Date: Tue, 9 May 1995 07:53:09 +0100 Reply-To: Grail Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: Grail Subject: "Steele Blades" Part 2 Steele Blades by Grail (Mark Overton) Part 2 "Mildred Krebs?" Seated at her desk, Mildred didn't look up from the papers spread across her desk. "What can I do for you?" she muttered, sorting through the agency's tax accounts and using all her IRS-taught abilities to try and produce some kind of result that wouldn't get them arrested for fraud. If only the boss worked at his tax returns better.... "I'm Inspector Michael Cooper." The cops. Mildred's first thought was to run. Her second thought was to realise she hadn't actually done anything wrong yet. Her third thought was "why is he here?" "Why are you here, Inspector?" she asked, raising her head to look at the man. He was in his early thirties, wearing the traditional trenchoat and hat, a neat if inexpensive suit beneath it. He wore a grave expression on his face. "You are Mildred Krebs?" She frowned. "Ye-es...." Cooper looked sympathetic. "I'm sorry, Miss Krebs. It's my sad duty to tell you that your employer Remington Steele and his associate Laura Holt were gunned down in a shopping centre earlier today. They were killed outright." Cold. She was cold. She was very cold. Laura opened her eyes. She was staring up at an antiseptically clean white ceiling, and she could smell the pungent detergent someone had used to wash it with. The room was cold and silent, and she realised suddenly that she was lying on a metal slab - that was why she was starting to shiver. She was also naked under the thin sheet which was covering her up to the neck. Laura sat up, clutching the sheet to her chest, and looked around her. There were a number of similar slabs all around, each one with a motionless sheet-covered form. The room was lit, but the doors were closed and probably locked as well. She was in a morgue. Laura's eyes widened in alarm. Carefully, she got down from the slab and looked around for her everyday clothing. Something dirty grey caught her eye and she realised it was a scientist's lab coat, slung carelessly across a worktop with the neck dangling in a sink. Laura padded over and dropped the sheet on the floor, pulling on the lab coat instead. A hand touched her shoulder and she spun round in alarm. "This is not good," Steele said thoughtfully, ignoring her startlement. Laura sighed and relaxed just a fraction. "Don't creep up on me like that," she admonished him, pulling the lab coat a little tighter. Steele was still wrapped in his mortuary sheet, though around his waist only, his chest bare. "Let's find you some clothes," she said, starting to look around the morgue. Steele grabbed her and pulled her back; she looked up at him quizzically. "What is it?" He was looking very puzzled indeed. "Laura, this is a morgue. We're in a morgue. That means we're dead. That we're walking around right now means we're contravening the laws of nature." She shrugged. "They probably just made a mistake." "What's the last thing you remember?" he queried. Laura frowned. "Erm....we were in the car park and then...." Her voice tailed off slowly, her expression amazed. Steele nodded. "Exactly. There aren't many people I know of who've survived submachinegun blasts at point-blank range." He looked at her in sudden alarm. "Laura, perhaps we're ghosts!" "Now you're being silly," she said scornfully, spotting another lab coat and stalking across the morgue to get it for him. "Ghosts are just figments of the imagination. They're not real and we're not dead." Steele brushed a hand across his chest. "Laura, I felt those bullets." "Surgery," she suggested. "They can do wonderful things with scalpels these days." "Then why are we in the morgue? What did they do, decide to put us on ice while they went for a tea-break?" Laura sighed. "Come on. First priority is to get some proper clothes. Then we get out of here, alright?" "Sooner the better," he murmured, but he followed her quietly enough as they walked towards the morgue exit. The doors had glass windows set into them and Laura peered through one of these. The corridor beyond was dark, silent, and happily empty. "Come on," she beckoned, pushing open one of the doors, which turned out to be unlocked after all, and stepping into the corridor. Steele followed and they padded barefoot along the cold linoleum of the corridor until Laura stopped suddenly, Steele almost banging into her. She turned and pointed to a door saying "EQUIPMENT STORE #223". "Worth a try," she said. Steele was just about to answer when they heard a whine and hum of lift machinery. Turning, Laura saw the doors of the lift at the far end of the corridor begin to open; she and Steele hastily dived into the storeroom and pulled the door almost shut behind them. A moment later they were peering through the tiny crack, waiting to see who it was arriving. Two men came into view, moving slowly and carefully towards the morgue, wary as if they expected attack. The first was bulky and slightly overweight, but his heavy brooding face contained plenty of menace, the effect heightened by the thin pale scar on his left cheek. The second man was smaller and thinner than his companion, but his vulpine features lent a demonic air which made him seem just as menacing. It wasn't their descriptions that gave Laura and Steele the clue, though. They carried black submachineguns. "Two of our friends from the carpark," Steele murmured in Laura's ear. She nodded silently as the two men drew nearer. "There it is, up ahead," the fat one noted. "Let's get them," Laura breathed. She felt Steele nod in the darkness behind her, then threw open the door and dived on the thinner man. A moment later the sound of fisticuffs echoed in her ears as Steele charged the other one. Laura's victim was knocked back against the wall, dropping the gun, by the force of her charge; she kneed him in the stomach and chopped him on the back of the neck with equal speed. Making small choking sounds and scrabbling at his neck, he dropped to his knees. Laura grabbed him by the neck and choked him into unconsciousness. Steele ducked as a punch from the fat man whistled over his head and hit the hospital wall with a dull thud. Stepping inside the arm, he jabbed two fingers into the man's eyes; he stumbled back with a howl of pain and Steele, abandoning all pretence at a fair fight, kicked him where it'd do the most good. The fat man whimpered and sank to the ground. Standing over the two unconscious men, Laura and Steele regarded each other. "Clothes," they said simultaneously. Twenty minutes later, the lift doors up from the morgue parted to reveal two sorry-looking people. The thin man's clothes were too tight for Laura, giving her minor agonies every time she moved, while Steele was almost dwarfed by the fatter man's clothing; he had rolled up the sleeves of the sweater but it still did him little good, because they kept falling down. The submachineguns they had left, empty, in the morgue beside the two unconscious men. Stepping out of the lift, Laura led the way to the exit from the hospital. "The first thing we have to do is find Mildred and tell her we're alright," she noted over her shoulder, "and then - " She stopped moving and speaking at the same time, and Steele bumped into her. He was about to complain when he felt it too; a buzzing, harsh-edged and somehow travelling through the air, surrounded him, giving him pins-and-needles and making his hair feel funny. Almost against his will, he turned in the same direction in which Laura was already staring. The man in the ponytail regarded them carefully, standing at the entrance to the hospital with a very attractive blonde woman beside him. Steele and Laura stared silently at him, intrigued and worried by the effect he was having on them. For a long moment, the four people stared at one another and said nothing; then the man turned to the woman. "Wait over there, Tessa," he instructed. She nodded and moved away, glancing back at him a little worriedly all the same. The man moved across to Steele and Laura; he was about Steele's height, his long hair black and his clothing fashionable without being expensive. His eyes searched their faces. "I am Duncan Macleod," he said, "of the Clan Macleod." Steele and Laura stared at him. "Congratulations," Laura nodded eventually. Duncan didn't smile. "What are your names?" "Laura Holt. This is my boss, Remington Steele." "Remington Steele Investigations," Steele added. Duncan looked at them carefully. "I don't want any trouble. Not here, not outside. I don't want to fight. I'm out of the Game at the moment." "The Game?" Laura looked up at Steele, who shrugged, then back to Duncan. "Who even said we wanted to fight you, Mr - ah - Macleod?" "Duncan." He looked them over again. "Wait. I've heard of the two of you. You were the ones who protected the Royal Lavulite jewels." Steele shrugged deprecatingly. "Well, I can't take all the credit. Some of it was due to Miss Holt here....though I did mastermind the operation." He winced suddenly as Laura carefully and with great malice stepped on his toe. "You're new," Duncan noted. "New to what?" Laura demanded, getting annoyed. Duncan glanced back at Tessa, still waiting with an expression of concern on her face. Then he turned back to Steele and Laura. "Not here, not now. Where do you live, Mr Steele?" Steele told him. "Go there and wait for me. I'll be about half an hour. Don't let anyone else in, especially if you sense them like you did me." "But why - " Laura started to ask. "Don't," Duncan interrupted her. "I know you don't know me, but this is important. Please. I'll be half an hour." Steele put a hand on Laura's shoulder, stopping her from speaking. "We'll be there." Duncan nodded, turned, and walked away. Laura waited until he was out of earshot before she turned to Steele, looking up at him angrily. "Why did you do that? We could have got some answers out of him?" "Could we?" Steele responded. "How do you interrogate someone in the middle of a hospital, Laura? Besides, he's said he'll be at the flat in half an hour. This is the first real guarantee we have of getting some answers." He turned towards the exit. "Come on." They left the hospital and started down the steps towards the small group of taxis parked nearby, Laura following Steele with the occasional grimace of pain from the too-tight clothing. As they reached the bottom of the steps, they stopped again and stared around. The shiver was back, buzzing in their minds. "Over there," Laura said quietly, nodding to where a limousine was parked a short distance from the hospital entrance. Steele squinted, trying to see through the limousine's open window who was inside. The car door opened and the man in the blue suit from the underground carpark stepped out. He smiled at them from across the carpark. "Nice to see you again," he said, "Mr Steele....Miss Holt." The sword in his hand glinted evilly. =========================================================================