Possession (1/1)
RJ Ferrance, DC, MD (rferrance@VCU.ORG)
Tue, 28 Aug 2001 22:39:47 -0400
Possession
-Blood on My Hands Mix
Please see disclaimers in part 0.
You can see this in a much prettier format off my webpage at:
http://views.vcu.edu/medtoast/docshlfic.html
Listen as the wind blows
from across the great divide,
Voices trapped in yearning,
memories trapped in time,
The night is my companion
and solitude my guide,
Would I spend forever here
and not be satisfied,
The winds off Puget Sound howled their accusations at him as he skulked
through the chill night air. Skulked. He didn't often think of himself as
skulking. But tonight, he clearly was. Like a thief. A thief of hearts.
A thief of dreams. A thief of memories.
A thief of a Quickening, and therefore, a life.
As hostile as the winds were to him, the darkness and cool mist of the night
were his friends, hiding and enveloping him, tucking him away from the
accusations. Or, at least, trying to. The prosecution would not rest,
however.
Dr. Matthew T. Brennan, mild mannered pediatric intensivist, was stumbling
through the last dark alley homewards. With blood on his hands. The blood
hadn't come from a child trying to die on him, a child for whom he'd beat
back the gnarly hand of Death.
The blood had come from a vibrant and spirited woman that had once been his
lover. She'd once cried out to him in passion the way she had, only moments
ago, cried out to him in pain.
He squeezed his eyes shut, hard, against the pain that threatened to spill
from inside him. His hands fumbled with the keys, with the lock, jangling an
almost obscenely happy sound into the thick night air. They were slippery
from the blood, and they wanted to make sure he knew that.
Finally, he was inside, his back falling against the door almost as if he
expected it to fly open otherwise. He closed his eyes again, and willed his
heart to slow, his lungs to grow calm, his mind to clear. Tears threatened
to break free, spilling his anguish, but his shame denied him their release.
He had killed someone he loved.
He had, therefore, earned all the recrimination he could muster.
***
And I would be the one
to hold you down,
kiss you so hard,
I'll take your breath away
and after I'd wipe away the tears,
Just close your eyes dear
Matt had been home well over an hour. He'd showered, he'd changed clothes,
he'd poured himself a cognac. And two more. He'd cleaned and polished his
weapon.
The thick blood from the object underneath was already seeping through the
plush fabric. Damn. He couldn't put this off much longer.
He'd performed this ritual many times - too many times - over many
centuries.
"The battle is always one on one," his own voice echoed in his memory. "A
challenger and the challenged, Holy Ground your only refuge. The only way
to kill is to take their head, and with it, their Quickening. Their power.
In the end, there can be only one."
"Only one?" Margaret had asked him.
He'd laughed at her tone. Somewhere between disappointment, and teasing.
"Only one," he'd repeated. It had been 1863, late Autumn, in Richmond,
Virginia. The War Between the States was still very much undecided, as was
the future of a very cunning, very beautiful Northern spy Matt had liberated
from a shallow grave. As a Confederate surgeon and a professor at the
Medical College of Virginia, officials tended to look the other way when he
went into a cemetery at night. And his landlady was paid well enough to
ignore the fact that oh-so-proper Dr. Brennan seemed to run a home for
wayward women. Margaret had shared his house for nearly three months.
An exaggerated sigh. "Oh, Matthew, I will miss you so very much."
He laughed and rolled against her, gathering her lithe form into his arms.
"That's what you say now, Margaret," he whispered into her ear. His lips
worked their way down to her throat, nuzzling her straight auburn hair out
of their way. He loved the way she arched her neck when he did that.
"No, it is true!" she insisted.
"Tell me that again in a hundred years."
"And again in two hundred," she'd promised.
She had told him again only three hours before. But she'd used a very
different tone of voice.
The winds had cleared the way for the stormclouds, which were just beginning
to drop rain on the city around him. Lightning flashed not all that far
off, and a deep growl of thunder made itself known, almost more through
touch than sound. This was the kind of storm he and Anne had used to share,
back when he'd lived in her spare bedroom. They had found they both enjoyed
storms and, more importantly, young Mary hadn't seemed to mind them. They'd
put out all the lights, burn a few candles, and sit in silence enjoying
nature's live special effects.
Now, he lived in an apartment that was, all too often, all too quiet.
Meeting up with Margaret again could have changed that.
In a way, it had.
He finally forced himself down onto the couch, before his own conscience
began to level the charge of cowardice. He lifted the green and now
partially maroon towel and even before the sword beneath was uncovered, he
could smell her. Not the jasmine she'd used when he'd first met and trained
her in Richmond. Not the lilac and spice of London during World War II, not
the. whatever that had been in the early 80's in Prague. This was the
iron-rich stench of spilled blood, mostly his, but also hers, heady and
nauseating and all the more so because it was blood he had worked very, very
hard not to spill.
Wrapping his hand in the towel, he grasped the hilt and began the work of
rubbing the bloody handprint from it. There were ridges and valleys where
the freely flowing blood had clotted between her delicate but strong
fingers. It took nearly five minutes, but the hilt finally came clean.
He moved to the blade, being very careful because he knew only too well how
sharply honed Margaret - now Maggie, she'd corrected him - had kept it. His
back flexed, tugging at the still healing tissue there. That had been a
particularly vicious strike, one that even as late as '82 he wouldn't have
thought her capable of. My, how things had changed. He stopped suddenly
and found himself staring at his hands, and wondering how they could, again,
be so covered in blood.
***
Through this world I've stumbled
so many times betrayed,
Trying to find an honest word,
to find the truth enslaved,
Oh you speak to me in riddles and
you speak to me in rhymes
My body aches to breathe your breath,
your words keep me alive,
Seacouver had felt oddly empty. Only a few weeks before it had seemed he
couldn't swing a cat without sensing another Immortal. He grimaced at his
own bad idiom.
For the past week he'd gone about his daily business - traveled to the
hospital, home, to Anne's, to the theatre, even to the grocery store, and
he'd not once stepped on a Buzz. It had been strangely disconcerting. He
had almost begun to wonder if someone had called a Gathering and forgotten
to call him. Until he'd heard from Amanda, in Paris. And MacLeod was with
her.
Of course.
The sense of aloneness in the big city had nearly become exhilarating. And
then it had almost become lonesome.
With Sarah McLachlan in town for one show only, he'd used his usual contacts
and come up with superb seats. But a dozen phone calls had failed to yield
him a date. Anne Lindsey was on call, Rachel Hudson was out of town
auditioning, Christine was stuck in New York negotiating with an eccentric
author, Ellie - his favorite nurse - had "other plans," Evann was in
Chicago, busy trying to be a girlfriend..
Then, almost out of the blue, he'd heard from Margaret. She was in San
Francisco and headed north and just in time to share Sarah's concert with
him.
He'd taken Margaret to dinner beforehand, where he had wondered at her
reserved manner. It felt strange to be the talkative one in the couple.
She'd resisted all kinds of attempts to draw her out, to explore the reason
for her reticence.
And then, as they'd been walking back toward his apartment after the
concert, he'd gotten his first glimpse of what was on her mind. "The Game,"
she'd started simply. "It takes over after a while, doesn't it?"
Matt moved to link arms with her, to huddle together into the night's wind
if only to keep her words from being whisked away before he could hear them.
But she'd resisted. "What do you mean?" he asked her.
"I mean. there can be only one. Isn't that right?"
She stopped walking, and when Matt turned, Margaret's coat was open, her
hand slowly pulling her sword from within.
"Put it away, Marg-"
"Maggie," she'd interrupted him. "My name is now Maggie."
"Maggie," he tried. "What are you doing?"
"There can be only one, Matthew," she said, almost as if in resignation.
She shrugged, almost apologetically, then moved with her sword in a way that
was clearly intended to ensure Matthew Brennan wasn't that one.
***
And I would be the one
to hold you down,
kiss you so hard,
I'll take your breath away
and after I'd wipe away the tears,
Just close your eyes dear
He'd lit a fire - easy enough to do with a gas fireplace - to try and chase
away the chill. It had worked for the room, but it had failed miserably for
his soul.
The fight had been elegant, he had to give her that. She'd used everything
he'd taught her, and several things he'd never seen before. He'd tried
being simply defensive, planning to wear her down, then kill her, haul her
back here, and have a serious heart to heart with her once she came back
from The Light. But she had proved maddeningly difficult to kill. And even
more maddeningly bent on killing. She'd fought with a vigor and a, well, a
*passion*, that had been almost supernatural. The woman dancing around him
had been Margaret. and yet, she'd not been. Margaret had never been that
determined, that committed, that driven that. possessed.
Possessed. A Dark Quickening?
He didn't believe in them.
Well, actually he did. Or he once had. But Sean Burns had believed in
them, too, and agreeing with Sean was just far too dull. Disagreeing with
Sean often led to late nights of intellectual debate over cognac and cigars.
Agreeing with him simply led to. agreeing with him. So Matt had often
played the Devil's Advocate. And he'd often forgotten which side he'd
originally weighed in on. Or perhaps he'd just simply convinced himself
with his sharp intellect.
Or perhaps he'd simply learned to eat his own bullshit.
He brought the snifter to his lips again, inhaling the cognac's rich bouquet
before draining the glass. Again. He'd have to slow down soon, because
there wasn't all that much cognac left.
He'd introduced Margaret to cognac. She'd taken to it like.. No, he didn't
have any more stupid idioms left. She'd simply taken to it.
Like he'd taken to her.
"Drop your sword, Margaret," he pleaded. He wasn't ashamed to admit he'd
begged. He didn't want to kill her, and he sure as hell didn't want her to
kill him. His left hand began to shake uncontrollably as life came back to
it. He could feel the median nerve drawing back together, again conducting
impulses to tell his hand what to do. That same hand was slippery with his
own blood, dripping from between his fingers to splatter on the ground
below. "This is insane."
"That's just it, Matthew!" she shouted, her nearly mechanical anger finally
spilling out in honest rage. "That's the part you don't get. It's *all*
insane. As a naïve Immortal, I was perfectly happy dying for my country,
and yet. it's as if I never did! There can be only one? What kind of
insane rule is that? It's meant to prevent us from becoming friends with
each other, don't you see that? It's meant to keep us from *loving* each
other. Because eventually, we have to *kill* each other. It's better this
way, Matthew. Let's do this now," she insisted between teeth clenched so
tightly they threatened to shatter, "when we've only got a century and a
half of history together. I could not bear to do this after another hundred
years as your friend. Or worse, your lover."
He still wasn't sure exactly what had happened next. She'd come at him
again, her blade so high and coming down so quickly he had no good defense
against her. He'd twisted, trailing his blade to protect his vulnerable
back, and somehow..
Somehow he'd taken her head. And with it, her Quickening.
God, he hated Quickenings.
He especially hated hers, and all the memories and images she'd bequeathed
to him within it.
His eyes returned to her sword, a simple Ivanhoe, unadorned yet beautiful
and elegant in its simplicity. Much as Margaret who had become Maggie had
been. He'd loved many women in his years, but he had rarely had the
opportunity to see himself - to truly seem himself - through their eyes.
It was never the ego booster he wanted it to be.
The cognac and the thunder and the glint of firelight off the freshly
polished blade stirred memories he'd never had before, and he relived those
days and nights in Richmond and London and Bangkok and Prague and a half
dozen other cities he'd not remembered until tonight.
He understood now. He still hated it, he still disagreed, but he understood.
She'd been betrayed and hunted by one she'd loved more than Matthew. One
she'd loved completely. His reasons hadn't made any sense to
Margaret-now-Maggie until she'd lost her fight to keep from killing him.
And then she'd understood. She'd still hated it, she'd still disagreed, but
she'd understood.
And it had slowly consumed her.
***
Into this night I wander,
it's morning that I dread,
Another day of knowing of
the path I fear to tread,
Oh into the sea of waking dreams
I follow without pride,
Nothing stands between us here
and I won't be denied,
The sun was sneaking in through the white lace curtains when Matt finally
admitted he'd reached the end of Margaret's memories. They were already
beginning to fade, melting in to join with his own and all the others that
he'd acquired over the years so that in a day, maybe two, they would be
indistinguishable. Their final union.
The snifter was empty. Again. He set it aside and pushed himself off the
sofa, his hand lifting the weight of her Ivanhoe as he moved toward the
fireplace. This habit of his of acquiring the swords of his enemies had
started many centuries ago. The habit of acquiring the swords of his
friends, however, was rather new. He didn't like it nearly so much.
The picture of Amanda on the mantle was swept aside to make room. This
sword didn't belong in the handcrafted cabinet in the spare bedroom. This
one belonged all by itself, a testament to a woman he'd been privileged to
know and to love. A woman who had loved him enough that the thought of
loving him more had been too much to bear. A woman who's blood he would
always see on his hands.
A woman possessed of a passion he could never match.
Matt stepped back from the mantle, ignoring his impulse to keep a hand on
the sword, touching the last remnant he had of the life that had been
Margaret's. He slid his hand over his mouth, wrapping his fingers into a
fist to stand ready to stifle any cries that might try and escape.
The sun caught the carefully polished steel of Margaret's sword, cold
sunlight off of cold steel. It was a thing, an object, a weapon. It wasn't
invested with any special powers.
It would never again rise up against him. It would never again know
Margaret's hands.
Just like her blood would never, truly, come off of his.
And I would be the one
to hold you down,
kiss you so hard,
I'll take your breath away
and after I'd wipe away the tears,
Just close your eyes dear...
*********************************************************
RJ Ferrance, DC, MD
Combined Internal Med/Pediatrics Chief Resident
Medical College of Virginia Hospitals
Richmond, VA 23298
rferrance@vcu.org
http://views.vcu.edu/~medtoast/anvil.html