Date: Tue, 29 Mar 1994 09:50:12 -0700 Reply-To: Highlander TV show stories Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: L J Constantine Subject: Til Time... part IV Til Time and Times Are Done A Forever Knight\Highlander story by Tara O'Shea There was a tap at the window, and Niamh almost jumped out of her skin. "Nick!" She whispered fiercely, lifting the sash. "Kit's here, what if he'd seen you? Doors were invented for a reason." "Kit's here at 4am?" "Get that lecherous grin off your face, we've been working on translating that damned book for hours." "Nice pun." "What pun? I'm quite serious." "Any progress." "Only if you are suffering from warts, blighted crops, and sleepy sickness." "Oh." "Don't look so glum, we've got four chapters still to cover." * * * After forty-five minutes of checking their translations, Nick felt rather than saw the glow that was beginning to spread in the East. "Look, Sunday is my night off, so how about we relocate to my place and you and Nat can do some cooking, and I can be there in case the Murphy case cracks." "Stonetree working you ragged, eh?" Niamh grinned, her voice a whisper as Fit and Kit napped in the living room, each on opposite couches. Fitz had traded one tweed jacket for another, and the smell of his silly pipe still lingered, making Nick look rather green. "Well, everyone has to make a living." Nick matched her smile, feeling better than he thought he would about the entire affair. He had refused to get his hopes up, but things seemed to be getting better and better all the time. "Give Nat my love." She hugged him, quickly. "I best tuck the boys in. Big day tomorrow. Inventory." * * * "Corrie, what is this?" Kit held up a pottery bowl, frowning. "It's either a seventh century thrown vessel, or one of the onion soup bowls that disappeared from my kitchen last month." "Ah." "I wondered where that went." Niamh smiled, and put the bowl aside to wash out upstairs. Fitz had taken off that morning to see the sights, whatever that meant. "How long have you been running the shop?" "About eleven years," she replied without thinking. "Did your family own it, or did you start working here instead of babysitting?" Kit laughed, trying to picture her as a busy thirteen year old, arms full of manifests and silver polish. "My mother... my mother owned it before I did. She left it to me in her will." "When did she die?" "A long time ago. Why?" "Oh, I don't know. You just seem awfully young to be an antique dealer." "What, you think they should all be grey old men with glasses on their noses and sweaters with elbow patches?" "Something like that." "It's a good thing you never met MacLeod. He looks like an antique dealer about as much as I do." "What does Fitz do?" "As little as possible," she laughed. "He's old money. Very, very old money." The phone rang, and Niamh snagged it, shifting the ledger to her other arm. "Curiosities, can I help you?" "Niamh?" a woman's voice with a midwestern American accent. "Who's this?" "It's Alma, from the Raven. I need to talk to you, about the Abarat." The word was a whisper, but it carried. Niamh's eyes widened, then narrowed. *Curiouser and curiouser.* "Where?" "Not here, it's too risky." Niamh wanted to ask why, but held her tongue, as the young vampire sounded exceedingly nervous. "Can you meet me at St. Aquinas on Hoskin Ave. at sunset?" "Deal. See you there." Niamh hung up, and glanced at her watch. "Kit, can you take over? I have some errands to run." "Sure. When will you be back?" "I won't be long." She shrugged. "I don't think." "What about Fitz?" "Fitz can take care of himself. If I'm not back by eight, lock up early and head home." "Gotcha, boss." * * * Alma hung up the phone, shivering. Gloved hands encircled her throat, and she closed her eyes, terrified. "Excellent, my dear." "Janette is gonna kill me." "Janette will never know, will she?" "No." Alma whispered, and then he was gone. * * * Kit snatched the receiver out of the cradle on the third ring. "Curiosities, Christopher speaking, can I help you?" "Hi, this is Nick Knight. Is Ni-- Corrine there?" "She's gone out. Can I take a message?" "Out, eh? Did she say where? Is Fitz with her?" "I'm not sure." Kit shrugged, though there was no one there to see him. Old habit. He used his hands and body to talk for him, even on the phone. "She got a phone call, and then said she had some errands to run. She should be back by eight, or so." "I'll ring back, then." "Sure thing. And if I see her I'll tell her you called." * * * Niamh paced back and forth outside the small anglican church, frowning at her watch every few minutes. The sun had set over an hour earlier, and still no Alma. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say I was being set up," she muttered to herself, and vowed that if the young vampire did not appear in fifteen minutes, she would head back home. * * * Kit balanced the bowl on top of the inventory ledgers, and started up the stairs to Niamh's flat when he heard the front door open. "Fitz? Is that you?" He took two steps back down the stairs, craning his neck to check the front room. "I'm afraid not." * * * "Kit?" Niamh frowned. "Kit? I thought I told you to lock up? The blinds are still up, and the lights in the shopDD" She froze at the sight of the foyer. Papers and shards of pottery littered the floor, the brass lamp from the desk was overturned, casting odd shadows. The wall safe was open, the door half torn off it's hinges, the photograph that covered it ripped and sliced by the broken frame. Shattered glass and blood on the floor. Blood. "Where's the book?" A voice hissed in her ear, and it was all she could do to register the words with her eyes fixed on the smear of blood, trying to determine if it was Kit's or Fitz's. "I don't know what you're talking about." She forced her heart to still, her voice devoid of all emotion. "Oh I think you do, and I could get the answer easily enough, if I wanted to. But it would be so much less painful if you simply told me." "Why? Why do you want it?" "Ah, but I don't want it at all. However, Nicholas does, and for that reason alone I'll make sure he never gets it." "Because you'll lose him? I know who you are, Lacroix." "I'm flattered to be recognised." "Aren't you supposed to be dead?" "I am very hard to kill, my dear, unlike yourself." "I think you might be surprised." She actually smiled, he could feel it in the semi-darkness of the shop. "You're very devoted to our Nicholas, aren't you?" He laughed, a hollow, empty sound that grated on her nerves like glass in a wound. "But I think, given the opportunity, pain can be quite an inducement." His hands tightened around her throat, but she remained calm and limp. He frowned. "I have a very high tolerance for pain." Niamh sighed, but remained still all the same. "Go ahead, kill me. You'll never find the Abarat." "Such a pity." Lacroix crooned, and she could feel his breath on her neck, and then the pain. He could taste the centuries in the sweet copper tang, and his eyes grew wide, reflecting like a cat's in the darkness as he spun her away from himself. "You...!" He seemed surprised, and with a flash of sorrow she realised the blood on the floor couldn't have been Fitz's, else he would have known. Known what she was from her taste. Which meant it could have been Kit's. Or worse, Nat's. She forced the thought aside, a hand pressed to the sticky puncture marks slowly oozing hot blood down her neck. "What about me? You want to kill me, vampire? I am ready to die. I do so want it all to end, every last moment of it." She pulled the katana down from the wall display, her bloody fingers leaving marks on the wall and streaking the lacquer of the scabbard black in the dim light. "Take my head." *All you are will be lost*, her mind screamed. *There will be no Quickening*. Still she presented him with the sword, and stood, waiting. Lacroix looked from the sword to Niamh, and she thought she could hear the wheels turning in his twisted little mind. "You're like *him*." He said it with wonder, and she regarded him blankly. "Whom?" "*Him*. The priest. Darius." "What do you know of Darius?" Her voice was filled with anger and pain and hatred, and she stepped towards him with each word. He almost stepped back, driven back by the force of the emotion in her voice. Almost. "Ah, yes, I know your Darius." "Knew him. He's dead." Her voice went flat again. "I thought a church stopped your kind as much as it did mine." "Aye, it does *my kind*. He was not killed by *my kind*. He was killed by a sick, jealous bastard who was not stopped by crosses and holy water." He knew by her implication that she was equating him with Darius's killer, and ignored it for the time being. He was too shocked to learn that a man perhaps older even than himself had been laid low by a mortal. He, Lacroix, would never have stood for such a thing. But then, that had been the difference between them. "What are you waiting for? Kill me. I have so little left to live for." She knelt on the wood floor, ignoring the chill that crept into her bones. Still he stood there, holding the sword and staring at her stupidly. "Damn you, do it!" "No," he said quietly. "You want it too much, little girl." He reached down and lifted her head so she was forced to meet his eyes. "And I do not grant favours." And then he was gone before she could move. "Damn you." Niamh whispered, clutching the katana in her cold hands, silent tears streaming down her face. "Damn you." * * * The phone rang, and Nick practically flew across the flat to snatch it. "Niamh?" "Is Nat with you?" She sounded hoarse, as if she had been crying, which, in fact, she had been. "Yes. What is it? What's wrong?" "He came for the book." "Who came? Niamh, are you alright?" "Kit's gone. There was blood on the floor. I think he came for the book, but he didn't get it, Nick. He has no idea where it is, that must be why he took Kit." "Who came? Who took Kit?" "Lacroix." * * * At the other end of the line Nick's already pale face grew ashen as he replaced the receiver. "Is she okay?" Nat's eyes were dark with worry. "I don't think so." Nick said softly. "She's fine. But I don't think we are. Not any more." * * * "Alma?" Janette swept through the back rooms of the club, brows knit, with annoyance. "That girl... she has no sense of priorities. *Alma!*" There was no answer. She sighed, and stood in the hallway almost comically, hands on her hips. "One of these days... one of these days I'm going to *fire* her." "Literally?" A lazy drawl reached her ears, and she whirled around. "You! But... you're dead." "Rumours spread so quickly, now-a-days." Lacroix smiled, sending a chill down her spine. "I'm quite alive, so to speak." She walked past him, into her office, and froze at the sight of a halfdead boy tossed onto her settee like a discarded rag doll. "Who is that?" "An immortal girl's pet, and the bait for my trap." "Immortal--Niamh! This is Niamh's boy?" "You know her? Of course you do, how silly of me. Nicholas always did have such a tight circle of friends. I've had the pleasure of the lady's company, alas only for a moment. Right now she should be running like a scared rabbit straight to our Nicholas's bolthole." "How do you know?" Janette played devil's advocate with relish, almost hoping against hope that what she said might be true. "How do you know she won't come after you herself?" "She will, because I will it. She may be immortal, but her mind is just as malleable as any other. And I tasted her blood. I may not control her as I have some, but whether she realises it or not, she cannot destroy me if I do not let her." * * * "I'll kill him." Niamh paced back and forth across Nick's living room, still shaking with fury and terror. "I'll spit his head on a pike. If he so much as touches a hair--" "Calm down." "Calm down? *Calm down?*" "Yes. I need you to think clearly. Are you sure it was Lacroix?" "Yes. Oh yes. The bastard whoreson *slug* told me so himself.... This was after sending me on a wild goose chase to the University--" "Slow down. How?" "Alma called, he must have gotten to her first. She said she had some information about the abarat and want to meet at St. Aquinas instead of the Raven. When I left he must have gone to the shop and found Kit." "And the abarat?" "It wasn't in the safe, Lacroix searched it. Fitz must have it." "And where's Fitz?" "Your guess is as good as mine. He left this morning and as far as I know hasn't been back. Once he sees the shop, he'll know to come here I'm sure. I pray he has it. It may be our only bargaining chip." She sank onto the couch, face in her hands as she hastily wiped away angry tears. "This is all my fault." "Don't blame yourself. Lacroix is my daemon. Everything he does is designed to hurt me, and your only sin is being my friend." "You don't understand. Kit is my responsibility. He doesn't know what I am or what you are. He thinks he's looking after me instead of the other way 'round, a poor young antique dealer who's taken over the family business. I should have sent him on vacation the moment this all started. I should have known someone would have come after the book." "But Lacroix was dead. None of us could have anticipated this." Nat had watched all of this, from the rage to the blame to the fear and clenched her fists to keep her hands from shaking. Lacroix was determined to turn their world upside down, and was succeeding. "You can't blame yourselves." "You're right." Nick cringed. Nat was constantly chiding him for taking responsibility for things that were outside his control. He supposed it was his upbringing. Nick's eyes suddenly grew wide. "You said Alma called you?" Niamh nodded, and he was suddenly at the phone, having moved to quickly for her eyes to register. =========================================================================