14

Logan awakened with a jolt, sure something was wrong, and was startled to find himself in a hospital bed.

But it didn’t smell like a hospital - or at least, not a traditional one.  It was just a little too demon-y, the equipment too odd and expensive.

He had no I.V.’s in him (good), and wasn’t gowned (also good) - his coat was on
a chair across the room, and his shirt was open just enough for someone to stick a sensor on his chest. As he sat up, he peeled it off and slapped it on the wall, curious to see if it had a heartbeat.  Judging by the amount of light bleeding in, it was a bright, sunny day outside, but the blinds were shut, so he only saw it as a rectangle of light on the white tiled floor.  His head hurt a little, but it was a dying ache; he probably just needed to move around, go get some fresh air.

“Hey,” Angel said, appearing in the open doorway.

“Hey.  Did we win?”

“You don’t remember?”

“No.  What a shock.” He got up, glad to find he was steady on his feet, and retrieved his jacket, shrugging it on. “So it’s all good?”

Angel shrugged, and looked strangely hesitant. “Pretty much.  Diego and Clarice are dead, Mahr’s back in his place, Spike’s complaining about wearing a cast on his arm, but found out he enjoys hitting people in the head with it.”

“Sounds like fun.  So what aren’t you telling me?”

He grimaced, possibly at being caught out so easily. “I kind of … well, Scott pissed me off.”

“Yeah, he does that a lot.  Punch him?”

“No.”

“Kill him?”

Angel stared at him in wide eyed shock. “No!  I just … I kind of insulted him.”

Logan shrugged, not sure why he was getting a guilt vibe from Angel for something so minor. “We all do.  It’s so easy it’s fun.”

“Yeah, well … I was probably out of line.  It just wasn’t a good moment for me,
and I really didn’t appreciate him threatening Wes like that.”

He wasn’t sure he heard him right. “Scott threatened Wesley?”

“Yeah,” Angel nodded, crossing his arms over his chest. “I guess he thought we did something to you, something against your will.”

“The whole god thing?”

He sighed. “The whole god thing.”

“Tell him to blame Bob - he left me the power.  I still have no idea why.  Wes okay?”

“Yeah, he’s fine.  Scott just threatened;  he didn’t do anything.  Except piss me
off. Rags took him back to the East Coast under less than idea circumstances.  Xavier’s been calling to check on you, and he doesn’t sound happy.”

Logan sighed, wondering how and when his life became such a soap opera.  He rubbed his eyes, and said, “Don’t worry, I’ll handle it.  Rags still around?”

“Yeah, he’s in room twenty-two.”

He raised an eyebrow at that. “He got hurt?”

“No, he’s just sleeping off a celebratory binge.”

“Ahh.” He should have guessed that;  he felt like an idiot for not doing so.

“What bothers me the most is that I think he and Harmony are dating right now -
- frightening.”

Logan couldn’t imagine anyone voluntarily dating Rags;  it was a frightening thought.  Well, so it all worked out, right?  No deranged vampire gods vampin’ people all over the place...  "Hey, what about the mutant vampires?”

“Oh, yeah. We did some digging, and discovered who they were.  Ironically, all but the teleporter used to attend the same private school near San Fernando. But the teleporter was the daughter of one of the school‘s groundskeepers.”

That was a surprise - he thought Xavier's was the only one.  “Mutant school?”

“Maybe.  We’re looking into that.  There was a forcefully projector, Jade Melendez - Rags teleported her into the middle of the Syrian desert;  she’s gone.  Jamais Vu, also known as Melora Han, apparently has the ability to see exactly five minutes into the future of anyone she looks at.”

“So that’s how she knew what everyone was going to do.”

“Right.  She’s alive, and Wesley thought she might be interesting to bring in for questioning.  To say the security team is fascinated by her is an understatement.”

He smirked at that. “Got you a new security chief?”

“Not chief, no, but … she might be an interesting member to have on the team.”

“What about the teleporter?”

Just from the way Angel frowned and looked away, he knew they didn’t get her. “Gisela Fernandez.  She got away.  As you said, what a shock, huh?”

“Teleporters are slippery.  What about Matt?”

A new kind of pained grimace, that pretty much told him all he needed to know. “He got dusted.  I’m sorry.”

Logan shrugged, disappointed but not all that surprised. “He was a vampire, and probably not a very friendly one.  It was bound to happen.”

“I don’t think Scott was thrilled about that either.  Wesley did it.”

Yeah, that probably didn’t endear Wes to Scott, even though Matt hadn’t exactly been Matt anymore.  And, oh shit, who was going to tell Brendan?  Poor Brendan.  Nobody - well, very few - wanted a break up that ended in death. Digging his hands into the pockets of his jacket, Logan felt an odd shape, and only when his fingers slid over the slick plastic did he remember what he had.  “Oh, hey, could you do a favor for me?”

Angel shrugged. “Sure.  What?”

He pulled the pill bottle out, and tossed it to him.  Angel caught it and looked at it curiously. “I found this in Yasha’s medicine cabinet.  I thought it was a bunch of pain killers, but they’re not;  they don’t smell right.”

Angel popped the lid off and took a sniff.  His nose wrinkled in distaste, and he capped the bottle quickly. “Smells like magic.”

“That’s what I thought.  Could you run a scan of some kind, and tell me what the hell it is?”

“Yeah, no problem.  I’m kind of curious myself.  Was Yasha … up to something?  To your knowledge?”

He shook his head. “No, and I assume she’d keep me in the loop if she was.”

“Well, we never really know people, do we?  We like to think we do, but we can never be certain what’s going on inside their heads.  Unless you’re a telepath.”

“And even then, there are ways around it,” Logan said, and only then did he realize he had just depressed himself.

Oh shit.  He had to stop doing that.

15

Rags teleported him back to the mansion in time for the shit to hit the fan.

“What do you mean he’s gone?” He heard Scott exclaim, as he walked into Xavier’s office.

Everybody turned to look at him as he came in the door, and he hated being the automatic object of so much attention.  The Professor was behind his desk, sunlight streaming in from the window behind him and making Logan squint when he looked at him.  Storm and Scott were at either end of his desk, with variations of the same distraught expression on their faces.  Storm was holding a piece of torn notebook paper in one hand.

“You okay?” Scott wondered aloud.

Logan shrugged. “Fine.  Who’s gone?”

“Brendan,” Storm sighed, frustrated.  “He didn’t show up in class this morning, so I went to his room, and found only this.” She held out the piece of paper to him, but he waved it off, as he had already read it.  It didn’t say much - just “Don’t look for me” in Brendan’s semi-legible scrawl.

He looked at Scott, and asked, “Does he know?”

It took him a moment, but he seemed to understand what he was asking: ‘Does Bren know Matt is dead?’  “No, I hadn’t had a chance to tell him yet.”

Xavier sighed, and rubbed his forehead like this was giving him a headache.  (Or was it the energy in his mind?  Did Xavier forget he was still carrying a piece of Bob around?) “I’ll look for him using Cerebro, but it might be some time before I pick him up.  He always registered in an … odd way.”

“’Cause he’s half demon?” Logan said.  Not a question, really, it was just something to say.

Xavier nodded, the pain in his pale eyes becoming more prevalent the closer Logan got to his desk.  (So it was him.)  Taking a couple of steps back, he stood by the door. “Exactly.  But I will find him.”

“When you do, let me go talk to him,” Logan suggested.

Scott and Storm both looked at him like he was nuts. “What?” Storm asked first. “Why?”

“I know what’s it like, especially the urge to run from your problems. I’ll get
through to ‘im.”

Storm, an eyebrow raised skeptically, decided to opt for tact. “I’m not sure that would be the best idea right now.”

Scott decided to go blunt. “He has a crush on you.  Considering part of the reason he broke up with Matt was because of you, you’ll probably just make him feel more guilty.”

“I’m not the reason he broke up with Matt.  He broke up with Matt ‘cause he was a selfish bastard.  And he’s over me.”

“He’s over you?” Scott repeated, his doubt almost insulting. “How the hell do you know?”

“I asked him ... back in class?  I don’t think he was lyin’.”

They all stared at him in slack-jawed awe.  Or maybe horror - it was kind of hard
to tell. “You asked him?” Storm repeated, shaking her head. “I can’t believe you. He’s a teenager! You probably mortified him!”

“No.  We paired off - I asked him away from the other students.  What d’ya think I am, an idiot?”

Before Scott dared to answer that question, Xavier cleared his throat, and said, “On that note, we still have classes to attend to.  I will search for Brendan, and notify you immediately if I find him.”

That was pretty much a “dismissed”, so Logan headed out the door first, wondering if Brendan would head back to Pittsburgh.  Then again, why?  Too many painful memories waiting for him there - and Brendan was his mirror image, unable to forget anything, ever.  Was suicide a possibility?  He thought Brendan was a lot smarter than that - smarter than him.

“Hey,” Scott said, and Logan paused, waiting for him to catch up with him in the hall.  He was expecting some kind of private grilling.  The light coming in from the side windows made the wood look like the color of cognac.  “Are you actually okay?  Do you know what they did to you?”

He nodded, suddenly feeling that dull ache in his head again.  It was the sunlight - it was too fucking bright- so he started walking further down the hall.  “Yeah, I knew; they told me, and I okayed it.  In fact, Lorne tried to talk me out of it, if it means anything to you.  They’re not the bad guys.”

He got the impression that Lorne knew Bob, that they were friends on some level, and even so, Lorne was ready to coach him out of doing this. (“Getting mixed up with god stuff alone is bad news,” he’d said, trying hard to keep his tone light. “But then we bring the Partners into it … that’s mucho bad mojo, amigo.  We don’t know what the side effects of this could be.  Your head could actually explode.” That was a risk that Logan not only wanted to take, but piqued his curiosity - could it explode an adamantium skull too?  He'd almost wanted to find out.)

Scott sighed like he expected him to say that. “I don’t know why you trust them. Angel’s a hypocritical prick.”

“Oh, yeah.  He wanted to apologize for insulting you.”

“Tell him he can bite me.” He paused for a moment. “Okay, not literally.”

“I was about to say…”

“Leave it to a vampire to ruin a perfectly good insult.” They walked down the hall in silence, Logan wondering if he was actually going to follow him to his room, when Scott asked quietly, “Is that what she’s like now?”

Logan stopped and faced him, trying to figure out how to answer that.  Of course he was talking about Jean, but he didn’t know what to say.  According to Angel, when the Bob energy was paramount, he was cold, arrogant perhaps, but mostly just the embodiment of power, with no personality or humanity behind it.  It would have made things so much easier if Jean was that way.  “No,” he finally told him, and since he didn’t want to sugar coat it, he left it at that.

Scott wasn’t prepared to leave it there, but didn’t know how to proceed.  He made odd, aborted hand gestures that suggested he thought of a thousand things to say, but none sounded just right.  Finally, he said, “S-she’s never coming back t-to us, is she?”  Not quite a stutter, but very close.

“If she could, she would,” he lied.  He didn’t know what Jean thought anymore, and he wouldn’t presume to guess.

But the way a muscle jumped in Scott’s tensing jaw, Logan figured he knew he was lying, or at least not telling him the whole truth.  His body language seemed to change fundamentally, his back tensed, his hands curled into fists, and he seemed overcome with a sort of angry despair. “I figured it out, you know.”

“Figured what out?” He almost didn’t want to know - whatever it was, it had to be bad.  And there was so much Scott was better off not knowing.

“Why Bob left you the power.” He laughed without humor, a breathless sort of scoff. “It’s so you could kill her, isn‘t it?”

Logan swallowed hard, torn between anger and fear.  What the hell did the Boy Scout know? “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

“I saw it,” Scott insisted, almost angry.  Logan couldn’t tell if it was a bead of sweat or a tear that trickled out from beneath his visor. “I saw you.  The part Bob left you … it’s a killer; an executioner.  You’re the back up plan, aren’t you?  If everything goes wrong, if she … if she goes wrong, you’re going to kill her, aren’t you?”

He glared at him, angry enough to mop up the floor with him, and yet a sudden, cold fear sent his heart racing triple time.  There was no way Scott could have figured that out … yes, he had “killed” her before, in an illusion set up by Camaxtli, sure, but nobody knew that -

(Jean knew that.)

 - and just because he'd done it once … oh fuck.  That’s what this was all about, wasn’t it?  The ability to kill Jean if he had to, if everything went wrong.  But the bastard hadn’t told him.  He wouldn’t tell him though, would he?  ‘I’ve given you the tools to kill Jean, ‘cause we all know what a great killer you are…’

“I would never hurt her,” he snarled, just wanting to end this conversation.

“No, you wouldn’t,” Scott agreed weakly, turning away. “That’s why he gave you his power to do it.”

Logan just stood there, wanting to tackle Scott and smash his head into the floor for saying that, for making him think it ...

… but he knew he should probably save his rage for Bob.

16

The transition was abrupt and jarring. And although she was happy to be out of Al’s world, she didn’t appreciate being shuttled around like a volleyball. “What is the meaning of this?” She roared, as soon as she had a solid dimension under her feet.

It wasn’t an office building - and what kind of mad god would create a world that was little more than a sterile office block? - but it was some strange, vast library, with monstrous bookshelves reaching up towards an open but curiously flat sky the color of periwinkles.  Bronze vines snaked around the tops of shelves like serpents, and the marble floor appeared to be just that - marble.  Once again,
she was cut off from most of her abilities, and left mostly mundane.

“Please believe me, I don’t want to be doing this any more than you do,” a man said, appearing out of nowhere to stand in front of a large book on a marble pedestal.  He was knife thin and as ugly as genocide: almost albino in his ghastly whiteness, his eyes were oversized but flat and oddly bird like, and as yellow as the sun.  His clothes - if they were clothes - gleamed like an oil slick.

“Then why are you?” She started walking towards him, but slowed her pace, as
he seemed to get uglier and more disturbing the closer she came.  Now, he was
a hell of a lot better looking than Al, so she didn’t know why she was finding him somehow a lot more revolting.  “Who are you?”

“I am Osiris.”

“Another death god.  How many of you are there?”

“Oh, you’d be surprised.  And please, I am “the” death god.  None of the others pay much attention to the Human plane anymore.  Too much paperwork.” The reference almost made her shudder.  She never wanted to hear about “paperwork” ever again. “Who were you with before now?”

“Balor.”

His face crinkled in disgust, and she noticed his fingers were simply sharpened bone. “Ugh, that old man.  How disgusting is he?  And deranged.  Who would willingly conjure an office?”

“I was wondering about that.  Are you a friend of Bob’s too?”

Osiris made a rude noise that could have been a scoff. “Gods no, I hate his fucking ephemeral guts.  But he has a special, rodential talent for blackmail, so I’m afraid I am playing along.  I’m sure you know by now your powers are useless here.”

“And you’re elemental, so don’t bother hurting you.”

“Naw, go ahead, hurt him,” a voice said. “It’s fun.”

The voice was so familiar - and yet so wrong - she looked around sharply until she found its source.  Several meters away, leaning against a bookshelf, was Scott.

And yet, not Scott.  He wasn’t wearing a visor; in fact, he had no eyes at all, just empty pits in his face where eyes should have been.  There was no blood, no sense that there ever should have been anything there at all;  the voids, curiously enough, seemed to have a life all their own, a siren song.  She could feel their need from here.

For the first time since she assumed Camaxtli’s powers, she was scared.

“What the fuck is that?” She asked, taking a step back.

The thing - the living void - mostly assuming Scott’s form shrugged himself away from the bookshelf and took a step towards her.  “What?  I’m not a what.  I’m a who, and I’m a where.  But never a what.” He then grinned at her, revealing more nothing;  it wasn’t that he had no teeth, it was that void in his eyes also filled his mouth, his throat.  He was a void in its entirety, somehow wearing something akin to flesh.  And she'd thought Balor was mad?  At least he wasn’t empty.

She felt a familiar itch of energy in the back of her mind, and annoying as it was, it was almost reassuring.  At least it was familiar, and not … need;  something cold and hungry, vast appetite given form.  “-dreamed a little dream,” Bob sang, appearing suddenly, walking across the top of the bookshelves.  “Made my own pretty hate machine … hey, Jeannie.”  He jumped down, and landed feet first between her and the Scott thing.  He glanced at it, and said, “You stay where you are.”

The Scott thing smirked, almost sneering. “And I’m listening to you why, Power?”

“Sy?”

Osiris sighed as if put upon, and told it, “Because Ammit will kill me if you don’t,
and turn you over to Eris’s mercy.”

“I thought death gods couldn’t die,” Jean said, more angry at the lie than anything else.

“Well, we can - not for long, but long enough to be a pain in the ass.”  He then gave Bob a hateful look that should have (if there was any justice in the multiverse) made him burst into flames.

But Bob just gave him that irritating, shit-eating grin of his. “The buggery thing is, y’know that cliché “nothing’s perfect”?  Absolutely true.  Everything has a weakness, if you look hard enough.”

She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him, not appreciating a single one of his bullshit games. “What’s yours?”

Bob shifted his grin to her, but it had a sinister edge to it. “You know mine.  And I know yours.  We’re even.”

She was done here.  How did anyone stand Bob?  “Is this it?  Are you going to kill me?  If so, do it - I’m tired of you trying to bore me to death.”

His smile faded, and he tried on a sincere face she didn’t buy for a second. “Jean,
I ain’t gonna kill ya.  I don’t have to tell ya you have far too much power.  You can’t go back to the Earth plane without fucking things up royal, and this power’s driving you insane.”

“I’m not insane.  I’ve never felt more sane.  Why...are you jealous, Bob?”

“The power is running away with you.  You’re not mastering it, Jeannie, it’s mastering you.  That never leads to anything good.”

“You think I don’t know what you’re doing to Logan?  Or why you’ve decided to focus on him?” Bob wasn’t the only one who knew painful secrets - he just thought he was.

Osiris sighed again, and looked down at the pages of his book. “Send her back to Balor and have him look upon her, be done with it.  I’m tired of her already.”

So much for working with Osiris against Bob.  Why were so many of these so called gods complete dickheads?

“I’m not gonna kill her, and neither are you,” Bob snapped, giving his a death glare.  Osiris barely even deigned to notice it.

“If you’re not going to kill me, what do you plan to do, Bob?  Have Logan do it for you?  You know it will kill him, don‘t you?  He‘ll remember what he did to his wife; he‘ll remember killing his precious Mariko.  It will break him like it did the time before.  Do you really want him to have yet another nervous breakdown?  Is that what passes for fun among the immortals?”

Bob stared at her, his anger strangely removed, as if part of him was already leaving this realm.  As angry as she was, Jean could feel what passed for her stomach going into free fall - he couldn’t leave her with that thing. “I’m sorry, Jean, I really am.  But there’s no other way to siphon off some of your power, not without killing you.  Please understand I don’t wanna do this.”

She sneered at him, using defiance to hide her fear.  There was nowhere for her to go - she was trapped like a fucking mundane, a mortal.  “Yes you do. We all know what you are now.  A Fallen, a manipulator, a god that nobody wanted.  You were thrown on the remainder pile, and you could never just accept that, could you?”

Bob closed his eyes and yet he still looked away, as if he couldn’t bear to even be in the general direction of the truth. “Jeannie, meet the abyss.  I’ll see you on the other side.” And, that said, he stepped aside, revealing the Scott thing standing right behind him.

But the thing seemed to open, splitting down the middle and peeling back its own skin to reveal a consumptive emptiness like a black hole, and the siren song filled her ears like a scream.  The blackness hungered; it needed;  it wanted.  It wanted her.

And before she could take even a single step back, it swallowed her whole.

________________

The End…or is it?

(No, not really…)