=========================================================================
Date:         Thu, 7 Mar 1996 21:41:47 -0500
Reply-To:     Sandra1012@AOL.COM
Sender:       Highlander TV show stories <HLFIC-L@PSUVM.PSU.EDU>
From:         Sandra McDonald <Sandra1012@AOL.COM>
Subject:      Epicenter 3/4

Richie found a fistful of  plastic laundry bags in Hyde's room.  He
wrapped the head in a towel from the bathroom and then stuffed it
into several bags.  Then, carrying the grisly burden tightly, he took
a cross-town bus to the dojo, which was crowded and full of men
and women working out on the weights, the mats, and the
punching bags.  The windows were wide open to the warm evening
air, and the sky was darkening into dusk.

He sensed another Immortal as he went up the back stairs to
MacLeod's loft but found Methos, not Mac, inside watching
television.  Methos took one look at him and rose from the sofa.

"What are you doing, Richie?"

"Where's Mac?"

"He's out looking for you.  You disappeared from a movie theater.
Do you remember?"

"I have to talk to Mac."  Richie knew he should be telling Methos,
but he couldn't be sure the ancient Immortal would understand.  It
had to be MacLeod.  It had to be MacLeod so that Richie could
stand next to him, and run his rapier through the Highlander's
body -

Appalled, he realized Octavia and Xan were still in his mind.  Still
trying to control him.  Bolts of agony ricocheted off the insides of
his skull.  He tried to form the words Methos needed to hear - Xan,
the house on Mersey Drive, the arrow - but all he could manage
was to thrust the bag into Methos' hands.

"It's Martin Hyde," he gasped.  "I think.  You've got to help me."

Methos took the bag to the kitchen counter and gingerly
unwrapped it.  He had an inkling of what to expect when he saw
the blood soaked towel.  Five thousand years had conquered a great
deal of squeamishness, however, and he unwrapped the head with a
practiced calmness.

It wasn't Martin Hyde, whose file Methos had read some time ago.

It was Jorgen Thommsen.

For a few long seconds, all Methos could do was stare.  The life of
an Immortal, he thought numbly, too often involved the
commonplace - a kitchen counter, a dish strainer, a row of stainless
steel kitchen knives - juxtaposed with the horrible.  The head of a
friend, severed from the rest of its body.  The skin was still soft.
He dug his nails into the palms of his fists, out of sight where
Richie couldn't see.

"Who is it?" he asked again.  He needed to hear Richie's words.

"Martin Hyde," Richie whispered.

Methos put a clean towel over Jorgen's tousled hair, his closed
eyes, his face.  Then he turned his attention to Richie.  "You need
to sit down."

"I need to find Mac," Richie insisted.

"I know," Methos soothed.  "But you also need to rest."

As he maneuvered Richie towards the sofa he smashed him in the
back of the head with the nearest thing his fingers could wrap
around, a small bronze sculpture of a man and a woman that Tessa
had once made.

When Richie was unconscious on the floor, Methos calmly stabbed
him in the heart.

MacLeod had no rope around the loft, no chains, no manacles.
Methos made do with a handful of silk neckties pulled from Mac's
dresser.  Fashion had changed considerably in five thousand years,
but Methos was in no mood to remember the evolution of neckties
from cravats and scarves.  He dragged Richie to the radiator set
against the wall, propped him up against it, and tied his wrists out
to the sides.  He considered calling MacLeod on his cellular phone,
but wanted Richie all to himself when the boy revived.

It had been a simple death, and it took only a short time for Richie
to gasp in a breath and straighten against his bonds.  His eyes were
still cloudy, his face written with confusion, but there was no new
blood in his ear to add to the dried stains that must have come
earlier.  Methos put his hands on either side of Richie's face to
force him to focus on him.

"Richie, where is Octavia?"

"Big . . . house," Richie mumbled.  "Estate."

"Where?" Methos demanded.

"Mer . . . sey.  Mer. . . sey Drive."  Richie's eyes closed, then
opened with a new sharpness, a new focus.  Methos knew his
chance to get more information was gone.  Richie pulled against
the ties, in confusion and fear.

"What's going on?"

Methos sat back on the floor.  "What do you remember?"

"I was at the movies," Richie said.  "Then . . . oh, no.  Not again.  I
can't remember."

"You took another Immortal's head," Methos told him, "and then
you brought it here."

Richie stared at him in disbelief.  Then his gaze went to the towel
on the kitchen counter, wrapped atop something that was not a
bowling ball.

"Who?" he asked, his voice a scrape of fear.  If Methos told him
he'd taken MacLeod's head, he didn't think he could bear it.

"His name was Jorgen Thommsen.  He was a friend of mine."

Richie pulled at the bonds holding his wrists to the radiator.  "And
this?" he asked.  "Is this your revenge?"

For the first time in a long time, Methos allowed himself the
luxury of fury.  Icily he said, "If I wanted to take your head, I
wouldn't have to do it this way."

Richie didn't answer, but he didn't flinch away, either.

As quickly as the fury came, it left.  It was useless to blame this
child for what he'd done because of Octavia's will.  The grief cut
deep, though, and it would be some time before he could remember
Jorgen without remembering his end, on MacLeod's kitchen sink.
Methos rubbed his eyes and then, embarrassed, said, "Richie,
somehow Octavia and her friend were controlling you.  I can't let
that happen again.  You might do something I'd regret."

Richie looked away.  "Then maybe you should take my head.
Don't . . . leave it for Mac to do."

"It's not necessary, yet," Methos told him.  "I think that when you
die, the link is broken.  It happened after the alley, and it happened
here.  In the first few minutes when you come back, you remember
part of it.  You said something about a house on Mersey Drive."

Richie thought back, then shook his head.  "I don't remember."

"That man, my friend, was trying to stop Octavia.  He said her
friend is an Indian, from a tribe in Brazil called the Ureau-Wau-
Wau."

Richie looked blank.  Then he said softly, "The arrow."

"What arrow?"

"I remember . . . an arrow.  Shot into a cave.  But I don't know
where, or why.  I don't know what it means."

Methos filed the arrow away for future use.  They sat in silence,
the loft lit only by a corner lamp, lost in private thoughts.  When
the sense of an approaching Immortal came, Methos took hold of
his sword.  He didn't think it was Octavia or Xan - there was no
sense of the earth rumbling -  but he wasn't about to take any
chances.

MacLeod entered.  He saw Richie, tied to the radiator.  He saw the
towel-wrapped object on his counter.  He looked at Methos as if
the older Immortal were insane.

"What in the world is going on?" he asked.

Methos told him everything.  Richie stayed silent.  When Methos
was finished, MacLeod's face was grim and tight.

"So what do we do know?" the Highlander asked.

Methos said, "I think it's obvious.  I go to Mersey Drive and try to
find Octavia.  You stay here, with Richie.  He's too vulnerable to
let out of your sight.  If Jorgen was right - " he said, and glanced
involuntarily at the counter, " - then the younger you are, the more
susceptible you are to Octavia's friend.  I'm the oldest, and
therefore stand the best chance."

"Not in a swordfight, you don't," MacLeod said pointedly.

Methos lifted his eyebrows.  "I'm not *that* bad, thank you."

MacLeod shook his head.  "It should be me.  Let him try and take
me on.  If I fail, we get a second chance with you.  But if you fail,
there's no hope for any of us."

Methos shook his head.  "No.  Jorgen was my friend."

MacLeod took him by the shoulders.  "You're the one who keeps
telling me not to let my emotions cloud my judgment.  Listen to
yourself and try to find the logic.  Let me go first.  If I don't come
back - then you go."

Richie said from his place on the floor, "Mac's right, Methos.  Stay
here."

Methos turned to him.  "Is that you, or Octavia talking?"

Perhaps he truly was letting Jorgen's death cloud his judgment, to
be so cruel.  Richie winced and looked away.  MacLeod's hands
fell from Methos' shoulders.  The ancient Immortal took a deep
breath.  "All right," he said.  "You're right.  I want to go for the
wrong reasons.  I'll wait here."

MacLeod left a few minutes later, his face resolute, no fear
showing.  He took Methos' and Richie's words of good luck with a
grim nod.

When he was gone, Richie shifted restlessly on the floor and pulled
the at the ties at his wrists.

"Too tight?" Methos asked.

 "No.  Just . . . impatient.  How long do you think we'll have to
wait?"

"I don't know."

"Would you . . . "  Richie started, then stopped.

"What?"

The young Immortal colored.  "Would you talk to me?  Tell me
about the world as it used to be?  I'm supposed to take ancient
history this fall.  It would help to get a head start."

Methos settled on the floor near him.  "The world as it used to be is
a great deal like it is now," he said slowly.  "Men and women,
parents and children, lovers, friends, enemies.  Daily worries,
blessings, surprises.  Stupid, useless deaths.  Great achievements,
trampled into the dust by time.  Politics and war.  Only the details
change."

"They must change a lot, huh?"

"Endless variations on themes," Methos said.  To his surprise, he
found himself admitting, "I have a running monologue in my head
that constantly compares the present to the past.  It gets rather
annoying at times, and I wish it would stop.  I often . . . see faces
that remind of people in the past."

Richie cocked his head curiously.  "Do I remind you of anyone?"

Methos took his time answering that.  "Do you remember when we
talked about the Visigoths, the battle of Adrianople?"

"Yes."

"The Visigoths fled the Huns, who were invading their homelands
in what you call Germany.  The Goths came to Rome and asked for
asylum.  The Romans gave it, but took hundreds of Goth sons as
hostages to ensure cooperation from their families.  The hostages
lived well with Roman families, going to school, learning
languages and histories and skills.  Octavia and her husband had a
young Goth hostage with them, a fourteen year old named Alric.
He became like a son to them, and I grew equally fond of him.

"Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, the alliance didn't work,
and the Goths revolted.  That was the battle of Adrianople, and the
Romans lost.  The Romans ceded defeat, and withdrew to
Constantinople.  As part of the battle settlement, the Romans
offered gold and land to the Goth hostages, gathered them together
in the city's Forum, and then slaughtered them in the midday sun.
Alric was one of them."

Alric had been suspicious of the offer.  Octavia, mourning for her
lost husband, had persuaded him to go to the Forum.  Methos, as
one of the surviving generals, told the boy that it was no trap.

Methos had been wrong.  The next time he saw Alric, the boy was
dead of an arrow through the heart and another through his left eye.

Octavia hadn't been the only one to turn her back on the Romans
after that.

"Thanks," Richie said when the story was done.  "That really
cheers me up, Methos."

Methos wanted to be mad, but he found himself smiling again.  "I
didn't say you were going to end up like Alric."

"But I do remind you of him."

"He was tough and strong, a little stubborn, a magnet for trouble.
Yes, Richie, you remind me of him.  That's why . . . "

"Why what?"

"Why it's sometimes painful to be near you."

Richie's face softened with understanding.  "Thanks.  I thought . . .
I thought you just didn't like me."

Methos shook his head.  "Strange as it sounds, if I didn't like you,
you wouldn't be tied to that radiator."

Richie smiled.  "Thanks even more."

Then he flinched.

"Not again," he whispered.  "Oh, Methos . .. don't let it happen."

"What is it?" Methos asked, but he didn't really have to ask.  He
could see the lines of pain creasing the young Immortal's forehead,
sense the tension in his overtaxed body.

Richie squeezed his eyes shut.  "I only have a few . . . seconds," he
gasped.  "Go to Mersey Drive.  She's there, with Xan - other
Immortals - guinea pigs.  Alarms and wires - cameras - battle to the
death - oh, shit."

He stopped talking.  When he opened his eyes, Richie stared right
through Methos.  The pain and confusion had left his face.  He
began pulling at the ties on his wrists, jerking at his arms, nothing
in his expression giving away pain, nothing in his eyes giving
away conscious decision-making.

Methos watched in horror as Richie's movements became more
forceful, more violent.  More blood spilled from his ear.  The
radiator shook and metal screeched.  Methos dashed to the counter,
pulled a knife, and sliced through the ties before Richie dislocated
his shoulders or pull the radiator from the floor.

The young Immortal rolled free, gasping, and then came to his feet.
He reached for the his rapier, on a sideboard, but Methos' sword
prevented him.

Richie stared at him, then at the blade tip held to his chest.  Then
he withdrew for the door, and vanished into the night.

Methos followed.

***

MacLeod narrowed down his choice of large old mansions on
Mersey Drive to one with a long gate, steep drive, and a late-model
Chevrolet at the door.  His imagination conjured up grisly ideas of
what he might find.  The image of Jorgen Thommsen's head on his
counter persisted in a gruesome fashion, and the haunted look in
Richie's eyes drove MacLeod to despise both Octavia and her
Indian friend.

The darkened lawns showed no signs of life.  MacLeod went over
the fence, and then down to a crouch in the soft grass.  He was
plotting a way into the house when he felt a warm sensation creep
up his neck, and then a napalm explosion went off in his head.

He felt himself walking up to the house, and couldn't stop his
limbs.  He saw Octavia open the door for him, and couldn't pull his
sword to run her through.  She told him to follow her, and she
brought him down a sterile white hallway to a massive kitchen and
a stairway to the cellars.  The house was quiet and dark, and wind
through windows sent white curtains billowing in empty rooms
like the fluttering sails of ghost ships on an ocean of pain.

He had no conscious control over his body.  He had no way to
speak the words caught in the back of his throat.   He could not
even say that he was Duncan MacLeod anymore; he was a tool, a
vessel for someone else's will, a helpless pawn.

Then the control broke, like a dam, beneath the onrush of
memories and his returning sense of self.   MacLeod raised his
head.  He was kneeling in a wine cellar strewn with empty racks, a
dozen mattresses, and three other Immortals.  The sense of them
overwhelmed him at first, keeping him on his knees, trying to
assimilate too many things at once.  If anyone had been after his
head at the moment, he would have lost it in his defenselessness.
But the other Immortals, as seen in the light of an overhead bulb,
only stared at him from gaunt faces and haunted eyes.  Dried blood
flaked from beneath their left ears.

"Who are you?" a woman finally asked.  She wore Middle Eastern
garb and had eyes and hair as dark as night.

"Duncan MacLeod, of the clan MacLeod."

"Naseem Husein," the woman offered.

A more gruff red-headed man who appeared to be in his forties
said, "I'm Ernie Meddins, from Clover, Washington.  You've
landed in the deep kimchee this time, Duncan MacLeod."

"How long have you all been here?" Duncan asked.  He pulled
himself to his feet, and found himself at the business end of a
sword wielded by a tall black man with bloodshot eyes.

"Tom Porter, from Victoria, B.C.," the black man announced.  "No
sudden moves."

"I'm not going to hurt any of you," MacLeod said.

"You say that now," Naseem told him.  "It will change."

"There used to be eight of us," Ernie Meddins added glumly.
"Now there's just us. Welcome to the Horror Club."

Eight Immortals, each from within a hundred miles of Seacouver.
They'd each been in the business of their normal lives and then
woken, with no memory of travel or circumstance, in this cellar.
They'd each retained their swords.  The woman who held them
hostage was named Octavia, but it was the Indian named Xan who
could control them with his mind.

"But not all at once," Tom Porter said.  "Sometimes two, three at a
time. It depends.  Like mutli-tasking on your personal computer.
Sometimes he can run two or three of us at a time, others take
longer, more effort.  One guy, he was here for awhile, they could
only control him alone.  He disappeared, though, and we haven't
seen him since."

"Was his name Richie?" MacLeod asked.

"Yeah," Ernie Meddins said.  "He was the youngest.  Tough kid."

"I know," MacLeod said.

Ernie had been Immortal for forty.  Naseem, for sixty.  Tom Porter,
for eighty five.  That their ages were older than the L.A. or Brazil
groups struck MacLeod as ominous.  Some of the other Immortals
had been even older, but Xan had forced them to fight each other to
the death.  Naseem had seen their bodies dumped into an open pit
at the other end of the basement.  She rubbed at her eyes when she
said that, at tears that would no longer fall.

"Do you know why they're doing this to us?" she asked MacLeod.

"Because they can," MacLeod answered.  "Is there anyway out?"

"That door is about twelve inches thick," Tom Porter said.
"Octavia brings us food, and collects that slop bucket over there.
There are no vents, no ducts, no sealed over windows, no secret
passages.  Trust us.  We've been here for weeks.  No one gets in or
out unless they say so."

MacLeod settled himself down on one of the empty mattresses and
began to question them, in minute detail, about everything that had
happened in the cellar.

Until the pain came into their heads, wiping away any traces of
free will.


end of part three