Spirit Quest Chapter 2: Indian Lover by DreamWeaver
Author's note #1: Although SPIRIT QUEST is a sequel to SHADOW MAN in which Logan's trip to Alkali Lake pits him against Magneto, Mystique and Toad, it is an independent story in its own right.
Author's note #2: Hey, if Marvel first says Logan has blue eyes, then in Ultimate X they're black, I can have them green here for the purpose of the story to make them more unusual and distinctive.
He was paying his bar tab, knapsack looped over one shoulder, the kid waiting by the door, when raised voices, a scuffle of feet, and a resounding crash caused him to look around along with every other Pit Bull patron. The kid was skidding along the floor on his back, leaving an overturned table and broken glassware in his wake before he brought up sharply against one of bar stools, eliciting a melodious bong from the steel pedestal when he struck it with his head.
Logan was kneeling beside the still form before the ringing subsided. He carefully felt all over the skull, hissed a string of curses when his fingers came away bloody. But when he searched through the thick hair for the source of that blood he could find no injury. Only the red on his hands and the sticky patch in the hair said otherwise.
Pursing his lips thoughtfully, he sat back on his heels, waited, and, sure enough, a couple of seconds later the eyelids fluttered, lifted to reveal green eyes that slowly focused on him. The kid scowled. Logan rose to his feet, hauled the boy up by an arm. "Want to tell me what happened?"
The kid wrenched free. "None of your damn business!"
"Fine, then let's get outa here. Unless you like polishing floors with your butt." He started for the door, the kid a pace behind.
The atmosphere in the bar was chilling for its sudden quiet. Logan knew immediately where the danger lay. Every head in the place was swiveling between him and the kid, and the human boulder blocking the exit. He was a big bruiser, topping Logan by head and shoulders -- wide shoulders from which hung bulging arms ending in clenched fists that looked the size and consistency of cement blocks.
"He the bastard that got you?" Logan didn't bother to lower his voice and his blunt demand filled the silence.
An ugly flush darkened the boy's cheeks. "Yeah," he muttered under his breath. "Bounced me off the table. Forget it. I'm okay."
Logan said nothing. He was well acquainted with this particular specimen of lowlife and had experienced similar stupid scenes a thousand times in as many bars. The jerk was just your ordinary, everyday numskull with one too many beers under his belt feeling strong, picking on a little guy to show off to his buddies, his broads. Didn't matter when the little guy was Logan. He could hold his own. But to pick on a kid? This asshole needed a lesson in perspective.
"'Scuse me. We'd like to get through," Logan said to the boulder's breastbone, then looked up and up and smiled.
"What? You some kind of Injun lover?" came a gravely rumble from overhead.
"Whaddaya mean?"
"Kid here's a bastard half-breed. His slut mom's full-blooded, shit-ass Iroquois."
Logan cut his eyes over to the kid who was boring holes in the floor with his glare as he scrunched his fingers into two knobby fists. "Yup, guess I qualify."
"Huh?"
"Sorry. Big word. Yeah, I'm an Indian lover. 'Specially if that means I'm different from you."
"Why you little -- "
"Yes?" Logan invited with a cherubic smile.
"Know what we do to breeds and Injun lovers around here, stranger?"
Looking back on it, Logan realized he should have guessed what was going to follow. After all, the kid had just told him, hadn't he? Himself, he'd planned to sucker punch the bastard, but before he could even draw back his fist the cement blocks suddenly opened into big, steel grips, clamping Logan's arms against his sides at the elbow and hoisting him up off the floor easy as lifting a beer. With all the metal in his body Logan was certainly no lightweight, yet this jerk didn't even turn pink from the effort. It was damn depressing.
Logan found himself staring into a face as round, pale, and pocked as the moon. A lipless gash of mouth and tiny, close-set eyes, hard and shiny-brown as river pebbles, crowded around a massive promontory of a nose, the only feature of note in the vast wasteland of bad skin. Framing this vision of loveliness were protruding ears, strings of greasy brown hair and a week's thick growth of stubble.
The tiny eyes surveyed him, shrank to bright, little glimmers, and Logan felt the clamps pinning down his arms tighten as the jerk prepared to heave him through the air like he had tossed the kid. He was in for it now; his claws were useless trapped in this position. The prisoner wriggled, tried to break free, finally gave it up as a lost cause. Besides, it felt stupid dancing on the air two feet off the floor.
What in hell possessed him to needle this guy? Oh, yeah, showing off to the kid. Time to switch strategies. As his dear, departed granny used to say -- if he'd ever had a granny and could remember what she said -- if ya can't best 'em with brawn, baffle 'em with bullshit.
"Fight someone your own size," Logan now suggested calmly. "Me, for instance."
Big Nose paused, pulled his victim closer, brow furrowing as he puzzled over the words. "You? Haw! You ain't nowhere my size, you puny, little ass wipe!"
"Near enough," said the ass wipe and slammed his adamantium-enforced skull straight into the obvious target. Logan had the satisfaction of both hearing and feeling the nose crunch and shatter under the impact a second before the bastard screamed. He dropped free as the steel grips opened into baseball mitts frantically attempting to dam a flowing river of red, and the jerk crumpled to the floor in a little -- no, make that big -- quivering heap.
Logan, with kid in tow, walked out the door into the crowded parking lot.
"Why the fucking hell did you have to piss off the Duke?" the kid ranted. "Of all the goddam, shit-stupid -- "
Without even looking at him, Logan grabbed the boy where neck met shoulder, pinching until the kid gasped, then shook him a couple of times to get his attention. "I use words like that. You don't. Understood?" When there was no response but sulky silence, he squeezed harder. "Understood?"
"Ow! Yeah, alright already. I got it! Now let the fu -- Leggo!"
With a last shake Logan released him, giving a little push at the same time so that the boy stumbled, staggered, before catching his balance.
Rubbing his neck, the kid backed off keeping well out of arm's reach. "Who do you think you are telling me what to do, you bas -- uh . . . anyway?"
Logan's grin was sour. "Ask your mother. Where's she parked?"
"Aren't you going to call her a slut like everybody else?" the kid lashed out bitterly.
"Is she?"
"No!" The boy raised his knobby fists. "But they all say she is because of you! Four kids, no husband. It's your fault. If you're really my dad, where the he -- Where you been all this time?"
Bar hopping? Drinking? Fighting? Getting laid? All those responses were true, but cruel, belittling, should Logan throw one at the boy. The kid's misery was too evident, too close to the surface, and to hit him with one of those truths would only mock his pain.
"Connor, I don't know how to answer that. Just like you've never seen me, I've never seen you. Or the twins. Or the baby. You say I named you all, but I swear until tonight I never knew you existed. But from what your mom told you -- about the claws and all -- she must know me, or know about me. Why she says I'm your father . . . " The half question floated up and lost itself in the night. "By the way, what's your mother's name?"
"Kia," the boy said, deflated. "Kia Dubois."
Logan turned it over in his mind, came up with a blank. No great surprise there, he thought wryly and shook his head. "Sorry. We both got questions and I think only your mom has the answers. So, where is she?"
"Around back. But first . . . "
"Yeah?"
The kid looked furtive, glanced to either side to make sure they were alone. "Can I . . . If it's okay. Can I see the claws? Please?"
Logan smiled, shot them out, the snikt loud in the quiet parking lot, a half dozen sabers being drawn. He turned the claws this way and that so they bled in the Pit Bull's garish neon, glowed in the moonlight, burned with liquid red and white fire.
"Whoa!" The kid breathed a sigh of admiration. "Can I get some?"
Logan's smile twisted into a grimace as the claws slid home. "'Fraid not. Limited edition. Now let's -- "
A baby's wail abruptly broke the silence, rose to an ear-piercing scream. "That's Kevin!" The kid's eyes went wide with alarm. "He never cries like that unless something's bad wrong!"
As if cut off by a knife the scream suddenly ceased, to be replaced by a hollow, metallic banging.
"Mom! Mom!"
The boy peeled off around the corner of the Pit Bull, Logan right on his heels.
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