2

As usual, the birds woke him up. Sometimes when the winds down the mountain really kicked up, the branches of the overgrown high bush cranberry beneath his window, and the full sized jack pine by the near corner would slam against the walls of his cabin and make a noise like someone scrubbing his outer walls with stiff brushes. At first, the noise was disturbing, but now he was used to it, and almost found it comforting. That told him he had been settled in one place too damn long.

Oh shit, he already knew that. The poor people who ended up here called him “Sheriff”, did they not?  Too many people knew him, and depended on him. He needed to get lost again before they found out about him. So why hadn’t he? What was keeping him here?

Logan sat up and moved to the end of his bed, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands, as he realized inertia had taken a toll on him. He stayed because he felt if he didn’t look after things here, no one else would, and damn him, he felt good here. It was an isolated area, beautiful, and he liked the property he had. A whole acre of his own, incorporating a good sized pond and a small creek, all leading out towards the edge of the pine forest, the one where the logging companies had yet to set up shop. Everyone knew enough to leave him alone, unless it was an emergency or something.

And then there was Celia, but he knew he shouldn’t think like that. He couldn’t think about her at all, because all he could do was bring her pain - all he ever did was bring people pain. That was the whole point of isolating himself in the first place, or at least one of them. He would have liked to have said women made him weak, but it wasn’t their fault - the fault was in him, and he knew it. He loathed it, and would have beaten it out of him if he could, but things could never be that easy.  Few things in life ever were.

He got up and started his usual morning routine, priming his wood stove and figuring if he had any clean clothes left (god, he hated laundry), but he didn’t make breakfast for himself. He knew he should, but he needed to see her. It felt like his day couldn’t actually start until he saw her, until she said “Hello”, and he knew he was perfectly and utterly doomed. So what was he doing about it?  He was going into town to meet her.  Stupid, stupid, stupid.  He really did sabotage himself, each and every time.  But, at least, he had no one else to blame.

The sun was bright, but the air had a chill bite to it, the hard promise of the coming fall. He’d done a winter here, and while it wasn’t as bad as it could be, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to repeat it. If he just had himself to look after, fine, but when he had people to worry about, he didn’t like it. After all, he’d met no one quite as resilient as him.

He’d traveled this way enough that he was starting to wear a path through the thick, bristling pine copse that separated him from what passed for the town, and he saw it as the most visible sign that he had been here too damn long.  A reminder that got muddy when the rains came.

He hesitated to even call it a town, as it was far too small - what was known as “Frontier” was really a sprawling collection of cabins and businesses, all owing their existence to the itinerant logging and mining camps that were set up higher on the slopes and farther away, in areas far too hostile or chronically inaccessible for long term encampments.  It was pretty peaceful, actually - it was when the loggers or miners came to town on breaks that things got rough.  And that’s how he got what was essentially a stewardship position; the loggers and the miners knew enough not to get on the wrong side of him. They counted on their being no law enforcement out here, where there were to few people to care and little direct access to the outside world, but they didn’t count on him. As he had been told, he didn’t “look like much”, but he could kick all their asses if he absolutely had to, and they knew it.  It also helped that they knew that Chief Superintendent McClendon - the closest police authority, twenty five miles away in Red River - had made it clear he was an “honorary” cop.  No one knew why, although there were rumors he had been one once, well before the Dominion Police and the Royal Northwest Mounted Police were reorganized into the new Royal Canadian Mounted Police.  And that was close enough to the truth that Logan let it stand.  McClendon knew the truth - in fact, they had very briefly worked together in B Squadron - so he was confident that he wouldn’t go breaking the law or abusing his authority.  That was
a safe bet, as he preferred to be left alone, and everyone knew if they were peaceable and didn’t bother anyone else, he would never bother them.  The problem was, some of the new people from the mining
and logging camps had to be taught that.

There was a reason this place was called Frontier - it was the last bastion of “civilization” before the higher elevations, where few dared to tread, beyond those working for the various business concerns, looking for new material to exploit.  Hell, the last paved road was down in White River; no one had even felt the need to extend the roads up here, even though he knew that was a matter of time.  A time rapidly coming on - there were too many logging companies and mining companies using the area to keep it isolated for long.

A shame, but remote areas had their own problems. Certain types of people sought out isolation; those on the run from various things, people who wanted absolute privacy to hide themselves or any “peculiarities” in their way of life. (Why else was he up here?)  Neither the logging or mining companies were very picky about the people they hired for this grinding, lonely work, hence his unofficial status as protector of Frontier.  McClendon didn’t know everything about him - no one did - but he must have known enough to understand he was fighting fire with fire.

The copse gave way to a clearing, where bees buzzed around the wild raspberry bushes in such great numbers it sounded like a mechanical hum, and then he saw the wide gravel road of what they jokingly called “Main Street“. In actuality, it was the only street, with sturdy wooden buildings on one side only, with clapboard roofs that appeared almost Alpine in construction. For good reason - the snow couldn’t build up too badly on roofs like that, nor could the rain if the gutters clogged. (Of course, mostly around here there were no gutters.) The largest of the roughly A-framed buildings belonged to the general store and the tavern/diner run by Gus Bishop, a grizzled old guy who claimed he used to be a trapper, which is how he lost most of the fingers on his left hand (the story there was either a malfunctioning beaver trap or an enraged cougar, depending on who he told it to). Of course, Logan had seen black speckles near the rough seam of skin where his index finger used to be, speckles that looked like gunpowder and led him to believe he actually lost them in an alternate way, but he never called Gus on it - everybody needed their delusions.

He walked in the front door, and was greeted by the scent of fresh coffee and frying bacon. There were a couple of people at the small, rough-hewn tables scattered around the main room, the regulars who came here for a decent breakfast and a pretty face, and Celia had pasted on her professional smile until she saw it was him, and then it became a genuine one that reached her beautiful brown eyes, which were kind of a warm mahogany. “Sheriff, good morning.”

“Good morning to you too, Celia. And, it’s always Logan to you.” He smiled at her as he took a seat at what was a bar during later hours; now, it was just a counter with last night’s beer stains on it.

Celia seemed far too young and pretty to be in a place like this, but her reasons for wanting to isolate herself were quite obvious. It was in the shape of her sloe-eyes, the slightly darker undertone of her skin, her sleek black hair - she was, as they liked to say, “half-caste”, Eskimo on her mother’s side, white on her father’s, and that didn’t set well with either group.  To make matters worse, she had a little boy, Matthew, seven years old.  She said she was a widow, that her husband died while working for the railroad, but there were rumors that she had never really been married - the inference being no white man would ever marry a half-caste - and that her boy was a bastard.  He didn’t know, and he honestly didn’t care. Celia was chilly to most, but once you got to know her and she let her defenses down, she was sweet and truly kind. He didn’t even like kids that much - they made him deeply nervous; he never knew what to do or say around them - but he liked Matt.  He was one of the few kids around here - Frontier was not a very “kid friendly” place - and he seemed to be as brave and tough as his mother.

She wiped down the counter near him, looking down in an attempt to hide what looked like a blush. “So what’ll it be this morning, Sher - Logan?”

“Surprise me.” It hardly even classified as flirting, unless you knew Celia. Celia was chilly to all men, which made him suspect she’d been hurt pretty badly in the past. It also made him wonder about the pale scar on the side of her face, starting from the zygomatic bone on the left side of her jaw, and disappearing beneath her hairline. She usually covered it with her hair and never spoke of it, so he never asked, and he didn’t stare. But he did wonder who had hurt her…and if they were still around…and if she would give him a name.

She glanced at him, a small smile curving the corner of her mouth. “That can be a dangerous request,”

“I trust you.”

That made her stop and look up, genuinely surprised. Why? Was she planning a violent coup to overthrow him as town thug? After a moment, she said, “Okay,” and quickly disappeared into the back. What the hell had that been about?

He didn’t have much time to think about it. The door burst open and Matt came in, running and breathless. He was already showing signs that he would be tall when he grew up, and although his hair was black, his complexion was paler than his mother’s; he could easily pass for “fully” white, and probably would choose to, as soon as he learned how prejudiced people could be. “Sh-sh-” he began, sounding a bit like a car that couldn’t start.

“Hey,” he said, getting up and going over to him. He crouched down in front of him, so he could be roughly at eye level with him. “Calm down. Take a deep breath.” He waited until the boy obeyed, sucking in a couple hard breaths, before Logan asked, “Okay. What’s happened?”

He was still trying to catch his breath, but he was able to talk a bit more clearer now. His cheeks burned red with the effort. “I was - I know you told me not to go there by myself, but -”

“Did you go near the logging camps?” He had told Matt not to, simply because he didn’t know what some of them might do to a kid, and because those yahoos were about as safety conscious as your average drunk with a death wish and access to large tools.

Matt looked down in shame, but nodded hastily. “Yeah, but … I stayed away, y’know, just kept to the woods, an’ … well, the guy, he was just -”

“What guy?”

He shrugged, shook his head. “I dunno, just a guy - I saw him just lying there …”

“Lying there? Where?”

“Near those weird huts the loggers sometimes use?” He must have meant the portable equipment sheds, where they protected some of their tools from inclement weather. “I thought maybe he was sleeping, but -”

“Are you hurt?”

Matt stared at him like he had just said something idiotic. “No. The guy was face down in a mud puddle, which seemed like a weird place to sleep, but then I saw the puddle … it was kinda red. And it was real quiet at the camp, ya know, not even the birds were around, and it smelled funny … I think somethin’ really bad has happened there. I got scared and came back …”

Oh shit.  Did one of those fucks make some bathtub (well, badly cobbled together still) gin, and go on a drunken rampage?  He’d heard of it happening in British Columbia … or maybe it was the Yukon.  No matter, he knew some of these guys were wanted and deadly, and not always the most sane people in the world. “You did the right thing, coming back,” he assured Matt, as Cal, one of Heller’s sons and one of his reserve “deputies” (if he needed a couple guys to help him enforce some basic rules) came over. From the worried look on his lean face, he’d heard what Matt had said. Logan stood so he could look Cal in the eye. “Take care of Matt here, and if Mac comes by, tell him what he said, and tell him to radio Red River; McClendon needs to know right away.”

“Whoa, wait a minute. Don’t you want to -”

“I’m just going to check it out, see what’s gone on, see if there are any … witnesses.” No point in saying “survivors” in front of the boy. “I’ll be fine. And tell Celia to keep breakfast warm for me, huh?”

He headed back out the door, as Cal shouted after him, “Do you even know where it is?”

“I’ll find it,” he said, as the door swung shut.

He headed off into the dense forest bordering the edge of town, up into the green hell of lodgepole pines and tangling underbrush, and as soon as he was sure he couldn’t be seen by anyone from town, he took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and scented the air.

It was all greenery, all the odors of flora mixed together into a smell that was partially enticing, and partially nauseating.  Folded in was the scents of all the fauna of the area, including the birds and the insects, and even the body odor of the Humans had passed by here …

…There.  A sliver of a metallic scent, meaty and sour; blood. Not animal, Human; faint, but coming in from the northeast. That would probably be the encampment nicknamed “Camp Baker”.  He opened his eyes and started through the forest, quickly but quietly. It was possible that the assailant was still at Camp Baker, and Matt’s hasty retreat attracted his attention.  He didn’t want to lose an opportunity, no matter how slim, of getting the drop on him first.

But the closer he got, the more he slowed down.  The scent of blood became thick and cloying, and became joined with another smell, the “funny smell” Matt had surely reported. It was a smell he knew pretty well: decaying flesh, internal gas spilling from cuts in the intestines, shit, piss, fear. Something awful had happened at Camp Baker, and before he could even spot a single building through the trees, he knew there was nothing living there.  Maybe some insects, maggots already burrowing into flesh, but even the bigger predators hadn’t arrived yet.  This must have happened a few hours ago, tops.

He stepped through the trees and into the clearing where Camp Baker had set up, and his boots squished noisily, making him stop.  No, he hadn’t stepped on something - the ground was so soaked through with blood, it was a mud pit.

This wasn’t a drunken rampage - it was a full on massacre.

****

When Logan woke up and found himself staring up at an unfamiliar stuccoed ceiling, his disorientation was complete and total.

It took him several minutes to remember when - and when - the hell he was, and his head kind of hurt for a long moment.  Then he remembered that his “payment” for doing all this, from the Powers, was memories. Is that why his head hurt?

The pain faded, and he sat up, trying to process everything he had recalled.  That must have been Alberta, but where, and when? He’d never heard of a place called Frontier, but then again, it wasn’t a proper town - just a collection of buildings calling itself a town.  But no paved road?  The RCMP a new thing?

It didn’t get that name until after World War One, right?  So maybe early 1900’s.  Shit.  He was not that old!  No fucking way.  Was he?

Damn it.  But at least he hadn't been a lameass Mountie.  Still - 'B Squadron'?  Did he even want to know what that was?

He rubbed his eyes, which felt like sandpaper, and went to clean up and, hopefully, wake up.  In spite of the small room air conditioner making a noise like a damaged 747, it was still unbearably stuffy, the sunlight bleeding through the blinds intolerably bright.  He just knew it was going to be a blast furnace out there today.  He was definitely leaving the coat behind.

In fact, when he got dressed, he decided jeans and a tank top were enough, along with his boots and sunglasses.  He really wasn’t made for the Los Angeles climate, a conviction that seemed reinforced when he attempted to go outside, and the hot, dense air almost pushed him back in.  If it wasn’t bad enough that it was about a hundred and one degrees out, it smelled like exhaust and all the industrial effluvia that gave L.A. its smog.  He found himself missing the reek of blood. Almost.

As he scowled beneath the harsh sun and started walking down the baking sidewalks, Logan wondered why the Powers were sending him that memory. Was it significant somehow?  Maybe he was responsible for what happened to those itinerant loggers; maybe he pulped them like wood. Maybe they were trying to tell him he had always been violent, that his life was mired in blood, and that maybe Scooter had a point, as vague as it was.  Maybe there were a ton of things he needed to atone for.

Or maybe not.  Maybe they were trying to tell him something else. He hadn't figured out enough of the plot yet to know.

He came to a small New Age-y looking gift shop called Mandrake’s, just one of similar small shops on the border of West Hollywood, attempting shabby and offbeat chic and only succeeding in one instance, and only then completely by accident. Walking in the glass door set off the gentle tinkling of brass chimes, and he was assaulted by the scent of too many herbs and too many essences of flowers.  He started sneezing and didn’t stop until the proprietor came out.  “And how may I help you today, kind sir?  A tissue perhaps?”

Logan glanced up at the man, who actually looked disturbingly androgynous, with a round face and soft features, hair - if it existed - hidden within the folds of bright blue cloth - it was half turban, and half do-rag. “You Argenis?” He asked, sniffing.

The would-be Argenis folded together his long, bejeweled fingers on top of the glass topped counter. “Indeedy do. What can I assist you with?”

“I need some transportation, a motorcycle if you can swing it, and I may need a place for dead drops.” He wiped his nose on his wrist, and hoped his healing factor would pick up the slack soon.  Who knew attar of marigold could give him sinus pain?

Argenis blinked his large, oddly colorless eyes. “I think you have me mistaken for someone else.  I sell potions and -”

“I’m a friend of Angel’s.”

That made him pause, but he still seemed unimpressed. “Angel fell into some misfortune, it seems.  So any leverage that he had -”

“I’m Bob’s avatar, and the vamps around here know me as the Decapitator.” He held up his right hand and popped his claws. “Shall we discuss leverage, or just arm wrestle?”

That did it. Argenis had jumped back half a foot when his claws emerged, and his eyes were so large they looked they were about to fall out of their sockets and roll under the counter. As soon as Logan retracted the blades again, a hand fluttered to Argenis’s oddly concave chest, and he remembered to breathe. “Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place, Human?  Jesus, you didn’t have to scare the kredlop out of me.”

Argenis was a demon black market “fixer”; whatever you needed he could get, usually at light speeds, as long as you weren’t too picky about how legit it was.  Angel apparently leaned on him for information and weapons from time to time - Angel, to his credit, scared much of the demon underground - so he was hoping throwing his name around would get cooperation.  Obviously news of Angel’s disappearance had finally made it through the underground, so there was no point throwing his name around anymore. But at least Bob’s name was still good for something. Or maybe it was the claws; it was amazing the doors these things could open.

Argenis pulled out a PDA from the folds of the sapphire satin robe he was wearing, and he started tapping on it with a stylus. “You are Human, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, so? What kinda crack is that?”

“It wasn’t a crack, friend.  It’s just that Humans are hardly strong enough to be avatars, and those knives of your are hardly standard issue.”

“I’m not a standard issue Human.”

“So I’ve gathered.” He slipped on a headset receiver for a cell phone, and after a minute, he said, “Jefah,
I need a motorcycle.  Delivered ..?” Argenis pointed down at the counter, and Logan nodded.  “Here. Immediately.” He tapped the side of his headset, and asked him, “Dead drop - do you mean a place for anonymous mail deliveries, or other?”

“Other. Specifically, a place where something ugly won’t get noticed, and where there won’t be many innocent bystanders around.”

“The first is easy - it’s L.A., honey; ugly things are ignored out of habit, but the no-collaterals … I assume you mean to put those knives to use, Miss Thang.”

Logan raised an eyebrow at that, and crossed his arms over his chest.  Miss Thang?  No, he really didn’t want to know. “It ain’t me I’m worried about.  It’s the guys who’ll be shootin’ at me.” That made Argenis raise an eyebrow right back at him. “And the closer to Chinatown, the better.”

“Living out a hard boiled movie fantasy, huh?  Odd, I’d have pegged you more as the Clint Eastwood or Steve McQueen type.” Before he could insult him anew, Argenis tapped his headset, and said, “Jef, is that place on Crestmore still around?  No, not that one … yes, that’s it.  Yes I’m serious.  I don’t think the shape it’s in matters that much.”  His colorless eyes flicked to him, and Logan shook his head.  “No, it doesn’t in the slightest.” Argenis just listened and nodded for a full half minute, then said, “Set it up. I need it as of ten minutes ago. Ciao baby, all my love to Greg.”  He then tapped the headset again and slid it off, somehow not messing up his new fangled turban. “Right.  I think you’ll be good to go as soon as Meggie turns up with the bike.”

“Just like that?”

He scoffed. “Well, yes. What did you expect?  I’m the best.”  He paused, canting his head to the side as he scrutinized him. “What I don’t understand is why you didn’t just have Bob handle this, if he is indeed connected to you.”

“’Cause he might stop me if he knows what I’m gonna do.”

“Hey, now...I don’t want any trouble with him. In my experience, you don’t fuck with arms dealers unless you honestly enjoy playing pick up sticks with your own ribs.”

He’d almost forgotten Bob had an L.A. reputation as a demons arms merchant.  The Way Station was supposedly a front for that. “Don’t worry, he won’t blame you. Your ass is covered.”

“Damn well better be.  So, uh … is that Doctor Kriedler’s work?”

“Huh?”

He nodded at him, but the gesture was too vague for him to know what it meant. “The knives!  That was
a custom job, right?”

Logan scowled, hiding his hands beneath his arms.  This was not something he wanted to discuss.
“S’pose so.”

“Kriedler?”

“I don’t even know who the fuck Kriedler is.”

“Really? Well, maybe that’s too streamlined for his work.  He’s a plastic surgeon in the Valley who does some very custom body modification for the right price.”

That sounded really disgusting.  But he wondered if it was a clue, or possibly a veiled warning. “What kind of modifications?”

Argenis shrugged, and it seemed like a fluid rolling, as if his shoulders were honestly rounded, perhaps domed shaped, under his loose, concealing clothing.  “Anything you can afford, and within general humanoid bounds, he can do.  He’s a genius.  But, also, mobbed up to the gills - so to speak - so you have to be real careful in your dealings with him.  If you know what I mean, and I think you do.”

“Mobbed up?  To which one?”

“To the only one that matters, honey. Demon.”

If he was connected to the demon mob, then he was, by extension, a member of the Three Dragons, whether he realized it or not.  And if he was Human - the name sounded Human - it might be just the access he was looking for. Maybe the Powers That Be acted in mysterious ways. “Got an address for me?”

That made Argenis arch a painted eyebrow, but he did tell him what he wanted to know.  Logan didn’t ask if Kriedler saw patients without an appointment, because it really didn’t matter.

Today he was going to make an exception, whether he liked it or not.