7

He, Naomi, and Giles piled in Giles’s eminently sensible car, and started the drive down to San Pedro. Because traffic promised to make it long, they decided that everyone would get a half hour to listen to the kind of music they liked on the car stereo. Giles went first, as he was the driver, and they listened to opera, which almost killed them. Naomi’s choice was Coldplay, as innocuous as all get out, but it still annoyed Giles. So when his choice of music came around - Ladytron - he got dirty looks in the rearview mirror. Goddamn it, it was a good album! And it wasn’t punk or heavy metal or something.

Once again, they parked away from the site of the battle, but this time they had an even better reason for doing it - they were meeting up with people. They waited at the docks, generally in view of part of the estate, at least to them; it would be nearly impossible for anyone to see them from the house or grounds, unless they were in one of the trees.

The first ones to show up - with a slight “whoomph!” - was Rags and a woman who must have been Sylvia, because he didn’t recognize her, and she didn’t exactly smell Human. But she looked so Human Bren wondered if Angel was having a bit of fun with them.

She looked Asian, maybe thirty five, on the short side of average, neither thin nor fat but somewhere in between, her body so linear she seemed to have no curves at all. She was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, no jacket, petite in proportions, neither wildly attractive or horribly ugly; she was just average, almost straight down the middle. So she was supposed to be some big fucking deal? She really didn’t look it.

And poor Rags looked like he’d drank too much, or not enough, fine lines bunching in the corners of his crystal eyes while bags appeared beneath. He was wearing black surfer jams (it was still too goddamn hot) and a very thin white “wife beater” tank top, all of which showed off the extent of his tattoos. He not only had entire “sleeves” of twining black vines up and down his arms, but they ran down both his legs as well, ending on the tops of his currently bare feet. There were dark shadows beneath his tank top, more tattoos, although they looked like they had different shapes. Were the tattoos necessary to his “high priest” position? Rags had never been clear on that, and he hadn’t seen anyone else amongst the staff with tattoos, although the vine theme was a common one in the motif of the church itself. Still, he knew there were special protection “runes”, ones he didn’t quite get, and it was possible that Rags got them put on his body either out of need or devoti! on.

Sylvia was terse and not very warm, giving the impression she really didn’t want to know Angel’s Human friends. As it was, all the awkwardness was broken when Helga showed up. Even though she couldn’t get too close to the place due to the security system and guards, she had done some reconnaissance and had some news to report. Hel wasn’t part of the original game plan, but she overheard him talking to Rags in the bar, and offered her services. Angel figured one more person couldn’t hurt, especially Helga, the world’s toughest bartender. She was wearing her bar outfit, a black tank top and loose black linen pants - all of which made for an excellent reconnaissance outfit, he realized in retrospect - and a big tank on her back, which must have been her weapon. As she explained where there attack would have to come from, and where the “weaknesses” in the defenses had to be deliberate, Giles gave her a funny look. “You’ve done this before,” he said, a question that wasn’t ! a question.

She shrugged. “Not this in particular, but I’ve attacked well defended compounds before. One is pretty much like all the others.”

Bren could tell Giles wanted to pursue this, but he was glad he didn’t, as he didn’t know how Giles would take Helga’s former “career” as an assassin for a New York based demon mob. It wasn’t like that was a choice she made or anything - family obligations and all - but Giles had enough problems working with Logan, and he hadn’t been an assassin by choice either (although his involved brainwashing, meaning it was even less his choice than Helga’s). Then again, maybe the fact that she was a demon, and assassinated other demons, would be more acceptable to him. What did Watchers do but kill demons?

Angel and the Sisters finally showed up as the last rays of the sun sunk below the horizon, the sky turning a deep, smog induced dark crimson (and that stupid mnemonic ran through his head: “Red sky at night, sailor’s delight” - what did that even mean?), and Helga showed him the stake out diagram she’d sketched on the back of a bar napkin, and told Angel that even though there was an obvious security gap on the right flank of the property, it was too obvious - in her opinion, it was a trap. She wanted to storm the property through the front gate, as she didn’t think they’d be expecting that. Angel considered it a moment, and agreed.

As they started off, Rags disappeared, as he needed to get something (he’d come back; if he didn’t, Hel would cut off his tab forever), and Sylvia stayed to the back of the group. Hel patted him on the back, and asked, “You okay, kid?”

What, was it plastered on his forehead? “Yeah, I’m good. Just a little nervous.”

Her look was deeply skeptical, but she must have figured now was not the time to talk about it. “Wanna come with me? I’m gonna sneak around.”

“No, that’s okay. I’m part of the advance team here.”

“Are we expecting someone else?”

“Huh?”

“You keep looking around.”

“Just waiting for Rags,” he lied. Maybe Kier wouldn’t show up; that would be good. Maybe it was too close to sundown for him to be out yet. He was a new vampire - well, newish - and probably didn’t know yet how close he could cut it, unlike Angel and the Weirds, who’d had a century or so to work that out.

Helga snorted in disbelief. “Yeah, like Rags would ever move that fast. Not even during happy hour. “ Something about the look she was giving him suggested she didn’t quite believe him. But he was just being paranoid, right?

She patted him on the back, and told him, “Keep your mind in the game; don’t worry about anyone else. Lose your focus, and it could be fatal.” She walked off, into the growing dark, and he wondered if it was a certain look on his face. He let out his demon side, just in case. It was safer anyways.

A long drive led up to huge wrought iron black gates, and even though Naomi shorted out the electronic lock and the cameras and other security tech up front, the gate was still firmly locked. The Sisters walked ahead of them, and in unison kicked either side of the gate. The lock broke with a loud, metallic snap, and pieces of it fell to the asphalt as the gates swung open and the girls just walked on in. “Hello -”

“- anybody -”

“- home? We’re -”

“- here to -”

“- spread the news -”

“- about Scientology.”

“We don’t want to scare them off,” Angel mock scolded them.

Bren couldn’t help but laugh. He had no idea the Weirds even had a sense of humor, but judging from their wardrobe, maybe that should have been obvious.

The house on the estate was huge; it was definitely a mansion, huge and slightly rococo, with fake pillars and a huge front porch that could hold an entire squadron of cops. It was empty now, but Bren’s flesh crawled - someone was watching them.

There had been dim lights leading up the driveway, but now huge spotlights came on near the house, illuminating the grounds in a bright flash of white that seemed to be the equivalent of sunlight, and made Angel and the Sisters briefly cringe. “I thought you were coming around back,” a voice called out through a megaphone. There, on the porch, was a man with a paunch , dressed in khaki pants and a white long sleeved shirt, the sleeves rolled up and the collar open. He had hair so pale blond it was almost invisible, and his eyes were so pale blue they were almost grey. “Not that it isn’t nice to see you, Angel. We’ve been waiting a long time for this, in fact.”

“Who’s we?” he shouted back. Everyone froze where they were, as it seemed safest.

People started coming around from the back grounds. People who mainly smelled like vampires, only they rattled and light reflected off of them as they moved, and he could see why - they were wearing shirts of chainmail, just the shirt, a fine mesh that gleamed and clinked, and there were dozens upon dozens of vampires in full game face, men and women, including, much to his shock, the busty redheaded vamp who broke his neck back in that mausoleum quite a while ago. He felt his gut twist, and wondered if it was an omen of some sort; his mother was dead, and now here was the woman who had “killed” him. Maybe death was trying to send him a message that some people were destined to die, no matter how hard they tried to hang on.

“You think you shut down one production studio, you shut down the industry?” The man continued through his megaphone. He had a very faint German accent that sounded like an affectation more than something real. This must have been Uli, the director, which also explained his megaphone. “Actually, you helped us out by getting rid of some of the competition, and for that we thank you. But we wanted to send you a message, Angel, and that is we will not tolerate an attack on our own.”

The vampires in chainmail filled both sides of the front lawn, snarling at them, and he muttered to Giles, “Stakes aren’t going to get through the mail, are they?”

“That is the point of them,” Giles replied dryly.

Bren slowly reached for his gun, aware that a bullet wouldn’t kill a vampire, but a head shot would slow them down a great deal.

“Oh, and these lights are run on solar batteries, in case your electric friend gets any ideas.”

As if on cue, the lights flickered and died. Naomi was crouched down, hands on the ground, and electric blue energy limned her hands. “Doesn’t matter,” she said. “It’s all energy.”

“Hey scarecrow,” Helga said, appearing on the left side of the lawn. She hefted what looked like a small hose up in her hands, and aimed the nozzle at that group of vampires. “How ‘bout a little fire?” She turned something on the nozzle, and a stream of fire vomited from the hose and splattered all over the first row of vampires, who screamed and flailed and evoked pure chaos. “Wow, those things aren’t fireproof, huh?”

What kind of woman owned her own flamethrower? Well, Bob was a weapons dealer, so maybe that explained everything, if simply her being Helga didn’t.

The vampires on the other side of the lawn bellowed a war cry and swarmed towards them, some producing weapons of their own (some stakes, some knives, some swords - no guns, which was a good thing), and a bolt of electricity shot out and knocked down a good chunk of the ones in the middle. Giles pulled something out of his pocket and said something in Latin before lobbing a small round object into the swarm. It seemed to burst in a huge flash of achingly bright light with no noise at all, except the subsequent screams of vampires spontaneously dusting - the “sunlight” spell he was talking about with Angel before the Sisters showed up.

He took aim and shot a couple of vamps in the head, making them go down like Anna Nicole Smith on a bender, but stuff started whizzing past his head, and he didn’t know what it was until one sliced into his temple on its way past. Shit, they had crossbows too? No fucking fair!

The Sisters were cutting through the crowd of vampires like chainsaws, Angel suicidally following them into the melee, as Helga continued to blast other vamps with gouts of flame, making them burn into dust. Giles had taken out his sword and was fighting with some of the vampires, and simply hacking the heads off others, dusting them. Bren kept looking for the redhead, but he didn’t see her; perhaps Giles or Helga had gotten her.

He saw movement out of the corner of his eye and turned, thinking someone was trying to flank them, but it was Sylvia, crouching down on the driveway. He thought for a moment that maybe she’d taken an arrow or something, but suddenly her back seemed to … bubble, and huge leathery wings suddenly popped out, black veins like cables visible through thin black skin as her wings spread out to nine feet in length. The rest of her changed soon, and her clothes didn’t rip; they disappeared. What, had it been a part of her? She changed all over; suddenly she had granite like greenish black skin and a lumpy face with a distended jaw and a forehead that seemed to bulge out like a shelf, her eyes glowing embers beneath the shadow of her brow. She didn’t look remotely humanoid now; her feet were like huge eagle talons, and her hands ended in gnarled claws. Even the tip of her wings seemed to have small claws at the very end, ones that flexed as she stood up and shot straight! up into the air, making a noise that sounded like the combination of a roar of a lion and the caw of a crow. She was much larger than she was in her Human form, maybe seven feet in length, and she swooped down, a dark, lethal shadow, that grabbed clutches of vampires as arrows bounced harmlessly off her skin, and the vampires dropped screaming to the ground as she swooped up, their chainmail shirts still caught in her claws.

So that was a gargoyle. Neat. No wondered she was supposed to be a big noise.

He was out of bullets so he popped the empty clip, but before he could slam a new clip in, a vampire lunged at him. He turned aside, slamming him on the back of the head with the gun butt, but even as he ate driveway, another came in and tossed off a kick he saw coming and blocked with his forearm, throwing a kick of his own that caught the vamp straight in the nuts (hey, they were hopelessly outnumbered; dirty fighting was allowed). He went down, but some vamp bitch who still had her chainmail threw a punch that caught him on the back of the head and sent him reeling.

He hadn’t seen Kier yet, but the crowd was so large - and half of it was now on fire - it was almost impossible to tell if he was here or not. Whether he was or wasn’t seemed kind of irrelevant now; it had clearly been a trap. They had been prepared for them.

Which meant Kier had set them up. Damn it. Was it too much to ask that he could meet a nice guy in this town who didn‘t want to kill him?

****

He owed it to Marc and Faith to fill them in, but he almost didn’t want to.

Yes, there had been more going on than they realized, but he still hadn’t expected what he was told. He was torn between being sick and being angry, and had to settle for a little of both.

He got back in the car as the light went to green and traffic resumed, a knotty tangle that guaranteed they’d cover five miles within the next hour. Faith and Marc both looked at him expectantly as he slammed the door. “Well?” Marc prompted.

Logan sighed, his head not so much pounding but pulsing, not a painful feeling but an odd and uncomfortable one. “The mutant we’re after is a guy named Jeremy Kimball, but there’s some debate among the grunts whether he’s a natural mutant or an experiment. Either way, he has a problem related to his genetic structure - namely, it’s in constant flux, and to survive he has to “borrow” other peoples’.”

“Like Rogue?” Marc wondered.

“In a way, Except when he borrows other people’s DNA, they get his damage. They die so he can live. And he’s in decline, so he has to borrow more and more, faster and faster. They believe that eventually he’ll have to kill someone every fifteen minutes to keep from total collapse.”

Faith hissed under her breath. “Jesus. And some of ‘em think the Organization did this to him on purpose? What for?”

“It made him the perfect killer,” Marc replied, his tone of voice edged with disgust. “He doesn’t have to be brainwashed to do it, or blackmailed, or paid. He has to kill if he wants to keep living.”

She shook her head. “That’s just sick.”

“How do the drugs come into it?” Marc asked.

“It seemed to interfere briefly with Kimball’s absorption process. The problem was it was a major league psychotropic that seriously altered body chemistry, so the soldiers were only to shoot up with it if engagement with the target was immediately eminent. So we can assume that those guys who tried to reenact the end of The Wild Bunch with the Barstow PD shot up the drug in hopes they’d get him, but when they didn’t immediately, they went all loopy.”

Marc grunted in ill humor, while Faith shook her head in disgust. “So how do we find this guy?” She wondered.

Logan hated to do it, but he was forced to shrug. “They had no idea. They don’t think he’s going anywhere, just running to a big city where there’s lots of people, and a few who go missing won’t be noticed so much.”

“Shit.” Faith tapped her fingers on her leg, and there was something in her body posture that suggested unease. Even though he told Bob he did not want to read her or Marc’s mind - there were some privacy issues that should not be crossed between friends, no matter what Xavier and Bob thought - he knew what she was going to say before she said it. “We’re gonna have to kill him, aren’t we? Is there a … cure for his condition?”

“Not that anyone’s aware of.”

“We don’t really have a choice here,” Marc commiserated. “He’s going to keep killing ‘cause he has to, and if the Org get him back, they have an unparalleled killing machine. If we can figure out where he is, I brought my sniper rifle. I can drop him and we’ll be done.”

“There’s another way,” Logan said, and almost couldn’t believe he was saying it. But he was doing it for Faith, not for himself. As far as he was concerned, he’d killed too many civilians; Kimball was better off dead. Still, he didn’t want to pull her into this since it bothered her so much. Kimball should get down on his knees and grovel at Faith’s feet, as she was the only one keeping him alive.

Marc looked at him sharply in the rearview mirror. “And what way is that?”

“Bob can take care of him. He thinks he can also find him.”

Bob, who had been singing quietly to himself in the back of his mind, finally spoke up. *Yeah, but I told you it would hurt.*

Bob told him he got enough of a sense of Kimball in the minds of the grunts to possibly track him down, but to do it took a lot of energy, and it would probably be a little “damaging” to his “frame”. Logan didn’t honestly care; he just wanted to get this over with, stop this abomination before he hurt anyone else to save his measly skin. “Give me a second,” he told them, closing his eyes.

He had no words for what actually occurred. There was a feeling like a ball of fire burning its way through his cerebral cortex, and images flashed inside his eyelids faster than he could focus on any of them. But he did get the impression he was looking at the city from high above the ground, but not airplane height - maybe bird height, within the airspace of a sparrow. Streets flashed by as rivers of hard gray, people and cars a blurs, the occasional plant and tree a far more colorful smear. Logan couldn’t really feel himself, although he had the impression he was grabbing on to the side of his head, as if trying to block out a disturbing noise, and he was pounding the heel of his right foot against the floor, as if trying to stomp the pain away. It did hurt, but so much and so strangely his body had no way to correctly interpret it; the pain didn’t even imprint on his nerves, just slid away like oil filled with shards of broken glass, slicing on its way down.

And then this mental/astral projected slideshow stopped at what looked like a mall parking lot, the sky a bloody, smog occluded red. He was there; he knew he was there. Bob could feel him, and so too could Logan, although he didn’t understand how. No matter - Bob had a location, and that was all he needed.

“ - gan!” he heard as he opened his eyes, Faith shouting his name as she shook him. “Can you hear me?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, jerking his arm out of her grip reflexively. “I’m fine.” He felt sweat pouring down his lips and chin, and from the look of wide eyed horror on Faith’s face, he suddenly knew it wasn’t sweat.

“Oh shit,” she gasped, looking around for something. She grabbed the bottom edge of his shirt, muttering, “It’s fucked anyways,” and ripped off a portion that was mostly not bloody. “Tilt your head back,” she ordered, wadding up the scrap of fabric and shoving it under his nose. He did as she said, mainly because he felt as fragile as spun glass, full of heat and nothingness, and he could taste his own blood, hot and metallic and salty, running down his throat.

Bob sighed. *You’re too damn stubborn for your own good.*

He wasn’t telling him something he didn’t know.

“What happened?” she asked him, still holding the wad of torn cotton beneath his nose. He didn’t even need to look at it to realize it was already sodden; Faith’s pained look of concern told him everything he needed to know.

“It’s just an after-effect,” he said, and wondered if it was a lie. He really didn’t know. His brain continued that weird pulsing, as if was breathing, expanding to push up against the walls of his skull and retreating once again. That wasn’t a feeling he’d miss anytime soon. “We’re gonna go,” he told them, glancing at Marc in the mirror, shifting to look at Faith. “We’ll be right back.”

Her brows lowered severely over her eyes, skepticism and concern and rage mingling in equal measure. “What? You can’t go anywhere. You got blood gushing out your nose like you’ve severed an artery, and so many blood vessels ruptured in your eyes they look like they’re bleeding too.”

“You know me; I heal. I’ll be okay.” He touched her face, fingers sliding along her cheek, leaving a small smear of fresh blood. His? Must have been. She looked severely unconvinced, but he didn’t want a further discussion; he mentally commanded Bob to take them to Kimball.

Teleportation with Bob was different. It wasn’t a violent thing like it was with Rags, a forced tear in reality that spit them out somewhere else. No, everything seemed to part for him, willingly and gently, reality opening up and welcoming them like they belonged everywhere and every when at once, a natural part of the time stream. In a single second, he went from looking at Faith while seated in the back of Marc’s rental Jag to standing in a strip mall parking lot somewhere east of Pasadena, the wind full of exhaust and smoke; the fire season had started. It seemed ironic somehow. Nature was destroying itself, following the lead of the people within it.

Logan searched the parking lot, sniffing the air and parsing it for a familiar Human scent, as Bob sang in his head, *The world will make a dream and a prayer out of our bones - *

A woman walking to her car cast a funny look at him, and he supposed in his bloody, torn shirt, his nose gushing blood, he looked quite a sight, like a fight or accident victim. But she didn’t stop walking, and didn’t look at him very long. It was amazing how looking like you needed help made you instantly invisible to most people.

Kimball was hiding behind a huge ass Lincoln Navigator, watching the woman as she strolled to her Range Rover; his look wasn’t so much curious as predatory. “It’s over, Jeremy,” he told him.

He jumped as if he got a cattle prod in the spine, and spun around with a sort of panicky desperation in his face and posture. He was a man in his early thirties with a lean but soft body, brown hair like mud splattered haphazardly on his scalp, his eyes the color of water. He smelled like cancer and fear, anger and paranoia and dried blood. “You - you’re one of them,“ he said, approaching him with his hand out like he wanted to shake hands. But that wasn’t what he wanted to do.

“Freeze,” he said, and Jeremy did, the look in his eyes suggesting that he didn’t understand why he couldn’t move anymore. “I’m not Organization; I’m worse. I know you can’t help but do what you do, but I still want to kill you. Don’t you think when thirty people have to die for you to get through the day, it’s time to give it up? Didn’t that ever occur to you?”

Tears brimmed in his eyes, and Bob let up on him just enough to speak. “I - I don’t wanna die,” he croaked, the first tears spilling over the lids, sliding down his cheek. They were tinged pinkish with blood; the genetic breakdown was starting once more.

Logan was repulsed by his selfishness, his willingness to kill another person to give himself another fifteen minutes of life, but Bob reminded him that the survival instinct was innate, inborn in everything, from the highest mammal to the lowest virus. *And just because you were willing to kill yourself for less doesn’t mean anyone else would.*

Logan grimaced at the reminder of his own weakness, of his own fragility and failure, and wondered what he was going to do with this pathetic wretch of a man. And then what he was going to do with himself.

8

Brendan found himself overwhelmed quickly, but he knew from experience - and from the hand to hand combat advice of Logan, Saddiq, and Helga (they all agreed on this point) - that you couldn’t panic. You had to keep fighting, until you cleared a spot or until you went down for good, but the key was you couldn’t give up. The moment you gave up was the moment you lost, and Logan could tell him several real life anecdotes to prove it. Of course he could heal from anything up to anti-ballistic missile fire, so he didn’t think that was a fair comparison.

He dropped the empty gun and pulled the knife out of its sheath, holding the hilt in his palm and letting the blade stick out between his fingers, a bargain basement replication of one of Logan’s claws, and as a vampire came in to throw a punch, he dodged it and mimicked a Logan move he’d seen a dozen times before, slashing across the vampire’s throat. It was one of their adamantium knives, but cutting off a head with a knife took more strength than he had realized, and what he had really done was slashed open his throat. But the vampire was shocked enough to stagger back wide eyed, and Bren turned, lashing out blindly with the knife, cutting a few vamps across the face and eyes, making them back off.

An arrow punched through his shoulder, a sharp pain that made him hiss, and he buried the knife in the soft midsection of a vampire whose chainmail shirt had ridden up, and he tore sideways, eviscerating him. No, it couldn’t kill ‘em, but damn if it wasn’t debilitating.

Someone grabbed him by the arrow in his shoulder and twisted, a pain so sharp and sudden he couldn’t help but scream, and then he felt cold hands twist his arm high behind his back, the strain so great in his muscle and tendons he dropped the knife. “Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?” a voice purred in his ear.

Oh holy shit, it was the redhead.

He felt cold steel pressed up against his own throat, and while he was positive it wasn’t adamantium, a slashed throat would kill him good. He could feel her breasts pressing up against his back, enough that he knew they were fake (and she wasn’t wear mail - too bad he hadn’t seen her first). “Oh yes, didn’t I kill you already?”

“Must’ve been someone else,” he said through gritted teeth. He could elbow her, but the problem was she could just rip the knife aside while falling backwards, and that would be that. If he was Logan or Saddiq, he wouldn’t care; if he was Helga, he’d have a spare tail to disarm her. But he was only himself, and therefore fucking useless.

She started dragging him off to the side, heading towards the house, the blade of the knife starting to bit into his neck. “Let’s see how much your friends value you, huh?”

She was going to use him as a bargaining tool then? Get everyone to drop their weapons? They probably would, and then they’d all be killed. He sighed, aware that he had been right about the redhead being a premonition of death. He blinked back tears as he realized he was just going to have to take one for the team. It was him or all of them, and it wasn’t a choice at all.

He could see what he had to do in his mind. In one of the self-defense classes at Xavier’s, Logan had shown them a couple of different ways to get out of an arm lock, although it only applied to when they didn’t have a weapon pressed against your throat. With his perfect memory he could see it with crystal clarity, and he hoped that Helga burned this bitch to ground before the night was through.

He slammed his head back hard into her face, and slipped his foot behind her ankle, tripping her, his eyes closed as he braced for the feel of the blade slitting open his throat.