7

Bob must have decided he was tired of walking, or maybe he just didn't want to risk a trip back in the Below, because he teleported them all back to the Way Station. And it was the one in their dimension, which Logan knew not only from the smell, but from the ghost of the Franciscan monk standing in Bob's office, looking more lost than anyone ever had. He asked, in Portuguese, “Is this Hell?”

Logan glanced at him, wondering how old he was when he died – he looked maybe fifteen, although perhaps vows of chastity were good for the skin – and told him, in his language, “No, it's Los Angeles, but I understand the mistake.”

The monk took one look at Rogue, still in Brachen blue-green, and backed away in wide eyed horror, until he was through the wall and out of the office. She must have noticed, because she said, “Well fuck you too, asshole.”

“Monks give me the creeps,” Kier admitted. “Even chipmunks. Can't stand 'em.”

“Even Chip and Dale?” Bren asked, clearly feeding his boyfriend a line.

“Especially Chip and Dale.”

“Can we focus for once?” Logan groused. “We need a plan. Remember, book, Jean, zombie massacre?”

“We've dealt with worse things,” Rogue pointed out.

“Only in a technical sense.”

“Why don't we just go without you?” Kier suggested to Bob. “Get us there, and leave the rest to us.”

Bob shook his head, sitting in his desk chair, which creaked like the deck of an old ship. “He'll just kill you. He's a paranoid old coot of a god; he doesn't take to trespassers.”

“Can we call in Degei on this?” Logan asked. “No one can't touch him.”

Doyle, who had been loitering in the far corner with his ghost cigarette, finally piped up. “Why not bribe 'im?”

They all looked at him curiously, and the sudden attention made him visibly nervous. “With what?” Logan asked. “Dead kids?”

“No,” he replied defensively. “I dunno what he likes, but ... everybody likes somethin', right? Why we gotta go in fightin' when a well placed twenty to the bouncer could get us in the door?”

It wasn't a bad idea. Logan shot Bob a questioning look, and he shrugged faintly, considering it. “Well, Yama likes buffaloes,” Bob offered.

Doyle snapped his fingers, which surprisingly made a noise. “Buffalo wings! Tell me it's buffalo wings.”

“Er, no. Big, smelly water buffalo.”

“Tell me it's not like in the Biblical sense,” Kier immediately replied, and Bren shuddered in revulsion.

“I didn't actually ask,” Bob told him. “But I'd really hope not. Do you know what they smell like?”

“Wet dog beds dragged through a musk foundry,” Logan said, before realizing that yes, he knew what water buffaloes smelled like. How did he know that? Something to think about another time. “Come on, Bob, there's gotta be something. Even I know I can bribe you with a beer or a funny t-shirt.”

“Not a funny one,” Bob corrected sternly. “A weird one. Or something very silly. I don't truck with the usual.” As if to prove that, he was suddenly wearing a tank top depicting a gorilla in aviator glasses riding an ostrich. Did he even want to know what the hell that was about?

“You wouldn't know usual if it bit you on the ass and called you daddy,” Logan said.

“Leave my kids out of this,” Bob replied, giving him a big, shit eating grin.

“And you're a god, huh?” Doyle responded, clearly confused and slightly off put by all of this.

Bob shrugged with his hands, an expansive gesture. “I never said I was a good one.”

“Focus!” Rogue exclaimed, clicking her tongue and rolling her eyes as she crossed her arms over her chest. “Christ, why did I wanna come along again?”

“For the action,” Bren reminded her.

“I take it back.”

“Death -”

“- gods -”

“- like death -”

“-so why -”

“- don't we give -”

“- him some?” The Sisters suggested.

“There's been enough killing. The amount necessary to get his attention would probably have to be global genocide. And no, girls, don't even joke about such a thing.” Bob sat back in his chair, rubbing his eyes. Could Bob pick up the telepathic communication - or whatever it actually was – between the Sisters? Logan kind of wondered, but Bob never really gave him a straight answer about it. About anything really; a straight answer from Bob was pretty rare.

“So what,” Doyle asked, scratching his head. “Do we bust into a zoo and steal a water buffalo?”

Bob got this look in his eye that Logan knew all too well, and always kind of hated. It was inspiration, the look he got when he figured something out, and strangely enough, it was never a good thing. It should have been, but somehow it wasn't. It generally meant ugly things were going to happen. He sat forward, looking at the Sisters, and said, “You have to betray me.”

“Okay,” they agreed, with big, empty smiles.

“What?” Logan asked. “You know yer gonna hafta explain yourself.”

He did, without protesting in even a joking manner. That too was rare. “Okay, here's the deal. The Sisters can attempt to make contact with him, with the express purpose of killing me and getting me out of the way. Yama shouldn't have a problem doing a deal with the dead, 'cause, well, death god. He controls dead things, so vampires are never gonna be a threat to him in any form. And he hates me, so he'll totally be down with me seeing me dead, even if only briefly. That way we set him him up for a trap.”

“Which is ..?” Logan encouraged.

“I'm working on that.”

“Er, umm, do we trust the Gaga Twins here?” Doyle asked, then added, “No offense.”

The Sisters just grinned at him. “None -”

“- taken.”

Yeah, somehow that even seemed sinister.

“I do, yeah,” Bob said. “The girls always do right by me.”

“There -”

“- is -”

“- a problem -”

“- what's our -”

“- motivation?”

“You're vampires. No offense, but you don't need one.”

“They might,” Logan interjected. “They're really devoted to you. Why would they suddenly decide to kill you? What if he doesn't accept vampire nature as enough of an excuse?”

“What's -”

“- in -”

“- it for -”

“- us?”

“I have the funny feeling of being back in acting class again,” Kier said. “If someone asks me to become the truth in the moment, I'm just gonna run screaming from the room.” Bren patted his shoulder in affectionate comfort.

Logan realized he had an answer, although could he get it past a god? He didn't know. He wasn't that good of an actor. But it was a good reason, especially if Yama had as low an opinion of humanity as most gods did. “I want your power.”

Bob looked at him sharply. “What?”

“As your avatar, when you die on this plain, your power shifts to me. I want it. I want to fix the world. I want to fix Jean, I want to bring back ...” he verbally stumbled and paused, feeling the slightest mental hitch at even saying her name. “Mariko. I wanna life, and the only way I get it is through god power. The Sisters can have whatever they want if they help me, but I wanna be done with your shit. I don't want to be your errand boy, I don't wanna be your horseman -” (He still had to ask Bob what that was about .) “- I don't wanna be a fucking superhero or Wolverine or an X-Man. I want a life apart from this, apart from all this bullshit and all of you. And the only way I get it is if I'm the god and I write the rules.”

Everybody was staring at him now, except for the Sisters, who each took one of his arms, entwining their arm with his. “That's -”

“- perfect -”

“ - we like -”

“- you too -”

“- and we want -”

“- a pony.”

He gave one of them – Beatrice or Belinda, he didn't know and honestly didn't care – a scowl. “Gonna need to ask for something serious, darlin'. Pony ain't gonna fly, no matter how crazy you are.”

“How -”

“- about -”

“- a centaur?”

“Did you mean that?” Rogue asked, sounding surprised and looking just a little bit hurt. She was addressing him, not the Weirds.“It sounded like you meant it.”

“I believe him,” Kier said.

“Who's Mariko?” Doyle asked.

Bob had simply been staring at Logan all this time in something like shock, and he continued to even as he stood up. “Fuck, mate, that's brilliant. What is all this but a pain in the ass?”

“A nightmare,” Logan agreed, without sarcasm.

Bob nodded. “And it's not like you can get out of being an avatar simply 'cause you dislike it. It doesn't work like that. The problem is, once I die and you get my powers, I may still try and claim them back. Regeneration, reincarnation, whatever you wanna call it.”

Logan nodded this time. The great thing about this script? He didn't even need to do that much faking. It pretty much wrote itself. “And that's where I need Yama's help. I need a way to kill you and make you stay dead, so I have your powers without the problem of you.”

“The middle man.”

“And I know of your history, kinda, 'cause you mentioned it once.”

“And -”

“- we -”

“- knew because -”

“- we know -”

“- a lot of -”

“- shit and we -”

“- liked the odds of -”

“ - this battle. Teamed up -”

“- we're unbeatable, even by Bob,” the girls agreed, giving his arms friendly squeezes. Or maybe they were copping a feel of his muscles, hard to say.

“There is one quibble,” Bob pointed out. “Bit of a minor hiccup. If Yama senses the lie in your mind, if he picks up even a whiff of betrayal, he will tear you to pieces. And this is a god, so no hand to hand battle, he'll just blow you up like a turkey stuffed with C4. You regenerate like a dream, mate, but I don't see you comin' back from that.”

“What a mental image,” Kier said, wincing slightly.

“Why ain't you worried about the Psycho Twins?” Doyle wondered.

“Their thought patterns are ... unusual,” Bob said diplomatically.

“We're -”

“- bugfuck -”

“- nuts,” The Sisters told the ghost cheerfully.

“It's like trying to pick up a faint radio signal amongst a tidal wave of static,” Bob explained. “You pick up things now and again, but bits and pieces, nothing coherent, nothing linear. If you concentrate, you can eventually find a semi-cogent thought stream, but you hafta really wanna, and I don't see Yama giving that much of a shit. They're dead, they're in his realm of control, so he's not gonna be overly concerned with their intent to betray or lack of it. It's Logan he's going to scrutinize like the fine print at the bottom of a pre-nup.”

Again, the answer was obvious, but he knew no would want to say it, least of all Bob. It wasn't like he was eager to say it either, but if this was going to work, he was going to have to be willing to take one for the team. Isn't that what he always did? He was the guy with the healing factor; he always took several ones for the team. It was his role – Human shield. He would just have to suck it up and take another one. “So we change my mind,” Logan said.

The look Bob gave him was slightly scolding and very paternal. “Mate -”

“Brainwash me, or make me crazy,” he told him. “Turn me into an animal.”