7

He came to on a rack. A genuine medieval rack, where he was stretched out horizontally, his wrists chained over his head and his ankles shackled to the bottom of the rack. For some reason, it struck him as really funny, and he tried hard not to laugh. He tested the chains, but they were heavy iron and probably could hold a battleship in place. Nice. He was also stripped to the waist, which was pretty much a given in a situation like this.

He couldn’t make out any of the details of the room - it was totally cloaked in shadow, in a way that was physically impossible since he could see in about a six foot radius around the rack. He assumed it was a dungeon, but so cheesy that even Reignet couldn’t fully commit to it. “I hope you don’t think having a soul is going to save you,” he said, his voice like a creaking door.

“Heaven forbid. Don’t let sense clutter up a good revenge scenario.”

He appeared like a wraith beside the rack. To say he looked gaunt was actually an understatement - he looked skeletal, like a mummy that had been haphazardly reanimated. His skin was leathery and looked unnaturally tight over his bones, and he was as thin as a skeleton hanging in an anatomy class. He had a cloud of white hair and eyes as blue-white as Arctic ice and just as cold. With his starvation narrow face and sharp features, his face looked like a blade that could be slipped between your ribs. He wore a black overcoat about a hundred years out of date over a white shirt almost two hundred years out of date, and black pants that looked fairly recent. Altogether, he looked like a spooky undertaker.

Reignet produced a little silver knife, a stiletto with a jeweled handle shaped like a cross, and he let the point rest in the center of his chest. “Still insolent, I see.” He pressed down on the knife, breaking his skin. “Do you know why I brought you here, Angelus? Because I want to kill you in pieces.”

“Why the Kalivrana then?”

He shrugged a single bony shoulder. It was like watching bones shift in a sack. “He was only meant to flush you out. When he failed to do so immediately, I moved on to plan B.”

“He know about that? He might be pissed.”

Reignet started to drag the knife up his breastbone, towards his throat, moving as slowly as possible. “I care not what that creature thinks of me. He may prey on your corrupt kind, but he is no better.”

“Corrupt? A black magic slingin’ warlock calls me corrupt?” He scoffed. “Yeah, whatever Sauron.”

A troubled look passed over Reignet’s face as he touched his fingertips to his bare chest. “Why is your skin warm?”

As if on cue, the knife slice in his chest healed up as neatly as if time had just reversed itself, and Reignet’s icy cold gaze snapped onto his face like lasers. “You’re not Angelus.”

“Course I am. Who else would I be? Tom Cruise?"

He withdrew the knife and held his hand flat two feet over his chest, as if pressing on some invisible armor. Logan could actually feel when Reignet used his power to find the false layer of appearance that Bob had managed to cloak him in. It wasn’t a simple one but a pretty complex, multi-layered one that Bob was pretty sure would fool someone not looking for it. Of course the second he knew to look for it this whole thing was done, but Logan figured he’d lasted longer than he thought. He was too flippant for Angel anyways. Angelus no, but that was probably who Reignet was expecting anyways.

"Who is powerful enough to do this?" Reignet asked, seemingly both shocked and completely pissed off at the same time.

"You think you're the king warlock? Bub, this is Los Angeles - there's about a thousand other guys waiting in the wings to replace you." He couldn't tell him it was Bob, could he? You didn't give away the god trump card this early in the game.

He twisted his wrists in the shackles in a rather painful manner, and popped his claws, which sliced through the chains like they were made of butter. They just didn't make restraints like they used to.

Although horrified, Reignet managed to shatter Bob's illusion and jump back as Logan sat up and sliced through the chains holding his ankles. "What are you?" Reignet demanded.

"What? Hey, that's uncalled for, Frenchie." He jumped off the rack, but his feet had barely touched the cold stone floor when a violent force suddenly slammed him back into the stone walls at what would have been bone shattering force had he had bones you could actually shatter. But since he didn't, all he felt was the pressure, and taste a bit of blood in the back of his throat as some of his organs pulped.

"What trick is this?" Reignet growled, his eyes glowing a faint, somewhat troubling red. "Where is Angel?"

Logan grinned at him, although it was a kind of a snarl. Either would do. "Not here."

The pressure increased as Reignet twisted his hand. It didn't matter that he was twelve feet away - it was like he was reaching into his chest and twisting his kidneys with his bare hand. Logan felt blood bubble out his mouth and sluice down his chin, but he was still fighting the urge to laugh. Was this the best he had? Really? The Organization could teach him a thing or two about torture. "What the fuck are you? And why aren't you screaming?"

He grinned at him, showing bloody teeth, wanting only to see the doubt in his eyes. Fear would be a bonus. "I'm Weapon X, motherfucker. And I don't scream - I make other people scream."

The pain exploded through Logan's midsection, a bright, hot supernova that ended in darkness and oblivion.

For several seconds. Perhaps a minute.

He didn't realize any of this until he came to on the floor, his face swimming in a puddle of blood that must have come from him, although he had little knowledge of it. So what had Reignet done to him? Aneurysm? Stroke? Stopped his heart? Not that it mattered, he just kind of wanted to know for future reference. "That all you got?" he muttered, shoving himself up to his knees.

Reignet wheeled around to look at him, the horror naked on his sepulchral face. "What foul creature are you?! I made your heart explode!"

Was that it? He had to give him props for an excessively gory move there. A snippet of a song, courtesy of Bob, floated through his mind, and almost made him laugh again: "She left me for dead, but death didn't want no sloppy seconds."

"What am I? I'm an avatar, Reignet, and you're pissing off a god. Wanna know what happens when he gets tired of the game?"

His eyes widened in horror. "You can't be a -" But he fell silent, as he must have assumed that was the only way he could keep healing from these injuries. "Why are you here?"

That was the only question he really wanted answered now, as it was the only one he could use. "Angel has powerful friends. This is the only warning you're gonna get. Leave now, and go back into hiding. Otherwise, you're a dead man."

Now when you were on a god's shit list that was really the only smart thing to do, although a god could hunt you down wherever you went if they really wanted to. But Reignet was arrogant and probably only living for revenge at this point - nothing else mattered at all. He had abandoned his sense and sanity long ago, if he ever really had any at all. "Angel's not the only one with powerful friends," he growled, his eyes flaring red.

There was no transition at all. One second they were in this dungeon pocket universe, and in the next Logan found himself on the street back in L.A., just down from the Way Station, kneeling in the demon corpses he had left behind. The funny thing was, that was almost kind of fun. Also, scary, as just blanking out his mind and fighting an overwhelming horde ... felt almost familiar. It was like he'd done it before, even though he couldn't place a specific memory. Oh sure, he'd fought demons in big groups before, but it wasn't like that. It was ... he wasn't sure. It just pointed to more gaps in his memory and something he really didn't want to know about himself. The blood stained swords were still here, but Logan made no move to pick them up.

"Come out, you coward!" Reignet roared. He was standing in the middle of the empty street, screaming up at the solid black sky. "Stop hiding!"

"Now that hurts," Angel said, sauntering out of a shadowy doorway.

Reignet made a gesture with his hand and red-orange energy shot out at Angel with the speed of a lightning bolt. But he raised his own hand and a blue-white shield seemed to flare to life, dissipating the energy like it was nothing.

"Oh, come on," Angel chided, his voice and his appearance slowly bleeding into Willow, who was the Angel decoy this time. "Is that all you got? I heard you were a big bad warlock."

Ammy appeared across the street, behind Reignet, and threw a spell that looked like a ball of white energy. It slammed into his back like a boulder and sent him sprawling face down on the asphalt.

"You okay Logan?" Bren asked, coming up behind him. Giles had contacted a couple of the others, as you could never have enough fighters. Especially one in particular.

He nodded, spitting out some old blood before he stood up. “Same old shit. They’re always disappointed when the torture doesn’t stick.”

Reignet jumped back to his feet with an angry snarl, shouting out a spell that caused bile green energy to erupt from his hands and slam into the doorway where Willow had been just a second before. It splintered wood and reduced the jamb to shrapnel, but she was now standing on the edge of the roof, looking down at him. Ammy had also moved, but Logan couldn’t see her from this vantage point. “Yoo hoo,” Willow called. “Up here. God you’re slow. Is it past your bedtime, old man?”

He raised his hands up towards the sky and shouted something unintelligible, making Bren step in front of Logan and raise his mirror shield like he could repel something with it. (Could he? He thought it was just glass.) He was wearing it on his arm like a centurion - all Bren needed was a sword to complete the effect. Then again, he didn’t know of any centurions wearing jeans and a Kids In The Hall t-shirt.

Energy poured from Reignet, a red cascade that made the black sky swirl with magic, and Logan saw that the few demons on the street, attracted seemingly by the dead bodies, froze in place. Logan made sure he could still move, in spite of the sense of thickened air around him, and asked, “Kid, how’d you do that?”

Bren just looked startled, and seemed afraid to lower the shield. “I have no fucking idea.”

They weren’t the only ones still moving. Willow was shaking her head. “A time freeze? I’d have gone with a repel spell myself. Kind of like this.” She said some unintelligible words, echoed by Ammy - who was now on the roof of a building on the other side of the street - and they both cast a spell that shined over the street like a star for one brief second, then collapsed in on itself. The air was no longer thick and the demons were moving again, although they looked so freaked out many of them took off running.

Reignet let out a growl of frustration and lashed out with spells that swirled around the street like a tornado, but both Ammy and Willow were already gone. This was the hit and run battle technique deemed to be most effective - it would piss him off, and getting angry would get him sloppy.

“Why are you protecting him?!” Reignet demanded, trying to look everywhere up and down the street at once. “He’s a killer!”

Logan motioned for their secret weapon to come out of hiding, and she shot him a nervous glance. He just pointed at Reignet and mouthed, “It’s okay. Go.”

The basic problem in physically engaging a warlock in a fight, especially one as powerful as Reignet, was he could kill you with a spell. Logan knew he could lop body parts off, but Reignet could kill him, and he’d need a minute or two to recover, and there’d no longer be any element of surprise in his attacks since Reignet would know what to expect. What they needed was someone who he’d have no idea how to fight, as impervious to permanent damage as he was. That was not really as hard a thing to find as they originally thought.

Willow had thrown a cloaking spell on her so Reignet wouldn’t see her crossing the street, although he seemed to sense her and turned just as she reached him. But all that did was allow her to touch his face, and he made a strange croaking noise as his eyes turned red and black veins started snaking across his face.

Logan was really unsure of this when Bob first mentioned it. Rogue taking the powers of a demon sponsored warlock? That just sounded like trouble.

But Bob assured him that Rogue wouldn’t get the magical ability or the soul debt to the demon lord - those were things you learned and earned, not something you could “borrow”, But what she would have was his immortality: there was no way in hell that Reignet could kill her, no matter what he threw at her. And if he got any physical enhancements out of the demon deal - strength, for example - she’d get those too. Still, it was Logan who had to talk her into it over the phone. She wasn’t sure she could fight him, mainly because no one was sure if this guy was super strong or not, but Logan assured her that she’d absorbed him enough times that she knew how to fight, strength or not. Which sounded arrogant in retrospect, but he hadn’t meant it that way. Fighting was just what he was good at, that’s all, even when he had his mind totally scrambled, and he assumed that Rogue had at least some memory of that.

Although he was having the life ripped out of him, Reignet somehow managed to break Rogue’s grip and stumble back, nearly falling on his ass. “What the hell ..?”

“Is that where you’re getting your powers from?” Rogue asked. Her eyes now had a bit of a red tinge to them. “That’d explain a lot.” She then punched him in the face and kicked him in the chest, finally putting him down on his ass.

“Super strength?” Bren wondered.

“I’m gonna say yes,” Logan said.

Reignet countered with a spell that blew Rogue clear across the street, where she collided with a streetlight before smashing through the window of a thrift shop. The streetlight toppled like a tree in her wake.

“Holy shit,” Bren exclaimed, raising his shield once more. “Are we sure she can’t be hurt?”

That was the problem. He was taking Bob’s word for this, and he had no real idea of how Reignet’s devil’s bargain worked. If Bob was lying to him, he was so gonna kick his ass.

Reignet had already turned his attention back to where he last saw Willow, but there was a noise of shifting rubble, and Rogue came climbing out of the broken shop window, rolling her head as she unkinked her neck. “I hope you have insurance,” she told him. Her clothes, which were just a tight long sleeved green top and khaki pants, were torn here and there, but she looked otherwise fine. Her eyes were still glowing faintly red.

Reignet’s jaw dropped like it had just become unhinged. “You should be dead. Are you like him, the other one? Who are you?”

“I’m you, dumb ass,” she said, picking up the broken streetlight and smashing him with it, sending him slamming back into a parked car. “What are you, a fucking moron?”

Willow showed up beside them, just winking into existence next to them. Bren jumped and almost - but not quite - yelped. “Your friend is tough. Should I be surprised?”

Logan shrugged. “She’s an X-Man. No.”

“She’s cute too.”

“She’s straight,” Bren told her.

Willow, still smiling, just shrugged. “Nobody’s perfect.” She then disappeared, reappearing down the street as she and Ammy double teamed Reignet with another spell after he’d walloped Rogue again. Not that it did any good - she was already back on her feet, and after they hit him with the spells, Rogue kicked the warlock in the groin.

After wincing - Logan almost felt bad for this luckless son of a bitch - he asked Bren, “So where’s the boyfriend?”

“When we were leaving the apartment, we saw a bunch of vampires besieging another complex. Kier told me to go on ahead and he’d take care of them and catch up with me as soon as he could.” Logan nodded, and Bren paused briefly. “You know, I’m beginning to think all you Canadian boys live to be noble.”

“Naw, we just don’t know any better. Exposure to moose poop makes you loopy.”

Bren actually tittered, which was unusual in a semi-apocalyptic scenario like this, but come to think of it, not really. They’d all been involved in so damn many you pretty much had to laugh at all of them.

Logan decided to use his one good trick now. Giles had emerged from beneath the protective glamour of the Way Station to lob a Molotov cocktail right at Reignet (he’d considered a fire spell, but decided he’d be more surprised by a physical attack), and as Reignet turned with an angry roar to face him, back still on fire, Giles disappeared back beneath the glamour, and Rogue clocked the warlock with a bumper she ripped off the parked car. (That poor bastard who owned that Honda - Logan hoped he had insurance.) As Reignet’s fire pretty much burned out, he threw another pointless spell on Rogue that sent her teleporting away. He was so busy doing that that he didn’t hear Logan running up to him, but he heard the noise as he popped his claws and turned, eyes blazing red, just in time for Logan to take his neck out with a single wide slash. Reignet’s head flew across the street and rolled into the gutter, his body falling to its knees, as Ammy blinked into existence with Rogue. “Bastard teleported me to Memphis,” Rogue said sourly.

“Tennessee or Egypt?” Logan wondered.

“There’s a Memphis in Egypt?” Rogue asked. He hoped that was a joke.

As they stood there watching, Reignet’s head in the gutter winked out of existence, and reappeared reattached to his neck.

“We are so fucked,” Ammy cursed.

Where the hell was Bob? They could only annoy this guy for so long, and then he was going to go postal on the entire city.

Could a warlock go postal? Damn it, that was gonna bug him for the rest of the day - or the rest of his life, whichever came first.

****

Bob had no idea where the energy thread would take him. He had prepared himself for many hellish landscapes, from the traditional fire and lava to the stark ice and snow, to the more esoteric hells, such as the ones that were nothing but moving darkness, or an endless sea full of mysterious but unseen creatures. To be honest, he was kind of hoping he’d end up in a more abstract one, such as the one that was nothing but endless rooms in a hospital, or the one where the ground beneath your feet was actually semi-soft cheese and you were hunted by giant anthropomorphic spoons, but no, no such luck.

He materialized in a bland office, with white walls, beige carpets, and florescent lighting, and a rather vast honeycomb of cubicles filled with Ikea style desks and chairs. It was clean and inoffensive and overwhelmingly hellish and depressing. It was also very familiar.

Shit. Here he was, all geared up for a fight with a big bad god, and it turns out his enemy is a friend. This was exactly the type of irony he hated.