Chapter XII: Unwanted Guests

Quite a team, Kenny wondered as he marched around the deposit, mounting guard, moving to remain awake. Jacob Kell's retaliation against MacLeod seemed postponed for the time being, but like Connor had said it, Kell was capable of anything. Connor MacLeod was another one of a kind. He did not speak much, but whenever he did, it was something concerning the Watchers. The old man Paulus, who slept in the warmth of his own apartment away from there, was a queer fellow who regarded Kenny as a boy, lecturing him often. Katana bore a fascination for Kyra. Well, Kenny thought, who could blame him?

He heard an inaudible sound outside and then the doorknob being tried. He rushed to Katana and shook his shoulder. He moved to Kyra and patted her waist. Both rose instantly and seized their swords. The sound of the blades woke Jacob Kell up. Amid the almost total darkness, Katana waved at them to spread. Using his fingers, he assigned Kyra behind the door, and Kell against the wall left to the entrance.

The door opened no sooner than Kyra crawled behind it. A lantern light pierced the obscurity, then another. Two shapes walked in, the lights in their left, 9-mm in the right. They treaded inside. Something was whispered between them. They began to spread. Then the immortals fell on them.

Kyra crept up on the smaller one, gripping his neck fiercely until the man nearly choked. In the meantime, Kell surreptitiously approached the other and delivered a kick in his ankle. The man fell and Jacob drew out his blade to finish him. He swung downwards and the blade halted near the captive's neck, saved by Katana's broadsword.

"Lights on, kiddo." He commanded Kenny, being promptly obeyed. "We won't kill them, Kell. Yet."

Jacob smirked as he retreated. The man slowly regained his feet, being aimed by Katana's sword. He dropped his gun and raised his hands. Nearby, his friend was being pushed up and disarmed.

"What brought the wind?" Katana asked.

"Two IPS for dinner." Kell joked.

"Well, well... look who's come for dinner." Connor MacLeod, till then peacefully sleeping, spoke between yawns. "Garfield... and you are?."

"John Stern. We met twenty years ago, Russell Nash." Stern, his right arm locked at his back by Kyra, grunted as he tried to move his plastered left.

"May I ask what brings you to... our humble abode?" Connor stood between the two of them, his hands parked behind at his waist, a cynical look in his eyes.

"We want... to help." Kyra was holding him by the throat, so Stern had problems to breathe.

"Yeah, right." Kenny yelled. "Like you helped that Irish guy."

"I was doing my job."

"I say we open their throats." Kell stood by Garfield, leering straight into his face.

"Abbot Dolore." Garfield saluted him not seriously. "You scare the shit out of me."

"Let them go." Connor ordered. Kyra obeyed and upon that, so did Katana. Stern massaged his throat while Garfield sighed relieved. "Now speak!"

"We are offering our help to bring the Watchers down. Nothing more, nothing less." Garfield spoke plainly, regarding each and every of the immortals there. "I'm talking to you, Nash... MacLeod. Aren't you listening?"

Indeed, Connor had paid no heed to the cop. Something else had drawn his attention. He treaded slowly towards the door and placed a hand on it. He glanced back and put the back of his hands together and then opened his arms. The immortals scattered, each wielding a sword. Garfield and Stern picked up their guns.

"We have visits." Connor announced.

-----

"Ready at your command, sir."

Rex Hunter, second of Stefano Zanetti and leader of the team which would assault the refuge of the immortals, informed his superior. Zanetti nodded with his hands clenched against his nose. There were twenty-four men. Three groups of six spear-carriers each to enter through the only door. Four spidermen to fly in through the windows, and two snipers, one on each side, to cover any eventuality.

"Go." Zanetti barked.

Hunter got off the black van and drew out his index and middle finger, jerking his arm forward. He then returned and half-kneeled to check the turnout of the operation by the PC. The sissing of a smoke bomb was heard, then a window crashing. It had begun.

-----

"Step back!"

Having noticed the white smoke spreading, Connor commanded as he moved to the centre of the deposit. Kyra and Katana were on his right, Kell and Kenny on his left. Garfield and Stern had crawled where he was now standing, both men aiming their weapons at the door. The Highlander regarded them briefly before he heard the door being thrown down.

Just then four crashes were heard and four men, dressed all like Spec Ops, descended to the floor from the window, hanging from ropes. Too bad for them. Kell terminated the two on his side before they could even load their submachine guns. Kyra and Katana were not as swift, yet as effective. Connor wielded his katana, noticing the trace of a shadow appearing through the fog.

The gun at his right shouted and the first shadow dove definitely to the floor. The one at his left fired twice, sending one to the underworld and the other to the floor with a major wound in his throat. The Highlander stormed towards a fourth one. A bullet pierced his stomach, which hindered his motion. He tripped and fell.

A brown flash ran past him. White smoke made his eyes teary as he heard a whine nearby. He stumbled to his feet and found Jacob Kell stiffly maiming the hand of a man. Only that suddenly it was not Kell anymore. It was Kell's body with a horrid red ball above the shoulders, like a crushed tomato, as a bullet exited the would-be head, splattering blood all around.

Bewilderment possessed him. He gazed astounded at Kell's body plunging to the ground, hitting with a dull thud the bloodstained ground. His eyes levelled to find another shooter aiming his weapon at him and the next thing he felt was a round of bullets entering his body. Connor fell, staring at the rooftop. He grasped the notion of a blonde figure gracefully advancing towards him. Was it an angel? As it passed by him, he made out a stainless blade and realised it was only Kyra. God, he was passing out.

-----

"Help here!"

Katana barked approaching Connor's body. The Highlander had been rather foolish in attacking the armed men, superior in number to him, head-on. But that had always been a feature to MacLeod. He had dared opposing him, and failed. He had also dared opposing the Kurgan, and had succeeded. This time, luck had not played with him, so here he was to level matters.

He grabbed the shoulders of the now dead Highlander and began to pull. MacLeod was not that heavy, but heavy enough to delay him for a while. He felt a second pair of hands dragging and turned. It was the smallest of those officers, the one with one able hand. Stern, he remembered, whose help, if little, came very much in handy. The other one, Garfield, was covering them firing at the men that were intruding in, hitting at least one.

-----

Kyra lashed at a gunman and struck in his heart. The man fell as she ducked in time to avoid a knife, and rose with an uppercut that could have rivalled with the highlights of Mike Tyson's repertoire in the boxer's golden days. The gunman fell on his back. She heard bullets coming from the inside and glanced at the image. So those two were telling the truth. She smiled as she roared back into battle.

Kenny grabbed his minute sword and rushed towards the battle. With the two Highlanders down, and Katana busy saving MacLeod's rear, Kyra was alone against at least seven gunmen, her only aide being the gunshots of the cop. He appeared by surprise and stabbed a hitman on the side. Then came a struggle to remove the sword from the watcher's body. He finally withdrew it and felt a lacerating pain piercing through him, and then something cold, and at the same time hot, tripping down his skin.

-----

Katana left Connor under the cops' care and wielding his broadsword, struck at the invaders. Kyra had dispatched four of them already, but her left arm was dead. Kenny had gone to help her but only could hit one before falling. Backed by Garfield and Stern, who were alternating shots to save the bullets, Katana was able to eliminate one and wound another that would not make it to dawn.

Something dim and red drew his attention and the next thing he knew was his left eye was expanding and exploding in a mass of pain. He fell to his knees, covering the erupting blood that gushed out abundantly.

"There are snipers, dammit!" he shrieked.

Kyra stood by her friend, shielding him from the only two gunmen that remained. One was attacking her, while the other soon went down under the two mortals' fire. The former had a large machete in her hands. She smirked with satisfaction. Her skills had gone rusty. She would love this.

The man chopped at her head. She dodged him and connected her knee fiercely with his stomach; then pushed him back and noticed a red light posing on her chest. She leapt aside as a bullet pierced the ground. Her opponent was attacking again. She knelt, and made a twist in her place, with her leg extended forward so as to hook the watcher's leg, who fell, hitting hard his head against the floor, going unconscious.

The backup fire stopped. The cops slowly went to their feet. Connor was regaining conscience. Kell's face was rebuilding. Kenny was already at his feet with a sense of bewilderment. Katana's wound had healed, though his eye would never work again. The mortals, Connor and Kenny were in silent tension, believing to be in the aftermath, staring at Kyra with disbelief as she stood in guard, waiting for the next shot.

A bullet cracked a glass that had remained in the window and nestled in Kyra's knee. She let out a deafening squawk and fell wounded, as a cry erupted somewhere. Katana dove to cover his goddess as a new shower of bullets fell over them, killing them and the knocked-down watcher. They would survive, he wouldn't. Not that Katana would miss him.

-----

Kenny awoke in time to see Kyra fall. He shrieked in despair, then saw a submachine gun nearby and went for it. It was tarnished with blood but it would work. There was a string of bullets clung to the corpse's body, which ended inside the gun. He remembered seeing Sylvester Stallone handling one of those in Rambo. How difficult could it be?

He aimed at the window and pulled the trigger. A bullet went out as the recoil sent him to the floor. Christ, he did not expect that. He took it again, this time leaning against the wall to steady his shot. He fired and his shoulder burnt in pain as it dislodged against the wall. But the bullet had gone clean all the way to where the dim red point was, somewhere in the opposite rooftop. A cry followed, then the light was briefly covered by something massive before appearing again, and a hard noise, like something - or someone, Kenny guessed - falling, echoed in the cold night. A bullet coming from above cracked his skull. He fell on his knees and nose-dived to the floor.

-----

Garfield fired at the man in the window who had finished the blond boy and hit. The sniper seemed to dangle in his place before plummeting loudly to the ground outside. A war shriek was heard from the door. More watchers. He began to fire. John was not around. Where in hell was his buddy?

-----

John Stern had noticed there would be more watchers coming in and crept to the recently fallen corpse of the sniper, from where he retrieved a machinegun ready to function. It was a beauty fully loaded. He took aim carefully, so as not to hit the lovely immortal couple that had fallen under the other sniper's fire, using his plastered hand as a base for the muzzle and placing his right-hand index finger on the trigger. He smirked as he squeezed.

A deafening rattle of bullets filled the place as the coming-in watchers froze in the air upon being hit and fell. Stern grinned as he noticed how the bullets hit their targets in heads, chests, stomachs, and other fatal locations. The device was a lovely baby which intended to tremble in his hands, but was contained by his firm grip.

He only loosened his squeeze when they were all gone to the afterlife. He left the weapon and stood up as if a tiny breeze had just passed. He glanced at his pal Eric, who scrambled up, his legs a little shaky though. Garfield grinned at him approvingly.

"Heh heh." They turned to face Connor MacLeod, who was shaking off the dust from his clothes, bearing an undisguised expression of approval. "Welcome aboard, fellas."