Title: You Forgot To Mention Hell, Horatio
Author: JR
Email: JRR42@yahoo.com
Rating: PG-13 for language.
Status: Complete
Warnings: Nope. Not this time.
Category: Crossover with Highlander
Disclaimer: All other characters belong to their respective owners and are used without permission. This story is not intended to infringe upon any copyrights, nor is any profit being made from it.
This is what happens when you get involved with too many different fandoms.
Universe setting: For you Highlander fans, this story takes place sometime after ‘Archangel’ (sorry to all those Richie Forever people). Please forgive me for playing with the timelines of the shows, but hey, it’s fan-fic and I can do that ;-)
Thanks: As always, to Carrie, and to Marius, the oak and the ash to my birds in the forest.

Huddled together off to one side, the Slayerettes had been watching the battle progress with varying degrees of trepidation. With the exception of Giles and Angel, the rest of them barely had any knowledge about swordplay, but they desperately wanted to believe that the man who had just helped them defeat the Army of Legion was holding his own.

Together, the Slayerettes silently cheered whenever their ally pressed an attack. Just as each time Adam was cut by Keane’s blade, they found themselves involuntarily wincing in sympathy. Even in the shadowed dimness of the night, they easily saw the blood soaking into Pierson’s shirt, and they prayed for the wounds to heal faster.

More than anything else, though, their collective attention was held rapt by the beautiful poetry in motion of the deadly swordplay.

Perhaps that was why Angel was so surprised when, out of nowhere, an unexpected chill ran down his spine. A quick glance at his fellow Slayerettes left him certain that he was not the only one to experience the sensation, either. Before the vampire had time to speculate over the source of his discomfort, Adam Pierson kindly provided the answer to the vampire’s unspoken question in a simple, ghastly whisper.

Ahriman. The demon whom Adam had initially come to Sunnydale to research.

“Terrific,” Angel heard Xander groan. “Just what we need around here -- *another* demon playing tourist on the Hellmouth.”

With his guilt over his double-assault of Pierson still raging within him, Angel managed to ignore his own weariness -- forcing himself to be ready to fight. Out of the corner of his eye, the vampire noticed that the other mobile Slayerettes were all making similar preparations, ready to watch the back of the Immortal who, just a short time before, had fought so valiantly by their side.

“Is this what you did to MacLeod? These parlor tricks of yours?” Pierson asked with only the slightest edge in his voice.

Then the oddest thing happened. As far as Angel could tell, Keane was completely silent, and yet after a long moment, Pierson spoke again, as if answering some unheard reply to his previous question.

As the one-sided conversation continued, Angel found himself following Pierson’s line of sight, attempting to find the other participant of Adam’s dialogue. However, like his friends, the vampire could not seem to be able to find it. The only thing visible in the night were the two circling Immortals.

Where, then, was the demon, he wondered to himself?

Not sure where else to look, Angel once again focused on the two Immortal combatants. Only then did he notice that some dynamic of the picture had changed. Keane. Something was different about him -- not his face or body, but rather something about the other Immortal’s eyes...

...they were glowing red.

Just as Angel was placing the pieces together, a war-cry in a long-dead language split the air. Moving in a blur, Adam Pierson launched himself at the other Immortal.

‘Oh hell!’ Angel thought silently.

From the first moment Ahriman manifested itself, Adam felt a sense of fear clench around his heart like a tightened fist. In the past, the demon had been limited to making seductive promises of power and glory in the confines of Adam’s dreams. Although Pierson had long suspected that Ahriman had been sending Immortal’s to do his physical dirty work, he hadn’t had proof -- until now.

A wave of sympathy for Duncan MacLeod swelled over the normally cynical Immortal. He remembered all too well the confusion -- the uncertainty and the unabashed terror that had marred the Highlander’s face for days after Ahriman first started manifesting itself to the Scotsman.

Just as it had done with MacLeod, Ahriman taunted Adam. Not only did it goad the Immortal with cruel words, but it also began casting illusions, replacing Keane’s features with the faces of those whom had fallen under Adam’s sword in the past. Friends, lovers, enemies -- all dead and gone -- and all by Adam’s hand.

Victim after victim literally morphed away before the Immortal’s eyes, each one reopening wounds Adam had long considered closed. Like waves against a beach, every long-dead face the demon presented eroded away another layer of the Immortal’s legendary pragmatism.

“...Silas...Byron...Kronos...Alexa...” the demon listed, its face transforming to match the names it spoke. “...and now Amanda. How many more will die because of you, old man?”

There was a brief flash of guilt in the mercurial hazel, one so swift it was almost overlooked. Almost. But the demon missed nothing. Hoping for a reaction, it continued.

“She fought to the last, trying so hard to protect you. Noble, but foolish -- and all too unexpected for a thief. It was a shame to ruin such beauty. But that is the nice thing about you Immortals. Just wait a few minutes and ‘voile la’,” Ahriman threw back one of Adam’s favourite expressions at him, “you can start again from the beginning. Her agony was exquisite, her screams something to savor.”

Forcing down a wave of anger, Adam somehow found the strength to keep his face totally impassive.

“This one will be next,” Ahriman taunted, morphing into the familiar, comforting face of the mortal Joe Dawson. “It shouldn’t be long now, not for one with such a weak heart. When they cut him open, it will look like his heart exploded within his chest. Sounds painful, does it not?”

“Bastard,” Pierson hissed, his eyes finally narrowing in anger.

“And what of Duncan MacLeod of the clan MacLeod?” Ahriman sneered. This time, the demon chose to wear the face of the Immortal Cassandra; the woman who had sworn to one day avenge Adam’s crimes against her. “An Immortal Champion who turns tail and runs, leaving his ‘friends’ unprotected at the first sight of danger? Not much of a friend, is he? But then again, MacLeod stopped considering you his friend after Bordeaux, didn’t he? Tsk, tsk. If only you’d told him the truth from the beginning.”

“MacLeod is the Champion,” Adam insisted, trying and failing to ignore the demon’s verbal attack on the Highlander.

“MacLeod will fall soon enough,” Ahriman insisted.

‘Not,’ Adam thought silently, ‘if I have anything to say about it.’

The methodical progression of Ahriman’s list of victims did not escape the Immortal. First Richie, then Amanda, followed by himself and Joe -- it could only mean one thing. The demon intended to eliminate the few people that comprised the inner-circle of what Adam often jokingly referred to as ‘Clan MacLeod’. After all, what better way than to demoralize the Highlander than by eradicating those that he most often turned to for support?

What did surprise the Immortal, though, was Ahriman’s vehement pursuit of Adam in particular. Perhaps the demon’s destruction of Amanda to find him was nothing more than convenience -- killing two birds with one stone as it were. But maybe, just maybe, there was an off-side chance that Ahriman somehow feared Adam more than Mac’s other friends. That meant it was possible that Adam could somehow pose a more significant threat to the demon.

It was that thought that gave the Immortal hope.

‘It’s time to end this,’ Adam decided with a firm sense of determination.

Summoning all of his considerable willpower, the Immortal forced himself to keep his gaze on the one constant in whatever form the demon took on: the steel cutlass in its hand. Focusing intently on the deadly blade, Adam began the laborious process of tuning out the demon’s words. It took a few agonizing minutes and all of his hard-earned mental discipline, but finally Adam was able to look past the many guises Ahriman was taking to see the empty face of Steven Keane.

With his sense of reality restored, Adam gave into his more primitive urge to attack. Accompanied by a long-forgotten war-cry, he launched a vicious offensive. This time Adam’s moves were smooth, logical, and methodical -- each one full of purpose and grace. He was breathing heavily and sweating from his efforts, but every cut, every jabbing thrust slowly forced his opponent to give up precious ground.

Before long, Adam had maneuvered the other Immortal to the six-inch curb that separated the street from the sidewalk that paralleled it. A particularly unyielding thrust caused Keane to stumble back over the uneven ground. Never one to let an opportunity pass him by, Adam pressed his advantage. All it would take for a quick kill was one last punishing stroke.

He might have actually been successful had it only been Keane’s skill he was fighting against. Unfortunately for Adam, though, Keane’s body was currently little more than a vessel for a demon that was considerably stronger than the Immortal.

Anticipating Adam’s forehanded strike, Ahriman was quick to manipulate Keane’s body into feinting left. Adam fell for the move, and in doing so, found himself overextended -- and completely exposed.

Lashing out with unnatural swiftness, Keane’s hand reached forward and grabbed Adam’s right wrist, holding it in place with superhuman strength. As that hand also happened to be the one with which Pierson held his sword, Adam was helpless to prevent Keane’s own blade from slicing deeply into his chest.

A searing pain -- one that was unique to deep cuts -- flared out from the wound itself, tearing through Adam’s nervous system like ripples on the surface of a pond. The metal of Keane’s blade had torn open the older Immortal’s flesh, creating a deep gash about six inches long. Had Adam been mortal, the wound would have required sutures. Even with his Immortality, it still hurt like hell.

Summoning all the strength he could muster, Adam kicked out at the body before him, connecting sharply with the thigh that supported most of Keane’s weight. While the move managed to break Keane’s grip on his wrist, the force required to execute the move knocked Adam off balance. Losing his footing as he stumbled away, Pierson found himself prone on the cool asphalt of the ground.

As quickly as he could manage, Adam rolled away. While not immediately life-threatening, his newly-inflicted wound was painful enough to be a distraction -- one the Immortal could ill-afford in the middle of a fight that put his very survival on the line. Schooling himself to ignore the throbbing coming from his chest, Adam resumed a defensive posture as Keane, seeking to take advantage of a wounded foe, renewed his attack in earnest.

He took a deep breath and countered, seeking an opening. Keane tried another feint, but this time Adam successfully avoided it. Steel slid against steel, the friction creating a shower of white sparks that rained down upon the exposed hands of both men. Their swords were still pressed together near the hilts, but Adam shifted his weight and forced both the sword and the other man away from his body.

A vicious cut missed Adam’s neck by inches, forcing him to duck and roll, a move Adam had been successfully refamiliarizing himself during his sparring matches with Duncan over the past year. Adam threw a desperate punch in the direction of his opponent’s face, hoping to buy a much-needed moment to regain his footing.

But it was not to be.

An expression of horror marred Adam’s features as he realized his error. At almost the same moment, Keane’s face twisted into a triumphant sneer. Not only did the demon easily dodge the poorly aimed fist, but it also took advantage of the breech Pierson had made in his own defenses as the momentum behind the punch forced the other Immortal off-balance.

With a sharp thrust, Keane thrust his sword into Adam’s stomach, completely running the older Immortal through. A harsh jerk of Keane’s arm extracted a gurgle of pain out of Pierson’s throat. Smiling coldly at the sound, the demon pulled the blade out of his opponent’s abdomen with a slowness that was intentionally cruel.

Adam’s face was a horrific mask of pain and shock as wave upon wave of agony radiated outward from his perforated gut. Without Keane’s sword to hold him upright, the Immortal stumbled forward, almost unknowingly sagging directly into Keane’s body. The sight of Adam, unable keep his head up, unable to maintain more than the loosest of grips on his sword, filled the demon with pleasure.

“I wonder if this is how you felt when you almost took Keane’s head?” Ahriman pondered with a tone of feigned curiosity. Raising Keane’s sword to shoulder height, the demon positioned the blade for what would be the final blow.

Keane was shocked to see Adam’s head shoot up with a surprising measure of strength. Instead of the defeat it expected to see, the demon found itself the recipient of a cold, vicious look from those mercurial hazel eyes.

Taking advantage of the demon’s surprise, Adam’s haphazard grip on his Ivanhoe tightened immeasurably. In the blink of an eye, his left hand joined his right on the hilt of the broadsword, drawing it upwards while he simultaneously executed a flowing pirouette.

Three quarters of the way through the turn, Adam’s Ivanhoe clanged loudly as it found its way back to Keane’s cutlass. While visually stunning, the move was purely tactical rather than aesthetic. Put simply, it changed the direction of Adam’s attack from the forehand to the backhand. Caught unaware by the move, Keane’s body weight was still borne by his forward left foot. In fact, the suddenness of his opponent’s unexpected move forced the younger Immortal to lean forward against Adam’s sword.

Leaning even closer, Adam made sure he had Keane’s complete attention before spitting out his answer to the other Immortal’s previous question.

“How did it feel when I had him on his knees six months ago?” Adam repeated to the demon in a tone so cold it could have frozen vodka.

The hiss of metal sliding again metal echoed in the night as Adam manipulated his sword repeatedly around the other Immortal’s longer weapon. With a flick of Adam’s wrists, Keane’s sword went flying. The Ivanhoe flew rapidly toward the unprotected and exposed neck, only to stop within mere centimeters of its target. With the threat of his blade, Adam forced Keane to his knees as he completed his thought from a moment earlier.

“As I recall, it felt a bit like this.”

Drawing back his blade to gain the momentum necessary for the killing blow, Adam finally allowed all the anger he’d been repressing during the fight to come to the surface. There was nothing but hatred in the Immortal’s sneering mouth and narrowed hazel eyes as he threw one last taunt to his other-worldly opponent.

“There can be only one, you demonic son of a bitch.”

Adam’s blade was little more than a glint of silver as it moved toward Keane’s exposed throat. The only noise on the otherwise silent street was the ‘swoosh’ the Ivanhoe made before its razor-sharp edge cut cleanly through its target. It was followed moments later by the sound of two uniquely sickening thuds against the pavement.

The silence returned as Adam’s exhausted gaze rose to meet the eyes of five horrified-yet- relieved mortals and one concerned vampire. The Immortal wanted to say something -- to give some acknowledgement that he was all right, but he never got the chance.

Because a moment later, the night exploded.




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