The first thing he smelled was blood: thick and cloying, mostly Human, but some demon, drowning the stink of fear and shit in its wake. The closer he got the more it overwhelmed him, and he had to stop, not only to shake his head and take a few shallow breaths through his mouth, but also to slow himself down. There was no point in alerting the big bad to his approach - assuming it didn't know in another way. But he wasn't going to worry about it; he'd wait until he had all the facts. If he ever had any.

As soon as he was sure he could take it, he slowly started up a narrow alley that cut through several streets, and allowed him to see about two blocks ahead. There was movement, furtive and transitory, and a flickering light like fire, but he smelled no flames. Unreality - maybe there was a fire that had no smell. It couldn't happen, so maybe here it could. Or something like that.

As he neared, stalking in quietly, he saw the street was wet, glistening as if with rain, but it didn't smell like water. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end, his skin seemed to prickle, and his claws were itching to break through his skin, but he held them back, not wanting even that small noise to give him away.

The street was a slick of blood, and in the dimness it all looked black. As did all the things on it, creeping around the sidewalks and over the wall, scrambling like lizards and slithering like snakes, accompanied by the soft noises of scales and skin scratching dry brick, and the louder wet noise of flesh being torn from bone.

What he saw was someone's nightmare, or perhaps someone's concept of hell - oversized creatures that sprung from the morbid imagination of a feverish child: things that were half spider and half lizard; half tiger and half snake; half beetle and half wolf; half scorpion and half dragon; grown to gigantic proportions and tearing people - Humans and demons alike - apart like rag dolls. Random body parts littered the gutters - a leg here, some intestines there, a pinkish grey lump that may have been lungs - and the beasties played tug of war with a fresh body, ripping it in half and sending internal organs flying as other, smaller beasties screeched and ran in to eat the spilled bits of gore like they were treats knocked out of a pinata.

Was there any intelligence at work? He doubted it, meaning the demon he really wanted wasn't here, but was he walking away? He doubted that too.

It was just then that a big grotesquerie - it had the mandibles and hard carapace of a beetle, the multiple legs of a spider, but the thick, leanly muscular body of a lizard - the size of a Greyhound bus saw him, and let out a scream that was part infant, and part angry tom cat fed through a Moog synthesizer. It advanced on him, thin legs still managing to come down with the force of piledrivers, cracking the bloodied pavement beneath its feet, as its  car crusher sized mandibles clicked like metal rods being slammed together.

"Oh, give me a break, Beetle Boy," he spat, finally popping his claws. As its slime dripping mandibles stabbed down towards him, he slashed out with his right hand and cut them off. As its antennae waggled in distress, he slashed out with his left claw, and sliced its end table sized head clean off.

The body simply collapsed, as if all its thin legs had been kicked out from under it, and the pavement fissured even more beneath it, creating an impromptu drain for the blood to run down. Suddenly all the other beasts - as big as train cars, as semis, as tanks - saw him, and started converging, hissing and snapping and yowling and screaming and snarling; nightmare noises that were almost real but not quite.

Logan grinned at them, baring his teeth in a predatory manner, and it was all he could do not to laugh. This was a reality he knew - things trying to kill him. But he also knew, in that reality, he always killed them first, no matter how big, ugly, and mean they were.

He didn't wait for them to come to him. He lunged at the nearest one, claws first - it was a spider lizard kind of thing, as if a tarantula had mated with Godzilla - and sliced across its grape like cluster of eight bulging eyes in the center of its face, making it scream in a distressingly Human manner as he shredded its snapping, gaping muzzle and cut through the remains of its head. Green blood as thick as oatmeal splattered on him even as he avoided a Datsun sized scorpion claw that attempted to scissor him in half.

"Have to do better than that," he taunted it, slashing through its claws and sharp beaked face.

As he continued to shred everything he could reach - tentacles, claws as large as compact cars, jaws with multiple sets of teeth, eyes as large as his fist, carapaces like steel and a foot thick - he shouted, "Hey, big guy, you behind this?" He couldn't help but think this was some attempt by the big bad to instill fear and cull the Human herd. Hadn't Clia's grandmother said something about it needing to feed? Was this how it went about it? "Gonna have to do better than this. I ain't afraid of no fucking ant farm!"

As if in answer, a tail as thick as an oil tanker slammed into his chest and sent him flying across the street, straight into a building. Impact knocked all the air from his lungs, and as he sank down to the sidewalk, bits of brick rained down on him as spots pulsed before his eyes and darkness swamped his vision. But he didn't lose consciousness; the burning pain of the torn muscles in his chest walls knitting back together kept him alert, and as his vision cleared, he could see the dark shape of the thing undulating towards him, moving like a hydra, a half dozen subway sized snakes chained together and moving in unison. Six mouths as wide as car doors opened, revealing layer upon layer of gleaming white fangs that seemed to glow in the false dark.

In spite of tasting blood in his mouth, Logan grinned fiercely at them. "That's right, assholes, come and get me." They thought he was down for the count, waiting to be swallowed whole? Idiots.

He licked his lips, tasting more blood from healed cuts, and he had that special clarity that rage always provided. It didn't matter that there were no street lights here, and none coming from the surrounding buildings: he could see them and all its remaining bestiary friends in sharp relief, living shadows crawling over the bodies of their own dead and sliding on the blood as they closed in slowly, wolves moving in for the kill. But Logan knew he wasn't the one looking at a death sentence here.

As soon as the first serpentine head came within reach of the sidewalk, he stopped playing dead and lunged,  cutting off two heads with a single swipe of his claw. The remaining heads snapped and screeched at him as black blood fountained from the writhing neck stumps ( but it didn't have any smell at all - but why not? They weren't real ) and he cut off two more with a backwards slash as he dodged another flailing tentacle, and as he jumped onto its reptilian back in an effort to avoid being cornered by its buggy friends, he slashed off the last two heads. He was a goopy mess, but there was a sort of crazy exhilaration in this surely pointless nihilism; an adrenaline high that gave him a grounding in a reality that didn't exist. Or at least not for the moment.

He found all sorts of weaknesses in these poorly imagined nightmare creatures: to escape the more snake like creatures attempting to take his legs out from beneath him, he climbed up the back of a big carapaced spider lizard, only to find it didn't have the flexibility in its scrawny neck to reach around and grab him. And when the snake things tried to crawl it after him, the lizard thing bit them in half. He was sparking a feeding frenzy among these things, and like hungry sharks they were turning on each other, killing the competition in order to have the prey all to themselves.

He took some hurts: he got a bite or two; something with spikes on its tail ripped open the back of his shirt and most of the flesh on his spine; flailing tails and tentacles sometimes caught him short, mashing internal organs and tearing muscles; but it rarely even slowed him down. He'd had worse, and by the time the shock and pain of it had really sunk in, he was already healed.

Logan had almost killed them all, cleaned out this nest of giant vipers, when he felt the ground shake, and saw, heading towards him down the long canyon of industrial glass and steel buildings, a big lizard that could have doubled for a construction crane, at least in size. Otherwise, it looked like a refugee from "Jurassic Park".

But that was just the biggest of them. He could see smaller ( well, bus sized ) creatures crawling from the shadows, swarming over buildings, a sea of hard black that made it look as if the night was gaining sentience and form and were coming right for him. Knee deep in beast bodies and gore, he still had to chuckle. "At what point do you think this is gonna work?" He shouted, for the benefit of the big bad whatever the hell that had to be orchestrating this.

Not that he cared. If he wanted to keep these things coming, he'd keep knocking them down.

A faint but deep growl quickly became the purr of a motorcycle, and Clia, driving his bike ( hey! ) came roaring out of an alley, nearly wiping out on the headless body of a scorpion dragon before straightening out and veering towards him, nearly skidding on the blood. She idled the bike and looked around in horrified, slack jawed amazement. He got the same look when she finally spotted him, and exclaimed, "Fuck, you're still alive?!"

He scowled at her. "Sorry to disappoint ya."

She finally noticed the shaking of the ground, and looked over her shoulder to see Godzilla and his pals swarming this way. Her voice dropped to a horrified gasp. "Oh fuck." She revved the bike and looked at him, eyes wide and bright with fear. "Get on. Now!"

He was going to tell her to fuck off - he could take these cockroaches - but he knew she'd leave with his bike, and he'd probably never see it again. Fuck! Reluctantly he got on the bike behind her, retracting his bloody claws. As she sped them away from the scene, leaving the rest of the horror show far behind, she snapped, "You're a fucking maniac, Logan, you know that?! You belong here!"

He thought that was needlessly bitchy thing to say, but still it was kind of funny.

14

Kevin picked at his pizza, wondering why when you nuked an old slice, the cheese seemed to explode, oozing all over as if the microwave had turned it from a solid to a liquid. "What the hell now?" He asked, picking off olives. The liquid cheese seemed to have the tensile strength of semi set epoxy. He didn't even know why he was trying to eat - that bitch Cliandra and her friend ( whoever the hell that was - but it made sense a slut like her already had a guy in the back up slot after dumping Keenan ) ruined his appetite - but what else was there to do? It wasn't like Sy had actually done anything useful.

He was now partially corporeal but only part in the most disturbing way possible. He was literally half a guy; the right half, to be exact. He looked just like any other guy in a strangely old dark blue three piece suit and one of those Humphrey Bogart hats ( fedora? ), but only if you looked at him from the right side. He had an arm, a leg, a blandly anonymous face with small, cruel eyes - well, singular. As soon as he turned. you could see he had only the right half of his body, and was neatly cut in half, although there was no sag in the suit, and no view of internal organs, flesh, or bone. There was just darkness, as if he was just a realistically yet ineptly drawn cartoon character. And how disturbing was it to see a man not only with half a face and half a skull, but half a hat?

To his credit, when he moved he seemed to glide above the floor, saving him the humiliating prospect of hoping around on one foot. And, standing in front of the open door ( looking out at the empty "foyer" that doubled as the apartment's laundry room ), you could see a clear but vaguely fuzzy outline of the rest of the body - the thing that might be someday, but wasn't right now.

"Someone just killed several emanations."

Kevin broke off a piece of chewy crust and gnawed on it, wondering what that was supposed to mean. And why was it said so portentously? "So?"

Sy looked at him, and glared as best he could with just the one eye. "They should not have been killed. They were creatures created by the base fears of some very dreary people. Horror movies have taught them things you seem to kill don't actually stay dead."

Okay, what did he miss? "Huh? What the fuck are you on about?"

Sy glowered at him, and again, that was really creepy coming from half a mouth. "Everyone has doubts, Human. Everyone fears that something is not over. This man hadn't a single doubt he had killed them, so they remained dead."

Kevin shook his head, not getting this at all. "You're in charge of the show, right? So who cares? Make 'em come back to life and kill 'im."

"I'm not that strong yet. The beliefs of the person color the reality."

Kevin chewed as he thought, and figured all this metaphysical shit was beyond him. Where the fuck was all the killing? The topless slave girls? "So ... he killed them? Bring on more."

Sy's single black eye narrowed at him, almost disappearing in his face. "You are an idiot. He thinks he can kill all of us."

"Well, I think he can't. So there."

Sy shook his half head and turned away, gliding back to the basement window that showed absolutely nothing illuminating. "Your doubt will kill you. He doesn't doubt that he can kill anything that moves."

"So? A psycho. We got lots of those."

"He's a mutant."

"Yeah? Aren't they usually psycho?"

"He's been touched."

Kevin had to think about that for a moment. "Touched as in retarded or touched as in insane?"

"Touched by a being far more powerful than me."

"So touched as in molested?"

"He could destroy everything."

Kevin shrugged, and turned back to his pizza, only to find the runny cheese had re - solidified, and now the slice looked like a piece of roadkill. As soon as Sy had any powers worthy of note, he was going to make him put a decent pizza place in this town. Amongst other things. "Destroy him first."

"What do you think I plan to do, Human?" Sy spat, with a lot more venom than was warranted.

Kevin looked up and met his cyclops gaze, not bothering to hide his resentment. "Stop talkin' to me that way. I brought you here. You owe me."

Sy scoffed as much as possible with half a mouth and half a throat. "You're an arrogant whelp, aren't you?"

"I'm not gonna let you forget it. And I'm expecting to get some sort of payoff soon."

Sy turned away, back towards the blank window. "Don't worry; you'll get it."

He wondered which way he was supposed to take that.

***

There was little light, save for what was provided by about a dozen beeswax candles set in irregular intervals around the square room, and a single nightlight plugged into a socket opposite the door; it was a nightlight bearing a bright green biohazard symbol. ( Okay, he brought it in from the Way Station with the rest of the stuff. Could he help it if he thought they were funny? )

"Why no overhead lights?" Scott asked, scowling at the room as if it offended him.

"Atmosphere. Also, I thought it was too bright - the light really bounces off the metal, you know?"

Jean stopped short, and said, "Are we supposed to walk on that?"

She meant the chalk circle he had drawn in the center of the floor. Actually it was more like a wheel, with five "spokes" radiating out from a smaller center circle, reaching the edge of the large outer circle. The chalk was so white it almost glowed in the dimness. "You're supposed to stand just inside it, on one of the lines. Try not to scuff it too much."

"I thought these were supposed to be pentagrams or something," Rogue said, skirting the edge of the circle warily. Scott gave her a disapproving frown for that.

"No, we ain't tryin' to raise a hellgod."

This earned him a variety of strange looks. "Could you? " Rogue asked.

Bob shrugged. "Oh yeah, most of them buggers are just waitin' to pop out of their rabbit holes. But you can hardly blame 'em - most hell dimensions get boring after awhile. Not a lot of variety."

Again, he got those stares. Well, it was probably a good thing they didn't know.

"You're a very scary man," Scott said, so deadpan Bob found it hard not to laugh. But he bit the inside of his cheek until the urge passed.

The group quietly fanned out, feeling like fools, save for Kitty, who, in her own quiet way, was surprised by everything and yet paradoxically shocked by nothing. He couldn't believe she wasn't Australian.

They each stood at the top of a spoke, just inside the circle, and Bob walked out to the center, stepping inside the tiny inner circle that made up the hub. He slowly looked between the group, ignoring the urge to pirouette like a ballerina ( Scott could be so dour ) while he told them, "Now the ceremony's in a combination of vernacular and formal Mayan and Xyoishii, so it's probably gonna sound pretty damn silly. But do us a favor and try not to laugh, 'cause Cammy can be picky."

"You speak Mayan?" Jean asked.

"Xyoishii?" Scott asked.

"A Higher Realm language. Humans don't know it. And it sounds real odd."

"So that's all it is?" Rogue asked, sounding skeptical. "We stand in a circle, you say a few words, and we're done?"

"I know. Bit anti - climatic, ain't it?"

"If this ... "Cammy" is so powerful, why doesn't she take care of Fenrir?" Scott wondered, crossing his arms across his chest and assuming a mildly belligerent posture.

Bob smiled at him. The guy was a laugh riot, and yet he never got the joke. "Again, she doesn't want to mess around with this dimension. Extending her to protection to you doesn't require her to show."

"To us?" Rogue repeated. "What about you?"

"Don't worry about me, darlin', I'm good." Before she could threaten to inquire further, he said, "If everyone's ready, I'm gonna go ahead and start this thing."

There was much uncomfortable shifting, but no one was willing to say they weren't ready. Finally, Kitty piped up: "Will this hurt?"

"No worries, sweetheart, I don't think you'll even feel it. Well, there might be a kinda orgasmic rush of power when it really kicks in, but that ain't too bad."

"Say that again," Scott said sternly, giving him a violent frown. Oh what, can't use the word orgasmic in front of the kids? Oh good lords, they were teenagers! How repressed was this guy?

At the same time, Bobby muttered to Rogue: "Wow, now I'm glad I volunteered." That made Rogue giggle, although she quickly pretended she hadn't, to avoid one of Scott's withering frowns. Maybe, when this was all over, he'd give Scott a push to loosen up, even if it was only for ten minutes. It would probably do his sphincter a lot of good.

"Okay, quiet please," Bob asked, and as soon as he got it, he started the ceremony.

Oh, how he always hated this bit. Why it always had to be so flaming complicated to make what was, in essence, a transdimensional phone call he had no idea. It was much easier to teleport.

He started out in the Higher language, as he was supposed to, then switched over to Mayan, and went back and forth as he could feel the responding crackle of energy gathering itself inside the circle, electricity jumping between molecules like a synaptic response in the brain. The others couldn't feel it, of course, although the words he slipped in worked their magic to pacify them, make their minds blank and their responses so sluggish as to be non - existent. Even though he knew they'd never recreate it, there was a rule about letting Humans see and recall these sorts of things. And as much as he hated rules, this was for their own good.

The flickering of the candles let him know he'd gotten to the vital part of the ceremony, where essentially the line to the other dimension had been opened; it wasn't visible, save for a few stray flickers of your energy several feet over his head, obliquely sketching the outline of a circle.

Bob reached behind him, and pulled out the knife hidden under the waistband of his pants, covered by his shirt. Usually it was in his boot, but he couldn't risk even moving a part of himself inadvertently out of his tiny circle, not now.

Still chanting - oh, how he hated chanting ( Why couldn't he sing it again? ) - he brought the knife to the inside of his right arm, and slit it from wrist to elbow, turning the arm down so all the blood that poured from the gash hit the floor.

His Belial blue blood splashed to the floor inside the smaller circle and out, and as soon as it hit the chalk it seemed to glow, the circle becoming florescent. The thing with the ceremony he never mentioned was to even get Cammy's attention - in spite of all of this - you needed blood. Lots of it. Well, she was a god of fate and sometimes war, what did they expect? She liked her blood.

But that was the bargain he made with her: instead of Human blood, she'd get his. What it would lack in quantity it made up for in quality - his blood was a lot more powerful than the blood of a dozen Humans. And, also, it was really bad form to have a Human sacrifice in someone else's basement.

He slipped the knife back under his shirt and clenched the fist of his cut arm, making the blood pour out even more. Of course it hurt like a bitch, but oh well, no one said there wouldn't be a little pain involved.

His blood had gone from a puddle to a pool, creeping out towards the main circle, and his heart began to flutter, as if saying "You wanna stay in this form, it needs blood, bud". "You're bein' greedy, Cammy," he warned. "I still need some, ya know."

There was a good pause, but finally he sensed a change in the air, and his blood began to disappear as if being absorbed into the floor. "Thank you," he sighed sarcastically. grabbing his arm and muttering a little spell that closed the skin. He felt a bit light headed, but was sure he could probably get a mocha latte before all this business started in earnest.

The air seemed to be lethally charged now, swirling around the room like a trapped bird desperately looking for a means of escape, and he said the final words of the ceremony, now somewhat enjoying the dizzy feeling. It seemed to give everything a patina of unreality that was actually enjoyable.

( That's where Logan is. Unreality. )

Okay, there was an odd thought. Was that true? Was Cammy throwing him a bone?

He'd have to ponder that later. He said the words to close the ceremony and the portal, and a shockwave seemed to be created over his head, spreading outward at bullet speed until it slammed into the rapt figures standing around the perimeter of the circle. They didn't move - it was more of a metaphysical hit than anything else, and mentally none of them were here - and the candles flickered, flames briefly being snuffed before popping back to life again. The biohazard nightlight was unchanged.

Bob sat down on the floor, and then figured fuck it and laid down for a moment, just until his head stopped spinning. He probably didn't lose that much blood - it hadn't covered the entire floor. It was just spells of this magnitude could be pretty damn draining on their own. Draining - ha! Funny.

As soon as the motes floating before his eyes stopped pulsing in time with his heartbeat, he made himself sit up ( then had to ride out a head rush ) and climb slowly to his feet. Oh yeah - he needed caffeine, adrenaline, sugar - anything to perk him up. "Okay, you're back, " he said, brushing chalk dust off his pants.

They all blinked as if waking up, and exchanged dubious glances that became ones of shock as soon as they saw the bloody red marks on each other's foreheads. "It's done?" Rogue asked, reaching up to touch her brow, as if she could feel the mark gouged into her forehead.

"It's done," he agreed. "That wasn't so bad, was it?"

"I thought it'd be worse," Scott reluctantly admitted. "I thought maybe you were going to kill a chicken or something."

"Ew," Rogue exclaimed.

"Now come on, I wasn't practicing voudon." At his blank look, he referred to it by its more popular name. "Voodoo." And, seriously, like animal blood would be enough to slake Cammy's thirst.

"You mean some people really do that?" Bobby asked. "I thought other people just made that up."

"It all depends on what ritual you're performing and why, but I don't go for that goat slaughter shit. I figure those are dodgy demons and gods at best." He clapped is hands together, rubbed them eagerly, and said, "So, Marie, want to go do a little shoppin' with me?"

This abrupt non - sequitur seem to confuse everyone. "Huh?" She asked.

"Aren't we supposed to be preparing for Fenrir?" Scott interjected grumpily, crossing his arms over his chest again. Oh yeah, he really was going to have to give him a loosen up push before he became the first modern day man under forty to die of an ulcer.

"We are. Or at least I'm gettin' Marie ready. There's a demon whose abilities would be really useful to us, and he runs a slightly illegal leather goods shop on the Upper West Side."

"Slightly illegal?" Scott asked.

"Well, a lot of his merchandise seems to fall off the back of trucks, if you get my meanin'. What do you think, Marie? Need a new leather jacket?"

She smiled, eyes bright at the prospect of new clothes. "You buyin'?"

"Absolutely."

"All right!"

Scott continued to give him one of his disapproving scowls, but hey, this was Bob's show to run, whether he liked it or not. And Bob knew he never would.

15

Clia knew where the spare key was hidden and let them into the place, a neat, utilitarian apartment done heavily in tans and assorted neutral colors that reminded him of a C.P.A.'s waiting room, but at least it was cleaner and smelled better than Keenan's place ( and from the trace scent left behind, the friend was a demon too - didn't that put Keenan to shame? Demons were cleaner than him ).

He didn't even know why they were here. She said she thought they needed a "game plan", but he pointed out he already had one: find the dickhead behind this, and kill them. For some reason, she thought that was inadequate somehow.

He knew she was probably looking for something here ( a weapon? ), but she wanted to be cryptic, so okay, whatever; he'd find out either way. She also suggested he get cleaned up, and look for some less bloody clothes among "Reyes's" stuff. "His chest is way more narrow than yours, but he has a tendency to go for rough trade, so there's probably something around here that'll fit you."

It was nice to know he was considered "rough trade".

The blood was starting to congeal on him, and stink, so he supposed it was a good idea to wash it off before he had to take a paint scraper to his own skin, but in spite of the neat and well appointed bathroom, he discovered a small sign hanging from the shower head, that read, in blue ballpoint pen: "Sorry Rey, broke this. Will replace when you get back. Gervais." Oh great - that figured. ( How many people "borrowed" Reyes's place while he was gone? Was he aware of this? )

But the tub was big and clean ( this was one hygienic demon ), and if it got this green stuff off of him ( it wasn't like blood at all; it was too solid for that. What the hell was it? ) then he could live with it.

He stripped off his clothes, only to find his shirt was partially dissolved ( he must have missed the acid spitter ... unless it was something's blood ... ), and tossed them in the corner as he listened for what Clia was up to. Right now it sounded like she was raiding his refrigerator. "Hey, if he's got beer, save me one!" He shouted. He didn't know that she would, but he could always hope.

The water was so hot it was almost scalding, but still he barely got some of the sludge off. Shit, what were those bugs made of? Maybe he should go get a Teflon suit before he took on the rest of the big uglies.

He ducked his head under the water for about a minute, cleaning the gunk off his face and getting some of the crushed carapace out of his hair, and when he sat back up, he heard Mariko say, "Do you ever wonder how much of your life you spend cleaning the blood off of yourself?"

"No," he replied, wiping the water off his face, and leaning back against the end of the tub. He glanced idly past the open translucent shower curtain, decorated with brightly colored tropical fish, and saw Mariko sitting on the edge of the marble sink, legs dangling like she was perched uncomfortably on a doctor's examination table.

"It's no way to live."

He snorted. " My whole life is no fucking way to live, darlin'. You get used to it after a while."

"You shouldn't have to."

He didn't know what to say to that, so he didn't say anything. He didn't want to have to look at her, so he closed his eyes, and listened to what Clia was doing a couple of rooms away. She was now looking through something ... his closet? He was pretty sure it was the bedroom closet. What was she looking for?

"Now that he knows what you're capable of, the next attack will be much worse," she said somberly.

Logan simply shrugged. "He can throw all of Monster Island at me - it won't make any damn difference."

There was a heavy thud - a solid object hitting the floor - and he heard Clia whisper a distant, muffled "Shit!" under her breath.

"You could always go on without her," Mariko suggested.

He smirked. Could ghosts - or more correctly, figments of his imagination - be jealous? He'd have to ask Bob ... no, scratch that. He didn't want to have to explain why he was asking. "I might have to."