From his own abode, Cagliostro stared into the object that allowed him to see his future victims. It was not a crystal ball, that was far too cliché. Rather, it was a crystal plate. It may have seemed strange, but it did its job well.
Staring at the four in that apartment, Cagliostro began to think that he remembered this Ram Mohammed at least and yet, he could not place his finger on if they had actually met. Sherrington Farringdon, he had absolutely no memory of, he did not even ring any metaphorical bells, but why did he feel like he knew Ram's face? Had he been present when he had murdered Ram's mother? Cagliostro could not remember. With a life as long as his, there were some things he simply could not remember clearly.
He had been born in what was currently called 685 BC. Who knew what it would be called in the future? He had been Ashurbanipal once and so he had been King of Assyria, King of Sumer and Akkad, King of the Lands, King of the Four Corners of the World, King of the Universe… What a joke the title "King of the Four Corners of the World" turned out to be. The learned Hellenes had discovered the world was round, but even they never could have fathomed that it was bigger than it actually was. As Ashurbanipal, he had not truly ruled the four corners of the world, only what his people believed them to be.
His treacherous Egyptian lover he remembered well. She had paid with her life after thinking him dead… After everyone had thought him dead. He could have taken the throne back from his son Ashur-etil-ilani, but the fact of the matter was that at long last, he was free of governing. To rule was not easy and he sought something else to do, so with his slave Adamu, he travelled to the Kingdom of Rome and left behind his Assyrian name of Ashurbanipal. He called himself Gaius and as he experimented with nitrates, he lived throughout the centuries, watching as a kingdom became a republic and after that an empire… An empire that eventually divided.
The Roman Republic… Now those had been the glory days of the civilization, something Cagliostro wished could have been restored. Wholesale corruption, brutal crackdowns on slave uprisings, the series of conquests that had begun with the Republic, the Optimates' opposition to any reforms, now that was a real republic! An extremely violent, slave-owning, elite-controlled oligarchy, not the fair, just, democratic, peaceful governments that passed for republics today!
Then came Julius Caesar and Cagliostro felt all the power he had in the Republic slip away. Under Caesar, Jews living in Rome were granted rights and protection and citizenship was granted to the Gallic beasts who had shown loyalty to him and to Rome, including the entire eligible population of Cisalpine Gaul! The two peoples he could harm without receiving any punishment, were now either protected and had rights or were Roman citizens.
When a conspiracy formed to murder Caesar, Cagliostro joined them. He remembered well his leader, the conservative optimate Marcus Junius Brutus, the greatest loan shark Cagliostro had ever known! The way he extorted the poor was truly the stuff of legends! During the following civil war, they minted coins glorifying their deeds and coins with their own likenesses upon them. It was the same norm-violating tradition of Pompey and Caesar, two people who had built cults of personality. Had Brutus won the civil war, he would have been the greatest autocrat the world had ever known!
But then, what would have become of Cagliostro? Alas, he knew not. He knew well that before being disloyal to Caesar, Brutus had been disloyal to his own father, even allying with his father's killer Pompey. No doubt, Brutus was a man who could not have been trusted.
Under the empire, Cagliostro found difficulty adapting. It had been a better government, one that blackguards such a him could not easily adapt to. Yet, he still managed, finding places in the inner circles of emperors such as Caligula, Nero and Domitian.
Nero… Now that was the man under whose reign, he first met a lookalike of his treacherous Egyptian lover. She had been a Christian and someone who could easily be killed due to Nero's persecution of them. How he had smiled when she was thrown to the lions, seeing her torn asunder by the beasts, what a joy it was.
Under Commodus, Cagliostro had found no place within an inner circle. People may have portrayed him as a villain, but he had been more a man with his good and bad qualities, with people put more focus on his bad qualities. He would not find an emperor to be in the inner circle of until Macrinus and his son Diadumenian took the throne in 217, one hundred and twenty-one years after the assassination of Domitian. After they were killed the following year, Cagliostro managed to find himself a place in the inner circle of their successor Elagabalus, followed by Maximinus Thrax thirteen years after Elagabalus' death… The last emperor he was ever in the inner circle of was Magnus Maximus. After that, he quietly fell into the background.
For a time, he remained a Roman citizen, later a Western Roman citizen. Even when the Eastern Empire took over, he still remained until, he finally grew bored of Roman life and departed for the north, where gods such as Odin and Thor were worshipped. There did he become a Dane, while Adamu remained his slave. As a member of the Great Danish Army, he first came to England and there did he meet the next lookalike of his treacherous Egyptian lover, a Saxon wench, nothing more, nothing less. He had brought his axe down into her skull and that was the end of her. Following the invasion of the Great Heathen Army, he remained in England, eventually becoming a citizen of the Danelaw and later Cnut's North Sea Empire, as people now called it. After the empire ended, he remained an English subject, even after the coming of the Normans, though he had to admit, he did become bored with Norman rule fairly quick. Thus, did he depart for France.
As a chevalier of a France, Cagliostro went on to serve in the First, Second, Third, Fourth and Fifth Crusades. Following the end of the Fifth Crusade in 1221, he departed for the Holy Roman Empire, having grown tired of France and would not return until after the end of the Sixth Crusade in 1229. Once more a French chevalier rather than a Holy Roman knight, he then served in the Seventh and Eighth Crusades. His time in France did not last long. After the end of the Eighth Crusade in 1270, he returned to England, becoming an English knight and there did he go on crusade one last time, following the future Edward I of England on the Ninth Crusade. All nine crusades did her serve in, fighting for Christendom and it was during the Crusades that he met the next lookalike of his treacherous Egyptian lover. Which crusade had it been? He could barely remember. They all beginning to merge together in his memory, all he knew was that she had been a Christian… He drowned her it was a simple enough death.
After the Crusades, he lived in England, watching as the House of Plantagenet continued to rule England, eventually dividing between York and Lancaster. Then came the Tudors and after them the Stuarts and finally came the House of Hanover, who continued to rule Great Britain as the House of Windsor. It was during the reign of George II that he made his departure for mainland Afro-Eurasia and there did he take on his favourite identity and appellation that he still continued to use: Alessandro Cagliostro, occultist, adventurer and magician. There did he see the French Revolution, something that could have been great. Cagliostro had been expecting the birth of a republic like that of the Romans, instead it was a vile mockery of the concept! At least, he had managed to kill another lookalike of her treacherous Egyptian lover, a handmaiden of Marie Antoinette. He beheaded her himself with an axe while Adamu held her down. It had been quite exhilarating.
Upon seeing Ram pull a crucifix out of his pocket, Cagliostro could not help but laugh. He thought a crucifix could block his magic! Only symbols from religions he had never been affiliated with could block his magic! A star of David and a figure of Buddha could most certainly stop his magic, but a crucifix never could!
Keeping his crystal plate focused on Ram, Cagliostro held out his right hand. Closing it, he began to bring his fist to his heart. He would slay him as he had slayed Laszlo Dimitri.
"Master!"
Turning his attention from the crystal plate, Cagliostro looked at Adamu standing in the doorway. He was holding a tray, upon which was a needle.
Upon being interrupted, Cagliostro rose from his chair, roaring: "You dare to interrupt me, slave?"
"I do not mean to, master!" protested Adamu, holding out the tray. "But you need to have your injection! Every time you find a woman who resembles she from so long ago, you always keep putting it off until the woman is dead!"
"Why are you telling me what I already know of my own behaviour, slave?" asked Cagliostro, looking around for something to beat Adamu with.
"Master, you must have it now!"
"Oh, I must, must I?" inquired Cagliostro, picking up a cane he had lying against the corner. "And why might that be?"
"Master, your hair! It is beginning to grey! The effects of the nitrates are starting to—"
"You have three seconds to get out of here, before I beat you to death, Adamu! This I promise you!"
Immediately, Adamu exited the room. Tossing the cane aside, Cagliostro looked at his reflection in a nearby mirror. His hair was indeed beginning to grey again, but the injection could wait. He would make quick work of Rosie Dorrington, Tyler O'Donnell and Sherrington Farringdon and most of all Ram Mohammed. For a man who had not lived even a single lifetime, he was quite rise, albeit still capable of making errors. When those four were dead, then he would take his injection. He was Alessandro Cagliostro and he was always successful.
Looking back at the crystal plate, he saw Ram Mohammed was now holding a star of David. So, he had come prepared with multiple religious symbols, did he? Truly, this old man would be a most worthy opponent.
"Why do we not bring the fight to him?" inquired Tyler.
Cagliostro could only smile. The young fool… He thought a battle could simply be brought to him? Some had tried in the past, yet they always failed. Still… If Tyler sought to try and face him, Cagliostro still had his sword from the Crusades handy and his axe from his days as a Norseman, he had kept them well preserved and would be perfectly happy with hacking Tyler's flesh from his bones.
"Defending Rosie here is our highest priority." Commented Sherrington.
"I know that, but won't the easiest way to defend her be to cut off the head of the snake?"
Snake? A snake? Well, now, that was a new one. In his millennia of life, Cagliostro could not remember having ever being called a snake before.
"We would be going into the lion's den, Tyler." Stated Ram. "We have no idea what manner of tricks Cagliostro has in his abode!"
Still smiling, Cagliostro nodded. Ram Mohammed truly was a wise man.