4

Before Tony left for Tokyo, Logan had called him and said he was probably going to need some discreet transport across the country for the time being. Tony put one of his smaller private planes and staff pilots at his disposal, probably due to guilt, but Logan wasn’t such a saint that he was above using him for it - fuck no. Tony owed him that much at least.

As soon as he packed up all his things from Faith’s place, which fit in a knapsack with room to spare, he stopped by a second hand bookshop, picked up a couple of paperbacks, and then stopped by a store to buy a pre-made sandwich and a six pack before showing up at the airport.

His pilot was a starkly handsome guy named Jaromir, who wore his straw blond hair in a spiky way and had an accent that put his hometown just northwest of Kiev. He spoke English fairly well, although it was clear he would have preferred Russian. Logan knew he could have conversed with him in his native tongue, but didn’t, as he didn’t feel like it.

He sat in the back of the Piper Cub, eating his sandwich, drinking his beer, and reading one of the books he bought. He was trying to forget the dream he had, but it was hard. He was a sniper in Canada, he knew that much, but that was hardly Canada in his dream, not if he was thinking about German soldiers. So where was he supposedly?

Were the Powers That Be still “paying him back”? He had no idea when such a thing started or stopped. Maybe they didn’t either. Gods or not, they seemed a bit shaky on how things worked down here.

He’d already called Marcus before leaving Vancouver, and they’d arranged a place to meet, although Logan wasn’t sure he’d ever heard of the place. Still, it was in downtown Toronto, so he was sure he could find it. He had some cash, so he simply caught a cab to take him there.

Logan had held out some hope that Corrigan’s was a bar, but it turned out to be a folksy style diner, with a formica counter and an authentic layer of grease over everything. Marc was sitting in a window booth near the front, working on a plate of … something that was vaguely frightening looking. He looked up as he came in, and waved him over, not even pausing in his eating. As soon as Logan slid into the vinyl bench seat across from him, he nudged a glass of pale amber beer over towards him. “Want something to eat? I think the waitress is in love with me. Either that, or she thinks I’m gonna rob the place.”

“Are you?”

“I’m still thinking about it.”

He snickered, and took a swallow of the beer. That was one thing he liked about being in Canada - nobody looked at you funny if you had a beer for breakfast. They didn’t assume you were an alcoholic, where in the States they would. Of course Logan figured he would be an alcoholic if only he could feel the booze. Technically, he supposed he still fit the definition. “Why are we meeting here exactly?”

“’Cause I was hungry,” Marc said, eating a forkful of home fries. “Besides, this place does a great omelet with chives and Canadian Swiss cheese. That’s gotta be the most peaceful and agreeable cheese on the planet. I bet it gets bullied by the American cheese and the Venezuelan beaver cheese.”

Logan had to stifle a laugh, and shook his head in disbelief. “Do you have a Monty Python reference for every occasion?”

“A nod’s as good as a wink to a blind bat,” he replied, and a man passing by on his way to the door did a slight double take. What, had he never heard Monty Python before?

As soon as he was sure he wasn’t going to laugh, he asked, “So how goes the tailing?”

“I haven’t gotten laid since … oh, you mean as in following, right?” He scowled at him for being a smart ass, but Marc just flashed him a toothy grin before picking up his laptop, which was apparently resting beside him on the seat. He booted it up, loaded up something, then turned it around and slid it across to him, careful to avoid hitting his beer.

“Holy shit,” Logan gasped, as soon as he realized what he was looking at. The screen had Lafayette’s daily routine in list form, giving approximate times, and illustrations of his routes to and from work, also with time notations. “Have you been stalking him?”

“Hey, you know I do detective shit from time to time. That’s what this is. He lives alone in a small house on the outskirts of the city. He got divorced eight years ago, his wife Alice lives in Kingston, and he has two kids. His daughter, Stella, is a student at the University of Toronto majoring in English, and his son, Jack, is an assistant sound engineer for Nickelback.”

He stared at him. “What?”

“I know! It’s not bad enough he’s a corrupt fuck, but he has a son partially responsible for foisting shitty music on the world. The guy’s evil with a capital E.”

The waitress, a rather weary looking bottle blonde woman who appeared to be in her late thirties but was probably about a decade younger, came over to the table, and he turned the laptop towards himself so she didn’t see anything on the screen. She asked if he wanted anything, to which he responded in the negative, but Marc requested a top off on his orange juice, and another order of home fries. Logan scrolled through the Lafayette file, astounded at the detail he had amassed in a short day and a half. As soon as the waitress was gone, Logan muttered sarcastically, “So what did Lafayette buy at the store yesterday?”

“A bottle of low sodium soy sauce, Heinz ketchup, a loaf of wheat bread, a four pack of toilet paper, a box of Chablis, a copy of the Sporting News, a pack of double A batteries, a grapefruit, a can of Alpo, and a roll of Scotch tape.”

Logan stared at him in disbelief. “You’re not serious.”

Marc reached into the pocket of his leather jacket and pulled out a store receipt, which he handed over to him. “He left it at the check out counter. He paid in cash, so I guess it didn’t matter, but it still seemed like a sloppy thing to do.”

This was verging on creepy. “You followed him into the store?”

“I needed some beef jerky.”

“You’re a vegetarian.”

“Well, you eat that crap, don’t you?” And again he gave him that toothy, smart ass grin. Un-fucking-believable. Marc said he’d do reconnaissance on this guy, work out the best where and when to get him, and holy shit, he did.

“You weren’t made?”

Marc considered that before slowly shaking his head. “No way, not by Lafayette. For a guy with a terrorism task force, he doesn’t seem to look around himself too often. That’s that damn Canadian complacency for you. Where’s the paranoia? Where’s the instinctive fear of your fellow man? Ya bunch of moose fucking pussies.”

He couldn’t hold it back any longer. Logan laughed, and Marc chuckled, clearly enjoying his mock Canadian prejudice. The waitress came back then, with the glass of orange juice and plate of home fries, and gave them a funny look as she put them down in front of Marc. She didn’t exactly run from their table, but she retreated pretty quick. He wondered what was going through her mind, but he decided that it was probably a good thing he didn’t know.

Logan scrolled through the files and let Marc continue with his breakfast - well, actually more like brunch, but whatever - and finally asked, “What do you think’s our best bet?”

“Home after work. He lives a quarter mile from his nearest neighbor, separated by some windbreak firs, and his dog is an elderly German Shepherd with a bad hip. We cut his land line, and we’ll have him before he can get through on his cell.”

He stared at him over the top of the screen. “Promise me that you’re not gonna turn on me someday, okay?”

“What? Now come on, I’m offended. Do I hafta burst into song now to convince you of my unwavering loyalty? Something from the Whitney Houston oeuvre? Oh wait, I’m in Canada. I guess I’d better make that from the back bacony Bryan Adams catalogue, huh?”

He glared at him, all the while trying not to laugh. “You’re a dead man.”

Marc’s smart ass grin reappeared, and he basically looked like the Cheshire Cat wearing what looked like welding goggles. “Oh come on, be proud of your heritage, no matter how damn gay it is.”

He hated him for doing it, but he couldn’t help but laugh. Marc was always trying to make him laugh, and almost always succeeding. It wasn’t fair at all.

****

They prepared for going to Sun Plaza by arming up, both physically and mystically. But it was difficult to say what kind of mystical protections they were going to need, since the type of threat was unknown.

So Giles went with a general one, an all around protection spell that wasn’t nearly as good as a specific kind, but would have to do. It covered all of them, and he cemented that by smearing them on the backs of the hand with some kind of mixture that smelled like pitch and lemon balm. He warned them it might not hold, as he had no idea if they were up against a true demon god, his minions, or what exactly.

Angel and Giles both brought swords, Giles also carrying a small bag full of items for any emergency spells, while both Bren and Xander carried guns. Just to liven things up, Xander carried a flare gun as well, since a lot of demons didn’t like fire, and Bren also had his compound crossbow, and probably a knife. Kier carried nothing, feeling that being a vampire would probably be enough to keep him alive, and besides, he intended to stick close to Helga. Naomi had no weapons, as she was pretty much a weapon, and if Bob was carrying any, he didn’t say. Helga carried a gun, a machete (with its own belt sheath), a knife, and wore a pair of brass knuckles on her left hand, that Xander was the first to note was engraved with her name. “You enjoy being a scary person, don’t you?” he asked.

Helga just shrugged. “It’s a gift.” Did she mean the brass knuckles or being scary? Oh hell, she could have meant both.

Bob agreed to hang back until they could get a measure of the situation, but as soon as they came onto the street, they began to rethink that strategy. First of all, it was eerily silent; it was an area as close to urban as Brentwood got, but there wasn’t a single noise on the block. Not even a leaf or piece of garbage stirred as the wind came up, and no birds sang. It could have been an abandoned studio back lot for all the life on display; it seemed like a faulty replica of what a city block would seem like to aliens who didn’t know any better. As they walked past an Acura parked up against the curb, Angel ran his finger experimentally over it - he came away with a thin film of dust on his fingertip. “Okay, this has gone from strange to creepy.”

“Oh what, you just got there now?” Xander asked sarcastically. For some reason he was whispering, but come to think of it, if they talked at normal volume, they’d be the loudest thing in blocks.

A figure appeared at the other end of the block, not even bothering to hide themselves, and announced, “It becomes radio silent about a block and half away. It’s like there’s something physically absorbing the noise, but I can’t see what.”

He was wearing all black, but that voice, smooth and betraying a light, unusual accent, one that was part upper class British and part middle class Indonesian, was immediately identifiable. “Saddiq?” Angel asked curiously.

“Sid!” Bren exclaimed - or maybe he just said it. But it sounded loud in all this silence. “Dude, what are you doing here?” Angel noted that both he and Bren turned to look at Bob at the same time.

Bob shrugged with his hands, a gesture that clearly said “What are you going to do?” “I said we needed muscle, and let’s face it, he’s good.”

“And if it’s anything, I was bored,” Saddiq admitted, coming over to their group. His hair was a bit scruffier than it had been the last time he saw it, but Saddiq otherwise looked exactly the same, right down to his outfit. It was all the X-Men leather, the jacket open to show the black tank top he wore underneath. “I’ve been trying to figure out what I want independent of my … programming, but I’m really not sure how to get beyond it, or where the dividing line is. Logan will probably be disappointed in me, but … all I could figure out was I enjoyed being alone.”

“So who’s he, the Amazing Leather Boy?” Xander asked.

“This is Saddiq,” Bob said, making the formal introductions. “He’s the X-Man known as Saracen. Saddiq, this is Xander, also known as the resident smart ass.”

Xander scowled at Bob for that, but quickly looked back at Saddiq with an easy smile, trying to be friendly. “Oh, so you’re a mutant, huh? What can you do?”

“My skin is impenetrable to everything but adamantium. I take it you’re not a mutant?”

“No, I’m just a Human. I mean a normal Human.”

Saddiq nodded, and may have attempted a smile, but it fell into a simple, non-committing grim line. He looked directly at Angel, and asked, “Why is he here?”

“Hey!” Xander protested.

“I have to get you under the protection spell,” Giles said, handing a slightly baffled Kier his bag of magical accoutrements. Well, Kier was closest to him, and had no weapons, so what else did he have to deal with?

“I don’t need it,” Saddiq replied.

“Yes, you do,” Giles insisted gently but firmly, in that tone of voice that brooked no arguments. “You may be hard to hurt under normal circumstances, but when you’re dealing with the supernatural, you can be as vulnerable as everyone else. Even Logan has nearly been killed by it several times, and you know how hard he is to hurt.”

Saddiq sighed, momentarily looking as if he might disagree, but the way his shoulders sagged beneath his coat signaled surrender. There was still something in Saddiq that couldn’t help but acquiesce to the demands of a male authority figure. More vestigial traces of his programming.

“Why don’t you give Xander your coat?” Bob said to Saddiq. “He’s the normal Human here, after all. He might need it.” Although Bob made it sound like a friendly suggestion, Angel somehow doubted it was.

“Why would I need his coat?” Xander cracked. “We goin’ to Sturges?”

“There’s a type of Kevlar under the leather,” Saddiq said, taking off the jacket. “It’s resistant to many projectiles and cushions some impacts.”

“Oh. It’s still kind of kinky.”

“The X-Men are a kinky lot,” Bob interjected cheerfully.

Both Bren and Saddiq gave Bob a type of look that seemed to say “What are you on?”, but neither of them actually said it. Sid handed Xander his coat, and Giles motioned Sid over, so he could put the mark on his hand. Although Xander grimaced like he didn’t know why he was doing this, he reluctantly put it on.

Once the whole group was set (Sid brought no weapons, but again, he was one, so why would he need one), they approached Sun Plaza, keeping an eye out for any demon mark, or any sign there were wards or guardians, something to alert the tenants of newcomers. They didn’t see or feel anything, but Bob didn’t seem wholly convinced there was nothing there, which Angel found worrisome.

Another thing that was instantly noticeable was there were no lights on in the building - none. There didn’t appear to be any lights on up and down the block. “Is the electricity still on?” Angel wondered.

He was asking Naomi, who knew that. She simply glanced down at the pavement, and reported, “The electricity’s still flowing, yes. I don’t know why we can’t see it.”

Xander stared at her in disbelief. “You … feel electricity?” She simply nodded. “Do you ever have to pay your electricity bills?” he added curiously.

She shrugged. “In theory, no.”

“Oh fuck me raw,” Bob gasped, staring up at the apartment building. It was a ten story building with a restored brick edifice - always dangerous in earthquake country - although the white trim on the window frames were peeling, indicating that the look of retro neglect wasn’t completely a fashion statement. The dark, rectangular windows were like the flat, lifeless eyes of a corpse. There was a metal core door leading into the building, operated by one of those security systems that required someone inside to buzz you in, and over the top of the doorframe was a bolted on sign in faux adobe, reading “Sun Plaza” in red and orange letters, the background decorated with a pseudo Aztec pattern. It looked like a sad apartment building, like one where actors who so far could only get work as waiters were forced to live until they couldn’t even meet this rent bill. “I know there’s people in there, but I can’t hear them.”

“None of us can hear anything,” Kier stupidly pointed out.

Bob was looking up at the building as if he was trying to see through it, his eyes starting to glow a faint but obvious blue in the dark. “Not with my ears, mate. People are open books to me, I hear them around me all the time, I have to work to keep them out. But I’m reaching out now, I’m kicking open the doors, and I’m gettin’ nothing, just all of you.”

Xander suddenly stiffened, as if kicked in the ass. “You’re hearing our thoughts? Now?”

Bob made a vague waving gesture of his hand, one of dismissal. “Kiddo, I don’t care. I should be hearing more, much more, but it’s like I’m hitting a … wall of static.”

He and Giles exchanged a grim look before Giles asked, “Which means what?”

Bob was scowling at the bricks, as if trying to telekinetically move them, but he glanced down at the walk and shook his head, his jaw tensing. “It means this is seriously bad. No door is closed to me, and I shouldn’t be blocked psychically by anything, save for demons specifically made to kill gods, or another god.”

Angel grabbed his arm, made Bob look at him. His eyes burned like fire and he had to squint to look at him. “Does that mean another god is here?”

Bob must have realized that he had his power dialed up too much, because the light in his eyes faded to a tolerable level. “No. I’d have gotten more than static; something would have hit back.”

“So what’s in there?” Giles asked.

Bob had to think about it for a long moment. “I don’t think it’s just guardian demons; I’m sensing Humans. It’s possible that the god has enough pull on this plane, that the dimensional layer is so thin, that he’s mentally controlling these people. Either that, or the people are technically brain dead, but their corpses animated.”

“By the god,” Angel said, just to be sure he was on the same page.

Bob nodded, frowning slightly.

“So this is either Stepford Central or Zombieville?” Xander asked, in his own inimitable way. “This sucks.”

“Sucks worse to be them,” Helga opined. She had a point.

Clearly this was a bad situation, but they had to go in; they had to know how much of a Hellmouth had been opened, and what exactly they were dealing with.

Since Bob didn’t want to use his powers and tip their hand too early, Naomi opened the door by manipulating the energy feed to the security system, and they went in two by two, since the door was too small to allow them in all at once. Angel went in with Giles first, and they were soon followed by Naomi and Bren and Sid and Xander, with Bob and Helga close behind. Kier brought up the rear, as he seemed perfectly content to do just that.

The front corridor was narrow, with a collection of far more narrow metal mailboxes off to the immediate right, and a stairwell going off to the left. The sense that something was wrong was so immediate and so potent he felt his vampire side emerge almost instantaneously. The building reeked of heat and meat, of hot concrete and boiled rust, and his skin felt like it was trying to crawl off his shoulder blades and slink back towards the door.

“What’s that smell?” Xander whispered.

There were some apartment doors down the hall, and while the corridor itself was dark, there was light bleeding out from underneath every single door. So yes, the electricity was definitely on, but for some reason it couldn’t escape the building.

Although logic might tell you a Hellmouth or any other kind of dimensional breach would be on the ground floor, a dimensional rift could appear absolutely anywhere; it didn’t obey rules of logic or gravity. He could sense it - or something like it - somewhere above them. He looked at Giles, motioned upstairs with a jerk of his head, and then went on up the stairs. Everyone followed.

They tried to be as quiet as possible, but the stairway creaked and groaned underfoot, and besides, whoever was in control of this place had to know they were here. They had to. So why weren’t they reacting?

They were in the stairwell of the second floor, leading up to the third, when they saw the graffiti written on the wall, in blood dried brown. It didn’t look like a language at all, just slightly geometric squiggles, but Giles said, “What tongue is that? It looks vaguely Irragani.”

Bob edged closer for a better look. “It’s Etrikan. It says ‘I hate you all’.”

“Who uses Etrikan?” Angel wondered, his skin still itching like he had a thousand burrowing ants beneath his skin.

Bob shook his head. “Too many of the old guard. This isn’t a help.”

“Where is everyone?” Saddiq asked, continuing to look up and down the dark hall. “This isn’t right.”

“No kidding,” Helga commented sarcastically.

Sid scowled at her, then looked towards him, brow furrowing in concern. “I’m never one to suggest this, but perhaps a tactical retreat is in order.”

Bren, in his spiky Brachen form, looked back at him in utter shock. “You think things are that bad?”

Sid nodded, looking so grave his dark eyes were shadowy holes in his face. “I think this is a trap. We should leave before it’s sprung.”

“I think getting in was the easy part,” Bob said ominously. “Getting out is going to be the hard part.”

Angel would have asked him what he meant, but he thought he knew already. They did get in rather easily, with absolutely no resistance. It could have meant they were expected; it could have also meant they were happy to have people wander in, as there was no chance they were walking out.

Although it probably would have been a smart thing to turn around and attempt to leave, they had gone too far to walk away now. Even Sid had to agree to that, as much as his instincts were telling him this was bad.

All the corridors were dark, with light only visible limning the doors, all of which were tightly shut. There was no noise inside the building, save for the stairs creaking beneath their steps, and the feeling that his skin was going to crawl off and cower beneath the stairwell was getting worse. Bob started singing softly under his breath, maybe to cut the eerie silence. “You don’t ask much of me now, you don’t belong here, but you’ll never leave now -”

As soon as they hit the seventh floor riser, Angel found his head filled with bees.

Or at least it seemed like it. He grabbed his head, grimacing against the constant buzzing that seemed to make his back teeth vibrate, and he realized it was the dimensional rift. Dru used to say they “talked” to her, but he could now see how she may have gotten confused. It wasn’t speech or any coherent noise; it was simply the sound of dimensional layers being torn away, a rending of reality that shouldn’t make a sound, but somehow did. He didn’t know if anyone else heard it.

There was more Etrikan writing on the corridor walls, in blood dried and baked to a rusty reddish brown, and Bob began interpreting it for everyone else. “The word hate is repeated over and over again, as is the phrase “I’ll fuck your head off”.”

“Put in that context, it doesn’t sound so fun,” Helga noted.

“Guys,” Sid said, and there was a great deal of warning in his voice.

They all looked towards him, and then beyond at what he was looking at.

Down on the sixth floor riser was a large group of people, maybe a dozen, all looking up at them silently. Their eyes were bleeding, their pupils turned crimson and trails like tear tracks sliding down their cheeks, making it look like they were wearing war paint. They were an assortment of ages, from a woman in her sixties to a boy about seven, but most were in the middle, in their twenties or thirties. They said nothing, and didn’t move from the riser - they simply stared up at them with their bleeding eyes, blood dribbling down their faces and making a soft sound as it impacted with the floor.

“Are they still alive?” Angel asked Bob. If they were, if there was some way to save them, they couldn’t fight to kill them. But if it was too late, if they were gone, then there was nothing to hold them back.

“I - I’m not sure,” Bob said, frustration giving his voice an edge.

A scuffing noise made Angel look up, and it seemed the hallway of the seventh floor was suddenly full of people, at least a dozen, and they too had bleeding eyes. But mixed in with them were other people who seemed to have had skin grown over their eyes, hiding the sockets, rendering the place where their eyes should have been a smooth, empty indent in their faces. There seemed to be a hint of movement beneath the new skin, suggesting there were eyes somewhere lost beneath the flesh.

No one said anything; they didn’t even come closer. They just stood there, waiting, having cut off both forward momentum and retreat. What were they waiting for?

“What the hell’s happened to these people?” Sid asked, sounding vaguely appalled.

No one had an answer for him. No one even ventured a guess.

“Who’s your leader?” Bob demanded, talking to the group of people in the corridor. “Who do you answer to?”

As if by way of answer, a huge blue Charunai stormed through the crowd, and tackled Bob. “Shit!” he cursed, as both he and the guardian demon crashed through the stair railing and went falling through the air down the stairwell. Helga lunged to grab him and missed, Sid grabbing her tail and holding her the only thing keeping her from plunging over the side with them.

“Here they come!” Giles shouted, pulling away their attention.

What had they been waiting for? They were waiting for the god to be taken care of. Now that he had, they were free to attack.

And they did.