Chapter II: The Shelter

Victor Paulus stood at the door of the abandoned deposit on the outskirts of New York. He hesitated for a second. Should he walk in? Should he leave? He tried the door. Unlocked. He squeezed the knob and opened. Smell of rotten flesh pervaded his nostrils. He took a handkerchief off his pocket and covered his mouth and nose with it. He looked at the ghastly scene before him.

The deposit was half the size of an American football field. Dotted across the cement floor, there were five bodies. All engulfed in dry blood, all headless. Victor put his other hand under his shirt and held the cross he wore on his neck. He began to pray. He did not feel he had the stomach to be there. Darius might have. He had been through worst. But Darius was dead. And so were these immortals.

He numbly treaded forward and at one point his right foot kicked something. He looked down in dread, half-knowing what it was. He was right. A severed head. Its owner had been a young man with curly red hair. Richie Ryan. He had arrived looking for someone who wanted to stand up to the Watchers. Paulus' shelter was not the right place. But Richie had stayed and been one of the most helpful inside the shelter. If he had left, he might have remained alive.

He moved towards the end of the deposit, tottering over the pools of blood and past the corpses, recognising them all. Some merely by their body shape, others he had had to look at their heads, scattered not far from them. Grace Chandel, Benny Carbassa, Michelle Webster, and Robert and Gina de Valicourt.

He sat dejectedly on a chipped chair and took an old newspaper that was there, recognising it at once. It was what had made him engineer the shelter. He had foreseen what would be coming. He shook his head and drowned in pity. Darius would have acted more wisely, he thought before reading. How, he could not know.

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September 23, 1997.

ASTOUNDING REVELATION CONCERNING WATER DISEASE

Paris (EFE) In a disturbing, yet astounding revelation, an organisation revealed the names of the responsible parties for the Water Disease that caused over four hundred million deaths in France and Germany. But the disclosure entails a situation of enormous proportions: the existence of immortal people, people who can only die when their heads are removed from their bodies.

The Watchers are an organisation that has existed in secrecy for over four hundred years, recording the activities of the immortals without ever interfering. According to Jack Shapiro, head of the Watchers, that changed when a lethal virus was released in the waters of Paris, causing a "bloodless massacre that cannot and must not be forgotten." Shapiro presented his organisation to the world yesterday in a press conference in the French Parliament, and revealed the identities of the heartless men behind the attack.

(Four pictures of four different men, together forming a square. The first one was a hard-faced man, hair razed on the sides of the head, looking in profile. In white, over the coloured picture, it could be read: "Kronos".

The second picture, right to the other, showed a large bald man with beard, grinning at somebody to his left. The tip of an axe appeared in the lower part of the photograph. The caption read: "Silas".

The third one, below Kronos' picture, was a man with long black hair, staring wickedly at the camera. The picture was taken from a medical record, as evidenced by a caption on the right side. The nametag read: "Caspian"

The fourth one was slender and darkhaired, bearing a resemblance to Sean Connery in his early days as James Bond. The picture seemed to belong to a police file. The caption read: "Duncan MacLeod")

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The door opened as the whine of the hinges disturbed Paulus. A man walked in and contemplated the scene with a flat face. He noticed Victor and began to draw nearer. The mortal examined him. The stranger had long hair falling below his shoulders and a finely shaved beard covered his haggard face. The man had aged badly. But not bad enough, he thought. Only a man used to seeing death would contemplate such a grim image without gesturing.

The man stopped before Richie's body and stared at it, then reached Paulus' position and said nothing. He simply gripped him rudely by the right wrist and examined it. Then the left. Not having found what he was looking for, the other one looked away with embarrassment, before returning his sight to the man before him.

"I'm sorry... I..."

"There is nothing to apologise. I understand you."

"Was it one of my kind?

"It was them. Why?"

"There was a quickening here. A huge one." The stranger motioned at the walls, where there were signs of burning. Then at the ceiling, which was not black as if there had been fire, and there were scattered, uneven traces of something that had left its mark. "Someone sold you."

Whoever this man was, he seemed to have a blurred vision of things. None of the people that were part of the shelter would have bargained with the watchers. Even if they were suddenly tired of being a coveted quarry and wanted to die.

There had been a case. Warren Cochrane, a mind troubled by an accidental death, a condition worsened by the mad hunt of the watchers. Cochrane had asked to each and every one of the people there to end his misery. The matter was discussed, and Grace Chandel took the burden.

"No one sold us." Paulus said, feeling an irritating anger grow inside him. But could he be absolutely certain that his words were true? "The watchers behead their prey all at once. So that no quickening is released."

The man nodded slowly. "Then someone was out of sync."

"Do you have a name, stranger?" Paulus queried.

"I'm Connor MacLeod of the clan MacLeod."

Paulus' face darkened. "One of your clan saved my life once."

"Sounds like Duncan." Connor replied casually, glancing around.

"I assume you've heard he was supposedly involved in the spread of the Water Disease."

"No more than I'm Maradona." Connor muttered. He eyed Paulus kindly. "I'm sorry. I've been away for too long. I'm getting used to being in the world again."

"No offence, my friend." Paulus smiled. "I'm Victor Paulus. I was... a friend of Darius."

"Nice to meet you." The Highlander stuck out his hand, which was shaken. He retrieved it slowly.

"What brings you to New York, Connor MacLeod?" Paulus asked calmly, standing up, so focused on the man before him he paid no heed to the corpses. "Were you looking for shelter?"

Connor grinned bitterly. Something had been lit up at the other's words. His eyes closed, then opened again. He began to blink repeatedly. He sighed out loudly.

"I'm in New York because I have to. So do all the others."

AUTHOR'S NOTE: People from the US may not know Diego Maradona is an Argentine (retired) football ("soccer") player considered by most to be the greatest of all time.