“Do you know this guy?" Xander asked him, almost accusingly, as if he was personally responsible for bringing the supernatural madness back to his life. The problem was, he could have been right.

“Yeah.  He's ... Bob."

Nika - Taqwus? - backed up, holding her hands up in a warding off gesture. "Whoa, hey, I know you ain't got any powers now, Bob, so don't get into any shit with me. Don't start none, won't be none."

“I have some powers," he grated in reply. "I also have friends." There was a slithering motion beneath his shirt, and a small, pale milk snake fell out the bottom of his t-shirt and hit the floor.

“What the fuck..?" Xander exclaimed. "He has snakes in his pants?!"

Logan had mentioned this before, hadn't he? He said that Bob had some kind of "god friend" made of snakes. That's what had freaked Nika out, and why the appearance of the garter snake beneath the bathroom door made her want to run. These weren't so much snakes as part of a god with much more power than her.

Angel reached behind him and pulled out the sword, making Xander take a step away from him, a look of nausea briefly passing over his face, while Nika turned around, shocked, and visibly flinched, marking her as something other than Human. "Jesus Christ, where'd you get the sword of Weyland? I thought they destroyed that thing."

He ignored her. "What is she, Bob?"

“She is a he. Taqwus, the trickster. A soul sucker."

“A soul sucker?" Xander repeated in disbelief. "How come all the good looking women I meet are hell harpies?"

Angel glared at Nika, aware that because he had a soul, he could have been a victim of her as well. And if he was, Angelus would have come out to play - which would have been ideal for the Senior Partners. "Who sent you here? It was them, wasn't it?"

Nika met his stare, eyes narrowing in challenge, and blue sparks danced between her fingertips. "You think I'm just a demon you can intimidate, parasite? You think wrong."

The trailer lights flickered, and a tiny bolt of electricity sizzled across the room and hit Nika in the arm, making her cry out in pain and stumble. When she turned her gaze, Naomi held up her ungloved hand, which was aglow with electricity, blobs of it dripping from her hand like flowing blood. "My sparks are bigger. Wanna play?"

So that's why Nika looked at Naomi so curiously - a similarity of abilities. He lowered the sword until the point of it was at Nika's throat. "I wouldn't, really."

Nika made a strangled noise, eyes bugging out slightly, and Angel followed her panicked glance. There were snakes now twining themselves up each of her legs, a vibrantly colored coral snake and an extremely large black mamba that almost looked like an abandoned piece of cable.

“Talk," Bob insisted.

“Okay," Xander said, backing up behind his drafting desk. "Have I ever mentioned that I hate snakes? After the whole "snakes in the cafeteria" thing, I really the fuckers. Also wasps. They're just not good."

“These aren't regular snakes," Angel explained, as even Giles looked slightly alarmed. "These are parts of a snake god."

Giles look became one of intense interest. "A snake god? Bob, you know a snake god?"

“Parts?" Xander exclaimed. "Which parts?"

“This is Degei ?" Bren said, sounding relieved. "Oh, thank god, I thought I was going to join Xander in a panic attack."

“I am not panicking," Xander protested. "I'm just ... having a deja vu wiggins."

“You have three seconds before they start biting," Bob warned Nika.

Pinned by snakes and caught between Bob and the sword of Weyland, Nika knew she was fucked. She wanted to do something, but she knew her only options were suffering and dying. "Okay, okay! Jesus - you know I'm not at full power either. I'm stuck in this mortal shell, just like you."

“After what you did to Crow's daughter, you're lucky to be alive at all," Bob countered. "Now, what the fuck are you doing here?"

She rolled her eyes, but otherwise remained stiff and motionless, afraid either the snakes or the sword would bite otherwise. "Look, I was hired for this job, okay? They said they could help me get out of this shell and back into my normal form if I did a couple of errands for them."

“Them?" Bob had come around to the side for a better look at Nika, the glow in his eyes subsiding. The snake god had the most power here, and the best shot of taking her out, should it come to that. Nika clearly wasn't going to push her luck with the god of snakes.

“Damn it, you know exactly who I'm talking about - how long has this stupid fucking war been going on anyways? The Senior Partners."

“The who?" Xander wondered.

“What was the job?" Angel asked, although he thought he knew, and felt a hard chill settle in his stomach.

“Just suck a few souls, get your attention. Take yours, if I got the chance."

“Hold on," Xander said, coming out from around the desk warily. "You weren't really in danger from the werewolves? It was a set up?"

She looked at him with open contempt. "Of course, you stupid meatbag. They knew you were here, and they figured your death would get the attention of your old buddies here. Whether the wolves took you out or I did was irrelevant. The fact that your friends showed up so soon was a bonus ... well, until this PTB fuckhead -"

Bob physically shoved Nika - right onto the sword. Angel tried to pull it back, but wasn't quick enough; the sword punctured Nika's throat, and purple-black blood gushed out from the wound. Her eyes had time to widen in horror, and she gasped, "Oh sh -"

She didn't have a chance to finish her epithet, as she died on her feet, and her body crumpled to the floor like an abandoned husk. “No civilians," Bob snarled at her corpse. "You heartless bloody wanker."

The snakes were gone, but how he had no idea, as Angel had never seen them leave. Then again, he hadn't seen them come in either - they were just here, in the same way they were suddenly not.

“What the fuck is going on?" Xander demanded, sounding angry but looking horrified. "These people were gonna kill me because of you? He’s not even my friend! I mean, you are Giles, but not Dead Boy over there.”

Angel shot him a sharp look. “Get past high school already.”

“They don’t care,” Bob interjected. “You have some connection to Angel’s life, and that’s enough. They’re goin’ balls to the wall this time.”

“Why?” Giles asked that so calmly it almost seemed like he doubted him.

“’Cause Angel humiliated them; it looks like he kicked their ass. They don’t like that, and they aren’t going to let that stand. Oh, and ‘cause I’m on parole, I just have my Belial powers, and I’m sure they think that now’s the time to have their friends take me out. I’ll be back, but as long as I’m gone for a while and they have L.A. all to themselves again, they’ll be happy.”

“You’re on parole?” Xander’s look was priceless.

But Angel thought he understood, as Bob smelled a bit different; he smelled more solid, more Belial, less like bottled sunlight. Was this due to him? He wondered, but couldn’t ask. Bob brought him back, presumably with the Powers blessing, because he wasn’t powerful enough to do it on his own … but what if he was acting against them? It wouldn’t be the first time he disobeyed them.

Giles seemed to take this all in while keeping a neutral expression, but Angel could tell he was actually reining in his temper. “Why did you kill her … him? He could have told us about the werewolves.”

“What, you mean The Red Wolves? I can tell you about them.”

At the mention of that name, Giles seemed a little taken aback. “The Red Wolves? The werewolf cult? That was them?”

“Yeah. What, you didn’t recognize the mark on their chest?”

Giles grimaced in embarrassment and glanced down at the floor, but perhaps to spare him further pain, Bren asked, “There’s a werewolf cult?”

Bob nodded. “There’s a cult for everything. I betcha I could find one for Toilet Duck given half a chance. These Red Wolves bozos seem to think that lycanthropy isn’t a demonic virus but a metamorphic stage between man and god - they think they’re semi-divine, but only when in their wolf form. So they learn to trigger it themselves, and figure one day they’ll ascend, meaning be all wolf all the time.”

“Yeah, ‘cause gods run around tearing people up and eating housecats,” Xander commented sarcastically.

Bob shrugged, and said cryptically, “That’s a bad example. But still, complete bollocks. The things people will convince themselves of, you know?”

Angel sheathed his sword, and held up his hand in a “stop” gesture. “Bob, clearly you know what’s going on, more than any of us. So why don’t you fill us in?”

Xander continued to stare at Bob like he wasn’t sure if he was wasting all their time, or was just a ticking time bomb. “So gods eat cats? Huh. You learn something new every day. Look, who the fuck are you exactly?”

Bob flashed him an exasperated look, but it was actually fairly mild in comparison to the looks he’d seen an irritated Bob give people. But, admittedly, he gave those looks generally before the recipients of the look keeled over, unconscious or worse. “I am Bob Oberon, better known ‘round these parts as Maximum Bob. I’m a very old Belial demon with a … complicated bloodline, so let’s leave it there for now. I usually have more power than I have right now, and the gods know me. Most don’t like me.”

“Jeeze, I wonder why.” Xander looked rather pointedly at the corpse on the floor of his trailer.

“Bob - what’s going on?” Angel urged, getting him back on track.

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, and Angel could tell he was mentally adjusting his story to make it acceptable for Xander to hear. Clearly he didn’t want to spill the beans on his godhood status, although he wasn’t sure what difference it would make. “I’ve already told you. The Senior Partners have declared war on you and on me, but because they can’t attack me directly, they’re using proxies. But this time, they’re using massively powered proxies. This isn’t kid stuff.”

“Why can’t they attack you directly?” Naomi asked.

“They’d start up the war between them and the Powers That Be all over again; it’d be in violation of the agreement. And believe me, even they don’t want to see a return to the bad old days.”

“Huh?” Xander didn’t look just deeply confused, but extremely pissed off.

“How powerful are these proxies exactly?” Giles asked, sticking to the most important point. “If I’m correct, Taqwus was a trickster god, yes? But she - he - said they were stuck in a mortal form, so clearly he was empowered, although presumably he retained his soul sucking abilities.”

“Correctomundo.”

“There can’t be that many depowered gods or demi-gods. Do I assume that some of the ones they’re sending after us aren’t quite so fragile?”

“You’d bet right. The Galleria proves that, if nothing else.”

Bren seemed to perk up, his eyes lighting up with sudden fascination. “What? The thing that happened at the Galleria was a Partners attack?”

“No, it was the arrival point of a god who requires a sacrifice or two to manifest himself on this plane. Or at least they wanted it to look that way.”

Xander finally stepped forward, interested and yet still vaguely appalled. He didn’t like the idea of having Xander tag along again - a civilian with no powers at all; a willingness to fight didn’t make up for his myriad vulnerabilities, as well as his tendency to be an annoying smart ass - but if he was a target just because he kind of used to know him, he had to do something with him. To leave him behind was to leave him to die. “What the hell happened there? At first they said it was a terrorist attack, but then I heard it was a fire that filled the ventilation system with toxic smoke. It was some damn demon thing?”

Bob shook his head, and looked strangely melancholy, although it was belied by a quicksilver anger that seemed to flash through his eyes. “The people, as I said, were sacrifices. They were presumably flash-fried in the unbearable brilliance of a god, but I know it’s bullshit. It was staged by the Partners to hurt me, but it’s not going to work. All I want to do is kill the fuckers myself now.”

“How was it meant to hurt you?” Giles look suggested he was about to punch him for being an arrogant bastard, and the level stare Bob gave him in return seemed to suggest he knew it.

“It was a total mimic of Ananga’s powers at their maximum. An utter slap in the face. Ananga’s dead, and he’s been dead for a long time.”

Although Bob turned away, back towards the door, Giles kept staring at him, confusing making him seem charmingly befuddled. “Ananga? That’s an epithet of Kama, the Hindu god of love, isn’t it? That’s not the name of a god - it just means “the bodiless”.”

“Mythology is like a third rate tabloid; there’s a kernel of truth, but it’s buried among a ton of shit. Ananga was a god, and he had nothing to do with love or Kama, trust me. I know Ganesha.”

Naomi exchanged a quizzical glance with Bren, who just shrugged at her tacit question.

“So who is Ananga then?” Giles continued, following Bob out the door. Angel followed right behind him, mainly because the cool night air, although redolent of exhaust, still smelled better than Taqwus’s dead body. “Bob, what are we dealing with here?”

Bob sighed loudly and turned to face them, but he had the strangest look on his face. It was one of complete despair, and yet complete rage; the look of someone who had given up, but was still going to take it out on the first available target. It wasn’t a look he’d ever seen on Bob’s face before, and he didn’t like it. Even with his powers reduced to almost nothing, Bob’s ability to overwhelm the will of anyone in his orbit made him incredibly dangerous. “It doesn’t matter, Rupert. It’s not Ananga we’re dealing with. It can’t be.”

“Why not? Gods reincarnate all the time - you even said you would.” (From the back, he heard Xander exclaim in disbelief, “He’s a god? Since when are gods Australian?”)

Bob let the silence stretch, which was a bad enough sign on its own. Bob wasn’t quiet; sometimes he seemed physically incapable of shutting up. When he spoke, his voice was a low whisper, nearly swallowed by the noise of passing cars. “He can’t come back. I dispersed him myself; I actually incorporated some of his energy into me. Resurrection is impossible.”

Although that was as reassuring as that was disturbing, there was still something that didn’t make sense. Angel has a feeling he might regret it, but he had to ask, “Why would the Senior Partners think his return would hurt you?”

Bob turned and walked away, and he thought he wasn’t going to answer, but after a moment, he heard his answer carried on the wind, soft syllables of utter defeat. “Because he was my son.”

6

Sometimes he got the best cell phone signal on the porch. He didn’t know why, it was just some irregular curiosity.

So he sat on the porch with a beer, watching the nocturnal animals and owls scurry and flit in the dark barrier of trees. When he was dragging the diseased tree back here the other day, he smelled a bear, but he hadn’t seen it yet, and was almost disappointed. They were beautiful animals, and honestly, as long as you left them alone and didn’t leave any tempting trash about, they’d leave you alone too. He thought he saw the bright eyes of a raccoon looking at him from under a shrub, and thought it was a bit far for its range, but oh well. Global warming and all that.

He’d punched up the number of Abrams three times, and each time disconnected before hitting the send button. He couldn’t believe he was actually afraid to call him, but part of him just didn’t want to know. This was a trap, it had to be, and yet … how much did he want to know about himself? What little he did know he wasn’t crazy about. He was a spy for the allies in World War Two, and later on a mutant assassin - he was a hero and a villain. He didn’t want to be either.

The raccoon came out of the shrubbery, a tangle of blackberry bushes, and seemed to stare at him, front leg raised as if about to make a dash if he made a single false move. “I’m no threat to you, Rocky,” he muttered. Its black pad of a nose quivered, ears shifting forward, but otherwise remained motionless. For its sake, he hoped wolverines - as in the animals - didn’t come around here, as it would be dead in no time. Wolverines were such nasty little animals, he supposed he could guess how he got his codename.

Finally he punched in a number and listened to the distant ring, which was surprisingly clear in spite of the distance. Bob had the best cell phones, just like he had the best of everything.

After the third ring, the phone was picked. “Yello?”

“Marc, hey, it’s me.”

“Julius! Man, I was wondering when you were gonna call me! You left your thong here last night …” he trailed off into a giddy snicker.

“You’re such an asshole.”

“And that’s what you love about me, Logan. What can I do you for?”

He heard clattering in the background, a metal spoon against a metal pan, and figured he was cooking. Marc was really a good cook; he needed to get him to make an omelet for him again someday. “How are you doin’?”

“Fine and dandy. But that’s not why your callin’.”

He frowned at the phone, hating it that Marc knew him that well. “Can’t I even get some pleasantries out of the way?”

“You could, but that seems suspicious.” Something hissed in the near background, liquid hitting a hot pan.

No foreplay was necessary with Marcus, and you had to like that about him. It was one of his most endearing qualities. “Okay. Look, how well do you know Toronto?”

“As in Ontario, the Hollywood North? Pretty well. I have a bunch of satellite maps if you need me to look up something specific.”

He smiled and shook his head, the slight movement making the relaxing raccoon freeze again. This was exactly why he called Marc. There wasn’t a single damn thing he couldn’t investigate in depth. He missed his calling as a private detective, or an instigator of violent coups. “What I need is a good place for a public meeting, that will give you lots of sniper opportunities. Can you think of any spots like that?”

He was quiet for a moment, and the background hiss of food in a pan faded, and the sound of typing on a keyboard became louder. “Uh … got a couple of good spots, actually. What d’ya want? Downtown, outskirts, good neighborhood or bad?”

“Damn, you’re scary.”

He scoffed. “Comin’ from you, that’s a compliment. So what’s the deal?”

“I think the Organization is going to try and spring another trap on me. I’m supposed to meet with a guy who supposedly wants to make amends with me.”

“But you don’t trust him.”

“Not in the least. So I want you watching my back.”

“With a loaded sniper rifle?” He sounded amused, which he thought he might. “What’s the protocol?”

“If you see what looks like Org assholes closing in or setting up shop, take ‘em out. And if I give you the high sign, splatter my companion’s brains all over the pavement.”

“Okay, so we’re done with subtlety?”

“Subtlety’s for pussies.”

He chuckled, and Logan heard keyboard tapping once more. “Okay, I got a couple of downtown spots that’ll be really prime. I’ll have a three hundred and sixty degree view, and you should have a pretty open view down below, but limited to the street.”

“Great. Let’s hear ‘em, in order of most favored to what you’ll settle for.”

So Marcus began listing streets and locations, some of which he’d heard of, some of which he hadn’t. They’d also decided the sooner they could arrange the meet, the less time the Organization would have to set up a complicated trap, meaning they had to do some math on how fast they could both get to Toronto.

Yes, it might be better to call in Xavier and Scott, let them come along, but they would be too nice. At the end of the day, he didn’t want to be nice with these stupid motherfuckers, who’d haunted him and made him jump through hoops for too fucking long.

He wanted to remind them he was called Wolverine for a reason.

*****

Bob had simply turned a corner ahead of them, but he’d disappeared with such rapidity that Angel was certain he’d teleported. He supposed he could technically understand, having “killed” his own son once, but his son wasn’t actually dead, just enjoying a more regular life. If Bob had “dispersed” him, he really had permanently killed his own son. Why?

“What the hell kinda god kills his own kid?” Xander exclaimed, sounding horrified. “And why I am following you?”

“You do need to come with us, for your own safety,” Giles assured him. “At least until this comes to an end.”

“But you’re the guys they want to kill,” he protested, but anemically, and seemed to relent with a sigh.

He couldn’t be angry at Bob, mainly because he knew sometimes things between supernatural fathers and sons could get carried to an unbelievably lethal level. Sometimes you had to choose between your child and other people; sometimes you had no choice. But that didn’t make you feel any better; it didn’t make you feel any less guilty, even if it was the right or only thing to do.

He hated having something vaguely in common with Bob, he really, really did.

They had taken to the sidewalks, walking down the neon lit corridors of Los Angeles, because it seemed generally safer to be out of the shadows for now, at least while they had Xander with them. Angel knew he’d feel better once he could drop Xander off at the office. And since it was L.A., the fact that he was carrying a sword, and that the red eyed Brendan was carrying a crossbow, never even got them a second glance. They weren’t as weird as some other things out here, which was both a good and a bad thing about the city.

“What do you know about Ananga?” Naomi asked Giles.

He shrugged helpless. “As I said, it’s basically a nickname for Kama, not the name of any god that I know of.”

“So what’s this Kama like?”

“Wait,” Bren exclaimed “Kama - as in Kama Sutra?”

“Yes, exactly. Although I call him a love god, technically Kama is the embodiment of sexual and creative energy, as in Hindu mythology those two things are often inextricably entwined.”

“Wait,” Naomi said. “If Ananga is a nickname of Kama … is it possible that Bob is Kama?” That suggestion made them all stop and turn to look at her, and she briefly cringed at the scrutiny. “I mean, if mythology sometimes gets things wrong, and gender and race is irrelevant to gods, couldn’t he have been given that name at some point? Bob has to exist somewhere in mythology, doesn’t he? And whoever heard of a god named Bob?”

That was a good point, and - as with everything about Bob - slightly troubling. Bob did have what might be considered qualifications for “love godhood” - look at all the marriages and children he had, for one, and the fact that most women and many men seemed to be instantly beguiled by his overwhelming charm.

“What powers did Kama have?” Bren finally asked.

Giles pushed his glasses up in a nervous gesture as he racked his brains for the knowledge. “Well, actually there are several different stories for Kama, depending on which interpretation you subscribe to. Some have him as one of the beginning creator forces of the universe; others have him as a type of law giver; and others still have him as the embodiment of sexual desire, capable of overwhelming man and gods alike. Generally he’s considered to be eternally young and one of the most handsome gods in the pantheon.”

At that, they all exchanged wary glances. “Okay, that last one applies,” Bren admitted.

“He’s not that good looking,” Xander claimed weakly. Even he didn’t seem to buy it, although not for lack of trying.

Before the conversation could go any further, there was a loud “bang” that made Angel jump and spin defensively towards the street, primed for action. But there was no need, as it was simply a car accident at the main intersection, a Corvette and a Honda both trying to cross into the same lane at the same time. Although both had crumpled front ends that looked horrifically mashed together, windshields reduced to a fine spider web of cracks, both drivers were getting out of their cars to yell at each other, so the accident itself couldn’t have been as severe as it looked. Air bags did have their good points.

Yet as he turned away, he heard a woman sitting in a parked car up the block from them begin to scream and cry, pleading with a passenger who wasn’t there. Angel just had time to register this anomaly before even more cars started to crash into each other, and one man came screaming down the street, fleeing from something that wasn’t chasing him. He felt … something odd, a wave of coldness that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. “Anyone else feel that?”

“I did,” Bren offered, gripping his crossbow tightly. So only the demons picked it up? That wasn’t encouraging.

“What?” Giles asked.

“What’s going on?” Xander asked, looking at the people almost coming to physical blows in the street, ignoring the people who had abandoned their cars to collapse in the street, on glittering beds of broken glass, to sob inconsolably. “Did somebody announce a Carrot Top comeback?”

Giles had been studying a couple of people not far from them, one crouched defensively in the doorway of shop, another a homeless man who continued walking down the street, now having a conversation with someone who wasn’t there. “You’re not sensing a ghost, Angel?”

“No.”

“All right, then we have two possibilities: mass hysteria, or mass hallucinations. By spell or by god.”

“Then why weren’t we affected?” Bren asked, then got a startled look on his face. “Unless we’re the only people seeing this …”

“I’m afraid it’s nothing so prosaic,” a familiar, startling voice said behind them. “Regrets are being personified, but only the person with regrets can see them. It’s a terrible punishment, isn’t it? To be alone with your ghosts.”

Angel turned, aware of what he would see, and yet terrified of it all the same. He tried to will it away, convince himself he’d see nothing at all, but it didn’t work. Standing there, leaning against the street light and looking at him with a slightly expectant expression, was Wesley.