"What?" Emmett asked. "Why . . .?" He broke off, as the disturbance in
the floor grew obvious.
Rachel watched with growing joy and some resignation as Connor MacLeod of
the Clan MacLeod, covered in mud and blood, burst from his grave. He came
out ready for a fight, ghostly pale, his normally deep-set eyes wide and
crazed. Earth clung to his hair and smeared his face. He was clothed,
Rachel was glad to see, but his shirt was in tattered ribbons and no part
of his clothes was not stained with blood. A filthy, bloody sheet fell
from him.
"Gaaahh!" cried Emmett. Rachel heard a thump behind her, but refused to
turn away from her resurrected father to look.
Connor swung his head around, wildly, like a trapped animal, blinking in
the light. He breathed like he'd been running.
Rachel's feet had grown roots, but her heart had grown wings. "Dad!" she
cried, as tears wet her cheeks.
"Rachel?" he croaked, and sanity entered his eyes again.
"It's okay." Rachel's hands flew to her mouth and she blinked away the
tears. "It's only us."
"Aieeee!" shrieked Emmett.
His cries, she knew, could bring their captors, but for a precious moment,
Rachel didn't care. Connor stumbled to her, kicking his shroud away. He
grasped her shoulders, his gaze devouring her greedily, but he didn't
embrace her. Perhaps he thought he was too dirty.
Rachel hurled herself into his chest and hugged him as hard as she could.
He smelled awful, so Rachel held her breath as he hugged her back. She
squeezed her eyes shut, but that didn't stop the tears from flowing.
"My God! Oh my God!"
Emmett's going to have a coronary, she thought, and she tried not to
giggle.
One arm still tightly around her shoulders, Connor pried her from his
chest. He spared only a glance for Emmett. "Where are they, and how
many?" he asked her.
"Upstairs. Uh, six, I think. They're all armed."
"Of course," Connor replied, and he moved them toward Emmett.
Now Rachel saw that the injured man was pressed against the wall at the
foot of the stairs, scrabbling futilely to get further from them, his face
a mask of terror.
"Get away! Get away!" he screamed.
Connor paused, regarding him.
"Duncan should be on his way," Rachel said.
Connor nodded, still looking at Emmett. "He's here."
Oh, good. Another wave of relief swept through Rachel. Her knees
trembled, but Connor's tight embrace supported her.
"What are you?" Emmett's terror gave his voice a vicious quality. "You're
some kind of monster!"
The arm around her shoulders squeezed more tightly for a moment, and Rachel
felt a sudden tension in the body next to hers.
Emmett groped to his feet, looking loathing at the Highlander. "You're
unnatural! You can't be my son!" he spat.
Rachel looked at her father. She felt the shock in him. Then he turned
his back on Emmett, released Rachel and strode back to the spades. He
returned with them, ignoring Emmett. He handed her a spade.
"Rachel, one guy with an automatic could spray this room and kill you in a
half-second, no matter what I do. When I go through that door, I want you
underneath the stairs, and you stay there, you understand?"
Rachel nodded. Connor said nothing about Emmett, she noticed.
"What will you do?" she whispered.
Connor regarded her from beneath his warpaint of blood and dirt. "Rachel,
I'm going to kill them all. Get used to it."
"It's okay with me," she answered.
Connor squeezed her shoulder.
"You look horrible," she admired, though he looked wonderful to her.
"Good," he answered, and, stepping past Emmett, he mounted the stairs.
Following Connor's whispered instructions, Rachel took her spade to the
high, thin window, turned her head away, and, like sounding the bell to
start a boxing match, smashed out the glass. It felt great to destroy
something, and the noise was loud and unmistakable. "Duncan!" she
screamed, just in case, "to me!" Then she scampered to the cover of the
stairway, stabbing her bare foot on a shard of glass along the way.
Pressed into the shadows, Rachel heard the door above burst open.
"Hey!" growled a new voice. Then, in an entirely different tone, "Jesus!"
The name, Rachel reflected, was his final prayer, for, after the sound of a
scuffle, two quick gunshots boomed in the basement, and the man's dead body
pitched over the edge of the stairs to fall in front of her in a ruined,
bloody heap. Rachel squeezed her eyes shut.
"No. My God," muttered Emmett.
Emmett. Positioned as he was, at the foot of the stairs, he'd be an easy
target for anyone above.
"Emmett, come here," she called.
Connor was in the main room above, now, back from the dead. She heard
running footsteps crossing the room, and loud thumps as damage was done.
"Aaaahh!" someone screamed.
"Emmett!" Rachel peeked around the edge of the stairs to glimpse Emmett,
wide-eyed, staring up them.
"Jesus, Mary, Joseph!" cried a wheezing voice from above. Rachel grinned,
imagining Lucky's expression.
Someone upstairs must have recovered his wits, for shots began.
"Emmett!" Cringing, Rachel ducked around the stairs, and grasped the man
under the arms. "Come on!" she hissed. She glanced up at the open door to
see a man literally flying past, from right to left.
Emmett cried out, in pain, and resisted her on reflex.
"Kill him! Kill him, damn it!" ordered the voice of Tommy, sounding
desperate.
Rachel shifted her grip to support Emmett without pressing against his
side. She struggled to think calmly and not try to tug him to safety in a
panic.
"Come away from the door, please. It's not far," she urged. Above her she
heard more shots and the clattering crash of glass shattering.
"He's dead! He's already de . . ." someone screamed, and was cut off.
"Sorry, sorry," Emmett gasped, getting his feet under him. He at least
seemed more aware of her now.
"Kill them! Do it!" ordered Tommy.
The thought went through Rachel's mind that Duncan must have joined the
fight now.
Then a shadow from above blocked the light and Emmett abruptly shoved
against her, crying out a warning. Rachel stumbled and fell beneath his
weight. Two gunshots boomed again in the basement, and Emmett screamed and
jerked twice. The shadow vanished, to the accompanying clatter of a body
dropping onto the stairs.
Rachel lay still, her eyes squeezed shut. For just a moment, she retreated
into a black pit of fear. Was she shot? Was Emmett shot? *Please, God,
let it be over!*
Silence rose, and the acrid smell of fired guns reached her. Perhaps her
prayer had been answered. She opened her eyes and it seemed that she must
be lying in a pit of Hell.
By her head lay one of the mobsters, the one which Connor had pitched to
the floor. The gunshots to his heart had left fairly small red holes in
his Armani shirt, but what had exploded out his back had left flesh and
organs and bones shredded and mangled beyond anything Rachel had ever seen.
Blood was everywhere, soaking the dirt by her cheek.
She turned carefully to look at Emmett, his body a dead weight across her
legs and waist. He too was shot, in his pelvis, but his living heart
pumped his blood out in great spurts. "Oh God," she whimpered.
"Rachel!" Connor called from above. She recognized her relief that the
fighting was over, but most of her mind was mesmerized by the horror of how
a gunshot could rip up a body.
"Help!" she found the presence of mind to call.
Connor appeared at the doorway in an instant. He shoved the flopping body
of their assailant down the steps with a foot, and vaulted off the edge of
the stairway to land by her.
Rachel gasped as the light from the doorway darkened again, but when she
looked, Duncan came through the door, also leaping effortlessly to the
ground.
Connor hooked one arm behind her back, and, with the other, slid her legs
out from under Emmett. Shock had kept her motionless; he probably feared
she was injured. Emmett's blood coated Connor, too. Rachel clung to him,
shaking.
"He saved me, I think," she said, unable to remove her gaze from Emmett.
"It's the least he could do," growled Connor, the remains of a killing fury
in his eyes.
Duncan, to her surprise, ripped the shredded Armani shirt from the body
next to her, like tearing towels from a paper towel dispenser. He plunged
calmly into the mangled mass of Emmett's pelvis, wrapping and tying. This
kind of carnage, she thought, was all too familiar to both men.
"Call for help?" she asked.
"Duncan already did." Connor put both arms around her, and rested his head
on the crown of her own, his face turned to watch Duncan's field surgery.
In the distance, sirens whined.
XV
The night was cold, and the police had insisted that they all evacuate the
crime scene, so Rachel huddled in a wool blanket, using the open door of
one of the two ambulances to block the wind. Her cut foot throbbed
beneath the bandage. She wondered how it could hurt so much now, when she
hadn't even noticed it in the warehouse basement.
Connor stood nearby, also wearing a blanket, but on him, it looked like a
cloak. He had accepted it more for modesty, she guessed, than for warmth,
or else to disguise from casual observation how undamaged his torso was.
He had removed the bullet shredded shirt.
The warm coffee in her hands was heaven. She'd been checked for shock, but
she felt euphoric. And very grateful to be alive. Even the cold wind was
welcome. She would get to see Spring finish arriving. And Summer after
that, and then Fall . . .
Duncan returned from wherever he'd gone to wash Emmett's blood from his
hands, Lt. Rees with him.
"So I'm supposed to believe," Rees announced, "that there just happened to
be a rival mob hit on Lucky while you were his prisoner in the basement?"
"You'll believe whatever you like," Connor retorted.
"So I won't find your fingerprints on any of the weapons."
Behind Rees, Duncan shook his head.
"I doubt it," replied Connor.
Rees moved away, looking disgusted. He joined the uniformed policemen
putting crime scene tape around the building.
"They're loading Emmett up now," Duncan reported, nodding his head in the
direction of the other ambulance. "He's going to Saint Vincent's."
"Someone should go with him," Rachel ventured. She and Duncan both looked
at Connor.
"Not you!" Connor warned, moving to her side and clutching her to his own.
"You're staying with me."
Rachel smiled, warm on the inside, but she looked to meet Duncan's gaze.
"They might only accept a family member," Duncan suggested.
"Then he goes alone," Connor decreed. "He has no family here."
At Duncan's quizzical look, Connor continued. "I am not his son. He said
so, and he's right."
Duncan's eyes widened. He glanced again at Rachel.
She gave him her best pleading look.
Duncan sighed. "I'll see if they'll let me go. Rees has my statement."
"Suit yourself," said Connor.
With an admonishment from Rees not to leave the city, Duncan was allowed to
travel in the departing ambulance.
"Well, Nash, you're lucky," Rees declared, returning as Rachel finished her
coffee. "Seems there's a corroborating witness to your story."
Connor remained silent, so Rachel replied, "There is?"
"Yeah. Guy over there with the cane says he saw the whole thing. Know
him, by any chance?"
Rachel peered into the gloom, but couldn't make out the figure by the
uniformed cops, very well. "I don't think so," she said, knowing Connor
wouldn't answer any more questions than he had to.
"What about you?" Rees prodded the Highlander.
"No," Connor declared, without looking.
"Right," Rees answered. "So now I have to figure out which crimelord
wasted most of Lucky's operation."
"You have our statements, and now you have another witness. Can we go?"
growled Connor.
"Yeah, take Ms. Ellenstein home. But don't you leave town, either."
Rachel slipped her hand in her father's as they headed for the car Duncan
had driven. "You're not a monster," she said.
He didn't reply until he had her nestled in the passenger seat. He started
the engine. "Not even when I kill six men with my bare hands?" he queried.
Rachel studied his face, but learned nothing. "Didn't Duncan help?" she
asked, innocently.
Connor rolled his eyes. "Oh, some, I suppose."
"And I thought you shot them. That's not bare hands."
"You know what I mean," he admonished.
Rachel grinned. "No, you're not a monster. But did you *have* to pull
`Night of the Living Dead' right in front of Emmett?"
Connor grimaced. "I couldn't stand it any more. And I heard your voice."
Rachel felt warm all over. "I feel sorry for Emmett," she said. "No
family, you know."
"Now don't start," Connor complained.
Rachel grinned again, and snuggled into the blanket contentedly. She'd
wear him down.
The End.
