Date: Fri, 2 Dec 1994 11:12:41 -0800 Reply-To: Highlander TV show stories Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: Perri Subject: What's Past is Prologue, (5/7) X-To: fkfic-l@psuvm.psu.edu What's Past is Prologue (5/7) By Perri Smith Copyright 1994 Kurt lived on the outskirts of Oakland, in a neighborhood which had once been rich, but was going rapidly downhill. His house was huge, but old and showed the signs of decades of neglect that not even the darkness could erase. "What a shame," Michael observed, looking the house over. "It was once a lovely place." "Mmmmmmm," Aislyn answered, not really hearing him over the buzzing of an Immortal inside her head. The knocker on the door was in the shape of a sword, point up. "Cute," she muttered, before grabbing the hilt and knocking. The sound echoed through the house, but there was no answer. She knocked again, shouting, "Kurt!" Michael's vision caught a glimpse of motion, outline din a red glow. "Coming around from the back," he warned quietly, moving behind Ais. She nodded, slipping her sword out of its sheath. *Why the hell is he sneaking around?* She searched for him with her own senses, but foundd nothing. She spared a moment to be thankful she had lost the argument about Michael coming along. It was comforting to have him at her back. "Where is he?" she whispered. "Lost him." His whisper screamed frustration. He kept looking, but the yard was heavily overgrown, offering plenty of cover. He finally spotted another glimpse of red heat -- just as it lunged for Ais. Aislyn heard Michael's shouted warning as she spotted the moonlight gleaming off a blade. Her own slashed out, blocking the swing, the clash of the blades sending a jolt up her arm. Michael started forward, but Ais stopped him with a quick sideways glare. *Damn the rules* he thought a little wildly, but stayed back. Ais met the next attack with another block, but made no attempt to return it -- just bound his blade with her own. They stood toe-to-toe, frozen in fighting stance. "What the hell are you doing, Kurt?" she asked calmly, hiding her anger at the sneak attack beneath casual conversation. The other made no attempt to hide his own rage -- and fear, she saw with a little shock. "You can ask that when the two of you stroll in here, ready to take my head as you have taken the others?" he snarled, the accent much thicker now. "I warn you, I'll be harder to kill then they were!" He lunged again, full-out. Ais barely twisted out of the way, parrying with an unexpected strength that almost knocked his blade from his hand. She backed out of reach while he recovered. "Get over it, Kurt," she snapped, sounding more like an annoyed valley girl than an 800-year-old warrior. "Listen to your senses, he's not one of us, and I have no intention of breaking the rules! I just want to know who killed my friend!" It was the annoyance that got his attention. He relaxed a little, enough to listen to his screaming senses. "No, he's not one of us." Ais saw his blade begin to drop, and took a chance, letting her own fall to her side and holding out her other hand in a gesture of peace. Kurt looked at her, then sheathed his own sword. "I apologize, Aislyn," he said formally. "I...overreacted when I saw your companion. Forgive me." Aislyn nodded and relaxed her stance, making her own sword disappear. Michael stayed on guard, a point not lost on either Ais or Kurt. "If he is not one of us, who is he?" Kurt asked, gesturing at Michael. "A friend," Ais answered, not looking away from Kurt. She changed the subject fast. "Why did you assume we were breaking the rules? Who were 'the others?' " Kurt started to answer, then stopped. "You had better come inside. It will be easier to show you." The inside of the house was in marginally better shape then the outside, but cold, with bare walls and floors. Kurt apparently didn't believe in furniture. He led them down a long entryway and a flight of stairs, then shoved open a large oak door, showing them into a parlor. It was a complete contract to the rest of the house. A fire blazed at one end casting a glow over thick carpets and glowing wood. Antiques were scattered everywhere. A single Tiffany lamp hung over a beautiful roll-top, the only other light in the room. Kurt headed straight for the bar, pouring himself a large snifter of brandy. Both Aislyn and Michael refused his offer, taking the chance to look him over. He was physically in his mid-forties, of average height and weight, with brown hair and brown eyes. He was deeply tanned, and his face showed the lines of age. He replaced the decanter and took a healthy drink, then walked across the parlor to the desk. "Deirdre came to see me yesterday," he said."I was quite surprised -- I am not used to such old Immortals seeking me out for anything other than a fight. I am 147," he answered Aislyn's eyebrow. "So, I met her in public to increase my chances of keeping my head," he continued. "But she did not want a fight, only to warn me. She gave me these." He picked up a pile of newspaper clippings and handed them to Ais. She took them and walked over to the fireplace, sinking onto the carpet to read them in the flickering firelight. Michael leaned on the mantle next to her, keeping a cold, wary eye on Kurt. Kurt tried to ignore him, but it wasn't easy. "Deirdre collected those articles over the last four months. They were so close together they... caught her attention." "Deirdre always was a newshound," Ais murmured, flipping through the clippings. "I knew most of these Immortals. Brian, Paul, Gabrielle...." She looked up. "All of them were children, your age." Michael gently pried the articles out of her hand, smoothing out the wrinkled left by her death grip. They were in several languages, but all of them said the same thing -- murder by beheading. He frowned a little. If they were not so close together, he would have dismissed them as an ordinary part of the Game. Two freak lightning storms reported in the vicinity, all of the victims displayed wounds from a fight -- that was interesting, all of them had deep wounds in the back. "Were there any witnesses?" Kurt nodded. "The third one. A witness saw two people running from an alley in Paris, where Gabrielle was found." "Two?" Aislyn looked up, remembering an another alley and the sound of footsteps running away. Two sets of footsteps, she realized suddenly. Kurt nodded again. "Yes, two, that's what caught Deirdre's eye." "And that's why you went crazy when you saw me," Michael finished grimly. "Someone's decided to team up." Kurt tossed back the rest of his brandy. "Deirdre managed to track them from Paris back to Berndt, and forward to San Francisco. As you noticed, they seem to prey on younger Immortals. She assumed they were coming after me." "They're going after youngsters, less well-trained, easier to kill," Aislyn said slowly. "Even two against one, they're cowards." Michael saw her eyes turn to nearly silver. Although her voice hadn't changed, he knew that sign -- she was perilously close to losing control. "Ais?" She heard his voice through a red fog, rage burning so hot and deep it obscured everything else. Cowards, preying on the weak, like a pack of jackals. And Deirdre, beautiful, strong Dierdre, dead because of them.... She began to tremble violently as the rage continued to grow. Blindly, she stumbled to her feet, obeying the urge to find, to *kill!* Michael caught her before she went two steps. "Dammit, Aislyn, stop this! If you go after them like this, you'll get yourself killed! Remember what Rebecca taught us?" "They killed Dierdre, and children," she spit. "I want their heads!" "You'll have them, Lady. I swear to that." His voice was as cold as hers was fiery, and it stopped her as nothing else could have. For the first time, she saw her own anger at Deirdre's loss reflected in his eyes. She saw death there as well. "You're damned right I will," she answered finally. Kurt watched them with fascination, and not a little fear, making sure to keep his distance. Neither of them looked young at the moment -- even Michael's face, for all that he was not Immortal, looked ancient. He felt a moment of pity for the Immortal who were about to face these two. Then his glance fell to the pile of clippings, on the carpet where Michael had dropped them. His own face hardened and the pity left him. "I'm in," he said. The other two looked at him as if they'd forgotten his presence. "They came here to kill me. I'm in." Ais just nodded. Some degree of sanity had returned to her eyes. But they were still silver. "The question is, how do we find them?" Kurt continued. Michael shrugged. "We don't have to. They're hunters, or think they are. They'll come to us." Aislyn nodded in agreement. Kurt blinked, then got it. "Of course. Bait." __________________________________________________________________________ Perri "There's nothing in the rule book that says FOLC an elephant can't pitch!" DDEBrigadier Knightie "Life's a walking shadow......." ___________________________________________________________________________ =========================================================================