Paragon - Chapter 36: Chapter 36

I sat across from a mortal with green eyes that scanned everything around us.
The room was lit low and a water feature bubbled nearby over low murmuring. The smells of roasted duck and steamed vegetables floated. The candles flickered in golden hues despite it still being midday. A secluded but well respected place to satisfy even the most picky of eaters–that was certainly not Quinn judging by the way she had once tried everything I had ordered her in London.
A waiter presented himself to us with two curt bows.
I drew my chin off the bridge of my hands and offered him an easy smile. His eyes widened a touch and he cleared his throat beginning a broken supply of English.
"No need to be polite." I told him in Japanese, growing amused when his eyes widened again in comical fashion. I was aware how rare it was for Westerners to bother learning the tongue. "A bottle of Umeshu, please."
He brought himself out of his shock and returned a more genuine smile showing appreciation for the attention to his culture. But it wasn't just courtesy. I had long ago found love for the country and its ways.
He bowed again and left us.
Quinn was staring at me.
I winked.
Her pulse quickened and she glanced away to a table to her right. Another elderly couple whom shared a bottle and what seemed like good conversation over steamed buns.
"This is all so... intimate."
I smirked knowingly and nodded. "Hard to mirror in London."
"I really have lived in a bubble." She murmured, meeting my eyes again.
"Apologies for bursting it."
She chuckled and watched the candle flicker between us. "Stop acting like you're sorry."
I stilled and raised an eyebrow. "Are you implying I planned this, Adams?" I said, incredulous.
"It would have been an elaborate one..." She mused. "But I can't say I can complain, even if I am eventually on the menu–"
I dropped my hands on the table with a bit too much force and glared at her making a grin spread across her face. The elderly couple cast us wary glances before continuing in their own conversation. At least they had a sane one.
"Perhaps it is you that should stop acting like my being is an empty threat." I murmured in a low voice.
Quinn drummed a hand against the dark wood with a casual expression. Like we talked of nothing more than the menu. Not that she could be on it.
"I make decisions based on the facts, Fletcher. And so far none of them align with you hurting me." She said simply, glancing at her nails.
"Very well. Let us look at the facts." I whispered, leaning in closer. That warmth and scent only closed in on me but I cast it aside. "I have killed hundreds of your kind. And there will likely be hundreds more to come. I have lived five times your years and am still a juvenile immortal. I have lost control before, Quinn. It is always possible to become that again. Always." I finished, leaning back in my chair and watching her reaction grow more thoughtful. But for some insane reason it still wasn't fear spiking her blood.
I huffed out a breath through my nose as the waiter returned quietly and placed a bottle and two glasses between us. Quinn smiled up at him easily as if the words had never left my lips just now.
He pulled the cork and poured the amber liquid into the glasses. I watched the cubes of ice glisten gold against the candle light and alcohol. I thanked him and he disappeared once more.
"Quinn I think–"
She held up a hand and turned the liquid around in the ice filled glass.
"What is this?"
"Umeshu." I frowned, looking between her and the glass she held. "It's a plum wine with sake."
"Sounds sweet." She smiled, smelling it. She raised an eyebrow and took a sip. Now both her eyebrows went up. "It's good."
"A delicacy yes–but we should really talk about–"
"Relax, immortal. We can discuss your impending age and immortal flaws at dinner." She smirked, taking a longer sip.
I stared at her in shock once again before shaking my head with a breathless laugh.
"What?" She teased.
"You know what." I muttered, picking up my own glass and inhaling the sweet plum scent with slight tangs of bitter and soft.
"For someone who has all the time in the world, you sure do worry about the future, detective." Quinn noted, setting her glass down and leaning back in her chair. She crossed her arms in her light shirt with frills at the sleeves.
"And what time do you worry about, Lawyer?" I quipped, leaning forward and propping my forearms against the dark wood.
"The present." She smirked. "The past can't be changed. The future doesn't exist." She added simply. I smiled slowly in return and nodded.
"But isn't that why the future is so fascinating? Because it's always just an idea. Just a concept out of reach and never forming just as we imagine it would?"
She thought this over for a moment twisting her lips. My eyes traced the smooth lines before I cut them back up to her eyes again.
"I think that makes you an optimist after all."
"Oh?"
"C'mon Fletcher, pessimists always live in the past." She chuckled, "–I personally can't stand the idea of reliving everything–but an optimist... Well they might be looking for something that doesn't quite exist yet. As you put it." She drawled, plucking up her glass again.
"I hope you're not mocking me, Quinn." I stated with a slow smile. "I might just take your advice and change the menu later."
"I wouldn't mind being on the menu in a different sense." She muttered into the glass making my spine freeze along with every other part of me. She winked this time. I let a slow breath leave me and shook my head of the thoughts. I tried very hard to picture something not lustful, heated and naked–with no luck.
"Does it hurt?" She asked suddenly.
I threw her a questioning look, glad for the distraction.
"When you were bitten?"
"The bite can be painless." I told her factually. "It was only when an immortal's blood rushed through me and started changing the very fabric of my nature that the pain came..."
"How do you mean it can be painless?"
"Much like how immortals can invade the mind briefly, they can invade the senses. You could feel any number of things." I shrugged, "Pain, joy, anger, desire... Whether or not you live once an immortal has tasted your blood is another matter."
This finally got that spike of fear to pulse through Quinn's body. I scanned her face but she schooled her features well. If it wasn't for the quickening of her heart and fear I would never have realised it scared her.
"So the one that changed you..."
"Had to bite into my flesh before transferring the immortal blood, yes. Likely an immortal much older, stronger, and with closer ties to the eldest." I murmured, casting my eyes to the other side of the table and watching a group of men take a large table near the fountain.
"You're considered young for an immortal?" Quinn asked with a frown.
I smirked at her and nodded. "Sorry to disappoint. But some of us live for over a thousand years. Though I have never met an elder immortal directly. They contact me by other means."
Quinn's shock was painted starkly on her features. I let her absorb this. I hadn't really let it linger in my mind too much lately. It just put yet another expiration date on our time together. But I would try to think like she did... Entirely in the present.
I had wanted to hear her response to all this. I wanted to explain to her my side of things. The side that did not see immortality as such a great gift but a curse. But a hideously familiar voice cut over the low murmurs of the restaurant and was aimed directly at me. The glass shattered in my hand before he had even finished the first word.
"What a pleasant surprise!"
Quinn flinched and turned to the source. To the dangerous, impossible source of the immortal that had followed me from Mumbai. To the immortal that had no regard for mortal life at all and could end Quinn's life just for mere amusement. Just for a reaction from me.
The calculations I made happened in less than a blink. In less than that time I knew what I needed to do and say to remove all attention from the mortal that meant too much to me across this table. It had to be done quickly and emotionlessly.
"William. You are interrupting my lunch." I told him devoid of emotion with a cold smile that could slice his head from his neck.
But that answering grin did not placate me. The immortal did not even bother to look at Quinn as he pulled out a chair and dropped down to the table staring intently at me. In a way that promised this conversation was not ending on my own terms.
"It smells delicious in here." He smiled with pointed teeth.
* * * * *
Quinn didn't speak. She didn't have to. I could have heard her thundering heart across the room when William's pointed teeth leered at me.
He noticed too.
He turned to her leaning closer before I slammed a hand down before him. The wood groaned and almost splintered. He clucked his tongue and licked his lip.
"Now, now, immortal. Let us not expose ourselves hmm?" He drawled with his dark eyes and their ring of gold firmly on Quinn. Everything about him was darkness. Pale skin to a black crop of hair that ran past his ears. His flawless three-piece suit.
"Would you like me to kill you here or outside? I don't care which." I growled.
Quinn swallowed and couldn't take her eyes off the demon that kept sipping her scent like wine. My teeth were already sharp in my mouth but not for her. For once it was the threat. Mortals were rarely anything more than an annoyance but an immortal... even a younger one was lethal.
"Will you tell me your name now, immortal?" He drawled, tucking a hand under his chin and smiling at me calmly. "You left in such a rush in Mumbai... Was it for dinner?" He finished, glancing intently back at Quinn.
"I've had enough of this." I uttered low, before rising and grabbing his arm with me.
In a blink he changed my hold and went for a lock. I stopped his other forearm and countered another grab for domination in half a blink. The mortals continued unaware around us. It had only appeared like two people and stood and clasped arms. When a series of rapid power plays were being fought.
I glared at him with more death in my eyes than I had ever offered a mortal.
"Last chance. Leave."
"I want to know what's so important about that delicious mortal." He murmured, glaring right back between our locked arms with a cruel smile.
"She means nothing more than a routine snack." I rolled my eyes, slipping out of my mind and into that of a timeless, frozen being. "It is your intrusion on my life that draws my hatred of you."
He scanned between my eyes a moment with a raised eyebrow. I held my cool glare giving him nothing more than indifference. Nothing to tell him what that mortal was. The limits I would go in this room to protect her would get me killed by every member of Paragon.
"I've never seen an immortal travel with a pet." He spat the words distastefully.
"I've never let an immortal live that disrespected me. Yet here we are." I smiled darkly. "The mortals in this room are the only reason your head is still attached."
He chuckled, truly enjoying my threat I fully intended to follow through on.
"Let me taste her."
The room went quiet around me. Reality took on a dangerous haze. An otherness that set me apart from all of the distractions. It honed my focus on this one immortal. Those words. My hands tightened around his arms and slowly crushed them against his sides despite his attempt to resist. I was stronger. The shock was brief in his eyes and not enough to sate the demon in me.
"Leave. Now." I murmured each word very carefully.
Wanting him to fully understand how far past any line this had gone. But I realised too late that it was all part of his game. He wanted this reaction. Wanted to test my true reaction. A test I failed.
He finally smiled and relaxed his shoulders. He let go of me and I released his arms quickly. He went to straighten my shirt but I slapped his hand away ready to dismember him right where he stood. My rage filled me like a long lost friend. One that let go of control. One that ended so many without restraint. One that wanted the immortal destroyed.
"The door." I nodded back the way he came. "Let it hit you on the way out." I smiled acidicly.
He laughed loudly and stood back between us. He threw a look between myself and Quinn with a curiosity that told me his mind was running through the wrong lines again. It wouldn't do. I'd need to track and end him. Getting close to her again just rolled the dice. You never knew what immortals were capable of when they got bored with life...
If he ended hers there would be no where on the earth I would not find him.
"I'll find your name from Paragon." He interrupted my darkness. "One can only be close friends with the familiar after all." He grinned with pointed intent.
"We're done here." I stated unmoving.
He turned his shoulder but paused. His dark eyes met Quinn's again and I could practically feel the shudder pass along her skin.
"You have a nice evening, Quinn Adams." He finished darkly as my insides froze over entirely.
He waltzed back through the throng of waiters and murmuring of locals in the dim light of lunch. I stared still rigidly in place for a few more moments. Her name. He had it since Mumbai. It wasn't even a question of how anymore. His curiosity went beyond my considerations. This was obsession. He tracked us back from London. Found her identity. Likely knew of my mortal alias but dismissed my fake names–
"Fletcher." Quinn whispered.
I met the eyes of a mortal that had more fear in her eyes than I'd ever drawn out of her.
"Let's get the hell out of here."
I pulled out a handful of notes and dropped it on the table before dropping my hand to her. She slipped her own in mine without delay and I pulled her close beside me watching and listening to every sense that brushed my senses.
It rained now.