London, England – Early Monday morning, 19 October 2048

By the time Connor reached the park next to the bombed hotel, a light rain was falling. He sat at the base of the tree where Sara had died. A small white puddle glistened off to the side. He leaned over to touch it and felt the smooth hardness of wax. Someone had held a vigil here, lit by a candle flame. Perhaps there had been singing, too. Perhaps a group of girls.

Connor kept vigil in darkness and silence, alone.

The rain stopped. The night grew cold. A cat prowled by, padding silently through the grass. From a safe distance, it sat and regarded Connor solemnly, its eyes round and dark against pale fur. Then it walked away.

Fog arose, cold wisps of gray. An immortal came, walking slowly, and as soon as Connor recognized Duncan he let his hand fall away from the hilt of his sword. His kinsman sat beside him at the base of the tree, their shoulders almost touching, their beards and hair misted with tiny silver droplets. Rain came again, slanting sideways with each gust of wind, then slowed and stopped. Gradually, dark gray turned to lighter gray turned to pale grey, until somewhere beyond the clouds, the sun rose and morning came.

Another damn day.

"You look like hell," Duncan said.

Connor looked down. Shoes muddy, trousers dirty and torn, blood on his shirt and on his hands. He hadn't shaved or eaten or slept or combed his hair. "You should see the other guy," Connor said.

Duncan gave a half-grunt. "After Darius died, I got into a fight with a couple of skinheads in a bar. I wanted to hit somebody, and I didn't much care who."

"Did you kill anybody?"

Duncan shot him a wary glance. "No. Richie stopped me. Did you?"

"No." But he could have. The other guy was in hospital with a broken nose, two broken ribs, and probably a ruptured spleen. Connor had called for help then listened from a distance to the medic's field diagnosis.

Connor's teacher had often warned him: don't lose your temper in a fight, and Connor hadn't. He hadn't been angry or drunk or blind with battle-lust as he beat the other man bloody then kicked him when he was down.

He had been enjoying himself.

It had been deeply satisfying to hit someone and to have them hit back, to trade blows and share the pain. And when the other guy was down it felt damn good to just keep on hitting. And kicking. Connor leaned his head back against the tree and closed his eyes.

Shit.

He could have killed that man.

Duncan stood and offered his hand. Connor took it, relying on Duncan's strength in this as well. Connor didn't look back as they walked away from the place where Sara had died. There was nothing there.

On the way back to their hotel, Duncan said, "You have enough time to get cleaned up while I pack and settle the bill. After that, we can go with Alea and Will to the morgue, and then we'll all go home."

Connor nodded. It was time to leave.

But in the hotel hallway, while Duncan was still in the lobby talking to the concierge, Connor met Daniel and Alea and Will just outside their door, all carrying bags. "Sensei Mike!" Will called in greeting, then peered more closely. "Are you alright? You look like you've been fighting."

"More like drinking," his father murmured.

"Both," Connor informed him curtly but then caught the flash of disappointment and disillusion in Will's eyes. "It's been … a rough couple of days," Connor explained, and breathed a little easier when Will nodded. Connor turned to Alea. "I'll be ready to go in twenty minutes."

"Oh, but—" She tilted her head like an inquisitive kitten, but her dark blue eyes went narrow instead of wide.

His wife Alex used to get that look, that same curious stare. Connor could remember watching her—across the kitchen table, in bed, in front of the fire… What would Alex have done, he wondered suddenly, if she had learned that their daughter was dead? He was fiercely glad he did not have to tell her, but he wished they could be together now. He needed her.

"Didn't you get my message?" Alea was asking.

"No." He hadn't checked his phone at all.

Daniel stepped in. "Alea told that me your girlfriend was caught in the blast, too. I'm very sorry."

He sounded utterly sincere. Connor managed a nod.

"Dad thought that we should take care of Mom," Alea said, her eyes concerned and kind, "so that you could take care of Laina."

And how in the hell, Connor thought, could he argue with his granddaughter about that?

"Will there be a memorial service?" Daniel asked.

Before Connor could say anything, Will volunteered, "I remember Sister Laina said once she wanted her ashes scattered in the sea."

On Saturday night, Connor had flushed burned bits of Cassandra down the toilet. They might get to the sea, eventually. But she was immortal. She would live forever. No matter how many people died around her, Cassandra would be fine. She would cope.

"You'll let us know?" Alea asked.

All three of them were looking at him expectantly, waiting for an answer, so Connor told them the truth: "Her family was the Sisterhood." Her life was devoted to Phinyx. "Her memorial will be the ceremony at St. Anne's Academy tonight."

"She'd like that," Will said with a nod.

"Is her niece going to be there?" Alea asked.

Connor got to tell the truth again. "I don't know."

"We were invited to the memorial ceremony," Daniel said, "but we talked about it and decided not to go."

Connor wasn't going to go, either.

"We'll see you at Uncle Colin's farm tomorrow at three, Cousin Mike," Alea said and kissed him on the cheek. Will solemnly shook his hand. Daniel gave him a nod. Then the three of them went into the elevator and disappeared, leaving Connor alone in the hall.

They didn't check out that morning. There was no hurry now. After he showered, Connor forced himself to eat breakfast. The eggs and fruit and toast tasted of nothing.

"What did Cassandra do?" Connor asked, crushing a crumb between his finger and his thumb. "When you told her?"

Duncan looked up from his breakfast, his eyebrows raised. "She cried."

So Cassandra had shed tears. But not in front of him. Duncan's eyebrows had lowered to the point of curiosity, and Connor pushed back his chair and stood. "I'm taking a nap," he announced.

He slept until noon. When he woke, he asked Duncan, "Want to go running?"

Duncan eyed him thoughtfully and replied, "No."

Connor ran the paths in Hyde Park for an hour at a pace that left him gasping, then went to buy water from the café near the lake. Someone had placed a large print of that damned Pieto picture on the window near the door.

"I heard it's the husband holding her in that picture," said a woman to her friend as they went in.

Connor gritted his teeth but said nothing. Daniel hadn't even been in the country on that day. How the hell did these stories get started? Connor got his water and got the hell out of there. He circled a group of enthusiastic young footballers and dodged a fellow on a unicycle, then found a secluded spot near the long, narrow pond.

The water in front of him was dark green and littered with faded, floating leaves. The water in the bottle tasted of chlorine and metal. A duck paddled slowly by. Behind him, came the steady beat of horses' hooves at the trot. When that faded, Connor forced himself to think about something he didn't want to remember.

He'd been wrong yesterday when he'd accused Cassandra of not caring. Duncan had said that she had cried, and Connor had watched her with his family over the past fifty years. She cared.

But Cassandra had spent centuries hiding her emotions, and yesterday she'd built a wall around herself and kept him outside. He'd seen that blank-faced reserve in her before, but for decades now she'd been more open with him, and he'd forgotten. So when she'd gone on about that picture and then just stood there, saying nothing, simply looking at him with empty and uncaring eyes…

He'd overreacted. That frozen silence of hers always drove him mad.

Literally. He'd already been angry at half a dozen things, and he'd lost his temper and taken it out on her. He'd accused her unfairly and called her vicious names. Later that night, still angry, he'd lashed out at Methos and then beaten a mortal into the ground.

Connor took another drink, swallowing quickly to avoid the taste. At least he hadn't hit Cassandra. Or killed her. There had been no blood on his hands that time, no one lying at his feet gagging in pain. And he wasn't enjoying any of this at all.

Shit.

Connor finished his water then stood and took out his phone. He wrote Methos a message first, to thank him for his concern, then selected Cassandra's name. He didn't want to talk to her, not yet, but he'd made her a promise, and Connor MacLeod kept his word. "The funeral's on Tuesday at three," he sent. He stared at it for a moment before responding to her messages from the night before: "I'd like to talk with you, too."

Cassandra answered within the minute: "Thank you. I'm halfway to the Highlands right now. Looking forward to seeing you soon."

Connor closed his phone and decided he would go to the memorial service after all. When he asked Duncan if he wanted to go, this time his kinsman said yes.

Like most Gaian ceremonies, the memorial service was long on music and short on words. Connor appreciated that. After an opening solo, people in green robes led the crowd in a Jewish remembrance responsorial, going through all the seasons of the year and the times of the heart while people murmured, "We remember them" after each line.

Another song followed, then the names of the dead were called, one by one, as a bell tolled in a high tower of the school, a deep echo felt in the bones. A higher-toned bell followed whenever a child's name was called. The names weren't in any order that Connor could discern, and people listened intently for the ones they knew. "Sister Laina Garrison" was announced by a man with a black beard; ten minutes later a teenage girl called out: "Sara Heather MacLeod" then added "Sister Caorran." Duncan placed his hand on Connor's shoulder as Connor bowed his head and murmured his daughter's names again, and the bell tolled once more.

When the calling of the names was complete, an older woman wearing a black veil that floated like smoke from her head to her knees came forward. Her amplified voice reached across the crowd to the stone walls that surrounded the lawn. "At birth, we each come from the body of our mother," she intoned. "At death, our bodies go back to the Mother. Yet our soul is a mystery, in its coming and in its going. The light from the sun touches the earth each day, yet night always comes. Our sisters and brothers have gone into the night, as each of us shall someday."

Musicians began playing, and people sang together. Then silence fell, and the woman in the black veil repeated the final line from the responsorial: "We remember them. So long as we live, they too shall live, for they are now a part of us."

Hundreds of voices spoke in unison: "We remember them."

With heads bowed, people murmured "So let it be" and then it was over. Music started, a quicker tempo than before, and people stepped forward to add offerings and mementos to the shrine at the base of the oak tree before they left. Black-cloaked Guardians had formed a long line of honor guards along the paths. Connor spotted Erika not far away.

"I want to talk to her before we go," Connor said.

"Then I'm finding a loo," Duncan replied and wandered off. While Connor was waiting for Erika, a short woman (whom Connor did not remember or recognize) thanked him profusely for his help on Saturday. A few people recognized Connor from his time at St. Hildegarde's and told him they were sorry about Laina. Connor thanked them.

Eventually, the Guardians broke rank, and Connor hailed Erika. She joined him near the cold stone of the perimeter wall, looking more tired now than she had yesterday at dawn. "Mike," she greeted him. "I'm glad to see you here."

"I'm glad I came," Connor said.

She nodded. "We usually do the Naming of the Dead at the end of October. People need the chance to say goodbye."

Saying goodbye was another way of letting go. He wasn't good at that. Cassandra was. She'd walked away from her families before, as had Methos. Duncan had, too. But Connor couldn't. Not fourteen years ago when Connor MacLeod had 'died.' Not now.

"Do you know if Laina's niece came?" Erika asked.

"Elise told me she couldn't," Connor replied, helping to build Cassandra's new identity. "She's out of the country."

"Have you met her?"

Connor nodded. "She looks a lot like her aunt. It's almost uncanny."

"That happens sometimes," Erika replied absently, her gaze scanning the thinning crowd.

"Any new intel?" Connor asked.

Erika turned back to him, interested now. "The police confirmed the second explosion was a gas line. It wasn't planned."

Not as vicious as it could have been, but that didn't matter. People had still been killed.

She grimaced. "I've been assigned to look into our own."

"For spies and traitors?"

"Yes, and for someone utterly committed to the Phinyx cause."

That brought Connor up short, but only for a moment. Fanatics could convince themselves of anything, and what quicker way to energize a movement than by planting a small bomb and becoming victims? They'd gotten huge amounts of free publicity, plus supportive speeches from elected officials and an outpouring of public sympathy.

"Temple attendance is up," Connor observed. He'd read the reports on Sunday afternoon. "So are online visits, by a factor of a five." Thanks, in no small part, to that infernal picture. Phinyx also now had more than a hundred martyrs, including a Gaian high priestess and two dozen children. And perhaps the fanatic herself. "Suicide martyr?" Connor asked.

"Could be," Erika replied. She sighed. "At first, I didn't think it was possible for one of our own to do this, but … some people are getting desperate. They keep saying there's not enough time."

Cassandra said that. Quite often.

"Gaians believe in reincarnation," Erika said, "so it's possible someone believed that the spread of their message was worth the lives of a few hundred people who will soon be reborn." She straightened her shoulders and concluded grimly, "It's a murder investigation, so anyone with opportunity, means, and motive is a suspect—dead or alive."

The late "Laina Garrison" had been utterly devoted to the Phinyx cause. But Cassandra wouldn't—

She couldn't have.

No.

"Let me know," Erika was saying, and Connor focused on her long enough to agree and to say goodbye. Then he leaned his back against the wall, his palms flat against the roughness of stone, pushed down all emotion, and once again forced himself to think.

Cassandra—with twenty-some other people—had gone outside just before the bombing. Had leaving the hotel been Cassandra's idea?

She didn't know much about bombs (at least, Connor didn't think so), but she knew people who did. And with the Voice, she could compel them to do whatever she asked, and then forget it completely. She'd had easy access to the hotel, and many opportunities during the first two days of the reunion to place the bombs. Or to order someone else to do it.

She had opportunity. She had means.

Her motive was Phinyx. It was her passion, her purpose, her new-found "prophecy" of a better world. That damned picture had made it clear that Cassandra was willing to use whatever—and whoever—came to hand to further that cause. Including Sara's death. Including him. Again.

Maybe she'd been willing to sacrifice strangers. Maybe her grief over Sara was compounded by guilt. Maybe, after thousands of years, Cassandra couldn't truly care, not deep down, because love was just a thin layer, pretty paint over an ice-cold core of millennia of ruthless pragmatism and self-centeredness. She was an immortal, after all.

So was he. Maybe one day, he would be the same way.

Duncan returned and asked, "Should we eat before we catch the train?" They went to dinner in a restaurant nearby. Connor silently toyed with his food, remembering how far Cassandra gone in the past, still debating with himself just how far Cassandra would go today.

On the train ride north, staring out at the dark countryside flickering by, Connor decided that Cassandra hadn't set the bomb. He didn't think she would do such a thing.

He wanted to know.

Continued in "End of Innocence" - Connor hears some hard truths