****

Naomi had her own room, but that was to be expected since she was a Human in a demon hospital - it was possible she could accidentally get put into a shared room with a man eating demon, and no one wanted a lawsuit over a loved one being wrongfully turned into an entrée. Actually that was why it was rare that people even came here.

But special people - especially demon fighters - had special needs, and that was especially true of mutants who might not be welcome at a regular hospital. And Naomi was certainly one who might not be welcome there, considering her effect on machines, which made her ideal for this place, since some demons affected electricity the same way, or simply were averse to it in some way; the hospital was well shielded, and in some wards, magic ran all the machines, leaving natural electricity out of the equation.

Bob stopped a nurse and got him to spill everything about Naomi’s condition. It was just as he saw in Angel’s mind - broken bones, concussion - but bad enough. She was sleeping off some painkillers when he entered her tiny room, which he could see had lilac walls in the glowing lights of the machines. He loved the piece of masking tape with the word “Human” written on it and pasted over the head of her bed - just in case the doctor didn’t know and couldn‘t figure it out?

Her blue hair was very nice. Not quite Amaranth’s color, but that was a relief - how creepy would it have been if she’d had Ammy’s hair color? He perched on the edge of her bed and brushed hair off her bruised forehead. “You’re going to be fine,” he told her, holding her hand. “In fact, you’re better already.”

He sat there and waited for it to take effect, wondering how bad she was going to kick his ass. It wasn’t a question of “if”, not with the women he usually dated. He was a glutton for punishment.

Her eyes opened slowly, the discoloration on her forehead fading away, and he smiled benignly, hoping that just maybe she’d be so happy to see him alive that she’d forget that she wanted to kick his ass. But as her blue eyes widened in surprise, and a faint smile curved her lips, he wasn’t fooled. “No powers,” he said, about a millisecond before she slapped him so hard he fell off the bed and had to stumble away to keep his footing.

“You motherfucker!” she shouted, sitting up. “Now you show up!”

He rubbed the side of his face, where his cheek stung from impact. “Thanks for not punching me.” If she had, he’d have probably lost a tooth; she had quite the wallop. He thought he sensed the impulse to hit him, and there was a possibility he could have stopped it, but he wouldn’t have even tried - she deserved to get a hit in, he supposed.

“You used me, you sleazy fuckhead! You knew you were gonna die, and you slept with me anyways!”

He shook his head as he worked his jaw around, making sure everything was still intact. “I never plan to die. I knew it was likely, but I thought there was a way out of it, that I could shunt it towards Ananga -”

“Why should I believe a single fucking thing you say?” she demanded angrily.

He shrugged, conceding the point. “I’m not lying, Naomi, but I don’t know how to convince you of that. I like you, and I don’t want to hurt you.”

She glared molten hot death at him, and he was fairly certain that if she actually had her powers, she may have made that literal. She then shook her head dismissively, lips forming a hard, tight line. “I was insane to get involved with you.”

“Oddly enough, every woman I’ve ever been involved with has said that at one time or another.”

“I’m not laughing.”

“I’m not joking. I’m not operating under any delusions here, I know I’m not an easy man to be with, I’m hauling around a lot of baggage and a family big enough to fill Fiji, but I would never go out of my way to hurt anyone. Yes, I’m a lying scumbag at times, but not about something like this. I really am quite fond of you, you know.”

She scoffed and glanced away, folding her arms over her chest. “Is it me, or does fond seem like a pathetic thing to say about a person you’ve slept with?”

“Uh … okay, yeah, that’s a point. But somehow I thought I’m in lust would you would get me another slap.” He was actually surprised how much he liked Naomi, and figured that Logan’s feelings for her had bled into his perceptions. He didn’t know if that would make Logan feel better or worse about this.

She sighed, shoulders sagging in defeat, and she let her arms fall to the bed before she rubbed her eyes. “This is all your fault, you know.”

“I know.” He actually didn’t know what he was agreeing to, but as a general rule, it was his fault, especially when it involved the women in his life.

“You have a girlfriend already, for fuck’s sake - and I’m pretty sure she can kick my ass.”

“Hel can kick all our asses. But don’t let that bother you; you know she doesn’t want a monopoly on me. She’s the natural polygamist, not me.”

She looked at him anew, this time fixing him with a sardonic stare. “Says the man who’s been married a bajillion times.”

“Not a bajillion - I’m not sure how much a bajillion is. Also, I’ve been married to one woman at a time, so that should earn me some points.”

The look she gave him suggested it wouldn’t. “Why did you get married so often anyways?”

“Why? I suppose I’m an optimist. And there’s nothing better than being in love. I think I got addicted to the feeling; it’s not really native to my kind, you know. That and sex - god, I love sex.”

“Who doesn’t?” she agreed, and this time when she looked at him, it was with a delicately arched eyebrow. “It was good.”

“It always is. Well, for me, at any rate; I’m a guy, so … yeah.”

She grimaced at her own thoughts, and muttered, “I’m insane.”

“You’re probably just lonely. I understand, believe me.”

She sighed heavily, shaking her head in disgust, and threw back the covers on her bed. “Get over here before I regain my sanity and kick your ass.”

He peeled off his t-shirt and tossed it aside, aware she wanted him shirtless. “I’m not really into S&M, but whatever you’re into -”

“Shut up,” she said, and as soon as he was close enough, she pulled him down into a deep, passionate kiss.

This was so wrong on so many levels, and yet he’d be hard pressed to say it wasn’t fun.

16

Faith liked the sword, as he thought she would, and the next day he helped her look for and find a mounting plaque so she could hang it on the wall of her apartment. When she asked where he got it, he lied and said he found it in a junky looking antique shop on the edge of Chinatown, although he added that he was sure it wasn’t an antique. At least Faith knew a good sword when she saw it.

He made a phone call and arranged a meeting at Stanley Park the following afternoon. He staked out the area in spite of the fact that he was sure he wouldn’t screw him over, but you could never be too sure. Or at least he couldn’t.

As soon as he confirmed he was alone, Logan joined Ellison in sitting on the bench beside the duck pond, which was actually as rife with geese as it was with ducks. They came up and made soft sounds that sounded nothing like “honk” or “quack” , hoping they’d brought food to throw them. As it turned out, Ellison had; he produced what looked like an entire loaf of bread. “They said this was whole grain rye, but it tasted more like industrial grade cement dotted with sandpaper.”

“Just find a good bakery,” he told him. “Fuck the rest of it.”

“Easy for you to say,” he sighed, ripping up a hunk of bread and tossing it at the eager ducks and pushy geese. “Another body turned up.”

“The last.” He didn’t need to go sniffing around to know the body had been Leung’s, headless and handless, forever unidentified - Cressy had to make him disappear to impersonate him. The irony was pretty satisfying.

“How can you be sure of that?”

“Trust me, I am.”

He gave him a suspicious sidelong glance. “Even if I want to know, you won’t tell me, will you?”

“Nope.”

He snorted humorlessly, and tossed some of the heavy bread towards the tiny grey pond. It was an overcast day, slightly drizzly, which explained the London Fog raincoat Ellison was wearing. Logan had left his jacket at home, mainly because he wanted to feel the rain on his skin. When it was soft like this, not pissing down in a torrent, it was kind of nice. “At least you’re honest.” He paused, and after a moment, where the geese became startling aggressive and tugged at Ellison’s pant leg when he wasn’t tossing the bread out fast enough, he added, “I’m going in for surgery Saturday. My doctor told me this kind isn’t aggressive, and I should be clear of it in a few months. We caught it early.”

“Good to hear.”

He continued feeding the birds, and Logan just sat there, watching the leaves of the tree sway in the gentle shower. Faith would be leaving for Tokyo with Tony in two days, and she’d be over for there for at least a month, as Tony had apparently decided to liquidate some of his assets, while also acquiring another technology concern; the guy was always up to something, and usually spinning stocks into gold. They hadn’t wanted to break up, but they weren’t sure about a long distance relationship; still, they were going to give it a shot. He was glad, because he didn’t think he was ready to lose Faith just yet.

Finally, Ellison said, “So you know there was this attack on a Yakuza owned massage parlor, and before the witnesses suddenly clammed up and told stories different enough to totally fuck any investigation, there were claims that the whole place was attacked by a single Caucasian male who seemed to have large knives in his hands. Considering how many men were down and hurt, it was hard to believe one guy did it, and the knives in the hand thing? Well -”

“I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”

He laughed. “I ain’t wearin’ a wire.”

“I know. I’d have smelled it or heard it if you were.”

He gave him that look again, the look that suggested he thought he was fully of shit. “Yeah, right. I can’t have you in my town doing shit like this … even if they are shitheads.”

“Even if I was trying to solve your case for ya?”

He wagged a finger at him, and tossed the birds more chunks of bread. “I asked for your help, but I didn’t ask you to beat up the local gang lords. Speaking of which, Manniwa’s death wasn’t connected to you, was it?”

“Was he stabbed?” he asked facetiously.

“No. We think he was killed by one of his bodyguards, but we don’t know why as of yet, beyond him simply being a dick. But considering it was done the night of the attack on the massage parlor, it’s kinda suspicious.” He stared hard at the side of his face. “What did you do?”

He sighed and met his gaze, letting him some see his weariness. “You have a theory, Ellison, I know you do, so just go with that. Yer a decent cop - stay that way.”

He snorted dismissively, and looked down at the water fowl crowding around his feet. “If I was a decent cop, I wouldn’t be talking to a vigilante like you.”

He scowled at that. “I’m not a vigilante.”

“Then what are you?”

That was a better question than he could have anticipated. He thought about it for a moment, listening to the insistent noises of the ducks and more obnoxious noises of the geese, and finally said, “I don’t like predators, and I don’t like bullies. I’d prefer they pick on someone their own size. But, lacking that, I’m happy to have them deal with me.”

“Which still sounds like vigilante justification to -” his cell phone went off, and he made an annoyed noise as he reached in his pocket and pulled it out. He checked out who was calling before he bothered to answer it. “Don’t tell me I’m needed now,” he sighed, in a tone of voice that suggested he already knew the answer. Logan guessed it was his partner. He could have listened to the other end of the conversation - he heard the buzz of his partner’s voice - but he deliberately tried not to listen, giving him that much privacy. Ellison groaned and hung his head low, chin almost touching his chest. “Yeah, okay, I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

As soon as he hung up, he decided to ease Ellison’s mind. “I’m leavin’ Vancouver for a while, so you don’t have to worry about me stinkin’ up your town again.”

Ellison tucked the phone in his pocket and stood up, emptying the rest of the bread out on the lawn, where the fowl rushed for it like it was an all you can eat buffet. He almost tripped on a mallard. “If more bodies turn up, Ill slap an APB on your ass just for the hell of it.”

“Won’t happen.”

He looked at him skeptically, but seemed willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. “Who were they?”

He should have known he was going to ask that. What to tell him? “They were either gangsters who ran afoul of a nasty boss, or members of a secret government organization who ran afoul of a nasty boss. Pick the one you can best live with.”

Ellison shook his head, frowning at him. “Still with the secret government thing?”

“If it ain’t broke, why fix it?”

“Unbelievable,” Ellison muttered under his breath, and then walked down the path, away from him.

After a moment, a dark figure detached from the trees just off to his right and came over to the bench, sliding down beside him. “Howdy chief,” Marc said, watching the water fowl with interest. “How long did you know I was there?”

Logan shrugged, looking casually around the park. “Five minutes or so. Everybody stares at me, I can’t say I paid that much attention. When did you get in?”

“Around ten. I called Faith and asked her where you were, and she said you were here. So who was the dude?”

“Guy I used to know.”

“Huh. He looked like a cop.”

It was hard for him not to laugh - Marc had excellent cop radar. “Got something for me?”

“Indeed I do.” He reached in the pocket of his black leather jacket - it was tres butch, smelled new, with more chrome than was probably necessary - and pulled out a black and white photo, which he handed to him. It was a close up of a severe man in profile, with hard eyes and a square jaw set in what looked like a perpetual scowl, and Logan felt something in his gut clench. If the guy was aged about twenty years, he was a dead ringer for a bastard he still saw in his nightmares.

“This is Control.”

Marc nodded, like that was the answer he was expecting. “He also used to be called - pre Organization - Carter Wilson.” Time seemed to slow as he turned to look at Marc, his heart thumping loud in his ears. “Seems he and Lafayette were buds in their army days.”

This was worse than Logan had ever allowed himself to imagine. He thought Lafayette was hiding something from him; he hadn’t expected that he was somehow in on all of this. It was worse than simply lying, although he had no word for it. It was betrayal, but on a massive scale. Hell, maybe that’s why his cover was blown - there was almost no one in the Canadian government he could trust.

Marc took the photo back, and shoved it in his pocket before sitting back and drinking in the park scenery with his shielded eyes. After a moment, he clapped his gloved hands together, and said, “What’s say we pay Lafayette a visit, and see how dirty that smooth talking motherfucker is?”

When he could breathe again, he nodded tersely. That sounded like a capital idea.

******

Bren realized that the office budget was so tapped out he couldn’t even afford to go get more coffee. It was so startling and sad he quickly went to his desk and started pawing through the invoices, trying to see if there were any outstanding payments out there. He knew that business had been on the scant side lately, but seriously, this was ridiculous. They had to have some cash … right? Shit.

He was going through his computer file, aware that this was idiotic because he had an eidetic memory and he would have remembered anything worth remembering , when the office door swung open, and he saw, framed in the doorway, a petit, elegant Asian woman who was hot enough to make him do a slight double take.

Her skin was creamy and pale against a sapphire blue silk camisole, teamed up with almost everything else black Prada (knee length skirt, jacket ... maybe not the shoes), and even her dark wraparound sunglasses looked designer. How people could spend more than his apartment rent on sunglasses he would never know. She wore brick red lipstick that was set off nicely against her skin and her dark clothing, and he only noticed as an afterthought that she was carrying a slim, chic briefcase. “You must be Brendan Chambers,” she said, taking off her sunglasses. She had almond shaped, magnificent eyes, ones that seemed to not so much scan him as x-ray him. He found himself wondering when was the last time he dated a girl, but the next thing out of her mouth killed it. “So sorry about your mother. But these things happen, don’t they?”

His desire died cold and hard in his stomach. He now saw her as a snake, not a goddess. “Who the fuck are you?” he snapped.

She smiled at him, but it was in a deeply amused way. “I’m Kaya Sagawa, and I really must see your boss. So be a dear and let him know I’m here.”

As it was, he didn’t need to. Angel’s office door opened, and he stood staring at her with eyes narrowed in obvious distaste. That really should have been her cue to run. “Get out,” he growled.

She seemed even more amused by his anger. “Now Angel, is that any way to greet a - “

He didn’t let her finish her sentence. He was there in his doorway one second, and in the next, he suddenly had her by the throat; there’d been no transition at all, his movement so fast he almost wasn’t even a blur. She seemed genuinely startled by his display of newfound powers. “I said get out,” Angel snarled in her face, shifting his grip to her chin (possibly because it was less likely to be fatal if he got even more annoyed).

She reached up and grabbed his hand, and Angel let her step back and twist away, but she didn’t go very far. She tried to smooth over her sudden fear with ruffled dignity. “What kind of greeting is that? No wonder you don’t have many clients.”

“Logan told me about you,” Angel replied, his voice a bitter monotone. “Wolfram and Hart aren’t welcome here.”

“Oh really? I believe you’ll want to rethink that.”

“I believe you have five seconds to get out of my sight.”

She clicked her tongue in disapproval, and put her briefcase on their coffee table. The locks clicked, and she opened the case. Inside it was … oh holy shit.

Money. Stacks and stacks of money, more than Bren had ever seen in person in his entire life. He suddenly felt faint.

“We’re interested in hiring you,” she told Angel, arching an eyebrow. “Are you really going to send away a client?”

Bren knew this was probably bad news on every possible level, and yet they could hardly say no, could they?

Maybe that was the problem.

To Be Continued …