Author's Note: Well folks, I'm taking a break from the Dearest Brother series at the moment and am now working on something quite different. To everybody who dares see just what I've come up with now, I hope you'll enjoy it.
The Abomination
1993
He felt it. He stopped in his tracks and turned around. There was another one like himself nearby, an old one. Not as old as himself, but all the same, old enough. Kronos looked around his darkened surroundings, waiting for the other Immortal to strike. While he couldn't pinpoint the other's exact location, he knew they were somewhere along the dark alley in front of him. Taking out his sword, he called out "Come out now, make it quick."
The response was a loud crashing noise from another direction, he turned to look and was thrown off guard until the other figure had come out of hiding and was standing right across from him.
"Kronos?"
At the call of his name, Kronos turned around and saw her. A woman he hadn't seen for a few years and he was honestly surprised to see her again. When he cast his eyes upon her, something happened and his senses seemed to disappear. He dropped his sword and before he knew it, she had jumped into his arms and wrapped hers around his neck.
"I thought you were dead," he said.
She shook her head, "I can assure you I'm not dead. Are you allright?"
Except for a sudden ripping feeling in his back, yes he was quite allright. He carefully set her down and wondered what the hell happened. Either something had happened since they last met and he wasn't as strong as he used to be, or, he thought, she was smuggling something again.
"I think we better get out of here before we make a scene," Kronos told her.
"Right behind you."
Kronos picked up his sword and stopped. "No, wait."
"What is it?" she asked.
He turned to her. "Let's go to your place instead."
She smiled, "Allright, follow me."
"Wait," Kronos said as he grabbed her wrist.
"Again?" she asked.
"What name do you go by now?"
"The same I always have," she answered.
As they made their way through the dark streets of the city that night, Kronos thought back to when they first met. That was a long time ago when time wasn't much of the essence, not to him anyway. Thousands of years and two continents full of sand and blood ago, that was when they had first encountered each other. A day he still clearly remembered.
Where he was, he didn't know. He'd been riding for days and anymore all the land before him looked the same as the last. As he wandered around the deserted land he thought it was ironic that the place his horse chose to stop after three days of passing tribes and villages, was where everything around was dead. There were people sprawled out all over the land and whatever had happened to them, it had showed less mercy than the Horsemen did.
These were, as far as he was concerned, the most pathetic sort of people that could ever exist, the ones that had nothing worth taking, and were already dead before he came. Why he was staying, he didn't know…but he had a feeling that there was more to this spot, than what he was seeing. Even though he knew he was alone, and nobody who was around was going to get up, there was still an uneasiness about him, he drew his sword just in case he might be wrong. His pride got in the way of allowing such a thought normally, but he reminded himself, he'd been wrong before. Methos was a perfect example of that.
Just the thought of his brother, and Kronos' hands started clenching into fists. He could've killed Methos for abandoning them, he would've, and if he ever ran into Methos again, and he knew he would someday, he would kill him then. Only, he knew, he wouldn't make it quick like Methos would want. As the thought seemed to consume him, he shook his head as if answering himself, when he found Methos he was going to make him suffer for the longest time before he finally took his head.
At the exact moment that that thought entered his head, he felt it. Turning around he looked to see who his opponent was. It couldn't be…he knew he could never get so lucky as to find Methos this soon after getting out of that pit. He had to stop and concentrate on the Quickening, it was so low and so weak he could barely feel it at all…almost as if it were from…
That unpleasant thought gathered in his mind…of all the corpses he passed, he must have missed one that hadn't fully died yet. Well, he thought, it wouldn't take long to send them the rest of the way, he just had to find out which one it was. After taking a few more steps, something happened and he felt like he'd been knocked on the side of his head. He nearly fell to his feet, he was dizzy, and he felt some God-awful vibration in his ears. Looking around, everything seemed to be moving in one sickening circle and he wasn't sure he could stand up. What the hell was going on? Then he realized that he'd been wrong, the presence he felt was that of someone who was already Immortal. Getting to his feet again he looked around, and feared he was going insane. He saw nobody alive, there was no opponent, just sand and dead bodies as far as the eye could see.
Then he stopped, off in the distance, one of the bodies had moved, not much, but enough for him to notice. As he got closer, he realized it was a woman, a young one, and a scrawny one, but a woman no less. He took another step towards her and he stopped.
The woman was of unusual color, not dark like most people who toiled in the desert sun, but also not pale, certainly not like Methos. She had a short head of hair of unusual color, normally hair cut as short as hers could make a woman look more like a man, but there wasn't anything that could make any mistake about what she was. She was dressed in what used to be a white fur tunic, now it, like her, was covered in dirt and sand and plenty more. Kronos knew if he was close enough to feel her, then she could with no mistake feel his Quickening as well, but she didn't move. She had one arm under her head and she seemed to be trying to sleep, and that idea made Kronos laugh.
He came up closer to the woman until he was practically on top of her, she hadn't moved, she didn't open her eyes, but he knew she was alive. Feeling like a cat with its prey, he decided to have some fun with his victim first. He nudged her in the ribs with his foot, she opened one eye, told him to leave her alone and turned on her side. This time, Kronos kicked her, not so much to hurt her, just to get her attention.
"Leave me alone," she said, "I want to die."
"You stupid woman," he almost laughed, "You can't die."
"Yes I can," she replied, "I've done it several times before. Now go away."
She turned back onto her back and closed her eyes. Now Kronos was curious.
"What happened here?" he asked, meaning what killed everybody.
"Plague," the woman answered.
"And you?" he asked.
She turned back around towards him and said, "You don't give up easily, do you?"
Her voice was strong but she couldn't talk much and she had trouble swallowing in between, Kronos knew this was because whatever the plague was, it had left any food or water in the area, unfit to be eaten or drunk by anything alive.
"Since you seem to think you know so damn much about something, maybe you can tell me what's going on," the woman said.
Kronos was still feeling in a bit of a playful mood, with the tip of his blade, he pushed back the bottom of her tunic to get a look at her. She didn't appreciate it and so swung her foot under his and made him fall. On the way down he came to the conclusion from what he had seen, that she had starved to death more than once already.
Getting himself up again, he settled for a sort of kneeling position to remain in while he spoke with her.
"What's your name?" he asked.
"Abigail," she answered not fondly.
"Well…you," he said, "Are Immortal."
"Very funny," she said, thinking he was fooling her.
Kronos grabbed her boney arm and said, "Why do you think you've survived this as far as you have?"
"Oh what would you know?" she asked as she turned on her side again.
Kronos grabbed her by her ankles and turned her back to face him again. "I know that you're like me."
She laughed, "I'm nothing like you, I never could be."
"No?" Kronos grabbed her wrist and held his dagger to her palm, "Tell me if I cut you open, that you won't heal."
Then he stopped and let her go. He'd forgotten that when an Immortal went too long without food or water, they didn't heal as quickly as they normally did, and by the looks of this woman, she didn't have the blood to spare.
"So what do you want with me?" she asked.
He had to think about that himself.
"I don't know," he answered.
"Then go away and let me die here in misery," she told him.
This time she turned on her stomach and this was when Kronos noticed the red stains on the back of her tunic. Pushing up the back, he saw a small dagger lodged in her thigh, there was no doubt that it had cut into the bone.
Subtleness not being his strong point this millennium, he pushed her to wake her up again.
"What do you want now?" she asked.
"How did this happen?" he asked as he pointed to the dagger.
She looked back as if she'd forgotten about it. "Some bastard," was her only response. Then she turned to Kronos and asked him, "Can you get it out?"
If he couldn't he'd have one hell of a time trying. He didn't know what it was but there was something to this woman that he liked. Still being the playful bastard he was in this lifetime, he smirked and asked, "If I get it out, will you kiss me?"
"Sure," she replied, not taking him seriously, "Hell if you get it out, I'll marry you."
Kronos positioned himself behind her so he could get a good grip on the dagger's handle.
"It'll hurt," he warned her.
"And here I was just enjoying myself up till you came along," she said.
He expected her to scream once he started removing it but instead she just moaned and dug her nails deeper and deeper into the sand. By the time the blade came out, and that wasn't anytime soon on account of the bone it was stuck in, she wasn't making any noise at all. Kronos turned her over and found that she'd passed out sometime during the ordeal. He pulled the small and frail body against his own, and he wondered what to do next.
Centuries had passed, his brothers were no more, he was alone now, and had been for a long while. As for women? The last woman he could clearly remember was…Cassandra. His hands clenched again in remembrance. Then he looked again at the woman before him now. He picked her up and carried her over to his horse, he put her up first then got behind her. He kept one arm around her as he got them out of there and into what could at least pass for civilization.
He got them a room in an inn and got some water, he forced some down her throat which she took with no trouble, but still wouldn't wake up. After that, he stripped her of her clothes and after washing her a bit, put her in bed, where she stayed for three days before she awoke. Every day she would somehow stay asleep when he lifted her head up and poured water down her throat, and he began to wonder if she would last as an Immortal, or if he would have to take her head before long.
On the third day, Kronos awoke when Abigail got up and saw both of them in bed and she started screaming, "Oh God, oh my God, we didn't—I slept with you?"
"Yes, and no…don't flatter yourself my dear, you've done nothing but sleep for the last three days," Kronos explained.
She laid back again and closed her eyes, then she felt an immense weight cover her body. She looked up and Kronos was on top of her.
"If I'm not mistaken," Kronos said, "You owe me something."
"I'm not going to marry you."
"No, come on…you know what I want."
"If I do, can I go back to sleep?" she asked.
She didn't wait for his answer, as soon as he kissed her, she fell back against the bed asleep. Oh, Kronos thought, this was going to be fun.
He spent the next few days trying to get some food down her throat without it coming back up. Once she was able to get through the day without becoming ill, they left the inn.
"Where are we going?" she asked him.
"I don't know," he replied.
She maintained a strong grip around his waist as they rode out of the city, and Kronos didn't know where they were going, but he didn't want to go back to any place that would remind him of his Judas brother.
He looked up, there was no sun beating down on them because gray clouds covered the sky today, but he didn't care. He didn't care if they got caught in a storm, he didn't care about much anymore, he just rode until he couldn't recognize the surroundings or the people, and Abigail's grip loosened. Looking over his shoulder he saw she was falling asleep, so he jerked the reins for the horse to stop. He got her down and laid her out on the ground. The sky above grew darker and he knew it would start raining soon.
Now he was starting to feel tired as well and he sank down next to her body and felt he could fall asleep then and there, everything be damned.
The rain came but didn't pour down on them, in fact it was a relief after the heat of the last few days. The two of them drank from a wineskin and each tried to find out more about the other than they already knew.
"So you were living in the village when the plague came."
Abigail lay on her side and nodded her head, "I couldn't figure out what I had done that was so terrible that I didn't die along with them."
Kronos reached over and stroked through her hair, "You didn't do anything, whatever it was that made you Immortal, that was decided before you were born. When did you find out you couldn't die?"
"Oh…about…20 days ago I think it was," she said, "The people were dying, everybody was panicked…one woman accused me of stealing her baby…her baby died as soon as it was born from the plague, but she didn't remember it. She stabbed me right here," Abigail patted her stomach, "And when I…came back to life, everyone around me was dead. The horses were dead, the mules were dead, the water was poison, there was no way for me to get out so I just waited to die. Then a stranger came through, and soon it spread to him, he went crazy and started fighting with me, he rammed that dagger into me…but I killed him first. What about you? Where do you come from?"
He wasn't sure how to answer that, but somehow he came about telling her of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and their two thousand year reign.
"The end of the world," she said humorously, "So what happened?"
For a minute, Kronos didn't say anything and Abigail wondered if he would. Then finally he answered, "My brother, Methos," he said the name as if it burnt his mouth to do so, "Left…I told him the only way he would leave would be to leave his head, the bastard poisoned me and threw me into a pit and locked me in. That was a thousand years ago."
"I'm sorry," she said.
She looked at Kronos and she knew that what he had to say next, was something he would never tell another living soul, and if she told, he would probably kill her.
"I hated being alone," Kronos said, "All those years passed and nobody…I hated it, I hated him, I could have just killed him…"
He knew he'd said too much. "I'm sorry."
She reached over and patted his thigh, "That's allright, Kronos."
He pulled her close to him and kissed her. "If you don't mind my saying it, Abigail, you are one strange woman."
"Why's that?"
"Do you believe me when I tell you what I was? What we were?"
"Sure, why not?"
"So why aren't you afraid?"
She giggled, "No man whose own brother can poison him without his knowing it and toss him down a well for a thousand years is going to scare me, I don't care what you were."
Kronos thought about it all and he supposed it didn't sound very good for his part at all. And in spite of himself and what he felt at that moment, he laughed.
1867
Kronos groaned as he finally managed to dig himself out of the grave they'd put him in. He was thankful that deep graves weren't common around here otherwise he'd be there until dawn the next day. At first he thought his pounding headache had been from returning to life buried in the ground, but now he realized that it was because there was another Immortal nearby…if it was that bastard with the Texas Rangers…
"El Gato."
He jerked his neck around and saw a woman laying on a tombstone near his grave. She was dressed as a whore in a loose fitting dress, and she smelled like one too. He recognized the woman.
"Abigail?"
"One and only," she replied with a grin on her face.
As he pulled himself to his feet he saw she was looking after herself currently, she had a gun belt tied around the waist of her dress with two pistols resting in it.
"Charming."
"The Sheriff had a little 'accident' and he ain't gonna be needing these where he's going," she said as she gestured to the guns, "So do you want to explain yourself? What's happened to you lately?"
"Lately?" he repeated, "Well for one, I had a little run in with the Texas Rangers."
"And a friend," she added.
"What?"
"And they had a friend…"
"Yes…if I ever find out who he is…"
Abigail laughed, "You never cease to amaze me, El Gato, the man who terrified the whole state, who slaughtered many, taken down by a damned Scottish bairn!"
"What?" Kronos asked.
"That man was Duncan MacLeod, a highlander from Scotland…and a damned infant still," she laughed, "He's not even 300 years old yet and he killed you!"
"He did not!" Kronos replied, "I would have killed him if those damn hunters wouldn't have interrupted."
"And thus you get a coffin and a quaint little funeral," she said, and she nearly fell off the tomb from laughing so hard.
Kronos turned up his nose as he brushed the dirt off his clothes.
"Come here," he said.
"What?" she asked.
"I said come here."
She got off the tomb and went over to him. Slowly and almost cautiously, he put his arms around her and pulled her close to him.
"Like old times," she said, "I've missed this."
However Kronos had other things on his mind. He pressed her body against his and felt down her back, and felt the front of her body pressed against his, and came to a conclusion.
"I knew it!"
"What?" she asked.
"Not too long ago the Texas Rangers were looking for me in connection to a bank robbery, but I never set foot near the damned place. You robbed it and the blame was put on me because it was convenient."
She played innocent. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"You stole the money and stuffed it down your girdle," Kronos accused her.
"I did not," she said.
"You want me to turn you upside down and shake you?" Kronos asked.
"You wouldn't dare," she smugly replied.
"Have it your way," Kronos grabbed for her ankles.
Abigail backed up and reached down her dress, "Okay, okay, you win."
She pulled out wrapped stacks of bills and dropped them on the ground. Hundreds of dollars, thousands even, all that he'd never seen before a day in his life, and all part of a crime that the public held him guilty for.
"I hanged for what you did," Kronos said.
She became serious then as she responded, "Well I'm sorry, but until today I didn't even know who you were, let alone that we were in the same area. How did you know that it was me who stole the money?"
"Because," Kronos said, "In all the years I've known you, you've always been a scrawny woman, even in the beginning when you put back the weight you lost when you first died, you were still a boney creature…and with that money stuffed down your clothes you appeared much larger than I remember you, and you felt bulkier as well."
She smiled coyly and reached into one of the pockets on her dress and offered him a cigarette.
"What are you going to do now?" she asked.
He told her he wasn't sure. He was starting to get tired of being massacred on a weekly basis by the locals.
"Well," Abigail said as she pointed to the money on the ground, "There's over ten thousand dollars in that, why don't we get a room at a hotel and get some of that gunpowder whiskey that's filling the saloons these days?"
"Not here," Kronos said.
"Of course not here, people are going to find your grave empty and there will be a massive panic…no, let's get out of here. Let's go…I know, let's go to the Arizona Territory, nobody will be looking for El Gato there," she explained.
He looked at her for a minute before saying, "Sometimes I wonder why I come back to you."
Abigail picked up the money and answered, "Because if you didn't you'd have nobody to talk to and you would go crazy and you know it."
1993
It was well after midnight when they reached Abigail's home. She turned on the light and they headed into the kitchen. Kronos noticed that while it wasn't cold out, she kept her long coat on as she went around the kitchen.
"So," she said as she put a kettle of water on the stove, "What have you been up to lately?"
"Very little," Kronos replied as he sat down at the table, "What about you? Still holding up banks?"
"Not so much anymore, banks are becoming one of the worst places to rob," she replied, "All that security and all…if you can pull it off, the payoff is worth it because banks carry most of the money, but that's becoming a thing of the past really."
"So what are you robbing now?" Kronos asked.
"Well let's see, I robbed…two antique stores, a couple of gas stations…a few motels."
"Motels?" Kronos repeated.
"You'd be surprised how much money they can take in when it's the right season. I guess you could say I never really fell into any place on the level that fit me. Oh I tried, believe me I did…but nothing stuck, you know? Once I got a job as a grave digger, I liked it, it was good honest work…but they had their complaints, first they said I wasn't making the holes deep enough, then they said I was making them too deep. Well you know for the longest time when we were alive there weren't very deep graves being used…and I guess it just stuck with me."
The kettle started screaming and Abigail fixed a cup of coffee and set it down by Kronos.
"You aren't having any?"
"I hate coffee," she said, "I only keep it for company."
Kronos looked up at her. "Did you put something in it?"
Smugly she replied, "Maybe I did and maybe I didn't, only way you'll know is to drink it."
He started to, he may die in a crumpling heap of his own body but he wasn't going to let anybody think that she could intimidate him.
"I also once had a job working at a maximum security prison…I worked on death row…but they fired me," she said.
"Why?" Kronos asked.
"Well…you know how when you electrocute somebody, you're supposed to make sure they're strapped in real tight so they can't move, and that the thing they put on their heads is supposed to be good and wet otherwise they catch on fire?"
"Yeah."
"Well I didn't and that little bastard jiggled right out of the chair and onto the floor and nearly burnt the whole damn prison down."
Half of the coffee he drank came back up as he laughed himself nearly sick.
"Well I'm glad you're having such a good time with this, are you going to survive?" she asked.
"I'm sorry," he said as he pulled himself together, "So what have you been doing lately?"
"Basically nothing…I…well I think I'm getting tired of it all," Abigail explained, "I've pulled off so many heists, and it gets tired after a while. Besides, there's still enough money left from it all to keep me taken care of until the turn of the century so I don't see much reason to rush into anything at the moment."
There was silence for a minute but it ended when she said, "I suppose I ought to set up a place for you to sleep for the night."
Before he could answer her, she grabbed him and pulled him along up the stairs and down a dark corridor. She opened a door and turned on the light and they walked in.
"This is the guest room," she said, "I think it'll do for the night."
Now Kronos was seriously beginning to wonder if she poisoned him. His head was throbbing and his eyes hurt too much to keep open. He hadn't felt like this since…Methos, and the wine, and the pit.
"Abigail," he started to say.
However she wasn't interested in hearing him out, she grabbed him and practically threw him onto the bed and she undressed him and settled him in under the covers. He started laughing.
"What's so funny?" she asked.
"Just a thought, if it's work you want, you should try working in a nursery."
"Nursery?" she repeated.
"Oh sure, you'd probably be perfect nursing the bloody infants," he laughed.
She tucked the covers in tightly around his neck for that comment and told him to go to sleep, she would see him in the morning.
When she left the room, Kronos turned on his side and fell into a deep and empty sleep.
He woke up and it was still dark. The light from the hall shone in, nearly blinding him. He grabbed the clock by the bed and saw that it was a little after 4 in the morning, and Kronos couldn't for the life of him remember what had gotten him up. Then he heard it again. Abigail was downstairs and it sounded like she was choking. He got up and rushed down the back stairs to find out what had happened.
She sat at the table and he saw she was still wearing her long coat, she'd never taken it off. Her face was buried in her hands as she cried.
"Abigail."
The single word shot through the room like a bullet being fired from a gun.
"What's wrong?" he asked as he stepped closer to her.
She saw him but wouldn't look at him; she didn't want to tell him what was the matter.
"What is it?" he asked.
"Oh Kronos, I should have told you sooner but I couldn't, I was afraid," she told him.
Now he was wondering where the hell he was. Never in all the years that they had been meeting up again was she ever afraid to tell him anything.
"Tell me what?" he asked, "What is it? What's wrong?"
She stood up and jerked at the buttons on her coat and ripped it open revealing a large bulge in her stomach.
"That," she cried as she hung her head low, "That's what's wrong."
Kronos had seen it enough times in his life to know what had happened despite it being impossible, but still he found himself reaching out and feeling her stomach and he could feel a baby in it kicking, and suddenly he was as scared as she was.
"Oh my God, Abigail," he said.
"I didn't want to tell you," she explained, "But there was nobody else."
He pulled her into his arms and she clung to him as if for dear life. They slowly sank to the floor, both of them wondering what the hell was going to happen now. One thing Kronos knew for certain, somebody was going to die for this.