A particularly severe winter brought frigid winds and several feet of snow to Canada's greatest western port. But in the confines of the dojo, Richie Ryan could relax and ignore the bone-chilling weather. He could loosen tense muscles and forget for a short while that four Immortals had challenged him in the past two weeks. It did not help his ego any that the hunters were seeking older prey; namely, Ryan's mentor Duncan MacLeod. He began with a few simple katas, stretching exercises really, and then graduated into more complex forms. Soon he was spinning on the floor, his rapier whistling through the air, his mind transported to a simpler place, where only survival mattered.
The insistent ring of the telephone snapped him out of his reverie. Richie skidded to a halt on the gym floor, and took a moment to catch his breath. Then he bolted for the office. It was too late in the evening for anything but an important call. Maybe it was Mac.
Richie picked up the phone on the twelfth ring. Before he could say anything, a recorded voice began talking to him. "Will you accept a collect call from *beep*" -- the voices switched to one that sounded familiar: "Adam Pierson" -- and back to the recording, "from Paris, France?"
<Odd,> Richie thought. He recognized the name, having met the man a few months before. Pierson was a Watcher and an Immortal. Richie didn't trust the combination, but Mac and Joe seemed to trust Pierson. He could only be calling for Mac, but Richie knew for a fact that the Highlander was in France, in the very city from which Pierson was calling.
"Yeah, I'll accept the charges," Richie said mechanically, trying to puzzle out just what this might mean.
There was a click, and then a breathless voice with an English accent was talking to him. "Hello, I'm trying to get in touch with Richie Ryan."
"This is he." Richie said. What would Pierson want from him?
"Richie, this is Adam Pierson." The man paused. Richie nodded to himself. He already knew who he was talking to. "Look, this isn't very easy for me to say," Pierson began again, and a cold dread opened up in Richie's gut.
"What happened?" he almost yelled into the receiver.
"Uh... Richie... Duncan and Amanda have both been killed.
"There was a long silence, and Richie could hear the crackling of the long distance connection. Finally Richie spoke, his brain numb but his mouth forming words. "That's impossible. No one can beat Duncan."
"I am afraid someone has, Richie. I'm sorry." Pierson took a breath. "There's more. I don't know how it happened, and I cannot begin to guess, but somehow the Kurgan has returned to life. And somehow he found us in Paris and killed Duncan, and then Amanda. I barely escaped with my life. As it is, I have to get used to being one handed for a while."
Richie slid to the floor, shaking his head. "No. that's not possible. Dead Immortals don't come back... and nobody beats Duncan."
Pierson's voice as sharp when he responded. "Dammit Richie, it happened. I saw it with my own eyes. I would know the Kurgan if I saw him. It was him. And he was deadlier than the last time I saw him. I'm telling you Richie, no matter how difficult it is to accept, Duncan and Amanda are gone. And I need your help. In three thousand years, only one man possessed the strength and skill to defeat the Kurgan. You're the only person I know who can contact him."
"Connor..." Richie mumbled. Somehow, Pierson caught it.
"Exactly. Do you know how to get in touch with him in emergencies?"
"Sure," Richie heard himself say. Mac had drilled it into him. If anything happened to Mac: find Connor.
Pierson sighed. "Good. Call him. And then tell him to meet me in St. Patrick's in New York in twenty-four hours."
"Yeah. Okay." There was a click, and then Pierson was gone.
Richie stared into space for a long time, trying to decide if it was real or some kind of setup. If... if Mac and Amanda were dead, then it was most likely that Pierson did it. Did the man actually think Richie would believe that nonsense about the Kurgan?
After a while, he looked at the phone in his hand. He set it down and stood up. He needed a shower. Part of him recognized he was in shock. Another part still denied the possibility of Mac being gone. Tessa came to mind unbidden. He tried not to think about her, but his mind wouldn't focus. Tessa, the closest thing to a mother Richie ever had, was dead. She died at the same moment that created Richie Ryan, the Immortal.
And now Mac could be dead. His best friend and mentor. His surrogate father and brother. Gone. Forever.
Richie's hands tightened into fists. It had to be a trick. It had to be. And that Pierson worm was going to pay for jerking him around. Forget Connor. Richie was going to New York. And he would teach that Watcher bastard a thing or two. He looked around wildly for his rapier, and found it in the middle of the exercise floor where he had dropped it. As he scooped it up, he heard a banging on the front door.
Richie froze, and concentrated. He could not feel any Immortals. His mind raced. Whoever it was had probably seen the lights, but maybe if Richie didn't do anything, the person would move on. No such luck. The banging continued unabated for minutes. Richie growled and threw the sword down. He went to answer the door. Once unlocked, the door blew open with a blast of winter air, and Joe Dawson, Duncan MacLeod's Watcher, stumbled into the dojo.
The ice was back in Richie's gut. Joe should be in Paris, watching Mac. Unless...
Dawson pulled the hood of his parka off, and leaned heavily against his cane. The lights weren't all that good in the hallway, but from what Richie could see, Dawson looked haggard. And old. Dawson opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He cleared his throat, and attempted again, but failed.
"Then... its true?" Richie said quietly.
Dawson nodded once, slowly. "I... I thought I should tell you personally. I took the first flight back. All that time on the plane and I still couldn't think of a way... Adam told you, didn't he?"
Richie nodded. "He said it was the Kurgan."
Dawson's shoulders slumped. "How it happened, I don't know. But the most evil Immortal who ever lived has returned. And our friends paid the price."
Richie headed back into the dojo. Dawson hobbled after him, his legs aching from the cold, the long trip, and the horror and grief.
"What will you do?" Joe asked.
That ball of ice in Richie's gut was spreading. His voice was actually calm when he said, "I'm making a phone call. And then I'm going to New York." If Connor MacLeod would be facing the Kurgan again, Richie would be there as well.
Alec squinted through the rain, trying to catch sight of the blond woman in the red dress. His blond hair was pasted to his skull, and his pale skin looked whiter under the street lights. In one hand he held a heavy automatic pistol, two bullets lighter than it was when he entered the nightclub ten minutes before.
One bullet had found itself a new home in the lintel above the nightclub door. The other was lodged in the neck of the woman's bodyguard. Alec had six more shots to go before he would have to reload or pull out his other pistol.
He heard sirens in the distance, and pulled his leather jacket tighter across his chest to cover the bullet holes. He was suddenly pressed for time. If the police found him, or the girl, then this night would be a wash. And his enemies would know he was after them.
He whipped off his mirrored sunglasses and looked wildly about, searching for a flash of red or the glint of gold. Nothing. He muttered a blue streak of curses as his eyes roved over the city street, trying to pierce the curtain of rain. Still nothing, and now he could see the flashing lights of the police as prowlers headed towards the nightclub. Alec did not want to fight police. That could end in disaster. He took off down the street, his gun still out, his eyes burning with undisguised fury. People in his way leapt clear, creating a path for him. Suddenly he screeched to a halt, almost slipping on the wet cement. He could sense the spider and what it saw; it had found her.
She was hiding, huddled near a dumpster in an alleyway.
A slow, feral grin slid across Alec's pasty features. He turned, trying to get a fix on the spider's whereabouts. With a groan, he realized that the police were between him and his quarry. He saw police rushing into the nightclub, and he could just make out one of the bouncers standing on the steps, talking to a cop. And pointing in Alec's general direction. It was time to pull a quick fade.
Alec holstered his pistol and darted down the street, searching for a convenient alley of his own. He located one not far away and ducked into it, searching for a fire escape. When he found it, he made a short leap and pulled himself up the ladder.
At the Hyatt Regency, Selura Shea -- beautiful, blond, English, and a millennia old student of one Juan Sanchez Villa Lobos Ramiriz -- checked into her suite and collapsed on the bed. It had been a long flight from Queensland.
A large green jeep navigated its way across the flooded expanse of Washington Avenue, parking just outside the doors of a run-down church. The driver side door opened, and Huixopotchtli -- the Aztec lord of blood and war, nearly four hundred years old -- stepped out into the rain. He adjusted the scimitar in his coat, and headed into the church.
Two Lycanthropes in wolf form savagely attacked a pregnant woman on Miner Street. Police fired at the beasts, but they escaped into the rain. The woman was immediately rushed to the hospital, but neither she nor her baby survived the night.
Mortimir McGillicuddy, a retired clown who specialized in birthday parties and a proud grandfather of two perfect children, walked into the Eagle's Nest Pub and emptied fourteen rounds from his shotgun into the crowd gathered there. The bartender stopped the carnage when he was able to wound old Mortimir with a carefully lobbed bottle of gin. When arrested, Mortimir could not explain why he felt compelled to gun down innocents.
Paul Gold, an ancient Vampire Prince, settled down with his meal for the evening. Usually, he didn't drain them all the way; just enough to sate his hunger. But this once, on a whim, he drained her dry.
Alec found her where the spider had showed him she would be. Huddled against a dumpster, her makeup a muddy mess from the rain, her slinky red dress sticking to her plush curves, long blonde hair matted and damp. She looked up at him when he stepped toward her, his gun once more in his hand. Those robin's egg blue eyes were not full of fear or hopelessness as he expected, but rather cold, hard rage.
"You're supposed to be dead," she hissed.
Alec reached out and brushed a strand of blond hair from her face. She did not flinch. "I am dead," Alec assured her. "And very soon, you will be too. But first, some questions."
She shook her head. "I have no answers."
Alec pressed the muzzle of the gun against her stomach. "Belly wounds hurt a lot, and they kill slow. I know. You talk, and I'll kill you quick. You hold out on me, and you die slow and painful." Alec tried to conjure a grim smile, but it came out sick and twisted.
"Whatever."
The bitch was certainly cold. Cold enough to seduce a man and lead him to his death. Cold enough to see that man again, know he would kill you, and still show no fear. Not for the first time Alec wondered what kind of people had wanted him dead.
He felt the reassuring weight of the spider as it settled onto his shoulders, leaping there from the edge of the dumpster. Her eyes widened, and suddenly Alec had a plan. He silently urged the spider to alight on the woman, and smiled in satisfaction as the hairy arachnid complied.
The woman grimaced, but didn't move. The spider sank its fangs into her neck and began pumping venom into her. Her hand swept up involuntarily, trying to knock the creature away, but Alec caught her wrist and squeezed tightly. The woman let out a low moan.
Alec pressed the muzzle of the gun against her forehead. Rain slid down the barrel and across her face. "Change your mind?" he asked.
"What...what do you want?" she gurgled.
"Who wanted me dead? Who cut me open? I want names."
"Don't know," the woman gasped. Alec squeezed her wrist some more, grinding the bones together. She whimpered, and then qualified her statement. "I don't know who performed the sacrifice. But I know where they did it..."
"Tell me," Alec urged.
"No, I can't... you may kill me... but then I have to face what waits on the other side... please... the spider," she moaned.
Alec pulled back a step. "You're a fucking Satan worshipper?"
The woman suddenly laughed, a brittle, sharp noise. "Nothing so pedestrian. Our Master is an older, purer power." She shut her mouth then, fearing she had spoken too much.
Alec fumed. "Elaborate. Now."
The woman shook her head. "No. The worst you can do is kill me, however brutally." Her speech slurred as the venom began to affect her vision. Alec pressed the gun harder against her forehead and considered. She was his only lead to finding his killers. But if she wouldn't talk, she wouldn't talk.
Alec pulled the trigger.
He stepped away, wiping blood and bone fragments off his hand with bits of trash. He holstered the gun, as the spider slipped under the woman's dress. "Hey, come on, that's sick... and we don't have time for that," Alec urged. The police would certainly have heard the gunshot, and recognized it for what it was. They needed to get out of there.
A moment later the spider reappeared, its pedipalps grasping what looked like a pendant. Alec reached down and grabbed the item as the spider leapt to his shoulder. He examined the piece. It was gold, artfully crafted with no small amount of skill, yet it was a horrific image. A single, massive eye, with teeth ringing the pupil, and a circle of tentacles wrapping around the edges of the eye. Horrific, but a clue. Alec took his leave of the scene.
In New York City, reports of a walking scarecrow began to filter in the police and the media. Someone made jokes about the Wizard of Oz. In a related incident, street people began to appear in areas where they should have been protected from the ravages of the elements, inexplicably dead. Heart attacks or brain aneurysms; no signs of conflict. Police and forensics were baffled, while the Scarecrow fed and grew strong.
In Northern Ireland, the fragile peace was broken dramatically when a pair of British soldiers were brutally gunned down. The IRA and Sinn Fein denied complicity in the murders, but few believed them, even amongst their own followers.
In Chartres, at the great cathedral, three generations of Gargoyles awakened to greet the moon. Among them was the unofficial patriarch of the Askanii tribe, a three hundred and sixty year old Gargoyle known as Theodoric. He could not shake the after effects from a particularly troubling dream, and spent most of the evening perusing old texts, searching for enlightenment. Again and again he returned to Jansip Boutilin's translation of the Dark Tower prophecy.
The moon was high when a small fishing boat launched from Manila, beginning its slow journey to the port of Hong Kong. There were three passengers, and very little fishing equipment. Vincent Falcone, Justin Calatin, and Victoria Baron were on the final leg of their journey.
In a gleaming steel and glass cylinder located in the midwestern metropolis of Chicago, the man known as Greystoke stood, looking out his window at the fantastic view of the lake at night. In a moment he would make a phone call to a monastery in South America and inform the oldest living Immortal of recent events. Lei Wu Long's madness. The death of a much loved and well respected champion in Paris. The return of an enemy with a soul as black as the deepest pit of Hell. The success of the opposition in New Orleans.
But for now, the man who had been born in the crucible of human evolution, who had spent his formative years in the violent land of colonial Africa, enjoyed this brief moment of silence, this calm before the storm. He admired the apparently placid lake, savoring the peace and quiet for a heartbeat longer.
Then he picked up the phone.
Perseus left Shelley at the hotel. The poor girl was exhausted.
<She should have napped on the plane,> he thought, <but instead she badgered me about Lei.> As he headed out into the night time streets, he thought about his old friend, and how agonizing it would be to have to kill him. Perseus hoped that it would not come to that. He wanted to believe that, somehow, he and Tyr could talk some sense into Lei, help him see the light before he tried to extinguish it.
As Perseus walked, he smoked, and Japan returned again and again to his mind. During World War Two, Perseus tracked a pair of Ramses' agents to Japan. They were searching for some artifact Ramses wanted. Perseus meant to ensure they never found it. The whole caper had been quite difficult. Trying to disguise his obviously Western features had proved nearly disastrous, But a young lieutenant saved him from a firing squad, a young lieutenant that proved to be Lei.
Lei helped him find Ramses' men and thwart their plan. When it was done, and the two villains were dead, Perseus was ready to leave. Lei convinced him to stay a bit longer, insisting that, with the war in Europe on its last legs, leaving Japan at that moment would not be a good idea.
Perseus and Lei had been there when the Enola Gay carried its precious cargo to the island, and both Immortals had witnessed the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Perseus and Lei watched as twin fireballs exploded, destroying cities and innocents.
Both Immortals acquired acute radiation sickness and severe burns, but were not hindered long. Not nearly as long as many Perseus saw in the ensuing few weeks, stumbling out of the wreckage and crying tears of blood. Perseus had been sickened by the entire thing.
Lei had been... elated. His visions of fire and doom had come to pass, and he felt his sanity assured. When Perseus saw the dark joy cross Lei's features, he could not be sure he agreed.
<Maybe Lei is better off dead,> Perseus considered.
"Hands on your head, freak," someone said in English, pressing a gun into Perseus' back. He complied slowly, looking around. His daydreaming could cost him -- he saw seven men in dark clothes arrayed against him. All were well armed. One had a sword, while the others sported firearms of various kinds.
A wrist flashed, and Perseus caught a glimpse of a tattoo.
<Hunters,> Perseus thought. <Shit.>
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