5

Was darkness darker here? It seemed like a silly and redundant thought, and yet, it seemed that way. Maybe it was due to the fact that there were fewer lights here, and certainly fewer cars – there were almost no cars. Logan saw them parked, but he didn't see a single one on the road. “Demons don't like cars?” he asked his fellow Canuck (Kier).

Kier shrugged, and shook out his coat. Nope, the shit blood just wasn't shifting. “Some demons love cars. I mean, physically – it's pretty disgusting. But here, they seem like they're only for show.”

“It's hard to drive without running into obstacles,” Bob said, having overheard their conversation. Never mind he was so far ahead of them there was no way he should have been able to hear. (Bob and the Sisters were taking point; he and Kier were bringing up the rear, in case someone tried to sneak up and jump them. So far, no one had been that stupid.) “There are perambulating demons all over, and mystical roadblocks to keep people from straying into another territory without paying a toll. And then there's the fact that some demons can't fit into the cars, others can't drive them, and others can't be near metal without dying.”

“So why have them here at all?”

“'Cause they're cool.”

Great. Demons could be as shallow and nonsensical as Humans. Well hell, gods could be, so why did he expect better behavior from them? Maybe he was just hoping that something would be a bit classier, even if they were demons.

Eventually they came to a house on the shore that could have been a studio set for a horror film. It was on stilts for absolutely no reason (it wasn't that close to the shore), and had an aggressively boxy shape that came to a sharp point, again for no reason. It cast a silhouette like an obese box cutter. Bob looked back at them and made a gesture with his hand, and Logan suddenly felt cleaner, and certainly smelled better. He looked down, and the muck was gone from all of them. “You could have done that earlier,” Logan snapped.

Bob just gave him a shit eating grin. “What, and not give you something to bitch about? Consider it a gift.”

“If-”

“-Bob-”

“-can't fuck-”

“-with you-”

“-he's not happy.”

“So I've noticed,” Logan replied, scowling.

Bob led the way up a narrow, freestanding staircase to the door, but rather than knock, he walked straight in. Was it unlocked, or did Bob make it so? Didn't matter. But as he crossed the threshold, Doyle shuddered, and said, “Bloody hell, that felt wrong.”

Logan knew what he meant the instant he crossed the threshold. A cold shudder and a wave of nausea briefly flashed through him, as sudden as a reflex. “Holy shit.”

“Why did I just get a hangover?” Rogue wondered, arms wrapped protectively around her stomach. She was still Brachen green and spiky, which may have been the only reason she hadn't lost her lunch.

“It's a security spell. Keeps beings out until they're let in.”

“So how'd we get in?” Doyle wondered.

“What, like a simple ward spell's gonna hold me back?” Bob replied, as inappropriately cheerful as always.

Kier looked back at the doorway. “I didn't feel anything.”

“You're dead. You're not a threat to a death god.”

Kier raised an eyebrow at that. But before he could ask why he was here then, Bren interjected, “I didn't feel anything. I'm not dead.”

“No, but you're protected by the Gorgons. That'll counter any spell remotely harmful.”

“That doesn't work in our dimension, does it?”

“Only if it's a lethal spell.”

“What a motley crew you have, Bob. You take this patron saint of losers thing seriously, don't you?” A voice asked, silky smooth and poisonous, neither male nor female but a bit of both. Logan didn't detect a scent over the home's overwhelming moss smell – chlorophyll and earth, something like leaf mold and earthworms – so he tried to follow the sound by hearing, but that was of no help either. But considering he was unable to move, he didn't know why he was bothering to track it. Instinct, habit.

He wasn't the only one. He could still move his eyes, and he saw that Rogue was rigid and her eyes were slightly panicked, while the Sisters and Kier took seats on a low, Victorian style sofa that hadn't been immediately visible in the overwhelming gloom of the room. Kier, indignant, snapped, “What the fuck ..? Give me my body back!”

“Don't -”

“- fight -”

“-it, it -”

“- doesn't help.”

Bren tried to walk over to him, but stopped as he impacted with something invisible that flared brightly when he made contact with it. He staggered back and tried to see what he'd hit, but it had died down again. Still, when he waved his hand near it, it flared up again with a ghostly blue light. “A forcefield?”

“Won't hurt you, so the Gorgons won't care,” Bob explained. “Very cute. Always with the weaseling, Azrael.”

Doyle, who had loitered near the entrance since they came in, asked, “'Cause I'm dead, I'm screwed, ain't I?”

“Pretty much mate. Sorry.”

“Azrael?” Kier exclaimed. “Isn't that another name for Satan?”

“No,” that voice said again, with a disappointed sigh. Finally shadows coalesced and cleared in the abnormally dark room, and a figured emerged. It was an androgynous figure, neither male or female, tall and as abnormally pale as alabaster, with an overabundance of angular features making it look like a knife blade given humanoid form. Its hair was black, its eyes were black, its clothes were black – all living shadows that swirled around it like smoke. The temperature in the room automatically dropped about twenty degrees, and something unknown put Logan's teeth on edge. It was a full body feeling of chewing on tin foil. “Satan doesn't exist; it's a Human concept. I'm simply a death god, although I hear the meat bags often refer to me as an angel of death. How quaint. So Lucifer, what do they call you now?” It looked at Bob when it asked this.

Bob grinned in a cockeyed sort of way. “Tryin' to freak them out? Hon, they're with me. They're beyond bein' freaked out by names.”

“So you're the Devil?” Bren asked. Actually, he didn't seem surprised.

Bob shook his head. “Devil is a Human concept – it's just another name for Satan. I'm just a fallen Power. Azzie is always good at freaking people out.”

“You flatter me. I've never been as good as you,” Azrael replied. Those endlessly dark eyes – all black, no white, no pupil, as big as kiwi fruits – settled on Logan, and he felt a chill run down his spine. It was like being way too close to dry ice. “That one smells of death. He's died before.”

“I got better.” Logan grumbled.

Azrael smiled. It was truly unsettling; it was like watching a piranha smile. “Did you now? This one wants to kill me. Can't kill a death god, Human.”

“I know. But it'd shut you up for five seconds.”

Azrael laughed. It was like bones scraping concrete. “Fabulous! Bob, you've got yourself a Horseman. You always did think ahead.”

Horseman? What was that suppose to mean?

“Why are you slumming here, Az?” Bob asked, ignoring the comment. “In debt to the Russian mob?”

“Your sense of humor was always tiring. It's peaceful here, quiet, no meatbags to deal with.”

“What happened to Osiris? What did you do to him and the book?”

Azrael snorted, and the smoke swirled like it was shifting position. “Like I would have anything to do with that idiot. I certainly wouldn't bother with a book.” It gave Bob a sidelong glare, and Logan realized there was a very vague and yet very real resemblance to a raven. A white raven. “You really don't know, do you?”

“Know what?”

“The rumors are Camaxtli's returned. Osiris is probably in hiding. He sold him out, didn't he?”

Logan felt his stomach sink like a stone. Jean. Not again.

“You're being bullshitted. Camaxtli's gone for good. He was wiped out by a more powerful god. You don't come back from that.”

“Not usually. But supposedly some of his energy survived.”

Bob shook his head vehemently. “Not possible. Someone wants you – us – to think that, but that's a lie. Believe me, I know lies when I hear them.”

“Oh yes, lies and losers, your forte. In a multiverse where even a demon who wasn't supposed to know of his divinity finds it again, how can you doubt anything?'

“Who has the book, Az?”

“Like I answer to you. I am a death god. I answer to -”

“Answer the question!” Bob roared, in his god voice. It sounded like all of eternity shouting; it made Logan cringe, made his brain cringe, made his brain want to ooze out his ears and hide in the floorboards. At the same time, perhaps as a result of the shouting, perhaps to show off, he flared electric cobalt blue, and for a single second it looked like he had wings of blue flame sprouting from his back. From the way Azrael reacted, he/she had seen them too.

“You do not get pissy with me, angel of light,” Azrael snapped, mouth curving downward in a sharp arc. “You do not have that right!”

“I have every right. Who are you protecting?”

Logan noticed Rogue staring at him. She mouthed the word, “Angel?” He wanted to shrug, but wasn't able to. Hopefully she saw that.

“I protect no one. I only kill.”

“Then why hide here? Who's sent you into hiding? And don't give me that peace and quiet bullshit. Even gods can't lie to me. As you said, my forte.”

“Can't-”

“-bullshit-”

“-a bullshitter,” the Sisters offered helpfully, from their captive position on the couch. Being unable to move hadn't perturbed them in the least, unlike Kier, who still looked pretty pissed off about it.

Azrael attempted to glare the Sisters into full submission, but they just met it with empty eyes and empty smiles, and eventually Azrael gave up and glanced at Bob again. You knew you were batshit crazy when you could stare down a death god. “You've been led down the garden path, Bob. You should really ask your old pal Yama what he's up to. I'm sure he'd be thrilled to see you again. Perhaps invite you in for tea.”

Bob's face just fell. He'd gone from looking scary angry to shocked and doleful in a single second. “Yama? This is Yama? Why? What does that old crank think he's doing?”

“I wouldn't know. Not my pantheon. Now, would you get the fuck out of my house?” Smoke started swarming around Azrael again, making him/her disappear as if sinking under murky water, but just before its face disappeared, those eerie abyss eyes focused on Logan again, sending that chill throughout his body, and it said, “Be seeing you again, Horseman.” Now what the fuck was that supposed to mean?

They knew it was gone when they were suddenly released to move again. Logan let out a sigh, and asked, “Can I kill that thing? Please?”

Bob was staring down at the floor, lost in thought. From the look on his face, not happy thoughts. “Another time, mate. We have other problems to solve.”

“Are you a god or an angel?” Rogue asked. “I'm really confused.”

“Angel-”

“-just-”

“-means messenger -”

“-Humans always -”

“-forget that.”

“They think I'm nothing but a messenger for the Powers. They like to twit me.” Bob said, still distracted.

“Lucifer means light, doesn't it?”Bren said, talking more to himself than anyone else. “And he was a fallen angel. Are things finally making sense here?”

“If so, it'll be the first thing all day,” Doyle noted.

“Who's Yama?” Logan asked, trying to prod Bob along.

“Another death god,” he replied. “A pretty powerful one. Bad news all the way down the line. His realm will be hard to get into. It's not really open to visitors. Especially me.”

“So is Jean alive again or not?” Rogue asked.

Bob shook his head. “Not yet.”

Logan felt rooted to the floor once more, but this time it wasn't Azrael's doing. “Not yet? What do you – oh shit. The book.”

“The book,” he agreed. “If her name's in it and it's taken off, we'll have her to deal with again. Best case scenario, she comes back untainted by Cammy's energy. Worst case scenario, she's full of it. Bringing back avatars is unprecedented. I have no idea where this could end up. Either way, I can't see this being good for us.”

No. Jean alone would probably be pissed at them. Jean as Camaxtli would be homicidal, and able to back it up. It would be ugly in either case. Not to mention the fact that he wasn't sure he could handle seeing her again. He had enough ghosts to deal with. Logan forced himself to stop thinking about it, and focus on the issue at hand. “Why does Yama hate you?”

Bob smirked at him almost painfully, as if he had arrived at the crux of their biggest problem. “Well, I kind of helped kill him and had him exiled from his pantheon.”

Everyone stared at Bob in hollow eyed horror, probably hoping this was more of his sick sense of humor, but Logan knew it wasn't.

“Is that all?” Logan replied darkly. Oh shit. How were they going to deal with all of this?

Just when you thought things couldn't get worse, they always did. Amazing how that worked.