3

It was funny how traveling only a short distance with Bob could feel infinitely long.

He didn't sing, which was good, but Logan found himself fielding questions from Rogue on why he hadn't let her know he was back in L.A. He had to explain he hadn't been, until Bob zapped him in less than an hour ago. He almost told her about the new team he had, but then didn't want her to feel bad or left out, so he kept his mouth shut.

They had to travel to the Way Station in the sewer, since it was kind of nice not to have Kier burst into flames, but it was also relatively ghost free (unlike the streets). Bren asked Bob – still barefoot and in surfer jams, even in the sewer – if he was serious about zombies, and he assured him he was, and he wasn't honestly kind of surprised the Galleria wasn't reenacting Dawn of the Dead by now. Everybody found that a comforting thought.

Doyle, although a ghost and beyond Logan's ability to harm him, still seemed to hang back and eye him warily, which annoyed the shit out of him. He felt like turning around and yelling at him, but what good would it do? Just convince him he was more of a psycho than he already thought he was. And it was a fair cop anyways – he was a psycho, just a different kind than the one he was before. He took a moment to make a call, aware that Doyle was still watching him as he made it, leaving a message for a friend. Angel and company might need a bit more help holding the city, and it would be nice to get them some back up. He also left a call for Storm, letting her know the mutants might be needed to hold New York City. But also maybe not – your average New Yorker was a pretty tough customer. Zombies shambling through the streets might not make them blink.

As everyone went up, Logan pulled Bob aside and asked him what their next move was, if indeed they found the AWOL death god. “We get the book back.”

“And how do we do that?”

Bob gave him a big grin, a blinding flash of white teeth. “Depends on who has it, mate.”

Which was a Bob way of saying “I have no fucking clue”. Logan decided to set that aside for a moment, and went to the next point. “What happens when we get it back? Do we just write the people's names back in or what?”

He shook his head. “They should restore themselves after we have it back.”

“How?”

“The book is being altered. Once names are written down, they stay. To remove them requires ... a lot of effort.”

If you questioned Bob long enough, you could find the frightening subtext he always left out. "So we're dealing with someone powerful here. Stronger than you?"

"I have right on my side. No one's stronger than me."

Logan glared at him, for all the good it would do. (None.) "We've met gods stronger than you. We've fought them."

"And we're still here, so that tells you something, yeah?" And with that he headed up to the surface. Bastard.

They came up in the shadowy alley beside the bar, and once they were inside, past the glamour that made it look like an abandoned, condemned building to everyone else, they were suddenly hammered by the scent of demons and the sound of loud music.

They headed to the main room, which was half filled with various demons drinking, and half filled with ghosts, most of whom converged towards Bob as soon as they saw him. Bob raised his hands, and said, "Oi, I'm working on helping you all, but you gotta be patient. Right?"

To Logan's surprise, one of the ghosts was dressed like a Spanish conquistador, right down to the sword and strange little helmet, and he was plugging his ghost ears. "What is all this noise?" Logan realized belatedly he'd said it in Spanish. (Of course, what else was he going to say it in - pig Latin?)

"It's music," Bob told him. In English, but the conquistador understood him, because everyone understood Bob. (Unless he spoke that god language that made it feel like your brain was going to explode - only gods understood that.) "And if it's too loud, mate, you're too old. Which you are, so, sorry 'bout that." Bob then looked at Logan with a mischievous smile on his face. "Ah, the jukebox knows you're here."

It was playing the Murder City Devils now. Logan glowered at him. "Like I don't know you're controlling it."

Bob didn't answer that, just kept grinning, and motioned them to follow him as he headed to the back room, singing, "These idle hands, they do the devil's work, and these idle hands, they do a whole lot worse -"

Doyle looked back at the ghosts behind him, and asked Bren, "Bob knows conquistadors?"

"Assume Bob knows everyone," Bren admitted. "It makes it easier."

Ah, so the kid was learning. Excellent.

They retreated into Bob's office, which was the same as it had always been. Underlit, with crates packed against the side walls, bearing HazMat and radiation symbols, his desk a wooden relic near the back, with only an iBook to make it look like someone had been in here within the past century. There was a single wooden chair in front of the desk, looking like the perfect picture of loneliness. "So how do we get to this other place?" Rogue asked.

"Ow," Kier exclaimed suddenly, grabbing his head.

Bren was at his side instantly, holding his elbow. "Hon, what's wrong?"

"I don't know," he admitted, and his voice sounded a bit off, which prepared them for seeing that he was in vamp face now, all teeth and yellow eyes. "Why did I change? I wasn't expecting that."

"It's this place," Bob said, and it became apparent his skin was turning ever so slightly blue. Not cyanotic; it was like his blood was glowing, and his skin wasn't opaque enough to hide it.

"Whoa, hey," Bren said, looking at his own hand. It was turning ever so slightly green, like his Brachen side was just starting to surface.

"The energy's different," Bob continued. "Until you get accustomed to it, your demon sides will probably be more pronounced. It'll fade."

"It smells different too," Logan said. It did; it was a rich, loamy, musky smell, like a forest overpopulated with demonic animals - there was no Human smells, save for what was in this room.

"We switched already?" Rogue asked, looking slightly disappointed. "I didn't feel anything."

"You're human, sweetheart, you wouldn't." Bob told her.

"My Brachen side isn't coming out," Doyle said, placing his hand against the wall. It went right through it.

"No, you're a ghost; dead triumphs demon in that case. You should be able to move objects, though, if you think about it."

"Umm, Logan," Rogue said, and at his curious look, gestured to his hands. They were glowing faintly blue, mainly at the knuckles and the fingertips. He shot Bob a menacing look. "I thought all your energy was outta me."

"Most of it," he said, giving him a shit eating grin that reminded Logan that Bob was the King of the Liar Demons. Motherfucker.

Bob led the way out, back into the bar, and it was the same as the Way Station in Los Angeles proper, right down to the Murder City Devils song just playing itself out. The number of demons in the bar had changed, as had the kind, and there weren't as many ghosts - certainly no conquistadors. The bartender was also a seven foot tall demon with a three foot rack of horns on his head; he almost scraped the ceiling, and it was a good thing his neck was as thick as a suspension bridge cable, as Logan had no idea how he'd hold his head up otherwise. He nodded his head in Bob's direction as he entered, and most of the demons turned to look.

One, who looked very much like a snaky Ressik demon, got up, and hissed, "Humans." He reached for Rogue with a scaly, clawed hand.

Logan smacked it away, inserting himself between the Ressik and Rogue, and popped his claws as he sent a fist towards its face, stopping when the claws were about one centimeter from its huge eyeballs. The Ressik, as drunk as it obviously was, froze in sudden sobriety. "Sit down or I put you down." Logan said. He noticed, as an afterthought, that the blue energy limned his claws.

The Ressik's lipless maw open and closed several times, making him look like a mutated goldfish, before he found the will to back up and sit down. Logan was aware that the jukebox had switched over to Metallica's "Creeping Death", and he shot Bob an evil look. It only made Bob smile.

"Holy shit," Doyle exclaimed. "You do have knives in your hands! I always thought that was bullshit."

Rogue scowled at him for some reason. "I can take care of myself, y'know."

Doyle gave her a surprised look. "You got knives in your hands too?"

Logan ignored them, and asked the room, "Anyone wanna try somethin'?"

All the demons seemed really interested in their beers all of a sudden. The ghosts just seemed happy to be already dead.

"Good. Keep it that way." He retracted the claws back in his hand, and the Ressik jumped a little in his seat.

"That's what I love about you, Logan," Bob said cheerfully. "You love the dramatic entrance."

"So where do we go from here?" Kier asked, mainly because someone had to say something.

Bob whistled sharply and suddenly got up on a table, almost spilling the drinks of a Persaid and his Slime Demon pal. "I'm looking for a slumming death god. You probably don't know he's a death god, but he's full of a dark energy you can't help but notice - he probably told you he was a sorcerer or something. We need to find him before he brings the Powers crashing down on all our heads, so speak up. I can make sure he doesn't harm you."

This caused enough murmuring in the room to almost drowned out Metallica. Logan shared a glance with Rogue, Bren, and Kier, enough to confirm that they were all realizing the same thing: no one here knew that Bob was an fallen Power. What they thought he was they had no idea, but a god or being not nearly as powerful as he actually was. Perhaps they thought he was Kama.

“Um,” a woman from a back table said. She was quite lovely, Indian, with toasted almond skin and silky black hair that fell softly to her shoulders, and she looked so Human Logan knew she was a vampire, even before checking to see if she was drinking a glass of blood. “I may know someone who fits that description.”

Bob turned on a huge wattage smile, and Logan was surprised she didn't explode into dust. “Terrific. So where can we find 'em?”

“I, um, think he lives on the beach, you know, around Santa Monica? Guy has an aura like the black death. Real recluse. No one goes near, even if they could.”

“Know how long he's been here?”

She shook her head and shrugged. “No idea. I know he creeps me out.”

“Good enough. Creeped out vampires not a good thing.” Bob jumped down onto the floor. “Okay people, let's saddle up.”

“What the hell can we do against a death god?” Kier asked.

“Oh fuck,” Bren suddenly exclaimed, flinging out his arm like he had a bug on it. “Fuck!”

“Kid, what's wrong?” Logan asked, but then he saw it: Bren's tattoos were moving. Not just corner of the eye shifting – they were slithering like snakes, cartoons given form and sliding over his flesh, spreading out over his collarbone, his neck, probably spreading down his torso.

“Bob, what the fuck's happening to me?!”

“Calm down,” Bob told him soothingly. Was it a push? Logan couldn't tell, but he did seem to pause in mid freak out. “Demon powers aren't the only powers heightened here – god powers are heightened too.”

“I'm not a god!”

“No, but you're the Gorgon's Chosen. On the Human plain, that means you can call on them for protection, and if you die, the Gorgons kill whoever killed you in the most horrible method possible. Here, they can protect you a bit more proactively. It's not just a mark, mate.”

There was a small table full of demons he'd never seen before – red and leathery, with too many teeth and about three extraneous eyes – who did a double take at Bren as one muttered, “Gorgons?” They grabbed their beers and vacated to a table as far from them as Humanly possible. Yeah, they weren't the most touchy-feely, cosmic muffin type of goddesses. Actually, Logan's limited experience with them gave him the impression that they were especially belligerent gods that even other gods wanted nothing to do with – they were unfathomable and vacillated between distant and vicious. No wonder mythology gave them such a hard ride.

“So what the hell is it?” Bren asked, holding out his arms as if they were dripping with snakes, not just animated ink black vines.

“It's protection. Think of it as a kind of body armor.”

“It's a tattoo.”

“Since when do tattoos move?”

Bren stared at him numbly, and looked at his arms with the same shocked expression. He didn't know what to make of this development, but he didn't know what to do about this either. Either Bob pushed him and he didn't let the others hear it – more than possible – or he simply surrendered, because what the hell else was he going to do? He couldn't rip the marks off his skin.

“Wow,” Doyle finally said. “What kinda weird ass cavalry are we?”

“We're being led by a guy in surfer shorts,” Logan pointed out.

He half shrugged, conceding the point. “Got me there.” At least Doyle didn't seem so put off by him anymore.

They headed out of the bar, and it was only then that Bob decided to fill them in on Below. “Couple things you need to know. It's always night here.” It was pitch black outside, with light pollution from the city keeping the stars invisible. There were a few cars parked along the side of the street, and a few streetlights, but the buildings looked wrong – they were almost uniform rectangles, with most windows arch shaped and burning with pale amber light, like flame through honey. It was just slightly off enough to seem unforgivably wrong. Ironically, the sidewalks were much cleaner than they were back In the real Los Angeles.

“What, like in the Arctic?” Rogue asked.

“No. There's never any sun. It's just forever night. Also, ever since the death of the last Emperor, it's been a bit of a free for all. Territories are divvied up and decided in a Thunderdome style contest. So, who here has seen the movie The Warriors?”

Logan grabbed Bob's arm, and swung him around to face him. “Are you telling us that this place is more dangerous than the Bronx of the mid '70's? Or Moscow after dark now?”

Bob continued to give him a deliberately vacant smile, clearly hoping he wouldn't make a scene in front of the kids. Fat chance. “You're with me. How dangerous can it be?”

If there was an answer Logan liked less, he couldn't think of it right now. “You coulda filled us in, not -” he stopped short as a smell hit him, as physically as a punch. It was a hideous smell, like rotting fish poured into a landfill and blended together with corpses and mothballs. It made him back up a step and double over as he closed his eyes and tried very hard not to vomit. Kier exclaimed, “Holy fuck! What is that?”

“What is -” Rogue began, and then stopped as she must have gotten a lesser whiff of the stench. “Oh, god. What died?”

“You, in a minute,” a voice said. It sounded gurgly, like someone speaking through a pan of water.

Logan felt the hair on the back of his neck, arms, and legs standing up before he was able to swallow back his rising gorge and straighten up. You knew it was bad when it felt like your skin wanted to leave your body and crawl away and hide somewhere.

But when Logan first looked, all he saw was a bunch of steroided vampires surrounding what looked like a huge pile of dead eels heaped up in the middle of the street. Then the pile moved, and seemed to grow larger as the horrible stench intensified.

Okay, it wasn't a pile of dead eels, but a demon ... thing. At its full height, it was maybe eighteen feet high, and it was all tentacles – long, blackish-green tentacles, varying in length from about ten feet to its eighteen foot height. It was all tentacles; Logan's eyes seemed to want to shy away from this huge collection of what appeared to be a million tentacles. Maybe there was some kind of a central pillar of a body holding all of them together, you'd think there had to be, as they looked like they roughly connected somewhere. But it wasn't really visible, nor was a face of any kind. It was just a million long, dead eels that smelled like Hell took a monster dump, and his mind wanted to reject the sight of this thing even more than his eyes did. It seemed like a violation of all the physical laws of nature, it wasn't right in any sense of the term, and that's probably why it dwelled in the Below, where it didn't matter so much.

“I thought I told you never to show your face here again, Bob,” the thing gurgled. Well, it must have, the voice seemed to be coming from its general direction, but Logan still saw nothing approximating a mouth or a face.

Bob scoffed. “Like I'm afraid of the Lord of the Lard. Please Gurglgagog, get over yourself.”

Gurglgagog? Logan's first guess was Jabba The Hutt – not even close.

“I am not Lord of the Lard!” It roared – well, gargled – angrily, a third of its lower tentacles thrashing and slithering in what seemed to be displeasure. “Stop with these grotesque accusations!”

“Or what, you'll slime me to death? Shift your bulk so we can move on, okay? We just have a bit of business to deal with, then we're outta here.”

Shadows squirmed around them, and it seemed like a dozen demons materialized out of the darkness, some he recognized and some he didn't. They were surrounded, and both ends of the street were blocked. “I'll pick my teeth with your bones,” the giant linguine monster said.

“It has teeth?” Rogue asked, surprised.

Yeah, Logan was thinking the same thing. He supposed, for better or worse, they were about to find out.