4

You wouldn’t think there’d have to be much discussion about what to do next, but there was.

Logan wanted to go into town and see if he could tell what had killed everyone, since the scanners they did have were unable to identify a single dangerous thing in the air or area - although their scanners weren’t sensitive enough to pick of traces of, say, sarin gas. All they could tell was that animals were still alive, they registered on the infrared scan, so that ruled out some kind of broad spectrum poison or incident.

It was irrelevant that whatever was out there could kill him too; Logan was in full belligerent mode, his “Let it try and kill me” machismo bullshit. Even though Scott was absolutely fine with Logan going out there and killing his fool ass, he knew he’d have to figure out a way to bring the body back, so he was opposed. Xavier was too, mainly because Logan wasn’t completely invulnerable, although he clearly thought he was. (Or he didn’t care that he really wasn’t, which was slightly more troublesome.)

But Scott got tired of arguing with him - his mind was made up, and Logan was like a goddamn mule when he decided on something, no matter how stupid - and decided to just agree with him to get him the hell out of the plane. Xavier started to be swayed by his argument that he was the best sensor suite that they had on the ground at this moment, and it seemed like a done deal for Logan. Scott found a comm headset for him, one with a micro camera attached, so he could at least see what the hell he was doing. Logan agreed to wear it, but with a sour grimace that suggested it was a terrible burden he had to bear. Scott sealed himself inside the cockpit after Logan left, as there was a possibility there were still toxins in the air that they couldn’t detect. Logan wasn’t on comm yet, so he muttered to Xavier, “He’s gonna kill himself, you know that.”

There was a pause before Xavier’s disembodied voice filled the cockpit, with a tone like warm honey. “He was never leaving without seeing if Marcus was here or not.”

So that’s what this was about? Sure, it made sense.

Scott honestly didn’t know how Logan, with his heightened senses, could take that smell, but he said he’d smelled it before and was “inured” to it (it was always bizarre when, out of nowhere, Logan would use a ten dollar word - it was weirder still when he combined it with such slang words as “ain’t” or spotty grammar; he had been several different people in his life, and clearly they all got jumbled up).

Logan got on comm as the hatch opened, and Logan went outside, into the gold and blue half-light of early dusk. He paused a moment, and it sounded like he groaned, reacting to the rank scent. But after a moment, he straightened up, and continued tramping through the field, towards the centralized village. “My system isn’t reactin’ to anything,” Logan reported, his voice strangely quiet. Maybe the utter and frightening silence out there made him adjust his tone accordingly. “No immune response. I’m not smellin’ anything toxic or otherwise more familiar either. Just death.”

Neither he nor Xavier said anything, as there was nothing to say. The pictures from the village came in ghostly silence, with only the sound of Logan’s footsteps in the distant background. Now that he was on the neat cobblestone central street, he started crouching down and taking a closer look at the bodies. Logan examined the body of a man in his early thirties, with an average build and thinning blonde hair tucked beneath a navy blue watch cap. Logan carefully turned his face towards him, and used a gloved thumb to open one of the man’s eyes to look into it. For what Scott had no idea, and it seemed like a moot point, as there was nothing but bleached white; his eyes had rolled towards the back. The male’s face was unnaturally pale, bloodless, with deep, wide smears of purplish-black beneath his eyes. “Rigor mortis hasn’t started to set in yet,” Logan reported blandly, like he was reading facts off a screen. “They haven’t been dead for too long. Outside guess is maybe ! two to three hours.”

“About the time we left,” Scott noted dismally. He wondered how Logan knew all these facts about dead bodies, but then decided he really, really didn’t want to know. He’d just assume that he watched an awful lot of CSI.

“Any sign of what killed them?” Xavier asked, keeping his tone studiously neutral.

“None. There’s no blood in the nose, the ears, broken blood vessels in the eye, no sign of internal hemorrhaging, and I’m not smelling anything bacterial or familiarly viral.” Logan huffed a sigh through his nose, closing the man’s eye. “There’s no obvious wounds either, or lesions. I’ve got no clue what killed them.”

He got up and started wandering through the town, poking his head into shops and homes (no one locked their doors here, apparently - now it seemed like a pity, although it was doubtful a deadbolt would have protected them for this), stepping over dead bodies. At one point, Logan bent down, and picked up a very tiny teddy bear, with a ear that was just starting to unravel. Scott groaned to himself, aware that that was a toy that would belong to a baby or a toddler, and then he realized that, just within range of Logan’s camera, was a handle on the sidewalk - a handle of a stroller. Logan put his hand over the camera, blocking the view. “You don’t hafta see this,” he said. To him? To Xavier? Unknown. But while he was angry at the presumption that they couldn’t handle it, he was also unusually grateful. He didn’t need to see the body - the bear alone would probably appear in his nightmares.

Logan removed his hand as he entered a shop, and after a comment about “somebody being dead in here”, he started rifling through the shelves. The light was so dim, he couldn’t see what he was after. “You’re looting now?” Scott exclaimed.

“Fuck you, Scooter,” Logan replied with a strange coolness. There was no heat in the response at all. Logan must have found what he wanted, because he started walking out, back into the half-light. There, Scott could see he was pulling the plastic wrap off a hypodermic needle, the type you might use to inject insulin.

“What are you doing?” Xavier asked first.

“Gettin’ a sample. You know some doctors, right? Maybe they can figure something out.” He went back to the first man he examined, the blond man in the watch cap, and went down on his knees beside him. “Sorry about this, bub,” he muttered, as he tore the man’s shirt open.

“What the hell are you doing?” Scott asked, hoping he wasn’t about to dismember a corpse in front of them.

“Blood pools in the chest after death,” Logan replied, and Scott could see that, somewhere beneath the ashen pall of death, there was a deeper purple hue in the chest cavity. Blood?

Logan seemed to press down on his chest with his fingertips for a moment, as if searching for a good spot, then he seemed to find it, and just drove the needle in like he was staking a vampire. Scott couldn’t help but wince at the casual violence of it. Logan pulled the plunger back slowly, and thick, dark blood began to fill the needle. He’d almost filled it when he stopped, and suddenly produced a plastic bag that had lots of word on it in a Nordic language )he didn’t know them all on sight, but one would presume it was Danish), but it had a big symbol on it that translated in any language - the biohazard symbol. It was a disposal bag for hazardous waste.

They watched him seal the needle inside the bag, and before he stood up, he straightened out the man’s shirt, covering up his mottled, discolored chest once more.

No, it wouldn’t mean a goddamn thing to a dead man. But it was a nice gesture, and that was about all they were good for at the moment.

5

You wouldn’t think it would be so hard to find a good witch doctor on a Thursday.

But it was Los Angeles, and Bob knew he should have known better. No matter who you were - unless you were Brad Pitt - you waited. You got in line and queued like a good British person. And not even a god could rank up to someone pulling down twenty million a picture. After all, if you were any kind of god at all, you could make them help you, whether they liked it or not.

Ah, L.A. - the place where you were automatically assumed to be crap, unless you had the finances and the pull to prove you weren’t. Luckily, he had lots of money and lots of pull, and yet, sometimes it still wasn’t enough. All a bunch of bollocks, really.

“You’re running after something that you’ll never kill,” he shouted along with My Chemical Romance blasting from the bar. He was running through the address book on his computer, where he had a constantly updated list of genuine and actually good witch doctors, shamans, and plumbers (well, you never knew when you‘d need a good plumber), and he actually had more plumbers than anything else on the list. Sadly, most witch doctors and shamans in the area were basically all about the business that was show, and couldn‘t actually do much. Those that could were either corrupted by Wolfram & Hart or killed off by them. “If this is what you want, then fire at will …”

There was a light knock at the door, and he wondered if it was someone complaining about his howling. “Come. Stand and deliver!” he called out in response.

The door opened a crack, and a bewildered blue eye stared in at him. “What?”

He grinned and waved her in. “Come in, Naomi, I was just bein’ an oik. What can I do ya for?”

“Uh … umm … nothing really, I guess,” she admitted, coming in with some hesitantly. He needed to turn it down from eleven, because she clearly wasn’t used to him being a total spaz yet. She closed the door, but stayed near it.

He looked at her expectantly, and noted what she was wearing. “Don’t you look a treat? Been shopping, have you?” He knew the answer to that, as she had come here with clothes she wore while in Minnesota, which was totally not suited for the weather in Southern California. Today she was wearing a lurex tank top with a tie-dyed green pattern on it, and drapey sand colored linen pants, with a low slung belt that had faux gemstones on a silver link chain. If she decided to power up, that would spark like a motherfucker.

She looked down at herself, as if her clothes were new to her, and admitted, “Yeah, I had no choice really. It was either that or swelter. Umm … thanks for helping me find a place, by the way.”

He waved that off, closing his address book. It was hopeless; he was just going to have to wait until Kasinga actually bothered to answer his fucking phone to get himself a witch doctor. If only Ammy wasn’t incommunicado in the Amitabha dimension. “No problem. If I couldn’t help you and Rupert out, who could I help?”

She gave him a funny look. “I thought Giles said he wanted no help from you.”

“Right, but he got it anyways. Just don’t tell him.” He gave her a conspiratorial wink. If Giles wanted to think he was a big, untrustworthy demon king/arms dealer/knockabout, it was fine with him. It was the image he generally cultivated, wasn’t it? He could give him a hand behind the scenes as opposed to up front. Made no difference to him, and Rupert kept his pride intact.

She smiled in an anemic way and looked away, as a flush seemed to travel up her throat and to her face. Oh dear, what was this? “Have a seat,” he offered, shutting down the computer (always a smart thing around Naomi anyways), and giving her his undivided attention. He sat back and gave her his warmest, most calming smile, hoping it would relax her. She seemed very hesitant and nervous - did she want to ask him for something?

She started towards the desk slowly, and paused as she read his shirt. Thankfully, today he’d picked the rather benign t-shirt of Ralph from the Simpsons saying, ‘I’m Not Allowed In The Deep End Of The Sandbox’. It seemed that was true for him as well, as the Powers had barred him from the entire sandbox … for now. And it was less likely to scare her off than his ‘Think Testicles’ t-shirt. He remained sitting so she didn’t see his pants, which were dark brown and decorated with a little grey feather pattern, and guaranteed to scare most people.

“Umm … thank you. I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”

He shook his head. “Nope, this is just a dicking around day for me. Wanna drink? I can have Lau bring us some beers.”

It was her turn to shake her head as she sat down, sitting stiffly and anxiously on the chair. “No, thank you. It’s a little early in the day for me.” He just smiled at her, and waited for her to continue. She was silent, then realized he was waiting for her, and that seemed to make her more nervous.

So he asked a question he actually knew the answer to. "So, did Logan get a chance to talk to you before he left?"

That threw her for a second, but only that long. "No, no ... why would he? He looked at me sometimes like I was a ghost or something."

"That's a pretty accurate assessment."

She grimaced knowingly. "So we did have a thing, huh?"

"A big thing. Broke his heart."

"He loved me?"

"Seem to have, yes."

She paused warily, as if she didn't really want to ask the question, but felt compelled to anyways. "Did I love him?"

How to answer that one? Well, Logan wasn't around, so honesty wouldn't hurt. "I assume so. You did get your memory erased for him. He was supposed to take the hit, but you took it instead."

She frowned and looked down at the floor, as if looking for a nice platitude to wield. "Ah shit. So he's got a guilt thing?"

"Logan's good with guilt. He has more baggage than Martha Stewart on a camping trip. In other words, yes."

She exhaled slowly, like she was deflating, and sagged back in her chair. "Man. Y'know, I was afraid of that, but I never knew how to ask."

"In that case, ask me. I have no shame. I blab everybody's secrets. I'm like Cindy Adams with more lifelike hair." He gave her a cheesy, game show host grin. Okay, it wasn't true he blabbed everybody's secrets, but he lied like stink. He was a Belial demon in some respects, and it was hard to fight instinct.

She saw his expression and smiled in site of herself, glancing away with a chuckle. "You're somethin' else, you know that?"

"So the immigration authorities have told me. What can I help you with, Naomi?"

That made her look back at him in surprise. Yeah, he nailed it. "How did you -"

"I know a lot of things. I piss people off right good." Of course his powers of mind reading and snooping weren't quite what they usually were, but there was no need to alert everyone to this fact.

She fidgeted in her chair, smoothed out her pant legs even though they didn't need smoothing, and finally said, "I ... umm ... out in the bar I was talking to Helga. She seemed to be, uh ... talking with this guy."

"D'artagnan, you mean? Muscle bound Argot demon, looks Human except for the spikes that sometimes pop up on his forearms? "

She looked up sharply. "You knew ..?"

"Oh yeah, D'arty's an ex of hers from her New York days. Came west to try and make a living as a model or an actor, as if you couldn't tell from the name he's using. He's not doing bad, though. He's been concealing the spikes and showing up in ads for Hilfiger." D'art - real name Huntington, which you'd think would make an equally good frou-frou male model name - was kind of an indolent screw up, not at all a bad guy, just inherently lazy. He didn't even earn his impressive physique, it was simply genetic, as most Argots were ninety eight percent muscle. Good in a fight, but terrible in a famine. Hel herself had pointed out he looked really good, and he could be fun to party with, but talking to him was like trying to have a conversation with a potted plant. No Argot was known for to be a magnificent orator ... or a magnificent anything, come to think of it.

Naomi nodded, but looked slightly bewildered. "So they weren't ..."

"Flirting? Oh, possibly. Now that Logan's gone, she's going to have to find some new extra-curricular activity."

Her eyes widened in surprise. "So it's true? You guys have an ... open relationship?"

He nodded, giving her a calming smile. "Of course. Stansin's aren't known for monogamy, and it's just sex. She loves me, I know that. If she wants to jump another guy's bones as a hobby, it's cool with me. Well, as long as he's attractive and not diseased or a serial killer or something. And if he ever treats her badly ... well, no, she'd kill him herself. She's usually a better judge of character than that anyways."

She studied his face, as if she didn't quite believe him, but did she have any clue how old he was? Not only that, but he wasn't naturally corporeal. Sex was a hell of a lot of fun, love was grand, but neither were the be all and end all of anything. Of course, he had to learn both those lessons the hard way - damn the Powers. "It really doesn't bother you?"

"Not a bit."

"Well ... what about you? Do you ..?"

"Screw around on her? Well I can. Haven't done it a lot though."

That made her pause and consider what she was going to say before she went any further. "Any reason why?"

He considered that and shrugged. "I've been married about a billion times - a slight exaggeration, but not by much - and I know I can be rather emotionally impulsive. So I try to content myself with Hel, so I don't end up juggling a wife and a mistress like a Frenchman. I don't know how they do it; with all I have to do, and my eighty billion kids, I barely have time for the one relationship."

She clasped her hands together and wrung them nervously, and realized where this was going. Holy shit! "So you wouldn't be, uh, interested in another?"

"Naomi," he said firmly, and when she looked up, he caught her with his eyes. He hated to put a Belial whammy on her, but she was hesitating too much, and he needed to know the truth now, in case he was getting the wrong end of the stick. "Tell me what you came here to say."

She had to tell him. He had her now. "I came here to tell you the real reason I came to Los Angeles was to see you again."

Oh holy fucking shit. Logan was going to kill him.

6

He didn't actually want to come back to the school, but where else was he going to go? He could hardly search Northern Europe quickly on foot, could he?

As soon as they returned, and he gave the sealed blood sample to Xavier (who told him "Good job", like he was a kid in need of reassuring; it was hard for him to swallow back the "Go fuck yourself" that threatened to come out), he went and took a shower to wash the lingering scent of death out of his pores.

It made him furious. Those people were nothing - they were just regular people leading regular lives. And someone - something? - decided to kill them. There was no rhyme or reason to it, which made it by nature not only hard to fathom, but hard to trace. Random crimes were the hardest to solve, because there was no through line of motive to follow, and no obvious suspects. If a crime was truly senseless, it was totally illogical, and couldn't be traced back to any reason besides 'because'.

His bath had unscented glycerin soap in it, which still had a faint smell to him, but was much nicer and fainter than most scents. In fact, someone kept stocking up his room with unscented products, which was thoughtful. He assumed Xavier ordered someone to do it, but whoever they were they didn’t dawdle long enough to leave much of a scent. Maybe Rogue did it; she’d shared his sense of smell before, and probably knew how annoying it could be.

He showered far too long, and knew the scent had to be gone, but lingered anyways. It was totally psychosomatic, but it didn’t stop him from feeling the need to scrape a layer of his own skin off. He was still angry for those people, and didn’t understand what the connection was between them and Marcus - if there was a connection. For some reason, he sensed he had missed something, that he was overlooking a clue, but he didn’t know what.

He finally got out of the shower and just dried of in a perfunctory fashion before getting dressed, pulling on some jeans and a tank top before venturing out into the hall. He listened carefully, making sure the kids weren’t out in a pack, as he really didn’t want to have to deal with them right now. He stalked through the halls, avoiding any strays, and made sure the coast was clear before slipping inside Xavier’s office and locking the door behind him. The Professor wasn’t here right now, and the lock wouldn’t hold him back, but at least it would warn him he was here and wanted in before any telepathy got thrown his way.

He sat on the corner of Xavier’s death and listened to Marc’s message one more time. “- inda accent, something got loose, I don’t know what -” And shooting in the background, major weapons, semi-automatic fire.

Marc hadn’t been on that island. He hadn’t gotten a whiff of cordite, come across a single spent shell, or seen a single hint of a gun there. There had been no fight; just death, sudden and surprising.

So if Marcus wasn’t on the island, how could the thing that got loose -whatever it was, person, animal, mineral, or other - get there? And why? It didn’t make sense. They were missing something here, there was a huge piece of the puzzle gone. Hell, they couldn’t even see the edges of it; they had no idea what the picture was even supposed to look like. The incidents could have been unrelated, but in roughly the same area? That was too much of a coincidence, and he didn’t dare trust it.

Marc stumbled into something, or across something, and got tangled up in it. It wasn’t what he expected; he got caught off guard. And now … now what? If he could have contacted them, he would have. The fact that he wasn’t doing so became more troublesome as the minutes ticked by.

It was time to swallow his pride. Marc’s life wasn’t worth it.

He picked up the phone and dialed a sadly familiar number. After a couple of rings, a man picked up and said, “Yeah?”

“I need to talk to Bob. It’s an emergency.”

Lau, taciturn as always, didn’t say anything. There was a click, like he was transferred to another line, and after a moment, the phone was picked up again. “I am not a number, I’m a free man!” Bob exclaimed dramatically.

Logan sighed. “Can you be serious for a moment?”

“Ooh, this sounds bad. What’s up?”

So he told him the story, slightly abbreviated for time. He told them about Marc’s phone call, the pharmaceutical company, the island off the coast of Denmark that was now nothing but a haven for corpses. Corpses who didn’t seem to have any stories to tell about how they had died.

Bob, for once, just listened, and didn’t interrupt. When he was finally done telling him the story, Bob said, “I’m on my way, okay?”

“Can you use your connections, find out -”

“The pharmaceutical angle? Yeah, got it, no problem. If records exist anywhere, I’ll find them.”

The one good thing about Bob - no doors were closed to him. Stuff that could elude Xavier wouldn’t elude him; perhaps it was the simple difference between a man who didn’t like to use his telepathy irresponsibly, and one who felt his powers were simply a tool to be used, neither good nor bad, just a thing to be wielded when a problem reared its head. Perhaps it also helped that Bob didn’t actually have to go into their heads and extract the information; he just made them talk.

Logan just hoped it would be enough. And that it wasn’t too late to save Marcus, and anyone else who ventured into the path of whatever slice of hell had accidentally been released on the world.