Duncan glanced at their guards, then turned back to Forrester and thought, that's a strange thing for him to say. Does he know something about Immortals that he isn't telling?
They rode in silence for another half hour before Paul tried again. MacLeod's emotions were still in a turmoil and Paul wanted to bring him some peace if he could. "You have good friends that care for you and would be very upset if you were no longer around."
As Connor's words, 'Immortals can't be friends', echoed in his mind, Duncan said without thinking, "My friends all die." Then, realizing what he'd said, Duncan wondered why it seemed so right to talk to Forrester. He searched the man's face for a reaction to this revelation and saw only compassion and understanding.
"You've recently lost a friend. Is that why you're so unhappy?"
Remembering not just Lonny Creamer, but the multitude of others he had buried in four centuries, and even his strained friendship with Connor, Duncan nodded.
"It must be hard to face the death of someone close to you."
"You have no idea."
"No, I don't." Paul felt a pang of sorrow as he remembered Jenny. "I've never had a friend die, but I have had to leave friends behind."
"Making friends is so useless. They all leave, or die, or..." Duncan couldn't finish aloud as he thought, or I kill them. Sean Burn's face swam before him and Duncan relived that terrible instant in which he took his good friend's head. Duncan saw himself standing over Richie, katana raised above his head and Richie just one swing of the sword from death. Duncan closed his eyes in an attempt to block the painful memories.
A stream of images he didn't understand bombarded Paul's brain, but it seemed he was on the right track with what was at the heart of MacLeod's troubles. "I don't think it's useless. My son and I have learned to value the friends we make during our travels. For however short the time we are able to spend with them, it is worth the pleasure they bring."
"Is it? Is it really worth the pain when they're gone?"
"Yes, absolutely," Paul said with conviction. "A brief happiness is better than no happiness at all."
Duncan's reply was cut off as the van came to a stop. Paul and Duncan were pulled from the vehicle and taken into a large house overlooking the Pacific ocean. They were led to a small upstairs room, and shoved inside. As the guards left, Duncan shouted, "Aren't you even going to take off these handcuffs?" His only answer was the click of the door lock.
With the eye of a practiced soldier, Duncan surveyed the room. It was about twelve feet square, with no windows. The furniture consisted of two twin beds with a nightstand between them. There was a small bathroom in an adjoining room.
Duncan was considering his options, when the door opened and the man in the cheap suit came in. "Well, MacLeod, we finally have you," smiling at Paul, he continued, "and a bonus."
"And who are you?" Duncan asked.
"My name isn't important, but I think you already know who we are."
"Hunters," Duncan said with disgust.
"That's right," Cheap Suit gloated. "After you killed Horton, the Watchers purged their ranks, but some of us went into hiding. We organized in small groups all over the world until we regained enough strength to come after your kind again."
Barely controlling his anger, Duncan asked, "When are you going to understand we're not a threat to mortals?"
"But you are! Our goal, our mission is to save the human race by eliminating your kind from the world. You are all creatures, freaks that can't be allowed to live. "
With a slight widening of the eyes, and chin drop, Paul turned quickly from watching the speaker to look at Duncan. Paul saw no reaction to this statement, a statement that he would expect from Fox to be directed at himself. Who was this man and why was he calling Duncan a creature?
Paul's reaction to the exchange wasn't lost on Duncan. "So why didn't you kill me at the dojo? Why drag me...us, all the way out here?"
Cheap Suit smirked. "Because the boss wants the pleasure of taking your head himself. He'll be here in the morning, so you have one more night to live. And MacLeod, use it to think about all the people you've killed in four hundred years. You've got a lot to atone for."
Glancing at his fellow captive, Duncan said, "Forrester isn't a part of this. You have to let him go."
"Why should I? He's one of you, isn't he?"
"No, he's not. He's a mortal."
Thinking for only an instant, Cheap Suit said, "Well, if he's a friend of yours, mortal or Immortal, he will die with you. That's the price people pay for knowing you."
A stab of pain pierced MacLeod's heart. The truth was, that everyone around him did die.
Cheap Suit started to leave, then turned to face MacLeod. "And just so you know why I hate you so much, my name is Carlin Wolf. Pallin Wolf was my father." With that he closed the door and locked it.
Duncan stared at the door for a moment, then turned to Paul and attempted a half-grin. "I imagine all of that was pretty confusing."
"Yes, it was. Who was Pallin Wolf?"
"Before I explain, I've got to get us out of these handcuffs." In a few seconds, MacLeod had his hands free, then walked over behind Paul and released his arms.
"How did you do that?" Paul had expected to be the one to remove their restraints and this turn of events was puzzling. Actually, a lot of the last five minutes had been a big puzzle.
Duncan laughed. "I learned that trick from Houdini." The men each sat on a bed as Duncan began to explain. "Pallin Wolf was one of the Hunters. He kidnapped Tessa to lure me into a trap and I had to kill him."
"Tessa?"
"You remember her...from Paris?" At the blank look on Paul's face, Duncan continued, "She was my best friend and...lover for thirteen years." He paused, not wanting to relive the pain of her death.
In a few seconds, Paul asked, "What about the other man? Did you kill him?"
"Yes." Duncan saw a pained expression cross Paul's face. "Horton killed a good friend of mine and he tried to kill me, several times. I had no choice."
The scenes of violence Paul had seen through his contact with MacLeod started to make sense. Not really make sense, because Paul didn't understand killing for any reason, but their meaning was becoming clear. "He said you have been killing for four hundred years. That's not possible. Humans don't live that long."
Realizing there was little point in trying to hide his true nature, Duncan said quietly, "Some of us do."
Paul thought for a long minute about what he'd learned of human physiology. While he'd never come across a race of humans who were long lived, it seemed he was now faced with one. He wondered why none of the books he had read had mentioned these people.
"Who are the Hunters and why do they want to kill you?" Paul asked.
It surprised Duncan that Paul had accepted his statement about living so long without question. He studied his inquisitive, but non-accusing face for a moment before answering. "The Hunters believe all of my kind are evil. They hate us and want to destroy us just because we're different. They don't even consider us human." Duncan paused briefly when he heard what sounded like gun shots in the distance. "Wolf told Tessa that I was an It."
"Wolf called you an It?" Paul smiled in spite of himself.
"I'm not an It. I am an Immortal. We're very long-lived and very hard to kill, but I am as human as you."
As human as me, Paul thought, but this time he didn't smile. "You said 'we'. So you're not be the only one?"
Before Duncan could respond, he felt another Immortal. Almost simultaneously, the door was unlocked and a man carried in a body, dumped it on the floor and left without saying a word. The shirt on the body was bloody from two gunshot wounds.
Scott rolled his eyes and activated the sphere. "Yes, I'm sure."
"How can you be so certain?" Richie glanced over his shoulder at Scott and the strange object that again filled the car with a blue glow. "What is that thing?"
"Keep your eyes on the road," Fox snapped.
Scott hoped he wasn't making a big mistake. The idea of trusting Fox and leading him to his father went against everything he believed in.
As Richie faced forward again, he considered his options. He had to find a way to get the weapon away from Fox but the confines of the car was not the place to try anything.
"Take this next exit," Scott said. After they drove down an isolated country lane for several minutes, Scott announced, "We're here. It's that large brick house up ahead."
Fox took the sphere from Scott and put it in his pocket. "Park the car across the street." After Richie complied with the request, Fox said, "Now, you come with me. I don't trust leaving you alone with Hayden." As Richie exited the car, Fox shackled Scott's right hand to the back right car door.
"So what are you going to do," Richie asked, "shoot them all?"
"No." Fox put the tranquilizer rifle on the car seat. "Move. And don't try anything funny. Stay where I can see you."
As they approached the house Richie hoped he would feel the presence of another Immortal, but nothing came to him. If Mac was here, he was either dead or too far away to sense.
Pulling out his badge, Fox knocked on the door. In a few minutes, he heard voices, then the door jerked open.
"Whadda you want?" A very large, ruddy-faced man asked.
Fox held up his badge. "I'm George Fox with the FSA. I need to talk to whomever is in charge."
"A Fed!" In a flash, the man pulled a gun from a shoulder holster and leveled it at Fox.
Without even thinking, Richie jumped in front of Fox and took two bullets in the chest.
As the young man collapsed at his feet, Fox dove for cover. Two more bullets whizzed over his head, then he heard shouting from the house.
"What do you think you're doing, you idiot?"
"I was...I was just going to scare him some. I thought the kid was coming for me."
"So you shot him! Don't you have any sense?"
"Well, I got rid of them, didn't I?"
"No! The other one is still out there, and he'll probably bring help." Wolf bent down and searched the body. When he found the sword inside the coat, he knew he had another one. Wolf glared at his underling. "Take him in with the other two." As the man left, Wolf shut the door and grumbled to himself, "Now, we're going to have to clear out of here." Wolf slashed the air with the rapier. "The boss won't like it, but maybe I should just take the heads and get it over with."
Fox watched the large man pick up Richie's body and go inside the house. Why did the kid do it, Fox wondered. Why did the kid intentionally take the bullets meant for me? Fox made his way cautiously back to the car and got inside.
"What did you do?" Scott shouted. "You got Richie shot!"
"I didn't." Fox looked at the young man in the back seat. "He just jumped in front of me."
Scott leaned back against the seat and closed his eyes, saying in a whisper, "Why would he do that?"
"What did you say?" Fox started the car.
His anger returning, Scott shouted, "Why didn't you get him away from them? You don't know that he was dead." When he felt the tears come, he wished he had his hands free so he could wipe them away.
Fox knew he needed reinforcements. He drove off to find the nearest police station.
"You can't leave him!" Scott took a ragged breath as he tried to control his emotions. "Richie was my friend. Do you know what it's like to lose a friend?"
With his eyes fixed on the road, Fox said nothing, but he thought about the answer to Scott's question. My whole life has been taken up with work, and for the last twenty-four years with the search for the alien. I don't know what it's like to lose a friend because I've never been close enough to someone to call them 'friend'.
"For ten years, I've been losing friends because of you, but until now, at least they've been alive when I had to leave them!" Scott paused. "What about my father? We can't leave him here. They'll kill him like they did Richie."
Fox drove in silence looking for any law enforcement agency. Richie had been right. These men were cold- blooded killers. The scene at the house kept playing over and over in Fox's mind -- the bullets hitting Scott's friend in the chest, the grimace on the young man's face at the moment he was shot, Richie collapsing at his feet. From the points of impact, Fox knew Scott's friend was dead.
Paul was at the man's side in an instant, examining him. "It's Richie! One bullet punctured a lung, and the other tore through his liver."
"How can you know so much about his injuries?" Duncan asked as he knelt beside Paul.
Reaching for his sphere, Paul said, "That isn't important. I have to help him."
"Wait, Paul. You don't need to do anything."
He paused for an instant, "Yes, I do. I can help him."
Duncan grasped Paul's arm. "I mean, he doesn't need any help."
"But I've seen injuries like this before. His condition is serious and he's not going to live much longer." Paul struggled to get out of Duncan's grip.
"Listen," Duncan commanded, "Richie is like me and those wounds won't kill him, permanently anyway."
Paul looked down at Richie as he coughed and died. "You're sure he's going to be all right?"
"I'm positive." Duncan released Paul. "The only way to kill one of us is by beheading."
"That night in the alley, you died?"
Duncan nodded.
"And that woman," Paul shuddered at the image he envisioned, "she was going to cut off your head?"
Duncan nodded again.
The direct physical contact with Duncan combined with their conversation suddenly made things very clear. "The images...the sword...the deaths.... Now they all make sense!" Paul exclaimed.
"What?"
"It's hard to explain, but I can sometimes feel things about people. I kept seeing visions from you that I didn't understand, things that should have existed only in history books. You weren't thinking of ways to die, I was seeing your past deaths. Are you really as old as that man said?"
As they returned to sit again, Duncan nodded. "I was born in 1592."
Paul thought over the earlier things MacLeod had told him about the night in the alley. "If the woman felt you had wronged her in some way, why did she want to kill you? Why not just talk it over and come to some kind of understanding."
"Because Immortals don't talk. We kill each other."
"Why?"
"We just do. It's what my kind has been doing for thousands of years."
Remembering some of the images he'd seen, Paul stated rather than asked, "You've killed people."
"Many times."
"Doesn't it bother you?"
"Most of the time." Duncan thought of Connor as he continued, "It's hard to reconcile how I feel with what has to be done. To deny the necessity of killing is to deny what it means to be an Immortal." When Paul didn't respond, Duncan continued, "I know this is all very strange. You should never have been brought into the middle of it."
"It's not the strangeness that bothers me. I just don't understand all the brutality...all the death..., yet you seem to accept it as inevitable."
"For me, it is." Duncan studied the innocent face in front of him. He wondered why he felt so comfortable talking to this man he barely knew. It was as if Forrester could see into his soul. "You seem a lot different from the way you were before."
"I told you, I'm not the same man I was."
"So, you're not just out to get a story?"
Paul placed a hand on Duncan's arm. "No."
"You can't tell anyone about us." For some reason that he didn't understand, Duncan now knew he could trust Forrester. "The Hunters fear us because we're different. They want to hunt us down and kill all of my kind." Duncan got up and stared down at Richie's body. "You can't know what it's like to be hated...to be hunted just because you're different."
Well, maybe I can, Paul thought to himself. "I'll keep your secret."
Richie drew in a deep breath, then clutched at the pain in his chest. Getting shot sure hurt. As he became aware of his surroundings, he sensed another Immortal and reached for his sword. It wasn't there.
"You won't be needing that," Duncan said as he went to Richie's side.
"Mac! We found you!"
"We? Who is we?" Duncan asked, reaching down to help Richie up.
"Scott and I and some government guy."
Instantly, Paul was on his feet standing beside the pair of Immortals. "What government guy?"
"Some really obnoxious FSA agent named..."
"...Fox," Paul finished. "Where is Scott now?"
"Uh, I imagine Fox still has him. After I..." Unsure how to continue he trailed off and glanced at Mac.
"It's all right. He knows about us."
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