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All in that instant, Logan remembered back to the first day, the first moment that he met Vic.

They were stationed in Italy. Vic had been complaining that the tattoo he’d blown fifty bucks on faded away by the next morning. Logan had a disappointing morning waiting for the post. Mariko still hadn’t returned any of his letters, and he realized with a heavy heart and sense of irony that it was for the best.

Vic was a man of few words but of many clichés. “The more things change, the more they stay the same, runt. Sometimes their side won. Sometimes they lost. Either way, both men walked away from it all and kept coming back the next day. They saluted fallen comrades and buried their dead. They held the hands of the wounded and winked at pretty girls as they came and went. They wooed them with candy and silk stockings and the promise of a ride downtown in the Army-issue Jeeps on any day sunny enough to ride in the open-topped vehicle and feel the wind in their hair.

His smile had reminded Logan of a shark’s. Vic cut a dash in the snug-fitting uniform and managed not to look incongruously big in it, despite the fact that he stood seven feet tall.

Kinda short fer a soldier, aintcha, runt?

Long enough where it matters, sweet cheeks, he’d shrugged simply.

They developed something of a friendship. Logan made the rest of the men in their unit nervous; Vic scared the shit out of them. Neither of them left families behind. Logan was proud to serve his country; Vic was a man without a country, having slipped through customs and registered by someone desperate to get his muscle on their side and into a uniform.

War made them brothers.

Farouk made them puppets.

Fate made them reach an impasse in a crowded, dank little bar. The whiskey stank mingled with Creed’s own sour, metallic musk.

“Ya in a hurry ta get this over with?”

“Me? Eh,” Logan drawled, shrugging and pulling out a chair that raked across the floor boards with a squeak. “M’thirsty.” He beckoned to an over-made up waitress and nodded to Creed’s empty glass. “One of what he just had, neat.” She looked him up and down and cracked her gum.

“Anything for you, baby.”

“Awwwww, I just know yer gonna take such good care of me,” he flirted back, shooting her a wolfish smile. There was a No Smoking sign above the bar, but Logan figured he had at least three minutes before anyone approached him to put it out. He inhaled the mellow, pungent fumes of his Cuban; Vic’s glittering eyes watched the brief orange flare of Logan’s Zippo lighting the end.

“This where ya tell me ‘no hard feelings,’ Vic?”

“Nope. Ain’t about feelin’s when money’s on the table,” Vic sniffed, leaning back and dangling his arm over the edge of his chair. Logan nodded sagely.

“Right, right.”

“Render unto Caesar,” Vic murmured.

“This ain’t like our old jobs for that fat fucker. Charley don’t owe him anything.” He didn’t believe it. Vic smelled the lie.

“He owes him back his toy. Bet that little chickadee’s grown into a sweet little piece by now. She’s ripe, ain’t she? Mmmmmmm. Still young enough ta turn a man’s head. They ain’t too jaded yet once they’re barely legal like she is right now.” Bile rose in the back of Logan’s throat, and he saw Vic through a red haze of rage. His disgust boiled just beneath his skin. He knew that Vic knew he was getting to him.

“Never knew what Farouk wanted with a kid,” Logan wondered aloud. The waitress cruised back with his drink and thunked it down on a tiny, useless napkin. The table was already scarred with graffiti, some of it carved into its surface.

“Ya’ve never wondered what he wanted with any of ‘em before, runt.” He stared at Logan’s drink enviously, but he was mellow. His nerves and muscles were alert. The run smelled ready to throw down. The bar was crowded, leaving him more open options than he knew what to do with. “Yer gonna feed me some line of bullshit next that ya grew a soul.”

“Yer rentin’ yers.” Logan savored the sting and burn of the whiskey as he tipped it back, finishing it in one smooth gulp.

“Man’s gotta make a livin’.”

“Ya kissed bein’ a man goodbye.”

“Hypocrite,” Farouk muttered through Victor Creed’s lips. Logan felt his hairs stand on end at the change in his voice, inflections and accent. When he met Vic’s amber gaze, there was a foreign light burning in his eyes, and a sardonic quirk to his lips. “You and Victor are cut from the same cloth, my friend. The same passions, the same appetites, and you share his same affinity for complete abandon of your baser impulses. Including murder,” he added.

“Then ya ain’t been payin’ much attention, ya old bloat,” Logan argued. His heart was still rattling in his chest. “I ain’t Vic. I ain’t that easy a mark. Y’see, it ain’t my skull yer squattin’ in right now.” He tapped his temple. “I don’t let just anyone in here. Vic ain’t much of a challenge. Give him a box of free cigarettes, Farouk, and he’ll bend over an’ lick yer boots.”

“So I just haven’t named your poison yet, is that it, Logan?” Victor’s body leaned over the table toward him, and Logan watched his eyes dilate slightly with anticipation. “How much does your soul cost?”

“Yer money’s no good here.”

“You wound me.”

“Nah.” Logan cracked his knuckles, one at a time, savoring the sickening pop of each joint. “That comes later.”

“Crass little man. You know what I’m talking about. Or who I’m talking about.” Logan narrowed his eyes.

“Motherfucker,” he spat under his breath.

“You don’t believe in coincidences or fate, or in anything bigger than yourself, sitting in the background and writing the script, moving the pieces. You have no imagination, Logan, and that’s why you’ll eventually yield. You want the girl. Or should I say, the woman? Comely, isn’t she?”

Logan said nothing. Farouk took the opportunity to bait him some more.

“Now you know how I feel, standing on the other side of the glass, seeing her glory but still being unable to touch her.” He stared down at Vic’s hands. They were broad and thick with long fingers. When he fisted them, they were almost pawlike. He opened them again and flicked Victor’s coarse, thick talons like a woman admiring her new manicure. “That’s how it’s been, til now. Charles got ahead of himself, believing he could stand between myself and the child all these years. We’re too evenly matched. Charles has a firm lock on the horrors of her deepest, oldest memories, whereas I have a lock on her emotions. Particularly her fear. No one understands little Ororo as well as I do,” he mused.

“Ya’ve gotta be fuckin’ joking,” Logan snarled, disgusted. “You an’ Charley…ya’ve been havin’ a showdown in her head??”

“No,” Farouk sighed, shaking Vic’s tangled mane of blond hair in denial. “I’ve merely attempted to assume the rights of ownership, and Charles has fought me. You remember the night of my demise,” he prodded with no lack of humor. “This is but a shell.” He stared into Vic’s open palms again, making a thoughtful sound. “The spirit world is my playground. A realm, if you want to call it that. Flesh is weak, but it has its uses. Its pleasures, true, but limits that are cruel and unfair. Victor has expansive tastes when it comes to flesh. Nothing’s repugnant or off-limits. We’ve been easy bedfellows.”

“Don’t need that picture in my head,” Logan snorted. Farouk tsked.

“Cretin.”

“Leave the girl alone.”

“Or you’ll do what? Kill me?” Victor threw back his head and laughed, booming and sonorous, exposing fanglike canines. “Oh, that’s rich!”

“It don’t hafta be about killin’. Might just be about pain. Carved my initials in Vic’s ass before,” Logan pointed out. “Ain’t no love lost between me an’ him. Might make it harder for ya ta live vicariously through Vic’s dick if I cut it off. Don’t matter that he can grow it back. It’ll still sting.”

“Do your best. It’s six of one, half a dozen of the other,” Farouk shrugged. “Either way, you lose. Charles loses. Charles is fighting me even now; his body’s weak and nearly gone, but he doesn’t care. Don’t you see? His living body is an anchor that holds him back from staying in my realm with me permanently. That foolish woman who presumes to call herself the child’s mother has also made herself a nuisance. He still loves her, so he’s fighting against me, while he holds on, for her.” Logan studied him.

“Eh. So lemme get this straight, Farouk…Charley ain’t as strong as he’d be if he were dead ta kick yer ass. His body, I mean.” Victor’s face lost its smugness. “Thanks fer the tip.”

Logan was up in a flash, skidding backwards in his chair. Deftly he flipped up the edge of the heavy table, smashing Vic in the face and knocking him to the floor. He ignored the startled cries and warnings that rippled through the crowd. Several of them eyed the two men with undisguised interest.

“FIGHT!” bellowed a voice by the bar, and then all hell broke loose.


~0~

“I made you this, Jean. Here.” Scott hovered over her in the study, where Jean leaned into the nook of the window seat and watched the clouds roll across the sky. Concern painted his features, and she smelled chamomile and mint from the steaming mug he held. A slow smile spread across her lips. The afternoon sun set her copper waves of hair ablaze. Scott’s mouth went dry.

“Jean,” Scott began, searching her face. “How are you holding up?”

She opened her mouth to reassure him, but all that came out was a choked sob. Bit by bit she fell apart, and he removed the mug from her shaking hands, helping her to narrowly avoid a scald. Her hands felt like ice within his strong ones once the tea rested safely on the desk. Tears blinded her and rolled in torrents down her cheeks, and she felt the shift in her physical space as he knelt beside her.

He opened his mouth to offer her comfort, but she shook her head, and she brushed slender fingers over his lips to silence them.

No. Don’t. It won’t help. He heard the words in his mind and watched her lips grimace as she sobbed.

I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Jean.

I feel so helpless. It’s not right. No one should see what we did, Scott. No one should do such a thing to a human being.

I know, baby.

Their rapport was immediate and borne of need. He no sooner reacted to her emotions than she felt his response, like wading in a warm pool.

I felt Charles when Victor…you know. It was horrible. I can’t even describe it. I was being ripped apart. And those eyes were like a lion’s. And his teeth! I felt and heard and smelled and saw everything Charles did. He was so afraid, Scott.

I don’t blame him. Or you.

Scott’s thumb gently stroked her hand, and Jean drew tangible comfort from his presence. Her body inclined itself toward his, giving him silent permission to rest his forearm against her knee. They were so close they nearly shared breath.

I was staring pure evil in the face. And he laughed. His laugh was awful, he was so pleased with himself, and he just wouldn’t let me go. Or Charles. And the Professor, he’s so stubborn, and so determined. He was nearly gone, but he wouldn’t leave. He called out to me. He wouldn’t leave Moira. Or Ororo. He won’t leave anyone who needs him.

And neither would you.

Scott’s expression was soft, and his touch was tender as he smoothed back a lock of her hair, grazing her cheek with his fingertips. Jean was fragile beneath his touch, and his manner was reverent. She sniffed back more tears, and he wiped away a fresh one before it could trickle into the corner of her mouth.

I just feel unsafe. He’s still out there. He was so close to the house, Scott, he could come after the Professor or any of us…

I’m here. And Ororo might have something to say about that. I don’t want to get on her bad side anytime soon…

Jean’s burst of laughter was short but precious. Her eyes were still brimming, but her body relaxed.

I’m a mess. Look at me!

“I am looking at you, Jean,” he replied aloud, and he completed his task, slowly wiping away the tearstains down her cheeks, flicking away the ones that threatened to leak from her eyes.

You’re so beautiful. I can’t take my eyes off of you.

Scott…

Her smile faded and he watched her throat work as she swallowed. Her bottle green eyes roamed over him, drinking him in hungrily and with great appreciation. Jean felt a warm rush of security and trust that wrapped around her, both from his emotions and his proximity. He was fresh-scrubbed and well-groomed, adding to her impression as being someone she could be comfortable “ even vulnerable “ around. She explored the planes of his lean jaw and his soft waves of chestnut brown hair, and the way he cocked his head as he listened to her words, spoken and unspoken.

Her fingertips caressed his lips.

You don’t have to use these to talk with me, Scott.

No?

I have a much better use for them right now.

He was already cocking his head up toward her mouth just as she was leaning down for a kiss. It was sweet and tentative; he hesitated and waited patiently for the brush of her lips, and then he accepted her invitation. Her lips were supple and pillowy soft, and she tasted faintly of apples. He sucked her lower one between his and heard her low moan of appreciation that yes, could he please continue?

She kept their rapport open, drinking in his emotions and offering him her own. She radiated contentment and satisfaction, where he gave her admiration and open wonder. Scott’s hand rose up to cup her nape and comb through her silky sheaves of red hair, and she adjusted herself so he could wrap his arm around her waist.

Ororo found them that way, looking as though she’d need a chisel and crowbar to pry them apart.

“Ahem…” Both of them sprang apart and looked thorough guilty and flushed. Ororo smothered a chuckle when she noticed that Scott’s glasses were crooked. Jean noticed it, too, and automatically reached out to straighten them. He rose to his feet.

“Uh, hey, Ororo, what’s going on?”

“Nothing here,” she said sweetly, and the corner of her mouth curled impishly. Oh, but she’d caught them, and caught them good!

“Scott was, uh…tea.”

“Huh?” Scott looked oblivious, before it dawned on him. “Oh, tea. Brought her some. Uh-huh,” he gestured, nodding to the abandoned, cooling cup on the desk.

“Mmmmm. Because you were thirsty.” Jean’s look was murderous, and she snapped her eyes at Ororo to silence her, but her sister was relentless. “But it was too hot? It doesn’t look like you touched it, Jean.”

“Er…I burnt my tongue?”

“So Scott had to check that it wasn’t hurt?” This time a grin was threatening to erupt on Scott’s lips, but he stifled it down to a mere twitch.

“Oh, not too badly. Right, Jean?”

“Oh. Right. Not, er, bad at all.” Jean rose and straightened her skirt, which was slightly wrinkled from the way Scott so comfortably, greedily situated himself before.

“I might head to the kitchen for some tea myself. How was it, Jean?”

“Huh?” Her expression was dreamy as she and Scott shared a look, practically ignoring Ororo. “How was what?”

“The tea,” Ororo sighed patiently.

“Oh. The tea.” Now Jean allowed herself a smile, but her eyes were still riveted on Scott. “Absolutely delicious. I can’t remember when I’ve enjoyed a cup of tea more.”

You’re blushing.

So are you.

“Y’all are so busted,” Ororo announced cheerfully.


~0~

“Ye realize, Charley, that now it’s fifteen games of chess ye owe me. Ye haven’t woke up yet, so ye can’t argue with me. Ye would do well, aye, tae wake up before I make it sixteen.” Moira was watching over him and engaging in her usual nagfest that began at dawn and didn’t usually end until the wee hours of the night.

She scolded him. She kissed him. She gripped his hand and yelled at him with equal fervor. He seldom stirred. His nurses came and went to check on him and chart his progress, despite her assertions that she was a doctor, but Stevie insisted she have some respite from her vigil to take care of herself.

He looked placid and serene.

“Ye always were bluidy stubborn, Charley,” she mused as she stroked his cheek with the back of her index finger. Almost imperceptibly, she could have sworn he leaned into her light touch. “Uppity and full of yuirself, aye. And ye thought ye were the one tae ask me out for a lager at Muldoon’s, but ye were wrong again, Mr. Smartypants. Ye were slickly maneuvered,” she informed him cheerfully. “I had me eye on ye from day one. I gave ye a false sense of security and let ye just think I wanted tae argue and debate genetic aberrations with ye tae prove ye wrong. I had a secret agenda,” she admitted. “Ye thought ye were so clever, lad. I fooled ye, didn’t I? Ye ordered a pint and just sipped at it ‘til I showed ye how it should be done.” Moira’s boast was delivered through trembling lips, and she wiped away more of the despised tears. “Ye were never even much of a drinker, Charley, because ye were always so sensible and had a stick up yer bum! Until ye enlisted and left me! I loved ye so much, Charles! I still do! Yuir such a bleeding sod and a bastard for leaving me like this, when I love you so much! Come back! Dinna leave me!”

Her tears dripped onto his wrist as she held his hand, curling his fingers around hers in the hope that he’d squeeze back.

“And…there’s something I never told ye, m’luv. It’s about Kevin,” she whispered. “He wasn’t Joe’s, which I think God in heaven above for. He never looked like him. His whole way of carrying himself, even as a young lad, was so much like you. That same stubborn look and eyes that see through ye, that’s my Kevin.” She snuffled back threatening mucus and reached for a Kleenex on the side table. “He’s ours, Charley. I dinna know how else tae tell ye. If ye knew about him, ye would’ve come for him, I know. Yuir about duty and doin’ right by any yuir beholden tae, but that wasn’t how I wanted ye, Charles. I loved ye so much, but I was Joe’s, and it was too late. I didn’t want ye tae swoop down and rescue me. I was going tae get out from under Joe’s foot by my own efforts, or I wasn’t worthy of ye.”

Moira listened to the infernal ticking of the clock and sighed, straightening up.

“What would ye have done if ye knew, Charley? What could both of us have done? Ye’ve seen the schematic of his chamber. It’s not even a room for him, it’s a miserable bluidy cell. It’s the best I could do. He despises me for what I had tae do tae keep him stable.”

He doesn’t hate you…

Moira’s heart skipped in her chest, and she felt a cold rush of tingles and euphoria.

“Charles…” she whispered. “I know yuir in there, Charley! Talk to me,” she urged, “talk to me!” She gently slapped his hand and shook it.

Moira. You’re there?

“Aye! Och, Charles, please, for the love of heaven, will ye WAKE UP?”

Can’t. Caught. Can’t leave.

“Ye have tae come back!”

Our daughter needs me. I’m with her. She doesn’t understand how, but she feels me. And I’m with Logan.

“How?” she cried.

I can’t talk for long. I love you. She caressed his smooth brow and nodded desperately.

“Promise me ye will come back t’me,” she ordered.

I can’t promise that. Know this. Everything’s uncertain right now. Farouk’s not gone. He’s responsible for this. He destroyed my body. Now he wants to destroy my mind. He still wants Ororo.

“Ye said yuir with Logan? Why, Charles? I haven’t seen that ruffian all day, and I still dinna understand fully why ye brought him here!”

There isn’t much time, sweetheart! Logan’s in the city. He’s fighting Farouk.

“Impossible. Ye did away with Farouk!”

His mind lives on. And he’s found himself a vessel. The same man who attacked me the day you arrived. I know this man, Moira. He’s still dangerous, and he possesses skills like Logan’s. Enhanced senses. He’s a keen hunter, but he takes great joy in the kill. He lacks compunction or conscience of any kind.

“Holy Mother of God,” she gasped. “Why haven’t ye said anything til now, Charles?”

I’m spreading myself too thin. Farouk’s distracted. That gave me an opening that I needed, but I need to go! I’m sorry! His tone sounded guilty and full of remorse for the secrets he’d had to keep, but Moira felt as though she’d been no better, keeping the secret of Kevin’s paternity hidden for so long.

Later. Recriminations could wait.

“I am, too, Charley! I love you! I love you, you miserable bastard!”

Wench… His voice in her head was fond and warm. Then he was silent.


~0~

“Ororo, where’s Jean? I told that child we were having dinner at five. She said she’d help me snap these beans,” Stevie complained, nodding to a huge colander of greens in the sink.

“I’ll do it,” Ororo decided easily. “Jean’s occupied.”

“With what?” Stevie inquired, hands on her hips.

“Scott,” she replied dryly. Ororo helped herself to a glass of orange juice, deciding tea wasn’t what she really wanted, anyway…

Well, maybe not tea the way Jean was having it.

Stevie snorted, then tsked. “Mmp, mmp, mmph. Y’all better stay outta trouble. I’m not your momma, Ororo, or Jean’s, but I don’t want either of you two getting involved in any mess or hanky panky. Bad enough when you get too ‘free’ with running around undressed…” Ororo cocked her brow over her glass. Stevie pouted and crossed her arms under her breasts. The sentiment of “You know I’m talking to you” was loud and clear in her brown eyes. Gray hairs had began insinuating themselves into Stevie’s dark braids over the years. She blamed Ororo for every single one.

“Where’s Logan?” Now Stevie rolled her eyes and threw up her hands.

“And don’t even ask me about HIM. He went stomping out of the house about an hour ago. Didn’t explain where he was headed, just said ‘I hafta tend ta some business’ like that was all I needed to know. Man’s so hardheaded and uppity,” she remarked as she turned back to the stove. Stevie drew a pan of golden cornbread from the oven and set it on a trivet.

“Was he upset?”

“Upset? Well…I don’t know. I guess. He really did look like whatever it was had to be pretty important. Like this.” Ororo snorted under her breath when Stevie imitated the look on his face, complete with the flat lip and scowling brows, and she chuckled low in her throat when Stevie added his burly walk.

“Heh. Right.” Ororo placed her glass in the sink. “I’ll be back down in a minute.”

“Good. Dinner isn’t making itself.” Stevie lifted the lid to the large pot of boiling potatoes and prodded one with a fork.

Ororo headed upstairs to look for something that she wouldn’t mind risking a stain on for the purpose of helping Stevie, but something diverted her steps. She detoured to the right, toward the end of the hall, instead of going up to her loft.

She felt a strange sense of comfort being in Logan’s room. The door hinge creaked slightly as she gently pushed it open, using as much caution as she would if the man were present. The room smelled faintly of leather “ possibly his spare pair of boots, since his good pair was missing “ and of his cigars. There was no ashtray, but even smoking on the balcony would leave a vestige of the pungent smell in his clothes. It didn’t bother her. It was just one more thing that she identified with Logan.

It was unnerving that she’d catalogued so many things to identify with him, lately. His walk, which Stevie did almost to perfection. He wasn’t a tall man, by any means, but he took up a lot of physical space, and he was imposing to look at. His favorite foods, for another thing. He was more often than not a meat and potatoes man, and he didn’t eat many sweets, except for fresh fruit or Stevie’s blueberry pancakes. Ororo and Jean were professed chocoholics, by contrast, and Scott had a weakness for pistachio ice cream. And then, of course, there was his Molson. Ororo wrinkled her nose at the metallic scent of old beer emanating from a bottle he hadn’t finished left on the dresser. She picked it up, noticing that the moisture was still condensed and dripping down the glass. It was still cooler than room temperature.

The room was spare and slightly messy. The bed was unmade, something that irked her. Ororo was the kind of person who made her bed as soon as she got out of it. Out of old habit she shucked the heavy comforter and blanket to better straighten the fitted and flat sheets, smoothing them with her palms.

Unwittingly she caught a whiff of his scent, that odd yet addictive little male smell, and her lips spread in a slow smile as she fluffed the pillow.

She wondered belatedly if he would think she was being too familiar by trespassing in his private place. She dismissed it; Jean would no doubt blush when Ororo eventually told her about her visit there, before asking for details about what it was like. Once the bed was finished, she peered around the room in curiosity.

There were no photographs, something that made her even more baffled. He really didn’t have a past, and his present was murky as mud. Half-burnt white candles rested on his dresser, and Ororo wondered about their purpose. He definitely didn’t seem like the romantic type.

“Why do I even care?” she muttered suddenly. Why, indeed, as long as he didn’t burn the house down.

She perused his desk, noticing an open Yellow Pages and some hastily scribbled notes on a lined steno pad. She picked up a battered business card for a rental car office that looked local.

“Weird,” she remarked softly. Logan had no qualms about borrowing any of Charles’ cars in the garage, particularly a Jeep that Stevie sometimes used to head downtown. She’d never seen him pull into the driveway in an unfamiliar car.

His handwriting was sharp and jagged, as though he’d slashed the words in a hurry. She made out Salem Hilton and a phone number for the front desk, as well as a name that looked like Creed. She tested it on her lips, wondering why it sounded familiar. Ororo rubbed her temples; she had a faint headache coming on.

She peered down at the open phone book. No surprise. He was looking up the local bars and taverns, she mused. He’d even circled the name of one…

“Hm.” Harry’s. She’d heard of it. And it was pretty close to the Hilton, so if he was meeting somebody…

More notes. The day’s date, and yesterday’s. Blue Cobra. She knew she definitely hadn’t seen a car like that around the grounds.

She didn’t have time to ponder it. Moira’s voice crying out downstairs turned her feet toward the door. She hurried back to the kitchen without hesitation.

“Och, Ororo! It’s yuir father!”

“Dad?” she replied, taking Moira’s hands. They felt like ice, and she felt Moira’s rapid pulse up the length of her arm. “What’s wrong with Daddy?”

“He’s trapped,” she answered gravely. “And he needs ye, lass. Ye need tae go an’ find Logan, quickly! He’s found Creed!”

“Who?” Ororo frowned at the mention of that name again.

“I kinna explain it right now, lass, there’s no time!”

“Mom…who’s Creed?”

“He’s the one who nearly killed Charles.” Moira’s green eyes were steely. “And we can talk about this later, lass. I love ye, and I need ye tae listen t’me. Find Logan. Take Jean an’ Scott wi’ ye and go! NOW!”

“I hear you, Moira,” Jean informed her calmly from the doorway. She felt the doctor’s stress and desperation before she even entered the hallway. Scott was close on her heels, looking grim and concerned.

“Don’t worry about finding him,” Ororo offered. Her voice was flat. “I know where Logan is. He left me a clue, and a note.”

“WHAT?”

“Maybe not directly,” Ororo amended, but her face was a mask. Thunder echoed through the sky, and the azure blue was slowly swallowed up by gray. Moira shivered. The lass was detaching herself already, and she knew that on some level it was her own fault, and Charles’.

“Dinna let Creed come back tae this school,” Moira cautioned them, “and don’t underestimate him, just because ye can read minds, fly and shoot. Any of ye.”

“What will you and Stevie do, Moira?” Jean asked.

“Protect Charley.”


~0~

It felt good to cut loose.

It had been years. Vic savored the thick slide of his talons through Logan’s flesh and the scent of his blood, tasting it when a rivulet of it spattered his lips.

“Damn tasty, runt!” he crowed. The frequent transition from Vic being in control to Farouk rearing his head and speaking through his mouth was a frustrating distraction. More often than not when Logan and Vic scuffled before, Logan would allow him first blood, knowing Vic was so hair-trigger he’d die for it. He craved it. That made him overconfident, coupled with his assumption that being bigger than Logan gave him an advantage. They were both old dogs, but Creed hadn’t learned new trick number one in more decades than Logan wanted to count.

Insanity erupted around them and raged on in a mass of flying beer glasses and pool cues. Women’s screams filled the bar as several of them crouched beneath tables and made their way toward the exit and the rest room.

Logan felt the smack of the floorboards at his back, knocking the air from his lungs. Vic landed on him like a medicine ball. His burly knees were locked around Logan’s ribs, and he was doing his level best to separate his head from his neck.

“Comfortable, asshole?”

“Idiot,” Logan hissed back, and he grunted as he brought up his leg in one clean swing, neatly clipping Vic in the back of the head. “Yer takin’ too many liberties, bub. I don’t wanna ever be that close ta yer nuts again.”

They rolled and buffeted each other in a ball of flailing limbs and claws.

SNIKT…

“Oh, my God, what are those coming out of his hands? Freak! FREEEAKK!” a woman shrieked, clutching the arm of a man behind her who was brandishing a pool ball. He turned and clutched his neighbor’s lapel, bidding him to look.

“Holy shit! He’s a mutie!” Vic bared his fangs at him and emitted a resonant growl. “MUTIES!” The patrons drank in the sight of the men who were peppered with tiny wounds and tears in their clothing, both of them looking feral and unwilling to argue.

The blond one’s expression changed, and the voice of the Devil himself poured out of his mouth.

“I crave your rage, puppets! Join my cause!” Farouk snarled. “This one is a nuisance to me…” He nodded down to Logan. Logan had Vic’s back pressed up against the wall.

“Fucker,” Logan spat. “Ya think yer gonna scare me by ““

“It’s not your fear I want.” Farouk gestured to the crowd, who were eyeing the two of them strangely. Slowly all of their eyes began to glow an eerie white, and they moved almost as one, drifting nearer the pair.

“As Farouk wills it,” the first woman who’d signaled Logan’s presence intoned dully.

“Damn,” Logan muttered. Once again, he’d underestimated his old boss, and now he was gonna have his tail handed to him.

He thought fast. He peered up into Vic’s cruel face. Vic’s smile was calculating and expectant.

“Yer not goin’ anywhere, bub,” he informed him.

“Try and stop me.”

SNIKT! There was a sickening, crushing sound as Logan’s claws shot through his own flesh and embedded themselves in Vic’s side, puncturing his kidneys. He impaled him and pinned him to the wall

“I said yer not goin’ anywhere.” Both men’s breathing was heavy and labored. Logan’s nostrils flared, and his sweat stung him from where it dripped into his cuts. Vic, impossibly, smiled more calmly than before.


~0~

Jean?

What is it, Scott?

Tell me again why we couldn’t drive?

This is faster. And Ororo needed this. Just be calm. I’m here with you. You’ll be all right.

His heart was still in his throat from their abrupt trip into the sky. The weather around them was turbulent and brisk, but Scott and Jean were saved from the tearing force of Ororo’s gale winds by Jean’s telekinetic bubble. Jean’s body was firm and warm in his arms as he held onto her for dear life. Ororo flew ahead of them as a guide and pilot, and her silver hair flowed out behind her. Her expression was stoic and her bearing was fierce. She was in her element. This was where she belonged.

They soared high through the clouds. It disoriented both of their friends, passing through huge gouts of mist and moisture so quickly and hearing the winds assail their ears, but it was an awesome thrill, being allowed into Ororo’s world. Jean only wished it weren’t for such grim purpose. They needed to get to Logan.

They began to descend as they came within sight of clusters of skyscrapers and ramshackle businesses. They were just shy of the garment district, and Scott and Jean found themselves enveloped in a fog so thick they couldn’t see their hands in front of their faces.

What’s happening?

Storm’s providing us with some cover. Don’t worry. She knows where she’s going. And if you just look over there, you can see her eyes. And he did, sure enough. They shone through the fog, bluish white and glowing with energy, and he saw how they softly illuminated her beautiful face.

They landed atop a dilapidated apartment building, old enough that its brick face was deteriorating, but it gave Scott a moment to catch his breath on solid ground. He hadn’t regained his land legs yet, and he felt slightly queasy.

“Easy now, Scott, you look a bit green,” Ororo pointed out, taking his arm to lend him support. She was stronger than he expected, and she shouldered her way under his arm. Jean wrapped her own arms around his waist, and the three of them floated down to the alley amidst the fog.

“Subway…next time,” he rasped. His pounding heart made his skin grow clammy, and Jean made a sound of sympathy. He staggered against her as Ororo let go, and Jean gently stroked his cheek.

“Harry’s. He’s at Harry’s,” Ororo announced. “C’mon.” The veil of mist began to lift slightly as they emerged into the street. Traffic was backed up to a halt in the wake of the fog, and the street was a cacophony of honking horns and idling engines.

The noise from the bar drowned everything else out, and Ororo watched a couple on the sidewalk narrowly duck a chair that flew out through the window, spraying the pavement with shattered glass.

“That’s Harry’s?” Scott quipped.

“That’s Logan’s car,” Ororo nodded, pointing to a Blue Mustang Cobra parked nearby, obviously by someone very brave or incredibly stupid.

“But he never came to the school in a car,” Jean argued.

“Just come on, Jean!” Jean bristled at Ororo’s impatience as she all but dragged them toward the tavern.

She didn’t have to wait that long. Logan was dragged out into the street by a handful of people grasping any of his limbs, neck or hair that they could reach. They looked like they were trying to tear him apart. He was bloody and haggard, but his face wasn’t that of the man they knew. His nostrils were flaring, he had the mad, dilated eyes of a feral beast, and his slightly prominent canines were bared, seeming longer than usual and razor-sharp. He was gnashing and growling his intentions to get loose by any means necessary.

His claws were out and streaked with blood. Jean looked sick, and Scott held onto her protectively, every nerve on edge.

Beside them, Ororo just stared at his claws. Her head began to throb, but she remained steady.

Blood…on his claws. She smelled beer and whiskey, mingled with the tang of his blood and smoke. A brief impression dripped into the pool of her memories and created ripples, but she couldn’t name it.

“Let him go,” she boomed. Her eyes glowed once more. Logan’s would-be executioners stared at her, strangely enough, with similarly glowing eyes, but they appeared unphased. Then thunder rumbled in the sky, and she opened her palms. Lightning danced from them and made her hair crackle in with energy.

“Damn, baby, look at you,” drawled a voice that evoked more memories…of…blood? “Ya’ve grown up ta be one fiiiiiiiine woman! Ain’t she, Patch? Mmm! Want me some’a that!” Vic staggered outside but then stood firm despite his grisly wounds. Blood saturated his long-sleeved thermal and coursed down the leg of his worn denims. More of it stained his blond tufts of hair in patches.

“You did this,” she accused bluntly.

“Ain’t the first time. Might be the last.”

“Sloppy.” She mustered her strength and called down gale-force wind. She harnessed it, seeming to grip it in her hand, and she lashed it at him like a whip. It struck him, wiping away his smug expression. She flung him back like a rag doll, pinning him to the side of a dry cleaner’s store.

“She attacked Farouk,” cried one of Logan’s captors.

“Ya think?” Logan shot back, struggling to get purchase without having to do more collateral damage against innocent “ if bloodthirsty “ strangers. It was nothing new to him. This was downtown New York during rush hour.

Scott deftly flipped up his glasses and aimed for the closest of the men anchoring Logan above their heads. A scarlet beam of force stunned him and took him out. Several sets of eyes leveled him, promising to come for his blood.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Jean told them, and one by one she helped Scott pick them off, tossing them aside roughly enough to knock them unconscious. Logan flew free but landed hard against a steel mailbox, hitting his head with a hollow clang.

“Ow…mother…fucker,” he groaned. “Thanks bunches, Summers.”

“You’ve taken down my toys,” Farouk murmured thoughtfully. His voice was resonant and overwhelming, easily heard over the noise from the street. Passerby ran for safety as they watched the strangers use powers they didn’t understand, and they saw Victor and Logan rise back up from what looked like mortal injuries before throwing themselves back in the fray.

“It’s yer turn next.”

“I doubt that. It would take a better man than you. I can break you, and Charles, with very little effort, even though he’s made a pathetic attempt at calling in reinforcements.” He eyed Jean and Ororo meaningfully. “They’re merely dessert. Hullo, child. You look delectable.” Vic’s eyes raked over Ororo’s supple form and stunning face as her hair rippled in the wind. She was still pulsing with electricity, and her face was sober and calm.

“I’m not a child,” she informed him. “And honestly, you sicken me.”

“That’s no way to greet your uncle Farouk, now, is it?” Ororo absorbed what he said, and Logan felt dread sink into his gut.

“Shit,” he muttered weakly. “Ororo, don’t listen to ‘im!”

Jean watched in disbelief as Ororo’s brows furrowed in confusion first, then recognition. “Uncle,” she murmured. “Uncle?”

Then she gasped in pain as the throbbing in her temples increased. She clutched her head and pressed firmly, willing it to stop.

“Don’t fight it,” Vic suggested helpfully. He was a fearsome sight. His smug smile and calm demeanor was at odds with the grisly hole in his side as he stalked forward. “I can make all of your pain and troubles go away, child. Just like I always have. You’re not afraid of me. You’re not afraid of anything.”

“I’m not,” she agreed, but she flinched for a moment. Jean was shaken. Ororo never flinched. Ever.

“You’ve always been my favorite, little Ororo, and the apple of my eye. You still enjoy dollies, yes?”

“Ororo, what is he talking about? Don’t listen to him!” Jean cried. Ororo was locked in a battle for another of the elusive memories, and she grimaced in pain.

“Moy-rah,” she whispered. The memory of combing the doll’s hair with a tiny plastic comb made her fingers twitch.

“Ororo! He’s sick! He’s tryin’ ta pull one over on ya, darlin’, and he’ll hurt ya more than anyone else ya’ve ever met! He’s all about lies and controllin’ people!” He nodded to Vic’s body. “That ain’t even him! He’s just wearin’ a disguise! Look at him, darlin’!”

Anticipating that ahead of time, Vic’s form gradually began to waver and shift in Ororo’s eyes. His body slowly knitted itself back together so that he appeared clean and whole. Victor’s fangs and talons seemed to retract. His long tangles of blood streaked blond hair were gleaming and neatly pulled back, and his blue eyes were beneficent and kind. He resembled a rugged angel, and Ororo stared at him in wonder.

“Uncle,” she insisted hollowly, and she slowly walked toward him, hand outstretched to touch him.

“NO!” Jean shouted, and she lashed out with her telekinesis, throwing a barrier between Ororo and Farouk. Vic’s head turned toward Jean, and his smile was wicked.

“Clever, child. Ineffective, but clever. You stand no more chance than Charles…except you’re younger. Untried. More potential to build, and a more malleable soul to mold, or to break, as I wish.” He stared Jean up and down. “And such a fragile, pretty shell.”

“Jean, get back!” VRAMMMPPFT! Scott’s beam broke Jean’s concentration, and her field was disincorporated as the energy knocked Victor off his feet.

“You shouldn’t have done that to Uncle,” Ororo informed him simply as she stretched out her hand and struck Scott with a low-voltage bolt of lightning.

“SCOTT!” Jean’s scream burned her throat and used up the last of her breath. She reeled and pinned Ororo with her glare. “WHY?”

“Because you attacked Uncle.”

“He…ain’t yer uncle. He…says he’d never hurt ya…so why’s he hurtin’ everyone else around ya?” Logan crawled to his feet and staggered as he regarded her. Ororo’s blue eyes swept over him, and for a brief, hopeful moment, he saw them waver. “Including Chuck.”

“Daddy?”

“Ya wanted ta know who hurt him. Yer lookin’ at him. He might look pretty on the outside, darlin’, but he’s a twisted, sick fuck underneath.”

“Foolish, foolish Logan,” Farouk purred. “Who will you believe, child? Me, or this strange little man who’s told you so little of himself? Look no further for the man with a vested interest in killing your father. Charles trusted him, and took him into his home, and this is how he repays him? By getting close enough to take him down when he least expects it?” Victor shrugged as he approached Logan in long strides. He reached out and grasped Logan by the throat, easily hoisting him up in the air. Logan’s face flared red as Vic’s fingers dug into his windpipe. His legs flailed and kicked as he was dangled off the ground. Farouk’s smile was triumphant. “Charles cannot read Logan’s mind, dear heart, did you know that? Who better than Logan, then, to ambush him?”

“You,” Jean grated out. Vic’s smile faltered a moment, and Jean saw an opening when Victor’s personality re-emerged. It was evident in his face and stance, some small shift when he went from calculating to merely intimidating, a self-professed boogey man and bully. Victor’s fangs resurfaced, and he ran his tongue over one thoughtfully as he stared at Jean.

“Yer next, babycakes. Might hafta leave this one ta the boss,” he said, gesturing to Ororo, “but you an’ me can have some fun of our own. Betcha scream real nice.” Lust saturated his features, and Jean shuddered in revulsion. Scott still lay on the ground, where Jean was gently cradling his head.

Something inside of Jean snapped. Suddenly she’d had enough.

“You were right,” she offered, standing up. “I am young. Untried. I can barely control my power sometimes,” she admitted. Victor smiled indulgently.

“Makes it more fun when ya don’t try.” He tightened his grip on Logan’s neck, forcing a grunt of pain from his lips. Ororo still watched the scene as though in a trance, but Jean knew there was a slight chance if she could get Ororo to see that Vic wasn’t who he seemed…

Vic. The key lay with Vic.

“Then I won’t try to control it.” Jean took a deep breath and quickly lowered her psychic shields, unleashing her telepathy and aiming straight for Victor’s mind.

“You’re…hnnnnggghh…not as big and bad as you thought,” Jean grated through her teeth. Strain showed on her face, and Victor made a noise of surprise. “Problem…with letting in a guy…like Farouk…is once you open that door, anyone can get in. Like…little ol’ me…” Her bravado was false. Jean was terrified as she took her first steps into Vic’s thoughts.

It was a swirling, black picture of hell. She was freezing and brittle as she picked her way through the barren wasteland that was dotted with rotting skulls and severed limbs. The ground beneath her feet kept shifting, trying to suck her down, and she had to struggle to plod her way free. All around her lurked unease and the unknown.

Gnarled, twisted trees seemed to drip blood and carrion; they flanked the winding pathway where she walked. It grew darker still, and Jean instinctively created a flare of light around her, something she’d never tried.

“Well, well, look who decided ta pay ol’ Vic a visit,” his voice rumbled. The ground beneath her shook, and suddenly the branches of a nearby tree twisted and lashed themselves forward like coils, snaring her and hoisting her off her feet.

“Let…go!”

“My house, sweetness. My rules.” The tree’s trunk mutated and warped as a form emerged from it’s bark, growing and bulging here and there with rough, spiny lumps. The mass incorporated itself into a writhing, pulsing body. Out of the form a bawling, gaping head erupted, fangs dripping with blood and breathing hot fumes in Jean’s face. She felt ready to vomit, and she struggled and writhed to get free, leaning her face as far away as she could. The face continued to twist and warp, jagged bark slowly giving way to flesh, and Victor’s cruel visage stared at her long and hard. A long, moist tongue flicked out to lap her cheek. “Knew ya were tasty,” he jeered.

“It’s dark in here, Victor,” she told him. “Why is that?”

“Don’t matter. Get used to it. Ya ain’t goin’ anywhere.”

“You don’t like the dark, do you?” His smile faltered.

“What the fuck do you know?”

“Look. You enjoy this?”

“It’s home.”

“It’s hell. You can’t deny it. It’s twisted, dark, and full of nothing but death.” She nodded to the myriad skulls and limbs. “Who were they, Vic?”

“No one important.”

“Keep telling yourself that.”

“Naw. Why don’t you just SHUT THE HELL UP!” he flared, bathing her in more hot breath.

Jean responded by increasing her glow. She appeared golden and radiant, her beauty and desirability intensified ten-fold. Vic bore a look of surprise.

“What’re ya doin’…glowin’?”

“It’s something I do. Something I have.”

“Ya glow…” he murmured, compelled by the radiance and the soft demeanor of her face.

“It’s what happens when you have hope, Vic. A belief that every choice you’ve ever made led up to this moment, and that it set you on the right path. That everything is as it should be. Not what it should have been.” The environment around them shifted and changed again. The trees tossed as a foul, cold wind blew through the plains, and she felt Victor shiver. The branches continued to strangle her, but she knew she had his attention.

“Don’t listen to her, Victor!” Farouk’s voice boomed, and he made his entrance, bursting through the ground and dripping clumps of soil and dessicated grass. “Don’t let her distract you. You have a job to do, and she’s no better than the rest of my toys, even my basest whores. Remember how you loved to play with them? You want her,” Farouk prodded. “You’ve never wanted to hear them talk before.” Farouk was huge and imposing, bearing sharp teeth and glowing eyes with slitted pupils. His astral form rippled with muscle, and he reached for Jean, pulling her free from the morass of Victor’s twisted body. Vic struggled to hold onto her, sticking to her like wads of used gum and hot tar.

“Leggo, ya greedy fuck! She’s MINE! Don’t take my glow!”

“Fight for what you want, Victor! Be the man you should have been, not his tool!” Jean pointed toward the skulls again, and Victor saw the ground move and ripple in the distance.

Slowly, like earthworms, faces began to push themselves toward the surface, gray and gruesome and with hollow, accusing eyes.

“Only wanted t’protect ya, baby boy,” one of them moaned in a feminine voice. Its plaintive tone and beseeching face made Victor recoil in horror, but he clutched Jean’s lower body more forcefully. “Ya…hurt me…let ‘im…kill me…”

“Always knew ya were a fuckin’ freak,” intoned the next. Bulging, bloodshot eyes, so much like Vic’s eyes, gleamed out from the darkness. “And a failure. God, yer such a failure. Ya never shoulda been born. It’s all yer mother’s fault, ‘cuz she was a whore!”

“Whore…” Vic whispered, and suddenly rage filled his voice. “She ain’t no whore! D’ya hear me! My mother ain’t no WHORE!”

“You’ve always treated women that way,” Jean stated flatly. “It’s all you knew.” One by one, the faces of various women that Vic had ever used, hurt or killed began appear and glare at him, pointing their fingers.

Used us. Betrayed us. Killed us. Freak. Monster. Animal… they chanted, surrounding them. Farouk lashed out with his talons, cutting away the visions and casting them away.

“Look what she’s trying to do, Victor! She’s coming between you and everything you’ve ever wanted! She’s but a stripling! Worthless!” Farouk wrested Jean away from Victor again, this time swallowing her up in his voluminous folds. She was suffocating, face twisted in fear, but her glow increased its wattage, and she looked like a wounded angel.

“All…he has for you…Vic…is more blood. While he takes more of your…soul…unnngh…and leaves you here…in the…dark!”

Farouk allowed Jean to swim to the surface for one brief moment. He tsked, almost cradling her even while she choked.

“Jean,” he crooned, and he raked one long talon down her cheek, drawing her blood. “Here. Taste.” He offered the precious drops of her blood, painting them over Victor’s lips. His eyes closed in rapture as he lapped up the drops. “Luscious, isn’t it? You know you want more. It’s been your one constant, and it’s never disappointed you before.”

Vic struggled, and Jean was fading fast. Her glow was diminishing, and all around her Farouk engulfed her, pushing her farther down into the dark.

Victor broke free, suddenly staring at Farouk in shock. “No. I won’t. It’s not…not enough anymore. It ain’t fuckin’ ENOUGH! D’ya hear me?” Victor’s arm snaked out in a long, twisted coil covered in jagged spines and punctured Farouk’s chest. He reached down, down, searching for Jean and barely brushing her fingertips. “JEAAANNNN!!”

Jean heard his bellowing cry as a whisper, suffocated almost down to her last gasp, and she felt something wrapping around her hand. She squeezed back and held on.

“It ain’t the blood that’s kept me goin’ all these damned years, ya bloat! I never fuckin’ asked ta live forever! Every time I come back, it’s from hopin’ that tomorrow’ll be different! That I ain’t a failure! That I ain’t gonna be a freak! That maybe I won’t hafta kill. Maybe that I won’t hafta get my fix by feelin’ my hands go through someone’s fuckin’ heart and makin’ it stop. Ya know what it’s like, hearin’ a heart beat its last, and knowin’ ya were the one who caused it? It was easy before I had a taste, Farouk.” He grunted and heaved, tugging Jean up, up, watching her faint glow regain a hint of its brightness. He waved his arm out, sweeping over the expanse of his mind. “This is it. This is all I hafta ta show fer a life that’s been too long and too fuckin’ hard.”

“You’re thinking too small. Unlimited pleasures, money, power, and more people doing your bidding than you can count…you can have this and more. You already do, now that you’ve given yourself over to me.” Victor watched as Farouk painted a picture of the lifestyle he described. Victor was at the center of the scene, garbed in fine clothes and well-groomed, drinking expensive gin and cradling a comely woman in his lap.

“Except I ain’t. Not yet.” He hauled Jean against him. Her astral form was limp and disheveled, and she appeared weak, but she stared gratefully up into Victor’s face.

Her hand was limp but gentle as she traced his cheek with the back of her finger.

“And you don’t have to, Victor.” Jean reached deep inside him and caressed his memories, bringing forth the oldest, brightest ones and presenting them for his inspection.

His first kiss, before his father ever told him what a pussy he was, and how women should really be treated. The first time he ever caught a frog at the pond. His mother’s pancakes. His first drink of gin, how it burned his throat, but how he enjoyed the sheer thrill of getting away with it.

Meeting Logan, and realizing he wasn’t alone. That memory surprised her, but she pushed it forward, willing him to re-experience it.

The first dog he ever petted. How soft its fur felt, tangled in his fingers.

“This is how it should have been. You know this.” Jean’s voice was soothing, like warm water. “The darkness will only hold you and keep you as long as you let it. You nearly killed a good man, Victor. Charles would never have tried to use you like this. And Farouk is afraid of him.”

“Shut up!” Farouk hissed.

Vic’s voice was humble when he spoke next. “I can’t take it back. I’m sorry, baby. Tell ‘im…I’m sorry.”

“He already knows. Let go, Victor.”

“I need it. I need the glow. Don’t leave.”

“I won’t go away until I take you out of the dark with me.”

Victor’s body whipped back and forth, and he released a loud, mournful howl, drowning out Farouk’s defiant words. Jean grew and glowed, becoming liquid light. She held onto Vic, and together, they cast Farouk out.


~0~

In the street, Vic collapsed.

“Uncle!” Ororo cried, hurrying forward to catch him. When she reached him, he’d reverted to Victor’s previous, bloodied form. He struggled to sit up, and she shrank back, suddenly on alert that she’d been tricked.

“Get away from him, ‘Ro!” Logan saw him reach for Ororo’s wrist, nearly yanking it out of its socket.

“Ya glow,” he murmured. “Didja know that, darlin’?” Her body stiffened, and her hair once again crackled with energy.

“Let me go!” She wasn’t afraid, something that still amazed him. He held on, waiting for what had to inevitably happen…

He heard Logan’s frantic run toward him from behind as he studied her beautiful face, caressing the crest of her cheek with his thumb.

“No wonder Farouk wants ya,” he told her softly. “Yer special.” He smelled her confusion, and her struggle slowed for a moment, calming the energy pulsing through her.

SNIKT! Ororo screamed, arching back as Logan’s claws punched through Victor’s back through his chest, nearly piercing her. Victor’s body convulsed, and he staggered to his knees, dragging her with him while he still gripped her wrist. His blue eyes rolled up to her, searching her face and beseeching.

“Ain’t…gonna fight…no more. Ya…glow…”


Back in Westchester, Charles opened his eyes.

There in the street, Logan listened as Victor’s heartbeat thudded to a stop, never looking up at the sound of Jean’s plaintive cry of Ororo’s name or Scott’s groans of pain.





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