Immortal Cascade 01 Immortal Companion Page 5

  A soft smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. Glancing up at her almost shyly through his wire-rimmed glasses, he said, "I hope you're hungry."

  "Starving," she replied, pulling out a chair and taking a seat. Blair brought over the pot of coffee and filled her mug for her.

  Seating himself, Blair reached for a bagel and proceeded to spread it with cream cheese. "So, what are your plans for the day? If you want, I can take you over to the university and show you around."

  Dee sipped at her coffee and considered the offer. "That sounds great, but not today. I still have a long way to go to get this place straightened up. Putting the bed together is the first item on my list. In case I have to save the world again today, I'd like somewhere a little more comfortable to crash afterwards."

  "I could help you," Blair said immediately. "Four hands will get the job done in half the time."

  She felt herself smiling at his boundless enthusiasm. "I'm not going to pass that offer up. But are you sure you have the time, Lobo?"

  "Yeah, I'm not teaching at all this summer, just working on my paper. If I wasn't helping you, I would be at the library, or down at the station with Jim."

  At the mention of Jim's name, Dee began to reconsider accepting his offer. She didn't want to come between the Sentinel and his Guide. "Are you certain he won't need you today?" she asked.

  "Oh, yeah, he told me he was going to catch up on his backlog of paperwork today. Normally I help him with that, but he said he didn't need me this time." A slight frown crossed his face as he said it, as if he had just realized Jim had blown his help off on purpose.

  "If that's the situation, then okay, I'd gladly welcome your help," Dee said.

  After breakfast, they began work in the master bedroom, Blair volunteering to put together the bed frame. After a few minutes studying the instructions, he gave up and asked Dee for her help. Taking the sheet of paper from him, she quickly translated the instructions from Japanese to English for him. That small feat started a conversation about the various places around the world each of them had visited. They had many of the same places in common, most notably the South Pacific islands. Diandra had spent more time in Europe, while Blair had her beat when it came to visits to Latin America. The time passed quickly as they worked as a team, enjoying each other's company.

  Finally the bedroom and bath were completed to Dee's satisfaction, and they headed down the stairs to tackle what she referred to as the studio, the large open area between the living room and the upstairs section of the loft. Once most of the large crates were opened, and objects uncovered, Blair discovered she had enough workout equipment to fill a gym. There was a Universal weight machine, free weights, a heavy punching bag, workout mats, and an assortment of gear Blair couldn't even begin to label. Dee opened a six-foot long box and spilled out four wooden poles onto the ground. Blair watched as, smiling, she flipped one up into her hands with her foot, and moved easily through what appeared to be a complex fighting pattern, the staff whistling through the air.

  "Guess you're probably wondering about all this," she said, whirling the staff around her head and bringing the end down with a sharp crack on the floor. "I've studied martial arts for years; it's a wonderful way to keep in shape."

  "Is that what the sword in your coat is for?" Blair asked. "Keeping in shape?" He immediately regretted the accusatory tone his voice held, but she seemed not to have noticed it.

  Diandra carried the staff over to where he stood against the wall, and slid it into a bracket that he now saw was clearly shaped for it. "Partly for exercise," she answered him, "and partly for protection. You'd be surprised at how many muggers turn and run when you draw a sword on them." She gave him a smile. "I've fenced for many years too. I even helped coach the fencing team at the last university I taught at. And I've been a sword collector for a long time. Would you like to see my collection?"

  "Sure," Blair replied, and watched as she walked over to the stack of cases he had helped her carry in the day before. One by one, she set them on the floor and snapped open the latches. Each case held two or three swords, of all different types and sizes. Blair recognized sabers, broad swords, foils, epees, a scimitar, a rapier, and two katanas. As he was looking them over, Dee left the studio and came back a moment later, carrying her black trenchcoat. Reaching inside it, she drew a third katana, and showed it to him.

  "This is my favorite," she told him, her eyes lighting up the way he knew his own did when looking at important artifacts. "It's over 1000 years old."

  Blair stared at the graceful curve of hand folded steel and the elaborately carved ebony hilt. "You're kidding!" he managed finally. "It should be in a museum."

  Dee nodded slightly, taking a few steps back from him and lazily rolling the sword from over to underhand with a twist of her wrist. "Probably," she told him, "but I can't help but feel that a tool of such beauty and elegance can only be appreciated when it's used, much the same way a Stradivarius violin needs to be played to keep it's rich tone. If left to molder in some display case, it would eventually deteriorate."

  Blair could understand Dee's opinion. He had often felt himself that objects on display in museums were of no educational value if the person viewing them had no conception of how the item had been used. He watched Dee work through some passes with the sword, impressed with the way it became a natural extension of her body. He realized her grace and rhythm could only have come from years of training.

  Ending her impromptu workout, Dee mounted the katana on the wall, and turned to Blair. "I think we've done enough for today, and I'm getting hungry. How about I treat you to lunch at the restaurant of your choice, Lobo?" Quickly agreeing, Blair chose a pub just down the street from the loft, for it's convenience, and the fact that neither of them would have to bother with changing their clothes.

  Dee waited in the hall while Blair grabbed his backpack, and then they headed to the restaurant. Once inside, and seated in a corner booth, they gave their orders to the waitress. After she had returned with their drinks, Blair pulled a notebook and pen from his backpack. Dee took a sip of her Pepsi and raised an eyebrow at him.

  Pulling out his glasses, Blair slipped them on, then flipped through his notebook until he came to a blank page. Glancing up, he caught the quizzical look she was giving him. "I thought I would ask you about the Amazons' Champion and Companion," he told her. "If you don't mind," he hastily added.

  Leaning back in her seat, Dee smiled at him. "No, I don't mind, in fact, I was wondering how to bring the subject up."

  Now it was Blair's turn to be puzzled. He shrugged it off, though, and asked his first question. "Tell me about the Champion. Did he…I mean, she, have all five heightened senses?"

  Dee nodded. "Yes, taste, touch, sight, smell and hearing. Often the Champion was also the most skilled warrior in the nation, but not always. Sometimes that distinction fell to the Companion."

  Blair looked up from his writing. "You mean the Guide was a warrior?"

  Folding her hands together on the table, Diandra settled into professor mode. "All Amazons were warriors, Lobo. They had to be, to defend their homes. Most of them had other trades as well, but there was a standing army, and the Champion and Companion were an integral part of it."

  Blair chewed the end of his pen for a moment. The idea of a guide as a warrior was not a new one to him. Incacha had definitely been one, as well as a shaman, but Blair had never considered that the Guide might be a better fighter than the Sentinel. He had been applying his own experiences to all sentinels and guides, and now he was beginning to see the error in his thinking. After dutifully noting that thought, he looked up at Dee, who was waiting for him to finish writing.

  "I…" he started, then changed his mind. "Go on," he said.

  "The reason the Companion, or Guide, was trained to fight was to protect the Champion. A village depended greatly on them for survival, and it was only right that the Companion, by necessity always with the Champion, be able to defend her." S
he could still see a somewhat stunned look on his face. This is a new idea to him? Did his sentinel not really want his guide's help? Unbelievable.

  Dee tried a new approach. "Okay, maybe it would be easier to understand if I explained the Amazon method of fighting." She grabbed the salt and pepper shakers, and placed them side by side in the center of the table. "Amazons fought in pairs; each warrior guarding the other's back. They ate together, trained together, lived together. It's what made them almost unstoppable in battle."

  "Like the Spartans," Blair interjected.

  "Yes, exactly. The idea that the person a fighter was protecting was a loved one, rather than a stranger, was a powerful motivator. It was even more so for the Champion and Companion," Diandra leaned across the table to emphasize her next point, "for their souls were so closely intertwined that the nation considered them one entity. If one died, the other often simply refused to go on, either dying on the same battlefield, or throwing themselves on the funeral pyre of their soulmate. If they didn't kill themselves, they were never the same afterwards, some of them sliding into insanity with no Guide to help them control their senses."

  Blair felt his stomach begin to tie itself up into knots, and he knew he wouldn't be able to eat the salad the waitress had just placed in front of him. "Is there….was there any way to prevent that from happening?" he finally managed to ask.

  Dee took a bite of her own salad and chewed slowly, considering her answer. "The only solution is prevention. A guide and sentinel must do everything they can to work together as a team, to watch each other's backs, to fight as one. Both champion and companion are better at their jobs when they know the other is safe, and how better to know that, than to be fighting side by side?"

  Blair wrote her last words down, underlining them to emphasize their importance. How he would convince Jim of that fact, he didn't know. He picked a bite of chicken out of his salad and nibbled at it, trying to come up with a question that would not lead back along these same morbid lines. After forcing the chicken down with a large swallow of iced tea, he finally said, "The Peruvian guides were also shamen. Was this true of the Amazon champions as well?"

  "It wasn't a requirement, no. Each Amazon village had their own priestess, who conducted services in the names of Artemis and Athena, their two primary goddesses, as well as giving tribute to the other gods when necessary. But some champion/companion pairs did have spiritual powers as well, and what you are thinking of as a shaman's power was not restricted to just the Companion. I have records of a champion who was a priestess before she was gifted with her true calling, and she retained her ability to visit the spirit world and divine the truth as the Champion."

  They ate in silence for a while, Blair trying to reconcile what she had told him with his relationship with Jim. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that what she had told him made a lot of sense. Jim always wanted him to stay in the truck because he was afraid he would get hurt. Blair always wanted to be with Jim, because he was afraid of something happening to him. They would keep chasing their tails over this until they finally surrendered to the idea that they were no longer two separate people, that they were now two halves of a whole, and in order to remain that way, they would have to learn to face danger together. The notion was a difficult one for even Blair to grasp, and he wondered how he would explain it to Jim.

  "A penny for your thoughts," Dee said, interrupting his contemplation.

  Blair did not want to discuss his specific Guide/Sentinel relationship with her, so said the next thing that came to mind. "I…uh, I'm still a little shaken up by last night. Sorry."

  "If you want to talk about it, I was there too. I understand what you're going through," she said sympathetically.

  "I…It's just that I feel so stupid. I mean thanks for saving my life, but you wouldn't have had to except for my own stupidity."

  Dee frowned, puzzled. "What are you talking about, Lobo?"

  "I remembered exactly what happened when I was struggling with Danny for the gun. I was the one who accidentally pulled the trigger. I shot myself!" Blair shook his head in disgust. "Sometimes I just feel so useless, man!"

  Reaching across the table, Dee covered his clenched fist with her hand. "You don't have to feel that way, Lobo." Come on, Blair, she silently urged him. Make the first move, let me help you, let me help you help your sentinel.

  "I don't?" he asked, turning pain-filled blue eyes on her.

  "No, you don't. I'm a teacher; let me teach you how to handle that kind of situation, how to defend yourself, how to defend your partner."

  "Jim doesn't need my help." Blair was surprised at how bitter his voice sounded.

  "Hmmm, doesn't need it, or refuses to accept it? A lot of big guys are that way. They're used to doing everything on their own, and their macho bullshit has them insisting a bullet wound is just a paper cut."

  Blair jumped in hastily to correct her. "I didn't mean it like that, Dee. Jim appreciates what I bring to this partnership, he does. It's just that he's over protective. He doesn't want me to get hurt. Sometimes I think he thinks I can't take care of myself, like last night."

  "And how do you feel about that?"

  "I…" Blair's gaze dropped to the table. "Sometimes I think he may be right. It seems like every time I turn around, I'm getting injured, or kidnapped, or being used as a pawn. And I'm just so tired of it," he said, resignedly.

  "I can help you. I can teach you what you need to know, teach you to have confidence in yourself again, in your physical abilities, not just in your mind. You need references, I'll give 'em to you."

  Looking up into her face, Blair could see that for some reason, this was important to her, he was important to her. "I…I'll think about it, Dee."

  "That's good. Thinking about it is good. And you know I won't teach you anything you don't want to know."

  "No swords," Blair said emphatically.

  "No swords," she agreed. "Just self defense. How to disarm someone without shooting yourself."

  Blair felt a laugh bubble up from some forgotten part of himself. "Definitely need to know that one."

  Dee released his hand with a giggle, and went back to eating her lunch. She felt as if a weight had been lifted from her shoulders, and knew she was following the path the fates had set her on so long ago.

  Part 3

  The sound of the phone ringing cut through the stillness of the basement office. Dana Scully jumped in her chair, her concentration on the autopsy report broken. "Mulder, can you get that?" she asked, then realized she was talking to an empty room. Remembering he had gone to a meeting with Skinner thirty minutes ago, she reached across his desk and picked up the phone. "Scully."

  There was a slight hesitation on the other end of the line, then a male voice said, "My name is Jim Ellison. I'm a detective with the Cascade, WA police department. I was trying to reach Agent Mulder."

  Scully opened her desk drawer and grabbed a pencil. "Agent Mulder is out of the office right now. I'm his partner, Agent Scully. Is there something I can help you with?"

  Sitting at his desk in Major Crimes, Ellison pondered his options. He decided to find out what Mulder's partner thought of Diandra Pallas. After all, who better to observe whether or not his relationship with Dr. Pallas had impeded the investigation into the two murders? He started with a simple request for data.

  "I'm trying to get some information about a woman named Diandra Pallas, Agent Scully."

  Scully felt her heart stop. What could have possibly happened to Dee? She wasn't dead, she wasn't dead; she couldn't be dead. Dana let the breath she had been holding out slowly. Dee was a skilled fighter; her teacher was fine, she told herself. This Detective Ellison is just digging. "Why do you need to know about Dr. Pallas?" she shot back, pleased that her voice did not betray the small knot of fear still clutching her chest.

  Jim had clearly heard the woman's heart begin to race at the moment he mentioned Pallas' name. That was curious; Diandra's friend had told him s
he had been involved with Mulder, not Scully. Perhaps Agent Scully had a reason to be afraid of Diandra. Or afraid for her, his brain tossed out, just as he resumed the conversation. "Dr. Pallas was witness to a crime here in Cascade, and I was just doing a background check to rule out any possible involvement on her part. I was told she was questioned in regard to two murders in the Washington DC area, and that Agent Mulder was the agent in charge of the investigation."

  "Jesus, Dee," Scully thought, "can't you stay out of trouble for five minutes?" To Ellison, she said, "Are you saying there is some similarity between the crime Dr. Pallas was a witness to, and those murders?"