Sanctuary by Christopher Golden

and the Blackbird seemed to rise a moment as if cresting an ocean wave. Then the plane dropped. There was no hesitation, nothing gentle about it. The Blackbird wasn't built as a comfort vessel. It was made for action. Wolverine admired that in people and things alike.
    The quick-drop hatch opened out of the belly of the Blackbird , even before the plane touched down on Central Park's Sheep Meadow. With the Beast at his side, Wolverine leaped from the hatch and landed in a crouch on the grass, which was buffeted by the Blackbird's retros.
    The whole park, Wolverine thought, was a lark, a foolish dream. There in the middle of the city, Central Park pretended to be peaceful countryside, just as the city dwellers pretended when they escaped to the park. It may have been a jungle at night, predators stalking the wood, but the falsehood of it insulted Wolverine. Even if his senses had not been so far superior to the average human's, it would have been impossible not to smell the stench of the city infiltrating the park.
    "Fire," the Beast said as he touched down next to Wolverine.
    "Got it," Logan responded. "Southeast, less than half a mile."
    "Spread out," Storm commanded from the air, even as Bishop piloted the Blackbird to a final stop in the park. "Logan, Hank, I can see flames from here. Scout one hundred yards south, and return. Bobby, do a perimeter check with me on flyover."
    Bishop emerged from the ship just as they were moving to comply with Storm's orders.
    "Bishop, lock the Blackbird up tight, all defenses armed," she added. "It wouldn't do to have our exit destroyed. All rendezvous back here in five minutes."
    It was a fast five minutes. Wolverine melted into the woods with predatory silence. He could hear the Beast off to the west, making little attempt to mask his passage. Hank might have the look of an animal, but that didn't mean he had the primal instincts.
    He moved in the direction of the fire, alert to any sign of offensive movement. It felt foolish, surreal. Manhattan island had suddenly become a war zone. Indeed, if all they found were masses of hysterical civilians, it wouldn't surprise Wolverine at all. But there was a chance that they had been detected and that an ambush would be waiting. He wasn't about to let that happen.
    The fire filled his nostrils, though still several hundred yards away. Then he detected something else. Something human. It was a dense, sour smell, mixed with alcohol. Even before the homeless man cut and run from the brush up ahead, Logan had spotted him with nothing more than moonlight to see by. The poor man, perhaps fifty, took off like a startled deer. Though not nearly as quick, of course. It might have taken Wolverine twenty seconds to down a startled deer.
    This guy took five.
    Up close, he stank to high heaven, his odor so powerful Wolverine could barely smell the fire anymore.
    "God, no, please, don't kill me," the man squealed.
    "Please, no, I ain't got nothin' in this world. I just don't wanna die."
    "Stop squirming!" Wolverine snarled, bringing the man up to his full height by tugging on his loose shirt-front.
    "I ain't gonna hurt you. Relax, will ya? Stop jabbering!"
    There was a tone that he allowed into his voice at certain times. Wolverine wasn't sure he liked the tone, or what it said about him, but it was there, and it worked. The homeless man responded immediately, and Wolverine finally got a good look at him. He wasn't at all glad that he did. The man was shabby looking, his clothes stained and tattered, and he looked as though he hadn't shaved or had his hair cut in a decade. He was sick. Smelled sick, now that Wolverine could scent anything beyond the man's stink. But he wasn't more than thirty.
    He only moved like he was fifty.
    "I'm not going to hurt you," he said, more softly, almost kindly, to the wide-eyed man, then let go of the poor soul's shirt.
    "But," the man began, "you're a mutie, aren't—I mean, a mutant, aren't you? You guys are takin' over,