Actions and Consequences: Part II - Act 3
Bernard Crowley extended a hand. The hand was taken stiffly and pumped once. Quentin Travers set down his travel bag and tugged his coat’s collar up higher.
In the light of the airport’s runway lamps, the two men’s breaths were illuminated as clouds of fog only when not in shadow, creating a space of darkness between them.
Crowley lifted Travers’ travel bag. “Short journey?”
“Sort notice,” the other man replied, walking around the dark space towards the waiting car. The small jet behind him was already refueling. The plane emptied itself of the agents in black, cloaked in the anonymity nighttime afforded.
Crowley walked quickly after the confident stride of Travers. “I apologize for having had to call you.”
“It’s not your fault that that imbecile Addison failed.” Travers approached the side door to the black car and Crowley set the bag down to open the door for him. Travers, instead of getting in, turned and moved to the trunk of the car. “How’s you charge?”
Crowley closed the door and picked up the bag again, following the man to the back of the idling car. “Promising,” Crowley said with pride. In an instant, he realized the great Quentin Travers didn’t really care to hear about young Robin.
“Is everything prepared as I specified?” the brit asked calmly.
Crowley nodded, setting down the bag and reaching into his pocket for the keys to the trunk. He unlocked it and lifted the trunk. The small light lit up the contents and the breath of the two Watchers staring down at them.
Before them lay an assortment of automatic weapons and bomb components. Travers looked around at the other black cars in the lineup and the seemingly endless number of agents who got into them. There were the sounds of other trunks closing and Travers turned back to one of the many weapons stores now in his possession.
The light from the runway lights glinted in Travers’ eye and he nodded in satisfaction. “Very good.”
Trial - Part 28, January 7th, 1988
“Place your left hand on the bible and raise your right hand.” The hand came down and the other went up. “Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”
Jesse Trent nodded once. “I do.”
A grotesque assortment of demons stood in two lines in Fischer’s office, low snarls, growls and hisses escaped the clenched teeth, fangs and mandibles. Tawnie Fischer walked back and forth between the opposing rows, examining each for their deadliness and staring into each to find their ruthlessness.
“You have a questionable duty to perform. I know this is an unusual request. I have assembled each of you because I am confident you can perform this duty without fail.” She stopped before a waxy looking demon with bulging eyes. “You will prevent the Slayer from being harmed. Under no circumstances is the Slayer to be killed. You may kill any other human required to prevent harm coming to her.”
Jesse Trent sat down in the witness stand as the prosecution approached him. It wasn’t Eric Quinlan, but Richard Forster, who had been assigned Trent’s particular testimony, who now rested his arm casually on the railing between himself and the witness.
“Tell us when you first met Niki Valtaine.”
Niki closed her eyes and held her head in her hand again as Jesse recounted their meeting at Trent’s Café. She should have seen it. Should have foreseen it. She did foresee it, but didn’t understand her own foresight. Each vision of betrayal might as well have corresponded to each of the men who had betrayed her these past few months. Only Logan was left. Would the visions stop? She hadn’t been sleeping these last few nights, thinking about Jesse Trent. She had given what little of herself she ever gave to a man over to him. He was the only man besides Jimmy she had ever slept with without telling him who she was. What she was. There had been a trust there. A comforting feeling, knowing he didn’t know he was fucking a Slayer. She had felt normal. His betrayal certainly was a slap in the face. Actually, more like a glass of ice water thrown in her face. Normality obviously wanted nothing to do with her and she was forbidden from feeling it, even for a short time.
“Tell us about what you found in Niki Valtaine’s drawer that night.”
Niki laughed inwardly with scorn. The night she’d screwed him and left him alone. He’d been even less than Logan. A cheap substitute drug. At least Logan had fed her emotional need as well as her physical. He understood, if vaguely, what being Chosen involved. He sympathized with her, felt for her – let her need him. Jesse had just been a cock with a smile and a mullet. Now he was a cock on the witness stand telling how he had found the stake she had used to kill Megan Brandon.
“Tell us about the gun you found in the dumpster.”
Niki closed her eyes and very slightly shook her head. She had thrown the gun into the dumpster so some street kid wouldn’t get his hands on it. Jesse answered and she kept her eyes closed, hoping there would be no further visions of betrayal. Logan was all she had. Then she blinked and the prosecution was walking back towards his bench. Logan stood.
Tawnie clasped her hands behind her back and nodded towards the three shamans at the back of the room.
“You have all been selected because you are capable of taking human life quickly and efficiently. I expect nothing less than your best. You must recognize the Slayer, then the members of the Council who will be trying to kill her. You must wait until they give themselves away. Under no circumstances are you to distort your glamour in any way—”
The three shamans began moving down the rows of demons, each waving a stick over the ranks, chanting and muttering. One by one, the demons found themselves in human form, smartly dressed in expensive suits but concealing none of the ruthlessness in their eyes.
“This is your assignment. I will accept no failures.”
Logan indicated the large mug shot of Raymond Fitch. The police file photo clearly showed the black snake tattoo running up the side of his face, its open mouth seeming to devour his eye. The picture was taken before Fitch had been killed and sired. Before Snakeface. That, however, was immaterial.
“Do you recognize this individual, Mr. Trent?” Logan asked calmly.
Trent shrugged.
“Yes or no, please, Mr. Trent,” Logan said patiently. “Have you or have you not seen this individual before?”
Trent shrugged again but answered. “Yeah, I guess. It looks like the guy from my café.”
“Could you be a little more specific?” Logan asked, crossing his arms and looking unsatisfied.
Trent sighed. “I noticed Niki watching this guy with the snake tattoo while we were talking the night we met. She followed him out. Minutes later, I heard gunshots.”
“According to your deposition, you heard a single gunshot.” Logan looked to Trent who nodded grudgingly. “This man,” Logan turned towards the jury and indicated the mug shot of Snakeface a.k.a. Ray Fitch, “was wanted for armed robbery and assault. He was last seen in October of 1985.” Logan took a breath. “His fingerprints are on file.”
Logan turned and lifted Exhibit B from where it sat on his bench. “This gun,” Logan said as if irritated that he had to make these connections for everyone, “was registered to Mr. Fitch in 1981 and never reported stolen. It was confirmed to be the gun which fired the shot Mr. Trent heard in the alley outside his café — the bullet and casing were recovered there. One bullet was found missing from the clip when the gun was recovered.” He held the gun up higher so everyone in the courtroom could see. “One set of fingerprints recovered from this weapon were confirmed to be Niki Valtaine’s, the other was matched to this man—” Logan tapped the mug shot with the gun for emphasis.
Logan held on to the gun in its plastic bag but began to pace before the jury box. “This gun was identified as the one responsible for the shooting of agent Brian Harrison — isn’t it possible,” Logan whirled on Jesse Trent who was caught off guard by Logan’s sudden closeness, “isn’t it possible, Mr. Trent, that Mr. Fitch, the owner of this gun, a wanted felon, is in fact the shooter you heard that night?”
Trent shrugged. “It’s possible, yeah.”
“Isn’t it possible that the gun was drawn and a shot was taken at Ms. Valtaine — a shot which missed and drew attention, leaving Mr. Fitch to run away and Niki to dispose of the gun—”
“Objection,” Quinlan rose from his seat. “Conjecture, Your Honor.”
Judge Ortega nodded and glowered disapprovingly at Logan. “Let’s keep it to what we know, Mr. Kilpatrick.”
Logan nodded obligingly. “Mr. Trent,” he tried a different angle. “Yes or no, you saw Niki Valtaine showing an unusual interest in the man you identified as Ray Fitch the night you met her in your café?”
“Yes,” came the simple reply.
“You saw her follow him once he had left the café?”
“Yes.”
“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” Logan turned suddenly and dramatically towards the dull eyes. “The prosecution has provided us with a picture of Niki Valtaine — the shooter of Brian Harrison and the attempted shooter of someone in the alley near Trent’s Café.”
Logan walked briskly to his bench and slid a file from the table top. “I have in my hand a very interesting piece of information.” He looked down at the file and found where he had highlighted. “On November seventeenth, 1985, the New York Police Department issued a statement offering a reward of six thousand dollars for the capture of Ray Fitch and lesser amounts of money for information leading police to his capture.” He snapped the file closed and glanced up at the jury. “Is it not more plausible that the night of Mr. Harrison’s shooting, Niki Valtaine —unemployed, income dependant on benevolence cheques— followed Ray Fitch to the abandoned shop, seeking to claim his bounty or learn information she could pass on to the police, when Brian Harrison entered the premises and was fired upon. Not by Niki, but by Ray Fitch who feared this F.B.I. agent had come to arrest him. Six bullets entered Mr. Harrison, fired from Ray’s gun... Later, Niki Valtaine tracked Ray to Trent’s Café and followed him out into the alley where he shot and missed, discarding his gun and running.” Logan set the file down on the railing of the jury box and threw up his hands. “Mr. Trent,” he said turning on the man again. “Is this not plausible?”
Trent was silent.
Logan turned away. “No further questions.”
CIFW - 15-15 Hazel Street, East Elmhurst, N.Y., January 7th, 1988
Niki closed her eyes in peace for the first time in days. It wasn’t even lights out yet but she felt sleep coming like a familiar and welcome melody. She thought briefly of Toe Tag City and the electric mayhem they had created. Her fist closed as if she held the comforting wood — not of a stake but of a drumstick.
Niki looked around her and realized with a swelling heart that she was seated behind a well worn and both loved and hated drum set. Standing with their backs to her were the others. They faced the interior of the dark club. All was silent amid the darkness as it waited for their opening number. When Death Befalls You. It was the one she knew best. The one she loved.
Niki rolled her shoulders back and let the comforting black leather of her jacket embrace her. Warm and honest. The greatest hug she had ever known. In her dream she closed her eyes and inhaled the nostalgic smell of when times were good. When she opened her eyes again, the yellow haze had begun to creep around the edges of her world.
With a pained frown, Niki swiped her drumsticks before her, trying to ward off the encroaching vision. “No,” she ordered, closing her eyes again. “I know — I don’t want to be told.” When she opened her eyes again, the drums were gone and her parents were standing in front of her amid a totality of yellow mist.
“You need to be told.” Her father said sadly, holding his wife by the shoulder.
“No!” Niki shouted angrily, turning away from the only two people she had ever loved.
In a flash of light, the car sped into the intersection and was broadsided by a minivan. The car carrying Niki’s screaming parents was thrown clear of the intersection and into the path of an oncoming dump truck. With screams and shattering glass, Niki turned away and back to her parents.
But where they had been standing only a moment ago, they now lay in open caskets, pale and dressed up. Wearing the smiles of death.
The yellow haze was completely gone. Niki looked left and right and found herself in the funeral home. Tears welled up in her eyes as she found herself kneeling at the railing before the bodies of her parents. This was a familiar memory. A piece of her would always be here. The day her life changed.
Suddenly the eyes of her parents’ corpses opened and their heads turned to face her. Niki watched them through tear-filled eyes as their mouths opened and they drew breath to speak.
“He has betrayed us,” they said in unison. Niki blinked and a hand came down on her shoulder. Her parents’ eyes remained impassive: cold and dead. “Do not let him betray you.”
Niki slowly turned her head to look up. The owner of the hand looked down at her with as cold a look as she had ever known. Addison was her legal guardian now. In the event something should happen to her parents. And something had. She was his now.
Niki’s eyes snapped open in her cell. Words could not express... I understand, she said silently, the image of her parents still clear in her mind. I understand now.
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