Duncan MacLeod leaned his head against the side of the elevator as it descended towards the dojo and swallowed the lump of cold dread in his throat. He'd known before going to sleep that this morning he would fight one of his oldest enemies, and the tension had made him toss and turn all night long. It was a fight he'd put off for far too long, but now every excuse and extension had run out.

This morning he had to do his taxes.

The dojo rang with activity and noise, lively with conversations and punches, the clash of weights, the methodical thump-thump of the early aerobics class. Duncan's last manager, Holland Greer, had made several changes to the dojo while he was in Paris recuperating from the Dark Quickening. He'd kept some of her more popular programs. Holland had flatly refused to have anything to do with taxes and Richie, busy with problems and a recuperation of his own, had only filed the IRS extensions that Duncan needed.

The young Immortal sat in the corner, his gray tank top and white sweats already stained with sweat as he lifted free weights. Richie seemed so deeply engrossed in his task that Duncan hated to disturb him. Steeling himself for what he was about to do, Duncan went to the office and paused in the doorway.

Then he smiled.

Richie must have worked all night. Neatly piled receipts and invoices had been categorized across the desk. All the accounts receivable had been printed off the computer and folded beside the phone. Everything was labeled with Richie's small, cramped handwriting, and fresh tax forms and pencils waited for MacLeod beside a strong cup of coffee and two creme doughnuts.

"I remembered I never got you a welcome home present," Richie's voice said at his shoulder, and Duncan laughed.

"I'd kiss you," the Highlander offered, repeating something Richie had once said, "but people might talk."

Richie snickered. "Don't say that until you double check my math. If I'm right, and Holland pulled us into the black, then you can buy me dinner."

"I'll buy her dinner," Duncan offered instead. He circled the desk and beamed at Richie's hard work. "Have you heard from them lately?"

"Felicia called me from San Antonio last week. I think they're staying there for awhile."

Felicia Martins, who'd rid herself of her own demons, had taken on the role of teaching Holland how to survive as an Immortal. Felicia and Richie had also been lovers for a short time. Duncan had not approved of that relationship in the slightest, but Felicia's deeds had proven him wrong and he actually had a grudging respect for her now.

"Are you going to go visit them?" Duncan asked, even though he suspected Richie's bank account was strained.

"Maybe after the semester," Richie said with a shrug. On Monday he started his freshman year at the community college. Although the application and admission had been entirely Richie's accomplishment, Duncan couldn't help but feel proud. The teenager who'd come to live with him and Tessa had hated high school - all three of the ones he'd attended while in the care of separate foster families. Duncan and Tessa had tried to teach him that what he could be had nothing to do with what he'd been. Had tried to love him and encourage him past the obstacles in his path.

Tessa had been dead three years, and some days Duncan still missed her so fiercely his eyes stung. He knew Richie often felt the same way, although they rarely spoke of her.

"What's wrong?" Richie asked.

Duncan fingered the creme doughnuts. "I just wish Tessa was here to see you start school."

Richie's gaze slipped to the aerobics class. "Yeah."

Duncan put his hand on Richie's shoulder. "I don't even know if she'd recognize you now," he said softly, and then injected a teasing note. "You're all grown up, a man, got your own car, got your first sword . . . "

Richie broke into a grin. "Not fair. The car was Holland's."

Duncan pulled Richie into a tight hug. He didn't hug Richie often - affection was still hard for him to show sometimes, and the men of the medieval Scottish highlands in which he'd been raised had not done a great deal of embracing. But it felt good now, and Richie seemed to like it too.

"Let me get back to my workout, and you can check the math," he said cheerfully when they broke apart.

Duncan grumbled good-naturedly, "I'd rather be working out too," but he obediently sat himself behind the desk and started reading the forms. After an hour or so he took a break to work out the kink in his neck and make a fresh pot of coffee. Richie had moved on to the punching bag and was working bare-fisted. Duncan observed his technique carefully, filed away a few pointers to offer if Richie should ask, and then shifted his attention to a woman in a sundress who appeared at the dojo entrance.

She was in her late twenties, with honey-gold hair and a thin face hidden behind large sunglasses. Fit, but not anorexically skinny like far too many women Duncan saw these days. She wore white sandals and carried a large green canvas bag. She surveyed the dojo, obviously looking for someone, and then fixed on Richie and wound her way across the floor to stand by him.

Richie was so engrossed in getting out fifty more jabs that he failed to notice her for a full moment. Then the blue and green of her dress caught in his peripheral vision and he stopped punching. He turned and scooped a towel and a water bottle from the floor. "Can I help you?" he asked, breathing raggedly.

"Richie?" She pulled down her sunglasses to reveal bright green eyes. "Richie Ryan?"

Richie swallowed some water, puzzlement clouding his features. "Have we met?"

"It's Denise."

"Denise," he said warily. Denise Bryson. Warning shivers went up the back of his skull. He'd last seen her twelve years ago, and except for a flurry of phone calls two years earlier, they'd had no communication whatsoever. The bitterness he had towards her father didn't extend to her personally, though, and Richie decided he would at least be civil. "You look good," he offered. "Long time no see."

"You look good too," Denise said. "Younger than I thought you'd look. You're what - twenty two? Twenty three?"

"About," he said. But he would look nineteen forever. "Look, Denise, if this is about what we talked about - "

"I wrote it," she said. "It's just been published."

Richie stalled for time by toweling off his face and neck. She'd written her book. He'd convinced himself she never would. His first reaction now was a deep flush of humiliation, followed shortly by anger.

"Why?" he demanded.

"For me," Denise said simply. "Because I had to. Richie, I didn't put down your real name. There's no way anyone will know it's you."

"You shouldn't have put me in there at all," Richie growled.

"I'm sorry," Denise said, sounding sincere. "But you're part of the story too. What he did to us, he did to you - "

"That's enough," Richie cut her off. He didn't need her to remind him what Tony Bryson had done so long ago. Denise and her brother had been his foster siblings for six months. What he'd lived with for months, they'd lived with for years. And now she'd written a book about it.

"I got to go," he said, turning away.

Her hand on his arm stopped him. He could see Duncan rise from his desk, his face creased with concern.

"Please," Denise said. "Just take it. You don't ever have to read it. But if you do, and it brings up too many bad memories, call me. I know people."

Richie glared at the hardcover book in her hands. White letters spelled out the title "Good Night Kiss" over the silhouette of a man entering a dark bedroom from a bright hallway. The glossy black binding bore Denise's name, and at least three or four hundred pages lay wedged between the covers.

"No," Richie said.

"Please," Denise said. "I swear, no one will know it's you."

Richie couldn't let her stand there, begging and offering this book. He already had the creepy sensation that a Hollywood spotlight from the ceiling was focused on him, that everyone in the room had stopped to stare at him, that the shame of what Tony Bryson had stained him forever.

He snatched the book from her hands. "Leave," he said.

Denise nodded ever so slightly and left. Richie stayed where he was, making sure she left, torn between the hot flush of humiliation and the icy coldness in his stomach. His right hand, clutching the book, felt numb.

He saw Duncan start to come his way. No, no, no. Richie couldn't deal with the Highlander's questions or concern. He bolted into the locker rooms and spent fifteen minutes under the hottest shower his Immortal skin could tolerate. He sat on the bench afterwards, the book impossibly heavy in his hands. He didn't want it, but he didn't dare throw it away in the dojo. Too many inquiring hands and eyes might find it. Richie buried it in his gym bag under his damp, sweaty clothes. He went to the office door with as calm a face as he could manage, although his heart pounded extra-fast in his chest.

"I got to go," Richie said. "See you later?"

"Yes, sure. Everything okay?"

"You see her?"

"The lady? Yes."

"Old foster sister," Richie said. "Dredged up old memories."

He could offer that much without giving anything away. Duncan and Tessa knew some of the darker parts of his past, although he'd made sure never to mention Tony Bryson.

Duncan replied, "I'm sorry. Do you want to talk about it?" "It's all ancient history." Richie could see Duncan's dissatisfaction with the answer, but before he could come up with any further deflection, the warning buzz of an approaching Immortal hit them both.

The stranger who came into the dojo was tall and fair-skinned, with a thatch of unruly Nordic blond hair and a long, perfectly straight nose. His eyes were the most amazing, piercing blue that Richie had ever seen. Maybe forty years old, maybe four hundred. He looked as if he'd feel quite comfortable with a Viking helmet on his skull. He gave Richie a searching expression, nothing pleasant or cordial in his eyes, and then turned to Duncan MacLeod.

"My name is Pier Mapes," he said. "I'm looking for the killer of my good friend Sean Burns."

***

Duncan stood from behind the desk. He knew what was under Mapes' long coat, so obviously out of fashion in late summer. He knew that he couldn't blame any friend of Sean's for coming for his head. The memory of Sean's Quickening coursing through his blood made him sick every time he thought of it.

"I killed him," Duncan said.

Richie, who knew the worst of the Dark Quickening, kept silent.

"Then I challenge you," Mapes said.

"I will not fight you."

"I'll arrange it so you have no choice," Mapes growled.

"Sean was my friend too," Duncan said. "I was crazed, insane, when he tried to help me. It's no excuse, but every single day I regret what I did when I was ill."

Mapes' stare didn't ease the fear creeping up through Duncan's chest. If anything, it made it worse. The Swede looked as if he were utterly incapable of compassion or understanding. He stood so still he might not have even been breathing. Duncan realized with each passing second that this confrontation was indeed going to end in battle, one he might very well lose.

Then Mapes blinked and said flatly, "I'll be watching you, Duncan MacLeod."

And on his way out the door he said to Richie, "If you need me, I can be reached at the Swiss Inn. Watch your head around him, kid."

***

Shit, Richie thought as the first warning buzz of an Immortal hit him. He was in no mood to face another Immortal this morning. Campus parking had turned out to be a nightmare, he'd had to report first thing to the Bursar for some unfinished forms, and his History class had apparently changed location. Richie edged down the hall of chattering students, already feeling like an outsider, and reached his hand into his gym bag. He hoped no one would start trouble in as public a place as this, but hope wouldn't save his head from the stroke of a sword.

Richie reached his class and slipped inside. One look was enough to tell him where the buzz was coming from.

The professor.

Adam Pierson.

"Good morning!" Adam said cheerfully to Richie and the students trailing in behind him. He gave no sign of recognition. "There's plenty of seats up front here. Come on, I don't bite."

Reluctantly Richie slid into a seat at the very front of the class. He certainly didn't remember signing up for a course taught by Adam. He knew Adam was back in the States, having followed a few weeks after Duncan's return, but their paths hadn't crossed all summer.

"This is Intro to World History," Adam said, passing out copies of the syllabus. "Everyone in the right place?"

Richie took the syllabus and sunk lower in his seat. He wondered how he could change his class schedule. He didn't like or dislike the other Immortal, although things had been awkward for a time after Adam killed a woman with whom Richie had been involved. Richie hadn't loved Kristin, but he'd fallen hard in lust with her. Just the memory of the tricks she'd taught him was enough to make him get excited, and he hastily moved a book onto his lap.

He'd hoped going to college might make his life more normal, but with Adam Pierson as the professor that might be impossible. Adam always seemed to be at the center of something, a mystery in and of himself, very hard to read despite his apparent easy-going nature.

Methos, who had not revealed his true identity as the oldest living Immortal to Richie, started off the class by going over the syllabus, attendance rules, and other guidelines. He noticed Richie's discomfort and decided the young man would probably drop the class before the end of the week. He didn't want Richie to feel like he was paying him undue attention, and didn't call on him more than once as the class threw out answers to his simple questions.

Appalled at how most of them couldn't even identify the end date of the American War Between the States, or why Rome had fallen, or even who the Andrews Sisters were, Methos mentally condemned the American education system. He was going to have to go start with the very basics. He'd done it before - at the ancient University of Athens, in the Tower of London, in muddy roadside villages through Crimea - and found the thrill and challenge the same. After class Richie lingered behind to talk to him.

"I didn't know you were teaching out here," he said, almost reproachfully.

"I just got hired last week as an emergency replacement," Methos said cheerfully, snapping his briefcase closed. "Does that bother you?"

"No. Just surprised me."

"If you want another class and professor I'd understand," Methos said.

"No, it's okay," Richie insisted. "Hey, I got to go."

"Okay, see you later," Methos said. He waited until Richie was at the door before he said, "Richie, are you all right? You look a little worn out."

Richie flashed him a smile. "Too much partying over the weekend and too little sleep. But thanks for asking."

He had no intentions of telling Adam Pierson or anyone else in the world the reason he looked worn out was because he'd spent the weekend curled up with the worst book of his life. Richie had gone home from the dojo Friday with "Good Night Kiss" burning in his hands. For the rest of the day he'd hid in his apartment, the windowshades drawn, the answering machine picking up his messages. He wasn't a fast reader, but he forced himself to read every word, paragraph and page. By Saturday night, when he finally threw the thing into the trash, he'd had only a few hours sleep and a raging headache nothing could help.

After forcing down some cold pizza that left his stomach queasy he'd stumbled to bed, and stayed there most of Sunday watching old Japanese gorilla movies. Duncan left a message asking him to dinner, but Richie called back and made up an excuse about going out with Angie.

He took an hour-long shower at the end of Sunday, scrubbing himself free of Tony Bryson's remembered touch. Then he dressed in black, took his sword, recovered the book from the trash, and drove his bike over to the east side. He burned Denise's book in a wasted field by Duncan's warehouse and kicked the ashes to the wind. On the way back he boosted a car stereo from a Saab, not sure why, not caring why, and when he got home he threw the stereo in a dumpster in disgust.

Tony Bryson came to him for a few days after, the man's large hands groping him and fondling him in his nightmares, but Richie distracted himself with classes, strenuous workouts, an enormous amount of homework, and the ten hours of work a week he had to put into the Humanities admin department as part of his student aid package. He tried very hard to act normally around Duncan, and was pleased the Highlander didn't seem to notice anything wrong. That left Adam Pierson, who turned out to be so good a teacher that Richie decided not to drop his class, and Adam didn't seem to notice anything wrong about him either.

At the end of two weeks he worked up the nerve to ask out a pretty classmate from Adam's class, and on their third date he persuaded her into his bed. Frolicking with Karin restored some of his self confidence. They had very little in common, and there wasn't much to talk about after their lovemaking subsided. The next morning she told Richie he could call her anytime. Her breezy, casual attitude rubbed him the wrong way - how many others had she extended that offer to? - and he wondered if he ever would.

The next day Richie was in the admin office, running off copies for a professor, when one of the secretaries tapped him on the shoulder and passed him a manila envelope. "This came for you."

Richie shoved the envelope in his bag - probably just another student survey or bursar forms - and forgot about it just a few minutes before Adam Pierson's class. He tore open the envelope and a dozen black and white photographs of assorted sizes spilled out across his desk.

"What are these?" Methos asked.

"I don't know," Richie admitted. He picked up the pictures. One by one, they showed candid shots of Richie. Of him walking across campus, or getting into his car, or coming out of his apartment building. Of him eating lunch with Karin at the student union. One of him looking almost straight at the camera, caught standing on the quad in a handsome profile.

"You have an admirer," Methos observed.

"Yeah," Richie said. He didn't like it. He didn't like someone following him around, taking pictures. "There's no note."

"They're all taken with a telescopic lens," Methos pointed out.

Richie sorted through the pictures again. "You're right. That means whoever took them . . . didn't want to get too close."

Close enough for him to sense him, perhaps. Another Immortal trailing him. And taking pictures. Abruptly cold, he shoved the pictures back in the envelope. Some fell and scattered on the floor.

"Hi Richie," Karin said, sidling up behind him, her hand coming to the small of his back. With her was John Milvok, another classmate of theirs who lived in Karin's dormitory. "What do you have there?"

"Nothing," he said hastily, snatching up the fallen prints and stuffing them into his bag.

"Richie, do you have that economics assignment we got from Professor Hill?" John asked. "I've lost my copy."

"No," Richie said, without even thinking about it. He felt rattled through and through. "Sorry."

"If you'll all take your seats," Methos said, offering a diversion. Richie slid into his chair. Karin sat in front of him, with John across the row. Richie couldn't help but notice the smiles passing between Karin and John. They had never made any claims on each other, and he couldn't blame her for having an active social life, but the sight of them depressed him even further.

He could feel the photos just a few feet away as if they were chunks of ice cooling his feet and ankles. His fingers itched from where he'd touched them. Richie listened to Adam Pierson's lecture only half-heartedly, his thoughts fixated on whoever might be stalking him and why. After class he bolted out of the building before the older Immortal could catch up, barely focusing on the crowds of other students or the noon ringing of the campus bells.

He ripped up the envelope and photos into a dozen pieces before stuffing the remains into the trash can at the curb where he'd parked his blue Ford escort. The autumn day had clouded up in anticipation of rain, and he ran the heater full blast on his way home. He didn't go out that night, and let the answering message pick up on Karin's telephone call.

"A bunch of us are going out to the movies," she said from the speaker. Richie swore he could hear John's laughter in the background, along with some of their other classmates. "Give a call if you want to come."

Instead he stayed in and sharpened his sword. The glittering weapon drove home even more of the difference between him and his classmates. Although he looked their age, he was a few years older. Most of them hadn't been away from Seacouver, but he'd traveled through Europe. And although some of them had probably been in fistfights, he wagered none of them had decapitated an enemy in battle and taken his violent, agonizing, exhilarating Quickening.

"You and me," he said to the sword, feeling suddenly melancholy. "We have to count on each other."

Richie couldn't help but look over his shoulder for the next few days but he saw no one following him, no one taking his picture. Adam offered to shadow him, but Richie declined the offer. He also swore him to secrecy about the photos.

"Why don't you want MacLeod to know?" Methos asked.

"Because it's none of his business," Richie said. He looked out the window of the classroom, at a low line of bushes that could easily hide a stalker. Richie tore his attention back to the older Immortal. "Just let me handle it."

Friday passed without any clues or harassment, but when Richie got home he found a dozen red roses propped against his apartment door. The note read, "I destroyed them all" and was signed with the large red letter "G." Beneath the flowers was a manila envelope that proved to contain the torn photos he'd thrown away on campus.

Richie stumbled inside his apartment and made sure to double lock the door behind him. He stuffed the roses into the garbage disposal and ran it until the motor began to whine in alarm. He shoved the note into the burning flame of the gas burner and then nearly dropped it when the phone's shrill rang cut through the air.

"Hey, Rich," Duncan said. "We still practicing tonight?"

Richie had forgotten about their sparring practice. "Sure," he said, putting every effort into sounding normal and unshaken. "I'm ready to whip your ass."

"You can try," Duncan agreed amiably.

Richie hung up. He went to his sofa and curled up on the end of it, cold despite the relative warmth of his apartment. G. Gregor. Duncan's unbalanced friend, the Immortal who had cornered Richie in the antique shop one night and threatened to kill him. Richie could still see the dead, crazed look in Gregor's eyes, smell the hot breath that had wafted against his cheek.

He could remember Tony Bryson's breath, too.

"Stop it," he told himself sternly. "Just stop it."

The only sounds he could hear were his own ragged breathing and traffic from the street below.

Shortly before six he drove to Mac's, keeping an eye on the rearview mirror to pick out any followers. Whoever had sent him the pictures and the flowers obviously knew where he worked and lived. Richie kept with his resolve not to burden MacLeod with this, not yet, and it wasn't until a half-hour into their practice session, when they stopped for a water break, that he turned the conversation to the question he wanted to ask.

"Remember Gregor?" Richie asked.

Duncan took a long drink from his water bottle and wiped at the sheen of sweat on his forehead. "Of course I do."

"I thought I saw him today near the mall," Richie lied. He bent over on the bench and stretched his wrists to his ankles. It was hard, sounding conversational, but he gave it his best effort. "Is he back in the States?"

"Last time I heard, he was still with Sean - " Duncan started, and then stopped. Guilt crossed his face. Neither Richie or Duncan had heard from Pier Mapes since the day he'd come to the dojo, but Richie guessed that in Duncan's memory, Sean Burns was never far away anyway.

"I don't know where he is," Duncan admitted faintly.

Richie was afraid of that. Sean had been treating Gregor in therapy. Then Duncan had killed Sean, and Gregor had . . .what? Come to Seacouver? Those very word, "I destroyed them all," had been an exact quote from that horrible night.

"I probably just saw someone who looked like him." Richie straightened from his stretch. "Come on, old man. Enough of a break."

Duncan led off easily, but soon fell back under a steady flow of strokes and thrusts that Richie had mastered. He was surprised at the strength of Richie's attacks, the grimness in his face and eyes, but countered ably and forced Richie into a circle around the room.

"School hard this week?" he asked.

Richie panted, "You shouldn't talk . .. while you're fighting. . . "

"How about when I'm winning?" Duncan grinned, and with a short swipe he went for a tiny opening and sliced across Richie's upper right arm. He followed with a short, deft blow that sent Richie's rapier skittering across the hardwood floor. Richie fell to his knees, eyes glazing, red beginning to flow down his bare arm, and Duncan was instantly contrite. He hadn't meant to cut so deep.

"Sorry, Rich," he said, going down to a crouch, and put a hand on Richie's back.

Richie flinched, shifted violently away and landed with a thump, sitting on his butt. "It's all right," he said, reaching up to touch the wound gingerly, but his words and expression were locked on something far from the dojo's reality. "It'll heal."

"Richie, snap out of it," Duncan ordered, clapping his hands in front of the younger man's face. Richie blinked, then turned to him in surprise. Duncan studied the hazy blue eyes intently. "You with me?"

"Ouch," Richie complained, sounding stronger. "You cut me."

"I'm sorry," Duncan apologized again. "Come on, let's go upstairs. Get you washed up."

Richie focused on him with a strange look on his face. "And you kissed me."

"What?" Duncan asked, bewildered. He sat down on the floor next to his younger friend. "Richie, what are you talking about?"

Richie stared at him for a full minute, and then shivered. "Nothing," he mumbled, looking away.

"Talk to me, Richie. Don't shut me out."

For a moment, he wasn't sure Richie would listen, but then the blond sighed. "It's really nothing, Mac. I just . .. had a flashback, I guess. To our fight."

Duncan cursed himself silently. He remembered the fight with Richie the night of the Dark Quickening far too clearly. He'd been aware of everything, but powerless to stop the sweeping force that had invaded his skull from doing anything he wanted with the katana. He'd just used the same move that his body had used that night, almost a year ago.

"I'm sorry, Richie," he said. No matter how often he said it, it wasn't enough.

"It's okay," Richie said. "I don't worry about it. Neither should you."

"But the kiss . . . " Duncan prompted.

"Save it for the ladies next time," Richie said, with almost a smile, and he dragged himself upright and to the bathroom.

Duncan didn't follow. He decided to give him privacy and instead took his towel and water bottle to the office. So many things had changed since the night of the Quickening. So many consequences were still playing out. Sean was dead, Gregor who knew where, Joe had lost his job, and somewhere in the world Dominique Davis and her husband still cursed his name. Richie claimed to have moved past Duncan's vicious attack, but at times, like this evening, it seemed as recent and traumatic as yesterday.

Richie came out a few minutes later looking much better. The wound on his arm had healed, and as he pulled his green sweatshirt over his head he offered a rueful smile.

"Maybe next time I'll get you to the floor," he said.

Duncan said, "Maybe you will."

"Dinner?" Richie asked.

"How about a rain check?" Duncan countered. Truth was, he wasn't very hungry anymore. And he couldn't bear to sit across from Richie for a whole meal, remembering the lost and painful look in the younger man's eyes for those few minutes they'd sat on the dojo floor.

"Okay," Richie agreed.

"Take it easy, Richie," the Highlander offered, watching him cross the empty dojo floor. "Watch your head."

If Richie made a response, Duncan didn't hear it.

***

"Hey, kid," Felicia said cheerfully from her end of the phone connection. "Long time no call. You become a college student and forget all your friends?"

Richie laughed. "Not at all." He moved away from the drawn curtains of the window and deeper into his apartment. Cocooning in it over the last few weeks had turned it into an incredibly filthy rat-hole of dirty pizza boxes and overflowing laundry - an apartment he would never have shown his mother, if he'd had one. Richie knocked over a pile of newspapers to settle into the armchair he'd picked up from the Salvation Army. "How's the desert?"

"Big," Felicia said. "Hugely big."

"You always were a woman of many adjectives," Richie said.

"Funny, you liked those words when I applied them to you," she cracked.

Richie's grin grew wider. He should have called earlier. Felicia had taught him things even Kristin hadn't known, about sex and love both. The memory of her breasts against his chest made him instantly warm.

"You want the opportunity to apply them to me in person?" he asked.

"You going to come visit me?"

"Tell me the name of the airport and I'm there. Fall break starts on Wednesday, if I can just get past these mid-terms."

"It's a deal," Felicia said. "What about the money?"

Richie hesitated. This was the tricky part. "I can pay you back."

Felicia sounded like she was smiling. "Richie, you don't have to pay me back. Think of it as a belated birthday present."

"You sent me my birthday present," Richie said. "As I recall, they're black, silk, and have a removable Velcro portion. I'll wear them for you."

"You'd better," Felicia said. "Here, talk to Holland. She's sitting here in a bikini flirting with the cowboys."

Holland asked him dozens of enthusiastic questions, from how Duncan was doing to how Richie liked driving her car.

"It's in the shop," Richie admitted.

"What did you do to it?"

"I did nothing!" Richie said. "The engine lines got fouled up."

Or had been fouled up, on purpose, Richie thought to himself. Because he no longer knew if he was outrageously paranoid, legitimately paranoid, or just crazy. He kept that line of thought from the women.

After they'd hung up Richie mustered enough energy to take a shower and shave. He thought about doing the dishes, but that seemed like too much work. He did strip his bed of the dirty sheets, throw out an entire stack of papers and junk mail, and pry the overflowing plastic bag out of its bucket for a trip to the garbage chute. He looked at his schoolbooks but couldn't find any motivation to do any work. He was so helplessly far behind in most of his classes that homework wouldn't help now. He had no hope of passing his midterms.

The only class that he wasn't behind in was Adam Pierson's, because Richie couldn't stand the idea of Adam ratting him out to Duncan. He went to Adam's class religiously, practiced with Duncan once a week, and stayed in the apartment as much as possible.

Karin had stopped calling. She was actively dating John Milvok, and Richie hated watching them giggle and pass notes during class. Angie rarely phoned anymore, tired of listening to his answering machine. He'd deliberately cut out everyone else from his life, determined they wouldn't be caught and used to lure him into battle the way Tessa had been used to bait Mac. If he knew where his stalker was or what he was planning, he'd have some chance at devising strategy, but in the meantime all he could do was hide and limit his risks.

Two more packages of candid photos had come to his student job in the Admin department before he quit working there. Copies of "Good Night Kiss" had shown up on sale in the student bookstore and in the library. Two weeks after the red roses arrived on his doorstep, black roses appeared. The week later, a package with something bleeding inside. He'd thrown that one away without even opening it.

He slept, when he could, with the bathroom light on and one hand gripping his rapier.

He dreamed far too often of Tony Bryson's hands, of Duncan's kiss, of swords slashing at him as he lay cowered in a bed, trapped in the body of an eleven-year-old boy.

On Monday he asked Adam if he could take him to the airport Wednesday morning. Adam said sure. Tuesday night Richie packed, more and more excited at the prospect of a nice long week with Felicia and Holland. He celebrated with two beers from his fridge and the remains of both an anchovy pizza and a Sara Lee chocolate fudge cake. Before bed he doused his growing indigestion with a healthy swig of Pepto Bismal.

A few hours later, violent cramps dragged him to consciousness. He tried to focus on his digital alarm clock, but everything danced blurrily. A sheet of ice had coated over his stiff, uncooperative muscles. Stabs of agony shot through his belly and up into his chest, dragging out grunts of pain and propelling him to his feet and towards the bathroom.

His legs wouldn't hold him, and he collapsed to the cheap brown rug only barely aware he'd soiled himself.

Richie snagged the phone cord and yanked it down. He knew he was dying. Poisoned somehow. He had to call Mac, tell him what was happening. But the numbers blurred too badly for him to distinguish one from the other, and his fingers were like thick frozen sausages as he tried to stab out the pattern from memory. He couldn't breathe. His head slid down, and he stared at the fibers of the carpet as his dying body began one last convulsive shudder.

He died with his eyes open and woke staked out to the four corners of his bed, nude and helpless, beneath the cold, uncaring lens of a video camera.

***

Duncan swung by the university Tuesday afternoon and tracked Methos down to the small cubbyhole he'd been afforded as a visiting professor. It was behind a bathroom, next to a storage closet. The name Adam Pierson had been taped to the door on a yellow post-it note, and the furniture inside looked like it had been rescued from a fire sale. Methos sat inside, grading exams.

"Going for your degree?" Methos asked.

Duncan shook his head. "I'm not a perpetual student, like you."

"There's always something new to learn. What's going on?"

"I'm worried about Richie."

The lines in Methos' face composed themselves as he leaned back in his chair. Duncan hated that. No one was as good at looking inscrutable as Methos. "What's wrong with Richie?" the oldest living Immortal asked.

"He hasn't been himself lately," Duncan announced. "He's been tense. Withdrawn. We practice, but he's not really there. I ask him what's wrong and he clams right up."

"Maybe what's wrong is his business," Methos said. "Maybe he thinks he can handle it on his own, and doesn't want your help."

Duncan folded his arms. "Sometimes people need help whether they want it or not. You know what's going on, don't you?"

Methos asked, "Have you told him who I am?"

"What?"

Methos repeated the question. Duncan shook his head, his gaze narrowing. "No, I haven't. Why?"

"Why not?"

"Why not what?"

"Why haven't you told him who I am?"

"Because you asked me not to let anyone else know."

Methos lifted his eyebrows, as if the point had been made, and then indicated his stack of papers. "I need to get back to work."

Duncan sighed. He hadn't really expected to get anything out of Methos anyway. He was halfway out the door when Methos said, "You know he's going to Texas tomorrow?"

"What's in Texas?"

"A girl, I think," Methos smiled.

Felicia. Duncan cheered up a little. Maybe Richie just needed to take a vacation. After he was gone Methos leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. He'd wanted very much to tell MacLeod that he believed Richie was being harassed by another Immortal, but the kid had sworn him to secrecy and Methos, as part of a general attempt to treat him like an adult, had agreed.

He fingered the note the department secretary had passed him on his return from lunch. Richie had called. He was flying out that night, not tomorrow, and had another ride arranged. He would see him later. Impulsively Methos looked up Richie's home number from his student files and called the young Immortal's apartment. The line rang and rang, with no answer.

He put Richie out of his mind and went back to his test.

***

Richie's first thought when he came back to consciousness was that he wasn't dead.

Then he jerked on the ropes around his wrists and ankles, sturdy cotton clothesline holding him helplessly to his own mattress, and wished he was.

He lifted his head groggily and tried to spit out the handkerchief that had been tied across his mouth. His pounding head threatened to burst at the effort and he fell back gasping. He was naked, held atop the stripped sheets, his legs uncomfortably wide, his shoulders aching. Something large and round and mirror-like stared down at him from a few feet above the foot of the bed, and it took a few seconds for him to decipher the maze of lines beneath it as a tripod, and the mirror as a lens.

He was caught in the full gaze of the lens, tied and humiliated, his shame ready to be caught for posterity.

The shades had been drawn against daylight. He didn't know how long he'd been dead. The rest of his bedroom looked the same as he remembered it, except for an added detail. The book "Good Night Kiss" lay on the mattress beside him, next to his left hip.

Rage swelled, along with a threatened burst of tears. Richie twisted against the ropes, yanking at them until he thought his shoulders would dislocate, his ankles snap off. He made the posts pound into the wall behind him and the whole bed scrape a few inches across the floor. The bedroom door opened a few seconds later, and his attacker came in with a black ski mask pulled down over his face. He wore Richie's own clothes - his favorite Oxford and a pair of olive Chino's.

The stranger stood over the bed and eyed Richie with a naked hunger that set every warning instinct in the younger man's head into overload.

Richie's chest heaved from exertion, and he tried to quiet himself. Tried to sink down into the mattress, away from this man's gaze. Gregor - but if he was Gregor, why was he wearing the mask? - reached down and put his hand on the flat of Richie's stomach.

"There, there," he said, in a voice that Richie remembered from all those years earlier. "Don't hurt yourself."

No doubt about it. Gregor Powers. Duncan's friend.

Richie screamed out an epitaph from behind the gag. Gregor smiled.

"We'll get to that," he promised. "You can tell me how much you like it." He circled around to the bed and turned on a spotlight that made the ache in Richie's head flare to new intensity. Another soft click, as the video camera began recording.

"Do you remember when we walked along the piers together?" Gregor asked. "We talked about Duncan, and about Immortality. I wanted so much to tell you what your future had in store, but I didn't dare."

Richie turned his head from the camera into the mattress. He wasn't going to let it record his expression. His body was helpless and beyond his control. But his face was his own. Gregor thwarted his plan by circling around the bed, grabbing his hair, and forcing him to turn.

"Did Tony Bryson tell you what your future had in store?" Gregor asked. "It is you in the book, isn't it? The foster kid he molests, along with his own children?"

Richie squeezed his eyes shut. He wouldn't let Gregor record his eyes. His eyes would be his last refuge.

"The man was a monster," Gregor said, sounding sincere. His right hand moved down Richie's right thigh and cupped his testicles. "I won't hurt you the way he hurt you."

Richie didn't look. He focused on the darkness, on breathing around the horrible gag in his mouth. Gregor caressed him with a little moan of pleasure, and waves of revulsion shot down his legs and stabbed up into his groin as his body responded against his will. He felt tears leaking down his face and hated himself for his own weakness. Gregor's free hand smoothed the hot wetness along his cheeks, and then his right hand squeezed Richie's testicles as if they were caught in a vise.

"Look at me," he ordered.

Richie fought to stifle a whimper and tightened his eyes even further.

"Look at me!" Gregor repeated, and Richie jerked his head away as the pain made him lurch up from the mattress.

Something broke through the pain then - something sharp and tingling, icy fingers trailing the base of his skull. Another Immortal approaching. Richie yelled as loud as he could against the gag, desperate for someone, anyone, to save him.

Gregor lurched to his feet and then fled out the window. Richie had chosen this renovated apartment in an older part of town precisely because of the fire escape, and watched now as his attacker escaped. He put every ounce of strength he had into pulling himself free. He had to follow the bastard, take his head. But he couldn't free himself, and as he heard his front door kicked down in the other room he realized, frantically, that his rescuer was going to find him like this.

He prayed to God it wasn't Mac.

God must have listened, because Adam Pierson appeared instead. He burst into the room with his sword drawn, saw the crushed blinds and curtains at the window fire escape, turned and saw Richie staked to the bed. Richie turned away. He couldn't bear the bewilderment sliding into revulsion on the other man's face. He heard him shut off the camera. The heat of the lamp faded. Footsteps faded into the other room and then returned. Something sharp slid along his nearly numb skin, and the ropes disappeared from his left ankle, right ankle, right wrist, left wrist.

He curled onto his side, cold and shivering, caught up in churning humiliation and devastation. Methos made no attempt to touch him. He didn't even try to talk to him. The obscene tableau he'd found in the bedroom answered his first questions about what had happened here. He found the discarded comforter in the corner, and pulled it up over Richie's abused body.

The camera and tripod he removed to the living room. The apartment was messy, dank and smelly. He opened a window to let fresh air in, then returned to the bedroom. Richie hadn't moved. Methos explored the medicine cabinet in the bathroom, looking for a sedative, but Richie had apparently never had the need for Valium before. He went back to the kitchen and fished through the cabinets until he found a better remedy.

He returned to the bedroom with a tumbler full of brandy. Cheap stuff, but he didn't expect much from a college student. "Drink this," he said gently, and pushed the glass into Richie's hands.

Richie propped himself up on one elbow, not daring to even look at Methos, and downed the contents in a few quick, burning swallows.

"Do you want me to call MacLeod?" Methos asked.

Richie shook his head vehemently. "No. I want you to leave."

"Not very likely," Methos said. "We'll talk about it when you get out of the shower."

Richie looked at him oddly, as if he suspected him of reading his mind, but to Methos it was obvious. If he'd just been through what Richie had, he'd want a very hot shower too. He retreated to the living room and tackled some light housekeeping until he heard footsteps, the bathroom door closing, and the crank of the shower.

He went to the bedroom and stripped off the mattress cover. He remade the bed with fresh sheets and a clean blanket. A hardcover book had fallen to the carpet beside the bed, and he leafed through it casually. It was a non-fiction account of child sexual abuse written by a woman named Denise Bryson.

Methos skipped through the chapters, catching on a passage that described the abuse of a foster son who'd come into the home, and certain things became clearer. He realized the shower had stopped and looked up to see Richie watching him from the doorway.

"Good reading?" Richie asked, in a voice that went beyond weariness to total defeat.

"No," Methos said truthfully. "It's horrific."

"That's me," Richie said tartly. He pulled his ragged bathrobe around him tighter. "Can I get dressed? Leave the book here."

Methos left him to dress. When Richie came out of his bedroom fifteen minutes later he wore faded jeans, torn sneakers and a thick, protective university sweatshirt. He wouldn't met Methos' gaze.

"I don't want to stay here," he said in a very quiet voice. "Can you take me to a hotel or something?"

"Yes," Methos said. "Do you want to bring anything?"

Richie shook his head. Then he changed his mind. "My suitcase is already packed."

They went downstairs to Methos' car. Richie didn't even ask where they were going. He slid into the passenger seat and stared bleakly through the window at the bright, busy autumn day. He made no protest when Methos took him to the house he had temporarily rented in the Heights division of Seacouver. The house was a small Victorian, perched on a hilly corner with a limited view of the bay.

"Hungry?" Methos asked, once they were inside and Richie had flopped down on his sofa.

Richie shook his head. He looked carefully around the room. "You have a remote control?"

Methos gave him the remote control for the 25" television. Richie turned it on and start channel-surfing.

"Please don't stare at me," he said.

"Sorry," Methos apologized, and went to the kitchen to make fix himself a lunch. The task only was to keep his hands busy, since he had no real appetite. Richie watched television for four hours straight without moving from the sofa. He seemed to be watching three movies simultaneously, interspersed with clips from MTV and, incongruously enough, the Weather Channel. Methos watched for awhile, then went to the den down the hall and worked on grading exams. The day had taken on a surreal quality that seemed to have caught him as well as Richie in its grasp, and he couldn't concentrate.

Not until dusk had nearly fallen did Richie slide down on the sofa pillows. The next time Methos checked on him, he lay asleep with the remote still clutched in his hand and tears leaking down his face. Methos wondered if he was in way too deep with this kid - he probably needed professional help, a psychologist or a mental ward or something - but he took no further action than dropping a knitted afghan over Richie's shoulders.

At eleven o'clock the young Immortal let out a scream that nearly tore a hundred years off Methos' life. He ran to the living room and found Richie wild-eyed, tangled in the afghan, trying to kick himself free, trying to make it to the door.

"Richie, stop!" Methos ordered, catching the younger Immortal in his arms. Richie went rigid, a gasp ripped from his throat. Methos sat on the hardwood floor, holding him firmly, until Richie sagged a little and began weeping.

"Let it out," Methos advised, rocking him slightly. "It's okay to let it out."

After several minutes the tears wound down and Richie wiped at the tears on his face. He fought to get words past his clogged nose and throat. "You must . . . think. ... you must think I'm . . . pathetic."

Methos said, "How could I think that? Because of what someone did to you when you were a kid? What someone did to you today?"

Richie nodded. Methos propped him up against the sofa so that he could read the expression on the younger man's face. Humiliation, yes, along with a wounded vulnerability that tore at Methos' old heart.

"I'm very old," he said, "and I've seen many things. Experienced many things. Been the victim of many things. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

Richie stared at him through red-rimmed eyes.

"It doesn't mean you're any less of a man, or a woman, or whoever you chose to be. Your attacker can't take that from you, not unless you let him. You probably feel dirty, and helpless, and powerless."

Richie wiped his nose on his sleeve. "You don't know how I feel."

"I know how I felt," Methos returned, with no malice.

Their gazes locked, victims understanding one another.

Richie took in a deep breath and let it out of his mouth slowly. "How did you know to come to my apartment?"

"I got a message saying you had another ride and a different flight," Methos said. "I tried to call you, but the phone just rang and rang without answer. It nagged at me all night and until this morning, but I didn't know why. Then I remembered that Mac bought you a cordless phone and answering machine for your birthday."

"It has a radio in it, too." Richie wiped his nose again.

"He dragged me through five different stores before settling on that one," Methos said. "I hate malls."

Richie didn't answer.

"Richie, you probably don't feel like there's any safety left in the world. Let me and MacLeod be your safety. We can be here for you, but only if you let us. We can help you find the man who did this to you today, hunt him down, see that he never does it again."

Richie was quiet for a long moment. Then he asked, "Mac has to know?"

"Mac loves you," Methos said. "He may not be the best in the world at showing it, but he does. I saw it when he thought he was going to lose you to Kristin's sword. It's your choice whether to tell him or not, but if you shut him out it hurts him as much as it hurts you."

"How old are you, to be so smart?"

He took a steadying breath and then plunged into the truth. "Almost five thousand years. My real name isn't Adam Pierson, Richie. It's Methos. I just think you should know that."

Richie gave him a suspicious look. "I thought Methos was a myth."

"And I'd like to stay that way."

"Oh." Maybe it was still the shock, or just a general failure to be impressed, but Richie seemed to quickly lose interest in the topic. He asked, "You know what I want?"

"No. What?"

"I want to kill him. I want to rip his heart out."

Methos understood the sentiment perfectly.

"But I'd settle for a peanut butter sandwich right now," Richie added.

***

Duncan was working on the dojo's books Friday morning when Richie called. "Hey," the Highlander said, "I thought you were in Texas."

"Something came up," Richie said. He sounded odd. "I need to tell you some things, Mac. Can you come over?"

"Sure. Are you home now?"

"Actually . . . I'm at Methos' house."

"Methos," Duncan repeated. To his knowledge, Adam Pierson had never revealed his true identity to the younger Immortal. "Umm..."

"Yeah, I know all about it. Could you come over today?"

"I'll be there in thirty minutes," Duncan promised.

When he arrived at the house, Methos showed him back to the kitchen. Richie sat on a stool, looking tired and pale but determined. He was slicing carrots and green peppers for a salad. He continued to slice while he told Duncan about the harassment at the college that had started six weeks earlier. The photographs, the roses. The bleeding package he hadn't opened. Someone had tampered with the fuel lines in his car, had stopped his mail at the post office, had started calling him in the middle of the night and in low, husky tones read to him from the best-selling non-fiction book "Good Night Kiss."

In a voice he barely recognized as his own, Duncan said, "I read a review of that book."

Richie looked up from the sharp knife and the tiny, hacked remains of a carrot. "It's about child abuse in a family I stayed with for awhile. The father molested his own kids. And me, too."

The kitchen fell extraordinarily silent. A dog barked in the next yard over, and the furnace in the basement kicked in to send hot water up through the floor heaters on this chill October day. Methos, standing by the windows, said nothing.

"Richie - " Duncan said.

"There's more," Richie said, returning to his task, his gaze locked on the vegetables. "Gregor's the one who's been harassing me. He wrote and said things that only Gregor and I knew. He took photographs. Tuesday night I died because he spiked stuff in my house with poison. I woke up Wednesday as his prisoner . . . he wanted to do things, Mac. He was going to do them. But Methos showed up and scared him away."

Duncan felt the slow, red rage brewing up his chest threaten to erupt. "What things?" he ground out.

Richie looked away, flushing. "Things with rope. With a gag . . . with a video camera. Please don't make me tell you."

"I'm not going to make you tell me," Duncan murmured softly. He knew it was probably not a good idea, but he went to Richie's side and made a small, tentative move towards an embrace. To his surprise and relief, Richie came to him and let him offer warmth and strength and support.

"We'll get him," Duncan said, his hand resting protectively on Richie's back. He squeezed tighter. "I promise."

After another few seconds Richie pulled away. His eyes were red, but he wasn' t crying. "I know," he said. "We'll get him. Excuse me for a moment, will you?"

Richie went towards the bathroom. Methos' warm hand came to rest on Duncan's shoulder. "As hard as it was for him to tell it," he said, "I know how hard it was for you to listen."

Duncan shook his head, although he couldn't have said why he made the movement. "Sick bastards," he muttered. His hands clutched the marble countertop, and he fought the urge to rip it up and fling it across the kitchen. "And Gregor! I should have taken his head when I had the chance."

"Richie says you two were friends."

"Were," Duncan said, forcing the word past his clenched jaw.

"Richie's going to be fine. It's unfortunate and it's sick, but it's not the end of his life. He'll be stronger for having lived through it."

"He shouldn't have to live through it."

"Oh?" Methos voice was tinged with a trace of bitterness. "What makes him special? The world is huge and cruel, Duncan MacLeod of the clan MacLeod, and you can't protect him any more than I can protect you. He has his head. He'll live another day."

Richie came back then, ending that particular conversation. Duncan left a short time later, and went straight back to the dojo to try and work out some of his rage over what had happened. Richie stayed at Methos' house. On Sunday, when Richie felt up to it, the three of them went back to Richie's apartment.

Richie wandered through the three rooms with little to say. Duncan looked at the video camera equipment and the tape that he pulled free. Watching it might lead to clues about Richie's attacker, but he knew the scene would be so stark and vivid that Richie probably never wanted to see it. He didn't want to see it himself.

"You look at it," Richie said in a calm, tight voice when presented the choice. "I'll wait in the bedroom."

Feeling guilty and already repulsed, Duncan put the tape in the VCR that had once been his and Tessa's. He turned the volume down very low. Methos didn't say a word as the four minutes of Richie's terror played out on the screen. Duncan turned it off at the end.

"It looks like Gregor," he said, when he could speak clearly. "Even sounds like him. But why wear the mask?"

"Maybe he planned on selling the tape," Methos said. "There's a market for garbage like this. Or maybe it's not Gregor at all."

Duncan thought back to the woman in France who'd looked and sounded so much like Tessa. The memories were not pleasant. He and Methos went to find Richie. The young Immortal had climbed out onto the fire escape and sat now with his legs dangling over the thirty foot drop.

"How's the next best-selling feature at Blockbuster Video?" he asked with forced lightness.

Duncan wordlessly handed him the cassette. Richie hooked his thumb around the tape and began unspooling it. Methos dug up some matches from the kitchen, and they built themselves a tiny bonfire on the metal grates of the fire escape. The copy of "Good Night Kiss" left in the apartment went to flames as well.

"We could try to lift some fingerprints from the equipment," Duncan offered.

"And try to run them through the Immortal Interpol?" Richie asked, his eyes on the fire.

Duncan wasn't accustomed to seeing Richie this defeated. Only the time with Martin Hyde in Paris had come close. He started to say something, but Methos shook his head. Frustrated at his own ability to help, Duncan sat back on the grating and watched the video tape and book disintegrate into ashes and lift on the wind to the sky.

***

Richie wanted to stay that night in his apartment. Methos and Duncan both tried to talk him out of it and only succeeded when they pointed out the stalker could come back at any time, and it was best of he stayed either at the dojo or Methos' house.

"I guess the dojo would be best," Richie said, not looking at Methos. "I can get in some good workouts too."

The excuse sounded lame in Richie's own ears, but Methos took it without even a hint of hurt feelings. He'd sensed the younger Immortal struggling not only with the traumatic aftershocks but also an embarrassment at having been seen as weak, and maybe a little hesitation over the immense gap between their ages. Duncan packed Richie a bag and took him home. Richie slept on the couch for twelve hours straight, and then woke to find Duncan cooking brunch and Methos watching him.

Richie hid in the bathroom, but when it became apparent the other two weren't going to go away soon he begrudgingly took a plate of biscuits, sausage and eggs. Methos had been on the phone all night, making discreet inquiries as to the whereabouts of Gregor Powers. Adam Pierson's work was strictly supposed to be on the Methos Chronicles, and he had to be careful not to arouse suspicion.

"He was last seen in Indiana a month ago," Methos said. "Lost his watcher outside of Indianapolis."

"The timing doesn't fit," Richie said, pushing scrambled eggs from one side of the plate to the other. "This all started at the beginning of the semester - seven weeks ago. How could Gregor be in Indiana and Seacouver at the same time?"

"I couldn't get any more details without a plausible explanation," Methos said. "I'll try some other sources and see what luck I have there."

Duncan poured himself a glass of orange juice. "Rich, are you sure the man was an Immortal?"

"Of course he - " Richie started, but stopped his words short. The other two kept quiet, letting him grapple with the answer in his own mind. "Yeah. I think so. He had to be."

Duncan's voice was even, calm, neither pushing or pulling. "You felt the buzz?"

Richie squeezed his eyes shut. The very last thing he wanted to do was to recall that morning and all its horror. His stomach twisted, and the little he'd been able to eat threatened to choke back up, but he took a deep breath and forced the memories in front of him.

"My head hurt a lot," he admitted. "I was scared shitless. I don't *remember* feeling another Immortal - but I don't remember *not* feeling one, either."

Methos's voice drifted to him. "Besides, we all know the initial feeling fades after a few minutes. The three of us are sitting here, fully accustomed to one another without second thought. The recognition fades into the background."

Richie opened his eyes. "Yeah," he said, seizing on the idea. "That could be it. After all, if the guy isn't Gregor, than how come he knows stuff only Gregor would? Things he said that night in the store. No one else knows that stuff except you and . . . "

"Who?" Methos asked.

Richie muttered, "Tessa."

Duncan fell silent for a moment and busied himself by scraping leftovers into the garbage. His head lifted suddenly with the words, "No, that's not true. Someone else could have known. Sean. That's where Gregor went after Linda Plager died - I sent him to stay with Sean."

Mentor and student stared at each other for a moment. Methos buttered a bagel.

"Who was the guy?" Richie demanded. "The one who was going to kill you over Sean?"

Duncan's brow furrowed in thought. "Mapes. Peter - no, Pier - Mapes."

"The day he came to the dojo was the same day Denise Bryson came," Richie remembered. "The day she first brought the book. All the stuff started happening after that."

"In my long, long years," Methos observed, reaching for more butter, "I've come to not believe very much in coincidences."

A half hour later Richie and Duncan pulled up to the Swiss Inn in Seacouver's seedier downtown area. The small youth hostel catered to a mostly international crowd of backpackers. The idea of an Immortal staying at a youth hostel was vaguely amusing, or would have been if Richie had been in a humorous mood. He asked Duncan to wait in the car.

"I want to do this on my own," Richie said.

Duncan's gaze shifted from Richie to the hostel and back again. His hands tightened on the steering wheel. "All right," he said. "But if you're not out of there in ten minutes, I'm coming in."

Inside the hostel, Richie found a decrepit lobby of worn furniture alleviated somewhat by dozens of plants, posters and Halloween decorations. The young Canadian clerk said Pier Mapes had left a few weeks earlier. Then he disappeared into the back office, and came out brandishing a worn envelope with Richie's name on it.

In the envelope Richie found a local phone number. He used the pay phone in the hostel lobby to call, ensuring Mac couldn't see him from the car. The wall around the phone had been plastered with pictures of travelers and international numbers, addresses, names. With a pang of wistfulness he remembered his own trips through Europe, with and without Mac. After three rings the phone picked up and a man's voice asked, "Yes?"

Swallowing past the sudden lump of fear in his throat, Richie said, "It's Richie Ryan. You said I should watch my head."

"Is it in danger?"

"You tell me."

"Pick a place to meet."

"MacLeod owns a warehouse on 23rd, near pier 7. Be there at sunset." With that, Richie hung up the phone and rested his head on the receiver. He couldn't stop shaking. He only went out to the car when he was sure he could pull of his next act.

"No sign of him?" Duncan asked.

"He's not here," Richie sighed in disappointment. That was true, so it wasn't as if he were majorly lying to Mac. "Where do you think we should check next?"

Duncan shook his head. "I don't know."

After a few hours of driving around, trying to sense another of their kind, Duncan and Richie went back to the loft. Richie announced his intentions to go downstairs and do some lifting. He went down in the elevator, skirted around the afternoon customers, and after chewing on the end of a pencil for a few minutes wrote a note to stick to the door for Duncan to find.

"Mac," it read, "I'm meeting him. I couldn't tell you because I was afraid you'd want to interfere. I'm going to find out what's going on. See you and thanks. Richie."

He wanted to say more, but the words would take up a book and he didn't have the time. Richie went outside into the cold and drizzly late afternoon. He'd swiped Duncan's car keys while the Highlander wasn't looking, and hoped to live to experience his anger later.

"Hey, Richie!" someone said, just before he could slide into the Thunderbird. He turned to see John Milvok. He was surprised not to find Karin tagging along with him.

Richie drew his jacket tighter. "Hey," he said. "What are you doing here?"

"My dad works two blocks over," John said. "I help him out sometimes. How do you think you did on the history mid-term?"

"I don't know," Richie said. He slid the key into the lock. "I can't really talk now - got to keep an appointment."

"Okay. But can you do me a quick favor? Just take a look at something? I found it, but I don't know what it is." John popped the trunk of his car, a brown sedan, and gazed inside with a puzzled expression.

Richie gritted his teeth but went to take a look anyway.

"What do you think?" John asked.

Richie stared down at the bound and gagged figure of a man. A man in his late forties, with a heavy belly and dirty business clothes. He was blindfolded and gagged, but Richie knew that face anywhere.

Tony Bryson.

The man who'd molested him.

"What the hell - " Richie said, turning, and something sharp and very cold pierced the skin over his stomach and slid into his body. The knife came out, and hot blood rushed down his shirt and pants. He stared at John's small, knowing smirk.

"Just for you, Richie," John promised. "You'll have fun with him. And I'll have fun with you."

Rain and blood took him to death.

***

Duncan wandered around the dojo, caught in a frustrated limbo of helplessness. He'd ripped the note up in anger. He wondered if this was how Tessa had felt, all the times she'd watched him go out the door to do battle. Too clearly he remembered watching a Quickening in Paris, deathly afraid it had been Richie's and not Kristov's. The suspense gnawed at his gut, and he couldn't concentrate on anything.

He couldn't even stand still long enough to watch the evening aerobics class. Duncan took refuge in the loft. He tried to read but couldn't. Tried to clean up, but everything already shone spotless. He called Methos, hoping it would help to talk, but Methos wasn't home.

The sky was completely dark outside his windows and a steady rain battering the windows when he felt the stirring recognition of another Immortal at his door. One hand on his sword, he opened it to the glowering, drenched, enraged figure of Pier Mapes.

"What did you do to the boy, MacLeod?" he ground out, his sword coming up to clash against Duncan's with a force that sent shockwaves up the Highlander's arm.

Duncan retreated immediately, but kept up a flurry of defensive blows. "What did I do to him?" he asked. "What did *you* do to him? You were supposed to meet."

Mapes scowled. "He didn't show up." A thrust scraped by Duncan's ribs, drawing a thin line of blood. Duncan parried his next move, found himself backed up against the couch, scrambled over the cushions. Mapes' next cut nearly slashed the couch in two, and sent a flurry of stuffing up into the air.

"You think I killed him?" Duncan's words came out ringing with disbelief.

"Didn't you? Just as you killed Sean Burns?"

"I'd kill myself before I killed him," Duncan said. A mighty swing of Mapes' sword took out an antique lamp. Duncan's grip on his katana faltered under slippery sweat. Mapes' skill as a swordsman far outweighed his own. "If anything happened to Richie, it happened after he left here."

"Why should I believe you, Highlander?"

Duncan ducked a blow and landed a glancing blow that Mapes didn't even seem to notice. He found himself forced back towards the corner. "And I suppose your interest in Richie is purely altruistic?" he gasped, blood thudding behind his eyes. "That you aren't the one who's been stalking him?"

"Stalking him?" Obviously shocked, Mapes brought his blows to an abrupt halt. Duncan didn't realize at first what had happened, and carried through on a thrust that took out a deep chunk of the Swede's side and sent him stumbling to the hardwood floor.

Mapes cursed fluently in ancient Norse as his hands pressed against the flow of dark blood. Duncan lowered his sword and maneuvered to a few safe steps away. Sweat clouded his vision, and his legs felt weak. Grunting past pain, Mapes managed to say, "Who's stalking him?"

"You tell me," Duncan said.

The song of another Immortal brought both their attention to the door, where Methos stood surveying the bloody scene and destroyed furniture with his usual inscrutable expression.

"Redecorating?" he asked.

Duncan was in no mood for the Methos' flippancy. He looked back to Mapes, who drew himself upright with a sharp hiss of pain. The wound had healed, leaving a wide stain of blood. Mapes dropped to the sofa, his face dour.

"You say someone's been stalking Richie," he said. "Pictures? Phone calls? Visits to his home?"

"Perhaps." Duncan swept the shattered lamp aside and perched on the side table. "What do you know about it?"

"Eamon Hardell is his name," Mapes said with a sigh. "He was one of Sean's patients. His adopted father was Immortal, and the son knew everything about the Gathering, the Game, the Prize."

"But he wasn't Immortal himself?" Methos asked.

"No," Mapes said.

Duncan looked at Methos. One part of the mystery fell into place. Gregor Powers was innocent.

Mapes continued, "Sean did the best he could but finally had to have Eamon committed. Eamon escaped and began harassing Sean. Broke into his house, took pictures, made phone calls - "

An icy finger traced a path down Duncan's spine. "And assumed the identities of Sean's other patients?"

"Maybe. I know he stole recorded therapy sessions containing confidential information, " Mapes said. He rubbed his side. "I thought at first it was Eamon who had killed Sean, but then I found out it was you and tracked you here."

Duncan asked, "How did you find out it was me? Or where I was?"

Mapes gave him a long, hard look and then rolled up the sleeve of his shirt to reveal a Watcher tattoo.

"And here I thought I was the only one," Methos said.

"You've been in town for almost two months," Duncan pressed. "And you haven't seen Eamon once, all this time you've been watching us? You didn't notice him following Richie around?"

"I wasn't watching Richie," Mapes pointed out. "I was watching you, Duncan MacLeod."

Methos brushed their bickering aside. "What does this Hardell look like? Do you have a picture?"

Mapes dug around in his wallet and produced a photo. Duncan studied it first - Sean and a younger man poised against the gates of Sean's French mansion. Eamon Hardell looked to be Gregor's size and shape, and he could have mimicked Gregor's voice from the stolen audiotapes.

Methos took the photo said, immediately, "I know him. He's in my class."

***

Richie struggled to free himself of darkness and the weight of a man's body against him, but the only refuge was the past, and that was no refuge at all.

Eleven years old, stretched out in a bed that he'd come to call his own, in a room under the eaves. Windows opened to the summer air and occasional noise of a car driving by. He'd played baseball all day, and gotten too much sun. Valerie Bryson, his foster mother, had put lotion on his face and shoulders. Denise and Jimmy, the Bryson's real kids, had teased him over a dinner of hot dogs and French fries. Richie had been with the family for two months and had begun to hope, in the last few minutes before sleep claimed him each night, that this time he might have truly found a home.

The door creaked open. A silhouette fell across the bed from the hall, and Richie squinted up at Tony Bryson standing in the doorway.

"Hey, sport," he said. "Just came to give you a good night kiss."

Tony did that every night, checking on him to see how his day had gone, giving him a quick kiss on the top of the head before leaving. Although slightly uncomfortable at first, Richie had grown used to the affection. Tonight Tony came in and sat on the edge of the bed, something he hadn't done before. His large right hand came to rest on Richie's left thigh.

"How's your sunburn, kid?" Tony asked, smiling.

"Not too bad," Riche said.

The hand slipped higher.

"You're a natural for baseball, you know," Tony said. "A gifted athlete."

"I played at lot at the orphanage," Richie said. He didn't like the hand, pressing against his thigh. But he didn't know how to say it without making Tony annoyed or mad.

Tony rubbed his thigh with soft, slow strokes. "You can tell. You try football?"

Richie tried to shift to the side without Tony really noticing.

"Football's okay," he said, shrugging beneath the thin cotton sheet. Something strange was happening in his groin, to his thing, that he didn't understand. It felt pleasant, but dreadfully wrong.

"This okay?" Tony asked suddenly. He gave a little pat to Richie's thigh. "It's good for sore muscles. Jimmy asks me to do it all the time."

Jimmy was older by a year, and Richie liked him a lot. Surely if Jimmy didn't mind this, then Richie shouldn't either. "I guess," he said in a small voice.

"You're a good kid, Richie," Tony said. "I'm really glad you came to live with us."

The man stood, bent over, kissed Richie on the top of the head. It might have been his imagination, or just his fear, but Richie thought the kiss lasted longer than usual.

When Tony was gone he curled up on his side, no longer feeling tired, his stomach suddenly aching. The next day Tony took him, Denise and Jimmy out for ice cream and then to the movies. Everyone had so much fun that Richie nearly forgot his discomfort from the night before. A few nights later Tony came to his room for a kiss and rubbed both his thighs for a long time.

One night he put his hands under the sheets and on Richie's bare legs. He had him turn over on the bed, better to rub sore muscles. Richie stopped going to baseball but Tony said it was okay, he liked doing it, Jimmy liked it, all boys liked it, and it would make him grow tall and strong.

Richie had long ago ceased wearing pajamas, thinking they were just for kids, but started again despite the summer heat. Tony laughed, and his hands found their way up the cotton to the open crotch and then to Richie's thing, which always stiffened and did strange things when Tony touched it.

For months it went on, sometimes every night in a week, sometimes not for several nights in a row. Richie started to loath going to bed. He would stay up as late as he could, hoping Tony would drift off to sleep on the sofa. Valerie would shoo Richie to bed with a laugh. He would huddle under his sheets, dreading the sound of footsteps in the hall, the soft click of the door opening, the fall of light and shadow across his bed.

He couldn't bring himself to tell the woman who came to check on him once a month. He'd never liked her anyway, not with her thin face and big frown and ugly clothes. When school started again in the fall he thought about telling one of his teachers. The only one he could imagine trusting was Coach Conroy, the smiling gym teacher, but the coach went away one week and was replaced by a mean, scowling guy who blasted his whistle all day long. Coach Conroy had gone to "detox," whatever that meant, and Richie never saw him again.

One night Tony came and put his thing in Richie's mouth, which felt awful and scary.

One night he put it somewhere else.

One night Richie crawled into bed early, stiff with terror and loathing. Valerie came to check on him. She pressed her hand to his forehead and asked if anything was wrong. Richie told her, with tears of shame, that it hurt to do number one in the bathroom. She took him to the doctor the next day. The doctor was an old man with glasses like Coke bottles. He asked Richie how long he'd been having discharge from his penis, words that made Richie want to crawl under the table in embarrassment.

Things only got worse after that. He heard Valerie and the doctor arguing outside the door, something about it being impossible. He was left alone for a long time. Richie sat on the exam table, shivering beneath a thin paper gown, and knew he'd done something horrible and awful. He thought he was going to throw up. Sometime later a big policeman showed up and the doctor asked Richie if he'd been fooling around with girls.

Richie decided silence was his best option, and stubbornly set his jaw in denial. He shook his head at all their questions. A woman came from social services, not his normal worker, but a small black woman with a friendly smile.

"Richie," she said, when they were alone in the office, "I know this must all be very scary for you. You're not in trouble. You didn't do anything wrong. The doctor says you have an infection that people get when they have sex. Do you know what sex is?"

A short time later, under her careful questions and sympathetic gaze, he broke down in tears and told her what Tony Bryson had done.

He didn't see the Brysons ever again. He never set foot in their small yellow house on West Grover Street. Someone brought his things to the orphanage, and he cried himself to bed every night for weeks because he'd ruined his new family so badly. Tony Bryson was arrested. Jimmy and Denise left school. The other kids teased Richie about getting the clap, whatever that was, and eventually the orphanage put him in another school.

Mrs. Allen, the black lady, took him to meetings where kids sat in a big circle and everyone talked about how someone had molested them. Molest was a new word for him. Therapy was another new word. At that first meeting he realized he wasn't the only kid who'd ever been abused, but it took years for him to come to grips with the idea that it hadn't been his fault. Then Denise Bryson had to write a book about her dysfunctional family, including how a foster kid's case of gonorrhea had led to her father's arrest and jail term.

And now here he was, hands bound behind his back, something horrible stuffed down his throat, legs tied together, his sword gone, trapped in bouncing darkness against Tony Bryson's sweating, flinching body.

The feeling of Tony against him made him want to scream. He held himself so rigid that his muscles began to ache and his chest burn from lack of air. Everything pulsed hot and sticky, the darkness pressing in and stealing his air, poison exhaust rising from beneath the car, the tires bouncing up and down on streets and roads, the engine roaring in his ears, Tony's hands touching him, the sheets twisting, the hallway door falling open -

He panicked, trying to kick and writhe away, but the trunk was crammed with the two full adult bodies and there was nowhere to go. Richie gratefully lost awareness for awhile, then came back with Tony's sobs in his ears. The man sounded miserable behind his gag, and his whole body shook in fear or rage or both.

The car rolled to a stop. Richie tensed for whatever was to come. He heard a door open, footsteps. The trunk clicked upwards, and fresh air poured down with a light sprinkling of drizzle.

"Come on," John's voice said, as hands hooked around Richie's arms and dragged him out of the trunk.

Still bound, Richie raged at his own helplessness as he was manhandled to the wet, cold ground. Something sliced through the ropes at his ankles. His legs had gone numb. When John hauled him to his feet he nearly fell over, the world lurching from beneath him. He could only see a yellow street lamp, a long empty street, the vague shapes of trees on the near horizon.

"None of that," John said sharply, and slapped Richie's cheeks. He yanked him forward, using a fisthold on Richie's jacket to lead him. Richie stumbled after him a dozen or so feet until they stopped for John to unlock the door of a building. Richie recognized it. The old gym at the university, which had been converted into indoor tennis courts. Once inside, John hit the light switch, and hum of power brought the large fluorescent overheads flickering to life.

John knocked him down to a kneeling position and then used his knife to cut the gag free.

"My dad is an Immortal," John said, circling around to kneel beside Richie and examine the bloody tear slice in his shirt. His hands examined Richie's chest. It took every ounce of strength Richie had to keep still. He kept his gaze fixed to the floor.

"Is that a fact?" Richie asked. To his own ears, his voice sounded like it came from someone else, from another planet.

"I wish I were one," John admitted. "Like you. Like Gregor." His hand came up to cup Richie's jaw and lift his head. "Gregor liked you a lot, you know." Richie steeled himself for the task to come. "I liked Gregor."

John's eyes widened a little. "How much?"

"A lot," Richie admitted. "And I like you too."

John stared at him.

"You don't have to force me," Richie said. Inside he felt like he'd already died, but his only concern was to keep his voice under control, to wait for the right moment. Nothing like pride or dignity or the old Richie Ryan mattered anymore. He added, almost coyly, "Not like Tony forced me."

John's glittering eyes took on a new light. "Maybe I like forcing," he said, moving to scant inches away, his breath smelling like mint. Richie didn't flinch back.

"Maybe I like being forced," Richie allowed. "If it's the right guy."

He leaned forward then, as if he were going to kiss John, and at the last possible second slammed his forehead into John's with a resounding thud. The mortal fell sideways. Richie rolled to his feet and kicked savagely hard at his midsection. Two swift kicks left John moaning and gasping for air. Then John caught his foot, twisted it, yanked him off balance, and sent him crashing to the floor.

Richie felt one of his arms break in the fall but he blotted out the pain to roll to his left side, bring up his right foot, and slam his boot into John's jaw. Bone crunched, and teeth flew out. John screamed and collapsed backward. Richie pulled himself up, the effort taking too many seconds, and then landed a kick to John's skull that made him arch his back and then collapse.

All of Richie's strength fled and he went to his knees, riding waves of great wracking shudders and deathly cold chills. His arm knitted together with a maddening, burning itch. He didn't know how long it was until he summoned the strength to find John's fallen knife, grasp it between swollen fingers, and cut blindly at the cords. He knew he cut his own wrists doing so, but the pain seemed insignificant. When he was finally free he checked for John's pulse but didn't find one.

He'd killed his first mortal. He felt no regret, no grief. Maybe later. Because there was a second mortal waiting, one he could quite easily kill.

Richie found John's car keys and then went out into the parking lot. Drizzle ran down his face to his chest and back, but he barely noticed. The night was very quiet. Richie stood over the trunk for a few minutes, straining to hear any muffled sounds from within. He remembered an eleven year old orphan lying in fear beneath cotton sheets, the opening of a bedroom door on dozens of horrible nights, the look on the policeman's face when the doctor said the word "gonorrhea."

He opened the trunk. Tony Bryson flinched at the touch of rain, his fat body tensing in fear. Richie almost reached out to touch his face, but stopped himself with a savage mental kick. He knew that kids who'd been molested often grew up to be molesters themselves. He wasn't going to become what he hated.

At the same time he allowed himself to wonder if Tony had ever been molested himself. But after a few more seconds he realized he didn't have any sympathy for the man, whatever the answer was. He closed the trunk, turned around, and slid to sit on the wet ground with his back propped against the tire.

When the lights of a car flickered into sight he actually hoped it was campus security coming. For once he could justify a killing in a court of law. He shivered, hoping it wasn't just a bunch of drunk frat brothers loose for the night. He felt the buzz of an Immortal and then recognized Methos' car. The ancient Immortal stepped around his headlights with his sword drawn.

"You could get arrested for carrying something around like that on campus," Richie said wearily.

Methos slowly put his sword away. He looked concerned in Richie's blurry vision. "Are you all right?"

"There's a dead guy in there," Richie said, jerking his head towards the gym.

Methos disappeared into the building and then came out with mild distaste written across his expression. "He deserved that, I'm sure."

Richie nodded. He rubbed his eyes. So tired, so tired. "There's more," he said, and dangled a key that glinted in the lamp light. Methos opened the trunk, peered inside for a full moment, and then shut it with a resounding thump. He offered a hand up to Richie, and then escorted him rather formally to the back seat of his car.

"That's twice in one week you've come to my rescue," Richie mumbled, crawling inside and stretching out his aching body as much as possible. The seat felt good against his cheek. Rain streaked the windows.

"This isn't coming to your rescue," Methos corrected mildly. "It's cleaning up a mess."

"How did you know where to come?"

"Pier Mapes showed me a picture of the man he knew as Eamon Hardell. We decided to drive around the campus, see if we could find him. Mapes and Duncan are checking the dorms." Methos voice was beginning to drift in and out of hearing range, and Richie struggled to register the next questions. "Richie, what do you want me to do with the guy in the trunk? Free him, or get rid of his body?"

Richie closed his eyes but remained awake enough to explain who the guy in the trunk was.

He fell asleep without knowing which decision Methos made.

***

Duncan rose and escorted the detectives to the door. "Sorry we can't be of more help. Have a good afternoon, gentlemen - and Happy Halloween."

When they were gone he bolted the door shut, and turned back to study Richie on the sofa. The younger Immortal was pale but composed. He bore no physical reminders of Eamon Hardell's attack, of course, and now the hardest part had been surmounted. Or so Duncan hoped.

"Think they bought it?" Richie asked.

"You have our two alibi's," Methos said from the counter. "There's no way they can suspect you in Tony Bryson's kidnapping, or of being the second victim Bryson claims was there."

"Just think how many more questions there would be if Bryson had turned up dead," Duncan chided, with a look towards Methos.

Methos arched his eyebrows. "I didn't kill him. I made sure the police found him."

"You made sure they found him stripped naked and covered with fire ants," Duncan retorted.

"You did what?" Richie demanded in disbelief. "Fire ants?"

"Only a few dozen," Methos said innocently. "It was the least I could do." "That's horrible," Richie said, but he didn't look particularly unhappy at the thought.

"Well, yes," Methos said, with no trace of contrition, "that was the point. So, are you coming back to class on Monday? I'm starting a fascinating outline of the early Renaissance." Richie folded his arms. "I don't know. Maybe college and I weren't cut out for each other."

"That's not true and you know it," Duncan said, moving to sit on the coffee table across from the young Immortal. He wanted the old Richie back, the one who'd been so pleased and shy about starting the semester. "I'm sure your professors - " he threw a significant look at Methos - "will offer you a chance to make up what you missed."

"What's the point?" Richie asked.

Duncan wasn't dissuaded. "The point is, you don't let this stop you from doing what you want. You don't let Eamon Hardell stop you."

Richie's eyes flickered with resentment at the mention of his attacker's name, but he kept silent. Methos finished his soda, tossed his can in the trash, and picked up his coat to head out the door.

"You're a good student, Richie," he said, quietly and sincerely. "You have a great deal to learn, and a great deal to teach. I truly hope to see you in class on Monday."

Duncan flashed Methos a grateful look, but the older Immortal was already out the door. Richie waited until it slammed shut against the cold autumn breeze before grumbling, "Five thousand years old. Who lives five thousand years?"

"Not many of us," Duncan admitted.

"He must think I'm a baby."

"You are, comparatively speaking." When the younger Immortal didn't answer Duncan hazarded, "Richie, when you left the note about going to meet Mapes - did you really think I'd interfere, or try to stop you, or follow you?"

Richie said, "Yes, yes and yes, Mac. You're telling me you wouldn't have?"

Duncan considered the question carefully. "Probably not."

"Probably not," Richie agreed, with the first smile Duncan had seen from him in a week.

"What do you think, tough guy? Going back to school?"

"I suppose," Richie sighed. "Tonight I'm going to a meeting."

"For adults molested as children?"

Richie nodded, but he didn't repeat the words. "Felicia persuaded me it would be a good idea to go. Maybe, maybe not. We'll see. I haven't been to a group in years."

"You're going to be fine," Duncan said fondly. "And you have us to help you, if you want."

Richie gazed at him for a long moment, then reached up and wiped at his eyes. "Yeah, I know," he said. He took a deep breath and changed the subject. "By the way, Felicia wants me to come to Texas for Thanksgiving."

"That sounds like fun," Duncan said automatically, although he knew he'd miss the younger Immortal if he decided to go.

"She said Holland invited you to come too," Richie added slyly.

Duncan moved to sit in an armchair. He laced his fingers behind his head and leaned back against the leather, suddenly warm with imagined possibilities. "I think I can manage that," he said.

"Good," Richie said, just before a pillow came over to slam in Duncan's face. "You're buying the plane tickets."

THE END

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