One night in San Francisco a church goes up in flames while a man and his teenage disciples watch...
At the Legacy House, Nick informs Alex of another church fire, the second in San Francisco. It bears the same earmarks as seven previous ones (three in Boston, three in Dallas): spontaneous combustion with no evidence of flammable materials. This time, however, there was a victim, charred beyond recognition. It is only a matter of time before a third church goes up in flames in San Francisco. Alex remarks that Derek picked a great time to be gone, and Nick points out that he'd much rather be there than in London briefing the Ruling Council on Sloan's disappearance.
Nick goes down to answer the door to a caped figure. It is Kristin Adams, a very young and beautiful member of the Boston House who tells him she has come to follow up on the church fires. She seems somewhat alarmed when Nick tells her there has been a second fire in San Francisco. Since they haven't been informed that Boston was still active on the case, he asks her to wait as he goes to phone Derek in London. Derek tells him that while he knows about Miss Adams, who headed the investigation of the church fires in Boston, this is the first he's heard that Boston was sending someone out to San Francisco. He tells Nick she's quite young and has a special– at that moment he's called back into the meeting, and tells Nick to make her feel at home. When Nick returns to the foyer it is to find Kristin gone. Alex comes in and asks if Nick's scared her off already and he remarks it didn't take long.
The following morning Alex and Nick are in the control room looking at Kristin's file, where they discover she graduated from Harvard with honors in Anthropology at age 19, and spent three summers abroad in archaeological digs in the Middle East, Latin America and India. This causes Nick to remark that she's "a prodigy with bonus miles," but that it doesn't explain why she just blew in and out of there. Alex says she's sure she'll explain everything when she comes back. Sure, Nick says, *if* she comes back.
Kristin is at that moment at the bus station, showing the picture of a teenage boy to passengers and asking if anyone had seen him. In the meantime a young blonde girl accosts a teenage boy named David who has just come off the bus, offering him a place to stay at this "really neat old house" where she and her friends hang out. David is initially skeptical, asking if she always cruises the bus station looking for new friends; when she tells him she belongs to a youth group that provides support to teenagers he agrees to come along. Kristin, witnessing this encounter, is suspicious and follows them.
At the Legacy House Nick and Alex are talking with Derek long distance on screen. The Council, he informs them, are still deliberating over what they could do about Sloan. It might be possible, he says, to recreate a gateway to the Dark Side, but even if they succeeded there would be no guarantee they could retrieve Sloan. He asks about the church fires, and Nick tells him that coroner Frances Carlin has asked him to come down to discuss it. As for Kristin, Alex tells him that they discovered her trip had not been sanctioned by the Boston House, which Derek remarks is unusual though not unheard of. When Nick remarks he is uncomfortable with her running around doing a solo act while they're trying to conduct an investigation, Derek recalls saying the same thing about him on a few occasions. At this moment they receive a terse phone call from Kristin. She needs information on a license plate, she says as she watches David get into a car with the girl, and when Nick asks for her whereabouts she doesn't answer but tells him she'll call back, then disconnects to follow the two teenagers. Derek remarks that it sounds as if Miss Adams might be onto something, then he also disconnects after telling them to keep him informed. Alex is amused at Nick's frustration. "Why do I get the feeling that she's throwing the party and we're doing the catering?" he wonders.
David, at the "neat old house," is discovering that he's fallen in with some kind of religious cult, that works to get out "the word" of "the Enlightened One." As he tries to leave, the cult's leader, Jordan, comes into the room, and seems to have information about David that he shouldn't have been able to learn. He asks him where he plans to go, "Back to Harrisville, Wisconsin and the father who beat you?" When David still attempts to leave, saying he's not into religion, Jordan assures him that they aren't "into religion" either. Just then the boy Kristin has been looking for comes in under some kind of protest and pulls up short at sight of David with Jordan. Jordan asks, "Is there some kind of problem, Ethan?" and Ethan, cowed and nervous, tells him no, there's no problem, and exits upstairs. David finds this all very disturbing and leaves through the front door–to be confronted by Jordan, who he'd just left in the house! When David demands how he did it, he is cryptically informed that the ways of the Enlightened One will be revealed to him in time.
When Nick shows up at Frances' office he finds the coroner already briefing Kristin over the charred corpse of the church victim. When Kristin had phoned the house Alex had told her Nick was on his way there so she decided to join him. He also finds, to his annoyance, that Alex had already passed on the information that the car Kristin had inquired about was stolen. Again, when he asks her what it's all about she doesn't tell him and instead passes it off as "not important." He tells her they need to talk, and she tells him that has to wait. Frances keeps the peace by stepping in here to inform them that the victim is the priest from the church, and to also show them a strange design on the skull, that of 3 entwined inverted triangles inside a circle. Branded, Kristin observes, then left to burn to death. Thanking Frances for the information, she again attempts to brush Nick off by telling him they can compare notes later that afternoon. "Can you believe her?" Nick asks Frances. "Hey, don't look at me," she protests. "We two were getting along just fine until you got here."
Nick catches Kristin in the hall, again insisting that they need to talk; she says she agrees but protests there isn't time right now. He tells her he talked to Andrew Martin (in Boston); she forestalls him with, "And he told you I'm on leave." She seeks to justify her presence by pointing out that this is a Legacy case and she is a Legacy member; what does it matter who paid for the plane ticket? All she wants is to find out who is starting the fires. Nick, angered by her attitude, tries to get her to understand that in San Francisco they work as a team, and just maybe they could help her. She tells him that would be great–just as soon as she gets back (from where, she won't say). She promises to meet him back at the House, and tells him not to worry.
At the cult house, Jordan is preaching to the teens about the Enlightened One bringing the truth down from heaven: organized religion is a sham, he says, "Christian charity" is just a way for them to fill their own coffers, and that turning the other cheek just makes them end up as battered victims. The teens are mesmerized, believing every word without question–except for David, who, although he appears to agree still seems to be somewhat doubtful. Jordan preaches meeting violence with violence, that only in this way can they free their fellow man and woman from tyranny. Ethan looks around him at the others; he obviously is not under the spell and seems very nervous as the others begin to chant a strange and frightening speech beginning, "Our Father who came down from heaven..."
Back at the Legacy house, Nick informs Alex he's just spent an hour bringing Derek up to speed before he catches his flight home. Alex is looking at geographical patterns of the fires when Kristin knocks on the "wall" asking to be let into the control room. Alex smiles, amused at Nick's annoyance. Nick himself seems ruefully amused as Alex lets Kristin through the hologram. She's impressed with the control room; much homier than the one in Boston. She is pleased to meet Alex, whom she has heard so much about. Kristin (only having the Boston House as an example) perceives the Legacy as still very much an Old Boys' Club and admires Alex for her achievements which make it, she says, a little easier for the rest of them. Alex is flattered and Nick amused as he gently teases them about their "tea party." "Our resident chauvinist," Alex teases back; Kristin smiles and says, "Yes, we've met." Finally she answers Nick's question about where she's been by telling them that she was at the bus depot that morning where she saw "a young woman proselytizing a wide-eyed boy from the Midwest." She thinks this girl might be part of the cult, but she lost them when they drove away. After the coroner's office she went back to the bus depot to try to pick them up again, with no luck. She is hoping to look through the archives to try to discover something about the mark on the priest's skull. Alex comes to help, as Nick jokes he'll just stay there "playing with the maps, chopping a cord of firewood, killing a bear or two." Kristin fires back with how much she appreciates a man who knows how to make himself useful. "Smart and funny," he remarks, conceding defeat.
Over their research, Kristin and Alex discuss Nick, and Kristin tells Alex with sincerity she must feel pretty lucky to work with someone like him. Alex thinks there must be a Nick-equivalent in Boston, and Kristin informs her that, no, she is the youngest there by about 20 years: the Boston House consists of "three very stodgy men and a woman named Jane Witherspoon." Alex knows Jane: "Backbone of wrought iron supporting 65 years of proper Brahmin upbringing," she jokes. Kristin worries sometimes that, although she loves the work and feels very fortunate to be part of the Legacy, she will turn into someone just like that someday and wonder where her life went. Alex, too, confesses she has difficulty finding a balance between her work and her personal life. Kristin wonders if it's possible.
Kristin finds the triple triangle figure: it had been used by a renegade 17th-century priest, Julian Pinchot. The upside down triangles stand for the Unholy Trinity, and Pinchot had taken up the practice of dark forces to try to destroy the Church from the inside.
At the cult's house, in a meeting fraught with menace, Jordan confronts Ethan about his wavering faith. He says he needs to know Ethan is with him 100 percent, and tells him that before they strike again they need to spend some "quality time together." Ethan is very worried.
At the Legacy House, the women are showing their information to Nick. Their source talks about a disciple of "The Enlightened One," or Lucifer, and they suspect a cult being led by a practitioner in the black arts is behind it all because of the paranormal nature of the fires. Kristin urges that they must stop him there in San Francisco, or he could move on to almost any other city and they'd lose him. The fires appear random, but when they call up a map and expand it to include maps of the fires in the other two cities, they discover a pattern of 3 inverted triangles–and the next and final target, the Church of the Holy Redemption. Kristin wants to go there immediately, and protests entirely too quickly when Nick wants to call in the police. She argues that the police might scare him away, and that the three of them had a better chance to catch him before he escaped and they possibly lost him forever. Nick reluctantly agrees.
At the church, Nick suggests the two women check the "perimeter" while he checks the interior. Kristin protests that he's trying to keep the "weaker sex" outside where it's safer, and when she refuses to accept that it's simply to cover each other and is part of being a team player he reluctantly gives way and all three investigate the inside of the church. They hide when they hear someone coming. Two young men, laughing cruelly, drag in a bound and gagged priest, and Nick holds Kristin back when she wants to go help him. When Jordan comes in with Ethan, however, Kristin cries out Ethan's name. Ethan is kept back from her by Jordan, who uses his demonic powers and causes the three Legacy members to be surrounded by fire as he and his followers disappear. As the flames die away Kristin tries to follow and is held back from her impetuous and dangerous chase by Nick, who demands, "Who's Ethan?" "My brother," she replies. Nick is angry and disgusted. "Just great. Stay here." He pulls his gun and goes after the demon.
Unsuccessful, the trio returns to the Legacy House where Nick and Alex read Kristin the riot act over how she behaved. "Why didn't you tell us about your brother?" Nick demands. "Would it have made any difference?" "It might have *been* the difference!" She protests that she never meant to jeopardize anyone, but he points out that this is just what she did by calling out Ethan's name. Alex instructs her that there they work *as a team,* and Nick insists that she stop treating them like the enemy and tell them what is going on.
She confesses that she feared that if anyone found out about Ethan they would take her off the investigation. "You know we have that strict rule about mixing business with personal agendas." "So we've heard," Nick tells her, and Alex explains that they've been known to bend the rules from time to time–"When we're not breaking 'em," Nick remarks. Kristin tells them that Ethan disappeared about six months before, and was seen walking away from the first church fire. She says that she didn't think that he'd be the kind that would join a cult, that he would never hurt anyone, and was sweet but weak, like their mother. She was more like their father, she said, who was a man very hard on himself and those around him and demanded perfection, which was very difficult for Ethan who could never measure up in his father's eyes. She is sorry she didn't follow protocol in the church, but until she saw Ethan she wasn't even sure he was alive. Nick comforts her by promising they will find him.
At the cult house, Jordan has the priest tied and gagged. He explains to the group that they did not achieve their goal but had captured one of the enemy, who will be made to pay for spreading lies all these years. But they also discovered that Ethan is related to another of their enemies, member of an organization even worse than the church, although he believes Ethan's sister can be ‘saved.' Ethan tries to run when Jordan wants him to kill the priest, but Jordan catches him and tells him he must learn what it means when you abandon your friends and your cause.
Derek has returned. Nick and Alex are filling him in on Kristin's motives, and he remarks that it does indeed give her "a unique incentive." She enters and greets him, and he assures her they will do all in their power to find her brother. As they try to figure out the next move, Kristin receives a call on her cell phone from Ethan. He's very agitated and tells her that they're looking for him. She finds out where he is and tells him to stay there and they'll come and get him. "Hurry," he says.
As Nick and Kristin take off in the helicopter to rescue Ethan, Alex asks Derek what he knows about Kristin's background, and he tells her that her father, an expert in DNA dating, served as a consultant to the Legacy. He disappeared on a Legacy dig, and the investigation was inconclusive. Some believed he was a victim of foul play, others that he disappeared voluntarily for his own reasons. Kristin, he has been informed by Boston House, is convinced her father is still alive and is determined to find him "at all costs." At that moment he finds the entry by Cardinal Richelieu he had been looking for. It tells of using a cross made of ironwood, with the inverted symbol of The Enlightened One carved in it, to reverse the evil back on the one casting it. Precisely how this is done is not clear.
Nick and Kristin have been driving around the neighborhood and haven't been able to find Ethan; he'll have to come to them, Nick says, and tries to comfort Kristin that things will be all right. She asks if he has any brothers or sisters, and when he tells her no tells him that he can't have any idea of what she's going through, and he agrees. Just then Ethan comes running around a corner pursued by two other boys (one of them the new boy, David). Nick and Kristin run after them. Ethan is caught in an alley where his pursuers start to beat him up. When Nick intervenes they run off, and as Nick and Kristin help Ethan away we see Jordan watching and smiling.
Ethan is impressed by the Legacy House. Derek and Alex come out to greet him, and Derek sends Ethan and Kristin with her into the living room while he has a word with Nick. Nick tells him that Ethan says the cult leader is named Jordan, which Derek says is Hebrew for "descender," fallen to earth just like Lucifer. He thinks they have the weapon to stop him, showing him a drawing of the cross with the inverted symbol. Nick asks if he's sure, and learns that it defeated Pinchot in the 17th century, so Nick goes off to construct the ironwood cross.
In the living room Ethan is acting somewhat strained and nervous, and tells his sister that it's because he just can't believe she's been looking for him this whole time. He tells Derek that Jordan seemed to have all the answers he was looking for; that he could be so many things: warm and caring, violent and frightening, but it all seemed so right. When asked about The Enlightened One, he falls into a trance and begins saying the frightening "Our Father" we heard before. Kristin, alarmed, stops him and looking into his eyes, tells him he should rest, as Alex remarks to Derek that it seems Jordan has been doing some heavy-duty brainwashing. Derek warns that when Jordan finds out that Ethan has gotten away he could go underground again, and insists that they need to find out all about him now, and Ethan tells his sister that it's all right. He tells them Jordan preached that the church let people astray and only wanted riches and that only the Enlightened One can lead them down the path of true righteousness–and it was all a lie. He says he can take them to the house. When Kristin protests that she doesn't want him to put his life in danger again, he says he must take responsibility for himself and it's something he has to do.
It's dark when Derek, Nick, Kristin and Ethan arrive. Derek and Kristin tell Ethan to remain in the car, and start walking up to the house when they are suddenly stopped by a wall of flame. Jordan is on the other side of the flames, and in his demon voice tells Ethan–who has not stayed behind but has come to join Jordan–that he has done well. It's a trap; Ethan is completely on Jordan's side. Nick pulls out his gun to attempt to shoot Jordan, but Derek tells him not to even try it. When Kristin tries to convince Ethan to come away, he urges her instead to join them and let Jordan "save" her as he has Ethan. She offers herself in Ethan's place, and Jordan boasts that maybe he will take her as well as Ethan, or perhaps just send all of them to "meet your pitiful God."
Derek pulls out the ironwood cross and jumps through the flames, grappling with Jordan. He drops the cross but continues to fight as Nick tries to get in a shot and Kristin looks for a way around the flames. Jordan tells Derek that he doesn't know who he's dealing with, to which Derek replies that he knows exactly who he is. He grasps the medallion around Jordan's neck and pulls it off, and it bursts into flames and the wall of flames dies. Jordan is trying to strangle Derek when Kristin rushes forward, picks up the dropped cross and presses it to Jordan's chest. It burns its way into his flesh, and demon Jordan cries out in pain, releasing Derek and falling to the ground. As Kristin and Derek pull Ethan away to safety, the image of the cross continues to burn and the flames spread until Jordan is consumed. As they watch the body burn away, Ethan seems to have awoken from his spell. Kristin embraces him, telling him over and over she's sorry.
The following morning at the Legacy House over breakfast Kristin asks Derek if it's all right to stay just until Ethan is recovered, and Derek tells her they're more than welcome to stay as long as they want. Nick and Alex come down, and Alex remarks that Ethan looks like he's recovering nicely, and he assures her he feels much better. Nick offers to cook the still-hungry Ethan one of his authentic San Francisco oyster omelettes, and when Kristin asks if he's kidding is ruefully assured by Alex that no, he's not. Nick claims he would never kid over something like that–authentic Navy SEAL food. Ethan accepts, and Nick says he knew he'd like this kid and he isn't *really* related to Kristin, is he? Oh, yes, Ethan assures him with a smile. Well, Nick says, she was certainly in rare form last night, picking up the cross at a dead run and plastering the guy with it. She says she was the captain of the field hockey team at St. Mary's and maybe he'd like to scrimmage some time? He suggests something less physical so she'd have a chance, like chess. Bad idea, Ethan says; she's a killer. Derek laughs and asks if there isn't anything she doesn't do well, to which she replies seriously that she's not very good at thank yous, and she owes one to all of them. They'd risked their lives. Nick says it's all part of the job; Derek says it is called ‘family.'
Kristin's journal entry:
Family–it shapes who we are; it defines us and it protects us. Ours had been torn apart, but now Ethan is back. Maybe tomorrow our father will return from his journey. In the meantime, I take comfort in knowing we'll always have a family in The Legacy.