*9*
As he ran from the building, Kenny seethed. "Damn MacLeod! Why does he always interfere! Only a few moments longer and Amanda would have been his. But with the Highlander's entrance into his teacher's apartment... Kenny had not dared take her head... It would have unmasked him... and it would have made him vulnerable.
It had only been chance that he'd been hidden from the Highlander's sight when MacLeod had entered the concert hall moments after the boy had taken the simpering Claudia's head. The silly thing hadn't even had a sword and her quickening had been pathetic... hardly worth the energy he'd used in getting close to her. But he'd wanted her so that her death would upset MacLeod... and it had. As had his using the Grace persona outside the hall. Just one more way to rub it in and keep the Scot off-balance.
But this! He'd used a lot of energy on Amanda... on keeping up the illusion of Robert Sutton... so that he'd seemed real... even to Amanda's touch. And now... he had nothing to show for it. He was tired... and edgy... and unable to use illusion again for a while.
Worst of all... he could see MacLeod issue forth from the apartment building... and look around for him. Kenny turned and ran. He was too close... he couldn't mask his presence right now... he needed time to regain his strength... time to marshal his forces once again... time to unify the discordant spirits within so that he could truly face the Highlander as an immortal to be reckoned with.
"Foolish boy!" hissed Kane. "You should have taken her head instead of kissing her!"
"Once she pulled away," Kell intoned in that bitter voice he had whenever the subject of women and sex came up, "that should have been that. You dropped your focus... you wasted our energy... you missed the moment." Kenny shivered even as he ran through the night... there was always something truly perverted about Kell's views of women. At least with the other two... Kenny had some understanding of what it meant to take a woman and enjoy her. With Kell he only felt an abhorrent sense of disgust.
"Leave me be!" he yelled at them, even as he ducked into a darkened alleyway, hoping he'd lost MacLeod.
The Kurgan's laugh rose like a banshee howling on the wind. "The Highlander will be ours. Stop running. Concentrate!"
"Yes..." Slippery as a snake Kane's voice slithered in. "for this we chose you. For this we have pooled all we are... all that remains."
Kenny paused... his back pressed against the wall. His mind was still unordered... as if the strength it took to maintain the illusion had left him splintered now that he wasn't using it.
"Sutton does us no good now. Forget him." Kell intoned. "We need someone else... someone the Highlander cares for."
"He cares for Amanda!" The hate in Kenny was rising to a fevered pitch. How could she love him? Why hadn't she loved him... or even Robert? He'd played it so well! What had he done wrong? "You made me move too soon!" He cast his accusation at them all. "We should have waited! I should have waited!"
At the entrance to the alley... Kenny could feel the first stirrings of an on-coming presence. MacLeod! Kenny looked down the alley... knowing the river was near. If he could get to the Thames... not all would be lost.
The boy focused... pulling all the arguing voices into one thought... Mask our presence! It was all he could manage for the moment. Once he was certain it was done... Kenny stood and walked slowly through the alley toward the other end... toward the river.
***
Amanda gasped and lurched upward. She was still alive! Feeling an immortal she glanced around... expecting that somehow Duncan had saved the day... Duncan was here... Duncan had killed Robert.
Instead she saw a rather pretty young woman she did not know. Fear rose. Was this another face? Or was this the truth beneath the other? Amanda scrambled away... pain still tearing through her chest.
"It's all right, Amanda. Duncan went after him... he asked me to stay till you were back."
Amanda managed to rise into a crouch... her eyes darted about the room until she saw her sword a few feet away. She drew a breath. "Who are you?"
"Name's Amber Kathleen Conroy... You have no reason to trust me right now... but if you care for MacLeod... we need to try and follow where he's chased young Kenny too.
"Kenny?" Amanda was confused. She did recall seeing Kenny twice during that fight... but... Kenny? She shook her head.
"MacLeod believes that the boy has managed to learn or somehow absorb the power of illusion... one of the gifts of the old ones."
Amanda shifted toward her sword... noticing that Amber made no move. The young woman's sword lay easily on her arm... ready... but not threatening.
"I don't quite understand... How did Kenny get it?" Amanda's hand tightened on the hilt of her sword. She lifted it.
"Don't know. Maybe we'll never know. Connor should have had it... but he didn't get it when he killed Kane many years ago."
"Connor? As in Connor MacLeod... Duncan's teacher?"
"Aye... and mine too." The girl nodded sadly. "Now if you feel like it. We best be on the move. Duncan thought it might take several of us bein' present to keep the illusion from working as it should. We couldn't see him when we broke in... but as soon as he moved to leave... Duncan saw him I think... or heard him."
Amanda nodded.... rising to pick up her coat and place her sword within it. Even as she did so... Amber did the same. Moments later they were on their way out of the building. From nearby they could hear the bleat of the police sirens.
"Great!" murmured Amanda. "I'll likely lose my lease on this place."
"Better a lease than your head!" replied Amber as they hurried up the street... trying to sense in which direction MacLeod had gone.
"You don't know what I paid for that place!" retorted Amanda. "If I get hold of that kid... I'm gonna kill him!"
***
Exiting the alleyway... Duncan peered carefully about him. He no longer felt the boy... certain now that it was Kenny he was chasing. Kenny tended to run for small, dark hiding places. He liked to be near water... as if realizing that in a pinch... he could slip into water and escape.
The first time Duncan had ever seen the boy... years ago... it had been on a waterfront. He'd been small, frightened, with a tear-stained face... and a believable story about having just lost his parents in an accident a few years before.
It had been a sham, of course. Yet even when Joe had explained just who the Watchers knew the boy to be... an eight hundred and fourteen year old immortal who wormed his way into an adult immortal's confidence... letting him or her feel responsible for the boy... eager to look out for him and teach him... Duncan had defended the Kenny. Even when he learned that Kenny killed those who befriended him, getting behind them to take their heads, Duncan had determined to try and help the boy. At least until he and those he cared for became targets.
"In the end there can be only one, MacLeod," Kenny had taunted him during a fight with the Highlander the boy might have won. "Why shouldn't it be me?" It had been luck that Duncan had managed to get free of the trap... and that Kenny had escaped.
The next time they'd met... Duncan had learned that the boy had been one of Amanda's early students. Duncan understood the desperation of an immortal trapped within a body too small to be an effective weapon. He'd had no quarrel with the boy until he'd tried to kill his mortal friend Anne Lindsey that first time. And the second time? Kenny had tried to arrange both his death and Amanda's.
"He's playing the game the only way he knows how!" Duncan had insisted to Joe when he'd first heard how old the boy was. Even now... Duncan knew... Kenny was playing the game for keeps. But this time... Duncan had no reservations about taking the boy's head. This time... Kenny's actions had gone too far. By targeting and killing Duncan's friends... the boy had finally signed his death warrant.
Duncan saw rather than felt someone exit the alley. He narrowed his eyes. A small shadow... like that of a child... moving slowly... cautiously... straight for the river area. H e felt no immortal... but he had only vaguely felt one in Amanda's apartment. Duncan's expression darkened as he stalked the fleeing child.
Arriving on the river banks... in a wide park where green grass still grew, Duncan looked around. It was too quiet. He closed his eyes and continued to turn... depending on senses other than sight to feel that which could not be seen.
"I had to trust my instincts against Kane," Connor's voice sounded in his head. "I couldn't trust what I saw... only what I felt."
Duncan carefully drew his katana... the very deserted nature of this small park made the chance of a fight ever more possible. With it before him... shifting positions... Duncan moved along the gravel paths and onto the grass... the fluid motion of his kata second nature. Movement after movement... before... behind... above... to the left... to the right... behind again. In an ever increasing speed and variance ... the Highlander concentrated... straining for the sound... the feel... the smell of anything that would tell him where the boy stood hiding... invisible... still... waiting...
At the edge of the park he heard the on-coming steps of two people. He spared a glance in that direction... grateful to see Amanda and Amber.
"He's here!" Duncan snapped. "Focus and be silent!" He knew his voice sounded harsh... but they had to understand what he was doing. Once more he closed his eyes... concentrating... moving.
To his right was a sudden movement.
Duncan sliced in that direction... trusting that the women knew enough to stay back. His sword clashed against something... sparks rising with the force of the blow of steel on steel. Swiftly he parried... but felt only empty air.
He narrowed his eyes. At the far edge... slowly coming into a three-cornered wedge about the area where the sparks had erupted... were Amber and Amanda.
Their swords drawn... like Duncan... they performed moves... attempting to encircle the hidden Kenny.
Amber's blade hit something.
The three shifted closer in together... almost as if they were choreographing a dance. Their movements and swords were filling in the gaps between them. All eyes were focused on the empty space still between them.
With a roar... something slammed against Duncan's right arm... trying to get past him. Duncan pivoted and lunged... slicing with his katana... letting gravity help with the power of the stroke. Then he felt air move to his left.
A blade seemed to move past his head... missing him by inches. Amanda yelled and moved in... slamming her sword into the area.
"He cannot hide from all of us for long!" Amber's voice called out. "He'll make an error... one of us will see!"
Duncan nodded. He pulled back and reset himself... glaring at the darkened ground... watching the gravel... watching the grass. He took a second position... but did not commit himself... "Patience, Duncan... it is the patient man who wins the day!" Again Connor's voice was within him. Duncan smiled.
The barest movement of gravel betrayed the boy's presence. Duncan waited. Again he noted the slightest crunch.
Duncan moved swiftly... almost faster than the eye could follow. He sliced and lunged... suddenly aware that he was connecting with a sword once more. He kept up the attack... pushing the now-shimmering form of someone taller than a mere boy toward the women.
Amber and Amanda... suddenly aware of just where their opponent was moving... attempted to block his way.
With an escape route blocked... and all means of escape cut off for one hidden from sight... the massive form of the Kurgan appeared.
"It's an illusion!" screamed Duncan as he kept up his rain of blows. "Don't withdraw!"
"They cannot interfere!" snarled Kurgan. Yet even as he said this... he seemed to split into three illusions... Kurgan... Kane... and Jacob Kell.
The Kurgan with his power met the Highlander's blows... parrying off each stroke... slamming with immense power against Duncan's sword until the Highlander's very arm trembled with the effort of continuing.
Jacob Kell grinned evilly at Amber and began his attack. His knowledge of Connor's fighting methods... meeting everything the girl had... pushing her back... back... back. He'd watched her... he knew her... she was nothing.
Kane whipped his tongue out at Amanda. "Ooh... Back for another embrace. Let's dance!" He twirled, his coattails seeming to reach into the darkness like vulture's wings as he advanced against the immortal thief... checking her every move... meeting her every stroke. Coming in close to lick her face and then pulling back to laugh at her inability to touch him.
It was useless... Duncan realized Kenny was using all the illusions against each of them... but could he keep it up... Where was the boy? As real as Kurgan's blows felt... they couldn't possibly be real... they were an illusion designed to protect the true immortal... the one he had to kill. Duncan shifted and met Kurgan's blow... pushing with all his strength against the massive immortal. Where was the boy?
Suddenly Duncan closed his eyes and focused... ignoring the rain of blows that landed and made no cut. He found the calm center of his being and waited... as once he had calmly met and defeated the assault of Ahriman.
A crunch of gravel sounded.
Duncan sliced suddenly to his right... feeling his katana slice into a body... hearing that body fall.
"Owww!"
Duncan's eyes snapped open as he turned, raising his katana to make the killing blow. Around him... Amanda's and Amber's opponents faded into insubstantial wisps of the rising fog from the river.
On the ground... lay a shivering and bleeding Grace Chandel. She looked up at him with tear-filled eyes as she lifted one hand from her bleeding side and reached toward him... blood dripping from her fingers.
"Duncan?" she asked
Duncan MacLeod hesitated... then closed his eyes as his katana descended on her huddled form. He felt sick.
Even as he heard the head fall... his katana slipped from his fingers and the quickening exploded around him. Duncan fell to his knees and bowed his head to the inevitable.