Logan had expected to be greeted by some scene of violence, but hadn’t been prepared for what actually faced him.

The Kiji was standing at the foot of a bed, dressed in nothing but a bright pink thong, showing off a flabby ass that was easily the size of a footstool, while on the bed was a fearful-looking Japanese woman...who smelled more bored than scared.

They both looked back at him like he had freaked them out completely, and the woman, sitting up and pulling the sheet over herself, snapped, “Do you mind? This room is taken!”  Her heavily painted dark eyes were seriously frosty.

The Kiji was like a sumo wrestler, only his girth wasn’t limited to his belly; he was all round and protruding, like a flesh-colored ostrich egg balancing on two bloated legs like oversized summer sausages. His bulbous head was wrinkled like an ugli fruit, and his tiny eyes were almost lost beneath a heavy brow that seemed to slope downward, like an eave on a roof. “Who the fuck are you?” The Kiji exclaimed, sounding like he had a mouth full of mashed potatoes.

“I was about to say,” Yasha said, standing in the doorway behind him. “No one screams up here and means it.”

The Kiji’s eyes narrowed until they almost disappeared completely inside his large, fleshy face. “Don’t I know you?” He asked Yasha suspiciously.

Yasha came inside, treading carefully over the fallen door, and said to the hooker, “You may want to get out of here, sister.” She morphed into vamp face, which looked especially menacing with the black lipstick. “This is between us demons.” Logan didn’t bother to point out he wasn’t a demon, because it
was probably better that they thought he was.

The hooker shot her a look that could have stripped paint off the walls, so accustomed to demons that even vampires didn’t scare her anymore.  She wrapped the sheet around herself once she stood up, and walked past them with an aggrieved sort of dignity, chin held hide. “Goddamn demons,” she sniffed, as
she went out the door.

“Yer gonna be payin’ me for that,” the Kiji demanded, turning around to face them.  Logan rather wished he'd stayed with his back to them, because, while his big flabby butt cheeks were bad, at least he'd been spared the sight of a bulging pink thong.  He looked away, wondering if the incense was a drug to keep the hookers from laughing or being revolted. “She cost half my check.”

“Tell us where Otasuki is, and you can go back to playing out your rapist demon fantasy with your rental girlfriend,” Yasha replied, giving him a look of thinly veiled disgust. “And for god sake’s, man, no one over two hundred pounds is supposed to wear a thong.”

He cocked his head like a confused parakeet, scrutinizing her. “Who the fuck is Otasuki, bloodsucker?”

She sighed impatiently, her now yellow eyes rolling in disbelief. “Logan, would you like to do the honors?”

He shrugged, arms crossed over his chest, and snapped a kick that hit the Kiji in the right kneecap. Logan had kept his foot flat, so when it impacted with his leg, there was a deep crack, and the Kiji’s knee bent the opposite way.

He let out a shout of surprise as much as pain, and flopped onto the thin red carpet like a whale dropped from a helicopter.  Logan was amazed he didn’t crash right through the floor.

“I like your style,” Yasha told him, giving him an admiring smile.  In her vamp face, it was slightly disturbing. “You can be amazingly cool - for a Human.”

He didn’t know how to take that, so he just shrugged again.

“Fuckin’ asshole, you broke my leg!” The Kiji wailed, sitting back against the bed and grabbing his knee. The bed actually shifted back due to his weight, and Logan wondered how much he actually weighed - four hundred pounds?

“How observant of you,” Yasha replied sarcastically. “Now - do you talk, or do we start playing Twister with the rest of your limbs?”

“Fuck you, parasitic bastard trash,” the Kiji spat, spittle making his grayish pink lips shine. “I ain’t tellin' you shit.”

Yasha glanced at Logan again. “Can you show two tons of fun here what you’ve got hidden up your sleeve?”

That was momentarily confusing. “What I got up my sleeve?”

“The snikt thing?”

“The sni - “ Finally Logan figured it out. “Oh, that.”  He held his fist out towards the Kiji’s face, and popped his claws. The Kiji snapped his head back violently, and his eyes widened enough that he could actually see them.

“What the fuck are you?” The rotund demon asked.

“He’s a Human whose mastery of the blade is almost equal to mine,” Yasha said, suddenly holding a knife of her own.  It was a wickedly sharp eight inch deba, with a black grip handle; a combat knife, made to slip between ribs like they were butter.

“He’s no fucking Human!” The Kiji exclaimed indignantly. “No Human can hurt me!”  But then something like fear entered his eyes, and his jaw slackened slightly in awe. “Yer … yer Lady Blood, ain’tcha?”

She smiled, her yellow eyes lambent with mirth. “Yes. Now, are you going to talk, or do we cut you open and count your rings?”

The Kiji smelled more pickle-like when he was afraid. “F- Fujimori will kill me - ”

Logan sighed loudly.  Hadn’t he heard this before? “Look - die now, or live to fight another day.  I hate this place, the stink is giving me a headache, I never got my beer, and I coulda lived my entire fucking life without seeing an ugly bastard like you in a thong.  Now spill it, or I’ll use your head like a fucking piñata.”

The Kiji looked between then, and his black button eyes gleamed, as if he was on the verge of tears. “He has it in what looks like an old shack near the ancient Zen temple in Kamaura, at the edge of a bamboo plantation.  But I didn’t tell you that; I’ve never seen you, either of you.”

Logan looked at Yasha. “Sound about right to you?”

She nodded. “I think our friend cooperated.”  She then spun into a savage roundhouse kick, that connected so violently with the Kiji’s head he was sure he heard something snap before the Kiji slumped onto the floor, like the world’s heavy sack of shit.

Yasha slipped the knife back in her boot, and held her arm out towards him. “Shall we?”

This all seemed slightly surreal somehow; maybe it was an effect of the incense.  He retracted his claws, and linked his arm in hers. “Yeah.”

Could life get any weirder?

21

Scott came to, relatively sure he was on fire.  He thought he could smell his flesh roasting, feel the heat cooking him from the inside out.

He jolted awake, feeling liquid he was sure was blood crawling down his cheek, but when he shoved himself up, he saw a translucent pillar growing out of the corner of his eye, and realized he must have landed in a bit of Cressida after she went liquid for the fall.

The fall.

“Is everyone okay?” He said, before he was even certain he could speak.  But somehow he managed.

“No,” Brendan shot back savagely. “We just fell through a fucking floor!  We are not okay!”

“I’m okay,” Cressida said, deadpan. “But then, I’m always okay.”

Scott sat up, feeling his head throb and his ribs ache, and he wondered if he'd broken something. Looking up, he judged them to be at least twenty feet down, which wasn’t enough of a fall to be fatal, but it could - like Brendan claimed - hurt.

In spite of his obvious pained rage, Brendan - now in full demon mode, which had probably helped him recover from the fall - was the only one on his feet, besides Cressida.  Rogue was coming around now, and next to her, Bobby was starting to stir. Everyone looked more or less okay, but how much could you tell from a quick glance?

He got to his feet, doing his best to ignore the pain (he bet he was going to be a mass of bruises later on), and sized up their surroundings.  It was no better close up than it had been far away; a rubble strewn area that mimicked the upper floor, as hot as an oven, with what looked like violently red pools of lava in the corners, somehow providing enough light to illuminate the whole basement.  He knew lava didn’t glow, nor was it quite that red, but he almost didn’t want to know what it was.  He needed to get the kids out
of here now.

“Ow,” Bobby exclaimed, sitting up and grabbing his leg. “I think I hurt my ankle.”

“You didn’t try and land on your feet, did you?” Cressida said scornfully.

“I don’t remember,” he replied, grimacing in pain.

Rogue went over to him and crouched beside him, to have a look at his ankle.  She clicked her tongue
and said, “It’s already swelling.”

“Put some ice on it,” Cressida replied, looking up.  Although it sounded sarcastic, she was serious and, honestly, that’s what you did for sprains.

Bobby saw the logic in that, and touched his hurt ankle, moving his hand away to reveal it covered in a glittery patch of frost.

“Does it help?” Rogue asked him, concerned.

Bobby shrugged, and was clearly attempting to be macho. Too much of Logan's influence, although Scott had heard him admit to Ororo that watching Logan “go psycho” was the scariest thing he’d ever seen in his life, even including the soldiers storming in and Pyro going nutzoid.  Scott thought that was a good sign, as Bobby would never feel inclined to emulate or look up to a man he thought was one bad moment away from completely losing his marbles. “It’s numb.”

“Come on, we have to find a way out of here,” Brendan said, pacing restlessly among the rubble.  He seemed to be studying the walls carefully, as if searching for a hidden access point, but obviously he
hadn’t found one yet.

“What was it that you felt, anyway?” Scott asked him, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his comm. At least it was still intact - that was always a plus.

“Huh? Oh, it was just … ” He made vague gestures with his now spiny bluish-green hands, his red eyes almost glowing like the pools. “… I don’t know how to explain it.  It was like … what’s that expression? Like somebody walked over my grave?  It was just....I had this sudden feelin’ that something nasty was gonna happen.”

“You psychic now?” Cressida asked him, mostly joking.

Scott carefully checked his comm, making sure no one else noticed him.  He wasn’t able to transmit a signal, but it didn’t appear broken.  So the only thing that made sense was the signal was being jammed - and if so … was this a trap?  Probably, but who for?  Certainly not them.  But who then?  The authorities hadn’t even come near this place. “Do you think there’s some way you can get us out of here?” He asked Cressida, hoping no one noticed him slip the useless comm back in his pocket.

She kept looking up at the jagged hole of the floor above them, and scratched her head. “Well, I don’t know.  Maybe I can become a cable or a chain or something, but I’d have to spread myself way thin.  I really don’t think I can spread myself twenty feet in a solid form.”

“That’s okay,” Rogue said, draping one of Bobby’s arms over her shoulders.  She was trying to help him up, but was struggling enough that Brendan had to come over and help him up from the other side. “I wouldn’t wanna climb you anyways.  No offense.”

“None taken, chica.”

“But you can get up there by yourself?” Scott continued.  She could get them some help, or, at the very least, steal some equipment from the firemen (which, knowing her, was the first thing she’d do).

“Look, why don’t we just try and break through a wall or something?” Brendan interrupted. “There’s gotta be a sewer outlet around here somewhere.” Bobby was now propped up between him and Rogue, and trying very hard to pretend he wasn’t still in pain.

“Eww,” Rogue commented, wrinkling her nose. “I ain’t walkin’ in a sewer.”

“There could also be a water main,” Cressida replied, sounding like the voice of experience. “A flood doesn’t bother me, but how do you guys feel about it?”

Brendan grumbled, but then he started looking around warily, as if he heard something. “Feel something again?” Scott asked anxiously.

He nodded, panic creeping into his crimson eyes. “It’s really bad.”

They all heard a noise this time, similar to Cressida going liquid and reforming again, but it was thicker somehow, like oil bubbling up.  Scott looked to the puddles of red dotting the corners, and, just as he feared, they had become … something.  But not exactly what he had expected.

They were roughly humanoid in shape, and violently red, but they were not liquid like they had been in the pool (if, indeed, they had ever been liquid).  Now they were living pillars of bloody red flames, with eyes and mouths that were just black holes in their chevron-shaped faces. Their skin flickered, tongues of flames licking the stifling air from the crown of their heads to the bottom of what passed for their feet.

And it was now perfectly obvious why Brendan was the only one getting a feeling for this; it wasn’t that he had some “demon sense”, it was that he was a demon, and so were these things.  Shit.

“You must be new; we thought we enthralled everyone,” the things said. And they all spoke as one entity, their voice filling the basement, bouncing around the room. “The vortex requires sacrifices, but more than you. Still, you’ll do for starters.”

“Vortex?” Scott asked, gesturing for the kids to get in close with him and Cressida.  Although they were busy looking around, they didn’t need a whole lot of encouragement.

“What the fuck is this shit?” Cressida asked, clearly annoyed.

“I’m thinkin’ they’re fire demons or something,” Brendan admitted reluctantly.

“You have got to be shitting me.”

“What is it you want?” Scott asked, wondering what would happen if he shot them.

“We told you, stupid Human!” They chorused. “You. Dead.  Do we need to draw you a picture?”

Oh great - not just demons, but sarcastic ones.

Suddenly Cressida lashed out an arm lengthened to a tentacle - a clear tentacle of water.  It snapped in
the closest demon’s face … and put out its head with a very loud hiss.  Its body remained upright and flickering. “Anybody else want some?” She asked, as Bobby, getting the hint, froze the one to Scott’s right, turning it into the world’s most curious ice sculpture.

“We have to get out of here,” Rogue said.  That almost warranted a “Duh”, but Scott wasn’t about to voice it.

As if to prove the point, the demon whose head was just extinguished suddenly grew it back, and shot an arm of flame that Cressida just avoided by going completely liquid. The one encased in ice simply cracked through the shell, which shattered like glass and seemed to melt before it hit the floor.

“That wasn’t smart,” the demons chorused, and a ring of living fire suddenly surrounded them, some extension of the demons somehow. “Do you really think we could be doused?  Do you have any idea
who you’re dealing with?”

“Tell us,” Scott demanded, trying to buy some time, and noticed Cressida pointing upwards. He glanced up but saw nothing new. What was she trying to tell him?

“There’s a half-breed. He’s no good for sacrifice.” The demons said, obviously talking amongst themselves about Brendan. “Well, he can die anyways.”

“Would you fucking bury them already, Summers?!” Cressida snapped, gesturing violently at the floor above their heads. “We need to get out of here!”

Finally he understood what she was getting at - collapse enough of the upper floor on top of these things, not only as a means to squash them, but as a way to create a mound that would allow them to climb out. “But -” he began, about to point out that he couldn’t be sure how much he’d take down; he could squish them all.

Yet the flames flared, moving closer, and the heat was starting to get unbearable.  He didn’t really have a choice, did he?  Damn it, he hated no win situations like this.

Scott fired one of his widest and most powerful beams at the floor above their heads, and it punched through like the ceiling was nothing more than wet paper. He braced himself as debris started cascading down, but he kept firing, hoping he wasn’t just burying them all alive, or condemning them to a fiery death.

22

Yasha got rid of the wig, dog collar, and lipstick in the back of the van while he drove, startled to realize he knew where Kamakura was. But he didn’t tell her how, as he was in no mood to explain his Swiss cheese mind.

“If the fight gets too close to the temple, you’re on your own,” she told him, climbing up into the front passenger seat.

“And why is that?” He was starting to smell a set-up.

“Because vampires can only get within yards of a Buddhist temple or shrine before it really starts to hurt; and we can’t get close enough to enter.  Fujimori probably knows that, the little prick.”

He wasn’t sure if he was being lied to or not. “I thought that was churches?”

She shook her head, pouring something out of a velvet pouch, into her hand. “That’s a fallacy.  I’ve killed people in churches before; there’s no actual protection there. But for some reason, Buddhist temples repel us. I finally figured out why - they traditionally do purification rituals, and they create a barrier that keeps evil spirits - meaning demons - out.  No other church has any rituals on site with any real meaning; they’re all symbolic, mainly to make people feel better.”

“So the Buddhist ritual is more than symbolic?”

“Apparently so.”

That could be very well true - how did he know?  And that was his main problem with this; she could be feeding him a bunch of bullshit, and he would never know.  But he didn’t think she was, for whatever reason, and that was the most puzzling thing of all.  The objects in her hand glinted silver in the headlights of passing cars, and he spared a glance to see what she had.  At first, they looked like the tiny toothed wheels you’d find in old fashioned clocks, but the larger ones underneath gave their true nature away. “Shuriken,” he said.  Throwing stars, classic ninja weapons.  Overused in bad action movies, they had lost some of their mystique, but - unlike what those movies generally showed - you couldn’t just “throw” them and have them work like they were supposed to work.  They were weapons made for silent incapacitation and silent killing; if thrown with skill, you wouldn’t even see them coming before they were in you.  He bet she had some real skill.

She nodded, sliding the throwing stars into a pouch on her belt of knives, which she had put back on. “Even if I can’t get close, I can still back you up.”

He probably wouldn’t need it, but he nodded, wondering why and how she was so proficient with bladed weapons.  Judging from the reaction of the Kiji, she was known for it.  But did he care?  “So what’s your story?” He wondered.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re not like most other vamps I’ve encountered.  Most of ‘em are complete dicks. You’re not.  I mean, you seem like something of a bitch, but you ain’t a dick.”

She stared at the side of his face for a very long time, blinking rapidly, as if he’d just said something shocking. After a very long moment, she said, “Wow. That’s the most insulting complement I’ve ever heard.  Have you been saving that one up?”

He scowled at her. “Okay, so I’m not very articulate. You know what I mean!”

“Do I?” She glanced out the window at the dark scenery sliding past, and was silent for several more minutes before she said, “I was a merchant’s daughter in Hong Kong, a long time ago.  He was caught in the “opium war” between China and Britain, before the Treaty of Nanjing was signed.  One stormy night, my father allowed into our home a traveler who seemed to have fallen ill, but turned out to be a vampire - a vampire hired by a British General to kill my family.  He killed them all, except me; he decided at the
last minute he was 'smitten with my beauty' and he changed me.  Technically I did die, so he fulfilled the contract.  He never told the General he had turned me instead of straight-out murdered me, but that was
for the best.”

He did the math in his head. The opium wars started in … what, 1840 or so?  So she was on the far side of one hundred and fifty years old?  Well, she was still younger than Bob. “Why?  Do you think he’d have had you killed … again?”

“No - it gave me the advantage of surprise when I killed him,” she said simply. “He didn’t even recognize me until I told him who I was. All of us Asian girls look alike, you know.”  She then looked at him with a slight smirk, her dark eyes glittering with dark mirth. “Except to you, of course - samurai.”

“Don’t call me that.” He snapped. “It ain’t true.”

“Oh really?  Deathless gaijin samurai?  You fit the bill.”

“I do not. And I can die, I’m just really hard to kill.”  For some reason, this was making him uncomfortable for reasons that went beyond Bloody Friday - he had a feeling if anyone would
understand that, it would be her. After all, did she not kill the man who killed her family?

“Why does it bother you?”

“It doesn’t, okay?  It’s a fairy story, a pile of shit.  I thought you were smarter than that.”

“I am, that’s why I know you’re hiding something,” she replied coolly.

“Not that,” he countered. “I don’t know anything about that samurai shit.  For Christ’s sake, Yasha, look at me - I’m a mutant thug. That’s it.”

She was silent for a moment, and he thought she was going to drop it.  But no, he wasn’t that lucky. “In the book “The Way of the Samurai”, the author claimed that at the highest level of study, the man has the look of knowing nothing.  For a thug, you have too much control and you know much more than you ever let on.  I’m sure you fool many, but I’m too old and I’ve seen too much.  Still, if you wish to keep your secrets, Logan, I won’t stop you.”

“Damn right you won’t,” he grumbled, flexing his fingers on the steering wheel.  He really felt like hurting something, so it was probably a good thing they were on their way to a bloody fight.  It was hard enough to admit to himself that he didn’t know what half of his own secrets were.

Kamakura was, ironically (or perhaps not), a religious center in the Kanagawa prefecture, absolutely lousy with Buddhist shrines and temples.  If vamps were as allergic to them as Yasha claimed, then this was a perfect place for Fujimori to hide someone - and something? - from her.  He wondered if the huge statues of Buddha and the goddess Kannon they had around here would affect demons the same way.

The bamboo plantation, even in the dark, looked liked a sea of feathery green, undulating in the soft breeze, and he killed the headlights about a half a mile before letting the van roll to a stop on an unpaved dirt road.  The roof of the Zen temple was just visible on the edge of the horizon, a negative space in the glittering blanket of the starry sky.  But the stars were starting to slowly fade away, and he knew Yasha was running out of time; the sun would be up soon.  They had maybe an hour at most before the sky would start turning light.

“What’s your real name?” He wondered, as she hadn’t told him that.

Her glance was wary, as if she wasn’t sure she should tell him, or it had been so long she couldn’t even remember anymore. But as she grabbed the door handle, she said quietly, “Mei Li Tai.”

“That’s pretty.” He meant it literally as well; it could be translated to mean “beautiful peace”.

But she looked down as if ashamed, and he realized that talking about her old Human life might be very awkward for her. So it wasn’t surprising that she changed the subject. “Let’s do a two pronged attack. You go in through the bamboo fields and I’ll circle around and come in from the main road. Is that acceptable to you?”

“You’ll be visible real quick.”

“I know, that’s why I’m counting on you to tear through their flank before they can get a major drop on me.”

She was trusting him?  Maybe this was payback for him trusting her at the club.  Or this was a set up, like he feared.  But there was only one way to find out, wasn’t there?  “So what became of that vamp, anyway?”

“Which one?”

“The one who turned you.”

“Oh, him. I killed him too.” She then opened the door and slipped out, quickly disappearing into the night.

As much as he hated to admit it, she was almost a woman after his own heart.

He got out quietly, closing the door just enough to keep the interior light from coming on, and moved like
a wraith into the fields of bamboo. When he wanted to, he could move so quietly he made no more noise than a bird in flight, and he did so now, all his senses extended and on high alert.  He could smell salt in the air from nearby Sagami Bay, hear the rustle of rodents among the bamboo, smell cigarette smoke from the direction of a dilapidated shack on the far side of the property …

… except that scurrying noise wasn’t rodents, was it?

He crouched down, scenting the air, dropping a hand to the dirt.  He felt very minute tremors, something trying to walk softly but not completely accomplishing it, and between the thick stalks, he saw a glimpse
of red.

Red eyes as bright as coals, low to the ground, as if the thing was searching … hunting. Guard dogs?  No, he didn’t smell dog, but when the wind shifted, he smelled something like … old leather?  Leather and dirt, saline and ashes. The demon equivalent of attack dogs.

It must have scented him now, because the eyes seemed to stare through the cane thick stalks straight at him, making a noise like gravel in a rock polisher, and then it lunged, cutting through the bamboo like a machete.

But he'd been expecting it, and it wasn’t the only one lurking in these fields who could move fast.  He brought his hand up, popping his claws, and they punched through the underside of the thing’s muzzle before it could even snap at his face.  Still impaled on his claws, he slammed it down on the ground and ripped horizontally through its muzzle, cutting off its head.  He almost felt sorry for it; it never even had a chance to put up a decent kind of fight.

Whatever it was.  It was about as big as a panther, but covered with black scales like shingles, and its head had been more wolf-shaped, with an extra row of teeth.  It was an ugly thing, whatever it had been, and its blood smelled like rotting lizard meat.

He remained there, crouching beside its body, listening to determine if anything or anyone else had had heard the sudden rustling in the field.  But after the wind rose and fell, making the leaves scratch against each other, there was no other noise.  Maybe it had escaped notice.

He stalked quietly ahead, making his way towards the shack, but he didn’t bother to retract his claws; he might need them in a second.

He then heard footsteps, smelled gun oil, and suddenly a fusillade of bullets tore up the bamboo field.  He hit the ground as several rounds slammed into him - some tearing all the way through, some ricocheting off bone, some just narrowly nicking him before he kissed the dirt.  He lay there quietly, feeling the burning pain of healing as the bullets cut down stalks and opened up visibility in the field.  They'd fired off maybe two hundred rounds before they ceased fire, and bright flashlights started to pop on.

“Think we got it?” One man said.

Logan just lay still, breathing through his nose, waiting for them to come further into the field.  God, he
was pissed; he was tired of getting hurt and bloodying up his fucking clothes (he was going to change more than Cher at this rate), and somebody was going to pay for all of this.

The somebodies who started venturing further into the chopped up field.

By sound, he judged there to be ten of them, and by smell he guessed at least four of them to be Ressiks. But some of them were Humans, making him wonder if they were here because they were the only ones who could get in close proximity to the temple.

As he watched the beams of light close in on his position, he heard the crackle of a static on a radio one of them wore. “Report to sector one, ASAP - we have a visual on Lady Blood.”

Logan took that as his cue to jump to his feet and lunge at the men, claws fully extended.

Startled shouts and staccato bursts of wild gunfire suddenly gave way to screams of pain and panic as he ripped through them like a scythe, using the pain of the new gunshots to fuel his already explosive anger. He wasn’t even thinking anymore, he was simply reacting, and it felt strangely cleansing to be nothing but
a tool of his own rage.

He slowly came back to himself as he usually did; ankle-deep in bodies, splattered with blood, most of it not his own. The radio was now crackling with desperate for cries of back-up, as Yasha inflicted a little damage of her own, far enough away from the temple to make it count.

Blood dripping from his sprung claws, Logan started stalking towards the shack, hoping the resistance there was of a higher quality.

He'd been hoping for something a little more challenging.