Pivoting toward the monitor, Logan saw the message spectrum analyzer nonfunctional displayed in a little black box. He wondered angrily which of his teammates had been responsible for checking and servicing Cerebro last, and promised himself that when he got the chance, he’d let the pinhead know what he thought about his job performance.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” said Scott, touching Jean’s cheek.
She nodded. “I’m fine.”
“Then let’s see if I can fix this thing.” Crouching in front of the housekeeping computer, Cyclops called up a diagnostic program and started guiding it through its various routines. Looking on impatiently, Wolverine struggled to refrain from asking stupid questions and let his friend work. Scott wasn't a world-class scientist like Professor X or the Beast, but he had an abundance of mechanical aptitude, and was often pressed into service to repair any gadget that needed it, from blenders and toaster ovens to security doors with biomolecular locks and the presser beam projectors in the Danger Room.
Finally, frowning, he turned around. “I can’t tell what’s wrong,” he said. “Whatever it is, it could take hours to find and correct, and then there’s no guarantee it would solve our problem. We’ll have to go to Natchez and search the hard way.”
“Should we call back the rest of the team?” asked Jean.
Scott shook his head. “I doubt they could make it to Natchez in time to make a difference. Just talk to the Professor. Who knows, maybe he can find Rogue and Storm, even if he is a lot farther away. Meantime, Logan and I will get one of the auxiliary jets ready for takeoff.”
“I’m on it,” Phoenix said. Her green eyes widened and her face grew blank and still as her thoughts reached across the globe to Xavier, who was in Tokyo for a genetics conference, accompanied by Bishop and the Beast.
Logan and Scott left her to it. Impelled by a shared sense of urgency, by the time they reached the steps to the basement, they were running.
A concealed passageway connected the cellar to the first sub-basement with its medical facilities, pool, gymnasium, laboratories, and the high-speed magnetic rail system that linked the mansion to the hangars on the east side of the estate. Upon reaching the transport terminus, the two mutants scrambled aboard the first of the half dozen bullet-shaped cars waiting in line on the track. Scott hastily buckled his safety belt as proper procedure dictated. Logan didn’t bother with his, just hit the start button. Their vehicle shot down the tunnel. Acceleration shoved the X-Men back in their well-cushioned seats.
“Sorry about your vacation,” Cyclops said.
Logan made a spitting sound. “Don’t sweat it. It’s good I'm here. This is gonna be a rough one.”
“I expect so, if we’re going up against someone powerful enough to defeat Rogue and Storm, and neutralize Jean’s psi on top of it.”
“The situation could be even worse than that. What if Ororo and Rogue didn’t just draw somebody’s fire by showing up in the wrong place at the wrong time? What if the whole objective was to ambush them? I’ve got a nasty feeling that we’re up against someone so smart and so savvy about us that he’s playing us like a piano, and I don’t like it one little bit.”
Chapter 5
Fascinated, Carla Spelvin studied herself in the mirror of her little gold compact. Despite the loss of her reflection, she’d never quite brought herself to throw it away, and now that she could see herself once more, she was glad she hadn’t.
A touch on the shoulder made her jump. Lurching about, she met the master’s black, mocking eyes. “Do you approve of your new appearance?” he asked.
“Yes,” Carla said. Actually, it wasn’t that different from her old appearance. She and the X-Man called Rogue were both brunettes of nearly identical height and build and even had similar features. She supposed that was why the master had selected her for the task at hand. It had been relatively easy to magically transform her into the mutant’s twin. Easy for him, anyway—transfixed by his sword, she’d screamed and screamed as his power hammered and twisted her into a different sort of creature.
The sorcerer ran the talon on his forefinger lightly down her cheek. “I thought you would. The mutant is beautiful, isn’t she?” ' *
Carla sensed that this was one of those occasions when it was safe to speak lightly to her lord. “Almost as beautiful as me.”
The horned man laughed. “Petty and narcissistic as ever, even now, when the gods are about to return. I’ve sometimes wondered, did you yield to your sire willingly, to preserve your youthful loveliness forever?”
Carla’s mouth tightened at the memory of the pain and terror of that night. “No. He jumped me outside a nightclub and drained me all at once. He never even spoke to me until after my resurrection.”
The man in the red cloak smiled as if the thought of her anguish amused him. ‘ ‘Ah. That was rather less than gallant, wasn’t it? You should have been pleased to exchange his yoke for mine.”
Carla thought wistfully that it might be nice not to be anyone’s slave, but she didn’t want to risk annoying him by saying so. “Yes, master.”
“Tell me, do you feel confident of your new abilities? Are you comfortable in Rogue’s skin?”
“Sure.” It was a half truth. She’d flown about, hefted and broken various objects, until she had a good sense of her new capabilities. But comfortable? Reshaped in the mutant’s image, she was so much stronger that it was intoxicating, yet sometimes frightening as well. As an ordinary vampire, she’d felt as if she were a being of cold stone and iron, indestructible and eternal. Now, at certain moments, her new power made her feel more like gossamer and glass, too frail to long contain the energies burning inside her.
She tried not to worry about it. No matter what happened to her now, the master had promised her life and glory in the world to come, and since she had no choice but to obey him in any case, that would have to be enough.
“Good,” the homed man said, “because it’s time for you to begin your impersonation. Rogue has taken the hook, but she’s still fighting. It will take a bit of time to reel her in.’’ And meanwhile, Carla knew, her job was to create enough turmoil and confusion to prevent anyone from interfering. “I won’t let you down,” she said.
“Of course not,” the sorcerer said. “You know better. And since you already have your instructions, I suppose that nothing remains but to give you my blessing.”
She knelt, and he pressed his hand against her forehead. A sharp sting, like a shock of static electricity, passed from his flesh to hers.
“Now go,” he said.
The vampire rose and, pulling on her brown leather jacket with the red and black X patch on the sleeve, walked to one of the tall, Gothic-style matchboarded doors in the vestibule. Beyond it, the wind whined, and rain drummed on the panel. She gripped the handle and then, despite herself, she faltered. In the end, it was her intense awareness of the master’s scrutiny that impelled her to crack open the door.
With mountainous black clouds blanketing the sky, the world outside was nearly as dark as the shadowy recesses of the master’s sanctum. Nevertheless, Carla could instantly feel that it was daylight spilling through the opening, hot and stinging on her face.
She flinched, but at the same time perceived that the adulterated sunlight wasn’t burning her. Transformed as she was, she could bear it, at least while the overcast endured, and she knew the master would maintain it as long as it served his purposes. Her fear fell away from her and she vaulted into the sky.
Rather enjoying the harsh, cold kiss of the weather, she flew back and forth across the part of the city to which her master had directed her, looking for a good place to begin her work. Below her, the river rose, traffic jammed the highways leading out of town, and mortals labored like ants to secure their property.-After a few minutes, a wailing siren snagged her attention. Emergency lights flashing and tires splashing up water, an orange and white ambulance had just pulled away from a fire station on Winchester Road.
C
arla grinned. Everybody admired emergency workers, just as everyone was counting on them to help Natchez cope with the storm. If she wanted to rouse panic and outrage, she could hardly pick better targets.
She was some distance from Winchester Road, but th^was all right. In Rogue’s form, she could fly much faster than the ambulance was traveling. She streaked in front of it, then dove, fists clenched and extended.
The emergency vehicle loomed larger and larger. Back when she was a teenager, she’d once ridden in a car while the driver, her date, played chicken. For a moment, she felt much the same fear as she had then. The desperate urge to pull out of her dive was almost impossible to resist. But she was certain that her new powers would see her through the next few moments, and she wanted to make her debut as Rogue as spectacular as possible.
Since she was swooping down from above, the two EMTs behind the wheel didn’t see her until the last second. The driver froze, staring in horror. His partner opened his mouth as if to scream.
Then Carla smashed through the nose of the ambulance and the motor beyond. For an instant, the world was a chaos of crashing, crumpling metal dividing before her, and then she was clear. She’d passed completely through the vehicle, and, moving slower now, much of her momentum spent, was flying on down the street. Her body smarted from the impact, but as she’d predicted, she wasn’t injured.
Split nearly in two, its tires flat, the ambulance spun, then fell on its side. Carla flew to the front of it and peered through the cracked glass. The driver was unconscious or dead, bits of shrapnel protruding from his flesh, his entire body covered in blood. The sight of it made Carla’s mouth water, even though the master’s enchantments had taken away her hunger. Old habits died hard, she supposed. The EMT hanging in the passenger seat, a skinny young black man with a shaved head, struggled spastically with the buckle of his safety belt, but couldn’t get it open. It looked to Carla as if both his arms were broken.
When he noticed her leering in at him, he recoiled. “Don’t hurt me!” he whimpered.
“Don’t worry, sugar,” she said, putting on Rogue’s honeyed Southern drawl. Having grown up in Duluth herself, she had to fake it. “It’s only gonna hurt for one more second.” She rose into the air, pressed her yellow-gloved hands against the side of the cab, and then pushed violently downward. With a groan of tortured metal, the compartment collapsed, crushing the bodies inside.
Carla turned toward the red brick firehouse down the street. No doubt drawn by the noise of the crash, a dozen firefighters and EMTs stood gaping at her. She flew in their direction, and they scurried back inside.
By the time she landed in the driveway, the electric door to the station garage was rumbling down. Since it couldn’t possibly keep her out, she let it descend while she stood and recited her speech.
“I’m Rogue of the X-Men,” she called, “and I’m here to deliver a message. My teammates and I have spent the last few years protecting you Homo sapiens from super-villains and alien invaders. We did it to show you that mutants could be your friends. To persuade y’all to stop persecuting us, in America and all around the world. But no matter how many times we risked our necks for you, nothing ever changed.
“So it looks like we’re going to have to convince y’all another way. We’re starting up what my friend Cyclops calls a policy of retribution. That means that as long as y’all keep persecuting us, we’re going to persecute you back.”
The door bumped shut.
“Now, it would be nice if you flatscans would just take our word for it and change your wicked ways, but we know you better than that. It won’t happen unless we prove we mean what we say. So we’re going to make an example, and do some damage in this little ol’ town. It’s a shame, but it’ll also be just a drop in the bucket compared to what humans have done to our kind over the years.”
She smiled at the fire station. She couldn’t see any faces at the windows, but she was sure the people inside were listening. “Any questions, comments, or begging for mercy? No? Good, let’s have some fun.” She walked forward, bursting through the garage door as if it were made of paper.
On the other side were another ambulance, a gleaming red hook-and-ladder truck that reminded her fleetingly of her little brother’s favorite toy, and the traditional brass pole for the firefighters to slide down. Beyond them, a man in a yellow slicker and firefighter’s helmet was jabbering frantically into the phone mounted on the back wall.
As Carla advanced on him, she heard stealthy footsteps on the other side of the hook-and-ladder. Now that she was inside the building, someone was trying to use the truck for cover, sneak past her, and get out. She shoved the long, gleaming vehicle as hard as she could. It tumbled over the people behind it and crashed through an interior wall.
Evidently that particular wall had helped to support the upper story, because now the whole building groaned, and bits of ceiling showered down in her white-streaked hair. For a moment it seemed that the place was going to fall down, which, now that she thought about it, wasn’t such a bad idea.
The firefighter dropped the phone and turned to scramble through a doorway. Carla flew forward, grabbed him, and lifted him off his feet. “Did you tell the police I’m here?” she asked, holding him at the end of one outstretched arm. “Did you tell them what I said?”
A rather handsome young man in a wholesome, Norman Rockwell sort of way, her captive goggled down at her with a pair of striking brown eyes.
“Answer me, darlin’,” the vampire said. “You don’t want to be rude and make me cross, now do you?”
“Yes,” the fireman stammered, “I mean, no! I mean, I told them.”
“Then there’s that taken care of,” Carla said. “Thank you very kindly.” She gave him a shake like a cat shaking a rat. His neck broke with an audible snap.
As she dropped him, another firefighter, this one a beefy, grizzled man with a ruddy complexion, burst screaming through the door with an ax raised over his head. Caught by surprise, she was too slow to avoid his attack, but of course it didn’t matter. The ax bounced off her forehead and sent him staggering off balance.
Before he could recover, she struck him a backhand blow to the chest. He flew across the garage, smashed into the brass pole, which bent at the impact, and sprawled motionless on the oil-stained concrete floor.
No one else rushed forth to attack her. Evidently the other humans were all either scrambling to get out of the fire station or cowering in one hiding place or another. The runners had a chance. The hiders were out of luck.
She picked up the ambulance and used it like a battering ram, smashing one section of wall after another. She thought she’d be able to judge when the building was ready to collapse and have an instant to get clear, but it didn’t happen that way. The ceiling suddenly slammed down like a colossal fist.
The impact hurt fiercely, stunned her for a moment, but once again, lying in blackness, buried in rubble, she could tell that she wasn’t seriously injured. Thrashing, flying upward, she fought her way clear of the debris and on up into the sky. Inspecting her handiwork—a chaotic tangle of shattered brick in which she could glimpse a couple of mangled bodies—she felt a glow of satisfaction.
She knew that this phase of her mission had been the easiest. From here on out, the authorities would be looking for her. But even if they caught up with her, what could they possibly do to bring her down? Grinning, she hurtled away from the carnage, looking for a good place to go to ground until it was time to strike again.
Muir Island was a rugged crescent of rock jutting from the sea off the northwestern coast of Scotland. Generally Piotr Rasputin found a stark beauty in the place, in the gray-green waves battering themselves to foam at the base of the cliffs and the mosses, shrubs, and gnarled, stunted trees clinging stubbornly to life on the crags, a beauty he’d tried to capture on canvas many times. But now, listening to the moaning of the frigid wind and the ceaseless booming of the surf, he saw how black the night was with no artificial
light shining anywhere except for what leaked from the sprawling high-tech research facility at his back. And he couldn’t help thinking how bleak and isolated the island truly was. A fitting site for ghastly events to happen, as they nearly had on more occasions than he cared to recall.
He was currently seven and a half feet tall, with a brawny organic steel body that gleamed in the moonlight, and despite the darkness, he felt conspicuous. He could almost envy Kurt, whose dark blue fur made him virtually invisible in shadow— Piotr knew where his friend was crouching just a few feet away, yet couldn’t see him at all. Or the slight Kitty Pryde with her curly brown hair and dark costume, whose ninja skills rendered her as difficult to spot as Nightcrawler. Or even Amanda, who, though clad in the bright yellow battlesuit she often wore when serving with Excalibur, was still less likely to catch an enemy’s eye than the towering man of metal called Colossus.
But actually, it was good that Piotr was by far the most visible, because once he’d shifted from flesh to steel, almost nothing could hurt him. If he and his friends had been set up, if someone was actually planning to attack them, then he wanted to be the one to draw the enemy’s fire.
He just wished—
“Where is he?” murmured Amanda fretfully, more or less completing Piotr’s thought.
“Patience, liebchensaid Kurt. Piotr saw the sheen of his comrade’s eerie yellow eyes, but no other hint of the contours of his body. If Colossus hadn’t known better, he might have thought the twin orbs were floating unsupported in space.
“It’s okay if you want to get out of here,” said Kitty to Amanda. “This creep has put you through too much already.”
“I agree,” said Piotr. As he understood it, after her possession ended, the sorceress had awakened with no real memory of what had transpired, but wracked with a sickening sense of violation. ‘ ‘Just because he said he wanted all four of us—’ ’
Amanda grimaced. “Thank you for trying to spare me, but I want to be here. To face my fear. I can’t go through life wondering who invaded me like that. I need to look him in the eye.”
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