Reckless: Season 2: Justice - Act 3
by redmoon
Justice - Act 3
Michael lifted his jacket from the coatrack and flashed a grateful smile to Rachel. “Thank you very much for this evening. It was a delicious meal and I always enjoy the company of new friends.”
Rachel smiled back. “Our home is your home. We were glad to have you over...” her smile dwindled. “I’m sorry about my husband— he’s been having a tough time at work lately and...”
Michael held up a hand. “No need to explain. We all get stressed out sometimes.” He bowed graciously. “Some jobs are harder than others.”
Rachel’s smile resurfaced as Michael opened the door to leave. “You have a good night,” she said sincerely. “And safe drive home.” The door closed.
In the cold starlight, Michael glanced up with a little grin. “I don’t drive.” And he was gone with the sound of great beating wings.
With a furious twist of light, Logan appeared again in the parking lot of Malleus, near the blood stain left by his forehead earlier this evening. No chance of that now.
Looking around, Logan, his hands glowing yellow and followed always by the buzz of electricity, searched his surroundings for the smell he was looking for. A very pungent smell which any sleuth could identify.
With a determined and unstoppable glare in his eyes, Logan jumped the chain link fence between the parking lot and the yard next door. He stalked through the thin dusting of snow, his footprints leaving black ice behind him.
With a vicious kick, he forced open the door to the small shed in the back corner of the yard. Looking around, he found the source of the faint smell. Heedless of the heat coming off his hands, he snatched the red gas can and leapt back over the fence.
Niki shifted uncomfortably in her leather jacket. She had met some odd demons in her time, but this...
The Fyarl demons had left a while ago, their price set at twelve kittens each and Niki now sat with the Glarghk Guhl Kashmas’nik, discussing the refinement process of the drug it produced. Surprisingly articulate after a few drinks, the demon, who called himself Karl, showed her the needle-like quill which it used to inject and incapacitate its prey.
Niki nodded with feigned interest, wondering how the conversation had ended up where it was, until Karl began to describe the process by which his venom was distilled and collected in powder form for use as a narcotic. Karl described how pleased he was at the amount of money he was bringing in and recounted his own initial doubt about the forecasted popularity of the stuff, wondering why anyone in their right mind would intentionally ingest poison.
Niki swallowed, not about to reveal her past addiction to the performance-enhancing Stuff, glad she was finished her business and could technically leave, though not sure exactly where she was going to get twenty four kittens on such short notice. Then she noticed something very odd. One of the vampires from the bar had left his empty glass and money and was standing at the door, pushing the handle. The door refused to open.
Icy footprints made a circle around the entire building in which the Malleus was located. Dousing the walls and ground liberally, Logan then stood back, the smell of gasoline all over his hands.
Michael’s smile flashed into his memory. Rachel’s voice. Screw you. His jaw tightened. All he wanted was to protect them. Protect them in ways they couldn’t imagine from threats they couldn’t conceive. He, himself, wasn’t anything they could conceive. Even Hanna had no idea who he was or what he had become capable of. He fought evil, dammit: He was one of the good guys and where was it getting him?
Very slowly, as Logan Kilpatrick stood outside the barricaded door to the horrible little hell, he lifted his eyes above its rooftop to the cold winter sky above. The stars were tiny and distant, like Logan himself tonight.
“Is this what you call justice?” he asked, his eyes narrowing. He didn’t know who he was talking to, but he knew how to get their attention.
Raising his hands, he released the voltage between his fingers and was immediately engulfed in a ball of fire. Instead of being incinerated, the frost on his boots melted and trickled down like sweat to the scorched ground beneath him.
With a roar, the nearby gas can exploded. The fire from the living torch soon found the trail of fumes to the Malleus and spread like water around the base of the building, roaring up higher and higher.
Despite her acute Slayer senses, Niki was not the first to smell the smoke. Many tried to ignore it but when the white steams of it began to pour in from cracks in the walls on all sides, pandemonium broke out.
Some demons, obviously immune to smoke and fire, took the opportunity to rob the place blind, finding themselves in contention with the fiercely defensive barkeep who would rather die than let a customer behind the bar.
Some demons fought with each other simply because the screams and terror got them in the mood. The vampires, Niki noted, were the first to rush to the door, throwing their weight at it in desperation. Niki wasn’t quite sure herself what would happen if a vampire was incinerated, but she expected they themselves didn’t want to find out and she certainly didn’t want to be around to find out either.
Shoving her way through the gathering crowd, she came to the heavy metal door and gave it a ferocious kick. A large dent appeared in its center and a sharp pain stabbed up the Slayer’s leg. Rather than cursing or holding her injured limb, Niki switched legs and gave it another powerful kick. The door opened a crack but it was clear there was something heavy holding it closed.
With a yelp, Niki was thrown aside by massive hands. The troll lifted its great hammer and smashed the door until it was a rent piece of debris on the threshold. Behind it was a car, which, under the troll’s hammer, became another beaten piece of metal.
Screams of terror were now filling the small bar as flames were spreading out of the back room into the bar proper. The opening of the narrow space in the doorway added oxygen to the fire inside the building and once the flames reached the bar itself, a blue ball of flame and tiny bits of glass washed over everything.
From outside, Logan listened impassively to the tortured screams and wails coming from the inferno he had created. Certainly some of them were the innocent humans who had been dragged in there against their will, but being eaten alive was no better a fate.
The sphere of flame surrounding Logan shifted and rippled as vampires and demons clawed their way out of the obstructed doorway. With the sound of tearing metal, the car he had placed there went flying away and a great troll emerged from the Malleus, his hair and beard crackling red with heat. The furs with which he had adorned himself were burnt, wilted and smoking and when he emerged finally from the column of smoke which rose into the air, his smoldering clothes found fresh air and burst anew into flame.
Several figures similarly clothed in fire ran screaming from the fire storm, paying little or no attention to the coherent sphere in the center of the parking lot in which the arsonist stood.
“This is what I call justice,” Logan shouted to whoever might now notice him. The sound of the raging fire overwhelmed his words. Suddenly a jet of blue flame shot out of every window and out the doorway of the building. The windows shattered outwards and the fire redoubled in intensity.
“Am I weak?” Logan shouted as loud as he could, the stars now concealed by the tower of smoke. “Should I be afraid?” he said the last with a grin, laughing with delight as the building began to collapse.
Niki held the back of her leather coat over her head as the blue flame subsided. The pain in her legs long forgotten, she clung to her precious jacket with blistering fingers, using it to shield her sweating body and head from the hottest flames. It was incredibly difficult to breath. Her eyes felt like they were watering acid and her lungs refused to accept the air she managed to force into them.
Finally she hauled herself from the furnace, first realizing she was out when her lungs filled with icy cold air. Coughing and gasping, she forced herself to her feet and moved toward the light. Was she dead? Dying? The light seemed to be at the end of a dark tunnel. But it wasn’t a pure light. It was red and ugly. It was undulating and changing... Niki blinked through stinging eyes and finally focused on the light which was not the end of a tunnel but in fact a distinct object.
Logan felt the first bead of sweat on his brow when he saw a figure crawl from the flames holding a jacket before her. The flames which had encased him were beginning to take their toll. No, it was more than that. A sudden doubt had entered into his mind. It was eating away at his anger and undermining his power and control.
The girl he saw stood and, unlike anyone else emerging from the inferno, began to make her way towards him, dragging her jacket behind her. A sick feeling churned in Logan’s gut as the light thrown by his cocoon illuminated her face.
Then Logan looked down in horror as he realized the soles of his boots were melting. He released his hold on the flames around him and they dropped away to nothingness... just as the building collapsed.
With a blast of smoke and flaming debris, Logan and Niki were thrown away from the Malleus, landing hard on the pavement. Logan groaned and wished he had the strength to pull his scorched boots from his throbbing feet. He felt movement near him and in the warmth and glow of the nearby fire, he saw Niki crawling toward him on her belly.
“What are you doing here?” he asked with chagrin.
“What am I doing here?” Niki repeated angrily. “I’m the fucking Slayer! What the hell are you doing here!?”
Logan grunted as he sat up. He winced as his feet continued to remind him of their plight. “Being a good guy,” he said weakly. “I didn’t think there’d be anybody in there worth saving.”
Niki glared at him. She didn’t know why she was more mad at him: because he’d come to a place like this after he’d managed to extricate himself from her lifestyle or because he’d nearly burned her lifestyle to cinders.
She looked at his face, glistening with sweat, marred with dirt, ash and blood from a reopened gash on his brow. His eyes were worried. Worried for her. His breath was ragged and he was obviously in pain. Her glare continued.
He blinked, looking from her to the almost comically abused black leather jacket she dragged behind her. His worry remained as he looked back to her face, similarly coated with sweat, ash and the redness of the smoke.
“I think I ruined your jacket—” he began apologetically but was cut off when she pulled herself against him and kissed him fiercely. Caught off guard, he took a moment to respond, but soon he had rolled her underneath him and was kissing her back. His skin tingled.
The remains of the demon bar crackled and snapped behind them, sending hot sparks on a column of smoke into a field of cold and distant stars.
Addison moved from shadow to shadow, now positive he was being followed. He didn’t know who it was, but he was about fifty or so feet behind the Watcher and gaining.
The old Watcher came to the entrance of a dark alley, the shadow making it as hospitable looking as the maw of a shark. Addison rounded the corner and stood just within the cloak of the shadow, reaching into his heavy coat for his pistol. The comforting feel of the cold metal in his fingers turned the wide-eyed worry on his face to a hard determination. Fischer wouldn’t get him. Not if he had to kill every one of her demon lackeys.
As he strained to hear the footsteps from the deep black, his other senses calmed and became aware of something else. Breathing. Close.
His gun went off as two pairs of demon hands snatched him from behind and dragged him deeper into the blackness.
The follower continued to stroll along the street, finally catching up to where Addison had disappeared. He looked into the shadow, seeing through it as clearly as if it were day. There was a hoarse shout and the sound of the gun hitting the pavement, then a gurgling cry of pain and finally the thud.
Michael stood at the entrance to the alley, watching the entire ordeal. He frowned a little, allowing this once his disappointment to show. Who said humans could take justice into their own hands? Michael knew to whom justice belonged. He shook his head sadly, turning and continuing his stroll.
Moments later, two great horned figures emerged from the darkness, licking their lips and thinking of kittens.
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