Epilogue
Logan followed the river as it gently carried his little boat into the fog. He had no paddles, just the tiny glass sphere to direct him. Soon he heard the scraping of his keel running aground and water lapped past him but he did not move.
Minutes passed and finally Logan stepped out of the boat into the ankle deep water. He sloshed forwards into the fog, walking blindly with both hands outstretched and sweeping back and forth through the mist.
Gradually, the water got shallower, soon the man was walking across a solid surface through the fog, his arms reaching out before him. Hours seemed to pass before the mist finally began to clear, passing away like a curtain.
Logan stopped, dropping his arms to his sides. A little girl stood in the whiteness, perfectly still, directly in front of him. Logan couldn’t tell if he’d ever seen her before – he wasn’t too sure about any of his memories. All he knew was he was here and: “They want to see you,” the little girl said. She turned around and then looked back over her shoulder at him. “Follow me.”
He followed. There was no concept of distance, since there was no perspective. The universe was white in all directions. Even the ground was a solid white surface upon which their feet made barely any sound. They walked onward until something changed.
The horizon, it seemed, grew darker. Soon the horizon reached them and Logan could see that they had approached the edge of an expanse of muted, grey carpeting which, as they crossed onto it, covered the floor in all directions. Still they walked, their footsteps now completely unheard, until something else approached from the horizon. It was a wall.
As they reached it, Logan looked about himself in surprise as his perspective returned. He looked up and a ceiling looked down at him with dull white tiles and several banks of fluorescent lights. He looked to either side and saw a simple door and a floor to ceiling window overlooking a sprawling city scape. He looked behind him, not sure anymore what to expect, and found he was looking back down the length of a simple conference room. In it stretched a long conference table with three chairs spaced widely on one side. A corner lamp stood unobtrusively in the far corner beside a second unremarkable door and the floor to ceiling windows continued along the length of the wall behind the chairs.
Logan looked about himself again and the girl had disappeared. Moments later, the door on the wall beside him opened with a quiet click and a man with white hair entered. He stood at the door, holding it open as two women followed him inside. He closed the door after the second had entered and then withdrew the chairs for each of the other two before sitting himself.
Logan walked past the door to stand across the table from the center seat. Rachel looked back at him with kind eyes. To her left sat Haargan, to her right, Stephanie. All wore black business suits and all were smiling kindly.
Logan swallowed. He had a terrible feeling he was being judged. But he couldn’t be judged, he argued with himself, he was a Specter. He was outside the laws of higher moralities. Still he felt like a truck was about to hit him if he were to move a muscle. “You’re leaving then?” the specter asked, feeling, as he realized he should, full of sorrow.
“Yes,” Rachel said calmly. “We have business to conduct elsewhere.”
Logan looked from one face to the next. Haargan and Stephanie shared Rachel’s quiet demeanor. None of these three had had particularly peaceful lives, nor peaceful deaths, but their images played central roles in the specter’s mind, which was why the Powers had chosen them.
“You have something of ours,” Haargan said gently. Nothing here could be sudden. The words came from everything, everywhere.
Logan looked down and saw that while in his left hand he still held the tiny sphere, in his right he now, or had always held something else. An ordinary, brass-colored key. “This is yours?” he asked, staring down at its uncut edge in wonder. Wasn’t it the most beautiful green he had ever seen?
“Yes,” Haargan answered. “I was its guardian. I helped create it and I would like it back, please.” He was silent for a heartbeat as the specter continued to gaze in wonder at the unremarkable object. “The door remains locked without it.”
Logan looked up from the Key to the door at the far end of the room, beside the corner lamp. He looked back down at the Key in his hand then up into each of the faces of the ones at the table. They simply smiled at him. Swallowing, he stepped forward and placed the Key on the table’s surface with a tiny clink.
Rachel bowed her head in gratitude. “Thank you,” she said, lifting the Key from where he had placed it and handing it over to Haargan. All three then stood at once and walked in a line to the door at the end of the room.
“Wait,” Logan called after them. They turned as one. “You're just leaving?”
Stephanie cocked her head. “You’re not alone,” she said curiously. The three then looked past him and he turned to see Whistler standing by the head of the table. He was slowly eating a hotdog.
He tipped the brim of his fedora and made a small nod. “Hey, kid.”
Logan turned back to the three as they turned again as one for the door. Haargan slowly set the key into the lock and turned it with a small click. He held the knob for a moment before giving it a sound twist and opening the door outwards.
Immediately, the room was filled the screams and shouts and moans of terror and agony. Then Haargan disappeared through the doorway and with a small ka-chunk, the door shut behind him, sealing off the sounds from beyond.
Then Stephanie took the handle and twisted, opening it and stepping through to a completely new chaotic symphony. The door ka-chunked shut behind her as well.
Rachel waited longest of all of them. She opened the door, just a crack, but enough to let in the most muffled sounds of horrible pain. She twisted the Key in the lock and heard it click, then pulled the Key free and placed it carefully in her jacket pocket. Giving the knob a gentle rattle to ensure it was locked, she turned back to Logan and winked. Her free hand reached out and under the shade of the corner lamp, finding its switch and switching it on.
The room was suddenly illuminated as it hadn’t been before, with a brilliant white light too bright to look at. Logan shielded his eyes, but finally turned around to look at Whistler. He heard the sound of the door closing and the muffled sounds of horror vanish.
“They’re gone,” Logan said with a sudden shock of cold up his spine. The bright light of the lamp seemed to warm him slightly, but the cold was definitively there.
“They weren’t alone here,” Whistler answered nonchalantly. “And I’m still here. I’m the permanent replacement.”
“But they’re gone,” Logan said again, like a small child left alone for the first time, not sure how to react. “Anything could come in here now. Bad things.”
“And something will. Very soon,” Whistler nodded. “That’s what we’re here for,” he gave a smile. After a pause, he took another bite of his dog. “They left something for you,” he said with his mouth full. He swallowed before continuing. “They said you’ll find it at your circumcenter... or epicenter or something like that.”
A grin slowly spread across Logan’s face. He looked down at the tiny ball in his left hand. It looked up at him innocently. “Well, little guy, it’s just you, me and my soul. Let’s get to work.”
1 July, 2002, 60 miles West of Chamdo, Tibet
Alexius slowly sank to his knees. The treasure of this monastery was beyond anything he had ever imagined. There were relics here from all over Christendom and the world beyond. Skulls from half a dozen saints. Shields from the battles he had grown up hearing about in the war camp. His breath caught – the Lost Arc.
A tear slid down his cheek as the wonder of the room filled his heart. The table of the Last Supper. The swaddling clothes of Mary. An emperor’s ransom in gold coins from down through the ages.
Something caught his eyes, however, more powerful than anything else. A sword, much like his own, rested in a case near the back. He did not need an expert to know who had wielded this sword nine hundred years ago. It had been his ancestor. This was Alexius’ sword. Alexius II, that is.
The knight drew his own sword and jammed its tip down into the floor, bowing his head before it. It was all his. Given to his keeping by Master Loki the magician, along with the news that all his missions had been fulfilled. The soul-trader demon was dead and the Key was no more.
Alexius V, knight of Byzantium, smiled, his eyes filled with tears. With a treasure to protect, he was a knight once again, with a mission more noble than any other he could think of. He had found his reason again.
19 September, 2002, Sunnydale
The crickets chirped impassively in the quiet of the cemetery. Dawn sat beside Spike on the low, broad tombstone as the vampire exhaled a giant cloud of smoke into the still night air. There had been silence between them for hours now. And silence between them for months up until they had just met. Dawn had come here to find the vampire and he had known to be here waiting for her. His hair was no longer blond, but for the tips; he had neglected to bleach it as he had been wrestling with the new evil, or perhaps old evil, that had found his weakness in sanity through his new soul. But lucidity was his tonight — a refreshing clarity that afforded him time to talk with his favorite nibblet. But the talk was mostly unspoken until Dawn finally spoke it.
“Do you think we’re two of a kind, Spike?” she asked, staring out at the graves which stretched away into the darkness. The graves didn't bother her so much anymore. One of them was her mother's, she knew. But her mother had stopped appearing in her dream as a ghostly apparition and had begun to frequent her thoughts as a pleasent memory.
Spike exhaled slowly. “That depends,” he replied casually. “You alright?” He raised a questioning eyebrow and glanced at her.
Dawn Summers blinked and unconsciously moved her hand to the crook of her left elbow where she scratched absently at an old wound. “I guess we’ll find out,” she breathed. The cool night breeze picked up, but the crickets never faltered.
The End
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