*5*
When Amanda felt the slight presence of an immortal... she glanced around warily. She'd been bargain hunting at a street fair... looking for just that right piece of art that would go with her new flat.
Not far away looked a very chagrined Robert Sutton. His hands were stuffed into his pants pockets and his lightweight khaki jacket blew lightly in the wind. He gazed at her as if afraid to even bother her.
Amanda smiled. Such a shy young man! She sauntered over to stand beside him... gazing around at the exhibits.
"Decided to look me up?" she purred, giving her sunglasses an imaginary adjustment on the bridge of her nose.
"Actually... I just saw you here and thought... well... thought that... maybe..." Robert let out a deep breath. "I though maybe I might be ready to listen to what you had to say."
"And why is that?" Amanda shifted her posture to show her benevolence in allowing him to court her favor.
"You know that pro I mentioned?" Sutton finally said.
"Hmmmm!?!"
"She was found floating in the Thames yesterday. She'd been there about a week the paper said."
"And?" Amanda was intrigued.
"The police arrived on my doorstep since she was last seen attacking me at the club."
"Did you kill her?" Amanda clasped her hands behind her and walked around him.
"Me? Why should I kill her?" Sutton sputtered.
"I don't know Robert... why should you kill her?" Amanda's voice betrayed none of its normally teasing tone. It was flat... direct.
"I told you... she was a little more than I could handle. But I'm not really into strangling women."
"So why come to me?" Amanda had checked out Robert Sutton in the past few days and knew that he was a shoe salesman, who had indeed been in an accident a month ago... That he'd attributed his "not being injured" to "clean living" and a "clear conscience"... that he was a quiet young man whose life was about to change. She'd found nothing to indicate he knew anything about immortals... other than what she had already told him... or about the game.
"You said when I was ready to listen..." his voice trailed off as he shrugged sheepishly.
"Oh... and what makes you think I am not crazy?" Amanda peered into his brown eyes... eyes she could almost get lost in. She blinked to be certain she was still in control of the situation.
"I had another accident." Robert looked at her warily... as though he was afraid to explain what had happened.
"And?" Amanda waited.
Robert looked around to see if anyone was listening... then leaned in close to her... his voice barely registering. "I cut my hand while cutting up chicken for dinner last night. I sliced my hand right open... blood everywhere... and then..." Robert held up his hand and turned it over to show there was nothing wrong.
"You healed." Amanda crossed her arms before her chest and tapped her right foot. A small smile played at the corners of her mouth.
"Yeah!" Robert's outstretched hand found its way to his head where the fingers ran through his long brown hair several times. "I healed... really fast. I don't know what is going on... but you said you could explain."
Amanda sighed as her smiled widened... she could explain all right. She ran her arm through his and clasped it. "Let's take a walk Robert... a nice long walk... There is so very much for you to listen to and learn... and by the way... Have you ever had sword training?"
***
Duncan signed the final papers, which arranged for Claudia's body to be shipped back to the states for burial. He had long ago promised her that if it came to it, he'd make certain to have her buried in Seacouver. She'd grown up there... and while she had ended up being closer to him than to her foster parents... it was there she wanted to be buried.
"Promise me Duncan!" she'd begged him. "I'm not a player in this game. I live for my music. When someone comes for me... just promise me you'll take care of me then."
And so he had promised. Without her fear of death... Claudia's music deserted her. Without her music... she might as well be dead. He'd understood that about her years ago... and had accepted her choice for her immortal life... as part of the game. Some immortals were players... some weren't. Like Grace... Claudia was a gentle soul caught up in something she had no aptitude for... no desire for.
Watching the coffin being loaded on the airplane made Duncan consider some of the other immortals Joe had mentioned. Benny Carbassa was a two-bit hood and pain-in-the-ass whose inability with the sword was matched by his inability to talk his way out of anything. Willie Kingsley was a small-time conman. The death of his mortal wife a few years ago was likely his own death knell. Duncan figure Willie had just drifted after Mollie's death... and had simply waited for someone to strike that final blow. John Kirin...Kage... as Duncan had first known him... had been an arms dealer... warrior... and drug smuggler. He'd come face to face with his own shortcomings in the killing fields of Cambodia and had undergone some sort of religious or moral conversion. The last he'd seen him... Kirin was a traveling preacher... preaching brotherhood and love... and self-sacrifice. "I have no wish to die MacLeod... but if my death can heal another... so be it," Kirin had told him. Duncan had been able to understand such sentiments when expressed by Darius... but he'd had difficulty with hearing the same words from this man.
Michelle Webster had been a troubled teenager whom he had foisted off onto Amanda to train. Now Michelle was dead... she had not even lived a normal life-span. His old friend Kit O'Brady had been a fun-loving gambler. Duncan hoped he'd died with as much panache as which he'd lived his life. Even the troubled David Keogh had been hunted down and eliminated... as had one of Duncan's oldest friends... Warren Cochrane. Warren had been a shell of himself ever since he'd killed his own student a few years ago. When Duncan had killed Richie Ryan shortly after... he'd understood all too well the horror of killing someone who looked to you for help, for guidance, for training... someone who trusted you.
There had been others Joe had had said... but Duncan hadn't known them. All had one thing in common. They were minor players... they were not heavily into the game... their sword skills were erratic at best. And... many had been his friends. He... Duncan MacLeod... had failed them all. As surely as he had failed Richie or Tessa or Anne Lindsey or even Joe Dawson... he'd failed these people by not being able to protect them somehow. By not taking charge... by not being there and finding a way for them to survive.
Well... no more would die. Claudia would be the last! Duncan MacLeod watched the plane taxi off the tarmac and set his jaw. Whoever it was who had been killing immortals was now the target of a vengeful Duncan MacLeod. He'd already questioned Scotland Yard about Claudia's death and knew they suspected a piano tuner who had been the last to evidently see her alive. While he didn't have a name... Duncan did know something Scotland Yard did not. The man was likely not a piano tuner... and might have been either an immortal or a Hunter... one of the remnant of Watchers trained by James Horton over a decade ago to kill immortals. He'd gotten close enough to Claudia to surprise her... and Claudia carried no sword.
It was time to see who else was in the London area.
***
Lord Bernard Crimmons drew a deep and appreciative sniff of the bouquet of the fine wine. "Excellent vintage... my good man!" He sipped appreciatively... all the while waving away the hovering servants. He cast a suspicious eye over the mild-mannered and insignificant man who stood nearby with an oh-so-I'm-at-your-service Lord Crimmons air about him. "Now... To what exactly do I owe your benevolence in obtaining for me a crate of this wine."
The man nervously shifted his glasses above his nose as he nodded his head. His whiny voice and unassuming posture put Crimmons at ease. "I was told, your Lordship, that you had a taste for such things and that if a man could obtain the wine for you... he might... might I emphasize... be granted a favor." The man clutched his hat between his hands... fingering the brim.
Crimmons rose to stand by the window... gazing out at the London street scene. "A favor... I might grant a favor... depending on what it is." He sipped the wine and kept the tone of his voice a bit condescending.
"Many thanks your Lordship," the petitioner added. "I have but one small request. A little thing... so insignificant... I hesitate to even mention it."
"Yes," Lord Crimmons, once the axe-man of King Henry VIII, said. He heard the sound of metal behind him... rather like a sword being drawn. Curiously he turned in time to see it flash in the light of the fire burning in his fireplace.
"Your head!"
The sword met Lord Crimmons' neck and swiftly separated his head from his body. The fine wine spilled on the white carpet and the crystal wineglass shattered as it hit the floor. Then the quickening exploded the windows of his Chelsea apartment.
***
"Lift your right arm a bit higher... like this... and then swing down and to your left... letting the gravity and the blade do the work. Here... like this!" Amanda demonstrated the move twice more and then stood back to assess Robert Sutton's awkward technique.
He was coming along. She had wanted to increase his training to eight hours a day.
"I do have a job... a life!"
"You'll have nothing if you don't learn this," Amanda had countered. "The Gathering has begun. Immortals are dying. You may well not even have a normal life-span if you are not very careful."
Robert had pouted. "First you tell me I'm immortal and cannot die... then you tell me I'm going to die if I do not learn to kill... and kill only by beheading my opponents. You really are mad, you know."
Amanda had laughed. "Mad enough to have survived almost twelve hundred years."
"Still... I must maintain the fiction of my life... my old life."
In the end she relented and let him go... "But from now on... your evenings and weekends belong to me."
Robert bowed as he'd left, "Yes... my Lady!"
Truth be told... Amanda rather liked his mock-courtly manners. In so many ways... Robert Sutton reminded her of Duncan. But unlike Duncan MacLeod... this man actually needed her. Duncan needed no one.
After he left... Amanda worked out at the gym for a while longer. Outside the early autumn evening turned to darkness. Swiftly she went through moves purloined from a thousand disciplines she'd learned... added to them her acrobatic skills... tumbling runs... and dance moves. He ability to move from one discipline to another with so little effort had made her a much more formidable opponent than most challengers she'd faced had ever thought she would be. "Be surprising!" Rebecca Horne, her teacher had once told her. "Be ever the surprise... Be anyone... do anything... But surprise them all!" Even a decade after Rebecca's death... Amanda still missed her old teacher.
When she felt the thrum of an immortal... a powerful one by its intensity... Amanda swiftly crossed the gym to her bag and withdrew her sword... holding it before her in both hands... balancing herself carefully on the balls of her feet so that she would be ready to move and move swiftly.
"Is that for me?" came the deep voice with the slightest hint of Scots heritage present in its cadence.
Amanda lowered the sword and grinned, "Duncan... how nice to see you!" She walked slowly over to lightly kiss him on each cheek. He returned the gesture. "What brings you to London?"
"I came for Claudia's concert." the Highlander said sadly.
Amanda let the smile fade from her face. She'd never met Claudia Jardine... but Duncan had frequently talked her ear off about her, about her music and about her adamant refusal to carry a sword. "I heard... Duncan I'm so sorry... What can I do?"
Duncan held his hands before him and looked around the empty gym. "Tell me who's around London these days."
"Well... I haven't been here long... but Bernie is up in Chelsea."
"Then you haven't heard?"
"Heard what?"
"His Lordship, Bernard Crimmons was found decapitated earlier today."
Amanda shook her head... evidently stunned. "He always had people about him... I didn't think anyone would get him. Lord knows he'd made enemies over the years... but he paid his servants very well. Who got him?"
"I was hoping you might know."
Amanda shook her head. "I've been involved with training my new student and haven't really paid much attention to the news or the telly. Duncan I have no idea who might have done it! Besides... Bernie and you were hardly friends... why do you care?"
"Because whoever killed Claudia may have also killed him... and may have killed Kit... and Michelle." Duncan's voice was barely above a whisper as he told her the names... He watched to see her reaction.
"Michelle? Duncan are you certain?" Amanda began to shiver. "My students... all my students... I fail them all. They die or they hate me..." She looked at Duncan and then stepped forward into his encircling embrace. "Am I such a bad person Duncan?"
"You hadn't heard... you didn't know," he murmured as he kissed her hair and trailed his fingers through it... wishing it were longer. But she liked it short... no fuss... no way for an opponent to use her hair against her.
Amanda pulled back, "And Kit? Who would kill Kit... besides me of course!" There was an edge of anger to her voice now that spoke volumes about how far she and the gambler had come from their initially adversarial relationship. Duncan found himself smiling at his memories of that.
"This student of yours," Duncan said. "I want to meet him."
"Robert? Oh he's harmless. He didn't even know what he was when I found him. And his skills!" Amanda threw her hands into the air. "He still has no real concept of how to use a sword. I don't think he'll ever be a player unless he learns to take the Game seriously!"
"I still want to meet him." Duncan insisted.
"He'll be here tomorrow after his job... He's a shoe salesman."
"Where?"
"A little shop at Leceister and Smythe," Amanda continued.
"Maybe I'll pay him a little visit tomorrow."
"Duncan... don't you dare terrorize that boy!" Amanda's pitch rose in indignation.
Duncan grinned. "Maybe a little terror is just what he needs."
Amanda nodded thoughtfully as she replaced her sword in its sheath and gathered her things. She ran one hand possessively into the crook of Duncan's arm and steered him out into the darkness. "True... a bit of fear might make Robert a little more diligent in his studies."