Richie Ryan wove his bike in and out of Chicago traffic like he expected to live forever. Which, of course, he did.
One of the pure joys of being an Immortal, he reflected, was being able to give vent to his reckless tendencies. What perpetual teen wouldn't be tempted? Shins healed, bones mended. About the only drawback Richie could detect from living full out on the road was a steady diet of bugs in his teeth.
That and the biting wind currently whipping off Lake Michigan and channeling through the towering canyons—Chicago's famous lake-effect weather. Born and bred to the balmier (by comparison) Seacouver ocean breezes, Richie was not favorably impressed.
He had to get in somewhere out of the cold before parts of him started to freeze and snap off. Mac hadn't been entirely clear on that concept, and Richie wasn't anxious to test his theory that things might grow back.
He was very near the Art Museum and the trendy Gallery Row. Mac had rattled off half a dozen places he might call in and get a quick appraisal on a bauble-or a line on a new blade, should he ever need one.
Richie hove to in front of a promising antique facade and snagged a lucky parking slot. What were the odds? He was just stowing his helmet and gloves when he was accosted by an earnest dark haired man.
"You can't park here," he said, gesturing with a folded newspaper at Richie's perfectly legally parked bike. The wind caught and ruffled his dark hair, giving him an air of madness—or maybe it was his urgent tone of voice.
"Why the heck not, buddy?" Richie asked through chattering teeth. The guy was maybe 30, dressed for the weather in a parka and leather gloves, but no hat. Harmless enough, except for the eyes. They burned with a conviction all too familiar to the young Immortal.
Richie's ice blue eyes narrowed. He didn't detect the buzz that signaled another of his kind. A nut then.
"It's, ah, street cleaning day," the nut case said, moving to block Richie's way to the sidewalk. "They'll boot your bike. No, they'll tow it," he amended, thinking on the fly. "I saw the truck just around the corner." He danced around Richie, arms flapping, perhaps from the cold.
Richie scanned the street up and down. He didn't see any tow truck. What he did see was a street full of cars, none of them sporting tickets or booted contraptions on their wheels.
"They, ah, have it in for motorcycles," the guy said, following his gaze. "I can't tell you how many I've seen towed away from this very spot."
Ah hell, who needs this? He wouldn't be able to take his mind off his bike with this nut hanging around it.
"You win, buddy. The spot's all yours."
Richie gunned his engine back to life and roared back into traffic. He caught sight of the nut case over his shoulder as he turned the corner. The guy was just standing there, reading his paper and frowning.
Gary Hobson huddled on a barstool and cupped his coffee mug in both hands, trying unsuccessfully to banish the cold. The paper never took a snow day—or a wind chill day, for that matter. The mail carrier's motto had nothing on it for stubborn dismissal of the elements.
For whatever reason—and he sure couldn't think of any—he had been getting tomorrow's paper today, and acting on that foreknowledge to set things right. How could he not, when a little intervention on his part could make all the difference in so many people's lives. But it played havoc with his own laughable life.
"How's it going, Gary? Marissa, his partner and confidant, asked from her perch at the bar they owned together. She kept things running smoothly in Gary's unpredictable, hectic absences while he ran around the city helping perfect strangers.
Gary grimaced. "I've been beaned by an old lady with an umbrella and chased by her little rat dog." He didn't bother to display the frayed cuff of his pants leg for her perusal as Marissa was blind.
"That's gratitude for you," Marissa smiled, commiserating with her partner and friend. "Are you done for the day?"
Gary frowned. "Not yet. I stopped this biker kid from losing his head in a really bizarre accident at an antique shop uptown, but—"
"But what?" Marissa prompted, when she detected a strange note in Gary's voice.
"Well, now he loses his head in another bizarre accident, outside a different uptown gallery." He set down his cup, the coffee gone sour in his stomach.
"Ouch. Talk about sticking your head where it doesn't belong. A biker, you say? Sounds dangerous. Maybe you should call the police on this one, Gary."
"And tell'em what? I'm open to suggestion." There was something decidedly dangerous about that kid, and the last thing Gary wanted was to meet him in a dark alley, in—he consulted his watch—less than four hours.
"You could say you saw him steal something. It's an art gallery, right?"
Gary grimaced, still smarting from his last false report to the police. Detective Armstrong had threatened to toss him in the drunk tank and lose the key the next time he got called out on a wild goose chase.
"I think I'll take my chances with the biker."
"Ok, Gary. If you think that's best." Her voice implied that she did not.
A plate of sandwiches arrived and Gary lost himself in the gustatory moment. Plenty of time yet to think of a strategy for the headless rider.
He had a full afternoon ahead of him in the meantime. A faulty space heater and a slip-and-fall, widely spaced in city blocks if not in time. The address of one of them seemed familiar. Didn't Detective Armstrong and his wife live somewhere near there? Gary chewed on it along with his pastrami on rye.
The biker would have to wait his turn.
Richie pulled his bike around the back of another up-scale art gallery and let himself in the back door. The owner was an old friend of Mac's, from his Tessa days, as Richie had come to think of that period of his life when the world was bright with promise. He had a family, an interesting job, and a—future. Now he just had time.
A little bell announced his presence to the round little man who poked his head around the corner of the front gallery.
"Yes? May I help y—? Richie! My dear boy!"
Richie endured the avuncular hug that only came up to his breast bone. "You've grown!" (He hadn't.) "And so muscular!" (That part was true enough.)
"How are you, Rene? Mac sends his best." Richie let himself be herded into the private gallery and office where the good stuff was kept under closer eye. Richie recognized one of Tessa's pieces that Mac had made him sell off after her death. It was comforting to see it again. If her art lived on in the world, a little piece of her did too.
"What brings you to our fair city? Is Mac with you?" He looked over Richie's shoulder, half expecting to see the Highlander.
"Nah, he's back in Seacouver." Richie took the proffered chair—a Chippendale, he was pleased to notice. He still had the knack. Maybe he'd open his own art gallery one day. "He doesn't travel much. Except for Paris."
They grew reflective for a spell, each thinking his own thoughts concerning a once-vibrant Frenchwoman who touched so many lives, not least of all Richie Ryan, one-time street punk.
"You look good, Richie. But what's with all the leather?"
Richie shrugged, but there was a hint of his old sardonic smile. "You can't ride a hog in chinos."
"Ah," said Rene, nodding sagely. "The armor of the road warrior. I understand. You must-look a part." He seemed satisfied with his own explanation.
As far as it went. But for Richie it wasn't a part anymore. Something had happened to fine-tune his perception of the world between his last road trip and this.
The last time he had been running—from his teacher, from himself, from what he feared to become. Since then, he had come to terms with his immortality and the need to kill to stay alive. He no longer went looking for a fight, but neither did he run from one.
He was Immortal, and he knew what he had to do to stay that way. Anger was no longer a part of his make-up. Or fear.
That much he'd learned from the Highlander. The hard way. Richie favored Mac's old friend with a boyish grin and slouched rakishly in his chair.
Gary skidded to a halt on a patch of black ice outside an all-too-familiar brownstone walk-up. The Armstrong's building, all right. Great. He tugged his ear flaps down against the chill with his gloved hands and consulted the paper again.
No mistake. Slip-and-fall accident at this address in—he pushed up his coat sleeve—two minutes. A pregnant woman. Weren't the Armstrong's expecting a baby—?
The door to the vestibule opened and Meredith Armstrong stepped precariously out onto the slick steps.
"Here, let me help you!" Gary shouted, almost startling her into losing her balance. He raced up the icy steps and took her arm firmly. "These old buildings can be tricky."
"Gary Hobson—?" she asked, staring into his face with dawning recognition. "Are you looking for my husband?"
"No," he said, staggering under her surprising weight. "I was just, ah, passing by."
She gave him an incredulous eyebrow. "Really."
"You shouldn't be out on a day like this, Mrs. Armstrong. Not in your condition." He let out an involuntary ooph as his footing shifted.
"I have a doctor's appointment," she replied, leaning heavily on him for support. She looked up as a yellow cab slid sideways to the curb. "There's my cab now-oh!"
Gary took his eye off the treacherous steps for just a second and all was lost. He went down hard on his keister, and Meredith came down hard on top of him. He was flattened under her generous mass, knocking the air right out of him.
"Hey, lady—are you all right?" Gary had a vague impression of the cab driver helping Meredith to her wobbly feet and walking her gingerly to the cab.
Gary struggled to his own feet unassisted.
"You gotta be careful, lady, in your condition," said the helpful cabby.
"Gary, are you all right?" she called from the cab as it slid away from the curb. He waved the paper cheerfully, with a pained grin frozen on face.
He opened the paper with numb fingers. The slip-and-fall article was gone. He rubbed his backside in irony and flipped to the biker article.
It was still there. The young tough was going to lose his head in a freak accident of undetermined cause.
Searching the streets in vane for a cab, he shrugged his collar higher and trotted back uptown to the gallery district.
Rene insisted on taking Richie out to dinner and Richie was glad of the company and the memories. He had precious little past to savor. An evening spent swapping stories over good food was not to be passed up lightly.
Richie waited on the sidewalk out front while Rene went for his car. He insisted on taking Richie to some fancy feed bag they'd all eaten at in happier times, despite Richie's dubious attire. Richie shrugged. If Rene thought it was cool then who was he to balk at a free meal?
A movement caught his eye across the street, and Richie stiffened. The nut case with the newspaper was trying to look unobtrusive. Damn, he had to be a Watcher. For a bunch of busybodies who supposedly never interfered, the Watchers sure knew how to make a nuisance of themselves.
Richie was just about to stride across the street and give the guy a piece of his mind when he felt the buzz that heralded the arrival of one of his own.
He forgot the Watcher in his instinctive need to locate his adversary. Richie scanned the faces of passers-by in the growing dark as they hurried to their cars or into shelter, but none cast back his searching gaze.
It was close by, then, but out of sight. Richie started moving toward the corner and access to the alley. They would need somewhere away from curious eyes. Yes, the buzz was stronger in that direction. Richie let his mind slip into the familiar pattern of alert patience. He schooled his face to blankness. His youthful features took on a timeless quality.
Someone was waiting just inside the alley and Richie began to take his measure. Confident, he was not one new to the Game. That much he knew was evident in his own gait. They might fight, they might not. It would fall to the newcomer to decide. Richie was prepared either way.
The moment evaporated as quickly as it arose when the bumbling Watcher shouted something from across the street and the newcomer faded from sight and sense.
Richie turned to face the fellow with a sigh that came close to a growl fed by unspent tension. It wouldn't be wise for the guy to stick around just now.
Obstinately oblivious to his danger, the madman trotted across traffic straight toward the young Immortal, babbling something about motorcycles.
Richie froze him with a glance. "You've got a death wish, buddy," he said too quietly to be mistaken.
The fellow's eyes went round, but he persevered, clutching his paper in both hands, as if it could protect him. "I, ah, I thought I saw someone messing with your bike," he lied unconvincingly. "This isn't a safe neighborhood for motorcycles. They disappear all the time."
"I know who you are," Richie cut him off. He was damn tired of their infernal interference in his life. "And I know what you do."
The guy looked as if he had just been pole axed, but he recovered enough to stammer, "I don't know what you mean. I was just walking by..." He waved his paper as if to ward off the thought.
Richie took a step toward him and he shut up. "You tell Joe Dawson I've made you, and if he doesn't want to explain another headless body, he'd better find you a different assignment."
The guy made fish noises, but no sounds came out. Rene pulled up to the curb just then and Richie got in without a backward glance.