"No," she said, sitting up. She then recounted the odd bit of Logan meeting up with the odd eyed vampires who finished each other's sentences.

"Shit, the Weirds," Helga cursed. Apparently Logan wasn't the only one who knew them.

"Perfect name for them." Man, were they creepy. Logan seemed perfectly bored with them, and she had to admire him for that. Either he had tremendous balls, or a poker face that could break the bank.

"Did they attack him?" She wondered, clearly concerned. Amaranth was no longer in the room, but she heard the water running in the kitchen sink, so she figured she was washing ash off her hands or getting a snack.

"No. They discussed it, but they seemed to think better of it."

Helga let out a sigh of relief ,and she wondered how much she cared for Logan.

Tallulah was no fool; obviously she loved Bob. But she seemed to have some sort of thing for Logan, even if it was only a sort of passionate concern. "Is he tracking down Bob yet?"

"No. The vamps warned him an Old One was on the way, which didn't seem to bother him that much, and then this woman on a motorcycle came by, and they seemed to know each other. He seemed kinda shocked for a second."

"Did he say a name?"

"Naomi."

Helga grimaced and looked away, as if that was an unwelcome development. "Shit, this just gets better and better. What happened?"

"She told him she thought they should get out of there before it showed up, and Logan went with her."

Helga rolled her green eyes, and Amaranth returned from the kitchen, munching on an apple. "New problem?"

"Who is she?" Tallulah wondered curiously. He had been more floored by Naomi than by the creepy vampires, and yet it seemed to her that he thought of Naomi as some kind of friend.

"She's this mutant ex-girlfriend of his," Helga explained patiently, as Amaranth went to the front window and looked out at the Harbor. It was such a lovely view Tally didn't know why Bob ever left it. After all, in L.A. he lived in a converted warehouse with several nice views of other warehouses."She controls electricity, ergo her fabuloso mutie name is Electra. Anyways, she and Logan were bang buddies for a bit, and he got sweet on her, but through a soap opera too complicated to get into here, she lost all her memories concerning the last ten years of her life, Logan among them. He blamed himself for it for some stupid, self-piteous reason, and she remains a kind of sore point with him."

"Bang buddies," Amaranth repeated, chuckling. "You're such a romantic, Hel."

"Yeah, Bob tells me that all the time."

"I should have a mutant name," Tally said, thinking aloud.She never bothered to think one up, assuming she wasn't worthy of one, but Bob had said mutants with less powers and mutations had a name, so why shouldn't she? Electra was a nice name, but obviously it had been taken, and it didn't exactly apply to her, did it?

"Do you think we'll have to get him back on track?" Amaranth wondered, paying no attention to her aside.

Helga shook her head, folding her legs underneath her in the electric chair that Bob claimed to have bought from a carnival haunted house that went out of business. But Tallulah had her doubts sometimes-if anyone would buy a genuine one, it would be Bob. "I don't think so. He knows how important Bob is and how important this is."

"I hear a but coming," Amaranth said,before biting into her apple.

Helga shrugged a single shoulder, the tip of her tail flicking back and forth impatiently. "Well, I'm assuming his emotions and his loneliness won't get the best of him."

"And if they do?"

Helga fixed her eyes on Tallulah,and asked, quite seriously, "Do you think you can possess people?"

Oh dear.

What furniture there was looked like it had been looted from an actual fire sale-one held when the store was burning down. This gave him an obvious expectation of deprivation, but as she led him into the kitchen of their encampment, he spied a small room crammed to the rafters with so much high tech equipment it looked like a Circuit City had exploded in there. That must have been how they spotted the dimensional disturbance and the approach of the Old One.

Naomi explained how Matty (a woman, apparently) had rigged up a special cover for the engine of the motorcycle, so she didn't burn up the wiring, although she still couldn't use her power while on it or get "really mad". She had learned wire repair from Matty, who was their electronics expert-literally. She was "psychically attuned" to machinery (whatever that meant), and could control any device with thought.She also could often glean things from the object itself, like who was the last to use it and so forth. Honestly he didn't understand it, but Naomi said it was nice to meet someone who was almost as "sensitive" to electricity as she was.

The kitchen was almost as expansive as the cavernous living room, but seemed even bigger due to the fact that the appliances were all shoved up against the walls, leaving tracks on the white linoleum, and left only the scarred wooden dining room table and its seven mismatched chairs to take up the center of the room.

As they sat down and had a beer, she told him about him, because she asked if he wanted to know who he was in this universe. He really didn't want to know, but he knew it would delay him having to explain his presence here, and he was eager to do that.

She told him a story he couldn't quite believe. The Logan she knew was the leader of the Defenders (some sort of demon resistance movement, formed by mutants to protect other humans, with some 'good' demons thrown in) in Canada, but he came down here quite a bit, and all the North American groups helped each other out.

There was a major 'demon flight' over the border from Canada to here lately, mainly because he (the Logan here) was now the nominal leader of the Berserkers. What happened was this: a tribe of Berserkers had nested in Toronto, and that was bad news for everyone. But Logan had learned that the Berserkers, being extremely hierarchal, had a warrior queen who made all the decisions for the tribe. The one who beat the Queen became the unquestioned leader of the pack. So Logan challenged the Queen Berserker for her spot, which was amusing to all the other Berserkers, and she accepted. Well, of course he killed her in unarmed combat (somehow he got banged up, but Naomi said the fight lasted about two minutes, tops), and ordered all the other Berserkers to wipe out the other bad demons who were nesting in Toronto and snacking on all the people. They wanted to refuse, but were hamstrung by their own traditions, and frankly- killing? Great! So the Berserkers did as told, and the city was back under Human dominance in six hours. A real feat, since they'd been battling to take Toronto back for weeks.

(Apparently he still asked when he came into a room: "What, no 'God Save the Queen?' ")

Now the Berserkers were spreading out over Canada, and demons were fleeing in advance of them. No demon with a choice wanted to face a Berserker on a mission to kill. Naomi felt that was the epitome of "her" Logan: insanely, stupidly brave, taking these huge risks and flirting constantly with complete disaster. But this gamble -like many of his gambles- had paid off incredibly well. Of course, Berserkers weren't the most trustworthy species, and he expected them to bristle under taking commands from a Human sometime soon, but he was confident he could handle them if he had to (and Logan himself knew they weren't all that hard to kill), and they were amazingly effective weapons he planned to use as long as he could.

He got the idea they were more than friends, although she didn't come out and say it directly. "Why aren't you part of the Canadian resistance?" He wondered.

"I am, part of the time, " she replied, still looking at him over the table in a strange way, like she couldn't quite believe he wasn't the Logan she knew. "But I had moved to the States before all this shit started to happen, and I feel torn, you know?"

"I think so," he agreed, not quite sure he did. "So where's everyone else?"

She looked around as if addressing their ghosts."There's a group of demons causing big problems near Los Felis, so they've gone up to take care of it."

"Why didn't you go with them?"

"They're Phoson demons." At his blank look, she explained, "They disrupt electrical fields. They would have neutralized my power completely and made me useless. So I'm holding down the fort 'til they get back."

"You still coulda punched 'em."

She smiled slyly over the rim of her beer can, not quite laughing but almost. "I'll leave that kind of thing to you, Berserker Queen."

He smirked back at her, wondering if all that Berserker hierarchy stuff was true in his dimension. If so, was he a Queen and unaware of it? Oh, that was too weird to contemplate.

"So why pay a visit to our dimension, other Logan?"

Oh fuck. He hoped she'd forget that.

He tried to shorthand it for her as best he could: Friend of his (well, it was better than saying "weird guy who may or may not be a friend, but is one of the few people who hasn't tried to kill me") taken by the Old Ones at the behest of a mentally unhinged Lucifer, and he was trying to save his ass before the Old Ones could kill him. If possible.

She stared at him open mouthed, as if waiting for him to add "I'm shitting you", but of course he wasn't. So, after a long moment, she said, "Lucifer as in Satan?"

"No. Lucifer-I've been told-was a messenger for some gods who wanted a promotion. When he didn't get it, he went postal, and the gods punished him by taking away his messenger powers and leaving him on Earth. And he's got his panties in a bunch over Bob not wanting to help him kill the gods or something." And he vaguely remembered that in the Bible story or whatever (Belial shit as it was), Lucifer was cast down to the pit of hell for hubris, but in reality Lucifer got kicked to the curb on Earth. There was no need to read between the lines there.

She considered that a moment, tracing an invisible circle on the table with her index finger. He remembered her doing that on his chest when they talked in bed; it was some sort of habit whenever she was thinking, eternally tracing a circuit. He wondered if the Naomi he knew still did that. "If the Old Ones have him-this Bob -he's dead."

"His granddaughter...great granddaughter? Oh, fuck if I know...says he's not, and I'm inclined to believe her. Not only 'cause she's some big hoo haa witch, but also 'cause Bob is as hard to kill as I am."

"What kind of demon is he?"

"I'm not sure he is one, but he claims to be a Belial."

She rolled her eyes and shook her head. "Uh uh. Belials don't have any power, except the ability to lie like lawyers on their lunch break."

"I know. He doesn't smell right either."

"What do you think he really is?"

He shrugged, and felt like a complete moron, but finally he told her, "I hate to say, because I really don't believe in this kind of shit, but I think he's some type of god or demi-god or something."

Her pale brown eyebrows raised, duly impressed. "Really? What kind of power are we talking about here?"

"He can make people do what he wants simply by telling them to do it, up to and including dying. He can also close dimensional rifts, and I assume open 'em, which may be why the Old Ones want him." Why had he said that?

"Whoa, that's impressive. Why does he say he's a Belial?"

"'Cause he kind of looks like one. Nuclear blue eyes. Oh, and blue blood."

She grimaced in thought, staring down at a cigarette burn on the table. "He can't fight the Old Ones?"

"The witch said he might be able to take one, but not two or more. Do you know how many Old Ones there are here?"

She took a deep breath, and he got the sense she didn't want to disappoint him. "At least two. They're hard to keep track of unless they're on the move."

"Shit." Well,it figured. Nothing could be that easy.

"What kind of power does Lucifer have?"

"Not much. He's as strong as your average demon, and he can make people hallucinate, but that's about it."

"Doesn't sound too bad," she agreed. "Do you know where they have him?"

He shook his head. "Do you know where the Old Ones hole up?"

"Not precisely. But we do think they nest somewhere on the Western outskirts of town."

"Can you point me in that direction?"

She frowned at him. "You're just like the Logan I know. You can't possibly take on the Old Ones alone."

"All I need to do is get to Bob. The girls seem to think he'll do the rest."

"But still, the Old Ones drive people insane. How are you supposed to get within a few hundred feet of them?"

He shrugged. "It was suggested I get to Lucifer. It sounds like he's kind of a wimp. But who doesn't cave when they get a glimpse of metal claws comin' at their face?"

She cocked her head to the side, and gave him a curious look. "Metal claws?"

"Yeah, you know, the adama-" he stopped in shock as he look got even more curious, and he asked, almost breathless with shock: "Your Logan doesn't have claws?"

"No, he's got claws," she replied. "They're just bone, not metal. Yours are metal?"

It was like the floor had been yanked out from under him like a flimsy carpet. No adamantium. It didn't take a lot of probing to discover her Logan didn't have big screaming nightmares, or even a chip on his shoulder.

This Logan had no adamantium. He was never experimented on, vivisected like a frog in third period biology class.

Now he really envied and hated this Logan. He had Naomi, he had his memories (well, most likely), and he had never been pulled apart for the sadistic glee of others.

"Is something wrong?" Naomi asked, in reaction to the look on his face.

"More than you'll ever know," he admitted, then shook his head about the whole thing. As nice as it would be to take the place of this Logan, it would be immediately obvious he didn't belong here. Adamantium laced bones aside, he was not the brave leader hero type that this guy obviously was. "Can we use that equipment of yours to find Lucifer?"

She didn't seem to want to change the subject, but she let it go. "What type of demon is he?"

"Asmodeus."

She shook her head. "I have no idea what kind of demon that is, nonetheless how to search for it.You can't track down Lucifer somehow?"

"Well, the Weird Sisters said they knew where he was, but they didn't specify. Maybe I can track 'em down and make them cough it up. I know what they smell like."

"The Weird Sisters?" She repeated, her azure eyes growing wide. "You mean The Master's enforcers? You encountered them?"

"The Master?" He echoed, annoyed. "What kinda dickhead calls himself The Master?"

"Angelus," she told him, a sour look on her face. "He fancies himself the king of all vampires since he knocked off the real Master, who was an extremely old vamp. Angelus is a dickhead too, a preening pretty boy who obviously thinks he's the greatest thing since blood banks. The Sisters are kind of his personal bodyguard. I'm surprised that they didn't try something with you."

He shrugged. For a moment, he thought she said Angel, not Angelus. He wondered if it was just coincidence their names were so similar. "I think they knew it wouldn't be worth it. Do you know where the Sisters hang out?"

"Angelus is headquartered in the old Sunnydale Mall. It's a good bet that they're there."

"If you know where he is, why don't you just burn the fucking place down?"

She grimaced like this whole topic was a sore point. "It's protected by some sort of spell. We can't get through."

"Really?" He thought about it, and wondered when Tallulah would get back here. He hoped she'd get here soon. "I think I could help you there."

**

Angelus and his harem had moved out into the center of the mall, around a former water fountain. Well, it was still a fountain, it was just someone had added red dye to the water, and a few Humans bones at the bottom, where mall patrons used to toss pennies for good luck.

Angelus and Buffy (Lucifer had finally learned her entire name, and how gloriously stupid was it) were sitting on the stone bench surrounding the fountain, while the cheerleader, the redhead, and the Asian girl were in a near by clothing store, trying on clothes and making disparaging remarks about Human fashion sense, and Dru was farther down the way, alternating weeping over her lost Spike and doing some type of swaying dance to music only she could hear while giggling like a fucking nut case. She hadn't really talked to anyone since the Sisters had gone.

"You don't think that freakazoid could have actually hurt them, do you?" Buffy asked, sounding genuinely unnerved by the prospect.

Angelus snorted derisively. "A nuclear strike couldn't hurt my girls."

The little blonde looked peeved. "Why do you call them 'your girls'? I didn't even think it was your idea to turn them."

"What? Are you jealous now? Just 'cause they can kick more ass than you?"

It was now Buffy's turn to snort. "Oh, I can take the Gabor Sisters. Don't flatter yourself."

"Oh really? Willing to bet your life on that?"

The milquetoast Giles picked a good time to suddenly reappear, holding a musty smelling book with a torn binding in his hands. Angelus must have smelled it too, because he turned around with a scowl, glancing over his shoulder at the tweed clad vampire. "Found somethin'? Took you long enough."

Giles ignored the insult and glanced down at his book. "The 'Red King' doesn't refer to an actual demon but an obscure Victorian fairy tale. The tale concerns the greedy Gray King and his desire to take over the indolent Red King's kingdom-"

"Skip the fairy tale, Captain Kangaroo," Angelus snapped impatiently. "What the hell's it supposed to mean?"

Giles gave Angelus a remarkably evil look, and Lucifer just knew there was trouble in the Angelus camp, but whether it would ever add up to something was up for grabs.

"The Red King only seemed indolent to the Gray King because he was kind and generous to his people, and not interested in acquiring other lands. When the Grey King poisoned and locked up the Red King, he was sure he had won. But the Red King was much more powerful than the Gray King had ever expected, and the Red King not only ousted him, but acquired his kingdom and freed his people, leaving the Gray King a powerless miser."

"Break it down a little more, Aesop," Buffy suggested.

Giles sighed, like he actually could, and straightened his glasses as he looked up from his book. "The moral is you should never judge a book by its cover. Or, more specifically, the most powerful person isn't necessarily the one with the most violent hand."

Angelus scoffed. "Can you believe they used to read shit like that to kids?"

"So what Drusilla is trying to tell us is she thinks Bob is more powerful than the Old Ones, we just don't know it yet?" Lucifer replied, thinking aloud. He shook his head dismissively. "No fucking way. The Old Ones would never take on a battle they couldn't win."

"Who's Bob?" Buffy asked, wrinkling her nose in distaste at the name. Lucifer understood - he hated it too. So bloody unattractive and Human sounding. A silly, innocuous name for a silly, innocuous god.

"The horseman is broken into little bits," Dru said, somewhat joining the conversation. She was faced away from them, doing her little dance, twirling occasionally. She now had a red silk scarf to dance with, although she sometimes wrapped it tight around her neck like she was trying to strangle herself. "He was pulled apart like taffy, but he snapped back together. He always falls apart, and he always comes back together. He's Humpty Dumpty, but no fall can break him."

"What - the Sisters kicked his ass, but he got better?" Angelus asked, blatant disbelief in his voice.

"Not the Sisters. I can never see the Sisters. They're like little fireflies in the corner of my eyes. I can see the glow, but when I turn to look, they've flown away somewhere else." She looked over her shoulder at them, blood red lips curved up into a ghostly smile. "I don't think they're coming back, daddy."

That made Angelus jump to his feet, clearly alarmed. Buffy may have been the pet, but he really thought of the Sisters as his big guns. "No fucking way, Dru. He didn't kill them."

"No, he didn't. But they don't like the taste on the wind, so they've decided to find a darker place until the ash settles."

"Where?" Angelus growled, murder in his eyes. Did he really think he could take on his own attack dogs? Lucifer wanted a ringside seat for that.

"I can't see them,silly," Dru pointed out, with a slightly childish laugh. Then her fragile blue eyes seem to lose their glow, and her head turned sharply towards the atrium, beyond which laid the entrance of the mall. "Ooh," she said, frightened, and she started backing away. She dropped her scarf, leaving it laying on the blue tiled floor like a smear of blood, but she didn't notice.

"What is it now?" Angelus asked irritably. He was in a mood to hurt something, and if it had to be Dru, so be it.

"The horseman has come back," she said, continuing to back away. In her haste, she almost backed into Lucifer, and he really resented that. He didn't want make up stains on his suit too; it was hard enough to keep the Old Ones sewer slop off of it.

"So? He can't get in here. The barrier, remember?" Angelus pointed out impatiently.

It was then the power died.

All the lights in the mall went out at once, leaving the languid illumination from the lit candles in the Raven's Nest as the only light to see by. Lucifer felt a sudden constriction in his gut, and understood Dru probably had a very good point. Now was a wonderful time to leave.

"Great," Angelus snapped, throwing his arms up for emphasis. "Electro-bitch probably blew the substation's transformer again." Lucifer suddenly felt a vise grip on his upper arm, and Angelus snarled in his ear, "Where do you think you're going, Lucy?"

Oh, how he hated that nickname.

There was a roar like a mechanical dragon, and a noise like the doors had been blown off as a motorcycle screamed through the dead wastes of the abandoned shopping mall, its one headlight so bright it was nearly blinding.

In the chaos Lucifer broke from Angelus grasp and ran for it, in the direction that Dru had slunk away.

Human or not, if he worked for Bob, it was probably best he wasn't here to meet him.

They hadn't needed to kill much time before Tallulah returned, and Logan told her to tell Amaranth they needed a spell to break the one protecting the vamps in the Sunnydale mall, and even though she thought he was nutty and talking to himself, Naomi explained what they thought the spell around the mall was. After a few minutes, a small bottle and a note appeared on the table as if out of nowhere ,and Naomi said, "I will never doubt your freaky hyper-senses again, Logan."

In the bottle was a potion that Amaranth felt, combined with the spell on the paper, would bring any protection spell crashing down. Logan asked Naomi if she could do this spell stuff because he never had, and also he knew he'd feel too damn silly to do it. Naomi had no problem with it, and he was glad, because he'd feel like such a dick.

Naomi agreed to do the spell and take out the power as well (never a big deal for her), and he'd go in and see if he couldn't find Lucifer. "You're not even nervous about storming a mall full of vampires, are you?" She asked, shaking her head and smiling.

Of course he wasn't-what were they gonna do, bite him? Ooh, he was shaking.

The place was lousy with the smell of rotting corpses, but the dusty stench of vampires was also prevalent, and some of them were familiar. Dru, the Sisters... someone else. He was a little surprised, but not by much.

He brought the bike to a skidding stop on the blue tiled center court, about twenty five feet away from a water fountain where several vampires were clustered around, including the one who smelled so familiar: Angel, all in black leather, looking like a rough trade vampire, one arm at his side and one held behind him, a skinny young blonde next to him (it looked like she needed a sandwich).

"So the name's really Angelus, huh? Makes sense. You never looked Hispanic to me."

Angel just glared at him, clearly not getting what he meant. "I don't know how you got through the barrier, but you have to be the stupidest Human on Earth to come in here."

As Logan put down the kickstand, he sensed a couple of vamps attempting to sneak up behind him, and without looking back simply lashed out his hand in an arc as he popped his claws, and heard the screech of exploding vampires as he put the kickstand down and got off Naomi's bike. "No, don't think so."

The blonde was wide eyed with surprise, but Angel covered his shock better. Still, they both took a step back as he took a step forward. "Tell me where Lucifer is, and maybe I'll let you live to suck another night." He sensed the vamps emerging, surrounding him, but they stayed away for the moment. They might have a chance if they rushed him, but the will to rush seemed to be lacking. They may have been awaiting a sign from their fearless leader.

"Well, you're more freakish-and ugly-than most muties, I'll give you that," Angel sneered. "But I haven't met a mutant yet immune to this."

He pulled his arm out from behind his back, revealing the submachine gun in his hand a millisecond before he opened fire.

The fusillade of bullets hit him hard, tearing skin and ricocheting off bone, the force of the impacts throwing him over the bike and knocking him to the floor. His head bounced hard on the blue tiles, and he briefly saw stars explode in front of his eyes.

As the noise of the gun shots faded from his ears, he heard Angel laughing. "Stupid Human. They never learn, do they?"

Logan growled at the pain of all the bullet wounds healing-especially one on his face; it felt like one of the shots had split his right cheek wide open-and got to his feet. "No, it looks like you don't," he said, and all the vampires seemed to jump back in shock. The fact that he could feel the skin still knitting together on his face (and they got to see it) added to the slack jawed gaping at him. "Didn't Dru tell you you couldn't hurt me? Now where's Lucifer?" For added emphasis, he popped the claws in both hands.

Several vampires broke ranks and ran away: they'd seen enough.

"What kind of fucking freak are you?" Angel asked incredulously, as if his inability to die was somehow a personal affront.

"A motherfucking tough one." He thought that was obvious by now. Maybe vampires never learned. "Where's Lucifer?"

"He broke and ran. Don't you know all Asmodeus demons are cowards?" Angel shot back.
He and the blonde were continuing to back away from his advance. They had obviously decided fighting him was a one way trip up shit creek.

"Excuse me, but vampires ain't exactly impressin' me with their bravery at the moment," Logan noted dryly. "Now where was Lucifer headed?"

"How the fuck should I know?" Angel replied peevishly. "I'm not his mother."

"Let me guess: did he run off to the Old Ones? Where are they?"

There was a pause as Angel thought over his options (What options? Talk or die), and finally said, "They live in some caves by the ocean."

"Why be noble now?" A British vampire standing behind the fountain said. "You've never done it before."

Angel looked back at him with a nasty glare. He was the oddest looking vamp Logan had ever seen, mainly because he was well into middle age, and dressed a bit like a natty banker, which included glasses. He'd never seen a vampire with glasses. Did  they need them? "Shut up, Giles."

But the vampire named Giles didn't look back at Angel, but straight at him. "The Old Ones live in the shell of a water treatment plant on Vaughn and Park. But good luck getting anywhere near them."

"Die, mutant scum!" A vamp shouted, a young man who emerged from the shadows wearing a flamethrower on his back, the nozzle in his hands coughing orange flames.

Logan barely spared him a glance before what looked like a tiny blue lightning bolt hit the nozzle of the flamethrower in the vamp's hand, twining around and inside the nozzle.

The tank on his back blew up rather spectacularly, vomiting fiery debris all over the mall atrium, and it looked like several shops were starting to catch fire, not just the remains of the vampire.