But Logan got the sense he should head this way, so he did, hoping it would lead him to Jean.

All semblance of reality began to melt away as he approached the end of the hall - darkness swarmed in like a cloud of insects, became a physical thing he had to slog through, night given the presence and form of molasses. He struggled through it, feeling great resistance, like it was deliberately trying to hold him back, but it just pissed him off and made him work harder. Finally he fell through, literally - there was a brief sensation of falling, and then he landed face first on the ground, nearly getting a mouthful of dirt. Dirt?

He looked up, and found himself outside, maybe in the back garden. But it looked altered somehow - bigger, for one, and there were some plants here he was sure he hadn't seen before. He pushed himself up to his knees and looked around. Birds sang in the lowering willows and blooming cherry and pear trees,  and the sky was a cloudless and perfect blue, like the sea. The air smelled so strongly of roses and lilies he sneezed, but real flowers were still better than perfume; he was sure perfume was designed specifically to kill him.

"Who's there?" Jean asked. Her voice seemed to emanate from behind a huge explosion of red and white flowered weigela bushes.

"It's me," he said, getting to his feet and brushing dirt off the knees of his jeans before proceeding.

She was sitting in a lawn chair on the other side of the impromptu hedge created by the shrubs, and looked at him with some surprise. She was reading a paperback book, but had it resting open on her knee; ironically, it was titled "Finder". "Logan?" For some reason she seemed to eye his clothes before she asked, "Are you really here?"

"I seem to be. Nice place."

"Oh, it's my so called happy place," she admitted, with a grimace of embarrassment. "When you're first learning to use your telepathy, you sort of clear out a little space deep inside your mind to retreat into when things get a little too heavy. A safe place."

He nodded. He could use a little happy place all his own. "I'm sorry I sent you here."

"You sent - " She had to think about it for a moment. "Oh. Well, no, it wasn't your fault, Logan. It was a reflex; it kicks in when ..."

"Things get too heavy."

"Yeah." She rubbed her forehead, like she had a headache. "I'm sorry, I think I'm a little tired."

"I bet." He crouched beside her chair, and said, "You can't say that isn't my fault."

She shook her head, then gave him a look that was infinitely weary. "It was mine. I wasn't properly prepared for what would happen. And then I think I got caught up in the telepathic equivalent of a feedback loop - I couldn't quite find my way out."

"Until this kicked in."

"Right. A failsafe escape hatch. I'll be okay, I just need a little time to recover." After a pause, she admitted, "I guess I never considered that it would be so painful."

"Maybe if you told me what exactly what you were gonna do, I coulda warned ya." He instantly hated how ungrateful that sounded, and scowled at the thought. "Naw, that ain't right. I doubt it would have occurred to me to warn you." It was reflex to reach out and take her hand, but she didn't object. It wasn't as warm as it had been earlier, but it wasn't ice cold. "I wish you hadn't have done it, Jean."

She squeezed his hand reassuringly. "But you're back, aren't you? And not Rhedoc."

"A good thing too. You should see how ugly those fuckers are."

She smiled, and when their eyes held a little too long, she glanced away. "Why are you here, Logan?"

"I want to bring you back."

She patted the back of his hand idly, and gave him a kindly smile. "I'll be back soon, I just need some time. Tell the others not to worry."

"It wasn't right for you to almost kill yourself to help me. I wanna give some of that back."

She quirked up an eyebrow. "How?"

Aw damn. He was hoping she might have some ideas there. "Honestly? I don't know. I was hopin' you could help me puzzle that out."

Her smile remained kind, although he thought perhaps a hint of condescension crept into it. "I'm not Rogue. I wouldn't even know how to begin doing that."

"Well, this can't be a complete one way street, can it?" He then realized what he just said. "Oh shit, it is, isn't it?"

"As far as I know. I'm impressed you made it here, though."

"Just followed the passage."

She looked at him curiously. "We're connected, are we? Well, I guess we would be by now."

He was pretty sure he was missing something in this conversation. "Connected to a lot of guys?"  He said it flippantly, like a joke, but he was curious.

She gave him a haughty look, and he knew she considered making a joke of it, but at the last minute she decided against it. "The Professor, of course, but he's such a powerful telepath I'm not sure he counts. Then there's Scott, and now you, it seems."

He couldn't help it - he rolled his eyes, weary of Scott even though he was just mentioned, and she said, "Well you're not exactly connection free, you know."

That made him stare at her. "What do you mean?"

"Bob." Oh boy - he really hadn't wanted to hear that. As he let his chin drop to his chest, she said, " You didn't know?"

"Nah, I figured as much, I just don't like bein' reminded of it."

"I understand. But you realize he's the first person we think of when all this inexplicable stuff happens."

"Well, yeah - he eats the impossible for breakfast."

"That's a good way to put it." She paused, and the way she squeezed his hand, he guessed she was about to ask him something she was nervous about. " I always wanted to ask you ... when you had Bob's power, back on Dis ... what was that like?"

He gazed at her quizzically, wondering if there was some connection he didn't realize. "Uh, well ... it was weird. I didn't really think much of it at the time, but it was like bein' the heart of a star. I mean, it was like bein' beyond invincible, whatever that is." He knew he wasn't be especially articulate, but even in retrospect it was hard to put into the words. He was sure he didn't completely grasp the experience even now.

"I know what you mean," she agreed, sitting forward. Her eyes were shining with something akin to - but not exactly like - lust. "I felt like that when I was under Camaxtli's influence. I felt like ... an inferno. It was an incredible rush."

"It was, yeah," he agreed, wondering how the feelings compared. Being a proxy agent was one thing; being the god (?) was another. "But I'm glad I ain't him."

"Why do you say that? Well, beyond the obvious reasons." She grinned slyly, and he couldn't help but grin back. Yeah, the ex-wives thing would be a real bitch, not to mention all those goddamn kids of his.

"It was just too intoxicatin', you know? I see how you could let it get the better of you."

"Yes, I suppose," she agreed, but with great reluctance. She knew it was a valid point, but she hated to admit it.

"I mean, I know he seems pretty free wheelin', but he must have an awful lot of control not to really let loose and abuse it."

"He could control the world."

Logan wondered if she was talking about Bob or Camaxtli, but he didn't ask. "Yeah. See, if I was him, I'd fix everything." He paused, then was forced to admit, under the intensity of her gaze, "No, that's a lie. I'd destroy it all; I'd get rid of everything. I'd hate myself for it later, but - "

"There's so much evil in the world," she sighed, nodding. "And so much has been done to you."

Mentally, he reeled a bit. He didn't want to talk about that."It just seems so unfixable." He wasn't completely sure if he was talking about the world or himself, or both.

"All we can do is try and change that, one step at a time."

He nodded, and felt very awkward. Suddenly, he wanted to leave. "As long as you're sure you're okay, I'll go back and tell the others. But if you ain't back in a few hours Xavier's probably comin' for you."

She nodded, not at all surprised by that, but she kept a hold of his hand. "I just didn't realize how much pain was involved. You're stronger than I thought."

He supposed that was a compliment, but it didn't feel like one. "It's just pain. I live with it all the time."

"I'm sorry."

He just shrugged - what could he say? He was sorry too.

"One more thing, Logan - who's Mariko?"

He felt a dull knife twist in his gut, and he tried not to let the pain show on his face. Oh god, how did she know about her? Did he mention her? Maybe when he was delirious - he didn't remember a lot of what he said when he was flat out.

"She - " He couldn't tell her; he didn't want to tell her. Not only was every mention of her name a little twist of the knife, but it was like he was giving her away. Other people took Mariko from him, and he had so few memories of her left - he wanted to protect what he had of her; he didn't want to cede the faintest bit to others, even to someone like Jean. He had never wanted to with Bob either, but Bob already knew, and Logan knew he would give her back if he could. " - she was a woman I knew a long time ago." He couldn't say wife - it was like a secret talisman, or something that was in danger of crashing into his reality if he said it often enough. He had to swallow back a sudden lump in his throat that made him feel like he was strangling. "She died."

He closed his eyes tight to hold back a sudden surge of tears. He was not crying in front of Jean, goddamn it! Not about this, not now, no matter how much it hurt. After all, the physical pain was always worse, right?

But obviously he wasn't doing a good enough job of hiding it, or maybe because this was her mind and she was a telepath. She let go of his hand only to put her arms around him, and stroke the back of his head. "I'm sorry, Logan," she said quietly, as if speaking too loudly would somehow make it worse.

His first instinct was to shove her away - he didn't want this, and he didn't want pity; he just wanted to run. But then he sagged into her embrace and buried his head into the side of her neck, breathing in her scent and willing himself not to cry. "Me too," he finally said.

And he meant it, more than she could possibly know.

27

But Xavier accepted that she just needed some time away in her "happy place" - Scott didn't like it, though. Xavier got him to agree to give Jean a couple hours, and if she showed no sign of obvious improvement, he'd go in after her. Scott still wasn't happy, and still blamed Logan, to which Logan could only shrug, offering up a mental and hearty "fuck you" to him. By keeping it to himself and not saying it aloud, he felt he had started paying back Jean, at least in a small way. Okay, it didn't sound like much, but he really wanted to tell Scott to go fuck himself.

Or anyone really. Jean was cool about the Mariko thing, but whenever something slipped under his skin like that, whenever something happened that made him feel weak ... he couldn't bear it. His first instinct was to lash out at something - anything - if only to take his mind off of it for a while. He wondered if he'd ever be able to think about Mariko without feeling like someone had slipped a knife blade between his ribs.

Of course, Scott did give him something else to worry about - the Organization and earthquake girl. Xavier still couldn't find her on Cerebro, and that wasn't good. Certainly having the Org stray so close to the school couldn't be good. He wondered if that was their little warning after the whole Sloane incident.

He intended to go out and do some searching of his own, as soon as he got some clothes on ( well, he still had his jeans, they were just torn and blood spattered ) and maybe caught a bite to eat, because he was starving. He couldn't remember the last time he ate, and if that alone wasn't bad enough, he always needed some fuel after his healing factor had been hard at work. And then he had to figure out if his bike was still by a road in Michigan; probably not. It must have gotten lifted by now. Damn it.

He was walking down the corridor, blissfully silent as it could only be in the early morning hours before the kids got up, and then he started to hear music, faint but growing louder. He recognized it instantly as the Tragically Hip, which was weird because only he knew who the fuck they were, nonetheless had anything of theirs. Shit - it was coming from his room, wasn't it?

As he padded in quickly, bare feet noiseless against the wooden floor, he realized he didn't have the CD in question. And then someone started singing, and he froze. "Everyone's got their breaking point. With me it's spiders; with you it's me. Thugs in perpetuity."

Bob. Now he shows!

Logan spun around, and wondered if he could just steal a shirt and someone's boots and get out of here before -

"Hey Logan, where's you got to go?" Bob said suddenly, far too cheerful for this time of morning.

He sighed, sent a very nasty thought his way, and stalked back to his room, wondering if he'd let him have just one punch for the sheer hell of it.

Logan opened his door to find Bob lounging on his bed, propped up on pillows, a couple of paperbacks beside him and one in his hands. He was also wearing the swagman's hat with the corks dangling from the brim, the one he brought him as an Australian souvenir. "Motherless Brooklyn," he said, as Logan shut the door. "Kick ass book."

"Yeah, it's good," he admitted, and walked over to his dresser to get a shirt. There was no point in asking Bob anything - he told you or he didn't.

"So what's with the hiding of the books? You have remarkably good taste for a guy with your hairstyle. Fuck, this book you have in untranslated Japanese blew my mind. Didn't the author win a Nobel?"

"I don't know. I was just lookin' it over before givin' it to Nariko." True enough - he found it in a used bookstore just outside Chinatown the last time he was here; he found the English language books there too. It had books in just about every language you could name.

"Oh. Material morpher girl, right? How's her English comin' along?"

He shrugged as he pulled a black t-shirt on. It smelled new, and probably was - god knows he hadn't kept any clothes here. The only stuff he left behind was stuff he couldn't wear out or carry in his coat pocket; he didn't need a lot of stuff. He still wasn't supremely comfortable with the idea of staying in one place, and having stuff. It seemed like tempting fate, asking for trouble. "I don't really know. She knows the seven words you can't say on television, though."

"Ah, the important ones," he said, sitting up. He put Motherless Brooklyn and the other books on the nightstand, but kept wearing the damn silly hat. Somehow the CD changed from Tragically Hip to A Perfect Circle, but since it was far from the weirdest thing that had happened around Bob, he didn't even question it.
"You seem remarkably energized. I thought you'd drag your sorry can in here."

"You heard about the Rhedoc thing, huh?" he sat on the edge of the bed, and started putting on socks - also new - that he'd also pulled from the drawer. He was willing to bet there was boots waiting in the cabinet too.

"Yeah, and I gotta apologize about that, mate."

He shrugged. "You weren't around. That's cool, we dealt with it."

"Nah, I mean havin' a hit put on you - obviously that was my fault. But I didn't know."

Logan straightened up and looked at him. Bob was sitting farther down on the bed and looked serious, but it was hard to say for certain with that damn silly hat on. "Say what? Who put a hit on me? I was just attacked by some stupid ass demon."

"Yes, one native to Mexico."

Logan shook his head in frustration. "What difference does it make where they're initially from? They spread out."

"Not some demons. Some are very specialized to their region, and Rhedocs are a great example of that. They need a hot place with lots of dark places to hide in, preferably caves. In cooler temperatures they weaken and die; that's why they're only native to some of the desert wastelands in Mexico and Central America. None has ever gotten more North than Texas. Well, not of its own accord."

Logan sighed heavily, and said, "Tell me what's going on before I kill you."

Bob grinned at him. "Nice to see you're back to your old sunshiny self. Well, to bust it down for ya - it was a set up. Someone threw a Rhedoc down in your path specifically to kill you, and then they played some vamps so they'd sidetrack you from getting help - "

"Wait, wait - you're saying that was all a set up? I stumbled upon that demon by accident, and I'm pretty sure Maddie didn't hit me with her car on purpose."

"Yes, but a lot of separate things were manipulated so they'd collide on you."

"Who would do that? And how, and why?"

" 'Cause some powerful mucky muck found out you were my avatar. Sorry about that, mate."

Logan continued to glare at him, not sure what else to do. "How would they figure that out?"

"I don't know. I still haven't figured that one out." Bob finally took off the damn hat, and put it down on the crumpled bedspread. "The kicker was not only the Rhedoc in Upper Michigan, but the vampire gang looking to free Qanlon. Now there's a big continuity error."

"Why?"

"Qanlon's pea gravel. Yeah, he was trapped in a statue, but no one told the council planners in Singapore, who accidentally blew him up along with a couple of old buildings to make way for a shopping mall about three years ago. Qanlon couldn't have promised those vamps anything . It makes me wonder what piece of ugly public statuary Kumiho used in Detroit or wherever the hell as Qanlon, to convince them this was the key to true undead immortality."

"Kumiho? I'm guessing she's not some Korean chick you pissed off."

Bob slapped him on the back and chuckled, as if he'd just told a screamer of a joke. "Leave it to you to get the nationality of the name right. You and your languages - gotta love it."

"Bob," he said warningly, shrugging off his hand. The CD had jumped to Soul Coughing now, and he wondered if that was a coincidence.

"Kumiho is a god, a trickster far more clever and malicious than Loki, which I think she proved by tryin' to kill you in two separate ways at the same time. Now that's planning."

He shook his head, sure he was missing a crucial point. "If she's a god, why not just strike me dead or whatever?"

Bob actually looked surprised. "What? Where's the fun in that?"

The worst part was, Logan was sure he was serious.

Bob then shrugged and went on. "Besides, I think they wanted to make it look like it just happened, and wasn't an open declaration of war."

"So why make it so obvious and clumsy?"

"Because I'm sure it didn't seem that way in the initial stages. What do they know of this dimension and low creatures? All they knew was Rhedocs were considered a hundred percent fatal, and Qanlon had the power to give some stupid vampires a really eternal eternity. Little details like place or origin and whether or not Qanlon's still trapped and in one piece were undoubtedly considered irrelevant. I'm sure they didn't consider the possibility you'd survive to tell anyone about all this anyways. They're gods, remember - therefore infallible."

Logan scratched his head, certain he was missing more of the puzzle. Not odd around Bob. "Why kill me? Why not kill you? Or is that a stupid question?"

"No. I mean, if Ares and Kumiho teamed up they got a good chance of rendering me a big smear on the pavement, but they don't really want to destroy me if they think there might be a chance of me bein' swayed over to their side. Takin' out my avatar would leave me unbalanced, and therefore swayable - well, in their opinion."

"So why do all the gods want to kill you now?"

He snickered. "Well, I think they've always wanted to wash their hands of me. But Fenrir was Loki's thing alone - I think he was planning a takeover of this realm before anyone else could get their hands on it, but to do that successfully I had to be out of the way; he knew me well enough to know I wouldn't barter for it. In fact, it was the smartest thing he ever did comin' to me after the fact - I only exiled him. If Ares and Kumiho find him, he's a dead god. He tried to move in on their stuff before they did. Bad form."

"And Ares and Kumiho want to take over this realm? What does that mean?"

"It means make it more god friendly, which means no lower creatures to deal with."

"Lower creatures bein' demons..?"

"And Humans, yeah."

Logan sighed, and hung his head in his hands. It was amazing how one problem always led to an even greater problem. His stomach grumbled loudly, demanding food now, but he wasn't sure he really had an appetite anymore.

"Hey, why don't I zap us to the place I know in Sydney? Great Japanese food - I know you'd like that. And considering the time difference, I know you could get a beer."

That did sound good; he needed a beer. He needed several beers, and perhaps some heavy class three narcotics. "You're not just here to apologize, are you?"

"No. I was hopin' I could get your help. Your help to start - I don't know if I need the others to help yet or not - "

"It's gonna have to wait, okay? The Org's at it again, after this girl that can cause earthquakes. I gotta find her before they do."

"Chuck can't pinpoint her with his doohickey?"

"No - for some reason she's not comin' up."

"Hmm." Bob said it in such a strange way Logan looked up, and found Bob frowning into space, obviously considering something.

"What?"

"I bet she's not a mutant - I  bet she's a Xerxis demon. Tell him to call the search off; this is gambit three."

"What do you mean?"

Bob turned towards him, and grimaced painfully before telling him, "You dead or dying, and your friends - come now, play along - distracted by their own injured and dying, or off on a wild goose chase for a mutant that doesn't exist. I bet even the Organization got played here. It couldn't have happened to a nicer group."

"What if you're wrong?"

"Do you think I'm wrong?"

Logan scowled. He was actually going to make him say it, wasn't he? "No."

Bob scoffed. "I mean, come on - whose luck is that bad that all this shit could happen at once?"

Logan stared at him.

"Okay mate, you have had a run of some pretty shitty luck, but even this is outside your bounds."

He wasn't sure about that, but there was never much point in arguing with Bob, not unless you liked punching yourself in the nuts. "So what do you need my help with?"

"Findin' Ares and Kumiho. I figure they're hiding on one of the Earthly planes, but probably not this one, 'cause they know diddly squat about the demon fauna around here. Course, why would they bother to know? That's lower shit for shitty lowers."

Logan was really lost now. "How can I help you? Gods and shit are your territory, not mine, nonetheless other dimensions."

"Well - and again, I'm sorry - you're my avatar. And I know I'll need your help to shut them down."

"Can't you get another avatar?"

Bob smiled sadly at him, like he understood his wariness but really couldn't help him. "They're not exactly a dime a dozen. I can't put a want ad in the paper. Besides, you bring somethin' to the table, which is more than most avatars."

"Claws."

"Well, yeah, but mostly I was thinkin' of the whole power amplifyin' thing. Cool beans."

It took him a moment to realize what he was saying, but then he remembered. After that whole other dimension/Old Ones business, Bob had said what? "Alone, I could change reality. Together, we could destroy the world." So he wasn't kidding about that, was he? "Are we gonna destroy a world?"

Bob gave him that billion watt sarcastic smile. "Do you wanna?"

Logan wished he knew whether this was a good thing or a bad thing.

To Be Continued Next Story..... (Yes, I'm a cruel bastard. Sorry.)