The cavern shook with the force of an earthquake. The lights overhead exploded and showered us with glass; ominous rumbles came from further above. As the lightning abated I lay still in the rubble, not daring to breathe. I fully expected the ceiling and the entire monastery to fall on us. But gradually, the tremors stopped. That underground shelter had been meant to withstand nuclear war, and even the Quickenings of nine men--on holy ground-- couldn't bring it down. In the pitch blackness, I heard someone or something scuttle toward the tunnel. And after an eternity Jin was back with torches, announcing in a fairly steady voice that our escape route was intact. I realized I wasn't about to die. But then I faced another fear. The wounds I'd suffered--the cut cheek, the lightning burns--weren't healing as quickly as usual. What if...what if they *never* healed? Fortunately, the healing began before I could start blubbering. As for Jacob, he hadn't suffered a single burn; he was weak but euphoric. I hoped he'd regain his strength quickly, so we could get the hell out of there. MacLeod was sobbing, and I had a hunch I'd hear his sobs in my dreams. *** That flimsy ladder hadn't survived. But we couldn't have climbed it anyway, with Jacob needing help and some of us carrying severed heads. And I wouldn't have bet on the stability of the monastery stairs, or the building itself. So we explored tunnel branches till we found one that brought us out on the hillside, hundreds of yards below. Clean, fresh air was a blessed relief...but too little, too late. Like I said, I dumped my load in the car trunk and then dumped another load. It wasn't just because of the heads. It was the culmination of hours of stress and terror and plain old disgust. All Jacob's followers were in shock. He'd taken Quickenings on holy ground, and shown that nothing bad would happen as a result. That was a stunning revelation. But it didn't change the fact that he'd risked all our lives. Now he announced that he didn't feel able to drive, so Jin would have to. "We should leave one motorcycle in any case," he said smugly. "For MacLeod." As we headed back to New York, the little procession of bikes following his car wobbled all over the road. *** Under the circumstances, our New York hideout gave me a worse than usual case of the creeps. We were squatting in an unfinished, abandoned "cathedral"--the brainchild of a TV preacher who'd been exposed as a con man. He'd never planned to complete construction. Most contributions to his high-profile Building Fund had gone instead to pay for his yacht and private jet. The structure wasn't really safe for human occupancy; only Jacob had explored beyond the small area he'd pronounced sound and secretly furnished. He'd chosen it as a residence because Immortals unfamiliar with the city would take it to be holy ground. I knew it wasn't; it had never been consecrated or used for services. But it looked enough like the real thing to be a constant reminder of Jacob's sacrilege. Maybe that was why someone--Carlos, of course--worked up the nerve to confront him. "Why'd you do what you did today? Why'd you risk gettin' us killed?" I winced. The real reason seemed obvious. The frustration of the past ten years had been more than Jacob could handle. When he had a chance to vent his rage on the Watchers, and then on MacLeod, he'd lost all semblance of self-control. But he'd never admit that. "I had to kill those Watchers," he said, "because the place was larger than I expected. I knew we'd need time to find the Immortals, and they would have gotten reinforcements before we were ready to leave. "And the Immortals? I changed my plan when I saw how many there were. Too many to take them all with us--but few enough that I could behead all but MacLeod before I was hit by the first Quickening." "But it was holy ground!" Carlos exploded. *"I was a priest,"* Jacob spat out. "A man of God...lost forever because MacLeod's wickedness drove me to take up the sword. "And now he dared to exploit the trappings of religion! To hide in the bowels of a monastery, guarded by sham clergy armed with machine guns. It was they who profaned holy ground, not I." Profaned it? Arguably, both sides had done that. But the Watchers had only resorted to violence to defend their helpless charges. Even if they shot first, we'd been the real aggressors. And Jacob had committed mass murder. *** Carlos turned away, muttering under his breath. But then Jacob said something else. In a tight voice that was barely more than a whisper, he continued, "I'd killed on holy ground once before..." Carlos was back like a shot, and we all clustered around. Jacob stood gazing out what should have been a stained glass window--but in fact had no glass at all--at the pollution-clogged East River. "You see," he went on in an eerie monotone, "I never had a teacher. It was pure luck that I survived as an Immortal. Before I could be drawn into a fight, I witnessed one--that was how I learned about beheadings and Quickenings. "After that I expected every Immortal I met to want my Quickening. But I didn't know how to use a sword. And I'd been driven out of my village--where I'd never known any life but the priesthood. Didn't know how to farm, didn't have a trade. "So I turned to robbery. What else was there? And I surrounded myself with mortal criminals. When I sensed other Immortals I had my henchmen disable them, and I took their heads. Murdered them." He'd never opened up like this before--not even, I could see, to Cracker Bob. We hung on every word. "With time," he told us, "I became a better fighter. And I absorbed some knowledge I needed from Quickenings. But what you pick up that way, mostly, are things the Immortal you've killed was consciously thinking about, not background knowledge. "I only learned about the holy ground taboo when I killed a man in a cemetery. He *was* thinking about it, but I thought he was fleeing out of panic. His Quickening told me what I'd done." Then he shrugged. In something closer to his usual contemptuous tone, he added, "Until today, I wasn't sure whether there's *never* a penalty for killing on holy ground, or I'd been excused that once because I'd done it in ignorance. Now we know." *** He was silent so long that everyone but me drifted away. And he forgot I was there. I'm sure he was talking to himself--and that murky river--when he said, "If I'd known from the start that holy ground was a refuge all Immortals honored, I would have gone into a monastery and stayed there. Happily! The sins of my youth could have been forgiven--even my trying to kill MacLeod. "But by the time I found out, it was too late." (End of Part 1)