“I know how important it is to you to learn of your past,” she explained. “I thought if I could help, I should.”

He felt like he had been punched in the face. “Are you serious? You fabricated that memory?”

Her eyes narrowed, but the flames in her eyes flared more brightly. “I didn’t fabricate it. There were bits and pieces; I just tried to string them together.”

“String them together?” He scoffed in disbelief. “So you made shit up to complete a coherent storyline?”

“I made nothing up. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

“Oh really? And I’m supposed to trust that, am I?  I don’t even know what you are anymore. ”

“That’s a lie, Logan. I am me. Did you change when you started acting for Bob?”

“No, but I wasn’t transmogrified.”

“I wasn’t transmogrified either.”

“Oh no? Turning into living flame - you do that naturally?  That a power you forgot to mention to us?”

She smoldered brighter than the fire behind him, casting strange shadows on the barren walls of the small cabin. It looked like her red hair was actually starting to glow. Was she aware of it? “Are you angry at me or angry at him?”

“Specify the him.”

“Bob? Camaxtli?”

“Yes.”

It was hard to look at her face on. After a while, her eyes really did feel like they were burning you, just like the sun. “I’ve already told you, there’s no blame to be had.  If you insist on blaming someone, blame me.”

He snorted in disgust and turned away, feeling more comfortable facing the dying fire in the grate. “Blame ain’t gonna change anything anyways, is it?”  It was then he noticed there was a thin mantle above the fireplace. There was a small glint in the dim light, and after a moment he realized it was a gold ring hanging on a nail. Beneath was something that looked like a small black book resting on the mantel, but picking it up, he realized it was a picture frame whose backing had been ripped off. Under the slightly dusty glass, he saw a picture of himself and Mariko, although it took him a moment to recognize himself. It was always weird to see his own image, especially a photo where he was smiling. Smiles looked unnatural on his face, foreign somehow.

He crouched down, and tossed the picture in the fire, covering his head with his arms so he didn’t have to watch it burn. He couldn’t bear to watch Mariko curl up and die like a leaf in autumn. But him - oh, he longed to watch himself burn.

“What the hell is that about?” Jean said. She didn’t sound angry, just baffled. “Why do you hate yourself so much?”

“Why? You still haven’t looked very hard, have you?”

“You still aren’t to blame for - ”

“Go away,” he told her, watching the shadow of the flames dance at his feet. He hadn’t the strength or will to look up. “Let me have some peace.”

“Peace? How can you have peace when you think of yourself as the enemy?”

“There is a kind of calm in realism, Jeannie.” He suddenly realized he couldn’t detect the chemical scent of a burning picture, nonetheless a smoldering fabric frame, and glanced up into the fireplace.

The picture was no longer in the fire. He felt a surge of rage, but tamped it down as best he could, as he knew it would be wasted here. “Leave me alone, Jeannie. Why do you keep botherin’ me?”

“I’m not sure I can talk to anyone else without harming them. Yet.”

“Yer harmin’ me. Do you care?”

“I’m not harming you.” She paused briefly, and he sensed the doubt before she even spoke. “Am I?”

“All I want is some peace. I don’t get much, ya know?  I just want … I don’t know what I want.”

“You want to die.” She said it solemnly, like the thought was depressing.

“So what if I do? It ain’t ever gonna happen.”

“It could, and may.  Stop it, Logan.  Stop it now.”

“Stop what? Thinking nasty thoughts?” He snickered. “Stop my self-destructive habits that - ironically - never hurt me? Stop bein’ a self-pitying sack of shit?”

“If I told you I loved you, would it make any difference?”

It felt like she had just thrown ice water on him. He stood up and turned around slowly, warily, trying futilely to keep his rage in check. An angry sort of sorrow rose in his throat like bile. “Don’t you do that. Don’t you lie to me and - ”

“I’m not lying,” she claimed. She wasn’t glowing so much anymore, and he figured she had gotten her own anger under control.  If anything, she looked sad.

He could feel his resistance crumbling, giving way to this bleak sorrow that threatened to suffocate him. There were so many ghosts in this room, and he was one of them. “Get out of here.  Leave me the fuck alone.”

“You won’t listen at all, will you?”

“I have been listening, and now I’m done.  Get out, or I’m gonna start ruminating on being vivisected.”

Her eyes glowed in the growing dark. “I can take it away,” she said, her voice like a soft breeze.

Logan had no idea what woke him up. Maybe it was just his heart pounding double time, and the lingering fear from what she'd said to him.  Did she mean what he thought she meant?

He stared up at the ceiling for a while, watching the shadows of the candle flames flicker and dart on the ceiling. Yasha’s shack was a lot like his old Alberta cabin, wasn’t it?

She was sleeping beside him, on her side, so he could clearly see the tattoo on her back. It was a multicolored serpent - mostly metallic green and red, with black diamonds on its back - twining around her spine like an optical illusion, its raised head and open jaws just ending in the space between her shoulder blades. It was a beautiful bit of work, and he couldn’t imagine how long it must have taken to have done.

There was no way he was getting back to sleep, and he knew it.  So he quietly got up and collected his clothes, putting them on roughly in the order he found them. There was still some blood on them, but fuck it; it was a dock, and they could just assume it was mud or fish guts.

He had to take a piss anyways (vampires apparently had no need for toilets - that must have saved them oodles of time), and he knew there was one of those noodle shacks down at the end of the pier - if he was going out anyways, he might as well get something to eat. She’d be okay for five minutes, and he’d keep this end of the dock in sight at all times, so if there was trouble, he could get back in time.

Once outside, he was surprised at how gray the day was; cold rain pelted down like stones from the sky, and the sea was a choppy froth of slate. Fishing probably sucked today, so there wouldn’t be a lot of foot traffic.

He was right - he was the only customer at the noodle shack, and the grizzled old man running it seemed shocked to see a gaijin in this area, especially now. But he seemed impressed that he could speak the language so fluently.

Logan walked back to Yasha’s place to find nothing amiss, and even though he entered the shack as quietly as possible, she muttered, “So much for protecting me.”

“Hey, I was hungry,” he groused, sitting down on the unused futon. They had just sacked out on the tatami, and since they were both pretty inured to pain, it didn’t matter. He was hungry, and yet he didn’t get much, beyond soba noodles and tea - he was pretty sure he’d lose his appetite if he started thinking about Jean again.

“So am I, but you don’t see me sinking my fangs in your neck, do you?” She muttered, still half asleep.

He decided to ignore that. “It’s really overcast out there, and the rain’s pretty cold. I bet up in the Hakone it’s snow, or at least sleet.”

“Is this your way of saying we should leave early?”

“Yes.” The tea was bitter and astringent - real Japanese green tea - but he found it oddly cleansing and soothing. Once more, he wondered what the fuck his deal was. “What are you after, Yasha? I mean, Squidboy seemed to say we both wouldn’t get what we want, even if we did get the sword. You know what I want - but what do you want? Beyond Fujimori’s head on a plate.”

She was quiet for a very long time, and he figured she was faking sleep, so she didn’t have to answer the question. But then, just as he took a sip of his salty soba noodle soup, she said quietly, “I want to be Human again.”

26

Scott hated to admit it, and wouldn’t have said it aloud for all the money in the world, but for the first time in his life, he was happy to see Bob.

As soon as he'd told the Professor what had happened, Xavier had obviously called Bob. Scott was still at the bottom of the basement, trying to figure out how he could possibly gather up the liquid Cressida, when he heard Rogue say from above, “Oh thank god! You shoulda been here ten minutes ago, ya asshole!” She wouldn’t dare be that informal with Xavier or Storm.

He was right. “Hey darlin’, I ‘ported in as soon as I hung up.” He then heard him say, “Why are ya wearing that?”

“Hurt my ankle,” Bobby replied sheepishly.

“No you didn’t,” Bob replied casually, his loose Australian accent making it sound almost cheerful. “Brendan, how’re ya doing?”

“I’m about to run away to Iceland,” he said, serious for the moment.

“Well, why not, if you can afford the airfare? It’s pretty there, and the hot springs really clear up the sinuses.”

“Bob, get down here!” Scott shouted, half convinced he was going to shoot him as soon as he showed his pretty boy face.

Bob then just sort of came into existence right before him (at least when Nightcrawler did it, there was a warning noise), and he said, “There’s no need to be rude, mate.” It was the same old Bob, in the same rock star leather pants and expertly mussed hair, but today his stupid t-shirt proclaimed “Cockshutt Old Peculiar” in bright white letters on a dark blue background. The smaller white lettering underneath “Brewed since Tuesday, 1997” indicated it was some kind of beer, but Scott really didn’t want to know. He went out of his way to find disturbing shirts, didn’t he?

Bob crouched down, and sucked in a sharp breath. “Holy fuck - Shafan demons?  How the hell did you survive that?”

Scott stared at him, and up close his unnervingly blue eyes were even more startling; he could almost see miniscule sparks shooting between the cells that made up his pupils. “You know what they are?”

“Yeah-I just saw your memories. Shit.” He glanced down at the water splattered around them, and lightly touched one of the pools. “Good girl. Shafans are extremely hard to kill. You’re lucky you’re all still breathing, you know.”

“I know. Now will you help her already?”

Bob trailed his fingers through one of the puddles, and then rubbed his fingertips together, as if trying to massage it into his skin. It was still too hot to touch the last time Scott tried, but he knew the rules didn’t apply to Bob.

When Bob met his gaze again, his gemstone eyes were full of pity. “I’m sorry, mate - ”

“No,” Scott interrupted angrily. This asshole was not going to lie to him; he was not going to hang back
on his lazy ass and do nothing.

“- she’s gone,” Bob continued. “There’s no consciousness here, no spark of life. She’s dead.”

Someone - possibly Rogue - gasped on the floor above, but Scott barely heard it. All he could hear was the thundering of his heart and the roar of his blood.  He hadn’t been this angry since … well, hell, he didn’t know.  He’d never been this angry. “What good are you if you can’t save her?” He roared, jumping to his feet.  He seriously thought about punching Bob, even though he knew he probably never be successful.

Bob must have known this, and yet none of it showed. He stood up slowly, throwing his arms wide. “In truth, mate?  I’m no good at all. I wish I could bring back the dead, I really do, but I can’t. I’m sorry - “

“Save it!” He snapped, inexplicably feeling tears in his eyes, his throat starting to close up. Why, goddamn it?  He wasn’t going to cry, not for her.  He didn’t even like Cressida.

So why did he feel so fucking bad?

Bob snap his head around suddenly, glancing hard over his shoulder, and as Scott struggled to swallow his tears, Bob said, “Oh good - now we can get to the bottom of this.”

He wasn’t going to ask - he wasn’t sure he could speak without sobbing yet - when he saw a ball of fire flare into existence in mid-air, half way between where they were standing and the back wall. Another one? Scott braced to fire, but it was just a knee jerk adrenaline response, and pointless - Bob was here. And Bob had it before it even hit the ground.  

“Close,” Bob said, but to what Scott had no idea. The ball of fire suddenly flared into humanoid form, and as soon as the burned holes of eyes appeared in its poor excuse for a head, it actually jumped back a foot. “Drai - ” It squeaked, in a strangely high pitched voice.

“Shut it,” Bob said savagely, and it did - it had probably been an order. Bob stomped over to it, and Scott almost warned him not to get too close, but then he remembered that he didn’t care. Also, it surely didn’t matter. “What the fuck is this about?” Bob demanded of the creature, which seemed frozen in place. His doing? “Why are you trying to come back to this dimension?”

If a flame creature could be said to flail, this one did.  And Scott was slightly dismayed to find he got a small thrill from its obvious panic. “ I - it - we sensed Camaxtli in this dimension,” the Shafan said, leaning away from Bob. It was trying to back away from him, but its feet were frozen to the floor. “ We came to aid him in his new dominion.”

“Camaxtli?” Scott repeated.  That sounded oddly familiar …

“Hey, wasn’t that that weird god who helped us fight Fenrir?” Rogue added from above.

“Camaxtli isn’t here anymore,” Bob snapped, although Scott felt he was addressing all of them, not just the fire demon. “He’s dead. There will be no dominion here, and if I ever even hear about you comin’ back to this plane, I will send you all to the realm of Niflheim and seal the door behind you.  Is that clear?”

“Yes, yes. But Drai’shajan, we thought you were with Camaxtli. We have no desire to anger yo-”

“Too fucking late!” Bob then made a strange hand gesture, and reality itself seemed to tear open behind the Shafan.  Before it or anyone else could react, it was sucked into the vortex, which instantly collapsed the moment it was gone.

Vortex - that’s what the Shafans had said originally, wasn’t it?

“They were an invasion force,” Scott said, suddenly realizing it.

“No. Technically, this first group was the scouts. They were supposed to make ready to feed the vortex, which would eventually allow them all to come back here.” Bob turned back around, anger subsiding, but Scott was sure he saw his eyes were all glowing and blue before he blinked, and then they were normal, plain old eerie blue eyes again.  But he knew what he had seen.

“Why is Camaxtli dead?” Rogue asked, looking down on them from above. Bobby was next to her, while Brendan was looking down from farther away, his demon side only now beginning to subside.

Bob shook his head. “It’s a long story. But the shorthand version is Eris killed him.”

“Who the hell is Eris?” Rogue asked.

“Goddess of chaos and discord,” Bob replied blandly, as if describing a mundane profession. “In the god hierarchy, she’s easily the strongest one.  If you think of her as entropy, it might be easier for you to accept.”

“I thought Camaxtli was a her,” Rogue replied skeptically.

Scott just shook his head. Buying this god shit was bad enough - he didn’t want to hear about how none of them had any genders, either. “Why, if Camaxtli is dead, did they think he-she, whatever - was still here?”

Bob sighed heavily. “Cammy may have had an avatar here, and shunted his power to her.  She was probably on this plane long enough to attract the attention of the Shafans, who are Cammy’s loyal foot soldiers. But trust me, the avatar isn’t here anymore.  I think she’s hiding out in a pocket dimension near Kumiho’s old realm, but I haven’t found her yet.”

“Okay, did somebody slip me some ecstasy, or does this completely not make any sense?” Brendan interjected. “Who the fuck are all these people you’re talking about, and what the hell’s an avatar, besides a picture on a posting board?”

Bob rubbed his eyes, and looked strangely weary, which was saying something for him. “I’ll get you back to the mansion, and explain this god/dimension shit to you as best I can.”

“You don’t need to get us back to the mansion,” Scott pointed out. “We brought the jet.” And that just reminded him Cressida had been the co-pilot, and his anger drained away in a surge of despair.  Another dead person on his watch. That was it - he couldn’t do this anymore. Storm was just going to have to take over as team leader, because he couldn’t stand it anymore.  He could have gotten them all killed, and for what?

Bob gave him a look with another big dollop of pity in it, and Scott desperately wanted to blast it off his face. “This isn’t your fault, mate - “

“Let's just get the fuck out of here,” he interrupted, no longer wanting to deal with Bob. The Professor could talk to him; Scott was really in no mood.  He didn’t know how Bob could claim to be a god and abide all the death and pain in the world.  If he were him, he’d quit.

It was probably a good thing Bob was such an asshole.

27

Logan was sure she was kidding, but she seemed very serious. “You want to become Human?”

“I know, it’s crazy, isn’t it?” She admitted, snuggling her head deeper into her pillow. “One of the main tenets of Buddhism is that desire is the root of all suffering.  I was cursed by someone with an existentialist streak; they damned me to always want what I couldn’t have. I thought it was kind of silly at first, but soon I realized what a hideous thing it was. All the color seems to bleed out of life when you constantly want the unattainable. Everything else is unsatisfying; there’s no joy in even the next best thing. You just muddle through, and keep hoping that something will be worth all of this.  But is it ever really?  No, not at all.”

He had an idea of what she was getting at - after all, didn’t he want what he couldn’t have?  Peace? People leaving him the fuck alone?  Mariko?  Jean?  “But Humans are weak.  And, as you pointed out, there’s hardly a sense of brotherhood.”

“I know. But I want to taste real food again, and feel the sun on my face. You know, without dying.”

He hated to admit it, but he was sure he wasn’t getting this. “But aren’t there more advantages to bein’ a vamp than bein’ Human? You’re immortal - well, except for the whole stake and sunlight thing - you’re stronger, faster, have keener senses - ”

“Need blood to live,” she interrupted.

“I ain’t sayin’ that’s not a major pain in the ass,” he admitted, then wondered what the hell he was saying. “Humans age and die, they get sick, and honestly, they’re kinda fragile. Believe me, I know. I mean, if you‘re so unhappy bein‘ a vamp, couldn‘t ya just stake yourself or something?”

She finally sat up and turned to look at him, the blanket pooling around her waist.  She seemed unaware that she wasn’t wearing a shirt, but he wasn’t complaining. “Do you know how old I was when I was turned?”

He made himself look at her face, but he didn’t take her eyes into account, as they looked quite old. “Eighteen?”

“Seventeen. I was sheltered too, so I barely lived at all.  I’d like to a little living - Human living - before I die.”

Logan scratched his head, and refused to admit he didn’t understand.  Except for the killing people and drinking their blood, vampires really did seem to have the better deal going, all in all. “But … if you get what you want, won’t you want something else?”

She shrugged her slender shoulders. She had a kanji tattooed on her left arm, the one meaning “sword” (no shock there), the ink as black as her hair, and as startling as a bruise against her pale alabaster skin. “Probably; that’s the nature of my curse. I’m always disappointed when I finally do attain what I want, because I don’t want it anymore.”

That sounded like some people he knew. “So you think the sword will … kill the demon and bring you back to life?”

“If it works as advertised.  After I take care of Fujimori and do that, the sword is yours, Logan - I have no use for it afterwards.”

He didn’t know if he could trust that, but far be it from him to argue with an attractive topless woman. “Then what will you do?  If these guys find out you’re Human again -”

“I’m a sitting duck, I know. I was planning to leave the country then, start a new life.”

“Where ya goin’?” Why did he ask that?  Did he actually care?

She smirked and glanced away, finally pulling the blanket over her shoulders like a kimono.  Maybe she finally realized even she was abnormally chilly.  “It will probably sound like complete bullshit if I say Canada now, won’t it?”

“Oh, come on, get serious.”

“I am serious!  I’ve always liked Vancouver. And I prefer living on the Pacific.”

He shrugged.  It could be a pretty nice place.

“Your turn,” she said. “Who is it you’re resurrecting?  Girlfriend?”

He scowled down at her. “Why do you assume it’s a girlfriend?”

“Because you’re a heterosexual man.  It’s always a woman - when you guys do crazy things, it’s always ‘cause of a woman.”

Logan rolled his eyes, and shifted slightly on the futon. “That’s a stereotype.” He didn’t bother to add a wholly accurate one.

She noticed he hadn’t answered the question, and gave him a sly smile. “So I’m right?”

“Friend,” he snapped back, with more heat than he intended.  But he was no longer sure if Jean was his friend, only because he wasn’t sure she was really Jean. “And wife.  Maybe, if it’s not too late.”

“Wife?” That seemed to surprise her; it seemed to surprise everyone.  Did he really seem that bad?  “What do you mean if it’s not too late?  Has she been dead a long time?”

He was now sorry he said anything.  He put his tea down and dry washed his face, hoping it covered it enough that she couldn’t read his expression. “Since ‘81.”

“Shit. Umm, you know, with the decay rates -”

“I don’t want to talk about this,” he interrupted, finding the courage to glare at her.  He had never even been able to believe Mariko was in a coffin beneath that smooth patch of grass, because … because … he wasn’t sure.  Something inside him couldn’t accept the reality, or at least it didn’t want to.  (Was he doing the same thing with Jean now?)

Yasha had the decency to drop it. “Fine.” She stood up, draping part of the blanket over her arm like it was a robe. “If it’s as overcast as you say, we can get moving early.  I’m taking a shower - want to join me?”

He surprised himself by shaking his head. “Nah, I’m good.”

“No you’re not,” she replied. “You smell like Ressik blood.  Now get your ass up, or I’m stealing all your clothes and throwing you in the harbor.”

He smirked at the thought. Did she really think she actually could?  “You’d get a kick out of that, wouldn’t you?”

“Of course I would. Who wouldn’t?  Now come on.”

“You’re a very bossy woman.”

“I like to think it’s one of my charms.”

He shook his head, but stood up anyways. “Well, I am your love slave, aren’t I?”  He’d really be certifiable if he turned down an invitation like this.  And even if he was, he could pretend to be sane, if
only for a little while.

****

His guess about the weather had been absolutely correct.

They had only started up out of the valley and into the higher elevations when frozen rain became sleet, and sleet became snow.  And even though it was technically still day, the gunmetal gray clouds were so thick in the sky that Yasha stopped hiding in the back of the van and climbed into the passenger seat.

The roads were not impassable, but the ice was starting sheet, and traffic started to drop off as the surface got slick.  For that, Logan was glad.

They drove on, past lakes as smooth as glass and valleys as green as jade, although snow began to slowly hide it all from view. Visibility was dropping rapidly, and he could have smacked himself when he realized, “She knows we’re coming, doesn’t she? She’s trying to stop us.”

“Considering we usually don’t have blizzards this time of year, I’m gonna say yes.”

“How does she know we’re coming?”  He asked, suddenly suspicious.  If this was a set up, who set them up?  That damn Raiju?

“I told you there were ways of gaining her attention,” Yasha explained, and pulled an amulet out of her pocket.  It was a gold pendant on a leather cord, marked with symbols that seemed to have something to do with snow. “This is supposedly from Kura-Okami, the god of rain and snow.  A calling card, if you will.”

“And you didn’t bother to mention you had it?” He groused.  He was almost getting used to her little lies, which were more sins of omission than anything else; she just didn’t like to give away too much information.  And he had to admit that he understood that, because he didn’t like to do that either. Maybe the problem here was that they were too much alike.  (What had Otasuki said?  They were mirror reflections of each other?  Goddamn squid.)

“Well, I have now,” she said, giving him a lame little smile.  She seemed to be immune to his glare, but tucked the amulet back in her coat pocket.

They probably only got another half mile before the snow started robbing their tires of any kind of traction. The wind picked up too, howling like an army of angry dead, and Yasha said, “She must be close - the amulet’s starting to feel hot.”

Since she was the “Snow Queen”, he had no idea why the pendant would get hot, but he figured it didn’t matter. “How do we fight her?”

“Oh, about that … we can’t.”

“We can’t?”

“She is a god, of sorts. Unless your master’s around, we don’t have a chance in hell.”

“My master?” He snapped, tired of fighting the steering wheel - he was about to accidentally snap it off anyways.  He let the van slide off towards the side of the road, and once they hit the snowy berm, killed the engine and pulled the emergency break. It slid for a couple more feet, then finally stopped. “What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?  I don’t have a master.”

“Christ, all right, don’t get so touchy about it.  I just meant the god you avatar for.”

“I’m not a lap dog.”

“Fine, fine.” Yasha popped open her door, and tossed the pendant out into the snow.  It disappeared beneath the relentless rain of white flakes. “But since you’re so experienced with gods, you wanna open the conversation?”

He sighed, not at all surprised.  He was afraid it would come to this. “What do you expect me to do?
Say “Hi - we’d like the Life/Death sword - could we have it please?” ”

She gave him a completely deadpan look, and he admired her ability to keep a straight face. “Asking never hurt.”

Logan shook his head and got out of the van, the wind hitting him in the face like a frozen fist. He so hated gods and demons and all their shit. Couldn’t not believing in them make them go away?  It would have been wonderful if that theory ever panned out.

He slogged through knee deep snow towards the dark spot where Yasha had thrown the pendant, wondering if Bob’s name would help him at all.  It was even odds that it would hurt tremendously.

The winds started to howl even louder, and he realized a funnel of snow was starting to form several meters ahead of him; a winter tornado.  It grew tall, towering twelve feet over his head, but stayed stationary, even as its rotation grew more rapid.  Suddenly it seemed to plump up and grow still, and suddenly it was a person - an eighteen foot woman made of snow, with skeletal hands like the roots of dead trees, and a head shaped more like a fox than a human, with a plume of snowy hair like a lion’s mane.  Her eyes were boulders, and her mouth was the cleft in the side of the mountain. “Who summons the Snow Queen?”  She asked, her voice like breaking ice.

Logan bet a handshake was right out of the question.