The Twins: Methos Remix
It snowed last year too: I made a snowman and my brother knocked it down and I knocked my
brother down and then we had tea. ~Dylan Thomas
Shakespeare and Company perturbed MacLeod from the moment he walked in the door. It was dark and silent, and the Scot’s well-trained instincts could already sense the taint of a slaughter. Finding Kalas' glove had not improved his impression of the bookshop, and from there it had been a short trip to discovering the middle-aged man prone on the floor. The bookseller's tongue had been cut out, yet he still struggled to speak, making feeble noises of terror.
"I'm Duncan MacLeod. Who did this to you?" he asked the man. He already knew that it had been Kalas, the former singer's coldly methodical mind prompting him to exact this torture.
But why?
The dying mortal's head lolled as he weakly lifted his arm. His life's fluids dripped from the tips of his fingers, falling onto the floor beside him. With slow, trembling urgency, the man strained to write in his own blood.
T.
"T?" MacLeod frowned.
The victim shook his head and emitted a small sound of protest, his fingers moving again with Faustian significance.
W. I.
"Twi?" MacLeod read. "What does it mean?"
Don Salzer closed his eyes and died without answering. MacLeod lingered over the body in a show of respect. On a hunch, he turned over the man's wrist. He stared, and the Watcher tattoo stared back at him.
Joe Dawson snatched up the receiver at the bar, eager for news.
"Hi, Joe. It's me." MacLeod's deep voice was subdued.
"MacLeod!"
"Yeah, I've got some news. About your missing Watcher."
Joe shook his head, turning somber, frustrated. He always enjoyed hearing from MacLeod, but he had been hoping for something new.
"Yeah. He turned up a few hours ago. The police fished him out of the Seine."
There was a long silence on the other end of the line.
"MacLeod. Did you hear me?"
"Yeah, I heard you. That means Kalas has killed another one of your people.”
Joe heard a rush of air in his ears. Another one. "No," he denied.
"Yeah." MacLeod was relentless. "In the American bookstore."
The bookstore? That meant Don. Loss swept through Dawson along with a hefty dose of confusion.
"Don Salzer. Oh, boy."
"What is it?" MacLeod asked. Dawson could picture the frown creasing his subject's troubled face. MacLeod was lucky he was Immortal; any mortal who furrowed his brow so much would give himself serious wrinkles.
"He's not a field guy. He's an historian; he had no reason to be near Kalas." Joe shook his head again, struck by a dark premonition. This could not be good.
"Before Salzer died, he was trying to write something: the letters t, w, and i. Could that mean something?"
No. It wasn't possible. Kalas would have no way of knowing about that. . . but if he'd got hold of Roger, who knew what the ruthless Immortal had been able to pull out of his Watcher?
"This is no good. I'm gonna have to make some calls," the musician mumbled, sotto voce.
"Joe!" MacLeod's voice startled him out of his reverie.
"Salzer-- he's been working on the Twin chronicles. If Kalas was to find that, find the Twins. . ."
Joe didn't even want to think about it. But one thing was sure: he was going to have to start. That premonition was getting stronger by the second.
"Aw, come on, Joe! The Twins don't exist. The oldest Immortals? They're a legend! It's like, well, like Adam and Eve." MacLeod scoffed, embarrassed by his own simile.
"Oh, no. They exist all right," Joe confirmed. He shouldn't be saying this, even to MacLeod. Maybe especially MacLeod. The man wasn’t exactly renowned for keeping secrets, and if it got out that those ancient Quickenings did exist, the news could trigger a bloodbath. Every headhunter on the continent would swoop into Paris, looking for lunch.
"You're telling me you've seen them?" MacLeod’s voice was subdued, skeptical.
"Me? Nah. They're very elusive. They'd have to be, to live that long. If Kalas found them and took their heads. . . he'd be even stronger." How much stronger, Joe was reluctant to calculate. One five-thousand-year-old head was enough temptation for any Immortal, but two couldn’t be borne.
"Seems I'm gonna have to find them first." MacLeod sounded determined now, oriented.
Joe wasn't really surprised. The Highlander always found his footing more quickly than most. It was in MacLeod's nature to protect, but Dawson dithered, almost decided against giving the Highlander more information. The more he talked, the more he betrayed his Oath. He might even be endangering the two semi-mythical immortals more. But what else to do-- say nothing? Sure, if they were that old, they had to know how to take care of themselves, but Kalas was one tricky son-of-a-bitch.
He made his choice. "We've got a guy at the University there: Adam Pierson. He's been our top Twins scholar for about ten years. He knows as much about the Twins as anybody. I'll let him know you're coming."
"Okay," MacLeod said. On the hunt again, he hung up without so much as a by-your-leave.
Dawson picked up a clean glass from the bar and started rubbing at it with a soft white cloth. His movements were quick, distracted. He had no idea how Adam Pierson would react to this. Dawson had met the young man a few times before, found him pleasant and rather charming, but reserved. Joe was, by proxy, breaking Adam's Watcher Oath.
This could be very bad.
The Twins. Immortal legends, the eldest of their race. They were said to be two Immortals found at the same time in their infancy and raised as mortal brothers. It seemed a fancy story to MacLeod, something dreamed up by a couple of bored headhunters, maybe, around a campfire. But it seemed that way to a lot of Immortals, so perhaps that was why the real Twins had managed to survive so long.
Imagine: growing up with another Immortal, journeying through time with your brother, spending thousands of years with a companion so close that you didn’t know where one of you left off and the other one started. At least that was how MacLeod imagined it would be. Unlike most seasoned Immortals, he did have a living family member, but Duncan had already been a grown man and an Immortal by the time he had met Connor. There was no one left from his childhood, no one alive he would precisely consider his peer.
MacLeod stopped his car in front of a grey block of flats and turned off the engine. It looked like a secure building, but someone had posted an ‘Out of Order’ sign on the front door and propped it open with a stack of junk mail. MacLeod stepped through the gap and easily found Pierson’s apartment. It was on the ground floor. Good defences, MacLeod noted: a soldier’s automatic assessment, then changed his mind when he found the front door of the flat unlocked. He hovered in the hallway; contemplated knocking first, but decided the advantage of surprise was too good to give up. The Scot promised himself that he would have words with the Watcher about personal safety if the man proved an ally, then slipped inside.
The walls were pale, whitewashed, and bare. They had been sparsely decorated with barren, metallic artworks that gave the space a curiously futuristic air. MacLeod might have been intrigued, except that he was hit without warning by one of the strangest Immortal presences he had ever felt. It rang in his head and buzzed at the bottom of his neck. It pounded behind his eyes until he felt they would burst. At the same time, the buzz felt like stroking fingers on his arms and back: careful, and soothing.
"Pierson?" The Scot slowly drew his sword. It was possible that the man he was looking for was an Immortal, although Duncan was more inclined to believe that Kalas was already there, had reached Pierson before him-- but this didn't feel like Kalas.
"Adam Pierson?" He hailed again, and heard the faint sound of tinny, modern music. Following the instrumentation down a short flight of stairs, MacLeod emerged before a bedroom with an open door. Sitting on the floor inside was a casually dressed young man. He wore earphones and was bent over a large book.
"You Adam Pierson?" MacLeod asked again, even more cautiously. This was an Immortal, and no one he knew. If this were indeed Pierson, that would mean that an Immortal had violated the inner sanctum of the Watchers. He must have discovered their existence just as MacLeod had, then infiltrated them. Who watches the Watchers? MacLeod’s lips twitched with grim pleasure. Of course, the man might have been pre-Immortal when he had joined. A fantastic coincidence, but not impossible.
Pierson sat up straight, removed his earphones, and assessed the Highlander with bright eyes. He was not overtly worried by his Immortal visitor, which surprised MacLeod a little.
"Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod.” The strange Immortal drawled his name in an English accent and picked up a can from the floor next to him.
"Have a beer," Pierson offered lightly, tossing the can at the Highlander. "Mi casa es su casa."
The Scotsman caught the brew with raised eyebrows, baffled by the other man's calm. He glanced from the beer to the man, and back again to the beer. There was a depth to Adam Pierson's eyes, and that aura of strangeness about him… Duncan didn't know whether it was true or not, but his intuition was screaming at him to make the leap.
"You're one of them? One of the Twins?" he demanded.
Pierson inclined his head and rewarded Duncan with a slow, enigmatic smile.
"My name is Methos."
Methos suggested that they take a walk, and MacLeod was too stunned to argue. Together they wandered out towards the riverbank, with MacLeod glancing repeatedly at his amazing companion.
Methos. This was a man who was little more than a myth in most Immortal circles, a legend considered real only by the most credulous. He hardly looked mythical. Roughly five centimeters shorter than MacLeod himself, the man was slender, young-faced: frozen perhaps in his early or mid-twenties, his brown hair was longish, and his skin unusually pale: the scholarly look of a man who spent most of his time indoors.
At the river-front, MacLeod was finally prepared to break his awed silence.
"Five thousand years."
"Give or take." Methos smiled. "And that was when I took my first head, remember. Before that, it all starts to blur. Well, mostly."
"Well, I guess it would," MacLeod scoffed. He couldn't begin to imagine such a length of time in anything but mathematical terms. Remembering when he had told certain mortals or young Immortals his own age, Duncan was too aware that mathematics offered no real understanding.
"So, have you. . .?" Duncan fumbled, feeling childish.
Methos smiled knowingly and filled in the question. "Made any sense of it; found out any purpose?"
"What, you read minds, too?" MacLeod joked.
Methos chuckled. "No, that's what I'd ask, if I'd just met me."
"I didn't think you existed," MacLeod admitted.
"It's good to be a myth."
MacLeod frowned, looking at the other man. "Yeah, no one hunts for a myth. Or a Watcher," he added, the conversational equivalent of poking the man in the chest with his finger.
Methos seemed pleased with his own cleverness, his eyes crinkling at the corners. He looked both sly and happy. He reminded MacLeod of a Japanese Fox. "What better place to hide? I'm in charge of finding myself and I make sure it never happens. I've even got a few entries on you in my journal."
MacLeod was startled; he took the bait, even knowing it. "You keep a diary?"
He had never considered doing such a thing. It was simply too much of a risk. And considering that literacy rates had been abysmally low for most of history, many Immortals would not have been able to do so. It made the Scot wonder about where this ancient man came from, that he had been a scholar since the earliest recorded instances of the written word.
"I've been keeping it almost since writing began," Methos said, echoing MacLeod’s thoughts with uncanny accuracy.
"That would make a hell of a read.” The Highlander joked, kept it light, but he spoke with real longing. He wondered what a five-thousand-year-old autobiography could contain.
"You could say that. How many people have stood on the same stage with Julius Caesar and The Rolling Stones?"
The Rolling Stones? MacLeod shook his head. As entertaining as Methos was proving to be, they could not afford to waste any more time.
"So you know about Kalas?"
"He killed a good friend," Methos said, sobering.
"And now he'll be coming for Adam Pierson," MacLeod reminded him. But that reminded him of something else. Methos was only one of two targets. What about—
"You think I'd still be around if I was an easy mark?"
MacLeod caught himself feeling protective of this curiously vulnerable Immortal. The man must have been taking care of himself for a long, long time before Duncan was born, but there was always a chance that Methos was out of practice. If the retired opera singer won a Challenge against the ancient, not only would Kalas be dangerously empowered, but Immortal-kind would lose something precious.
"When was the last time you faced anyone?" MacLeod demanded.
Methos' eyes sparkled with mischief. "Uh, what are we," he glanced at his watch. "Sixth of March, uh. . .two hundred years."
MacLeod scowled at the man, outraged by his carelessness. Two hundred years?
"Oh, that's good," he snapped.
"I may be a bit rusty, but I'm still here," Methos launched back confidently, if a little defensively.
MacLeod huffed a breath; got his temper under control. "Well, let's keep it that way. I'll stay close.”
Methos shook his head and broke stride with Duncan, turning back the way they had come.
“You cannot fight my battles for me, MacLeod."
It was only after the old one was gone that the Highlander realized he had completely forgotten to ask about Methos’ brother.
Kalas watched the fresh-faced Immortal approach. With his head turned down in thought, the young man appeared lost in a world of his own. Hardly safe conduct for any Immortal, and more dangerous for this one. Almost, Kalas' mouth watered with anticipation. This one would be worth the wait, worth the bother of the hunt; he was sure.
Methos looked up as he entered the range of Kalas' Presence, locking onto the blond Immortal.
"So, you're the famous Adam Pierson," Kalas rasped pleasantly.
The man's eyes narrowed and he tilted his head at the sarcasm.
"At the moment," he replied in a quiet British accent that surprised Kalas. Oh well. It was not as though any accent of the ancient world was likely to have survived.
"I was in your house," he announced to his prey. "Found a diary there. Pity I couldn't read the hieroglyphics, but the ancient Greek was most enlightening."
Methos smiled faintly. "You should have been there," he drawled.
There was nothing left to say, and the conversation ended at the first swing. Kalas pressed his superior upper body strength on the other man, who seemed not to have been fighting or even practicing for some time. Methos' movements were wild and, though unpredictable, they ultimately did him little good. Kalas maneuvered them both onto the nearby bridge, where he pinned the slighter man to the railing.
"You've been out of the Game too long," Kalas hissed gleefully at the pale face beneath him.
Methos struggled to block Kalas' sword, then abruptly stepped back and rolled over the railing. With a speed and agility that must have served him well for many centuries, Methos got a grip on his attacker and pulled, sending them both pinwheeling through the air to land like stones in the cold, dark river below.
As the waters closed over his head, Kalas experienced a mixed rush of frustration and pleasure. He disliked it when his prey escaped him, but a prey that knew how to fight back was a prey that may have taken some victims of its own. Perhaps there was more to this Twin than simple age.
By the time the sputtering former opera star hauled himself out of the water, the ancient was long gone.
The cool autumn night was pregnant with memory, and a troubled Duncan MacLeod wandered the tunnels and back alleys of Paris. He worried over old friends gone, new friends in danger, and the people still with him. Sometimes it seemed as though the weight of the entire world were resting on his shoulders and, like Atlas, he just wanted to shrug.
New footsteps pattered down a side tunnel and alien Presence hit him, materializing into Methos, who stood dripping wet, his broadsword bared.
"Methos," MacLeod gaped. "Kalas found you? Is he dead?"
The latter seemed unlikely, and the Highlander did not even desire it. The right to vengeance was his. But if the man were dead after all, then surely Methos had been attacked and couldn't be blamed for defending himself.
"No," Methos said. His voice was a wet sob and he swayed on his feet, then swung his blade at the other man without warning, hacking downwards. Only MacLeod's superbly trained reflexes saved him. He backpaddled and Methos pursued the younger Immortal, swinging again; MacLeod drew his own blade to block.
Anger rapidly outpaced shock, and in a few short passes the Highlander broke through Methos' weak defences. MacLeod held the elegant length of his katana to his opponent's vulnerable throat. Methos clenched his eyes tightly, while tremours shook his entire body. At that moment, the ancient looked like a frightened young man. He tilted his head back, devastatingly baring his long throat.
"What are you waiting for, MacLeod?" he whispered.
MacLeod’s hand wavered. It would be so easy to just draw back and take the final swing, to part flesh and bone, to see that head go flying away into the shadows, that Duncan might take with his own strength the prize of over five millennia of Immortal power. But something felt wrong here, very wrong, and-
MacLeod was hit by a new, dizzyingly violent presence, and a resonant voice that cracked the air:
"Step away from him!"
In front of MacLeod, Methos' eyes snapped open. The ancient's foxfire gaze flickered beyond the Highlander to the new Immortal Presence, which was every bit as puissant, as alien, as Methos' own.
"Brother," Methos whispered.
MacLeod stiffened. The other one? The other Twin was here? But this man felt and sounded familiar. The Highlander turned to face the new Immortal and, seeing him, was cast back in time.
America, Texas, 1867: the wild chase for an Immortal bandit who had slaughtered whole villages of human beings as though they were cattle. An Immortal who had almost taken MacLeod's own head, only to be put down by a mortal gunman at the last moment. MacLeod had gone to the grave, but it had been too late. Melvin Koren was gone.
Not so now. Koren stood right in front of him-- different, but the same. The beard was gone, the longer hair now cropped up into vicious spikes, and he was dressed in black jeans, sweater, and menacing leather jacket. But the scar was still there, and the pale blue eyes still crackled just as madly. Duncan remembered that fey light blazing down at him as the man flew from the long-ago loft.
I do love the old ways best, Koren's theatrical inflections hissed in the ear of MacLeod's memory. Now, the Highlander scowled at the new implications.
"What are you doing here?" Methos asked. He crossed his arms over his chest, glaring. With his lips turned down petulantly, he looked about ten years old.
"Apparently saving your head," Koren drawled.
"You are not supposed to be here. I'm going through a great deal of trouble to keep us both concealed, Kronos, and you're risking it all," Methos snapped.
MacLeod felt out of his depth, as though he had landed a part in a play and no one had bothered to give him a copy of the script. But one thing was certain--Methos had called this man 'brother,' had called him by the name of Kronos, the name of the other Twin. It seemed that MacLeod's search had ended, but he felt no desire at all to protect this other from Kalas. Koren--Kronos--was just as bad as Kalas. Perhaps worse, for at least Kalas had a motive for murder, some reason for his actions. As far as MacLeod could deduce, Koren had killed for the sheer, ever-loving hell of it. Most of the time, he hadn’t even stolen much.
MacLeod did not know what to think. He was paralyzed by the puzzle of finding one five-thousand-year-old man a mystery, compelling and spellbindingly alien, and then to find the other a brutal, enigmatic monster from his past. He felt betrayed by time itself.
"Going through a great deal of trouble to get yourself beheaded looks more like it, Brother," Kronos hissed. "You were always the survivor. I never thought I'd see this day."
He was ignoring MacLeod; they both were, but MacLeod was tired of being ignored.
"You're Kronos?" He stared downwards at the smaller man and lifted his upper lip with undisguised contempt.
Kronos bared his teeth—a brutal, joyous grin. "At your service. Or. . .perhaps not." His mouth fell into a flat line, and he turned the rough, grey length of his sword, letting the faint light fall on the metal, illuminating its monstrous strength. "I guess it's true what they say. You wait long enough-- everything comes back."
MacLeod found himself lifting his own sword again. He had not been able to find Koren in his grave, but he had promised himself a next time, and next time was now. He might not be willing to take Methos' Quickening, but he was eager to divide the number of five thousand-year-old men walking the earth in two.
"Come on," Duncan provoked, baring his own teeth.
Kronos chuckled. Methos took a step forward, alarm plastered all over his sharp features, his mouth opened on a protest, but MacLeod shoved him aside without a thought. He heard an almost charmingly clumsy stumble as Methos fought to catch his balance. Of course, Kronos swung before MacLeod could fully regain his focus, but the younger man compensated quickly, and soon enough the ring of sword on sword made strange music in the hollow tunnels.
MacLeod felt the hot song of battle flowing through his veins. He did not know much about his opponent except that he deserved to die, and presumably the other man, who fought with the kind of rough, unsophisticated power you might expect in someone born before the dawn of history, didn't know much about him either except that MacLeod had held a sword to his brother's throat.
Through the clarity of battle, sword on sword, the concept again intrigued Duncan: that these two men had lived their mortal and Immortal lives, all five thousand years or more of them, as brothers. That level of closeness- it would allow for no interference. It would allow for nothing to come between them.
Not even the Immortal you had just offered your head to. The thought occurred to MacLeod right before he heard the faint whistle of parting air, and the Highlander was not so surprised to feel Methos' knife sink into his back.
"I don't believe this," Methos muttered, kneeling beside the temporarily dead body of Duncan MacLeod.
"Why did you interfere!" Kronos roughly closed the few feet to where MacLeod had fallen.
"Because I didn't want him dead!" Methos snapped. "And you would have killed him."
"Obviously," Kronos sneered. But he was troubled. He hadn't seen Methos in over a decade. His brother, disturbed by the growing rumours of two 'Eldest Immortals,' had decided to enter the Watchers, to assess and possibly limit the flow of information. He had cautioned Kronos at the time that they couldn't be seen together, and Kronos had agreed. But he had grown impatient of late, and something had warned him, niggled at his senses as it often did when his brother was in danger.
"What's MacLeod to you, anyway?" Kronos jealously aimed a kick at MacLeod’s dead body.
"He has promise," Methos answered tersely. He stood up beside his shorter sibling, blocking him from landing any more blows.
"He's a fool," Kronos retorted. "And you were going to give him your head."
Hot rage and delayed terror crowded Kronos' head as the full impact of Methos' surrender hit him in a rush: never again to speak to his eternal companion. To see the living man at his side turned to dust. To travel through eternity alone. How long, then, before he surrendered himself? Kronos tightened his grip on his sword to stop the sudden shaking of his hands.
Methos reached out and touched his brother's arm, pale fingers lingering on the leather jacket.
"I'm sorry, Kronos," he said as they both stared down at the Immortal by their feet.
"You meant to seek True Death." Kronos heard the rasp in his voice, the hard click of overtaxed vocal chords. He coughed and looked away, out of the tunnel and towards the city.
"I'm hunted. The disenfranchised opera singer, Kalas. I can't take him; I've tried, but at least with MacLeod I have the choice of who my Quickening goes to."
"You should have come to me! We could have taken Kalas together."
"I didn't know where you were. It would attract attention if I took too much interest in field cases."
"That isn't like you, Methos," Kronos said darkly. "And it cost you. If I hadn't been there, he could have taken your head."
"But I wonder. . ." Methos mused. "He has a reputation for nobility, and he hesitated. Any other Immortal would have taken my head the moment they had the chance. But he hesitated."
"Such honour," Kronos mocked. He could still see MacLeod's blade at Methos' throat, the keen edge almost breaking skin. He ground his teeth, struggling against the impulse to hack off MacLeod's head where he lay, "potential" be damned.
"True honour is a rare enough quality in the world that it's worth preserving," Methos said. He locked eyes with his brother. "I want him to live. Will you walk away from this?"
"Methos-"
"I will not offer him my head again," Methos sighed.
"You didn't offer it because you were hunted,” Kronos said after a pause. “You could have hidden from Kalas or taken him outside of fair combat."
Methos smiled sadly, tilting his head back and taking a deep breath in through his nose.
"You're right."
Kronos frowned again, thought a little, and came to decision. There was no use risking a rift over this. He could always wait now and kill MacLeod later.
"Fine. Let the fool live. But I'll be watching, and if he draws on you again-- he dies."
Kronos' footsteps tapped out a rapid staccato rhythm before they faded away. Methos affectionately watched his retreating shadow.
"I'd expect nothing less," he whispered, eyes shining. Then he knelt, rolled MacLeod over, took the knife from the man's back, and ran to catch up with his brother.
Duncan MacLeod inhaled noisily as he came back to life. He sat up coughing, feeling disoriented and cold. There was water on the ground, and much of his coat was soaked and filthy. He picked up his sword as the events of the night played back in his mind. He felt all too sympathetic towards Methos but knew that he could not afford to be with Kronos in the picture. He frankly wondered why he wasn't truly dead. He hadn't expected a man like Kronos to hold back just because he was down. Perhaps Methos had stopped him. For the moment it made no difference. The Twins were gone.
MacLeod trudged his way back towards the barge he called home in Paris. After a night of restless sleep, he returned to Methos' apartment, not really expecting to find the man there, but hoping he might be. He needed to talk to the other Immortal.
Presence hit him as he entered the flat, but not Methos’ alien aura. Just over the edge of the steps, Kalas sat with his back to MacLeod.
"Welcome home, Methos,” he rasped.
"Hello, Kalas," MacLeod retorted. He was grimly satisfied by the surprise that stiffened Kalas' back.
"Where's Methos?" Kalas demanded.
"That doesn't matter anymore, does it," MacLeod said coolly.
A sneer twisted Kalas' aristocratic features. "You were after him all along."
"Now I'm after you," MacLeod said evasively.
Kalas saw through him, knew that the ancient still lived. "I'll get Methos, when I get you," he promised.
I wonder.
Both men attacked at the same time, driven by hatred and the desire to end a feud that had gone on too long. The duel led them out of the warm flat and onto the bridge. Kalas was getting the worst of it as MacLeod battered his opponent relentlessly, propelled by grief for fallen friends and the need to protect a new one.
"It's a bitter taste, isn't it, Kalas? Fear." MacLeod grinned savagely.
Kalas said nothing, devoting all his concentration to breaching the Scot's defences. Soon, neither spoke, for both men were caught in the siren song of every Immortal's ultimate, brutal destiny: the pull of battle, the final cut of the blade.
Too late, they noticed real sirens through the regular rhythm of clashing swords, and the combatants looked up, shocked, as police cars pulled in.
Kalas let out a long breath and growled, "Some other time, MacLeod."
"We'll make it soon," MacLeod promised, already slipping away. Kalas turned to leave as well, but the police caught up with him.
"Mr. Kalas, you're under arrest for the murder of Donald Salzer," the Inspector announced.
"You have no proof of that," Kalas sneered, but his eyes narrowed knowingly when Methos's dizzying Presence hit him. The ancient stepped out of a police car.
"Wrong," Methos intoned. "That's the man, Inspector."
It didn't much surprise Kalas that Methos had chosen to interfere in a Challenge. He couldn’t have been too concerned with the rules of the Game, to survive for as long as he had. But it frustrated Kalas.
He said nothing as the police took his arms and walked him away from the scene.
He'd be back.
MacLeod watched as the police cars drove away into the distance, and Methos strolled past him without a word, shoulders hunched in his nondescript coat.
"Why?" Duncan stopped his elder in his tracks. Despite having been murdered by him only a day before, MacLeod's fascination with the man continued unabated.
Methos looked blank. "Because I didn't know if you could beat him. It was a chance I couldn't take."
"What about your brother?"
"He won't hunt you if you don't hunt him." Methos offered no further details but touched the Highlander on the shoulder. His hand was like an electric current through Duncan’s coat.
"Live; grow stronger, Highlander. Fight another day."
The living legend walked away, and MacLeod let him. Later, when he returned to check Methos’ building one last time, the apartment was empty of its books and its futuristic art, its deep Presence. Only bare, whitewashed walls remained, and MacLeod stood in the middle of the empty bedroom, staring at those same walls with an ache of loss in his chest.
"You're telling me that Adam Pierson is Methos?" Joe Dawson’s bewildered voice echoed over the mobile phone.
"I think it was his little joke on you. Adam: the first man." MacLeod grinned. He had known Methos for only a few hours, but it felt like the sort of joke the man might enjoy.
Although maybe Abel would have been a better choice...
"What better way to steer clear of other Immortals," Joe snorted. "He's been right there all along. I can't believe I missed it."
"There's no way you could have known."
"You hang tight, MacLeod," Joe said, beginning to sound excited. "I'm going to be on the next plane."
"Joe. Don't bother." MacLeod sighed. "He's gone, and all your Chronicles went with him. He's going to be hard to find." If not impossible.
"What about Kalas?" Joe asked.
"Out of reach. He's in jail, at least for now. But I can wait.”
Yes, he could wait all he needed to, and when the time came to stop waiting, he would be ready.
"MacLeod, you found Methos," Joe said slowly. "What about the other Twin. Kronos? Did Methos say anything?"
"He won't hunt you if you don't hunt him."
He was busy with Kalas; he didn't need more enemies to distract him right now.
But someday. . .
"No, Joe, he didn't say anything," MacLeod murmured, staring at the white walls. "Nothing at all."
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