Date: Thu, 14 Jul 1994 17:48:06 EDT Reply-To: Highlander TV show stories Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: "Jason R. Tippitt" Subject: Dark of Knight, Part 4 ************************************************************************ D A R K O F K N I G H T ************************************************************************ Jason R. Tippitt, 1994 ** Note: This story occurs between "Under Color Of Authority" and "Unholy Alliance." Part Four The Joker sat in the warehouse he had rented, counting the money he had taken from the stiffs at the art benefit. "There's less than ten thousand here, Georgie! The jewels, I don't know about, but what kind of world do we live in, when people stop carrying cash?" "A world of madness, Joker. I'm sure you know all about that." The man who spoke these words stepped into the light. He wore a long, brown trenchcoat with dress slacks, shirt and tie; his fading brown hair was trimmed very conservatively. "Would you like to be a ruler in this dawning age of madness?" "I am the king of madness already!" "You are a mere prince, but I can tell you how to achieve a prize and power beyond your wildest imaginings." "How cliched. Besides, I have a pretty powerful imagination as is." The Joker walked around the man, looking him over. "You're unarmed." "I am a mere mortal. You are something more, we both know that. You could kill me much more easily than I could kill you, but that would be *very* counterproductive, and you're far too intelligent to do that when *I* know how you may reach your full potential, Joker." He smiled and held out an envelope. "If you don't believe me, I can prove my claims easily enough. In this envelope is a picture of a man who lives in this city--another Immortal, like yourself. I can tell you how to truly kill him and take all his power and knowledge for your own." "What do you get out of this?" "You will then eliminate my enemy. A man named MacLeod, who I hear stood his ground against your gas last night at the benefit. MacLeod will come after you soon enough, possibly with the aid of Batman." The Joker's mouth fell open. "The man with the ponytail?" "Another Immortal, Duncan MacLeod." "Then it is true, what that doctor told me... that the buzzing in my head is the feeling of another Immortal close by. I strangled the poor man to death after he told me only an Immortal could kill another. My poor dead mummy always said I was short-tempered. Now you say there's only one way to kill, one to die. I don't believe I caught your name." "Horton." **** It was near lunch time when Jason felt as if he were suffering a migraine. Something burned inside his mind, as if his brain had been set afire and his head were about to explode. He dropped to his knees and braced himself against the corner of an alley. Ahead of him, a homeless man lying in a cardboard box awoke. "No! No more killing!" He sprang from his box brandishing a brightly shining broadsword. "I have declared this alley holy ground! The God of the City rules here!" He looked around, his eyes resting on Jason, looking up at him. "*You,* little one?" He walked toward him, his sword dropped for the moment to the ground, among his few things. He held out a hand to Jason and asked, "What is your name, young sir?" "Jason." "A noble name. My friends call me 'Crazy Garett.' My real name belongs to a time long since vanished, and matters little now. Come, eat with me; we have much to discuss, boy." **** The interview with the police was not going well. A doctor had taken a blood sample from Duncan and found traces of the Joker's gas still within his blood, and warned that he might feel the effects even more before the day ended. He was feeling them now. Bullock had asked Duncan where he came from. Duncan had replied "a little bit of everywhere," feeling suddenly giddy for no explicable reason at all. Bullock had asked him to elaborate, and he'd started to tell him what village he came from, what year, everything... This had begun a chain of thoughts beginning with what expressions might cross Bullock's face were he to tell him the truth, made a quick trip through his cigar falling in his lap, and ended with him laughing so hard he fell out of his chair. Then Bullock tried to help him up. The sword fell out of its hiding place, and all hell broke loose when Bullock asked why he felt the need to carry a sword with him to a benefit. By the time the police sedated him, he was convinced that Bullock was the Kurgan and was screaming that this was unfair, they must fight one on one. "Sad, ain't it?" Bullock said to Commissioner Gordon after MacLeod had been taken away in an ambulance. "He kept shouting out this phrase, 'There can be only one.' Wonder what the hell *that* meant? Damn the Joker, there goes what was probably a pretty decent guy, now he probably won't ever set foot out of Arkham again." **** Bruce heard and saw the clash between the police and MacLeod via the audio/visual gear he'd installed in the interrogation room at Gotham PD. He looked over to the computer entry he had pulled up on MacLeod, looking for some sign that he might be a superhuman of some sort. "This makes no sense, Alfred," he said as his butler brought him a tray of food for dinner. "No one has ever survived the Joker's gas at full strength before. He left a bunch of children scarred when he hit the orphanage with his gas two Christmases ago, but that was a variation on the toxin. And they checked MacLeod for a pulse, too, before he ever set up. But there he is, walking around... this doesn't add up?" Alfred, on his way out the door, stopped. "Did you say 'MacLeod?'" "Yes, the son of your friend, the one at the party. Why?" "I didn't want to mention this at the party, afraid I was losing my mind when I saw the man. But he looks exactly like his father, as if he were the same man." "That happens a lot, though, Alfred, and it doesn't even have to be within a family. People have mistaken me for *Clark*--and we *know* he's not from the neighborhood." "You're probably right. It's an absurd notion; if he looks so much like his father, maybe he's inherited his father's luck, as well." He left Bruce to the screens and his food. A few moments later, Bruce looked up. "What do you mean, 'his father's luck?'" He stared back at the screens, waiting for an answer to appear. **** =========================================================================