Date:         Tue, 8 Mar 1994 13:29:25 -0700
Reply-To:     Highlander TV show stories <HLFIC-L@PSUVM.BITNET>
Sender:       Highlander TV show stories <HLFIC-L@PSUVM.BITNET>
From:         L J Constantine <johanna@HYDRA.UNM.EDU>
Subject:      The Rules of the Game II

"The Rules of the Game"
A Highlander/Forever Knight Crossover
By Tara O'Shea

Part II

     "Are you telling me that someone who had a hole in her the
size of a football jumped out of your car and took off at a dead
run?"  Nat stared at Nick from where she sat on the couch.
     "It know it sounds crazy Nat, but I have the bloodstains in
my caddie to prove it."
     "And you want me to do a work up to see if she's a vampire."
     "It's the only thing that makes any sense.  There was no way
a mortal woman could have healed so quick, and she didn't want to
go anywhere near a hospital."
     "Nick, you're forgetting one small factor."
     "Which is?"
     "The photograph we found in Nomura's room was taken
outdoors, in full daylight."
     Nick laid down on the couch opposite her, rubbing at his
eyes.  Dawn had come and gone, but he couldn't sleep.  Not
without having some answers.  "That doesn't mean she wasn't
turned after it was taken."
     "Want me to see if we can date the photo too?"
     "Yeah.  It can't hurt."
     "Nick,"  She leaned forward, worrying at the corner of her
mouth as she often did while deep in thought.  "What if she's not
one of you?"
     "Nat, you saw how much blood she lost--"
     "No, listen, what if she really did heal that fast, but
isn't a vampire.  What if there is another kind of immortal out
there, besides your kind?'
     "One that I, in almost eight centuries, haven't come across
before?" he said, incredulously.
     "You're not omniscient," Nat replied dryly.  "When we found
Nomura's body, you had a strange look on your face.  Like you
were remembering something."
     "It was just...."  He sighed.  "Decapitation is a strange
way to die.  People don't go off chopping eachother's heads off.
Except..."
     "Except what?"
     "Decapitation is one way to kill a vampire."
     "So you're thinking someone may have thought Nomura was a
vampire?"
     "But since the body didn't disappear, that means she most
definitely wasn't."
     "And then there was that report of lightening, on a clear
night.  None of it makes sense."
     "You know what they say, rule out the possible, and the
impossible, however bizarre, must be the truth.  Or however that
quote goes."
     He chuckled, and Nat retrieved her purse, and the blood
sample taken from the caddie.  "It's past your bedtime.
Stonetree expects you on time tonight, so you'd better get some
sleep.  Doctor's orders."
     "I'll try, Nat."
     "And eat something," she called as the elevator door shut
behind her.
* * *
     Nick was awakened out of sound sleep by the answering
machine.  ".....so if you want to leave your name and number go
ahead... BEEP  Hey, Knight,"  Schanke's voice boomed out of the
tiny speaker, "sorry to wake you so early, but I just thought you
might like to know we put a man on that antique shop,
Curiosities, and Matthews hasn't come back there.  If this lady
is still alive, she hasn't been home.  However, the alarm went
off in a shopping mall in Rosedale, less than two miles from where she
jumped ship, and there were blood traces found on the doors of a
woman's clothing shop.  Forensics is over there now getting a
sample.  See you in a few hours.  Hasta la bye-bye."
     Nick rolled over, staring blankly at the wall.  If Corrine
Matthews was alive, she must have broken in and gotten some
clothes.  But unless someone had a sighting in daylight, he was
no closer to getting the answers he needed.
* * *
     Halfway around the world, a telephone was ringing, drowning
out the sounds of the evening mass.
     "Allo?"
     "Darius?  C'est moi, Niamh."
     "Niamh, cher.  Quel surprise, comment ca va?"
     "Je pense que Himiko... je pense... elle est morte,
Darius....." Niamh's voice broke and she lapsed into English,
distraught.  "A woman, one of us, she attacked me in my home last
night.  Himiko told me she had taken a new student in Kyoto, an
American woman.  She called herself Martine Phillips, she came
after me."
     "Calm down, you know the nature of the Game."
     "This is not the Game, she did not follow the Rules."
     "A woman you say?  Describe her to me."  Niamh did.  In
Paris, Darius nodded, sure now it was the same woman.  "I want
you to call a friend of mine, I think he has had dealings with
this woman, and may be able to help you."  He gave her the number
and she repeated it back to him.  "Niamh, you take care of
yourself."  He didn't know what else to say.
     "I'll try."  And then she hung up.
* * *
     Nick scanned the crowd at the Raven, tuning out the music as
he searched for Janette.  She was at the bar, and raised her
glass to him when she felt his eyes.
     "You look so intent, Nicholah.  I wonder why?" she purred,
offering her cheek for a kiss.
     "What would you say if I told you I thought someone might be
hunting our kind?"
     "I would say I have not heard of such a thing.  Why?"
     "Two nights ago a body was found, decapitated."
     "If it was one of us, there would be no body, cher."
     "I know."
     "And this makes you think someone is hunting the hunters?"
     He told her about the antique dealer, how she disappeared,
with wounds that would have killed a mortal woman.  She looked
thoughtful, sipping her wine and blood.
     "There are rumours, of course.  But you know I place little
stock in such stories.  Mortals have their supernatural tales,
but how many of them have any truth?"
     "What kind of rumours?"
     "There is a mortal cult, almost religious, who have watched
for centuries for immortals.  But they have never come close to
learning the truth of our kind.  If they did, well, you know what
the Enforcers would do."
     "But if it's not us they are after, could there be another
kind of immortal they are interested in?"
     "I have never heard of such a thing, but I suppose anything
is possible."  She gave a particularly gallic shrug, and noted
the disappointment in his dark blue eyes.  "I see that is not the
answer you were looking for, m'amie."
     He pulled out a copy of the photograph of Nomura and
Matthews.  It was hard to make out the details in the dim light
of the club, but not for Janette and Nick's eyes.  She stared at
it for a moment.  "The Japanese woman was the one found dead two
nights ago, the one on the left jumped from my caddie.  Could she
be one of us?"
     "I have never seen her, and I make it my business to know
all of our kind that pass through here."  She handed the picture
back.  "So you have a pretty puzzle.  Are you sure it is not a
mortal game you may have stumbled on?  Decapitation is one way to
kill us, but most seem to prefer wood."  She gave a little
shudder, and motioned the bartender to refill her glass.  The
music changed from loud dance music to a mournful tune, and Nick
bent his head closer to hers so that no one might overhear.
     "If it is someone hunting our kind, take care of yourself."
     "I always do, Nicholah."  She kissed him, and then watched
his retreating form as he weaved his way through the crowd, song
lyrics drifting through her awareness.

*...here we go again... doesn't take much to rip us into
pieces.... we danced in graveyards with vampires till dawn
we laughed in the faces of kings never afraid to burn....*

She smiled at words all the little mortals danced to, never
really listening to what they were saying, and drained her glass.

*....give me life, give me pain, give me myself again
give me life, give me pain, give me myself again.....*

* * *
     Niamh waited for the service to end in the back of the
church, watching as the faithful filed out one by one, then the
alter boys, and finally the sacrament was placed under lock and
key, and she was alone.  She moved over to the candles, dropping
some coins in the box and lighting one.  She bowed her head,
thinking of her mentor, and then, with a glance about to make
certain she was alone, slipped behind the iron display and felt
along the floor underneath for her sword.
     "Looking for something?"  The words were accompanied by the
sick sensation Niamh associated with her presence.
     Niamh spun around, fists clenched.  "Felice Martin," she
growled, anger burning in her bright eyes.
     "I see you talked to MacLeod."  The other woman laughed,
opening her trenchcoat to show the gleaming hilt of Niamh's
daito.  "Did he give you this?  He gave me one like it."
     "Himiko gave it to me."
     "Hmm.  You must have been teacher's pet.  She never gave me
anything so nice."
     "I was with her three hundred years before she gave me that
sword.  I'd like it back."
     "To do what?  This is holy ground.  You know the rules."
     "You broke the rules, when you started your little
masquerade."
     "But you won't break the rules.  You're the good girl,
aren't you."  She spat the words at her, anger clouding her eyes.
"Your kind make me sick.  All your sanctimonious behaviour, your
holier than thou attitude.  It's kill or be killed.  You act like
that's a crime."
     "She trusted you!"  Niamh cried, livid.  "She took you in,
taught you, would have watched your back against any who would
hurt you, and instead you used that trust to kill her."
     "She was a fool.  It was too easy, killing her."
     "Bitch," Niamh snarled.
     "We could have settled it last night.  You're the one who
ran away.  Well, you can't hide on holy ground forever."
     "Give me my sword."  The other woman laughed, and tossed the
sheathed blade through the air.  Niamh caught it, and glared.
     "Be seeing you."  Felice smiled, and walked out of the
church.
* * *
     Niamh waited until she had cleared the wrought iron gate
marking the edge of consecrated ground, and then rushed her.
Felice pulled her sword from its sheath inside her coat, and the
blades met with a shower of sparks.
* * *
      The radio crackled.  "All units, disturbance in progress at
Mount Pleasant cemetery.  Suspects are armed with swords or long
knives.  Repeat; suspects are armed and dangerous."
      "81 kilo, we're on it."  Nick got his bearings and headed
towards the cemetery.
      "We've got a live one."  Schanke pulled out the siren from
the glove  compartment. "Swords can be real sharp.  Think this
may be our crazy decapitator?"
      "Entirely possible."
                                     * * *

      Niamh knew she was being rash.  Challenging in public was
idiotic, but she was so angry, angrier than she had been in
centuries, and she couldn't stop.  As she and Felice sprang
apart, she tried to force herself to clear her mind.  If she
faltered, she was dead, and the Game for her would end.
      In the never dark city streets, lit by the glowing neon and
pale streetlamps, no one seemed to see or hear them, in the tree
lined street, houses with sleeping families silent as if empty.
Niamh emptied herself until the world fell away, and there was
just her, and her opponent.  Felice moved like a predator, always
pressing the attack, keeping Niamh on the defensive, but Niamh
was used to that.  She avoided, and waited for the chance to turn
the dance they were weaving.  It had been seven years since she
had been challenged, but she still remembered how the game was
played.
      She skittered on a damp lawn, regaining her balance as the
other woman lunged again.  All it took was for her to be wounded
enough to give pause, and then it would be over.  Niamh moved
back towards an alley, where the footing would be sure on the
brick cobblestones, and dogs barked in the distance, hearing what
their masters slept through.  Long off sirens grew closer, but
they did not pause, and the sirens faded into the distance as
Felice recovered from a blow that had it connected, would have
taken her arm off.  Niamh shifted her balance from foot to foot
as they circled eachother, fighting for breath.

                                     * * *

      Nick drew his gun, cautiously making his way from the
parking lot of the church down one street, while Schanke, in a
similar stance, headed off in the opposite direction.  He
strained his ears for any sound that might not belong in the
peaceful residential area.  The ring of metal on metal,
impossible for Schanke to register from so far off, sent him
running towards a narrow alleyway between the houses.  He could
make out two figures, in almost identical trenchcoats at the end,
lamplight running down their drawn swords like water.
      "Freeze, police!" he called, training his gun on the woman
with blue-black hair cut in a sleek bob, who didn't even pause,
but lunged instead at her opponent, who Nick recognised as
Matthews.  He squeezed the trigger, catching her in the arm
before she could land her blow, which Niamh turned aside with the
flick of a wrist.  "I said freeze."  Nick moved closer, waiting
for the woman to drop her sword.  She didn't.
      Instead, she ran him through as Niamh cried out in dismay,
shocked that Felice would kill a mortal just because he was in
her way.  Felice turned and Niamh had the unpleasant sensation of
having three feet of steel pass through her to come out the other
side.  She really hated that.  Felice advanced on Niamh, and
raised her sword for the killing blow. "There can be only one."
      Nick was suddenly between them, amber eyes burning as they
caught the light, and he flung Felice away from Niamh, straight
into a row of metal trashcans that toppled with a sound like
thunder.
      Through tears of pain, Niamh's eyes fixed on the looming
figure of Nick.  "Who are you?"  She whispered as he lifted her.
      "I could ask the same of you."  Then she was unconscious,
and they were airborne.
                                     * * *
      In the few minutes it took to reach Nick's loft, Niamh's
wound closed, and she was completely conscious when he laid her
down on the couch.  She sat up immediately, running bloodstained
fingers through her hair.
      "She's not dead you know."  She said, referring to Felice
Martin.
      "I know."
      "Have you come for my head too?"  She should be terrified.
Instead she was just very tired.  Amazingly tired.... the cop who
wasn't a cop was saying something to her, and then she fell
asleep...
                                     * * *
      Schanke found Nick in the alley, staring at a fallen row of
trashcans.
      "Find anything, partner?"
      "Must have been a false alarm."  He pulled his trenchcoat
closer around him, to hide the hole in his turtleneck, and they
headed back to the caddie.
                                     * * *
      "You messed with my head."  It was as much of a question as
it was an accusation.
      "I didn't want you disappearing again."  Nick admitted.  She
reached across to pick up her daito from the table and sheath it.
      "Looks like I'm not going anywhere, then."  She stared at
him with guileless blue eyes, doing mental cartwheels trying to
figure out exactly what he was.
      "Who are you?"  He sat down opposite her. "I checked.
Corrine Matthews was born in Chicago twenty-eight years ago, and
died in Chicago three days later."  She took a deep breath.
      "Niamh ni Bhriain, of the Brianaigh."
      "And?"
      "I'm immortal.  Do you have a problem with that?"  She
crossed her arms, looking very vexed.
      "No."
      "You're taking this very well."
      "I'll be eight hundred years old in five months," he said
quite seriously.
      "I don't understand, why didn't I know?  Why can't I sense
your quickening?"  She followed him across the loft.
      "My what?"
      "Are you telling me you've lived eight hundred years, and
you don't know the rules of the Game?  Didn't anyone ever teach
you?"  He opened the fridge, and selected a wine bottle.  She
blinked when he removed the cork with his teeth.  He took a swig,
and she trailed behind him.  "How have you lived this long?"
      When he turned back to face her his eyes burned amber and she
heard a bestial growl as he bared his fangs.
      "Oni!"  She cried, taking an involuntary step back.
"Vampire," she breathed, caught between horror and wonder. "*shit*"
      Nick laughed, for once at a loss for words.  Niamh sank back
onto the couch, staring at her bloodstained stolen shirt and
trench.  "That's not wine, is it."  She gestured to the bottle,
and he shook his head.  "Human?"  She involuntarily put her hand
to her throat.
      "Cow."
      "I don't suppose you have any scotch?  I could use some
scotch about now."
      "I'll see if I can dig some up while you shower.  Bathroom's
next to the bedroom, up the stairs."
      "The blood's bothering you isn't it," she observed, and he
nodded.
      "There are clothes in the closet upstairs you can choose
from."
      "Okay.  One question though."
      "Shoot."
      "What's your name?"
                              * * *
      "Hi Grace, it's Nick.  Is Nat in?"
      "Sorry Detective Knight, her shift ended and she went home
about an hour ago.  Anything I can help you with?"
      "Thanks, Grace, but I was just checking in--"
      "Nick, do you have any clothes that don't have bullet holes
in them?"  Niamh, cocooned in towels, called from the top of the
stairs, and Nick winced, sure Grace had overheard.
      He pressed the receiver against his chest, "Bottom drawer."
      "If she checks in I'll tell you her you called," Grace
sounded annoyed, and Nick sighed, certain now she's overheard.
      "Thanks, Grace."  Niamh came down the stairs in an
oversized Bears Superbowl XX t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants
that were far too long for her.  She looked all of 15 years old,
not someone who was even older than he was.  He dialled Nat's
number, but there was no answer, and he replaced the receiver in
its cradle.
      "I don't suppose you have any food around here?  I haven't
eaten in two days.  It's not like I'll starve, but it is mildly
annoying."
      "No food, but I did find some scotch."  The bottle had been
in the back of his cupboard, collecting dust since Christmas.
"It's not great scotch, my partner gave it to me..."
      Niamh read the label, and fished a glass out of the kitchen.
"It'll do."  She filled the tumbler half full with the amber
liquid, pick up her daito, and went over to the window where the
sun was beginning to rise.  Nick held back, but did use the
remote to open the blind all the way for her.  If she was a
vampire, she would be suicidal, but from her reaction, it was
obvious she had never dreamed of the existence of his kind any
more than he had imagined anyone like her.
      "Was Kyoko Nomura like you?"
      "Who... oh.  Yes.  She was."  She drained half the glass in
one swallow, smiling as the liqueur burned its way down her
throat.  "She was one of the best."
      "And your friend."
      "Yes."
      "Is that why you were trying to kill the other woman in the
alley?"
      "Part of it.  Do you know how we survive?  We kill each
other.  Friends.  Enemies.  Lovers.  And all we can look forward
to is to be hunted by one of our own kind.  There can be only
one."
      "One what?"  He stepped closer, keeping away from the square
of red-gold on the floor from the slowly climbing sun.
      "A time will come, the time known as the Gathering, when all
the remaining of my kind will be inexplicably drawn to one place,
where we will battle and kill each other, until there is only one
of us, for the Prize."
      "Which is?"
      "No one knows what it really is.  Some say it is the amassed
power and knowledge of thousands of immortals, and whoever is
left can rule this world."  She glanced over her shoulder and met
his eyes.  "The Gathering has begun.  It could go on for years.
No one knows.  And it seems some place in North America is the
site chosen for the final battle."
      "How many have you..."
      "Eight, over almost nine centuries.  Three in the past
decade.  We call it the Game.  You learn, and you learn fast.
There are some who don't wait for the Gathering.  They're
hunters.  And the only way to keep from becoming one of the
hunted, is to become a hunter yourself."  She rubbed her arms as
if she was cold, as if the sunlight streaming through the windows
wasn't enough to warm her flesh and bones.  As if she would be
cold forever.  "Himiko, the woman who taught me, who trained me,
was almost a thousand years old when I met her.  We were
inseparable for three hundred years.  This sword was her gift to
me before we parted in 1585.  It had been gifted to her by her
teacher, an Egyptian who died in Scotland in that same year.  For
all our long lives, we have an amazing lineage of death to keep
track of."  She tilted the longsword so the sunlight ran down the
blade like water, then stepped back and handed it to Nick, who
held it almost reverently.
      "A Masamune daito.  Very rare.  The best example of
metalworking from that period."  He smiled at her raised brow.
"I was an archaeologist once."
      "Today, most of us tend to be antique dealers, or
archaeologists, though some prefer to be assassins, or perpetual
soldiers.  Masamune blades are the very best.  Only six were ever
made.  I heard an antique dealer in Seattle has three of them."
      It was Nick's turn to raise a brow.  "One of you?"
      "Yes.  He is the one who told me about Felice Martin, the
woman now called Martine Phillips.  She took Himiko's head three
days ago.  Himiko had written to me of a new student she had
taken on, a gaijin woman killed while visiting Kyoto, and newly
reborn here at the start of the Gathering.  She brought her back
here because she wanted me to meet them in Toronto.  The supposed
'student' was Felice Martin, a coward who is over four hundred
years old, and has used that time tricking immortals who would
help her by pretending helplessness.  She soaks up whatever
knowledge she can from her targets, and then cuts them off from
those they love, and finally takes their Quickening.  Usually she
chooses male immortals as her targets.  She must have panicked
when she heard I was one of us.  It is easy to fool one of us,
but two?  I don't think she could have done it.  Himiko was
supposed to meet me at the shop.  I waited, and instead Martin
came, and you know the rest.  I'll never jump through another
plate glass window again."  She laughed.
      "But now you've found her," Nick said very seriously.
      "And now I shall kill her."  She shrugged.  "Or she will
kill me.  That's the Game."  He heard the capital 'G', and
realised that her kind lived by as much of a code as his.
      "And the quickening?"
      "It's like.... our life force.  When we are near another of
our kind, it calls out to us.  It's very hard to explain.  It
makes me feel almost sick, and it's how I know when another immortal
is near.  When we die, the quickening is released, and it is
absorbed by the nearest immortal.  It's power, and knowledge.
It's who we are."  She shrugged.  "That's why I didn't understand
why I couldn't feel you, because I thought you were one of us."
      "When you jumped out of my car, I thought you were one of my
kind.  Decapitation is one way to kill a vampire."
      "And the only way to kill me.  I can't starve, drown,
burn...  I always heal.  How do oni.... vampires I guess,"  She
stumbled over the word, "deal with it?"
      "With what?"
      "Immortality."
      "I'm not a very good example," Nick admitted.  "I had a
choice, in the beginning.  I made the wrong one."  He stared at
the square patch of sunlight on the floor.  "I want to go back."
      "Can you?"
      "I don't know."
      "Sometimes I wonder, if I had a choice, what I might have
done.   When I was fifteen, I was hit by a cart in the
marketplace.  It broke my neck, one of the wheels crushed my
ribcage and most of my internal organs.  My death was
instantaneous.  Then there was pain.  I woke up on the back of
the cart, with the other corpses, waiting for burial.  My parents
ran screaming when I walked home covered in blood and filth.
They ran from me."  Even after centuries, the memory made her
flinch.  "They said I was not their daughter, that their daughter
was dead, and I was a demon sent to torment them.  My husband
threw burning sticks from the fire at me.  I left the village,
wandered the island.  I had no idea what I was.  I had never
touched a sword, nor hoped to.  I was slow, and stupid, little
better than the animals I had slaughtered for food.
      "Himiko-chan found me living in the Wicklow mountains, alone
and almost half mad of it.  She was then ninja, master assassin
in the employ of a powerful Sei-i-tai Shogun, and skilled with
all manner of weapons.  I owe everything I became to her.  It's a
very special bond, that between student and teacher."  Niamh
began to circle the flat, running a finger over the scattered
objects d'art and artifacts long unearthed, lost in a seven
hundred year old memory.  Nick thought of LaCroix, and shuddered.
They were very different after all.
      "Himiko-sempai spoke seven languages, and taught me
Japanese, Chinese, and French.  Since then I have travelled the
world a hundred times over, and have learnt almost every tongue
spoken by man.  Not bad for nine centuries' work."  She
shrugged.  "I'm becoming fond of this modern time.   Still, ever
try to sneak three feet of steel through a metal detector?"
      "Ever try sleeping in the trunk of a '62 caddie"
      "Touche.  Can you eat?"  Her curiosity got the better of
her.
      "No."
      "Drink?"
      "Blood, that's all."
      "Oh, I don't think I would make a good demon, I'd miss
cognac.  And Reeses peanut butter cups."
      "Not at the same time I hope."  Nick laughed, making a face.
      "They are a wonderful, clever little food.  And to think
mankind survived millennia without them."  She wrinkled her nose.
      The elevator door opened, and Niamh tightened her grip on
her daito, ready, just in case.
=========================================================================