“We trust it because we have to,” Colossus said, moving up behind Wolverine as though positioning himself to restrain the smaller man if necessary. “We wouldn’t even have known to come to Natchez if not for him. Besides, he’s already shown us that he’s as committed to stopping Belasco as we are.” The sorcerer’s name was enough to make even Logan hesitate. “Belasco? He’s involved in this?” The last time Wolverine had seen the magician, Belasco had been tumbling into an extradimensional vortex and the clutches of the demonic race called the N’Garai. Much as Wolverine loathed those particular otherworldly horrors, on that occasion he’d been more than happy to wish them bon appetit. “What does it take to kill that scumball?”
“My friend,” said Ororo, “thank you for trying to protect me. But I’ve already accepted the fact that this once, we must work with one devil to thwart another, and I ask you to do the same. Otherwise Belasco may finally succeed in unleashing his Elder Gods upon the Earth.”
Smiling a poisonous smile, Dracula extended his pallid hand to Logan. “Comrade,” he said.
The Canadian glared up into the cloaked monster’s crimson eyes. “I’ll be watchin’ you, leech. You even think about screwing us over, and I’m gonna finish the job we should have finished in England.”
Dracula sneered. “My ill-bred, swaggering little savage, I invite you to try.”
“Enough,” said Scott, beads of rain on his massive red glasses, his trenchcoat flapping in the wind. “The issue is settled, and we have more important things to do than threaten one another. We need to pool our information, then figure out our next move.”
Dracula inclined his head. “You’re quite right. Summers. The bluster can wait. Since it was I who discovered that Belasco has returned to Earth, allow me to share my knowledge first. Some time ago, I founded a coven of my progeny here in Natchez....”
The vampire, Ororo, and Jean all spoke in turn, concisely and coherently, contributing pieces to the puzzle. Logan listened to it all with a growing sense of apprehension.
“I infer,” said Dracula when Phoenix concluded her story, “that Belasco generated the storm to lure this Rogue of yours to Natchez. Upon her arrival, he transformed her by inducing her to absorb the essence of one of my brood, possibly rendered more virulent by his magic. Knowing that her fellow X-Men would come looking for her, he also cast spells to make her—and incidentally Ororo, who, assuming she survived the altered Rogue’s attentions, could serve as a source of information—relatively invisible to telepathy. The object was to hinder your search while he drew Rogue into his presence.” “Makes sense,” Cyclops said. “But there’s still plenty we don’t understand. Even if she herself wants to hurt people, why is Rogue claiming that the X-Men as a whole have declared war on the city? Just because she’s demented? And more importantly, what does Belasco want with her? She must figure in to his plans to bring the Dark Ones back into the world, but how?”
“Many rituals of high magic involve a balance of male and female elements,” said Amanda.
“And Belasco has repeatedly incorporated female victims into his schemes,” said Storm, sitting on the pavement and munching a ration bar. “First, Beatrice dei Portinari—at least if you can believe that medieval ship’s log Ka-Zar found— then our friend Shanna, and finally Illy ana. Still, Scott’s question is a good one. Why choose Rogue? Surely it would have been easier simply to abduct a woman with no mutant abilities.”
“He picked Illyana because she had the potential to become a sorceress,” said Amanda, “but I’ve never detected any trace of magical ability in Rogue.”
“Maybe it was to spite us,” said Logan, sucking the pleasant bum of tobacco smoke into his lungs. “Not only does he bring the Dark Ones back, he uses one of our own teammates to do it. Anyway, who cares why? If we can get to her—or him—in time, the reason won’t matter. So how do we do that?”
Kurt turned toward Amanda. “On board the Runner,” he said, “before the monster attacked, I suspected that you were trying to divine the location of Belasco’s physical body.”
The blonde sorceress grimaced. “I was, but it didn’t work. He’s shielded himself.”
Dracula sneered. “Pathetic.” Amanda flushed.
“Can you do any better?” demanded Wolverine.
“I had hoped to trace Belasco through one of the vampires he’s placed under his control,” said the creature in the high-collared cloak. “Unfortunately, it now appears that will not be possible.”
“Then explain to me why it is that we need you. Or better yet, just shut up.”
“Both of you put a lid on it,” Cyclops said, evoking a fresh surge of anger from Logan. Summers just wouldn’t stop riding him, even when he was sticking up for one of their own. “If you haven’t got something useful to contribute, don’t say anything. Nightcrawler, I don’t suppose that any of your team brought a mini-Cerebro?”
“We did,” the indigo-furred mutant said, “but it went down with the Runner. At that point we didn’t know we’d have any use for it, so we didn’t bother to save it.”
‘ ‘Then Phoenix and Amanda will just have to keep scanning with their powers,” said Scott. “Storm, Shadowcat, and Dracula will look for Rogue from the air. The rest of us will search as best we can on the ground. With luck, one of us will turn up something.”
Logan suspected it would take a lot of luck, but didn’t see much point in saying so. He did, however, have another issue to address. “There’s somethin’ else we’d better talk about. How do we handle Rogue if we do find her?”
Obviously puzzled, Nightcrawler cocked his head. “Try to persuade her to surrender herself into our custody, I assume. Subdue her if we fail to convince her.”
“Sounds good,” Logan said, “except, what if we can’t do either of those things? She already mopped up the floor with Cyke, Jeannie, and me.”
“I know she’s immensely powerful,” said Kurt, “but we’re powerful too.”
“There speaks the brilliant mind that saddled us with Dracula,” Logan said. “You’re only powerful until she touches you, elf. Then you’re out cold on the ground, and she has your power to turn against the rest of us. And in the state she’s in, she’ll be more’n happy to do it.”
“What are you saying?” Kitty asked. “That all nine of us working together can’t beat her?”
“No,” Logan answered. “I’m sayin’ that last time I held back because she’s my friend. I’m sure Cyke and Jean did too. And it didn’t work. We may find that it won’t work the next time around, either. We may have to go all out and run the risk of killing her.”
Shocked, the others simply stared at him for a moment. Their stunned reaction irked him. “You don’t mean that,” said Storm at last.
“I don’t want to mean it,” Logan said. “I feel bad for Rogue. I understand what she’s goin’ through better than any of you.” He had problems with his own memory. At some point in his past, a master brainwasher had tampered with his mind, erasing some memories and possibly even implanting false ones. And of course he was thoroughly familiar with the urge to kill. “But the whole world’s on the table. We have to be willing to do whatever it takes to preserve it.”
“Not if it means killing a teammate,” the windrider said. “Not if it means killing anyone. There has to be a better way.”
“There is,” said Colossus, “find her and let her lead us to Belasco.”
“Maybe she’d shake us off her tail,” Wolverine said. “Or maybe all he has to do is look her in the eyes and say, ‘Presto,’ to let the Dark Ones out of their cage. We can’t risk letting her get to him as long as we have a choice.”
“But it’s not as if she’s a complete monster,” said Kitty. “Tell that to the civilians she’s been slaughterin’.”
“But... at least she held back from hurting you, Scott, and Jean.”
“That was hours ago, and we have to assume the poison inside her’s been eating away at what was left of the real
Rogue ever since. She co
uld easily be a complete monster by now, with no trace of her old self left to revive, even if we knew how.”
Cyclops turned toward Amanda. “Evidently,” he said, “what’s happened to Rogue is partly magical. If you got close to her, could you undo it?”
“Break one of Belasco’s spells?” said Dracula. -‘Unlikely, not with the puny magic she currently wields,”
“I didn’t ask you,” said Scott.
“I could try,” said Amanda, self-doubt and perhaps even a hint of shame in her voice, ‘ ‘but he’s right. It might be very difficult.”
Scott looked at his wife. ‘ ‘Could you use your telepathy to help Rogue recover her sanity?”
Jean shook her head. “I suppose that theoretically, it’s possible, but frankly, I doubt it. Rogue has always been difficult to reach telepathically, and the situation is far worse now that she’s taken on what amounts to a psychic parasite. I could barely even probe her when we found her before.”
“Then . . .” Scott hesitated, as if summoning up the willpower for an unpleasant task. “Then I’m afraid Wolverine has a point. If worst comes to worst, we might have to use maximum force against Rogue without worrying about the potential effect on her.”
“Oh, Scott,” said Ororo, “not you too.”
“The X-Men’s mission is to defend ordinary humans against dangerous mutants,” Cyclops said. “Any dangerous mutants.”
“This debate is puerile,” Dracula declared. “We are warriors, and warriors kill without compunction when that is the most efficacious way to achieve their ends. Surely even you X-Men with all your absurd pretensions to virtue comprehend that much.”
Great, thought Logan sourly, first Summers and now Dracula come down on my side. Considering the rancor he felt for them, their support actually annoyed him, but failed to shake his conviction that he was right.
“When I became Dark Phoenix,” said Jean slowly, her lovely face troubled, “or rather, when the entity that took my place did, she sacrificed her life to keep herself from destroying the world. I... I think that if it comes down to it, Rogue, the real Rogue, would want us to help her do the same.”
“I say that we must not allow it to ‘come down to it,’ ” Piotr said. “We must find Belasco, and deal with our problems at the source.”
Logan gave him a contemptuous glower. Was Piotr’s head solid steel all the way through? Hadn’t he understood that they didn’t know how to find Belasco? “Yeah, well, too bad deserters don’t get a vote.”
Colossus actually rocked backward, as if someone as inhumanly powerful as himself had slapped him. Then his features twisted into a snarl. ‘ ‘Better a deserter than a bloodthirsty animal. For all your pose of reluctance, I imagine you’re actually hoping for a chance to rip Rogue apart.”
“Not Rogue, Acolyte. But I’ve got to admit, slicing and dicing your tin-plated butt would be a treat.” He stalked forward, and, fists clenching. Colossus moved to meet him.
A beam of scarlet energy blazed forth and pulverized the patch of pavement between them. Flying bits of concrete stung Logan’s legs. “Knock it off!” Cyclops barked.
Glaring at Piotr, Logan growled, “Later.” The Russian responded with a nod.
“That’s enough, people,” said Scott. “I’m making a command decision. If I give the order, we’ll use maximum force against Rogue. Is that understood?”
“It’s understood,” said Ororo, “but it’s unacceptable.” No one had gotten around to bandaging her injured ankle yet, but she dragged herself to her feet anyway, putting herself on the same level with Cyclops.
Scott sighed. “We know you’re squeamish. No one expects you to strike a mortal blow.”
“Thank you,” the white-haired woman said coldly, “but that’s not good enough. The mission must not proceed with this odious plan in effect.”
“Yes, it will,” said Cyclops, “I’m field commander, and it’s my call.”
“No, it is not,” Storm replied. “I’m a team leader too. I conceived the idea of a mission to Natchez, and I was on the ground before you. I’m in charge.”
“Ordinarily,” said Scott, “that argument might hold water. But by your own admission, Rogue’s attack scrambled your mind, and judging from the way you’re acting, I’d say you’re still not thinking clearly. It would be irresponsible for me to let you lead.”
“You’re both overlooking something,” Nightcrawler said. “I’m the leader of Excalibur, and my team will follow my orders. Even if that means operating on our own, along with any X-Men who care to join us.”
Kitty watched the argument develop with an ever-increasing sense of bewilderment and horror. She’d known the X-Men to argue vehemently on many occasions, but this time it was different. There was an almost hysterical edge to the bickering, a pettiness and vindictiveness that were new.
She could scarcely believe that Logan and Piotr had nearly come to blows. Or that Scott had fired an optic blast simply to keep them in line. Ordinarily he would have done it with that whip-crack tone of command he could assume at will.
It was even more astonishing that Jean, one of the most loyal, compassionate people Kitty knew, had accepted the idea of killing Rogue so easily. Just as it was amazing to see three mature, generous, self-confident individuals like Scott, Ororo, and Kurt squabbling like jealous, insecure kids over who would lead the mission.
And now it appeared that the group might even be on the verge of splitting up, when any idiot could see that their only hope of defeating Belasco lay in sticking together. Unable to contain herself any longer, she screamed, “Stop it!”
Evidently her outburst caught everyone by surprise, because, startled, they all fell silent and turned to gawk at her.
“What’s the matter with you?” she demanded. “This isn’t the X-Men I remember. We were a family! You’re acting like you hate each other!”
The anger in her friends’ faces and tense postures gave way to consternation and shame. She could see the change even in Logan’s gruff, tough demeanor. In a flash of insight, it occurred to Kitty that if their incarnation of the X-Men, the team Professor Xavier had formed after the majority of his original students departed, had been a family, then she, a teenager years younger than any of the others, had been everybody’s surrogate kid sister. She was an adult now, of course, but on some unconscious level, perhaps the others still regarded her as a kid. Maybe they were chagrined that they’d quarreled in front of her and upset her. In which case, it was possible that her outrage had jolted them to their senses when no one else’s could.
“I apologize,” said Scott heavily. “To all of you. I’ve been edgy and morose all day. I keep trying to snap myself out of it, but I always slip back.”
“I feel the same way,” said Jean. She looked at the members of Excalibur. “We’ve seen some difficult duty lately. Our nerves are raw.”
“I wonder if that’s really the problem,” said Amanda, her forehead furrowed with thought. “I’ve seen you worn out and facing difficult problems before. It doesn’t usually set you against one another. To the contrary. It pulls you together.” “Then what is wrong?” Logan asked.
“I have a guess,” the Gypsy said. “Let me check it out.”
Breathing slowly and deeply, inhaling through her nose and exhaling through her mouth, Amanda sharpened her powers of perception. Warmth flowed up the center of her body, sparking the energy centers—what Eastern mystics called chakras—to tingling life. The auras of her companions shimmered into view.
Thin strands of a dark, poisonous vermilion coiled through the haloes of all the mutants, like loops of webbing some monstrous spider would use to bind its prey. Only Dracula’s shadowy aura, filthy with his own innate corruption, was free of the taint.
“It’s there,” she said.
“What?” Cyclops asked.
“Something else Belasco did to help keep you from finding Rogue,” Amanda replied. “He’s put a curse on you. A subtle one to make you irritable and apprehensive,
cloud your judgment, and give you bad luck.”
“Like makin’ our gear break down?” asked Wolverine, exhaling a pungent blue cloud of smoke. “So far we’ve had trouble with the Cerebros, the Citation, and Cyke’s visor. Half the time I can’t even get a match to light.”
“You can add the GCS system to that list,” Kitty said. “We tried to radio you from the Runner.”
“Yes,” Amanda said. “The spell could very easily do that. It’s also contagious. Once we all got together, the effect spread to Kurt, Piotr, and Kitty. They were X-Men once, and evidently, as far as the magic is concerned, they still are.”
“Far as we’re concerned, too,” Logan rumbled. He turned toward Shadowcat. “Glad the whammy didn't mess with your head as much as it did with everybody else’s.”
Kitty grinned. “Well, it makes sense. I always thought that I was the only noncrazy person in this outfit.”
“Can you lift the curse?” said Scott to Amanda. “Precisely because it is such a subtle spell,” the sorceress replied, “Belasco didn’t put an enormous amount of force into
it. So perhaps I can.” She whirled her hands through an intricate cabalistic pass, then pressed her palms together as if she were shaping a snowball. She visualized an orb of emerald light, the externalized manifestation of her power, swelling in her grasp like a pearl growing in an oyster. In a few moments, actual green radiance spilled from between her fingers.
“By the grace of the Seraphim,” she said, “who shield humankind from evil. By the might of Cyttorak, whose power no demon can withstand. Flames of the Faltine, heed my call and burn the taint away.”
She raised her arms straight over her head, then whipped her hands apart. The ball of green light exploded into sizzling arcs of lightning, which leaped forth to strike the mutants, not harming them in the slightest but surrounding each of their bodies with a verdant corona.
The discharge of the mystical energy left Amanda momentarily weak. Her knees went rubbery, and she nearly fell. Kurt lunged to her side, caught her by the arm, and supported her.
The green haloes flickered out, and her strength came trickling back. She scrutinized the mutants’ auras. The Flames of the Faltine had destroyed most of the vermilion coils, but a few wisps of Belasco’s power remained. In all likelihood, they’d fade harmlessly away over the course of the next few hours, but it was also theoretically possible that the threads would grow, the ends fusing and reestablishing the malediction.
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