Disclaimers in part 0 ------------------------------- Duncan breathed again. Finished with his task, he began collecting the blankets. Methos glanced at him. "What are you doing?" Methos asked. "I have some loose ends to tie up," Duncan replied. He moved to the fire-ring and, reaching past two of the children, he took out a burning brand. Cassandra studied him from the fireside where she had two trout skewered on a stick, her face unreadable. "Where are you going?" Methos asked. "You stay here until I get back. I may be the whole morning." "I want some fish, too," said Sarah. "In a minute, Sarah," Methos said, inching her off of his lap and getting to his feet. "Wait for me, MacLeod. I'm coming with you." "No. I'm going alone." "Adam!" called Sarah. Duncan watched as Methos hesitated, glancing from Sarah to Cassandra, and back to Duncan. "Sarah needs you," Duncan said. It worked. Methos' shoulders slumped in defeat. "Cassandra," Duncan said, "keep everyone inside…" he gestured at the perimeter of what seemed to be her illusion. "You know." Cassandra nodded, still watching him impassively. A few of the children marked his armful of strips and blankets curiously, but they were mostly too excited about breakfast to pay him much heed. Satisfied, Duncan left, his growling stomach complaining that he had left the fish behind. He traveled stealthily, and the dawn light brightened to early morning around him, bringing some tentative warmth to the forest. He hoped it wasn't too late to lay his trap. He reached the dugout cove he had spotted alongside the river, and set up camp. His first challenge was to light a big enough fire to be spotted -- not easy given yesterday's rain. How *had* Cassandra managed that? Still, he did find some brush that had been sheltered sufficiently to burn, and that produced an abundance of black smoke rising against the gray sky. He then arranged the blankets to resemble sleeping children, wrapped himself in a blanket, and made himself comfortable on the ground in plain view, by the smoldering fire. He waited. The forest never lightened much, for the sky was still overcast. He kept his senses tuned to the ordinary forest sounds, knowing they would quiet at the approach of inexpert humans, but after time, he let his mind wander. He saw again the still faces of the four murdered adults at the lodge. He thought of their youth, and of the admirable work they had been doing with underprivileged children. His slow fury began to smolder and spark within him. The violence in the banlieues made almost daily headlines. The later generations of colonial African immigrants to France were literally marginalized to the outer edges of the larger cities, where their educational and economic opportunities were almost nonexistent. The resentment among the young there ran high, and ran often to violent rebellion. Added to that was the growing, largely unabashed racism of the white population, fed by the National Front, a legitimate but racist political party, and even by President Chirac, who had once complained about the "noise and smell" of the growing immigrant population. Duncan remembered the hate crimes, the "Rat Hunts," and what was to him even worse: the Neo-Fascist snipers who, from banlieue rooftops, shot and killed children on their playgrounds. Duncan itched to get his hands on these killers. *Let the bastards come.* A part of him marveled at his own willingness to lie in wait for his prey rather than comb the mountain forest for them. But from somewhere had come an immense coldness within him, a kind of hate that could wait hours or centuries for its dark fulfillment. If they never came, he would still find them. Find them and kill them -- slowly. And an equally cold but detached part of him had evaluated and estimated his odds of success in a hunt, given the obscuring rain which would have hidden trailsign. No, a trap was his best chance. He fully expected to be killed in his "sleep" in the initial attack. In fact, he was counting on it. So he waited, hating. He was not disappointed. The forest sounds stilled suspiciously, and Duncan's expert hearing detected the approach from above his camp of at least three men. He tried not to tense, but his skin crawled in expectation of piercing or explosive pain. He took deep breaths. The knife, which pierced his side, slicing skin, muscle, and some internal organ, did not kill him right away. He convulsed with a slight cry, and then held himself still as every instinct cried out to remove the knife, the source of burning, fiery agony. Blood welled up in his esophagus, smothering him with a coppery taste. As pain and oxygen deprivation began to take his consciousness, he reached discreetly to remove the knife. The new slice of fire it caused coming out was his last memory. And then he was back. He managed to disguise his first gasping intake of air; this was not the first time he'd needed to remain unnoticed as he returned from the dead. Fortunately, nearby voices covered any sound he made. "Je ne le crois pas!" cried one voice. "Qu'un idiot!" said another. Duncan risked the barest peek under his eyelashes. At first he saw only the red puddle he lay in, but then he made out four men, their backs to him. They were all bald-headed, wearing forest camouflage fatigues, and one of them had a swastika tattooed on the back of his neck. Two men held automatic rifles -- he couldn't make out the type -- hanging from shoulder slings. They all looked at the blanket bundles, which Duncan could see were riddled with bullet holes. He waited. He was not yet fully healed. "Marcel!" one of them called. " Monte ici!" "Le piège quel stupide." The tattoo'd man kicked irritably at a blanket bundle. "Et maintenant il est mort." A fifth man clambered up from the stream side of the camp. "Merde!" he exclaimed. "Où les marmots sont?" "Il était hors dans l'ouvert," complained tattoo-guy. "Qu'a il pensé qu'il faisait?" The newcomer planted a vicious kick in Duncan's side. "C'est a chier," he swore. Duncan seized the man's ankle, and wrenched it down with an immense twist. Newcomer-guy flew off his other leg and came smashing face down in the dirt. Duncan was on his feet, and then off them again, delivering a roundhouse-kick to the side of the nearest man's skull. It made a satisfying crunching sound. "Fils de pute!" cried tattoo-guy, just before Duncan kicked him in the balls with the force it would have taken to kick in a heavy door. Two men remaining. One brought his AK-47 to bear, and froze as Duncan smiled at him. Still holding rifle-guy's stunned gaze, Duncan saw with peripheral vision the other man rushing him for a tackle. Without looking directly at him, Duncan smashed his fist precisely in the man's teeth. His head snapped back, and his legs flew forward, out from under him. He hit the ground like a felled tree. A single fast grab, and the rifle was in Duncan's hands, the sling tangled around the last man's shoulder and elbow. He stumbled to one knee, and a single wrench on the rifle dislocated his shoulder. The man pitched forward, yelling in agony. Duncan threw the guns aside, but held the full-size folding combat knife that had inexpertly skewered him. If they gave him any trouble, he preferred to threaten them in the more intimate manner a knife afforded. Starting with the first man he had downed, whom he suspected was not so badly hurt, he gagged and bound all five men. He bent them forward at the waist, and tied their wrists to their feet. He enjoyed the looks of unbridled terror that the three men who were reasonably conscious gave him from behind their gags. Smiling, he admired the knife, a well made folder with a black oxidized blade, dual stud opener, and a right hand rolling lock, and, still smiling, deliberately slit each man's wrists. Then, throwing the longer pieces of canvas strips over tree branches, he hoisted each man into the air until he was hanging like a deer carcass. Three of the men struggled and moaned, their wrists oozing out blood that ran in ribbons down their arms. Duncan laughed to see them. They would die slowly, and he could savor it. But first, a dip in the stream. Duncan cleaned himself as well as he could, including the unfortunate side effects of unconsciousness and death, and had just begun to think about lunch, when he detected the approach of an immortal. He climbed out on the bank and wrung out his shirt. "MacLeod?" he heard a strange note in Methos' voice. "Here," he called back cheerfully. He felt immensely relieved to have the threat of the killers removed. Now the gray day seemed fresh and cheery. When Methos didn't respond, he put on his damp shirt and returned to the hanging men. Methos stood there with his sword out. "This is your work?" he asked, his eyes in shadow. Uneasy at the sight of a sword in another immortal's hand, Duncan asked "What's the matter with you?" "What's the matter with me?" Methos asked in an unbelieving tone. "Since when do you torture people?" "It's not torture …" Duncan reconsidered. "Well, it's no more than they deserve. Would you put your sword away?" Three pairs of bloodshot eyes watched the two immortals from their upside-down position. The other two pairs were closed. "MacLeod, Kronos liked to hang his victims like this. Like animals hunted down and slaughtered. This is not you." "Kronos? What are you talking about? These men are evil. But now we can go get help for the children." "Evil? Yes, they probably are, if anything is. I'm not concerned about them. I'm concerned about you." Methos looked from Duncan to the hanging men and back to Duncan. He switched to speaking in Chinese, giving Duncan a slight jolt as his own mental gears made the switch. "Duncan, every immortal in the Game has to rationalize a reason for killing, if they have any kind of a civilized veneer at all. You kill evil immortals. Good enough. But *they* are not immortal." "So?" Duncan responded in English. "Why are you defending them? Recognizing your own kind, maybe?" Methos also returned to English. "If Ingrid had done this, what would you do?" "I can't believe I'm arguing morality with a rapist, a torturer, and a mass murderer. You must have been laughing your ass off over Ingrid. My moral dilemma. This is no dilemma. These men are dangerous. We know it was them who did it. And, they killed me at the start of our little encounter. I don't need a judge and jury." "Neither did Ingrid." "She killed a cop!" "And before that?" "I'm protecting the children! Are you so far regressed to the Horseman of the Apocalypse that you can't see that? Put your sword away, Methos, or we can finish it here!" Methos stepped back, putting distance between them, but his sword never wavered. "Protecting the children means tying them up and fetching the gendarmes. Not bleeding them for fun." "Bleeding them?" Duncan repeated as his mind whirled. Of course he was bleeding them. He needed to bleed them because … he didn't need to bleed them. His world tilted under him and his pulse pounded in his ears. He hadn't needed to do that. He stared at the hanging figures and blinked. The forest seemed to suddenly have a different focus. He saw what he had done. "Methos. Help me get them down. Now." He moved forward, reaching for the knife. Methos stood aside, still holding his sword. "You get them down. I'll stand here and watch." Duncan was too horrified to be angry with him. He went to work cutting the canvas strips holding the first man, and lowered him to the ground. In a few moments he had them all down and used the canvas strips to bind the cuts on their wrists. Methos watched it all, impassively. When he had finished, Duncan looked up apprehensively and summoned his Chinese again. "Why did I do that?" he asked, his voice trembling a little. Also switching back to Chinese, Methos replied, "At a guess, I'd say you haven't completely assimilated Kronos and Caspian." Duncan considered that. It explained some things. "Is it a dark quickening?" he asked with dread. Methos shook his head. "You tell me." "It seems different," he said after a moment. "But I've never had trouble with quickenings before." "They were both very old, Duncan," Methos answered, and, for the first time, Duncan thought the hostility and suspicion in the other immortal's tone was softening. "What does that mean?" Methos shrugged and put away his sword. "It's supposed to mean something. Hence the legend of Methos and his so-powerful quickening." Duncan looked down at his still bound and gagged captives. "I was going to kill them. Slowly, so I could enjoy their fear." His empty stomach roiled and he felt suddenly light-headed. "Funny thing about that …" Methos said. Duncan stood and leaned a hand on a tree. "What?" "You didn't do it right. I'm not sure how committed you really were to it." Duncan looked at him. Methos walked along the prisoners, frowning. "When you drain blood from a carcass, where do you cut?" "The throat. But I told you, I wanted them to die slowly." Methos shook his head. "So did Kronos. He would carefully puncture the jugular, so the blood drained more slowly. But it *would* kill them. You, however, slit their wrists. Horizontally, not vertically, and then you hoisted them so their wrists were elevated. I doubt they would have had enough blood loss to kill them. Exposure would do it, and maybe shock, for this guy." He nudged the man with the dislocated shoulder. Duncan couldn't help but wince to think of the agony it must have been for that man to be suspended by his feet and arms. He really needed to sit down. He sat. "What about you?" he asked. "Silas was old." To Duncan's surprise, he saw the color drain from Methos' face, and the man's set features shifted to an expression of pain and weariness. Methos also sat down, about five feet away, ignoring the injured men within reach. "Yeah," he said. "Like I said, I really want a good fuck. Maybe a lot of good fucks. Bad fucks, even, I don't care." He gave a weary smile. Duncan was abruptly reminded, in a very physical way, of his own almost violent waves of lust. "I know," he said. "Which one of them was the horny bastard?" Methos fixed a sudden intense gaze on him and his eyes darkened. Duncan found himself fascinated by those eyes. His breathing quickened. "Who among us isn't?" Methos replied, still with the weary smile. Duncan nodded, distracted. Methos unwound and stood, and Duncan watched the smooth and graceful motion of his limbs. "I think you're getting better," Methos continued, in that clinical tone he had used earlier. "Do you …" he hesitated, "remember what happened at the sub base?" "Only until the quickenings. After that, it's just a haze." Duncan's damp pants were far too tight. "Then you're not done. Duncan, I can't let you go back to the kids." "What? Don't be ridiculous." "I'm quite serious. I don't know what you'll do." He inclined his head toward the trees, which, until lately, had held the bound prisoners. Duncan struggled to swallow the anger that boiled in him again. As if he would do any harm to the children. As if *Methos,* of all people, had any right to judge *Duncan* a danger. He glanced at the trees, and looked quickly away. He did his best to sound utterly calm and reasonable. "Methos, I can't just not go back." "Sure you can. You can go straight for help." "And leave the two of you? Cassandra thinks you're a threat to the children." "But I'm not the one who's the threat, right?" Methos sounded like he was talking to an imbecile. Duncan ground his teeth. He hated the feeling of being the villain -- of Methos having the upper hand. Time to go on the offensive. "You never said why you followed me. How did you know? What experience have you had with taking ancient quickenings?" Methos regarded him in silence for a long moment, eyes narrowed. Then his mobile features shifted as he shrugged and looked at the prisoners. "Someone should stand guard here, I suppose," he said conversationally. "I'll trust you to go back and tell Cassandra what's happened if you swear to me that you'll then go directly for help." "You're staying here?" "I'd rather not be too involved with the police, if possible. I'm leaving as soon as you bring them back here." Duncan frowned, puzzled. "Where will you go?" "Somewhere with beer and a steak. What's it to you?" *And a good fuck. Don't forget the good fuck,* Duncan thought. He found he was extremely reluctant to be parted from Methos. It seemed quite possible that he would never see him again, and that… panicked him. His own arousal welled back up in him, and, without considering the action, he stepped toward Methos. Methos stepped back. "What?" he demanded. Duncan stopped. He blinked at Methos, trying to dispel the sudden tactile memory of how it had felt to wake up, warm in the forest chill, his arms around the other man's solid, masculine form, his cock insistently poking at the warm, friendly bulk before it. He took a shaky breath. "That guy?" He indicated the man with the dislocated shoulder. "Treat him for shock for me." "Get going. And promise not to stay with the children very long." Duncan turned to go, feeling an emptiness in his stomach which had nothing to do with his hunger. "Yeah, yeah, I promise." _________________________________________________________________ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/