Happy Holidays, morgynleri_fic!
Title: Lumens (1/2)
Author: On the Qui Vive
Real Author Name: mackiedockie
Written for: morgynleri_fic
Crossover: Highlander, Harry Potter
Characters/Pairings: Joe Dawson, Ian Bancroft, Darius, Rebecca, Marcus Constantine, Silas, the Family Granger
Rating: Gen
Author's Notes: A slightly altered reality, set mostly in the past. Highlander veers, just a bit, into the Potterverse. Overlapping dates scrounged from various wikis around the net, with dubious accuracy. All malfeasances in text and manglings in non-English languages are mine. My beta deserves combat pay, and consideration for the Watcher version of the Croix de Guerre.
Summary: Darius and Joe Dawson weren’t precisely strangers, though they each took great pains to never precisely meet. Still, both had a weakness for books, and Shakespeare and Company lay just a short jaunt around the corner from the church. Friends will visit. Accidents will happen. And Darius had a reputation for making chess moves far more than one step ahead of the Game.
1969
“Stone free… ” Joe sang Jimi Hendrix the day the final paperwork arrived mustering him out of the Marines. With time to burn before his bus left for Chicago that evening, he made the familiar rounds of the halls of the Philadelphia Naval Hospital, saying farewell to fellow patients and harassing his favorite nurses just one last time. Now that it was time to go for good, he put on a fresh t-shirt and pulled his old high school letter jacket, the one his sister had mailed from home. It hung loose, after all the operations and fittings and endless rehab.
“Stone free, do what I please…” Joe sang out as he shouldered his guitar and ducked the nurse with his wheelchair, making one last trip down the stairs, just to show off. He was going to miss the acoustics in the hospital stairwell. He’d spent many a hurting night there with his guitar, self-medicating with the blues.
“Feel my heart kind of runnin' hot…” No more barracking in Navy hospitals. No more stump runs with fellow amputees in the park. No more ducking into the chapel after lights out to study for Ian Bancroft’s history quizzes by candlelight, in hopes of racking up some college credit. He rubbed his chin, celebrating a scratchy stubble.
No more shaving, he resolved. Grow a beard for a month, and the protesters back home would leave him alone. Maybe he wouldn’t feel like sneaking into the back door of his own house. His Labor Day leave with a fresh haircut in uniform had been a disaster on all fronts. All beards being equal, he’d rather the cops ended up rousting him as a hippie freak. “That's when I've got to move, before I get caught…”
At the end of it, he didn’t need a beard. He needed a job. If he wanted to go back to college, much less help out his mother, filthy lucre was required. Even with the G.I. Bill, it was better to put college off and make sure his sister got her degree first. He’d done the dismal math, the Bill would barely cover books and fees without even touching tuition at Chicago State. And that meant sponging at home for bed and board.
“Got to Got to Got to Get away…” Joe toned the lyrics down to a whisper as he checked out the few effects he hadn’t mailed home. He piled his bag, cane and guitar on his much loathed but essential wheelchair, and made his way to the bus stop. He kept time as he pushed along, his gait stilted and sharply measured even after long months of relearning how to walk. It wouldn’t do to fall down on the job now, within sight of the rest of his buddies still inside. He’d never hear the end of it.
As the bus pulled up, he hoisted his duffle on his shoulder so the chair could be folded, and he teetered, grabbing for his cane. The bag was lighter without the uniform and boots, but his books and holstered personal weapon still added to the swing weight.
He jammed his cane down to steady himself, as pain shot up the short stump and down the long one, snarling into the unforgiving plastic prosthetic cups. Thinking too much about the pain, he lost the lyric.
“Stone free, dammit,” he muttered as he overcorrected.
A stranger dressed like a college professor reached out to steady the swaying bag before it swung him out into cross traffic. He stiffened, and got the prostheses back under his top-heavy center of gravity. Passersby usually ignored him, used to just one more wandering vet near the port. They didn’t get too close. They didn’t reach out. Not here in Philadelphia. Not in sweet home Chicago, either. They’d spit on his newly shined Marine-issue shoes in Chicago.
The stranger stepped back, but didn’t pass by. “Hey, Joe.”
“Wrong Hendrix song,” Joe snapped, embarrassed and angry at his loss of balance. It seemed he was always close to angry, these days. “Sorry. Do I know you?” he checked his tone. He wasn’t particularly sorry at all, but his mother had asked him to work on his temper. It was worth a try. For her sake.
“Ian Bancroft. Former 3rd Commando Brigade. We met in-country.” Tweed. The guy was actually wearing tweed. The English accent matched, warp and weft. There was even an old leatherbound book weighing down his side pocket.
Joe knew the voice, now, but the costume seemed so outlandish that Joe squinted at him sideways for longer than was polite. He had to dredge deep to bring up a fever-fractured memory of a man in a starched, clean uniform, bending over his cot in post-op. “Thien Duc? Or was it Ton Son Nhut?”
“Both. I caught up with you at the casualty staging area. I promised I’d see you off on the Starlifter home, and I did, but I don’t blame you if you don’t remember.” Ian’s eyes were clear, concerned, patient. “I also promised that I’d look you up when you got out.”
“The secret squirrel Watcher himself,” Joe straightened, a grin cracking his wary defenses. He shifted his cane to hold out his right hand. Ian didn’t hold back, and Joe matched his strong grip, and more, earning a look of pleased surprise. Impulsively, Joe drew Ian into a bear hug, laughing as the Englishman’s expression shifted from surprise to embarrassment.
“Sorry, man. Had to make sure you were real,” Joe apologized, still grinning as he straightened Ian’s suit. “There were a lot of days I thought I dreamed you. Cord, too. If it weren’t for all the books you kept sending round, and all those essays and damn pop quizzes, I’d have gone around the bend altogether. How’d you keep finding me? I must have hopscotched through four hospitals.”
“You’d be surprised where we Watchers reach, Joe. Marine military files, now, they’re easy. Nice and hierarchical and all in triplicate. I must say, I was pleasantly entertained by your essays. Your grasp of written English is excellent, for an American. And your German was quite grammatical.”
“Tell that to my parochial school teachers. Brother Francis will just laugh,” Joe didn’t even mind the backhanded compliment. Much.
“He did,” Ian acknowledged dryly.
“Okay, that’s just wrong,” Joe protested. “You went to my high school?”
“Record. Observe. Research references. It’s what we do, Joe. And you did get paid,” Ian gently reminded.
Joe had to admit to himself the stipend for the quizzes helped cover expenses when the family visited. He even had enough left over for a couple of beer runs with the boys in rehab. Belatedly, it occurred to Joe that he might have incurred more debt than he’d realized. “What do I really owe you, anyway?”
“The Watchers like to track their investments, Joe,” Ian shrugged it off. “We’re speculating, in your future, and in ours. By signing the waivers, we could keep track of you. We could even improve on our investment through the correspondence courses. Moreover, you had more motive to stay quiet about Cord. The Watchers have a long view, and deep pockets.”
Joe wasn’t sure he was all that pleased by Ian’s candid assessment, but it was his own fault for not reading the fine print, even if he had been on major drugs when he signed on. Now he had to do some quiet figuring on a brand new mustering out plan, if the job turned out to be some sort of weird charitable bureaucratic dead end.
First, he had to gather more intelligence. He elected a direct assault. “If you Watchers had that kind of high echelon juice to pull my records, I’m surprised you didn’t fly yourself right out of that damn war.”
“I should have. Eventually, I did,” Ian said bleakly. He examined Joe closely as he added, “But the Watchers wanted me to verify your story about Cord. He became my assignment soon after I met you and heard your action report. From then on, I had a duty to try to follow him as long as I could.”
“Where did he go?” Joe kept the question this side of a demand.
“Found him in Thailand. Lost him in Laos. Long story. We’ll need a few pints,” Ian hinted, as the bus driver, ready to leave, honked at the lingering pair. “And I have a car.”
Joe only hesitated for a heartbeat. He’d only muster out once. Chicago would still be there tomorrow. “Amazingly, I know how to get to a bar.”
“I knew I had spotted observational talent the first time I met you,” Ian congratulated himself, offering an exaggerated bow. “Lead on, MacDuff.”
Ian loaded the chair and bag in the capacious trunk of an LTD. The guitar got the back seat, braced next to Ian’s satchel. They ended up at a neighborly Irish dive Joe favored, with a decent jukebox and Guinness on tap.
Joe insisted on buying the first round, tapping his mustering out cash. “Looks like you’ve done well for yourself, Mr. Bancroft. Or should I call you Sergeant?”
“Just Ian, please. I left the service last summer.”
“Natty threads. Decent pay, this Watching gig?” Joe fished, easing his weight off onto a bar stool.
“It’s steady, but entry salary is a pittance. Room and board included, though.”
“Worked for the company long?”
“Ten years,” Ian said proudly.
“You’re kidding. You’re just a couple of years older than I am. What were you, thirteen?”
“I served my first apprentice watch on my fourteenth birthday.” Ian leaned closer. “My forefathers have been Watchers for over ten generations.”
“Okay. I’m officially impressed,” Joe admitted. He wasn’t sure his family even knew how to read, ten generations back. “So, you get to travel a lot?”
“The company pays expenses,” Ian answered, reading Joe’s mind. “Don’t get me wrong. It’s not always beer and…” Ian held up a bar snack and squinted. “...pretzels. The hours are long, and one or two of the rules are a bit draconian, I promise.”
“You promised a lot of things in Ton Son Nhut, if I remember right. An education. A job. A free ride to Europe! Paris in the spring! A Roman holiday!” Joe grinned at the enormity of the joke. It was on him, but the fantasy had helped when the meds had him down.
“Lyons, in the rains of October,” Ian corrected with grand English reserve. “And Geneva, in the dead of winter. But they do hold final trials in Paris in the spring. That’s why I’m here, Joe. Classes at the Academy start next week.” Ian handed him an embossed envelope. “If you’re interested in enrolling, we could leave tomorrow. I could use your company.”
“Why me? I saw a lot of crazy things, overseas. Maybe I was a lot of crazy, coming back. Maybe I still am.” Joe figured he owed Ian fair warning. And he still didn’t quite believe the offer was real.
Ian gazed out the bar window to the crowded street, not seeing a soul. “So did I, Joe. Crazy was sane, compared to the war.” He met Joe’s look of disbelief squarely. “Laos, for instance. I met a Watcher on the other side. An ardent Communist. I almost shot him. Then I saw the Watcher tattoo. And I didn’t. We’d been classmates, once, I realized.”
Ian took a deep draft of Guinness, and continued. “We were fellow Watchers, and we didn’t shoot each other over some damn war nobody will care about in ten years. We sat down and got drunk and had a big laugh about that. He saw Cord heading for Cambodia. That was the last anyone heard of him.”
“C’mon, tell a few more tall tales. I’m still buying.” Joe heard the honest pain in Ian’s voice, even if the story was still too sketchy. He figured he owed Ian a beer or thirty for his off the wall correspondence course all by itself. Like clockwork over the last year a platoon of unlikely and outrageous history books had mysteriously made their way to his bedside, with lesson plans, story problems, and even crib notes. The books had taken his mind off rehab, no small boon, whatever Ians’ scam.
Noticing the locals had moved away down the bar as they talked, Joe motioned for another round, Quietly, he recommended, “By the way, you’ll want to tone down the accent. While it might be Philadelphia, this is an Irish bar, and some of the customers still hold a grudge about the Brits in the old country.”
Ian smiled, the beer taking the edge off his reserve. He pitched his voice for their ears only, saying, “That’s one of the things I liked about the notes on your files, Joe. You take care of your friends.”
“You know that Nina Simone song? ‘I ain’t got no friends,'" Joe crooned. “Hell, my own unit left me behind in Thien Duc.” Joe lifted his glass, grinning, and toasted Ian to cover the sting of the words. “Cord and present company excepted.”
“That’s the truth of the past, Joe. Present company is looking to the future.” Ian didn’t sound at all fooled by Joe’s ironic bonhomie. “You know, you’ve got a good voice, even if I don’t agree with the tune. I’m more of a “Down by the Riverside” kind of guy. I really don’t want to study war no more.”
“Yeah, I know that old gospel tune.” By heart.
“There’s a little church, St. Joseph’s, in France, down by the Seine. Medieval acoustics. You’d sound good, there. Darius likes that song.”
“Who’s Darius?” Joe did justice to his draft as he listened.
“Darius is my next assignment. I’m a full-fledged Chronicle keeper, now, Joe. And I get to pick a research apprentice. I want you for the job, when you graduate.”
“Graduate from what, precisely? With a degree in what?” Joe asked, still wary.
“Watcher Academy. In France,” Ian reminded. “I’m your sponsor. Your mentor, as it were.”
“I can get $130 a month to go to school right here in the U. S. of A. on the GI Bill,” Joe countered, assuming his poker playing face. “And the VA is supposed to kick in disability.” Someday. Joe was still waiting.
Ian winced. “Chickenfeed, as you Americans say. $500 a month base pay in greenback dollars, room and board and rough living expenses. I won’t shine it up for you--you’ll be an outsider, and the students born to Watcher clans will trample anyone in their way to get a first in class.”
Joe’s poker face lasted all of five seconds. It looked pretty shiny to him. “Hell, 500 a month is more than twice what I made as an active Marine. If the kiddies in Geneva aren’t laying bouncing betties, I figure I can handle them.” But he wasn’t completely gulled. “Europe. That’s expensive. Planes, trains,” Joe trailed off. Wheelchairs. Just travelling to Chicago was a pain in the ass with the wheelchair. What the hell was he going to run into in Geneva? Cobblestones? Castles?
Taking advantage of Joe’s pause for thought, Ian slid a book out of his pocket and placed it on the bar. The faded leather cover was soft and furry with age. “There is even a signing bonus in it for you if you turn in a thesis on this chronicle for graduation.”
“A thesis? I’m not a college graduate. I wrote you a bunch of glorified book reports.”
“I beg to differ. But my opinion doesn’t matter. You’ve graduated from being a kid. This is a project for a grown man.” Ian slowly slid the age-frittered book across the bar next to Joe’s hand. “The only real standards that matter from now on are your own.”
Joe caressed the cover of the book. “What’s it about?”
“A Scotsman. Green, wide-eyed, on his first grand tour of 17th century Europe.”
“Who wrote it?”
“A German baker’s boy, just as green, barely lettered in High German and Church Latin. He had the fortune, or misfortune, to see the Scotsman duel a Bavarian burgher, and lived to tell the tale. Reveled in it, as a matter of fact. A wordy lad, terribly gullible about magic spells and other rubbish, but marvelously lucky.”
Joe carefully traced a raised stamp on the cover. “It looks just like your tattoo.” He flipped open the book, raising both eyebrows at a chapter header. “Den Zauberstab schwingen?” He peered at the text, not sure if he was reading the ancient font correctly.
“Hm. Well. There’s some controversy over whether the watcher meant ‘magic wand’ as a metaphor or a flight of fancy. Donald, my own mentor, tended to a certain...latitude in interpretation. Personally? I found much of it gibberish.”
“I don’t know…,” Joe temporized, but his finger caressed the worn spine, respecting its survival despite age and fragility.
“Scared, Joe?” Ian challenged, turning his wrist over and matching his own Watcher brand to the cover of book. “You’ve already earned the tattoo by living through your first encounter with an Immortal, and protecting the secret. Nevertheless, the traditionalists do insist on Academy training. Just one year of study, while you sample French baguettes and Swiss cheese, read German books and flirt with English coeds. That’s what you Americans call female students, isn’t it? Co-eds? How terrifyingly dismissive. But if you don’t feel up to it...”
Joe’s temper flared, burning away the last logical reservations. “You’re on, buddy.” He tucked the book inside his letter jacket and ordered another round to cement the deal before Ian could take it back. “Co-eds? English hot, like Julie Christie? Or English cool, like Diana Rigg? Tell me more.”
The night bus to Chicago left without Joe Dawson on board. He was three chapters into the Chronicle, furiously taking notes, by the time they landed in Frankfurt. He was also an unending font of questions. “Is a poniard as long as a K-Bar?”
“Time to pack the book away, Joe. Save it for later.” Ian reminded him with stretched patience, as the plane taxied to the terminal. “We’ve got customs to go through, yet.”
Joe looked up, exhausted, excited, unquenched. “Just one more question, Ian. Last one. Honest.”
Ian sighed. “Just. One. More.”
“What’s a horcrux?”
1970, 11:00 AM
Ian Bancroft reached the Forensics Lab just as an Erlenmeyer flask shattered, scattering glass out into the hall, making the knot of onlooking Watchers and students jump back. Ian stalked in through the gap, pausing only to appreciate the awesome extent of the damage.
Joe Dawson grappled with Jacque Vemas, holding him close for balance, and using every dirty trick in the Marine handbook to bring the larger student down. Joe’s short ponytail bobbed as he tried a head butt, followed by a textbook judo twist, but Joe lacked the lower body leverage to complete the move. Vemas landed two short, vicious blows inside, using his body weight to drive Joe back into another rack of lab equipment. More glass tubes crashed to the ground.
“A fiver on Vemas,” he heard young Shapiro call from the back. “He’s a Golden Gloves boxer.”
“I’ll take Joe,” James Horton chimed in from the front. “He doesn’t play by Marquess of Queensberry rules.”
Ian frowned, noticing the feverish intensity with which Horton watched the fight. Horton’s forebears were quite conservative, and went back generations in the organization. He wouldn’t naturally ally with Joe, unless those rumors about his dating Joe’s sister over the Christmas break were true. Then again, Horton and his family had money to burn on bets, he might have just been amused.
Joe took a blow to the teeth as he delivered a hard shot to Vemas low in the gut, and now the fighters reached a strained stalemate, with Joe backed against a table. They hauled on each other, looking for openings, too close to score hard damage.
The students quieted as Vemas’ sponsor, Jeremiah Todd, elbowed through and surveyed the room. “What do you think your American is doing, Bancroft? He’s completely crossed the line. Stop him.”
“We don’t know what started this,” Ian murmured, though in fact, he highly suspected the row had quite a bit to do with the horrified brunette at the front of the student pack, who had her eyes glued on Joe. English, Ian remembered. A bit more Julie Christie than Diana Rigg. He silently wished the budding young couple a bit of good luck, but had a sinking feeling the lady in question just didn’t have the sand to keep up with Joe.
“If you aren’t going to stop them, I’ll call security,” Todd threatened.
“You know high spirited competition is common among the leading students.” Ian said offhandedly, covering his own concern.
“I’ll have your student up before the board of regents,” Todd added, backing out of the room, presumably to make good on his threat to call security.
“With Jacques front and center as well,” Ian countered. That should slow Todd down. Ian was already casting about for a graceful way to end the fight on all sides before someone fell into the scattered glass. Someone like him, trying to stop two young twits from doing what comes naturally to young twits. While he studied the angles, the fighters broke the stalemate.
Joe grounded all his weight on his left elbow on a lab table and lashed with his right, tagging Vemas hard on the left cheek. As Joe dropped his blocking grip, Vemas sent a high hard left home, opening a cut over Joe’s eye. Both were momentarily stunned. Vemas staggered back, and Joe using the table as support to edge into the far corner of the room.
With his back braced against two walls, prostheses planted, Joe was both immoveable object and unmissable target. Recklessly, he waved an insulting come hither gesture to the hulking Vemas, dashing a bit of blood away from his eye, tucking a long hank of dark hair behind his ear, grinning like a fool. Vemas gathered himself like the bull of Minos, fists clenched, chest expanding as he drew in more air.
Ian stepped forward. “Gentlemen. Ladies. Classes are in session. Anyone still standing in this room in one minute will be spending their first apprenticeship in Greenland. In December.”
The students poured out of the room, including Joe’s erstwhile belle, Laura. Just as Ian thought, fickle sand. Without the audience, Vemas seemed to deflate, his breathing slowing as he put his suit in order. His gaze flicked to Ian, who did not miss the veiled smile of triumph as he stepped toward the door.
Ian grabbed his arm as he passed. “Jacques. You are trained to fight to the bell. I just rang the bell.”
“So?” Vemas’ expression was just short of taunting.
“Joe is trained to fight to the kill. Despite his disadvantages, he was holding back.”
Vemas cast one look back toward Joe, who still stood erect in the corner, inviting another round, and a flicker of doubt crossed his face as he rubbed a bloody knuckle. “He insulted my Latin,” he finally admitted, with a slightly sheepish air of excuse.
“And you insulted his…?” Ian prodded.
“His manhood. In French, of course. His French is execrable. It was just an expression.”
“Apparently Joe has picked up enough French to get the gist,” Ian reproved. “At the moment, you are both in the top five of your class. I suggest it is in your own best career interests to take equal blame for this cockup, and work together in the future. You do not have to like each other, but the Watchers are stronger for peacefully retaining you both. I emphasize peacefully. But I will make Greenland your permanent assignment if you pick another fight.” Ian then pushed Vemas out the door, with just a bit more force than necessary.
Ian then turned to Joe, who was finally relaxing out of a fighting stance and casting around for his cane. Ian stalked forward, trapping Joe in the corner. “That goes for you, too, Joe. Maybe a tour inside the Arctic Circle will cool your temper. You do know that the damage here will be docked out of your pay?”
“Ah, shit, there goes the money for tickets to the Stones. Three nights at the Palais des Sports!” Joe said, with a look of true dismay. Still, he straightened and looked perilously close to saluting in acknowledgment of his responsibility.
“And what is your version of this debacle?” Ian asked, surveying the damage to Joe. The head wound would need stitches, and it seemed he’d chipped a tooth on Vemas’ knuckle. Blood had trickled down into his close-trimmed brown beard. With a grimace of distaste, Ian handed him the freshly starched handkerchief from his suit pocket.
“Vemas pretty much covered it,” Joe said, clearly reluctant to grass on his opponent. “That, and the fact he was snooping in my notes and said I’d need a magic wand to pass the field agent trials. At least, I think that’s what he said. Or it was another French insult. Either way,” Joe shrugged, “I was hacked off, since cars aren’t allowed, and he was rubbing it in.”
“Four-wheeled conveyances aren’t allowed,” Ian corrected. “The rules were laid down in the horse and buggy era, and under the Sun King students then had a nasty habit of carriage racing, maturing into full-blown sabotage of axles, wagon wheels and tack.”
“I if I wanted to fix Vemas’ little red wagon, I wouldn’t need a damn magic wand,” Joe muttered, but his anger was banked, now, and he was listening.
“There’s no such thing as magic wands, Joe. We’re just battling physics, here. You have the bush skills from Vietnam, and the urban instincts from Chicago. The problem is mobility--speed over distance.” Ian didn’t want to offer false hope.
“Tell me something new.” Joe didn’t need to underline his frustration.
“I may, however, have a the modern industrial version of a magic carpet,” Ian offered, calculating some modifications that still needed doing. “Meet me at St. Joseph’s after classes. We’ll review the maps, and make plans. And we’ll also review your finances. This lab is going to cost a pretty penny to clean up.”
“Do I get a bonus on my bonus thesis if I turn it in early?” Joe added casually, with the air of a man pulling an ace on a high straight.
“With footnotes?” Ian asked, incredulous. The Bavarian Chronicle had bedeviled him for a year when Don had assigned it to him during his own student days.
“I’m almost done typing the mimeo. With footnotes. And an index.”
“Teacher’s pet,” Ian chided, failing to contain his pride. “First, you get some stitches. Then you bring the apple to the teacher. Have a copy to me by five post meridian, and if it’s readable, I’ll cover half the lab damage. Don’t make me rue the day,” he warned, handing Joe his cane, and they both tramped out of the destroyed lab, glass crunching under their feet.
1970 4:00 PM
Ian traditionally visited the back row of Darius’ church, St. Josephs, during the quieter portions of the day, pretending to quiet meditation while he tracked Darius’ more arcane visitors. He also had a perch on the second floor across the narrow alley where he could observe movements in the tiny church’s yard at night.
He’d been pleased to record individual visits to Darius’ office by Rebecca and Marcus Constantine in the past, but was now alarmed to find them both attending a small wedding ceremony in the open chapel. A young English couple stood before Darius (what bright, sunny smiles! he noted.) Hovering near the Immortals, an older man in a very odd hat stood in the shadows at the altar. The westering sun angled through the church windows to light on the bride’s simple white dress and the groom’s starched shirt.
Ian began a strategic withdrawal, but Darius himself beckoned him to stay, pointing firmly at his customary seat. “A witness would be most welcome.”
Rebecca pinned Ian with an assessing gaze, and an all-too-knowing smile. “Yes, indeed, Albus insists seven is more propitious, and I agree.” Marcus just cleared his throat, clearly ready to get on with the proceedings.
Out of habit, Ian shot his cuffs to cover his tattoo, but he was almost perfectly ignored from that point on. Still uneasy at his inclusion, but trapped by duty and good manners, he sat and listened through the unconventional union, not daring to take notes but still writing them in his head. Latin, Old French and bits of phrases from the Age of Aquarius were interleaved through the oratories in an unexpectedly pleasing manner.
Surprisingly, (or perhaps it was not so much surprising as previously unchronicled) Darius tolerated some truly pagan touches in the ceremony. At various points and pauses, the man in the odd hat madly waved a long splinter of dry old wood with Druidic fervor. Rebecca contributed a shockingly phallic charm to the groom, three old silver shillings to the bride, and a stirrup cup for both that shed some very odd golden fumes. Ian could have sworn the chalice almost sparkled in the light of the setting sun.
Ian concentrated on being as unremarkable as possible as the bride and groom proceeded out of the church, but could not refuse as Rebecca offered a sip of the stirrup cup as she swept by. The contents did sparkle, as mischievously as Rebecca’s smile. Ian took his courage in hand and swallowed. It was a finely fermented honey mead, shot through with a more secretive liquor that made his lips tingle. Quite good, really, in his opinion.
Joe picked just that moment to open the front door of the church, coming face to face with the bride and groom, flanked by Darius and Rebecca. Startled, Joe politely held the door and eased out of the way of the party. But Rebecca lingered, holding up the bride, assessing Joe with a critical eye, from the sagging student sweater to the scuffed tip of his cane. She did not miss the recent signs of battle, the newly stitched forehead, blackening eye, and chipped tooth. Joe really looked quite villainous.
“A most suitable candidate,” Marcus Constantine rumbled, in Roman irony, speaking for the first time that afternoon. Joe snapped to attention at the tone, dropping his book bag and nearly tipping over in the process.
“Yes, most suitable, indeed,” Rebecca decided, receiving nods of agreement from Darius and the Druid, or whatever he was. “Give him one of your shillings, Mrs. Granger,” she urged. The bride, who’s full attention was concentrated on the groom, absently complied. “Splendid. Now off to the honeymoon, dear. The skiing should still be quite fine in Courcheval. Spend the equinox in the sun. The rest will follow quite naturally.” She waved the couple off to their waiting limousine.
Ian froze as Rebecca turned and focussed on Joe’s scattered book bag. The old chronicle had tumbled free, loosing a thick stack of mimeographed paper that had been tucked in the flyleaf. “Have care with that book, young man,” she warned. “It is not as innocent it seems.”
“No one is,” Marcus frowned. “Really, Darius. You’re too trusting. You need to clean house,” he sniffed, with an ever so sideways glance at Ian that made his blood run cold.
“We must plan for the future, and that includes some little sacrifices to tradition start now,” Darius said, exchanging glances with the Aquarian Druid. “Rebecca has just the trick for the short term, I think. But in the long game, times change.”
“Don’t teach your Teacher how to suck eggs, you barbarian upstart,” Marcus warned under his breath as they re-entered the church.
Ian and Joe bumped heads in their haste to gather up the thesis before the rising spring breeze blew it away. Ian didn’t release his pent up breath until the two were well away, the book stuffed safely in the bottom of the bag, swaddled by loose pages of the thesis. “That was quite awkward,” he muttered.
“Who the hell was that with Darius?” Joe asked, confused and intrigued in equal measure as Ian dragged him around the corner into the alley.
“Never you mind. We need to get the book back to Donald, and you through the academy with a proper tattoo and oath before we get into Elder chronicles. You have the devil’s luck, you know that, Joe?”
“So people say,” Joe agreed, not particularly cheered by the two-edged observation. “Why did you want to meet me here, anyway?”
“The Field Agent trials are coming up, Joe. You can skip them if you want to concentrate on just research,” Ian said, reorienting his priorities. Joe kept looking back over his shoulder, but the wedding party was fading from Ian’s mind as he focused on Joe’s more imminent challenge.
“No way I’m quitting. I want field pay. Even if I have to hike half of Paris to get it.”
“Some have. There are five stations in the field trials, and some are quite far apart. You need speed, flexibility, anonymity… ,” Ian said, his tutorial voice creeping up on him “...and a little touch of magic.”
“Den Zauberstab schwingen?” Joe asked, a mulish glint in his eye. “I didn’t think you believed in magic wands.”
“Oh ye of little faith. Remember, I promised you a bonus on delivery of your thesis,” Ian laughed, pointing down the alley at a dusty olive colored sidecar motorcycle.
“Goddam. That’s an Indian.” Joe approached reverently. “Excuse my French,” he added absently. “And a Rocket sidecar. That’s beautiful, man. Just beautiful.”
“My father liberated it from the American Army during World War II,” Ian boasted, just a little. “He needed something that was speedy, flexible, and relatively anonymous. Of course, there were a few more sidecars to choose from back then.”
“And a lot more Indians. This is a collector's item. And under the rules, I can’t…” Joe was about to protest, with genuine regret, when a light dawned, and he walked forward to touch the front wheel. “It’s not a four-wheeled conveyance.”
“Indeed. There are only three wheels--Den Zauberteppich, apprentice mine. Your magic carpet. I’ve actually had admiring drivers get out of my way in traffic. In Paris. Astounding.”
“Seriously?” Joe lovingly ran his hand over the cowling and along the handlebars. “I haven’t ridden a bike since enlistment. This is...amazing.”
Ian formally handed over the keys, then carefully folded himself into the bullet-shaped sidecar, doing quite well at hiding his trepidation, he thought. “My own mentor, Donald, held it in trust for me after my father’s death. You’ve met him at Shakespeare and Company. He rode it when he was a student. I had my own Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride during my own field test. Now it’s your turn.”
“Seriously...” Joe repeated again, clearly overwhelmed. But not so whelmed that he didn’t lift his prosthetic over the saddle to settle on the seat. He found two leather thongs Ian had scavenged from an old pair of skis, and used them to anchor his artificial feet to the pegs. “Outstanding.”
“The Watchers are old, Joe. We have old traditions. Weapons and tools are meant to be handed not just from father to son, but from mentor to student, master to apprentice, Knight to Squire.”
“You gotta love it,” Joe laughed, turning the key.
“Now, drive me to Shakespeare and Company, Squire,” Ian directed sternly. “We have some maps to memorize. By the end of this night, you will know every alley in Paris. No matter where the proctors set the challenges, you’ll have access and transportation. Keep some jackets for quick changes in the sidecar, add a helmet, goggles, blend in traffic. It will be up to you to keep up with the finalists.”
“They’ll have to keep up with me,” Joe promised, joyously cranking the engine and tweaked the throttle, easing the bike into gear, then revving the hand throttle. “Born to be wild, Sir Knight!” Joe’s laugh blended with the bike’s roar.
“Quietly, Joe,” Ian squeezed the bridge of his nose in mock despair. “Like a churchmouse.” He gestured toward the gate leading St. Joseph’s as Joe slowed at the intersection, resisting the urge to wave to Darius, who still lurked in the chapel doorway, watching (a bit wistfully, Ian thought).
“Say, what was that wedding all about?” Joe asked as he pulled out. Grinning, with his hair tucked behind his ears and streaming behind in the breeze, he even had the temerity to salute one of the oldest living Immortals as they passed.
“Cheeky bastard,” Ian accused, hunting for a grip as they leaned into a turn. “I’m going to live to regret this, aren’t I?”
“ ‘If six was nine’, ” was Joe sang over the wind of their passage, being deliberately oblique.
“Jimi Hendrix quotes are not accepted standard responses in the Watcher code book, Squire Joe,” Ian said sternly. “Especially subversive ones.”
“They will be when I’m through,” Joe promised, as they stopped for traffic.
“Fly your freak flag on your own time. And look out for that lorry.”
Joe began to wake to the realities of Paris traffic, and slowed down. True to nature, he pressed his original question fourfold. Joe always had more far more queries than Ian had answers, when given the opportunity to question authority. “Whose wedding was that? Someone you know? It was almost like maid of honor recognized the stamp on the Chronicle. Was she a Watcher?”
“Hm?” Ian looked up from checking for oncoming traffic at the next light. He realized that he had lost the thread of the conversation, and that Joe was looking at him quite strangely. He licked his lips. They tingled, and tasted of sweet Yule mead. When did he have honey, today?
“Who got married at the wedding today?” Joe repeated, rather more slowly than was called for.
“What wedding?”
On to part two
Author: On the Qui Vive
Real Author Name: mackiedockie
Written for: morgynleri_fic
Crossover: Highlander, Harry Potter
Characters/Pairings: Joe Dawson, Ian Bancroft, Darius, Rebecca, Marcus Constantine, Silas, the Family Granger
Rating: Gen
Author's Notes: A slightly altered reality, set mostly in the past. Highlander veers, just a bit, into the Potterverse. Overlapping dates scrounged from various wikis around the net, with dubious accuracy. All malfeasances in text and manglings in non-English languages are mine. My beta deserves combat pay, and consideration for the Watcher version of the Croix de Guerre.
Summary: Darius and Joe Dawson weren’t precisely strangers, though they each took great pains to never precisely meet. Still, both had a weakness for books, and Shakespeare and Company lay just a short jaunt around the corner from the church. Friends will visit. Accidents will happen. And Darius had a reputation for making chess moves far more than one step ahead of the Game.
1969
“Stone free… ” Joe sang Jimi Hendrix the day the final paperwork arrived mustering him out of the Marines. With time to burn before his bus left for Chicago that evening, he made the familiar rounds of the halls of the Philadelphia Naval Hospital, saying farewell to fellow patients and harassing his favorite nurses just one last time. Now that it was time to go for good, he put on a fresh t-shirt and pulled his old high school letter jacket, the one his sister had mailed from home. It hung loose, after all the operations and fittings and endless rehab.
“Stone free, do what I please…” Joe sang out as he shouldered his guitar and ducked the nurse with his wheelchair, making one last trip down the stairs, just to show off. He was going to miss the acoustics in the hospital stairwell. He’d spent many a hurting night there with his guitar, self-medicating with the blues.
“Feel my heart kind of runnin' hot…” No more barracking in Navy hospitals. No more stump runs with fellow amputees in the park. No more ducking into the chapel after lights out to study for Ian Bancroft’s history quizzes by candlelight, in hopes of racking up some college credit. He rubbed his chin, celebrating a scratchy stubble.
No more shaving, he resolved. Grow a beard for a month, and the protesters back home would leave him alone. Maybe he wouldn’t feel like sneaking into the back door of his own house. His Labor Day leave with a fresh haircut in uniform had been a disaster on all fronts. All beards being equal, he’d rather the cops ended up rousting him as a hippie freak. “That's when I've got to move, before I get caught…”
At the end of it, he didn’t need a beard. He needed a job. If he wanted to go back to college, much less help out his mother, filthy lucre was required. Even with the G.I. Bill, it was better to put college off and make sure his sister got her degree first. He’d done the dismal math, the Bill would barely cover books and fees without even touching tuition at Chicago State. And that meant sponging at home for bed and board.
“Got to Got to Got to Get away…” Joe toned the lyrics down to a whisper as he checked out the few effects he hadn’t mailed home. He piled his bag, cane and guitar on his much loathed but essential wheelchair, and made his way to the bus stop. He kept time as he pushed along, his gait stilted and sharply measured even after long months of relearning how to walk. It wouldn’t do to fall down on the job now, within sight of the rest of his buddies still inside. He’d never hear the end of it.
As the bus pulled up, he hoisted his duffle on his shoulder so the chair could be folded, and he teetered, grabbing for his cane. The bag was lighter without the uniform and boots, but his books and holstered personal weapon still added to the swing weight.
He jammed his cane down to steady himself, as pain shot up the short stump and down the long one, snarling into the unforgiving plastic prosthetic cups. Thinking too much about the pain, he lost the lyric.
“Stone free, dammit,” he muttered as he overcorrected.
A stranger dressed like a college professor reached out to steady the swaying bag before it swung him out into cross traffic. He stiffened, and got the prostheses back under his top-heavy center of gravity. Passersby usually ignored him, used to just one more wandering vet near the port. They didn’t get too close. They didn’t reach out. Not here in Philadelphia. Not in sweet home Chicago, either. They’d spit on his newly shined Marine-issue shoes in Chicago.
The stranger stepped back, but didn’t pass by. “Hey, Joe.”
“Wrong Hendrix song,” Joe snapped, embarrassed and angry at his loss of balance. It seemed he was always close to angry, these days. “Sorry. Do I know you?” he checked his tone. He wasn’t particularly sorry at all, but his mother had asked him to work on his temper. It was worth a try. For her sake.
“Ian Bancroft. Former 3rd Commando Brigade. We met in-country.” Tweed. The guy was actually wearing tweed. The English accent matched, warp and weft. There was even an old leatherbound book weighing down his side pocket.
Joe knew the voice, now, but the costume seemed so outlandish that Joe squinted at him sideways for longer than was polite. He had to dredge deep to bring up a fever-fractured memory of a man in a starched, clean uniform, bending over his cot in post-op. “Thien Duc? Or was it Ton Son Nhut?”
“Both. I caught up with you at the casualty staging area. I promised I’d see you off on the Starlifter home, and I did, but I don’t blame you if you don’t remember.” Ian’s eyes were clear, concerned, patient. “I also promised that I’d look you up when you got out.”
“The secret squirrel Watcher himself,” Joe straightened, a grin cracking his wary defenses. He shifted his cane to hold out his right hand. Ian didn’t hold back, and Joe matched his strong grip, and more, earning a look of pleased surprise. Impulsively, Joe drew Ian into a bear hug, laughing as the Englishman’s expression shifted from surprise to embarrassment.
“Sorry, man. Had to make sure you were real,” Joe apologized, still grinning as he straightened Ian’s suit. “There were a lot of days I thought I dreamed you. Cord, too. If it weren’t for all the books you kept sending round, and all those essays and damn pop quizzes, I’d have gone around the bend altogether. How’d you keep finding me? I must have hopscotched through four hospitals.”
“You’d be surprised where we Watchers reach, Joe. Marine military files, now, they’re easy. Nice and hierarchical and all in triplicate. I must say, I was pleasantly entertained by your essays. Your grasp of written English is excellent, for an American. And your German was quite grammatical.”
“Tell that to my parochial school teachers. Brother Francis will just laugh,” Joe didn’t even mind the backhanded compliment. Much.
“He did,” Ian acknowledged dryly.
“Okay, that’s just wrong,” Joe protested. “You went to my high school?”
“Record. Observe. Research references. It’s what we do, Joe. And you did get paid,” Ian gently reminded.
Joe had to admit to himself the stipend for the quizzes helped cover expenses when the family visited. He even had enough left over for a couple of beer runs with the boys in rehab. Belatedly, it occurred to Joe that he might have incurred more debt than he’d realized. “What do I really owe you, anyway?”
“The Watchers like to track their investments, Joe,” Ian shrugged it off. “We’re speculating, in your future, and in ours. By signing the waivers, we could keep track of you. We could even improve on our investment through the correspondence courses. Moreover, you had more motive to stay quiet about Cord. The Watchers have a long view, and deep pockets.”
Joe wasn’t sure he was all that pleased by Ian’s candid assessment, but it was his own fault for not reading the fine print, even if he had been on major drugs when he signed on. Now he had to do some quiet figuring on a brand new mustering out plan, if the job turned out to be some sort of weird charitable bureaucratic dead end.
First, he had to gather more intelligence. He elected a direct assault. “If you Watchers had that kind of high echelon juice to pull my records, I’m surprised you didn’t fly yourself right out of that damn war.”
“I should have. Eventually, I did,” Ian said bleakly. He examined Joe closely as he added, “But the Watchers wanted me to verify your story about Cord. He became my assignment soon after I met you and heard your action report. From then on, I had a duty to try to follow him as long as I could.”
“Where did he go?” Joe kept the question this side of a demand.
“Found him in Thailand. Lost him in Laos. Long story. We’ll need a few pints,” Ian hinted, as the bus driver, ready to leave, honked at the lingering pair. “And I have a car.”
Joe only hesitated for a heartbeat. He’d only muster out once. Chicago would still be there tomorrow. “Amazingly, I know how to get to a bar.”
“I knew I had spotted observational talent the first time I met you,” Ian congratulated himself, offering an exaggerated bow. “Lead on, MacDuff.”
Ian loaded the chair and bag in the capacious trunk of an LTD. The guitar got the back seat, braced next to Ian’s satchel. They ended up at a neighborly Irish dive Joe favored, with a decent jukebox and Guinness on tap.
Joe insisted on buying the first round, tapping his mustering out cash. “Looks like you’ve done well for yourself, Mr. Bancroft. Or should I call you Sergeant?”
“Just Ian, please. I left the service last summer.”
“Natty threads. Decent pay, this Watching gig?” Joe fished, easing his weight off onto a bar stool.
“It’s steady, but entry salary is a pittance. Room and board included, though.”
“Worked for the company long?”
“Ten years,” Ian said proudly.
“You’re kidding. You’re just a couple of years older than I am. What were you, thirteen?”
“I served my first apprentice watch on my fourteenth birthday.” Ian leaned closer. “My forefathers have been Watchers for over ten generations.”
“Okay. I’m officially impressed,” Joe admitted. He wasn’t sure his family even knew how to read, ten generations back. “So, you get to travel a lot?”
“The company pays expenses,” Ian answered, reading Joe’s mind. “Don’t get me wrong. It’s not always beer and…” Ian held up a bar snack and squinted. “...pretzels. The hours are long, and one or two of the rules are a bit draconian, I promise.”
“You promised a lot of things in Ton Son Nhut, if I remember right. An education. A job. A free ride to Europe! Paris in the spring! A Roman holiday!” Joe grinned at the enormity of the joke. It was on him, but the fantasy had helped when the meds had him down.
“Lyons, in the rains of October,” Ian corrected with grand English reserve. “And Geneva, in the dead of winter. But they do hold final trials in Paris in the spring. That’s why I’m here, Joe. Classes at the Academy start next week.” Ian handed him an embossed envelope. “If you’re interested in enrolling, we could leave tomorrow. I could use your company.”
“Why me? I saw a lot of crazy things, overseas. Maybe I was a lot of crazy, coming back. Maybe I still am.” Joe figured he owed Ian fair warning. And he still didn’t quite believe the offer was real.
Ian gazed out the bar window to the crowded street, not seeing a soul. “So did I, Joe. Crazy was sane, compared to the war.” He met Joe’s look of disbelief squarely. “Laos, for instance. I met a Watcher on the other side. An ardent Communist. I almost shot him. Then I saw the Watcher tattoo. And I didn’t. We’d been classmates, once, I realized.”
Ian took a deep draft of Guinness, and continued. “We were fellow Watchers, and we didn’t shoot each other over some damn war nobody will care about in ten years. We sat down and got drunk and had a big laugh about that. He saw Cord heading for Cambodia. That was the last anyone heard of him.”
“C’mon, tell a few more tall tales. I’m still buying.” Joe heard the honest pain in Ian’s voice, even if the story was still too sketchy. He figured he owed Ian a beer or thirty for his off the wall correspondence course all by itself. Like clockwork over the last year a platoon of unlikely and outrageous history books had mysteriously made their way to his bedside, with lesson plans, story problems, and even crib notes. The books had taken his mind off rehab, no small boon, whatever Ians’ scam.
Noticing the locals had moved away down the bar as they talked, Joe motioned for another round, Quietly, he recommended, “By the way, you’ll want to tone down the accent. While it might be Philadelphia, this is an Irish bar, and some of the customers still hold a grudge about the Brits in the old country.”
Ian smiled, the beer taking the edge off his reserve. He pitched his voice for their ears only, saying, “That’s one of the things I liked about the notes on your files, Joe. You take care of your friends.”
“You know that Nina Simone song? ‘I ain’t got no friends,'" Joe crooned. “Hell, my own unit left me behind in Thien Duc.” Joe lifted his glass, grinning, and toasted Ian to cover the sting of the words. “Cord and present company excepted.”
“That’s the truth of the past, Joe. Present company is looking to the future.” Ian didn’t sound at all fooled by Joe’s ironic bonhomie. “You know, you’ve got a good voice, even if I don’t agree with the tune. I’m more of a “Down by the Riverside” kind of guy. I really don’t want to study war no more.”
“Yeah, I know that old gospel tune.” By heart.
“There’s a little church, St. Joseph’s, in France, down by the Seine. Medieval acoustics. You’d sound good, there. Darius likes that song.”
“Who’s Darius?” Joe did justice to his draft as he listened.
“Darius is my next assignment. I’m a full-fledged Chronicle keeper, now, Joe. And I get to pick a research apprentice. I want you for the job, when you graduate.”
“Graduate from what, precisely? With a degree in what?” Joe asked, still wary.
“Watcher Academy. In France,” Ian reminded. “I’m your sponsor. Your mentor, as it were.”
“I can get $130 a month to go to school right here in the U. S. of A. on the GI Bill,” Joe countered, assuming his poker playing face. “And the VA is supposed to kick in disability.” Someday. Joe was still waiting.
Ian winced. “Chickenfeed, as you Americans say. $500 a month base pay in greenback dollars, room and board and rough living expenses. I won’t shine it up for you--you’ll be an outsider, and the students born to Watcher clans will trample anyone in their way to get a first in class.”
Joe’s poker face lasted all of five seconds. It looked pretty shiny to him. “Hell, 500 a month is more than twice what I made as an active Marine. If the kiddies in Geneva aren’t laying bouncing betties, I figure I can handle them.” But he wasn’t completely gulled. “Europe. That’s expensive. Planes, trains,” Joe trailed off. Wheelchairs. Just travelling to Chicago was a pain in the ass with the wheelchair. What the hell was he going to run into in Geneva? Cobblestones? Castles?
Taking advantage of Joe’s pause for thought, Ian slid a book out of his pocket and placed it on the bar. The faded leather cover was soft and furry with age. “There is even a signing bonus in it for you if you turn in a thesis on this chronicle for graduation.”
“A thesis? I’m not a college graduate. I wrote you a bunch of glorified book reports.”
“I beg to differ. But my opinion doesn’t matter. You’ve graduated from being a kid. This is a project for a grown man.” Ian slowly slid the age-frittered book across the bar next to Joe’s hand. “The only real standards that matter from now on are your own.”
Joe caressed the cover of the book. “What’s it about?”
“A Scotsman. Green, wide-eyed, on his first grand tour of 17th century Europe.”
“Who wrote it?”
“A German baker’s boy, just as green, barely lettered in High German and Church Latin. He had the fortune, or misfortune, to see the Scotsman duel a Bavarian burgher, and lived to tell the tale. Reveled in it, as a matter of fact. A wordy lad, terribly gullible about magic spells and other rubbish, but marvelously lucky.”
Joe carefully traced a raised stamp on the cover. “It looks just like your tattoo.” He flipped open the book, raising both eyebrows at a chapter header. “Den Zauberstab schwingen?” He peered at the text, not sure if he was reading the ancient font correctly.
“Hm. Well. There’s some controversy over whether the watcher meant ‘magic wand’ as a metaphor or a flight of fancy. Donald, my own mentor, tended to a certain...latitude in interpretation. Personally? I found much of it gibberish.”
“I don’t know…,” Joe temporized, but his finger caressed the worn spine, respecting its survival despite age and fragility.
“Scared, Joe?” Ian challenged, turning his wrist over and matching his own Watcher brand to the cover of book. “You’ve already earned the tattoo by living through your first encounter with an Immortal, and protecting the secret. Nevertheless, the traditionalists do insist on Academy training. Just one year of study, while you sample French baguettes and Swiss cheese, read German books and flirt with English coeds. That’s what you Americans call female students, isn’t it? Co-eds? How terrifyingly dismissive. But if you don’t feel up to it...”
Joe’s temper flared, burning away the last logical reservations. “You’re on, buddy.” He tucked the book inside his letter jacket and ordered another round to cement the deal before Ian could take it back. “Co-eds? English hot, like Julie Christie? Or English cool, like Diana Rigg? Tell me more.”
The night bus to Chicago left without Joe Dawson on board. He was three chapters into the Chronicle, furiously taking notes, by the time they landed in Frankfurt. He was also an unending font of questions. “Is a poniard as long as a K-Bar?”
“Time to pack the book away, Joe. Save it for later.” Ian reminded him with stretched patience, as the plane taxied to the terminal. “We’ve got customs to go through, yet.”
Joe looked up, exhausted, excited, unquenched. “Just one more question, Ian. Last one. Honest.”
Ian sighed. “Just. One. More.”
“What’s a horcrux?”
1970, 11:00 AM
Ian Bancroft reached the Forensics Lab just as an Erlenmeyer flask shattered, scattering glass out into the hall, making the knot of onlooking Watchers and students jump back. Ian stalked in through the gap, pausing only to appreciate the awesome extent of the damage.
Joe Dawson grappled with Jacque Vemas, holding him close for balance, and using every dirty trick in the Marine handbook to bring the larger student down. Joe’s short ponytail bobbed as he tried a head butt, followed by a textbook judo twist, but Joe lacked the lower body leverage to complete the move. Vemas landed two short, vicious blows inside, using his body weight to drive Joe back into another rack of lab equipment. More glass tubes crashed to the ground.
“A fiver on Vemas,” he heard young Shapiro call from the back. “He’s a Golden Gloves boxer.”
“I’ll take Joe,” James Horton chimed in from the front. “He doesn’t play by Marquess of Queensberry rules.”
Ian frowned, noticing the feverish intensity with which Horton watched the fight. Horton’s forebears were quite conservative, and went back generations in the organization. He wouldn’t naturally ally with Joe, unless those rumors about his dating Joe’s sister over the Christmas break were true. Then again, Horton and his family had money to burn on bets, he might have just been amused.
Joe took a blow to the teeth as he delivered a hard shot to Vemas low in the gut, and now the fighters reached a strained stalemate, with Joe backed against a table. They hauled on each other, looking for openings, too close to score hard damage.
The students quieted as Vemas’ sponsor, Jeremiah Todd, elbowed through and surveyed the room. “What do you think your American is doing, Bancroft? He’s completely crossed the line. Stop him.”
“We don’t know what started this,” Ian murmured, though in fact, he highly suspected the row had quite a bit to do with the horrified brunette at the front of the student pack, who had her eyes glued on Joe. English, Ian remembered. A bit more Julie Christie than Diana Rigg. He silently wished the budding young couple a bit of good luck, but had a sinking feeling the lady in question just didn’t have the sand to keep up with Joe.
“If you aren’t going to stop them, I’ll call security,” Todd threatened.
“You know high spirited competition is common among the leading students.” Ian said offhandedly, covering his own concern.
“I’ll have your student up before the board of regents,” Todd added, backing out of the room, presumably to make good on his threat to call security.
“With Jacques front and center as well,” Ian countered. That should slow Todd down. Ian was already casting about for a graceful way to end the fight on all sides before someone fell into the scattered glass. Someone like him, trying to stop two young twits from doing what comes naturally to young twits. While he studied the angles, the fighters broke the stalemate.
Joe grounded all his weight on his left elbow on a lab table and lashed with his right, tagging Vemas hard on the left cheek. As Joe dropped his blocking grip, Vemas sent a high hard left home, opening a cut over Joe’s eye. Both were momentarily stunned. Vemas staggered back, and Joe using the table as support to edge into the far corner of the room.
With his back braced against two walls, prostheses planted, Joe was both immoveable object and unmissable target. Recklessly, he waved an insulting come hither gesture to the hulking Vemas, dashing a bit of blood away from his eye, tucking a long hank of dark hair behind his ear, grinning like a fool. Vemas gathered himself like the bull of Minos, fists clenched, chest expanding as he drew in more air.
Ian stepped forward. “Gentlemen. Ladies. Classes are in session. Anyone still standing in this room in one minute will be spending their first apprenticeship in Greenland. In December.”
The students poured out of the room, including Joe’s erstwhile belle, Laura. Just as Ian thought, fickle sand. Without the audience, Vemas seemed to deflate, his breathing slowing as he put his suit in order. His gaze flicked to Ian, who did not miss the veiled smile of triumph as he stepped toward the door.
Ian grabbed his arm as he passed. “Jacques. You are trained to fight to the bell. I just rang the bell.”
“So?” Vemas’ expression was just short of taunting.
“Joe is trained to fight to the kill. Despite his disadvantages, he was holding back.”
Vemas cast one look back toward Joe, who still stood erect in the corner, inviting another round, and a flicker of doubt crossed his face as he rubbed a bloody knuckle. “He insulted my Latin,” he finally admitted, with a slightly sheepish air of excuse.
“And you insulted his…?” Ian prodded.
“His manhood. In French, of course. His French is execrable. It was just an expression.”
“Apparently Joe has picked up enough French to get the gist,” Ian reproved. “At the moment, you are both in the top five of your class. I suggest it is in your own best career interests to take equal blame for this cockup, and work together in the future. You do not have to like each other, but the Watchers are stronger for peacefully retaining you both. I emphasize peacefully. But I will make Greenland your permanent assignment if you pick another fight.” Ian then pushed Vemas out the door, with just a bit more force than necessary.
Ian then turned to Joe, who was finally relaxing out of a fighting stance and casting around for his cane. Ian stalked forward, trapping Joe in the corner. “That goes for you, too, Joe. Maybe a tour inside the Arctic Circle will cool your temper. You do know that the damage here will be docked out of your pay?”
“Ah, shit, there goes the money for tickets to the Stones. Three nights at the Palais des Sports!” Joe said, with a look of true dismay. Still, he straightened and looked perilously close to saluting in acknowledgment of his responsibility.
“And what is your version of this debacle?” Ian asked, surveying the damage to Joe. The head wound would need stitches, and it seemed he’d chipped a tooth on Vemas’ knuckle. Blood had trickled down into his close-trimmed brown beard. With a grimace of distaste, Ian handed him the freshly starched handkerchief from his suit pocket.
“Vemas pretty much covered it,” Joe said, clearly reluctant to grass on his opponent. “That, and the fact he was snooping in my notes and said I’d need a magic wand to pass the field agent trials. At least, I think that’s what he said. Or it was another French insult. Either way,” Joe shrugged, “I was hacked off, since cars aren’t allowed, and he was rubbing it in.”
“Four-wheeled conveyances aren’t allowed,” Ian corrected. “The rules were laid down in the horse and buggy era, and under the Sun King students then had a nasty habit of carriage racing, maturing into full-blown sabotage of axles, wagon wheels and tack.”
“I if I wanted to fix Vemas’ little red wagon, I wouldn’t need a damn magic wand,” Joe muttered, but his anger was banked, now, and he was listening.
“There’s no such thing as magic wands, Joe. We’re just battling physics, here. You have the bush skills from Vietnam, and the urban instincts from Chicago. The problem is mobility--speed over distance.” Ian didn’t want to offer false hope.
“Tell me something new.” Joe didn’t need to underline his frustration.
“I may, however, have a the modern industrial version of a magic carpet,” Ian offered, calculating some modifications that still needed doing. “Meet me at St. Joseph’s after classes. We’ll review the maps, and make plans. And we’ll also review your finances. This lab is going to cost a pretty penny to clean up.”
“Do I get a bonus on my bonus thesis if I turn it in early?” Joe added casually, with the air of a man pulling an ace on a high straight.
“With footnotes?” Ian asked, incredulous. The Bavarian Chronicle had bedeviled him for a year when Don had assigned it to him during his own student days.
“I’m almost done typing the mimeo. With footnotes. And an index.”
“Teacher’s pet,” Ian chided, failing to contain his pride. “First, you get some stitches. Then you bring the apple to the teacher. Have a copy to me by five post meridian, and if it’s readable, I’ll cover half the lab damage. Don’t make me rue the day,” he warned, handing Joe his cane, and they both tramped out of the destroyed lab, glass crunching under their feet.
1970 4:00 PM
Ian traditionally visited the back row of Darius’ church, St. Josephs, during the quieter portions of the day, pretending to quiet meditation while he tracked Darius’ more arcane visitors. He also had a perch on the second floor across the narrow alley where he could observe movements in the tiny church’s yard at night.
He’d been pleased to record individual visits to Darius’ office by Rebecca and Marcus Constantine in the past, but was now alarmed to find them both attending a small wedding ceremony in the open chapel. A young English couple stood before Darius (what bright, sunny smiles! he noted.) Hovering near the Immortals, an older man in a very odd hat stood in the shadows at the altar. The westering sun angled through the church windows to light on the bride’s simple white dress and the groom’s starched shirt.
Ian began a strategic withdrawal, but Darius himself beckoned him to stay, pointing firmly at his customary seat. “A witness would be most welcome.”
Rebecca pinned Ian with an assessing gaze, and an all-too-knowing smile. “Yes, indeed, Albus insists seven is more propitious, and I agree.” Marcus just cleared his throat, clearly ready to get on with the proceedings.
Out of habit, Ian shot his cuffs to cover his tattoo, but he was almost perfectly ignored from that point on. Still uneasy at his inclusion, but trapped by duty and good manners, he sat and listened through the unconventional union, not daring to take notes but still writing them in his head. Latin, Old French and bits of phrases from the Age of Aquarius were interleaved through the oratories in an unexpectedly pleasing manner.
Surprisingly, (or perhaps it was not so much surprising as previously unchronicled) Darius tolerated some truly pagan touches in the ceremony. At various points and pauses, the man in the odd hat madly waved a long splinter of dry old wood with Druidic fervor. Rebecca contributed a shockingly phallic charm to the groom, three old silver shillings to the bride, and a stirrup cup for both that shed some very odd golden fumes. Ian could have sworn the chalice almost sparkled in the light of the setting sun.
Ian concentrated on being as unremarkable as possible as the bride and groom proceeded out of the church, but could not refuse as Rebecca offered a sip of the stirrup cup as she swept by. The contents did sparkle, as mischievously as Rebecca’s smile. Ian took his courage in hand and swallowed. It was a finely fermented honey mead, shot through with a more secretive liquor that made his lips tingle. Quite good, really, in his opinion.
Joe picked just that moment to open the front door of the church, coming face to face with the bride and groom, flanked by Darius and Rebecca. Startled, Joe politely held the door and eased out of the way of the party. But Rebecca lingered, holding up the bride, assessing Joe with a critical eye, from the sagging student sweater to the scuffed tip of his cane. She did not miss the recent signs of battle, the newly stitched forehead, blackening eye, and chipped tooth. Joe really looked quite villainous.
“A most suitable candidate,” Marcus Constantine rumbled, in Roman irony, speaking for the first time that afternoon. Joe snapped to attention at the tone, dropping his book bag and nearly tipping over in the process.
“Yes, most suitable, indeed,” Rebecca decided, receiving nods of agreement from Darius and the Druid, or whatever he was. “Give him one of your shillings, Mrs. Granger,” she urged. The bride, who’s full attention was concentrated on the groom, absently complied. “Splendid. Now off to the honeymoon, dear. The skiing should still be quite fine in Courcheval. Spend the equinox in the sun. The rest will follow quite naturally.” She waved the couple off to their waiting limousine.
Ian froze as Rebecca turned and focussed on Joe’s scattered book bag. The old chronicle had tumbled free, loosing a thick stack of mimeographed paper that had been tucked in the flyleaf. “Have care with that book, young man,” she warned. “It is not as innocent it seems.”
“No one is,” Marcus frowned. “Really, Darius. You’re too trusting. You need to clean house,” he sniffed, with an ever so sideways glance at Ian that made his blood run cold.
“We must plan for the future, and that includes some little sacrifices to tradition start now,” Darius said, exchanging glances with the Aquarian Druid. “Rebecca has just the trick for the short term, I think. But in the long game, times change.”
“Don’t teach your Teacher how to suck eggs, you barbarian upstart,” Marcus warned under his breath as they re-entered the church.
Ian and Joe bumped heads in their haste to gather up the thesis before the rising spring breeze blew it away. Ian didn’t release his pent up breath until the two were well away, the book stuffed safely in the bottom of the bag, swaddled by loose pages of the thesis. “That was quite awkward,” he muttered.
“Who the hell was that with Darius?” Joe asked, confused and intrigued in equal measure as Ian dragged him around the corner into the alley.
“Never you mind. We need to get the book back to Donald, and you through the academy with a proper tattoo and oath before we get into Elder chronicles. You have the devil’s luck, you know that, Joe?”
“So people say,” Joe agreed, not particularly cheered by the two-edged observation. “Why did you want to meet me here, anyway?”
“The Field Agent trials are coming up, Joe. You can skip them if you want to concentrate on just research,” Ian said, reorienting his priorities. Joe kept looking back over his shoulder, but the wedding party was fading from Ian’s mind as he focused on Joe’s more imminent challenge.
“No way I’m quitting. I want field pay. Even if I have to hike half of Paris to get it.”
“Some have. There are five stations in the field trials, and some are quite far apart. You need speed, flexibility, anonymity… ,” Ian said, his tutorial voice creeping up on him “...and a little touch of magic.”
“Den Zauberstab schwingen?” Joe asked, a mulish glint in his eye. “I didn’t think you believed in magic wands.”
“Oh ye of little faith. Remember, I promised you a bonus on delivery of your thesis,” Ian laughed, pointing down the alley at a dusty olive colored sidecar motorcycle.
“Goddam. That’s an Indian.” Joe approached reverently. “Excuse my French,” he added absently. “And a Rocket sidecar. That’s beautiful, man. Just beautiful.”
“My father liberated it from the American Army during World War II,” Ian boasted, just a little. “He needed something that was speedy, flexible, and relatively anonymous. Of course, there were a few more sidecars to choose from back then.”
“And a lot more Indians. This is a collector's item. And under the rules, I can’t…” Joe was about to protest, with genuine regret, when a light dawned, and he walked forward to touch the front wheel. “It’s not a four-wheeled conveyance.”
“Indeed. There are only three wheels--Den Zauberteppich, apprentice mine. Your magic carpet. I’ve actually had admiring drivers get out of my way in traffic. In Paris. Astounding.”
“Seriously?” Joe lovingly ran his hand over the cowling and along the handlebars. “I haven’t ridden a bike since enlistment. This is...amazing.”
Ian formally handed over the keys, then carefully folded himself into the bullet-shaped sidecar, doing quite well at hiding his trepidation, he thought. “My own mentor, Donald, held it in trust for me after my father’s death. You’ve met him at Shakespeare and Company. He rode it when he was a student. I had my own Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride during my own field test. Now it’s your turn.”
“Seriously...” Joe repeated again, clearly overwhelmed. But not so whelmed that he didn’t lift his prosthetic over the saddle to settle on the seat. He found two leather thongs Ian had scavenged from an old pair of skis, and used them to anchor his artificial feet to the pegs. “Outstanding.”
“The Watchers are old, Joe. We have old traditions. Weapons and tools are meant to be handed not just from father to son, but from mentor to student, master to apprentice, Knight to Squire.”
“You gotta love it,” Joe laughed, turning the key.
“Now, drive me to Shakespeare and Company, Squire,” Ian directed sternly. “We have some maps to memorize. By the end of this night, you will know every alley in Paris. No matter where the proctors set the challenges, you’ll have access and transportation. Keep some jackets for quick changes in the sidecar, add a helmet, goggles, blend in traffic. It will be up to you to keep up with the finalists.”
“They’ll have to keep up with me,” Joe promised, joyously cranking the engine and tweaked the throttle, easing the bike into gear, then revving the hand throttle. “Born to be wild, Sir Knight!” Joe’s laugh blended with the bike’s roar.
“Quietly, Joe,” Ian squeezed the bridge of his nose in mock despair. “Like a churchmouse.” He gestured toward the gate leading St. Joseph’s as Joe slowed at the intersection, resisting the urge to wave to Darius, who still lurked in the chapel doorway, watching (a bit wistfully, Ian thought).
“Say, what was that wedding all about?” Joe asked as he pulled out. Grinning, with his hair tucked behind his ears and streaming behind in the breeze, he even had the temerity to salute one of the oldest living Immortals as they passed.
“Cheeky bastard,” Ian accused, hunting for a grip as they leaned into a turn. “I’m going to live to regret this, aren’t I?”
“ ‘If six was nine’, ” was Joe sang over the wind of their passage, being deliberately oblique.
“Jimi Hendrix quotes are not accepted standard responses in the Watcher code book, Squire Joe,” Ian said sternly. “Especially subversive ones.”
“They will be when I’m through,” Joe promised, as they stopped for traffic.
“Fly your freak flag on your own time. And look out for that lorry.”
Joe began to wake to the realities of Paris traffic, and slowed down. True to nature, he pressed his original question fourfold. Joe always had more far more queries than Ian had answers, when given the opportunity to question authority. “Whose wedding was that? Someone you know? It was almost like maid of honor recognized the stamp on the Chronicle. Was she a Watcher?”
“Hm?” Ian looked up from checking for oncoming traffic at the next light. He realized that he had lost the thread of the conversation, and that Joe was looking at him quite strangely. He licked his lips. They tingled, and tasted of sweet Yule mead. When did he have honey, today?
“Who got married at the wedding today?” Joe repeated, rather more slowly than was called for.
“What wedding?”
On to part two