3

When Helga answered the phone with a sharp, “What the fuck do you want?” it wasn’t hard to guess there was something wrong.

“Something’s happened to Bob, hasn’t it?” Logan asked. He still felt odd - aware he should be very concerned, perhaps even frightened, but anodyne continued to linger in his system, and he couldn’t work up the emotions. He just felt too damn good, his muscles so warm and relaxed he’d have given up on standing, and was reclined on the bed once more.

Helga paused, as if startled. “Logan? Holy shit yeah, something really fuckin’ bad has happened. You knew?”

“I felt … something.”

“It is just you, right?”

“Huh?”

She sighed heavily. “Okay, yeah, must be. That’s good.”

“What did you mean is it just me?”

“If Bob was dead, you’d be him. I mean, his power would have transferred completely to you. You’re his avatar, remember? His vessel.”

“Please don’t call me a vessel.” But he should have known that, shouldn’t he? After all, that’s how she ended up with Camaxtli’s power, wasn’t it? “Wait, are you saying you don’t know what happened to him?”

She made a noise of derision. “Well, he was attacked, and whoever did it left a supernatural mark on him, but I don’t know what it is, why it would it effect Bob, or if he’s dead or alive. I think I know who attacked him, but I’m surprised she left as much as a body behind.”

That didn‘t sound good. “Who did it?”

“An insane goddess name Kalaratri.”

“Aren’t they all pretty much insane?”

“Yeah, but she’s a cut above. And she has a grudge against Bob, because I think he helped imprisoned her in the Underworld after she lost her temper and went on a killing spree. Remember Krakatoa? Her work, apparently. Also, she … uh, she might be an ex-girlfriend or an ex-wife.”

Even through the hazy effects of anodyne, he knew exactly how bad that was. “You’re shitting me.”

“I wish I was.”

Wow. Bob really knew how to pick ‘em, didn’t he? No wonder he thought he and Bob had something in common. “ Okay, wait - you said she was imprisoned in an underworld? How’d she get out?”

“It seems some stupid assholes managed to raise her. I’m not sure who or why, as my informant was almost burned to a crisp. Once he recovers, maybe he can tell me.”

Logan sighed and rubbed his eyes. “So going after her is a no go at this point?”

“Not unless I can call up some major, major back up. And I can’t contact other gods that easy. Look, do you still have one of the Ganesha fetishes Bob gave you?”

That seemed like an odd question. “Maybe. Why?”

“Hang on to it. I think we’ll all need all the luck we can get.”

“Wow. It’s that bad, huh?”

“It’s probably worse.”

“Where are you? Should I come..?”

“No. I’m getting’ Rags to take us back to L.A., there’s a demon hospital there that can take care of Bob. Then … well, I probably got a lot of shit to do to track this bitch down. When I need your help, I’ll call.”

“Will you?” Knowing Helga, she might do the loner thing. He would.

“Yeah, I will. Just … you be careful, all right?”

“You too. Keep me updated.”

“Sure.” She hung up before he did, and he rested the receiver against his chin, closing his eyes and watching the colors pulse behind his eyelids. He still felt like he was containing sunlight beneath his skin, floating in a warm bath of it.

This was bad - this was very bad. He should really be concerned. So he wondered why he just couldn’t muster it up.

4

They were evil - they were all evil.

This man was one of the worst. They told him what this place was. A home where the truly evil damned the souls of gullible children, freeing them for total consumption by the truly corrupt, feeding their supposedly “mutant” powers. This one was a ringleader.

He was trying to be nice, in his stiff and false way, attempting to hide his suspicion, but Cole knew he'd be wary. He was told he might sense the good in him, especially since they'd given him power, but he didn't care. He only had to get inside, which he had done.

The machine was here.

It looked like an actual machine, but wasn't. It collected souls, consumed their essence and fed it directly to the things like this one across from him, this "Cyclops" (good god, he had a monster's name - no one figured it out?), but mostly strengthened the ringleader, a demon god in Human form. Called himself Xavier, apparently. And used Wolverine as his outer world killer, which made sense.

Inside was magnificent. Lots of polished dark wood, inhumanly clean and decked out with artifacts that were undoubtedly expensive. Even here, the most evil lived the best.

He had seen the plans, he knew what to do. Down this main corridor was an elevator - he would take it to the lowest floor, a hall of steel, and get the machine there. Once he had destroyed it, he could get out and move to his second assignment.

But Cyclops wouldn't let him - Cyclops was here to stop him, to prevent the good from getting close to the circle of power. So he would have to neutralize him.

He kept yammering on about how he met Logan, a preposterous tale they had him memorize, as he felt the power accumulate in his right hand. It had taken him little time to master, although it still unnerved him slightly, especially if he watched it happen. They called them "cherubim", although they admitted that wasn't quite what it was; they looked like tiny, almost microscopic silver ants, swarming through his skin like someone had kicked over their hive. He had something in his brain now, something that could dictate control over the power - he had no idea how it worked exactly, but he didn’t need to know how; he was an instrument of God - and he had the cherubim coat his hand, make it metal, solidify into a point now retracted.

Holding his right hand to his chest so he wouldn't see it, he stopped abruptly and pretended to look in awe at a painting just inside the front hall, letting Cyclops get ahead of him before the man stopped and turned back towards him, annoyed. "Is this a real Monet?" Cole asked, pulling a name out of thin air. Well, the picture, up close, seemed to be constructed of small blobs of blue and green and brown paint, and if that wasn't Impressionism, what was?

The supposed man looked up at the painting, scowling slightly. "With all these kids here? No, I don't think so."

"Oh. Pretty though."

"Yeah," he agreed half-heartedly, and turned back down the hall. "If you'd-"

But he never got a chance to finish whatever it was he intended to say. Cole grabbed him, and drove the needle thin point that now sprung from his hand straight into the back of his neck.

Cyclops stiffened, frozen, unable to do anything as the power of righteousness surged through him. "We're on to you, demons," Cole snarled in his ear. "Your judgment day has come."

He retracted the spike and Cyclops dropped to his knees before hitting the floor face first. Cole had no idea if he was dead or not - he was told the demons were very resilient - but he didn't care. Killing this thing was not his primary mission.

Cole quickly ducked into the nearest elevator, and had it take him down to the secret level, the one that revealed the true nature of this place.

He did not change his hand, only modified it somewhat - the point became even thinner, almost too thin to see, while it hardened to something called "adamantium consistency". The nature of the energy waiting in it changed as well; it felt almost like lava to him, but not in a bad way. When he was given these powers, they gave him an immunity to pain, and to injury; they said the power of the divine would infuse him. He was, for all intents and purposes, an angel now.

But not a weak one, not just a holy messenger. Oh no, he was an avenging angel with a flaming sword, here to smite the wicked. Too bad there were so many wicked, and only one of him.

The brightly lit, silver metal corridor was eerie in its basic sterility and silence, and while he was prepared to fight any other guardian demons, there were none. He was told that they were so arrogant they might not have any guards in the down below. Who was ever strong enough to challenge them?

Cole giggled, and the sound seemed to echo. He was strong enough to challenge them now. In fact, they weren't strong enough to win.

He came to the end of the hall, where a circular metal door waited. Behind that armored door was the well of souls, the place where the damned were consumed like chunks of meat. On the right side wall, a sensor node opened, glowed red like the fires of Hell, waiting for species confirmation. Cole knew he had no chance there, so he did what he was told to do.

The nearly microscopic needle pierced the sensor eye easily, not even breaking the glass (or whatever it was), and he fed the energy of the righteous into it. Different energy this time; this time, he was attacking the system with cherubim, leaving remnants of the holy in a profane killing ground.

The lights started to flicker, and he could hear the almost inaudible hum of energy waver, as if power flow was being disrupted. Excellent. He withdrew the spike, and ran back down the hall towards the elevator, aware it was going to get worse very soon.

He kept his hand metal, in case he met resistance on his way out, and studied it as he waited for the elevator doors to open. It didn’t look like his hand really, but a metal mesh glove that shimmered as if full of diamond dust, although it was just the cherubim, constantly in motion, infused with divine energy. It was almost hard to believe that he’d been given such a second chance, that he was chosen … but stranger things had happened, hadn’t they? For one thing, Hell had turned about to be real, and yet, everybody thought they were still living on Earth. Weird.

He peeked out of the elevator, and was slightly relieved to see the hallway was empty. He knew he should fear no evil, but it was hard not to sometimes. He still wasn’t sure what he would do when he saw Wolverine again, that bastard. In theory, he figured he’d be pissed off enough to kill him on sight, but he knew whenever he had memory flashes of being killed by him, of seeing a ghostly flash of his demonically evil face as he brought the rifle butt into his vision, he got freaked out all over again. He just hoped he had the courage to act first when he saw him.

He was half way down the hall when something hit him in the face.

It smashed into him with the force of 747, and he heard his nose shatter, saw it as a flash of white light across his vision. There was an impact in his gut, and he felt his legs kicked out from him, making him land hard on his ass. But even as he came down he was scrabbling back across the floor, warm blood dripping off his chin, trying to get enough distance to see his attacker, the demon that came out of nowhere.

It was a boy.

A teenager - maybe fifteen, sixteen, he wasn’t great at judging ages - tall for his age, but slender. He had black hair and eyes nearly as dark, skin the color of cream heavy coffee - what was he? Hispanic? Arabic? - and was wearing a Rammstein t-shirt and faded jeans a little too big for his slender hips. He was stalking towards him, actually stalking, like he was ten years older and a hundred pounds heavier, hands loose at his sides, shoulders relaxed, but head down, his eyes as cold and hard as onyx. Something in him, maybe the power of the divine, told him this kid could fight. Not half assed street stuff either - serious goddamn no bullshit beat down fight. He clearly knew the rules of hand to hand combat; he was aiming to disable or kill, whichever opportunity came first.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Cole told the boy, still scrambling back, trying to keep distance between them. He could feel the blood abate as his face felt suffused with the cherubim, but whatever it looked like as the power of the divine put him back together, the boy didn’t react.

“Bullshit,” he spat, with a coldness that was far too adult for him. He said something else, but it wasn’t in a language he understood. It was pretty weird though - the kid probably was Arabic. “You think you can just come in to our home and hurt us?” He said, going back to lightly accented English. He couldn’t place the accent at all, but it sounded vaguely cultured.

Cole finally got to his feet, but kept backing down the hall. He did not want to have to kill a kid. Okay, he was dead already, but from what he understood, to “die” in Hell meant you would be cast into a deeper, darker pit. To be this young and this clearly damned was bad enough. “They’re not who you think they are,” he said, aware this was against the rules, but what else could he do? Well, except kill him.

But the kid was not buying it. He had a gimlet eyed stare that was unnerving, like he had switched himself off and let something else take over. “I’m tired of you shits who think you can come here and do this. You refuse to leave us in peace? Fine. Realize who you’re dealing with; understand what you have declared war on.” And then the boy moved, lightning fast. He telegraphed a high punch, left side, and Cole moved to block it, but it was a deliberate feint - the kid pirouetted smoothly half way through the move, and spun into a roundhouse kick that caught him flush in the right side. He stumbled back, feeling an electric shock that pretty much guaranteed some ribs had snapped on impact, and he felt enough discomfort in one lung to suggest puncturing was possible. If he was not God’s instrument, it probably would have been enough to drop him momentarily, or at least stun him, leave him gasping for breath, and a moment would have been all the boy needed to finish this. Ho! w the hell was the kid this strong? Or this fucking good? It wasn’t possible.

Oh shit, he wasn’t a kid at all. He was just a demon that perversely chose to look like one. He would have to kill him.

Cole pretended to be hurt, to be struggling to keep on his feet, and just like he expected, the demon moved to take advantage of it. He kicked out, trying to nail him in the face, but Cole straightened instantly, before he could land it, and grabbed his leg, yanking it forward and pulling the demon off its feet. But even while he was falling, the demon kicked out with his free leg, and caught Cole under the chin, snapping his head back so violently he lost his grip on the demon.

How unnatural was this creature? It let itself hit the floor hard, head bouncing off the hardwood like a ball, but did he pass out, or even wince? It was as if nothing had happened to him at all. And, like he had a spring for a spinal column, he suddenly jumped up to his feet, that hard eyed, inhuman look still on his face. He moved his head briefly side to side, like he was working a crick out of his neck. “That all you got?” He asked. “I had rougher in primary school.”

Cole was still backing down the hall, but how long were the fucking halls in this place? The mansion now seemed to be a maze, a hell of distortion, and he felt his bowels go cold as he realized he hadn’t hurt this demon, not one iota, and it was going to keep coming at him unless he found some way to kill it. So much for it being as easy as they promised.

“Let me leave here, or die,” Cole told him, aware he was lying - he would have to kill this demon. But a moment to regroup would have been nice.

The demon thing didn’t blink, didn’t vary his expression at all. “No.”

Cole then remembered what had been in his head about fighting: attack first, make the demon defend itself. The way to control the fight - like the demon was doing - was to make your opponent react to your moves. See, that proved it - no teenage boy would know that, nor would they be so personally restrained and eerily cold. He was hardly out of his teen years before the Wolverine killed him.

He lunged towards the demon, feigning a kick that the demon blocked with almost supernatural precision, but got Cole close enough to throw a hard right at his jaw - spike extending on his metalled hand.

But on impact a terrible shock ran up his arm and through his body as the cherubim screamed at once: the spike could not penetrate his thick hide, and retreated hastily before it could receive injury on his accursed skin.

The demon acted as if he hadn’t been punched at all. He grabbed his wrist even as the cherubim were still in retreat, and with a simple twist, he flung Cole hard into the far wall, where he came very close to feeling pain as he nearly broke through the wood.

Panic flitted through his mind as he realized all he had left was going back to adamantium consistency again, and if that didn’t work … well, running for it was the only option, wasn’t it? Taking off and hoping this damnable thing didn’t follow him. Maybe he just wasn’t ready to be a soldier for God.

He let the cherubim recreate the adamantium spike - thicker this time - as the demon grabbed him by the throat and pulled him away from the wall, straight into a fist to the face. The demon’s fist pummeled his face rapidly, shattering his newly repaired nose and shoving bone fragments deeper into him as Cole struck out blindly with his metalled hand, aiming for the chest, hoping it was softer meat than the face.

It must have been, because this time the cherubim didn’t scream, and he thought the thing stiffened slightly, its raised fist not quite meeting his face. Cole shoved it back, ripping his spike out of its chest as it hit the opposite wall with a satisfying thud. He knew the cherubim would keep him from losing consciousness, save for the most extreme of circumstances, but Cole was sure he almost had.

The demon seemed to be bleeding red blood down from a hole near the center of its torso. Had he hit the heart? God, he hoped so.