Highlander: Shadow of Obsession

by Rebecca Neason

  Inside his soul, he thought he heard Emrys laugh.

  Grayson went back to the army and told them of Darius’s demise. It was not a lie; the Darius he knew, they knew, was dead.

  The news of his death seemed to take the heart from them. Grayson understood; he felt the same, but unlike them he had his new purpose to give him strength. It might take centuries, but he had time.

  Darius had taught him that, too.

  He sent the army north with the promise to rejoin them before the winter snows fell. They were happy to go back to the forests and mountains that had been home to generations of parents and grandparents. Grayson turned south. There was one person he knew would join him in his quest to destroy Darius. Betrayal had hurt her as well.

  Callestina.

  He rode like a man possessed, stopping only when his horse stumbled with fatigue, and then he begrudged the hours of rest. His new purpose was a taskmaster that drove him without mercy.

  He covered the distance back to Cremona in a third of the time it had taken Darius and the army to march north. Alaric’s people were still there—and Alaric was with them. They had built no permanent homes. Instead, they were preparing to march south again, to lands given them by the Roman Senate.

  Grayson did not care where they went. He was here only because he knew Callestina would still be with her brother.

  She must have recognized him from a distance, for she came out to meet him before he reached the camp. Her greeting was cold, but Grayson had expected nothing better. Her expression changed only slightly when he told her what had happened.

  “Come back with me, Callestina,” he said at last. “Join me—and together we’ll find the way to make him pay for all his deceptions.”

  Callestina turned her head away from him. Grayson knew she felt pain and anger, but he knew of her love as well. And that love, which would not go away, only made the pain worse. His heart felt the same.

  “Come with me, Callestina,” he said again. “You don’t belong here, not anymore. You need someone to teach you the ways of our kind. I will do that—and I will never betray you.”

  Seacover, present day

  And he never did, Callestina—now Cynthia VanDervane—thought as she lay upon her bed beside the still-sleeping Victor Paulus.

  Knowing that Alaric would have stormed heaven itself to find her had she just run away, Grayson had gone to the Visigoth and asked for Callestina’s hand in honorable marriage. Alaric had consented eagerly, glad to be rid of his stubborn and wayward sister and settle down to his new Roman life with his new Roman wife.

  Callestina and Grayson rode north, back to join the army he had left behind. When, many months later, she learned that Alaric had died, she mourned him only in passing. Under Grayson’s careful tutelage she was learning to leave mortal concerns far behind.

  They stayed together for the first two centuries of her Immorality. He led his band of marauders through Europe, but without Darius’s strength and finesse, Grayson never rose to greatness. He never established a lasting mortal kingdom of his own much less an Immortal one; he remained but one of the countless petty warlords inhabiting a bloody era.

  From Grayson, Callestina learned many things, including how to use a sword and how to turn her mind to a single, unalterable purpose. Both these skills had kept her alive for over fifteen centuries.

  She and Grayson had drifted apart and back together many times, always drawn to reunite for their single shared goal—the destruction of Darius and all he held dear.

  Callestina knew Grayson had loved her, at least for a time and in his own way. Did I ever love him? Cynthia wondered. She still was not certain, even after all these centuries, what she had felt toward the man who had been her teacher, her lover, her partner—the one man who had truly understood her passion and her need for revenge.

  Now the great Goddesses of Destiny have brought his killer to me, she thought with a smile. Duncan MacLeod. After I kill Paulus—and MacLeod—my revenge will finally be complete.

  And then? a voice within her whispered, but Cynthia had no answer. She had lived for this one purpose for so long, she did not know what her life would hold once it was gone.

  It did not matter; all that mattered were the deaths that would come at the point of her sword.

  All that mattered was her Purpose.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Joe Dawson glanced at the wall clock and sighed. He had been at this work for hours, and now it was time to take his shift at the bar. That was usually the highlight of his day, but today his thoughts were occupied elsewhere.

  With Cynthia VanDervane.

  He had found her in the Chronicles, all right—under a number of different names and occupations. But her place of residence remained uncharacteristically constant, for an Immortal… and so did her goal in that place.

  Dawson knew he needed to call MacLeod. “Observe and record, but never interfere,” the words of his Watcher’s oath filtered up from Joe’s subconscious. They were words by which he had lived for most of his adult life—until he met Duncan MacLeod. Actually meeting and becoming friends with the man he had already Watched for fifteen years, whom he had studied and admired, had changed the dynamics of everything in Joe Dawson’s life. He owed it to MacLeod to tell him what he had spent the day learning. Considering who else might be involved, he thought he just might owe it to the world, too.

  With that in mind, Joe Dawson reached for the phone.

  Joe was standing behind the bar, checking inventory and setting up for the evening rush that would soon hit, when MacLeod walked in. As always, the Watcher smiled at the sight of his favorite Immortal.

  “Heya, Mac,” he said as MacLeod come over and sat down. “I’m glad you could get here so soon. What can I get for you?”

  “Just some coffee,” MacLeod answered, “and whatever information you thought was so important.”

  Joe noticed how tired MacLeod looked. I guess Immortals aren’t immune to jet-lag, he thought as he reached for a cup and the coffeepot. He filled the cup and set it in front of MacLeod, then motioned to the other bartender to come take his place.

  He walked around the bar and over to a table where he and MacLeod could speak in private. MacLeod followed him, but once they were seated Joe was not sure how to begin.

  “Did you see today’s paper?” he said at last, trying to ease into the subject.

  “You mean the story about Victor’s engagement?” MacLeod asked, his brows coming together in a confused frown. “I saw it. It was a good picture—I think they’ll be happy together.”

  Joe shook his head. “I don’t know, Mac,” he said. “I’ve found out a few things about her that might change that.”

  MacLeod sat up straighter in his chair. “You checked up on her? Why, Joe?”

  “Because, as a Watcher, that’s my job,” he replied. “And I was right—there weren’t any reports coming in on her. That means she doesn’t have a Watcher. So I started checking back to find out who she really is.”

  “What did you find out?” MacLeod asked sharply.

  “You’re not going to like it.”

  Joe took a deep breath. “Listen, Mac, this isn’t our best effort. There’s no first-death information. In fact, there’s nothing at all before the tenth century—and that came from Darius’s Watcher.”

  MacLeod sat forward in his chair, his gaze suddenly intense. Dawson could see the uneasiness on his face as surely as if he had felt it himself, slowly turning into a rolling boil somewhere near the pit of his stomach.

  “Yeah, Darius.” he said. “She really had it in for him, going back centuries. She tried several times to discredit him, to get him defrocked as a priest and thrown out of his Order. She even denounced him as a male witch once and tried to have him burned at the stake. None of her efforts worked, though. Each time, his own parishioners flocked to his defense and the only one discredited was Cynthia—at that time she was going by the name Celeste. She’d leave Paris for a while an
d travel—Italy, Russia, England—but she’d always come back to Paris and try again. And fail again. Then, about two hundred years ago, shortly before the American Revolution, she came to the colonies and disappeared.”

  “What do you mean, she disappeared?”

  “Look, Mac, we’re not infallible, you know,” Dawson answered. “The New World was pretty big in those days and there wasn’t exactly instant communication. Her Watcher broke his leg and by the time it had mended enough for him to move about again, she was gone. She was never spotted again and it was assumed she’d been killed. Her file was taken off active and put into the history archives.”

  “You’re sure we’re talking about the same woman?” MacLeod asked when Joe was done.

  Dawson nodded. “It was that picture in the paper that made me certain. She’s beautiful enough to have attracted attention. Several of her Watchers have sketched her. It’s the same woman.”

  The two men sat in silence for a moment, each of them contemplating the possible impact of Joe’s discovery.

  “So, what are you going to do, Mac?” Joe asked at last.

  “I don’t know,” was the answer. He could almost see MacLeod’s mind sorting through the possibilities, trying to find the one answer his instincts told him was right.

  “You know, Mac, I could be wrong. This might not mean anything,” Joe said, wanting to give his friend some hope. “I told you we lost track of her for about two hundred years—and two centuries can really change a person.”

  MacLeod gave Joe a worn smile that held more than just time or wisdom. It was an expression of all the changes, all the good and evil, MacLeod himself had seen and felt and been in the long centuries past.

  “They certainly can,” he said softly.

  MacLeod finished his coffee and stood. “Thanks, Joe,” he said.

  “I wish it had been better news.”

  “Yeah—so do I,” MacLeod said. “Do me a favor. Keep looking—I need to know about those two hundred years. I owe it to Darius.”

  Joe nodded. He would have kept looking anyway; that was part of his job as a Watcher. But on any other case, he might have turned the job over to the research department and let them spend the hours at the computer or in the archives that this job might take. For MacLeod, he would do it himself.

  “And, Joe,” MacLeod said hesitantly. Dawson could tell these were words he did not want to say. “Check Grayson’s file first.”

  Again, Joe nodded, understanding what those words meant.

  “I’ll call as soon as I find anything.”

  MacLeod nodded his thanks and turned. As he walked toward the door, Dawson could see that his step was a little heavier than it had been when he arrived.

  MacLeod drove his black Thunderbird down the busy Sea-couver streets, only vaguely aware of the heavy traffic. The greater part of his mind was turning over the current situation and trying to look at it from every angle. He kept coming back to the same point: Paulus had to know about Cynthia’s years as Darius’s enemy.

  MacLeod realized with a start that he had been automatically heading back toward the dojo. The foundation’s house, in which Victor Paulus was staying, was on the other end of town. MacLeod turned the car around.

  The house was a modest two-story building, mock-Tudor and brick. It looked so quiet when MacLeod pulled up and got out of his car, he wondered if Victor was still sleeping, fighting the same sense of jet lag MacLeod could feel whispering to his muscles and his mind.

  Perhaps he should leave and come back later, he thought, sitting behind the steering wheel and looking up at the house. Then Victor Paulus opened the front door and waved a greeting.

  Well, here goes, MacLeod thought as he got out of the car and started up the walk. He still did not know what he was going to say, exactly, but he had the truth on his side. And it was the truth he would tell—if not quite the whole of it.

  “Duncan,” Victor said, smiling as MacLeod drew near. “Come in, come in. I was going to call you today and let you know we’d arrived.”

  “Well, I saw the news of your engagement in the paper,” MacLeod began. He let the rest die unsaid, for now.

  Paulus’s smile broadened. “Yes, that was nice, wasn’t it. But I’m afraid you’ve missed Cynthia. She’s gone shopping.”

  “It wasn’t Cynthia I came to see,” MacLeod said softly as he entered the house.

  Paulus led the way into the living room and gestured toward the couch and chairs. “Please, Duncan, have a seat,” he said. “Can I get you something? Maybe some coffee?”

  MacLeod shook his head. “No, thanks,” he said. Quickly, he searched for the right words, for gentle words, with which to begin this conversation. But he realized there was nothing to do but plow ahead. He owed it to Darius for friendship past; he owed it to Victor for friendship present.

  “Listen, Victor,” he said, “I’ve come to talk to you about Cynthia. I think there’s something you should know.”

  The smile instantly faded from Victor’s face. “Cynthia’s all right, isn’t she? She only left here about an hour ago—”

  “She’s all right,” MacLeod assured him quickly. “It’s about her past—and about Darius.”

  MacLeod took a deep breath, but Paulus stopped him before he could go on. “She’s already told me,” he said.

  “She has?” MacLeod was surprised, but then instantly cautious again. “What did she tell you?”

  Victor motioned again toward the chairs. “Please, Duncan, sit down.”

  He waited until MacLeod took a seat on the couch, then he sat in a chair across from him and leaned forward.

  “You don’t know Cynthia very well, in spite of the time we all spent together. Let me tell you something about her,” he began. “She is a very beautiful young woman. In fact, I can hardly believe she would choose to love someone like me—but they say love is blind, and who am I to argue with my good fortune?

  “She is beautiful, she is accomplished and well-traveled, but there are things in her past that have caused her a great deal of pain. Her relationship with Darius is one of those things.”

  “I’m not sure I understand what you mean,” Duncan said cautiously. From the time he had spent with them in Sudan, and from what little Paulus just had said, MacLeod was fairly certain that Cynthia still had not told him about her Immortality. MacLeod wanted to hear exactly what story she had told him.

  “Cynthia grew up in Belgium,” Paulus began, “in a small town near the border of Picardy. Her family was Catholic. Unfortunately, the priest in that town had many problems—he was a little too fond of his wine, for one. That was easily overlooked—he was the only priest for miles around. But his other problem was much more serious, and much more secret. He was a pedophile. He molested several of the children in the parish, including one of Cynthia’s best friends. Cynthia was the only one who would believe her—and that friend later turned to drugs and alcohol, finally dying of an overdose when she was eighteen. Cynthia blames what that priest did for her friend’s death.”

  Yes, MacLeod thought, that’s just the sort of story that would touch someone like Paulus. She’s clever—I’ll have to be careful not to underestimate her.

  “Cynthia came to Paris when she was twenty,” Paulus continued. “She found an apartment not too far from Rue St. Julien le Pauvre and after a while she began attending Mass at Darius’s parish. You know how the children loved Darius—and he loved them. Cynthia saw him playing in the churchyard with the children and it made her uneasy. Then one of the parishioners told her that it often seemed Father Darius spent more time with the children than with anyone else. It was an overstatement and no doubt well-intentioned, but to Cynthia it was as if her childhood was happening all over again. She was determined to keep what happened to her friend from happening to another child. She became obsessed with discrediting Darius.”

  “But surely, no one in the parish believed her,” MacLeod prompted. Cynthia had tried to discredit Darius many times throughou
t the centuries, according to the Watcher reports. Which century’s story was she telling? Duncan wondered.

  “Of course no one believed her,” Paulus answered. “But in some ways that only made it worse—no one had believed her friend, either. Every time Cynthia saw Darius with the children, innocent though it was, it just added fuel to the fire.

  “She worked for a magazine at the time and she was sent away on an assignment. When she returned, Darius was dead. It shocked her so much, and the grief of his parish was so genuine, that she began to see past her memories to the person Darius really was. After that, she quit her job at the magazine and began to work for the causes Darius supported. Reparation, she calls it, for her misjudgment of him.”

  “And that’s how you met,” Duncan said, finishing the tale for him.

  Paulus nodded. “Yes,” he said. “That’s how we met.”

  “Have you ever checked out her story?” Duncan asked.

  “Of course not,” Paulus answered before Duncan could continue. “Have you ever been in love—Duncan? Yes, I see by your face that you have. Then you know that love, if it is to last, must be based in trust. I love Cynthia—and I trust her. I will not go behind her back to check on anything she has told me. I spend much of my life trying to persuade and promote trust between nations. Can I do any less in my personal life?”

  “But, surely, this is important enough to be cautious. You’re a well-known and very public figure, an easy target for many things—blackmail, assassination—”

  “From Cynthia?” Paulus was incredulous. “No, Duncan, you really don’t know her. Cynthia is every bit as sweet and beautiful on the inside as she appears on the outside.”

  Duncan could see that he would get no further with Paulus. Here was a man in whom Darius’s teachings had truly come to fruition, who would see nothing but the potential for good, even for godliness, in all people. And he was also a man in love. What hope did reason and experience have against that—even four hundred years of experience?