Reckless Season Two

by Adam the Red

The civil war is over in New York City. Her friends drifting away and surrounded by veterans she has sworn not to harm, the slayer begins to think it may be too quiet in the city that never sleeps.

14. Loss for Words

Loss for Words - Act 1

Niki watched as the man and the woman stepped out of the darkness. She shifted uneasily from foot to foot. As prepared as she had convinced herself she was... she simply wasn't prepared enough.

Joshua Valtaine stepped out of the shadow first, taking his wife's hand and leading her into the dim light offered by the cracks in the high boarded up window. He appraised Niki for several seconds before crossing his arms with impatience.

"Well...? Aren't you going to say something?"

Impossible. And terrifying. Heartbreaking. Heartbroken, Niki was frozen to the spot, her eyes aching from the intensity with which they stared at the impossible before her. She finally remembered breathing and drew in a breath of stale air. "Dad?"

Joshua smiled. Beamed was probably a better word. "We're so proud of you, Niki. You've done it."

Samantha shared her husband's smile and took another step towards the motionless Slayer. "We were so worried about you... but here you are." She looked like she wanted to embrace Niki, but she stopped a few paces away, turning back to Joshua.

The man uncrossed his arms. "We always knew you would find us again."

Niki blinked. The blink threw everything into perspective. She shook her head and took a step back. "No..." she seemed troubled by something unnamed, as if she couldn't quite drag it through the shock of seeing her parents again. "No, you're not them. They're dead."

"Knicks, you've always known we were with you. We've always been with you." Samantha reached out and took Niki in her arms. The Slayer wrapped her arms tight around her mother, squeezing tight even though she knew it couldn't be real. It felt real.

"It's a trick," Niki whispered to herself, hugging her mother tighter. "It's not real."

Joshua inclined his head. "How can you say we're not real, sweety? We're standing right here."

Niki pulled away from Samantha, holding her at arm's length. She swallowed hard. "Y– you're some kind of deception... or– or this is a dream or something. You're not them."

"Niki..." Samantha Valtaine began, her voice gentle and soothing.

"No!" Niki closed her eyes and shook her head to force back the instinct to hug her mother again. She gave the woman a shove and raised her fists for a fight.

Samantha's gentle voice melted away and she walked backwards to the man near the shadow. "You're right." She glanced to Joshua who smirked.

"We thought we could fool you a bit longer than that... but we'll take what we can get."

"Who the fuck are you?" Niki demanded, clenching her jaw so tight her teeth hurt. She tried to hold her fists as tight but the strength seemed to have gone from them.

Joshua smiled. "Wouldn't you like to know?" As the Slayer watched, his face distorted and he morphed into Jesse Trent. Niki's gaze was locked on him while Samantha's features melted into Jessica Burkov, the seer from the mall.

"Maybe we're them..." Jessica offered, crossing her arms and smiling at the expression on Niki's face. She took on the tone of voice and repeated the seer's advice to the Slayer, "The Deceivers aren't a specific set of people or demons..." Then she laughed out loud, her cruel gaze on the stunned Slayer. "I had you going the whole time. I could have told you the Deceivers were the Yankees and you'd have believed me."

"You're not her either," Niki's eyes narrowed as she dulled the uncomfortable feelings inside. "What are you really?"

"Of course we're them," Jesse said with a grin. He looked down at the body he wore, touching his arms and his chest. "This body felt pretty good too..." he grabbed his crotch and grunted, "you should know."

"Shut the fuck up," Niki warned, "You're not him."

"The genuine article," Jesse argued, opening his arms innocently. She was silent for a moment as she looked at him with a nauseating uncertainty. "One drink and I promise I'll go away," he said with the grin she remembered from the café where they met.

"You're the Deceivers," Niki said to ground herself. She looked away from him and steeled herself again. She stared at the concrete floor for a long moment, then looked back up and tensed.

"We are," Logan smiled, "anyone who has ever lied." He turned to the woman beside him. Another Niki Valtaine stood beside him, wearing an identical black leather jacket and a self satisfied smile.

"And we're here to make your life a living hell."

The real Slayer glared, swallowing her discomfort. "What are you going to do? Confuse me to death?"

The thing that looked like Logan laughed. "Hell no! We don't want to kill you: that's not why we were summoned."

Niki Valtaine's features melted back to the form of Jessica. "We're here to let you know that you have been deceived. That's all."

Niki blinked. "That's all?" She scoffed, still tense and ready for a physical fight. "Shit, I knew that already. Are you just tuning in?"

Jessica cocked her head, a little insulted. "I don't think you understand. The one who summoned us, he doesn't want you dead — he wants retribution. All of the deceptions you've lived, they were all to get you here, now. We're here to tell you: You have been deceived."

Logan stepped forward, his body and voice melting into those of Richard Addison. "Stupid girl. She still doesn't understand." His tone was as disappointed and condescending as it was when he was alive. "From this moment on, you cannot trust. Not anyone, not anything."

Jessica smiled broadly, her eyes lit up with glee. "You can't trust what you see... what you know... where you are..."

In a haze of confusion, Niki was blinded by a sudden light. Within a second, she realized it was daylight. With the furious honking of a car's horn, she spun around and realized she was standing in the middle of a street. She dove out of the way of the oncoming traffic and landed hard on the dark concrete floor of the warehouse.

Jessica and Addison were laughing at her, the old Brit clapping his hands in approval. "Now do you understand the ramifications of deception? With nothing but lies we can destroy your life, Niki, without even killing you."

"Maybe the traffic light's green, maybe it's not. Maybe that's a vampire, maybe it's not. Maybe that's water in your glass... maybe it's gasoline. Maybe you only dreamt killing fifty school kids, maybe you didn't." Jessica took another step forward and shifted back to the form of Samantha Valtaine. She reached out to help Niki off the floor. "Point is, Knicks, self-doubt is the number one enemy of screw ups. It's going to eat you alive — more effectively than any demon could. See, when a demon is done eating you, you're dead... but when we're finished with you, you'll be a huddled mass in an asylum, begging for death."

Addison smiled, stroking his chin contemplatively as it changed back to the face of Joshua, Niki's father. "And that's what the one who summoned us wants. He doesn't want a quick death: he wants you to suffer—"

"Who the fuck is this prick, anyway? What the hell did I do to him?" Niki stood and brushed off the dust from her jeans.

Samantha laughed, stepping aside and looking into the darkness of the doorway. "It could be anyone... you have so many enemies. It could be him—" Niki's mother glanced back to the Slayer as a third figure emerged from the darkness.

Niki's eyes widened as the silver letters on the black shirt caught the light. KISS. Pearce said nothing, only looking hard into the Slayer's eyes. She shook her head. "No, I killed him."

Joshua held a finger to his lips. "Oh, yes. Of course... at least, you thought you did..." The Slayer glanced at him sharply. He laughed warmly. "No, no, I'm only messing with you... he's dead—" the image of Pearce dissolved into thin air. "But it could be him..."

Niki frowned and turned back to the doorway. A glowering vampire in a dark Armani suit stepped out, his briefcase clutched tightly in his hand. It took Niki an instant longer to recognize him as the Creep. The mastermind behind the demon civil war whom she had killed... or at least, thought she'd killed two years ago.

"Or him," Samantha grinned. The Creep grew taller and more muscular as it took on the features of Adrian Keller, the military lieutenant who had helped he defeat the Creep. "It's not as though you two parted on friendly terms."

After staring at the image for a minute or two the Slayer shook her head with impatience. "Yeah, okay, I get your point: I've pissed a lot of people off. It's not like I'm expecting a medal." She began circling around the two Deceivers, her fists finding the strength they had been wanting. "But the thing I've noticed is... during your little sales pitch all you've really showed me is that there is some actual ass I can kick... and let's face it," she flashed a threatening smile, "that's one thing I do well."

Joshua smiled, vanishing into thin air and snapping back into existence six feet to the Slayer's left. "Good luck with that," he laughed. "How do you plan on fighting something when you can't be sure you know where it is?" He walked casually back towards Samantha and passed his hand through her form, grinning as another image of her tapped him on the shoulder from behind for emphasis. They both laughed as if it were the funniest joke ever told.

Niki glanced around the warehouse quickly, finding several things she thought might be useful. Darting past the two laughing Deceivers, she grabbed a large steel barrel and launched it through the air, sending it crashing through the boards which covered the window.

A bright stream of light flooded the end of the warehouse and Niki turned away to save her vision. Turning quickly back to her adversaries, she saw they were lit but cast no shadows. Glancing around, she saw two dark moving shapes about twenty feet away; nothing but shadows in the morning sun.

Niki snatched a length of steel pipe and dashed up a tall stack of crates, somersaulting in the air and landing between the shadows of her true enemies. She brought the steel pipe down on one of them, hearing a grunt as she held it to the ground.

Glancing behind her, she saw the images of Joshua and Samantha disappear. Beneath the cold steel of the bar, the form of a demon took shape, solidifying as the object which cast the shadow. Niki pressed the bar into its neck and bared her teeth.

"Lie to me now, fuck face," she challenged, staring down into the scaly and mottled face of one of the things responsible for Megan Brandon's death. Feeling the other thing approaching, she swept her leg out behind her and brought it to the ground, catching it by the arm in an iron grip and sliding it across the floor so that she held to two of them shoulder to shoulder.

"You can kill us both," the one under the steel pipe sputtered, his short pointed teeth slicing his words, "but we'll come back. We'll take other bodies... the Deception is invincible."

Niki let go of the pipe and took the demon's head in her hands, bringing it close to her face with a look of hatred. "Say goodnight, fuck face." With a snap she broke its neck. Looking over she saw the other demon roll away from her and scramble to its feet. It ran hard for the door at the back of the warehouse.

Niki took the steep pipe and threw it like a sword, watching as it slipped through the hollow image of the fleeing demon and bounced with a clang off the far wall. The Slayer frowned. Crap. She whirled around as laughter moved past her from behind — laughter in the sunlight without a source. Any other person in any other circumstance might have found that a pleasant thing...

Niki swallowed and closed her eyes, stepping over the corpse of the Deceiver and raising her fists in the darkness behind her eyelids. She could do this... it wasn't her time to die. It might be her time to get a serious ass-kicking, though. She swung her fist at the sound of footsteps and it swept through air.

Ignoring the sounds of laughter and the deceptive direction in which they led her, she concentrated only on her instinct. The thing was here, giving away false directions, false clues. To what end? Not to kill her — it had made that clear. To toy with her? After she had killed the first one the game seemed to have ended. To escape...?

Niki ran through the darkness behind her eyes and leapt off the ground at the last instant as she came to back wall. She landed on the wall, kicked off and twisted in mid air, scissor kicking the invisible demon in the face as it approached the door's threshold. Niki landed on one knee, her eyes opening as she heard the thing hit the ground.

In the blink of an eye, she had its head between her strong hands, ready to tear its very physical head off. "Who summoned you?" she demanded, squeezing its head tightly.

With a gasp its features melted into Niki's mother. Samantha sucked in a breath and coughed pitifully. "Knicks..." she managed with a betrayed look in her eyes. "You wouldn't hurt me, would you?"

Niki clenched her teeth and pulled the thing up and under her arm, holding it in a powerful headlock so she didn't have to look into its face. "You have five seconds to tell me who summoned you or you will be as dead as my mother."

The demon coughed again, struggling for breath. "Two and three—" the demon pleaded weakly.

"Five," Niki finished her five second count and broke the demon's neck with a jerk of her elbow. The scaly body slumped limp under her arm. Niki let it fall to the concrete floor, standing up and looking at her long shadow in the rays of the morning sun.

With a grim smile, and deadly eyes, she tugged at the collar of her black leather jacket and strode from the cavernous warehouse into the bright New York City morning.

--

Logan Kilpatrick pulled the blinds closed on his bedroom window. Hanna lay wearily under the sheets of his and Rachel's bed. It was almost six in the morning, but neither of them had slept any last night, what with the demon attacking and all.

Hanna's bedroom was somewhat disturbed, with the remains of a demon in a pile near the window and several spots on the carpet looking like they'd seen better days. Since Rachel had taken the car earlier, Logan thought Hanna could sleep in their bed. He pulled the thick curtains across the closed blinds, plunging the room into near darkness.

"Dad?" came the girl's voice, small and a little scared, from the darkness.

Instead of answering, Logan sat down on the edge of the big bed and brushed a strand of brown hair from his daughter's face. He kissed two fingers and touched her forehead, thankful in that moment for everything which had given her to him.

"Could you..." she asked, looking at him as she had when she had been a decade younger and confident her daddy could defeat any monster a dark room could spawn.

Needing no more from her, he closed his eyes and she hers. The secret between them, that he sometimes still sang her to sleep, was one not even Rachel knew and was a secret he knew Hanna could bear to keep.

"Hello darkness my old friend,

I've come to talk with you again,

Because a vision softly creeping,

Left its seeds while I was sleeping,

And the vision, which was planted in my brain,

Still remains within the sounds of silence..."

Once Hanna was deep asleep, Logan stepped silently from the room, closing the door behind him. He was loath to leave the house with her alone in it, but he had some business to take care of...

--

Logan stepped into the most comfortable place he had ever been. Dark and a little dank and smelling of cigarettes and beer. The Nail Biter was officially open for business again. Having been completed, it was now enjoying a tide of regulars who were taking shelter here while the sun bathed the waking world.

Logan looked around. There were too many people to just stand and look. A demon like the one he was looking for would have to be here for business. And he needed to talk business...

He slid onto a stool at the bar without a glance at the figures to either side. He had been out of demon circles for more than a year now and he didn't expect to recognize anyone.

"Logan," said a familiar voice, against all odds.

Logan slowly turned and his tired and business-like manner melted away. "Niki!" He grinned and pulled her into a rough hug. "How have you been?"

Niki let herself be hugged by the person she was now relatively certain she hadn't seen in months. Hadn't been intimate with last night. "How was your night?" she asked anyway, testing.

Logan laughed. "Interesting. Very... unique." He took the beer the barkeep offered. "Yours?"

Niki turned back to the scotch she was nursing. "Unique," she agreed. To his interested glance she lowered her gaze to conceal the smile. "I have to tell you, Logan, there's somebody out there who looks like you—"

Logan nodded knowingly. "Yeah, I know. He's... uh... he's gone."

Niki slowly let that sink in. "Oh. Okay." There was a long silence between them as the rest hung unspoken in the smoky air. "Whoever he was, he was a way better kisser than you," she said at last to break the tension.

Logan couldn't help but laugh. That girl was insatiable. And he was apparently irresistible, in any decade. "Good for him," the lawyer said through a grin. "And good for you for... looking so happy about something—" he raised a quizzical eyebrow. "What's that all about?"

Niki's grin broadened. "I've just fixed a little problem I've been having."

Logan nodded, bringing the beer to his lips. At the first taste his taste buds told him it was far too early for beer. Hell, he thought, it was still last night as far as he was concerned, and would be until he got a good ten hours of sleep. "I'm here to fix a problem too..." He tugged the sleeve of the barkeep who had turned to replace some liquor bottles.

The demon turned around and crossed his arms with a frown. "What do you want?"

"I'm looking for a demon," he said easily. There was no reason to let the bartender's mood affect his own.

The barkeep snorted. "Look to your right," he suggested and turned back to his work. Logan looked to his right and saw a tall, ugly creature. He chuckled once.

"I'm looking for a specific demon," Logan began again. "Her name is Halfrek."

The barkeep turned around again. "She comes here sometimes..." he looked Logan up and down. "She doesn't deal with the likes of you, though."

"She already has," Logan challenged with a little more ferocity in his voice, "that's what I need to talk to her about." But the barkeep shrugged and turned away again.

"She's not here now: Day job."

Logan sighed. Since first meeting Halfrek at Matt's house, he had done a little research and discovered that a vengeance demon is the only one who can reverse her own curses. And since Matt had recently been cursed with death... he would find her eventually and would not let her off as easily as he did last time.

Niki emptied the last of the scotch into her mouth and winced as it went down. If it hadn't been for the loan Whistler had given her, she would be sitting outside this place right now, just waiting for her destiny to come along. But the demon had been in an unusually generous mood this morning and was now busy talking to some demons in one of the far corners.

The Slayer set the glass down and patted Logan on the back. "Well... I think I'm going to get some fresh air."

Logan nodded. "I'm only staying for one beer, then I'll be heading for the office. I think I should actually get a small claims case done this week." Niki laughed and turned for the door.

Logan took a mouthful of beer and swallowed it behind a wry smile. There was something different, he was sure. Maybe it was having seen his future self — knowing he had at least twenty years of life ahead of him... or maybe it was knowing he'd eventually learn to control his powers... but he felt more carefree and chipper than he had in months.

It also could have been the lack of sleep, since as the beer settled in his stomach, Logan blinked wearily for a moment, then let his head sink to the bar, unconscious.

--

Rachel was pale and quiet as she pulled on her smock and signed in for morning shift. The events of last night seemed like a dream... too awful to be real and yet too perfect to be unreal. The envelope with the incriminating photographs was sitting in the passenger seat of Logan's car. She had taken the car because she had needed to get to Hamilton's office as soon as possible. She had kept the car because all the unspoken rules between she and her husband had been shattered last night.

She stared down at the patient's chart with unseeing eyes. She blinked to focus, but every time she doused her vision with the darkness, the shocking word flashed into her mind again. Divorce. She had never really considered it before. Not really. Even when Logan had told her of his past affair... it had never really occurred to her that she might truly never forgive him. But now...

Hanna would find out. Oh God, Rachel closed her eyes and pressed her fingers into them, trying force back the feelings. She started as a hand touched her shoulder.

"Are you okay?" Rachel turned and saw Michael standing near the foot of the patient's bed. "I thought you went home?" he asked with a little frown. She noticed he wasn't wearing his customary blue silk tie. His white shirt looked empty without it.

"I... uh... yeah, I came back. I heard about Matt's — um..."

"Matt's death?" Michael offered. Rachel nodded.

"He must have been sent to another hospital though, he's not here." She glanced down at the chart and back up again. "Do you want to take me out for dinner?"

The question was so sudden it made Michael do a double take — an impressive feat for an angel. "What time should I pick you up?" he said after a short moment. Of course it was tonight.

A little forced smile crossed her face. "How about seven." She didn't think she could stand to be anywhere near Logan tonight, but she couldn't stand to take another shift here.

Michael raised an eyebrow and nodded once, turning his attention back to the unconscious man. "It's a date."

--

Loss for Words - Act 2

Logan groaned a little as the barkeep shook him on the shoulder to wake him up. He rubbed his forehead a little and stood, leaving his beer unfinished. He made his way through the crowded Biter, getting to the door and hoping he hadn't been passed out for too long.

When he got outside, he saw the sun was high in the sky and Niki was nowhere to be seen. He hailed a cab and it took him to his office in Manhattan. He hated using cabs when it wasn't an emergency, but he didn't know the bus routes since he usually had the car.

It didn't concern him, though, since even after waking up from an altogether insufficient coaster-nap, he was sailing on a quiet happiness with his life and its direction. Even the sight of Niki didn't bother him. He had no secrets anymore — at least, not any guilty secrets. Having met his future self was a secret he was sure merited being kept.

He rode the elevator up to his office in silence. When he got to his desk he found a document waiting for him. He sighed with contentment. He could handle another case. The last thing he would want right now would be to ruin his reputation with this firm by not living up to his–

Divorce. The word jumped out at him, right after his name on the dotted line. And there... that was Rachel's signature. He blinked rapidly. Was this... no. It all looked in order... some sort of a joke? Must be.

He glanced at the logo in the corner of the page. W&H. His heart began pounding. This was... this was... he blinked rapidly as if this were an after-blur in his vision and he just needed to clear it. But the document remained. He shook his head. No effect. The document just wouldn't leave.

Tawnie Fischer. He felt his hands growing hot. This was her doing: she was dead, but she was still punishing him for getting Niki out of jail. He slammed his palm down on the desk, drawing gazes from around the office. He ignored them, taking the pages in a hot hand. He stopped himself just short of incinerating it with his touch. Oz had taught him that much.

With smoldering eyes he stood from his desk and marched back towards the elevator. His finger stabbed the call button. It lit up but the car wasn't waiting for him. His toes flexing to keep them from freezing, he pounded the wall next to the call button, again drawing gazes from around the office.

By the time Logan got to the street, he was exercising all sorts of self control by not bursting into flames. He hailed the nearest taxi, the damn thing passing right by him without even noticing. The first intersection it came to it blew all four tires. The next taxi Logan focused his attention on stopped by the curb.

The lawyer got in the back seat and realized he had his fist tight around the folded document. "Archer Street, Freeport," Logan said tersely. Rachel better be home and she better have a fucking good explanation. No. Scratch that. He didn't want a good explanation. He wanted her to tell him it was a mistake or a joke or a threat or a test or anything but what it looked like. He swallowed, his anger sublimating into worry.

--

Niki walked past her old apartment building with a trace of regret. She missed it, for sure, having lived there since shortly after her parents' death, but it was very freeing having no address. Last night she had slept — or rather spent the night in the back of a demon bar which were dirt cheap to rent and could be paid for with any number of occult objects which she as a Slayer had no trouble getting her hands on — or prying from dead hands, as the case may be.

The demon underground was surprisingly accommodating for someone of her talents, assuming she didn't kill her hosts and didn't let on exactly who she was. She also had the hopes that being out of the human world would keep the Council off her back until that final battle she remembered.

She hadn't seen the stick-shaking demon since the night it had attacked her and though the details were faded a little, the content of the memory it had given her was very alive in her mind. The memory of the Deceivers had, after all, turned out to be accurate enough, regardless of the fact that she saw it coming, so she had no reason to believe her battle with the dark, horned demon would turn out any different.

The Slayer sat down on the curb near the apartment. As insane as it sounded, even to her, it wasn't her death that was bothering her. Maybe it was just that she wasn't thinking about it for fear of letting it get to her... or maybe it was what the prophet under the bridge had said, but there was something wrong with the Deceivers that Niki couldn't put her finger on.

The nasty thing about having killed them was never knowing for sure whether or not they were dead. The whole thing could have been an elaborate deception to throw her off their trail... but thinking like that led to the inevitable possibility that her entire life was an illusion; so she decided to believe that she had in fact killed two demons who were responsible for fucking with her life for the past year. But what she couldn't decide was whether they had acted alone. Was there really someone who had summoned them? Had Jessica been a Deceiver all along when she had advised the Slayer about those matters, or was that just what the demons had wanted her to think?

"This must be the doubt they were talking about," Niki muttered, her chin in her hands. With a rush, a bus tore past and stopped at the intersection. Niki blinked in surprise: There was one way to find out. Feeling in her pocket for the necessary loose change, the Slayer strode to the side of the bus and hopped on, just as the doors were opening. Several other people shuffled on and found various seats.

Niki took a seat which was empty, but one of the men who had boarded with her immediately changed seats and sat next to her. She rolled her eyes and slid over to the window, not used to guys actually changing seats to be near her since highschool. She avoided eye contact with him and made sure not to touch him in any way, conscious now of how much she must look like a desperate runaway or a street punk who would do anything for ten bucks. She was a street punk who could make girls out of men, she thought with a wry smile.

She rode the bus in silence to Hudson Mall to see if Jessica was still at her table, reading palms. If she was, then either at least some of what she had said might be true, or else the Deceivers couldn't be so easily killed.

When the bus stopped at the terminal, she had to slide over the bulky man in the cheap suit to get out, only to find that he stood and followed her. Grinding her teeth, she swore she would break at least one of his fingers at the first opportunity.

She stepped off the bus and felt him close behind. Rolling her shoulders and getting ready to take him down, Niki froze when she felt the barrel of a gun in the small of her back.

"Walk," the smooth voice said as the gun was pressed harder into the leather of Niki's jacket.

Despite training to avoid bullet wounds, and knowing how to disarm someone with a gun, there was little she could do in this instance which didn't risk someone else getting shot or the Slayer revealing her extraordinary abilities. So with a grim face, Niki did as she was told, stepping into the mall and walking straight into a crowd.

With the gun still in her back, Niki waited for what this man wanted next. If it was her he wanted, he would take her somewhere private, then she would beat the shit out of him and maybe stuff the gun up his ass. But something about the cold tone in his voice made her question this logic. Why would he have forced her into the crowded mall?

"Turn around," the voice suggested, completely free of the stress she expected from someone wielding a gun. Turning to face him, she could tell from his eyes that he didn't want sex, he wanted Niki Valtaine.

"Do I know you?" she asked skeptically, trying not to sound as annoyed as she really felt. Her destiny was screwed up enough without stalkers trying to kill her too.

"I doubt it," he said with an ice cold tone. The gun, Niki could see, was deep in the sleeve of his brown suit and he held it to her stomach as if he was just caressing her. "But I know you," he said icily. "And I know that I could never get this bullet into you—" he tapped the weight in his sleeve against her side, "—but you know that you couldn't stop me from getting at least one of these people..." he glanced around at the milling crowd. He wasn't whispering, but no one was paying attention.

Niki looked around at the random people walking by. She was sure she could get the gun from him, but with his finger on the trigger, he could certainly get off one shot. She swallowed. "Who the hell are you?" she asked calmly, absorbing the force of someone bumping into her from behind. The gun jabbed into her stomach.

"My name is Richard Forster," he said simply, as if they had just met at some conference. "You might recognize me from your trial... I was one of the prosecuting attorneys."

Niki shrugged and shook her head. "Sorry, wasn't paying that much attention." She saw that this cut him, but that he was working to keep his cool.

Forster smiled as if it didn't bother him. "It doesn't matter," he said amicably. "The point is that today you may have killed the demons—" he nodded towards the end of the promenade where Jessica's vacant table was, "—but the Deceiver lives."

The Slayer's head was spinning. Applauding the compactness of destiny: all the bad guys had shown themselves in forty eight hours and she hadn't done an ounce of work to find them, still she was kicking herself for not having seen it before. Maybe it was because... Yes, that was it: above everything else was a terrible disappointment.

"You?" she said with a sound of disgust. "You're the Deceiver? The one who fucking ruined my life? The one who's turned the Council against me... made me kill that innocent girl? You..." she was at a loss for words, "you fucking turd!" She stepped towards him, threateningly, the gun jabbing into her stomach. "You're nothing!" She couldn't believe the chunky, balding little man before her was her great enemy — causing her more grief than the Creep and his entire army. "You're fucking nobody!"

Forster bared his teeth. He gripped the gun tightly his fingers hurting from holding it so tight. He used all his self restraint not to shoot her in the gut. It wasn't time yet. He bit his lip and glared. "Not me," he said hotly, losing the cool he had been hanging onto. "I'm not the one living a lie to the world, thriving in the deceit that surrounds me — you are."

Niki scoffed. "Yeah, right. I'm the Deceiver. Very clever." She snatched the gun from his hand the instant she felt his finger leave the trigger. She dropped it to the floor between their feet and took his wrist in an iron grip. "I'm not fucking responsible for killing the Brandon girl and you know it."

Forster ignored his lost gun and the iron grip on his wrist. "You're not responsible, but that doesn't mean you didn't lie to cover it up. Why didn't you tell the truth at your trial? Why didn't you get up on the stand and tell the world you're a vampire slayer?"

Niki glared, exercising her slayer strength and nearly crushing the little man's wrist in her fist. The thought pounded through her mind, this is him? This is the one responsible for the fear and the doubt? It made her more angry than anything else. "You fucking know why!" she hissed, letting up on her grip just for a moment.

"Right," he said angrily, pulling his wrist free of her grip. "We couldn't have people knowing the truth, that would be inconvenient for you, wouldn't it?" He slipped his other hand deeper into the sleeve and took hold. "But your harmless little world of lies ruined my fucking life!"

Niki took another step closer and brought her shaking hand to his throat. She shook her head and spoke very slowly. "I don't know who the hell you are and I don't give two flying fucks about your life. You killed Megan Brandon and only you and I know how. Give me one reason why I shouldn't break your neck right now..."

Forster slipped his hand from his sleeve to reveal what he was holding. Niki frowned for a moment, not sure what it was. A handle of some kind with a wire running from its bottom up his sleeve and out of sight. A button under his thumb. A dangerous look in his eyes.

"One reason? Because I don't think you want to kill all these people." With a calm hand, he pulled Niki's hand from his throat and unbuttoned the top of his suit jacket. Niki could now see that the man was not at all chunky but was in fact carrying several foil packages taped to his chest rigged with wires and a detonator.

Niki swallowed. Son of a bitch. Very carefully, Forster squatted down and took the gun in his free hand, holding it now as a redundancy rather than a threat.

"You're going to get up on that table," he nodded towards Jessica's now empty spot, "and announce to everyone here that you did kill Megan Brandon and you also killed everyone who went missing two years ago at the battle on Atlantic Avenue."

Niki looked the man up and down anew. "How do you know about that? Who the fuck are you?"

Forster raised an eyebrow at first, as if this were a perfectly legitimate question, but instead of answering, he slapped his sleeve across her face, striking her jaw with the gun. No one walking by seemed to notice. "No more questions. You're going to rot in jail like you deserve, or all these people..." he looked around at the crowded mall, "are going to join your casualty list."

"You don't want to kill them," Niki said carefully, touching three fingers to the bruise on her jaw. "I don't know who you are, or how I ruined you life by being a Slayer, but it's not what I wanted, so can we just calm down and talk about—"

"You don't get to tell me to calm down!" Richard Forster said angrily, jabbing the gun in his sleeve into her ribs. He did take a moment, however, to cool down a little. When he had taken a breath, his voice was calmer, if still icy cold. "Maybe the others don't remember: Maybe you were able to convince them it was a hostage situation gone wrong or that we'd all been exposed to some... military drug, but I remember. I've spent the last two years remembering. Surely you remember." He cocked his head. "The hundreds of us recruited to fight in some demon army — an army you destroyed."

Niki frowned very slightly. "I remember."

Forster nodded spitefully. "You remember? You remember killing those soldiers — hundreds of humans as if we were nothing but animals?"

"You weren't human," Niki said distantly, "you were under the control of the Nosphorus."

In a motion which made Niki jump a little, Forster shoved the gun into his pocket and pulled the collar of his shirt open to reveal a thick scar where his shoulder met his neck. "A sword," he explained, his tone harsh and unforgiving. "A fucking sword nearly cut my head off. We weren't demons... we were human beings and it was your job as Slayer to protect us from harm. There was a cure, wasn't there? For the plague?" Niki opened her mouth to argue, but he pulled his shirt back up. "But you didn't try that, did you? No, just slaughter us all, that was your brilliant plan." He pulled the gun out of his pocket and drew the hammer back. "Well congratulations, you did it. You're a fucking hero."

Niki brought her hands up as he leveled the gun at her. "I never said I was a—"

"Shut up," Forster ordered. "I'll tell you what you are. You're a failure. You failed to stop all those people from getting infected — you failed to save them from bullets and swords. You're a waste of material, Niki Valtaine," he said, his voice acid. "You're going to get up on that table and tell everyone here just how much of a failure you are." He unbuttoned the rest of his jacket and glowing red numbers appeared on a small timer. "And you've got... five minutes and thirty two seconds to get your point across."

"They won't believe me," Niki protested as he raised the gun threateningly. Three and two make five, her mind screamed at her.

"Then you'd better be damn convincing," Forster replied.

"If they see your bomb—"

Forster calmly buttoned up his jacket. "If you say a word about the bomb, I guarantee that not one of them will get far enough away to live."

"What if they see the gun?" Niki said, thinking quickly.

"Of course they'll see the gun," Forster said evenly. "You'll be holding it." He slapped the gun into her hand and closed her fingers around it. "Fire one shot into the air to get their attention, then toss it on the ground or mall security will shoot you."

Niki looked at him as if he only just now had lost his mind. "You're fucking insane," she said as he delved into his pocket and pulled out another firearm.

"And don't try anything stupid," he said with a snarl. "I've got a spare." He leveled the second pistol at her stomach and prodded her in the ribs. "You might want to hurry: you've got less than five minutes now."

"And if I do?" Niki prompted at last, her heart pounding. "If I tell everyone... what're you going to do?"

Forster slowly reached up and took Niki by the collar of her black leather jacket. He pulled her close and stared deep into her, his throat tightening. "I'm going to go visit the grave of my wife," he said, holding back the sorrow, "the grave you sent her to, two years ago."

He let her go with a rough shove and the Slayer backed away into the crowd, having no choice but to head for Jessica's table.

--

Jessica Burkov, the seer of Hudson Mall, sat curled up in the women's bathroom, her hands over her head. She had been having difficulty reading people this week and up until ten minutes ago had thought she'd need to close for the day. Then she had received a simultaneous image from each and every person in the mall. And had nearly vomited.

She sat by the toilet, rocking back and forth, her face pale. "Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, they're all going to die..."

--

Loss for Words - Act 3

"Rachel!" Logan shouted, slamming the front door closed behind him. He marched into the kitchen to find her setting down the telephone. She was dressed to go out. "What the hell is this?" he demanded, slamming the document down on the counter.

"Your notice," she said simply. "I've filed for divorce."

Logan's mouth hung open for a moment, his mind racing. "Wha— why?"

"Why don't you ask Niki?" Rachel shrugged, obviously hiding the supreme anger on her own part. "And once you've asked her, why don't you roll over and fuck her a few more times?" She turned to the small telephone table and slid her hand into a manila envelope, pulling out a sheaf of enlarged photos. She tossed them onto the counter towards her husband where they slid apart to reveal several intimate encounters between the blond haired man and the blond haired woman.

Logan was speechless. He slowly reached down and lifted one of the pictures to look at it. In the corner was stamped a small W&H logo. "Where did you get these?" he asked, almost more offended than angry.

"I hired someone," she said casually. Rachel stared at him with a mixture of anger and regret as he stared at the photo in disbelief. "I told you never to see her again. I gave us another chance because Hanna deserves parents who love each other." There was a brief pause but he didn't look up. "With my job at the hospital, my lawyers say I'll have no problem... getting full custody."

It took a moment for the words to register. Logan slowly raised his gaze from the picture. "You are not taking Hanna away from me." When Rachel said nothing, Logan's anger and most of all his fear mounted. "There's no way in hell I'm letting you take my daughter!"

"Our daughter," Rachel said poisonously, "whose mother alone loves her enough not to jeopardize the family by screwing around."

Logan's mind was racing a mile a minute now. His thoughts were a jumble of chaos and anger. Just this morning he had kissed Hanna like he always did—

"With your criminal record, I'm also getting a restraining order against you," there was retribution now in Rachel's eyes, a cold fury that had finally found an outlet. A way to hurt him as deeply as he had hurt her. "You'll never see her again."

Logan reeled. He staggered back from the kitchen and tore out the front door to his little brown car. "This isn't over," he said quietly as the door closed behind him. This isn't over, this isn't over, this isn't—

Rachel slowly collected the photographs and slid them back into the envelope. She carefully closed the envelope and turned it over in her hands. She turned it over again. Turning it over once more, she couldn't keep from sobbing.

She tore the envelope and its contents across the middle and held her hands to her face, crying in anger and regret and at the loss of the life she had and at the cruel universe which had engineered the whole thing.

Logan sat behind the wheel of his car, swallowing hard, his face finally contorting in anguish, tears spilling down his cheeks. "This isn't over," he whispered hoarsely, fighting to keep from breaking down.

With a furious screeching of tires, the little brown car pulled out of the driveway and rocketed off down the street. He didn't know where he was going, but if he didn't do something, he felt like he would curl up and fade away. With the intensity of the power inside him, driven by grief, that is exactly what he felt would happen. So drive. Drive, he told himself.

Without thinking he turned right instead of left once he'd entered Manhattan, heading away from his office and the offices of Wolfram and Hart. He didn't know why, but he wasn't going there. Not now.

With tears drying on his cheeks, he pulled the car onto 37th Avenue East and stopped in front of the little stairwell which led down to the most familiar place his dark soul knew. He jumped out of the car, knowing now who he was looking for.

Niki. Those pictures... they weren't of him, he knew. It was Loki. It had to be. Niki had said — where the hell was she? He stormed down the stairs to the Nail Biter and shoved the door open. The clientele looked at him for a moment, then turned back to their business.

Not one of the faces that looked was Niki's. The place was still packed. Whistler, in a back corner, avoided his gaze. Logan didn't care. He didn't want to talk right now. He wanted a drink. He wanted a drink very, very badly.

Halfrek looked out from the shadows of the darkest corner of the Biter as Logan sat himself down at the bar. She shifted her gaze haughtily back to her companion. Taking hold of her champagne flute, she raised it and heard it clink with that of her companion.

"To vengeance," Hallie said with no measure of true enjoyment.

Her companion nodded with satisfaction. "To vengeance."

--

Niki's hands were trembling as she walked through the crowd to the table Jessica had used as her palm reading headquarters. The gun was hot in her hand from being tight in Forster's fist for who knows how long. It was heavier than it looked. She had never been very good at public speaking. She was the drummer – the one in the background that you could never really see, doing all the work with wooden sticks.

She passed the handgun to her other hand, wiping the sweat from her palm onto her jeans. Nervously, she stepped up onto the table. Amazingly, nobody noticed.

A little girl wearing a bright pink T-shirt skipped along beside her mother, holding her hand happily. Niki blinked. The seconds ticked by of which she knew there were a finite number.

After an indeterminate number of heartbeats and lifetimes, she raised the gun above her head and fired a single shot into the air. It was louder than she had imagined it would be.

The little girl in the pink shirt cried and was swept into her mother's arms as a sort of shockwave sent the crowd moving away from the source of the shot.

Niki blinked, her mind growing numb. It was so unreal, looking down at them like this. They were all staring at her, their eyes wide. She slowly brought her arm down and wanted to let the gun drop, but her hand wouldn't open. She looked at it, shook it a little, but the fingers on that hand suddenly refused to accept her authority.

In seconds, a mall security guard was shouting at her. His words, she assumed, were something along the lines of "drop the gun," and "put your hands behind your head," but Niki wasn't really listening to him.

She should have been staring at the man with the bomb on his chest who was ready to turn this crowd of people into ashes, but instead she was staring at the little girl in the pink shirt and time was slowing down.

They couldn't all die here... she hadn't fought the horned demon yet. Unless everyone died but her. Couldn't the girl in the pink shirt live too? Wouldn't that be okay?

"Ma'am!" the guard shouted between shouts into his radio. "Put down the gun and put your hands where I can see them!"

"I... uh... I have some things to say," Niki said distantly, speaking to the little girl who was crying louder than the security guard was shouting.

"Everyone get away from the table!" the guard hollered, trying to shove people farther away and barking into his small radio. He wasn't armed and was going to have to wait for the police.

"Uh, first," Niki said, squinting uncertainly as if reading from a distant cue card. I'm not a failure. "I want to say that I'm a failure. And that I really regret having... killed so many people since I was called."

She glanced over at the spot where Forster had been standing and it took her several seconds of staring to realize he wasn't there anymore. She looked a little to the left, then to the right before spotting him. He raised his eyebrows to let her know she was running out of time and he wasn't impressed.

"I killed Megan Brandon," Niki said heavily, the words coming out like the feeling of throwing up. She grimaced a little at the taste it left in her mouth. "I... uh... killed Megan Brandon." She blinked, finally looking back to Forster to see if he was satisfied. He was not.

Niki looked down to the gun in her hand, annoyed that she hadn't dropped it yet. Forster was right: if she didn't drop it before the cops came, they'd probably shoot her. There was something on the butt of the gun, a string through the little hole and a piece of paper on the string. Looking up again, the security guard caught her attention. He was trying to calm somebody down. A woman.

"I killed some people two years ago," Niki continued as if in a dream, "it was on Atlantic Avenue. I didn't mean to. I'm sorry." She swallowed, frowning as the woman by the security guard turned around.

"You have to get these people out of here," the woman was saying frantically, her tone urgent and pleading, "they're all going to die!"

"Jessica?" Niki said with confusion. "I thought I killed you!" This elicited some gasps and mutters from the crowd which began to back up some more from the crazy punk with the gun.

"Niki!" Jessica turned on her, "come down, please don't kill them!"

Niki was shaking her head, none of this making sense. "What are you talking about? I'm not going to—"

"Yes you are!" Jessica shouted, the security guard pulling her back by the shoulders. "You're going to kill them all!"

--

Logan slammed the shot glass upside down on the bar. Without hesitation, the barkeep filled another for him and Logan threw it back with a grimace.

"That's fuckin' tough," the young vamp said beside him, a tall glass of pig's blood spritzer before him. "My wife was the first person I sired," he indicated a table in the back where a young vampire woman was getting comfortable with several demons. "Biggest damn mistake in my unlife."

"She's going to fucking take my kid," Logan said as he shook his head to clear the effects of the shots. "Just — out of the blue, you know? We were fine, since, dammit!" He grabbed the bottle from the barkeep and poured himself another measure.

"Invite me into your place," the vamp offered, "I'll take her out for you." He laughed, taking a sip of his drink. "Thought I'd kicked human blood once and for all... you know, to keep the goddam Slayer off my back, but then I got my hands on this..." he rolled up his sleeve to show the silver IXI bracelet. "So, seriously, I could take care of the old lady, no problem."

"Nah," Logan sank down a little lower in his depression. "Once I invited you in, you'd just eat my kid too. You vamps are fucking predictable."

The vampire scoffed. "Jeez Louise, I was tryin' to help. I don't have a lot of skills, you know? Used to be a big computer programmer for that company... you know? That big company? But they fucking fired me... So the very next night this jerkoff bites me and has the gall to let me drink his blood, like he's Satan's gift to—"

"I won't let her take my Hanna," Logan said sternly, squaring his shoulders and sitting up a little straighter. "I'm a fucking lawyer... I've got a firm. I can fight this."

"Yeah," the vamp said with a grin, "fight it! Don't take that crap! If there's one thing I know about women, they—"

"I could win the suit— my criminal record fits on a post-it, and it wasn't violent or anything..." he frowned. "Well, it was vehicular manslaughter, so it was kinda violent. But the guy was a goddam watcher! He was going to take Hanna away from me!"

"Damn," the vamp said with raised eyebrows. "Everybody's after the bite-size, aren't they? How come?"

Logan rolled his eyes and threw back another shot, slamming it down with the others. He knew he was far too drunk to be talking about this, but he was also too drunk to care. "I don't know," he said with irritation. "The British dickhead wanted her because... she's all chosen and shit, and my wife," he held up a finger, "is just too used to getting everything she wants... yeah..." he blinked away a little confusion. This was Rachel he was talking about, right? "Yeah... she's got her own job... got her own friends she doesn't tell me about... she has this investigator who's been taking pictures of shit..." he glanced around the bar again, searching for Niki's face. "Son of a bitch. The woman even went to my old law firm to file for divorce. Fucking insulting."

"Looks like you were on your way to losing the pants in that marriage a while before the divorce," the vamp said with a little amusement.

"You wanna see the fucking pants?" Logan grabbed the bottle of tequila from the barkeep which he had been working away at, one shot at a time, and pulled out the stopper. With a flick of his wrist, he doused the vamp with the clear liquid. "Here's the pants," he said through clenched teeth.

His eyes lighting up, a spark appeared before the soaked vamp, jumping onto his damp shirt. A blue wave of flame instantly enveloped him and the vamp jumped from his stool screaming and trying to brush the flame from him. Within seconds he was dust.

Logan spun back around to the barkeep, his eyes still glowing. "You better have another bottle of that back there..."

--

"Niki!" Jessica finally escaped the grip of the security guard and got to the edge of the table, "don't listen to him— there is no bomb! I know what you saw — what you're doing, but you have to stop!"

Niki looked down at the gun again. There was the little piece of paper tied to the handle. B, it said. Exhibit B. "He's standing over there—" the Slayer looked up to where Forster had been standing. He was no longer there. Looking a little to the left, she spotted him again. He was shaking his head and his suit coat was unbuttoned again. Niki could see the timer counting down the seconds. One minute and ten seconds left.

"No," Jessica insisted, taking Niki gently by the ankle as she stood at the edge of the table. "You're still being deceived, there's no Richard Forster: there's only you with the gun, and if you don't come down you're going to get everyone killed!"

"Where did I get the gun?" Niki said distantly, trying again to drop it. It wouldn't go.

"You stole the gun," the seer insisted. "At the trial, don't you remember? When the demons attacked, you went to the bench and took the gun."

Niki looked down at the little tag on the gun. Exhibit B. This was the gun used to shoot agent Harrison. Snakeface's gun. She looked back towards Forster with a frown. Again he wasn't where he had last been. Now she couldn't find him in the growing crowd. People were pushing and shoving to see the spectacle.

"Niki, put down the gun," Jessica pleaded. "All these things you're saying... you don't need to say them— there is no bomb."

Niki swallowed. Looking from the gun to the seer, her eyes caught the red of the timer. Forster was standing right behind the security guard. The guard was talking hurriedly to another officer in uniform.

"She's trying to talk her down," the guard was saying. "The police will be here in a minute."

Niki watched the timer. Less than a minute. Less than a minute and all these people would be ashes. She looked down at the gun which shot Harrison. Had she taken it? She didn't remember. Ashes. The Cremator strikes again.

"I can't put the gun down," Niki said honestly. "And we don't have much time. I have to say—" she swallowed. "I've killed hundreds of people, and if I don't hurry the hell up, I'll kill you all too."

"No!" Jessica shouted. "It's all a lie! Just get down from the table and everything will be fine!"

"I'm really..." she frowned as her throat tightened. The little girl in the pink shirt was whimpering now, unsure of the danger. "...really sorry about everything. I just wanted to live my life. I didn't know how much I'd hurt other people... I wish I could take it all back. I wish I had never been called as the Slayer." She looked down at the gun, then tried to think in her head. How many seconds were—

With a loud bang, a gunshot scattered the crowd again. The two security guards dove to the ground and people began running here and there, unsure about anything anymore. The little girl in the pink shirt was screaming at the top of her lungs.

Niki looked down to see Jessica's face become blank. The seer's features melted to the scaly visage of the demon Niki had killed in the warehouse. It took a smug step back from the table and crossed its arms, flashing a little smirk.

"Fine, you win," with a little nod of acknowledgment, it dissolved into thin air before the Slayer and the bustling crowd's eyes.

Most of the crowd, however, were not looking at the Slayer anymore or the demon. They were looking at the short, balding man in the brown suit. The crowd parted and Niki hopped down from the table to get a closer look.

Richard Forster lay on his back, his mouth open and a pool of dark blood behind his head where the bullet had exited. The gun was still clutched in one hand, but the timer on his stomach had stopped at five seconds. Niki swallowed, her face pale. She felt a little dizzy.

Assimilate later, she commanded herself, leave now. As the crowd pushed and jockeyed for the best position from which to see the dead bomber, Niki slipped away, finally pulling the gun from her trembling hand and dumping it in the nearest garbage can. The irony of it failed to amuse her.

She shook her head. What the fuck had just happened? Forster was real... he was a corpse on the floor. The gun was real... Jessica. Was Jessica real? Was she— had she been a Deceiver the whole time? Richard Forster... With a frown, Niki recalled having seen the name before. On the wall... in the cave. She was judged for the death of Richard Forster. And his wife.

The Slayer slowly lowered her head into her hands. She wanted to cry, but she felt too miserable to conjure up the energy necessary. All she wanted to do was forget. Forget today, forget yesterday and forget the memory she had of her death. Forget it all.

--

"It's not fucking fair!" his hand came down on the bar and the multitude of shot glasses jumped.

"You give and you give and you give," the vamp girl was nodding. "I was his perfect little wife for three years, then the little geek gets fired and sired in the same weekend! Am I free? No! He comes home and then it's all eternity and scourge of New York, and suddenly there's all this 'we' talk—"

"I fought to protect them," Logan said his eyes on the little glass mayhem on the bar's surface. "I risked a hell of a lot to keep them safe and... happy. Hanna would be dead so many times over if it wasn't for me..."

"But even undead, he's still a geek!" the vamp girl, widow to Logan's earlier drinking buddy, was sharing the last of a bottle of Jack Daniels with the ranting conjurer.

"And Rachel," Logan scoffed. "If I hadn't enchanted her wedding ring, she would be so dead right now. I mean seriously. There is so much crap going on that she doesn't get... but no, a couple of Polaroids and flush: fourteen years of marriage down the toilet."

"Who could blame a girl for getting around? Fun is fun and it wasn't as though he was destined for anything but Slayer practice anyway." The girl grimaced as the shot went down. "I'm glad he's gone. I'm glad you finally taught him a lesson."

Logan raised his glass to that. "To lessons." He drank. "Damn, I wish someone would teach Rachel a lesson. You know she doesn't know the first thing about surviving in this world... I mean, what would she have done if she'd found Hanna outside with those vamps?" He scoffed. "Called the cops!"

"It's amazing people like her are still alive," the vamp agreed, pouring herself another. "And she has the audacity—" she struggled over the word, "to call you unfaithful. Take everything you have!"

Logan grimaced, but not from the J.D. "Someone should make her pay," he said under his breath, his voice trembling. "I'd give anything if someone taught her a lesson."

The vamp raised her glass again. "To giving anything," she toasted.

Logan looked up at the girl for the first time since she sat down. "To giving everything."

Tossing back her drink, the vamp slid down into unconsciousness, laying her head on her arms on the bar. Logan patted her on the back and stood.

"I gotta take a piss," he said a little woozily. Staggering to one of the doors at the back of the bar, he didn't notice as several of the demons began arguing in raised voices.

--

Michael took a little breath, running his hand over his short hair and adjusting the collar of his white shirt. He had found another tie for the occasion — not the blue one, but a subtle grey and he wore a pinstripe suit coat over it all.

With a little nod to himself, he raised his fist and rapped on the door. After scant seconds, there were sounds of movement behind the door and a few seconds later the door opened.

Rachel Kilpatrick forced a pleasant smile onto her face. It was clear she had been crying and was busy trying to hide it. She opened the door wider and forgot to speak for several seconds as she took in the sight of Michael in his suit.

"You're early," she said at last, glancing at her watch. She had obviously been waiting most of the day to go out, considering she was already dressed and nearly ready herself. She wore a long black skirt and a sleeveless burgundy blouse. Her brown hair was arranged stylishly around her shoulders. "Come on in, just let me get my things and we'll go..."

Michael nodded gratefully as he stepped over the threshold of the house. He glanced to the left and saw Hanna sitting in the living room in baggy jeans and T-shirt watching television. She waved to him with a smile, but said nothing.

"Our reservation isn't till seven thirty," he said as she went up the stairs. "We don't have to leave just yet..."

"You're going out on a date?" Hanna called from the living room. "With my mom?" She sounded a little appalled, mostly at the thought of romance at her mother's age rather than the threat to her parents' relationship. Even though they had tried to hide it, Hanna had known from the beginning that her 'happy family' was a front for her sake. It touched her that both her mom and dad went to such trouble to pretend everything was fine in front of her, but seeing her mom with Michael made her just a little uncomfortable. "Does dad know?"

"Hanna," Rachel called scoldingly from the top of the stairs. "This isn't a date. We're just friends going out for dinner. Your father's busy tonight."

"Yeah, right," the girl said under her breath, turning her attention back to The Twilight Zone.

Rachel at last came down the stairs, imperceptibly more ready than when she had gone up. She moved to the kitchen and took hold of her purse, hurrying back to the door where she stopped and frowned. She glanced into the living room, then back up the stairs. "Michael?" she said uncertainly. There was no answer.

Something heavy pounded into the door and she let out a little yelp. Hanna jumped up from the couch in the living room and ran to her mother's side as the pounding continued.

"Mom..?" Both mother and daughter stared at the solid wood door, an unspeakable shape moving behind the small frosted window.

Rachel stood in her nicest clothes, clutching her purse as some unidentifiable shape pounded on the front door. After staring at it, frozen, with wide eyes for several seconds beside her daughter, the pounding stopped. Rachel slowly opened her mouth. "Hanna... call nine one—"

The door exploded inward and they both screamed.

--

Logan staggered out of the washroom feeling weak and tired. He just wanted to curl up in bed and go to sleep for a year. He straightened, however when he saw the ruckus which had erupted at the center table and around the bar.

Two tall, vaguely lizard-like demons were shouting and threatening each other, occasionally slapping the other's drink off the table between them. Logan moved around them and the spectators who were gathering in case a fight should break out.

Logan sat himself down at the bar and a little bulldog of a demon kept fingering the barkeep and hissing that he wasn't doing his job. The vampire chick Logan had been drinking with was sulking now that no one was paying her tab.

"What's all the heat about?" Logan asked her, reaching for the bottle of Jack Daniels. She merely sneered and slipped off the stool, finding a table farther away. Instead, Logan took the barkeep's arm and asked him. "What's going on?"

The demon with the dishcloth over his shoulder opened his hands apologetically. "Sorry, pal, they're usually more professional about all this, but you were kind of nonspecific." He pointed to the two fighting demons at the center table. "See, the M'fashniks were trying to decide what qualified as the 'anything' you'd give... and then they started one-upping each other, and now we've got a full blown price war going on."

Logan frowned. "Wait... what? They're arguing about anything?"

The barkeep nodded. "And this guy," he thumbed the bulldog demon and the three other similar demons who were hissing and muttering angrily at the bartender himself, "he and his friends are pissed because where they come from it's my job to put you on a list and contact everyone and shit like that. They just don't like that the Werlech took it first." He looked at the little pug faced barflies. "But it's not my fault that they're a little slow." The demon growled.

Logan closed his eyes and shook his head trying to make sense of it. "Wait... go back. The Werlech took the what?"

The barkeep blinked. "The hit. The Werlech demon took the hit you put out." He began to pour Logan another drink. "Personally, I would have done it a little more discretely, since the Werlech demon isn't exactly cheap. You did say you'd give anything so I wouldn't want to be you when that son of a bitch comes to collect..."

"I said I'd give anything?" Logan said with confusion. "Wait... a hit on who?"

The demon nodded. "I agree — it was a poor choice of words, and now you've got my customers breaking my glasses. Thanks a lot."

Logan turned around as the two M'fashnik demons overturned the table and began shouting and shoving each other. Suddenly Logan's eyes widened. He spun back around and took the barkeep by the shirt collar, pulling him in close and breathing hard.

"A hit on who?"

The demon with the Jack Daniels frowned a little. "On your wife. You did say you've give anything... What kind of a bar did you think this was? Half the people here are hitmen and everyone here is open for business." Logan slowly sank down on the stool again, his mouth hanging open.

Just then a sulking Slayer slid into the stool beside him. She snatched one of the many shot glasses and tapped it for the barkeep to fill.

"Hit me."

--

The sun was now setting in the West, bleeding and staining the sky bright red. The sounds of screams and demon snarls had died away. Hanna hid behind her bedroom door, her eyes wide, her breathing fast and shallow.

The big thing —she hadn't spent too long looking— had chased them up the stairs and had taken a swipe at Rachel. Hanna had ducked away and had heard the chase continue down the hall to her parents' bedroom — but she had been too terrified to move or even call out.

Now everything was quiet. Was it too quiet? Wouldn't mom have called out if everything were alright? Where was dad? These thoughts, swimming around and around in the girl's mind kept her frozen behind the door, her eyes searching its bleak surface as she scanned the silence.

After several minutes, she slowly pushed the door away from the wall and stepped out of the corner, walking on the edges of her sock feet to avoid making noise. She looked out of her bedroom doorway down the hall and saw the orange light cast out of the other doorways from the setting sun.

Swallowing hard, she started down the hall to her parents' bedroom at the end. She could see the door was slightly ajar and a wedge of red-orange light fled out into the hall. Her feet stepped as gently as she could make them, avoiding the places in the floor where it creaked.

When she reached up to brush a strand of hair from her eyes, she realized her hand was shaking. It was moving almost as fast as her heart as she moved inexorably forward. Unable to either make a fist or keep her hands still, she let them tremble at her sides, wiping the cold sweat onto her jeans.

The silence screamed at her. When she finally reached the end of the hall, her gut was churning. Everything was wrong. She couldn't possibly find beyond this door that everything was okay. With a shaking hand, she reached out and pushed the door open further, looking into the bedroom lit with the bloody dying rays of the sun.

The back of the creature was turned to her, its leathery skin the color of charcoal. It held the body by its shoulders and was inhaling deeply from the mouth, its eyes rolling back in pleasure. With a thud, it dropped the corpse to the floor and snorted in satisfaction.

Hanna's eyes widened in horror and she clapped a hand over her mouth to cover the scream. The little squeak that did escape caught the attention of the massive Werlech demon as it finished collecting its fee from the body at its feet.

With a snort from animal nostrils, it turned its great head and its two pronged horns scraped the ceiling. Looking at the stunned girl for the space of a heartbeat, it opened its eyes wider and bellowed a blood-curdling animal call that gripped Hanna's heart like a vice.

The girl turned and dashed back down the hallway as fast as her legs could carry her, tears of terror clinging to her lashes. It was instinct which made her turn back into her room instead of taking off down the stairs and out the door: the privacy of her bedroom seemed to promise her the most impenetrable protection.

Slamming the door closed with a sound of panic and terror, she realized she was trapped here and the footsteps of the thing down the hall were growing closer. Her hands trembling furiously, she searched her room for a hiding place and her gaze settled on her closet.

She pulled the door open, throwing aside the outfits which hung like a thick curtain behind it, and slid as far back into the darkness as she could, pulling the door closed behind her. Wriggling back behind a tall box, she pulled her knees up to her chest and cried silently in terror.

It was in that darkness and terror that she came to realize that she was not alone in the closet. With a little yelp, she felt movement next to her and looked up to see in the near blackness the familiar outline of the face.

"Michael?" she said, her voice trembling. He took one of her hands in both of his and held it tight to keep it from trembling.

"I'm here," he said gently, a little sadness in his voice.

Hanna was still breathing fast; her eyes searching for his in the inky darkness. From behind the fabric and the closet door, Hanna could hear the sounds of the demon entering her room. It tossed objects here and there, slamming its fists through her furniture.

"Are you going to save me?" she asked in a desperate whisper, her hand shaking despite Michael's comforting grip. She felt both his hands on hers and she could tell he wasn't scared at all.

In the darkness, as the demon approached the closet door, a wing of silky white feathers wrapped around Hanna and held her close as Michael laid her head on his chest. She felt his steady, strong heartbeat.

"Yes, I am."

--

Loss for Words - Act 4

Niki watched Logan run out the door. She frowned and lifted the shot glass to her lips, letting the drink burn down her throat. The door slammed behind the conjurer and Niki blinked away the sting in her throat.

"What's his problem?" The Slayer asked with a disinterested tone.

"Whistler still paying your tab?" the barkeep asked, holding the bottle back just in case.

Niki glanced back and saw Whistler talking to a couple of demons, his back turned to her. She snatched the bottle from the demon behind the bar. "Damn right he is. He owes me, big time."

"What could Whistler possibly have done?" the barkeep asked with skeptical amusement.

"That little..." she took a calming breath. "That guy is the worst demon I've ever dealt with." She threw back her next shot with a sound of satisfaction. "The day I've had — you wouldn't believe."

"Try me," the barkeep smirked, capping the bottle with his thumb.

Niki shrugged. "You ever heard of the Deceivers?" The demon made a noncommittal shrug. Niki nodded as if this were enough. "Well, I made some enemies a couple of years ago... you know, when I saved the world. So one of 'em decides to get me back."

"Vengeance Demon?" the barkeep asked. "They're trouble. I'd keep 'em out of my bar altogether, but they have expensive taste in alcohol and I've got bills to pay."

Niki raised an eyebrow and tapped her glass again. "No... not vengeance demon. Regular human... or maybe he was a demon or something — I don't know. The point is—" she tipped her head back and emptied the shot into her stomach, slamming the glass back down on the bar. "Whew. Point is, this pissed off little bitch of a man summons these Deceivers to poke their noses into my life and fuck everything up." She laughed hollowly. "I don't have a dollar to my name and not a friend in the world. All because of a bunch of crap and some bullshit advice... given to me by whom?"

The barkeep frowned. "Whistler?"

Niki nodded. "Yeah. He tells me to go find this seer. So I find her, turns out she's actually a Deceiver who's been fucking with me the whole time. But I don't find this out until it's too late, of course: when I'm standing face to face with the little runt who planned the whole thing."

"You don't sound very happy," the barkeep noted. "You're here, aren't you? Did you win?"

Niki slumped a little lower in her stool, fingering the full shot glass. "Yeah," she muttered.

"Well, there you go. Congratulations." He poured her another drink as she emptied the next one. "So why do you look so depressed? Not that my business is complaining..."

Niki sighed and slid her hand over the glass to block a refill. "It was just so fucking disappointing, you know? All the prophecy and destiny and life and death and meaning and shit... I just expected there to be more, you know?"

The barkeep's face contorted to a look of incredulity. "You... wanted an apocalypse?"

The Slayer didn't react for several seconds. "Well... kinda, yeah."

He pulled a fresh glass from behind the bar and poured her another. "You're weird."

"Niki?"

The Slayer turned around and saw Whistler slowly walking toward her. The look on his face made her gut turn. Uh oh...

"What are you doing here?" he demanded, his eyes fierce and his expression shocked.

Niki's eyes shifted uncomfortably. "Uhh..." she glanced back to her drink and the barkeep. "Am I supposed to be somewhere else?"

Whistler looked to the old beer-motif clock in the corner of the bar. His expression became more worrisome with each passing second. The demon slowly looked off into the distant nothing and walked numbly forward to take a seat next to the Slayer.

"Why are you here?" he asked quietly, as if talking to himself.

Niki frowned and pursed her lips, unable to come up with an answer. She swallowed, fearing anything which made Whistler act this way. Where was his smug confidence? Where was his knowing smirk?

After a long moment, the demon in the plum jacket turned and looked at her with sad eyes, a vast and tragic realization seeming to have dawned on him. "Why didn't you go to Logan's house?" he asked gently, his eyes compelling her answer more than his voice.

Seeing him like this made Niki afraid to the core. "I— I met the Deceivers... I got a guy killed in the mall... I wanted to have a drink." She looked into his eyes, asking him with a look if she had done something wrong. "Why would I go to Logan's house?" the question was delicate and careful, as if she were afraid of the answer.

Whistler stared into her, as if he saw her for the very first time and what he saw was disappointing. "Because he was the one you trusted." The demon blinked away the look and turned to the bar, taking the bottle of Jack Daniels and pouring himself a snifter full. He looked forlornly into the drink and swallowed. How could this be?

"You were meant," he said at long last, betraying a timeless and sacred trust... he lowered his gaze as if he couldn't finish, then looked the Slayer hard in the eyes again. "You were meant to go to Logan's house," he said with regret. "You would have met there a demon which Logan himself had sent to kill his wife."

Niki's frown grew more intense as Whistler described in the most plain language her planned destiny.

"You were meant to fight the demon," he said, almost apologetically, "and to die in battle with it. It was meant to take you by the throat and suffocate you—"

"Stop," Niki turned away, resting her forearms on the edge of the bar and bowing her head as the memory of her death came flooding back. But the demon did not stop.

"It was meant to bend down and suck your soul from your dying body, as it does with most it kills. You died," Whistler said emphatically as Niki looked back up with tears in her eyes, "on the living room floor of Logan's house, defending his wife and daughter."

Niki angrily wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. "How could I save them if I was dead?"

Whistler's regretful expression became pained. "Why do you think the Council wanted you dead so badly? Their seer saw that your death came almost too late to save the next Chosen One. Hanna."

Whistler took a deep breath. He knew by now that it was too late. Logan had played his part all too well. It was Niki who had failed.

"When you died," he said quietly, "Hanna would have been called. She would have taken the demon by surprise and killed it."

Niki slowly looked around the bar. She recalled Logan having run out in almost a panic. The whole bar seemed to be staring at her with disapproval. Well done, it seemed to say with disappointment. No. It was more than the bar. It was everything behind the walls and above the ceiling. The whole world was shaking its head.

"Are you saying they're dead?" she asked Whistler at last, fresh tears glittering in her eyes. Excuse after excuse poured through her mind. How was I supposed to know... but she just closed her eyes and shook her head. It wasn't about choice. It wasn't a choice she had made which had killed someone, like Forster's wife — it wasn't an enemy plot, like had killed Megan Brandon... It's you.

--

Logan pounded up the stairs from the bar to the grey twilight street, his breath quivering as he tried not to think about what was happening to Rachel– to Hanna. He got to his car, his mind numb. Car. Car. Rachel had wanted a divorce. She would have taken off her ring. The only thing which could have protected her. Car... Car. Something about a car.

He slammed his hand on the roof above the driver's door. What do I do now? he demanded of himself. He couldn't think, he was so worried. Drive. Drive. Fighting back the creeping horror of what he had done, he nodded and tried the handle. Locked.

"DAMMIT!" he shouted at the top of his lungs. He couldn't deal with this. Slamming his fist on the roof of the little brown car again, he ignored the stinging of tears and tried to think rationally. Keys. He thrust his hand into his pocket and drew out his keys, grabbing for the car key and dropping the whole set to the street.

With a pounding heart, he dropped to the street to pick them up again, feeling along the dark pavement for an eternity before fumbling as he found the correct one and shoved it into the lock. As he twisted the key to unlock the door, the spark of a thought occurred to him. You don't need to drive, idiot. Teleport.

Quickly mashing the tears from his eyes, he tried to compose himself and envision the twist of light and the feeling of disappearing. Nothing. Swallowing, he blinked a few times, then closed his eyes to try again. The tendons standing out on his neck, he focused every scrap of his haggard mind on the simple task he had performed a dozen times before.

"FUCK!" he cried, hastily pulling the door open and jumping behind the wheel. He fumbled again with the ignition key and turned it. The car chugged and wheezed as the various deities upon which he had called to keep the car working began to abandon him.

With a clang, the muffler and tailpipe hit the pavement. Ignoring this, his teeth on edge, Logan continued to turn the ignition, again. Again. Again. He slammed the steering wheel. He turned the ignition again and heard something pop. Ignore it. Just drive. He turned the ignition again and with a rattling and a clunk, all noise from the engine stopped.

Nearly hyperventilating and no longer able to hold back the tears of desperation, Logan crossed his arms on the steering wheel and cried at last.

--

Whistler turned away to at last break the disappointed gaze he had been holding on Niki Valtaine, the vampire slayer. The one. Chosen.

He wanted to feel sorry for her. Wanted sympathy to alter his disappointment, his resentment at her failure. But it wasn't there. Probably the thought of Rachel and Hanna being slaughtered was getting in the way. Probably the pain Logan must be feeling for playing his part. He must never know Niki's failure.

"Hanna was important, Niki," Whistler said trying not to sound as miserable as she looked or he felt. "Something is coming that you weren't meant to stop. Even if you'd done everything right, you weren't meant to stop it. But now..." He shrugged helplessly. "I don't know what to say."

Niki closed her eyes, her ordeal today already forgotten. How could she have been so arrogant? How could she have thought that was it? Given up so quickly? Turned to the sick comforts— she slashed her hand across the bar and sent the bottle of Jack Daniels to the floor with a crash.

There was a long silence as it completely settled in on the Slayer exactly how much she had fucked up. Just existing — doing what came naturally; being who she was had overridden some sort of bloody cosmic plan...

"I have to go," Whistler said at last. The decision struck him hard and he wasn't eager to leave when Niki was hurting, but he had no choice. The plan had been in his keeping and now it was fucked six ways from Sunday. He was no longer needed, nor particularly wanted to be the scapegoat for this mess. When the Council learned Hanna was dead...

"Where are you going?" Niki asked desperately, standing up and wiping the tears from her eyes. Day in and day out she complained about the state of her life. She had never considered how much she truly had left to lose. She considered it now as the demon who had been like an older brother to her slid his fedora on and turned back from the door.

"I'm sorry, Knicks," he said sincerely, his eyes troubled as they tried to feel for her. "There's nothing here for me anymore."

Fresh tears spilled over the Slayer's cheeks as she resisted the sudden impulse to take him in her arms and beg him for forgiveness— beg him not to leave. "Aren't you going to give me some encouraging words or wisdom or something?" she thought quickly, trying to sound hopeful but making no attempt to stop the tears.

Whistler's eyes finally found a trace of pity and he forced a little smile onto his lips, but succeeded only in looking more sad and full of regret. He stepped towards her and slid his hands around her waist, regretting how much it seemed to her like he was going to offer a comforting hug. He was not.

He slid a hand into the pocket of her leather jacket and pulled out a crumpled up napkin. Carefully unfolding it, he pressed it into her hand and saw her look down at it. She recognized it as the Word the Shadow Men and the Council had threatened to use against her — the Tuareg word which Whistler had written down...

"It won't make everything better, will it?" Niki looked back up and Whistler said nothing. After a long minute, he leaned in and kissed the corner of her mouth as a tear ran down her cheek.

"Take care of yourself, kid." Touching the brim of his fedora, he turned and left the Nail Biter for the last time.

--

Logan sat in the back of the taxi, his fingers working at the edge of the seat's upholstery. He was empty of tears now. The urgency had left him as the minutes had passed and the quiet truth had found him that he was already too late.

He sat in silence in the back of the cab as the taxi took its time getting onto the Sunrise Highway and once there, time seemed to stretch into forever. There was a calm now, as last night's rain picked up again. The grey of the world outside the car flashed by in silence as the car made its way out of Manhattan towards Freeport.

Logan watched the rivulets of rain as they slowly found their paths across his window, going nowhere, carried by the wind. Headlights flashed by, electrifying the little streak of water and passing his shadow over everything. He slowly reached up to the window and touched the glass where one of the drops was, his gaze fixed on it.

One of his favorite lullabies was drifting wistfully from the static of the oldies station. 59th Street Bridge. The melody floated about the inside of the car and followed Logan as he found himself walking through the wet grass towards his front door.

Slow down, you're moving too fast. Got to make the moment last, just— The door lay in pieces inside the front hall. The rain which had gotten in had formed a little pool around where Rachel and Hanna's shoes were.

Logan calmly walked up the stairs in the dark. He could hear the rain picking up outside, the pattering on the windows increasing, but the wind was silent. —kickin' down the cobble stones, lookin' for fun and feeling groovy.

Logan looked down the long dark hallway towards his bedroom. The door was wide open, but inside was dark as a tomb. He took a step and noticed Hanna's bedroom door was also wide open. Turning and stepping inside, he saw signs of violence and struggle. There were holes punched in the walls and things were scattered across the floor. Ain't ya got no rhymes for me?

Logan walked carefully over the mess, disturbing nothing, the mellow song drifting all over everything like sunlight playing on a lake. There was a swish outside as a car went through a puddle. Logan slowly pushed the closet door all the way open, sliding aside the clothes hanging there.

He blinked.

I got no deeds to do, no promises to keep, I'm dappled and drowsy and ready for sleep. Let the morning time drop all its petals on me, life I love you.

All is groovy.

What Logan saw inside the closet tried to touch the last of him that was human. He stared at it for a long time in the dim evening light. The wind picked up outside. He reached down beside it and picked up something.

It was long and white and silky smooth. He brushed his finger along its fine edge. A feather.

He blinked.

Turning from the shadow, he slowly got down on his knees in the middle of the chaos of his beloved's bedroom. He sank down onto his side, curling his knees up close to his chest. He held the feather before him as the rain came down.

The wind picked up and he faded away.

--

Niki Valtaine looked at the napkin and the Tuareg word written there. It might have been easier if she could have pronounced it, but it just looked like a bunch of shapes and lines to her. Something in her feared it, though. The part of her that was the Slayer. The part of her that had failed. The demon inside deserved the worst fate Niki could conceive, but she would have to settle for forcing it to live inside her for the rest of her life.

She slowly tore the napkin down the center and stuffed the shreds into the brandy snifter filled with Jack Daniels. The ink began to run and soon there was nothing but a blue smear.

An electric chill went up the back of her neck. The vampire approached from the door and stood behind the stool next to her. Niki turned, wiping the tears from her cheeks but unable to hide the redness.

The vamp seemed to take little interest in her. He wore black pants and a black T-shirt with a red button down shirt hanging open. Over it all was a familiar black duster. This he removed and shook the rain from it, touching his bleached white spikes to draw the water from them and keep it from running down into his eyes.

Niki swallowed, turning back to the newly opened whiskey and pouring two drinks.

The vamp folded his duster and laid it over the bar, tapping a cigarette out and lighting it with a steel lighter.

When Niki slid the measure of whiskey over to him she finally caught his attention. He looked her up and down for a minute, taking a long drag. Finally he turned back to face the bar and took hold of the shot.

"Thanks for lookin' after my jacket," he said tonelessly, throwing back the whiskey and setting the glass quietly back on the bar. "Don't remember quite so many bullet holes, though."

The Slayer didn't even touch her drink. "You want it back?"

The vamp made a noncommittal shrug. "Never really liked it anyway. Got me a better one now."

Niki nodded.

The two sat and drank in silence: What was there to say?