On Saturday afternoons, just as the heat of the day was at its worst, when the burning tropical sun and layers of thick humid air drove most villagers inside, Luke Arthur was in the habit of putting on a crisp white linen suit and making his way to the Pan American Hotel in downtown Agana, Guam. In this year of 1940, downtown Agana included two hotels, one bank, and a maze of dirt roads that turned to mud in the torrential summer rains. Almost twelve thousand Chamorrans, other Micronesians, or American military forces called the island home. He remembered hitching a ride with Ferdinand Magellan and discovering the island, back in 1521, when the total native population numbered perhaps a few thousand at best. Things had changed. They always did for Luke, or as he had been known for a few thousand years, Luc Artagus.
The 1500's hadn't actually been one of his better centuries. He could think of far better ones. He still favored the last years of Constantinople, was extremely partial to his friend Titus▓s reign as Emperor, and got misty-eyed with sentimentality over anything Mayan, though he wasn▓t sure why. The twentieth century - well, twenty as mortals numbered them lately - had started out all right, but deteriorated when he'd had to flee China.
He didn't like to think about China.
He'd escaped from the Japanese invasion and flown here, in that modern miracle called an airplane, intending only to stay for as long as the plane refueled. It was the sense of another Immortal nearby that had driven him from the dilapidated terminal. He'd hadn't taken a head in several decades, and was determined to keep it that way.
The other Immortal had tracked him down. Had nearly killed him.
Then kissed him in surprise, with a stirring of their old lust as well.
Staying on Guam with Katie hadn't been in his plans at all but he'd taught himself not to fight serendipity, or coincidence, or Fate. So with false papers and fistfuls of cash he'd set himself up in this new land, and made it a point to go to the bar of the Pan American Hotel every Saturday for martinis and relatively intelligent conversation, despite the cursed heat.
This November afternoon he hired a rickshaw cab to take him to the Pan American, and did his best to ignore the sticky humidity that caused him to break into instant sweat. Even in winter Guam could be unbearably hot. The Pan American was grand and cool, its great ceiling fans circulating air down on the brass and mahogany furnishings, the great green palms and wicker chairs. He took one step inside the lobby, mopped his forehead with a white handkerchief, and then stiffened as a shiver of recognition ran down the back of his spine.
Another Immortal was here. Not Katie. She was back home. They knew of no others of their kind on the island. He could only assume that whoever it was waiting nearby had come recently to Guam, with a singular purpose in mind.
Not today. Not if he could help it.
Luc donned his hat and left the hotel.
"You're back early," Katie said, without turning her head. She was sitting in an old iron tub of steaming, soapy water. Their tiny home at the end of the road behind the school was nothing more than a large room with a strategically hung curtain. Gas lanterns flickered with the breath of evening air, heavily scented from the jungles and ocean. Eighty years after Edison's innovation, electric lights powered less than half the island. Another of Edison's toys, the phonograph, sat on the table spinning out one of the Dorsey Brothers' better tunes.
She'd sensed Luc coming down the road seconds before she heard the scuff of his shoes on the uneven wooden floor.
Something cold touched her neck. Katie giggled and reached up. Her fingers sliced open on a steel edge and her amusement fled on a howl of fear that might have come from the icy Alps themselves.
"You should be more careful," Luc's voice warned as the sword slipped away.
"What the hell - " she demanded, scrambling up and sloshing water on the floor. She climbed out of the tub, pushed him aside with her two wet hands, and then reached for the silk kimono on the wall hook. One of her many cats, startled from sleep, jumped away. "Why would you do such a thing"
"To remind you of who you are," he said quietly.
"Write me a note," Katie snapped, turning from him to sit at her vanity. "Don't put your blade to my neck. What's gotten into you"
Luc pulled off his jacket. His hat went to rest on a new book by a first time author named Jean Leavens. His face creased into unexpected remorse, and he rubbed his tired eyes. "I"m sorry," he apologized, sitting down heavily. He rubbed at a tense muscle behind his right shoulder. "I went to the hotel. . . and there was another Immortal there"
Katie unpinned her hair and brushed out the long dark curls with angry strokes. She didn't even look at him in the reflection of her mirror. "Well, that must have been a surprise," she shot back. "A thousand years, and you've never run into another Immortal"
"You're dripping all over the floor," he said.
"The last time I checked, water dries. Heads don't go back on necks"
"Precisely," he said intently, and knelt behind her chair so that they appeared to be the same height in the mirror. Their faces, similarly pale and narrow and framed by darkness, seemed almost like a brother and sister's in the dim pool of light. "Katie, we've created a paradise of complacency here. We've fallen into laziness. Anyone, any Immortal, could have walked through that door and you'd be dead right now"
"Instead I get you, my own personal little Halloween treat, trying to scare a hundred years off my life," she said. But her voice was no longer quite as angry, and her hand lessened its white-knuckled grip on the brush handle.
"It's not Halloween yet," Luc said quietly.
She cursed him in Latin.
Luc turned her face to him and spoke back in their native tongue with words of apology and love.
He kissed her lovely red lips.
After a long moment of staring at him Katie smiled, stood, and dropped her kimono to the floor. Luc rose in appreciation. The lantern-light played off her glimmering skin as she pivoted for his gaze, and then she took him by the necktie and brought him in for a kiss that was better than any he'd ever received from Helen of Troy, or someone, he couldn▓t remember, not that it mattered right now.
"That's to remember me by," she whispered.
"Remember you by?" he asked in a daze.
"Remember me by," she repeated. "Now get out"
"But Katie - " he started.
"Out!" she ordered.
"I was only trying to - " He started, then ducked as a jar of perfume water came sailing at his head. Following that came his hat, the book by Jean Leavens, two 78 speed records, the hairbrush, three shoes, and finally, as he dashed out into the lane, a perfectly good bottle of Scotch. One of her cats arched its back and hissed at him as he intercepted the bottle in mid-air.
"But Katie - " he protested.
"Let's see where you put your sword now, Mister," she said, and shut the door.
Luc took the Scotch with him and wandered down the lanes to Tony LeMonte's tin shack. He knocked on the splintered wood of the doorframe and heard Tony shout from around back. The short, thick Chamorron sat smoking in the dark with three of his innumerable cousins. The ebb and flow of their singsong language blended in with the jungle noise and the far crash of waves in Apra harbor. Dark palm fronds above shifted back and forth against the even darker sky, and thousands of stars twinkled far beyond.
"Kicked out again, huh?" Tony asked with a laugh. "Come, Luke, sit with us"
Luc sprawled in one of Tony's broken rattan chairs. One of the cousins passed him a flash of home-brewed alcohol that smelled vile but which went down smoother than expected. He'd loosened his tie during the day, and now pulled it off and tossed aside. The heavy smells of tobacco, sweat, alcohol and jungle growth made a heady perfume "What was it this time?" one of the cousins asked. "Forget her birthday? Step on her cat"
Katie had a reputation in town as being outrageously temperamental, passionate about cats, and the darling of the officers at the naval base where she worked. She cultivated her image and went to great pains to embellish it. But Luc didn't feel like playing her games now. The shiver of recognizing another Immortal at the Pan American played again in his memories.
The men gladly launched into good-natured diatribes about their wives and daughters until Tony's wife Mia came out to chase them back to their own houses. Short, sly Mia took one look at Luc, shook her head, laughed, and rolled out an old Navy cot that might have been new in the Great War.
The cot wedged in nicely between the kitchen table and rusty sink. Tony and Mia's seven children made Luc tell them stories about faraway, exotic lands before they'd settle in to sleep. When everyone was down for the night Luc lay in the cot, listening to the night, sweltering in the dark, and tried to ignore the creaky springs of Tony and Mia's bed as they went about the business of making another child.
He hated listening to other people make love. His skin itched for Katie, and his fingers ached to stroke her favorite spots.
Only an hour later he lurched upwards, heart pounding from an already-forgotten nightmare, and nearly panicked when he couldn't remember where he was. After almost two thousand years and nearly two million nights, he couldn't even begin to count the number of beds he'd slept in. Luc grabbed his discarded shirt, pulled on his pants, and carried his shoes with him as he went out the curtained door. Katie's reputation be damned, he was going to sleep in his own bed tonight.
Her lights were on, and he could hear her delightful laughter on the soft breeze. A man's voice answered, his words too low to be distinguishable. She laughed again. Luc eased up on his pace, his senses tingling, his heartbeat beginning to pick up. He thought about turning around but Katie would have sensed him by now, and he had a feeling the man with her might have as well.
He moved into the doorway and took in the sight of Katie sharing a bottle of wine with a European man with short brown hair. He was dressed casually, in khaki trousers, leather boots, and a white shirt halfway unbuttoned. The blue silk kimono he'd given her as a birthday present was still wrapped around her body, but not as tightly as he would have liked. The European had mischief written across his face.
"I was wondering when you'd come back," Katie smiled, her anger long forgotten. "Luke Arthur, meet an old and dear friend of mine. This is Connor MacLeod"
"How do you do?" Connor asked, rising from his chair with a smile. His accent was foreign, but betrayed no specific background. Although the wine was almost gone his eyes were clear, and his handshake revealed a grip accustomed to wielding a sword. "I think we almost met earlier this afternoon"
"Welcome to the island," Luc said. "Any friend of Katie's . . . "
"Likewise, I'm sure," Connor said. One eyebrow went up in amusement. "Join us? I brought it all the way from France"
"That must have been difficult," Luc returned.
Connor's expression turned grim. "More difficult than it once was"
Katie poured herself another drink. "Connor's been telling me about the war," she said, her eyes dark and glimmering with something he didn't like. "It's getting very bad"
"Wars usually do." The last thing he wanted to do was discuss another war, another battlefield, more casualties. He said steadily, "Actually, it's been a long day. I was looking to go to sleep"
Katie chided him with, "Don't be a party pooper. Connor's come all the way from Australia"
"Long way," Luc said, holding Connor's gaze. "And I imagine he has a longer way to go"
The other Immortal nodded ever so slightly, as if they'd come to a tacit understanding. Katie shook her head in annoyance. "Will you two stop circling each other like cocks in a hen yard? Connor, sit back down. You're not going anywhere. Luke, you sit too"
"Actually," Connor said, with a tiny bow of his head, "I do have to go. But I'll see you tomorrow"
"What time does your plane leave?" Luc asked amiably.
Connor grinned. "Soon"
When Connor was gone, Katie hit Luc on the arm. "You're a rotten host. How can you be so jealous"
"I'm not jealous," he protested. "I'm tired"
"Then you shouldn't stay out all night drinking with your friends," Katie retorted.
"You kicked me out"
"I wasn't serious"
"You're always serious"
"Not always," Katie agreed. She took him in her arms and her lips brushed his. Out of jealousy, perhaps, or his own desire, or the echoes of Tony and Mia through thin walls, he responded much more hungrily. Katie laughed, wrapped her arms around him, and pressed her chest against his. The feel of her breasts through the silk made his breath quicken.
"Welcome home," she said. "Let's play with your sword"
Katie worked at the naval base, in the administrative offices for the commanding officer. Luc - or Luke Arthur, as it were - taught third grade in the Agana village school to Chamorron children. The American children went to their own school, with better textbooks and supplies. Luc made do with worn books, broken chalk, and not nearly enough desks. The American school had electric fans, but his classroom didn't even have electricity.
For someone who'd taught Socrates a thing or two, encouraged a young Leonardo daVinci to keep up with his childish drawings, and lectured off and on for centuries at the different universities and at local smithies, teaching eight year-olds was hell. The children obviously preferred their jungle playground outside over this hot, crowded classroom. They weren't very interested in learning the grammatical rules of English. They had no interest in world history. At the end of each day he practically had to take cover behind his desk as the last bell sent them exploding out of the classroom with yells and laughs and foot races back to their houses.
He sagged in his chair now, worn down by eight hours of running this particular zoo. He could use a drink. Before he could decide how to accomplish that goal, however, the song of an approaching Immortal reached his ears. Katie would still be at work, so he imagined it was that MacLeod fellow. Luc had never dared bring a sword to the classroom - tiny hands, fingers and bodies were far too vulnerable - but he eyed the American flag on its pole to use as a weapon, just in case.
Connor had changed into a different shirt, but still seemed to be cultivating the image of a rakish adventurer. His hat reminded Luc of one his good friend Henry Jones favored. "My plane hasn't left yet," Connor said pleasantly. "I thought you might want to have a drink or two at the Main Gate bar"
Luc considered the offer as he gathered the homework and lesson plans strewn across his desk. "To talk over old times?" he asked casually. "Maybe swap stories about Katie"
"A gentleman never tells," Connor said. "And a gentleman who did tell about Katie would soon find his head five feet from his body"
Luc couldn't suppress a rueful smile. "True enough. All right. Let's go"
They set off down the road. The Pan American's upper floors appeared in the distance above the palm trees, but the two Immortals veered north towards the naval base. "Tell me about Australia," Luc said. "I haven't been in those parts since Abel Tasman discovered Tasmania"
"I didn't figure you for a name-dropper," Connor smiled. "I was going to throw in James Cook"
"Botany Bay and New South Wales," Luc agreed. "Not a bad fellow. Skilled navigator. Terrible at playing cards, though." The comment about name-dropping bristled, however, and he stopped. He usually wasn't the type to show off, and decided he was going to have to get a grip on this jealousy thing. It wasn't as if he owned Katie, or had any claim on her passions. "So what brings you to this rock, in the middle of nowhere"
"I'm on my way back to France," Connor said. "Thought I'd drop in and see Katie. I met her . . . oh, awhile ago. In Milan, when Napoleon crowned himself King of Italy. Pompous little ass"
"Now who's dropping names?" Luc asked.
Connor only laughed.
Luc had done this dance before, circling other Immortals to find out their age, gauging skill by longevity. He had no intention of letting Connor know his true age, if he didn▓t know already. Old Immortals were a rare species for a reason, namely a particularly damn Game. He hadn't seen Napoleon crown himself in Italy, but he'd been there when the Russians had sent the emperor running from Moscow. He'd been there when Moscow was a hamlet of two shacks and three sheep.
The Main Gate bar wasn't nearly as nice as the Pan American, but it had a much more colorful decor that appealed to soldiers like Connor MacLeod. Ship and squadron insignias covered the rough hewn walls, bragging of the exploits of battle. War souvenirs hung in trophy cases. Hollywood pin-up girls adorned two of the walls, and although the three pool tables had seen better days they were already crowded with sailors waving crisp dollar bills.
At the Pan American, the British expatriate Luke Arthur was a popular man - if not for his education and refinement in this backwater paradise, then from the notoriety of living with the very beautiful and very unmarried Katie Maclaine. He often had to charm scandalized wives in their stiff dresses and hats, but the cigar-chomping husbands usually bought him drinks. At the Main Gate bar he was inconspicuous, and enjoyed the chance to blend in the darkness after the hot afternoon glare outside. They took a booth in the far corner, away from everyone else, and ordered beers from the Filipino waitress.
"To Katie," Connor offered as a toast.
"To Katie," Luc returned, and drained half his bottle. Cold and refreshing, and just the thing after eight hours of children. He knew that Connor hadn't asked him here to talk just about Katie, and sure enough the other Immortal leaned forward over his beer.
"I'm going to ask Katie to come away with me," he said. "To help with the war effort"
Luc traced a circle of dampness on the worn wooden table between them. "Another decade, another war," he said. "Don't you get tired of fighting their battles"
Connor shook his head. "It's not them and us, Luke. We're part of the world, just as they are"
The armed forces radio station was belting out Glenn Miller's 'In the Mood.' Luc pitched his voice so no one else could possibly overhear. "You have your own battles to fight," he said. "This war will pass, as they all do. You need to concentrate on keeping your head"
"Thanks for the unsolicited advice," Connor said, a trifle sharply. "I haven't gotten this far by being careless, you know. But this . . . this isn't like any other war"
Luc glanced towards the pool tables. The young sailors were wagering on a tall, lanky redhead wearing a Brooklyn Dodgers baseball cap. In a few years, they might all be dead. Their widows and children, in Brooklyn or Iowa or Texas, would be more victims of battle.
"Each war is like any other war," he said wearily. "They always invent new things to fight over. In the end there are only corpses, and blood, and ashes, and new wars"
Connor shook his head. "You wouldn't say that if you were there. The Germans are swallowing up everything. Austria-swallowed. France-swallowed. The Netherlands-swallowed. The Italians are just as mad as the Germans, and the Japanese have done to China what Germany - "
"I know what they're doing in China," Luc interrupted coldly. With a pang he remembered Ching Li and his cheerful, grinning face. Another mortal life, trampled into the dirt. Luc finished his beer and waved for another.
"You know they'll eventually start across the Pacific," Connor said. "Any military expert can foresee that. They'll come through here. Then the Philippines. Then Hawaii. It's only a matter of time"
"Perhaps"
"Then how can you sit back and do nothing"
Luc shrugged. "I choose my battles. I don't fight if I don't have to"
Connor sat back bitterly. "Then you're a lucky man. You must have no conscience. No moral compunctions"
The waitress returned with two more bottles. The Andrews sisters came on the radio. Luc had a fondness for the Andrews sisters, especially Maxine. He'd called Katie that one night in a moment of heated passion, and had spent the next week sleeping on Tony LeMonte's cot. He▓d never do that again, he promised.
"You're a warrior, aren't you?" Luc asked suddenly.
Connor replied evenly, "I've fought in my time"
"Argonne? Gettysburg? Waterloo? Hastings? Masada"
Connor didn't answer.
"Do you hire yourself out to kill?" Luc pressed. "Any coin, any war"
"You think this is about blood lust"
"I think," Luc said, suddenly tired of the whole discussion, "that you can't save the world. And you shouldn't try. You have one concern only. Live and grow stronger. Win the Prize"
"And in the meantime, overlook the evil that surrounds us"
"You can't always recognize evil when you see it"
"But when I see it," Connor said, "I deal with it. I don't run away and hide on a tropical island in the middle of nowhere." He leaned forward again, "Don't you understand? This is not something you can ignore. They're killing men, women and children everywhere. They're killing the Jews"
Luc couldn't stop his next words. "We▓ve killed the Jews before"
Connor stared at him for a long, silent moment. Then he left. Luc closed his eyes, unable to believe what he'd said. True enough, the Jews had been victims of persecution for centuries. They'd been massacred by the thousands in the Crusades. Medieval France and England had expelled them. The Spanish had put them to torture. He had wept over the bodies of his Jewish friends.
He couldn't do it again. He couldn't fight another war, watch more friends die, lose his own sense of self in the horror and gore.
The Andrews sisters had stopped singing. The redhead in the Dodgers cap was collecting money. Connor was gone, off to fight a battle born of conscience, and Luc was sitting in a ramshackle bar in the middle of a jungle that had proved, in the end, not to be far enough off the beaten track to hide from the world.
Ching Li had died in the dirt, his head blasted to pieces by bullets, his blood soaking the good earth of his homeland.
When all the soldiers were dead Luc would still be alive, an Immortal, a man who had seen the world rise and fall too, too often. He squeezed his eyes shut, but the visions didn't stop.
The next morning was Saturday. Katie and Luc packed a picnic basket, borrowed a jeep, and headed north. Luc' favorite spot on the island was a cliff the villagers referred to, in their own language, as Two Lover's Point. The myth was that the son and daughter of warring tribes had come to this gorgeous spot, high above the crashing Pacific, and leaped to their deaths rather than be kept apart by their families.
"Maybe they were Immortal," Katie said, glancing down. The drop was very far indeed. She tugged at the scarf around her head to let her hair fly loose in the salty wind and smiled devilishly. "Should we try it"
"No," Luc said. "I don't plan on dying today"
They spread lunch out on the wild grass, drank some wine, and then made love under the gorgeously blue sky. Later, as he lay half-asleep and comfortably content, Katie said softly in his ear, "You didn't ask where I was last night"
"I figured you were with Connor"
"In the Biblical sense"
"In whatever sense you choose," Luc said, squinting up at her dark, unreadable eyes. He reached up and stroked a dark curl. "You've known him far longer than you've known me"
"You're being very reasonable about this"
"I can be very reasonable," he said. If he tried. It wasn't really hard. Lovers came and went in his life, some for only a day, some for centuries. He▓d know Katie before, back in a smithy in Italy, too many centuries ago. But how long had Connor known her? Ah, well, what▓d it matter? He'd already decided Katie was going to say yes to Connor's request, and whining about it wouldn't help.
Still, he would miss her. He would miss her tantrums, and her baths, even her cats. He would miss the way they came together as if there had never been any other time or any other lovers. Her fingernails always left scratches in his skin. His sword, she claimed, always left her pleasantly sore.
"I'll miss you," he said in a resigned voice. "But if you have to do it, if you want to, I won't ask you to stay"
Katie stroked his forehead. "When I was born," she said, "Italy wasn't even a country. There were only the cities, the provinces, the regions. You were there too, remember? We all were... Now it's unified, and in the hands of madmen. Mussolini must be stopped. All of them must be stopped"
"What can one person do?" Luc asked.
"As much damage as she can," Katie said solemnly. She rested her head on his chest. "Everything conceivable. Won't you come with us"
"My home is here"
"Your home is where you make it. Your home . . . is with me"
Her lips found his again. Luc groaned. "Persuading me with pleasure?" he asked as she nibbled on his chin, then his chest, then his hips.
"If that's what it takes," she grinned.
The sky was clouding over. The wind, from the west, whipped at a thin line of wildflowers on the cliff line. "Maybe we should get back," he said. "The forecast called for rain tonight"
"This looks like more than just rain," Katie observed.
By the time they reached Agana a cool rain was slanting downwards, turning the dirt road into mud. The strengthening wind whipped the foliage back and forth. The church bells were ringing in warning, and they ducked into the Pan American lobby to hear that the naval forces were saying a typhoon was imminent.
"Everyone's supposed to take shelter," one of the Chamorron bellhops told them. "It could wreck the whole island"
"I'm going to the base," Katie said, giving Luc a quick kiss. "They'll need me there"
"Be careful," he warned. "I'm going to the school. Those buildings won't stand much, but they're better than what half these people live in"
He found frightened families working furiously in their homes, trying to prepare for the typhoon's onslaught. Everything that could be tied down was secured with rope, twine, vines and string. Fresh water went in bottles, jugs, pans and tubs. Tins of food went up on high shelves. Chickens and other animals went free, rather than risk death in pens. Up north, the cattle would also be set loose.
Luc herded as many children and mothers as he could to the school's three concrete buildings, and boarded the windows with overturned desks and bookcases. By nightfall the winds and rains were howling through the village like trains,roaring and shaking, making the children cry and clutch for comfort. Water poured under the door, and Luc tried to stop the flow with books, the flag,the clothes off his back. The only light they had came from a solitary gas lantern and two failing flashlights.
Mia LeMonte and her seven children were huddled in the corner, and she took him with cold hands to sit with them. "You can't do anything else!" she shouted over the storm's horrible noise.
He squeezed her hands. Tony was out there somewhere, and here she was trying to comfort him. Her youngest child was crying, and Luc took the four year old into his lap and stroked his hair, over and over, murmuring soft words in Gallic that didn't make it over the wind.
"It'll be all right in the morning," he told Mia.
But it wasn't.
At least half the houses were gone, flattened under the typhoon's fury. Toppled trees blocked most of the roads. The island's crops were all dead. There was no power and no running water. The Pan American was heavily damaged, and he knew he'd never drink martini's at its bar again. Mostly everyone Luc saw wore the same dazed, horrible look he remembered from battlefields or earthquakes, the sheer disbelief in this horrible new reality. He saw no sign of Katie, but found Connor MacLeod at the naval hospital surrounded by the injured and dying. The pain on the younger Immortal's face hit Luc hard. Whatever Connor MacLeod was, whoever he was, he was not a man who took his obligations lightly.
He owed nothing to the ravaged people of Guam. But he was here, helping in whatever capacity, looking as if he'd had as little sleep as Luc had.
Luc went around to the hospital's damaged kitchen and came back with a cup of hot coffee to give to Connor.
"Thank you," Connor said. "Why"
"You look like you need it," Luc said. The room was too crowded and too loud for them to sit down, but they found a small space in the hallway and leaned against the crumbling plaster walls for a few minutes.
"I owe you an apology," Luc said.
Connor waved the words away. "I shouldn't try and impose my standards on someone else"
Luc almost laughed. "It's not a question of standards," he said, but didn't push the topic, and neither did Connor. Luc rubbed his eyes. "I talked to Katie. She's going to go with you"
Connor nodded. "We'll be happy to have her. There's a lot that needs to be done. I have a feeling this war is going to be long and terrible"
"They are all long and terrible," Luc said. "Even the ones that last only a day"
"I'll try to get us on an airplane out of here as soon as possible," Connor said. "I get the feeling it won't be easy"
"You might need the time," Luc said. He took a steadying breath. "You have a decision to make. There's something you don't know about Katie, something you should know before you take her away"
"A gentleman never tells," Connor reminded him, almost smiling, and then said, "Is it something about the two of you"
"No," Luc said. His gaze was direct and unflinching even as he betrayed her. "Something about the two of you"
Connor couldn't arrange for a flight out for nearly two weeks. The runways had been damaged as heavily as the rest of the island, and the military took over all operations for relief efforts. Luc spent nearly eighteen hours a day helping rebuild homes and fix roads, and came home every night exhausted. Katie was equally busy at the base, and they found little energy to do anything but fall into bed at the end of the day and sleep like the dead until dawn.
On the day before Connor and Katie's departure, Luc persuaded her to drive with him up to Two Lovers' Point. They hadn't been there since the typhoon, but found it mostly undamaged. The view was still stunning. Katie, looking out at the endless water and sky with a wistful expression on her face, was more beautiful than Nefertiti had ever been.
"You were right, you know," Luc said as they watched the far waves roll in. "You said they all must be stopped. It's what Connor wants to do. It's what Connor wants me to help him with"
"You said you wouldn't leave"
"I changed my mind," Luc replied. "I'm going to Europe to help defeat Hitler"
"That's wonderful!" she said, throwing her arms around his neck. Luc gently disengaged her. His heart felt dead in his chest. His hands felt very, very cold.
"Katie," he said, "Katie, I had to tell Connor"
"Tell Connor what?" she asked.
The buzz of another Immortal came to them at the same time. They turned to see Connor emerge from the jungle. Sunlight glinted off his sword. Katie backed away a step from Luc, her smile fading fast. "What are you talking about"
"Everything," Luc said simply.
"Like what you've really been doing here all these months," Connor said.
"You didn't have to go back to the base when the typhoon was coming," Luc said. "You chose to. Was it to steal classified documents that the Navy would assume were destroyed in the storm"
Katie looked from one to the other. "I have no idea what you are talking about," she said, clearly and precisely. Her hands were very still. Luc knew how fast she was with a sword, and prepared himself.
Connor came closer. His eyes were hard and cold. "You would have come with me. You would have listened to everything, all of our plans and codes, and betrayed every single word"
Katie arched her eyebrows. "Betrayal is such a subjective word. Betrayal to you is loyalty to my people. The war you think is evil is one I think stands for justice and power and Italy's rightful place in the world"
"No one would ever suspect you out here," Luc said. "But you had access to military information about America's operations in the Pacific. Italy could sell those to Japan, for money or materials"
Her expression remained calm, her eyes guarded. "So what do you want to do about it"
Connor's sword came up a few inches. "There's always the inevitable," he said.
Katie actually laughed. "You'll take my head?" she asked, light and skeptical. They could have been discussing the color of her dress, or the weather in Guam today. She said, "I really don't think either of you has it in you. I love you too much. You love me"
Connor didn't answer. Luc found himself holding his breath. This was the turning point. The pitting of principle against emotion. Two weeks earlier, in the dingy hospital hallway, he'd told Connor everything and then added, "Sometimes fighting evil begins at home. The heart can be the hardest battlefield of all"
Luc truly didn't know if Connor would go for Katie's head. He didn't know who would win. He didn't know who he wanted to win. He didn't know Connor MacLeod from Adam, but he'd shared his bed with Katie. He hadn't really loved her, had he? Did it matter?
Katie was very good. Connor MacLeod was an unknown. Luc knew he could beat Katie, but he had no heart for it. Not today, not in the sunshine, not at Two Lovers' Point. Connor looked at him, and Luc shrugged ever so slightly.
Connor sighed and lowered his sword. "You're in luck. But the next time we meet, it won't be this way"
Luc turned to head back towards the jeep and caught the tiniest flash of movement out of his eye as Katie took a swipe at his head. Before he could defend himself Connor blocked Katie's sword, forced her back, and engaged her along the line of the cliff.
So it would end with a Quickening. Luc forced himself not to turn away. Connor's face was furious as he demanded, "Who have you ever loved, Katie? Anyone but yourself"
"Certainly not you!" Katie retorted, scoring a hit on his shoulder that brought a deep swell of blood. She was too cocky too soon, though. Her left foot hit a small hole, throwing her momentarily off balance, and Connor knocked her sword from her grip. Before Luc' horrified eyes, Connor heaved his blade in a killing arc towards the nape of her neck.
Then stopped.
Growling something unintelligible, Connor tossed aside his sword, and instead booted Katie in the ass. She went with a yelp over the side of the cliff. Luc raced up to see the result, but as the two men peered down at the ocean and rocks they couldn't see her body. No Quickening came for them.
"Women," Connor said in disgust.
Back in the jeep, Luc gunned the engine and swung towards the road. "She's going to have quite a walk back when she recovers," he said conversationally.
"She deserves it. But I couldn't . . . you know." Connor looked away in embarrassment.
"Maybe some other day," Luc offered, as consolation. He forced himself to sound dispassionate. "In any case, the naval authorities will be waiting for her whenever she shows up. With the things you found in her bags, and the radio we pulled up from under the floor, it should be enough to make life interesting for her for awhile"
The jeep bounced down the dirt road. After several miles of jungle and silence, Connor asked, "Are you really going to come with me to Europe to fight Hitler"
"Yes"
"I thought you said it's not your war"
Luc didn't say anything for a minute. He blinked against the too-bright sun and a sting in his eyes. Ching Li's horrid skull. The Roman Catholic Pope, forcing Medieval Jews to wear badges to set them apart from God's true children. Horses and knights screaming in fields of blood at Agincourt. He'd fought in battles long before Connor MacLeod walked the earth, and it was his horrible suspicion he would be fighting forever.
"They're all my wars," he answered now, with a heavy heart, as the jeep took them towards a future that looked like a chasm. "Every single one of them."
THE END