Date: Thu, 22 Feb 1996 08:29:43 -0700 Reply-To: Hank Wyckoff Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: Hank Wyckoff Subject: (25A/30) Reading the Endtrails -- HL Posting Split for posting reasons The Cycle of Axer Carrick, Part 4 Reading the Endtrails (25A/30) A continuation of: When the Veil is Lifted The Duplicity Frostmelt Axer's grogginess quickly faded as he stumbled along with Mulroney. That 'other Axer' seemed to be gone as well. Because Axer still didn't admit that odd moment happened, Mulroney kept silent about it, thankful that at least he had returned to normal. Axer seemed at ease with sneaking across guarded facilities, and made Mulroney wonder where the immortal had developed that ease. Breaking out of prisons? Being in the modern wars? Being a thief? He pushed those questions out of his mind. A bright light clicked on behind them, and they both spun around to find two beefy security guards with drawn revolvers aiming at their faces. Thankfully, the flashlight wasn't aiming in the same direction. "You have a lot of explaining to do," the shorter guard said in a New Jersey accent. He looked more like a street cop than a security guard -- he even had that thick and trimmed moustache. "What seems to be the problem, sirs?" asked Axer in a convincing North Carolina accent. There was suddenly a loud bang, and a section of the electric fence started snapping and hissing with such intensity it would be painful to look at it. The two guards made the fatal mistake of turning around to see what had happened. They were dispatched pretty quickly. ************************************************************ Mulder felt chills run down his spine as he recognized many of the sights. He couldn't help but think, //I was dragged up those very stairs,// or, //Behind that wall is where Cancerman put screws in my back.// He held on to that shotgun of his rather tightly, as if that would see him through. Scully was right by his side with only a handgun, but she seemed a lot less worried. But then, she wasn't fighting with flashbacks either. The three vampires were hovering around several dozen feet above, scanning the ceiling framework, the catwalks, and the rest of the ground floor. It was almost like looking at a maze -- because it was a warehouse, the builders thought a roof for the first level was pretty unnecessary, so all they put up were dividers. It gave the vampires a certain advantage, because few people ever looked up nowadays. The place was dead-silent. There were no sounds of any kind, not even from rats or insects. It was too quiet, but nobody ambushed them once that thought entered their minds. Even LaCroix began to get edgy. This was the place -- they *knew* that -- so they expected to find some sort of life. Nothing. Not even the faint sound of a heartbeat. Powys sat crosslegged on one of the steel beams high up, patting the black box on his belt rather lovingly. //Isn't interference wonderful?// Taking his rifle, he silently loaded his ammunition: a sliver of oak attached to a specialized bullet. He took aim at LaCroix, who hovered in place right below him. He fired. LaCroix' body spreadeagled itself, tense with pain and shock -- a thin sliver of oak punching through his heart. All the others saw was LaCroix stiffening up and then falling to the ground. When he landed, he looked horribly old and wrinkled. Janette and Nick landed at his side a few moments later. They were just as shocked, but tended to have good reaction times in situations like this. Nick felt like he was going to be sick -- he relived a time in Russia during the Napoleonic War, when LaCroix lay before him with a splinter of wood impaled in his heart by a dying soldier. "Nicholas..." whispered LaCroix, barely able to speak. "Pull out the wood..." His eyes weren't pleading or commanding, but they were father-like. Nick fought within himself, and wanted in his very heart to just leave him be, but another part of him forced his shaking hands to reach for the wood. A pause and a deep breath later, he prepared himself, and... [snap!] "LaCroix... I don't know how else to tell you this, but it snapped -- it's still in your heart, and I can't pull it out now." Powys stayed put, observing all this with a lazy smile, and leaned his head back. From his left pocket, he held a single, well-worn figurine in his hand. It was of a black cat with a white spot of fur around its eyes and near the tip of its tail. LaCroix closed his eyes, and breathed out his last bit of life. Nick and Janette were so shocked by this event that they just sat there, not even considering that sense the first shot was fired, the battle had begun. Floodlights from the ceiling snapped on suddenly, and this got everyone's attention. The front doors slammed shut on their own, and a voice with a thick German accent spoke through some hidden loudspeakers, echoing throughout the warehouse, "Blasphemers. Heretics. Freaks." That's all the voice said, and then the speakers clicked off. Mulder looked at Scully, "That's pretty original." They hadn't recognized the voice, but the could guess what kind of man it was who had just spoken. They ran over to where LaCroix had landed. --------------------------------------------------------- Henry Wyckoff -- wyckoff@ag.arizona.edu Q: Want to know how to conserve bandwitdth? A: We all stay off the web and watch the servers shut down. =========================================================================