“Zeus' tangled beard hairs!”

Sebastian grabbed for some kind of cup, but dropped it and it shattered on the floor. He grabbed instead for a towel and tried to stem the flow. It wasn't working to stop the flood so much as it was working to burn his hands.

“Stop, you infernal machine! I didn't give you permission to do that!”

It wasn't listening. Apparently, electronic ears were not one of the special features in this particular model of coffee machine.

“Gods!”

Why had the coffee machine started spewing hot black liquid all over the counter and floor? Sebastian hadn't touched anything. Nothing that seemed like it would make the machine do that.

At least, he didn't think so.

Emily enjoyed listening to Paul speak. She was glad he wasn’t afraid to flirt a little. If you batted your eye at anyone round here, men thought you wanted more than a little flirtation. She did not want any of that. But she could tell the man was just enjoying her company, as she was his.

Curses suddenly came from the kitchen. Emily stood up quickly and raced for the kitchen. What could be the matter? She turned the corner and was surprised at the scene in front of her. Coffee was everywhere. How had this happened? Emily stepped in and unplugged the culprit. She grabbed the machine and threw it in the sink, hoping to keep what was left in the pot from spilling anywhere else.

“Where are there more towels?” This was a disaster. Men had no business being in the kitchen, even if it was just making coffee. Emily was not happy. This ruined her idea of a lovely meeting with small talk and banter with cookies and warm beverages.

The conversation had leveled out and Paul was just beginning to enjoy himself when curses suddenly rang out from the kitchen. Raising an eyebrow he glanced in that direction while wondering if he should go check on things. Apparently Emily had no such question and had responded with action. Her running form quickly disappeared into the other room leaving Paul quite alone.

"Huh... all dressed up with nowhere to go... guess I should go check on them." Paul muttered to himself before rising to his feet and casually strolling into the other room.

It looked like there had been a war. A war between Sebastian and a fancy looking coffee machine and the victor was most definitely the machine. Technology one, unicorn zero. "You didn't have to put yourself through this... I'm fine without coffee." He commented with just a touch of an amused chuckle in his voice, "Can I help? Do you have a mop bucket around here?"

Since this was an industrial sized kitchen it meant there was probably a slop sink toward the back so without even waiting for a response Paul headed in that direction. He had been in a few professional kitchens in the past and they were all pretty similar. In just a few moments he had located the basic cleaning implements and added hot water to the bucket. Rolling it back to where the other two were working, Paul set to work cleaning up wherever the hot black liquid had hit the floor. "You must make it strong. I think you might need to re-wax a few spots when this is done." He joked as he worked, "Is this how you get most of your volunteers Sebastian? Create a situation that just begs people to jump in and help?"

Unplug it.

Brilliant.

Towels, right. They had those, he thought. The dispenser. Was somewhere.

Normally Sebastian was not this terrible in a kitchen. When cutting boards, knives, pots, pans, fire, and food were involved, he was actually a pretty good cook. He could make authentic recipes from many different areas of the world, and he'd been a bachelor enough of his life that he had plenty of reason to learn to cook for himself. It was just when technology reached its power cords into the kitchen that the unicorn man got a little flustered.

“Sorry to ruin your discussion,” the unicorn man apologized, “technology is not my strong suit.”

He found the paper towels and started unrolling them and handing half to Emily so they could work as a team to stem the caffeinated flood while Paul went to get a mop.

“Not usually,” the unicorn man answered. It wasn't a bad idea, though.

“I don't see why we need such a fancy coffee maker, anyway,” Sebastian grumbled just a little bit as he threw away the soggy papers and stared at the machine with trepidation, worried it may start unexpectedly spouting hot liquids again, “I've been making coffee just fine without one for centuries.”

Did Emily hear him right? Apparently, Sebastian had been alive for centuries. That’s more than two or more centuries. Emily was almost to her second century. Almost. “When I was a child, we had an espresso machine from France. Just invented too, early 1820’s. I remember my father’s wife fussing over the new contraption, even if she never brewed it herself. The slaves did that work. Back then, you had to put it over the fire to put steam through it. Good times. Now they have these things. I’ve been in the bayou since the 1950’s so they’re new to me too.”

Emily wondered how old the unicorn man was. She hoped that the other man was a mutant. It would make the idea of immortals more normal, she thought.

Strangely, Emily was not surprised by Sebasian’s age. He was a unicorn healer after all. “I heard you were a healer, Mr. Csendes. Can you heal the dead?”

Paul was a little surprised that Sebastian was speaking so openly about his age in front of two people that he didn't know a thing about. He had no idea if they were mutants, curious humans, or perhaps even under cover cops send to investigate him. Why was he willing to share so openly and honestly? He was wondering how Emily would react when she suddenly began speaking about being alive during the 1820's and having slaves use the new French espresso machine. Apparently Paul was not only meeting one immortal but he was meeting two...

"I guess I'm the new kid on the block then." Paul commented dryly as he finished mopping and placed the now filthy mop back in its bucket, "War torn Europe in the early 1900s." Leaning up against one of the counters, he focused his eyes on the unicorn. "That's why I said we had similarities... I just didn't realize that all three of us were so similar."

Although, there was one interesting thought that Paul had to wonder about... how was it that he, apparently being the youngest, looking like the oldest? It meant there was something different about his immortality. Perhaps it wasn't even real immortality? Maybe he just aged much slower than most. For these two young looking people to have living so long meant that they must have true immortality. But did he? Was he really like them?

The question about healing the dead was interesting. Paul came back from the dead but he wasn't sure why a person would want to heal the dead. They were dead after all... what would they care about being healed?

Wait, what? He was entertaining not only another immortal, but two of them?

He didn't hide who he was, especially not since the Church of Eternal Life had started up. By now he was used to people knowing who and what he was. He was also used to knowing who the other immortals were in the world. Or maybe that wasn't correct. Maybe he was simply used to knowing who the splashy immortals were, the ones that were likely to make the newspapers for several decades in a row.

Maybe there were more immortals out there than he thought. Or at least, long lived mutants, “immortal” until proven otherwise.

The unicorn man blinked his surprise, then smiled at the two. Maybe they came out now because of the name he had chosen for the church.

“Welcome, once again,” he smiled. “I never realized who I was entertaining today.” He tilted his head at the girl's question. It was not an altogether surprising question. He supposed she had lost someone she cared about and wanted to heal them back to life or some such nonsense. Sebastian hadn't ever really felt that way about anyone before, though he knew his powers didn't work that way. He had tried at some point, for the sake of the experiment.

“I'm afraid that once a soul is parted from the flesh, my ability no longer works to heal that flesh.”

There was a man, though, who worked as a medium in this city whose powers could help, when combined with Sebastian's own.

“Perhaps if the person's spirit still has not moved on, we could find a way to pin it in his or her body while I heal their flesh. It has a possibility of working.”

Sebastian hadn't thought about Tarin in awhile now. He really should go check in with his old colleague and see how he was doing. His abilities could be quite a useful addition to Sebastian's team, now that he thought about it. Also, these two people before him, were already immortals in their own right; so very interesting.

“As you mentioned, I am a healer. I can also shift my physical age to look as young or old as I wish and take on the form of a unicorn. Do your mutations come with any other gifts, other than your long lives?” Sebastian was curious, for it was a curious topic. That, and he wanted to know how useful these two could be for his plans and assess how willingly they would acquiesce to a request to join him in his cause. Not that they needed to know that part.

The undead girl stood in the kitchen with two others very much like her. Sebastian seemed to be the oldest of the three, centuries old. He could change his age. That explained his immortality, but could he be killed? It was a morbid thought, but it still popped up in her head. She wouldn’t dare ask him though. The oldest looking man was the youngest. She wondered the extent of his gift.

How interesting. What had brought all of them together? Was it destiny? Emily pictured herself sitting with these two men hundreds of years from now talking about “the old days.” She felt a bond with these men suddenly. What had they witnessed? What had they lived through? Emily hoped that she would be friends, close companions, with at least one of these men for the rest of her existence. It would be her only constant, with so many she knew already gone or aging until they were gone. Emily decided she would try to stay on these men’s good side and hopefully develop a bond with one of them, hopefully both.

“My soul is still in my body, though I was murdered a week before my eighteenth birthday. I don’t age, but I can’t heal.” She removed her scarf to reveal her mutilated neck. Her head had been removed twice now. With a little putty and makeup, a mortician could cover up the wound so it wasn’t even visible. But Emily couldn’t do that; otherwise she could not turn or bend her neck. The stitching was precise and minuscule. But there was only so much stitches could do, her skin being jagged from saw-blade teeth. “I have these horrible scars from when my head was removed, twice, and I was wondering if there was anything you could do about them.”

Emily didn’t know how her cells worked. Her muscles moved her around, but did not tire from fatigue. She must be burning energy, but obviously not because she didn’t need to consume calories. How could she possibly be existing? Could her cells bind and heal? She didn’t believe so, but it was worth a try.

It went without saying that the unicorn had been unaware of who his two guests actually were. Unless he was a mind reader of some sort or had actually witness Paul's resurrection there was no evidence that he was anything other than a normal man. He didn't have a flashy horn sticking out of his head or, "What the..." Shock ran through Paul's mind when Emily pulled away her scarf to reveal the ragged wound on her neck. She wasn't an immortal, she was an undead! How in the world was that even possible? How could a mutation continue to function after someone had died? But then again, his mutation only seemed to activate after he died, so why shouldn't hers do the same?

"I haven't experimented with my powers that much. I die and some time later I resurrect. If I have the ability to do something else then I haven't discovered it yet." It seemed that the other two wanted to be open and honest so Paul figured that he could share... mostly. There really wasn't any reason to mention the exact amount of time or the fact that flames were involved. He didn't know either of them yet and Sebastian had been indicated in his own wife's disappearance. While Paul didn't know Maya well at all, it was still something that indicated just how trustworthy Sebastian might be.

A thought suddenly sprang unbidden into Paul's mind and he looked at the unicorn with even more interest than before. He was able to heal both himself and others and he was also able to shift his own age... "A question if you don't mind. Is it possible for you to shift another person's age or only your own?"

If it was possible then Paul might have to see about visiting Sebastian again in the future. It might be nice to have slightly younger looks than what he currently enjoyed. Sure, the gray hair was distinguished in the eyes of many people but he had liked it when he had all black hair. It would definitely be worth considering if it were possible.