Standard disclaimers apply. I don't own and didn't create the characters of Connor MacLeod or Duncan MacLeod, nor do I have any rights to the Highlander universe. I'm just dallying there a bit with them - without permission, of course. No profits have been made (by me anyway), and no pixels were harmed in the writing of this story. I also borrowed the song lyrics without permission. The characters whose names you don't recognize are mine, however, so please don't take them anywhere without checking with me first.
A Merry Little Christmas - part 2
December 23 brought clouds and a cold steady rain - dampening spirits and Christmas shoppers alike. It also brought Connor another postcard.
This one had a picture of forest creatures - squirrels, raccoons, rabbits, a deer and a fox - all gathered around a snow-covered and berry-bedecked tree in the center of a clearing. The message continued the song.Once again as in olden days, it read. Happy golden days of yore ...
If there was a clue in these lyrics, Connor was damned if he could figure it out. Faithful friends who are dear to us ...
Who? What faithful friends? Most of his friends were dead, or didn't know where he was. Except possibly Duncan, and he couldn't believe that Duncan was behind this foolishness. It simply didn't ring true.
Only one thing was certain - whoever sent the cards was coming. To him or for him - he had no way of knowing. But the threat was in the last line. Will be near to us once more, and in the postmark - which was no longer Ludlow, Vermont. This one was postmarked Hartford, Connecticut. Whoever was sending these cards was moving closer.
He spent the better part of the morning sifting through his memories for friend and foe alike, but mostly he came up empty. Still his deeply rooted instincts told him that the perpetrator of this bizarre scheme had to be Immortal.
He'd cut all his mortal ties when he left London. He'd simply vanished without a trace. To avoid the danger that someone might recognize him, remember him from before, he'd made very few new contacts in New York.
Mrs. Lopez, Ben the mailman, a few shopkeepers, a customer or two - these were the mortals he knew now. He couldn't imagine any of them traveling all the way to Vermont in order to send these postcards. He couldn't think of one reason why they'd even arrange to have them sent.
No - the person behind this plot was an Immortal - he felt sure of it. So who was it?
He made a list of all the Immortal friends and enemies he could possibly think of - even those he suspected were dead. The column of enemies contained many more entries than the one he'd labeled friends, so he started studying the short list, by crossing off Duncan's name.
Though he really wasn't sure where Duncan was, he doubted his clansman and former student was in Ludlow, Vermont. He didn't know why he thought that - he just did. And he really didn't think Duncan would pull such a prank either.
More likely it was someone who didn't know him very well - someone he hadn't seen in years. Someone like Jack Blackthorne, perhaps, he thought doodling a circle around the second name on the list.
He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen Blackthorne. Didn't know if Big Jack was even still alive. But the eight years he'd spent in Port Royale, Jamaica stood out in his memories like bright signal flags snapping in a brisk wind against a sullen grey sky. He'd felt vigorously alive, living elbow to elbow with the "Brethren of the Coast." More alive than he'd felt in recent times, anyway.
Though he did have a ship or two back then, and though he had operated occasionally under letters of marque as a privateer, Connor had considered himself more of a trader than a pirate. However, that trading brought him in constant contact with those who did sail under the black flag - those like Big Jack Blackthorne.
Big Jack had larceny wrapped around a heart that was as big as he was. And he was well over six foot tall and close to, if not, over 300 pounds. Robbery on the high seas was a game to him and one he heartily enjoyed, but unlike most of his "Brethren," Jack took particular care that his victims were left unharmed - relieved of all their valuables, of course, but as unharmed physically as he could arrange.
Big Jack also had a quite soft spot for the fairer sex and a unquenchable taste for rum - which was how he and Connor met.
In December of 1684, Connor had been having a quiet pint of ale in the Ram's Head tavern when a fight broke out. Nothing much unusual in that - except that this fight flared up because Big Jack chose to defend the honor of a wench who hadn't had any virtue worth defending since she was about twelve years old. But that didn't matter one whit to Jack. He'd deemed Molly Becket a lady who needed his help - and that did matter.
The moment Big Jack had entered the tavern, Connor had known he was Immortal, of course. They'd sought one another out and made their acknowledgments with a nod of a head, then Blackthorne had smiled and lifted his tankard to signal that he wasn't hunting heads this day.
Connor had returned the salute, but kept an eye on him, while he continued to enjoy his ale - that is, he did until Big Jack appointed himself Molly's champion.
Not one to cower in the corner under an overturned table when a fight came rolling his way, Connor soon found himself in the thick of the fray - and back to back with Big Jack.
"Har, har, ... that's the way, laddie," Big Jack's booming voice clobbered his ears as Connor clobbered his current opponent's thick head with the hilt of his sword. "Our kind gots to stick together, eh?"
Connor didn't agree with Big Jack's notion of Immortal brotherhood, but he wasn't exactly in a position to argue at the moment. Afterwards Big Jack clapped him on the back with a friendly blow - but one that sent him nearly sprawling across the room just the same - then he ordered up a round of drinks for the house. Once he set Connor's table back up on its legs, he pushed Connor into a chair, then sat across from him.
Big Jack made himself a hard man to dislike, so he and Connor quickly became steadfast friends and sometime business partners. When an earthquake destroyed Port Royale in 1692, they were both drowned in the ensuing tidal wave. The reign of the town as king of the pirate conclaves came to an abrupt end ... and so did their friendship, for reasons neither of them could be pressed to explain.
Connor had run across Big Jack once or twice after that, but they'd both moved on - become different people than they were then, and somehow it just wasn't the same.
With the memories of those years still buffeting him like winds across time, Connor crossed Big Jack's name off the list. The rascally pirate simply wasn't the postcard type, he thought with a smile at the fond recollection.
There were three women's names on the list. The first two - Cierdwyn and Amanda - he'd met through Duncan. While he didn't consider them close friends, they weren't enemies either. But they were Duncan's friends, so he trusted that they wouldn't challenge him unless he gave them good reason.
Both women knew they would have to answer to a very righteous Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod in the unlikely event that he lost such a challenge.
The third name brought a smile to his lips as he doodled a star next to her name - Abiageal Flynn.
He never knew if that was her real name. Never knew much about her at all. She came and went from his life like a will-o'-the-wisp or a leaf on the wind for a period of about ten years - then she simply vanished and he never saw her again.
Well, to be honest, he'd been the one to disappear. The Kurgan had come to London, hunting him as usual. After a long bloody battle, Connor had run him through with his sword, but before he could finish the job, the local constabulary arrived - in untimely fashion of course. They promptly arrested him for murder and locked him up in Newgate.
Abby had helped him escape, and that was the last time he'd seen her - waving to him from the quay as his ship sailed for America.
"You've had all of the fun and most of the good women," Connor had told Duncan on more than one occasion - but it wasn't entirely true.
Though Duncan usually attracted women as easily as a pot of honey attracts flies, and though he had expressed a definite interest, he hadn't had Abiageal Flynn.
"I seem to remember that girl in London," Duncan had said to him while they both prepared to meet Slan Quince.
"The redhead ... healthy girl," he'd added with a sly grin.
Her red hair and size of her breasts, those had been the first of Abby Flynn's charms that Duncan had noticed, but as Connor tapped his pen next to her name, he remembered her eyes.
They were the first thing he'd noticed about her. Bright green eyes that were neither cold nor welcoming. The second thing he'd noticed was the gleam of her sword in the moonlight.
* * * *December 24, 1846.
As the power of the Quickening ebbed away, Connor felt a disturbingly familiar thrum deep within him. Familiar because he'd been alerted to danger by that thrum for over three hundred years, and disturbing because he should no longer feel an Immortal presence emanating from the headless corpse before him.
This warning voice could mean only one thing - there was another Immortal within sensing range. Bad news when one was still drained from a Quickening, like he was at the moment.
An Immortal with a code of honor or a sense of fair play would leave another of their kind alone at such at time, but there were others who sought out these sterling opportunities. They'd hide in the shadows, waiting to pounce on a weakened opponent. In his life, Connor had met both kinds, and he had no stomach to meet the latter tonight.
"Show yourself," he ordered, as he tried to close balking fingers around the hilt of his sword.
The narrow alley was lit only by a shaft of moonlight that spilled down the center. No sound met his ears. No movement caught his eye. Using the blade as a brace, he pushed himself to his feet.
"Who are you?" he called out in a voice that sounded much thinner than he wanted. "Come out and face me."
A faint scuffling came from a pile of wooden crates and barrels on his left. He swept a glance across the width of the alley, then focused on the pile. Holding his sword in both hands before him, he took a step closer, then listened again.
Without warning, one of the barrels toppled from the pile. Connor jumped back to avoid being hit as it rolled toward him. A shadowy figure followed it, then stepped sideways into the stream of moonlight. The silvery beam caught a flash of green eyes. Fierce eyes with serious intent. And it also caught the gleaming blade of a broadsword.
"I'll fight you, if I must," the figure said in a deep, but decidedly female voice. "But I'd just as soon not - not tonight. I suggest you be on yer way."
An inner voice set off alarm bells that urged Connor to heed her suggestion. He'd learned a long time ago - and the hard way - that female Immortals often survived because they quickly seized an advantage whenever they found one waiting in their paths. Not that he could blame them - one did what one had to do. Still he didn't want to fall victim to such tactics.
The Quickening must have addled his brain while it sapped his strength, because he didn't move. Didn't take her advice. Of course, the fact that she was blocking the only way out of the alley did cross his mind, so maybe he wasn't quite as addled as he thought.
"If you're not looking for a fight, why were you hiding there?" he asked, stalling while he assessed his situation.
Perhaps he was leaping to rash conclusions, he thought, measuring the distance between them - and the narrow space between her and the building on his right.
Perhaps he wasn't facing a woman, after all. The other Immortal was wearing men's clothing - and raggedy clothing at that. The voice - slightly rough, but neither deep, nor high - could also belong to a young boy. Narrowing his eyes, Connor studied the figure before him. Studied the stance and the grip on the blade. Definitely a woman, he decided.
"I wasn't 'iding, mate," she said. A ripple of laughter danced through her voice. "... I was sleeping. You've been 'acking about in my bed chamber!"
"B-bed chamber?" he stammered. What bed chamber? What was she talking about? Caught up in his mental research, Connor realized he hadn't been paying enough attention. Not good - not good at all.
He shook his head to clear away the thick mist the Quickening had left behind. "What are you talking about, woman?" he snapped.
"This 'ere's my alley, I saw it first," she said, parking her left fist on her hip. "You and your 'eadless friend there disturbed me beauty rest."
She indicated Rasuli's lifeless body with the point of her blade, then shook her head as she lowered it to her side. Still, she held the sword ready to lift in a flash if he made the wrong move. "Now go on with you ... afore I change me mind about lettin' you go."
Sweeping her sword toward the mouth of the alley, she stepped back to give him a wider, more comfortable space to pass.
Letting him go? Part of him balked at the affront to his ego. She actually thought she was letting him go? Why he could beat this nervy little snip with one hand tied behind his back! Humph!
Then reason took hold and reminded him that he'd already had one fight tonight and one Quickening. He really didn't need another - especially one chosen merely to satisfy his ego.
He lifted his katana in a salute as he hurried past her. "We'll meet again," he promised adding a clear threat to his tone.
She swept a glance from his feet to his face, then grinned broadly. "I 'ope so, cap'n," she said, then she chuckled before returning his salute. "I sincerely 'ope so!"
To make sure she wasn't going to attack him from behind, Connor gave her a brief backward glance as he hurried from the alley. She stood with both hands on her hips, and her head was cocked to one side as she watched him leave. Though it was hard to tell in the dim light, he could have sworn she was grinning.
"Damned impudent tart," he muttered to soothe his wounded ego, then he tromped off down the block. He wanted to put as much distance between them as he could ... and as fast as he could.
