She had carved herself a little niche in Osiris's library "universe", so she could rest and be somewhere relatively safe, but there was something suffocating about the setting that even she could not change. Time didn't so much as stand still in Osiris's world than it simply didn't exist - it was a concept that belonged to another space entirely.

She let the barricade dissolve - the supposed "door" between his world and hers - and stormed out into the massive, endless library, where the names of the dead from all possible universes, all possible worlds, kept filling the shelves, making them accordion and expand out into infinity. When he made the perverse and counterintuitive assertion that there were more dead than there had ever been living, she didn't see how that could possibly be, but now she was being to think that somehow, in some way, he was right.

"Osiris," she yelled, finding him easily, in spite of all the shelves, in spite of the miles of distance.

He was standing over the book on his pedestal, the "special" book, the one that recorded the deaths of gods, demi-gods, and quasi-divine beings. That book didn't fill up as fast as all the others. "Yes?" He didn't bother to even turn around and face her.

"Something's gone wrong. Bob isn't going to die."

There was a pause that - also counterintuitively - seemed amused. "You just figured that out?"

"We need to fix it."

"I'm working on it," he assured her with a small wave of his hand, like he was dismissing her. "The avatar has got to go first."

Jean knew that, and on the one hand, she welcomed it - that traitorous bastard could actually be complicit in killing her? She always knew Logan was cold blooded. But on the other hand ... it was him.

She flung out a thought like a spear, and Osiris gasped as if it hit, stumbling away from his podium and hitting a near by shelf. Books tumbled to the floor, and living vines hurriedly extended themselves to pick them up. "I told you I didn't want him hurt!" Red started creeping in at the corners of her vision, and she had no idea if it was his doing or hers.

Osiris glared at her with his large, golden hawk eyes, mouth agape like she had gone mad. "He is his avatar! He has to be taken out if this is going to work!"

"But it doesn't work! I've seen what happens!"

His eyes narrowed ever so slightly, and his misshapened mouth quirked up at one corner, a self-satisfied smirk. "So, you've seen one outcome, have you? I've seen several - and Bob manages to kill you in most. In four, you kill him first, but in only two do you not manage to die yourself. And ultimately the Powers That Be catch up to you, and you're not strong enough to fight them all. You can't quite win, not in the game you're playing. You'll have to come up with a new game, and make sure it doesn‘t involve pissing off the Powers. Really, them and Eris are the ones you want to actively avoid."

She sneered at him, mentally tightening her grip on his throat. No matter that he didn't need to breathe, or that, as an elemental, it wouldn't matter if she actually hurt him or not. It just felt good to hurt him. "Logan isn't supposed to die. That's the deal."

"Let me explain it to you. He. Has. To. Die. He is his avatar; if Bob dies before he does, Bob will jump to his avatar's body, like Camaxtli jumped to yours. And considering their symbiotic relationship, that's no good."

"Symbiotic?"

Osiris sighed and shook his head as much as he could, as if disappointed in a very slow student. "Look, you used to be a mutant, yes? So is your hairy, bad tempered friend down there. And for some reason, this sometimes meshes well with god power. Camaxtli's powers were enhanced by your own. Conversely, Bob's powers are enhanced by his. You don't honestly believe it was an accident that caused him to be Bob's avatar, now do you?"

Bob's words popped into her mind: ‘I picked him for a reason.’ "How could Logan's mutation enhance Bob's power? Logan has a physical power, and Bob's an energy being. It doesn't make sense."

"Oh, but it does. He has to live in a physical shell. And while it's hard to hurt his shell enough to kill him, theoretically it can be done."

‘You can teach old dogs new tricks. Even gods.’ So Bob somehow learns the power of intense physical regeneration from Logan's mutation? Or does he just square his mutation, combining his powers with it, so Bob could never quite die - so he (and consequently Logan, if he chose him as a shell) could be reborn, given enough time, from a single limb, or perhaps even a drop of blood? Crazy, ludicrous, insane ... but, with gods, possible.

“I don’t want Logan to die because of Bob. If any of those realities are true anyways, you fuck it up.”

Osiris sneered right back at her, almost laughing. His plants had straightened out all the books behind him, and retreated to wherever it was they went. “I’m not the one doing anything, my dear, and have you considered that maybe that outside forces fuck you up? A lot of people don’t like Bob, but he does have several powerful allies, as well as an impressive pedigree. Bob’s a lot of things, but stupid isn’t one of them. He picked your meat friend for a purpose, and he might have powerful protections on him.”

“How powerful?”

Osiris cocked his head in a bird like fashion as he considered the possibilities, making him look even less humanoid than before. “There was a recent shift in the Powers, you know. They lost track of their champion. Until they get a new one, Logan might fill the protected slot, simply because of his ties to the Bob.”

She tried to follow the logic, but there was an obvious gap. “Why would these Powers throw protection on Logan due to Bob? That makes no sense.”

He chuckled dryly. “You have no idea about Bob’s pedigree, do you?”

She glared at him, ready to tighten her mental grip on him, but it slackened with a horrible realization. “Are you saying Bob’s one of these Powers?”

“He’s of them, yes. But don’t let them catch you thinking it - they have a strict “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy about Bob. You could call him the mongrel child they’ve locked in the basement.”

“But Kali -”

“Could kill him, ‘cause they honestly could give a fuck about Bob. But the avatar … ah, that might be a different story. As I said, the champion seat is currently vacant, and he’s already been “touched” - so to speak. Until they find their old champion - or a more deserving candidate - it’s possible he’s being considered, which means he’s probably protected.”

“I thought Kali could kill Powers.”

“Individually, yes. As a group? No. If they decided to turn their powers on her en masse, she’d be erased from the fabric of time itself. You too. So don’t fuck with them.”

She completely released Osiris with a frustrated sigh, and he stumbled slightly, banging his bookshelf with his shoulder and causing a couple of books to edge out. The vines quickly appeared to correct the damage. “So you can’t kill Logan, but that means we can’t kill Bob either, is that what you’re saying? So why the fuck are we bothering with this?”

He stood up and attempted to straighten his collar, which was funny, because she was sure his painted on vinyl suit was actually a part of him, an outgrowth of his body. He also tried to assume a dignity he simply didn‘t have to begin with. “First of all, I had no idea about any of this “champion” vacancy happening right now - I mean, come on. How pompous do you have to be to have a so called “champion” anyways? You’re just screwing around with the meat. And second of all, we can still get rid of Bob.”

She crossed her arms over her chest, wondering what line of bullshit he was going to feed her now. “How?”

“Simply remove your meat friend, Logan, as Bob’s avatar.”

“You mean kill him.”

“No - unmake him Bob’s avatar.”

She wasn’t sure if she should be indignant or enraged, so she settled for annoyed. “What the hell are you talking about it? Unmake him?”

He shook his head again, and returned to his pedestal, although he was careful to keep her in his limited peripheral vision. “An avatar can be usurped by another god, if the god is more powerful than the previous one. Think of it as a chess game, capturing knights and pawns.”

She had a vague memory of Camaxtli’s death, since she got some of his memories (fragmented though they were) along with his power. And she could remember Logan, playing for time or playing for her, offering himself as Camaxtli’s avatar, in her place. He must have known about that loophole. Or was it just a happy coincidence?

A terrible pang of conscience came with that memory. To offer his life in place of hers … if he was lying, Camaxtli would have known; Logan’s mind was an open book to him. And he was terrified of being used again, mentally captive and enslaved to something else, but he meant it. Gods bless that frustrating, troublesome man, he meant it - he would have died for her. (And some part of Jean, some ugly knew part, thought he was a tremendous fool. And that’s probably why the Powers were looking him over, because they liked easily emotionally manipulated fools and puppets. Did she think she was special? Logan probably would have died for anyone; there was a big segment of his unconscious that wanted terribly and desperately to die, to be done, but he was the only one who didn’t seem to know that. Coward; self-pitying idiot.)

She swallowed back the conflicting feelings of affection and hate, and asked, “What god is stronger than Bob, and in need of an avatar?”

“That’s a very good question.” He looked back over his shoulder, and he gave her a leering, gloating grin. “Let’s find out, shall we?”

It was all she could do not to mentally reach out and throttle him again. Perhaps this was a partnership of necessity, but she didn’t trust this ghoul as far as she could fling him.

So perhaps it was time to discover who Osiris’s enemies were.

12

It took him a moment, but less time than usual to realize he was not dreaming.

He was standing on a fringe of soft blue grass, like moss, watching as a woman painted something on a courtyard, whose floor looked like a stained glass mosaic of random patterns: bursts of red and yellow like flowers, green like foliage, blue like shards of sky. She was sitting cross-legged in the center, on a rare clear patch, hunched over it and tracing figures with a slender brush. He could smell the oil paints from here.

Her hair was a glossy black, as shiny as a midnight ocean, and she was wearing what looked like a loose burgundy silk top and black yoga pants. But just from her silky hair and her slender, pale neck, he knew who it was. “Yasha?” He asked, stepping out into the courtyard. It was comfortably warm under his feet, and not at all slippery.

She glanced up, brushing her hair behind her ear so she could see him better. “Hello Logan.” She gave him a faint smile, but enough of one that he felt his heart skip a beat. This was the real her, not some bizarre dream world version that used Stryker as a party favor - this was the real, quasi - existing Yasha.

As he approached, he looked carefully at what she was working on: a painting of three intertwined dragons, like he saw on the box containing the anodyne in Tetsuo’s apartment. But before he could ask, the light clicked on in his head - holy fuck, was it that simple? “Three dragons,” he said, crouching beside the painting. He pointed at one dragon head each as he said, “The Triad, the Yakuza, and … a demon mob, whoever’s trying to force anodyne into the market. Yes?”

She gave him a small, tight smile, her limpid dark eyes bright. He couldn’t believe he’d almost forgotten how beautiful she was. “That’s them, all right. But the two heads that think they have the most control are wrong; they’re subservient to the third, playing their song.”

“The demon mob.”

She nodded. “They don’t even know they’re being used. But then, they wouldn’t, would they? They probably don’t realize they’re dealing with demons.”

“Fujimori was just the tip of the iceberg.”

“Indeed. The loudest and the boldest. They probably would have killed him if we hadn’t, just because he was attracting so much attention to them.”

“Do you have any idea what the purpose of anodyne is?”

“Except to raise some scratch? No, I don’t. You’re going to have find it out, I’m afraid.”

He nodded in agreement, and sat on the courtyard, folding his legs up in a mock lotus position. Out of simple desire, he reached out and touched her arm, eager to simply feel her skin again. It was almost warm, like she’d just fed. “How are things in … does this place have a name?”

“Not that I know of. And it’s fine; it’s always fine. Kind of dull, really. I do miss busting heads.”

“It’s too bad you can’t come back. We could use you right now.”

“I know, I’ve heard.” Her hand slipped into his, and she gave it a gentle squeeze. “That’s kinda why I wanted to talk to you.”

“Oh?” He had a bad feeling about this.

“You’re gonna go after the gods that hurt Bob, aren‘t you?”

“Well,” he sighed. “We’re gonna try. Think Ammit would be willing to help?”

“She’s attempting to help behind the scenes. She really has no desire to return to the Earth plane. Besides, it might spark a fight between her and the rest of the Ogdoad.”

He almost asked why, but decided not to, as it was probably more soap operatic god shit, and honestly, he’d had enough of that. “How is she helping behind the scenes?”

“She’s trying to track down who let Kali loose.”

“Kali?” He realized, with a sudden shock of sick horror, “Kali, the Hindu goddess? Kali of the black tongue? I thought the ex who attacked Bob was named Kaliratri or something.”

“One of her complete names is Kalaratri, “black night”. She is pretty nasty, from what I understand. She started out with good intentions, but once she fought Shiva to the death and absorbed his power, it all went downhill.”

Wow. Things actually could get worse, even in a scenario like this. “She killed Shiva, the world destroyer?”

“Apparently. Now she is, by default, Shiva; or in other words, the Destroyer.”

Logan rubbed his eyes with his free hand, aware he probably couldn’t get a headache wherever the hell they were, but it still felt like it. “So, let me guess - she’s probably worse than Kumiho?”

“I never met her, but I would guess.”

“Shit. We barely survived that one, and we had Bob to take the brunt of the damage. We’re so screwed.”

She squeezed his hand a little tighter, gaining his attention. “You have more weapons than you realize.”

He stared into her ebony eyes, wondering exactly what she meant. “How so?”

“Bob didn’t leave you defenseless. You know he left you some power - use it.”

“Use it how? I ain’t a power slinger. I can only use it if a telepath attacks me.”

“There must be some other way you can use it. There must be some kind of trigger. Think about it. There’s also something else: many demons would love to hurt a god, given a chance, and given some way of actually having a slight edge on it.”

“That bit I do know. But why the fuck would demons help me? Y’know how many I’ve killed?”

She gave him a slightly stern look, like he was being deliberately obtuse. But her look softened as she reached up and brushed her fingertips along the side of his throat. “You have my mark.” He knew that was where she had bit him, when he offered her his blood. Of course the scars had long healed, but he knew vampires somehow seemed to know when you had been bit, whether you had the marks or not. And as she stroked his skin, he recalled that wonderful sense of oblivion, the almost erotic warmth of … well, dying. It was dying, wasn’t it? Of his blood pouring out of him and into her, the sense of falling into darkness, into the welcoming torpor of null and void. It was awful that a near death experience was a happy memory, wasn’t it? “And you could get another one of my marks, as further evidence.”

“You gonna bite me again?”

“Hardly, although it is a nice thought. Go to my home, get my dotanuki, samurai. It has my mark on it - you’ll know it when you see it. Use my name while it is still remembered.”

A dotanuki was a heavy sword favored by feudal Japanese warlords; its name literally translated to “sword that cuts through torsos”, as it was meant to slice through its target with a single blow. They were sharp, and if done well, incredibly beautiful. Well, for swords. They were a lost art, as they weren’t made much anymore, save for “reproductions”. “I will. Thank you.”

And then he was overcome with terrible guilt, as he remembered that he had given her his life, putting his very existence in her hands, and she had spared him - for whatever reason, she hadn’t drank all of his blood, and she had saved him from being lost forever in that endless sleep. Had he actually thought, for a second, that she could have betrayed him? Either the guilt showed on his face, or this was a mental plane where being telepathic was irrelevant, because her hand moved up to cup the side of his face, palm scraping against the stubble. She moved her face towards his, close enough that their noses almost touched. “You just can’t trust easily, can you?” She said, giving him a tiny, sympathetic smile.

“No. I feel like an idiot for ever doubtin’ you.”

“As you should. But I understand, hon; trusting isn’t my strong suit either.” She kissed him on the tip of his nose. “But you ever think that way of me again, I will reach through your chest and show your heart to you before you die.”

He couldn’t help but smile. “Ouch. You give new definition to the term “bad ass”, don’t cha?”

“I try. We have to have to in this biz, huh?”

His only answer was to kiss her, the taste of her mouth much more than a vivid memory, her body still warm, as if her skin had been warmed by the sun. But it hadn’t, not really; she was just neither alive nor dead, nor in some strange alternate state. She was a being trapped in another dimension, where corporeality could be considered both optional and tenuous. He didn’t know how he was here, but he suspected Ammit must have had something to do with it. But the why of it bothered him - was it because she knew Bob was struck down? Or was there more to it than that?

He pulled back enough to look into her eyes, and asked, “Mei Li, are you giving up?”

The use of her real name, her pre-vampiric name, always had an impact on her. He had a feeling he was the only living person - not a Watcher - who knew it. He saw the weariness in her eyes, muscles working beneath the porcelain skin of her delicate jaw, before she admitted, “I’m going to make sure you get through this. But then, yes, I may call it an existence. I can only take so much of this supposed paradise. It’s the worst time possible to discover you actually prefer chaos.”

He shrugged, torn between wanting to beg her not to, and sympathizing completely with her position. She had undoubtedly lasted longer than he would have. “Maybe you don’t prefer it; maybe you’re just used to it.” He was aware of the irony in that statement - he may as well have been talking to himself.

“Maybe. Still, I think I’ve been around long enough. And, you know, sylphs can get really annoying really fast.”

“I bet.” He rested his forehead against hers, and after a moment of wonderful calm, he sighed, “I have to go, don’t I?”

“I think you ought to.” She moved a hand through his hair, letting it smooth down the back of his neck; it felt good. “But I can’t tell you how good it was seeing you again.”

“I think I know. I’ve missed you too.” He kissed her one more time, hoping it wasn’t the last (yet roughly certain it was), and then made himself stand up. He didn’t want to get booted out of this dimension - he had so little actual dignity left, he might as well hold on tightly to what he had. But she kept a hold of his hand, and they both seemed reluctant to let go. She was lonely, he knew it, just as he knew he was lonely too. “Why me?” He wondered.

He didn’t need to elaborate here; she knew what he meant. She rolled her shoulders in a half-hearted shrug. “You were the oddest man I had ever met. That made you interesting. The dead really don‘t feel, but sometimes, I thought maybe I did. At least you could irritate me enough to make me feel rage.” He smirked, intending to make a joke about how flattering that was, when she added, “I could have loved you, you know. Given time enough.”

That made something catch in his chest, constrict, and it took him a moment to find his voice. “I’m gonna have to ask ‘why’ again, y’know.”

“Go on, get out of here, you self-pitying bastard,” she ordered, but smiling patiently. He started to walk away, but only let her hand slip from his grasp when he absolutely had to. He looked back at her, giving her a melancholy smile that probably mirrored hers, and then -

- he woke up. There was almost no transition at all - he had been there, and now he was here.

Here alone, where a woman with a thick Australian accent was cursing up a blue streak in the front room. Oh good, Amaranth had arrived.

He slid out of bed and started rifling through Bob’s chest of drawers, leaving his towel behind on the bed. (Well, if Ammy stormed in here, she deserved to see his naked ass.) He couldn’t believe how many “Sausage Victim” and “Cockshutt Old Peculiar” shirts Bob had - this had to be a joke, right? He felt weird enough about putting on some other guy’s boxers, even if they were just Bob’s, and if they had shared a body before, what was underwear? (And all he had was silk, which was actually really nice.) Bob also had lots of leather pants (man, what was with this guy?!), but he found a pair of jeans he was able to slip on, as Ammy continued cursing up a storm in the living room. One of these days, he was going to find out exactly what “drongo” meant.

An exhaustive search for a decent, plain t-shirt turned up absolutely nothing, so he had to settle for a black t-shirt that was perhaps the lesser of the evils - it had “Mr. Bungle” written across the chest in small white letters, with “California” written underneath it in smaller red letters, and a tiny, angry red sun off to one side, with the white silhouettes of a couple and a palm tree within the orb. It was the least weird of all the shirts he found, so it won by default. Would it have killed Bob to own something bland and anonymous? Oh, come to think of it, yeah. This was the guy with the feather boa and the swagman’s hat with all the corks.

He walked out into the living room pulling the shirt on, as he caught a fragment of the current snit. “ - did this to him! I don’t care if we hafta bring down all the heaven dimensions, we’re gonna do this slag who -” Ammy broke off as soon as she saw him, and asked angrily, “Oi! What do you plan to do about this?!”

He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, and told her, “What you were sayin’. Storm heaven and bring it down. Can’t be that hard.”

Ammy looked like her usual self - punky, messy cobalt blue hair, that matched her eyes and lips, wearing a black sleeveless shirt with an artful, deliberate diagonal tear at the top of the chest, and olive drab surfer shorts that fell to her knees, and looked odd with her tan hiking boots. She also wore a pendant that looked like a tiny, azure colored crystal ball, and a silver charm bracelet full of alternating jade elephants and tiny porcelain skulls (assuming they weren’t real skulls). At least it was easy to see she got her fashion sense from her granddad. Or great-granddad, whatever he was.

Both she and Helga looked mildly surprised. “You’re serious?” Helga asked.

“I have a plan.”

Ammy rolled her eyes and threw up her hands, as if appealing to the sky. “Okay, we’re fucked.”

“Now, come on! I know Ganesha’s a friend of Bob’s, right? Do either of you know how to contact him?”

After exchanging wary glances, Helga said, “I could call him … but I don’t see how he could help, save for bending entropy around us.”

“The goddess who attacked him is Kali, right? Hindu origin? Maybe Ganesha has some idea what her weaknesses are. Also, if anyone knows where Bob’s god killing knife is, we’ll need that too. And I need a teleport to Vancouver and back. Think you can handle that, Ammy?”

“Don’t call me that,” she snapped, blue lips twisting up in a half sneer. “Why the fuck do you think we can do any of this?”

“’Cause Bob left me some of his powers, and I think we’re getting a little help from a higher source.”

“How much higher?” Helga wondered.

“Ammit.”

They exchanged questioning glances and shrugs, accepting that that was pretty good. No one asked him how he knew this, and for that he was glad. “Why do you need to go to Vancouver?” Hel asked, putting a hand on her hip.

“I need to get something to show I know Lady Blood.”

“And that’s important ‘cause ..?”

“I’m gonna raise an army of demons. No way are we taking on this bitch alone. We’re gonna throw everything at her that we can.”

Ammy glared at him, her cobalt eyes almost glowing with rage. “And how long do ya think a million demons would last against a god, huh?”

“If Bob’s taught me anything, it’s that there’s a counter-measure for everything. Ressiks and Freniks are immune to him. Some demons must be immune to Kali - it’s just a case of finding out what. And I‘m gonna apologize in advance, Amaranth, but we‘re gonna lean on you heavily. You‘re not just a witch, but of the blood, so if you can‘t call in the big guns, no one can.”

She huffed an impatient sigh through her nose, crossing her arms over her chest, making her charm bracelet jingle. “Damn it. I just knew you were gonna take advantage of me again.” But she didn’t sound that put out by it. “Fine, but no plan goes forward without my okay, got it?”

He nodded, figuring they could argue about it later. “Can I get a trip to B.C.?”

Her bright blue eyes narrowed in scrutiny. “You thinkin’ about the place you wanna go?”

“I am now.”

“You’ve got twenty minutes before the spell rebounds. Don’t be sittin’ down, or you’ll fall straight on your arse.” She then said something in old Latin - it sounded a lot like “go away” - and flicked her hand in his direction.

The teleportation was instantaneous. One second he was standing in Bob’s living room, with Hel and Ammy, and the next he was standing in Yasha’s living room, having hardly felt reality slip at all. Damn, she was good. He intended to head for her weapons cabinet, but he saw something out of the corner of his eye, and turned towards the front door.

Someone had slipped a note under the front door. Not just any old note, but one inside a marble patterned envelope, smelling ever so slightly of blood. Oh joy, what new - or old - problem was this? He almost didn’t want to see, but at this point, he had no choice. If someone was coming after Yasha, it was best he knew now, before they got the jump on him.