8

It took Logan a moment to figure out where he was. He felt strangely hot, like he was baking inside his own skin, but the air around him was so cold it was bracing and calming. Where was he?

Oh, yeah. He was in the back of his old truck, in a sleeping bag, but he wasn’t alone. Curled up next to him, her skin wonderfully cool, was Elena. He suddenly remembered that this scene was supposed to be reversed - she was supposed to be the one burning up, and he was supposed to be the one with the cool skin. Ha - funny. His mind was editing to fit the circumstances.

“Fevers suck, don’t they?” He said to her.

She glanced at him sleepily and smiled before resting her head on his chest. “Yeah, they’re awful. First time with one?”

“I think so. I dunno.”

Her skin was cool against his, and felt good. She curled her body around his, as if trying to keep him from overheating, and he appreciated it. It didn’t help at all, but he liked the gesture.

He felt like throwing the sleeping bag off of him and just basking in the cold air of the truck, but he knew it wasn’t just cold, no matter how it felt now - it was lethal. It was more than frostbite cold, it was killing cold. It might have been the end of winter, but it was still winter, and you could never take winter in Northern Canada lightly. You’d think you could handle it, and then you simply couldn’t. The weather up here took no prisoners. There were only two states: survival or death. No matter how he thought he was baking, the cold would kill him quick. Of course he’d eventually heal and wake up again, but that wasn’t the point.

Elena stroked his sweaty hair and kissed his neck, and he sensed that something was wrong. He looked back at her, and found someone else looking down at him, suddenly cradling his head in her lap. “Miss me?” Jean asked, staring down at him with a sharp, sensual smile.

Seeing her was a jolt to his system that he didn’t need. He made to sit up, but she kept him down with her hand on his chest. “Come now, I’m enjoying this. You can’t say you aren’t. You always did have a thing for me.”

He glared at her. “Is it really you, Jean? Or should I say Camaxtli?”

Her grin grew sharper, a razor blade smile. “That makes it easier for you, doesn’t it? To think there’s nothing left of her. To think I’m all Camaxtli.”

“You are. I know you are, because I’d never have been able to kill you if Jean hadn’t helped me.”

“Oh, so that’s what you think, is it? Bob had nothing to do with it?”

“No, he didn’t.”

She chuckled, and Logan noticed the landscape had shifted. They were no longer in the back of his truck, but for some reason on a white sand beach in front of an ocean as green as grass, the sky an odd shade of lavender. Was this Camaxtli’s old realm? He thought Bob had once mentioned he lived on the water. “Even after all this time, you’ve marvelously naïve.”

This time he grabbed her arm and shoved it aside, sitting up. The sun pounding down on him was making his fever worse, but that was probably the point. “I’m in no mood for your games. Get the fuck out of my head.”

She smiled brilliantly. “No.” Her lips were painted blood red, matching her outfit, which was all blood red. From the low cut red shirt to the pants to the fuck me heels, it was all bloody crimson, and so tight it looked painted on. Maybe it was.

Jean’s hair looked longer too, and was almost the same shade of crimson as what passed for her clothes. It seemed to be Camaxtli’s favorite color.

Logan got up to his feet and started walking away, down the long ivory coast that seemed to go nowhere. It felt like his brain had been pumped full of helium, his head a balloon, but in spite of the illness he could move. He just felt a bit unsteady.

Jean appeared right in front of him, standing with her hands on her hips. “You think it’s that easy, huh?”

He stopped before he ran into her and glared at her, wondering if stabbing her would do any good. It was hard for him to think right now, but it suddenly occurred to him that he was in his mind. And not only that, but he had some Bob power this time. What was he waiting for?

He wasn’t sure how to do this, but he figured it was probably just as instinctual as everything else. He concentrated, and the beach washed away, replaced by a dark room with a low ceiling and nothing but emergency strip lights barely illuminating the gloom. It was hard to discern, but Logan knew they were in a small room with adamantium-coated walls, and he was standing next to the room’s only true feature, a sort of large portal of thick, bulletproof glass, semi-opaque, not quite cloudy enough to totally obscure the lake water visible outside. “Ooh, is this a dungeon?” she asked teasingly. “How fun.”

“No, this is the Weapon X compound at Alkali Lake. Access Jean’s memories if you want to know more. And don’t think escape is easy, as there are power dampeners in the ceiling.”

She scoffed. “Who cares? They apply to you, not me.”

“Wrong. They’re specially made just for you.” And they were, as this was his mindscape, and he now had the power to back it up.

He felt her energy surge, and he put his up in return, letting Bob’s energy do what it did naturally, which was build a defensive wall. It managed to hold, pushing back against Camaxtli’s energy, and she suddenly looked very pissed, tiny embers of flame erupting in her pupils. “You really think you can scare me, Logan? I’m a world destroyer. This is nothing.”

“I’m sure, but this is my world, and you’re not destroying it,” He popped his claws and smashed them through the portal behind him, shattering it and letting the cold lake water gush through in an overwhelming torrent. “You know what it’s like to drown? No, I bet you don’t. So let me tell you it’s one fucking painful way to die, and I know, ‘cause these fucks drowned me once. In fact, they killed me in a lot of painful ways. If you keep comin’ back to my mind, we’ll go through ‘em all one by one. Consider it a learning experience.”

The water was now up past their knees, and still pouring in. She looked mostly pissed off, but there was a little fear underneath. “You would kill her again?”

He knew she - he? It? - was trying to rattle him, and even though the comment stung, made his stomach twist, he didn’t show it. “I will kill you a thousand times if that’s what it takes to make you leave me the fuck alone. Enjoy your watery grave.”

He willed himself out of this, letting himself wake up. It was hard to tell he had opened his eyes for a moment, as it was very dark, but the smell hit him like a fist and instantly told him where he was. Son of a bitch.

“’e’s awake,” Rags reported. “I fink it worked.”

Logan still felt strange, but not nearly as lightheaded and hot as before. “You brought me down to the sewers?” He complained, sitting up. Looking down, he saw the black fungus was gone and the holes mostly closed up, but now there was a bunch of black squiggles on his stomach. He looked at Rags, who was kneeling on the cement closest to him, and asked, “What’d you do?”

“Put the blessin’ back on ya,” Rags explained. “The anti-poison one? Seemed to work.”

The others were standing farther away, which was a good thing. “Yeah, he’s okay,” Marc said into his cell phone. “Heard anything yet about where this guy might be?”

“We can’t fight him,” Giles said wearily, as if this was the seventh or eighth time he brought it up. “Reshef is very old and very powerful. I think even Bob would be outclassed here.”

“He is,” Logan said, rubbing his chest where the hole had been. It was still a little tender. “As far as I can tell, Bob can stalemate him, but beating him is out of the question.”

“Bren’s wondering if this really is the Biblical apocalypse guy,” Marc said, holding his phone aside.

“Well, yes and no.” Giles replied, with a reluctant grimace. “There’s no such thing as the four horsemen of the apocalypse, but the gods mentioned were real ones. Reshef is pestilence.”

“The Bible isn’t real?” Marc gasped sarcastically. “You just ruined my weekend, dude. Does this mean having butt sex won’t send me to hell?”

Helga cracked up laughing, while Giles just fixed him with the kind of deadpan stare that only the British could truly master. “Of all the things you’ve done, Marcus, I doubt that’s the one that’ll send you to hell.”

“Ha! Good one, Jeeves!” Marc replied, giving him a thumb’s up. He thought he heard Bren laughing on the telephone.

“We have to stop this guy,” Helga said, sobering up. “He could kill the world if he wanted to. The longer he’s out there, the more likely that is. We have to have a plan.”

“I have a plan,” Logan said, dry washing his face. Both the fever and Camaxtli’s unwelcome return had given him an idea, although he had no idea how viable it was. Truth be told, he was still feeling a little lightheaded and sore, although at least the raging fever was gone, and the muscles had grown back, even if all his skin hadn’t.

After a moment, he realized everyone was staring at him. “Well, what the hell is it?” Helga finally demanded.

“I don’t think you’ll like it.”

She sighed and rolled her eyes. “That’s a given, sweetheart. Now what the fuck is it?”

He wasn’t about to tell her he was making it up as he spoke, but from the looks on their faces, they had already guessed that.

****

“Why the fuck would I want to kill Brendan?” John asked, clearly annoyed. “Has he taken the cure too?”

If looks could kill, Matt had a feeling Rogue would have splattered Pyro all over him. “No. Are you seriously claiming you being here now is a coincidence?”

John widened his eyes comically, and shook his head. “Now? What the fuck is going on now? I’ve been in L.A. for a month and a half - you wanna see my lease?”

Rogue continued to study him skeptically, arms crossed over her chest, while sweat dripped off his hands. Matt could already see that the leather things on his wrists, which Rogue had said were these igniter thingies so he was never without a lighter, were damp. Could they work? He supposed Pyro would have to try them so they could all see. Pyro wiped his hands on his jeans again, and grabbed up his beer bottle, taking a swig.

Rogue glanced at Matt, and asked, “You think he’s lying?”

John scoffed. “You askin’ the Swedish Chef?”

Matt ignored that comment. “I think he’s telling the truth. I think he’s here recruiting for his lame mutant supremacy group.”

“We are not lame,” he snapped angrily. “What the fuck would you know about it, Uncle Tom?”

“Yeah, I think so too,” Rogue agreed, also ignoring Pyro. “What a waste of time.”

“What are you X freaks up to?” John asked, still looking pissed.

Figuring they were done here, Matt started walking towards the door, and Rogue followed. John shouted, “Hey! You leave when I say you leave!”

They both glanced at him, and he had his arm raised as if he was about to shoot them with flames. Matt felt the water concentration in the room, and got ready to turn it on John. Rogue either had great confidence in his ability to shut Pyro down, or just really didn’t like him, because she showed him her middle finger, and said, “Bite me, asshole.”

Anger flared in John’s eyes, and it looked like he was about to do something he’d regret, when his apartment door slammed open, making them all jump. Before anyone could react, Logan grabbed John by the throat and slammed him against the far wall. John had raised one of his arms, aiming it at Logan’s face, but Logan put his fist right against John’s forehead, and growled, “Wanna see who can pull the trigger first?”

It was tense for one second, but John at least had the sense to realize that there was no way in hell he could win, and that Logan wasn‘t joking about giving him a full frontal lobotomy without the benefit of anesthesia. He lowered his arm and he seemed to go limp, as if letting Logan alone hold him up. He was struggling hard to keep an insolent - not scared - look on his face, but it was quite a struggle, and Matt didn’t buy it for one second.

Logan looked extra scary, which was saying something. He was shirtless, which should have made him seem more vulnerable, but his skin was smeared with mud and dried blood both front and back, and he had something drawn in the middle of his torso that looked like a tangled ball of string, or maybe a hairball, but Matt hadn’t gotten a really good look at it. He sincerely hoped it wasn’t a tattoo, because if it was, he’d gotten totally ripped off.

Logan was right in John’s face - they were maybe a half an inch away from kissing. But the ugly look on Logan’s face suggested he was more likely to bite John’s nose clean off. “I want to kill you,” Logan snarled, and Matt felt his own balls shrink at the cold anger in his voice. He was honestly surprised John hadn’t pissed his pants. “You can try and kill me all you want, bake all my fuckin’ skin off and see if I actually give a shit, but you do not try and kill the kids or the civilians. That makes you an enemy, and that makes you worthless. I am not Scott, and I am not Xavier - I’ve learned the hard way better to kill my enemies now before they come back and kill my entire fucking family. And I really want to kill you. Do you doubt me?”

“No,” John squeaked, his face turning red from the pressure on his throat. Even though he had clearly stood down and surrendered, Logan hadn’t eased up on the pressure one iota. He seemed to be trembling with the effort to keep from popping his claws, and John must have understood that, because he completely dropped the act. There was no more insolence, no more angry posturing; he looked like a twenty year old boy who suddenly realized he was in so far over his fucking head it was like he was freefalling from twenty thousand feet.

“Do you want to fight me, John? Do you want to die?”

“No, sir.” That was the most sincere “sir” Matt had ever heard in his entire life. And he used to work in the service industry.

“You may have one chance to get off my shit list. Do you want to take it?”

“What -”

“You don’t ask. You say yes or no now. Make your choice.”

Logan was the best negotiator he had ever seen. ‘Agree with me or die horribly’. It was a Mexican standoff between a guy armed with a rocket launcher and a guy armed with a throw pillow.

That poor kid had no fucking choice at all, and from the hopelessness in his eyes, he knew it. “Y-yes.”

“Yes what?”

It seemed to take him a moment to realize what it was Logan wanted him to say. Maybe it was oxygen deprivation to the brain. “Yes, I want a chance.”

Logan eased the pressure on his throat, but didn’t move the fist planted against his forehead. It kept John pinned against the wall. “I can’t go back to the X-Men,” John said, his voice oddly small and miserable.

Logan scoffed and sneered. “We don’t want you back.”

John looked hurt, although he tried to cover it up. Even bad guys didn’t like to be rejected. “What the hell is it you want from me?”

“We need a fire thrower. What I need you to do is follow my orders without question, and if you do everything I say and don’t turn on us, I’ll let you walk away with your life. This time. You try and screw me and I will fucking dismember you and make you watch. And believe me, I can do it.”

“You can’t trust him,” Rogue protested.

“Yes I can,” Logan said. “Can’t I, John? You’re gonna do everything I say and be a good boy because you don’t want to die. Yes?”

That’s when Matt realized that Logan’s eyes had a slight blue glow to them, reflected in John’s eyes, which seemed a little glassy.

Rogue gasped. “Did you just push him? You pushed him!”

Matt didn’t get that immediately, but then he remembered that Bob - whom he hadn’t met, but had heard all sorts of wild stories about - was said to occasionally mentally “push” people, which was apparently some form of telepathic manipulation, only it wasn’t telepathy. He didn’t really understand how it worked, but he took some comfort in the fact that no one seemed to understand it. He just said something and suddenly it was true. Had Logan inherited that with Bob’s power? Cool.

Logan looked at Rogue, and there was still just a fragment of blue energy deep within his pupils. “You do what you gotta do.” He took his fist away from John’s head, and the young man stood there for a moment, as if not sure what he was supposed to do. But then he shook his head, like he’d caught himself before he nodded off, and straightened out his rumpled clothes, grasping futilely for some small shred of dignity.

“So, ya lost your shirt again.” Rogue said to Logan.  He frowned at her.  “What?  I’m not complainin’.”

Matt wanted to agree, but he just didn’t know Logan well enough to do so. But, at least for a macho guy, he was refreshingly non-homophobic. He really didn’t care who anybody slept with, and considering the gentle tolerance he showed towards Brendan, he didn’t care who had a crush on him either.

“So how are things in Fun City?” Marc asked from the doorway.

“We’ve got it all under control,” Logan said casually.

John stared at him in shock. “You’re here, too?”

Marc grinned at him in that way of his, like a shark just before he chomped your leg off. “Uh huh. And I’m gonna be watching your back, John-John. Soon as I see a flicker of a flame when it’s not called for, you’re getting an armor piercing slug in the brain stem. Capisce?”

If John wasn’t oozing flop sweat before - and he was - he was really doing so now. “What’d I ever do to you?”

Marc shrugged. “Nothin’. But I’m not giving you the chance.” He patted the area under his left arm, where he was obviously carrying one of his firearms.

“What’s goin’ on?” Rogue asked, turning to Logan. “Why do you want John?”

Logan considered his answer before giving it, but must have decided it didn’t matter. “’Cause we’re gonna need some precision fire to burn off the plague. We’re adopting a scorched earth policy.”

“The plague?” Rogue asked, her brow furrowing in confusion.

John scoffed. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Oh, c’mon,” Marc said, with his usual boisterous enthusiasm. “It ain’t every day you get to fight one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse.”

Matt looked at him with a silent question, and Marc gave him a single nod.

No way - he couldn’t be serious.

Could he?