Originally posted on Classic BC June 28, 2004
Eadglis faces yet another day after his death. Starting with a call from the man he believes to be Death himself.
A Wake Up Call To Wake The Dead
by Dana Short
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Eadgils was lying on a bed.
On the nightstand at the side of the bed, there were two phones, one a normal hotel phone, and the other a small gray cell phone. The cell phone was ringing.
Reaching out, he picked it up, and placed it to his ear, taking a moment to sweep the long hair out of the way.
"Hello?" he asked.
"Uh, yes. Is this Sue Danning?" an oddly accented male voice answered.
"Speaking," Eadgils replied, since he well knew that was who he was, even if he seemed to think differently at the moment.
"I hope you don't mind my calling. I got your number from Joe. You may not remember me, but my name is Adam. Adam Pierson. We met in Paris last year, at the Academy?"
A sudden image of Adam flashed through his mind, placing face to voice, and raising a single word in Eadgils's native tongue, one unuttered in over two thousand years. "Death" he hissed.
"Excuse me?" Adam said.
"Uh, sorry. What can I do for you, Adam?" Eadgils said, trying to sound as normal as possible.
"Well, I just wanted to see if everything was OK. I heard about your problem, and just wanted to let you know that if you need any help with anything, er, unusual, you might say, that I can help you."
Suddenly a memory drifted to the surface of Eadgils's mind...
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July 2002, Watcher Academy, Outside Paris, France...
Sue was standing in the Academy Cafeteria, tray in hand, looking for a place to sit.
Suddenly a warm voice spoke up from behind her. "Sue, right?"
Turning around, she saw Adam Pierson, a tray in his own hands.
"Yes," she said, smiling at him.
"Adam Pierson. I'm one of the researchers around here. I work on the Methos project."
"Sue Danning. Watcher-In-Training."
"I know," he said. "I knew your father. He was a good man. I miss him sometimes."
Sue re-examined the man in front of her. At first glance, she had placed him as only a few years older than herself, perhaps mid twenties. But upon a closer examination, there was something about the eyes; they were not the eyes of a twenty year old. He still didn't look old enough to have known her father though, and she certainly had never seen him before. She would have remembered ever meeting someone as cute as him for sure. "How did you know my father?" she asked him.
"Oh, let's just say he helped me out once, and later I returned the favor, although I doubt he ever even knew it. But that is a story for a later time, a much later time. What say we go get a seat?" He replied, gesturing towards an open table at the back of the room, "Would you do me the honor of dining with me this evening, milady?" he asked?
She stifled a giggle, and nodded, following him to the table and taking a seat.
He was a charming companion. He had a dry, quick sense of humor, and told great stories. Once, she tried to bring up the subject of her father, but he diverted her with a tale about the famous Duncan MacLeod, Joe Dawson, and Amanda Darieux, who Sue had once spent an afternoon with her father following around. She told the story of that day to Adam in return, and he laughed and accurately described back to her the exact expression on Amanda's face as she walked away from the body of the Twitchy Man. Apparently he knew Amanda as well as he did both Joe and Mr. Duncan MacLeod.
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Suddenly, Eadgils asked, "Adam, you never did tell me how you knew my father. You just said that you would tell me later. Well, it's later now. Will you tell me, please?"
There was a long silence on the other end of the phone. Then Adam said. "I will. But it is not a story I can tell you over the phone. To do it justice, I need to tell it to you in person. I know you are heading back to Los Angeles. Tell you what, why don't we meet there somewhere in about a week, I'll take you out to dinner, and tell you the story. It will be like the Academy all over again. Ok?"
With more than a little bit of reservation, Eadgils agreed. While not thrilled about actually setting up a meeting with Death, he had to get some answers. Someone had acted to have him killed, and if it had been Death, then he meant to have vengeance, at long last. If it had not, then the guilty party was still out there, somewhere. Like Joe said, the Watchers can never find them all, but now that he was looking, perhaps Eadgils could. After all, it was sort of personal.
Hanging up the phone, Eadgils stretched, noting again the amazing flexibility of Sue's body as compared to his old one. He opened his eyes, and looked around the hotel room.
Early morning sunlight was filtering through the drawn shades. Looking down at the floor, Eadgils frowned, and looked around the room until he spotted the coat draped awkwardly over the back of the chair, the lump made by the sword concealed within it glaringly obvious, at least to his eyes.
The carrier for the Bowie knife was sitting in the seat of the chair, while the stiletto was sitting on the table next to his laptop.
Stripping off his clothes, he padded naked into the small bathroom, and proceeded to take a shower, taking care however not to get his hair wet this time by wrapping it up in a towel before ever turning on the water, and then keeping his head well out of the way of the spray.
After washing off, he got out, used the last towel to dry off, and put on the clothes Sue had set aside the night before, being sure to snuggly secure the Bowie knife to his back before adding the loose fitting shirt, and strapping on the stiletto as he put on the socks and shoes. He brushed out his hair, but declined to try messing with makeup.
Then, following a subtle nudge, possibly just an echo of her intentions from the night before, he bundled up the two pairs of Jeans, both the sleep-shirt and the top worn yesterday, the jacket from his back house, and all the dirty socks and underwear, and carried it down to the laundry room on the ground floor next to the car.
Selecting a machine, he dumped in the clothes, bought a box of soap, and tossed it in with them, feeding the machine quarters until it started to churn.
Heading back upstairs, he sat down in front of the laptop and powered it up.
As the first screen came up, he absentmindedly typed in FORNLEF, and waited for the operating system to boot. He entered the password GOTTAB2BFREE, and selected the modem program. Picking the phone cord up off the table where it had been discarded next to the power supply, and connected it to the data port on the room's phone. He also then plugged the laptop into the wall, so as to save the batteries, and logged onto the internet.
First off, he sent some instructions to the lawyers who managed the trust which technically owned his house, telling them he had heard what happened to the previous occupant, but that they were not to put it back on the market until they had heard from him. As usual, if they did not hear from him for over a year, they were to execute the termination clause.
Next off, he checked on his various holdings. Most of it would be salvageable; his having learned long ago that diversification, both in interests and in apparent ownership was always in his best interests. It is far better to be a big fish in a small pond if all the fishermen think you are either just a regular little fish, or at best a medium one. It makes you far less likely to be a target, from either some organization, government, or even other Immortals.
He sent out some messages to various people he had worked with in the past to set up new identities. Hopefully he could get a hold of Aristotle in Toronto. When it came to fully documented false identities, the man was an artist. Assuming Aristotle was a man at all. Eadgils had known of Aristotle for over sixty years, and the quality of the identities 'he' set up only got better as time went on.
The main business taken care of, he shut off the computer, and packed it away in its case.
He then carried the laptop down to the car, and put it in the trunk, next to the duffel bag.
Stopping back in the Laundry Room, he moved his clothes from the washer to the dryer, and again fed the machine until it started to run.
He then walked around to the front office.
The same girl who had checked him in the day before was still there, sitting at the desk. Since it was daytime, the actual office was open, not just the plexy-glassed annex, so he went on in.
"Can I help you?" the girl asked.
"Sue Danning, room 2152. I would like to settle my bill and just about check out, please." He said.
"Just about?" the girl enquired, cocking her head, somewhat like a collie dog which heard an odd sound.
"Well, I have everything ready to go, but I have some clothes in the dryer in the laundry. Can't leave 'till they finish. But otherwise I am out of the room. I just thought I should stop up front, because I believe I made a long distance call yesterday, and I wanted to pay for it before I left."
"Ah. Yes. Room, 2152. Two days, prepaid cash. You do have a balance of $12.71, for the toll call. How would you like to pay it?"
"Cash." He said, passing over one of the fifties.
"I'm sorry. I can't take any bills larger then a twenty."
"Um, then I have a problem. I have six fifties, and a five. Somehow I don't think a five will be enough." Eadgils said, looking into Sue's wallet.
"Hm.." the girl said. "I remember when you checked in. I liked you. I still do. I'll make the change my self. Just don't tell my boss."
"That's right. He's a jerk. I'd forgotten." Eadgils replied with a grin.
"More of an Asshole, actually. I can say that because today is his day off. Me, I get to work a double shift without overtime because one shift is last week, and the other shift is this week. Him, he gets to take the weekend off. Asshole." She said, fishing out two twenties and a ten from her own wallet, and exchanging them for the fifty, before handing Eadgils back one of the twenties, the ten, a five, two ones, a quarter and a nickel.
"Here, keep the change," Eadgils said with a smile to the girl, "Buy some coffee or something.", and handing back the seven dollars and thirty cents.
"Thank you!" the girl said. "Whenever you are done, just leave the keycard on the table and lock the door behind you. As long as you are out of there before the maid gets there to clean, no one will know. After all, the Asshole is away today, so we can play!" she sang with a pretty smile.
Leaving the office, Eadgils swung back by the laundry, verifying the clothes were still drying, before heading back up to the room.
The next several minutes were spent working on the Katana in the long coat. While Sue had gotten the right idea, Eadgils had literally thousands of years of experience with carrying swords, and for the past several hundred of them with carrying them more or less concealed.
Removing the badly added "pocket" Sue had sewn into the inside of the coat the night before, Eadgils started over again from scratch.
He measured the position of the sword on the coat by the simple expedient of laying the coat on the bed, the sword on the coat, and himself on top of it all, moving the sword around until it was in the right place.
Next, he got up, and stitched a double pocket of dark cloth onto the back of the whole coat, double stitching a pouch to hold the Katana and its scabbard, and adding a flap over the top. Some Velcro would be needed to hold everything in place neatly, but for a job on the go, it wasn't bad if he did say so himself.
He went down to the laundry, and found his clothes were dry, so he bundled them back up stairs, packed them back into the large suitcase Sue had purchased the day before, collected the phone, Sue's purse, and the now Katana laden coat, and burdened with the now full suitcase headed back down to the car, closing the door to the room and leaving the key on the table as the gal out front had told him to do.
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