“Oh, we wouldn’t want to give them any more cause for suspicion, now would we? I have to give the impression, at least, that I am trying to keep them away from my sanctum. I would hate them to know just how eagerly I anticipate their arrival.”
“Such confidence ... has been your... downfall... before ...” “You talk as if the outcome of this encounter is in doubt. Believe my, my dear Beast, it is not. When the X-Men reach this room, they will activate the magical glyphs with which I have marked the door. They will be transported one year into the future.” Selene smiled. “Oh, I could have chosen glyphs that would have exploded in their faces—but you self-appointed do-gooders have an unfortunate reputation for being hard to kill. And my Black King desired another chance to stain their oh-so-pure, noble souls.”
She paused as if awaiting an answer, but the Beast was too weak to give one.
“Of course,” she said in a softer, mocking tone, “even if I was wrong, it would be of little consequence to you, my friend. Your teammates are already too late to save your life.”
As an X-Man, the Beast was used to fighting against impossible odds. He had no intention of accepting his death until it had become an immutable fact. But he had to admit to himself that, short of a miracle, Selene was almost certainly right. He felt light-headed and empty, and it was an immense effort just to keep his eyelids raised. Unable to concentrate, he had no option but to follow his thoughts as they drifted back to happier times. He smiled to himself as he recalled his first day at Professor Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, his nights on the town with Bobby and the acceptance he had found with the Avengers.
But the good memories were blotted out by the specter of the Legacy Virus, by the interminable days and nights he had spent working to wipe its blight from the world. More than anything else, Hank felt cheated. Even if the X-Men couldn’t save him, they would not stop fighting. They would take his blood, his cure, out of Selene’s hands if they could. But he would never know the outcome of that struggle. He would die without knowing what his own legacy to the world would be: whether he had eased the suffering of millions as he had intended or simply made the Black Queen more powerful.
Selene’s voice stirred him from his half-awake dreams. “I believe your friends have arrived,” she said. “You might even be able to say goodbye to them if you are quick enough.”
The door burst open, and Hank felt a momentaiy surge of elation as the first of the X-Men, Cyclops, raced into the throne room. Wolverine was right behind him, and the Beast could see Rogue and Phoenix at his heels.
Before any of them had taken three steps, however, a chill wind whipped through Hank McCoy’s fur and the raw scent of ozone hit his nostrils.
There was a sudden flash of black light...
HI IMHO
A CROWD OF mutants had gathered outside the Hellfire Club building on Fifth Avenue. They made for a pathetic assemblage _in their filthy rags, bowed and defeated, their eyes mostly downcast. They jostled quietly for the best positions, their sleeves rolled up in anticipation, and the weakest of them were pushed out into the road and up to the edge of Central Park.
Selene’s demon agents moved among them, carrying syringes from which they injected single measures of the Legacy Virus cure. The mutants shuffled and raised their hands in the hope that they would find favor, that their pains would be eased for a few days. Inevitably, some of them were overlooked. Some of the demons delighted in holding out full syringes in front of beseeching eyes and then squirting their transparent contents wastefully into the air before moving on. More than one mutant groveled in the dirt, tiying to lick up the remnants of the life-prolonging elixir before they seeped into the concrete.
But nobody dared to complain. Nobody even dared to offer a plea. The mutants accepted their lot, because to do otherwise would have drawn the attention of the Black Queen.
Selene stood in the doorway of her mansion house at the head of a short flight of steps, framed by a stone archway into which were set two trident symbols. And she drank in the suffering of her loyal subjects.
She probably shouldn’t have been here. She had other matters to attend to. Her Black Knight would be leading her remaining enemies to her soon. But she enjoyed this so much: what use to her was power over others if she couldn’t at least witness the demonstration of it?
And after tonight, after she had turned her sights beyond the restrictive confines of Manhattan Island, she might have little time for this small pleasure.
She raised a hand suddenly and flared her nostrils in mock anger—and although she had cast no spell, an electrical aura crackled through the crowd and all activity ceased. Selene walked slowly down three steps, savoring the attention, and fixed her gaze upon a skinny mutate whose flesh practically hung from his skeleton. He had just caught the attention of a demon, and a needle was poised above his bare arm. But the transcendent joy in his expression froze and turned to dread as his mistress pointed a long fingernail at him.
“This creature here,” said Selene coldly, “has taken more than his ration. He has been injected once today; now he thinks to steal somebody else’s share.”
The mutate was almost in tears. He was shaking his head vigorously, his lips forming words that emerged as a barely audible squeal. “No, mistress, I didn’t, no, please ...”
Selene clicked her fingers dispassionately, and her demons closed in around the trembling wretch. He found his voice at last and screamed as he disappeared beneath a pile of their foul, decaying bodies. The other mutants shrank away as far as they could from the grisly scene: even those who might have felt sympathy for their fellow didn’t wish to share his fate.
The demons withdrew, leaving a tom and twisted corpse on the ground. They would toss it into a dumpster later, some distance away; Selene liked to keep the area around her home clean. For now, at a nod from her, the weekly ministrations were resumed.
She had no reason at all to believe that the mutate had been guilty of the crime of which she had accused him. She had picked him out of the crowd at random. It didn’t matter: his example would prevent others from becoming bold, from taking enough of the cure to rid themselves of their affliction altogether. She might not be able to oversee future handouts in person, but her presence would be felt nonetheless.
She returned to her doorway and watched impassively for a minute longer, until she felt a sudden tingle at the base of her skull. A psychic alarm signal. With a frown, she turned her thoughts inward and confirmed her suspicions. Two enemy groups, over thirty mutants in all, were moving fast—some faster than others—through the sewers beneath her building.
The rebels’ attack had begun early.
She sighed. Irritating as this turn of events might be, it wasn’t entirely unexpected. She had always known that Shaw might betray her, or that his plans-the plans that she had approved-might be overridden by the X-Men. It was against just such an eventuality that she had erected another mystical barrier inside the first, extending three blocks in each direction from her mansion house. This second barrier was invisible and intangible to all-but it recognized the heat signatures of known dissidents and alerted its creator to their proximity.
The two rebel groups had crossed the barrier at the same time, which suggested that they were fully aware of its presence and had coordinated their approaches.
Selene narrowed her eyes and surveyed her surroundings. Three blocks downtown, light glinted off something on a rooftop. She glared in its direction for a few seconds, unable to discern anything more. Realizing that she was frowning, she rearranged her features into a more confident expression. Then she whirled around and swept back into the Hellfire Club building with a deliberately unhurried gait.
The rebels were immediately below her now, but Selene wasn’t worried. Her Black King was aware of their presence too-and she could sense that he had already intercepted them.
Wolverine felt an overwhelming sense of deja vu as he waded through the familiar labyrinth of New York City
’s sewer system with Rogue and fourteen of the White Knight’s mutant followers behind him. He couldn’t help but remember how the X-Men’s last battle in Selene’s catacombs had turned out, and the thought made the hairs on his back stand on end.
When he estimated that he was within a few feet of Selene’s mystical sensors, he held up a hand behind him, wincing as his team splashed to an excessively noisy halt. From far above him, Phoenix was maintaining a telepathic link between the X-Men, and Wolverine let her know that he was in position. A minute or so later, he received confirmation that Cyclops's team were also ready. He dropped into a crouch and snapped: “OK, let’s go!”
He heard Rogue’s voice behind him: “I hope you’re ready for this, sugar!” And then, her full weight struck him in the back and propelled him into the air. He caught his breath as the tunnel walls streaked past him; his feet were dangling over black water as he hung by his armpits in his teammate’s grasp. He was barely aware of running footsteps receding behind him as the other mutants obeyed instructions and followed as quickly as they could. It didn’t matter how much noise they made now; Selene already knew they were coming.
They took a sharp right turn into a rough-hewn passageway, and then into another. Thankfully, the White Knight’s information proved accurate—the layout of Selene’s catacombs hadn’t changed—and they emerged into a large cavern, just as Wolverine had a year ago. Less than a minute had passed since he and Rogue had tripped the alarm— but to his dismay, Blackheart was waiting for them.
“Is this the best opposition your leaders can muster? The psychotic killer and the thug? Your souls are practically mine already.” The demon was in his “stone monster” form, almost as tall as the cave itself, but Wolverine didn’t let that faze him. The plan was to hit him hard and fast, and that was exactly what the two X-Men did.
Rogue delivered what Wolverine liked to call a “fastball special,” he tucked his arms and legs into his stomach as she hurled him at Blackheart’s head, unfolding himself at the last instant to aim his claws at the Black King’s eyes. Blackheart flinched away from him, which if nothing else was a telling-and in its own small way, satisfying—reaction. It was a reaction, unfortunately, which also left Wolverine in free-fall. As he tumbled past Blackheart’s left shoulder, he reached out and caught hold of it, almost wrenching his own arm out of its socket. Looking up, he saw the demon’s right hand poised above him, about to swat him-but at that moment, Rogue slammed into Blackheart’s ankle.
If she had hoped to fell him, then her effort was in vain. The demon’s leg was like a granite pillar, and she rebounded from it with a pained expression. Ignoring his own pain, Wolverine hauled himself up, unable to shake the impression that he was attempting to climb a mountain during an earthquake. Far below him, Blackheart’s thick, spiny tail swung around and swiped the still-dazed Rogue off her feet.
Wolverine had dragged himself onto Blackheart’s broad shoulder, and he leapt at the demon’s face again. But a giant hand plucked him out of midair, and he was hurled across the cavern to collide first with a rock wall and then with the ground. Had his bones not been laced with adamantium, his spine would surely have been shattered; as it was, he was badly bruised and the breath had been knocked out of him. His healing factor needed time to do its work—but Blackheart was already towering over him again, and he had to force his protesting muscles to move. He rolled aside as a blast of energy exploded from the demon’s fingertips. It narrowly missed him, but he wasn’t sure he could avoid a second such attack.
“Ah,” rumbled Blackheart, turning away from the fallen X-Man, “at last, this game promises to become worthy of my time.”
Wolverine’s team of resistance fighters had arrived. Almost simultaneously, Cyclops and Storm had burst into the cavern from the opposite side, at the head of a second team. In a moment, the area was filled with heaving bodies; some of the White Knight’s followers were attacking Blackheart directly, while others were simply running interference. No one of them was a match for the demon, but the plan was to confuse him with their numbers, to keep him off-balance and unable to take the initiative.
To this end, a group of four mutates raced up the stone staircase that led to the Hellfire Club’s basement levels and their real target, Selene. Blackheart saw them before they got halfway, and collapsed the stairs with a wave of his hand-but the mutates had been chosen for their flying abilities, and they kept on going. As Blackheart concentrated on forming some of the debris from the staircase into a barrier between them and the door, he left himself exposed to a lightning strike from Storm. It seemed to hurt him, but he shook off its effects in a second, and there was a gleeful tone in his gravelly voice. “Come then,” he bellowed, “pit your mortal powers against the son of Mephisto-but be there thirty or three hundred of you, it will make no difference in the end. Mine is the power of evil itself; the power of every sin committed or malicious thought harbored upon this tainted world. My strength is limitless.”
He was probably right, thought Wolverine. But then, it wasn’t necessary for the X-Men and the rebels to defeat Blackheart; they simply had to keep him occupied while their third and final strike team did its job.
He had found his second wind now, and he was about to rejoin the battle when a familiar blue and yellow-clad figure emerged from the chaos in front of him. At the last possible moment, he sensed that something was wrong. Cyclops triggered his visor, and an optic blast pounded into the ground where his teammate had just been standing. “You’re pointing those eyes in the wrong direction, mister!”
“You heard what Blackheart said.” Cyclops’s jaw was set determinedly, and he unleashed another blast, which Wolverine only just managed to evade. “This is all your fault. You and everybody else like you. Every time you lose control, every time you take a life, you feed him. You increase his power.” His voice was rising in pitch, becoming almost hysterical.
“You’re in my way, Summers!” growled Wolverine—and as he spoke, he realized that Scott Summers had always been in his way.
The X-Men could have made a real difference but for their timid leader, always preaching restraint, always ensuring that their work was left half-done. They had defeated villain after villain-but the villains always came back. Their continual presence made the world a darker and darker place, and it was all his fault.
Wolverine had been fighting all his life. But now, with a sudden blinding clarity, he saw that he had been fighting the wrong people.
Cyclops had reined in his emotions. Tight-lipped, his voice trembling, he said coldly: “If we’re to defeat Blackheart and Selene, you have to die first. I see that now.”
“And if we’re to do the job properly, it’ll have to be without you holding us back.”
Wolverine took the brunt of the next optic blast in his chest, but he had braced himself for it. His teeth gritted, he fought his way forward through the beam of ruby force until he was almost within a claw’s reach of his opponent’s throat. At that point, Cyclops switched tactics and leapt forward to punch him on the chin.
A red mist descended in front of Wolverine’s eyes, and he howled with pure animalistic rage as he launched himself at his one-time friend.
“She’s seen us,” said Nightcrawler.
He lowered the binoculars through which he had just seen Selene look directly at him before smiling, turning and walking back into her building. He turned to Shaw, who was standing on the rooftop behind him, still dressed in the garb of the White Knight but unmasked. But for the wind ruffling his hair, he remained perfectly still. His hands were clasped behind his back, but his rigid body and solemn expression belied his casual pose. He didn’t seem unduly concerned at the news, but Kurt thought he detected a slight twitch in a muscle beneath one of his eyes. “Do we still have a telepathic lock on her?” Shaw asked quietly.
Beside him, Phoenix nodded. Her eyes were closed, her brow furrowed in concentration, and she answered in a strained voice. “She’s moving down the hallway. She’s in
no hurry.”
“Then we proceed as planned.”
Nightcrawler nodded and took a deep breath, steeling himself for what was to come. He reached out to the final two members of the five-strong assemblage: the young mutants whom he knew only by the code names of Lightshow and Booster. They took hold of his three-fmgered hands, and Lightshow in turn tugged gingerly at the hem of Shaw’s jacket.
“She’s at the top of the stairs,” murmured Phoenix as Shaw linked her arm with his. “She’s going down them.”
“Excellent,” breathed Shaw. “Excellent!”
“Shouldn’t we go in now?” asked Nightcrawler. “Since we’ve had the good fortune to catch Selene above ground ...”
Shaw shook his head. “On the ground floor, she has too many places to run, and too many demon agents to defend her.”
“But Blackheart...”
“... will be kept occupied long enough for us to do our job,” said Shaw confidently.
Nightcrawler accepted his decision. Shaw had explained in his briefing that he considered Selene’s throne room the best place to confront her. She would be cornered there, and Lightshow could block the door with a solid hologram to prevent her minions from reaching her. Kurt concentrated on visualizing the corridor outside the room, on the first basement level of the Hellfire Club’s mansion house. He was certain that he could remember it well enough to teleport into it without the risk of materializing inside a wall. He was less certain, however, that he could take four people with him. Normally, even a tandem ’port placed great stress upon the bodies of both him and his passenger. He prayed that Booster’s power to augment the mutant abilities of others was all it was reputed to be.
The boy couldn’t have been more than thirteen or fourteen years old, and his thin, acne-scarred face was ashen with apprehension. Nightcrawler hated the thought of taking him into combat, but there was no other option. He tightened his grip on Booster’s hand; he had expected to feel an energy surge, but there was nothing.
The Legacy Quest Trilogy Page 45