Chapter Six
Seacouver, 1995
Duncan found it hard to keep the wry grin from his face as he watched Methos and Laura studiously avoid each other. If it weren't for the immediate problem of who was after the Kesslers and why, Duncan would have found some amusement in the way two of his three house guests acted when they thought no one else was looking. While he pulled out his wok, frozen vegetables, a package of diced chicken, and his cooking oil, Laura kept herself in the kitchen, close to him. When she discovered Duncan's dinner plates and flatware, she insisted on bringing them out. He even showed her where he kept his place mats and napkins, although he did so reluctantly. As he began heating up the vegetables, chicken, and oil in the wok, she arranged three place settings - two facing the kitchen, one facing the living room - in the middle of the kitchen island. Duncan was fairly certain she was trying to keep her eyes from wandering toward the window, where her current source of aggravation sat.
Methos didn't have as easy a time of it. Oh, he made every attempt to keep his gaze focused on the scene outside, but Duncan caught each covert glance he shot Laura's way. Did he think Laura would go for her sword right then and there?
Duncan tried to look at the situation from Methos' point of view. Laura had already shown herself to be deceptive once, by not revealing that she had a sword of her own. What else could she be hiding? Maybe Methos was right. Maybe she did make a habit of going from town to town and using Jonathan as bait to lure unsuspecting Immortals into her trap. But the pieces didn't seem to fit in a way to warrant that explanation. Duncan's instinct still told him that Laura didn't know what was going on.
By the time the stir fry was ready, Laura had moved on into the living room, where she sat on the sofa and settled Jonathan in her lap. Meanwhile, Methos moved from the window to the kitchen and pulled a beer from the refrigerator. Duncan, none too subtly, positioned himself at the one place setting facing the living room, forcing Methos to take a seat opposite him, his eyes full of words he would have spat at Duncan if they were alone.
Laura noticed none of this. Her attention by now was fully centered on Jonathan as she fed him from a jar of baby food which she unearthed from his diaper bag. "Dinner's ready, Laura," Duncan called to her as he turned off the burner and spooned stir fry onto the three plates. "You should eat before it gets cold." Hopefully, she wasn't too preoccupied to realize that she needed to feed herself, too.
Said Laura, "Oh, that's all right. Jonathan, on the other hand, follows a strict schedule. He has to be fed on time."
Her words sounded perhaps too matter-of-fact. Setting the wok back on the cooling burner, he commented, "It must be hard, taking care of him when he'll never grow up."
A split-second pause as she wiped off her brother's face with the tail of her white T-shirt. "He's my brother, Mac," she said dully as she twisted the lid shut and set the jar and the tiny spoon she was using on the coffee table next to Jonathan's carrier. She said nothing more until Jonathan was back in the carrier and she was sitting down on the stool to Methos' right. Duncan did not fail to note how quickly Methos scooted his stool an inch or two away from her. "Adam," she said as she reached for the glass of water next to her plate, "Joe left before I had a chance to talk to him. Did he find anything out yet?"
"Not yet." Methos' impassive façade turned stone cold, and he deliberately kept his eyes on his plate as he lifted a forkful of stir fry to his mouth. "He's still trying, though."
The reply was solely meant for Mac, a fact which Laura caught on to at once. "You know, Adam," she remarked sarcastically, "you can address me directly."
"Tell me about your, er, dizzy spells, Laura." Duncan put in, effectively cutting off any argument that might have ensued.
"Not much to tell. They come on pretty intense, but disappear almost as soon as they hit."
Just like when they were unloading her things from the car, Laura shrugged off her vertigo, as if it were an everyday occurrence. He proceeded, "How long have you been having them?"
"Since the accident." She took a semi-long drink of water. "You know, I thought it was stress related to that at first, but now that I think about it, that doesn't sound right. Maybe it's migraines or something."
"Maybe." Not. Laura put her glass down and started eating, and Duncan felt grateful that she missed the look that passed between him and Methos. He went on. "Has anything else . . . unusual happened?"
"I have nightmares, too."
"Nightmares?"
For the first time that evening, Methos spoke without a hint of derision or scorn. The expression in Laura's eyes told Duncan she noticed this, too, but her voice still held an unconcerned tone as she explained, "Whenever I have a dizzy spell, I have nightmares that same night."
Duncan shared Methos' astonishment, though he hoped he hid it better. "What happens in these nightmares?" he asked, in a voice he hoped sounded calm.
"I see a car overturning, sometimes," she answered around a mouthful of vegetables and chicken. "Other times, I'm in this room, where it's real bright and cold, and there's a bunch of people wearing bluish-green clothes staring down at me, like I suddenly sprouted a second head." She swallowed. "Pretty bizarre, huh?"
She didn't appear overly worried by the scenes she described. Duncan wished he felt the same way.
"Why didn't you tell us this before?!"
Duncan was stunned by Methos' outburst. So was Laura, for that matter, but she soon overcame her amazement. Duncan detected the very second her dark eyes flashed with anger and hot indignation. "Relax, Adam!!" she shouted. "They're only dreams, for crying out loud!" To Duncan: "Is he acting like this for a reason?"
"Acting like what?" Duncan inquired evenly, forcing his emotions under control.
"Like he doesn't want me around. If I didn't know any better, I'd swear he can't stand the sight of me."
For once, Methos had the sense to look contrite.
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Vancouver
When she finished scanning the information on her laptop screen, Chloe Young closed the file and leaned back in her chair. She rubbed at her eyes in yet another vain attempt to rid herself of the latest in a long wave of jet lag-induced fits of exhaustion. She'd been working on the Kessler case since Ross gave it to her that afternoon. She wished she could have just put the older woman's description into the database and gone from there, but that would have taken too long. Besides, Chloe was convinced that her brain would eventually come up with a matching name on its own, instead of the one supplied by the photo's caption.
She started with the name of the man in the photo, Daniel Kessler. According to the database, he was an historian for six years, before being moved over to a classified project some time in 1975. The only record after that was the single-sentence missive which Kessler sent to the Geneva headquarters, some two years later:
"I hereby tender my resignation from the Watchers Society, effective this date, 25 September 1977."
That didn't make any sense. A Watcher suddenly giving notice, without giving an explanation? She could easily buy the situation if Kessler were a field agent. Chloe backtracked through Kessler's records, looking for any location where he might have posted that resignation from, but found zilch. She wound up having to do a full database search, calling up every instance in which his name occurred. Aside from a number of requests he filled for a Joe Dawson, there wasn't much on Kessler at all.
She sighed heavily, pushing her chair back from the desk in her hotel room and getting to her feet. She seldom made use of the Watcher libraries anymore, preferring to do her work in the privacy of whatever hotel room was serving as her temporary home. That was one of the reasons her boss set her up with access to any and all classified files. She rarely took advantage of it, though. She didn't need to.
As she paced around the room, Chloe let her mind process the seemingly disparate pieces of information the Watcher database fed to her. One, she had a simple historian being tapped to get involved in a project whose secrecy demanded its classified status. Two, his resignation left nothing but unanswered questions. Three, the only time his name came up with any frequency was in communications with another Watcher. What was going on here?
Chloe stopped pacing and looked back at her laptop, sitting there waiting for her to open another file. She crossed the room, back to the desk, and resumed her seat. She accessed the list of current Watchers and verified that Joe Dawson was still an active member of the organization. She tossed off a quick e-mail to him, asking what information he might have on Kessler. She knew she should have checked to see what Dawson's current post was, too, but that really didn't matter to her at that point. The jet lag she had been fighting since she landed finally caught up with her. She turned off her computer, slipped into the functional pajamas she packed for her trip, and fell into bed. She was asleep before her head hit the pillow.
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Seacouver
The night receptionist glanced questioningly at Burke as he headed toward the revolving front door, but she didn't say anything when he nodded to her in greeting. She was very helpful when it came to obtaining information on MacLeod, Burke discovered. She told him that her brother worked out twice a week at the martial arts dojo MacLeod owned. She also said that MacLeod lived in a loft directly above the dojo. The phone book in Burke's hotel room gave him the dojo's address. MacLeod no doubt had the bastards staying with him. The man was definitely the knight-in-shining-armor type.
Not many people wandering about at one in the morning, Burke observed as he stepped outside, especially given the weather. The wind began to pick up around ten that night, and by the time he left the hotel, a good gale was blowing. Burke pulled the edges of his overcoat tight around him but refused to secure them with the coat's belt. It almost amused him that he had to wear the coat to protect himself from the elements, as if he had to worry about catching a cold.
He had no problem spotting his car. The large, light blue, two-door Cadillac stuck out like a sore thumb against the darker, foreign-made cars that littered the hotel parking lot. Burke unlocked the driver's side door and slid into the front seat. He turned the engine on and let it warm up.
The dojo was a twenty-minute drive from the hotel. Burke parked across the street, so that neither MacLeod nor his guests would sense him just yet. He turned off the car engine and sat there for a moment, studying the run-down building. The windows of the dojo and the floors above it were dark. All the better.
He opened the door and got out of the car. "Well, well, my dears," he intoned ominously as if the bastards were right there before him. "I'll have to wait to get you, I suppose, but that doesn't mean I can't make you aware of my presence."
He closed the car door and reached inside his coat . . .
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Mac and Adam slept soundly on Mac's bed. Mac was snoring lightly. Jonathan, too, slumbered deeply, the first time he'd done so all day. Laura, on the other hand, tossed and turned on the couch, thoughts of the three men she met that afternoon flooding her mind, although she tried hard to force those thoughts away.
Joe was every bit the man her father described. Kindness shone in his eyes, and he had an open, easy manner about him. The stereotypical bartender, to be sure, always ready to listen to one's problems, but there was something more to him. Laura suspected that he wouldn't think twice about going the extra mile in order to help a friend in trouble.
Mac was the same way. Laura suspected he had a soft spot for the underdog, and she and Jonathan were certainly that. He was sincere in his insistence that she and Jonathan stay with him until they were out of danger - that was something she sensed right off - and he showed not one hint of going back on his word. Still, she couldn't be sure, but she thought he had a secret or two to hide. He'd been behaving a bit oddly at times since before dinner. Laura couldn't figure it out.
She wished Adam Pierson was more like his friends. He did everything but come right out and accuse her of plotting against them. Or, more to the point, against him. Every thing he said and did screamed out the fact that he hated her. What made him so freaking paranoid? She was tempted to come right out and ask him, but she sensed she'd be lucky to get more than two words out of him. Maybe, if she had her pad and pencils, she could work out her confusion and anger over his behavior by sketching him . . . no, that wouldn't work. She'd still be frustrated when she was done. And it'd be a waste of paper.
It was sometime after midnight when she finally managed to fall into something resembling sleep, and even then her mind refused to rest, filling her dreams with visions too haunting and too substantial to be ignored . . .
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The dark brown car sped down the road, despite the heavy snow and wind. She was afraid that, moving as fast as it was, the car would slip and spin out of control . . .
All of a sudden, her eyes snapped open, and she found herself gasping for breath. Her fingers clutched at the rough white fabric covering her. What happened to the car she was in? When did it disappear? And where was she now? What was she doing before she got there? She couldn't even think with that bright light overhead. Her eyelids closed themselves against the blinding glare . . .
Without warning, the curve in the road was there. Her body jerked as the car swerved right, left, and finally around and around. The car must have hit something then, for they were all airborne, the car viciously rotating head over wheels . . .
Slowly, awareness came to her. She was in a room some place, the car gone again. The smooth coldness of the flat surface beneath her matched the temperature of the room. But what was she lying on? It wasn't a bed, that was for sure. Beds did not have hard metal mattresses. Yet, whatever she was covered with sure felt like a sheet . . .
Before she knew it, the car crash landed. The front caved inward as it skidded into something narrow and hard. Someone was screaming. A woman. She heard her off in the distance. And there was a baby crying. She tried to reach out for the baby, but she couldn't. Something was wrong, terribly wrong . . .
Wait a minute. She was completely naked under that sheet! And it was freezing in that room! Where were they keeping her clothes? They couldn't just let her run around without clothes, could they? She'd get sick. She wanted to move her arms, to pull the sheet tight around her so she could get up and look for something to wear, but try as she might, she couldn't. Her body was just too weak.
Cautiously, she looked around, her eyes taking in the white, tiled walls around her. Somewhere there was the faint sound of metal clinking against metal. Of course. That must be it. She was in an operating room. But why was she still awake? Didn't they give her enough anesthesia? She had to open her mouth, before the doctor began cutting into her . . .
She spoke. She must have spoken, for she managed to make her mouth move, but nothing came out. Still, she had to have said something, for a blurry face soon filled her vision, then two, then more. All in all, half a dozen people stood over her, all wearing funny bluish-green shirts with V-shaped necks, all of them making hushed, excited comments. Why could she hear their voices, when she couldn't hear her own? What was wrong with her in the first place? And that baby, she had to get to that baby . . .
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"No!"
Laura shot straight up in her makeshift bed, instantly wide awake. She let her eyes adjust to the darkness of Mac's loft before she directed them on Jonathan. Good. Her shout didn't wake him up. Her gaze fell on Mac and Adam. They, too, slept soundly, unaware that she had made any noise at all.
Stupid dreams. It was all she could do to remind herself that they weren't real, that what she saw were only tortured images from her own mind. She wished they would just go away. Laura swung her feet out so that they touched the floor. Maybe she could sneak into the bathroom and run a wet washcloth over her neck and face. The collar of her nightshirt stuck to her skin, and she could feel beads of sweat clinging to her cheeks, her forehead, even her scalp.
She heard Jonathan stir, and soon his thin cry could be heard throughout the loft. She had to get to him before he woke their host and his friend up. That would be the last thing she and Jonathan needed, to be kicked out for being too loud.
Jonathan's carrier sat on the coffee table, within arm's reach of the couch. Laura leaned toward her brother, ready to lift him into her arms . . .
The dizziness hit her without warning. She pressed both hands against her temples and squeezed her eyes shut against the pain, but like every time before, the pain was gone before she knew it. Damn it all, why wouldn't it just stop altogether? She had too much going on to worry about having to deal with a possibly serious medical problem on top of it all.
Jonathan didn't calm down when she picked him up, like he normally did. She quickly felt his seat - bone dry . And he never woke up in the middle of the night because he was hungry. "Did you have a bad dream, too?" she whispered to him as she positioned him over her shoulder and rubbed his back.
Behind Laura, Duncan and Methos were both awakened by the sensation of another Immortal. Duncan reached for his katana. A covert glance at Laura - she was tending to Jonathan, and not paying attention to him - and he rose from the bed, creeping stealthily toward the door that led outside. Methos followed suit.
A glint of light flashed just out of Laura's peripheral vision. She turned her head to the right, where Adam and Mac were slithering toward the outside door. Even in the darkness, she could tell that wasn't exactly a toy Mac was carrying. She opened her mouth to ask what was going on.
Duncan caught Laura just in time, and a quick finger to his lips silenced her before she said a word. He then turned his attention back to the door.
By the time he and Methos reached the short hallway, the sensation was gone. So, Duncan guessed, was their nocturnal visitor. He wanted to be sure, however. With his free hand, Duncan slowly unlocked the door and pulled it open just a crack, in case he was mistaken about the other Immortal's having left. His eyes peered out the door and darted around. No one there. The stranger was gone.
He opened the door the rest of the way and looked down. There, on the landing, sat a package wrapped in plain brown paper. Duncan leaned the katana against the wall, stooped down, and picked the package up. He cautiously felt around the edges - no strings or wires that might set off a booby trap, and no ominous ticking. What was it doing there?
"Let me see that." Laura's voice startled both Duncan and Methos. They whirled around and found themselves stunned into silence by the sight of her saber in her right hand. She must have retrieved it while their backs were turned.
Laura, on the other hand, was perfectly oblivious to their stares, and her attention settled fully on the package in Mac's hand. Setting her sword next to Mac's, she approached him and took the package off his hands. Carefully, she peeled the brown wrapping away, exposing a rectangular wooden box with ornate scrollwork carved on the sides and a Madonna portrait on the fire-scorched lid. Her left hand reached around and felt a knob in the back of the box. She turned the knob and opened the lid. The opening strains of "Ave Maria" resonated throughout the loft.
"My mother's favorite song," she murmured thoughtfully.
"What's that?"
As he spoke, Adam pointed to a folded-up sheet of white paper that sat in the music box's velvet lining. Handing the box back to Mac, Laura took the paper and unfolded it. A lone sentence appeared there, and as soon as she read it, she felt all the color drain from her face.
Whatever was on that paper, Duncan knew at once, must have terrified Laura. Within half a second her face went completely white, and the paper fell from her hand. He barely had time to get out of the way before she raced back into the living room, pulled Jonathan from his carrier, and hugged him to her.
"What does it say?"
Momentarily brought up short by Methos' question, Duncan had to force his thoughts away from Laura and back to the source of her fright. Leaning over, he snatched the paper from the floor and silently scanned the bold statement:
I'll let you watch as I cut off the boy's head.
"Well," Methos demanded impatiently, "what is it? Another death threat?"
Duncan nodded. "And this time, the stalker wrote it by hand."
Both pairs of eyes fell on Laura, who was sitting on the sofa, still holding Jonathan in a protective embrace. But who was she protecting, him, or herself?
Seacouver, 1995
Duncan found it hard to keep the wry grin from his face as he watched Methos and Laura studiously avoid each other. If it weren't for the immediate problem of who was after the Kesslers and why, Duncan would have found some amusement in the way two of his three house guests acted when they thought no one else was looking. While he pulled out his wok, frozen vegetables, a package of diced chicken, and his cooking oil, Laura kept herself in the kitchen, close to him. When she discovered Duncan's dinner plates and flatware, she insisted on bringing them out. He even showed her where he kept his place mats and napkins, although he did so reluctantly. As he began heating up the vegetables, chicken, and oil in the wok, she arranged three place settings - two facing the kitchen, one facing the living room - in the middle of the kitchen island. Duncan was fairly certain she was trying to keep her eyes from wandering toward the window, where her current source of aggravation sat.
Methos didn't have as easy a time of it. Oh, he made every attempt to keep his gaze focused on the scene outside, but Duncan caught each covert glance he shot Laura's way. Did he think Laura would go for her sword right then and there?
Duncan tried to look at the situation from Methos' point of view. Laura had already shown herself to be deceptive once, by not revealing that she had a sword of her own. What else could she be hiding? Maybe Methos was right. Maybe she did make a habit of going from town to town and using Jonathan as bait to lure unsuspecting Immortals into her trap. But the pieces didn't seem to fit in a way to warrant that explanation. Duncan's instinct still told him that Laura didn't know what was going on.
By the time the stir fry was ready, Laura had moved on into the living room, where she sat on the sofa and settled Jonathan in her lap. Meanwhile, Methos moved from the window to the kitchen and pulled a beer from the refrigerator. Duncan, none too subtly, positioned himself at the one place setting facing the living room, forcing Methos to take a seat opposite him, his eyes full of words he would have spat at Duncan if they were alone.
Laura noticed none of this. Her attention by now was fully centered on Jonathan as she fed him from a jar of baby food which she unearthed from his diaper bag. "Dinner's ready, Laura," Duncan called to her as he turned off the burner and spooned stir fry onto the three plates. "You should eat before it gets cold." Hopefully, she wasn't too preoccupied to realize that she needed to feed herself, too.
Said Laura, "Oh, that's all right. Jonathan, on the other hand, follows a strict schedule. He has to be fed on time."
Her words sounded perhaps too matter-of-fact. Setting the wok back on the cooling burner, he commented, "It must be hard, taking care of him when he'll never grow up."
A split-second pause as she wiped off her brother's face with the tail of her white T-shirt. "He's my brother, Mac," she said dully as she twisted the lid shut and set the jar and the tiny spoon she was using on the coffee table next to Jonathan's carrier. She said nothing more until Jonathan was back in the carrier and she was sitting down on the stool to Methos' right. Duncan did not fail to note how quickly Methos scooted his stool an inch or two away from her. "Adam," she said as she reached for the glass of water next to her plate, "Joe left before I had a chance to talk to him. Did he find anything out yet?"
"Not yet." Methos' impassive façade turned stone cold, and he deliberately kept his eyes on his plate as he lifted a forkful of stir fry to his mouth. "He's still trying, though."
The reply was solely meant for Mac, a fact which Laura caught on to at once. "You know, Adam," she remarked sarcastically, "you can address me directly."
"Tell me about your, er, dizzy spells, Laura." Duncan put in, effectively cutting off any argument that might have ensued.
"Not much to tell. They come on pretty intense, but disappear almost as soon as they hit."
Just like when they were unloading her things from the car, Laura shrugged off her vertigo, as if it were an everyday occurrence. He proceeded, "How long have you been having them?"
"Since the accident." She took a semi-long drink of water. "You know, I thought it was stress related to that at first, but now that I think about it, that doesn't sound right. Maybe it's migraines or something."
"Maybe." Not. Laura put her glass down and started eating, and Duncan felt grateful that she missed the look that passed between him and Methos. He went on. "Has anything else . . . unusual happened?"
"I have nightmares, too."
"Nightmares?"
For the first time that evening, Methos spoke without a hint of derision or scorn. The expression in Laura's eyes told Duncan she noticed this, too, but her voice still held an unconcerned tone as she explained, "Whenever I have a dizzy spell, I have nightmares that same night."
Duncan shared Methos' astonishment, though he hoped he hid it better. "What happens in these nightmares?" he asked, in a voice he hoped sounded calm.
"I see a car overturning, sometimes," she answered around a mouthful of vegetables and chicken. "Other times, I'm in this room, where it's real bright and cold, and there's a bunch of people wearing bluish-green clothes staring down at me, like I suddenly sprouted a second head." She swallowed. "Pretty bizarre, huh?"
She didn't appear overly worried by the scenes she described. Duncan wished he felt the same way.
"Why didn't you tell us this before?!"
Duncan was stunned by Methos' outburst. So was Laura, for that matter, but she soon overcame her amazement. Duncan detected the very second her dark eyes flashed with anger and hot indignation. "Relax, Adam!!" she shouted. "They're only dreams, for crying out loud!" To Duncan: "Is he acting like this for a reason?"
"Acting like what?" Duncan inquired evenly, forcing his emotions under control.
"Like he doesn't want me around. If I didn't know any better, I'd swear he can't stand the sight of me."
For once, Methos had the sense to look contrite.
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Vancouver
When she finished scanning the information on her laptop screen, Chloe Young closed the file and leaned back in her chair. She rubbed at her eyes in yet another vain attempt to rid herself of the latest in a long wave of jet lag-induced fits of exhaustion. She'd been working on the Kessler case since Ross gave it to her that afternoon. She wished she could have just put the older woman's description into the database and gone from there, but that would have taken too long. Besides, Chloe was convinced that her brain would eventually come up with a matching name on its own, instead of the one supplied by the photo's caption.
She started with the name of the man in the photo, Daniel Kessler. According to the database, he was an historian for six years, before being moved over to a classified project some time in 1975. The only record after that was the single-sentence missive which Kessler sent to the Geneva headquarters, some two years later:
"I hereby tender my resignation from the Watchers Society, effective this date, 25 September 1977."
That didn't make any sense. A Watcher suddenly giving notice, without giving an explanation? She could easily buy the situation if Kessler were a field agent. Chloe backtracked through Kessler's records, looking for any location where he might have posted that resignation from, but found zilch. She wound up having to do a full database search, calling up every instance in which his name occurred. Aside from a number of requests he filled for a Joe Dawson, there wasn't much on Kessler at all.
She sighed heavily, pushing her chair back from the desk in her hotel room and getting to her feet. She seldom made use of the Watcher libraries anymore, preferring to do her work in the privacy of whatever hotel room was serving as her temporary home. That was one of the reasons her boss set her up with access to any and all classified files. She rarely took advantage of it, though. She didn't need to.
As she paced around the room, Chloe let her mind process the seemingly disparate pieces of information the Watcher database fed to her. One, she had a simple historian being tapped to get involved in a project whose secrecy demanded its classified status. Two, his resignation left nothing but unanswered questions. Three, the only time his name came up with any frequency was in communications with another Watcher. What was going on here?
Chloe stopped pacing and looked back at her laptop, sitting there waiting for her to open another file. She crossed the room, back to the desk, and resumed her seat. She accessed the list of current Watchers and verified that Joe Dawson was still an active member of the organization. She tossed off a quick e-mail to him, asking what information he might have on Kessler. She knew she should have checked to see what Dawson's current post was, too, but that really didn't matter to her at that point. The jet lag she had been fighting since she landed finally caught up with her. She turned off her computer, slipped into the functional pajamas she packed for her trip, and fell into bed. She was asleep before her head hit the pillow.
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Seacouver
The night receptionist glanced questioningly at Burke as he headed toward the revolving front door, but she didn't say anything when he nodded to her in greeting. She was very helpful when it came to obtaining information on MacLeod, Burke discovered. She told him that her brother worked out twice a week at the martial arts dojo MacLeod owned. She also said that MacLeod lived in a loft directly above the dojo. The phone book in Burke's hotel room gave him the dojo's address. MacLeod no doubt had the bastards staying with him. The man was definitely the knight-in-shining-armor type.
Not many people wandering about at one in the morning, Burke observed as he stepped outside, especially given the weather. The wind began to pick up around ten that night, and by the time he left the hotel, a good gale was blowing. Burke pulled the edges of his overcoat tight around him but refused to secure them with the coat's belt. It almost amused him that he had to wear the coat to protect himself from the elements, as if he had to worry about catching a cold.
He had no problem spotting his car. The large, light blue, two-door Cadillac stuck out like a sore thumb against the darker, foreign-made cars that littered the hotel parking lot. Burke unlocked the driver's side door and slid into the front seat. He turned the engine on and let it warm up.
The dojo was a twenty-minute drive from the hotel. Burke parked across the street, so that neither MacLeod nor his guests would sense him just yet. He turned off the car engine and sat there for a moment, studying the run-down building. The windows of the dojo and the floors above it were dark. All the better.
He opened the door and got out of the car. "Well, well, my dears," he intoned ominously as if the bastards were right there before him. "I'll have to wait to get you, I suppose, but that doesn't mean I can't make you aware of my presence."
He closed the car door and reached inside his coat . . .
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Mac and Adam slept soundly on Mac's bed. Mac was snoring lightly. Jonathan, too, slumbered deeply, the first time he'd done so all day. Laura, on the other hand, tossed and turned on the couch, thoughts of the three men she met that afternoon flooding her mind, although she tried hard to force those thoughts away.
Joe was every bit the man her father described. Kindness shone in his eyes, and he had an open, easy manner about him. The stereotypical bartender, to be sure, always ready to listen to one's problems, but there was something more to him. Laura suspected that he wouldn't think twice about going the extra mile in order to help a friend in trouble.
Mac was the same way. Laura suspected he had a soft spot for the underdog, and she and Jonathan were certainly that. He was sincere in his insistence that she and Jonathan stay with him until they were out of danger - that was something she sensed right off - and he showed not one hint of going back on his word. Still, she couldn't be sure, but she thought he had a secret or two to hide. He'd been behaving a bit oddly at times since before dinner. Laura couldn't figure it out.
She wished Adam Pierson was more like his friends. He did everything but come right out and accuse her of plotting against them. Or, more to the point, against him. Every thing he said and did screamed out the fact that he hated her. What made him so freaking paranoid? She was tempted to come right out and ask him, but she sensed she'd be lucky to get more than two words out of him. Maybe, if she had her pad and pencils, she could work out her confusion and anger over his behavior by sketching him . . . no, that wouldn't work. She'd still be frustrated when she was done. And it'd be a waste of paper.
It was sometime after midnight when she finally managed to fall into something resembling sleep, and even then her mind refused to rest, filling her dreams with visions too haunting and too substantial to be ignored . . .
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The dark brown car sped down the road, despite the heavy snow and wind. She was afraid that, moving as fast as it was, the car would slip and spin out of control . . .
All of a sudden, her eyes snapped open, and she found herself gasping for breath. Her fingers clutched at the rough white fabric covering her. What happened to the car she was in? When did it disappear? And where was she now? What was she doing before she got there? She couldn't even think with that bright light overhead. Her eyelids closed themselves against the blinding glare . . .
Without warning, the curve in the road was there. Her body jerked as the car swerved right, left, and finally around and around. The car must have hit something then, for they were all airborne, the car viciously rotating head over wheels . . .
Slowly, awareness came to her. She was in a room some place, the car gone again. The smooth coldness of the flat surface beneath her matched the temperature of the room. But what was she lying on? It wasn't a bed, that was for sure. Beds did not have hard metal mattresses. Yet, whatever she was covered with sure felt like a sheet . . .
Before she knew it, the car crash landed. The front caved inward as it skidded into something narrow and hard. Someone was screaming. A woman. She heard her off in the distance. And there was a baby crying. She tried to reach out for the baby, but she couldn't. Something was wrong, terribly wrong . . .
Wait a minute. She was completely naked under that sheet! And it was freezing in that room! Where were they keeping her clothes? They couldn't just let her run around without clothes, could they? She'd get sick. She wanted to move her arms, to pull the sheet tight around her so she could get up and look for something to wear, but try as she might, she couldn't. Her body was just too weak.
Cautiously, she looked around, her eyes taking in the white, tiled walls around her. Somewhere there was the faint sound of metal clinking against metal. Of course. That must be it. She was in an operating room. But why was she still awake? Didn't they give her enough anesthesia? She had to open her mouth, before the doctor began cutting into her . . .
She spoke. She must have spoken, for she managed to make her mouth move, but nothing came out. Still, she had to have said something, for a blurry face soon filled her vision, then two, then more. All in all, half a dozen people stood over her, all wearing funny bluish-green shirts with V-shaped necks, all of them making hushed, excited comments. Why could she hear their voices, when she couldn't hear her own? What was wrong with her in the first place? And that baby, she had to get to that baby . . .
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"No!"
Laura shot straight up in her makeshift bed, instantly wide awake. She let her eyes adjust to the darkness of Mac's loft before she directed them on Jonathan. Good. Her shout didn't wake him up. Her gaze fell on Mac and Adam. They, too, slept soundly, unaware that she had made any noise at all.
Stupid dreams. It was all she could do to remind herself that they weren't real, that what she saw were only tortured images from her own mind. She wished they would just go away. Laura swung her feet out so that they touched the floor. Maybe she could sneak into the bathroom and run a wet washcloth over her neck and face. The collar of her nightshirt stuck to her skin, and she could feel beads of sweat clinging to her cheeks, her forehead, even her scalp.
She heard Jonathan stir, and soon his thin cry could be heard throughout the loft. She had to get to him before he woke their host and his friend up. That would be the last thing she and Jonathan needed, to be kicked out for being too loud.
Jonathan's carrier sat on the coffee table, within arm's reach of the couch. Laura leaned toward her brother, ready to lift him into her arms . . .
The dizziness hit her without warning. She pressed both hands against her temples and squeezed her eyes shut against the pain, but like every time before, the pain was gone before she knew it. Damn it all, why wouldn't it just stop altogether? She had too much going on to worry about having to deal with a possibly serious medical problem on top of it all.
Jonathan didn't calm down when she picked him up, like he normally did. She quickly felt his seat - bone dry . And he never woke up in the middle of the night because he was hungry. "Did you have a bad dream, too?" she whispered to him as she positioned him over her shoulder and rubbed his back.
Behind Laura, Duncan and Methos were both awakened by the sensation of another Immortal. Duncan reached for his katana. A covert glance at Laura - she was tending to Jonathan, and not paying attention to him - and he rose from the bed, creeping stealthily toward the door that led outside. Methos followed suit.
A glint of light flashed just out of Laura's peripheral vision. She turned her head to the right, where Adam and Mac were slithering toward the outside door. Even in the darkness, she could tell that wasn't exactly a toy Mac was carrying. She opened her mouth to ask what was going on.
Duncan caught Laura just in time, and a quick finger to his lips silenced her before she said a word. He then turned his attention back to the door.
By the time he and Methos reached the short hallway, the sensation was gone. So, Duncan guessed, was their nocturnal visitor. He wanted to be sure, however. With his free hand, Duncan slowly unlocked the door and pulled it open just a crack, in case he was mistaken about the other Immortal's having left. His eyes peered out the door and darted around. No one there. The stranger was gone.
He opened the door the rest of the way and looked down. There, on the landing, sat a package wrapped in plain brown paper. Duncan leaned the katana against the wall, stooped down, and picked the package up. He cautiously felt around the edges - no strings or wires that might set off a booby trap, and no ominous ticking. What was it doing there?
"Let me see that." Laura's voice startled both Duncan and Methos. They whirled around and found themselves stunned into silence by the sight of her saber in her right hand. She must have retrieved it while their backs were turned.
Laura, on the other hand, was perfectly oblivious to their stares, and her attention settled fully on the package in Mac's hand. Setting her sword next to Mac's, she approached him and took the package off his hands. Carefully, she peeled the brown wrapping away, exposing a rectangular wooden box with ornate scrollwork carved on the sides and a Madonna portrait on the fire-scorched lid. Her left hand reached around and felt a knob in the back of the box. She turned the knob and opened the lid. The opening strains of "Ave Maria" resonated throughout the loft.
"My mother's favorite song," she murmured thoughtfully.
"What's that?"
As he spoke, Adam pointed to a folded-up sheet of white paper that sat in the music box's velvet lining. Handing the box back to Mac, Laura took the paper and unfolded it. A lone sentence appeared there, and as soon as she read it, she felt all the color drain from her face.
Whatever was on that paper, Duncan knew at once, must have terrified Laura. Within half a second her face went completely white, and the paper fell from her hand. He barely had time to get out of the way before she raced back into the living room, pulled Jonathan from his carrier, and hugged him to her.
"What does it say?"
Momentarily brought up short by Methos' question, Duncan had to force his thoughts away from Laura and back to the source of her fright. Leaning over, he snatched the paper from the floor and silently scanned the bold statement:
I'll let you watch as I cut off the boy's head.
"Well," Methos demanded impatiently, "what is it? Another death threat?"
Duncan nodded. "And this time, the stalker wrote it by hand."
Both pairs of eyes fell on Laura, who was sitting on the sofa, still holding Jonathan in a protective embrace. But who was she protecting, him, or herself?
