Disclaimers: Diverges from canon shortly after "The Modern Prometheus," and apparently in this universe they buried Darius....  Yet another ResFic (thank Sleeps With Coyotes if you like it; she started me on this path...).  I just can't leave some immortals dead, I guess.  All characters property of Rysher: Panzer/Davis, and no profits made.  With thanks to 'Tilla the Hunee whose zine this was written for, and to Cinel, tarsh, Alice in Stonyland and Nevada who beta'd it for me.
Rated: R for nudity and necromancy.
Ladies and gentlemen?  It's showtime.

It'll Never Work

Liquid trickled down his back, rain or sweat, but just out of reach and incredibly annoying as a result.  Clumps of earth fell off his shovel with soft, irritating 'splats' instead of the patter of dryer, less packed mud, and if he weren't immortal, his arms would be sore by now from lifting the damn stuff up so far.  He'd forgotten how irritating digging graves was, and why he almost never went the full fathom deep. 

It was definitely another grievance to add to Amanda's tab.

"Help me, Methos Kenobi, you're my only hope....  That minx."  The growl didn't hold much heat, though.  "Oh, I knew better, damn it."  The shovel kept time with his complaints, at least.  Much better than work songs. 

"Four A.M. ideas.  The damn things always get me into trouble.  God knows, somewhere after midnight I thought Margerete was a good idea.  Beautiful eyes, acres and acres of creamy skin... and that harridan of a mother."  Methos shuddered.  "I really should have known better after Lyudmilla.  Her mother inspired new Baba Yaga stories."

Methos kept right on throwing dirt up and over.  "And I think it was four in the morning or so when I ran out of beer and decided to believe Warrick had cleaned out the vat the way he should have.  An entire cask of stout gone sour because it seemed like a perfectly reasonable belief.  Well.  And I really wanted some stout that winter."

His shovel hit wood with a hollow thunk, and Methos grinned for a moment, both in victory and from a surfacing memory.  "Come to think of it," he mused as he scraped dirt away more carefully now, "it must have been about four in the morning when Byron and I decided it would be hilarious to let everyone think we fucked that goat, and the damn thing kicked him in the balls about an hour later...."  Methos felt his lips curling up in a viciously amused grin that simply didn't match the careful way he was clearing off the wood.  "All right.  For one of my early morning ideas, that one was pretty good."

In general, though, the immortal decided again, ideas that seemed inspired at three or four in the morning were only bright in comparison with the outside sky.  "Which means that, theoretically, I might be fine half the year in Ireland or Iceland, but overall I'm probably just screwed.  Fortuna, I poured half a bottle of single malt out as an offering for you tonight, so please, no gendarmes.  Please." 

Methos really didn't want to look up from a freshly vandalized grave -- a priest's grave -- into the face of one of Paris's finest.  For one thing, he'd have to get out of the grave, while carrying a body he could only hope wasn't in pieces.  It probably was, though.  "I am absolutely not wasting this much work, damn it." 

And there just wasn't a good explanation for this.  Methos was very sure of that.  He'd spent the first three feet of dirt trying to come up with one, just for his own amusement. 

"Pity we don't bury them with bells 'in case of coma' anymore.  That might have been a good story to try."  The coffin had a solid top.  No viewing for the decapitated, apparently.  "Don't see why not.  The collar would have hidden the stitches, damn it."  A long reach up pulled the body bag down on him with only a minimal shower of mud.  "Damn.  Thought I'd been tossing the dirt more carefully than that." 

Methos pulled out a small flashlight and checked to be sure he had the shovel placed against the join of two of the planks.  Then he set foot to the shovel and dug in, working the edge into the rotting wood, grateful now for the walls of earth rising up around him.  They'd muffle the worst of the cracking sounds from the coffin.  He did enjoy hearing the snaps of wood giving way, though; they punctuated his ongoing attempts at viable explanations for this grave robbery rather nicely.

"Hmm.  'My mother, God rest her soul, wanted to return this rosary to him' -- except I don't have a rosary with me.  That won't work, then."  Methos shifted the shovel to pry up another section of the coffin, careful to leave himself room to stand.  "A ring maybe.  Claim him as my father; came to spit on his grave and wanted to be thorough?" 

The second board gave way.  "No, that story would definitely get me arrested."  That had done it, though; now he had room to get to the body.  The misting drizzle had even quit.  Methos tossed the shovel up out of the grave and pulled the flashlight out again, wondering what three years had left of his quarry. 

"Ah.  Good.  Bone and dry tissue only.  Hmm.  Maybe our quickenings do work against all the food preservatives, then.  That or the winters have been a lot more mild than they felt at the time.  Good thing Caspian's dead; he'd have wanted to experiment and find out."  He grinned suddenly, a charming, ruthless wickedness.  "Wonder how I bring the subject up around Duncan?"  Methos chuckled.  "And how he'll explain having an opinion on the subject...." 

Methos set the bag next to what was left of the body.  The bones and dry tissue weren't too difficult to maneuver out of the half-open coffin.  Not once Methos tried to fold the legs and ended up with shorter pieces than he'd started with.  He shrugged and used the flat of a hand to sweep the kneecaps in, and all the tarsals and metatarsals.  "God forbid I miss any of the small pieces.  Well.  I wouldn't want to grow a vertebra or toe back either," Methos admitted.  When he'd gotten everything he could reach, he tugged the bag of remains father down the coffin. 

Methos shoved a splintered plank out of the way and went back to stuffing bones and bits into the bag, resisting the urge to check the skull's teeth for later teasing and debating more excuses.  "Hmm.  'But how could I prove him a saint 'til I showed the body hadn't decomposed?'  Now, that one has possibilities...."  One vertebra insisted on rolling away each time he almost had it, until Methos snapped his fingers at it and said firmly, "Stay." 

His control over inanimate objects only worked briefly, though.  The body bag hung up on the coffin for a moment, making Methos wonder if the bottom was splintering already, or if Darius was just being his usual stubborn self and refusing to leave.  Or maybe the damn ribcage simply wouldn't fit around that corner?  "You always were inflexible...."  A quick push, shift, and tug levered the bag around remains of the coffin lid.

Finally, Methos lifted the bag up and out of the grave, then straightened and stretched.  "Great.  I still have to fill all that mud back in, and put the pieces of sod back."  Methos shook his head, dark hair spangled with rain drops. 

"If this doesn't work, it is definitely Amanda's fault."

He grinned for a moment, though, wicked and wild and full of the mischief he so rarely let loose anymore.  The trouble usually wasn't quite worth the fun.  "But you know, old friend?  I think your vacation's lasted long enough." 

-=-=-=-

"Sweet Christ.  My balls may never crawl back down!"

The words sounded like they should have been accompanied by bubbles; after four hours trudging back and forth along the river bottom, Connor MacLeod had gotten used to that again.  The breathing mask plastered to his face to filter the worst of the silt out of the water he was inhaling hadn't managed to drive him crazy yet, either.  Compared to that, the odd sound of his own voice was merely an annoyance.  Even through a wetsuit, however, the river water was cold as hell.  No surprise; it wasn't yet Easter.

Connor was half-crazy with frustration and boredom, though, and had been complaining steadily for the past hour to keep his wits sharp while he tried to finish this insane treasure hunt.  "It's a damn good thing I'm immortal.  Ramirez, you old bastard, why in hell did you never warn me about running a tab with Sassenach barkeeps?  Especially immortal Sassenach barkeeps who're older than they act?

"Bloody bastard.  Tracks me down, three names later, and points out I still owe him.  Will he take money?  Even compounded monthly, not quarterly, or annually?  Of course not."  Connor paused, feeling the faint tingle that marked these odd crystal pieces, and crouched in the swirling silt to sift out another one of his quarry.  "No point in using a flashlight, either, not in this current...." 

Despite his complaints, the Scot was actually enjoying this odd treasure hunt.  Well.  Except for the cold.  It'd been years since he'd panned for gold or tickled trout out of a stream; hunting down crystals that felt like pre-immortals, in a dark river, felt a little like both. 

So far, Connor had walked through rusted-out rail trestles, tripped over abandoned tractor tires, scared fish out from under logs, and gotten his leg caught in an abandoned car.  That, Matthew Adams damn well owed him for.  It had taken five minutes of careful work to get his arm into the window, too, to crank it farther down.  Connor hadn't really wanted to break the glass, assuming he could work up that kind of force under water anyway.  The idea of digging all the glass shards back out of his flesh had convinced him to bend in ways he was sure God had never intended.

In the process, however, when not cursing Volvo for building cars too well (they'd been a likely scapegoat, anyway) Connor had refined plans for his next identity -- including an inspired way to hide the transfer of funds that required two wills, but what the hell -- and decided to check into current salvage technology and laws.  He'd sunk enough ships in his days as a gunrunner; his old logs alone ought to tell him where to find several.  Add in modern geologic surveys, sonar, and scuba gear, and some of that waiting treasure might finally be his.  The width of the profit margin would largely depend on how much of a cut the relevant governments might want and how well he could dodge them.  That would need careful contemplation too....

Connor's hand brushed something solid and he shifted a limb away, careful to be sure it was wood and not flesh this time.  That had not been one of the more pleasant parts of this hunt.  He'd had to dig through a partially rotted body to get four of the pieces.  They'd congregated there rather than in the eddy a few feet away and that made Connor MacLeod very curious about what, precisely, he was retrieving. 

"And why me?"  The Scot chuckled wickedly as his hand closed around the errant piece of crystal; a mix of jagged and smooth edges, like all the others, apparently.  Odd.  Not entirely left rough, but not completely faceted or smoothed, either.  "I promised to find these and bring them up.  Matthew forgot to specify I had to hand them all over.  I'm not minded to give the man a pig in a poke.  Not when it could potentially poke me."

Connor dropped the latest piece into the bag with the others... and stared as something in the dark shot sparks.  The fine mesh shifted in his hand, too, more than the current would account for. 

The Highlander weighed his options:  stick a hand into a bag with a stone that now felt like a strong pre-immortal or a weak new immortal... or swim to surface, look in the bag when he had light, and hope he could find his spot in the search pattern again when he got back down to the bottom.  "Put like that," he grumbled and stuck his left hand in the bag before he could come up with all the reasons it was undoubtedly a damn fool thing to do. 

From the feel of it, the crystals weren't precisely roughhewn, anymore.  Or plural.  They'd apparently merged into one large, faceted stone.  "Well," Connor said thoughtfully, "having all that weight shift to one spot would explain the bag moving."  He could almost feel the stone pushing at him; wet hairs on his wrist tried to stand up against the current. 

"Oh, quit that, you daft thing.  I'm no enemy of yours yet, nor coveting you, either, whatever you may do or be.  So quit mucking with my quickening and I'll leave yours be.  Deal?"

The static faded slowly away, like a thunderstorm passing over or Ramirez deciding not to call lightning after all, and Connor shook his head in amused acceptance.  The universe had decided to show its eccentric side again, apparently. Ah, well, whatever this stone might be, it was no odder than some of the things Nakano had accustomed him to, and felt less complex, if no less powerful, than the quickening he'd taken from the Kurgan. "You're as bad as my Spanish peacock of a teacher.  So.  I don't think you'd have changed like that if I hadn't found all of you.  I'm for the surface, and a hot shower, and air to breathe instead of water.  Any objections?"

Connor didn't waste time calling himself a fool for assuming that a stone could talk; he only waited to see if the static would return.  "I'll take that to mean I found everything and you'd like to get dry, too."  He tied the bag securely shut and pulled flippers out of the dive bag on his back.  Once he had those on, and a mask with a dangling snorkel just in case some amorous pair had chosen this bridge to neck by, Connor swam steadily for the bank, unconcerned by any silt he stirred even higher.  He wanted hot water instead of this frigid river, and a warm bed. 

He wanted a minimum of six or seven hours of sleep, actually.  That meant his breakfast was more likely to be a nice large lunch, but Connor was damn well going to get plenty of coffee and a chance to look this stone over in daylight.  If nothing else, he wanted to see if it sparked any memories of discussions with Nakano or Ramirez. 

Connor chuckled despite the discomfort of emptying water back out of his lungs.  The coffee was a necessity.  He wasn't giving something this strange, and potentially dangerous, to Matthew Adams, or Adam Pierson, or whatever his name was this year without knowing why the man wanted it and what he intended to do with it. 

'Clarifying' the fine points of a contract sounded like a enjoyable way to spend the next afternoon, too.  Pierson ought to make it a damned entertaining argument.  Nakano hadn't wasted his time training Connor to see through illusions, after all.  Pierson had passed for relatively young when Connor first met the man, but the Scot knew better now.  The man was old; old as Ramirez or Nakano at least.  Maybe more.  Which raised the question of why an immortal that old needed one of the few truly enchanted things Connor had seen in almost five hundred years of pirating, gun running, and antiques dealing.  He'd better have a very good reason to want it, and an even better notion on how to put the stone back out of reach after he completed this scheme.

Connor grinned, though, as he hiked to his car.  Watching the Sassenach's face when the stone stuck its inanimate two cents worth into the discussion ought to be worth the night's nuisance in the river by itself.  

-=-=-=-

Amanda's nose wrinkled up, lips set in a moue of distaste that only enhanced her charm. Methos had to admire the years of practice that had gone into that and at the same time he made a mental note to find a willing (and undemanding) partner.  Soon.  Falling for Amanda's looks was always a recipe for trouble, usually his.  She did have a way of strewing havoc in her wake, and moving along before it actually arrived.

Even worse, it always seemed worth it at the time.

"Methos.  Quit fantasizing about my mouth and tell me when I get my crystal back."

"When the job's done, Amanda."  He ignored the rest of her comment from long practice and tried to kick-start his brain. 

"Mm-hmm."  Amanda prowled toward him on long leather-clad legs, deliberately seductive.  Unfair, that.  Amanda could seduce in sackcloth.  Methos had watched her do it once.  Honestly, the black pants and that burgundy velvet bodice were complete overkill.... 

"Methos."  The purr settled between his legs, stroked portions of his anatomy he wished would shut up, and diverted much needed blood from his brain.  "What are you really up to?"

That too-sweet question finally kicked his brain into gear, much to the disappointment of the rest of him.  " 'Up to,' Amanda?  You were the one who kept waking me up.  You were the one who came and woke me up, again, at three in the bloody morning."  And you're staring at what my cock is up to.  Definitely time to pull clothes on, and not just because it's cold.  No, Amanda, you are not seducing the answer out of me this time.  Absolutely not.

Amanda smiled sweetly, and Methos noticed that her lipstick was faintly smudged around the edges.  He had time to wonder who she'd been kissing before Amanda mentioned, "And I put the kettle on and you'll have tea in a minute, Methos.  In the meantime, I want to know why you needed my crystal and when I get it back."  She paused long enough to let Methos open his mouth and added, "And who do you have in the bag, anyway?"

"What?"  Methos hesitated, then growled, "Tea, Amanda.  Not another bloody word out of me until I get caffeine, and that's my final offer."

Amanda swayed away, managing to be graceful in three inch heels.  It shouldn't have looked that easy.  "Did I say the tea had caffeine, Methos?"

Methos pulled the down comforter back up the bed in a vain hope that there might still be a patch of warmth left by the time he convinced Amanda to leave, since there was no way he was going to let her help warm it, or him, back up.  "It'd damn well better have caffeine.  I don't keep the herbal tea anywhere you might find it, Amanda." 

She pouted while he pulled on relatively oversized, faded jeans and a very large, very warm wool sweater.  "Not going to let me admire the view?"

"Of course not."  Methos settled into the kitchen chair and finally, finally pulled his attention strictly back to the ongoing plan.  "Look, Amanda, yes, after Ingrid, and Keane, and Byron, I promised I'd find a way to keep Duncan out of quite as much trouble--"

"Without shooting him," Amanda reminded him sternly.  "Again."

"Without shooting him again.  You agreed to loan me your crystal if it would help."  He watched her pour water into tea mugs -- one of Amanda's better-developed domestic skills -- and reminded her, "And the plan's coming along nicely."

Amanda's pout had returned, full force; Methos ignored it this time.  "How would I know, Methos?  You haven't told me what your plan is."

"Why should I?"

Amanda studied him, those lovely brown eyes gone sharp now rather than heavy lidded in sweet, sleepy seduction.  Methos recognized it as the same look he'd received once or twice from her teacher, Rebecca.  "Because you might need some help.  Why do you have a set of bones on a shelf over the dryer?"

"Amanda, how in the world did you recognize a dryer when you saw it?"  Methos sipped at his tea, debating how much to tell her.  Not because he couldn't find a use for Amanda in his plans; he could.  He just wanted the fun to himself.

She waved that distraction off, too.  "You know perfectly well that properly done second story work needs faded charcoal grey cloth, Methos, and never mind that.  Whose body did you steal, and how is that and a piece of a lost crystal going to keep Duncan out of trouble?"

Methos smiled slowly, letting it curve up one side of his mouth before the other, and watched Amanda grow nervous as the smile spread.  "Well.  Since you insist on helping.  How much attention did you pay when you were rooking those would-be magicians in the Hellfire Club last century?"

Amanda traced the rim of her mug with a fingernail.  "Enough not to get caught.  Which parts of those skills did you need?" 

"Not the orgies," Methos told her and chuckled when she refused to take offense.  "Look, Amanda.  You're better with locks than I am.  And I wouldn't mind a second pair of hands and eyes to double-check the alignment on the circle and runes.  Which is as much as I'm going to tell you, thanks.  There's one more thing I need before we can start, and I should have it tomorrow.  So, be here tomorrow night at ten.  If you're going to insist on helping, that is."

Amanda glared at him, but it did no good.  "Fine," she huffed at last.  "Don't tell me what's going on, or why you need a dead body, or what spell you think you know how to cast, but when it goes wrong, that ghost had better haunt you, Methos, or I will.  Got it?"

"Amanda.  No one's going to haunt either of us."  He grinned at her, wickedly.  "Just be here tomorrow night.  You bring the lock picks and magnetic compass.  I'll provide everything else."

"Including the blood if it's needed," Amanda huffed, stalking towards the door and leaving her tea untouched.  "Corpses and spells.  What kind of idiot do you take me for?"

Methos locked the door behind the lovely thief after she slammed it, purring despite the hour and the fact that his bed had unquestionably gotten as cold as her tea.  "The kind of idiot who wakes me up at three A.M. three nights in one month without worrying what kind of plans I hatched at four A.M., of course...."

-=-=-=-

Methos stared at the irritating man sitting across from him.  "You what?"

Connor leaned back in the chair, the faintest of irritating grins creasing his mouth as he did.  The slouch was too exact an imitation of Methos' usual posture to be anything other than mockery.  "I said, I'm not sure I'm handing the bag over, Pierson.  You said find the parts and bring them up.  You forgot to specify that I had to give them to you.  So?  What did I collect and why should I give them up?"

" 'Forgot,' MacLeod?  Bullshit."  Methos glared at him.  "You deliberately shifted the conversation to expenses for diving gear after I mentioned the crystals were scattered on a river bottom.  You bastard."

Connor's smile didn't fade but those too-sharp eyes were no longer friendly.  "My parents were married, Pierson.  And my teacher was emphatic that people who get off balance lose their heads. Somehow, I don't think these crystals are going to do the balance of the Game much good at all.  Why should I give them to you?"

"Because they're not yours?" Methos suggested caustically.

"Possession is nine-tenths of the law.  Try again."  Connor simply watched him, hands still wrapped lightly around the untouched mug of coffee.

Methos straightened in his chair.  "Because one of them belongs to Amanda and she'll only try to steal all of them?"

Connor chuckled, a husky, rasping sound that made light of the threat.  "Pierson, which MacLeod do you think you're dealing with?  I'm not the one who can't tell Amanda no."

Methos glared at him, then fell back on his last resort:  honesty.  "Look.  I need the damn things to try and keep your kinsman out of trouble."  He grinned when Connor sat up and leaned forward to listen.  "Good.  Now that we've established our mutual self-interest, MacLeod, let me explain this."

Connor chuckled.  "Do that."  He gave it a moment before adding, too innocently, "I hope your plan will work with only one stone.  It had some firm opinions about what it should look like." 

Methos turned his groan into a cough and reminded himself again that Connor was a much more suspicious man than Duncan.  Probably why we don't get along as well, too.  Too much alike.  "That's fine, MacLeod.  Any other timely revelations before I tell you the plan?"

"Don't underestimate the thing, for one."  The older Highlander actually sounded serious about that, to Methos' surprise.  "And you'd better figure out where else I fit in.  If you're doing something to help Duncan, I'm minded to stick around.  I can watch, or I can help, but I am going to be there."

This time the groan was real.  "Stubborn, bloody... Highlanders."  The tone alone made the word a curse.  Methos leaned back in his chair and growled, "Fine, MacLeod, but not a word about my methods."

Connor chuckled and lifted his mug to his lips, taking a judicious sip of coffee before pointing out, "I'd say Amanda's not the only one who can't keep me and cousin Duncan straight...."

-=-=-=-

Amanda breezed in, confident that the door would be unlocked for her.  It had better be, her arms were full of bags.  "I found the candles you called--"  She looked up to see Connor MacLeod sitting there rather than Methos.  Her first reaction was surprise; exasperation quickly superseded it.  "What are you doing here?"

Connor shrugged.  "Keeping the Sassenach from doing anything too stupid, since it's Duncan he's wanting to keep out of trouble."

Brown eyes narrowed as Amanda looked Connor over.  Head to toe black made him look even more dangerous than usual.  It also made Connor look more gorgeous than usual, too, but Amanda had given up on ever seducing him more than a hundred years ago.  She also refused to blush over the last discussion they'd had on the subject.  (Although she still firmly maintained he'd kept some of the jewelry when he tossed first her, then her clothes, out of his house).  Amanda settled for being irritated at Connor instead.  " 'Too stupid'?  Do you mean he told you his plan?"

Methos came in and she paused for a moment.  He was also wearing black from the collar of his turtleneck sweater to the toe of his hiking boots, which meant Connor wasn't the only unfairly attractive man in the room.  "Unlike you, Amanda, he had blackmail leverage, damn it.  Come along, MacLeod.  You said you could be useful.  Prove it."

Amanda glared, trying to remember what color her panties were and whether she was supposed to be all in black to summon the dead.  "Is there a dress code for this and you forgot to tell me?"

Methos grinned at her, a quick flash intended to disarm her anger.  It nearly succeeded.  "No.  We're just paranoid bastards.  Besides, Amanda, you match beautifully, as always."

Connor chuckled as he dropped a box of matches into the gym bag by his feet.  "Was that a compliment or an insult, old man?"

Methos flashed him the same impish grin.  "I decline to answer on grounds of health.  Mine.  And I'll put up with 'old man,' MacLeod, but call me Methos around anyone except Duncan or Amanda and I'll have your hide for a coat.  Come on, you two, move.  We've still got to set this up and cast the spell before moonset."

"Optimist.  Besides," Connor added, "you'd want a heavier grade leather to hide that broadsword of yours."

Amanda glared.  "You told him the plan and your name, Methos?  Bastard."  The men glanced at each other and chuckled, an annoying sound that told Amanda she'd just managed to set off some obscure male bonding.  Outnumbered, if never outclassed, she gave in to the apparently inevitable with an ill grace while making plans for a future revenge.  "Will one of you at least tell me where we're going?"

"And ruin the surprise, Amanda?  Of course not."  Methos scooped up the bag of bones in one hand and Connor first zipped up, then picked up, the gym bag.  "Right.  Candles and chalk, body, crystals, thief, blackmailer, friend of the deceased... that should be everything."

Connor asked dryly, "What, no holy water?"

Methos shook his head.  "We'll pick that up at the church."

Amanda stared at him, appalled despite herself.  "Oh, no.  I am not desecrating holy ground!"

Methos stared at her, eyes wide and puzzled.  "Who said anything about desecrating it?"

-=-=-=-

"For a thief," Connor murmured, "she's damned noisy, old man."

"If you can do better, Connor MacLeod, haul your narrow ass up here and do it," Amanda snapped.  "I still don't believe he told you the entire plan."  She turned her glare on Methos, her hands still working at the lock as she added, "And I really don't believe you don't have a key."

Methos shrugged, hands held up and empty.  "Don't look at me, I didn't change church policy about leaving the doors open."  He refrained from asking what was taking so long.  He didn't really want to listen to Amanda lecturing him on old locks and new, thin lock picks, and how if he'd only told her where she was breaking in, she'd have brought the right tools for the job....

The door swung open noiselessly and Amanda put her picks away while mostly stifling soft, indignant commentary on their manners, minds, and morals.  "Methos?  Why are we breaking into St. Julien's with a corpse?  You can't seriously be planning to try to raise Darius?"

Methos shrugged.  "Whatever you say, Amanda."  He shut the door behind them and locked it again.  "God forbid I contradict the woman who's got the compass." 

Connor walked in behind him, already looking the room over for any changes since he'd last been there.  The stone floor at St. Julien's hadn't worn down any further over the years, and was still covered by individual wooden chairs for the parishioners and a single, incongruously good oriental rug.  Donated by some friend of Darius', no doubt.

Amanda said helplessly, "But... you can't.  It's not like it would work... would it?"

Connor never looked up from rolling the rug out of the way so that Methos would have room to work.  "Why not?"

Methos pushed chairs out of the way, not bothering to stack them neatly, and pulled chalk and string out of the gym bag to start inscribing the necessary containing circles.  "We've got the body.  We've got the Methuselah's Stone."  He thought he'd kept his voice level at that, but looked up to see Connor studying him, head tilted. 

Amanda glared at Connor, though, a fierce, silent warning to keep his mouth shut and Connor nodded at last.  Methos gave her a faint smile, grateful she remembered the last time he'd tried to save someone with the Methuselah's Stone.  Alexa was dead and gone; Darius might be another matter.  Either way, though, Methos didn't want to discuss it right now.  He took a breath before going on, "We have a spell that works; I've seen it used before.  And no one got Darius' quickening, Amanda." 

Amanda said wistfully, "Oh."  She pulled out a small, expensive compass and busied herself finding true north.

His own recent grief for Alexa helped Methos keep his voice gentle.  "I'm sorry, Amanda, but Luther got Rebecca's quickening and then Duncan took his.  There's nothing we can do for her.  But if Darius' energy went anywhere...."  His gesture took in the entire church.  He chuckled a little and admitted, "If he'd been inclined to haunt something, it would be the church or the chessboard he left Duncan."

Amanda nodded, wrapping an armor of practicality around herself as she placed the compass on the ground just outside the northernmost part of the circles.  "Of course.  So.  You're saying that we have a good chance this will work -- and I agree, Darius came closer to keeping Duncan out of trouble than any or all of us ever managed -- and if not, we only have to worry about getting arrested for grave robbing, breaking and entering a church, and practicing witchcraft?"

"And vandalizing private property," Connor agreed, amused and sympathetic both for once.  He busied himself stacking chairs out of the way and added, "And Amanda? I don't blame you.  If I could get Ramirez back, I'd try, too."

Amanda asked curiously, "But do you know where he's buried?"  Then she winced at the tactlessness of her question.  "I'm sorry, Connor."

Connor shrugged.  "It's all right, Amanda.  No, I know exactly where the old peacock is buried." He smiled slightly.  "Not far downhill from my wife.  I wanted them to have company over the years."

Methos looked up, understanding and laughing both as he said, "Not too close, though, I hope?"

That got a very quick grin from Connor, one that reminded Methos that he wanted to sit down and trade stories about Ramirez some time soon.  "Exactly."

Amanda tried to contain her snickers.  "Well, no.  We are talking about Ramirez, after all...."

"Exactly."  Methos mimicked Connor's dry amusement and all three of them started laughing. 

"Ramirez always could make me laugh," Methos admitted, his hands moving smoothly as he drew sigils within the nestled circles, frowning occasionally as he reminded himself to use Sumerian, not Babylonian.  He hadn't seen this done in decades, and while he was being precise about who he summoned, he'd still rather not leave any metaphysical loopholes.  Just in case.

Amanda came along behind him, frowning slightly with the concentration it took to read runes and sigils she hadn't seen in however many years.  It never paid to underestimate Amanda, though.  Like so many of Rebecca's students had, she paid attention to odd details.  "It looks good... you didn't really need a second set of eyes for this, did you?"

Methos shrugged, never looking up from what he was writing.  He'd been very careful not to smudge the chalk as he worked his way along the stone floor.  "Amanda, I was ninety-nine percent sure I remembered all of it.  That simply isn't good enough for something this dangerous."

Connor was turning his head back and forth as he considered both the diagram over as a whole and the individual runes.  He leaned in, wary of the chalk lines as he did.  "Careful.  You need to leave room for a candle where you're about to write."

Methos turned to stare at him, surprised despite the two teachers Connor had mentioned that afternoon.  "When and where did you see this before?"

The older MacLeod shrugged and grinned.  "I get around."  He studied the rest of the diagram intently.  "It looks much the same as the other one.  Is that Darius' name?"

Methos sighted along Connor's hand to be sure they were referring to the same runes.  "Yes."  He drew the last two sigils with a flourish that, not coincidentally, merged the inner and outer circles, then extended the first sigil to do the same thing.  "Anyone see anything I've missed?"

Amanda paced around the circle one last time to examine his work, but only asked dryly, "My crystal?"

"No, I've got it, Amanda."  Methos glared at Connor.  "And did you have to talk to the--" He paused, carefully censoring the rest of that, then continued more calmly, "stone?  I had to promise the blasted thing that this was a good idea before it would quit trying to light me up like St. Elmo's Fire."

Connor shrugged.  "Never insult the supernatural.  Didn't your mother ever tell you that?  And weren't you wanting to put the remains in the center?"

Amanda sighed.  "Insult each other later, you two.  The moon's going to set in," she checked her watch, "eighty-seven minutes."

Methos chuckled.  "We'll be in plenty of time."  He grinned at Connor.  "But you're welcome to bring me the body bag."

Connor snorted.  "You did get the right coffin, didn't you?  He'll only be offended if you bring him back in someone else's body."

Amanda couldn't keep from rolling her eyes as they continued to squabble.  "Men," she sighed softly and began setting out pillar candles. 

-=-=-=-

All the candles had been lit and were burning smoothly, not guttering in any draft.  All the runes and sigils were written clearly and not just double-checked, but triple-checked.  The bones were roughly arranged in the middle of the diagram; only approximately in place, but that would be good enough.  Methos just hadn't had the time or patience to sort all the vertebrae back into precise order, or the metatarsals or metacarpals....  He still had a hideous niggling certainty that he'd forgotten something, and could only hope it was minor. 

"Can anyone think of anything we've forgotten?"

Connor shrugged.  "Some holy water on all the parties involved wouldn't go amiss.  Be careful you don't wash off any runes, though."

Amanda laughed.  "Did you try to teach your grandmother to suck eggs, Connor?"  She dabbed a cross on him, though, then herself.  She hesitated briefly, then dabbed holy water on the Methuselah's Stone, sitting where the moon shone on it through the window.  It sparked briefly in a way that had nothing to do with droplets catching moonlight, and she winced.  "Connor?  I think I agree with Methos.  Did you really have to start talking to it?"

"Of course not.  I could have let it try to take over my quickening on the bottom of the river instead," Connor said sardonically.  "You might have a stone running a body you thought you recognized."  He let that suggestion sink in, then said, "Handle your own part of this, Amanda, and don't go second-guessing mine."  Connor dipped holy water into his hand and stepped carefully into the pattern to trace a cross on Darius' skull.  "That's done.  Anoint the old man there and we're ready."

Methos bowed his head to let Amanda reach his forehead more easily and smiled when she traced a damp finger along his lips too.  "Thanks, Amanda."  He turned to study the setting moon, checked his watch, and grinned.  "Three A.M.  Appropriate somehow."  Wicked cheer filled his voice as Methos said, "Showtime." 

The stone sparked again as Methos lifted it, radiant in the moonlight and then glowing even more brightly as he put it down amid the bones.

At which point reality diverged from his plans.  Sharply.  The stone shifted again, expanding out from a solid globe to a faceted necklace fit for some barbarian king on a '60s pulp fiction magazine cover.  Oddly enough, it only reminded Methos of the legends that Methuselah had 'worn' the stone for almost a thousand years before he gave it to Noah.

This is not the time to consider old legends.  Blue-white lights spun off the crystal facets, spinning along the boundaries of the circles on the floor, and Methos changed his mind.  "Maybe this is the time to sit and think about old legends, rather than tell that stone how to suck eggs."

Connor had moved around the circle, taking up a spot precisely equidistant from Methos and Amanda, but he was glancing between the stone and the altar and the support beams as if planning where to take cover.  "Don't look at me.  It seems to know what it's doing.  I'm staying out of this."

Amanda's eyes were wide and darting around the room, also looking for a safe bolt hole, just in case.  "Is it just me or does it feel like we're in a thunderstorm?"

Methos rubbed his thumb over his fingers in an unconscious expectation of moisture, then ducked as lightning crashed down from the rafters.  The boom of thunder in the enclosed space deafened him and he backed hastily away from the circle.  Lightning struck again and again, reminding him of a quickening, although this time no one had lost their head.  Yet, anyway.

Through the flashes, he could see the candles still burning, the flames reaching steadily upward in defiance of the gusts of wind the lightning produced.  Within the circle, the bones had... rolled together?  The necklace rested around the skeleton's neck.

A hand wrapped around his arm and Methos resisted the impulse to jump.  Amanda pointed upwards, wordless in the din of the storm.  Fog billowed along the apex of the roof, sinking slowly, or maybe just taking up more and more room....  It drifted down, tendrils following the lightning into the center of the inscribed symbols.  White mist draperies poured over the bones, the crystal, the runes, growing thicker until only the faint light of the candles shone through.

"Either the stone really likes Darius," Connor said dryly, "or we're in real trouble."

Methos didn't know which bothered him more, that he didn't know when Connor had moved close enough to touch him or that he didn't know when the lightning had stopped.  The fog had filled the circle and was slowly condensing at the center.  Right where the bones had been.

Amanda stared.  "You know, guys, if I don't get my--"  She sputtered around the hand Connor had put over her mouth.

The Highlander only held on more tightly, eyes cold and dangerous as he murmured, "Amanda.  Don't start talking about breaking up something that can start a lightning storm indoors.  Let it finish, and hopefully use up most of its energy."  Much, much more softly, so quietly even their sharp ears barely caught it, Connor promised, "Then I'll help you.  Much safer for all of us if you get your property back."

Methos caught her eye and nodded agreement, then went back to watching the circle.  "Four A.M. ideas," he sighed quietly and froze as the last of the fog abruptly evaporated.  The candles went out as well, without so much as a plume of smoke among them. 

Darius lay in the center of the floor, wearing only a barbaric necklace and moonlight, and Amanda mentioned, "Did anyone else remember to bring him clothes?  I didn't."

Methos saw his old friend's lungs fill, spilling the necklace off onto the floor in a clatter of crystals that were shifting from cleanly faceted prisms to rougher looking pieces of quartz as he watched, some of them with points, some of them nearly flat sheets.  All Methos could do was laugh as he stepped cautiously into the circle to hand Amanda a piece of the crystal. "Wear it in good health, Amanda."

Darius hadn't opened his eyes yet, but he sounded blessedly familiar, voice dryly humorous as he asked, "Is the kettle on?  I'd love some tea."

Amanda laughed, arms wrapped around herself in pleasure or from the chill -- maybe both.  "As soon as we get you home, Darius.  Promise."

Connor added, amused, "Welcome back.  We missed you."  He grinned. "Duncan especially."

Methos just grinned, for once pleased to feel another immortal's quickening.  He was already adding the night's accomplishments to the too short list of 'good, late night ideas.'  "Oh, and Darius?  We've got a job for you...."

Darius sat up, careful of his newly reacquired body, or stiff in it, and asked mildly, "Clothes?  And old friend, you're late."  Mouth curving in a too familiar, very irritating smile, Darius added over Methos' sputtering, "But I'll forgive you this once."

~ ~ ~ finis ~ ~ ~

Comments, commentary, & miscellanea:

Embarrassing though it is to admit... I completely forgot that Duncan had scattered Darius' ashes in the Seine.  Mea culpa.  Call it an AU.

This was originally written for the zine Sidekicks, which is why Duncan's not around.  'Tilla talked me into it; Cinel helped me brainstorm.  My betas (listed above) kindly helped polish it.  All faults, including the cremation 'oops' are my fault.  Sorry!!

I hope you enjoyed this insanity.

Graphics courtesy of