Date: Mon, 18 Dec 1995 22:06:39 -0500 Reply-To: Mike Breen Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: Mike Breen Subject: REVENGE AND REBIRTH II - Towards Future and Past, Part 4 BOSTON, MASS, UNITED STATES, NOVEMBER - DECEMBER, 1995 She walked down Commonwealth Ave, still unable to shake him. She knew she would have to face him. The MBTA had sent its last trolley down the green line a few minutes before, so she walked onto the tracks and turned into the tunnel. Stink followed. VonHoffer got up from his chair and grabbed the keys to his office. Things had changed, and he had to update his computer. "I'm in!" Michelle said. Patrick walked back over to the desk and said, "How'd you do it?" "Easy. His password is 'crucifix' but with a capital X at the end." "You're something else, Michelle. Let's see what you've got." Michelle had access to a file named "Irlndr.doc" which had Immortals, plans, locations, dates, and even time of day. He saw "October 30th, O'Brien Vs Ramus. Boston Garden, 11:35. At 11:47 O'Brien took his head. Police were called in at 11:59. November 16th, MacLeod Vs Jamerson, Court Square, 7:40. At 7:42 MacLeod took Jamerson's head. Police were called in at 7:51." "Can you print that?" "Wait, Patrick," Michelle said, hitting the page down key. The next page was headed "Future." It said: 1) Nancy Peters: Encounter with Stink planned for December 2d. She will take his head and be forced to leave Boston. Location: Alleyway near Berkley College of Music. Though outside of Area A police precinct, Detectives D'Gornio and Douglas will be called in once MO is established. Case will be added to the headhunter file. As Stink has been watching O'Brien's house, and D'Gornio has seen this, O'Brien will come under suspicion. 2) Patrick O'Brien: Encounter with Matthew O'Riley planned for December 13th after kidnapping of Michelle Taylor. He will take O'Riley's head. Location: Underside of the World Trade Center pier. Again, though outside of Area A police precinct, D'Gornio and Douglas will be called in once headhunter MO is established. O'Brien will come under further suspicion. 3) Rebecca DeJeniere O'Brien: Encounter with Sophia Ignala planned for January 3d. She will take Ignala's head. Location: Prudential Garage. Case will be added to the headhunter file. Encounter with Kurdt VonHoffer planned for January 21st. VonHoffer will take her head and add her power to his. It will be enough to enable him to defeat O'Brien. Location: Her loft in Kenmore square. D'Gornio will issue a warrant for O'Brien's arrest in the headhunter murders. 4) Patrick O'Brien: Final encounter with Kurdt VonHoffer planned for late February. Location, unknown, since O'Brien will have to leave the country. VonHoffer WILL take his head. "Good ghod," Patrick said. "It's all here." Rebecca walked over to the desk and looked at the screen. The printout came off of the printer, and Michelle picked it up. Rebecca gripped her neck lightly. "He's..." Michelle said. "He's rather sure of himself," Patrick said. "Well now that we know, we'll be able to fight him." Michelle leaned over to turn the computer off and Patrick said, "No. I want him to know we've been here. Leave it on." "He's insane." "No, he's not, despite the office's condition. He's completely sane, and that's what makes him so dangerous." And then Rebecca and Patrick both looked towards the door. Nancy was in the deserted Kenmore Square train station now, heading into the tunnel towards the next station. She looked behind her. She could still feel Stink somewhere back there. No more running. She turned around took her sword out from beneath her coat, and shrugged her coat off of her shoulders. Time to grow up. "What?" Michelle said, noticing the look in Patrick and Rebecca's eyes. There was absolutely no escape. VonHoffer was on his way in, and there was no way out. The doorknob turned. The door opened. And VonHoffer walked in. "What are you _doing_ here?!" he said as he saw the three of them at his desk. Patrick took his sword out from beneath his coat and said, "It's over VonHoffer. All your carefully laid plans are ruined." "No... they're... NOT!" VonHoffer lunged at Patrick with his sword. "So," Stink said. "You stopped running." "Let's get this over with," Nancy said. "I don't want to kill you, but I will if I have to." "I don't think so," Stink said. "Time to die." He lunged at her. Nancy skillfuly blocked his attack, the past year's intensive training causing her to not even have to think about what to do next. She skillfully blocked his attacks and began to edge her way back towards the subway platform. She saw an opening in Stink's defense and took it, causing him to nearly loose his sword. She took the full offensive then, getting Stink out of the confined space of the subway tunnel into the more open space of the platform. Stink climbed the stairs towards the locked exit, and Nancy followed. Stink launched himself off of the banister, and Nancy followed, landing on her shoulder and rolling with the fall, Joe's training coming into play. Stink got up and pointed his sword at her. Nancy attacked again. VonHoffer slammed Patrick against the office window once... twice... then Patrick pushed him off and tried attacking in the confined space. Neither of them were any good in the confined space, and with all the things that VonHoffer threw around in his anger, it was difficult to get footing. VonHoffer slammed Patrick against the window again... and again... Patrick felt the glass give slightly, and suddenly realized what VonHoffer was trying to do. If he was successful, Patrick only had one chance to turn tables on him. Nancy had Stink against the refreshment kiosk now. They both knew that she had won. She had her sword against his throat, ready for the final blow, but something made her stop. Nabbis had been different. He was a threat to both Patrick and herself. She knew from his Quickening that he would have come after her next. But Stink... he was just a kid, like her, thrust into this mad world of Immortals. He still had a chance, a real chance to change his destiny for the better. The question was, did she dare give it to him? "You'd better do it," Stink said, "or I'll come for ya again and again 'till you do. You don't have a choice, kitten." No, she didn't have a choice. The Game was like Darwinism in its purest form. Survival of the fittest. She backed up and swung. The window was giving each time VonHoffer slammed Patrick against it. It would break soon. VonHoffer slammed again... and again... and again... And the window broke. Patrick felt himself being pushed out of the broken window, to fall twenty stories towards the pavement below. Dropping his katana onto the office floor, he grabbed VonHoffer by the shoulders and pulled. Executing a move that would make Joe proud of him, he used VonHoffer's own momentum to flip him over his head and send him plummeting towards the sidewalk, screaming. Patrick watched him fall, a cold look in his eyes. "Patrick..?" Patrick turned towards Rebecca who said, "If you hurry, you can take his head." Patrick gathered up his katana and said, "No. There's two taxis down there. They're bound to call the police. It's not over yet, but at least this will give us some breathing room." The Quickening exploded from Stink's body. It arched from his neck and sparked off of the trolley power lines. It shattered the windows on the refreshment kiosk, and exploded against the cement walls of the subway tunnel. Nancy stood at the center of it all, screaming at the onslaught of memories, but mostly crying for herself. She had taken that final step towards adulthood. She was no longer a cub, no longer in training. She was now her own person. And as the Quickening stopped, she collapsed, in tears. She looked up to see him standing there, gun in one hand, pointing at her, ax in another. "Who are you?" she said, reaching for her sword. "Just someone who's gonna make sure you don't do anything with the body." "How did... you're not an Immortal." "Damn right. But watching you people undetected is my business." "You're a Watcher." "Good for you. Now get out of here the way you came or else I'll shoot you in the heart and cut off your head." Nancy stood, saying, "You wouldn't. You couldn't." McKinley shot. Nancy felt the bullet rip through her shoulder and shatter her collarbone. It was a tingling sensation, and didn't hurt at all. The pain came after the bullet had exited and the blood began to flow. "If you want your head, you'll leave." Carefully, Nancy put her coat back on and replaced her sword. Then she gripped her shoulder and began walking out of the station towards the inbound tunnel. She staggered, weakened by her experiences that night, not knowing that she was headed away from the tunnel exit. She came to the junction of the three branches of the green line and knelt down. She didn't know if it was because of the Quickening she had just taken, or that she hadn't suffered many life-threatening wounds, or simply the loss of blood, but she could feel consciousness, and life, slipping away. She sprawled out on one of the tracks, and let oblivion take her. Patrick pressed the button on the answering machine to play its single message. It said, "Nancy, this is Jeff over at Bills' Bar. Um, it's last call and I haven't seen you. I'll hang onto your guitar. Give me a call at 555-3221, and I hope everything's allright." Patrick and Rebecca looked at eachother, each thinking the same thought. They opened the door to Nancy's room, and saw the empty bed. "Damn," Patrick said. "VonHoffer must have upped the timetable when you and Michelle realized he was her boss." "Do you think..." "Not even VonHoffer thought that this Stink character would be a threat to Nancy, but..." "Ghods DAMN it!" Rebecca said. "This is my fault." "How is it _your_ fault?" "If I hadn't panicked..." "Michelle may have been killed." "But Nancy..." "Rebecca, let's wait until we find something out before we write Nancy off." "Ok, I know." "'Lo..?" "Frank, wake up and get down to the ME's department." "Jim, it's two fucking thirty in the morning." "Another corpse has been brought in. We think it's the headhunter." "His name is Kurdt VonHoffer," the Medical Examiner said indicating the naked body on the table, "and he's a German citizen." "Used to be an arms dealer," Douglas said. "He'd sell stolen American arms to the Iraqis, the Israelis, the Afghans, the Russians, who'dever buy them. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, he concentrated on the Balkans, specifically the Serbs and the Bosnians. CIA's been after him for over twenty years." "Nice guy," D'Gornio said. "Yeah," Douglas said. "A regular fucking boy scout." "What time did he buy it?" "An eye witness said it was around one AM." "_How_ did he buy it?" "Multiple contusions," the ME said, "multiple bone fractures, concussion, skull fractures..." "He got chucked out of a 20th story window," Douglas said. "What makes you think he's the headhunter?" "This was found in his hand," Douglas said. He took out a long steel sword, elaborately carved, and walked over to the ME's "pet" skeleton. He wound up and swung. He cut through the neck, causing the body to collapse onto the floor. The bodiless skull hung, swinging. "Jesus Christ," D'Gornio said. "Be prepared, I guess." "And _I_ don't know how to use it. Forensics have already determined that this sword is so sharp that when wielded by a skilled swordsman, it would have no problems cutting through flesh, muscle, and bone." "Can forensics tell if that is the murder weapon?" "They haven't given it more than a once-over, but they _do_ say it's been used to kill, and recently. Frank, I'd say we have our guy. The case is closed." "Don't close anything yet, Jim. I want to talk to this witness. Is he around?" "He's back at the scene." D'Gornio looked up at the waterfront office tower. The curtains could still be seen billowing out from the broken window on the twentieth floor where an arms dealer turned serial killer fell to his death. D'Gornio introduced himself to the cabbie and flashed his badge. "I'd like to ask you some questions," he said. "Sure thing, Detective," the cabbie said. "Now, what happened?" D'Gornio took out his notebook and pencil. "It was the wierdest thing I'd ever seen, and I've been driving a cab in this town for goin' on thirty years now. I was off-duty, kinda relaxing, around eleven thirty, when all of a sudden SMASH!! This _phone_ smashed against the ground." "_Phone_? As in telephone?" "Un-huh. I thought 'that's wierd,' but I went back to what I was doin'. Then I picked up a fare at about midnight, dropped her off at South Station at about a quarter past midnight, you know that traffic, even with all this construction, ain't that bad this time o' night. Then I came back here about half past midnight. I was sittin' on the hood of my cab at about one when I heard all this crashin'. All this glass was flyin' everywhere. Well, I started headin' back into my cab 'cause I didn't wanna get hit. Then all of a sudden WHAM!! I'll never forget that sound. WHAM!! I looked over and there he was." The cabbie pointed at the impression VonHoffer's body had made in the sidewalk. "Thanks so much for your time, mister..." "Johnson. Timmy Johnson." "Mister Johnson. You gave your address and phone number to my partner?" "Yup. If you need anything else, feel free to call. I don't mind helpin' you boys, not like them kids today." "Thank you again, Mister Johnson." D'Gornio turned to Douglas, pointed at the broken window, and said, "Let's have a look." "Someone was looking for something," D'Gornio said, eyeing the trashed office. "That's what I thought at first, but then I pulled his CIA file. Apparently when things don't go exactly the way he plans, he files off the handle. Psycho says classic manic-depressive with a controlling fetish." "Whatever. He's still a fucking loonie in my book." He walked over to the window and looked at the quarter-inch thick glass. "Musti've been a hell of a struggle to break that." "Uh-huh. Forensics dusted for prints and found several distinct sets, four of them were fresh. One set was the dead man's, the other three couldn't be identified. There was too much interference from older prints. This was apparently a busy office." "If he was still dealing arms, it would be." They entered VonHoffer's penthouse. Forensics had already been and gone. "Not much up here, apparently," Douglas said. "No, but there _is_ something," D'Gornio said, lifting a broken telephone chord, still attached to the wall, with his pencil. An hour passed, then two, then another half. Nancy's chances of survival were beginning to look grim. Neither Patrick nor Rebecca spoke. They just sat, occasionally looking out on the cold Boston Common, for a sign, for _anything_, that would tell them that their surrogate daughter was all right. Nancy inhaled sharply. She coughed, for she had inhaled a large amount of soot. She opened her eyes, not knowing where she was, and looked around her. Filthy walls... tracks... that rumble in the distance... She remembered, and the trains were beginning to roll out for the morning commute! She looked up, straight into the lights of an on-coming train. She ducked down as flat as she could and prayed that Immortals could regenerate limbs. The train clacked loudly above her. She squeezed her eyes shut and held her breath. Finally, it was over. She sat up, sooty, filthy, and looked at her watch. It was broken and had stopped at almost one AM sharp. If the trains were beginning to roll out in preparation for the morning, that meant she had been dead for just under four hours. She stood, got her bearings, and began walking back towards Kenmore Square. She felt her shoulder. The blood had dried and caked on both sides. She was dirty enough that she would be ignored, just one more homeless person who refused to sleep in a shelter. Then she remembered who waited at Kenmore. Probably the police or, most likely, the Watcher who had shot her. Her shoulder still ached, but it was more the memory of the bullet that hurt rather than the healed wound. She turned around and began heading inbound, towards the common and home. Hopefully by the time she reached Arlington, the stations would be open and she could exit there instead of having to go on to North Station. She was exhausted, and wanted to sleep, _really_ sleep. But she had to keep moving. Rebecca had fallen asleep with her head in Patrick's lap, but sleep was a stranger to Patrick that night. He couldn't help but worry. Sam's memory was still an open wound that, unlike a wound on his Immortal body, would not instantly heal, would probably _never_ heal. He looked at the clock. It was nearly four AM. Nancy reached Arlington street station at a little after five o'clock. She'd had to stop several times due to exhaustion and let her Immortality recharge her slightly before moving on. The station had been open for a while, but was nearly empty. She hugged her coat around her and stepped up onto the platform. She tried ignoring the stares of the few passengers waiting for the trolley, headed for the stairs, and the welcoming sign that beckoned to her, "EXIT TO STREET." She walked through the turnstile and heard the attendant say, "Another damned bag lady." She walked out of the exit and into the cold, dark, late fall morning. She leaned against the subway kiosk and sighed. She was almost home. "Subject, Kurdt VonHoffer, is a caucasion male of approximately forty years," the voice said. "Cause of death has been attributed to a fall of twenty stories, fracturing most of the bones in his body multiple times and causing severe brain trauma." VonHoffer opened his eyes and inhaled sharply. The noise caused the voice to stop its narration. Then he began again. "I am now about to open the body." VonHoffer cracked his eye and saw that he was in an operating room, probably a morgue. The doctor was about to slice him open. With a lightning fast move, he gripped the doctor's neck and squeezed. He felt the life drain from his body. "Buy you breakfast, Frank?" Douglas said. "Absolutely. Let's just sign off on this and we can close the fucker." "Don't celebrate yet," the desk sergeant said as he approached them. "Another one just came in." Patrick's head snapped around as he felt the presence of another Immortal. The sensation woke Rebecca up as well. "Oh, please," Rebecca said, "every ghod in every universe, please let it be her." A disheveled, smelly, dirty, exhausted, but alive Nancy walked into the townhouse. Patrick and Rebecca both practically leapt from the couch, ran over to her, and embraced her. "What the hell happened?" Patrick said. "Well..." "Patrick, let her take a shower," Rebecca said. Refreshed, but still tired, Nancy told them the whole story, from Stink's challenge, to the fight in the subway station, to her getting shot. "Then," she said, "I spent the rest of the night dead, lieing in a tunnel. I walked from the Kenmore interchange to Arlington street, through the tunnels. Let me tell you, that's a view of the T that I don't want to see again anytime soon." She then grew serious and said, "I have to leave, _really_ have to leave, don't I?" Patrick nodded, silently. "Can't we just break the Rules again?" Rebecca said. Patrick sighed and said, "I can't. Neither Connor nor Joe will let me." "What do they have to do with _us_?" Nancy said. "They're both Immortals I respect. Nancy, remember this past summer when we met Andrew and Chris Balfour?" Nancy nodded. "Remember when I mentioned that I was worried Andrew wouldn't let his little girl grow up into the woman she must become?" Nancy nodded again, then realized what he was saying. Her mood sunk into despair. She said, "But I don't want to leave... Not before Rebecca's show." Neither Patrick nor Rebecca could help laughing. Eventually, Nancy joined in. <<>> (c) 1995 Mabnesswords The rest of the Irelander saga can be found at: http://www.vuse.vanderbilt.edu/~copelasa/ireland.htm =========================================================================