DISCLAIMER: The main characters in this story do not belong to me. Ezra belongs to MGM and Trilogy Entertainment. Cory Raines belongs to Rysher: Panzer/Davis. I am not profiting off this story.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: It's not betaed, but it's not long either.
Crossover with Highlander. New, open AU. I'm still writing more stories in this universe, a minimum of eight with different POVs and different lengths. Still, it's open I guess.
RATING: some violence, and cursing
COMMENTS: I've always thought Maude's weird parenting ways would be all be perfectly logical if Maude were immortal and Ezra pre- immortal. I don't know how Cory ended up in there though.
The little boy looked curiously at the man standing in line behind him and his mother. When the stranger grinned at him and winked, he shyly hid behind his mother's skirts. Ten seconds later two big green eyes under a mop of auburn hair peeked out to stare some more.
Cory Raines laughed in himself and decided to make sure the kid and his mom would be safely outside before he robbed the bank. You never knew what a scared teller would do and though he didn't mind dying himself, he hated seeing others die for him. The farmer at the front of the line had apparently finished his business and was leaving the building. One down, two more to go, before he got to the more exciting part of the day.
Cory had just decided the latest person to deliver hard-earned money that would soon be in his hands was a soldier of some sort, when he felt the ringing in his head that signalled another immortal. He hadn't seen an immortal in seven weeks. Did one have to be here now, of all times and places? Of all the bad luck! Well, as long as the immortal didn't come into the bank, maybe he could still save the situation. It was not to be.
The door to the bank slammed open and three rough looking gunslingers with bandannas in front of their faces stepped in.
"Nobody move! This is a robbery! Everybody put your hands in the air!"
Inwardly Cory rolled his eyes. As if you could get your hands up without moving. Amateurs! The West was full of them. He hadn't seen so many robbers since ambushing travellers in the woods of England went out of style. Outwardly he meekly put his hands in the air, all the while intently searching the faces of the robbers trying to determine which of them was the immortal.
When the leader of the group started moving towards him, instead of helping the others threaten the teller to fill the bags with money, he knew for sure. Ah damn, this was just not his day! Cory said goodbye to his money. Sorry Sister Annette, but you won't get that new roof for the chapel after all.
What happened next was all too predictable for an experienced bankrobber like Cory, but he still couldn't do anything but watch in horrified silence.
With the two henchmen occupied at the teller and the leader turning his back on the other occupants of the room to check on Cory, the soldier saw his chance. He pulled his gun in one swift motion and shot the immortal outlaw in the back. Which of course didn't do anything, but immediately earn him gunfire from two separate directions.
Once, twice in the chest, one hit in the shoulder and one in the side of the head, which swung him around sideways and the next shot missed him entirely. It didn't miss the woman standing next to him. Her head snapped back and she slumped to the floor like a puppet whose strings were cut. From Cory's position he could clearly see the hole in her head just above her right eye.
"Mommy! Mommymommymommy."
The little boy screamed and crawled on top of the dead woman, clearly not understanding what had happened. Cory closed his eyes in sad resignation as he listened to the cries for a mother who would never wake up again.
The leader started getting even more agitated.
"Someone will have heard that! Hurry up with that money, boys. We have to get out of here!"
The teller came out of his stupor and started shoving money into the bags with greater speed than before. The leader paced impatiently, before snapping.
"Shut up, you little brat!"
The immortal grabbed the kid by the arm. Then he got the weirdest expression on his face. He blinked twice, then started grinning crookedly.
"Well, well, what do we have here? Two for the price of one!" He shoved the child at a stunned Cory and pointed the gun at him. "You! You're coming with us."
Cory caught the child before the madman would decide to kill the boy too. A muted tingle running through his head explained the man's words. He looked at the small body tucked into his shoulder and frowned. Cory knew there were immortals who could feel those who had yet to become immortal at a fair distance, but he wasn't one of those. Still, even though he had never felt a pre-immortal before, he couldn't mistake the feeling.
This complicated matters even more.
How the hell was he supposed to save himself and a three-year-old kid from an immortal? And there would be no help from the local law. Cory himself had made sure the sheriff and his deputy were busy at a ranch an hour's ride away.
Funny what life throws at you. Not ten minutes ago he would have been happy that there was no law in town, and now he was hoping the sheriff would recognise his decoy and return as quickly as possible.
Six hours later he had given up on that thought. There had been no pursuit that he could see. He was bound hand and foot, sitting with his back to a tree just outside the firelight with only one guard up and about. The boy was lying asleep in his lap, shutting out reality the only way he could. Cory really wished he could do the same.
Still, if Cory had one thing going for him it was that he was an eternal optimist. And he had already seen that even in this situation there were a couple of points in his favour. The immortal couldn't take their heads until he was far enough away from the town. It was always possible that the people who would start chasing them in the morning might notice the quickenings.
And maybe the immortal didn't want his mortal friends to watch while he took the quickenings, but Cory wouldn't bet on that. Another happy thing was that his hands had been bound in front of him, not behind, because he had to keep the kid quiet and calm. And last but not least, the kid wasn't bound at all.
He could work with that.
It took Cory only fifteen minutes to come up with a plan, and another three hours to convince himself there was no other way, because he wasn't really happy with it. It all depended on a little boy who had just seen his mother die. The robbers hadn't done any more than take away his guns, so he still had the sword on his back and the knife in his boot. Neither of which would make a bit of difference in a gunfight. Still, the knife had helped considerably in getting these damn ropes off of him. And all without waking up the boy. He was rather proud of that fact.
Now for the next part.
"Hey. Kid. Wake up." He whispered, making sure the guard was not looking their way. Green eyes blinked up at him sleepily. Cory smiled, trying to put the child at ease. The boy yawned and rubbed his eyes.
"You awake now?" A nod was all the reply he got. "What's your name?"
"Ezra." The young child said with a bit of a lisp.
Cory grinned.
"Well, Ezra. I'm Cory." He turned the boy a bit. "Do you see that man there?"
The boy glanced at Cory before squinting into the darkness at the man sitting just outside the fire. Then Ezra nodded.
"Is a bad man. He hurt mommy."
Cory had to close his eyes for a second at that. Then he sighed.
"Yes. He did hurt mommy. Now I want you to be very brave. I want you to play hide and seek. Can you play hide and seek?"
The boy nodded again.
"Okay. Walk around the fire until you're behind the bad man. The bad man will see you, and then you run as fast as you can that way." The immortal pointed behind the bad man, cursing himself for even thinking of this plan. "And then you have to hide real good until I come get you. Can you do that?"
The boy frowned in concentration. He looked at the fire, the guard and at the big black space behind the guard.
"Wait until the bad man looks. Run and hide. Mr. Cory? Will he be mad?"
Cory couldn't lie to the boy about that. It was better if Ezra was scared enough to stay hidden during all the commotion that would follow.
"Yes. He'll be mad."
"Good." Ezra stated with a happy little-boy smile.
The child started squirming to get off Cory's lap, clearly eager to start irritating the bad guy. Soon he disappeared into the brush. Cory hadn't prayed in quite a while, but he was really tempted to do so now. He hid his knife on the inside of his wrist, while he pretended his arms and legs were still bound.
A few minutes later the guard shouted out loud and stood up from his perch.
"Hey! Get back here!"
The other two robbers shot awake immediately.
"What is it?" The immortal outlaw asked, clearly irritated.
"That kid has run away." The guard answered, searching the darkness for any sign of the little boy.
The leader looked over at Cory, who grinned widely at him and shrugged.
"It's not my fault! The kid had to go to the privy."
The outlaw scowled at him.
"You two search for the brat, while I teach funny guy here a lesson."
The mortals disappeared with the sound of a lot of rustling leaves. The remaining man stalked towards his captive.
"You are going to be very sorry you said that, before I take your head."
He kicked Cory in the ribs, and the immortal rolled with it. After another couple of kicks in the side and two in the kidneys, the robber finally did what Cory had hoped for. He grabbed Cory by his jacket and pulled him face to face.
"Oh yes, you are going to be ..."
Eyes opened wide, and the rest of the sentence was lost in a gurgling gasp before the dead body collapsed to the ground. The knife was still sticking up between the ribs. Cory grinned. A clean thrust, straight into the heart. Now he had to find the idiot's gun, because he couldn't remove the knife without reviving the dead outlaw.
Two minutes later he went hunting after the other two. The first one wasn't difficult to find. The robber was clearly not an outdoors person, judging by the many curses coming from the left. Cory shot him right through the heart from the back. In his opinion people who kidnapped little children did not deserve any mercy.
The second guy found him, in stead of the other way around. He shot Cory in the shoulder, but that didn't slow the immortal down all that much. It hurt like a bitch, but Cory was on an adrenaline high now and he easily disposed of this robber too.
He was thinking about what to do with the immortal. It wouldn't help him calm Ezra down any if he took a quickening and the boy saw him do it. It was a bit early to teach the kid the ins and outs of immortal life. Besides, a clean death was much too good for the bastard. Taken the head of a three-year-old indeed! Let him rot and get eaten by wolves.
Cory didn't have to search long for Ezra. The little boy turned up from under a fallen tree, happy and smiling.
"Did it work? Was the bad man mad, Mr. Cory?" Ezra lisped.
Cory smiled.
"He was very mad, kid. You did great."
And when he looked down into those sparkling green eyes he wondered what the hell he was going to do with the pre-immortal kid now.
And then he grinned widely.
Maybe it was time to visit an old friend.
Continued in: The Conwoman and the Child
Feedback to Author