It's not necessary to read the others, but this story does have a small prequel called "Epilogue to Archangel." The story of Connor, Methos and the Gestapo is told in "The Battles We Lose." How Connor took care of Richie after Tessa's death is in "Obligations." An entirely different spin on the Archangel arc is addressed in "Michaelmas." You can find those, and other stories, at http://members.aol.com/sandra1012/mypage.htm

Prologue:

The dead rose in symphony, ghosts as far as Methos could see. Silas and Kronos painted in their ancient battle colors, Alexa in the blue dress he'd bought her in Rome, Byron with a rakish grin frozen on his face. Hundreds of Methos' Immortal conquests crowded behind them, some carrying their own decapitated heads, others wielding shattered or failed swords. Thousands more mortal victims cried out in lament from all sides, filling his head with their anguish. He tried to cover his ears but his arms had frozen at his sides. The effort to block out the screeching and howls would be useless anyway, he suspected.

*They're all your own ghosts,* he told himself. *Pulled from your own skull.*

Seconds later he realized his error. Some of the dead hovering in the icy, dusty air of the large chamber had origins other than his own nasty past. Although he'd never met Tessa Noel, he recognized her from photographs in MacLeod's loft. Her wraith hung just inches from Duncan's upturned face, spinning slowly with a keening cry. The old woman in a Highland dress reaching for Connor with clawed fingers was probably some old flame resurrected from his memory. Richie Ryan's list of ghosts couldn't have stretched too far down the halls of history, but as he lay curled in pain against Duncan, a man wearing a sheriff's badge reached for the young Immortal.

"Brother!" Kronos called heartily, dragging Methos' gaze back to his own personal ghosts.

"We've missed you!" Silas bellowed.

Caspian, behind them, only glared.

*This is madness,* Methos thought. But powerful, seductive, mesmerizing madness. He, Richie and the two MacLeods stood like statues in the crypt, flesh and blood trapped in flickering webs of spectral light. A red fog seeped from the stone walls and drifted along the floor, rolling under the levitated feet of the ghosts.

Alexa reached for him. "Adam, why did you leave me in that hospital?"

Kristin Gilles knelt on the floor and raised her tear-stained face to him. "Who are you, that you could kill a woman so easily?"

Silas' expression turned dark with fury. "You were my brother . . . "

Icy hands reached for him, touched his face, pierced his thin layer of clothes. Trapped, Methos could do nothing but chant a silent litany to himself.

*Not real, not real, not real . . .*

All the while, he could hear Cassandra laughing.

***

Seacouver

Two days earlier

Margaret Allen - Meg to her old college roommates, Maggie to the nuns back at St. Mary's Prep - woke up early and padded downstairs to the kitchen in her old blue bathrobe and fuzzy green slippers. As she took the kettle from the stove and turned on the kitchen tap she looked out the window for the first streaks of daylight in the eastern sky. She liked being up before everyone else and always enjoyed the sense of peace and quiet that hung over her neighborhood in the pre-dawn darkness. Only in the earliest part of the day did she have time to relax in the absence of kids, husband, schedules, errands, chores and, of course, swordfights.

If only these dark, still hours could extend for the rest of the day, she wouldn't have permanent dark circles under her eyes. But soon enough, Bill would roll over in their big bed upstairs and slap the alarm clock into submission. He would stumble off to the bathroom already wearing a frown in anticipation of spreadsheets, account balances, dull presentations. The kids would sleep until Maggie roused them, then go back to sleep until she threatened them. Scott liked to wait until the very last minute before jumping out of bed, pulling on the same clothes he'd worn to school twice that week and dashing out the door. Karen would hole up in the bathroom, frantically balancing the needs of some forgotten homework assignment with the tricky art of applying just the right amount of makeup to pass her mother's inspection but still look presentable to the other girls in the eighth grade.

As the kettle heated, Margaret fed the family cat a bowl of canned food and retrieved the morning newspaper from the stoop. The headlines said nothing about decapitated bodies or unnatural lightning storms. With both Richie Ryan and Duncan MacLeod away in Europe again, Seacouver had settled down a little. Margaret missed her assignment - Richie was a good kid, young and impulsive but kindhearted. As kindhearted as an Immortal could be and still keep his head, she thought ruefully.

In any case, Richie had gone off on another of his periodic trips to France. Unless Margaret received an interim assignment of her own on some visiting Immortal in Seacouver, she would continue to receive vacation pay and enjoy some much-needed time off. She had plans for cleaning out the garage, painting the den and finally, *finally* taking all those plastic bags of outgrown clothing in the basement to the Salvation Army. Not very monumental aspirations, perhaps, but enough to keep her from missing Richie and her Watcher activities.

Margaret took her tea and the morning paper to the living room. For thirty luxurious minutes she relaxed on the old sofa, her feet propped on the coffee table, Grover purring on the armrest. At six-thirty she heard Bill's alarm go off and she took her cue to wake up the kids.

"Come on, sweetie-pie," she said, turning on Karen's light and wading through a pile of teen magazines to reach her daughter's side. "Up and at 'em."

Karen rolled over, away from her. "Sleep," she insisted.

"School," Margaret returned, automatically piling the magazines on the bookcase and picking up scattered clothing for deposit in the hamper. "Karen, it's time to get up."

She left her thirteen-year-old mumbling something about "a few minutes more" and went to Scott's room. Margaret didn't even bother to infiltrate that mess. Instead she just knocked and opened the door as far as it would go before running into obstacles - about nine inches. "Wake up, Scotty."

"I'm awake," said a groggy voice from underneath a mound of blankets, pillows, Nintendo games, books, and CD cases.

Bill met her at the doorway of their bedroom. "Do I feel a little hot to you?"

She automatically put her hand on his forehead. "Not really."

"Just a little," he said.

"You just took a hot shower."

"Different than that," he insisted.

Margaret counted silently to five. Over the previous six months or so, Bill had become more and more like his mother. A little fever, a little stomach ache, a little constipation . . . minor things, really, but frequent. Could he say, "a little hypochondria?" Some days she felt like she had three kids, not two.

She managed to get her entire brood out the door on time - Scott leaping for the bus already at the curb, Bill fretting about some imminent disease, Karen turning back only once for her math book. Margaret did housework for six hours, accompanied by showtunes on the college station and later talk shows on TV. She left home at two p.m. and swung by the office she and four other Watchers shared in a quaint brick building on Agoura Street. As far as her family and friends knew, Margaret worked as a title researcher and appraiser, tracking down property records, taking pictures of houses and investigating insurance policies. The pretend job with its flexible schedule provided a convenient excuse for the hours she spent doing Immortal research or watching Richie, and the sham company of Hudsons & Mull paid her wages out of Watcher coffers.

"Hey there," Jack said as she entered. He sat at his desk with his feet propped up. He had the phone up to his ear, but spoke as if someone had put him on hold. "How's the easy life?"

"Easy," Margaret answered with a smile. "How are you doing?"

He shrugged. "No kills last night. You know, some people say "The Gathering" is at hand, but it looks more like a PTA meeting to me."

Jack was one of the Watchers who enjoyed going above and beyond the call of duty. He liked offbeat assignments the best - he'd spent a few years on John Garrick, who'd been a brilliant if insane Immortal capable of driving his victims equally crazy.

"Oh, hi," he said into the phone before she could answer. "I was looking for information on an inactive bank account - "

Margaret tuned him out as she examined the short stack of phone slips on her otherwise bare desk. Her contract called for weekly updates to Richie's files and twenty hours of direct observation per month. Unlike other Watchers, she stayed strictly within the lines of her job description. She didn't try to witness every single one of Richie's kills, although she did note their names when possible for cross-referencing. She kept track of his general comings-and-goings, with whom he associated, where he banked. She knew his favorite hang-outs, Joe's being one of them, and that he sometimes liked to sit in the park by himself eating onion bagels and watching the world pass by.

She never gave in to the compulsion to help him hide his corpses, escape from the police or get out of a tough spot. She certainly did not sport one of the optional tattoos many Watchers inked into their wrists - how could she ever explain it to her husband and children? She'd taken an oath but never been through an initiation rite - they saved those old mystery ceremonies for supervisors and above - and had no inclination whatsoever to advance in paygrade or status.

And unlike Joe Dawson, she'd never made the acquaintance of her assignment. She'd never even spoken with Richie. Distance could not keep her, however, from developing a certain affection for the young, sometimes-troubled Immortal. He was just eight years older than Scott, and he'd already endured so much pain in his young life that her heart sometimes ached for him.

Jack hung up his phone and took a few gulps from a diet soda can. "Hey, I forgot to write it down, but Gisele called and wants you to call her back."

Gisele Pelisson was Richie's Watcher whenever he visited Paris. Although they'd spoken on the phone more than a dozen times in the previous few years, Margaret had never really liked her counterpart - she found the Frenchwoman too brusque and businesslike, too impersonal. Gisele looked on Richie as just another in a string of young Immortals bound to lose their heads sooner or later.

"Did she say why?" Margaret asked, a cold finger tracing a pattern on the nape of her neck.

"The Sphinx speak to vermin like me? Nah. But I bet she's going to tell you Ryan's on his way back home again and your vacation is over."

As in most other countries, all calls went through the regional headquarters to be forwarded to individual homes, cellular phones or voicemail boxes. No Watcher could look up another's home address or phone number, as a precaution in case the information fell into the wrong hands. Although it was late in France, Gisele might still be available, or she might have left a more specific message with the operator at headquarters. Margaret dialed the memorized number of a chateau outside Paris and listened to the odd-sounding double ring of overseas phones.

The operator picked up with a smooth sounding, "Les Industries Lambert, puis-je vous aider?"

Margaret wet her lips. She hated speaking in French, and didn't consider herself very good at it. She asked to speak with Gisele. "Est-ce que puis parler a Gisele, sil vous plait?"

"Et c'est de la part de?"

"Meg Allen," she answered. He asked her for Gisele's box number - a coded question asking for her authorization number. Margaret gave it to him.

"Patientez un instant," he said. Hold on for a minute. She heard a click, a minute of French music, another click.

"Gisele indique que vous pouvez fermer vos dossiers. Un etat final vous sera envoye bientot."

Margaret translated that word by word in her head. She wished she could speak French better, but she had no time for classes and used it so infrequently that there really was no good reason to study. Gradually the words formed a coherent sentence. Gisele had said that she could close her files, and that a final report would arrive soon.

Close her files. Final report.

Watcher doublespeak that meant her assignment, Richie Ryan, had lost his head.

Margaret's grip on the phone doubled in fear she would drop the receiver and break the connection, but no words choked out of her mouth. A final report? Richie, dead in France? Impossible. She knew denial was one of the stages of grief, but forced the thought right out of her mind. She considered herself rational and sensible. Surely if she knew the stages of grief, she could avoid them.

"Un etat final?" she asked, her voice only half its normal volume.

"Oui."

Silence on the line. Margaret imagined she could hear distant voices leaking from some other channel on the transatlantic cable carrying her phone call. Did they even use cables anymore, or was everything bounced off satellites? She didn't know. The world had changed a great deal in the previous twenty years.

"Dis Gisele que je dois parler avec elle," she said. *Tell Gisele I need to speak with her.*

He promised to pass along the message. Margaret hung up and sat down.

"Meg?" Jack asked. "What's wrong?"

"Final report," Margaret answered, and closed her eyes.

"Oh. Sorry. It's hard when you lose one."

He fell silent. Margaret fought the tears that came to her eyes and tried to quell the nasty spinning sensation in her head. Richie, dead. In that foreign land. And so young . . . Bright, stubborn, unsure, loyal, dead Richie. She would close out his file and he would go into the great archives of dead Immortals, a footnote to the Game. Aside from a handful of Immortal and mortal friends, no one would probably miss him much. Duncan MacLeod would grieve the most, but Duncan was old and accustomed to death.

She wondered who had done it. She didn't need to guess why.

Looking up at the clock, Margaret saw that it was almost two o'clock. Time to pick up her kids from school and take them to their dentist appointments. For a moment she couldn't reconcile her Watcher life with her normal one, and panicked at the thought of having to face her family and act normal. But that was nonsense. She couldn't duck out on her husband and children just because someone she'd never met had violently lost his life. Immortals died all the time - she knew that. They passed unseen into the history they'd witnessed for centuries or millennium, and few knew the difference. Neither she nor Jack nor Joe had ever thought Richie would be good enough to win the Game, but he deserved a longer life than just twenty two years, didn't he?

Before leaving the building she walked to the bathroom and splashed water on her face. The cold wetness did no good, and neither did a touch of makeup pulled from her crowded purse. Her red-rimmed eyes betrayed her instantly. She went down to her all-purpose, suburban-housewife minivan and sat in the driver's seat clenching the steering wheel so tightly her knuckles turned white. She needed to be composed when Karen and Scott saw her. She couldn't let them know she'd been crying.

But even as she pulled into the school's drive, the tears wouldn't stop. So she thought up a lie as an excuse. After fifteen years as a Watcher, she was very good at lies.

***

Immortal bodies processed alcohol faster than mortal ones. It protected them from long periods of incapacitation, Methos supposed, but the advantageous experience of it meant he didn't suffer much in the way of hangovers. Not even when he'd personally downed an entire bottle of Scotch while keeping an eye on Joe Dawson's consumption as well. They'd returned from the racetrack the night before to Joe's rented apartment in the fifth arrondissement and drunk themselves into oblivion, hoping to erase the image of Richie Ryan's headless body from their brains.

As Methos stumbled toward the bathroom he took a quick peek out at the gray, overcast sky above Paris. Perfectly good mourning weather, he decided. He used the toilet, ran his hands through his short hair and rinsed out his mouth with a minty-flavored mouthwash. Then he went to the living room and slumped in a chair beside the window, clad only in his pajama bottoms, depressed by all means of measure.

Not that Richie Ryan had been a good friend of his. He'd barely known the child. But Joe's grief ran true and deep and hurt Methos as a friend. The whole issue of MacLeod's insanity bore closer inspection - the man had killed his own beloved student, after all - but Methos decided he couldn't bear to look at that matter just yet. To examine MacLeod's situation would invariably reflect back on Methos himself. He'd known the Highlander had been acting strangely, but hadn't acted quickly enough on Richie's concerns.

MacLeod thought he'd been singled out to save all mankind from some ancient evil - a messianic complex if Methos had ever seen one. And Richie Ryan had died because of it.

But where was MacLeod? Fled off to some prison of his own making - a remote mountain monastery, an isolated island, a remote part of the desert? Or still wandering around the streets of Paris, hallucinating patches of red fog, talking to alleged demons?

And where the hell was Richie's body? After sharing an impromptu prayer over the young Immortal's lifeless body, Methos had led Joe to the car outside. He'd returned to retrieve the corpse only to find it gone. Only blood remained. Someone must have stolen the body, but whoever it was, he or she had been very, very careful not to leave a trail. Methos couldn't begin to imagine why someone would want Richie's body. The only people who'd known it was there were MacLeod, Methos, Joe, perhaps Ryan's Watcher, and that alleged demon.

Methos did not believe in demons. He did not especially believe in God. If pressed, he might concede a small, lingering belief in the cosmic force that separated matching socks from each other in the dryer, but on every other theological matter he remained even more glib. He was the world's oldest living man and he'd seen many strange things, but in his experience everything had a reason, a season, a time to every purpose under heaven, a time to be born, a time to die . . . some folk group had made the verses popular back in his San Francisco hippie days, although Ecclesiastes had put it to paper first.

Sighing, Methos closed his eyes and tried to focus his attention on the street noises outside the slightly ajar window. He thought he'd closed it the night before, but many details had blurred from the effects of liquor. He heard mostly car engines from the street below. The century before that, it had been horse-drawn carriages. Before that, mules and human feet. He wondered what a hundred years in the future might bring, but that speculation assumed he'd make it that far. As with a mutual fund, he reminded himself, past performance was not an indicator of future success.

Methos sank further into the cushiony chair and tried to imagine a plan for the day. He supposed he could go the barge, see if MacLeod was there, but then what? Confront him with his crime? Ignore it, as if it had never happened? Take the Highlander's head to prevent any future tragedies? That last option seemed highly improbable. Even if he wanted to kill him, even if he was stupid enough to assume some sort of role as judge and executioner so late in his life, he didn't know that he could beat the man. Of course, if MacLeod got it into his head that the alleged demon wanted Methos dead, or even Joe, then the ancient Immortal would feel no remorse about swinging his sword in defense.

He drifted off into a light doze, aware of the breeze through the window but content to let his thoughts float away. As he sank deeper he felt a small but persistent attention, as if a pair of eyes was staring at him from across the room. Unsettled, he told himself to stop imagining things. But the conviction grew, as did his awareness of a blind spot in his thinking - an area in his head covered by a shadow, as if something or someone stood there watching -

Methos' eyes snapped open. He had the sudden, urgent belief he couldn't breathe. He stumbled to the sill and threw the window fully open, drawing in great gulps of air. A dark figure at the corner below smiled at him

Cassandra.

Behind her, a young-looking Immortal man with Arab features, his expression inscrutable.

Before Methos could do anything more than drop his jaw in surprise, Cassandra and her companion whirled away and disappeared down an alley. Pieces of the puzzle fell into place like a blown-apart jet plane hitting the ground and reassembling itself. Cassandra. Methos raced toward his room and scooped up his sword. He pounded on the door next to his. "Joe! It's Cassandra! She's outside - "

The door swung open beneath his fist.

Seconds later, even as he groped fearfully for the telephone to summon an ambulance, Methos knew Cassandra had struck her second blow of revenge.

***

"I'm sorry about your friend," Bill said that night after dinner. He sat on the edge of their bed watching her fold laundry. Margaret's eyes still felt puffy, but she'd held herself together for most of the afternoon and had no intention of crying again.

"It just seems like such a waste, that's all," Margaret answered as she folded a pair of Scott's underwear into a tiny square.

"I don't remember you mentioning her much. Ellen, was it?"

Did he sound suspicious? Margaret couldn't tell. She thought she'd done a good job of inventing an old coworker at Joe's bookstore who'd met a sudden, tragic end in a car accident in New York. Just for good measure, she'd thrown in the fictitious woman's children as well. Morbid, but appropriately tragic to warrant tears.

"Helen. Helen Cooper."

"It's always hard when a friend dies," he said, sounding sincere, but his attention had already drifted to the television softly airing "Inside Edition" in the corner. Margaret took the kids' folded clothes to their rooms and found Scott sitting three inches away from the television watching MTV. Downstairs in the family room, Karen had appropriated custody of the computer. Grover meowed and rubbed up against Margaret's leg, in dire need of dinner.

"Karen, did you feed Grover? It's your turn."

"I will," her daughter answered, her gaze glued to the screen.

"Do it now. Your web-surfing can wait."

With a tragic sigh Karen heaved herself out of the chair and went to open a fresh can of food. Margaret picked up two dirty glasses that had been left on the coffee table and took them to the kitchen. She ran hot water into both and looked out the window at the dark night. She liked Seacouver despite the changes it had undergone - more highways, more houses, more everything. She generally considered her neighborhood safe. But the darkness outside echoed the sorrow in her heart and seemed full of hidden dangers and secret, onrushing pain.

Gisele had not yet returned Margaret's call. During dinner she'd thought of calling Joe in Paris. Surely he knew what had happened to Richie, or could find out. She knew where he was staying, and the call would take only a few seconds. But that would probably be intruding on his grief. She should just be a good Watcher and wait for Gisele's final report to arrive. After that, according to procedure, she could close out his files. Forget all about him.

Twenty two years old. No parents, no family. A lengthy juvenile criminal record that read, to her, like cries for help and attention. Once Duncan MacLeod and Tessa Noel had taken him in, Joe had put Margaret in standby mode. Older Immortals taking in orphans fit a classic profile. Margaret hadn't been on Briarcliff Street the night Richie and Tessa were killed, but Joe alerted her the next morning to Richie's change in status from mortal to Immortal. Alive to dead and back again at the impressionable age of nineteen. In the following weeks she'd watched him struggle to sell off Tessa's assets, a boy doing a man's job while his teacher grieved and took over a decrepit dojo on the east side.

She'd watched him try to emerge from MacLeod's shadow and find his own way in the world. Taking on Annie Devlin had been one of his first successes, even if Margaret herself had doubted his ability to win. She'd breathlessly observed their fight from a set of scratchy bushes above the lighthouse and battled poison ivy for two weeks afterwards. Mako had been his first kill and marked a point of no return. She'd heard his screams from the Quickening and watched him emerge shaking and disoriented only to leave town a few days later. She'd seen Richie grow over the years, even if his youthful face remained frozen in time, and admitted to a certain pride that her assignment had finally turned out to be one of the good guys.

Not anymore. Now he was gone. She would probably pick up an Immortal serial killer next, someone who took great pleasure in the hunt.

Maybe her years as a Watcher had ended along with Richie Ryan's life.

At ten p.m., just after she'd told the children to get to bed for the second time, the phone in the den rang. That line was only for her or Bill to use. She picked up the receiver. "Allen residence."

"It's me, Jack."

Margaret closed the door. Jack knew better than to call her at home about Watcher business - she had a pager for that. For him to telephone meant that his news was a red-hot emergency that merited the risk of being overheard.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"It's Joe. In Paris. He's had a heart attack."

"What?" she demanded.

"He's in the hospital. They don't know if he's going to live. Can you believe that?" Jack sounded badly shaken.

The second blow of the day made Margaret sink into the nearest chair. She'd known Joe forever, it seemed. He'd trained her as a Watcher. He'd secretly loaned her money when Bill was out of work for three months. He had been the only real family she had on the west coast, even if they sometimes disagreed about the role and future of the Watchers. The thought of him alone in some hospital in France, dying and in pain, made her physically ill to her stomach. Her own father had died in a cold sterile room in

Boston, surrounded by machines and strangers.

"Are you there?" Jack asked.

"I'm here," she said. "Is anyone with him?"

"His cousin Adam. You've met him."

Yes, she knew his "cousin" - the code word connoted another Watcher. She'd seen Adam Pierson at Joe's bar a few times. A European fellow, charming in his own dry way, but she hadn't trusted him much. He seemed smarter than everyone else in the room, and she'd once seen him wearing a smirk that said he knew it.

"Jack, call Monica for me, will you?" she said suddenly.

"Monica? At the travel agency? You're not thinking of going over there, are you?"

"Yes," Margaret answered. "I'm going over there. Get me on the next flight."

"What will Bill say? You can't just leave your family - "

"I'm going," she said decisively, in the same tone she used when it came to overruling her children.

"You've never even been to France!"

"Jack, I'm going. You can help me with this or hinder me. Which do you prefer?"

He paused before answering. "All right. I'll help you. But you're really going to tell Bill you're flying halfway around the world to see your boss? Do you know how much money that's going to cost? You're not going to get reimbursed."

She thought of her husband upstairs, her children in their rooms. Of her quiet, orderly life in Seacouver and the beheading of Richie Ryan. She knew she was about to embark on a new path of lies, but saw no other way around the necessity of what had to be done.

"Tell Monica to book me through New York and hide the Paris connection," she said calmly, even though her heart beat like a bird trapped in a tiny steel cage. "I'll tell my family I'm going to the funeral of a friend."

***

The doctor looked startled at Methos' request. "Monsieur?"

"I said, test him for drugs. For needle marks. For something that would induce a heart attack in an otherwise healthy man." Methos didn't budge from where he stood in Joe's whitewashed hospital room, glaring at the physician. "He doesn't smoke, he watches his diet, he swims three times a week. He's no candidate for a heart attack."

The doctor tried to argue that cardiac problems could strike unexpectedly in even the most healthy of men, but Methos wouldn't stand for any of it. He'd seen Cassandra at the corner. He'd seen her because she'd wanted him to. She'd wanted him to because the delicious detail of knowing who was methodically shredding his life to little bits made the pain all the sharper in his chest. The window had been closed the night before and open in the morning. Someone had come into the flat, into Joe's bedroom. A mortal henchman, no doubt, someone Cassandra had hired for the purpose.

The doctor departed with a dubious shake of his head. Methos turned back to the bed and Joe. He lay silent and still, his face gray, his body violated by any number of tubes and needles in addition to the large, uncomfortable-looking breathing hose they'd shoved down his throat. An EKG beeped out his pulse, and the respirator clicked its reassuring operation from beside the bed.

"Joseph, I know you can hear me in there," Methos said, sitting down and patting the ill man's hand. "You're going to be just fine."

He didn't believe that for a second. Not with Cassandra running around doing her best to drive daggers into his chest. He should have seen through her scheme sooner. She had the ability to plant ideas in men's minds - a psychic advantage she'd been honing for thousands of years. It didn't work very well on Immortals her own age or older, but younger ones like MacLeod fell for it easily. The two had been lovers until Cassandra had forced him to decide between her and Methos in an old submarine base in France.

She must have taken MacLeod's command not to kill Methos as a humiliating rejection, and set herself on a path of revenge against the both of them. First she'd driven MacLeod to believe in a new interpretation of an old prophesy, and planted such violent, awful images in his mind that he'd taken Richie's head in confusion. Even if MacLeod still lived - Methos had new doubts about that - he would be forever haunted by the knowledge he'd killed the boy. Cassandra probably bore no grudge against Richie himself, but he'd made a convenient tool for her revenge. Joe seemed to be a pawn just like Richie, another sacrificial piece in her game.

MacLeod and Joe. Methos had few enough friends that the loss of any of them cut deeper than he liked to admit. The loss of MacLeod to craziness and Joe to mortal trappings hurt like a knife newly wedged in his gut. That pain reminded him why it had been the habit of centuries to stay alone, close himself off, retreat to books rather than people for companionship. He was too damn old to be feeling such fresh hurt.

Methos adjusted the sheet over Joe's body and sat back in his chair. He looked out the window at the overcast day. Just a few hours earlier, he'd been facetious enough to call it a good day to mourn. But no day was good for that. Methos' gaze shifted to a bad watercolor print hanging on the wall, an insult to French impressionism, and he tried to anticipate Cassandra's next move. Richie, MacLeod, Joe. Joe wasn't finished, though. A miscalculation of the proper lethal dosage of whatever she'd used on him? Or part of her plan? Methos would have to remain at his side to prevent him from further harm - there was no one else in Paris he trusted to the job - and that made him a sitting target as well.

Without backup, with Joe as a liability, he could very easily lose to Cassandra's scheme. She'd had months to strategize and make arrangements. He'd barely remembered to grab his wallet on the way out the door with the paramedics, and in his haste to dress he'd put on mismatching socks. Cassandra had never been a raging intellectual, but he'd always considered her vindictive and manipulative. She was the product of what he'd made. What he and the other Horsemen had shaped. Behind every one of her crimes was Methos' own shadow.

Now *that* was a depressing thought.

She had free will, though. She could have changed her direction at any point she chose. Instead, she'd set herself in motion against him, and he would fight her every inch of the way. But he couldn't stay in Joe's room and simultaneously scour Paris for her. He'd notified the Watcher bureaucrats of Joe's condition, and expected visitors from that quarter, but Methos trusted none of them.

Like it or not, he would have to drag someone else into this mess. Another Immortal. Someone who might have an interest in helping Methos in the causes of Joe Dawson and Duncan MacLeod.

Duncan MacLeod of the *Clan* MacLeod.

Methos borrowed the nurse's phone and dialed New York City.

***

Richie gasped for air and opened his eyes. Purpose flooded through him. He'd seen Horton drive by with Joe as his prisoner and had to save his mortal friend. A light blinded his eyes - a street lamp? a car headlight? - and he tried to stand. But his hands had been cuffed behind his back, his ankles similarly manacled, and a short chain between them kept him bowed painfully backward. He lay on cold concrete, confused, his chest hurting in an awful fashion, wetness running down beneath his shirt. He pulled and twisted at the metal restraints angrily.

"Hey!" he shouted. "What the hell's going on?"

"Make all the noise you want," a man's voice said in the darkness. "No one will hear you."

Richie heard no mercy in that tone. No hint of compassion. Not that he really expected any, given the current conditions, but he would have paid all of his money for just the tiniest hint of an opening. Some little clue this nightmare wasn't going to end as terribly as he thought it might.

He slumped on the concrete as much as the chains allowed, bile rising in the back of his throat. The light in his eyes hurt his head, and the cold air raised goosebumps up and down his back. The air reeked of something bad, of something rotting and sour.

"Who are you?" he demanded.

"Michel Colbert."

The name meant nothing to him, and the man was not an Immortal. Richie squinted down at his shirt, the tear in it, the dark red that stained the fabric. He'd been knifed in the chest. Oh god, he thought. Another sicko enemy of Mac's, determined to use Richie for bait or revenge. But what about Horton, Joe, the demon? Not to mention Mac, Methos, and the army cavalry due to appear at any moment.

The light drew closer. A battery lantern of some sort. It danced in mid-air before descending to a few inches from Richie's face. He couldn't see anything but the blinding white of it. Shivers ran through him, as much from growing fear as the cold. A large hand squeezed Richie's bicep.

"You're very helpless, you know," Colbert said. "I could do anything I want with you."

Richie couldn't think of a witty retort to that. No sarcastic repartee, no smart wisecrack. The smell in the room made his stomach churn, and he fought down a growing awareness of what it might be.

"Where's Horton?" he asked, his voice a hoarse whisper. "Where's Joe?"

Colbert snickered. "You actually fell for that, did you?"

Fell for it? But he'd seen the car go by with his very own eyes. He'd called the barge to warn Mac. To lure Mac into a trap? "Who are you?" he ground out.

"A friend of an enemy," Colbert said. "Maybe you've figured some of it out by now, eh, Ryan? There was no Horton. No Joe. You were brought here to lure MacLeod. And it worked. Cassandra made sure of it."

"Cassandra!" Richie echoed. God, he'd always thought she was a strange one, not suited for Mac at all. The bottom fell out of Richie's stomach as he absorbed the rest of the man's words. Sharply he demanded, "Where's Mac? What has she done to him?"

"Oh, don't worry. He's not dead. But he thinks you are. We arranged a little light show for him, and he fell for it."

The large hand lifted Richie, turned him, dumped him on his other side. The lantern lifted a few feet up. Richie fought the rush of blood in his head and focused on a lump not twelve inches away - a large headless corpse bloated with decay. The head that had been on it lay propped on the chest, eyes open in dismay, mouth twisted in a final grimace -

Richie nearly vomited. He could feel the meager contents of his stomach whirl around like the debris of a twister. He sucked in a deep breath and fought for control. He would not throw up on a corpse - he tried to wriggle backwards, to fling himself away, but Colbert held him firmly in place.

"Your friend MacLeod thought this was you. I wasn't here for the show, but I hear it went over quite spectacularly. He was a new one, you know - lost his mortal life just last week. Pity to lose his Immortal one so soon afterward."

Richie squeezed his eyes shut. "Bastard."

"Perhaps. My mother did have a way of getting around the neighborhood." Colbert's hand cupped Richie's face and lightly stroked his cheek.

Richie could make out dim details of his captor's features - dark eyes, neatly cropped dark hair, a long and straight nose. The smile on his face looked feral. The cold amusement in his voice was unmistakable. The young Immortal fought down a wave of revulsion.

"What now?" Richie asked. His heart beat so loudly and quickly he swore Colbert could hear it. "You fooled MacLeod. You've got me. Go ahead, take my head."

"Not yet," Colbert answered smoothly. Something metallic glinted in his right hand. "She still has plans for you. Be patient."

The knife flashed faster than Richie could track it, and something hard hit him in the chest. When he looked down, he saw only the carved wooden hilt sticking out of his body. Blood rose in his throat and his breath rattled. The knowledge that he would probably come back made dying harder, not easier - he had no lasting peace to look forward to, no permanent escape as an option.

*Oh, Mac,* he thought as the last of his strength ran away.

*Don't let me die here.*

***

Connor MacLeod put the phone down with a mixture of concern and confusion. The last person he'd expected to hear from in the middle of the night was his old WWII friend James Powell, also known as Methos. Methos had telephoned with the urgent request that Connor come to Paris immediately. The world's oldest Immortal believed Duncan to be in some kind of danger but wouldn't go into detail over the phone.

Well, Connor had flown at a moment's notice to other countries with less reason. Women, mostly. His only immediate regret was that the next flight to Paris had no first-class seats and he would have to fly coach. For Duncan's sake, though, he would have ridden in the cargo hold. The flight didn't leave until 6 a.m., which gave him at least a few more hours to sleep.

Rest proved elusive, though, as memories of the war and fears for Duncan clashed with any attempts at relaxation. Finally he rose, showered and threw a handful of clothing into a dufflebag. His sword went in a separate case for check-in. He called and asked Rachel to take care of the shop. Then he grabbed one of a dozen different passports he kept handy at all times and took a cab to Kennedy.

The United flight he caught had originated as a midnight flight in Seacouver, of all places. Connor found every single overhead compartment full, and the warm air on the plane smelled of stale sweat. One whiff of it reminded him of a dozen reasons why he hated flying. The Highlander made his way down the aisle, squeezing by a large woman in a leather pantsuit and two little kids with their feet sticking out. He found his aisle seat next to an attractive but tense-looking woman in her late thirties or early forties. She kept her attention focused exclusively on the hardback book in her hands. On her other side, a man with a laptop computer tapped diligently on the tiny keys.

Connor sighed, resigned to a long and boring flight. After take-off the flight attendants served something supposed to resemble breakfast. The woman beside him kept reading. She didn't turn the pages very fast but only had a few chapters left. Connor struck up an easy flirtation with the flight attendant with the largest breasts, but she only passed by his seat occasionally. He wished he'd thought to bring a book of his own, or something marginally more intelligent than the inflight magazine. He tried sleeping, but worry over Duncan kept him too keyed up, and the Disney movie that played on the overhead monitors was so horribly bad he wondered why anyone had ever bothered making it in the first place.

Three hours after take-off, the woman beside him finished her book, closed it and put in the pocket of the seat in front of her.

"Good story?" Connor asked conversationally.

She nodded.

"I thought his first was his best. He ran out of good lawyer stories fast."

She said, "Excuse me, I need to use the bathroom."

Connor obligingly stood in the aisle to let her pass. He stretched out the cramps forming in his legs and back from the hard seat and avoided looking out the window. When the woman came back twenty minutes later, she had both hands full of complimentary magazines stocked by the airline.

"Want one?" she asked, after she'd settled back down and fastened her seat belt.

Connor took issues of both "Newsweek" and "Time" and resigned himself to more boredom. When they reached France he bolted toward the front hatch. He greeted Orly airport like a dear old friend, indulged himself in a strong cup of coffee and two ham and cheese croissants to go, and took a cab to the hospital where Methos was sitting vigil.

The cab passed by the Velodrome d'Hiver sports stadium. Unwillingly Connor remembered a hot day in July, the cries of Jews being herded like cattle, the harsh words and vicious cowardice of the Nazi's wielding guns. He'd been to Paris numerous times since 1942, but he'd always managed to avoid this particular neighborhood. Bad memories resided there, nightmare recollections of the torture he'd suffered at German hands. Although the evening air was chill, Connor felt suddenly hot and claustrophobic. He rolled down the window to suck in fresh air. The cab driver, an Ethiopian, muttered something under his breath and turned up the car heater.

He found Methos' hospital, an old building in a quiet neighborhood north of the Seine. The vaulted ceilings, tall windows and wooden moldings inside the hospital reminded him of a convent. He passed one ward after the other full of sick and dying mortals. A nurse with clear green eyes directed him to the intensive care unit, and the supernatural recognition of another Immortal nearby brought him directly to Methos.

The ancient Immortal appeared unchanged, of course - the passage of fifty years reflected nowhere in his features. Worry marked his face, though, and he looked thin beneath his rumpled clothing.

"Thank you for coming," Methos said simply.

Connor nodded. "You said it was important. Here, eat something." The Highlander gave Methos the bag and took a curious look at the mortal in the bed. Recognition dawned a second later. "Joe Dawson?"

Methos bit off an edge of the croissant. "You know him?"

"We've met," Connor acknowledged. "In Seacouver. After Duncan's fiancee died."

"Tessa Noel?"

"Yes. I stood watch over Richie while Duncan was away. You know Richie?"

Methos' gaze darted away. "I did," he said quietly, and those two words told Connor an entire story.

The Highlander sat down in one of the room's two chairs, suddenly weary, stabbed by sadness. He'd last spoken to Richie three or four months earlier, but couldn't remember the details of the conversation. Although he'd really only been Duncan's student, over the years Connor had grown to think of the young Immortal as part of the family.

"Who did it?" he asked.

"That's a long story."

Connor pinned him with his gaze. "Who swung the sword?" he asked firmly.

Methos sighed. "Duncan. But he wasn't in his right mind, I swear it."

Duncan. Connor tried to absorb the news, but the idea of Duncan killing Richie made no sense whatsoever. He looked at Joe Dawson, lying in bed so close to death. His color appeared awful, and Connor didn't need a doctor in the room to know that only electricity and machines kept the Watcher alive.

"Tell me the whole story," Connor said, making himself as comfortable as possible considering the weariness in his body and ache in his heart. "I want to know everything."

***

The first thing Margaret did when she got off the plane in Orly was find the nearest women's room and almost collapse in the privacy of a stall.

*I just spent six hours sitting next to Connor MacLeod,* she thought, over and over again.

She'd recognized him the minute he boarded the plane. She'd seen a great deal of him in the days after Tessa Noel's death, when he'd gone to Seacouver to watch over Richie. Since then he'd visited the city twice. Seeing him walk down the aisle and take the seat next to hers had been horrifying. She didn't exactly fear him - that he could kill her with his little pinkie seemed beside the point - but she'd worried for the entire flight that she would blurt out something about Immortals, Richie, the Watchers. Her curiosity tried to get the better of her - was he on his way to France because of Richie's death? Because of Joe's heart attack? Did his Watcher know? Should she call the New York division when the plane landed and tell them?

She'd been on airplanes or in airports for almost thirteen hours. The time difference meant it was nighttime in Paris, when back home it would be early afternoon. She felt mixed-up and muddle-headed, bloated from the airline food, and confused by all the signs in French. Too many tasks lay ahead of her to indulge in self-pity, though. She called Jack, who'd promised to find some kind of affordable lodging for her while she was in Paris.

"Hey, how was the flight?" he asked.

"Just don't ask. Where am I staying?"

"Gisele Pelisson found you a room. She also said she'd meet you at the baggage claim for your flight. Look for a woman in a long black coat wearing a black hat."

Black coats and hats? Could her French counterpart possibly be any more cliche? Margaret followed a bewildering set of arrows until she reached the correct automated carousel for United. She found her battered old suitcase circling on its side with a large gash in it and two wheels hanging loose. She dragged it off angrily, hoping none of her underwear had fallen out for all the world to see. She wondered if it was even worth the effort to try and get the airline to pay for the damage. Two steps later she ran into a severe-looking woman with birdlike features and long, braided gray hair.

"Etes-vous Margaret?" the woman asked.

"Yes. I mean, oui. Je suis Margaret. Gisele?"

"Oui. Bienvenue a Paris."

The welcome to Paris sounded like the announcement of a funeral. Gisele set off at a brisk pace toward the exit, leaving her to drag her damaged suitcase along the concourse. Gisele's car, a small black Volvo, looked as severe and foreboding as its owner. Behind the wheel, though, Gisele proved to be a repressed Indy 500 driver. She whipped out into airport traffic so quickly that Margaret had to grip the armrest for safety.

"Don't go fast on my behalf," Margaret said.

Gisele shot her a look. "Quoi?"

Speak in French, Margaret reminded herself. She asked Gisele about Joe. The French Watcher hadn't been able to go to the hospital yet - she'd had to go either to the veterinarian or the podiatrist, Margaret couldn't translate which. Gisele proposed taking her directly to the hospital and then on to a room her aunt rented over either a car-repair shop or a lamp factory.

Margaret took a deep breath. She wanted to get to Joe's side as quickly as possible, but she knew once she got there she might not be able to leave for days. She also had the added worry that if Joe was also the impetus of Connor MacLeod's trip, she might run into the Highlander at the hospital. Would he understand that mere coincidence had put them in side-by-side seats? What did he know about the Watchers, anyway? Thoughts of the hospital aside, Margaret wanted to seize the opportunity of having Gisele at hand. Speaking slowly and with her best possible pronunciation, she asked the other woman to take her to where Richie Ryan had been killed.

Gisele didn't answer for four miles, but finally asked Margaret why.

Why, indeed? To torture herself? Nothing would bring Richie back. But seeing where he had died might bring a small measure of closure. She didn't know if Gisele would understand that.

In French she asked, "Have you ever had one of your assignments die before?"

Gisele's mouth tightened. Yes, she had, she answered. She said nothing beyond that. Afraid to press the issue, Margaret turned her attention to the dark city outside the car windows. She'd finally made it overseas, to someplace more exotic than Vancouver or Niagara Falls. All she could see, though, were low buildings and occasional neon signs. The air smelled different - both dirtier and drier than Seacouver - and Gisele's car engine sounded a little louder than the ones at home. They drove in near-silence for more than forty minutes before her host turned off into an empty parking lot and killed the ignition.

"Ici," Giselle announced. "C'est ici que ca c'est produit."

This was where it would happen. No, where it *had* happened. "Un . . . stade?" Margaret asked, fumbling over the word for stadium.

"Un circuit de course." A racetrack.

Margaret stared at the building for a long moment. "Comment vous savoir le . . . mort de Richie?

She'd asked Gisele how she could know that Richie was dead. Gisele's stony expression didn't change as she told Margaret that Richie had been walking alone near the river at night. Gisele had been ready to go home when she saw him start to act strangely - he'd run and shouted after something she couldn't see, made a quick phone call and sprinted seven blocks to the racetrack before them.

Duncan MacLeod arrived a few minutes later in his own car. The Quickening came shortly thereafter. Joe Dawson and Adam Pierson appeared at the tail end of the lightning show, far too late to be of use. Only MacLeod, Dawson and Pierson left the building. None of them had been carrying a body or sack, although Pierson held both MacLeod's katana and Richie's sword. Gisele had waited a half hour before calling Dawson on his cellular phone, and he'd confirmed the kill in a broken, grieving voice.

The toneless, flat description of events left Margaret cold through and through. "You're saying Duncan killed him?" she demanded. "Joe said Duncan killed Richie?"

"Oui." Giselle also added that it would not be the first time a mentor took his own student's head.

Margaret couldn't imagine any circumstances that would make MacLeod kill Richie. Still, she had to see the site for herself. She got out of the car. Gisele didn't budge.

"Aren't you coming?" Margaret asked.

Gisele's expression tightened, but she slowly exited the vehicle. Margaret was glad for the company, and even more glad for the Frenchwoman's flashlight. Together they found a half-ajar door in the north end of the building and squeezed their way inside, accompanied by the lonely sound of wind cutting through the overhead concourse.

Although the Quickening had long since passed, Margaret imagined she could still smell the faint odor of ozone and burned dust in the air. Sadness swept through her again at the thought of Richie meeting his end in such a gloomy place, so far from home. Had he gone bravely? Had he even seen his fate swinging toward him? Gisele's beam picked out scorch marks cut across the walls on the lower level, evidence of an Immortal beheading. They found large bloodstains near an escalator, but no sign of a corpse.

Gisele wrinkled her nose. "Quelle est cette odeur?"

Margaret had noticed the smell too, and had been trying not to breathe too deeply. She knew what the odor meant. As a girl scout back in Philadelphia, she'd once adopted an elderly woman in her neighborhood, helping her with light shopping and cleaning and companionship. Her final trip to the apartment had been after being away for a few days, and she'd found that same smell inside - the unmistakable stench of death.

"Let's go," Margaret said abruptly, afraid she might be sick. "I've seen enough."

She repeated herself in French. Without looking to see if Gisele understood, she turned toward the exit and found her way blocked by a large man who'd appeared out of nowhere.

"Ladies," he said, in a rather charming fashion. "Rushing off so soon?"

"Qui etes-vous?" Gisele asked sharply.

"Who am I?" he asked, flashing his teeth in a smile. "Who are you? This is private property. It's not open to the public."

Margaret lifted her chin defiantly. "We're lost. I thought we might find a phone in here."

"There are a dozen outside the entrance you came in," he answered. "Come now, you'll have to do better than that. Besides, you don't look like the type to carry swords - who are you?"

Margaret's Watcher instincts flared immediately - the stranger had to be mortal if he couldn't tell their status. But that he knew about Immortals in the first place - before she could think of a way to turn the questions on him, Gisele pulled at her to come away.

"Not so fast," the stranger said, and tried to grab a handful of Gisele's coat. The Frenchwoman struck out hard and fast with a karate blow to his sternum. He staggered backward, then lunged for her arm and tried to twist it up behind her back. Giselle slipped from his grasp with a sharp elbow to the side. He managed to grab her braided hair and gave it a powerful yank. Giselle's head snapped back. She drove out the palm of her hand, catching him flat in the middle of his face. The sharp crack of bone snapping rang through the air and he fell in a crumpled heap to the floor.

Margaret gaped at her in astonishment.

"I am always prepared for the worst," Gisele gasped in French.

She urged Margaret toward the exit. Margaret resisted. She'd seen a stairwell in the darkness behind the man and wanted to investigate. Instinct pulled at her strongly. She cautiously stepped around the limp body of the stranger.

"No." Gisele shook her head.

"Oui," Margaret insisted. Beside the stairwell was a large metal grate that looked scorched from the Quickening. The smell of death came most strongly from between its metal ribs. Margaret had no renewed interest in finding Richie's corpse, but she did want to know why the well-dressed, well-spoken stranger who knew about swords had chosen to hang out in an abandoned racetrack. She walked gingerly to the top of the stairwell and peered down into the darkness below. A small light shone brightly in a side room.

Her heart started to beat loudly and erratically. Margaret dried her wet palms on her slacks. She'd never wanted to be a secret agent, police officer or spy. She preferred her suspense in novels. She certainly hadn't left her family for this insane trip in order to slither around dark basements. But she descended the stairs anyway and stopped at the bottom to take in two sights - one gruesome, the other astonishing.

The gruesome one, a headless corpse, almost made her regret ever joining the Watchers in the first place.

But the astonishing one, the vision of Richie Ryan with his head still attached, temporarily wiped all regrets away.

***

Margaret did her best to ignore the awful corpse and focus, instead, on Richie Ryan.

"Mon Dieu," Gisele murmured from the doorway.

"You can say that again," Margaret whispered. The stench of the corpse beside Richie made her close her eyes for a minute to fight down the cold, sickly faintness washing through her body.

Gisele spoke several pointed sentences in French.

Margaret blinked and looked back down at Richie. She thought about the man lying unconscious one level up, the young Immortal's captor. She couldn't breathe properly, not with that rotting odor hanging like a curtain in front of her face. But she couldn't bring herself to move an inch, either.

Gisele took two steps forward. "Les Observateurs ne s'impliquent pas."

*Watchers don't get involved.*

Margaret didn't need any French Watcher to tell her that. She knew that according to regulations she should stand up and walk away. She was absolutely forbidden to pull that knife from his chest or otherwise get involved in Immortal affairs. That her very own boss had made it a habit of regularly interacting with his assignment - and several Watchers in Seacouver knew about Joe's transgressions - should have no bearing on her own actions.

Get up, walk away, leave Richie to fight his own battles, a little voice insisted in her head.

Margaret stood up. She nodded to Gisele without looking her in the eye. On shaky knees she followed the other woman up the stairs, past the unconscious man and out of the oppressive racetrack gloom into the littered parking lot. No stars broke through the city glow that reflected in the thin clouds overhead. Margaret knew she would regret leaving Richie until the very end of her days, but told herself that the Watcher oath had not been designed for her convenience or questioning.

Up until the minute she touched the handle of Gisele's passenger door, she thought she could keep her vows.

"I can't," she said, before she could censor herself. She looked directly at Gisele and said, in halting French, "If my son ever turned out to be Immortal, and a Watcher like me left him alone and helpless like that when she could have saved him - I'd kill her. I'd honestly kill her."

Gisele shook her head and told her again that helping Richie was against the rules.

"I have to," Margaret answered simply. "Rules or no rules."

She started back to the racetrack. Gisele got into her car and slammed the door. A moment later the engine cranked to life. Margaret refused to look back. Gisele drove away. Margaret's stomach turned into chunks of cold ice, and she fought the nearly overwhelming urge to run after the automobile, to cry out that she'd made a mistake -

"It can't be a mistake," she said to herself. She wondered, fleetingly, through her fear, if Joe Dawson had first stumbled from his vows in the very same fashion.

And she wondered how the hell she was going to survive in Paris with her suitcase and purse in the back seat of Gisele's car.

But before she could worry about that, she had to rescue Richie Ryan.

***

Methos told Connor all the facts and details he thought relevant, although he skimmed over his own role in the Four Horsemen. He couldn't risk Connor reacting like his clansman had - they had no time for raging moral or philosophical debates. When he had finished, Connor sat in perfect silence in the whitewashed stillness of Joe Dawson's hospital room.

Then he stood up and announced, "I'm going to find Duncan."

"No," Methos returned. "Duncan can wait. I need you to stay here and guard Joe while I look for Cassandra."

The Highlander raised his eyebrows. "You think I came to Paris to baby-sit? I'm sorry about Dawson, but I'm here because of Duncan. If what you say is true, and the witch of Donan Woods is doing something to his head, then I want to find him and get him somewhere safe."

"There is nowhere safe!" Methos said. "Connor, we don't even know if he's still alive. He asked me to kill him. When I refused, he walked away without his sword. Just how long do you think he'll last alone without the will to fight?"

"He'll last until I find him. I can't believe otherwise," Connor said. "I know where to look."

"The barge? Darius' church? Cassandra knows those places, too."

"Then I'd better hurry."

"Connor . . . " Methos growled in a low tone. Connor could be as infuriatingly stubborn as his clansman - a fact Methos had counted on, but which he still found irksome.

"I'll try to stay in touch. I hope your friend here gets better."

Connor left.

Methos went to Joe's bedside and watched the mortal sleep in a web of machinery and medication. "I'm sorry," he said, "but I have to leave you. If you were awake, you'd probably tell me to go ahead and not worry about it. MacLeod is a friend to both of us. But I don't know . . . I don't know if you'll be here when I get back."

Joe didn't stir.

"If you go on . . . " Methos found himself at a rare loss for words. He squeezed Joe's hand for a moment, taking no comfort from the coolness of his skin. "If you go on, Joseph, I hope you find whatever you believe in. You've been a good and noble friend."

He turned and left to follow Connor.

***

More afraid than she'd ever been in her entire life, Margaret crept back into the darkness of the racetrack. She knew she had to hurry - that man might wake up at any moment, might already be awake and waiting for her - but she wanted to be as quiet as possible, and each footstep sounded like thunder to her. She had only Gisele's flashlight to light the way, and she kept one hand cupped over the beam to limit its scope. When she peered around the wall to where they'd left the stranger she saw him flat on the ground, still unmoving.

All she had to do was creep by him, but her feet refused to move.

She thought of Richie, lying dead, but the image failed to motivate her. She thought of her favorite heroine in a series of novels by Diana Gabaldon. Claire Fraser would be brave. She'd slip by any number of bad guys to get to her beloved Jamie. But Richie was not Margaret's beloved, he was her assignment, and for a full moment she couldn't think of any good reason to risk her life, her family, and everything else she held dear for the Immortal in the basement.

Her father had been fond of an old Army saying that he'd brought back from World War II. Margaret had always thought it vulgar, and she'd never even repeated it in front of the children, but for the first time ever she found it useful.

*Okay, Margaret,* she said to herself firmly. *Shit or get off the pot.*

She stepped forward. Three steps, pause. Five steps - did he move? Her heart sounded like the giant throbbing drum of some African tribe celebrating in the bush. She skirted around him as much as possible, not even daring to breathe. His hand did not shoot out to grab her ankle, and he gave no indication whatsoever of regaining consciousness. She hurried past him and down the steps. The gruesome corpse of the slain Immortal did not bother her as much as it had earlier. Margaret crouched by Richie, wrapped both of her shaking hands around the knife in his chest, and pulled.

It moved, but just barely. She braced herself and tried again. It didn't exactly slide out, but she slowly managed to retract it through layers of muscle that held it as thickly and tightly as plywood. Once the bloody blade was fully exposed she flung the weapon to the ground. It landed with a dull clatter by Richie's hip.

"Wake up," she whispered, pinching his cheeks. "Come on, Richie. Recover."

She knew that it might take hours for him to come back to life, possibly even a full day. But then again, he'd once recuperated from a dive out of a ten-story building within minutes - she vividly remembered seeing his body hurl down through the night sky - and if he could do it once, he could do it again.

"Richie!" she said urgently. "Hurry up!"

No response. Margaret slumped back and sat on her heels. The basement's chill worked through her jacket and blouse down into her skin. She studied the way Richie was chained. She'd need the key to free him. With a shudder, she wondered if it was in the stranger's pocket. She couldn't imagine being brave enough to search him.

But no, there, in the corner, a dark gray dufflebag. Margaret went to it and hastily rummaged through the contents. A Thermos, the wrapped remains of a sandwich, a flashlight, a gun and an Eiffel Tower key chain. The gun made her pause. She'd held her father's old service revolver, but that had been plugged and made inoperable. The sleek, black weapon before her now looked very operable indeed. She switched her gaze to the small silver key dangling from the key ring. She inserted it in the lock on Richie's wrist manacles and nearly cried out with relief when the metal fell away.

Even after she removed the chains he remained curled in place, his muscles frozen in death. Margaret tried pinching his cheeks again, then slapped his face lightly. She had no idea if such measures worked on Immortals, but she had every reason to try.

"Richard Ryan, wake up this minute, or I promise we'll both be sorry," she said, in low and urgent tones, trying not to think how exactly like a mother that made her sound.

Richie gasped, his whole body convulsing for a brief second, his eyes shooting open, his expression nearly wild. He moaned, tightened into a ball, rolled spasmodically on the cold floor. He clutched both arms against his chest, obviously in pain. "Oh, shit," he muttered, over and over again, his voice hoarse. "Oh, I hate this part!"

Margaret fell back a few inches, unsure of what to do.

"Who are you?" he ground out, stilling himself, sweat gleaming on his forehead.

"I'm . . . Your Watcher."

She said it simply, aware once again of another oath falling by the wayside. Richie shot her a hard look - she knew that aside from his friendship with Joe, he held a scathingly low opinion of her organization. But she held his gaze, refusing to back away from her profession.

Richie pulled himself laboriously to his hands and knees. "Where are we?" he demanded, each word an effort.

"A racetrack. Do you remember what happened?"

Slowly he climbed to his feet. "Yeah, I remember," he said, swaying. "Where's the guy?"

"Upstairs. He might be back any minute. Can you walk?"

"As far as you can, lady," Richie answered firmly, although his color appeared shockingly pale in the lantern light. Between his ghastly complexion and blood-stiffened clothes, he looked like a lost extra from some cheap horror film. "Let's get out of here."

Margaret scooped up the dufflebag on her way to the door and fished for the gun. For a moment she considered keeping it for herself, but common sense ruled and she gave it to Richie. "This might come in handy."

"It might," he agreed grimly. He clicked off the safety and checked to see that it was loaded. "What's your name?"

"Margaret."

"Stick close, Margaret."

She would have stuck close anyway, without the admonition, if not for safety than to catch him if he keeled over. Margaret had seen severely intoxicated men stumble from her father's bar with more steadiness than Richie exhibited. His knuckles turned white as he clenched the stair railing for support, and she found herself leading rather than following.

"It's not much further," she coaxed. "Just a little way."

He may or may not have been listening to her - with his head bowed, she couldn't tell. But he made it up the stairs and to the first floor of the racetrack. The man hadn't moved on the floor. Richie used the toe of his boot to roll him over. He bent down and felt for a pulse.

"Dead," Richie said.

Margaret looked at the stranger's shattered nose and frozen expression. Surely Gisele hadn't meant to kill him - but her blow had struck too hard and accomplished too much. Before she could think anymore on the subject, she felt herself start to vomit. She turned away quickly, gulping in the stale, dusty air, trying to think pleasant thoughts. When she turned back, Richie had already started to search the dead man's pockets.

"Nothing," he said. "No wallet, no money. We've still got to get out of here fast - he wasn't working alone."

"Who else?" she asked.

He gave her an appraising look. "Cassandra," he finally said. "Know her?"

"Just things I've heard," Margaret admitted.

"You can tell me all about them later." Richie stood up, more steady than he'd been just a few minutes earlier. "Where's your car?"

Margaret couldn't help but look at the dead man again. "I don't have one. We'll have to walk."

"Do you have a cell phone?"

She shook her head. "But there are some outside."

The payphones outside the north entrance proved to be out of order, though. Richie hit and cursed at the last one they tried, and she automatically took a step backward. He seemed very much the angry young killer she'd seen in the months after Duncan's Dark Quickening, and nothing like the kindhearted adult she remembered fondly. Richie must have seen something in her expression, though, because he shook his head ruefully.

"Sorry. This hasn't really been my day." He leaned his head against the broken phone. "I'm starving."

"I think there's something in this bag - "

Richie shook his head. "Let's put some distance between us and this place first. Do you have any money for a cab?"

"No," she said glumly. "My wallet is in the backseat of someone else's car."

"And my wallet's disappeared. Well, that's what they made feet for, right?" he asked, without any trace of humor.

They walked across the parking lot toward the lights of a bridge. A light drizzle slanted out of the sky, dampening their clothes. Margaret smelled the oily Seine before she saw its rushing darkness. Richie found them a place under the bridge out of the rain, and only then did he accept the half-eaten sandwich from the bag. He tried to give her some.

"No," she lied, "I'm okay." In truth, her stomach had begun to ache with emptiness, but she thought he needed the food more. Richie sniffed at the contents of the Thermos, took a tentative swallow, and spit it out almost immediately.

"Really gross coffee," he said. He screwed the top back on and tossed the Thermos aside. "So, Margaret, are you going to tell me what happened, or are you bound up by some vow of secrecy or something?"

He couldn't have chosen worse words to reawaken the conflict in her chest. Margaret pulled her knees close and huddled into her jacket for warmth. "Why don't you tell *me* your version," she proposed reluctantly after a long moment. "I'll try to fill in the rest."

Sitting in the cold darkness under the bridge, they swapped stories. Richie volunteered what Michael Colbert had said about the Quickening and MacLeod. Margaret told Richie what Gisele had seen from the parking lot. She also told him about Joe Dawson's heart attack and how she'd flown over from the States to see him.

Richie shook his head vehemently. "A heart attack! I can't believe it. He's not old enough to have a heart attack."

"Even young people can have heart attacks," she answered. "I'm sorry. I know he's your friend. He's mine, too."

Richie shook his head again, his expression troubled. He looked off at something she couldn't see. A stale breeze kicked up from the river, rattling some paper trash and plastic wrappers littering the ground. Margaret had always dreamed of Paris, of seeing the Eiffel Tower and Louvre museum, but never once had she imagined herself sitting cold, hungry and exhausted at midnight beneath an old bridge in the middle of nowhere.

Finally she said, "There's something else you should know. Connor MacLeod arrived here on the same plane I did."

"Connor? That's good. Maybe he can help sort out this whole mess." The young Immortal abruptly stood. "Thanks for all your help. I probably owe you my life. If I see you around, I'll pretend not to know you . . . Watcher rules and all."

"Wait a minute!" Margaret scrambled to block his way. "Where are you going?"

"Find Mac. Find Connor. Find out who's messing with us. I also want to see Joe."

"But everyone thinks you're dead. And Cassandra is still out there. It's probably not safe for you to go back to any place she might be watching - the barge, your apartment, Joe's hospital room - "

"I'm not going to go hide somewhere until this all passes over!" Richie retorted. "Mac already tried to get me to leave town once."

Margaret swallowed on a small, cold lump of pride. "Richie, I don't have my wallet, passport, credit cards or any cash. Everything I brought with me, including my phone book, is in the back of Gisele's car. My family thinks I'm in New York. I don't . . . I don't have anywhere to go."

He hesitated. "Don't the Watchers take care of their own?"

"What do you mean?"

"If we get you to a phone, then you could call someone, right? They'd come get you?"

"I suppose so," she admitted.

"Then we'll get you to a phone. Come on."

Richie set off along the riverbank at a brisk pace. Margaret struggled to catch up. "But where are we going?"

"Mac's barge. It's about a mile from here."

"But Richie, she might be watching - "

"She'll be looking for me, not you," Richie said. "And Mac might be there - I can at least let him know I'm not dead. If he's not, maybe there will be some clue about where to look for him."

Unable to come up with a convincing argument or alternate plan, Margaret followed his lead.

***

Connor walked the streets of Paris, accompanied by legions of ghosts. Although he wanted to be focused - no, *needed* to be focused - he found it impossible to rein in the thoughts freewheeling through his mind. Duncan killing Richie. Cassandra, the witch who'd haunted the woods, now terrorizing Duncan with visions of evil. Methos, who may have told him part of the truth, but in his own way had probably not told him all of it. Paris, the old jeweled city, stretched around him for miles, every darkened corner full of malice, every holy acre a potential hiding spot for Duncan.

Methos had suggested two likely places where the younger Highlander might have sought refuge, but Connor had his doubts about both. The barge would be too full of heart-wrenching reminders of Richie. Likewise, Darius' church would only stir up horrific images of the priest's murder. Still, Connor found it impossible to detour around St. Joseph's, and reached the corner across from the church just as its bells struck the hour of midnight.

The peals resounded against ancient stones and bounced along the cobbled tiles of the street before fading in the stillness of the medieval town. Connor blinked - cobble? medieval? - and rubbed at his eyes. The lines of stones resolved into shadows on asphalt, and he shook off the odd weariness that made him think that for a moment he'd been transported back in time. He glanced up at the church's roof, remembering a time when he, Methos and Darius had sat out on the eaves with a bottle of wine and spoken of life and women. That time seemed like a faded page in an old book he'd put away, yet it was only fifty two years in the past.

Connor turned and headed south, toward the river. Duncan tended to withdraw after the deaths of loved ones, pulling away from all of civilization to grieve in privacy, punishing the world for causing him heartbreak and punishing himself for allowing it. Connor knew that path and had walked it more than once himself, though he'd decided it really didn't help much. Duncan might still be in the city, stunned by his own actions, and if so, Connor had a small chance of finding him. If he'd already left, though, if he'd gone trekking off to the mountains or desert or somewhere equally remote, then Connor might end up searching for centuries.

Well, he didn't really have anything better to do anyway.

The small chapel he walked toward had, a hundred years earlier, been part of a larger church in a prosperous neighborhood. Now it stood alone in one of the worst neighborhoods of Paris, at the end of one of the city's darkest and loneliest alleys. Connor passed huddles of vagrants, a few tired prostitutes, two or three drug addicts with wild eyes and a sour stink on their clothes. He shied away from a row of garish neon lights and went through a maze of tiny streets with the same unerring sense of direction that had always guided him in the past. He felt another Immortal before he reached the barred doors and filthy steps of the tiny stone building. A hatch no bigger than a loaf of bread swung open and a small, oval-shaped face peeked out at him.

"It's me," Connor said, in Turkish. "Connor."

The face disappeared as the wood clicked shut. After a moment, the door swung open on silent hinges. A nun in the traditional habit of the 1920's unlocked the gate. She looked about fifty years old, and her gray hair hung in a coiled braid down her back. Her head came no higher than Connor's breastbone.

"Hello, Melena," he said, embracing her tiny figure. "Is he here?"

She nodded.

Connor followed her inside the gloomy and cold chapel. The only light came from a half-dozen thick, yellowed candles in tarnished holders. He knew the place well. The walls and ceilings had been painted by masters, even though their vibrant colors now lay muted under layers of soot and age. Fine details spilled from one majestic panel to the next, each scene a mystery that explored the glory of God. The small solid gold crucifix hanging above the altar looked unimpressive, but it had seen the coronations of kings. The chapel only had room for a dozen pews, each at least a hundred years old, and Connor found Duncan curled up and sleeping on the first one like a child who'd run away from home.

"Did he tell you?" Connor asked Melena.

She nodded. Her hands fluttered like tiny birds before she quieted them. Connor and Duncan had both tried to teach her sign language over the centuries, but she'd refused. Perhaps she felt no auxiliary system of communication could replace the tongue the Greeks had cut out of her pre-Immortal mouth. Giving Connor a little nod, she stepped away behind the altar with near perfect silence and grace, leaving him to his task in private.

Connor took a deep breath and put one hand on Duncan's shoulder, prepared to fight if his clansman woke up violent or confused or, as Methos claimed, beset by insanity.

Duncan's eyes opened, but the rest of him remained perfectly still.

"Connor," he said thickly. He sounded confused and lost. His expression looked hollow, and dark circles of exhaustion ringed his eyes. "Is it you?"

"Yes, it's me," Connor said.

"Are you real?"

"As real as anyone else."

"Good. You can take my head . . . "

Duncan's eyes started to slip closed again. Connor shook him until he opened them again.

"I'd sooner cut my own heart out than cut off your head," the older Highlander said roughly, deliberately shading the words with the harsh, beloved accent of their ancestors. "Pull yourself together. There's work to be done."

Duncan shook his head wearily. "You don't know what's happened."

"Of course I know. What do you think, that I magically appeared here in Paris? Methos told me. Now get up before I drag you up. Stop whining like a child."

Genuine hurt broke through Duncan's lost expression - a hurt so deep and fierce it nearly made Connor flinch. But it disappeared almost instantly, sublimated under a layer of hopelessness.

"You don't understand - "

"Of course I understand." Connor grabbed Duncan by the scruff of his coat and hauled him upright on the bench. Surprised, maybe a bit angered, Duncan slapped his hand away and retreated against the hard wood, shaking his head.

"You don't know what I did - "

"You killed Richie."

Duncan bent over slightly, as if Connor had punched him in the stomach. His shallow breathing grew faster. "Yes."

"Did you mean to?"

"No! Of course not - I thought he was someone - no, *something* - else. But it doesn't matter. I'm the one who did it - my stroke. My sword."

Connor grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him slightly. "You didn't mean to do it. Hold on to that, if you can't hold on to anything else. Don't blame yourself for making a mistake."

Duncan broke free and shot upright to his feet. "A mistake?" he cried out. "Is that all I did? Made a mistake?" He paced in front of the altar, anger spilling out of him like rushing water broken free from a dam. "A mistake, like forgetting to pay the electric bill? Like sending someone a birthday card instead of a Christmas card? Like feeding dog food to the cat? Some little *error* in judgment, some little quirk to laugh about later?"

"No one's laughing, Duncan - "

"I chopped off his head!" Duncan yelled, bringing himself to an abrupt stop, his arms open wide. The anguished words echoed against the ancient stones. Duncan's voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. "Don't you see? There's nothing I can ever do . . . to fix that. To bring Richie back."

"No," Connor agreed, from where he sat on the bench. "But you can avenge him."

Duncan snorted humorlessly. "Seek vengeance against myself?"

"No. Against the force that drove you to such confusion. Against whatever made you think Richie was your enemy."

Duncan stared at him silently, his eyes filling with tears. He turned to the altar before they could spill down his face. His coat hung larger on him than Connor remembered, and his shoulders had slumped beneath an enormous unseen weight.

"I killed my own student," he said, his voice barely audible.

Connor rose and went to him. He put his hand gently on Duncan's shoulder. "Either you did deliberately, or you did it by mistake. I'll never believe you did it deliberately. As for the mistake - nothing will bring Richie back. When the time is right, we'll mourn him properly. But for now, you've got to move forward and keep it from happening to anyone else."

The younger Immortal didn't answer. Connor turned him so that they stood face-to-face. Duncan's tears fell freely and silently, and his whole body trembled. Connor held him tightly, overcoming Duncan's stiffness and resistance until he accepted the comfort and strength.

"I know," Connor said. "I'll miss him too."

"You didn't love him . . . "

"Not like you did. But he was my family, too."

They stood there, holding tight, as Melena moved around the edges of her chapel and extinguished all but the last remaining candle.

***

"That's it," Richie said, shivering in strong winds off the river. He gestured toward the long, dark hulk anchored against the choppy water. "Mac's barge. Here, take my key."

"Are you sure this is wise?"

"Five minutes," Richie said. "You go in, you make a few phone calls, you come out. I'll keep watch from out here. Grab some rolls or cookies or something on your way out, okay? I'm starving. And if you see a sword, grab that too."

Margaret knew that if she ever grabbed a sword, she'd probably cut all of her fingers off by accident. She pulled Gisele's flashlight from her pocket and gripped it tightly. If she got to keep just one souvenir of this insane trip to France, it would probably be that tiny four inches of black plastic. "I feel like I'm breaking and entering," she complained.

"I've done that - this is nothing like that - now will you please go?" Richie said, nudging her forward.

Margaret walked toward the barge with as much of a reasonable, steady pace as she could manage. She wondered if it might be wiser to sprint toward the vessel - or, better yet, race off in some completely different direction. When she found Gisele again, she intended to strangle her. Margaret closed the distance between herself and the barge and made her way cautiously up the gangplank. Only when she inserted Richie's key in the lock did she stop to consider the strangeness of standing outside Duncan MacLeod's French home. He, Tessa Noel and Richie Ryan had shared this home for a winter and spring before returning to Seacouver and being struck down by tragedy.

Could Richie really know Duncan wasn't home? What if they'd been too far to sense him? The last thing Margaret wanted was to walk in on the grieving Scotsman. Richie seemed convinced there wasn't another of his kind in close proximity, though, and she'd have to trust his judgment. Not that she really had much of a choice - she did need to use the phone. Hopefully the Highlander wouldn't mind extra long distance calls on his monthly bill. She would call Jack, who could have his service disconnected to prevent MacLeod from ever tracing it back.

But she couldn't call home, the one thing she wanted to do more than anything else. She'd promised to call when she got settled in "New York" and was hours overdue. Bill and the kids would be frantic.

*You'll think of some new lie,* she reassured herself. *They'll never know you flew all the way to Paris.*

She turned the lock and doorknob and stepped inside. Cold air wafted up from the dark interior. Using her flashlight, Margaret picked her way down a short flight of steps. A lavatory and small galley stood to her left. She stepped down again into the living room and found a sleek black phone on a coffee table. She snatched it up and dialed Jack with a shaking finger.

While it rang in the States, she couldn't help but examine more of the interior of the barge. The only Watcher who'd ever been on it before was Joe. It looked stark and masculine, cold, utilitarian. If she'd lived there, she'd have to redo all the colors and decorations. Maybe add some plants.

"Greetings," Jack's voice said in her ear. "You have reached the voicemail and pager of - "

Margaret groaned. She didn't want to page Jack. If any of her reckless decisions should lead to a Watcher investigation, the last thing she wanted was Duncan MacLeod's phone number on Jack's phone account. She hung up and, reverting to a very old nervous habit, began to chew on the end of her fingernail. She would have to Lambert Industries directly. Gisele might not like what she was doing, but surely she wouldn't refuse to return Margaret's passport, wallet and belongings.

She had just started to dial when the lamp in the corner switched on. Margaret whirled and dropped the receiver at the sight of Connor and Duncan MacLeod, the two Highlanders, standing not ten feet behind her. They looked tall and strong and deadly, with almost a thousand years of killing experience between them.

"Well, if it isn't the woman from the plane," Connor said. "A little lost, are you?"

***

The rules of Immortality seemed simple to the very young. The Game, the Gathering, the injunction against Holy Ground. The odd, shivery feeling that accompanied the presence of their kind, a built-in warning system. Methos often saw new Immortals embrace such rules as clean, hard absolutes, never thinking to dig at their crumbly edges until a few shades of gray flaked away. For instance, it wasn't against the rules to fight on Holy Ground, only to kill. And although the so-called "Buzz" did alert other Immortals, it was still possible to follow someone without tripping that sense of awareness.

It had taken him a few decades to hone his skill at it. He couldn't dampen his Buzz, but he could follow someone at a distance and keep them from being aware of it. The technique involved extreme caution and an internal awareness of the faint stage preceding the alarm - a dip in his own body temperature. If he felt that, he knew he had just seconds to fall back before both he and his quarry felt the full effect.

The trick wasn't a secret - any Immortal could learn it, given enough patience and practice. The man who'd started trailing Connor when he left the hospital did it well enough. Methos did it better. The three of them proceeded through Paris, an odd nocturnal parade of Immortals stringing around corners and trailing in shadows. Methos couldn't tell who it was following Connor, only that he seemed of medium height and weight and wore a short brown leather coat.

Cassandra had somehow engineered the tragedy at the racetrack, even if Methos still wasn't sure exactly how. She had tricked Duncan into killing Richie and probably even followed Duncan into the night, to kill him or capture him for her own nefarious purposes. Connor's quest to find his clansman might already be doomed to failure. But just like Joe, Duncan unfortunately rated as a secondary consideration. Finding some trail back to Cassandra was the most important thing.

Lost in contemplation, Methos almost edged too close to his quarry. He stepped back at the last moment. Connor had led them to Darius' church, an obvious first choice, but he hadn't gone inside. The Highlander then walked to a decrepit old church in the red-light district. He emerged from its old stone depths some time later with Duncan in tow - a surprise to Methos, but then again, he should never have underestimated Connor MacLeod.

The two Highlanders went back to Duncan's barge. Methos caught a brief glimpse of the Immortal following them. With no great surprise he recognized the young-looking Arab one who'd been with Cassandra outside Joe's flat. The strange Immortal adroitly slipped into shadows by the bridge. Paris lay dark and quiet all around them, the city gone to sleep at last, the wind cold and sour off the Seine. Methos moved to take up position further down the riverfront and ran straight into the preliminary sensation of yet another Immortal hiding in the darkness of an underpass. Just how many Immortals were there in the area, anyway? Enough to start a mini-Gathering, perhaps.

Stumped for a suitable hiding place, uncomfortably caught near a wide expanse of sidewalk, Methos started to retrace his course back through the park he'd crossed just moments earlier. He'd gone no further than three steps when a violent shiver seized him head-to-toe as surely as if he'd dropped into a vat of icewater. He instinctively reached for the comforting hilt of his sword as he whirled, determined to face the cause of such coldness.

Alexa smiled at him, her face soft in the moonlight, her eyes black as night. She wore a mere slip of a dress, and he could see the sweet outlines of her breasts.

"Adam," she said, her voice tinkling like a distant buoy across the ocean. "I've been looking for you."

***

Richie watched Margaret climb onto the barge. He wished he could follow her, climb into Duncan's big old bed, and just go to sleep for a few days. Weariness tugged at every corner of his brain, weighing down his limbs and making it hard to even stand straight. His stomach growled like an angry caged animal.

"Come on, come on, come on," Richie muttered under his breath. Little puffs of frost followed each syllable. He should have told Margaret to grab some of the petty cash Duncan always kept in a cookie jar in the galley. With luck, once he'd sent his Watcher on her way, he could find an all-night cafe or bistro. After that, he had no idea. All plans for the future stopped at the dream of two hot roast beef sandwiches and a giant chocolate milkshake.

Figures appeared in his peripheral vision. He turned and squinted. Two men walked out of the park and headed toward the barge. Connor and Duncan. He could barely make out their features, and the distance between them was too far to trigger the buzz of recognition. He almost stepped forward, almost called their names, but a sudden dark thrill of fear held him back. He tried to shake it off - what in the world did he have to fear from Connor or Duncan? - but instead the dread grew worse, an icy turmoil of panic.

"Richie," someone called behind him - a woman, her voice furtive and frightened. "Come here. I need your help."

He whirled in shock. He knew that voice. He carried it with him always, in pleasant memories of the antique store and awful nightmares about a dark street, a mugger, gunshots.

"Tessa!" he said, even though he knew the woman behind him was not and could never be Tessa Noel. She was dead, forever gone, ripped from his and Mac's life with stunning finality. Icy shivers raised ripples of goosebumps under his shirt and he took a step backward at the sight before him.

"No," he whispered, shaking his head. "You're not real - "

Something hard slammed into the back of his skull, sending him spinning down a tunnel of blackness away from Tessa's blurring image.

***

"Oh," Margaret said in surprise, unable to articulate anything more. Her brain went absolutely blank. Watcher training had done little to prepare her for being caught in an Immortal's home. Being caught in Duncan MacLeod's home to be more exact, by MacLeod and his clansman Connor. Her mouth went dry and her hands began to shake. She clasped them together tightly, and tried to think of a reasonable defense. Nothing came to her.

"Who are you?" Duncan asked, sounding tired but angry. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm sorry," she blurted out. The next words tumbled out faster than she intended. "I had to use the phone - Richie gave me his key - "

Duncan's face tightened. "That's a lie."

Connor lifted his chin, appraising her with cold ruthlessness. "You'll have to do better than that. Richie is dead."

"But he's not - I'm his Watcher - he was at the racetrack and he's outside now - I know this looks bad but I swear it's true - "

She babbled like an idiot, unable to stop herself. "It was a trick by Cassandra! It's all some kind of trick."

For a moment the two men stared at her with no trace of belief or mercy. Margaret had visions of her own body floating in the Seine. Not that she truly believed either MacLeod enjoyed killing mortals, but it wouldn't be the first time an Immortal killed a Watcher. She wished she could have said goodbye to Bill. To her children.

"How do you know about Cassandra?" Connor asked. "Tell the truth."

"Richie told me! I'm sorry, I know you think he's dead, but he's outside - he said he'd keep watch - "

Duncan turned abruptly away. For a moment she thought she'd upset him beyond the capacity to speak or even look at her, but then she realized his attention had swerved to the bedroom area.

"No," he said, as if speaking to someone she couldn't see. "I don't believe you."

Connor turned. "Who are you talking to?" he asked Duncan.

"Don't you see him? Horton." Duncan abruptly lunged toward a hanging display of swords on the bulkhead and ripped down a rapier. He yelled, "I won't let you trick me again!"

Connor saw nothing to inspire Duncan's attack. Part of him urged him to try and talk Duncan out of the hallucination, but a more pragmatic side seized hold of Margaret's hand and pulled her toward the hatch. "Leave here now," he said. "Stay away from us and out of this affair."

"But Richie - " she protested.

Connor hesitated. He didn't know what game she was playing, but Richie was dead - wasn't he? He heard Duncan give a battle-cry and watched his kinsman violently attack a post. The madness that must have gripped him at the racetrack had started all over again. Connor pushed Margaret out the hatch and up into the cool brisk air of night, following at her footsteps. "Leave!" he commanded sharply, even as the thrill of another Immortal's presence sang out clearly and forcefully in his body and jerked his attention to the waterfront.

He saw Methos walking calmly and slowly from the dark part of the riverfront toward the low stone wall overlooking the Seine. He seemed oblivious to the presence of a black van only a dozen yards away from him. Two men were loading a limp body into the side of it. A third man, an Immortal, stood by the van's front door. A tall streetlamp clearly illuminated the scene. Connor's stomach dropped as he caught sight of familiar features and short blond hair on the one being dumped into the vehicle.

"That's Richie!" Margaret exclaimed in dismay.

Methos walked calmly and purposefully to the wall, pitched over its side, and landed with a splash in the river.

"Stay here," Connor ordered, and tore from the barge's deck with sword in hand. Events had rapidly spun away from him, but despite Duncan's hallucinations and Methos' unusual swim, he knew he should first see to the cause of rescuing Richie from that van. As Connor left the gangplank, the Immortal standing by the van door raised his right hand and locked gazes with him.

All sense of purpose fled Connor's body. All ideas of rescue disappeared. A strange, empowering calm took hold of his senses, freeing him from urgency and adrenaline. A peace unlike any he'd ever known washed through him, and he smiled.

"Come with me," the man said, without moving his lips.

Connor climbed obediently into the back of the van.

***

Alexa smiled at him. The sunlight on the beach gave her face a healthy glow, and the fragrant breeze hinting at salt and jasmine ruffled her hair. Her dress had become a demure bathing suit that camouflaged how skinny and wasted she'd become in the final weeks of her disease. She held out her hand and urged him to join her in the water.

"It's so lovely here," she said. "Thank you for bringing me. Come, let's swim."

Methos resisted for only a few seconds. He knew that she was not real. He knew that the Seine riverfront near Notre Dame had not turned into a beautiful Mediterranean beach. He knew the dead never rose again. But he wanted to believe otherwise in all three instances.

He went to her slowly, took her warm hand in his.

She smiled. "Isn't it a gorgeous day?"

"Yes," Methos agreed, his heart filled with an old grief. She had died too young. He'd gone to epic lengths to save her, all in vain. Love had always been the cruelest joy of Immortality.

"I'm so glad to see you," Alexa whispered, and put her head against his shoulder.

He looked down fondly and saw no hair, no skin, only a bleached and pockmarked skull.

***

A giant ocean wave rolled over him, drenching Methos with its cold and oily sheen. He instinctively kicked upward, coughing on a chestful of water, and in bewilderment broke to the surface sputtering out an awful taste. The Seine swirled around him, MacLeod's barge only a few yards away, the golden light of Notre Dame furthur up the river. A woman leaned over the stone wall above him.

"Adam?" She called down. "Adam Pierson?"

Methos kicked towards the ladder embedded into the river's wall and grabbed hold of a rusting rung. "What the hell?" he complained, and remembered Alexa, the beach, grief. After regaining his breath he climbed the rungs laboriously. The woman helped him over the side.

"Who are you?" he asked, as water dripped out of his soaked clothes.

"Margaret Allen," she said. "We've met, remember? At Joe's?"

A Watcher. Just what he needed. Methos yanked his coat off and let it fall in a sodden heap to the sidewalk. "What's going on?"

"You walked into the river," she said hesitantly. "The men in a van took Richie and Connor. Duncan is on the barge, attacking something."

She was obviously crazy. Methos pulled off his shoes next, and peeled away two ruined, mismatched socks. Embarrassment at having fallen for Cassandra's tricks made his cheeks burn. "Nonsense," he snapped. "Richie's dead. I saw the aftereffects of the Quickening myself."

"Nevertheless," Margaret answered, sounding somewhat brittle, "he's alive. But they took him. And Connor."

He spared her a close look. She appeared sincere enough, and maybe not crazy after all. Methos barely remembered meeting her back in the U.S., but Joe had spoken well of her and she'd done a reasonably good job of following Richie around. How she'd gotten to Paris was another story, and one in which he had no particular interest yet.

"You said MacLeod is attacking something?"

She nodded, and he realized how exhausted she looked. Exhausted and scared.

"Well, let's see if he's finished," Methos proposed, starting toward the gangplank. He had no particular desire to be MacLeod's next target but hoped Cassandra had finished with her shenanigans for the night. He approached carefully, Margaret a few feet behind. He sensed another Immortal, but none greeted him at the hatch. Methos went below deck and found the vessel full of torn pillows and sheets, ripped furniture, wrecked paintings. Someone had slashed through them all, and the likeliest candidate sat on the deck in the middle of a pile of down feathers.

"Methos," Duncan said, his voice heavy with grief. "Horton. He was here. Oh, god, I'm insane."

Duncan covered his face with his hands and began to weep silently.

Methos would have preferred it if the Highlander hadn't just given away his identity to a Watcher. In retrospect, he should have just left her outside. But he was tired, too, and allowed a few mistakes. He glanced at Margaret, who was busy surveying the wrecked inside of the barge and seemed to have entirely missed Duncan's comment. Well, he'd just have to worry about it later.

"I think what's best," Methos said, gingerly stepping through the wreckage and removing a fallen rapier from Duncan's side, "is if someone made some tea. Margaret, do you think you could do that?"

She stared at him blankly. "Tea?"

"Tea," Methos confirmed, and directed her to the galley. He took an afghan that had survived in two big pieces and draped them over the Highlander's shoulders, but didn't try to console him just yet. Methos retired to a corner of the bedroom and quickly, efficiently stripped out of his soaked clothes. In a drawer he found a pair of jeans too narrow to be MacLeod's. Richie's, probably. Methos donned them and slipped on a borrowed shirt as well. Only then did he go and urge Duncan to get off the floor and take a seat on the sofa.

"I don't know what's real and what's not anymore," Duncan said, his eyes downcast, his face shockingly pale. "Was Connor here? I remember he came to the church . . . "

"Yes," Methos said, feeling an unexpected stab of pity for the Highlander. "Connor was here. He's not at the moment, though. What did Horton say to you?"

"Threats. Gloating. Saying I killed Richie - and Connor, too. Did I?"

"No, you didn't."

"You're sure?"

"Positive." Methos didn't mention that Connor might be dead anyway.

Margaret appeared with the promised tea and a plate of sandwiches as well. "I apologize for just helping myself, but I'm starving. It's been a long night."

"Yes," Methos agreed. "It has."

He reached for a sandwich himself, surprised at the hollow emptiness in his stomach. How long had it been since he'd eaten? Methos vaguely recalled a ham and cheese croissant Connor had brought from the airport. Duncan made no move to touch his tea or the food but instead sat locked in his own private misery.

"The demon," he muttered. "It's everywhere I turn."

Methos said, "There are no such things. It's Cassandra who's been doing all this."

"Richie did say she was involved," Margaret volunteered. When both Immortals gave her sharp looks she said, "I swear I'm not lying! He was being held prisoner at the racetrack. He said he'd been kidnapped, that Cassandra had arranged for some other Immortal to lose his head."

Methos hesitated. He had seen Richie's corpse himself - but it had disappeared upon his return to the concourse. He had seen the aftereffects of a Quickening - but it could have been anyone's. He hadn't felt Richie's presence after Duncan's abrupt departure, but if the younger Immortal had been dead at the time, he wouldn't have.

Duncan shook his head. "Richie's dead. And you'll never make me believe Cassandra is behind all this."

Methos turned his attention back to the Highlander. "Why?" he challenged. "Are you telling me it's easier for you to believe in a demon than in a spurned woman? You remember Kristin, don't you? Or any of the dozens of other women who've turned against you in the past?"

Duncan's gaze lifted and locked on Methos with the slightest flicker of hope. "But how . . . "

"She has the power to influence minds," Methos reminded him. "That includes you, Landry, his granddaughter, Richie, anyone. Although, I'm surprised at exactly how much power she seems to have - more than ever before."

To be truthful, he was mostly surprised at the power she had over *him.* Even knowing Alexa had been unreal, he'd followed her image into the river. Cassandra's mental persuasion had never worked before on him, neither in the wild and ancients days of the Four Horsemen nor in the dark days of Bordeaux.

"Maybe she has help," Margaret volunteered. "Someone who can also do what she does. There was an Immortal in Seacouver who could create visions - his name was John Garrick."

"Roland Kantos," Duncan said. "Cassandra's old student. He could, too."

"They're both dead," Methos reminded him. "You took their heads, right?"

Duncan nodded. His chest deflated and he looked down again in obvious despair. That had not been Methos' intention - if anything, he theorized that perhaps by taking their heads Duncan had absorbed some of their ability - but that direction of speculation could wait.

"Just because they're dead doesn't mean there aren't more," Margaret said. She hesitated before asking in a tremulous voice, "May I ask why she hates you, Mr. MacLeod?"

"It's an old story," Methos said, unwilling to admit that Cassandra hated more him than she hated Duncan, hated him more than anyone on the entire planet. He decided that enough was enough - he had no intentions of putting another mortal life at stake in Cassandra's game, and although Margaret seemed intelligent and reliable, he really knew nothing about her. He stood up and said, "It's very late. We appreciate all your help, truly we do, but let me call you a taxi to send you to your hotel. Where are you staying?"

Margaret's cheeks turned pink. "I'm not staying anywhere. When I went to the racetrack, the Watcher with me - Richie's Paris Watcher - took off with my wallet, passport and suitcases. She didn't approve of my getting involved. I don't have anywhere to go."

"I see." Methos should have known better than to assume he could just pack her off into the night. Nothing in his life was simple. "Well, I know a small place near Les Invalides that always has a spare room, and the owner is a friend of mine. You can stay there. I'll loan you the money until you get your things back."

"Thank you. I appreciate it."

With several hundred soggy francs in hand, Methos called first a taxi company and then his old friend Isaac. They'd been friends since the fourteenth century, although he didn't mention that to Margaret. When the lights of a car appeared on the waterfront outside he started to walk Margaret out. She stopped at the door, clearly mustering her courage.

"I'd like to help you look for Richie and Connor," she said. "I may not know Paris, but there must be some way - "

"Richie's dead," Duncan said from the sofa. "What you saw was another trick. A hallucination."

Margaret opened her mouth but Methos put his hand on her arm, silently dissuading her from argument. Duncan's refusal to consider that Richie might be alive was probably one of the last defense mechanisms left to him. If he believed her, and Richie did turn out to be nothing more than a vision, the Highlander would be further crushed. Better not to get his hopes up in the first place.

"It's too dangerous for you to help any further," Methos told Margaret. "Look what happened to Joe."

"What happened to Joe?" Duncan demanded.

Methos sighed. "I'm sorry. He's had a heart attack. He's in the hospital."

Duncan looked stricken at the news. Methos wished he'd kept his mouth shut. The night just kept getting worse and worse. He walked Margaret to the taxi. She didn't say anything until he opened the car door, then blurted out, "Adam, are you sure you can trust MacLeod? From everything you've said, it sounds like she can control him. She can control you, too."

"I know." Methos said. "We'll have to do the best we can."

She asked the question he'd been dreading. "Why did MacLeod call you Methos earlier? Isn't that the name of the legendary Immortal, the one who's lived the longest?"

"It is," Methos acknowledged. "MacLeod tangled with him in the past. He must have been hallucinating about him as well as Horton."

Margaret nodded, apparently accepting his explanation. "Adam, do you believe me about Richie? Do you believe he's alive?"

Methos hesitated. "I don't know. For MacLeod's sake, I hope it's true."

Margaret slid into the back seat. Methos double-checked with the driver that he had the right address and watched the Peugeot drive away. It occurred to him that she had just taken the last of his money. He made a mental note to stop by an automated bank machine sometime in between fighting hallucinations, tracking down Cassandra and saving Connor. Methos scanned the dark night, uncomfortably aware that he'd left Duncan and his sword alone inside the barge. Maybe not such a good idea, that, given Duncan's latest activities.

He returned to the light and warmth inside and found Duncan sitting in the armchair. He'd poured himself a glass of Scotch. Methos found a beer for himself and sat down, exhausted and drained. He had no idea of where to look for Cassandra. No theory of how to stop her. And all too many bad ideas about the fate of Connor MacLeod. The temptation to flee the entire mess came back to him, the pattern of centuries past.

"How do I know it's you sitting there?" Duncan asked. His free hand curled into a fist, then flattened against his thigh. Piercing brown eyes pinned Methos to the cushions. "How do I know you're not just another hallucination like Allison or Kronos?"

"You saw Kronos?"

"Yes. Here in the barge. In full battle paint."

A cold finger poked Methos squarely between the shoulderblades. "In real life, you never saw Kronos in battle paint."

Duncan's eyebrows lifted. "You're right," he murmured.

"There's your answer, then," Methos said, pleased with himself for solving at least a small part of the puzzle. "Cassandra is not above making mistakes. If you see something that doesn't quite fit - if I were sitting here drinking a Diet Pepsi, for instance - then you can suspect something amiss."

Duncan's gaze darkened. "Now's not the time for jokes, Methos."

The ancient Immortal sobered. "No, it's not. But we've both got to pay very close attention to what's going on if we have any hope at all of defeating her. If you see something that doesn't make sense, it's probably Cassandra's doing. Likewise with anyone you know is dead - they don't roam the earth like zombies, MacLeod. They don't rise and talk to us."

"No," Duncan agreed softly. "But sometimes they haunt us anyway."

Now *that* sounded like the old, melancholy Duncan MacLeod that Methos knew so well. With a silent toast to the memory of his own loved ones who'd died, Methos sat back on the sofa and drained the rest of his beer in silence.

***

A face stared at him. Young, smooth, with color and features indicative of an Arab background, such dark and fathomless eyes - Connor couldn't help but stare back. But the eyes grew so large and forceful that he had to blink. When his vision refocused, he found himself in a bright, dank, windowless stone room, literally hanging from his wrists. Manacles over a thick overhead beam kept him suspended. Connor's bare feet flailed for purchase and found the floor. He stood stripped of his coat, sword and boots. Two fair-haired mortal thugs appeared in the doorway, dragging an unconscious Richie in by his heels. Behind them walked a dark- haired, leather-clad woman that Connor immediately assumed was Cassandra, and at her heels came a young-looking Immortal with the Arab features Connor so vividly remembered.

"You're back with us," Cassandra said, a tiny smirk on her face. "Enjoy the ride?"

Connor had no memory of a ride or journey of any kind. He remembered being on the riverfront, but nothing after that except for some odd dream about the youth on the other side of the room. He didn't know exactly what to make of that.

"You're the witch," Connor said. "The Witch of Donan Woods. Duncan's ex-girlfriend."

The smirk disappeared, replaced by an icy aloofness. "Your clansman means nothing to me, Connor MacLeod."

"I don't believe that." Connor allowed himself a long look at Richie. "What does the boy have to do with any of this? Haven't you had your fun with him yet?"

Cassandra's smile returned. "On the contrary. My fun with him is just beginning."

She lined the tip of her black leather boot with Richie's side and gave him a short, swift kick. Richie jerked and groggily opened his eyes. Connor could see him peering up at Cassandra, trying to keep fear from his expression but not entirely succeeding.

"Join us, Richard," she said. "We've been waiting for you."

Richie's gaze slipped to where Connor stood chained to the overhead pipe. Connor tried to look encouraging, but in his own hopeless position he didn't have much confidence to project. Cassandra motioned to one of her men, who dragged Richie to his feet. His jacket and shoes had also been removed.

"Who was the woman with you?" Cassandra asked. "The mortal."

"My mother," Richie answered defiantly. "We were shopping for a Mother's Day gift."

Cassandra nodded almost imperceptibly to the man behind Richie. With a swift, fluid movement he drove a short knife into the young Immortal's back, severing his spinal cord. Connor tried to leap forward to help, but the unyielding irons kept him in place. Richie sagged immediately back down to the floor with a startled grunt and landed on his side. Cassandra crouched in her skin-tight leather pants and shirt and cupped his face between her sharp red fingernails.

"Not a good answer. Now, would you like to try again, or should we just puncture your body in every single way conceivable?" she asked.

Richie's mouth worked soundlessly for a moment. His bright blue eyes filled with unshed tears from pain, fear, shock. Cassandra's thug pulled his knife out but Richie remained paralyzed on the floor.

Cassandra stroked his head. "It's not a hard question. And probably not very important. Still, I'd like to know. Would you like for us to set your face on fire? Would you like to smell your own skin charring?"

Connor rattled his chains to draw her attention. "I'll tell you. First let the boy go."

"Oh, no," Cassandra said, rising. "His release is not an option. But if you tell me, I won't have to torture it out of him."

Connor wondered how Duncan had managed to fall in love with such an obviously unbalanced, dangerous woman. "She's no one important. A Watcher."

"Watchers," Cassandra said in distaste. "A meddling bunch of busybodies with nothing better to do than spy on others. What would a Watcher be doing on Duncan's barge?"

"Using the phone."

Cassandra lifted her eyebrows. Without turning, she ordered, "Rip Richie's kidneys out and leave them on the floor."

"No!" Connor said sharply. "It's the truth! She had to call her headquarters."

Cassandra raised her hand. The man who'd been lifting Richie's shirt in preparation for his gruesome task stopped. The Witch of Donan Woods studied Connor intently. "If you're lying, I'll cut off your genitals and make you eat them raw."

Connor's brain ignored the threat, although his groin did shrivel at the very idea. "I'm not lying. She was no one important."

Richie had recovered marginal use of his limbs. He pushed himself up from the floor but didn't try to stand. "What do you want with us?" he demanded, still defiant, but with a shaking voice.

"From him - " Cassandra indicated Connor, " - nothing. Yet. I do like the idea of Duncan fretting about the possibilities, though. It twists the knife a little deeper. From you, Richard. . . "

She lifted a finger. Her henchman advanced on Richie with startling swiftness while Connor watched helplessly. The young Immortal struggled and cursed as they pinned him face-down on the floor and pulled his arms behind his back. One started looping a length of rope around Richie's right arm, from wrist to just below his shoulder. Connor, who recognized the ordeal to come, lifted an ice-cold glare to Cassandra.

"The boy never hurt you," he growled.

"He killed one of my men," she replied. "I need to teach him early on that he can only kill those I tell him to. All pets must be trained early on, with a firm hand."

"I'm not your goddamned pet!" Richie yelled.

One of her men grabbed a fistful of his hair and slammed his head into the floor. The sick thudding noise of bone hitting concrete made Connor wince. Richie's face screwed up in pain and his body went limp but he didn't completely lose consciousness.

"Of course you are," Cassandra soothed. "You're my little plaything. We'll have centuries and centuries together. But first you must learn to obey me."

The largest of her men tied a second piece of rope to Richie's left wrist and laced it through the corresponding loop on his right one. He pulled the rope tight, lashing Richie's hands together at the small of his back. He went back to the left arm, threading the rope around with methodical care, and again tightened it through a right loop. Connor looked away as red began to pound through his vision. He heard Richie groan sharply. The boy's pain had begun to intensify. But it would get worse. It would get very much worse.

Connor looked at the youth standing behind Cassandra, the one who had made no movement or sound since entering the room. He didn't look pleased at Richie's torment, but he didn't make any objection, either.

When the man finished, both of Richie's arms had been pulled together, his shoulders bent so far backward they nearly touched, his whole body bowed with strain. Anguish filled his face. His eyes locked on Connor, as if somehow the older Immortal could help. Connor held his gaze steadily, offering as much silent support as possible.

"There," Cassandra said brightly. "Are you learning yet?"

Richie squeezed his eyes shut. "Go to hell."

She wagged a finger at him. "That just earned you another fifteen minutes. Care to go for a half hour?"

"Fuck you," he growled.

Cassandra lifted her right foot and pressed her leather boot down on his neck, grinding the stiletto heel into soft flesh. Richie's face went sheet-white. Cassandra said, "You're stubborn now, but soon you will be so well-trained you'll be throwing yourself at my feet to beg my favor. Defy me, and I'll punish you twice as hard; please me, and you'll find infinite reward."

Connor lifted his chin. "Is that the type of woman you are? You get your sexual thrills by tormenting children?"

Cassandra smiled. "You have a better suggestion?"

Connor didn't blink. "Yes. Let me free and give me my sword. We'll see how thrilling things get."

Cassandra did not appear afraid in the slightest. "That's an interesting propisition, Highlander. But I don't think so. I'm having too much fun doing things my way."

She lifted her foot from Richie's neck. He gasped in much-needed air as he twisted helplessly in the ropes, his features stark and drawn. Connor's chest ached at the sight. He'd watched men be tortured before - total strangers, often, but sometimes close friends - and each time more and more of their pain gouged into his heart. Sourness rose in the back of his throat and he had to swallow before he vomited. He could do absolutely nothing to help Duncan's protege, only bear witness and plan for the moment he ripped Cassandra's Quickening from her still-warm body.

"You're all mine now," Cassandra told Richie. "Suffer in that knowledge as well as those ropes."

Her henchmen freed Connor from his manacles and started to pull him from the room. Richie called out his name.

"I won't be far," Connor vowed bitterly. "Do you hear me, Richie? I won't be far."

They took him down a long hallway. Before they reached the other end, Richie started screaming. Connor lashed out at his captors and landed two solid punches before a sharp blow to the side of his head sent him reeling. He was only marginally aware of being shoved into a dim, moldy-smelling room. When he fully recovered his senses he found an empty room devoid of any windows, furniture or amenities. A solitary hot water pipe ran up the wall in one corner, and an old light fixture on the ceiling gave off a dull glow.

Connor did two complete sweeps of the room, but the only way in or out of it was through the thick wooden door that had been locked behind him. It had no interior doorknob or hinges and wouldn't pry free of its jamb. After a string of particularly strong Gaelic curses, the Highlander retreated to one corner and tried to focus himself. Based on his clansman's hallucinations in the barge, Connor didn't think Duncan would be coming to the rescue anytime soon. Methos had last been seen walking into a river, and probably wouldn't be much help either. Connor would have to fight for his and Richie's freedom on his own. He had no doubt that if Cassandra didn't kill him, she'd end up deploying her sadistic skills on him as well as Richie. He'd had enough of that in one lifetime already, between the Sassenachs and Nazis and a dozen different enemies -

Connor clamped down on the bitter images of his past. Reliving his own ordeals would not help anyone. He stewed over wild plans for escape until the scrape of the door brought him to his feet. Two of Cassandra's men brought Richie in, while a third kept a .38 gun trained on Connor. Richie could walk, but just barely. As soon as the thugs released his arms he fell to his knees. He started to pitch forward to the floor, but Connor caught him before he got far. Richie landed against the Highlander's chest with a small grunt. He stank of blood and sweat and tremors wracked his lean body even as Connor tightened his hold.

"He's no match for her," one of Cassandra's men said. "None of us are."

As soon as they left, Connor lifted Richie away a few inches and studied his wounds. The ropes had left deep, awful burns in his arms at even intervals. His hands had no circulation in them. The injury to his back had healed to a think pink scar, but it had yet to disappear. A small discolored lump marked where his head had been slammed into the floor.

Connor knew that Immortals healed at different speeds, and that weariness and hunger both could affect the process. No mark on Richie's skin would eventually remain, no injury would permanently hamper him, but in the meantime he would not enjoy his body very much.

Richie's eyes were open, fixed on nothing Connor could see. He hadn't said a single word yet.

"Richie?" Connor asked. "Are you here with me, or somewhere else?"

***

Richie heard Connor speaking to him but had no inclination to respond. The too-fresh, too-raw, too-awful memory of the rope torture whirled ceaselessly through his mind, a ferocious internal storm. Although he knew he'd been freed, that he'd been temporarily reprieved, that Connor had replaced Cassandra, he couldn't make himself believe any of it. Reality shifted in and out, red-hot fire in his arms replaced by Connor's careful touch, the Highlander's concerned expression swept away by Cassandra's leering smile. The pain blasting through his body like a furnace competed with the ice-cold, arctic temperature of the room, crushing him with contrast.

"Come on," Connor urged, his voice muffled in Richie's ears. "Say something."

He had nothing to say. His entire vocabulary had been driven away by screaming. New mortification washed through him like acid - humiliation at being so weak in front of Connor. The Highlander would have taken everything Cassandra threw at him with a stoic expression and shrug of his shoulders.

"Come back to the here and now, Richie. I need your help."

Richie tried to turn away from the stinging sarcasm - Connor couldn't possibly ever need or want his help with anything - but he was too weak to move away. He squeezed his eyes shut, a soundless sob working up through his chest. He felt himself gathered in Connor's arms and pulled to the other Immortal's chest. He held himself rigidly still, irrationally afraid of more pain to come.

Connor said, "You're safe now. Try to relax."

Relax? Impossible. Not with his arms being pulled out of their sockets by the unrelenting tension of the ropes - No. That was the past. His arms hung loose and damaged at his sides, not entangled in the unforgiving knots. They would heal. But he couldn't feel his hands, and knew circulation there had been cut off entirely. The tissue had already started to die.

"Hands," Richie blurted out, opening his eyes. He tried to jerk away again.

Connor held him securely. "What about your hands?"

"Dead." The awful implications of that made him dizzy, and Richie sagged against Connor's chest. "Can't . . . lift a sword."

"Not at the moment, no," Connor agreed. "But since we have no weapons anyway, it's not worth worrying about. Give it time."

"You don't understand," Richie said miserably. Resting against Connor made him feel ridiculous, like a baby, but the softness of Connor's shirt and the warmth radiating out of him gave Richie a small scrap of comfort. He could settle for scraps, especially since it looked like he'd lose both of his hands . . .

"You're a little confused right now." Connor shifted slightly beneath him, muttering something unintelligible in Gaelic. "And heavier than you look. Go to sleep. Your body needs rest."

If he lost his hands, Duncan wouldn't teach him. Other Immortals would point and laugh. Disturbing images of amputation followed Richie down a little black hole. He didn't think he actually slept, but hovered somewhere in between oblivion and memory. A mad tingling in all of his fingers brought him to groggy awareness sometime later.

"Welcome back," Connor said.

Richie sat up and pulled away. He examined his hands and arms. The slow healing progressing up his limbs tickled and itched, but he knew scratching wouldn't help. He felt drained and confused, not entirely sure of his surroundings. "What's going on?" he asked, his throat raw and hoarse.

"Not a lot. You look better."

Richie wondered if he were joking. As usual, Connor's expression gave away nothing. The young Immortal felt a whole new flush of shame and discomfort as memories of Cassandra's punishment returned. He scooted back against the wall, not far from Connor but with a definite distance between them. He let his arms hang loose, his hands limp in his lap.

"This pipe is warm," Connor advised, patting the metal beside him.

"I'm not cold," Richie said. Not true. The chill and dampness in the room easily slipped past his shirt, and goosebumps prickled along his back. He just didn't think the cold was very important on top of all their other problems.

"I'm cold," Connor admitted.

Richie didn't answer.

They sat in silence for a few minutes until the older Immortal offered, "Did I ever tell you about my friend Thomas Dooley? He was my student in the early 1800's."

"Is he still around?" Richie asked bleakly. "Does he still have his head?"

A second's hesitation. "No."

"Then I don't want to know."

Richie didn't enjoy being so blunt, but he didn't think he could listen to any stories at the moment - especially not with his shoulders in knots, his stomach aching in hollowness, his throat so dry it could just as well have been coated with sandpaper. His eyes felt swollen, and he wondered with self-disgust if he'd cried in Connor's arms.

"Maybe I'll save Thomas for another time," Connor answered, sounding stiff and hurt.

Richie rubbed at this face. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. Please tell me about your friend."

"No. Now's not really the time. You just remind me of him, that's all. Quick on your feet, strong in your actions, and braver than you think."

Richie shot Connor a dark look. He didn't need a patented MacLeod pep talk. What he needed, in order, was a seven-course meal, a very hot shower, a soft bed, and a hole to crawl into for about a hundred years or so. Bitterly he said, "It doesn't take courage to get kidnapped, stabbed, rescued, kidnapped again,

and - "

He stopped abruptly. He couldn't force himself to say the next word. Connor said it for him.

"Tortured."

Richie fixed his attention on the cement floor. "Yeah. That."

Connor thought about his own experiences at the hands of the Nazis, the ordeals he'd undergone before Methos managed to implement a rescue. He remembered how he'd felt afterward - thoroughly vulnerable, as if every one of his defenses had been ripped away by searing hot claws until he stood naked and shaking before the cruel eyes of the world. He knew no words could truly comfort Richie. Only time could heal his psychic wounds - time, and the knowledge his tormentors had been defeated.

"Tell me what happened at the racetrack," Connor proposed.

In mostly monosyllables the younger Immortal recounted a tale of being kidnapped and held captive until his female Watcher had rescued him. From there they had gone on to the barge.

"I saw Tessa," Richie confided, his voice low. "I swear it looked just like her."

"It was a trick," Connor told him.

"I know, but still . . . " Richie fell silent for a moment. "What about Mac and Methos? What do you think they're doing now?"

"Looking for us," Connor lied confidently. "They'll find us."

Richie wrapped his arms across his chest. "I sure hope you're right."

Connor didn't answer.

***

Margaret stumbled out of her taxi thirty minutes after leaving the barge. The "small place" that Adam Pierson had sent to her was so tiny an establishment the driver had coasted by it twice. The hotel owner, a little old man wearing a red sweater and yarmulke, greeted Margaret at the front door like a long-lost member of the family returned from years of absence.

"You must be very tired," he said, pulling her inside out of the chill. The small lobby had red velvet drapes and golden wallpaper. Leather armchairs sat before a flickering fire in an ancient marble hearth. "My name is Isaac. Adam told me you were his very special friend."

"I suppose," Margaret said, fighting back a yawn that threatened to split her jaw. "I'm sorry if we woke you."

"I hardly ever sleep. This way, my dear," Isaac said, leading her up a short flight of stairs to a corridor with only three doors in it. He inserted a brass key in the first lock and entered with his hand already reaching for the light. Margaret followed wearily. The room wouldn't win any awards for luxuriousness, but its spartan furnishings and tidy cleanliness would do just fine. Margaret eyed the pillows with deep longing but forced her gaze away.

"I don't see a phone," she told her host. "I need to use one urgently, to call my family in the U.S."

"But you're exhausted! Surely they'll understand if you wait until morning - "

Margaret put her hand on Isaac's arm. "Please. It's very important."

He frowned and fussed but eventually led her to his cramped office behind the front desk. He excused himself and left her in privacy. Margaret sat in a lumpy overstuffed chair and picked up the receiver. She knew calling would be dangerous. Her mind was so numb she could barely even remember her own name. But she couldn't let Bill or the kids worry any further. With a shaking finger she dialed the numbers. The connection rang once before someone snatched it up.

"Hello?" Karen asked.

"Hi, honey," Margaret said. Tears unexpectedly welled in her eyes as she realized how far from home she was, how separated from her children. Homesickness churned her stomach. "It's me."

"Mom!" Karen squealed. "Where are you? How's New York? Dad's been worried all day because you didn't call - "

Margaret took a deep breath. "I'm fine. How was school?"

"I only got a B on my history report, but Scott got a C on his math test! Isn't that worse?"

"Shut up, Karen!" Scott's voice yelled in the background.

The phone clicked as Bill picked up the extension. "Margaret? Is that you?"

"Hi, Bill," she said weakly.

"Karen, let your mother and me talk. Hang up."

"I want to talk to Mom!"

"Hang up, Karen," Bill ordered. Karen said her goodbyes and left the line. "Margaret? Are you there?"

"Right here. How was your day? How are things at home?"

"Margaret, where are you? You're not in New York."

For a moment, surprise startled all thoughts from her. How could he know? Was he bluffing? She hedged her answer. "What do you mean?"

"You didn't call all day. I've been going crazy! I called Jack, I called your travel agent, I even called the taxi company that took you to the airport last night. They told me they dropped you off at the international terminal. Did you hear me, Margaret? The *international* terminal."

With a sharp pang of resignation Margaret realized some of her lies had finally come back to her. For several long seconds she entertained the thought of fashioning more, but her talent for deception had disappeared.

"I'm sorry," she croaked out.

"Tell me where you are," Bill insisted, his voice angry but controlled. "Tell me where - and tell me who you're with."

Who she was with? Margaret would have laughed if the idea wasn't simultaneously ludicrous and pitiful. Her husband thought she'd run off with another man. And why not? The true explanation - that she'd jetted off to Europe and become entangled in a bitter fued between people who lived forever - sounded insane. She couldn't expect him to believe that. She couldn't expect him to believe anything she said.

But she had to try.

"I'm not with another man," she said, her voice steadier than her hammering pulse. "I didn't mean to hurt you. I'm in Paris, but I'll be coming home soon. I promise to explain everything then."

"Maybe I won't want to hear it *then,* Margaret. Tell me now. Tell me what's so important you'd turn your back on your family."

"I didn't turn my back - "

"You lied!" Bill shouted over the distances between them. "You lied to all of us."

His blistering anger shamed her. She had no reasonable defense, no clear and convincing explanation. Cut as deeply as if she'd been pierced by a sword, she fell back on truth.

"I've been doing it for years," she whispered, and hung up.

***

Methos didn't remember going to sleep, but when he opened his eyes he found gray daylight pouring through the barge portholes. He'd curled up in the armchair and a dozen sore places protested the decision as he unfolded himself from its confines. He blinked at the wall clock and realized he'd only had five hours of rest. No wonder his head felt stuffed with wool. Duncan, who'd last been seen on the sofa, was nowhere in sight. Methos heard the flush of a toilet and the run of water. The Highlander emerged from the bathroom rubbing a towel across his face. He hadn't showered or shaved, and he looked like hell, but he seemed lucid.

"Get up," he said. "We've got to find Cassandra and Connor."

Methos scratched his head and fought down a yawn. "You have some brilliant insight into where they might be?"

"No," Duncan admitted. He sounded much stronger and clear-headed than he had the night before as he said, "I know where to start, though. We have to find out about any Immortals with powers like Cassandra's."

A reasonable line of thought, and one Methos had already considered. "I was with the Watchers a long time. I've never heard of anyone else with those kinds of powers."

"You never systematically searched, though, did you?"

Methos sighed. "No. But don't forget, I'm not in the Watchers anymore. I can't just waltz back in and do a search in the library stacks, you know."

Duncan pulled off his shirt, wadded it into a ball and threw it into a corner. He yanked a fresh one from a drawer and dragged it down over his head and the thick muscles of his shoulders. "What about Joe's laptop? He has access to the databases."

Methos supposed that was an idea, but he couldn't convince himself the answer lay in a string of computer data somewhere. "What about Cassandra's friends here in Paris? Don't you know any?"

"She never mentioned anyone. What about her Watcher?"

"She doesn't have one."

"Why not?"

"Because she killed the last one. It's corporate policy not to assign a new Watcher to someone that dangerous. Besides, who'd want the job?"

"There must be someone who knows something!" Duncan said vehemently. "Damn it, Methos, I won't let her kill Connor."

Methos gazed at him calmly. "Does that mean you accept that it's Cassandra behind all of this? That there are no demons, and that you're not tasked with saving the world?"

Duncan hesitated before answering. He sat on the edge of his bed and pulled on first a pair of thick woolen socks, then two black boots. "What you said last night makes sense," he finally admitted. "About her hating us, about her powers . . . you really believe it's her?"

"I know it is."

Duncan met his gaze squarely. "There are no demons."

Not a question this time, but a statement. An acknowledgment. The return of reason. Methos felt a heavy weight lift from his chest. "What about Richie?" he asked.

Silence. Duncan wouldn't meet his gaze.

"Mac?"

In a low voice Duncan said, "I don't know. I can't . . . let myself hope for much." He lifted his head and took a deep breath. "How are we going to find them? Are there any other Watchers who might have been around last night?"

"Connor's Watcher is probably still in New York - I doubt the local office even knows he's here. Your Watcher is Joe, and he's obviously unable to help. Richie's Watcher has already told us what she knows, what she saw - "

Methos stopped talking abruptly as a new idea popped into his mind. A long shot, perhaps, but he knew of one other person who might have been watching the events of the previous evening unfold.

"What?" Duncan asked. "What are you thinking?"

"I'll tell you while we're driving," Methos said. "Get the car keys."

***

After the fight with Bill, Margaret cried herself to sleep. She tossed and turned restlessly in the unfamiliar bed, her jumbled and chaotic dreams replaying his anger, her shame, the loss of trust. Other ghastly images made guest appearances - the disembodied corpse at the racetrack, Richie with a knife buried in him. Jet lag further confused her body, and when she woke after just a few hours she found herself unable to fall asleep again. Bleary-eyed and dog-tired, she showered briefly, put on the same clothes she'd traveled in and walked next door to a small bakery for plain croissants and strong black coffee. With Adam Pierson's money wadded in her pocket she took a cab to Joe's hospital. The thick morning traffic moved sluggishly along the main boulevards, allowing her glimpses of famous monuments and buildings, but she felt no excitement or thrill at all.

She didn't think Bill would file for divorce before she even returned home, and she knew her husband was a reasonable man. All she had to do was break her Watcher oath and explain everything to him. Immortals, the Game, the Gathering, her own double life . . . having already broken any number of rules in the previous twenty-four hours, she suspected the ultimate breaking of her oath wouldn't be so hard after all. And her family was certainly worth it. Bill would understand, eventually. Her family life would be restored. She would give up the Watchers - that seemed only fair, a just punishment for both violating her vow and lying to her husband for so long - and settle for a job with far less drama and adventure.

Simple solutions. Not difficult at all. But part of her already grieved for the loss of the life she'd known, the grand secret of which she'd been a part. The world would seem more dull and less colorful. She could return to her PTA meetings without having to worry about Richie's date with an Immortal four times his age; she could juggle housework and errands without having to lie about her job and co-workers. A much more simple life, all in all.

The taxi stopped for a red light. Margaret caught sight of a young man walking on the sidewalk. For a startled moment she thought he was Richie, but as he turned she saw the resemblance was only fleeting. She worried about what has happening to him. Had Cassandra already killed him? Did she have more devious plans in store? And what about Connor, with whom she'd shared that very long airplane flight? What fate had befallen him?

Weighed down by those questions and her own dull misery, Margaret paid the taxi driver at the hospital and went in search of Joe's room. She expected to find him hooked up to awful machinery and on the verge of death. But when she reached his room, she saw only an IV line and a small oxygen tube as evidence of his illness. His complexion had a gray shade to it, but his chest rose and fell with reassuring regularity. She took his hand and held it gently.

"Joe, you're going to be okay," she said. "I know you will."

They'd shared so many years of being Watchers together, so many tales and late nights and secrets. Seeing him hurt more than she'd thought it would. The reality of his illness, strong worries about Richie and Connor, the fight with Bill and overall exhaustion made her start to cry. An elderly nurse entered the room to check on Joe's IV, and Margaret tried to hide her tears.

The nurse patted her arm in sympathy and said, in French, "It's all right, dear. Your friend should recover soon."

It took a moment for Margaret to translate the words in her head. "From a heart attack?" she asked between sniffles.

A frown crossed the nurse's face. Not a heart attack, she said in French. "Poision."

"Poison?" Margaret squeaked, using the English translation of the word. "Someone poisoned him?"

The nurse fetched the doctor, who seemed reticent to talk to Margaret until she flat-out lied and claimed to be Joe's niece, newly arrived from America. He spoke in long sentences about some kind of test or other, a series of lab results, a poison that simulated the effects of a cardiac problem, an antidote. Margaret tried to keep up with the explanation but found herself rapidly falling behind.

Joe's voice startled her as he rasped out, "I'm fine . . . "

She turned back to him with a wide grin. "Joe!"

"Hey," he said. He didn't sound very strong, and his eyes were only half-open, but he squeezed her hand weakly as a sign of encouragement. "What are you . . . doing here?"

"Just thought I'd drop by," she said, nearly giddy with relief. Margaret kissed his forehead. "Thought you could show me the sights. I hear the Eiffel Tower is nice this time of year."

Joe managed a tiny smile, but he was obviously tired and still not recovered. The doctor and nurse checked him over before leaving the two to their privacy. The older Watcher murmured, "MacLeod . . . where is he?"

"He'll be here soon, I'm sure."

"Richie . . . "

"Don't worry about any of that," Margaret urged. She adjusted his blankets and plumped his pillow a little bit. "Just rest."

"Amri . . ."

"Who?"

"Poisoned me . . . said he had no choice . . . got into my room. Methos was . . . drunk . . . passed out in the other room."

She knew she should urge him to sleep. But curiosity and the sense of important information locked in Joe's brain got the better of her. The second mention of the name Methos also snagged her attention, but she put those questions aside for the moment. "Amri who, Joe? Does he work with Cassandra?"

Joe's eyes opened further as he made an obvious effort to speak. "Said . . . he had to do it . . . she controls him. . . he doesn't want to . . . "

"Did he tell you where Cassandra is?" Margaret asked.

"Cluny," he said, and slipped away to sleep.

Cluny. The Museum de Cluny, near the Sorbonne. Not as famous as the Louvre, but she knew it contained an excellent collection of medieval art, furniture and artifacts. Margaret found a payphone in the hall and dialed the number she remembered seeing on the back of Duncan MacLeod's phone. It rang three times before his answering machine picked up.

"Hi, I'm not home. Leave a message," Duncan's voice said in her ear.

"Joe's awake," she said without preamble. "He said something about the Museum de Cluny, about someone named Amri."

She hung up.

She would not go to the Cluny. She had no business there. She couldn't possibly even think of going up against mind-controlling Immortals. If Richie, Connor, Duncan and Adam Pierson couldn't resolve the situation, then a mere mortal Watcher, an American housewife far from home, had no chance at all.

"Oh, hell," she muttered, and went to find a cab.

***

Two of Cassandra's mortal henchmen brought in a tray of bread and water for the prisoners and departed seconds later without a single word. Connor's watch had disappeared along with his socks, shoes and jacket. He wondered if it was breakfast time. His own internal clock told him morning had come, but in the windowless room he couldn't be sure. Richie, who'd been curled in a ball and dozing restlessly, woke at the noise and eyed the tray suspiciously.

"What if it's poisoned?" he asked.

Connor bit into a roll appreciatively. "I'll take my chances."

Richie followed his lead. They ate quickly and in silence. Connor thought Richie looked better, although still subdued and locked in his own private thoughts. The approaching buzz of an Immortal made the younger Immortal stiffen in alarm. Connor's stomach did a quick twist as well. He expected to see Cassandra when the door opened, but instead the young-looking Arab walked in alone and unarmed.

"What's the Gathering?" he asked shyly.

Connor hadn't expected such a question at all. "The Gathering?" he repeated, stalling for time.

"I've seen it in your thoughts. But I don't know what it is."

Part of Cassandra's strategy became clearer to Connor. She had surrounded herself with disposable mortal thugs and one Immortal sidekick she kept ignorant. The Witch of Donan Woods was supposed to have many magical abilities but as Connor remembered the events on the pier and his strange dream, he thought it possible the young-looking one before him had strange powers too.

"What's your name?" Connor asked.

"Amri."

"Do you know what you are?" Connor asked.

"Immortal," Amri answered, sounding pleased. His expression immediately dropped. "But I'm not good with a sword. She says some people just aren't, and that it's no use trying to teach me."

Connor frowned. "She? You mean Cassandra?"

"My mother," Amri nodded.

Connor didn't know what to say. He didn't think Cassandra was truly Amri's mother - no one knew where Immortals came from, or how they came into being. But she'd obviously deluded him into believing her, into believing possibly anything she said.

"How old are you?" Connor asked.

"Not old," Amri said. He studied the tips of his shoes. "Twenty. But I'll be twenty-one in a few weeks."

Richie made a small noise, but didn't say anything. Connor did the math and figured that Richie was older by just a year or so. Richie had benefited from a loving mentor who'd taught him about the Game and Immortals. Amri had been sheltered by a woman obsessed with vengeance who refused to even teach him swordwork.

"I'm sorry she hurt you," Amri said to Richie. "She . . .likes to hurt people. I don't know how to stop her."

"Help us," Connor said quickly, but before he could ask for more a door clanged somewhere down the hallway. Two different thugs returned.

"You shouldn't be here," one said harshly to Amri. The Immortal flinched as if struck and immediately left. Connor wondered what methods Cassandra had used to make him so quick to obey, or if he was naturally shy and intimidated.

"Your turn again," the second thug said to Richie.

For a moment, Connor thought Richie might make them fight to take him. He sat rock-solid on the floor, chewing on the last of their breakfast rolls. His expression didn't change at the announcement - perhaps he'd been expecting it. After several long seconds he climbed to his feet and gave Connor a cocky look.

"Save my seat, will you?" Richie asked, his voice steady.

Connor nodded, unable to think of any clever retort.

Cassandra's men took him away.

***

While in the Watchers, Methos had made it a habit to memorize the names of fellow workers assigned to Immortals of particular interest to him. He'd also downloaded a copy of the Watcher directory and printed it out for further reference. As Friday morning dawned cold and rainy, he made Duncan drive him to the bank where he kept the information in a safe-deposit box. It took only seconds to find the home address of Gisele Pelisson.

"Who is she?" Duncan asked.

"Richie's Paris Watcher," Methos answered. "Not the friendliest woman I know."

"We'll be charming," Duncan said, without any trace of humor, as he pulled the car away from the curb and merged into morning traffic.

Methos waited until they were parked outside Gisele's apartment building in the neighborhood of Sacre Couer before saying, "I'd best do this alone."

"No. I'm coming with you."

"She knows who you are. She knows you're Immortal. She'll stick fast to the rule about not interfering in any way."

"And you think she'll talk to you, instead? You're not a Watcher anymore."

"True," Methos agreed. "But she thinks I'm mortal."

Duncan's hands tightened on the steering wheel as he glared out the windshield at nothing Methos could see. "I don't know . . . " he started, then stopped. After a few seconds he continued, "I don't know that it's safe to leave me alone."

"It's only unsafe if Cassandra is around. That's my theory, at least."

Duncan's knuckles tightened. "We don't know if she is or isn't."

"If she's here, you're unsafe whether I'm with you or not. This will only take a few minutes."

He slid out of the car, half expecting Duncan to follow him. The Highlander stayed in his seat. A chill breeze flapped at Methos' jacket and he buttoned it against the cold morning. A woman walking a horde of yapping poodles blocked his crossing for a moment, but he finally made it across the sidewalk to the entrance of Gisele's building. A security door barred his way. He traced the list of residents until he found her name and then pressed the buzzer beside it.

"Oui?" a voice crackled from the intercom.

Methos turned so that the security camera could see him more clearly. He switched to French and said, "It's Adam Pierson. I've come for Margaret Allen's things."

Several seconds passed before the electronic lock buzzed to let him enter. Almost as an afterthought, Methos stuck a discarded grocery flyer in the door to wedge it open. He didn't quite know what to expect from Gisele Pelisson, and a little backup might not be a bad thing.

Methos climbed a narrow set of stairs to the third floor. Gisele's door, for apartment 3B, lay directly to his right. She had no welcome mat out for visitors, and the small doorknocker mounted below the peephole looked tarnished from disuse. He rapped against the wood. Gisele opened the door with the security chain still latched. Methos tried to look as innocent and harmless as possible.

"We've met," he said. "Back at headquarters, more than once."

"You're no longer part of the organization," she said. Her eyes had dark circles under them, as if she'd been up all night, and she wore a black bathrobe. Gray hair streamed in limp waves down her shoulders.

"No," Methos admitted. "But I still have friends. Do you have Margaret's things?"

Gisele gave him an appraising look and closed the door. He heard the chain retract. She swung the door open and let him step into a small foyer decorated with a print by M.C. Escher. The small, extraordinarily tidy living room beyond the foyer contained more books, a few mismatched prints, a computer on a desk, and a large white sofa with a hostile-looking black cat perched on top of it.

"Nice kitty," Methos said.

"She bites," Gisele warned.

*I'm sure she does,* Methos thought, but kept the words to himself.

Gisele disappeared down the hall. Methos slid toward the computer desk and the graphic display on the monitor. He saw the floor plan for a building with a courtyard attached. Gisele's returning footsteps made him spin around.

"Nice place," he offered, feeling exactly like a kid caught with his hands in a cookie jar. "I like the views."

"Yes," Gisele said in a brittle voice. "They're wonderful for watching congested traffic."

In her arms she carried a brown coat and matching purse. She thrust both into Methos' hands and then moved past him to turn off the computer. "Those are Margaret's things," Gisele told him. "Her suitcase is in the hall closet."

"I'm sure she'll appreciate it," Methos said. "She wanted me to apologize for dragging you to that racetrack last night."

Gisele turned back to him. Her flat blue eyes fixed on his face. "She told you everything?"

"Not everything," Methos hedged, wondering if some quiz lay ahead of him. "She told me you both found Richie Ryan with his head still attached."

Gisele's lips tightened. "She shouldn't be telling you anything. You're not a Watcher."

"No," Methos agreed. "But I remain interested."

"Interest can get you killed."

"It doesn't keep you from being a Watcher."

"Nothing could stop me from that," Gisele said firmly. "In any case, Mr. Pierson, you've gotten what you came for. Tell Margaret I'll be filing a negative report on her today. Watchers do not interfere with Immortal affairs - what she did last night was inexcusable."

Methos let puzzlement cross his face. "What she did? Go to the racetrack?"

Gisele folded her arms. "You know she did more."

"Well, yes, I do. But you couldn't know for sure - unless you circled back and watched her leave the racetrack with Ryan."

The clock on the wall ticked loudly. "So what if I did?" Gisele asked after a moment's pause. "It's my job."

She had just confirmed what Margaret had said - Richie was alive. Not that Duncan would believe, not without the evidence of his own eyes. Methos put the information aside for a moment and allowed admiration to edge into his voice. "You must have done it on foot. They would have noticed a car following them to the barge. You hid and saw Ryan and Connor MacLeod kidnapped. You probably saw me take an impromptu swim as well."

"What you do is none of my business."

Methos continued unabated. "Most Watchers would have given up then and called it a night. But I'm guessing you're too dedicated for that. Too professional. Did you hail a taxi? You must have. Flagged one down and followed the van. Not many would be that courageous."

"What I did," Gisele said, "will be in my report. Which *you* won't get to read, despite your blatant attempts at flattery. Do I look so deprived and unhappy that you can charm information out of me?"

Methos decided not to answer that specific question and chose another tactic. "Whatever you believe about your vows, if you make no attempt to stop an injustice you become part of it. Cassandra is not playing the Game fairly by any stretch of the imagination. You know where she took Ryan and MacLeod, don't you?"

Gisele gestured to the door. "Good day, Mr. Pierson."

"Is there anything I can say that will persuade you to help?" Methos asked.

"No."

"Then what if I just look at your computer for a moment?" he asked, and slid past her to thumb the control for the monitor.

Gisele grabbed his arm and yanked him away before the flickering lines resolved back into an image. Surprised at her strength, Methos nevertheless twisted from her grip and tried to grab both of her wrists. He had no desire to hurt her. She threw a hard punch into his sternum, simultaneously knocking him backward and driving the air from his lungs.

While he struggled to recover, Gisele adopted a karate pose.

"Try it again, Pierson," she warned.

Someone pounded at the door and shouted, "Adam! Adam Pierson!"

Gisele turned, gaping at the sound of Duncan MacLeod at her door. Methos staggered back to the computer and focused on the title flickering over the schematic. Gisele yanked him away and drove a knee into his stomach. He went down to the carpet in a heap and a grunt. Methos heard splintering wood and raised his head in time to see Duncan appear in the doorway.

"What the - " Duncan growled.

"Stay back!" Gisele warned, resuming her stance.

Duncan looked at her with an incredibly tolerant expression. "I don't think you want to try that on me."

She must have remembered his background, for she lunged to a nearby writing desk and pulled a small handgun from its top drawer. Her hands shook as she took aim at his chest.

"That won't do much either," Duncan said dismissively. He looked at Methos. "Will you get up so we can go?"

"Do you know where we're going?" Methos demanded, staggering to his feet.

"Le Musee de Cluny," the Highlander answered.

Methos glanced at the schematic on Gisele's computer screen. "But how did you know - "

"I checked my answering machine. Now come on - "

The Highlander left. Methos gave Gisele a wide berth as he circled after his friend.

"Nice moves," he said.

Gisele didn't drop the weapon. "Get out," she ordered. "Never come back."

"I'll send Margaret back for her own things," Methos said, and departed with his bruised dignity in tow.

***

Richie's blood thundered through his veins, a giant icy river of fear crashing around inside his body. His heart did a wild thump-thump jig in his chest as Cassandra's men escorted him down a long stone corridor lit by old electric lights. Archways led off into darker areas. As his captors marched him along Richie caught sight of large stone tablets, small iron grills, shadowed inscriptions. A staggering thought occurred to him then, one he tried to deny almost immediately. They couldn't actually be on Holy Ground. . . But no one who'd lived with Tessa Noel in Paris and been subjected to her endless field trips to museums, cathedrals and historic monuments could ever mistake a crypt when he saw one.

Holy Ground.

He didn't know if the thought reassured him or frightened him even more.

The two mortal men led Richie into a chamber of Gothic proportions. Any furnishings, decorations or dead that it might have once contained had been moved. A banquet table filled with food stood far to one side, while Cassandra stretched on a red velvet chaise lounge directly ahead.

"Do you like it?" she asked. "I got the idea out of a horror movie."

Richie almost retorted that she herself was out of a horror movie. Memories of the ropes helped him keep silent. Cassandra waved a lazy hand at her employees and they left immediately. Richie stood fifteen feet away, his skin crawling. He would have felt much better with fifteen miles between them. Fifteen *thousand* miles, and a few centuries as well.

"Will you fetch that bowl of dates?" Cassandra asked, smiling sweetly at him. "I wanted grapes, but they're out of season."

Richie looked at the table. At her. He thought about what she had promised earlier, and about the pain he had suffered. He knew what Connor and Duncan would do, but didn't know if he had the courage to do it himself.

"Richard," she said, her smile turning into a pout. "It's just a bowl of dates."

He didn't want to be a coward, he didn't want to be her slave, but he didn't want to be in horrible pain again, either.

"Please?" she asked silkily.

If she hadn't said it that way, he might have capitulated. At least on a temporary basis, until he could figure out some way to escape with Connor at his side. But Richie had always been too good at picking out contempt in people's voices - contempt and condescension both. She figured she already had him. She thought of him as already beaten. Well, she was close, but he still had a little fight left in him.

"You're supposed to have some special abilities," he said. "Make me."

Cassandra's eyebrows arched. "I could," she agreed. "Quite easily. But it's more fun for me when you do it of your own free will."

Richie's heart skipped a beat. But no, dammit, he wouldn't give into that sickly fear clawing around the inside of his chest. He might not be very brave at times, but he was braver than that.

"I hope you're patient," he returned.

"Why fight me?" she asked. "No one's going to rescue you. You'll never escape."

"Is that what you told Amri?"

Her expression darkened. "You will not speak of him."

"You haven't told him anything about being an Immortal. He even thinks you're his mother - "

"You will not speak at all," she said, in a deeper voice, and Richie felt the words sink into his brain like boulders dropped into a smooth, dark lake. He opened his mouth to prod her further but no words came out. His vocal chords did nothing but sit in his throat, two useless folds of tissue.

A new kind of fear stabbed through him, one as forceful and frightening as when he'd thought he would lose his hands. Words were the first tools he'd learned to use in his childhood in Seacouver. Tools and weapons both. They'd persuaded more than one aggrieved shopkeeper to hang up the phone to the police, charmed several different teachers into notching C's up into B's, and even given Duncan MacLeod pause for thought in a darkened antique store one fateful night. He couldn't imagine being struck silent for the rest of his life, unable to talk to anyone. Panic must have crossed his face, because she laughed.

"Don't look so frightened, Richard. I'll let you speak again. Someday. If you please me. Now bring me those dates."

He glanced irresistibly at the buffet. Golden table legs glinted beneath the thick black tablecloth. The dates sat surrounded by cheeses and vegetables, little pastries and cakes, apples and oranges and bananas. His stomach reminded him that bread had been too pitiful a breakfast. His knees trembled, a humiliating knock-knock-knock that wouldn't stop no matter how much he wished it would.

"Richard," Cassandra warned, her voice full of a new coldness. "Do it now. Or would you rather we start your lessons all over again? I have plenty of rope, you know."

Richie hesitated.

Then, with shame crashing through him, he stepped toward the table.

***

Margaret entered the Cluny Museum complex through an entrance in a large stone wall running down Paul-Painleve Square. A light drizzle had begun to fall, sending early-morning tourists toward the cover of large arches. Margaret tilted her head upward, noting dozens of small turrets, short towers and ugly little gargoyles. Lace-like decorations hung over niches where statues had once stood. She saw no immediate clue as to where Richie or Connor might be, and despair swept through her at the idea of searching the buildings room by room in what could very well be a futile endeavor.

Still, getting out of the rain had to be better than standing outside in it. Margaret ducked to her right and paid thirty francs to a sour-looking man at the reception desk. She picked up a brochure printed in English but decided not to check her coat in the cloakroom. A quick look at the building's restoration dates told her the main structure wasn't much older than Duncan MacLeod. That bit of trivia stuck in her head despite the need to concentrate on the more serious problems at hand, and she gave herself a mental kick.

The high ceilings, Gothic architecture and subdued lighting leant the chambers of antiques a somber setting. A group of young schoolgirls in black and gray uniforms huddled around a nun, reminding Margaret of her own days at St. Mary's Prep. She passed by tapestries, textiles, plaques, tombstones and sculptures. The brochure told her the second floor held even more treasures, everything from crowns and reliquary to choir stalls and lustreware. It did not, however, tell her where to look for missing Immortals.

Not in the rooms open to the wandering public, obviously. Cassandra wouldn't be that reckless. Having visited every museum in Seacouver and surrounding areas as a chaperone on school field trips, Margaret knew that certain rooms remained off-limits. Administrative offices, storerooms, rooms whose conditions were too fragile for heavy traffic. Attics and gabled rooms high in the complex might be candidates, but basements seemed more likely.

Margaret paused by a gilded seventeenth-century casket to flip through the brochure. The building had been the Parisian residence for the Abbots of Cluny, whoever they were. Roman baths near the property dated all the way back to the third century. At some point the main building had also been a Benedictine Abbey, and had housed both Henry VIII's daughter Mary and James V from Scotland.

An abbey? Holy Ground. Margaret knew Cassandra wouldn't have missed that fact. But more importantly, abbeys usually had burial crypts - underground hiding places where one could easily stash a stray Immortal or two.

She started to look for the stairs.

***

They passed Notre Dame on their way to the Cluny - they could have even stopped back at the barge for beer with just a minute's detour. Methos didn't suggest the idea. Duncan swung into a parking space on St. Michel boulevard with only a few centimeters of clearance on either end. He lurched out of the car before Methos could even undo his seatbelt.

"MacLeod, wait!" Methos snapped. "We can't just storm in there."

The Highlander stopped in his tracks. "Well, hurry up, won't you?"

"Hold on." Methos moved down the sidewalk past Duncan and peered over a low stone wall into an excavated area just off the street. He squinted at the outline of the area, trying to clear centuries of dust from his memory. He could feel Duncan's impatience emanating through the air, trying to hurry him along. Rain splattered the sidewalk and worked itself into a thin trickle down Methos' neck.

"The Roman baths," Duncan said curtly. "Wonderful. This is no time to relive fond old memories."

"I never had much fun here anyway," Methos returned, almost absent-mindedly. Paris had changed drastically since its infancy, and he remembered the layout of too many cities, too many freeways, too many old places now submerged beneath layers of modern civilization. Methos turned, eyed the Cluny, then spun to look down the boulevard.

"What are you looking for?" Duncan demanded.

"If she is using the Cluny as a headquarters, you can be sure she's not going in and out through the front door. If memory serves, there are crypts underneath this whole area that nobody's ever excavated."

"Do you know how to get in?"

"I used to know," Methos admitted. "There was a pub over there, run by one of the most ruthless scoundrels in the city. He had a secret passage in the wine cellar. And over on that corner, a bakery owned by a raging Louis sympathizer - "

He stopped, sure that Duncan did not want to hear more. The pub and bakery both had been replaced by small office buildings. He doubted that he'd find any way underground through their foundations. Methos eyed the baths again, a nagging memory trying to work its way to the forefront of his skull.

"This way," he announced with a sudden decisiveness. "That chapel over there."

"I don't see a chapel," Duncan protested.

Methos led him down a narrow alley between an Indian food mart and a computer repair shop. The chapel's spire barely peeked up into the sky behind a chimney and satellite dish. The tiny stone building, stark and simple in its architecture, stood in the center of an old graveyard. Whoever maintained the grounds had let them fall into neglect, with plastic bags and other trash lining the wrought-iron fences. The rusted gate protested mightily as they pushed their way into the yard.

Methos remembered the holy ground as having been much bigger in the eighteenth century. He was still trying to adjust to its postage-stamp size when Duncan said, "The chapel door's locked."

"So?" Methos asked. "You want to take time to find a locksmith?"

Duncan favored him with a sour look and broke down the door.

"We'll need a flashlight," Methos suggested. "It's dark down there."

While the Highlander hurried back to the car, Methos looked at the broken and faded tombstones dotting the yard. Several markers had been removed. He couldn't find one for his old friend Henri, a barkeep who had saved Methos one night in 1778 from an Immortal hunting heads. Methos had been holed up in a damp, dank riverfront tavern on a two-day drunken bender, mourning the death of Voltaire. Paris in those days was a dangerous and rowdy city, full of flaring tensions, only a year away from turbulent revolution. Methos had stumbled to the alley to relieve his bladder and found himself facing a large samurai sword. Henri had chased off the would-be challenger with a pistol, then hauled Methos to a spare room and let him sleep off the liquor. They'd been friends for ten years afterward, until Henri's death from smallpox.

"I'm sorry, my friend, that I can't find you," Methos said to a dozen dreary graves two hundred years later. "You were a good man."

Duncan's return with a large flashlight interrupted Methos' thoughts. They went into the dust-covered chapel. Broken pews littered the floor, and the large simple cross hanging over the altar had fallen askew. The lock on the cellar door broke under Duncan's weight, and they descended down a long flight of steep stairs to a locked iron gate. An old, sour smell rose up from the darkness beyond the gate, and a deep chill permeated the air.

"That way?" Duncan asked.

Methos nodded.

It took more brute force to open the gate, but after only a few minutes of delay the two Immortals started into the labyrinth. Duncan, who said he'd been in the catacombs beneath the Paris Opera house, complained that the tunnels and passages before them now were utterly confusing.

"Just don't get lost," Methos advised. His sense of direction and memory told him they were on the path to the Cluny, despite the confusing twists and turns. His chest felt tight with impending dread. He couldn't shake the irrational thought that something larger than just another Immortal lay ahead. Something dark and foreboding, an old presence in the earth stirring from its rotten grave, shrugging aside maggots, rearing a sightless head -

"Methos," he heard Duncan say. A warm hand clutched the ancient Immortal's shoulder. "Are you all right?"

"We're going the right way," Methos said, forcing down a shudder.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing." Methos did not consider himself a superstitious man. He didn't believe in ghost stories or ancient evils. But his fingers touched the reassuring hilt of his sword just the same.

Ten minutes later the tunnels abruptly sloped upward, and crypts began to appear to their left and right. An electric light mounted on the wall appeared ahead, an incongruous sight. Before they could reach the summit of the tunnel a mortal man appeared and caught sight of them.

"Who are you?" he called out, his voice harsh.

Duncan switched off his flashlight. "The welcome wagon."

The mortal fired a gun in their direction. The blast sounded extraordinarily loud in the confining tunnels. Methos felt something hot and stinging sear his right shoulder as he threw himself against the rough stone wall to his left. "Did you bring a gun?" he hissed to Duncan.

"Since when do I carry a gun?" Duncan retorted.

The mortal ran off. Methos and Duncan cautiously followed him to the junction of corridors. Methos could feel the wound in his shoulder already healing, but it hurt like a fire-hot poker prodding into his flesh. The sweeping sensation of another Immortal's presence caused him to momentarily forget the pain. He and Duncan approached a large wooden door.

"Cassandra?" Duncan asked.

Methos pointed to the door's deadbolt. "I doubt it."

Duncan undid the bolt, then stood aside and eased the door open. "Who's in there?" he called out from the side, unwilling to risk an attack.

"Who do you think?" Connor growled, and appeared in the door frame. Duncan gripped his arm immediately, relief sweeping across the younger Highlander's features. Methos felt a brief pang of jealousy watching their reunion. No one had greeted him with such old familiarity and affection since - well, since Silas, in the ancient woods of Siberia. Methos immediately pushed that thought aside.

Connor looked tired but fierce. He asked, rather urgently, "Where is she? And where's Richie?"

Duncan blanched. "It's true? Richie's alive?"

"Margaret tried to tell you," Methos reminded him. He didn't mention that Gisele had confirmed the same information.

Connor said, "He was alive and kicking just a few minutes ago. Do you know where they are?"

Methos indicated a corridor. "That way, maybe. But they know we're coming, and they've got guns."

Connor growled, "Bullets don't stop us."

"But they slow us down," Methos reminded him.

Connor only grunted. He took a closer look at Duncan, whose face had paled to the color of milk.

"Richie's alive," he said, sounding dazed.

Connor gripped both of his shoulders and looked at him squarely. "Yes, he's alive. It's up to us to make sure he stays that way."

"She can't take his head," Methos said. "This is Holy Ground. The museum was once an abbey, and even the Romans had a temple here."

Connor frowned. "She can still hurt him."

"Let's find them," Duncan said, with a menacing undertone that almost made Methos' goosebumps rise. A wronged Duncan MacLeod was a dangerous Duncan MacLeod. And Cassandra, Methos knew, had wronged him in a most grievous fashion.

Connor nodded and took the lead.

Methos and Duncan followed with drawn swords.

***

Loathing himself, hating his own weakness, Richie walked to the banquet table as if caught in a particularly persistent nightmare. The silver bowl of dates felt smooth and heavy between his hands. He lifted it and started toward Cassandra, each step like wading through hardening concrete. Tessa had liked dates. She'd tried to get him to eat them, too, but he thought they looked too much like little legless cockroaches. Thinking of Tessa only made him feel worse, so instead he tried to make his mind a blank. He was convinced Cassandra had further humiliation in store for him, and as he stopped a few feet away from her, she proved him right.

"Put them down on the floor and kneel," she said.

Richie put the bowl down. Heat rose in his cheeks as he went to his knees. The stone floor dug through the fabric of his jeans, and his hands trembled at his sides. He still had his shirt on, but he could feel her gaze piercing it straight to his skin.

"You have no idea what it's like to be made someone's slave," Cassandra said, her voice unexpectedly stern. "To be dominated, day and night, by someone you loathed and feared. I lived like that for two years under your friend Methos. Did you know that?"

Richie's head jerked up. "That's not true," he tried to protest, but no sound came out of his throat. Tears of frustration burned his eyes.

"He was a monster. He still is. And he's making Duncan into the very image of himself." The sternness fled as she smiled sweetly. "You're lucky, Richie, that I saved you from their influence."

He couldn't speak, but some gestures didn't require vocal accompaniment. Hot anger made him clap his left hand to the inner crock of his right arm and bring up his right fist. Cassandra scowled in annoyance.

"That was a mistake," she promised. "One which you'll pay for, mark my words. Your stomach hurts, Richie. It hurts very badly."

Agony shot through him. Richie's belly exploded with cramps that tore through him like a mini-Quickening. He fell to the floor, curling into himself, unable to scream. He heard a sharp crack that sounded like a gunshot, but it was a distant event and not important to him. Seconds later, one of Cassandra's mortal men burst into the room.

"They're here!" he exclaimed. "Duncan MacLeod and Adam Pierson! I saw them in the tunnels."

The words rang in Richie's head - Duncan and Methos? Come finally to the rescue? More cramps drove hope from his mind, and he gasped for air against the horrible ripping sensation.

"Impossible!" Cassandra said.

"Mistress, I saw them myself!"

"Tell everyone to evacuate," Cassandra snapped. "Meet at the rendezvous. I have to find Amri."

She rose from the throne and stood above Richie. Her towering figure loomed in his blurred vision. "Stay here and wait for them, Richie. Be my bait. Do not leave this room."

Barely aware of Cassandra and her man departing the chamber, Richie lay gasping on the floor trying to fight off the cramps. *I've got to find Mac,* he thought to himself. *Got to warn them all.*

But he couldn't even get up off the floor or cry out a warning.

***

Margaret followed the stairs to the basement of the Cluny and tried four locked doors before a fifth led her to another flight of stairs. This one ended at another locked door that utterly refused to budge no matter how hard she rattled the doorknob. She didn't have a hairpin to pick the lock, and wouldn't even have known how to if a pin became available. Just as she decided to retreat and try some other route, the door burst open and two large men came through.

"Who are you?" one demanded.

"I was - looking for the ladies room," Margaret stammered.

"It's not that way," one of them snapped, but neither man stopped before continuing up the stairs. They were obviously in a hurry to get somewhere - or to get away from something. Margaret grabbed hold of the door and slipped inside before it closed completely. She found herself in an unfinished cellar. An open gate led down a flight of stairs. Heart hammering, mouth dry, she followed the steps down. She heard footsteps and stopped in fear. Voices floated up to her.

"How many men does she have?" That sounded like Duncan's voice.

Connor answered. "I counted at least six, all mortal."

"They do all her dirty work, I expect," Adam Pierson commented.

"So where are they?" Duncan asked.

Margaret almost revealed herself to them, but a stern reminder of her vows held her back. Her job was to Watch, not become even further involved. Maybe now, as events seemed to be rushing toward conclusion, she could remember that. Creeping forward in the darkness, she followed the sound of their voices down a tunnel to a large chamber, into the land of ghosts.

***

Connor found the vaulted room of shadows first. Methos, just behind him, saw Richie on the floor but refused to hurry into a trap. Duncan rushed ahead without regard and crouched beside his former student. Richie looked alive and aware, but in an obvious state of distress. He lay curled into himself, gasping.

"It's all right," Duncan soothed, cradling Richie in his lap. The Highlander's face colored into a mixed canvas of relief, affection and concern. "Everything's going to be fine - "

Richie shook his head. His mouth opened, but no words came out. He shook and trembled as if in horrible pain. He clutched Duncan's shirt with clawed fingers. Duncan tightened his grasp and looked helplessly at Connor. The older Highlander came to their side and asked, "What's wrong?"

"I don't know," Duncan said anxiously. "I don't see any wound. But he's in pain, and he can't speak."

Methos' first thought was that Richie had suffered some kind of hysterical muteness - Cassandra could have put him through any number of ordeals in the short time she'd held him - but he had no time to further develop the notion. A deep chill swept through him, cold enough to slow his blood. Thin lines of light appeared in a web just a few feet away, and he automatically raised his sword. A familiar face appeared in the spinning lines, followed by a sturdy body. Details fleshed themselves in with startling swiftness.

The ghost before him gave him a joyous smile. "Methos!" Silas called out. "Did you ask him if I could keep the monkey? I've always wanted one as a pet!"

Methos tried to shake his head, to deny the vision, but his body had frozen in place. More images appeared in the cold, dusty air of the crypt. The dead rose in symphony, ghosts as far as he could see, horrific images pulled from his memory. He didn't recognize other images, but guessed they came from his companions' minds. Connor, Duncan and Richie stood as equally paralyzed as Methos felt, their expressions reflecting the same horror his undoubtedly did.

*This is madness,* Methos thought. But powerful, seductive, mesmerizing madness. A red fog seeped from the stone walls and drifted along the floor, turning his ankles to ice. He couldn't have moved even if a razor-sharp sword swung toward his neck.

Alexa reached for him. Kristin Gilles sobbed on the floor. Silas' expression turned dark with fury as the ghost accused him of murder.

"Do you like what you see, Methos?" Cassandra asked from behind him. She appeared in the corner of his vision, her face bright with amusement. Amri stood by her side, his face not nearly as bright or engaging. "I've arranged all this for you."

He found he could speak, with enormous effort. Sweat broke out on his face as he said, "Then let . . .them go."

"The others?" Cassandra asked. "Why should I do that? You're all my little playthings now, aren't you? Kneel before my power, Methos."

He found himself dropping to his knees without decision or free will. Had there ever been a time when he'd controlled his own body? His sword clanged to the floor, no longer useful to him. A familiar figure moved in the shadows behind Amri, her form hesitant and unsure in the eerie spectral light. Despite the fact Margaret Allen had as little chance as the rest of them, Methos found inner strength to force out more words and distract Cassandra from the Watcher's presence. "Not . . . *your* power.. . his."

"Amri is my complement," Cassandra said. "He's young, but very powerful. Together we are undefeatable. He knows what you did to me. He knows what must be done."

But Amri's words betrayed her. "Can't we stop now?" the younger Immortal pleaded. "Please, Mother?"

Methos caught a glimpse of the schism between them, but it was too little of an opening too late in their confrontation. He didn't have enough time to exploit Amri's doubts. He didn't have enough strength to turn him against Cassandra in her mad quest.

"These are the men who would destroy us both," Cassandra replied darkly. "It's either them or us, Amri. Trust me. I know what's best."

Behind them, Margaret Allen heard the lie. Prompted by mounting terror, she had kept to the shadows of the chamber to watch the confrontation at hand. The ghastly images hovering in the air frightened her more than anything she'd ever seen in her entire life. Connor, Richie and Duncan stood like statues in the midst of the ghosts, as helpless as infants. Cassandra and her companion had taken on Adam Pierson to torment, and had him on his knees on the stone floor.

She had no gun to fire. The nearest sword lay at Methos' side, equally useless to her. She had no weapons to use against Cassandra, nothing to break the ancient Immortal's concentration.

Except the truth. Or what she understood the truth to be.

"Liar!" she cried out. "Adam Pierson never hurt you!"

Cassandra turned toward Margaret. At the very same instant, Amri's gaze on Methos changed expression. The strained indecision that marked his features darkened into something deeper and vengeful. In the split seconds of comprehension offered to him, Methos understood that Cassandra's pawn knew more than he'd ever let on to her - and that he hated her more than she could ever understand.

Amri's force strengthened on Methos, stripped him of the right to choose his own fate, forced him down a path of action and doomed him to hell.

With just a few fluid extensions of his muscles, Methos the puppet picked up his sword, lunged forward and lopped off Cassandra's head on Holy Ground.

***

Connor saw the twisted hag that looked like Heather shriek and scream out in pain. A jolt pounded through his body, breaking him of the paralysis that had seized his muscles. The ghastly visions in the hall streamed upward toward the ceiling, merging into a spinning blackness with screeches and howls. The chamber shook beneath his feet and Connor staggered, grasping at mid-air for some sort of balance. He saw Methos standing nearby, his expression dazed, his bloody sword at his side. Margaret Allen, not far away, had her hand clasped firmly over her mouth.

Cassandra's head lay against Methos' boots, surprise frozen on her features.

Amri wore a look of triumph.

"Thank you," he said to Methos. "I could never have killed her on my own, no matter how much I wanted to."

Connor instantly surmised that Methos had not killed Cassandra of his own free will. Methos *knew* killing another Immortal on Holy Ground was forbidden. But Amri, who had been kept ignorant of so many things, knew nothing of the horrible consequences.

Or maybe he did know. Maybe he'd known all along, and still used Methos as a tool of destruction.

"You fool . . . " Connor growled, stepping forward, venom in his voice. "Don't you know - "

"It doesn't matter," Methos said flatly. He lifted his gaze to his Immortal companions. Dull resignation reigned in his eyes. "I'm done."

"Methos - " Duncan gasped, stepping forward, but the time for farewells had run out.

The Quickening rose in arcs of red-hot light from Cassandra's body and blasted into Methos' frame. Connor grabbed both Duncan and Richie and threw them to the floor, half-shielding them from the devastating power shooting through the air. He was too far from Margaret to offer her the same protection. The older Highlander had been through powerful Quickenings before, and he had survived bone-jarring earthquakes, but never had he experienced the two simultaneously. He could feel his brain bouncing around inside his skull and all the muscles of his body vibrating in tension. Dust burned beneath the onslaught and ozone filled the air, making it hard to breathe. The stone floor buckled and heaved like the deck of a whaling schooner caught in a hurricane, tossing their bodies like limp rags.

Methos' screams rode the wild currents of air blasting down from all sides. The cries were unlike any the older Highlander had ever heard in his entire life - those of a man being consumed by fire from within and without, of someone strapped to an express train of agony on a plummet into hell. Connor tried to see Methos, to bear witness to his friend's final agony, but the Quickening distorted every detail. The air between them shimmered like hot air rising off a desert highway, and the red bolts shaded every detail with the color of blood.

Chiseled stone broke free of the ceiling into giant pieces, pounding down with such force the floor cracked open. A giant split appeared beneath Richie and Duncan, endangering them both. Connor pulled them to safety with a split-second to spare. Another chasm opened up beneath Amri, and Cassandra's former student fought against being swallowed alive.

"No!" Amri shouted. "I forbid it!"

But all the power of Amri's ego couldn't match the power of a wrongful Quickening. The fragile hold he had on the edge of the chasm fragmented, sending him plunging downward. Margaret fell victim to the same rent in the ground, tumbling in with a squeak of surprise. Only at the very last minute did she find a handhold. Connor climbed over Duncan, fought his way across the heaving chamber and latched onto her wrists.

"I've got you!" he shouted.

"Pull me up!" she pleaded.

Connor pulled mightily, hindered by the shuddering ground and falling rock and the bolts of Quickening zapping perilously close to his head. He dragged Margaret to the level of her waist, then grasped her belt and hauled back more. Just as she collapsed onto safe ground Methos' scream cut out, and the howl of a vast and horrific wind filled the air.

Connor covered Margaret. Suction tore at their hair and clothes. A great outrush of air made Connor's ears pop, and a geyser burst out of the rip in the ground. Black water shot upward for a few second like the spurts of a massive, severed artery and then died away. The wind abruptly stopped, leaving behind a silence broken only by sobs from Margaret.

"It's all right," Connor murmured, patting her on the back. Although he didn't remember absorbing any of the bolts himself, his body hurt like it had been pummeled by a battering ram. His clothes stank of fire. He sat up dizzily, his gaze going first to Duncan and Richie. They looked as confused and exhausted as he felt, but neither had been seriously harmed by the Quickening or its aftermath.

Connor turned to where Methos had been.

"No," Duncan said behind him, a shaken protest. The numbness of denial had already begun to sink in for Connor's kinsman. "No."

Connor didn't answer.

Only a column of charred ash stood where Methos the Immortal had once been.

***

Two days later

Connor went to Gisele Pelisson's apartment and retrieved Margaret's suitcase, coat and purse. Margaret had protested that he didn't have to do it, but he said he owed her at least that much. She wondered how Gisele liked the idea of Connor MacLeod appearing on her doorstep. When he brought her things to the small hotel near Les Invalides, she worked up enough courage to ask how Richie and Duncan were doing. She didn't expect intimate details, but she wanted to know if they had recuperated any from the shock and sorrow of that morning beneath the Cluny. Two days after the fact, she swore she could still feel the earth shaking. She couldn't bear to watch any of the news reports detailing the inexplicable earthquake that had shaken the city. Her body ached with cuts, bruises and general soreness. Her dreams came full of ghosts and screams and blood.

"They'll recover," Connor said, a note of distance clear in his voice. No matter what gratitude he felt toward her, obviously he still protected his clan's privacy first. "It just takes time."

"And you? He was your friend too, wasn't he?"

"Are you asking as a Watcher?"

A flush rose in Margaret's cheeks. Truthfully she answered, "No. I'm quitting. It's not worth it anymore. My family is more important."

"That's a wise sentiment," Connor said. He gazed around her room and at the rain splattering against the windows. "Yes, he was my friend. I'll miss him."

Margaret could think of no words of condolence that would be useful to a man almost five hundred years old. He'd seen death before. He'd lost friends. He probably rarely lost them in so horrible a fashion as that which had befallen Adam Pierson - no, not Adam, *Methos* - but he'd lost them just the same.

"I'm sorry," she said, the words sounding woefully inadequate.

Connor nodded very briefly. He took a deep breath and then looked her in the eye. "Do you have a flight yet back to the States?"

She nodded. "Tonight."

"Good. I'm flying off in the opposite direction, so we won't be sitting together." Connor gave her the briefest of smiles to show he was joking. He shook her hand. "Thank you again for all you did. The Watchers are losing a good woman."

Joe said the same thing a few hours later, when she went to help him check out of the hospital. His physicians had pronounced him healthy enough for discharge. Sorrow weighed just as heavy in his features as it had in Connor's - Adam, or Methos, had apparently been a close friend.

"Don't even mention the Watchers to me," Margaret said gloomily. "Especially since you're quitting yourself."

"Yes, I'm quitting. Again. I'm tired of field work, and I want to relax for a change. But you - hell, you're the only Watcher in modern history to have witnessed a Quickening on Holy Ground! All you have to do is say the word, and they'd probably give you a plum teaching assignment at the academy."

"I don't want to be a teacher." Margaret didn't mention that writing her report had been one of the hardest things she'd ever done. Separating what had been real from her own terrified impressions had been tremendously difficult, and the memory of Methos' screams had echoed every keystroke into her borrowed laptop computer.

Joe methodically packed get-well cards, boxes of chocolates and a few articles of clothing into a tote bag. "You could just go back to watching Richie. It's hard to do once you've lost your objectivity, of course - "

"That never stopped you," Margaret said, raising an eyebrow.

"Point taken." Joe gazed at her speculatively. "You still haven't talked to Bill, have you?"

"I'll talk to him when I get back. See if I can make him understand any of this craziness."

"If you want me to have a word with him - "

"No," Margaret said flatly. "No words with him. It's my responsibility."

Joe shrugged. "If you say so."

"I do." Margaret watched him pack two of the hospital's towels in his tote bag. "Are you leaving Paris, too? Along with Connor?"

"Yes. The four of us are going away to some island called Hydra to scatter Methos' ashes into the sea. I think he would have wanted that. The man hated boats, but he liked Greece."

"Joe, how is Richie doing - really?"

"Not well, I guess. He and Mac were here this morning, but I sent them home - they're exhausted. Richie won't talk about whatever Cassandra might have done to him, and Duncan's all broken up over Adam's death." Joe abruptly stopped packing. Margaret rose from where she'd been sitting on the bed and wrapped her arms around him.

"I'm sorry," she said. "You're all broken up, too."

She knew then that Paris would forever and ever be stamped as a city of sorrow in her heart.

***

She helped Joe back to his apartment and got him settled before saying her final farewell. Margaret took a taxi back to the Left Bank. Traffic had snarled the area for a mile in all directions, and she impatiently decided to walk the last few blocks to her hotel. She paid the driver and climbed out into the rain. She supposed it was fitting that her last day in Paris be full of gray dreariness, the exact complement of her mood. All the people she passed had their faces turned down, and their black umbrellas shook in the gusts of wind off the river.

She thought briefly about her decision to quit the Watchers before shrugging off any lingering doubts. The horrific images under the Cluny and the fear of losing her life had finally made her realize her true commitments and loyalties were to her family. She didn't believe she could return to watching Richie's life unfold without wanting to help him, and that might endanger her above and beyond acceptable risk. Besides, she no longer wanted to be part of an organization that believed she should have left Richie to his own tragic fate.

She would miss it, certainly. She hoped she would still keep some of her Watcher friends back in Seacouver, and that they wouldn't drift far apart without the glue of Immortals to hold them together. Margaret didn't think she would find another activity quite as exciting as being a Watcher, but the trade for security and truthfulness would have to compensate.

A man trying to match her hotel's address to a slip of paper in his hand blocked Margaret's path. "Excuse me," she said crossly, before catching sight of his face. "Bill?"

"Hello, Margaret," her husband said, just as startled. He had a suitcase in his hand, the old leather one she'd given him for Christmas just before they married. Not a romantic gift, but a lasting one. His pants looked rumpled and his raincoat had a rip at the elbow. He seemed utterly incongruous, her husband standing in Paris.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, bewildered.

Vulnerability stole across his face. "I thought - it seemed like a good idea - well, hell, I came to see what you were doing. Joe Dawson gave me your address."

"Joe?" she asked.

"He called yesterday."

Margaret couldn't decide whether to be furious with Joe or admire the way he'd lied to her in his hospital room. Lied by omission, if nothing else. "What else did he tell you?" she asked cautiously.

"Just to give you a chance. He said you could explain everything."

"I can," she said, although butterflies fluttered in her stomach at the idea of voicing the truth. Almost shyly she asked, "Do you really want to hear it?"

Bill replied, with more than a trace of exasperation, "I just flew halfway across the world! Of course I want to hear it."

"Okay," Margaret smiled. The story wouldn't be easy, and by the end of it he might think she was insane, but she had the sudden and joyous feeling things might just work out after all. *But I'm still quitting the Watchers,* she thought firmly, as if Joe Dawson might be able to read her mind across the city.

"Let's go inside," she suggested. "What did you do with the kids?"

"They're at the Briere's house. JoAnne said she was happy to take care of them."

Margaret opened the hotel door. "You're drenched. You must be tired, too."

"Yeah. And I have a little headache. Do you have any aspirin?"

"Yes," she answered. "I'm always prepared."

***

Burning darkness confined him, ripped him apart, blinded him, filled him with red light, scattered him through time, solidified him on a rocky hillside with sand scouring his skin. Barely capable of holding his identity and thoughts together, Methos realized his suffering had temporarily ceased. He could barely see past the light burning into his eyes, but the swirling sand that flayed at his body like a tiny thousand razor blades receded and left him in peace. He had a body, which surprised him. He'd almost forgotten what that was like. Although he remembered the events under the Cluny Museum, he couldn't honestly have said if one day or a thousand had passed since their cataclysmic conclusion. His death had become an inferno of torment, a hell without end.

But now, a desert filled with the heat of the sun. A white and blue sky stretched up, up, up toward the universe. Vast stretches of lonely land surrounded him for miles, with no signs of life or civilization.

"Methos," someone said from close by. He turned in the sand and found a friend standing behind him, his form almost indistinguishable in the blazing light.

"Darius? Is that you?"

"Yes."

The other Immortal stepped forward. Methos could have wept for the kindness and love shining from his eyes. The image of Darius wore his brown priest's robes and a simple wooden cross. He looked as strong and confident as Methos had ever known him. But the real Darius was dead, wasn't he? Heinously killed in his own church by mortals, his Quickening lost to the world. And he, Methos, had also been killed - destroyed and damned to an eternity of suffering for the unpardonable crime of taking a head on Holy Ground.

"Where are we?" Methos asked weakly. "Are you just an illusion, part of my torment?"

"No, my friend. Your torment is over, if you choose it to be."

A fierce, hot wind howled out of the valley around them, swirling in dusty eddies at Methos' feet. He saw leather thongs tied to them - funny, but his last distinct memory of footwear had been a pair of worn brown loafers. He bowed his head and squeezed his eyes shut.

"I choose it to be," he murmured. "Please, Darius. Don't be an illusion."

A warm hand cupped his chin and lifted his head. Methos opened his eyes and gazed into the compassionate eyes of one of his oldest, dearest, deadest friends.

"I'm not an illusion. This is your second chance. Contrary to the laws of nature, but allowable under the right circumstances."

"The laws of . . . but I'm dead. Nothing can change that."

Darius smiled softly. "Sometimes there's a way. If one tries hard enough, if one knows the right people. . . You've been given a special dispensation, my friend. Go make right what once went wrong."

"A dispensation?" Methos asked in bewilderment. "From whom?"

Darius smiled enigmatically. "From the winner of the Prize. A friend of yours."

The priest leaned forward and planted a kiss on Methos' forehead. He felt the distinct, warm touch of lips on his skin. The wind dissolved Darius' form, carrying him in streams of color into the sky. Methos almost called out after him - what exactly was he supposed to make right? - but the warning buzz of another Immortal made his pulse quicken.

*Just remember,* Darius' voice warned in his head, as clear and loud as if he stood right next to him. *If you try to contact yourself in any way, your chance is over. You will go back to where you were.*

A cold chill ran through Methos' body at the thought. Swallowing hard, he looked down at himself. Not only did he have on sandals, but some unknown force in the universe had clothed him in a short tunic of dark woven cloth and given him leggings as well. A crossbelt over his chest carried flint, a knife and a leather canteen. The sword at his hip looked old and strong, shaped by an ancient forge. He put his hand to the worn wooden hilt but didn't pull it loose. Despite Darius' promise and threat, he couldn't truly be sure anything he saw or experienced was real.

Methos cautiously climbed the rise and looked down a steep, treacherous slope. The body of a woman lay not ten feet away. She'd probably died of exposure and thirst, but her Immortal body had brought her back for more punishment. Her dark hair lay in knots and blood stained her robe. He knew her, and with a cold flash of insight knew what had been done to her. Her captors had taken great pleasure in tormenting her. Methos felt ill at the memory.

She gasped beneath the harsh sunlight, disoriented by those first few seconds of returning life. He knelt by her side - not close enough to touch her, and just out of reach of her knife.

"You're safe now," he said, using the ancient Semitic language they'd once called their own.

"You!" Cassandra spat out, in terror and loathing both, and jerked backward. If she'd had the strength to stand, she probably would have already been running. "No! I won't go back!"

He raised his hands in a supplicating gesture. "I'm not who you think I am!" he said firmly. "I'm not here to take you back. I've come to help you escape."

She scowled in obvious mistrust. "Liar!"

"No, I promise. Let me help you. I can take you to where there are cities. I can teach you things you don't know about yourself - such as why you keep waking up from the dead."

Cassandra made a warding gesture. Suspicion and hatred still dominated her features, although her eyes betrayed a glimmer of hope. She'd always been curious, and certainly not stupid. Perhaps she saw something in his expression that lent him credibility. Perhaps she believed that on her own, she had little hope of ultimately surviving the harsh desert or of outrunning the Four Horsemen.

"Who are you?" she demanded.

"You can call me . . . Adam."

"Adam," she repeated. Cassandra sat up and pushed hair from her eyes. "But you look just like . . . is this some trick of the gods?"

"Of maybe just one of them," Methos agreed solemnly. He held her gaze. "I know those men hurt you. I know they killed your tribe, as they've killed so many others. But I also know their tactics and the way they think. If they come looking for you, I can help you escape and outwit them."

"Can you help me kill them?" Cassandra asked bitterly, drawing together the ripped hem of her clothing. Hatred seared her voice. "I swear, one day they'll grovel at my feet. I'll make them pay for what they did."

Methos held back a judicious comment about vengeance. The world restored to him was young and full of promise. Cassandra still suffered from the trauma of her ordeal, and couldn't be expected to easily forget or forgive anything. But he had a few thousand years to teach her.

"I can teach you how to fight. And how to win. Will you let me help you?" he asked.

She looked at him for a long moment, torn between mistrust and need.

"Yes," she finally said.

Dispensation.

***

Richie woke to late-morning sunshine streaming through the open windows. The village of Hiros lay quiet and peaceful just outside the rented room he shared with Connor. Their host had furnished his house in bold primary colors - a forest-green dresser stood in one corner, the beds had bright red headboards, and thick yellow paint covered all the walls. Richie could smell the sea salt and the comforting odor of newly baked bread. He shifted slightly and found himself tangled in sheets and a rough cotton blanket. His sleep had been restless, filled with dread and distorted images. He sighed at the memory, wondering when or if he'd ever have peaceful dreams again.

"Rise and shine," Connor said, startling him. "I'm hungry."

Richie had sensed another Immortal's presence nearby, but hadn't realized someone was actually in the room with him. He turned his head to see Connor sitting in an armchair, leafing through an international edition of Playboy.

"Where'd you find that?" Richie asked with interest.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Connor retorted. The tip of his sandal edged a Greek copy of James Joyce' Ulysses sitting neglected on the floor. "I tried that, but there are no pictures."

Richie yawned, sat up and scratched at an itchy spot on his bare shoulder. He didn't ask why Connor had decided to hang out in their room when sunshine, fresh air and breathtaking scenery beckoned from outside. In the days since their arrival on the island of Hydra, Connor had assumed a subtle, protective role over him. Not that Richie needed physical defense - the only dangers on the island came from stray sheep, too much wine and utter boredom - but he appreciated the gesture just the same. The events that had started at the racetrack and ended at the Cluny had left him feeling vulnerable and shaky.

Connor didn't coddle or fuss, like Duncan would - he was usually just nearby whenever Richie looked, engaged in his own activities, but ready to listen to anything Richie might want to say. Richie supposed he might eventually grow sick of Connor's attention, but for the time being he found it oddly comforting. Just being out of Paris and visiting someplace sunny and quiet helped too, even if Hydra was the most boring place on earth and their stay, so far, felt more like a lengthy funeral than anything else.

Richie wasn't even sure why they had come to the island. They'd flown from Paris to Athens and taken a ferry. Hydra didn't have any cars, so they'd hired a donkey team to take them up into the mountains to Hiros. An old Greek Orthodox monastery lay just outside the village. According to his chronicles, Methos had been especially endeared of the place and had spent several happy years there engaged in research. On their first night, the four men had stood on a cliff overlooking the sea and sent Methos' ashes scattering to the wind and water. Connor had given a brief eulogy while Duncan hung his head in silence. Richie, who hadn't really known Methos well, felt excluded from his friends' deep grief. He also felt partially responsible - if Methos hadn't come to rescue him from Cassandra, he'd still be alive. But that was a topic he had yet to broach with anyone.

Since that night, Duncan had spent most of his time wandering the twisting mountain trails or pacing the narrow strip of beach below the monastery's northern walls. He joined Connor, Richie and Joe for meals, but had little to say to them from the depths of his sorrow. Whenever he looked at Richie, he took on an expression of such relief that Richie grew embarrassed. He knew Duncan had mourned for him, had blamed himself for Richie's "death," but now that the misunderstanding had been cleared up, did Duncan have to keep looking at him as if he was some kind of living miracle?

"If you sit there and daydream all day," Connor said, breaking into Richie's thoughts, "we'll never get any food."

"That would be horrible," Richie agreed, and scooted out of bed. He went to the bathroom, dragged on jeans and a wrinkled shirt, and slipped one sneaker on after the other as he followed Connor down the stairs. Bright sunlight bounced off the village's stone buildings and the pleasant spring temperatures kept the air mild. Almond, olive and fig trees lined the cobbled main street. The owner of the taverna agreed to make them lunch. They sat at a worn wooden table in the shady town square and ate thick pork sandwiches. Joe appeared several minutes later, using his cane to thwart the skinny white chicken pecking at his prosthetic legs.

"Damn chicken," Joe scowled. "It's been following me for days. I think it tried to serenade me last night from under the bedroom window."

"We heard," Connor said. "I think it likes you. It's always good to make new friends."

"I like my old ones better," Joe shot back, sitting next to Richie.

"I do, too," Connor admitted softly, and from his tone Richie guessed he meant Methos.

A flashback of the ancient Immortal's screams cut through him like a knife, and Richie fought down a shudder. He reached for his glass of lemonade and ignored a sudden concerned look from Connor. "Where's Mac?" he asked Joe, hoping for a change of subject.

"I don't know. He left before sunrise."

Richie wrapped both hands around his glass and asked, hesitantly, "Do you think he's going to be okay?"

"In time," Connor said.

Joe agreed. "He thought he lost you. But then he got you back, and lost Methos. It's been a hard week."

"Yeah." Richie looked down. He knew that Cassandra's use of him in her scheme of vengeance had nothing to do with him *personally* - he'd been another of her tools, like Amri. The mystery of that strange Immortal and his awesome powers had been swallowed up by the earth, and might never be answered. But even knowing he'd been nothing more to her than a tool didn't erase Richie's aching bitterness. His cheeks burned at the recall of how he'd done her bidding like a slave, and how he would have done more if not for the rescue.

"Richie?" Connor asked.

Richie blinked up at the older Highlander. "I think I'm going to go find Mac," he said suddenly. "I want to talk to him."

Connor just nodded.

"Try the beach," Joe suggested. "Hey, if you're leaving, can I have the rest of your sandwich? I'm starving."

Richie hurried out of the village to the steep, twisting path that led down through a grove of orange trees. He couldn't explain his urgency to see Duncan, and he had no idea what he really wanted to say. Duncan had half-carried him from beneath the Cluny, taken him back to the barge, given him food and water and tucked him into bed. Richie had been too physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted to do anything more than follow simple directions. He hadn't noticed the invisible wall between them. That barrier still existed. It had traveled with them on the plane and ferry and into the mountains, and it consisted of more than just those looks of relief Duncan kept throwing at him or sorrow over Methos' death.

Richie intended to break down that wall. He wanted his mentor and friend back in his life one hundred percent. To let the division continue to exist would be like giving Cassandra her final victory, and he wouldn't let that happen.

Beaches were not Hydra's strong point - the narrow wedge of sand between the towering cliffs and deep blue Mediterranean flooded at high tide, and thick slabs of rock in the water kept any would-be swimmers away. Richie found Duncan standing near the waterline, his hands folded across his chest, his gaze fixed on the horizon. He turned at the sensation of Richie's approach and gave him that patented relieved look.

"Hey, Rich," the Highlander said.

"Mac." Richie stopped just a few feet away. Before he could lose his resolve he asked, "How can you blame yourself?"

Surprise crossed Duncan's features. He turned his face to the water so that Richie couldn't see it. "Blame myself for what?"

"For Cassandra. For me. For Methos. Everything, basically. I know you, Mac. You could corner the market on guilt." Richie took a deep breath. "I just forgot it for a little while."

"I don't 'corner the market on guilt,'" Duncan said, sounding a little annoyed. "I take responsibility for events I caused."

"You caused Cassandra to kidnap me? To fake my death? How did you do that, Mac? She tricked you, like she tricked the rest of us. She made you think some guy was me, and she made you think you were taking my Quickening. You were duped."

"I should have . . . " Duncan started, then stopped. His shoulders squared, but he still wouldn't look at Richie. "I should have figured out what was going on sooner. But no, I honestly believed I was some kind of champion for the world. That there was some demon running around. What kind of egotism is that?"

Richie hesitated, then put his hand on Duncan's arm. "Hey, if I were going to pick a champion for the world, you'd be my number one draft choice, Mac. So she preyed on your ego a little bit. She also put ideas into your head. You weren't the only one."

Duncan didn't answer. Richie wondered if he was doing more harm than good. "Look," he said, trying a different tactic, "She got the best of all of us. It's done and over with. If you let it eat you up inside, she wins. If I can put it out of my head, so can you."

The Highlander turned to him. "Have you?" he asked gently.

Richie's mouth opened with the beginning of a lie, but he closed it quickly. "I'm doing the best I can," he offered. "Some days are better than others."

"Yeah." Duncan took a deep breath. "I know."

The older Immortal stretched out his right arm, put his hand on Richie's shoulder, and drew him into an embrace. Richie went willingly, glad for the feelings of relief and love sweeping through his chest. Duncan's arms were strong, his affection genuine. They would get past this and move on with their lives.

"No more demons," he heard Duncan say.

Richie smiled. No more demons. Duncan released him and they broke apart with silly grins on their faces. The warning tingle of an approaching Immortal hit Richie's nerves, and he looked around in expectation of Connor. But the dark-haired man standing at the base of the grove path was not Connor MacLeod.

Alarm made Richie shrink backward, and he bumped up against Duncan. Coldness swept down through his body, ice-cubes running in his veins. Denial followed only a second later - not real, not real, not real -

Duncan stepped in front of Richie, shielding him. The movement annoyed Richie, but he understood it. They were defenseless.

Neither had brought their swords from their rooms. They'd been too difficult to conceal beneath lightweight spring clothing, and no one wanted to arouse the villagers' curiousity by carrying them outright. Besides, neither had expected to need them on the peaceful, isolated island.

But they hadn't expected to see Methos, either. Or his ghost, which stood not thirty feet away looking as strong and solid as the day he'd died. He wore khakis, sandals and a blue shirt, and had his hands in his pockets.

"Mac?" Richie asked sharply.

"It's all right," Duncan said automatically. He lifted his chin and called out angrily, "Whatever you are, you're a trick."

"Hardly," the image of Methos answered. He looked calm and slightly amused. "I'm as real as you are. Just a few thousand years older than the last time you saw me. I'm sorry I'm late - I had to find Margaret to see if she knew where you'd gone, and she took some persuading."

Richie's anger rose at the thought of someone threatening his Watcher and rescuer. "If you've hurt her - "

Methos looked surprised. "Hurt her? Why would I hurt her? No, she's enjoying a very nice second honeymoon in Burgundy. She just didn't believe I was real."

"I don't either," Duncan said.

"Neither do I," Richie echoed.

Methos removed his hands from his pockets and spread them in a gesture of harmlessness. "It's true. I'm as real as you are. I *am* Methos. I was destroyed on Holy Ground. And then I was given . . . a second chance."

"To do what? And who gave you a second chance?" Duncan demanded.

"I don't know who. I have a few theories . . . " Methos shrugged. "But it's just speculation. Suffice it to say I was thrown back in time to the Bronze Age, and given the opportunity to intervene in Cassandra's life in a positive way. To turn her away from the path of vengeance. My younger self was still around - I took great pains not to cross paths with him - so I took a new name and charted a different path through the world.

"I spent hundreds of years teaching Cassandra. We visited every major civilization in history. I took her to the best philosophers in history, and taught her as much swordwork as she could learn. It truly was a second chance, for both of us. Sometimes boring for me, since I knew all the really important things that were going to happen, but I did make several hundred million pounds in the automobile and computer industries."

Richie frowned. He'd watched enough "Star Trek" to guess about time-travel. "But nothing changed. You say you went back and taught her and improved her life - but I still remember everything she did."

Methos gazed at the rolling waves of the sea for a moment, then fixed on them with profound disappointment in his eyes. "In the end, I made no difference. After she left me, she turned her back on all she knew in favor of vengeance and hatred. That was her choice to make. She made her own life miserable. And she lost her head."

Duncan stood silently, absorbing the information. Richie didn't know if he believed this restored Methos standing in the sand. Could such a fantastic tale be true? He supposed Immortality was full of stranger stories.

"Tell us everything," Duncan finally said. "The whole story. All the details."

"That may take awhile," Methos said, with a small smile.

"We've got time," the Highlander answered.

"Good," Methos said. His voice held a note of relief. "Let's go back to the village, shall we? I don't want to repeat thousands of years of personal experience all over again for Connor and Joe. And it's a tale best told over many, many pitchers of beer."

He started up the path. Richie and Duncan didn't move. Richie asked, "Do you believe him?"

Duncan hesitated. "Do you?"

"I don't know. A few years ago I wouldn't have believed in people running around with swords."

The Highlander gazed after the figure that looked so much like his dead friend. "It sounds like something that *would* happen to Methos."

Methos turned on the trail. "Well?" he called down. "Are you coming or not?"

They left the beach for the shade of the trees and climbed up the steep mountain path toward the village. The Mediterranean fell away beneath them, a vast glittering blue as far as the eye could see. Richie stopped once to look back, struck by the beauty of the rocky island. For the first time in several days he felt renewed and rejuvenated. The life and friends he'd known before the arrival of the so-called demon had been restored to him. He hadn't taken the opportunity to thank Margaret again in Paris but when he got back to Seacouver he would make the time to do so. His friends had saved him from Cassandra, but his Watcher had given him back his life. For that he would always be grateful.

He had his whole future ahead of him, as bright as the sun, as mysterious and dangerous and beautiful as the encompassing sea.

"Rich?" Duncan asked from several feet ahead of him. "Everything all right?"

"Everything's great," Richie reassured him, and quickly caught up to his teacher on the path. "Let's go see if this guy is for real or not. I'm in the mood for a good story, aren't you?"

THE END