Author’s note: This episode is the single direct crossover to The Man With a Thousand Faces. It is also the series finale (two seasons, I know, not very impressive) and the last fiction (by me) to include Logan Kilpatrick and/or Loki.
Loss for Words - Act 1
Niki watched as the man and the woman stepped out of the darkness. She shifted uneasily from foot to foot. As prepared as she had convinced herself she was... she simply wasn’t prepared enough.
Joshua Valtaine stepped out of the shadow first, taking his wife’s hand and leading her into the dim light offered by the cracks in the high boarded up window. He appraised Niki for several seconds before crossing his arms with impatience.
“Well...? Aren’t you going to say something?”
Impossible. And terrifying. Heartbreaking. Heartbroken, Niki was frozen to the spot, her eyes aching from the intensity with which they stared at the impossible before her. She finally remembered breathing and drew in a breath of stale air. “Dad?”
Joshua smiled. Beamed was probably a better word. “We’re so proud of you, Knicks. You’ve done it.”
Samantha shared her husband’s smile and took another step towards the motionless Slayer. “We were so worried about you... but here you are.” She looked like she wanted to embrace Niki, but she stopped a few paces away, turning back to Joshua.
The man uncrossed his arms. “We always knew you would find us again.”
Niki blinked. The blink threw everything into perspective. She shook her head and took a step back. “No...” she seemed troubled by something unamed, as if she couldn’t quite drag it through the shock of seeing her parents again. “No, you’re not them. They’re dead.”
“Knicks, you’ve always known we were with you. We’ve always been with you.” Samantha reached out and took Niki in her arms. The Slayer wrapped her arms tight around her mother, squeezing tight even though she knew it couldn’t be real. It felt real.
“It’s a trick,” Niki whispered to herself, hugging her mother tighter. “It’s not real.”
Joshua inclined his head. “How can you say we’re not real, sweety? We’re standing right here.”
Niki pulled away from Samantha, holding her at arm’s length. She swallowed hard. “Y– you’re some kind of deception... or– or this is a dream or something. You’re not them.”
“Knicks...” Samantha Valtaine began, her voice gentle and soothing.
“No!” Niki closed her eyes and shook her head to force back the instinct to hug her mother again. She gave the woman a shove and raised her fists for a fight.
Samantha’s gentle voice melted away and she walked backwards to the man near the shadow. “You’re right.” She glanced to Joshua who smirked.
“We thought we could fool you a bit longer than that... but we’ll take what we can get.”
“Who the fuck are you?” Niki demanded, clenching her jaw so tight her teeth hurt. She tried to hold her fists as tight but the strength seemed to have gone from them.
Joshua smiled. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” As the Slayer watched, his face distorted and he morphed into Jesse Trent. Niki’s gaze was locked on him while Samantha’s features melted into Jessica Burkov, the seer.
“Maybe we’re them...” Jessica offered, crossing her arms and smiling at the expression on Niki’s face. “The Deceivers aren’t a specific set of people or demons...” She laughed out loud, her cruel gaze on the stunned Slayer. “I had you going the whole time. I could have told you the Deceivers were the Yankees and you’d have believed me.”
“You’re not her either,” Niki’s eyes narrowed as she dulled the uncomfortable feelings inside. “What the hell are you really?”
“Of course we’re them,” Jesse said with a grin. He looked down at the body he wore, touching his arms and his chest. “This body felt pretty good too...” he grabbed his crotch and grunted, “you should know.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Niki warned, “you’re not him.”
“The genuine article,” Jesse argued, opening his arms innocently. She was silent for a moment as she looked at him with a nauseating uncertainty. “One drink and I promise I’ll go away,” he said with the grin she remembered from the café where they met.
“You’re the Deceivers,” Niki said to ground herself. She looked away from him and steeled herself again. She stared at the concrete floor for a long moment, then looked back up and tensed.
“We are,” Logan smiled, “anyone who has ever lied.” He turned to the woman beside him. Another Niki Valtaine stood beside him, wearing an identical black leather jacket and a self satisfied smile.
“And we’re here to make your life a living hell.”
The real Slayer glared, swallowing her discomfort. “What are you going to do? Confuse me to death?”
The thing that looked like Logan laughed. “Hell no! We don’t want to kill you: that’s not why we were summoned.”
Niki Valtaine’s features melted back to the form of Jessica. “We’re here to let you know that you have been deceived. That’s all.”
Niki blinked. “That’s all?” She scoffed, still tense and ready for a physical fight. “Shit, I knew that already. Are you just tuning in?”
Jessica cocked her head, a little insulted. “I don’t think you understand. The one who summoned us, he doesn’t want you dead — he wants retribution. All of the deceptions you’ve lived, they were all to get you here, now. We’re here to tell you: You have been deceived.”
Logan stepped forward, his short blond hair fading to white, his face growing old and his voice melting into that of Richard Addison. “Stupid girl. She still doesn’t understand.” His tone was as disappointed and condescending as it was when the watcher had been alive. “From this moment on, you cannot trust. Not anyone, not anything.”
Jessica smiled broadly, her eyes lit up with glee. “You can’t trust what you see... what you know... where you are...”
In a haze of confusion, Niki was blinded by a sudden light. Within a second, she realized it was daylight. With the furious honking of a car’s horn, she spun around and realized she was standing in the middle of a street. She dove out of the way of the oncoming traffic and landed hard on the dark concrete floor of the warehouse.
Jessica and Addison were laughing at her, the old brit clapping his hands in approval. “Now do you understand the ramifications of deception? With nothing by lies we can destroy your life, Niki, without even killing you.”
“Maybe the traffic light’s green, maybe it’s not. Maybe that’s a vampire, maybe it’s not. Maybe that’s water in your glass... maybe it’s gasoline. Maybe you only dreamt killing fifty school kids, maybe you didn’t.” Jessica took another step forward and shifted back to the form of Samantha Valtaine. She reached out to help Niki off the floor. “Point is, Knicks, self-doubt is the number one enemy of screw ups. It’s going to eat you alive — more effectively than any demon could. See, when a demon is done eating you, you’re dead... but when we’re finished with you, you’ll be a huddled mass in an asylum, begging for death.”
Addison smiled, stroking his chin contemplatively as it changed back to the face of Joshua, Niki’s father. “And that’s what the one who summoned us wants. He doesn’t want a quick death: he wants you to suffer—”
“Who the fuck is this prick, anyway? What the hell did I do to him?” Niki stood and brushed off the dust from her jeans.
Samantha laughed, stepping aside and looking into the darkness of the doorway. “It could be anyone... you have so many enemies. It could be him—” Niki’s mother glanced back to the Slayer as a third figure emerged from the darkness.
Niki’s eyes widened as the silver letters on the black shirt caught the light. KISS. Pearce said nothing, only looking hard into the Slayer’s eyes. She shook her head. “No, I killed him.”
Joshua held a finger to his lips. “Oh, yes. Of course... at least, you thought you did...” The Slayer glanced at him sharply. He laughed warmly. “No, no, I’m only messing with you... he’s dead—” the image of Pearce dissolved into thin air. “But it could be him...”
Niki frowned and turned back to the doorway. A glowering vampire in a dark Armani suit stepped out, his briefcase clutched tightly in his hand. It took Niki an instant longer to recognize him as the Creep. The mastermind behind the demon civil war whom she had killed... or at least, thought she’d killed two years ago.
“Or him,” Samantha grinned. The Creep grew taller and more muscular as it took on the features of Adrian Keller, the military lieutenant who had helped her defeat the Creep. “It’s not as though you two parted on friendly terms.”
After staring at the image for a minute or two the Slayer shook her head with impatience. “Yeah, okay, I get your point: I’ve pissed a lot of people off. It’s not like I’m expecting a medal.” She began circling around the two Deceivers, her fists finding the strength they had been wanting. “But the thing I’ve noticed is... during your little sales pitch all you’ve really showed me is that there is some actual ass I can kick... and let’s face it,” she flashed a threatening smile, “that’s one thing I do well.”
Joshua smiled, vanishing into thin air and snapping back into existence six feet to the Slayer’s left. “Good luck with that,” he laughed. “How do you plan on fighting something when you can’t be sure you know where it is?” He walked casually back towards Samantha and passed his hand through her form, grinning as another image of her tapped him on the shoulder from behind for emphasis. They both laughed as if it were the funniest joke ever told.
Niki glanced around the warehouse quickly, finding several things she thought might be useful. Darting past the two laughing Deceivers, she grabbed a large steel barrel and launched it through the air, sending it crashing through the boards which covered the window.
A bright stream of light flooded the end of the warehouse and Niki turned away to save her vision. Turning quickly back to her adversaries, she saw they were lit but cast no shadows. Glancing around she saw two dark moving shapes about twenty feet away; nothing but shadows in the morning sun.
Niki snatched a length of steel pipe and dashed up a tall stack of crates, somersaulting in the air and landing between the shadows of her true enemies. She brought the steel pipe down on one of them, hearing a grunt as she held it to the ground.
Glancing behind her, she saw the images of Joshua and Samantha disappear. Beneath the cold steel of the bar, the form of a demon took shape, solidifying as the object which cast the shadow. Niki pressed the bar into its neck and bared her teeth.
“Lie to me now, fuck face,” she challenged, staring down into the scaley and mottled face of one of the things responsible for Megan Brandon’s death. Feeling the other thing approaching, she swept her leg out behind her and brought it to the ground, catching it by the arm in an iron grip and sliding it across the floor so that she held the two of them shoulder to shoulder.
“You can kill us both,” the one under the steel pipe rasped, his short pointed teeth slicing his words, “but we’ll come back. We’ll take other bodies... the Deception is invincible.”
Niki let go of the pipe and took the demon’s head in her hands, bringing it close to her face with a look of hatred. “Say goodnight, fuck face.” With a snap she broke its neck. Looking over she saw the other demon roll away from her and scramble to its feet. It ran hard for the door at the back of the warehouse.
Niki took the steep pipe and threw it like a sword, watching as it slipped through the hollow image of the fleeing demon and bounced with a clang off the far wall. The Slayer frowned. Crap. She whirled around as laughter moved past her from behind — laughter in the sunlight without a source. Any other person in any other circumstance might have found that a pleasant thing...
Niki swallowed and closed her eyes, stepping over the corpse of the Deceiver and raising her fists in the darkness behind her eyelids. She could do this... it wasn’t her time to die. It might be her time to get a serious ass-kicking, though. She swung her fist at the sound of footsteps and it swept through air.
Ignoring the sounds of laughter and the deceptive direction in which they led her, she concentrated only on her instinct. The thing was here, giving away false directions, false clues. To what end? Not to kill her — it had made that clear. To toy with her? After she had killed the first one the game seemed to have ended. To escape...?
Niki ran through the darkness behind her eyes and leapt off the ground at the last instant as she came to the back wall. She landed on the wall, kicked off and twisted in mid air, scissor kicking the invisible demon in the face as it approached the door’s threshold. Niki landed on one knee, her eyes opening as she heard the thing hit the ground.
In the blink of an eye, she had it’s head between her strong hands, ready to tear its very physical head off. “Who summoned you?” she demanded, squeezing its head tightly.
With a gasp its features melted into Niki’s mother. Samantha sucked in a breath and coughed pitifully. “Knicks...” she managed with a betrayed look in her eyes. “You wouldn’t hurt me, would you?”
Niki clenched her teeth and pulled the thing up and under her arm, holding it in a powerful headlock so she didn’t have to look into its face. “You have five seconds to tell me who summoned you or you will be as dead as my mother.”
The demon coughed again, struggling for breath. “Two and three—” the demon pleaded weakly.
“Five,” Niki finished her five second count and broke the demon’s neck with a jerk of her elbow. The scaley body slumped limp under her arm. Niki let it fall to the concrete floor, standing up and looking at her long shadow in the rays of the morning sun.
With a grim smile, and deadly eyes, she tugged at the collar of her black leather jacket and strode from the cavernous warehouse into the bright New York City morning.
Logan Kilpatrick pulled the blinds closed on his bedroom window. Hanna lay wearily under the sheets of his and Rachel’s bed. It was almost eight in the morning, but neither of them had slept any last night, what with the demon attacking and all.
Hanna’s bedroom was somewhat disturbed, with the remains of a demon in a pile near the window and several spots on the carpet looking like they’d seen better days. Since Rachel had taken the car earlier, Logan thought Hanna could sleep in their bed. He pulled the thick curtains across the closed blinds, plunging the room into near darkness.
“Dad?” came the girl’s voice, small and a little scared, from the darkness.
Instead of answering, Logan sat down on the edge of the big bed and brushed a strand of brown hair from his daughter’s face. He kissed two fingers and touched her forehead, thankful in that moment for everything which had given her to him.
“Could you...” she asked, looking at him as she had when she had been a decade younger and confident her daddy could defeat any monster a dark room could spawn.
Needing no more from her, he closed his eyes and she hers. The secret between them, that he sometimes still sang her to sleep, was one not even Rachel knew and was a secret he knew Hanna could bear to keep.
“Hello darkness my old friend,
I’ve come to talk with you again,
Because a vision softly creeping,
Left its seeds while I was sleeping,
And the vision, which was planted in my brain,
Still remains within the sounds of silence...”
Once Hanna was deep asleep, Logan stepped silently from the room, closing the door behind him. He was loath to leave the house with her alone in it, but he had some business to take care of...
Logan stepped into the most comfortable place he had ever been. Dark and a little dank and smelling of cigarettes and beer. The Nail Biter was officially open for business again. Having been completed, it was now enjoying a tide of regulars who were taking shelter here while the sun bathed the waking world.
Logan looked around. There were too many people to just stand and look. A demon like the one he was looking for would have to be here for business. And he needed to talk business...
He slid onto a stool at the bar without a glance at the figures to either side. He had been out of demon circles for more than a year now and he didn’t expect to recognize anyone.
“Logan,” said a familiar voice, against all odds.
Logan slowly turned and his tired and business-like manner melted away. “Niki!” He grinned and pulled her into a rough hug. “How have you been?”
Niki let herself be hugged by the person she was now relatively certain she hadn’t seen in months. Hadn’t been intimate with last night. “How was your night?” she asked anyway, testing.
Logan laughed. “Interesting. Very... unique.” He took the beer the barkeep offered. “Yours?”
Niki turned back to the scotch she was nursing. “Unique is good. I'll go with that.” To his interested glance she lowered her gaze to conceal the smile. “I have to tell you, Logan, there’s somebody out there who looks like you—”
Logan nodded knowingly. “Yeah, I know. He’s... uh... he’s gone.”
Niki slowly let that sink in. “Oh. Okay.” There was a long silence between them as the rest hung unspoken in the smokey air. “Whoever he was, he was a way better kisser than you,” she said at last to break the tension.
Logan couldn’t help but laugh. That girl was insatiable. And he was apparently irresistible, in any decade. “Good for him,” the lawyer said through a grin. “And good for you for... looking so happy about something—” he raised a quizzical eyebrow. “What’s that all about?”
Niki’s grin broadened. “I’ve just fixed a little problem I’ve been having.”
Logan nodded, bringing the beer to his lips. At the first taste his taste buds told him it was far too early for beer. Hell, he thought, it was still last night as far as he was concerned, and would be until he got a good ten hours of sleep. “I’m here to fix a problem too...” He tugged the sleeve of the barkeep who had turned to replace some liquor bottles.
The demon turned around and crossed his arms with a frown. “What do you want?”
“I’m looking for a demon,” he said easily. There was no reason to let the bartender’s mood affect his own.
The barkeep snorted. “Look to your right,” he suggested and turned back to his work. Logan looked to his right and saw a tall, ugly creature. He chuckled once.
“I’m looking for a specific demon,” Logan began again. “Her name is Halfrek.”
The barkeep turned around again. “She comes here sometimes...” he looked Logan up and down. “She doesn’t deal with the likes of you, though.”
“She already has,” Logan challenged with a little more ferocity in his voice, “that’s what I need to talk to her about.” But the barkeep shrugged and turned away again.
“She’s not here now: Day job.”
Logan sighed. Since first meeting Halfrek at Matt’s house, he had done a little research and discovered that a vengeance demon is the only one who can reverse her own curses. And since Matt had recently been cursed with death... he would find her eventually and would not let her off as easily as he did last time.
Niki emptied the last of the scotch into her mouth and winced as it went down. If it hadn’t been for the loan Whistler had given her, she would be sitting outside this place right now, just waiting for her destiny to come along. But the demon had been in an unusually generous mood this morning and was now busy talking to some demons in one of the far corners.
The Slayer set the glass down and patted Logan on the back. “Well... I think I’m going to get some fresh air.”
Logan nodded. “I’m only staying for one beer, then I’ll be heading for the office. I think I should actually get a small claims case done this week.” Niki laughed and turned for the door.
Logan took a mouthful of beer and swallowed it behind a wry smile. There was something different, he was sure. Maybe it was having seen his future self — knowing he had at least twenty years of life ahead of him... or maybe it was knowing he’d eventually learn to control his powers... but he felt more carefree and chipper than he had in months.
It also could have been the lack of sleep, since as the beer settled in his stomach, Logan blinked wearily for a moment, then let his head sink to the bar, unconscious.
Rachel was pale and quiet as she pulled on her smock and signed in for morning shift. The events of last night seemed like a dream... too awful to be real and yet too perfect to be unreal. The envelope with the incriminating photographs was sitting in the passenger seat of Logan’s car. She had taken the car because she had needed to get to Hamilton’s office as soon as possible. She had kept the car because all the unspoken rules between she and her husband had been shattered last night.
She stared down at the patient’s chart with unseeing eyes. She blinked to focus, but every time she doused her vision with the darkness, the shocking word flashed into her mind again. Divorce. She had never really considered it before. Never really. Even when Logan had told her of his past affair... it had never really occurred to her that she might actually never forgive him. But now...
Hanna would find out. Oh God, Rachel closed her eyes and pressed her fingers into them, trying force back the feelings. She started as a hand touched her shoulder.
“Are you okay?” Rachel turned and saw Michael standing near the foot of the patient’s bed. “I thought you went home?” he asked with a little frown. She noticed he wasn’t wearing his customary blue silk tie. His white shirt looked empty without it.
“I... uh... yeah, I came back. I heard about Matt’s — um...”
“Matt’s death?” Michael offered. Rachel nodded.
“He must have been sent to another hospital though, he’s not here.” She glanced down at the chart and back up again. “Do you want to take me out for dinner?”
The question was so sudden it made Michael do a double take — an impressive feat for an angel. “What time should I pick you up?” he said without missing a beat. Of course it was tonight.
A little forced smile crossed her face. “How about seven.” She didn’t think she could stand to be anywhere near Logan tonight, but she couldn’t stand to take another shift here.
Michael raised an eyebrow and nodded once, turning his attention back to the unconscious man. “It’s a date.”
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