Beyond Any Shadow of a Doubt - Act 3
“It was a dark and dreary night... I know that doesn’t exactly bode well, but it was appropriate anyway. I was fourteen, so I guess it would have been... seventy six or seventy seven.
“We were riding the subway home because taxis were expensive... Dad got paid on Thursdays and it was Wednesday night. We would have taken the car but mom got in a fender bender the week before and it was still in the shop.
“So my arms were full of bags of new clothes and we were sitting at the back of the subway car because we didn’t want anyone behind us. Dad was kinda anxious about the whole thing, I heard him say subways were dangerous places. I remember thinking it was neat.
“I was solidly in my teenage rebellion stage... this was when I was just discovering the Ramones, so rebellion just meant not wearing pink, never smiling and listening to Blue Cheer. I remember that evening mom had wanted me to get a purse, but I think I told her off — purses were for girly girls.
“So there we were in the back of the subway car, my mom exhausted from dragging me around all day, my dad worried we were going to get mugged and me not smiling on principle.
“Then this guy starts towards the back of the car — started walking towards us like he had something in mind. My dad took a step in front of us to make it clear we’re off limits, but I got all brave and crossed the isle. The guy was freaky looking for a Billy Idol wannabe, even from a rebellious teenager’s point of view. With one look I knew I could easily worship him. The way he walked, the way he didn’t care.
“He walked right past my dad without a single glance. But I was watching this guy the whole time and when he passed me he stopped. He pulled off his leather jacket and tossed it on the seat next to me
“‘Look after that for me,’ he said and smiled. I get now that he was probably some perv or something, but at the time it was the coolest thing that had ever happened.
“My dad told me not to touch the jacket and I got really annoyed, so I walked to the back door to the car where the guy had gone. By then he was in the next car and I could see through the window that there was one other person with him.”
Niki slowly ran her finger around the rim of the beer mug. All the beer she had drank that night had been courtesy of Whistler. She still had her last ten dollars deep in her pocket. She didn’t know why she was telling him this story... it didn’t really count as a story. Maybe it was just because it was a secret she had kept. A secret from her parents, who were dead, and from Addison, who now was also dead. She felt like she needed to tell it.
“I watched through the window as the guy and the girl he was with fought. And I don’t mean they fought like yelled at each other. They were actually punching and kicking each other. I remember the guy somehow got one of the poles loose and used it like a staff.
“They fought for several minutes as I watched – I couldn’t take my eyes off it, and finally he was on top of her, holding her head with his hands.” Niki slowly looked up as if retelling the story had triggered a buried memory she’d never understood until now. It took her a minute or so of looking into the demon’s eyes to be able to put it into words. “When he killed her... I don’t know... It was like I was seeing myself. I realized I was going to die one day, you know? Instead of giving me his jacket, he could have snapped my neck.
“Throughout the whole fight, I was watching it like a movie – it was behind that barrier of non-reality that I assumed protected people from real drugs and violence and death... I had never really thought about it because it didn’t seem real...
“Then he walked to the back of the car and pulled the brake line. That was when my dad noticed. He pulled me from the window and saw the girl in the other car. While he was turned away from me, I stuffed the guy’s jacket into my shopping bag. When I looked back, I saw the guy pulling the dead girl’s jacket from her and putting it on.
“My dad grabbed me and pulled me to the other end of our car, my mom in tow. I was kinda dazed. I’d never seen anyone killed before and I remember thinking she couldn’t have been dead... not that quickly or simply: there was no poetry to it. No music.” Niki laughed and drained the last of her beer. “That’s what’s classically called the death of innocence. Bullshit. I’m still alive—” she pulled her leather jacket from the back of the chair and laid it across the table, “and I got this out of the deal.”
“Innocence for a leather jacket,” Whistler mused, slowly dropping some nuts into his mouth. “You realized you were going to die and your response was to wear the clothes of a murderer. I guess everybody has to pick a side.”
“So why not the stronger one?” Niki laughed. “Hey, I was fourteen. Lay off the psychobabble.” She ran her hands lovingly down the leather arm. “Not that I didn’t end up becoming the killer anyway.”
“Somehow, I doubt the jacket is to blame.” Whistler sipped his own beer. As he watched her hold her jacket, he could tell he had managed to get through to her. She had done the work for him.
“I am going to die, aren’t I?” She said it with such calmness and clarity that the demon had to smile in admiration.
“Nothing is more certain than death.” He slid the nearly empty can of nuts back to her. “And nothing is less meaningless.”
Logan sat very low in the driver’s seat of his car. It grew late, but Logan wasn’t concerned. Rachel was taking on more shifts and she was at the hospital tonight. The sun had set and the shadows were now impenetrable. As the stars began to show themselves, Logan watched. As patient and motionless as a spider waiting for its prey to cross its path. He was glad he didn’t have eight legs, because the two he had were developing serious cramps.
Then the fly came to the web.
Kenneth slowed his car down as he drove down the dark street. Looking quickly down at the note he had scribbled, laying on his dashboard, he glanced back up to the house numbers. There it was.
His car slowed and stopped, the headlights blinking off and the engine growing silent. After a moment he opened his door and pulled the note from the dashboard, scribbling some details about the long and complicated route he had ended up taking to get here. In the light cast from the interior lamp of his car, he could just barely see the writing on the note.
With a frown he looked up and noticed the street lamp directly overhead was dark. He looked up ahead and saw the same thing. Back down the way he had come were more dark street lamps. He shrugged and folded the note back into his vest pocket, sliding the pen in alongside it.
He closed the door and began to cross the street, heading for the Kilpatrick household, when with a roar and a squealing of tires, a dark shape nearby came to life with a blinding light.
Kenneth held his hands in front of his face to shield his eyes from the bright headlights, but in less than a second, the spinning tires caught the pavement and the bright thing charged forward, ramming into the surprised Watcher and folding him in half over the hood. The sudden breaking sent the man flying onto the pavement where he lay twisted and bleeding.
After a moment, the car door opened and Logan stepped out, walked carefully up to the body, looking down at it with a dispassionate stare. So this was the man investigating him... He seemed too old for this kind of a risky business.
Logan followed the ambulance all the way to the hospital, as a concerned motorist might. He had called 9-1-1 himself when he realized the man really was critically injured. He was rehearsing the story he would tell the police when something occurred to him. A smile slid across his face, more clever than any before it.
Waiting in the lounge chairs outside the ER, Logan gave his police statement, glancing in occasionally to see the poor man’s status. Soon a nurse bustled out and informed him the man he had accidentally hit was going to live, but he’d be spending the next few days in the intensive care unit. Logan nodded with concern until the cop and the nurse turned to go. After, he continued nodding, making his way behind the gurney to the elevator where he had to wait to follow them to the ICU.
So it was that he missed Rachel’s initial reaction to seeing the man bleeding and broken. No matter. He would find out soon enough. Unlike Logan, Rachel was a very poor liar.
Kenneth looked up through swollen eyelids and painkillers to see the worried face of a man whose face had been described in detail by several members of the Council. This must be Logan Kilpatrick. All of this must be Logan Kilpatrick.
“Who are you?” the man looking down at him asked. “My wife has never seen you before. Neither have I. Who are you?”
Kenneth knew he couldn’t speak while intubated, so he blinked to indicate he understood what was being said. His muscles suddenly tensed and in his periphery he could hear the bleeps and various sounds coming from his machinery speed up: something entirely out of the ordinary was happening.
As Kenneth looked up at Logan Kilpatrick, he could hear the man’s voice in his head – see the man’s emotions, feel his curiosity. Who are you the voice in his head asked.
Kenneth tried to speak with his mind, but before he could even focus his bleary thoughts enough to do so, an image flashed from his mind so vivid he had to blink to see again. It was an image of the Council gathered in London – a meeting they had had several weeks ago. Logan was now nodding with a frown.
Are you looking for her? Instantly an image of Niki flashed before Kenneth’s eyes. The bleep, bleep of the ECG quickened. You’re not looking for her? Logan seemed confused. Who are you looking for?
Kenneth tried everything in his power to think of something else. Anything else. But he could tell Logan saw through him. Are you looking for me? You’ve found me. Kenneth blinked. Relief washed over him and he could tell Logan was misinterpreting it.
“Does the Council need me to save them again... or do they want to kill me too?” He wasn’t concerned with speaking in the Watcher’s head anymore. He could read his emotions like a book, just as he had read his wife’s.
With a trembling hand, Kenneth reached for the button under his right hand. He clamped down hard with his thumb and fresh morphine flooded his system. Logan and the bleeping of the ECG faded away behind a curtain of bliss.
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