17

They returned to the Way Station, to get patched up and see if Logan had gotten in touch with them yet. As it turned out, he had called Lau, and Lau could give hospital quality stitches, as he was once a nurse. (Brendan didn’t laugh, but trying to imagine this huge, hulking man in a nurse’s uniform was just too funny.)

But he numbed him down with alcohol and a topical solution that smelled like hummus, and sewed up his bite wound. He said it looked bad, but he didn’t think there’d be any nerve damage. “You’re a Brachen anyways,” he said conversationally. “Your kind’s as tough as a chew toy.” He supposed that was a compliment.

Once he got back out to the bar, everyone was discussing the content of Logan’s curious message. The place was mostly empty - apparently the weirdness had spurred most demons on to various sprees - and Helga was perched on a stool behind the bar. Angel wore the sword in a sheath over his back, as the sheath was necessary to carry it safely. Who knew demon blood could be so toxic?

“He didn’t really tell us anything substantive,” Giles argued. He looked like he was trying very hard not to make too much contact with the bar. He had proclaimed it “grotty”, and was apparently disappointed that the Way Station looked so much like an average Human place.

Angel shook his head, his jaw set in a stubborn manner. “He told us a lot. We’re not dealing with Brezakaran, which makes sense.”

“He didn’t say that. He said he had a feeling we weren’t. Are you willing to bet your life on a hunch?”

“One of his? Yes,” Angel replied defiantly. “Logan’s often had nothing to go one but his hunches, and I’ve never known them to be wrong. You can’t think of him as a normal Human, Giles, because he’s not.”

Giles looked dubious, but glanced down at the small leather bound book resting on the bar before him. It was something called the “Imperium Codex”, and supposedly had something on the Erebus sliver, but Brendan didn’t even recognize the language it was written in. Giles winced slightly as the jukebox kicked into the Dead Kennedys’ “California Uber Alles”.

There was a noise in the back, and he figured it was Lau coming out, but Helga snapped, “Where the hell have you been? I expected you a half hour ago.”

“Things-”

“- are -”

“- weird out -”

“- there,” the Sisters’ claimed, slinking around to the other end of the bar.

Angel groaned loudly, resting his head in his hands. “Why did you call them?” he asked.

“Hello -”

“- Daddy,” they said brightly, with stereo grins. Angel’s shoulders seemed to slump inside his jacket, like the words were a physical blow.

Giles studied them for a long moment. Maybe it was their wardrobe, which was notable for how loud it was. They wore dusters of copper leather (or maybe vinyl), black Doc Martens, green suede pants, and blood red t-shirts. They’d gotten their hair cut since he’d last seen them; it was now shoulder length, probably because it was easier to keep out of their faces. Actually, he wished they still had it hiding their faces, because there faces were so creepily blank.

After a moment, Giles asked, “Are you … the Sisters?”

“Yes,” they replied happily, baring all their teeth in smiles more frightening than anything this side of a shark.

“You know about them?” Brendan asked him. Yes, it seemed like an idiotic question, but he wanted to know how much he knew. Some of the Sisters might be a surprise to him.

Giles paused, glancing between all of them as he spoke. “I read about the Weird Sisters in the diary of a Watcher named Ivan Davidovitch. He said that separately, they were innocent girls with the faces of angels, and together, a thing of unstoppable evil, a twin beast that operated as a single entity. He disappeared shortly after that entry, and was never found.” He fixed his gaze on the odd eyed twins. “Did you kill him?”

They tilted their heads the exact same way, and their smiles never wavered. Creepy. “We -”

“-don’t -”

“-know, there’s -”

“- so many -”

“- men named Ivan -”

“ - in Russia. And -”

“- we object to being -”

“- called a beast, and -”

“- innocent.”

Giles seemed unimpressed by their performance, and turned a harsh glare on Angel. “I didn’t know there was a connection to Angelus until I was forced to research him. In retrospect, it made sense.”

“They are not my fault,” he claimed desperately, pointing in their direction.

“You certainly knew how to pick them, didn’t you?” Giles replied acidly.

“Wow guys, get a room,” Helga said sarcastically. “Ain’t this all beside the point?”

“Yes, I agree,” Giles said, a little too quickly. “Why aren’t we staking them?”

“You -”

“- can -”

“- try,” the Sisters replied with an eerie cheerfulness.

“They’re here because you need back up,” Helga said, in a tone of voice that made Giles sit back a bit. Her eyes had narrowed, and her tail flicked in a way that suggested she was about to hit someone. “When you need quick muscle, they’re the go team. And secondly, they’re not totally evil anymore.”

Giles scoffed at that. “Oh really? Why on Earth wouldn’t they be?”

“We-”

“-love-”

“-Bob,” the girls crowed, in a way that could have been sarcastic if Brendan didn’t know they were being honest.

Giles frowned, dubious and yet not exactly disbelieving. “This is that Maximum Bob again, yes?”

Helga nodded. “He’s very lovable, in spite of being a jackass.”

“He’s -”

“-dreamy,” the Sisters added.

“Would you please just stop?” Angel snapped, shooting them a hard look. “God.”

This actually seemed to amuse the Sisters. Angel’s distress was apparently high hilarity to them. “He’s -”

“- all -”

“- the god-”

“- we need.”

“That’s enough,” Angel demanded. “I mean it.”

The Sisters smiled even wider, looking like psychotic twin Cheshire cats. “Jealous?” They replied in unison.

Before Angel could toss his glass of pig’s blood, Helga gave him a look that he knew meant ‘Get in here, kid’. He almost didn’t want to - it was kind of funny to see the group spiraling out of control due to the unsettling presence of the Weirds, but he knew it wouldn’t be good. The point was they were a team, right? And they had a major problem. “Umm, hate to interrupt, but how are we gonna find Logan?”

That seemed to gain their attention. Giles had thrown a spell when they first arrived, the one he used to locate Logan in Los Felis, but it hadn’t worked. This suggested that he was either being shielded by magic, or back in that pocket universe. whatever that meant. Giles and Angel shared a glance that wasn’t hostile, which was nice, but it wasn’t very optimistic either. “I could try scrying once more,” Giles offered half-heartedly.

Angel sighed. “I can think of a few people I can beat answers out of.”

“That’s gonna take time,” Helga pointed out. “Do we know how much time we have?”

That was a question that made Giles scowl in an unpleasant way. “No, we don’t. I can’t imagine it’s very long at this rate.”

"The problem is, you're thinking of a mystical solution to the problem, which this guy is obviously trying to block," Helga told them. "So maybe you need to go non-mystical on his ass. Find him in a different way."

Now there was a thought. But Angel asked the obvious question. "And how do we do that?"

"Creepy bald guy."

That earned her many strange looks, but after a moment - and after briefly wondering if she meant that guy on Sunset who seemed to talk to his shoes - Brendan suddenly realized who she meant.

Oh well, at least he might finally be of some use.

*****

Angel found himself stuck trying to explain the concept of Cerebro to Giles while Brendan made the call. It was far harder than he ever imagined, mainly because he really hadn't paid that much attention. He took the inexplicable so totally for granted that he hadn't asked about it.

Wesley knew this. Wesley had actually been inside it, which he told him about later on. He was apparently amazed by it, in awe of the design. Just thinking about it made his gut clench in a painful way.

He remembered how chuffed Wes was after he got the invitation to join the X-Men, the first non-mutant to be asked. He was pretty much insufferable for a week. But Wes had so few solid triumphs in his life, that was okay. He deserved it.

And just think - if he pushed him to take it, made him take it, fired him, something, he might be alive today. He probably would have been a good teacher.

Angel shoved the thoughts away, because he couldn't think about that right now. He could mope and brood over dead friends later - right now, he had to make sure Logan didn't join that list.

Brendan had to chat with Scott a bit first, reminding Angel that Logan had said that Scott saw Brendan as a prized student, someone with leadership potential. Certainly Brendan had taken the initiative on the whole vampire hunting thing. If he could just keep his rash and stupid decisions under control, he probably would be a very good fighter someday. He just needed to stay alive until then. He wondered if he could get Logan to talk the kid into going back to the school.

But how unlikely was that? Logan made it clear that he thought Brendan made the wrong decision, but also that it was Brendan's decision to make. At the end of the day, Logan was all about freedom of choice, and considering what had happened to him, that was easy to understand. Logan had his own choice taken away from him a long time ago.

Brendan finally got to Xavier, and told him the bare boned version of the story - they were looking for a bad guy, and Logan had gotten close to him, but now they couldn't find him. Could Xavier? He seemed to agree to help, and they waited while he used Cerebro.

"So it amplifies his natural telepathy?" Giles asked Brendan, while he waited on hold.

Brendan nodded. "From what I understand, yeah. And the Professor's uber-powerful as it is, so that's how he can reach around the entire globe."

"Sounds fascinating." Which would normally just be a polite thing to say, but he actually meant it. He wondered what shade of queasy Giles would turn if he told him he and Wes had that in common.

Xavier came back, and Brendan talked to him for a moment before hanging up. Normally he would have had him write down any location, but this was Brendan, the kid who could remember everything - writing things down was for people with normal brains.

"A couple of things," Brendan told them, as soon as he hung up. "Logan's in Santa Monica, and while the Prof couldn't say if he was in trouble or not - he doesn't like to go too deep into Logan's mind for obvious reasons - he did say he was angry. I mean, bloody fucking scare the crap out of Xavier angry. He doesn't think that's a good sign."

"Isn't he always angry?" Giles replied, with some sarcasm.

"He's -"

"- always -"

"- hurt; he's -"

"- periodically angry," the Sisters replied.

Wow, was that insight? The Sisters were capable of such things from time to time. He guessed they really did like Logan too. Lucky him.

"Also, the Professor said he's not alone," Brendan continued.

Angel didn't understand that, and from the look Giles gave him, he didn't either. "Of course he isn't alone. He's with our bad guy."

Brendan shook his head tersely. "No, I mean, he's with another mutant."

The fact that the jukebox decided to cut out then was portentously ironic. Angel wondered if Bob had the world's only empathic jukebox, then got back to the topic at hand. "Wait a minute - the guy we thought was Brezakaran is really a mutant?"

Brendan shrugged. "Xavier said there was something strange about him, a kind of fog over his mind - magic? - but he pushed as hard as he could and got some things. His name in Ross Charlton, and his mutation seems purely physical and low level. Webbed fingers and toes seems to be the extent of it, as far as he can tell. Nothing that would be a hindrance to Logan if something else wasn't interfering."

"Charlton?" Helga repeated suspiciously. "As in Charlton Towers?"

It took Angel a moment, but he recognized the name. "Those condos on the west side?"

She nodded, her tail continuing to twitch rhythmically behind her. "One and the same. He's a fucking rich bitch, heir to his daddy's fortune. Who knew he was into black magic?"

"Me," Angel admitted sourly. "Well, not Ross; him I didn't know about. But Howard Charlton, his father, was one of Wolfram and Hart's big clients."

Helga sighed heavily, tapping her fingers on the bar impatiently before making herself stop. "Think they're back too?"

A good question, and if he was going to be completely honest, he would have told her they had probably never left at all, just relocated. But he didn't feel like being completely honest right now. "Maybe. This whole thing with the Erebus sliver sounds like something they would do."

Giles frowned in thought, the wheels in his head clearly turning as he puzzled all of this out. "So the man claiming to be Brezakaran - to the best of our knowledge - is really a black magic wielding mutant who may be aligned with Wolfram and Hart?"

"That seems to be the size of it," Brendan admitted, and he sounded rather depressed about it.

"No -"

"- Wolfram -"

"- and Hart -"

"- aren't this -"

"- sloppy. Ross is -"

" - freelancing," the Sisters averred.

That was a good point. There was a certain randomness to all these events that seemed to point towards hasty planning at the very least, or absolutely none at worst. What was the scenario here? Charlton got a hold of the sliver, and was now trying to exploit it, but to what end? All he'd been able to do was kill a lot of people, and drop in alternate universe demons at random. And where did the demon bodyguards come into all of this?

He came out of his thoughts to find Giles staring at him expectantly. "Is that plausible?"

He didn’t trust the Sisters? No, why would he, especially if he only knew of them through Watcher’s diaries or stories of Angelus. He hadn’t even met Bob yet; he didn’t know how wildly persuasive he was, how he could alter reality with a word, that he was more than just an old Belial demon. Angel considered it - it was the Sisters after all, and he couldn’t trust them completely - and nodded. “Wolfram and Hart are much more focused than this. They have their shit together, if you’ll excuse the colloquialism.”

“But you destroyed ‘em, man,” Brendan interjected. “Maybe they’re scrambling.”

He wished he hadn’t brought that up. He scrubbed a hand nervously through his hair, wondering how he was going to admit he’d really done no such thing, when Helga (of all people) came to his rescue. “I think I misspoke. They were - are - pan dimensional evil overlords. Those kinds never go away, they just relocate.”

Naomi, who had been quietly sipping a soft drink at the opposite end of the bar, finally said, “I have no idea who they are. Does it matter?”

“No,” Angel assured her. “If they were in on this, we’d be totally screwed.”

But in a way, they remained screwed. They were still missing pieces to the puzzle, even though most had fallen into place. There were still huge gaps, though, and in a situation like this, the unknown could kill you. The unknown could bite your head off and leave you twitching at the bottom of a sewer.

Several moments went by, with no sounds but the sipping of drinks and the flipping of pages, when finally it was broken by Giles saying a sudden, quiet, “Ah.”

Coming from Giles, that was the equivalent of a shout. It was like the first thing that Watchers learned was to underplay everything, to react in opposition to the information or the feelings they actually had. It wouldn’t actually surprise him if that were true. “What is it?”

“He’ll probably have to use the ritual of Keres to open the stone and remove the sliver.”

Helga groaned, taking a quick slug from the can of Australian beer she’d been nursing before continuing. “This is some kinda fucking liturgical dancing, ritual bloodletting sort of crap, isn’t it?”

“There’s no dancing.”

“Lucky us.”

Angel tried to look over Giles’s shoulder at the codex, but the handwriting was small and crabbed, as well as faded by age. If he stared at it long enough, he knew he’d induce a headache. “What will this ritual entail?”

“A large source of water, a broken evocation circle, and … yes, this is why he needed the demons: a sacrifice to Ker.”

“Ker?” Brendan repeated. “Lemme guess - a big ugly demon thing?”

“In a sense. More a big ugly demon spirit, who traditionally dwells in a Hell dimension, and metes out punishment to those it feels deserves it.”

“And there’s no one who doesn’t deserve it,” Angel guessed.

Giles nodded. “We’re all guilty of something.”

According to Giles, water was considered a more “flexible” and less flammable place than earth, so while the evocation circle would have to be done on land, they would have to try and evoke the spirit over water. Once there, it would undoubtedly kill everything between it and the invokers, but as soon as the requisite blood infused with Ker’s energy was shed and poured on the stone, the circle would be broken and the spirit repelled. By then, the splinter should emerge, and a vortex would open. What would happen after that was unclear; it would depend on what kind of magiks Charlton was using, and what his ultimate goal was. If he couldn’t control the splinter - the most likely scenario - it would simply tear reality apart, in this and several other dimensions. The damage would be unfathomable, but the good news would be none of them would be alive to worry about it.

What they had to do was stop him before he revealed the splinter, and better yet, before he called up a Ker (there were technically several of them, but he only needed one). But there was a terrible irony in the fact that they’d probably encounter the demon army that was, in fact, a blood offering to Ker, and a vital part of opening the Erebus stone.

“Do we know how big his army is?” Helga wondered.

It was Brendan who had the closest thing to an answer. “No, but Thrak said he had to have at least a couple dozen of ‘em now.”

“And Logan’s in them.” Helga grimaced at that, in a way that suggested she really didn’t want him to be there. So she had Bob and Logan as lovers? Was Logan aware of the plural relationships Stansin’s usually had? If she went out and made it official - in a Stansin sense - he and Bob would technically be spouses. That would be both funny and unbelievably frightening.

“He’s-”

“- angry,” the Sisters said, and for a moment it seemed like a non-sequitur. But then Angel understood what they were getting at.

“Oh, yeah. He might not be in it.”

Brendan looked at him funny, in a way that only a teenager could manage. It was the ocular version of a sneer. “Xavier said he was there.”

“Yes, but something’s wrong. Have you ever known Logan to be truly pissed off that he has to fight?”

That flipped the switch. Brendan sat back, knowledge lightening his expression. “Oh, right, I get it. He’s angry ‘cause he’s being kept out, most likely.”

“I still don’t get the whole thing about the fights,” Naomi interjected. “If he just needed sacrifices, couldn’t he have used just about anybody?”

Giles took that one. “He needs some of Ker’s energy to open the stone. And since Ker can kill just about everything with little effort, he’d need the best of the best to even attempt to hurt it before they’re killed. Which they will be, easily.”

“But that’s why you’d assume he’d want Logan in on it,” Helga argued. “He could do a lot of damage to Ker before she killed him.”

Yes, he could. Out of all the people Charlton had recruited, Logan would have the best shot at killing it, assuming he hadn’t recruited a Beezle. Then Logan would be tied, or best shot number two. So why keep him out? Was Charlton that convinced his fighters could hurt Ker? Or was something else going on?

“Perhaps, in spite of his performance in the pit, Charlton decided he was too Human to be of any use,” Giles suggested, but the way he grimaced suggested it felt as lame to him as it did to all of them. This was another missing piece of the puzzle.

Giles stretched, and slammed the book shut. “Do you know where there’s a good magic shop around here?”

Helga snickered. “”I know where to get everything.”

“Good. I need to make a stop and pick up some supplies before we reach Santa Monica.”

They didn’t exactly have a plan, but they really didn’t have time for much of one. Besides, the old one was probably the best: hit everything that threatened them, and keep hitting them until they stayed down.

Sometimes the old ways were still the best.

18

So this is what it felt like to be a zombie.

Whatever spell that this asshole had thrown on him got stronger, and his inability to move got worse and worse, to the point where he eventually lost his ability to speak. Still, when he gestured, Logan found himself getting to his feet and following him as obediently as a dog. He felt totally disconnected from his own body; his mind raged rather pointlessly as his body obeyed alien whims.

The man was rich - he had a limo come around to pick him up, and the driver called him “Mr. Charlton”, so at least he had a name for this fuckwit now. The driver didn’t even glance at him, as if he was used to strange people moving robotically around his employer.

Once in the car, Charlton told him he why he was controlling him so savagely. “I’d like to think if I asked you to stay out of it you would, but come on. I saw you in action, and you don’t seem the type to sit something out, even if I do tell you that all of them are going to die. I mean, they’re filthy demons, aren’t they? Who cares? But you’re a fellow mutant, and I do admit that I would feel some guilt if I let you get sacrificed. Besides, I can see you as being valuable to me once things are over. You’ll thank me later, trust me.”

What he was thinking was: ‘I’m going to rip your lungs out through your navel, you arrogant little prick.’ While he couldn’t say it, it was building up in his head, and he was soon angry enough that he could see red creeping into his peripheral vision. He thought if he didn’t vent some rage soon, his skull would split open from the pressure.

The limo took them out to the waterfront, and he guessed it to be Santa Monica, or thereabouts. Before them was what looked like an abandoned boardwalk, the buildings too decrepit to look like anything more than ruins, or perhaps a post-apocalyptic movie set. The sky was a strange color, a sort of eggplant, as the snow clouds had retreated here, revealing a sky like a contusion. It was eerie, and left everything in a half-light, as there was no sun visible. The water was slightly choppy for no obvious reason, a blanket of grey spotted by caps of white foam.

As they walked along the warped, worn boards, Logan could see a group of large, muscular demons, including the Ressik who won the first pit fight the night he “auditioned”. They stood around looking confused but slightly belligerent, ready to fight on a cue. Obviously they hadn’t been given a script, and didn’t know what was expected of them. They didn’t know they were going to die.

This was another situation where he wished he had telepathy. He could have flashed these guys a message that they were screwed, and there was enough of them to easily overwhelm Charlton. Would they bust him out of the spell? Well, maybe if they ripped the dickhead’s fucking head off.

With a wave of his hand, Charlton sent Logan walking over to the rest of the fighter demons, some whom snarled at him, and others who took a step or two away. No, he wasn’t beloved by them, but they weren’t going to make a move against him. How did they see Charlton? It must have been however Brezakaran appeared, because they seemed afraid of him, even though all of them towered over him, and two and a half Charltons would equal one of them.

There was a group of four people clad in black robes that had what appeared to be gold embroidery on them. Most of the symbols were foreign to him, but some looked like runes. They had burned what looked like a semi-circle farther down the boardwalk, and Logan caught a scent of blood and charred bones, both very much Human. Were these more employees, or did Charlton have himself a little cult? It wouldn’t surprise him at this point.

A really weird looking demon appeared. It looked like a giant bipedal toad, all head and no neck, with huge eyes, mottled skin, and a mouth wide enough to swallow a watermelon sideways. It was lugging a heavy, rectangular metal case, which it set down with a thud some twenty feet away from him. Logan really wished he could turn his head, but all he could do was watch out of the corner of his eye as Charlton and his little group started up a chant in Egyptian Arabic, sprinkling about something that smelled pungent, like burned rubber and fermented bile.

Charlton started to back away from the group as the dockside began to tremble beneath their feet, and he gestured, making Logan move again. He’d tried to stop himself, to regain control over himself in some small part, but it was no use. This spell he had on him seemed air tight; it was more powerful than demon possession. It made him wonder how strong a magician/wizard/ whatever the fuck he was.

Charlton simply pointed, and Logan found himself picking up the metal case. It was much heavier than it looked, and -

- there were simply no words for the pain. It felt like his skin was detaching from his muscles, ripping away from his skeleton fiber by fiber, twisting and tearing under extreme pressure that just wouldn’t stop. He wanted to drop it, but he couldn’t, as he wasn’t the one in control.

This was it, wasn’t? The thing Giles was looking for - the Erebus stone. Even shielded by a lead box, the thing was so powerful it was trying to tear him apart. If he could just move, he would pop his claws and see if the thing was impervious to adamantium, or just toss it in the water, which would probably be just a minor setback, but would still buy them some time. Still, it was all a moot point. He wasn’t moving until Charlton let him.

The wind was starting to pick up, the water churning violently as it slapped against the pier, and he thought he saw something forming in the air just above the water, about fifteen feet away and up from his little group of chanters. It was like a black mote, a small wound in the sky that was starting to grow bigger with each passing moment, and Logan just had a terrible feeling about this. Was he letting something out?

“Fighters to me,” Charlton shouted over the roar of the wind. “Something might come through. Kill it if it does.”

Was that the trap? He knew something was coming through, and he knew these guys couldn’t kill it. But what was the point in that?

Suddenly, the big toad demon went flying into the water, spinning head over ass as he hit it with the force of a rocket.

Charlton and the fighters all looked, but Logan was left seeing it out of the corner of his eye.

“Is -”

“-this -”

“- a private -”

“- party, or -”

“- can anybody play?” The Sisters asked, grinning maniacally, which was all the more disturbing since they were already in vamp face.