“No, he’s in L.A. working with Angel.”

This startled an even bigger laugh out of Oz. “You’re shitting me.”

“Yeah, that’s Angel’s opinion as well.”

As they waited for the others to show up, Logan learned a bit about them, mainly because he didn’t want to talk about himself. Oz was a session musician, mainly a guitar player, but he’d done some “keyboard stuff”. Not that it mattered, as Logan had never heard of any of the bands he named. Midnight it turned out was a backing vocalist, which is how they first met - the fact that they were both supernaturally inclined was something they initially had in common. Oz had come with Midnight because he wanted to look after his girlfriend, but also because he hadn’t seen Giles in a while and figured if he could help at all he should.

Oz tentatively inquired about how Giles was doing, Angel, and then asked if he had met Willow. He confirmed that he had, and as far as he knew, she was living in Ireland and seemed okay. Logan sensed there was a story there, but he didn’t ask. It wasn’t his business, and didn’t matter anyways.

He asked him if he could wolf out on cue, which made him snicker uncomfortably and admit he hadn’t “wolfed out” in a while. He’d embraced Zen Buddhism and was trying very hard to keep from getting upset about anything and from letting his “inner wolf” out. It was why he wasn’t sure he could help. There was just something about the way he said it and how uncomfortable he looked about it that made Logan wonder if he was being a hundred percent honest. He was worried about it at the very least.

The other members of the coven started coming in, and they were a decidedly unfriendly bunch. He was glad for Oz and Midnight, otherwise he’d have been buried under an avalanche of iciness. For whatever reason, the rest of the coven hated his fucking guts. What’d he ever do to them? He didn’t even know them. And from the way Oz had to introduce him, they didn’t even know about his significant YouTube work. Maybe they just didn’t like outsiders.

Not counting Oz or the deeply unpleasant Allyson, there were six witches in the coven: Midnight, Indigo, Star, Moonflower, Rain, and Sun. What, was pretentious witches taken? (He kept this comment to himself, though, as he didn’t want to be turned into a toad.)

Allyson told him as soon as she was done doing her own reconnaissance she’d join them, clearly dismissing him, as well as giving him no useful information to relay to Giles. Oz offered to head back with him, though, guaranteeing that at least Midnight would keep in touch with him. He decided to take him back with him, because fuck it. Giles might be glad to see him.

Back at the mansion, Pyro had been exaggerating the size of the chimera and what he actually did, and Giles was back on his feet, but the weariness of the day was starting to hit Logan between the eyes. He felt so unbelievably tired he felt like he needed to take a nap before he collapsed. Being digested could do that to a person.

So he pointed Oz towards Giles and went to his room to collapse, and wondered how long he had to rest before the next crisis.

As it turned out, forty five minutes.

For a moment, he thought he heard Jean calling his name, but when he got closer to consciousness he realized that it was Storm. He woke up, rubbing his eyes, and asked, “What’s gone wrong now?”

She just glared at him, arms crossed over her chest, looking for all the world like she was going to explode. With her, that was an actual possibility. “I want those women out of the mansion.”

“They didn’t turn someone into a newt, did they?” He sat up, waiting for his head to clear.

“No, but they probably will.”

“They ain’t the friendliest bunch, are they?”

“This Temple woman’s a fallen god, is she? She’s now made me revise my opinion of Bob.”

“I know. Makes you wish we just went with him, huh?”

She answered his question in a roundabout way. “That woman is the most arrogant, insufferable …” She refused to commit to the curse, and shook her head instead. “She has no idea how close she came to getting hit by lightning.”

“How’s Giles taking it all?”

“He’s locked himself in Jean’s lab.”

“Great.” As he got up, he rubbed his hand over his head, and felt about a half inch of hair on his scalp. Great. Maybe within a couple of hours, he’d start looking Human again.

He stopped by the kitchen and got a drink out of the fridge before going downstairs, some sort of flavored water thing that he never quite got the point of, but the school still had no beer. What a cheat.

Downstairs, in the “basement”, he heard the distant echo of what sounded like chanting. He went to Jean’s lab and knocked on the door. Since it was metal, it echoed strangely, but he was used to it. “Giles, it’s me.”

After a moment, the lock thunked, and the door opened. Giles stared at him in a sort of tired, hollow eyed way, like he’d just been broken under torture. “I’m glad you’re up,” he said acerbically, “I’m leaving.”

“No yer not,” he said, walking in. The door closed behind him, but Giles didn’t bother to lock it. “Yer not gonna let a bunch of witches beat you.”

“It’s not the witches, it’s Ate. I didn’t think she could get more insufferable.”

“People surprise you. There’s no limit to how much of an asshole a person can be.”

“I’ve noticed. It’s even worse when they’re not a person.” He sat down on a metal stool and sighed heavily. “She’s been teaching her coven to act just like her. I feel like I should have an intervention, call the Council and ask for backup.”

“Look at it this way: if things go wrong, she could die.”

“It’s the only thing keeping me going.” Giles rubbed his eyes, and got to the point. “She’s frozen me out. If we’re doing this, we have to follow her rules.”

“And what are her rules?”

“She wants to close the rift and take out the dark coven. She has no interest in rescuing Paloma.”

He hadn’t expected that, but on the other hand, he wasn’t that surprised. “Why the fuck not?”

“She feels that if they were interested in her, she had some association with them. So she’s not interested in saving her.”

“Has someone reminded her we’re the good guys?”

“She couldn’t be less interested in our opinion.”

Again, hardly a shock. “I’ll go talk to her. She can’t ignore me; I’m Bob’s avatar.”

“Oh, she can, but she won’t kill you.”

“Everybody tries. Might as well give her a shot.”

There was a brief knock on the door before it slid open, and Oz stuck his head in. “This place is amazing,” he said, walking right in. “It’s like being in a giant Jiffy-Pop. Where do you hire someone to make you a big basement out of aluminum?”

Logan shrugged. “I dunno. I just woke up here one day.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, after getting KO’d with a tree trunk.”

Oz stared at him for a moment, perhaps judging his veracity. “Your life sounds about as fucked up as mine.”

“You don’t even know the half of it.”

“Are they getting ready to move out?” Giles asked Oz, wearily changing the subject.

Oz shrugged. “Looks like it. Very’s still arguing with Ally about the girl, though. And us.”

Giles propped his head up on his hand, looking at him askance. “What do you mean?”

“She wants to go without us.”

That made Giles stand, the stool scraping back across the floor. “That stupid cow.” He headed for the door and Oz stepped back out of his way, although the pair exchanged a look before following him out. Giles started muttering to himself, which was always troubling.

Hanging back, as if wanting to avoid any blowback from the upcoming carnage, Oz asked him, “So where’s the guy with the Geordie LaForge visor? Or the hot redhead? I thought they were with you guys.”

Oh great. He really wanted to talk about this now. “They’re dead.”

He had the decency to be unsettled by his faux pas. “Oh. Sorry man, I didn’t know.”

Logan just shrugged. “People die doing this shit all the time. Makes you wonder why anyone bothers saving the world.”

“Yeah.” He paused momentarily. “And the lack of a dental plan sucks too.”

Great, he was a sarcastic bastard. Oh well, why not? It was better than being a humorless asshole.

Speaking of which, Giles had just stormed into the meeting room where Ate’s coven was, and they were already arguing by the time Logan and Oz reached the doorway. The coven was standing back, watching with something like awe, as Ate and Giles squared off. Logan could foresee this going on forever, so he grabbed Giles’s arm and pulled him back. Before he could recover, Logan stepped right up to Ate and popped his claws as he held his fist beneath her chin. He made sure they didn’t puncture, but came close enough that she knew they were there. She glared at him, more in offense than fear, and he saw a brief flicker of fire in her yes. “You wanna do this without us, you’ll do it over my dead body.”

“That can be arranged,” the blonde witch who called herself Moonflower snapped.

But Ate seemed to realize what he was doing, the fire in her eyes dying. “No, I’m not sure it can. We can’t kill him.”

Moonflower scoffed. “Yes we can.”

“No. If we kill him, his master will show up.”

“And he’ll be pissed off,” Logan said, ignoring the “master” dig. “D’ya think you and the girls can take Bob? How well did you get along with him when you were all gods anyways?” That last part was a guess, but if she didn’t like Bob, it was a good bet he wasn’t enamored of her either.

The way Ate scowled, he’d guessed right. “You think you’re clever, don’t you? What if I just started killing off everyone else? It wouldn’t bring Kama around, now would it?”

Logan retracted his claws, and put his fist against his chest, right over his heart. “It would if I killed myself.”

There was some minor murmuring amongst the coven. This had all taken such a bizarre turn no one knew what to make of it. Ate continued to glare at him. “You’re bluffing.”

He met her glare with one of his own. “Try me, darlin’. I‘ve been dead before, and it‘s about the only way I get any peace.”

They stared at each other for almost a full minute, and it seemed like no one in the room dared to breathe, waiting to see how the power shifted and what happened next. Finally Ate shook her head faintly, losing the stare down. “You’re perfect for Kama - you’re just as crazy as he is. You’re an ideal couple.”

“I didn’t call myself a kamikaze pilot for nothing,” he pointed out.

Giles gave him look that was at once scolding and grateful, and he heard Midnight whisper to Oz, “Is he crazy?”

Oz whispered back, “Nah, he’s just scary awesome.”

Logan decided to take it as a compliment, even though he wasn’t sure it was.

****

The basic problem remained the same: they didn’t know precisely what they were facing. Ate seemed to think it was a dark coven - black magic practitioners (which Giles said was the most likely thing) - but she had no number to give them, nor did she have any ideas about their major defenses. She wasn’t concerned about it either, because she was certain that she could handle anything their opponents could throw at them. Giles wasn’t that convinced, and Logan agreed that that sounded too much like famous last words. The problem with the overconfident was they usually didn’t die solo but took many people with them.

Ate wanted the coven to go in alone as she didn’t see what good mutants would be in this scenario, but what they worked out was simple enough: the coven would go in first, and the mutants would follow. Giles was sure he could offer some magical protection to them, but it was clear to Logan any mutants would be on their own. As such, he figured he should go alone, but that wasn’t how it worked. Storm wanted to make sure they got Paloma, as did Kitty, but he managed to convince them to stay back as the second wave, in case they needed to get their asses saved. John refused to stay behind as “back up”, so Logan figured he could come along with him. Oz wasn’t sure he could help, but felt compelled to come along because Giles and Midnight were involved in this. No, he wasn’t a mutant, but he wasn’t a witch either; he’d be lost amongst the spellcasters.

There was some question about how they could get all the people out of the subway, but Logan had a simple solution for it: send Pyro into the subway and have him send little bursts of fire towards the fire alarms. Pyro was sure he could hide out while they were evacuating the station, and once it was empty they’d all teleport in. It almost sounded too easy, but it seemed to start off as planned. Pyro triggered the fire alarms pretty quickly, and while there was some panicking, the evacuation went pretty smoothly considering it was a New York subway station.

As soon as they teleported in, Giles threw up a blocking spell to keep people from coming in (unless you could become intangible, then you could), and the coven, led by Ate, headed down into the tunnel. Oz had weapons, namely a compound crossbow and a short sword, both provided somehow by Giles. Logan was a little concerned about the sword, namely because they were never as simple to use as people assumed they were. “You know how to use that?”

Oz nodded. “I took some kendo classes during my quest to tame my inner beast.” He paused briefly. “You know how to use ‘em?”

“Yeah. Apparently I’m a samurai.”

Oz studied him for a moment, eyebrow raised. After several seconds, he admitted, “You know, I can never tell when you’re kidding.”

“Neither can I.”

They gave the coven about a minute to get ahead of them - although really it was just a way of putting distance between themselves and the insufferable Ate - then went on into the tunnel. Although Logan could smell traces of the chimera’s blood, there was no sign of its body, and that made him nervous.

Sounds echoed crazily here, the shuffle of footsteps amplifying and caroming around the walls of the tunnel, so Logan wasn’t sure if he was hearing what he thought he was hearing. But smells didn’t lie, and he was starting to smell a familiar scent. “Guys, we gotta problem,” he said quietly.

Oz looked at him sharply. “You smell that too?”

Oz had super smelling? Oh why not, he was a werewolf. Giles turned back, looking over his shoulder. “What is it?”

They didn’t have to answer, as now the sound was coming in loud and clear: growling. In front and behind.

“What, they got pit bulls now?” Pyro asked, snapping his Zippo and sending up a little flare of light, piercing the darkness around them.

Still, they couldn’t see much. What they could make out was lambent eyes, generally yellow and red, by the dozens and dozens. The yellow eyes belonged to the vampires; the red eyes he wasn’t completely sure about, as he didn’t recognize their scent. They were surrounded and outnumbered.

“Ah hell,” Pyro said, and then the vampires swarmed in.