He was horrified at his reflex - Angel was going to beat the shit out of him - but he was still in Human form, so the punch barely turned his head. Still, Bren backed up as Angel looked at him with an irritated gaze, working his jaw like it hurt a bit. “Do I even need to ask what that was for?” he grumbled.

His hand hurt a little. Also, the ember flared up again in his gut, and his horror at punching Angel faded away as he realized he wasn’t going to get his ass kicked. “I need to go,” he explained, his stomach making an annoying noise. Maybe he shouldn’t have had that taco, or at least he should have had something better. “I can’t stay here. You know I was a demon hunter here before you came back; I can handle this. I know what I’m doing.”

He rubbed his jaw and raised his eyebrows at that. “Is that why you’re taking an arsenal?”

“We have no idea what we’ll be facing. There’s no harm in being ready for anything.”

He nodded, seemingly accepting that, but Bren knew better. His eyes had that unfathomable look again, like he knew something about him that he didn’t. (Which was possible.) “We’re going to have to talk about this.”

“Not now. I can’t talk about it now.”

Angel fixed him with a stern glare that was almost angry. “And no more punching your friends?”

He held up his hands in mock surrender, “I promise. Not unless you turn evil or something.”

He nodded as if that was the right answer, but there was something in his eyes that said “Don’t do it again - or else”, and no matter how pissy he was right now, he was all too aware of how much taller Angel was, how much broader across the shoulders, as well as how much older. He might be able to pick a successful fight with younger vampires, but one as old as Angel? No, he had no chance. “I actually wouldn’t recommend punching Angelus. He’s likely to rip your head off and use it as a hand puppet.”

He grimaced at the imagery. “Gee thanks.”

He shrugged with strange nonchalance as he grabbed the doorknob. “Just giving you fair warning. No one knows my demon better than me.”

“I’ll remember to shoot from a distance,” he assured him, following him out the door.

Giles and Naomi were waiting for them in the front office, each with their weapons of choice. Giles had chosen a sword - he called it a “gentlemen’s weapon” -but he also had stakes and some magic up his sleeve. Naomi, who really didn’t need much in the way of a weapon, still had a crossbow, and had been talking to Giles about looking into a compound “regular” bow. Naomi apparently was an archer “as a hobby”, which struck Bren as really weird. He could see a lot of things as a hobby, up to and including internet porn, but archery? If it was Giles, he’d accept it, probably because Watchers seemed to know all that arcane stuff, and anyways, he was British. (Which also made no sense if he thought about it - what, did he think they were still in Robin Hood times or something?) But Naomi was Canadian, and that was more like British than American, and archery was probably better than any other hobby she could have come up with - curling, for example. What kind of sport involved ! brooms and bowling shoes? It was wrong on so many levels it was hard to know where to start. Canadians could be so weird … not that he’d ever say that to her or Logan. (What a choice - burned to a crisp or beaten to a pulp. But at least being Canadian, they‘d apologize for doing it.)

He hadn’t seen Angel grab any weapons, but he knew he had them, as he always did. He was just coy about it, because he was weird like that, and also just being a vampire made you a weapon. Bren was glad he hit Angel - well, no, he wasn’t, but on the one hand he was, simply because it had distracted him. He thought he could handle this now, he thought he could do this; he wasn’t even thinking about his mother …

Damn.

There was a rhythmic double knock on the door, and then it swung open, revealing the Weird Sisters standing just outside the jamb, smiling in that predatory, humorless way of theirs that made your balls retract so far inside your body you could taste them in the back of your throat. They continued to be fashion disasters, wearing combat boots, tan suede pants, black t-shirts with a weird green spider emblazoned on the front, and iridescent purple knee length coats that were probably rain slickers, but looked weird enough to have been cast offs from the Blade Runner wardrobe department. Their odd eyes were like empty glass. “Hello -”

“- daddy,” they said in that annoying way of theirs.

Angel frowned at that, but a furtive guilt seemed to flash through his eyes. “I’ve asked you to stop calling me that, Belinda.”

How did Angel tell them apart? Well, they knew when he was gone too - and when he was back - so maybe vampires had this thing, or at least there was some kind of “bond” between the sire and the sired. It was implied in some fiction, but Angel never admitted it; then again, he didn’t like to talk too much about vampire things.

Giles scowled at the Weirds, as he hated bringing them into this. But Angel had been right earlier when he said that they were amongst the only people who would find the idea of overwhelming odds against them fun. “Sylvia -”

“- says -”

“- you owe -”

“- her two -”

“- for this one.”

“But she is coming?” Angel prompted.

“Yes,” they agreed in unison.

Not a one of them had met “Sylvia”, but apparently she was an old friend of Angel’s dating back to his earliest days in Los Angeles, although how he’d come to know this gargoyle was never explained, nor was their relationship explained either. She was an actual gargoyle; apparently they did exist, although they were virtually extinct on this world. They were hard to spot because most had Human guises - Sylvia’s worked in the computer imagining department of Industrial Light and Magic, which seemed like a punch line - and they were indeed guardian demons, which put them at natural odds with other demons, so they weren’t much liked in the community, and had all but retreated to the Human one in secret. But Angel and Sylvia were “kinda sorta” friends, although there was great reluctance on Sylvia’s part. (Because he was a vampire?) But she was joining the battle. Bren had asked Giles why that was significant in any fashion, and Giles stared at him like he was dumber than Par! is Hilton. “She’s a gargoyle,” he said, like that should have told him all he needed to know. Maybe it was, but he still didn’t get it, and internet research had turned up nothing helpful. But at least the one thing he was able to accomplish today was the bringing in of the “big gun”; it made him feel a little less useless.

“Are we ready to go?” Angel asked, shrugging on his long black coat. He always had a long black coat.

“They’re leading the way,” Giles said, pointing at the Sisters in obvious distaste.

They smiled at him in a way that could only be called wolfish. “We -”

“- don’t -”

“- bite … much.”

Angel sighed wearily. “Just go. I’ll meet you in the sewers.”

“Yes-”

“- daddy,” they replied, flashy creepy smiles before disappearing down the hall.

Bren tried to repress a shudder, but couldn’t.

“They enjoy being creepy, don’t they?” Naomi noted, not exactly making it a question.

“I think they get bored otherwise,” Angel admitted ruefully, heading out the door.

There had been some talk about the Weirds. Supposedly they did what they did because of their love for Bob, and Angel admitted that the girls were smart enough that they knew it was in their best interest to side with a being who could destroy them utterly without getting up off the couch. But there was the possibility that Bob simply “pushed” them, and since, according to Giles, a push was nothing like telepathy, but an actual altering of reality (all of this always bracketed by Giles adding “if he is who he says he is, the Fallen One,” - which was what apparently drai’shajan translated out to be - because in spite of what he had seen Giles just didn’t trust Bob. Mainly because he was a Belial and they all lied, and no one knew what the power limit was on an old Belial anyways, since most didn’t live long past a hundred. But Giles had admitted if he really was a fallen Power, the Powers had done an excellent job of using irony, because trapped in a Belial, ! no one would ever really believe he was who he said he was; the male version of Cassandra), there’d never be any way to tell. So his hope that there could be good-ish vampires without souls or potential divine intervention was pretty much dashed by this speculation. But he knew that already, didn’t he? It was foolish to think a vampire could still hold on to any shred of humanity; he used to kill them! Who would know better than him?

Kier was playing him. But he wished sincerely he wasn’t. He also hoped that he didn’t show up tonight, because he didn’t know what he’d do if he did.

****

He knew where he was, but he thought he’d just lay there for a moment and enjoy it.

Logan knew he was in the back seat of Marc’s car (a brief flash of panic screamed through his mind - the bike! Where was it?), his head on Faith’s thigh as she stroked his hair. It was a nice feeling, and he hated to wake up and ruin it.

Also he was eavesdropping, trying to figure out what had gone on in his “absence“. Orbital’s “Satan” was playing low on the car stereo, while Marc and Faith discussed their next move. Right now, they were speculating on why the hell the Org grunts were drugged, and with what. They all knew loads of drugs, but none that turned eyeballs yellow. “Could he have been wrong about it being drugs?” Faith wondered.

Now he had to speak up. “No,” he muttered, turning his head so he could look directly up at her. “I know the smell of illness too, and none of those men were sick. Well, not in a physical way.”

She gently scratched her fingernails across his forehead and into his hairline, and asked, “How long have you been awake?”

“Two seconds.” A lie, but there was no way he was admitting it. He sat up, and saw through the windshield that they were idling before a red light at an intersection. The sun was going down, judging from the color of sky, which was a smoggy, rusty orange. He’d been out longer than he thought. “Where we headed?”

“Technically? Pasadena - we’re hauling ass outta Burbank.” Marc replied, giving him a casual glance in the rearview mirror.

“Doesn’t everyone?”

“True, but we’re trying to pick up the trail of the Mummy, and we’re all playing catch up.”

He just knew that was ominous. “They already hit again?”

“Yep. We started picking up radio traffic again. The Barstow cop car was found in a parking garage just within the Burbank city limits, but it was also found along with a jerked corpse in the ticket booth.”

“Shit.” He rubbed his eyes, but it was only out of habit. He felt great; he felt better than great. Something about being imbued with Bob’s power left him feeling better than new, as if he’d been given a squeaky clean, factory mint body. “Did they steal a car?”

“You’d think, but they’re not sure which one right now.”

“Oh perfect.” He then realized that that made Marc’s current actions a little unfathomable. “So why are we headed to Pasadena?”

“Following the road out of Burbank,” he explained. “Playing a hunch. But once we hit the L.A. city limits, I have no idea where we should start to look.”

He felt Faith’s hand on his arm. “You okay?”

He nodded, patting her hand. His hand was still smeared with blood, but at least it had dried. ”I’m better than fine. Bob always puts me back together perfectly.”

“Umm … how much can you control that, bud?”

Logan caught Marc’s eye in the rearview mirror. “What, the Bob power? I can’t, not really. I can use it for a few minutes before it overwhelms me and I shut down before I die.”

Marc’s look, even behind the goggles, was surprisingly skeptical. “Have you tried?”

He didn’t like the implication in his tone. “No, I’ve been dicking around with it. What the fuck are you getting at?”

“We could use a little Bob power here and now; I don’t see how we’re gonna catch this guy without his help. Even the Org can’t get a hold of this dude. Man, do you remember when these guys used to be a serious challenge? We must have really gutted ‘em.”

He shrugged, wondering if he should mention that Timebomb’s clone and his “Black Fire” group did an awful lot of damage to them, but decided not to. And he knew he was right about needing Bob - they did, and quite badly, as they might not find him otherwise. But how could he handle the power for any length of time? He couldn’t control it once it was triggered.

“Would Bob really give you so much power that you couldn’t handle it?” Faith wondered, as if reading his mind. “I mean, I don’t know the guy all that well, but I’d think he’d give you something you could use if you need to.”

“The need to part might be the problem,” Marc said. Logan kicked the back of the driver’s seat hard. “Ow! Fuck, what are you, twelve?! C’mon man, you and I both know you could handle it if you wanted to, maybe for a little bit, but you don’t wanna.”

“Fuck you! You don’t have this power, you don’t know what it’s like!”

“No, but I know you. You’re one of the most insanely stubborn, hard-headed guys I’ve ever met in my life, and you’d wrestle somethin’ to death before givin’ up. I don’t think you’re tryin’ here, and I’m sure you’ve got your reasons, but don’t tell me you can’t.”

He glared red hot molten death at him, but he knew Marc had him pegged. No, he hadn’t tried, but no one should have that amount of raw power at their disposal. Especially not him; he could imagine what would happen if he got a rein on Bob’s power. Would he ever stop changing things?

And there it was; his problem with the Bob power. He was afraid to touch it, so he tried not to. Why did Marc have to figure that out?

Faith squeezed his arm reassuringly, and gave him a faint smile. “You don’t have to do anything you’re uncomfortable with, Logan. We -”

“If -” Marc began.

But Faith cut him off with a deadly look of her own. “Contradict me and I’ll kick your ass to La Jolla.”

Marc sat up and glanced at her in the mirror, surprised and perhaps a little amused. “Yes ma’am.”

She gave him a more sedate, concerned look. “We can find another way to do this. We always have before.” Then, perhaps to lighten the mood, she scoffed and added, “Y’know, I still can’t quite believe Bob is a god. I mean yeah, he’s done some impossible things, but he talks like that “Crocodile Hunter” guy, wears leather pants, and owns a dive bar. What kinda god is that?”

A fair point, and one he’d wondered about, but here’s what blew his mind: he actually had an answer now. “One who’s turned his back on other gods. It was a choice between divinity and Humanity and for some reason he chose Humanity. But don’t ask me why, ‘cause that seems like a totally fucked up decision.”

“That’s Bob for ya,” Marc pointed out. “He likes to do fucked up things.”

He had a point there. But Marc was just full of points today, which was a bit distressing, but not atypical. Maybe he couldn’t admit it to them, but the least he could do was admit it to himself. Had he ever really tried to channel the power properly? No - because it scared him. Because the power was a beast, a drug, and he could see himself getting addicted to it so very easily.

He could do anything he wanted. Anything. As Bob always said, no doors were closed to him, and for the first time they wouldn’t be to Logan either. The idea was thrilling, orgasmic, and deeply, bone chillingly frightening. You only thought you controlled the power, but it controlled you. You would be its slave, and you wouldn’t know it. Look what happened to Jean.

But it was time to stop being a chickenshit. He had to embrace the power and use it or more people were going to die. Why were the Org on drugs? Why was this mutant leaving a trail of desiccated corpses behind them?

Bob would know, or he’d figure it out easily. No doors were closed to him.

“Find me some Org guys,” he told Marc. “They’ll have some of the answers we need.”

He nodded. “No problem.”

Faith squeezed his arm again, her eyes so full of concern it was heartbreaking. What scared her more? His charging over the van and unleashing his rage on the grunts, or him looking up and showing that there was something else hiding inside him, something she didn’t know? “You sure about this?”

He nodded, even though he wanted to say no. He wanted to say he was afraid he’d lose himself utterly, and if he embraced the power he’d never be happy inside his own sad skin again. But he wouldn’t tell anyone that. “Yeah. I’m gonna concentrate for a moment, see if I can call it up. Don’t be surprised if … uh …”

“You get the electric blue eyes again?” she prompted, giving him a sickly smile meant to be encouraging, but fear and trepidation warped it.

“Yeah.” He leaned over and kissed her cheek, tasting the salt on her skin, aware that physical pleasure might seem hollow and pathetic once he really felt the power. But there was nothing he could do about that.

He sat back and closed his eyes, briefly considering meditating, but no, he’d had enough of that bullshit. He’d accessed the power once through visualization, so he decided to do that again now. He visualized empty, dark rooms - his mind - and he slammed through every door, bellowing, “Bob! Bob, get your fucking ass out here! I’m tired of this bullshit! We need to talk, now!”

It didn’t seem to be working. He was stomping from one empty room to another, finding nothing (oh yeah, this was definitely his mind), and growing increasingly angry. Maybe Bob wanted him to think that this was some sort of personality fragment of his left in his mind to help him with the power, but he didn’t think so. It was just like that time Jean entered his mind and used telekinesis to jump start his immune system: a psychic trail was left behind. And the “trail” in this case was actually a gossamer thread connecting him to Bob … wherever he was.

He slammed through yet another door …

… and suddenly found himself in the living room of Bob’s Sydney house, although the lights were low enough that it took a moment for him to recognize it.

Bob was standing in front of the big bay window, his back to him, seemingly enjoying the view of the city lights at night over Sydney Harbor, the gem toned lights sparkling in the inky black water like foxfire. The view was technically impossible from here, but there were enough physical oddities about his home to clue you in to the fact that the Earth’s laws of physics didn’t apply here. “Tell me,” he said, not turning around.

Logan stopped, his eyes now adjusted to the illumination. A good thing too, as another step and he would have walked straight into the coffee table. “Tell you what?”

“Why you’re afraid of it. I’m not saying it isn’t sensible, but I’m still curious.”

He scowled at his back, aware it was totally wasted. “You know.”

“I need to hear it from you.”

A game with him - there was always a fucking game. He couldn’t keep the anger from his voice, but he didn’t even try. “No one should have this kind of power, Bob. How do you not use it? I could change reality just by wanting it, and do you know how much I want it? I want to be living a peaceful life. I want to wake up tomorrow in Tokyo, with my legitimate businesswoman wife Mariko, and I want to forget about the Organization - which wouldn’t exist anyways - and demons and gods and Xavier’s, for fuck’s sake. I don’t want the world I live in now.”

Bob turned now, his eyes giving off the slightest blue glow in the dark. “So why not change it?”

“Why? Who gave me the fucking right to play god? It’d be a better life for me, but what about everyone else? What if by living my happy life, Alex dies because I wasn’t there when she needed me? Or Rogue? What if by making all the demons disappear I inadvertently kill Helga, Brendan, Angel, and maybe even Faith? What if someone still manages to open a Hellmouth in London anyways? What if Mariko realizes that, without the Yakuza threat, I’m not good enough for her? What kind of man would I even be? What if I couldn’t live with the man I actually am?” His heart was pounding too fast and he felt an inexplicable lump in his throat, all of which just made him angrier. He didn’t know whether to barf, cry, or beat the shit out of him. “No one should have so much fucking power that they actually contemplate that. And yet … I want it. I want to do it so badly I can hardly stand it, and I hate myself for wanting it. I didn’t want your fucking power, Bob - I know what I’ll do with i! t and I hate you for giving it to me and making me realize it. I’ll be like Jean, but much worse. Take it back, you motherfucker; get rid of it before I’m rid of me.”

Bob said nothing. After a moment, he simply crossed the room towards him, and even though he was the angry one, Logan thought for a moment that Bob was going to punch him. So he was extra startled when Bob took his head in his hands and gave him a firm kiss on the forehead. He was so shocked that when he let him go, all Logan could do was sputter, “What the fuck ..?!”

“You are the perfect avatar,” he told him. “You fear the power, and you should - no Human was meant to have it. Others would give in and act out their wildest fantasies, but you respect the consequences, the unpredictable fallout of remaking the world in your own image. You understand why I don’t.”

“No I don’t,” he snapped. “I told you if you give me the power I will use it. We need the power now, but I need you to help me keep from abusing it. ‘Cause I will.”

“You won’t.”

“The fuck I won’t! Don’t you understand how weak I am? Given half a chance I’ll make the Jean-Camaxtli debacle look like a church picnic. I’m a chickenshit, Bob, a coward. The others don’t know it - okay, maybe Marc has a clue - but there are so many things I want to do over again, things I want to make right. I’m the opposite of a saint. I will alter life as we know it, and I don’t know if I’ll remember enough to even feel guilty about it later on. There’s something in me that can’t be allowed anywhere near that power.”

The look Bob gave him was almost wry. “There’s something in us all, especially in the gods. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Humans can’t get anywhere near the bloodthirsty desires of the gods. You’re all pure amateur hour - you should know that by now.”

He shook his head, frustrated by all of this. He’d said his piece, but he felt no better; if anything, he felt even more bereft. There was nothing worse than taking a good, hard look at yourself and being totally fucking repulsed. “Bob - help me, and then come back and take it away from me. Do you understand? We do this, and I want it gone.”

“You think it works like that? It’s not like I’m not trying to reincorporate as fast as possible; I’m missing some killer waves off Bondi.”

Logan glared at him, and wondered if he could hit Bob in a mindscape that he controlled. “You’re not taking me seriously.”

“Oh bloody hell, mate, of course I am. I just think you’re underestimating yourself very badly. But fine. You want to use this, I’ll help you hold back the thoughts and feeling of others, I’ll help you do what you need to do. But I think you’d be surprised at what you can do by yourself, if you just extended yourself a modicum of trust.”

He turned away, shaking his head again, walking towards the kitchen archway. There was no door there, and yet he was pretty sure that’s where he came in. “Save the feel good bullshit for later, when I’ll probably need it.”

“You know, when most people are offered power, they do what Jean did,” Bob said after him, not following but not leaving him alone either. “They say “Yes please”. You’re one of the first people I’ve ever encountered who actually pushed away from the table and said no. See what I mean? You’re quite refreshing.”

“Blow it out your ass,” he snarled, stomping into the kitchen.

Darkness followed, along with a faint but growing blue light that came along with a wave of warmth, and not so much a sense of dizziness but a sense of falling inside his own head, plunging into an endless abyss.

When he opened his eyes, he felt hollow but boiling with energy, aware of the feelings and thoughts of others but they just washed by him unnoticed, a wave of water that was simple background noise unless he chose to look at it closely. He didn’t.

The music was still low, but had switched to Megadeth, probably at Faith’s request. Logan caught a glance of himself in the rearview mirror, and while the energy wasn’t bleeding from his sockets, his pupils were a vibrant, deep neon blue that seemed to have sparks embedded deep within its cells. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Faith giving him a startled glance.

Through the windshield, he saw Marc was tailing a very familiar looking style of black van, and they were coming up on a traffic light. Marc spared him a glance. “Good, you’re awake. I’m thinkin’ of rear ending them.”

“No need,” he told him, then added, “Light.” The green traffic signal instantly switched to red.

Faith gasped. “Did you just do that?”

“Bob did; same difference,” he told her, opening the car door and stepping out onto the street. In his head, Bob was singing, “How do you do, my name is trouble -”

The cars behind them and in the neighboring lane honked at him, but he muttered, “Shut up,” and the car horns all suddenly died. Coincidence? No, probably not.

He walked right up to the side of the Org van, idling at the extra long stoplight, and wondered where he should start. So many minds to wring dry, so little time.