4

Kaya Sagawa was just looking over her newly installed carpet when her twelve o’clock arrived, right on time for once. She had Jeff send him on in, even though she was still moving the chairs back into position. “You’re gay,” she said as he came in. “What do you think of this color?”

Kier glared at her with open contempt as he shut the door behind him. “What a welcome. Why didn’t you just say “Redecorate my office, fag”?”

“Now, come on - I’m evil, not insensitive. What do you think?”

The pretty boy vampire sighed heavily and looked at the floor in a rather gloomy manner. The carpet was an admittedly odd kind of deep reddish purple, almost a post mortem lividity color, which is what attracted her to it in the first place. It almost seemed to say “Prepare to die”, and that was exactly the kind of message she wanted to send. After a moment, he said, “This is like a combination of eggplant and a cheap whore’s nail polish.”

“Is that a compliment?”

He faked a sigh. “Well, you won’t be able to see bloodstains in it.”

“See, was that so hard?” She took a seat behind her desk, and said, “Speaking of whores, how are you?”

He fixed her with a hard stare, and made an obscene hand gesture at her as he reluctantly took his seat. “Jeeze, you guys think so highly of me. I wonder why I have reservations.”

“Now, don’t be that way. We’ve all been impressed by your ability to integrate into Angel’s little creep gang. Hollywood missed a major asset when you got turned. So, I know the shutting down of the Hellmouth went well.”

He shrugged uncomfortably. “I guess. Logan lost an eye, but Bob gave it back to him. Xander got his soul stolen somehow, and now everyone’s looking for it, although I’m not sure why - the guy was kinda annoying. But I’m worried about Bob.”

“Why? He can take care of himself.”

“No, not like that. He’s gotta know what I am, who I’m working for - he knows everything, right? - but he doesn’t say anything. He never pulls the trigger. Why doesn’t he? It’s starting to bug the shit out of me.”

“That’s probably why he doesn’t : it bugs the shit out of you. Bob is nothing if not predictably irritating.”

Kier scratched his face nervously, or perhaps his smattering of chic stubble was getting to him. He was wearing black jeans and boots, a shabby chic retro logo t-shirt, and a black leather jacket that was probably brand new even though it looked “vintage”. Kier was quite a find for the company, and a timely one. Most vamps who worked bite clubs had some screwed up idea of morality or safety - they somehow thought they wouldn’t be Slayer or demon hunter bait if they were providing a “service” and weren’t actually killing someone - but Kier was desperate to improve his lot in unlife, and he liked the idea of becoming notorious. Also he thought Bren was cute, so seducing him would not present any physical or philosophical problems. “Look, they don’t trust me, I know it. All Bob needs to do is give them a reason, and I’m dust.”

“You weren’t sent to deliberately sabotage them, Kier, just to spy. Bob knows that, and that in itself is relatively harmless. We could spy on them in a dozen different ways; he probably feels this is the least invasive way.”

Kier stared at her with his movie star blue eyes. Yes, he would have been a fabulous actor. “You planned this around Bob knowing about it?”

She shrugged a single shoulder. An undignified gesture but an apt one. “We had to. He’s been around them a lot lately.”

Kier didn’t look pleased. “You couldn’t have warned me?”

“How would that have helped?”

“I would have known not to be shitting bricks over it!” He was so angry it looked like he considered getting out of his chair, but reconsidered it on the strength of her glare. “I ain’t exactly used to dealing with gods, you know.”

She scoffed. “You really shouldn’t think of Bob that way. He’s a fallen god, one who was so pathetic his fellow divines kicked him down to the minor leagues. He may seem overly powerful, but you have to keep in mind that if he were a decent god, he’d be much worse. Speaking of which, do you know where Bob planned to look for Xander’s soul?”

Kier seemed peeved at the topic switch judging from the way his eyes narrowed, but after a moment he shrugged, and offered, “He was going to bother some gods. He mentioned Hecate, but no one else by name. Why?”

“It’s always amusing to hear who Bob’s pissing off this week. If he didn’t have friends in high places, he’d have been a cosmic smear a long time ago.” Which was still something they hoped would happen, even though someone had a crazy theory that the fall of the Powers predicted in the Scroll of Amethus would be precipitated by Bob, but she doubted it. After all, hadn’t he tried to overthrow them before? And look how well that worked. Bob was an asshole, but he wasn’t generally stupid.

Unlike poor Kier here. Okay, maybe he wasn’t stupid so much as a bit naïve. After all, did he really think they’d tell him their entire plan when he was around Bob so often?

Poor kid. Sometimes she almost felt sorry for him.

****

Scott entered the mansion, and wondered where everyone was.

It was eerie when it was empty, and the only time he could remember it being perfectly empty was when the Professor first brought him back here. Oh, Jean was here, but at the time she was away; it was just the two of them for the first three days. Just rambling around this big old house like ghosts waiting for new tenants.

There was a strange feeling when a building was empty; you could sense the emptiness, feel the nothingness around you, and it always made your skin crawl just a little. He almost said hello, but then didn’t, because he had a sudden, inexplicable fear: what if someone answered him?

But the farther he went down the hall, the more he realized he heard … something. He wasn’t as alone as he initially thought. Was there noise coming from Logan’s room? It sounded like voices … a t.v., a radio?

He was just down from it, maybe a door and a half away, when Logan’s door opened, and he stopped dead in his tracks. It wasn’t Logan that came out of his room but Jean, wearing nothing but a purple silk robe he’d never seen before. As she shut the door behind her he caught a glimpse of someone sprawled on the bed. It was Logan, wasn’t it?

He felt a cold, numb shock down to his toes, and he wasn’t sure where to begin. She was alive? She was cheating on him with … him? It was too much to grasp at once, and he just stood there, paralyzed by indecision.

It was Jean who spoke first. “Yes, that was always your problem, wasn’t it? You always hesitated. I hated that, you know. Just for once I wanted you to act on impulse, without pondering the consequences or considering all the angles.” She tied the robe’s sash tight around her waist. Her long red hair was messy, falling around her face in a careless drape, and her lips looked swollen, almost bruised. There was a look in her eye he had never seen before - it was hard, almost cruel, a look so sharp he could almost feel its edges. “It was boring, Scott. With a capital B. At least Logan isn‘t boring. He‘s a man, a real man - what‘re you?”

His heart pounded against his ribcage, seemed to echo in his ears, and he had the sudden, panicked thought that Logan was supposed to be in Los Angeles.

Wait a minute - wasn’t he still in Los Angeles? When did he get back?

Jean scowled at him. “Now that’s not fair, is it? Pay attention to me, freak boy.”

Scott took a step back, and while he was deeply confused, he was quietly relieved. “You’re not Jean.” He turned, but when he did, two huge doors that had never existed before slammed shut in his face.

“And you’re not going anywhere,” she said, her voice almost in his ear.

He spun around, expecting to collide with her, but it didn’t happen. She was close to him, but not as close as she had sounded. He considered using his powers against her, but that’s all he could do - consider. They were gone. “Who are you? What’s the meaning of this?” Was it someone in his head? Or something else? Scott was pretty sure he knew the feeling of telepathy, and he wasn’t sensing that right now, but a subtle telepath could elude him.

Jean - the imposter Jean - gave him a wicked little smile, curved up like a scythe. “Does there have to be a meaning to everything? I mean, if I just wanted to rip your heart out, why not have a little fun doing it? Like so.” She punched her fist through his chest, he could feel the rock hard solidity of her fist as it tore through the wall of his flesh and muscle and bone, and it seemed impossible. He kept telling himself it wasn’t real, it wasn’t happening, even as he felt something inside him tear, and she yanked her fist out, holding up a bloody organ for him to see. His heart? That wasn’t possible.

“It’s possible if I say it’s possible,” she snarled. She squeezed the organ and blood burst out of it like a balloon filled with colored water. It splattered on the walls and even him, dripping down his face in warm, viscous trails. She tossed the heart aside like a crumpled can. “There. Shouldn’t you be dying now?”

He wanted to tell her that simply wasn’t possible; it was an illusion - a powerful one, yes - but just that, and it couldn’t hurt him. But he couldn’t open his mouth to form the words, and he felt a curiously hollow coldness inside of him, a weakness that diffused through his body like cream in coffee. He could feel it drifting down, pulling him along with it.

Even as he hit the floor, he kept telling himself this wasn’t possible. So he wasn’t completely sure why he felt like he was dying.

*****

Now admittedly he didn’t know any of these new people, and first impressions - especially under circumstances like these - could always be a bit off. But Doyle didn’t get why Angel would work with a guy like Logan.

A “superhero” huh? How many superheroes had the Triad after them? How many were blasé about a hit squad coming after him? Now Doyle knew he wasn’t exactly a squeaky clean representative of humanity either, but this seem to be stretching credulity to the breaking point. And he was an avatar? Seriously? It was hard to believe. Doyle figured if he ever got Bob’s power, the world would officially end about twenty minutes later.

And where the hell was he supposed to find a “piece of wood” in a loft apartment? Okay, it was a lot nicer than his last apartment, but there wasn’t a bit of scrap wood to be found. Doyle had left Xander’s apartment temporarily to scope out the apartment complex itself, but he found no scrap wood anywhere. This sucked. So what else could he use to block the window? A sheet would do it, but it hardly offered any protection from someone breaking in. Then again, a board wasn’t so great for that either.

He was walking back to Xander’s apartment when he encountered a solidly built, tall women with bottle blonde hair cut so severely short it almost looked like a military buzz. She was wearing dark sunglasses and black pants and a navy blue blazer that almost looked like a one piece uniform. “Xander Harris?” she asked.

“Yeah?” he replied curiously. She had a pretty good body, but he couldn’t tell if she was attractive or not; she needed to take off the sunglasses.

“I was given a package to give to you,” she said, pulling a thick Manila envelope out from behind her back. Oh shit, was she a process server? Well, why did he care? The papers weren’t actually for him.

He approached her, holding out his hand for the envelope, but that’s when everything went wrong.

She grabbed his wrist and jabbed forward with the envelope, which was clearly covering something - a weapon? He didn’t want to hit a woman - that was always an unpleasant aspect of evil fighting - but he yanked his arm free before she could stab him and grabbed her arm, shoving her hard into the wall and running past her …

… straight into the flattened palm of a man built like a refrigerator. It hit him square between the eyes, just missing his nose, but the blow was hard enough to send him falling on his ass. He shook his head as stars exploded in front of his eyes, trying to clear his vision. Before he could get back to his feet, he smelled the woman’s perfume behind him, and felt a sudden, sharp electric shock that ran down his spine and traveled through his body like a bolt of lightening.

Holy shit. He hadn’t even had Xander’s body a whole day, and already he’d gotten it damaged.

****

Gold took off his cell phone headset and tossed it across the room in disgust. He probably meant it to hit the far wall, but it fell short and bounced on the couch before coming to rest on the carpet. “Those bastards aren’t answering their pagers either! I am seriously pissed off. No one ignores my calls - especially so called clients of mine!”

Logan had wondered if this was all an act on his behalf, but as he watched the slender demon pace back and forth in his overly opulent “lounge”, he was growing convinced that Gold’s upset was genuine. It helped that he seemed to be twitching, and his scent had changed, becoming a bit like kelp mixed with fresh spearmint (his kind of demon must have had some plant in his background - nothing seemed out of line for demons). He was also scowling so violently his always pointy chin suddenly seemed sharp enough to cut. “Why would they ignore your calls?”

Gold pivoted swiftly on his heels and faced him with a volcanic glare that made him really look demonic. “Because they’re stupid fucking assholes who will never work in this town again!”

Wasn’t that dramatic? And yet Logan was sure he meant it. He finished off the exotic beer that Carlotta had been nice enough to bring him, savoring its clean taste, before asking, “You know where they live though, right?”

“Of course I do. Where would I send the checks when they actually get work?” He ran a hand through his golden, almost fiber optic hair, and sighed heavily. “Let me throw something on, then we’ll go down there. If they’re not there, I know a couple places where they might be.”

“We?”

“You think you’re the only one who wants to kick their ass? Besides, I want to see them turn inside out when I rip up their contract in front of them.”

“That’s figurative, right?”

Gold’s look was so cold he felt almost frostbitten. “No.”

That was probably a good reason why you shouldn’t sign up with a demon agent.

Gold didn’t take long to get dressed, although he still managed to come down looking like a few thousand dollars, wearing a short sleeved shirt that was the color of toasted almonds and looked like it was made of chamois, while his pants were loose, cool dark blue linen that seemed expertly fitted. They probably were. Logan realized he probably looked like his bodyguard or something, which was a disturbing thought.

Although he was sure that Gold’s anger was genuine, he wasn’t completely convinced that this wasn’t some kind of set up. But he couldn’t help it - Logan was curious to see who was setting him up and why. Gold might be an effective hostage if things came down again, but since he’d been put in harm’s way by whoever was doing this, it’s possible he was simply cannon fodder and would be nothing but a burden. Still, after seeing Gold’s hissy fit, he bet the demon could bring something to the table … even if it was just the home number of the president of Paramount Studios.

Gold’s driver had the day off, so Logan convinced him they should just use Thrak as their driver, and with a limit of options, Gold reluctantly went along with it. He regretted it within two minutes, but over the screeching tires and honking of other cars, Thrak couldn’t hear Gold screaming.

The Vrenick Brothers lived near Topanga, on a small patch of land hundreds of yards out from their nearest neighbors, and blocked from view by an eight foot high wooden fence. When he got Gold to stop screaming at Thrak’s driving - he took to covering his eyes with his hands and cringing in the corner of the back seat - Gold told him there were five brothers, although only two were actually related (Vlad and Hud; Gold claimed those were their real names, although Vrenick wasn’t). They mostly did “gunfire related” pyrotechnics and stunts, but even before the beating incident they weren’t in major demand. Gold admitted he was thinking of dropping them, but hadn’t as a favor to Vlad and Hud’s dad. Gold didn’t mention who that was.

There was a front gate that was clearly locked, and Thrak gargled at them. Logan didn’t get it, but Gold understood what language it was - or at least faked it - because he said, “Oh, just ram the fucking thing.”

Thrak didn’t ask twice, he simply stamped on the gas and sent the car crashing through the fence before they could adequately brace themselves, throwing them against their seat belts as he easily broke the gates. From the sound of it, his cab also got a little damage itself, but not as bad as the fence.

Thrak came to a spinning halt on the front lawn, slamming on the brakes suddenly and sending the back end of the car slewing around, chewing up grass and dirt in the process, and throwing them up against the car doors. The cab rocked on its shocks for a moment, and Gold stared at him, his eyes as wide as saucers. “Is he a stunt driver?”

Logan figured he was, but not professionally; just an amateur, random stunt driver. Gold tried to keep his dignity as much as he could, but he was so desperate to get out of the cab he almost fell out the back door, and Logan really couldn’t blame him. He was glad he hadn’t eaten this morning, as he was pretty sure he’d be close to barfing it all up. Having Thrak drive you around was a bit like being inside a paint shaker.

Once he got out of the car, Logan knew they were too late. He could smell it on the air, beneath the exhaust and turned up earth, and Gold must have noticed he was sniffing, because he said rather anxiously, “What?”

“I know why they didn’t answer your phone calls. “ Logan walked up to the front porch and shoved the door open, as it was not only unlocked but a bit ajar. He winced as the smell of blood and death hit him like a fist, and he heard Gold gasp as he came up behind him and looked over his shoulder at the Vrenick’s living room.

Black, swampy blood was splattered everywhere, painting the walls a murky, sewer treatment color. Part of a Frenik’s head was on the coffee table, while half an arm was balanced precariously on a tipped over chair, and some random guts were scattered about the carpet like clots of discarded meat dragged out of a garbage can by a hungry dog.

Gold made a noise like he was trying to keep his gorge from rising and turned away before asking, in a strangled voice, “Who could have done this?”

Although the identity of the culprits was still up in the air, Logan thought he knew the answer to the question: whoever hired them in the first place. Now that was going to be the real puzzler.