I live under the same roof as a killer, Richie Ryan thought to himself one rainy Sunday afternoon.
The seventeen-year-old lay in bed with his hands laced behind his head, staring up at his bedroom ceiling and trying to objectively consider his living situation. In just one week he would turn eighteen and be eligible in the eyes of the law to live on his own - no more social workers, no more foster homes, no more court orders. He could live wherever he pleased, given the limitations of his fairly empty wallet and non-existent savings. He liked living in the little apartment behind Tessa Noel's antique shop and working with Tessa and her boyfriend Duncan MacLeod, but anyway he looked at it, he couldn't deny that MacLeod was a killer.
Murderer.
Guy who whacked off other people's heads.
Other Immortals' heads, Richie corrected himself. Other people like MacLeod, some of them thousands of years old, all running around with razor sharp swords hidden under their coats and trying to kill each other.
Richie didn't think they had to kill each other, driven by some horrible instinct like piranhas or something. After all, Duncan and Connor were both Immortal, relatives of some kind, and they hadn't whipped out swords or axes and started fighting. Well, for practice maybe, but not with deadly intent. Obviously some choice or decision had to be involved whenever Immortals fought, though Richie couldn't imagine how someone decided whether to murder or not.
MacLeod had sat him down and explained about Immortals, Quickenings, the Game. Richie understood most of it. MacLeod was four hundred years old. He could recover from every single fatal injury except decapitation. He would never age. He didn't have any special superpowers, but he knew lots of stuff about languages, antiques and martial arts.
And he chopped off people's heads.
Killed them.
No way around that, no sirree.
It had already occurred to Richie that by living in the same apartment as MacLeod he could technically be called an accessory to any murders the Highlander might commit. If a headless body showed up on the six o'clock news, it would only take a glance across the living room to figure out who had probably done it. By not telling the police what he knew, he was obstructing justice or some bullshit like that. Sergeant Powell, Richie's old nemesis at the South Square police station, would just love to throw Richie's butt in jail on charges of aiding MacLeod's little killing sprees -
A knock on the door interrupted Richie's thoughts. The door opened and the murderer himself appeared, looking harmless in black sweats and a cream-colored shirt. He asked, "Would you like to help me cook dinner, Rich?"
Or should I just chop off your head?
MacLeod didn't actually say the last part, but Richie heard it clearly enough. The phrase followed the Immortal day and night, an unspoken tag to his every innocent-sounding question.
"Yeah, love to," Richie said without much enthusiasm as he rolled out of bed. His personal idea of cooking meant frozen burritos and a microwave, topped by dollops of sour cream and canned guacamole when he felt extravagant. MacLeod and Tessa took the art of food preparation much more seriously, with specially purchased pots and pans, bizarre kitchen tools that looked like instruments of torture and stained recipe books worshipped like bibles. Richie trailed MacLeod to the kitchen, hoping for something simple on the night's menu - hamburgers, maybe. Macaroni and cheese. Hot dogs.
"Tessa's still out with her friends," MacLeod said as he started poking under the counter and shifting pans around. "I thought we'd make one of her favorites."
"Don't tell me," Richie said. "Something French."
"No. Something Italian. Sausages and vegetables with pasta. Will you get the zucchini and spinach out of the refrigerator?"
Or should I just chop off your head?
Richie opened the gleaming white door and scanned the crowded shelves. "I don't like Tessa's friends."
"Why not?"
"They're all stuck up."
MacLeod raised his eyebrows at the sight of the gourd in Richie's right hand. "That's not a zucchini, Richie."
"What is it?"
"Eggplant."
"What's the difference?"
"Ask the zucchini." MacLeod took the erroneous vegetable, put it back into the refrigerator and retrieved a different one. Richie hopped into a sitting position on the kitchen counter and slid right off again when the Immortal shot him a warning look.
"What do you want me to do, Mac?"
"Take this knife, quarter the zucchini lengthwise and cut it into half-inch chunks."
Richie took the sharp instrument. He didn't understand exactly what MacLeod meant, but rather than ask he decided to just start hacking and hope the end result pleased the older man.
"Besides," MacLeod said, rinsing the spinach, "Tessa's friends are not stuck-up."
"They all speak French, smoke funny cigarettes and wear enough perfume to fill a bathtub."
"That's called sophisticated." MacLeod's smile faded as he put a restraining hand on Richie's arm. "I said quarter it, not butcher it. Are you feeling a little aggressive today?"
Richie bristled. "You don't like my style?"
"Maybe you're better off just slicing up this onion."
"That will make me cry!"
"Run the onion and the knife under cold water first. You won't cry. I promise."
"Yeah, right. Can I put on the stereo first? The music will cover up the sound of my weeping."
MacLeod nodded. "As long as it's not acid rock."
Richie had doubts MacLeod even knew what acid rock meant, but tuned to a top 40 station just to be safe. Most of the entries in the contemporary charts made him sick from sweetness, but he figured Madonna and Milli Vanilli would do fine for a man born before radio had even been invented. In MacLeod's youth, music consisted of drums and bagpipes and big boring symphonies by guys like Mozart.
As he carefully sliced up the onion his eyes did tear, but the cold water helped. Richie couldn't help sneaking glances toward MacLeod as the Immortal deftly seeded and diced two tomatoes and chopped up four garlic cloves. Of course he would be good with sharp objects, Richie thought cynically. The man cut things up - cut people up - for a hobby.
The sudden temptation to ask MacLeod what he did with the corpses of his victims made Richie bite his lip until the urge passed.
"How are those onions, Rich?"
"Sliced as ordered, mon capitan."
"Great. Grab that saucepan there and heat up two tablespoons of olive oil."
...Or I'll chop off your head.
Richie heated vegetable oil instead of olive oil, and MacLeod made him wash the pan out and start again. MacLeod peeled casings from a pound of sausage while Richie grabbed a diet soda from the refrigerator and popped the top. The teenager asked, "Aren't sausages made up of all the leftover dirty scraps of meat from the floor?"
"Originally. Not now, though."
"They look like body parts."
"You've been watching too many horror movies."
Richie's next question popped out before he could stop himself. "Are you saying they don't look like body parts?"
MacLeod's expression turned unreadable as he carefully placed the peeled sausages into the sizzling oil. "Something on your mind?"
"No."
"You sure?"
Richie gulped down his soda. He wished he'd kept his big mouth shut. To his horror, he just kept rambling on and making the conversation worse. "Yeah, I'm sure. It's cool. I mean, not really cool, not cool at all, but okay. If that's the way it has to be."
"If that's the way what has to be?" MacLeod asked, shooting him a quizzical look. He put Richie's sliced onions into the pan beside the sausages and stirred the mixture with a spatula as the meat began to brown.
"You know," Richie hedged. "Stuff."
"Stuff like what? Come on, Richie. If there's something on your mind, just say it. I don't bite."
"But you kill."
Oh, shit. He'd said it. He'd let his mouth go and ruin everything again. An awkward, chilly silence swept through the room, as if a ghost had just opened the back door. Richie stifled the urge to say something in an attempt to make amends. He'd learned long before that the only place where you got to take things back was on the playground, and that prerogative expired after second grade.
MacLeod's brown eyes shifted their focus from the pan to Richie, pinning him as surely and firmly as a harpoon nailing a butterfly into a display board.
"Have you been worrying about that?" MacLeod asked.
"Who? Me? No way. I mean, hey, I knew what you did before I moved in, right? I was there the night Slan Quince bit the big one on Soldier's Bridge. You told me what to expect after that."
MacLeod added the mangled zucchini to the pan along with two teaspoons of oregano. "Knowing something isn't the same as experiencing it. Living in the same house as an Immortal is bound to raise some difficult moral issues."
Difficult moral issues? Richie wondered if MacLeod was making fun of him. "What do you mean?" he asked cautiously.
"I mean that things that were once black and white might now be more gray."
Richie tossed his now-empty soda can into the recycling bin. "Look, Mac - black, white and gray are pretty dull colors. I'm more of a Technicolor kind of guy. Living in the same house as an Immortal makes life interesting, sure. You win all the really hard categories of Trivial Pursuit, and you're the number one guy I'd want walking next to me in a dark alley."
"But?"
"But," Richie shrugged uneasily, "it's not the same thing as living with a banker or a doctor."
MacLeod nodded solemnly. "And it never will be."
The Immortal returned his attention to the stovetop. He transferred the sausage mixture into a bowl and poured water into the saucepan. Richie watched silently, regretting the entire conversation. He hadn't meant to bring the subject up, and certainly didn't want MacLeod to feel bad about who he was or what he did.
"Mac - " he started.
"Let's not talk about it now," MacLeod interrupted. He sounded calm, if a little sad. "There's some Romaine lettuce in the refrigerator. Will you toss up a salad?"
"Sure. Okay." Glad for something to do, Richie hurried to the task. The unseen ghost had closed the back door, restoring some meager warmth to the kitchen. As the teenager reached into the cabinet for the glass salad bowl MacLeod lifted his head like a dog perking up to some supersonic whistle. A simultaneous thumping sounded from the warehouse as someone pounded on the alley door.
end of part one "I'll get it," MacLeod said grimly.
"It's one of you guys, isn't it?"
"Yes." The Highlander meticulously washed his hands and wiped them dry. "Stay here and make sure this water doesn't boil over."
Richie didn't answer. Although he knew the Immortal knocking on the door probably posed little immediate danger to him, his stomach fluttered as MacLeod went down the three stairs to the warehouse with his sword drawn. Wind and rain rattled the windows of the dim, cavernous space, and Richie crossed his arms over his chest to ward off a shiver. The hinges squeaked as MacLeod opened the door to the alley. The large silhouette of a man appeared with a sword held high in hand. Richie couldn't see much of the challenger, but he was big and looked twice as wide in the shoulders as MacLeod.
Low words drifted through the air, too faint for Richie to decipher. What did Immortals say to each other when they first met? Did they immediately compare the size of their swords or the number of their dead? Did the oldest one get to go first? How could you tell how old another Immortal was? He quietly, sarcastically murmured an imagined introduction.
"Hi, want to fight?" No, too breezy. "Hello, I've come for your head." Maybe 'Hello' was too polite. "Pick up your sword, you scoundrel" sounded good, if a little melodramatic.
He knew he was only trying to distract himself with such prattle, that there could be nothing humorous in the big Grim Reaper appearing on the doorstep, and told himself to shut up.
MacLeod backed away from the door but left it open. The silhouette didn't move. The Highlander returned to the kitchen.
"So?" Richie asked.
"I have to go." MacLeod handed him his sword to hold for a minute. Surprised, Richie somehow managed to keep the unexpected weight pointing upward. MacLeod plucked a pen and piece of scrap paper from the little wooden basket next to the phone and bent over the table to start writing. "Finish making dinner. If Tessa comes back before I do, tell her I'll be back soon."
The cold, deadly weight of the weapon made Richie's fingers tingle, and he resisted the sudden itch on the left side of his nose for fear of skewering himself in the eye. "You're just going to go fight that guy?" he demanded. "Now?"
"Yes. Now." MacLeod's pen moved swiftly over the paper, creating short lines of sweeping text. "Cook that spaghetti over there. When it's done, turn the heat to low and put the sausages back in it with the spinach leaves and tomatoes. Then just let everything mix."
Richie couldn't believe MacLeod could calmly issue recipe directions on his way out the door to fight to the death. "Mac, can't you just tell that creep to come back later? Better yet, tell him you're not interested."
MacLeod straightened. He slid into his long black raincoat and traded the piece of paper in his hand for the sword. "I'll be back soon."
Richie tried one last ditch effort. "Mac, you absolutely cannot go. I have no idea how to tell when spaghetti is done cooking."
The corner of MacLeod's mouth turned up and his gaze softened for a moment. "It's easy. Throw a piece against the wall. When it sticks, it's done. Give it about twelve minutes. See you soon."
"But - " Richie sputtered, trying to think of something brilliant that would make MacLeod stay. Words failed him. In any case MacLeod was not sticking around to listen. The Highlander returned to the warehouse and went out into the rain without a backward look, careful to close the door behind him.
Richie heard a hissing sound from the stove. He turned to see boiling water bubbling over the side of the saucepan into the burner. He dashed over to turn down the heat and barely managed to keep from scalding himself. Hands shaking, he dumped the uncooked strands into the pan and set the digital kitchen timer for twelve minutes. How long did it take to fight to the death? Less time than it took to cook spaghetti for dinner?
He leaned against the counter, troubled by the thought of MacLeod facing challenges wherever he went, any time of day or night. At home cooking dinner, in a movie munching popcorn, walking down the street for fresh bagels - no matter what he was doing, strangers could walk up and demand to fight. Even the best of days could turn to bloodshed within seconds. Friends and family came and went as decades rolled by, each day a potential new challenge. For the first time since moving in Richie caught a glimpse of how lonely and scary a life that might be, and the sad resignation that sometimes crossed MacLeod's face when Tessa left the room made a little more sense.
Richie looked at the timer. Two minutes had passed. He didn't think Duncan and his opponent would fight in the alley - the teenager knew from personal experience that Quickenings made a big mess and attracted a lot of attention. MacLeod hadn't taken his car keys, and he probably wouldn't get into someone else's car, so they'd almost certainly walked to someplace nearby. The old railroad yard three blocks east offered a little privacy, and for one very long sweep of the long hand around the clock face Richie considered going there. MacLeod would be mad, but Richie had seen reruns of "The Wild Wild West" television show and he knew dueling gentlemen could bring seconds. Even in high school it was a good idea to bring a back-up in case things went wrong.
On the other hand, Tessa wouldn't be too pleased to come home from her day with her hoity-toity friends and find dinner half-made on the stove, MacLeod and Richie both gone. If MacLeod lost, his opponent might come back to reap the spoils of war. Richie wasn't quite sure what the 'spoils of war' were, or why they were spoiled exactly, but he'd read the phrase in a book once and suspected they wouldn't be good for himself, Tessa or the antique shop. He had to be ready to defend her if things went badly for MacLeod.
Four minutes. Richie pulled out a chair from the large dining table and sat down. After a minute he stood up and paced around the kitchen. MacLeod hadn't said anything about stirring the pasta, but he did anyway. Richie decided to set the table. Halfway through the task he forgot whether the forks went to the left or right of the clean white plates. Details like that mattered to MacLeod and Tessa.
Seven minutes.
He stirred the pasta again, put the green salad in the refrigerator, took out three drinking glasses. Made two quarts of artificial lemonade. Folded the dinner napkins into triangles, then refolded them into squares. He snapped the stereo off, annoyed by the cloying superficiality of New Kids on the Block, and listened to the fall of rain. A faint peal of thunder rolled through the sky, and his breath caught in his throat at the thought the low roar might be the aftershock of a Quickening.
He rose to his feet, sure the worst had happened, and the sharp beep of the kitchen timer made him leap for a steak knife before sense reasserted itself.
"Calm down, why don't you?" he said to himself sternly. He looked at the rolling spaghetti. What had MacLeod said? Throw it at the wall? He forked one long piece and flung it through the air. It sailed off into the leaves of a rhododendron. A second piece wrapped itself around the top of a dining room chair. Richie hung his head, embarrassed at not being able to do one simple thing while MacLeod was out fighting to the death.
The apartment and kitchen had grown dark with the end of the afternoon. Richie turned off the stove. He didn't care about dinner anymore. He threw the spaghetti into the strainer and sat down heavily. The piece of paper MacLeod had hastily written caught his eye from where he'd put it on the counter. Although he'd taken the note as recipe directions, he suddenly realized it might contain important instructions regarding the fight. MacLeod might have wanted him to come for back-up after all, bring some special weapon, distract his opponent-
Riche grabbed the paper and read it quickly.
If I don't come back, tell Tessa I love her. Take care of yourself. One day you'll understand about me. DM.
He blew out a long breath he hadn't known he was holding. Richie folded the note carefully and put it in his pocket. After a few minutes he turned on the apartment lights but left the music off. When he heard a movement in the warehouse his stomach turned to ice, and he lifted his pathetic little knife to defend himself.
"Who's there?" he called out.
No answer. Richie's throat tightened and his heart started beating double-time.
MacLeod lurched out of the darkness, his shirt and raincoat stained with blood, his face pale and haggard.
"You're okay!" Richie exclaimed as he caught the larger man before he fell. Relief washed through the teenager as if he'd jumped into a nice warm shower.
"Fine," MacLeod muttered, leaning on Richie for support for a moment. He sucked in a large breath and then inexplicably began ripping off his coat and shirt. Popped buttons flew across the floor, and one large one pinged against the wall.
"Where's the body?" Richie asked, overcome with morbid curiosity.
"Don't ask. Here, take these." He pushed the wadded clothes into Richie's hands. "Stow them in the warehouse, somewhere Tessa can't find them. I'll be right out."
Bare-chested, MacLeod lurched toward his bedroom. The shower turned on seconds later. Richie had no sooner hidden the bloody clothes when he heard a car drive up in the alley. He scooped up three buttons from the floor and tossed them in the garbage as a door slammed and women's voices rang out with "Au revoir!" The warehouse door opened and Tessa appeared a moment later, her cheeks rosy and both hands filled with shopping bags.
"Something smells good!" she said. "What are you cooking?"
"Oh, you know, a little of this, a little of that." Richie kissed Tessa on the cheek as he'd seen MacLeod do and took the bags from her so she could slip off her raincoat. "How was your day?"
"Busy," Tessa smiled. "Would you pour me a glass of wine?"
"Sure. Red or white?"
"I smell sausage. Use red. I'll be right back." Tessa headed for her bedroom just as MacLeod emerged dressed in gray slacks and a cashmere sweater. He kissed her so soundly and thoroughly that Richie turned away with a blush.
"Uh, guys? Dinner's ready."
"It'll wait another minute," MacLeod said, pinning Tessa to the wall with another kiss, and Tessa giggled.
Richie managed an indignant tone. "Hey! I slaved all afternoon over this."
The two adults disengaged with a laugh. Tessa made a short trip to the bathroom before returning to the dining area. "So what did you two do today?" she asked as MacLeod helped her with her seat.
"Oh, you know," MacLeod said smoothly as he circled to his own chair. He caught Richie's gaze. "The usual."
Secretly pleased with his role as co-conspirator, Richie offered up agreement. "Yeah. Same old same old."
Tessa looked from one to the other, a suspicious glint in her eye. "I see."
"So," MacLeod asked as he shook out his napkin, "What did you buy today?"
Tessa smiled knowingly. "Men only ask about women's shopping when they want to change the subject. But I will indulge you both in your little shared secret, because I had too good of a day to worry what mischief went on here."
She launched into a tale of her shopping exploits while they ate and at the conclusion complimented the teenager on dinner. "You outdid yourself, Richie. This is delicious."
"He had help," MacLeod volunteered.
"Well, then, both of you deserve the credit. Well done."
Richie basked in the mostly undeserved praise, immensely happy at how the day had turned out. He still didn't understand all the rules of the Game or why Immortals fought each other, and MacLeod's extracurricular activities still posed troubling questions, but Richie could manage those. He'd certainly lived in greater uncertainty, with stranger people, in worse circumstances. Tessa and MacLeod had their quirks, to be sure, but he guessed he did too. If they were willing to put up with him past his eighteenth birthday - and they certainly hadn't indicated anything otherwise - then he could put up with the legal risks, menacing strangers at the door and those 'difficult moral issues' Duncan had mentioned.
Not to mention the cooking lessons. He might actually get the hang of making something other than microwave burritos for dinner every night.
"I do have a question that one of you might be able to answer," Tessa said, gazing from MacLeod to Richie and back again, her expression somber. "It might explain some of what my two strong men were up to today."
Bagged. Discovered. Richie wondered what had given them away. He gulped at some lemonade and let the Highlander take the heat.
MacLeod wrapped his fingers around his wine glass but didn't lift it. "What's your question, Tess?"
"Why is there spaghetti hanging on that chair?"
The End