is James Bond?” he asked.

“Another man who never existed. Anyway. You are not fabulously rich. Depending on how soon you want to go back into the long sleep, you can live a life of reasonable luxury.”, she snorted, “Reasonable luxury.”, she said shacking her head. “But you know what I mean. Also who knows, your estate might still grow.”

There it was. That was the glinting of a truth that had remained unsaid.

“How so.”, he asked, shifting his focus from her eyes to her entire person.

“Because,” she said, “I’m still taking care of it.”, her eyes dared him to question her integrity.

“I usually take care of my estate when I am awake.”, he said with his voice now turning cold.

“Well these are exceptional circumstances. I would not have brought you back if your body wasn’t failing you and I’m bound by duty to fulfil our contract.”, no one would ever out-ice her voice.

“It is my estate. I am perfectly able to take care of it myself. I am as far from a child as humanly possible.”

“Oh yes, dear old Mr.Lockwood, may he rest in peace was a real genius when it came to finances.”, she said. “And…” she thought better of it and did not finish that sentence.

“Were you going to tell me that in your eyes I am still a child? Yes is that it?” he asked his face drifting into a configuration of reproachful anger.

“No. It would not help and it would be unprofessional to do so.”, as she said that her teeth remained very close ot each other, it was clear that it was taking her enormous amounts of effort to remain calm.

That was strange. He had never seen the lady Alania being anything but the utmost professional. This was her work and her work was holy to the ancient dragon.
His expression softened, slowly melting into concern.

“There is something wrong, I can see it my lady. We have been working together for many centuries. Hell for over a millennium now. You are, if I may be so bold, among my very few friends, who still live. I know my body is old, it feels older than I actually am and yes I’m an ape who only recently fell from a tree.”

“Head first.”, she added her posture relaxing slightly.

“Right. An ape who fell head first from a tree. But if there is any trouble or problem, let me know and if there is anything, no matter how big or small I will help you.”

She looked at him, conflicting emotions passing below the surface of her carefully maintained neutral expression. She raised her hand massaging her eyes, looking incredibly tired. “There is nothing really wrong. It really is mostly because I owe you this…”, her expression grew pained.

“And that tiny little rest you are not telling me about?” he asked.

“Alright, human!” she roared, almost scaring him into over the threshold to the land of the dead, this time his body reacted. This time it was confronted with the rage of a dragon, not holding back at all. Millions of years of primal fear that had kept his species and many, many of his his ancestor species alive, would only be denied by death itself. The woman had disappeared, there was the reptilian head of light blue dragon, impossible large in the room, both giant eyes burning with a primal hunger focused on him. “It is Gold, precious, wonderful Gold. It is a time of crisis. Your stupid game of stocks is everywhere like a fungal infection, I hate it, it is so incredibly stupid; but I also love it because in times of crisis, in times like these, your kind remembers the most noble of all matter! The value of Gold rises and soars. And right now most of your estate is in Gold. Precious, noble and holy Gold! It is mine. It is part of my horde. And I will not give it up!” By now all he could see where those eyes, he did not feel anything but the psychic shock-wave of a type of greed that was burning like the most base of instincts. This was like food, water, sleep, sex, survival.
The dragon inhaled, the breath it drew was like a storm, inside the nostrils, he could see the crackling of primal ice and… the storm started to calm, the monster in front of him slowly faded away back into the the shape of the woman he had known for most of his life, who look at him with wide open crazed eyes. She exhaled, as she exhaled the madness also left her eyes.

“It is gold.”, she said her voice now tiny, a smile flickering on her lips but never quite igniting. “It is very, very, very hard for me to let go of it now that it is valued so highly and that it is increasing in worth. Usually,” she said slowly getting her self back under control smoothing out her dress, no, her actual human form, “this isn’t a problem. Crisis is high, sweet, sweet gold increases in worth. The world is alright, for me and my kind. You are better off sleeping. Then things get better. The price of gold tumbles because you apes are idiots and you return to your games of fetch the stock. My heart bleeds a bit, I see the decay of all that is good and sacred. I sell the gold. I drink a cup of tea. The most spectacular I can find. The profits are usually still very good. That soothes my wounded soul. I invest in your crazy ape things. Your estate turns utterly human, I bring you back everyone is happy.”, she smiled, the corner of her mouth twitching only very slightly. “But not this time. This time I had to bring you back. Turns out you, my little pet ape, are also my friend. Beyond even the oath I gave to you, I don’t want to see you die. So I brought you back. And it is a very hard time for me. So, you’ll get your monthly stipend. You also are the proud owner of shiny stones and lesser metals that you kind loves to trade for ridiculous sums, so that you can at least go a bit Montecristo every once in a while. While I take care of our precious gold until the time is right again. OK?”

The man who was not Zacharias anymore, nodded very carefully, in the back of his head he noted that the proudest moment in his life had just happened, that when confronted with the unbridled fury of a dragon older than the human species he had remained under control of all his bodily function. And he would never, ever tell that to anybody. Life is unfair. He blinked. Lady Alania was calm and professional again, the wind still blowing, curtains still flapping behind her. As if nothing had happened.

He was still looking for words, while his mind was still concentrating on the little things around him to make the world normal again. Like how the topmost of his covers was made from a light cotton cloth, smooth to the touch almost like silk. It had a flower print on it. Lilies. Symbol of death. Ha ha… How fitting. And his pyjamas where cream coloured but with little red hearts all over. How whimsical.
Lady Alania had been having a lot of fun preparing for him to come back to his sense it seemed. She had really taken care of him. Enough to go through all the trouble of preparing these silly jokes for him. He looked back at her. She did not meet his eyes, now reminding him of Antoiné, a cat he had during the French revolution who looked the same way when he had scolded him. ‘And I am the mouse.’, he thought. ‘My god, you snivelling milksop, you are the mouse that has a tiger as a friend.’, he nodded to himself.

“That was intense.”, he said with pushing a winning smile on his unwilling face. “But I understand now. Sorry. I was inconsiderate.”

“You couldn’t know.”

“Maybe, but that does not change the effect it had on you. I am very sorry for the situation I brought onto you and I understand. I will be careful with my stipend. I now know that there are gems and precious metals that I can liquidate when ever I am in a Montecristo frame of mind and for everything else, I am glad to have you watching over my estate. For I know that it could not be in better hands.”

“Thank you…” she looked vaguely annoyed, “have you decided on your new name yet? I can’t keep calling you dark stranger.”

He nodded. “Yes I think I know. I was not sure about my last name. But you helped me. This time I will be Adrian McDougall.”

“How did anything that I said turn you into a Scotsman?”

“You keep calling me dark stranger. Dougall comes from an old Gaelic word which means just that, if I remember correctly.”, Adrian said.

“Mac means ‘son of’.”, lady Alania said.

Adrian blinked. “Well, my father also hard black hair and brown eyes and so did my mother, so that works out well?”

“And Adrian?”

“That is the name my mother chose for me.”

“That’s the first time I hear you using that name.”

“She chose that name, but I was given another.”

“I see.”, said Alania. “Well I will go and tell the^staff that the new master of the house has woken up, you are looking way better now I’d say not a year over 100 and once you immerse yourself into the strange new world you have woken up into you will be back into prime shape in no time.”

“I sure hope so.”, said Adrian as he tried to carefully get up. It was, not painful really, just a lot of work, his body was still getting used to the idea of never having to move ever again and still liked that idea more than getting up for a walk or god forbid a run.

Lady Alania had arrived at the door and was about to leave the room when Adrian asked, “Lady Alania, where are we anyway?”

“We are in Lima, Peru, Adrian McDougall.”, she was still getting used to the new name.

“Why? Are we in Peru?”, Adrian asked.

“Because, when a man named Zacharias went into the long sleep he insisted on South America, because there was something he needed to check here.”

“Oh, dear Lord.” Adrian said covering his face with his hand. “Do you remember why he wanted that?”

“No. He never did. Why, have you forgotten?”

“Lamentably not.”, Adrian said.

“That bad?”, Alania asked with a grin.

“Yep.”, Adrian nodded.

“Oh,” Alania said, “I had almost forgotten. There is another reason that I didn’t want to wake you just yet.”

“OK?” he said wondering what else this new golden age had in store for him.

“There is a new plague that has spread all over the world at so far it isn’t under control.”, she said her smile turning apologetic. With that she left the room, closing the door behind her.

“What?”