Manipulations of the Heart

Meanwhile, Fox drove up to the warehouse and parked the car a short distance
from it. It had occurred to him that if Grysher simply disappeared as the others
had, he would be reported missing. People would wonder if Fox didn't report it
himself. This wouldn't be quickly pushed aside as an unsolved case. They would
question people, and there were people that had seen him with Cory at the pub
last night, people that knew he was 'with' the Professor. If they mentioned
Cory, or decided Fox, himself, could have had something to do with it, there
could be trouble. He wanted to make sure there was no way of proving that Cory
was guilty of having killed the Professor. Of course that was assuming Cory
would win the fight.

If Grysher won the challenge, he would be trapped again. He would lie to the
Professor and tell him Cory had tricked him and left him tied up at the hotel. He would swear that he had escaped in order to help him. Maybe he had read
things wrong and the Professor hadn't planned everything, things could change.
But he doubted that was the case, and; even as he despised himself for wanting
the Professor dead, especially after all the time he had put into keeping him
alive; he hoped Cory wouldn't lose.

As he was sneaking around the building, he noticed a blonde-haired man watching
the conflict from beneath a window. The man looked to be a few years younger
than he was.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?" Fox grabbed the man's arm
and forced him to turn around and face him. "Did the Professor send you here, to
make sure he won?" Personally, he doubted it. The kid's eyes were just too
expressive.

"My name is Charles." He struggled weakly as Fox pulled him towards the woods.

"I was just walking. I saw two guys go in there with swords. I've never seen
anyone fight with swords before." Charles glanced at the man nervously, praying
Fox would accept his story.

He knew how dangerous Fox could be. Grysher's regular Watcher had written entire
reports on the lessons Fox had learned while in Grysher's castle. Learning to
kill, to fight not only with weapons, but also his body. From what he had read,
Fox could kill him with a handhold.

"You've never seen a sword fight before? So, you decided to watch, instead of
calling the police. What if someone dies? Then what?" His stomach lurched as he
realized he would have to kill the young man. How else could he possibly hope to
protect the secret of immortality? He knew the Professor's warnings of hysteria
and witch hunts weren't too far off the mark. Those that didn't want to kill the
immortals would want to study and dissect them. The life of this young man was
not worth the decimation of an entire race.

Charles sensed the sudden change in Fox's attitude, and realized his reply could
determine his survival. He had already betrayed his oath to Cory, but Cory
wouldn't come out alive. Not with the precautions the Professor always took. To
betray himself to Fox could get him kicked out of the Organization. Maybe Fox
would be interested in joining the Watchers? "Uh, keep my mouth shut?" He
couldn't do more than croak out the words.

Fox's eyes narrowed. "Why?"

Charles decided he just wasn't meant to be in the field. He had been assigned to
watch Cory for the day, without a trainer. Grysher's regular Watcher had been
called away on a family emergency, so he was to record this one day on his own. He'd seen this as a perfect opportunity to prove he deserved the assignment
permanently. Now he realized he was a coward. There was no way he had the
courage to even try lying to this man. He just knew Fox would see through it and
kill him on the spot.

"Because, I... well, I watch. I don't interfere. It's against the oath."

"What oath?" He pulled Charles further into the woods as the building began to
tremble and the windows shattered. Lightening could be seen flashing inside the
warehouse.

Charles glanced back regretfully. This would have been his first Quickening and
he was missing it. He recalled the question. "The Watcher Oath. I'm a Watcher."

"A Watcher." Fox glared at him suspiciously. "What do you normally watch?"

The woods were dark, and he didn't like how deep they were going in. He wondered
if Fox was planning to kill him. "Immortals. We watch and record their lives,
but we don't interfere with anything they do. That's the oath, 'no interference'."

Fox stopped, still holding the young man's arm. "You watch immortals? Why?" He
looked back toward the warehouse, wondering who had survived.

Charles' reply brought him back to the subject at hand.

"Because their lives are important. Someday all but one will be gone, and the
only proof we will have that they existed will be the Chronicles we have on
them." Charles really wanted Fox to understand. If he could just convince Fox to
become a Watcher, everything might be all right. Being a Watcher meant keeping
the secrets of the Watchers as well as the secrets of the immortals.

"Chronicles? So you have a record of everything the Professor has ever done?"

"Mostly. Everything heard or seen is recorded, but we do have to keep a certain
distance." Charles breathed a sigh of relief when his arm was released. "The
immortals must never know they're being watched. They would kill us, or use us
to find other immortals. We're a secret organization, there are no immortals
that are aware of our existence."

Fox had no interest in becoming a Watcher, and it didn't occur to him to
consider the idea. But, it was a revelation to learn that there were others out
there that knew about immortality and accepted it. If what Charles said was
true, he wouldn't have to worry about killing him. If it were true.

The warehouse was silent and still again, and Fox began leading the other man
back towards the building. "How do I know I can trust you?"

Charles wasn't sure how he should respond to that. How could he prove himself?
His sister, Mariah, insisted Fox wasn't cruel or violent; that the lessons he
learned from the Professor didn't change who he was. "My sister, Mariah, she can
vouch for me." He hoped he wasn't somehow endangering his sister with his words.

"Mariah?" Fox couldn't help his surprise. "Mariah is a Watcher too?"

"My family has been in the Watchers for 5 generations. We're all Watchers." Charles straightened his shoulders proudly. "She hasn't taken her oath yet, but
is expected to by the end of the year."

They were at the door now, and Fox hesitated to open it. He wasn't sure if the
survivor would still be in the building. He cautiously opened the large metal
door and peeked inside. He forced himself not to react as he recognized the
Professor's headless body lying in the center of the floor. Relief and sadness
waged for dominance as he stared at the remains of his lover of the last three
years. There was no sign of Cory.

"Come on in, Charles. It's as safe as it can be. The Professor didn't survive
this challenge. Just be careful not to get your fingerprints on anything." He
walked further into the building. He noticed some crates were still smoldering
and the air was laced heavily with the distinct smell of burnt insulation.

Charles poked his head through the door, curiosity winning over caution. Just as
he'd never witnessed a Quickening before, he had never seen a headless corpse.
He took one look at the body and immediately rushed outside to vomit. Until this
moment, he had never perceived immortality as being anything other than a
thrilling fantasy. Now he was faced with the reality. Immortals were flesh and
blood. There was nothing glorious about it.

He reentered the building to see Fox wandering towards the back, turning around
a small corner. He hurried to catch up, almost slipping on a patch of oil. He
vaguely heard someone yelling from inside a room and watched as Fox removed the
stick keeping the door jammed and cautiously opened it.

Inside, they saw the six young men Grysher had summoned. Fox was pleased that
Cory had taken him seriously and taken care of them before they could cause
problems. The young man that had been at the door calling for help took a step
back as the door opened. Two others were groggily coming back to consciousness
and the other three were still out cold. Fox glanced around, wondering what he
would have to do to keep them quiet. He didn't have a lot of money and could
hardly pay them off. Besides, bribes usually ended up becoming blackmail.

"Wake up your friends." He watched without sympathy as the three conscious men
struggled to their feet.

They scrambled to do as he said. Their fear of Fox was real. The Professor had
trained them and paid them to pull off jobs, but Fox was always there in the
background and they kept quiet, never realizing Fox actually had not been fully
aware of the intent of their training. Grysher had always warned them about
keeping their mouths shut, because Fox would kill them if they betrayed him.
They had seen what he could do, Grysher had made sure of that. When the others
were awake, they stared at Fox like deer trapped in headlights.

The young man that had been at the door when they'd entered glared at Fox
angrily. "Now you get here! What happened out there? Where's the Professor?"

"The Professor is dead, Danny." Fox wondered if they had seen Cory and how much
they knew. "I was too late. What can you tell me about the person that killed
him?"

Danny glared at him. "The guy knocked us out before we even knew he was there.
We never saw his face."

"Are you telling me that not one of you saw him? What he looked like?" Fox
couldn't believe his luck.

They all shrugged, Danny even ended up staring at the floor nervously.

One of the others gathered up his courage. "He was waiting for us. We were
watching all the exits, and nobody came in. So he must have been inside before
we got here." Danny and the others nodded their agreement.

Fox doubted it could possibly be so easy. "I can't believe this. You have no
idea who did this?" He wondered if their evident fear of him could be used to
his advantage. "Get out of here. I don't want to see any of you again, unless
you can tell me something useful about his killer." He waited to see how they
would react.

They rose to their feet, hastily grabbing onto each other for balance as the
world spun. They quickly made for the door as Fox stepped out to let them by.

But Danny held back as the others made for the exit. "I don't think so, Fox. How
do we know it wasn't you that killed him? I saw you leave the pub last night
with a really good-looking man. Maybe you decided to use this as an opportunity
to kill the Professor yourself." His eyes glittered with malice. The others had
run outside already, not waiting to see what Fox would say to that. Danny
grabbed the sword from the floor and held it in front of him as he blocked the
outer exit, staring at Fox intently.

"You're talking stupid, Danny." Fox stepped around the body of the Professor
carefully, approaching the dark-haired young man cautiously, wondering how to
best get the sword away without getting hurt.

"We have to get out of here." Charles nervously pointed at the flames visible in
the area they had just left.

"No, I think you may have done it. Or maybe, yeah, that makes sense; the guy you
left the pub with, that's the guy the Professor had a grudge with. He probably
killed him. Don't worry, Foxy, I'll keep quiet. For a price." Then he glanced
over to see what Charles was talking about, but the fire didn't seem to bother
him, even as it started to spread, getting closer.

"You don't know what you're saying, Danny. Move away from the door and let's get
out of here. We'll talk about it outside." Fox couldn't hold back a cough as he
watched the fire eating the back walls, quickly approaching them. He could feel
the fire as it crept closer, the heat as it warmed his back, and the fear was
almost as suffocating as the smoke as he remembered the fire he'd been trapped
in as a boy. He struggled to keep calm as the smoke began to thicken and he
coughed harder. Charles had covered his face with his hands but was struggling
for breath as the smoke stole his oxygen.

Danny grinned happily, believing he had Fox trapped now. "Yes, I do. When we get
back to town, I'll tell the police that you wanted to break it off with the
Professor. He didn't want to let you go, so you decided to kill him. It was a
crime of passion." He began coughing too, but kept the door shut with his body.
Fox was determined to get by, but he stood his ground, waving the sword in front
of him.

Fox kicked him in the groin, just dodging the ineptly held blade as he pulled
Danny away from the door, shoving him towards the Professor's corpse. He and
Charles escaped the building, both stopping for a moment to take in deep gulps
of fresh oxygen before running towards the car Fox had parked near the road.
Charles wondered if he should write about this in either Grysher's or Cory's
chronicle, since it didn't really involve the immortals. He cleared his throat,
feeling hoarse. "Do you think that guy is going to be a problem? Or the others?"
They jumped into the car at the same time.

Fox coughed again, tasting the bitter flavor of smoke. "If they are, I'll take
care of them. They just want money. I don't have a lot, but I'll find a way. If
not, I may have to resort to other methods. Besides, the police are more likely
to believe me than them." Fox pulled out onto the road and drove further into
the country, not wanting to be seen on this road when the firetrucks and police
were driving onto the scene.

He was familiar with this area and turned onto another road, deciding against
arriving at the castle with an unknown man, indicating he didn't expect Grysher
to be there. Mrs. Keplar would find it suspicious indeed, since she knew the
Professor didn't like him to bring anyone to the castle. He headed back into
Oxford on a different route.

"Um, maybe you should have an alibi, just in case?" Charles made the suggestion
as they entered town.

Fox glanced at him, curious. "What do you mean?"

"Well, if those other guys are questioned and they put you under suspicion, then
it would be better if you could be placed somewhere else, right?" Charles
wondered why he was doing this. None of those guys knew who he was, so he wasn't
in any danger. Why should he care that Fox be protected? "We could go to
Mariah's and tell her what happened. She'll understand. If the police question
you, she'll say you were at her place."

Fox nodded, but then shook his head. "I have to go back to the hotel. Cory will
be wondering where I am. I told him I'd stay there until he returned."

"Can't you call him from Mariah's? He'll understand the need for an alibi. He
knows all about 'em. Really Fox, it would be a good idea to have an established
alibi." Charles wasn't sure what it was, but he could feel that something was
wrong.

Fox thought about it. It wasn't such a bad idea. But he hadn't told Cory where
he would be and Cory might think he'd left. He should at least call and explain.

"How do I get there?"