14

Logan found himself laying on a white sand beach, the sand as soft as powder, the sky above a silken cerulean drape, while translucent sapphire waves lapped at his feet. He wasn’t alone either; laying snuggled up against him was Mariko, her head resting in the crook of his arm as she slept. He knew this was wrong for several different reasons, but he honestly didn’t give a shit. Her sun warmed skin smelled wonderful, and in spite of the heat he was glad to hold her against him, feel her softness and warmth. He could have slept forever.

A shadow fell across him, and he opened one eye, squinting up at the interloper. They crouched down, and he could see it was Bob, the sun behind him making it look like his hair was luminous. “Time to go, mate.”

He glared up at him. “Fuck you.” He then closed his eye and settled against Mariko once more.

But Bob didn’t take the hint - did he ever? He grabbed his shoulder and shook it. “Don’t make this harder than it has to be. You’re dying. You need to wake up now.”

Logan slapped out blindly, smacking his hand away. “What part of “fuck you” didn’t you understand?”

“Didn’t you hear me? You’re dying. What part of this scenario makes sense to you?”

He opened his eyes so he could look up and scowl at him. “Can’t I have some peace? Jesus, Bob, I just wanna get some sleep.”

“And do you know why? You’ve lost a lot of blood. Think, damn it! What’s the last thing you remember before you got here?”

If he hit him would he go away? Better yet, why didn’t he just impale him? He was a god - he would recover. He disengaged himself from Mariko and rolled over on his back, but that’s when he realized how truly tired he was. That seemed like a great expenditure of energy, even though it wasn’t. He laid there in the basking heat, gasping for air he didn’t need, and asked, “What the hell have you done to me?”

Bob shook his head, looking as guileless - and untrustworthy - as he usually did. “Absolutely nothing. The Human mind has an amazing capacity to ease itself into death, and I bet yours has a special gift for that. “

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

Bob almost looked pissed off. “What's the last thing you remember?”

“Nothing! I was just …” But the more he thought, the more he began to remember. There was that weird building, the one in Brentwood, the one that smelled like hot metal death. There was the seventh floor …

He remembered taking the first step, lowering his head and raising his shoulders as he prepared to bull through a hail of bullets and get the men with the guns, and he remembered that those bullets they were using felt different as they ripped through him; harder, hotter. Did they go through his adamantium bones or just dent them? He wasn’t sure, but he knew instantly that they hurt more than any other bullets, even adamantium ones, and … his rage, which he thought he had under control, just rose up and swamped him in a black wave, one he was suddenly helpless against. The beast inside him suddenly became a thousand feet tall, and the world washed out in red.

Was it just the pain? Or was it something else? Angel had warned him that something happened to you on the seventh floor, that you were overwhelmed with rage, but Logan was so accustomed to dealing with that he thought he could handle it. But apparently not.

All he remembered was being swamped by anger - and then nothing. His memory stopped before he hit the top of the stairs. Maybe that was for the best. He sat up, and asked Bob, “What did I do?”

“You cleared a path. But I’m afraid your job isn’t done yet.”

Was his “job” ever done? Logan rubbed his eyes and groaned, still feeling far too weary. He really needed sleep; he figured he’d be okay if he got a couple hours downtime. Why wasn’t Bob letting him have it? “Let Angel handle it. I’ll catch some Z’s, then I’ll be back in it, okay?”

Bob shook his head. “Can’t let you do that. Sleep here is death. You need to wake up.”

“I am awake.” But was he really? This wasn’t an apartment in Brentwood. This was a mindscape, wasn’t it? “You’re not actually here, are you?”

Bob shook his head. “’Fraid not. Come on, let’s get going.”

“I’m not gonna be bossed around by imaginary people,” he snapped, dry washing his face. Logan tried hard to remember how his fight ended, but couldn’t. He thought about asking Bob, but would he know? He was either some kind of emergency “program” left by Bob in his brain, or he was some part of himself that took the form of Bob. “So I got my ass handed to me?”

Bob - or the thing that looked like Bob - considered that carefully before answering. “Not exactly. Considering you were fighting undead crazy people, I think you did pretty well for yourself.”

Now that he was focusing, trying to remember what happened to him, he began to feel faint but still powerful echoes of pain. He knew if he were closer to consciousness, he’d be in agony. “Aren’t I healing? Why am I not healing?”

“You are, you just took a lot of damage, and you need to get some adrenaline going to speed it along.”

“Which means waking up.”

Bob nodded. “Yep. What, you think I’m annoying you for fun?”

“If you were the real Bob, you could be, yeah,” he pointed out, transitioning to his knees. That act seemed to make him dizzy, so he steadied himself and took a deep breath, glancing back at the sleeping Mariko. Wow, it would be so much nicer to just stay here; so what if he was comatose or dead? At least he was in good company.

Oh right. How selfish a bastard was he? Would he leave everyone else to fight the crazy people and close the Hellmouth? He wanted to - well, part of him wanted to - but the other part of him was disgusted that he’d even entertain the idea. As he slowly stood, his mind coughed up a fragment of … something. A big blue guy choking him while he carved his face off. Then impact and nothingness. “Oh shit, the … uh -”

“Charunai?” Bob offered.

Logan snapped his fingers and pointed at him, nodding. “Yes, that’s it. That thing - it’s still there, isn’t it? I know I can’t kill it -”

“You can kill it, mate, it’s just that another two will instantly show up to take its place.”

He scowled at him. “Which means I can’t kill it, as much as I wanna, ‘cause I’d just be increasing our problems, right? Does it heal faster than me?”

“It’s a guardian demon.”

“Is that a yes?”

“Yes.”

He sighed, wondering how he made the transition from here to full consciousness. “How do I do this?”

Bob pointed up the beach. “Walk out of the light.”

That sounded easy enough - almost too easy, as a matter of fact. But he had to trust that Bob - or the thing in him representing itself as Bob - wouldn’t lead him astray, not when it wanted him to live.

There was a darkness on the far curve of the beach, one that almost looked like a copse of trees swallowed by their own shadows, but there wasn’t enough definition to say for sure what it was. It looked slightly ominous, in fact.

But that figured, didn't it? Reality was ominous at the moment. So he started walking, feeling incredibly weary, and as much as he wanted to look back, he didn't. If he was going to die, okay, Mariko would be waiting for him; otherwise, it was back to reality.

The darkness seemed to swallow him, become an actual physical presence, and he had to shove himself through it. It was like trying to swim in thick, heavy water, and he had to pull himself to the surface, using muscles that hurt more and more every second.

When he regained conscious and opened his eyes, he did it spluttering, tasting blood in his mouth and his throat, and god did he hurt. He burned with healing, but he still felt bruised deep to the bone, like an elephant stampede had not only been over him, but used him as a kickball. Looking around, he saw himself in a rather large depression on the broken ground floor hallway, just to the right of the staircase. He was alone here in a pool of blood; smeary, blood tinged footsteps indicated that the Charunai had already recovered and gone.

The worst part? The blood was his.

Two dull, hard pains indicated immediate problems. He had butcher knives sticking out of his stomach and left thigh respectively, and it was the one in his left thigh that had almost killed him. It was buried deep in the femoral artery; he'd probably come very close to fatally bleeding out. No wonder he felt so weak and cold.

He pulled the one in his stomach out first, and it was hard not to gasp as the blade ripped open the skin that had started healing around it. He tossed it aside and put a hand over the wound, feeling more of his blood stream out, until it slowed to a trickle. Then he grabbed the haft of the one in his thigh, and braced himself.

The wound had healed around this knife too, but the problem here was major: the artery. He yanked it out as fast as he could, but blood spurted from the newly ruptured artery, and he had to clamp down on his own leg hard, hoping that the artery healed before he lost too much more. He nearly sat up to do it, but his head swam dangerously, so much so he almost passed out. So he raised his leg instead, gripping his thigh so tightly it felt like he was leaving fingerprints in his femur, and waited.

His heart seemed to pound in his head, but finally his healing factor took over and closed the artery once more, and he was able to let it go, wiping his bloody hands on his shirt ... which was already so bloody it was a futile gesture. Oh well.

He couldn't stand up. To say he'd taken a lot of damage was almost an understatement; the Charunai left him for dead for a very good reason. He'd lost nearly half his blood volume, or at least it felt that way, and it took his healing factor a while to replace all that blood. What he needed was a couple of quarts of water or beer; that'd help in a major way. But none of that was forthcoming, and he didn't know how much the presence of a Charunai would fuck things up for the others. Who cared that he couldn't walk? He needed to get off his ass and stop that thing. (A funny thought, as if he couldn't stand he couldn't fight, but he wasn't sweating the details right now.)

He crawled to the stairs, pulling himself along by his aching arms, and then crawled up the bottom steps, pausing to rest a minute. He was feeling a little stronger now, a little more warmed by his healing factor, as his exertions was just the kick in the pants it needed. But he still felt oddly hollow, his head so light and empty it might have been filled with helium. He used the wall and the railing to pull himself up to his feet, then gave himself another second to get used to gravity. “Get going, you stupid motherfucker,” he cursed at himself beneath his breath. “Don’t be a fucking pussy. Get up those goddamn stairs.” Oh god, his kingdom for an elevator.

He had to lean against the wall to climb to the first floor riser, but by the time he hit the second, he could just lean on the railing for support.

His head was too light, his bones too bruised, and he figured that those enchanted bullets must have hurt him pretty bad; perhaps there were other effects he didn't know about. But he had to focus on the Charunai, on keeping it down for a couple minutes. What could?

Decapitation could kill it; stabbing it through its hearts could kill it. But that was it - no other blow was a killing blow. So what could he do to it that would hurt it bad enough that its healing factor would keep it preoccupied?

By the third floor riser, he realized a shadow wasn't following him - he had no vision in his left eye. Reaching up and touching the socket, he found out why. Well, that was probably going to hurt when it grew back, but probably not as bad as a tooth; teeth growing back was always a bitch. No wonder his head felt so light - he was missing a bit of it. He wondered if his eye would grow back a different color - maybe he'd have a brown iris, or a purple one. Black?

He was on the fifth floor, expecting to find resistance but much to his relief finding none; when he did think he spotted someone in the shadows, they seemed to shrink back (what the hell had he done to scare undead crazy people? Oh holy shit, he slaughtered the lot of them, didn't he?) and left him alone. He was in no shape to pursue them. But he heard a heavy thud above him, one that seemed to shake the walls and nearly sent him sprawling, and afterwards he heard Scott say, "I don't want to shoot you through the wall, but I will. Stay back."

Right - Scott got his visor broken. They must have left him behind on the sixth floor riser, and he must have heard the Charunai coming back (they weren't the quietest things in the world). But Scott couldn't see it, and showing it any mercy was a huge mistake. As soon as it figured out Scott couldn't see him until he opened his eyes, it would probably be quiet, and smash him into powder from behind.

He was about to shout up to him that he should shoot him through the fucking wall when he had an idea. He wasn't sure he was strong enough to pull it off, but since when had that ever stopped him from trying? Supposedly he got his hated nickname - "Wolverine" - not just from his claws and being vicious, but for being so goddamn stubborn some wondered if it was a form of mental illness. And leaning against a wall, weak and dizzy from blood loss and missing an eye, he knew he was fucking crazy to even be contemplating fighting a nearly unkillable seven foot demon death machine.

But crazy was good; crazy he could work with.

"Hey, you fucking cowardly piece of shit," he shouted, utilizing nearly all his strength to pelt up the stairs. "We ain't done yet."

“Logan, don’t taunt the demon,” Scott said, deadpan.

Logan mustered what strength he had as he popped his claws and turned his head so he could see the demon coming with his one good eye, although the Charunai was just standing there, hands on his hips, looking at Logan with what could very well have been disbelief. His expression clearly said ‘Why aren’t you dead yet, Human? Can’t you take the hint?’

He feigned as best a shot as he could, and the Charunai took the bait, its meaty arm swinging out to backhand him aside like a bratty child. He quickly slashed out and cut its arm off in mid-swing, and then slashed the other one off before it could lift it. It wouldn’t buy them much time, but he only needed enough time to brief Scott.

And yet he almost didn’t get it. Logan tried to slip past the suddenly disarmed Charunai, but the thing side kicked him in the back, and he went flying with bone shattering force into the wall at the base of the seventh floor stairwell. Only because he turned his head at the last second did he avoid getting his nose shattered.

“That sounded like it hurt,” Scott noted, sounding oddly casual for a man sitting blind and helpless at the head of the sixth floor stairwell, just inches away from the killer demon. But the Charunai had turned its back on Scott as its arms began to grow back, as it had already dismissed Scott as a threat. He could only shove him back, and only when the Charunai was directly in his line of sight. Logan was far more annoying, and the Charunai had probably taken the face carving personally.

Logan slumped down to his knees on the riser, and realized he sloshed as he came down. He glanced down to see he was kneeling in a pool of cold blood, and he could trace the source of the stream up the stairs to the …

Seventh floor. The floor was soaked black with blood, and there were random body parts scattered about: arms, legs, heads, random chunks that could be segments of torsos, fragments of internal organs. It was impossible to say how many people had been torn to pieces, but Doctor Frankenstein could have built himself an impressive little army with all the parts.

“I did that,” he gasped, not quite able to comprehend it. He didn’t remember doing it, but he must have. So that was Bob’s - or his conscience‘s, inner child‘s, self-awareness’s , whatever the fuck’s - version of “clearing a path”? He must have ripped apart a few floors’ worth of tenants. Jesus.

“You don’t remember?” Scott asked, sounding curious.

Before he could reply, the Charunai grabbed Logan by the hair and lifted him off his feet, clearly meaning to throw him back down the stairwell. But Logan stabbed blindly backwards, and skewered the Charunai right in its eyes, making it grunt in pain and toss him aside. He hit the stairwell on his side, and was glad he had adamantium ribs. Too bad he also didn’t have an adamantium kidney - fuck, that hurt. “Scott, when I tell you to, open your eyes on this fucker, and don’t hold back. Send him outside. Got it?”

“He could hurt others.”

“He’s leaving you alone, isn’t he? He only hurts people who attack him or are a danger to the gateway.” The Charunai’s eyes had grown back - if only his would grow in that fast - and he came thudding across the floor towards him. Logan knew he had lost too much blood, was in too much pain, was hopelessly slow; the Charunai was just going to make mincemeat out of him. He let it make the first move, it threw a punch that he easily ducked, but he made himself so dizzy with the swift movement that he skidded in the blood and hit the floor. Okay, it was now or never, mainly because he wasn’t sure he could get back up to his feet again. He sunk both sets of claws in the Charunai’s midsection, and shouted, “Now!” He ripped across the demon’s stomach from both sides as Scott opened his eyes, and Logan had to hit the floor as Scott’s energy hit the thing’s back, and the upper half of the demon’s body - now separated from its lower half - slammed into the wall and out into the glo! omy, humid morning, leaving his legs behind.

Scott closed his eyes the second the Charunai hit the wall, and he asked, with some disgust, “Did I see that right? Did half of him stay behind?”

“That was the plan,” he sighed, shoving over the demon’s legs, which were still standing. They hit the floor with a sickening squelch. “Let’s see him heal fast from that, the smug fucker.”

“You could have told me,” Scott protested.

“Would you have done it?”

Scott suddenly frowned in his direction. “What’s wrong with your voice?”

What? Was there something wrong with his voice? He sat there, trying to figure out what Scott was going on about, when he noticed that the intact walls looked like they were pulsing, lungs breathing in and out. He tasted fresh blood in the base of his throat, and he was shivering with cold, even though he was in the path of the uncomfortably warm wind coming in from outside. Oh, that wasn’t good. “I think I hafta rest a moment,” he said, and he shoved himself back towards the far wall, near the hole in the outside wall, in some bizarre hope that fresh air - as stuffy and stale as it was - would do him some good. Better yet, maybe it would honestly rain, and he could absorb some of that moisture through his skin. “I’ll be okay, I just need a minute …” he mumbled, but he heard his own words slurring together, becoming a blur of nearly undifferentiated syllables.

“What the hell ..?” Scott responded. “How badly are you hurt? Logan?”

But Logan couldn’t say anything; he was too tired, and he’d been running on empty for too long. He had a sense of sagging towards the bloody floor, his body totally giving up on him, but he wasn’t conscious long enough to feel the impact.

Maybe now he was done. Maybe now Bob would let him sleep.

15

Before venturing up to the seventh floor, it was decided they needed a protection spell. The problem was, the spell of pure joy was considered a hazard, as if Angel was exposed to pure happiness, he just might rip all their throats out. Angel was embarrassed that everyone knew this, and that it was such an obvious and odd weakness.

But Willow (Xander) decided on the spell of serenity as a protection spell; not happiness, but peace and calm. It would have done them no good if they had to fight - it could have been a hindrance - but Logan had carved a bloody swath through the population, and it didn’t look like there was a fight on the immediate horizon, clearing the way for the spell.

So Willow cast it, and it was odd to hear the spell coming out of Xander, strange to see his hands glow with energy the millisecond before he threw the spell, a gossamer net of light that seemed to settle over them, the flutter of a moth’s wings against their skin before it disappeared. There seemed to be a second or two delay, but then Angel felt so suddenly relaxed and at peace with himself he wondered why he was here. Fighting was such a pointless waste of energy, wasn’t it?

Even walking over the bits of body on the seventh floor, he found himself studying Logan’s handiwork with complete detachment. He didn’t kill these people more than disassemble them, break them down to their component parts. There was almost a strange artistry to it; he could have a second career as a surrealist.

Angel wondered what Willow was worried about when he began to sense the assault on his serenity. It was almost palpable, ill will slamming against his personal cocoon of peace, and he began to feel the almost tidal pull of evil, a siren’s song reaching out to the vampire within. He remembered what it was they were supposed to be fighting for, and tried to simultaneously hold on to his inner demon and outer peace at the same time. It was a bit of an awkward fit.

Willow/Xander led the way to an apartment down the hall, the third one on the left, and shoved open the door, although they could have simply walked in through the Logan and Charunai sized hole in the wall beside it.

The burgeoning Hellmouth was an almost beautiful swirl of energy nearly a foot across and either equally deep or ten thousand times deep; its depth seemed to vary depending on where you were. It seemed to be hovering two feet off the carpet in the shattered remains of someone’s living room. The words ‘hate’ and ‘fucking die’ were written all over the walls and the ceiling, almost every inch of the white stucco covered in short, deliberate streaks of blood. Angel found his inner peace draining away with great rapidity.

Willow/Xander started chanting a spell, holding her (his) hands up as she made an appeal to Hecate and to the ebony moon, but then she/he shouted, in perfect English (the spell was mostly Latin), “Get ready!”

Angel didn’t know why she said that until he got a good glimpse inside the birthing Hellmouth, and saw there were things on the other side of it. Things with wings and claws, glowing eyes and sharp teeth, things with multiple heads and multiple weapons.

An invading army, just waiting for the gap to open wide enough for them to cross over.

“Come on Bob,” he muttered, and it was almost a prayer. If this didn’t work, at least they wouldn’t live long enough to realize it.