Reckless: Stuff - Act 3
by redmoon
Stuff - Act 3
January 5th, 1986
Tom lifted the bottle of rum and examined it critically. “Huh,” he said with suspicion. “Doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with it,” he set a small glass down on the bar and filled it, first smelling, then tasting the brown liquor. “Seems fine to me.”
Auk scoffed. “I’m the customer,” he said with saliva dribbling from his lipless mouth, “and I say it tastes like piss.” The bird-like demon knocked his drinking-bowl over with annoyance, spilling the rum down the otherwise spotless bar. “I’m not paying for it,” Auk challenged.
Tom considered this. With clear and decided motions, he found his Magnum Wiley and brought it scant inches from the bird’s face. “Well, I’m the one of us with a firearm and I say you are paying for it.” With his other massive hand, Tom lifted the bird by the scruff of the neck to eye level. “Now the two of us seem to be in disagreement.” He pressed the barrel of the massive handgun under the bird’s chin and glared viciously into his face with hard red eyes. “Which one of us do you think is mistaken?”
“Tom,” Niki greeted from the door of the bar.
“Wrong,” the barkeep growled to the bird who didn’t have time to protest before the bullets tore through its head. Tom let it fall to the floor in a mess of blood and feathers.
“Tom?” Niki looked at the scene with uncertainty.
Tom looked around, finding the source of the voice. “What? Oh. It’s you.” He ducked under the hanging light and found a cloth to clean up the rum. “What can I get you?”
“The usual,” she grinned. “It’s a Slaying night.” At her words, several customers hurriedly grabbed their coats and shuffled out.
The Slayer nodded in thanks as the titan of a barkeep began to pour her the gold liquid and set the vial down beside the drink. “You know,” she said with a smile as she sipped it, “you’re probably the only person I’ve ever met that hasn’t judged me for taking this stuff.”
Tom raised his eyebrows in surprise, then snatched the half empty vial off the bar. He squinted at the tiny print on its side, then blinked several times. “Hmm. So that’s what this stuff is.” He shrugged. “It’s your body.”
Niki laughed. “It most certainly is.” She sipped again. “And nobody else seems to want it.”
“I’ll take a piece of it,” a woman hissed from behind her, her face shifting to the familiar inhuman features.
Niki interlaced her fingers and stretched her arms out, cracking her knuckles. “It begins.”
Pierce sat very still. His hands were tied behind his back around the back of the chair and his ankles were similarly bound. Not too tight – not at all uncomfortable. After all, this was his idea.
“Are you sure about this?” Logan asked, his voice remote and uncertain. When Pierce had contacted him, he hadn’t been sure what he felt for the vampire. The camaraderie was gone... if it had ever really existed at all. He felt none of the pity he had when the vampire had been under the curse. Now the curse was lifted and Pierce was just another street vampire. If Logan had met him on the street any other day, he might have staked him without hesitation, but the fact that the vampire had called him... obviously the Prince still assumed some friendship between them. It was nothing Logan had the energy to investigate or destroy right now. This was all he could do to close out the part of his life he was sure he was ashamed of. He was sure of it.
“I’m sure,” Pierce nodded. He was infected. He knew it. One of the symptoms of course was blackouts – particularly when feeding. The Nosphorus in him would reveal itself when he fed... when he spread the virus– and then they would be absolutely sure.
“Well I’m not fucking sure!” the pimp screamed, his hands also bound. He struggled in vain as Logan listlessly pushed him towards the tied vampire. The man they had found in the alley wailed as Pierce’s face transformed and his hunger took over. He had been starving himself for days to make sure it would be an accurate test.
Pierce felt the world close off to all but his hunger and his victim’s throat which, despite his own inability to move, was drawing closer to his fangs.
The pimp screamed as the Prince’s teeth sank into his flesh, drawing blood. Logan held him mercilessly until Pierce pulled away, the vampire’s face covered in blood. “Release me,” the Prince ordered, his eyes yellow and unwavering. “Untie me, Logan, and you may go. Our test is complete.”
Logan stood motionless, holding the whimpering pimp by his bound hands. The man in the black turtleneck observed the tied Nosphorus with detached interest. Pierce was right. He was infected. His features weren’t rat-like as they had been told to expect, but that was because Pierce’s face had been kept human by the curse when he had fed on his first dozen after the initial infection. Pierce would now have no memory of this conversation.
“Release me, friend,” the Nosphorus said gently, twisting his wrists back and forth behind his chair.
“We’re not friends,” Logan said stoically, shoving the bleeding pimp into a corner. The man clasped his hands behind his back and began to circle the Nosphorus’ chair. “In fact I’ve never really felt anything for you but complete hatred.”
The Nosphorus swallowed. “Then release me and we shall fight. Release me, now.” His tone was reasonable and calculated.
“I rather think I’d like to keep you tied,” Logan argued, his voice just as calculated. “You see, a while ago, you and the Slayer had similar suspicions about me,” he continued to pace around the chair, his voice carrying him wherever his mind pleased. Freud would have been proud.
“Release me and we shall discuss it,” the creature in the chair suggested.
“That was what I recommended when you two presented me with the prospect of three days and three nights of unspeakable agony on the table.” Logan paused and remembered his time in the darkness, considering and reconsidering his betrayal. “I made a promise then,” the man recalled. “I promised that I would kill you... then I pursued the power and ability to do just that.”
The Nosphorus was silent. He couldn’t find a way of working in ‘Release me’ without it sounding like he was begging. He twisted his bonds furiously.
“As I think about it,” Logan went on, “I really don’t see any reason not to kill you right now.” He opened his hand and a bright spark of light ignited between his fingers. When the Nosphorus froze, Logan cocked his head, then snapped his hand closed again and the spark died. “On the other hand, I think what’s coming to you might be more fitting justice than anything I could conjure.” And so he waited.
In the end, with a snarl, the Nosphorus’ face melted back to the not particularly hansom face of the Prince of Pierce. The vampire glanced around himself as if to convince himself that he was still in the same room, tied to the same chair.
“It worked then?” the vampire asked.
Logan, standing with his arms crossed against the back wall of the warehouse took a moment to respond. “You don’t remember telling me embarrassing details about your childhood?” he asked remotely.
Pierce frowned. “No.”
Logan shrugged. “Then it worked.”
The sun was just coming up when Niki staggered back into the Nail Biter, a small cut on her forehead and dust all over her leather jacket. She plunked herself down on her usual stool and brushed off the remains of her encounters with the vampires of New York. There was something so pure about vampire slaying. Something, ironically enough, so much cleaner than killing demons or vanquishing incarnations of evil. Vampires were just so simple and innocent that killing them was extremely fulfilling.
Tom wandered over, ducking just in time as the light passed over his head. “Morning,” he said wearily.
Niki grinned. “Don’t you ever sleep?”
Tom shrugged. “Don’t you?”
The Slayer took a deep breath. “The usual,” she said with gusto, but Tom was shaking his head.
“We don’t serve stuff after five o’clock: not good for anyone involved.” He set a mug out on the bar. “How ‘bout some coffee? Get you ready for your day.”
Niki blinked. She tilted her head uncertainly for a moment. “Uh, no thanks. Just scotch and stuff.”
Tom swallowed. “Sorry, no can do. Coffee, tea or orange juice: new policy. Makes for less trouble.”
“Listen,” Niki hissed, standing from her stool and placing her hands on the bar to lean in towards the towering barkeep, “I’ve just come back from killing dozens of bloodsucking fiends. I don’t have to do it every night... in fact I take a break on Tuesdays, but I do it six days a week because I can.” She slowly pushed the empty mug back towards the brave barkeep. “And what says I can is the same thing that wants some scotch and stuff... and it’s going to get it, got it?” She plunked herself back on the stool, satisfied that her point was made.
Tom slowly walked a few paces down the bar and reached under it for the familiar friend that lived there. He turned, his Magnum Wiley outstretched in a now very confident hand. “I’m afraid,” he said slowly, “that I’m bound to uphold this establishment’s policies.” He cocked his head, daring her to argue.
Niki ground her teeth together. Looking down the sinister barrel of the deadly and accurate weapon wielded by a deadly and accurate demon, the Slayer felt her muscles begin to tremble.
This story archived at: The Slayer\'s Fanfic Archive
The Slayer\\\\\\\\'s FanFic Archive - http://www.slayerfanfic.com/viewstory.php?sid=14743