Shelter from the Storm Chapter 4
All standard disclaimers apply. This story is mine, as are the characters of Leyza Berard, Ray Garcia, Phillippe and Marie Vachon, Francine, Solange Laperrier and Jeremy Cole. Please do not borrow them without asking.
The Highlander concepts and the characters of Duncan MacLeod, Joe Dawson and May Ling Shen are not. They belong to Gregory Widen, Davis/Panzer, Rysher, Gaumont and probably a few others I've forgotten. I've dared to use them without permission, and hope they'll forgive the transgression, because this story is merely a labor of love. I'm not making a cent from it.
Moving with stealth through the dark abandoned race track, Duncan brushed dangling paper strands away from his face. The faded festoons and drooping streamers lent a grotesquely gala air to a truly bizarre situation. He didn't even know what he was searching for. He had no clue what he would find. And he wondered if he'd really gone insane.
Horton. Richie had told him, Horton had Joe Dawson. But that was impossible - Joe had been with him at the barge. And Horton was dead. Or was he?
Twice before, Duncan had thought him dead, and twice he'd returned. Had he returned once again, or was he an illusion created by a Zoroastrian demon?
Kronos was dead - Duncan had no doubt about that. He'd taken the Horseman's head himself - and he'd taken his Quickening. Yet Kronos had returned to taunt him as well.
He tightened his grip on his sword as he fought to hold on to his sanity. What was real? What was illusion? He couldn't begin to guess.
As he approached the escalator, he heard something. He stopped and looked around, straining his ears to pick up even the tiniest sound. Suddenly he realized that the escalator was moving - moving in an abandoned building. He turned around to face it, then approached it cautiously.
A man sat on one of the descending steps, his head bowed.
"Richie?" Duncan called out. "Richie, are you all right ... Richie, it's me."
The man stood, then walked the rest of the way down the steps. "I know," he said.
Duncan released his breath in a sigh of relief. It was Richie. But his relief fled when he noticed Richie's eyes. Something was very wrong. Richie's eyes were glowing with an odd light, then he laughed.
"You!" Duncan whispered. He backed away as Richie ... no, the demon advanced. What was real? What was illusion?
"You ... me ... me ... you?" the creature with Richie's face taunted him. "Is that how you see me? You don't even understand your place in all of this, do you?" He brought his sword down. It slashed across Duncan's stomach.
The searing pain was real. The blood on his hands - his blood - was real. He scrambled backwards to escape the arcing blade. He fought back. Lifted his blade to bring it down for a kill. He couldn't do it. He blinked to clear the vision of Richie's face. It didn't work. What was real? What was illusion?
"What's the matter?" the demon taunted him again. "Can't hurt your little buddy? Some champion."
It came at him again, scoring a few more slashes. Duncan fought the demon, fought his mind as well. The signals were crossed - nothing made sense. Who was he fighting? What was real? What was illusion?
"What the hell are you anyway?" he asked, frantic - sure he'd lost his mind.
"I am your friend," the demon with a friend's face answered. He grinned. "I am not your friend."
Suddenly Richie was gone and he was facing Horton. "I am the man you can not kill." Horton lifted his hand. In it he held a gun.
The shot echoed through the empty concourse. A burning pain blossomed high on Duncan's chest. He fell backward. "What are you?" he asked again.
"I am Set," Horton answered, but now he was on the escalator.
Richie followed Horton down the moving stairs. "I am Ahriman," he said, an evil grin marring his boyish features.
"I am everything your people call demons and devils," Kronos chanted as he swung his sword.
Horton, Richie and Kronos closed in on him. They circled him, jeering, mocking, laughing - chilling laughter with no trace of mirth.
"No," he whispered, a feeble rasp against an insurmountable terror. He clambered back to his feet, clinging to his katana. He was drowning in a torrent of evil and the familiar sword felt like a lifeline. It was the only solid thing he could grasp. What was real? What was illusion?
He did the only thing he knew how to do. He drew on four hundred years of experience. Four hundred years of living as a warrior. He fought back. The enemy disappeared, then reappeared. It closed in, then it vanished. They came at him one at a time, then they all closed around him.
He didn't know how to fight them ... no it. He couldn't even find it. He fought blind, and he fought in vain as his sword sliced through nothing but thin air.
Finally, he struck something solid. Something resisted his sword, then gave way as the katana cut through it. Silence slammed down like an iron gate, and a body dropped to the floor in front of him.
The silence lingered in the air for a moment. He blinked, then looked down at the body. There was something ... something--
A roaring blast filled his ears. Searing pain racked his body. Lightning flashed in a red fog. Separate screams rose above the cacophony, then merged. Richie's disembodied screams mingled with his own.
He knew what this was ... he knew a Quickening when he experienced one. But he hadn't expected this one. Who? What? He couldn't think in the maelstrom that surrounded him.
The awesome energy vanished as quickly as it had come. It released him from its grasp, and he dropped to his knees. He couldn't believe it was over, for this Quickening had brought no compensating ecstasy ... only horrific pain.
It took a moment for him to realize that he was kneeling next to the body. Slowly, recognition sank in. Gripped by an overwhelming sense of panic, he reached out to touch a familiar jacket. It was real ... oh, so very real.
A scraping noise behind him made him turn his head - turn away from the horrible reality before him. A laugh, familiar, yet not at all familiar.
"Richie?" he whimpered, his voice filled with empty hope.
Then he woke to the sound of his own screams. He awoke drowning in abysmal, racking anguish. The pain was so horrendous he couldn't begin to describe it. Each time he thought it couldn't be worse, yet each time it was.
The agony faded slightly as his gasping breaths filled his lungs and slowed the breakneck beating of his heart. He'd gripped the thin blanket so hard, his fingers were numb. He focused on forcing his fists open one finger at a time.
Sweat dripped from his brow into his eyes, and the sting of it felt almost comforting in comparison to the unrelenting pain that clutched his heart with razor sharp talons.
Drawing his knees to his chest, he hugged them, then lowered his head as he rocked away the anguish. Finally he lifted his head, took a long slow deep breath and raked his sodden hair back from his forehead with trembling fingers. The nightmare had shattered his sleep once again.
He rolled to his knees, rose slowly from the prayer rug where he slept, then he staggered to the bathroom. Leaning back against the shower wall, he let scalding water cascade over him. When he finally felt cleansed of the anguish, but not the guilt - never the guilt - he turned the water off, then dragged himself back to the main room of the barge.
He slumped down on the corner of the bed, and sat for a moment with his head in his hands. There was only one thing to do. The solution had become as ingrained as the nightmares. He stumbled to the trunk that stood by the bulkhead. He grabbed the first shirt and pants his hands touched. He pulled them on, snatched up his coat and the kali stick, then he walked slowly out into the night.
