Detective Paul Armstrong riffled through his current case load and cast an eye at the gathering gloom out the window. Another fruitless late night. This was getting to be a tiresome drag, and an unwanted burden on his already burdened wife. He reached for the phone to give her the bad news, and it rang in his hand.
"Armstrong," he said with clipped, curt tones, which he softened immediately. "Oh, hi hon. What's up? Nothing wrong-?"
Meredith sounded tired, a usual occurrence, given her current condition, but there was nothing alarming in her tone. "I went to the doctor today," she babbled on. "He thinks I'm about ready to pop."
"Anyone can see that," Paul chuckled, but it was a relief to have the doctor's corroboration. His case load forgotten for the moment, the detective chatted amiably with his wife.
"That strange young man, Gary Hobson, stopped by today," she said, unaware of the effect that statement had on her husband. He went very still as the hairs on the back of his neck rose.
"What did he want?" he asked his wife carefully. Strange occurrences followed in the wake of—or sometimes preceded—Gary Hobson—the last person the detective wanted anywhere near his wife. "Did he say anything or do anything odd?"
"Well," she thought for a moment. "He was just passing by, which seemed odd. He did help me down the stairs—they were awfully slippery." She chuckled, remembering. "I'm afraid we both lost our balance and I landed rather hard on the poor man."
Armstrong was drumming his fingers on the desk, thinking skeptical thoughts. "Well, it was probably a good thing he happened by, then." He tried to keep the tension out of his voice. "I'll speak to the super about those steps."
"Good idea, dear. Will you be coming home soon?" She couldn't keep the wistful note out of her voice. It had been a long, tedious day. She sounded tired.
"Soon," he promised. "I've got to make a stop first. Don't wait dinner."
He rang off and grabbed his coat. Hobson. That name was becoming a swear word in his vocabulary. The guy was certifiable, or psychic, or psychopathic. Too many strange occurrences happened around that guy.
Armstrong left his work files on his desk and added one more task to the case load. Hobson better have a damn good explanation for turning up at his wife's elbow this afternoon.
Safely ensconced in his office once more, Gary Hobson tried to make sense of the second unusual encounter with the biker. Marissa lent a comforting ear.
"And then he said, 'tell Joe Dawson if he doesn't want to explain another headless body,' he should find me another job, or something like that." Gary studied his friend's face for her reaction to that startling statement as they sat together over the paper.
"But what did he mean?" Marissa asked, puzzlement creasing her dark features. "Who's Joe Dawson? And what job is he talking about?"
"I don't know," Gary said, still trying to make sense of it. "There's nothing in the paper about him, either." He tapped the folded paper on the edge of his cluttered desk.
"And what did he mean about another headless body?" Marissa put her finger on the part that was worrying Gary. How could the biker have known he was about to lose his head in a bizarre accident?
"Maybe..." Gary voiced the thought that niggled at his brain. "Maybe it isn't an accident."
"How could it not be, Gary?" Marissa said. "It's too horrible to think of it happening on purpose." Such things didn't happen in her well-ordered life, even considering the strange things the paper brought daily.
"Well, maybe he makes it happen somehow," Gary mused.
"But it's all right now, isn't it? You stopped it."
Gary leaned closer, although it was only the two of them in earshot. Well, plus the ubiquitous cat, who wormed his way across the desk, scattering papers. "That's just it; I didn't, not yet. It still happens—only now it happens tonight." He opened the paper and reread the third account of the explosion of a transformer and the headless body of a nameless biker found nearby.
"Three times can't be a coincidence. He must be up to something." Marissa nodded in solemn agreement. "But whatever it is, I have to stop it from happening. Somehow."
Marissa clasped her hands around her cane. "What are you going to do, Gary? Call the police?"
Gary folded the paper and put it in his back pocket. "I'm going back to the art gallery. Maybe you were on to something before. He might be trying to rob the place and somehow sets off an explosion."
"The paper doesn't say what causes the explosion?" Marissa asked, absently petting the tabby cat as it brushed past her. It arrived every morning with the paper and hung around for milk and tidbits, only to vanish mysteriously in the night. "There's usually more to go on than this."
Gary scowled. "I know. I'll have to think of something when I get there." He checked his watch. "Time to go." He shrugged into his coat and hiked the collar, grabbing a hat and scarf.
Be careful," Marissa said. "If he's a burglar, he could be armed."
That thought had occurred to Gary, but he only said, "Put the cat out when you lock up." He turned back at the door. "I might be late."
But before Gary had the door half open, the cat had leapt from the desk and scuttled through the crack to wherever it was it went.
Armstrong stepped out of the shadows as Hobson left the bar. He was in an all mighty hurry. His detective senses on high alert, Armstrong tailed the bar owner on his clandestine errand. He'd find out once and for all what Hobson was up to and catch him in the act.
Rene dropped Richie off at the gallery to retrieve his bike and drove away with a cheery wave. Richie waved back, contentedly full of food and old memories. It felt good to touch bases with the art world, but it wasn't Richie's world anymore. One day, perhaps, he'd marry the finery with the cutlery as the Highlander had learned to do, but for now he'd best concentrate on honing his survival skills. There was always another Immortal out there looking to add to his tally.
Richie started for the alley and right on cue, he felt the buzz. He had been expecting it all night, but hadn't seen any reason to hurry the encounter. Now was as good a time as any.
He drew his sword in one fluid motion and stepped cautiously into the shadows that bathed the mouth of the alley. His eyes adjusted to the feeble light falling from a single fixture on a stanchion a story above his head. It cast a pool of light half way into the narrow passage between the buildings. There in its center stood his opposite number, gleaming blade at the ready.
Youngish, but that meant nothing, as Richie himself knew all too well. Medium height, medium build, unremarkable except for eyes that bore into his own—no doubt with the same cool speculation.
"I'm Richie Ryan," he made formal introduction, then added, "We don't have to do this. You can walk away."
A mirthless smile crossed the challenger's lips. "I think not, lad." He sketched a bow. "Justin Price, late of His Majesty's Bengal Lance."
Ok, Price had a century and more on him. Who didn't? Richie took his customary stance and raised his mental ki, just as the Highlander had taught him. He had a few tricks in his kit, for all his lack of years. And not a small tally of his own.
He nodded acknowledgement and moved into the opening position Mac had drilled into him in his sleep. Price smiled in recognition of a fellow swordsman, and moved to match and engage.
"There can be only one," Richie intoned the ritual phrase in conscious imitation of the Highlander.
The ring of steel on steel, as blades kissed and parted glissando. Richie felt the eclectic surge of energy—not the Immortal energy of a Quickening, but the very human adrenaline surge of battle—and let it wash through and over him, drawing a curtain between himself and the ordinary. He stood now out of time and all caring, not to enter again until he had killed for the privilege.
One of them would die tonight. Since time long forgotten it had been so for their kind. To meet and fight, or part until another meeting. But always to fight and kill—or die.
The Lancer was good; he was more than good. All too quickly Richie realized he was out of his class with this one. His moves were countered, turned, deflected; and all the while the Lancer's blade flicked past his defenses, pricking and prodding and driving him toward the inevitable.
His blade grew slick in his hand.
There can be only one. And that one was not going to be Richie Ryan.
Gary stopped beside a lamp post to catch his breath and check the paper. No change. A transformer was going to explode, setting fire to a pile of rubbish and burning beyond recognition the decapitated body of a drifter. It was supposed the drifter was killed outright in the explosion, the cause of which was still under investigation.
Which was newspaper jargon for who-the-hell-knew.
But now there was an addition: an article that wasn't there the last time he checked. Gary peered at the headline in disbelief. It was the Armstrong's building again. This time a woman was going to give birth in the vestibule of her apartment building. And things weren't going to go very well. Meredith Armstrong was in trouble. Gary looked up from the paper, casting about for an answer. He'd never make it back in time if he took care of the biker first.
Gary checked his watch: ten minutes to midnight. How could he be two places at once?
"What are you playing at, Hobson?"
"Armstrong!" Gray exclaimed. "Am I glad to see you!"