Challenge

Sam's current assignment was both tricky and volatile, one of the ones who didn't think twice before killing any mortals who saw something they shouldn't- exactly the kind of Immortal that Watchers tried to keep their distance from, observing only from a distance. But today he hadn't had a choice. The Butcher had chosen to take his most recent victim into the alley that Sam had been in, barely giving him enough warning to conceal himself. It wasn't the first time it had happened to Sam, and if it had been nearly any other Immortal Sam would have been glad of the opportunity to watch their fight from so close- he was an unabashed geek about sword fighting, which was why he had this assignment in the first place- but that didn't do anything to make him less afraid.

The Butcher had a reputation. He was a headhunter, but only the oldest and most obscure Immortals were "good enough" for him, the ones who'd survived for a minimum of a thousand years. Something like 90% of his victims didn't have a Watcher when they ran into the Butcher, and the remainder all had a history of losing their Watchers for long periods of time. There were always Immortals who managed to slip away from the Watchers' notice, but those who did it to such an extent were few and far between, and a lot of those had the same feelings about killing Watchers that the Butcher did, along with more of a tendency to notice Watchers than he did.

Fuck, Sam hoped he wouldn't get noticed.

The Butcher's victim didn't look like much. No matter how long he was in this business, Sam kept half-expecting Immortals to look different, somehow. More muscular, taller, that sort of thing. But then, that was the point, wasn't it? You really couldn't tell unless you were an Immortal yourself. The victim- okay, okay, he might not be the one who would lose today, but the Butcher had killed the rest of the Immortals he'd fought, so Sam felt justified calling the guy a victim until proven otherwise- looked more like a grad student than anything else, all scruffiness and cheap, baggy clothes, but Sam knew how much those kind of clothes could conceal, in terms of both weapons and the condition of an Immortal's body. Immortals couldn't change their features, but they could and did rely on misdirection- like con artists, the way they presented themselves almost did more to convince mortals (and possibly other Immortals) than words alone could. A change of clothes and hair, and an Immortal who looked like he could win the Game was transformed into one who looked like he couldn't even pick up a sword, much less fight well. You learned quickly not to judge from appearances, in this business.

The Butcher wasn't good about cleaning up his victims' bodies, so Sam would probably have plenty of time to take note of identifying information from the body, but just in case he set in to memorize the victim's features. The nose would be a good place to start the search; there weren't many people, Immortal or otherwise, with noses that impressive.

"I don't suppose we could talk this out?" The victim asked, the note of humor in his voice showing what he thought the likelihood of that was. As a (presumably) older Immortal, he surely had enough experience with headhunters to know which ones wouldn't take 'no' for an answer. His eyes were already scanning the alley, calculation in them: learning the territory. They lingered for a little bit too long on Sam's hiding spot, and his breath caught in his throat. Had he been spotted? But the victim's eyes slid past to the only entrance to the alley again, behind the Butcher.

In reply the Butcher growled and pulled out his sword. He wasn't really one for conversation…or other Immortals.

"Well then," the victim said, his eyes snapping back to the Butcher. "I suppose that's my answer." Accepting that he wasn't going to get out of it, he drew his own sword. A hand and a half sword, maybe an Ivanhoe?

It wasn't boasting to say that Sam was one of the best Watchers at identifying sword fighting techniques, maybe even the best- just simple fact. It was why he had this assignment. There was always an element of uncertainty to it, especially with Immortals- it was more of an art than a science- but Sam could identify when and where Immortals had learned their fighting styles, and through that and their skill, how old they were. The more he saw of a particular Immortal's fighting style, the better he could pinpoint it, but even the first few seconds told him something, and based on this victim's initial stance at first he thought that the Butcher had made a mistake. With a stance like that, the victim couldn't be older than a century- no older Immortal would possibly…oh!

They engaged for the first time, the Butcher attacking first, and the victim's style slid effortlessly into another; Sam revised his estimate upwards. There was no way the victim was anything less than 500 years old, and now Sam was pretty sure that the Butcher hadn't made a mistake after all. Sure, some people were naturally better than others, and sometimes it was hard to tell if skill came from natural ability or simply lots of practice, but there were some things that needed a lot of practice, and that right there- that effortless transition- was one of them. And the victim had started out pretending he was less skilled than he actually was- probably still was, for that matter. It took a while for most Immortals to learn that kind of subtlety, and to be confident enough in their ability that they weren't afraid to do less than their best. It only took one error to lose the Game, after all, and downplaying one's ability meant making errors deliberately.

The Butcher was good, though; he wasn't going to be beaten by an Immortal pretending to have that little experience. There was a reason he went after older Immortals, after all: they were a better challenge. He pressed his advantage to back the victim deeper into the alley, almost to the back wall, but he was still playing, trying to draw the victim out and ignoring some fairly large holes in his defense. "Fight, damn you!" he finally growled in frustration; the victim had cut clothing and random patches of blood but was still pretending he was only 500 years old.

"All you had to do was ask." Sam would have thought the tone was playful if he hadn't seen those eyes. They were…feral was the only word he could think of to describe it. As if a switch had been flipped, a fire lit, and now the victim was the hunter on the prowl. He paused to shrug off his jacket, and the Butcher let him, glad that his prey was finally taking him seriously. Beneath the jacket he had on a T-shirt reading Si hoc legere nimium eruditiones habes. He'd probably learned Latin before it had become a dead language.

The first pass was fast-paced and furious, the victim's style closer to the ones Sam only knew because he'd been the Butcher's Watcher for so long. Most Watchers didn't get the chance to see the older styles even once in their lifetime- there weren't many Immortals old enough still alive, and those who were tended to be good at avoiding Challenges. Coming out of it, the Butcher was grinning; this was what he lived for, challenging his skills against the best and oldest. "Now that's more like it!" he said as they paused briefly, both of them untouched.

The victim rolled his eyes. "I have stuff to do today. Can we hurry this up?"

The Butcher growled and attacked again, but they were evenly matched. Here and there an attack made it through the other's guard, but they were all minor nicks and cuts, nothing major. They separated again, their cuts already healed, and circled, sizing each other up again.

The victim had apparently given up on escaping from this Challenge, not even glancing at the mouth of the alley even as his eyes swept the rest of it, again lingering on Sam's position. Shit! Sam was almost certain he'd been spotted, and if he had, his chances of living much past the end of this Challenge weren't very good. But the victim's attention was only on him for a moment before he made a move that was a combination of a shrug, rolling his head on his neck, and shaking himself all over to loosen up. When he finished, his style was different again, this time something that even Sam hadn't seen before. He didn't pretend to have seen every style ever, but he'd seen enough over the course of his career to make at least a guess, and this…this he couldn't even guess where or when it came from, it was so different.

If you could get over the violence, Challenges were beautiful to watch: two extremely skilled athletes doing what they did best, engaged in a deadly dance full of give and take. The more skilled the fighters, the more beautiful it was, but the victim took it a step further, elevating it to an art form all by himself. He'd shed his carefully-constructed guise of posture and movement. Never mind what his hair and clothes said about him, it was impossible to see him as anything other than an apex predator when he moved like that. He wasn't anything like the Butcher's usual victims, who might be able to match him for a time but inevitably fell before him; this Immortal danced around the Butcher's blade with ease, playing with him like the Butcher had done to him when he'd been downplaying his skill. He didn't even have to parry; wherever the Butcher's blade was, he simply wasn't, and the Butcher was gaining new wounds faster than the old ones could heal.

It was the first time Sam had seen fear on the Butcher's face, and it would be the last. In the blink of an eye, his sword went flying into the trash bags piled in the dumpster and he fell to his knees, the victim standing above him with his sword raised.

"Sure you wouldn't like to talk this out?" he asked, the sword flashing down without waiting for an answer. The Quickening was amazing, and Sam was in the perfect position to watch it and not get hurt, but he couldn't pay any attention to it, his mind stuck on what he'd seen when the victim held his sword up. There, clearly visible from Sam's hiding place, was the telltale round blue tattoo of a Watcher, twin to his own. His mind was gibbering at the implications of it- the victim was a Watcher! An Immortal was in the Watchers! How? Why? How could they be sure that any of their information was accurate?

Maybe he should have run away while he had the chance, while the victim was still recovering from the Quickening- he could lose himself for long enough to let the Watchers know that there was an Immortal among them, at least, and do some good with the last few minutes of his life since he didn't think he'd live long either way- but his window of opportunity was closed before he could break out of the stupor the revelation had put him into.

"Bugger," the victim- not such a victim anymore, but he didn't have another name for the Immortal- said, the mild curse seeming strangely out-of-place coming from his lips, and got back to his feet. "I don't suppose there's any chance you slept through all that?" he asked, looking straight at Sam's hiding place. Terrified, Sam didn't dare reply, but the Immortal didn't seem to care. "Didn't think so," he answered himself, sounding suddenly tired. "You can come out now. I don't bite." He frowned at the Butcher's body. "…That's not too believable after this little scene, is it?" No, it really wasn't. But the Immortal turned his back on Sam to root around in the dumpster, giving him at least the illusion of being able to walk away without consequence. Damn him. Sam had always been too curious for his own good; it was what had gotten him into the Watchers in the first place, and he might as well spend his last few minutes doing something other than running for his life.

He crept out of his hiding place as the Immortal found what he was looking for- the Butcher's sword. A trophy? But he took it back to the Butcher's body and laid it between his hands, the tip of it pointing towards the body's feet, before picking up the head and positioning it as best he could on the neck. For the life of him, Sam couldn't figure out what the Immortal was doing. Sure, some Immortals cleaned up after Challenges they'd won, but that wasn't what this was.

He couldn't help himself. "What are you doing?" he asked, and his hand flew to his mouth to keep from asking any more stupid questions- and they were all stupid, at this point. Don't annoy the Immortal, and maybe he'll let you live a few more minutes.

"Funeral," the Immortal replied, though, apparently not having a problem with questions, or at least that question. He paused and looked at Sam. "You've been his Watcher for a while, right? Would you like to say a few words?"

"…I'd rather not speak ill of the dead at their own funeral," he admitted reluctantly.

The Immortal snorted. "Yeah, somehow I didn't think he'd gotten any better since the last time I ran into him. Well then." He straightened up, suddenly not the same person the same way he'd switched earlier. Sam hadn't known it was possible to imply priest with merely a change of posture and expression, while everything else about him screamed student, but somehow it was. Maybe it was the way he stood, straight-backed and with his shoulders back, or his expression- wiped clean of the cynicism and weariness of earlier, his eyes somehow clear, hopeful, and kind. However he did it, he somehow managed to convey priest so well that Sam could almost see the regalia that wasn't there. He had no doubt that somewhere along the way the Immortal had been a priest.

He wasn't a linguist, so he didn't even try to place the language that the Immortal spoke in, much less understand it, but the Immortal translated for his benefit. "We consign to thee, O Gods, this man, known to me as Mnestis. In death let him find the peace he never accepted in life." A moment of silence, and the Immortal shrugged off the priest persona, returning to the tired one- the real one? Was it even possible to tell, with Immortals?

"Mnestis?" Crap, he was asking questions again.

Again, the Immortal wasn't upset at him. "No idea if it's his real name, but it's the only one I know of. Somebody in the Watchers didn't realize it was a name, so they translated it like a nickname or title- the Butcher. But at the time it was more like one of the names like Rose or May now- just a name that you're not supposed to actually translate."

"And…the funeral?" Well, if he was going to die anyway, might as well satisfy his curiosity before then.

"Just something from my first life," the Immortal dismissed, and then looked Sam straight in the eyes for the first time. "Damn, I was hoping I remembered wrong and somebody else was his Watcher. You're something Myerson, right? Stan?"

"Sam," Sam corrected automatically.

"Sorry. Sam. They don't make us memorize names in Research like they do in Field- we can always double-check them if we need to." He sighed. "Of course I had to get caught by one of the unbribable Field Watchers. Couldn't make things easy for me for once…" he muttered to himself, tilting his head back to look at the sky. "I know I dedicated myself to you, but is this really necessary? Really?" Or maybe those gods of his. "You are unbribable, right?" he asked Sam.

The smart thing to do would be to lie, but being smart wasn't something Sam was accused of a lot. He nodded.

"And you weren't nodding off, which means you saw enough that I can't convince you I'm young, not with your skills." The Immortal dismissed the possibilities at breakneck speed, narrowing them down to just one. Sam tensed, knowing what was coming. "Damn it. I'd hoped to be a Watcher for a while longer."

"What?" Sam blurted out. Even if the Immortal was in Research- and it was hard to imagine how he could have been a Field Watcher- he had to know that if he killed Sam there wouldn't be any way to trace it back to him; why would he have to stop being a Watcher?

"I'm not going to kill you for doing your job," the Immortal said. "If I didn't believe in what the Watchers are doing, I wouldn't have joined them."

"But you're an Immortal!"

"Immortals aren't allowed to care about their own history now?" he snapped, then rubbed his hands down his face and sighed. "Don't mind me; it's the Quickening. Do what you want. I'm going to Joe's, if you want to talk. Or avoid me." He put the jacket back on. With it buttoned up, he looked like just another person, not an Immortal covered in his own blood, but he hadn't switched back to the student persona he'd walked into the alley wearing; he still looked dangerous, just not suspicious. A side effect of the Quickening? The Watchers only knew what they could observe, and unfortunately that meant there were a lot of gaps in their knowledge. Immortals didn't tend to talk about how Quickenings affected them with even their closest mortal friends, and the observed effects changed from Immortal to Immortal and Quickening to Quickening.

Sam couldn't help but stare at the Immortal's back as he walked out of the alley, leaving Sam alive behind him. It was the strangest thing he'd ever seen an Immortal do, and he still didn't know the Immortal's name.