St. Anne's Academy in London, 15 April 2046
"Thank the Lady you're here, Laina!" Zoelle said, rushing over when Cassandra walked into the common room at St. Anne's Academy, the London campus of the Phinyx schools. "I haven't been able to reach Claudia Jardine for two days, and the police aren't doing anything!"
"Please, tell me what's happened," Cassandra said, drawing the other woman by the arm to sit next to her on a sofa in the corner.
Zoelle took a breath and settled down a little. "You know that Peter Shaw has been sponsoring Claudia for almost five years, ever since her manager Walter Graham died that horrible way." Zoelle shuddered. "Why would anyone want to chop off a head?"
Cassandra didn't bother to explain.
"Two months ago," Zoelle went on, "Claudia was saying that London was too loud and too busy, what with everyone getting ready for Princess Elizabeth's wedding, and she couldn't possibly practice enough for the concert she's supposed to give for the duke, and then Mr. Shaw said she could live in his house up near Edinburgh, and she went there the next day, and I haven't seen her since."
"Have you heard from her at all?"
"Oh, yes, her recordings of her practice sessions arrive every day, and I sort and archive them. Sometimes she calls or send me notes, things for me to do. I used to buy clothes for her when I first started three years ago, but lately Mr. Shaw has been picking them out and buying them."
Yet another sign of a potentially abusive relationship, Cassandra knew. Choosing her clothes, screening her calls, inviting her to live with him for safety… all done with the most helpful of intentions, of course. That was one way it often began: being kept isolated and dependent, either in a cage or a tent of skins or in a luxurious cocoon. It didn't matter. The goal was the same: ownership and control.
Cassandra had warned Claudia Jardine about Shaw three years ago, when Cassandra had met the two of them after a concert in Paris. Shaw had hovered next to Claudia, his hand on her arm, his eyes possessive under a façade of cultured charm. In the privacy of the women's bathroom, Cassandra had suggested to Claudia that perhaps letting Peter Shaw be that close to her was not a good idea.
Claudia had laughed off the concerns, even when Cassandra had said: "Some people want your body. Many immortals want your head. But some people—and they are much more dangerous—want your soul. They want to be in control."
"Nobody controls me," Claudia had snapped. "And nobody tells me what to do. Not Peter. And not you." Then she had swept Cassandra with an imperious glance and swept out of the room.
Cassandra had closed her eyes and sighed, wishing she had handled that better and that Claudia hadn't been so young. The next week she had gone to the Phinyx music school, looked for a likely candidate and found Zoelle, then suggested that a job might be found with the noted musician Claudia Jardine.
And now Claudia was missing. Perhaps Peter Shaw had decided he wanted something from Claudia after all.
"I have a recording of Claudia's practice session where you can hear them talking," Zoelle said next. "The police said it didn't prove anything. Would you like to see it?
"Yes," Cassandra said, and Zoelle handed her a memory chip for her phone.
"I can't watch it again," Zoelle said with a shudder. "I'll be in the dining room."
Cassandra unwrapped her phone from her wrist then fed it the chip and set it to private sound. The field of view on the small screen was limited to piano keys and pedals, and the first fifteen minutes had Claudia's exquisite rendition of all three movements of Beethoven's fourteenth sonata. Cassandra watched the graceful hands dance across the keys, bringing forth whispers and cascades and ultimately torrents of passionate sound.
Then Shaw spoke. He complimented Claudia's playing then sat next to her, his pale hands large and awkward next to hers. He played a little of the piece himself (technically excellent, but emotionally flat), then he placed his hand over hers and suggested they become lovers.
"Peter…," she said, and then nothing more.
After a moment, he asked, "Surely this isn't a surprise?" but it seemed to be, for Claudia politely turned him down. There was a long silence. "You're sure, my dear?" Shaw said.
"Yes."
Shaw let go of her hands, murmuring, "Pity."
"I'm sorry," Claudia said again.
"So am I," he said, and his hands and feet disappeared from view.
Claudia began to play again then stopped abruptly when his footsteps returned. "Peter?' she asked, then suddenly she too was out of view. Only her voice could be heard, rising in fear. "Peter… no…"
"Surely this isn't a surprise," Shaw's voice replied.
Cassandra listened grimly to the sharp click of Claudia's heels as she ran across a wooden floor, followed by Shaw's measured heavy tread. In the distance, a sharp scream was followed by a sodden thud. An awful silence filled the room, then a quickening shattered the quiet and ghost-white light flickered across the piano keys as Shaw devoured Claudia's soul.
Cassandra watched the lights die away.
Shaw came back to the piano, sat down, and played Beethoven's fourteenth sonata. This time, he played brilliantly, with the same exuberant fire and joy Claudia had always had.
Exactly the same. Precisely the same. Shaw had taken her talent along with her life.
Cassandra watched that part of the recording again then removed the chip and joined Zoelle in the dining room. In the middle of the day, they had it to themselves.
"You see what I mean?" Zoelle asked plaintively. "It's creepy. But the police aren't even looking. Mr. Shaw told them that he came back to propose to Claudia and when she saw the engagement ring she ran off and tripped and fell and then his electrical transformer blew up. He said that in the middle of the night she got all artist-moody and took off, and her car and all her clothes are gone, so they believe him. They did say they'd keep an on eye on him, and to let them know as soon as I hear from Claudia. If I do." Her voice grew very small. "I'm afraid to go back to my flat. Mr. Shaw must know who went to the cops with a recording like that, and if he did do something to her…"
"You can stay here," Cassandra said immediately, patting Zoelle's hand reassuringly. "Or at any Phinyx school anywhere in the world. You know that."
"Once a sister, always a sister," Zoelle agreed.
Cassandra helped Zoelle get settled then called Connor and told him that Shaw had taken Jardine's head. "Would you bring your files on Shaw to London?" Cassandra asked. "And any others from the archives?"
"Yes. Have you told Duncan?"
"Not yet. He'll want Shaw, won't he?"
"Yes. But so does Elena Duran. Shaw beat her husband up over the some unpaid gambling debts forty years ago."
"Can she take him?" Cassandra asked.
"Yes."
Cassandra immediately revised her plan. "I'll let her know."
"Anything else I should bring?" Connor asked.
"Just yourself," she replied, filling those two words with longing and lust, for she'd been in London all this last week for the royal wedding."I miss you."
She loved how his smile started at his eyes. "I'll see you tomorrow," he promised, and Cassandra shivered deliciously at all his words implied.
Connor arrived early the next day, and after their enthusiastic reunion, he went to register at the convention of metallurgical engineers. Cassandra settled on the bed to read. The first file was from a genealogy service, tracing the Shaw family to the late 1600s. Cassandra read enough to see Shaw's pattern: years of service in the British army overseas, then the dead officer's "son" returned to the family estate in the south of Scotland, occasionally married a widow and raised a family, and finally went overseas to see the lands of his youth one last time. Twenty or thirty years later, another young Shaw would return. The first Peter Shaw listed had served under the Duke of Cumberland and fought at the Battle of Culloden.
At the end of the report was a comment in Connor's small, precise handwriting: "A typical British officer of his time." That, Cassandra knew, was not a compliment. Connor had followed it with "Sees himself as a man of honor, won't cheat at the Game," which was good to know.
The next file was a report from an Edinburgh detective agency, paid for by Connor in 2001. Cassandra studied the picture of Shaw: about thirty, bluish eyes, brownish hair, average looking. Shaw was right-handed, almost as tall as Duncan and a little lighter in weight. Shaw was a patron of the arts and gave generously to local charities. "A keen farmer and well-respected by his tenants," the report said. He grew roses and had won numerous prizes, especially for the Amelia Bryce cultivar. He frequented brothels that catered to the S&M crowd, but never close to home, only in London or out of the country.
The third file bore the symbol of the Watchers, a stylized V surrounded by a ring of thirteen black dots. Cassandra had downloaded quite a few of their files before Watcher HQ had been blown up in 2014. Duncan's friend –and Watcher—Joe Dawson had died in that attack, and the company had gone bankrupt soon after. Cassandra hadn't spotted a Watcher in the field in decades.
She flipped through old chronicles, reading here and there. Shaw's adopted daughter, Amelia Bryce Shaw, eleven years old, had died in 1822. He'd served with Lord Baden-Powell during the Boer War then returned home and started one of the first Scout troops in the land. He'd won the Victoria Cross twice, along with numerous other decorations, but such bravery wasn't quite so noteworthy in someone who knew he couldn't die. His last military tour had ended in 1974, about the time they'd starting letting women in.
The final Watcher page listed Shaw's kills from the years 1784 to 2009. Twenty-seven names were on that list. Walter Graham was another likely victim, and he and Claudia brought the total to twenty-nine.
Cassandra stood and stretched then went to stare out the window. It seemed as though the complete transference of Claudia's power was an anomaly, since Shaw had shown no evidence of such abrupt changes before. The musical ability would probably fade soon. Even so, Peter Shaw needed to die.
Cassandra called Elena and asked if she could come to London. "I'll be there by dinnertime," Elena promised. Cassandra knew that Elena's chances of defeating Shaw were good, but it was always wise to have a backup plan, so Cassandra made a few more calls.
After Elena arrived that night, she and Connor watched the video, and Elena promptly volunteered for the job. Cassandra went with her the next day to Edinburgh, dug the grave, then waited nearby while Elena chopped off Shaw's head.
"You don't fight, do you?" Elena asked as they shoveled the dirt on top of the body.
"Quickenings give me nightmares for years, sometimes decades," Cassandra told her. "Even when I'm not asleep." The voices of the dead whispered at the back of her mind. "Everyone is much safer if I'm sane."
"Yeah," Elena agreed fervently.
"And with Shaw…" Cassandra tossed a shovelful of dirt on his head. "If he had beheaded me, he might have acquired the power of the Voice." A remote chance, but still possible. "I couldn't let that happen."
"So you recruited me to kill him."
"I asked," Cassandra pointed out. "You volunteered."
"I did, didn't I?" Elena looked quite pleased with herself. The feet were covered before she asked, "What if I had lost?"
Cassandra paused, balancing a shovelful of dirt on the blade, and looked at Elena to say, "Then now I would be weeping as I buried a friend."
Elena glanced at the grave and the pile of dirt before asking, "But about Shaw?"
"I would have gone to plan B."
"Duncan," Elena guessed.
Cassandra didn't bother to correct her. They finished the job and walked to the car. "They're addicting, you know," Cassandra said quietly as they walked through the darkening wood. "The quickenings."
"I'm not addicted," Elena replied, a little too quickly.
"I am," Cassandra told her, trying to help the younger woman see. "And so is Methos. That's why we avoid them as much as we can."
"You said that quickenings make you crazy," Elena pointed out, "that you hear voices."
"I do, for years," Cassandra agreed. "And I'm ill for days afterwards. But even so, I still crave that power." She swallowed, remembering the slick taste of blood, salty and warm. She could, she knew, kill Elena right now. She could tell people that Shaw had won, and that she had then killed Shaw. She could use the Voice to order the other woman to her knees. She could kiss those moist red lips, licking up the lust that was surging through Elena's veins right now. She could twine her fingers through those rich black curls, slowly pulling back the head to expose the softness of the throat. Then she could take Elena's sword, slice off her head, and feast on her soul.
Cassandra dug her nails into her palms, using that pain to help shudder herself free from the hunger. She opened the door in her mind and forced herself to listen to the screams of the people she had already killed, to let the voices gibber in her ears. She also stepped away from Elena, away from the scents of blood and sweat and lust.
When Cassandra was calm again, she mused, "Resisting must be even harder for Methos." Quickenings didn't make him ill. "He does very well."
Elena looked at her, probably surprised to hear anything good about that man from her. Cassandra warned, "Be careful, Elena, of the heads you take and the souls you consume. Because I can tell you, it is not good to need to kill someone simply in order to feel alive."
"I don't," Elena said. "I've never killed lightly, and less so now. So don't worry that I will go challenging someone because I'm bored, or because I want power. OK?"
Cassandra didn't disagree, even though Elena had already done exactly that. Oh, she'd had other reasons, too; she wasn't going after innocents. But Elena was an adrenaline junkie, and quickenings were the ultimate rush. The sex was addicting, too, and Cassandra knew Elena could easily move into the hunger phase, taking heads at random and justifying it by the Game. So could Connor and Duncan. All of them needed watching. As did she, as did they all. But for now, Cassandra simply said, "OK."
Elena went on, "The truth is, amiga, you need not have worried about Shaw taking my 'abilities,' or yours, or anyone else's, for that matter."
"Except Claudia's," Cassandra pointed out.
"Well, he wanted to take Claudia's music, but he didn't; it took him. Her genius just poured out onto him, overwhelmed him. And I've got it now."
Cassandra nodded, relieved to hear that Shaw hadn't been special and that complete transference wasn't likely to happen again. A talent like Claudia's was extremely rare.
But if a skill could be passed along through two quickenings, perhaps there was a way to retrieve even more…
Akademie der Sankte Hildegard, 1 May 2046
"Grading papers?" Connor asked as he came into Cassandra's office, for she was sitting motionless and holding a pencil level between two fingers in her upraised hand, a sure sign of concentration.
She looked up from the computer and smiled merrily for him, but then looked down and grew somber. "Updating files."
He went to stand behind her, enjoying the feel of her hair as it brushed against his hands and the warmth of her body against his thighs. The page on the screen was titled Peter Shaw, and it held a list of his kills, thirty-four in all. Walter Graham (1158- 2038), Laslo Chaban (1826 - 2043), and Claudia Jardine (1969-13 April 2046) were the last three. The list ended with the notation "Shaw beheaded by Elena Duran on 17 April 2046."
"Elena said Shaw boasted he had killed eight people while he was 'protecting' Graham and Claudia Jardine," Cassandra said. "I've been going through the chronicles, and I think I've just found the fifth." She pointed with the pencil to the twenty-ninth name on Shaw's kill-list: Ben Shekhawat (1975-2011). A question mark followed his name, the sign of an unconfirmed kill.
"He didn't last long," Connor observed.
"Most don't." Cassandra twisted to look up at him. "Any other updates?"
"Warren Cochrane is dead. April sixteenth. Culloden Field, Scotland."
As she began to add that entry she asked, "Do you know who?"
"Warren Cochrane."
She looked up, her mouth open slightly in surprise. "How ever did he manage that?"
"Rigged up a guillotine."
"On the three hundredth anniversary of that battle." She nodded once, slowly. "Survivor's guilt is a heavy load."
It was.
"Another beheading-by-gun was found last week," she told him next. "Canada this time."
"That makes seven since that one in Fiji seventeen years ago," he said grimly. "That we know about."
"There could be more," she agreed. "And even Sara's new algorithm isn't helping me see any patterns. Different guns on different continents, with almost no leads since quickenings tend to destroy evidence."
Connor thought about what they did know. "Quickenings mean immortals are involved, not Watchers gone bad."
"Five of the dead were men," Cassandra offered, "and all seven were aggressive headhunters."
"Not exactly a distinguishing characteristic," Connor observed. "Could be a headhunter taking out his competition."
"Or a non-headhunter taking out predators. Or simply individual instances, like Sofie in Ireland that Duncan told us about."
"Great," Connor said. "That means seven immortals out there using guns, instead of just one."
"And hundreds with swords," Cassandra pointed out.
Connor shrugged. That was normal.
Cassandra starting clicking the keys to save and close the lists of kills. More titles flashed by: Ceirdwyn, Felicia Martin, Connor MacLeod…
Connor didn't need to see the headcount on that page.
Cassandra saved the encrypted files to the flipdrive, shut down the program, and wiped the computer's working memory. Then she stood to lock the flipdrive in the safe. "Do you miss it?" Cassandra asked him suddenly, for only five names had been added to his kill list in the last fifty years, and four of those had been decades ago.
"Some," he admitted. "But I promised Alex I wouldn't fight unless I absolutely had to, not while our children are still alive." Cassandra nodded and quietly shut the safe door.
Connor went to her and held out his hands, for he had not come to her on this day to speak of killing and of swords. "It's May Day," he said softly, looking into her eyes. "Come to the woods with me."
Her smile was merry once again, and she placed her hands in his and said, "Yes."
Next: Duncan suffers from unwanted exposure
Note: The Peter Shaw story is told from Elena's point of view in the story "Elena's Journey", also available on this site.