A few minutes earlier ~
Kronos wasn't asleep yet. He'd forgotten what a packrat his brother was and had spent an hour moving everything around in the room so if he got up in the night, he wouldn't trip and break his neck on anything. That was an expression about as old as time, but he'd had his neck broken plenty in the previous century when he was hanged by the lawmen of the west, and it wasn't an experience he cared to recreate with any of his brother's belongings.
Once that was done, he'd fallen down on the bed and was about to go to sleep before he even had time to undress, when he heard it.
At first he thought the noises were something to be attributed to his tired mind, but then they got louder. He didn't know what it was, but it seemed to be coming from the floor above. Kronos remained quiet and listened, trying to figure out what the noise was…first it sounded like somebody hitting a pipe. Then it sounded like somebody was stomping around up there…but with the large difference in one sound and the other, it sounded like whoever was up there was wearing a shoe on one foot and a steel toed boot on the other, every second step made the ceiling jump and he thought the whole damn thing was going to come crashing down on him. Then came the next unexplainable noise which after a few minutes, Kronos distinguished it as sounding like somebody was ripping the walls apart, and the only thing he could think about it was what the hell were his brothers doing up there?
It came as an afterthought…perhaps it wasn't any of his brothers. Maybe their unexpected visitor had never really gone but instead hid up on the third floor…after finding his room vandalized, it hadn't occurred to them to check the next floor up…Kronos opened Methos' nightstand and pulled out a gun. He didn't know who or what was up there but he also didn't believe much in taking any chances. Nobody was supposed to be able to break into this house in the first place, and the fact that the intruder seemed to have done that at least a couple of times already, said something to Kronos.
He went to the door and headed out into the hall; up above, the ceiling jumped again, the noises were getting louder. It was then that Kronos realized he could still feel the quickening in the room next to him. Methos and Silas both had rooms on the same side of the second floor, Kronos didn't know why…he headed over to the door and before he could knock, it opened up and Silas met him at the door with another gun drawn.
Kronos looked down at the gun and commented, "It would seem we've come to the same conclusion."
Silas reached behind him with one hand and pulled the door closed as he stepped out into the hall, "The walls being torn out?"
"That, and someone walking around up there," Kronos added.
"If you call that walking," Silas told him.
"Either somebody in this house has left his room or our uninvited guest has come back," Kronos said.
"There's always a third possibility," Silas said.
"What's that?" Kronos asked.
"Mice."
"Don't be a smartass."
"You think it's Methos?" Silas asked.
"I don't know, I wouldn't put it past Caspian," Kronos told him.
"They're over on the other side of the hall," Silas said.
"Well let's go see."
"What the hell is that noise?" Methos asked.
"I don't know but we're going to find out," Kronos said as he stepped past Methos and headed up the stairs.
Silas followed behind Kronos and Caspian and Methos brought up the rear. As they climbed the stairwell, Methos couldn't help but wonder just what they had gotten into. What in the hell was up there, or rather who? Well, they'd find out in a moment.
They reached the third floor, which Methos had forgotten was little better than a maze of doors, every one of them leading to somewhere and some rooms led to others. A genuine labyrinth if ever he had seen one. Now that the four brothers stood at the head of the stairs, the noise had unexpectedly stopped. They realized now that it wasn't a regular quickening they had been feeling, but a pre-Immortal quickening. The problem they had now was that whoever was up there could disappear out the window before being caught…they had 12 rooms to check and no way to determine which one was the right one.
Nobody said anything, nor did anybody move, they stayed where they were and listened carefully, but heard nothing now. Methos and Caspian quietly worked their way over to one end of the hall and Silas and Kronos started checking the rooms on the other side. Methos opened one door and reached for the light, but Caspian grabbed his arm and pulled him back and shook his head.
"No lights," he reminded his brother quietly, "We want to find out what it is before we kill it."
"So long as we kill it, right?" Methos replied.
"Shhh, come on."
They made short work of the room which, excluding themselves, they found to be void of any human life. Then they checked the next room and found it was full of plenty of junk that they'd collected over the centuries and just refused to part with, but their strange visitor wasn't anywhere to be found.
On the other side of the hall, Kronos and Silas likewise were coming up empty, and were beginning to wonder just what the hell was going on here. Kronos went to the next door and opened it, and he could've sworn just then that he felt something change in the weak buzz. He wasn't sure what it was but he decided this was the right room. He went in and looked around the room. Outside the storm had stopped, the clouds had parted and the moonlight was shining in through the window, giving the room little illumination.
This was another one of their junk rooms, there wasn't anything in particular stored away in here other than a lot of things collected over the last two hundred years or so. Even in the dark Kronos could make out everything: an old suit of armor, a large taxidermy bear, several shields and swords, a few trunks full of weapons from the black powder era, a large metal table, a human skeleton that had been tied up to hang from the ceiling…Kronos blinked, and then he looked again, he could've sworn he saw the skeleton move.
He saw the figure in the dark now, pressed against the skeleton, trying not to move. Kronos looked and saw that the window was closed, and he was blocking the door, so there was no way out. He watched the sudden change in the way the person moved, they knew they had been spotted and now were slowly retreating back towards the wall.
"You're not going to get out of this room so you might as well forget it," Kronos warned the other person as he slowly advanced towards them.
The dim light from the moon briefly shone on the person as they backed up but Kronos still couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman. He heard something and saw Methos and Caspian entering the room through a hidden door that led to the next room; he had forgotten about that entrance but it didn't matter now. The intruder kept backing away, seemingly unaware they were about to bump into the other two brothers.
Methos slowly and quietly crept up on the person and tried to grab them, but what happened next was impossible to believe. Before Methos could grab the mysterious person, they reached back, sent their right arm into a backwards jab up and stabbed Methos in the stomach, then in the instant that he was keeled over and moaning, the person grabbed Methos and threw him forward. He rolled onto the floor in an almost perfect somersault and knocked Kronos down with him. Before Caspian could reach for the stranger, it turned around and dove for the window. Apparently the outsider had had plenty of time to study the structure of the third floor because in a split second they threw open the window and jumped out it.
Kronos got up and ran over to the window and Caspian went over to the middle of the room and tried to help Methos up, who was still on the floor moaning.
"Are you alright?" Caspian asked.
Methos got out a couple of particularly loud moans and groans and crawled along the floor a couple of inches before collapsing and rolling onto his side, clenching his stomach in his arms.
The lights came on and Silas entered the room, just in time to be too late for the show. "What happened?" he asked.
Kronos closed the window and not turning back to his brothers, answered, "It seems our uninvited guest came back, and now they're gone again."
"Kronos, we're three floors up," Caspian reminded him, "And we've got two feet of standing water as it is out there, nobody's going to dive out a window this high up and just get away. They have to be down there somewhere, let's go look."
Kronos seemed to consider it, as if there was anything to really consider, before deciding, "Alright, we'll go, not you," he told Caspian, "Silas, we'll search the grounds and see what we can find."
As they left the room, Caspian grabbed Methos by the arm and pulled him to his feet. A large bloodstain covered the bottom half of Methos' shirt and through the tear in the cloth, he could see the wound hadn't quite healed yet.
"Are you alright?" he asked again.
"No," Methos answered, "But I will be."
"What the hell was that about?" Caspian asked Methos a short while later as the two headed down to the kitchen. Kronos and Silas still hadn't come back in the house yet and the storm was starting again.
"Whoever was in that room stabbed me and they did it with a most unusual knife," Methos told Caspian as he headed to the fridge.
"How can you tell?" Caspian asked, "It was too dark to see anything."
"I felt it, you idiot!" Methos replied as he took out a bottle of beer, "It wasn't a regular blade, the sides were smooth and it had a large point in the middle of it…like a large file."
"You only had the blade in you a couple of seconds at best, how could you know all that?" Caspian asked.
"Because I've been stabbed with a lot of things over the years, Caspian, particularly a lot of knives…I've been stabbed by the best and some of the worst…one of my last wives had a very large switchblade that I had the misfortune of falling on one time…never saw one like it in my whole life, and even that couldn't compare to whatever that person had tonight."
"Are you even sure it was a knife?" Caspian asked.
"If it wasn't," Methos responded, "I'd hate to see who needs a nail file that big."
The back door swung open and Kronos and Silas entered, both soaked to the bone and their clothes stuck to their skin.
"No luck?" Methos asked.
"None," Kronos replied as he took off his jacket, "Whoever went out the window must've been washed downhill when they fell…there's no trace out there of anybody."
"That's not possible," Methos told him, "There was somebody in that room, we all saw them."
"Yeah, but nobody saw where they went," Kronos said, "That's the problem."
"So what do we do now?" Caspian asked.
"There's nothing we can do," Kronos said, "Whoever was here is gone, after what's happened here tonight, I doubt they'll come back…it's late, we're all tired, I suggest we just go back to bed and try to forget tonight even happened."
"That's the first good idea I've heard all day," Methos said, and looking at his bottle, added, "And a few more of these should help do just that."
The next day by 8 A.M., the four brothers were gathered around the kitchen table all looking more or less the same; only half awake and like they'd just escaped a night from hell.
"Looks like we all slept about the same," Methos commented.
"Who slept?" Kronos replied, "I kept hearing something running around in the wall of your room all night, I think there're mice in the house."
"At least you had a bed to yourself," Methos said and pointed at Caspian, "You should've tried spending the night with this thing."
"Why? What did he do this time?" Silas asked.
"Oh, nothing," Methos replied dryly, "He only kicked all fours in the air like a dog, barking and growling the whole time, then rolled over and bit me."
Upon hearing this, Kronos turned and looked at Caspian who refused to look at anybody or say anything, which was confirmation enough for him.
"And as if that weren't enough, you had to give me ticks too!" Methos added.
"Ticks?" Caspian repeated, finally looking up.
"Thought I wouldn't notice, did you?" Methos asked, then held out his arm showing a large black bug stuck into his skin, "Well I've still got one to prove it!"
"I never…" Caspian started to say.
"First you gave me fleas back when we were both locked up in that lunatic asylum back in 1870," Methos told him, "Then it was head lice in 1909 and they shaved us both…now it's bloody ticks!"
Caspian grabbed Methos' arm and looked at the insect, concluding, "It's not in so deep you couldn't burn it off."
"No thanks," Methos pulled his arm back, "The last time you did that, you about set me on fire."
"Fine, then I'll do it," Kronos said.
"Oh now I feel a lot better," Methos rolled his eyes.
"Anything's better than listening to you gripe about it," Kronos told him.
Methos got up from the table and said, "I think I still have some cigarettes around here."
"You quit smoking 20 years ago," Caspian commented.
"I know that but I still keep the damn cigarettes around," Methos said as he and Kronos left the kitchen.
"You know, Kronos, I've been thinking about what happened last night," Methos told Kronos as they entered the living room.
"What about it?" Kronos asked.
"Okay, let's think about this," Methos said as he opened a drawer and took out a pack of cigarettes and handed them to Kronos, "Let's forget about the who of whoever was here last night, what about the why?"
"What about it?" Kronos asked.
"Why would somebody come here of all places last night?" Methos asked, "In the pouring down rain, which is creating standing water problems."
"They were in the neighborhood," Kronos casually replied as he lit a cigarette and held the burning end to the tick.
"There is no neighborhood," Methos reminded him, "We're miles away from the main road, never mind any other houses…what reason would anybody have for being here last night in the storm? Besides us I mean."
"Only a crazy person would," Kronos answered, as though that were enough.
"I suppose so…" Methos's words were cut off by a long and loud scream as Kronos completely burnt off the surrounding skin of the bloodsucker on his arm.
Methos jerked his arm away from Kronos and glared at him like he'd like to kill him. Kronos said nothing in response and instead had a coy smirk on his face.
"Well it worked, didn't it?" he asked.
"I think I was better off with the nut that stabbed me," Methos told him.
"Remind me again why we thought coming up here for a week would be a good idea?" Methos said to Silas as he spent the morning putting his room back together after Kronos dismantled it the other night.
"Beats the hell out of me," Silas replied, "Though today it sure as hell beats working."
Methos remembered how much water they had from the rain and shuddered to think how much of it was standing inside of the police department today.
"Tell me something, Silas," Methos said, "In the last few days have there been any reports of anybody breaking out of the jail?"
Silas shook his head, "Not that I know of, why?"
"No reason, I'm just still trying to figure out what the hell went on here last night," Methos said, "Kronos doesn't seem to be giving this situation the seriousness it deserves."
Silas laughed and the rumble of it about shook the whole room, "When does he?" he asked.
Well, Silas had a good point, Methos thought.
"I don't like it," he said.
"Good."
"What if they come back?" Methos asked.
"What about it?" Silas asked.
"I'd like to know who keeps breaking in here, wouldn't you?" Methos asked.
"I suppose," Silas answered.
A thought just came to Methos, "Uh…did you bring your…?"
He didn't finish the question but he didn't need to. With a slight but knowing smile, Silas reached into his pocket and pulled out a set of metal handcuffs.
"Good," Methos said, "Maybe if they come back, we can catch them this time."
"Do you really think they will come back?" Silas asked, "Knowing that we're here now?"
"Of course there's always the possibility that whoever was here last night never left," Silas told Caspian as they headed back up to the third floor later that day.
"What the hell are you talking about now?" Caspian asked, "You and Kronos searched everywhere last night and you couldn't find a trace of them."
"Which confirms that they weren't anywhere on the ground…I wonder if the person who jumped out the window somehow managed to stay in the house," Silas said.
"You're crazy," Caspian told him.
"Maybe I am," Silas replied.
They returned to the room where everything had happened last night. Most of the blood had been cleaned up from the floor but a few marks still remained.
"So what the hell was going on up here last night?" Caspian asked, "It sounded like the whole damn room was being taken apart."
"And you can note that nothing seems to be out of place," Silas told him, and headed over to the window.
He pushed the glass open and stuck his head out, looking down at the ground. He didn't find anything there but looked to the side and made a discovery, "Oh ho, what's this?"
"What's what?" Caspian asked as he went over to the window.
He saw what Silas saw, a rope dangling alongside the house, leading up to the roof.
"Well there's nobody up there now," Silas said, "Though I think I'm starting to get it. Whoever left here last night didn't really leave, and they didn't simply jump out that window. They left in such a manner they'd be able to grab the rope and climb up to the roof and wait up there until the noise died down. We covered the grounds, we never thought to look up for anything."
"Meaning they'd have to still be here," Caspian was starting to put the pieces together.
"Exactly, but where?" Silas asked, "And what the hell were they doing in this room?"
"Where are Methos and Kronos?" Caspian asked.
"Down in the basement," Silas answered.
"Let's go see if they found anything."
They headed down to the first floor and started to head for the basement when they felt that same weak pre-Immortal quickening. The room was dark and there was no sunlight coming in the windows so it was hard to see, but not hard enough that they couldn't spot somebody right in front of them; all the same they couldn't see anybody. Just when the two brothers thought they were about to lose their minds, they heard something.
A floorboard creaked, and it hadn't been any of their doing. They turned and saw a figure that was partially hidden by the drapes covering the window in the dining room. Though the light was poor, both Immortals were able to distinguish that it was a woman, a young one, she looked about 18, was dressed in clothes that looked about ready to fall apart, and she looked petrified. Then, as quick as a shot, she bolted and ran for the front door, with both brothers chasing after her. The girl didn't get far though; after a couple of steps she fell flat on the floor. She tried to move and wound up rolling backward, meeting with Silas's foot and he tripped over her. The girl rolled further back and likewise sent Caspian flying across the room and making a crash landing.
The girl got up and headed for the back door, but by this time, the noise had brought Kronos and Methos up from the basement and they caught her. She resisted and she fought with every inch of her being, but to no avail, they had her. Silas and Caspian got up and headed over to get a better look at their prisoner.
"Well now," Caspian said as he reached a hand out to examine her better, "What have we here?"
That was his mistake because as soon as his hand was close enough, the girl lashed out and bit it. Caspian yelped as she buried her teeth into his skin and bit down hard enough that she actually tore the skin away. Kronos hit her in the side of the head and she fell back against their hold, screaming. Through all of her convulsions and jerking, something fell out of her pocket and hit the floor. They saw that it was a strange knife with a centered point bearing much resemblance to a freakishly large file, just like Methos had said.
"Well," Kronos said, "It would seem we found our strange visitor."
"Yes," Methos replied, a bit cynically, "But what is it?"
Kronos grabbed a handful of the girl's hair and jerked her head back, causing her to scream even louder.
"I'm not sure," he answered and added, with a gleam in his eye, "We'll have to find out...let's take her downstairs to the lab."