fic: Wotan's Day 1/16
Title: Wotan's Day
Fandoms: Highlander, X-files, Invisible Man
Rating:NC-17 overall, R for sexual references in this chapter
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em.
Notes: Written at the behest of akaspeedo for his donation to RAINN, which made me his sweetcharityho. Beta read by whitecrow2, and an RL friend, without whom I wouldn't have finished it. Thank you, and thank you akaspeedo for making me write my second novel. The third one is not going to be fan fiction, I assure you. Guest appearances in the story by britta54 as Betty and akaspeedo as Michael Sanders. For once, I am nowhere to be found.
Summary: The year is 2023. Methos, the oldest of the Immortals in Highlander, has been living as a corporate lawyer in Denver. Alexander Krycek, the double-dealing ratboy of the X-Files, has been living there as an art dealer, running a gallery in Aurora, Colorado. They are lovers, but they each know nothing about the other's past. All Hell is about to break loose.
Title: Wotan's Day
Fandoms: Highlander, X-files, Invisible Man
Rating:NC-17 overall, R for sexual references in this chapter
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em.
Warning: [added December 11, '07] These are not nice people, and they don't always do nice things.
Now available on AO3 Wotan's Day
All opening quotes in the chapters are from Robert A. Heinlein, who is one of the ten most influential writers in my life.
Anyone who clings to the historically untrue-and thoroughly immoral-doctrine 'that violence never settles anything' I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and of the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler could referee, and the jury might well be the Dodo, the Great Auk and the Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedom.
Starship Troopers
There is only one dangerous animal, yet at times you're forced to pretend that he's as sweet and innocent as a cobra.
Time Enough For Love
Chapter 1.
An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.
Beyond this Horizon
"Mister Bierce." Betty's voice greeted me with a long-suffering sigh that was about as genuine as the controlled grief and panic I was about to unleash on her. "No video," she said, "so I assume you're in the car, or too scruffy for decent people. What can I do for you after hours and on my own time?"
"It's Sasha--" I broke off and gulped air. "He left me." Let whoever was listening in chew on that.
"Oh, dear," was all she said. Then, when I didn't answer, "What do you need me to do?"
"I didn't want to leave you a phone mail, but I don't think I'll be in the office tomorrow." I said it all in a rush, as if I didn't trust my voice.
"The Bromfield case goes to court on Thursday," she said. I could tell she was trying not to upset me further, but feeling it her duty to keep me, as always, on track. "That's tomorrow. The counsel from Olympian Chemical has left you two messages."
"Heyn can take it," I sighed. Olympian Chemical was not my favorite in a roster of unpleasant corporate clients. I knew far more about their business practices than they might have liked, all in the name of good client relations, which can include material for blackmail, if needed. This case bothered me, though, and made me wonder whether I might have a moral compass after all.
"Heyn's awfully young. I'm not sure Mr. Mansard will approve."
"Heyn prepared most of the docs. It's not as complicated as it looks, and he needs the courtroom experience," I lied.
"You're making excuses, Mr. Bierce. Olympian made it clear to Mr. Mansard that they use the firm because of you."
I could see her looking at me over her glasses even though I'd turned off the video on the phone, and I couldn't stop the snort of laughter. Thankfully, she misinterpreted it.
"Are you going to be okay? Did something happen between you and Sasha?"
I kept in character and snapped at her. "Of course something happened, but I don't know what it is. He's just gone."
"Sorry, sorry. What can I do to help? Besides kill him?"
"Don't kill him. Just help Heyn deal with the Bromfield case. If he doesn't feel up to it, hold his hand through filing some kind of delaying motion, although it took long enough to get a trial date that Bromfield's lawyers will balk. Just don't let him do anything stupid."
Part of me hoped he would do something stupid. I had considered throwing the case on purpose, but had too much pride of work. Bromfield might be an ass trying to prove a point, but he had a point. If Olympian's prize engineered corn wanted to pollinate some back-to-the-land eccentric's field, I didn't see why he couldn't use the resulting seed. If he could stomach his own hypocrisy. They were suing him because they couldn't sue the wind or the bees. He was countersuing because they'd contaminated his organic, heirloom strains.
"You think Heyn can handle it? Your notes for your arguments reference legal precedent from Rome."
"And what's new about that? I do that all the time. It plays well to look like a scholar. Heyn can do it if you help him," I let just enough concern into my voice so as not to offend Betty. She hated kid gloves. "Don't overtax yourself, and don't let him make you work more than your usual hours."
"I'll take care of myself, Mr. Bierce. You do the same."
"I will Betty."
"And, Mr. Bierce?
"Yes."
"Sasha can be a real jerk sometimes. Maybe he just forgot to tell you he was going on a buying trip. He's done that before."
I let myself sound miserable. "I don't think so." I took a deep shuddering breath. "I'll call you when I know anything."
"Like when you'll be back?"
"Yes."
"For your information, you have accrued seven weeks and three days of unused vacation."
Betty had just given me some leeway.
I had insisted that we make accommodations required by the ADA after her long illness, and my firm had assumed it had to do with my political sensibilities as a minority (gay) that dealt with illness (AIDS) and the fact that my partner was also an amputee. They were wrong. Betty was an excellent assistant, and she was loyal. I smiled, remembering how she covered for me once when I went out the window of my private lavatory at the sensation of an Immortal presence.
So I said, "Oh?"
"I have to keep track," she said, mistaking my amused tone and embarrassed by having the detail of my vacation time on the top of her head.
I laughed aloud this time, with the right bit of ruefulness. "File for it."
It was a Wednesday, the eighteenth of October. I had been Mathias Bierce for just over fourteen years. For seven of those years, I had lived with Sasha Lisitsa.
Something had been off when I came in from work this afternoon. That his car was gone meant nothing, but the top of his bureau was an untidy mess and two drawers were left standing open, as if someone had been looking for something. I looked around more carefully. His suitcase was gone, along with sufficient clothing to fill it. He had packed toiletries, including my razor, but the most telling thing of all was that the case with his specialized prosthetics was gone. This was no sudden buying trip for his gallery.
He had never opened the case in front of me, but, while he was away on one of his trips, I had picked the lock, noting how he had left a hair across the hinge to mark if it had been opened. Inside were two arms, one that ended in odd tools, and another that I would swear was some kind of gun, although I couldn't see how to load it. I had replaced his hair with one of my own, and I wondered if he'd ever noticed.
If the case was gone, he was gone. Why?
I had opened the blinds and looked out onto our normal suburban street. Parked outside was an SUV with darkened windows. No one drove those things in 2023, and I cursed myself for inattention. The house across the street had recently sold and undergone some repairs. Looking back, I remembered that none of the work trucks had borne the names of the tradesmen.
Fourteen years, seven of those playing house with Sasha. I had gone soft.
I'd met him when Betty nagged me into attending an opening at Red Fox Gallery, claiming I needed a social life. I wore my suit, having come straight from the office, and although the tie was in my pocket, I knew I looked stiff. I spotted green eyes from across the room, smoky and framed by lashes I could see from twenty feet away. We exchanged a look, one of those looks, but I lost their owner in the milling crowd.
Later, he ambushed me at the cheese board. "So," said a voice behind my left ear, "are you one of the dreaded straight acting?"
We blew each other in the men's room before we even traded names, and he tasted like butter from the desert.
Betty found us as we hunted for wine afterward. "Oh, Mr. Bierce. You've met Sasha."
I could feel myself blushing, but Sasha had an outright smirk on his face. I stammered, "Er, not formally, no." I glanced at him, saw his jaw and throat move slightly as I also opened my mouth to swallow air and his flavor again.
Betty seemed oblivious. "Then let me do the honors. Sasha Lisitsa, part owner of this gallery, meet Mathias Bierce, my boss."
"So you're the one she's been talking about?" Sasha's eyebrows went up, and I realized that the color had been a trick of the light. His eyes were as hazel as my own.
I looked at Betty.
"Oh, all good, Mr. Bierce."
"She says you're the laziest and most brilliant lawyer she's ever worked for."
I looked at Betty again. "What about him?" I indicated Sasha with my wine glass.
"He's a mysterious rascal who knows too well how handsome he is. In fact," she began, but Sasha interrupted.
"Why Betty, should I tell him what you do in your off hours? Do the letters C and P mean anything? Did you know she still obsesses over a long-cancelled TV show, imagining two of the male leads--"
She picked up his left hand to interrupt him. "I should rap you across the knuckles."
"Go ahead," he said, flexing the fingers outward. "I won't feel it."
Only then did I realize the hand was a prosthetic.
I shook myself out of that memory and into another, of how I had stripped out of my suit and not bothered to hang it. It appeared Sasha was good at sudden departures, but so was I. I kept a duffle bag packed, stashed in the back of my closet. Sasha had looked through it several times over the years, but he’d never asked about it, or the three sets of identification and credit cards, or the cell phones I upgraded every two years. He had his secrets, and I had mine, and in seven years we had never asked.
The swords had gone into my fencing bag, and it all went into the back of the Jag. I hit the garage door opener and was now driving away from a carefully built life, a law partnership, and the house that had always felt too big, even after Sasha moved in. The Bromfield case could go fuck itself. Olympian Chemical could crush a genetic Luddite without my help.
I told the phone to connect to Sasha's mobile, not expecting an answer. His phone was most likely in a dumpster somewhere, but it was worth a shot. Whoever was responsible for the black SUV that had spooked Sasha would expect the panicked lover to try to call.
"This is Alexander Danavitch Lisitsa," said the recorded voice. I had never bought the name. The faint accent could come and go, and a word like fox would never be a real Russian surname.
"This will no longer be a valid number for me." No surprises there. "If you need assistance at Red Fox Gallery, please call my partner Lilly Jones at…." I tuned out as Sasha's voice rattled off the familiar number. I was about to end the call, when the message continued. "If this is Matty… Mathias, I'm sorry. You should know by now I have a big red rock for a heart. No, I'm not going off to OD somewhere. I'll miss you, but… but there's someone else." I laughed aloud at the hitch in Sasha's voice. The timing was as perfect as the false sentiment, and the excuse excellent for anyone who might be listening. I had to play the message again to hear the last sentence. "Don't look for me."
I disconnected without leaving a phone mail. The message complicated things because in it, Sasha had told me where he was going and asked me to follow. I off put that decision. There were plenty of options, including ignoring him and moving on to one of the other identities in the gym bag.
I glanced at my phone. What would the jilted lover do next? I put in a pro forma call to Lilly Jones at Sasha's gallery. He was not on a scheduled buying trip, and was something wrong, Matty? I hung up without answering. I called my financial manager to find out if Sasha had cashed out any of our few joint assets, and was surprised to find that he had not. I couldn't decide who to call next. None of our friends were particularly close. Sasha and I had needed little more than each other, and I couldn't think who Mathias Bierce would confide in when his lover of seven years suddenly left.
Knowing that I would probably regret it, I followed his lead, and took the highway south.
I called Sasha's phone again. "This will no longer be a valid number for me." Yes, yes. "If this is Matty… Mathias, I'm sorry. You should know by now I have a big red rock for a heart." Abandoned on my dresser was a heart shaped rock from a trip we took last year to Sedona, Arizona, ostensibly on an art buying tour. Most of the art was high-grade tourist tripe, and I had my suspicions about his real purpose. So, he'd gone south and west.
"No, I'm not going off to OD somewhere." That was the key. Opposite day. It was a stupid lover's game, a way to make outrageous personal remarks and claim it was opposite day, eventually shortened to OD, and further used as a private code when we were in public. I think he'd once confessed it coming from a cartoon, but the reference was lost on me. "I'll miss you, but… but there's someone else." I doubted either was true. "Don't look for me." He wanted me to come, but why?
I composed myself to leave an answer for whoever might be tracking this. "Sasha, damn it!" I started, then broke off, not knowing exactly what to say. I'd done enough stupid things when someone dumped me. It had been a few centuries, but I could remember how it felt, so I said, "I'm going to Vegas, you shit, and I'm going to burn off all the money we saved together on showgirls. If they still have them. Or showboys," I laughed, a little too hysterically. "If you can have a mid-life crisis, so can I. Whoever you've found, I hope you enjoy him! And I hope he dumps you."
And again, let whoever was listening in chew on that. And then I laughed at myself. Vegas? Not exactly queer paradise.
The mid-life crisis idea might distract whoever was listening. Sasha was over fifty, though he claimed forty-five, and his body was a map of scars less obvious than the missing left arm. He wore long sleeves to cover more than the prosthetic. There were deep, old wounds from bullets and surgery on his right arm and other scars from bullets, knives, and hazards that could tear flesh, but the most interesting mark was the circle in the middle of his forehead. Mostly he kept a lock of hair over it, but as his hairline receded, that became harder to do. I had asked him about it once. "Kind of big for an acne scar, huh?" was all he would say.
I checked the mirror to see if anyone was following. There was nothing obvious, and the radar panel only showed blips and vehicle sizes, and there wasn't much to tell from the pattern of traffic. The lack of red warning blips told me that they hadn't been stupid enough to take an SUV on the highway. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, but if they were good, would I see them? They couldn't be that good. They'd been clumsy enough to spook Sasha. And me.
Unless they meant to.
And why the hell was I planning to follow him? To be honest, I was bored. Sasha Lisitsa had been the one point of curiosity in Mathias Bierce's life. Really, the only good thing about being Bierce was that he had financial means and a quiet life, with Sasha as a bright distraction.
The first time we slept together--
~~~~~
He looked at me over his wine glass, and I could see in his eyes and body language the confidence of a young man who knows he is beautiful. I called him on it.
"Aren't you a little grizzled to be playing the coquette?"
His eyes widened. "It doesn't work on you?"
"No."
"I thought all the young men fell for my boyish charm." He spoke with irony. I realized he was quite conscious that his RFID chip would have called the stock boys to pull him off the shelf at the WalMart years ago.
"I'm not as young as you think," I said.
"It's not the years, it's the mileage?" he asked, quoting an old movie.
It was the first time we'd seen each other since the opening at his gallery. Over dinner he had only asked me questions about my current life, about the law firm and Betty, and what I thought of the art at the show. We agreed on which pieces were crap that would sell to someone who wanted a piece to match the couch.
He only brought up my history as an entrée to making the pass, "Betty says you were born in 1989, and you made partner this year. That means you're only twenty-seven." He leaned over my plate, and put his face very close to mine. "That's the mark of a driven man. Are you as driven in bed? What I really want to know is when I get to fuck you."
I narrowed my eyes in defense and challenge. "Who says you get to be on top?"
"Who said anything about being on top?" He leaned back, and gave, clothed, the impression that he was waiting for me to straddle and ride him. It didn't seem like a bad suggestion. For someone pushing fifty, he looked pretty damn good.
"Are you always like this?" I asked, hoping the answer was yes.
He just smiled, those eyes telling me everything and nothing.
There was the momentary temptation to drag him to the WC and repeat our first encounter, but we went back to my house, neatly hung our coats in the foyer closet, and went through the ritual of the offered drink. He refused, politely.
"Drink to me only with thine eyes?" I asked in a fit of nervousness, and he did, looking at me with a smoldering intensity that would have been comic had it not been such a turn on. He closed the distance between us and put two fingers between the buttons of my shirt, reaching for a nipple that the close tuck of cloth would not let him reach.
I should have known we'd end up in bed that first night, but I had gone with my usual weapons. Undressing in front of him would require explanations I did not want to give, but a man with a prosthesis might have his own issues about disrobing. I took his hand off my chest and used it to lead him to the bedroom. I excused myself to the bathroom, took off my shirt, and unstrapped the forearm sheath of the PlaSteel knife. The ceramic and polysomethingorother blade was invisible to metal detectors and chemosensors. I pulled the .22 out of the back holster and removed it as well, then slipped the weapons between the last two towels in the stack. The calf sheath and the blade it held followed. I slipped my shirt back on, unbuttoned, shucked my shoes and socks, and checked the mirror. I was prepared to emerge looking like a man who wanted sex, which would not tax my acting ability in the least. I had the Ivanhoe under the bed and a .38 in the nightstand, just in case anything went wrong.
He was already half-naked, too, shirt off, arm laid on a chair in the corner. It had been almost a century since I'd been with anyone that had more than trivial imperfections. Modern medicine lowered the percentage. The stump, and I couldn't help but look, ended in a very modern interface for his arm, clamps inlaid in the skin so that he wouldn't need the straps of cruder prosthetics. His face held challenge, and his body more scars. There was the impression of a gun holster on his other shoulder, and I thought that this was going to be fun in more ways than I had anticipated. I put my hand in the middle of his chest and knocked him back onto the bed.
We were direct about our wants. Gentleness would come later.
Later he would move in, and we would dress in front of each other on a typical weekday morning, strapping on our weapons without comment. Later he would give me a replica of the Ivanhoe in PlaSteel, and I would never ask him how he had access to custom fabrication of restricted military materials. Later I would find myself deep in a love never mentioned.
Betty, seeing only the last part, would tell us how cute we were together.
Cute like snakes, I thought, looking at Sasha. Cute like tigers.
~~~~~
Nothing was out of the ordinary in rearview or radar when I checked again. I admonished myself again to stay focused. It was too easy to get lost in memory. Music might be the answer, but I was bored with Mathias Bierce's tastes. I thought about making some more phone calls, but I realized it was time to make a pit stop. At the next rest area I pulled off the highway, noting the cars that exited after me, and faces and clothes of the drivers.
I took my time in the men's room. When I emerged, I did not see any of them, and when I reached the parking lot, their cars were gone. In looking for their cars, I neglected to look at my own until after I hit the remote start. The black Jag immediately moved, reversing from the parking place. My first thought was to run after it, as if it had taken on a life of its own. Better sense told me to go back into the rest area and call Betty for a ride home to regroup, replace the identification, and craft a better exit plan.
I turned, but was halted mid-step by the sight of someone who looked too much like my old friend Duncan MacLeod. It wasn't him, because there was no Immortal signature, no buzz in the back of my brain, but the build and the features were so close as to make me hesitate. He moved toward me, staring at me, then past me, and I glanced back to see my car pulling up next to us. I cursed my decision for privacy windows, since I had no idea how many were in the Jag besides the driver. The man stepped behind me and opened the rear door on the passenger side looking like a bodyguard, a thug. He wore MacLeod's face, but he had none of his presence, in both senses of the word.
The options were to enter the car and take the offered seat, make a scene, or shoot someone. I chose the path of least resistance and slid into the back seat beside a very old man who was crisply dressed. I couldn't see more than the nearly bald head of the driver. The body guard took the front passenger seat, and turned enough to hold a gun on me as the driver took the car to the on-ramp.
"Please pardon the intrusion," the old man said in an accent only money could buy. "We will continue on your present course, so that you will not lose much travel time, but we have a few questions for you." We merged back on to the highway, still heading south toward Albuquerque.
I knew that to stay in character I should look more frightened than I did, so I took a deep, trembling breath. "Whatever you say, but please, can he put that thing away?"
"Gohlehm, I don't think you need to keep it aimed, but do keep it ready."
"Yes sir." The guard turned back around.
"Thank you," I said with visible relief, glancing at the guard. Some of the relief was genuine, because I was having a difficult time looking at MacLeod's face on a stranger. The name sounded Hebrew, almost. Although the pronunciation was off, it had to be a reference to the myth of the golem, the created being that could be made and animated by a rabbi. As he turned to face the front, I saw he wore a Celtic knot to hold back long hair. That could not be a coincidence, although MacLeod had cut his hair decades ago. I asked, "What could you possibly want from me? Is this about the Bromfield case?"
"Oh, no," said the old man with a condescending chuckle. "Sherry?" he asked, producing a decanter and two glasses from a case near his feet.
***
bonus prequel nap story in amireal's Nap Day entry.
Chapter 2
Fandoms: Highlander, X-files, Invisible Man
Rating:NC-17 overall, R for sexual references in this chapter
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em.
Notes: Written at the behest of akaspeedo for his donation to RAINN, which made me his sweetcharityho. Beta read by whitecrow2, and an RL friend, without whom I wouldn't have finished it. Thank you, and thank you akaspeedo for making me write my second novel. The third one is not going to be fan fiction, I assure you. Guest appearances in the story by britta54 as Betty and akaspeedo as Michael Sanders. For once, I am nowhere to be found.
Summary: The year is 2023. Methos, the oldest of the Immortals in Highlander, has been living as a corporate lawyer in Denver. Alexander Krycek, the double-dealing ratboy of the X-Files, has been living there as an art dealer, running a gallery in Aurora, Colorado. They are lovers, but they each know nothing about the other's past. All Hell is about to break loose.
Title: Wotan's Day
Fandoms: Highlander, X-files, Invisible Man
Rating:NC-17 overall, R for sexual references in this chapter
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em.
Warning: [added December 11, '07] These are not nice people, and they don't always do nice things.
Now available on AO3 Wotan's Day
All opening quotes in the chapters are from Robert A. Heinlein, who is one of the ten most influential writers in my life.
Anyone who clings to the historically untrue-and thoroughly immoral-doctrine 'that violence never settles anything' I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and of the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler could referee, and the jury might well be the Dodo, the Great Auk and the Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedom.
Starship Troopers
There is only one dangerous animal, yet at times you're forced to pretend that he's as sweet and innocent as a cobra.
Time Enough For Love
Chapter 1.
An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.
Beyond this Horizon
"Mister Bierce." Betty's voice greeted me with a long-suffering sigh that was about as genuine as the controlled grief and panic I was about to unleash on her. "No video," she said, "so I assume you're in the car, or too scruffy for decent people. What can I do for you after hours and on my own time?"
"It's Sasha--" I broke off and gulped air. "He left me." Let whoever was listening in chew on that.
"Oh, dear," was all she said. Then, when I didn't answer, "What do you need me to do?"
"I didn't want to leave you a phone mail, but I don't think I'll be in the office tomorrow." I said it all in a rush, as if I didn't trust my voice.
"The Bromfield case goes to court on Thursday," she said. I could tell she was trying not to upset me further, but feeling it her duty to keep me, as always, on track. "That's tomorrow. The counsel from Olympian Chemical has left you two messages."
"Heyn can take it," I sighed. Olympian Chemical was not my favorite in a roster of unpleasant corporate clients. I knew far more about their business practices than they might have liked, all in the name of good client relations, which can include material for blackmail, if needed. This case bothered me, though, and made me wonder whether I might have a moral compass after all.
"Heyn's awfully young. I'm not sure Mr. Mansard will approve."
"Heyn prepared most of the docs. It's not as complicated as it looks, and he needs the courtroom experience," I lied.
"You're making excuses, Mr. Bierce. Olympian made it clear to Mr. Mansard that they use the firm because of you."
I could see her looking at me over her glasses even though I'd turned off the video on the phone, and I couldn't stop the snort of laughter. Thankfully, she misinterpreted it.
"Are you going to be okay? Did something happen between you and Sasha?"
I kept in character and snapped at her. "Of course something happened, but I don't know what it is. He's just gone."
"Sorry, sorry. What can I do to help? Besides kill him?"
"Don't kill him. Just help Heyn deal with the Bromfield case. If he doesn't feel up to it, hold his hand through filing some kind of delaying motion, although it took long enough to get a trial date that Bromfield's lawyers will balk. Just don't let him do anything stupid."
Part of me hoped he would do something stupid. I had considered throwing the case on purpose, but had too much pride of work. Bromfield might be an ass trying to prove a point, but he had a point. If Olympian's prize engineered corn wanted to pollinate some back-to-the-land eccentric's field, I didn't see why he couldn't use the resulting seed. If he could stomach his own hypocrisy. They were suing him because they couldn't sue the wind or the bees. He was countersuing because they'd contaminated his organic, heirloom strains.
"You think Heyn can handle it? Your notes for your arguments reference legal precedent from Rome."
"And what's new about that? I do that all the time. It plays well to look like a scholar. Heyn can do it if you help him," I let just enough concern into my voice so as not to offend Betty. She hated kid gloves. "Don't overtax yourself, and don't let him make you work more than your usual hours."
"I'll take care of myself, Mr. Bierce. You do the same."
"I will Betty."
"And, Mr. Bierce?
"Yes."
"Sasha can be a real jerk sometimes. Maybe he just forgot to tell you he was going on a buying trip. He's done that before."
I let myself sound miserable. "I don't think so." I took a deep shuddering breath. "I'll call you when I know anything."
"Like when you'll be back?"
"Yes."
"For your information, you have accrued seven weeks and three days of unused vacation."
Betty had just given me some leeway.
I had insisted that we make accommodations required by the ADA after her long illness, and my firm had assumed it had to do with my political sensibilities as a minority (gay) that dealt with illness (AIDS) and the fact that my partner was also an amputee. They were wrong. Betty was an excellent assistant, and she was loyal. I smiled, remembering how she covered for me once when I went out the window of my private lavatory at the sensation of an Immortal presence.
So I said, "Oh?"
"I have to keep track," she said, mistaking my amused tone and embarrassed by having the detail of my vacation time on the top of her head.
I laughed aloud this time, with the right bit of ruefulness. "File for it."
It was a Wednesday, the eighteenth of October. I had been Mathias Bierce for just over fourteen years. For seven of those years, I had lived with Sasha Lisitsa.
Something had been off when I came in from work this afternoon. That his car was gone meant nothing, but the top of his bureau was an untidy mess and two drawers were left standing open, as if someone had been looking for something. I looked around more carefully. His suitcase was gone, along with sufficient clothing to fill it. He had packed toiletries, including my razor, but the most telling thing of all was that the case with his specialized prosthetics was gone. This was no sudden buying trip for his gallery.
He had never opened the case in front of me, but, while he was away on one of his trips, I had picked the lock, noting how he had left a hair across the hinge to mark if it had been opened. Inside were two arms, one that ended in odd tools, and another that I would swear was some kind of gun, although I couldn't see how to load it. I had replaced his hair with one of my own, and I wondered if he'd ever noticed.
If the case was gone, he was gone. Why?
I had opened the blinds and looked out onto our normal suburban street. Parked outside was an SUV with darkened windows. No one drove those things in 2023, and I cursed myself for inattention. The house across the street had recently sold and undergone some repairs. Looking back, I remembered that none of the work trucks had borne the names of the tradesmen.
Fourteen years, seven of those playing house with Sasha. I had gone soft.
I'd met him when Betty nagged me into attending an opening at Red Fox Gallery, claiming I needed a social life. I wore my suit, having come straight from the office, and although the tie was in my pocket, I knew I looked stiff. I spotted green eyes from across the room, smoky and framed by lashes I could see from twenty feet away. We exchanged a look, one of those looks, but I lost their owner in the milling crowd.
Later, he ambushed me at the cheese board. "So," said a voice behind my left ear, "are you one of the dreaded straight acting?"
We blew each other in the men's room before we even traded names, and he tasted like butter from the desert.
Betty found us as we hunted for wine afterward. "Oh, Mr. Bierce. You've met Sasha."
I could feel myself blushing, but Sasha had an outright smirk on his face. I stammered, "Er, not formally, no." I glanced at him, saw his jaw and throat move slightly as I also opened my mouth to swallow air and his flavor again.
Betty seemed oblivious. "Then let me do the honors. Sasha Lisitsa, part owner of this gallery, meet Mathias Bierce, my boss."
"So you're the one she's been talking about?" Sasha's eyebrows went up, and I realized that the color had been a trick of the light. His eyes were as hazel as my own.
I looked at Betty.
"Oh, all good, Mr. Bierce."
"She says you're the laziest and most brilliant lawyer she's ever worked for."
I looked at Betty again. "What about him?" I indicated Sasha with my wine glass.
"He's a mysterious rascal who knows too well how handsome he is. In fact," she began, but Sasha interrupted.
"Why Betty, should I tell him what you do in your off hours? Do the letters C and P mean anything? Did you know she still obsesses over a long-cancelled TV show, imagining two of the male leads--"
She picked up his left hand to interrupt him. "I should rap you across the knuckles."
"Go ahead," he said, flexing the fingers outward. "I won't feel it."
Only then did I realize the hand was a prosthetic.
I shook myself out of that memory and into another, of how I had stripped out of my suit and not bothered to hang it. It appeared Sasha was good at sudden departures, but so was I. I kept a duffle bag packed, stashed in the back of my closet. Sasha had looked through it several times over the years, but he’d never asked about it, or the three sets of identification and credit cards, or the cell phones I upgraded every two years. He had his secrets, and I had mine, and in seven years we had never asked.
The swords had gone into my fencing bag, and it all went into the back of the Jag. I hit the garage door opener and was now driving away from a carefully built life, a law partnership, and the house that had always felt too big, even after Sasha moved in. The Bromfield case could go fuck itself. Olympian Chemical could crush a genetic Luddite without my help.
I told the phone to connect to Sasha's mobile, not expecting an answer. His phone was most likely in a dumpster somewhere, but it was worth a shot. Whoever was responsible for the black SUV that had spooked Sasha would expect the panicked lover to try to call.
"This is Alexander Danavitch Lisitsa," said the recorded voice. I had never bought the name. The faint accent could come and go, and a word like fox would never be a real Russian surname.
"This will no longer be a valid number for me." No surprises there. "If you need assistance at Red Fox Gallery, please call my partner Lilly Jones at…." I tuned out as Sasha's voice rattled off the familiar number. I was about to end the call, when the message continued. "If this is Matty… Mathias, I'm sorry. You should know by now I have a big red rock for a heart. No, I'm not going off to OD somewhere. I'll miss you, but… but there's someone else." I laughed aloud at the hitch in Sasha's voice. The timing was as perfect as the false sentiment, and the excuse excellent for anyone who might be listening. I had to play the message again to hear the last sentence. "Don't look for me."
I disconnected without leaving a phone mail. The message complicated things because in it, Sasha had told me where he was going and asked me to follow. I off put that decision. There were plenty of options, including ignoring him and moving on to one of the other identities in the gym bag.
I glanced at my phone. What would the jilted lover do next? I put in a pro forma call to Lilly Jones at Sasha's gallery. He was not on a scheduled buying trip, and was something wrong, Matty? I hung up without answering. I called my financial manager to find out if Sasha had cashed out any of our few joint assets, and was surprised to find that he had not. I couldn't decide who to call next. None of our friends were particularly close. Sasha and I had needed little more than each other, and I couldn't think who Mathias Bierce would confide in when his lover of seven years suddenly left.
Knowing that I would probably regret it, I followed his lead, and took the highway south.
I called Sasha's phone again. "This will no longer be a valid number for me." Yes, yes. "If this is Matty… Mathias, I'm sorry. You should know by now I have a big red rock for a heart." Abandoned on my dresser was a heart shaped rock from a trip we took last year to Sedona, Arizona, ostensibly on an art buying tour. Most of the art was high-grade tourist tripe, and I had my suspicions about his real purpose. So, he'd gone south and west.
"No, I'm not going off to OD somewhere." That was the key. Opposite day. It was a stupid lover's game, a way to make outrageous personal remarks and claim it was opposite day, eventually shortened to OD, and further used as a private code when we were in public. I think he'd once confessed it coming from a cartoon, but the reference was lost on me. "I'll miss you, but… but there's someone else." I doubted either was true. "Don't look for me." He wanted me to come, but why?
I composed myself to leave an answer for whoever might be tracking this. "Sasha, damn it!" I started, then broke off, not knowing exactly what to say. I'd done enough stupid things when someone dumped me. It had been a few centuries, but I could remember how it felt, so I said, "I'm going to Vegas, you shit, and I'm going to burn off all the money we saved together on showgirls. If they still have them. Or showboys," I laughed, a little too hysterically. "If you can have a mid-life crisis, so can I. Whoever you've found, I hope you enjoy him! And I hope he dumps you."
And again, let whoever was listening in chew on that. And then I laughed at myself. Vegas? Not exactly queer paradise.
The mid-life crisis idea might distract whoever was listening. Sasha was over fifty, though he claimed forty-five, and his body was a map of scars less obvious than the missing left arm. He wore long sleeves to cover more than the prosthetic. There were deep, old wounds from bullets and surgery on his right arm and other scars from bullets, knives, and hazards that could tear flesh, but the most interesting mark was the circle in the middle of his forehead. Mostly he kept a lock of hair over it, but as his hairline receded, that became harder to do. I had asked him about it once. "Kind of big for an acne scar, huh?" was all he would say.
I checked the mirror to see if anyone was following. There was nothing obvious, and the radar panel only showed blips and vehicle sizes, and there wasn't much to tell from the pattern of traffic. The lack of red warning blips told me that they hadn't been stupid enough to take an SUV on the highway. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, but if they were good, would I see them? They couldn't be that good. They'd been clumsy enough to spook Sasha. And me.
Unless they meant to.
And why the hell was I planning to follow him? To be honest, I was bored. Sasha Lisitsa had been the one point of curiosity in Mathias Bierce's life. Really, the only good thing about being Bierce was that he had financial means and a quiet life, with Sasha as a bright distraction.
The first time we slept together--
~~~~~
He looked at me over his wine glass, and I could see in his eyes and body language the confidence of a young man who knows he is beautiful. I called him on it.
"Aren't you a little grizzled to be playing the coquette?"
His eyes widened. "It doesn't work on you?"
"No."
"I thought all the young men fell for my boyish charm." He spoke with irony. I realized he was quite conscious that his RFID chip would have called the stock boys to pull him off the shelf at the WalMart years ago.
"I'm not as young as you think," I said.
"It's not the years, it's the mileage?" he asked, quoting an old movie.
It was the first time we'd seen each other since the opening at his gallery. Over dinner he had only asked me questions about my current life, about the law firm and Betty, and what I thought of the art at the show. We agreed on which pieces were crap that would sell to someone who wanted a piece to match the couch.
He only brought up my history as an entrée to making the pass, "Betty says you were born in 1989, and you made partner this year. That means you're only twenty-seven." He leaned over my plate, and put his face very close to mine. "That's the mark of a driven man. Are you as driven in bed? What I really want to know is when I get to fuck you."
I narrowed my eyes in defense and challenge. "Who says you get to be on top?"
"Who said anything about being on top?" He leaned back, and gave, clothed, the impression that he was waiting for me to straddle and ride him. It didn't seem like a bad suggestion. For someone pushing fifty, he looked pretty damn good.
"Are you always like this?" I asked, hoping the answer was yes.
He just smiled, those eyes telling me everything and nothing.
There was the momentary temptation to drag him to the WC and repeat our first encounter, but we went back to my house, neatly hung our coats in the foyer closet, and went through the ritual of the offered drink. He refused, politely.
"Drink to me only with thine eyes?" I asked in a fit of nervousness, and he did, looking at me with a smoldering intensity that would have been comic had it not been such a turn on. He closed the distance between us and put two fingers between the buttons of my shirt, reaching for a nipple that the close tuck of cloth would not let him reach.
I should have known we'd end up in bed that first night, but I had gone with my usual weapons. Undressing in front of him would require explanations I did not want to give, but a man with a prosthesis might have his own issues about disrobing. I took his hand off my chest and used it to lead him to the bedroom. I excused myself to the bathroom, took off my shirt, and unstrapped the forearm sheath of the PlaSteel knife. The ceramic and polysomethingorother blade was invisible to metal detectors and chemosensors. I pulled the .22 out of the back holster and removed it as well, then slipped the weapons between the last two towels in the stack. The calf sheath and the blade it held followed. I slipped my shirt back on, unbuttoned, shucked my shoes and socks, and checked the mirror. I was prepared to emerge looking like a man who wanted sex, which would not tax my acting ability in the least. I had the Ivanhoe under the bed and a .38 in the nightstand, just in case anything went wrong.
He was already half-naked, too, shirt off, arm laid on a chair in the corner. It had been almost a century since I'd been with anyone that had more than trivial imperfections. Modern medicine lowered the percentage. The stump, and I couldn't help but look, ended in a very modern interface for his arm, clamps inlaid in the skin so that he wouldn't need the straps of cruder prosthetics. His face held challenge, and his body more scars. There was the impression of a gun holster on his other shoulder, and I thought that this was going to be fun in more ways than I had anticipated. I put my hand in the middle of his chest and knocked him back onto the bed.
We were direct about our wants. Gentleness would come later.
Later he would move in, and we would dress in front of each other on a typical weekday morning, strapping on our weapons without comment. Later he would give me a replica of the Ivanhoe in PlaSteel, and I would never ask him how he had access to custom fabrication of restricted military materials. Later I would find myself deep in a love never mentioned.
Betty, seeing only the last part, would tell us how cute we were together.
Cute like snakes, I thought, looking at Sasha. Cute like tigers.
~~~~~
Nothing was out of the ordinary in rearview or radar when I checked again. I admonished myself again to stay focused. It was too easy to get lost in memory. Music might be the answer, but I was bored with Mathias Bierce's tastes. I thought about making some more phone calls, but I realized it was time to make a pit stop. At the next rest area I pulled off the highway, noting the cars that exited after me, and faces and clothes of the drivers.
I took my time in the men's room. When I emerged, I did not see any of them, and when I reached the parking lot, their cars were gone. In looking for their cars, I neglected to look at my own until after I hit the remote start. The black Jag immediately moved, reversing from the parking place. My first thought was to run after it, as if it had taken on a life of its own. Better sense told me to go back into the rest area and call Betty for a ride home to regroup, replace the identification, and craft a better exit plan.
I turned, but was halted mid-step by the sight of someone who looked too much like my old friend Duncan MacLeod. It wasn't him, because there was no Immortal signature, no buzz in the back of my brain, but the build and the features were so close as to make me hesitate. He moved toward me, staring at me, then past me, and I glanced back to see my car pulling up next to us. I cursed my decision for privacy windows, since I had no idea how many were in the Jag besides the driver. The man stepped behind me and opened the rear door on the passenger side looking like a bodyguard, a thug. He wore MacLeod's face, but he had none of his presence, in both senses of the word.
The options were to enter the car and take the offered seat, make a scene, or shoot someone. I chose the path of least resistance and slid into the back seat beside a very old man who was crisply dressed. I couldn't see more than the nearly bald head of the driver. The body guard took the front passenger seat, and turned enough to hold a gun on me as the driver took the car to the on-ramp.
"Please pardon the intrusion," the old man said in an accent only money could buy. "We will continue on your present course, so that you will not lose much travel time, but we have a few questions for you." We merged back on to the highway, still heading south toward Albuquerque.
I knew that to stay in character I should look more frightened than I did, so I took a deep, trembling breath. "Whatever you say, but please, can he put that thing away?"
"Gohlehm, I don't think you need to keep it aimed, but do keep it ready."
"Yes sir." The guard turned back around.
"Thank you," I said with visible relief, glancing at the guard. Some of the relief was genuine, because I was having a difficult time looking at MacLeod's face on a stranger. The name sounded Hebrew, almost. Although the pronunciation was off, it had to be a reference to the myth of the golem, the created being that could be made and animated by a rabbi. As he turned to face the front, I saw he wore a Celtic knot to hold back long hair. That could not be a coincidence, although MacLeod had cut his hair decades ago. I asked, "What could you possibly want from me? Is this about the Bromfield case?"
"Oh, no," said the old man with a condescending chuckle. "Sherry?" he asked, producing a decanter and two glasses from a case near his feet.
***
bonus prequel nap story in amireal's Nap Day entry.
Chapter 2