Eventually, when she had thought it safe, she had made a show of deciding that she didn’t want to go through with the contract after all. The bearded man had made some vague, disgruntled threat about what would happen if she wasted his time again, and Jean had mumbled insincere apologies. Then the two men had left, Jean had followed them out onto the street a few minutes later and made a quick phone call, and the X-Men had regrouped.
Phoenix, Nightcrawler and the Beast stood in the back alley in which they had frightened Allan Coleman half to death, and they waited for the sound of their plane overhead.
“I called the police,” said Jean. “I gave them the names and addresses of our two friends, and a list of crimes they might be able to connect them with, including three murders. I was able to give them enough names and dates to make them take me seriously.”
“It must have been one of the most extensive anonymous tip-offs they’ve ever received,” mused the Beast.
“And one that can never be traced back to us, nor to Herr Coleman,” said Nightcrawler.
“But what news did you garner of our compatriot?”
Phoenix took a deep breath. “It was pretty much as we expected. Our men were hired at extremely short notice, and given blueprints of Muir Island’s security systems. Their job was to capture Moira, and they were specifically instructed that they were to take her by surprise.”
“Presumably to obviate the possibility of her contacting us,” said the Beast.
“Once they had her, they activated a signaling device that was sent to them anonymously via Federal Express. Within an hour, a Hercules transport plane had arrived on the island. They handcuffed Moira to a fence-post nearby and left her, along with the signal device and a key, just out of her reach, to be collected.”
“So, they weren’t aware of the identities of their employers?” asked the Beast.
“They were contacted by e-mail, and paid by money
“I’ll be the judge of that, 1 think. What kind of
“As a matter of fact,” he said shortly, “you’ve di
Her husband was dead. And she hadn’t seen her beau
His hunch was proved right. The figure recoiled, s
They must have been directly over the ballroom, be
“I don’t like it,” said Wolverine. “Smells like a
His eyes flickered downward. “I was... otherwise e
The rest of the group deferred to the bearded man,
The hatchway didn’t lead to daylight, but nor did
And the mutate was looking up at him with saucer-w
“They were contacted by e-mail, and paid by money transfers. I memorized the details, but I’d be surprised if the payments were traceable.”
“And they never set eyes upon the occupants of the Hercules?”
“Ah, now that’s where we get lucky!” said Phoenix. “Our men, you see, don’t like not knowing who their employers are. They accepted this contract because the money was good—very good—but they weren’t happy about it.”
“So, let me guess,” said Nightcrawler, with a grin. “They disobeyed orders. One of them sneaked back to get a look at whoever was in that Hercules.”
“They saw Moira being loaded into the back of the plane by two men.”
“So, we have another pair of faces to trace?” surmised the Beast.
“Not faces, no. These men were wearing masks.” Jean let those words sink in for a moment, before smiling and adding: “Familiar masks. Flesh-colored, with no features: just slits for the eyes, nose and mouth, and a seam down the center. Dark blue uniforms with red highlights.”
Nightcrawler and the Beast made the connection simultaneously, and all three X-Men announced their conclusion in unison:
“The Hellfire Club!”
OIRA MACTAGGERT slept again, but her dreams were less pleasant this time.
She dreamt of faceless men with guns. They were hunting her. She ran through Edinburgh’s empty streets, heart pounding, breathing ragged, and all the time she was weighed down with the dreadful feeling that there was something she had to do. Something important. But she didn’t know what it was. She had to get somewhere, but she didn’t know where. And eveiy time she turned a corner, one of the faceless men was in front of her, blocking her way.
The dread stayed with her as she surfaced from the nightmare. Moira tried to combat it by telling herself that everything was all right; that she was still at home on Muir Island and that she had simply dozed off over her lab bench again. But, as sleep fell away from her, her reactivated senses delivered the bad news that this simply wasn’t true.
The first thing she noticed was the smell. The stink of engine oil assailed her nostrils. Secondly, she became aware of a throbbing lump on the back of her head. She didn’t know where it had come from. Instinctively, she tried to raise her hands to it, but found that they were tied behind her back. Thick rope bit into her wrists, and her shoulders were aching. Moira’s hearing kicked in, presenting her with fresh evidence: the distant beating of helicopter blades. She could feel the shape of an uncomfortable wooden chair beneath her. Her stomach was empty, and her chest was burning with the familiar cold-like symptoms of the Legacy Virus.
Finally, she tore open her leaden eyes to complete the picture. The chair to which she was bound stood in the center of a small, wooden-walled room. There was only one door, and the window beside it suggested that it led outside, even if the glass was too grimy to reveal more than a gray haze beyond. Another window, opposite the first, was covered by an old, stained, orange drape, which hung lopsidedly. There were only two other pieces of furniture-a desk and another chair-but, even so, the room seemed cluttered. The desk was stacked high with yellowing pieces of paper in torn manila folders, some of which had brimmed over onto the bare boards of the floor. Shelves lined the walls, filled with neglected tools, dirty cloths and old tins of paint and oil streaked by their own leaked contents. Dust lay on every surface, and cobwebs clung to the corners of the ceiling. Moira didn’t recognize the room, but she did have a distant memory of running across tarmac towards a shed, with the faceless men chasing after her.
Or had that been part of the dream?
She shook her head in an attempt to clear it, and winced as a fresh stab of pain emanated from her wound. No, she thought, as her recent memories tumbled back into place, the faceless men had been real. Hellfire Club agents in their blue and red uniforms, with their all-concealing, featureless faceplates.
The costumes dehumanized them, taking away each agent’s individuality. There was no way to tell them apart, no way to know who was under any one blank mask. Perhaps a close friend or a family member, or somebody who lived on the next block and watched you, furtively, as you went to work each morning. The shadowy group of businessmen who employed these mercenaries liked outsiders to imagine that they had eyes everywhere. To a certain extent, they had.
Moira had encountered the Hellfire Club before, and her experience of it had all been bad. Originally formed in London as an exclusive gentleman’s club in the latter half of the eighteenth century, the organization now had branches across the world. Membership was considered not only a rare privilege but a status symbol, as was access to the club’s famous-and often hedonistic—parties. As a result, those parties provided an environment in which the wealthy and the influential could meet on an informal basis. Many business deals had been struck and alliances formed over the punchbowl, beneath the cloak of secrecy that the Hellfire Club offered. Its influence extended into every corner of life-which made it the perfect cover for a handful of people who chose to use its resources for their own nefarious purposes.
Each branch of the Hellfire Club was ruled by a select Inner Circle, the self-proclaimed Lords Cardinal, who were accountable to nobody. An elite cabal within an elite cabal. They gave themselves ranks named after chess pieces, and dressed in Victorian clothing to symbolize their rejection of modern-day democratic values. Some Inner Circles did little more than arrange regular so
cial events, but others took a more proactive stance. They were prepared to do whatever it took to perpetuate their own wealth and to ensure that political power remained where it belonged: in the hands of the rich.
Their agents were well trained. Moira’s single attempt to escape from them, her act of defiance, had been brought to a swift, brutal end. Ah yes, she thought ruefully, that was where the lump on her head must have come from.
She had kept herself awake during the flight here. That had been a mistake. She had paced the floor of the Hercules’ expansive cargo hold, hour after hour, until she had lost track of time. The door to the cockpit had been locked. She had listened at it, making out at least two voices but unable to hear their words over the engine noise. She had tested the door, finding it too sturdy. She might have been able to barge through it, but not at the first attempt—and, without the element of surprise, she would only have found herself staring down gun barrels again. She had bided her time, intending to stay alert, but the flight had gone on and on, and the hold had been so warm and dry. She had begun to feel airsick and so, so tired.
They had landed at last, and it had been easy for Moira to feign sleep as the agents had come for her. She had groaned realistically as a red-gloved hand had slapped her around the face to wake her. She had let two agents haul her to her feet, trying not to show surprise as she had recognized their outfits, and wondering which of the Hellfire Club’s Lords Cardinal, from which Inner Circle, they had taken their orders from. She had leaned on them like a dead weight as they had manhandled her towards the back of the airplane, where a third uniformed man had waited.
She had pretended to stumble on the loading ramp, throwing one of her escorts off-balance but hopefully without making him too suspicious. She had forced herself into action, pivoting around to strike out unexpectedly. She had grabbed the second agent’s lightweight machine-gun, but hadn't been able to wrench it from his determined grip. She had resorted to Plan B, leaping from the ramp and running for it, taking in her surroundings only in that split-second of adrenaline-fuelled excitement. She had been brought to a small airfield. The Hercules had been the only plane present, and Moira’s heart sank as she had taken in the high wire fence around the compound, and the hills beyond it.
Her only hope, she had reasoned, was if the agents had been ordered not to shoot her. It seemed logical. Why bring her all the way here—wherever here was—if she wasn’t wanted alive and, with any luck, undamaged? All the same, she had been too weak to outrun them. She had raced along a taxiway towards a small shed, intending to put it between her and her pursuers, to gain precious time to tackle the fence. It had been a desperate, hopeless, ploy. She hadn’t taken more than a few steps before she had felt them behind her.
It had probably been a machine-gun butt that had dubbed her to the ground, bringing stars to her eyes and darkness to her mind. She didn’t know how long she had been unconscious, how long she had lost to dreams of men without faces and work left undone.
That helicopter was getting closer.
Moira tested the strength of her bonds. They had been tied well. She felt no give at all between her wrists. She tried to move her legs, but they were tied too, to the legs of the chair. The chair, however, was light enough. She could probably walk it across the room, after a fashion. She scanned the shelves, looking for something to make towards; something she could use to cut the ropes. It did occur to her that she wouldn’t have been left with all these tools if her captors had been worried about the prospect of her escaping. More than likely, there was an armed guard or two-or all three of the men who had brought her here—outside. She decided not to think about that. She concentrated on the immediate problem.
She had been in situations like this before. Too many times before. Strange as it seemed, she had become used to having enemies, to having her home invaded and her person attacked, to having to fight against somebody or something almost every day of her life. Sometimes, she wondered how she had come to be here; how Moira Kinross, chieftain of an ancient Scottish clan and keen student of genetic science, had become a standard-bearer for a cause not her own, and a target for those whose own causes were different. Perhaps it had started with Charles Xavier, a fellow student at Oxford University; a man with a dream, and the passion to make her dream it too. Or with Joe MacTaggert:, the abusive husband who had made her swear that she would never be a victim again. Or with Proteus, her son who had been bom a monster, his mind deranged and his body consumed by his mutant X-factor.
There was one thing that the Hellfire Club might have overlooked. Moira MacTaggert had become used to fighting back. And she had the resourcefulness, the experience and the sheer bloody-minded determination to win.
There was a filthy glass jar on one of the lower shelves. If she could knock it off its perch, she would have some shards to work with. She hoisted the chair’s back legs off the floor, and tried to hobble forwards. The effort was painful. After only a few steps, she needed to rest. But the sound of the helicopter outside drove her onwards. It was louder now, and there was no doubt in Moira’s mind that it was coming here. She was running out of time.
Haste made her clumsy. The chair tripped her up, and she toppled to the floor, unable to put out a limb to save herself. She managed to twist so that she landed on her left arm, not on her face, but the landing still hurt. She lay there for a few seconds, breathing heavily, trying to work out how she was going to find the leverage to get herself upright again. She was just beginning to accept that it was impossible when she realized she had a leg free.
It took her a moment to work out what had happened: the chair had broken in the fall. A strut had snapped off, allowing the ropes to slip down over the end of its left leg. Moira smiled grimly to herself. Her captors had used good, strong rope, but they hadn’t been so careful about what they tied her to.
The helicopter was landing, not too far away. She hoped it would mask the noise she made as she thrashed about and kicked at the chair with her free foot, trying to loosen more of its old joints. The right front leg broke off next, allowing Moira to lift herself to her knees and to crawl awkwardly towards the desk. She wedged the back legs of the chair beneath it and pushed up, as hard as her straining muscles could manage, until she heard the satisfying crack of the chair back splintering away from the seat.
In the sudden silence that followed, she realized that the helicopter engine had been stilled. She was acutely aware of the sound of her own exhausted panting. She made herself hold her breath for a second, and listened.
Footsteps approached the shed.
As heavy bolts were drawn back on the other side of the door, Moira leapt to her feet and grabbed blindly for a weapon off the nearest shelf. Her questing fingers found a large, rusted wrench, and its weight in her hand gave her some reassurance. The door opened inwards, and she concealed herself behind it, her heartbeat reverberating in her ears.
She brought the wrench down hard as soon as she had a target to aim for: a man’s head, with black hair scraped back into a ponytail and secured with an elaborate red bow. It was a palpable strike, and Moira was dismayed to see that it had no effect.
As she had feared, she was facing one of the X-Men’s mutant foes: the Hellfire Club was not a mutant organization per se, but mutants did dominate more than one of its Inner Circles.
And, slowly, she realized what this particular mutant’s abilities were. Had he simply been invulnerable, then her hand ought to have been ringing now from the impact of the wrench. Instead, it felt as if the blow had cushioned somehow. She put two and two together, even as her enemy turned to face her. “Sebastian Shaw!” she hissed.
“Good morning, Doctor MacTaggert.” His voice was silky-smooth, his eyes gleamed with confidence and his tight-lipped smile almost reached his ears. “I’m so glad you were able to meet me at such short notice. I trust you are as well as can be expected?”
“You smug git!” spat Moira. She put all her remaining strength into a shoulder-charge, eve
n though she knew that physical force would be useless against him. Perhaps she could surprise him, make him step aside long enough for her to get through the door.
Hitting Shaw was like walking into a mattress. Moira wasn’t brought up short, she just suddenly wasn’t moving any more. Her legs almost buckled as her mind and body struggled to cope with this unexpected contravention of the laws of momentum. In contrast, Shaw didn’t seem at all perturbed. The only part of him that moved was his left arm, and this shot out now with lightning speed. He seized Moira’s right wrist and twisted it, sending a sharp knife of pain up her arm. She winced.
“Perhaps you are forgetting my unique ability, Doctor MacTaggert.” Shaw’s expression hadn’t altered, but his eyes had hardened and his voice had developed a hard, almost sadistic edge. “I can absorb the kinetic energy of any attack you make against me. Absorb it-and convert it into raw power.” He squeezed her wrist tighter, as if to prove his point. He was certainly strong. Moira gritted her teeth, determined not to cry out.
Then Shaw released his grip and his tone became light again, his words genial, as if nothing untoward had happened. “However, I didn’t bring you here to demonstrate my strength. I must apologize, by the way, for the long flight. You must have been uncomfortable.”
The Legacy Quest Trilogy Page 7