An Evening at Joe's (8 page)

I favor the "flamberge" blade with its undulating waves of naked steel. This is no accident but a calculated choice, part of the subtle mind game I wage against the confidence of my opponent. He knows that any contact with my blade will disrupt the rhythm of his attack as his blade catches against the enveloping folds of my own. He knows too well that even such subtle delays make him vulnerable and create opportunities for my potentially fatal response.

Perhaps worse, the curves of my blade are designed to inflict ugly wounds, macerating rather than slicing cleanly, literally chewing any flesh it contacts. I want him thinking about such things. It encourages doubt. Doubt breeds hesitation. This is key. Break your man's concentration and you shatter his confidence. Make him doubt himself for even an instant and he is yours. He will hesitate at a crucial moment. That is the opportunity you must seize. It will only appear for an instant. You must be ready.

December 25

MacLeod is the best I have ever produced, a mere student no more. This is no real surprise to me. It was my destiny to prepare him for the others he must face. Someday the master may have to fight the student, but hopefully, that is many lifetimes away.

January 4, 1852

MacLeod and I enter the Circle and begin our daily dance of training and discovery. To enter the Circle is to stand alone, to face your fears and vanquish them.

The Circle is a mystery that a man must embrace boldly. Like a mistress, she will only reveal her secrets if you give yourself fully and completely. Prove yourself worthy and she will open her treasures for you to savor and enjoy. She will make you invulnerable, unbeatable, the master of men, and perhaps even the final victor in the battle among the Immortals, the Chosen Ones.

January 15

It is a new year and many things are changing. I have allowed myself to have a friend in Duncan MacLeod. This is still very new, but I have come to accept and even savor the pleasure of his companionship.

Perhaps this is why I now find myself falling in love again. It has been a long time since a woman stirred my heart and my passions. Not just the physical needs a man must satisfy, but the deeper ache that even one of the Chosen feels in his heart. The need for a mate, someone to share your life with, to give yourself completely to, to share and savor every breath of every new day, even for an interval as brief as one mere lifetime.

The sword has been my life's blood, the Mysterious Circle my passion. I have given her my heart and soul and she has found me worthy and gifted me with my heart's desire. No man can best me, no man dares challenge me. I have earned my reward.

Now I find myself with feelings for a woman again. I deserve happiness. I will allow these feeling to run their course, come what may. I will court and win Theresa del Gloria.

February 2,1852

I have discovered where my errant student goes in the evening. MacLeod dances flamenco in a taverna that features peasant dances and gypsy entertainments. I had told him his footwork was insufficient and that he must take every opportunity to improve it, but I never expected his studies to take such a route. He is full of surprises, this friend of mine.

February 26

I have decided to take Theresa del Gloria for my bride. I have watched her from afar and she is magnificent. We have only spoken a few times, in the most formal of circumstances, but I know now that she is the one for me. Theresa makes my heart sing, and every day is a little more precious because she is alive. I cannot wait for her to be mine, fully and completely. She will be my mate and we will crowd a millennium into our time together. I see her for what she is, an exceptional flower waiting to blossom. I will inspire her, teach her, mold her and give both my body and my soul. I will create a world for us. With her father's connections and my skills, the sons of the most powerful men in Spain will flock to my studio. I will teach them and bind them to my will. Soon both they and their fathers will fall under my influence and I will heap Theresa with the riches they will pour into my pockets. But Theresa will be my most treasured possession. I will make her happy beyond her wildest dreams.

I must speak to her father, Don Diego del Gloria, at his earliest convenience.

March 3

I take Don Diego del Gloria to the gypsy taverna to see my student, Duncan MacLeod, perform his dance. His partner is a beautiful gypsy woman and they move with fiery passion. I have no doubt that they have danced together before.

To Don Diego's surprise, his daughter Theresa has come to the taverna in secret with her Duena as her only companion. He is appalled at her forwardness, but I am amused and delighted by her spirit of adventure.
I introduced them both to MacLeod, who flirted with her Duena and made everyone laugh at the old woman's pleased discomfort. When Duncan offered to escort the women home, I took the opportunity to open negotiations for my marriage to Theresa with her father. I was confident that no harm could befall her on the journey home with MacLeod as her protector.

March 14

Today I feel so old, a cold emptiness fills my chest where my heart used to be. In spite of all I have done for him, MacLeod has betrayed me. My friend has fallen in love with my Theresa. He, a half-civilized barbarian, dares to look at her with love, with the eyes of desire. I, who love her so myself, can hardly blame him, but I cannot permit this outrage. My only choice was to banish him from Madrid and send him far away.

I will miss him terribly, but if he stays, I will have to kill him.

March 15

I discovered them together, in the garden, in spite of my warnings. There was no choice but to fight, and no doubt as to the outcome. I ordered Theresa from the garden. She thought it was to spare her the sight of her lover's death. Perhaps that was part of my reasoning, but I did not want her there to see the Quickening. It is too soon for such a revelation.

Theresa amazed me and offered a deal. If I spared his life, she will give herself to me freely, and never mention this episode, or Duncan MacLeod, again. If I killed him, she promised to be in a convent by nightfall. She would be lost to me forever. I must give us this chance. She will learn to love me. All I need is time, and I have plenty of that.

Then too, MacLeod must he made to pay for what he has done. The pain will be much greater, the burden much heavier if I spare him. He must live every day with the knowledge that I defeated him, that he owes his life to the woman he loved but wasn't man enough to win.

One day we will fight again, and I will kill him. It is our destiny. Let him suffer until that day.

September 4, 1853

She has cheated me, they both have. All I asked was for Theresa to give us an honest chance. But every day and every night, MacLeod came between us. Even in the bed chamber at night, he was there, her eyes accusing me, holding me at a distance, denying me her heart. She offered only the exercise, never the love of a wife and mate given freely and completely. It was a torture for us both.

Finally, it was too much. I put her out of her misery. She rests at peace but I did not get off so lightly. My torments continue.

There is the passage of many years before Duncan MacLeod again enters the life of Otavio Consone. I have picked up their story with their next meeting in Paris, in 1997.

Carmen de la Vega, Watcher

December 17,1997

It is time for the final step in my revenge against Anna Hidalgo. I promised her back in 1971 that the death of Raphael was only the first cut. Again, a faithless woman shattered my plans and stole my dreams. All I wanted was to make her happy, and she returned my love and my favors with betrayal. So be it. I returned the favor by taking from her the thing that sustained her, the dance. But I wasn't finished. She thought that the dance was her whole world. But growing inside her was the fruit of her deceit, her daughter.

I waited, biding my time, watching her child grow into a beautiful woman. The child is delightful, almost as beautiful as her mother. Luisa Hidalgo is full and ripe like sweet fruit waiting to be tasted. She is very young and no challenge to my powers. Her seduction was a delight. We both took such pleasure in her youthful exuberance and curiosity

Now is the time to complete my vengeance on Anna Hidalgo. I will carry her daughter far away. Perhaps I will kill her, perhaps not. But Anna will never know. The last of her dreams will die once and for all with the loss of her child. First dreams with her lover, Raphael, then her dreams of a career in dance, and last, her dreams for her child. She will spend the rest of her days wondering, waiting for word that will never come. Anna will live to regret her betrayal with each and every day.

But that is not the best of it. To make my reward complete, my old enemy returns to pay his debt in full. Once again, Duncan MacLeod tries to interfere in my affairs. Once again he comes sniffing around my women. His life is forfeit. The day of reckoning is at hand.

MacLeod is so easy. He must play the hero, he cannot help himself. It will be the work of a moment to provoke him and put an end to his meddling forever. He will rush to rescue the beautiful women. He cannot help himself. He is a professional hero. It amazes me that he has lived so long. Perhaps his skills have improved enough to give me a real challenge. I shiver at the thought. The element of risk is what makes life worth living. Without the victory over a worthy opponent, how can I be worthy to be final One?

I have looked into the eyes of those I have defeated at the moment
of truth, the instant before the final stroke that brings death for the last and final time. I saw deep into the wells of their souls. Then came the Quickening. All that they ever were belonged to me. I wrested it from them by right of combat. Their most private dreams and terrors were a banquet for my appetites. To the victor go the spoils.

Perhaps it would be better if MacLeod and I had never met. We would not have been friends but I would never have felt this pain, this ache that gnaws at my guts and sucks my soul. I gave him my trust and my friendship, I shared my life and my dreams and he repaid me by stealing my woman. Like a thief, he stabbed me in the back and robbed me of all that I valued most. I am what his betrayal has made me. Only my sword and the Circle gives me peace and a reason to go on. Once I was alive. Now I only exist to win. I pass my nights in meaningless conquests and my days in even more meaningless contests. Perhaps that is what l cannot forgive.

I hunger to see the look on MacLeod's face when he must again acknowledge that I am the master. Perhaps then I will have peace at last.

Down Towards the Outflow

by Roger Bellon

COMPOSER: Roger Bellon

Composer Roger Bellon was the savior of many a
Highlander
episode in his five seasons with the series, adding his haunting and playful music to the episodes under the pressure of a daunting international delivery schedule.

For "Down Towards the Outflow," Roger told us he wanted to explore something that the series really hadn't covered: the near-death/after-death experience of an Immortal coming back to life.

And just for the record, it's pronounced with a French accent: Ro-zhay Beh-lohn.

Doubled over in pain, her guts, oozing, are held in with bloodied and mud soiled hands. Her head reels, her face contorts with the pain of life moving swiftly from her nine hundred year old body. "Ah shit, this is the second time this month... fuck this war and fuck this god-forsaken planet!" Eyes shut, suddenly wrench open with fear and panic. Once again she will die and once again her life will painfully flash before her eyes, an experience, to this day, she cannot comprehend. "Christ not again, how many times am I going to see my mother yelling at me for smoking in the bathroom when I was a kid. Ma, please I'm sorry... I feel bad about it, but fuck, that was eight hundred and eighty-five years ago... give me a break with this shit... will ya!"

Light slowly engulfs her. The pain seems to fade into the background as she feels herself being propelled like one of those little round steel balls being shot down the chute of a pinball machine towards a rubber bumper. Faster and faster she speeds towards a faint light. The closer she moves towards the light the less she remembers about her death. She feels a warmth and calmness that she has never felt before and realizes that "Heaven" is the light at the end of the tunnel. Way in the distance she can make out what appears to be a neon sign. Blinking off and on, pulsating with that low Tesla buzz.