Reckless: The Cure - Act 3
by redmoon
The Cure - Act 3
Logan raced down the morning lit street. Yellow taxis and two tone brown cars colored the canyon between high-rises a dismal brown. Pedestrians with umbrellas and long coats scowled at him as he dashed between them away from the bar from which he had just escaped. It wouldn’t take more than a minute for anyone to realize he was gone. Then a vampire and a vampire Slayer would be after him.
His breath panted, fogging in the chilled air. His ears and nose were red and his finger tips were numb. Without a look back he pounded down the sidewalk, between the scowling foot traffic and occasionally across the cursing street traffic.
After rounding a corner he shoved a ratty looking street urchin aside and landed himself inside the phone booth. With a hand on the glass and his breath taking too long to calm, Logan picked up the receiver and began searching his pockets for change.
As the numbers came out of his memory and the ringing on the other end started, a calm relief began to settle in. “Hello?” He suddenly felt all the confidence in the world. “Get me Richard Addison, it’s an emergency.”
Pearce unlocked and threw the door to the back room open faster than any human could have. Immediately he fell back inside the bar proper and wrung his seared hand. Bright morning sunlight was streaming in past the rubble, in through the hole in the wall near the ceiling at street level.
Niki slowly moved into the room, her guard up completely. If ever there was need of proof that Logan was possessed by some preternatural viral-imbued strength, the charred and smoking hole through the cinder block wall was it. Expletives and various colorful expressions suggested themselves to the Slayer as she stood in the angular column of light entering the otherwise dark and vacant room, but none seemed completely appropriate.
This, of course, did not stop Pearce from spewing an almost non-stop stream of curses and pseudo-adjectives about the nature of the situation in which they had landed themselves.
The Slayer turned and moved past the vampire, calmly addressing the barkeep who was assessing the damage. “Can I use your phone?”
“Listen, Addison, I’m telling you, there’s something wrong with your Slayer. She’s gone all ‘Dr. Death,’ making wild accusations and threatening this barbaric torture to anyone who doesn’t act within her twisted realm of right and wrong....” There was a pause as Logan listened to the reply. His red face contorted in anger as he heard the response. “What do you mean by that? Pearce is on her side! They must be working with Hobbs, that’s the only way they’d get to use his bar... unless they’ve already killed him...”
Logan sighed and rested his forearm against the glass of the phone booth. “I don’t know what to do. I can’t let them get to my family. Then again, I don’t know who I can trust around here—” he rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I know we don’t exactly see eye to eye... Look, Niki and I called it off. I’ve been back with my family for a couple of weeks now – until your little psychopath and her pet bludgeoned me and hauled me off, convinced I was infected with the stupid plague...”
The man’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah, that plague. I don’t know why the fuck they think I’m infected. They claim I’m acting irrationally — well you should talk to hormone girl,” he hissed, “maybe she can tell you why she has it in for me!”
“Good,” he sighed. Addison was returning from England, admittedly more to ensure Niki was alright than for Logan’s sake, but either way, the problem would soon be solved. “I can’t go home— they might look for me there and I can’t let my family know what’s been going on. I’ll be staying at a motel. Here’s the address—”
Logan looked up as he recited it and waved his hand in annoyance at the street urchin who was gawking through the glass. There was a thin trail of mucus running down the street man’s chin and his eyes wouldn’t stay still. They seemed to quiver in their sockets.
Logan frowned. “Yeah, okay, I’ll be waiting there.” And he hung up the receiver, quickly stepping out of the booth, annoyed.
The ratty looking man suddenly snapped out of his world of slavering hunger and two small horns poked out of his toque.
“Not now,” Logan sighed in exhaustion, pushing at the invisible force he wielded to throw the demon across the street and onto the hood of a stopped taxi.
The next morning, looking weary and unrested Addison arrived in New York City and deposited his bags on the curb outside his old apartment. Niki Valtaine’s apartment. She was waiting and lifted his heavy suitcases with ease.
“It’s good to see you,” she said sincerely. There wasn’t the ususal cynicism and amusement in her eyes, nor the hidden resentment she had once felt for this legal guardian. She had the slightly repulsive thought that perhaps she had matured in the last few months. She realized without any kind of juvenile arrogance that she had wanted him out of her life and had got it – and now he was just a person... who might as well be useful.
“What’s this I hear of you finally bludgeoning that ponce of a boyfriend?” There was no greeting, none of the expected British politeness. Addison acted as if he had never left.
Niki sighed. “I finally bludgeoned that ponce of a boyfriend of mine. But not before we broke it off and not before I came to realize that Logan Kilpatrick was infected with the Nosphoric plague.”
“Hm,” Addison nodded thoughtfully. “What makes you think he is one of the infected?” They boarded the elevator, the Slayer setting down the admittedly heavy suitcases.
“He’s acting really weird,” she said ignoring the raised eyebrows of her former Watcher. “What?”
“Let’s see... The adulterous small claims lawyer who fights vampires is acting ‘really weird’ of late.” The doors opened again and they stepped out. “Anything about that seem a little ridiculous to you?”
“As a matter of fact, no,” Niki answered resentfully as they approached her door. “I’ve known him for a long time and I think I know what’s normal behavior for Logan Kilpatrick.”
“And dumping you is not normal behavior,” Addison nodded sympathetically.
Niki scowled. “No, as a matter of fact, it’s not—” she caught herself. “And just for your information, I dumped him. So don’t go thinking this is all about retribution. Though I must admit,” she let the little smirk free, “I can’t say some part of me isn’t relieved that he isn’t actually himself.”
“So your diagnosis is based on assumption and conjecture?” the Watcher stopped, just inside the door. “Did you ever think to check for bite marks?”
Niki stopped dead. Bite marks. As in – Logan was bitten by the Nosphorus during that last battle – the only place he could have been infected... “Uh... no.”
Logan’s eyes flashed as Addison’s taxi pulled away from Niki’s apartment. He’d been betrayed. Addison was in on it. He pulled his collar higher around his face to obscure him from unwelcome eyes and moved back into the crowd.
If he was right —and they were all in on it— then they would come for him, to the address Logan had given the Watcher. Then he would know. Then he would have a real problem. As he made his way back to the motel, he thought about everything Niki and he had been through, and even more– what they had been through together. A normal relationship, he understood, was made stronger by adversity... by vampire attacks and demon plagues. Now she was using her world against him and his world. There was something just a little unhealthy about that, the man mused.
He strolled past his room number and headed for the front office, slapping more cash on the counter. “Room 107 smell like a rat died in it. I want room 108.” Without more than a scowl, the clerk gave him the desired key and took the extra cash.
And so Logan was waiting in room 108 with the blinds drawn and the door open a crack when Niki and Addison approached room 107. He didn’t hear their conversation until they were near, but it was clear Addison was ratting him out.
“Here it is,” Addison indicated the room he’d been told contained the possibly infected Logan Kilpatrick. He knocked only twice before opening the door to find it empty. The old man frowned. “Where has he got to?”
Niki, however, was not so naive. One glance at the drawn blinds and she was creeping up to the door of room 108. With a tremendous kick which nearly sent the door off its hinges, she burst into Logan’s hiding place.
All that greeted her were shadows.
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