Date: Sat, 22 Jan 1994 13:18:30 -0700 Reply-To: Highlander TV show stories Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: L J Constantine Subject: Til Time... part VI (Conculsion) Til Time and Times Are Done A Forever Knight\Highlander story by Tara O'Shea "We're here." Nick's voice rang in the empty space, bouncing off the brick walls. Niamh felt Nick stiffen, and squinted as a figure separated itself from the darkness. "Kit..." Niamh thought her heart would break as she saw her friend's blood spattered body in the lamplight. Lacroix was holding the boy at an arm's length out in front of him, licking his lips and sneering. "Such concern. So typical." They were the first words Nick had heard from his master's throat in so long, and the sheer contempt beneath them sent a frisson on anger down his spine. It did more than that to Niamh, who has already at her tether's end. He heard the soft scrape of steel, and held her back. "If he dies, I swear you will not live to see another sunset." Niamh growled, completely heedless of Nick's restraining arm. "He's done nothing to you! Nothing!" "My dear girl, you cannot do a thing to harm me. As a matter of fact, you cannot do anything." Niamh watched in horrified fascination as her hand lifted of its own accord and opened, her sword clattering to the ground. She stared at it, trying to move her fingers just a hairs-breath, and found she was completely separated from conscious control. Nick stepped between her and Lacroix, who merely laughed. "I could make you do things you never dreamt of. I could make you kill, and you wouldn't be able to stop yourself." She reached down and picked up her sword, and found herself levelling it at Nick's neck. "I could even make you kill him, little girl. If you were fast enough, of course." Nick wrenched it from her grasp in less time than it took her to blink, and an apology shone in her eyes as she tried to break the master vampire's control. "Which you would never be." Lacroix finished, still smirking. "But think of it, your strongest desires, your will of which you are so proud, all betray you. How does it feel?" "Like I'm a puppet. And you're pulling the strings. So all I am is a tool, and I have nothing to feel guilty for. You may be able to control this body, even this mind. But I would not be responsible." "Fine words. But only words. It would tear at you, piece by piece, until there was nothing left. Because I know your kind. The pair of you, so alike. So easy to predict exactly what you'll do, or won't do." "Why the games? Why always the games?" Nick's eyes flashed yellow, his voice practically a growl. "Life is a game. She knows it. So do you." "So what are the rules of this particular game?" "Give me the book, and you'll have the boy." Lacroix smiled, shaking Kit's limp form like a terrier with a rat. "Give me the boy first." Nick and Niamh didn't move, and Niamh held her sword still, even though he had demonstrated its uselessness. It was all she could do, to focus herself enough to keep from shaking. If she showed him fear, allowed herself to feel it for even a second, he would destroy her. "My my, little Nicholas. And who are you to give orders?" "Someone with something you want." "Now, see, you've gotten it all wrong. *I* have something *you* want. You have something I want only because you want it so very much. We must keep these things straight after all. Now, give me the book." "We'll exchange them at the same time." Niamh took a step forward. "You could probably take it from me as easily as you have just demonstrated, but I like to think of you as an honourable fiend, so please don't disappoint me." "Such strength in the face of her adversary, and so polite as well, dear Nicholas. You can learn a great deal from her. No doubt she never set fire to her mentors." "My mentors never tried to kill me or those I love." Niamh regarded him coolly. "My mentors were not prone to mindgames, exerting control simply because they could, destroying out of contempt, judging from false pride. You have no right to compare." Lacroix snarled, and Niamh flinched, but held her ground. Nick bared his own fangs, eyes amber in the dim light. "And yet your precious Darius is dead while I, the soul of evil, live on. That should tell you something." "A cockroach in the nuclear winter of morality?" Nick raised a brow, a smile curling at the corner of his mouth. "Only the good die young." He lifted Kit, who's head lolled like a rag doll's, as example. "The book. After all, I am an honourable fiend." Niamh looked at Nick, who nodded. She removed the crumbling little volume from the pocket of her trenchcoat and held it up. "We trade." "Certainly." He was so close she could feel his breath on her cheek, and she struggled to keep from crying out. He pulled the book from her hands. She held her breath as he let Kit slip to the ground, but like a mouse caught in a snake's gaze could not move. She could see Nick out the corner of her eye, also immobile. Lacroix ran one finger lazily along her jaw, and she felt the pulse leap to life, throbbing so as she thought to echo in the alleyway. But only the vampires heard it. To mortal ears, all was silence. "Take the boy, he is what you wanted," Lacroix addressed Nick, who scooped up Kit in his arms, the smell of dried blood nearly making him sick. He stepped back, waiting to see what his master's next move would be. "*How* are you doing this to me?" Niamh could feel the suffocating presence of his mind clamping down on her control. "To put it in scientific terms, you are being held under something similar to a post hypnotic suggestion, placed their by me through non-verbal communication aided by a chemical in your bloodstream, also placed their by me. Fangs are wonderful for that sort of thing, you know. In laymen's terms, once bitten, you are like a fly in amber." Lacroix leafed through the book, making clicking sounds with his tongue as he scanned the pages. "Very interesting, you know.... this may even work as a cure. I never thought of it before." Niamh had not moved, *could* not, and he continued to circle her. "You can read it?" "My dear girl, this is a child's primer to me. Of course I can read it. And a very interesting read it will be." He slipped it into his pocket, patting it with a smile. Nick tensed, waiting for his chance... Niamh gasped as Lacroix took the sword from her lifeless fingers. "No--" she hissed, straining against the invisible bonds. "Ah, but I am feeling generous tonight, and you begged this favour." He levelled the sword slowly, enjoying the moment. "No!" Nick screamed, dropping Kit and flinging himself towards the pair. He was stopped in his tracks. He had forgotten Lacroix could do that. Niamh bowed her head, waiting for the killing blow. Lacroix swung, and his smile faded as the sword stopped a hairs-breadth from her neck, a tendril of lightning creeping up the blade and wrapping around his wrist. It was followed by another, a rope of blue-white light that climbed up his arm and twisted over his body. The ancient vampire went rigid with pain as Niamh's Quickening wrapped around him, yet her head remained firmly attached to her shoulders. The sword hit the pavement with the clear ring of a bell, and Niamh turned as the first wisp of smoke reached her nostrils. Power seemed to be wracking Lacroix's body, his features caught in an expression of surprise and wonder. Nick and Niamh watched, transfixed, as Lacroix began to scream, his gloved hang bursting into flames, and the fire began to follow the path the lightning had taken. "*What is happening to me*?" Lacroix screamed, spinning as he tried to put out the flames which cast dancing shadows on the walls of the alley. Before anyone could blink, they enveloped his entire body, and Niamh picked up her sword, stepping back and wincing as a small current of blue fire ran up her blade, crackling over her bare skin. "The Quickening." She whispered as Lacroix's flesh seemed to melt like wax, and he disappeared in a blinding flash. "Nick, the Quickening did this!" Niamh was horrified. "Scatter the ashes." Nick growled, finally released from the fierce hold of his master's mind. "He burned before..." "What?" "He burned before, I don't know if it can stop him." He spread the ashes around with his foot, watching with satisfaction as some of them floated on top of rainwater in the gutter to disappear down a grate. "He had better not come back. Never again." "Nick, you're not listening to me. He tried to take my head, *and the Quickening stopped him*. Do you know what this means?" Niamh leant down next to Kit, feeling for a pulse. It was weak, but there. "I wish Darius were alive, there is so much I need to know!" "If wishes were horses..." "Beggars would ride." Fitz finished the sentence, setting a match to his pipe. Behind him were Nat and Janette. "Where is Lacroix?" Janette looked bewildered. "Gone." Nick hugged her, and then Nat. "I told you to stay at my place." "Yeah, well, I got worried. What about the book?" "Burned." Niamh sighed, brushing Kit's hair out of his face. Nat knelt along side her, checking his pulse and frowning. "He's lost a lot of blood. We should get him to a hospital. He needs a transfusion, and immediate medical care." She started as Kit flinched, and his eyes opened a crack. "Corrine?" "Hey!" Niamh forced a grin. "You shouldn't be talking." "I'm thirsty." He licked his dry lips, and Nat drew back as his eyes shifted from blue to amber. "*Nick*." Nat hissed, glancing up at him. "Damn." Niamh whispered, wiping sudden tears from her eyes. "So thirsty..." Kit tried to sit up, and Nick knelt down, motioning for the two of them to back away. "Kit, my name's Nick. We're going to get you back to my place." He cursed Lacroix silently, wondering why he had done this, what twisted purpose it would have served. Perhaps just a small revenge. Janette's eyes were fixed on the scorch mark on the pavement, her arms wrapped around herself as if she was cold. "Now who is broken, hmm?" She whispered, and turned to go back inside the Raven. * * * "I'm a *what*?" Kit, having polished off a bottle without even noticing now stared at it with a look of pure horror. "Vampire." Niamh finished for him. "How much do you remember?" "I was getting ready to lock up when some psycho grabbed me. I thought he must have been on some serious shit, dusted maybe. Threw me across the room, and didn't even blink when I hit him with the brass lamp from the desk. He kept asking me about the book, and the next thing I know, I'm waking up in an alley." "He had gotten all he could from you, and when the abarat wasn't in the safe, decided to use you as bait." Nick ran his fingers through his hair in a gesture of frustration. "And after tonight, no more of this stuff." Nat took the empty bottle from the table. "I'm starting you on a steady diet of protein shakes." "Are you a doctor?" "Yes. Most of my patients are dead people, but yeah." "Are you a vampire?" Kit looked from Nick to Niamh to Nat, still frazzled. "No. Not me. I guess now I'm the token mortal in this little group." "I am." Nick said quietly. "Corrine?" "Um... no. I'm not a vampire." She sighed. "I'm immortal." "I don't follow." "It's a long story. A really long story." She sat down next to him, taking his hand. "My name isn't really Corrine Michaels. It's Niamh. Niamh O'Brien. I didn't inherit Curiosities from my mother, I've owned the building since about 1939." "1939. That would make you... what, Sixty? Seventy?" "A little over nine-hundred." "I'm really confused." "Welcome to the family." Nat laughed. "How many semesters did you have left?" "Two." "How do you feel about night school?" Kit looked from Niamh, to Nick, to Nat, and finally settled on Fitz. "Why do I have a feeling that my life is going to be terminally weird from now on?" "Because it will be?" Niamh squeezed his hand. "Are you angry with me?" "Corrie... Niamh..." "You can still call me Corrie if you like. Quite a few people do." "Corrie... I'm not angry." "If it weren't for me, you would be safe and sound, not to mention mortal right now. Instead you get kidnapped by an ancient vampire hellbent on destroying Nick's chances of becoming mortal again." "Is that what was in that book? A cure?" "Yes, but it's lost now. It got burned up with Lacroix." "Um... about that," Fitz scratched his temple, looking sheepish. "It's not completely lost." "*Excuse* me?" "Well, you see, the revelation I had this morning was to find someone who may be able to translate sanskrit better, and faster, than us, so I took the book down to the University, to see what I could turn up among academia..." "And?" Nat gaped at Fitz. "And a lovely young woman named Cherise Powers has a xerox copy of the entire thing in her office, and is hard at work, thinking to earn herself some notoriety among the other professors by adding the book to the library collection. She'll be terribly disappointed to learn the original has been accidentally destroyed, of course..." "Fitz, I could kiss you!" Niamh threw her arms around his neck, giggling. "Ah, what the hell..." She planted her lips firmly on his, and thus they remained for some seconds, while Nat and Nick exchanged bemused glances, and Kit cleared his throat. "Are you two kids quite finished?" Kit's eyes sparkled, and he had to admit, instead of being completely muddled, things actually began to make more sense to him now that the whole truth was upon him. Drinking blood, though... he wasn't sure how he was going to cope. A shiver ran through him, but he tried not to let it show. "Kit, you and Nick might be cured! This is great!" Niamh hugged him too. "Yeah, well, don't start partying until I get the 'formula' to my lab and see what it's made out of, okay?" Nat hated to be a party-pooper, but she wasn't going to risk Nick getting his hopes up any farther than absolutely necessary. * * * Fear no more the hear o' th' sun Nor the furious winters' rages; Thou they worldly task hast done, Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages. Golden lads and girls all must, As chimney-sweepers, come to dust. - Cymbeline, act IV, scene ii, lines 259-263 Epilogue "Home Art Gone" Niamh sank onto her bed, exhausted, and began combing the tangles out of her damp hair. The phone rang, and she picked it up midway through the first ring. "Hello?" "It's me, Nat." "Hi." "How're you holding up?" "I could use a few less weeks like this one." "Kit?" "He seemed okay, but I know this is going to hit him really hard. His parents live out in Vancouver. I don't know whether what we should tell them. If the cure doesn't work, I don't know what to do." "You keep on living one day at a time." "And if those days stretch into centuries? What then?" "Hey, you're asking the wrong person. You and Nick have cornered that market." "He talked all night. He made me talk, asking so many questions. He kept saying he wishes he could use me as a doctoral thesis, that I would be the prize of any history department." "What did you say?" "`Honey, I *am* history.'" "You're evil." Nat giggled. "How 'bout Nick?" "He's sceptical about the formula. I don't blame him. Assuming it translates into something I can understand, and even then, I would want to test it before ever using it on anyone..." "I don't envy you your job." "Yeah, well, what are friends for?" "Some friend I was, getting a poor innocent kid mixed up in all of this. What if he learns to hate me? What if he turns? I mean, how could I possibly stop him?" "Can I tell you a story?" "As if I'm going to get any sleep for the next few nights." Nat took a deep breath, shifting Sydney in her lap as the sun peaked through her blinds. "I had a little brother, his name was Richard...." * * * Alma stumbled into the Raven, definitely looking the worse for wear. The two vampires who has 'escorted' her left, leaving her to face Janette trembling. "Uh... hi boss." "We need to have a long talk." Janette steepled her fingers, and Alma shivered. * * * Padding across the loft in his pajamas, Nick shut the blinds, wondering just how long it would be before he would be able to watch the sun rise without fear. FIN =========================================================================