London, England – Saturday, 17 October 2048
After the medics and police arrived at the bomb site and took charge, Methos went back to his hotel, scrubbed himself clean, slept, ate dinner, and then went looking for a bar. He wanted a noisy place, full of music and laughter and people flirting, maybe a game of darts in the corner. After all that death today, he wanted to be surrounded by life.
Death followed, of course. There was no escape. People were talking about the bombing. Video and stills of burning buildings and injured people were on the vid screens and on people's phones. Methos ignored it all.
He ordered a beer and claimed a stool at the bar, half-standing, half-sitting, and let his gaze prowl the room. Tonight, with the energy of a quickening pulsing through him, he didn't need to pursue. Power was an aphrodisiac, and the women would come to him, like moths to a flame.
He picked her out when she came in with her friends: short and blonde, curvaceous and vivacious, and wearing a velvet choker necklace that matched the blue of her eyes. He dropped his usual camouflage of mild-mannered non-entity, and watched her with slightly narrowed eyes.
She flicked a glance at him and tossed back her hair. He kept watching, and soon enough she looked again. She circled to him, stopping to chat, looking at a vid screen, getting a drink, but ending up by his side, and then the flirtation began.
Methos waited until she had laughed at one of his jokes before he told her softly, "I know what you want."
"No, you don't," she said immediately.
He smiled, and with one finger lifted a tendril of her hair from her collarbone. He twirled her hair around his finger until it tightened, then pulled her to him. "Yes," he told her, his gaze never leaving hers. "I do."
Her eyes darkened and her lips parted, and she was his.
He took her to a hotel, but not the one where he'd registered as Dr. Kyle Winston. Tonight wasn't Dr. Winston's style. She had suggested going to her flat, but Methos didn't want to be faced with the details of her life, to sleep in her bed, or to see the pictures she hung on her walls. He never asked her name. She called him Sir. She liked that.
So did he.
"Please," she gasped, clad only in her high-heeled shoes and her blue velvet choker, for he had stripped her of everything else. "Sir, please."
"This is what you want," he told her, his mouth just behind her ear. He stood behind her, just barely not touching, save that his hands were clamped around her wrists, pinioning her arms high and wide against the wall.
"Yes," she agreed, pressing back against him. "Yes, it is. Please."
It was what he wanted, too. Methos closed his eyes and buried himself in her, surrounding himself with life.
Cassandra woke but could not see. She could not breathe. She did not struggle, did not try to move. She knew better. She had been here before, many times.
"Cassandra," he said, his voice gentle.
She tried to turn to him, that was what he wanted, but just that simple movement ripped her open and the pain flooded in, bloodwarm and pulsing, a red splintering haze. She let death take her, for she knew that after dying there would be no pain.
Later—she thought it was later—he said her name again. "Cassandra." She did not try to move. The pain found her anyway, leaping with every heartbeat, surging along her veins. She tried to swallow; her lips shattered and split. Thirst dug its claws into her throat from the inside and burst through her skin. She stopped her breathing, hoping to die. It took only a little while.
She heard water trickling, far away. She dreamed of dappled sunlight, golden light and soft green leaves, and a rivulet flowing cold and clear above smooth stones. Then rain fell, cold and stinging, every drop a needle piercing her skin. Water slashed and burned, scouring her flesh, and knives scraped her clean to the bone. Her screams were strangled moans, and she whimpered and twisted, trying to hide. Then his hands were on her, holding her down, and she knew she could not escape. She went limp and unresisting, trying desperately to hold still, but the knives came again, and she quivered and jerked with pain. The hands clamped tighter, cruel and unyielding, so when finally darkness came, blessedly empty and silent, she eagerly let herself drown.
The pain ebbed and flowed and ebbed again, as steady and irresistible as the tides. She burrowed deeper inside herself, hiding from it all. Finally, slowly, she swam upward, from utter blackness through hazy red pain and finally to gold. She did not try to open her eyes. Not yet. "Cassandra," he said, but this time she recognized the voice, and his scent was in the air.
"Connor," she whispered, or tried to. Her throat was still raw, though the vicious thirst was gone. Her tongue traced her lips, and found no taste of blood.
"Sleep," he told her. The press of his lips on the back of her hand was gentle, and brought comfort, not pain.
Cassandra slept.
Connor was still holding Cassandra's hand when Duncan came back into the room. "How's her pulse?" Duncan asked.
"Mostly steady," Connor said, feeling the movement of blood in her wrist. "But not strong." The skin from her forehead to her knees looked like pounded hamburger, and her right eyelid still had a slit in it. The white of her eye shone through, but none of her bones were showing anymore. "Her breathing seems good."
"I don't think she'll die again," Duncan said, "now all the dead tissue is gone."
That tissue hadn't magically disappeared. While she was dead, Connor had held her steady while Duncan had carefully scraped and peeled.
"Keeping her hydrated is the thing now." Duncan adjusted the flow to the IV drips in her arms. "She'll probably just sleep while she heals. I can stay with her," he offered. "If you want to—"
"Yes," Connor said immediately. He needed to get back to see Alea and Will. He carefully laid Cassandra's hand on the bed then stood, stretching his shoulders. "Let me know how she's doing."
"Of course." Duncan looked down at Cassandra and asked, "Shall I tell her?"
Connor had told Colin yesterday, a short and brutally hard conversation on the phone. He'd told Alea in person, after she'd arrived back at the hotel with her piles of shopping bags. She'd gone pale and said, "I need to call Dad," in a voice that sounded like a six-year-old girl, then disappeared into the sleeping room of their hotel suite and quietly shut the door.
Cassandra would want to know right away, and Duncan was good at that sort of thing. "Yes," Connor said. "Tell her."
He didn't think he could say it again.
Back at the hotel, Alea and Will were asleep. They lay side by side on the bed, facing each other, holding hands. Connor stood in the doorway and listened to their steady breathing, watched the slow rise and fall of their chests. Alea had cut her hair close to the scalp when she'd started Guardian training eighteen months ago, and her cap of black curls was a stark contrast to the white pillow. Will's hair was longer, the brown strands unbraided, some falling across his cheek. The brother and sister still looked a lot alike, though Will's face was starting to take on the stronger lines of manhood, and Alea's face, like her body, was rounded with pregnancy.
The baby would be born in a few months. Last night at the dinner no one ate, Alea had announced she was going to name her daughter after her mom.
"I think she should have her own name," Will had said. "So she can be her own person."
Sara had said that sometimes. Both her names came from people who had died long ago. For the last twenty years or so, she'd gone by Caorran. Only the family still used the name he and Alex had chosen for her.
"It's not like we need anything to remind us of Mom," Will had finished.
"No," his sister had agreed, and then, through tears, she had raised her glass, and the three of them had drunk a toast to Sara Heather MacLeod.
Connor walked into the room and kissed each of his grandchildren goodnight, closing his eyes each time.
Then he started the hunt for the bastards who had killed his daughter.
He started with a phone call. It was three in the morning, but he didn't really care. Besides, the Guardians were probably all awake anyway. And if they weren't, they ought to be.
Erika, who had been Tetrarch of the Guard and his occasional sparring partner at St. Hildegarde's, answered her phone after only two rings. She'd transferred to Paris two years ago and gotten a promotion, so Connor had been betting she'd be involved.
"Mike," Erika said in greeting. Her eyes were tired, and her short blonde hair was a mess, liked she'd been running her fingers through it. "I saw the death list. I'm so sorry about Laina."
Connor kept his face still and simply nodded his thanks. It had been a gruesome night, but Cassandra was going to be fine.
"Didn't you know Sister Caorran, too?" Erika said.
Connor drew a quick breath but answered evenly, "We're cousins."
"Yes, that's right. I'm sorry."
"Thank you." Now it was his turn to offer condolences. "Did you lose anyone?"
"We are all sisters," she said, the standard reply, then added, "Some colleagues, a former classmate. But no one particularly dear."
They both took a deep breath, and then Connor got down to business. "What do you know?"
"Nothing I can talk to you about."
"Dammit, Erika," he growled. "You must—"
"This isn't a secure line," she broke in. "And even if it were, you don't work for Phinyx now, Mike."
"So hire me." She looked tempted, so he added, "Special consultant. Cheap."
"Psych Eval won't like it," she said, shaking her head. "You're too close." She managed a wry grin. "But you'll be working it anyway, I know."
"We might as well coordinate," Connor pointed out, being rational and not too eager, showing her he could still do the job.
She interlaced her fingers and tapped her thumbs together a few times. "One thing first," she said finally.
"Name it."
"If we find the ones who did this, promise me you won't kill them yourself."
Leave the mortals to the mortal justice system. That was what he and Duncan and Cassandra had said, two years ago. It was a sensible rule. Pragmatic. Reasonable. And Connor was determined to stay calm and reasonable. Never lose your temper in a fight. "I promise," Connor said. As long as they died somehow.
Methos woke to pre-dawn darkness and a naked woman in his bed. He roused her slowly, first to wakefulness and then to longing, with touch and tongue and whispered words, until she opened beneath him like a flower opening its petals to the sun. "Yes," she told him. "Now." Yet he took his time in kissing her, gently, for morning was a time for tenderness between lovers, as night was the time for the passion of strangers.
"I want you," she told him, her fingertips exploring his face with careful wonder.
He looked down at her and smiled, then kissed her fingers one by one, before saying, "I know." She smiled back, saucy and sweet, then pulled him to her, into her, and whispered, "Now."
"Yes," he agreed.
Afterward, they slept, as the sky shifted from black to gray.
When Connor went to meet Erika at sunrise, his path took him past St. Anne's Academy, the London campus of the Phinyx schools. Thick stone walls surrounded the grounds, and concrete flower pots had been artfully—and deliberately—arranged in front of the tall iron gates, preventing suicide cars from ramming through. None of that was new, but there was a trio of Guardians at the gate instead of only two, and through the gate he could see black bunting on the doors of buildings. A shrine of candles and flowers and pictures of the dead had grown up around the base of the oak tree in the green lawn.
Connor didn't loiter at the gate; the Guardians were tense enough already. He met Erika at the small park across the street. She was sitting on a bench, reading her phone, and she stood when he came near. "Let's walk," she suggested. "I've gotten chilled sitting here."
They walked briskly on the path that wound between the flower beds of orange and gold chrysanthemums. In the center of the park stood a dry fountain with a statue of a nymph of some kind. This park didn't have any trees. No bodies laid out in rows. No blood soaking into the ground.
Connor focused on his footing, on the give and twist of the strands of bark underfoot, on how bits of it clung to his shoes. Mulch wasn't as noisy or as treacherous as gravel, but it could be slippery. He turned his head from the park and looked across the street at the houses, all lined up in a row with blind-staring windows and closed doors.
"What do you know?" he asked Erika again.
"Not much yet," she said but handed him a data chip. "Here is a list of groups and people who've given us problems over the last ten years." She sighed and hugged her arms to her body, shivering a bit. "Though Phinyx may not even have been the target. There was another convention at the hotel."
"Who?"
"Bankers."
"Ah." Not the most loved people in the world.
"Ah," she dryly agreed. "They're on the chip, too. I also included the preliminary reports on the explosion. Blast radius, debris, points of origin, that sort of thing."
"Good." Physical evidence could provide leads. "Was it—" He went silent as they came near a pair of blue-cloaked women walking in the opposite direction.
They greeted Erika as a sister and gave Connor a polite nod then passed by. "It's a stunning shot," one of the women said, her voice floating behind her.
"We should wide-cast it," the other replied. "It may help to…"
Her words faded out, and Connor went back to his question. "Was it only the one planned explosion?"
"We're not sure yet," Erika answered. "The second could have been simply a gas line, or it could have timed to take out the emergency responders."
A chillingly effective tactic, if so. "What's the death toll?"
"About two hundred, last I heard. Twenty-seven children. We had child-care at the conference."
Connor swore softly then demanded, "How the hell did this happen, Erika?"
"How the hell do you think it happened, Mike?" she demanded right back, stopping in her tracks. "We failed. We searched the building on Thursday: x-ray, thermal scan, dogs… We went through that place from sewers to skylights. We checked every person coming in this weekend, we watched the streets and we watched the rooftops, and we didn't do enough. Hundreds of people—half of them our sisters—are dead, and dozens more are burned or wounded, because we didn't do our jobs."
Erika's words had been evenly spaced and unemotional, but her fists were clenched and her jaw was quivering, and Connor recognized the mix of rage and guilt haunting her eyes. He'd seen it in many soldiers' eyes over the centuries, and in Duncan's eyes and Cassandra's eyes, and in his own.
"Erika," Connor began, reaching out a hand, but she turned and started walking again, her fists jammed into the pockets of her long gray coat. He caught up with her and they walked in silence for half the park.
"Nobody's actually saying we failed," she said, staring at the ground. "Everyone's being 'supportive.' But they're thinking it."
With reason. It wasn't the Guardians' fault, but it was their responsibility, and they had failed. Connor had blamed them, but only for a little while, because he knew damn well the hunter held the power. The hunter could sleep when he liked, while the hunted couldn't possibly be alert all the time.
"You can't win with defense, Erika," he told her. "If you're lucky, maybe you hold your own."
"And luck always runs out, eventually." She ran both hands through her hair, leaving it in tufts, then shook herself, like a dog coming out of water. Her head was back up, and her eyes were fierce again. "We've had enough of defense. We're going to war."
When Cassandra woke again, it was Duncan who called her name.
She answered but took her time opening her eyes, letting the light filter in until finally looking around. Duncan was sitting in a chair in the corner of the bedroom, a book in hand. Next to him stood an oak dresser with severely simple lines, its wood bleached to blond. The bed was equally plain, though the sheets were fine linen. Golden sunlight shown through white curtains and left a patch of brightness on the light blue wall. Through the open door, she could see a hallway leading to a bath and then a sitting room.
A plastic bag of blood and a half unit of saline solution hung from the bed's headboard, draining through tubes into the needles inserted in her arms. A rubbish bin next to the bed was filled with empty bags. She'd never thought Duncan's medical training would be useful to her.
"Welcome back," Duncan said with a gentle smile.
"Thank you," she said then cleared her throat and said it again. "Is it morning?" she guessed.
"Nearly eight o'clock," he confirmed. "Sunday," he added helpfully. "You've been sleeping for the past eight hours."
That much sleep meant she'd been dead—off and on—for about twelve hours. Most wounds healed in less than thirty minutes. Her insides still felt … jumbled, though her heart was beating steadily and she could breathe. She lifted the sheet to see. From her neck to her knees, her skin was bright pink and creased with delicate wrinkles, like an unfolding butterfly wing. She touched her face carefully and winced, finding the same type of skin there. It would probably take another day for her skin to fully heal.
Most people weren't so lucky as she. "How many died?" she asked.
"Two hundred and thirty-one," Duncan replied stolidly. "I'll bring you a phone so you can see the news." His mouth tightened in distaste. "I had to peel your phone off your arm."
Plastic melted into flesh. The "peeling" had probably involved knives. "Thank you, Duncan," she told him once more. "I'm truly in your debt. Again."
He shrugged, making light of his good deeds, as usual. "You came to pull me out of the ocean. And I needed new sheets anyway."
"So this is your flat?"
"Connor and I bought the property, two hundred years ago. We both use it, from time to time. "
"And Connor is...?" Suddenly, she wasn't sure if she'd dreamed him, along with the dappled stream.
"He was here, helping," Duncan said then explained, "While you were dead, we took off some damaged tissue."
Not quite dead enough, Cassandra thought, but Duncan didn't need to know. "Taking off" was a euphemism for debriding, which itself was a euphemism for scraping away charred muscle and skin. That burned smell lingering in the air wasn't from a roast left in the oven too long. "Thank you," she said again, and meant it.
"Connor left after you started sleeping," Duncan said, "to go be with Alea and Will."
"Oh." Cassandra was a bit surprised that Connor had left before she woke, but family came first, and Alea and Will were still young. Caorran had probably been working non-stop since yesterday afternoon. Phinyx had lost two of the nine councilors yesterday, the entire Sisterhood would be in mourning, and no doubt the Guardians were "going spare" trying to find out who had set the bomb.
Cassandra needed to get to her own safe house soon. There, she could take up her new identity as Elise Daugherty a little sooner than planned, and then get to work. "I should call Sara," Cassandra said, using Caorran's family name. "Would you please bring me that phone now, Duncan?"
"Cassandra," Duncan said, and he drew his chair closer to the bed. His dark eyes were serious as he took her hand in both of his. "Sara's dead."
"No, Sara's fine," Cassandra told him. "We were outside when the bomb went off. And she wasn't anywhere near me when the second explosion—"
"A piece of flying debris," Duncan said. "It lodged near her heart."
"No," Cassandra protested in a whisper. This could not be true. But Duncan's face, sad and knowing, told her that it was. Cassandra closed her eyes tightly and shook her head from side to side, trying to shut out sight and sound and the terrible knowledge, but Duncan hadn't disappeared.
"Connor was with Sara," he was saying. "At the end. She didn't die alone."
"Of course she did," Cassandra snapped at him, pulling her hand from his. "Everyone does. They die, and they leave us behind, and all of us—mortal and immortal alike—all of us die alone." The burst of rage evaporated, popped like a fragile bubble, leaving her defenseless, and before she could draw breath, the sorrow crashed down. Grief scoured all the color from the world and drowned her heart in tears.
"Oh, Connor," she whispered, because she knew that watching his daughter die would have shredded him from the inside. As she herself had been shredded, time and time again. As Duncan had been shredded, too, with the people he had loved.
"I'm sorry, Duncan," Cassandra said, reaching out to him. "I didn't mean to—"
"I know," he said shortly, gripping her hand tightly.
Cassandra welcomed that pain. That pain came from the outside. It would stop when he let go. But the pain inside…
Caorran was dead. Sara—little Caorran, the Rowan Berry—bright, stubborn, and fiercely loyal… her shining goddesschild was dead. Cassandra turned from Duncan and curled in on herself, crossing her arms tightly in a desperately lonely hug. "Oh, Goddess," she whispered, a prayer of anguish that had no answer. The dreams of smoke and fire had come terribly true. Tears came, spilling over, bitter and scalding on still-raw flesh. Cassandra wept.
Caorran was dead.
Methos left the hotel room while the woman was still sleeping. He stopped in the lobby to have flowers sent to the room—blue and gold iris, to match her eyes and hair—and added a note saying, "You were what I wanted. Thank you."
Out on the street, it was a fine Sunday morning on a fine autumn day, though the scent of smoke hung in the air and quite a few passersby wore masks over their mouth and nose. Still, people were walking, buses were passing, and pigeons were fluttering overhead and crapping on statues in the park. Life went on. Methos walked swiftly, hoping to make the final session of the convention.
He paused at a news kiosk at the corner, his attention caught by a photo that had automatically flashed as he walked by. He even swiped his phone charge so he could see it again. With the media's usual blithe disregard for the niceties of grammar, especially of foreign languages, it was captioned Pieto, for it showed a man cradling the body of a woman in his arms, in nearly the same pose Michelangelo had used for his sculpture of Mary holding Jesus.
The figures in the photograph might have been made of marble, for they were dusted with fine white ash. The background was blurred browns and greens, a suggestion of a timeless woodland. Only the blood was bright red, illuminated by a ray of sunshine that also highlighted the woman's face, while leaving the man's in shadow. Even so, the slumped lines of his shoulders and the bowing of his head spoke eloquently of anguish. He was holding her hand tightly, but his other hand lay open and empty, helpless.
Methos bent in for a closer look before his time expired and the picture disappeared, because this was a picture for the ages, like the Migrant Mother, the flag-raising at Iwo Jima, or the man facing the tank in Tiananmen Square. The caption didn't name the people in the picture, but Methos recognized the woman, and then he knew the man. Methos straightened, raising an eyebrow and letting out a low whistle.
It was a pity about Sara. Methos had found her intriguing forty years ago, and had hoped to have a chat with her this weekend. Cassandra had certainly doted on the girl. As for that picture… Methos shook his head as he started walking again.
Connor MacLeod was not going to be pleased.
Duncan called Connor around ten in the morning from the lobby of their hotel. "She's awake," Duncan said, then: "I told her."
"Yeah," Connor said, because he sure as hell couldn't say good. "Thanks."
"Yeah," Duncan murmured in return. "She said she'd like to see you later today."
"OK."
"How are Alea and Will?"
Connor glanced at the door to the sleeping room. "Still asleep." It was late, but teens needed sleep, and pregnant women did, too. He didn't want to wake them.
"About tomorrow...," Duncan began
Tomorrow morning they would go to the morgue with Alea and Will, claim Sara's body, and then go home to the Highlands. "Nine o'clock," Connor confirmed.
"Right." Duncan half-covered a yawn. "I'm coming upstairs now. I need some sleep."
"Sleep is good," Connor agreed. In a lot of ways. He'd gotten about two hours last night. Waking up was the hard part. Waking up and realizing, all over again, that Sara was gone.
A few minutes later Connor felt the arrival of an immortal. Duncan had given him advance notice, as usual, but Connor still reached for his sword and went to the door to confirm. They nodded to each other, briefly, then Connor went back to reading about bombs.
An hour later came a knock on the door. Connor checked the security view and swore. He folded his phone and snapped it around his wrist, then hauled himself to his feet and went to open the door.
Sara's ex-husband was standing in the hall, a suitcase in one hand. Daniel's hair had gone grey since Connor had last seen him, and he'd put on about twenty pounds. He wore glasses now. Behind the wire rims, his dark eyes were narrowed in confusion.
Connor wasn't worried that Daniel would recognize him. They hadn't seen each other in more than fifteen years, and Connor had been dying his hair gray and keeping it short back then, plus wearing very different clothes. Any resemblance to Daniel's deceased former father-in-law could be explained as a family resemblance.
"Sorry," Daniel said. "I think I have the wrong room."
"No, you don't," Connor told him, stepping back from the door. "Alea and Will are here."
Daniel came in warily. "Who are you?"
"Michael Audren," Connor said and would have added "Sara's cousin" but he could see that Daniel's confusion was sliding rapidly to recognition and then straight to suspicion, spiced with a bit of rage.
"Cousin Mike." Daniel bit out the name. He kicked the door shut behind him and set down his suitcase. Then he stripped off thin, black leather gloves, regarding Connor all the while. "What are you doing here?"
"Looking after Alea and Will. I've got a room down the hall."
"Alea didn't mention you," Daniel said. He walked in and took off his knee-length burgundy coat, then draped it over the back of the chair that Connor had been sitting in. Marking his territory. Taking charge. "Look … Audren," Daniel said, "I know this is a difficult time. But frankly, I'm surprised to find you in this room. With my children. Without my permission."
Connor had always appreciated Daniel's forthrightness and lack of fake smiles. He and Sara had been well-matched there. "Alea's a grown woman," Connor pointed out. "She makes her own decisions."
"Yes," Daniel said thoughtfully, his eyes narrowing again. "But Will's still underage. Is he the one you're interested in?"
It took Connor a moment to catch the meaning there. "You sorry son of a bitch," Connor breathed, taking a step toward the other man. "I would never—" He stopped then forced himself to dial down his outrage, while Daniel stood there, watching and judging. "No," Connor said. "Not Alea, either. Nothing like that."
After a moment, Daniel gave a grudging nod. "You must admit," he pointed out, "it does look a bit odd, an unattached man hanging about a woman and her children. So when Alea said you weren't going after my wife—"
"Ex-wife," Connor corrected grimly. "The woman you cheated on. The woman you walked out on." He thought, but didn't say: The woman who loved you and wept for months after you were gone. Sara wouldn't want Daniel to know.
"We had our problems," Daniel admitted, and a look of regret lingered in his eyes. "They started with her lies. I still don't know why she lied to me." He swallowed hard and blinked a few times before saying softly to himself, "I never will."
And Connor would never tell him.
Daniel was focused on Connor again, and his look was cold. "But even if you are a 'cousin,' Audren, I don't want you around my children. And I don't want you here."
Forthright as hell, and brave and stubborn, too. Even in the midst of his anger, Connor could admire the man. He relaxed his fingers, forcing fists to turn back into hands. "Look, Daniel," Connor began, but then the door to the sleeping room banged open, and Will rushed past and flung himself at his dad.
Alea was next, moving with a heavy grace, and then the three of them were enmeshed in a tangled hug. "Daddy," Will said, his voice muffled, and then he was openly weeping, and Alea joined in, something they had never done in front of Connor. Daniel sank to the floor with his children, rocking them in his arms, his eyes tight and his face twisted, and his face was wet with tears.
"Daddy," Alea whispered. "Oh, Daddy."
"Shhh," Daniel said, kissing the top of her head. "I'm here, sweetheart. I'm here."
Connor swallowed hard then walked out and left the family alone.
Cassandra opened to the door to the flat then opened her arms, and Connor came to her. They held each other tightly, his face buried in her hair. His breathing was uneven, a great shuddering breath followed by frozen silence, then a careful and controlled letting go. And then again. She said nothing, simply held him. She knew that Connor hated to cry.
She also knew that a death this sudden and traumatic piled shock on top of grief, and Connor had never lost a child in this way. She would not ask Connor for comfort today, though she longed to weep in his arms. She would comfort him.
After a time, his breathing steadied then he finally relaxed his hold. He rested his forehead against hers for a moment before stepping back. "You're bleeding," he said.
Cassandra looked down. The front of her robe was spotted with blood where the fragile skin had cracked. Again. "It'll be alright," Cassandra replied. Maybe by tonight she could take a bath. Maybe by then the infernal itching would have stopped. "Duncan said I should keep drinking to rehydrate. Would you like some tea? Or something else?"
Connor shook his head so Cassandra got herself a glass of water from the kitchen. Connor had moved to stand in front of the window in the sitting room, but his stare was unfocused. He hadn't shaved, and his braids needed to be redone. He had changed his clothes. His tunic was unadorned black, save for the red lacing at the throat, and his trousers were plain brown … mourning attire.
As Cassandra neared, he turned to nod at the bag he had set down near the door then said, "I brought your things from the hotel."
"Thank you," she replied. She needed toiletries, and she could use the clothes to travel to her safe house, though she wouldn't wear them after that. Elise's tastes in fashion were vastly different than Laina's had been.
Cassandra stood next to him in front of the window and took his hand. It was warm, but there was no strength in his grip. In the narrow street below them, an old man walked by, unsteady with his cane. A sparrow pecked for crumbs then flew to the flower boxes on the roof of a tea shop.
"How are Alea and Will?" she asked.
"Quiet," came the quiet response.
"Yes," she murmured. That ran in the family. "And the baby?"
"Fine."
"That's good," she said. That child would be even more precious now.
"Daniel's here," Connor told her. "With Alea and Will."
"Oh, yes. I'd forgotten about Daniel," Cassandra admitted.
"Alea called him yesterday, first thing."
Cassandra could feel his fingers twitching slightly within her hand. She took a deep breath before venturing, "So he's coming to the funeral?"
"I suppose." Connor's jaw flexed. "It'll be in the Highlands at the farm, Tuesday or Wednesday. I'll let you know. Oona's making the arrangements."
Cassandra nodded slowly at the ancient tradition: the women of the family took care of the lying in and the laying out. Births and deaths. The beginning and the end. "How's Colin?" Cassandra asked, for to lose a twin was to lose part of oneself.
"Silent."
That, too, ran in the family.
"How are you doing?" Connor asked, turning to her.
Like her skin: fragile and barely holding together while bleeding on the inside. Not just for Caorran; Cassandra had counted thirty-two people she knew on the list of the dead. But Connor didn't need to hear that, not today. "Coping," Cassandra answered.
Connor nodded and squeezed her fingers. They stood in silence again, hand in hand, and looked out the window at nothing.
When her water was gone, she tugged at his hand and let him to the bedroom. "Hold me?" she asked, because Connor was at his best taking care of others, and he needed to give before he would allow himself to receive. Cassandra moved cautiously to lie down on top of the covers, and Connor joined her there. They held each other in another silent embrace, her head on his shoulder, their legs and fingers intertwined.
The patch of sunshine slid across the floor.
"I'm so sorry, Connor," Cassandra said, her head resting in the hollow of his shoulder. She felt his swallow and then his nod. But he said nothing, so she tried knocking on the locked door of his grief. "Duncan said you were with her, at the end?"
Another nod, but more silence. Cassandra would have to open that door herself. It would do him good to talk, and Cassandra wanted to know. "Did she say anything?"
"She called me Daddy." He cleared his throat. "I should have realized then…"
He should have realized, he should have helped her, he could have saved her. Cassandra knew that litany of guilt and responsibility well. "Did she know?" Cassandra asked. "That she was going to die?"
"I think so." Connor spoke then, haltingly, of his daughter's last moments, of what she had said, of thinking she was fine, of the sudden gush of blood, of trying to help.
Of feeling her die.
He cleared his throat again. "I held her," he said. "Until Duncan came, with Will… She was growing cold by then. He…" Silence, for the space of three heartbeats, then: "He called her Mommy," Connor finished. "So I had to let her go."
He stopped talking, his jaw clenched tight, his eyes closed. Cassandra dried her own tears before he could see them then began, slowly, to kiss his away.
Connor woke to a dim room and a bleak world. Sara was dead. He closed his eyes, hoping to escape back into sleep, back into forgetfulness, if only for a little while. But sleep didn't come, and Cassandra woke and shifted against him. They both lay quietly, dry-eyed and holding hands. The silence was welcome. He'd talked enough.
After a long while, she drew a deep breath, let it out as if preparing for battle, then suggested, "Tea?"
He didn't want tea. He didn't even want whisky. But he supposed he should get up, and he should probably have something to drink. "Yeah," he said. "Thanks." In the kitchen he sat at the table, staring at nothing, while she put the kettle on.
"Would you like something to eat?" she asked him.
"No."
"Duncan said I should eat," she said next.
Connor looked up. She was standing in front of the stove with her hands down by her side, watching him. "Then you should eat," Connor agreed. She rummaged in the kitchen and moved the pots and pans about. After a while, she put a complete tea tray in front of him, complete with cup and saucer and spoon, a pot of tea inside a knitted cozy, and a bowl of sugar and a pitcher of milk.
A mug with a teabag would have been fine. He poured his tea and took a sip then set it down. It tasted of nothing.
Grief could do that, Connor knew. He and grief were no strangers. With Rachel and Heather and Alex, he'd known for a long while that the end was coming; they'd had time to prepare, to say goodbye. With Brenda, there'd been no time at all, just a sudden swerve on a rain-slick road with Brenda swearing in the seat next to him, and then that shattering collision. She'd been dead when he'd found her. He'd been the one to swear then, cursing God in his heaven and all of earth below. He'd lost others through the years: parents, friends, comrades-in-arms, lovers…
And every time, it hurt. Every time, grief would come, silent as a thief, stealing color and savor from the world, sliding a narrow blade deep in your heart and leaving it there. It had no handle, that blade. You couldn't pull it out. You had to wait until it worked its way out, twisting and cutting and hurting every damn time it moved. The scars from that blade never truly healed.
That grief, Connor knew.
But this time, with this grief, he couldn't feel that blade. He couldn't feel his heart. He felt … hollow inside, as if his heart had been twisted loose by an iron hand and then ripped out of his chest. It hurt to breathe.
Cassandra sat down at the table and started to eat. He didn't watch but he could hear: chewing sounds, a fork scraping on a plate, a knife clattering on a dish. She had a good appetite. Finally, the noises stopped. Connor focused on the one thing he could savor: avenging Sara's death. "I saw Erika this morning," he told Cassandra.
"Erika the Guardian from St. Hildegarde's?" Cassandra asked, her mug of hot chocolate in her hand. She had a thin chocolate mustache on her upper lip, dark brown against the sunburned look of her skin.
What other Erika would he be calling? "She gave me information on the bomb and a list of possible suspects," he said. "After she hired me as special consultant." Cassandra's eyebrows went up at that, and Connor leaned forward to explain. "There were nine bombs on around the perimeter of the second floor, and four in the interior," he said. "Each small enough for one person to carry, but taken together..."
Taken together, they'd taken out one floor and trapped the people above. Whoever had placed them had studied the architecture of the building. They'd had other engineering help, too. "I'm going to get some of the incendiary material and take it back to the lab for analysis. That could provide leads." He would have told Cassandra more, but she had set down her fork and knife and was staring at her plate, her lips tight.
Connor stopped talking. It was too soon. Too much. Cassandra was still healing, and she wouldn't understand half of what he was talking about anyway.
She stood, a wan, apologetic smile flickering on her lips then dying away. "Are you done?" she asked, motioning to his tea.
He'd had only that one sip, but the tea had gone cold. He nodded, and she carried the whole tray to the sink and poured the tea down the drain before clearing her own dishes away. "I'd like to wash now," she said, standing in front of the stove again, her hands fluttering in front of her blood-spotted robe.
Connor nodded and went to the sitting room. He read more of Erika's report, making notes and looking up details on the web, as water gurgled through pipes now and again.
The picture first appeared in a scrolling sidebar. He noticed the splash of color at the center: a splash of crimson, bright as rowan berries against white snow. He looked at it long enough for it to grow, filling the screen, and then suddenly red filled all his world.
That was Sara's blood.
That was Sara, in his arms. His daughter, dead.
Connor's hands were shaking, and he drew a trembling breath. Who the hell had taken that? And then posted it on the web for all the world to see? How could they? How dare they?
He scanned the nearby text, looking for a name, but found nothing. A search returned the picture a dozen times, different sizes, different sites. "Holy Mother of God," he prayed with mounting dread, then searched again. The picture was everywhere, on page after page, being forwarded to friends and shared. Connor felt sick. Nothing could stop it now.
Sara was being identified only as "one of the victims of the bombing." His face wasn't visible, and he wasn't identified at all, but Connor knew it was only a matter of time. Webhunters were persistent and legion.
He found the photographer's name, eventually. Raelle was twenty-three years old and French. She had come to London for a reunion.
The Phinyx reunion. The picture was on the Phinyx home page.
He was still staring at it in dumbfounded rage when Cassandra finally emerged from the bathroom and called, "Would you like something to eat now?"
He jabbed his finger at the screen and demanded, "Have you seen this?"
Cassandra came over and looked down. "Oh," she said softly. Her hand went to her mouth, and she shook her head slowly back and forth. "Oh, Connor."
"It's everywhere," he told her bitterly. "On every feed." Bloody vultures, feeding on other people's pain. He left the phone on the table and stood, pacing between the window and the wall. "The damn thing's gone viral."
Cassandra had picked up the phone, and she was looking at the screen. "It is a powerful image."
Image? It wasn't some artistic creation, dreamed up by some clove-smoking dilettante with wild hair who picked colors for symbolism or some abstract post-modernist urge. That red was blood. That "image" was his daughter, dying in his arms. That was Sara, dead.
"Perhaps … it may help," Cassandra added, looking up.
Connor stopped pacing and turned to her in disbelief. "What the hell does that mean?"
"Just that… some images have helped to turn the tide of a war." She shrugged one shoulder. "A powerful picture can change the mood of a people. Perhaps this might discourage more bombings." She looked down again, cradling the phone in her left hand while the fingers of her right hand reached out, as if to touch the damn thing.
Connor took two quick steps and slapped the phone from her hands. It skittered along the floor. Cassandra looked up and met his gaze unblinkingly. Her eyes were wide; her face was calm.
"Is that all this is to you?" he asked, quiet and fierce.
She shook her head, just a little."I don't under—"
"That picture is on Phinyx's home page." She must have noticed that. "The photographer," he added, "is one of you."
That last word whiplashed out, but Cassandra just shook her head again and said quietly, "I didn't know."
"Maybe not," he allowed. But that meant nothing. In fact, that made it worse. She didn't even have to give orders or make suggestions. Phinyx was her creation, and the women in it had been created in her image. Just like those blue-cloaked women in the park this morning, he realized, and gave a brutal bark of laughter at his own blindness.
"You've already made it just another part of your grand plan to change the world," he said, seeing it now. "You and your precious foundation." Blood-lapping harpies, the lot of them. Ready to use anyone and anything to further their goals.
He'd seen that before. Clearly, Cassandra had trained her disciples well.
"Are you saying," she asked him, now acting confused, "that you think I wanted Sara to die?"
"No," he replied coldly. "I think you don't even care." She hadn't talked about Sara today. Cassandra hadn't even cried.
He stood there, fists clenched and heart pounding, waiting for her to deny it—desperate for her to deny it—but all she did was to look back at him and not say a word. After a long, silent moment, he cursed her viciously in Gaelic for a cold-hearted bitch then turned and slammed his way out the door, cursing himself for a fool.
Only when his footsteps had faded did she dare to breathe, but she didn't move. First, she needed to figure out what she had done wrong. She'd been too long in the washroom, she knew. Men hated that. But it had been so hard to get clean. Her robe had been bloody on the inside, and threads and lint had grown into the healing skin. Picking them out caused more cracking, and she'd been peeling, too, leaving flakes of dead skin everywhere. She'd also washed her hair twice, trying to get rid of the smoky smell.
None of that mattered; she should never have left him alone that long.
And when he'd spoken of the bombers, she should have asked him questions and shown interest in what he was interested in. But the gleam in his eye had been wolfish in its hunger, and it had frightened her, so she had looked away. She shouldn't have. He was the one who had suffered the most; she should be helping him, not giving into her silly fears. She should be less selfish.
The time in the bedroom had gone well, she thought. He had seemed pleased with her, and they had fallen asleep together, which was a good sign. True, she hadn't offered him sex, but there had been no passion in him. She had read him correctly there. And she had offered him food and drink, several times.
But her biggest mistake today was the picture. She should have listened, not talked. He was obviously upset about it, and she had argued with him instead of agreeing. No wonder he'd gotten so angry with her. Although … he hadn't hit her, even though his fists had been ready. He'd only hurt her with words.
So far. Perhaps the pain would come when she apologized. Or maybe not. She wasn't sure. But if she did her best and pleased him, maybe he would forgive her, maybe he would only hit her a few times, and then it would be over. She didn't want him to be angry with her anymore.
She washed and dried the dinner dishes then put everything neatly away. She tidied the bathroom and packed her things. In the bedroom, she emptied the trash, changed the sheets, and made the bed. Then she stood in the middle of the room for a long moment, doing nothing.
Slowly, she walked back into the bathroom then stared at the woman in the mirror. The woman whose only thought was to please the man, no matter how much pain she was in or what he did to her. The woman who had no right to anger. The woman who asked permission for everything. The woman who wouldn't defend herself in any way.
The tamed one.
The slave without a name.
"Hello again," Cassandra said to the woman in the mirror, the woman she'd thought she had exorcised from her soul. "Hello, me."
Continued in "Freefall" - Connor on the prowl