She was a Doctor; she liked the solace of the stable, bedrock rules of science, even if the biology of mutants got wacky and kind of out there at times. Like Scott and his optic ray eyes, Kitty and her disappearing mass, Logan and his miraculous healing abilities. But now she was just supposed to accept and live with the fact that Bob's granddaughter (or was it great granddaughter? Did it matter?) was a practicing witch - not a Wicca, an actual spellcasting, 'frogifying' witch.

Considering everything she had seen Bob do, that shouldn't have been too hard. But then she was supposed to accept him as some sort of god, wasn't she?

Even though it was clearly insane, she was still leaning towards her irrational Loki theory.

But she had seen Bob 'throw' a spell or two, like making the jet seemingly disappear, and had basically come to accept the fact that there was almost nothing he could do that would shock her anymore.

(Maybe Bacchus...he had no powers that she could think of, but he was a 'fun' god, wasn't he?)

While Bob was on the phone to Amaranth, she and Ororo had gone to see Tanith, a/k/a Zero, who was working alone in one of the student science labs.

It was typical for Tanith to be alone. She'd been at the school for two years, ever since Xavier had picked up on her strange gift for molecular 'freezing', but before her identification as a mutant she had already lived her life as a loner, accustomed to being and depending on herself for nearly everything.

She was a child of two working class parents in Glasgow, Scotland, but her father died in a car crash when she was five, and her mother soon sunk into alcoholism. Eventually, her mother suffered an accident in her job at an industrial laundry that left her functionally deaf, and Tanith was left to take care of her mother and herself as best she could. When she found out about the Xavier school,she was eager to leave her hardscrabble and taxing existence, but was guilt ridden about leaving her mother by herself. Xavier paid for live in help for Tanith's mother - a nurse whose job it was to not only look after her disabled mother but help her get off the alcohol - and she had been at the school ever since.

Her mother thought Tanith had won a scholarship to an 'exclusive' school, completely unaware of her daughter's mutant status, and Tanith seemed in no hurry to tell her.

They didn't force the children to 'come out', so it was completely up to her whether she told anyone or not. Although she felt occasionally guilty about leaving her mother, it was perfunctory guilt, one born of a feeling of obligation and routine. She had admitted to her once she had almost no feelings about her mother at all except for a sense of duty; when Tanith and her mother switched roles, when she became in essence her mother's mother, their relationship was damaged severely.

So was Tanith's childhood. Jean could still remember meeting her, her first day in the school - she was the most responsible, dour, and 'adult' fifteen year old she had ever met. In a way, it had been terribly sad.

It took almost a year before she started to lighten up, before she started to relax. She remembered hearing her finally laugh and thinking it was a minor miracle.

Tanith still kept her distance from most of the others, although most of the kids liked her and were willing to include her if she ever wanted to join them. If Jean and the others didn't go out of their way to stop her, she had a tendency to act motherly towards the newer, younger students, which was fine, but they didn't want Tanith to start acting overly responsible, as that was a trap she had a knack for falling into. Luckily, she seemed to have gotten past that for the most part, although she was still a very rigorous student, which explained why she was in the lab, doing an extra credit assignment. She wanted to be a physicist, and Jean could think of no one more qualified.

Tanith was a pretty girl, if tending to the slightly severe, as she had an angular, raw boned face, and china blue eyes so pale they tended towards colorlessness. She was petite but solidly built,and her long, tawny colored curly hair was held back in a tight braid that the curls always escaped from by the end of the day, like prisoners who hated confinement. As she once rarely joked, she could stop all molecular motion, but not her hair.

They did their best to explain the situation to her, without having to explain that demons were real and Bob, the occasional guest lecturer, might actually be a god of some sort. There was such a thing as asking too much of a person. It wasn't that easy, but it helped that Bob had been in to explain parallel universes, and she was always an attentive student who loved his lectures. Jean just stuck to saying they were battling a being from a parallel universe who was slowly but surely killing this girl, and Bob called it a 'demon' as that was what he jokingly referred to all beings from other universes as (okay, a big lie, but Bob was always joking, so it wasn't that big of a stretch).

She seemed intrigued and eager to help if she could, even though they warned her of the potential perils. "If I didn't know better, I'd think you were trying to talk her out of it," Bob said, and they turned to see him leaning against the doorjamb. Jean knew he must have just arrived, as she had just started feeling the psychic pressure of his proximity.

Tanith seemed surprised, and then glanced at him shyly, trying not to smile. "Hello Mister Oberon," she said, looking down at the polished wood floor. Her Scottish accent had an upwards inflection, so matter what she said it almost always sounded like a question.

"Now, I told you it's Bob," he corrected her gently, then said, "You're Absolute Zero? Blimey, I should have guessed. My favorite student."

He threw her a teasing wink and a matching smile, and Tanith pretended to busy herself with taking off her lab coat and stowing it under the table. But Jean had seen her smile as she turned away, saw the deep ruddy flush of her pale skin, starting from her cheeks and creeping all the way up to her hairline.

Oh no. She had a crush on Bob?

Tanith had never had a date, to her knowledge. She didn't even have a best friend. Jean suspected she was probably homosexual and wasn't willing to come out with that either, even among her fellow mutants (although she knew of a few students who were quite open about their alternative sexuality. Most weren't quite as aggressively 'flaming' as Billy, who was actually a gifted telepath, but he had some anger issues as well), but she had never seen her exhibit signs of a crush.

But why not?

Most of the girls - and Billy - had a crush on a Logan. It was probably an attraction to the tortured rebel archetype more than Logan himself (although that day he taught some of the older kids hand to hand combat moves in the back garden, and took off his shirt because he was too hot, the windows on the upper levels nearly shattered from the weight of all the girls pressing against them to stare at him. Of course, she'd be lying if she didn't admit she found it momentarily distracting...), but Tanith had seemed immune, although (again, like most of the kids) she liked him, albeit with a little fearful awe mixed in. Liking Logan always seemed to have the fearful awe attached, and the kids didn't even know half his story - all they knew was he was a grumpy 'claw guy' who was seemingly unkillable, afraid of absolutely nothing, and really, really liked to fight. And was very, very good at it. As Bobby had once quipped, "Major General Badass."

But Bob was a close second in the crush sweepstakes, for different reasons. He had those incredible but masculine good looks, and he was (seemingly) warm and open and funny with the kids, oozing charm so thick she was always surprised he didn't leave a trail. And some of the girls seemed to really like his Australian accent. As Helga had said, "Everyone likes Bob."

Well, not really. She still wasn't sure what his angle was.

Nevertheless, she had never met any student that disliked Bob. Most inquired eagerly about when he might be coming back. Yet Tanith had never been one of them.

Then again, wasn't she naturally quite and reserved? And wasn't she fascinated by quantum physics?

Jean suddenly knew this had been a very bad idea.

"If all things work well, I may not need you to do anything," Bob told Tanith, as if that was a comfort. "But if there's one thing I've learned, it's things don't have a tendency to go-"

Bob suddenly paused, a strange look on his face, and he looked back down the hall. " - well."

"What is it?" Ororo asked, sounding a little tense. Having Bob around could do that to a person.

Bob looked around, and while she had no idea what he was looking for, she had the feeling he wasn't just searching with his eyes. It took him another few moments to look back at them, a troubled expression on his face. "I thought I sensed an incursion there. It's gone now."

"An incursion?" Tanith asked, amazingly not sounding surprised at all. But then again, she was a naturally stoic type. Underneath her protective lab coat, she was wearing jeans, a blue sweater, and hiking boots - perfect fighting gear, although not necessarily in L.A.

"A...huh. Hard to explain. I'm gonna go get the big guy - I'll meet you guys in Chuck's office, okay?"

"The big guy?" Jean repeated, then guessed. "You mean Logan?" Now she was getting nervous. What had Bob picked up if he suddenly wanted Logan back now? "I'll come with you," she said, giving Ororo a knowing glance. She nodded, and Jean went after Bob.

Although he didn't slow down, Bob said, "I don't know if that's a wise idea, darlin'."

"What did you pick up?" She demanded. "Are we about to come under attack?"

"I'd think it'd be over already if we were," he responded cryptically.

That was comforting. "Meaning what?" He didn't break his long, seemingly casual stride as he walked down the hall ahead of her, and she knew he wasn't going to answer her question. "Damn it, Bob, what did you sense?" She began to wonder if she could successfully use her telekinetic powers on him, freeze him until he answered.

Maybe it was that thought that did it, because he finally decided to reply. "An Auhminra."

"A what?"

"I sensed an Auhminra. A soul eater."

Jean almost laughed at the absurdity of that comment, even as she felt a vague chill."What exactly does that mean?"

"Auhminras are rare in this dimension. They control a Hell dimension that I believe Dante once depicted as one of the nine circles of hell - I can't remember now, but I think it was the seventh, or maybe the sixth. Anyways, they are as powerful as they are nasty. They only come to this dimension to feed. Mostly."

Not only were there times when she didn't know if Bob was joking or not, but there were times when she wished he was. This was one of those times. "There's one in the school?"

"There was. It's gone now. I think it teleported someone out."

"They can teleport?"

"No, but they can sling black magic with the best of them."

Oh, this got better and better.

The walk down the burnished wood halls of the mansion never seemed so long, or so quiet. Most of the kids were outside or in other parts of the school, and while she could hear the distant voices, doors closing, footsteps, it seemed eerie and remote. Like an invisible barrier had slammed down to separate them from everyone else. "Did it take one of the kids?"

"I don't know."

"Can you stop it?" She almost said kill, and although she wouldn't admit it, that's what she meant.

"Yes and no."

"Pick one."

Bob sighed, but never slowed down. "It kinda depends on who it's eaten. They like to go for things with psychic energy,and they are, in general, immune to me. Unless they're young, then their ass is mine."

"But you can do something to stop it?" Her heart raced as she thought of all the psychics here at the school.

"I should be able to think up something, even if I only distract it long enough for Logan to slice up the host body like a zucchini."

Those now familiar words sent a chill down her spine. "Host body?"

Bob nodded, but never looked back and never slowed his stride. "Soul eater, hon. It takes you over, eats you hollow, and uses your body to get around and blend in with the locals. The problem is, the body is dead, and it can only keep it animate for a little while."

"Meaning?"

"Eventually there's an odor, and bits started falling off, so they have to find a new person to consume and inhabit. They like psychics 'cause their energy is so potent they can siphon off little bits of it at a time, and keep the person's body alive longer, extending the shelf life of the host."

She couldn't help it. It was so morbid she shuddered, and wrapped her arms around herself to fight her sudden chill. "It's like a Zayrith?"

He scoffed derisively. "No. An Auhminra could eat a Zayrith like an Oreo - no competition there. They're just parasites; Auhminras are ... well, I hesitate to say gods."

"Gods?" Oh, this was lovely. Jean was very glad she'd always been an agnostic. How awful would it be to worship a deity all your life and find out one day it wasn't what you thought it would be, but an Auhminra who'd you chew you up - literally? - and spit you out?

"Well, from where they're from they are. But not here; they wouldn't need a host to hide in if they were god like here."

Like you, she thought, but didn't say, as they had finally reached Logan's room. Bob knocked loudly on the door, and then as he opened the door, said, "Wakey wakey big guy. We've got - "

But Bob seemed to freeze in the open doorway, and she was forced to look over his shoulder. Logan's bed was empty - the whole room was empty.

"No," Bob said, so quietly she almost didn't hear him.

She slid past him into the room, and her suggestion he hadn't come back here died in her throat as she saw his leather jacket draped over the corner chair, and his boots beside the nightstand. His bed was still made, but the coverlet was rumpled, like someone had been laying on top of it. On impulse, she reached down and placed her hand on the blanket. "It's still warm," she reported, feeling his body heat still trapped in the fabric. This close she could smell him too.

Maybe it was because it was unbearable to his sensitive nose, but he never wore after shave, or used any strongly scented shampoo; he usually smelled like nothing more than soap. A strangely clean and delicate scent for a man who was so tough. It was unbelievable how ominous this all seemed.

"Is he still in the vicinity?" Bob asked, and she saw a brightness in his eyes that she only associated with fear. But she had never seen anything even remotely like it in Bob.

"What? How would I-"

"Psychic link, Jean."

"I only have one with Scott, and the Professor."

He gave her a look of great impatience, jaw muscles tightening as his eerie eyes narrowed. "I ain't gonna tell him, honey. Logan's life is on the line here: tell me if he's still close."

She met his stare, letting her confusion and anger show while swallowing back all her fear. "What do you mean you won't tell him? Won't tell who what?"

Bob's glare was unrelenting, as bright and hard as the sun. "Do you really want to play a stupid game now? I know you have a link with him, and I even know all about those harmless dreamscape excursions with Logan the half - naked gardener. I can keep goin' if you like, but I honestly don't care if you're havin' a premature midlife crisis and want to cuckold Scott - it ain't my business. The Auhminra has Logan - is he still close by?"

She was infuriated by his dismissive tone and his accusations - but mostly she was embarrassed and angry at herself. How long had he known? Had he told Logan? And what the hell did he mean she wanted to cuckold Scott? She did not! But even as she was poised to say these things, she took a deep breath and closed her eyes, shutting him out.

It took greater effort to quiet her emotions, but once she did she reached out with her mind, hoping to prove Bob wrong by showing she had no link with Logan. She was sure she didn't ... did she?

(So those dreams actually happened? Unconsciously? Oh good lord ... )

She sensed the other psychics throughout the school, little multicolored lights in the telepathic darkness, running from blue to green to yellow to red, depending on their strength and ability. Scott wasn't a light but a familiar, comforting shape in the darkness, while the Professor was a white light, a star going nova. Bob, much closer, was a psychic energy unlike anything she had ever encountered before:he was ultraviolet, an infrared hole ripped in the psychic fabric, something she could almost hear/feel as a high, clear hum, the note of a crystal chime held, sustained, but it was a siren song that could destroy her if she got too close. He was impossible to block out at this distance, so she just shoved him to the background as she reached out as far as she could.

If she had a link with Logan - a big if - he would not appear as a light, having no psychic powers. But he would show up as a familiar shape, but not at all like Scott; where Scott was a peaceful harbor, Logan was a maelstrom, a tempest reined in by a dam mosaic of shattered memories and thick fibers of pain that had burrowed into his subconscious like worms.

And she got no sense of that at all.

She opened her eyes and shook her head. "I'm not picking him up. I don't think he's here."

Bob scowled, shaking his head. "Shit. We have to find him as soon as possible."

"Why would it want Logan? You said it liked psychics."

"Yeah, but I also said the body dies. Usually the demon's presence alone is enough to kill people eventually. But this is Logan we're talkin' about here."

Her heart seemed to stutter as she understood what Bob was saying. "You mean .... "

Bob nodded again, but he seemed grim, almost angry. "The Auhminra won't kill him. Logan is the perfect host - a body that will never die."

Fear coursed down her spine like cold water, and she wondered if Logan - him; not his body - was still alive.

But there was no fighting, not in a situation like this. The bastard even taunted him, letting him see out his own eyes, but he felt like a backseat driver, unable to command a single bit of his own body. He was trapped in a prison of flesh, muscle, metal, and bone, and he could do nothing about it.

Somehow he was conscious, yet not. It was like he was adrift in his own mind, deaf, dumb, and blind to everything going on in the outside world. And yet he was starting to see things, and while he ran through the possibilities - Heydon continuing to taunt him, hallucinations,his life flashing before his eyes - he really didn't know what to think, so he stopped.

But the images kept happening,and he slowly realized they were memories, fragments of things he had done, and things he could vaguely recall. He didn't know what it meant, or if Heydon was doing this somehow, but the frustration was starting to drive him bananas. Why hadn't the bastard knocked him out or something?

Logan found himself inside a ring surrounded by chain link fencing, and recognized the 'ultimate' fighting cage from Laughlin City. He was alone in it, the floor cold under his bare feet, and there wasn't even a crowd, although he could still smell the traces of them, their cigarettes, beer, sweat and after shave; fatigue, boredom, testosterone, and restlessness.

He looked for his corner, as he didn't have his shirt on either, and he was cold. But usually there was no need for heat in the ring, as you could work up a good sweat fighting. What his fights lacked in duration (had he ever had one that lasted two minutes?), they made up for in sheer quantity. He once took on thirty six guys in one night, and even then he barely broke a sweat.

He saw his leather jacket hanging from the far right corner in the dim illumination, the heavy cigarette smoke from the ghostly crowd turning the available light a polluted blue, and he started walking to it, finding the quiet eerie and unnatural. If this was a memory, it was all wrong; distorted on its base, askew on its foundation.

"Do you have any idea what's happening here?" A familiar voice asked, freezing him in his tracks.

Naomi.

He turned to face her, and saw her as he did the last time - the real Naomi, not her doppelganger from the other dimension. Her hair was short and slightly spiky, dyed that impossible hue of crimson, a lovely contrast to her troubled blue eyes. She was wearing the same blue jeans, boots, and green t-shirt she was wearing when Lethe stole her memories.

Smoke swirled over their heads like restless ghosts on an unseen air current, and he found himself fighting contrary emotions of longing and anger, regret and hate. The anger was aimed at himself, and the hate was aimed at Heydon, for tormenting him with Naomi. "Why don't you tell me?"

She shrugged with her hands, as if gesturing at the empty bar. "I was asking you."

"Fuck off, Heydon," he snapped, turning away. "Fuck off or let me go."

"Who's Heydon?" She asked.

He paused, figuring he was still being fucked with. But she had sounded so genuinely puzzled it seemed to tug at him.

Logan smashed the fencing with his fist, making it rattle like loose chains. "If you just manifest yourself, I'll rip your fucking face off!"

"I hope you're not talking to me."

He looked back at her, glaring, and then he did something that felt at once foreign and familiar - he gave up. Just like that. It was much easier than he thought.

He leaned back against the fencing and sank down to the floor of the cage, still cold but not much caring anymore. "What do you want from me? What more can you take?"

Naomi looked down at him sadly, and approached with caution, hands held out in front of her, as if to show she wasn't building up a lethal charge to fry him like an egg. "I don't know what's going on, Logan. Tell me, do I smell like this Heydon? I kinda hope I don't look like him."

"You don't smell like anything," he told her. But that wasn't completely true, was it? She smelled like he remembered, but more than anything, he smelled himself all over this place. Why was that? "I know better than to trust my mind right now."

"Why?"

He glared at her ... him ... whatever. "He's taken me over, that's why."

"Your mind?"

"My body." And it was then he wondered - had his mind gotten taken over too? It must have. He couldn't feel his body at all, couldn't control a damn thing .... but did he sense Heydon here? He sensed him beyond, the walls of his prison given form and will, an invisible entity that still pressed down on him with all the weight of the world.

But not in here. Logan suddenly realized why all he really smelled in here was himself - because this space belonged to him. Or was that what Heydon wanted him to believe?

Either that, or Heydon just couldn't be bothered. There was nothing Logan could do in here that would effect his control on him. (Or was there..?) Maybe Heydon wouldn't give a damn until he gave him a reason to.

And that's when other inconsistencies started occurring to him. Earlier, he felt nothing, and smelled nothing, and heard nothing - now he was cold, smelled himself and memories of Naomi, and he heard her voice. Why? The pressure of Heydon's domination hadn't changed.

"Am I adapting?" He asked Naomi. If she wasn't Heydon, then she was a memory, or even a fragment of himself in the guise of her memory.

She sat down on the floor next to him, and tentatively reached out a hand, touched his shoulder. He could feel the electricity crawling over his skin like insects. "I don't know. But you have a knack for it."

No, he didn't, but his body did. It could adapt to and neutralize every germ, every toxin that he knew of, given time. Could it even adapt to a demonic possessor, recognize it as a foreign organism and reject it?

It seemed like too much to hope for. But there was no denying he was starting to feel stronger within himself, like he ... like he still was, still existed.

Maybe Heydon wasn't keeping him conscious to torture him. Maybe he couldn't really knock him out.

Logan realized he may have given up too soon. All he had to do was be patient.
His time would come.

Okay, he hadn't had much of a life, but it was all he had. And no demonic fuck was going to take it away from him.

**

The fact that Logan was not with them only occurred to him as an afterthought.

Bob told them this new and fantastic story, and Scott would have laughed at it, except Jeannie looked so miserable. When she sat down beside him on the couch, he reached out to take her hand,and she instantly recoiled. After a moment, she seemed to realize what she had done and reached for his hand. When she took it, he noticed it was ice cold, and he felt his stomach twist as he realized she was so worried about Logan she wanted almost nothing to do with him.

God damn it. The bastard wasn't even here, and yet he was still tearing them apart.

Xavier was obviously concerned, as the trouble lines crinkled his brow as well, and he asked Bob, "How do we find him?"

"I can ask Ammy to throw a location spell, but the Auhminra might have cloaked himself, especially if he's aware of me. But, I'm thinkin' you might be able to get through to Logan."

"What do you mean?"

"I thought if it was immune to you, it would be immune to telepaths," Jean said, squeezing his hand reassuringly. He got the sense she was now trying to make it up to him.

"Yes. But I think if you and Jean link up, and you use the Cerebro gizmo, you might be able to connect with Logan - and I mean him, the part of him still alive in there. The problem is, as soon as the Auhminra gets a sense of you, he'll probably sever the link, but maybe Logan will be able to tell you something about the demon, and maybe you'll get a fix on his location."

"Why can't you do it?" Scott asked.

"I can't use Cerebro, for one. For another, I can't sneak in the back door. He might not be aware of Human telepaths right away. But when you're the Drai'shajan, there's no such thing as sneakin' in unnoticed."

"You think he's still alive?" Jean asked breathlessly, her eyes full of hope. It felt like she had just punched him in the gut.

"This is Logan we're talkin' about. Hands up if you think some punk ass demon could kill him in one fell swoop."

Scott almost raised his hand, but Jean was still holding onto it.

"Is this dangerous?" Scott asked instead.

Bob grimaced, and he seemed to glance around the room as if looking for a cue card. "I wouldn't think so. The Auhminra couldn't absorb their psychic energy from a great distance."

"But?" He prompted. He still didn't trust Bob - how could he?

"But Auhminras are nasty creatures. To them Humans are little more than hogs that need butchering. I can't guarantee that it won't lash out in some way."

"Or take it out on Logan," Xavier said, frowning in concern.

Bob slowly rolled his shoulders, a tentative shrug. "Possibly. But there's no other way to find him. I know Logan would agree to anything, any kind of pain, as long as we could help him beat this thing."