Date: Mon, 20 Mar 1995 21:01:41 -0500 Reply-To: JillMari@AOL.COM Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: Jill Spetoskey Subject: A Dirty Job (2 of ?) c.1995 by Jill Spetoskey a beheading and an OJ reference as far as questionable content goes ******************************************* * * * A Dirty Job-part two * * * ******************************************* Trent slumped down in the speeding car. It had been three days since he was attacked in the alley in Portland, and he was still puzzled at the attack. He had managed to find a phone number that might lead to 'Martin' in Li's memories, and one of his friends in Seacouver had promised to try to trace it for him. Duncan had problems of his own, though, and Trent didn't know when he could count on getting any word back from him. He was jolted out of his thoughts by Joanna cursing and stomping on the brakes as a motorcyclist cut in front of the Taurus. Surprised, he felt the buzz from the cyclist just before he swerved onto the off ramp. "Punk kid." She mumbled as she swerved the car a lane over to dodge a slow-moving Caddy. "Jo, the guy on the motorcycle, he was an immortal, wasn't he? Was he trying to get us in a wreck there?" "I don't know. Don't think so though. It is pretty public out on the interstate to do something like that so he could hardly come along and take a few heads during rush hour. It's always kind of weird to run into someone like that though, no pun intended." "I guess I'm still jumpy over Portland, though. What do we know so far? Someone knew that I was going to be there on a certain date. The when's the easy part when it comes to identification. All someone had to do was get word to the publishing company asking when the authors of The Court and the Swordsman are coming through such and such a city on the signing tour. The who is the harder, though. My name on all of the official documents has been Trent Hendrix for the past fifteen years. If it was because of that, then why wasn't this an issue years ago? The Scott Trenton on the cover of the book is nothing other than a pen name, and that should be a dead end. The thing I'm most worried about though is can I hope that Lisa's name has somehow not come up in the whole thing?" "I hope she's not involved, Trent. I know how ugly it can get when a mortal gets dragged into the Game like that." They both lapsed into an uneasy silence as they drove on to San Jose. Nothing more was odd that day. The evening's signing went well, and the two were in much better moods as they headed over to the hotel for the night. After giving Joanna a chaste kiss on the cheek, he pulled on an old Washington Huskies t-shirt, and fell asleep with surprising speed. --------- It was the 1920's and he was in Paris. The party had grown too large for the house it had started at, and spilled along the Seine into the July evening. Trent toyed with his glass of wine, straining to hear what Ernest was saying over the roar of other conversations. "But your writing's too frilly, Trent. Simplify, shorten up the sentences so that everyone can understand them. People want to read a story, not admire the sentence structure, and adverb placement." "Okay, I understand what you're saying about it, but I don't think I'm THAT bad with my writing already. I did sell a story to the Post last week after all." "Only because I talked you into rewriting that article so that it was almost in English. You are getting better, though. A toast to the editors and publishers that keep us in this fair city." He raised his own glass up to Trent's, and there was a satisfactory clank. Suddenly, he felt the presence of more immortals. He tensed his muscles, ready to take action if he needed to, but relaxed when he saw the couple approaching. Doug and Patrice Marinaro smiled, and waved him over to their circle. He excused himself from the other writer's company, and rose to join them. "Doug, its always good to see you, and Patrice, you're looking particularly lovely this evening." A flurry of handshakes, and kisses ensued. "What brings you out on this beautiful evening?" "The moonlight, it is definitely the moonlight, and the beautiful shadow it casts on all." Patrice replied. She was looking almost ill, he thought. She was too pale, her blue dress almost the same color as her skin. There were dark circles under her eyes, and as for her eyes themselves, they were mask-like, hiding something he wasn't quite sure of underneath the cosmetics. "But the shadow it casts on you is most beautiful of all." He replied. "Stop flirting with my wife, now. You want to keep yourself in one piece, don't you?" Doug's tone was light, teasing the younger man. Patrice only smiled. "I don't wish to flirt, I'll just say that you're one lucky man to have found a wife so wonderful." "Yes, I guess I am." Doug replied. ------ Trent awoke suddenly, feeling the great huge increase in energy coming from nearby. Two immortals were fighting nearby, the Quickening gathering itself into one reward for the winner. Curious, he slipped on his jeans, and out the door, almost running into Joanna coming out of her door. "Don't do that!" They cried out simultaneously. "Probably has nothing to do with poor Gerald Trent's problems, but you never know." He tried to justify his trip outside. "Yeah, I understand. Let's watch each other's back on this even though the two out there probably won't even notice us." They slipped out the hotel through the rear door, and let the fight pull them to the sight of the duel. Inside a small, fenced backyard off of an alley, two men were circling and exchanging blows. Trent and Joanna crouched behind some trash cans, and got their first look at the fighters. "The young-looking one was the guy on the motorcycle this morning. I'm pretty sure of it." Joanna whispered. "I know I've seen him somewhere before, too." He paused in thought and watched the younger-looking man parry a series of swings. "I know, he was a clerk at Duncan's antique shop. He even sold me a pair of lamps a while back. Name's Robbie, or something, but he definitely wasn't an immortal then. The other guy I don't know." "Can't place him either." The older man increased the speed of his attack, and Robbie? slipped down on one knee. Suddenly, he gave a twist of his wrist, and the older man's sword flew out of his hand. He staggered to his feet, and with a wobbly swoop, took the other man's head. Exhausted, he crumbled to the ground, almost landing atop the other's body. "Fireworks time." Trent said softly. "It's weird to see this from the outside." They heard a run of footsteps fade away from the other side of the alley, but before either could comment on that, the Quickening started to enter the younger man. Blue light streamed around him, sending his body into convulsions, and he let out a feral scream as the windows of several nearby houses shattered into thousands of tiny prisms. Trent and Joanna started to slip out of the alley when the young man yelled out to stop them. Joanna looked at Trent, and shrugged, and the two moved into the small yard. The young man had struggled to his feet, and held his sword up, although it was visibly shaking in his hands. "Joanna Kintoul, and we mean you no harm." "Gerald Trent." "Ritchie Ryan" The youth eyed then, and warily lowered the sword to the ground. "You said Robbie." Joanna whispered to him. "Well I was close." He replied softly, and then addressed the young man."Didn't you use to work for Duncan? I think you might have sold me some furniture at one time." "Yeah. He said I should go out on my own for awhile, though." Trent heard a faint siren wail start to go closer. "Let's get out of here before the cops show. I know of an all-night diner a few blocks over, and I'll buy you two gentleman a coffee." They began to move back out onto the street. "On second thought, maybe it should be a coffee, and a milk for the curly-haired gentleman. Last thing you need right now is probably any more jittering along the nervous system." Ritchie took a sip of his cola. Discovering that he felt almost dehydrated, he downed the rest of the glass in one gulp. He thought that he had become more cautious since he had left Duncan, and the events of the evening had taken him by surprise. He had been walking back to his small apartment from the Speedy Mart when Thierry Lemieux had stepped out of the alley, claiming to be looking for someone named Gerald Trent. When he had told him that he didn't know anyone by that name, Lemieux had chuckled and told him "You'll do instead." And I left the groceries down by the body too. The ice cream probably melted during the light show. Then the man that Lemieux had been trying to kill had showed up at the end of things, and invited him out to dinner. The waitress had retreated into the kitchen, and Trent and Joanna were discussing some sort of trip along the West Coast,and Trent was looking worried about something. "So this guy wanted to take my head instead of yours? I met him once in my life, and we had no quarrel about things." Trent was puzzled. Although Thierry wasn't a friend of his, they had no reason to kill each other. "No. It wasn't his idea." Ritchie paused as the waitress, mission firmly at hand, charged out to their table to refill trent and Joanna's coffee cups. When she retreated, he continued."It was just that he owed a favor to a guy named Doug Martin, and he wanted your head. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time." He seemed a little uncomfortable about the whole thing, and trent wondered if this was the first head that Ritchie had taken. "Thanks for the information, Ritchie." Trent looked down at his watch: 4:45 in the morning. "We still have to get to Sacramento in the morning, so we need to be going now. It was good to meet you." The three shook hands, and left the diner. The two walked in silence back to the hotel. When they reached the door to Trent's room, Joanna followed him through the door, and sat down on the bed. "You were pretty short back there with Ritchie at the end. What's up with that? You learned something from him." Trent burried his face in his hands."I know who's trying to kill me now. He found me because we used to write together, and he must have picked up one of my books, and recognized the writing style. His name is Doug Marinaro, and I killed his wife." --End Part 2 Comments/Flames/neat shareware offers to: Jill Spetoskey jillmari@aol.com jilkey@umich.edu =========================================================================