They opened fire before he could reach them, but as always it was a lost cause - the bullets bounced off the bulletproof shirt, or sliced through his skin and bounced off bone; either way, the worst they did was piss him off more. He slashed his right claw, shredding their guns and taking at least one of their fingers, and then slashed with his left, leaving deep cuts across their faces. Painful and bloody, but hardly life threatening. The two men in the doorway fell away, shouting in pain, and Logan spun and lunged at Engrish, who had stood up for a clearer shot.

He shredded his gun and quickly withdrew the claws on his right hand as he seized the boy by the neck. He was scrawny, and no challenge at all. “Why did you call me Yashida?” He growled, shaking him like toy. “Do you know me? Do you?!”

Engrish kicked him, but Logan was so jazzed on adrenaline he didn’t even feel it. The boy’s face was going red, and he was desperately trying to pry Logan’s fingers from off his neck, but was having no success at all. “Dog,” he spat, barely having enough air to speak. “Blood will out.”

Logan slammed him against the wall, so violently something fell and shattered on the floor. He didn’t bother to look and see what. “What does that mean? What does that fucking mean, you cryptic asshole?!”

The third man from the kitchen finally came out, but Logan only bothered to pay attention to him when he drove the butcher knife into his neck.

Or tried to, at any rate. It just pierced his skin before the knife hit bone, and it snapped like it was made of glass. Logan tossed Engrish aside with enough force to knock all the residual wind out of him, and turned to face his would be knifer. Fuck, his neck actually hurt for a second.

The beefy guy backed up, his mouth a startled O, still clutching the broken handle of the knife. Logan glared at him, eyes up and head down, and he was surprised the guy didn’t wet himself, because he really looked like he wanted to. “Th-that metal goes all the way through, doesn’t it?”

Logan nodded. “Run.”

He didn’t have to be told twice. He dropped the handle and ran out the door like his ass was on fire, and Logan turned back to Engrish, who threw his cup of steaming hot tea in his face. Logan flinched as the hot water instantly scalded his skin and stung one of his eyes, but he was angry he was able to ignore it. He grabbed the kid by his scrawny neck as his flesh continued to burn, and even the kid looked slightly startled as Logan felt the vision in his right eye go cloudy, and then start to slowly clear up again. He wondered how that must have looked, because Engrish - for once - appeared startled. “Do you know who I am?” He snarled, continuing to hold him by the throat and shake him.

He grabbed his arm with both hands, try to ease the pressure on his neck, but from the way he sputtered, it wasn’t working too well. “You’re one of us. Yakuza. You do not walk away. You took our blood - we take yours.”

“You already took mine!” He roared. “You fucks murdered my wife!”

“That whore-” That was as far as he got before Logan rammed his free claws into his shoulder, right where the arm fir into the socket. He screamed in pain, the end of it disappearing in a high pitched squeak. He could have let go of his throat, the boy was now impaled to the wall, but he had no desire to.

“You don’t say that about her,” he growled, centimeters from his face. Inside him, he felt this big, dark well of emotions surging, rising, filling his blood with poison. He wanted to kill him; he wanted to rip his throat out with his teeth, and rip his limbs off without using his claws. He wanted to scatter his guts for the crows. ”She was better than all of us, and you shits murdered her because you couldn’t control her. I will kill each and every single one of you, do you hear me? Tell your masters to stay far away from me, or you’re all dead.”

Engrish reeked of pain, of fear, a scent so sour Logan wrinkled his nose - and yet, his heart raced, as if it was thrilling to finally put the fear of Wolverine into his prey. “Y-you’re dead. No one walks away from us -”

Logan twisted his claws, just a little, and the guy made an inarticulate noise of hideous pain. Good. The smell of his blood as it cascaded down his arm was strangely satisfying. “I have no intention of walking away. I’m going to cut my way out. End this now, or swim home in your own blood.”

He wanted to kill him. He wanted to rip down and take his arm, and that would be merely the beginning: he would shred this guy like carrot - he’d rip him up into confetti. And it would feel so good, like coming home …

Logan suddenly realized what he was thinking, and he was so startled he yanked his claw out and flung the guy aside. He yelped as he hit the dirty floor, bleeding copiously, and cradled his arm, which was just hanging on by a tendon or two. He knew where the hate came from, and he could almost hear Bob telling him ‘It’s okay, mate - they killed your wife in front of you. Everybody would want to kill them…’ but it was more than that - he could feel that screaming, dark madness inside of him, not gone but lurking, waiting for a chance to take over once more.

And the worst thing was part of him wanted it. When you were insane, there was no pain, no guilt … no conscience. You could do whatever you wanted, and none of it mattered to you. Your mind was Teflon, and it all washed off; the blood ran clear, and you felt nothing at all, except perhaps the joy of absolute freedom. Oh god.

As Logan stood there, paralyzed with equal amounts of revulsion and desire, the shooting started.

From the sound of it, at least four gunmen opened up from outside with Uzis and AK-47s, the dozens upon dozens of titanium and hollow point bullets punching through the walls of the teahouse like it was made of rice paper. Many bounced off the shirt, but there were so many bullets they also tore through his legs, his arms, his throat, and the scent of his own blood filled his nostrils, itched as it ran down his burning skin.

He could have fought them, but he didn’t - he ran through the kitchen door and headed for the back, running not for his life but his sanity.

If there was any left.

13

The black hole’s next appearance was in the Professor’s form. Walking though, not in a chair, but it was no real surprise.

He looked around the garden and frowned as if the flora personally offended him, then came up the chaise lounge where she was reading a book and catching a few rays of a sun far more friendly than the real one. “What do you think you’re doing?” Ragnarok asked, as if it was his right to demand an answer.

She waited until she finished her paragraph, then looked over the top of her paperback, sorry he was blocking her sun. “I’m running a triathalon. What does it look like I’m doing?”

He gave her that empty, smug grin, that never change no matter the face he wore. “You’re just giving up? Do you know how disappointing that is? I thought, as the avatar of Camaxtli, you’d have a little fight in you.”

“But you said there was no point in fighting you, and I believe you.” She raised her book anew, and started reading again. She found it difficult to concentrate on the page - the text seemed to keep shifting, as if the book was constantly altering its identity. “You said yourself you’re like a Chinese finger trap. And the only way to win there is not to fight, so I’m not going to.”

He snorted, and threw his hands up in surrender. “Just like that, huh? You figured out the mystery of the universe. Hate to crush you, little girl, but it doesn’t work like that.”

“I’m sure it doesn’t.” She turned the page, tried to focus on the words that seemed to chase themselves around the edges of the pages.

“Don’t ignore me.”

“How can I if you keep pestering me?”

“Why are you trying to piss me off? Do you really think I’ll make it quick for you?”

“I don’t care what you do. Frankly, I’m just tired of you boring me to death.”

Unexpectedly, he grabbed her arm, making her drop her book. “I will not be ignored, bitch.”

She managed to yank her arm away, but honestly didn’t know how. “And I will not be called names by an empty freak of nature.”

“You’re the only freak here, child. I am of nature - I’m much more natural than you are.” It seemed odd coming from the Professor, even though the empty eye sockets gave it away as not him.

“Good for you. Go be natural somewhere else.” The sky was red and roiling with fire, the grounds overgrown and green, more like a jungle than a garden, all like she had left it. But it no longer felt like her own, and she loathed it. He had no right to turn her mental sanctuary into a mockery.

Suddenly she felt a deep and terrible pain in her head, like someone had driven a knife made of ice through her cerebral cortex, and winced, as she felt oddly tired and cold. Weak.

“You are insolence at my sufferance,” he snapped, his voice an unusual mix of Charles and inhuman. “You exist at my sufferance. I think you need a lesson in how little you mean, Human.”

The landscape had taken on a curious fluidity, like it was becoming gelatin, but just as suddenly it seemed to solidify in an abrupt, steady wave. The abyss must have felt it, because he suddenly grabbed her by the throat and hauled her to her feet.

“Now now now, I thought you knew better than to play with your food,” Bob said, abruptly joining them.

As much as she hated him, it was almost a relief to see him. The void - and he felt colder than a freezer; arctic - held her in front of him like a Human shield. “You! How did you get in here?”

That made Bob raise an eyebrow at him. “I’m a god. Few doors are closed to me.”

“I am not a door.”

Bob shrugged expansively, as if he was humoring Ragnarok. “Fair enough. But you’re done here, okay mate? Toddle on your way.”

Did Bob actually think that had a chance of working? The void tossed her onto the ground, and she could do nothing but fall. She had the flu once, and she remembered staying in bed only because she didn’t think she had the strength to stand. She felt that way again, and she hated it. “I don’t have to go anywhere, Power. As supposed gods go, you’re not very smart, are you “Bob”?” The funny thing was, she could actually hear the quotation marks.

She shoved herself up to her hands when a hand closed around her arm and helped her up. It was Bob, of course, and as soon as she was sure she might keep her balance, she ripped her arm away and gave him a hateful look. This wouldn’t be happening if it wasn’t for him. He grimaced as if he was apologetic, but she wasn’t about to buy it.

He turned his electric blue gaze on the void, and asked, “What are you implyin’ here?”

The abyss smiled, that ravenous, open, empty grin, and Jean got a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. Something was wrong. “I’m not implying anything, Bob-o. I’m an eater, a devourer of gods … and you just walked in the door.”

Bob’s eyes narrowed, and he crossed his arms over his chest. She could swear he was now mimicking Logan’s arm, borrowing the brawn to look more imposing, or he had really been working out. “Don’t push your luck.”

“Push my luck?” He chuckled. It sounded hollow, like he was laughing at the bottom of a deep well. “Do I really believe Eris has some kind of passive resistance traps to scuttle me? She spreads those rumors herself to keep us in line. And everybody knows how much Osiris hates your fucking guts, and after what you did to him, no one blames him. He ain’t gonna come in and save your ass. Face it , Bob, you gambled big - and you just lost.”

Bob simply glared at him, unimpressed, and said, “We’re leaving. Deal with it.”

But that’s when the whole landscape suddenly turned to stone, the sky crashing down in the form of cylindrical and impossibly high metal walls. Now she knew what a bug in a jar felt like. “You’re not going anywhere,” Ragnarok said, relishing his power.

Oh fuck. Just when she thought things couldn’t get any worse, now it seemed she was going to die with Bob.

14

It took him a little while to remember where he was supposed to be going, or even what country he was in.

He slashed his way through a few Yakuza and Triad, got shot a couple of times - well, maybe more than that - and found some back alleys to run into, before he found another maze of market streets and got lost. Or at least he was pretty sure he was lost. He had no fucking idea where he was, and in spite of the blood loss, no one was following him. Every now and then, he still heard the helicopter, but it was unlikely it could pick him out of a crowd.

He knew he’d heal up, but he felt dizzy, and figured it was the loss of blood. Logan found a small back alley, overflowing with trash, and crouched beside a dumpster that blocked him from general view. He just needed to rest for a second, let his healing factor kick into overdrive, and he would be okay. He was sure he’d be okay.

What the fuck was wrong with him? It felt like … it felt like something had opened up inside of him, but something he didn’t want to know, didn’t want to remember. He felt raw, exposed, on the verge of losing whatever semblance of control he had. But he’d always been on the verge, hadn’t he? Civility - sanity - was such a fragile thing for him, and he had these decades of hate that had just been festering in his soul, and he never knew it. No, he did know it - he just thought he could control it. But now he got a glimpse of the beast within him, and realized it was just waiting for that weak moment, that loss of control, and it would come forth again, be back in the driver’s seat … and part of him still wanted to give up to it. They would pay; if he let that thing out, they’d all be dead by sundown, no doubt about it. But he had no guarantees he would surface again any time soon if he did just that - or if he’d even want to. How many times could you let madness swallow yo! u whole?

It had started to rain, the misty kind that just left you damp and uncomfortable, the kind that never cut the heat. He glanced down at a small puddle on the cracked pavement, and blood dripped from his nose in the water. He watched the bead of red disperse, diffuse into pink and fade, and suddenly it seemed familiar. He remembered … what did he remember?

He closed his eyes, just giving himself a moment to be still.

He saw blood again, dripping in water, diffusing, but this time in a bathroom sink, a marble one with silver fixtures. He felt a sharp pain in his back that quickly went away as something was pulled out, and he leaned against the sink, trying to ride out the wave of pain and exhaustion. “Oh, damn it,” a woman cursed behind him. Mariko. “Did I hurt you?”

He would have laughed, but was too tired. His whole body felt bruised, in spite of the feverish heat of healing. “No. You weren’t the one who hit me with a car.”

“It wasn’t you they were aiming for.”

“Yeah, well, they got me anyways.” He stumbled into the bedroom and collapsed on the bed, too exhausted to do anything else. He needed sleep. Multiple broken bones really took it out of him.

He heard her throw something metallic in a plastic trash can, and then she ranted a bit. He heard her anger, and knew it was partially aimed at him (“I’m not a nurse, goddamn it!”), but mainly it was just anger he heard, no specific words. Perhaps if he had more energy he would have fought with her, but he just let her vent. What else could he do?

It was day time, and it surprised him. Was he out that long? Perhaps. The sunlight was gold, though, just rising, and the birds seemed far too cheerful and loud for this early in the day. He supposed he had to cut the birds some slack - unlike him, they were usually thrilled to find they had lived another day. (Actually, they were all just shouting the bird equivalent of “Mine! Mine mine mine mine!” but who was he to spoil a romantic notion?)

Soon she joined him. He was laying on his side - the side without the broken ribs - so he couldn’t see her, but he felt the shift of the mattress, the heat of her skin against his back, although ironically he was so hot she felt cool. She pulled the blanket over them both, and sighed - he could feel her breath like a breeze against his neck. “How many times have I said I hate this?” She wondered.

He wasn’t sure he had the strength to talk again, so he held up his hand and showed four fingers. Actually, it was probably ten times that, but he was hoping he could make her laugh. She didn’t, but she put her arm around his waist and pressed up against his back. Her skin was cool (to him), her touch was soothing, and he felt himself relax even though he wasn’t aware he was tense. That was probably automatic, a reflex against pain. Who didn’t tense before a major hit? “I hate to see you hurt, Logan. It isn’t right.”

He had to speak. “None of this is right,” he muttered, mostly into the pillow. “That’s not the point.”

“What is the point?” She was now running her fingers through his hair, stroking his scalp, quite possibly searching for cuts. But it felt good anyways.

“Keeping you safe. That’s all that matters.”

“No it isn’t. You may be hard to kill, but you still feel pain, and you don’t need to subject yourself to so much of it. Look, let me hire someone else, maybe -”

“No. For hire guys are untrustworthy. If you can buy them, so can the Takabes. It’s a risk we can’t take.”

“Who says? You might be my husband, but I’m the boss around here.”

“I’ve noticed.”

“And I don’t care if it’s a conflict of interest, I’m tired of seeing you hurt.”

“This is what I can do, Riko. Let me do it.”

“What you can do? Get hurt?”

He huffed a sigh into t he pillow, wishing he had the energy to get pissed off. He was mostly healed, but sometimes those internal injuries could be a bear. “Protect you. It’s all I’m good for. I fight; I do it well. Let me do it.”

“What the hell is that shit? ‘All you’re good for…’”

“Hon,” he began, somewhat cross, then stopped. Should he tell her? He wasn’t sure, and right now he felt vaguely delirious. Could his own healing factor give him a high fever? Or maybe it was just the blood loss, or both. “You have to understand … I’ve done some bad things in my life. Not deliberately, not usually. I always meant well, at least in the beginning …” he scoffed at his own words. “There’s my epitaph: ‘He meant well.’ But I did, and I’ve done things that I know I can be proud of, even though the world’s never gonna give me credit for it.”

“Because you were a spy? Or something like that. Don’t be shocked - it wasn’t hard to figure out what you were trying to tell me in the kitchen that night.” She let out a weary exhale. “I married James Bond.”

He couldn’t quite laugh yet, but he nearly did. “I ain’t James Bond, never was. Maybe some other guys were, but not me. I was the guy they sent in when James Bond failed.”

"What do you mean?”

“Nothing; it’s better you don’t know. Let’s just say I started out doin’ nothin’ but good - or what seemed good - and then people started to catch on that every time I was sent on a suicide mission, I was the only one who ever came back. It was never a contest; it was never even close. So some of the higher ups … they learned to exploit that, they started settin’ me up for things where my ability to survive would end up doin’ ‘em favors … I probably ended up makin’ it easy for them to set me up, I don’t know. But I know I did things I regret, and I shoulda left a long time ‘fore I did.I just thought … shit, I dunno what I thought. But you, keeping you from harm … that makes me feel like I’m finally doing some good again.”

She was quiet for a long time, the hyperactive songs of birds flitting around the cherry tree outside their bedroom window filling the room as the molten light of the sun spilled across the floor like a stain. He cool fingers continued to stroke his skin, creating goosebumps on his burning skin, and sending the smallest thrill of pleasure throughout his body. Did she know how comforting she could be to him? Probably not; it might have scared her a bit if she did. Finally, she said, “Why, sweetheart? I don’t understand.”

"You're one of the finest people I've ever known, Riko. I don't know many people who could be surrounded by all this corruption and not be tainted by it. Even I ... I've fallen prey to it before, in the past. But you've never given in, and I admire that more than I can say."

"You're giving me way too much credit there, sweetie. Not that I don't love you for it, but still - "

"I'm not. Trust me, I'm not. I know people, and I know that if you weren't stuck here, trying to sort through the train wreck of this family, you could change the world."

She was silent for another long moment. "Okay, see, now I know you're overstating the case -"

He grabbed her hand and kissed it, closing his eyes against the golden light, feeling like his consciousness simply wanted to sink down, drag him into nothingness with it. It was not a bad idea. "I'm not. Maybe one day, you'll get to prove that. If I continue to do my job. I think I'm gonna pass out now."

She sighed, her breath a cool breeze against his back. Her fingers trailed down his chest, and he could feel her lips at his ear. "I love you, Logan," she whispered, giving him a small kiss.

Logan opened his eyes, and found himself staring at a ripped poster for some kind of drag cabaret, the picture of the transvestite star of the show torn in half down the middle, the bottom of the poster shredded and dripping in the rain. He didn't know if he was crying again or if was the drizzle, which felt like it was crawling through his hair like insects, but he thought for a moment he might actually throw up. He wasn't sure he could.

As it turned out, he didn't - he managed to ride out the wave of nausea, and while he wanted to blame the bullets, he didn't think he could. Was that part of the reason why he found it so hard to let go? Mariko wasn't just his wife; he saw her as the key to his salvation, the redemption of his damned soul. And yet, he failed her and himself.

Not only that, but it was some colossal joke all along. Salvation for him? After all he had done? Unlikely. He was a killer then, and he was a killer now. It had oozed into his bloodstream like a disease, and he wasn't going to be rid of it any time soon - or ever. He was what he was, what he had always been. The Yakuza hated him not for what he had done, but for simply being a better killer than eight thousand of them combined could ever be. He felt nauseous again.

He stood up on rubbery legs, pretty sure he was mostly healed, but feeling weak all the same. He wiped the rain - and he chose to believe that's what it was - off his face, and tried to get his bearings. He knew he was in the Chung Wan district. There were hundreds of skyscrapers, but he was sure he could find the one he wanted. And then he'd ... what would he do? What could he do? Just make sure everyone was still alive, and get them intact to the airport. He still felt slightly delirious, off kilter. Either his healing factor had induced a high fever, or there was something on those bullets besides gunpowder and metal.

He should have never come to Hong Kong - he knew that now. And he never should have let the Senior Partners into his head, no matter how good the cause ...

Wait a second. Why had he thought that?

He considered that for several seconds, but the bisected picture of the drag queen was unable to give him any other clues. So he wandered off, losing himself in the crowds, feeling like he was back in New York again - a New York where everyone spoke Cantonese, but still ...

Logan wondered why a person who was a lost cause was always the last to know it.

15

Well, that was a fun thing he was never going to do again. Marcus mentally added that to his list, and marveled at how fucking big it was.

Yukio was a hell of a defensive driver - or a bad driver, depending completely on your point of view - although he was pretty sure Logan's grandstanding distracted the bad guys and pulled them off. As far as Marcus could tell, they weren't followed, and he was able to get Tony back to Tetsuo's safe house unmolested.

But Tony himself was upset. He kept insisting that he go after Logan. Marcus just stared at him in disbelief, and pointed out, "Logan can take care of himself. Better than most of the world, in fact. He doesn't need me to save his hairy ass." Well, not from amateurs like the Yakuza and the Triad anyways. The Organization would be a different story.

But Tony was really wrought out. He was now pacing the floor, as opposed to what he did in the car, which was fidget like a three year old after a lunch of Pop Rocks and Coke Slurpees. "But the Yakuza, they ... and the Triad! They're expert killers, and do you know how many of them there are out there?"

Marcus shook his head. "I'm worried more about them than Logan. He'll make those punk ass bitches look like stooges they are. They don't know hardcore, they only think they do." But this was curious, wasn't it? He figured Tony knew Logan was a mutant, just like he knew he was a mutant - it just wasn't something discussed by polite people. Could he have overheard some of their conversation on the plane, about the Yakuza maybe wanting a piece of Logan?

No, that wasn’t likely. That whole jet was pretty much soundproofed. He just didn’t know that Logan’s mutation made him all but impervious to bullets. (Well, except maybe that bullet in the eye, but judging Logan’s reflexes and the odds of it in a street level gun battle, a shot like that had to be one in a zillion.) He tried to reassure him, but never mentioned Logan’s mutation … and why not exactly? Just because Tony never mentioned it, he never mentioned it? He wasn’t ashamed of being a mutant. Hell, he was more proud of being a mutant than he was his chosen line of work.

He could tell himself it was a privacy issue - it was Logan’s issue to bring up or not. And it was; he didn’t want to violate the little sense of trust he and Logan had cultivated. But it made it hard as hell to calm Tony down. Finally, he told him, “If he ain’t back in five minutes, I’ll go look for him.” He didn’t bother to point out he had no idea how he’d look for him, as Tony could probably care less. What was his thing with Logan, though? There was something going on there, but he hadn’t gotten a complete handle on what. He didn’t want to be suspicious of Tony - Tony was one of the rare good guys. But still there was something wrong about his reaction here.

As soon as the old man finally sat down, still as tense as a hairless rabbit in a cosmetics testing lab, Marcus asked, “Wanna drink?” as he quickly got behind the bar. He really didn’t care if stony wanted one or not - he wanted one.

“No thank you,” Tony replied crisply, brusque but still polite. He was seated nervously on the edge of the sofa, eyes always straying towards the door.

“Fuck yeah, I wanna whiskey,” Yukio replied.

“You’re drivin’,” Marc pointed out, crouching down behind the bar. “I’ll give you apricot nectar.”

“Fuck you.”

“You ain’t my type, honey,” he responded wryly, looking over the available bottles. Tetsuo sure liked scotch didn’t he? And gin. Why gin? That was one liquor he could never quite get the hang of. Marc moved bottles aside, searching deep on the lower shelf for something decent to drink that wasn’t scotch. “I’m watching you and Fidel Castro in the sand, assassin …” he sang under his breath, as he spotted a bottle of white rum. Oh hell yeah - jackpot.

But when he pulled the bottle out from the shelf, something in the back caught the light.

It was a transitory glint, something he could have mistaken for a reflection off the window in any other circumstances, but right now it was raining, and there were no windows down here. He shoved more bottles aside, and saw something that looked like a foil brick crammed far in the back of the bar’s lowest shelf. A silver box of some kind?

And that’s when he heard the noise at the door.