Highlander - Donna Lettow [106]
“None but my own.” He bit lustily into the fruit and chewed with obvious relish before trying to finish his thought with his mouth full. “I find if you stay out of other people’s wars, you live longer.”
Moving back to the fire, MacLeod put some more fuel on. The fire was already blazing, but he just couldn’t seem to shake the deep chill that had settled into his bones. He poked idly at the burning wood, accomplishing nothing. “I just …” he started, then tried again. “I really feel for him. All the horror he’s seen, the pain that he bears for his people.”
“And the guilt,” Methos added, thoughtfully.
“What do you mean, guilt?”
“You’ve felt it, MacLeod. We all have to some extent. The guilt of living on while everyone around you dies.” Methos’s eyes grew dark and far away. “The guilt of knowing that some cruel and capricious fate has selected you to be the one to witness the suffering of everyone you’ve ever cared for, knowing that you’re powerless to stop it. Or to share it.” Methos spoke from deep within his own heart. “Or to forget it.”
“To carry the memories of a hundred generations,” MacLeod said softly, “to protect their history and traditions. To ensure their survival. What an impossible burden.”
“On the other hand”—the brief window into Methos’s soul closed abruptly and was quickly replaced by his usual smug facade—“he did just try to waste your girlfriend.”
MacLeod sighed. “And he killed Marcus.”
“You know,” Methos shrugged, “Marcus was a great believer in cosmic justice. What goes around, comes around. Somehow I think he always knew that when his card came up, it would be at the hands of someone he had wronged in the past. Maybe now, somehow, honor has been satisfied for him.”
“But not for Assad,” MacLeod said. “Not for those men praying at that mosque. You were right—reasons and motives don’t matter. I understand why Avram feels he has to do what he’s doing. But he’s got to be stopped before he causes an-other war. Before more people die.“And?” Methos prompted.
“And,” MacLeod was resigned, “I’m the only one who can stop him.” He grabbed his coat from the sofa and started for the barge door. “I have to find him.”
Methos called out to him as he opened the door, “Where are you going?”
“It’s a Friday night. Where would you go if you were a devout Jew who’d just killed his teacher?” As MacLeod left, Methos settled back on the sofa to finish his apple and enjoy the heat of MacLeod’s fire.
The cantor had just intoned the final “Amen” when Avram knew with great certainty there was another Immortal in the synagogue. He stayed in his seat, head bowed beneath his prayer cap, his yarmulke, while the rest of the congregation filed out, trusting that MacLeod …for he knew it could be no other—would have sense enough to wait until they were alone to confront him.
He hadn’t enjoyed killing Constantine. For all Avram’s complaints to the contrary, for all his bitterness, Marcus had been like another father to him during a very dark time in his life, a time in which his soul was so black he might have considered suicide had he thought it even possible for one as cursed as he. Marcus had shown him life. Marcus had made him see that his Immortality didn’t mean he was damned by God; instead, that he was being called by God for a different purpose. Even so, it was centuries before he truly realized what God wanted—a champion for his chosen people.
And then Marcus betrayed him, plotted against him and, by so doing, betrayed the People of God. He had to be stopped. Avram had no choice.
MacLeod was close by him now, he could tell, so he didn’t flinch when something metallic dropped onto the bench beside him. “I think this is yours,” MacLeod’s voice said, and Avram turned to see the bloody boot knife he’d used to silence Constantine. He looked up to see MacLeod glowering above him—dark eyes, dark coat, dark countenance.
“Is this what you do on Friday nights, MacLeod? Cruise the synagogues? You need a life,” Avram sneered, standing.
“Oneg Shabbat isn’t a terrorist organization; Oneg Shabbat is you,” MacLeod accused.
Avram