The Man With A Thousand Faces: Seventeen
by redmoon
Seventeen

19 April, 2000, New York City

Logan sat on the small rug in the center of his hotel room. Spike was not here. He rolled his head from side to side in the darkness, trying to envision the wheeling plane. Trying and failing. America was busier than when he had left. It was nighttime; a time when in the lamasery all lights would be out and only sparse candles would be lit, letting peace fill the entire temple.

Here there were always lights. The darker it got, the busier and brighter it got. Cars, horns, rock music, cell phones, arguments... Spike was not here. Logan identified the real source of his troubled mind. Spike had been released from the Initiative, this he knew, but where had he gone from there? Not New York, his old hunting grounds, Loki could find him nowhere. No one knew where he was. The sunyata filled Logan’s mind completely.

Logan stood and paced his room, cursing himself for his inability to focus. Spike should not even be his goal. The safekeeping of the Key should be his goal. The two were separate and distinct. Vengeance and redemption. Hatred and desire. He pressed his hands to his temples, growling in frustration. Then he stopped mid stride.

He walked quickly to his duffle bag on the bed and slipped his hand inside the inner pocket, his racing heart slowing as his fingers closed around it. He drew it from the pocket with a satisfied sigh. There you are.

He sat back comfortably on the rug, the small crystal sphere pressed snugly between his palms. With almost no effort at all, the noise, the business slipped away into the sunyata. There it was; the slowly wheeling plane. I am serene, he thought, I am placid, he believed. The light flickered into existence at the center of the plane as it began to turn faster. I know where he is– and the light snapped out as his eyes shot open in the darkness.

---

26 April, 2000, Sunnydale

Everything was quiet. There was just the cool night air and the scent of his next victim. Well, thought the vampire, victim was a relative thing. He was little more than a petty thief now. Still, a bloke had to make a living, didn’t he?

Spike leapt from the alley in front of the strange man, his game face on. He made a convincing snarl then stepped forward. “Right, let’s have your money,” he hissed.

Loki’s hand went up in an instant, palm outward. Spike looked down at his immovable legs. “What the.... bloody hell,” he twisted and thrashed in the bonds he couldn’t see, then looked up, his face human again. He sighed, crossing his arms. “Right, fine, keep your damn money.” He took on a tone of nonchalance. “Didn’t want it anyway.”

“Spike,” the specter glared, his eyes narrowing. His glare of hatred soon melted into one of slight puzzlement. “You’re William the Bloody?”

Spike cocked his head. “S’right. Have I had the pleasure of robbing you before?”

A pair of pedestrians wandered past, giving the two an odd look, then snickering discreetly once their backs were turned. Loki took a step closer, tugging absently on his silk collar. “Yes, you have robbed me of something,” he said bitterly, his fists clenched at his sides now. “Ten years ago, you took the last thing I loved.”

“Yeah, well, I’m a vampire,” Spike defended, “I do a lot of that love-taking bit, it’s what I do best— I’m good at it. I could do it right now,” he bluffed, “I just don’t want to.”

“So you really don’t recognize me, do you?” Loki marveled. He gave a small laugh. “I spent a decade— more than that even, thinking it was all you thought about. Thinking that killing Niki was the high point of your existence.” He looked into Spike’s eyes with distaste. “But your existence has no high point, does it?”

“Look, mate, I don’t have the slightest idea who you are or what you want with me. And while I have no doubt I killed someone you cared about—”

“New York City,” Loki hissed, bringing his hand down in a sweeping motion. Spike was thrown to the ground. “Subway car, nineteen eighty nine,” Loki continued, kicking the vampire in the head as he tried to hold the specter’s ankle. “You killed a slayer by the name of Niki.” He delivered another vicious kick to the blonde crowned head. Spike groaned, then was drawn back up to his feet again as Loki slashed his hand up through the air.

Spike rubbed his head, still unable to move his legs. “Nikki?” He muttered, tasting his own blood. “Subway car— right, I remember,” he kept his gaze down, away from this psychopathic magician. He frowned. “But that was... that was twenty odd years ago.” He squinted and finally looked up, brushing down his duster. “Seventy seven, it was.” He looked down, “this was her jacket—”

“Wrong!” Loki shouted, throwing Spike to the ground again. His foot connected with the vamp’s stomach twice. “Some sort of freaky deja vu you said,” the man continued, snapping his heel across the vamp’s chin. Spike momentarily vamped out, but another kick drove his face back to its human form. “I could see why you’d get them confused,” kick “plus the nasty knock to the head I gave you,” kick “would be enough to make anyone forget they stole perfection from the world!”

Spike grunted in pain as the toe connected with his jaw. Then the kicks stopped. The vampire felt his legs go numb for an instant then the feeling returned– and the control. He stood, slowly.

Loki was breathing hard. The exertion– the anger of the magic he wielded had been more powerful than he had imagined. Only one thing had kept him from killing this... filth right here on the sidewalk. He took a deep breath and took it from his pocket; the small glass ball that fit so easily into his palm; that calmed him, centered him whenever he touched it. As the vampire straightened, unsure of what was to come, Loki gave a small smile. Destiny hadn’t blinked, he knew: Destiny would never blink.

He closed his hand gently around the sphere, feeling his anger melt involuntarily away. “But I’m a forgiving guy,” he said easily at last. “And I can forgive you,” he added, “because I know that when you eventually die; when your miserable little unlife comes to its bitter, dusty end, I may not be there, but I will be laughing.” He slipped the sphere back into his pocket, fully realizing now the futility of this vengeance. He might as well do as Whistler suggested and be done with it.

“Maybe you will,” Spike brushed himself off again, then in a flash took on his vampire face, “maybe you won’t–” and he lunged at the foe he assumed was a demon. The chip told him otherwise. With a shout of pain he fell to the ground on top of Loki who began to laugh quite ironically at the sight of Spike writhing in self inflicted pain. As Spike slowly got up, Loki fell back onto the ground, his sides aching with laughter.

“So this—” the specter gagged, “this is why I took a vacation?” He broke off to laugh uncontrollably for several seconds to the chagrin of the recovering vampire. “I stayed away from you–” he wheezed, “because you can’t hurt me?” He rubbed tears from his eyes and with several deep breaths managed to calm himself. At last he stood, chuckling the last of the irony away. Destiny– Whistler was craftier than he’d thought. He sighed at last and shook his head. “Get lost, Spike,” he said amicably, with a slight trace of pity. “Go rob somebody else.”

“Who are you?” The vampire demanded, scowling.

Loki lost none of his amusement. “I’m the face you never saw,” he replied, waving his hand over the vampire’s bruised face, removing all trace of injury and memory. Logan Kilpatrick and Niki Valtaine disappeared into the sunyata of Spike’s mind, leaving him staggering against the wall of the alley on the cool dark night.

After a moment he straightened. A familiar scent lingered in his nostrils. He vamped and jumped out. Anya screamed.

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