HAMLET'S GHOST
PART TWO
Three hours, a half a bottle of whiskey and an impromptu demonstration with a sharp blade later, he had told her as much as he was prepared to tell. He had decided that she didn't need to know his true name and had fudged around the whole issue of his true age. He also had come to the conclusion that she had enough to digest without throwing the watchers into the mix: from her earlier comment, she seemed to have an aversion to secret societies to begin with. All things considered, she knew all there was to know.
They both sat bleary eyed at the table, the comforting haze of the alcohol making the silence more amiable than it should have been.
"You never were truly afraid of me, were you?" she asked, smiling ruefully. "All that nervousness about my shotgun was feigned. Here I was thinking that as long as I kept my finger on the trigger I was safe." She pushed her chair back from the table and eyed the clock over the stove.
"It's nearly midday, Mr Pierson, and my son will arrive around two in his pickup. I could arrange a lift for you to the nearest town. It's called Travda and it has a train station, you could be on your way in no time."
"Not trying to get rid of me are you, Madame"
"Of course I am trying to get rid of you Mr Pierson," she replied. "I haven't lived this long by being stupid, you know."
"A woman after my own heart."
A grin lurked on his face as he ducked his head and rummaged inside his coat until he found his wallet. After a few minutes' pause, he ripped open the lining and pulled out an Italian I.D. card and a MasterCard along with his emergency cash stash. All things considered, he thought it might be better if he didn't travel under the name of Pierson, so from now on he would be Senor Roberto Sabotini for this little adventure. Tucking his new identity into his jean pocket, he handed his Wallet over to Hira.
"Could you hold onto this for a while? If I don't contact you within the next few days, please mail it to a friend of mine in Paris, his name is Joe Dawson. The address is on a card in the wallet"
With a nod, Hira put the wallet into her pocket and rose from the table. With a disparaging look at the coat that lay there, she disappeared from the room only to return a few moments with a raincoat.
"It's not much, but it's better than that collection of rags that you call a coat," she muttered as she held it against him.
"Very fetching, I didn't know you cared."
"You don't have to wear it. you know," she grumbled as she laid it on the table.
"I'm sorry, Kira, I didn't mean to offend you," Methos apologised as he picked up the coat and tried it on. "You've done more for me than I could have possibly have hoped for." Smiling contritely, he peered at the lining and gauged that it would be strong enough to hold the harness.
"Could I ask for a needle and thread?"
Hira disappeared out of the room yet again and reappeared a few moments later with a sewing basket.
"Help yourself."
With a grateful nod, Methos set about salvaging the harness and scabbard from his old coat and sewing it into the raincoat. By the time he had decided that it was secure enough to hold the weight of his sword, it was already nearing two. Hira was bustling around in the yard and he could hear the geese kick up a fuss. Using his old coat as rag, he gave his sword a good rub down; a proper cleaning would have to wait. A few minutes later, his concentration was broken by the sound of an engine followed by the slam of a truck door. The sound of footsteps and low conversation grew closer as he quickly slid the sword into its new home.
"Josef, I want you to meet Adam, Adam this is Josef, my son. Adam had a bit of a mishap in the woods, Josef, and he needs a lift into town. That's alright, isn't it, dear?" Hira enquired as she bustled in through the door, her son ducking under the doorway as he entered after her. To say that he was a fine strapping fellow was putting it mildly: He was built like a house, well over six foot and carrying over 200 pounds. How on earth could someone as petite as Hira give birth to this monstrosity? Catching the glint in Hira's eye he guessed she knew exactly what he was thinking.
"Josef takes after his father's side of the family, don't you dear? " she said dryly as she watched Methos's expression with amusement.
"So they say," answered Josef breezily as he held out his hand to shake. "Nice to meet you, Adam, Maman has explained that someone had dumped you in the woods as some kind of prank. Doesn't seem like a very funny one, if you don't mind me saying."
"I'm a bit of the same mind myself, actually" answered Adam with a grin as he grasped Josef's hand, inwardly pondering what he would do to whoever had set up this particular "prank". He was thinking that something along the lines of the spectacular and bloody was in order, as soon as he remembered what actually had happened, that is. With an inward sigh, Methos smiled at Hira in thanks as he followed Josef out to the truck. He'd had to pay her back in some way when all this had blown over, maybe she could use a phone...
Methos jumped up into the pickup and slammed the door after him, rolling down the window as Hira neared the truck.
"You take care of yourself, Mr Pierson," she said with an enigmatic smile, putting her hand on the windowsill. "Don't be losing your head now." With a wink, she pulled away from the door as Josef started up the engine and reversed out of the yard. With a final glance back he saw her small, determined figure disappear back into the farmhouse.
It was a quiet journey; whatever had passed between mother and son before they had entered the house had seemed to leave her son disinclined to ask any further questions. It was with some amusement, as they arrived at Travda around three, that Methos noted the total sum of two words had been uttered in the cab during the entire trip: "we're here".
.
A few moments later, Josef slowed down to a halt in front of what Methos presumed was the train station. With a sly smirk, Josef turned in his seat and fixed him with a steady look. What on earth did that old biddy tell him? It was enough to make an old man paranoid.
"There is a train bound for Sofia pulling in at five-thirty. The next one isn't due until the day after tomorrow so I suggest that you don't miss it."
Gods be damned, this boy looked way too knowing. All at once Methos felt very glad to be getting out of Dodge. With great alacrity, he jumped out of the truck and watched in bemusement as Josef sped off as if the hounds of hell were after him. Yep, that train ride was definitely looking very attractive.
Methos stood on the pavement and contemplated the quickly disappearing truck as he turned slowly towards the train station. It was then that he got thwacked across the head with a very large stick.
"Where the hell have you been man, I've been climbing the walls since yesterday!"
With slow care, Methos turned and looked at his would be attacker as he cradled his spinning head.
"Joe, what the hell are you doing here?" he cried in amazement as he confronted a fuming Joe Dawson, who still waved his cane threateningly in the air.
"What do you mean what am I doing here, have you gone senile or something? It was you who dragged me down here in the first place. 'Mac has been kidnapped,' you told me. 'Quick, we don't have much time, we have to get to Bulgaria,' you said."
Methos smiled in amusement at Joe's atrocious imitation of his accent but then took a double take as he realised what Joe had actually said.
"What? Again? Since when?"
"Jeeze, you have gone senile, haven't you? That fossilized brain of yours has finally seized up. Since the day before yesterday, of course. Have you been hit on the head and lost your memory or something?"
"Funny you should say that..."
Disbelievingly, Joe stared at him in horror. "You gotta be kidding me."
"I'm afraid not," Methos replied with a resigned shrug.
"We're doomed," Joe declared flatly as he leaned on his cane.
"Maybe we should have this conversation elsewhere, Joe, people are beginning to stare."
"Oh yeah, like that is the height of our problems. What the hell are we going to do?"
"Well, I was rather hoping you would fill me in."
Joe looked at him as if he had suddenly sprouted two extra heads. For a moment, Methos thought he was going to start yelling at him again. No such luck-instead, he did something much scarier: he started to laugh. Adam was beginning to think it was some kind of epidemic.
"Oh, that is rich" Joe wheezed, "Mister I-keep-my cards-so-close-to-my-chest-because-I'm-afraid-someone-might-figure-out-what-I-was-thinking wants me to fill him in on what is going on. How the hell do you suppose can I do that when you've been playing Mr. Mysterious for the last two days? There are exactly two things I can tell you, Adam, diddly and squat!"
"Breathe, Joe, I've heard that it helps."
"Don't you patronize me, you old sot! Mac's life is at stake here, or have you forgotten that - again!"
With a sigh, Methos rubbed the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes in resignation.
"Panicking isn't going to help him, though, is it? We have to figure out what we do know instead of fixating on what we don't. Let's start with the basics: is there anywhere around here we can get a beer?"
This time he was lucky enough to see Joe's cane coming and managed to jump out of range before he got his head caved in by three and a half feet of solid oak.
"Easy Joe, I think my brains are scrambled enough at the moment, don't you?" he muttered as he held his hands up in surrender. "I just need to sit down for a moment. I haven't slept since yesterday, there is a great yawning blankness where my memory should be, and I am in serious need of some downtime. Give me a break here, Joe."
Giving Methos a long, hard look, Joe relented and gestured across the road. "There's a tavern across the road, I could probably do with a drink myself. Let's go."
Five minutes later they were both safely ensconced in a nook, supping on their respective beers. For the first time, Methos took a good look at his friend and realised that he wasn't the only one to not have had much sleep over the last couple of days. Joe looked sick with worry and Methos felt that hard coil of tension in his stomach tighten. Joe wasn't the type of person who got worried easily - usually it took a fair amount of dead bodies before he got this stressed. This wasn't looking good.
"Listen, Joe, I know you've said that I didn't tell you much about Mac's capture, but I need somewhere to start from. Tell me what you do know, let's start with how we got here and maybe something will jog my memory."
With a sigh, Joe leaned back in his seat and combed a hand through his hair. "It started two days ago. I was setting up the bar for the lunch crowd when you came flying through the door and pulled me into the back. You told me that you had gone to visit Mac that morning and that when you arrived at the barge, you saw two guys throw his unconscious body into the back of a van and fly off. You also told me that the abductors had been well-dressed and mortal."
A glimmer of hope flashed in Methos's mind. " Mortal, did you say? Did I give you a description of what they looked like, age, hair colour, anything like that?"
"Nope, well-dressed was all you said."
"Ah well, what happened then?"
"Then you told me to pack a bag because you had a funny feeling that he was going to end up in Bulgaria."
"Oh, come on, I must have said more than that!"
"Nope, and believe me, it wasn't for want of me trying to pry it out of you."
An uneasy quiet settled upon the table as they both studied their pints moodily. All of a sudden, a gasp escaped Methos's voice as his head jerked up suddenly and he stared at Joe.
"Joe... where is my stuff?"
"At the hotel, why?"
For a second Methos thought about skirting around the question but reluctantly decided against it. Considering Joe's little tirade earlier about his less than forthcoming nature, honesty was probably the best policy. Especially as he was still within striking distance of Joe's cane, no sirree, he's not afraid of the big bad blues man. Rubbing his head at the memory, he gave a sideways glance at the stick that was now innocently leaning against the table. He was definitely getting very blasé about using that overgrown twig of his lately; maybe they should have a little chat about it when he was feeling a little lighter on his feet. It was starting to become a very worrying trend.
"Let's just say that I feel a sudden urge to reacquaint myself with the last few entries in my journal."
"Your journal..."
A slow grin spread across Joe's face as it dawned on him the import of Methos's words.
"Shit, why didn't I think of that?"
"Must be the stress."
"Ha, ha, ha, very funny, not."
"Come on then, finish up your pint Joe. We don't have all day, time's a-ticking, Mac's in danger and all that."
"Don't even start, you old goat."
With a grin, Methos downed the rest of his pint and stood up. Nothing cheered him up more than getting a rise out of the wily old watcher, except maybe getting a rise out of an even older highlander. He hadn't been lying when he once said he was easily amused.
Stepping out onto the street, Joe led the way to the Hotel. As he strolled along at a leisurely pace besides Joe's awkward gait Methos couldn't help but dwell on his memory loss. His mind awash with uneasy thoughts about a certain bodiless head, he wondered if of the events of the last few days would eventually come back to him. In the past, his bouts of amnesia had been pretty much a hit-and-miss affair.
Sometimes it came back as clear as a bell only a few days later, other times the most he could hope for were a few hazy recollections. His childhood was a jumbled mishmash of pictures, the strongest being his mothers pale, fine-boned face. He had no concrete memories of his first death, and couldn't be sure that the recollections he had of his teacher were reliable, either.
Then there were the times the memories never came back. To this day, he couldn't for the life of him remember a single day of the second century and, even worse, it had been the sixteenth century before he even realised there was a blank.
He had been reminiscing with a fellow survivor of the Bronze Age he had met up with in Florence when the conversation turned to old anecdotes about a certain Persian peacock who had recently taken on a new student. After a having a good giggle at picturing the old coot trying to explain the nature of the game to a clannish 16th century highlander, his companion began to chortle about the time all three of them had partied in Ramirez's palazzo in Rome for two straight months back in 168 c.e.
At first Methos assumed he couldn't remember the details because he'd been in a drunken haze for most of the time (Ramirez's parties back in those days being better described as drunken orgies) but ten minutes into the anecdote he realized that it was a bit more serious than a few pickled brain cells.
Smiling and nodding absently as his companion continued on with his story, he feverishly searched his memory. He had been living amongst the Gauls during the latter end of the first century, that much he was certain of, and he remembered the time he spent in Britain during the early 200's with perfect clarity, but everything between was missing.
A few hours later, after his old acquaintance retired for the night, he made a beeline to his study. Pulling a loose panel out of the wainscoting, he extracted the slim metal box he had stashed there the previous century. Breaking it open, he rifled through the journals within until he found what he was looking for.
Carefully, he leafed through the hide pages and absorbed the words; apparently, he had been married at least twice during that century. Once in Rome at the start of the century and another time in Constantinople shortly after his stay at Ramirez's. Two wives, whose faces he didn't remember.
He had proceeded to get very drunk that night. It didn't matter how descriptive his journals might be, nothing could replace a true memory. Even thinking about it now made him shudder - what if he woke up one morning and couldn't remember Alexa's face?
The thing was, he wouldn't have minded so much if these bouts of amnesia were more even-handed. There were a few years from his angry adolescence that he'd gladly elect to erase from his memory, like that time Kronos convinced him to attack one of Xerxes' supply convoys during that whole mess with the Greeks.
"How can we fail?" he asked. "If those squabbling Greek states with their mishmash of democracies and petty tyrants can thrash them, so can we."
Needless to say, they'd never come across a Greek hoplite before then. If they had, they might have re-evaluated the Persian army's capabilities. It takes balls to hold a line against a pissed-off Greek.
And while he was at it, there wasn't much he wouldn't give to forget that mess he had gotten himself into in Rome during the first century C.E. Uprisings really weren't his forte.
Then there was that crazy boat ride he took with those lunatic Irish monks. What the hell had he been thinking? He still couldn't look at a hull without having to resist the urge to heave. With a shudder, Methos dragged his mind away from that singularly unpleasant memory and into the here and now.
"Well, here we are, our hotel."
"What?"
"I said that this is it, the place we're staying at. Adam, are you still with me?"
"Oh, yeah, of course. Let's go on up to our rooms then."
"Ookaaay. Adam are you sure you're alright?"
"I'm fine Joe, really. Well, other than the whole annoying memory lapse thing, that is."
The look on Joe's face told him that he wasn't amused.
"Alright then, moving swiftly on..."
Methos quietly stood just inside the door as Joe collected the keys, smiling wanly at the receptionist as she glanced in his direction. He was under no illusion as to what he looked like: death warmed up, and badly dressed to boot. Methos rewound that sentence in his head and snorted, shrugging his shoulders at Joe's enquiring face. Somehow, he didn't think that Joe would appreciate the joke; the whole horseman issue was still a touchy subject. For a brief moment he entertained the notion of explaining the pun "Death warmed up, death warmed up, get it..." No, definitely not a good idea now that he came to think about it... Following Joe down a short hallway on the ground floor, he put his hand out for his key.
"What room am I in?"
"Room eight, I'm next door."
With a nod, Methos inserted the key into the door that Joe indicated and entered the room. It was a simple affair but the bed looked extremely inviting. Gods, he was so tired. With a sigh, he dropped onto the mattress and leaned over the edge. Reaching underneath the bed, he retrieved the satchel he knew he would find there. Sometimes he was very grateful for being a creature of habit.
"That's where you keep it, under the bed. Jeeze, somehow I expected someplace more innovative."
Methos glanced up at Joe who was standing in the doorway with an incredulous look on his face. With a smirk, he straightened up and pulled the satchel onto his lap.
"What were you expecting exactly, some kind of cleverly disguised hidey hole? Give a man a break; it is a hotel room for crying out loud. Besides, sometimes it's better to hide something in plain sight. Take a seat, Joe."
With a snort, Joe entered the room and settled himself on the chair beside the dresser as Methos pulled his journal out.
"Alright then, let's find out what I've been up to..."
Joe watched the expressions that moved across Methos's face as he flicked through the pages. Eventually he couldn't take it any longer.
"What does it say?"
"It says that you were right, Joe, we're doomed..."
TBC…