Reckless: Season 2: Liaisons - Act 4
by redmoon
Liaisons - Act 4
Niki looked about the alley in the misty yellow light. Shapes, sounds, smells had echoes. Walking across the ground as if it were water, a shape emerged from the cloak of shadow.
Niki opened her mouth to speak but couldn’t. Samantha Valtaine stopped just inside the sphere of hazy yellow light. She looked like she did the year she had died. But just like her husband, there was no feeling in her eyes.
“He will betray us,” she informed her daughter, before turning and stepping back into the shadow.
“Mom,” Niki said quietly. She made no move to follow, knowing she could not. Like everything else in the vision, the stabbing loss echoed painfully through Niki’s heart. She awoke with a gasp.
Looking over, her eyes fell across the sleeping form of Jesse Trent. His chest gently rose and fell beneath the rumpled sheet. His eyes were closed and his expression was peaceful. Niki slowly slid her naked form from beneath that same sheet and took her bathrobe from the closet door. Tiptoeing across the room, illuminated in tones of grey in the predawn hours, she winced at the sudden use of certain overused and aching muscles.
She stopped in front of the vanity and examined her weary face. She had known him for only three weeks, she slid one hand up her arm and shivered. It had been worth the wait. This was the first night that Addison had been away, gone back to London for two weeks for a Council meeting and Niki had made sure to take advantage of it.
She let the robe fall to the floor and began to dress, trying to be as quiet as possible. Once she was clothed, she opened the bottom drawer to the chest before her and slid folded pairs of jeans to the side, finding one of the stakes concealed there.
She snatched her beat up leather jacket from the doorknob where she had left it and moved silently out of the apartment, stopping in the kitchen to take the marker from the whiteboard on the fridge and write be back soon.
She gave one last look towards her bedroom before closing the door behind her.
She walked up Park Avenue, letting the smell of the late autumn air clear her mind. Maybe she would walk through the park today.
In the dim light of 4:00 a.m., the first thing she noticed about the group of people following her was their footsteps. With a casual sidestep, she left the sidewalk and entered an alley. They followed.
Niki stood waiting, a good twenty paced into the increased darkness offered by the narrow gap between the buildings. There were a lot more of them than she had anticipated. She would have brought two stakes.
The entire Goth coven had come to find her. Thirty seven vampires, all dressed in black and paler than death in the small amount of light available. They all entered the alley, forming a shoulder to shoulder wall several bodies deep. They appeared very angry.
Niki steeled herself for the opening round of insults and promises of death and pain. Slaying was as much an exercise in wit as it was a physical battle, although, Niki admitted, she had yet to actually win a battle with witty comebacks alone. She gripped the stake tightly.
One of the female vamps took a few steps forward, her lips black and her left eyebrow completely silver with piercings. She appeared small enough, but she had the confidence of a second in command having suddenly found herself in charge. With a bitter expression, she reached into her flowing dark coat and took out a small silver Beretta. The Goths behind her retrieved their own firearms, various sizes from subcompacts to revolvers to sawed off shotguns.
The Goth chick glared at Niki with a cold and terrible hatred. “We’re through with you, bitch.”
Niki tensed, ready to dive for cover or leap into the air. She was completely unprepared for what came next. With infinite bitterness, the Goth before her tossed her gun to the ground with a clatter. One by one, then two by two, the vamps behind her followed suit, tossing their weapons to the pavement. The Goth chick then reached for her sleeve, ripping the silver bracelet from her wrist and throwing it with digust into the darkness. The others did likewise, the ground soon becoming littered with silver and steel.
The look of intense bitterness pervaded the entire assembly as they began to leave the alley, stepping over the scattered weapons. The chick who had obviously made this unpopular decision was the last to leave, glaring at the Slayer all the while her coven dispersed into the early morning.
“You’re full of shit,” she said spitefully, “we’re going to Cleveland.” The Goth turned on her heel and stormed out of the alley, leaving the thoroughly stunned Niki crouching in the darkness.
Blink. “Uh... what?”
Logan frowned as he turned the page. Not only was his new firm aware of his supernatural skills, they encouraged them. A copy of Vox Vocis Incendia had been left on his desk and Logan was finally getting around to reading it. He was on chapter sixteen and it had so far cleverly disguised the fact that it was teaching him how to set people on fire with correct words and intonation. Anyone who didn’t know that that was what it was saying... wouldn’t know that that’s what it was saying.
He shifted his shoulders on the headboard of the bed, leaning a little closer to the reading lamp as the last rays of the sun disappeared. The house was quiet. Hanna was out at a friend’s house, theoretically a female friend, but Logan knew it was Matt’s place. The boy had resolved that since he could virtually not even breath in Logan’s presence, he was going to remove Hanna from her own home as often as possible.
Logan finally looked up to the doorway to the bedroom when the silhouette of Rachel remained there for an uncomfortably long period of time. His frown deepened. “Hi, honey,” he said with worry in his eyes. “What is it?”
“Tell me again where you got that bracelet,” she said quietly, her arms hugged across her chest. She didn’t make a move to enter the bedroom.
Logan blinked. “Uh... what?” His stomach turned.
“You told me it was a Medic Alert bracelet– that you were allergic to haloperidol.” She tightened the embrace of her own arms. “Haloperidol is an antipsychotic.”
Logan’s eyes fell. He didn’t even know where he had left the bracelet. Stupid, little, piece of—
“There’s no reason for an EMT to give you haloperidol, so there’s no reason to have a Medic Alert bracelet warning of an allergy to it.” She continued to look at him as he tried futilely to think of some other excuse. She knew him well enough to know that’s what he was doing. “Who gave you that bracelet?” she asked in the same quiet tone.
Logan’s attention snapped up again. “It’s not what you think,” he defended hotly. At least that wasn’t a lie.
“What do I think?” she asked quietly.
“She... she was in some trouble and I helped her out of it,” Logan tired to explain in terms of any normal person’s sense of reality. Of course, any normal person would be quick to point out the sex.
“Who is she?” Rachel asked, fighting to remain calm.
“You wouldn’t know her,” wrong answer, Logan clenched his teeth as soon as he finished saying it. Well done, moron, he cursed as her tone grew sharp with anger.
“Who is she?” Rachel demanded, uncrossing her arms and taking an angry step towards the bed where Logan still lay with the book in his hands.
He slowly put the book down and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. He measured his breath carefully, resolved to think carefully about his answers from now on. “Her name is Niki,” he said quietly.
Rachel crossed her arms again compulsively, shifting her weight uncertainly to the other foot. The next question was obviously difficult to bear. “Did you sleep with her?”
Logan kept his eyes on her and thought for a long moment about his answer. Three seconds and Rachel looked away, her eyes glittering in the lamplight. She brought a hand to her eyes and turned for the door again.
“It’s over,” Logan said weakly, his eyes dropping to the floor.
She turned on him, the anger in her eyes and voice again. “It fucking better be!” Though her eyes were still red from tears, her demeanor had gone from betrayed to accusing. She held up a trembling finger as she took another step closer to him. “If you ever see her again—”
Logan swallowed and nodded once. For once he was telling her the truth. He could live with never seeing Niki again. From where he now sat he couldn’t imagine why he had done it in the first place. Niki hadn’t considered him anything more than a convenience. He shuddered to think of what his stupid juvenile desires had risked. Hanna and Rachel were what mattered.
As she turned to go, he glanced regretfully towards the book he had been reading. She must know every word.
“You’re sleeping on the couch tonight,” she tossed back bitterly as she left the room.
Niki wasn’t sure what the universe was playing at, but the rules of the game kept getting more and more screwed up. The Goths had... surrendered? Was that what she should call it? The Slayer wasn’t really interested in a live and let un-live policy when it came to vampires. She wanted them dead and that was all there was to it. But she obviously wasn’t going on a field trip to Cleveland just to take out a Goth coven. You’re not allowed to surrender, Niki insisted to herself, it’s not good for my image! What was the score up to now? She’d slain them, fought for them, negotiated peace treaties with them, broken those treaties, slain them again and now reluctantly accepted their surrender and allowed their retreat. Any history book might think she was fighting the Soviets.
Niki looked now at her one redeeming victory. Harrison was breathing on his own, but still solidly in his coma. His hair was beginning to grow over the scar across his scalp. She was unable to do anything but look at him. She drew a lock of her own hair from her face and leaned in closer, listening to his breathing. It was calming. Unlike her own breathing. What was he thinking in that infinite playground behind his eyes? Was he thinking about her? Did he think of her as his arch nemesis? Was he plotting?
She leaned in closer, trying to see through his eyelids to the images which he replayed over and over. She couldn't explain her obsession with him. The smile returned to her face. Poor little man. He had had the misfortune of finding his way into a completely new world. Her world. A brave new world of evil he had never encountered before. She had led him there, like an cruel parody of Alice’s White Rabbit. And he would never tell a soul what he knew.
Jesse quickly pulled the drawer from its recess in the dresser, turning it over and spilling the contents to the floor. With practiced hands he rummaged through the growing pile of clothes, searching.
He turned over a pair of jeans and several long objects were exposed on top of the pile. He paused, initially thinking they were something entirely different. Upon closer examination, they were made of wood and were pointed. His hand slowly reached for one, lifting it into the harsh light of his determined gaze.
This particular stake was covered in dried blood.
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