Drusilla was probably crazy in any dimension.She looked pretty much the same as she had when he saw her on Dis-pale as milk,eyes like a clear and untroubled sky (and just as empty),long dark hair,blood red nails-only tonight she was wearing a black lace dress with a red velvet bodice:somewhere between a Spanish dancer and a goth girl.

The man,though-now he was funny.Tall and whip thin,his almost lambent paleness enhanced by his bleached blonde hair, which stood up from his scalp in a spiky,Bart Simpson manner,he looked gaunt and hungry,but not in the manner of needing food.It was a Clockwork Orange sort of look in his pale blue eyes,and he was grinning back at him in a lecherous way."What's so funny?"The man asked.His accent was vaguely Cockney."Did you just realize muttonchops went out in the 1800's?"

"No.I was tryin' to figure out who'd make a Billy Idol wannabe a vampire."It seemed like he was going for a punkish look too,with the torn jeans and the stained green t-shirt,the Doc Martens and long leather coat,but Logan thought he looked silly.Laughable,actually.Everything in his manner seemed to say he thought of himself as a bad ass,and yet Logan knew he could dust this fuck without breaking a sweat.

Dru began swaying her head from side to side and smiling,as if enjoying a music only she could hear."His blood sings.It's like a choir of little angels."

"Hey!"The man snapped,frowning sourly."I am not a Billy Idol wannabe!That fat,bloated bastard was a poseur."

"Ooh,"Dru cooed,slipping her arm out of Billy's grasp.She wasn't staring at Logan more than through him,and the smile was gone."He doesn't belong here."

The man smirked at her,but strangely it was in a fond manner."No he doesn't,pet.But he's not going to be around much longer,is he?"

"Was that a threat?"Logan wondered.Actually,he knew it was,it just wasn't a very good one.

Billy boy locked eyes with him,tried on his best glare.(Rogue had a more intimidating one.)"No,food bag.A prom-"

"-ise,"Logan interrupted,cutting him off."Do you know how hackneyed a line that is?It's almost as old as that hairstyle. And when's the last time you had a shower?You smell like a burning compost heap."

Now the hate glare came on full and strong;he was starting to snarl like a dog.

Dru had started backing slowly away,staring at Logan like he was the oncoming Winnebago and she was the fawn crossing the road."He's after the red king."

The male vamp seemed to ignore her,used to her insane ramblings now,and really pissed off by him."You asked for it, Grizzly Adams."He vamped out-forehead pushing forward over yellow eyes,teeth suddenly becoming protruding jagged fangs-and lunged for him.

Of course,he'd fought enough vampires by now to expect that.He simply ducked under Billy's grasp,grabbed his right arm,and with the help of the vampire's own forward momentum,threw him face first into the nearest brick wall.And just for the hell of it,he gave him a kidney punch to the back that audibly broke a rib.

Logan grasped the back of his neck hard enough to make the small bones creak,and snarled savagely in his ear,"I don't want you,Drac,I'm after Lucifer.Tell me where he is,and I let you walk away."

"Fuck you!"The vamp spat,and threw back a hard elbow.Logan took the blow-which hit his cheekbone.

The male vamp screamed as something in his elbow broke on impact with the adamantium in his face,and out of the corner of his eye he saw Dru rush him,probably to save her boyfriend from further pain.

She went for his throat with those deadly sharp nails of hers,but he let go of blondie long enough to grab her wrists and simply toss her,like a bag of garbage,into the street.Of course,she had distracted him long enough for the male vamp to spin around and launch a kick that was probably meant for his face,but Logan blocked it easily with his forearm.
"Let him go let him go let him go!"Dru howled in anguished.He didn't know if she was pleading with him or her boyfriend. "He is a horseman!He is a castle for the king!"

Logan was willing to bet that Dru also made no fucking sense in any dimension too.

Blondie lashed out with a roundhouse punch,using his one good arm,but this time aimed right for the stomach."You're a bloody mutie,ain't ya?'The vamp snapped,as Logan let him land the blow."Are you a fucking Defender,is that it?"

Dru was now wailing,kneeling in the street and rocking back and forth like a stricken widow.It sounded like she was muttering,"Smokestacks, smokestacks," but with her hands over her mouth he couldn't say for sure.

Even though it was a good hard punch that knocked the wind out of him,the instant he landed the blow,Logan slammed his head forward and caught Blondie right on the bridge of his nose.There was a sickening crack,and Blondie grunted in pain, falling to his knees in the garbage strewn alley.

"Just tell me what I want to know,asshole.You can't beat me."He wondered what the 'defenders' were,but honestly he didn't care-not his dimension.

"You wanna bet?"The vamp replied,and punched him right in the balls.

The pain made him stagger back,and Dru yelled,"Spike,leave him!"

But Logan barely noticed,as the pain had so enraged him he could only hear the blood roaring in his ears.Fuck,he hated getting hit in the balls.

Spike ignored Dru as well.(Spike-what kind of name was that?It made him think of a cartoon dog.)Blood was oozing slowly from his broken nose,dribbling over his fangs,left arm hanging useless at his side.If he had any sense at all he'd have backed off now,but obviously he had no sense.He pulled his arm back,probably for another gut punch,but Logan was done playing with this asshole.As Spike threw his punch,Logan popped his claws and sliced cleanly through his skinny,pale neck.

Dru screamed in agony as Spike exploded into dust, and he straightened up,balls still aching."Are you gonna tell me what I need to know, Dru? Or do you want to play a stupid game with me?"

Dru got to her feet, eyes shining with fear and hate. "You won't get what you want. I won't let you. The Master won't let you." With that, she ran off into the night.

He could have followed and chased her down, but he didn't see the point. She was so insane he wasn't sure he'd understand anything approximating a straight answer that he got from her. He'd do better finding another demon, more afraid of pain, to spill its guts.

He walked off, down the darkened, filthy streets of Sunnydale, wondering what kind of dickweed called himself  "The Master".

**

Lucifer sighed at all the grotesqueries on display, wondering who The Master was trying to impress. The corpses were rotting and drawing flies, the severed heads were starting to lose bits of things, and the stripped bones were falling to pieces without anything to hold them together. He seriously doubted that The Master found all these rotting ornaments funny, but maybe he did. He thought he was classier than that.

But he had set up his headquarters in the remains of the Sunnydale Mall, so how classy could he be? In the shops that still had display windows, his minions had posed corpses like mannequins: one was held up by a long ski pole impaled through his chest, and he was modeling the latest in ski wear, in spite of having a ripped out throat and a look of horror on his face. A woman modeling  a swimsuit was nailed to a mannequin to keep her upright; her head hung at an unusual angle, suggesting her neck had been snapped. A severed head was impaled on a stand in a former record store window, slowly rotating, showing off the prisms shoved in the holes where the eyes used to be.

Maybe he thought this little horror show impressed the Old Ones. Truth be told, they couldn't care less, but they thought so little of vampires (thinking of them as half breeds) nothing he could do would help the cause.

The tall, black haired young vampire who was acting as one of the perimeter guards led Lucifer through the remains of the food court (and considering how fresh the corpses were here, they had taken the name literally),and to what was considered the 'throne room':a former candle and magick store called The Raven's Nest. The Master did so love irony.

There was a throne at the back of the room too, a large chair that had been decorated with Human bones. It was a nice touch, actually; whoever decorated the chair was very talented.

"Well hey, what do you know?" The Master said, smirking. "An Asmodeus. I thought you guys were extinct."

"They are. I'm not."

The Master was sitting slumped casually on his arty throne, one leg draped over the arm while the other foot was flat on the floor. He was wearing black leather pants and boots, and an open necked black silk shirt, looking as relaxed as a vampire despot possibly could. Considering the flush on his youthful face, he had probably fed quite recently.

"So what do you want, As?" Angelus, also known as The Master, asked him, examining his fingernails as if bored already.

"There's been a dimensional breech, Ang-" The vampire looked up and glared at him. "-Master, and I think it could be deadly for all of us."

Angelus looked at him askance, clearly thinking he was completely mental. "Not for me. Bye."

"Maybe for you," a woman said,drifting in from the background. In some attempt to be "gothic", the only light in the room was from- what else- candles, placed on every shelf, and floor cushions and low chairs lined the walls on either side.

Angelus seemed to keep a harem, as he was almost always surrounded by beautiful women. That was no exception today. Even in these low light levels, he could see a long haired brunette by the door, looking like she was putting on make up (a vain vampire?) ,a blonde near his throne on his right side (almost always with Angelus-his favorite,rumored to be a former Slayer he turned), a redheaded playing checkers with an Asian girl (they were using eyeballs in place of plastic chips, and he didn't know why they didn't deliquesce. They seemed shiny. Perhaps they'd laminated them) , and he knew without turning around that those two weirdo twins had appeared behind him, far enough away that he couldn't spin around and grab them,although that didn't matter a toss. In any dimension, those sisters were beyond deadly, and they- along with the Slayer girl- were Angelus's 'enforcers'. But he'd only be concerned about the Sisters.

He wasn't sure they- Belinda and Beatrice Zhuravleva- even knew their names anymore. But he would rather meet the preening, sadistic Angelus in a dark alley before he'd ever want to meet the Sisters. Angelus thought they were his to rule, but Lucifer knew they were just humoring him. If they got bored, they would take over themselves, or more likely just leave.They could kill anything, but they had no overwhelming ambitions to do anything else.

The woman who spoke came in from a back entrance somewhere beyond the throne of bones, looking like a wraith, all pale skin and wide, empty eyes, her black hair like a shadow that followed her wherever she went. He knew from the odd feeling he got from her this was Drusilla, the seer vampire who also completely nuts. She was the occasional fourth enforcer, although it was rare for her to go anywhere without her blond boyfriend, Spike.

"I saw him," Drusilla said, staring at a nothing point over his head, idly twirling a strand of her dark hair in between her fingers. "He killed my Spike. I told him he was a horseman, but his pride had been hurt. He was so prideful..."

"Who killed Spike?"Angelus asked impatiently,twisting back to look at her. He seemed completely unconcerned that Spike was dead, but then he was a man. Angelus had little concern over his male soldiers. Actually, he had little concern for any, but he was fond- in a twisted, sick, vamp way- for some of the females.

Dru looked towards him, but not at him. She was walking in an almost zombie like manner, like she was in shock, but Lucifer knew that wasn't it. She was trying to puzzle something out. "A man, a man who knew me. He tastes like metal."

"Would you make sense for once in your life?" The brunette who had been putting on her make up snapped impatiently. Apparently she was done, and Lucifer wondered how old she'd been when she was turned- sixteen?

Dru looked at her, Delft blue eyes narrowing to slits. "Daddy never liked you."

"Dru," Angelus interrupted, before the little cheerleader could reply. "Are you saying you know this guy?"

"No. He knew me."

Angelus made a noise of impatience and rolled his eyes, throwing his hands up in the air. "And how did he know you, Dru?"

There had been a real Master once. Old, old vampire king who successfully opened the Hellmouth, with help from Angelus and his vampire minions on this side. But after the opening it seemed there was a power struggle of some sort, and Angelus killed the Master, taking his place. Being called "The Master" amused him greatly, and Lucifer couldn't help but think of him as some latter day, vampire Caligula.

"From his world. He thought I was crazy."

"So we know he's perceptive, " the blonde said wryly.

"Buff,"Angelus said warningly to her. She glared back at him, unintimidated by his look. She must have been a favorite if he hadn't dusted her by now.

"What did he look like? Did he have blue eyes? Did he seem Belial?" Lucifer asked. He knew there was a dimensional disturbance and knew it was probably one of Bob's bastard family coming after him. They didn't have an inkling of his power, but some had the Blood in their veins.

Angelus stared at him. "Belial?" He scoffed. "Ooh, are they gonna try and sell us an insurance policy?"

"No, he was Human," Dru replied, staring into a candle flame like she was reading tea leaves. "His eyes were green like bile, and he wasn't afraid. Even when he was hurt he wasn't afraid. He could kill us all and he knows it."

"Green?" Well,it was possible one of Bob's offspring might have green eyes- but smell Human? Highly unlikely.

"Wait a sec," Angelus said, finally sitting forward, bringing both feet to the floor. In the flickering light of the candles, the planes of his face seemed as sharp and cruel as he was on the inside. "Male, right? Not a Slayer?"

"The Slayer's hooked up with those freaks, remember?" The one he called Buff said. "What do you call them- Defenders?"

"Mutants," Angelus spat, like the word tasted bad in his mouth. "Is that what killed Spike, Dru? A fucking mutant?"

Dru seemed to nod, although she could have just as easily been swaying her head. "His blood sang like lightning, but he is a razor in the hand of the red king."

"Huh?" Angelus looked to his women, who all seemed to shrug back at him, having no idea what Dru was talking about. All except the Sisters, who said behind him: "Red-"

"-king?"

They said it in a way that meant it intrigued them; they had no more clue than any of the others what she was talking about.

But Lucifer wondered if he knew what she was getting at it.

"Giles!" Angelus suddenly shouted, and in a moment he heard a shuffling as a man emerged from the back door Dru had entered through.

This was a very odd vampire, as he was clearly not a strapping young man, cannon fodder for Angelus's army. He was in forties or fifties maybe ,and he still wore little wire frame glasses and a tweed jacket. He looked like a librarian. He had to be the former Watcher that Dru thought was cute. Only when Angelus decided that his Watcher knowledge might be useful did he give Dru the okay to turn him.

"Yes, Master, what is it?" The British man said, stammering slightly. Word was he hadn't adjusted to the vampire thing well at all.

"Ever heard of something called the red king?" Angelus asked.

The man canted his head and thought about it, as the blonde vampiress asked Dru, "So what was his mutant ability anyways? Bite proof neck?"

"He has daggers in his hands, and he is unbreakable."

"What, you mean he has knives that shoot out of his hands?" The blonde asked, making a sort of flinging gesture with her hand as if to illustrate the point.

"Unbreakable?" The Sisters said in unison. It sounded like they took that as a challenge.

"I can't recall any references to a red king off the top of my head," Giles admitted. "But it could be an obscure reference."

Angelus gave him a dismissive way of his hand. "Go look it up then."

Giles nodded, pushing his glasses back up to the bridge of his nose, and left the way he came in. He was too subdued to be much of a vampire.

"The knives are in him," Dru said. "They are flesh of his flesh."

"Huh?" Buff replied, making an appropriate face.

"Do you mean ,like, his hands turn into knives?" The redhead said, finally looking away from her game.

"He has hands, and he has knives." Dru replied, which cleared nothing up.

"The-"

"- knives-"

"-are inside-"

"-his hands?" The Sisters guessed.

Dru looked at them and smiled brightly. "You come to stay, but you're always leaving."

"Was that a yes?" Buff asked the redhead. She simply shrugged and shook her head.

"How did he kill Spike, Dru?"Angelus asked, with put upon patience.

She frowned, brought back to the unpleasant topic at hand. Pun intended. "Nasty man chopped his head off." She slashed her hand through the air quite suddenly, as if re-enacting the killing blow. Her strange eyes then settled on him, and she said, "He wanted you. He's come for you."

All eyes focused on Lucifer, and he felt a coldness in the pit of his stomach. Mutant or not, had to be some bastard relation (in-law?) of Bob's. Maybe he didn't have the Blood, but he probably had little to fear from demons if he came here of his own accord. Still, if he was Human, there was no way he could get close to the Old Ones.

Angelus stood up, brown eyes narrowing as he started walking slowly towards him. "So I'm in danger, huh? It's you who's in danger, asshole, for wasting my time and getting one of my people killed."

But as he started by her, Dru reached out and grabbed Angelus's arm tightly, stopping him. "We can't let him get what he wants.It will all burn."

Angelus scowled at her impatiently, pulling his arm from her grasp. "What? Nothing's gonna happen if we give this little twat Asmodeus to him. Hell, I'm in a mood to slice and dice him myself."

"The red king will take our cake, and leave us only ashes," she replied, genuine tears welling in her eyes.

"He means to kill the Old Ones," Lucifer said, not sure that was a complete lie. If he had the power and the opportunity, there was little doubt Bob would. He had to be the red king Dru was talking about, but he didn't understand that reference in the least. Bob was called many names, but never that. Well, not to his knowledge.

Angelus eyed him like a dangerously crazy person, and Buff burst out laughing. "No one can kill the Old Ones," she said, gasping for a breath she didn't need.

"Why should I care if those old squids get iced?" Angelus snarled, with a genuine disdain.

"Ashes, ashes, we all fall down," Dru chanted in a disturbing little sing song voice. She sounded like a lost child, and that probably wasn't far from the truth. She then put her hand to her throat, clutching it like she was terrified.

Angelus studied her for a moment, frowning. Maybe Dru was a raving lunatic, but he knew when she got scared it was probably a bad thing.

He growled in disgust, looking away, and when he looked back at Lucifer his eyes were almost shining with anger. "How do you know this, Asmod?"

"I work for the Old Ones," he told him, again something between the truth and a lie.

"Why don't the Old Ones get this mutant piece of shit for themselves?"

"They are currently engaged in something very important."

"More important than their worthless lives?"

Wow. If the Old Ones heard that, Angelus was dust on toast. He might have thought of himself as the Czar of the Hellmouth, but he existed at the Old One's indulgence. The moment he was considered unwanted, he would be blowing in the wind. Maybe Angelus killed The Master, but he could never kill an Old One. "They are taking care of the red king, I believe."

"We-"

"-want-"

"-to see-"

"-the unbreakable-"

"-one." The Sisters said cheerfully, their voices constantly volleying back and forth. If he didn't know better, he'd think it was just a single person talking.

Angelus glanced at them over Lucifer's shoulder, and smirked. "I just bet you do, girls." He was probably thinking that if anyone could break him, it would be the Sisters, and it was hard to believe the thing they couldn't break had been invented yet. He glanced at Dru. "Where was he when you saw him last?"

It took Dru a moment to come out of her trance and answer him. "Maple Street, heading towards Thirty Seventh. He sounds like the stars, but he feels like broken glass."

Okay, nobody was even going to guess what that meant.

"If you can, try and bring him back sort of alive," Angelus told the Weird Sisters, as they started out to intercept Bob's mutant friend. "This freak I gotta see."

Somehow, Lucifer didn't think that was a good idea.

"Nothing to report," he told her, wondering if he had time for a smoke or not. "Dusted some limey vamp with bad hair, frightened the hell out of Drusilla, haven't smelled Bob yet, but if he was zapped in there's probably nothing to smell. When I get near him, I'll know."

The fact that he was walking down the middle of the deserted street, talking to himself (presumably), seemed to back off quite a few demons. What, were all the crazy ones saved for Dru?

The sky seemed different here. Yes it was night, and most of the street lamps were busted, but the sky was a blanket of pure black, like the stars themselves had gone into hiding. There was a visible moon, a crescent sliver overhead, but it looked yellowed and diseased, and the light it emitted was very poor. He was glad he didn't need it to see, but he wondered how the myopic demons managed.

Suddenly things got very quiet- no sense of eyes, no smells of waiting demons- and he wondered what was up. "Trouble coming," he warned. "If you're squeamish, you might wanna go back to your body now."

He knew the smell,and he knew why everything else had cleared out. "Girls, you really don't want to mess with me. I'm sure you're the biggest bad asses around, but I ain't in a mood to fuck about."

"He-" One said from behind him.

"-knows-" The other said,walking out into the street in front of him.

"- us too."

The Weird Sisters were surrounding him as much as two people could, and honestly they could. They remained out of slashing distance, proving they were very smart. "I can fight a telepath. One, two, five- bring them on. Read my mind if you don't believe me."

"We-"

"-already-"

"-have. You-"

"- have no-"

"-fear of us."

They had moved in closer, starting to circle him, but they were still out of range of slashing distance. "No. But if it's anything, I'm more inclined to be afraid of you than anyone else."

"Thank-"

"-you."

They circled, giving him stereo teasing smiles, they odd green and brown eyes glittering like jewels. He still smelled Tallulah hovering close, and from the way the Sisters glanced up, they knew she was there as well.

He just stood where he was, arms crossed over his chest, watching whichever one was in front of him, acutely aware of where the other one was at all times. One charge,and he knew he could have one of them dead before the other reacted. But right now they were just circling, wolves weighing the odds.

Pretty odd wolves. They both wore knee high blue suede boots, blue velvet pants, green velvet shirts, and long, see through plastic raincoats. Their shoulder length brown hair was pulled back in matching thick braids that fell to the center of their backs, slapping like horse tails as they walked.

"Are we gonna fight or what? I got things to do."

That made the Sisters give him leering smiles. "You-"

"-think-"

"-we can't-"

"-hurt you?"

"I'm sure you can. But I can kill you first."

The continued to smile at him. "Quite-"

"-possibly."It sounded like they found that amazing.

"We-"

"-know-"

"-where Lucifer-"

"-is."

He simply raised an eyebrow, aware that they probably wouldn't tell him that easily. "So, where is he?"

"You-"

"-don't-"

"-want to-"

"-go there-"

"-now. An Old-"

"-One knows you're-"

"-here, and he's coming-"

"-for you. You should-"

"-be afraid of them, Human."

"I've been crazy. I lived." He was working on faith that he was actually sane. Honestly, he wasn't sure anymore, but did it matter? If he was sane, he'd actually have to consider the fact that he was talking to telepathic identical twin vampires in a parallel universe.

"Not-"

"-like-"

"-this." He was aware one of the Sisters had moved off. The one facing him gave him that Weird Sisters grin, that one between a smile and a leer, that made her eternally sixteen year old face suddenly look a thousand years older and utterly ravenous. "Maybe-"

"-we'll-" The distant one said, slowly moving off. Her other sister started to join her.

"-see you-"

"-later, Logan."

And with that the two disappeared as easily as they had appeared. That was almost an anti-climax, but he was secretly sort of glad he didn't have to kill them. Oh, he could do it, but the two of them could probably make Sabertooth look like a big fucking pussy (well, he was already, but even more so). He'd probably kill them, but not before they put him in a serious world of hurt. He wasn't that arrogant; he'd seen them (well, their parallel universe relations) in action.

He started down the way he was going, hearing the growing growl of a motorcycle engine, getting louder as it neared at high speed. He knew Tallulah was still around, so he said, "Oh great, more trouble. Well, at least I can get me some wheels."

He made it to the end of the street and simply waited, leaning back against the street sign, finding a cigar stub in his pocket and holding it firmly between his teeth. He didn't think this was going to take long, and he didn't want to light it up yet if he was just going to have to put it out again.

Finally the bike arrived, slewing to a stop in the middle of the empty street. It was a nice bike, not a Harley but a pretty good, streamlined exotic type, as jet black as the leathers on the rider. They left the 'cycle idling as they took off their mirrored full faced helmet, and he started walking casually out into the street. "You know, the element of surprise generally includes not letting your enemies hear you coming from a mile away."

The woman took off the helmet, and shook her short brown hair out of her eyes before looking at him and staring in shock. "Logan?" She asked.

He stopped dead in the street, struck absolutely dumb. It took him a moment to find his voice, and looking into those blue eyes seemed to rob him of strength, so he focused on her mouth. Not much help-even that was familiar-but at least he found the strength to talk. "Naomi?"