Betterment - Act 4
Logan’s eyes were still wide open, despite the lateness of the hour, as he drove back through the Bronx to where his client lived.
Behind his eyes circled his mind, spinning around and around in a panicked circle, around his collapsing sense of reality. They know, they know, they know. Unable to control it, he burst out laughing. He had to swerve the car to avoid hopping the curb, nearly doubled over as he was from laughing: Full Partnership. The words had briefly crossed his mind, the cosmic joke of the moment making his sides ache. He had been so close. On the very threshold of a normal life when the firm of which he had been granted full partnership had been... severed. He continued to laugh, his life laughing with him.
The life he left behind had swallowed him up completely. This could work, a small part of his mind told him. You could work with this. His laughter continued as he pulled the car to the side of the road, got out and lifted his briefcase from the passenger seat.
The light in the lobby was still lit and the boy was still standing in the doorway. He held up a hand as he recognized the car and the man with the briefcase, but Logan brushed past him without a second glance.
He strode with a broad smile through the lobby to the stairwell where the Puerto Rican vampire was waiting, smoking another cigarette.
“I thought I told you, you’re not–” but his words were cut off as Logan held out a hand and an invisible fist took hold of his throat. Logan’s smile was still there as the vamp’s eyes grew wide, the fist tightening.
Lifted completely off the floor, the vamp couldn’t stop Logan from approaching the stairwell. Taking one look up at the dark void into which he would have to go, Logan closed his eyes and disappeared in a twist of light. The vamp fell to the floor, massaging his throat. The boy looked from him to the place where the lawyer had been a moment ago, distant amusement on his face.
Logan reappeared outside room 605, straightening his collar before politely knocking on the door. He knew it was well after midnight, but he now had a good idea why his call earlier today hadn’t been answered. Mrs. Washington was the sort of person who was most active during the night.
The door opened a crack and a pair of eyes peered out under the chain which held the door from opening any further. “Yes?” a voice croaked.
“Mrs. Washington?” Logan said happily, “I’m Logan Kilpatrick, representing Wolfram and Hart. I’m here to represent you.”
Niki drove the shank of the crossbow into the vamp’s throat, knocking her off balance. Niki’s fist connected firmly with the creature’s sternum and sent her over backwards into the street. Niki knelt down and picked the vamp up by the collar to bring her face closer.
“You know what yesterday was?” she shouted into the inhuman face. With a grimace, she smashed the butt of the crossbow into the vamp’s face. The vamp’s head snapped back and then came forward again, hissing. Niki struck her again and again. “Do you know?” she demanded furiously.
The vamp finally scowled. “No!” the vampire shouted, struggling free of Niki’s grip. She grabbed the Slayer’s shoulders and smashed her face into Niki’s own.
Niki staggered to her feet and raised the crossbow, letting a bolt fly into the vamp’s shoulder. The vamp screamed and ripped the wood from her flesh. The bolt missed her heart and the vamp charged.
Niki swung her arm and took the vamp hard in the throat, knocking her again to the ground, this time jamming a stake into her heart as she tried to rise. The dust blew away in the cool autumn wind. “Of course you don’t,” she said bitterly. “Nobody does.” She brushed off her jeans and loaded another bolt into her crossbow. Twenty One.
Logan sat with his hands folded staring at the vampire before him. She was much older than seventy one. It hadn’t taken much money back in the thirties to alter her records. Back then she had been Mira Love and the name had translated to her new life. She was known as Mama Love around the South Bronx and as far as Harlem and Manhattan.
She looked relatively harmless, though Logan knew as elderly as she looked, she could inflict severe damage if she wished. So he sat with his hands folded on an antique chair staring at the elderly one who also sat staring at him.
“So, Mrs. Washington,” Logan began cordially, “you’re aware of the charges of assault leveled against you?”
Mama Love nodded. She reached over and with a steady hand took a teacup to drink. Logan didn’t want to know what was in it.
“Do you know for a class A misdemeanor you could do up to one year in prison?”
Mama Love’s eyes lifted to meet Logan. “It’s all been one big misunderstanding,” she said slowly, sipping her tea, or what might have been tea.
“How so?” Logan asked, pulling the small notepad from his suit pocket.
The elderly woman, for that is how Logan had begun to see her, set the teacup down. “I was only tryin’ to help him. But he wouldn’t let me and got scared. I don’t hold it against him.”
Logan frowned. “He’s charged you with second degree assault. I expect the only way you could have inflicted serious physical injury on a thirty seven year old man was if you were trying to... feed off of him.” The words felt odd to say. He was defending her, he repeated over and over in his mind. How had it come to this?
Mama Love was slow to respond, rolling the words around in her head before speaking them. “You ain’t never been to this end of town, have you?”
Logan shrugged. “Not true. I was here earlier this evening.”
Mama Love seemed to ignore this. “Most folks here... they ain’t got many friends with the power to help them.” She looked slowly from her teacup to her lawyer. “The rest of you rich folk are content to pretend we don’t exist, living your busy lives while we rot.”
Logan’s expression was becoming grim. “What does this have to do with the assault?” He hadn’t looked too closely at the file, but he hoped she didn’t have a vendetta against the entire middle class. He’d already seen the destruction of one vampire war. He’d hate to see the city turned inside out because of economic imbalance.
“Marta,” the vampire said kindly, looking at the door. “She lives next door. Her husband died of AIDS just last month. She’s got it too. Same as her two kids. They call it the skinny disease.” She was quiet for a moment, then slowly turned her head to the window. “She used to have three little ones. Jeremiah, the youngest, died last year from tuberculosis.”
Logan frowned. “They have treatments for that. There’s no excuse—”
“Their family doctor was over booked for months. They didn’t know what he had until it was much too late.” Her voice was slow and tired. She continued to stare out the window.
Logan glanced down briefly, then pressed his point. “I still don’t see what this has to do with-”
“He used to play with Timothy, who lives across the street. They didn’t play together for eight months before Jeremy got TB.” The statement hung like fishing bait in crystal water.
“Why not?” Logan asked patiently.
“Timothy was shot behind the ear in a drug deal gone wrong. He died instantly.” she said gently.
Logan frowned. “Timothy was a drug dealer?”
Mama Love slowly shook her head. “No. He was just sitting by the window and caught a stray bullet.”
Logan took a deep breath and sighed. It was tragic, he admitted to himself, but he still didn’t see—
“But young Josh,” a distant smile crossed Mama Love’s face, “he will never know disease.” She turned from the window to gaze contemplatively into Logan Kilpatrick’s face. “He is completely cured of the skinny disease given to him by the dirty needles he used to use. He’ll never have to worry about gunshots or about getting enough to eat.”
Logan slowly nodded in understanding, lowering his pad. “He’s a vampire.”
Mama Love didn’t acknowledge this, but continued as if Logan wasn’t there, turning back to the window and the starless night. “Hernando, he lives on the first floor. He will never spread sickness to his lovely wife, and she will never catch it. They are free from the pain of having lost their two children.”
Logan took another deep breath and accepted the novelty of writing this down. He lifted his pad, his pen at the ready. “And you sired them all?”
Mama Love looked at him curiously. “I saved them. No one else bothers to try. There is so much paperwork between the rich and the poor. It is easier to bring us all together where we can be ignored. Disease, despair and crime are the result of this neglect. I am the result.”
“And this man who claims you assaulted him?” Logan was busily scribbling down her testimony. Each time he came to something any ‘normal’ court would scoff at, he paused. ‘V’ for vampire. ‘S’ for sired. This was going to be one interesting case.
“I told you it was a misunderstanding.” Mama Love suddenly looked a little agitated, shifting uncomfortably in the chair. She stared out the window as if she wanted to be out there, prowling the streets.
“He came to you for help but didn’t know what it entailed?” Logan glanced up from his pad to watch her response. There was none. “Do you ever consider what you’re doing as wrong?” She slowly turned to face him again. Her gaze made his question feel unwelcome. “I mean, you’re effectively killing these people. You’re robbing them of their day lives. Sure they’re free of disease and virtually immune to gunshots... but they’ve also lost their souls. Are you still able to convince yourself you’re saving them?”
Mama Love slowly looked down before taking a deep, clear breath. “You don’t live here,” was her response. “I used to be able to guarantee them safety from the Slayer,” she said quietly. She gently touched the hint of something silver hanging from her wrist. “But not anymore. Nothing is sure anymore.”
Logan acknowledged this and lifted his pen to make a point. Suddenly Mama Love stood, lifting herself easily from the chair and letting her teacup fall to the floor. Logan frowned as the vampire stared at the door for several seconds. Finally Mama Love vamped out —a truly frightening thing, Logan discovered— as the door burst inward.
Niki Valtaine strode in, looking very pissed off and aiming her crossbow confidently. The old woman raised her left hand, her sleeve sliding back to reveal something silver, but the bolt flew nonetheless. “Twenty-five,” Niki spat.
Logan opened his mouth to protest but, in an instant, his client collapsed into a small pile of dust on the already filthy carpet. His mouth continued to hang open.
Niki turned to him, stake in hand, and it took her several seconds to actually recognize him in the deceiving yellow light thrown by the room’s floor lamp. She slowly lowered her stake, confusion registering on her face. There was a long moment when mixed feelings passed between the former lovers.
Finally Logan closed his notepad and put it back in his pocket. He pulled the cap off the end of his pen and replaced it over the head. With care and determination, he stood and took hold of his briefcase, working his jaw and trying to avoid feeling resentment for Niki having done her job. He realized the hypocrisy of his position. That didn’t make the small pile of ashes go away, though, he thought bitterly.
With his hand gripping tightly the handle of his briefcase, he stared at Niki from across the room. She stared back, confusion and the slightest hint of betrayal in her eyes. Logan blinked once and was gone in a twist of light.
Niki caught a cab home, her rampage complete. She found Addison asleep in the spare room and she collapsed on her bed fully clothed.
Sometime around noon the next day she awoke with one thing in mind. She strode past the old Watcher sitting at the kitchen table, brushing her knotted hair with her fingers. “Twenty fucking five,” she said calmly, walking out the door. His gaze followed her with a frown.
The taxi dropped her outside Hudson Mall. Whistler had said that seer read palms here. What did that old headmistress have to say about which side she was on now? Niki thought with cold composure. Twenty five vampires in one day. A personal best in peace-times.
Niki walked down the broad hallway looking for a palm-reader’s kiosk, looking for a woman in a dark red dress with little white flowers and lace. She almost missed it.
“Read your palm, miss? Tell your future?”
Niki turned and her brow creased. A young woman sat at the palm reader’s table. It was a cheap folding table with a cheap tablecloth covered in stereotypical occult symbols. A model hand sat on the table with the word palmistry written in calligraphy on its wrist.
Niki stared fixedly at the woman behind the table. She was no older than thirty, bright red hair and an AC/DC shirt proudly stretched across her broad shoulders. She had a bright smile and bright blue eyes.
“You just filling in?” Niki asked uncertainly, sitting at the table across from the reader.
The girl made an odd face. “Filling in? No. This is serious stuff. Ten bucks for your life story, twenty five for your future.” She was chewing gum and reached out with a heavily ornamented hand to take Niki’s palm.
Niki allowed her hand to be examined without taking her eyes off the young woman. She wasn’t sure what this was or what was going on, but this wasn’t the woman who had come to see her in the—
Jessica, the palm reader, smiled. “You know, if it were anyone else, I’d have to make up something vague and comforting.” She flashed perfect white teeth. “You know, like ‘you’ve had a troubled childhood’ or ‘you will find happiness in travel.’” She leaned in closer and her smiled broadened. “But for a vampire slayer I can be specific without causing suspicion.”
Niki instinctively pulled her hand back and frowned. This was no joke.
Jessica shrugged. “I don’t really need your palm. People are just more comfortable with hocus-pocus where they think they know what’s going on. We both know it doesn’t work that way.”
Niki held her hands in her lap, the situation beginning to congeal in her mind. “You can tell me about the Deceivers?”
Jessica shrugged again. “Sure Knicks— you don’t mind if I call you Knicks, do you?” She continued, regardless. “The Deceivers aren’t a specific set of people or demons... that’s why you’ll never find anything telling you how to kill them. They’re anyone who’s possessed by the Deception. Now the Deception apparently is something demonic – conjured by a demon or sorcerer and it acts on a targeted person however the person who summoned it wants it to: subtly and usually seamlessly. That’s why it’s so insidious: you may not even know it’s there.”
Jessica indicated a young man in a denim jacket walking with his arm around a young woman. She was bright eyed but seemed to be profoundly worried and hiding it. “He got her pregnant. She just told him this morning. He told her he’d stay with her, but he’s taking her shopping to get her everything his simple mind thinks she’ll need, then he’s going to ditch her.”
Niki looked from the couple and the bags they already carried to Jessica who was observing them with a distant sadness. “You can tell all that?”
Jessica nodded vigorously. “And more. But I can’t let them know I know — it would look suspicious. But I do what I can.”
“Any advice for me?” Niki said distantly, realizing the deception which was following her had managed to make her do things... to what end, she didn’t know. And she found she was scared to know. “Can I end the Deception somehow?”
“Not unless you kill the one who conjured it,” Jessica answered matter-of-factly. “And there’s really no way of determining that. Until then, the Deceivers will follow you around, trying to get you to do what they want using lies and misdirections.”
“What am I supposed to do?” Niki stood, her face worried.
Jessica stood as well. “If you can’t trust yourself, find someone you can trust. Try not to be alone — the Deception can only possess one person at a time, so if someone can watch you, you can at least be sure you won’t do anything too crazy.”
The Slayer nodded, feeling somewhat reassured. Finally she cracked a grateful smile. “Thanks,” she said at last, offering her hand to the seer.
Jessica smiled broadly, taking Niki’s hand and shaking it. “No problem." The seer saw the worry and turbulent uncertainty churning in Niki's gut. Rightfully uncertain about everything. "Don't worry," she said gently, "you're on the right side. You always have been. Oh, and Knicks,” she said with a glint in her eye, “happy birthday.”
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