Jean looked away with a huff of disgust, so he drank the rest of his beer and waited to see if he’d get his ass kicked or not.   Finally, she looked back at him, flames dancing in her eyes, and while she was completely annoyed, the very fact that she hadn’t attempted to hurt him was a damn good sign.  “What is it exactly that you want me to do?”

He fought hard to keep the smile on his face from becoming a smirk.  In spite of everything, he'd known that Jean would come through for him.

21

It seemed like once they solved one problem, a new one would rear its ugly head, which was just par for this painful course.

It also seemed like their fragile group was going to fly apart at the seams at any second.  While Camilla and Amaranth didn’t trust each other, the vampires as a whole were reluctant to trust anyone who wasn’t of them, although they were in general so terrified of the Sisters - who were riding herd on them - it didn’t interfere with anything.   Still, Hashim didn’t like the idea of using Soriya (the Queen Vilkacis, or whatever the hell she actually was), whom Logan also didn’t trust - either of ‘em, in fact - but Logan was the sole communication conduit to Soriya, because her and her people were still hiding out in Kazakhstan until they were called into action.  Soriya wanted to call all the shots, which simply wasn’t going to happen, but Hashim also wanted to call all the shots, which - again - wasn’t going to happen.  And Logan wasn’t sure exactly what shots to call, as the couple of times he had engaged in actual deicide, it was Bob calling the shots - he'd simply been the back-up muscle - a spoiler, nothing more.  This was where an instruction manual would have been so wonderfully helpful.

It was also about this time that Ammy decided she couldn’t find Kali,
as the old girl seemed to have lots of tricks up her sleeve.  The only alternative left was to make Kali come to them, which led to a lot of brainstorming.  Logan missed the first half of that, as he’d snuck back
to Srina’s place to see if she had any of his clothes left from the last time he'd stayed over.

Luckily she was still asleep, making him once again wonder how much cold medicine she had actually ingested. Quietly searching her dresser, he found a pair of jeans that could only be his, and a t-shirt far too big to be hers.   He got dressed quickly, deciding he could throw his bloody, torn clothes in the first available dumpster, and then went to pull the blanket back over Srina, as she had partially thrown it off.  She still felt warm, but a lot less feverish.

By the time he got back to the secret library of the damned, they were arguing again, and he wondered why he had even come back.  But Helga put an end to Camilla disparaging Ammy’s spellcasting skills by suggesting they get Kali to come to them.  A good idea, and they now began the mulling over of how exactly that could be done.  She was a big fish, and it was a given that she wouldn't be easy to bait.

If they could only trust the Vilkacis, they could possibly use them, but that idea was quickly discarded, as there was no way they’d follow a script, and they couldn’t afford to have them jump the gun and perhaps ruin everything.  Timing was key; and, as Logan understood it, timing was also a bit of a pun.

As it turned out, the answer was both simple and complicated, all at once. “ Bob,” Hel said.  “The first thing she did was find Bob.  His energy would attract her again.”

“Yeah, but right now I ain’t even a blip on her radar screen,” Logan interjected, leaning against a bookcase.  Anna seemed to be hovering nearby, and he wasn’t sure if she was eavesdropping or simply didn’t like him leaning against her books.  “I’m not powerful enough.”

“Well, we can fake it,” Ammy suggested. “Amp it up, or at least give the appearance of doing so.  Close enough for rock and roll.”

“Great, let’s do it,” Logan agreed.

And all the women exchanged looks that seemed to say “You tell him”. Great... just how nasty was this going to be?  Then Helga told him.  At least he could console himself with the fact that he'd had worse.

The next part was planning this damn thing.  They needed to find a place where Kali - and they - could do some damage without hurting any errant people, which was a tall order in a metropolis like London.  The most obvious place that they all new about and would suit their purposes was Hyde Park.

Because half of their army was vampires, they had to wait until after sunset, but at least the rest of them were able to get into the park ahead of time, allowing Ammy the chance to cast a “paranoia spell” , sending people fleeing the park due to overwhelming free floating anxiety and fear.  It was the only way to guarantee no straggler or homeless person became an unintended victim or a vampire snack.

They found a place just down a-ways from the Serpentine Lido, where the trees thinned out and formed a natural barricade around a long expanse of thin grass leading to a packed earth path around a lake that Logan thought was called Long Lake, but he wasn’t perfectly certain. Yet he wasn’t about ask.

It was a relatively cool dusk, the sky deepening to the color of bruise purple, as Ammy used a special piece of burnt wood (it smelled almost like cinnamon bark) to draw arcane symbols on the earthen path.  One looked something like a warped pentagram, while others resembled vaguely Celtic and ever perhaps Aboriginal designs.  A couple of large white swans glided by on the surface of the silver-blue water, seemingly unaffected by the spell, and he honestly felt them looking at him.  What was that about?  Did Bob’s powers extend to animals? (Well, technically humans were animals, so why not?  Besides, hadn‘t Ammy once told him something about fruit bats landing on Bob like he was some demented Aussie version of Sleeping Beauty?)

As soon as Ammy was done and stepped back, she said, “Well, get yer ass in there.”

Ah, so polite.  What a charmer she was.  And she was still single?  How could that be?  Helga showed him Bob’s Bastet blessed knife, and asked quietly, “You ready for this?”

He shrugged and took off his t-shirt, tossing it towards the nearest bench.  No sense in getting it bloody too, not until he bought more clothes.  “As I’ll ever be.  Let’s get it over with.”

“I thought you only said that before you had sex,” she teased, giving him a wink and a lascivious grin.   He scowled at her, and headed into the roughly star shaped circle.  She was now sporting the odd ovate around her eye that marked her as Moros’s avatar.  He must have gotten out of bed for that …. Or maybe he didn’t have to.

“Now you don’t get to ride me like a cowgirl,” he told her, taking his place in the center of the charcoal sigil.

Helga pouted in an exaggerated manner, but couldn’t keep the humorous sparkle out of her eyes. “Shit.  There goes my weekend.”

“Are you through yet?” Ammy snapped. “C’mon already, let’s get this done before I chunder.”

Hel quirked her eyebrows up at him, mouthing quietly, “Pent up.”  He hated her for that, because it was hard not to laugh, and he knew
Ammy would kill him if he did.

He could see the yellow glow of vampire eyes in the thick shadows at the edges of the copse, and they started coming out as dusk swallowed the wide expanse of the park.  The Sisters were in the lead, but the rest of Hashim’s crew were following, fanning out in a wide semi-circle but basically keeping to the trees.  In total, Hashim to be in charge of a crew of over three dozen vamps, mostly young (there were a couple of them that looked like they were barely in their teens), but just about every race and nationality was represented, and - just like in the population of the world - there was slightly more females than males.  It reminded him of what Yasha had said about how being a vampire made race and gender completely irrelevant; a vampire was a vampire was a vampire, no matter what shell they wore.  It seemed a difficult way to build a “rainbow coalition”.  It also reminded him a little of that old horror movie “Freaks”: all of them chanting “One of us, one of us” as a welcome when, in fact, it was a warning and a threat; a blessing that was also the most hideous curse imaginable.

Oddly enough, it was probably a good thing he was a mutant. Conformity just struck him as something to be frightened of.

Ammy started intoning words in a language even he couldn’t recognize (lately that had started to unsettle him), and Helga stepped up, keeping just outside of the loose circle, but within arm’s reach of him.  “Ready?” She asked, holding up the knife.  Up close, it glinted wickedly.

Logan simply took a deep breath and nodded, clasping his hands behind his back so he didn’t do something autonomic and deeply stupid.

Helga grimaced slightly, and brought the knife up, resting its sharp edge on his chest, just beneath the hollow of his throat.  Then she drew the tip down in a straight line, slicing open his skin along the breastbone, coming to a stop just above his solar plexus.   It was a sharp enough blade that he barely felt the knife cut his skin, but he did feel the warm blood pouring down his chest, as well as the burning sensation of healing as the gash healed up.  It was because of his healing factor that Hel had to drag the knife up again, opening the cut once more.  She had to keep doing this, as the cut kept closing up, and his blood needed to flow until the spell was completely recited.  After two times, it started to hurt, and his healing factor seemed to be balking at this;  he could’ve sworn the burning was getting worse.  It was a shame, for him, that the bad guys weren’t willing to just play along.

The air was crackling with something like static electricity, and boiling clouds scudded across the face of the newly bright moon as his blood pattered down on the hard packed dirt.  He fought back a growl in his throat, and it was all he could do not to pop his claws and put an end to his pain.

Finally, Ammy approached, still speaking something odd, and Helga took a step back, finished keeping his chest wound open.  She looked sorry about the whole thing, but that hadn’t stopped her - it needed to be done, after all.

The wind was starting to howl, a minor tempest on the lake shore, and after raising her eyebrows to make sure he was ready for this, he gave Helga a reassuring nod.  She then slashed the knife, and cut open the left side of his face;  he could taste the blade as it completely tore through his cheek.

Ammy came forward and pressed her own slashed-open palm (how and when she'd done this he didn’t know - it probably didn’t matter) against the gash on his face.  It sounded like the blood sizzled on contact, and he could taste it in his mouth before the wound started to heal over.  Ammy quickly backed up, probably still bleeding, and he felt the power surge through his body; it was a version of something called a “joining” spell, which technically couldn’t be done on him because he wasn’t related to any of Bob’s numerous offspring.  But it wouldn't stop him from “borrowing” some of Ammy’s attachments, at least for now.

He’d clenched his hands together so tight he could feel the metal on his bones, so he forced himself to release them, as his blood was absorbed completely into the ground and the circle and quasi-pentagram around him began to glow, as if lit from a fire below.   Logan felt as if he was the center of an electric cyclone, the energy surging up his spinal column as if feeding straight from an underground source.   His vision turned a sharp, almost painful bright blue, and he could feel the skin ripple on his face, as if something was standing out in relief.  Veins?  Perhaps.  He felt so charged with power it seemed as though it might tear through his skin on its own.

He could now see ghostly lines in the air surrounding them, energy
trails of … well, he didn’t know what.  But they were everywhere, crisscrossing lines of pale white and green, blue and red, making it seem like the “string theory” wasn’t a theory at all, but the threads that held all of reality together.  Threads that he could reach out and touch … manipulate?  Was this how Bob did it?  Was it as simple as all that? Pulling threads apart, and putting them together someplace else?  Was that all there was to it?

He noticed some threads being forced apart, the firmament behind it glowing a painful black that seemed to be diseased, and he knew Kali was coming. “Tell them now!” He shouted at Ammy, as the reality in front of him seemed to rip apart, and Kali was spat out like something poisonous.

To him she looked like a glowing black void in humanoid form, with a few motes of energy spread out across her body like a landscape of stars.  She cocked her slightly elongated head, and he had a feeling even her look was patronizing. “You’re not Bob.  He can’t be dead already, can he?”

“Not yet,” he agreed, wondering if she looked this noxious and consumptive to everyone else.  “But things ain’t looking’ so good for you, darlin’.” The area around them was now rippling, shimmering like heat waves in a desert, and she must have felt it, because she looked around, just in time for the children of Kali - every single goddamn mutated one of them - plopped out of thin air, coming to rest between them and the vampires crowding the trees, all undulating tentacles, multiple mouths, and spiky claws.  Soriya was in the front, and no longer in her Humanoid form -- she appeared to be reptilian, with thick, scaled legs and plated skin, and a tail that branched out into about twelve separate, whip thin tentacles, all writing like worms on a hot plate. Soriya’s face lengthened to a muzzle full of crocodile teeth as she pointed a clawed digit at the dark void of Kali.  “You do not reject us
and leave us to the inferiors,” she said, sounding as though she was speaking through a mouth full of mashed potatoes. “Pay for your sins.”

Kali seemed to rear back, and made a noise of disgust. “You dare -- ”

Logan popped his claws and slashed through her neck, aware that decapitation might not kill her, but it would sure slow her down.

Or so he thought.

The very second he cut through her flesh - which was not flesh at all, but something that seemed to have a tar like consistency - she back handed him across the face with such piledriver force that he went instantly flying, and hit the lake at what felt like Mach Two.  It was a good thing he had adamantium, a super charged healing factor, and Bob’s power, or he’d have shattered every bone in his body and possibly pulped all his organs.  As it was, he took a major shot to the head, and the water was so cold he couldn’t breathe.  But, come to think of it, that was probably a good thing.

He flailed to the surface - it was too inelegant to call swimming - and gasped in a desperate breath as other things splashed into the water. Nothing was after him - it was Vilkacis or pieces of them, being flung by their “mother”.  In fact, he could no longer see Kali at all, just this huge scrum of thrashing tentacles and flashing claws, screaming energy and splashing blood.  He thought he saw green in there, and hoped if it was Helga, she was being really careful.

As he swam back to shore, trying his best to avoid the flung children of Kali (Mommy wasn’t big on sentimentality, it seemed), he heard Ammy shouting some incantation, whether of protection or harm towards Kali he didn’t know, but he fervently hoped it would help.

Some of the children of Kali was littering the shore, some cut in half, their energy bleeding out with their blood, and they didn’t look to be healing.  So could only Mom hurt them enough that they wouldn’t heal? They really didn’t look like they were getting up again - now or ever - and the pile of body parts was getting larger.  It looked like their first offensive line was about to become toast.  “Come on, Jeannie,” he muttered under his breath, as he levered himself out of the icy cold lake, and decided that maybe he should warm up a little.   As it happened, there was a gap in the demi-god dog pile, so he ran for it
and dove in, popping his claws and trying to channel his energy
through them, until they made a second set of phantom, energy claws.

He did his best to avoid the Vilkacis, but the damn shape-shifters were slithering everywhere.  Many of them were screaming, but so was Kali, who was roaring with rage and - he hoped - pain.  It took him a moment to realize the ground was starting to shake, her anger so great she was causing miniature tidal waves on the lake and creating cracks in the tightly packed earth, and the children of Kali were starting to thin out greatly.  It was almost down to him and her alone, and he just knew that wasn’t going to work, although he was willing to give it his best shot.

He slashed away at the lambent black thing that could only be Kali, his energy screaming off hers, almost throwing sparks, but she was so busy slugging it out with Soriya she almost didn’t notice him at all.  He cut into her tar-like skin as if trying to harvest it, ripping up her back like
he was threshing a field, while Soriya was trying to punch a new hole through her head in the front.  They were making her hurt, they were making her mad, but that was all...so far.

Finally Kali threw off the last of the Vilkacis and punched Soriya
through the torso; it literally went through her spine and sent her blood splattering on the ground below.  Kali didn’t so much turn to face him as she inverted her body, making her head shift position so her glowing eyes were boring into him now, even as he was claws-deep in what he presumed was her torso.  “Bob avatar,” she said, her voice as cold as her energy was scalding. “Interesting.  Stupid.  If he couldn’t harm me, what chance do you have?”

That was a damn good point, but he wasn’t about to admit it, especially as she drove her fist right through his abdomen.  Perhaps she wasn’t expecting the adamantium, or even the intensity of the Bob energy he had called up, but she didn’t punch him all the way through, just let her smoldering fist rest in the soft meat of his gut.  The feeling was so startling - stabbed with a blunt object, not a blade - that he was frozen
in shock for a second.

“But Humans aren’t known for their smarts, are they?” She said, leering into his face.  She smelled like rot.

He drove one claw into the soft tar of her abdomen, and then plunged another through her glowing eyes. “No, we’re not,” he agreed, and ripped in two different directions at once.

She made a noise of pain, tossing him like a bad habit, and he hit the ground so hard he was sure he left an inch deep imprint.  Damn, his gut fucking hurt; it burned, but not in a healing way -- more like a “someone poured acid in an open wound” way.

Logan rolled over on his side, a prelude to getting up, but a tentacle shot out from her body and plunged through his stomach on the uninjured side, pinning him to the dirt. “You just had to show up, didn’t you avatar? Oh well, that just makes things easier.” She said, as her head filled out, seemingly re-inflating itself like a balloon, her eyes surfacing almost as an afterthought.

In spite of the pain, he felt reality ripple somewhere near him, and even as Kali formed another black tentacle out of her back, growing out of her like a living stream of smoke, she paused.  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flare of bright light knife out of reality, and then Jean was simply there, her aura still flaming like a solar flare.  Kali looked at her askance, asking, “Are you here to help?”

“Yes,” Jean agreed. “But not you.”  She'd noticed Kali had him pinned down, and added, “See, that’s a good way to piss me off.”  The energy around her seemed to surge, and she threw out her hands, sending Kali flying - a nice move in theory, but the tentacle yanked out of him quite painfully.  Logan had to grit his teeth against a scream, and instinctively curled into a ball, the pain deciding to settle in his gut like a burning ember.  He wasn’t healing, or at least not at his usual rate.   Maybe it was the whole god thing.

Kali landed hard on her butt - or what passed for one - in a pile of Vilkacis’ body parts, her skin(?) still sizzling from Jean’s direct hit.  Then, as she pulled herself back up to her feet, Jean was gone - but she had left something behind.

It looked like a skink afflicted with gigantism.  It was about twelve feet long, its hand-sized scales an angry, inflamed red, and its cantaloupe sized eyes were black, with orange colored slit pupils, and a rather unusual sense of intelligence in them.  It reared up on its hind legs, nearly becoming visible over the tree tops.

Kali looked up in horror, and something had changed, Logan could feel something like surface tension, and he glanced around, noticing he could no longer feel the wind.  But the trees several feet beyond them were still moving around, and the lake still rippled with its movement.  A bubble of anti-time?  He had no idea what Star Trek episode he'd heard that on, nor did he understand how they could all still be breathing or able to move or function, but Neheb was now in the reality, and he'd brought his time warping abilities with him.

From the look of horror on her face, Kali knew what he - well, it - was, and she also knew how completely fucked she was. “No!”  She shot out her hand, as if to send Neheb flying, but the crimson skink god remained where he was, as impassive and immobile as a statue.  How did you best the god of infinite time?

It was then that the vampires came swarming out of the trees.

They had axes, swords, pikes, hatches, knives, and bare hands, and they came rushing towards Kali with a battle cry like a roar, reminding him vaguely of a swarm of angry wasps. Pissed off, well-armed, demonic wasps.  No wonder Yasha had recommended he use her name - was there anything more frightening than a horde of vampires who thought they might get a chance to kill a god?  And of course the Sisters were in there, so you just knew the bitch was dead.

Kali let out a howl of frustration and rage, shapeshifting some more of those sharp tentacles, and from the familiar screech, a couple of vamps got dusted. But that didn’t stop their vicious buddies from running in and filling up the gaps the dead had left behind, and soon her tentacles were flopping on the ground like fishes out of water, completely disconnected from her body.   Wow - Hashim’s wife was certainly good with a battle axe.

Helga crawled over to him, apparently having gotten herself tossed aside in the previous battle, and seemed to be bleeding from the mouth, with her tail drooping limply behind her, dragging in the dirt.  But she didn’t appear stabbed or otherwise hurt, which was a good thing.

Logan attempted to sit up, sending a deep and terrible pain knifing through his body, and there was a pressure shift in his head that almost made him pass out.  Of course, considering the awful, acidic black fire that seemed to be radiating from his gut, passing out sounded like a really good idea.

Hel must have noticed, because she put a hand on his arm, and said, “Don’t.” Pausing, she looked him over, noticing his injuries. “Are you - you’re not healing, are you?”

“It’s this time bubble thing.  I’ll be okay,” he lied, putting an arm over
his deepest wound.  Blood continued to leak out of it at a startling pace, and he was glad his jeans were already black from the water, so the blood didn’t show.  Of course, it didn’t matter, did it?  She was a demon and she could smell it.

She was giving him a dubious look, suggesting she knew he was full of shit, but she didn’t know what else to say, so she didn’t.  All she did was put her hand over his, as if trying to help hold the blood in.  “Your ex really delivered,” she said, clearly changing the subject.  “But she sure
is a drama queen, isn’t she?”

“Jean’s not an ex … exactly.  I’m not sure what she is.  But, yeah, she’s got the drama queen thing going on.”  Man, he didn’t feel good.  He was starting to feel very cold, save for that ember that continued to smolder in his gut, and tired;  this was a weird time and place for a nap, but it sounded tempting.  Yet even he knew how bad that would be, and tried to brace himself for getting up - or at least kneeling - but Helga held him down.

When he scowled at her, she shook her head. “Let the vampires do it, tiger.  They live to kill; it’s their raison d’etre.  Sit this one out.”

Logan didn’t want to, but arguing with Helga was always a lost cause. Still, he was hard-pressed not to force himself to get over there and drive the last nail into Kali’s coffin.  She was screaming now, still in
the center of vampire scrum, and a few of the Vilkacis who could pull themselves together had now joined the fray, aware now that most of Kali’s powers had been neutralized, and if they wanted to kill her, there was no time like the present.

Oh shit - neutralize.  That’s what Kali had done to him, wasn’t it?  She might have punched through his stomach, but she had also punched through the Bob power he did have, and his own healing factor.  She
had turned it all off.

No wonder it felt like he was dying.  He was.