Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 23:01:44 EST Reply-To: Vi Moreau Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: Vi Moreau Subject: Elena Part I This is my first attempt at a fanfic, and am I nervous! But, I feel strongly that Duncan MacLeod should have a 'lady love.' 1.Tessa is dead; 2.Ann is a wimp; and 3.Amanda just doesn't love him (or anyone but herself!) So I am trying to portray an immortal who is roughly his equal in a fight, takes the moral high ground (eventually) and cares about him a lot. Please give me as much encouragement as possible if you want this to continue; also any comments, suggestions, etc. SEX AND VIOLENCE WARNING!! ELENA part I Elena wiped the blade on a kitchen towel and turned to the dead man, doing a last check to make sure everything was in order. It was a distasteful business, and she hated having to use a knife, but this man had been particularly stubborn (or loyal, depending on your point of view). She always knocked them unconscious first, tying their hands behind them (those plastic handcuffs used by police were quite effective) and gagging them. Then, when they came back awake, the first thing she did was hurt them from behind, usually by breaking one or two fingers. This set the stage, and everytime they refused to answer or lied she walked around behind them again. The suspense of waiting for the pain, unable to see when it was coming or what it would be, made it that much worse. But she was honest--she always told them at the beginning that she would kill them in the end, but if they cooperated their deaths would be easier. She then told them she knew about their sworn oath to die before betraying the Watchers. And then, if necessary, she showed them how difficult and painful dying could really be, and how expert she was at making it so. Some held out hope, sometimes until the last moment when she gagged them again and pulled out her sword for the coup de grace. Many of them pleaded for their lives, or tried to trick her or make a deal, or just lied, although she told them it would all be a waste of time, and eventually they believed her. Then they told her everything she wanted to know. At one point, in the middle of it, she always asked about Maria. "What do you know about Maria Isabel Alonso? Listen to me, Alonso, Maria Alonso, do you know the name? Have you heard the name?" They always said no, they didn't know her. "Tell me about her. Tell me anything about her and I'll stop, the pain will end," she would whisper anxiously in an ear. They would say, "Si, por favor, por el amor de Dios, si, I'm sure I know her, tell me what you want me to say, anything you want! la conozco, lo que Ud. quiera, I swear to God, please don't do this anymore, no me haga eso mas, por favor, Senorita, por favor, please, please please stop..." But they never knew Maria. Still, Elena held out hope that someday she would run across one of Maria's killers or someone who knew about her or had even heard Maria's name. She also always asked about Elena Conchita Duran y Agramonte, and found some Watchers who knew her name, but none who knew about trying to kill her. And at a certain point, to make the pain stop, they would have admitted to trying to kill their own children. Elena kept telling herself this wasn't just about Maria, or Darius, or Gordon, or even revenge. It was about justice. It was about self defense, about survival! They were the ones hunting down the immortals, killing without mercy. What she was doing to these people was necessary to enable her to find others. After all, she was willing to hunt down and kill other immortals to survive. But these Watchers, or Hunters as they sometimes called themselves, said they had no reason to kill immortals, they just observed. This was the party line, and the one thing she refused to believe. Not after the chase in Buenos Aires. Not after Maria's death. A very few had admitted to killing immortals because they were afraid of the power of the Gathering, or because immortals were unnatural creatures who didn't deserve to live. One Watcher told her that he knew about the Hunters, but that he wasn't one of them. "They're a fanatical group," he gasped. "They're not part of us! They want to kill you because they're afraid, because you're different. They think you're too powerful to be allowed to live. Or maybe they think you're not human, I don't know! All I know is that I'm not one of them, I swear, I swear on my mother's grave....please, we don't want to hurt you, we just want to know about you...please...stop..." The party line. They all kept files. Some were plain notebooks in recesses of old desks. Some were documents in bank vaults--those she couldn't get to. But more and more they were files on computers, and sometimes all she needed was the password. She even paused long enough to take computer courses to make her search easier. One Watcher offered to give her lessons, and actually taught her quite a bit in two days of questioning. None of their files was complete. They seemed to work in groups, at least within countries, and she had been unable to find any sort of central structure, only cells like the French Resistance in WWII Europe. This made it harder for the enemy (and Elena was certainly the enemy) to get the whole picture. But she was patient. She had time. She had a mission. She would find them all. Like the others, the man this night finally broke--she saw it in his eyes the moment it happened--and told her everything he knew. And then he gave her the most important thing of all--a name. Joseph Dawson. She left the body deep in the woods and found her way back to her car. She wanted to get to the nearest town and find a bar. More and more, she wanted to find a bar afterwards, because she would not carry liquor with her. She was afraid to start drinking at the wrong time and she needed a clear head for the job. But afterwards, she would find a bar, but not to get drunk. Just two drinks or three. For a while after she had arrived on the west coast of the United States, following a tip from one of her unwilling 'informants,' she had regularly closed bars and staggered out to a motel bed, and, inevitably, to 'la pesadilla,' the nightmare. But one time she practically walked into the waiting sword of an immortal-- and she hadn't even felt his presence! For the first time in her life, she ran from a fight, and that shame kept her relatively sober from then on. She spotted a still lit sign through the rain on a side street in a not-too dangerous looking section of town and parked on the curb. The car she had bought for cash was nondescript and wouldn't attract too much attention, even from thieves. But before she could get inside, she saw that she would have to run a gauntlet. Three dirty-looking teenage hoodlums dressed in, what else, this was America, black leather jackets and jeans, lounged by the entrance, giving a couple who was just coming out a hard time, following the woman, making loud kissing noises and laughing. Elena knew from experience that she couldn't just bypass them, so she walked up and stopped, waiting. "Well, well, well," one of them grinned at her. "Wanna party, baby?" '!Valgame Dios! Do they all use the same line?'she thought, walking closer, not to the one who spoke, but to the one beside him, the one she judged to be the leader who stood back and let the others begin. He had long dirty blond hair and a dark struggling mustache. As she stepped even closer, well inside his personal space, she smelled cigarettes, beer and sweat. She noted with satisfaction that she was about three centimeters taller. "Do I look like a whore to you?" The teenager was not obviously intimidated, but he looked on either side of him at the others, for assurance or support. His smile was big. All their smiles were big. "I don't know," he answered, exagerating her Spanish accent. "I bet you know what a whore looks like." The man on his right giggled. Elena moved to within 'kissing' distance, their faces only centimeters apart. "Like you," she whispered, smiling also. Silence. She felt her heartbeat slowly quickening. It was clearly visible at the base of her throat, and she made no attempt to appear calmer; she even started panting slightly. Others in the past had mistaken this sign for fear or lust, when actually it was anticipation. 'This is the moment,' she thought. It was all part of the Game--intimidation, challenge, psychological warfare. The man in front of her was familiar with the Game, but he didn't have her centuries of practice. If he decided to fight, she was ready to get physical. She liked getting physical because she was so good at it. An immortal just didn't survive for almost 400 years without being good in a fight. The moment passed and she saw the change in his eyes. She wondered briefly what he had seen in hers. She lifted her right hand to his chest to sweep him aside, her left still free if needed. He resisted physically, briefly, 'He could still attack me right now!' then stepped back to let her pass. Elena walked past, still smiling, but she didn't gloat. It was a luxury she could not afford. Once she had openly, loudly laughed at a man who came back at her later with several large friends. They overpowered her, raped her and shot her. It was an expensive mistake which she never made again. She was listening closely, but they made no moves behind her. Still, she would remember to watch for these three when she came back out, just in case. The inside of the bar was made even darker by the smoke. The noise level was high, even without the blaring jukebox. Her eyes stung, and she was so tired, but she wouldn't stay very long. Just a few drinks. Two. Then a motel room. Bed. A little sleep, and 'la pesadilla.' She sat at a table near a corner. The bar itself always made her nervous--it just left her back too exposed. No one obviously looked up when she came in, but she felt eyes on her nonetheless. The majority of the people there were singles, with two or three pairs of women and one rather large group of men at a table. A tired looking waitress in a short black skirt put her wet tray down on Elena's table, but Elena's eyes were by now drawn to the only couple in the room, who had turned to look openly at her. They reminded her of...the Johnsons, or the Johnstons? **************************** She is in the Johnson house, a couple who are both Watchers. The children in the front bedroom are all under ten, and she doesn't want to leave them orphans (God knows she knows what being an orphan is like), so she takes the man and drops him carefully feet first out the second story window but leaves the woman unconscious on their bed. Then she jumps down out the same window, levers him into her trunk and drives to a deserted spot. The fall had broken his leg, and she taps it with the flat of her sword. He screams into the gag. When she eventually removes it, he begs her to spare his wife and children, and Elena kneels in front of him, looks into his face, and carefully explains that his family is completely safe from her no matter what he says or does. He sobs, shuddering, looking at her for a very long time. Then he tells her everything he knows. **************************** "Honey, you wanna drink or what?" The tired waitress lost her impatience when Elena looked right at her. "Did you want something, ma'am, I mean miss, or maybe I should come back? OK?" Elena wondered what it was the waitress, her name tag said DeeDee, had seen on her face. "DeeDee, bring me the best Scotch you have, neat, and keep the change." She put down a twenty dollar bill, and DeeDee picked it up with a practiced sweep, smiling tentatively. "Sure thing, honey, uh, miss. Thanks a lot, OK?" She was back in two minutes with the drink. "DeeDee, do you know who those people are?" Elena asked, pointing with her drink at the couple before the waitress could flit away. "No, no I don't, I don't remember them anyway. Look," she added nervously, "I got other customers, OK?" "Can you recommend a clean motel in town?" "Not in this part of town, honey. I gotta go, OK?" Elena nodded and finished her drink. She wanted a second, maybe a third, but instead went to the table where the couple still seemed to be looking at her. She sat down, turning first to the man. "Do you know me from somewhere?" "Well, I guess not, now that you're up close. You just...Frankie, she really does look like Mary Ann, doesn't she? But no, I guess not. Look, I'm sorry, we... You just really look like her." "Yeah, you do," agreed the woman. Elena wondered if this was as innocent as it looked. "Would you mind giving me your hand?" she asked Frankie. "What?" "Your hand," she repeated, and took Frankie's hand, raising the sleeve, looking for a tatoo. Nothing. She took the other hand. "Hey, what's going on?" the man asked. "What are you doing?" "I'm looking for a tatoo," answered Elena. "Do you have one?" "A tatoo?" "Let me see your wrists, please," Elena turned to him. "Why? Why should I?" "Because I said please." Elena took his hand, turned it and slammed it down onto the table. "Owww! Hey wait, wait a minute!" As he stood up, Elena let go. She had already seen his other wrist. "My apologies," she smiled, standing with him. "I have a fear of tatoos. I am sorry." "Fear! You almost broke my knuckles!" he yelled, holding his hand stiffly by the wrist. "Let me buy you a drink, please." Elena called the waitress over and handed her another bill. "Anything they want, on me. Once again, my apologies." She smiled and left. Outside, she paused to look for the three men, but they were gone. 'A bit paranoid, aren't we, Elena?' She shook her head. She had been eager to fight them before, but the encounters in the bar had left her depressed again. DeeDee had been genuinely frightened, and that poor couple who just mistook her for someone else! She had overreacted. What was she doing, seeing enemies everywhere? Hurting and frightening innocent people? Getting out of control! Elena sighed. Where had she read, 'You're not paranoid if they're really out to get you.' But not everyone, not all the time. She really could use another drink, and almost went back inside. Instead, she found a motel, a too-soft bed, and very unpleasant dreams. =========================================================================