The Lord Victorious

(The Chaos Chronicles continue)

        "I've been thinking," Duncan tried to engage his lanky friend in some conversation. Except that the old black T-bird was missing badly, having sat in the garage airport parking nearly half a year, the ride from Seacouver International had been silent and foreboding. The movement of the car had put Sean to sleep, and the many architectural and geographic reminders had driven Adam Piersen away somewhere, deep behind his eyes and back along the recent past.
        "Adam," Duncan started again, "We could just take the next exit and go on up to the cabin for a few weeks. It needs airing and cleaning and we can pick up some supplies for Sean on the way."
        If Adam heard, he didn't react, just kept eyeing the buildings as if they would fall and crush him. He'd been overly talkative and jolly on the Concorde and the various transfers on their trek home. Too happy, too agreeable. Duncan knew his friend well enough not to think this boded ill.
        And, sure enough, the minute they hit the tarmac at 'Couver Air, Adam folded in on himself and hadn't been heard from since. Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod had seen enough battle fatigue to know this malady for what it was. Post-traumatic stress something or another they termed it these days, but whatever it was called, Piersen had it bad.
        The whole bloody town seemed to be acting as an enormous trigger to all the emotions Adam had buried away while he went about tending his brother and picking up after Duncan.
        Duncan didn't really care to analyze the reasons Piersen couldn't deal with his mother's death. He just wanted to make everything all right for him, make the dark recede, make the pain go away. If he could only think of a way to work that. Duncan ran through the options: Sweet Lucille, she wouldn't be awake until three and it wasn't quite noon yet, Anne and, no, Adam blamed Anne's new husband for Ram's death, Joe...of course, what they really needed was a drink and an understanding ear, who better, but Joseph Dawson, NW Territories Watcher, Blues Man extraordinaire, and a fine friend, even more so in times of trouble. Duncan might have kicked himself for not thinking of Dawson sooner.
        They'd just be starting to serve lunch, always a slow time at the bar, and they'd settle back and play with Sean and let poor Adam come back to his senses in the dark, quiet sanctuary of "Joe's."
        Duncan turned on the next off-street and headed for the southern part of the city, near the river, where the answer to Adam's dilemma lay.
        Pulling onto River Road a block from the bar, Duncan was surprised he couldn't find a place to park. There was something going on farther down the block, construction, by the looks of it, but that still didn't explain the large number of cars lining both sides of the street. Some meeting or something.
        "Adam," Duncan tried again, "Earth to Piersen, come in, Piersen."
        Nothing.
        MacLeod tried a different tack. He slowed the car to a stop, ignored the horn behind them, and jostled Sean lightly. "Son, wake up your brother, D'ahdam, will you."
        At the sound of the name, bright little Sean, not even a year old yet, and only four teeth to his name, perked up, blinked his eyes, and gave out with, "Dadahm, dadahm."
        Adam was instantly refocused to the child. "What?"
        Duncan reached up and rubbed Adam between his bony shoulders. "We're there. At Joe's. You go in and get us a table while I find a place to park. Okay? I'll bring Sean in with me."
        It took a moment for Adam to realize he wasn't still in Paris, or in Babylon for that matter, but really and truly, back in Seacouver and there was Joe's and, yes, he could go in there and get a table.
        "Maybe a good first step would be to open the car door and get out," Duncan suggested, lifting the baby out of his lap. MacLeod reminded himself for the tenth time since they'd left the airport that he should get a car seat sometime today.
        Adam's wits finally ordered themselves sufficiently to get him out of the car and headed for the bar. Duncan watched him till he disappeared behind the door. "Come on, Sean. Let's find a place to park and then we can both go get roaring drunk."

Adam walked out of the sunny Seacouver noon into the darkened bar and it took him several seconds before his eyes accommodated. The tiny bar was packed. He recognized Mike behind the bar, but the tender was far too busy to even look up. Off at a corner booth, a waitress was chatting with a group of loud folk in white coats who looked like a convention of butchers. The way she propped the drink tray on her right hip reminded him of Alexa, disorienting him for a moment.

        He supposed he should wait here at the door until either Mike or the waitress noticed him. There were no empty tables he could see. So Adam just stood at the door and watched the waitress work the room. She was good he noticed, fairly lame of gait, but it didn't slow her down a bit, and she had the rhthym of the work honed to a fine art. Back and forth, bar to table to booth, new drink before the old one was out, snacks before they were ordered, and whole lunch orders assorted perfectly, and all with a word here, a pat there, a laugh, or a look, each to his own need.
        "Excuse me," Adam decided he couldn't wait any longer. Duncan and Sean would be along soon and he still hadn't gotten them a table. He stepped up behind the new waitress and tapped her on her shoulder. "Excuse me, miss. Is there--?"
        The waitress turned around and began to answer him, but Adam heard nothing, felt nothing except the floor beneath him lurching suddenly.
        The woman reached out and steadied him. "Are you okay?" she asked.
        As soon as his senses cleared, Adam reached out and grabbed her by her shoulders. "Mother?"
        Set's eyes widened in terror and she slipped backward out of his grasp. "Joe," she said starting with a low note and ending up a minor tone. Then she repeated the name more loudly as she began backing up, shaking. A third time and Dawson's name was ringing from the rafters.
        Adam staggered towards her, trying to explain, trying to understand.
        Three customers, two men and a woman, rose out of their seats and blocked Adam's path.
        "You'd better leave, Mister," the first man said. "You're upsetting Mrs. Dawson."
        Mrs--? Hell! Adam stared at the man. "Ram!" he called out.
        The second man stepped forward and laid his palm on Adam's chest.
        "Wait a minute! Damnation!" Adam protested. Off to his right he could see Mike rushing past Ram towards the door to Joe's office. "I'm a close friend of Joe Dawson," Adam tried to say calmly. "There's just been a mistake here. Just--"
        "What in God's Name!" Joe came roaring out of his office, took in the scene and stopped, dead still.
        Adam saw Ram slip around behind Joe and cower at his back. What was going on here?
        "It's all right," Joe nodded at the self-nominated defenders of the Missus. "He is a friend of mine."
        Adam watched in amazement as Ram peeked around Joe's right shoulder to stare at him with that same fear-ringed, stunned look. I should have such a look upon my face, Mother, Adam thought. What gives here?
        Joe scooped her around from behind his back while he asked Mike to take over for the rest of the lunch. Mike shrugged, palms up...they were only half-way through the lunch crowd. The woman who had stood up in Set's defense went over to help Mike out. There was something going on there, but Adam, though he noticed, had more immediate concerns. Like what was his dead mother doing waiting tables in this dive for one?
        "Set," Joe was saying, almost too softly to hear. "You remember we talked about Dr. Piersen and Mr. MacLeod and little Sean?"
        Adam noticed not a few eyes turned once again in his direction. Lovely.
        "Dr. Adam Piersen," Joe waved him over and grabbed Ram's arm as she moved away. "This is my wife, Set Dawson."
        "Set?" Joe fixed his gaze on the frightened woman.
        "He doesn't like me," she said in something very near a pout.
        "Set!" Joe chided. "Dr. Piersen is going to have lunch with us...in the office" he pointed with his beard, seeing his hands were occupied with keeping his wife from bolting.
        Adam followed them into the office. "And Mr. Dawson is surely going to give us one hell of a tale to go with..." he added as he closed the door behind him and tried to decide whether he was more angry or relieved...or something else altogether.

Joe settled in behind his desk and Set fussed nervously behind him never looking up.

        Dr. Piersen did his signature "Adam drape" over the small couch opposite the desk. He felt much as he had the day he discovered Alexa was still alive--curiously unmoved. The same day, he noted with irony, that he thought his mother, this woman pacing her brains off behind Watcher Dawson, was dead. Which was about all the pattern, order, or maybe "sense" that any of this owned. It was so noisy inside Adam's head that it took several minutes before he heard the loud banging through the wall and Joe on the phone, "Could you guys take about an hour for lunch? I've got a meeting in here."
        "New construction next door," Joe apologized as the noise stopped. "We're expanding the bar."
        Adam stared pointedly at the woman behind Joe. "Well, when does the explanation start, Watcher Dawson?" He watched Ram stop weaving and lean near Joe. "Maybe you could tell me what's the matter with Ram."
        "Did Duncan come with you?" Joe asked.
        "Oh, damn!" Adam jumped up and Set slipped by Joe and disappeared under the desk.
        Joe gave Adam such a look that the Eldest Immortal almost apologized. Joe just sighed and shrugged. "Maybe you should go get him and explain things and then bring him back here and we'll talk. I really don't want to go through this twice over and it will give me time to explain things to Set."
        "Okay," Adam agreed, opening the door, stepping back to glance under Joe's desk, and thinking there was not that much time left for the age of the Universe.
        Joe pushed his chair back and addressed the dark cave beneath the antique executive desk, their first purchase after they had come into Ram's "will." "Set? Set, come on out, Honey. Nobody's going to hurt you."
        "He doesn't like me." The words floated, disembodied from under the desk.
        "I know you said that before, Set. He is your son, Honey. He loves you."
        A noise, like hissing or spitting or something in between was his only answer.
        "You told him to bring the one who hurt me. He doesn't like me either."
        Joe leaned forward and reached out both his hands. "I won't let anyone hurt you, Set. You are safe here. No, I don't mean under the desk. Please, Set come out and--"
        "Joe!" the hearty gaelic lilt negated any progress he might have made with his wife's anxieties.
        "Mac," Joe answered back, rising up to sitting, "Oh, my goodness, Sean. Oh, he's beautiful, Mac." His tones were far too exaggerated, too perky. Joe looked over at Adam and pointed at his desk. "Isn't he a lovely child?"
        "I didn't tell him yet, Joe," Adam interjected and slumped back down on the couch, taking the baby from his dad.
        "Mac," Joe looked down under his desk, gave up, and pushed his chair back in, feeling Set's slender fingers hook around his hand on his lap. Okay, darlin', he thought, if that's the way you want to play it, then that's the way it'll play.
        "Dawson, tell me about this new wife of yours. You certainly look like matrimony is doing you a good turn. You look great!" Mac sat down beside Adam and Sean where the elder son of Chaos had developed a sudden cough.
        "Adam said you had some news--"
        Adam set off in another paroxysm of coughing.
        ...and below the desk Set squeezed Joe's hand as he began the promised explanation. "What Adam was trying to tell you concerns my new wife, Set Dawson. She was in the accident--"
        "Yes," MacLeod said sadly, "Lucille wrote us about..."
        "Whatever Sweets told you, it wasn't the entire truth," Joe hurried on. "Set was in the car--"
        "But that's impossible," Mac interrupted again. "Adam, clear your throat or something, it sounds like you're choking. Joe, only Ram was in that car."
        "Just be quiet and let me finish, Mac." Joe retrieved his hand from Set and folded it in his other on the desk top. "Ram did not die."
        "What!" Mac was up on his feet, towering over Dawson.
        Set shot out from under the desk and, but for Joe's strong grip around her waist, would have launched for Duncan's mid-section. As it was, she ended in a belly-flop across the desk, kicking and spitting and growling in the babbling, nonsense sounds she hadn't made for a long time now.
        Mac had the presence of mind to back away from his too-threatening posture. Joe pleaded and soothed and coaxed to no avail.
        From the couch, came an echo of Set's gibberish from the general vicinity of the baby. Adam looked up and repeated, more distinctly, what was clearly some language and not babbling at all. Set stopped struggling and twisted out of Joe's grasp to sit cross-legged on the desk's top.
        She spoke again, more calmly to her eldest son and he replied, back and forth until he nodded and then addressed Joe and Mac. "All right," he propped Sean up on the couch beside him, did a short turn at baby talk and then began, "Setan'm wants you," he indicated Mac, "to sit down and to put that sword you're holding behind your back under your coat on the floor where she can see it. She thinks you mean to kill Joe. That's why--" he gestured with his elegant hands, pantomiming her dive, then shrugged.
        Duncan placed the katana on the floor and sat down with his hands in clear sight on his knees. Set nodded, not appreciation, only acknowledgment of obedience. It was not a feeling Duncan liked at all.
        Adam continued, "She says we have distressed the Wizard--" He paused, asked her something and then went on, "Yes, she is convinced Joe is a Supreme Wizard, a holy man, a Power of, yes, Heat and Light, who has brought her back from Death's Realm at great price and unfailing devotion." Adam looked at Mac and chuckled, "And she says she'll have your ass if you so much as move on him again."
        MacLeod did the gracious thing which was to bow her direction and lift up his hands, palms up, empty. Meanwhile Adam went back to talking with Ram and translating for the two men.
        "She says that you, Duncan, are known to her by your unfortunate reputation..."
        Duncan groaned.
        "She doesn't remember anything, Duncan, not anything more recent than four or five millennia ago. She knows she had a baby, but she hasn't made the connection with Sean here and I take it she only knows about you and me and Sean from what Joe has told her."
        "Adam?" Duncan interrupted. "Is there some ceremony of reconciliation appropriate to that time?"
        "Excuse me, darling?" Adam joked.
        Both men were suddenly aware of Joe's intent stare.
        "No," Duncan said, "there are enough misunderstandings in this room as it is. No, we are not...no matter what HQ Watchers Central says about..."
        "All right, Mac. All right. I believe you," Joe answered him.
        Adam explained to Set and Set rolled over sideways on the desk top, hiccoughing and gasping and trying to catch her breath against the onrush of her mirth.
        Duncan gazed first at Adam, then at Ram, then at the floor. Too much Chaos in the room. He was thoroughly out-manned, out-numbered. When things quieted down again and Set had pushed back to upright, he asked again about the proper form for asking forgiveness. Adam explained it to him.
        "Really?" he asked, when Adam was done. "You think that's safe?"
        "Noooo," Adam laughed. "Ask Joe. He knows her better than we do."
        Duncan stared at him.
        "Look, Duncan. This isn't Ram."
        MacLeod studied the woman. Well, the candle tallow scar down the center of her forehead was new, the nose was certainly altered, but everything else...well, no her shoulder was crooked. She was Ram.
        "Something's wrong in her head, Duncan," Adam paused and translated this for Ram.
        Duncan watched her imperious demeanor shade over with obvious shame and Joe responded automatically with an arm around her waist even though he could not have known what was said between Ram and Adam. The simple gesture spoke volumes to MacLeod.
        "Have a little care, will you," he chided the Eldest Immortal.
        "Oh," said Adam, "I am sorry, Set."
        Set stared pointedly away from him as if he were nothing at all.
        MacLeod did not think it would be wise to offer his sword to Ram, Set, whoever this was, by way of apology for his earlier transgression, the rape. He remembered the night he had given her the katana and shown her how to take his head.
        But that was in the past before he had a family--before, when his life had been, more or less, only for his own purposes. Then again, this was as much Ram's family as his own, more so, if he were to be truthful about it. No matter there was something wrong with her head, there was nothing wrong with his own sense of justice. "Come on, Sean, my boy," he lifted up his son and carried him over to Ram.
        Set scooted back, hands and feet, like a crab, and would have fallen off the desk but for Joe's quick palms against her back and his soothing voice in her ear. "He will not hurt you. He only means to let you see the baby, your baby, Set."
        "Adam," Duncan called over to his friend, "Get over here and translate."
        "She can hear me from here." Adam ignored the look this elicited in the Highlander's brown eyes.
        Between them, Duncan said roughly, "Set, this is your son, Sean. Sean this is your mother, Set, whom we used to know as 'Ram.' And by our unfailing efforts in her sons' cause, we petition your mother to forgive us the unfortunate particulars of your conception." For the most part, Duncan addressed his apology to the baby, but he ended looking straight into her grey eyes. "I am Duncan MacLeod, of the Clan MacLeod, and as Chief to my Clan, I formally implore your mercy and forgiveness and pledge myself and my son in your service."
        There was a long pause, a very long pause, while Set returned his bronze stare with her own, which was pure steel, then she broke from his gaze, glanced down, and mumbled something which so amused Adam he couldn't translate, or even breathe for a moment.
        "Well?" Duncan asked Adam.
        "Let me see," Adam said wickedly, "how to put this? Mother says she can hardly hold you liable for an act that was so forgettable in its execution, if not its outcome. But she would not have you feel too badly, the inadequacy of your performance. After all, she has only the Wizard to compare you to...and in that category, there is no comparison."
        "Set says if it makes you feel better, then consider yourself forgiven, even though your--um-- congress with her was so unmemorable."
        Joe bit down hard on his knuckle. He judged it would be tasteless to voice his delight.

        Mike timed his entrance with their lunch at just the point in time when Joe Dawson was in the midst of eating his knuckle and Duncan looked fit to eat the upholstery--each for the same and opposite reasons. Joe's assistant even brought toast in the shape of stars and applesauce for Sean.
        Set excused herself and joined Mike to finish with the lunch crowd, for which Mike was visibly relieved.
        When the door closed, Adam leaned forward and retrieved the toast for Sean and a sandwich for himself. Both of Ram's sons sat together commenting on the cuisine in a language probably neither of them understood, or needed to.
        Watching them softened Duncan's ire and he reached for a sandwich and a beer.
        Dawson reached for the coffee and pulled the aspirin bottle out of a drawer in the desk.
        "That'd probably wash down better with one of these," Duncan opened a second beer and offered it to Joe.
        "No can do, Buddy," he declined sadly. "Not now, not tomorrow, not ever again." This last he said as if he were a grey-haired widow in the front pew mumbling through the rosary for the hundred- thousandth time.
        Duncan's bushy brows curved up. "Something wrong? How could something be wrong with a man of your prowess?" He was still stinging from Set's commentary.
        "Be that as it may," Joe could not help but chuckle. "I'm an alcoholic."
        "What?" Duncan put the second beer down.
        "Drunkard, wine bibber, sot..." Joe couldn't believe he was saying any of this. He hadn't quite understood how much he had missed Duncan's presence in his life and how easy it was to talk to the Highlander.
        "You? Maybe you're exaggerating, Joe. Maybe--"
        "Well, Mac, I'd have thought so too, but that was before I got DT's and nearly died."
        "Oh, Dawson," Duncan put down his beer, his sandwich, and came around the desk to wrap Joe in the circle of his arms. "Damn, but you've had a rough go."
        Joe steadied himself with his left palm on the desk and half-reciprocated the embrace with his right arm. "Well, it wasn't a picnic, that's for sure."
        "And I can imagine things have been rough with the Missus, even excluding your exceptional talents in the--"
        "Might we just not go there again, gentlemen," Adam grumbled from the couch. He'd long since lost his humor about the subject given his own mother was central to the jest.
        Both men looked round at Adam and broke out in hearty guffaws. This set the baby off and the three of them drove Adam from the room on the wave of their raucous mood.Then they sat down together and decimated the lunch tray. Sean, propped up in Duncan's lap, was soon applesauce from ear to ear.
        By the time Mac and Joe and Sean emerged from the office, lunch was over and the bar had emptied out except for Adam and Set sitting over coffee and deep conversation at the far table and Mike and a woman Duncan did not know cleaning up behind the bar.
        "Might I?" the woman walked over towards them and reached for Sean who wriggled and burbled salutations at her. "I am Brandy," she introduced herself, "a friend of Mike's," she added. "I'll be happy to sit the wee one while you visit."
        "Duncan MacLeod," he returned. "And I think if I don't say yes, Sean here is going kick me black and blue. Sean, this is Brandy," he finished the introductions and handed over the baby and a bottle he pulled from his back pocket. "He really doesn't need it heated, but he likes it better that way if he can stand to wait."
        "I'll take him back when he needs changed," Duncan called after her, but his son had completely commanded Brandy's attention. He made a mental note for the baby book Adam was assembling: First heart broken, Brandy, auburn hair, hazel eyes....the first, except for me and your brother, Child.
        "So what goes on with Mike and Brandy?" Duncan asked as he walked around behind the bar and set up two cups of coffee for himself and the owner. He watched Mike dutifully heating the bottle while Brandy played with Sean.
        Dawson beamed knowingly, "Love, my boy...a most wonderful state of delirium."
        "And you're waxing poetic now, you old reprobate?" Duncan asked.
        "No, just been wallowing in the same madness myself. God willing I will never be sane again."
        "She's banged up badly," Duncan looked over at the far table, measuring the crooked shoulder, the way she was sitting twisted in the chair. "But for all of that, she seems not to mind."
        "Well, Set is very self-conscious about her mental deficits," Joe sipped at the coffee. Needed something. No. Damn, he'd been at the hospital so long he'd started sounding like a white-coat.
        "She can't remember?"
        "A lot of things, almost everything, in fact, including reading and writing," Joe shook his head. "She thinks the computer monitor is some kind of crystal ball under my wizardly powers. I tell her different, you understand, but she just thinks I'm trying to make her feel better."
        Duncan reached over and rubbed Joe's shoulder, "You're a good man, Joe. She couldn't do better."
        Joe toasted him with the coffee mug, "And that's not even considering my exceeding talents in those other departments which Adam asked us not to talk about anymore."
        Duncan's pat turned into a swat. "You're a good man with a wicked twist," he amended.
        Joe cocked his head sideways in mock humility. "What can I say?"
        "I have missed you, Joe."
        "I was thinking the same thing, Mac. I almost wished I'd called you back from Paris. There were times I wanted to, but it was almost a month before it was certain she wouldn't be dying again," he sighed "and then shortly after, she woke up and it was clear that Ram wasn't coming back, not as Ram, anyway."
        Duncan watched Adam folding over the table, his long arm outstretched, his elegant fingers tracing his mother's face as she spoke a language that was dead and forgotten except between the two of them. He wished he were closer just to hear the sound that echoed the beginning of the world. As it was, he contented himself watching his slender friend weaving himself into a family he had never known, casting aside the one scar he bore, over his heart, into his soul. The place where she had parted him from his mortality and innocence.
        Even as he watched, Duncan saw Ram's slender hand reach up and touch the very place. Adam put his own over hers and held it there as their foreheads bent towards each other over the table and touched. This was the language of the beginning of the world, Duncan thought. There was no need to hear. He smiled to think he had some small part in this healing, but he was more happy to think that Adam had come so far, and that Ram was still here, in some capacity, to be part of it as well.
        He felt Joe's hand on his arm. "You okay, Mac?" Joe asked.
        "Fine," Duncan whispered. "Does she know about Immortals?"
        "Mac," Joe looked at him as if he'd requested pi to the thirtieth digit, "I just got her convinced that the new car is not a pet dragon of mine. The last thing I need to do is--"
        "Does she know she's going to die?"
        Joe tried not to take affront. "We have discussed that. I mean, we were at the hospital nearly four months, Mac. People died there. She asked. Everything dies, Mac."
        "I know that, Joe, it's just--" Duncan didn't want to think how he could get Adam through that again. "It's such a damn shame!"
        Joe dug his strong grip into Mac's forearm.
        "Hey!"
        "It is as it is, Mac," Joe's voice had tightened to a breathy growl.
        "Oh, geez," Duncan understood Joe's anger. "Just slap me up aside the head and call me stupid."
        "Gladly," Joe smiled. Sweet Lucille was the most quotable person they knew. His voice relaxed and he moved his hand away. "I can't tell you how much I love that woman, Mac."
        "It shows, Buddy, believe me."
        Changing the subject, Joe asked, "Do you think you will be safe in Seacouver?"
        "For a while, Joe."
        "Then what?"
        "I really don't know, Joe, but they've slowed down since--" Duncan let the thought drift away.
        "Since you took out--how many?--thirty?" Joe asked.
        "At least," Duncan shook his head. "Been a busy winter."
        "Well, you sure got out of Paris faster than HQ could tell Crane or I wouldn't have been so surprised when you showed up a month early. We had everything planned for May, Mac, a party and the fix up on the dojo, and--"
        Duncan leaned forward on his elbows. "Fix up?"
        "Somebody, or bodies, broke into the dojo, and went through it top to bottom. What a mess! We couldn't find anything missing, but the thieves, whomever, were obviously looking for something. They did the same over at Adam's old apartment, lured the current tenant away with prize tickets for a cruise and combed through his place, tearing up floorboards and peeling wallpaper. Same thing at that apartment Richie rented when he got back from California. No," Joe read the sudden anxiety in the Highlander's broad features, "they haven't bothered Alexa or the Unsers, for that matter. Richie doesn't seem to be the target."
        "Adam," Duncan said.
        Joe nodded, "Yeah, Buddy, all places where Adam stayed when he got back from Paris. They were looking for something paper, something written. We figure the books he brought from Lyons, Ram's journals. Nobody but Crane and myself know enough to suspect it is the Danae and that something in those journals is valuable to them, either to use or to destroy."
        "They are in the car now," Duncan said. "Adam was going to ship them, but then he decided to pay extra baggage and bring them on the plane. Damn. That adds a whole new wrinkle to the security agenda." Not enough, the Immortals were after them, now they had Ram's very peculiar race on their tails too, for some book. "I'll talk to Adam about it. Maybe he can tell us which book and we can just burn it, or give it back to them."
        "No," Joe said in a sudden false whisper. "It might be something we could use against them."
        Duncan couldn't help laughing any more than he could keep the bitterness from showing, "Yes, Joe, and we all know how wisely the Watchers put such knowledge to use."
        Joe knew he didn't mean him personally, but it hurt nonetheless to be reminded of the rogue Watchers under his brother-in-law's power who had murdered Darius and committed other atrocities too numerous and heinous to think about without getting ill. He could not have felt worse if Duncan had reached out and slugged him.
        Both men were so occupied with the sudden discomfort between them that neither was prepared for Set to explode their direction, scattering chairs and bearing down on them like a dreadnought at top speed. Duncan's coffee was in his face before he could react and Set had rolled over the bar and was on his chest, beating him senseless before he was even fully aware of having been thrown to the floor.
        "Mike! Adam!" Joe howled at them. "Stop her!"
        Mike started their direction...slowly.
        And Adam just folded his arms and turned his head side to side in a "you have to be kidding" posture.
        "Set!" Joe struggled up and leaned over the bar. "Set, please. Yes, he hurt me, but this will hurt me more!"
        Set lifted her fists and dismounted Duncan's chest. She reached over into the ice bin and threw a large handful on his face. When he came round, sputtering, she extended her hand towards him, offering to help him up.
        But the look on her face was so disdainful, Duncan declined the courtesy.

Duncan rose slowly, brushing the ice chips off his shirt and trying to recover his dignity. Nobody noticed. The ruckus had set Sean to howling and diverted everyone's attention his direction. Set was at the infant's side quick as thought, but having gotten there, she backed away again unable to touch the child or even call up any words of comfort. Nor did she protest as Adam lifted and shifted her sideways so he could take Sean up in his long arms and settle his mood.

        Set just walked away back to the tables and started picking up the cups, shuttling them back to the bar, gathering up the salt and pepper shakers, cleaning and tidying as if nothing had happened at all.
        Duncan watched Joe watching his wife. He had spent so much time with Adam, he'd lost his sense of objectivity. Whatever Ram had done to her son, it seemed she'd been more than amply repaid, that even mind-wounded and without concrete memory of her time with her son, still Set was so afraid she couldn't approach Sean at all. She couldn't even bear to stay close to him for any length of time.
        Because Adam had had Malak to heal him.
        And Ram had had no one at all.
        Duncan could not begrudge her this idyllic marriage to Joe, could not feel usurped simply because she had found someone to love her, and about whom she obviously cared so deeply...but it made him feel heartsick for Tessa. It made him feel sorry for himself also, that his chance with Ram had gone so thoroughly wrong.
        But then, he had only to look at Sean, now beaming in his big brother's arms, to know that however it had gone, no small destiny had driven it there. He gave Joe's shoulder a tender squeeze and said, in all sincerity, "I wish you all the best, Buddy. I couldn't be happier," Duncan smiled as Joe jerked towards him in surprise. "No, really. Even if I do suffer in the comparison." He sighed.
        Joe would have returned the volley, but the minute he opened his mouth nothing but laughter issued forth. Across the room, Set's head went up and she turned and she smiled.
        And I know why you love her, Joe. Duncan made a mental note to work on a way to make Sean less terrifying to Set without involving himself too directly in the process. It would be tricky.
        "Well, lookee here," a musical drawl blew in through "Joe's" front door, "Mister Mike asleep at his post and who should I spy," only she said "spayah" or something like, with many more vowel sounds between. "But the very wench I sent over here to keep him in line! Hiya, Brandy-Doll. Still blushing, you shameless hussy?"
        "Lucille!" Adam greeted her with a hug, or a more correctly, a Sean sandwich.
        "No, Darlin'," Sweet Lucille chuckled and lifted Sean up to a less-tempting level, "bar's closed."
        "How can he remember that?" Duncan asked.
        Dawson whistled, "How can he not?"
        "True, true," Duncan agreed and went over to add his hug around the luscious form of Sweet Lucille. "We dressed for dinner, then?" he commented on her jeans and T-shirt. Duncan always thought of Sweet in silk, black silk, just a small amount of black silk, maybe less than that. Lucille was a one to give a body notions, as she would have said.
        Instead, she said, "Stop drooling, Mr. MacLeod and get outside. I thought I recognized that old 'T' of yours in the lot across the street. Someone's trashed it all to hell."

        Duncan MacLeod and Adam Piersen and Sweet Lucille stood solemnly around the wounded T-bird as if attending a dear friend after some dire battle. Poor old "T" had his boot truncated, or stateside, his trunk booticated to the max...or so said the Sweet.
        Doubtless the same folk who'd been tearing Adam's digs apart had gotten wind they were back in Seacouver. The trunk had been ripped open savagely, crowbar or similar instrument of forced entry, and the boxes of books had been torn out, ripped up. The journals themselves lay like so much garbage or white leaves over the length and the breadth of the lot.
        "Well, come on then," Duncan bent down and started gathering up pages and bindings, tossing them into the one intact box remaining. "Maybe they finally found what they were looking for."
        This got Adam's full attention and he listened carefully to Duncan's recounting of Joe Dawson's report as they retrieved the scattered pages of the journals and Lucille regaled them with this and that story about what a time the Palmers and she had had getting the dojo back in order.
        When Duncan had finished, Adam asked him about why they thought the object of their quest was the diaries.
        Duncan wasn't sure, but Joe had seemed certain and he wasn't the sort to jump to conclusions.
        Lucille explained about the way each place had been ransacked, what in particular had been disturbed and about looking under wallpaper, which, except for cash, made something on paper the only other option.
        Adam stopped suddenly and stood up. "They didn't get it."
        "Come again, Lover?"
        Duncan laughed. Everything Sweet said was fraught with myriad interpretations.
        Adam patted an inside pocket in his long coat. On a sudden impulse, he reached in, pulled out the journal with Malak's story and held it high above his head, speaking in a near shout, "You bitches didn't get it!"
        "Adam!" Duncan shouted.
        "Yes?" Adam put the book back in his pocket.
        "Would you like me just to paint a target on your ass? Or will you be doing that yourself, too?" Duncan lifted up the box, emptied it into the back seat of the "T" and returned for the fourth time to refill it with the last of the journal debris.
        "Oooh," said Lucille. "I heard some really kinky things about y'all, but this sounds fun."
        In unison, both men told the Sweet to "shut up."
        "I'm just playing a hunch," Adam began. "They didn't find what they were looking for. I don't think anything's missing."
        "How can you tell?" Duncan was convinced Adam exaggerated.
        "Think about it, Duncan."
        Lucille nodded, "All the boxes were opened, so it couldn't have been in the first three, at least. There seems to be four boxes worth left and all the books have been searched through, so it either was the very last book they looked at, or they didn't find it. And there's a five-hundred-to-one shot that was the case...so, odd's on, Adam's right. They didn't find it."
        It was so easy to forget that Lucille was smart, too.
        "But Adam-Cheeks," Lucille began.
        "Adam cheeks?" Duncan mouthed.
        Adam listened more intently to Sweet's coming question and completely ignored Duncan.
        "What makes you think that book in your pocket is the One?" Lucille finished.
        "It isn't," Adam said softly. "Couldn't be, but they don't know that."
        Duncan's eyes narrowed. "Why exactly do you want them to think that it is? And what do they think it is?"
        "Well, I don't know that," Adam shook his head. "...yet. But if it's important to them, then I'll find out enough to make a deal with the harridans for it."
        "And what exactly do you intend to deal for?" Duncan put the last of the trash in the back seat and started working on lashing down what was left of the trunk lid.
        Adam's artifice fell off him like a mantle dropping to the anteroom floor. Duncan saw the old man underneath the young, the thousands' years' wisdom beneath the sophistry, the sober, solid center, daunting and not a little evil. Purely Ram, Duncan thought. You are your mother's son after all.
        But all Adam said was, "I have my reasons."

         Adam and Lucille walked back across the street and MacLeod drove the car around. They had decided that Duncan and Sean would stay at Lucille's penthouse while Adam got his obsession with The Journal out of his system. For all that the Elder Immortal was rather lax about his former research with the Watchers, once his interest was piqued, Adam could go literally weeks without sleep tracking down some trivial bit of historical esoterica.
        It seemed this book for which the Danae were so keen was just such a project.
        So Duncan left Adam with the Dawsons and Lucille picked up Sean and his enormous "baby kit" and the three of them set off for uptown Seacouver, where the rich folk lived. Lucille treated the Highlander to a lyrical version of being a responsible parent and the virtues of baby-safe car seats and such.
        They were all the way up to Sweet's airy loft before Duncan could get a word in edge-wise and then he was more than preoccupied with changing and feeding and general MacLeod prince maintenance. When Sean was finally settled in Lucille's silk sheets for a nap, Duncan joined Lucille in her high-vaulted, gauze-draped living room and studied the crystal collection before the picture window onto the balcony while the lady of the house set tea and pastries out.
        "What on earth is going up across the street?" Duncan indicated the cranes and girders of a new building, visible through what used to be Lucille's view of the mirrored 'Couver Tower.
        Lucille made a face. "I suppose I shall soon be moving. That monolith next door is going to blot out all the light. It's a European consortium, Guardian Keep, or some such. They're into computer network innovations ...I'm not sure...virtual worlds, cyber security systems, that sort of thing."
        Duncan could see that once the girders were filled in with floors it would cast this entire high rise into dark shadow. A shame, really. Lucille's home was entirely decorated in carved and filtered light. Without that it would have all the appeal of a warehouse.
        "I could move into that new condo over by Stanley Park," Lucille commented idly. "Or maybe a well-placed demolition device next door..."
        Duncan just shook his head. Of course he knew nothing lasted, but he never seemed to get used to the idea that things changed so rapidly, more so of late, it seemed. Adam must feel the world sped by him near the speed of light. No wonder the Old Man always seemed a little disoriented and weary.
        "I hate to think of packing all this crystal," he said.
        "You and me both," Lucille agreed, accidentally powdering her nose with confectioner's sugar from the donut she was eating.
        Duncan leaned forward to brush the white dusting off her lovely nose and one thing led to another.
        ...as things were apt to in the realm of Sweet Lucille.

        Adam watched Set putter round the bar, setting this or that in order, with the same efficiency she had shown waiting tables for lunch. Joe had departed next door to speak with the construction workers and take them a six pack, ice cold.
       "Why do you not go?" Set spoke English as haltingly as she walked, but just as effectively.
        "I wanted to speak with you some more," Adam replied pulling out a chair for her.
        Set shook her head. "I told you all I remember. There is no more to say."
        "What is the matter, Set?" Adam sat back down and waited.
        She walked away from him towards a booth in the corner where she proceeded to climb onto its table and sit, cross-legged, cross-armed. Evidently a change of venue, Adam thought. He joined her at the booth, choosing the more conventional bench which placed him lower than her. Odd, he thought, how even now, even mortal and wounded beyond believing, still she makes me mindful of the battle terrain whenever I am in her presence.
        "I thought we had a nice conversation before," Adam started. "Why don't you want to talk to me?"
        "Because you don't like me," she replied, all the while judging the bar and her ordering of it, checking off the various points of some internal list.
        He put his hand on her lap and she stared down at it. "That is true, Set. But I also love you. Can you not feel that as well?"
        Her eyes never left his hand. "There is no danger from your love," she said, and then because he did not understand, she added, "but there is from the 'I don't like' part."
        Then she picked his hand off her leg by its wrist and handed it back to him as if it were a dirty handkerchief. "If you go...."
        "I am not going until I know something, Set," Adam kept his voice soft and friendly.
        And Set did not buy it for an instant. "I am sorry for your wounding. I said that. I am sorry for your mother, who is here no more. I am sorry..."
        "Stop," Adam took her right hand in his. "I am glad you did not die, Set. I am glad I did not die."
        Her look as much as called him "liar" out loud.
        "Set, it is important to me to know how you are."
        Set looked down, thought a moment, and asked, "How I are what?"
        Adam chuckled, "How you are, Set. How you feel. Are you happy? Do you hurt? Does this--" he lifted up her other hand, still bent in a palsied claw, "--bother you?"
        Set tucked her chin down on her chest and looked for a moment as if she would cry...or spit on him. Adam wasn't quite sure it was such an even admixture of pain and rage.
        "No," she answered finally.
        "All right, then," Adam put his hands back on the table. "Do you think you are a cripple?"
        Set got off the table and would have left except for Adam's hand round her elbow. She spun round. "I don't think I like you, either," she said, her words cracking just a bit at the edges.
        "Think for a minute, Set," Adam said too loudly. "You may have lost your memory, but not your reason!"
        "What?" she said and settled on his lap like a petulant child.
        Adam thought she'd gotten so tiny he could wrap his long arms around her twice and still have some left over. "Do you want to live like this?"
        "I don't know another way, Adam."
        "What does Joe think?" he brushed her short curls off her forehead, noting the white batch of hairs overlying the terrible scar in her head.
        "How would I know?" she asked.
        "What?" Adam thought, well, he was sure that...they were so close, so...How could she say that?
        "He loves me so much," she explained, "that he would never say I was crippled or that it worried him or hurt him. He would lie to me."
        Adam waited.
        "Aaand," she hummed, seeing he did not make the connection, "I love him so much I would have to believe him when he lied. Truth or lie...how would I know?"
        Good point, Adam thought. Not so brain-damaged after all. "But there is a way," he commented.
        "Why do you want to know?" she asked, ignoring his comment.
        "I think there is a way you can be made well, Set."
        "Is that good?" She squirmed around to face him and put her hands on his face. The left claw made him want to cringe, but Adam held steady. Set drew her twisted hand away.
        "That's what I'm trying to ask you, Set. Would you be happier the way you were?"
        "How was I?"
        Adam took a deep breath. Excellent question, that. "You were wise and loving. You were strong and brave. You were a great blessing on us all."
        "But the Wizard did not love me," she said.
        "Is that what he said?" Adam couldn't believe that was true.
        "And you don't like me," Set added, obviously meaning that he didn't used to like her either. "I was sad?"
        "No, Set," Adam protested, "that wasn't a concern for you, you were powerful and...." he stopped. This had just never occurred to him before. "Yes, Set...yes, I suppose you were sad...You never said anything. You were sad." It just didn't seem to be something he associated with his mother, that or any strong emotion, if it wasn't rage.
        "I was lonely," Set added, this time not as a question.
        "You must have been exceedingly so," Adam agreed. All the air in the room seemed suddenly heavy as lead and centered around a point just below his heart. He felt her good hand brush his cheek and it made him angry with himself that even in this small gesture he had made her conform to his disgust about her other hand....and this was only a tiny measure of all the ways he had dismissed her many sacrifices for him as his just due, just another example of how he had utterly dismissed her as being remotely human.
        "You said there was a way to know what Joe truly thinks," she prompted him out of his gloom.
        "What?" Adam was still busy wrestling with his own thoughts.
        Set waited quietly until he was done and then asked again.
        "Oh, I was thinking you would know how he felt about his own mutilation," Adam wondered if he should just let this go, if he should just get up and walk away and leave Set be. "I was thinking that he would think the same thing about your being crippled."
        Set stood up and backed away. A look of horror crossed her features, twisting her mouth open in shock and revelation. She remembered all too clearly how awful their first night together had been simply because he was so ashamed, so disgusted with his terrible wounding. If he thought that way about her and had only lied so magnificently. "He said he would eat his gun," she said lamely, the only defense she had left her.
        "What?" Adam cocked his head.
        "Nothing," she mumbled. It was too ridiculous. But for her wanting it to be so, she never would have believed such a declaration. The Wizard was so kind. He had made this world for her where she was safe and protected and as stupid as she needed to be. Stupid enough not to see the pity where she wanted to see the love. Stupid enough to believe she wasn't marked and crippled and...
        She remembered how Joe had given some money they could not spare to an old friend who was drunken and without any hope. After he had sent the fellow on his way, Joe had turned in the doorway and said one word, uglier than any other she had ever heard him say. "Pathetic," he had said. That one word and no other, but it was a high holy judgment.
        He had probably said much the same about her at one time or another. "I know what he thinks," she said. Set knew she was standing in the same place as she had been a moment before, but everything had changed. The whole world had disappeared and only this pretense remained. "Is it possible for me to be well?"
        Adam was surprised she asked. "Yes, Set. Yes, I think there is a way."
        Set nodded her head, trying to resist the temptation to flee. "How?"
        "Sit down," Adam patted the table and Set complied, her legs dangling over the edge and kicking nervously. "I think I can bargain for your cure with someone who is very powerful, but I need you to remember something for me, Set."
       Set slapped the table and looked at him as if her were crazy or merely moronic.
       Adam changed languages, opting for the older one which she seemed to understand more easily, "From a time after the accident, Set. I know it's hard for you to remember what happened before."
        "Aaaand?"
        "Do you remember when you first woke up?"
         Set nodded tentatively.
         "What do you remember saying? Before you started to speak in the Wizard's tongue?" Adam clarified the question, trying not to lead or inform her answer.
          Set tipped her head sideways and thought a moment. She answered in English, "There was the Wizard standing in the light.   There was 'No More Hitting,' and the white robes and their minions."
          "'No More Hitting'?" Adam interrupted.
          "The Bear, Dr. Palmer," Set explained. "When I first saw him, I hit him with my fist in the side of his face. It made his mouth bleed. I can't remember why I did it." She waited for Adam to stop laughing and pounding the table. "Then the Wizard kept saying that and I thought it was his name."
           "Anything more?"
           Set thought deeply, "No, I don't really remember..."
           "Where did you think you were?" Adam prompted.
           "Oh," Set's silver eyes flashed with sudden comprehension and she rushed on in their native tongue, "Yes, I do know that. I was convinced I had found a way through The Gate and had ended up on the other side, where the Five had been exiled in the time of the Diaspora."
          Adam tried not to salivate. This was it! This was the Grail for which the Danae had trashed his       belongings. "Yes?" he said evenly.
          "Well, I had been researching the paths to Last Gate, looking for the rumored second passage which led, not to death, but to a different world where the Five Guardians fled after the War in Heaven."
          Each word painted an entire history in tantalizing sketches and strokes. Adam felt the same sense of discovery that so delighted him that day in Lyons, when he first found the journals.
          "I kept asking them about the Passage and if there was a way to return and whether they knew of the fate of the Five, but, of course, no one understood me..." Set sighed.
           But someone understood you, Adam thought. One of your race must have heard you and they think you did indeed find such a mystical doorway.
          "I had tried many paths in my search. Do you want me to tell you them?" Set asked.
          "Yes," Adam replied, keeping his tones light and mildly interested, when all the while he had almost more than he could do not to swallow his tongue. "That might be interesting."
          Set studied him quizzically, catching, if not the specifics, at least the conflict writhing beneath his placid features. Then she shrugged and launched into the various ways one might approach the Gate and pass through without dying. She kept reminding him that none of them worked. That all the directions were doubtless fatal to any so foolish as to attempt them. That on three occasions, she had herself nearly been destroyed with only the grace of God Himself to bring her back into the Living World.
         Adam pulled out a ragged pad and pen and took copious notes, page after page. He heard the intricacies of the Danae's strange dreamwalking and Set's cautionary tones and the lyrical descriptions of the Five, Micaal and Rafaal and Peniaal and Gabraal....and, of course, Sama, her namesake.
          But what Adam really heard was another pathway entirely.
          And that was the passage by which Ram could find her way home to them.
          If not the actual roadmap, well then the price of the return trip.

        Dr. Mark Palmer exited the lift on the fifth floor of Duncan's loft. "Mary says 'bye', and the babysitter, Brandy, Mike's friend, says she'll bring her by the lab at lunch tomorrow. Seems like a nice lady. Oh, and dinner is served." He set down the pizza boxes and six-pack of Diet Coke on Duncan's kitchen table and lumbered over like a good Bear, to hug his new wife.
         But, Anne Lindsey, all over beige paint with a large dollop of the stuff on her forehead, was no way inclined towards the romantic. She jerked away from the proffered embrace and continued painting the eastern wall of Duncan's loft room where the tapestry had been ripped down and the wall behind decimated. The wide bed was draped in painting tarps and the tapestry was out getting repaired.
        "You have to eat sometime," the Bear whined.
        "Not if they're going to have a place to stay tonight," Anne replied curtly. "Why didn't they tell us they were coming home early. I had all this scheduled in for next week. A simple call, just..."
        ...and on and on. Anne was not a soul given to taking anything lightly.
        ...or quietly, Mark noted. One of the few things he disliked about Anne: her ability to fly into a dither over anything unexpected. He felt it was his main mission in their union to spend most of his time smoothing ruffled feathers, as if he were wed to a Lith and not this all-too-human woman whom he loved as much as he had ever loved anyone, and then some.
        He knew better than to interrupt, so he just went over to the table, grabbed two slices of pizza and two Cokes and went to sit on the couch and wait for the steam outlet valve to leave off its venting. When that finally occurred, the Bear said quietly, "They are not coming here tonight."
        One, two, three...he counted, then ducked over on his lap as the paintbrush came sailing past his right ear...five, six...
        "And when exactly were you intending to share that piece of information?"
        ...seven, eight...
        "And where is my..."
        The Bear sat up and handed her the second piece of pizza without even looking behind him where Anne stood glowering.
        "And..."
        He handed back the Diet Coke and waited for her to sit beside him on the couch....nine, ten.
        "Mmm, anchovies and double cheese from Bernardo's," Anne mumbled through a too full mouth. "Good. Excellent choice, Doctor."
        ...and the storm was over. The Bear bowed at the compliment and rose to serve them seconds.
        He returned with the pizza box, napkins, and a wet warm wash cloth.
        Anne's quick smile was all the tip he needed.
        "So, I was thinking, Honey," the Bear began after several more swallows of the salty fish wheat cake. "Since Mary's off for an overnighter with Brandy, and since Misters MacLeod, father and son, and Doctor Piersen are housed elsewhere this eve, and you and I are off call tonight..."
        Anne grinned around a mouthful of cheese. "Mmmmm?"
        "Well, I thought, since we're almost finished with the painting," the Bear paused, feeling a certain shyness which was entirely unfamiliar to him. "We could clean up this room and then..."
        Anne swallowed and waited. She had no inclination to help her spouse out of his predicament. She so seldom saw him in anything but his "Lord Victorious" mode, his Chief of Ob-Gyn, kicking ass and taking names, persona.
        "Well, you know," Mark took another long drink of Coke. Maybe Duncan had some wine around here.
        Anne's eyes opened wide and innocent, "What is it, Mark?"
        "Well, I thought you and I--" the Bear looked over at the mountain of paint tarps in the general vicinity of Duncan's broad bed.
        "You and I? Yes?" Anne's dimples were rapidly beginning to give her away.
        "Oh, damn it, Honey!"
        "Is something wrong, Mark? You don't look at all well," Anne put down her Coke and dusted her hands off. "Well, I know what I'm going to do," she said casually.
        The Bear's bushy brows curved. He had just about given up on what had seemed like such a friendly notion, a slightly wicked scenario by which they would "christen" the bedroom of her old ex-boyfriend. A little vindication, a little playfulness, and a whole lot of warm and tender flesh coming together in a dance as old as time itself. It was such a good idea, Mark could hardly see where he'd gone wrong. Well, okay, maybe pizza and Coke weren't the most luscious example of cullinary foreplay, but they had been busy.
        "What are you going to do?" the Bear answered her miserably, putting down the last, and now tasteless, wedge of pizza.
        Thud. Oh, dear, he thought, she's going to start in again with throwing things.
        Thud. She must be tired. Aim's off.
         Then there was a rustle and a softer whisper of something falling to the floor.
        "Nap," came her reply.
        Nap? Anne never took naps. The Bear jerked around just in time to see Anne lift one of the bed tarps and dive under it onto the bed.
        And how convenient, he thought as he vaulted over the back of the couch.
        She's left me a trail of shoes and socks and overalls and...
        Just so I wouldn't get lost along the way, he laughed to himself. All those times when he would begin to wonder how he could have gotten himself so entangled with this woman, she would come up with an answer like this.
        The Bear left his own wake as he made his way to the lumpy tarp. Then he likewise dove under the paint tarp, onto the bed, and into welcoming arms and enticing giggles....some of them, his.
        And it was times like this that he wondered why he had ever wondered at all.

        Set wandered around the dark bar, empty except for herself and the Wizard who was busy going over a section of music he had pretty much trashed during the last set of the night. Nobody had noticed really. Well, Set had noticed, but that didn't count. She knew her memory was far too precise to judge anything in the realm of the artistic, since she only knew identical and non-identical, but not good and bad.
        Joe noticed. The Wizard was tired, Set thought. Too much to do with the building next door and the bar and his friends coming in from Paris a month early. Set managed to be away now when they came to visit the bar. She did not want to talk with the Adam person any more. It did not much matter he used to be her son. He hardly thought so any more and she could not remember. The baby hurt her just by being. Set could not stand the little monster. Something inside him made her cringe and shudder to her marrow. They did not see it, of course, not even the Wizard, but the child was...not...not as he appeared ... not right at all.
        Set heard Joe running through the tune again, something in the bridge of the thing, a note out of place. She wanted to tell him, but she didn't want to trespass. Same as with the Sean creature, Set wanted to tell them, but she judged they would not profit by the knowledge. Maybe later when she understood what it was about the child upset her so--the way it called to something horrible inside of her, something unimaginably evil.
        Which left her to think about the baby's father, the MacLeod warpiece and that nasty sword of his with the leering dragon on the hilt which bothered her almost more than the baby, but in much the same way. No good to try explaining it to Joe, she thought. No good to burden him with any more of her pathetic shortcomings. The Wizard's kindness, his unending pity, would kill her yet--in the real sense-- or lull her back into thinking he loved her. She did not profit by the knowledge the Adam person had given her.
        No profit at all.
        Nearly a month later, almost Easter, and Set still could not lose the cold sickness which had gripped her stomach when she had first understood the truth of the Wizard's kindness towards her. The time in between had seen his friends move back into their apartment on Cambie Street, and the construction nearly done on the renovation next door, and the ugly building near Sweet's finished enough to eclipse the light in her crystal forest. Enough time had passed to see Brandy and Mike together and not even ask about the silly look on their faces. Enough time had passed that Joe wasn't even angry any more about Woden's Lai night.
        Well, almost enough time. Set needed to tell him about their plan for Not So Good Thursday. They couldn't do the Easter thing on Ash Wednesday...or so the Bear had explained...or on Good Friday...so.
        But not Mike nor Lt. Crane nor even the jolly Bear had gotten round to informing Joe that his bar had been booked out for a concert of the "no taste whatsoever" club. Set reached for the fifth time into her apron pocket and crumpled the handbill they had printed for the event. Telling the Wizard was up to her. He was not going to be happy about this, but they couldn't go on lying to him.
        Even though Set herself wished sincerely that Joe would go on lying to her forever.
        How more pathetic could she be? She even treasured the appearance of his affection. He meant that much to her. In the time since her last talk with the Adam bastard, Set had worked as mightily as she could for the Wizard in all the ways she could, given her limitations. She cleaned. She served. She came up with interesting bedtime amusements and variations. Set grinned to herself. Joe had especially liked the chocolate ice cream, though he'd caught such a chill that his soft voice went hoarse for several days after.
        But there were just so many things she could not do for him, that in the balance, she felt little better than useless.
        Joe gave up and propped the guitar against the small practice amp. "Set?"
        "Yes?" Set wandered over casually, her hand in her pocket, thinking how best to broach the subject of the concert.
        "Come here," he said, warmly reaching his arm around her waist. "What have you got there?"
        Set ducked her head. "Well," she stalled, "there is something I wanted to talk to you about."
        "Yes?" Joe pulled her down on his lap.
        Set's eyes closed and she luxuriated in the sensation of being brought next to his heart.
        "Is there something wrong, Darlin'?" Joe's fingers wandered around the buttons on her shirt.
        "Wait," Set said, "I, I cannot think..."
        "And that's important?" Joe laughed. But the sober expression on Mrs. Dawson's face made him stop.
        "Here," she said, giving up on a more gracious or complicated explanation. She pulled out the handbill and thrust it into his face.
        Joe drew back and squinted, then took the paper and began to read.
        Set watched and waited.
        Joe lifted her off his lap, away from his heart.
        Set took this to be a bad sign. "It was my idea," she did not want him to think ill of his friends. "Maybe it was stupid."
        "Noooo," Joe breathed out the word in a sighing minor tone. "The Messiah, huh?"
        "It isn't--" what had the Bear said? "It isn't appropriate to the season?"
        Joe looked at her. It always caught him flat-footed when she launched into her version of someone else's words...she did it so accurately that he knew immediately this had been the Bear's idea. "Oh, it's appropriate all right. But it takes a whole choir, Darlin', and several, geez, almost three hours to do."
        Actually, it was more like three hours, ten minutes, but Set was hardly in a position to argue. "Yes," she agreed. "but we sound okay with Brandy doing the high parts and the way the empty hall next door echoes. Is it okay, Joe?"
        "You're going to do it next door before we get any furniture in, Set? Where will people sit?"
        Set chewed her lower lip. "Floor?" she suggested. "Okay?" she asked again.
        Joe threw up his hands and the paper fluttered away. "I surrender, Set. Go ahead. Can I come?"
        "Oh," Set's face slumped. "You didn't read it all." She went over and picked it up and brought it back. "At the bottom," she pointed.
        "Oh, Darlin', come here," he gathered her back on his lap, this time as if he would never be letting her go again, ever. "Dedicated to the Blues' Messiah of Seacouver, Joseph T. Dawson. Isn't that a little overstated?"
        Set wove her slender fingers through his beard. "If I could write, I would have said it better than the Bear did."

        Adam woke up on the floor. This morning! Dear God, of all the mornings to over-sleep. He scurried across the floor, grabbing the appropriate garment as it came within reach, so that by the time he reached the lift cage, he was more or less dressed. He keyed the lift down from the floor above him where his brother and MacLeod still slept. He had dug in on the empty fourth floor of the dojo, working on a way to save his mother from the indignities of mortality. His long hands ripped up a paper bag and wrapped the old journal, his masterpiece, before placing it in an inside pocket of his ample coat. Then he removed his bronze sword and laid it in its scabbard on the floor by the lift as it stopped behind the cage.
        For two weeks while he finished the journal, he'd sent out a cryptic message in a language long-dead over the Watcher Network, saying simply, "Stanley Park by the duck pond, Ash Wednesday, sunrise." Of course, coming up with something that sounded like Stanley and had the sense of the later Christian holiday was difficult, but he'd manage with a pun and a Phoenix reference...or more accurately a Simurgh reference, the other bird being a much later device.
        He might as well have painted the target on his butt as Duncan had suggested in the parking lot four weeks earlier. He meant them to come after him. Except for his mother, Adam had not met a Danaan that he knew of, if he didn't count Malak. So they would have to come to him if he were going to be making any deals with the damnable biddies.
        Adam noted it was still early morning, but well past sunrise. All the tedious, meticulous hand work and antiquing, all the mixing of just the right ink, and carving the pens...damnation, all might go to waste for a bit of laziness. He cursed himself again. You're getting too old, Dadahm, too damn old. And on time or no, they still might not buy this counterfeit as real.
        A cab ride and an extra ten to the driver got him to Stanley in twenty minutes. Another five and he was prowling the duck pond, wondering where the ducks were and looking for any suspicious types. Middle-aged women with steely eyes, he thought, for want of any other imagery.
        There were none. Why would there be, strolling the park this hour of the morning? Those types would be up in the high rise offices running the world. The thought made him shiver, though the morning was warm for so early in the spring.
        "Dr. Piersen!" a voice called out.
        Oh, damn! Crane. Adam wondered if this were the gods teasing him with the worst morning ever. "Good morning, Lieutenant," he said cordially.
        "What are you doing up so early, Adam? I thought you were the proverbial late riser." Crane joined him, moving up on Adam's left side and matching him, stride for stride.
        "Leave me alone, Crane," Adam growled. "I'm not supposed to be associating with Watchers."
        "Breathe easy, Piersen," Crane chortled, "I haven't got a crush on you if that's what you're worried about."
        Adam smiled. And me without my sword, he thought. Pity.
        They walked along in silence, once more around the duck pond. No one was coming, Adam thought. I might as well shake this idiot of a police lieutenant and go get some breakfast.
        "They aren't coming," Crane broke the silence.
        "Excuse me?" Adam knew it wasn't possible any but a Danaan could have deciphered his message.
        "They sent me instead," Crane stopped and turned towards him.
        This set Adam back on his heels. "Who?"
        Crane continued walking, "Here." He reached back and handed Adam a piece of paper as he caught up.
        Adam read, "Tell the friend of MacLeod that he is to make his demands in the same manner he told us about this meeting, and we will consider the merit of his trade and authenticate the pages he gives you now."
        "So?" Crane waited.
        Adam tore two of the pages out of the tale about Malak. They were absolutely genuine of course. "Tell them there are two parts to this journal and what they want is in the second part."
        "Hey," Crane put his palms up. "I don't tell them anything. I never saw them. I just leave these in a book in the library downtown and that's the end of my involvement."
        "Then how will I know if they agree?" Adam asked.
        "Maybe I'll get another note stuck in my door by God knows who. Honestly, Adam, I don't know," Crane shook his head. "Dollars to Donuts, they've thought of some way to do it."
        Adam watched Crane retreat, wondering under what exact circumstances the lieutenant had come into one of Lucille's favorite expressions.

        Set slipped into Joe's office, put his coffee and sandwich beside him on the old desk where he was busy with Watcher "stuff," and then she collapsed in a disgruntled heap on the couch across from the desk.
        Joe hated to ask, "Something wrong?"
        "Everything," she grumbled.
        They'd been all morning setting up for this Messiah thing for tomorrow. They had the sound system cranked to max, playing different portions of the piece at different volumes, trying to deal with the obstinate accoustics of the empty hall next door.
        "I can't see how we will ever be ready when they will not practice," she continued.
        "Well," Joe keyed off the secure link to HQ Central. "You really have planned something difficult, Set. You can't expect it to succeed."
        Set gazed up quizzically, "What?"
        "It's too hard, Set. You can't do it. Not the whole Messiah, Not with only five people."
        "Everything is too hard," Set began. "and I do it...in time."
        This was an insight Joe might have foregone. It reminded him how very badly she had been wounded and how very well she had compensated, so well in fact, that he took her diligence for granted. "Can I help?"
        She smiled. "Oh, Joe. It will be all right."
        "Well, Set, what happened?"
        "Crane did not come all morning," she began, "then when he did come, he gave this paper to the Bear and they put words into the crystal screen that Bear carries in that hard leather pouch. And then they just left. No 'by your leave.' No 'we will return.' Nothing. Just gone."
        Set started laughing. "and when I turned around, Mike and Brandy had sort of slipped away someplace. You know how they are lately. And I gave up on any more practice and made lunch."
        Joe toasted her with the sandwich, with what was left, the rest being in his mouth and comfortably settled on his stomach...roast beef and tomatoes and a tangy mustard that made you tear up if you got just a little too much. "Good," he managed around the mouthful.
        After a swallow of coffee laced with cocoa and almond, Joe suggested a solution to the dilemma, "You could just play that wonderful CD you've got and we could ask the Couver Library to lend us their Messiah tape of religious art. We could project it on the northern white wall like a light show with the sound turned off."
        Set cocked her head.
        "You know, Set. Like the movie we went to see."
        She still did not understand.
        "You have the sound system set up pretty well and that acapella recording, the CD you found, is truly wonderful, the loft and lift of the voices is inspiring. It would make a nice bit of ..."
        "Sea Dee?" Set asked.
        "The recording, Set. I've been sitting here all morning listening to your getting the sound system set up. I heard the CD, pieces of it, off and on since dawn."
        "System?" Set asked.
        Joe bit his lip and reminded himself to be patient. Why was she being so dense? She knew what he meant. "You know, Set, the amps, the mikes..."
        "Oh," Set nodded, "You mean the voice things with the lights and the buttons. The ones you use."
        "Yes, Set. As I said, I have been hearing you all..."
        "Don't use them," she said.
        Joe studied her. It was his turn to be confused. "Then you must have one hell of a boom box next door."
        "I do not understand," Set said finally. "We were only practicing. No setting up, no boom, no Sea, no voice-make-louders. We were singing the parts where Crane being gone wouldn't hurt."
        Joe's eyes rounded and he glanced reflexively towards the wall in his office which was the only separation between this building and the new construction. What had he heard? Surely not four people. Even through the wall, it had clearly been a professional choir, more than. He remembered he'd wanted to remind himself to ask Set where they got the recording, it was such a fine piece. "It was so beautiful, Set," he said lamely, "I thought it couldn't be you."
        Set ignored the left-handed compliment. "Bear showed me how to use the ceiling, the edges where the wall joins to..." she paused. "It bounces back at different...what does he say?...harmonics? Acoustics?"
        That did not explain what he had heard. "I can hardly wait for tomorrow, Set. It will be wonderful." He regretted now that he'd absented himself from all those Wednesdays when the "no taste whatsoever" group took over his bar. That would surely have to change.
        Set shrugged and walked around the desk to sit at his feet. She draped her arms over the false knees and looked up at him, obviously wanting to say something, but not quite sure how to begin.
        "What is it, Set?" Joe leaned forward and placed his palms either side of her face.
        "Something the Adam person said," Set's gaze drifted down, away from his.
        "Yes?"
        "I don't really want to know what is the truth," she said so quietly, he almost couldn't hear.
        "I will tell you the truth if you ask me, Set," Joe wondered as he said it, if he were promising too much, but Set was always pulling him past what he thought were his limits. Why stop now?
        "He said you didn't really love me," she brought her eyes back up to meet his. "I think you only pity me because I am wounded."
        "Pity you? You?," Joe thought she must be joking. "Darlin', I am amazed and in awe, and a few times scared out of my wits by you, but, geez, Set--Pity? No!"
        "But you feel so ashamed, so bad about your wounding...and Adam said you would feel the same, disgusted, by mine..."
        God Damn that Old Man, Joe thought. What the hell right had he too...! "Do you pity me, Set?"
        Set's full lips thinned as her mouth dropped open. "You? I am sorry for your loss, I am concerned for you because I love you, but mostly I just cannot believe how powerful, how magic you are, when you are always so soft and so tender with me. I would never....pity....you," she slowed her words as they came echoing back to her in full lucency. "I see," she said breathily. "I see."
        His broad palms slipped behind her head and he drew her towards him.
        "Wait," she said.
        He felt her warm breath against his lips. "What?" he answered, his mouth so close to hers that the word itself was a kiss.
        "Why," another word kiss back.
        Joe drew away from her a few inches, "Why what, Set?"
        "Why do you love me, Joe?"
        His pale eyes rolled upward and he began to chuckle, "Oh, Darlin', why do you love me?"
        Beyond the breathy, "Oh," she did not really answer him in words, but the answer was entirely informative and absolutely satisfying nonetheless.

        Set woke slowly, curled up in the dark well beneath Joe's antique desk. The Wizard was gone. She could still smell and taste him, but the room was cold from his leaving. She crawled out from under the desk and smiled as she saw he'd left her a note. A tradition from the day, long ago now, when she had pouted over all the notes he was constantly leaving for Mike.
        So the Wizard had taught her a symbol she could read, one that meant a great many things, all of them lovely and loving. And here, she thought, he has left me another. Set took the single white sheet of paper with the red ink hearts' outlines, one linked with the other, and folded it carefully, putting it in her pocket until she could place it upstairs in the box under the bed where she kept all his notes.
        It did not matter to her that each one was nearly identical to the others. Set could recall each instant the note was sent and all that went with each one. They were magic that way. Where had he gone?
        Exiting the office, Set spied Sweet Lucille and the monster baby over in a booth. Otherwise, the bar was empty. Maybe if she walked really lightly...
        "Set, Dear," Lucille called out.
        Set's shoulders hunched up around her ears. Caught. "Yes?" she answered blandly.
        "Come on over, Dear. I won't bite," Lucille's voice was so tempting.
        Set shuffled over reluctantly. "What can I get you?" she lapsed into her waitress words.
        "Oh, no, Darlin', I don't need anything," Lucille warbled, "Here, do you want to hold the baby?"
        Set couldn't help stepping backwards a yard. "If you don't need anything, then..."
        "Okay, Honey," Lucille laughed softly and shifted Sean over her shoulder to burp.
        "Do you know where Joe went?" Set asked.
        "That church up on Leaven Street," Lucille answered. "Duncan took him over. Something about Mark getting into it with a priest over there about why they couldn't borrow the church for tomorrow's concert."
        That sounded right. The Bear had been most unhappy about the acoustics of the empty hall next door. "When?" Set asked.
        "Oh, half an hour or so," Lucille held Sean out in front of her and rubbed noses.
        Which made the creature burble and squeak. Set cringed.
        "I came over with Duncan to give you something," Lucille said, setting the baby back in her lap and retrieving the bottle. "Here," she reached out her free hand with a small box. "Didn't have time to wrap it, but I came across it as we were packing the crystal."
        "You're moving?" Set asked, trying to get close enough to reach out for the box.
        "Yes," Lucille leaned out a little farther and Set got the box. "Over to the condos on Stanley. It won't be so bad I suppose. At least we have all the crystal packed and moved...and the aquarium."
        "Thank you," Set remembered her manners, but went over to another table to open the box. "What is it?" she asked.
        "It is a new piece I got to replace one you broke," Lucille said.
        Set's face wrinkled up and the scar down her forehead puckered. "I am sorry."
        "Oh, don't be. I just thought you might like it, Dear Set."
        "Thank you," Set said again. "I have some things to do in the office..." she pointed. "If you need something..."
        "We're okay, Set. Duncan said they'd be back in a bit."
        Set let the office door close behind her before she panicked. Something was dreadfully wrong, but she couldn't think what that would be. Just a floating, general fear, something she'd not felt for a very long time. Something with the Wizard. Something not wrong now, but soon to be. She would have to think of a way to go to him.
        Set hesitated with her good hand on the door. No, too far to walk. Maybe. She did not know where Leaven Street was...but the Wizard had to be driven...so, far enough. She would have to do it. There was no other way.
        She, stupid and little and crippled Set, would have to call up a dragon.
        Shaking, she settled deeply into Joe's chair, trying to absorb his power. Set reached for the phone and poked the circle button. She nearly choked when a pleasant woman gave voice to the machine. "I need," Set began. Oh, hell, what did they call them? "a cab," she said.
        The melodious voice said to wait and then another voice called a line of the number magicks. Damn!
        Set put the speaking part of the phone back down in its nest and lifted up the crystal globe Lucille had given her. Siting it on the window, she noticed there was a monster baby at its center. Why would she think I wanted this? Set wondered.
        To remind me to be brave, Set thought.
        No, she would not let this defeat undo her. She tried again, this time asking the voice to call the cab for her. That was all it took. A man came on and asked her the address and Set told him about how to come round the back into the alley. He said ten minutes and Set said thank you. And that was that.
        It was several minutes before Set's heart stopped trying to beat its way out of her chest. She had done it! Joe would be so proud. Reaching into the third drawer on the left, she picked out a handful of the green paper that was currency for the dragon drivers and waited for the beaste to arrive.
        And all the while she chanted to herself. I will be brave for the Wizard.
        I will be brave.

        "We're here, Lady," the scruffy dragon driver announced as he steered the yellow drake into the alley. "Chuck's," he added.
        "What?" Set tried to focus through the daze of her fear.
        "St. Charles' Cathedral on Leaven, Lady. You okay? I can take you around to the main entrance, but the traffic is heavy and there are a half-dozen stretch limos parked in the front. Holidays, you know."
        "No, no," Set stuttered. "This is fine. Ummm." She couldn't work the door.
        "Wait a minute," the driver shut the dragon down and got out, opening her door for her.
        God bless you, Set thought. She handed him the entire handful of dollars.
        "Oh, hey, this is way too..."
        "Tip," Set explained. She knew about tips, if not about fares.
        "Geez, Lady. Thanks. Happy Easter, almost. Do you want me to wait for you?"
        Set shook her head. If she came back at all, it would be with the Wizard, in Duncan's black dragon. As she watched the cab drake glide off, she wondered why wouldn't she be coming back? No, time enough to worry later. She looked up and down the alley-facet of the great, dark stone building, chose a door and entered.
        The room was dark, a storeroom, books along one wall, robes in every hue along the other, wine in cabinets near the opposite door, and various odd chairs scattered about. She crossed over to the inner door and opened it a crack. Beyond was another room, this one a study or office, also empty.
        There was a soft lamp of colored crystals on a desk very like Joe's. Set resisted the temptation to climb under it. Why should she be so afraid? She had after all called up a dragon and ridden it all the way here and never screamed once. She tried to think of all the things she knew about Churches. It wasn't much. Dr. Palmer, the Bear, had tried to explain Ash Wednesday to her.
        Set took it as a tale entirely of the Bear's invention. It was too unbelievable that a nation of sensible folk should worship and celebrate the death by torture of a Lord Victorious. That they should carry the shape of the instrument of that torture upon their foreheads in the ashes of His Triumphal Procession, the palms of His victory march, was beyond ridiculous.
        Well, it would not be the first, nor surely not the last, thing she had misunderstood. Set lifted her head, pricked her ears. The Wizard was here. Far back in the next room, a very big room by the distance to his warmth. Set walked over to the next door and slipped through.
        Which put her in the temple proper. Set glanced up at the groined vaulting of the ceiling high above her head, gilded and blazoned with stars and illuminated like a false dawn. She was standing in a small archway leading into the front corner of the great hall. Rows and rows of pews, banks of candles, a forest of grey polished marble columns, and a bed of scarlet carpet, it was most impressive. She could see immediately why the Bear wanted to sing here. It was made for bouncing and gentling and enlarging sound as no other place she'd ever been in, certainly better than the bar addition.
        Then Set caught sight of the Wizard, standing with MacLeod, across the hallway, near its enormous front doorway down a long aisle that ran the center of the pew rows. Set started forward, turned right along the front of the first pews and made her way for the aisle. Joe was deep in some conversation with