14

Logan just let the information wash over him, trying not to follow it too much. Sometimes it was better to just let it all pour out and sift through it once it was done. And in this case, it was probably the only thing that could be done.

Vogel was attempting to double cross the mob.

You had to admire his chutzpah, even though it was an idiotic thing to do. Yes he was making Hype, a synthetic version of an actual mutant hormone that seemed to cause strength mutations, but the mob didn’t pay him what he thought it was worth. He made some tentative inquiries, and found a higher bidder: a group calling themselves the Freedom League. They paid him double to keep selling the stuff to the mob, and to never find a way around the more deadly aspects of the hormone effects on normals. Since they were paying him so well, he had no problem with that, mainly because it meant he was getting paid hand over fist for not doing work.

“Who the fuck are the Freedom League?” Logan finally asked. He just couldn’t take it anymore.

“They’re a new mutant group that rose up in the vacuum created by the dissolution of the Brotherhood,” Mystique said. He couldn’t tell if she was still under Bob’s influence or not. “They’re based in England.”

“Are you workin’ for them now?”

She gave him a dirty look. “I told you, I don’t work with anyone anymore. I’m solo.”

Bob looked at her. “Who’s financing them?”

She shook her head in a way that suggested she wished to shrug, but couldn’t. “If I knew, they’d be dead.”

That was either unfettered honesty, or Bob showing his hold on her was still complete.

“Where’s the toxin come into this?” Logan asked. “Was that a hoax?”

Bob looked back at Vogel, and answered for him. “No, it was real. He was trying to play both sides. This guy is a complete amoral prick.”

Logan was sure there was something he was missing here. “Why would the Freedom League want him to push Hype? Mutants would be blamed for it.”

“In the short term,” Mystique said. “But the Humans who used it would still die.”

“They were probably playing a numbers game,” Bob offered, showing he still had a knack for thinking like a bad guy. “Sure, there’d be political mishegosh, but everyone who used it would die off. They were probably banking on it becoming the new creatine, in spite of the obvious risk.”

“Nobody ever went broke banking on stupidity,” Faith noted, with some obvious disappointment.

Logan pondered that, how people could be so lethally stupid (and yes, they could be), but he still felt like there were big holes here. He looked at Mystique, and realized she was responsible for that. “Why did you want Vogel?”

“You were right about her wanting to horde the Hype,” Bob told him. “It was a big fuck you to the Freedom League, and a way for her to gain some capital.”

That made sense, although he still felt like there were some holes here. But why wouldn’t he? These odd contradictions seemed to follow Mystique around like a bad smell.

Bob looked at Mystique - okay, no, looked through her - and gasped. “Holy shit! Really? Huh. I guess that proves even sharks have feelings.”

“What?”

“She also wanted to know where Svetlana was.”

That name again. “Who’s Svetlana?”

“Vogel’s daughter,” Bob told him, still looking fairly surprised. If you could surprise a god as jaded as Bob, that was something. “She was involved with Federov, which included Mystique as Federov. She actually grew to like her. She tried to track her down, but she seemed to disappear a few months after Operation Overlord went tits up.” Bob turned back to Vogel and asked him, “Where’s Svetlana?”

He had just opened his mouth to speak when Bob’s eyes widened in horror and anger. “Motherfucker!” he exclaimed, forcing Vogel to shut up. “Your own daughter - you killed your own fucking daughter?!”

Logan sighed and ran a hand through his hair. He wasn’t really surprised. A man capable of torture was more than likely capable of murder. But of your own kid? Damn, that was harsh.

“Why?” Faith asked. She didn’t seem surprised, but then again, why would she be? She didn’t talk about her parents a lot, but he’d gotten the firm impression that they had treated her pretty badly. She seemed to assume most parents were bad, and that good ones were the exception to the rule.

“She was curious about Federov’s sudden disappearance. She began to make inquiries. He told her to back off, she didn’t, so he gave the order to have her killed.” Bob was glaring at Vogel, blue energy starting to bleed into the whites of his eyes in his rage. It was probably a good thing Vogel was out of it, because he’d have shit his pants if he had any awareness of the deep crap he was in. Bob grabbed Vogel by the throat and slammed him up against the car, but he didn’t react, because he couldn’t. Bob’s fingers were digging into his pale throat, and the blue was starting to bleed out into the air. “For no reason. You had no reason to kill her, but you did, because your fucking research and the security it was supposed to provide you was more important. You amoral fucker.”

Faith nudged Logan’s shoulder, and leaned in to whisper, “Should we do something?”

That was a good question, but it had an easy answer. “He’s a god. If I understand it correctly, he’s the only one who actually has permission to decide who lives or dies.”

Bob held him by the throat for a full minute, obviously deciding what to do with him. And after a moment he seemed to rein in his temper and let him go, but again, Vogel didn’t notice. “If I kill him, it’ll be too quick and kind. He deserves worse.”

Logan could totally understand that. But he had an answer for him too. Not too shabby from a guy who’s bell was still ringing a bit from getting shot in the head with an adamantium bullet. “Give him back to the mob. You know what they do to guys that try and screw ‘em over? It ain’t pretty. And it’s probably what he deserves.”

Bob shook his head. “That’s just cruel. Congrats. You‘d have made an awesome super villain, mate.”

“Don’t remind me.”

So it was decided to let Vogel go and return to his mobster masters with the ability to create Hype suddenly and irrevocably stripped from him. (Bob told him he would no longer remember how to make the stuff, and it was as simple as that - he no longer had anything to offer the mob or the Freedom League.) Before that, Vogel would turn over every document he had about Hype, and any samples he may have had left, over to Bob, who also said he’d make sure and turn the mob’s stockpile of the stuff into Kool-Aid. (Faith teased him about that, asking, “Isn’t that supposed to be water into wine?” Which led Bob to tell her, “Come on! Any third rate magician could do that! Crush some grapes and leave it out to ferment. Big whoop. But turning synthetic mutant steroids into Berry Blast Kool-Aid? That’s talent.”)

He made Mystique tell them where she’d hidden her Hype stash, and told her she’d leave here, check into a cheap motel under the name Elizabeth Borden, and sleep for twenty hours. When she woke up, all she’d know is that Logan and Faith had figured out the deal, stole the Hype, and let Vogel return to the mob. She was also told to let it go and not seek revenge, although Logan wondered if that would take. It seemed like a tall order.

The really funny thing about his? If Mystique had simply told him in the beginning that this was all about an old girlfriend, he’d have been happy to help her. It was the most Human thing he’d ever heard about her.

In a theoretical sense, things were over, but they weren’t really, or at least Logan didn’t feel that way. He felt like there was something he still had to do. It wasn’t difficult to figure out. As soon as Bob was done with Vogel and had sent Mystique on her way, Bob - who had finally put on the rest of his wet suit, although now he looked like some weird stripper (“Did someone order a skin diver?”) - looked at him with a raised eyebrow, and said, “You really expect me to just stand there, mate?”

He rolled his eyes. He wouldn’t be Bob if he didn’t jump ahead of things. “Do you mind not doing that?”

“Uh, yeah.” He gave him a big grin.

Faith looked at him expectantly. “What are you planning to do now? Should I see if we have a rocket launcher in the trunk?”

“Ooh, those are so cool,” Bob said.

Logan ignored him. “I just want to give a warning, that’s all.”

“A warning,” she repeated dubiously. “Funny how your warnings usually end up with body counts.”

“That’s why I’m bringing Bob along. No one locks an area down quite like he does.”

“Well, Marc gives it a yeoman’s try for a Human,” Bob offered. “It helps that he could shoot the pecker off a fruit fly at five hundred paces.”

Why oh why did he ever take Bob seriously? If he had learned anything at all over the years, it was yes, the gods actually were crazy. They were all completely batshit.

And that explained humanity so perfectly he decided he’d rather not think about it right now.

****

Yes, mobsters were just regular people, albeit with divergent moral philosophies. Even if you never saw The Sopranos, you knew that. They weren’t aliens. They were Humans, but … different. They had no problem killing people to further their businesses or personal interests. They were well socialized sociopaths.

Still, Logan found it absurd and almost kind of depressing to pop into the middle of Radinovich’s living room and find him slumped on his sofa in his boxer shorts, which were tattered and a kind of off blue that suggested they’d been once overly bleached in the wash, and a stained undershirt that was almost more yellow than white, and didn’t cover the beige dome of a beer belly hanging out over his shorts. He was eating a hot dog and watching some kind of “ultimate fighting” program, with a couple of white muscle guys in shorts locked in a cage, beating the crap out of each other in what seemed to Logan a studiously delicate and yet strangely intimate fashion. (But then again, maybe that was just his ego talking - still, he bet if he was thrown in that cage right now, he could knock them both out in under a minute. He earned his fucking “king of the cage” title, damn it. He was never fancy, but he could knock the shit out of any normal Human, no matter how bulked up they were.) Bob clearly knew what he as thinking, as he began singing, “I got to box you for the money. Said it might end reeling and stumbling …” Logan flipped him the bird over his shoulder.

Radinovich, current head of the Russian mafia on the Pacific side of Canada, looked at them both with open mouthed shock, some of his hot dog falling from his lips and landing on his belly before tumbling to his lap. He opened his mouth to say something, maybe call for help (he wasn’t alone in his almost palatial house), but Bob stopped singing and said, “Oh no, Pete, you’re just gonna sit there and listen.”

Bob was still barefoot and in his wetsuit, so he could imagine that Radinovich really didn’t get him at all, and might have been a little freaked out, ‘cause wearing nothing but a wetsuit into someone‘s house was a little freaky. Bob had conjured up a shirt for Logan to wear - it did seem funny dropping in on a capo’s house without a shirt on - but Bob, being his usual Bob self, kept conjuring up silly and stupid t-shirts for him. Faith convinced him to go with the t-shirt that had “Wolverine” plastered across the front in black letters, and underneath it a cartoon figure of a lunging man with silver claws coming out of his hands. It was a cartoon version of him, although he didn’t recognize himself at all, and the X-Men’s leather outfit almost looked vinyl or spandex as opposed to leather. (If that was true, then you’d seriously be able to see his junk. While it might momentarily distract an opponent, it would also provide a way too tempting target to hit.) Logan found it insulting, almost humiliting - he was not a fucking cartoon character! - but Faith laughed and said it was “cute”. She asked Bob to make one for her, not just a Wolverine but a Faith, and he did, giving Faith a t-shirt that had her cartoon imagine depicted in a slightly more sensuous way, lurking in a dark alley with a playful smile on her face and a stake in her hand. She loved it. Bob claimed a cartoon version of him would be nothing more than a fuzzy blue spot since he was technically an energy being, but Logan felt that was a total cop out.

Radinovich kept trying to talk, but no sound was coming out as he opened and closed his mouth. He looked down at himself too, as if unable to figure out why he couldn’t move. (Well, duh - Bob told him he was just going to sit there and listen, and that was all he could do.) Logan walked right up to him so it was impossible for him to ignore him. “I don’t need to introduce myself, do I? I didn’t think so. I just want you to know I no longer want Vogel. He’s fucked you good, and you never even realized it. Keep him. You deserve him.” Logan then thrust his fist forward, as if throwing a punch, and Radinovich jerked his head back, but Logan froze his hand several inches from his face and popped one claw instead, letting it out slowly until the blade came within a couple of centimeters of touching his right eye. The fear stink on him was awful; he probably wanted to crawl over the sofa, but he could only move his head, and now he couldn’t even do that if he didn’t want to poke out his own eye. “But get the fck out of Vancouver. You get me? Pack it up and leave. I don’t really give a fuck where you go, but if I hear you’re trafficking in kids or mutant killin’ again, I’ll be comin’ for ya, no matter where you are. And I’ll take your head, and the head of every single stupid shit cannon fodder you try and throw in my path. Pissing me off will only make it worse for you.”

Bob was singing again, but so low and quiet he was almost background noise, an eerie effect amplified by his choice of song. “A fire to feed, a self to bleed, strip the soul, kill them all …”

“Remember what happened to the Takabes and the Yashidas? Do you really want to be the next name on my list?” Logan stared down into his one visible eye until he saw the terrible panic and surrender deep within; the knowledge that he was utterly helpless. He might have armed guards in the next room, but they may as well have been a million miles away. There was no help for him, and to lie was to die right now. He had Logan Yashida and his fucked up singing friend in his living room, and somehow they were holding all the cards.

Logan nodded when he saw the acquiescence he wanted, and tried not to wince at the smell and sound of piss dribbling onto the carpet. “I want you all out of my city by tomorrow. If not, we’re comin’ back to speed the process up, and believe me, you won’t like it. I want you to spread it around, as loudly and widely as possible, that this town isn’t friendly to your kind. That any criminal organization that wants to set up in British Columbia is gonna hafta deal with Logan Yashida. Got it? You let ‘em know I haven’t gone soft in my old age. Oh yeah, that reminds me - this is for those kids at the Tea Room.” Logan slashed down violently, where Radinovich’s hand was frozen in mid-air pulling the hot dog away from his mouth. Logan lopped off most of the bun and his pinkie, which flew to the carpet and momentarily rolled, while the bun fragment bounced in a truly unappetizing way. He was afraid Bob might object to this, but after the way he flipped on Vogel when he realized he murdered his daughter, he figure not. After all, this was kids they were talking about.

Radinovich made a high pitched squeaking noise and his eyes bulged hideously in a round face that bore the marks and scars of a hood’s life - he probably fought his way up from the rough streets of Moscow, only to end up this, a fat sack of shit couch potato watching vaguely homoerotic blood sports in a McMansion near Burnaby. How the mighty had fallen … although he was never mighty. Roughly competent? Unbelievably lucky until this moment and place in time? Hard to say, and frankly, Logan didn’t give a shit. The pinkie disappeared, courtesy of Bob: getting it reattached would fuck the meaning of his getting mutilated in the first place. “You deserve worse. I was gonna take your entire fucking hand, but Bob convinced me this was funnier. You know a lot of Yakuza get fingers cut off when they fuck up? Explain that to your men. And every time you look at the hand, think of me, asshole, and remember I’m good for my word. The next time, I take it all.”

He stepped away from the pathetic form of Radinovich, who was pale from fear (it was too early to ascribe it to blood loss), and probably wondering how his life had taken such a dramatic turn for the worse. He was the king predator, the top of the food chain … but he was motherfucking Wolverine. Since when did wolverines ever pay attention to the food chain? There was something to be said for belligerently refusing to accept your assigned slot in life.

He walked back beside Bob, ready to go, but told Radinovich one last thing. “Run while you can. ‘Cause the next time I see you, I’m the only one walking away.”

Bob waved at him like a beauty pageant contestant, gave him a big smile, and said, “Consider yourself lucky I didn’t turn you into a chicken.”

Now those were words to live by.

There was nothing to do but wait now, and see what new shitstorm touched down.