Highlander: Shadow of Obsession

by Rebecca Neason

  No, Duncan knew he would have to deal directly with Cynthia. She would find that he was no Victor Paulus; it would take more than a sad story to convince him of her sincerity. Much more.

  He stood and held out his hand to Victor.

  “I know your concern is well-meant.” Paulus said, “and is based in the love we both had for Darius, but you can rest assured.”

  Duncan nodded but said nothing.

  “You are still planning to come to our wedding?” Paulus continued warmly. “I know Cynthia will want you there, too.”

  Again MacLeod nodded. “Send me an invitation and I’ll be there,” he said, knowing that if Dawson confirmed what he feared might be true, he would do everything he could to prevent the marriage from ever happening.

  As he left Paulus on the doorstep, MacLeod hoped Dawson found that information soon. The world had already lost Darius—Duncan had every intention of making sure it did not lose Victor Paulus, too.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Two hours later, Cynthia entered the temporary home she and Paulus were sharing, her arms loaded with packages. Victor immediately put aside the paper he had been writing and hurried to relieve her.

  “I see you had a good day,” he said, his arms loaded now as he followed her into the bedroom.

  “Oh, I did,” she said. “There are wonderful stores here. I found a shop down in the sari district, full of the most beautiful silks. I even bought you something.”

  Paulus put the packages on the bed and Cynthia began to rummage through them. A moment later, she shook out a shirt and held it up against him. It was pale green, raw silk, with tiny dark green dots.

  “There,” she said. “I knew that would bring out the green flecks in your eyes. You can wear it tomorrow when you give your speech.”

  Cynthia looked up at him. Victor was smiling, but there was also a serious cast to his face.

  “So, how was your day?” she asked, turning to place the shirt on the bed. “Anything interesting happen?”

  “No, nothing much,” he replied. He was not very good at lying and Cynthia could hear in his voice that he was holding something back. She turned and looked at him in silence, knowing that if she waited he would tell her what was on his mind. It did not take long.

  “Duncan MacLeod came by today.” Victor began slowly.

  “Oh? That’s nice,” she replied softly. Inside, she felt a sudden stillness grip her. She knew the feeling well; it was at such moments that the Goddesses of Destiny stopped their fateful weaving of time while the threads of the future were chosen.

  “So what did Duncan have to say?” she prompted, knowing Victor both wanted to tell her and was hesitant at the same time.

  “Well, you must understand—Duncan was a very good friend of Darius,” Victor spoke very slowly. “He found out about your past… connection—”

  “And he thought you should know about it, too,” Cynthia finished for him, keeping her voice light. She turned back around to face him. “Is that all?”

  Cynthia stepped closer to Victor and slipped her arms around his waist, nestling her head into the hollow of his shoulder. “But you already know all about that.”

  “So I told him,” Paulus replied. He put his arms around her and kissed the top of her head. Cynthia felt him relax.

  Damn that MacLeod, her thoughts were racing. I ‘ll have to take care of him sooner than I’d planned, before he ruins everything.

  She held on to Paulus for a moment longer, making certain that her presence lowered any subconscious defenses MacLeod’s words had raised. Then, after a lingering kiss, she released him and turned back to the packages piled on the bed.

  “I’d better get these things hung up before any wrinkles set in,” she said, giving herself an excuse to be busy. She wanted time to think. She had planned to face MacLeod after she had killed Paulus. She wanted MacLeod to know that Darius’s teachings were dead before he died. Now he had changed things by coming here today. How had he found out who she was?

  “And I need to go finish my paper,” Paulus replied.

  “Let me know when you’re done and I’ll make us some coffee,” Cynthia said. “I bought some delicious cake we can have at the same time.”

  “You spoil me,” Victor said, and with another quick kiss, he left the room.

  Once he was gone, Cynthia smiled, but there was no tenderness in the expression. Victor was so easy to reassure so easy to manipulate, it almost took the fun out of this little game. He would remain her devoted and trusting fiancé—right up until the end.

  Well, he didn’t learn that from Darius, she thought. Others might speak of Darius’s goodness, his sanctity, but to her he would always be Darius the Betrayer.

  Damn that MacLeod, she thought again. She hated it when her plans, so carefully thought out—just as Grayson had so long ago taught her—had to be altered. But there was no help for it; she would have to challenge MacLeod soon, before he could convince Victor of his danger.

  Joe Dawson did not have the chance to get back to his computer until after the bar closed. But once he did, he was prepared to work through the night, if necessary. It would not be the first time he had lost a night’s sleep on Watcher business, and he knew it would not be the last. And this was more than just Watcher business; this was about the life of Duncan MacLeod.

  For any other Immortal, Dawson would not have felt the importance of these answers so personally. But Duncan MacLeod was something special, and not just because he was Dawson’s friend. There was an ingrained honor about the man that Joe knew he could trust. It was there in all of the records of MacLeod’s life, and it was there in a thousand instances since they had known each other. Duncan MacLeod cared in a way few other Immortals did—hell, few mortals, for that matter. And because MacLeod cared, he mattered—not just to Joe Dawson, but to the future of humankind.

  Dawson turned on his computer and punched in the access code for the Archives.

  Duncan MacLeod was punching the black hanging bag when Joe Dawson entered the hallway of the dojo early the next morning. He stood for a moment, looking through the windows at the strong athleticism of the man. Joe felt a quick, passing twinge of envy at the way MacLeod bounced on the balls of his feet.

  Oh well, he thought, that’s life. You play the hand you’re dealt.

  The truth was, if he hadn’t lost his legs in Vietnam his life would have been far different—and he liked his life. He was proud of his bar and his band and all that he had accomplished. Without that explosion and its consequences, he would never have learned about Immortals or become a Watcher—or met Duncan MacLeod. The passing envy he sometimes felt over the man’s physical skills did not begin to compare with the compensations of such a friendship.

  He stepped through the double doors. In one fluid motion MacLeod completed the punch he had just thrown and spun to face Dawson, hands still at the ready.

  “Joe,” he said. It was both a greeting and an acknowledgment to his conscious mind that here was friend, not foe. He dropped from his fighting stance, then walked over and grabbed the towel he had left on the bench. Draping it around his neck, he used the corner to wipe the sweat of his workout from his face. Dawson followed him as he headed for the privacy of the office.

  “It’s not good news, is it?” MacLeod asked, studying Joe’s face. Dawson shook his head.

  “She was in Grayson’s file,” Joe began, “just like you thought. I told you we lost track of her about two hundred years ago when she came to the New World. It was easy to do in those days—communication was tough, life was difficult, at least for us mortals trying to colonize a new country.”

  “Joe, I know my history.”

  Dawson gave a little, self-effacing grin. “Yeah, right,” he said. “Anyway, we lost sight of several Immortals in those days, but we kept watching for them until they resurfaced. This one didn’t—except once, when she hooked up with Grayson about one hundred seventy years ago, in Canada. She had changed her name to Sharon Tal
bot and she’d dyed her hair red—perhaps that’s why no one recognized her right away, and she didn’t stick around long enough for any connection to be made. She became Grayson’s lover and his business partner.”

  “Grayson,” MacLeod said. His voice was soft, but there was no mistaking the deadly edge to it.

  “Yeah, Grayson. Do you think she’s here to continue his work?”

  “I don’t know,” MacLeod answered, his voice still tight and hard. “But I intend to find out.”

  “Listen, Mac,” Joe began, “be careful, okay? I mean—”

  MacLeod looked at him, but Dawson shrugged. “She’s lived this long,” he said. The rest of the statement remained unspoken; both men knew what it meant. To stay alive in The Game took skill—and it also took luck. No matter how great your training, one unlucky step and it could all be over.

  The phone rang, shattering the stillness that had fallen in the office. MacLeod grabbed for it. The conversation was short, his answers terse, and Dawson had no doubt who was on the other end.

  “When?” he asked as MacLeod hung up.

  ‘Tonight—nine o’clock. She says she just wants to talk.”

  “You believe her?”

  MacLeod gave Joe a “you’ve got to be kidding” look, then he shrugged.

  “Is she coming here?” Dawson asked.

  MacLeod shook his head. “It seems she’s intent on retracing Grayson’s footsteps. She wants to meet at the waterfront. In the park.”

  “Do you think she knows what she’s doing?” Dawson asked.

  “Maybe—and if she does, it answers several questions at once.”

  Dawson thought carefully about his next words. Cynthia VanDervane, whatever else she was, was a beautiful woman. Dawson hoped MacLeod’s long-standing sense of chivalry would not get in the way.

  “Listen,” he began, still searching for the necessary words. “I don’t want another assignment,” he said at last. “So watch yourself, okay?”

  MacLeod flashed him a slightly world-weary grin. “I always do,” he said.

  MacLeod watched Dawson leave. He knew what the Watcher had left unsaid, and he was grateful for both the silence and the concern.

  It was true—Duncan MacLeod disliked fighting women. He knew that some of the Immortals he called friend thought this attitude a weakness—Methos certainly did. But MacLeod believed women were to be cherished. Perhaps it was the teachings of his childhood—teachings that were never completely gone, no matter how long you lived—or perhaps it was just part of who he was.

  He found himself wishing he could believe something of what Paulus had told him about Cynthia. Not the tale of her childhood; that was the type of lie all Immortals told, a tale of an identity that never existed and experiences that were never lived. What he wanted to believe was that she had changed and that continuing Grayson’s revenge upon Darius, through the death of his protégés, was not her goal.

  Maybe, he told himself, it was a coincidence that she wanted to meet in the same place he and Grayson had first crossed swords—an easily found place in an unfamiliar city. Or, maybe she wanted to meet there to show him that she was putting all of Grayson’s enmities to rest. But he was no fool, and every instinct he had told him to prepare himself for the possibility of battle with Cynthia.

  As he sat in the silence of his office, he heard Darius’s voice speaking words he had first said to Duncan a century ago.

  “Some people choose the path of their own destruction,” the memory said, “and nothing we do can turn them from it.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Paris, 1842

  Duncan MacLeod stood on the deck of the river barge, La Penèlopé, as it glided up the river into Paris. He marveled at how much the city had changed in the last twenty-six years, how much it had grown—and how much had remained the same. Most of all, this still was Paris, home of a thousand joyful memories.

  Those memories had drawn him here now.

  For the last two and a half decades, MacLeod had dwelt in the New World, watching the growing pains of a young nation with world-weary eyes. Not all of what he had seen was good.

  The peace for which he sought, that Darius had wished him when they last parted, had continued to elude MacLeod. Neither had the wanderlust that had been his companion throughout the majority of his Immortal life been stilled by the new country. He had seen mountain ranges and mighty rivers, waterfalls and primordial forests, unsullied by the march of “civilization.” But that was all changing.

  As the exploration of the northern continent expanded westward, MacLeod’s own travels had taken him south. He had passed through Mexico and Central America, and seen the destruction the Conquistadors had wrought upon the native cultures. He knew the same thing was happening to the north, in the land he had just left.

  He had pushed on, into the wildness of South America, into the heart of Peru, searching for the elusive something that continued to whisper in half-remembered dreams and drew him ever onward. Perhaps it was peace; perhaps it was the belonging he had known before Immortality had set him apart from all that he had once known, believed, and loved.

  And perhaps it was none of these things. But whatever it was, his search went on.

  Darius had often told MacLeod that his answers could never be found by searching other places besides his own soul; it was only within that greatest of unexplored realms that true peace could ever be found.

  When MacLeod had emerged, worn and weary, from the jungles of Peru, his first thought had been to see Darius again. From Lima, he was able to catch a ship traveling around the Horn and on to Europe. He had disembarked at Le Havre, taken a barge down the Seine, and here he was again in the City of Lights.

  The barge pulled up to the dock in the shadow of Notre Dame, and MacLeod found himself excited to see his old friend again. How much would Darius have changed? he wondered. Twenty-six years was not much time in the life of an Immortal, despite the incalculable differences it could make in the mortal world.

  The ramp was finally lowered onto the dock. MacLeod threw a quick wave at the captain and crew who had been his companions on the voyage, then picked up his duffel bag and disembarked.

  He could not help but smile as he walked down the street, still feeling the roll and pitch of the deck beneath his legs. He knew from experience that it would be several days before the feeling left him completely. But that was not what made him smile. It was the familiarity of the docks.

  Gone were the men in uniform, maimed and wounded remnants of a recent war. Other beggars had taken their place, all asking for a sou from the passing stranger. Prostitutes still plied their trade. They had faces different from those of the girls MacLeod had known, but the offers were still the same.

  MacLeod headed for where the La Poule Aux Oeufs d’Or had once stood, curious to see if the tavern in which he had once had rooms remained. The hotel that he found in its stead bore the same name, but little resemblance to the humble building where he had spent so many nights. The proprietor, Monsieur Vernier had the same name as the innkeeper MacLeod had known before. The grandson, MacLeod guessed as he shook the hand of the young man before him, who was greeting guests with a practiced, professional smile. MacLeod paid for his room in advance, then went upstairs to unpack and clean up before heading to the Rue St. Julien le Pauvre and Darius.

  The afternoon had become dusk and the gaslights lining the Paris streets had begun to twinkle when Duncan finally left the hotel. He stopped and bought a bottle of red wine and a long loaf of fresh bread to take to his reunion. He thought he would stop and perhaps buy some cheese as well. It would be good to share a meal with Darius again, even one so simple. Better yet would be the conversation and the time in the priest’s peaceful presence.

  MacLeod rounded a corner and stopped as the presence of another Immortal seared through him, unmistakable as the clash of thunder or the roar of cannon fire. MacLeod quickly put his packages aside and drew his sword. He did not want to fight, but neither was
he willing to die.

  Carefully, slowly, he walked forward, senses on the alert. Up ahead, he saw someone bending over the prone figure of a man. The scene brought a wave of déjà vu.

  It can’t be, he thought as the figure straightened into the outline of a woman. But when she turned, bloodstained sword in her hand, there was no mistaking the face that was revealed by the distant streetlights.

  “Violane?” His shocked voice was barely more than a whisper. But she heard it and came toward him, swinging her sword nonchalantly.

  “Duncan MacLeod,” she said, her hips swaying in a streetwalker’s saunter. “Back in Paris, and going to see Father Darius, no doubt. Have you come to save me a second time?”

  MacLeod lowered his sword. “What are you doing here—like this?” he asked her. “You’re not the child you were before. You know there are other ways for you to live now.”

  “What do you know about my life? About the ways open to a woman?” she said sharply. Duncan was dismayed to hear the hardness in her voice, to see the bitterness and anger marking a face that otherwise looked so very young.

  “Aye,” Duncan said placatingly, “here in Paris the choices for you may be limited. But there is a whole world out there, Violane—you’ve time to see it.”

  Violane laughed. It was a harsh, mirthless sound. “And do what?” she asked. “Be a healer, like Father Darius taught me?”

  “Aye—’tis a good profession.”

  “I tried that,” Violane answered. Again, Duncan saw bitterness twist her face. “But who wants a healer with a face that looks barely out of the nursery? What woman wants a child to deliver her baby? But on the streets—oh, here a young face is an asset. It works well for me.”

  “You could go to the New World, to America—start a new life. If it’s money you need—”