Whiskey is good.
I can feel it, pouring down my throat, making the world wobble and twist around me. Images and sounds are distorted; memory is weakened. The phenomenon of Immortal memory can no longer hold me in its grasp, can no longer replay over and over in my mind the moment when I stepped onto the barge to find Methos gone. Not just Methos; to find everything of his gone, his clothing, his books, all the various items that said the barge was not mine but *ours*.
I hear the clearing of a throat and look up. It’s Joe. What’s he doing here? I thought he was gone off doing some top-secret-oh-so-high-and-mighty Watcher thing. He told me yesterday… or was it the day before? Maybe it was the day before that? What day is it anyway? I don’t remember. All the days blend together in a long, lonely, Methos-less alcoholic daze.
“Mac,” a voice says beside me. Oh yes, it’s Joe.
I swivel my head to look up at him, and it occurs to me that my glass is almost empty. I wave it at him, sloppily; my arm doesn’t want to move straight. “More.”
Joe is glaring at me. What did I do? I just want some more whiskey, so I can forget. “Mac,” he says impatiently. “Sober up, dammit!”
“Don’ wanna. Nice drunk.”
“*Mac*” Now Joe sounds pissed. I drain the last drops of whiskey from my glass and slam it down on the table. Joe takes me by the arm. “Come on, Mac. Let’s go back to my office.”
“Whi’key there?”
Joe growls under his breath. “Yes, Mac, there’s whiskey there. Now come on!”
He leads me back to his office, sits me down; I’m just about ready to ask for the whiskey, and suddenly I’m wet. Cold and wet. Joe emptied a pitcher of ice water over my head.
I leap nearly out of my skin at the cold, and turn angrily, flipping a few strands of wet hair out of my face. “Joe!”
“You sober now?” He’s glaring at me, arms folded.
Immortal healing at work. “Give me five minutes.” The last of the cobwebs clear out of my brain, and I realize just how deep in a funk I was. “What day is it, Joe?”
“Thursday, the fifteenth.”
I lost almost three weeks. I rub my forehead, and sigh. “Okay, Joe, what did you need to tell me so badly?”
He’s still glaring at me. “I was just up at Headquarters, managing some paperwork, and I was having a chat with a friend of mine. She *was* assigned to a fairly dangerous headhunter named Felipe Rodriguez, but she made a bit of a discovery.”
I shake my head. “Get to the point.”
Joe laughs, an unhappy sound. “Rodriguez … you’ve heard of him?”
“No.”
“Well, let me fill you in, then. He’s a headhunter, sees the Game as just that, a game, and the heads you take are the score. The older, the more points. His hobby, if you will, is hunting the Old Ones. The older the better.”
My head jerks up. “Methos!”
“That’s right, buddy, he went hunting Methos. Died. But listen: Methos identified himself. Said his name right out, and Rodriguez’s Watcher was there. He’s been outed.”
I groan. “Have they connected Methos to Adam Pierson?”
Joe shook his head.
“Not as far as I know. Thank
God. But anyway, I thought you’d be
interested. He’s got himself a Watcher
now. By the way, he’s in
“Joe, can I use your phone?” I’ve got a plane reservation to make.
Joe grins at me. “Reserve two seats, buddy.”