Loss for Words - Act 4
Niki watched Logan run out the door. She frowned and lifted the shot glass to her lips, letting the drink burn down her throat. The door slammed behind the conjurer and Niki blinked away the sting in her throat.
“What’s his problem?” The Slayer asked with a disinterested tone.
“Whistler still paying your tab?” the barkeep asked, holding the bottle back just in case.
Niki glanced back and saw Whistler talking to a couple of demons, his back turned to her. She snatched the bottle from the demon behind the bar. “Damn right he is. He owes me, big time.”
“What could Whistler possibly have done?” the barkeep asked with skeptical amusement.
“That little...” she took a calming breath. “That guy is the worst demon I’ve ever dealt with.” She threw back her next shot with a sound of satisfaction. “The day I’ve had — you wouldn’t believe.”
“Try me,” the barkeep smirked, capping the bottle with his thumb.
Niki shrugged. “You ever heard of the Deceivers?” The demon made a noncommittal shrug. Niki nodded as if this were enough. “Well, I made some enemies a couple of years ago... you know, when I saved the world. So one of ‘em decides to get me back.”
“Vengeance Demon?” the barkeep asked. “They’re trouble. I’d keep ‘em out of my bar altogether, but they have expensive taste in alcohol and I’ve got bills to pay.”
Niki raised an eyebrow and tapped her glass again. “No... not vengeance demon. Regular human... or maybe he was a demon or something — I don’t know. The point is—” she tipped her head back and emptied the shot into her stomach, slamming the glass back down on the bar. “Whew. Point is, this pissed off little bitch of a man summons these Deceivers to poke their noses into my life and fuck everything up.” She laughed hollowly. “I don’t have a dollar to my name and not a friend in the world. All because of a bunch of crap and some bullshit advice... given to me by whom?”
The barkeep frowned. “Whistler?”
Niki nodded. “Yeah. He tells me to go find this seer. So I find her, turns out she’s actually a Deceiver who’s been fucking with me the whole time. But I don’t find this out until it’s too late, of course: when I’m standing face to face with the little runt who planned the whole thing.”
“You don’t sound very happy,” the barkeep noted. “You’re here, aren’t you? Did you win?”
Niki slumped a little lower in her stool, fingering the full shot glass. “Yeah,” she muttered.
“Well, there you go. Congratulations.” He poured her another drink as she emptied the next one. “So why do you look so depressed? Not that my business is complaining...”
Niki sighed and slid her hand over the glass to block a refill. “It was just so fucking disappointing, you know? All the prophecy and destiny and life and death and meaning and shit... I just expected there to be more, you know?”
The barkeep’s face contorted to a look of incredulity. “You... wanted an apocalypse?”
The Slayer didn’t react for several seconds. “Well... kinda, yeah.”
He pulled a fresh glass from behind the bar and poured her another. “You’re weird.”
“Niki?”
The Slayer turned around and saw Whistler slowly walking toward her. The look on his face made her gut turn. Uh oh...
“What are you doing here?” he demanded, his eyes fierce and his expression shocked.
Niki’s eyes shifted uncomfortably. “Uhh...” she glanced back to her drink and the barkeep. “Am I supposed to be somewhere else?”
Whistler looked to the old beer-motif clock in the corner of the bar. His expression became more worrisome with each passing second. The demon slowly looked off into the distant nothing and walked numbly forward to take a seat next to the Slayer.
“Why are you here?” he asked quietly, as if talking to himself.
Niki frowned and pursed her lips, unable to come up with an answer. She swallowed, fearing anything which made Whistler act this way. Where was his confidence? Where was his knowing smirk?
After a long moment, the demon in the plum jacket turned and looked at her with sad eyes, a vast and tragic realization seeming to have dawned on him. “Why didn’t you go to Logan’s house?” he asked gently, his eyes compelling her answer more than his voice.
Seeing him like this made Niki afraid to the core. “I— I met the Deceivers... I got a guy killed in the mall... I wanted to have a drink.” She looked into his eyes, asking him with a look if she had done something wrong. “Why would I go to Logan’s house?” the question was delicate and careful, as if she were afraid of the answer.
Whistler stared into her, as if he saw her for the very first time and what he saw was disappointing. “Because he was the one you trusted.” The demon blinked away the look and turned to the bar, taking the bottle of Jack Daniels and pouring himself a snifter full. He looked forlornly into the drink and swallowed. How could this be?
“You were meant,” he said at long last, betraying a timeless and sacred trust... he lowered his gaze as if he couldn’t finish, then looked the Slayer hard in the eyes again. “You were meant to go to Logan’s house,” he said with regret. “You would have met there a demon which Logan himself had sent to kill his wife.”
Niki’s frown grew more intense as Whistler described in the most plain language her planned destiny.
“You were meant to fight the demon,” he said, almost apologetically, “and to die in battle with it. It was meant to take you by the throat and suffocate you—”
“Stop,” Niki turned away, resting her forearms on the edge of the bar and bowing her head as the memory of her death came flooding back. But the demon did not stop.
“It was meant to bend down and suck your soul from your dying body, as it does with most it kills. You died,” Whistler said emphatically as Niki looked back up with tears in her eyes, “on the living room floor of Logan’s house, defending his wife and daughter.”
Niki angrily wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. “How could I save them if I was dead?”
Whistler’s regretful expression became pained. “Why do you think the Council wanted you dead so badly? Their seer saw that your death came almost too late to save the next Chosen One. Hanna.”
Whistler took a deep breath. He knew by now that it was too late. Logan had played his part all too well. It was Niki who had failed.
“When you died,” he said quietly, “Hanna would have been called. She would have taken the demon by surprise and killed it.”
Niki slowly looked around the bar. She recalled Logan having run out in almost a panic. The whole bar seemed to be staring at her with disapproval. Well done, it seemed to say with disappointment. No. It was more than the bar. It was everything behind the walls and above the ceiling. The whole world was shaking its head.
“Are you saying they’re dead?” she asked Whistler at last, fresh tears glittering in her eyes. Excuse after excuse poured through her mind. How was I supposed to know... but she just closed her eyes and shook her head. It wasn’t about choice. It wasn’t a choice she had made which had killed someone, like Forster’s wife — it wasn’t an enemy plot, like had killed Megan Brandon... It’s just you.
Logan pounded up the stairs from the bar to the grey twilit street, his breath quivering as he tried not to think about what was happening to Rachel– to Hanna. He got to his car, his mind numb. Car. Car. Rachel had wanted a divorce. She would have taken off her ring. The only thing which could have protected her. Car... Car. Something about a car.
He slammed his hand on the roof above the driver’s door. What do I do now? he demanded of himself. He couldn’t think, he was so worried. Drive. Drive. Fighting back the creeping horror of what he had done, he nodded and tried the handle. Locked.
“DAMMIT!” he shouted at the top of his lungs. He couldn’t deal with this. Slamming his fist on the roof of the little brown car again, he ignored the stinging of tears and tried to think rationally. Keys. He thrust his hand into his pocket and drew out his keys, grabbing for the car key and dropping the whole set to the street.
With a pounding heart, he dropped to the street to pick them up again, feeling along the dark pavement for an eternity before fumbling as he found the correct one and shoved it into the lock. As he twisted the key to unlock the door, the spark of a thought occurred to him. You don’t need to drive, idiot. Teleport.
Quickly mashing the tears from his eyes, he tried to compose himself and envision the twist of light and the feeling of disappearing. Nothing. Swallowing, he blinked a few times, then closed his eyes to try again. The tendons standing out on his neck, he focused every scrap of his haggard mind on the simple task he had performed a dozen times before.
“FUCK!” he cried, hastily pulling the door open and jumping behind the wheel. He fumbled again with the ignition key and turned it. The car chugged and wheezed as the various deities upon which he had called to keep the car working began to abandon him.
With a clang, the muffler and tailpipe hit the pavement. Ignoring this, his teeth on edge, Logan continued to turned the ignition, again. Again. Again. He slammed the steering wheel. He turned the ignition again and heard something pop. Ignore it. Just drive. He turned the ignition again and with a rattling and a clunk, all noise from the engine stopped.
Nearly hyperventilating and no longer able to hold back the tears of desperation, Logan crossed his arms on the steering wheel and cried at last.
Whistler turned away to at last break the disappointed gaze he had been holding on Niki Valtaine, the vampire slayer. The one. Chosen.
He wanted to feel sorry for her. Wanted sympathy to alter his disappointment, his resentment at her failure. But it wasn’t there. Probably the thought of Rachel and Hanna being slaughtered was getting in the way. Probably the pain Logan must be feeling for playing his part. He must never know Niki’s failure.
“Hanna was important, Niki,” Whistler said trying not to sound as miserable as she looked or he felt. “Something is coming that you weren’t meant to stop. Even if you’d done everything right, you weren’t meant to stop it. But now...” He shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know what to say.”
Niki closed her eyes, her ordeal today already forgotten. How could she have been so arrogant? How could she have thought that was it? Given up so quickly? Turned to the sick comforts— she slashed her hand across the bar and sent the bottle of Jack Daniels to the floor with a crash.
There was a long silence as it completely settled in on the Slayer exactly how much she had fucked up. Just existing — doing what came naturally, being who she was had overridden some sort of bloody cosmic plan...
“I have to go,” Whistler said at last. The decision struck him hard and he wasn’t eager to leave when Niki was hurting, but he had no choice. The plan had been in his keeping and now it was fucked six ways from Sunday. He was no longer needed, nor particularly wanted to be the scapegoat for this mess. When the Council learned Hanna was dead...
“Where are you going?” Niki asked desperately, standing up and wiping the tears from her eyes. Day in and day out she complained about the state of her life. She had never considered how much she truly had left to lose. She considered it now as the demon who had been like an older brother to her slid his fedora on and turned back from the door.
“I’m sorry, Knicks,” he said sincerely, his eyes troubled as they tried to feel for her. “There’s nothing here for me anymore.”
Fresh tears spilled over the Slayer’s cheeks as she resisted the sudden impulse to take him in her arms and beg him for forgiveness— beg him not to leave. “Aren’t you going to give me some encouraging words or wisdom or something?” she thought quickly, trying to sound hopeful but making no attempt to stop the tears.
Whistler’s eyes finally found a trace of pity and he forced a little smile onto his lips, but succeeded only in looking more sad and full of regret. He stepped towards her and slid his hands around her waist, regretting how much it seemed to her like he was going to offer a comforting hug. He was not.
He slid a hand into the pocket of her leather jacket and pulled out a crumpled up napkin. Carefully unfolding it, he pressed it into her hand and saw her look down at it. She recognized it as the Word the Shadow Men and the Council had threatened to use against her — the Tuareg word which Whistler had written down...
“It won’t make everything better, will it.” Niki looked back up and Whistler said nothing. After a long minute, he leaned in and kissed the corner of her mouth as a tear ran down her cheek.
“Take care of yourself, kid.” Touching the brim of hid fedora, he turned and left the Nail Biter for the last time.
Logan sat in the back of the taxi, his fingers working at the edge of the seat’s upholstery. He was empty of tears now. His entire being was stained with them. The urgency had left him as the minutes had passed and the quiet truth had found him that he was already too late.
He sat in silence in the back of the cab as the taxi took its time getting onto the Sunrise Highway and once there, time seemed to stretch into forever. There was a calm now, as last night’s rain picked up again. The grey of the world outside the car flashed by in silence as the car made its way out of Manhattan towards Freeport.
Logan watched the rivulets of rain as they slowly found their paths across his window, going nowhere, carried by the wind. Headlights flashed by, electrifying the little streak of water and passing his shadow over everything. He slowly reached up to the window and touched the glass where one of the drops was, his gaze fixed on it.
One of his favorite lullabies was drifting wistfully from the static of the oldies station. 59th Street Bridge. The melody floated about the inside of the car and followed Logan as he found himself walking through the wet grass towards his front door.
Slow down, you’re moving too fast. Got to make the moment last, just— The door lay in pieces inside the front hall. The rain which had gotten in had formed a little pool around where Rachel and Hanna’s shoes were.
Logan calmly walked up the stairs in the dark. He could hear the rain picking up outside, the pattering on the windows increasing, but the wind was silent. —kickin’ down the cobble stones, lookin’ for fun and feeling groovy.
Logan looked down the long dark hallway towards his bedroom. The door was wide open, but inside was dark as a tomb. He took a step and noticed Hanna’s bedroom door was also wide open. Turning and stepping inside, he saw signs of violence and struggle. There were holes punched in the walls and things were scattered across the floor. Ain’t ya got no rhymes for me?.
Logan walked carefully over the mess, disturbing nothing, the mellow song drifting all over everything like sunlight playing on a like. There was a swish outside as a car went through a puddle. Logan slowly pushed the closet door all the way open, sliding aside the clothes hanging there.
He blinked.
I got no deeds to do, no promises to keep, I’m dappled and drowsy and ready for sleep. Let the morning time drop all its petals on me, life I love you.
All is groovy.
What Logan saw inside the closet tried to touch the last of him that was human. He stared at it for a long time in the dim evening light. The wind picked up outside. He reached down beside it and picked up something.
It was long and white and silky smooth. He brushed his finger along its fine edge. A feather.
He blinked.
Turning from the shadow, he slowly got down on his knees in the middle of the chaos of his beloved’s bedroom. He sank down onto his side, curling his knees up close to his chest. He held the feather before him as the rain came down.
The wind picked up and he faded away.
Niki Valtaine looked at the napkin and the Tuareg word written there. It might have been easier if she could have pronounced it, but it just looked like a bunch of shapes and lines to her. Something in her feared it, though. The part of her that was the Slayer. The part of her that had failed. The demon inside deserved the worst fate Niki could conceive, but she would have to settle for forcing it to live inside her for the rest of her life.
She slowly tore the napkin down the center and stuffed the shreds into the brandy snifter filled with Jack Daniels. The ink began to run and soon there was nothing but a blue smear.
An electric chill went up the back of her neck. The vampire approached from the door and stood behind the stool next to her. Niki turned, wiping the tears from her cheeks but unable to hide the redness.
The vamp seemed to take little interest in her. He wore black pants and a black T-shirt with a red button down shirt hanging open. Over it all was a familiar black duster. This he removed and shook the rain from it, touching his bleached white spikes to draw the water from them and keep it from running down into his eyes.
Niki swallowed, turning back to the newly opened whiskey and pouring two drinks.
The vamp folded his duster and laid it over the bar, tapping a cigarette out and lighting it from a silver lighter.
When Niki slid the measure of whiskey over to him she finally caught his attention. He looked her up and down for a minute, taking a long drag. Finally he turned back to face the bar and took hold of the shot.
“Thanks for lookin’ after my jacket,” he said tonelessly, throwing back the whiskey and setting the glass quietly back on the bar. “Don’t remember quite so many bullet holes, though.”
The Slayer didn’t even touch her drink. “You want it back?”
The vamp made a noncommittal shrug. “Never really liked it anyway. Got me a better one now.”
Niki nodded.
The two sat and drank in silence: What was there to say?
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