ALPHA/OMEGA

Book Two

Eight

Logan lunged after Carl, gripping his arm. "You were there? What the hell does that mean?"

Carl winced. "Fine! Fine. After all, could today get any more hellish?" He yanked his arm from Logan's grip, but rather than fleeing, he set the boxes down and leveled a glare at Logan. "In my last life, I was Friar Carl Gaufried. I was a researcher and inventor for a secret holy order based in the Vatican. The Order's purpose was to research, monitor, and if necessary eliminate unholy creatures. The Order had unprecedented freedom, including the freedom to recruit members from non-Catholic religions and backgrounds. We also had a number of professional hunters, men specially trained to take on monsters. And one in particular was the best. You."

Logan's jaw dropped.

Carl stepped forward. "Think, Logan! Do you really think you SMELL evil? It's a gift, a gift from God we thought. It's probably some sort of ESP. When I first met you, I already knew you were more than human. It was 1881. We found you on the steps of the Basilica, almost dead. But within two weeks, you were fine. The whole time I knew you, you always healed faster than normal people, and now, you heal almost instantly!" Carl shuddered, and backed away. "Even then you remembered little of your past. You remembered Masada for God's sake, but not where you were born." A tragic expression stole over Carl's face. "Just like now. You don't remember. I think you might forget for a reason."

Logan nodded, momentarily ignoring Carl's misery. "I do. I think you're right. What little I remember before wandering around Canada is mostly about pain. What Stryker did to me. And I wake up from the nightmares because of the pain too."

"Who's Stryker? What nightmares?"

"Later. Tell me more!" Logan ordered Carl eagerly. "You keep saying Gabriel. Was that my name then?"

Carl nodded, his expression bleak. "You were named Gabriel Van Helsing."

"Gabriel Van Helsing," repeated Logan, wishing the name triggered more memories. "How long have I been alive?"

"Best guess, over two thousand years." Carl's voice seemed distant, clinical.

Logan chuckled. "Well, at least now I know why you keep calling me Gabriel!" He took a good look at the other man, finally, only to see an unusual expression on Carl's face, one of cool calmness, distant and serious. "Carl?"

"Yes, now you know. If you don't mind, I'd like to go take care of a few things before we head back to Nevada." Without waiting for a response, the man picked up the boxes and left Logan standing alone.

----------

"Professor!"

"Yes Logan. I have time to talk to you now." Xavier welcomed Logan into his office. He observed the eager manner of the normally sour mutant before him. "You've spoken with Carl."

"You knew!" Logan scowled. "I knew you were keeping shit from me."

"On the contrary, I had no idea of your distant past. As I told you, the mind is a very delicate thing. And weren't you already having dreams, memories, of that past even before Carl arrived?"

"I hate it when you get ahead of me like that."

Profess Xavier smiled indulgently. "And now?"

Logan started pacing. "OK, so over a hundred years ago, I was a hunter for the Catholic Church. What does that make me now?"

"What ever you'd like to be. At the moment, this school's physical education teacher."

"Real funny, Chuck. I'm serious. I've never had an idea of who I really was. Carl says I could be two thousand years old! So, I've lived all this time, but I keep forgetting it, apparently. Damn, I wish I could remember more." Suddenly he froze, staring out the window, much as Carl had the night they met. "I keep dreaming about a lover. And it's another man. And I'm happier in those dreams then I can ever remember being." His voice was low and agitated. "Then I dream that I'm in a cavern, fighting off creatures like werewolves, and my lover is with me, and he dies. He looks like Carl, and I can't save him. Just now, downstairs, I kissed Carl and he called me Gabriel." He turned to look at the Professor, who's expression seemed both pleased and wary. "It is Carl, isn't it? I was HIS Gabriel. He was my lover. We both hunted for the Church, until he died, and I lost my memory. I'm the one he's been looking for all this time."

Xavier sighed. "I was afraid that you would react very poorly to these revelations. Carl is sometimes intense in his goals and attitudes. It was odd, occasionally, to deal with a teenager with the remembered life experiences of a man almost my own age. I'm not particularly happy with him for telling you everything. I had advised him to let you remember in your own time."

Logan hung his head. "I bullied him into it. Sort of." He looked at Xavier, and realized that the Professor was the closest thing to a confidant he had. "I can remember now what it was like then, I mean between us, but I don't remember how to be Gabriel Van Helsing. But I like him. Carl. I like him now." He flushed a little. "After all, I kissed him." He frowned. "But then I got carried away with everything he knew about my past, and I kinda let the whole kiss thing go. I think he got a bit mad at me."

Xavier sighed, rolling his eyes. Sometimes, Logan was no better than the students. "Logan, you have to understand that Carl remembers everything from that lifetime clearly. I rather think he expected you to remember him. When you didn't, he was very upset. Now, you've forced him to tell you about that life, and yet it appears to him that you still don't remember what you had together." The Professor's smile became a little sly. "After all, he basically came back from the dead for you. I suppose Carl proves reincarnation is possible."

Logan stared at the Professor, the words 'back from the dead' burning a path through his mind. Carl came back for him.

----------

The X-Men gathered by the doors to the jet hanger. Professor Xavier gave Storm last minute information about the weather and topography of the mountains they were headed for. They had discovered another entrance to the cavernous complex. Nightcrawler was busily contorting himself into odd positions, breaking in the leather X-suit he'd been issued. Wolverine nervously flicked his claws in and out, his eyes trained on the elevator. Carl had not yet joined them.

Finally, the elevator hissed open to reveal Carl. He strode forward, his gait purposeful and smooth. Logan's breath hitched. Carl's movements were controlled and graceful, and his expression dangerous but calm. Here was the hunter he'd become a lifetime ago. He wore brown workman's jeans with boots and a brown shirt under a voluminous tan trench coat. A leather strap across his chest held the silvered sword against his back. The flutter of the trench revealed underarm holsters for the Barettas. Logan assumed that the pockets of the trench held additional clips, and at least two of the knives were secreted on Carl's person somewhere. He's amazing, Logan thought admiringly. The rather goofy scholar had disappeared, and in his place was a person who could give Logan a run for his money. Yet when Logan caught Carl's eye, he only got a distant look and a cool nod. I did this to him, Logan realized, dismayed. Again. But where that last part came from, he couldn't say.

As Carl passed him, Logan caught sight of the silver chain around his neck. From it, the silver crucifix dangled. Logan gasped as a blinding moment of memory tore through him, of a morning in a monk's cell, hanging a similar necklace around Carl's neck, smiling into his blue eyes reflected in the tiny mirror in front of them.

"Logan?" The Professor's voice brought him back. The others were all looking at him. Giving himself a mental slap, Wolverine cleared his throat.

"Let's go," the Wolverine growled.