Lost

Chapter 31

Duncan had become aware of their surroundings as they rode out into the wind. Everything was dark around them and they had to pause to find their way whenever another cloud obscured the moon. A storm was coming in, the wind pushing the heavy clouds at a fast rate. Duncan was so confused; it seemed that he’d lost the entire day. Why were they out here? Andre’s face was a mask of determination as they rode through the night. Recognizing the terrain, Duncan knew they were headed towards the ruins, but he didn’t know why. He shifted a bit and shivered. He was dressed in a woolen coat that left his legs bare and he’d lost one of his pumps somewhere along the way. He was sitting sideways in front of Andre, held tight in the strong arms.

“Are we going to the ruins?” The words nearly had to be shouted in the wind.

Andre looked down, surprised at the awareness in the beautiful eyes. Good. “We are ending our journey together, princess. It’s time.”

The strange words only confused Duncan even more as did the faraway look in the shadowed eyes. But he’d been trained not to ask so he remained silent and wondered if he’d ever understand. All he knew was that the wind was making him dizzy and he felt afraid because he didn’t know what Andre was doing.

They let the horse go at the base of the ruins. The wind was fierce as Andre pulled Duncan by the hand across the rocks. Duncan didn’t know why Andre was running. Dizzy and sick, he tried to balance himself with one hand against the boulders and strewn rocks as Andre took another turn, seemingly following a path that only he knew. Duncan recognized the ruins but had never explored them, didn’t know where they were as the wind whipped his hair in a frenzy. The storm was getting worse and the wind was rising.

They reached a crevice in the rocks with a worn path leading to ancient stone steps. The steps wound around piles of fallen stones which Andre climbed over. Both ended up with scrapes and cuts that bled but Andre never stopped, finding his way through the maze to a place only he knew. Moving around what was left of what might have been an outer wall, Duncan looked around when they stopped in a small area where the stone walls sheltered them from most of wind. Seeing the wooden supports he wondered how long they’d last.

“Andre, I don’t understand...” Andre hadn’t let go of his hand, he just stood there and surveyed the ruins around them. Duncan became aware that he was standing on several rocks that bit into the sole of his foot. He moved his feet around but since Andre hadn’t answered him, he fell silent. He waited for Andre to continue as he listened to the whistling of the wind around the ancient stone walls. He lifted a hand to pull his hair to one side in an attempt to keep it from blowing into his eyes.

“You’ve asked why so many times, princess, but I’ve never answered you. Perhaps I owe you some explanation.” Andre dropped his hand and walked around the ruins, glancing out between some fallen rocks to the darkened landscape beyond. “This place has been in my family for over twelve generations. Did you know that?” He turned to look at Duncan as though he expected an answer. Duncan shook his head, confused at the non sequiter.

“I can’t have children...and now especially, there will be no heirs to the Lacasse name. You were supposed to be my immortality, Sarah. You were supposed to keep the Lacasse name alive, though you can’t have children, either. Isn’t that a wonderful joke? I gave you the name and then I took it away and now there’s nothing. There’s no money and there’s no time and you are not a Lacasse.”

Duncan was mesmerized by the look of intense sadness that crossed the big man’s features only to see a lightning shift to one of peace.

“I love you, princess.” Duncan gasped at the declaration, anger surging through him at the thought of this man, after what he’d done, daring to say those words. He brought his arms around his stomach, willing the churning to stop, but fell to his knees onto the sharp rocks.

“But for the longest time I hated you...” Duncan said nothing knowing that if he spoke he’d break this moment and then Andre would never tell him why.

“You were the supreme immortal warrior, magnificent in your killing frenzy...and you took away the only person in my life that meant anything to me.” He stopped to take a deep breath and look into the dark brown wells. “You have no idea what you are, do you?” He suddenly needed to make her understand why. “I saw you for the first time 30 years ago. The battle of two monumental beings to nine year old eyes. You were magnificent!” Andre stood and stepped back throwing his arms wide to the winds as he relived that moment so long ago. “The ferocity of your battle, the supreme confidence of two alpha warriors. It was the stuff of legends come true. And then…the final beheading. The power of your stroke as you took your opponents head. I was completely astounded and horrified, unable to tear my eyes away.” Focusing again on the being kneeling on the ground, he felt a sudden tenderness. Here was that god-like creature. His now.

Stepping forward Andre knelt in front of Sarah, taking her wrists in his hands and bringing her face up to meet his. “For all your beauty, I thought you were an avenging angel ridding the world of evil one being at a time. And then the lightening storm came, I thought God had come to take you back to the heavens, but instead the lightning struck you, wracking your body over and over again. How could I have been so wrong? You were obviously the evil one and God had to strike you down for your evil. But, oh how I despaired. How could anyone so beautiful be evil? As the storm died around you I heard you gasping for breath, saw you on your hands and knees and still I was caught up in your magnificence. It was at that point that I knew I wanted it for my own.”

Duncan’s dark brown eyes were wide as he stared into the blue eyes so close to his own as his hair whipped across his eyes, his face. Andre still held his wrists captured, close to his chest. Suddenly the world darkened as a cloud obscured the moon. He kept silent. But the face bent so closely to his own, twisted into a mask of hatred that Duncan felt the familiar stab of fear go through him making him tremble and shake as he tried to crawl backwards. But Andre wouldn’t release his wrists. He reached up and grabbed Duncan by the hair, leaning heavily into his face and shouting. Duncan grabbed that wrist with his free hand as he looked up to the silhouetted figure above him.

“Then I realized who it was that you killed. You killed my step-father, the only one who would teach me what it was to be a man...and you took him from me!” Andre shook Sarah’s head as he raged at her. “Who were you to hurt me so? Why would you take him from me?! I struggled for years to understand, to learn. And it was much later that I learned who you were. I vowed I’d find you and learn just what had happened. And I did. I followed you and learned your name and for years I was torn between avenging the murder of the man I knew as my father and wanting to own the magnificent being that you are.”

Andre released the other wrist to stroke down the pale cheek, an eerie calm sliding over the features. “Over the years I learned everything about you and your immortality. I hired an army of people just to watch you and record your activities. You see, my dear, I had decided that I had to have you for myself. I had to own your magnificence and make it mine. And through my years of study I devised how to take away everything that made you who you were, take away your life as you knew it just as you took mine away and yet still make you mine. Your eternal beauty, all your power...everything that you are belongs to me!” Andre placed both hands on Sarah’s face, holding her.

Duncan felt everything swirling around him. Vengeance...this was for vengeance. He should have known, right? The past could so easily come up and bite you in the ass, as it had for him, as it had for Methos. And with immortals there was just so much of it, so much history...but what was left now?

“No, no, Andre. You’ve got nothing! Nothing!” Duncan’s tear-filled eyes looked into the shadow-dark eyes of his captor. “Keeping me here, like this, doesn’t make you the better man, doesn’t bestow any of what I once was on you. You’ve gained nothing! Yes, you’ve forced submission from me through abuse. You’ve used my own honor to bind me to you in a sham of a ceremony only to give me away. But all you’ve done is made me a whore for the lives of my friends. You have nothing that was freely given, only taken.” Duncan had started to rock, his arms wrapped around himself as he felt himself crumbling. “And you’ve taken everything. There’s nothing left, nothing of that man, that warrior, left in me...nothing left at all and I am nothing...” Duncan’s eyes were growing vacant as he continued to rock.

“You are what I’ve made you! You are mine!” Anger reddened Andre’s face as he grabbed Sarah by the arms and shook her back and forth like a rag doll until he saw a spark of reason coming back into the shadowed eyes.

Deep wells of sadness glimmered in Duncan’s dark eyes. “No, Andre. I’m just a possession, a whore...and now an adultress since I married Adam. You never had my love so I was never truly yours...and all your machinations have destroyed what you so admired and you…are…left with…NOTHING!” Duncan turned away, empty and lost.

“No, my sweet, that’s where you’re wrong. Call yourself what you will, but you are mine...now and forever! I was going to leave you to Pierson knowing that every time you looked at him, your husband, you’d think of me. But I find that I can’t let you go. You are mine and I’m taking you with me!” Andre grabbed the sword he’d secreted in his coat and raised it over his head. No one would have his sweet Sarah except him. No one!

Duncan looked up at the man holding the sword. Yes, this is right. No other immortal would be burdened with his damaged Quickening. He bowed his head and waited.

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Stefan was furious. They had been in Louisa’s apartment for forty minutes while Louisa tried to locate Gerard. If he was so drunk and unruly, where would he have gone? Had he been arrested? What he didn’t know was that Louisa was sitting in the hair salon where she used to work watching for Gerard to walk by.

Gerard had been at work all this time and she needed to tell him what was going on before he went home. She really felt she needed him there when she finally told Stefan the truth. It was funny, really. Stefan had accompanied her because she told him she was afraid of Gerard. But now she awaited Gerard because she feared Stefan’s wrath. Stefan had said that he wanted to return to the estate. She hoped they will have been gone long enough.

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Methos and Connor rode through the night, pausing occasionally to check Methos’ screen. The wind was blowing furiously which both helped them and worked against them. While it covered the sound of their approach it also hid any sound from Lacasse and Duncan. They wouldn’t know where they were until they were right on top of them. Changing their direction slightly he gestured for Connor to bear left and they rode on.

Eventually the terrain became rockier with occasional large stones blocking the path. In the distance they could see a large edifice which glowed eerily each time the clouds moved away from the moon. As they drew closer they could hear snatches of a voice screaming into the night. Abandoning the horses the two men scrambled across the rock-strewn ground as they ran closer.

Methos crouched down behind a boulder as he tried to determine which direction the voices came from. Connor was across from him trying to see around a large group of rocks. As they drew closer they could hear portions of speech broken by the wind.

“No, Andre. ...just a possession... an adulteress since I married Adam.” Connor heard Duncan’s voice carry across the night as he moved up a series of ancient steps, Adam hard on his heels. What the hell does he mean married to Adam? The path seemed to end in a mass of fallen stone. They could feel Duncan’s Presence but it was deep in the ruins. Connor looked at Adam and gestured for him to go one direction while he went another. Somehow they would find Duncan.

Methos crawled over yet another rock the size of a boulder and could feel Duncan’s Presence strengthening. He turned yet another corner just as a shadow covered the moon. The sudden loss of light caused him to stumble over a rock. He fell hard but recovered quickly and began to feel his way along the wall trying to discern the path in the darkness with the wind whistling around his head. Suddenly the clouds parted and he looked around and saw some of the outer walls shifting slightly. Jesus, this place was going to come down any minute in this wind! He’d passed some of the wooden supports and belatedly realized why they were there. He silently begged to the deities around him, if there were any, that the walls hold until he could get Duncan to safety. Suddenly he heard Lacasse’s voice close by. Where the hell was the entrance?

“No, my sweet, that’s where you’re wrong. Call yourself what you will, but you are mine...now and forever! I was going to leave you to Pierson knowing that every time you looked at him, your husband, you’d think of me. But I find that I can’t let you go. You are mine and I’m taking you with me!”

He ran up a series of steps and ran around a corner to see Andre with a sword held over his head and Duncan with his head bowed, offering his neck. No...Duncan! Pulling out his gun he aimed and snapped off a shot at Lacasse just as the night darkened again.