FIC: Magnolia (2/5) (AB/X-Men)
Magnolia part 2 of 5
by Mhalachai
Disclaimer: Laurell K. Hamilton owns all things Anita Blake. Marvel and 20th Century Fox own all things X-Men. I am but borrowing the characters for a brief time and shall return them intact at the end.
Summary: Picking up strays wasn't Logan's thing, especially after what happened up in Alberta. So why is he so intent on that strange woman next to him at the bar? (Set just after the first X-men movie, and about a half a year after Incubus Dreams. No spoilers beyond that book.)
Rating: Bordering on R for sex and stuff. This part is PG-13 for language.
Part One here
~~*~~
The night air was warm and thick as Logan stepped out of the bar. Taking a deep breath, he picked up the faintest hint of the woman's scent, gun oil mixed with perfume and the faintest hint of rosemary. Not bothering with the parking lot, Logan headed for the ravine behind the bar.
The scent grew stronger, and he knew he was on the right track. Stepping carefully over leaves and roots, he wound his way through the dark trees, not even sure what he'd do when he found the woman. Hell, he didn't even know her name, or what she thought she was doing in going after the vampires. The smart thing to do would be to turn around and leave.
Then again, no one ever said I was smart, Logan thought as he caught a glimpse of the woman, far ahead of him. She moved too fast and too silently for a human, and Logan began to wonder if she was a mutant, like him.
Her pace didn't slow, and soon she left the ravine and was into deeper woods. Logan was better able to follow her here, with the thicker trees hiding him. The faint light from the moon was barely enough to illuminate his path, but he'd spent years running through the woods with less light to show him the way.
Up ahead, the woman slowed and pulled out her gun. Logan had to duck behind a tree to hide as she turned around, and when he looked back out, she was gone. Cursing himself, both for losing her now and for following her in the first place, Logan put his hand on the tree for balance as he moved towards the last place he'd seen her.
The sound of the gun being cocked seemed as loud as thunder in the silent forest. Logan froze mid-step as the woman, gun held steady in both hands, came into view.
"Don't move," she said, cold and low.
"Wasn't thinking of it," Logan said as he straightened up.
"Why were you following me?" the woman demanded.
Logan toyed with the idea of pretending he was out for a stroll, but he half-suspected the woman might just shoot him for that. She sure smelled angry enough. He'd been shot with a Browning before - the bullet wouldn't kill him, but it would hurt like a bitch. "I thought you might need some help," he finally said, wincing at how pathetic it sounded.
The woman moved forward a step, putting her in a beam of moonlight filtering through the trees. She looked as angry as Logan had thought. "Help with what?" she demanded as she lowered the gun.
"Those two vampires you were following, for starters?" Logan said.
For some reason, the woman took a couple of steps back. "Did Victor send you?" Her voice wavered slightly, more intensely angry than ever.
"Who?"
She shook her head. "Just get the fuck away from me, got it?"
"Hey, not problems here," Logan retorted. As he shrugged to re-adjust his t-shirt over his shoulders, he thought he heard something faint, a tiny scratching, from behind a nearby tree.
"Go, then," the woman said when Logan didn't move.
Shit. There was something behind that tree, and he wasn't sure if the woman knew about it. The wind was the wrong direction for him to tell for certain, but whatever was hiding didn't smell like an animal, or like a vampire. Was it after him, or her? "You sure you don't want to head back to the bar?" Logan asked, making as if he was going to leave, but putting himself closer to the tree. "Hunting vampires these days is a sure way to get the cops after you."
The woman glared at him. "I am the fucking cops," she spat. "So spare me the sermon, and leave me the fuck alone!"
She got fiery when she was angry. Logan liked that. "Hey, I'm just trying to help," he said, pretending to sound hurt. "Can't blame a guy for wanting to help out a lady, especially one who's--"
Logan broke off and whirled around the tree, claws flashing out as he grabbed handfuls of cloth and flesh, and hauling his prize into the open.
The watcher whimpered as Logan slammed him to the ground, but shut his mouth quickly when he saw the shiny metal claws a fraction of an inch from his eyes.
"What are you doing here, bub?" Logan growled, stomping one foot on the man's knees so he couldn't run. The man whimpered again, but didn't try to get away. Logan shook him hard, retracting his claws, and standing up.
The man stayed crumpled on the ground. He was a pathetic mess; rail thin, worn clothes, with a sour stink of despair about him. "Please don't hurt me," he pleaded, curling up into a ball.
Hell. The man didn't look dangerous, but Logan wasn't going to be fooled by appearances. "Then tell me why you were following me," Logan demanded.
"He wasn't following you, he was following me," the woman said. She moved up to Logan's side, her gun held smartly at her side. "Who sent you? Victor? Daryl?"
"No, lady, no one," the wreck on the ground stuttered. "I just heard you coming and came to see, that's all, I swear."
The man was lying about something. Logan looked around the darkened woods. From the faint smell of stale exhaust, there had to be a road around here somewhere. "Someone paying you to keep watch on the road?" Logan asked, a shot in the dark.
The guess struck home. The man turned a sickly grey, and started to babble incoherently.
"Fuck," the woman muttered. She put her gun back in its holster, then stepped up to the man. Logan wanted to tell her to stop, that he might be faking, but she took hold of the man's head between her hands, and turned his face up to the light. "A vampire's been tampering with his mind," she said after a minute.
"So now what?" Logan asked.
"Hey," the woman said to the man. She waited until his pleading stopped, and she locked eyes with him. "Listen to me. I want to you to go into town, go to the police station, and you ask to talk to Sheriff Paul. Do you understand?"
The man nodded weakly.
"Then you tell him that Marshal Blake sent you, that you got rolled by a vampire. Okay?"
The man sniffled pathetically as the woman released him. "All Sheriff Paul ever does is lock me up in the drunk tank."
The woman pulled a small paper card out of her back pocket. "Even if he locks you up in the drunk tank, I'll be there later to get you out," she said, handing the man the card. "What's your name?"
"Amos."
"Then, Amos, you get going. Go straight the police station, and don't talk to anyone else. No one."
Amos nodded again, then scrambled to his feet and ran off into the darkness.
Logan let out a breath when the man was gone. The desperation about the man had turned Logan's stomach, with something a little too close to memory. "What did you do to him?"
"Nothing," the woman said, standing up and brushing the dirt off her knees.
"Bullshit."
The woman whirled on Logan, eyes flashing dangerously in the faint light. "He's weak-willed enough that anyone would tell him. Hell, even the vampire that rolled him didn't do a good job."
"So what if he goes to whoever rolled him?"
"He won't," she said.
"And how do you know?"
She jerked her thumb over her shoulder. "Because the vampire who rolled him is probably one of the ones I was following, and they went that way. Now if you will excuse me, I've got work to do." She turned around and stalked into the night.
She doesn't want your help, Logan told himself. Just go back to the bar, maybe have another drink.
Marie's face flashed in his mind, from when he'd said goodbye to her at the mansion, two weeks ago. Being all brave and strong, but still fragile inside. No matter what she said, Logan would never have let Marie take off on her own into the dark like this.
"Oh, fuck," Logan swore. He went after the woman.
~~
He caught up with her in about five minutes. She gave him a sidelong glance and shook her head, but she didn't say anything. Together, they went deeper into the woods and over a tiny stream. The air was sweet here, with the smell of flowers and dying leaves. It was so different from up north, where Logan had spent so much of the last fifteen years, where the air was crisp even in the summer, and cold enough to burn your lungs in the winter.
"What were those things in your hands?" she asked after about ten minutes of silently climbing through the trees.
He'd been waiting for her to ask, but the way the question sounded surprised him. Just like Marie, with simple curiosity. "Claws," he said shortly.
They climbed around a large fallen tree before she spoke again. "Are you a lycanthrope?"
"A what?"
"Lycanthrope," she repeated. "Like a werewolf."
Logan had met werewolves, enough to know to give them a wide berth. They really didn't like him. "No."
"Then how--"
Logan stopped suddenly, holding his arm out straight to the side as he forced his claws out, slicing up through his muscle and skin. The woman stared down at the claws, glinting in the moonlight.
"Are you a mutant?"
"What do you think?" Logan snarled.
She blinked up at him. There was something weighty in her eyes now, and with it came a prickling along Logan's spine. He slowly retracted his claws, ignoring the familiar pain, as he tried to identify the feeling. It was power, no doubt, but it felt different than any mutant power he'd felt before. Was she a mutant? Or was she something a little less familiar?
"We're burning moonlight," she said, turning back to the dark. This time, she didn't tell Logan to stay behind.
~~
They finally found the vampires. It wasn't hard; they were shouting at a couple of humans in a clearing, illuminated by the bright headlights of two pickup trucks
Logan crouched down beside the woman, feeling her long hair tickle his cheek. "What now?" he asked, putting his lips close to her ear to avoid being overheard.
He felt her shrug. "I'm supposed to find out what these two are doing," she replied, voice so soft that Logan would have missed it without his sharp hearing.
"Then what?"
She let out a soft sigh. "I don't know. I don't have a warrant of execution."
Logan raised an eyebrow. "So, what, you followed these jerks out here to watch them?"
"Be quiet!" she hushed him, staring straight ahead.
The strange light from the cars filtered through the limp leaves, and Logan took his eyes off the argument across the clearing to look at her. The power he felt coming from her earlier in the night was damped down, but he doubted it was truly gone. She might be a mutant, but they didn't let mutants on the police forces these days. What else could she be?
"What's your name?" Logan whispered.
She turned her head, eyes wide. "Anita," she said after a minute.
An old-fashioned name. Had he ever known someone with that name? "I'm Logan."
Anita smiled faintly, then turned back to her surveillance.
One of the humans started yelling about payment, careful never to look up at the vampires. As the yelling escalated, the air shifted slightly, and Logan almost sneezed. "Damn," he muttered when he was certain he wasn't going to give them away. "There's pot in those trucks."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah." Logan lowered himself to the ground on his knees, to let his calves rest. He was getting a really bad feeling about this, as if the woods themselves were watching. "There's a lot, too."
"This is what those vamps are after?" Anita shook her head. "I can't believe this."
"Let's leave," Logan said, uneasiness growing. "Unless you want to go getting into a fight."
"In a minute," she insisted. She pulled out a scrap of paper and scribbled something down. Itching to get the hell out of there, Logan tried to pin down why he felt like this. It didn't make any sense.
Finally, Anita was done, and they silently crawled away from the clearing. Logan kept waiting for a sound, something to indicate that the vampires had seen them, but the wind was in their favor, and the commotion in the clearing was enough to drown out a herd of elephants.
Moving as fast as he could while still being silent, Logan headed back the way they had come. Anita kept up with him effortlessly. After about ten minutes of silent running, she slowed to a stop. Logan stopped without thinking, then tried to grab her arm, to get her moving again. She danced back out of the way.
"You want to tell me why you were so anxious to leave?" she asked, sounding heavily suspicious.
Logan started to answer, then had to physically turn around, the sensation of being watched was so strong. "Hey, I like a fight as much as the next guy, but I'm not stupid enough to go up against a couple of twitchy vampires."
"No one said you had to, but I've got a fucking job to do!" Anita exclaimed. She kicked at a nearby log. "And when the hell did vampires start dealing pot, anyway? I'm not the goddamned DEA."
"What did you think they were doing?" Logan had to ask.
"Causing mayhem and violence, like these kinds of vampires do," Anita said. She rubbed her hand over her face. "But those two can't be more than three years dead. The sheriff didn't need my help in all this."
"If he wanted your help, then why are you out here alone?"
"This is what I do," she said. There was a hint of exhaustion in her voice, but Logan didn't have time to comment on it. There was a rush above them, and Logan didn't even think. His claws shot out of his hands as he turned to meet the onslaught.
Two vampires attacked from the sky, but they were not the vampires from the clearing. These ones were older, more powerful. As one of them fell upon Logan in a crush, he forgot about walking away, about avoiding the vampires, about everything but the fight.
With an angry roar, Logan rolled as he hit the ground, still underneath the vampire, thrusting his claws up into the meat of his attacker's body, then throwing as hard as he could. The vampire's flight was stopped as it slammed into a tree, cracking the wood in two.
Anita had fallen to the ground. The other vampire lunged at her, but quicker than thought, Anita had her gun aimed at the vampire's midsection, and fired.
Screaming with pain and rage, Anita's vampire fell back. Logan's vampire got to its feet, grabbed its companion, and took the air, leaving as quickly as they had arrived.
Muscles tight with adrenaline, Logan stood still for a moment, staring up into the night.
"What the hell?" Anita asked, still flat on her back. Logan shook his head, hard, and let his claws pull back into his arms.
"You just seem to make friends wherever you go," Logan said. He held out his hand to her, to help her up, but she just glared at him.
"I've only been in town for a day," she pointed out sharply, taking the offered hand. "Did you ever think that they were aiming for--"
Her mouth shut with a snap as Logan's fingers closed around her hand and he yanked her upright. Power spilled off her, up his arm and around his entire body. She overbalanced as she came to her feet and fell against him, their bodies pressing together. Logan felt the weight of her breasts pressed against his chest through her thin shirt, the length of her thigh against his, all sensation and no thought. Suddenly, a fight wasn't the kind of workout he wanted.
Anita stared up at him, dark eyes huge in her face. Her mouth opened slightly, making him lean down for a kiss, before his mind pulled him back screaming, to stop this foolishness.
"Sorry," he murmured, lifting his head, but not pulling away from her body. He still wasn't thinking straight.
"I didn't mean..." Anita pulled herself away, a horrified expression on her face. "I'm sorry."
With some distance between them, Logan began to think clearly again. "We better go before they come back," he said. He turned and headed though the woods; the only indication that Anita followed him was the faint sound of her ragged breathing behind him.
...to be continued
by Mhalachai
Disclaimer: Laurell K. Hamilton owns all things Anita Blake. Marvel and 20th Century Fox own all things X-Men. I am but borrowing the characters for a brief time and shall return them intact at the end.
Summary: Picking up strays wasn't Logan's thing, especially after what happened up in Alberta. So why is he so intent on that strange woman next to him at the bar? (Set just after the first X-men movie, and about a half a year after Incubus Dreams. No spoilers beyond that book.)
Rating: Bordering on R for sex and stuff. This part is PG-13 for language.
Part One here
~~*~~
The night air was warm and thick as Logan stepped out of the bar. Taking a deep breath, he picked up the faintest hint of the woman's scent, gun oil mixed with perfume and the faintest hint of rosemary. Not bothering with the parking lot, Logan headed for the ravine behind the bar.
The scent grew stronger, and he knew he was on the right track. Stepping carefully over leaves and roots, he wound his way through the dark trees, not even sure what he'd do when he found the woman. Hell, he didn't even know her name, or what she thought she was doing in going after the vampires. The smart thing to do would be to turn around and leave.
Then again, no one ever said I was smart, Logan thought as he caught a glimpse of the woman, far ahead of him. She moved too fast and too silently for a human, and Logan began to wonder if she was a mutant, like him.
Her pace didn't slow, and soon she left the ravine and was into deeper woods. Logan was better able to follow her here, with the thicker trees hiding him. The faint light from the moon was barely enough to illuminate his path, but he'd spent years running through the woods with less light to show him the way.
Up ahead, the woman slowed and pulled out her gun. Logan had to duck behind a tree to hide as she turned around, and when he looked back out, she was gone. Cursing himself, both for losing her now and for following her in the first place, Logan put his hand on the tree for balance as he moved towards the last place he'd seen her.
The sound of the gun being cocked seemed as loud as thunder in the silent forest. Logan froze mid-step as the woman, gun held steady in both hands, came into view.
"Don't move," she said, cold and low.
"Wasn't thinking of it," Logan said as he straightened up.
"Why were you following me?" the woman demanded.
Logan toyed with the idea of pretending he was out for a stroll, but he half-suspected the woman might just shoot him for that. She sure smelled angry enough. He'd been shot with a Browning before - the bullet wouldn't kill him, but it would hurt like a bitch. "I thought you might need some help," he finally said, wincing at how pathetic it sounded.
The woman moved forward a step, putting her in a beam of moonlight filtering through the trees. She looked as angry as Logan had thought. "Help with what?" she demanded as she lowered the gun.
"Those two vampires you were following, for starters?" Logan said.
For some reason, the woman took a couple of steps back. "Did Victor send you?" Her voice wavered slightly, more intensely angry than ever.
"Who?"
She shook her head. "Just get the fuck away from me, got it?"
"Hey, not problems here," Logan retorted. As he shrugged to re-adjust his t-shirt over his shoulders, he thought he heard something faint, a tiny scratching, from behind a nearby tree.
"Go, then," the woman said when Logan didn't move.
Shit. There was something behind that tree, and he wasn't sure if the woman knew about it. The wind was the wrong direction for him to tell for certain, but whatever was hiding didn't smell like an animal, or like a vampire. Was it after him, or her? "You sure you don't want to head back to the bar?" Logan asked, making as if he was going to leave, but putting himself closer to the tree. "Hunting vampires these days is a sure way to get the cops after you."
The woman glared at him. "I am the fucking cops," she spat. "So spare me the sermon, and leave me the fuck alone!"
She got fiery when she was angry. Logan liked that. "Hey, I'm just trying to help," he said, pretending to sound hurt. "Can't blame a guy for wanting to help out a lady, especially one who's--"
Logan broke off and whirled around the tree, claws flashing out as he grabbed handfuls of cloth and flesh, and hauling his prize into the open.
The watcher whimpered as Logan slammed him to the ground, but shut his mouth quickly when he saw the shiny metal claws a fraction of an inch from his eyes.
"What are you doing here, bub?" Logan growled, stomping one foot on the man's knees so he couldn't run. The man whimpered again, but didn't try to get away. Logan shook him hard, retracting his claws, and standing up.
The man stayed crumpled on the ground. He was a pathetic mess; rail thin, worn clothes, with a sour stink of despair about him. "Please don't hurt me," he pleaded, curling up into a ball.
Hell. The man didn't look dangerous, but Logan wasn't going to be fooled by appearances. "Then tell me why you were following me," Logan demanded.
"He wasn't following you, he was following me," the woman said. She moved up to Logan's side, her gun held smartly at her side. "Who sent you? Victor? Daryl?"
"No, lady, no one," the wreck on the ground stuttered. "I just heard you coming and came to see, that's all, I swear."
The man was lying about something. Logan looked around the darkened woods. From the faint smell of stale exhaust, there had to be a road around here somewhere. "Someone paying you to keep watch on the road?" Logan asked, a shot in the dark.
The guess struck home. The man turned a sickly grey, and started to babble incoherently.
"Fuck," the woman muttered. She put her gun back in its holster, then stepped up to the man. Logan wanted to tell her to stop, that he might be faking, but she took hold of the man's head between her hands, and turned his face up to the light. "A vampire's been tampering with his mind," she said after a minute.
"So now what?" Logan asked.
"Hey," the woman said to the man. She waited until his pleading stopped, and she locked eyes with him. "Listen to me. I want to you to go into town, go to the police station, and you ask to talk to Sheriff Paul. Do you understand?"
The man nodded weakly.
"Then you tell him that Marshal Blake sent you, that you got rolled by a vampire. Okay?"
The man sniffled pathetically as the woman released him. "All Sheriff Paul ever does is lock me up in the drunk tank."
The woman pulled a small paper card out of her back pocket. "Even if he locks you up in the drunk tank, I'll be there later to get you out," she said, handing the man the card. "What's your name?"
"Amos."
"Then, Amos, you get going. Go straight the police station, and don't talk to anyone else. No one."
Amos nodded again, then scrambled to his feet and ran off into the darkness.
Logan let out a breath when the man was gone. The desperation about the man had turned Logan's stomach, with something a little too close to memory. "What did you do to him?"
"Nothing," the woman said, standing up and brushing the dirt off her knees.
"Bullshit."
The woman whirled on Logan, eyes flashing dangerously in the faint light. "He's weak-willed enough that anyone would tell him. Hell, even the vampire that rolled him didn't do a good job."
"So what if he goes to whoever rolled him?"
"He won't," she said.
"And how do you know?"
She jerked her thumb over her shoulder. "Because the vampire who rolled him is probably one of the ones I was following, and they went that way. Now if you will excuse me, I've got work to do." She turned around and stalked into the night.
She doesn't want your help, Logan told himself. Just go back to the bar, maybe have another drink.
Marie's face flashed in his mind, from when he'd said goodbye to her at the mansion, two weeks ago. Being all brave and strong, but still fragile inside. No matter what she said, Logan would never have let Marie take off on her own into the dark like this.
"Oh, fuck," Logan swore. He went after the woman.
~~
He caught up with her in about five minutes. She gave him a sidelong glance and shook her head, but she didn't say anything. Together, they went deeper into the woods and over a tiny stream. The air was sweet here, with the smell of flowers and dying leaves. It was so different from up north, where Logan had spent so much of the last fifteen years, where the air was crisp even in the summer, and cold enough to burn your lungs in the winter.
"What were those things in your hands?" she asked after about ten minutes of silently climbing through the trees.
He'd been waiting for her to ask, but the way the question sounded surprised him. Just like Marie, with simple curiosity. "Claws," he said shortly.
They climbed around a large fallen tree before she spoke again. "Are you a lycanthrope?"
"A what?"
"Lycanthrope," she repeated. "Like a werewolf."
Logan had met werewolves, enough to know to give them a wide berth. They really didn't like him. "No."
"Then how--"
Logan stopped suddenly, holding his arm out straight to the side as he forced his claws out, slicing up through his muscle and skin. The woman stared down at the claws, glinting in the moonlight.
"Are you a mutant?"
"What do you think?" Logan snarled.
She blinked up at him. There was something weighty in her eyes now, and with it came a prickling along Logan's spine. He slowly retracted his claws, ignoring the familiar pain, as he tried to identify the feeling. It was power, no doubt, but it felt different than any mutant power he'd felt before. Was she a mutant? Or was she something a little less familiar?
"We're burning moonlight," she said, turning back to the dark. This time, she didn't tell Logan to stay behind.
~~
They finally found the vampires. It wasn't hard; they were shouting at a couple of humans in a clearing, illuminated by the bright headlights of two pickup trucks
Logan crouched down beside the woman, feeling her long hair tickle his cheek. "What now?" he asked, putting his lips close to her ear to avoid being overheard.
He felt her shrug. "I'm supposed to find out what these two are doing," she replied, voice so soft that Logan would have missed it without his sharp hearing.
"Then what?"
She let out a soft sigh. "I don't know. I don't have a warrant of execution."
Logan raised an eyebrow. "So, what, you followed these jerks out here to watch them?"
"Be quiet!" she hushed him, staring straight ahead.
The strange light from the cars filtered through the limp leaves, and Logan took his eyes off the argument across the clearing to look at her. The power he felt coming from her earlier in the night was damped down, but he doubted it was truly gone. She might be a mutant, but they didn't let mutants on the police forces these days. What else could she be?
"What's your name?" Logan whispered.
She turned her head, eyes wide. "Anita," she said after a minute.
An old-fashioned name. Had he ever known someone with that name? "I'm Logan."
Anita smiled faintly, then turned back to her surveillance.
One of the humans started yelling about payment, careful never to look up at the vampires. As the yelling escalated, the air shifted slightly, and Logan almost sneezed. "Damn," he muttered when he was certain he wasn't going to give them away. "There's pot in those trucks."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah." Logan lowered himself to the ground on his knees, to let his calves rest. He was getting a really bad feeling about this, as if the woods themselves were watching. "There's a lot, too."
"This is what those vamps are after?" Anita shook her head. "I can't believe this."
"Let's leave," Logan said, uneasiness growing. "Unless you want to go getting into a fight."
"In a minute," she insisted. She pulled out a scrap of paper and scribbled something down. Itching to get the hell out of there, Logan tried to pin down why he felt like this. It didn't make any sense.
Finally, Anita was done, and they silently crawled away from the clearing. Logan kept waiting for a sound, something to indicate that the vampires had seen them, but the wind was in their favor, and the commotion in the clearing was enough to drown out a herd of elephants.
Moving as fast as he could while still being silent, Logan headed back the way they had come. Anita kept up with him effortlessly. After about ten minutes of silent running, she slowed to a stop. Logan stopped without thinking, then tried to grab her arm, to get her moving again. She danced back out of the way.
"You want to tell me why you were so anxious to leave?" she asked, sounding heavily suspicious.
Logan started to answer, then had to physically turn around, the sensation of being watched was so strong. "Hey, I like a fight as much as the next guy, but I'm not stupid enough to go up against a couple of twitchy vampires."
"No one said you had to, but I've got a fucking job to do!" Anita exclaimed. She kicked at a nearby log. "And when the hell did vampires start dealing pot, anyway? I'm not the goddamned DEA."
"What did you think they were doing?" Logan had to ask.
"Causing mayhem and violence, like these kinds of vampires do," Anita said. She rubbed her hand over her face. "But those two can't be more than three years dead. The sheriff didn't need my help in all this."
"If he wanted your help, then why are you out here alone?"
"This is what I do," she said. There was a hint of exhaustion in her voice, but Logan didn't have time to comment on it. There was a rush above them, and Logan didn't even think. His claws shot out of his hands as he turned to meet the onslaught.
Two vampires attacked from the sky, but they were not the vampires from the clearing. These ones were older, more powerful. As one of them fell upon Logan in a crush, he forgot about walking away, about avoiding the vampires, about everything but the fight.
With an angry roar, Logan rolled as he hit the ground, still underneath the vampire, thrusting his claws up into the meat of his attacker's body, then throwing as hard as he could. The vampire's flight was stopped as it slammed into a tree, cracking the wood in two.
Anita had fallen to the ground. The other vampire lunged at her, but quicker than thought, Anita had her gun aimed at the vampire's midsection, and fired.
Screaming with pain and rage, Anita's vampire fell back. Logan's vampire got to its feet, grabbed its companion, and took the air, leaving as quickly as they had arrived.
Muscles tight with adrenaline, Logan stood still for a moment, staring up into the night.
"What the hell?" Anita asked, still flat on her back. Logan shook his head, hard, and let his claws pull back into his arms.
"You just seem to make friends wherever you go," Logan said. He held out his hand to her, to help her up, but she just glared at him.
"I've only been in town for a day," she pointed out sharply, taking the offered hand. "Did you ever think that they were aiming for--"
Her mouth shut with a snap as Logan's fingers closed around her hand and he yanked her upright. Power spilled off her, up his arm and around his entire body. She overbalanced as she came to her feet and fell against him, their bodies pressing together. Logan felt the weight of her breasts pressed against his chest through her thin shirt, the length of her thigh against his, all sensation and no thought. Suddenly, a fight wasn't the kind of workout he wanted.
Anita stared up at him, dark eyes huge in her face. Her mouth opened slightly, making him lean down for a kiss, before his mind pulled him back screaming, to stop this foolishness.
"Sorry," he murmured, lifting his head, but not pulling away from her body. He still wasn't thinking straight.
"I didn't mean..." Anita pulled herself away, a horrified expression on her face. "I'm sorry."
With some distance between them, Logan began to think clearly again. "We better go before they come back," he said. He turned and headed though the woods; the only indication that Anita followed him was the faint sound of her ragged breathing behind him.
...to be continued