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Dedicated, at this moment, to AM
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Duncan walked into Joe's at about 3pm. There was another Immortal in Seacouver to challenge him, and perhaps Joe could weigh in on this new stranger. Harold Ranier, he'd called himself, with wild dark hair springing in every direction, green eyes, and lots of freckles. Duncan had been too amused, and Ranier had stomped off in a huff rather than press his challenge.
Joe was polishing some glasses behind the bar, and cast Duncan a welcoming grin. "Hey, Mac! Sit a spell," he offered cheerfully.
Duncan grinned back and then with his next step felt an unexpected, familiar warming and warning sweep through his body. Startled, he came to a stop, but the sensation was gone. "What the--" he started. Then he realized Joe looked far too delighted. He took a very careful step back, and was engulfed in the sensation again. He stayed there and gaped at Joe, who had begun to chuckle. "How is this even possible?" Duncan asked incredulously.
GS
Joe answered smugly, "It's an experiment."
"What do you mean, an experiment?" There was a note of exasperation in Duncan's voice.
"I've exchanged a floor board. It used to live in a church. One wouldn't notice by looking at it, right?" Duncan actually bowed down and touched the surface of the board he was standing on. Joe had to bend forward to watch him. It tickled him no end.
The Immortal's eyebrows rose, as he addressed the Watcher plaintively, "Is this a sort of.. Immortal detector to you?"
Joe laughed ruefully. "Man, that's not exactly how the idea started out. But now that you suggest it..."
Author
Mac was clearly reluctant to leave the floorboard, and also embarrassed with himself for that. After several moments, he came the rest of the way to the counter and settled onto a stool. Joe raised an eyebrow at him, and he asked for a Scotch. Joe gave him one and asked, "So would any Immortal fight in here, now?" Duncan's face turned pale, and he sipped his drink.
Finally, he said, "It would make me unwilling."
Joe sighed and smiled widely. "I want to make my bar a safe zone for you. For all of you. It's just not possible to turn it into a church...."
GS
"Doesn't have to be a church," Duncan muttered under his breath. Then he caught Joe's eye. "For some of us, a single board won't do the trick. 'S not that easy." He sighed, reluctant to be hopeful. "Maybe several of them..."
Author
"Say Joe, there's this Immortal, Harold Ranier, in town to challenge me." Duncan's gaze kept traveling back to the floor board. He could not help but snicker as he pictured furious Immortals dancing about the small bar, trying to fight and evade the seemingly random sensation of Holy Ground. He shook his head, then focused on Joe, whose gaze had turned inward. "What am I looking at with him?" Always the question. Not for himself, but for the people around him. Those who were his friends, those who were strangers, but whose lives he felt a gut-deep revulsion to putting at threat.
Joe shook his head, gaze swinging back out. "I'm not familiar with the name, but I'll check."
AM
Admin
With that, Joe excused himself to the back room. As Duncan occupied himself by checking out the newest potted plants, soon enough half an hour had elapsed.
Joe emerged, his face as pale as he had ever seen. Not sitting, he instead braced himself against the counter to face Duncan. At first unable to look him in the eye, Joe eventually met his glance and took a deep breath.
"So I made a call."
"Kind of figured you weren't just in the can."
"The first answer I got about the guy was 'don't ask.' The second answer was, 'are you sure you want to know?'"
Duncan furrowed his brow. "You seem shaken, Joe. What did you find out about Mr. Ranier?"
"It's real bad, MacLeod. All bad." Another deep breath. "For starters, that's not even his name."
CJ
The front door opened and a silhouette appeared in the daylit doorway. "Isn't whose name, darlings?" a familiar voice asked and Amanda stepped across the threshold into view.
GS
Joe looked at Duncan for guidance. He wasn't gonna volunteer the name himself, but the Immortal looked preoccupied. Oh! That was it: Mac was waiting for Amanda's reaction to the floor board.
MjK
"What, no 'Hi Amanda!' ?, no 'gee, good to see you Amanda?' as she perched on a stool. Duncan looked at her, an amused tilt to his mouth, waiting for it.
GS
Then Amanda stopped just short of where the board must be, apparently flustered. She whipped out a little mirror that - as she had told Duncan numerous times - belonged in every lady's purse, muttering "Must be my make-up ... uh ... no?" She looked from one man to the other. "Well, boys?" As she took a step closer, her expression changed.
AM
Admin
"Well go on," Duncan piped. Joe looked on interested as well. "Step on it."
Amanda cocked her head to one side playfully. "This?" She gestured at the floorboard with her eyes, then back at Duncan. "What, am I about to fall down some manner of trapdoor... a pit of spikes at the bottom, perhaps?" Her gaze danced between both men. "Worse?"
Joe winced, shaking his head in the negative. "C'mon, Amanda... it's us here."
Duncan giggled a bit. "Maybe your gut is right -- it's spikes. I'll be there for you after, of course."
"Only kidding about the spikes," Amanda spoke with a huff. "You boys and your games. Fine. I can already tell this is something indescribably mundane."
"Do try to land on your feet," Duncan joked, mock-seriously.
"Mm-hm," she said, as she began to take her first step onto the board.
It was as if a cloak of silence had descended upon Duncan and Joe at that moment, both men intently watching Amanda do so. Joe a bit more cocksure about it, Duncan a little more leery but lending himself more in humor to the gesture.
"There, happy?"
Both men exchanged a glance as she walked upon, across, and over the board with no ill effects and not even batting an eyebrow.
Duncan seemed dumbfounded. "But... but that's --"
"-- That's a little piece of Holy Ground, right there, Amanda," Joe finished. "Didn't you feel anything? Even a little something?"
Amanda took a step forward, suddenly looking queasy and out of step. "N-now that you mention it, I..." With that, she tripped and fell into the quick-reflexed arms of Duncan.
Duncan smiled, helping her back to her feet. "You see what we mean now? That's Holy Ground. Maybe it takes a few of those boards as I was saying earlier, but it's true nonetheless."
"Y-you're right, MacLeod... I feel, I feel..." Amanda said as she brought a hand dramatically to her temple as she closed her eyes and postured around a bit, "... absolutely nothing." With that, she snapped to perfect normality.
Duncan and Joe seemed immediately confused.
"Amanda, it's Holy Ground," Duncan remarked. "I felt it, surely as I've felt any Holy Ground."
"Did you?" Amanda asked with a grin. "Well I can tell you with full assurance I felt nothing. Nothing 'tall. But then you are a young one in the Game, aren't you?"
"What is that supposed to mean?"
Amanda looked at Joe. "Let me guess, Joe... you gave MacLeod here some allusion that..." she paused, nodding downward, "that particular board was special."
Joe now took up one of the barstools next to Duncan. All eyes on him, he slowly relaxed on it.
"I'm right, yes?" Amanda chimed.
Duncan's gaze beating down on him, Joe finally nodded. "I did, I did."
"You did NOT!" Duncan fired back almost immediately.
"Well hold on, I did mention to you... the other day that I was bringing in some.. Holy new additions to the bar."
"You did?"
"I did."
Duncan rubbed a hand on the side of his head. He then winced. "You did, now that you mention it."
"And Ye Olde Immortal Memory is pretty good, too, isn't it?" Joe responded. "Always is."
"What does that have to do with anything?"
Amanda made a showing of pivoting around and nuzzling into Duncan's shoulder, smile ear to ear. "It seems Joe has just fed you a bit of a placebo, MacLeod."
"What? This is absurd."
"Not a placebo, Mac," Joe said, shaking his head. "Just an experiment, like I said." He then went into more detail, "I gave you the idea that there was going to be some aspect of the bar that was Holy Ground, sold you on the story I fed you... and kind of looked at that particular board when you walked in."
"No you didn't."
"Are you sure?"
Duncan went silent, reenacting the events in his mind. Joe was right about that Immortal memory. "You did look at it, right as I came in. I didn't even think about it at the time."
"In all fairness, as part of the experiment, I did actually get a floorboard from a church. But it's that one over there." Joe adjusted himself and pointed at a faraway floorboard near one of the windows across the bar. He then gave a shrug when he felt the glare of Duncan on him. "Vesuvius or not, I just wanted to know once and for all if it was just a passed-down tradition, something mental, or just a buried-deep mandated kind of thing... by wherever the fuck you Immortals come from or whoever as a mental safeguard." Joe grew quieter then. "Which only now raises other questions."
Amanda shrugged herself off of Duncan, grabbing both men's hands and making them high-five each other before putting an arm gingerly around each of them. "Are you ready for what comes next, boys?"
They both quizzically regarded her with a stare.
After a beat, harrumphing and rolling her eyes, Amanda returned with, "Harold Ranier. Harold Ranier, for pete's sake."
Silence.
"Yes, yes, I believe I walked in right when Joe was about to tell you all about him, whoever he is? No?"
Joe nodded, suddenly growing more serious. "It's much worse than you think, MacLeod. This guy has been around a long time. Doing a lot of bad things."
"I've known a lot of guys like that." Duncan served himself another Scotch, downed it. "Taken a lot of their Quickenings too."
"This one's got ties all over the place, Mac. All the way back to Kronos. The Kurgan!"
Amanda seemed unconvinced. "Next you'll tell us Connor MacLeod is involved, too." She stood proper, throwing a hand on each hip. "He is, isn't he?"
"Bigger than that." Joe sighed before going on. "Connor was his teacher."
Duncan took another drink.
Author
The Holy Floorboard. Joe carefully kept his face straight, made easier by the fact that they were discussing Ranier. Let Amanda believe that the floorboard was a lie. Duncan may have imagined things, but there would be other Immortals wandering in, who would not be warned either by Duncan's behavior or by Joe's. It was best to test a theory on as wide a range of subjects as possible. Then he found himself wondering whether or not Amanda might be lying about not feeling a thing. He groaned internally and tore his thoughts away from the subject.
Harold Ranier was almost as old as Mac. The files they had on him had to estimate his first death to have been in the late 1730s during the reign of Анна Иоанновна. He had been a member of her Cadet Corps. The one healthy child of an aristocratic family - a story that made them all laugh - the Watchers did not know for certain when he had actually died. They only knew when Connor MacLeod, visiting under the pretense of being a German dignitary, took Vladimir Kheraskov under his wing.