For the First Time Again
This fan fiction is ther perfect merge of Highlander: the series(a Davis/Panzer Production.) and Forever Knight (Parriott/Sloan Production in Canada.) Katrina MacLeod and her co-workers are my creations only.
"The suspect's waiting to be questioned, but you should know I took these from her." A uniformed police officer ushered the homicide detectives to the evidence room. Common stolen goods and gang-related assortments were displayed in that room like a garage sale, tagged and labeled. Knight's attention, along with that of his partner, was directed to one weapon in particular. The sight blew them away.
Knight took up the sword without hesitation to evaluate its construction. The tang and hilt were traditionally bound and wrapped. Just below the hilt, the sword maker's mark of a lion- was evidently chiseled in- with Kanji scripts. These characters were used in China and other countries to the east. This had an unusual interpretation. He read 'five kami', or souls.
He ran his hand down the surface of the curved, three foot, blade. It showed conditioning and repair. He identified with its weight: it was tempered and felt solid, more than Spanish steal or Damascus blades from the Crusades. No imitation could be as strong or heavy enough to cut humans with its broad tip. Unless he was in the company of antique dealers, Knight recognized that the sword belonged in a museum.
"And this." The policeman stepped forward giving Schanke a business card. Schanke swooned, "Oh-ho gawd. Looks can kill."
Knight took the business card from his partner. "We'll let the case decide." The purple card had a high gloss front. A woman of brilliant attraction smiled charismatically in a sidelong glance. Knight read the card, 'Mercury Tech. Enterprises; International software designs and manufacturers.' The name on the card was Katrina Nagarelli, she was their Account Executive.
Schanke pointed at the card. "This woman means business. I'm also talking about the sword."
The suspect sat, a cautious left side of the table, furthest from the door. When the detectives entered the gray, nondescript- interrogation room, she stood and offered her hand as she introduced herself. Her eyes fell on Detective Knight seconds longer than on Schanke; a look of sad recognition faded her smile.
Schanke sets a tan folder on the long ash colored table between him and the woman. "Let's begin at the sport's bar.
She half glances at Detective Knight, remembered herself, and then began her story. "I got a phone call in the back office. I didn't reach it because in the hallway, was when I was attacked by some guy swinging an axe!" She swallowed, "You know, thank god for tai-bo aerobics, I'd be mince meat by now."
Nagarelli was settled in her mid-twenties in a charming ruse between girlish decadence and demure womanhood. Her fashion–forward skirtsuit tailor-fit her keen figure. Her perfume was invigorating lavender and sweet cloves. Her turquoise eyes- like of blue fire- darted with genuine fear, but she spoke with clear direction. No lingering words or false starts, almost rehearsed.
Knight spoke with frank concern. "Were you injured?"
"Once or twice, he knocked me into the wall." Nagarelli brushed her raven locks of hair aside.
Schanke bent over to look closer at her, but Nagarelli instinctively sat back.
Nagarelli spoke again with a shaky voice. "I scrambled back to the bar. The bouncers had already chased him off." She was frowning as though trying to relive those moments in her mind to be sure.
Detective Knight concentrated on her statement. She was lying. Nothing about her stable condition looked like she confronted an axe man. "No one knows how he got in or where he went?" He let his words challenge her story.
Nagarelli looked down to her lap. She did not respond.
Schanke held out her business card. He read the address on the back. "Are you from Detroit?"
"I'm here on business." Her voice was groggy. She was showing more vulnerability after Knight's last question or was it fatigue?
Schanke smirked. "So what does a ninja sword have to do with computers?" He grinned at Knight.
Nagarelli looked up at Schanke directly revived with confused offense. "I'm an alumnus to a historical-theatrical sorority." On Nagarelli's blaze lapel, Knight saw a sliver pendant of three Greek letters: Sigma Alpha Delta.
Schanke stepped back. "Whatever." He looked at his partner. Schanke wasn't convinced either, but at least the pendant checked out. They could see that.
Nagarelli spoke out of turn with budding exasperation. "My co-workers will testify that I did not use my sword against my attacker." She scoffed. "I don't need a sword to answer the phone."
Knight muttered quickly. "So it's decorative." Then quickly posed the more important question. "How well did you see your attacker?"
She retorted with ornery contempt this time, obviously chiding their suspicion. "Well enough to not know who he was." Nagarelli knew she'd answer the next question before it was asked.
Knight saw the rolling of eyes from his partner. Schanke took up the folder and left the room.
Knight excused himself and followed.
In the hall just outside the closed interrogation room door, Schanke spoke about his latest findings. "Well, that's it. She and other yuppie-Wall Street- typed are celebrating a topping off after happy hour. She gets a call in a back office- although no one can verify there was a phone call. Anyway- next the bartender hears her screaming. And someone hacking up collateral damage to the drywall. When the bouncers go look, they see a bald man in tan coveralls bolting down the back ally. That's when they called Li."
Schanke bent closer to Knight and held out his hands forming a triangle. "Now the hole impacts to the wall were spear head shaped. Witnesses say they heard some quick knocks and scrapping as if the weapon was pried loose after every blow."
"Like the sound an axe would make chopping down a wall." Knight nodded at a distant thought.
Schanke raised his brows. "None of our guys found it. Not in the ally and not in the building." Then he remembered something. "To you, could an axe be used to fillet through people like in that triple homicide?"
Detective Knight thought. "Only if the murders happened on at a time or dismemberment after each death… the bodies were cut down in single sweeps."
"Like a professional would." Schanke declared fearfully. "And we saw a guy-same tan clothes- in the parking lot?"
"Getting into a car of men in business suits." Knight continued.
"He had the same description." Schanke added. He jerked at Knight. "How could you see in that dark Ford escort?" He was about to further his inquest when another voice spoke up from behind.
"Schanke, a word."
Schanke threw Knight a look before stepping away to follow. "Yes, Captain Cohen."
Knight re-entered the interrogation room. Seeing him come in, Nagarelli sat up in the steal chair. The same sober look of disbelief came over her. They watched each other in a tense moment of silence.
Finally Knight's question broke the spell. "Tell me Katrina, do you have any idea who that man was?"
"No." She answered with a hollow voice. Then Katrina became determined, with urgent self concern. "This psycho had an axe, Nicholas. He knew how to use it and he's still out there."
Knight straighten his posture with an idea, "When you were spying for England-"
Katrina giggled through her veneer of tension, "Not this time."
With his hands in his pockets, Nicholas began sternly, "This doesn't look good."
Schanke walked in. "Let'er go Nick." The stout detective pressed his fists into the table. "Ms. Nagarelli, we'll send you to a motel so our department can watch over you. Knight and I will check on you periodically." Schanke walk out.
Knight went to follow his partner, but Nagarelli cut his path at the door. "You have some thing that belongs to me." A knowing arch of her brow intended for him alone.
"Don't worry." Knight shrugged at her intense stare. "Your escort has a gun."
Katrina was taken by a policeman, cursing as she went away.
By his desk, Knight gazed at the business card. Katrina's return caused mixed emotion to tug his mind … back to Germany; 1943.
He and Katrina were on a train rolling through the war torn European country side.
She was a film star. Barbara Lamar or Vivian Lea, Knight forgot which, but she was enchanting, nonetheless with golden hair.
Sitting on Knight's left was Lucian LaCroix. He was debated- and it was usually debating when it came to Katrina- on Errol Flynn's acting ability. "Oh come now, that's the point of the movie screen. Actors don't have to flail their bodies about for dialogue. Leave it to a twinge of the brow or quiver of our lips to tell the story."
"And how much flailing of bodies have you done with Flynn?" LaCroix's velvet voice growing smoother with intrigue.
"Not enough." She answered with flat disappointment.
"Not enough, you say. Not even for a film made in Norway?" His pale blue eyes took a severe interest in her. "Or not enough time to spend on your more secretive occupation?"
Katrina's catlike-girlish face drained of amusement. LaCroix in a French tailored suit, nodded at the swastika broach clinging to her collar.
Katrina darkened with that familiar whip of defiance. "I'll ask you nicely this time. –Please- let me go."
LaCroix's smirk sweetened with more condescension and he challenged her. "Or you'll have another firing squad waiting?" Bullets cannot rend vampire flesh, but public execution was the cleft in his immortal ego. This was the one standoff they both could prove. Nicholas was not allowed to forget it.
Both stood. The train had just arrived in Berlin.
"That depends on you, LaCroix. If you interfere, my shot won't be so kind."
This excited LaCroix and he chortled "This /is/ a side of you I've always looked forward to—"
"Here's another." Katrina turned her back on the immortals and sauntered off the train.