Happy Holidays, amand-r!
Title: A Moment Late
Author: Cat in the Snow
Written for: Amand-r
Characters/Pairings: Duncan MacLeod, Amanda, Richie, Nick Wolfe, Joe Dawson, Amanda/Nick Wolfe, Amanda/Nick/Richie (if you squint). Past Amanda/Duncan.
Rating: PG-13 for foul language and violent situations. Gen.
Author’s Notes: Thanks to ad absolutely for the beta. Love and thanks to N., who broke my block on this fic.
Summary: An old friend needs Duncan’s help to pull off a rescue…or does he?
Duncan sighed in regret as he headed home in the pouring November rain, his mind on the bad date he’d just ended. So much for the world of Internet matchups, he thought darkly, but he’d been willing to try. That, he reminded himself, was more than some people, but he’d been feeling a little lonelier than usual. Most of his friends were scattered across the globe, and even with technology, it seemed just as difficult to connect with them as ever. He missed having someone nearby; he knew he did better with some semblance of a clan in his life.
As he pressed the button for the elevator of his loft, he felt the presence of another immortal and armed himself warily. Methos wandered in and out of Duncan’s life as he pleased, but it had been more than a year since he’d last seen the oldest immortal; the last email Duncan had received from him said something about spending some time in warmer climates.
Lifting the elevator gate, Duncan saw the lights in the loft were all on, but the immortal who greeted him was someone he hadn’t seen in eighteen years. Cautiously, Duncan stepped forward, off the elevator.
“Hey, Mac, sorry I didn’t call ahead, but I figured you wouldn’t mind, much,” the redheaded man said, putting his own sword away as he rose from the sofa. He was dressed, Duncan noted, in faded jeans and a blue plaid flannel shirt, and was barefoot; a pair of worn motorcycle boots sat on the floor near the end of the sofa, a battered brown leather jacket draped over the sofa’s arm. Two black motorcycle saddlebags and a duffel bag were stacked neatly beside the boots. His red hair was cropped short, the better to be under a helmet for hours on end; said helmet now sat on the coffee table. He was still the lean, rangy man Duncan remembered, muscle hiding underneath the flannel and denim, but he moved with the easy grace of the skilled swordsman Duncan knew he’d become.
For a moment, all Duncan could do was stare in shock before the memory of being manipulated by a demon rose to the forefront of his mind. “You - I killed you. Are you the demon, coming back for more after all this time?” Instinctively, Duncan attacked.
“Whoa,” Richie said, shocked, but he brought his sword up to block Duncan’s strike, faster than Duncan had anticipated, and didn’t step back as he might have once, a long time ago. “Look, I know it’s been nearly twenty years, Mac, but geez, if it’s that big of a problem, I’ll go sleep somewhere else.”
Duncan looked down at the sword Richie held. It wasn’t Graham Ashe’s sword, he noted, and something about that incongruity made him pause. The sword looked a lot like one Richie had attempted to steal from a museum, back when his sword had broken - a more traditional looking broadsword, plainer and less ornamented. Duncan stepped back. “You’re not carrying the same sword. If you’re really Richie, what happened to the one I gave you?”
Richie - or the man who looked like and talked like him - shook his head, but didn’t lower his guard. “Got stolen in Paris about eighteen years ago. Look, whatever convinced you I was dead -”
“I took your head, thinking you were someone else,” Duncan said.
Richie winced, but finished with, “- was probably some freaky magick, but I’m not dead.” He grinned suddenly. “Not for a lack of other people trying, mind you. Besides, who else would know you used to keep Jif peanut butter in the fridge, despite me telling you it didn’t need to be? Or that Tessa hated raw celery? Or that we both slept in the house you gave Anne on a night it stormed so hard, the roof leaked and we were playing musical rooms, trying to find one that was dry enough to sleep in? You made me swear not to tell Connor that you weren’t willing to sleep in the rain anymore.”
Duncan stared at him and slowly lowered his sword. “How do you know it was magick?”
“Because,” Richie said with a shrug, “I’ve been hearing the same story everywhere I’ve been the last few years, whenever I’ve been in touch with someone I met while I was hanging around you. Only explanation anyone’s been able to give is that someone with a lot of power wanted you out of the Game for a while, without killing you.”
“So they made me think you were dead?” Duncan asked incredulously. “And where have you been?”
“Running from the notion that you were possessed and trying to kill me,” Richie said grimly, disengaging his sword from the block and stepping back slightly. “Wasn’t until about two years ago that someone asked, ‘What if he wasn’t and it was a lie to get you both off balance and out of the Game?’ So I started digging. Turns out…it’s true.”
Duncan studied him. Richie carried himself with more maturity, and the way he gripped his sword spoke of furthered skill, but more importantly to Duncan, he wasn’t as trusting as the Richie of eighteen years ago. Something had shaken that conviction loose, and Duncan remembered Richie’s vow: If you come for my head again, I’ll be ready. In the wake of Richie’s death, Duncan had spent hours turning the incident repeatedly in his head, certain he’d been manipulated and magicked into the tragedy, but he’d never spoken of the magick to anyone. “Who would gain from us being apart?” he demanded. Every instinct Duncan had told him that this was Richie, older, wiser, and still as much on a mission as he’d been all the times before when he’d shown up unexpectedly on Duncan’s doorstep.
Richie sighed heavily. “A faction within the Watchers, concerned about one of us overloading like you did with Coltec. If you aren’t near me, you can’t -”
“Take your challenges as your teacher, or defend you in any way,” Duncan finished, horrified.
Richie nodded. “So without you taking on more challenges, the Game only looks like it’s not going on around you.”
“But that means…someone else is taking heads somewhere else.”
Richie nodded grimly. “That’s one of the reasons I’m here; I need your help to find Amanda and Nick. They’re supposed to be here in Seacouver, setting up a new club, but the club’s not open and the condo they purchased looks like the movers just set up everything and left.”
“Who’s Nick?”
“Nick Wolfe is Amanda’s student, sometime lover, and business partner. Also the last cop to successfully arrest her and put her in jail,” came the ready reply. “Have you been that out of the loop?”
“Haven’t been in France in a decade,” Duncan admitted. “I put a lot more energy into keeping my business since the recession.”
“That explains why Amanda avoided the question of whether you knew she was back in town,” Richie said with a slight shake of his head.
“So, this Nick, what’s he like?”
“Nice guy once you get past his sarcasm and my best friend. They’ve been running a nightclub in Paris called Sanctuary; it’s built on the ruins of an old church. I was working there until two years ago. Nick’s the one who poked holes in what I thought to be true.”
Duncan stared at Richie a long moment, not entirely convinced. “Amanda can take care of herself, and the last student she took in was Michelle.”
“Who’s dead,” Richie said bluntly. “Amanda couldn’t get Michelle to listen to her anymore than you could.”
Duncan winced. He’d suspected as much, given how Amanda had distracted him when he’d asked. “Have you tried calling Amanda?”
Richie rolled his eyes. “No, I haven’t ever memorized her number into my cell phone. I just agreed to drive up from New Orleans on the off chance she’d offer me a job, who the fuck do you think I am, the idiot you rescued off the street? Been years since I was that naïve kid. Mac, if it was just a simple kidnapping, Amanda and Nick could rescue themselves. You said it a moment ago: Amanda can take of herself.”
That gave Duncan pause. He glanced at his watch and realized it was too late to start a rescue mission without enough information. “Say that I believe you. What were you waiting for?”
“A good night’s sleep and some food I don’t have to cook myself,” Richie said bluntly.
Duncan’s eyes narrowed as he rewound their conversation in his mind. “So why aren’t you staying in Amanda’s condo?”
“Utilities haven’t been turned on,” Richie replied. “Which was my first clue that things weren’t the way they were supposed to be.” He paused. “And I was staying there until someone called the police to say they thought someone was crashing there. I talked my way out of it, but I didn’t feel safe anymore.”
“And where would you have gone if I wasn’t here?”
Richie hesitated. “To find Cory, but he might still be upset with me.”
“For what?” Duncan moved to the kitchen, deciding he could use a snack.
“For refusing to agree to be his alibi for something he didn’t plan well because he didn’t want to listen to me about security cameras,” Richie replied. “And I didn’t have the money to bail him out, so I called Matthew McCormick instead.”
“Why Matthew?” Duncan wondered.
Richie eyed him strangely. “All this time, you’ve known them both and you didn’t know Matthew was Cory’s teacher?”
“No, I never asked,” Duncan said. “Cory always put me off when I asked, and Matthew’s not been fond of me for forcing him to own up to holding a stupid grudge for far too long. How did you find out?”
“Been living with him in New Orleans the last six months,” Richie said with a half-shrug. “Can’t spend all the time talking about planning his next robbery or how well his charity d’jour is doing.” Richie yawned. “And I’m sorry, but I’m really tired.”
“Get some rest,” Duncan urged. Every instinct told him that this was, indeed, Richie. He’d always thought that Cory and Richie would get along well, once Cory got past his urge to play practical jokes; if Richie had been on his own, Duncan could see where he’d resort to his old habits of stealing to stay alive. “I’ll make pancakes for breakfast.”
That got Duncan a brief smile. “Thanks, Mac.”
****
Chapter Two
“So why do you think the Watchers are doing this?” Duncan asked the next morning as Richie helped him clean up the breakfast dishes.
“Because I woke up eighteen years ago in an farmhouse north of Paris,” Richie said. “The woman who was with me said she’d gotten me out in time before you snapped. She showed me her tattoo. You were shouting about demons and that the demon was in me, she told me, and that she was afraid you’d taken another Dark Quickening. She said you had my sword and that I had to run for my life before you found me again. She gave me a broadsword she claimed was from an immortal you’d killed in your rage, a hundred francs, and a train ticket to Rome. She had my duffel - the one I always used to pack my clothes - and it was full of my stuff - and I didn’t think to question how she’d gotten it when I’d been at a restaurant earlier that day.”
Duncan stared at him. “But how would that make you think…?”
Richie sighed heavily. “Like I said, I didn’t put it together until about two years ago. Ten years ago, I decided to head back to Paris after doing some wandering around the world, and I’d heard that Amanda was running a nightclub. She wasn’t in when I applied for a job, but the head bartender liked me and decided to give me a trial run. My first night, Amanda looked at me like she’d seen a ghost. She waited until after I’d finished my shift to drag me upstairs and demand the truth, as I knew it. She said that you thought I was dead.” Richie set the glass he’d finished drying back into the right cabinet without asking Duncan where it went - and that, more than anything, sealed Duncan’s confidence that this was indeed the same man who’d been his ward. Only friends knew Duncan liked having his glassware in the cabinet to the left of the stove, closer to the fridge.
“Two years ago, Nick sat me down and started asking me questions about who I knew to be in the Game. By then, I knew he wasn’t going to be using the information to hunt heads - he hates killing - so I asked him what he was going to do with the data.
“He’d been tracking patterns, you see, because the club’s on holy ground and all three of us were getting challenges left and right there for a while, but then it shifted to different people. He wanted to know why.”
“Why?”
Richie shrugged. “Nick thinks that if the Game really is about one immortal gaining all the power, then it would make no sense that we have about a five-to-ten-year cycle where one immortal suddenly starts taking more heads than usual. He said it didn’t fit with the patterns of a regular serial killer, which -” Richie winced slightly “- he thinks the hunters among us are. He says if the Watchers removed you from the Game permanently, it would start a war that they couldn’t win. But if they took you out of play for a while, then nobody would come to you for help unless they were desperate, and even then you might reconsider, send them on to someone else.”
“And you think they’ve targeted Amanda.”
“A bar on holy ground would be a magnet for immortals,” Richie said. “Especially if it was near you.”
Duncan considered. It had been quiet the last ten years; he’d been grateful not to have to take so many heads as he’d been the five years Richie had been a part of his life. The last time he’d been challenged had been well over two years ago, some young punk with more bravado than skill whom Duncan had tried to convince not to fight. “But what would the Watchers gain by removing people?”
Richie studied him. “They see it as an opportunity for balance. Someone who isn’t as old or as powerful gets a chance to even the score sheet, if you will.”
“Does Joe know about this?”
“Doubt it,” Richie said heavily. “But I’m willing to bet his daughter does.”
Duncan looked startled at that and narrowed his eyes. “Why do I get the feeling you know more than I do about the friends we have in common?”
Richie shrugged impatiently. “I made it my business to know who my friends were connected to after making the mistake of taking someone’s head without caring about who he might know. Face it, Mac, you get involved with people and stuff happens to them whether they like it or not. Makes some people leery of what they’d share with you.”
Duncan’s jaw dropped. “I cannot believe you just said that.”
“You know, I lost count of how many times I got kidnapped that first year because of you,” Richie said mildly. “Or how many of those immortals acted like they knew something about me that you hadn’t yet told me.” He let that sink in before he said briskly, “Now, my guess is that wherever Amanda and Nick are isn’t that far away, but my mental map of Seacouver’s out of date.”
Disconcerted, Duncan took a moment to realize this Richie meant what he’d said the previous night. A good night’s sleep out of the elements and a good meal, and he was already planning how to find Amanda and Nick. “You’re not suggesting that you find them yourself, are you?”
Richie looked at him, annoyed and insulted. “I don’t know what bubble you’ve been living in, Mac, but I haven’t been sitting on my ass watching the world pass me by,” he said evenly, clearly controlling his anger. “You don’t know all where I’ve been or what I’ve done in the last eighteen years.”
“And you think you know how to find out who has Amanda and Nick?”
“Yes,” Richie said, meeting Duncan’s disbelieving look.
“How?”
“Start with likely places they could be,” Richie said. “What, you have a better idea?”
“Joe would know,” Duncan said.
Richie rolled his eyes. “And you’re just going to demand that he break his oath one more time?”
“Yes, but -”
“That’s why he’s been kept in the dark,” Richie said flatly. “So he can’t tell you what he doesn’t know. Besides, he’s retired from the Watchers.”
“I know.” Duncan took a mental step back, realizing he was reacting as if Richie was still twenty-one and liable to make as many foolish decisions as good ones. “So tell me how I can help.”
“Where would you fight a challenge where it wouldn’t be noticed by anyone?”
“North of the city,” Duncan said instantly. “There’s an old abandoned farm that was up for sale before the recession hit, then a Walmart was supposed to be built there, but the county wanted the company to pay for road improvements, so it didn’t get built. It’s been up for sale ever since. Nothing around it, and the land’s been slowly sinking so it’s actually lower than the road right now, plus there’s a bunch of trees around on the road side.”
“The old buffalo farm hasn’t sold yet?” Richie asked, surprised. “Thought for sure it would’ve been by now. But…” Richie considered. “Is the hotel that Amanda used to stay at still in operation?”
“The Hotel Seacouver? Yes, it’s still one of the best in the city,” Duncan said, confused.
“Then we should go there first.”
“What did you mean by you think Joe’s daughter is involved? Joe doesn’t have a daughter.”
“That you knew about,” Richie said, rolling his eyes. “Joe didn’t want you to know because he thought it would be safer for her if you didn’t.”
That stung. “How did you find out?”
“Nick told me so I wouldn’t be surprised when I served her in Sanctuary.”
“How long did you work for Nick and Amanda?”
“Eight years,” Richie replied. “Quit to go looking up some people to ask questions and learn things, and wound up staying with Cory for the last six months, which is how Amanda and Nick found me again to ask if I’d help open their new club.”
Duncan considered what he’d heard a moment. “So what did you have planned for when we go to the hotel?”
“Depends on what we find when we get there,” Richie replied. “Plan A: be nice and ask if Amanda’s there and safe. Plan B: kick ass and rescue Amanda. Plan C: kick ass, get Amanda’s location, and go from there. Oh, and not lose our heads. Sound good enough?”
Duncan’s lips twitched as he fought a smile. He’d forgotten just how Richie thought. “Good enough for me.”
*****
Chapter Three
Amanda woke feeling as though she’d just had the worst hangover. She blinked at the sight of the hotel suite she usually favored staying in while in Seacouver; she hadn’t stayed here in years. She glanced down at her attire: a black satin nightgown that was similar to a silk one she’d owned for years. Instinct borne of over a thousand years of living told her that something was very, very wrong.
“Ah, you’re up,” a sixty-something, heavyset woman bustled in, carrying a tray. Judging by the smell, the silver pot held coffee; a cup and saucer, sugar bowl, and mini pitcher of cream were also on the tray. “I hope I didn’t wake you.”
Amanda narrowed her eyes. The woman looked familiar, but she was no Lucy, Amanda’s longtime companion. Lucy had known Amanda didn’t drink coffee with cream or sugar, and certainly not as her first beverage of the day. This stranger was meant to evoke Lucy’s memory, Amanda had no doubt, but the actress wasn’t skilled enough not to betray her nerves as she let out a tiny sigh of relief when she sat the tray down on the nightstand.
“Darling, if you came with the suite, you must give me your name so I can thank the manager for your service,” Amanda said in her most charming voice.
“Sarah,” the woman said quickly. “Would you like some coffee? I just made it fresh.”
“Thank you.” Brightly, Amanda asked, “Is that all you wanted to deliver?”
Sarah looked at her, puzzled. “I’m sorry?”
“Never mind, darling, I’ll order room service later,” Amanda promised. “Now, please be a dear and leave.”
“But we were going to go over your books today.”
“No, we are not. You are not Lucy. Lucy is dead.”
“But you hired me, two weeks ago.”
Amanda rose and stepped closer as she spoke. “No, I didn’t, and Nick didn’t, and Richie didn’t, and neither of them are the kind to surprise me with people like you, so who,” she stepped closer, boxing the woman against the wall of the suite with the sheer force of her personality, “are you, really, Sarah?”
“Please don’t kill me,” Sarah blurted.
Startled, Amanda eyed her warily. “What makes you think I would?”
“They said you were dangerous and they showed me your sword.” Nervously, Sarah looked at Amanda.
“Did they take it with them?”
Eager to help, Sarah said quickly, “Your sword’s in the closet with a suitcase of your clothes. They brought you in here while you were unconscious and with a knife in your heart and told me to dress you in that nightgown and pretend to be your assistant when you woke up. Please don’t kill me. I don’t care if you’re some kind of vampire.”
“Who hired you?” Amanda asked, barely managing to hide her smirk.
“It was an ad in Craigslist. This woman met me at Starbucks and told me to be here and I’d get $100 for showing up, another $200 if I didn’t scream when they brought you in. She said if I convinced you to stay the day, I’d get another $200. I need the money; I’ve been on unemployment for three years and I can’t…” She drew a breath and stared helplessly at Amanda.
“Who’s they?” Mentally, Amanda shook her head at Sarah’s desperation, but she knew well just how far that could drive someone.
“Two guys. They both had masks on and didn’t answer any questions I had. When they pulled the knife out and I didn’t scream, they gave me an envelope with the money.”
Amanda immediately opened the closet and found, as promised, her sword and a cheap suitcase. Whoever had packed the suitcase hadn’t been terribly imaginative, but at least she’d been provided with underwear, a red dress, shoes, and her second-favorite trench coat (not, she noted, the one with the long sweeping tail). Someone had clearly packed for her by choosing something they’d seen her wear in a photograph; her other option was a cream-colored blouse, black pants, and a pair of black knee-high boots that oddly, looked too new to be hers. She chose the boots and the red dress, figuring that would teach the Watchers not to assume she didn’t mix and match. Her broadsword (again, not her preferred sword, which really made her wonder which Chronicle they’d been reading) was undamaged and in its sheath, which she distinctly remembered hanging from the bedpost in her bedroom as a spare.
Amanda turned, sword in hand, just to see how Sarah would react. The woman swallowed hard. “Please. I just needed a job. I don’t know anything else.”
Amanda was about to say something when she felt the presence of another immortal. Cautiously, she called out, “Who’s there?”
“Your redheaded stepchild,” came Richie’s cheerful voice. “I’d ask if you were decent, but you have no modesty.”
Amanda laughed and crossed the room to open the door. She noted as she did so that Duncan had just finished punching out some stranger. At her look, Richie said, “He insisted on helping, so I told him he could handle the guards.”
“Is Nick with you?” Amanda asked worriedly.
“No,” Richie said, stepping into the room. “Ah, I see you have a visitor.”
“Don’t drink the coffee,” Amanda cautioned.
“Please don’t kill me,” Sarah blurted. “I just want to leave and go home and forget all this happened.”
“Not going to kill you,” Richie told her. “Amanda?”
“We’re leaving,” Amanda said decisively. “Did you bring a car?” She took only the broadsword and the clothes she was wearing. “I need to stop and buy a few things.”
Duncan started to say something as they exited the hotel, but Amanda didn’t let him, steamrolling over him by distracting him with how she wanted to go shopping, where she wanted to shop, how he owed her for this mess she’d found herself in, and basically blaming him for how she’d found herself in a hotel half-naked. Amused, Richie tucked his tongue firmly in his cheek and didn’t say a word in Duncan’s defense.
Amanda knew there had been a time he would have, but almost two decades of living without the Highlander’s influence had given Richie the freedom to see the world through a different perspective. By the time Amanda had purchased new clothing, new shoes, and a new coat, dumped everything she’d worn into the store into the dumpster behind the store, and insisted that Duncan drive her to her new condo, Duncan was on the edge of frustration with Amanda, and by extension, Richie.
“Amanda, what is going on?”
“He doesn’t know, does he?” Amanda asked Richie.
“I tried telling him, but I think he thinks I might just be a figment of his imagination,” Richie said with a half-shrug. “Or a demon.”
“I am standing right here,” Duncan said through his teeth as Richie and Amanda exited his convertible. “And I do believe you; I just don’t believe that it could be all of the Watchers.”
“Of course it isn’t all of them,” Amanda replied tartly. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
Richie added, “Mac, this faction may not be as bad as Horton, but what they’re doing is still wrong.” He retrieved the duffel bag he’d grabbed when he and Duncan had headed for the hotel. “Look, we can take it from here. Thanks for helping.”
“You’re just going to do this yourselves?”
“Are you implying we’re intrinsically incapable of rescuing a friend?” Amanda asked sweetly.
“No, I mean,” Duncan stammered. He was trying to be a hero, and both Amanda and Richie knew it, but neither of them could afford him to be one for the next part of their plan.
She leaned in and kissed him. “Stay out of it then,” she advised, and stepped back. Amanda waved goodbye, and watched Duncan swear in frustration before backing his car up and exiting the parking lot.
“Did you grab my keys?” Amanda asked Richie.
“And a few other things we might need,” Richie said, grinning. He was relieved that it had been relatively easy to find her, but he had the sense that things were likely to go wrong at any moment.
“You realize,” he added as they headed for her car, “Mac’s not going to sit by quietly.”
“No, but this way, he’s not dogging our exact footsteps,” Amanda pointed out. “Did he say where he thought they might take Nick?”
“He thought the old buffalo farm, but I’m also thinking it could be just as easily be Joe’s.”
“So we’ll try Joe’s,” Amanda decided as Richie unlocked the car and then handed over the keys. He also handed over his duffel bag and she took a quick inventory: three water bottles, a large tarp, a box of wet wipes, a sword cleaning cloth in a plastic bag, two pairs of black gloves in two sizes, two rappelling rigs with rope, two knives, two sets of lock picks (one electronic and one not), a Taser, and three changes of clothes - one for him, one for her, and another for Nick.
“Not quite packed for war,” Richie joked. “Hope I didn’t miss anything.”
Amanda kissed his cheek. “You’re a treasure, Richard,” she said, and handed back the duffel, which he put in the back seat of the late-model SUV before climbing into the passenger seat while she took the driver’s seat.
*****
Joe’s, Richie noticed, looked much like he’d remembered. Having worked a few shifts in the bar when he was younger, Richie saw that it had been expanded in the years since he’d left town, and now could easily hold a hundred people instead of the intimate fifty or so it had previously. It was midafternoon, and the lunch rush was over. As soon as Amanda and Richie entered, Richie saw some of the staff tense, which told him that at least two of the six in the front room were Watchers. Amanda slid onto one of the bar stools as if she had nowhere else to be, and Richie took his cue from her, as he had been for the better part of the last decade.
“Do be a dear,” she told the bartender, whose nametag said he was Jamie, “and let Joe know I brought him a present?”
The bartender smiled politely. “And may I let him know who you are, ma’am?”
“Amanda,” she said, flirting lightly.
“Will you like something to drink while you wait?” Jamie asked.
“No, thanks.”
“And you, sir?” Jamie turned to Richie.
“No, thanks,” he told him, and put a five-dollar bill on the bar top as incentive.
Jamie took the hint and picked up the phone on the back of the bar. The blues music playing over the speakers wasn’t loud enough to drown out his voice as he said, “Sir, there is a woman named Amanda here, and she said she brought you a present.” He paused before he said, “Yes, sir.” Jamie then turned to Amanda. “Joe will be right with you.” He took the tip Richie offered and proceeded to resume prepping the bar for the evening shift.
Joe emerged from the back room a few minutes later, moving slowly but steadily. He was thinner than Richie remembered, and looked…old, Richie thought with a shock. In his head, Richie knew that Joe had been in his forties, maybe early fifties, but this man was not who Richie had pictured he’d be. Shaking himself at the mental incongruity of expecting Joe, who wasn’t immortal, to look the same as Richie’s memory, Richie focused on him.
Joe’s gaze was still sharp, and Amanda’s effusive greeting didn’t fool him. “Presents? More like trouble, I’d say.”
“Depends,” Richie said, standing, “on whether you still think I’m worth it.”
“Holy mother of - camels,” Joe swore, and the sudden censure made Richie chortle.
“Since when did you start censoring yourself?” Richie demanded, hugging Joe carefully, mindful of his cane.
“Since I started babysitting my grandson,” Joe said. “And I stood there and buried you. How?”
“Someone went through a lot of effort to make it believable,” Richie said as he stepped back. “But I swear I’m not the poor idiot who lost his head.” He knew Amanda was taking advantage of Joe’s focus on him to go hunting in the back rooms of the bar. “All I know is that I went from planning to meet Mac to waking up in an farmhouse north of Paris and being told he’d gone crazy again, that I should stay the hell away if I wanted to keep my head.”
Joe studied him a moment. “And Amanda’s terrorizing my kitchen staff right now because whatever’s going on, it involves the Watchers. Because they still operate out of my bar, even though I’m retired.”
Richie spread his hands. “Would you prefer if I told you the pretty lie?”
Joe considered, his eyes narrowing. “And would you believe me if I said no one knows what’s going on these days, only that it’s been strange? I’m retired but I hear talk. And I know my daughter’s done some oddball things, but she swears it’s all Adam’s fault.”
“Depends on who you’d lie to protect these days,” Rich replied, and Joe winced at that hit.
“Fair enough. Why come back? You’ve clearly succeeded at living without MacLeod around.”
“Because they separated Amanda and Nick,” Richie replied. “And you know as well as I do that doesn’t work.”
“No,” Joe murmured as Amanda came back, looking coldly furious. “But it does explain why it’s been so odd here.” Joe stood a little straighter. “How can I help?”
Amanda kissed his cheek. “Invent a task for Duncan that you must have him complete tonight. I’m sure you can think of something you need fixed in your house?”
“My bathroom needs new rails, but that’s not really the point, is it? You don’t want either of us anywhere near where you’re going.”
Amanda shook her head. “No.” She drew Richie in with a look and turned to exit, certain her request would be filled.
Richie waited until they were back in her car before asking, “How certain are you that he’ll do what you say?”
Amanda grinned and said, “Borrow your phone?”
Richie handed it over. He wasn’t surprised when Amanda found the new entry for Duncan and dialed the number. “Darling, it’s me. I just saw Joe - shame on you for letting that man run himself ragged. Yes, I said ragged. He needs help, the poor man. Would you mind terribly if you did me a favor? See what he needs fixing? I think he said something about fixing his bathroom.”
Richie watched as Amanda charmed Duncan into agreeing to see what Joe needed that evening before hanging up, handing the phone back over, and starting up the car. As they pulled out onto the road, Richie asked, “Do you know where Nick is?”
“No, but I’m going off likely locations that the Watchers have been known to use. They’ll want to put him somewhere that looks familiar enough, and there aren’t that many places in Seacouver that will fit him. It would have to be somewhere they could dress up to look like somewhere he would have set up for himself, and given the properties we looked at, I’m thinking it may be more déjà vu for you than him.”
A sense of foreboding filled Richie. “Please tell me it’s not the old antique store.”
Grimly, Amanda said, “We’ll see.”
*****
Chapter Four
Richie didn’t bother holding his breath. When it came to bad luck, his life, and the city of Seacouver, he often thought the juxtaposition was too much for Fate to resist. Urgency drove their actions; Richie knew the Watchers would have more technology to twist to their methods than when they’d convinced him and Duncan to part ways. He didn’t want to see Nick lose his head to believing that Amanda was dead, nor did Richie want to see his two closest friends try to live separate lives. He knew that way lay madness and despair, and he loved them too much to want that for them
Richie and Amanda checked out two other properties Amanda thought might be viable, but the antique store’s location - last an Oriental rug store, he saw, judging from the as-yet unpainted echo of the store’s letters - turned out to be just the place. Two men, who looked alarmed at Richie and Amanda’s entrance, guarded the store.
“You’re not supposed to be here!” one of the men exclaimed.
“It’s too soon!” said the other man. “You need to stay away.”
“Why?” Richie challenged. “What do you need Nick for?”
“The emissary isn’t here yet,” the first man said anxiously. “Please, just go. It’s not safe yet!”
Richie drew his sword, only to be knocked to the floor when the second man said something in a language he didn’t understand, but sounded a lot like the Latin Mass he’d attended with Duncan a few times. Richie winced as he met the hard tile flooring, barely managing to keep his sword hand clear of any vital parts, but quickly stood back up.
At the words, Amanda froze. “Tell the emissary she should have asked permission,” she said coldly, and said, “Et ex illustratione divini amoris externa revoco praesidiis sum super locum istum et imperate patere aditum.” By the light of God's love, I revoke any foreign protections on this place and command the door to be open.
As if the Latin was magic, a sudden bright light exploded across the doorway, knocking the two guards out and opening the door.
“What the hell was that?” Richie demanded as he followed Amanda through the doorway.
“Latin,” she said shortly. “He named you a swordsman and said you’d been sworn to protect the Faerie Queen.”
“The hell?”
“I’ll explain later,” she promised.
Richie turned to see about tying the guards up, but they were strangely gone.
“What happened to the guards? They were just here.”
“Reporting to their emissary, I’m sure,” Amanda said. “Hurry. We don’t have much time.”
They found Nick tied to a metal chair that had been bolted to the floor, blindfolded, unconscious, an IV and a catheter hooked up to his body so he didn’t need to leave. Amanda’s lips tightened, a sure sign she was furious. While Amanda handled the IV and catheter lines and took care of tucking Nick’s penis back into his pants, Richie slipped the blindfold off Nick’s head and undid his restraints.
It took Nick several minutes before his immortal healing kicked in and shook off the effects of the drug he’d been given. Instinctively, he came out of the chair combative. Both Amanda and Richie stepped back, out of harm’s way. When Nick realized who was with him, he stopped and looked at both Amanda and Richie and sagged with relief. His voice was hoarse when he asked, “So that line the idiot was trying to feed me about you two leaving me alone was just bullshit?”
Amanda dumped the equipment she’d disconnected to the side and stepped forward to meet Nick halfway. Kissing Nick passionately, she finally came up for air and said, “You’d hunt us down and make us regret it.” Studying her longtime lover and partner, she asked briskly, “Do you believe we’re here?”
“Yeah,” Nick said. “Nobody holds onto me like you.” He took a deep breath. “But someone get me some water?”
“Give me a minute,” Richie said quickly. Richie retrieved one of the water bottles they’d packed and handed it to Nick, unscrewing the top as he did so. Nick drank gratefully, but slowly, as if knowing too much would make him vomit. After several minutes, he nodded to Amanda and Richie. “Let’s get out of here.”
Just as Nick spoke, a burly man ran out from what had been the shop’s office and aimed a gun at all of them. “You’re not leaving yet. It’s not safe.”
Richie looked at the stranger. “Yes, we are. You are going to call the police and turn yourself in for kidnapping.”
The stranger stared at him incredulously. “You don’t have Voice, Richie Ryan.”
“So no Jedi mind tricks, damn,” Richie said, shrugging philosophically, and moved to disarm him. The shot hit him before he could get there, but he muscled past the pain and disarmed the gunman, knocking him out in the process. Richie quickly cleared the gun and tossed the magazine to the side.
With Amanda’s help, Richie moved the gunman to the chair Nick had vacated and tied him up. Richie searched the man’s wallet, checked for evidence of a Watcher tattoo or signet ring, finding the tattoo on the inside of the man’s left ankle, and then liberated the man’s cell phone.
Nick asked, “We’re just going to leave him there? He could call the cops on us.”
“Not without a phone,” Richie pointed out, holding the device in question before handing it over to Amanda. “But we’ll check the office just to be sure there isn’t anything else he could use.”
Nick nodded, and with Richie as lookout, he and Amanda looked through the office. They confiscated a laptop and a second cell phone, which appeared to be serving as a portable Wi-Fi hotspot. Armed with the electronics, they headed out, only to run into Duncan.
Amanda smiled brightly. “Right on time!” she exclaimed. “I was just about to call the police. Won’t you be a dear and do that for us? None of our phones seem to be working.”
Duncan stared at her, looking as though he was certain she’d just roped into something he was going to regret, but Richie didn’t waste time helping him figure out what it was. He followed Amanda and Nick instead into her car and left.
“Do you think that was wise?” Richie asked as they drove away.
“No,” Nick said, “but I’m not going to worry about it.”
“Why not?”
Amanda pulled the car and looked over at Richie. “Because if he’s a mortal in service to the Faerie Queen, he’s not going to tell anyone what he knows. He’ll be dead.”
“What?” Richie was incredulous. “Faerie Queen? Come on, guys, you can’t be…”
Both Amanda and Nick looked at him steadily.
“Aw, fuck my life,” Richie said mournfully.
*****
Frustrated, Duncan went to find the Watcher, only to discover he’d committed suicide. Duncan had thought suicide pills were something out of spy movies, not real life. Grimly, Duncan called the police, claiming that he’d been lured to the site with a phone call, only to discover this mess. The police, long used to the weirdness that was Seacouver, sent a patrol car and an ambulance, but thankfully did not look at Duncan suspiciously…at least, not yet. The policemen who showed up were careful to ask him plenty of questions, though, and it was a long time before he could depart the scene. Duncan resented the notion his friends had deliberately left him behind and were keeping him in the dark about what their next plans were. He was not helpless, damn it. Moreover, Amanda - and he was certain it was Amanda; it had her hallmarks all over it - had once again set him up to possibly take the fall for the Watcher’s death.
Still seething with anger, he parked his car in the lot behind his building. He started to get out, only to be stopped short when he caught sight of someone loitering in the alley. He frowned at the slight rise of fog; although the alley dead-ended, there was no reason for a fog to roll in - was there?
He found a stunningly ordinary-looking, ethnically ambiguous woman standing by the brick wall that formed the alley’s dead end. A giant dog that looked like an oversized German shepherd sat calmly at her feet. The woman wore a grey wool coat, brown pants, brown boots, and had dark brown hair, adding to an overall impression of ‘shades of brown and gray.’ In the early evening light, she and the dog seemed to glow slightly, as if lit from within. “Can I help you?” Duncan asked cautiously.
“My name is Mackensie Connor,” she said. “This is Shiloh,” she gestured to the dog, who looked at Duncan with a sudden intensity. “Please, come no closer. I am sorry to bother you, Mr. MacLeod, but your friends are interfering with things they know nothing about.”
“What do you mean?”
“We only wanted to borrow them for a little while,” Mackensie said urgently. “We mean no permanent harm.”
Duncan stared at her. “Who’s we?”
“Long ago, we made an arrangement with a chosen few to ensure our lineage would survive the millennia. But you fight so seldom - or so viciously and tirelessly - these days that we cannot reseed the earth the way we used to, so we have resorted to desperate measures.”
Duncan was old enough and Scottish enough to remember the stories of the faerie. He’d been told he was a faerie’s gift, a promise fulfilled, but that had only been whispered when the priest couldn’t hear, and he’d been sworn to secrecy. Yet advances in technology and centuries of living had tempered his beliefs in faeries and magic. “So, you’re what, the Faerie Queen herself?”
“Have care that you do not scoff so loudly,” Mackensie said sharply. “I am an emissary of the Court.”
Abruptly, immortal presence shivered a warning in Duncan’s head. He saw Amanda, Richie, and Nick pull up in Amanda’s car. Amanda stepped out as soon as she put the car in park. She carried her sword and looked furious.
“You,” she said distinctly to Mackensie, “I thought I told you no five hundred years ago and again two hundred.”
“I am sorry, Amanda, but we need your kind.”
“And to take without care is the contract our kind signed?” Amanda countered, looking fierce and ancient. Nick and Richie stood just a step behind her, arms crossed. “Those are not the terms I was told. Or should I ask the Witch of Donan Woods what she’s playing at this time?”
Mackensie looked flustered. “She does not speak on your kind’s behalf?”
“Only ever for her, same as last time.”
“Wait, you knew Cassandra was alive two hundred years ago?” Duncan gasped.
Amanda rolled her eyes. “Yes, because Rebecca told me to keep an eye out for someone who was female, old, and manipulative with magic.” To Mackensie, she said, “If this was merely a misunderstanding, please convey to your queen that she needs to ask. We no longer operate as one tribe and haven’t in centuries.”
“My sincerest apologies,” Mackensie said, looking deeply troubled. “We did not understand you were individuals.”
“Sometimes we are a clan, but in much smaller groups,” Amanda replied more kindly. “The winds have scattered us all; that is why we sometimes fight in such frequency and then not at all.”
“Ah. Please excuse me a moment.” Mackensie shimmered out of existence, leaving only her dog behind, who looked at the group of immortals as if daring them to leave.
“What the hell’s going on?” Richie demanded. “You said later. It’s later.”
“Rebecca told me that we were born of an alliance between the faerie and early mortals. In exchange for a brief time in Faerie in service, we are given the gift of immortality. Every decade, some of us spend a little more time in Faerie than others to help them. We give them a little bit of our Quickening; they give us a boon in exchange. Where do you suppose pre-immortal babies come from?”
“And what do they get?” Duncan asked.
“A little of the magic they gave us back,” Amanda said softly. “If they take it without permission, though, it’s not good magic. Enough of that, and you birth fear and blackness and worse.”
Duncan blanched. “Why would Cassandra try to speak on all immortals’ behalf?”
“Because she spends too much time alone in the woods,” Amanda said impatiently. “And no one’s been born yet who could fix what was broken in her. I quit trying to analyze her after I realized she wasn’t going to change. She does this every so often, trying to stir up something for reasons I don’t care to understand. Rebecca tried to help her but Cassandra wouldn’t listen.”
Duncan looked at Amanda, horrified. Before he could speak, however, Mackensie reappeared in a shimmer of golden light. “My queen extends her sincerest apologies. She will handle Cassandra’s interference in the way things should be, and offers a restoration of what was taken from you.”
To the men’s surprise, Amanda shook her head. “Keep it,” she said flatly. “I will not be beholden to the Queen anymore than my kind already is.”
Mackensie looked at the three men. “Does Amanda speak for you as well?”
“In this instance, yes,” Nick said quickly.
“Ditto for me,” Richie said. “Next time, ask.”
“For this and this time only, yes,” Duncan echoed.
“As you wish,” Mackensie said. She looked at them. “On behalf of my queen, I release Amanda, Richie Ryan, Nick Wolfe, and Duncan MacLeod from any further collection of the debt owed by their kind.”
Shiloh rose and sniffed each of them in turn. He licked their sword hands, visibly recoiling as if he tasted the iron on them, and then returned to his mistress.
“Thank you, Emissary,” Amanda said formally.
Mackensie nodded, and then turned away. With the dog beside her, she walked right into the brick wall, taking the low-level fog with her.
No one spoke for a long moment. “What does that mean?” Richie asked, his face revealing his incredulity.
“Means none of us will get kidnapped for a night in Faerie again,” Amanda said. “And I’d advise we don’t get drunk, stoned, fight, or have sex with strangers for the next forty-eight hours.”
“Right,” Duncan said, abruptly remembering the stories of how fairies could trick people out of breaking promises. “Why don’t we go inside and get some rest? Nick, I don’t think we’ve met formally yet.”
Nick took the cue he was given. Duncan insisted on cooking dinner; he didn’t quite trust Faerie not to interfere if they left the loft for food, and the grateful look Amanda shot him said volumes. Over dinner, Duncan asked Richie, “So you thought it was a rogue group of Watchers?”
“Everything I had pointed to it,” Richie said with a shrug.
“That explains some of the mutterings I heard while I was being held and before I became unconscious,” Nick said. “It didn’t sound like the Watchers who had me were sure what they were doing was right, only that they’d been ordered to by someone above their pay grade.”
Amanda nodded. “The right word in the right ears is something the Faerie do very well.”
“So tell us how we can be better prepared,” Duncan suggested. “Besides making sure we have iron and steel at hand.”
Amanda looked at him and sighed. “Perhaps it’s time,” she agreed. “But it can wait until morning -”
“Amanda,” Nick said warningly. “All of the folklore I ever read about Faerie said nighttime is when their magic is strongest.”
“Which is why it can wait until morning,” Amanda said firmly. “I’ve no desire to anger the Queen tonight with words I cannot take back, especially given what she’s granted us.”
Duncan could see Nick’s frustration. He shared it as well, but he could also see Amanda’s reluctance. “Given what you said about being careful for the next forty-eight hours, it’s best if we wait a little longer, right, Amanda?”
She nodded, sighing with visible relief. “Let’s be grateful for the moment.”
“Moment’s over,” Richie said a second later. “I vote for moving on to making sure they don’t come back into anywhere we sleep, because I don’t know about you three, but I’m sitting over here freaked out that my life is some weird-ass fantasy movie. And since it is one, I want to be sure I don’t encounter any further proof that all of the legends anyone ever told are true, especially since there’s some pretty horrific ones out there.”
Nick looked at him, then at Amanda. “He’s got a point.”
Amanda smiled ruefully. “Then we should work quickly.” Within two hours, the loft was as Faerie-proofed as the four of them could make it. A quick trip to a farm supply store resulted in a supply of horseshoes, which were tacked over doorways. Oatmeal and holly berries were sprinkled over windowsills. With Duncan in tow, they did the same to Nick and Amanda’s condo, but since the utilities wouldn’t be turned on for two days, Duncan offered to put them all up in his loft. Before leaving the condo, Nick grabbed a pair of sleeping bags out of one of the boxes in the condo, a change of clothes for both him and Amanda.
*****
“So it turns out,” Joe said conversationally a week later in his bar, where Amanda, Duncan, Nick, and Richie had gathered to celebrate the launch of Amanda and Nick’s new business, “there were a group of Watchers who had this crazy idea that if they took it upon themselves to isolate some of the Game’s biggest players, they’d somehow save the players from getting hurt by the Game. My daughter said there’s a big shakeup going on, with lots of people being investigated. You four wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
The quartet gave him their most innocent looks.
“Uh huh, thought so,” Joe said dryly. “And someone must’ve finally gotten through to Cassandra, because she’s apparently made an appointment for therapy with a specialist who deals with victims of traumatic events.”
Duncan heaved a relieved sigh. He’d known for a while that Cassandra needed help; he just didn’t know how to get her to want to go find it. “I’ve been worried,” he said tactfully. “I didn’t think it would be good for her to continue nursing her wounds like she has, but she kept pushing me off whenever I tried to talk to her about it.”
“Well, whoever it was must’ve had magic,” Joe said. “Speaking of - I don’t suppose any of you have any magical way to make my rent on this place go down?”
“Sorry, you’re out of luck on that one,” Richie said, smiling. “My greatest magic trick is showing up alive when I should be dead.”
“Same here,” Nick chimed in. “Come on, Richie, you promised me and Amanda you’d help us finish unpacking.”
Amanda leaned over and kissed Joe’s cheek. “I promise I won’t steal your customers.”
“Yes you will, for the first week,” Joe replied. “But that’s okay. They’ll be back if they don’t like being in a dance club.”
She smiled and with a look, gathered Nick and Richie to follow her out the door.
Duncan took a sip of his drink. Joe waited until he was halfway done swallowing before asking, “So are you going to tell an old man the truth or are you going to stick behind the story they just tried to feed me? Them, I expect to lie to me. You, not so much.”
Sputtering, Duncan tried to foist him off. “Joe, that was a waste of good Scotch.”
“Not like you don’t know where to find the bottle in this place, or that you won’t pay me for it,” Joe replied evenly. “Besides, don’t you want someone to know the truth?”
Duncan shook his head. “Not this time. Leave it be, Joe. Do you want to hear about the time Connor and I dated the same woman and didn’t know it?”
From her throne in Faerie, the Faerie Queen turned away from the scrying mirror, satisfied that for the moment, everything was as it should be.
The End
Author: Cat in the Snow
Written for: Amand-r
Characters/Pairings: Duncan MacLeod, Amanda, Richie, Nick Wolfe, Joe Dawson, Amanda/Nick Wolfe, Amanda/Nick/Richie (if you squint). Past Amanda/Duncan.
Rating: PG-13 for foul language and violent situations. Gen.
Author’s Notes: Thanks to ad absolutely for the beta. Love and thanks to N., who broke my block on this fic.
Summary: An old friend needs Duncan’s help to pull off a rescue…or does he?
Duncan sighed in regret as he headed home in the pouring November rain, his mind on the bad date he’d just ended. So much for the world of Internet matchups, he thought darkly, but he’d been willing to try. That, he reminded himself, was more than some people, but he’d been feeling a little lonelier than usual. Most of his friends were scattered across the globe, and even with technology, it seemed just as difficult to connect with them as ever. He missed having someone nearby; he knew he did better with some semblance of a clan in his life.
As he pressed the button for the elevator of his loft, he felt the presence of another immortal and armed himself warily. Methos wandered in and out of Duncan’s life as he pleased, but it had been more than a year since he’d last seen the oldest immortal; the last email Duncan had received from him said something about spending some time in warmer climates.
Lifting the elevator gate, Duncan saw the lights in the loft were all on, but the immortal who greeted him was someone he hadn’t seen in eighteen years. Cautiously, Duncan stepped forward, off the elevator.
“Hey, Mac, sorry I didn’t call ahead, but I figured you wouldn’t mind, much,” the redheaded man said, putting his own sword away as he rose from the sofa. He was dressed, Duncan noted, in faded jeans and a blue plaid flannel shirt, and was barefoot; a pair of worn motorcycle boots sat on the floor near the end of the sofa, a battered brown leather jacket draped over the sofa’s arm. Two black motorcycle saddlebags and a duffel bag were stacked neatly beside the boots. His red hair was cropped short, the better to be under a helmet for hours on end; said helmet now sat on the coffee table. He was still the lean, rangy man Duncan remembered, muscle hiding underneath the flannel and denim, but he moved with the easy grace of the skilled swordsman Duncan knew he’d become.
For a moment, all Duncan could do was stare in shock before the memory of being manipulated by a demon rose to the forefront of his mind. “You - I killed you. Are you the demon, coming back for more after all this time?” Instinctively, Duncan attacked.
“Whoa,” Richie said, shocked, but he brought his sword up to block Duncan’s strike, faster than Duncan had anticipated, and didn’t step back as he might have once, a long time ago. “Look, I know it’s been nearly twenty years, Mac, but geez, if it’s that big of a problem, I’ll go sleep somewhere else.”
Duncan looked down at the sword Richie held. It wasn’t Graham Ashe’s sword, he noted, and something about that incongruity made him pause. The sword looked a lot like one Richie had attempted to steal from a museum, back when his sword had broken - a more traditional looking broadsword, plainer and less ornamented. Duncan stepped back. “You’re not carrying the same sword. If you’re really Richie, what happened to the one I gave you?”
Richie - or the man who looked like and talked like him - shook his head, but didn’t lower his guard. “Got stolen in Paris about eighteen years ago. Look, whatever convinced you I was dead -”
“I took your head, thinking you were someone else,” Duncan said.
Richie winced, but finished with, “- was probably some freaky magick, but I’m not dead.” He grinned suddenly. “Not for a lack of other people trying, mind you. Besides, who else would know you used to keep Jif peanut butter in the fridge, despite me telling you it didn’t need to be? Or that Tessa hated raw celery? Or that we both slept in the house you gave Anne on a night it stormed so hard, the roof leaked and we were playing musical rooms, trying to find one that was dry enough to sleep in? You made me swear not to tell Connor that you weren’t willing to sleep in the rain anymore.”
Duncan stared at him and slowly lowered his sword. “How do you know it was magick?”
“Because,” Richie said with a shrug, “I’ve been hearing the same story everywhere I’ve been the last few years, whenever I’ve been in touch with someone I met while I was hanging around you. Only explanation anyone’s been able to give is that someone with a lot of power wanted you out of the Game for a while, without killing you.”
“So they made me think you were dead?” Duncan asked incredulously. “And where have you been?”
“Running from the notion that you were possessed and trying to kill me,” Richie said grimly, disengaging his sword from the block and stepping back slightly. “Wasn’t until about two years ago that someone asked, ‘What if he wasn’t and it was a lie to get you both off balance and out of the Game?’ So I started digging. Turns out…it’s true.”
Duncan studied him. Richie carried himself with more maturity, and the way he gripped his sword spoke of furthered skill, but more importantly to Duncan, he wasn’t as trusting as the Richie of eighteen years ago. Something had shaken that conviction loose, and Duncan remembered Richie’s vow: If you come for my head again, I’ll be ready. In the wake of Richie’s death, Duncan had spent hours turning the incident repeatedly in his head, certain he’d been manipulated and magicked into the tragedy, but he’d never spoken of the magick to anyone. “Who would gain from us being apart?” he demanded. Every instinct Duncan had told him that this was Richie, older, wiser, and still as much on a mission as he’d been all the times before when he’d shown up unexpectedly on Duncan’s doorstep.
Richie sighed heavily. “A faction within the Watchers, concerned about one of us overloading like you did with Coltec. If you aren’t near me, you can’t -”
“Take your challenges as your teacher, or defend you in any way,” Duncan finished, horrified.
Richie nodded. “So without you taking on more challenges, the Game only looks like it’s not going on around you.”
“But that means…someone else is taking heads somewhere else.”
Richie nodded grimly. “That’s one of the reasons I’m here; I need your help to find Amanda and Nick. They’re supposed to be here in Seacouver, setting up a new club, but the club’s not open and the condo they purchased looks like the movers just set up everything and left.”
“Who’s Nick?”
“Nick Wolfe is Amanda’s student, sometime lover, and business partner. Also the last cop to successfully arrest her and put her in jail,” came the ready reply. “Have you been that out of the loop?”
“Haven’t been in France in a decade,” Duncan admitted. “I put a lot more energy into keeping my business since the recession.”
“That explains why Amanda avoided the question of whether you knew she was back in town,” Richie said with a slight shake of his head.
“So, this Nick, what’s he like?”
“Nice guy once you get past his sarcasm and my best friend. They’ve been running a nightclub in Paris called Sanctuary; it’s built on the ruins of an old church. I was working there until two years ago. Nick’s the one who poked holes in what I thought to be true.”
Duncan stared at Richie a long moment, not entirely convinced. “Amanda can take care of herself, and the last student she took in was Michelle.”
“Who’s dead,” Richie said bluntly. “Amanda couldn’t get Michelle to listen to her anymore than you could.”
Duncan winced. He’d suspected as much, given how Amanda had distracted him when he’d asked. “Have you tried calling Amanda?”
Richie rolled his eyes. “No, I haven’t ever memorized her number into my cell phone. I just agreed to drive up from New Orleans on the off chance she’d offer me a job, who the fuck do you think I am, the idiot you rescued off the street? Been years since I was that naïve kid. Mac, if it was just a simple kidnapping, Amanda and Nick could rescue themselves. You said it a moment ago: Amanda can take of herself.”
That gave Duncan pause. He glanced at his watch and realized it was too late to start a rescue mission without enough information. “Say that I believe you. What were you waiting for?”
“A good night’s sleep and some food I don’t have to cook myself,” Richie said bluntly.
Duncan’s eyes narrowed as he rewound their conversation in his mind. “So why aren’t you staying in Amanda’s condo?”
“Utilities haven’t been turned on,” Richie replied. “Which was my first clue that things weren’t the way they were supposed to be.” He paused. “And I was staying there until someone called the police to say they thought someone was crashing there. I talked my way out of it, but I didn’t feel safe anymore.”
“And where would you have gone if I wasn’t here?”
Richie hesitated. “To find Cory, but he might still be upset with me.”
“For what?” Duncan moved to the kitchen, deciding he could use a snack.
“For refusing to agree to be his alibi for something he didn’t plan well because he didn’t want to listen to me about security cameras,” Richie replied. “And I didn’t have the money to bail him out, so I called Matthew McCormick instead.”
“Why Matthew?” Duncan wondered.
Richie eyed him strangely. “All this time, you’ve known them both and you didn’t know Matthew was Cory’s teacher?”
“No, I never asked,” Duncan said. “Cory always put me off when I asked, and Matthew’s not been fond of me for forcing him to own up to holding a stupid grudge for far too long. How did you find out?”
“Been living with him in New Orleans the last six months,” Richie said with a half-shrug. “Can’t spend all the time talking about planning his next robbery or how well his charity d’jour is doing.” Richie yawned. “And I’m sorry, but I’m really tired.”
“Get some rest,” Duncan urged. Every instinct told him that this was, indeed, Richie. He’d always thought that Cory and Richie would get along well, once Cory got past his urge to play practical jokes; if Richie had been on his own, Duncan could see where he’d resort to his old habits of stealing to stay alive. “I’ll make pancakes for breakfast.”
That got Duncan a brief smile. “Thanks, Mac.”
****
Chapter Two
“So why do you think the Watchers are doing this?” Duncan asked the next morning as Richie helped him clean up the breakfast dishes.
“Because I woke up eighteen years ago in an farmhouse north of Paris,” Richie said. “The woman who was with me said she’d gotten me out in time before you snapped. She showed me her tattoo. You were shouting about demons and that the demon was in me, she told me, and that she was afraid you’d taken another Dark Quickening. She said you had my sword and that I had to run for my life before you found me again. She gave me a broadsword she claimed was from an immortal you’d killed in your rage, a hundred francs, and a train ticket to Rome. She had my duffel - the one I always used to pack my clothes - and it was full of my stuff - and I didn’t think to question how she’d gotten it when I’d been at a restaurant earlier that day.”
Duncan stared at him. “But how would that make you think…?”
Richie sighed heavily. “Like I said, I didn’t put it together until about two years ago. Ten years ago, I decided to head back to Paris after doing some wandering around the world, and I’d heard that Amanda was running a nightclub. She wasn’t in when I applied for a job, but the head bartender liked me and decided to give me a trial run. My first night, Amanda looked at me like she’d seen a ghost. She waited until after I’d finished my shift to drag me upstairs and demand the truth, as I knew it. She said that you thought I was dead.” Richie set the glass he’d finished drying back into the right cabinet without asking Duncan where it went - and that, more than anything, sealed Duncan’s confidence that this was indeed the same man who’d been his ward. Only friends knew Duncan liked having his glassware in the cabinet to the left of the stove, closer to the fridge.
“Two years ago, Nick sat me down and started asking me questions about who I knew to be in the Game. By then, I knew he wasn’t going to be using the information to hunt heads - he hates killing - so I asked him what he was going to do with the data.
“He’d been tracking patterns, you see, because the club’s on holy ground and all three of us were getting challenges left and right there for a while, but then it shifted to different people. He wanted to know why.”
“Why?”
Richie shrugged. “Nick thinks that if the Game really is about one immortal gaining all the power, then it would make no sense that we have about a five-to-ten-year cycle where one immortal suddenly starts taking more heads than usual. He said it didn’t fit with the patterns of a regular serial killer, which -” Richie winced slightly “- he thinks the hunters among us are. He says if the Watchers removed you from the Game permanently, it would start a war that they couldn’t win. But if they took you out of play for a while, then nobody would come to you for help unless they were desperate, and even then you might reconsider, send them on to someone else.”
“And you think they’ve targeted Amanda.”
“A bar on holy ground would be a magnet for immortals,” Richie said. “Especially if it was near you.”
Duncan considered. It had been quiet the last ten years; he’d been grateful not to have to take so many heads as he’d been the five years Richie had been a part of his life. The last time he’d been challenged had been well over two years ago, some young punk with more bravado than skill whom Duncan had tried to convince not to fight. “But what would the Watchers gain by removing people?”
Richie studied him. “They see it as an opportunity for balance. Someone who isn’t as old or as powerful gets a chance to even the score sheet, if you will.”
“Does Joe know about this?”
“Doubt it,” Richie said heavily. “But I’m willing to bet his daughter does.”
Duncan looked startled at that and narrowed his eyes. “Why do I get the feeling you know more than I do about the friends we have in common?”
Richie shrugged impatiently. “I made it my business to know who my friends were connected to after making the mistake of taking someone’s head without caring about who he might know. Face it, Mac, you get involved with people and stuff happens to them whether they like it or not. Makes some people leery of what they’d share with you.”
Duncan’s jaw dropped. “I cannot believe you just said that.”
“You know, I lost count of how many times I got kidnapped that first year because of you,” Richie said mildly. “Or how many of those immortals acted like they knew something about me that you hadn’t yet told me.” He let that sink in before he said briskly, “Now, my guess is that wherever Amanda and Nick are isn’t that far away, but my mental map of Seacouver’s out of date.”
Disconcerted, Duncan took a moment to realize this Richie meant what he’d said the previous night. A good night’s sleep out of the elements and a good meal, and he was already planning how to find Amanda and Nick. “You’re not suggesting that you find them yourself, are you?”
Richie looked at him, annoyed and insulted. “I don’t know what bubble you’ve been living in, Mac, but I haven’t been sitting on my ass watching the world pass me by,” he said evenly, clearly controlling his anger. “You don’t know all where I’ve been or what I’ve done in the last eighteen years.”
“And you think you know how to find out who has Amanda and Nick?”
“Yes,” Richie said, meeting Duncan’s disbelieving look.
“How?”
“Start with likely places they could be,” Richie said. “What, you have a better idea?”
“Joe would know,” Duncan said.
Richie rolled his eyes. “And you’re just going to demand that he break his oath one more time?”
“Yes, but -”
“That’s why he’s been kept in the dark,” Richie said flatly. “So he can’t tell you what he doesn’t know. Besides, he’s retired from the Watchers.”
“I know.” Duncan took a mental step back, realizing he was reacting as if Richie was still twenty-one and liable to make as many foolish decisions as good ones. “So tell me how I can help.”
“Where would you fight a challenge where it wouldn’t be noticed by anyone?”
“North of the city,” Duncan said instantly. “There’s an old abandoned farm that was up for sale before the recession hit, then a Walmart was supposed to be built there, but the county wanted the company to pay for road improvements, so it didn’t get built. It’s been up for sale ever since. Nothing around it, and the land’s been slowly sinking so it’s actually lower than the road right now, plus there’s a bunch of trees around on the road side.”
“The old buffalo farm hasn’t sold yet?” Richie asked, surprised. “Thought for sure it would’ve been by now. But…” Richie considered. “Is the hotel that Amanda used to stay at still in operation?”
“The Hotel Seacouver? Yes, it’s still one of the best in the city,” Duncan said, confused.
“Then we should go there first.”
“What did you mean by you think Joe’s daughter is involved? Joe doesn’t have a daughter.”
“That you knew about,” Richie said, rolling his eyes. “Joe didn’t want you to know because he thought it would be safer for her if you didn’t.”
That stung. “How did you find out?”
“Nick told me so I wouldn’t be surprised when I served her in Sanctuary.”
“How long did you work for Nick and Amanda?”
“Eight years,” Richie replied. “Quit to go looking up some people to ask questions and learn things, and wound up staying with Cory for the last six months, which is how Amanda and Nick found me again to ask if I’d help open their new club.”
Duncan considered what he’d heard a moment. “So what did you have planned for when we go to the hotel?”
“Depends on what we find when we get there,” Richie replied. “Plan A: be nice and ask if Amanda’s there and safe. Plan B: kick ass and rescue Amanda. Plan C: kick ass, get Amanda’s location, and go from there. Oh, and not lose our heads. Sound good enough?”
Duncan’s lips twitched as he fought a smile. He’d forgotten just how Richie thought. “Good enough for me.”
*****
Chapter Three
Amanda woke feeling as though she’d just had the worst hangover. She blinked at the sight of the hotel suite she usually favored staying in while in Seacouver; she hadn’t stayed here in years. She glanced down at her attire: a black satin nightgown that was similar to a silk one she’d owned for years. Instinct borne of over a thousand years of living told her that something was very, very wrong.
“Ah, you’re up,” a sixty-something, heavyset woman bustled in, carrying a tray. Judging by the smell, the silver pot held coffee; a cup and saucer, sugar bowl, and mini pitcher of cream were also on the tray. “I hope I didn’t wake you.”
Amanda narrowed her eyes. The woman looked familiar, but she was no Lucy, Amanda’s longtime companion. Lucy had known Amanda didn’t drink coffee with cream or sugar, and certainly not as her first beverage of the day. This stranger was meant to evoke Lucy’s memory, Amanda had no doubt, but the actress wasn’t skilled enough not to betray her nerves as she let out a tiny sigh of relief when she sat the tray down on the nightstand.
“Darling, if you came with the suite, you must give me your name so I can thank the manager for your service,” Amanda said in her most charming voice.
“Sarah,” the woman said quickly. “Would you like some coffee? I just made it fresh.”
“Thank you.” Brightly, Amanda asked, “Is that all you wanted to deliver?”
Sarah looked at her, puzzled. “I’m sorry?”
“Never mind, darling, I’ll order room service later,” Amanda promised. “Now, please be a dear and leave.”
“But we were going to go over your books today.”
“No, we are not. You are not Lucy. Lucy is dead.”
“But you hired me, two weeks ago.”
Amanda rose and stepped closer as she spoke. “No, I didn’t, and Nick didn’t, and Richie didn’t, and neither of them are the kind to surprise me with people like you, so who,” she stepped closer, boxing the woman against the wall of the suite with the sheer force of her personality, “are you, really, Sarah?”
“Please don’t kill me,” Sarah blurted.
Startled, Amanda eyed her warily. “What makes you think I would?”
“They said you were dangerous and they showed me your sword.” Nervously, Sarah looked at Amanda.
“Did they take it with them?”
Eager to help, Sarah said quickly, “Your sword’s in the closet with a suitcase of your clothes. They brought you in here while you were unconscious and with a knife in your heart and told me to dress you in that nightgown and pretend to be your assistant when you woke up. Please don’t kill me. I don’t care if you’re some kind of vampire.”
“Who hired you?” Amanda asked, barely managing to hide her smirk.
“It was an ad in Craigslist. This woman met me at Starbucks and told me to be here and I’d get $100 for showing up, another $200 if I didn’t scream when they brought you in. She said if I convinced you to stay the day, I’d get another $200. I need the money; I’ve been on unemployment for three years and I can’t…” She drew a breath and stared helplessly at Amanda.
“Who’s they?” Mentally, Amanda shook her head at Sarah’s desperation, but she knew well just how far that could drive someone.
“Two guys. They both had masks on and didn’t answer any questions I had. When they pulled the knife out and I didn’t scream, they gave me an envelope with the money.”
Amanda immediately opened the closet and found, as promised, her sword and a cheap suitcase. Whoever had packed the suitcase hadn’t been terribly imaginative, but at least she’d been provided with underwear, a red dress, shoes, and her second-favorite trench coat (not, she noted, the one with the long sweeping tail). Someone had clearly packed for her by choosing something they’d seen her wear in a photograph; her other option was a cream-colored blouse, black pants, and a pair of black knee-high boots that oddly, looked too new to be hers. She chose the boots and the red dress, figuring that would teach the Watchers not to assume she didn’t mix and match. Her broadsword (again, not her preferred sword, which really made her wonder which Chronicle they’d been reading) was undamaged and in its sheath, which she distinctly remembered hanging from the bedpost in her bedroom as a spare.
Amanda turned, sword in hand, just to see how Sarah would react. The woman swallowed hard. “Please. I just needed a job. I don’t know anything else.”
Amanda was about to say something when she felt the presence of another immortal. Cautiously, she called out, “Who’s there?”
“Your redheaded stepchild,” came Richie’s cheerful voice. “I’d ask if you were decent, but you have no modesty.”
Amanda laughed and crossed the room to open the door. She noted as she did so that Duncan had just finished punching out some stranger. At her look, Richie said, “He insisted on helping, so I told him he could handle the guards.”
“Is Nick with you?” Amanda asked worriedly.
“No,” Richie said, stepping into the room. “Ah, I see you have a visitor.”
“Don’t drink the coffee,” Amanda cautioned.
“Please don’t kill me,” Sarah blurted. “I just want to leave and go home and forget all this happened.”
“Not going to kill you,” Richie told her. “Amanda?”
“We’re leaving,” Amanda said decisively. “Did you bring a car?” She took only the broadsword and the clothes she was wearing. “I need to stop and buy a few things.”
Duncan started to say something as they exited the hotel, but Amanda didn’t let him, steamrolling over him by distracting him with how she wanted to go shopping, where she wanted to shop, how he owed her for this mess she’d found herself in, and basically blaming him for how she’d found herself in a hotel half-naked. Amused, Richie tucked his tongue firmly in his cheek and didn’t say a word in Duncan’s defense.
Amanda knew there had been a time he would have, but almost two decades of living without the Highlander’s influence had given Richie the freedom to see the world through a different perspective. By the time Amanda had purchased new clothing, new shoes, and a new coat, dumped everything she’d worn into the store into the dumpster behind the store, and insisted that Duncan drive her to her new condo, Duncan was on the edge of frustration with Amanda, and by extension, Richie.
“Amanda, what is going on?”
“He doesn’t know, does he?” Amanda asked Richie.
“I tried telling him, but I think he thinks I might just be a figment of his imagination,” Richie said with a half-shrug. “Or a demon.”
“I am standing right here,” Duncan said through his teeth as Richie and Amanda exited his convertible. “And I do believe you; I just don’t believe that it could be all of the Watchers.”
“Of course it isn’t all of them,” Amanda replied tartly. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
Richie added, “Mac, this faction may not be as bad as Horton, but what they’re doing is still wrong.” He retrieved the duffel bag he’d grabbed when he and Duncan had headed for the hotel. “Look, we can take it from here. Thanks for helping.”
“You’re just going to do this yourselves?”
“Are you implying we’re intrinsically incapable of rescuing a friend?” Amanda asked sweetly.
“No, I mean,” Duncan stammered. He was trying to be a hero, and both Amanda and Richie knew it, but neither of them could afford him to be one for the next part of their plan.
She leaned in and kissed him. “Stay out of it then,” she advised, and stepped back. Amanda waved goodbye, and watched Duncan swear in frustration before backing his car up and exiting the parking lot.
“Did you grab my keys?” Amanda asked Richie.
“And a few other things we might need,” Richie said, grinning. He was relieved that it had been relatively easy to find her, but he had the sense that things were likely to go wrong at any moment.
“You realize,” he added as they headed for her car, “Mac’s not going to sit by quietly.”
“No, but this way, he’s not dogging our exact footsteps,” Amanda pointed out. “Did he say where he thought they might take Nick?”
“He thought the old buffalo farm, but I’m also thinking it could be just as easily be Joe’s.”
“So we’ll try Joe’s,” Amanda decided as Richie unlocked the car and then handed over the keys. He also handed over his duffel bag and she took a quick inventory: three water bottles, a large tarp, a box of wet wipes, a sword cleaning cloth in a plastic bag, two pairs of black gloves in two sizes, two rappelling rigs with rope, two knives, two sets of lock picks (one electronic and one not), a Taser, and three changes of clothes - one for him, one for her, and another for Nick.
“Not quite packed for war,” Richie joked. “Hope I didn’t miss anything.”
Amanda kissed his cheek. “You’re a treasure, Richard,” she said, and handed back the duffel, which he put in the back seat of the late-model SUV before climbing into the passenger seat while she took the driver’s seat.
*****
Joe’s, Richie noticed, looked much like he’d remembered. Having worked a few shifts in the bar when he was younger, Richie saw that it had been expanded in the years since he’d left town, and now could easily hold a hundred people instead of the intimate fifty or so it had previously. It was midafternoon, and the lunch rush was over. As soon as Amanda and Richie entered, Richie saw some of the staff tense, which told him that at least two of the six in the front room were Watchers. Amanda slid onto one of the bar stools as if she had nowhere else to be, and Richie took his cue from her, as he had been for the better part of the last decade.
“Do be a dear,” she told the bartender, whose nametag said he was Jamie, “and let Joe know I brought him a present?”
The bartender smiled politely. “And may I let him know who you are, ma’am?”
“Amanda,” she said, flirting lightly.
“Will you like something to drink while you wait?” Jamie asked.
“No, thanks.”
“And you, sir?” Jamie turned to Richie.
“No, thanks,” he told him, and put a five-dollar bill on the bar top as incentive.
Jamie took the hint and picked up the phone on the back of the bar. The blues music playing over the speakers wasn’t loud enough to drown out his voice as he said, “Sir, there is a woman named Amanda here, and she said she brought you a present.” He paused before he said, “Yes, sir.” Jamie then turned to Amanda. “Joe will be right with you.” He took the tip Richie offered and proceeded to resume prepping the bar for the evening shift.
Joe emerged from the back room a few minutes later, moving slowly but steadily. He was thinner than Richie remembered, and looked…old, Richie thought with a shock. In his head, Richie knew that Joe had been in his forties, maybe early fifties, but this man was not who Richie had pictured he’d be. Shaking himself at the mental incongruity of expecting Joe, who wasn’t immortal, to look the same as Richie’s memory, Richie focused on him.
Joe’s gaze was still sharp, and Amanda’s effusive greeting didn’t fool him. “Presents? More like trouble, I’d say.”
“Depends,” Richie said, standing, “on whether you still think I’m worth it.”
“Holy mother of - camels,” Joe swore, and the sudden censure made Richie chortle.
“Since when did you start censoring yourself?” Richie demanded, hugging Joe carefully, mindful of his cane.
“Since I started babysitting my grandson,” Joe said. “And I stood there and buried you. How?”
“Someone went through a lot of effort to make it believable,” Richie said as he stepped back. “But I swear I’m not the poor idiot who lost his head.” He knew Amanda was taking advantage of Joe’s focus on him to go hunting in the back rooms of the bar. “All I know is that I went from planning to meet Mac to waking up in an farmhouse north of Paris and being told he’d gone crazy again, that I should stay the hell away if I wanted to keep my head.”
Joe studied him a moment. “And Amanda’s terrorizing my kitchen staff right now because whatever’s going on, it involves the Watchers. Because they still operate out of my bar, even though I’m retired.”
Richie spread his hands. “Would you prefer if I told you the pretty lie?”
Joe considered, his eyes narrowing. “And would you believe me if I said no one knows what’s going on these days, only that it’s been strange? I’m retired but I hear talk. And I know my daughter’s done some oddball things, but she swears it’s all Adam’s fault.”
“Depends on who you’d lie to protect these days,” Rich replied, and Joe winced at that hit.
“Fair enough. Why come back? You’ve clearly succeeded at living without MacLeod around.”
“Because they separated Amanda and Nick,” Richie replied. “And you know as well as I do that doesn’t work.”
“No,” Joe murmured as Amanda came back, looking coldly furious. “But it does explain why it’s been so odd here.” Joe stood a little straighter. “How can I help?”
Amanda kissed his cheek. “Invent a task for Duncan that you must have him complete tonight. I’m sure you can think of something you need fixed in your house?”
“My bathroom needs new rails, but that’s not really the point, is it? You don’t want either of us anywhere near where you’re going.”
Amanda shook her head. “No.” She drew Richie in with a look and turned to exit, certain her request would be filled.
Richie waited until they were back in her car before asking, “How certain are you that he’ll do what you say?”
Amanda grinned and said, “Borrow your phone?”
Richie handed it over. He wasn’t surprised when Amanda found the new entry for Duncan and dialed the number. “Darling, it’s me. I just saw Joe - shame on you for letting that man run himself ragged. Yes, I said ragged. He needs help, the poor man. Would you mind terribly if you did me a favor? See what he needs fixing? I think he said something about fixing his bathroom.”
Richie watched as Amanda charmed Duncan into agreeing to see what Joe needed that evening before hanging up, handing the phone back over, and starting up the car. As they pulled out onto the road, Richie asked, “Do you know where Nick is?”
“No, but I’m going off likely locations that the Watchers have been known to use. They’ll want to put him somewhere that looks familiar enough, and there aren’t that many places in Seacouver that will fit him. It would have to be somewhere they could dress up to look like somewhere he would have set up for himself, and given the properties we looked at, I’m thinking it may be more déjà vu for you than him.”
A sense of foreboding filled Richie. “Please tell me it’s not the old antique store.”
Grimly, Amanda said, “We’ll see.”
*****
Chapter Four
Richie didn’t bother holding his breath. When it came to bad luck, his life, and the city of Seacouver, he often thought the juxtaposition was too much for Fate to resist. Urgency drove their actions; Richie knew the Watchers would have more technology to twist to their methods than when they’d convinced him and Duncan to part ways. He didn’t want to see Nick lose his head to believing that Amanda was dead, nor did Richie want to see his two closest friends try to live separate lives. He knew that way lay madness and despair, and he loved them too much to want that for them
Richie and Amanda checked out two other properties Amanda thought might be viable, but the antique store’s location - last an Oriental rug store, he saw, judging from the as-yet unpainted echo of the store’s letters - turned out to be just the place. Two men, who looked alarmed at Richie and Amanda’s entrance, guarded the store.
“You’re not supposed to be here!” one of the men exclaimed.
“It’s too soon!” said the other man. “You need to stay away.”
“Why?” Richie challenged. “What do you need Nick for?”
“The emissary isn’t here yet,” the first man said anxiously. “Please, just go. It’s not safe yet!”
Richie drew his sword, only to be knocked to the floor when the second man said something in a language he didn’t understand, but sounded a lot like the Latin Mass he’d attended with Duncan a few times. Richie winced as he met the hard tile flooring, barely managing to keep his sword hand clear of any vital parts, but quickly stood back up.
At the words, Amanda froze. “Tell the emissary she should have asked permission,” she said coldly, and said, “Et ex illustratione divini amoris externa revoco praesidiis sum super locum istum et imperate patere aditum.” By the light of God's love, I revoke any foreign protections on this place and command the door to be open.
As if the Latin was magic, a sudden bright light exploded across the doorway, knocking the two guards out and opening the door.
“What the hell was that?” Richie demanded as he followed Amanda through the doorway.
“Latin,” she said shortly. “He named you a swordsman and said you’d been sworn to protect the Faerie Queen.”
“The hell?”
“I’ll explain later,” she promised.
Richie turned to see about tying the guards up, but they were strangely gone.
“What happened to the guards? They were just here.”
“Reporting to their emissary, I’m sure,” Amanda said. “Hurry. We don’t have much time.”
They found Nick tied to a metal chair that had been bolted to the floor, blindfolded, unconscious, an IV and a catheter hooked up to his body so he didn’t need to leave. Amanda’s lips tightened, a sure sign she was furious. While Amanda handled the IV and catheter lines and took care of tucking Nick’s penis back into his pants, Richie slipped the blindfold off Nick’s head and undid his restraints.
It took Nick several minutes before his immortal healing kicked in and shook off the effects of the drug he’d been given. Instinctively, he came out of the chair combative. Both Amanda and Richie stepped back, out of harm’s way. When Nick realized who was with him, he stopped and looked at both Amanda and Richie and sagged with relief. His voice was hoarse when he asked, “So that line the idiot was trying to feed me about you two leaving me alone was just bullshit?”
Amanda dumped the equipment she’d disconnected to the side and stepped forward to meet Nick halfway. Kissing Nick passionately, she finally came up for air and said, “You’d hunt us down and make us regret it.” Studying her longtime lover and partner, she asked briskly, “Do you believe we’re here?”
“Yeah,” Nick said. “Nobody holds onto me like you.” He took a deep breath. “But someone get me some water?”
“Give me a minute,” Richie said quickly. Richie retrieved one of the water bottles they’d packed and handed it to Nick, unscrewing the top as he did so. Nick drank gratefully, but slowly, as if knowing too much would make him vomit. After several minutes, he nodded to Amanda and Richie. “Let’s get out of here.”
Just as Nick spoke, a burly man ran out from what had been the shop’s office and aimed a gun at all of them. “You’re not leaving yet. It’s not safe.”
Richie looked at the stranger. “Yes, we are. You are going to call the police and turn yourself in for kidnapping.”
The stranger stared at him incredulously. “You don’t have Voice, Richie Ryan.”
“So no Jedi mind tricks, damn,” Richie said, shrugging philosophically, and moved to disarm him. The shot hit him before he could get there, but he muscled past the pain and disarmed the gunman, knocking him out in the process. Richie quickly cleared the gun and tossed the magazine to the side.
With Amanda’s help, Richie moved the gunman to the chair Nick had vacated and tied him up. Richie searched the man’s wallet, checked for evidence of a Watcher tattoo or signet ring, finding the tattoo on the inside of the man’s left ankle, and then liberated the man’s cell phone.
Nick asked, “We’re just going to leave him there? He could call the cops on us.”
“Not without a phone,” Richie pointed out, holding the device in question before handing it over to Amanda. “But we’ll check the office just to be sure there isn’t anything else he could use.”
Nick nodded, and with Richie as lookout, he and Amanda looked through the office. They confiscated a laptop and a second cell phone, which appeared to be serving as a portable Wi-Fi hotspot. Armed with the electronics, they headed out, only to run into Duncan.
Amanda smiled brightly. “Right on time!” she exclaimed. “I was just about to call the police. Won’t you be a dear and do that for us? None of our phones seem to be working.”
Duncan stared at her, looking as though he was certain she’d just roped into something he was going to regret, but Richie didn’t waste time helping him figure out what it was. He followed Amanda and Nick instead into her car and left.
“Do you think that was wise?” Richie asked as they drove away.
“No,” Nick said, “but I’m not going to worry about it.”
“Why not?”
Amanda pulled the car and looked over at Richie. “Because if he’s a mortal in service to the Faerie Queen, he’s not going to tell anyone what he knows. He’ll be dead.”
“What?” Richie was incredulous. “Faerie Queen? Come on, guys, you can’t be…”
Both Amanda and Nick looked at him steadily.
“Aw, fuck my life,” Richie said mournfully.
*****
Frustrated, Duncan went to find the Watcher, only to discover he’d committed suicide. Duncan had thought suicide pills were something out of spy movies, not real life. Grimly, Duncan called the police, claiming that he’d been lured to the site with a phone call, only to discover this mess. The police, long used to the weirdness that was Seacouver, sent a patrol car and an ambulance, but thankfully did not look at Duncan suspiciously…at least, not yet. The policemen who showed up were careful to ask him plenty of questions, though, and it was a long time before he could depart the scene. Duncan resented the notion his friends had deliberately left him behind and were keeping him in the dark about what their next plans were. He was not helpless, damn it. Moreover, Amanda - and he was certain it was Amanda; it had her hallmarks all over it - had once again set him up to possibly take the fall for the Watcher’s death.
Still seething with anger, he parked his car in the lot behind his building. He started to get out, only to be stopped short when he caught sight of someone loitering in the alley. He frowned at the slight rise of fog; although the alley dead-ended, there was no reason for a fog to roll in - was there?
He found a stunningly ordinary-looking, ethnically ambiguous woman standing by the brick wall that formed the alley’s dead end. A giant dog that looked like an oversized German shepherd sat calmly at her feet. The woman wore a grey wool coat, brown pants, brown boots, and had dark brown hair, adding to an overall impression of ‘shades of brown and gray.’ In the early evening light, she and the dog seemed to glow slightly, as if lit from within. “Can I help you?” Duncan asked cautiously.
“My name is Mackensie Connor,” she said. “This is Shiloh,” she gestured to the dog, who looked at Duncan with a sudden intensity. “Please, come no closer. I am sorry to bother you, Mr. MacLeod, but your friends are interfering with things they know nothing about.”
“What do you mean?”
“We only wanted to borrow them for a little while,” Mackensie said urgently. “We mean no permanent harm.”
Duncan stared at her. “Who’s we?”
“Long ago, we made an arrangement with a chosen few to ensure our lineage would survive the millennia. But you fight so seldom - or so viciously and tirelessly - these days that we cannot reseed the earth the way we used to, so we have resorted to desperate measures.”
Duncan was old enough and Scottish enough to remember the stories of the faerie. He’d been told he was a faerie’s gift, a promise fulfilled, but that had only been whispered when the priest couldn’t hear, and he’d been sworn to secrecy. Yet advances in technology and centuries of living had tempered his beliefs in faeries and magic. “So, you’re what, the Faerie Queen herself?”
“Have care that you do not scoff so loudly,” Mackensie said sharply. “I am an emissary of the Court.”
Abruptly, immortal presence shivered a warning in Duncan’s head. He saw Amanda, Richie, and Nick pull up in Amanda’s car. Amanda stepped out as soon as she put the car in park. She carried her sword and looked furious.
“You,” she said distinctly to Mackensie, “I thought I told you no five hundred years ago and again two hundred.”
“I am sorry, Amanda, but we need your kind.”
“And to take without care is the contract our kind signed?” Amanda countered, looking fierce and ancient. Nick and Richie stood just a step behind her, arms crossed. “Those are not the terms I was told. Or should I ask the Witch of Donan Woods what she’s playing at this time?”
Mackensie looked flustered. “She does not speak on your kind’s behalf?”
“Only ever for her, same as last time.”
“Wait, you knew Cassandra was alive two hundred years ago?” Duncan gasped.
Amanda rolled her eyes. “Yes, because Rebecca told me to keep an eye out for someone who was female, old, and manipulative with magic.” To Mackensie, she said, “If this was merely a misunderstanding, please convey to your queen that she needs to ask. We no longer operate as one tribe and haven’t in centuries.”
“My sincerest apologies,” Mackensie said, looking deeply troubled. “We did not understand you were individuals.”
“Sometimes we are a clan, but in much smaller groups,” Amanda replied more kindly. “The winds have scattered us all; that is why we sometimes fight in such frequency and then not at all.”
“Ah. Please excuse me a moment.” Mackensie shimmered out of existence, leaving only her dog behind, who looked at the group of immortals as if daring them to leave.
“What the hell’s going on?” Richie demanded. “You said later. It’s later.”
“Rebecca told me that we were born of an alliance between the faerie and early mortals. In exchange for a brief time in Faerie in service, we are given the gift of immortality. Every decade, some of us spend a little more time in Faerie than others to help them. We give them a little bit of our Quickening; they give us a boon in exchange. Where do you suppose pre-immortal babies come from?”
“And what do they get?” Duncan asked.
“A little of the magic they gave us back,” Amanda said softly. “If they take it without permission, though, it’s not good magic. Enough of that, and you birth fear and blackness and worse.”
Duncan blanched. “Why would Cassandra try to speak on all immortals’ behalf?”
“Because she spends too much time alone in the woods,” Amanda said impatiently. “And no one’s been born yet who could fix what was broken in her. I quit trying to analyze her after I realized she wasn’t going to change. She does this every so often, trying to stir up something for reasons I don’t care to understand. Rebecca tried to help her but Cassandra wouldn’t listen.”
Duncan looked at Amanda, horrified. Before he could speak, however, Mackensie reappeared in a shimmer of golden light. “My queen extends her sincerest apologies. She will handle Cassandra’s interference in the way things should be, and offers a restoration of what was taken from you.”
To the men’s surprise, Amanda shook her head. “Keep it,” she said flatly. “I will not be beholden to the Queen anymore than my kind already is.”
Mackensie looked at the three men. “Does Amanda speak for you as well?”
“In this instance, yes,” Nick said quickly.
“Ditto for me,” Richie said. “Next time, ask.”
“For this and this time only, yes,” Duncan echoed.
“As you wish,” Mackensie said. She looked at them. “On behalf of my queen, I release Amanda, Richie Ryan, Nick Wolfe, and Duncan MacLeod from any further collection of the debt owed by their kind.”
Shiloh rose and sniffed each of them in turn. He licked their sword hands, visibly recoiling as if he tasted the iron on them, and then returned to his mistress.
“Thank you, Emissary,” Amanda said formally.
Mackensie nodded, and then turned away. With the dog beside her, she walked right into the brick wall, taking the low-level fog with her.
No one spoke for a long moment. “What does that mean?” Richie asked, his face revealing his incredulity.
“Means none of us will get kidnapped for a night in Faerie again,” Amanda said. “And I’d advise we don’t get drunk, stoned, fight, or have sex with strangers for the next forty-eight hours.”
“Right,” Duncan said, abruptly remembering the stories of how fairies could trick people out of breaking promises. “Why don’t we go inside and get some rest? Nick, I don’t think we’ve met formally yet.”
Nick took the cue he was given. Duncan insisted on cooking dinner; he didn’t quite trust Faerie not to interfere if they left the loft for food, and the grateful look Amanda shot him said volumes. Over dinner, Duncan asked Richie, “So you thought it was a rogue group of Watchers?”
“Everything I had pointed to it,” Richie said with a shrug.
“That explains some of the mutterings I heard while I was being held and before I became unconscious,” Nick said. “It didn’t sound like the Watchers who had me were sure what they were doing was right, only that they’d been ordered to by someone above their pay grade.”
Amanda nodded. “The right word in the right ears is something the Faerie do very well.”
“So tell us how we can be better prepared,” Duncan suggested. “Besides making sure we have iron and steel at hand.”
Amanda looked at him and sighed. “Perhaps it’s time,” she agreed. “But it can wait until morning -”
“Amanda,” Nick said warningly. “All of the folklore I ever read about Faerie said nighttime is when their magic is strongest.”
“Which is why it can wait until morning,” Amanda said firmly. “I’ve no desire to anger the Queen tonight with words I cannot take back, especially given what she’s granted us.”
Duncan could see Nick’s frustration. He shared it as well, but he could also see Amanda’s reluctance. “Given what you said about being careful for the next forty-eight hours, it’s best if we wait a little longer, right, Amanda?”
She nodded, sighing with visible relief. “Let’s be grateful for the moment.”
“Moment’s over,” Richie said a second later. “I vote for moving on to making sure they don’t come back into anywhere we sleep, because I don’t know about you three, but I’m sitting over here freaked out that my life is some weird-ass fantasy movie. And since it is one, I want to be sure I don’t encounter any further proof that all of the legends anyone ever told are true, especially since there’s some pretty horrific ones out there.”
Nick looked at him, then at Amanda. “He’s got a point.”
Amanda smiled ruefully. “Then we should work quickly.” Within two hours, the loft was as Faerie-proofed as the four of them could make it. A quick trip to a farm supply store resulted in a supply of horseshoes, which were tacked over doorways. Oatmeal and holly berries were sprinkled over windowsills. With Duncan in tow, they did the same to Nick and Amanda’s condo, but since the utilities wouldn’t be turned on for two days, Duncan offered to put them all up in his loft. Before leaving the condo, Nick grabbed a pair of sleeping bags out of one of the boxes in the condo, a change of clothes for both him and Amanda.
*****
“So it turns out,” Joe said conversationally a week later in his bar, where Amanda, Duncan, Nick, and Richie had gathered to celebrate the launch of Amanda and Nick’s new business, “there were a group of Watchers who had this crazy idea that if they took it upon themselves to isolate some of the Game’s biggest players, they’d somehow save the players from getting hurt by the Game. My daughter said there’s a big shakeup going on, with lots of people being investigated. You four wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
The quartet gave him their most innocent looks.
“Uh huh, thought so,” Joe said dryly. “And someone must’ve finally gotten through to Cassandra, because she’s apparently made an appointment for therapy with a specialist who deals with victims of traumatic events.”
Duncan heaved a relieved sigh. He’d known for a while that Cassandra needed help; he just didn’t know how to get her to want to go find it. “I’ve been worried,” he said tactfully. “I didn’t think it would be good for her to continue nursing her wounds like she has, but she kept pushing me off whenever I tried to talk to her about it.”
“Well, whoever it was must’ve had magic,” Joe said. “Speaking of - I don’t suppose any of you have any magical way to make my rent on this place go down?”
“Sorry, you’re out of luck on that one,” Richie said, smiling. “My greatest magic trick is showing up alive when I should be dead.”
“Same here,” Nick chimed in. “Come on, Richie, you promised me and Amanda you’d help us finish unpacking.”
Amanda leaned over and kissed Joe’s cheek. “I promise I won’t steal your customers.”
“Yes you will, for the first week,” Joe replied. “But that’s okay. They’ll be back if they don’t like being in a dance club.”
She smiled and with a look, gathered Nick and Richie to follow her out the door.
Duncan took a sip of his drink. Joe waited until he was halfway done swallowing before asking, “So are you going to tell an old man the truth or are you going to stick behind the story they just tried to feed me? Them, I expect to lie to me. You, not so much.”
Sputtering, Duncan tried to foist him off. “Joe, that was a waste of good Scotch.”
“Not like you don’t know where to find the bottle in this place, or that you won’t pay me for it,” Joe replied evenly. “Besides, don’t you want someone to know the truth?”
Duncan shook his head. “Not this time. Leave it be, Joe. Do you want to hear about the time Connor and I dated the same woman and didn’t know it?”
From her throne in Faerie, the Faerie Queen turned away from the scrying mirror, satisfied that for the moment, everything was as it should be.
The End