8

Bob rubbed his eyes, feeling them burn with toner exposure, and shouted, “Bal! We need to talk, now!” He threaded his way through the cubicles until Balor appeared near a glassed in office, holding a big pile of files with color coordinated tabs.

“Bob!” Balor the Celtic god of death exclaimed, sounding happy to see him. He wore a brown pin striped suit (eww), a white shirt and red tie, none of which coordinated with the silver duct tape holding his huge eye shut. Most of Balor’s slightly oversized face was taken up by that one big pumpkin sized eye, so his mouth and nose, squinched in at the bottom near his chin, looked both like afterthoughts and architectural mishaps. His eye was duct taped down because everything he looked at he killed - it wasn’t his fault, it was just what happened when you had a “death eye”. The Gorgons could surely sympathize. ”Great to see … uh, hear you. What brings you here?”

“You’re powering a warlock.”

“Am I?” He dumped the files on a nearby desk and scratched his head. “Well, it’s possible. I have a lot of contractors. I’m afraid I don’t keep track of them all.”

“Jean-Claude Reignet?”

He shook his head. “All Human names sound the same to me.”

Bob sighed, and wished this was easier. Admittedly he couldn’t kill a death god - death gods would just come back, as death didn’t exactly take its own agents; immunity to death was part of the package deal - but since Balor’s only defense was his death eye, he’d be easy to take. But this had all the earmarks of misunderstanding, not genuine malice. “This warlock has dimension inverted Los Angeles.”

“What?” He sounded genuinely shocked. “Well, that’s not good.”

“He’s also trying to kill an agent of the Powers. Now they don’t know that yet, but when they do …”

Bob didn’t need to finish that sentence - no one really wanted to piss off the Powers That Be, not even the other gods who hated them. As far as Bob knew, Balor was generally indifferent to the Powers in the way that most death gods were. What was there to worry about? To genuinely kill him would be so hard it was hardly worth anyone’s effort, and he rarely crossed paths with anyone other than other death gods. “Fuck damn shit,” Balor cursed colorfully, taking a seat by the nearest computer. Even though he technically couldn’t see, it didn’t seem to hamper his typing skills. “Can you spell this clown’s name for me?”

He did, then asked, “Can you void the contract?”

He snorted. “I’m Balor - I can void any damn contract I want. But you are gonna have to fill out some paperwork for my records.”

Bob groaned, rolling his eyes. “Can’t we just chalk this up as a favor between friends?”

Balor scowled evilly, which was pretty frightening. “Paperwork is the soul of order, Bob. We’ve discussed this.”

No, it was more like Balor harangued him with it, but okay - if he chose bureaucracy over death, who was he to quibble? Still, death probably would have been preferable.

****

Beheading Reignet barely kept him down for fifteen seconds.

Bren shouted at him to join him while Willow and Ammy hit the warlock with a spell so bright Logan could feel his retinas burning away. In fact, the afterimages were burned into his eyes so brightly he couldn’t see, but he already knew where Bren was, so it didn’t really matter. The kid met him part way, grabbing his arm and swinging him behind him, presumably raising his shield to protect them from the aftermath, whatever the hell that was going to be. It made him wonder if Rags ever knew about the protective effects of the shield, or if that was something special he rigged up for the kid.

His vision came back pretty quickly, although it felt slow to him. In the meantime he heard the exchange of spells, mostly in languages he’d never heard before, and it ended up sounding nastier than it appeared. The first thing he saw, his vision clearing, was Rogue smashing Reignet on the head with a car door. (The car itself was now gone. Presumably to a much better place.) He wasn’t completely out of it yet, though, as he picked up part of the broken streetlight and hit her, sending her sprawling to the street. Logan felt a sudden urge to attack the fuck, but he had to hold back, ‘cause right now Rogue was more indestructible than he was.

“Down in front!” A familiar voice said behind him, and he instinctively grabbed Bren and ducked, just in time for a double headed axe to go spinning over their heads. It landed with a decisive wet thunk in the back of Reignet’s head, cleaving it neatly in two. He staggered and dropped to his knees, but it looked like the seam of it was healing already.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Logan hissed, turning to face Angel. “We haven’t got this guy under control yet. If he sees you, he’ll kill you.”

Angel shrugged. “Better me than the whole city.”

Willow popped into existence right next to them. “Angel! What -”

“I’ve already asked,” Logan interrupted. “He’s being noble again.”

“Oh bugger,” she said, scowling. “Must you do that now?”

Angel looked between them in mild disbelief. He probably wasn’t used to friends from his old life and his new one ganging up on him. “He’s cut the city into pieces. The demons are having a field day hunting down the people …” Angel trailed off, and his eyes scudded over to Bren. “Oh, Kier wanted me to tell you he’s okay, he just has to get a couple of stragglers and then he’ll be here.”

Bren let out a small exhale in relief. “Good. He’s really okay?”

Angel snorted. “He’s the Ascendant, remember? The male Slayer prototype. From what I saw, the other vampires weren’t having much luck against him. Then again, for a vampire motorcycle gang, they really hadn’t gotten the fighting as one unit thing down.”

Willow said something quite rapidly and waved her hand at Angel, immediately changing his appearance, cloaking him in a glamour. “That’ll hold for now,” she warned him, “but don’t get too close. If he senses it, I don’t know if we’ll be able to -” Her head snapped around, back towards Reignet, who was casting a spell in a rather dolorous tone. “Holy shit, that’s a death spell.”

“What?” Logan asked. They all looked to Reignet, who, by hand motion, seemed to be aiming it at Rogue. The air between them seem to shimmer, and a beer can in the gutter behind Rogue actually crumpled up of its own accord and quickly rusted into nothing but a smudge.

But Rogue herself just shook her head and looked at the warlock with her pale red eyes. “That almost tickled.”

“Kick his ass, darlin’!” Logan shouted supportively.

“She took his power?” Angel asked.

It was Willow that answered. “Physically, yeah. A death spell won’t work on him, apparently. Good to know. Now stay out of trouble.” She then popped out of existence again.

“So who do I look like?” Angel asked, looking at his hands and either not seeing what they were seeing, or unsure of how to take it.

Logan really tried hard not to laugh. Willow had somehow made Angel look like a petite blonde girl in blue pants and a white cashmere sweater. In fact, didn’t she look familiar? Yeah - she was with Giles at Wesley’s funeral. What was her name again? Something kind of stupid; all he really remembered was she was supposed to be the Slayer.

“I honestly have no idea,” Bren said, and he seemed honest. But from the way he grimaced, he was also trying not to laugh.

Angel a/k/a tiny blonde girl, looked at them suspiciously. “She made me a woman, didn’t she?”

That made Bren laugh, and he turned away so he didn’t laugh directly in his boss’s face. The way Angel/girl frowned at him made Logan snicker and turn away so he didn’t lose it completely.

After knocking Rogue flying through a brick wall and sustaining another pyrotechnic assault from Willow and Ammy, Reignet finally got fed up. He began intoning a spell that actually hurt Logan’s ears, and he had no idea why. It was like the spell itself was made of sharp words, ones with edges and points, things that cut simply with sound. He wasn’t the only one cringing; Angel-ette was too, and so was Bren, who still managed to keep his shield up and was now muttering, “Holy Sisters, protect your humble servant …”

What looked like some kind of semi-transparent bubble started forming around Reignet, a coruscating membrane of energy that started to take on a slightly greenish cast. “What the fuck is that?” Logan asked, the pain in his ears subsiding and the sound becoming muffled. He wasn’t sure if Bren’s plea had actually done something or if his eardrums had popped and just started healing again.

“I think he’s sealing himself in a reality bubble,” Angel said. “I’ve heard about that spell, but I’ve never seen it done. It takes way too much energy.”

“What does that mean?” Logan asked, not looking forward to the answer.

Angel sighed as if punched in the stomach. “It means it’ll take a while for any magic to reach him, until Willow and Amaranth can break the bubble. That might take a while.”

“Rogue ..?”

Angel shook his head, making his blonde hair resettle itself around his shoulders. “Useless. She won’t be able to touch him either.”

“But he can still hurt us?”

“Hell yeah.”

Willow and Ammy were hitting him with spells that looked like flamethrowers, green and orange energy like fire spilling over the dome covering Reignet, but it didn’t seem to be hurting him or reaching him. But he said something and energy suddenly surged around him like an explosive shockwave, throwing Rogue, Ammy, and Willow down to the street. It came towards them, and Logan instinctively braced for impact …

… and it missed. No, it didn’t miss, it just bypassed them completely. That seemed to get Reignet’s attention.

“The Gorgons,” Angel muttered, filling him in. “Gods exist outside time and reality. A reality or time spell won’t effect them.”

Or theirs, Logan figured he wanted to say, but didn’t. That was implicit.

“Who do you work for, boy?” Reignet demanded.

“I am with the Gorgons,” Bren shouted back, doing an excellent job of hiding the fear in his voice (but Logan could still smell it). “Attack me and you attack them!”

Reignet glared at him with his dead but glowing crimson eyes, and maybe he noticed that Bren’s eyes were naturally red. He must have decided that the kid was telling the truth - and the guy and the little blonde girl behind him were irrelevant - as he turned away with an angry roar, throwing his hands up in the air. Suddenly the street started wavering like the asphalt was water, waves of pavement moving like breakers towards the shore, and while everything still standing on the street was thrown down in the turbulent motion, the buildings starting to crumble, they remained fairly stable and okay. “He bending reality again?” Logan guessed.

Angel nodded. “And as long as we’re behind Brendan, we’re unaffected.”

“Super. Kid, think you can stand here forever?”

Bren let out a breathless little laugh. “As long as I don’t pass out from fright or have a psychedelic freak out, sure.” Sweat was starting to trickle down the side of his face, like just holding that light shield was a tremendous effort, but Logan knew that wasn’t it.

Cracks started to show in the glamour around the Way Station - it was shifting from a condemned building to a strangely classy looking bar and back again - and Reignet noticed, as he started focusing his energy on tearing it down. The glamour was stripped away layer by layer, and even though Ammy and Willow had gone back to attacking him with magic, he remained oblivious to it. They had a long way to go before bursting that reality bubble, while the reality around them kept roiling even more violently. It was like the worst possible earthquake that California could ever have, which was saying something.

“I need to stop this,” Angel insisted, taking a step forward.

Logan grabbed his arm, and said, “Take another step and you’ll get a claw in the gut. Give Bob some more time.”

Angel didn’t bother to hide his evil look, but it seemed almost hilarious coming from the little blonde girl. “It could take hours, Logan. The city doesn’t have that much time.”

Sadly, that was a good point. He was starting to feel vaguely seasick watching reality surge up and down, the cityscape twisting around them like it was trying to break free. Oh, what he wouldn’t have given for a nice, straightforward mutant fight. Sure, maybe someone was throwing lightning bolts or cars at you, but at least you knew where you stood, and you didn’t have to worry about somebody ripping a whole city apart just to be a fucking brat.

Angel leaned forward, and shouted to Bren, “Can the Gorgons do anything here?”

Bren gave him a sidelong glance. “Like what?”

“This is your home - he’s tearing it up. Wouldn’t protecting you include protecting it?”

Bren thought about that a moment, cocking his head to the side like a parakeet. After a moment, he said, “I guess it’s worth a shot.” He then began shouting some kind of plea to the sky, which was hardly audible over the breaking of reality and the city.

Reignet broke down the glamour over the bar, which was surprising for a couple of reasons, but mostly because the Way Station actually looked nice. Inside it was all dive bar, and the outer façade was a condemned building. But the real outside of the bar, never before seen, was classy looking dark brick, and smoked glass windows that weren’t actually seen inside the bar. Was this a second glamour? What the hell for?

There was a new noise, a sound like ice breaking, and there were strange dapples of light stabbing through the gloom. They all looked up, and it seemed the black sky was cracking, veins of light spider webbing through the blackness, and even Reignet was looking up in confusion.

“Is that supposed to be happening?” Bren asked. “Is he doing this, or are the Gorgons? Is it Bob?”

Logan and Angel exchanged quizzical glances, and they were both forced to shrug. “I have no idea,” Angel admitted.

But Logan figured they were about to find out, one way or another.