Box Set: The Fearless 1-3

by Terry Maggert

  An hour later, Blue returned. “What did you think?” She looked the slightest bit worried for the first time since our arrival. The main dining area was still abuzz with no signs of slowing; they had taken reservations for as late as ten, but anticipated late seating until eleven. It was an excellent start, but we had sensed that from our first steps through the doors. From Wally’s wild boar sausages to Risa’s oxtail confit, and my own hog snapper seared with filberts and molasses, there were hints of France, Spain, and even the wild elements of island barbecue. The meal revealed a subtle but real genius in the kitchen and was cooked with the vision of a polyglot who never said no to a plate during their travels. Our satiated state was enough to reassure Blue, leaving any of her lingering doubts squashed by expressions that only a great dining experience can bring.

  “Would you care to meet the chef? And my investors?” Blue motioned graciously towards a side entrance to the kitchen, discreetly hidden in the corner.

  “Are they one and the same?” Risa’s surprise was shared by all. A casual bit of math revealed that millions of dollars had gone into realizing this restaurant. No detail was overlooked. That wasn’t cheap. And in my experience, investors aren’t chefs, and chefs do not always make the best investments. It’s an incongruous tendency that separates creative minds from pragmatists, often for their own financial benefit. As Blue held the swinging door for us, we stepped into an enormous, nearly sterile kitchen clad in an array of stainless steel and white surfaces. With the exception of piano music lilting from speakers above, it was quiet, almost subdued, but with an orderly feel that was natural rather than draconian.

  “That’s Patricio, one of my partners, and yes, he’s the chef.” Blue pointed as there was an audible gasp from Wally, who was too busy nudging Risa to care for what was soon to be my bruised ego. Patricio had to be one of the most beautiful humans alive. He was around 5’8”, with black hair, an aquiline nose under his gray eyes, and a deep, resonant voice with which he was calling orders calmly to the busy line chefs around him at their respective stations. He had the build of an artist, lean and intense, but he did not look frail, and his long hands never stopped moving as he coaxed some tidbit onto a piece of bread and deposited it into the mouth of a burly man passing by who stopped lightly on his feet despite carrying half of an enormous Spanish hog on his shoulder as if it were a pillow. The muscular butcher moved as if gravity ignored him, and I made the professional judgment of him as a dangerous fighter at the very least, and an athlete who was world class in one or more sports. To say he moved like a cat would give too much credit to felines; they wished that they could adopt his easy motion and obvious strength.

  “Who is that?” Wally asked Blue.

  “The big guy? He’s my other investor, and a sort of butcher, dishwasher, and all-around helper. Body like a Greek god. He’s also Patricio’s partner. That’s Anxo Saavedra. They’re Galician, but they only recently started investing here in the States. They sought me out. Can you believe it? At first I thought it was bullshit, but their money is green, and endless and so were their talents at making this place happen.”

  In that moment, I felt Wally’s hand at my back, poking me insistently. Risa muttered at my ear, “She’s half right about the big guy.” Anxo had features similar to those of Patricio. A familial relation was not improbable, but his hair was straight, rather than wavy, cut short, and his eyes were the hazel of a people originating somewhere between east and west. Of all the immortals we’ve seen, heard of, or even caught rumors about, they have all been rather pedestrian. No emperors or queens or even mad scientists of note. That was why, standing there in a kitchen at our friend’s restaurant, I almost could not bring myself to believe who was standing ten feet away, feeding each other and laughing like the legendary lovers that they were.

  “Blue? Your investors? I think they’re even more famous than you know. This is as good a time as any to tell you the whole story about our particular business interests, but those two chefs that you’re in business with? I know them by their historical names, Patroclus—and Achilles. I guess the arrow didn’t kill him, after all.”

  Blue turned her head, slowly, to give me a searching look so intense I saw her face flush. In turn, after a long moment, she looked to Wally and Risa, who both nodded and smiled with the sad certainty that we were involving yet another friend in our dangerous circle of awareness. In an instant, we were going to pierce her notion of reality and bring the wolves to her door. Blue then rubbed a fingertip lightly over her jawline pensively, her eyes bordering on confusion and most certainly embroiled in an internal war of doubt. We were trusted; we were a known quantity to her in a life that was grounded in a fluid, frantic business that she had been forced into by the loss of her husband. The simple fact that she stood there deep in thought rather than asking us to leave indicated that she knew to take us seriously, no matter how jarring our revelation had been.

  “It’s past our last seating. Go back to your booth, order some wine, and wait for me there. I don’t know why you would say something like that, but since you haven’t blinked, I’ll listen, but if you’re playing with me for some reason, our friendship isn’t just over, consider it erased.” And with that, Blue strode to the man we called Patroclus and began to discuss kitchen matters, indicating we were dismissed.

  14

  The Archangel Karen

  It was too early for a drink, even if she had anything in her pocket other than some coins dying of loneliness. She paused to rub her feet, once trained to dance like water over stones, now hurting her constantly; she no longer had the tough, athletic gift to propel what had once been a lithe dancer’s body. Walking past the bar, she knew that time was not her friend; it never had been, but now, even though she was squeaky clean mostly, the years of Winstons and late nights had roughened her edges like a rasping cat tongue that wouldn’t quit. She was becoming another ruddy, forgotten face with thinned lips and hair pressed lank by a lack of care that only being forty-five could bring, crushing like a heel and twisting the last of her hopes into the hot pavement.

  She never recovered from the sexual freedom that the 1970s brought her after she left that bastard Roland, he of the noble name but a character crafted from dog shit. Free. There was a cruel word. She hadn’t ever known freedom, not really, just a passing sniff at making her own life, once, for a second. Maybe twice, but then she was pregnant and broke, and it was 1979 and the world looked like it was going to burst into flames all at once, again, and she had to find a place to plant her heels and give her own blood and soul to keep the baby that she knew would be a daughter, pink and perfect, some sort of a shot to get the fuck away from the fish that were nibbling her spirit and her will into nothingness, one tiny, cruel bite at a time. Upstream. I have to let my baby go upstream, but not to die. Not like me.

  She was just another Karen in the sweeping sea of the West, but not her baby. She would grow and thrive, and one day, she would challenge— no, demand-something more than just the scraps of a place that didn’t give a shit about whether she lived or breathed, which was, to the cynic in Karen, pretty much anywhere. Colorado had been like an outhouse overlooking the gates of heaven for her, rank with the stench of a failed marriage and a sprawling vista of heartbreaking beauty to remind her every day that she walked to the store, that God did indeed have a masterful hand at creation, but couldn’t be bothered to waste a second of his precious time on her and her endless rain of failures, both big and small.

  How many other mothers thought the same thing? All of them, or damned near all of them if they were human. That’s my problem. I’m too human. Always was. I cared, even about the little things. Forgiving him, touching his arms as he railed into her, sobbing, his liquor fumes making her eyes water as much as the brutality of his body and lies, oh, endless lies— it was an accident. I fell down—he loves me—it only hurt a little. Yes, of course, I’ll do that for you, but not him. Yes, I love you, the blood doesn’t matter. Oh, honey, not again
, I fell down, down, down, forever to the bottom, down.

  Karen was leaning, forehead against the glass of a store filled with things she couldn’t afford, muttering, crying, “I’m too human, too human. I am, still, please, I think I am, I hope so . . .” her voice roughened and laden with the weight of the years, when a delicate hand touched her shoulder, and she smelled perfume, and money, and sensed something she had not believed was still in the world: utter confidence. Turning, she saw the woman, a kind smile, with no mockery, only concern, offering her a tissue and a hand, which rested light as a daughter’s kiss on her jawline. The intimacy was overpowering, just like the woman, the sheer closeness of her, dark hair, deep, unknowable brown eyes flecked with gold. She was thin, elegant. Beautiful with breeding and she wore it without effort. Experienced. Fearless. And maybe, in her face, a hint of caring, almost too much to hope for. Karen stepped, powerless, into her arms for an embrace that felt like armor building around the shattered remains of her hull, hearing the cultured voice say only, “I am Elizabeth, and yes, maybe you are.”

  Karen pulled back to look, really look at the beauty before her, and asked, “Maybe I am, what?”

  Elizabeth smiled in an almost predatory, but not frightening manner. More like an invitation, and said simply, “Too human. And that is something, dear, that I am uniquely qualified to fix.”

  15

  Florida

  The last of the lingering diners left near eleven, their departure dropping Blue’s restaurant into a state of collective exhalation. The night had been a solid success, with few of the problems that plagued openings everywhere, a testament perhaps to her, or the unusual partners, or all of it in congress, but mostly to our friend Blue, in our slightly biased opinions. We were idly twirling glasses when Blue walked Anxo and Patricio to the table and excused herself to handle closing duties with a final, meaningful glance. I felt a palpable shift in the dynamic of our space at the presence of these two men, and I wasn’t truly sure I understood what it meant. There was the frisson associated with meeting someone who had, until then, existed only in my legends, but it was more than that, as they became much more real by the simple act of standing there smiling slightly at us as we all wondered for a moment what to do next.

  “Did you really chase Hector around Troy three times, or was that just so much dramatic license?” Risa asked Anxo innocently. She really knows how to break the ice. Patricio inclined his head and they both sat, not entirely on edge at her comment but less than chummy.

  “This is the first time we’ve been recognized in, what? Sixty years?” Patricio, or Patroclus, as we now knew, asked Achilles, in his deep, mellow voice.

  Achilles ignored the question and stared at me from under lowered lids, his thoughts unknown at that moment.

  “Did you know,” and he poured wine for all of us in a display of manners that belied the tension of the table, “that until only recently, royalty were quite often the finest soldiers, bar none, within their respective armies?” He finished with an appreciative sip of the port, which was dark, dry, and a bit sweet.

  Risa spoke as our resident historian, “Of course, but a cynic might say that condition was only due to their superior diet and medical care, such as it was, along with other factors that only wealth could grant in times that were laden with turmoil and war.”

  “And near constant starvation, one bad harvest away,” Wally added.

  Patroclus corrected her, serene in his assurance that there was much more to antiquity than we knew. “I’ve been performing corrective battlefield surgeries for over three thousand years. I gave the same level of care to whomever I could treat, and believe me, my opportunities were virtually limitless. Do not be misinformed about the prevalence of barbaric stupidity among the populace of the ancient world.”

  Achilles’ expression confirmed this skill, as he had no doubt been the benefit of such ministrations, if the legends were true. I wasn’t certain I could disbelieve anything they might claim at this point.

  He looked into his glass and slowly elaborated, “Hector was the finest fighter I had seen, and among the very best to walk the earth. He was tall, with a long reach, brilliant with the short spear, and even better with the sword. He could kill with a staff or a bow, anything. I saw him outside his high walls, fighting and holding back an entire line of Greeks with a bullwhip and a long knife; he was an athlete of rare occurrence and a fine adversary.”

  “And yet you beat him,” I stated flatly.

  “I did, but not because of skill or even luck. I was already well into my physical change by that campaign, and Hector wounded me twice, both which should have been mortal, but of course I withdrew, and Patroclus was there— you see, we did not disabuse the notion that Patroclus could heal like a god. It saved us from unwanted questions that we could not bear during a long, bitter war in which we were hard-pressed to maintain our hold on the sands.” Achilles admitted this with the air of a man who has met a beast only to see it fall in a pit before him. He was more humble than I expected, given his legend. “I regretted seeing his fine form in the dust, truly. He was a good father as well. I have killed many fathers. And sons.” He finished softly, and then looked at us with eyes that were frankly appraising. “And you, Ring? If I am any judge, you do the cutting among your household, yes? When there is work to be done?”

  “I do,” I admitted.

  Patroclus poured more wine quietly. “And how many fathers and sons have you killed, Ring?”

  “None.” That got their attention as I saw both men deciding whether or not I was an intentional liar or merely stupid. Then the dawning on Patroclus’ face revealed that he understood my assertion and accepted it as fact.

  “You only kill immortals, and thus, in your estimation, that makes you innocent of murder since those souls, like us, have lost the connection to their human lives and selves? Am I correct, or is that crediting you with too much introspection?” Patroclus settled in his chair to await my answer. Achilles merely looked curious. Wally looked enamored with both of them, and Risa looked wary. It was a merry little table just then.

  “In a word, yes.” I didn’t elaborate as there was no need.

  Achilles laughed then, a warm bellow that was friendly and helped to detoxify the atmosphere a bit. “You are direct, and that I find agreeable.” He toasted me from across the table. I returned the gesture and began to relax, but only just. “You’re correct; of course, the majority of immortals are less than savory characters. I think—sorry, love,” and he tapped Patroclus on the hand. “—We think that, perhaps, having someone to anchor oneself through the millennia acts as a bulwark against depravity. Again, it’s only a theory because there are so few immortals who aren’t wanton killers. Or worse.”

  “We know,” Risa deadpanned. “We’ve rarely made friends with your kind. No offense.”

  “None taken,” Achilles allowed as graciously as possible given the context. “Still,” he continued carefully, “given your obvious advances from so many successful kills, at some point, won’t you be committing fratricide?”

  I wasn’t certain how he knew we were changing as our unusual career advanced, but there it was, and it was pointless to deny it.

  Risa spoke first. “We’ll know it when we reach that point, but we’re nowhere close, and I am of the opinion that particular event, should it ever occur, is in the distant future.” Wally nodded once, smiled, and sipped her wine. Achilles smiled back, a natural reaction for any male looking at her, regardless of his age and availability.

  I changed the tack of the discussion with something that troubled me. “Chef Patroclus,” I began, using the current honorific as it seemed fitting, “how did you design such a wonderful amusement of oysters for my particular tastes?” A little flattery couldn’t hurt, even if he had been hearing it for thirty centuries or more, the lucky bastard.

  “So you approve of whimsy at that table?” Patroclus asked me, laughing.

  Wally and Risa both joined him, and then
Wally added, “I was very happy to have him eating a man’s balls for a change. Even if it was the jewels of Russian royalty.”

  “But you said you loved doing that, dearest. In fact—” I began, only to be interrupted by Risa’s fist in my shoulder. Apparently my grooming wasn’t up to standard, and I made a mental note to look into professional help because I wasn’t allowing either of them near my tender parts with anything sharp after that comment. Achilles and Patroclus both hooted appreciatively at Risa’s successful attack in the face of my insensitivity. I realized the odds in my favor were shrinking as the wine continued to flow and we became more comfortable with each other.

  Patroclus waved dismissively. “I had help, of course, from your friend. What is her current name?”

  “Delphine,” Wally and Risa answered instantly, flatly, and in unison. Patroclus and Achilles awarded me knowing smiles, the kind reserved for men who have enjoyed a woman and are now paying for that honor.

  “Quite a Gallic departure from her actual name, but I doubt that tongue has been spoken since the war for the Channel Islands. The first war, that is,” Patroclus elaborated when I asked him to clarify, looking to Achilles as he did so. “That would have been around—and I’m reaching a bit here as the mirror of time is foggy tonight, perhaps the third Christian century?” Achilles gave his assent with a single grunt, reaching for the wine yet again. He could put it away, and without any outward effects. I’d hate to see the immortal legend in a drunken bar brawl.

  “Out of curiosity, what was her name? Her first name?” Risa spoke for our unsaid need to know.

  Patroclus thought and spoke slowly, as if to enunciate a word he had not used in some time. “Andiarka. A lovely name for a woman who met challenges that would have killed most men.” He held up his hands in a universal placatory gesture. “Not that I do not understand the state of affairs between your divergent interests, oh, yes, she has been quite clear in how she came to know Ring, and the reasons behind such an action.”