23

Maybe practice had finally paid off. All those hours spent in the Danger Room, figuring out what he could and couldn’t do, although the targeted destruction of a building he was in he’d never done before. And Scott seriously hoped he’d never have to do it again.

Chunks of both the first, second, and third floor (and possibly others - he wasn’t counting) started cascading down like an urban avalanche, and he was forced to blast several big chunks before they smashed them. But all in all, it seemed to work.

The fire demons in front of them were buried by the incoming pile of debris, and the ones behind them seemed to disappear, as if not wanting to risk it. That was fine with him.

He stopped when the mountain of debris was so great that it was literally protruding through what was left of the upper floor. It wasn’t stable, but they could climb up it … he hoped.

It looked as if Cressida - with a little coached back up from Bobby - had kept the rest of them intact. She might be of questionable morality, but she knew how to take care of herself, and occasionally other people. “Come on, let’s go,” Cressida encouraged. “Up.”

“Be careful,” Scott added, but gestured for them to get a move on. There was no telling if the things were going to spring up again or not.

He felt a cool breeze fragrant with smoke and rain, and realized belatedly he must have punched a hole through the roof. He wondered what the press people beyond the barricades thought of that.

With great reluctance, Rogue started up, and Brendan went up, helping Bobby, who was the liability here. He gave himself an ice cast so he could move a bit better, but he was still having a hard time of it. Brendan - still in demon mode - was the physically strongest of the kids, and he must have known that, as he was helping pull Bobby up. And no one had told him to do it either; Brendan continued to impress him with his leadership skills.

Cressida stayed down with him, and gestured upwards. “Go on, get movin’,” she insisted impatiently.

“Ladies first.”

She shook her head. “I don’t even need the pile to climb up. Cut the bullshit and get moving - I’m the strongest one here.”

He was sorely tempted to point out that he just brought down a huge chunk of the building, but then an acrid smell stung their nostrils, and red light flared in the corners of their eyes.

“Stupid Humans,” they chorused once more. Scott was learning to loathe their patronizing tone, among all sorts of other things. “We are not just fire of the physical; we are fires of the mind.”

Just when he was pondering what the hell that was supposed to mean, he felt it - it was like a blowtorch ripped through his mind, burning away his frontal lobe, scalding all the neurons that mattered.

Vaguely he heard screaming, and wondered if he was doing it too.

It was reflex to collapse to his knees and cover his head, trying to block them out, but there was no keeping them away. Inside his closed eyes, he could see the flickering of flames. His brains were boiling inside his skull, and the pressure was building to the point where something had to give; he could almost hear the bony plates of his skull starting to creak.

The pressure suddenly eased off - incrementally, but enough to feel good - and he heard Cressida shouting, “Shoot one, damn it, ease it off, buy some time! Help me here, you motherfucker!”

Barely able to open his eyes and focus, he thought he saw a coherent red flame in front of him, and he fired at it, not sure it would do any good, but if it would stop her screaming …

His beam put a hole straight through the thing, which seemed to look down at the gap in its torso in surprise. Scott felt the same way; and in fact, he could feel - the pressure was easing off. Maybe it didn’t kill them, but it certainly made them turn their energy somewhere else.

There was a noise behind him, a hiss incorporated with a scream, and he glanced back to see, where one fire demon had been, there was nothing more than a pile of granular black ash. Cressida had killed one? He wished he had seen how.

He shot a hole through another one, aiming at its head, then its torso, hoping the number of holes slowed them down. It flickered in an entirely new way, and then he saw how Cressida had killed the first one, as she repeated the act on another one. She hit it like a spear of water,but rather than go through the thing, she went inside them, then did what she claimed she could do - she burst out the center of them, a violently charged snake of water. The demon then crumbled into a little pile. So water did work, it just had to be delivered the correct way.

But the remaining demons ramped up the fire in their heads, and Scott had to grit his teeth to keep from screaming again. It hurt; Jesus, his neurons were being boiled, steamed in the cauldron of his own skull. He clenched his hands into fists but still shot the things, finding his focus narrowed to pinpricks. He was losing the ability to think at all; all he could think was that it hurt, and he wanted it to stop.

Cressida kept moving, though. Maybe the thing that kept Xavier from reading her kept these things from affecting her as badly as the rest of them. She took them out one by one, stabbing into them and bursting out, and as the pain lessened, he started thinking that every mutant that came out of the Organization was a perfect killing machine; you had to be, or you never would have survived. It made him wonder - if they had kept him for any length of time - if he would have survived.

The pain finally stopped. Cressida had taken out the last one, and Scott found himself breathing hard, unaware he'd been holding his breath until this moment - being in so much pain made it hard to think. The kids were giving them a round of applause from above, though.

Maybe that's why it took him a moment to realize that there was something wrong with Cressida. She had reformed into her Human, bipedal guise, but her legs were still watery, and she looked like she was sweating copiously. "Are you all right?" He asked, climbing shakily to his feet. He didn't feel a hundred percent himself.

She stared at him a moment, and her eyes literally swam; the whites turned to water, and seemed to run down her face. "Ah, bollocks," she said, and suddenly collapsed to the ground in a huge splash, becoming an uncohesive being of water.

"Cressida?" He asked, hoping against hope that she had done that on purpose.

“Are they dead?” Rogue called down from the remains of the upper floor.

Scott looked down at the water pooling on the rubble strewn floor, almost convinced she was pulling herself back together. But it was just random movement caused by gravity, nothing more. “Chameleon?” He said again, dropping to his knees and reaching out to touch the closest puddle of water. He didn’t know why; what was he expecting?

But it felt scalding hot, so much so that he quickly yanked his hand away, and wondered how it could not be steaming. Oh god - they boiled her alive. By killing them like that, she had exposed herself full blast to them. She must have known what was happening to her … why did she do it? Why did she keep going after them if it was killing her? Did she think she was indestructible?

Maybe. Or maybe she had what he thought of as the Logan syndrome, more correctly called the Organization syndrome: nothing beat her. If there was any killing to be done, it was hers to do, come hell or high (hot) water. And that stubborn myopia had probably saved their lives.

And cost her hers.

“Mr. Summers?” Brendan said, and Scott finally realized it was for the second or third time. “Is she all right?”

The water was still far too hot, but he could almost touch it, hovering his hand low enough to feel the heat rising off of it. He was suddenly overwhelmed with thoughts of -

(Jean. He lost her too.)

- despair and guilt. This was his fault; he should have never let her come along. She may have been an assassin, but she was not a trained member of the team.

(How did you train for fire demons?!)

This was all his fault. If she died, the weight was on him. (Just like Jean.)

He did his best to swallow back his rage - at her, at himself - and reached in his coat for the comm. If they were dead, then it should be working now.

And maybe, if they were very lucky, Xavier could save her.

24

Resistance remained uninspired and unworthy, right up to the shack itself.

Oh sure, there were some more of those hellhounds (or whatever they were), and Ressiks, and guys that looked like reject Orcs from Lord of the Rings, but the weakness in their defenses (besides being as unorganized as hell, and arrogant enough to think they could handle any attack) were what ultimately killed them all. And that main weakness was so many Humans holding the line.

Maybe if there had been a mutant among them, or a sorcerer, they wouldn’t have been so lame. But all they could fight with were bullets and wooden arrows (shot from crossbows that looked older than the men wielding them), and neither hurt him seriously. The wooden arrows might have taken out Yasha if they hit the right spot, but it was hard to aim when you were getting eviscerated.

He took a few shots, of course, but strangely enough, the arrows hurt more than the bullets. Maybe it was because he got inured to rounds slamming into him, and his bones generally absorbed most of the impact. That wasn’t so with the arrows; they mainly ripped through skin and sinew, shedding speed along the way.

Even though she could approach, Yasha brought down several arrow wielders with her shuriken, which seemed only right: live by the flying projectile, die by it.

The shack was far enough from the temple proper that Yasha was able to enter it (although she didn’t look like she felt great), but that’s when they had to stop.

Logan figured there'd be resistance waiting for them inside, but he hadn’t been counting on what they saw.

Inside the austere, salt smelling wooden shack, was Belial boy (Riley?), standing behind … well, a thing in a white robe, and holding a short sword to what was presumably its neck. From the way Yasha froze, he guessed, “Otasuki?”

“If either of you fucks move, he dies.” Riley said, explaining the patently obvious.

“And then you’re dead,” Yasha growled. She was in vamp face, presumably from the pain, or just because she hated the fuck so much. “Fujimori will kill you for taking out his private stock.”

Riley grinned, showing teeth so perfect and white they must have been caps. “But I didn’t kill him, milady - you and your hairy friend did.”

“That’s never going to work, even for a lying sleazeball like you,” Logan spat, shaking his head in disbelief. What was it with Belials? Did they think the rest of the world was stupid?

The thing that was Otasuki made a noise like a jammed paper shredder; Logan finally guessed it was laughing.

It looked like a four foot tall squid, complete with a slightly pointed head, and molted brown-black skin that looked like rubber and gleamed as if moist. It had but a single eye, a huge almond shaped opening that took up most of the space where a traditional forehead would be, and was as easily big as Logan’s forearm. The pupil itself was a cloudy yellow color, like heavily sugared lemonade, and as big as a laserdisc. Beneath the white kimono, its shapeless body tapered into six long tentacles, which appeared held together at the bottom by a silver cord.

“What’s so fucking funny?” Riley sneered.

“These two,” Otasuki said, his mouth a lipless slit that suddenly opened half way between its eye and the sword Riley held at its throat. It sounded like bubbling mud. “They are mirror reflections, two species wanting the thing the other has. My heroes are made of glass.”

“Do they always talk like this?” Logan whispered to Yasha.

She shook her head and shrugged. “I don’t know. This is the first Raiju I’ve ever met.”

“I suggest you get out of here while you can, vampire,” Riley snarled through clenched teeth. “The sun is chasing you, and so is a hit squad; Fujimori put a three million yen bounty on your head. You won’t live to see sundown.”

“Three million yen?” Logan replied, trying to do the math in his head. But math wasn’t his best subject, so he quickly gave up. “What’s that in American dollars? Fifty bucks?”

Both Otasuki and Yasha chuckled, and that made Belial boy furious. “You are in way over your head, Human,” he sneered, and then said something that sounded like complete gibberish.

Then an invisible battering ram slammed into his face and sent Logan flying backward. If the door hadn’t been reinforced - and he hadn’t hit it at such an oblique angle - he would have smashed right through it, but as it was he just slid to the floor in a barely conscious heap, feeling the burning as his crushed nose started to heal itself. He could taste his blood as it trickled over his lips.

He could now see that the ceiling was made of tin. It probably got really loud in here when it rained.

“I’m glad you did that,” Yasha said to Riley. “Because you know what would break the bonds Fujimori has on Otasuki, don’t you?”

That weird paper jam noise started again. Otasuki was laughing again.

“What?” Belial Boy exclaimed, sounding exasperated. “Nothing can.”

“Not true. There’s one thing.” Yasha crouched down beside him, and asked, “You okay?”

He glared up at her. “You’re glad this happened to me?”

She had the decency to grimace, which looked funny on a vampire. “It spared me from cutting you. I hope you understand in a moment.” She wiped the blood off his face, but not away, like he initially thought. He could see it smeared all over her hand as she stood and spun towards Riley and his captive, flicking her hand violently towards them, sending droplets of his blood flying.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Riley snapped. “This is Versace!” She then said something that sounded vaguely Latin, and that made the Belial snort in derision. “Oh please, woman. A spell is no good without power, bitch.”

Logan sat up, pretty sure his brain was done doing laps around his skull, and Yasha finished chanting whatever it was she was chanting. He thought he understood the last line, though : “Break the chains.” “Let me enlighten you, Riley. Blood from a god will break the bonds.”

“Yeah,” he scoffed. “So? You didn’t bring no god blood in here with you, did you?”

“No,” she agreed, and Logan suddenly understood exactly why Yasha brought him here, and why she had never come after Otasuki before- even if she had, there was no way she could have helped it. “I just brought an avatar.”

Riley’s bright blue gaze turned on Logan, the disbelief obvious on his face, but then the cord binding Otasuki’s tentacles snapped. Belial Boy barely had time to register that fact before two of the tentacles grabbed his face and wrenched his head violently to the side, breaking his neck cleanly and swiftly. He was dead before his sword tumbled from his hand, and his body hit the wood floor.

“Why didn’t you tell me you needed my blood to finish this?” Logan grumbled, climbing up to his feet.

“Would you have given it to me?”

“That’s not the point.”

“She is a vampire,” Otasuki interrupted. “They have to perpetrate these little deceptions; it makes them feel they have some control. And what other control is she going to have over you?”

Yasha glowered at the squid demon as it oozed across the floor towards them. “This isn’t an issue of control. I didn’t know it would work. As far as I knew, he was full of shit.”

“Hey,” he protested.

But she ignored him. “Besides, there’s no telling if a real avatar would have enough of a god taint in their blood to make a difference.”

“Especially in him,” Otasuki squelched, waving a tentacle in his direction. “Where his blood is almost a living organism independent of him.”

“Look, Squidward, where the fuck’s the sword?” He wasn’t sure if he had been insulted or not, but right now he didn’t care; he just wanted the sword, and to be done with his vamp baggage.

It made that odd laughing noise again. “You expected me to be grateful enough to hand it over to you?”

“We don’t want it to rule over people or slaughter millions - or at least I don’t,” Logan replied, doing his best to conceal his anger. “I just want to right a wrong, that’s all. I fucked some things up, and I want to set them right. You can have the fuckin’ thing back after I’m done; I really don’t care.”

Its single eye gazed at him impassively, and suddenly he realized what it looked like - one of those aliens on The Simpsons, only without the fangs, ears, or helmet. Was this Kang or Kodos? “Some things, once done, can’t be undone, Human,” It said, waving the tips of two tentacles around, like a person speaking with their hands. “And some things happen as they may, and your appearance or perceived failure has no bearing on the outcome.”

Logan snorted derisively, sneering at the thing. It smelled like rock salt. “Fate, is that what you’re getting at? It doesn’t exist.”

“No,” it agreed. “But destiny can. You should know that by now.”

“Are you going to give me a speech too?” Yasha interjected, crossing her arms over her chest and tapping her foot impatiently on the floor.

“Why? It is much the same as I told him. Some of what is done can’t be undone, not the way you would like it. Sometimes all there is is salt and ashes.”

“Can it, Yoda,” Logan snapped, throwing up his hands in impatience. “We helped you, and you know we ain’t the bad guys in this scenario. Are you gonna tell us or not?”

It stared at them both, somehow grabbing them both in its cyclops gaze, and blinked, which actually took longer than he expected. Finally, it said, “It’s in the realm of Yuki-Onna. See her, and if she judges you worthy, you will receive what you seek. But you will be disappointed; we are always disappointed when we desire what we can’t have.” He then made a deeper, more rhythmic gurgling noise, and suddenly disappeared, without a noise or anything else to herald its sudden absence in reality.

“Well, that was bizarre,” Yasha commented. “He could have at least bought us a thank you cake.”

“Yuki-Onna?” Logan repeated, rolling the words around in his mouth. He knew they were slightly familiar somehow, but it took him a moment to remember why. “The Lady of the Snow; the Snow Queen?”

Yasha nodded. “The mythical Winter Ghost. I hear she’s been living up in the Hakone as of late.”

The Hakone was the area around Mount Fuji. It had lakes and hot springs, lots of peaks and valleys headed up towards the mountain itself. For Japan, it was a pretty sizable area. “So you’re saying she’s not a myth?”

“Are vampires a myth?”

Okay, she had him there. “How will we find her? The Hakone isn’t exactly a mall.”

“There are ways of attracting her attention.”

“Ways? Like what, splattering my blood around?”

She frowned at him, like he should have known better. “No, and I’m sorry about that, okay? Look, we really have to get out of here; the night’s slipping away, and I’d really like to find a nice, windowless room before I burst into flames.”

He knew she was right; sunrise had a smell, and he was starting to get a hint of it. It was probably just the chemical reaction of ultraviolet radiation hitting the earth, but it always struck him as funny that no one ever imagined that such a mundane act as a sunrise could have a specific scent. Why wouldn’t it? “Do you know of any windowless rooms where I can take you, other than to a capsule hotel?”

“My place. I’ll give you directions once we’re on the road, okay?”

“And you still expect me to trust you?”

The look she gave him was strangely disappointed. “I don’t expect anything from anyone. It’s easier that way.” She walked past him out the door, into the violet gloom of very early morning, and with reluctance, he followed.

Now he knew for sure that she didn’t want the sword just to kill Fujimori. What else was she after? He knew he shouldn’t care, but his curiosity was always going to be the death of him.

Or at least he sometimes hoped.

*****

Yasha lived neared the docks, in an old storage building with many “Condemned by the Department of Health” and “No Trespassing-Violators Will Be Prosecuted” signs slapped on the outside, over boarded up windows and patched up brick and mortar. It looked sad, an old building caught in slow collapse, which was why he was surprised to find the interior as lived in as it was. It smelled too strongly of sea salt and kelp, but she tried her best to cover the scent with candles.

Once she lit some, he got a better look at the place (well, no light was coming in through those boarded over, blacked out windows). There wasn’t a hell of a lot of room (it wasn’t a big storage area), but she made it look relatively spacious and almost cozy. She had covered most of the cement floor with a large throw rug bearing an odd madras pattern, while a tatami mat and futon were shoved up against one side of the wall, opposite a small t.v. in front of the are where the window should have been. There were several large cabinets, mostly lined with votive holders she lit with one of those automatic, long handled lighters, like you might start a barbecue with. As the smell of smoke and beeswax filled the room, he saw the cabinets were full of blades: katanas, sais, debas, kodzuka, kogatana, shoutou, shuriken, and going down all the way to switchblades and straight razors. “Should I be scared?” He asked humorously.

She gave him a sarcastic grimace as she lit the votive candle in the stained glass holder on top of the television. “Should you? You’re alone with a vampire with a knife fixation - I’d say that’s a probable yes.”

“My knives can beat your knives,” he said, glancing in the next room. It was tiny, and contained a mini-refrigerator, humming quietly to itself in the corner, and a very utilitarian shower stall, closed off with an opaque plastic door. What must have been her clothes hung in waterproof garment bags directly across from him, helping block out yet another sealed off window. It was somewhat claustrophobic, but probably better than a coffin.

“Is this a macho thing?” She wondered.

He looked back at her smirking. “Hardly, just a fact. So why all the heavy metal? I mean, yer a vamp - d’ya really need a gimmick?”

She shrugged, and done lighting candles, put the lighter away. “You want to know the truth, Logan? It was something to do.”

“Huh?”

“You don’t really now how long eternity is until you’re in it,” she said with a sigh. She opened one of the glass door cabinets and started putting her knives inside. “After the first few years, the thrill was gone. I traveled the world, I killed exciting new people in exotic locations, and I was bored out of my fucking mind. Nothing changed, and nothing was going to; it wasn’t a great time to be immortal either, you know. No t.v., no computers, no sushi restaurants outside of Japan. I started collecting swords as a sort of a joke - I had a hard time getting anyone to teach me swordsmanship because I was a woman, but once I was a demon, I found some other demons who could. Man, woman, or other, we’re all demons under the skin - Humans could probably learn a thing or two from us.”

“Well, except for the blood drinking thing.”

She simply shrugged, taking off her belt and hanging it up inside the case. “I never said we were perfect. It’s just when we’re all vampires, who cares what your outer race or sex is? It’s all irrelevant. You’re part of the tribe. But after I killed a self-styled “vampire hunter” outside of Prague, I ended up with some knives - those over there - “ She pointed to the case on the far left of the room, where lots of silver and filigree handle daggers gleamed in the low light. “And figured they’re all blades, so hey, why not make it a theme? Learning to use them all, polish them, sharpen them … it gave me something to do.”

“I had no idea vampires needed hobbies.”

She had finished taking off all her knives (she wore a whole drawerful of cutlery as a fashion statement), and closed up the cabinet. “So how old are you, Logan?”

That threw him momentarily. “What?”

“How old are you? You look … maybe thirty? I’m shit at guessing the ages of Humans. But you’re not thirty; I know that much.”

“I am thirty,” he replied crisply, not wanting to discuss this.

Her dark eyes were like mirrors for the candle flames, reflecting the light back at him and giving him nothing he could read. “No you’re not. Want to try again?”

“Fine - thirty two. Happy now?” Rather than wait for her to answer that, he gestured at the clusters of votive holders. “Why the candle shop? You obviously got electricity - why not throw a switch?”

“It kills the dock smell. Besides, this place isn’t perfectly sealed, and I have no desire to be discovered because someone spotted light in an abandoned building. Now, are you going to make me guess? Deathless and a samurai … samurais haven’t really existed since the nineteenth century, have they? Although surely some survived into the twentieth … ”

He glared at her, hoping she’d get the message, and afraid she wouldn’t. “You know, all I have to do to change the subject permanently is bust open a window.”

“Why does it bother you so much? So you’re older than you look - what’s the shame in that? So am I.”

“I’m not ashamed! It’s just that … “ he threw up his hands and gave up, pacing restlessly to the other side of the room to avoid her gaze. “ … I don’t know how fucking old I am. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

He could feel her curious gaze punching a hole through his back like lasers. “How can you not know? Did you lose track? I know I stopped counting after a hundred and twenty five … ”

“My head has been fucked with,” he replied angrily, turning back to meet her gaze face on. “It’s been so fucked over I don’t even know what my real name is. If something happened over fifteen years ago, I don’t know about it.”

She looked curious, nothing more. “Why?”

“Why? Why only fifteen years, or why did they fuck with my head?”

“Either.”

He didn’t feel like answering her questions, but if he didn’t say something, she’d probably pester him about it later. “”Cause I knew too much. Really, I got no fuckin’ clue about that either. The fuckers never explained themselves to me.”

“You know who did it? Are they dead?”

“Most of ‘em.”

“Good.”

Now he really didn’t know what to say. “Look, what about this Yuki-Onna thing? When are we gonna go?”

“Well, while I can hide under a blanket in the back of the van, I can’t technically go outside until nightfall - unless there’s an eclipse, or a heavy snowfall, but I’m not counting on those. But since it may take us a while to get up to the Hakone, we can leave before nightfall.”

“And what am I supposed to do until then? Hang around a noodle hut?”

“Actually, I was hoping you’d stay here. I doubt Fujimori would find me right now, but if he does, I’d be in a pretty weak position.”

He rolled his eyes. “Are you ever gonna stop usin’ me?”

She came over, almost stalking him, humor sparkling in her eyes. “No. I’m a vampire; we’re takers by nature.” She put her arms around his neck, and said, “But that’s not always a bad thing.” She kissed him, her lips cold, but the kiss far more honest than the one she gave him in the club. It was a surprise, but not much of one really.

It really didn’t feel too bad. She was too cold, but it always felt nice to feel female skin against his - even if it did feel frostbitten.

“I don’t like vampires,” he told her between kisses. Well, it wasn’t stopping him from enjoying this. He slid his hands beneath her shirt, and felt something slightly odd about the flesh of her spine, a minor textural difference. She had a tattoo there, didn’t she? It was big.

“And I don’t like Humans,” she replied, pulling up his shirt. “What’s your point?”

He no longer was sure. But it probably didn’t matter anymore anyways.

25

When he woke up in front of a fireplace, he was afraid he was back with Mariko. But it only took him a minute to realize he was wrong.

This wasn’t a fireplace that was more for show than use; this was brick coated with soot and smears of smoke. It was utilitarian, and had been used hard. Also, the logs on the grate were not uniformly perfect; they bore knotholes, and bark still afflicted with eczema like patches of lichen. It was also barely smoldering, dying quietly in a huge nest of gray ash. And there was no carpet beneath him, just a hardwood floor slightly less uncomfortable than a bed of nails.

He was in an austere, rough hewn cabin, thick with the scent of himself, melting snow, and burning pine, and he knew where he was. This was his life afterwards - the living death after Mariko.

“I’m not even going to ask why you’re with a vampire,” Jean said, her voice frosty at the edges.

He jumped to his feet, fast enough that he apparently startled her. She was standing beside the threadbare lump that must have been his couch in this isolated, lonely place. Her eyes burned brighter than the sputtering flames in the fireplace. “You,” he snarled, so angry he wasn’t sure he could speak. “How dare you fuck with my mind, Jean.”

She continued to stare at him, startled and yet somehow superior. “What?”

“You know what. You barged in on me and Mariko, and I don’t care that you’re a telepath - I have almost no memories of her, and you had no right to eavesdrop.”

“Eavesdrop? Hardly. I brought the scenario out - how could my influence not be felt?”

He was positive he hadn’t heard her correctly. “What?”