Date: Wed, 19 Jul 1995 21:16:15 -0400 Reply-To: JillMari@AOL.COM Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: Jill Spetoskey Subject: Crosscheck in D-Minor (3 of 3) As always, comments are appreciated at jillmari@aol.com or jilkey@grfn.org c. 1995 by Jill Spetoskey Vancouver-3:30 a.m. a few days later Balancing a suitcase in one hand, and a new duffel in another, Kyle stopped at the hotel desk to pick up his key and check for messages. He skimmed through the first one, a fax from Amy saying that the IRS was requesting financial records for the past year. Just because someone tries to kill me doesn't mean I'm involved in drugs or something, he thought. The second message was from Richie Ryan urgently requesting that they get together before the game tommorow. Regathering his bags, he made his way to his room. He barely had the energy to pull off his tie and dress shirt. Only the thought of the lecture that Amy would give him about Keeping Things Presentable kept him from falling asleep still in his suit. He set the alarm so he could return his messages in the morning, and crashed into the pillow. By the time Kevin made his way to their room, Kyle was asleep and snoring. He awoke to Elvis crooning Blue Hawaii at 10:30 the next morning. Johnson's Rule of Alarm Clock Setting; always find a station that you know will be annoying so that you're inspired to get up and shut the darn thing off. He flipped off the alarm, and went over to splash some water on his face in an attempt to wake up. He called Amy first, and she assured him that she had their financial records in a form even the IRS would accept. After hearing her voice, and feeling fortified for dealing with the world, Kyle returned his other message. "Richie? Yeah it's good to hear from you, too. Listen, I got your message, and I was wondering if you wanted to meet for lunch somewhere." "Okay, we can meet there if you want. Let me grab a pencil and get directions." Kyle dug through the desk for a pen and paper. You can usually tell the quality of a hotel by its stationary. "Got it. Go ahead." He scribbled down the directions. "Okay, I'll be there at noon then, but you owe me a lunch then!" Actually, Kyle still felt that he was the one who owed something. Richie had interrupted a scene where Kyle was in the process of being mugged. At worst, he could have lost career and life that night. He copied the instructions on how to get to the dojo, leaving the copy on top of the television so that Kevin would know where he was, dressed, and went down to hail a cab. The cab took him down into the city, Kyle a bit puzzled at Richie's request for a private meeting. Deep in thought, he overtipped the cabbie and exited the car. After he made his way into the dojo, Richie led him back into the elevator and up to his boss' apartment. Duncan MacLeod had an aura about him. In the brief time that Kyle had known him, he had been nothing but a gentleman, but he had a feeling that Duncan was not a good person to have mad at you. "Welcome Kyle. Sit down, we need to have a serious talk here." Kyle took a seat on the couch, and Richie slipped into a chair nearby. "This is going to be hard to believe, but it's the truth. You had an accident a few weeks ago, and you died. When you came back, it wasn't because of the efforts of doctors or paramedics, it was because you're immortal." "You're serious?" Kyle thought about walking out, but decided against it for Richie's sake. Besides, Duncan might not be a good person to call crazy or something. "I'm very serious, and there are some things you need to know about your new life. Someone has already tried to kill you once over it." Duncan pulled out an ornately-decorated dagger. Kyle tensed, hand on the arm of the couch, and ready to spring away, and put some distance. Instead, Duncan rolled up one of his shirtsleves, and drove the dagger deep into his forearm. Kyle started to rise, but Richie's arm restrained him. He watched as Duncan calmly pulled the knife out of his arm, and wiped the blade on a towel sitting on a table. There was almost a spark of blue, and the wound started to close. In less than a minute, the wound had healed without a scar. Kyle sunk back into the couch. "You mean that you heal just like that?" "You do too now, Kyle. The only way that you can die now is by beheading. You'll never age, never grow any older than you are now." Kyle thought back. Duncan's wild story made a sort of sense. A few nights back, he had twisted his knee, and at first it had hurt so bad that he was sure that he had torn an ACL. A period later, it had felt as good as new. His nose hadn't twinged once since the accident either after a few months of off and on pain. He picked up the dagger from the table, and drew it lightly against his own forearm. Blood welled up briefly from the cut, and then he felt a tingling along the red line. In a few seconds, there was no sign that the cut had even been there. He let himself feel a little awe, but the the practical part of Kyle came back through. "You said that this, this immortality was a reason that someone tried to kill me in Toronto?" He asked softly. "Yes, Matthew Harris was supposed to tell you about things, but he's had to leave town with some problems of his own recently, and things haven't gone as they were supposed to." Duncan told him about the Game and the Prize then, with Richie adding in his own story. Kyle started to feel sick to his stomach. "One thing these days you need to do is learn to keep a low profile. Hockey for instance. One slash to the face that heals too quickly, and you have to explain some things really fast. " "Not necessarily. A friend of mine, Shawn Burr, has played for the Wings for more than 10 years, and has never so much as needed a stitch. I'm a hockey player. What good is living forever if I can't really live it, and do what I'm good at? I can't just walk away from the only thing I know how to do. Besides, how would I tell Amy? You probably want me to leave her behind, too." "No. True love comes to us too rarely to walk out on it like that." Kyle saw pain in the other man's eyes. "I'll tell you what to expect from immortality, but I won't make decisions on how other people live their lives, unless they're hurting mortals in the process. There is pain to love a mortal, though. To watch someone you love grow old as you do not." He paused. "It can also be dangerous for them to love us. I've seen them used as bait to goad an immortal into a fight they did not want. It can be hard to keep them from being too involved in the Game." "I need Amy so much right now. If I wasn't with her, it wouldn't be worth living. Besides, she's tougher than she looks. Other girls scoop ice cream when they're on break from college. She spent her summers putting out fires in the Rockies." "I really hope you can keep the relationship going, then." Duncan replied. The alarm on Kyle's watch started to beep. "It's probably best that I keep things looking normal for the next little while, and I need to get back and get ready for the game. There's tickets at the arena if you want to come to the game, but we fly out right after the game." "One last thing. Tomas Pryzby, the man who tried to kill you in Toronto, faked his death and got out of jail yesterday. He goes after new immortals who haven't really learned to fight yet. Watch your head." There was a deep pause. "I can give you a ride back to your hotel if you want," Richie offered. "You know, I though the reason that I was feeling dizzy when I walked into Duncan's dojo was because I wasn't getting enough vitamins in my diet. The truth is stranger than anything I could come up with." "Yeah, it is, isn't it? Look, Mac's a really good guy, but sometimes I think that he's been around so long that he forgets what it was like when things were new for him. If you ever want to talk about it, I've been there too, and recently at that." "Sure. We're back in Vancouver in a few days in fact, and maybe we could get together then. I need to get my mind straightened out before I get back home to Amy." "Okay." Richie left him to his own thoughts on the rest of the trip. Kyle got to the arena, and started to go through the motions of getting ready for the hockey game. That night's game wasn't his worst as a pro, but he never really had his mind into it either. For the first time in his life, he was glad that he was scratched in the next night's game against the Kings. He'd decided that he needed to tell Amy everything that Duncan had told him, and was scared. Did she love him enough to try to understand what was happening to him. If he had to kill someone, would she be loyal to him or to her family fully involved in law enforcement? He still hadn't figured out how to approach the subject when he took a cab over to Richie's apartment the day after the Kings game. He took the stairs up to the right level, and felt that little dizzy/nauseous feeling that Richie had called the Buzz for lack of a better word. He had just gotten into the apartment, and was getting himself a juice out of the fridge when he felt another Buzz. "Stay in the kitchen there." Richie called out, and Richie returned from the bedroom with a fancy sword in one hand. The door crashed open, and the punk from Toronto, Tomas, charged into the room. "Where's the hockey player?" Tomas demanded. "He stole something from me, and I want to get it back. Let me pass, boy, my quarrel is now with you." "But I've got a problem with you. You come breaking into my place, and threatening my friend. You can walk back out that door in the next 10 seconds, or you can never walk out of here. Your choice, creep." In response, Tomas moved his sword to cross blades with Richie's. A flurry of motion ensued, and within a few seconds, it was over. Richie tripped Tomas, and put his sword at the other man's throat. "Last chance to get out of here alive, and that's only because I don't want to mess up the decor in here." In response, Tomas made a grab for one of Richie's ankles. Richie jumped back against the wall, giving the other man a chance to get up. Richie made a quick parry, and was able to bring his blade up to the other man's neck. The sword sliced neatly between Tomas's neck vertebrae, and his head rolled to the side of his body. "Damn, I'll never get my damage deposit back now." A blue light was starting to come from Tomas' body, tentacle-like wisps of energy like a few dozen sky-colored octopi. Most of the tentacles streaked toward Richie, a few detouring toward him for a moment, offering him a sort of promise of the future. The air pressure started to drop, and the windows exploded into the apartment. Richie let out a half-scream behind clenched teeth. Almost as soon as it had begun, it was over, leaving a mess of broken glass and crockery. "You okay there?" Kyle asked to the figure slumped agAinst the wall. "Yeah. I just haven't done this all that much. Lesson one: that's what a Quickening looks like." "You saved my life again." "Well that's two you owe me now. The first one you can pay back by helping me clean this mess up." Richie smiled. "The second, we'll figure out in a few hundred years. Don't worry." "It's a deal." He replied, offering a hand to help Richie up. He then ducked back into the kitchen, thinking that his explanation to Amy was going to be harder than he had anticipated. Finish =========================================================================