Immortal: Curse of the Deathless

Chapter 1 (Part 1: A Beginning)

Welcome to Sanctuary, a bar that exists outside time and offers a safe place to unwind— if you can get in. Well, it doesn't have to be a bar. It's anything you need it to be really, but Asher almost always needed a drink.

She kept buying me another round of the good stuff, so who was I to tell her to leave? I figured I could get at least a few more out of her before she gave up and left.

He tossed back the shot and flipped the empty glass back on the table with a thud. Asher reached for the straw sticking out of his cocktail and chewed on it speculatively. With a sigh, he laid back in the darkly lit booth. Someone had sent him another charity case, and this one wasn't getting the hint that he wasn't in the mood to trade favors. No matter how good an olive-skinned dryad would be in the sack, it wasn't worth walking through fire for. Although; Asher glanced appreciatively at the girl's dark lustrous hair, green eyes and hourglass figure, then shook his head.

"Not sure who sent you my way, but you should get something straight. Gods are mere immortals. Apparently getting so full of yourself that you let a civilization worship you is just a phase— like teenagers and puberty, but for centuries instead of a few years," Asher said.

"Someone I trust told me you help nonhumans," Gwen said, undeterred.

Asher pinched the bridge of his nose and swallowed an aggravated outburst. "There's something I wanted to double check about your story. Your sister, Holly, was captured by an extremist religious sect to be burned at the cross? Doesn't that name sound a little made up to you?"

He stopped himself from asking, "People are still burning witches at the stake this day and age?"

Asher raised his eyebrows and wagged them suggestively, letting the silence become awkward and strained. Gwen shifted in her seat and looked down at her hands, which were laced together so tightly that her knuckles had gone white. Not to be deterred from his ultimate goal, Asher waved a hand at the barkeep and ordered another shot of the good stuff. He could do this all night with his metabolism, but he didn't expect Gwen's purse to be so bottomless.

"I don't actually have a sister," she said, and hesitated before continuing. "My girlfriend Mary was the one taken. I didn't think you'd help if I told you the truth."

Asher mentally shot the fantasy of their future entanglement in the head. Of course she was a lesbian— there was no other explanation for an attractive girl to throw herself at me.

Asher digested that information as Wolfrik set down the next round. His ears were red with embarrassment; he never missed a thing that was said in this place. Asher had taken money for jobs before, but he'd just as often refused to help if the details seemed off. When he started up his little business, he'd even done some pro-bono work to get his name out there. But saving a witch from the clutches of some cultish religious sect didn't sound like a good time, and he didn't like to work for free these days.

"With a name like Asher, you don't have much room to talk," Gwen said as Asher drank another round on her dime.

Asher coughed as the liquid fire ran through his sinuses and he almost spewed the precious drink all over the table. He didn't though, and tried to regain what little cool he had, wrapping it around him like a protective cloak. Asher tipped the empty shot glass over and watched it leave a wet trail as it rolled across the table.

"My real name is beyond embarrassing. It was a parting gift from good old mom, before she left that is. I had it changed as soon as I became a legal adult."

Gwen had him on the ropes. "So your father raised you?"

The way Asher waved his hand was as negligent as his father. "Not for long. Like most bastard children, Father wasn't too keen on keeping around a constant reminder of his philandering ways. Dad was a drunk, so I guess I got at least one thing from the tightwad."