Chapter One
"Eight ball,
right corner pocket," Logan said and shifted his cigar to the other side
of his mouth. He mentally blocked out the noise in the crowded bar, leaned over
the table and sighted down the cue stick. To sink the eight ball without
scratching he had to give the cue ball a bit of English. A tricky shot, but
he'd done it before.
His opponent, a biker
named Jack, grimaced and nodded. Jack seemed decent enough, but there was
something about his scent that set Logan's senses on edge. He couldn't say why,
except that under a faint smell of cigarettes and laundry soap on his clothing,
the guy smelled like something dead and putrid. At times the smell had been so
strong, Logan found it difficult to focus on the game. Maybe he just needed to
take a shower more often. Logan shrugged off the oddity as all his other senses
told him the guy was normal even if he was a bit of a low-life asshole. Jack
was a little too rough and sarcastic toward women for Logan's tastes and he
certainly didn't mind taking the guy's money.
Logan slid the cue
stick through thumb and forefinger and gently tapped the cue ball. It rolled
across the table, clipped the eight ball and rolled it into the corner pocket.
Logan stood up, took a puff of his cigar, exhaled and squinted through the
smoke. "That's fifty bucks you owe
me, bub."
"Damn. Luck of
the devil," Jack grumbled, pulled out his wallet and began to count out fives
and tens.
"The devil ain't
got nothin' ta' do with it, bub."
The bar door opened
and Jack casually looked up, then did a double take. His hands froze, his eyes
growing wide. "Oh, shit." He took two
steps back. "How the hell did she find me?" A wave of fear radiated
off him and struck Logan almost like a physical blow.
"Looks like
you've just seen a ghost," Logan said.
"A ghost?"
Jack replied with a strangled laugh. "This is much worse."
Before Logan could comment,
an odd scent wafted toward him. It was pure, fresh, and a scent he associated
more with the open air of his beloved Canadian wilderness than with humans. He
turned and saw that a woman had entered the bar. She was dressed oddly even for
a Hardcase patron. She wore camouflage tucked into black, airborne-laced combat
boots. A scruffy brown bomber jacket covered a military-green tank top and a
set of dog tags hung around her neck from a silver chain. Wavy, jet-black hair
fell down her back and over her shoulders. For a moment she paused to survey
the crowd until her gaze lit on Jack. Like a tactical missile, she locked on
him and started forward. Sweat broke
out on Jack's forehead and his body twitched once. Logan raised one assessing eyebrow; maybe Jack had smacked around
the wrong woman. Logan had known women just as beautiful, like Mariko or Silver
Fox, but there was something different about this one that he couldn't put his
finger on. An aura of purpose radiated from her, determination set the angle of
her brows and her cat-like eyes. Logan could detect no anger in her demeanor.
Whatever she had for Jack, he could discount anger, but there certainly wasn't
any misplaced affection.
"That yer old
lady?" Logan joked, at the same time wondering how a jerk like Jack could
end up with a woman like that.
"Uh, no man, she
ain't my old lady."
That was a relief.
"Friend of yours?"
"This chick ain't got
no friends." With that enigmatic reply, Jack stuffed his wallet back into his
pocket. "Uh, I'll be seeing ya' later.
If there is a later." Spinning about on one foot, Jack bolted for
the rear exit
Like a hunting cat on
the scent of wounded prey, the woman crossed the room without increasing her
purposeful stride and ignored the wolf whistles and stares that followed in her
wake. When she drew close to him, he detected a faint whiff of gun cleaner.
Under her bomber jacket she was packing and judging by the two almost
imperceptible bulges at her sides, she was packing double.
"I didn't know
Jack had an old lady," commented one voice.
"She looks
primed to whup his ass but good," another said. "Maybe he was getting
something on the side."
It appeared to Logan
that she had something more final in mind for Jack than an ass whuppin'.
"She looks like
a wild-thing to me, I don't think I'd be looking for anything on the side if
she were mine," said a voice from the back.
"I wouldn't want to
tangle with her," said a heavy shouldered biker playing darts.
"I would,"
shouted the voice from the back of the room, laughter followed.
The woman didn't
acknowledge any of this, not so much as a blink or a twitch, almost as if these
men didn't exist. She passed by the pool table on her way to the rear exit and
Logan's hand shot out and grabbed her left wrist. Her skin was smooth and her
arm slender under the jacket's sleeve.
"I don't know
what Jack did to get you all riled like this, darlin', but maybe you should
just hang out an' think about it. How 'bout you join me an' I'll buy ya' a
beer?" Something moved under her hair, rippling the thick locks. Logan
thought he heard a tiny giggled then it was gone.
"Let. Me.
Go," she said, enunciating each word slowly as if speaking to an imbecile.
Her soft voice held a hint of a threat and no fear. Dark blue eyes studied him
and Logan had the feeling they didn't like what they saw.
"Do you know
what yer doin'?" he asked, disconcerted. He didn't let it show.
"Do you?"
she answered. Her gaze never wavered.
Something that felt like
a jolt of electricity struck the hand Logan had clamped on her wrist. Liquid
heat traveled up his arm, it felt like his blood were boiling and his skin
scorched. The sensation sped up his arm and settled across his chest. Logan
inhaled a strangled gasp. Sharp twisting stabs of remorse and guilt pierced
him. The things he had done over the
course of decades were magnified while quick pictures flicked through his mind
like a slideshow. For the first time, Logan questioned those things he had
done, making him doubt every death decision he had made. His knees sagged. Her gaze continued to hold his. He could not
look away. Logan had never felt so exposed or vulnerable, it was as if the
locks securing his soul had been torn away and his life's deeds bared for all
to see and judge. A silent snarl lifted his lips. Was she a mutant? He couldn't
pull away from her and he clenched his free hand. Let's see how she dealt with
adamantium, a shame to have to do this in Hardcases's place. Then the woman leaned closed, her face
inches from his.
"I can sense
that inside, you're an ethical man, a brutal but just man, but in this instance
your concern is misplaced," she whispered, her breath fanned against his cheek,
her lips almost brushing his earlobe. "This is none of your business. Let's
keep it that way." Another jolt of hot current raced through Logan's arm. She pulled her wrist from his weakened grasp
and continued unmolested though the bar and out the back door.
"And he
strrrr-rikes out," a bar regular who knew Logan, hunkered down like a ball
player and swung an imaginary bat.
"Looks like
Logan met his match," Hardcase commented from across the room.
"Not even Don
Juan scored every time, bub," Logan replied, hiding his uncertainty. He
popped up a middle finger in Hardcase's direction.
"'Pears to me
like that's the one thing you ain't getting tonight, buddy, at least not from
her." Hardcase brought up a bottle
of whisky and a shot glass. "You might
as well have another drink, this one is on me."
"Later," he
said, and looked toward the exit.
"Don't go there,
Logan," Hardcase said. "It's never a good idea to get involved in a
domestic dispute. Maybe Jack'll get his due and she'll kick his ass--she looks
like she could."
"I don't believe this
is domestic." Logan pushed away from the pool table and managed to walk to a
small bar table without falling on his face. Guilt was a burden he rarely
confronted and the strength in which it had struck left him reeling, barely
able to think straight. He stared at the half-full mug. He slugged down the
rest of the tepid beer then grabbed his leather jacket. This was none of
your business, he reminded himself as he headed out the back door. She had
to be a mutant and if she was a mutant bent on trouble, well that was what the
X-Men prevented. I'm doin' my duty, he told himself. Ah hell, I ain't
fooling no one, I want to know what she did to me.
Outside, the rear
alleyway behind the bar was deserted, lit only by the dim overhead glow from a
bare bulb that had attracted a posse of buzzing moths. Their distorted shadows
flitted about on the broken pavement. Logan paused and breathed deeply. He
could detect the petroleum smell of automobile pollution, trash from a nearby
dumpster, and underneath it the woman's unique scent and the putrid scent of
Jack. The two weren't difficult to track and he started off at a jog.
Logan tracked them
four blocks south of Hardcase's bar into an area of abandoned buildings and
found both in a short, dead end alleyway. Jack cringed against a far brick
wall, scrambling against it, ripping the flesh from his fingers in a frantic
attempt to escape the woman. The woman advanced and on her shoulder sat…
something, Logan couldn't tell in the dim light. It might be a bird, but the
silhouette reminded him more of a tiny bat and its scent was odd, like Jack's
scent. It squeaked and darted under her hair.
A dozen feet from
Jack the woman stopped, reached inside her jacket and pulled out a neat little
.22 fitted with what appeared to be a homemade silencer snugged to the
barrel. Serious, he thought. Professional
hitman hardware. Quiet and efficient. He had just seconds to diffuse this
situation before it turned lethal, but her next words made him pause.
"Spiritui Sancto, estote
meum castellumque preaesidium contra omnium hostes," she began.
What the hell?
Latin? Logan thought.
"No!" Jack
cried. "I've cleaned up… I've changed.
Is… is this about those women? I didn't mean to kill them, they asked
for it, they were just whores and I was havin' a bit of fun. Please don't!"
Jack's screech of fear was inhuman, and Logan suppressed an urge to plant two
fingers in his ears.
"Your
transgressions are not mine to judge," the woman replied.
"Yeah, you're only
the flamin' judge, jury and executioner," Logan muttered under his breath. He'd
seen dozens like her in his life; the only different is they didn't spout Latin
before putting a bullet in their victims' heads. And you couldn't be accused
of the same? commented the tiny voice of conscience that Logan decided to
ignore.
"Magnificant anima
tu in quisque magnicium opum. Gloria in excelsis Deo" the woman continued.
Jack howled in pain, his eyes squeezed shut, his body frozen in mid-movement as
if held by an invisible force.
Definitely Latin.
Where was Elf when he needed him? Logan did know Spanish, so he could translate
a little of it--something about magnifying the Lord or some such mumbo jumbo
hocus-pocus bullshit. Maybe she was one of those crazy right wing religious
freaks like that whack-out priest he'd heard of who axed up a few punks who
came to confession [See Ennis's "Punisher"]. Logan couldn't help but feel a
twinge of regret that she wasn't something more than a back alley assassin.
Time to pull Jack's ass out of the fire, he said to himself.
The woman held up the
gun and took aim.
"I think you
should reconsider, darlin'," he said, stepping fully into the alleyway.
"Maybe we let the authorities deal with him. What do ya' say?"
The woman flinched
toward him and the thing under her hair climbed out and darted into the air.
The woman's momentary distraction seemed to release Jack from whatever spell
held him, and he gathered himself and launch forward. The woman recovered, fell
to one knee and pulled the .22's trigger. At point blank range, the bullet
ripped into Jack's check and neck, tearing out fist-size chunk of flesh and
muscle. Blood flew in a red spray. The wound should have been mortal, she'd hit
the jugular judging by the amount of blood, but he just staggered back,
hunkered down like a wounded animal and snarled, his lips stretching over sharp
canines.
"May God have
mercy!" the woman shouted, and took aim again.
By this time, Jack
was no longer Jack.
Jack's clothing split
and ripped, and his skin fell away in long strips like soggy, rotten bark. The thing that emerged reminded Logan what
he'd seen when he was whupin' butt on the N'Garai. Jack's skin was
greyish-brown, smooth and hairless and he stood upright on dog-like hind legs.
Tusks curved from a lipless snout and spikes poked up through his spine and
rippled down his back. Fingers elongated into talons and eyes enlarged and
bugged from a vaguely human-like skull. A set of leathery wings shot through
the skin on his back, tearing through flesh and rising, talon-tipped, into the
air.
"Motherf--!"
SNIKT! Six adamantium claws sprung from his knuckles, and he fell into a
combat crouch.
Logan didn't know
what the woman expected and wouldn't have been surprised if she ran screaming
from Jack—or whatever he was—but she seem more dismayed than surprised or
frightened by the transformation. The flying thing that had been on her
shoulder swooped down toward Jack and hissed.
Jack attacked the woman
and the tiny creature, reaching for them with sharp talons and a gaping maw
lined with needle sharp teeth. The woman leapt backward, landed on her back and
skidded past Logan and all the while emptied the .22's clip into the thing then
drew a Baretta 92 FS from a body rig and emptied that clip. In Logan's quick
appraisal, the bullets did nothing except to piss off Jack.
Jack flew by,
ignoring Logan, his focus on the woman and the little creature. Logan took
advantage and sprung onto the thing's back and with a downward jab, sank his
claws up to his knuckles into its neck. Something black and dusty gushed from
the wounds and its foul stench felt close to burning the hair out of his
nose. He turned his head, and hung on.
An angry high-pitched screeched nearly busted his eardrums. Gritting his teeth,
he struck a second time into the back.
Using his claws in the creature to maintain his balance, he twisted at
the waist and raked a left hand through the membranous area of a leathery wing.
The creature yowled,
trying to dislodge Logan with a clawed hand while it snatched at the woman with
the other, grabbed her by the shoulders and tried to pull her head into its
mouth. The woman's little creature darted down and latched itself onto the
things face and held on, tearing out chucks of flesh. Shrieking again, Jack
drew back and pawed at its face. Out of the bomber jacket sleeve the woman
popped out a tiny gun and shoved it into the creature's mouth and pulled the
trigger as rapidly as she could.
Jack screeched,
fanned his wings and rose up the woman in his talons, Logan on its back and the
little creature on its face. He flew erratically trying to use his one
uninjured wing to gain altitude. Ten feet up, the creature then released the
woman, did a belly roll and dumped Logan then flapped away.
"Oof!" Logan hit the
pavement on his back next to the woman.
He lay for a second
to catch his breath, then sat up and sheathed his claws. The wounds from the
creature hurt like hell, and his healing factor seemed to be having a hard
time. He checked himself and finding nothing that wouldn't heal given time he
looked at the woman. She lay motionless on her side in a pool of blood, her
thick hair falling over face—if she still has a face, Logan amended remembering
that Jack had been doing his best to munch it off. Logan touched her back then
pushed aside her hair, felt for a pulse on her neck and found none, her skin
cold clammy.
"Son of a bitch," he
muttered.
The woman was dead.
======================================================
Latin translation: I
haven't had an opportunity to practice much Latin since college, so I apologize
if this isn't perfect. "Sancto Spiritu, estote meum castellumque preaesidium
contra omnium hostes. Magnificant anima tu in quisque magnicium opum. Gloria in
excelsis Deo": Holy Ghost, be my fortress and defense against all enemies.
My soul magnifies you in every magical work. Glory to God on high.