Title: Solace in Hell
Author: Jennifer Campbell
Fandom: Highlander
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters and have no affiliation with the show "Highlander: The Series." This story is all in good fun with no harm intended. I don't make any money off this, unfortunately.
Notes: Thanks go out to a ton of people: my cheerleaders Mom, Kate, Dee and Linda; the Highlander Writers and Readers Club for helping me through a couple of rough spots; and my betas, Farquarson, Linda and Sandra. "Solace in Hell" originally appeared in "A Zine of Their Own: Stories Honoring Immortal Women," published in fall 2000.
Spoilers: This story takes place during "Indiscretions." The main characters appeared in the episodes "Timeless" and "Patient Number 7."
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Part 1
Claudia Jardine possessed a gift. Kyra watched from behind the heavy curtains of stage left as Claudia's fingers blurred over the keys, as she swayed with the sounds she coaxed from the grand piano. Her music transcended beautiful. Extraordinary, flawless, passionate more aptly described her gift. The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra seemed to fade to the background in the company of her genius.
Kyra shook her head, sure she would not have believed had she not heard it herself. It had been no lie when MacLeod said Claudia was a treasure worth preserving. Then again, he also had been correct when he labeled her as stubborn, snotty and impossible to live with. MacLeod exhibited too much wisdom for his scant 400 years, which could prove annoying at times.
He had known, for instance, that Kyra would appreciate this infant immortal despite the women's conflicting personalities. Claudia more genius and more arrogance than should be possible for one person. She was a perversion of nature beyond her immortality, and Kyra found herself caught in curiosity and fascination. She wanted to stay and learn more about what motivated this complex woman.
A dangerous desire? Yes. But also incredibly exciting.
Kyra closed her eyes and let Beethoven's Second Piano Concerto flood her senses. The first time she had heard this piece was in Vienna, 1852. Twenty-five years earlier, she had joined an ocean of tearful ranks to mourn its composer's death because she had believed no one else could ever again play with such passion.
Claudia Jardine, however, came closer to capturing that passion than any other musician Kyra had heard in the past 150 years. Claudia felt the music, and she allowed her audience to feel it as well. Oh, yes, this snotty, stubborn woman possessed a gift. One perhaps worth dying for.
Then Claudia hit a wrong note.
Kyra jerked back from her thoughts and drew her gun from under her dress. Most of the audience probably had missed the mistake, but Kyra's trained ear immediately picked up on Claudia's unease. She had recovered and continued, but her timing was slightly off. Something had upset her badly.
Then the source of Claudia's distraction reached her - another immortal. She cocked her gun and scanned the auditorium, but darkness cloaked the audience in anonymity. She frantically turned her attention backstage. No one.
Some instinct drew her eyes upward, above the stage, to a slow movement outlined against a tangle of spotlights and wires. Oh, gods, she thought. He's on the catwalk. Light reflected dimly off something in his hand, but Kyra couldn't quite see what he held. A bomb? A sword?
She squinted at the shadowy figure, shielding her eyes from the spotlights' harsh glare. The figure pointed his hand at Claudia, directly below him, giving Kyra an unfettered view of his weapon. Long, black … a gun!
"Claudia!" she screamed, ignoring the shocked looks of the stagehands and murmurs of the audience. "Claudia, move! Now!"
The pianist did not react, her fingers continuing to dance across the keys. Kyra swore, dashed on stage and dove at Claudia, shoving her onto the floor. She landed with her stomach draped across the piano bench, and she started to roll off, but not fast enough. Claudia yelled indignantly, the orchestra silenced and the dark figure shot two bullets into Kyra's back.
She grunted at the impact. A thousand screams erupted on stage and in the audience, but to Kyra, they sounded hollow, as if originating from the bottom of a well. Only one high-pitched scream rose above the others, clear and piercing to her ears, but it too faded as Claudia ran off stage.
Kyra hoped that she would revive before the immortal hunter, whose bullets had killed the wrong target, could finish the fight.
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Three days earlier
Kyra Albright, ancient warrior, unemployed bodyguard and immortal extraordinaire, walked into Le Blues Bar at exactly 6 a.m., just as pre-dawn illuminated the sky with a promise that light soon would return to the world, just as it had for more sunrises than she could remember. This time of day was her favorite and usually found her wandering the streets, enjoying the sound of her footsteps echoing through the waking city. This was not a usual morning, however.
A midnight phone call, a short, urgent conversation, and Kyra found herself boarding an airplane for Paris and striding into this bar, into affairs that should not concern her. But she owed the caller, and she never welshed on her debts.
A presence invaded her senses as she closed the front door, and she drew her sword. She thought she knew the immortal, but one could never be too careful.
"Show yourself," she ordered, cautiously moving farther into the room.
"Easy, Kyra," answered a soothing voice. Duncan MacLeod emerged from a dark corner, a mug cupped in both hands. "Coffee?"
She relaxed, sheathed her blade beneath her coat and approached the immortal who only months before had helped her regain her memory, after Richard's death. Had it only been last year that Richard had been murdered? Time moved so slowly without her lover's constant presence, each day another wish that he might have lived to see Paris in the spring. To share it with her.
"I apologize for the call last night," MacLeod said, returning to his seat. He peered toward the faint light filtering under the front door. "Thanks for coming so early. Is the sun even up yet?"
"I think it be," she quoted while sliding into the seat across from him, "but we have no great cause to desire the approach of day."
He nodded and half-smiled. "Shakespeare, Henry V. You're getting as bad as Walter."
She snorted. "Walter can recite the whole play verbatim, I'm sure, but he doesn't understand it. He did not stand his ground at Agincourt against hopeless odds, certain the next day would bring death. Of course, I don't remember the English being nearly that eloquent. It was more like, 'French bastards are going to rip us apart tomorrow.'"
"Why bring such dreary thoughts to the table?"
She smiled grimly. "That's your cue, MacLeod. You're the one who tracked me down with an emergency only I could handle."
"Ah, yes." He paused to sip from his mug. "Are you sure you don't want any coffee? Joe left a warm pot behind the counter."
She irritably brushed her shoulder-length blonde hair behind her ears and leaned forward to stare at her companion. "The emergency, MacLeod?"
He sighed. "It's actually a friend of mine who needs help. Claudia Jardine. Ever heard of her?"
"The pianist," she said, nodding. "What's her problem?"
"She's immortal, and she's being hunted."
"Nope," Kyra said firmly. "Sorry, MacLeod, but I don't play bodyguard for immortals. Too dangerous."
"Claudia's kind of a special case."
"None of us are that different. Tell her to draw her sword and take her chances."
MacLeod shook his head, almost sadly, Kyra thought.
"She doesn't own a sword, and she doesn't know how to fight. She believes that to feel her music, she needs to fear death."
"Then she's a fool," Kyra said, shrugging. "She doesn't need a bodyguard. She needs a psychiatrist." She cocked her head and looked curiously at MacLeod. "Why ask me to do this? Why don't you help her yourself?"
MacLeod grimaced. "Things have happened in my life in the past year that I'm having trouble dealing with. The way I am right now, I don't think I'd be able to give Claudia the protection that she needs."
His eyes met hers with a haunted expression that she recognized, had seen a hundred times in the eyes of a hundred immortals, in her own eyes every time she looked in the mirror. It was the look of a man carrying unbearable loss and guilt. She knew it would handicap him until he had worked through his pain.
"Kyra, all I'm asking is that you meet her," he said. "She's playing a concert tonight at Albert Hall. Please, come with me to the concert, listen to her music, meet her and then make your choice. Don't dismiss her out of hand." He reached toward her and covered her hands, folded on the table. "Please, Kyra. Claudia is stubborn, snotty and impossible to get along with, but she's also a treasure worth saving. Give her a chance."
Kyra reclaimed her hands and looked away, anywhere but the plea in MacLeod's eyes. Why was he asking her to do this? He knew what had happened last time, with Richard, how she had stood helpless while men had gunned him down in his own home. In their home.
"Kyra?"
She shook her head. "I can't do it, MacLeod. I'm sorry. It's not you or even your friend. I'm just not ready for this."
"You avenged Richard. It's over."
"Not for me. It will never be over for me."
"Please, Kyra. Do you think Richard would want you to tear yourself up like this? He's forgiven you. It's time you forgive yourself."
But I don't want this, she thought. I don't want to jump into a fight that isn't mine. I don't want to resurrect painful memories that are better left untouched. I do not want this. But I owe MacLeod.
"All right," she said reluctantly. "I'll meet this friend of yours, but I promise no more than that. Agreed?"
"Agreed." He held out his hand, which Kyra shook, sealing the bargain.
"So," she asked, "when do we leave for London?"
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I'll be posting one part every day. But if you want to read the whole story now, it's posted on my website, which you can link to from my profile page.
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