by Carol Roi
Feeling Blair's hand on her arm, she turned toward him, reading the compassion plainly visible in his eyes. Sliding his hand down to hers, he squeezed it gently, unable to begin to comprehend the agony that loss must have put her through. "How did you stay sane?" he asked quietly.
Dee shuddered at his words. "I didn't," she replied. "I threw myself on her funeral pyre, even though I knew it wouldn't kill me. But the pain did overload my senses, shut them down completely, until now, that is. It also drove me insane. I spent nearly two centuries wandering around Europe, barely surviving, an outcast even among the Amazons. Finally, I was confronted by another of my kind, and had to choose whether I wanted to live or die. I chose to live." She paused then, seeing Blair had something he wanted to say.
"So that's what you meant when you told Jim you were 'Diandra of Delphi'. I looked that name up, you know. I found it in an obscure Greek poem by Sappho, an ode to the death of the Amazon Queen. 'Lydia, the light is fading, Persephone your name is calling, but enter not the Elysian Fields 'til your Champion walks at your side. Diandra of
Delphi, warrior of Thymescria, grieve for your Queen& ," he quoted.
Dee felt her chest tighten unbearably at his words, and she clutched at his hand. "Oh, god, Dee, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he said, sliding his arm around her shoulders, feeling her hot tears on his skin as she buried her face in his neck. He felt her body shaking with sobs, and he realized that no matter how interesting this was from a historical point of view, it was real to her. She had lived through the grief and the pain, and was putting herself through it again for him, so he would understand who and what she was.
Finally, she pulled away, sitting up and wiping her eyes with the heel of her hand. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to get so worked up over something that happened over 2000 years ago."
"It's okay," Blair told her. "I don't think anyone could forget that kind of pain."
Dee laughed weakly. "Immortals can't forget anything. I remember what I had for breakfast on this date 300 years ago. It's one of our blessings, and our curses." She blew her nose on a napkin, and unwrapped her sandwich, unsure of where she should go from here.
Blair solved her dilemma for her. "What is the game you mentioned?"
"Ah, the Game. There are few rules to the Game, the foremost being 'There can be only one'. Only one Immortal left at the end of the Game, possessing all the power and knowledge of all Immortals, or so the legend goes. No one really knows the reason for the Game, but it consists of one on one armed combat between two Immortals, winner taking the loser's head, and thus his Quickening, or his life force."
She heard Blair breathe, "The swords& "
"Yes, the swords. All Immortals have to learn to fight, or spend the rest of their lives on Holy Ground, where no Immortal dare kill another. Once the fight is engaged, no one can interfere." Dee could see the horror and confusion on Blair's face.
"Immortals are just like you, Lobo. We're good, we're bad, we're somewhere in between. Most of us just want to be left alone and live our lives in peace. But those who desire power will always challenge those they think they can beat. And sometimes Immortals have to dispense justice on their own. Most of us frown upon harming mortals, but some of us think nothing of using or killing mortals in their own quest for power. No mortal jail or method of execution will ever stop them, and it is up to the rest of us to punish them."
"By killing them!?" Blair squeaked.
"Yes," Diandra replied quietly. She could see the whole idea was appalling to him. "I know how you feel, Blair, but it's a part of my life. I had to learn to accept it in order to survive. I only fight when challenged, or to stop the killing of others. If there is any way to best an opponent and give them the opportunity to walk away, I will take it." She looked down at the ground sadly. "Though some of them are so blinded by the bloodlust that they refuse the opportunity to live to fight another day."
Blair leaned forward, burying both hands in his hair. Jim had been right about her; she was a killer. "Those deaths in DC," he gasped, unable to call them murders, "you were responsible."
"Yes," she said sadly. "Neither of them had to happen, but they just couldn't walk away when beaten. The Crane woman was barely trained, I don't know what she was thinking. The fight lasted all of five minutes, and I told her to walk away; I offered to recommend someone to train her. She refused, picked up her sword and came at me again. I gave her more than one opportunity to give it up. I had no other choice." She sighed, thinking of the desperate battle in the parking garage of the Hoover Building. "Phoebe Green came after my unarmed, untrained student. She nearly killed her before I arrived. I disarmed her, told her to leave, that she would have another chance once my student had time to learn the Game. She threatened to kill Fox. I knew she was telling the truth, that if Dana and I left, she would think nothing of murdering him. I just& .I lost it. I haven't felt that kind of rage in centuries& " She clenched her tea bottle so hard her knuckles turned white.
Closing his eyes, Blair listened to his heart pounding. He didn't know what to do. She had just confessed to killing two people, god knew how many more she had killed in nearly three millennia. He should call Jim, he should call Simon, he should get up and start running and never stop. And yet& he remembered her kneeling over his dying body, pouring her own life force into him. She had been his friend, his teacher, the first person he could talk to about his sentinel and know she really understood. She had never hurt him, never lied to him, even now, when lying would have been the easy road to take. She didn't have to tell him these things; she could have left out her immortality, just told him she had been a sentinel once. But that wouldn't be her.
He sneaked a glance at her through the fringe of his hair. She was leaning against the back of the bench, her eyes closed, her face a silent mask of pain, tears glistening on her cheeks. He felt them burning against his own eyelids, and he swallowed past the hard lump in his throat. Had it been like this when she had told Fox Mulder what she was? He knew instinctively she had, and knew Mulder couldn't accept it, had turned away from her pain, pretended it didn't exist, pretended she hadn't killed to save him, to save his partner. Blair felt an unreasonable rage boiling inside of him, at Mulder, at himself, at anyone who couldn't see what her life had cost her.
"Dee," he said softly, turning toward her, pulling her into his arms. "Oh, Dee, I'm so sorry, so sorry." He held her tightly, feeling her once again sobbing against him, and he loosed the reins on his own tears, crying for her, for her companion, for himself for ever doubting her and adding to her pain.
When she finally pulled away, she laughed uneasily. "Well, that was certainly cathartic," she said.
He managed a weak smile as he wiped the remaining wetness from his face. "You gonna eat that sandwich?" he asked, bringing a sense of normalcy to what had been a bizarre conversation.
Diandra handed him half her lunch and stole half of his in return. "Lobo," she said, "you are amazing. I am so lucky to have you in my life." Leaning over, she pressed her lips to his cheek, unable to find any more words to express the joy she was feeling.
Blair felt a small shudder of pleasure dance from his head to his toes at her touch. Did she know what she did to him? The look of smug satisfaction on her face told him she did. He made himself more comfortable on the bench, and spent a couple minutes devouring his lunch. When he felt enough time had passed for them to distance themselves from their raw emotions, he started asking questions, and she answered them.
She told him what had happened on the steps of the anthropology building, that she had felt another Immortal's buzz, and that had somehow triggered her senses going haywire. "So you Immortals can sense one another coming," Blair mused.
"Yes, kind of an early warning system. Most of us can't differentiate one Immortal's buzz from another's, but I can to a degree. I know people I've met before, and I can pretty much tell whether a strange Immortal is friend or foe. I think it has something to do with my truth divination."
&nb
sp; "So what was this Immortal you felt today?"
"No one I knew, but definitely bad. Very bad." She rubbed her arms, as if she was suddenly cold. "But he wasn't interested in me, that's what's strange. I know he felt me& it just seemed his attention was on something else."
Blair dug in his backpack and taking out a hair tie, he proceeded to pull his hair back off his face. "Let me ask you another question," he said. "Do you think it was him that caused your senses to come back online?"
"I don't know. I knew this was coming, though. I saw the mare the night I beat up on your partner."
"Mare? What mare?"
"My spirit guide. Yours is a wolf, Ellison's is a black jaguar," she told him.
He stared at her, then grabbed a notebook from his pack and started scribbling. "You can see our guides?"
"Yeah, I saw yours the day I met you. Look, I know this is probably hard for you to believe," she said, "but I've lived long enough to discover that nothing ever happens to me without a reason. My senses have come back because I'm going to need them."
Blair considered that for a moment. He agreed with the idea of kismet. What else would have brought two such direct opposites as himself and Jim together? For that matter, what else could have brought Diandra to Cascade? But still, he was a scientist; he had to consider all the possibilities. "Are you sure it's that? Or could they be back because you've been in close contact with a guide?"
Smiling, Dee nodded, her braid bobbing. "It's all connected, Lobo. You, me, sentinels, companions, mortals, Immortals& "
Blair was getting a headache trying to follow the twists and turns of her logic. "Okay, I'll take your word on that. But what do you think this other Immortal in Cascade means?"
"Trouble, that I'm sure of. For whom I don't know, but it's my responsibility to stop it." Getting to her feet, she slid her coat on. Blair stared at her in awe. With that small move, she had transformed from vulnerable woman to Immortal Champion. Cascade was not going to know what hit it, with two Sentinels on the job. Reaching her hand out
to him, she pulled him up. "You have any pressing plans this afternoon?" At his head shake, she said, "Because I have a friend in Seacouver who will know what's up with this guy if anyone does. It's Friday night, think Ellison would mind if I whisked you away on an over night trip to Seacouver?"
"Don't know," he said, "but it doesn't matter. Jim's on a prisoner transfer assignment. He left for San Francisco this morning, and won't be back 'til Sunday at the earliest."
Dee cocked an eyebrow at him. "While the cat's away, the wolf will play, eh?"
Blair linked his arm through hers with a grin, "Lead on, Champion."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
After a quick stop at the loft to grab a change of clothes for each of them, Blair and Diandra piled into her Cherokee and took off for Seacouver. The hour-long drive was filled with chatter, as Blair asked every question under the sun about her life, Immortals, Champions, Gods and Amazons. Dee answered them all gladly, just happy to have Blair by her side, still her friend, instead of her enemy.
Blair finally quieted down as they entered the outskirts of Seacouver, and he looked around eagerly, wondering whom she was taking him to see. She had been very mysterious about her friend, only saying she was sure Blair would find him a kindred spirit. So, he was quite surprised when she pulled into the fairly empty parking lot of a disreputable looking bar in the warehouse district, called, if the neon sign was correct, "Joe's".
Hopping out of the truck, Diandra pulled on her trench coat, reaching inside to adjust the position of her katana. Blair watched her movements closely; the hair on the back of his neck raising as she closed her eyes and extended her senses. It was weird watching someone other than Jim do it, and he took mental notes on her technique, impressed that she'd automatically taken a moment to center herself, something he was forever reminding Jim to do. Opening her eyes, she shot him a grin over the hood of the truck. "All clear," she announced.
"That kind of place, huh?" he said, following her across the asphalt to the door.
"Yep," she replied, "it's kind of an Immortal hangout. But we're probably the only customers right now. I only detected four other people in the building." Pulling open the door, she entered with a confidence Blair wished he was feeling.
Dee stepped immediately over to the bar, while Blair paused in the doorway, letting his eyes adjust to the change in lighting. A long bar ran along side the right wall of the place, tables and chairs occupied the center of the wooden floor, a couple booths lined the left wall. Steps led to what Blair imagined must be more seating upstairs. A small stage took up the back left of the room, and an older man with grizzled hair and beard sat on a stool atop the stage, languid, tormented blues filling the room from the guitar held across his lap.
Taking a step further into the room, Blair watched Dee leaning against the bar, swaying to the music, her eyes never leaving the figure on the stage. Just when he thought things couldn't get any stranger, he heard singing, a deep husky alto that grabbed him by the heart and gave him goose bumps, a voice full of dark secrets. The man on the stage looked toward the bar in surprise, but kept playing, and that's when Blair realized Dee was the one singing.
Plopping himself on a stool at the end of the bar, Blair watched as Dee sashayed across the room towards the guitar player, timing her walk so she ended up at the stage just as the song finished. Dee leaned up and kissed the man on the cheek, and Blair felt an irrational surge of jealousy. Putting the guitar aside, the man climbed down from the stool and with the help of a cane, made his way to the bar, Dee following in his wake. She took a seat next to Blair, and the older man went behind the counter, immediately setting a glass in front of Dee. He gave Blair a curious look, then said, "So, Dee, what brings you back to Seacouver? I thought you were all settled in Cascade, despite that bit of trouble MacLeod said you ran into."
Dee grinned, and for the first time since Blair had met her, she fairly bounced in her chair. "I'll fill you in in a minute, Joe, but first I want you to meet my friend and student, Blair Sandburg. Lobo, this is my good friend, and favorite bartender, Joe Dawson."
Joe extended his hand over the bar, and Blair took it, finding his grip firm and confident. Even in the dim lighting, he noticed the unusual tattoo on the man's right wrist; a blue circle with what looked from Blair's angle to be a stylized bird, or maybe a "V". He was trying to remember where he'd seen the symbol before, when he realized Dee was talking about him. "Blair's an anthropology professor at Rainier," he heard her say.
"Uh, doctoral student, actually," he amended.
"That's interesting," Joe commented, pouring what looked like mineral water into the glass in front of Dee, and adding a slice of lime to it. "And what'll you be having?" he asked Blair.
Still a bit out of sorts, he gestured at Dee's drink, and said, "Whatever she's having will be fine." With a grin, Joe set up another glass.
"So," Dee asked, "have you heard from Mac lately?"
Joe shook his head. "He's in Japan on a buying trip. Should be home the middle of next week, why?"
"No reason, just was planning to stay at the loft tonight, and wondered if we would run into him."
"No such luck," Joe replied. "You still have your keys, don't you?"
Dee nodded and took a sip of her drink. Blair tried his too, and found it to be some kind of sparkling water. Joe turned his gaze back on Blair, scrutinizing him. "So this is your new student?" he finally said.
Dee laughed, and replied "Oh, Joe, not that kind of student. He's not like me; I've just been teaching him martial arts. He's an observer with the Cascade PD. His partner's the guy Mac was probably bending your ear about for a week."
Blair felt Joe reappraising him, but he made no comment. The phone rang, and as Joe went to answer it, Blair played back the past few minutes in his mind, realizing that Joe thought when Dee had said he was her student, she had meant he was Immortal. He put
two and two together, realizing that Joe must be a mortal because he didn't automatically know Blair wasn't an Immortal. If they were going to keep this up all night, Blair was going to have one hell of a headache, trying to keep track of the players without a program.
Joe hung up the phone and turned back to them. "So is this a social call, Dee? Or do you have some favor you need from me?" He tried to sound stern, but he was grinning as he said it.
Sighing, Diandra pushed the lime to the bottom of her glass with her straw. "It's a favor, Joe, of the kind you only do for Mac."
The bearded man shook his head. "Dee& You know it's against the rules, yours and mine."
"I know it is, Joe, and I wouldn't be asking you, except all my instincts are screaming at me that this is gonna be bad. And you're the only one who can possibly help me."
Blair watched the bartender's reaction, seeing it change from skepticism to worry at the mention of Dee's instincts. "Bad like Paris was bad?" he asked.
Dee nodded slowly. "People are going to die, Joe, unless I can stop this guy. The problem is, I don't know who I'm looking for. I need to know if there are any other Immortals in Cascade."