To Tempt the Devil

Series: Brimstone

Parts 4 &5 crossover with Highlander.

Disclaimers: Brimstone characters belong to Ethan Reiff and Cyrus Voris, Warner Brothers, and now I guess to SciFi. Highlander characters belong to Rysher/Panzer-Davis. Cassie belongs to me (Sorry, Luke).

Rating: PG-13 for sexual innuendo and Highlander/Brimstone-type violence. I try not to be too graphic, but what can you do with two series that involve cutting off people's heads with edged weapons and putting out their eyes with whatever's available? If this offends your gentle nature, then may God bless you, but get the hell out now. Future parts may go to R.

By Wesa.

Back at the bar, Joe and his band were finishing their second song.

Zeke hung his head and stared at the table he leaned on. "Aw, shit," he said softly. "Did I need this? I didn't need this."

"I'm confused," Cassie told Lucifer in a low voice. "Are you telling us that Adam, and Mac, and Richie, and this brunette woman over here are all immortal? And that Joe knows?"

"I'm afraid so," he replied. "Your uncle's friend is in fact the regional supervisor of the Watchers. It's no wonder he warned you away from Ezekiel, an unknown quantity as an immortal."

"Shit, shit, shit!" Zeke whispered.

"Ezekiel, your preoccupation with that particular bodily function suggests unresolved childhood issues," Lucifer told him haughtily.

"What?"

"He means, stop saying 'Shit,'" Cassie interpreted. "Try 'Damn,' that won't offend him."

Zeke grinned at her involuntarily, but immediately turned back to his new problem. "Well," he said, "if they're immortal, then it's not like I would have to go after one of them."

"Ah." Lucifer made a noise of disagreement. "Under normal circumstances, they're immortal. They don't age, or fall ill, and they recover almost as rapidly as you do from injury. But they can be killed by severing their heads and frequently are, just like the giant on the bridge. In fact, they tend to go hunting for each other, and it is very unusual to have four who can stand to be in one room together. That one -- " he indicated Mac - "is the focus of a lot of interest, and the one who binds these others together."

"And that affects me because?" Zeke asked.

Lucifer grinned wickedly. "Because, although he is only four hundred seven years old, our friend Duncan McLeod, there, has earned himself a reputation by sending his fellow immortals straight into my loving embrace. And none of them were happy about it."

"Oh, great. So how many are gunning for him?"

"Eight of those who escaped were formerly immortal. Five were ones Duncan had sent to me. Difficult to say how many of those will realize their new advantage and come after him," Lucifer mused. "Many of them, however, will be after 'Adam' for the power of his Quickening, once they realize that they can regain the life they once knew. Amanda is also an old one, whose Quickening would give a dead man a boost back toward the life he craves, and although Richard is quite young, he has taken some powerful Quickenings. Mako, in particular, wants his own Quickening back."

"Terrific," Zeke grumbled. "Now I'm a nursemaid for some young punk who'll likely outlive my grandchildren."

Lucifer looked at him blankly. "You have to be alive to have children, Ezekiel. You aren't, and you didn't when you were. Exactly how are you planning to have grandchildren?" he asked.

"It was a figure of speech, okay?" Zeke retorted.

"Luke," Cassie murmured, a puzzled frown on her face, "if they can no longer be killed by cutting their heads off, what happens when a sword passes through their necks?"

"So far, that hasn't happened," Lucifer told her. "Each one who has fought a duel has easily won it. So it will be interesting to find out, won't it?"

"Are we going to find out?" Cassie asked worriedly.

"In a while. Don't worry so, ma cherie," Luke soothed. "I wouldn't let them harm you."

"That's not what I'm worried about - well, okay I am," she admitted, "but that's not what I meant. This bar is Joe's livelihood. I don't want it to get all smashed up in a fight."

"They usually keep their fights private," Luke assured her. "Immortals do not want their existence to become public knowledge." He smiled as Cassie nodded, reassured.

"So what's the trick?" Zeke asked.

"What trick?" Lucifer asked in return.

"With Jax, because it was personal, I had to be angry for the thing with the eyes to work," Zeke said. "Is there something extra that has to happen with these guys to send them back?"

Lucifer appeared to consider. "No, I don't believe so," he said at last.

Zeke frowned. "There's something you aren't telling me. There's always something you aren't telling me."

The Devil appeared alarmed. "Oh dear. Cassie, am I becoming predictable? This simply will not do."

She smiled and squeezed his hand. "My love, you have been predictable ever since the day you showed up just as I was getting ready to take a bath. And Ezekiel has known you longer than I have. So what are you holding back?"

On stage, the featured band was taking the place of Joe and his fellow musicians. At the bar, both Richie and Adam turned their heads in concert with McLeod and Amanda, but this time they all looked toward the door that led into Joe's office. Joe noticed, and looked questioningly at McLeod, who shook his head and rose, heading for the office door.

Zeke followed him, flashing his badge when Adam tried to stop him. "Stay here," Luke instructed Cassie before he sauntered over to join the small group. Cassie looked after them worriedly.

"You love him," Amanda said, sitting in the chair Zeke had abandoned. "Don't worry. Duncan won't let him be hurt. He's very handsome."

Cassie gave her an uncertain smile.

"I'm not trying to steal him, dear," Amanda assured her.

Cassie's wry smile was more genuine this time. "He'd probably like it if you were," she replied. "What's going on over there?" She jumped as McLeod suddenly opened the door to Joe's office and went inside, closely followed by Zeke and Richie. Joe went in next, before Adam followed more cautiously. Luke sauntered in fearlessly, his eyes sparkling with amusement.

"I think they heard someone in Joe's office," Amanda said easily. "Your friends seem to care for Joe; have they known him long?"

"I ... don't think they know him at all," Cassie replied. "Joe knew my uncle. I invited Luke to come with me tonight, and he invited Ezekiel."

"They're good friends?" Amanda wondered.

"Not exactly. Zeke works for Luke," Cassie said uncomfortably. Well, it wasn't exactly a lie.

While the women talked, in the office Joe, Richie, and Duncan looked in astonishment at Mako. "But you're dead," Richie protested.

Mako grinned at him. "I didn't expect you to come to me, kid. Now, I challenge you."

Richie raised his chin belligerently. "I beat you before. I can do it again," he retorted.

Zeke put his hand on Richie's shoulder. "You don't know what you're dealing with," he murmured.

Richie shook him off, while Duncan and Joe looked at Zeke oddly. In the shadowy background, Lucifer grinned, and Adam regarded him suspiciously.

"Where and when?" Richie asked Mako.

The dead immortal narrowed his eyes. "Outside. Now."

Richie gestured politely, and Mako fearlessly led the way, while Luke half-hid his face, smiling wickedly as his escapee passed. Zeke paused to speak to him. "I need to get him away from these people. How am I going to do that if he and the kid are fighting?" he asked in a low voice.

"You can't," McLeod told him, overhearing. "Who are you? Joe, is he one of yours?"

Joe looked at him blankly. "We thought he was yours," he replied.

"Actually, he's mine," Luke said easily. "Gentlemen, I don't think they'll wait for us."

"This isn't for you," McLeod told them.

Lucifer's eyes flashed. "Do not presume upon my good mood, Highlander," he warned, then he disappeared in a flash of light, leaving Duncan and Joe staring in astonishment.

Zeke sighed. "Show-off," he muttered. "Leave me to answer all the questions, why don't you?" He turned to the two living men, saying, "Come on. Your friend could lose his head. He doesn't know how to kill this guy." He turned and left the office, as Mako, Richie, and Adam had done before him, and headed outside to the parking lot.

Wearing worried frowns, Cassie and Amanda watched the men leave. "Where are they all going?" Cassie asked Amanda under cover of the music still coming from the small stage.

"Outside, apparently," Amanda replied. "Where did your friend go?"

"I don't know," Cassie said, "but no one's going to harm him. I want to make sure Joe's okay."

Amanda tried to stop her. "It could be dangerous for you," she warned.

"It's more dangerous for you," Cassie replied in a low voice. "I don't have a Quickening for that guy to take." Without another word, she rose and followed the men from the bar. After a moment of astonishment, Amanda hurried after her.

They found the men clustered near the back of the parking lot, away from the street, watching the flashing swords of the two men who fought a duel to the death. By this time, Richie knew he was at a disadvantage. Blood stained the left leg of his jeans, the back of his denim jacket, and dripped from a healed wound at his hairline, while even though he had landed several cuts that should have incapacitated his foe, at least temporarily, Mako had not a bloodstain upon him. In fact, he seemed quite fresh, while Richie was beginning to tire.

Duncan and Adam were holding Zeke by the elbows, unaware that the only reason he didn't shake them off was that he didn't want to hurt them. Joe stood a little apart, watching with worried eyes. He'd witnessed enough challenges to understand that this one was going badly for Richie. Amanda joined him, holding his hand comfortingly. They didn't look at each other, their eyes only for their friend.

Luke sat on top of the cab of a black pickup truck that had red-and-yellow flames painted along the sides. He was eating popcorn. Cassie climbed up beside him, asking, "How can you eat popcorn at a time like this?" As she spoke, Mako whirled around Richie at an unbelievable speed, and Richie was forced to scramble across the hood of a car to retain his head. Mako slashed at his upper thighs and made an inhuman leap onto the roof of the same car.

"I always eat popcorn at this part of the movie," Luke replied cheerfully. Cassie frowned at him.

Mako had heard him, too, and he glanced aside, losing his concentration for a moment. As Luke smiled and raised his hand in greeting to the escaped soul, who was suddenly terrified of being sent back, Richie struck. His blade sliced cleanly through Mako's neck, and the dead man caught his own head as it rolled off his shoulders.

Joe and all four Immortals watched in horrified astonishment as Mako lifted the head and settled it back onto his neck. The wound healed almost instantly, though with no trace of the characteristic blue flashes of immortal healing. In that moment, Zeke freed himself from the grasp of the two men holding him, but his position prevented him from getting a clear shot at the dead man's eyes. He moved quickly, with the apparent goal of reaching Mako's fallen sword.

Too late. The former Immortal reached it first, and with an upward swing of his blade sent Richie's sword flying toward Zeke as the young man stood staring at what Mako had done. Before Richie could recover, Mako thrust his sword into his chest. The blade entered at an angle between the ribs, passing from left to right as well as from front to back, probably slicing his heart in half. Richie looked down at the sword in astonishment as he sank to his knees in front of his executioner. "You have something I want back," Mako growled. He pulled the sword from Richie's lifeless body, letting the corpse fall onto its side in the gravel of the lot.

"You can no more hurt me than he could," Mako warned Zeke as he approached. He drew back his blade for the beheading stroke.

"No?" Zeke grinned. "Surprise!" He swung the sword in a fair imitation of Richie's stroke, and the other dead man's head rolled over next to the pickup on which Luke and Cassie sat.

Zeke watched the decapitated soul search for his head for a moment, until Cassie slid from the cab of the pickup to the ground, breaking off the radio antenna in the process. "Zeke!" she called, and tossed it to him.

He caught it with his free hand, then walked over next to the pickup, where Mako's head stared up at him in hatred. "Must be the pits, huh?" he asked. "Just lying there all helpless like that. You deserve to sit there and watch your body try to find your head," he added, "but I'm not usually a cruel man." With a couple of quick thrusts, he jabbed the broken antenna through the man's eyes.

Mako screamed and tried to reach his head to cover his eyes with his hands, but he was too, too late. His soul streamed out through the broken windows of his eyes, joining with the energy flowing now from his body, and the whole of him seemed to sink through the gravel straight down to Hell.

There was no electrical discharge. "Where in hell is his Quickening?" Joe wondered.

"In Hell," Luke told him, sliding down beside Cassie where she stood rooted to one spot, transfixed by the sight of one of the 113 being returned involuntarily home. "Well, actually it's in Richard, there, and there it will remain, for the moment." He turned to Cassie. "I must go, my lovely," he murmured. "I'll see you later." He kissed her deeply, holding her body close to his, then with another flash of light he was gone again.

Cassie licked her lips as she turned to face the others. Zeke looked disgusted; "How can you kiss him?" he demanded. "You know who he is!"