“I don’t know. I’m confused. I want to.”
“Then do it. Come to my sanctuary and let me take your pain away. Come swiftly, before the hunger masters you, and you kill again.”
Rogue flinched. “I—I really did kill Storm?”
“Yes.”
4 ‘Are you sure? I know I broke off the transfer before her heart stopped.” Actually, she wasn’t sure, but she’d been clinging desperately to the hope.
“Yes, but you stole her power and then you let her fall.”
“But maybe I didn’t take every bit of it! We’ve all cheated certain death a hundred times!”
“No one cheats it forever,” said the swordsman gently. “Remember, you went back to look for her and found nothing, because by that time, the river had swept her lifeless body far downstream.”
“Poor ’Roro,” whispered Rogue, her eyes stinging. “I’m so sorry.”
‘ ‘I beg you to put yourself in my hands,’ ’ said the swordsman. “While we still have time to avert another such tragedy.”
“All right,” said Rogue, “What have I got to lose? No matter who you are, there’s nothing you or anyone could do to make the situation worse.” The decision eased her anguished mind at once. Indeed, she felt a glow of profound satisfaction, as if she’d just completed a difficult and important task.
“Thank you,” said the figure in red. “Bless you for your faith. Follow this vision, and it will guide you—” His speech faltered, perhaps because Rogue had frowned abruptly.
Why should she feel satisfied, when all she’d done of late was kill Storm and threaten other innocent people? The emotion made no sense, which suggested that it rightfully belonged to Helen. Perhaps much of what she’d been feeling, her immediate inclination to regard the swordsman as some sort of exalted being and do whatever he asked, had flowed from the vampire as well. And if it was Helen who worshipped the stranger, then Rogue had every reason to distrust him.
“No!” she snapped. “Forget it! What kind of sucker do you think I am? I’m not following you anywhere until you give me some solid information. For all I know, you set me up to drain Helen just so I would hand myself over to you.” Once again, she could feel the apparition smile, but this time, there was nothing beatific or reassuring about it. “Bravo, X-Man. You have sharper wits than I gave you credit for. More resiliency of spirit as well, to resist the possession as well as you have. Alas, it won’t matter in the long run.” “That’s what you think. Whatever happens, I’ll never give myself up to you now.”
“Don’t be naive. Of course you will. Your mind will crumble until you no longer even remember this conversation. Your hunger will grow until you’re willing to do anything, anything at all, to rid yourself of the burden, and if by some fluke you resist me even then, Helen will still destroy your soul. I know, I envenomed her spirit with enchantments devised to achieve that very purpose. In the end, there will be no one left inside that pretty head but her, and then she will perform the sacred task that you were bom to accomplish.”
Rogue screamed as she hurled herself at the stranger. Laughing, the translucent image vanished.
Chapter 4
The short, muscular man with the black muttonchop whiskers regarded the articles laid out on his bed. His Stetson and fleece-lined jacket. A canteen. An extra plaid flannel shirt, a pair of faded blue jeans, socks, and underwear. A mess kit. A coffee pot and a packet of strong Jamaican java. A box of Fuente Fuente Opus cigars and a Savinelli lighter, a silver flask, and a paperback copy of The Pillow-Book of Sei Shotn-agon in the original Japanese. And his leather backpack to hold it all.
Since he was already wearing his freshly waterproofed hiking boots, it looked as if he had everything. Of course, most outdoorsmen would never have considered venturing into the wildest reaches of the Canadian Rockies without a number of other items: a knife, a hatchet, a first aid kit, rations, a compass, and a map, for starters. But a guy who could pop foot-long, razor-sharp claws out of the backs of his hands didn’t need cutting implements, and if he also possessed bones reinforced with the unbreakable alloy adamantium and a metabolism that could heal wounds and shed illnesses in a matter of minutes, he didn’t have much use for bandages and aspirin, either. As for the rest, well, the mutant called Logan could have survived comfortably if someone had dropped him down in the wilderness stark naked. He knew because he’d done it. For him, the meager collection of amenities he’d assembled was roughly the equivalent of a fully stocked luxury RV, and indeed, contemplating it now, he snorted and told himself he was getting soft.
There was one article he was especially eager to leave behind, and that was the yellow, black, and blue battlesuit he wore when operating as Wolverine. Not that he disliked being an X-Man. In his less cynical moments, he believed in Charley Xavier’s dream, just as he liked his teammates most of the time. They even liked him in return, and that, he often felt, given the more abrasive facets of his personality, could fairly be considered a minor miracle. But for the moment, he’d had his fill. The X-Men’s latest adventure saw him nearly getting mauled by velociraptors in prehistoric times, being charbroiled by a super-villain on a South Seas island, and staving off acid-bleeding alien slugs on a far-future space station. The animal that lived inside his skin was restless. He needed to get away by himself for awhile, somewhere where there weren’t any buildings, babbling televisions, rumbling motors, stinking exhaust fumes, or threats of any kind to the future of humanity and let the beast run free.
The phone on the night stand chimed. A scowl twisted his rugged, dark-eyed features into something that had more than once frozen would-be assailants dead in their tracks. Then he picked up the phone. “Yeah,” he growled.
“Logan,” said the baritone voice of Scott Summers. The senior X-Man, the first mutant Xavier had ever recruited, was a sober sort at the best of times, and when something was actually wrong, as it apparently was now, he could sound positively funereal. “I’m glad I caught you.”
“You didn’t,” said Wolverine.
“Excuse me?”
“It don’t matter that I ain’t hit the road yet. I already started my leave, and right now I don’t care if you got Magneto kidnapping the Commissioner of Baseball or Apocalypse at the front door delivering a candygram. Whatever’s going on, if it’s too heavy for the team you got left to deal with, hand it off to the Avengers. Let them earn their keep for once.”
“I wish I could, but this is about two of our own. We don’t know for certain yet, but it’s possible something’s happened to Rogue and Ororo.”
Logan sighed. If there was a chance that any of his teammates was in danger, then of course walking away was out of the question. “Where are you?”
“In the main computer room with Jean.”
“I’m on my way.” Wolverine dropped the phone back onto its cradle and headed for the door.
As he strode through the airy, spacious second floor of the mansion, past the doors to the bedrooms of his fellow X-Men, he couldn’t help noticing how quiet the building was. Periodically his hypersenstive nose caught the scents of his teammates. The musk of Hank McCoy’s fur. The tickling frozen smell-that-wasn’t-a-smell of Bobby Drake’s ice form. The gun-oil tang that clung to Bishop and the lavender sweetness of the bath oil Psylocke favored. But none of the smells was fresh, and for some reason, its immaculately maintained opulence not withstanding, the huge house felt not merely vacant but abandoned, as if none of his friends were ever coming back.
Grimacing, Wolverine strove to shmg off his sense of foreboding. He descended the curved staircase to the foyer, then stalked on through Xavier’s study, an oak-paneled room decorated with a set of delicate Venetian crystal goblets, Roman and Crusader coins excavated in Jerusalem, a Masai spear and wicker shield, an Egyptian scarab, prayer rug, and hookah, and other mementos gathered from around the world. Like Logan, Charley had done a fair amount of wandering in his time, before a battle with the alien marauder called Lucifer deprived him of the use of
his legs. As in most other sections of the mansion, the furnishings here had been carefully placed to facilitate the passage of the crippled telepath’s hoverchair.
Beyond the study was the primary computer room, filled with gleaming gray banks of machines that were more than the equal of anything that NASA or the Pentagon could muster. Geniuses like Reed Richards, Tony Stark, Forge, and Xavier himself had designed the equipment, the capabilities of which had subsequently been augmented with the advanced technology of the Shi’ar, whose intergalactic empire the X-Men had saved from annihilation a time or two.
Scott Summers was tall, lean, and brown-haired, with a severe set to his mouth that sometimes made Logan think of black-clad Puritans shunning temptation in colonial New England. In contrast, Jean was a lovely redhead with bright green eyes, whose features generally reflected a sweetness and vivacity so endearing that they could often charm even her dour husband into relaxing and having fun, though she looked as worried as he did at the moment.
Like Wolverine, the pair were dressed in casual civilian clothing, with nothing to hint at their mutant powers but the heavy red wraparound glasses—more like safety goggles than an ordinary pair of spectacles—that covered Cyclops’s eyes. Scott had to wear some sort of covering made of ruby quartz over his eyes every moment of his life, to restrain the scarlet energy that would otherwise erupt from his pupils and blast anything in front of him, a concern that partially accounted for his sobriety. Logan supposed that the loss of his family when he was only a boy and his subsequent placement in an orphanage probably hadn’t done much to lighten him up either.
Phoenix was seated in front of one of the terminals, its monitor currently tuned to WNN. A steaming cup of herbal tea—comfrey leaf with lemon, by the smell of it—sat near the keyboard. Cyke stood beside her with his hand on her shoulder. When Logan had first joined the X-Men, the pair were already lovers but not yet married, and, smitten with Jean and chafing under Scott’s no-nonsense authority as field commander, he’d foolishly aspired to take her away from him. But that had been a long time ago. In the years since, he’d come to accept that the bond between them was unassailable, and even to regard the both of them as friends, or at least he thought he had. But now, seeing them so close together, touching, he felt a pang of heartache and resentment.
Man, thought Logan, disgusted with himself, I must be even more burned out than I thought. I have got to get away from this lunatic asylum for awhile. Struggling to quash the jealousy churning inside him, he said, “Tell me.”
“I wish there were more to tell,” said Jean. “What it comes down to is that we haven’t heard from Rogue and Storm since they set down in Natchez last night, so I thought I’d check on them telepathically.” She maintained a constant, passive psychic link with all the members of the team, and could activate it at will in times of need. “No matter how hard I try, I can’t reach them.”
“Any other time, that would bother me too,” said Logan, and that was no bull. He had the utmost respect for Jean’s psionic abilities. “But right now, you’re beat. You’ve been through the wringer just like the rest of us. Maybe you just don’t have enough juice left to reach a coupla minds hundreds of miles away.”
“Unfortunately, that’s not it,” said Phoenix, lifting her hand and placing it over Scott’s. “I am tired, but if I push hard, I can pick up everyone else, and they’re all a lot farther away. It’s only Ororo and Rogue that I can’t sense.”
“Could it be atmospherics?” asked Wolverine. “That’s a hell of a storm hanging over Natchez. That’s why they went there.”
“That wouldn’t usually interfere with telepathy,” the redhead replied.
“What would?” Logan said. Actually, he’d been working with mentalists long enough to have a pretty good idea already, but he’d learned during his years as a Canadian intelligence agent that this kind of methodical exploration, not skipping any steps, was the best way to make sure you understood the parameters of a situation.
“Some sort of psi shield,” said Jean. “Or perhaps something that altered or dampened Rogue and Storm’s brain waves to such a degree that I can’t recognize them anymore. Drugs could conceivably do it.”
Or death, thought Wolverine. Death dampens brain waves real good. Reminding himself that Storm and Rogue were two of the most powerful X-Men, about as capable of looking after themselves as anyone he’d ever met, he tried to push the grim notion out of his head. “Okay, I get the picture. But before we go off half-cocked, have you tried the GCS linkup? Rogue and ’Roro were packing their communicators, right?” Rogue typically carried her Comm-Stat Unit in her jacket, while the windrider, whose uniform had neither pockets nor a belt, had had hers built into one of her bracelets.
“They were supposed to be,” said Scott, “I was just about to try that when it occurred to me that I’d better call you first, to make sure you didn’t get away.” He sat down in front of the communications console and switched on the power.
It seemed to take a moment for the board to light up, as if the circuits were responding sluggishly. When the console was finally operational, Cyclops pressed the luminous, white plastic touchpad bearing Ororo’s name. “Storm, do you read me?” he said.
No one replied. Static crackled from the speaker.
“Storm,” Scott repeated, “this is home base. Come in.” Still no answer. Cyclops pressed Rogue’s touchpad and attempted to hail her, with the same lack of results.
“Try the Blackbirdsaid Phoenix, referring to the modified SR-71 their teammates had flown to Mississippi. “Maybe they’re still aboard.”
Scott activated yet another touchpad. “Blackbird, do you read me? Respond, please.”
Static.
“Atmospherics really could screw up the GCS,” said Logan, “but Jeannie’s psi and the communicators punking out at the same time is way too much of a coincidence for me. You were right, Cyke, they are in trouble. Maybe somebody ambushed them.” He leaned past Phoenix, grabbed her computer’s mouse, dragged down a menu, and accessed the National Weather Service. The monitor displayed a radar map of North America with a crawl of text—reporting rainfall, temperature, wind speed and direction, and other meteorological data—beneath it. An angry red blotch hung over the Natchez area. “Judging from this, I’m guessing that whatever happened, it happened hours ago. It sure looks like something took Ororo out of action before she even had a chance to put a dent in the storm.”
“This is my fault,” said Scott. “We all should have gone.” “Don’t say that,” said Jean, touching him on the arm. “There was no way you could have known.”
Scott shook his head. “Thanks, but that’s not true. Ororo warned us there was something unnatural about the weather.” “That didn’t automatically imply that somebody was going to attack her if she went out to fix it,” the redhead said. “It’s not as if some maniac like Moses Magnum had come forward claiming responsibility. It could have just been, I don’t know, El Nino causing the storm.”
“Still—”
Logan felt a pang of irritation. Scott second-guessing himself wasn’t helping anybody. “For what it’s worth,” the short man interrupted, “I didn’t have any kind of hunch that they were heading into trouble either. Besides, ’Roro’s a field commander the same as you, so if she thought it was okay for her and Rogue to go off by themselves, that was her call to make. Now what do you say you stop whining and we get to work.” For a moment Cyclops stiffened as if he’d taken offense. Then he grimaced and said, “Right. Sorry. At this point the important thing is to find them.”
“There’s one more thing we can try from here,” said Jean, turning toward a massive metal armchair surrounded by a ring of consoles. An oversized silver salad bowl of a helmet hung above the seat, attached to a jointed arm suspended from the ceiling. Depending on his mood, Logan had always thought the setup looked like it belonged either in a futuristic torture chamber or a beauty salon. “Cerebro.”
Cerebro was Xavier's greatest inventi
on, an apparatus constructed to detect the presence of super-powered mutants anywhere in the world. Part of the brilliance of its design lay in the fact that anyone with the proper training could operate it, although, based on psionic principles that Wolverine didn't pretend to understand, it worked best for a telepath.
Ordinarily, neither Jean nor Charley would bother to fire up Cerebro merely to make contact with their fellow X-Men. The telepathic bonds they’d established made it unnecessary. But now, Logan realized, Phoenix might conceivably be able to use the gizmo to augment her innate power and punch through whatever interference was blocking her out. Assuming, of course, that that was really the problem.
Logan nodded. “Give it a shot.”
Jean walked over, sat down beneath the headpiece, and threw a switch on the arm of the chair. Cerebro hummed to life, and a series of icons blinked into existence on the monitor of the device’s housekeeping computer. The helmet came down to cover the top half of the telepath’s head. Another observer might have assumed that it had lowered itself mechanically, but Logan knew that his teammate had pulled it down with her telekinesis.
For half a minute, nothing happened, nothing perceptible to someone devoid of psi ability, anyway. Then Phoenix’s back arched and her arms flailed as if she’d received an electric shock. A red bulb glowed on the console before her, and an alarm buzzer blared.
“Jean!” Cyclops cried, scrambling toward her. Wolverine was right behind him.
Once again employing her psychokinesis, Jean flung the helmet off so forcefully that it clanged against the ceiling. Shivering, her face white, she panted, “I’m all right. But something's wrong with Cerebro. It started pumping raw psychic noise into my brain.” Her lips quirked into a wry, fleeting smile. ‘‘‘Loud raw psychic noise.”
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