15

It was almost too easy.

Bob had been such a degenerate, it was hard to believe he'd ever become as powerful as he had. That just proved how devious he was, he supposed. He never should have gotten his powers back in the first place.

He sensed an alternate energy and glanced over into the trees in time to see a snake drop down from a tree branch. “Oh Degei, I was wondering when you would show up. You're too late, but I'm sure you know that.”

Maybe Bob's penchant for lame ass obscure gods had helped keep him afloat. They liked any attention, even if it came from a fallen, one who could eclipse them all if he ever regained all his powers (although the chances of the Powers allowing that to stand was nil). Degei was a fellow death god, so maybe he should be more respectful, but the guy was truly pathetic. A snake god? Like anyone in this sad excuse for a culture would worship one of those little pests. As for power levels, they were a stalemate. Death plus death equaled death – neither could best the other, so a fight between them would be an exercise in futility.

He saw snakes streaming up from the lawn, down from the branches of trees, and he knew what was going on: Degei was going to manifest. But why? It then occurred to him, and he smiled. “You want in on the party, huh? Sorry, I'm throwing it, so I get first taste. But there's enough death to go around.”

Suddenly a man's voice started singing, “I like how you pretend that the end will be the end, so fill your thirst -”

He followed the sound to Logan, now sitting up as the hole in his body healed up with a slightly pulsing blue light emanating from his chest. He looked at him with cobalt blue eyes and grinned, but it wasn't his smile. “ - and drink a curse, to the death of death instead.”

Yama held out his hand to repel Bob, to throw him back into the void, but he felt ... resistance? No, he couldn't feel resistance! Who the hell was blocking him? Not Bob – he wasn't strong enough. Not Degei, because he knew death energy when he felt it. What the hell was this? “You couldn't have gotten out. How the fuck did you get out?”

Bob, now fully inhabiting Logan's body, popped up to his feet, like the Human shell hadn't just been killed a minute before. “What you should be asking yourself is how you, a god of some note, let a Human fool you. Not that you should really feel bad about it. Logan is a child of chaos, isn't he? There's no telling how far he'll push something.”

He made to step forward, to throttle the grinning mongrel bastard just for the sheer pleasure of it, but he couldn't move – his physical manifestation was frozen to the ground. What the hell ..? “No Human could fool me! You did something!”

“I did. I hid the escape hatch.”

“What?”

Bob tapped his – Logan's – head. “Deep in some very ugly memories even Logan doesn't like to think about, there was a dead man's switch. If he died, I came back. And lo and behold, you killed him, like we figured you would.” He gazed down at the body of the Brachen half-breed directly behind Yama, and grimaced. “And you did that too. Wow. See, I knew you'd be such an arrogant bastard you'd miss a detail.”

He was just making things up to taunt him. Bob was disgustingly Human in that respect. “What detail?”

“He was the Gorgons'. They're not gonna like that.”

He scoffed derisively. Was that all Bob had? How the so called mighty had fallen. “Like I can't beat those sorry old bitches.”

“No, you can't. They're not death gods, but they're death warriors, aren't they? Guardians of the gates of the underworld. And they can make your life – such as it is – an unending torment. Especially if you're not getting a power boost from the book of the dead.” Bob looked over at the pile of snakes that had formed into Degei. “Got it?”

Degei dipped his serpentine head in a formal nod.

“No,” he said, sure this was a trick of Bob's. “It's still mine! No one has intruded upon my realm -”

“Oh, you'd notice a garter snake, then?” Bob interrupted. “Especially when you were keeping such a close eye on Logan? Degei doesn't need energy to see through a snake's eyes.”

So Bob called in some of his dubious contacts. He really should have seen that coming. "So you and your snake friend tried an end run around me. Fair enough, but I have friends too, you know."

Bob grinned, and it looked inappropriate on a Human face. There was too much smugness for a Human to contain. "No you don't. You've burned every bridge you have, and then pissed on them for good measure. Another thing we were counting on."

"Who's "we"? You and the Powers?"

"Me and Logan. Know what I love about this guy? He shouldn't be a good guy. He shouldn't! He's totally wrong. Bad guys are always ruthless and willing to do whatever it takes to win; good guys usually just persevere. But Logan's fucking ruthless; he's the good guy equivalent of a suicide bomber. So if it took him and Bren having to die to put you away for good, he was willing to have his mind fucked over again. He was really sorry about Bren, though. But I assured him that all of this timeline will be undone as soon as we restored the book and got your ass back into exile. Speaking of which, what did you do to Sy? I'd love you forever if you killed him."

"The cowardly fucker's hiding," he grumbled. Now he couldn't move his arms. What the hell ..? He looked down, and saw, curiously, that he was slowly but surely turning to stone. The creeping greyness of granite seemed to have spread out from a puddle of the Brachen's blood, and had now creeped its way up to mid chest, like an avaricious fungus. No ... the Gorgons couldn't be stronger than him. He concentrated, tried to summon up his power, lose this form, but nothing was happening. He had been cut off. "My pantheon -"

"Hates your fucking guts," Bob said, chuckling slightly. "And I should know, as we shared one, remember? Every time you left, all topics of conversation switched to what a dick you are. Nobody's sorry to see you go. There are a billion death gods, most better than you."

Panic was setting in. This shouldn't have been able to happen. Why was this happening? Someone must have been helping the Gorgons - that was the only explanation. "You couldn't have known the half breed bitch would get involved! You couldn't have known I'd kill him!"

"Ah, yes we could. Because Angel would want to try and save his friend - Logan - and he had very limited options countering my powers in a way that wouldn't immediately kill him. Brendan and his connection to the Gorgons was the best first act. You have to use one god to fight another, and if the Gorgons gave a shit about me or anything I did, they could make my life a living hell too. But luckily they're hands off sort of gods. They don't get involved until you piss them off." Bob gave him that smile again, all teeth and malice. " And you did. You broke something of theirs. I don't pity you at all."

The stone had crept all the way to his shoulders now; it looked like he was wearing a body stocking made of cement. "You can't kill me. I am Death!"

He rolled his eyes. "You and a couple hundred other pricks. Besides, I'm sure the girls aren't going to kill you. They're just going to make you wish you were dead." Bob waved at him. "Have a good time! I'm sure it'll be over in a couple of millennia. Write if you get work. Or your arms back, whichever comes first."

When the world sealed off in a cast of concrete, Yama realized it was actually better than putting up with Bob's ego for one more second.

He supposed he'd better hold on to that feeling. He might need it again soon.

***

Yama became a stone statue of himself, frozen forever with a sneer on his face, then the light flared up and he disappeared as the Gorgons pulled him to their realm. Poor bastard. He almost felt sorry for him. Of all enemies to make, the Gorgons were amongst the hardest to acquire, but they were also amongst the worst to have. Pity was a foreign concept, but sadism was a lovely friend they always had over for tea. If there was any way he could have gotten them involved besides the death of Bren he'd have done it, but the girls just weren't interested in Human affairs - they were only interested in their one piece of it.

He crouched down and patted Bren on the head. Not that he could feel it, being dead and all. "Sorry about that, mate. But you'll be alive again in no time." He wondered if he should ever tell the boy why he got chosen. The Gorgons were quite funny about their selection process - they only picked the most pure at heart as their Chosens. You couldn't have a mean or truly malicious bone in your body, you couldn't be even a slightly evil bastard, as they wouldn't want to deal with you. They gave the benefit of their aegis to those least likely to want it or abuse it. It meant that Bren was a genuinely good person, and since he idolized Logan, such a revelation would probably embarrass the shit out of him, so he never told him.

He knew with Rags it was probably less obvious, but he was a Persaid, and you couldn't get more self-sacrificing or well intentioned than that. It also explained his chronic drinking problem, because being good in this world was hard enough to be a chore. To his kind, it must have been a thousand different kinds of agony. It was not an ideal place for the pure at heart.

He glanced up at Degei, and asked, "You got him?"

"He's there," he agreed.

"Let's go."

He hardly needed to say it, as the words were barely out of his mouth by the time they materialized there, in Degei's misty realm of forests and plains, all made of a billion different snakes. You didn't know it unless they moved while you were walking, and suddenly the ground shifted, became a fractal of movement as all its different parts were suddenly obvious and exposed, the strings of the universe visible for a millisecond before pulling themselves together.

Logan was waiting in Degei's charmingly quaint little cottage, looking confused. "What the hell -"

"Remember," Bob said, and that's all it took.

He gasped in pain and grabbed his head, and after a minute to process it all and recover from the shock, he straightened up and said, "It worked."

"Perfectly. In fact, the Gorgons kicked in earlier than I thought. Which means they're really pissed, and are probably crushing Yama to pebbles right now to line their driveway. Couldn't happen to a nicer prick."

He nodded almost robotically, and Bob knew he was struggling with his memories. And how was this not going to be devastating? He made a world where he wasn't fucked over or tortured, where his wife didn't die horribly, where he was never a homeless drifter constantly looking over his shoulder like a hunted animal, where he didn't lose everyone who meant something to him. In a way, to tantalize him with something like that and then rip it away was crueler than any of that.

He turned to Degei, who had busied himself making tea in a porcelain pot decorated with Delft blue snakes, and asked, "Can you take the book back, restore the names?"

He put the pot down on a boa, which wrapped its body around it to keep it warm and stable. "Shouldn't be a problem. Do you think I should find some way to notify Sy that he could come back?"

"Naw, let the little weasel stew. Who's going to miss him?"

Degei actually contemplated that, like it was a serious question. He was so cute sometimes. "I guess no one worships Osiris anymore."

"They never should have worshiped him in the first place. He's a dick."

"Most gods are dicks."

"Yeah, but he's the most dickish dick of them all. Well, aside from Zeus."

At that, Degei rolled his huge snake eyes. "He really should have been neutered."

"Would have saved us all a lot of grief." Zeus would have fucked a coffee table - in fact, he may have. He'd heard no stories to the contrary.

Degei popped out of existence, and the boa brought the tea pot to Bob. He picked it up and brought it over to the table where Logan was sitting and trying very hard not to cry. Bob sat down, and asked, "Cup?"

A cobra emerged from nowhere, dragging a matching tea cup across the table towards him. Another one showed up, dragged a cup to Logan's side, and then they disappeared, slithering back to the floor. Logan looked up, his eyes bright with pain, and said, "You know, this never ceases to be weird."

"Trained snakes?"

"Yeah. And this place is all snakes, isn't it?"

"Yep. I will admit, Degei always got an A for creativity. Most gods don't do their theme all the way like he does. He's fully committed." Bob poured them each a steaming cup of what smelled like peppermint tea, and set the pot down. "Mate, you know I feel your pain. So it's okay to lose it. Nobody's gonna blame you."

He grimaced and looked down at his cup. "No point. I volunteered for this, I knew it was gonna hurt."

"Emotional pain is impossible to brace for. You can ready yourself for physical pain, but this kind really stings."

"Yeah well, I know that," he snapped, and then rubbed his eyes, trying to hide the tears. Part of it was his macho aesthetic, the other half was him kicking himself mercilessly. You knew it was going to hurt, you knew it wasn't going to be easy, you can't cry Uncle now you pussy piece of shit. No one was harder on Logan than he was on himself. After a long moment, he said, "I ain't a suicide bomber, those people are idiots."

"Agreed. You're a new kind of suicide bomber. You don't take out the innocent, and you know full well you're going to come back, and it's gonna hurt like fuck. But you do it anyways. That takes a greater level of commitment." He sipped his tea. Very nice. You'd never know it was made from dried snake scales. (Degei believed in recycling way before recycling was the norm.)

Logan had his head down, a hand on his forehead conveniently covering his eyes. "You're gonna turn the world back."

He shook his head. "Doesn't work like that. Once Degei restores all the name, time will snap back to the point of the initial erasure. Reality doesn't like to be messed with, not on such a grandly violent scale. Think of it as a universal retcon."

"Retcon?"

"Comic book term. You wouldn't know it."

He grunted a type of acknowledgment, then suddenly looked up. His eyes were moist with tears, but he didn't care for the moment. "Marc. Holy shit, where's Marc and everyone else? I couldn't find them."

Bob scowled. Okay, yeah, that probably wouldn't be retconned. If Yama didn't have them - and Degei would have mentioned Human hostages in his realm - they were a part of something else. "Best case scenario, they were somehow part of this book of the dead thing and will come back. If not, I'll look for them. They can't be hidden away where I can't find them."

"But it might take you a while."

"Only 'cause there's a billion universes to search. I'll whittle it down. Don't worry, I'll find them."

"Better." He went back to rubbing his eyes and mentally berating himself. "You're gonna make me forget, aren't you?"

"No. Your memories will fade simply because as far as reality is concerned, it never happened. The retcon's a full stop; no one will remember anything about it. Timelines like to snap back to place, and the Human mind isn't really built to juggle competing realities."

"Then where will we think Marc and the others are?"

"We won't. They'll be missing and it'll be baffling, but you won't know when they went or why. They probably won't remember either once they get back."

Logan sniffed, running a hand under his nose. "Best for everyone."

"Probably." Although personally Bob would like to know who took them and why. There was no way it could be a good thing.

Although maybe he shouldn't be a pessimist. There'd been enough gloom for a while.

****

Eventually they all met up in a clearing: Giles, Marc, Xander, Helga, Mat. Saddiq was missing, but they had no confirmation he had come with them, and Marc was pretty sure he'd have been the first to find them if he had, mainly because the guy was just this side of a robot. Xander thought that was unfair, Saddiq was really just this side of a Terminator, but he kept that to himself.

Mat was having the hardest time with this, which probably figured, because he was the newest to this weirdness. He was sitting on a large rock the size of a really big ottoman, which Xander had mentally dubbed a troll stool. He wished he could share this witticism, but nobody was really in a laughing mood at the moment. “You're saying we're in another universe?”

Giles shrugged kind of helplessly. “Dimension is the preferred term, but universe is acceptable.”

Mat just shook his blond Swedish head. “This is nuts. You guys believe this?”

“Hey dude, we were fighting zombies before we ended up here,” Xander said. “Why do you have a problem with this but didn't have a problem with that?”

“I had a problem with that, but ... what do you do? It didn't seem like the time for a discussion.”

“Why are we discussing this?” Helga asked impatiently, her tail twitching. “We've been depowered for a reason. We're sitting ducks.”

Giles sighed wearily. He was sitting on a fallen long, and looked like he was trying very hard not to pass out. “Probably, but we can't prepare to fight an enemy when we know nothing about them. Especially since our opponent is probably a god.”

“In that case, we're just fucked,” Marc said. He was pacing back forth in a sort of looping oval, his goggles balanced on his forehead, giving them all a good, hard look at his big freaky alien eyes. You'd think if this place shut down all mutant powers it would have given him more Human eyes, but presumably it couldn't alter physical mutations, just cut off their purpose. That almost felt like a clue, but to what? He didn't know, he didn't even try and make sense of it. “All we can do is wait for the punchline.”

“That's what bothers me,” Helga groused.

Mat looked at Marc with a look he couldn't quite interpret. Was it awe? Did he want a sandwich? Had Marc kicked his grandmother? It could have been any of those things. “Nothing ever bothers you, does it?”

“Course it does. But there's a time and a place for a freak out, usually a bus station bathroom at two AM with a bottle of absinthe and a ticket to Delaware.”

“I so want to party with you,” Xander replied. “But I'm afraid I'll wake up concussed and pantsless in a Mexican jail with a cock painted on my face.”

“Painted on if you were lucky,” Marc said.

Ay chihuahua, he wasn't even going there.

Giles was giving Helga a weary glance. “See what I have to put up with?”

Maybe she was going to reply to that, he didn't know. What happened next was she looked up at the sky, and there was this noise ...

Impossible to describe. He had no words for it. Maybe it was like a match being dragged across an ignition strip in super slow motion, the sound amplified and distorted through a broken speaker. It sent a shudder through his body, almost a bubbling from his spine to his scalp, like his skin wanted to crawl off and hide. Everyone was looking now, including him, although he hadn't really wanted to. But that sort of thing compelled you.

A line was being drawn across the sky. A line of fire that seemed to be burning the sky like it was a newspaper curtain. Beyond was nothing but blackness, as deep and unfathomable as Marc's freaky alien eyes.

Old habits died hard, because as soon as he found his voice, he exclaimed, “Please tell me you know what's happening, Giles.”

But he didn't reply, because he didn't have an answer. He didn't know. Which was really the worst thing of all.