“Graydon’s died four times now. I keep finding him, or finding ways to bring him back, and then I fall short, over and over again. I’m a little salty about it.” Sabretooth tried to give one of his old casual shrugs but didn’t have the energy for it. “So sue me.”
“He was telling me a little about it,” said Eva. “Graydon, I mean.”
Sabretooth perked up. “What did he say?”
“Just that he didn’t remember much between his lives. I think he was starting to realize that his old resentments against mutants didn’t quite hold. All this time, he thought you didn’t want him because he was human, but you’d gone all out to save him repeatedly, so that couldn’t be true. He wanted some time to figure out how he really felt about you.”
Sabretooth fell silent for a long moment. When he spoke again, his voice was quiet. “Thank you,” he said. “Maybe I failed, but at least I accomplished that much. Graydon’s mine. I couldn’t rest until he knew that.” Then he closed his eyes.
She nudged him with her foot. “You don’t get to give up and die now. You’ve done too much harm for that. You’ve got to make it right.”
“You don’t get it, missy. There’s no redemption for a man like me. We don’t run at each other in slow motion across a field full of daisies. I don’t join the X-Men, and nobody sings ‘Kumbaya.’ There isn’t enough time to balance the scales, even if I cared to, and I don’t.”
“I’m not talking about balancing all the scales. I’m talking about just this one. Graydon cared about us, whether he wanted to or not. So did you. We were a team. We took down a freaking dinosaur together! And you owe us for that. We helped your kid, Sabretooth. Give us the Box.”
She spoke with passion and heat, her face flaming with the force of her emotions. Her words rang out in the quiet of the park. After it was over, Sabretooth clapped, a slow and somehow mocking sound. Her head fell. She’d failed. After everything that had happened, she’d finally had her chance to make her mark, and she’d failed.
“The Box is in the alcove behind the water fountain,” said Sabretooth. “It’s stronger now. It sucked me dry.”
“And you still tried to hide it from us. What are you, nuts?” asked Christopher.
“I don’t share well. Never have.” Sabretooth coughed, a dry hack that shook his increasingly weak body. “Maybe you can contact Dormammu again. Convince him to turn the thing off. Offer me as a trade. I’ll go. It’s the least I can do.”
Eva knew the offer to be self-serving. Sabretooth would strike a deal with Dormammu for Graydon’s life. But still, they couldn’t afford to turn their backs on any offer of help at this point. Over the past few minutes, as they’d stood and talked, the yellow circle of grass had widened, and the yellow had begun to deepen to a dull brown. The blight would only grow worse. Somehow, she still felt OK, though, and Christopher seemed fine. She glanced at him out of the corner of her eyes, suddenly suspicious. Had he been protecting her from the Box all this time? She wouldn’t have put it past him. He had that kind of instinct.
He noticed her giving him the side-eye and returned a concerned look, gesturing for her to step away together to plan their next steps.
“I’m not sure we should trust him,” he whispered.
She didn’t bother lowering her voice. After all, with his enhanced hearing, Sabretooth might still hear them. There was no sense in pretending that walking a few yards away would change anything.
“Of course not, but what other choice do we have? This thing has been leaking magic all day, and it only seems to be getting worse. It only took a few minutes to drain him. We can’t take it back to the school like this, and we certainly can’t leave it anywhere. I could try and immobilize it for a while, and we could take it back to Illyana if you want, but it’ll take a lot of bubbles to get us back to the school, and I don’t think Sabretooth will make it.”
“If we send him to Dormammu and he survives it, he’ll stab us in the back, the first chance he gets.”
“He might think about it. But then he’ll remember this. Everything he does, I’m going to keep a record of. And the next time his son comes back, I’m going to tell him everything. In detail.” Eva turned to look at where Sabretooth still sat, slumped against the wall of the building. “You hear that? Graydon made his wishes clear. You know what he wanted, and you know that he felt betrayed by you and the rest of his family. By mutants in general. You have a chance to prove that he was wrong about you, and that even though you’re a bad dude, you really do love him. If you stab us in the back and betray us to Dormammu, he’ll know he was right about you all along.”
She meant every word. She knew she would have to plan carefully to make sure she could deliver on her promise. Sabretooth had been at this game for a long time. He’d been a mercenary for hire for decades, and he’d double- and triple-crossed people who had been trained to look for that kind of thing. He would know how to catch people unawares. He’d try to make it so she couldn’t deliver. But over the course of the afternoon, she’d come to believe that Graydon Creed had deserved a chance, and he didn’t deserve whatever Dormammu intended for him. It couldn’t be good. She shuddered just thinking of it.
“I get it, missy,” said Sabretooth. His voice barely made it to them. The light breeze threatened to carry it away. “Point made.”
“Are we really going to negotiate with Dormammu?” she asked Christopher, shuddering. “Setting aside the part where he terrifies me, he’s a dangerous psychopath who wants to take over the world. Illyana’s words, not mine. I’m not sure he’s really the negotiating type.”
“Actually, I’m hoping we can avoid that part. I want to try something…”
As Christopher explained his plan, Eva listened with equal parts nervousness and hope. It just might work. Then again, it might kill him outright, but she couldn’t come up with a better plan. It rankled. Frankly, this whole being an X-Man thing wasn’t half as fun as she’d hoped it would be. Not in the slightest.
Chapter 31
Christopher stared at the Box of Planes. It struck him how such a small thing could be so powerful. It wasn’t any bigger than a box of tissues, but it could raise the dead and reunite father and son. It had the power to change destinies. Sabretooth had certainly been irrevocably changed by his interactions with the artifact, and not just physically. He knew he and Eva would never be the same, either.
She stood at his shoulder, and when he glanced at her, she gave him a reassuring nod. He could rely on her. His plan might be dangerous, but it sidestepped all of the direct contact with Dormammu, and they’d agreed that this would be wise. Even Sabretooth had grudgingly given in when he’d realized what Christopher intended. Maybe he thought that mastery of the Box would mean that Christopher could bring back Graydon on his own. Or maybe he just realized that it would be better to live to fight another day. After all, Sabretooth was a survivor at his core.
They’d moved the Box out to the middle of one of the soccer fields. Here, if it went haywire, it would only kill the grass. Sabretooth’s condition had deteriorated to such an extent that his teeth rattled in their sockets, and he barely had the energy to speak. They didn’t want to risk hurting him further. If the Box’s power waned, his healing factor would kick in and he’d recover, so Eva would keep an eye on both of them just to be safe, but they thought that he would want to stay near the Box anyway. He wouldn’t want to leave it while there still remained a chance that it could be used to bring Graydon back. Besides, Eva’s threat still hung between them. His only option to avoid triggering it would be to murder them both and take the Box for himself. It wasn’t completely out of the question.
Christopher closed his eyes and reached toward the Box with his powers, feeling the familiar queasy sensation build in his belly. He ignored it as best as he could, unraveling the threads of life magic as they wafted from the artifact, searching for their source. They had to come from
somewhere. Once again, he heard that faint chanting, the deep and dissonant voices reciting unintelligible words. He followed it. The sound had to mean something. He’d heard it too many times for it to be a coincidence. If he could only figure out what it was saying, or have a conversation with the people who were chanting, he hoped that he could deactivate the Box at its source without having to interact with Dormammu at all.
It was difficult going. The energy of the Box had no organization or purpose like a body did. He could look at a body and instantly see it as a whole being with balance and purpose. Bodies had patterns. Injuries and weaknesses stood out to him, their dullness drawing his attention in contrast to the bright illumination of the rest of the being. But navigating the Box felt more like trying to make his way through a foggy swamp at midnight. He might have been going in circles for all he knew. Sometimes he thought the chanting grew closer, but then he realized that nothing had changed. He remained surrounded by eddies of energy and distant sound, but nothing more.
He would have to try something else. He’d resisted the attempts of the Box to pull him in, but perhaps some connection would be needed to communicate with the artifact. This would be dangerous, but hopefully Eva would pull him free if he showed any signs of distress. He could always try again if it seemed like he’d made progress.
He reached out and merged his power with the Box. It reacted instantly, seizing onto him as the distant chanting grew in intensity. He instinctively withdrew in panic as it grasped at him, but forced himself to relax. This was exactly what he wanted to happen. He needed the Box to pull him inside just far enough. Eva would bring him back when the time came.
So he made himself pliant and allowed himself to drift where the Box wanted to take him. As it drew him deeper in, he felt the vast emptiness inside, and he truly began to understand for the first time what the Box represented. He sensed millions of doors, each leading to different planes in the multiverse. Most of them had been permanently sealed by some force he didn’t understand. They felt ancient, crafted by some technology from beyond time and certainly beyond his understanding. But a small handful of doors still worked. One of them led to Limbo, and from it leaked that familiar magic that twisted life into unlife and made the dead awaken. The door had been cracked open.
He could hear the chanting much more clearly now, and he finally recognized the voice. Dormammu. The chant pulled life energy in through the door, where it was somehow twisted nearly beyond recognition, only to leak back out to corrupt the world and raise the dead.
Perhaps if he closed the door, the flow of magic would be cut off. If left unchecked, would it turn the entire planet into a barren wasteland full of walking dead? He didn’t want to find out. The only way to stop it was to close the door. Reluctantly, he put his hand on the knob.
The door flared into bright light, and Christopher felt the energy from his body as it was sucked into the door, fueling it. Ever so slowly, it began to open.
“There you are!” said Dormammu. “I’ve been waiting for you! Open the door and let me out.”
“Let me go, Dormammu,” replied Christopher.
But Dormammu just started chanting again. Christopher tried to take his hand off the knob, but he could barely move. He felt like he was being sucked dry, just like Sabretooth had been. But he didn’t know how to stop it.
“Christopher!” Eva cried, her voice sounding further away than ever. “What’s happening?”
But he couldn’t answer. It felt like all the vitality was being pulled from his bones like dust into a vacuum cleaner. He wouldn’t last long. If Eva didn’t pull him out soon, he’d die. He tried to call for help, but he couldn’t form the words. He didn’t have the strength for it.
Then, to his immense shock, Eva was there in the ether-world of the Box of Planes, tumbling past him, and it was all he could do to grab her hand moments before she toppled through the hungry maw of the open door. She clutched at him with desperate panic as the door tried to suck them both in.
“What are you doing here?” he gasped.
“The Box opened all the way up again, and it sucked me in,” she said, tears streaming down her face. She ducked her head, trying to hide from the vortex that pulled at them, but there was nowhere to go. “We’re going to die in here, aren’t we?”
“Can you freeze it?”
Her face twisted in concentration, and the air around the door flickered a few times, but no bubble materialized. Finally, she shook her head.
“I can’t. It’s just too strong. I’m so sorry.”
Christopher tried to detach himself from the door, hoping that without his power to fuel it, the flow would slow down enough so they could disengage and leave. But it held him in an iron grip that he simply couldn’t shake. The situation seemed hopeless. Dormammu waited for them on the other side, eager to exit the open door. He would gloat. He would torment them. They’d probably die, and no one would ever realize what had happened to them. Would their bodies remain on the soccer field, or would they be sucked into the depths of the Box? Christopher wasn’t sure.
Then Sabretooth came flying at them too. He slammed into Eva, knocking the air out of her. If he’d been his usual robust self, he might have crushed her to death, but his figure was still frail and thin. He scrabbled at her, snagging the hem of her coat, and barely managed to hold on. The three of them hung there as the wind continued to buffet them, trying to knock them loose and devour them whole.
“Fancy meeting you here,” said Christopher, overcome by a wave of dark humor.
“How can you laugh at a time like this?” Eva asked once she’d caught her breath.
“What else am I supposed to do? There’s no way to stop this door from opening. I can’t close it. We’re all going to die.”
The reality of the situation hit him fully for the first time. He would never grow old. Never finish his training and put on an X-Men uniform for the first time. He’d never fall in love. There were so many things he’d left unfinished.
He wouldn’t get a chance to visit his pop’s grave and tell him that he forgave him. That hurt most of all. But he could do one thing that was almost as good.
“Hey, Sabretooth?” he said. “I forgive you. I’m still mad as hell at you, and I’m not stupid enough to trust you in the same way again, but I get it. You just wanted to save your kid. It wasn’t personal. And even if our conversations didn’t mean anything to you, they did to me. I think I can finally let all that stuff with my own pops go.” He chuckled, although the wind whipped the noise away. “Heck, maybe I got so mad at you that I didn’t have enough room to be mad at him any more. But either way, it feels good, so thanks. I think you’re right. I won’t try to make you into a good guy, but you can still do the right thing once in a while, for the right people.”
Sabretooth grunted. “Mostly, that person is me. I don’t intend to die here, kid. Think. How do we close this door?”
“I just said I can’t close it. I have no idea how. The magic is too strong.”
“Take a look,” Eva urged. “There has to be something we can do.”
Christopher didn’t think it would do any good, but he figured he might as well try. He focused on the door, trying to see if he could disrupt the flow of magic that held it open and weakened them at the same time. Now that he was closer, he could see how Dormammu’s chanting pushed at the door. The only way to close it would be to stop Dormammu from chanting.
“I think if we disrupt the chant, the door will close,” he said.
“So one of us has to go in there?” Eva asked hesitantly.
Christopher closed his eyes.
“Yes,” he said. “And they probably won’t come out again. They’ll be stuck in Limbo, just like we were before.”
“Graydon might be in there,” Eva said suddenly. “In Limbo.”
Sabretooth considered this. “He’s probably in Hell.”
>
“Maybe. But you don’t know that for sure. He keeps getting brought back. Maybe they’re keeping him in Limbo in between resurrections. You could look for him there. Dormammu wouldn’t be able to keep you locked up forever,” she said.
“You just want me to volunteer,” he accused.
“Yes, I do,” she admitted, sounding calmer than she had any right to. But her eyes welled with tears. Christopher let his head hang. He wanted to offer some comfort but under the circumstances he had nothing to give.
Sabretooth chuffed. He seemed to find all of this naked emotion amusing, but she suspected that like her, he was hiding his true feelings under a layer of bluster.
“Fine.” He nodded. “It’s been nice working with you. I know you probably don’t believe me, but I mean it. When you get back, you tell Summers that if he doesn’t put you on his team, he’s a moron. He’s still one anyway, but you’ve got my endorsement. You got me?”
“Yeah. Sure,” said Christopher, his voice choked with emotion.
Tears sprang to his eyes. Sabretooth didn’t seem to notice, or if he did, he didn’t give Christopher a hard time about it.
“You know,” Sabretooth said with wonder in his voice, “even an old cat can learn new tricks sometimes. Isn’t that something?”
He let go of Eva’s coat.
The magic grabbed him with immediate force, sucking him through the open door. Christopher watched as Dormammu’s face brightened with anticipation, only to have Sabretooth fly right at his face, claws bared. Dormammu screamed, the chant forgotten in his pain.
As soon as he stopped chanting, the pressure on the door eased. Christopher pushed at it, and it moved, but it was so heavy, and he’d gotten so weak. He didn’t think he could close it on his own.
“Help me! We need to close the door!” Christopher exclaimed.
Eva didn’t stop to question him. She put her shoulder to the door and lent her strength to his. Together, they began to shove the heavy door shut.
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