The fact that he didn’t want to hurt the women was going to be a problem. Yakuza didn’t generally give a flying fuck about collateral damage; if you got in the way of one of their bullets, it was your own damn fault. He wished there was a fire alarm he could pull, but these bastards didn’t give a fuck about the fire code either.

The lower level had the actual baths, as well as the lobby where the men could drink and select their women - the upstairs had the bedrooms, or as they were generally called, the “massage suites”. He figured the VIP was probably up in the suites, but his bodyguards were probably in the lobby, so he decided to pay them a visit first.

He walked up to the interior door and peered in, just to get the idea of the number of guards and the number of innocents in the room. He saw only five men, two sitting on the low couch on the far side of the room, a woman near one of the standing men, and a bartender. Not too many; in fact, the crowd was so small it meant he must have other guards scattered about the complex. No matter - he’d find them soon enough.

He walked in casually behind the bar, like he was the replacement bartender, and no one even noticed him, except the bartender. He turned and gave him a funny look, but Logan was on him just as he opened his mouth to say something. Logan turned him so the bartender’s back was to everyone in the room, and pressed his fist against the boy’s chest, letting him see the tip of one claw. “Things are gonna get ugly,” he whispered to him harshly. “This is your only chance to avoid it.”

The bartender was a boy, maybe nineteen, probably the son of someone who worked here or owed a debt. He looked at him wide eyed, mouth still frozen in a half open gape, but Logan just stared at him and gave the briefest shake of his head. No talking; either he left now, or he was fair game.

The boy got it. He took off his apron, balled it up and threw it under the bar, and left out the door Logan had just came in. That was good, because it made it look like a shift change.

One big guard got up and sauntered over, giving him a wary look, a mostly empty highball glass in one hand, his other hand slipping towards his holstered gun. “Since when do white boys work here?”

“Since I’m up to my ass in debt,” he replied casually. “What’re you drinking?”

The guy studied him for almost a minute before sidling up to the bar, guard still up but tempered by general amusement. “Scotch.”

Logan reached under the bar, grabbed a bottle of scotch, and brought it up. As the guy seemed settled and comfortable on the stool, Logan brought the bottle around in a vicious arc and smashed it against the side of his head, the bottle shattering in a spectacular burst of glass and alcohol. As soon as he made contact, he was moving, jumping one handed over the bar and popping his claws as soon as he landed on his feet. Another man moved in to attack him, reaching for his gun, but he slashed him across the face and he reeled back screaming, and with just a minor kick from Logan he stumbled back into another Yakuza, making them both fall in a heap to the carpet.

This was another pathetic fight that didn’t last long. It was close quarters, where he was the most effective and lethal, and a few slashes and punches and everyone was down or at least out. Two guys were able to get their guns out and fired, but he reached them quickly, slashing their guns (and hands) to piece, and taking only one bullet in the process, and it was just a minor hit in the side, just slicing skin and little else. No punch they threw ever connected, and no weapon they pulled ever did them any good. At the beginning of the fight, the woman had shrieked and ducked down behind an armchair - she appeared to be fine. He didn’t bother to double check, though, as he left to head upstairs.

As expected the gunshots brought out the guards for the lower level, and as he came out he was met by a hail of bullets, but he had smelled them, smelled their sweat, anxiety, cordite - he came out running, and only got stung by a few rounds; most whizzed past him like angry wasps, slamming into the doors and wall as he attacked them like a Human threshing machine, lashing out at every bit of metal he saw, making them scream and recoil at the sight of their own blood, at the metal claws punching through flesh and bone. He wasn’t even thinking at this point; he let the beast out, was letting his own anger ride him, and it felt almost like he was watching it removed from his own body.

He thought the alternate personality, the Wolverine one, the one they implanted in him, was gone. In fact he was sure it was gone, because Jean got rid of it, but now he was no longer sure. Or maybe the truth was he always had a part of himself that was made for killing.

(Wait - that was Jean-Camaxtli who removed it, wasn’t it? Was that reversed by the Powers That Be when they took Camaxtli out of existence and rewrote the past? Fuck if this wasn’t confusing; and to make it worse, because of his connection to Bob, he was the only Human who knew about it.)

He was through them and up the stairs, taking them two at a time, and more gunmen opened fire at him from the top. A couple of slugs hit him, he felt the impact, but he kept going and basically just tackled the group, his claws digging into someone, and he ripped outward, cutting most of the men in one fell swoop. They had clearly learned nothing from Bloody Friday; at least Manniwa’s men had been ready for him on some level. These men kept attacking him with methods that didn’t work.

He heard women screaming, but most had simply dived for cover or ran off; fights were probably rare here, but not unheard of. The thugs bottlenecked, he fought his way through them, and burst into a private suite, where an older Japanese man opened fire on him. He was on him before he could adequately aim, slicing the gun from his hand while he grabbed him by the throat and slammed him against the wall. “Who the fuck are you?” he growled, leashing the beast within as much as he could.

The man glared at him, using belligerence to try and hide the fear he could smell. “Don’t you know already? Isn’t that why you’re here to kill me?”

He slammed him against the wall once more, hard enough to hear something break, and the man grimaced in pain. “Tell me, or I’ll break every bone in your body.”

He grinned mirthlessly, showing teeth that hadn’t been straightened or bleached. “Fine, Triad, you play games? Consider me shocked. I’m Susumu Honda. Feel better now?”

“I’m not Triad,” he snarled. “Why the fuck do you think I’m Triad?”

He glared at him balefully, his fear being replaced by a general confusion. “Are you insane? Oh, you must be. Why else would you be here?”

He tightened his grip on his neck just because he could. “Because I’m Logan Yashida, asshole, and there isn’t enough blood to pay for what you’ve done.”

“Yashida? There isn’t -” the blood drained from his face, and his expression became oddly slack. “Oh. Oh no. No, no, no. You can’t be. You’re too young.”

“Believe me, I’m not.”

He seemed to have lost all the fight in him; he sagged in his grip like he might collapse. “Oh no. You’re really not Human.”

He slammed him up against the wall. “I’m more Human than you. Now tell me why the fuck everyone thinks I’m Triad.”

After a moment, he said, almost breathlessly, “The Triad said you work for them now.”

“They said? Recently?” He just nodded, as if his neck was rubber and his head just loosely attached. “Who runs the Triad around here?”

“Martin Leung.”

“Where can I find him?”

“He owns a club in West Chinatown, Far East. You’ll probably find them there. What are you going to do to me?”

He stared at him, and was almost repulsed by the brokenness in his eyes, the total surrender of a man who knew he couldn’t fight this and wasn’t even going to try. It was so odd, because even when they knew who he was, he usually didn’t get such submissive reactions. But it was easy to figure out why - shame. He was ashamed, and felt he deserved this somehow. Sudden anxiety twisted his gut, anger rising like bile in the back of his throat. “What did you do? What role did you play in … killing her?” He almost added “and me”, but didn’t.

Tears actually appeared in his eyes, which shocked Logan. “I - I was a stringer for the Takabes. I had no part in it, but … I knew it was going to happen. I never really thought the Yashida they talked about today was you, because I thought you were dead. I thought you were just family seeking vengeance. “

“You know better now, don’t you?” He grated through gritted teeth. “I’m a monoke; I can’t die.” It felt like something hard had settled into his throat, sorrow and anger solidifying into something far stronger than adamantium, and he wanted to throw this piece of shit out the window, start the slow process of shattering every bone in his miserable body.

“I’m so sorry,” he blurted, bowing his head in respect and shame, tears dripping from his eyes. “It was wrong what happened to you and your wife, it was shameful, and I beg your forgiveness.”

“You think that gets you off the hook?” he roared, letting go of him and shoving back into the wall. His gut churned, and the fact that this old bastard was sincere just made it worse. A stringer for the Takabes; he was so small fry and probably new to the organization that he didn’t even cross his radar. An underling’s underling, he would have had absolutely no power; he couldn’t have intervened, even if he wanted to. But he probably didn’t want to, for it would have compromised his tenuous position amongst the Takabes. “Why the fuck do you even care what happened?” he demanded, fists clenching so tight he could feel his own fingernails digging into the flesh of his palm. Blood roared in his ears, and he wanted to hurt this man for being there, for even knowing about it, and yet … what? He trembled with rage, but for some reason he wasn’t moving.

“She was leading the Yashidas elsewhere, out - it would have been better for all of us if we let her. “

A strangely bald, bloodless assertion. “Oh? Why? Because of what I did?” His mind couldn’t even wrap around what he had done; he only knew of it from the cold, clinical report the Russians had on the incident, the one Bob let him see. All he knew was he had killed so many people that night he could start doing penance now, and he wouldn’t be able to stop until the end of time. And even then, it might not be enough.

Honda was still looking down at the floor, the back of his neck exposed. That was the point of the bow, of course; to show the neck, to show you respected that person enough that you would expose a fatal vulnerability. It would be easy to chop the head off right now … which may have been what he was waiting for. “No. To prove it could be done.”

His mind wasn’t computing this; he had gone into a dark, angry space, and these words weren’t making sense. It was frustrating him beyond reason, and yet as much as he wanted to hurt this man, he wasn’t sure he should. With an angry roar, he punched a hole in the wall and kept going, kept punching until he broke out through the other side using his bare fist alone - no claws - skin splitting and healing almost within the same set of seconds. Honda had cringed and dropped to his knees, as if waiting for the roof to fall in on him, but all that happened was he got pelted with crumbs of drywall. Logan kicked another hole in the wall, waiting for the rage to ebb, but it didn’t seem like it was going to happen.

“Here’s what you’re going to do,” he said, panting for breath. With his damned healing factor, he wasn’t even exhausted by his rage for long. “You tell these fucks you work for that I don’t work for the Triad. And if they don’t want a repeat of Bloody Friday, they will give me Manniwa or make him pay for his mistake.”

Honda stiffened and finally looked up at him, clearly confused. “Manniwa? I don’t understand …”

“Your boss did something stupid. He attacked me and threatened me. He pays for it, or you all pay for it - by my hand. Make your choice. Decide fast, ‘cause you won’t have long. Pursue me or anyone I know, and the result will be the same. Is that clear?”

A stark understanding infused his features, but the blood had yet to return to his face. “Y-yes, I understand. You’re not going to kill me?”

“Do I hafta?”

He shook his head. “No.”

“But get this straight - you are not forgiven. There is no forgiveness for this. I know who you are, I know where to find you, I know your smell; I can track you down to the ends of the fucking earth. If anything happens contrary to what I’ve said, I’m coming for you. And it won’t be a quick death.”

The smell of fear coming off him reeked of stale alcohol. He wasn’t drunk, but he had probably been hoping to work on it when he came in. “Yes, I - I understand.”

“If you want to work towards forgiveness, it starts here,” he snapped, and stormed out of the room, leaving him kneeling on the floor in the posture of a man about to commit seppuku. And in a way, he was.

As he went down the stairs, some of the injured guards clearly thought about trying for him again, but he just shook his head and popped his claws, and some actually scooted away, as if trying to find a place to hide. Good - they should be afraid. Their entire future hinged on how devoted they were to their boss versus how much they wanted to keep on living.

Maybe he was just too cynical, but he didn’t think it was going to be a hard choice.

****

Although Angel felt bad about taking Naomi to a demon hospital, they did treat the odd Human. And as a mutant, Naomi did very much qualify as odd.

There was nothing they could do for her there so they returned to the office - also, they were pretty much being ordered out of the hospital because they all smelled so bad - but only after he got a promise from the doctor that she’d call if there was any change in her condition. Naomi had a few broken ribs, internal injuries, and a concussion, but they thought she was going to be okay, just sore when she woke up. That probably wouldn’t be for a while.

Still, he knew someone was waiting in the office before he opened the door, and he wished he was surprised when he saw that it was Xander lounging on the couch, his feet propped on the coffee table as he read an issue of Entertainment Weekly with some actor in a garish superhero costume on the cover. Angel didn’t remember that magazine being on their coffee table. “You know, you guys should really lock up when you go,” Xander said, not even glancing up from the magazine. “Anybody could - holy Christ! Were you guys swimming in shit?” He looked at them wide eyed, grabbing his nose and pinching it shut.

Angel scowled at him as they all filed in. “It wasn’t a deliberate swim,” Bren replied, stripping off his soggy, smelly shirt. He tossed it in the trash can by his desk, and shoved it out with his foot. Kier stripped off his shirt and threw it in the basket too.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Giles said, crossing to the bookcase across the room.

Xander dropped the magazine, looking stunned. “You are?” He pretty much spoke for all of them.

Giles found a volume on the shelf, an old book with a crumbling cover, and tossed it at Xander, who managed to catch it before it slammed into his chest. “I need you to find all invincible sea monsters over eight feet in length capable of living in shallow water.”

“Ho-kay,” Xander replied, unplugging his nose to open the book. “So you were fighting a sea monster in the sewer?”

“We’re not sure, that’s why I need you to look it up,” Giles told him.

“We’re gonna go wash the top layer of filth off, but we’ll be right back,” Bren promised, and added, “And don’t worry, we won’t fool around or anything.”

“Damn it,” Kier exclaimed, following Bren into the back.

Xander looked up after them. “Um, were they joking, or are they -”

Angel just shook his head as he slipped off his jacket and took a good look at it. It was probably too far gone for the dry cleaners, but maybe a spell could save it. He hated to get rid of this coat - it took him so long to find one of this style in his size.

“Wow, Brendan’s gay? Huh. I never would have guessed that. Who’s the boy toy? I mean, obviously his boyfriend, but -”

“Kier, he’s a vampire,” Giles told him, looking down at his shirt and wrinkling his nose in disgust. None of them smelled like a picnic … unless it was the aftermath of the bad chili cook off.

“Ah. Don’t tell me he’s got a soul too.”

“No, he’s just in it for the notoriety.”

“Oh.” It was funny how much confusion could be packed into a single syllable. “So, uh, where’s Naomi? She miss the big sewer fight?”

He exchanged a wary look with Giles. Angel had suspected Xander was attracted to Naomi, in spite of her involvement with Bob (and past association with Logan), and that was going to make it difficult to tell him. At least she was going to be okay, but he’d probably be a little upset. He left Giles to deal with it, retreating into his office. As soon as he closed the door, he allowed himself a good, painful grimace, wrapping his arms around his chest. He was healing, but it was taking its time, and he turned down treatment at the hospital because it just seemed wrong. Giles and Bren getting their cuts seen to was okay, but he was a vampire - he should be better than this. Well, okay, no - deader than this.

And while Giles was undoubtedly on the right track in his search, Angel knew that finding out what the hell that thing was actually solved only the first problem. The most pressing question was who could have brought it here, and why.

There was no way in hell that thing got into the sewer by itself. No way. And since it was brought there by someone, they must have had a motivation to do it, beyond plain old killing people (although certainly that could be enough for some). Depending on the type of demon it actually was, the needs to raise it would vary, but something that big and that powerful must have cost someone a lot of energy; that was no amateur’s spell.

What he wouldn’t have given for a nice, quiet case involving a vampire cult, or maybe a possessed hairdresser. Was that really too much to ask?

It was L.A. - anything should have been possible.

6

Logan wondered if he should catch a cab, then wondered why he should. He could hoof it; it wasn’t that far back to Faith’s new place. But he wasn’t ready to go back yet.

The bullets, the knives - none of that hurt him or shook him up like the mention of Mariko. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t mentioned by name; it was her. (And him.) It was a humid evening, his skin prickled with the energy of an oncoming storm (he figured he’d have twenty minutes before the thunder started), and yet he was shaking almost uncontrollably. He hadn’t expected to run into someone who knew him back then. Okay, didn’t know him, but knew of him … and her. It made things too real, too sharp, and it scared him where a million heavily armed Yakuza never could.

He wasn’t that man anymore. He wasn’t that Logan; the man who had been married to Mariko was a different him, a better him; the one he was now was the one who rose from the ashes from his death. He was pretty sure if Mariko could see him now, she’d be disappointed, maybe even disgusted. She’d probably have nothing to do with him, and he wouldn’t have blamed her. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he had let her down so badly - so fatally - that he’d deserve whatever she would hit him with.

He needed to stop thinking about this; he couldn’t regress into this well of self-pity. And he certainly couldn’t face Faith with Mariko on his mind, overwhelming him. He needed a drink.

As it was, he was walking past a cyber café, and he remembered he promised Marc he’d actually check his email. There was something to get his mind off things.

He got some overly expensive, oddly named tea drink that was just green tea and lime juice in ice, but it was very good, the fruit both sharp and sweet on his tongue, washing away the taste of cordite, and took up a seat at one of the open computers. It took him a moment to remember where his email account was, and then another moment to remember his password. When he remembered it - Jeanisasmartass - his gut clenched all over again. Now he knew why he didn’t check his email much.

He spent a couple of minutes getting rid of spam (who was stupid enough to go for this shit? They hardly even spelled things correctly), then found some emails from Marc. He wasn’t much for preamble, he just attached all the files he found and downloaded about Lafayette.

He was basically career military, having spent most of his life in the armed forces and some in Canadian intelligence, and had a whole bunch of medals and citations. He was squeaky clean, or to put it as Marc certainly would, a “Dudley Do-Right”, and there were no red flags in the data, nothing suspicious, which was almost suspicious in itself.

Until he came to the name Carter Wilson.

For some reason he stared at the name for a good minute, sure he’d heard of it before and it was bad … even though for the life of him he would swear it was the first time he’d ever seen that name. He knew of no men with the first name Carter, and yet he had a sense of déjà vu. Not only that, but it left a bad taste in his mouth. The name Carter Wilson meant something to him, something awful and damning, something that meant Lafayette wasn’t as clean as he seemed … but he didn’t know what. He was probably just going nuts; thinking of Mariko had jarred his brain to the point where nothing made sense anymore.

But his gut was telling him this was significant; that this meant something. That was simply all his gut could tell him.

So he emailed Marc back and told him he needed to know who this Carter Wilson man was, and he needed to know as soon as possible. He told him this guy was dirty somehow, he just didn’t know how. It was up to him to help him fill in the blank. Knowing Marc, he’d do so gladly.

Sirens screamed, piercing the night, and he watched through the windows as cop cars and an ambulance sped by, lights flashing, heading towards Chinatown. The Yakuza never would have called them, so it was either a bystander who came across bleeding people, or perhaps one of the women from the bathhouse, afraid that they’d be facing a whole bunch of bodies in their lobby if they didn’t do something.

He wondered if he should go home yet, but even though he was no longer shaking, he wasn’t ready to face Faith yet. He still needed that beer. Then there was this Martin Leung asshole.

He had the name of his club, but Logan wanted more information. He could get it from Tony, and then pay him a visit and let him know just how much he hated people telling lies about him.

Now that was going to be fun.