This was the fog enshrouded land of the dead, a sort of Pacific Islander version of Saint Peter's waiting room, where Degei the serpent god would question you and figure out if you belonged in Murimuria ( basically purgatory ) or Burotu, which was basically heaven times ten.

Of course, none of this was technically true, but it made a ripping story. A hell of a lot more fun than that pearly gates crap.

The hills were shrouded in mist, though - that much was true. The fog was a semi-translucent scrim of opalescent vapor that hovered four feet off the ground like a reluctant ghost, reducing visibility to about a foot in front of your face. A shame, as the deeply blue trees and golden palms were gorgeously alien against the backdrop of crimson and ochre foliage and the pale pink blush of the sky.

The ground beneath his turned black and seemed to writhe, but he knew it was not the earth moving beneath his feet, but snakes. Dozens upon dozens of snakes in all lengths and colors, surging around him and ahead of him, like it was a raging river and he was nothing but a raft gliding on its surface. If he could see the hills around them, he would have been able to see they were moving, shimmering with the movements of a billion scales glinting in the light of the pale red sun.

The fog started to swirl and clear, and about five feet ahead of him, the snakes began to gather in a pile that quickly became a humanoid shape, a sturdy, well built man whose scaled skin alternated with red, black, yellow, and orange rings, like that of a colorful and exotic serpent.

The head and the eyes formed last, and the eyes were large, almost the size of his fists, and slit pupiled, a wondrous silver color that looked like the light of a clear, full moon. "Bob - long time no see," Degei said, as the small snakes continued flowing down his newly solidified arms, coiling into hands and fingers as he watched.

"Hey Deg, how's it goin'?"

"Well. But you're not here about me."

"True enough. Sorry about that mate, but you know how it is."

"I do. Is this about Fenrir?"

"Good guess."

"Come, we'll discuss it over tea," Degei said, turning and walking back to a stone edifice that appeared behind him as the fog cleared. Snakes continued to stream after and before him on the ground, a living carpet of worshipers, followers who made up the body of their own god.

The house hewn from rock looked somewhat like a pagoda, with a peaked roof and a square body, and inside it was completely unadorned, and even the small table and two chairs extruded from the floor were made of solid granite. The teapot, though, was highly polished gold, as were the cups-very classy.

He took a seat, ignoring all the snakes slithering around him, in and out through the glassless window like this was the truck stop equivalent for snakes, and let Degei start pouring the two of them cups of tea before he said, "Really this is about Loki, or more appropriately, his friends."

"Loki doesn't have any friends."

"I know, which is what puzzles me. I mean, the more I thought about it, the more I realized he must have had helped springing Fenrir from his dimensional prison."

"Indeed. Loki has neither the power or intelligence to pull off such a thing alone." He handed him a steaming cup of amber liquid, that smelled of hibiscus, cardamom, anise, and honey.

Bob gave him a nod of thanks, and wrapped his hands around the gilded cup for warmth. "So what's going on, Deg? Who else has it in for me?"

Degei considered his words carefully, stirring his tea with a cinnamon stick. Deg was very much the Sweden of the higher realms - he didn't take sides in any disagreement, but he saw all, heard all, knew all; he had his agents - snakes, and their eyes, ears, and other assorted sensory organs - in almost every dimension. He was a good guy to know if you wanted information on anything anywhere. "In a sense, Bob, they all have it out for you; they're scared by you. The Powers That Be enjoy order, and you are the antithesis of that."

"Somebody's gotta be."

Degei nodded, conceding that point. "Beings fear what they can't control, no matter the skin they're in."

"A sad fact of life."

"Yes."

Bob took a sip of his tea. It was incredible, so odd and earthy and flavorful that there was no way that it could have come from an Earth plane. "You make some kick ass tea, Deggy."

Degei accepted the compliment with a dip of his head. "There are ... things happening on the Higher Realms that you are unaware of, Bob."

"Oh really?" He hated to act dumb and play Degei like this, but it was part of the game.

"Some of the Highers are tired of living among these realms, and wish to expand their influence."

"You mean they need more beings to manipulate and push around."

"As you will."

A King cobra slithered across the table on its way out the window, as a coral snake, adorned with rings much like Deggy's skin, coiled around the base of the teapot, basking in the warmth. "And you think this relates to Fenrir's escape?"

"The realms are starting to destabilize."

"The fighting's been that bad?"

"Ares thinks if he lets chaos loose, others will join out of necessity."

"The scare the shit out of them school of blackmail. Boy, Ares is as subtle as a hand grenade up the ass, isn't he?"

"He was never known for his social graces," Deg admitted, completely deadpan, as he enjoyed a sip of tea.

"Or hygiene. He's gotta have more help - if the big guns wanted to shut Ares down, they could."

"Kumiho is said to be helping behind the scenes, as is Ra and Cerberus."

"Kumiho?" Oh, there was a bad news name. The name, on the Earth plane, indicated a form of vampire/succubus hybrid native to the Koreas - a trickster like the Japanese kitsune, only far more dangerous, as they survived on the life force of its chosen victims as opposed to the far more pedestrian blood of vampires and the ... well, kitsunes weren't after anything but shits and giggles. But there was a Higher Realmer named Kumiho - the demons were named after her as a sort of backhanded dis - a trickster goddess far more crafty and dangerous than Loki could ever be, even on his best day. As far as Cerberus, he was kind of a one trick pony, nasty as hell (no pun intended), but not hard to deal with. "Shit. Who else is on the team? Eris?"

"Strangely enough, no. There is ... rumors that the whole thing started as a rift between them."

Eris was Ares's sister, and they were always close, as they were equally arrogant and nasty. But he knew over the past century they had started drifting away from each other, mainly because they could never convince the other they were better. "A family feud that threatens to split the heavens? Man, that's fucking poetic."

Degei actually snorted a laugh, almost sending tea shooting out his black and red scaled nose. The other cool thing about Deg was he had an actual sense of humor, possibly because so much of his body ( snakes ) was on the Human plane. As soon as he recovered, he said, "I missed you, Bob. You don't have a stick up your ass like the rest of them."

"Well, I'm not anally fixated, thank you very much." After a pause and another drink of tea, asked, "So do you know who else is linin' up for the dark side?"

It was then he felt his skin crawl, and the snakes coiling around his ankles suddenly hissed en masse - a sound almost akin to a distant waterfall, water spilling over slick stone - and withdrew to the safety of the space behind Degei as the air split behind Bob's chair.

This was no surprise; this was why he was here. Although the snakes were the body and mind of Degei, he was not the only one who could tap into them.

Phobos, Ares's son and the personification of fear, stepped out of the reality tear, and slapped a vise like hand on Bob's shoulder.

"How dare you violate the sanctity of my sanctuary!" Degei roared, jumping to his feet. Snakes coiled up him, spiraled up, making him taller and wider, a man mountain in the process of construction.

But it was too little too late, as Phobos had no desire to mix it up with Degei and his billions upon trillions of followers - even Fear itself had fears. "Bite me," Phobos snapped, and disappeared, pulling Bob along with him.

21

It was possible he was being paranoid, or if she was hiding something, it was nothing more important than being in his mind scared the shit out of her. He couldn't blame her for that if it was true.

To make this easier on her ( well, supposedly them, but he didn't really care where he was ), they were no longer at his supposed former home in Alberta, but back in the medical lab of Xavier's, where Jean probably felt the safest. That was really funny considering labs almost always made him feel like jumping out of his skin.

But not this one; bright white surfaces and matte chrome, spotlessly clean, well lit, and sterile, it looked nothing like the Giger meets Escher-esque labs of his memories, and it smelled too strongly of Jean to make him nervous. As he looked around and sat on the edge of one of the examination tables, he said, "I'm here in real life, ain't I?"

She stood in front of him, and after a guilty look quickly flashed across her face. she nodded. "I'm afraid so."

"How am I doin'? Or is that a silly question?"

She gave him the slightest smile, which was undeniably charming. "It's a silly question."

"I'm known for those."

"Hush." She put her hands on his shoulders and stared straight into his eyes. He noticed up close that her hazel eyes had flecks of gold in them; they were really quite lovely. "Now, I don't know what this is going to be like. It may seem a little ... overwhelming at first."

"I can handle it." He quirked up a corner of his mouth, not quite a smile but as much as he could muster right now. "I've had worse."

"You don't need to point that out, you know."

"I know, but I like to. Makes me feel macho."

She rolled her eyes, and unsuccessfully stifled a small laugh. "You're incorrigible."

"So I've been told."

She fixed him with a stern look, and he knew joking time was over - she wanted to do this before she completely lost her nerve. Strangely, maybe he was a little nervous about this.

She moved her hands up to the side of his head, and then closed her eyes. "I need you to clear your mind and relax."

He was tempted to say "All you women say that," but somehow he knew that wouldn't go down well, so he kept his mouth shut.

Logan closed his own eyes as Jean rested her forehead against his, and he had to tell himself not to tense as he waited for something to happen.

But nothing did, and just when he started to wonder if Jean had chickened out, it was like a lightning bolt hit his brain stem.

It wasn't painful - not really, not at first - it was, just as she warned, overwhelming. Energy burned through him, expanding like heat inside inside his brain, rode the highways of his nerves until his body was filled with it. It felt like he was being sunburned from the inside out.

And then the pain started.

It felt like his right arm had burst into flames, followed shortly afterwards by his lungs inside his chest cavity, and a few other assorted organs lower down in the gut. But he knew even as the pain seared through him that it was normal - the healing process kicked into overdrive, right? It always burned, so flash flooded like this, it would hurt even more.

But he was aware of a sense of bilocation - not being disconnected from himself, but connected to someone else. He understood far too late: Jean.

She screamed horribly, obviously in terrible pain, but she didn't let go; her fingers tangled in his hair to keep from breaking the connection even as her own consciousness wavered under the assault. And the weird thing was he could feel it - her - slipping away, like a phantom twin.

Now he knew what she had been hiding from him.

"No!" He shouted, shoving her away to break the connection. But it was too late, and as she hit the exam table across from him back first, he knew she was already gone.

He slid off the table and landed on the floor in a crouch, so he could catch her before she hit the ground. He still felt like he was burning, but it had kicked down to a low smolder, and he knew he'd be fine, if he didn't qualify as fine already.

But Jean was not. She was unconscious at least, and seemed strangely light in his arms, but he didn't know if that meant he was fading out of here or she was. He really couldn't tell, and didn't know if it made any difference at all. If she had asked - if it had occurred to him that she might feel it too - he could have warned her how much it hurt to heal like he did. He was used to it, it was just the pain of living as he did, a handy autonomic function he rarely thought about, except in the capacity of "I wonder if my healing factor can bring me back from this".

He brushed the hair from her eyes and looked down at her inordinately pale face, and hoped she'd open her eyes again. "Jean? Damn you, why didn't you tell me?"

Yet he knew the answer to that, didn't he? He'd have refused to play along - they both knew it. Goddamn telepaths. "Damn you," he muttered, bringing his forehead down to hers, and hoping against hope that he could reverse this somehow.

But it didn't work like that, did it?

22

"Shut the hell up," Phobos snarled, as he paced restlessly in front of what looked like a novelty lamp. It was a globe sized orb glowing with internal white light hovering over what could very well have been a wrought iron table. It lit the entire cavern, but not so there weren't black shadows clinging like ink to the sides and the ceiling, cloaking its actual dimensions. Not that dimensions could actually be ascertained - Phobos was nothing if not entertainingly obtuse.

"You know, for super secret hideouts, you could have done a lot better. This is really passe, mate."

Phobos stopped pacing long enough to glare at him. Well, as much as possible for a man with no visible eyes. "You know what your problem is, Bob? You talk too damn much."

Bob just grinned at him, or at least as much as he could with half his face encased in rock. Phobos had rematerialized him in the wall of his cave/grotto/shagadelic death pad, which was made of living rock. It had already completely sealed him in from the waist down, and his arms were lousy with the stuff too; basically, only the right half of his face and part of his neck was not covered with rock ... yet. But he could feel it delicately undulating its way across his skin, feeling like the feet of millipedes wearing tiny little felt slippers. It was actually relatively pleasant, until it set like concrete; then you were pretty much fucked. He could feel the sheer weight of it - like six gees of gravity - crushing his chest in slow motion. It was a good thing he didn't need to breathe.

But all this showed was Phobos's terminal lack of imagination - he could have lived anywhere in any universe he wished, and he lived in a fucking cave! A cave where he let the living rock wall up his enemies. Neato bandito. He missed his calling as a lame ass James Bond villain. "I didn't think your dad would deign to set foot in a place like this," Bob continued, aware his every word was like a needle in Phobby's ear. Good. "He has more Donald Trump kind of tastes, doesn't he? Rather fey for a pissheaded despot ..."

"I already told you to shut the hell up!" He snapped, stomping over towards him. Phobos generally took a form he knew would frighten the person he was dealing with the most, but since that was a difficult tone to hit among the Highers, he had a generic unsettling humanoid form them, which he was wearing now - a tall man, far too thin, with limbs that were just long enough to see deeply wrong, and a gleaming bald skull peeking through where a scalp or hair should have been. This was supplemented by having no visible eyes, just blank, smooth skin where at least some holes should have been, a mouth two times as wide as normal, no nose, and pointed ears that stuck out from the side of his scalped head like open car doors. To say he looked like a shaved, blind bat would have grossly offended bats everywhere.

He wasn't just ugly; he was mondo ugly. Not so much hit with the ugly stick as sodomized and then beaten to death with it.

Phobby got into his half face, and hissed, "I can slow your death down even further, Bob."

Bob tried to raise an eyebrow, but had no idea if he succeeded. "A god, and yet you've never heard of mouthwash."

He got the sense Phobos was glaring at him again. "Is that some attempt at low humor?"

"It would have worked if I had a rimshot."

Phobos grunted in disgust, not understanding that one either, and stomped away, back towards the table. The light inside the globe - bluish white but dotted with flecks like silver - swirled and writhed, as if following its own laws of Brownian motion, but Bob knew that wasn't the case. No, he was probably looking at one of the reasons Eris, Sy, Fudo, and the others had a hard time keeping track of Ares and his activities. "That's Shen Yi you have imprisoned in there, isn't it?"

Phobos ignored him, but Bob heard a distant affirmative in his mind. He thought he had recognized the shape of Shen Yi's physical form in the wall across the way, a figure forever encased in solid rock. So the bastard had killed him physically, but trapped the rest of him in that sphere ... and Shen Yi, known to the ancient Chinese as a sun god, had the kind of meta-psychic power that could screen Highers from each other. Only Phobos knew what he was torturing him with to get him to work for them - he'd already killed his body off. "Is that what you're planning to do to me?" He asked, trying to see if there were any more globes laying about.