by: Megan "Mischief" Albertson
Adrian Paul stepped out of the Captain's Table in Venice and tried to shake off his restlessness. Dinner with his agent was always entertaining but tonight he had little patience with the frenzy of Hollywood's merry-go-round and every muscle in his body felt it. Southern California's mid-summer sun was just setting and the cooling sea breeze was just enough to convince him the day hadn't been wasted. He thought he'd go for a run when he got home.
A valet approached him, muscle bound and smiling in that peculiar LA way, his hand held out for Adrian's ticket. Adrian smiled back in a way both warm and professionally remote. "That won't be necessary," Adrian said. "If you'll give me the keys, I'll just walk out to the car." The blonde valet looked slightly crestfallen, seeing his tip whistle away on the wind.
"Of course, sir." While the valet trotted off to retrieve the keys, Adrian
stared out at the sunset. Glowing colors melted into one another as he watched, doing the mental exercises he had long ago learned to relieve stress and achieve balance. His agent's curious mental gymnastics always left him wondering. The valet returned, resigned to his fate, and handed Adrian his keys. With a more genuine smile, Adrian thanked him and returned the ticket, with the unhoped for tip, and took the keys. The valet brightened considerably and chimed, "Have a nice day!"
Adrian looked at the sunset once again, smiled wryly this time and stepped off the curb, heading toward his car.
LA was still alien to him, even after all these years. His youth in London and
Florence, his young adulthood on the continent, all seemed so far away under the relentless skies of Southern California. While he had spent a great deal of time in Paris during the course of Highlander, and had taken as many side trips through Europe as he could when time allowed, it wasn't the same as actually living there. He missed it, but not enough to give up what he'd built here.
The sun was edging toward twilight as he paced down the long row of cars. Land Rovers, Range Rovers, luxury SUVs, all the current, most popular "power" vehicles of Hollywood as well as the more traditional Mercedes and Jags made the parking lot look like a used car dealer's dream. Just down the line, he could see his own car, subtle and richly anonymous, much like himself. The rear end was sticking out just a little and Adrian slowed his steps, searching for the proper key. A quick click turned off the alarm, but the key eluded him. He fumbled, dropping the keys and with a quiet oath, bent to pick them up.
When he straightened, it was full dark. The parking lot was gone and he stood on a tree-lined street, bathed in the glow of a street light. Alarmed, he swung around. The street seemed somehow familiar: large lots with grand houses, some of them quite old. The T-shirt and vest he wore were no longer adequate as the chill night air settled around him. He turned again, still trying to place himself, and saw in the distance three people talking, their voices carrying on the soupy, dense air.
A woman and two men, boys perhaps, as the woman was taller than both of the young men were. She turned her head and the soft gold of her hair triggered a memory in Adrian's mind.
"Alex?" he whispered softly. Adrian began walking toward them, slowly at first
as he cocked his head, trying to see the woman's face. And then they were shouting, the woman's clear, high-pitched voice carrying over the others'. One of the boys pulled something out of his pocket and as he aimed
it at the other two, Adrian realized it was a gun, a pistol and that someone was about to die. He began running, flinging himself into top speed but he already knew he was too far away and far too late. He shouted, but they ignored him, too caught up in the drama to hear him.
And the gun went off.
Four shots in rapid succession. Adrian froze, watching the woman and the
red-haired boy crumple to the ground. The shooter panicked and fled, adrenaline and drugs giving him a turn of speed he would otherwise have lacked.
Adrian was sickened. Stumbling and shuddering, he leaned over, bracing his hands on his knees. In his work, he had seen this a hundred times. But the bullets were blanks and the gore was simply blood-filled squibs.
This was real. Or was it?
He straightened, stomach rolling, and walked toward them, unsure of what to do next. A slamming door turned his head and he watched in growing disbelief as a man raced across the lawn, slowing, then stopping as he saw the carnage before him.
Adrian saw the man, saw his height and the set of his broad shoulders. Saw the long black hair tied back and the well-worn brown leather jacket that hugged his torso; the long, powerful legs cased in faithful denim and the scuffed boots.
Adrian was staggered. A feeling of horrified curiosity washed over him and for a moment the world seemed to spin. He knew that man. He knew that face. He saw it in the mirror every day. His stomach tightened even further and he was deathly afraid he would vomit.
The man approached his fallen family slowly and like a wounded animal, knelt to cradle his dead lover in his arms as he had during her life. Big hands shaking, he touched her face, caressed her hair, the long gold strands falling over his arm and down to his thigh. He closed her eyes gently and bent over her as if to keep her safe even now when safety was no longer possible. Tears tracked his face, falling softly down to his mate, his woman, his bride-to-be.
Adrian stopped where he was, loathe to intrude on the man's grief. But as the
boy stirred, Adrian stared at him and knew the truth, beyond any doubt. This was not the thirty-three year old working actor he had known for almost a decade. This was not the practiced, capable man he had long called friend.
This was Richie Ryan, in the flesh. And the dead woman was Tessa Noel; her cool face cradled to the belly of the man Adrian had helped to create.
Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod.
Adrian remembered. With misery and morbid curiosity mingling in his veins like a barbiturate, he remembered the night this scene was filmed. The "set" had had a strange hum to it as both cast and crew reacted to the upcoming "big one" with both tension and purpose. And yet with soft regret, as this was Alex's final scene with Highlander. Adrian had heard there was already talk of bringing her back once they made it to Paris but for Alex and Tessa this was the end.
He had been fond of her from the very beginning, this tall French goddess,
classy and strong. As actors, they had fit well together from the first and had
become friends rather quickly along the way. Her work ethic was as strong as his own and her sense of fun as deep. Whether it was going over their lines together or just chatting in French, the bond had been there. He had known the misery she felt being separated from family, friends and fiancé; knew her longing to return to her work in France. He knew this was the best decision she could make for herself but that night, and long before, he had grieved.
During rehearsals, it hadn't been difficult pulling up the emotions he needed to make the scene as powerful as possible. The loss of Alex to Highlander would be as profound as the loss of Tessa to Duncan and Richie. She wasn't even gone yet and already he had missed her deeply. This scene would end it for all of them, Alex would fly away home and both the company and Highlander would go on without her.
But Alex was alive and well in France with her husband and baby girl. Tessa was dead, twice now, blood seeping from her lifeless body as her lover sat helpless and adrift.
Adrian's hands shook and he put them in his pockets.
Duncan MacLeod sat stiffly, Tessa's body cradled in his lap. He was beyond
thought, beyond anything but stunned grief. He heard the stirring beside him,
the labored gasp, and felt the boy's dazed surprise.
Richie inhaled, feeling the air returning to his lungs in a rush of fire. The
feeling of heat spread throughout his flesh, his muscles, his very bones and
screamed through his soul. He sat up and looked at Duncan MacLeod.
Adrian was now more certain than before. This was not Stan Kirsh. This was a frightened eighteen-year-old boy, looking to his mentor to make some sense of what had just happened.
Softly, surprised, the boy said, "Mac, I'm alive. And the pain: it's going
away."
"Wait another minute and you'll be fine." MacLeod's voice thickened and shook.
"I'm like you," Richie said. "I'm an Immortal."
"You always were."
"You knew all along, didn't you?" The boy's tone was almost accusing.
MacLeod nodded and said roughly, "Yeah."
Richie looked at Tessa's long graceful body sprawled in death and asked
hopefully, "Tessa?"
"No." The single word came from deep within MacLeod's chest in an anguished sob.
Lost, deeply angry and unable to express it, Richie sat boneless next to the two people he considered his own. His family, his world, his whole life. One was dead. One was functioning at a level barely above that. He looked around, trying to find some answer in the very air he breathed and then he looked up.
"Holy Shit." The curse was both soft and shocked.
Adrian turned his head to see Richie struggling to rise, using the elegant nose of the T-Bird for support. The boy swayed and Adrian stepped toward him, one hand out, to help. Richie flinched, staring at his hand and Adrian backed off.
Richie's eyes slid back to MacLeod and Adrian knew what he was thinking. He'd already thought it himself.
"Mac?" called Richie. "Mac!"
MacLeod heard the boy's voice and wondered briefly what Richie had said. It
didn't matter. Richie was all he left now. Whatever he needed, Duncan would
provide. He lifted his head, so heavy now and thick with tears and looked to the young Immortal he had taken in as his own. A slight flicker of shaking fingers drew MacLeod's attention to the man in black.
Black oxfords tied neatly. Black linen trousers with perfect pleats. Black and
silver belt. Open black brocade vest and a black silk T-shirt. The wafer thin
watch on the man's thick wrist, the ring twisted around his pinkie and the gold
hoop dangling from the left ear.
MacLeod could -and did- estimate the man's net worth without even thinking. But it was the face that left something sinking in his belly. The black hair was as thick as his own was, cropped short and carefully styled. The skin was tanned and just beginning to hint at the five o'clock shadow which plagued them both. The eyes, dark now with shared misery, could be anywhere from
coal black to hazel. But the fine, mobile mouth was framed with a goatee, the
kind Duncan MacLeod had never worn in four hundred years. This man was a pirate dressed to go sightseeing in Hell.
It was himself.
No. This man was mortal, human. No matter how much they looked alike, there was no relation between them. Which left two good questions: Who? And How?
Adrian watched closely as the Highlander's eyes traveled over him. He wondered what the older man was thinking and tried to put himself in MacLeod's place, as he had done for five and half years. But in this, Adrian realized, there was no way to guess. He'd never played this scene and simply didn't know. He knew the character, yes, but he did not know this man.
MacLeod's eyes met his own and Adrian felt himself still. Confusion flickered
briefly in those dark eyes only to be replaced by hard suspicion. That electric
face closed down in a way he knew his own did sometimes. Four centuries of tough living just reared its ugly head and Adrian knew he was its target.
"Did you do this?"
The baritone voice had deepened to bass and was raspy with tears. Adrian was somehow shocked to hear his own voice coming from MacLeod. Of all the things they shared, Adrian had not thought this would be one of them.
He cleared his throat. "No. I was down the street, too far away to help. I'm
sorry." His own voice had deepened to bass as well, and was rough, not with
tears but with shaky control. The knot of tension in his belly had yet to
subside, although the somatic tremors of his body were beginning to ease.
The Highlander's eyes narrowed to slits. "London. East End."
"Cockney, yes, and Italian," Adrian said. "But I was doing an American accent. How could you tell?"
Richie knelt in front of MacLeod and reached out to touch Tessa's cold cheek. That he had not registered the exchange between Adrian and the Immortal was obvious. A sob rattled in the boy's chest and MacLeod reached out to him, resting his forehead against Richie's.
"We have to call the police, Mac. We have to catch the bastard who did this."
Richie drew away to look into MacLeod's eyes. "I got a good look at him; I can give them a description."
"No."
Richie sat down, hard. "What?"
"You're either dead or you weren't here. You were in the house with me. So was he." The quick tilt of his head indicated Adrian. "Tessa..." MacLeod's voice broke. "Tessa went out to the car to get her sweater. Alone."
"And how are you going to keep the police from finding that dead body upstairs?" Adrian asked. "With his blood matching the blood on your katana?"
MacLeod's head came up, fast. "You know about us."
It was a statement, not a question, but Adrian answered it anyway.
"Yeah. If I were you, I'd call Joe Dawson first, have his people clean up that
mess. He was a renegade and he's paid for it but he's still one of theirs."
"Are you one of theirs?" MacLeod asked.
"No." There was no point in getting into who or what he was until after the
shouting was over.
MacLeod heard it first, then the boy; heads turned in the same direction. Then Adrian heard it: a siren, somewhere in the distance. They listened for a few moments and then knew it was coming closer.
"Call Dawson, now." Adrian commanded. "Richie, button your shirt; you don't want the police seeing that blood."
The two Immortals stared at him, one in disbelief, the other as if measuring him for a shroud. Adrian knelt beside them and griped the boy's shoulder.
"Do it. If you want to cover your ass, you don't have much time."
It took a moment of careful thought on MacLeod's part. Then he nodded. "That's what I had planned," he said. "How did you know?"
Adrian stood, automatically brushing at his trousers. The motion caught
MacLeod's eye.
"Later," said Adrian. "I'll tell you whatever you want to know. Later."
The sirens were getting closer and time was running out. MacLeod took a cell
phone from his pocket and began to dial. "Richie," he said. "Button your shirt."
They went in the back way, through Tessa's workshop, through the kitchen and into the living room. MacLeod went on, supporting Richie with one large hand wrapped around his arm. The boy staggered anyway.
Adrian let them go. He was the stranger here, the outsider, and he knew they
needed a break from him. As he needed one from them, simply to catch his breath.
Trying not to think, he took a quick visual tour of the room. Adrian knew this
was how it had looked on screen but as a set, it had been very different. Now, he could see, feel, the people who lived here. He could smell the scent he now associated with Tessa, who was not Alex. The casual neatness he, himself, had given to Duncan MacLeod. The equally casual mess of the teenager he had once called Stan. This was their world and it was as real to them as the world of Highlander had been to him. What had been six years of sixteen-hour days training, learning lines, acting, living the role of Duncan MacLeod was simply daily life for the man who was Duncan MacLeod. While Adrian was a longtime science fiction fan, there was still a part of his soul that didn't believe this could be possible.
How had he arrived here? What magic linked this world with his own? Or was it simply a dream, horribly detailed but still a dream? No. You don't dream the
coppery smell of blood or the stifled sobs of a boy trying to be a man. You
don't dream the flashing lights and sirens of police officers that had already
seen too much that night and knew they would see more. This wasn't a dream and he wasn't in California anymore.
Soft footfalls echoed behind him as MacLeod re-entered the room. He walked past Adrian with only a sidelong glance as he made his way to the kitchen. Adrian followed. Out came the orange juice and two glasses. As MacLeod poured, Adrian asked, "How's Richie?"
MacLeod returned the orange juice to its place in the refrigerator. "He'll
survive."
Adrian let the steel creep into his voice. "That's not what I asked."
MacLeod handed Adrian a glass and stalked back into the living room. He set the drink down on the coffee table and began to remove his jacket. Then he swore, richly, in Gaelic. Along the inside of the right arm was a bloodstain, black and dried.
Adrian flinched as the jacket came off and sailed across the room to collapse in the corner like a dead animal. He knew it would never be worn again, as he had never worn it again on Highlander. This odd double vision into MacLeod's life was starting to leave him disoriented and confused. He lowered himself into an armchair and watched MacLeod cautiously.
The Immortal sat down, scrubbing at his face with his hands. In that moment,
Adrian thought he looked every bit of his four hundred years. To lose the woman you loved so quickly, so senselessly was the point of drama they had sought to make in The Darkness. To see the fallout now on the face of this man, this Immortal, was to feel shame. They had tampered with his life, and had never even known it.
MacLeod drank down half of his juice, then looked at Adrian with eyes both
shuttered and intent. "Who are you?"
He knew this was coming, but it felt more like a confession than an explanation.
"Have you ever read Heinlein? The Number of the Beast?"
The smoky eyes narrowed even further. "Yes."
"Heinlein said that every story ever told becomes, in the telling, a Universe of
its own. Your story is one I helped tell in my Universe and now here I am in
yours."
MacLeod stood and paced across the room. "Do you have a name?"
Adrian felt compelled to stand as well. "I was born Adrian Paul Hewett, but my professional name is Adrian Paul."
The Highlander thought for a moment. "Professional name?"
Adrian squared his shoulders. If he knew MacLeod at all, then he knew what was coming. "I'm an actor."
Only the old man's head turned, whipping around to pin Adrian in place with
malice-filled eyes. "An actor?"
"It's a television program," Adrian said softly, "called Highlander. It's based
on a film by the same name. The film was about Connor MacLeod. The show was about Duncan MacLeod."
The room seemed to take on a stillness of it's own. Adrian held his ground as
MacLeod paced toward him like a tiger on the hunt.
Quickly, Adrian said, " It was very successful. The show ended two years ago but the fans remain very faithful and we're working on another film as well."
"Fans?" It was said softly, dangerously. "My life, Tessa's life, her death, the
truth about Immortals and you broadcast this fantasy," the word was spat out,
"On TV?"
Adrian took a deep breath. "Yes."
The blow came so fast, so accurately that Adrian had no time to block it. Four
hundred years of unarmed combat left the actor sprawled across an ottoman with his butt on the floor, blood coming from the corner of his swelling mouth. He looked at the Highlander with cold black eyes.
"Did I really deserve that?" he asked in a frigid voice. He pulled himself up,
dabbing at his mouth. "The Highlander I know is just a story, a fantasy," he
sneered, "brought to life on celluloid. In my world, it's nothing more than a
myth, a legend."
"It's real." MacLeod countered. "And you've risked us all by exposing it."
"To whom?" Adrian asked, tracking around the Scot on soundless feet. "In my world, you're not real."
This time the blow was blocked with a swift fist and wrist.
MacLeod's bruise would quickly fade but Adrian's would not. He said quietly,
"I've seen that before."
The pair locked eyes and Adrian swore he would not bow down before someone he had created himself.
The Highlander's eyes grew more dangerous than before. "You made it here. What's to keep others from crossing over?"
Adrian gave it some thought. "I don't know. I don't even know how I got here.
However it works, your secret is safe with me."
"Safe." The old one repeated. He paced away, all muscle and motion beneath the bloodstained T-shirt. Adrian knew he had looked that way once, when Highlander was his life. But he was not the Highlander and never had been. When the day was over, he was just an ordinary man on his way home from work, no matter his commitment to the role and to the series. And the man...the Immortal...before him now was a greater mystery than he would like to admit.
The sword came out and sang through the air to fit neatly into Adrian's hand.
MacLeod watched closely. "Tell me," the old Scot asked, "is that reality or fantasy?"
Adrian felt the centuries'-smooth ivory against his palm and marveled at the
difference between it and the polymer-crafted handle of the katana he had once used. This one was subtly heavier, more solid, and gave a better grip. The bronze tsuba caressed the webbing between his thumb and forefinger. The solidity of time astonished him. The length of the blade was the same but there all similarities ended. This was tempered steel, the metal folded over two hundred times, the edge created to serve only death. This was not the showa beauty blade he used in close ups or in promos nor was it like the roughly hammered aluminum blades they had used for safety reasons.
This blade was real and timeless.
Adrian admired the edge then clocked the katana a few times to get the feel of its weight and balance. Astounded, he felt it become a part of his hand and arm, his shoulder and ribcage, through the tightness of his hips to the soles of his feet.
"Feel the weight of the mountain..."
He fell into ready position, his center of gravity balanced gently over the
balls of his feet, the blade perfectly parallel to his left leg. MacLeod noted this with acute interest. While the actor obviously knew the right moves, the pleasure and active curiosity Adrian took in the handling of the ancient sword told MacLeod that real swords were few and far between in the younger man's experience.
Adrian moved gracefully into a kata that MacLeod recognized as being a rather advanced Korean form. With a suppleness and dancer's natural grace, Adrian swung into the form with patterned force, moving in a way it had taken MacLeod, with his Highland upbringing, years to learn and master.
MacLeod carefully toed the coffee table out of the way.
Adrian could feel the tempered steel hum, a sub rosa counterpart to the thrush of blood in his own veins. The exhilaration he felt was not new; he had felt it a thousand times before in a thousand different ways. But this dance was new, a bright and shining facet of himself he had never before known. No showa sword, no stunt weapon could ever equal the power and
elegance he felt while in the grip of the ageless katana. There was no fight for balance, no fight for control over an unwieldy weapon. No rehearsals, no take after take until each movement would flow into the next, but on celluloid only.
Duende.
He knew the feeling now, understood the meaning and its spirit. This was a
freedom from mind, body, soul and sword that brought them all together into one indecipherable way. This was a freedom he had never really known with a sword in his grip. He wanted, needed, to know more.
Adrian came to a stop, performing the last few ritualistic motions with grace
and care. Sweat darkened the black silk T-shirt but his breathing had hardly
altered. It took a few moments before he looked to MacLeod but when he did, his eyes were soul-centered and bright.
MacLeod's Pictish face darkened even more.
"You've had a good teacher, mo dhu."
"A few." Adrian replied.
"But nothing with a sword of that nature."
Adrian tossed the katana back to MacLeod. "Ours were all safety swords. There's already too many ways to get hurt when you're acting."
The big Scot hmphed and studied the blade, thinking. "Tonight," he said, "you
sleep on the sofa. Tomorrow, we train." With a sidelong, darkling look, he
added, "You know where the pillows and blankets are kept." And quit the room, katana trailing behind him.
Tomorrow, Adrian thought as the air seemed to leave the room with the
Highlander, will be filled with police and questions and questions and more
questions. Then with funeral arrangements and international permits to return
Tessa's body for burial in France. The press and obituaries in English and
French, written painfully by the man who had loved her so well. Training would have to wait.
Adrian found the bedding where he had expected it, in a chest behind the sofa. He skinned down to his skivvies and turned off the lights, laying down to rest and stare at the empty ceiling, no answers, only questions in his mind. He may have dozed but some time later, he heard the soft padding of bare feet on hardwood floors, heard the chest open and close, and the soft sigh of the man who lay down across from him on the other couch.
There would be no sleep for MacLeod in the bed he and Tessa had made together. Indeed, thought Adrian, there would be no sleep for the Highlander at all.
When the sneaker hit him in the nose, Adrian decided it would not be a good day. Normally a cheery fellow first thing in the morning, he thought this ranked right up there with being nipped in the balls by his favorite rottweiler and opened his eyes to glare at the offender.
MacLeod stood there, returning glare for glare as he tied back his hair with a
binder. "You have five minutes," he all but growled. "Then we leave. Those
should fit you."
"Those" were a pair of faithful jeans, white at the stress points and the knees,
an odd puce-colored Tee that would actually look good on him and the rogue
running shoes. Adrian was certain they would fit.
So the old man was going to be a son of a bitch today, Adrian thought as he
pulled on the jeans. He tried to cut The MacLeod some slack but some things
needed to be returned in kind. MacLeod, he knew, was no actor but Adrian Paul was among the best. We'll see. We'll just bloody see.
A glance at his watch told him it was just before six a.m. and the rosy
lightening of the sky stirred his blood. After returning his bedding to the
chest, he wandered into the kitchen where MacLeod was finishing off a glass of orange juice.
"Don't you believe in coffee?" Adrian asked coolly.
The MacLeod looked up, face frozen in some thing close to a sneer.
"There's a Starbucks not far from here if you want to stop on our way. I'm sure they'll have a nice oat bran muffin for you as well if you ask."
Son of a bitch.
Adrian grinned, showing every tooth he had. "I'm so used to bad production
coffee that a Starbucks would be just fine. A nice cinnamon double latte with a banana nut muffin sounds good to me." Hollywood to the hilt, he thought, and right through the ribs. He was a Folgers man himself.
MacLeod grunted and led the way out, picking up the katana, another sword and two light jackets. He tossed one of the jackets to - at - Adrian as they went out the back. A lungful of the sweet morning air told Adrian they would need the jackets for a while yet but he was grateful the top was up on the T-bird, otherwise they'd be sitting in dew.
The swords went to the floorboards of the back and both men got in the muscle car without further conversation. This Adrian could tolerate, having known - and lived with - several people who simply weren't morning chatters. Having an ashtray chucked at him had cured him of the need to fill in the blanks himself.
They drove right past the Starbucks without stopping and Adrian tossed his head back and laughed richly. He could have sworn the Highlander smiled, just a little.
The battered warehouse was not where it had been in Vancouver but then, this wasn't Vancouver but Seacouver. There would be more surprises before this was done. The location of one building wasn't a telling tale.
Birds left their perches in flocks as MacLeod and Adrian entered the echoing
building. A quick glance at the floor told the actor the footing could get
interesting. The birds had left their gifts behind.
MacLeod set the swords down on a tall bench just inside the door and removed his jacket. Adrian shrugged and did the same. The Immortal stared down at the second sword for a few moments. It was also a katana, the scabbard a rich jacquard blue, the handle well wrapped in matching
leather. It had the look of a modern piece and Adrian was itching to touch it.
The old one said, "This sword was made by Mark Shimura about ten years ago. He's one of the few living master swordmakers Japan has left but he was born and raised right here. I was on his waiting list for years. The purists want to label it a showa sword just because it was made in this century but I think you'll find the craftsmanship equal to the dragon's-head."
Adrian said, "I'm sure I will."
MacLeod handed Adrian the sword still in its sheath, the ha, or edge, turned
toward himself. Adrian accepted it gracefully, allowing the sword to rest on his palms as he bowed slightly. MacLeod released the katana and Adrian removed the scabbard.
Inch by lovely inch, the delicate steel revealed itself to be exactly what it
was: a modern-day descendant of Japanese culture and identity. When MacArthur had demanded all "weapons" in Japan destroyed after the end of World War Two, he had included on his lists the swords of the greatest sword makers Japan had ever known. Some were smuggled out of Japan, some were taken as war souvenirs by American soldiers only to languish unpolished in attics all over the US, but most were melted down, to the silent screams of the Japanese people. MacArthur was, if nothing else, thorough.
But he could not destroy the tradition itself. Swordmaking continued all over
the Pacific Rim, much of it in the Japanese tradition, much of it in the US.
What Adrian held in his hands now was a sword Masamune would have been proud to have crafted.
Adrian walked away from MacLeod, testing the sword, admiring its bloodlines. Its weight and balance were so similar to the dragon's-head that Adrian could barely tell the difference. Ten years or four hundred - it truly made no difference in the hands of Japan's best.
"Just how much training have you had?" The Scot asked.
Adrian turned, looking bemused. "Hmmm? Oh. Over ten years in the martial arts and about eight years with the swords."
"With stunt swords." It was not a question but it did demand an answer.
"Yes," Adrian said with a slow smile. "With stunt swords. The closest we came to using bladed steel was with the Mysterious circle." Abruptly, Adrian shut his mouth. Duende was a part of his past but MacLeod's future. And trust the old man to home right in on it.
"Consone? You know where he is?"
"Not at the moment, no." Adrian replied casually. He clocked the katana a few times more and made an effort to ignore the Immortal.
MacLeod persisted. "But you know where he will be?"
Adrian looked his mirror twin in the eyes. "I know where he was, yes, but that's in my past."
"And exactly where are we in your scope of things?" MacLeod began stalking
Adrian, the katana in trail position. Adrian allowed his sword movements to
carry him out of harm's way.
"About three or four shows into the second season."
"And how many seasons in all?"
"Six." Adrian said cheerfully. "Well, actually five and a half..."
"Five and a half," the Highlander repeated darkly.
"Yes, Season Six was shortened at my request." Because he knew, at some level, that the Cockney in his speech distressed the Scot, Adrian began to lay it on a bit thick. "After playing you so bloody grim for all those years, I decided it was time to move on to lighter characters, perhaps a bit a comedy. I'm good at physical comedy, you know. But we are doing a film based on the series and perhaps one more besides," Adrian added with the grin that so annoyed his mother.
"Are you?" MacLeod's voice was even more dangerous now. "So you know what will happen to me in the next four and a half years."
"Oh, I know what we did to you in my universe. Put you through the bloody
wringer, we did. But as for what happens to you here...well, I'm not God, at
least not in this universe, so I really can't say what will happen."
The stroke was so fast, it would have ripped Adrian open from armpit to waist if he hadn't been watching for it. But baiting The MacLeod seemed innocent enough fun and he honestly didn't think he was in any real danger. After all, he had done his share to develop this man's character and skewering a defenseless mortal wasn't a part of it.
He hoped.
Adrian countered, mostly working to keep that deadly blade away from him and using all the fancy footwork he'd learned from F. Braun MacAsh to do it. It didn't take him long to realize that the Immortal was testing him as any good swordmaster would a new student, to find his level of competency. Adrian grinned, making the Scot's eyes narrow. Adrian was no swordsman in the real world but put him in front of a camera, and he had a few tricks of his own. And a few he'd borrowed from elsewhere.
He came up and through, aiming at the Immortal's vulnerable neck and stopped a hair's width short.
"You're pulling." MacLeod accused.
"If I hadn't, I'd have taken your head and I've no use for it." Adrian replied.
MacLeod knocked Adrian's blade aside with a careless sweep. " This isn't a movie set and it isn't a choreographed fight. Stop pulling the blade and let me worry about my head. The day some half - assed, half - Italian mortal can kill me is the day I'll be glad to go. Stop pulling."
Something gelled inside Adrian. It was the knowledge that he wasn't the
best-trained swordsman in the room, working to guide another, less experienced actor through his paces. Whatever he knew of this craft, he could give whole-heartedly, knowing no one would be hurt. He shrugged into the feeling and thought it felt just right.
Blow after blow was exchanged, with the engagement picking up speed so gradually that Adrian barely knew he was being led by the master. He kept up by using every fighting technique he had ever learned, armed and unarmed, as well as a few nasty tricks taught to him by the likes of Bob Anderson, F. Braun MacAsh and Anthony de Longis. Tony, in particular, had a few that were nasty indeed.
MacLeod, however, found himself alternately wishing Adrian had come to him sooner and as an Immortal, and everlastingly grateful he had not. Immortals were not necessarily natural swordsmen although those who were old enough to have been trained in the heyday of chivalry blurred that line quite often. Adrian was a natural, planning each move often strokes ahead of himself like a master of chess. In a real fight to the death, MacLeod might have had his hands full with this one. But he still would have won. In training, as he allowed Adrian to reach for and find the swordsman he should have been, MacLeod would have been proud to take him on as a student.
Just as well. He now had a new student, Richie, and more than one student at a time was often pushing it for even the best among them. Adrian Paul was a stranger here in more ways than one.
Adrian kept careful note of every move the older man made, his actor's and
dancer's memory making it fairly easy. But The MacLeod was unpredictable, never following the same pattern, seldom seeming to have any pattern at all. This was something they had built into the character, not only because four hundred years was a long time to have the same fighting style, but also to keep the fights interesting to both the actors and the viewers. Adrian began trying out moves they had done in later seasons, hoping to catch MacLeod off guard, but it didn't work. At least not yet.
Adrian had no need to remind himself that this was a man with centuries more experience than himself. But the art of swordfighting had not changed much since the advent of firearms and there were only so many moves and countermoves. It was more about strategy, concentration, and luck. Adrian was waiting for the luck to show up. MacLeod was weaving an impenetrable web of defense around himself, while working to keep Adrian off balance and, hopefully, tire him out.
But while MacLeod was used to hours of solitary training and the brief minutes of an actual swordfight, Adrian had spent years under arms, training against the best of the best in the film industry, constantly learning new fights and forms. Sometimes, those sixteen-hour days were spent entirely on practicing and filming just one short sequence. Add that to his dancer's stamina and Adrian's most telling asset was his training for endurance. MacLeod wasn't going to wear him out any time soon.
When it finally came, Adrian almost missed it. For one split second, MacLeod's guard was open just far enough for Adrian to slip the tip of the katana between MacLeod's ribs. That great Scottish heart stopped beating instantly. The look MacLeod gave him was of amused surprise, as if his finest pupil had passed his greatest test.
Adrian pulled back on his sword, releasing MacLeod from its death grip.
Appalled, he watched as the Immortal sank to his knees, the dragon's-head katana rattling on the floor. With a sigh, he whispered, "Consone." Heedless of any damage, Adrian dropped his own sword and carefully lowered MacLeod to the floor. When those eyes, identical to his own, simply stared into space, Adrian closed them gently and waited, praying the magic would work.
He waited endless moments for the Highlander to resurrect. The sense of timing on the series had suffered due to the storytelling itself so there was no way Adrian could predict when the Scot would come back to himself. And so he sat there on the cold concrete with two priceless swords and the not-dead body of a man who was not himself but could have been.
Staring at that slack face, Adrian wondered just what it would have been like to live the Highlander's life, day in and day out. Waiting, always waiting, for the next one to come and challenge him. Fighting, always bloody fighting, as Fitz had said. Losing more lovers and friends than anyone should ever have to do.
But it wasn't all bad. They had done their best to show the upside of
Immortality. Could he, Adrian Paul, have lived that life, not as Duncan MacLeod but as himself? It was something to think about. There in the peace of the warehouse as he waited, he had nothing to do but think.
Or so he thought.
The scuff of a shoe told him they were not alone.
Adrian turned. At the door stood a woman, the sword resting on her shoulder
telling him without words that she was Immortal. A man too well dressed for his own good skulked in behind her, a Norman Bastard sword already held in restless fingers.
The woman approached and Adrian rose, the Shimura in hand. He went into ready position without thinking.
"Hi," she said. "My name's Candy. And it looks like you've done my work for me."
"Well, isn't that sweet." Adrian moved carefully until he was standing directly
over the fallen Scot's neck. While he wasn't someone who would go out looking for a fight, he wasn't going to bug out to save his own ass either. "And who's that? Sour?"
Candy said cheerfully, "Cute. Now be a good little mortal and go away before you get hurt."
"Sorry." Adrian grinned. With his stomach churning and every nerve scraped raw, he was acting for all he was worth. Would you wake up already?!
Candy paced closer. An attractive blonde who appeared to be in her early
thirties, she wore the black, tailored Armani suit as if it were a second skin.
If Adrian wasn't mistaken, this was some one who had been rich for a very long time and liked the feel of it. Good taste, class, elegance and a very sharp Italian smallsword. Jeweled hilt and ornate gold inlay on the first third of the blade told him that the sword was as old as the one that lay at his feet.
Italian court swords like that one simply weren't made anymore.
Adrian hoped his shudder didn't show. To face a four hundred-year-old Immortal knowing that no harm was intended on either side was one thing. To face two Immortals whose stated intentions were deadly at best was another. How long does it really take for an Immortal to resurrect? He felt like kicking MacLeod, hoping it would speed up the process.
Candy sighed. "This isn't the place for you, mortal," she explained kindly.
"This isn't your battle."
"It isn't yours either. At least not until he wakes up. That's only fair."
"Who told you life was fair?" she laughed. "Our game, our rules. Now run along. I don't like killing mortals unless it's necessary."
The age of the sword didn't always indicate the age of the Immortal who held it. Candy might be younger than that sword. She might be older, as well. She looked to be in good shape but without constant training and more than a little natural talent, she would have a hard time keeping up with the men. And he had just held his own with Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod. The odds were fairly even. He hoped.
Adrian grinned again. "I think I'll stay."
The man at Candy's heels began to make his move. Adrian didn't shift his focus from the woman. "So who takes first shot? You or him?" Adrian asked.
"Why not both?" she replied.
"No double teaming," Adrian pointed out. "Your rules, not mine."
Candy gave him a hard blue stare. "You know a little too much about us for your own good. Or mine. Very well." A small motion of her hand called off her partner like the good guard dog he was. "Me first."
The woman swung in on Adrian with a hard first drive, hoping to send him
stumbling away from MacLeod so that the other could move in and take the
Highlander's head. Adrian held his ground, literally pushing Candy back with no more than the bronze tsuba where it met the hilt of her sword. For him, this was no more than a waiting game. Once MacLeod was back on his feet, Adrian would gratefully step aside.
She was good and she was in top condition. She paused briefly to remove the suit jacket and that gave Adrian a little more time to study her. Young or old, she had been taught to make use of every advantage, no matter how shady it seemed. She would fight by the Rules but no more and no less. And the Rules left plenty of room to maneuver.
Adrian was left with no choice but to learn quickly the lesson MacLeod had
taught him. With grace and power, he wove the same impenetrable web of defense around himself and the fallen warrior. He scored no hits on the lithe,
attractive Immortal but she scored none on him either. She knew as well as he did that they were only waiting for MacLeod to come back. But when he did, Adrian knew he wouldn't be at his best. So did Candy, which produced a rather satisfied look on her face. So Adrian picked up the pace, as MacLeod had done with him. Faster and faster while keeping his feet in one place, he forced the woman to stay on her toes and use the energy she was saving for the Scot on the mortal who was engaging her now.
While technically, a woman could fight as well as a man, there were differences. Women were usually forced to carry smaller, lighter swords than the men did and a woman's reach, unless she were truly an Amazon, was always going to be shorter than a man's. Hence the tricks and the traps and the plain old-fashioned dirty fighting.
One thing they had built into MacLeod was his reluctance to behead a woman. Raised in the age of chivalry, killing one of the fairer sex was difficult for the Scot, if not impossible. But Adrian had been raised in a different era.
While he was deeply in love with the entire female gender, he was well aware
that women weren't always as soft as they seemed. Having a woman dump him on his ass repeatedly during training in the martial arts had cured him of any notion that women couldn't be just as ruthless, just as capable as men. And with an Italian mother, strong women were no strangers to him. Although this one scared the hell out of him, it was only because she was Immortal.
The pas de deux continued with both Adrian and Candy using the best of
themselves to gain an upper hand. Where Candy was quicker, Adrian was stronger. While Adrian had better reach, Candy had real experience to draw upon. This was more than just blade against blade; it was brain against brain, like any good chess game. Candy had the luxury of movement while Adrian was held in place over his doppelganger, in an effort to keep the circling GQ poster boy from moving in for the kill.
Without warning, Adrian felt a hand against his calf. He almost stumbled in
surprise but kept to his feet and said, "Stay down! Stay down until you're
bloody well sure you can get up!"
A grunt was his only reply.
Unable to afford to look down, Adrian watched the faces of the two Immortals
before him. They would tell him much more than MacLeod could at the moment. He picked up his speed against Candy, his longer reach forcing her farther away as he did all he could to give MacLeod the time he needed. With the scrape of steel against concrete, Adrian knew the Highlander was on the verge of rising. With the look on Candy's face, he knew she was ready to either push him aside or kill him outright just to get to the Scot. GQ boy was nearly as avid.
Then MacLeod was up, crouched in Adrian's shadow as he sized up the situation. For some reason, Adrian had the idea that the male Immortal was Candy's student and in MacLeod's condition, the easier target. When Candy tried to make an end-run around Adrian, he stepped into her path, leaving MacLeod to face the boy.
Candy screamed.
Freed from his position over the Highlander, Adrian now used all the power in
his legs to drive the woman back. What had been a pleasant, if serious, passage of arms was now a battle to the death. Adrian had no doubt of it. The choice he made to spare MacLeod the greater of two evils might very well cost him his own life. He could hear the clash of steel behind him and knew MacLeod was now engaged.
There could be no help from him; Adrian was well and truly on his own. Candy tried every trick in the book and a few others besides. Adrian held on, using nothing but MacLeod's web of steel as a defense. A cut here, a nick there and he knew the truth. Some one would die, most likely himself.
Candy began to drive him back, each passage more cunning than the last. Adrian began using her own tricks against her whenever he could and her face hardened with determination. Had he seen his own face, the mask of death he wore would have appalled him.
Adrian could hear the grunts and ringing of steel coming closer and knew Candy was trying to drive him back into the others, possibly fouling both clashes and leaving her to face MacLeod instead of Adrian. He did his best to hold his ground but behind him, some one else was also giving way. He didn't dare turn to look.
And then it stopped.
Behind him, the steel fell silent and a crumpled thud followed. Some one was
dead and Adrian didn't know whom. He couldn't trust his own experience on
Highlander to tell him that it was MacLeod who had survived. This was not his universe and his rules didn't apply. And Candy had not taken her eyes off him for even a moment, so that he could use her face as a mirror. The passage continued, with Adrian operating more and more on instinct alone. He saw only the blades before him, followed only the blows. He could feel the
Quickening gathering around them, the stir of the wind and the tang of
electricity in the air. Candy fell back as if pushed by the very energy she had
sought for herself. Adrian followed, knowing nowhere else to go.
Then he heard his own voice scream as he had never screamed before. MacLeod had won. For an instant, Candy took her eyes off him to see the truth for herself.
It came. It came while he was looking and still, he didn't quite see it. The
muscles of his arms stood out in stark relief as the curve of the blade, the ha,
did his biding. The sword was so sharp, he felt no resistance at all. That
lovely face framed with its blonde curls simply froze. Forever.
The body and its severed head hit the ground at the same time. Adrian stared, wondering what had just happened. Then he felt the second Quickening begin and knew. The force of it tossed him through the air to land against one of the piles of sand that littered the warehouse floor. Just for an instant, he saw MacLeod on his knees, back bowed almost to the breaking point. Then the woman's Quickening engulfed the Highlander as well.
Adrian was forced to hide his head and face in his arms. Nothing they had ever done on Highlander could compare with the hurricane winds screaming around him now. He could feel the flashes of lightening on his skin, see the sound of thunder as it boomed inside his head. Each explosion seemed to resonate in every atom in his body and he could see the rending of his own soul.
He could taste the Quickening and it tasted like Hell.
Adrian rolled the big Scot's inert form into the passenger seat of the T-bird.
Handling MacLeod, touching his body, seemed both familiar and distasteful. He had checked the man's pulse once the storm had died down but if the Immortal was alive, Adrian had no way to prove it. It was all Adrian could do to get the Highlander and himself out of that slaughterhouse. Exhausted, his resources all but depleted, it had taken everything he had to wrestle the older man's comatose and limp body to the car.
He knew that Immortals sometimes kept their enemies' swords as trophies but Adrian wanted no questions asked and left the swords where they were. The bodies of Candy and her henchman had fallen close enough together to suggest they had killed each other and Adrian was glad to leave it that way. God only knew when the bodies would be discovered but Adrian knew that after Tessa's death and the purchase of the dojo, the warehouse was never used again. Maybe this was why.
With the swords and jackets stowed on the floorboards behind him, Adrian got behind the wheel of the car and suffered a dizzying sense of déjà vu. With a quick flip of the wrist, he lowered the top down and drove away from the battlefield. He thought he knew the way back to the shop, but right now, that was the last thing either he or MacLeod needed. It was after eight; the cops would already be there.
On sketchy instinct and his memories of Vancouver, Adrian headed for the
Straits. While the wind whipped the Highlander's loosened hair around his slack face and cleared Adrian's head somewhat, they both needed someplace peaceful to recover from the morning's attack. Adrian's stomach was nearing the rinse cycle and he knew he had to find a place where he could calm down and try to absorb today's events.
Too late.
Adrian pulled the car over to the side of a deserted access road and bailed out as fast as he could. Leaning against the exquisite ass of the T-Bird, he was shaken again and again with dry heaves. Cold sweat poured down his face to tangle in his goatee and trailed icy fingers down his spine. Then a hand was there, supporting his head with another hand firm on his waist. He didn't care now; didn't care that this man was and was not himself. He didn't care about anything except the lovely face with its startled blue eyes that swam in his mind.
"I remember," said his own voice from the lips of another man. "I remember the first man I ever killed. I'll never forget his face. I'll never forget the faces
of any of them. 'Twas a clash with a neighboring clan; a hundred and fifty of
them to forty of us. We hacked our way out of there with blood up to our knees and elbows and only six men were lost. A victory we called it. I went into the forest, down to the shore of the Loch to bathe afterwards and I was sick. As sick as you are now. I was fifteen years old, a man full grown. And then my - my father was there. He said 'Lad, you've done well for you and yours, as well as any man could ask. Any fool can fight and kill but it takes a man to know what's he's done in the doin' of it.'"
MacLeod left him then and came back with a bottle of water and a handkerchief. Adrian sat on the tail of the T-Bird, drank and spat, then drank again. He wiped his face, still not looking at the Highlander.
MacLeod said, " She would have killed you and then waited to kill me." He took the kerchief from Adrian and began to wind it around the younger man's upper arm. Adrian looked down to see the slender gash that ran from shoulder almost half way down his arm. "You didn't even feel it, I know." Tying it off, the Scot added with a soft burr, "You've done well for you and yours. Don't ever regret it."
They came in the back way, with every trace of battle cleared away as best they could and the swords locked in the car. The plain brown sedan parked behind Tessa's Mercedes told them both what to expect. They found a very sullen Richie in the kitchen trying to drown two detectives with coffee. That the conversation was not going well was evident in the cops' relief and Richie's sudden explosion from his chair. The boy gave both Adrian and MacLeod a vicious glare as he picked up his jacket and slung it on.
"I'm outta here." He announced to no one in particular.
"Rich." There was steel in MacLeod's tone of voice. "Be careful."
"Yeah. Right."
As the boy left, his foster father sighed deeply and sat down across from the
detectives. Adrian wandered over to lean against the counter, determined to
leave all the talking to MacLeod. His role here was that of innocent by-stander and as long as the detectives didn't single him out for a separate statement, he was in the clear. Adrian didn't like lying; it was foreign to his nature. Evade, avoid, be silent, be elsewhere. But if the police started asking questions, he'd lie through his teeth just to back them off MacLeod. Whether the detectives knew it or not, the Highlander was at the end and patience would be hard coming.
The questions began easy and soft and because the two officers were pros, there was no frontal assault. But MacLeod was no fool and neither was Adrian. He could easily see the wolfish cunning in the eyes of one and the careful design of the questions from the other. Just as they could see grief and exhaustion on MacLeod's and prepared to move in for the kill.
Married? No. Business partners? Yes. Lovers? Yes. How long? Thirteen years. Hmmm. Wills? Yes. Beneficiaries? Right of Survivorship. Hmmm. Life insurance? Yes. Beneficiaries? Same. How much were the policies worth?
It was here that MacLeod stopped. Adrian watched as the fatigued Immortal slowly lifted his head to stare at the detective who had asked. He knew that sometimes the look on his own face could be intimidating if not outright frightening but this was something else entirely. The two detectives slowly leaned back in their seats, trying to get as far away from their suspect as possible without actually losing ground. When MacLeod finally answered, his voice was so deep and soft that Adrian could barely hear him.
"No amount of money will ever replace her. Her beauty, her intelligence, her
art, her love, her place in my life and in my bed. Being together was the only
thing that mattered to us. Without her, I stand in this world naked and alone
with nothing but my sword in my hand. The money means nothing to me. It meant nothing to her. Make of that what you will."
The Highlander pushed back from the table and stalked away, leaving the
detectives pale and sweating. One looked to Adrian.
"You're the brother, right?"
Adrian shrugged. "Cousin. Up from LA."
"Do you think you could help us out here?"
With a sigh, Adrian shoved his hands into his pockets and remained mute.
The quiet one gave in first, folding up his notebook and rising from his seat.
"Please tell Mr. MacLeod that we may need him to answer a few more questions. It would be a good idea for all of you to stay in town until we're done."
Adrian stared him down. Softly, he said, "You know your way out."
Carefully, Adrian watched as they left, then closed and locked the door behind them. Going into the living room, he found MacLeod sitting as still as stone, his face in his hands. Without disturbing the old one, he poured two glasses of Glenfidich and set one down on the coffee table. Retreating to an armchair, he sprawled out, finally relaxing the muscles that had been knotted since the night before.
He felt numb, the deaths of Tessa and the two Immortals still haunting him. The impossibility of the whole situation left him confused and feeling somehow responsible for the entire tragic mess. He shouldn't be here at all and yet by accepting that he was indeed in the Highlander Universe, he felt he should have been able to do something to stop this tragedy from unfolding. But it was as it had been written and this man, this Immortal, was left to deal with the fallout alone.
And yet how many other times had they shaken MacLeod? Thrown him off balance, destroyed his world as he knew it? Dawson, Horton, Anne and little Mary, Kalas and Amanda, Methos and the Four Horsemen.
And Richie. Dear God, Richie, dead at his teacher's hand.
They had always sought good drama, good story telling, but at what cost? The man with his head in his hands would be the one to pay a debt he never owed.
And what about his own life, Adrian thought. The endless days and nights of
filming, weeks into months into years. The endless training, the acting, the
feeling that sometimes he was the only thing that held it all together, with
producers and directors and guest actors coming and going as he struggled to maintain the quality of the series. The quiet loss of his marriage and the
feeling that time was passing him by.
They had both paid, Adrian knew, but only he had done so willingly. MacLeod was at the mercy of a universe controlled not by God but by writers. Where was the faith in that?
MacLeod slowly lifted his head from his hands, massaging the muscles of his face as he went. He picked up the glass of whisky and took a healthy slug of it before looking over at the interloper in his life. Despite the actor's elegant sprawl and closed eyes, MacLeod knew the man was awake and very aware. MacLeod was still unsure of Adrian but not because of anything he had done. It was the idea of living in a fictional universe that troubled him. If he was just a character in someone else's story, then what kind of control did he really have over his own life? If God was some writer, just another human being, and not the God he'd been taught to believe in as a child, then what happened to free will? Was he just being pushed around at someone's
whim or were the decisions he made his own?
Sighing deeply, he finished off the whisky and decided to tackle the more
mundane matters in his life. Such as Adrian's arm. The sleeve of the dark jacket shone where the wound was still seeping. It wasn't life threatening but it did need attention.
Quietly, MacLeod said, "Drink up, then pour yourself another glass. You're going to need it." He watched as the mortal's eyes opened to mere slits.
"Why?" Adrian asked.
"Because," MacLeod replied, "We've got to get your arm stitched up and the booze is the only anesthetic we have."
"We?" Adrian said dangerously, never moving from his boneless slouch.
MacLeod said, " I did some checking this morning. You no more exist in my world than I do in yours. We've been lucky so far; no one's asked for your ID. But once they do, it's all over." He stood slowly, easing his aching back. "Which means…"
"…You can't take me to a hospital. So just who is going to stitch up my arm?"
Adrian asked.
"I am." MacLeod poured another healthy measure into the actor's glass. Adrian sat up so fast, the drink was nearly lost.
Adrian rose, standing eye to eye with MacLeod. It was one of the things that
MacLeod found himself liking about the man. He didn't back down. Adrian said, "You're going to play doctor on me?"
Smiling through half-closed eyes, MacLeod nodded. " What? Did you just find
something new about me?"
"Yes." Adrian answered. "We never played you as the doctor type."
"And I never was one," MacLeod agreed. "But Immortals tend to pick up some surprising skills, just as a matter of course. I can stitch a wound, set a bone, and deliver a baby, all kinds of things. If you live long enough, you learn. You have to."
With the younger man staring at him, MacLeod chose a different bottle of whiskey from the hutch. "Come on," he said. "We'll do this in the kitchen."
Adrian followed MacLeod slowly, wondering what other surprises the Immortal had in store. It was something of a shock to realize that there was more to Duncan MacLeod than they had ever explored in the series.
While MacLeod went searching for something, Adrian began to remove the jacket. The weight of the pockets reminded him of the keys and he took out both sets, his own and MacLeod's. Setting them on the table, he eased his left arm out of the jacket just in time to see MacLeod put a familiar looking bundle down next to them.
Adrian sighed.
It was a professionally wrapped suture kit, something Adrian had certainly seen more than once in his career. He sighed again and then noticed MacLeod had gone completely still.
"What?" Adrian said. "What is it?"
MacLeod asked hoarsely, "Where did you get that?"
Adrian looked down, seeing only the suture kit and the keys. "Where did I get
what?" he demanded.
MacLeod pointed silently at the keys. Puzzled, Adrian looked back at the
Highlander. "They're my car keys. They came with me. Where did you think I got them?"
"Not the keys," MacLeod ground out. "The fob."
Adrian picked up the keys and held them out to MacLeod. Glittering on his palm was an elegant Celtic knot done in gold, three endless loops with a circle entwined. The older man took an involuntary step back.
"Put them down. Carefully."
"What?"
"Put them down!" MacLeod shouted. "For the love of God, don't drop them!"
Moving cautiously, Adrian put the keys back on the table. He said softly, "Just
what the hell is going on here?"
MacLeod asked again, "Where did you get it?"
"The knot? A fan sent it to me."
"Is it pure gold?"
Adrian shrugged. "I really don't know. From its weight, probably. Why?"
"How much research have you done into Celtic lore?" MacLeod asked.
"Some. Not as much as I'd like to, but I just don't have the time."
MacLeod seemed to brace himself. "It's a triquetra, a Celtic symbol of magic."
"Magic?" Adrian repeated. "You've got to be kidding."
The Highlander's head came up, eyes dark and hard. With cornered patience, he said, "I first learned of the triquetra from a woman I knew as a boy. She wore a silver one always and said it protected her from evil. Then one day she showed me the gold one and told me that if she died, I was to take it and keep it with me always. That if I dropped it at my feet on a Feast Day and said a prayer, it would take me where I wanted to go."
Adrian turned and looked at the knot. "I dropped it," he said softly. "I dropped
it at my feet in the restaurant's parking lot. And then I was here."
MacLeod asked, "What did you say?" Adrian smiled and turning to the Scot,
repeated the Italian curse he had said.
MacLeod blinked. "That would do it." He said dryly. "But, as I said, it only
works on Feast Days. What day was it? What day did you come here?"
Adrian stared at MacLeod. " June 21st. Why?"
MacLeod turned to lean on the table, hands curled around the edge in hard knots. "Litha, the Summer Solstice and one of the most powerful sun feasts. A day when nearly anything can happen."
Adrian looked at the knot again. "And so it did. Now, how do I get home?"
MacLeod turned his head. "Today is the Autumnal equinox, September 21st and the sun feast of Mabon. It ends at twilight. If we're going to get you home today, then we'd better hurry."
Adrian asked, "Or what?"
"Or you wait until the next feast, All Hallows Eve. October 31st. Samhain, the
feast of the Dead."
Adrian breathed deeply, filling his lungs with a flare of his nostrils. "What do
we need to do?"
Adrian sighed as the first stitch went in. While the slash was long, almost the
length of his upper arm, it wasn't very deep. Depending on MacLeod's expertise with the needle, it might not take all that long to close the wound. Another slug of whiskey helped take the edge off and set him to thinking.
"Tell me more about the triquetra." Adrian asked. "Why didn't it bring me here
the same day I left? Hell, why didn't it bring me here the same year that I
left?"
"What year is it?" MacLeod replied.
"1999. June 21st, 1999. We're about to start sword training for the new film."
MacLeod said, "And what were you thinking when you dropped your keys?"
Adrian thought for a moment. "I was thinking about a lot of different things.
The sunset, my loopy agent, the script. I was half wishing they would have
thought of a way to bring Alex back, so that she could be in the film as well."
"Alex?"
"The actress who played Tessa. I was wishing she hadn't left the show at all. I didn't realize until too late how much that relationship brought to the show,
gave it depth and texture." Adrian paused. "I have a picture of her, if you'd
like to see it."
MacLeod's head came up and Adrian reached for his wallet. Carefully, he placed the small snapshot in the Immortal's hand.
Tessa. His beloved Tess, but with short hair, cropped like a boy's and gone back to its natural mink brown. He'd never seen her like this. And around her neck hung a delicate child, the perfect miniature of her mother. He felt his heart squeeze tight and an elephant sat down on his chest.
This was the child they could never have had, because of him, because of his Immortality. This was the child she had never mentioned in any way. This was the child only of his dreams. Somehow, somewhere, this tiny elf gave him comfort in knowing that even if he and Tessa had not made a child together, this woman named Alex had. Tessa would live on through her.
MacLeod sighed deeply and Adrian could sense the pain in him.
"Keep the photo," Adrian said. "I know it's not much...."
"It's more than I had." Gently, the old one placed the picture in his own wallet
and somehow Adrian knew it would stay there.
After a long pause, the Highlander said, "There's your answer, then. The
triquetra takes you were you want to go. Anywhere in time and space. You were thinking of Tessa and her death. That's where the triquetra took you."
"But the difference in time. The date and the year? How is that possible?"
Adrian asked.
MacLeod said, "I think Heinlein had it right when he said every story told
becomes a universe of its own. You and I are different people; your timeline and mine simply don't match."
Adrian swallowed more of the whiskey, trying not to flinch each time the needle went in. "Then what you're saying is that the triquetra could take me anywhere? Into any book, any movie, any TV show. I could visit Alice in Wonderland or Star Trek. James Bond or Shakespeare? I could go into my own past or my own future?"
MacLeod shook his head. "I don't think it works within your own timeline. There would be two of you and then what would happen?"
"I don't know," Adrian admitted. "So much of this is theory and fictional theory
at that. There doesn't seem to be a set a rules to follow or a pattern of
logic."
MacLeod smiled as he tied off the last stitch. "That's why they call it magic."
"What else did she tell you? The woman you knew?"
"Not much. In those days magic was magic and you either believed or you didn't."
"Who was she?" Adrian asked.
MacLeod's head went back and a small smile flirted with the corner of his mouth. "Kate." He said. "Lady Katherine MacLaughlin. She was a healer, a midwife and owned a large farm not far from Glenfinnen. I never knew she was different, not until long past the time I became Immortal. She was - is - albino. Soft white hair and soft pink eyes. Some of my earliest memories are of her. I spent one winter with her after I left Connor and she's the one who sent me to France, to make my way in the world. We still correspond after all these years but we haven't met very often. She was my first lover."
The quiet words made Adrian look at the Highlander with new eyes. Maybe the idea of MacLeod's life being controlled by writers wasn't as accurate as he thought. This woman named Kate had never been mentioned in the series. MacLeod's skill as part time healer had never been mentioned either. They had touched only briefly on the surface of this man's life. How much more was there to be known? How many stories were left untold?
Adrian shook himself from his thoughts as MacLeod rose to put the suture kit
away. "What happens now?" he asked.
MacLeod gave him a long, thoughtful look. "Now we get cleaned up. Shower. Get you ready to go home at twilight. And while I don't feel much like eating, I'm sure you must be hungry. You need some food on top of all that whiskey."
Adrian grimaced. He'd always had a strong head for booze but his lifestyle
didn't allow for much more than the occasional glass of wine. The whiskey on an empty stomach, added to the upheaval of the last twenty-four hours, was leaving him a little drowsy. And yet they really didn't have all that much time before sunset. Two or three hours at best. He wondered briefly about Richie and how MacLeod would explain all this to the boy. He wondered how he would explain it to himself.
He looked at MacLeod who was leaning against the counter, deep in thought. His arms were tucked in across that deep chest and his head was down, as if all the answers rested in the tiles at his feet. The regret Adrian felt was nothing compared to the Scot's bottomless grief. And yet nothing could be changed.
Or could it?
MacLeod must have been thinking the same thing. He looked at Adrian with eyes both troubled and ageless. "What can you tell me about my future?" he asked.
Adrian shook his head. "I don't know that I can tell you anything. Or even if I
should. What if your future isn't the one I know? What if I tell you something,
warn you, and not only does it not happen but it keeps you so occupied that you miss what does happen? And then it costs you your life?"
MacLeod came over to sit across from Adrian. "Why don't you let me worry about that?"
"No." Adrian replied. "I may have already damaged your universe just by being here. I can't take the chance of altering it any further."
"You saved my life today," MacLeod pointed out reasonably.
"And maybe I shouldn't have done. Maybe in this universe, you were meant to die today. There's no way to be certain. I can't justify tampering with your life any more than I already have."
MacLeod sat back in his chair, looking very much the chieftain. "And what about your life? How much damage has been done to you?"
Adrian felt as if he had been kicked in the stomach. "What are you talking
about?" he asked.
"Today you fought with a sword for the first time. Today, you killed for the
first time. What has that done to you? You say you have changed my life; I say I've changed yours. What does that mean to you?"
Adrian leaned his elbows on the table as his head sank down. The bright blue eyes of the Immortal he killed would haunt him forever. The feel of the blade, the storm of the Quickening, the heart-sickness he felt when he looked at MacLeod and thought of Richie. Before he had come here, it was simply a story to be told. Now it was real and all the emotions he had portrayed but never really felt could be seen in the eyes of the man who sat across from him. That was the change in him and he wondered if he had done MacLeod justice.
The Scot repeated softly, "What does that mean to you?"
Adrian's head came up and the curve of his mouth was gentle. "You changed my life long ago. Everything that lies before me now is because of you. I spent close to seven years inside your skin, inside your head. I can never repay you for what you've taught me about myself, about my life, about my craft. Not everything I am is due to you; no actor can say that about any given role. No person can say that about any given soul they've ever met. And, yes, today has changed me once again. That's what life is all about. Change." He paused, thinking carefully. " What does that mean to me? It means I have a lot to learn. In all the time I knew you, you never stopped learning. And because of you, neither will I."
Their eyes met and it was the Immortal who nodded. "Fair enough." And then he smiled, and Adrian felt that he was once again looking into a mirror.
After a moment, MacLeod rose. "We're on a short clock; we'd better get going."
Adrian showered quickly, not wanting to miss a moment of the time he and the Highlander had left together. Drying off, he dressed in his own clothes and pocketed his keys carefully. When he went back to the kitchen, he found MacLeod there with Richie. Adrian took a long moment to absorb the sight and sound of the boy. Maybe someday, he'd want to tell Stan about this trip down the rabbit's hole. And then again, maybe not.
Strain and tears marred the teenager's fair skin and he seemed to have aged
overnight. But whatever MacLeod had said to him appeared to have brought him some peace. When he rose, Richie looked Adrian in the eye and Adrian saw the malice was gone from the boy's blue gaze.
Richie said, "I'm gonna sack out for awhile. I'll see you later."
MacLeod rose as well. He paused as he passed Adrian. "If you're hungry, help yourself. I'll only be a minute."
Adrian nodded.
But instead of eating, he went out the back door of Tessa's shop and stood there in the cooling afternoon air and thought of what he had lost and what he had gained. It seemed he was more connected to MacLeod than he had ever known. Perhaps he hadn't valued that enough. Knowing the Highlander as a man instead of a character made all the difference in the world. Knowing what lay before the Immortal made him want to weep.
And then he was there, handing Adrian a long coat. Adrian met MacLeod's gaze, but neither spoke. While Adrian shrugged into the duster, MacLeod put the top up on the T-bird. The drive was a silent one, each man lost in his own thoughts.
The setting sun told them they were right on time.
When they reached the street where Tessa had died, Adrian pointed to the
lamppost where he had first appeared. MacLeod parked just down from it.
Adrian felt his stomach sink at the thought of leaving this place but he did not
belong here and never would.
Getting out of the car, Adrian took off the coat and laid it gently on the seat.
He walked slowly to the other side of the street, MacLeod following. But when
Adrian turned to say farewell to the Immortal, he saw the Shimura blade in the old man's hand. The blue of the scabbard shone darkly in the dying light.
MacLeod held it out to him. He said, "Keep it with you. Make it a part of you.
It may be the only friend you have."
Moisture blurred Adrian's vision and he blinked it away. Bowing deeply, he let
the sword rest on his palms as MacLeod released it. Then he stood tall.
MacLeod's hand was held out to him and Adrian held the sword at his side.
Without a sound, he held out his own hand, only to have his elbow gripped in
MacLeod's strong grasp. Adrian did the same. It was the first time either had
touched the other willingly. It was also the last.
Then each man stepped back.
The Scot said simply, "Adrian."
Adrian nodded. "Duncan."
He turned away to fish the keys from his pocket. Standing where he had stood the night before, he dropped them at his feet. All he had to do now was kneel and pick them up and he would be home.
"Adrian?"
The actor turned his head.
"Did it ever occur to you to you that if I'm a figment of some writer's imagination, then so are you?"
Adrian blinked, stunned. Then his mouth twitched and the twitch became a smile and the smile a grin. From somewhere deep inside him came a laugh, rolling and deep. Eyes shining hazel green, he watched as the Highlander leaned against the T-bird, laughing just as hard.
Adrian knelt, fixed his gaze on his mirror image, and whispering a few
well-chosen words, picked up the keys. Where he had been, there was only fog.
MacLeod watched him go. Still smiling, he opened the car door and got in.
Damn all writers anyway, he thought, and putting the car in gear, drove slowly home.
© 1999 Megan Albertson
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