Date: Tue, 21 Mar 1995 09:11:46 +0000 Reply-To: Grail Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: Grail Subject: "Box of Tricks" Part 8 Sorry there's been such a big break between episodes, but I've been busy doing other stuff (including helping to run the university radio station), not that that's relevant. Anyway, Part 8 and Part 9 will be here this week, and I may be able to finish it before I go on holidays. Hope so, otherwise you've got a four-week break to wait. :) Grail. HIGHLANDER "Box of Tricks" by Mark Overton Part 8 The last tiny grain of power slipped into the capsule and the Magician sealed it with a gentle smile of satisfaction. She dropped the capsule into the small box on the table, which was gradually filling up, and set about putting the explosive into the next minibomb. As she placed the three-millimetre radius hollow sphere on the newspaper the melodic chime of the doorbell echoed through the apartment. Sighing impatiently, the Magician rose to her feet and crossed the flat to the door. She pulled open the door until it was at the farthest extent of the chain and looked through the gap. "Can I help you?" "Hi there," said the coloured man on the side of the door. "I'm working for an insurance sales firm, door-to-door. Do you have life insurance?" The Magician's eyebrows rose. "I'm afraid not." Charlie clicked his fingers in mock concern. "That's not good, if you don't mind me saying so. I mean, I hate to worry you but we can never be too certain in these days, right?" "I suppose not," she agreed doubtfully. "So if you'll let me..." Charlie fumbled in the briefcase he had with him and produced an impressive-looking document. "Why not take out some insurance with Scarlet and Gold?" "Scarlet and Gold?" "They're the company I work for." The Magician smiled. "I'm sorry, but I live and work alone. There wouldn't be a lot of point in me taking out life insurance, would there?" "Well, what about ordinary insurance, then?" Charlie suggested, replacing the one contract with another. "Suppose you have an accident that paralyses you or stops you from gaining money. Things might get awkward then, right?" "I might recover," she observed. "You might not," Charlie riposted. "Come on. Scarlet and Gold do a really excellent premium, honest. You've just got to look at some of the promos I've got here with me." A slow smile spread across the Magician's face. "Alright then. Come on in, why don't you." The door moved closed, then opened wide. Charlie blinked and gulped quite audibly, making the Magician's smile widen. The black negligee she was wearing didn't quite come halfway down her thighs, and didn't hide much of her body beneath it. "Maybe I should, ah - " "No, come in. I'm quite interested now," she said reassuringly. Charlie took a deep breath and crossed the threshold. As he heard the door close behind him he started thinking of new and interesting ways that Macleod could pay back this particular debt. "Why get Charlie to go inside anyway?" Delaney asked sulkily, her arms folded as she stared at the car dashboard. "Because the Magician knows Richie, you, and me," Duncan said absently, staring across and down the street at the entrance to the Magician's flat, where Charlie had gone as the pretend insurance salesman. "Charlie's the only one of us she hasn't met. "I worked that bit out," she said drily. "I wanted to know why we didn't just go in there and grab her." "Because it wouldn't work," Duncan answered. "Eh?" "Oh, come on, think about it. You know what the Magician's like, all those tricks and traps. What chance are we going to have of getting inside and me taking her head? At the very least, you'd be killed. I might escape, but it wouldn't be much comfort to you." Delaney shivered. "Right now, you aren't much comfort to me, Macleod." Richie drove the car in silence. Beside him in the passenger seat, Alyson Carling watched the road in front, also without saying anything. There was an uncomfortable absence of sound in the car, broken only by the dull hum of the wheels on the road outside. Richie was the first to speak. "Aren't you going to say something?" "What am I supposed to say? You obviously don't trust me enough to talk to me about what's going on. So much for any relationship that we might have even been thinking about starting." Alyson's words had a tinge of bitterness for which Richie supposed only he himself was responsible. He tried to think how he might have felt in this situation and concluded that he would have felt just the same as Alyson. "Look, you've got to try and understand that it's not something I can just tell anyone. I need to know more about you, more of you, before I can tell you more." Richie risked a brief sideways glance; her lips were compressed into a thin line. "Oh, come on, Ally, please?" "I don't want to talk about it, Richie. Just take me home." Richie gritted his teeth and pulled the car into the side. Alyson looked up, startled. "What are you doing?" "Stopping," Richie said, stating the obvious. "I want to talk." "I don't." Alyson reached for the door handle. "No, Ally, wait." Richie put his hand on her other arm. "Listen, we're just going to start hating each other's guts if you leave this car." "We're not going to fall in love and get married if I stay in it," she responded sharply. "No, I know, but I can't help that. I can only try and explain some more, alright?" "Explain all of it?" Richie hesitated, then shook his head. "I can't, Ally. If you're really willing to try a relationship, then you could understand that I'm going to have to work at it before I feel safe telling you." Alyson hesitated in turn. She turned and looked at him, blinking briefly as a shaft of sunlight lanced through the windscreen and illuminated her face. "Alright, Richie. Tell me some more. I need to know more or else I'll have to leave. I can't work blind." Richie nodded. "Alright." +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ATLANTIC OCEAN 1795 "There they are." Standing beside the ship's captain, Richardson, Duncan nodded as he leaned on the railings. "Aye. Doesna look like many survived, though." Richardson shrugged. "That's unimportant right now. The main thing is to rescue the survivors and make sure they keep on surviving." As the captain turned away to give orders to the first mate, Duncan raised the spyglass to his eye once more and looked across the ocean to where the two lifeboats, one upright and one overturned, were floating on the now-calm surface of the ocean. He had seen the ship sink and founder in the same squall that had blown his own ship off course from its route between Bristol and Massachusetts, and had promptly informed the captain. It was fortunate that Richardson was one of those captains who were true gentleman; he had immediately ordered that they divert from their course, wasting precious time, to rescue the wreck's survivors. Men passed Duncan by, heading aft towards one of the ship's lifeboats, preparing to lower it and row out to the survivors. Using the spyglass, Duncan counted sixteen men and fourteen women, with three of the women and five of the men still in the water, probably shivering and dying of exposure unless the survivors had had the presence of mind to switch place every so often. As he lowered the spyglass, Duncan was about to turn and make a comment to Richardson when he suddenly felt the shiver, that telltale buzz vibrating through his mind and running up and down his spine. Whirling back to the rail, he once more raised the spyglass; yes, one of the women in the water had turned and was looking in the direction of the ship with an odd look in her eyes. She was the one he could feel. "Soon have them aboard," Richardson said from somewhere around Duncan's shoulder level. He was a small man, weather-beaten, with tousled grey hair and a reddish face from a tendency to overindulge in alcohol. "Poor wretches. Life won't be much for them if they lost all in the wreck." "They'll manage," Duncan said absently. "It's the New World we're goin' to, isn'it? Chance to make their fortunes." "That's what the broadsheets say," Richardson observed sceptically as the ship slowed and came to a stop, the anchor now dropping rapidly towards the seabed as the lifeboats rowed out to the survivors. Duncan lowered the spyglass, as they were now within range of the naked eye, and watched warily as the immortal woman was helped into one of the boats, her long skirt dripping puddles of water into the bottom. She pushed back her hair, which was long and deep red, and looked across, unmistakeably at Duncan. "Do you know her?" Richardson asked, frowning. Duncan shrugged. "Och, no. I've nae seen before." +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ "So you see, this is the best way to protect yourself against most possible means of, um, injury..." Charlie's voice trailed away as he watched the Magician casually slip one strap of her negligee off her shoulder, ostensibly to briefly scratch the skin underneath, but noticeably not replacing the strap. *Macleod....* he thought with a mental snarl. "Is something wrong?" she inquired silkily. "Uh, no, no." Charlie suddenly remembered he was staring, and hastily turned his attention back to the contract. He was uncomfortably aware that the Magician was sitting very close to him, close enough for him to smell the scent of her perfume. "Oh good," she said with a smile. "So, have I persuaded you to accept some of our insurance?" Charlie asked briskly, rustling the contract in his hand. "Not quite," she said apologetically. "Perhaps you could try and persuade me a little more." She reached out, brushed the contract, let her hand rest on top of his. "I, umm..." "You look nervous," the Magician observed. "Oh no," Charlie said, much too quickly. The Magician's smile grew wider and he cursed himself for behaving like a schoolboy. "He's spending too long in there," Renee said itchily. "Charlie'll be alright," Duncan said. "She's got no reason to suspect him, so long as the documents your department provided were OK." "Of course they were. I just don't trust that woman." "Neither do I," Duncan nodded, flashing a brief grin in her direction. "Besides, I - " He stopped and stiffened, looking round as the shiver shot through him; another immortal approaching. The car flashed past his vision and pulled up against the sidewalk a little further down. Duncan's hand gripped the steering wheel tightly as a curly-haired young man got out, frowning in mystification at something. "That's Richie!" Delaney said. "I know," Duncan muttered. "What's he doing?" "Making a mistake." Charlie was just about to swallow his pride and make a feeble excuse when the Magician suddenly stiffened and withdrew her hand. Rising from the sofa, she crossed to the window of the flat and pushed aside the net curtain, looking down onto the street below. A frown crossed her face. "Richie..." she murmured, almost to herself. "Richie?" Charlie repeated. Too late, he realised his mistake as the Magician whirled, absently pushing the strap of her negligee back up as her eyes went ice-cold with danger. "So you know Richie?" she questioned. "I, uh - " The Magician tutted and shook her head. "And you came so close, my dear. Well, never mind. I've been taken in by appearances before." Charlie cursed mentally and rose from the sofa. The Magician's hand flashed upwards and she flicked one of the stones on her bracelet. It snapped off and flew through the air towards him. Charlie instinctively ducked. The stone flew over his head and hit an armchair opposite. The chair burst into orange flame and he dived sideways, rolling behind a bulkhead as the Magician walked calmly across to a small wooden box on a table. Opening it up, she paused for a moment and then chose a small chocolate. She popped it into her mouth. "You won't get out of here," she said indistinctly. Charlie paused for a second, then ran for the door. The Magician touched a tiny control in the side of the box and the door vanished as a gas cloud billowed out in front of him. Charlie skidded, tried to stop, and fell right inside the cloud. He choked as it tore inside his throat and began to rip at his lungs. Unconsciousness came as a blessing. =========================================================================