Highlander: Shadow of Obsession Page 3

  “ ‘While we are absent one from another’,” MacLeod finished the quote. He smiled fondly at the man who had risked his life to claim him as a cousin these last months.

  “Many people owe their lives to you, Azziz,” he said. “I’m sure their prayers will bless you every day. You keep safe.”

  The Sudanese man gave a small, self-deprecating shrug. “I do not work for my own glory, but for God’s. May He travel with you.”

  Cynthia VanDervane stepped up to Duncan and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. “Thank you,” she said. Her voice was low and melodic, as always, with the trace of an accent MacLeod could never quite place.

  He looked into her deep blue eyes. “Watch over Victor,” he said, and they both knew what he meant.

  Then both Azziz and Cynthia stepped away, and MacLeod turned to face Victor Paulus.

  “What can you say to someone who has saved your life—more than once?” Victor asked as he held his hand out to MacLeod.

  “How about—see you soon?” Duncan replied. He grasped the proffered hand warmly.

  Paulus nodded. “As soon as possible,” he said. “A couple of our people who were working around Nyala haven’t reported in for several days.”

  “Victor—you’re not planning to go after them yourself, are you?”

  Paulus hesitated, but then he shook his head. “Part of me wants to,” he admitted. “But you’re right—I have other work to do. I just don’t want to leave until I know what’s happened to them.”

  “Don’t wait too long. If I’m to call the foundation when I get home with your confirmation, you need to stick to the schedule you’ve sent them.”

  Again Paulus nodded. “The first set of meetings are in Sea-couver in one week,” he agreed. “But somehow, traveling around, staying in hotels and comfortable houses, being chauffeured to appearances, eating and drinking with the well-to-do, won’t seem quite real—and certainly won’t seem right when I know the conditions people are struggling with here. It never does seem right for some to have so much and others so little.”

  There was no answer to that, or none that Paulus did not already know just as well as Duncan. MacLeod waited, letting the silence speak for him. Victor sighed and MacLeod could see that the mood had passed, at least for now. It would come again; MacLeod had no doubt that it was something Victor fought often in the work he did. But without someone like Victor Paulus to speak for them, the people here, and in so many parts of the world, would have no hope at all.

  Behind MacLeod, the driver of the truck gently pressed his horn. There was a long drive ahead and they needed to get under way before the heat of the day became too oppressive.

  ‘Travel well and safely, my friend,” Victor Paulus said, ending their good-byes. “Peace be with you, Duncan MacLeod.”

  For just an instant, MacLeod felt as if he had stepped back in time. He thought he heard Darius’s voice whispering over his protégé’s. It was with those same words that Darius had sent Duncan off on his travels.

  “Peace be with us all,” Duncan answered softly.

  As MacLeod boarded the truck, Victor went to stand beside Cynthia, slipping one arm around her waist to hold her close while together they watched the truck depart. The other arm he raised in farewell.

  As it was thus they were still standing when MacLeod glanced back. As their figures grew smaller in the distance, words from a favorite poem filled Duncan’s mind. It was by the poet Emily Dickinson, and her words seemed to embody not only what Paulus was trying to accomplish here, but all the people they were trying to help:

  No coward’s soul is mine

  No trembler in the world’s storm-troubled sphere

  I see heaven’s glories shine

  And faith shines equal, arming me from fear.

  Chapter Four

  After the two months MacLeod had just spent in Sudan and the conditions in which he had been living and working, returning to Seacouver felt as foreign as the first time he had traveled to the New World. With all the changing planes and time zones, he also felt as if it had taken almost as long. Although his body cried out for a hot shower and some sleep, MacLeod knew there was one stop he needed to make before heading home. He needed to see Joe Dawson.

  As MacLeod’s Watcher, Dawson’s duties should have taken him to Sudan with MacLeod. But he was also Duncan’s friend, and to keep the mortal out of harm’s way MacLeod had agreed to send the Watcher regular detailed reports of his activities. Now that he was back in the States, he wanted to go assure Dawson that all was indeed well. Besides, he had missed Joe’s company.

  MacLeod’s black Thunderbird was waiting in the attended lot where he had left it. It started without hesitation, and in spite of the many weeks it had spent sitting, its engine sounded like the smooth contented purr of a big cat. He pulled out into traffic feeling glad to be back in this city by the sea. Jet lag would hit him later, he knew, but right now it was just good to be home.

  A twenty-minute drive across town and he pulled into the parking lot of Joe’s. It was nearly two A.M., local time, and there were not many cars left. Last call had probably already been announced, MacLeod thought as he walked toward the door of the blues club. Only a few more minutes and Joe would be able to lock the door. Then he and MacLeod could sit down over a “wee dram” or two and have the talk Duncan wanted.

  It’ll be good to talk to Joe again, MacLeod thought with a smile as he walked through the door just as the three-piece blues band in the corner was finishing their set. Those last few sweetly sad notes seemed to hang in the air, trembling slowly to a hush. There was a brief moment of silence, a tribute of appreciation, then the people at the tables broke into wild applause, a couple of them even coming to their feet.

  MacLeod walked over to the bar, where Joe Dawson was beaming almost paternally at the band and patrons alike. This bar was his baby, and blues was the music of his soul.

  “A new discovery?” MacLeod asked, taking a seat.

  “Hey, Mac.” Joe was all smiles. He held out his hand to MacLeod. “Welcome home. Yeah—they’re good, aren’t they? They just started here two nights ago and you should have seen the place earlier. It was packed, standing room only. Not bad for the middle of the week.”

  Joe didn’t bother to ask MacLeod what he would like to drink. He just turned and grabbed (he bottle of twelve-year-old single malt off the wall. With a practiced motion, he poured a generous dose and set it before his friend.

  MacLeod smiled his thanks and lifted the glass toward his face. The pungent, slightly peaty aroma of the scotch filled his nostrils, sending a thousand memories skipping across his brain, ghost images of another home and of people centuries dead. This was Uisge Beatha, the Water of Life, the drink of the Highlands.

  Why should he think of them now? he wondered, and had no answer except that memories were his constant companions: four hundred years of other times and other places, lives, and loves. He tried to live in the present and to look toward the future, but the past was always vividly with him.

  He took a sip, letting the smoky liquid trickle down his throat, savoring its fire as he watched Joe come out from behind the bar and walk over to the corner stage. He shook hands with each of the band members before turning to the audience.

  “I hate to say it, folks, but it’s closing time,” he announced. “I could listen to these guys all night, too, but the law won’t let me. The band will be here for another two weeks, so be sure to come back and hear them again—and bring your friends.”

  MacLeod turned back around to the bar and, smiling, took another sip of the scotch. Behind him were the sounds of chairs scraping across the floor, glasses clinking, people speaking in sudden bursts of conversation as they finished their drinks and prepared to leave. Five minutes, maybe ten, then he and Joe could talk undisturbed.

  As MacLeod expected, Dawson told the other bartender and the three servers to go home, that he would finish cleaning. Tired after a busy shift, they left quickly.

&nbs
p; Joe held out the bottle of scotch and an extra glass to MacLeod. Duncan carried them over to a table while Joe again came around the bar to join him. He took a chair across from MacLeod and grinned broadly—”fiashin’ his pearly-whites,” one of his favorite blues songs would say—letting MacLeod know how glad he was to see him back. In one piece—head intact.

  Dawson took up the glass MacLeod had just filled and lifted it toward his friend in a silent salute. “I was beginning to worry when I didn’t hear from you this week,” he said after he took a sip. “When did you get in?”

  “The plane landed about two hour’s ago,” MacLeod answered. “I haven’t even been home yet. Once we’d decided I was coming home, there didn’t seem to be much reason to write.”

  “So, you’re done in Sudan?”

  “For now,” MacLeod agreed.

  “What about Victor Paulus?” Joe asked. “I thought you went over there to protect him.”

  “I went over there to help him, Joe, not just to protect him. It’s an effort that needs all our help.”

  “You know, Mac, I’ve been watching for reports in the news, and they’ve only been conspicuous by their absence.”

  “That will be changing soon,” MacLeod told him. “Victor will be here in a couple more days to start a nationwide speaking tour on the subject.”

  “Are you going with him?”

  MacLeod shook his head. “I have plenty of things to catch up on here. Besides, he’ll have other company—his fiancée.”

  “His fiancée? She’s there with him? That’s a hell of a place to have a courtship.”

  MacLeod gave half a laugh as he nodded. “But she’s as safe as anyone,” he said, “and safer than most. She’s an Immortal, Joe—Cynthia VanDervane.”

  Dawson’s expression was thoughtful. “I don’t recognize the name,” he said after a moment. “Of course, with you guys that doesn’t mean anything. Some of you change your identities the way most of us change our shins. Sometimes that makes things tough on a Watcher.”

  “Yeah, poor you. Anyway, I thought your organization had us under such close observation, we couldn’t make a move without it being recorded.” MacLeod raised his glass to his lips to hide a smile.

  “Hey, you think being a Watcher is easy? You have to go where your subject goes and do what he or she does, whether you like it or not. I’ve been lucky—you’re pretty settled for an Immortal. Some of you move around like you’ve got firecrackers tied to your heels, and you’ve got centuries of experience in not being found out. If you really want to lose yourselves in a crowd or a country, you do—and we have to try to keep up with you anyway.”

  MacLeod’s grin grew broader and Joe stopped, realizing he had just had his buttons pushed.

  “Okay, very funny, Mac,” he said. “So, tell me some more about Sudan and the work you did there.”

  MacLeod shrugged. “It’s all in the reports I sent you—all the details of what’s happening, all the statistics, everything I thought you’d need.”

  “Yeah,” Dawson agreed, “and I really appreciate all the work you did on those reports. From the sound of things, that’s not a place I’d want to be right now—or would anyone, for that matter. But you didn’t tell me the personal stuff—like how you felt or what you thought, what impressed you and what repelled you. I think it’s an important part of the Chronicles, when we can get it.”

  MacLeod knew what Dawson meant; they’d had this conversation before. It was a pet subject of Joe’s, one that had grown out of their own friendship. Outside events had sometimes strained that friendship almost to the breaking point, yet it had survived. Because of that, they had come to know and respect one another as men, as individuals, regardless of the gulf of mortality that separated them. Duncan MacLeod knew that the truth of who he was, good and bad, was safe in the hands of Joe Dawson. It was a shame more Immortals could not feel the same. So much bloodshed would have been spared, so much more truth recorded.

  “Like you said, Joe—being a Watcher isn’t an exact science.”

  “Yes, I know, Mac. There are just things about this business I’d change if I could.”

  Both men sipped their drinks in silence for a moment, each knowing what those changes would be. But the organization, as it stood, had been in place for centuries and if those changes came, if there was ever to be a more open relationship between Watcher and Immortal, it would be a long time coming.

  MacLeod felt the whispered sadness that such thoughts always brought tugging at him. It would be so easy, especially after all he had witnessed over the last two months, to give in to that feeling and sink into one of the black moods for which the Celts were—sometimes rightly—so famous.

  But four hundred years had taught him the futility of depression. It sapped your strength and robbed you of the ability to make changes—and change was the one thing that had to continue, or you were truly old, whether your age was counted in decades or centuries.

  MacLeod turned his mind to the few positive aspects of his time in Sudan—especially working with Victor Paulus. Darius would have been truly proud of his protégé.

  “You know, Joe,” MacLeod began as he sat a little farther back in his seat and lifted his glass to study the amber liquid. “I’ve been around for a long time and I’ve met a lot of people, mortal and Immortal. Few of them have impressed me as much as Victor Paulus. Working with him was almost like having Darius back again. I got the same feeling of, I don’t know—total dedication, selflessness, love—that Darius always gave.”

  “Darius—his death is one of the darkest spots in all the records. And to think that one of our own…”

  Joe let the rest remain unsaid. That deed had begun a circle of pain for both of them that was best left behind.

  “Tell me about Darius, Mac,” Dawson said suddenly. “You knew him perhaps as well as anyone.”

  “Maybe,” MacLeod agreed, “though there were times I wondered if I knew him at all.”

  “You know, but I can tell you that he was born in 50 A.D., that he was a Goth who met his first death in the year 95, leading his tribe in battle, and that his first teacher was Ahasuerus the Parthian. But those are just facts and there are little enough of them. There is even less about the man. The reports there are, are from the last few centuries—nothing at all about his early life, except legend. So much has been lost to us,” Joe added sadly. “What was there about him that inspired the kind of emotion everyone seemed to feel about him?”

  MacLeod shrugged as he finished his scotch. “It’s hard to explain, Joe,” he said. “Darius never talked much about himself or who he had been before.”

  “All the reports mention the sense of sanctity, the aura of peace that surrounded him.”

  Duncan smiled gently. “There was that,” he agreed. “But there was often a sense of sadness, too. Especially the first time we met. Like Victor in Sudan, Darius was risking his life to help others—people he had never met and whom his countrymen would have called ‘the enemy.’ “

  Chapter Five

  June 18, 1815—The Battle of Waterloo

  “Keep your bayonet up and your head down, you bloody fool,” MacLeod shouted, not certain his voice could be heard above the pounding of cannon and musket fire and the screams of dying men and horses.

  The stench of death was everywhere. It clung to the smoke from the guns that hung like thick fog over the battlefield. It rose from the blood-soaked mud, the trampled fields of barley and rye, and from the burning farms of Hougamount and La Hoye Saint that only yesterday had stood peacefully awaiting the summer harvest.

  What had once been teeming with life was now an arena of slaughter.

  And still the men fought on.

  The man beside MacLeod went down, victim of a skirmisher’s bullet. There was no time to do more than note his fall and close the square in around him. The square, with its outer rank of sharpened bayonets, was the only defense against the French Cavalry. The horses would not charge the wall of sharpened
spikes; within the square, the Riflers shot and reloaded their weapons with deadly rhythm.

  But while the square was protection against the waves of cavalry that thundered across the fields and up the ridge, it made the soldiers within sitting targets for cannon, howitzer, and musket fire. All they could do was close ranks around their dead and hold the square until the cavalry retreated. It did not seem like much protection, but MacLeod had seen what happened when a square was not formed in time and it was nothing short of slaughter.

  The whole battlefield looked like a slaughterhouse. In over two hundred years of life, Duncan MacLeod, currently of the 71st Highland Riflers, had seen many battles, but not even the Scottish defeat at Culloden had prepared him for the carnage that was Waterloo.

  The battle began in late morning and they had fought all through the day—advancing, retreating, advancing again only to once more retreat. This time of year, only three days from the summer solstice, darkness did not come early to end the suffering under the mercy of darkness—and neither had the Prussians, the British army’s one hope of relief, arrived. All they could do was fight on and hold.

  A rider and horse went down in front of MacLeod. The rider was silent, dead, the top of his head blown away. But the horse remained alive, screaming its agony. It tightened MacLeod’s stomach to hear it. His muscles ached to go put the animal from its misery, but he could not break ranks. Not yet. Not while the French still charged. He willed his ears, and his heart, to close out the sound as it closed out the other sounds of death. He concentrated on helping those around him stay alive.

  How long this charge lasted, MacLeod did not know. Ten minutes, ten hours; time had no meaning anymore. The only thing that could be measured was life or death, victory or defeat. MacLeod’s eyes were red from squinting through the thick haze of smoke. His throat was raw and his lungs burned from breathing the acrid air. He would heal, but others—too many others—would not.

  Damn that bloody Napoleon, MacLeod thought for the thousandth time over the last days God rot his black soul in hell for not staying on Elba.