"You won't be able to defeat him, MacLeod." Methos commented.
"She couldn't. I couldn't. Who can?" MacLeod replied.
"I know who..." she mumbled as her mind drifted backwards to the past...
1985. Darla had left Victor for a while, to wonder on her own in Paris. She encountered some immortals, most of which did not make it for another meeting. She also learned about the grey parts of immortality, not only the black and white Victor had taught her.
She had met Darius, an immortal who was a father at a church. He had been around for more than a millennium and every time they met he told her stories about the different immortals he had come across. One afternoon, she heard the story of the Kurgan, the strongest and evillest immortal. He killed his own father, beheaded his own teacher, and was eager for power. However, Darius commented, he had made one big mistake: he failed to absorb the power of one of the immortals with, in Darius' words, "a big part of the Prize cake."
Connor MacLeod was a young Highlander. In battle, Kurgan wounded him and right away took his head. However, the wound had not been instantly fatal. So the power remained in the inert body. It would have enabled Kurgan to become the last one.
Darla returned to the States. She had missed Victor terribly and longed to see him again. But their encounter would be the last, and a lacerating pain for her. They had met at New Jersey airport and were heading out when an immortal was sensed. They got in his car and he drove to an isolated spot in the city, where he expected the other. A car stopped by and a man with a rounded face appeared. Victor grinned. He knew him. Perhaps over the years she would get to know everybody too.
"Darla, stay out." Victor warned.
"You suddenly care for someone, Kurgan?" the other man said.
She heard the name, and stared blankly at her master. Victor did not seem to realise.
"Victor... you... you are... the Kurgan?" she mumbled in a barely audible voice.
"Yes... didn't you know?" the other immortal asked.
"So all... all those hard lessons... which I thought were the key to cope with immortality. All those 'us or then', which I thought an absolute truth... are actually the key to become an evil and ruthless assassin like you!" she shrieked, out of herself, blinded by tears.
"Darla..." Kurgan whispered, with the faintest trace of emotion.
"I don't want you anywhere near." She yelled as she ran away and out that place.
The clutter of the blades followed. Embarked by emotion, she reached an avenue and took a taxi. As it drove away, she felt a Quickening, and could not but give way to the tears.
-----
"Joe... when did you last heard anything of Victor?" Darla asked him, back in the bar where the four of them had gathered after they met.
"You should know. You're his apprentice, after all."
"There's been... some issues between us."
"OK. Then to the computer." He opened a laptop and displayed the file. "The Kurgan. Also known as Victor Kruger. Let's see." They waited for the data to appear on screen. "1983. The San Antonio thing. 1985. Killed Ozhta Vazilek in Jersey. Till 1990 he wandered around Europe on a beheading spree..." he stopped.
"What?"
"He met Father Darius in Paris. After that, he continued in Europe but spared the lives of all the immortals he came across with... Early 1991 he killed Horton. "
"What else?" MacLeod asked, joining them.
"The last record is from Buenos Aires that year. He took the head of Katana..." Joe grinned.
"What's so funny?" Darla inquired.
"Katana was a lunatic that believed immortals were aliens." Methos joined the party too, bringing four cups of coffee. "From his view, he was the General of the troops of the planet Zoist."
"Zeist" Joe corrected.
"Whatever. The point is he did us all a favour."
"After that, he returned to Paris. His watcher lost him there... he's always been hard to track." Joe closed the computer.
"Perhaps Kurgan grew tired of fighting." MacLeod suggested.
"He used to say that an immortal can find peace in the place where those who rest in peace can bring it to him." Darla added, standing up.
"A cemetery." Joe concluded.
"But which?" MacLeod popped the question.
"It can be anywhere... what?" Joe enquired Darla, whose eyes suddenly fixed upon Methos, who was finishing his coffee calmly. Too calmly.
"You know?" she whispered.
"He's in a cemetery here in Boston." Methos revealed.
"How can you be so sure?" Darla asked.
"Who do you think got him lodging?" Methos replied with a grin.
"Why didn't you say it at once?"
Methos smiled and put on his coat. "You didn't ask."