Highlander: Shadow of Obsession

by Rebecca Neason

  “Tomorrow,” she said. “I’ll leave Victor tomorrow—for good. You have my word.”

  Cynthia picked up her sword and slid it beneath her coat. “I still think it’s a shame, Duncan MacLeod. We could have had such fun together.”

  With a laugh, she turned and started to walk away. “Cynthia,” he called after her. “You’re wrong about Darius. He became something far greater than he ever was before. If he’d had a little more time, I believe he really would have changed the world.”

  “You go on believing that, MacLeod, if it gives you comfort,” she called back to him.

  “He did love you,” MacLeod continued. “He loved us all.”

  Cynthia stopped and turned. Even from a distance, MacLeod could see that the expression in those blue, blue eyes was haunted, filled with too many memories. And centuries of pain.

  Silently, she turned again and walked away. This time MacLeod let her go without another word.

  Duncan walked over to where he had stood before her arrival and looked out again at the city lights upon the water.

  All right, Darius, he thought, we’ll do this your way. I just hope it’s the right thing. I miss your wisdom, my old friend. I miss it every day.

  A breeze stirred in from across the water. It was rich with the scent of salt and sea, and it lightly touched MacLeod’s cheeks like a whispered benediction. He almost smiled.

  Yes, Darius would have been glad he had let Cynthia live. Duncan could only hope—in Darius’s memory and for Victor Paulus’s sake—he had made the right choice.

  MacLeod drew his coat tighter around himself and turned toward where his black Thunderbird was parked. Tomorrow he would have his answer. He intended to be at Paulus’s speech and to follow him home afterward. He would make certain Cynthia was well and truly gone.

  And if she was not—then tomorrow would have a different ending than today.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Cynthia laughed out loud as she drove through the Seacouver streets. There were variations to The Game and she had just played one—and played it very well. Duncan MacLeod thought he had won. But he had won nothing, not even a few extra hours of life for himself or Victor Paulus. Cynthia controlled this Game and all the pieces were playing at her command.

  This feeling of power was something Grayson had taught her to savor centuries ago. Victory was all that mattered, playing The Game to win. People like Duncan MacLeod, who were handicapped by strictures like honor and trust, stood little chance against her.

  She laughed again. Poor Duncan MacLeod, she thought. Four hundred years and he’s still mortal in so many ways. He ‘II never know how great he could have been.

  Or what ecstasy we could have had together, her thoughts continued as she pictured his trim, muscular body, his dark heavy-lidded eyes, and his full, sensual mouth. Yes, it would have been fun, if only there had been time to free him from the burden of his morality.

  Oh, but what a Quickening his would be—considering that was almost as good as the thought of his body over hers. And much more likely. She had shown him nothing of her true prowess with a sword, yet he thought she had—blind fool—and she had learned more from their brief encounter than he realized.

  A less code-defined and honor-bound man would have taken her head while she was down. But not Duncan MacLeod. She had counted on that, and he had lived up to his reputation in every respect. She was certain now that when the crucial moment came he would hesitate, even oh so briefly—and in that hesitation, his head would be hers. With MacLeod’s death, and Victor Paulus’s, her revenge against Darius would at last be complete.

  Game, set, and match.

  And then what? the little voice inside her whispered again. What will you do when all that you’ve lived for is finished?

  She quickly quieted the voice. She would not listen; she would never listen. She had a purpose and toward that purpose she had lived for fifteen centuries. It was all that mattered. When it was completed, then she could think about another.

  Cynthia turned the car into the driveway at Victor’s house, ready to begin the next set in the game she was playing. This one, too, was almost complete and victory was certain. As she turned off the key, Victor opened the door. He stood smiling and waiting for her. She had never known anyone who welcomed death so freely.

  She got out of the car and walked quickly over to him, lifting her face to accept his kiss. “You were napping when I left,” she said.

  “And you were gone when I awoke,” he answered. There was no accusation in his tone, as other men might have shown: it was utter trust, utter peace.

  “I went for a drive,” she told him, leaving out her destination. “I thought I should get to know the city. It’s really very beautiful.”

  “Yes, it is,” Victor agreed as he slipped an arm around her waist and led her inside, closing the door against the night. “Maybe tomorrow, after I’m done with the meeting, I can show you some of my favorite places.”

  “Did you get your speech finished?” she asked, carefully not agreeing to his plans and not letting him realize how she diverted his attention from their future.

  “Yes,” he said, but with a little frown. “I’m not sure I’m happy with it.”

  Cynthia laughed gently. “You never are,” she said. “You don’t have nearly enough confidence in yourself, Victor. You are very good at what you do.”

  “But will it be good enough? Can I get them to understand the horrors and the cruelty we witnessed? Sudan is so very far away, it’s easy to forget the people there are suffering now. They need our help now.”

  “Victor, stop worrying,” Cynthia said before he could go on. “Tomorrow will take care of itself. Let’s just think about tonight.”

  She pressed her body up against his, sliding her arms up his back. He tightened his embrace and laid his cheek on top of her head.

  “Oh, you are good for me,” he said softly.

  They made love that night with an abandon that Cynthia knew slightly shocked and yet delighted Victor. It was Cynthia’s final gift to him. He must die tomorrow—from that nothing would dissuade her—but he had also been good to her with his love and at least he could die with such a memory to, perhaps, ease the passage.

  Afterward, when Victor had dozed off, Cynthia lay awake thinking. For the first time, she could not get the question of her future out of her head. Where would she go? What would she do? For the first time in all the long centuries, her future was not already planned.

  Grayson had had a dream once, and Cynthia had ridden by his side in those first years of her Immortality while he tried to bring that dream to fruition. An Immortal nation, a kingdom to rule the world—was it too late for such a thing?

  Or, perhaps, it was the right time. Grayson had always maintained that the means of destruction was all that had truly changed in the world. With an army of Immortals, against whom bullets and bombs and gases meant nothing, the mortal world would be helpless. And in the age of instant communication, their demands—and their domination—could be broadcast immediately.

  Oh, eventually they would fight each other—In the end there can be only one—but with the right incentive, her incentive, she was sure she could gather enough of them together to make the plan work.

  Yes, that was the one goal worthy of her efforts—and she would do so in Grayson’s memory. It would be the purpose that would drive her through the centuries to come. Fifteen hundred years ago the world would not have been ready for a woman to rule it, not even an Immortal one. In this, too, time had worked in her favor. Now was the era of equality, and she intended to show history exactly what that meant.

  Cynthia smiled into the soft darkness of the bedroom and thought about the file of other Immortals Grayson had stored in the bank vault in Geneva. It was a file he had been collecting for hundreds of years. He had gathered together all of the stories and all of the legends on every name he heard whispered among their kind. He wanted to know who were the warriors and who were th
e visionaries, what were their strengths and weaknesses, how he might use them—or what could be used against them.

  Cynthia was the only other person to have access to that file—the only person now alive. And she knew what to do with it; she knew what Grayson wanted done with it. They had always understood each other.

  Well, not always—not in the beginning, before her Immortality. But from the winter of the year 410, when she had left the Visigoths in Italy and all connection to her mortal life behind, they had understood each other very well. They had known when they needed to be together and when they needed to be apart. Whether days or centuries, it did not matter; the bond between them was something no mortal would ever understand.

  He had been her lover, yes—a lover of great passion and imagination. But most of all, he had been her teacher, the one who gave her the skills to stay alive and the drive, the purpose to carry on through the centuries. No mortal, with their frail little lives and loves, could ever imagine what that meant.

  Cynthia’s one regret was that she had not made that final trip with him. But he had been sure he would be back within the week and his plans had been so carefully laid. There was only one factor he had not taken into account.

  MacLeod.

  Well, this time MacLeod’s presence was accounted for, and she had carefully neutralized him. For long enough, anyway. Soon, she would take care of him for good. By this time tomorrow, she would have MacLeod’s Quickening—and after that, she would begin.…

  Duncan MacLeod was not sleeping any more than Cynthia. He, too, was thinking about Grayson and the last time they had met. It had been a difficult fight, one of the worst MacLeod had faced.

  “Another century and you might have beaten me,” Grayson had said at one point, gloating over the victory he felt sure to have. For a time, it had felt to MacLeod as if he was in the final battle and would lose his head. It was not a feeling he cared to repeat.

  But in the end he had prevailed—with an element of luck as well as any skill he possessed. If he had fallen farther away from his sword and not had time to retrieve it as Grayson came up behind him…

  MacLeod stopped himself. He had played that fight over in his thoughts, and in his dreams, a hundred times. He did not need to do so again. He knew every step, every nuance of balance and thrust—and every mistake he had made. He had learned from them.

  What is it Methos always says? “Live, grow stronger, fight another day.” Well, it had certainly proved correct that time.

  And Cynthia is not Grayson, MacLeod reminded himself. Aside from the sword she carried, he had seen no similarities of movement during their brief exchange today. He did not fool himself into thinking she had shown him everything of her skill; she would not have survived so long without knowing what she was doing. Would she?

  Perhaps, MacLeod answered himself, with a powerful enough protector—like Grayson. Yes, he could have kept her safe in The Game.

  And Cynthia’s beauty… that, too, was a weapon that could weaken almost any man. Had it weakened him today?

  That was the real question, the one that would not let MacLeod rest, and within it, one final doubt whispered. Should he have taken her head when he had the chance?

  Darius would have told him no. Darius would have wanted her to live—Darius would have wanted Grayson to live. Given the choice, Darius would have seen all killing, both mortal and Immortal, cease.

  But the world was not the place Darius saw in his vision, and in the end, his beliefs had not saved him.

  Duncan threw back the covers and got out of bed, impatient with the slow passage of the night. Tying a robe around himself, he went to the kitchen and poured a glass of orange juice, then came back to sit on the couch while he drank it.

  On the low table before him stood his chess set, pieces spread across the squares in a half-finished game. MacLeod could rarely look at them without thinking of the hundreds of games he and Darius had played. Even as a priest, he had been a great general. ‘To deny what I was is to deny what I am,” Darius had once told him as they sat over a game. But he had laid down his arms so long ago—did he really remember what the fight was like, or had it all faded into an academic exercise?

  The chess pieces gave MacLeod no answer. Tonight they seemed to accuse him—but of what, he was not certain.

  Someone has to be willing to fight for what is right in this world, he told them silently, as he had often told Darius. Not just with words and ideals, but with a sword when necessary. At least for now, until the words and ideals of people like Darius—and Victor Paulus—have the chance to work their way into every heart. If that day ever comes.

  Darius had believed it would; Duncan, though he hoped for it, did not truly think it could happen. There was too much that stood in its way. Greed, pride, envy, anger; human nature, mortal and Immortal, forbade it.

  What were you, Darius? Duncan wondered with the weary angst of sleeplessness. An Immortal saint—or, like the rest of us, just a man trying to muddle through?

  The silent room gave Duncan no more of an answer this night than it had through all the years before.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Victor’s speech was not until afternoon, so Cynthia let him sleep late into the morning. She felt no need to rush with what she had to do. Time was her tool of destruction, as much as any sword, and she could play with it as suited her.

  She had a leisurely breakfast while Paulus slept and took extra care in choosing her clothes and putting on her makeup. When at last she awoke Victor to his final few hours of life, she knew she filled his eyes—and his heart—as the perfect vision of female beauty.

  Her clothes were all she had to pack, and that would not take long. As soon as she was finished with Paulus—and with MacLeod—she would be off. By the time the police discovered Victor’s body, she would be on her way to Switzerland and the identity she had waiting there. She would spend however long it took putting her next plan into action. Fifty years, one hundred—it did not matter. She was Immortal, and this world was both her battlefield and her plaything.

  They brunched on hot croissants and coffee, smoked salmon, and fruit. Then, while Victor showered and dressed, Cynthia wandered the house making certain that all evidence of her occupation was removed. The picture that had appeared in the morning paper the day after their arrival she could do nothing about—but in a few hours Cynthia VanDervane would cease to exist anyway.

  Victor was dressed now. Another cup of coffee together and he would be ready to leave for his meeting. While he collected the notes for his speech, Cynthia went into the bedroom to retrieve the one object she had kept since the beginning.

  It was a small sword, only slightly longer than a dagger, and highly ornamental. It had been her first sword, found amidst the mayhem and carnage of the sack of Ravenna, and it fitted into her hand with a well-remembered ease. It felt right somehow that she should kill Darius’s last and greatest protégé with the sword she had carried at the time of his first betrayal—just as it felt right to face MacLeod carrying the mate of the sword that had been Grayson’s.

  She heard Victor call for her. It was time that he was leaving, he said. Yes, she thought, It is time.

  Sword in hand, she headed for the living room.

  Duncan MacLeod sat among the crowd that had collected in the largest meeting room of City Hall. Present were the mayor and the city council members, representatives from radio, television, and newspapers, religious leaders from various faiths and denominations, company executives and known philanthropists; they had all come to hear Victor Paulus speak. He was due any minute.

  MacLeod was here for a different reason. He supported Paulus’s efforts with more than his time. He had already made a sizable—and anonymous—contribution to the foundation, and he would, possibly, return to the work in Sudan in person.

  But he was here because Cynthia said she would leave Paulus while he was giving his speech. Afterward, Victor would need a friend.

  The peopl
e were beginning to get restless. MacLeod glanced at his watch; Paulus was ten minutes late. MacLeod felt his insides go cold as a little warning voice began to nag him. He quickly stood and headed for the door, berating himself with each step. He wanted, he needed, to believe there was some innocent reason for Paulus’s tardiness, but that same little voice would not let him.

  Duncan knew he could not afford to let himself become upset or hurried. He would get to Victor Paulus as quickly as he could, hoping—praying—that it would be soon enough. But he must arrive calm and in control. If what he feared was true, Cynthia could well be waiting for him with a sword.

  “A warrior’s heart must be cold in battle,” Hideo Koto had told him two hundred years ago as they trained on the banks of a quiet stream. “Passion is for the bedroom, not the battlefield. A warrior who fights with passion—anger, revenge, frustration, arrogance—is not balanced. He misses opportunities and gives his opponent openings. He loses.”

  Hideo had said he liked to train in that place where the trees and the water surrounded him with their beauty and their serenity. In battle, he pictured himself there—felt the silent strength of the trees, heard the flowing calm of the water; he united his inner self with them, and he prevailed.

  As MacLeod drove through the city streets, he took deep, centering breaths: in through the nose, out through the mouth. He breathed slowly, deeply, picturing the air as a stream of light flowing down to his tant’ten, his center, the place of his chi.

  In all of the disciplines he had studied, from Western boxing to Chinese Kung Fu, this concept of centering, especially before a battle, remained constant. With the exercise he felt his frustration over the traffic drain away. He would be ready for whatever he found.

  The windows were dark when Duncan turned his Thunder-bird into the driveway. The house looked silent, still. For a brief moment, MacLeod thought—hoped—all his fears had been for naught.

  But that voice inside him still whispered, and after four hundred years MacLeod had learned to listen to what it said.