Date: Mon, 6 Mar 1995 17:50:54 +0000 Reply-To: Grail Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: Grail Subject: "Box of Tricks" Part 7 Suddenly realised I hadn't posted this, though it's been sitting in my filestore for the best part of a week. Sorry, folks. :) Grail. HIGHLANDER "Box of Tricks" by Mark Overton Part 7 Alyson Carling sat with the mug of steaming coffee cupped in her hands, staring at an uncomfortable Richie in silence. Standing a short way away, near the dojo flat's kitchen area, Duncan watched with folded arms. Renee Delaney sat on a stool beside him. "What are you going to do now?" Delaney asked after a while. "Pull myself together," Duncan said tersely. "The Magician's just been running rings around us all this time. Malcolm's death should never have happened. I could have prevented it." "You're blaming yourself." It wasn't a question. "That's one of the things they always used to warn us about when we were training. Accidents happen, Duncan." Delaney sighed heavily. "I could go out and get drunk right now, blaming myself for Paris' death. I was the one who sent him to follow the Magician." Duncan pulled another stool away from the kitchen area and sat down on it, next to Delaney. "So we can both drown our sorrows later. Right now, I need some information. And help." "Why? What are you planning?" "I'll tell you later." She shook her head. "No. You can tell me now. I'm sick of following you round like a pet dog who provides services when you ask. I want to know what it is you're planning. And I want to know what's going on between those two," she nodded in the direction of Richie and Alyson, "and why it's relevant to what's going on right now. For starters, you can tell me how Richie survived an explosion which would have killed any normal person." Duncan took a deep breath. "Alright." Over by the sofa, Richie finally took a deep breath, unconsciously echoing Duncan's actions. "Ally, stop staring at me like that. You're starting to make me itch." She lowered her eyes to the coffee and hesitantly took a sip of the dark liquid. Then she looked back at him. "I'd say I was sorry, Richie, but it's more anger than sorrow. What the hell is going on? Why didn't you tell me you were still alive? For that matter, how did you survive? What is going on with that woman?" Richie hesitated for a moment, then nodded. "Alright. I'll tell you some of it, but I can't tell you everything. It isn't safe." "Safe?" "You saw what she's like," Richie said. "She kills people just like that." He snapped his fingers and saw her flinch reflexively. "Duncan has an old vendetta with her. I got involved by accident and now we're both doing our level best to stop her killing everyone in sight." Alyson frowned. "That doesn't explain how - " "How I survived the explosion in your dad's study," Richie completed for her. "No, I know it doesn't. I can't explain that bit." "Can't or won't?" "Won't," Richie said bluntly. "Ally, we haven't been going out long, no more than a few days. I can't trust you with the deep stuff because it's just too dangerous for you and for me. You've got involved in something that's way beyond you here. It's better if you don't probe too deeply." "Why?" "You might find out the truth." The Magician let herself into her flat at 7:30 am, closed the door, and promptly dived into the shower, clothes still on. She felt exhilarated, boosted, like her whole body was rushing with energy. Which indeed it was, the Quickening of Malcolm Marsden shivering through her bones and sending sparks through her body with every movement she made. She shed her clothes under the water and just stood there, letting the cold water rush over her body. When she'd finished, she stepped out of the shower and dried herself off before pulling on a white robe and wrapping it tightly around her. Padding barefoot through the flat, she sat down at the computer and called up the data gathered so far on Duncan Macleod's residence. That he was connected with Richie Ryan was a surprise, and not altogether a welcome one. Things were turning out to be more linked than she would have liked, and Duncan had always been a more difficult challenge than Malcolm Marsden. She connected up to the airline mainframe and booked a ticket home to England with a sigh. One out of three was good enough for her, and she guessed Macleod would be making one of his periodic forays to Paris later in the year. She could always catch up with him them. Renee Delaney let her breath out in a whoosh. "I knew you were an older man, Macleod, but I never guessed how much by." "All it takes is some good skin cleanser and immortality and you're done," Duncan shrugged deadpan, hiding the unease he was feeling. It had taken a certain amount of courage to tell Delaney about the Game; the action was uncomfortably reminiscent of when he had finally confessed to Tessa, all those years ago, what he was. "And the Magician? How old is she?" "Nine hundred. Minimum." "Ye gods." Duncan nodded. "Difficult to believe, I know, but - " "I'm not having difficulty believing, I'm having great ease getting depressed." Delaney looked down at the floor of the dojo. "All this time I've been talking about trying to catch a woman who's lived more than ten times as much as I have." She had a faintly shell-shocked expression on her face. "I was treating her just like an unusual criminal...jeez." "We're ordinary people. Just long-lived," Duncan remarked. He rose from his stool and crossed into the kitchen area, switching the kettle on again as he prepared to make some more coffee. "Now, listen. The only real lead we have is Anthony Fowler, the stockbroker." Delaney twisted on his stool to follow him. "How many of you are there? I take it Richie's like you?" Duncan grimaced. "Can we stick to the subject of the Magician?" "We are. She's immortal as well. How many of you are there?" "Anthony Fowler," Duncan said firmly. Delaney sighed. "What about him?" "What information can you get on him?" "What sort do you want?" Duncan thought about it. "Fowler was supposedly married to the Magician. It may just have been a lie, but if it isn't there'll be a marriage licence of some kind that might give an address. That's worth trying. Do you have Fowler's address?" "There's nobody there now." "It's still worth trying." Delaney nodded. "Alright." Then she grinned. "As long as you tell me a bit more about you people on the way there." +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ENGLAND. 1806 "Duncan! Stop it!" Duncan turned from reaching towards the glass just in time to see Jane appear from between two white-haired old men who had been discussing Napoleon's actions. She had a reproving expression on her face. "You've had too much to drink and you know it." "I havena even had three yet," Duncan protested. Jane hooked her arm through his. "Of course you haven't," she agreed blithely. "Come and meet someone instead." Duncan groaned but submitted as she pulled him gently through the crowd of people in the ballroom. "I dinna ken why I let ye bring me tae all these gatherings of yours. They're always so slow." "Stately," Jane corrected him. "What's the difference?" She giggled. "Slow is bad and stately isn't. I thought that was obvious. Ah, there he is. Malcolm!" A slim dark-haired man turned and his eyes met Duncan's in a second. Both of them saw the depth of unnatural age in each other's souls. "Duncan Macleod," Jane introduced them, "Malcolm Marsden." "Pleased tae meet ye," Duncan nodded, shaking hands. "And you. You must be Jane's close confidant," Marsden said pleasantly, passing Duncan a glass despite Jane's grimace of displeasure. "She's told me a lot about you." "Oh aye? I hope it wasnae all bad." "Not all of it," Malcolm smiled. "I didn't tell you anything bad," Jane said in affectionate mock annoyance, linking her arm in Duncan's again, effectively preventing him from lifting his glass to drink. "I admit only to undue pride in him." Duncan switched hands and took a gulp of wine from his glass, not daring to look at Jane's expression and concentrating on Marsden instead. "Are ye married, Malcolm?" Malcolm shook his head. "No. I keep hoping, of course." He grinned. "Ye ken, they say it's a universal truth that a single man in possession of a good fortune is in want of a wife," Duncan observed. Jane's eyes widened. "Duncan!" "Ooops, sorry," he chuckled. "You promised you wouldn't talk about my scribblings in polite company," Jane reproached him. "They're only a casual interest." "And I've told ye they shouldn't be hidden in the closet like some guilty secret," Duncan responded. "Ye should be proud ye have a talent, Jane." "Indeed," Malcolm agreed. A darker-haired woman dressed in light blue appeared out of the crowd, her face unmistakeably from the Austen genetic inheritance. "Excuse me, Duncan, Malcolm, I'm going to have to take Jane away from you. Our mother would like a word." "Of course, Cassandra," Duncan said instantly. "Is she still unwell?" Cassandra, Jane's sister, sighed heavily. Her clear eyes, blue unlike her sister's brown, went dull for a second. "I think it is grief that afflicts her, Duncan, more than anything else." "Excuse us, Duncan, Malcolm," Jane requested, slipping her arm from the former and guiding Cassandra back through the crowd. "Poor girls," Malcolm said. "The death of their father still weighs heavily upon them, even though it was more than a year ago. "Aye," Duncan agreed. "Malcolm, a word. Ye ken I'm like ye." Marsden glanced sideways at him. "Yes." "I'm nae someone who runs away from a fight," Duncan said, "but I dinna think we should start one now. Do ye?" Malcolm relaxed and smiled. "I was hoping you'd say that." +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Anthony Fowler's flat was on the ground floor of the four-storey building, so Duncan and Renee Delaney got a clear look inside the big main window as the car drew up outside. They got out and Delaney unlocked the door with the key she had in her pocket. Inside, the flat already smelled faintly musty, as if the absence of an inhabitant was communicating itself through odours, even though it had been no more than a day and a half since Fowler's death. "Study's through here," Delaney said, leading the way into a small room dominated by an old-fashioned mahogany rolltop desk. Duncan sat down in the green leather swivel chair in front of it and pushed the rolltop back to reveal neatly sorted papers, pigeonholed in the desk's various sections. "Not much chance of finding anything here," Duncan observed. "Why?" "Too obvious. The Magician won't have missed this. When she dumped Fowler's body she'll have checked here." "It's worth a try, though. Move out of the way if you don't want to check the stuff." Delaney pushed him out of the chair and sat down herself, beginning to go through the papers stowed in the desk. Duncan moved away from the desk and studied the layout of the room thoughtfully. The study was like a square with one corner dog-eared, the door on this small diagonal piece of wall. Against the far corner of the room was the desk. There were bookshelves along the walls, the books neatly arranged into categories. "She didn't check the books," Duncan noted. He could see the thin veneer of dust over the volumes hadn't been disturbed, and judging by the amount of dust the books had not been touched since before Fowler's murder. On the off-chance, Duncan began to pull books from the shelf and look at the wall behind. "That's the oldest trick in the book, if you'll pardon the expression," Delaney observed absently. "Nobody puts safes behind bookshelves anymore. You should have realised that by now." "There's always the - " Duncan broke off, staring at one book thoughtfully. "What?" Attention caught by his interrupting himself, Delaney raised her head and looked round. "This book." Duncan showed it to her. She read the title. "*Dead Souls*, Nikolai Gogol. So?" "This is book two," Duncan said. "Gogol wrote book two, then burned it in a fit of religious fervour when on his deathbed. It's one of the great mysteries of literature, what *Dead Souls II* would have been like." "Then how did Fowler get it?" Delaney asked sceptically. Duncan opened the book and looked at the title pages. "This has been published privately, a long time ago. He could only have got it off the Magician, probably by stealing it." "How does that help us?" Delaney wanted to know. Duncan grinned. "Simple. Especially when there's an address inside on a piece of paper. Fowler must have decided to keep note of her address in something that reminded him of her." "How did you know it would be there?" "Lucky guess." =========================================================================