Originally posted on Classic BC May 22, 2004

Eadglis awakens in the alley to find he's not quite himself, or should that now be herself, anymore.

by Dana Short

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Coming back from the dead was never pleasant. Eadgils knew that from all too many personal experiences. The residual pain from the injury, the pain from the jolt of the heart starting, and the gasp of the first breath, awareness building suddenly and then, life was restored.

This time was no different. He felt the rocks and the asphalt gouging into his face as his convulsion ground it into the earth, his gasping breath filling his face with dirty water.

As he rolled over onto his back, he first noticed that he felt, wrong.

He laid there, looking up at the still drizzling sky, and thought back to his last few moments. The Girl had leapt out yelling at him to run, and was fighting with some man for a gun. He had stabbed at the man, and then the pain in his back. The other person, who had been entering from the opposite end of the ally. He had shot him in the back. After that, nothing. Or rather, not quite nothing. He also seemed to remember shooting the second man, and being shot in the stomach. Also dying, He remembered dying twice.

Never before had he remembered dying twice. The pain in his stomach was fading now. Finally. He took another deep breath, and moved to sit up. Once again was struck by how, wrong, everything was. Even now, he felt both weak, and light headed. His body was not moving properly, and the sensations were all wrong in different but subtle ways.

He spotted his sword, lying a few feet away, where it had dropped from the hand of the second assailant, now lying dead, slumped over another body. But that's not what stopped his brain. Rather it was what was just past his sword, lying askew in the bloody water. His head.

Blackness came up and again swallowed Eadgils, as he received the greatest shock in almost four thousand years.

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Spring 1,720 BC, Western Europe...

After his laughter finally died down, Ralas said "I was born close to three hundred years ago. I died my first death in a battle, and awoke as my friends were trying to bury me. Since then I have died several more times, but each time I will rise again, for like you, I am an Immortal. As such, I can not be truly killed, save by having someone take my head. I also am bound to live by three rules, passed on to me by my teacher. Rules followed by ALL Immortals. Rule 1, All combat must be one-on-one. Rule 2, No Fighting on sacred ground, regardless of the validity of the god, goddess, or other religion. And Rule 3, In the end, there can be only One. Come inside, and we will talk. It is time I also took a student, and I like the looks of you."

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Awareness came again to Eadgils, but unlike rising from the dead, this time it was more like wakening from a sleep. Oh, there was still pain, his entire head hurt, especially the back part, where it had slammed against the asphalt, and his stomach was still a bit sore, but other than that, it was more a case of gradually becoming aware again of the world around him, such as the slow drizzle of rain still falling against his upturned face, the sounds of the water falling around him in the ally, and the still somehow wrong feel of his body against the ground.

Opening his eyes again, he sat up once more, then braced himself before turning to look again at his sword, and his decapitated head lying just beside it. His head. This prompted him to finally look down at his body. It took only instants for his brain to sort the imagery coming from his eyes into a coherent world view, altering forever his paradigm for the universe. As he had known from the time he saw his head lying on the ground, he was no longer himself, but was somehow someone else. What his simple glance down told him was who he had somehow become. He was now The Girl. But no, that wasn't right. A part of his mind, like the part which earlier provided the memory of being shot in the stomach, this time offered up a name. Sue. Sue Danning. His eyes focused on the light blue tattoo on his left wrist, and added the title Sue Danning, Watcher.

Unsteadily he got to his feet, and reached down for his sword. Picking it up, he marveled at how heavy it now seemed. But despite the weight, there was no way he could just leave it behind. He'd carried that particular sword for almost eight hundred years, and he liked it.

He took a final look around at the scene of his death, taking in the three bodies, one stabbed, one shot, and one both shot and decapitated, the gunshot wound almost fully healed. "Wonder what the police will make of this?" he thought to himself. Then, he turned, and made his way out the front of the ally, heading towards his, no, make that Her, car.

Finding Sue's car was not hard, he had seen the gray Geo Metro following him many times, and at the same time remembered driving it all those times. It was sort of confusing. But the important thing was that he had the keys in Sue's purse, and that he get away before someone showed up. With any luck the lateness of the night, the ongoing rainstorm, and the fact that this was a business, and not a residential district would keep this scene undiscovered until morning.

After starting the car and pulling it into the street, Eadgils paused to try and think about where to go. He could see a few choices. He could go to either his, or Sue's home. The police would soon be arriving at his home however, as soon as his body was discovered. They liked to do things like that. So that was not a good place to stay. On the other hand, if there was anything he needed to retrieve, now was likely his last opportunity. His Laptop for one, along with the papers and money from the safe. That would be enough. Everything else was either replaceable or insignificant as far as immediate survival was concerned.

Pulling up on the block behind his house, he parked in the driveway. No one knew it, aside from possibly the Watchers, but he actually owned both the house he lived in, as well as this one. He had always felt a need to protect his back, and this was an easy way to do it. It also gave him a place to store things he might not want in his actual home, but wanted to keep close at hand. When he had moved in to the adjoining lots, he had replaced the large chain-link fence with a shorter, wide-slat wooden fence. He also made sure one particular pair of slats were hung only by a single nail at the top, allowing them to be swung apart, and back together to form an otherwise invisible "gate" between the two back yards.

Entering the back house using a key located under a grate in the foundation, he proceeded into the den, uncovered and opened the safe, and got a spare set of keys to his real house. Closing back the safe, and sliding the filing cabinet back on top, he proceeded into the kitchen, where he pulled out a pair of rubber dishwashing gloves, and plucked a flat tipped screwdriver from a utility drawer.

He then headed out the back door, across the yard, through the slats, leaving the opening half closed, in case he had to make a hasty retreat, and entered his back door.

First things first, he turned on the perimeter alarm. Installed years ago so he could sleep easier, it monitored the perimeter of both the properties via a system of motion detectors, infrared light beams, and roof mounted cameras which watched the street.

Next, he started making a pile by the rear door; first off was his laptop, laptop case, and backup hard drive. He then pulled the USB drives off his desktop, and added them to the pile after placing them into a duffel bag.

He then went to his bedroom, and rolled the television stand out of the corner. Pulling the pegged sections of the baseboards away from the wall, he was able to fold back the corner of the carpet, exposing the flat wooden cover over his floor safe, matched to the same wood pattern of the rest of the floor. It was quick work to insert the screwdriver and lift the cover, enter the digital combination, and open the safe.

Rising, he went to the closet, and dug out a small black daypack, and carried it back over to the safe.

From the safe he extracted the deed for the back house and the titles for his properties in California, Nevada, Washington, New York, Florida, and Texas, all of which were in different false names, none of which would be very usable given his new condition, but as it was just a matter of signing the deed, he should be able to easily transfer them to any new identities he may set up. He also withdrew all the documentation for his other alternate identities, as well as most of the cash, leaving a few hundred just so the safe wouldn't look completely empty if it was somehow discovered. Closing up the lid, he replaced the cover, folded back the carpet, and shoved the baseboards back into the wall, before sliding the television back into its customary spot. He looked at the gun box on the nightstand, and shook his head the weapon was legally registered to this identity, it would be worse to have it than not in most circumstances. Besides, he had more weapons stashed away in the back house.

Grabbing the daypack, he headed back to the rear room, dropped the backpack on top of the duffel bag holding the hard drives, and went back to the Security Console where he had started his visit. Checking to verify there still hadn't been any alarms he hadn't heard, he proceeded to delete the entries for the rear house from the front house's alarm system. Since all the devices in the whole system used digital two way communications it wasn't hard to deregister the devices not associated with this property. The resulting security perimeter would have a suspicious hole right along the back fence, but hopefully no one would notice and get suspicious. It was as he was finishing this up that the front motion detectors chirped. Looking at the camera display, he saw a police car had stopped in front of the house.

His heart leaping in his chest in a manner he had not experienced since he was a kid, but he put the sudden rush of fear aside, and calmly finished his work on the alarm, and verifying both officers were still in front of the house, just getting out of their car in fact, backed to the door, gathered the laptop case, duffel bag of hard drives, and the backpack of papers. Staining against the unanticipated weight of the load, he glanced again at the display, seeing one cop standing by the car, while the second was approaching the door. He backed through the rear door and set down the duffel, to close the door and lock it as quietly as possible. He then picked back up the duffel, and made his way back to the rear fence, swinging first the duffel, then the laptop case, and finally the backpack through the hole in the fence.

A final glance over his shoulder, and he climbed through himself, then as slowly and quietly as possible slid the board back closed.

Leaving the hard drives and laptop for the moment, he went back into the rear house, and powered up it's Security Console, identical in every way to the one in the front home, other than the fact that it still had the devices for the rear house registered as well as the front house.

As the display came on, it showed one officer at the front door, while the second was beginning to look at the side gate. It would be a challenge for anyone to climb it, so the odds were the officer wouldn't even try.

The officer at the front was apparently ringing the bell.

Eadgils went ahead and remotely armed the alarm system.

Leaving the knapsack on the floor, he glanced again, verified the second officer hadn't decided to try climbing the security gate, and headed back out to pick up the laptop and hard drives from the ground by the back fence.

Computer equipment retrieved, he shuttled it out to Sue's car in three trips.

According to the Security Console, the police were standing over by their car, one of them talking on the radio. Probably reporting the lack of answer, and asking for instructions.

He then picked up his sword, and turned to the basement of the house, where he kept his so called Armory. Unlocking the door at the top of the basement stairs, he flipped on the lights, closing the door behind himself.

He headed down the stairs, and looked at the array of weaponry scattered along the walls. He had a selection of rifles, some collapsible for camping, which could also be put to use for sniper purposes if need be; a few shotguns, including one "Street Sweeper", as well as several hunting types; and several handguns, both revolvers and automatics. There was also a Tempest air pistol, a Chinese made air rifle, along with both a full sized and a Trident hand sized crossbows.

However, firearms were not his immediate need, instead he turned to the back wall, and looked over the gleaming array of swords, knives, and other "Cutlery" pegged to the wall. He had already figured just from lifting it that his old sword, which he had carried for almost 800 years, would no longer work for him. He needed something much shorter and lighter. As he had explained to his students over and over through the centuries, a sword was not just a sharp piece of metal one waved around it needed to be a part of the wielder, so much so that it was an extension of the arm, albeit a very sharp and pointy one.

Most of the weapons on the wall were, well, trophies. Weapons wielded by losers who had come for his head at one time or another. One of them should be small and light enough for this body.

Starting with a rapier, he silently took down one sword after another, and swung them through some moves. It was here he ran into another problem. While this body was somewhat more flexible than his had been, it was not properly conditioned for wielding a heavy sword. Only a few swings, and there was a burn in the muscles. Tendons were tweaked, and even the bones creaked. On the eleventh sword however, he found a weapon he could wield. It was a katana, taken from a short, slightly built Japanese Immortal almost one hundred and fifty years before, when the man had come for his head in the middle of the night.

Apparently, the man had spied on Eadgils for some time, and decided a 3 AM attack was his best chance. It was the headhunter's last mistake. Even then, long before the days of electric eye beams and motion detectors, Eadgils had had a preference for security systems. Granted, more often than not, all they warned of were mice, but that time it was a much larger rat.

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March 1865 AD, Paris France...

As the head bounced on the ground and rolled to his left, the torso fell on its back, and the Quickening began to leak into the surrounding environs. Eadgils looked about his living room and muttered "Damn. I liked this place."

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Picking up his own sword, he found a place on the wall, and added it to the "Collection", using the same pins as Toshio's Katana had been hung on.

He added a pair of special carbon-fiber knives, one of them a large Bowie the other one a smaller Stiletto, which while visible on X-Ray would not set off any metal detectors thus making them good backup weapons in these days of places where they frown on such things as people carrying swords or other weapons.

Thusly armed, he retreated up the stairs, and back towards the car.

A quick stop at the security console told him the police were sitting in the car, probably waiting for either backup to help them access the house or stake it out and wait for someone to show, or morning to come so they could canvas the neighbors. He didn't know which, but with three dead bodies, and only his ID as a clue of where to begin, he would bet on the former rather than the later.

Of course, there was the question of evidence left at the scene by Sue. He couldn't think of anything, other than blood which had been left behind, but that didn't mean it wasn't there. He had Sue's purse and the gun used to shoot the Hunter, but there was always evidence of some sort which was overlooked at the scene of any crime even by the investigators.

In any case, it was time to get out of town. Making a detour to the bedroom, he dug up an old jacket, and carried it along with the weapons out to the car, turning off the security system and locking the door, replacing the emergency key, on his way out.

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