Highlander - Donna Lettow [102]
The shock of seeing the contents of the case was enough to slow Avram momentarily. That’s all he needed—Constantine saw his opening and Avram suddenly found himself impaled through the gut on the general’s sword. He sank to his knees and howled in pain. The sword did not yield.
“I don’t want to kill you, Avram,” Constantine said between labored breaths, exhausted from the fight. “Swear to me you’ll stop this senseless holy war, and I’ll let you live.”
Avram, each breath a lesson in pain, glared at the Roman with hate in his eyes, but did not speak.
“Dammit, Avram, swear it!” He turned the sword in Avram’s wound, just a bit. An old trick, but an effective one. He saw the wave of agony shoot through Avram’s body.
“I swear,” Avram finally managed through clenched jaws.
“On your honor,” Constantine pressed.
“On my honor.”
Constantine removed his sword from Avram’s belly and Avram slumped to the floor like a broken toy. “It’s over, Avram. This is over.”
Constantine had barely finished speaking when a searing pain blossomed in his chest. He staggered back against the shattered Temple display, unable to breathe. His hands clutched desperately at the boot knife suddenly protruding from his body.
“Now it’s over.” Avram struggled to his feet, a look of grim satisfaction on his face. He moved toward Constantine, his sword at the ready.
“On … your … honor …” Constantine managed to croak out as his heart began to die.
Avram shook his head. “Honor is meaningless. Life is all that matters.” And with a mighty swing, he cleaved his teacher’s head from his shoulders.
Constantine’s body hung there for a moment, taunting him, then the momentum of the blow carried it backwards, crashing onto the Temple, demolishing it.
Then, as if out of the ruins of the Temple itself, the tendrils of the Quickening rose like a mist on the moors, coalesced, dancing in the air, and sought its new home in the vessel that was Avram.
Its first touch flowed through him like lava and he howled, a wild, feral sound, as his identity was consumed by the great chaos that claimed him by force.
Lightning arced from Constantine’s body and slammed into his own, igniting the circuitry of his nervous system, uncontrolled power surging through him. The intensity of the bolts drove him across the room, pinning him against the wall, his arms outstretched, forcing him to take in all that was Marcus Constantine.
As Constantine’s essence overwhelmed him, he screamed even louder and the lights hung overhead exploded in a rain of glass and shooting stars. Avram was oblivious to the jets of flame that shot through the gallery, kindling the displays, for he was no longer Avram the Jew, but Constantine the Roman—the warrior, the leader, the lover, the scholar. Suddenly, he knew Constantine, understood him far better than he did himself, for he was Constantine. Constantine was in him and with him and around him.
Alarms rang and a shower of water cascaded from the ceiling to douse the fires, but still the lightning coursed through the crucified form of the body called Avram as two Immortal essences fought for control. He was Constantine. He was Avram. He was Constantine. With a thundering cry ripped from his soul, the lightning stopped—
And he was Avram. Avram, son of Mordecai. And he was alive.
He slid down the wall and sprawled on the floor, spent, exhausted, deaf to the alarms sounding around him. The water from the ceiling sprinklers anointed his head like a soothing rain and slowly brought him back to the world. He struggled to his knees and forced himself to look at the body of the man he had defeated, lying in the ruins of the shattered Temple. He felt no joy, no elation at the sight, only a deep, abiding sorrow. He’d been forced to kill his father once again.
Suddenly, his weakened body was assailed by the presence of another Immortal, MacLeod. He couldn