12

Mystique snarled up at her. “You have a lot of nerve for arm candy. It’s attractive … in an annoying sort of way.”

“I get that a lot,” Faith replied, pretending not to notice the insult. “So what’s the big plan here, huh? You and Vogel fiancés or something?”

She gave her an amused smirk that Faith honestly wanted to kick off her face. “You really think that’s how this is going to play out? I spill my guts and throw myself on your mercy?”

She shrugged casually, like she didn’t care. The truth was, Faith wasn’t really sure what to do with her. She couldn’t kill her, as much as she wanted to, because they needed her alive to figure out what the fuck was going on. She could smack her around a bit - you know, just for fun - but she wasn’t sure that Mystique wouldn’t enjoy that on some level. And her arm was really hurting; it felt like it was swelling, bloating up until it threatened to break the skin, explode through it like an overcooked sausage. It wasn’t, of course, but she had no idea that adamantium was that toxic. Logan couldn’t have mentioned that? “By the way, this stuff in me? Total poison. Try not to get shot with it.” Even so, it probably wouldn’t have prevented this.

“You could do so much better than him, you know,” Mystique said, still flapping her gums. “Not that I don’t get the appeal. He has that bad boy charisma, he’s built like a brick shithouse, and he’s hung. He’s got that great air of a guy who really has no inhibitions at all, and they’re usually the best fucks. But he’s gotta be old enough to be your great grandfather, or even older, which is kinda nauseating.”

“Wait a sec. How do you know he’s hung?”

She snickered derisively. “The whole goddamn world’s seen Wolverine naked. It’s that whole no inhibitions thing - he doesn’t give a shit if he comes out of the explosion with any clothes or not; it never occurs to him to check. Or it could be he’s just conditioned to be naked after that whole lab rat thing the Organization turned him into. Also, we’ve fucked. Long time ago, but he doesn’t seem to age, so presumably the body’s still the same.”

“You slept with him? He doesn’t seem to know about that.”

“He wouldn’t. I’m sure that’s part of his amnesia or whatever. He was great; really pretty good for a man. Don’t you think so?”

Faith glared at her through narrowed eyes, feeling sweat start to trickle down her forehead. Yeah, she really didn’t feel good. Was she gonna puke? Goddamn it, you couldn’t hold a gun on someone when you puked. “You really think that’s how this is gonna play out? I get jealous and it all ends in some sissy hair pulling chick fight?”

“Oh, I hope not. I find women who really throw down incredibly sexy.” She grinned in a sly way she probably thought was sexy and licked her lips, but as she did her face seemed to ripple, and suddenly Faith was looking down at Logan, leering at her in a feral way. “That’s why I usually kill them,” he said, and then lunged for her, springing his claws.

Being sick made her slow, but Faith wasn’t stupid. This was simply Mystique, and while her claws looked metal, she knew they couldn’t be - Logan had already told her Mystique couldn’t replicate anything that wasn’t flesh, muscle, or bone. They were good replicas of metal, but they were probably bone, or … who the hell knew? Didn’t matter. They still might be able to cut.

Faith tossed the gun aside - she wasn’t going to use it and it was only in the way - and grabbed Mystique’s wrists as she attempted to skewer her, holding her arms out of stabbing distance, and brought her forehead down hard on her nose, causing it to crack with a sickening noise, and at the same time, she kneed Mystique/Logan hard in the groin. Mystique made a noise of pain even as she tried to shove her back. Faith went with it, not letting go of her arms, and turned slightly, her back to the Corvette. She fell back over the hood and flipped Mystique, over her head and over the car. “Think I wouldn’t hurt my boyfriend? Wow, skank, you don’t know me at all.”

Faith turned to find that Mystique had managed to land on her feet, but just barely, landing with a stumble. Still, she recovered quickly, and launched herself back at her, claws first. Faith waited, then turned as if moving aside, quickly spinning into a roundhouse kick that caught Mystique on the side of her head as she was coming down. She didn’t hold back, she unleashed her full strength on her, and Faith half expected her skull to cave in like a bad soufflé. But she was pretty tough, as all she did was fall awkwardly to the ground, losing her Logan guise and reverting to her blue assed self. She stayed on the ground, not moving, but Faith didn’t trust that she was unconscious. She kept her distance, not willing to be suckered into a trap, and waited for her to move.

The nausea seemed to swell and subside, although the sudden burst of activity made her arm throb that much worse. She leaned against the car and waited. She was just catching her breath, trying to ignore her arm, when Logan asked, “How badly are you hurt?”

Faith jumped, spinning around, heart trip-hammering in her chest. “Fuck!” she snapped, glaring at him. He was standing on the other side of the car, a small trail of slick red blood on his face the only sign that he had been shot in the head a couple of minutes ago. “Would you warn a person before sneaking up on them? I almost elbowed you in the face!”

“I wasn’t tryin’ to sneak up on you.”

It wasn’t that she didn’t believe him, it was just the realization that she hadn’t heard him move at all. If he had been Mystique or a Ressik demon or any one of the million goddamn things that had ever tried to kill her, she’d be dead. She liked to think she was better than that. It was an unwelcome reminder that she too still had vulnerable spots.

Logan’s eyes shifted from her face to arm, which he reached out and gently grabbed. “Shit. How’s your arm feel?”

“Kinda shitty.”

He looked at it for a moment, and said, “She missed the artery and the nerves; it looks like all soft tissue damage. I guess that’s something.”

She snickered as he let go of her arm and for some reason took off his shirt. “I forgot you can triage.”

“Not really,” he claimed weakly, grimacing in embarrassment, as he rolled his shirt up and started wrapping it around her bullet wound. He tied it tightly around her arm, almost tight enough to hurt, but not quite. The blood stopped dribbling out almost immediately.

“Why’d you be embarrassed about triaging? Man, that’s a skill.”

“It’s not really triaging. I just know how to kill.”

Oh, that was it. How funny that being a knowledgeable assassin could also make you a pretty decent medic. Well, not funny ha ha.

After securing the impromptu bandage, he looked at Mystique laying face down on the ground. “Have I told you recently you’re the best girlfriend ever?”

“Not often enough. She really out?”

“She better be, or she’ll be sorry.” They both looked at her, and Faith realized that Mystique was in a shitload of trouble. Between her and Logan, they could ice the Smurfette pretty easily, especially now that she didn’t have the gun. Sucked to be her.

Vogel was still out too, and hadn’t moved a muscle this entire time. Was he dead? She must have given him quite a dose, although you’d think it’d be hard on an old guy.

Logan pulled his cell phone out, which made her wonder, because he didn’t do that a lot. “Calling Mark?”

He shook his head. “We’ll never get her to talk.”

“You sure about that? I mean, I hate to admit it, but I’m pretty good with torture.”

“So am I. But she’s as trained to be resistant to torture as I am. We’ll get nothing out of her.” He then glanced at the ground as someone answered on the other end of the line. “Yeah, it’s me. I need your help as soon as you get this.” Logan then shut his phone and tucked it back in his pocket.

Faith eyed him suspiciously. “Were you talking to anyone?”

“Got Bob’s machine.” At her look, he added, “He’ll get the message.”

“When?”

“Don’t worry about it. He’s Bob.”

“Yeah, but he’s been known to take months off. How do you know -”

“This better be good,” Bob said. “There are some killer waves off Venice Beach.”

Faith turned to find him standing several feet away from them, a black surfboard with blue flames all over it held underneath his arm. He was also dripping wet and dressed only in one of those black half body wetsuits, only he had unzipped the chest and peeled off the sleeves, so it hung at his waist like a cape. His torso was exposed, much like Logan’s currently, and also like Logan’s, it was very nice, although a bit less hairy.

“You’re surfing now?“ Logan gestured up to the violet hued sky. “It’s night.”

“You’ve never heard of a night surfing? It’s awesome. Never crowded.” Bob looked down, smoothing his wet hair out of his face, and noticed both Mystique and Vogel crumpled on the ground. “Ooh, kinky,” he commented, glancing back up at them with one of his many shit eating grins.

“Don’t start,” Logan warned. “You know what I want to do. Can you do it?”

Bob made a show of thinking about it, glancing at her arm in the meantime. “Ouch. That looks like it hurts.”

Faith shrugged. “I’ve had worse.” Stabbed and left for dead worse, but hey, who was keeping track?

Night was falling in gradations, hues of increasing darkness that seemed almost subtle, but it was much darker than she realized. Either that, or Bob’s eyes really had momentarily glowed like a Paddock demon’s, only bright blue instead of red. “You’re fine.”

She scoffed. “I wish I was, but -” It was then she realized that her arm really didn’t hurt anymore; it wasn’t throbbing or slightly numb, and the vague, lingering sense of nausea was gone too. Yeah, she felt pretty good. She undid Logan’s bloody shirt and looked at her arm. Yep, it was fine - the gunshot wound was gone. “Damn, it’s creepy how you do that.”

“Isn’t it? Hel’s always telling me to knock it off.”

Logan cleared his throat. “Bob?”

He sighed and rolled his eyes heavenward, as if so badly done by it was impossible to put into words. “We’ve been over this. I can’t restore a memory that isn’t there.”

“But if I have pieces it means I haven’t totally forgotten it. Can you reconstruct it?”

Faith wanted to ask what they were talking about, but she knew enough about Logan’s relationship with Bob that she would be lucky to get a word in edgewise. So she just listened and tried to put the pieces together herself.

“Logan, it would be invasive and probably incomplete.”

“Like I give a fuck about invasive. Do you know how many telepaths have fucked around with my brain without my consent?”

“I’m much worse than a telepath, mate.”

“Yeah, but I can take all you’ve got. I’ve proven it.”

“I’ve never given you all I’ve got, not even when you were avataring for me,” Bob replied, but he slammed the tip of his surfboard into the dirt so it could stand up on its own. He was leaving muddy footprints in his wake, but he didn’t seem to care. “There’s background details I might not be able to fill in. It may come off, at best, like a fever dream, or a film with missing pieces.”

“Can you take any missing background details from them?” Logan wondered, gesturing first at Mystique, then at Vogel. “They were both there.”

Bob’s golden eyebrows quirked up, and Bob looked at them intently. “Oh really?” Sure, he was one of the good guys, but the way he said it made a shiver go up her spine. When Bob sounded intrigued by something, it was never anything good.

Bob crouched down beside Mystique, and Faith almost warned him out of habit, but stopped herself. Like Bob needed a warning - Mystique needed the warning. “So, hon, you might want to wake up now.”

She stirred slightly, but after a moment’s pause, she sat up abruptly and turned, facing them but almost instantly turning to face Bob. She didn’t look alarmed, but Faith could tell she was about to do something violent. It didn’t matter. “No, you’re not doing that. Face it, you’re pretty much fucked. But you know, you’re really hot for a blue chick. Most of the blue girls I know are Izahs demons, and they aren’t hot. It’s probably because they looked like startled armadillos, though, not because they’re blue.”

The look she gave him suggested imminent violence, but then she looked down at her hands, which were flat on the ground, like she expected to find them chained to something. “Uh uh, “ Bob said. “And that’s a rather nasty thing to think about someone. You’re a bit harsh, aren’t ya?”

Her gaze was laser like. “Who the fuck are you?”

“The name’s Bob. And you can stop thinking of music, ‘cause I’m not a telepath, although I can see how you could jump to that conclusion. Could a telepath do this?”

Bob didn’t do anything, but Mystique grimaced painfully, and shouted, “Stop it!”

“What’re you doin’?” Logan asked.

“Piping the local soft jazz station straight into her brain,” Bob said. He paused for a moment, then added, “Okay, that’s enough. Even you don’t deserve Yanni, Raven.”

Mystique’s eyes narrowed to deadly yellow slits at that, and Faith leaned over and whispered in Logan’s ear, “Raven?”

“Her real name,” he whispered back.

Really? Wow, that was actually kind of cool. She wished she was named Raven.

Mystique took a very long, scrutinizing look at Bob, and something in her face changed. It was subtle, but it looked like, in a single moment, she had lost all hope. “Holy fuck. You’re the one they call Pretty Boy, aren’t you? The level twelve reality warper.”

Bob chuckled good naturedly. “Pretty Boy? That’s like the most awesome code name ever. I’m puttin’ that on a t-shirt.”

“The levels only go up to ten,” Logan interjected.

“They made an exception in his case,” she replied, speaking to Logan but keeping her eyes locked on Bob, like he was a poisonous snake that could strike at any moment.

“Too right! I get my own category,” Bob chirped, grinning almost madly. “But you know, I’m not really a reality warper. Reality resists warping anyways; it doesn’t like it. I simply reorder it. Take things that are here and simply shuffle the deck. Reality doesn’t care so much about that.”

“What do you think you’re going to do to me?” she asked, sounding icy and resigned. She was trying to hide her fear, but Faith didn’t think she was doing such a good job.

“Nothing. What I would like to do is make you tell the truth, but Logan wants to actually know what happened, and thinks he has a chance to do that. So you’re gonna help him, whether you like it or not.”

“No.”

Bob smirked at her in a way that was unsettlingly similar to the way Mystique had smirked at her before the fight. Was that on purpose? “You don’t have a choice. But it’s funny that you think you do.” He stood up, and Mystique looked like she wanted to move, but she couldn’t. She was frozen to the ground like she had been glued there. She couldn’t shift either; Bob had effectively paralyzed her. Now see, Bob would have been handy much earlier on.

Bob approached Logan, and asked, “You sure about this, mate?”

He nodded. “Hit me.”

Bob grabbed his face in his hands and stared in his eyes, like he was going to kiss him, but he didn’t. They were motionless for a second, but then Bob’s eyes glowed cobalt, and Logan seemed to jolt, like he’d just gotten a few hundred thousand volts of electricity pumped through his body, but he stayed on his feet.

Faith wondered what was happening in his head, and if either of them would ever tell her.