“I’m nothing like you,” Amanda replied. “And you really were spiteful past the point of stupidity when you taunted Kurt and Piotr. Why would you want to alienate or demoralize them when you need them to fight on your side?”
Dracula shrugged. “I know them as well as you do, my dear, as well if not better than they know themselves. I was certain it would take more than a bit of badinage to deter them from marching off to fight for goodness, humanity, and all those other hollow abstractions they find so captivating after I brandished Belasco in their faces.” The Midnight Runner bounced as it encountered turbulent air, no doubt a byproduct of the storm currently inundating the city ahead. “So why shouldn’t I vent my spleen? Your lover and his associates have caused me no little inconvenience in their time. And even if they hadn’t, I’m tired of listening to idiots prattle about the coming war between Homo sapiens and Homo superior. It’s time someone taught mutants that they are neither the genuine master race nor the predestined inheritors of the Earth. That distinction belongs to my kind.”
“In other words, you’re vain as well as spiteful.”
The vampire’s eyes gleamed a baleful red. “I believe the word you intended was proud, and pride is a virtue in a prince. Now, have you indulged your own malice sufficiently to move on to topics of greater moment than your sophomoric appraisal of my character?”
“I suppose so,” Amanda said, “since I would like to ask you a question. Why did you want me on this mission? You said you wanted the Excalibur members you’d met before, who had also already fought Belasco. I don’t fall in either category.”
“No,” Dracula said, “but my enemy deals in magic, and so do you. I only wish you were better at it.”
“I guess that now I’m supposed to listen to your sophomoric appraisal of me.”
Dracula smiled. “It is said that turnabout is fair play. But have no fear. I’m certain I have little to tell you that you haven’t already comprehended for yourself. You’ve encountered truly proficient sorcerers in your time. You must know what a paltry little hedge witch you are in comparison.”
“I’m satisfied being what I am.*’ It was almost the truth, though she suspected that no one ever mastered any significant portion of the art without coveting, at least a little, the secrets that still lay beyond her grasp. “I’ve seen where pursuing ultimate power can lead.” It had nearly destroyed her mother, the Gypsy sorceress called Margali of the Winding Way, and on more than one occasion.
“In other words, you’re craven,” Dracula said. Pivoting in his swivel chair, Piotr turned away from his boards of instruments for a moment. His uncanny eyes, metallic as the rest of his body, gazed blankly across the cabin, passing over Dracula without registering him.
“That isn’t true,” Amanda said.
“You just now acknowledged it yourself,” Dracula said. “Fearful of the risks involved, you’ve shrunk from the possibility of fully mastering your birthright. You wasted years drudging away as a menial airline stewardess and consorting with these wretched mutants, years you might have devoted to your calling. And the upshot is that I find you pathetically unprepared for the task before you. Were you otherwise, I could never have possessed you. In any duel of wizardry, Belasco would swat you like a fly,”
“You don’t know me,” she protested, although it was plain that at least to some extent, he did. “I’ve won my share of fights.”
“Don’t be absurd. With the X-Men and Excalibur to prop you up, you’ve survived brawls with ruffians possessing a freakish talent or two. That hardly qualifies you to challenge a master sorcerer.” Beyond the windows, lightning flickered in the masses of black clouds. ‘Til wager you haven’t even sensed that Belasco conjured the storm we’re flying into.” Amanda blinked in dismay. If Belasco could command the weather to such an extent, then his powers really did dwarf her own, “I. . . no,” she admitted.
“And what is the most reliable of your meager armamentarium of spells?” the vampire said. ‘‘Blinking instantly from place to place, a trick you no doubt learned in mawkish imitation of your lover. An effect of virtually no use in battle, save to flee the field. Sadly, the task before us demands a lioness, not a rabbit.*’
The Runner bucked. “Anybody who’s not strapped in, you might want to,” said Kitty, without looking around from the multicolored holographic heads-up display currently glowing above her instruments. “This air is only going to get rougher.”
Amanda struggled to suppress the anxiety and self-doubt that Dracula had stirred in her. Consider the source, she told herself. “You’re doing the same stupid thing to me that you did to the others,*! she said. ‘ ‘Trying to scare me when, if you had any sense, you’d want me to be confident.”
“Confidence is useful only when warranted,” the vampire replied. “I’ve been rubbing your nose in your inadequacies in order to motivate you to transcend them, and thus improve our chances against our foe.”
Amanda cocked her head. “It’s a little late for that, isn’t it?”
“Ordinarily, it would be,” Dracula said. “But happily, I am no ordinary’ ally.” He reached inside his inky garments and produced an oval golden pendant with a black piece of onyx in the center. For a moment the amulet seemed to glitter more brightly than was natural in the dim lighting. Amanda felt some potent mystical force flowing through the metal and the gem.
The vampire extended it in his long-nailed, pallid hand. “Take it,” he said.
She wanted to do precisely that. The power locked in the pendant called to the magic inside herself. But she resisted the impulse. “What is it?” she asked.
“Something old and precious. Legend has it that the alchemist Paracelsus created a sort of simulacrum of his own mind inside it. I can’t vouch for that—you won’t suddenly find yourself in communication with another personality when you hang it around your neck—but I can attest that it augments a mage’s innate abilities. In particular, it facilitates the acquisition of arcane lore. Under normal circumstances, it might take you hours of study to learn a new spell. The pendant will compress that time radically. And I propose to instruct you in some glamours and conjurations potent enough to give even Belasco pause.”
* ‘Why would you share such power, knowing that you and I are likely to wind up on opposite sides someday? You can throw the spells on Belasco yourself, can’t you?”
“Alas, no. Certain forms of magic are reserved for the living. I’ve memorized the operations in question, but I can’t cast them.” His eyes shone like rubies. “We’ve sworn to deal with one another as true comrades, Miss Sefton. Trust me and take the gift I offer you. Strengthen yourself so that you can aid in the desperate struggle that lies ahead. Or will you let fear rule you yet again?”
Surely, Amanda thought, if he meant to play her false, if some curse were lurking inside the amulet like a serpent coiled to strike, she’d perceive it before it could hurt her. She was that competent a sorceress, anyway. She reached out and took it in her red-gloved hand.
The contact intensified her awareness of the pendant’s magical nature, but there was nothing alarming about it. She lowered it over her head, pulling her wavy, honey-blonde hair clear of the chain.
As the amulet settled on her chest, she felt a subtle shift in the quality of her own thoughts, like the moment when a headache stopped throbbing, or a glass of wine began to influence
her mood. In this instance, she couldn’t define precisely what was different, but knew beyond question that something was.
“Are you well?” Dracula asked.
“I guess so,” she replied. “What’s next?”
“That’s a good question,” Dracula said, smiling. “I have so much to teach you. How to manipulate the flow of time as easily as you could invert an hourglass. How to whistle fire and magma from the core of the earth. How to transform your enemies into creeping vermin. But perhaps we should begin with a divination that might enable you to lead us directly to Belasco.”
“All r
ight,” said Amanda, reminding herself again that she couldn’t trust Dracula. That she had to proceed cautiously. Yet despite her lingering suspicions, she couldn’t help feeling eager to acquire potent new magical secrets, arcana to crash the enemy that Kurt, Piotr, and Kitty manifestly regarded with such wariness.
“Open your mind,” Dracula said. “I’m going to show you a pentagram. The divination requires that you memorize it, then visualize it as you recite the incantation.”
“I understand,” the sorceress said. Breathing slowly and deeply, she effortlessly placed herself in a state of meditation.
After a moment, a scarlet and amber geometric design shimmered into existence before her inner eye, as clearly visible as the black-clad figure seated across from her. It gave the illusion of depth, as if she were gazing down a shaft with luminous beams and cables extending across it. Unlike many magical figures, the pentagram didn’t incorporate any writing, no names of gods or angels or the like, or recognizable mystical symbols, either. It was simply an intricate mesh of curves and angles with something disturbing about it. She had to quash a sudden pang of loathing, an instinctive urge to thrust it out of her head.
She suspected that her distaste indicated that the pentagram was associated with the baser forces of the metaphysical realm, earthbound elementals or something even lower, but the insight failed to deter her. Except for sorcerers who restricted themselves to the most rarefied forms of white magic, striving solely for communion with the Divine, every practitioner of the Art sometimes turned to such entities to accomplish his will. She concentrated on the figure with all her might.
Though Dracula might consider her a dilletante, she’d been honing the mental faculties essential to a mage since her initiation into the Art at her mother’s knee. Still, it would normally have taken her a long while to commit the complex design glimmering in her mind to memory, especially since the contemplation of it made her queasy. But thanks to the pendant, it only required half a minute.
“Got it,” she said. The image vanished as Dracula stopped projecting it into her consciousness. She summoned it once more, this time from the depths of her own mind.
“The rest is easy,” the vampire said. “A simple invocation. I’ll recite it, and you say it after me.”
“All right.” ' '
“I have flown to the end of the endless night.”
“I have flown to the end of the endless night.”
“I have sailed the seas that have never known the sun.” “I have sailed the seas that have never known the sun.” The cabin seemed to darken, to fade, while the red and yellow figure brightened.
“I have plumbed the abyss at the heart of the world,” Dracula said.
“I have plumbed the abyss at the heart of the world,” she repeated. Now the external universe was nearly gone. She was only aware of the pentagram and the vampire’s murmuring voice.
“I am a child of the dark, an initiate of the dark, and I call on my kindred in darkness to grant me aid. Erebus and Nox, attend me. Hecate, Lady of the Crossroads, take my hand.” Amanda repeated what he’d said. Around the borders of
the pentagram, something squirmed, amorphous shapes like those that appeared when a person closed his eyes and pressed on the lids.
"“Show me what lurks hidden in the dark,” the vampire continued. “Part the veil and reveal the face of my enemy.’ '
“Show me what lurks hidden in the dark,” the sorceress said. “Part the veil and reveal the face of my enemy.”
The writhing around the magical design became more energetic. More eager. At the same time, a pinpoint of pure blackness appeared in the heart of the figure. Paradoxically, she sensed that its extreme darkness was as conducive to vision as light. If she didn’t botch the remainder of the spell, it would iris open, and—with luck—she’d see Belasco inside it.
“Demons of Denak.” said Dracula, “unbar the gates of perception. Thog! Shuma-Gorath! Satannish! Lend me your strength.”
Amanda was so captivated by the mote of blackness at the core of the pentagram, so intent on recapitulating the proper cadence and inflection of the incantation, that she automatically began to repeat the vampire’s words once more. “Demons of Denak, unbar the gates of perception.” The pinpoint of darkness started to expand. “Th—” Then, with a jolt of horror, she realized that she was about to invoke three powerful and malevolent demon lords, and their names caught in her throat.
With the proper technique and attitude, a sorceress could command petty devils without imperiling her soul, or so Amanda’s mother had taught her. But no one could call on beings as mighty and foul as Thog and Satannish without paying a price for their assistance. That price would be to welcome a measure of their corruption inside herself and stain her spirit for all time.
She tried to stop visualizing the pentagram, but it refused to disappear. Instead it burned brighter than ever, while the shadowy shapes shifting about it resolved into gaunt, scaly creatures with talons, long simian arms, and lashing tails.
The pentagram seemed to lunge at her, stamping itself into her essence, searing her like a branding iron. Gibbering and cackling, the spirits ran riot through the corridors and chambers of her mind, clawing at everything they found there. Simply by Commencing the spell, she’d opened herself to evil, and it had no intention of allowing her to escape from it unscathed.
She fought madly to thrust the maleficence outside herself, to hammer it back into the netherworld from which it had come. “Vishanti!” she cried, prompted solely by her instincts or conceivably her terror. The trinity of enigmatic entities collectively called the Vishanti were said to hold themselves aloof from all but the greatest of white magicians. She had certainly never sealed a pact with them, nor established any other sort of claim on their assistance.
Yet even so, perhaps this once they condescended to help her. Suddenly the pentagram and the chittering goblins were gone. She could see the interior of the Midnight Runner again.
She felt as if it had taken her at least a minute to break free of the magic, but it was obvious that in reality, only a moment had elapsed. Dracula was staring at her, his pallid, aquiline face for once betraying surprise. Alarmed by her cry, Kurt and Piotr were scrambling from their seats. Since she was flying the plane, Shadowcat resisted the impulse to do likewise, but she was peering backward, her hazel eyes wide with concern.
“What’s wrong?” Kurt asked. The jet bounced in the turbulent air, but thanks to the clinging power of his long, twotoed feet in their white, bifurcated boots, the mutant kept his balance without difficulty. Colossus, however, staggered.
Perhaps fearing that his new allies meant to attack him, Dracula flowed from his seat and stood in the aisle, as unaffected by the Runner's shaking as Kurt. “I too would like to know what went awry,” he said, “The spell was working properly. I could sense it.”
“What spell?” Nightcrawler asked.
“Dracula said he could teach me some new magic,” Amanda said, feeling obscurely ashamed, “magic that would make me more useful against Belasco.”
Piotr’s eyes narrowed. His broad, handsome, gleaming face now looked less alarmed than simply intent.
“Of course, I want to be useful,” Amanda continued, “so I agreed. But halfway through the first spell we tried, a divination to try to find out where Belasco is hiding, I realized that the incantation was black magic. If I’d gone on to the end, it would have wounded my soul, so I had to stop. The problem was that it can be dangerous to break off a conjuration in the middle, and I had some trouble before I managed to shut the magic down. That’s when you heard me cry out.” Kurt rounded on Dracula. “You hypnotized us.”
“Not deeply, and not all of you. The sorceress acted of her own free will.”
“You gave me your word that you’d behave as our true comrade,” gritted Kurt.
“Which is precisely what I was doing,” the vampire replied. “I was furnishing Miss Sefton with the tools she so desperately needs to do he
r job/’
“At the price of her soul?’7 Nightcrawler demanded. “Where did you find this new magic, the Darkholdl” During the X-Men’s second clash with Dracula, he’d learned that the lore in that particular grimoire notoriously warped the spirit of anyone who tried to use it.
“Among other places,” Dracula said blandly. “But really, Wagner. ‘At the price of her soul,’ indeed. Rein in your penchant for melodrama so we can resolve this matter like rational people. Or better still, you mutants, who have no concept of the issues involved, could be quiet and let Miss Sefton and I resolve it. But I suspect that’s asking too much.”
“Yeah,” said Kitty from the cockpit, “I’m pretty sure it is.” Outside the windows, lightning flared. Raindrops beaded the glass.
“Very well,” said Dracula, sneering in her direction, “let us all deliberate together. Any weapon, any means of imposing one’s will upon the world, carries the potential to callous and blemish the soul. How many adversaries have you beaten unconscious with the martial arts your senseis Wolverine and Ogun taught you, Pryde? How many men’s bones have you shattered with those steel fists of yours, Rasputin? How many foes have you bloodied with your saber, Wagner? Do you believe that your experiences haven’t changed you? Hardened you? Perhaps even inculcated a secret taste for seeing an enemy lying humbled and helpless at your feet? I trust that even you are not so naive.”
“We’re not like you,” Nightcrawler said. “We can take satisfaction in our skills and successes, yet still regret the necessity of hurting others.”
“You have a rare talent for rationalization,” Dracula retorted.
“Perhaps, over time, the violence does affect us,” Amanda said. “But that’s not the same as deliberately opening up your spirit and inviting the forces of darkness inside.”
Soul Killer Page 9