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Highlander fic: The Lesser Evil
Title: The Lesser Evil
Fandom: Highlander
Rating/pairing: PG-13, gen
Warnings: (skip) Implied (very off-camera) child abuse. Also some gory violence.
Word Count: 11,800
Notes: For the![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
hc_bingo prompt "Extortion".
Summary: Someone is trying to blackmail Amanda, but dragging her friends into it was a really bad idea.
Crossposts: on LJ (2 posts) | on AO3
The first note was slipped under her hotel room door in Madrid. Thick creamy paper crumpled under her shoe, and when she smoothed it out, Amanda found a few lines written in a crisp, confident hand.
I know you cannot die. I will pay you handsomely to do a job for me.
No contact information.
She was at first puzzled, then, for a minute or two, she was quite tempted. But no, nothing good could come of an offer like that. Perhaps this would be an excellent time to visit another city and steer clear of Madrid for a while.
******
The second note appeared two weeks later in Cairo. It was on her balcony railing, weighted with a stone, when she came back from a pleasant evening dancing with a young man she'd met on the beach. (Well, technically he was forty-three. But they were all young men to her.)
Her hotel room was on the fourth floor. Amanda checked the entire suite thoroughly before she closed the curtains, locked the door, and unfolded the note.
She hadn't kept the other note, but she was pretty sure it was the same handwriting. As a forger of no small accomplishment, Amanda knew how to read the marks of a pen on paper as well as the words that they formed.
I can find you no matter where you go. I will pay you well in return for your help. Otherwise I will expose your secret. Think about it. I will contact you again soon.
Amanda crumpled the note furiously into a tight ball. That wasn't enough to calm her down. She tore it into tiny pieces and set them on fire in the hotel room's sink, washing the ashes down the drain. Better. Slightly.
"Impudent, arrogant, idiotic ..." she seethed at her reflection in the mirror. She wasn't quite sure whether she meant the mortal who had left the notes -- it had to be a mortal; none of their kind would try something like this -- or herself, for obviously being careless enough to let something slip somewhere she shouldn't have.
The thought did cross her mind that it might be some kind of joke, but she didn't think even Methos's sense of humor was that twisted. Speaking of Methos, perhaps this would be a good time to take a page from his book. "No matter where I go? Really? Let's find out."
******
The next note was brought to her a month later, while she sipped a lousy beer in a bar that occupied a mobile home trailer in a small town in Mexico that she hadn't bothered to learn the name of. It wasn't her usual scene, but well, that was the point, wasn't it?
She was traveling under the name Rose Mathis, pretending to be American. Not that it mattered after this many years whether she was or wasn't. Duncan was one of the only Immortals she knew who kept such a strong sense of his own ethnic identity. None of them could truly move beyond their upbringing -- though many try; I'm one of them -- but national boundaries were transitory as spring clouds when one had learned to think in terms of centuries rather than decades.
"Señorita Mathis?" The bartender held out a package wrapped in brown paper and slightly stained. It was labeled neatly with her pseudonym -- her heart sank when she recognized the handwriting.
"Who left this for me?" Apparently it had been dropped off at the hotel where she'd been staying in the last town, and passed along with a delivery driver going in this direction. The trail was already cold. She gave him a couple of hundred-peso notes and then stared at the package for a while before opening it.
It contained a pre-paid cell phone and another note on that heavy cream-colored paper. The note was longer this time.
Dear Rose (or Amanda? Lilah? Clarissa?), it began, and Amanda clenched her teeth, reminding herself to abandon those aliases for a while.
I hope I've made my point. Certainly you could avoid me if you truly wish to, but only by avoiding the world. Do you really want to live in a convent for the next fifty years, hoping that I'll die of old age? I have a simple job that I want you to do for me. At 9 p.m. Mexico City time, on August 19th, be somewhere that you can get reception on this phone, and we'll talk. If not, I'll call at the same time every second day afterwards.
The date was four days ago -- the package had been pursuing her for some time, it seemed. The hint of fallibility in her enemy was a relief, actually: he was good, but he wasn't omnipotent and he wasn't perfect. Amanda checked her watch. Two hours until the rendezvous time. She powered on the phone, and held it up. One bar. Well, two hours was enough time to drive to the top of the hill outside town and see if the reception was better there.
At 8:59 p.m., she'd found a place where she could get two bars (flickering occasionally to three) and parked her rented, battered jeep conspicuously by the road. Amanda herself went to ground in the scrub brush several hundred yards up the hill. She had her sword and the best distance weapon she'd been able to obtain on extremely short notice, a beat-up hunting rifle that she'd bought from the bartender's cousin.
At 9 p.m. on the dot, the phone rang. Amanda took a deep breath, hunkered down behind the rock she'd found for cover, and answered it with a terse, "Hello."
"Amanda. A pleasure to hear from you." The voice was male, smooth and cultured. Amanda struggled to place the accent: American East Coast, with perhaps a hint of London? It was not a voice she recognized. The return number was American; she didn't know the area code, but committed it to memory.
"Let's not pretend to be friends," she hissed into the phone. "You have ten seconds to tell me why you've been chasing me around the world or I hang up and throw this phone down the nearest outhouse hole."
"Ah, we'll get down to business, then." He sounded as friendly as if she'd greeted him with hearts and flowers. "First of all, I know that you don't age and you can't be killed -- at least not easily. This makes you perfect for what I have in mind."
"Which is?" Amanda asked warily. He's not Immortal. And he's not a Watcher. He doesn't know what we are.
"I need you to kill someone for me. When you can provide me proof of his death, I'll pay you twenty million dollars, American -- or the equivalent currency of your choice. I'm also open to compensating you in other ways, should you prefer: art, gold, jewelry, a yacht, a plane?"
Amanda licked her dry lips. She didn't think he was lying. About any of it. "I'm not a killer for hire."
"Everyone is for hire for anything, if the price is right."
"I said no. I'm not interested."
"I'm sorry," he said politely, not sounding sorry at all. "Didn't I make it clear in my previous communication with you? The only possible answer is yes. If you refuse, I'll expose you for what you really are. But I'd like our relationship to be a mutually beneficial one. I am prepared to pay you very nearly anything you ask."
"I don't make deals with blackmailers."
"Well," he said, "since you're still on the fence, I'll give you a few days to think about it. Why don't I call you again at this time, on this phone, in a week?"
And with that, he hung up.
"Asshole!" Amanda shouted at the phone.
Her first thought, though she hated herself for it, was to call MacLeod. But no, no, damn it. She was a big girl. She didn't need to go crying to MacLeod every time she got herself in a bit of trouble. This jerk didn't know who he was messing with.
******
"All I can tell you is that he called you from a burn phone."
"A what?" Amanda asked.
"A pre-paid phone like this one. Not his own. Probably bought it from a street vendor somewhere."
"Technology," Amanda muttered. It was so hard to stay abreast of it.
Her contact just grinned. His name was Weasel. She'd known him for a few years, and others like him; Amanda didn't believe in wasting time learning to do something yourself if you could pay other people to do it, and she'd figured out the advantages of seeking out contacts in the telecommunications industry back in the days when the "tele" part stood for telegraph.
"Well, what can you tell me? I'm not paying you to sit around and jerk off to Internet porn, Weasel. I thought you were a man who could learn things."
"I am, if there's anything to learn. What have you got to go on? An untraceable phone with no prints but yours. I can work you up a cell-tower trace and a recording setup for the next time he calls ..."
"What about handwriting analysis?" Amanda dangled the most recent note, the only one she'd kept so far. "This paper looks expensive, too. Can you do anything with that?"
"I can't, but I know some people who can." He took it, and she relinquished it reluctantly, hating to give up her one tangible connection to her tormenter. "Mandy, honey, come on, I can't help you if you don't trust me."
"I don't trust you, Weasel, any farther than I'm paying you. And don't call me Mandy."
Weasel grinned, showing crooked teeth. "But you're paying me well."
"Yes, I am. So don't disappoint me."
Back on the street, she looked up more of her contacts, sent out feelers in the underworld and also among the handful of society connections that she'd nurtured over the years. He's rich, she thought. Probably American or has spent a lot of time there. Must have fairly extensive connections of his own, or he couldn't keep finding me. And she knew it was like hunting for a needle in a haystack. In her many years as a thief, swindler and con artist Amanda had stolen from kings and presidents, gangsters and corporate executives, rich widows and other thieves. The world was full of wealthy, well-connected people, and most of them were quite experienced at hiding their tracks if they wanted to.
The day before her next scheduled conversation with the blackmailer, she went back to Weasel and picked up the phone, this time with new hardware installed -- a black box clamped onto the side. "Stylish," Amanda said, rotating it.
"I can slap on a coat of paint, but it'll be a few G's extra."
Amanda snorted. "Yeah, no, I'll dab on some fingernail polish and call it good. What do I do?"
"Nothing. It'll activate when he calls -- or when anyone calls. At least it'll let you know where in the world he's calling from, not with pinpoint accuracy but enough to start getting a move on finding him. And it'll get him on tape." He handed her an envelope. "I'll save the suspense. No prints or DNA on the letter except yours. Handwriting analysis, short version: male, good private-school education, either confident to the point of egotism, or fakes it very well. Possibly sociopathic."
"I could've told you that."
Phone in hand, she returned to her hotel -- and discovered a manilla envelope taped to her door, with a bulge at the bottom. Nothing was written on it. Amanda poked at it, then opened the door and retrieved a set of thin black gloves (don't leave home without them) to untape the envelope and empty it onto the bed.
A cell phone slid out.
"Oh, you absolute bastard."
Someone must have left it there. She ran down to the front desk and began questioning employees, explaining that her creepy stalker ex-boyfriend had somehow managed to find her hotel. They were sympathetic, but no one had noticed anything out of the ordinary -- people came and went from hotels all the time. Which of course was what her enemy had been counting on.
She'd just closed the door of her room when the new cell rang. Amanda jumped, then picked it up reluctantly. "Yes," she snapped.
"Amanda," said the silky voice. "Or maybe you prefer Desirée?" That was the name she'd used when checking into the hotel.
"When I find you, I'll make you wish you were Immortal."
"Temper," the voice said smoothly. "I realize that I'm pushing up our deadline a bit, but I believe in being unpredictable. It helps to prevent unpleasant surprises. Despite the rush, I assume you've been thinking over my offer. May I have an answer, please?"
"First of all, I don't plan to give you an answer until you tell me who you want me to kill for you and why," Amanda said. "I don't know who or what you think I am, but I'm no one's hired assassin."
"Of course not. I've researched you thoroughly. You're a petty thief and compulsive liar," the voice crooned. Amanda's mouth dropped open in fury. "What I'm offering is a better deal than you could find on your own in a lifetime. With the amount of money I'm willing to pay for one small task, you can retire from your risk-taking life and live happily for a good many years. Or stash it away for a rainy day and continue to live as you like, knowing that you have that security blanket. In any case --"
Amanda finally got her voice back. "You miserable, conniving --"
"In any case," he went on over the top of her, "yes or no? I'm sure I've already proven that I can find you no matter where you go. If I want to, I can give out your location to anyone I choose. You'll never be safe again."
I'm tired of being afraid, she'd once told Duncan. It was at times like this that a millennia of independence, of battle-hardness fell away from her, and she remembered once again what it was like to be that long-ago street child, stepped on and kicked and chased. The trapped feeling left her breathless, panicky, her heart racing and her head light.
But the street child, at least, knew how to deal with situations like this. Be what they want you to be, until you can kick them in the teeth and run.
"Okay, fine," she said through her teeth, forcing down fear and misery like bile, trying to sound flippant and cheerful -- just the happy sociopath that he apparently thought she was. "Just tell me what you want, who you want dead and where." And if you think I'm actually doing it, you're crazy. I am a "compulsive liar" after all, you son of a bitch.
"Excellent! I thought we could do business," he said brightly. "The person I need you to kill --"
For one awful instant, she expected him to say "Duncan MacLeod." It would just figure.
"-- is my father. I'll contact you again in one week, with the rest of the information that you need. It doesn't matter where you are; I'll find you."
With that, he hung up.
Amanda stared at the phone for a few minutes, caught between fury and a kind of strange, weary amusement. It was so utterly petty, after all the buildup and the chase -- just some kind of family feud, albeit one that had risen to deadly levels.
A week. Well. Maybe it was time to talk to MacLeod after all. She chose to view it as sharing an amusing story rather than asking for help. At the very least, he might have some ideas for turning the tables on her mystery stalker. She picked up the hotel phone and called information for a travel agency. It'd been awhile since she'd been to Paris anyway.
******
"What do you mean, you don't know where he is? You're his Watcher, aren't you?"
"I'm his Watcher. Doesn't mean I'm his keeper. Have you tried to keep tabs on MacLeod?"
"Eh. True."
Joe shrugged. "He's visiting a friend in Tokyo as far as I know. I could probably get in touch if you really need me to."
"No, no, it's not that important ..." Amanda swiveled on her bar stool to reach for her purse. "Actually, you might be even more help, come to think of it. This is more of a you sort of problem than a MacLeod sort of problem anyway."
She handed Joe the handwritten note and, while he studied it with raised eyebrows, quickly sketched the salient points of the Mystery Stalker situation for him.
"Expose you, huh?" Joe said. "How'd he find out about you, anyway?"
"I have no idea. I don't remember anything of the sort, and what am I supposed to do, make an exhaustive list of every mortal I've ever come in contact with? It's at times like this that being a misanthropic hermit would come in handy. But, Joe, I've met thousands of people in just the last ten years."
"Do you think he's a Watcher?"
"I doubt it. The things he says -- it just doesn't sound right. However ..." She gave him her best winsome look. "I don't suppose you could look up my Chronicle and see if there's anything that's documented recently that might shed some light?"
Joe glowered at her. "Don't the words secret organization mean anything to you?"
"You'd do it for MacLeod." When he showed no signs of softening, she let a small pout slip through, along with perhaps a little of her genuine fear. "Come on, Joe. If he does expose me, it's not just me that'll suffer. It's all of us. Me. Duncan. Methos. Every Immortal you've ever known. Surely you don't want to be responsible for --"
"All right, all right!" He pointed one finger at her. "I'm only doing this to maintain the secret. That's all."
"Of course," she said politely.
Joe poured her two fingers of her favorite brandy and slid it across the bar. "How are you holding up?"
"Me? What?" She sipped her drink. "Fine, why do you ask?"
"Amanda, I've known Mac a long time, remember? I've seen what he's like when he's under siege. And you've got the same look in your eyes. Hunted." He hesitated, then added somewhat awkwardly, "I know that Rebecca tried to make up for --"
"Joe," she snapped. "Don't." She liked Joe. She really did. It hurt to know that in the long run, he'd be no more than a firefly flicker in her long life. But the very concept of the Watchers galled her, and she'd never talked about her early days with Rebecca to anyone but MacLeod. Joe's tacit admission that he'd read her Chronicle already, that he knew that much about her without her consent -- her pains, her loves, her private shames -- was almost more than she could bear. It took all the control she had not to throw the drink in his face.
They both drank in silence for a few minutes before Joe said, "I was out of line. Sorry."
"Not your fault." It wasn't. Neither of them could help being what they were.
"I'll see what I can find out," Joe said. "What are you going to do?"
Amanda sighed. "What I've been doing, I guess. Put out feelers, try to find someone who knows something. He's obviously well-connected, but that should make him easier to find, not harder." She smirked. "It's hard to follow someone across two continents without being spotted. As you know well."
Joe raised his glass. "Touché."
******
Two days later, she was sitting in a sidewalk café, sipping a coffee and going through a handwritten, heavily annotated list of her own movements over the last fifty years. It was just as miserably long and complicated as she'd expected; she'd spent an entire day writing everything down, and she knew she was forgetting so much -- whole months, whole years were missing. "Why couldn't I have been like Methos or Darius, and just settle in one place for decades at a time?" she moaned, and summoned the waiter for another coffee. Joe had given her a short, incomplete list of possible contacts with mortals, but as he pointed out, there was still a ton of information to comb through, and he couldn't ask her Watcher for help without explaining what he was doing and why.
Fifty years was her cut-off because she didn't think the voice on the phone could be older, but for all she knew, it was a family secret passed down through generations. Perhaps she'd given herself away in 1700, and it had taken this long to --
"Excuse me, may I join you?"
Amanda's head snapped up. That voice. It was unmistakably the voice on the phone. And there he was, standing next to her table, three days in advance of the week he'd given her. But he likes to be unpredictable, she thought, as dazed shock gave way to a slowly growing fury.
The Mystery Stalker, definitely mortal, was a tanned, handsome man of about forty-five. His silvering hair was perfectly coifed, not a strand out of place, and his suit had obviously cost more than some people made in a year. He oozed good breeding and money out every pore. Under other circumstances, Amanda was well aware that she would have gone into orbit around him like a bee around a flower, which was just one reason why she hated him on sight.
Without waiting for her to respond with an invitation, he pulled another chair over to her tiny sidewalk table, and sat. In one hand he held a flat manilla envelope.
Amanda eyed him up and down for a weapon. Though nothing showed outwardly, there were a million things that could be hidden in that finely tailored suit. "So," she said. "We meet."
He nodded. "Indeed." He placed the manilla envelope on the table, carefully and deliberately, on top of the stack of papers she'd been perusing. "Since I'm sure you're a resourceful lady and I imagine you're currently thinking of a dozen ways to avoid working for me, none of which will end well for me, I'd like you to take a look at this first."
Amanda studied him with deep suspicion before opening the envelope, wary of hidden traps. She shook its contents onto the table. There was a thick stack of 100-euro notes, held together with a rubber band, and two 8x10 glossy photographs. One was Joe Dawson stepping out of Le Blues Bar, squinting into the sun, but easily recognizable. The other was Joe, from the back, reaching for the door of his Paris apartment.
Amanda studied these, hoping that her face betrayed no reaction. Then she picked up the money and flipped through it with her thumb. It looked genuine.
"A small down payment, to the success of our business partnership," said the Mystery Stalker with a slight smile. "And some insurance for me. I am a strong believer in insurance. As long as I leave this meeting in the same condition in which I arrived, you will never need to learn of the other contingency plans I've put in place."
He looked familiar, though it was hard to tell if it was simply that he looked like every other wealthy businessman and politician she'd met, or if she'd actually met him someplace or seen him on TV. Amanda tried to memorize every line of his face. Killing for money was a line she didn't intend to cross, but killing this man? Yes. She could find it in her heart to do so with little regret.
"Well," she said. "If I'm to be your assassin, then I need to know who you want me to kill. Your father, you said?"
He nodded and reached a hand slowly to the breast pocket of his suit. "May I?" Again without awaiting a response, he removed another envelope and placed it on the table. He laid a hand on top of it.
"This contains everything that you need to do this job for me. Since I don't hire people who are incompetent or lazy, I think that one month should be ample. One month from the time that you open this envelope -- or sooner -- I expect to receive tangible evidence that you've finished it."
Amanda opened and closed her mouth. Finally she said quietly, "And if I don't?"
In the same calm, friendly tone that he'd used throughout the conversation, the Mystery Stalker said, "Then I will have one of your friends killed. And then another, until you are done."
The trapped feeling was back, full-force, humming in her ears and telescoping her vision. It took all the strength to say, in the closest she could manage to a normal tone, "You can certainly try. My friends are immortal too."
He smiled, displaying white, even teeth. "Really? Well, be that as it may, this friend of yours in the photos is clearly not immune to physical damage. So we will hurt him instead. Very much, and for as much time as it takes for you to accomplish the job you set out to do. And should it turn out that you are lying and he is not immortal, well, we will find that out too. Do we have an agreement?"
In that moment, Amanda knew that this person was going down. Clinging to that thought, she said, "Certainly. May I?" Taking a cue from him, she slid the envelope out from under his hand without waiting for a response, and opened it. When she held it over the table, nothing fell out.
Amanda clenched her teeth, counted to ten. "I can't do anything for you," she said, low and cold, "if you don't stop playing games with me."
"It's not a game. I simply try to think of every angle. The information that you need is back at your lodgings." The Mystery Stalker nodded to her and rose. "The clock starts now. I hope to hear from you in one month. Or your friends will begin hearing from me. Please remain at your table until you can no longer see me."
As he walked away, the thought occurred to her to wonder how fast his reflexes were. Her sword was hidden in her capacious shoulder bag under the table. Could she draw it, rise, stab him through the back before he noticed her coming? Did it matter that a dozen witnesses would see her?
You will never need to learn of the other contingency plans I've put in place.
She waited, and when he turned the corner, she rose quickly and scooped her papers into her bag. She ran down the street, but when she turned the corner after him, he was gone.
******
She was staying at Duncan's barge. Another friend I've betrayed into this madman's hands, Amanda thought bitterly. But if he was really as well-connected as he seemed to be, it was quite likely that he'd known about her connection to MacLeod even before she came to Paris.
In any case, there was another unmarked envelope taped to the door of the barge. Amanda tore it off and indulged for a long moment in the pleasant fantasy of throwing it into the Seine. But no. She sat in the middle of Duncan's ascetically clean floor to dump out its contents.
For a wonder, this time the envelope actually contained what it was supposed to: a detailed dossier on one Philip Justinian Laird, age 78. The vague familiarity of the name nagged at her, but for the time being, she put it aside, focused on soaking up all the information that she could.
Laird was a businessman, though he seemed to be retired. He sat on the boards of a dozen non-profits, held stock in several business of which he'd been a former CEO, but he didn't seem to do anything these days beyond dabbling in charities and golfing at one of several estates scattered around the world. Amanda flipped through photos of Laird on the golf course, copies of Laird's medical paperwork (he appeared to be quite healthy) and grew more and more confused. She couldn't understand why the Mystery Stalker hated this man, father or not, enough to want him dead, and even more than that, she couldn't understand what had made him decide that she was the person who had to do it. Money made sense as a motive, except that Laird already seemed to have handed over the reins of his business empire to his son. Her Mystery Stalker didn't need to kill his father for his fortune -- he already had it. So why risk it all to have him dead, then? And why was it a job only an Immortal could accomplish?
Amanda hunted around for MacLeod's laptop and tackled the Internet.
Plugging in "Philip Justinian Laird II" brought up exactly what she'd expected: a picture of her Mystery Stalker from a recent Forbes article. She skimmed the article, and then an assortment of similar articles, and soon pulled together a rough history of both Lairds, Senior and Junior.
The original Philip Justinian Laird was apparently the very model of a self-made man. He'd started out volunteering at various children's charities, and, armed with a combination of personal charisma and dynamic energy, quickly moved up to running them. He'd opened his own non-profit (International Children's Education Fund) and then moved into the business world, amassing a personal fortune, though he dumped a great deal of it back into charitable works. He never seemed to seek the limelight; most of the articles that she found on him were of the "millionaire philanthropist donates new classroom to orphanage" sort, or else profiles from various magazines aimed at the moneyed classes. As she looked through all of them, though, an interesting picture began to emerge, particularly interesting in its lack of anything other than vague information on Laird before he appeared on the charity scene. She found brief mentions of his childhood in a small town in New Hampshire, but no pictures or other solid information. This wasn't terribly unusual in someone born long before Facebook, but still -- there was nothing concrete on Laird before he showed up in the public eye in his early thirties.
Amanda opened the biggest picture she could find of a young Philip Laird on the laptop screen, then compared it to the recent photographs from the dossier. "Hmm," she murmured. If it was makeup, it was good work, but that was only to be expected from someone with that kind of money and resources. And his stance, his overall bearing, was not that of a 78-year-old man, even a very fit one. Philip Laird was neither as young as he appeared in the early photos, nor as old as he appeared in the most recent ones -- physically, at least.
Philip Justinian Laird was an immortal.
But if that was so, then where did Laird Jr. come from? He'd have to be adopted. Amanda reread the Forbes article from the beginning. Ah, yes, there it was, in a few throwaway bits from paragraphs three and four: Philip Laird II had been adopted as a child from one of the orphanages in the older Laird's charitable-works empire. "Always treated me as his own son," etc. and so on.
So the older Laird was an Immortal, now approaching the point where he would soon have to cut all ties with a life lived too much in the limelight to merely fade away, instead "dying" in some suitably convincing way and then vanishing off to a hiding place for the next couple of decades. And the younger Laird was ... what? Driven by jealousy of his foster-father's immortality to make sure that Philip Laird's "death" was real?
Amanda shook her head. One thing she knew for sure: Philip Laird was nurturing a snake in his bosom. For all she knew, the older Laird might be an awful person under the slick philanthropist facade, but the younger Laird most certainly was. If she had to choose between the two of them -- the Immortal who'd never bothered her or anyone she loved, or the mortal who had blackmailed her and threatened her friends -- then it was really a no-brainer. First she had to take whatever steps she needed to, in order to assure her friends' safety. And then she'd deal with Philip Laird II.
Her mind made up, she called Joe. The Watchers must have a file on Laird. Joe wouldn't like sharing it, but she was confident that she could convince him the need was urgent enough.
The phone at Le Blues Bar rang and then went to the answering machine. Amanda left a terse message asking Joe to call her at the barge, then -- a sense of foreboding growing in her chest -- tried his home number. It picked up on the first ring, and she'd just weathered the initial relief when it was wiped away by Laird Jr.'s purring voice. "Hello, Amanda."
It felt as if all the air had been punched out of her. She tried to inhale, once, twice, and finally sucked a breath into her lungs. "Where's Joe?"
"What are you worried about? I thought he was Immortal like you," Laird said smoothly. "Don't worry, he's just fine so far. Whether he remains fine depends on what you do."
"You bastard. You said I had a month."
"And so you do," Laird said. "I promise you that for the duration of that month, Joseph Dawson will be my honored guest, as long as you keep yourself busy working to fulfill your end of our bargain rather than working against me."
When Amanda was a young Immortal, she had once helped with a boar hunt in one of the villages where she'd lived. The farmers, armed with nothing more than knives and pitchforks, had built a system of crude fences in the woods to channel the boar into the village stockade where it could be slaughtered. At the time she'd been caught up in the excitement, whooping with glee as they slammed shut gate after gate, cutting off each avenue of escape, herding the boar into a narrowing corridor until finally there was nothing it could do and nowhere else to go but the pen.
Now she knew exactly how it had felt. One by one, her options were being closed off, herding her gently but firmly into Laird Jr.'s slaughter pen.
And all she could do was play along.
"We had a deal, didn't we?" she said calmly. "But I'm going to want a few things along the way. First of all, I want to be paid in installments. This down payment you've given me is a start, but I don't plan to wait until afterwards for the rest of my money, and there's only, what, ten thousand euros or so in this stack?" She'd handled enough money to be able to calculate it at a glance, based on the height of the stack. "That won't even cover expenses. I want to receive fifty thousand every day, until I'm done."
"That's fair," Laird agreed.
"Second," she said, her heart pounding, "I want Joe to deliver the money to me. Each time. And I expect him to be in good health when he does."
This time there was a pause on Laird's end; she could tell he was turning this over, figuring out her angles. "All right," he said. "Deal. Anything else?"
"Just this," Amanda said. "I want you to think about what it might mean, having an enemy who lives forever and can't be killed. Right now, as long as I get the payment you've promised me -- and that includes Joe, alive and well -- then I have no reason to be your enemy." Except for the fact that you've blackmailed me and threatened my friends, you lying snake, and I'll be taking it out of you, believe me. "Once I do this job and get my payment, then we need never see each other again. I think it's in both of our interests to keep it that way."
"I think we are agreed in that," Laird said. "Where would you like your next payment?"
"St. Julien's Church on the Square René Viviani," Amanda said immediately. "Tomorrow noon. If Joe isn't completely unharmed, or if he doesn't arrive on time, then you will have made an enemy, Laird."
"St. Julien's at noon," Laird agreed, and the line went dead.
Amanda hung up the phone and drew several slow breaths until the faint, dazed feeling began to recede. Meditation was Duncan's line, not hers, but for a long time she sat on the floor and watched the porthole shadows creep across the wall.
She'd tried to run. It hadn't worked. And now he'd found another chain to put on her: Joe's life, and by implication, Duncan's and that of everyone else still alive that she loved.
She had no way to know how close his watch on her was. She had to assume that he would know everything she did -- everything an observer could reasonably infer, at least -- and that she could make no large moves without being detected. Laird certainly knew about Duncan already, but she had no idea how to get in touch with him -- the only person who could have helped was Joe, currently out of her reach. She thought about contacting Methos, but she wasn't sure if Laird knew about him, and she hated to pull yet another person into Laird's snare.
Everything an observer could reasonably infer ...
Where is my Watcher? How much does he or she know of what's going on?
Could I pass a message to the Watchers?
Do I want to?
Amanda rose and looked out the porthole at the Quai de la Tournelle. It was the height of tourist season, and the Quai bustled in the afternoon sun. She saw a few likely possibilities -- people standing too long in places they didn't seem to belong, or reading newspapers while looking around from behind them -- but there was no sure way to pick one out of the throng, especially since there were likely to be a few hostile observers along with her Watcher.
Odd to have the Watchers be the lesser evil in this case.
Amanda collected Laird's dossier and her sword. She explored all the likely hiding places in Duncan's barge but was unable to find a gun. Damn it, MacLeod, why couldn't you have been born with a good useful streak of paranoia rather than that stupid Highland sense of honor? His desk yielded stationery and a pen, and she wrote a quick note on the smallest slip of paper that would fit it:
Dawson kidnapped. Watchers in danger of discovery. MacLeod MIA. Culprit: Philip Laird II. Meeting @ St. Julien's noon tomrw.
The tricky part would be finding the right person to pass it to. Actually, though, she'd had an idea about that -- something even better than the chancy proposition of trying to identify her own Watcher. She only knew one other person in the organization -- Methos had been persona non grata for years -- but luckily, the other person was one who might be very much inclined to help her, and was quite likely to be completely off Laird's radar. One thing Duncan did have was an excellent map of the city and a Métro route schedule. Amanda examined both, and used Duncan's computer to look up a particular business's address.
She left the barge at a brisk clip and strode down the Quai, trying to look busy and purposeful. It was difficult to figure out if anyone was following her. There were plenty of people drifting in her general direction, even a few who stuck with her to the Métro, but in the general bustle, who could say? Which was, of course, what both her own Watcher and Laird's people were counting on, she supposed.
The Métro let her out in a different part of town. She let herself slow to a more meandering pace, eventually locating the café that she wanted. She'd never been here, but Joe had mentioned it to her, and apparently she'd remembered the name correctly. She kept walking, slowed more, and finally located a bench outside a bookseller's. Here she sat down and waited for about ten minutes. It was no great hardship to feign impatience, checking her watch frequently. She took out her phone and checked it rather ostentatiously for messages. Then she got up and began to pace. After a while she glanced up the street towards the café, looked at her watch again, then began to walk swiftly towards it, looking over her shoulder frequently at the bookseller's. If anyone were watching, she hoped that all her body language conveyed the bookseller's as her true destination, not the café.
And if she isn't working today, what will you do ...
But there she was, waiting on a customer at a window table. Amy Thomas's hair had grown long since the last time Amanda had seen her, and was wound into a complex braid on the back of her head. She was currently Watching an Immortal named Louis Benoit, a quiet non-confrontational sort who worked at an art supply store in the area. Joe was a master at keeping secrets, and Amanda felt privileged to be one of the circle that he did tell a few of his secrets to. Especially when in this case, it might help save his life.
She loitered, looking at a menu, until Amy was behind the counter, then approached her. It was hard to tell if Amy recognized her; they'd never spoken, and there was only a very slight pause before Amy asked if she could help her.
"Café au lait to go, please." Amanda took out a 10-euro note and the rolled-up bit of paper, and held it on top with her thumb as she pressed it into Amy's hand.
Amy's eyes widened a bit, and she turned away to make change. Amanda had to give her credit for her deftness; she could see Amy's hand unroll the note under the level of the counter as she counted out change with the other hand. When Amy turned back to Amanda, her eyes were wide. "Your change, ma'amselle," she said, and shifting gears with barely a pause, whispered, "Who are you? Is he all right?"
Amanda gave her head a tiny shake. There was no plausible way that Laird would know about Amy unless he knew about the Watchers in general, and even then, they both might pull this off if his observers had no reason to believe this was anything more than a routine stop for a cup of coffee. "I'm being watched," she whispered. "Trying to throw them off. Don't leave immediately. Just do what you'd normally do 'til I'm long gone. And get my coffee," she added in a tense undertone, because Amy had stopped doing anything but listening to her.
Amy nodded and Amanda waited, continuing to exude obvious signs of impatience and look over her shoulder towards the bookstore, trying to ignore Amy as if she was nothing but an ordinary barista. A young couple entered the café. Outside, a middle-aged gentleman had paused and was checking a tourist guidebook. Everyone looks suspicious when you know you're being followed. It's like the Methuselah Stone all over again.
Amy brought the coffee. Amanda wished she could say more to Amy's pleading eyes, but she gave an abstracted nod instead and was already turning away as soon as the cup left Amy's hands. It's up to you now, kid. I hope you really are your father's daughter.
She waited on the bench outside the bookstore for another fifteen minutes while she sipped her coffee and continued to check her watch and occasionally her phone for the benefit of anyone who might be watching her. After about ten minutes or so, Amy left the café and went off up the street. To her credit, she didn't even glance in Amanda's direction. Amanda wished Amy had waited longer, though; an extra hour or so probably didn't make that much difference to the Watchers' ability to mount a rescue, but might make a huge difference in terms of making Laird suspicious that Amanda had passed a message. I should have run more fake errands first. Given them more red herrings to keep them busy. But I couldn't wait. And neither could Amy, she knew. Amanda had just told her that her father was in danger. Of course Amy would be rushing off as soon as she could find a convenient excuse to leave.
Laird, I hope you realize what you've bit off for yourself.
And Amanda desperately hoped that she herself hadn't just set something in motion that would run them all down like a freight train off its rails. Contingency plans, Laird had said. How extensive were those plans? How many people were in danger besides Joe? Damn it, MacLeod. I wish I knew how to reach you. As it is, I don't even dare try.
She threw her frustration into visible anger, rising from the bench and striding away towards the Métro station. I need something else to do now. Something plausible, something a person might do in my situation -- if she's planning something other than a shootout at a church, that is. I need to look like I'm preparing to go after Laird the First. After some thought, she took the Métro to a different part of the city and went into a wig shop, examining different wigs while her mind turned busily.
To call Methos or not to call him. If Laird Jr. didn't know about him -- and depending on how thoroughly she was being watched -- then she might lead danger right to his door. On the other hand, if danger was already at his door, then he deserved to be warned about it. On the other other hand, Methos could take care of himself better than anyone she knew. Except for that time he almost got himself beheaded over the Methuselah Stone and we had to save him. He's clever and canny, not invincible.
She purchased a long blond wig and had it wrapped up. There were too many people in the store to risk making a phone call. Outside on the street, she walked as swiftly as she could, trying to outdistance possible pursuers, and pulled out her phone.
With any luck, he's already off in some suitably remote location, like Duncan, and I don't have to worry --
"Amanda," Methos drawled, and her heart sank. "You never call unless MacLeod's in trouble. Or you're in trouble. And yet, for some reason, I keep picking up the phone."
I wish you hadn't. "Actually, it's Joe," she said quietly, and sketched the basics of the situation, as she'd done for Joe earlier. She kept one eye on the pedestrian traffic. There were other people going her way, but none close enough to overhear. She hoped.
"When you get in trouble, you don't do it by halves," Methos said when she was done.
"I'm the best at everything, darling. I don't suppose you have any convenient travel plans in the immediate future. If not, you might want to make some."
"I always have travel plans when someone is gunning for me."
"I hope you mean that," Amanda said, and thought, What's wrong with me? I'd rather have him flee town and get himself out of harm's way than stay and help me? I'm turning into MacLeod.
"You sound like MacLeod."
Amanda snorted a small laugh.
"Despite the annoying inconvenience, I have to admire Laird's Machiavellian style," Methos went on in a musing tone. "Did I ever tell you I once met Machiavelli, by the way? Nice chap, actually. He would not have approved of the modern use of his name. How'd you attract this psycho's attention, anyway?" His voice went razor-sharp on the question.
"Don't blame me for it. I have no idea. Quite possibly he was an accidental witness to a duel, or saw me get shot, or any of the hundreds of things that mortals see every day and explain away because it doesn't fit with their worldview. Except Laird the Second grew up with Laird the First, so he's probably seen a whole lot of things that don't fit with most people's worldview."
"And at some point he realized that Daddy Dearest wasn't getting older," Methos said.
"I doubt if Laird Senior told him, or he'd have a better idea of how the whole Immortal thing worked, and he doesn't seem to. But he's definitely figured out the salient points -- that Daddy's Immortal, that I am too, and that it takes one of us to kill one of us."
"I wouldn't try if I were you," Methos said. "He's not a particularly stylish duelist, but he's lived a long time, and you don't get that old if you're a slouch with a sword."
Amanda startled herself with a sharp bark of laughter. "You know Laird? The original Laird, I mean. Why does that fail to surprise me."
"We've met a few times," Methos said. "Laird wasn't his name then, of course. He's a nasty one, and bear in mind who you're talking to. It takes one to know one."
Amanda cut through a park, putting more distance between herself and the nearest passersby. "The longer I spend on the phone, the more suspicious Laird is going to be that I'm cooking up something. But I have to know. What's so awful about him? From all I could see, he seems to be feeding the hungry and housing the homeless, and doing little else."
"And the thought didn't occur to you that anyone that altruistic must have some really ugly skeletons in his closet?"
"Of course I thought it," Amanda said. "Who do you take me for ... Duncan? But whatever he's done in the past, he seems to have gone straight in this lifetime."
Methos gave a dark laugh. "I doubt it. Maybe he has changed. Maybe he's like Darius, who knows. But the Philip I knew ... no. He was the sort of user and abuser who likes to fester in dark places. The sort of person who keeps a peasant girl in his cellar for fifteen years so that he can rape her every day." From the edge of darkness in his voice, Amanda didn't think it was a hypothetical example.
"God," she whispered. All those children's charities ... For a moment the battered street child inside her rose up, screaming, a lonely thin cry -- drowning in the things she'd pressed down, all the things she tried so hard not to think about -- "No wonder his son hates him -- whether he was abused himself or not, the things he must have seen ..."
"He's probably right that the world would be a better place without Philip in it," Methos said. "And coming from me, that's really saying something. But don't get to feeling too sorry for the little bastard. It doesn't give him any right to go screwing up your life. Or, most importantly, mine."
******
There was no way to prepare for a confrontation at the church without making it too obvious that she was preparing. So instead she prepared for a confrontation with another Immortal. She used the files Laird Jr. had provided her to guess at Laird Sr.'s current location -- he'd been living in a beach house in Aruba for the last half-year, so he was probably still there. She booked tickets for a flight tomorrow afternoon. She packed. She checked her email and phone messages obsessively. Nothing at all from the Watchers, not that she was expecting anything. By now Amy would know who she was, and heaven only knew how many Watchers were aware that Amanda could be added to the pool of Immortals who knew about them. If they all survived the next day, there would be unpleasant fallout ahead. Well, can't make an omelet without breaking eggs, she thought.
And while she worked, she tried to think of ways to turn the tables on Laird Jr., to close the trap around him as he was closing it around her. It was better than thinking about Joe, and what Laird might be doing to him, or what he might have planned for the rest of her friends.
He's very well-connected, but I doubt if he has any actual friends -- a man like that? I doubt it. His people are loyal to him because he pays them, I'm sure. Could I use that?
She couldn't see any way to subvert Laird's employees' loyalty overnight, though.
Okay, so -- cut him off from them somehow. A real friend would do whatever it takes, overcome any obstacle, to get back in touch with him and help him. This wasn't something she'd always known. Other people had taught her that: Rebecca, MacLeod, Fitzcairn, Joe. Methos too, though he'd never believe it. But an employee? I doubt it. They're not going to risk themselves for him any more than they have to. So how do I separate Laird from his people?
She called Weasel. It was the middle of the afternoon in his time zone, so he was probably asleep. At any rate, the call went to his voicemail. "I have a job for you that you might find interesting. I'll pay well." With Laird's money; there was a certain poetic justice in that. "I don't know if you can do it; it's very hard --"
"You know how to get a guy's attention," Weasel said, cutting into the voicemail system.
Amanda smiled into the phone. "It's what I'm best at. Tell me, do you think you can take down the communications network in Paris for a little while?"
There was a brief pause. "Did you just say Paris? You don't mean Paris, Illinois by any chance."
"Paris, France."
The pause was longer this time. "Okay, I'll need a couple of weeks --"
Amanda checked her watch. "You have fourteen hours. Oh, and if you can do the power grid too, that'd be perfect."
******
Morning brought nothing but more waiting. She wished she knew if the Watchers were preparing a rescue or at least a coverup and cleanup operation. She was tempted to travel across town and try to make contact with Amy again, but didn't want to arouse Laird's suspicions -- assuming he wasn't already suspicious. She thought about calling Methos and then forced herself not to. Either he'd gone on the run or he was planning his own operation without her input, and either way, she doubted if talking to him would help calm her nerves. Weasel called three times, mostly to complain about the impossibility of what she was asking him to do.
"Look, if you can't handle it, I can keep my money. I could use some new handbags. And shoes, lots of shoes."
"Devil woman," Weasel muttered, hanging up on her.
About eight-thirty, one of the phones rang. It was the second burn phone that Laird had given her. Amanda picked it up with deep misgivings. "Yes."
Laird sounded like he always did: confident, fresh and cheerful. "Our meeting this morning? I believe we'd better move it up a bit."
Her heart sank like a stone. Unpredictability. Damn him. Damn him.
"Nine o'clock," Laird said. "He'll be there. Hope you don't have anything else planned." He hung up.
There was barely time to get herself to the church, let alone to get anyone else there. She pounded off a quick email to Weasel on MacLeod's computer -- URGENT!!!!! CHANGE OF PLANS! MEETING AT 9:00!! -- and just hoped that he was as good as he claimed he was. She didn't have a number for Amy. The only person she could call in Paris was Methos, and he didn't answer his phone this time. She wasn't sure whether to be hopeful or not that he'd made good on his threat to skip town at the first sign of trouble.
"He's moved up the meeting," she told his answering machine, phone held in the crook of her shoulder as she threw things into her bag. "Nine o'clock. I don't know if the Watchers will be there. I will be."
If I can get there in time. She abandoned her stylish heels for a pair of flats, purchased years ago and chucked into a closet with the rest of the spare clothes that she kept at MacLeod's place. All the while she kept thinking of things she should have done and hadn't. I should've bought a gun. I should've called Cory -- if there's anyone who knows sneaky underhanded ways of screwing someone over, it's Cory. I should've bought a dozen guns. I should've marched into Watcher HQ and demanded to see their director. I should've --
But all she could do now was run.
She arrived at the church with her watch reading 8:59. Racing up to the doors, she didn't see any sign of anyone except a startled-looking elderly woman kneeling in a flowerbed. No one loitering around. No cars. Philip Laird, if you've done anything to Joe, you won't be able to run far enough or fast enough --
She burst into the church, thinking Stupid, so stupid. If she'd just planned better, she could have been waiting at the church already. She'd been afraid to get there too early -- afraid Laird would guess she was planning something and call the whole thing off. Or kill Joe. And now here she was, unprepared and unready, stumbling into a possible ambush --
There were two men at the far end of the nave. Both of them rose, one a bit stiffly, and Amanda's knees went weak when she recognized Joe. The other man wasn't Laird; he had no neck, lumberjack-style shoulders and one hand stuck in a pocket with a suspicious bulge. Hired muscle.
She pulled herself together and tried to get her breathing under control -- she was no longer in tip-top cat-burglar shape. Then she sauntered down the aisle and hoped she wasn't as sweaty and mussed as she felt. "Dawson," she said, and her stupid, betraying voice cracked a bit. He looked tired and stressed, but intact, except for a bruise purpling his cheekbone. "Uh, did they ..." She raised a hand to her face.
Joe cracked a grin, and shot a glance at his jailer, who glowered sullenly at the two of them. "You should see the other guy."
The grin faded, and Joe took a bundle of cash from his pocket and handed it to her. "You know me, I'm not a guy who chases the almighty dollar, but there's something a little heady about seeing this much in one place, you know?"
"I know," Amanda said absently, thumbing through it. She became aware of something, a change in the atmosphere around her. A sound? No, an absence of sound. All around them, the ever-present electric hum of the modern world -- the collective sound of refrigerators, lights, air-conditioning units, computers -- had ceased. Even in the big stone church, there must be appliances and electric items, because the silence was sudden and deafening to her.
Weasel had done it. He'd also promised her the cell network would go down along with the power. She hadn't asked if it was part and parcel of the power outage, or something he had to do separately -- now she wished she had, because that would let her know if she was guaranteed a few precious moments of safety, or if she was about to sign a whole bunch of death warrants.
"All there?" Joe asked.
"All here," she said, and met his eyes. No way to let him know what she was about to do. She'd just have to hope that his mind was still as nimble as it had always been.
Moving in one quick, fluid motion, she drew her sword. Joe was already in motion at her first twitch, throwing himself down. Amanda swung over his head, as the thug started to draw his gun from his pocket, and beheaded him.
She hadn't actually meant to. After all these years, it was reflex. She wasn't used to fighting to wound with the sword. She always fought to kill. One had to.
There was a moment's silence. The headless body convulsed on the floor. Amanda was torn between relief, and a deep unbearable revulsion at defiling holy ground. For so long it had been so deeply ingrained in her that one did not fight here. She knew that the killing of a mortal on holy ground did not carry such a terrible price, but still -- for all that it had been self-defense, she felt as if a great wrong had been committed here.
"Get his gun," Joe said.
She did, and passed it to him without a word. He was a better shot and they both knew it. She wiped the worst of the gore off her sword on the dead man's jacket, and gave Joe a hand up.
"Plan?" Joe asked hopefully.
"Try not to die?"
"Sounds like the way our plans usually go."
"There was a plan," Amanda said. "A pretty good one, if I do say so myself. Then Laird moved the meeting up, and it went all to hell. Is he here?"
"Behind the church, along with about a half-dozen guys." Joe jerked a thumb towards the nearest side door. "I expect that in a minute they're going to come bursting in here and --"
He broke off at the sharp popping of gunfire outside. "Okay," he muttered. "Hope that's on our side. You expecting more company?"
"I didn't dare hope," Amanda admitted.
The side door burst open and someone stumbled in. It took Amanda a second or two to recognize Laird. He was clutching his side and his composure was completely gone, his neat hair mussed and his immaculate suit in disarray. He snapped off a couple of shots and then ducked out of Amanda's sight in the shadows, but she could hear him clearly, his voice echoing off the church's ancient stone walls. "You don't know what he's done," Laird screamed. "You don't know what he is! He's a monster, he doesn't deserve to live, and he can't die. I've tried!"
"You feel qualified to be judge, jury and executioner, then? How noble of you." The dry voice was Methos's.
Amanda looked at Joe, who made two quick hand movements -- towards the door and back up the aisle. Amanda nodded and slipped off, up the aisle, to outflank Laird, while Joe took the shorter distance to the side door to back up Methos.
"You can't tell me he doesn't deserve to die for the things he's done!" Laird shouted hoarsely.
"We all have ugly things in our pasts," Joe called.
"We've all known monsters," Methos said more quietly, though Amanda could still hear him through the church's clear acoustics, even though she was almost all the way to the opposite end of the aisle. "Some of us have been monsters. You aren't defined by your past unless you let it define you."
"And you, buddy," Joe said, "have let it turn you into something that's every bit as bad as he is."
Laird made a noise of pure rage. "You don't understand!"
Amanda finally moved around to an angle where she could see him. He was startlingly close to her, not more than a few steps away. In one hand he clutched a snub-nosed pistol; the other, streaked with blood, held a cell phone, into which he was frantically punching numbers.
She became aware that the faint background hum of electricity, of Paris on the move, was back. And that meant the phones were probably back too.
Whoever he's calling, it's bad news for us. We can't let him.
Amanda lunged forward and swung her sword. This time she aimed for his hand. The sharp blade bit it off at the wrist.
Laird shrieked, more in shock than pain. A bright fountain of arterial blood cascaded across the wall, the floor. He spun around, opening fire. Amanda tried to dodge, but she felt the impact of the bullets -- one in her chest, one in her throat. The hammer fell on an empty chamber, and he screamed again -- the sound was barely human -- and wrenched the sword from her nerveless hand.
"I saw you!" he shouted. "All those years ago, I saw you -- saw a car hit you, saw you come back! I was just a child, but I saw that! And years later, I saw you again -- unharmed, untouched, unchanging!" He swung the sword at her, a wild, raging stroke. Amanda, unable to speak and all too aware of darkness closing about her, flung up her arm in instinctive self-defense, felt the sword hang up on bone. "What does it take to kill you!" Laird screamed, and then darkness closed around her and she felt the floor come up and hit her in the face. Death claimed her before she could know if Laird found his answer or not.
******
She woke with the usual painful jolt of air drawn into lungs recently stilled. For a moment she lay, breathing quietly, letting the sensation return to her limbs. Her chest and right arm ached dully. Someone appeared to be stroking her hair, but that might be a phantom effect of the feeling coming back all over her body.
"Amanda?" Joe's voice said. She blinked and focused on his face. There was hard wood under her hips, but her head was pillowed on something soft. Flopping a hand around, she gathered intel by feel -- she was lying across a row of hard wooden chairs, but she had her head in Joe's lap.
"Joe, Joe," Amanda murmured. "People will talk."
"I don't mind. Let them flatter an old man." He brushed his hand down her cheek. "Welcome back."
Amanda pulled herself upright, brushing off his offer of help. She looked down at a dark stain on the floor, and her sword lying next to it, then raised her head as someone else came in from outside: Amy, dressed all in dark clothes like a commando.
"The bodies are in the trunk," she began, then saw Amanda and faltered. "Oh. Hi. I guessed that you were, uh -- you know. But I wasn't sure. Thank you for warning me."
"Thank you for coming." Amanda rubbed her hand across her face. She was always a little spacy after dying. "How did you know the time of the meeting had been changed?"
"I didn't," Amy said. "I've been here since six this morning, staking out the place."
"Teacher's pet," Methos scoffed, appearing out of nowhere. "I've been here since seven."
"You're both over-achievers," Amanda said, closing her eyes as a headache swelled in her temples. It was easy to beat herself up, tell herself that she should've thought of doing the same thing. But it was hard to think when one was under incredible amounts of stress and trying to coordinate a rescue on two continents. "Is Laird dead?"
"Yes," was Joe's succinct answer, in a tone that gave away nothing. He rested a hand on her elbow.
"The Watcher cleanup crew will be here soon to finish mopping up," Amy said. "I, uh, think maybe some of us shouldn't still be here when they arrive?"
"My cue to leave," Methos said cheerfully. "Well, reunions are always nice. Let's do it somewhere a little less noisy next time. Assuming you can manage to go five minutes without getting kidnapped." This last to Joe.
"If you're gonna be a dick about it, next time you're not invited to the rescue."
"Fine with me. I like sleeping in." Methos reached out to squeeze Joe's shoulder with one hand, the other settling lightly on Amanda's arm. For an instant his guarded face was soft. And then he was gone, ghostlike into the shadows of the church.
******
It wasn't until the following evening that Amanda wandered into Le Blues Bar. When she'd finally made it back to the barge, she'd locked the door, flung both of Laird's cell phones out the window, and slept for fifteen hours. Then she took herself on a nice long shopping spree, with Laird's money. It wasn't going to be doing him any good, after all, and there was quite a bit left over after sending Weasel his well-earned cut. She was a firm believer in robbing from the rich and giving to the needy -- namely herself. Joe and Amy were both too ridiculously moral to touch it, and Methos ... well, all right, she probably did owe Methos a very nice dinner out on the town, at the very least. He was back to being his usual, difficult-to-get-hold-of self, however.
When she did finally drop by Le Blues Bar, she found the CLOSED sign hanging out. The door was unlocked, however, so she let herself in and wandered through the dark, quiet bar until she found Joe in a back room. He was sitting at a table, oiling the parts to a disassembled rifle. Amanda was not an expert on guns, but she did have a passing familiarity with them, and if she didn't know better she'd say that it looked like a high-powered, quite expensive sniper rifle.
"How's it goin'?" Joe asked. "Sorry I can't offer you a drink. Bar's all closed down."
"I noticed," Amanda said, leaning a hip on the table. "Going somewhere?"
"Figured I'd go out of town for a bit," Joe said. "Mac's not due back for awhile. Not like I really have anything better to do than go on vacation."
"Vacation? Where?"
"I've heard Aruba's nice this time of year," Joe said, quietly setting pieces of the rifle into their case.
Oh. Oh. "Do you want some company?"
"Nah," Joe said, snapping the case shut. "You guys have ... things you can't do."
So do you, Amanda thought. So do you. But she'd spent her life believing that rules were situational, that no moral absolute was too absolute to bend if the conditions were right. "Well, be careful," was all she said. "Travel can be hazardous. Keep your eyes open."
Joe huffed a soft laugh. "You too."
He reached to take her hand; she pulled him into a tight hug and kissed his cheek. Life is too short, she thought, for them and even for us. Too short not to let the people you love know that you love them. It had taken her a lot of mortal lifetimes to learn that lesson.
Maybe she would go find Methos after all, even if he didn't want to be found, and offer him that all-expenses-paid dinner. Or maybe something else, a quiet night of staying in and drinking, just companionship and a friend if he wanted one.
Life was, indeed, too short.
Fandom: Highlander
Rating/pairing: PG-13, gen
Warnings: (skip) Implied (very off-camera) child abuse. Also some gory violence.
Word Count: 11,800
Notes: For the
hc_bingo prompt "Extortion".Summary: Someone is trying to blackmail Amanda, but dragging her friends into it was a really bad idea.
Crossposts: on LJ (2 posts) | on AO3
The first note was slipped under her hotel room door in Madrid. Thick creamy paper crumpled under her shoe, and when she smoothed it out, Amanda found a few lines written in a crisp, confident hand.
I know you cannot die. I will pay you handsomely to do a job for me.
No contact information.
She was at first puzzled, then, for a minute or two, she was quite tempted. But no, nothing good could come of an offer like that. Perhaps this would be an excellent time to visit another city and steer clear of Madrid for a while.
The second note appeared two weeks later in Cairo. It was on her balcony railing, weighted with a stone, when she came back from a pleasant evening dancing with a young man she'd met on the beach. (Well, technically he was forty-three. But they were all young men to her.)
Her hotel room was on the fourth floor. Amanda checked the entire suite thoroughly before she closed the curtains, locked the door, and unfolded the note.
She hadn't kept the other note, but she was pretty sure it was the same handwriting. As a forger of no small accomplishment, Amanda knew how to read the marks of a pen on paper as well as the words that they formed.
I can find you no matter where you go. I will pay you well in return for your help. Otherwise I will expose your secret. Think about it. I will contact you again soon.
Amanda crumpled the note furiously into a tight ball. That wasn't enough to calm her down. She tore it into tiny pieces and set them on fire in the hotel room's sink, washing the ashes down the drain. Better. Slightly.
"Impudent, arrogant, idiotic ..." she seethed at her reflection in the mirror. She wasn't quite sure whether she meant the mortal who had left the notes -- it had to be a mortal; none of their kind would try something like this -- or herself, for obviously being careless enough to let something slip somewhere she shouldn't have.
The thought did cross her mind that it might be some kind of joke, but she didn't think even Methos's sense of humor was that twisted. Speaking of Methos, perhaps this would be a good time to take a page from his book. "No matter where I go? Really? Let's find out."
The next note was brought to her a month later, while she sipped a lousy beer in a bar that occupied a mobile home trailer in a small town in Mexico that she hadn't bothered to learn the name of. It wasn't her usual scene, but well, that was the point, wasn't it?
She was traveling under the name Rose Mathis, pretending to be American. Not that it mattered after this many years whether she was or wasn't. Duncan was one of the only Immortals she knew who kept such a strong sense of his own ethnic identity. None of them could truly move beyond their upbringing -- though many try; I'm one of them -- but national boundaries were transitory as spring clouds when one had learned to think in terms of centuries rather than decades.
"Señorita Mathis?" The bartender held out a package wrapped in brown paper and slightly stained. It was labeled neatly with her pseudonym -- her heart sank when she recognized the handwriting.
"Who left this for me?" Apparently it had been dropped off at the hotel where she'd been staying in the last town, and passed along with a delivery driver going in this direction. The trail was already cold. She gave him a couple of hundred-peso notes and then stared at the package for a while before opening it.
It contained a pre-paid cell phone and another note on that heavy cream-colored paper. The note was longer this time.
Dear Rose (or Amanda? Lilah? Clarissa?), it began, and Amanda clenched her teeth, reminding herself to abandon those aliases for a while.
I hope I've made my point. Certainly you could avoid me if you truly wish to, but only by avoiding the world. Do you really want to live in a convent for the next fifty years, hoping that I'll die of old age? I have a simple job that I want you to do for me. At 9 p.m. Mexico City time, on August 19th, be somewhere that you can get reception on this phone, and we'll talk. If not, I'll call at the same time every second day afterwards.
The date was four days ago -- the package had been pursuing her for some time, it seemed. The hint of fallibility in her enemy was a relief, actually: he was good, but he wasn't omnipotent and he wasn't perfect. Amanda checked her watch. Two hours until the rendezvous time. She powered on the phone, and held it up. One bar. Well, two hours was enough time to drive to the top of the hill outside town and see if the reception was better there.
At 8:59 p.m., she'd found a place where she could get two bars (flickering occasionally to three) and parked her rented, battered jeep conspicuously by the road. Amanda herself went to ground in the scrub brush several hundred yards up the hill. She had her sword and the best distance weapon she'd been able to obtain on extremely short notice, a beat-up hunting rifle that she'd bought from the bartender's cousin.
At 9 p.m. on the dot, the phone rang. Amanda took a deep breath, hunkered down behind the rock she'd found for cover, and answered it with a terse, "Hello."
"Amanda. A pleasure to hear from you." The voice was male, smooth and cultured. Amanda struggled to place the accent: American East Coast, with perhaps a hint of London? It was not a voice she recognized. The return number was American; she didn't know the area code, but committed it to memory.
"Let's not pretend to be friends," she hissed into the phone. "You have ten seconds to tell me why you've been chasing me around the world or I hang up and throw this phone down the nearest outhouse hole."
"Ah, we'll get down to business, then." He sounded as friendly as if she'd greeted him with hearts and flowers. "First of all, I know that you don't age and you can't be killed -- at least not easily. This makes you perfect for what I have in mind."
"Which is?" Amanda asked warily. He's not Immortal. And he's not a Watcher. He doesn't know what we are.
"I need you to kill someone for me. When you can provide me proof of his death, I'll pay you twenty million dollars, American -- or the equivalent currency of your choice. I'm also open to compensating you in other ways, should you prefer: art, gold, jewelry, a yacht, a plane?"
Amanda licked her dry lips. She didn't think he was lying. About any of it. "I'm not a killer for hire."
"Everyone is for hire for anything, if the price is right."
"I said no. I'm not interested."
"I'm sorry," he said politely, not sounding sorry at all. "Didn't I make it clear in my previous communication with you? The only possible answer is yes. If you refuse, I'll expose you for what you really are. But I'd like our relationship to be a mutually beneficial one. I am prepared to pay you very nearly anything you ask."
"I don't make deals with blackmailers."
"Well," he said, "since you're still on the fence, I'll give you a few days to think about it. Why don't I call you again at this time, on this phone, in a week?"
And with that, he hung up.
"Asshole!" Amanda shouted at the phone.
Her first thought, though she hated herself for it, was to call MacLeod. But no, no, damn it. She was a big girl. She didn't need to go crying to MacLeod every time she got herself in a bit of trouble. This jerk didn't know who he was messing with.
"All I can tell you is that he called you from a burn phone."
"A what?" Amanda asked.
"A pre-paid phone like this one. Not his own. Probably bought it from a street vendor somewhere."
"Technology," Amanda muttered. It was so hard to stay abreast of it.
Her contact just grinned. His name was Weasel. She'd known him for a few years, and others like him; Amanda didn't believe in wasting time learning to do something yourself if you could pay other people to do it, and she'd figured out the advantages of seeking out contacts in the telecommunications industry back in the days when the "tele" part stood for telegraph.
"Well, what can you tell me? I'm not paying you to sit around and jerk off to Internet porn, Weasel. I thought you were a man who could learn things."
"I am, if there's anything to learn. What have you got to go on? An untraceable phone with no prints but yours. I can work you up a cell-tower trace and a recording setup for the next time he calls ..."
"What about handwriting analysis?" Amanda dangled the most recent note, the only one she'd kept so far. "This paper looks expensive, too. Can you do anything with that?"
"I can't, but I know some people who can." He took it, and she relinquished it reluctantly, hating to give up her one tangible connection to her tormenter. "Mandy, honey, come on, I can't help you if you don't trust me."
"I don't trust you, Weasel, any farther than I'm paying you. And don't call me Mandy."
Weasel grinned, showing crooked teeth. "But you're paying me well."
"Yes, I am. So don't disappoint me."
Back on the street, she looked up more of her contacts, sent out feelers in the underworld and also among the handful of society connections that she'd nurtured over the years. He's rich, she thought. Probably American or has spent a lot of time there. Must have fairly extensive connections of his own, or he couldn't keep finding me. And she knew it was like hunting for a needle in a haystack. In her many years as a thief, swindler and con artist Amanda had stolen from kings and presidents, gangsters and corporate executives, rich widows and other thieves. The world was full of wealthy, well-connected people, and most of them were quite experienced at hiding their tracks if they wanted to.
The day before her next scheduled conversation with the blackmailer, she went back to Weasel and picked up the phone, this time with new hardware installed -- a black box clamped onto the side. "Stylish," Amanda said, rotating it.
"I can slap on a coat of paint, but it'll be a few G's extra."
Amanda snorted. "Yeah, no, I'll dab on some fingernail polish and call it good. What do I do?"
"Nothing. It'll activate when he calls -- or when anyone calls. At least it'll let you know where in the world he's calling from, not with pinpoint accuracy but enough to start getting a move on finding him. And it'll get him on tape." He handed her an envelope. "I'll save the suspense. No prints or DNA on the letter except yours. Handwriting analysis, short version: male, good private-school education, either confident to the point of egotism, or fakes it very well. Possibly sociopathic."
"I could've told you that."
Phone in hand, she returned to her hotel -- and discovered a manilla envelope taped to her door, with a bulge at the bottom. Nothing was written on it. Amanda poked at it, then opened the door and retrieved a set of thin black gloves (don't leave home without them) to untape the envelope and empty it onto the bed.
A cell phone slid out.
"Oh, you absolute bastard."
Someone must have left it there. She ran down to the front desk and began questioning employees, explaining that her creepy stalker ex-boyfriend had somehow managed to find her hotel. They were sympathetic, but no one had noticed anything out of the ordinary -- people came and went from hotels all the time. Which of course was what her enemy had been counting on.
She'd just closed the door of her room when the new cell rang. Amanda jumped, then picked it up reluctantly. "Yes," she snapped.
"Amanda," said the silky voice. "Or maybe you prefer Desirée?" That was the name she'd used when checking into the hotel.
"When I find you, I'll make you wish you were Immortal."
"Temper," the voice said smoothly. "I realize that I'm pushing up our deadline a bit, but I believe in being unpredictable. It helps to prevent unpleasant surprises. Despite the rush, I assume you've been thinking over my offer. May I have an answer, please?"
"First of all, I don't plan to give you an answer until you tell me who you want me to kill for you and why," Amanda said. "I don't know who or what you think I am, but I'm no one's hired assassin."
"Of course not. I've researched you thoroughly. You're a petty thief and compulsive liar," the voice crooned. Amanda's mouth dropped open in fury. "What I'm offering is a better deal than you could find on your own in a lifetime. With the amount of money I'm willing to pay for one small task, you can retire from your risk-taking life and live happily for a good many years. Or stash it away for a rainy day and continue to live as you like, knowing that you have that security blanket. In any case --"
Amanda finally got her voice back. "You miserable, conniving --"
"In any case," he went on over the top of her, "yes or no? I'm sure I've already proven that I can find you no matter where you go. If I want to, I can give out your location to anyone I choose. You'll never be safe again."
I'm tired of being afraid, she'd once told Duncan. It was at times like this that a millennia of independence, of battle-hardness fell away from her, and she remembered once again what it was like to be that long-ago street child, stepped on and kicked and chased. The trapped feeling left her breathless, panicky, her heart racing and her head light.
But the street child, at least, knew how to deal with situations like this. Be what they want you to be, until you can kick them in the teeth and run.
"Okay, fine," she said through her teeth, forcing down fear and misery like bile, trying to sound flippant and cheerful -- just the happy sociopath that he apparently thought she was. "Just tell me what you want, who you want dead and where." And if you think I'm actually doing it, you're crazy. I am a "compulsive liar" after all, you son of a bitch.
"Excellent! I thought we could do business," he said brightly. "The person I need you to kill --"
For one awful instant, she expected him to say "Duncan MacLeod." It would just figure.
"-- is my father. I'll contact you again in one week, with the rest of the information that you need. It doesn't matter where you are; I'll find you."
With that, he hung up.
Amanda stared at the phone for a few minutes, caught between fury and a kind of strange, weary amusement. It was so utterly petty, after all the buildup and the chase -- just some kind of family feud, albeit one that had risen to deadly levels.
A week. Well. Maybe it was time to talk to MacLeod after all. She chose to view it as sharing an amusing story rather than asking for help. At the very least, he might have some ideas for turning the tables on her mystery stalker. She picked up the hotel phone and called information for a travel agency. It'd been awhile since she'd been to Paris anyway.
"What do you mean, you don't know where he is? You're his Watcher, aren't you?"
"I'm his Watcher. Doesn't mean I'm his keeper. Have you tried to keep tabs on MacLeod?"
"Eh. True."
Joe shrugged. "He's visiting a friend in Tokyo as far as I know. I could probably get in touch if you really need me to."
"No, no, it's not that important ..." Amanda swiveled on her bar stool to reach for her purse. "Actually, you might be even more help, come to think of it. This is more of a you sort of problem than a MacLeod sort of problem anyway."
She handed Joe the handwritten note and, while he studied it with raised eyebrows, quickly sketched the salient points of the Mystery Stalker situation for him.
"Expose you, huh?" Joe said. "How'd he find out about you, anyway?"
"I have no idea. I don't remember anything of the sort, and what am I supposed to do, make an exhaustive list of every mortal I've ever come in contact with? It's at times like this that being a misanthropic hermit would come in handy. But, Joe, I've met thousands of people in just the last ten years."
"Do you think he's a Watcher?"
"I doubt it. The things he says -- it just doesn't sound right. However ..." She gave him her best winsome look. "I don't suppose you could look up my Chronicle and see if there's anything that's documented recently that might shed some light?"
Joe glowered at her. "Don't the words secret organization mean anything to you?"
"You'd do it for MacLeod." When he showed no signs of softening, she let a small pout slip through, along with perhaps a little of her genuine fear. "Come on, Joe. If he does expose me, it's not just me that'll suffer. It's all of us. Me. Duncan. Methos. Every Immortal you've ever known. Surely you don't want to be responsible for --"
"All right, all right!" He pointed one finger at her. "I'm only doing this to maintain the secret. That's all."
"Of course," she said politely.
Joe poured her two fingers of her favorite brandy and slid it across the bar. "How are you holding up?"
"Me? What?" She sipped her drink. "Fine, why do you ask?"
"Amanda, I've known Mac a long time, remember? I've seen what he's like when he's under siege. And you've got the same look in your eyes. Hunted." He hesitated, then added somewhat awkwardly, "I know that Rebecca tried to make up for --"
"Joe," she snapped. "Don't." She liked Joe. She really did. It hurt to know that in the long run, he'd be no more than a firefly flicker in her long life. But the very concept of the Watchers galled her, and she'd never talked about her early days with Rebecca to anyone but MacLeod. Joe's tacit admission that he'd read her Chronicle already, that he knew that much about her without her consent -- her pains, her loves, her private shames -- was almost more than she could bear. It took all the control she had not to throw the drink in his face.
They both drank in silence for a few minutes before Joe said, "I was out of line. Sorry."
"Not your fault." It wasn't. Neither of them could help being what they were.
"I'll see what I can find out," Joe said. "What are you going to do?"
Amanda sighed. "What I've been doing, I guess. Put out feelers, try to find someone who knows something. He's obviously well-connected, but that should make him easier to find, not harder." She smirked. "It's hard to follow someone across two continents without being spotted. As you know well."
Joe raised his glass. "Touché."
Two days later, she was sitting in a sidewalk café, sipping a coffee and going through a handwritten, heavily annotated list of her own movements over the last fifty years. It was just as miserably long and complicated as she'd expected; she'd spent an entire day writing everything down, and she knew she was forgetting so much -- whole months, whole years were missing. "Why couldn't I have been like Methos or Darius, and just settle in one place for decades at a time?" she moaned, and summoned the waiter for another coffee. Joe had given her a short, incomplete list of possible contacts with mortals, but as he pointed out, there was still a ton of information to comb through, and he couldn't ask her Watcher for help without explaining what he was doing and why.
Fifty years was her cut-off because she didn't think the voice on the phone could be older, but for all she knew, it was a family secret passed down through generations. Perhaps she'd given herself away in 1700, and it had taken this long to --
"Excuse me, may I join you?"
Amanda's head snapped up. That voice. It was unmistakably the voice on the phone. And there he was, standing next to her table, three days in advance of the week he'd given her. But he likes to be unpredictable, she thought, as dazed shock gave way to a slowly growing fury.
The Mystery Stalker, definitely mortal, was a tanned, handsome man of about forty-five. His silvering hair was perfectly coifed, not a strand out of place, and his suit had obviously cost more than some people made in a year. He oozed good breeding and money out every pore. Under other circumstances, Amanda was well aware that she would have gone into orbit around him like a bee around a flower, which was just one reason why she hated him on sight.
Without waiting for her to respond with an invitation, he pulled another chair over to her tiny sidewalk table, and sat. In one hand he held a flat manilla envelope.
Amanda eyed him up and down for a weapon. Though nothing showed outwardly, there were a million things that could be hidden in that finely tailored suit. "So," she said. "We meet."
He nodded. "Indeed." He placed the manilla envelope on the table, carefully and deliberately, on top of the stack of papers she'd been perusing. "Since I'm sure you're a resourceful lady and I imagine you're currently thinking of a dozen ways to avoid working for me, none of which will end well for me, I'd like you to take a look at this first."
Amanda studied him with deep suspicion before opening the envelope, wary of hidden traps. She shook its contents onto the table. There was a thick stack of 100-euro notes, held together with a rubber band, and two 8x10 glossy photographs. One was Joe Dawson stepping out of Le Blues Bar, squinting into the sun, but easily recognizable. The other was Joe, from the back, reaching for the door of his Paris apartment.
Amanda studied these, hoping that her face betrayed no reaction. Then she picked up the money and flipped through it with her thumb. It looked genuine.
"A small down payment, to the success of our business partnership," said the Mystery Stalker with a slight smile. "And some insurance for me. I am a strong believer in insurance. As long as I leave this meeting in the same condition in which I arrived, you will never need to learn of the other contingency plans I've put in place."
He looked familiar, though it was hard to tell if it was simply that he looked like every other wealthy businessman and politician she'd met, or if she'd actually met him someplace or seen him on TV. Amanda tried to memorize every line of his face. Killing for money was a line she didn't intend to cross, but killing this man? Yes. She could find it in her heart to do so with little regret.
"Well," she said. "If I'm to be your assassin, then I need to know who you want me to kill. Your father, you said?"
He nodded and reached a hand slowly to the breast pocket of his suit. "May I?" Again without awaiting a response, he removed another envelope and placed it on the table. He laid a hand on top of it.
"This contains everything that you need to do this job for me. Since I don't hire people who are incompetent or lazy, I think that one month should be ample. One month from the time that you open this envelope -- or sooner -- I expect to receive tangible evidence that you've finished it."
Amanda opened and closed her mouth. Finally she said quietly, "And if I don't?"
In the same calm, friendly tone that he'd used throughout the conversation, the Mystery Stalker said, "Then I will have one of your friends killed. And then another, until you are done."
The trapped feeling was back, full-force, humming in her ears and telescoping her vision. It took all the strength to say, in the closest she could manage to a normal tone, "You can certainly try. My friends are immortal too."
He smiled, displaying white, even teeth. "Really? Well, be that as it may, this friend of yours in the photos is clearly not immune to physical damage. So we will hurt him instead. Very much, and for as much time as it takes for you to accomplish the job you set out to do. And should it turn out that you are lying and he is not immortal, well, we will find that out too. Do we have an agreement?"
In that moment, Amanda knew that this person was going down. Clinging to that thought, she said, "Certainly. May I?" Taking a cue from him, she slid the envelope out from under his hand without waiting for a response, and opened it. When she held it over the table, nothing fell out.
Amanda clenched her teeth, counted to ten. "I can't do anything for you," she said, low and cold, "if you don't stop playing games with me."
"It's not a game. I simply try to think of every angle. The information that you need is back at your lodgings." The Mystery Stalker nodded to her and rose. "The clock starts now. I hope to hear from you in one month. Or your friends will begin hearing from me. Please remain at your table until you can no longer see me."
As he walked away, the thought occurred to her to wonder how fast his reflexes were. Her sword was hidden in her capacious shoulder bag under the table. Could she draw it, rise, stab him through the back before he noticed her coming? Did it matter that a dozen witnesses would see her?
You will never need to learn of the other contingency plans I've put in place.
She waited, and when he turned the corner, she rose quickly and scooped her papers into her bag. She ran down the street, but when she turned the corner after him, he was gone.
She was staying at Duncan's barge. Another friend I've betrayed into this madman's hands, Amanda thought bitterly. But if he was really as well-connected as he seemed to be, it was quite likely that he'd known about her connection to MacLeod even before she came to Paris.
In any case, there was another unmarked envelope taped to the door of the barge. Amanda tore it off and indulged for a long moment in the pleasant fantasy of throwing it into the Seine. But no. She sat in the middle of Duncan's ascetically clean floor to dump out its contents.
For a wonder, this time the envelope actually contained what it was supposed to: a detailed dossier on one Philip Justinian Laird, age 78. The vague familiarity of the name nagged at her, but for the time being, she put it aside, focused on soaking up all the information that she could.
Laird was a businessman, though he seemed to be retired. He sat on the boards of a dozen non-profits, held stock in several business of which he'd been a former CEO, but he didn't seem to do anything these days beyond dabbling in charities and golfing at one of several estates scattered around the world. Amanda flipped through photos of Laird on the golf course, copies of Laird's medical paperwork (he appeared to be quite healthy) and grew more and more confused. She couldn't understand why the Mystery Stalker hated this man, father or not, enough to want him dead, and even more than that, she couldn't understand what had made him decide that she was the person who had to do it. Money made sense as a motive, except that Laird already seemed to have handed over the reins of his business empire to his son. Her Mystery Stalker didn't need to kill his father for his fortune -- he already had it. So why risk it all to have him dead, then? And why was it a job only an Immortal could accomplish?
Amanda hunted around for MacLeod's laptop and tackled the Internet.
Plugging in "Philip Justinian Laird II" brought up exactly what she'd expected: a picture of her Mystery Stalker from a recent Forbes article. She skimmed the article, and then an assortment of similar articles, and soon pulled together a rough history of both Lairds, Senior and Junior.
The original Philip Justinian Laird was apparently the very model of a self-made man. He'd started out volunteering at various children's charities, and, armed with a combination of personal charisma and dynamic energy, quickly moved up to running them. He'd opened his own non-profit (International Children's Education Fund) and then moved into the business world, amassing a personal fortune, though he dumped a great deal of it back into charitable works. He never seemed to seek the limelight; most of the articles that she found on him were of the "millionaire philanthropist donates new classroom to orphanage" sort, or else profiles from various magazines aimed at the moneyed classes. As she looked through all of them, though, an interesting picture began to emerge, particularly interesting in its lack of anything other than vague information on Laird before he appeared on the charity scene. She found brief mentions of his childhood in a small town in New Hampshire, but no pictures or other solid information. This wasn't terribly unusual in someone born long before Facebook, but still -- there was nothing concrete on Laird before he showed up in the public eye in his early thirties.
Amanda opened the biggest picture she could find of a young Philip Laird on the laptop screen, then compared it to the recent photographs from the dossier. "Hmm," she murmured. If it was makeup, it was good work, but that was only to be expected from someone with that kind of money and resources. And his stance, his overall bearing, was not that of a 78-year-old man, even a very fit one. Philip Laird was neither as young as he appeared in the early photos, nor as old as he appeared in the most recent ones -- physically, at least.
Philip Justinian Laird was an immortal.
But if that was so, then where did Laird Jr. come from? He'd have to be adopted. Amanda reread the Forbes article from the beginning. Ah, yes, there it was, in a few throwaway bits from paragraphs three and four: Philip Laird II had been adopted as a child from one of the orphanages in the older Laird's charitable-works empire. "Always treated me as his own son," etc. and so on.
So the older Laird was an Immortal, now approaching the point where he would soon have to cut all ties with a life lived too much in the limelight to merely fade away, instead "dying" in some suitably convincing way and then vanishing off to a hiding place for the next couple of decades. And the younger Laird was ... what? Driven by jealousy of his foster-father's immortality to make sure that Philip Laird's "death" was real?
Amanda shook her head. One thing she knew for sure: Philip Laird was nurturing a snake in his bosom. For all she knew, the older Laird might be an awful person under the slick philanthropist facade, but the younger Laird most certainly was. If she had to choose between the two of them -- the Immortal who'd never bothered her or anyone she loved, or the mortal who had blackmailed her and threatened her friends -- then it was really a no-brainer. First she had to take whatever steps she needed to, in order to assure her friends' safety. And then she'd deal with Philip Laird II.
Her mind made up, she called Joe. The Watchers must have a file on Laird. Joe wouldn't like sharing it, but she was confident that she could convince him the need was urgent enough.
The phone at Le Blues Bar rang and then went to the answering machine. Amanda left a terse message asking Joe to call her at the barge, then -- a sense of foreboding growing in her chest -- tried his home number. It picked up on the first ring, and she'd just weathered the initial relief when it was wiped away by Laird Jr.'s purring voice. "Hello, Amanda."
It felt as if all the air had been punched out of her. She tried to inhale, once, twice, and finally sucked a breath into her lungs. "Where's Joe?"
"What are you worried about? I thought he was Immortal like you," Laird said smoothly. "Don't worry, he's just fine so far. Whether he remains fine depends on what you do."
"You bastard. You said I had a month."
"And so you do," Laird said. "I promise you that for the duration of that month, Joseph Dawson will be my honored guest, as long as you keep yourself busy working to fulfill your end of our bargain rather than working against me."
When Amanda was a young Immortal, she had once helped with a boar hunt in one of the villages where she'd lived. The farmers, armed with nothing more than knives and pitchforks, had built a system of crude fences in the woods to channel the boar into the village stockade where it could be slaughtered. At the time she'd been caught up in the excitement, whooping with glee as they slammed shut gate after gate, cutting off each avenue of escape, herding the boar into a narrowing corridor until finally there was nothing it could do and nowhere else to go but the pen.
Now she knew exactly how it had felt. One by one, her options were being closed off, herding her gently but firmly into Laird Jr.'s slaughter pen.
And all she could do was play along.
"We had a deal, didn't we?" she said calmly. "But I'm going to want a few things along the way. First of all, I want to be paid in installments. This down payment you've given me is a start, but I don't plan to wait until afterwards for the rest of my money, and there's only, what, ten thousand euros or so in this stack?" She'd handled enough money to be able to calculate it at a glance, based on the height of the stack. "That won't even cover expenses. I want to receive fifty thousand every day, until I'm done."
"That's fair," Laird agreed.
"Second," she said, her heart pounding, "I want Joe to deliver the money to me. Each time. And I expect him to be in good health when he does."
This time there was a pause on Laird's end; she could tell he was turning this over, figuring out her angles. "All right," he said. "Deal. Anything else?"
"Just this," Amanda said. "I want you to think about what it might mean, having an enemy who lives forever and can't be killed. Right now, as long as I get the payment you've promised me -- and that includes Joe, alive and well -- then I have no reason to be your enemy." Except for the fact that you've blackmailed me and threatened my friends, you lying snake, and I'll be taking it out of you, believe me. "Once I do this job and get my payment, then we need never see each other again. I think it's in both of our interests to keep it that way."
"I think we are agreed in that," Laird said. "Where would you like your next payment?"
"St. Julien's Church on the Square René Viviani," Amanda said immediately. "Tomorrow noon. If Joe isn't completely unharmed, or if he doesn't arrive on time, then you will have made an enemy, Laird."
"St. Julien's at noon," Laird agreed, and the line went dead.
Amanda hung up the phone and drew several slow breaths until the faint, dazed feeling began to recede. Meditation was Duncan's line, not hers, but for a long time she sat on the floor and watched the porthole shadows creep across the wall.
She'd tried to run. It hadn't worked. And now he'd found another chain to put on her: Joe's life, and by implication, Duncan's and that of everyone else still alive that she loved.
She had no way to know how close his watch on her was. She had to assume that he would know everything she did -- everything an observer could reasonably infer, at least -- and that she could make no large moves without being detected. Laird certainly knew about Duncan already, but she had no idea how to get in touch with him -- the only person who could have helped was Joe, currently out of her reach. She thought about contacting Methos, but she wasn't sure if Laird knew about him, and she hated to pull yet another person into Laird's snare.
Everything an observer could reasonably infer ...
Where is my Watcher? How much does he or she know of what's going on?
Could I pass a message to the Watchers?
Do I want to?
Amanda rose and looked out the porthole at the Quai de la Tournelle. It was the height of tourist season, and the Quai bustled in the afternoon sun. She saw a few likely possibilities -- people standing too long in places they didn't seem to belong, or reading newspapers while looking around from behind them -- but there was no sure way to pick one out of the throng, especially since there were likely to be a few hostile observers along with her Watcher.
Odd to have the Watchers be the lesser evil in this case.
Amanda collected Laird's dossier and her sword. She explored all the likely hiding places in Duncan's barge but was unable to find a gun. Damn it, MacLeod, why couldn't you have been born with a good useful streak of paranoia rather than that stupid Highland sense of honor? His desk yielded stationery and a pen, and she wrote a quick note on the smallest slip of paper that would fit it:
Dawson kidnapped. Watchers in danger of discovery. MacLeod MIA. Culprit: Philip Laird II. Meeting @ St. Julien's noon tomrw.
The tricky part would be finding the right person to pass it to. Actually, though, she'd had an idea about that -- something even better than the chancy proposition of trying to identify her own Watcher. She only knew one other person in the organization -- Methos had been persona non grata for years -- but luckily, the other person was one who might be very much inclined to help her, and was quite likely to be completely off Laird's radar. One thing Duncan did have was an excellent map of the city and a Métro route schedule. Amanda examined both, and used Duncan's computer to look up a particular business's address.
She left the barge at a brisk clip and strode down the Quai, trying to look busy and purposeful. It was difficult to figure out if anyone was following her. There were plenty of people drifting in her general direction, even a few who stuck with her to the Métro, but in the general bustle, who could say? Which was, of course, what both her own Watcher and Laird's people were counting on, she supposed.
The Métro let her out in a different part of town. She let herself slow to a more meandering pace, eventually locating the café that she wanted. She'd never been here, but Joe had mentioned it to her, and apparently she'd remembered the name correctly. She kept walking, slowed more, and finally located a bench outside a bookseller's. Here she sat down and waited for about ten minutes. It was no great hardship to feign impatience, checking her watch frequently. She took out her phone and checked it rather ostentatiously for messages. Then she got up and began to pace. After a while she glanced up the street towards the café, looked at her watch again, then began to walk swiftly towards it, looking over her shoulder frequently at the bookseller's. If anyone were watching, she hoped that all her body language conveyed the bookseller's as her true destination, not the café.
And if she isn't working today, what will you do ...
But there she was, waiting on a customer at a window table. Amy Thomas's hair had grown long since the last time Amanda had seen her, and was wound into a complex braid on the back of her head. She was currently Watching an Immortal named Louis Benoit, a quiet non-confrontational sort who worked at an art supply store in the area. Joe was a master at keeping secrets, and Amanda felt privileged to be one of the circle that he did tell a few of his secrets to. Especially when in this case, it might help save his life.
She loitered, looking at a menu, until Amy was behind the counter, then approached her. It was hard to tell if Amy recognized her; they'd never spoken, and there was only a very slight pause before Amy asked if she could help her.
"Café au lait to go, please." Amanda took out a 10-euro note and the rolled-up bit of paper, and held it on top with her thumb as she pressed it into Amy's hand.
Amy's eyes widened a bit, and she turned away to make change. Amanda had to give her credit for her deftness; she could see Amy's hand unroll the note under the level of the counter as she counted out change with the other hand. When Amy turned back to Amanda, her eyes were wide. "Your change, ma'amselle," she said, and shifting gears with barely a pause, whispered, "Who are you? Is he all right?"
Amanda gave her head a tiny shake. There was no plausible way that Laird would know about Amy unless he knew about the Watchers in general, and even then, they both might pull this off if his observers had no reason to believe this was anything more than a routine stop for a cup of coffee. "I'm being watched," she whispered. "Trying to throw them off. Don't leave immediately. Just do what you'd normally do 'til I'm long gone. And get my coffee," she added in a tense undertone, because Amy had stopped doing anything but listening to her.
Amy nodded and Amanda waited, continuing to exude obvious signs of impatience and look over her shoulder towards the bookstore, trying to ignore Amy as if she was nothing but an ordinary barista. A young couple entered the café. Outside, a middle-aged gentleman had paused and was checking a tourist guidebook. Everyone looks suspicious when you know you're being followed. It's like the Methuselah Stone all over again.
Amy brought the coffee. Amanda wished she could say more to Amy's pleading eyes, but she gave an abstracted nod instead and was already turning away as soon as the cup left Amy's hands. It's up to you now, kid. I hope you really are your father's daughter.
She waited on the bench outside the bookstore for another fifteen minutes while she sipped her coffee and continued to check her watch and occasionally her phone for the benefit of anyone who might be watching her. After about ten minutes or so, Amy left the café and went off up the street. To her credit, she didn't even glance in Amanda's direction. Amanda wished Amy had waited longer, though; an extra hour or so probably didn't make that much difference to the Watchers' ability to mount a rescue, but might make a huge difference in terms of making Laird suspicious that Amanda had passed a message. I should have run more fake errands first. Given them more red herrings to keep them busy. But I couldn't wait. And neither could Amy, she knew. Amanda had just told her that her father was in danger. Of course Amy would be rushing off as soon as she could find a convenient excuse to leave.
Laird, I hope you realize what you've bit off for yourself.
And Amanda desperately hoped that she herself hadn't just set something in motion that would run them all down like a freight train off its rails. Contingency plans, Laird had said. How extensive were those plans? How many people were in danger besides Joe? Damn it, MacLeod. I wish I knew how to reach you. As it is, I don't even dare try.
She threw her frustration into visible anger, rising from the bench and striding away towards the Métro station. I need something else to do now. Something plausible, something a person might do in my situation -- if she's planning something other than a shootout at a church, that is. I need to look like I'm preparing to go after Laird the First. After some thought, she took the Métro to a different part of the city and went into a wig shop, examining different wigs while her mind turned busily.
To call Methos or not to call him. If Laird Jr. didn't know about him -- and depending on how thoroughly she was being watched -- then she might lead danger right to his door. On the other hand, if danger was already at his door, then he deserved to be warned about it. On the other other hand, Methos could take care of himself better than anyone she knew. Except for that time he almost got himself beheaded over the Methuselah Stone and we had to save him. He's clever and canny, not invincible.
She purchased a long blond wig and had it wrapped up. There were too many people in the store to risk making a phone call. Outside on the street, she walked as swiftly as she could, trying to outdistance possible pursuers, and pulled out her phone.
With any luck, he's already off in some suitably remote location, like Duncan, and I don't have to worry --
"Amanda," Methos drawled, and her heart sank. "You never call unless MacLeod's in trouble. Or you're in trouble. And yet, for some reason, I keep picking up the phone."
I wish you hadn't. "Actually, it's Joe," she said quietly, and sketched the basics of the situation, as she'd done for Joe earlier. She kept one eye on the pedestrian traffic. There were other people going her way, but none close enough to overhear. She hoped.
"When you get in trouble, you don't do it by halves," Methos said when she was done.
"I'm the best at everything, darling. I don't suppose you have any convenient travel plans in the immediate future. If not, you might want to make some."
"I always have travel plans when someone is gunning for me."
"I hope you mean that," Amanda said, and thought, What's wrong with me? I'd rather have him flee town and get himself out of harm's way than stay and help me? I'm turning into MacLeod.
"You sound like MacLeod."
Amanda snorted a small laugh.
"Despite the annoying inconvenience, I have to admire Laird's Machiavellian style," Methos went on in a musing tone. "Did I ever tell you I once met Machiavelli, by the way? Nice chap, actually. He would not have approved of the modern use of his name. How'd you attract this psycho's attention, anyway?" His voice went razor-sharp on the question.
"Don't blame me for it. I have no idea. Quite possibly he was an accidental witness to a duel, or saw me get shot, or any of the hundreds of things that mortals see every day and explain away because it doesn't fit with their worldview. Except Laird the Second grew up with Laird the First, so he's probably seen a whole lot of things that don't fit with most people's worldview."
"And at some point he realized that Daddy Dearest wasn't getting older," Methos said.
"I doubt if Laird Senior told him, or he'd have a better idea of how the whole Immortal thing worked, and he doesn't seem to. But he's definitely figured out the salient points -- that Daddy's Immortal, that I am too, and that it takes one of us to kill one of us."
"I wouldn't try if I were you," Methos said. "He's not a particularly stylish duelist, but he's lived a long time, and you don't get that old if you're a slouch with a sword."
Amanda startled herself with a sharp bark of laughter. "You know Laird? The original Laird, I mean. Why does that fail to surprise me."
"We've met a few times," Methos said. "Laird wasn't his name then, of course. He's a nasty one, and bear in mind who you're talking to. It takes one to know one."
Amanda cut through a park, putting more distance between herself and the nearest passersby. "The longer I spend on the phone, the more suspicious Laird is going to be that I'm cooking up something. But I have to know. What's so awful about him? From all I could see, he seems to be feeding the hungry and housing the homeless, and doing little else."
"And the thought didn't occur to you that anyone that altruistic must have some really ugly skeletons in his closet?"
"Of course I thought it," Amanda said. "Who do you take me for ... Duncan? But whatever he's done in the past, he seems to have gone straight in this lifetime."
Methos gave a dark laugh. "I doubt it. Maybe he has changed. Maybe he's like Darius, who knows. But the Philip I knew ... no. He was the sort of user and abuser who likes to fester in dark places. The sort of person who keeps a peasant girl in his cellar for fifteen years so that he can rape her every day." From the edge of darkness in his voice, Amanda didn't think it was a hypothetical example.
"God," she whispered. All those children's charities ... For a moment the battered street child inside her rose up, screaming, a lonely thin cry -- drowning in the things she'd pressed down, all the things she tried so hard not to think about -- "No wonder his son hates him -- whether he was abused himself or not, the things he must have seen ..."
"He's probably right that the world would be a better place without Philip in it," Methos said. "And coming from me, that's really saying something. But don't get to feeling too sorry for the little bastard. It doesn't give him any right to go screwing up your life. Or, most importantly, mine."
There was no way to prepare for a confrontation at the church without making it too obvious that she was preparing. So instead she prepared for a confrontation with another Immortal. She used the files Laird Jr. had provided her to guess at Laird Sr.'s current location -- he'd been living in a beach house in Aruba for the last half-year, so he was probably still there. She booked tickets for a flight tomorrow afternoon. She packed. She checked her email and phone messages obsessively. Nothing at all from the Watchers, not that she was expecting anything. By now Amy would know who she was, and heaven only knew how many Watchers were aware that Amanda could be added to the pool of Immortals who knew about them. If they all survived the next day, there would be unpleasant fallout ahead. Well, can't make an omelet without breaking eggs, she thought.
And while she worked, she tried to think of ways to turn the tables on Laird Jr., to close the trap around him as he was closing it around her. It was better than thinking about Joe, and what Laird might be doing to him, or what he might have planned for the rest of her friends.
He's very well-connected, but I doubt if he has any actual friends -- a man like that? I doubt it. His people are loyal to him because he pays them, I'm sure. Could I use that?
She couldn't see any way to subvert Laird's employees' loyalty overnight, though.
Okay, so -- cut him off from them somehow. A real friend would do whatever it takes, overcome any obstacle, to get back in touch with him and help him. This wasn't something she'd always known. Other people had taught her that: Rebecca, MacLeod, Fitzcairn, Joe. Methos too, though he'd never believe it. But an employee? I doubt it. They're not going to risk themselves for him any more than they have to. So how do I separate Laird from his people?
She called Weasel. It was the middle of the afternoon in his time zone, so he was probably asleep. At any rate, the call went to his voicemail. "I have a job for you that you might find interesting. I'll pay well." With Laird's money; there was a certain poetic justice in that. "I don't know if you can do it; it's very hard --"
"You know how to get a guy's attention," Weasel said, cutting into the voicemail system.
Amanda smiled into the phone. "It's what I'm best at. Tell me, do you think you can take down the communications network in Paris for a little while?"
There was a brief pause. "Did you just say Paris? You don't mean Paris, Illinois by any chance."
"Paris, France."
The pause was longer this time. "Okay, I'll need a couple of weeks --"
Amanda checked her watch. "You have fourteen hours. Oh, and if you can do the power grid too, that'd be perfect."
Morning brought nothing but more waiting. She wished she knew if the Watchers were preparing a rescue or at least a coverup and cleanup operation. She was tempted to travel across town and try to make contact with Amy again, but didn't want to arouse Laird's suspicions -- assuming he wasn't already suspicious. She thought about calling Methos and then forced herself not to. Either he'd gone on the run or he was planning his own operation without her input, and either way, she doubted if talking to him would help calm her nerves. Weasel called three times, mostly to complain about the impossibility of what she was asking him to do.
"Look, if you can't handle it, I can keep my money. I could use some new handbags. And shoes, lots of shoes."
"Devil woman," Weasel muttered, hanging up on her.
About eight-thirty, one of the phones rang. It was the second burn phone that Laird had given her. Amanda picked it up with deep misgivings. "Yes."
Laird sounded like he always did: confident, fresh and cheerful. "Our meeting this morning? I believe we'd better move it up a bit."
Her heart sank like a stone. Unpredictability. Damn him. Damn him.
"Nine o'clock," Laird said. "He'll be there. Hope you don't have anything else planned." He hung up.
There was barely time to get herself to the church, let alone to get anyone else there. She pounded off a quick email to Weasel on MacLeod's computer -- URGENT!!!!! CHANGE OF PLANS! MEETING AT 9:00!! -- and just hoped that he was as good as he claimed he was. She didn't have a number for Amy. The only person she could call in Paris was Methos, and he didn't answer his phone this time. She wasn't sure whether to be hopeful or not that he'd made good on his threat to skip town at the first sign of trouble.
"He's moved up the meeting," she told his answering machine, phone held in the crook of her shoulder as she threw things into her bag. "Nine o'clock. I don't know if the Watchers will be there. I will be."
If I can get there in time. She abandoned her stylish heels for a pair of flats, purchased years ago and chucked into a closet with the rest of the spare clothes that she kept at MacLeod's place. All the while she kept thinking of things she should have done and hadn't. I should've bought a gun. I should've called Cory -- if there's anyone who knows sneaky underhanded ways of screwing someone over, it's Cory. I should've bought a dozen guns. I should've marched into Watcher HQ and demanded to see their director. I should've --
But all she could do now was run.
She arrived at the church with her watch reading 8:59. Racing up to the doors, she didn't see any sign of anyone except a startled-looking elderly woman kneeling in a flowerbed. No one loitering around. No cars. Philip Laird, if you've done anything to Joe, you won't be able to run far enough or fast enough --
She burst into the church, thinking Stupid, so stupid. If she'd just planned better, she could have been waiting at the church already. She'd been afraid to get there too early -- afraid Laird would guess she was planning something and call the whole thing off. Or kill Joe. And now here she was, unprepared and unready, stumbling into a possible ambush --
There were two men at the far end of the nave. Both of them rose, one a bit stiffly, and Amanda's knees went weak when she recognized Joe. The other man wasn't Laird; he had no neck, lumberjack-style shoulders and one hand stuck in a pocket with a suspicious bulge. Hired muscle.
She pulled herself together and tried to get her breathing under control -- she was no longer in tip-top cat-burglar shape. Then she sauntered down the aisle and hoped she wasn't as sweaty and mussed as she felt. "Dawson," she said, and her stupid, betraying voice cracked a bit. He looked tired and stressed, but intact, except for a bruise purpling his cheekbone. "Uh, did they ..." She raised a hand to her face.
Joe cracked a grin, and shot a glance at his jailer, who glowered sullenly at the two of them. "You should see the other guy."
The grin faded, and Joe took a bundle of cash from his pocket and handed it to her. "You know me, I'm not a guy who chases the almighty dollar, but there's something a little heady about seeing this much in one place, you know?"
"I know," Amanda said absently, thumbing through it. She became aware of something, a change in the atmosphere around her. A sound? No, an absence of sound. All around them, the ever-present electric hum of the modern world -- the collective sound of refrigerators, lights, air-conditioning units, computers -- had ceased. Even in the big stone church, there must be appliances and electric items, because the silence was sudden and deafening to her.
Weasel had done it. He'd also promised her the cell network would go down along with the power. She hadn't asked if it was part and parcel of the power outage, or something he had to do separately -- now she wished she had, because that would let her know if she was guaranteed a few precious moments of safety, or if she was about to sign a whole bunch of death warrants.
"All there?" Joe asked.
"All here," she said, and met his eyes. No way to let him know what she was about to do. She'd just have to hope that his mind was still as nimble as it had always been.
Moving in one quick, fluid motion, she drew her sword. Joe was already in motion at her first twitch, throwing himself down. Amanda swung over his head, as the thug started to draw his gun from his pocket, and beheaded him.
She hadn't actually meant to. After all these years, it was reflex. She wasn't used to fighting to wound with the sword. She always fought to kill. One had to.
There was a moment's silence. The headless body convulsed on the floor. Amanda was torn between relief, and a deep unbearable revulsion at defiling holy ground. For so long it had been so deeply ingrained in her that one did not fight here. She knew that the killing of a mortal on holy ground did not carry such a terrible price, but still -- for all that it had been self-defense, she felt as if a great wrong had been committed here.
"Get his gun," Joe said.
She did, and passed it to him without a word. He was a better shot and they both knew it. She wiped the worst of the gore off her sword on the dead man's jacket, and gave Joe a hand up.
"Plan?" Joe asked hopefully.
"Try not to die?"
"Sounds like the way our plans usually go."
"There was a plan," Amanda said. "A pretty good one, if I do say so myself. Then Laird moved the meeting up, and it went all to hell. Is he here?"
"Behind the church, along with about a half-dozen guys." Joe jerked a thumb towards the nearest side door. "I expect that in a minute they're going to come bursting in here and --"
He broke off at the sharp popping of gunfire outside. "Okay," he muttered. "Hope that's on our side. You expecting more company?"
"I didn't dare hope," Amanda admitted.
The side door burst open and someone stumbled in. It took Amanda a second or two to recognize Laird. He was clutching his side and his composure was completely gone, his neat hair mussed and his immaculate suit in disarray. He snapped off a couple of shots and then ducked out of Amanda's sight in the shadows, but she could hear him clearly, his voice echoing off the church's ancient stone walls. "You don't know what he's done," Laird screamed. "You don't know what he is! He's a monster, he doesn't deserve to live, and he can't die. I've tried!"
"You feel qualified to be judge, jury and executioner, then? How noble of you." The dry voice was Methos's.
Amanda looked at Joe, who made two quick hand movements -- towards the door and back up the aisle. Amanda nodded and slipped off, up the aisle, to outflank Laird, while Joe took the shorter distance to the side door to back up Methos.
"You can't tell me he doesn't deserve to die for the things he's done!" Laird shouted hoarsely.
"We all have ugly things in our pasts," Joe called.
"We've all known monsters," Methos said more quietly, though Amanda could still hear him through the church's clear acoustics, even though she was almost all the way to the opposite end of the aisle. "Some of us have been monsters. You aren't defined by your past unless you let it define you."
"And you, buddy," Joe said, "have let it turn you into something that's every bit as bad as he is."
Laird made a noise of pure rage. "You don't understand!"
Amanda finally moved around to an angle where she could see him. He was startlingly close to her, not more than a few steps away. In one hand he clutched a snub-nosed pistol; the other, streaked with blood, held a cell phone, into which he was frantically punching numbers.
She became aware that the faint background hum of electricity, of Paris on the move, was back. And that meant the phones were probably back too.
Whoever he's calling, it's bad news for us. We can't let him.
Amanda lunged forward and swung her sword. This time she aimed for his hand. The sharp blade bit it off at the wrist.
Laird shrieked, more in shock than pain. A bright fountain of arterial blood cascaded across the wall, the floor. He spun around, opening fire. Amanda tried to dodge, but she felt the impact of the bullets -- one in her chest, one in her throat. The hammer fell on an empty chamber, and he screamed again -- the sound was barely human -- and wrenched the sword from her nerveless hand.
"I saw you!" he shouted. "All those years ago, I saw you -- saw a car hit you, saw you come back! I was just a child, but I saw that! And years later, I saw you again -- unharmed, untouched, unchanging!" He swung the sword at her, a wild, raging stroke. Amanda, unable to speak and all too aware of darkness closing about her, flung up her arm in instinctive self-defense, felt the sword hang up on bone. "What does it take to kill you!" Laird screamed, and then darkness closed around her and she felt the floor come up and hit her in the face. Death claimed her before she could know if Laird found his answer or not.
She woke with the usual painful jolt of air drawn into lungs recently stilled. For a moment she lay, breathing quietly, letting the sensation return to her limbs. Her chest and right arm ached dully. Someone appeared to be stroking her hair, but that might be a phantom effect of the feeling coming back all over her body.
"Amanda?" Joe's voice said. She blinked and focused on his face. There was hard wood under her hips, but her head was pillowed on something soft. Flopping a hand around, she gathered intel by feel -- she was lying across a row of hard wooden chairs, but she had her head in Joe's lap.
"Joe, Joe," Amanda murmured. "People will talk."
"I don't mind. Let them flatter an old man." He brushed his hand down her cheek. "Welcome back."
Amanda pulled herself upright, brushing off his offer of help. She looked down at a dark stain on the floor, and her sword lying next to it, then raised her head as someone else came in from outside: Amy, dressed all in dark clothes like a commando.
"The bodies are in the trunk," she began, then saw Amanda and faltered. "Oh. Hi. I guessed that you were, uh -- you know. But I wasn't sure. Thank you for warning me."
"Thank you for coming." Amanda rubbed her hand across her face. She was always a little spacy after dying. "How did you know the time of the meeting had been changed?"
"I didn't," Amy said. "I've been here since six this morning, staking out the place."
"Teacher's pet," Methos scoffed, appearing out of nowhere. "I've been here since seven."
"You're both over-achievers," Amanda said, closing her eyes as a headache swelled in her temples. It was easy to beat herself up, tell herself that she should've thought of doing the same thing. But it was hard to think when one was under incredible amounts of stress and trying to coordinate a rescue on two continents. "Is Laird dead?"
"Yes," was Joe's succinct answer, in a tone that gave away nothing. He rested a hand on her elbow.
"The Watcher cleanup crew will be here soon to finish mopping up," Amy said. "I, uh, think maybe some of us shouldn't still be here when they arrive?"
"My cue to leave," Methos said cheerfully. "Well, reunions are always nice. Let's do it somewhere a little less noisy next time. Assuming you can manage to go five minutes without getting kidnapped." This last to Joe.
"If you're gonna be a dick about it, next time you're not invited to the rescue."
"Fine with me. I like sleeping in." Methos reached out to squeeze Joe's shoulder with one hand, the other settling lightly on Amanda's arm. For an instant his guarded face was soft. And then he was gone, ghostlike into the shadows of the church.
It wasn't until the following evening that Amanda wandered into Le Blues Bar. When she'd finally made it back to the barge, she'd locked the door, flung both of Laird's cell phones out the window, and slept for fifteen hours. Then she took herself on a nice long shopping spree, with Laird's money. It wasn't going to be doing him any good, after all, and there was quite a bit left over after sending Weasel his well-earned cut. She was a firm believer in robbing from the rich and giving to the needy -- namely herself. Joe and Amy were both too ridiculously moral to touch it, and Methos ... well, all right, she probably did owe Methos a very nice dinner out on the town, at the very least. He was back to being his usual, difficult-to-get-hold-of self, however.
When she did finally drop by Le Blues Bar, she found the CLOSED sign hanging out. The door was unlocked, however, so she let herself in and wandered through the dark, quiet bar until she found Joe in a back room. He was sitting at a table, oiling the parts to a disassembled rifle. Amanda was not an expert on guns, but she did have a passing familiarity with them, and if she didn't know better she'd say that it looked like a high-powered, quite expensive sniper rifle.
"How's it goin'?" Joe asked. "Sorry I can't offer you a drink. Bar's all closed down."
"I noticed," Amanda said, leaning a hip on the table. "Going somewhere?"
"Figured I'd go out of town for a bit," Joe said. "Mac's not due back for awhile. Not like I really have anything better to do than go on vacation."
"Vacation? Where?"
"I've heard Aruba's nice this time of year," Joe said, quietly setting pieces of the rifle into their case.
Oh. Oh. "Do you want some company?"
"Nah," Joe said, snapping the case shut. "You guys have ... things you can't do."
So do you, Amanda thought. So do you. But she'd spent her life believing that rules were situational, that no moral absolute was too absolute to bend if the conditions were right. "Well, be careful," was all she said. "Travel can be hazardous. Keep your eyes open."
Joe huffed a soft laugh. "You too."
He reached to take her hand; she pulled him into a tight hug and kissed his cheek. Life is too short, she thought, for them and even for us. Too short not to let the people you love know that you love them. It had taken her a lot of mortal lifetimes to learn that lesson.
Maybe she would go find Methos after all, even if he didn't want to be found, and offer him that all-expenses-paid dinner. Or maybe something else, a quiet night of staying in and drinking, just companionship and a friend if he wanted one.
Life was, indeed, too short.
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"For one awful instant, she expected him to say 'Duncan MacLeod.' It would just figure."
I'm not the biggest fan of Amanda, but I am a tremendous fan of good writing, good plotting and good gen: thank you for sharing them all here. The forward-moving action blends well with the small, underlying character reveals. The call-out to Amanda's more-than-a-thousand-years-gone past as a child of the streets hits a good balance between light enough to convince (she isn't hindered by it at this point, after all) and firm enough to engage the reader's analysis as well as emotions.
I was a little taken aback by the ending, when Joe is preparing to... execute? ...the elder Laird. I can only interpret that in the fifteen hours Amanda slept -- excellently chosen response to the sudden lifting of great pressure, by the way, as well as to, say, death ~grin~ -- he read the man's Chronicle, and found overwhelming evidence that the man had not reformed, that the monstrosity was not repented and pushed away. Given the canonical rogue's gallery of evil immortals, I don't wish to even think on how evil this man must be to drive Joe to that.
This passage is my favorite of the piece:
Very good work.
Here are some other bits that struck my fancy:
Thank you for sharing. It's really great to see new gen in HL; it's magnificent to see such good craftsmanship.
Re: "For one awful instant, she expected him to say 'Duncan MacLeod.' It would just figure."
The final scene with Joe ... I wasn't sure how readers would react to it, honestly. I think it relies heavily on my own interpretation of Joe's character - that he is a fairly dark person in some ways (this is the guy who was prepared to execute Christine Salzer to keep the Immortals' secret, after all) and is willing to go to some pretty drastic lengths to stick to his own moral lights (for better or worse). One of the things I liked about Highlander is that it wrestled with some pretty tough questions of right and wrong, and I tried to deal with something similar here, perhaps with mixed results.
Anyway! I'm very glad you enjoyed it, and thanks for the detailed review. :)
Re: "For one awful instant, she expected him to say 'Duncan MacLeod.' It would just figure."
Every viewer/reader will have her own experience, of course! :-)
In my personal, subjective case, since I lived for years of slow broadcast time with the Joe who would do almost anything in defense of the Watcher organization and his oath, and by comparison not long with the later Joe of the broken organization and broken oaths, I personally tend to see Joe as defined by his promises and commitments, not as a freelance vigilante. My instinct is to classify his attempt on Christine Salzer with the time he shot Horton as a grim duty -- and very much official Watcher business. (Okay, Horton lived. But we didn't know that at the time! And I don't think Joe shot to wound; I believe Joe shot to kill, and Horton was just unholy lucky -- on the water, in the dark -- as he so often was.)
In second through fourth season, when Joe wants to see an evil immortal lose his head, he brings the information to Duncan, one way or another (cf. "Turnabout") and lets Duncan and the Game resolve the issue. Granted, this is standing on the border of his oath and reaching across. From there, come many problems! But it remains where my imagination places Joe by default: on his own side of that line.
I think about it like this: The current hierarchy of the Watchers is rotten to the core, but Joe's oath was never to them; it was to the convictions and traditions that they betrayed. (This analogy gets personal. Fictional Joe and real me are both Catholic. Dropping analogy now.) Going hunting an evil immortal, using his knowledge as a Watcher to interfere with the Game... I interpret that this betrayal of his Watcher beliefs must deeply bother and burden Joe, separately from and in addition to the very deep concern he must surely feel for taking any human life.
However, I acknowledge that this line of speculation may be entirely an issue of my idiosyncratic approach, still expecting the Joe of earlier seasons, instead of the Joe post-JD/OMtM and the Ahriman arc.
>"and thanks for the detailed review."
You're welcome! (If you're still feeling kindly-disposed after this reply. ~g~) "Review" is a word that has come up for fanfic letters of comment in recent years, and I don't quite grasp it yet (I've written reviews for magazines, and this isn't that). I think of myself as trying to share plain old-fashioned feedback, as I learned to do on the FK email lists... Anyway, I am glad to get to read, and trying to "pay my way" by letting you know it.
Again, thank you for sharing such a thought-provoking and involving story!