6

He didn’t remember much about the fight up the stairs. When he left himself, when he let his instincts take over, he seemed to invite the blank spaces into his mind. His mind didn’t want to create memories, or simply rejected the possibility outright. All he had were fleeting images, sensations: bones being broken, blood spilling warm over his hand, the taste of cordite in the back of his throat. Logan could remember the hits, the slashes, the kicks; his body retained the memory of the fight, he could feel it, but the images were lacking.

He came back to himself upstairs, in a narrow corridor, breathing hard and feeling a bullet wound heal in his face. He wasn’t sure what had spurred him back to himself at first, but then he realized it was the smell: old fear, with new fear layered on top of it. It was hard to smell over all the blood and death, but once he’d scented it he couldn’t not smell it anymore.

He’d found the kids.

There were locks on the doors, easily slashed through, and most had heard the sounds of a fight and had hidden in their squalid rooms, but when he found his voice - and it took a moment; when his reason shut down, it took his voice with it - he stood in the hall and said to all the open doors, “The police will be showing up soon. You can stay and go with them, or you can go now. I won’t hurt you, and they can’t hurt you anymore.”

He started walking away, because he knew they’d be terrified of him. Who wouldn’t be? Blood covered monster, like something that crawled out of the darkest part of a madman’s psyche. He was at the head of the stairs when a small voice said, in whispered Russian, “They said they’d kill my family.”

It could have been a boy’s voice or a girl’s. And while they were mostly girls up here, he was pretty sure he caught a scent that could only be male, but not dosed with the usual pheromones; pre-pubescent. Young boys sold pretty well too, from what little he understood about this sick business. Age was often more important than gender. He didn’t turn to look at the kid, mainly because he knew it was better if the kid never saw his face. He should remain a nightmare figure, something inhuman and slightly metallic and dripping blood that was mostly not his own. Let them tell the cops, who would instantly dismiss the description as a traumatized child’s fantasy. “They won’t. They’ll be too busy trying to kill me. Your family is safe, because now I’m all they want.” Which was partly true and partly a lie, as killing the family was usually no more than an idle threat, one used to keep the kids obedient and in line. They used narcotics on these kids for the very same reason.

He went back down the stairs, careful not to slip in all the blood, trying hard not to notice the scattered limbs or other obvious signs of dismemberment. Mystique was standing at the base of the stairs, still looking like a big Russian thug, holding two smoking guns, lightly bloodspattered and heavily smug. “Wow, old man, I thought the beast was gone,” she said, in French. (Possibly because she assumed that the survivors who were conscious would speak Russian and possibly English, but probably not French.) “After I fought you and it didn’t come out, I figured you were completely domesticated, that maybe Xavier leashed you. But the animal’s still in there, huh?”

“I am not an animal,” he snapped, briefly imagining kicking the gun out of one of her hands and planting a set of claws right in the middle of her face. He could see himself doing it; he did it before she even had time to react.

Did she see it in his eyes?  She leveled one of her weapons at him, asking “You back yet?”

“Yeah.” He thought if he could let go, he could beat her before she shot him in the eye; he could have her head in two neat pieces on the floor before the sound of the shot finished echoing through the building. But he shoved those thoughts back deep inside his mind, in a dark little corner where they wouldn’t hurt anyone. He thought the “other” had been expunged, wiped out like the soul sucking demon it seemed to be, but the Organization had fucked his head over so well that it was probably impossible to totally rid himself of the Weapon X persona. If it was genuinely another persona, a trigger response. He feared it was really him, or at least some fragment of him, a piece broken and slightly apart from the rest of him. It must be, if Jean took out the “programmed” part, and he still had this beast in him. Mystique was right - it was a beast. He hoped it wasn’t really him.

“Where do you go?” she asked, as she let him lead the way out of the slaughterhouse. She must have decided she wasn’t going to turn her back on him. That was smart.

“What?” He knew what she was talking about, but he didn’t want to acknowledged it.

“You went away in your head, didn’t you? I didn’t realize it at first because I was following you, but up on the stairs, I saw it in your eyes. It’s like … your pupils were huge, like you just dropped E or something, although moving that fast it must have been speed. But there was something wrong with them. Something happens to your eyes when the beast comes out. I didn’t know that. Did you?”

He didn’t, but he wasn’t going to tell her that, just like he wasn’t going to tell her it looked like someone cut loose with a chainsaw in here. Once outside, he gratefully sucked in a lungful of air that didn’t smell like blood, and swallowed back a brief surge of nausea that was probably psychosomatic more than anything. It made him think of Jean again, telling him he had post traumatic stress disorder, that willfully separating yourself from your body in your own mind was actually common amongst trauma victims. So maybe it wasn’t a beast per se, just a wounded animal. That didn’t actually make him feel any better.

Mystique complained about him getting blood all over her car, but he told her she should have planned for that since knife fights were often messy. He suddenly felt weary to the pit of his soul, and all he wanted to do was scour the scent of blood off his skin and go sleep for a few thousand years. She’d changed her appearance to that of a very bland, blonde “soccer mom” type, as he used a towel wedged under the passenger seat to get the most visible blood off his face, arms, and neck. He didn’t need any onlookers thinking some blood soaked maniac was holding a helpless suburban mom hostage. (Of course, helpless his ass, but they probably wouldn’t know that until she snapped their neck like a twig and laughed while doing it.)

He didn’t want her to know where Faith lived - even though she could probably find out if she was willing to dig - so he had her drop her off a couple blocks over. He slunk into a back alley and took off his torn, bloody shirt and threw it in a Dumpster, glad he’d left his coat in the back of Mystique’s car, so he could zip it up and wear it back to Faith’s place. He was lucky that blood often appeared black on jeans.

When he walked into her place, she said, “Well fuck, man!  I was about to go out and look for - oh shit. What happened?”

He shrugged, and felt oddly bad standing in front of her, like he was a piece of shit that didn’t deserve to be in her presence. “I decided to let the mob know Logan Yashida was back in town.”

She closed her eyes and shook her head like he was the stupidest person she’d ever met. Maybe he was. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“’Cause you’d want to come along. I don’t want you to see me like that.”

That made her look at him askance. “Like what?”

He didn’t know how to describe it. What was the most honest thing to say? “Like Weapon X,” he finally said, taking off his coat.

“You’re not Weapon X anymore.”

“I think a part of me always will be. I’m gonna take a shower. Sorry if I got blood on your floor.” He shucked off what was left of his bloody clothes along the way, trying to put them in spots where they would do the least damage, noticing she had “Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge” (ha) on the stereo and the television on mute, showing some scenes from a horror movie that looked cheesy enough that it was best shown without sound. Of course, now that they’d both fought the real thing, all horror movie demons seemed cheesy.

He got the shower going as hard and hot as he could stand it, and stood under the spray, waiting for the water to batter away the blood and self-loathing. It didn’t seem to be working.

Faith got in the shower with him, stepping in behind him, and said, “You’re lucky I’m used to getting blood on my floor, bucko, or I’d have kicked your ass.” She started soaping up his back, and then asked, “Ever thought about getting a tat?”

He almost laughed, but couldn’t quite manage it. “I’m not sure I can get a tattoo. I think my system attacks the ink and eradicates it.”

“So you don’t get colds, but you can’t get tattoos? Bummer.” She probably brought it up because she had added to her own tattoo collection while off in Japan. On her right arm, she had small, artfully rendered kanjis that said in Japanese, “I’ll kick your ass”. He thought that was so funny he wished he had that.

She was trying to distract him, he knew it, and he appreciated it. They washed off as much of the blood as possible before the hot water ran out (and it was sort of reassuring to know that it ran out even in an expensive place like this, even though it took forever to do it), and then went to bed, as he was still exhausted. They didn’t have sex - he wasn’t sure he could right now; self-loathing was a big mood killer - but she snuggled up next to him in bed, her body pressed up against his back, arms around his chest. It was very soothing, which she must have known, as she asked him again what happened, and he told her. Roughly. Again, there were those tricky memory gaps, many of them self-caused.

But when he told her about the kids, she said, “You should have brought Giles.”

“Why?”

“So you could kill those mob bastards, he could resurrect them, and you could kill them again. One death ain’t good enough for pieces of shit like that.”

“We’re so alike sometimes it’s frightening.”

“I know. But I have the better rack.”

That made him laugh in spite of himself, which was surely her intention. "I'd hope so."

"Oh, you're jealous and you know it," she teased, giving him a kiss on the back of his neck. "You didn't run into that mutant guy?"

"No. Or any of them. I mean, if they have one, there will probably be others. I assume they'll be out in full force now."

"Let me take care of the Hulk, all right? I'm stronger than I should be too."

"Faith, he turned a car into a tin can. He's stronger than you."

"So? He won't be the first guy I've fought who's stronger than me. You ever fought a Draxil demon? Holy shit, they could throw a building at you - I mean literally pick it up and throw it. All you gotta do for these muscleheads is move in fast, hit the weak spots, and move out before they can grab you. Ain't easy, but it can be done."

That was really the only strategy you could use. "You should teach at the school."

"Fuck that noise. I don't teach, I only do."

"See? There's that alike thing again."

"But you have the better sideburns," she said, giggling faintly into his neck.

They were so perfect for each other they were doomed to failure. But it was bound to be a fun ride while it lasted.

****

He thought he'd be plagued by nightmares, but he wasn't. Maybe because his healing factor getting so taxed exhausted him, or maybe Faith helped, or maybe both. He didn't feel so bad when he woke up, though.

He was starving. Luckily Faith had a pretty good appetite too, and had ordered lots of food from the near by deli. As he joined her at the kitchen table, he saw the "mob massacre" had made the headlines. According to what police told the press, they thought it was an indication a mob war was either starting or had started. There was no mention of him or anyone who looked like him at all. Either they were holding it back, or they didn't believe the kids. There was no way any of the mob survivors would spill their guts to the cops. They'd tell their people, but that would be it.

She must have noticed the look on his face as he read it, because she said, "Think of them as a nest of demons, just in Human form. Did you see where they said one of the kids recovered from the scene was eight? Eight! Should have killed them three times."

Logan knew he had some right to feel justified, but he still didn't. "They're gonna be comin' after me hot and heavy now. I should probably find another place to stay."

"Fuck you. I got a kevlar vest. You're safest here."

"Safe doesn't really come into it, not for me. It's you and all the innocent bystanders I'm worried about."

She scoffed. "I think that's the first time I've been called innocent before."

"You know what I mean."

"I do, and it still doesn't apply to me." She picked up the newspaper, rolled it up, and poked him in the arm with it. "So where are we meeting the blue assed bimbo today?"

There was no talking her out of it now, although he would have liked to. After yesterday, he imagined she'd be his shadow.

Logan wore a baseball cap (although it was actually a Canucks hat) and black sunglasses, but he knew this was meager camouflage at best. Still, he had to make some effort.

They met Mystique at the coffee shop he'd been doing his stake out in the day before, although this time they went inside. Today, for some reason, she looked like a mousy, slightly overweight woman in an oversized sweater and ill fitting jeans. She didn't want to attract attention to herself, perhaps. She looked up from her coffee as they sat down at her table, and she remarked, "Brought the chippie today?"

"Cram it up your ass, Blue Meanie," Faith replied, almost nonchalantly. "Now that the mob is after you, you need all the help you can get."

She raised an imperious eyebrow at her. “And how will you help, dearie? Flash your tits at them?”

“Nah, I’m leaving that job to you.”

He cleared his throat, hoping they didn’t get into a fight in the coffee shop. He supposed he should be flattered about women getting in a fight over him, but it wasn’t about him at all - it was two alpha females, trying to establish who was queen bee. “Is Vogel on the move?”

That’s why Mystique was here. They both figured, after Logan Yashida’s rather grisly hello, that the mob would be scrambling to get Vogel to a new location, so she’d been watching the hotel. It was decided that this was where Mystique would infiltrate his security detail, and Logan would provide the chaos that would allow her to slip in unnoticed. She’d then call him as soon as she could and let him know the new location of Vogel’s hideout, as well as (hopefully) the location of the auction. The only problem was his causing havoc. It had to be precisely timed, so the chances of civilian danger were at a minimum, but that was the hardest part of this all and the hardest thing to plan around. “The mobsters are thick on the ground and as agitated as Evangelicals stuck in the middle of a mutant pride parade. They’re getting ready to move and soon. We need to get started.”

He nodded, not surprised, but he also wasn’t surprised at the look Faith was giving him out of the corner of his eye. “What exactly are you doing?”

He had neglected to mention that over breakfast this morning, for a good reason: he had no idea what he was doing. “I’m playin’ it by ear. It depends on who’s there and who I have to deal with.”

“You mean that big mutant guy.”

“Yeah. Amongst others.”

She nodded, and while she seemed to accept that, Faith was giving him a look that said, “We’re talking about this later.” He was sure they would.

Mystique looked at them both and smiled in that cold, unsettling way of hers. “He’s a loner for a reason, sweet cheeks. All his little girlfriends seem to die horribly.”

He shot her an evil look, but Faith just shrugged and reached into her pocket, pulling out a stick of gum and popping it into her mouth. “Yeah, well, I kill most of my boyfriends, so we’re even.”

That wasn’t true, but he appreciated the solidarity. (It wasn’t true, was it?)

They moved out to the street, and simply waited. Mystique had taken the time to duck behind a Dumpster and reemerge as the raggedy bag lady from yesterday, and crossed the street to be closer to the Pacific Grand. Again, she was ignored by everyone. He started walking slowly up the opposite side of the street, biding his time. Faith remained at one of the outdoor tables of the coffee shop, waiting, but trying to look casual about it.

It wasn’t too long before the mobsters showed up again, milling about in a way that seemed to suggest controlled chaos. Logan leaned against a wall like a hustler and stared at them, wondering when they were going to notice. He took off his sunglasses and tucked them in the pocket of his jeans to see if it helped at all.

It must have, because about a minute later one of the thick necked guys stared back at him with cold, steel grey eyes, and he saw the moment the penny dropped - the moment he realized it was Logan Yashida brazenly casing them. He grinned evilly and waved as the guy shouted a warning and pulled his gun, about a dozen other similar looking guys responding and doing the same thing.

Logan tore off and ran down a side alley, the only one on this street. It dead ended at a chain link fence, but those were easy to climb. He was going to lead them as far from the populated streets as possible, which would not only lessen collateral damage, but thin the forces out in front of the hotel and increase the chaos. Mystique would have no problem slipping in unnoticed.

He cut down a narrow side street - an alley by default - and had yet to see a sign of pursuit, which bothered him. He paused and listened, sure they were following, and turned to go, in time to see a rather big shadow fall across the mouth of the alley.

It was the big strong guy he saw the other day, the guy who killed that man with a car. He cracked his knuckles - shit, the guy had huge hands - and said, “I can’t tell you how long I’ve been waiting to meet you, Wolverine. Are your joints as strong as your bones? ‘Cause I’m wondering how long it’ll take me to rip your arm off and beat you to death with it.”

In the overall scheme of things, this probably wasn’t good.