xXx
They did not speak to each other as they walked towards the gazebo. He looked at her once. She did not look at him. They stopped in front of the gazebo, and faced each other.
"This aint about snowballs, is it, darlin," he said softly.
"No, Mister Logan, it isn't,' she said.
"Whatever it is you brought me for, it's got you tied in knots," he said.
"More than you know," she agreed, her voice distant. She stepped away.
"What is this all about then?" he asked. "I came here with you because I figure you're in some kind of trouble."
"No trouble," she said clearly. "No trouble at all."
"Talk to me," he said. This was as close to begging as he got.
"I haven't been in Boston, Logan," she murmured.
"So where you been?"
"Saskatchewan," she said softly. She took another step back. "Bryant! Creed!"
Logan's eyes snapped wide open as a shadow loomed from downwind. He spun low, sniffing, to see a vast mountain of muscle rise up out of the snow. From behind him stepped a man in a suit, tie, trench coat, and gloves, his red hair cropped close.
"Hello, Logan," he said. "The Project needs you back."
Logan's eyes locked on Creed; well over six feet, maned in golden curls, solid with hard flesh and muscle and tough hide, wearing a combat jumpsuit. The towering brute stood up straight; still no fat on him. Right. Logan's eyes narrowed, every sense sharpened painfully, and he prepared himself to fight for his life.
"Don't know what you had to do with this, darlin," he growled to Lisa, "but you don't wanna be here when we tussle. Get lost."
"You don't understand," she said.
"No," he agreed, not taking his eyes off of Creed, who stood glistening with snow. "No I don't."
He popped his claws.
With the slithering hiss of unsheathing metal, gleaming blades slid out of the backs of his hands; they steamed with his body heat when exposed to the chill air.
"It doesn't have to be this way, Logan," Bryant said, his Canadian accent heavy. "You can come peacefully and no one will get hurt."
"Until I get back to yer stinkin lab," Logan growled. "No, let's do the hurtin here."
"I'm sorry," Bryant said. Creed grinned.
They were growling; a subaudial ferocity that radiated almost from the bones of the two men that faced off; Creed towered over Logan, confident as a lion facing a wolf. Then, the growl was no longer subaudial. It swelled to a roar. Logan met him halfway.
Creed's first slash went wide, and Logan ducked under it. Twisting in the snow, he drove his claws up through the monster's forearm, missing bone. Not missing tendon. With a tearing swallowing sound, Creed's muscles rolled away from his wrist as Logan cut the flesh ropes that held them in place. Quick, Logan slid his claws free, rolling through the snow as Creed's scream of fury silenced the park. Police sirens started in the near distance.
Logan popped up, spinning, but he had forgotten Creed's speed. The monster dropped by him and crushed a blow into the side of his head; Creed's fist was the size of a concrete block and three times as solid, and it was backed by the power of a piledriver. Bone rang off metal, for Logan's skull was not so easily crushed. The small man flew through the air and smashed through the gazebo, ending up somewhere under it.
Threads of tendon trailed from the brutalized muscles in Creed's arm; they gathered strength, and he howled as his muscles began to pull themselves back into place.
Bloody, Logan rose from the wreckage.
Just getting warmed up.
xXx
First he heard a howl unlike anything he'd ever heard before. Then a clang echoed through the park, sounding like a car wreck. Peter sprang across the rooftops until he got a vantage where he could see the blood in the snow.
He saw a monstrous man, slathered with blood and snow, and the crushed gazebo, and the man dragging himself out of it. He saw a blonde and a guy in a trench coat just standing there watching. Every sensible civilian had fled, so he had to assume these two were involved. His whole body tingled in anticipation.
"Hold your horses," he muttered. "Who says we're getting involved?"
Then he saw the three men working their way around the back of the gazebo, out of sight behind the hill. They were toting what his senses immediately identified as plasma weapons.
"Not nice," he muttered, shaking his head. "That's just not very nice."
He dropped from the roof like the shadow of a bird.
xXx
Logan's face was a mass of blood; his windbreaker hung from him in shreds, and his foot pushed out of one of his split boots. He waited, and Creed circled him like a lion trying to eat a porcupine.
"I've forgotten what your skeleton looks like," Creed said slowly, his deep voice welling out of somewhere below his chest. "I want to see it again." He flexed, and claws slid out of his fingertips; thick, black, vicious blades made entirely by his body.
"What," Logan said, "a peep at my skull aint doin it for you?"
Creed sprang, and Logan rolled under him, lashing out at his knee. The blades slid through hide and dragged along the meat of his muscle, scoring his calf. Creed spun to land, facing Logan as the shorter man popped up.
"Yer close to the edge, bub," Logan rasped. "Don't find it. Not here in front of the lady."
"Just don't get it, do ya," grunted Creed. "Show me what you got, shrimp."
"Help me out," Logan rasped. "Hit me again."
Creed slid up to him, and Logan hopped to the side. Creed spun, and Logan darted in to stick his back. There was a whole lot of back, though, and Creed's spin gave extra force to the claws that crushed into Logan's side, effortlessly slicing skin, flesh, muscle, and ringing off his steely ribs. Logan skidded across the snow, then leaped up, gore trailing from his wounds. Creed bared his teeth, and sucked the gob of Logan's flesh off his glittering claws.
"Let's dance," Logan managed, and that was the last his consciousness could manage.
Now. Now it was time to drop the hammer.
Everything went red.
He skimmed across the snow, dancing low. Creed grinned, because now they were a match. His only hope was that Logan would do for him what he just did for Logan. He hadn't been pushed over the edge in far, far too long, and he chafed at the order to bring Logan in alive. Pure foolishness. He would end it here.
Logan sprang, and Creed's speed failed him. Claws punched into his ribs, and the momentum shoved him backward; he had forgotten how heavy Logan was. The claws came out through bone, and in spite of the bursting pain Creed was more worried about his skeleton holding his strength together than he was about dying. Blood slopped into his lungs, coughed out his face to spatter Logan. Then those claws took the tendons on the left side of his throat. He half roared, half sprayed, and hurled Logan from him. Yes. Yes. Now he was close. Something in the back of his mind tried to tell him something. He ignored it.
Creed lashed out at Logan, who caught his wrist in those damned claws, tugging him off balance. The other claws rammed into his face; he felt his left eye go, felt the claw slide through the cartilage of his nose and ring against the back of his skull. The claws slid back out, and Logan spun, taking the flesh and some bone from the top of his head in a furious slash. Logan was frantic and vicious, unstoppable, an elemental thing of fury.
Creed finally crested. All the pain became his friend. He no longer needed to think.
He managed a wet coughing grunt as he loomed over Logan; so quick. He crashed, bearing down with all his strength and weight, and Logan did not get free, or even try. They locked on the ground; Creed groped for joints or neck, Logan squirming to get his claws into Creed's muscle groups.
Lisa stood by Bryant. "Why did I have to be here for this?" she asked, her voice cold.
"You needed to see it," Bryant replied, fascinated by the fight. "We needed to see you see it." He looked over at her, and his eyes were not kind. "You want to be cured, right?"
He looked back at the fight, where Creed's arm went suddenly loose and he popped up as though he was doing a pushup; they saw the glinting tips of the claws punch through the back of his shoulders.
"It isn't over yet," Bryant said.
Creed drove down on the claws and they heard a wet crack as he rammed his wounded head into Logan. The small man tore his claws out, and managed to free himself. He stood, panting, badly torn. Creed, his head sealing but his eyes full of blood, managed to stagger to his feet, arms hanging limp, claw holes squirting as his body desperately tried to seal them. Neither knew any words.
Lisa looked down, startled, as Bryant handed her a peculiar silvered pistol. "Shoot Logan," Bryant said, his voice unemotional. He turned his cold eyes on her. "Take him alive."
"He'll be killed by Creed!" she said
"He won't," Bryant snapped. "Prove yourself."
She steeled herself and raised the pistol. It was warm, and it thrummed in her hand. She looked at Logan, and for a moment he looked over at her; she wasn't sure what level of understanding he had at that moment. She couldn't bear to wonder.
She pulled the trigger.
A hot line of living flame leaped from the gun and lashed into Logan. Pierced, he flew back as the gazebo behind him burst into flame. He collapsed, smoking. Creed threw back his head and howled.
"Wells! Now!" Bryant shouted. Police cars were streaming into the park, headed towards the battle. "NOW!" Bryant repeated loudly.
"Don't think they heard you," came a chipper voice from behind him. He spun to see a shadow, lithe and stringy, with huge pale eyes. Over his shoulder was a webbed bundle with three plasma rifles peeking out. "Your heavily armed friends are taking a nap."
"Who are you?" Bryant said, at a loss.
"I'm with the NRA, and we were wondering if we could get some sweet deals on your merchandise," the shadow pattered. "You know, less Charleton Heston and more Brad Pitt."
Bryant whipped out a pistol, but before he could level it at the shadowman it had left his hand and entered the web bag. "Let me guess," the shadow said as it pushed him, not gently, sending him sailing across the snow: "somebody told you yew wuz fast."
There was a peculiar unzipping sound, and Lisa's gun whipped free of her hand and was in the bag. Then the bag hit the ground, and the shadow figure leaped towards where Creed bent over Logan.
"Bad dog no biskit," the shadowed man prattled as he came in low. "No chewy snack."
Creed, even in his excited state, had no difficulty adjusting. With a throaty snarl he lashed out. The shadow man slid to his side in the snow, less than an inch below the hissing swipe. "Whoah, Cujo," he said.
He sprang as his mouth kept running, his foot touching Creed's elbow on the way up. Then he was on top of the hulking shoulders.
"Holy joints!" he said as he squatted, slamming a fist down on the top of each shoulder. There was a shifting crunch, and blood sprayed out of Creed's punctured arms. The shadowy figure hopped free, landing twenty feet away as Creed dropped to one knee, screaming.
Police cars pulled up, and cops started running for the flaming gazebo. The shadowy man patted out the fire on Logan, then scooped him up, scuttling up the side of a nearby building with the crippled man over his shoulder.
Bryant snarled with rage. "Come on," he said to Lisa, and they turned and ran.
By the time the police arrived, all that was left at the site was a lot of blood, a flaming gazebo, and a net bag full of plasma weapons.
A trail of blood led into the city, then thinned to nothing.
xXx
He was moving fast, building to building. Finally he crouched on First Bank and Trust. Mercy Hospital was below. He adjusted his passenger, and prepared to drop. There might still be time to save his life.
"Put me down," came a hard, muffled voice. Peter slung his passenger to the ground and took a step back. And gasped.
The man laying there had unbroken skin on his head, and his wounds were much less grievous in this light than they had been in the park.
"Who the hell are you?" growled the wounded man.
"A good Samaritan who happened to see you turned into a wet sack of lasagna by Furs R Us in the park. I thought you could use some professional help. Medical, I mean."
The wounded man gave him a long look. "You don't really ever shut up, do you," he said.
The shadow shrugged. "You gotta get hit to let go. I just keep talking, and my instinct takes care of the rest. Nothing more dangerous than stopping to think. Gotta keep the mind busy."
"I guess I can see yer point," the wounded man said. "My name's Logan."
The shadow hesitated. "Good to meet you, Logan."
"Whaddya want me ta call you? Tinkerbell?"
"Has a nice ring to it, but let's stick with Peter."
"Peter, right. Uh, I don't remember so good what happened at the end there at the park. Where's the blonde girl? And where's Creed?"
"The blonde ran off with the guy in the trench coat. Is Creed the big guy?" Logan nodded. "So they call it Creed. I half expected they'd have a monogrammed collar for him, and a little pet sweater. He managed to drag himself off, but I don't think he'll get far."
"He heals faster than I do, Peter," Logan said, shifting position. "He'll be fine. Dammit. Guess I just didn't hit him hard enough."
"How's your burn?" Peter asked.
"Hurts," Logan said softly.
They were quiet for a while. The sun reached the middle of the sky.
"You got a family?" Logan asked.
"Let's not get too personal, okay?" Peter said. "I know this is really a dashing outfit, and you have no idea how comfortable it is, but—"
"You're a college student, you live in a house with an old woman, prob'ly around Second and Bleeker. White male, five foot ten, no drinking, no smoking, not too much meat, really likes potato chips and root beer. Relax. I'm just making conversation."
Peter had nothing to say to that.
Logan gestured uncomfortably at his face. "It's my sniffer. Tells me more'n I want to know sometimes. You've seen me at my worst, and saved my bacon from a fate worse than death. I guess it's hard not to know who you are, that's all."
"Are you going to be okay?" Peter asked, suddenly moved.
Logan looked up at him, a gleam in his eye. "Yeah. I'll be okay. I just got some questions I need answers to."
"You're going to tangle with Creed again?"
"And then some. That joker with him is Bryant, And the blonde is Lisa. We used to be friends, Lisa and me. But Bryant, he was always bad news. Hails from Canada. He holds Creed's leash."
"You think they'll stay in town?"
"Kid, I spent almost twenty years runnin away from them. They've found me. They aint gonna just let me go. I can either start runnin again, or I can get the answers I'm after and settle up between us what aint right."
Peter hesitated again, caught in conflicting emotions. The spider lost. "Need some help?"
Logan looked up at him quickly, squinting against the sun. "You offerin to help me?"
"Well, as fixated as my age group is on scan tron and Gallup polls, in this case I mean to help you if you need it."
"You're a regular hero," Logan said with a grin. Peter was unsettled to see two teeth already knifing back through the gums where they'd been knocked out less than an hour before.
"Let's not get all mushy," Peter said. "If Creed's sniffer is as good as yours, it's in my best interests."
Logan smiled. "Sure, kid."
"Why'd I even bother telling you my name?" Peter wondered aloud.
"Cause yer such a hero," Logan grinned. "Help me up. I got a bolthole in case of emergency, which this is. You go on home, and stay sharp. Creed likes to hit the people you care about. If Bryant gets control of him again, he'll be coming after me. Otherwise, he'll look for either of us. He'll figure if he finds you he can squeeze my wherebouts out of you, and you won't like it." He stopped, and looked hard at Peter.
"Thank you. I mean it. I'll pay you back someday."
Peter just nodded; there was nothing to say to that. Then, he hopped off the roof and was gone.
Logan dragged himself to his feet and looked up at the sky. Then he nodded. No need for vows. There was only one thing to be done, one mystery to unravel. Then, he would know what to do.
The city swallowed them up, and the helicopters that crisscrossed its skies saw nothing.
