Date: Fri, 15 Sep 1995 16:26:48 EDT Reply-To: Russ McMillan Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: Russ McMillan Subject: Dark Side, Part 4 of The Dark Side of the Mirror, Part 4 by Russet McMillan mcmillan@astro.psu.edu Duncan awoke with a start. He was sitting at a table before a cafe. He didn't recognize the street he was facing. It was daylight -- midmorning, from the angle of the sunlight -- and he had no memory of anything since late the night before. The other tables of the cafe were empty. A waiter stood up from cleaning one of them and turned to Duncan. "Would monsieur like another bourbon?" he asked, his lips tight with disapproval. Duncan blinked at the empty glass in front of him and raised it to his nose for a sniff. Bourbon, indeed. No wonder the waiter looked disapproving. But who had been drinking it? "No, ah -- how about a cafe au lait?" When the man had left, Duncan put his head in his hands and struggled to remember anything from the night before. He had not been drunk -- had he? Certainly no one had hit him over the head. So why couldn't he remember? There had been those strange visions that flashed into his mind, then the excessive anger at the Watcher who had followed him, then . . . nothing. "I really am going crazy," he whispered to himself, and winced as he recalled Michael Moore. The thought dredged up another foreign image: looking into a mirror, seeing Michael's face, and realizing that he had no memory of the past five hours. "Oh . . . no . . ." Duncan breathed, clutching his head. "Mac?" said a voice. Duncan's head snapped up and he felt for the sword under his coat. "Mac, it's me, Joe. Are you all right?" Dawson laid a hand on his friend's wrist. "Joe?" "Yeah." He pulled back a chair and eased himself into it, leaning his cane against the table. "Are you okay? You look kind of -- stressed." Duncan laughed humorlessly. "Stressed, yeah," he muttered, not meeting Dawson's gaze. The waiter reappeared with a steaming cafe au lait. Duncan gulped it down and asked for the check. He didn't ask if Joe wanted anything. With one eloquent twitch of his eyebrow, the waiter departed again. Joe was still watching Duncan with concern. "Amanda and Connor were looking for you all night," he said. "Connor?" "He arrived last night. You just missed him. I'm not sure why he's in Paris." Duncan rubbed his eyes. He didn't want to deal with Connor now. Not when he couldn't even trust himself around Amanda. Not when he didn't know what was going wrong. "What's the matter, Duncan?" Joe asked. Duncan shook his head. He couldn't put this into words. It was too . . . crazy. Instead, he asked, "How long have you been watching me, Joe?" "What?" Dawson was taken aback. "Nearly thirty years. You know that." "That's not what I meant. Last night. Were you watching me last night?" Joe sat back, his face shuttering. "No." "But someone else was, right?" "For a while. After you -- asked him to cease and desist, he went home." Duncan's jaw worked. No one could tell him where he had been last night. "How did you find me here?" he asked suddenly. Joe lifted his brows. "I was just on my way to the barge, to see if Connor and Amanda had managed to track you down. Then I saw you sitting out here." Duncan followed the line of Joe's waving hand and realized that the major street a block away was the Boulevard St. Germain. He sighed with relief; he had not wandered so far after all. "Francois said you were pretty hard on him last night," Joe said softly. "What was that all about?" Duncan wanted to give Dawson some explanation for his treatment of the Watcher, but he couldn't explain what he didn't understand himself. "I can't really say." He shook his head. "Introduce me to him," he said suddenly. "What?" "Introduce me to this Watcher. I'd like to -- apologize to him. In person." "Mac, you know I'm not supposed to --" "I've already met him. You don't have to tell me his name, rank, and serial number. I just want a chance to, to talk to him." He looked at Joe closely. "You would be sending him away in any case, wouldn't you, now that I've seen him?" Joe's pursed his lips, but he said nothing. He never confirmed or denied Duncan's guesses about the organization of the Watchers. "You want to meet him?" He gazed down the street, weighing the disadvantages. "All right. Come on, then." Duncan tossed some money on the table, then paused, looking thoughtfully at the empty bourbon glass. He added a few more francs to the pile and followed Joe down the street. "Is this where we're going?" Duncan asked as they paused before a small Latin Quarter hotel. At Joe's nod, Duncan looked about and pronounced grimly, "This doesn't look good." The area in front of the hotel was crowded with police cars. The building itself was cordoned off. "No, it doesn't," Joe agreed. "Let me make some calls." He pulled a portable phone from his pocket and crossed to the quieter side of the street, his eyes flicking over the activity around the hotel. Duncan waded into the crowd of onlookers, hoping to overhear something of use. As he drew near the front of the crowd, he recognized one of the police officials conferring at the door of the hotel. He pulled back quickly to the fringes, but it was too late; he had been seen. One of the figures broke away from the conversation and hurried toward him. Duncan dug up a smile from somewhere and pasted it on his face. "Inspector LeBrun," he said flatly as the other man approached. "It's been such a long time." "Too bad it couldn't have been longer," said the inspector sourly. Duncan lifted his hands. "I'll get out of your way right now, if you want," he said quickly. "No, I want to talk to you." LeBrun glanced around. "Come in here." He led the way to a service entrance and urged Duncan inside the hotel. They paused just inside the doorway, and LeBrun fixed Duncan with an accusing look. "What do you know about what happened here?" he demanded, gesturing at the hotel around them with his left arm. His right arm, partly crippled years ago by a bullet aimed at Duncan, stayed curled against his ribs. "Nothing at all," said Duncan with his best innocent look. "I was just passing by and saw the crowd, that's all. Has someone been murdered?" "How did you know that?" "I guessed. Why else would you be here? Who was the victim?" LeBrun regarded Duncan suspiciously. "One Francois Duhamel," he supplied at last. "Do you know him?" "Not . . . by that name. Did he have a tattoo on his wrist?" "Yes, dammit, you know he did!" Duncan was surprised at the Inspector's vehemence, but a more immediate concern troubled him. "He wasn't . . . strangled, was he?" Duncan breathed. Could he have damaged the man's throat somehow, in that brief encounter last night? "Of course he wasn't strangled! Stop playing games with me!" LeBrun exclaimed. "I don't know what you're talking about. How did he die?" "He was decapitated!" LeBrun spat. "With a sword. The signature method of you and your organization." Duncan was stunned. "But why would anyone . . . what organization?" LeBrun leaned toward Duncan's face as if trying to push him into the wall by sheer force of dislike. "You would know that better than I would. All I know is that we've gotten orders from someone very high up to stay away from you and any of your activities." "What?" "I know you're not the only one, Macleod. Other killings have happened here in Paris while you were on the other side of the world. I don't know how big your organization is, or what it does, but you tell your superiors this." He braced his good hand on the wall above Duncan's shoulder. "I don't care how many lives you've saved, I don't care how many times you've made the world safe for democracy or whatever it is you characters do, but you have _no_ business bringing innocent bystanders into your affairs. Do you realize how many lives were endangered by that power outage four days ago? Do you realize how hard it is to keep this out of the media? If I find out --" he jabbed Duncan's chest "-- that Francois Duhamel was just the ordinary citizen he seems to be, your friends in high places won't be able to protect you anymore. When the sheepdogs start preying on the lambs, they get the same treatment as the wolves." Duncan's mouth was open in shock. Someone in high places had been keeping the police away from the affairs of Immortals? Officials suspected that he was involved in Friday's power outage? What was going on, and who had beheaded the Watcher? "LeBrun, I -- I don't belong to any organization," he began. LeBrun spun away with a snarl. "Fine! Deny everything, if you want. You know we have no proof. But I'm no idiot, Macleod. I can see what's in front of my face. Other people can, too. It's about time you learned to cover your _own_ tracks." He pushed open the door and stalked out into the street. It took Duncan a few minutes to gather his wits enough to follow. It seemed he was not the only one going crazy -- the rest of the world was turning upside down too. At last he pushed his way out past a startled police guard and headed away from the hotel. Joe Dawson stepped in alongside him as he walked down the street. Duncan slowed his pace to accommodate Joe's hampered gait. "It was Francois," Joe said in a low voice. "Somebody found out about him and cut off his head -- probably to send us a warning." "I know," Duncan replied. Hesitantly, he told Dawson about the encounter with LeBrun. Joe's only reaction was a thoughtful frown. "What do you know about this?" Duncan demanded. "Who's keeping the police off my back?" "This is the first I've heard of such a thing directly," Joe said. "We did realize that law enforcers just about everywhere have held back on investigating Immortals almost since the beginning of the Gathering. Did you notice that all the detectives who began to be suspicious of you were reassigned or promoted soon after?" "I noticed that they stopped even getting suspicious just about the time I met you," Duncan said pointedly. "You think I had something to do with this?" Joe chuckled. "Do I look like someone 'very high up'?" "You might know someone who is," Duncan pointed out. "I don't belong to any secret organization, but you do." "Immortals _are_ a secret society, even if you aren't exactly organized. Older Immortals have the kind of knowledge and experience it takes to acquire plenty of power, and one of them would have a vested interest in concealing the Gathering." "You're not being straight with me, Joseph." Joe sighed and came to a stop, leaning on his cane. "Well, then, the answer is no. I don't know who's behind this. I don't believe it could be a Watcher, though. Interference is against all our rules." "Those rules have been broken before. You break them." Joe scratched at his beard. "The ones who break the rules are usually more interested in stopping the Gathering, or making things more difficult for Immortals. Why would they grease the wheels for you?" Duncan grimaced, but he had to concede the logic of the point. They continued down the steps to the quai. Duncan stopped short a few feet from the ramp of the barge. "What is it?" Joe asked. Duncan took a deep breath. "It's Connor, I guess. His quickening is still -- very strange." And Duncan was still very sensitive to the buzz. He straightened his shoulders with an effort and led the way onto the barge. =========================================================================