Chapter XIV: Weakness

"Connor MacLeod, the Highlander. He is one of the finest. Let's not forget he defeated the Kurgan."

In a darkened room, a retroprojector displayed a picture of Connor. A man handling the slideshow clicked and the picture changed.

"Katana. Born in Zeist, Holland, 600 years ago. He was a general and a dictator. Stiff and precise, though now he has only one eye to look at things."

Another click, another change, while a chuckle was dimly heard.

"Kyra. She's pretty but don't let that fool you. She's a Spartan warrior... and she is two millennia old. Very dangerous indeed. She mentored Katana... and he worships her as some sort of goddess. Reasons unknown."

Change again.

"Kenneth. This little punk has deceived other immortals by playing the newborn immortal for 800 years. He's not physically dangerous but is very smart."

One more change.

"Jacob Kell, another Highlander. He was a priest. The records show he has a grudge against MacLeod. He's killed his beloved women for the last two hundred years. He's probably the ruthless of them all."

The last click of the session. The pictures of Garfield and Stern appeared.

"Eric Garfield. 48 years old. Commander of the IPS, gone renegade to help the immortals. Married with a daughter. The other is John Stern, 47 years old, single, Garfield's second, another renegade."

The session ended and the lights went on. The most prominent watchers were sitting around a table, led by Stefano Zanetti, seconded by Goran Milosevic and Roberto Flores. The slideshow man, Roy something, turned off the retroprojector and sat down.

"Thanks, Roy. As you can see, these are the immortals we're up against, for what we could gather from the visit we made to their shelter." Zanetti spoke proudly, as if they had achieved a stunning victory and not a defeat.

"But what do we do about them?" someone asked.

"They only have themselves, so there's no weak point to exploit. But the cops have more... and we've already taken care of that."

"We kidnapped the daughter and wife?" Flores questioned, evidently not liking the implications of that.

"We did and that will bring them all down."

"But they're mortals. Like us! We'd agreed not to touch them." Milosevic joined.

"Are you questioning my authority, Goran?" Zanetti hissed coldly.

Milosevic glowered at him, stood up and left the room, mouthing profanities in Bosnian. Flores remained in his seat yet did not look at Zanetti, repenting now having given his vote for Joe Dawson's execution. Joe had been right. Zanetti was insane, and now there was nothing he could do to stop him.

-----

The immortals, Paulus, Garfield and Stern were sitting around a table too, sipping coffee and commenting the attack they had repelled. Neither was in a cheered mood. Faces were serious and concerned. Even Katana found it difficult to break the ice with a joke. The matter of the double quickening someone had absorbed was taboo for the time being.

"I should have been steadier rather than rushing into battle." Connor scolded himself. "Jacob saved me."

"I only delayed your death, Connor." Kell replied coldly.

"The kid was great with the machinegun," Garfield commented.

"Indeed he was." Connor granted. "But he was magnificent!"

Stern smirked, sipped some coffee, mouthed a smoke, and looked down. Kyra regarded him for a second before focusing on Kenny. The little man was at the same time eyeing Katana, who had gone rather moody since the loss of his eye. She did likewise. Katana. Not only he had lost half his sight, he had shielded her from the bullets from the sniper. Solely thinking about it made her heart sink in distress, and question her feelings as well.

"Will they return?" Paulus wondered.

Garfield sipped and shook his head before addressing the elder man - actually, one of the youngest there. He and John had found him agreeable, though they found themselves unable to sustain a conversation with him. Paulus was a learned man. So were the immortals. John and him were well educated, but they were ciphers compared to the others. Which was the point of knowing a bit about Machiavelli when Paulus had read his entire work, Katana had come across him once or twice, Kyra had slept with him, and Kenny had been under his wing?

"I doubt it. It was quite a team. But they will try something else."

"They might go for our Achilles' heel." Katana blurted out.

"Connor doesn't have one... I rid him of all them." Kell grinned viciously after kicking into the goal the ball Katana had left bouncing with the keeper too far to get it. However, Connor did not react to that.

"Shit!" Stern cursed. "Damn, it's so damn obvious." He stood up holding his head in repentance.

"What?" Connor queried.

"You don't have a heel. But Eric does."

"Stella and Selma..." Garfield seemed absent-minded, being silent and thoughtful for a second. "Christ!"

He stormed outside and the wheels of a car screeching away were clearly heard.

-----

Kyra went to a small, damp room that was empty. She sat down on the floor and her face stretched as she let all her suppressed emotions out. Tears streamed down her pale cheeks as she yanked her own blonde hair, upping her knees to hide in them. The door was opened and Katana entered, finding himself shocked by the picture.

"Kyra... what happens?" he said gently as he sat down by her.

"It's..." she wiped the tears off her face. "It's all this. We are close to death like never before..."

"Shh." He comforted her. "Don't worry. The choice is ours: we let them win or we stand up in battle."

"Don't you ever leave the war chat away?" Kyra giggled a bit as she cleansed a tear.

"It's part of me, my goddess."

"Why!" she moaned. "Why you keep calling me your goddess!"

"Because if all the world was smiling, I would only ever want to see your frown." he shied away for an instant. "You've always saved me, Kyra." Katana spoke sincerely. "When I was in that pile of rotten flesh. When I thought war was the only way. When I lost my eye..."
Again, emotion overwhelmed her. She struggled against it.

"What would you do, Katana?"

"Sorry?"

"What would you do if there was no tomorrow?" she asked, her words interrupted here and there by the gasps that followed the unshed tears. "Where would you go if you knew this was your last day on Earth?"

Katana looked away for a couple of seconds and returned his sight to her, head-on, straight into her eyes. He did not speak though. Not for another minute at least.

"I'd be right here with you and I'd kiss you goodbye." He whispered without a hint of embarrassment.

She smiled and broke into tiny laughter. He joined her and both cracked for a while. Slowly, they sobered and stared at each other.

"Then why don't you do it?" Kyra defied.

Katana leaned in and his lips touched hers. They went in and out of touch for a few seconds before her tongue slid inside his mouth. He pushed her kindly to the floor and stroked her hair. Her hands reached out for his coat and began to unzip it, in what was the beginning of another sexual relation, like many in their years together, between Kyra and Katana, only this time, she felt there was more than sex now. Internally, both wondered if they would have the chance to confess feelings to the other before the war brushed them away from the living.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:I took lines from Duran Duran's "Last day on earth" from the album "Pop Trash", and one line from Darren Hayes' "So beautiful", included in the Savage Garden "Best Of" album. And... the scene in the empty room originally didn't involve Katana. It involved Kenny. To my own surprise, it ended up being a disturbingly perverted piece of writing. Obviously, the original version of "The Empty Room" didn't make it here.