Richie sat awkwardly on the couch in Jack's hotel room, still mad about having to be there, even though he had planned to spend time there. It was the fact that suddenly he had no choice that bothered him. So some immortal was after him. What else was new? He was always someone's target. Even before he was immortal, they were after him; he was used to it. He accepted it as a fact of life. He was short and immortals were after him. Nothing could be done about any of it.
Jack sat not too far from him on the easy chair. Neither spoke. Jack was plotting and Richie was pouting. Sure, Duncan got a little over protective at times, but he rarely jumped straight to holy ground. Jack and Duncan were feeding off each other's paranoia. It was going to be one miserable, indefinite stay at the island. One mother hen was bad enough two was going to be insufferable.
"So, what's this cabin like?" Jack asked.
Richie shrugged having already reverted to moody-teenager-mode. "There's a couple beds, walls, a roof, wood stove… all the modern convenience of Little House on the Prairie."
"I'll take it you're not a nature lover."
"Not in the slightest. As far as I can tell, no one lives like that anymore for a reason.
Jack couldn't help but smile. "You sound like your mother."
"She must have been a very smart woman."
"She was."
Richie tried to stay angry, but Jack seemed to have homed in on his biggest weakness – his curiosity.
"She didn't like camping?" he asked.
"Anything greener than the playground and she broke into hives," Jack smiled again. "She'd lived in cities for so long, she swore she was allergic to clean air."
This time Richie smiled; he had tried the exact same excuse on Duncan a few times himself. "How'd you two meet?"
Jack settled back in his chair, satisfied Richie wasn't angry any more, and Richie sat forward in anticipation.
"Emily was a huge Seacouver Sharks fan… you like basketball?" Richie nodded, thinking of the Sharks sweatshirt he had packed. "She won a radio contest and got a pair of seats to a play off game. As the sports writer for the paper, I had pretty decent seats, myself…"
Duncan was surprised to see Richie in such a good mood the next morning. Usually it took Richie a couple hours to be in a forgiving mood after being forced awake before dawn to embark on a nature journey. But this morning, he was in high spirits, bordering on bubbly as he told Duncan all he had learned the night before. How Emily and Jack had met at a Sharks playoff game. And even how Jack had found him outside the stadium after leaving a press conference.
"I guess now we know why you like basketball and hotdogs so much," Duncan teased. "He was the star of his high school team," he told Jack. "Even holds a couple district records."
"You didn't tell me that. What in?" Jack asked.
"Most games started, most points scored in a single game and highest free throw average," Duncan answered before Richie could.
"What was your average?"
This time Richie got to answer with a cocky grin. "I never miss."
The rest of the car trip, they all talked amiably about various topics, but the mood quickly changed when they made it to the canoe. Richie hung back, refusing to work citing that it was "too dangerous" for him to load the canoe and he was "too young and inexperienced" to paddle across the lake. Duncan sighed, knowing Richie's good humor had to have been too good to be true that morning. Getting him to do anything was going to be near impossible. But at least the young man would be able to get some space to himself with the safety of holy ground. Richie might even be willing to chop some wood to vent his frustrations. Hoping to tire out his bad mood, Duncan set Richie to work with some manual labor as soon as they landed. Duncan and Jack unloaded the canoe while Richie set out for wood.
By the time lunch rolled around, the cabin was set up and ready for occupants and Richie, sweaty and dirt smeared, had chopped enough logs to last them several weeks.
"Want to wash up?" Duncan offered him a towel. Richie panted and took it, skipping the cabin entirely and going straight for the lake to cool off.
"Moody isn't he?" Jack asked.
"That's Richie," Duncan shrugged putting a few logs in the stove.
"He always this moody?"
"Usually…well, when he's mad. He'll be fine in a while."
The two putter around the kitchen fixing a lunch of French bread and canned chili. Richie appeared in the kitchen door, wet a shivering a bit, when the chili had begun to boil.
"Better?" Duncan asked, tearing off a chunk of bread and tossing it to him.
"Sure." He stuck the bread in his mouth and mounted the ladder to his little loft above the kitchen to put on something warmer.
Lunch was dished out by the time he had changed and come back down. The three sat around the table quietly scooping meat and beans out of their tin cups and sopping up left over with bread until the cups and pot were sopped clean.
"This place is pretty impressive," Jack commented as Richie set to work pumping water into the sink.
"Thank you," Duncan answered. "I like it here."
"Mac built it," Richie spoke up. "He's always working on it, though why he doesn't get real plumbing is beyond me."
"The pump works fine."
"Nothing I built ever lasted this long. I was never very good at construction."
"I've got to replace things every so often. It wasn't like this when I first built it. Richie and I replaced that whole west wall last summer.
"Are we really going to sit around making small talk?" Richie asked, sitting down and claiming the last of the French bread. "Or are we going to deal with this whole Kurtz situation?"
"We should. That's why we're here." Duncan sat back in his chair. "So what do we do?"
"Kill 'em," Richie stated the obvious.
"Is it that easy?" Duncan asked Jack.
"If it were, he'd been gone long ago. He liked to play games," he explained. "He's been toying with me for centuries. I don't know why he's set his sights on me."
"You had to have done something to piss him off," Richie insisted. "He's not just after you for the fun of it… is he?"
"Some immortals don't need a reason," Duncan explained. "It's the thrill of the chase for them."
"Well, how good is he?' Richie asked Jack. "Is he better than you?"
"I don't know."
"So we call Joe; have him check this guy out."
"Joe?"
"He's a -- ow!!!" Richie rubbed at his suddenly soar shin.
"A friend," Duncan finished. "He has connections."
Richie scowled across the table. "He can find out anything about anyone."
"Good friend to have," Jack commented. "The important thing is that we keep Mackie away from him. He's not the kind of guy you want your son or student around."
"Why?"
"You don't ever want to find out."
"So what do we do? Hide out 'til he gets board?"
"We beat him at his own game," Duncan said. "We track him. He's counting on having control of the chase. If we take it from him, it'll throw him off balance."
"So what are we doing here? Let's go get him!"
"Not we, Richie," he corrected. "Us." He gestured to himself and Jack. "You – "
"Stay here," Richie groaned.
"Bait," Jack corrected. "Kurtz will come after you if we leave you alone here. We can get control if he thinks we've left."
"Just keep him off the island. If he knows Richie is here we can draw him out, but Richie will be safe here."
Duncan looked up as Richie stepped out on the porch, shot gun in hand and his coat pockets loaded down with what he assumed was buck shot.
"What's wrong with this picture?" Duncan asked, putting his book down.
"Mac, I think I'm a little old to have to ask permission to use my own gun." Richie rolled his eyes and kept walking.
Duncan had given him the gun two years ago for Christmas in hopes of enticing Richie into liking the cabin. But the gift had been given under strict order that he couldn't even touch it without Duncan by his side to keep an eye on him.
"Rich…"
Richie stopped and turned around, annoyance written all over his face. "I'm just gonna do some target practice," he snipped. "I'm twenty years old for Christ's sake! Can I at least get some credibility, here?"
"I was going to say: have fun," Duncan told him. "You're right. You're more than old enough."
Richie paused. "Oh…"
"You alright?"
"I need a little space, that's all."
Duncan nodded. "Just don't get lost."
With an acknowledging wave, Richie disappeared into the woods. Jack stepped out onto the porch a few seconds later.
"You think he's alright?" he asked.
Duncan kept his eyes on the edge of the woods. "He's fine. He sees our anxiety of Kurtz as not trusting him. He's only twenty; he still thinks he's the center of the world."
"I meant alone in the woods with a gun."
"He knows what he's doing. He'll be fine. Besides, he's immortal, he can't hurt himself with a gun in anyway that won't heal by the time he makes it back here."
By that time Richie had made it to wherever was he wanted to practice shooting and a loud bang echoed in the cool fall air. The few birds that didn't leave for the winter jumped from their trees and scattered in all directions. A few seconds later another bang sounded.
"So you got him a gun?" Jack asked conversationally leaning on the porch railing.
"A few years ago. He's a pretty good shot, too. Took down a four point buck his first time on a serious hunting trip."
"Not bad."
"So, how bad is this Kurtz guy, really?" Duncan asked, looking at Jack for the first time.
"If he wanted to kill me, he would have. He's had plenty of chances. Like I said, he's been after me for centuries."
"If he's so dangerous, why did you show up? You put Richie in the line of fire."
"He already was," Jack admitted. "Kurtz is going to go after him if I'm here or not. I figured Mackenzie deserved to know why. And this way I have a chance to protect him."
"How much protection does he need?"
"Kurtz has been going after my students to get to me. He's already killed three."
"And Caitlin?"
"She can protect herself better than Mackie can. She knows to be careful. Besides he doesn't go after anyone past the century mark."
"So why you?"
"I lead him to the young ones," Jack admitted unhappily. "I've been taking in and training young immortals for over seven hundred years. I've had five students, six including Mackie. If he can find us while they're young enough, he kills them."
"Can you defeat him?"
"I already told Mackie; I don't know. I've never actually fought him. He shows up enough to let me know he's there."
"So you're just hoping to keep Richie away from him for the next eighty years?"
"I swore to Mackie when he was a baby that I would protect him when he became immortal. I'm going to stand by that promise 'til my last breath."
