"- zen, everything's zen, I don't think so," Bob sang, although in a much more subdued voice than usual.

Lucifer could feel the subtle change in the air, the shiver of a nascent dimensional portal quivering between atoms and waiting for a glut of power to burst it wide open. Two of the Old Ones were off to the far side, parallel to Bob's spot on the wall, working on converting the power from Bob into something they could use.

The Old Ones were sometimes referred to as 'giant squids' by those who were able to look at them and not go nuts, and that was roughly accurate, although it came nowhere near capturing their appalling hideousness. It was a grave insult to squids, really.

They had seven tentacles apiece, and each were twenty feet long, ending at tips that were-in spite of appearances-quite sharp (they had a single retractable claw in each). Their bodies were shapeless mounds of discolored flesh, a rough oblong of black and brown and grey mottled rubbery skin (like food left in a refrigerator so long, and so covered with mold you have no idea what it was originally), about twenty eight feet high and almost as big around. If you could stand to look for a face you'd be disappointed: they had seven fist sized eyes of complete white scattered asymmetrically around one side of their bodies like bullet wounds, and a black beak like mouth roughly in the center, that could widen to such an impossible dimension they could pop you whole in their mouth if they so desired and eat you like a canape. But they rarely bothered with such crudity (although they wallowed in filth), especially since they could cause madness with a look, and kill with a word. Why sink so low?

"I'm a little too rich for their blood," Bob said, with  weary sort of cheerfulness. "They needed to take a time out. Thought I was trying to blow their goiter like heads up."

"Were you?"

"Ah, now that would be telling."

Bob looked horrible, which was a punishment in itself. Sweat had plastered his hair to his head (although, oddly enough, it looked lighter instead of darker, not so much golden as almost translucent, like frozen rays of sunlight casually draped over his scalp), and his skin seemed to be thinning, or his veins were moving closer to the surface, because what flesh was visible behind the metal keeping him plastered against the wall was crisscrossed with lines of molten blue, capillaries, veins, arteries, and things people didn't even begin to have. He was like the relief map of a hellish highway system devised by M. C. Escher. Lucifer wondered idly when he was going to completely lose the Human guise.

"What the fuck came after you?" Lucifer asked, so gratified at Bob's wasted appearance he almost lost his angry edge. "They seem to think it's a mutant, but it's more than that, ain't it? A whelp of yours?"

"You sound frightened, Luce," he said, raising his chin from his chest. His eyes were solid blue now, no white left, and the spider webs of blue veins beneath the surface of his cheeks looked like tattoos.

He scowled up at him. "I'm not the one being drained like a chianti bottle in an Italian restaurant. The rift is almost open."

"And you're almost dead." Bob replied, almost sounding sorry about it.

Lucifer shook his head and scoffed in disbelief. This guy was incredible. "When do you give up the act? That Human hybrid ain't getting in the door. Or are you so deluded from years of living among the Humans that you actually think you can't get killed?"

"He's not a hybrid, as far as I can tell. He's just a mutant."

Lucifer threw up his hands. "So what? He's dead too."

"Did you ever think about it?"

Lucifer glared up at him, noticing the blue streaks on the wall beneath him, his blood still leaking down from the hole in his chest. "Think about what? Your death? Yes."

"Evolution. Curious thing. So Humans basically evolved from animals, taking over from demons who left it all behind. But not all the demons left, did they? Some even came back. But most of the demon attacks left dead humans, so there was no growth there."

Lucifer groaned and rubbed his eyes. "Delirious and you still won't fucking shut up."

"But eventually there was a blip in the blueprint of the Human genome, and mutants started showing up. Mutants who often had demon like powers; powers that could be used against demons quite well. So it seems the Humans finally started to adapt to presence of demons in their world, whether they knew it or not-"

"Is there a point at all, or is this just some sort of vocal diarrhea?" He snapped bitterly. Did Bob ever shut up? When he was dead, would he still somehow talk?

"So did you ever think-did it ever occur to you-that evolution could come to such a point that maybe one of the new Humans could kill a god? Not the Slayer, which you know doesn't count. I'm just talking an off the street mutant."

"That could never happen. They wouldn't allow it." He was rambling like a drunk. The Old Ones really must have done a number on him.

But the look on Bob's weary, blue veined face seemed remarkably pensive. "They don't interfere in Human matters."

"They would in that."

"No, I don't think so. It would never occur to them it could happen. They do have a terminal arrogant streak."

Well, he had to give him that. "Okay, yeah, but that would never happen. Humans are one step above animals at best."

"But pets turn on their masters every day, and sometimes they kill them. Even the most harmless animal is capable of lethal action, under the right circumstances."

Lucifer stared up at Bob, but found his completely blue eyes unreadable. "Are you saying you think this mutant friend of yours could kill a god?"

"Actually, he already has. He just thinks I did it."

"Huh?"

"It's a long story, and I don't think you have the time."

He scowled at him, aware that the scent of his blood was becoming overwhelming. At first it had smelled like blood, which he could deal with, but now it smelled like ultraviolet, like infrared and the heart of a nuclear furnace, and it was so offensive it was worse than the sewer sludge reek of the Old Ones. "No, you don't have the time, Bob."

Bob chuckled faintly. "Oh, how I wish that were true. But I have all the time in the world. This one and all the others."

Lucifer shook his head. Arrogant and now completely delusional. He felt a peculiar amount of pity for him.It wasn't a case of the mighty falling more than the case of a prodigal son moldering in a grave he made for himself so long ago.

Lucifer didn't get him, would never get him. Instead of trying to take his rightful place after he found out what he was, Bob chose to bide his time and stay among the savages. When he asked him about that long ago, over beers in a Melbourne bar (they tasted terrible, but Bob seemed to like it), Bob had said, "I had suffered a lot to find my place with people and other demons. I had lost my wife and kids not long before that, and I knew I wasn't goin' anywhere. I didn't want to go. Why would I? My flesh and blood was here. This was really the only home I knew, the one I had fought for, and frankly, it needed me. If it ever stops needing me maybe I'll go. But I don't really see that happening."

He didn't understand. Humans were foul beasts, and whether Bob chose to breed with them or not was beside the point (and frankly disgusting anyways). Lucifer wondered if there was a deeper point that Bob didn't mention. After all, most dimensions had a ruler or a governing body of rulers or people fighting over the position. The dimension Bob dwelled in didn't really have one, although several things had tried to take a foothold (and none had successfully). He wondered if Bob was the self-appointed and quietly hidden uber-lord of that Earthly realm. Would it shock him terribly? Things were so fucked up there.

(But the Humans were still in charge there, weren't they? In spite of everything...)

"So who is this mutant to you? Son in law? Distant relation? Boyfriend?"

"Friend."

Lucifer scoffed. "How can you be friends with a hamster?"

"He's a very nasty hamster."

Bob was dying, and yet he still refused to take this seriously. Unbelievable. " You know you've killed him by having him come after you."

"You can't kill what refuses to die, Lucy."

"I told you not to call me that," he snapped, looking around the mucky ground for something to throw at him. But there was nothing but the grime, which was a combination of dirt, shit, Bob's blood, and Old Ones effluvia, and there was no way in hell he was touching that. "What the hell's that supposed to mean anyways?"

"Lucy?"

He glowered up at him, but he doubted Bob even noticed. "Not killing what refuses to die, or whatever the hell?"

"Just what I said. Some people have wills that would scare the shit out of you."

Lucifer shook his head and walked away, not sure where he was going, except he knew he was not leaving the building. The Old Ones were very close to opening the gateway, and there was no way in hell he wanted to meet Bob's giant killer. Not that he was afraid of, oh no, it was just his blood wasn't the blood he wanted to shed.

Now all he had to do was sit back and wait for the real floor show to begin.

***

It was nice to feel her holding on to him, arms wrapped around his stomach, body pressed against his back as they leaned into the wind. He liked the feeling too much; it was getting distracting. So he focused on the funnel of light the high beam cut into the thick darkness, aware of the feeling of demon eyes on them as he drove over streets and sidewalks heedlessly, occasionally startling one back into the dense shadows that clung to the sides of the crumbling buildings like frightened children. She shouted something about his driving, but he couldn't really hear it due to the combination of the wind and her helmet. But he was willing to bet hard money she just called him a fucking maniac.

You could tell when they were getting close to the water treatment plant, without trying to read existing street signs. The demons started to thin, the buildings appeared to be more intact, and that sense of phantom pressure - like the universe itself had flipped its natural polarity in just this spot and was trying to fling them away - increased exponentially.

Eventually he had to pull Naomi's bike over, parking it in an alley between what appeared to be a government building of some sort and a condo. "You okay?" He asked her, as she got off the bike and pulled off her helmet.

She nodded, although she was making a face like she had a sudden ice cream headache. "Yeah. I hope Giles can catch up with us."

"He said he'd meet us here. He will or he won't."

"You're not concerned?"

He set the kickstand and glanced around. The alley smelled like decay and dried, spoiled blood. This was a fun dimension. "He comes or he doesn't. The plan goes forward with or without him."

"It's hardly a plan though, is it?"

She left her helmet hanging on one of the handlebars as they walked to the mouth of the alley and looked out at the street. Still empty, no sound but the skittering of dried leaves and rat's paws on pavement, and it made him instantly suspicious. A city at night - post apocalyptic or not - had no right to be this quiet.

They decided to travel the rest of the way on foot, as long as they could, so as not to give Lucifer or the Old Ones a heads up they were coming. You could never be too careful.

"What do you wanna call it?" He asked, as he walked out into the street. He kept expecting something to explode out of the middle of the street any second now. "Desperation ploy number three?"

"There were two others?"

He shrugged. "Three sounds better."

She followed him close enough that he could still feel her body heat, although it was probably pretty intense now that she was charged up. "True."

The closer they got, the more the pressure in his brain turned into something worse.
It was now like a hornet was trapped inside his skull, buzzing furiously, burrowing its way into his soft brain tissue, looking for something sensitive to sting.

Naomi hesitated, grabbing her head, and he asked her again, "Are you all right?"

"Do you feel that?" She asked, never looking up.

"Yeah."

"I'm not sure I can go much further."

The direction of the wind shifted, and he smelled the dead. Not just any dead.

Vampires.

"That's good, because you aren't going any farther," Angel's voice said, and Logan glanced around to see a bunch of vamps - with Angel and his blonde jailbait girlfriend behind them, at the end of the street. There were about a dozen other vampires behind them as well, some armed with torches, others with sawed off shotguns. Logan glanced over his shoulder, at the head of the street, and there were about ten there, all looking very pained and pissed off, and Logan noticed at least one of them had a genuine grenade on her belt.

Logan glared at Angel, and asked, "Haven't you had enough?"

Angel glared back, brown eyes as hard and flat as the pavement below their feet. "You think you can burn my place down, kill my people, and still live, asshole?"

"And do you think I didn't think you'd do somethin' like this?" Logan spat back, his slender patience gone, dissolved by the angry wasp inside his skull. "You vamps are always so fucking predictable."

"I beg to differ," a cultured British voice said, and the crowd of vampires behind Angel parted slightly as Giles made his way through them. Obviously they didn't know he was vampire non gratis yet.

But Angel did, and he immediately spun on his heels and snapped, "Grab him."

Two muscular young vamps did just that, and Giles acquiesced without a fight, although his left hand remained clenched in a tight fist. No one had noticed yet.

"What the fuck are you doing here, traitor?" Angel spat at him.

The ex-Watcher gazed at him with something that looked very much like amused pity, and Logan realized that Giles was about to alter the plan slightly. Son of a bitch.

"I came here to watch you die, you motherfucking , sheep buggering prick, "Giles said with great relish. It sounded almost classy in that accent of his. Angel backhanded him across the face, drawing blood, but it only made Giles chuckle. His blue eyes scudded over to the blonde girl, and as he opened his left hand, he said, with genuine regret, "I'm sorry, Buffy."

Logan barely had time to knock Naomi to the macadam and attempt to cover her with his body as the dead man's switch in Giles's hand activated, and the incendiary bomb he had brought with him went up with a roar so deafening it seemed like the entire sky was falling down.

He got an accidental shock for his trouble, but he'd had worse, and certainly the flaming body parts and clots of ash raining down on them was worse than a little static shock.

He was pretty sure by the smell and the wave of heat that washed over him that some of his hair had been burned off, but he had so much he bet it would be impossible to tell.

The rest of the vamps not lit on fire seemed stunned, and Naomi tried to shrug him off, saying, "I'm okay, I just need a clear shot."

He moved off of her as she looked up at the remaining vampires -all down the street from them- and lifted her hands towards them. He was standing well back, risking the flames, as electricity shot from Naomi's hands and hit the ten stupefied vampires.
Blue tendrils of electricity shot from one to another (humans -alive or dead- made great conductors) and they staggered and fell, some unconscious, others just faintly smoldering.

Logan got to his feet and started after the ones still standing, popping his claws. "Who wants some?"

No one answered, but he guessed the answer was nobody, as all those could flee the scene did so. It was actually a little disappointing, as he was hoping to have a little warm up fight before the big show.

"Well, there's a plan fucked to hell," Naomi noted crossly, looking back at the fiery mess that was all that was left of Angel and his troops. The actual plan had been for Giles -who could get a little closer to the Old Ones than they could, being a vampire- to get as close to possible as the Old Ones in their underground access and set off the incendiary bomb. It probably wouldn't kill the Old Ones -Giles told them he had been a Watcher before he got turned (it was why he got turned), and it was unknown if the Old Ones could even be hurt at all- but since it was a sewer tunnel access (methane) the whole thing would go up like Mount Vesuvius. "And Bob would survive that?" Naomi had wondered at the time. Logan was forced to shrug, and at her horrified look, he admitted, "I'm not sure Bob can be killed either, so I think he and the Oldies are even. But I'm thinkin' Lucifer wouldn't survive that."

Giles confirmed that to be true. Lucifer would burn up as good as anyone else.

Of course, so would Angel, and he should have guessed he'd use it on him if the opportunity arose. He and Naomi could have fought their way through Angel's vamp army with little difficulty, but the opportunity for vengeance came, and- British or not- Giles took it.

"They know we're coming now," Naomi said, looking up at him. She was sitting on the street, making no move to get up, and judging from the pained look on her face he supposed he could guess why.

"Can't be helped. You wanna stay here and cover my back?"

She frowned up at him, and got unsteadily to her feet. "I can go a little farther."

"I don't want you to," he admitted, then added, "If I go nuts and come chargin' back here, I need you to knock me out. How many volts you think I can take?"

This was a risky gamble. She probably knew he wanted her desperately to hang back, to not come with, but she couldn't know it was simply because he didn't want her risking her life again for him. Okay, it was a different Naomi in a different place and time, but none of that mattered: he just wasn't going to let it happen if he could help it. But she was a stubborn woman -why did he have to have a thing for difficult women?- and would probably assume his intent. His only hope was that the Old Ones were getting to her enough that she'd agree to linger behind. He was pretty sure he could smell Tallulah lingering around, possibly having a look see at the burning street.

"Not enough to help your hairstyle," she replied, giving him a tight smile. He took that as a good sign: at least she was playing along.

He gave her a sarcastic grimace for that. "Ha. Be ready to zap me if you have to."

"Gladly," she replied, with a wink. But it seemed pained, and even Logan had to mentally cringe at the drill bit of pain boring its way through the back of his brain.

"Come on, Tallulah," he said to thin air, turning away from Naomi. It was hard to do, but it was always better for her if he just kept on walking. "Let's go see these big uglies for ourselves."

The pain was a hum, a thick white noise in his brain as he rounded the corner onto Park Street, and he wondered if 'shutting off' his higher mind and just letting instinct take over would do any good at all.

"Ah shit," Helga groaned, rubbing her forehead. She had a feeling, in spite of all the warnings, that Logan would be just stupid, pigheaded, and angry enough to do just that. What were warnings of instant insanity to him? As he always claimed, he'd "had worse". Bob told her once that was most likely true, across the board.

"No, that can't work," Amaranth replied sharply. "He's just a Human. A remarkably belligerent, clawed Human, but still one all the same."

Tallulah rubbed her own temples with the tips of her fingers, and explained, "I don't know how close we got to those things, but they gave me a headache somehow."

"You shouldn't risk getting much closer," Helga advised her, feeling a vague sense of defeat. Tally was their only connection to what was going on in the other realm, and if she had to beg out, they'd just have to wait until Bob was strong enough to send them back, or until Ammy sensed something had gone wrong with Bob. Helga wasn't sure she could take that. She'd already chewed her fingernails to the quick, and she just hated feeling so concerned about anyone. It really wasn't in her nature to do so, or at least it didn't used to be. Bob was a bad influence at times. And he had to get back here so she could kick his ass about it.

"But there's a part of Bob in him, right?" Tally said, attempting optimism. She was one of those types that always tried to look on the bright side of things; if she was on board the Titanic as it sank, she'd have probably pointed out that at least they could all go swimming now ,and cold water was really good for the pores. "So maybe he can get closer than we think?"

"Maybe," she sighed in reply, not convinced, but she wasn't about to disabuse Tally of any of her hope. It was nice that someone had some. Helga looked at Amaranth, who'd once again taken her seat on the floor, and asked, "Would any protection spell do any good?"

She didn't even pretend to think about it before shaking her head. "Even if I could aim it towards them in another dimension, I don't think there's a powerful enough spell to protect anyone from the Old Ones."

Helga hadn't really thought so, but she figured she should ask.

She folded her legs underneath her, and tried not to twitch her tail too much and give away her anxiousness.

It seemed like all they could do now was wait. And there was almost nothing in the world she hated more than that.

**

The bone saw, the bone saw buzz invading his cranium, the pain so intense it was almost vibrant, alive with its own energy. Reminded him of that movie where that alien ate its way through the guy, burst out his chest, although Logan knew this one was going to explode out the top of his skull.

He stopped - he kept having to stop, to find things to lean against - and for good or for ill he was starting to lose his sense of smell. If that wasn't enough to leave him feeling unbalanced, color seemed to be bleeding out of his vision. He was his senses - how could he do anything without his senses?

He tried to pull it together, but it was harder than it seemed. The pain was relentless; his system tried to heal it, only to have it open again instantaneously.
If it was just pain he could take it, but he was finding it increasingly hard to think. He was doing something, but he wasn't always sure what or why, and keeping
a single coherent thought seemed impossible.

He had to...keep going forward, because...because...there was a reason, he was sure there was. But right now he just wanted to go find someplace away from the noise in his head, the incessant buzz, the drone that felt like a painful sliver in his soul.
He couldn't, though. He didn't know why he couldn't, he just couldn't.

Logan stumbled down the grey and black street, the buzzing growing louder, a swarm of angry bees in his head, and a scent got through to him, close and familiar. A person, a woman...he supposed he knew her, but he couldn't remember now.

He couldn't remember anything. He could barely remember to put one foot in front of another.

He staggered on, hoping this would start making sense.

**

"That's not good," Bob said, sounding amused.

"Shut up," Lucifer snapped, having to pause and think a moment to figure out what it had just said. The Old Ones language was so complex and hard to understand it usually took him a minute to interpret it.

"Something's coming and they don't like it," Bob said, interpreting for him."They're sending a scout to go take care of it."

"Good," Lucifer replied, glaring up at the know it all smart ass.

But Bob smiled weakly down at him, looking triumphant in spite of bloody tears dripping down his face. "Exactly."

"Shouldn't you be concerned about your friend?"

Bob grinned, baring blue streaked teeth. "In a meeting between the two, I think the scout is going to be the most sorry about it."

Maybe Bob had finally gone nuts too. "He'll lose his tiny mind."

Bob continued to give him a toothy grin, which became more unnerving the more inhuman his face became. "He's had worse."

Now Lucifer knew Bob had completely lost it. A shame, as he wanted him fully cognizant when everything went to hell.

**

Logan looked dumbly at the erupting chunks of concrete and macadam, not understanding it or the big long rubbery things that suddenly shot of the new hole in the street, looking like fat snakes that somehow learned how to defy the laws of gravity.

It was when the snakes slithered across the remaining pavement and one of them wrapped around his ankle that everything changed.

The time bomb in his head went off. The burrowing maggots in his brain metamorphosed into angry wasps and stung every axon simultaneously; the pain was impossible, incredible, made his vision flare to white as he screamed and dropped to his knees, wrapping his arms around his head to keep his brain from squirting out his ears like so much liquefied oatmeal.

But as he was dragged towards the hole, clothes tearing and skin ripping on the macadam, a certain clarity of vision washed in after the bright white tide of pain. This thing, this that had him, was hurting him, was boiling his brain in blood and spinal fluid, a pain he could taste like rusted metal in his mouth, and he understood for it to stop he would have to stop it.

His claws popped from his hands almost unconsciously, and he lashed out violently and randomly, aiming for anything that moved.

Claws slashed through snakes that seemed more like rubber than muscle, a high pitched screech shattering windows as he cut the snake in half, and black, oil thick blood fountained out of the remains. It smelled like...stagnant water, ashes, decaying animal flesh and fire, and it made him furious for reasons he could not understand. But the thing was still alive, still moving and still screaming, and the fire raged inside his brain, starting to spill down his spinal column.

He didn't know who he was or what was going on, but he knew that thing was trying to hurt him, and he hated it.

Stumps withdrew, leaving thick black smears of blood in their wake, and whole snakes emerged, one coming flailing down at him as if straight from the starless night sky itself.

He remembered to move, scrambling away as the tentacle hit the ground with the force of a Road Ranger dropped from low earth orbit, chunks of pavement flying out like shrapnel as the macadam shattered, and he saw a dome of mottled, discolored flesh rising from the hole in the ground. He wasn't really capable of coherent thought, but one thing occurred to him, and kept repeating in his head like an idiot mantra: it it it it it it. That was it, the source of the pain, and he hated it.

He jumped down on top of it, fleshy thing like an animal hide filled with gelatin, and drove in his claws as the thing screamed and moved like a tidal wave, throwing him down into a dark tunnel that smelled like shit and these beasts.

His eardrums shattered, making warm blood dribble from his ears, but the pain was small in comparison to the consumptive pain of his mind being eaten by venomous insects, and he didn't even notice.

But the smell of his own blood triggered something in him, a new swell of anger that
made him feel like he was now burning, a human torch of pure, bright rage.