Watcher Headquarters
There was a soft rap on the door and Adam Pierson looked up with a frown. Joe Dawson waved at him from the doorway.
“Surprised to find you here,” he commented casually.
The other Watcher nodded, his eyes wandering back to the computer screen as his hands flew over the keyboard. This computer was one of the only ones left in the world linked to the Watcher mainframe ever since the incident with the CD ROM.
“I’m trying to find information on this latest rash of beheadings. Obviously we’ve got a new headhunter on our hands, but there’s something about it…something that bothers me.”
“You mean aside from the fact that in every single case the Watchers somehow managed to miss the fight?” Joe asked, crossing to his friend’s side.
“No, including that, actually. What could make Watcher after Watcher desert his post right at the critical moment in their subject’s life? It just doesn’t make sense. Nor does the fact that so many skilled Immortals would die with barely a fight.”
“You’re worried, aren’t you?” the gray-haired man deduced. “About MacLeod, and Richie–”
“Well, mostly about myself,” the other admitted. “But yes, I don’t particularly want to see this individual go after MacLeod either. Or either MacLeod, for that matter. The Highlanders are the best chance we have of seeing the Game won by someone who won’t abuse the Prize, and I’ll be damned if I’ll sit back and watch them get taken out by some cheat.”
Joe chuckled and the British man gave him a sharp look.
“Oh, I was just thinking what a crock your ‘looking out for number one’ persona really is. What about Richie, though? Don’t you care about him?”
Adam sighed. “To be blunt, Joe, he’s young, he’s inexperienced, and from what MacLeod tells me, he’s far too trusting. Someone’s going to take him out, it’s just a matter of when.”
The other Watcher bristled. “So it doesn’t matter if he dies, is that what you’re saying?”
“That is not what I’m saying, and you know it,” Pierson replied calmly. “From what I can see, he’s a good kid and he doesn’t deserve to die. But the fact remains; there can be only One. I just don’t feel that Richie Ryan has the best chance of being that One. I don’t feel that I do, either. It’s nothing personal.”
Joe sighed and clapped his friend on the shoulder. “Well, we’ll see. I just hope I don’t live to see it–I don’t think I could handle losing any one of you.”
“Don’t go getting sentimental on me, Dawson,” Adam warned.
Dawson chuckled. “Face it, Methos, you’re a decent guy in spite of yourself.”
Methos grumbled under his breath. “Fine. Just don’t let it get around–I’ve a reputation to maintain, after all.”
o/
The Raven
Toronto, Ontario
For a moment as he came downstairs to open the club, LaCroix thought he felt a familiar presence. It made him pause for a moment, looking around with wary eyes, but the momentary sensation faded before he could pin down the source. A further search through the establishment had only revealed Urs and her master, Vachon, who was comforting her from a nightmare.
Continuing through the establishment, LaCroix couldn’t shake the uneasy sense of familiarity. Although whoever it was had gone, if there had ever been anyone in the first place, a certain sinister aura lingered that he could neither dismiss nor place.
The elder vampire continued across the room to the bar. Slipping behind it, he bent down to open the small refrigerator under the counter. There, on the bottom shelf, was a large cardboard box, and the entire unit was filled with an overpowering odor of blood, even stronger than that which usually emanated from the bottles stored within it for the bar’s less conventional customers.
Curious but not yet alarmed, LaCroix drew the box out of the refrigerator and set it carefully on the counter. He then opened the flaps, pulling back with a sharp hiss as the contents were revealed.
Staring up at him from within the box was the face of a decapitated head.
By all the gods!
LaCroix approached the box again, trembling with rage and a touch of fear. His fingers found a smaller package wrapped in brown paper and fallen down into the long hair of the head. Drawing it gingerly from the box, he let the paper fall open and stared in mute horror at the object revealed within.
In his hands was a black amulet on a heavy gold chain, the pendant inlaid with the ivory cameo of a thin-faced twelve-year-old girl. LaCroix swore again, his fingers curling around the necklace.
Divia…
o/
“LaCroix?”
Urs stepped into the basement room, staring in surprise at the older vampire. He was standing before the incinerator, dangerously close to the harmful flames, watching an indistinguishable shape slowly withered into black ash.
“LaCroix, is something wrong?” she asked.
He turned to smile serenely at her with the same deceptive calm he was always able to summon onto his face, regardless of the circumstances. “No. I was just…disposing of an inconvenience.”
Leaving her to wonder at his words, LaCroix turned and left the room. Urs followed him back into the club, still puzzling at his behavior.
“If you would, please prepare the bar for tonight’s guests. I shall be in my office.”
“Yes, of course,” she agreed. “But what–”
“I need to make a phone call,” he told her cryptically and left.
o/
Once safely ensconced in his office, LaCroix let out a deep sigh and withdrew the pendant again from his pocket, staring unhappily at the familiar face of the cameo. He watched it for several moments before finally reaching for the phone.
“Good evening. I need to speak with a Mr. Adam Pierson. Immediately, please.”
There was a brief silence and the vampire scowled at the unseen party at the other end of the line. “I don’t care where he is, I want him found at once,” he demanded sharply. “I must speak with him on an urgent matter.”
After another silence, this one much longer, another voice picked up the phone, accented with the same English flair that LaCroix had acquired over many centuries spent in that country.
“Methos,” the vampire greeted the other man. “It’s Lucius. I have information about your headhunter.”
o/
Methos’ hotel room
Paris, France
“Damn! Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, DAMN!!!”
Methos paced the room angrily, trying to absorb what Lucius had told him. If his old friend was right, not only did they have a headhunter on their hands, but a headhunter joined in some sort of unholy alliance with an ancient, evil child-vampire. A vampire who had almost certainly been drinking the blood of the many old and powerful Immortals she had helped to kill.
A vampire who would be almost invincible.
A few quick strides brought him back across the room to the telephone, which he lifted to his ear in a single swift motion. “I’d like to place an international call…yes, damn it, I know how much it costs, just bill it to my room. Thank you.”
After several rings, the other end of the line was picked up by a familiar voice with just the slightest remaining trace of a Scottish brogue.
“MacLeod, I hope you’re in the mood for company,” Methos told the younger man. “Because I’ll be arriving in Seacouver tomorrow with an old friend. There’s something we need to talk about.”